The TSL Grindhouse: Robowar (dir by Bruno Mattei)

Posted on July 30, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After some men go missing in the jungles of an isolated island, a group of mercenaries is assigned to search the jungle, battle the guerillas who control the island, and rescue the missing. Accompanying the mercenaries is a shifty CIA agent who seems to know more than he’s letting on. What the mercenaries soon discover is that the guerillas aren’t the only threat that they have to worry about. There’s a shadowy figure stalking them. Equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and encased in impenetrable armor, this figure is following them like some sort of preda–

Wait. Does this sound familiar?

The 1988 film, Robowar, is an unapologetic rip-off of the Predator. Directed by Bruno Mattei and written by Troll 2 director Claudio Fragasso (who also plays this film’s version of the Predator), Robowar is such a rip-off of the Predator that it even ends with an end credits sequence in which we see clips of each actor stalking through the jungle. Reb Brown plays Murphy Black, the head of the mercenaries, and he spends a lot of his time shrilly shouting at them to “Move! Move! Move!” Catherine Hickland plays the head of a local orphanage. She introduces herself as “Virginia” and is called “Virginia” throughout the film but the end credits insist that her character was actually named “Virgin.” The other mercenaries are played by a combination of American and Italian stuntmen and some of them vaguely resemble their better-known counterparts from Predator. Max Laurel, who plays the group’s fearless tracker, looks like he could have been distantly related to Sonny Landham. Massimo Vanni and Romano Puppo play two mercenaries who have a relationship that’s similar to the friendship between Jesse Ventura and Bill Duke. Of course, in anyone really makes an impression, it’s Mel Davidson as the group’s government handler and who spends the whole movie smiling while delivering lines about how the entire group is doomed, himself included. It’s such an odd performance that it becomes rather fascinating.

What type of film is Robowar? It hits all of the same plot points as Predator but it does it with a much lower budget. Indeed, the film’s opening sequence appears to be made up of footage lifted from Mattei’s earlier film, Strike Commando. Whenever we see the action through the killer robot’s eyes, Mattei gives the action an extreme orange tint that makes it impossible to actually tell what’s going on. Reb Brown spends a lot of time yelling but the same thing could be said for the entire cast. This is one of those films where no one fires a machine gun without screaming while doing so. And yet, because it’s a Mattei film, it’s always watchable. Bruno Mattei (who born 92 years ago today in Rome) may have specialized in ripping-off other, most successful films but he was so shameless and unapologetic about it that it’s impossible to judge him too harshly. As always, Mattei keeps the action moving quickly and doesn’t worry to much about things like continuity. Mattei’s films were rarely good but they were almost always fun when taken on their own silly terms.

At times, Robowar almost feels like a parody of an American action film, with Fragasso’s script featuring dialogue that is so extremely aggressive and testosterone-fueled that even Shane Black probably would have told him to tone it down a notch. Much as with Troll 2, the film provides an interesting view into how Fragasso imagined Americans to be. Early on, we are informed that the mercenary group is known as BAM, which stands for “Big Ass Motherfuckers.” Later, one of the members of BAM insults two others by saying, “I bet they have the AIDS.” It’s as if someone programmed a computer to write an action movie and, as such, Robowar might turn out to be a surprisingly prophetic film.

Despite featuring a few Americans in the cast, Robowar was not available in the U.S. until it was released on Blu-ray by Severin Films in 2019. Though Bruno Mattei passed away in 2007, his work continues to be discovered by new audiences.

Italian Horror Showcase: Witchery (dir by Fabrizio Laurenti)

Posted on October 25, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Like many Italian horror films, Witchery is a film that is known by many names.

When it was originally released in Italy, it was called La Casa 4 and it was sold as being a sequel to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films. (In Italy, Evil Dead was called La Casa.) In countries where Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse was a hit, this film was entitled Ghosthouse 2. (Adding to the confusion, Ghosthouse was called La Casa 3 in Italy, even though it had nothing to do with the Evil Dead films.) In countries where neither Ghosthouse nor La Casa were hits, this film was sometimes called Witchcraft and sometimes called Witchery. For the purposes of this review, I’m going with Witchery, just because Witchcraft is kind of a bland title.

