Category Archives: Insomnia File

Horror Insomnia File #73: Don’t Kill It (dir by Mike Mendez)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you were having trouble getting to sleep, you could have gone to either YouTube or Tubi and watched the 2016 horror film, Don’t Kill It!

Don’t Kill It! takes place in a small Mississippi town.  After a hunter shoots his suddenly viscous dog and then murders his wife and children, the hunter is gunned down by another man.  That man then proceeds to kill his own family.  FBI agent Evelyn Pierce (Kristina Klebe) thinks that it was a case of domestic terrorism.  Demon hunter Jebediah Woodley (Dolph Lundgren) disagrees.  Woodley explains that there’s a demon on the loose.  The demon jumps from host to host.  Killing one host means becoming possessed yourself.  As Woodley explains it, the only way to avoid becoming possessed is not to kill it but then you run the risk of being killed yourself.

At first, everyone is skeptical of Woodley’s claims.  But as Evelyn investigates the case (and we watch a lot of slow motion flashbacks that appear to have been included to pad out the running time), she comes to realize that Woodley is correct.  There is a demon and it is possessing people.  But how can it be stopped?

Don’t Kill It may be a low-budget film but it gets the most out of that budget, making good use of the country atmosphere of its setting and getting generally good performances from the cast.  (The possession scenes are simple but still very well-done and creepy.)  The main appeal here is Dolph Lundgren, playing his role with just the right amount of self-awareness to let the viewer know that Lundgren knows exactly what type of film he’s appearing in and that he’s going to do his best to keep things entertaining.  It’s a film that’s perfect for late night horror season viewing.

Admittedly, I watched the film with a group of friends, some of whom dropped out during the opening massacre.  I could understand their feelings but I think the important thing to consider is, for all the bad things that happened, a hero still showed up to put things right.  Indeed, one could argue that the film’s theme of murder leading to more murder is actually a plea for peace.  “Don’t kill it!” Woodley says and it’s a message for everyone watching.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul
  69. Candy
  70. Shortcut to Happiness
  71. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders
  72. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders II

Insomnia Files #71 and #72: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (dir by Bruce Bilson) and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders II (dir by Michael O’Herlihy)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have gone over to YouTube and watched 1979’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders!  And then, if you were still having trouble getting to sleep, you could have followed it up with 1980’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders II!  And then if you were somehow still not able to get any rest …. well, sorry.  There’s only two of them.  I guess you could watch that Making the Team show.  I don’t know.

Anyway, back to the movies!

The first Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders stars Jane Seymour as a serious journalist who at first scoffs at the idea of going undercover as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.  But her ex-boyfriend and editor (Bert Convy) insists that she take the assignment.  Jane goes undercover and even makes the squad!  (It’s never mentioned whether she has any sort of dance or cheerleading experience so I find it a bit odd that she actually made it onto a professional cheerleading squad but whatever….)  Seymour gets to know the other members of the Squad, including the Love Boat’s Lauren Tewes.  She comes to realize that she doesn’t want to write up a tabloid story about the cheerleaders.  These are “good, down home girls,” she tells Convy.  Convy doesn’t care.  He wants scandal!

He’s not going to get it, though.  The main message of this film is that the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are basically saints with pom poms.  Sure, one of them has a loser ex-boyfriend.  And another one of them struggles a bit with the routines.  It’s not an easy job but, in the end, everyone does their bit to support the team!

It’s all pretty silly but I’m from Dallas and I’m surrounded by Cowboy fans who have been complaining nonstop about the team for as long as I can remember so I enjoyed watching a movie that portrayed the Cowboys organization as being the greatest group of people on the planet.  (No drug or gun problems here!)  It’s very much a film of the 70s, made for television and straddling the line between being exploitive and being wholesome.  Yes, the costumes are skimpy but no one smokes, drinks, or curses.  The film features soapy drama, actual Dallas locations, 70s fashion, a great disco soundtrack, and dorky Bert Convy as a womanizer.  Plus, like me, Jane Seymour has mismatched eyes.  How can you not love this film!?

As for the sequel, it ditches almost everyone from the first film.  Only Laraine Stephens, as the squad’s no-nonsense coach, returns.  She’s got a whole new squad to deal with and only a limited amount of time to perfect the cheer that will win the Cowboys the Super….sorry, I mean to say the playoff game.  Whenever anyone in the film says, “playoff game,” their lips read “Super Bowl,” so I guess there was some last-minute tinkering after shooting was completed.  The squad also has to get ready to tour with the USO and to perform at a children’s hospital.  (Ray Wise appears as a doctor at the children’s hospital.)  The Cheerleaders are not only going to bring peace to the world but they’re also going to give those children the inspiration they need to get better.  Yay!

