Kitchen Sink

Butterfly (1982)

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It’s hard to believe there was a time when the name Pia Zadora was on everyone’s quivering lips. For one moment in history, she was lauded as our nation’s highest female ideal, a growth-stunted pixie with a mischievous, Lolita-esque twinkle in her eye. She was the Megan Fox of her time — a time when our country was less judgmental about its objects of sexual fantasies. Today, she’s nothing more than another cultural oddity, a punch-line name best left for Trivial Pursuit questions and cameos in John Waters flicks, but she got her masterpiece in the Depression-era, depression-inducing melodrama Butterfly.

Zadora is the bee-stung-lipped Kady, a seductively wanton tween who surprises her estranged pop, Jess (Stacy Keach), one afternoon and proceeds to turn his life upside down as she offers him her own downside up. Yes, she teaches this gruff loner to love again — not in the life-affirming, “I want to be a better father!” kind of way, but more in the “I want to massage my daughter’s nubile breasts while I bathe her!” kind of way. To Kady and Jess, incest is the best way to pass time as they mine for ill-gotten silver. I personally would’ve just stuck to singing old slave spirituals, but then again, Zadora isn’t my nympho daughter.

Orson Welles shows up as a drunken judge and bloats all over the screen, delivering a wonderfully unintelligible performance that is so bitter and careless and drunk on Paul Masson, I doubt he knew the cameras were rolling. But maybe that’s just Matt Cimber’s charmingly free-flowing directorial style which, coincidentally, made him the Razzies’ pick for worst director that year. (That’s okay, Matt, the Razzies have been the stupidest award show since … well, ever. Consider the source.)

Watching Butterfly, you’re filled with wistful visions of Zadora’s unrealized promise. I say it’s about time for this little spitfire’s comeback, if only for a feature-length realization of her post-apocalyptic video for “When the Rain Begins to Fall.” I’m sure Jermaine Jackson would be down for it. And probably Cimber, too. —Louis Fowler

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Hardware (1990)

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True story: I first saw Hardware alone on a grainy VHS rental, digging its lo-fi vibe, while my sister caught it at a campus showing. Afterward, she labeled it the worst film she had ever seen, and to this day, she brings up my admiration as proof of my stupidity. I then remind her of her recommendation of Martin Lawrence’s Nothing to Lose, and we reach détente. Thing is, Hardware is seemingly designed solely for genre snobs who can glimpse genuine artistry poking out from between the seams. Part spaghetti Western, part Terminator and part slasher, if you dig the style, you’ll likely groove to the nihilistic audacity. If not, you’ll find it a heap of gory nonsense.

Set in a dystopia of sand and smog, and narrated by a DJ (Iggy Pop!) who crows, “There’s no fuckin’ good news!” the film follows soldier Moses (Dylan McDermott, far from TV’s The Practice) delivering a heap of junk to his sculptor girlfriend, Jill (Stacey Travis). Turns out, said junk is really the remains of a M.A.R.K.-13, a military cyborg designed to reassemble itself from whatever is nearby. Cue manic metallic menace and hearty spurts of blood.

Not much for story, but director Richard Stanley keeps things moving through integrity of vision and an absolutely gorgeous giallo color scheme, layering it with a subtext of man’s symbiotic relationship with machines, first glimpsed through Moses’ artificial hand. Invaluable character actor William Hootkins gets to portray one of filmdom’s most depraved perverts, and Simon Boswell’s throbbing, Western-tinged score will earworm its way into your skull.

It isn’t perfect; the script is undercooked, and the tiny budget betrays itself through clumsy action and ersatz effects. But Hardware, love it or hate it, is undeniably a pure product of Stanley’s mind, and in an era of generic Platinum Dunes horrors, it’s refreshing to see an unwillingness to compromise, even if the result is deeply flawed. Put it this way: If you can find the value of a movie where the hero strides past a baby tied to a dead woman’s waist without taking a second glance, you’ll appreciate Hardware; if not, I’m sure Blockbuster has a copy of Big Momma’s House. —Corey Redekop

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Horror

Return of the Living Dead III (1993)

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The curse of genre sequels is that most people inevitably will dismiss them sight unseen. Put a Roman numeral after a title and at least half of your audience automatically will roll their eyes and look for something original, like the new remake. (See what I did there? It’s funny because remakes are the closest things we have to original movies these days. Isn’t that amusingly insightful?)

