The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Black Wake (dir by Jeremiah Kipp)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this film from 2018 (which is largely made up of “found footage”), authorities are confused by a series of mysterious, beachside deaths. The dead seem to have little to no connection with each other, besides having died near the Atlantic Ocean. Some think that the murders are the result of a cult. However, Dr. Luiza Moreira (Nana Gouvea) is convinced that the death are being caused by some sort of parasite that is transferred from host to host. Her boss (Eric Roberts) doesn’t buy it and he thinks that Dr. Moreira is becoming unhinged in her obsession with her theory. But soon, the streets are full of zombiefied killers, all of whom seem to be determined to reach the ocean.

As for Dr. Moreira, her boss may actually have a point about her behavior. Much of the film is made up footage of Dr. Moreira speaking straight to the camera, explaining her theory and also discussing how everyone that she works with is either too foolish or too in denial to understand that its right. Soon, she almost seems to be taking a bit of joy in just how out-of-control the situation has become. Meanwhile, she finds herself suffering from terrible headaches and occasional hallucinations. Two government agents follow her and watch her every move, ominously talking about how she doesn’t realize what is really happening. When she tries to go to her family to warn them about what is happening, she discovers that the situation is even more extreme than she originally thought.

Black Wake is a low-budget slice of Cthulhu-style horror, one that works because it embraces its low budget and basically tosses in every weird twist and situation that it can come up with. It’s an enjoyably weird movie and, if nothing else, it captures the extent to which some people will go to pretend that there’s nothing strange happening around them. My favorites were the dumbass frat guys who just had to pick up a hitchhiker, despite the fact that she was obviously homicidal and disturbed. One of the frat guys points out that it might not be a good idea to pick up a stranger while there’s a wave of mass murders occurring at the beach, one of his friends rationalizes the decision by saying, “She’s a chick.” Drunk frat boys so desperate to get laid that they’ll risk being murdered? That’s probably the most realistic moment in the entire film.

Eric Roberts appears in three scenes, playing an unsympathetic bureaucrat. (Is there any other type?) He’s not the only actor making a cameo here. Chuck Zito plays a sheriff. Vincent Pastore plays a doctor who memorably says, “Fuck this!” when confronted with the walking dead. And Tom Sizemore has two effective scenes as an unstable homicide detective.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Here’s The Trailer From Impuratus!

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Impuratus, which is due to be released on October 10th, features one of the final performances from the late Tom Sizemore. Here’s the trailer!

Blue Steel (1990, directed by Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

On her first night on the job, rookie cop Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) blows away a robber (Tom Sizemore) who was holding up a convenience store. The robber was holding a gun when he was shot but, right after his body hits the ground, the gun is stolen by a stockbroker named Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver). Somehow, no one notices Eugene grabbing the gun from the floor and he improbably gets away from the crime scene without any of the investigating officers noticing that he’s concealing a gun in his suit.

Because Eugene stole the gun, Megan is accused of shooting an unarmed man and she is suspended from the force. Meanwhile, Eugene becomes obsessed with the gun, hears voices, and starts to shoot random people. He even carves Megan’s name on one of the bullets. When the bullet is found in the body of one of Eugene’s targets, Megan becomes the number one suspect even though it wouldn’t make any sense for a murderer to carve their name on the evidence. This isn’t The Wire. None of the dead are going to be found with a note in their hand that says, “Tater Killed Me.” It should be obvious to everyone that Megan is being set up but instead, everyone just assumes Megan is a stupid murderer who doesn’t know how to cover her tracks. Eugene also starts to date Megan but when Megan rejects him after he confesses to being the murderer, Eugene starts to stalk her and her friends. Not even Megan’s new boyfriend (Clancy Brown) can keep her safe from a stockbroker with a grudge.

Blue Steel benefits from Kathryn Bigelow’s stylish direction and Jamie Lee Curtis’s dedicated performance but it suffers because Eugene is so obviously crazy from the get go that it never makes sense that he would be able to get away with his crimes for as long as he does. Even after Megan realizes that Eugene is crazy, she can’t get anyone to believe her even though everything about Eugene suggests that he’s the murderer. Not even confessing to the crime is enough to keep Eugene in prison. Somehow, Eugene is able to commit multiple murders and attempted murders right in front of Megan and then escape before Megan or anyone else can even react. Megan’s been trained at the Police Academy while Eugene has no criminal training whatsoever but he’s still always able to outthink and outrun her. It makes it seem as if Megan just isn’t a very good cop. Luckily, Bigelow, Curtis, Silver, and Clancy Brown would all be involved with better movies in the future.

