The Eric Roberts Collection: The Rideshare Killer (dir by Ashley Scott Meyers)

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

W-Ride! W-Ride! W-Ride!

2022’s The Rideshare Killer ends with the creation of W-Ride, a rideshare app for women only. All of the drivers are women. All of other passengers are women. Men are not allowed to get in the car. The sounds like a good idea to me, though I imagine it would probably lead to a lawsuit in real life. Actually, forget probably. It would definitely lead to a lawsuit. That said, I would still download the app.

Unfortunately, Julia (Tuesday Knight) only comes up with the idea after almost all of her friends and co-workers are murdered by a serial killer. Julia is the CEO of Rock N Ride, the rideshare app that is singlehandedly making taxis obsolete. She and two friends run it from her living room. They all have laptops so we know they’re coders. Who is the killer? I won’t spoil it, beyond saying that it won’t take you by surprise. That said, I did laugh out loud when I heard the killer’s motive because it seems like something that could have been accomplished without necessarily becoming a serial killer. Someone obviously did not think things through before deciding to become a criminal.

The main reason I watched this movie was because Eric Roberts was in it. He plays the detective who is investigating the murders. It’s a typical Eric Roberts cameo. He delivers his lines with his signature half-smile, as if he can’t believe the kids today with their laptops and the rideshares. As for the rest of the movie, it’s pretty dire. The budget was obviously low and the cast stiffly delivers their lines with the type of overly precise diction that one would expect to hear in a high school theatrical production. Tuesday Knight is not a bad actress but she’s tripped up by a poorly written script.

That said, I’ll never get W-Ride W-ride W-ride out of my head.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Nine Lives Are Not Enough (1941, directed by A. Edward Sutherland)

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Matt Sawyer (Ronald Reagan) is a junior reporter whose enthusiasm for breaking the big news is always getting him in trouble. Sometimes, he runs with a story before getting all of his facts straight and the newspaper gets sued. If not for his enthusiasm and his affability, Matt would have been fired a long time ago. Instead of losing his job, Matt just finds himself demoted to riding in a squad car with Sgt. Daniels (James Gleason) and the slow-witted Officer Slattery (Edward Brophy). Matt still manages to find a story when he and the cops discover a dead man in a flophouse.

The man turns out to have been a millionaire. The coroner rules his death a suicide but Matt is convinced that it was murder. How could the man have shot himself if he died with his hands in his pockets? Over the objections of the police and his editors, Matt investigates the man’s death. Helping him out is the man’s daughter, Jane Abbott (Joan Perry).

Nine Lives Are Not Enough is one the many B-pictures that Ronald Regan made for Warner Bros. It’s only 63 minutes long and, despite the murder mystery, the emphasis is more on comedy than drama. For all of his reputation for being a stiff actor, Reagan proves himself to be surprisingly adroit when it comes to exchanging snappy dialogue with his editor. This film showcases the innate likability that made Reagan a success as both an actor and a politician. What he lacks in range, he makes up for in sheer affability. Watching Reagan in movies like this, it is easy to see the limitations that kept him from being a major star while also revealing why he later had so much success asking people to vote for him.

Considering how the press felt and still feels about Ronald Reagan, it’s entertaining to see him cast as a reporter who has a reputation for getting the story wrong. When it’s really important, though, Matt Sawyer gets it right.

Scenes That I Love: The Ending of High Noon

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In honor of Fred Zinnemann’s birthday, today’s scene of the day comes from his best film, 1952’s High Noon. High Noon tells the story of the honest and forthright Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who finds himself abandoned by the town that he’s faithfully served when it is rumored that a fearsome gunman will be arriving at noon to seek revenge on the man who previously sent him to prison.

Below, we have the final scene of High Noon, in which the cowardly townspeople finally come to support Marshal Kane. Kane, disgusted by their actions, can only throw away his star and leave town. Even without dialogue, Cooper lets you know exactly what is going through Kane’s mind. It’s a great scene from a great film featuring a great actor and directed by a great filmmaker.

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Chaos Experiment (dir by Philippe Martinez)

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2009’s The Chaos Experiment, Val Kilmer stars as James Pettis, a twitchy man who shows up at the offices of a Michigan newspaper and says that he wants them to publish an editorial he has written. The editorial is about global warming (yawn) and the danger of humanity going extinct (double yawn). Pettis goes on to explain that he has trapped six people in a steam room and that he has turned the temperature up to 130 degrees, the better to demonstrate what destroying the environment is doing to humanity.

Cynical detective Manicni (Armanda Assante) is called and he listens to Pettis’s story. Mancini has some doubts as to whether or not Pettis is who he says he is. As Pettis describes what is happening in the steam room, Mancini comes to suspect that Pettis is either lying or else the murders happened a while ago. Pettis, for his part, seems to grow more and more delusional as he speaks to Manicni.

