Recruits (1986, directed by Rafal Zielinski)

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Stop me if this sounds familiar.

The governor of Californa is planning on visiting the small town of Corvette so that he can announce the opening of a new highway. The mayor is concerned that the town’s small police force might not be big enough to handle all of the pomp and drama that goes along with an executive visit. He orders Captain Magruder (Mike McDonald) to lower the department’s standards and to recruit civilians off the street so that they can quickly be trained to become police officers. Magruder starts by going to down to the jail and recruiting for low-level offenders.

If you think this sounds a lot like Police Academy, you’re absolutely right. Just as Police Academy was pretty much a rip-off of Stripes, Recruits is a rip-off of Police Academy. Once again, the recruits are a lovable gang of misfits who screw up big time before getting a chance to prove that they have what it takes to be real cops. There’s the usual beach patrol scenes, a lot of nudity, and one manic nerdy recruit whose antics would inspire even Jerry Lewis to say, “Tone it down a little.” However, there is a major difference between Recruits and Police Academy. In Recruits, there is no lovable Commandant Lassard. Instead, Captain Magruder wants the recruits to fail because he’s hoping that the governor will fire the mayor and appoint Magruder in his place. I’m not sure that’s how municipal politics actually works but maybe it’s just a California thing.

As far as brainless rip-offs of movies that weren’t particularly good to begin with go, Recruits isn’t that bad. The humor is even more juvenile here than it was in Police Academy and trying to apply too much logic to the plot will make your brain hurt but it’s a breezy 90 minutes and it’s got a game cast, a few of whom went on to better things. (Lolita Davidovich, for instance, is the recruit who ends up naked in a limo that turns out to belong to the governor.) Jon Mikl Thor made his feature film debut as a recruit named Thunderhead and he gets to battle a bunch of outlaw bikers while one his songs plays in the background. It’s a pretty cool scene. If you’re nostalgic for these types of unapologetically dumb comedies, Recruits will satisfy that nostalgia.

Cinemax Friday: Jailbait (1993, directed by Rafal Zielinski)

Posted on January 17, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Jailbait takes place in Hollywood, the city of dreams. It opens with one of those long treks down Hollywood Boulevard that should be familiar to anyone who has seen a direct-to-video 90s film. Street performers try to cheat tourists out of their cash. Hookers look for customers. Pimps look for new girls. Vice cops look over the scene and say, “I’m too old for shit.” A Greyhound bus pulls into the station and the city’s newest inhabitant, 17 year-old Kyle Bradley (Renee Humphrey), steps off.

Kyle’s from Nebraska and she’s come to Los Angeles because she wants to be a professional dancer. By the standards of Nebraska, Kyle may be streetwise but she soon discovers that nothing is easy in Hollywood. She wants to find her half-sister, Merci (Krista Errickson) but Merci is nowhere to be found. Soon, Kyle is living on the streets, stealing food to survive and faking a heroin addiction to get a bed at the local rehab center.

What Kyle doesn’t know is that Merci is a high-class hooker. After one of her clients is murdered, Merci is framed for the crime. Merci’s on the run, though she still finds time to sing in a band. Heading up the investigation into the crime is Sergeant Lee Teffler (C. Thomas Howell). Teffler thinks that Merci’s innocent and believes that the murder is connected to a human trafficking ring that is run by his childhood friend, Roman (David Laboisa). When he meets Kyle, he takes her back to his apartment to keep her safe. Teffler swears that nothing can happen between them because she’s only seventeen. Kyle says that age shouldn’t matter and, because this is a 90s Cinemax film, he decides that she has a point.

In the late 80s and 90s, there were a countless number of films about innocent girls getting corrupted as soon as they got off the bus in Hollywood and Jailbait is certainly one of them. Jailbait, however, is one of the better examples of the genre because, from the start, Kyle is tougher than the naive, aspiring starlets who usually populated these films. Though Hollywood turns out to be an even harsher place than she was expecting, Kyle still comes across like she can take care of herself. That she’s not portrayed as being a wide-eyed or easily manipulated innocent makes Kyle’s relationship with Teffler feel less problematic than it would be otherwise. All of the characters, not just Kyle, are written and performed with more depth than you would normally expect to find in a film like this. Teffler is not just a renegade cop and Roman is not just an evil pimp. Because of their former friendship, they are portrayed as being two sides of the same coin.

It also helps that Jailbait is better acted than the standard straight-to-video film, with Renee Humphrey and Krista Errickson bringing a lot of depth to their roles. Even C. Thomas Howell, who often seemed to be sleep walking in his 90s films, is effective as the conflicted Teffler. Visually, Jailbait does a good job of capturing the glitzy grime of Hollywood. Though it may not be as well-know, Jailbait is a worthy companion to films such as Angel and Vice Squad.

I Want My R-TV: Spellcaster (1992, directed by Rafal Zielinski)

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

Give Charles Band a castle and a D-List celebrity and he’ll give you a movie!

In Spellcaster, which Band produced in 1988 but didn’t release until 1992, the castle is in Italy and there’s not one but three D-list celebrities. British DJ Richard Blade plays Rex, who is a VJ on R-TV, a cable station that only shows music videos. (A music station that actually plays music? Imagine that!) Bunty Bailey, who was the hot girl in Aha’s Take Me On video, is Cassandra, an alcoholic rock star. Finally, Adam Ant is Signor Diablo, who owns the castle.

The plot of the movie is that R-TV is hosting a contest where the winners get to go to Diablo’s castle and not only meet Rex and Cassandra but also search for a million dollar check. The contest winners are a snooty British woman, a sex-obsessed Italian, a sexy French woman, an overweight New Yorker, a blonde vegan, and a brother and a sister who could really use the money. They are a collection of clichés and none of them are very interesting, sympathetic, or smart. Not even the Italian notices that their host is named Mr. Devil.

The search for the money is a bust because the guests keep dying. For instance, the overweight New Yorker eats a stuffed pig, turns into a pig himself, and then gets shot by the snooty British woman, who just happened to bring a rifle with her because all snooty Brits enjoy hunting. Another person ends up getting eaten by a chair that has a lion’s head carved into it. When the lion comes to life and chomps down its jaws, the teeth are obviously foam rubber. It all has to do with Signor Diablo’s crystal ball, where he’s building a collection of souls.

With the casting Adam Ant and Bunty Bailey, Spellcaster tried to be a horror movie for the MTV generation but it came out several years too late. By the time Spellcaster was released, grunge had taken over MTV and both Adam Ant and the Take Me On video seemed like relics from another age. The film itself is a mostly dull affair, one that will be best appreciated by people who are nostalgic for the type of bad movies that used to show up on late night cable.