Bronson’s Rich: Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987, directed by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

To quote The Main With No Name, “When a man’s got money in his pocket, he begins to appreciate peace.”

Two years have passed since Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) last visited and cleaned up New York. He is back in Los Angeles, the president of his own successful architectural firm. Now a rich man, he has retired from killing criminals, though he still has dreams where he shoots muggers in parking garages. Paul has a new girlfriend, journalist Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz). When Karen’s teenage daughter, Erica (Dana Barron), dies of a cocaine overdose, it’s time for Paul to get his gun out of storage and blow away a drug dealer.

Shortly after shooting that drug dealer, Paul finds a note on his front porch. “I know who you are,” it reads. Paul then gets a call from a mysterious man (John P. Ryan) who identifies himself as being a reclusive millionaire named Nathan White. Nathan explains that his daughter also died of a cocaine overdose. He wants to hire Paul to take out not just the drug dealers but also the men behind the dealers, the bosses. Using his vast resources, Nathan has prepared a file on every major drug operation in Los Angeles. He offers to share the information with Paul.

“I’ll need a few days to think about it,” Paul says but we all know he’s going to accept Nathan’s offer just as surely as we know that Nathan White has an ulterior motive that won’t be revealed until the movie’s final twenty minutes.

For the first time, Paul is no longer just targeting muggers and other street criminals. This time, Paul is going after the guys in charge and trying to bring an end to drug trade once and for all. (The idea that the best way to win the war on drugs was just to kill anyone involved in the drug trade was a very popular one in the late 80s.) L.A.’s two major drug cartels are led by Ed Zacharias (Perry Lopez) and the Romero Brothers (Mike Moroff and Dan Ferro). Along with their own activities, Paul and Young work the turn the two cartels against each other.

It’s not just the criminals that have changed in Death Wish 4. Paul has changed, too. Paul used to just shoot criminals and run away. In Death Wish 4, he gets more creative. He sneaks into Zacharias’s mansion and bugs the phone so that he can keep track of what’s going down. When it comes time to kill a table full of drug dealers (one of whom is played by Danny Trejo), Paul doesn’t shoot them up. Instead, he sends them a bottle of champagne that explodes when they open it. By the end of the movie, Paul is blowing away the bad guys with a grenade launcher! How many former conscientious objectors can brag about that?

The biggest difference between Death Wish 4 and the films that came before it is the absence of director Michael Winner. Winner and Bronson had a falling out following Death Wish 3 and, as a result, Winner had little interest in returning to the franchise. Instead, Winner was replaced by J. Lee Thompson, who had already directed Bronson in several other Cannon films. As a result, Death Wish 4 is less “heavy” than the previous Death Wish films. Whereas Winner’s direction often felt mean-spirited and exploitive, Thompson plays up the film’s sense of airy adventure.

Though it barely made a profit at the box office and has been dismissed by critics, Death Wish 4 is an enjoyable chapter in Paul’s story. If you’re looking for mindless 80s mayhem, Death Wish 4 gets the job done with admirable efficiency. It would have made a great ending for the franchise but Bronson would return to the role one last time.

Tomorrow: Death Wish V: The Face of Death!

A Movie A Day #214: Urban Justice (2007, directed by Don E. FauntLeRoy)

Posted on August 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Steven Seagal returns and this time, he’s out for justice! Urban justice!

After his son, a beloved Los Angeles cop, is assassinated, Simon Ballister (Seagal, of course) comes out of retirement to get revenge. Retirement from what? Like most of Seagal’s characters, Simon has a deadly and legendary past. Nearly everyone who meets him says something like, “So, you’re Simon.” Everyone wants Simon Ballister to do something for them. El Chivo (Danny Trejo!) wants Simon to help defeat his rival, Armand Tucker (Eddie Griffin). Armand Tucker wants to be Scarface. Simon just wants revenge.

Much like Elvis, Steven Seagal’s career can be divided into a thin and a fat period. Thin Steven Seagal was all over movie screens in the 90s, making up for the fact that he could not act by convincingly beating people up. Fat Steven Seagal appears almost exclusively in direct-to-video productions. He does everything that Thin Seagal did but he sweats a lot more while doing it. Unfortunately, Fat Seagal is an even worse actor than Thin Seagal. Since Fat Seagal produces almost all of his own films, there is no one around to say, “Let’s cut away from Steve during this speech, he looks stupid.”

