Five Minutes to Live — aka Door-to-Door Maniac — stars singer Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot, a two-bit crook who was framed when his partner dropped the dime on him during a warehouse job on the Jersey waterfront. After mowing down two coppers, Johnny bides time in a motel 2,000 miles away, waiting for the heat to subside.
Restless, he gets an offer from goodfella Fred Dorella, who’s got a score that’ll quench Johnny’s thirst for the juice. Dorella plans to walk right into the bank and ask for a $70,000 withdrawal from exec Mr. Wilson, while Johnny holds Mrs. Wilson for ransom at home. Progress will be updated in five-minute intervals via phone, but if Dorella doesn’t dial, Johnny is to ice her.
For a film released in ’61 starring legendary guitar slinger Cash, Five Minutes is edgy and hyperviolent. Cash is surprisingly convincing as the skittish menace. With his personal history, maybe some of that manic energy is pure method, with him howling the methamphetamine blues.
The script tries to add some nuance with a subplot involving Mr. Wilson having a fling. The marital unrest allows for a brief moment where the audience is led to question if the bank exec/hubby will play nice with the robbers’ demands. Unfortunately, all of that gets cancelled like a bad check by a bait-and-switch climax involving the couple’s kid and a sanitized (and outlandish) Hollywood ending, tacked on to realign the studio’s moral compass. Moviegoers know it’s okay to shoot someone … just to watch them die. —Joshua Jabcuga
Rodrigo García directs with a gloomy crispness that makes all of Canada look like an 
They’re sent to investigate a radioactive crater in Nicholson Canyon, only to find a horde of star creatures (men with burlap sacks over their heads, ping-pong balls for eyes and twigs and leaves placed randomly about their tights) and, better yet, two bra-busting honeys named Poona (!) and Tanga (!!) from 60 million light years away who want to take over Earth and who wear skintight space suits that can’t quite contain their ass cheeks. They’re played by Gloria Victor and Dolores Reed — or, as the credits refer to them, “Wow!” and “Wow! Wow!”
It ain’t 
Director/co-writer Michael Neel gets an A for effort, but a C+ for execution, as the segments run a little longer than needed and are need of cutting to accelerate the pace. None are scary, unless you’re … oh, let’s say 10 or under, but will appeal to fans of DIY horror. It sure doesn’t skimp on the gore. Its end credits, however, assault your ears with horrible, terrible music. —Rod Lott