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Channel: Bad and weird movies – Balladeer's Blog

DECKER SHADO: TERRIFIC REVIEWS OF GOOD AND BAD MOVIES

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decker shadoFor several years now I’ve meant to make a blog post recommending the YT Channel of Decker Shado, the often-hilarious figure who calls himself “The internet personality with the best hair.” He focuses mostly on genre films – new and old – and offers a lot of fresh insights on anything from schlock to blockbusters.

Decker’s reviews are energetic and informative even when he’s examining movies that he likes. That makes him stand out on an internet filled with snarky reviewers who can only keep a viewer’s attention when they’re insulting truly horrible movies.

decker eye rollingIn my opinion Shado’s the go-to reviewer when it comes to the cheapjack rip-off flicks from the Asylum, like Atlantic Rim, Transmorphers, and countless others. I’d recommend just about any of this guy’s reviews except for the ones where he’s accompanied by another reviewer called Creepy.

No nastiness intended, but I feel that Creepy really cramps Decker Shado’s style and makes a video unwatchable with his … well, creepiness.

Anyway, for an example of Decker’s fun, funny approach to reviews, his 25-minute take on the incredibly awful 1970 movie Hercules in New York, starring a dubbed Arnold Schwarzenegger, can be viewed HERE.  


THE ELUSIVE AVENGERS (Neulovimye Mstiteli) 1967

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elusive avengersTHE ELUSIVE AVENGERS (1967) – This movie is often classified as part of the subgenre called “Easterns/ Osterns” – counterparts of Westerns. As an example of global cinema, The Elusive Avengers is worth a watch maybe once in a lifetime, but the cringe factor is heavy as it romanticizes four young guerilla fighters during the Russian Civil War.

The film is based on the 1921 novel Little Red Devils aka Red Devils aka The Hunt for Blue Fox. A 1923 silent movie version was made long before this definitive 1967 adaptation for the big screen. It goes without saying that the story was used as propaganda by Communist tyrants (and just like I never hesitate to say “Nazi tyrants” or “Nazi filth” I’m never going to hesitate to say “Communist tyrants” or “Communist filth”).

elusive posterJudged purely on its production values and competent direction, The Elusive Avengers fascinates as much as it repels. In a world where a piece of garbage like deranged war criminal Vlad Putin runs Russia it can make a film like this a challenge to sit through without the real world intruding on one’s thoughts, but again, for anyone interested in world cinema history the movie is a revelation. 

With all that said, I will point out that, ironically, The Elusive Avengers is nowhere near as extreme as a lot of Soviet-era cinema. Oddly enough for 1967, with the Cold War raging, the filmmakers were allowed to leave in a positive priest figure as well as conspicuous crucifixes being worn by some of the suffering background figures. 

The story is set in 1920 and was written in 1921, before the Soviet government had successfully stamped out most religion, so leaving such elements in the movie was interesting faithfulness to the source material and time period. But rest assured the “heroic” depiction of Red Army figures will often remind viewers of the political intent behind The Elusive Avengers

another elusive avengers posterFor a less than perfect comparison, think of old-fashioned Westerns which casually depict Native Americans as “the bad guys” without any deeper examination of the issues. Just as it does not mean a viewer hates Native Americans to watch such movies it does not mean a viewer sympathizes with the Leninists in this Russian film just because they watch it.   

I wanted to get all that out of the way at the start, because from reading other reviews of The Elusive Avengers I gather it still rips open old wounds for people whose ancestors were on either side of the Russian Civil War. 

THE STORY:

The Avengers/ Red Devils of the title are four young Russians who are among the countless orphans whose parents were killed in the ongoing war, either in battle or from the depredations of both armies or of bandit gangs.

DankaThe countryside is already abuzz over the deeds of that group of roughly 13-year-old guerillas. (Remember Young Guns? Think of this foursome as REALLY Young Guns.) The leader is Danka (Viktor Kosykh), who, along with his teammate and sister Ksanka (Valentina Kurdyukova) saw their parents slain and their home burned down by rampaging White Russians.

NOTE: For newbies to that time period, White Russians were pro-Tsarist while Red Russians were pro-Communist.

valerkaAnother of the Avengers/ Red Devils is Valerka (Mikhail Metyolkin), a former prize student before the war disrupted his life. Valerka wears eyeglasses to remind us of how smart he is and wears a Cheka hat to remind us he’s on the side of the Reds.

The fourth and most interesting member of the guerilla quartet is Yashka, a gypsy in this movie but a black person in the 1923 film version and a Chinese lad in the original novel. Yashka is played by Vasiliy Vasilev, who may be playing a gypsy here but whose dark skin will remind you that the character was black in the silent movie version.  

yashkaYashka is skilled at dancing and guitar-playing as well as being the guerilla band’s expert at stealth. He may not be the leader of our heroes, but he steals the film with his performance and also gets a bit flirty with Ksanka.

Their hardscrabble existence has toughened the four youngsters and made them experts at gunplay and unarmed combat. Their marksmanship is as incredible as any gunslinging hero in Westerns.

The first good deed that we viewers witness the team committing is the retrieval of a cow seized from a poor old woman who has nothing else. It is a troop of White Russians taking the woman’s possession and giving her nothing in exchange but empty words about a glorious future with cows galore for everyone if the Whites win the war.