Urban Justice is peak Fat Seagal. It actually features more fights than the typical Fat Seagal movie but they are all edited in such a way that it is obvious that most of the blows were delivered by a stuntman while Seagal undoubtedly stood in a corner, trying to catch his breath. Since Urban Justice features Seagal in what is supposed to be the ghetto, he calls everyone that he meets, “motherfucker.” Fat Seagal has the same Clint Eastwood-style rasp that he had when he was Thin Seagal but he still sound stupid whenever he says, “I want the motherfucker who killed my son.”

Eddie Griffin is pretty good as Armand Tucker. I don’t know if Eddie improvised all of his dialogue but it certainly seems like he did. All of the movie’s best lines belong to Eddie Griffin. Just one example: “Man, fuck Santa Claus! He never gave me shit! That’s why I sell dope!” As for Danny Trejo, he doesn’t do much but he’s Danny Trejo.

Personally, looking over the career of Steven Seagal, I think he made a mistake by trying to be an action hero. It is hard to think of any other actor with as unlikable a screen presence as Steven Seagal. If Steve had made his career playing villains, he would probably still have a good career going. People would gladly play money to see Steven Seagal get blown up at the end of a Jason Bourne sequel. Instead, he insisted on playing the hero and his career is now made up of appearing in direct-to-video movies and threatening to run for governor of Arizona.

To quote Clint Eastwood, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

Movie A Day #178: Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989, directed by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

This is the one where Charles Bronson sodomizes a guy with a dildo.

Don’t worry, though. Bronson does it off-screen and the guy was abusing Nicole Eggert so he had it coming.

In Kinjite, Bronson plays Lt. Crowe, a tough LAPD vice cop who hates two groups of people: pedophiles (which is cool, who doesn’t hate them?) and the Japanese (which is not cool). Not only does Crowe sodomize a pervert but he also forces a pimp to eat a gold watch and later, with the help of his partner, he holds another man over the edge of a balcony, just to have that man accidentally slip out of his shoes and plunge to his death. Finally, Crowe tosses a convict into a prison cell, where another prisoner (played by Danny Trejo, in what may have been his film debut) announces that he’s “got something big and long for you.” Crowe chuckles, “That’s justice” and then walks away.

Danny Trejo in Kinjite

Of the many strange films that Bronson made for Cannon Films, Kinjite may be the strangest. The main plot involves Crowe searching for and rescuing the kidnapped daughter of a Japanese businessman (James Pax). Before his daughter was kidnapped, the businessman groped Crowe’s fifteen year-old daughter on a city bus. The entire movie seems to be building up to the moment that Crowe, who is portrayed as being overprotective of his daughter, discovers what the businessman did but that moment never comes. There are numerous scenes of the businessman in Japan but they do not have anything to do with the rest of the plot. Strangely, neither Crowe’s daughter nor his wife (played by Peggy Lipton) are ever menaced by the bad guys. What type of Charles Bronson movie is this?

In Bronson’s defense, he was 71 year-old when he made this movie and, off screen, his wife Jill Ireland was battling the cancer that would eventually take her life. Bronson can be excused for not appearing to be overly invested in Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. (Since Kinjite means Forbidden Subjects in Japanese, the actual title of this movie is Forbidden Subjects: Forbidden Subjects.) No one appears to have made much of an effort on Kinjite, though Bronson’s stunt double gets a good work out. Kinjite is full of scenes where Bronson throws a punch in close-up but his first in never actually shown connecting with anyone. Most of the action scenes are clumsily filmed so that Crowe keeps his back to the camera. All Kinjite needs is a supporting turn from Troy McClure and a cameo from McGarnagle and it would be perfect viewing for The Simpsons.

Kinjite would be the final film that Bronson made for Cannon Films. It would also be the last Bronson film to be directed by J. Lee Thompson. After Kinjite, Bronson appeared in two more feature films: Sean Penn’s The Indian Runner (which, if not for Penn’s pretentious direction, could have launched Bronson on a second career as a first-rate character actor) and a final Death Wish film. Bronson returned to television, appearing in three made-for-TV movies before retiring in 1999. Bronson died in 2003 but, as long as there are people who enjoy a good action movie, he will never be forgotten.

This scene is not from Kinjite but it’s still pretty fucking cool.