This one isn’t as much fun, largely because Laraine Stephens’s character isn’t that much fun.  The first film featured the very British Jane Seymour in Texas, somehow becoming a member of an all-American football team’s cheerleading squad and it was impossible not to enjoy the implausibility of it all.  The second film is just Laraine Stephens getting mad at people for not having the routine down to perfection.  No thanks, movie, I’m done with dealing with demanding choreographers.  There’s a reason why I turned down all of those offers to join the cheer squad in high school.  (For the record, my sister was the greatest cheerleader our high school ever had or ever will have!  Erin watched the first movie with me a few weeks ago.  She said it was okay but she didn’t think Jane Seymour was a convincing cheerleader.)

According to what I’ve read online, the first Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders film was a huge rating success.  The second film was less so, which I guess is why there was never a third.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul
  69. Candy
  70. Shortcut to Happiness

Insomnia File #70: Shortcut to Happiness (dir by Alec Baldwin)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you’re having trouble getting to sleep tonight, you can always jump over to Tubi and watch Shortcut to Happiness, a.k.a. The Devil and Daniel Webster.

When was Shortcut to Happiness released?  There’s some debate about that.  Though the film’s credited director is Harry Kirkpatrick, it was actually directed by Alec Baldwin.  (Please, no Rust jokes.)  The film was shot in 2001, in New York City.  However, shortly before filming could be completed, the film’s financiers were arrested and charged with bank fraud which led to the film ending up in limbo.  A rough cut of the movie appeared at a few film festivals in 2003.  By that point, Baldwin had started to distance himself from the film, claiming that he wasn’t given a chance to shoot all of the scenes that he needed to and that the film was taken away from him in post-production.  A newly edited version of the film was finally released in 2007, six years after filming began.

Alec Baldwin not only directed the film but starred as Jabez Stone, an aspiring writer who makes a deal with the devil (Jennifer Love Hewitt) to become a successful published author.  Stone gets his wish but it comes with a price.  In ten years, he will have to give up his soul.  Stone becomes rich and successful, writing books that have absolutely no literary merit.  He loses all of his friends and, by the time the ten year deadline rolls around, Stone is miserable.  Stone sues to keep his soul.  He’s defended by Daniel Webster (Anthony Hopkins), a man who Stone thought was just a publisher but who apparently is actually the famed 19th century statesman.  (The film is rather vague on this point.)  In one of the film’s few funny moments, the jury is revealed to be made up of deceased writers, including Ernest Hemingway and Mario Puzo.  The trial plays out and …. well, again, it’s hard to really follow any of the arguments made by either Webster or the Devil.  The film is so tonally inconsistent and poorly directed that I was often left wondering if Hopkins and Hewitt had even been on the set at the same time.

Both Hopkins and Hewitt give good performances.  The problem is that they both seem to be appearing in different films.  Hewitt gives a broadly comedic performance as the Devil, pouting whenever Webster argues with her.  Hopkins, meanwhile, seems to be recycling his dignified and very serious performance from Amistad.  Meanwhile, Baldwin the director totally miscasts Baldwin the actor.  For the film to work, Jabez needs to be young and hungry.  Instead, Baldwin comes across as someone who is already old enough to know better than to make a deal with the Devil.

It’s a true mess of a film but worth seeing just because of the story behind it.  That said, the 1941 version of The Devil and Daniel Webster remains the one to beat.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul
  69. Candy

Insomnia File #69: Candy (dir by Christian Marquand)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you find yourself having trouble getting to sleep tonight, you can always pass the time by watching the 1968 film, Candy.  It’s currently on Tubi.

Based on a satirical novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, Candy follows Candy Christian (Ewa Aulin), a naive teenager from middle America as she has a number of increasingly surreal adventures, the majority of which end with her getting sexually assaulted by one of the film’s special guest stars.  It’s very much a film of the 60s, in that it’s anti-establishment without actually seeming to know who the establishment is.  It opens with a lengthy sequence that appears to be taking place in outer space.  It ends with an extended sequence of Candy walking amongst the film’s cast and a bunch of random hippies.  Director Christian Marquand appears as himself, directing the film.  Yep, this is one of those films where the director and the film crew show up and you’re supposed to be say, “Far out, I didn’t realize I was watching a movie, man.”