The White Russians are depicted being as evil and lecherous as any outlaw gang in a Spaghetti Western. Sidor Lyuty (Vladimir Belokurov) is the most charismatic of the White Russian villains, and in a particularly slimy scene he hypocritically tells Danka that he truly feels sorry for children orphaned by the war but it is necessary to kill no-good Reds like Danka’s parents.

But getting back to the stolen cow, overnight the Avengers/ Red Devils steal it back for the poor old woman when low-ranking White Russians are traveling with it through a cemetery. The foursome – who communicate via impressions of cuckoos and roosters when in action – use theatrics to convince the superstitious low-level Whites that the cemetery is haunted and that ghosts stole the cow for themselves. 

ksankaThe stakes increase substantially from there, especially when Ksanka (at left) is nabbed by Lyuty and his men when she is surreptitiously hanging around a town trying to get a head-count of how many White soldiers are on hand.

The cunning Lyuty uses the captured Ksanka as a serving girl at a tavern frequented by himself and his subordinates, simultaneously using her as bait to lure her three comrades into a rescue attempt so that all of them can be taken prisoner.   

tavern sceneYashka pretends to be a gypsy entertainer at the tavern, dancing and playing guitar for the amusement of the increasingly drunken Whites. He and Ksanka communicate via winks, setting up the moment when Danka and Valerka can be let in to help in slaughtering the intoxicated villains.   

The bullets fly in this very effective scene, but we also have to endure some very silly comedy of the kind that afflicts a lot of lower tier Spaghetti Westerns.

At any rate, like a combination of the Wolverines from Red Dawn and the young gunslingers from Bad Kids of the West, our foursome continue their freewheeling activities. They soon ride their horses to attack and rob a horse-drawn carriage/ coach like robbing armed stagecoach passengers in a Western.

Among the dead is a young White Russian who was carrying with him a letter of introduction to the commander at his new duty station. Since that commander has never met the late White, Danka poses as the young man for infiltration purposes. 

Thanks to Danka covertly relaying inside information to Yashka, Ksanka and Valerka, the young guerillas manage to spend the next two weeks striking at the villains. They ambush “Kosoi’s” troops and kill nearly all of them, warn a village in advance to hide all their grain before the Whites can plunder the town and take it for themselves, and kill off many of the horses of the White forces by slipping poison into their drinking water.       

SPOILERS AHEAD:

train jobDanka is found out and the other three Avengers/ Red Devils mount a daring raid to rescue him. While on the run from the pursuing Whites who are furious about the successful rescue, our four heroes drive off a separate troop of Whites who are trying to rob a Red Army train loaded with supplies.

After driving off the villains, our main characters board the train themselves and get it running to complete the train’s delivery to the First Russian Cavalry. Now pursued by multiple groups of furious White Russians on horseback, the youngsters shoot it out with their foes in a scene reminiscent of countless “outlaws robbing a train” scenes from Westerns. 

The Avengers/ Red Devils overcome all obstacles to get the supply train through to the Red Russians. In what is supposed to be a happy ending, the foursome are commended by the commander of the First Russian Cavalry for their careers as guerillas and for getting the supply train through.

riding offHe also inducts the quartet (yes, Ksanka, too) into his cavalry unit and outfits them in official uniforms. As the film ends, the youngsters ride off into the sunset as the closing song tells viewers that the Avengers/ Red Devils stand ready to continue fighting for a Red Victory. 

And did I say song? Yes, I did. There are a few songs scattered throughout the film, but it never becomes a musical. The songs are just part of the film’s soundtrack or are sung by characters as part of their in-story activities. For instance, some of the songs are performed by a few traveling entertainers led by Buba Kastorskiy (Boris Sichkin). 

russian poster 2The 1967 Elusive Avengers movie was so popular in the Soviet Union that it was followed by two sequels, which reached increasing levels of cringe to the point where the four main characters are literally working for the Cheka (!) by the third and final film.

Boris Sichkin returned as Buba in the second movie, The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers (1968) but was killed off. The conclusion of the trilogy came in 1971 with Once Again the Elusive Avengers aka The Crown of the Russian Empire. I may or may not review those, depending on reader reaction to this blog post.   

FOR MY NON-FICTION LOOK AT AMERICAN TROOPS WHO SERVED IN RUSSIA FROM SEPTEMBER 1918 THROUGH JANUARY OF 1920, THUS GETTING CAUGHT UP IN THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, CLICK HERE.

FRIGHTMARE THEATER (2015-2022)

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frightmare theaterFRIGHTMARE THEATER (2015-2022) – Over the years, Balladeer’s Blog has examined plenty of Movie Host Shows, old and new. Frightmare Theater is another hostess-themed film show created, written and directed by Joel Stephens, just like Dark Jungle Theater, previously reviewed here.

This effort from Stephens and his team is another of the countless programs saluting the tradition of late-night bad movie shows that presented – and often mocked – some of the worst or campiest horror films ever made. Remember ladies like Vampira, Moona Lisa, Crematia Mortem, Macabra, Elvira, and of course Stella! from Saturday Night Dead?

frightmare theater ladiesFrightmare Theater delivers an entire coven of hostesses, led by Mistress Scarlet (Scarlet Ryan), the red head who rises from her coffin to host the bad movie proceedings. Some of her assistants are Original Cyn (Cyn Renteria), Sister Jane (Jane Victoria Colley) and Sister Monalisa (Monalisa Davinci). Stephens himself appeared as Boris the Butler for a while.