Film Review: Project Skyquake (dir by József Gallai)

Posted on November 7, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Project Skyquake, the latest film from director József Gallai, opens with a voice in the darkness. The voice belongs to Andrew Derrickson (Simon Bramford), the stepfather of a student journalist named Cassie. Andrew explains that Cassie and her friend Margot have been missing for a while. They are actually one of the many people who disappeared all in the same day, an event that changed the world.

As he speaks, we see scenes of empty roads, abandoned buildings, and ominous forests and we can’t help but notice that there does not seem to be many people around. We know that something big has happened but we don’t know what yet. However, when looking at these desolate images, it’s hard not to think about what the real world has gone through over the past two years. Due to the pandemic and lockdowns, many people did literally seem to disappear. They retreated into their homes and they locked their doors and some have yet to emerge. In the early days of the Pandemic, images of empty streets and deserted buildings were a regular feature on the news and online. Some news sources even took to referring to the pre-COVID days as being the “before time,” as if the expectation was that the world would just have to accept the new normal of a empty streets and missing faces. Project Skyquake, I should make clear, is not directly a COVID film but it is a film that resonates because of what most of humanity has just been through (and what many people are currently still experiencing). At a time when many are trying to memoryhole what it was like and pretend as if it really wasn’t as bad as all that, Project Skyquake is a film that reminds us of exactly what it felt like to feel as if one was witnessing the end of the world.

We watch footage of the days leading up to the disappearance of Cassie (Laura Ellen Wilson) and her friend Margot (Laura Saxon). Cassie is fascinated by “skyquakes,” a very real phenomena in which people have reported hearing explosions and trumpets coming from the sky. As Cassie explains it, some people think that the skyquakes are UFO-realted. Some blame the government. Some say it’s a natural occurrence with a scientific explanation. Others view the skyquakes as being the sound of heavenly trumpets announcing the start of the rapture and the end of the world. Cassie explains that the skyquakes could be holes in time and we are hearing the sounds of the future.

After receiving a video from Hank (Tom Sizemore), another skyquake researcher, Cassie and Margot drive out to a location where skyquakes have frequently been reported. They’re hoping to capture the phenomena on film. Instead, they find themselves driving further and further into what appears to be a deserted forest. Of course, the forest isn’t as deserted as it may appear and Cassie and Margot soon discover the truth about the skyquakes….

Project Skyquake is an enjoyably creepy found footage film. The film makes good use of its atmospheric locations, with the forest and the things found within growing significantly more threatening with each passing moment. (The shots of the abandoned buildings and the unwelcoming wilderness reminded me a bit of Jean Rollin’s The Night of the Hunted, with its portrayal of semi-deserted and dystopian Paris.) The film does a good job of capturing the frightening and powerless feeling of being lost, both physically and mentally. Laura Ellen Wilson and Laura Saxon are both immediately sympathetic as Cassie and Margot and, even more importantly, they’re believable as lifelong friends. The viewer really does care about what is going to happen to them.

The film also does a good job of portraying the underground network of paranormal investigators and hobbyists who are convinced that there is more to the world than what can be easily seen. Along with Tom Sizemore’s Hank. we also hear from Scott Carmichael (Robert LaSardo), an expert on the phenomena, and a Professor Stokkebø (Jon Vangdal Aamaas). They are people who come from different parts of the world and different backgrounds but what they all share in common is a belief that there is more out there than we know or have been told about.

Project Skyquake is a short but effective film about a real-world phenomena. It’ll make you listen to the sky a little more carefully then next time you’re standing underneath it.

Striking Distance (1993, directed by Rowdy Herrington)

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Thomas Hardy (Bruce Willis) comes from a huge family of Pittsburgh cops. He used to be a homicide detective but then his father (John Mahoney) was murdered by a serial killer and his cousin (Robert Pastorelli) jumped off a bridge after Hardy turned him in for being crooked. When Hardy insisted that the serial killer who murdered his father and countless others in Pittsburgh had to be a cop, he was kicked out of homicide and reassigned to the river patrol.

Two years later, Hardy drinks too much and spends his time floating up and down the river. He’s got a new, younger partner named Emily (Sarah Jessica Parker) but not even Emily can snap him out of his funk. It’s not until the serial killer starts to strike again — this time specifically targeting people from Hardy’s life — that Hardy starts to care about police work again.