When we’re not listening to Mancini and Pettis, we’re watching six unfortunate people trapped in steam room. They are played by Eric Roberts, Patrick Muldoon, Megan Brown, Eve Mauro, Quinn Duffy, and Cordelia Reynolds. They start out as a friendly group but, once it becomes apparent that they’re trapped in the room, they lose it. They start turning on and attacking each other. The first to die is killed while strangling another hostage. The second is taken out by a unseen person with a nail gun. Cast as a former football player who claims to be from “Dallas-Fort Worth,” Eric Roberts goes from being the voice of reason to being a paranoid wreck. Meanwhile, the viewer is left to figure out whether or not any of this is happening or if it’s all just in Pettis’s mind.

I kind of cringed when Pettis said he had written an editorial about global warming but the environmental stuff is just a red herring. The film is actually about the cat-and-mouse game between Pettis and Detective Mancini and the investigation into whether or not Pettis has actually trapped six people in a steam room. It’s an intriguing premise and Val Kilmer gives a surprisingly committed performance as the unstable Pettis. Unfortunately, whenever the film cuts to the people in the steam room, it gets bogged down in all the usual Saw-style dramatics. I appreciate that the film found room for Eric Roberts to give a real performance (and Roberts does a good job, going from being affable to murderous over the course of the movie) but, even at the time when this film first came out, the people-trapped-in-a-room thing had been done to death and the scenes in steam room were ultimately a bit too repetitive to be as effective as they needed to be. That said, the film does end with a nice twist and it did hold my attention.

If nothing else, this is your only chance to see Val Kilmer, Armand Assante, Patrick Muldoon, and Eric Roberts, all in the same movie. That counts for something.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Accidents Will Happen (1938, directed by William Clemens)

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Eric Gregg (Ronald Reagan) is an insurance claims adjuster who works hard, always has a cheerful attitude, and is inexplicably married to a greedy, dishonest woman named Nona (Sheila Gregg). When Nona, sick of not being able to afford to live like a rich person, starts claiming to be a witness to accidents that didn’t really happen, it leads to Eric losing his job. Eric is also dumped by Nona, who heads off to Reno. Luckily, Patricia (Gloria Blondell), who works as the candy counter clerk at Eric’s office building, is just as eager to hook up with Eric and he is with her.

But what’s this? Soon, Eric and Patricia are running insurance scams of their own and Eric is being recruited into a gang of fraudsters that’s led by Blair Thurston (Addison Richards). Has Eric gone bad or does he have something else up his sleeve?

Accident Will Happen is one of the many B-movies that Ronald Reagan made before he briefly became a star as the result of Knute Rockne — All American and Kings Row. It’s only 62 minutes long and the story moves quickly. The plot features a pretty obvious twist and it ends with some courtroom theatrics that I doubt anyone could have gotten away with in real life. As with most of his B-performances, Reagan is likable even if there’s not much depth to his character. Watching him hit bottom and then climb back up is satisfying because Reagan is so affable in the role. Accidents Will Happen also stands out for its portrayal of an unhappy marriage, with Eric not realizing how miserable and greedy Nona is until she leaves him when he needs her the most. Luckily, Gloria Blondell (who was the sister of Joan Blondell) is cute and perky and a far better match for our Reagan. In the end, Ronald Reagan defeats insurance fraud as surely as he defeated the Soviets in the Cold War.

The TSL Grindhouse: Rebel Rousers (dir by Martin B. Cohen)

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1970’s Rebel Rousers tell the story of what happens when Paul Collier (Cameron Mitchell) arrives in a small desert town, searching for his girlfriend, Karen (Diane Ladd). Karen ran away when she discovered she was pregnant because she was scared that Paul would attempt to force her to get an abortion. While Paul talks to Karen in a cheap motel, a motorcycle gang rides into town. The members of the gang include Randolph (Harry Dean Stanton) and Bunny (Jack Nicholson), who wears striped prison pants and a stocking hat. The leader of the gang is J.J. Weston (Bruce Dern), who went to high school with Paul. They even played on the same football team but their lives have since followed differing paths. (How exactly 30ish Bruce Dern and 50ish Cameron Mitchell could have been in the same high school class is not an issue that the film chooses to explore.)

Paul reunites with Karen and swears his love for her. However, when Paul and Karen run into the motorcycle gang, Karen is kidnapped. Bunny wants to force himself on Karen but J.J. wants to set her free. J.J. challenges Bunny to a series of motorcycle games on the beach. The winner decides what happens to Karen. Meanwhile, Paul heads back to the town in search of help but discovers that almost everyone is too much of a coward to help him out. Only Miguel (Robert Dix), the leader of a rival gang is willing to step up and save the community from the Rebels!