The whole thing is a bit of a misfire.  The novel was meant to be smut that satirized smut.  The film isn’t really clever enough to work on any sort of real satirical level.  As was the case with a lot of studio-made “psychedelic” films in the 60s, everything is a bit too obvious and overdone.  Casting the Swedish Ewa Aulin as a character who was meant to represent middle America was just one of the film’s missteps.  Based on The Graduate, Mike Nichols probably could have made a clever film out of Candy.  The French Christian Marquand, a protegee of Roger Vadim’s, can not because he refuses to get out of the film’s way.  It’s all jump cuts, flashy cinematography, and attempts to poke fun at American culture by someone who obviously knew nothing about America beyond the jokes told in Paris.

That said, the main reason that anyone would watch this film would be for the collection of guest stars who all show up and try to take advantage of Candy.  Richard Burton plays an alcoholic poet named MacPhisto and his appearance goes on for far too long.  (Burton, not surprisingly, appears to actually be drunk for the majority of his scenes.)  Ringo Star — yes, Ringo Starr — plays a Mexican gardener who assaults Candy after getting turned on by the sight of MacPhisto humping a mannequin.  When Emmanuel’s sisters try to attack Candy, she and her parents escape on a military plane that is commanded by Walter Matthau.  Landing in New York, Candy’s brain-damaged father (John Astin) is operated on by a brilliant doctor (James Coburn) who later seduces Candy after she faints at a cocktail party.  Candy’s uncle (John Astin, again) also tries to seduce Candy, leading to Candy getting lost in New York, meeting a hunchback (Charles Aznavour), and then eventually ending up with a guru (Marlon Brando).  Candy’s adventures climax with a particularly sick joke that requires a bit more skill to pull off than this film can afford.

If you’re wondering how all of these famous people ended up in this movie, you have Brando to thank (or blame).  Christian Marquand was Brando’s best friend and Marlon even named his son after him.  After Brando agreed to appear in the film, the rest of the actors followed.  Brando, Burton, and Coburn received a share of the film’s profits and Coburn later said that his entire post-1968 lifestyle was pretty much paid for by Candy.  That seems appropriate as, out of all the guest stars, Coburn i the only one who actually gives an interesting performance.  Burton is too drunk, Matthau is too embarrassed, Starr is too amateurish, and Brando is too self-amused to really be interesting in the film.  Coburn, however, seems to be having a blast, playing his doctor as being a medical cult leader.

Candy is very much a film of 1968.  It has some value as a cultural relic.  Ultimately, it’s main interest is as an example of how the studios tried (and failed) to latch onto the counterculture zeitgeist.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul

Insomnia File #68: Mind, Body & Soul (dir by Rick Sloane)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you’re having trouble sleeping tonight, you can go over to Tubi and watch 1992’s Mind, Body & Soul.

Brenda (Ginger Lynn) has a new boyfriend!  After years of getting stuck with duds, Brenda is happy to finally be dating Carl (Jesse Kaye), who is handsome and successful and has a thing about wanting her to drip hot candle wax on his body.  Everything’s going fine until Carl asks her to come hang out with some friends of his.  It turns out that they’re all Satanists and they’re planning on sacrificing a woman.  Fortunately, the police arrive before the sacrifice can be carried out.  Unfortunately, all the Satanists run off and leave innocent Brenda takes the blame.

After she’s arrested and spends several days in jail, Brenda is finally bailed out by defense attorney John Stockton (Wings Hauser).  Because Carl apparently blew up her apartment (and, the police say, himself with it), Brenda doesn’t have anywhere to stay.  She accepts John’s offer to stay at his place.  John promises to be a perfect gentleman.  He’s a former probation officer and he just wants to help.

And Brenda definitely needs some help!  She suspects that Carl isn’t really dead.  She keeps having bizarre visions of the robed and masked leader of the cult.  She suspects that the cult might still be after her and, when she agrees to appear on a local talk show to tell her story, she finds herself stunned to be sitting across from an actual witch.  Her former cellmate, Rachel (Tamara Clatterbuck), has just been released from prison and is willing to help Brenda out.  Again, Brenda needs the help.  The cult is after her and it’s going to take a lot of intelligence to survive and that’s probably going to be Brenda’s downfall because it’s hard to think of a dumber character than Brenda.

(Seriously, if my boyfriend took me to a Satanic cult meeting on a date, I would be out of there before they even got around to the human sacrifice part of the night.)

