Tag Archives: Ace Mask

Holiday Film Review: Little Miss Millions (Dir by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A Jim Wynorski Christmas movie!?

Yes, there is such a thing.  First released in 1993, Little Miss Millions tells the story of a cynical but good-hearted private investigator named Nick Frost (Howard Hesseman) who is hired to track down a 9 year-old runway named Heather (Jennifer Love Hewitt, making her feature debut at the age of 12).  Nick is hired by Heather’s stepmother, Sybil (Anita Morris), who only wants Heather back because she’s worth several million dollars.  After Sybil hires Nick, she also decides to frame him for kidnapping Heather so that she can both get back her stepdaughter and get out of having to pay any reward money.  Soon, Nick has two federal agents (played by James Avery and Robert Fieldstell) on his trail.  For her part, Heather just wants to find and live with her birthmother, Susan (Terri Treas).

It’s a pretty simple film, one that borrows heavily from It Happened One Night (minus the romantic element, of course) and every single Christmas film that has ever been made.  This is one of those rather corny family films where you will pretty much be able to guess everything that is going to happen before it happens but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s a holiday film and no one watches a holiday film to get depressed.  They watch holiday films for the sentimental moments and the heart-warming comedy and the moments that create an idealized portrait of life during the holiday season.  For all of the violence to be found in them, both Die Hard and Die Hard 2 end with John McClane being reunited with his wife for the holidays.  As dark as It’s A Wonderful Life occasionally is, it still ends with that bell ringing and Clarence getting his wings.  Miracle on 34th Street never answers for sure whether or not Kris Kringle is who he says he is but Natalie Wood still gets her house with a tree in back.  A Christmas Story‘s Ralphie does not shoot his eye out.  Lethal Weapon‘s Riggs finds a new family.  And don’t even get me started on Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.  We watch holiday movies for holiday cheer and, in its unpretentious way, Little Miss Millions is full of that cheer.

Of course, it’s still a Jim Wynorski film.  So, while this is definitely a family film without many of the things that are typically associated with the Wynorski brand, Little Miss Millions still finds time for a sudden rainstorm that leaves everyone drenched.  And, of course, Nick and Heather stop off at a biker bar that is inhabited by Rick Dean, Toni Naples, and wrestler Queen Kong.  Peter Spellos, who played the much-abused Orville Ketchum in Sorority House Massacre 2 and Hard To Die, shows up as a bus driver.  It’s still a Wynorski film but it’s also a sweet-natured film, featuring likable performances from Howard Hesseman and Jennifer Love Hewitt.  It’s not a holiday classic but it’s diverting enough for those looking for something with which to pleasantly pass the time.

Horror Film Review: The Return of Swamp Thing (dir by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What fresh Hell is this?

The 1989 film Return of Swamp Thing is one of the many bayou-set films that I’ve watched recently.  On most streaming sites, it is listed as being a “horror film” and there’s a few horror elements to be found in the film.  There’s mutants and hybrids and evil moonshiners.  There’s a lot jokes that are so corny that you might get scared just from hearing them.  I can accept the idea that this film is technically a part of the horror genre but the film is more of a comedy than anything else.  That’s not a complaint on my part, by the way.  I knew what I was getting into as soon as I saw that it was directed by Jim Wynorski.  Jim Wynorski has been poking fun at himself and his films for longer than I’ve been alive.

Return of Swamp Thing is a sequel to Wes Craven’s 1982 Swamp Thing, a film that I haven’t seen but which I’ve been assured was considerably more serious than the sequel.  (That’s the difference between Craven and Wynorski.)  The film features Louis Jourdan as Dr. Arcane, a mad scientist who lives in a mansion in Louisiana.  Dr. Arcane is obsessed with finding the secret to immortality, which he thinks lies in splicing together different strands of DNA.  As a result of Arcane’s experiments, the swamp is now crawling with bizarre human/animal hybrids.  The bayou is no longer a safe place but, fortunately, the bayou has a protector!  Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) is a human-plant hybrid who wanders around the swamp and beats up evil doers.  Swamp Thing is described as being a humanoid vegetable but he really just looks like a stuntman wearing a green costume.

Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear) is Dr. Arcane’s stepdaughter.  She thinks that Arcane had something to do with her mother’s death and, of course, he did.  Abby heads down to the swamp to confront Arcane but, unfortunately, it turns out that she’s in over her head when it comes to surviving in the bayou.  When she’s not being chased by the weird mutant creatures, she’s having to deal with toothless moonshiners.  Do you know what the worst bayou is?  Bayouself!  (Did I already tell that joke this month?)  Fortunately, Abby is not alone for long because Swamp Thing emerges from the water and protects her.  Abby quickly falls in love with Swamp Thing.

“I’m a plant,” Swamp Thing tells her.

“I’m a vegetarian,” she replies, which I guess means she’s going to cannibalize Swamp Thing after he’s no longer any use to her.  Yikes!  Look out, Swamp Thing!

Dr. Arcane wants to use Abby’s DNA for his experiments.  Swamp Thing decides to protect Abby and the two dumbass kids who keep following him around.  It’s time for a battle in the bayou!

Obviously, Wynorski does not approach this material seriously or with a hint of subtlety and that’s definitely the right approach to take.  The sight of Louis Jourdan in the Louisiana bayous is so ludicrous that you have no choice but to laugh at it.  That said, the film is never quite as funny as one might hope.  It’s easy to imagine it working as a 30-minute pilot for a Swamp Thing sitcom but, as an 90-minute film, it quickly runs out of gas.  Louis Jourdan looks bored but Dick Durock is amusingly earnest as Swamp Thing.  Heather Locklear shows a flair for comedy but the box office failure of The Return of Swamp Thing pretty much ended her film career before it began.

After this, I think I’m going to avoid the swamp for a while.

Cinemax Friday: Not Of This Earth (1988, directed by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since today is director Jim Wynorski’s birthday, I want to review one of his early films.

A remake of the Roger Corman classic, Wynorksi’s Not Of This Earth stars Traci Lords as Nadine Story, a nurse who works in the office of Dr. Rochelle (Ace Mask) and who has a boyfriend named Harry (Roger Lodge) who is also a cop.  (The leads to jokes like, “Harry called.  He said he left his nightstick with you last night.”)  Dr. Rochelle’s main patient is the mysterious Mr. Johnson (Arthur Roberts), who dresses in all black, always wears sunglasses, and who needs frequent blood transfusions.  When Dr. Rochelle takes a look at Mr. Johnson’s blood, he sees that Mr. Johnson has a strange blood disease that has apparently never been discovered before.  Dr. Rochelle sends Nadine over to work at Mr. Johnson’s home as his private nurse.  Of course, Mr. Johnson is not of this Earth.  His planet is dying and, as Nadine discovers, he is on Earth to search for a new supply of blood.

Wynorski’s version of Not Of This Earth follows the exact same plot of the Corman original, right down to having a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman fall victim to the alien’s bloodlust.  (In the original, the salesman was played by Dick Miller.  In the remake, he’s played by Michael Delano.  Miller does not even get a cameo in the remake of Not of this Earth, which is surprising considering it was still a Corman production and Wynorski previously cast Miller in Chopping Mall.)  They’re both enjoyable movies, especially if you’re in the mood for something that won’t require much thought.  The main difference between the the two versions of Not of this Earth is that the Wynorski version features a lot more nudity and that it makes no pretense towards being anything other than a comedy.

This was Traci Lords’s first role in a non-adult film and she knocks it out of the park.  The scandal surrounding her adult film career has always overshadowed the fact that, for all of her notoriety, Traci Lords was actually a pretty good actress who could handle comedy.  While the deliberately campy humor in Not of this Earth is no one’s definition of subtle, Lords shows good comedic timing and, most importantly, she delivers her lines with a straight face and without winking at the audience.

Wynorski later said that the movie was so popular on video that he was able to buy a house with his share of the profits.  Not of this Earth is a classic Wynorski production, featuring everything that made Jim Wynorski a late-night cable and direct-to-video favorite in the 90s.