The Boys In Company C (1978, directed by Sidney J. Furie)

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1967, a group of young men arrive at the Marie Corp. Recruit Depot in San Diego. Tyrone Washington (Stan Shaw) is a drug dealer from Chicago who tells everyone not to mess with him and who soon emerges as a natural born leader. Dave Brisbee (Craig Wasson) is a long-haired hippie who tried to feel to Canada and who shows up for induction in handcuffs. Vinny Fazio (Michael Lembeck) is a cocky and streetwise kid from Brooklyn. Billy Ray Pike (Andrew Stevens) is a country boy from Texas. Alvin Foster (James Canning) is an aspiring writer who keeps a journal of his experiences. Sgt. Loyce (R. Lee Ermey, making his film debut) molds them into a combat unit before they leave for Vietnam, where they discover that all of their training hasn’t prepared them for the reality of Vietnam.

The Boys In Company C has the same basic structure as Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, right down to R. Lee Ermey playing the tough drill sergeant. The sharp discipline of basic training is compared to the chaos of Vietnam. Ermey always said that he was playing a bad drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket because he tore down the recruits but never bothered to build them back up. In The Boys In Company C, Ermey plays a good drill sergeant, one who is tough but fair and who helps Washington reach his potential. It doesn’t make any difference once the company arrives in Vietnam, though. Both The Boys In Company C and Full Metal Jacket present the war in Vietnam as being run by a collection of incompetent officer who have no idea what it’s like for the soldiers who are expected to carry out their orders.

Of course, The Boys In Company C is nowhere near as good as Full Metal Jacket. Full Metal Jacket was directed by Stanley Kubrick and it’s a chilling and relentless look at the horrors of combat. The Boys In Company C was directed by Sidney J. Furie, a journeyman director who made a lot of movies without ever developing a signature style. The basic training scenes are when the film is at its strongest. When the company arrives in Vietnam, Furie struggles with the story’s episodic structure and it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of the large ensemble cast. The Vietnam sequences are at their best when the emphasis is on the soldiers grumbling and bitching as their officers send them on one pointless mission after another. The soccer game finale tries to duplicate the satire of the football game that ended Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H but it does so with middling results. The Boys in Company C is a collection of strong moments that never manage to come together as a cohesive whole.

The movie is still important as one of the first major films to be made about the war in Vietnam. However, it’s since been overshadowed by The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and, of course, Full Metal Jacket.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Blood Thirst (dir by Newt Arnold)

Posted on October 23, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1965 but not released until 1971, Blood Thirst takes place in Manila. Young women, many of whom work at or near the Bario Club, are turning up dead with all of their blood drained from their body. Inspector Miguel Ramos (Vic Diaz) thinks that the crimes are the work of one homicidal maniac but there are whispers that the women are falling victim to a cult of devil worshippers. Hoping to solve the case before a full-fledged panic breaks out, Ramos summons a friend of his from New York, Detective Adam Rourke (Robert Winston).

Detective Rourke, who is perhaps a bit too quick to smirk, thinks that it’s going to be easy to solve this case but it turns out the opposite is true. He goes undercover as a visiting writer and starts to hang out at the Bario Club. He gets to know the people who work there and he introduces himself to the club’s owner, Calderone (Vic Silayan). Calderone is immediately suspicious of Rourke, something that he ascribes to his natural concern for his employees. However, the club’s most popular dancer — the beautiful blonde Serena (Yvonne Nielsen) — informs Rourke that Calderone murdered his previous wife.

Both Detective Rourke and Miguel’s sister, Sylvia (Katherine Henryk), suspect that the killer is Calderone. However, the viewers have a bit more information than Rourke and Sylvia. We know that the killer is a horrifyingly disfigured monster who always seem to emerge from the shadows. What is the monster and why is it obsessed with draining the blood of young, beautiful women? That’s the mystery that Rourke will eventually have to solve.

Just from the plot description, Blood Thirst might not sound that impressive and I have to admit that I went into the film with low expectations. But I was actually surprised to discover that the film was far more effective than I was expecting. Visually, the stark black-and-white cinematography creates an appropriately ominous atmosphere and the scenes in the club feel like they could have been lifted from the best examples of film noir. Characters literally emerge and occasionally disappear into the darkness, with shadows often obscuring half an actor’s face as if to remind us that any one of the characters could be the murderer (and, by that same token, any of them could actually be innocent). When Serena performs in the club, her blonde hair and pale skin almost seem to glow in the darkness. The monster itself is effectively frightening as it makes it way through the film, moving like a crazed animal that has found itself outside of its natural habitat.

Of course, it’s hardly a flawless film. Rourke is a remarkably unlikable character, one who smirks his way through the entire film. The scenes where he flirts with Sylvia are cringeworthy and redeemed only by Sylvia’s habit of both slapping him and kicking him out of her car. There are a few moments of humor that don’t quite work. The film is at its best when it focuses on atmosphere and shadows as opposed to the characters. Blood Thirst works as a filmed dream, a vision of dark and disturbing things.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Night of the Cobra Woman (dir by Andrew Meyer)

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1972 film, Night of the Cobra Woman, tells the story of Lena (Marlene Clark).