As regular readers know, I’m a sucker for just about any Movie Host Show dedicated to laughing at Psychotronic classics from any decade, but for viewers who may not give all such programs a free pass, I feel obligated to point out a few downsides to Frightmare Theater:

frightmare theater logoLike Joel Stephens’ other Movie Host Shows, the production values are often stuck at the level of the countless Public Access Cable programs which were tributes to late night horror movie hosts and hostesses of the past. The same applies to the comedy writing and to the varying levels of performances the cast members deliver.

But that aside, let’s take a general look at the show’s 7 Seasons thus far. The overwhelming majority of the movies presented on Frightmare Theater are the ones that were staples of virtually every Bad Movie Show in history. Such Golden Turkeys are like rock or blues standards that every band likes to do their own interpretation of. 

mistress scarletAmong those, Mistress Scarlet and the Sisters served up plenty of black & white American schlockers like Attack of the Giant Leeches, The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, The Horror of Party Beach, Beginning of the End, Attack of the Crab Monsters and so many others.

Also on the slate of perennial So Bad They’re Good offerings were several American schlockers IN COLOR, like Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, The Thing with Two Heads, Queen of Outer Space, Track of the Moon Beast, Dracula vs Frankenstein and many more.

Foreign schlock films that were mainstays of old Movie Host Shows got their turn, too, like The Day of the Triffids, Devil Girl from Mars, Fangs of the Living Dead, Lady Frankenstein, Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory and so on.

sister monalisaAnd let me assure my fellow Paul “Jacinto Molina” Naschy fans that Frightmare Theater also found room in its 83 episodes for The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman and Count Dracula’s Great Love.  

If this valentine to Movie Host Shows and Movie Hostesses is indeed over for good, they had a respectable run and did the tradition proud. 

*** I know my fellow obsessive detail dorks won’t be satisfied without a season-by-season breakdown of episodes.

SEASON ONE

Ep. 1 Creature of Destruction (1968)   Ep. 2 The Curse of the Swamp Monster (1968)   Ep. 3 The Giant Behemoth (1959)   Ep. 4 Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955) Ep. 5 Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1967)   Ep. 6 A Bucket of Blood (1959)   Ep. 7 The She-Beast (1966)   Ep. 8 The Thing with Two Heads (1972)   Ep. 9 Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966)   Ep. 10 The Tingler (1959)   Ep. 11 The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (1971)   Ep. 12 Lady Frankenstein (1971)   Ep. 13 Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory (1961)

SEASON TWO

Ep. 1 Devil Girl from Mars (1954)   Ep. 2 It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)   Ep. 3 The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)   Ep. 4 The Wasp Woman (1959)   Ep. 5 Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)   Ep. 6 Fire Maidens of Outer Space (1956)   Ep. 7 Queen of Outer Space (1958)   Ep. 8 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)   Ep. 9 Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)   Ep. 10 Track of the Moon Beast (1976)   Ep. 11 The House That Screamed (1969)   Ep. 12 The Screaming Skull (1958)   Ep. 13 The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)     

SEASON THREE

Ep. 1 The Crawling Eye (1958)   Ep. 2 Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)   Ep. 3 The Alligator People (1959)   Ep. 4 The Slime People (1963)   Ep. 5 The Horror of Party Beach (1964)   Ep. 6 Beginning of the End (1957)   Ep. 7 The Atomic Brain (1963)   Ep. 8 The Black Scorpion (1957)   Ep. 9 I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)   Ep. 10 Fangs of the Living Dead (1969)   Ep. 11 Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958)   Ep. 12 Cat Women of the Moon (1953)   Ep. 13 The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962) 

SEASON FOUR

Ep. 1 Teenage Zombies (1959)   Ep. 2 Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)   Ep. 3 The Return of Dracula (1958)   Ep. 4 The Eye Creatures (1967)   Ep. 5 Bloodtide (1982)   Ep. 6 The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960)   Ep. 7 Night of the Ghouls (1959)   Ep. 8 Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956)   Ep. 9 The Devil’s Partner (1960)   Ep. 10 Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973)   Ep. 11 The Bloody Pit of Horror (1965)   Ep. 12 Tormented (1960)   Ep. 13 Die, Monster, Die (1965) 

SEASON FIVE

Ep. 1 Vampyres (1974)   Ep. 2 Grave of the Vampire (1972)   Ep. 3 Sisters of Death (1977)   Ep. 4 The Beach Girls and the Monster (1965)   Ep. 5 The Crawling Hand (1963)   Ep. 6 The Thirsty Dead (1974)   Ep. 7 The Ghost Galleon (1974)   Ep. 8 Atom Age Vampire (1960)   Ep. 9 The Blancheville Monster (1963)   Ep. 10 Blood Mania (1970)   Ep. 11 Castle of the Living Dead (1964)   Ep. 12 Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971)   Ep. 13 The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