A Movie A Day #67: Animal Factory (2000, directed by Steve Buscemi)

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Edward Furlong is Ron Decker, a spoiled 18 year-old from a rich family who is arrested and sent to prison when he’s caught with a small amount of marijuana. Being younger and smaller than the other prisoners, Ron is soon being targeted by everyone from the prison’s Puerto Rican gang to the sadistic Buck Rowan (Tom Arnold). Fortunately, for Ron, prison veteran Earl Copen (Williem DaFoe) takes him under his wing and provides him with protection. Earl is the philosopher-king of the prison. As he likes to put it, “This is my prison, after all.” If he can stay out of trouble, Ron has a chance to get out early but, with Buck stalking him, that’s not going to be easy.

Based on a novel by ex-con Edward Bunker, Animal Factory was the second film to be directed by Bunker’s Reservoir Dogs co-stars, Steve Buscemi. Though it was overlooked at the time, Animal Factory is a minor masterpiece. Taking a low key approach, Buscemi emphasizes the monotony of prison life just as much as the sudden bursts of violence and shows why someone like Ron Decker can go into prison as an innocent and come out as an animal. DaFoe and Furlong give two of their best performances as Earl and Ron while a cast of familiar faces — Danny Trejo, Mickey Rourke, Chris Bauer, Mark Boone Junior — make up the prison’s population. Most surprising of all is Tom Arnold, giving Animal Factory‘s best performance as the prison’s most dangerous predator.

Playing Catch-Up With 6 Film Reviews: Avengers Grimm, Bad Asses On The Bayou, Hayride 2, Insurgent, Poltergeist, Tomorrowland

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here are 6 films that I saw during the first half of 2015. Some of them are on Netflix and some of them were major studio releases. Some of them are worth seeing. Some of them most definitely are not.

Avengers Grimm (dir by Jeremy M. Inman)

Obviously made to capitalize on the popularity of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers Grimm opens with a war in the world of fairy tales. Evil Rumpelstiltskin (Casper Van Dien) uses Snow White’s (Laura Parkinson) magic mirror to cross over into our world and he takes Snow White with him! It’s now up to Cinderella (Milynn Sharley), Sleeping Beauty (Marah Fairclough), and Rapunzel (Rileah Vanderbilt) to cross over into our world, save Snow White, and defeat Rumpelstiltskin. Also sneaking over is rebellious Red Riding Hood (Elizabeth Petersen) who is determined to kill Rumpelstiltskin’s henchman, The Wolf (Kimo Leopoldo).

Got all that?

Avengers Grimm is another enjoyably insane mockbuster from The Asylum. The budget’s low, the performances are intentionally melodramatic, and it’s all lot of fun. Casper Van Dien has a lot of fun playing evil, the women all get to kick ass, and Lou Ferrigno is well-cast as a labor leader named Iron John.

Avengers Grimm is currently available on Netflix.

Bad Asses On The Bayou (dir by Craig Moss)

Apparently, this is the third film in which Danny Trejo and Danny Glover have respectively played Frank Vega and Bernie Pope, two old guys who kick ass in between worrying about their prostates. I haven’t seen the previous two Bad Asses films but I imagine that it really doesn’t matter.

In this film, Trejo and Glover go to Louisiana to attend a friend’s wedding. When she’s kidnapped, they have to rescue her and impart some important life lessons to her younger brother. It’s all pretty predictable but then again, it’s also pretty good for a film called Bad Asses On The Bayou. This is a film that promises two things: Danny Trejo kicking ass and lots of bayou action. And it delivers on both counts.

In fact, I would say that Bad Asses On The Bayou is a better showcase for Danny Trejo’s unique style than the better known Machete films. Danny Trejo is a surprisingly adept comedic actor and he gives a performance here that shows his talent goes beyond mere physical presence.

Bad Asses On The Bayou is currently available on Netflix.

Hayride 2 (dir by Terron R. Parsons)

I should admit up front that I haven’t seen the first Hayride film. Luckily, Hayride 2 picks up directly from the end of the first film and is filled with so many flashbacks and so much conversation about what happened that it probably doesn’t matter.

Essentially, Pitchfork (Wayne Dean) is a murderous urban legend who turns out to be real. He killed a lot of people in the first film and he stalks those that escaped throughout the 2nd film. Like all good slasher villains, Pitchfork is a relentless killer. He’s also an unrepentant racist, which leads to a genuinely unpleasant scene where he attacks a black detective (Corlandos Scott). Say whatever else you will about the film, Hayride 2 deserves some credit for being on the side of the victims. No attempt is made to turn Pitchfork into an anti-hero and the movie is relentlessly grim.

