Mission of Justice (1992, directed by Steve Barnett)

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Suspended from the police force because he does thing his way and doesn’t follow the book, martial artist Kurt Harris (Jeff Wincott) joins the Peacekeepers, a Guardian Angel-like group that is led by Dr. Rachel K. Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen). Larkin is running for mayor on a law-and-order platform. Just as the Peacekeepers have protected the local bodegas, Dr. Larkin will clean up the streets.

Kurt has a reason beyond just bitterness for joining the Peacekeepers. Kurt suspects that the Peacekeepers is actually a criminal enterprise and that they are responsible for the murder of his mentor, Cedric Williams (Tony Burton, who does not throw the damn towel when confronted by the bad guys).

There were some good fight scenes and the idea of the Peacekeepers hiding their crimes behind their vigilante activities was an interesting one. The Peacekeepers were obviously based on New York’s Guardian Angels and it’s interesting that both the leader of the Angels and the leader of the Peacekeepers ended up running for mayor. Of course, Curt Sliwa’s campaign was not as destructive or evil as Dr. Larkin’s. In fact, I wasn’t really sure why Dr. Larkin was running for mayor, out of all the things that she could have done with her money and her paramilitary force.

Brigitte Nielsen always makes a good villain and the movie also features dependable straight-to-video action mainstays like Matthias Hues, Luca Bercovivi, and Karen Sheperd. Unfortunately, Jeff Wincott was always one of the blandest of the 90s second tier action heroes, lacking the charisma of a Dolph Lundgren, a Jean-Claude Van Damme, or even as Steven Seagal. Wincott was the star you called only after exhausting every attempt to sign Lorenzo Lamas. Wincott is convincing when he’s throwing a punch or kicking someone in the face but when he has to show emotion or deliver dialogue, the movie come to a halt.

With a more charismatic star, Mission of Justice could have been a B-classic but instead, it’s just another forgettable straight-to-video action movie.

Cinemax Friday: Stranger By Night (1994, directed by Gregory Brown a.k.a. Gregory Hippolyte a.k.a. Gregory Dark)

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Detective Bobby Corcoran (Steven Bauer!) is a cop with an anger problem. Whenever he and his parter, Troy Rooney (William Katt!!), catch a criminal, Bobby just loses control. Since, for some reason, they seem to catch a lot of criminals on rooftops, this often leads to Bobby threatening to throw someone over the edge. Even when his boss, Detective Larson (Michael Parks!!!) tells Bobby to stop trying to kill all of the suspects, Bobby still struggles to control his rage. He’s seeing a Dr. Anne Richmond (Jennifer Rubin!!!!), a psychiatrist, about his anger issues but since their sessions usually get interrupted by bouts of soft-core, saxophone-scored sex, it is debatable how much time they actually spend digging into the roots of Bobby’s problems.

Bobby also suffers from frequent blackouts. While he’s unconscious, he’s haunted by black-and-white memories of his abusive father (J.J. Johnston) beating up his mother. When he wakes up, he’s often in a different room from where he blacked out. Anne says that Bobby must be sleep-walking. Bobby says that he’s not sleep walking because he’s stubborn and doesn’t feel safe letting anyone into his mind. Lately, whenever Bobby passes out, a prostitute ends up dead. An unknown killer is stalking them and chopping off their ears. Bobby, with his anger issues and his dislike of prostitutes, is an obvious suspect. Is Bobby the killer or is he being framed?

Stranger By Night‘s credited director is Gregory Brown, who is better known as Gregory Dark. Dark is one of the best-known of the directors who specialized in erotic thrillers in the 90s. Dark was responsible for some of the classics of the genre but, unfortunately, Stranger By Night is not one of his better efforts. The action frequently drags and, with the exception of Bobby’s black-and-white flashbacks, Stranger By Night has none of Dark’s usual visual style. The film looks and feels flat and the plot is never feels as involving as it should. The discovery of the killer’s identity inspires not shock but an indifferent shrug.