This film is so incredibly dumb that I don’t even know where to begin.  Occasionally, I’ll see an incoherent horror film and I’ll give it a good review because the incoherence can sometimes add to the terror.  Two of my favorite directors, Lucio Fulci and Jean Rollin, both deliberately made horror films that didn’t make sense because they were tying to capture the feeling of being in a nightmare.  Mind, Body & Soul makes sense as long as you accept that Brenda, Rachel, and almost every other character in this film is mind-numbingly dumb.  The plot works as long as you accept that there is not a shred of intelligence to be found amongst any of the characters, including the bad guys.  This is a dumb film that is never scary.  It does feature a fair amount of nudity, which I imagine was probably meant to be the film’s main selling point.

On the plus side, Wings Hauser is always entertaining.  You’ll be able to guess the big plot twist that involves his character but no matter.  With his quick smirk, he at least seems to be enjoying himself.  As was so often the case, Hauser’s performance is the only one in this film that feels like an actual performance.  Wings Hauser was an actor who always gave it his all, even while appearing in something like this.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist

Insomnia File #67: Heist (dir by Scott Mann)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you find yourself awake later tonight, you can always go over to Tubi and watch the 2015 direct-to-video action thriller, Heist.

Heist takes place in Louisiana.  Francis “The Pope” Silva (Robert De Niro) is a mobster and businessman who owns a riverboat casino.  The Pope lives his life according to a set of simple but very specific rules.  He doesn’t lend money.  He doesn’t forgive people who betray him.  If you steal from him, he will track you down and he will get his money back and he will make you regret your decision.  Working as his main henchman is the sadistic Dog (Morris Chestnut).  The Pope’s former main henchman was a man named Luke Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) but Luke grew tired of the violence and walked away from it all.  Now, Luke works as a dealer in The Pope’s casino.  His daughter is sick and Luke desperately needs $300,000 to pay her medial bills.  When The Pope refuses to give him the money, Luke teams up with security guard Jason Cox (Dave Bautista) and sets out to rob the place.

The robbery is carefully planned by Luke but, inevitably, things go wrong.  A security guard shows up earlier than he was supposed to.  A shootout leads to Jason’s best friend, Dante (Stephen Cyrus Sepher), getting shot.  The getaway driver panics and drives off, leading to Luke, Cox, and Dante hijacking a bus.  Cox orders the bus driver (D.B. Sweeney) to take them to Galveston but Luke is more concerned with getting the money to his daughter.  Meanwhile, two police officers — Kris Bajos (Gina Carano) and Detective Marconi (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) — follow the bus, each pursuing their own agenda.

Considering that this film is basically a low budget rip-off of Speed (albeit without a bomb threatening to take out the cast), Heist has an impressive cast and they all do a good job of elevating the film above its B-movie origins.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are hundreds of plot holes to be found in Heist.  The film’s big twist really doesn’t make much sense when you think about it.  But, in the end, Heist is an entertaining thrill ride that moves quickly enough that most viewers really won’t have time to obsess on all the lapses of logic.  Morgan plays his role with just enough heart that you want his criminal to succeed.  De Niro brings some extra layers to a role that could have been a caricature.  There’s a brief scene in which he meets his estranged daughter (Kate Bosworth) and, as a result, you suddenly see his character in an entirely new light.  As a character who seems like a much more sinister version of Zach Morris, Mark-Paul Gosselaar keeps you guessing.  And finally, Gina Carano — years before her cancellation — gives an earnest performance that works despite her character being rather inconsistently written.

Heist is an entertaining and fast-paced action film with a good cast and an interesting story.  If you can’t sleep, you might as well be entertained.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It

Insomnia Film #67: Why (dir by Victor Stoloff)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you’re having trouble getting to sleep tonight, you can always go over to either YouTube or Tubi and pull up Why, an obscure film from 1973 that has a semi-interesting cast.

The plot of Why is simple.  Six people gather at their psychiatrist’s mansion for group therapy.  Dr. Peter Carlson (played by Herb Goldberg, an actual psychiatrist) asks the members of the group questions and asks them to do things like try to imagine a moment that made them truly happy.  The members of the group discuss their problems and …. well, that’s pretty much it.