Anyway, the main lesson to be learned from Witchery is that David Hasselhoff will never be anyone other than David Hasselhoff. In this film, he plays a character named Gary but, from the minute you see him and he starts talking, it’s impossible to think of him as being anyone other than David Hasselhoff. You spend the film thinking, “Uh-oh, David Hasselhoff’s getting sexually frustrated. Uh-oh, that witch is coming for David Hasselhoff. Did they just throw David Hasselhoff through a window?”

David Hasselhoff and his friend Leslie (Leslie Cumming) are in Massachusetts, staying at an abandoned hotel. It’s rumored that, living nearby, there’s a reculsive actress, known as the Woman in Black (Hildegard Knef), who decades ago made some sort of deal with the devil or a witch or something like that and the hotel is now some sort of portal to Hell. Leslie is determined to discover whether the rumors are true but all David Hasselhoff cares about is the fact that Leslie is still a virgin. “It’s not normal,” he tells her, with a look in his eye that suggests that he’s willing to help her out. Somehow, Leslie manages to resist Hasselhoff.

Before Hasselhoff can continue to make his case, both he and Leslie have to hide in the hotel because a group of people show up. It turns out that the Brooks family is interested in buying the hotel so that they can renovate it and hopefully make some money! Now, they’ve arrived and they’re looking to inspect the property. There’s Jane (Linda Blair), who is pregnant. There’s Jane’s obnoxious stepmother, Rose (Annie Ross), who won’t stop complaining. There’s two real estate agents, Linda (Catherine Hickland) and Jerry (Rick Farnsworth). And then there’s a little kid who has a Sesame Street cassette player with him. Have you ever wanted to hear a demonic chant come out of a bulky box decorated with Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch? Well, this is the film for you!

Anyway, the Brooks family ends up getting stranded at the hotel for a night, which gives the Woman In Black several chances to pop up and send people to Hell. It turns out that the hotel is crawling with all sorts of demonic creatures and not even David Hasselhoff can scare them off. One person gets their lips sewn together and is hung in a fireplace. Someone else gets crucified upside down. Someone else gets impaled on a marlin. Because she’s played by Linda Blair, Jane gets possessed….

It’s a real mess of a film and not one that ever makes much sense. You keep wondering just what exactly the Woman In Black is hoping to accomplish but then you realize that the film itself has no idea so you stop worrying about it. Witchery may not be a good film but it’s such a strange film that it’s a little bit hard to resist. I mean, how many other films combine demonic chants with Big Bird? How many other films feature David Hasselhoff playing himself and getting into a fight with Linda Blair? Watching the film, you get the feeling that everyone involved just kinda made it up as they went along.

I’m not exactly recommending Witchery but it is one of those films that’s weird enough to justify viewing it at least once.

Cowboys and Zombies: Ghost Town (1988, directed by Richard Governor)

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

When an abandoned car is found in the desert, Deputy Langely (Franc Luz) is dispatched to the scene. While Langely investigates, a man suddenly rides by on horseback and takes a shot at him. Searching for the man, Langely comes across an old ghost town. After he passes out in a seemingly abandoned building, he wakes up and discovers that he’s surrounded by old-timey western folks. There’s a barmaid and a blind gambler and a blacksmith. They are all spirits who are being held hostage by an undead outlaw, Devlin (Jimmie Skaggs), who long ago made a pact with Satan that gave him control over the souls of all the people in the town. Now, Devlin has kidnapped Kate (Catherine Hickland), a woman from the modern world, and it’s up to Langely to not only rescue her but also set free the spirits that are trapped in the ghost town.

There’s nothing unexpected about this hororr/western hybrid, which was produced by Charles Band’s Empire Productions. The combination of two different genres leads to double the clichés but the film itself is still entertaining in its own cheesy way. The town is atmospheric and spooky, Franc Luz is a passable lawman, Jimmy Skaggs is a devilish villain, and Catherine Hickland shows that she deserved to be known for more than just being David Hasselhoff’s first wife. Despite a troubled production that went through three different directors, Ghost Town is a decent B-movie that should be enjoyed by anyone who ever played cowboys and zombies.