SEASON SIX

Ep. 1 The Brides of Dracula (1960)   Ep. 2 The Day of the Triffids (1963)   Ep. 3 Nightmare Castle (1965)   Ep. 4 Bride of the Monster (1955)   Ep. 5 House on Haunted Hill (1959)   Ep. 6 House of Usher (1960)   Ep. 7 Moon of the Wolf (1972)   Ep. 8 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)   Ep. 9 The Bat (1959)   Ep. 10 Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)   

SEASON SEVEN

Ep. 1 Little Shop of Horrors (1960)   Ep. 2 Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)   Ep. 3 Mesa of Lost Women (1953)   Ep. 4 House of Wax (1953)   Ep. 5 Hands of a Stranger (1962)   Ep. 6 I Eat Your Skin (1971)   Ep. 7 The Devil’s Hand (1961)   Ep. 8 Night of the Living Dead (1968)     

FOR MY EXAMINATION OF LARAINE NEWMAN’S CANNED FILM FESTIVAL CLICK HERE.                                  

FURIOUS (1984) – BAD MOVIE

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furiousFURIOUS (1984) – It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a classically bad movie here at Balladeer’s Blog. To remedy that here’s a look at the wildly out there film Furious, one of the most joyously weird action/ fantasy movies ever made. It’s like the most incoherent dream that anyone ever described to you. 

Furious starred the (at the time) up and coming Rhee Brothers, Simon and Phillip, who never quite became martial arts superstars but certainly carved out their own special niche in action films. Unfortunately, this flick is undeservedly obscure. As of this writing there are only four user reviews at IMDb. Therefore, for the first time since Musical Mutiny I’m going to present a step-by-step breakdown. 

ONE – In what we are supposed to believe is Mongolia, an adventurous young woman named Kim Lee (Arlene Montano) is being chased through the countryside by a trio of modern-day Mongol warriors dressed in the old fur and triangular hat look.

These “Mongols” wield battle staffs and are, for some reason, played by three obviously white guys. At no time do they go “Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on us, so be thankful for small favors I guess.

furious coverThe pursuing Mongols treat us to the only sounds during this opening bit – bird calls. Yes, bird calls. And these bird calls will put viewers in mind of the opening of the old Great White North sketches on SCTV. Except for the calls from the third Mongol, whose efforts sound more like the killer doll in the original Trilogy of Terror.

Our valiant heroine pauses in her flight to put an enchanted tusk in her upraised palm to get a directional reading (Just go with it. There’s much weirder stuff ahead.) The tusk mystically points in the direction our female Asian Condor relic hunter needs to go. 

Next, Kim Lee starts scaling a mountain before her, followed by the Mongols, whose close-ups as they do their mountain-climber bit made me reflect that they should be yodeling in the Alps instead.

Somehow, all of the Mongols beat her to the top of the mountain despite her huge head start and attack her from above. Kim shows off her martial arts skill by killing two of the three men to reach her obvious goal – an enchanted box and skeleton in a cave. 

arlene mTo avoid letting her lone surviving pursuer know that the objects they have both been questing after are in a cave nearby, Kim fights it out with the man on top of the mountain. (Credit where it’s due, we get impressive aerial shots from a helicopter all throughout this opening business.) 

Confusingly, Last Mongol Guy suddenly has the mystical tusk that our heroine was using. We don’t see him defeat or kill Kim Lee, but she’s apparently dead.

For some reason, though Kim was using the tusk to find the relics, and though we learn later in the movie that the Mongol Guys and their boss are indeed after those same items, this henchman does not bother using the tusk to locate those ULTIMATE MAGUFFINS FOR THE ENTIRE FLICK! Instead, with his boss’s most desired objects mere feet away from him in a cave, Mongol Guy leaves with just the tusk. (“D’OH!”) 

TWO – The next scene confirms that Kim Lee is dead, as we join her brother Simon (Simon Rhee) as he mourns her loss. No, I don’t know how he found out about it since the place she died is supposed to be incredibly remote. So is his own humble cabin home, come to think of it.

Simon’s grief is interrupted by several Asian and white children who wordlessly make him accompany them. And speaking of wordlessly, we now get the very first actual spoken words in the movie as Simon says “Yeah, yeah, yeah” while being led away by the children. Comically enough, it looks like they’re taking him off for a human sacrifice or some other reason. (“We’ll raise you as one of our own, Simon.”) 

It turns out there are even more children, all awaiting their latest martial arts training session with our hero. He vents some of his anger on a punching bag hanging from a nearby tree while the children watch in awe. He causes the bag to come undone and fall to the ground, followed by the children exchanging embarrassed glances. 

mongol guyConfusingly, Simon now just walks sadly back to his cabin and lies down, only to be interrupted by a knock at his door. Hilariously, we are clearly shown Simon opening his door to behold Mongol Guy standing on his porch, followed immediately by another shot of Simon opening his door, like it’s a glitch in the Matrix or something.  

Unaware that he is face to face with the man who killed his sister Kim, Simon wordlessly (we still have not had a complete sentence uttered by anyone) accepts a small card with Chinese characters on it. Mongol Guy walks off and first-time viewers will begin to question their film selection for the evening.

To make what’s going on comprehensible for you readers let me explain that the card was a summons from Simon’s old mentor, Master Chan. Yes, since Mongol Guy works for him, the movie has just blown any surprise about Chan really being the story’s villainous mastermind. 