Hayride 2 is an odd film. The film’s low-budget is obvious in every single scene. The pacing is abysmal and the performances are amateurish. And yet, when taken on its own meager terms, it has a dream-like intensity to it that I appreciated. Then again, I always have had a weakness for low-budget, regional horror films.

Hayride 2 is available on Netflix.

Insurgent (dir by Robert Schwentke)

Insurgent is both the sequel to Divergent and was also 2015’s first YA dystopia film. Shailene Woodley is as good as ever and I guess it’s good that she has a commercially successful franchise, which will hopefully inspire audiences to track down better Shailene Woodley films like The Spectacular Now.

All that said, Insurgent often felt even more pointless than Divergent. For a two-hour film featuring performers like Woodley, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Ansel Elgort, and Miles Teller, Insurgent has no excuse for being as forgettable and boring as it actually was. The next installment in The Hunger Games can not get here soon enough.

Poltergeist (dir by Gil Kenan)

When a family (led by Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt) move into a new house, they discover that everything is not what it seems. For one thing, they come across a bunch of creepy clown dolls. They also hear a lot of scary sounds. They discover that the house was built on an old cemetery. Their youngest daughter vanishes. And finally, someone says, “Isn’t this like that old movie that was on TCM last night?”

Okay, they don’t actually say that. However, as everyone knows, the 2015 Poltergeist is a remake of the 1982 Poltergeist. Since the 1982 Poltergeist still holds up fairly well, the 2015 Poltergeist feels incredibly unnecessary. It has a few good jump scenes and it’s always good to see Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt in lead roles but ultimately, who cares? It’s just all so pointless.

Watch the wall-dancing original. Ignore the remake.

Tomorrowland (dir by Brad Bird)

Welcome to the world of tomorrow! Wow, is it ever boring!

Actually, I feel a little bit bad about just how much I disliked Tomorrowland because this is a film that really did have the best intentions. Watching the film, you get the sinking feeling that the people involved actually did think that they were going to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, their idea of a better world is boring and almost oppressively optimistic. There is no room for cynicism in Tomorrowland. Bleh. What fun is that?

Anyway, the film basically steals its general idea from the Atlas Shrugged trilogy. Tomorrowland is a secret place that is inhabited by inventors, dreamers, and iconoclasts. Years ago, Frank (George Clooney) was banished from Tomorrowland because, after learning that the Earth was destined to end, he lost “hope” in mankind’s future. Fortunately, he meets Casey (Britt Robertson), who is full of hope and through her, he gets to return. They also get a chance to save the world and battle a cartoonish super villain played by Hugh Laurie. (Why is he a villain? Because he’s played by Hugh Laurie, of course!)

After all the hype and build-up, Tomorrowland turned out to be dull and predictable. What a shame. The Atlas Shrugged trilogy was at least fun because it annoyed the hipsters at the AV Club. Tomorrowland is just forgettable.

Lisa 6 Favorite 2015 Super Bowl Commercials!

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

While I did watch the Super Bowl tonight, I have to admit that I only watched it for the commercials. Back in 2013, I did a post on my favorite super bowl commercials and I meant to do the same thing for 2014 but, for whatever reason, I never got around to doing so. So, I was definitely not going to miss out this year!

Unfortunately, the commercials really weren’t that great this year. Perhaps if I was looking for a new car, the constant barrage of car commercials would have been more interesting. I found a lot of the so-called “empowering” commercials to be condescending. (To be honest, I always resent the idea that I need a commercial to make me feel good about myself. I’m stronger than that.) The McDonald’s commercial where people got free food for telling their mom that they loved them upset me because my mom’s not here for me to tell her how much I love her. And then there were all the commercials about fathers bonding with their sons (never their daughters, interestingly enough) and those made me want to throw stuff as well.

In fact, when all is said and done, my favorite part of the Super Bowl was not watching that commercials. Instead, it was watching the dancing sharks.

Dance, Shark, dance!

But there were a few commercials that stood out. For example, there was the Nationwide dead kid commercial, which made me feel like a terrible person because I started giggling as soon as I saw that the TV had fallen over. And then there was that GoDaddy commercial that was so offensive that it didn’t even make it to air. (The commercial featured a lost puppy who, upon finally making his way back home, discovers that he’s being sold online. Dear GoDaddy, I hate you and your asinine commercials. Stop trying to be edgy, ‘kay? Okay.)

Oh! And don’t forget the Nissan commercial about the NASCAR driver who is a crappy father but then makes up for it by showing up at his son’s school in a new car.