I know this because a lot of people are surprised whenever I recommend or defend Return of the Living Dead III as a worthwhile horror effort. At least 90 percent of them actually never have seen it, but operate under the assumption that it has to suck for no other reason than it said Roman numerals. But not only does Brian Yuzna’s more serious sequel to Dan O’Bannon’s comic zombie classic not suck, but it’s the rare horror film that takes its characters seriously enough to allow for a genuinely moving ending that likely will stick with you long after you’ve seen it.

Julie (Melinda Clarke, Return to Two Moon Junction) and Curt (J. Trevor Edmond, Meatballs 4) are a pair of teenage lovers whose forbidden courtship is cut short when she’s killed in a motorcycle accident. Unable to accept the loss, he takes her body to the secret military lab his Army colonel father runs, and exposes her to the zombie-making gas featured in the previous two films. At first, it seems like they might actually get the happy ending they wanted, but then Julie starts to feel the agonizing pain of the living dead — a pain that can be eased only by either inflicting even greater pain (which she achieves by turning herself into the ultimate alternative pin-up queen) or the consumption of living human brains.

Essentially Romeo and Juliet with zombies, ROTLD III transcends its story flaws (the ease with which Julie and Curt get into the top-secret military lab is rather disconcerting) due to a heartfelt script that avoids cheap jokes or irony, along with sincere performances from its talented cast. Despite its lowly status as a direct-to-video horror sequel, it’s well worth checking out … unlike Return of the Living Dead Part II, IV and V, which are all as terrible as you’d naturally assume. —Allan Mott

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Comedy

Little Darlings (1980)

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Little Darlings is a film that could reasonably only have been made in the period that marked the end of the ’70s and the beginning of the ’80s. This is because, like American Pie, Little Darlings is a film about teenagers making a bet to see who will be the first to lose their virginity, but unlike American Pie, it’s teenage girls who are depicted making this life-lesson-in-the-making wager.

That distinction should be enough to scare studios away from remaking it, but what truly makes it a product of its time is an earnestness and sincerity that bears no relation to the kind of movies Hollywood makes in today’s cultural climate, where 15-year-olds are allowed to dress like porn stars, so long as their hands sport a purity ring. Little Darlings is a flawed film, but one which approaches its potentially icky plot with far more care and respect than you’d ever assume based on description alone.

In what amounted to a 1980 casting coup, the film stars Academy Award winner Tatum O’Neal and two-time Emmy winner, Kristy McNichol (who just happened to be my first celebrity crush when I was 8 years old) as the titular darlings. O’Neal is Ferris, the rich girl, and McNichol is Angel, the tough girl; they quickly become summer-camp rivals and compete to “become women” by pursing Armand Assante and Matt Dillon, respectively.

Darlings‘ two female screenwriters clearly were interested more in Angel, as her story gets much more screen time, to the point that Ferris almost becomes a supporting character, but that’s probably a good thing since McNichol’s performance is the highlight and by far the best reason to search for what has now become a difficult film to find, despite its original box-office success. —Allan Mott

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Action

Delta Force 2 (1990)

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There are two kinds of Chuck Norris films. The first create a decent enough entertainment around His Holy Beardness by surrounding him with actors capable enough to distract the audience from the immovable post that is Grimace Highkicky, such as Code of Silence or Lone Wolf McQuade. The other kind allows Fisty Hardcheese to carry the heft of the film on his own charisma, leading us down a jagged path of despair to Hero and the Terror and The Hitman.

I’ve never seen the original Delta Force, but considering its cast includes George Kennedy (!), Robert Vaughn (!!), Robert Forster (!!!) and Lee Fuckin’ Marvin (!!!!!), I figure it must, at its worst, be an enjoyable shoot-’em-up. By comparison, Delta Force 2 has Billy Drago annnnddd … that’s it. Give Drago some credit: His performance as a drug lord is so ridiculously oily, he becomes not only the highlight of the film, but the only reason to see it.

Directed by Aaron Norris (favorite bro of Bristle McSoloflex, and as fine a director as his sib is an actor), Delta Force 2 finds Punch Rockgroin leading some kind of anti-terrorist group, a leader so magnetic that no backstory or character development is necessary. After a friend is killed by Drago, The Beard with No Name works out his rage by kicking the snot out of his men in a training exercise and then traveling to South America for revenge, backed by the U.S. government.

Much poorly choreographed shooting and roundhouse kicking follows. If nothing else, Delta Force 2 serves as a primer for right-wing darling McFootinyourface’s nuanced understanding of U.S. foreign policy.

Fun fact: Chuck Norris is the only man alive with less facial expressions than Steven Seagal. —Corey Redekop

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