THREE – Cut to a sprawling black building in which Master Chan observes the latest martial arts students of his aide, whom I’ll call Chin Stroking Black Guy because only a few characters are ever addressed by name. It’s one of those kinds of movies.

Master Chan is played by Simon Rhee’s brother Phillip and is supposedly very old. No old age makeup is used, however, and the only sign of how “ancient” Chan is supposed to be comes from the laughable grey wig he wears. The wig looks like Bea Arthur’s hair on Golden Girls.

Master Chan is apparently impressed with the progress of Chin Stroking Black Guy’s adult students, following which Mongol Guy arrives and wordlessly (of course) indicates to Chan that Simon will be coming to see him. (The characters in Furious exchange more Meaningful Glances than Gannon and Friday in Dragnet reruns.)

chan guardsFOUR – Cut to that same building, but at night. Simon Rhee walks toward the front entrance, which is guarded by two men dressed in white and wearing sunglasses despite the late hour. Light fixtures in the parking lot cast long shadows of Simon as he walks by … and of the film crew and their camera, comically enough. 

Master Chan’s internal security men – also dressed in white and wearing sunglasses – see Simon approaching on their security camera screens. One of them says “Enemy approaching”, and Simon is allowed to pass by the guards at the door – who stand making “x”es with their arms, apparently Chan’s cult’s version of standing at attention.

Simon inserts a keycard in a computerized reader which makes weird “beep boop bop” sounds and admits him to the building. He passes by Chin Stroking Black Guy’s students from earlier – wordlessly, of course. So far the movie’s dialogue could have been written within 140 characters.

Our hero walks along night-darkened corridors before sensing he is not alone. Around the next corner he beholds – a clucking chicken. Poultry as guard dogs? Hey, it’s just the first of many bizarre uses of chickens and roosters in Furious.

mika the sorcererSuddenly, Mika the Sorcerer (Mika Elkan), a white guy with a weird quasi-“Freddie Mercury crossed with Fu Manchu” mustache appears behind Simon. Mika wordlessly (of course) escorts Simon down a dark corridor to a room where Master Chan awaits.

Chan is in the lotus position and is supposed to be hovering in the air via levitation in an awkwardly presented special effect. Master Chan now makes up for the long silences in this flick by greeting Simon and doing a long monolog about the death of Simon’s sister and about hammers and anvils and karmic debts while Mika stands beside Chan doing magic tricks to accompany the Master’s rambling.

Amid the fortune cookie level attempts at profundities spouted by Chan we viewers see that Simon does not suspect that his old teacher is really the main villain. The Master gives our hero a large, sculpted puzzle piece worn on a chain like an amulet and tells him he must recover 3 more such puzzle pieces from very dangerous forces to save the world and the astral plane.

(By the way, bear in mind that we will see later that all of these side quests are done in furtherance of locating the skeleton and box from the opening scenes. And that Mongol Guy was mere feet away from them and could have just taken them to Master Chan right then and there.)

Eventually, Simon goes off on his vaguely defined mission. Master Chan shares a sinister smile with Mika the Sorcerer and places the tusk that Kim Lee was killed for on the floor. Once again, it spins around slowly, like a compass needle.

FIVE – Simon exits the building while watched by the interior guards on the security cameras again. He walks past the two guards from before but it is now broad daylight. I don’t know if his meeting with Master Chan supposedly took til morning or if this is just the typical inconsistency that bad movies often show between day and night.

simon and friendsLiterally right outside Chan’s evil headquarters building, Simon encounters a young woman and two young men who are old friends and fellow martial arts students from long ago. Our hero shows them the puzzle piece he wears around his neck and asks if they are familiar with similar items.

By hilarious coincidence, not only do the first people Simon bumps into after leaving Chan’s lair recognize the objects of his quest, but they say they have seen similar items at a Chinese restaurant that is right there in the same office park! On my first viewing of Furious I assumed this trio were part of the bad guys, but no, it’s all just sheer, time-saving, cosmically unlikely chance.

I mean, imagine that – some of the objects that Master Chan needs to further his plans for conquest have been in a neighboring Chinese restaurant all this time! Some of his staff and students have probably eaten there plenty of times over the years. Hilarious!

SIX – Simon and his three friends walk up to the glass door and windows of the restaurant and peek inside over and over again without doing what any reasonable people would do – assume they’re not open yet and come back later. Weirdly, while Simon and the two other men continue obsessively peering inside through different windows, the woman walks around with a camera taking pictures of this unremarkable, run of the mill office park. (?)

Soon, several men show up with a truckload of live, boxed chickens for the restaurant. The newly arrived men are very hostile and soon a kung fu fight has broken out among the restaurant thugs and the four “good guys.”

The fight is wordless (of course) but fairly lengthy, and a loose chicken squawks after jumping (or being thrown) into frame. Even more maddeningly, Chin Stroking Black Guy shows up and helps the restaurant thugs fight our hero and his friends. This implies that Master Chan has ties to the restaurant, which would make all of this story even more pointless. 

The competent but not exceptional martial arts brawl continues, and suddenly a man dressed like a chef runs into the scene wielding a bone-chopping axe from the restaurant’s kitchen. He makes with a battle cry and kills one of Simon’s friends with the axe.