On the positive side, it’s got a cast of skilled genre vets and all of them do what they can to elevate the material. William Katt is jittery and frequently funny while Jennifer Rubin, who deserved to have a much bigger career, is as sultry as ever. (Rubin brought both intelligence and sex appeal to almost every role that she played and it made her one of the best genre actresses around.) Steven Bauer, another actor who probably deserves a bigger career than he’s had, does a good job in the lead role. Bobby isn’t always a likable character and Bauer doesn’t try to make him one. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that Michael Parks does not get to do much, other than frown. There’s nothing more frustrating than watching a film that doesn’t take full advantage of the casting of Michael Parks.

Stranger By Night does seem to have a serious subtext. It tries to deal seriously with how Bobby’s abusive childhood has scarred him and there’s a lengthy scene where Bobby finally talks to his aged father. The scene is played straight and it’s not the sort of thing that you’d normally expect to see in a direct-to-video erotic thriller. (It’s a good example of what set Gregory Dark apart from some of the other directors churning out these type of films in the 90s.) For the most part, though, Stranger By Night is a forgettable trip to the world of late night Cinemax.

A Movie A Day #290: The Granny (1995, directed by Luca Bercovici)

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Granny Gargoli (Stella Stevens) is an old, wealthy, and dying. With the exception of her niece, Kelly (Shannon Whirry, wearing glasses so it’s clear that she is not a gold digger), Granny hates her entire family. When they come by for Thanksgiving dinner and start arguing about who is going to inherit Granny’s money, Granny snaps at her oldest son, “You’re the load that I should’ve swallowed!”

Since Granny does not want anyone to inherit her money, she decides that the best course of action would be to never die. She buys a magic elixir that will grant immortality to whoever drinks it. The salesman (played by director Luca Bercovici) tells her that it is very important to keep the elixir out of direct sunlight. Of course, that gets screwed up faster than a mogwai turning into a gremlin. When her family poisons her, the corrupted elixir does not keep Granny from dying. Instead, it allows Granny to return as a demon who hunts down her greedy relatives one at a time. One son is castrated. A daughter-in-law is attacked when her mink stole comes to life. Even after being killed, the members of the family return as wisecracking members of the living dead.

A mix of comedy and horror, The Granny used to show up regularly on late night Cinemax. It may not be scary (though the castration scene is the reason why I get nervous whenever I see scissors) but, with the exception of Kelly, everyone in the family is so hateful that it is still fun to watch all of the get what they deserve. Stella Stevens and Shannon Whirry are the main reasons to watch The Granny. Stella gets all the best lines while Shannon Whirry shows why those who grew up watching late night Cinema still debate which Shannon was the best, Whirry or Tweed?

A Movie A Day #157: Pacific Heights (1990, directed by John Schlesinger)

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Michael Keaton is the tenant from Hell in Pacific Heights.

In San Francisco, Patty (Melanie Griffith) and Drake (Matthew Modine) have just bought an old and expensive house that they can not really afford. In order to keep from going broke, they rent out two downstairs apartments. One apartment is rented by a nice Japanese couple. The other apartment is rented by Carter Hayes (Michael Keaton). Carter convinces Patty and Drake not to check his credit by promising to pay the 6 months rent up front. The money, he tells them, is coming via wire transfer.

The money never arrives but Carter does. Once he moves into the apartment, Carter changes the locks so that no one but him can get in. At all hours of the day and night, he can be heard hammering and drilling inside the apartment. Even worse, he releases cockroaches throughout the building. When Drake demands that Carter leave, the police back up Carter. After goading Drake into attacking him, Carter gets a restraining order. Drake is kicked out of his home, leaving Patty alone with their dangerous tenant.

Pacific Heights is the ultimate upper middle class nightmare: Buy a house that you can not really afford and then end up with a tenant who trashes the place to such an extent that the property value goes down. As a thriller, Pacific Heights would be better if Drake and Patty weren’t so unlikable. (When this movie was first made, people like Patty and Drake were known as yuppies.) Much like Drake’s house, the entire movie is stolen by Michael Keaton’s performance as Carter Hayes. Carter was not an easy role to play because not only did he have to be so convincingly charming that it was believable that he could rent an apartment just by promising a wire payment but he also had to be so crazy that no one would doubt that he would deliberately infest a house with cockroaches. Michael Keaton has not played many bad guys in his career but his performance as Carter Hayes knocked it out of the park.