During World War II, Lena was a nurse assigned to the Philippines. When she and a friend were attacked in the jungle by a Japanese soldier, Lena’s friend was raped while Lena was bitten by a cobra named Movini. As the result of being raised by a snake cult, Movini’s super-powered venom conferred eternal youth, beauty, and sexual energy. It also gave Lena the power to turn into a snake. After subduing the Japanese soldier and turning him into her slave, Lena made a life for herself in the jungle. Worshipped by the locals, Lena became known for never aging.

Years later, a young UNICEF worker named Joanna (Joy Bang) is working at a laboratory in the Philippines. Having heard about Lena’s special snake venom, Joanna heads out to Lena’s compound to ask her how the venom works. However, Joanna is chased off by Lena’s mute man-servant (Vic Diaz). Later, Joanna’s boyfriend, Duff (Roger Garrett), decides to head out to the compound himself and see what’s going on.

When Duff doesn’t return, Joanna heads out to the compound a second time. This time, she brings along Duff’s pet eagle. Joanna is confronted by Lena, who claims that Duff has been bitten by a cobra and has been recovering at the compound. After Movini hisses at Joanna, Joanna released the eagle. The eagle promptly kills Movini.

Now, this sets up a bit of a problem. Lena needed Movini because it was Movini’s venom that was keeping her young and preventing her from turning into a snake and then not being able to change back. Now that Movini is dead, Lena has to head into Manila and find men to seduce so that she can live off of their life force. Helping her out is Duff, who has apparently been brainwashed by Lena and will now do anything to help her, including setting her up with an American serviceman (who is played by an actor named, I kid you not, Slash Marks.) Duff himself starts to rapidly age and turn into a snake. Can Joanna save him and, more importantly, why would she want to? Seriously, Duff left her for another woman. Joanna doesn’t owe him anything!

Night of the Cobra Woman is a thoroughly incoherent movie, one that feels as if it was made up on the spot while filming was taking place. Duff’s decision to go to Lena’s compound on his own never makes sense, nor does it really make much sense that Joanna doesn’t seem to be that upset by the fact that he basically just abandoned her to live with the Cobra Woman. That said, Night of the Cobra Woman does have a cult following because it’s one of the eight films that Joy Bang made during her career. Bang (and that was her real name, as her husband was named Paul Bang) specialized in playing flighty hippies and, as a result, she’s not exactly believable as an expert in snake venom. But the fact that she is so miscast adds to the film’s charm. She has pretty much the same freaked-out reaction to seeing a cobra that I would have, making her a character to whom I could at least relate.

Anyway, Night of the Cobra Woman is not that good but Joy Bang completists will definitely want to check it out.

Insomnia File #60: Project Kill (dir by William Girdler)

Posted on June 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have always hopped on Tubi and watched the 1976 “thriller,” Project Kill!

In Project Kill, Leslie Nielsen stars as John Trevor, an intelligence agent who has spent six years training a group of men who are regularly given injections of a super soldier serum. As the film begins, Trevor confesses to his second-in-command, Lassiter (Gary Lockwood), that he worries that the men are actually being used as assassins and that the serum is being used as a mind-control drug. Yikes!

When Trevor flees from his secret government base and heads to the Philippines, Lassiter is assigned to track him down and bring him back before he can reveal any government secrets. A crime boss named Alok Lee (Vic Diaz) wants to track down Trevor and learn his mind-control techniques. Trevor, meanwhile, would rather just spend all of his time in bed with Lee Su (Nancy Kwan). Unfortunately, because Trevor took a few doses of the serum himself, he soon finds himself losing control and becoming more and more violent. Lassiter comes to realize that he may not be able to bring back Trevor alive.

Sounds really exciting, doesn’t it?

Well, not quite. I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of fight scenes and there’s a car chase and the film ends with Trevor and Lassiter having a confrontation on a loading dock that’s about as exciting as a fight between two middle-aged, obviously out-of-shape men could be. Leslie Nielsen’s stunt double puts on a gray hairpiece and shows off some rudimentary karate moves. To give credit where credit is due, the end of the movie features nearly perfect use of slo mo of doom.

(What is slo mo of doom? It’s when the action starts moving in slow motion because someone is about to enter a world of pain. Slo Mo of doom works best when it involves a roundhouse kick and someone yelling, “Noooooooooooooooo!” Admittedly, that doesn’t happen in Project: Kill but still, the movie’s slo mo of doom works well.)

Unfortunately, in between the occasional action sequences, there are endless shots of people just wandering around. The film features so much padding that one almost gets the feeling that the film itself was made up on the spot and director William Girdler’s one direction was, “Keep walking until we get enough footage to push this out to 90 minutes.” As for the plot, I was never quite sure what John Trevor was trying to accomplish in the Philippines.