Our hero has had enough, and now uses his kung fu skills to kill a few of the restaurant thugs, including one who commits the faux pas of resorting to a gun. The other two friends of Simon get killed under the watchful eyes of the Chin Stroking Black Guy.

The thugs who are still standing flee our hero’s wrath, passing by the Chin Stroking Black Guy who faces Simon while our hero shows off his skill with nunchuks taken from a fallen restaurant villain. Chin Stroking Black Guy nods thoughtfully at Simon and walks away. (?)

buddha statueSEVEN – Cut to a stream near our hero’s remote cabin as he walks along despondently. There is a Buddha statue there, and it suddenly TALKS TO SIMON, telling him to “Beware” but doesn’t give any specifics. Our non-plussed star proceeds to his porch, where he is suddenly attacked by Mongol Guy and a lengthy and wordless (of course) battle with bo staffs takes place.

The clash carries our combatants into some very eye-pleasing forest scenery. The martial arts fighting is very nicely done, but seems to be carried out at half-speed as if for a rehearsal. Because both Rhee Brothers are highly skilled, I’m assuming the slower pace is for the benefit of the less-skilled actors tasked with fighting Simon in such scenes.

At length, our star defeats Mongol Guy, and only then does he notice that Mongol Guy is wearing a puzzle piece amulet. Simon takes it, following which Mongol Guy regains consciousness and runs off. It should go without saying that neither man spoke during this segment, either.

simon at restaurantEIGHT – We cut back to the Chinese restaurant from earlier. They are open now, so Simon enters, is bowed to by a hostess and led to a seat. He sits down and pretends to be reading his menu while really eyeing the other patrons in the restaurant, especially an awkward old lady whose attempts to eat the whole chicken before her seem as painstakingly choreographed as the fight scenes in this movie.

Throughout all this, a muscular, mustachioed white guy has been performing for the customers with nun-chuks and swords while parade-masked waiters service the diners. All of this has gone on wordlessly (of course) for several long minutes.

Finally, one of the masked waiters approaches Simon’s table with a serving tray covered by a top. The waiter places the tray before our hero, then pulls off the top, revealing the decapitated heads of two of his friends who got killed by the restaurant thugs earlier.

But wait, there’s more! The waiter puts the lid back on the tray, then removes it again, this time revealing two whole chickens for Simon. So were the heads an illusion? And why does this restaurant insist on serving whole chickens to every customer? Sometimes more than one whole chicken?

Simon screams in uncomprehending rage (I feel ya, buddy) and is attacked by restaurant thugs from every direction, including mustache and sword guy. The waiter who served up the heads/ whole chickens to our hero takes off his mask to reveal that he is really Master Chan’s aide Mika the Sorcerer. This confirms that the restaurant is part of Chan’s network but throws the entire plot of the movie into even more confusion.

Aside from Simon’s scream, every second of all this has been going on wordlessly (of course) as we soak in this latest lengthy martial arts fight. With comical clumsiness, some of the restaurant thugs presently start throwing food dishes at our star, who uses nunchuks to bash them all away … or he would, that is, if more than one of those thrown dishes ever came close to hitting him. (I love bad, low budget movies!)

Mongol Guy is among the men attacking Simon, and at length Master Chan himself leaps into frame and stands beside our hero, apparently to pretend he is aiding Simon against the bad guys and is not secretly their leader. At last ending this latest marathon segment with no dialogue, Master Chan indicates to Simon that they should leave by pointing to the exit and saying “Quickly!”

NINE – Cut to a beach, presumably nearby. Simon and Master Chan are there, and we can see a skeleton lying in the background. Neither character mentions it, but its unexplained presence adds to the fun WTF? aspect of Furious

Now, making me even more confused about what kind of Long Game is being played by Chan, he tells Simon that the fight with the thugs at the restaurant means that his dead sister Kim has been avenged and her spirit is now at rest. (??????) The Master tells Simon to “Go home” over and over again, each time being mystically (I guess) further away from him in another pointless yet hilarious bit.

TEN – Back to the stream near our hero’s cabin. Once again the Buddha statue talks to him, and this time our hero joins the statue in the lotus position while listening to its monotonous, repetitious, whispered warnings. It also tells him that traveling in the spiritual void can be dangerous, apropos of nothing.

Simon enters a trancelike state in which we viewers must endure multiple flashbacks to events from earlier in the film. The talking Buddha statue tells our hero not to trust Chan because Chan is evil. And tells him over and over. 

Eventually, the convulsing Simon awakens from his trance and sees that two Sai daggers now lie in the lap of the Buddha statue. Our star takes the Sai and leaves.

ELEVEN – Cut to Master Chan’s headquarters. Simon, with his newly provided weapons, makes his way along the rear of the building. He slowly works around to the front, where he observes the main entrance from hiding.

The two guards are there, as usual, but this time a series of Chan’s underlings, dressed in white and wearing sunglasses and surgical masks (don’t ask) come out the door one by one, carrying live, clucking chickens and looking around apprehensively as they run offscreen. If this was a movie by Jodorowsky or someone like him I would assume there is some metaphorical significance to the frequent use of chickens in this flick, but not in a film this poorly made.

Simon watches this absurd tableau for a few more moments, then retraces his steps to the rear of Chan’s headquarters. He produces a grappling hook and rope and uses it to scale the building, then break through a window to enter.