Striking Distance is a good example of a thoroughly mediocre film that bombed at the box office but was given a new lease on life by HBO. During the 90s, it sometimes seemed as if there wasn’t a day that went by that HBO didn’t air Striking Distance at least once. I guess it makes sense. Bruce Willis was a big name and Sarah Jessica Parker did eventually end up starring on one of HBO’s signature hits. Still, it seems like they could have found a better Bruce Willis film to air. When critics in the 90s complained that Bruce Willis was an ego-driven star who wasn’t willing to break out of his comfort zone, they weren’t talking about Willis’s appearances in films like Pulp Fiction or 12 Monkeys or even Die Hard. They were talking about movies like Striking Distance, where Willis smirks his way through the film and spends more time making the camera gets his good side than actually developing a character.

The most interesting thing about Striking Distance is that it manages to be too simple and too complicated at the same time. There’s no mystery to the identity of the serial killer or why Hardy is being targeted. There’s also no depth to Hardy and Emily’s relationship. As soon as they meet, everyone knows where their relationship is going to head. At the same time, the movie is full of red herrings and unnecessary characters. Hardy comes from a family of policemen and it seems like we meet every single one of them. Tom Atkins, Dennis Farina, and Tom Sizemore all show up as different relatives. They don’t add much to the movie but they’re there. Andre Braugher, Timothy Busfield, and Brion James also all show up in minor roles, to no great effect beyond providing the film with an “It’s that guy!” moment.

To the film’s credit, it has a few good chase scenes, though the novelty of everyone being in a boat wears off pretty quickly. Striking Distance is a mess but everyone who had HBO in the 90s sat through it at least once.

Spring Breakdown: 7 Deadly Sins (dir by Glenn Plummer)

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I really get started on this review, I think I should make clear two things:

First off, this film can be found, for free, on Amazon Prime under the title 7 Deadly Sins. That’s also the title under which it’s listed on the imdb. However, all of the poster art that I’ve found for this film indicates that this film was originally entitled Charlie Charlie. It makes sense, as the whole point of the film is that 7 idiots play a game called “Charlie Charlie,” where the point is to talk to some dead guy who never went to church and was therefore never cleansed of his sins. Apparently, playing Charlie Charlie gets you killed. Who would have guessed contacting an evil spirit would have such dire consequences.

Secondly, I tend to be forgiving of low budget horror films. Some of my favorite films are low-budget horror films. I respect any director who can create a frightening scene or maintain an ominous atmosphere on a low budget. If you can make the paranormal seem real even when you can’t afford CGI, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your filmmaking skills. My point is that when I tell you that this is not a good film and that it’s actually one of the worst horror films that I’ve seen in while, I’m not just saying that because of the low budget. I’m saying it because the movie freaking sucks.

7 Deadly Sins takes place at a Spring Break house party being thrown by the least likable teenagers on the planet. Most of them are celebrating because it’s their last Spring Break before college. Jamal (Steph Santana), on the other hand, is celebrating because it’s his last weekend before he starts a five year prison sentence. At the start of Spring Break, Jamal was pulled over by a cop who discovered a huge amount of weed in the trunk of his car. Apparently, in the world of 7 Deadly Sins, the justice system moves a lot quicker than it does in the real world because it only takes Jamal a few days to be found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Jamal’s girlfriend, Kim (Tori Vild), was in the car as well. However, because she’s rich and she’s white, she’s only sentenced to a few months of house arrest. She has to wear an ankle bracelet and listen to her racist mom and her pervy stepfather complain about her boyfriend. Kim swears to Jamal that she’ll wait for him to get out of prison. Jamal suggests a threesome to help him prepare for life behind bars. Kim kicks him out of her room. It’s that type of party.

Sara (Gladys Bautista) has been hired, by Kim’s stepfather, to keep an eye on Kim for the weekend. Kim is upset because Sara is Mexican and they’re both the same age. Sara is upset because everyone screwed up the Charlie Charlie game. “You have to play the game,” she repeats, “You have to repent your sins.”

“Shit’s fucked up,” Jamal says at one point and he’s probably right.

Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is one of those films that tries to be both a horror film and a comedy but it doesn’t work as either, largely because the characters aren’t sympathetic enough to care about and none of the actors are particularly comedic. You don’t care when they die and it’s hard to be amused when someone says that Sara should be selling oranges along the freeway.