One final note: Keep an eye out for former Hitchcock muse (and Melanie Griffith’s mother) Tippi Hedren, playing another one of Carter’s potential victims. Her cameo here is better than her cameo in In The Cold of the Night.

Horror Film Review: Rockula (1990, dir. Luca Bercovici)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I hate to say it, but I think Monster High is better than Rockula. For all of Monster High’s problems, stuff happened in it. This movie has some memorable characters and a funny setup, but then it just devolves into a series of musical numbers. Most are performed onstage so they have an in film context, but there is at least one that is done like you would expect from a music video. On the other hand, this does have Bo Diddley, Thomas Dolby, and Toni Basil in it. However, while we do see Diddley with his square guitar, never is Toni Basil dressed like a cheerleader and nor does Thomas Dolby become blinded by science.

The film opens and we are introduced to our lead named Ralph (Dean Cameron). He lives with his mother Phoebe (Toni Basil). They are both vampires. We are also introduced to the Ralph in the mirror.

In this movie, Ralph has another version of himself that is trapped inside every mirror he looks into. This is one of the highlights of the movie because his mirror self is quite funny. Like when he finds that a fun house mirror that stretches him out has increased more than just the length of his body.

Next we go to the exposition dump bar and learn about the setup of this film. Let me see if I can get this right. Sometime around the 17th century he met a girl named Mona and fell in love with her. But she had a boyfriend who was a pirate. Ralph and Mona were going to slip off and get married, but the boyfriend found out. Ralph and the boyfriend get in a fight. The boyfriend loses his sword and Mona gets killed by a hambone to the head. Ralph tried to save her, but since there were 20 pissed off pirates, he fled. Since she was killed before he could lose his virginity to her, she is now reincarnated every 22 years until they get it right. The day after the bartender tells us this story Ralph is going to meet Mona once again. And he unless he falls in love with her and saves her, a crazed pirate with a rhinestone peg leg will kill her on Halloween. Got that? Well, as you can imagine, Ralph is a little depressed. Or as Bo Diddley says.

Oh, and the sun doesn’t do anything to Ralph. Also, he has a similar scheme to Robert Sean Leonard in My Best Friend Is A Vampire (1987). The Red Cross Blood Mobile makes deliveries to him. Crosses don’t do anything to him either. Basically take everything you know about vampires and throw it the window. Well, he can turn into a bat. Just not a very impressive one.

All you really need to know is that he must lose his virginity to Mona otherwise a peg leg pirate will kill her leaving him sexless for another 22 years. Remember, this came out in 1990. The 1980’s were still going on in the heads of many people.

In short order, he runs into Mona. Mona is a singer. To be honest, I’m not sure how Thomas Dolby’s character is related to her other than that they are close and he sells really bizarre things for dead people.

To win over Mona, Ralph becomes ROCKULA!

Unfortunately, this did come out in 1990. So this happens to:

That is Bo Diddley on the right doing what I really hope was the least dignified thing of his career. If there was worse, then I don’t want to see it.

I could stop here and say I don’t want to spoil the ending of Rockula so I have an excuse to stop writing. But who cares about the ending and you already know what happens, so here it goes. Thomas Dolby gets really jealous and Toni Basil helps him to become the pirate with the rhinestone peg leg.

They duel, and Ralph wins. Dolby is knocked into a cryogenic pod that is conveniently there and drifts off to sleep thinking that a nine iron is an extension of his penis. No, seriously, the machine keeps telling him that as he drifts off to sleep.

Ralph and Mona live happily ever after. But wait, there’s one loose end. What about the Ralph in the mirror? That Ralph breaks the mirror on his end and emerges as this.

No explanation given for this at all. He just goes out on stage and sings while the credits roll. Who needs explanations? Ralph lost his virginity, Dolby will never be hyperactive again, Toni Basil is fine after getting hit by a hambone during the duel, and Bo Diddley is dead so he doesn’t have to worry about me reminding people this movie exists. Everyone’s happy.

Well, let’s leave Bo Diddley with a little dignity.