TWELVE – Inside Bad Guy HQ, Master Chan talks with Mika the Sorcerer while the lurking Simon overhears their conversation. Chan gives Mika the tusk from earlier and tells him to guard it with his life.

The Master then begins what for all the world sounds like a long string of random Stewie Griffin villain cliches, like “He must be stopped” … “I will not be made a fool of” … “He must not be allowed to interfere with my plans any further” and so on. And no, I have no idea how Chan figures that Simon has thwarted him in any way. Simon’s only involved in the first place because he summoned him

To further demonstrate his displeasure, Master Chan calls in all his warriors who have fallen to Simon in combat and has Mika turn them into … live, clucking chickens. No, I’m not kidding! The defeated warriors kneel before Chan one by one, begging for forgiveness, then Mika uses his magic to transform them into chickens, accompanied by a loud BANG and flames each time.

chin stroking black guyTHIRTEEN – Simon withdraws to the outside of the building, with neither Mika nor Master Chan realizing he was inside. Chin Stroking Black Guy, with a guard dog on a leash, now attacks our hero. The dog quickly flees, intimidated by Simon (I guess) but our star and Chin Stroking Black Guy fight it out.

Eventually, their battle is noticed by Chan’s white-clad, sunglass-wearing interior security men at the security camera station. They sound an Intruder Alert alarm for everyone in the building, from Master Chan and Mika on down, then run to join the attack on Simon. 

You may not believe me, but this is followed by rapid-cut scenes of Simon and his latest opponent STILL fighting, of Master Chan’s other students doing their workouts … and of a band of musicians dressed like Chan’s security men playing nonsense, bizarre sounds on their instruments. Really.

Soon, even the “performing” musicians run outside to attack Simon, who is at last forced to flee because of the overwhelming number of men opposing him. We now get a lengthy running fight scene as Simon whittles down the numbers of his pursuers.

At one point, Chan enters the abandoned post of his security camera guys and can, for no apparent reason, see Simon’s ongoing fight with Chan’s lackeys EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOW FAR OFF IN THE WILDERNESS BEYOND THE REACH OF THE SECURITY CAMERAS.

Adding to the nonsense, Master Chan does patented villain laughter while saying “It’s working! It’s finally working!” What he thinks is “working” I can’t say, because Simon is kicking the crap out of his minions in groups of three and four as the chase goes on.

bridge in furiousAfter a looong time, the running fight ends on the weirdest bridge I’ve ever seen. Our hero defeats the last of Chan’s goons and even kills Chin Stroking Black Guy. After killing him, Simon sees that this guy, too, was wearing another puzzle piece (Remember that business?) like an amulet. Simon takes that piece, too, and heads for home.

FOURTEEN – In a very strange tactic for an action hero, our star assembles his child students and leads them in an assault on Master Chan’s headquarters, risking their lives against Chan’s remaining guards. What a guy! 

Meanwhile, Simon reaches the bowels of the building where he faces Mika the Sorceror in a battle of martial arts vs magic. Mika shoots flames and – I swear to God – live, clucking chickens – from his hands while Simon dodges the attacks.

Eventually, our hero dodges one of Mika’s mystic fireballs in front of a mirror, causing the fireball to bounce back and hit the sorcerer. This causes Mika to transform into what is supposed to be a man-sized pig in Mika’s clothing but is obviously just a normal-sized pig occupying the upper half of Mika’s costume. (?) I have to admit I wished they’d have shown the pig having Mika’s mustache, but I’m kind of weird.

Mika in pig form, talking in a human voice, uses his dying breaths to tell Simon how to defeat Master Chan’s evil plan to conquer the world and the astral plane. Or spiritual void. Or something.

mika the pigThe porcine former sorcerer instructs Simon to take his own puzzle piece amulet AND the enchanted tusk that Chan gave him for safekeeping earlier. Mika the Pig tells Simon the tusk will lead him to the Mongolian cave where Master Chan hopes to find the skeleton and box from the beginning of the movie.

With Mika the Pig’s puzzle piece, Simon now has all of them. He runs down the hall to confront Master Chan, who is again levitating in the lotus position. Chan effortlessly steals the amulets from our hero (“D’OH!”) and then we get a Rhee Brother on Rhee Brother fight, one shirtless, one in a Bea Arthur wig.

Chan outfights Simon and then literally flies off to the Mongolian cave in which lie the skeleton and the treasure box. Our hero regains consciousness and chases after the villain … on foot.

FIFTEEN – We return to “Mongolia” (snicker), where the flying Master Chan lands at the sought-after cave. How did he find it without the tusk? That’s classified, I guess.

Directly in front of the skeleton and the box, he lays out the four puzzle pieces to join them together. Chan obviously messes up putting them together the first time he tries, but a quick edit cuts to them properly put together.

Simon, still running and not even out of breath, arrives at the foot of the mountain with no explanation for how he got there so quickly after the FLYING Master Chan did. At this point, I’d have been disappointed if the movie gave an explanation for this. The tusk was used for directions, it didn’t let the user fly or teleport.

kim soulAt any rate, while Simon scales the mountain like his sister did at the beginning of the movie, Chan places the completed amulet puzzle around a spool inside the now-open treasure box. This frees Kim Lee’s soul from the box. I might have cared if we viewers had ever been let in on the fact that her soul was imprisoned there in the first place.