That said, I think most people are probably going to watch this movie specifically because it was one of the movies that Leslie Nielsen made before he became a beloved comedic icon. This film is from the era when Leslie Nielsen was a dramatic actor. The serious intentions don’t matter though. Nielsen essentially gives the same performance that he gave in The Naked Gun films and it’s impossible not to laugh with him, regardless of how many people he kills. Nielsen plays the role with a straight face, which, of course, was his comedic trademark. Even when he faces off against Lassiter, you expect him to say, “Good luck. We’re all counting on you.”

Project Kill is one of those films where the unintentional laughs save the film.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Story of Mankind
Stag
Love Is A Gun
Nina Takes A Lover
Black Ice
Frogs For Snakes
Fair Game
From The Hip
Born Killers
Eye For An Eye
Summer Catch
Beyond the Law
Spring Broke
Promise
George Wallace
Kill The Messenger
The Suburbans
Only The Strong
Great Expectations
Casual Sex?
Truth
Insomina
Death Do Us Part
A Star is Born
The Winning Season
Rabbit Run
Remember My Name
The Arrangement
Day of the Animals
Still of The Night
Arsenal
Smooth Talk
The Comedian
The Minus Man
Donnie Brasco
Punchline
Evita
Six: The Mark Unleashed
Disclosure
The Spanish Prisoner
Elektra
Revenge
Legend
Cat Run
The Pyramid
Enter the Ninja
Downhill
Malice
Mystery Date
Zola
Ira & Abby
The Next Karate Kid
A Nightmare on Drug Street
Jud
FTA
Exterminators of the Year 3000
Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
The Haunting of Helen Walker
True Spirit

Spring Beakdown: The Thirsty Dead (dir by Terry Becker)

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, imagine this.

You’re on vacation in a tropical paradise. (Maybe you’re even there on Spring Break, just so we can justify including this review in my series of Spring Break film reviews.) One night, while wandering around the city, you get grabbed by a bunch of robe-wearing monks. The monks proceed to tie you up and then force you to take a canoe ride from the sewer to the middle of the jungle. Once you reach the jungle, you’re informed that you’ve been kidnapped by a cult that worships a shrunken head in a box. The members of the cult have been around for centuries but they’ve managed to retain their youth by drinking the blood of the women who they kidnap off the streets of the city. Like you, for example.

That would probably freak most people out. That would certainly freak me out. Not only do I not particularly care for the jungle but I’m also pretty attached to my blood. However, when this exact same thing happens in the 1974 film The Thirsty Dead, no one seems to be particularly shocked to hear about it. Instead, the kidnapped women all kind of shrug and accept their fate as if it all makes total sense.

In fact, Claire (Judith McConnell) appears to develop Stockholm Syndrome within record time. She’s a dancer in Manila who, within hours of being kidnapped, is soon joking with her abductors. She makes it clear that she’s apparently fine with being kidnapped and donating her blood to a good cause. It’s never really clear why she’s okay with that but Claire is so determined to do what she wants to do (even if that means being subservient to a bunch of 100 year-old cultists) that it’s hard not admire her stubbornness.

On the other hand, Laura (Jennifer Billingsley) is determined to escape. Even though the members of the cult believe that she’s the reincarnation of one of their goddesses, Laura wants to get back to civilization. She thinks that one of the cultists, Baru (John Considine), might be willing to help her. However, as Baru explains, if he goes too far into the jungle, he’ll lose his youth and basically just waste away.

(Just in case there’s any doubt on the part of anyone reading this review, the cult is right about the whole eternal youth thing. One cultist makes the mistake of venturing too far out into the jungle and transforms from 49 to 50 right in front of our eyes!)

The Thirsty Dead is an odd film. On the one hand, the first few minutes of the film is undeniably sordid. Claire dances in a cage. Laura gets knocked over the head by a cultist and ends up with her hands tied behind her back. The camera lingers on a doll of a baby floating in a sewer. When the women first find themselves in the jungle, Claire jokes about being sold into prostitution and the whole film, up until that point, has had a rather icky feel to it. However, once the cult shows up, The Thirsty Dead suddenly becomes a rather tame film, one that’s almost totally free of graphic gore and sexual innuendo. The Thirsty Dead ultimately feels less like a film and more like an extended episode of some 70s sci-fi show. For a film about a blood-sucking cult, there’s surprisingly little blood. It feels a bit off and, to be honest, it’s a little boring. This is the type of film that calls out for a sleazier approach.

Despite being rather forgettable, The Thirsty Dead has achieved the dubious immortality of being included in several Mill Creek box sets, the ones with names like 100 Horror Classics or 50 Chilling Thrillers. So, in all probability, you’ve got The Thirsty Dead on DVD or Blu-ray without even realizing it. If you somehow don’t already have The Thirsty Dead in your film collection, you can always watch it on YouTube or Prime or probably a hundred other streaming sites. The Thirsty Dead will never die.