Rebel Rousers was filmed in 1967 but was considered to be so bad that it was put on a shelf and forgotten about until Jack Nicholson suddenly became a star in Easy Rider. Rebel Rousers was released on the drive-in circuit as a Jack Nicholson movie, even though Nicholson is barely in the film and he gives a pretty one-note performance as Bunny. The movie’s star is Cameron Mitchell, who usually played villains and doesn’t seem to be too invested in this film. (Mitchell has such a naturally sinister screen presence that I was actually worried about Paul finding Karen. Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd are the sole members of the cast who really stand out, with Dern taking on the type of cool rebel role that was usually played by Peter Fonda while Ladd (pregnant at the time with Laura Dern) actually manages to bring some real emotional depth to her character. The movie itself was obviously made for next to nothing and it seems like it was shot in a hurry. Everything feels like a first take or, even worse, like a rehearsal that was deemed “good enough.” The competition between Bunny and J.J. ultimately feels mostly like filler than anything else.

Rebel Rousers is one of the more obscure entries in Jack Nicholson’s filmography. If not for the success of Easy Rider, it never would have been released at all. By the time Rebel Rousers did come out, Jack Nicholson was too busy establishing himself as one of the best leading men of the 70s to spend too much time looking back. Today, watching this film can make it easier to understand why Nicholson was considering dropping out of Hollywood all together before he was cast in Easy Rider. That said, the film today serves as a reminder that everyone started somewhere and sometimes, the somewhere is the second feature at the grindhouse.

The Eric Roberts Collection: Sink Hole (dir by Scott Wheeler)

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2013’s Sink Hole opens with a fracking plant about to go online. A couple of local activists get in a hot air balloon and, while floating over the site of the plant, hold up a cardboard “NO FRACKING” sign which absolutely no one would be able to read from the ground.

Still, this is supposed to be a badass moment. Of course, it’s ruined when steam is released from the plant and the hot air balloon crashes into a power station. One of the activist is killed. Local paramedic Joan Conroy (Gina Holden) is traumatized. Joan’s daughter, Paige (Brooke Mackenzie), dumps her boyfriend because he’s the son of the guy who opened the plant and she feels that he should have done something to stop his father. (Like what, exactly?) That, of course, makes things awkward when it’s time for the two of them to board a school bus and go to a track meet together. Making thing even more awkward is that the track coach and bus driver is Paige’s father, Gary (Jeremy London).

Predictably, the fracking causes a big sinkhole to open up in the middle of the road and, as a result, Gary, Paige, and the entire track team are trapped underground. It’s up to Joan to save them. Eric Roberts also makes an appearance in this film, playing the local police chief. It’s a typical Eric Roberts cameo. Anyone could have played the role but it’s still nice to see a sleepy-eyed Eric delivering his lines with his trademark off-kilter smile.

I was actually excited when this movie started because I thought it starred Jason London but it turned out to be his far less interesting twin, Jeremy. Sink Hole has all the makings of an Asylum film but it’s not an Asylum film. If it was an Asylum film, I imagine the pace wouldn’t have been as slow and there at least would have been a giant snake or something to keep things interesting. This film actually tries to push a message but the action is too slow and the actors playing the track team are all stuck portraying one-dimensional stereotypes. This sink hole is not worth getting lost in.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Demonic Dead (dir by Rick Vargas)

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eric Roberts appears for about 18 seconds in 2017’s The Demonic Dead. He plays the Devil, which means that he wears a black suit and he flashes a sinister smile while he speaks to Maria Cruz (Ronee Collins). Maria is angry with God so she agrees to become a servant of the Devil.

What is Maria’s job? She and an army of zombies hide out in the hills and kill people. Reno (Arben Selimi), a demon hunter whose violent methods have apparently generated some controversy within The Church, is sent to take Maria out. Reno’s wife, Katherine (Kat Kaevich), wants Reno to abandon the whole demon hunting thing because being a demon hunter is a real drag on their marriage. Reno thinks about Katherine and we are treated to a rather long relationship montage, all set to a song called Katherine!

Anyway, Maria is targeting a group of college students, one of whom just happens to be a longtime friend of Reno’s. Reno goes to help, carrying his special golden gun with him. Eventually, Katherine follows and we get some zombie mayhem. One unfortunate person gets his guts pulled out on camera. “Kidney!” Maria says at one point.