7 Deadly Sins does feature two semi-celebrity cameos. Tom Sizemore plays a dude in an mental hospital while Eric Roberts plays the judge who sentences Jamal and Kim. Eric Roberts has a lot of fun with his role, railing about how much he hates drug dealers and marijuana. Unfortunately, Roberts only gets one scene and then he’s out of the film.

Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is pretty dumb. It takes forever to get to the “Charlie Charlie” game and it doesn’t do anything particularly creative with any of the sins. (At one point, we see written in blood: “Envy is a sin.” Well, no shit.) As far as Spring Break horror films go, you could just go down to Galveston and shoot your own and the end results would probably be superior to this one.

A Movie A Day #336: The Bronx Bull (2017, directed by Martin Guigui)

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

New York in the 1930s. Jake LaMotta (Morean Aria) is a tough street kid who is pushed into fighting by his abusive father (Paul Sorvino) and who is taught how to box by a sympathetic priest (Ray Wise). When Jake finally escapes from his Hellish home life, it is so he can pursue a career as a professional boxer. Ironically, the same violent nature that nearly destroyed him as a youth will now be the key to his future success.

In the late 60s, a middle-aged Jake LaMotta (William Forsythe) testifies before a government panel that is investigating that influence of the Mafia in professional boxing. LaMotta testifies that, during his professional career, he did take a dive in one of his most famous matches. LaMotta goes on to pursue an entertainment career which, despite starring in Cauliflower Ears with Jane Russell, never amounts too much. He drinks too much, fights too much, and gets into arguments with a ghost (Robert Davi). He also gets married several times, to women played by everyone from Penelope Ann Miller to Alicia Witt. The movie ends with Jake happily walking down a snowy street and a title card announcing that Jake is now 95 years old and married to his seventh wife. (The real Jake LaMotta died on September, 9 months after the release of The Bronx Bull.)

The Bronx Bull is a largely pointless movie about the later life of the antisocial boxer who was previously immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. In fact, The Bronx Bull was originally announced and went into production as Raging Bull II. Then the producers of the original Raging Bull found out, filed a lawsuit, and the film became The Bronx Bull. Because of the lawsuit, The Bronx Bull could cover every aspect of Jake’s life, except for what was already covered in Raging Bull. In fact, Scorsese’s film (which undoubtedly had a huge impact on LaMotta’s later life) is not even mentioned in The Bronx Bull.

William Forsythe does what he can with the role but, for the most part, Jake just seems to be a lout with anger issues. With a cast that includes everyone from Tom Sizemore to Cloris Leachman to Bruce Davison, the movie is full of familiar faces but none of them get too much of a chance to make an impression. Joe Mantegna comes the closest, playing Jake’s best friend. The Bronx Bull was not only shot on the cheap but it looks even cheaper, with studio backlots unconvincingly filling in for 1930s Bronx. The film’s director, Martin Guigui, occasionally tries to throw in a Scorsesesque camera movement and there are a few black-and-white flashbacks but, for the most part, this is the mockbuster version of Raging Bull.

Movie A Day #333: Beyond Valkyrie: Dawn of the Fourth Reich (2016, directed by Claudio Fah)

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1944 and a group of Germany officials and military officers, all of whom are secretly opposed to the Nazi regime, are plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler. A group of American and British operatives, led by Captain Evan Blackburn (Sean Patrick Flannery), have been dropped behind enemy lines. Their mission is to protect the man who has been chosen to lead Germany after Hitler’s death but, after the assassination fails, Blackburn and his men find themselves with a new mission. Working with a group of Russian soldiers, Blackburn tries to prevent a group of Nazis from fleeing to Argentina with a cache of stolen good.

The plot of Beyond Valkyrie is rooted in fact. In June of 1944, Hitler was nearly assassinated by a group of high-ranking Germans who hoped to replace him with a more moderate leader. (Historically, it’s questionable whether the majority of the conspirators were truly anti-Nazi or if they just felt that Hitler was mismanaging the war.) At the same time, as it became evident that Germany was going to lose the war, many Nazi war criminals did escape to Argentina, where the government of Juan Peron provided them with sanctuary from prosecution. Some of the most notorious Nazis reinvented themselves as businessmen in both South America and the Middle East. (Others, like Klaus Barbie and Reinhard Gehlen, offered their services to any government that would accept them.)