My boyfriend actually paid more attention to the game than the commercials, which is like totally the wrong way to do the Super Bowl if you ask me. But, for the record, his favorite ad was the Victoria’s Secret Super Bowl commercial. I’m just happy that he got something out of the game.

Anyway, here are my 6 top Super Bowl commercials.

6) Liam Neeson for Clash of Clans

I really don’t know much about Clash of Clans but this commercial made me laugh because this is how I’ve always imagined Liam Neeson passes the time between Taken movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuFebXDkI3k

5) Pierce Brosnan for Kia

This is actually one of the few car commercials that I actually enjoyed. Pierce is aging well and appears to have a pretty good sense of humor about how his career will always be defined by James Bond.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSqqCI0LNHs

4) Nationwide — Invisible Mindy

Everyone was so traumatized by the Nationwide Dead Kid commercial that the Invisible Mindy commercial kinda got lost in the shuffle. That’s a shame because it’s actually pretty clever. What really made the commercial, for me, was the Matt Damon cameo at the end. It was appropriate because Mindy first came to prominence when she and a friend wrote and performed a play called “Ben and Matt,” which told the story of Matt’s bromance with Ben Affleck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrq8ruhmCX0

3) The Snickers Machete Bunch Commercial

Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi! Need I say more?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=linSRGYnCcc

2) The Budweiser Puppy Commercial!

This one made me cry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsjRRMMg_Q

1) NO MORE’s Official Super Bowl Ad

And finally, here’s my top ad. This one was powerful and important and all it was selling was hope for a better future.

Film Review: In the Blood (dir by John Stockwell)

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you remember Haywire?

Haywire was an action film that came out in 2011. It briefly got a lot of attention because it starred MMA fighter Gina Carano in her feature film debut and it was directed by Steven Soderbergh. I have to admit that I didn’t care much for Haywire. Some of that is because Gina Carano herself didn’t seem to be a very good actress but my main issue with the film was with Steven Soderbergh. Don’t get me wrong — I know that Soderbergh can be a genius. However, he’s also a remarkably pretentious filmmaker. Sometimes that pretension works, like with The Girlfriend Experience. But, in the case of Haywire, all the pretension served to do was to make a thin story even more annoying.

John Stockwell, on the other hand, is a director who is the very opposite of pretentious. Whereas Soderbergh often makes genre films that try too hard to be art, Stockwell makes genre films that are so unapologetic about being genre that they often become art despite themselves. Stockwell may never be as acclaimed as Soderbergh but, on the whole, he’s a much more consistent filmmaker.

Take In The Blood for instance. In the Blood came out earlier this year, got thoroughly mediocre reviews, and disappeared from theaters pretty quickly. When I watched it last night, I had very low expectations.

But you know what?

In the Blood isn’t bad.

In fact, it’s a perfectly entertaining and, ultimately, rather empowering film.

In In The Blood, Gina Carano plays Ava. Ava, we quickly learn, has led a difficult life. Raised in extreme poverty by a father who taught her early how to fight and how to defend herself, Ava is a former drug addict. When she goes to rehab, she meets and falls in love with fellow addict Derek (Cam Gigandet). Once they’re both clean, Ava and Derek marry despite the concerns of Derek’s wealthy father (Treat Williams).

For their honeymoon, Derek and Ava go to the type of Caribbean island where bad things always happen in movies like In The Blood. They meet Manny (Ismael Cruz Cordova), who agrees to be their guide on the island. One night, Manny takes them out to a club where Ava ends up getting into a huge fight with literally everyone on the dance floor, including a local gangster played by Danny Trejo. The next morning, Manny takes them zip lining but Derek ends up plunging from the zip line and crashing down to the ground below. He’s rushed to the hospital where he promptly vanishes.

Despite being ordered to return to America by police chief Luis Guzman, Ava is determined to figure out what has happened to her husband and she’s willing to beat up the entire island to do it…

Obviously inspired (much like almost every other low-budget action film released over the past few years) by Taken, In The Blood is a familiar but enjoyable burst of pulp fiction. As opposed to Soderbergh’s approach to Haywire, Stockwell doesn’t worry about trying to disguise the genre roots of In The Blood. Instead, he simply tells the story and he tells it well. In The Blood is a film that’s full of beautiful island scenery, villainous character actors, and enjoyable melodramatic dialogue. The pace never falters and the action is exciting. In a few years, the club fight scene will be remembered as a classic of action cinema.