Who is in the group?  Jeannie Berlin plays Gail, a single mother who has been rejected by her family because she had an out-of-wedlock child with a black man.  Cathy Bleich plays Jennifer, who claims to be a teacher but who is also a pathological liar.  Linda Gillen is Christine, a rich teenager who is two-months pregnant and who is implied to be addicted to heroin.  Danny Goldman plays Bill, a suicidal gay man.  Musician Tim Buckley plays musician Glenn, who can’t get over his band breaking up.  And, playing a professional athlete named Bud, is O.J. Simpson.  “I smoke dope,” Bud says at one point before going on to explain why he thinks its important to be a good role model.

Why is an odd film.  It starts out with a lengthy animated sequence (complete with a hippie-style song) and then settles into being a stagey film that feels more like an extended acting exercise than an actual narrative.  It’s a talky film and some of the monologues work while others fall flat.  The best performances are given by Danny Goldman, Tim Buckley, and Linda Gillen but I imagine most people who watch this film will be giving most of their attention to O.J. Simpson, who talks about resenting the pressure to always be perfect.  In the end, there are no real break-throughs and one could argue that makes this the most realistic depiction of therapy ever filmed.

Reportedly, the film start out as a short film starring O.J. Simpson and Tim Buckley that was commissioned by Technicolor to see if video could be transferred to film.  The decision was made to expand the short into a feature.  The actors improvised during rehearsal and those improvs served as the basis for the script.  Again, this will probably be most interesting to people looking for hints into what it was like inside of O.J. Simpson’s head.  (O.J.’s character comes across as being friendly but guarded and quick to get angry about women in general.)

Again, it’s a talky film.  At times, it’s a rather boring film.  Many of the monologues start out strong but they tend to go on and on. Why might cure you of your insomnia.  That said, the film is interesting from a historical point of view.  It’s all very 70s, revealing a group of people trying to navigate a world that was still trying to figure out where they stood in the years immediately following the turmoil of 60s.  The characters have a brand new world ahead of them and none of them know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.  Some things never change.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It

Insomnia File #66: Ghosts Can’t Do It (dir by John Derek)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you find yourself having trouble getting to sleep tonight or tomorrow, you may want to try watching 1989’s Ghosts Can’t Do It.  It won’t necessarily put you to sleep but it will give you something to ponder while you lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling.  For instance, how exactly did this movie get produced without anyone coming up with a better title than Ghosts Can’t Do It?

Bo Derek plays Kate, the wife of elderly billionaire Scott (played by Anthony Quinn, who appears to be drunk in the majority of his scenes).  Despite their age difference, Kate and Scott are deeply in love.  When they’re not playing in the snow and riding horses around the ranch, they’re having sex.  “Sex, sex, sex, sex!” the movie seems to chant in almost every scene.  But then Anthony Quinn has a heart attack, which in this film means that he spends what appears to be hours lying in the snow while trading jokes with Kate.  (It’s important to be able to joke with your partner but if my man had a heart attack, my first reaction would be to get a doctor.)

Scott survives his heart attack but he’s told that, in his weakened state, he can no longer have sex.  Also, he can’t get a new heart because he’s too old.  Facing a future without sex, Scott shoots himself.  Fortunately, Scott’s guardian angel (Julie Newmar) takes sympathy on him and sends his spirt back down to Earth.  Only Kate can see and hear him and, while she’s happy to be reunited with him, they are both upset to discover that ghosts can’t do it.

Scott comes up with a plan.  Kate needs to find a young, virile lover and then murder him so that Scott can possess his body and then he and Kate can have sex whenever they feel like it.  Because that plan makes total sense and there’s no way that it could lead to Kate’s soul being damned to an eternity in Hell, Kate agrees.  Kate travels the world, having sex and looking for a man who will be able to please her after she has murdered him.  Eventually, Kate meets a charming young criminal named Fausto (Leo Damian) and decides that he’ll do.  Scott can’t wait to inhabit Fausto’s body but Kate suddenly realizes that she might not have it in her to be a murderer!  Well, she’ll never know unless she tries.  (I never thought that I would be able to shoot down a drone but then, one night in December….)

While all of this is going on, Kate is handling Scott’s business affairs.  This leads to a meeting with a famous and ruthless businessman named Donald Trump.  Yes, the 45 and 47th President of the United States plays himself in this film.  Kate and Trump meet in a conference room to discuss a deal.  Kate mentions that she read Trump’s book.  Trump smiles and nods.  They have hard-boiled business dialogue.  Kate tells Trump that he’s “too pretty” to be as ruthless as he is.  ‘You noticed,” Trump says.  It’s a pretty dumb scene but, from a historical point-of-view, it’s a reminder of the fact that, long before he was elected President, Trump was already a ubiquitous figure on the American pop cultural scene.