The true story is so interesting that it’s unfortunate that Beyond Valkyrie is such a bad movie. Basically, consider it to be Inglourious Basterds with none of Tarantino’s style or Christoph Waltz’s smiling menace. Beyond Valkyrie is a war epic on a budget, a very low budget. Neither the weak script nor the cheap-looking CGI does much to add authenticity to the movie. There are a few familiar faces in the cast, though none of them are onscreen for long. Rutger Hauer provides what little dignity Beyond Valkyrie has. Tom Sizemore looks like he’s still recovering from the weekend. Stephen Lang picks up his paycheck. Sean Patrick Flanery does the best he can but he’s stuck with all the worst lines.

One final note: One of the Russian soldiers, played by Andrew Byron, is actually named Tolstoy. I waited for Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, and Dostoevsky to show up but they never came.

A Movie A Day #298: Watch It (1993, directed by Tom Flynn)

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

In Chicago, three men all live in the same house and try to avoid growing up. Rick (John C. McGinley) and Mike (Jon C. Tenney) are old friends while Danny (Tom Sizemore) works on stolen cars. When Mike’s estranged cousin, John (Peter Gallagher), moves in with them, John is drawn into a steadily escalating game of pranks. The game is called “Watch It” and the rules are simple. No one can take anything personally and each prank must be followed by another, bigger prank. While the four men takes turns trying to one up each other, they also deal with women who wish that they would all just grow up. When John starts to date Mike’s ex-girlfriend, Anne (Suzy Amis), the men are forced to come to terms with their extended adolescence.

Watch It is an awkward combination of two stories. One half of the film deals with the pranks, which get so outlandish that it is impossible to believe that a group of blue collar roommates in Chicago could pull them off. One of John’s pranks involves imitating a police detective on a local news broadcast and saying that Danny has had a warrant issues for his arrest. Even if John could pull that off, it seems like he would get in so much trouble that it would not be worth the effort. (Never mind that the city of Chicago now thinks that Danny is wanted by the police.) At the same time, Watch It also wants to be a fairly realistic relationship dramedy, with Suzy Amis and Cynthia Stevenson trying to get Gallgher and McGinley to grow up. Despite some very good performances, Watch It is too uneven to work. The best thing about Watch It is that it offers a chance to see actors like McGinley, Tenney, Sizemore, and Gallagher all playing quasi-normal, relatable people for once.

A Movie A Day #217: Wyatt Earp (1994, directed by Lawrence Kasdan)

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Once upon a time, there were two movies about the legendary Western lawman (or outlaw, depending on who is telling the story) Wyatt Earp. One came out in 1993 and the other came out in 1994.

The 1993 movie was called Tombstone. That is the one that starred Kurt Russell was Wyatt, with Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton in the roles of his brothers and Val Kilmer playing Doc Holliday. Tombstone deals with the circumstances that led to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. “I’m your huckleberry,” Doc Holliday says right before his gunfight with Michael Biehn’s Johnny Ringo. Tombstone is the movie that everyone remembers.

The 1994 movies was called Wyatt Earp. This was a big budget extravaganza that was directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starred Kevin Costner as Wyatt. Dennis Quaid played Doc Holliday and supporting roles were played by almost everyone who was an active SAG member in 1994. If they were not in Tombstone, they were probably in Wyatt Earp. Gene Hackman, Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Jeff Fahey, Mark Harmon, Annabeth Gish, Gene Hackman, Bill Pullman, Isabella Rossellini, JoBeth Williams, Mare Winningham, and many others all appeared as supporting characters in the (very) long story of Wyatt Earp’s life.

Of course, Wyatt Earp features the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral but it also deals with every other chapter of Earp’s life, including his multiple marriages, his career as a buffalo hunter, and his time as a gold prospector. With a three-hour running time, there is little about Wyatt Earp’s life that is not included. Unfortunately, with the exception of his time in Tomstone, Wyatt Earp’s life was not that interesting. Neither was Kevin Costner’s performance. Costner tried to channel Gary Cooper in his performance but Cooper would have known better than to have starred in a slowly paced, three-hour movie. The film is so centered around Costner and his all-American persona that, with the exception of Dennis Quaid, the impressive cast is wasted in glorified cameos. Wyatt Earp the movie tries to be an elegy for the old west but neither Wyatt Earp as a character nor Kevin Costner’s performance was strong enough to carry such heavy symbolism. A good western should never be boring and that is a rule that Wyatt Earp breaks from the minute that Costner delivers his first line.

Costner was originally cast in Tombstone, just to leave the project so he could produce his own Wyatt Earp film. As a big, Oscar-winnng star, Costner went as far as to try to have production of Tombstone canceled. Ironically, Tombstone turned out to be the film that everyone remember while Wyatt Earp is the film that most people want to forget.