And best of all, Gina Carano kicks ass! In The Blood gives her a chance to show what she can actually do when she has a director who is willing to get out of her way. As opposed to Haywire, where she often seemed to get lost amongst all of Soderbergh’s showy techniques, Gina Carano gives a confident and determined performance in In The Blood. After having to sit through countless action films where every female character is either a victim or a pawn, there is something so wonderful about seeing a movie where a woman gets to do something more than whimper and beg. Regardless of how predictable the film’s plot may be, the fact that it’s a woman — as opposed to a man — who is getting to kick ass (and look good while doing it!) serves to make In The Blood something of a minor masterpiece of the pulp imagination.

If nothing else, In The Blood shows that sometimes it’s best to keep things simple.

Horror Review: All Souls Day (dir. by Jeremy Kasten)

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Arleigh

All Souls Day was part of the wave of zombie films that continues to flood the direct-to-video (and at times straight to cable) market. This particular zombie movie was written by Mark A. Altman who also wrote the campy and very B-movie-like House of the Dead 2. This was a zombie flick which actually improved on Uwe Boll’s own House of the Dead that doesn’t really come as a surprise. All Souls Day was Altman’s second try at another zombie movie and while this second attempt wasn’t as fun as his previous one it still managed to be a watchable and interesting zombie movie.

The film’s set in a dusty Mexican town that hides a dark secret from its past. A young couple (played by Marisa Ramirez and Travis Wester) happen upon what seems like an abandoned town. They soon come across a funeral procession and when they inadvertently interrupt the ritual all hell literally breaks loose. It doesn’t help the couple that the only person who seems to be real in this town was the sheriff whose own past ties in with the secret of the town. It was very good to see genre veteran David Keith in the role of the town sheriff. His limited time in the movie was pretty good.

When the town’s people (who by now have shown themselves to be zombies) begin to lay siege on the young couple in the town’s only hotel the rest of the movie gradually shows more of what made this particular Mexican town a death trap for any passerby who happen to come across it on All Souls Day. Soon enough help comes in the form of the young couple’s two friends who arrive in town only to get themselves stuck in the same dire situation the original couple find themselves in.

The resolution of the movie was handled well and it brought a nice supernatural origin and reason as to why the town’s population has turned into flesh-eating zombies. The performances in the film could be seen as being mixed. The more veteran performers like Jeffrey Combs, David Keith, Danny Trejo (as the town’s manipulative patriarch) and Laura Herring perform their roles well without being too over-the-top. The actors playing the pair of young couples on the other hand go from very good to awful in the span of moments in some of the scenes. It’s really this mixed bag in the cast’s performance which keeps All Souls Day from turning into one of those hidden gems in a hill of crap that most zombie flicks turn out to be.

The gore effects in this film was pretty good in the small amount of sequences where the zombies end up doing what they do best once they get a hold of someone. While I was hoping for more of the grue in this particular zombie movie I wasn’t too surprised why it didn’t have more. Other than the pair of young couple there really wasn’t much living people for these zombies to munch on. The film itself show’s it’s low-budget origins in that it looks like something one would see premiere on a random Saturday night on the SyFy Channel. The film actually did premiere on that channel when it was still called SciFi. It’s a look that says TV instead of film, but despite that little nitpick it doesn’t distract much from the experience.

Now, most zombie films of the low-budget variety tend to just have badly done make-up effects. With All Souls Day the filmmakers seem to have done an end-around that budgetary problem by taking a page out of the classic Italian zombie flicks of the 1980’s by making these undead dry, decayed creatures. It’s something that worked well for the Fulci zombies and here it works as well.

All Souls Day was not a great zombie film by any stretch of the imagination, but it had enough entertaining moments and some genuine scary sequences to make it an enjoyable hour and a half of horror viewing on any October night.

Machete Kills: Trailer #2

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, when I saw You’re Next last weekend, I also saw the second trailer for Machete Kills.

The audience I saw seemed to be really excited about the trailer but I have to say that, after seeing it, I’m actually a bit worried about Machete Kills. The first Machete was a parody of grindhouse filmmaking but it was an affectionate parody. As over-the-top as it was, it still felt like it could have also been a genuine grindhouse film.

This trailer for Machete Kills, however, feels like the exact opposite. Instead of celebrating the excesses of the grindhouse, this trailer feels more like it’s inviting us to mock the films to which it claims to be paying homage.

This trailer almost feels like it’s for a film that was made by somebody who has never seen an actual grindhouse film but who has seen plenty of YouTube videos.

Hopefully, I’ll be proven wrong.