This was a very, very low-budget film and it was way too amateurish to be effective. The acting was unpolished and the pacing was so off that this rather short film still felt a bit too long. That said, there was some thought behind the story and the film did attempt to explore what being a demon hunter would actually do to someone’s psyche. The film had some ambition, which is more than I can say for a lot of low budget horror flicks.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Dawn (dir by Nicholas Ryan)

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2022’s Dawn has a running time of 78 minutes. Eric Roberts is in the film but unfortunately, his nameless character is killed off at the four minute mark. It’s a bit of a pointless cameo, even by Eric Roberts’s standards. If you’re going to get Eric Roberts in your film, do something more than just have him pathetically beg for his life. Is it worth watching a 78-minute Eric Roberts film if you already know that Roberts is going to be in at least 74 of those minutes?

Eric Roberts’s character is killed by Dawn (Jackie Moore), a serial killer who drives around and pretends to be an Uber driver and who makes her victim play various games before killing them. Dawn is a celebrity on the Dark Web. It’s always funny to me how movies like this pretty much use the Dark Web as their go-to plot device. If someone needs a motivation …. hey, Dark Web! If a plot twist doesn’t make any sense, just say it’s somehow connected to the Dark Web or a Russian troll farm. It’s not difficult. Since the entire film is pretty much just Dawn tormenting a couple (played by Sarah French and Jared Cohn), it’s important that Dawn be such a charismatic and witty killer that we’re willing to put up with antisocial actions. Unfortunately, as played by Moore, she’s just annoying.

Roberts is not the only celebrity to make an appearance as Dawn. In one of the film’s few effective moments, Nicholas Brendon shows up as a man at a gas station who is a huge fan of Dawn’s and who wants her to murder him. Later, Michael Pare shows up as a cop who pulls over the car. How many times has Pare played a cop in movies like this? He always seems to be pulling someone over.

Anyway, it didn’t take me long to get bored with this, despite the fact that both French and Cohn gave better performances than the film deserved. There’s only so much that can be explained away by saying, “Dark Web.”

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Retro Television Review: 3 By Cheever 1.1 “The Sorrows of Gin” (dir by John Hofsiss)

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing 3 By Cheever, which ran on PBS in 1979. The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube.

In 1979, PBS aired 3 By Cheever, three short films that were all based on stories by the American author, John Cheever. The stories all took place in the same suburban milieu and featured characters in common. The first episode was an adaptation of one of Cheever’s earlier stories, The Sorrows of Gin.

Episode 1.1 “The Sorrows of Gin”

(Dir by Jack Hofsiss, originally aired on October 24th, 1979)

Taking place in the New England suburb of Shady Hill, The Sorrows of Gin deals with the Lawton family. The Lawtons have got a nice house, lovely neighbors, and enough loyal servants that they don’t ever have to really worry about taking care of their eight year-old daughter, Amy (Mara Hobel). Kip (Edward Herrmann) and Marcia Lawton (Sigourney Weaver) are youngish, successful, athletic (they play tennis, of course), and they’re also alcoholics. They don’t realize they’re alcoholics and they’re both far more refined than the stereotypical image of the boozy drunk but they’re alcoholics nonetheless.

They’re also hypocrites. When Amy’s babysitter, Rosemary (Eileen Heckart), comes to work with booze on her breath, Kip fires her. Amy, realizing that the alcohol is causing her parents to fight, starts to secretly pour out all of the gin, a little at a time. Kip and Marcia assume that the servants are sneaking drinks and they go on a firing rampage. Amy finally decides to run away from home, just to be found by Kip who, at the very least, seems like he’s willing to try to be a better father and husband.

Wow, what a depressing story! Cheever’s original short story, which was one of the first American stories to really explore suburban alcoholism, was written with a good deal of wit and social satire. The PBS adaptation takes a far more literal approach. It captures Cheever’s story but not his voice and, as a result, you kind of find yourself why you should care about any of these people. Even taking alcohol out of the equation, Kip and Marcia are shallow, self-absorbed, and terrible parents. Maybe Amy should run away.

On the plus side, the film does feature Edward Herrmann and Sigourney Weaver, both giving excellent performances as the Lawtons. The same year in which this aired, Weaver also starred as Ripley in Alien and it is a bit odd to see Weaver playing someone who would probably never in a thousand years see that film. That said, Weaver does a good job and is totally believable as the clueless Marcia. Meanwhile, Edward Herrmann has just the right WASP-y style to play Kip Lawton. One of the most effective things about this film is how Kip is just a goofy suburban husband until he thinks someone is drinking his gin. Then, he becomes outraged. This film ends with a hint of redemption for Kip, a suggestion that Kip has finally realized how much his drinking is upsetting his daughter. But, honestly, Kip doesn’t really seem like he has it in him to change. Hopefully, he’ll just stop firing people.

This was an uneven production. The story wasn’t quite as shocking as perhaps it was when Cheever first wrote about the Lawtons. But the performances of Herrmann and Weaver kept me watching.