Ghosts Can’t Do It is definitely a misfire, albeit one that is such a huge misfire that it become interesting in the same way that trainwrecks are often interesting.  Almost everything about it, from the dialogue to the attempts at humor to the nearly unreadable font that is used for the opening credits, feels wrong.  There is one brief moment that works, in which Kate dances with her ghost husband and, for the first and only time in the film, we see a flicker of genuine chemistry between Bo Derek and Anthony Quinn.  (Bo Derek, I will mention, is not quite as bad an actress as her reputation suggests.  It’s just that she should have been playing campy soap opera villainesses on late night television as opposed to starring in her husband’s crackpot films.)  Otherwise, this movie is perhaps the worst movie to ever feature both a two-time Oscar winner and a future President.  And, for that reason, it’s a watchable curiosity.  It’s just what insomnia demands.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost

Insomnia File #65: Girl Lost (dir by Robin Bain)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have jumped over to Tubi or Prime and watched 2016’s Girl Lost.

Girl Lost tells the story of Shara (Jessica Taylor Haid), who we first see being abused by her mother’s boyfriend and then retreating outside to a pool so that she can run a razor blade over her thigh in peace.  Shara is only 15 but she’s had to deal with things that no one should ever have to experience in a lifetime.  Her mother, Kim (played by Robin Bain, who also directed the film), is a sex worker who expects her daughter to follow in her footsteps and who encourages Shara to pose for risqué photos that Kim then posts online.

Shara spends almost the entire film fleeing.  At first, she and Kim flee Kim’s boyfriend.  Eventually, Shara and her boyfriend, the well-meaning but not particularly bright Jamie (Felix Ryan), end up running away from Kim.  They live on the streets and discover just how difficult it can be to survive on your own.  In the end, no one can survive without money and Shara, just like her mother before her, comes to realize that there’s one guaranteed way to make that money, whether it’s waiting for a creepy guy in a back alley or getting a job talking on the phone to some pervy loser living in his mother’s basement.  Eventually, Shara runs away from even Jamie and ends up working at a Russian-owned brothel.  Throughout it all, her life continues to unravel.  It’s a harsh world that Shara has been born into and it’s one where you either do what you have to do to survive or you end up imprisoned or worse.  The film’s ends on a dark note.  At first, I thought the ending was perhaps a bit too dark.  After all that had happened, I wondered, what it have killed the film to end on a note of hope?  But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the film ended in the the only way that the story could have ended.  From the minute she was born, poor Shara never really had a chance.

It’s a deeply unsettling film.  In fact, if you are trying to find something to help lull you into sleep, this is probably not the best film to go with unless you’re prepared to have some fairly upsetting dreams.  Though shot on a low budget, the film captures the harshness of life on the fringes of society and both Jessica Taylor Haid and Robin Bain deserve a lot of credit for their performances as two characters who are not always likable but who are very recognizable.  It’s a sad film that also serves as a tribute to every lost and forgotten soul out there.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary

Insomnia File #64: Once Upon A Midnight Scary (dir by Nell Cox)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have gone over to YouTube and watched 1978’s Once Upon A Midnight Scary.

Made for CBS and featuring Vincent Price as the sardonic, cape-wearing host, Once Upon A Midnight Scary was a special designed to encourage young viewers to pick up a book and read.  Price introduced three different stories, each centering around ghosts and each based on a book.  In the first story, based on the book The Ghost Belonged To Me, a young farmboy discovers a ghost hiding in a barn and becomes a hero when the ghost warns him about an impending disaster.  The second story is an adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and it features Rene Auberjonois as a rather neurotic Ichabod Crane, who finds himself being pursued by the headless horsemen.  The third and longest story is an adaptation of The House With A Clock In Its Walls, featuring Severn Darden and a rather annoying child actor.

One thing you immediately notice about this show is that the special doesn’t actually reveal how any of the stories end.  Instead, each story is basically a recreation of the most exciting or interesting parts of the larger story but, whenever it appears that we’re heading for a conclusion, Vincent Price suddenly appears and says, “What happened next, you ask?  Read the book!”  This special basically casts Vincent Price as the world’s most devilish book salesman and while that might be annoying if you’re watching the special because you want to see how the stories turn out, it’s a lot of fun if you’re just watching the show to watch Vincent Price act like Vincent Price.  Vincent is not in the special as much as you might want but he still shows off his unique charm.  It’s impossible to be in a bad mood while watching Vincent Price.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House