In addition to freeing Kim’s soul, the box being opened with the amulet puzzle around the inside spool also grants Master Chan what he calls “unlimited power.” Simon at last reaches the top of the mountain and attacks Chan, whose powers now transport them both to the astral plane/ spiritual void.

This place is just a very dark room or studio filled with smoke effects. The two combatants mostly fight physically, despite Chan’s claims of unlimited power. At one point he turns into a big, fake-looking dragon with a skeleton in his mouth for some reason, but just as quickly resumes his mortal form.

Inexplicably, at one point Master Chan starts screaming “It’s sapping my power! It’s sapping my power!” like the Wicked Witch screaming “I’m melting!” at the end of The Wizard of Oz. As for who or what is sapping his power, we are never told.

Chan and Simon now wind up back on top of the mountain, on equal terms now that the villain was drained of his power. We get some more quality helicopter shots, this time of the Rhee Brothers fighting it out.

We are seeing this from the point of view of Kim Lee’s soul as it flies around and around the mountain top. At length, Simon thrashes Chan, and we are shown a ghostly Kim miming pulling something with a rope while she laughingly orders Master Chan to “Come down to me!”

Chan disappears, I guess taken to the afterlife or to some hellish punishment by Kim’s ghost. She disappears forever now, while Chan is reduced to a burning skeleton. Simon, with his adventure over, returns home and resumes teaching martial arts to the children near his cabin.

band from furiousAn on-screen message says “(almost) The End”, and we get gratuitous footage of the white-clad, sunglass-wearing band from earlier playing their instruments again. Like before, they don’t make music, they just make jumbled noises which sound like someone using sandpaper at super-speed. 

And then … the credits roll and this uproariously bad, weird movie comes to a close after a comparatively short 73 minutes. Furious packs more insanity into that amount of time than most other classically bad films do in longer run times. I recommend it for all fans of Psychotronic flicks.     

FOR MY REVIEW OF THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977), IN WHICH BRUCE LEE BATTLES DRACULA, MUMMIES AND ZOMBIES CLICK HERE.

JUNGLE JIM (1948)

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jungle jim 1948JUNGLE JIM (1948) – Decades before Raiders of the Lost Ark, “Jungle Jim” Bradley, mercenary jungle guide and adventurer, was fighting Nazis, Communist Spies and other menaces while finding lost cities & ancient artifacts, all while romancing lovely ladies. Throw in the occasional dinosaur, giant spider or huge, man-eating eel and enjoy!

A modern Jungle Jim franchise could combine the best elements of Indiana Jones, Crocodile Dundee and Allan Quatermain. The Rock is too old now, but years ago his love of filming in jungles would have made him ideal for the role.

weissmJungle Jim, a former comic strip character, was featured in a 1937 serial, a series of movies in the 1940s and 1950s, plus a television series in that latter decade. Former Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller played Jungle Jim in everything but the 1937 serial.

At any rate, 1948’s Jungle Jim was Weissmuller’s first appearance as the character. Fifteen more movies and 26 television episodes would follow in all their fun, outdated, absurd and So Bad They’re Good glory.

THE STORY: 

virginia george and johnnyWhen a vial containing a chemical concoction of the tribal doctors at the Hidden Temple of Zimbalu reaches the coastal cities, Dr. Hilary Parker (Virginia Grey) believes the paralyzing drug may have properties that could be used to cure polio. NOTE: Yes, a polio cure was still years away when this movie was made. 

Dr. Parker hires Jungle Jim Bradley to guide her to the Hidden Temple in search of a larger sample of the drugs. Bruce Edwards (George Reeves of Superman fame) is a photographer who tags along, pretending to want to chronicle Dr. Parker’s expedition, but really planning on stealing some of the legendary wealth of the Hidden Temple of Zimbalu.

george reeves jungle jim appearanceWith deadly treachery from Edwards periodically rearing its head, Jungle Jim and company face jungle cats, an elephant stampede, a gigantic octopus and hostile indigenous tribes. In the end, the expedition reaches the Hidden Temple, Bruce Edwards meets his death while trying to pull off his planned theft and it turns out the jungle drugs will not cure polio after all.

Romance blossoms between Jim and Dr. Parker, but she’ll be gone by the next movie. Jungle Jim’s animal sidekicks, Caw-Caw the crow and Skipper the dog, will return, however. (71 minutes)

FOR MY EXAMINATION OF THE 1937 JUNGLE JIM SERIAL PLUS THE REST OF THE WEISSMULLER MOVIES AND SHOW CLICK HERE.

ROAR (1981) – MARCH COMES IN LIKE A LION

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roar 1981ROAR (1981) – This was one of the first bad/ weird movies I planned to review when I started writing Balladeer’s Blog back in 2010, but like Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki it kept falling by the wayside. This film is no longer as unknown as it was in 2010 and has even been the subject of a documentary about its making, called The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made.

Even making jokes about this flick feels played out for everyone except people who haven’t seen or heard of it yet. Let me give it a try, though. “Roar: It’s not just the title – it’s the script!” or “You’ll believe people are stupid enough to make a drama using dozens of UNTRAINED jungle animals.”

roar posterYes, untrained. The original movie advertisements for Roar boasted that “No animals were harmed in the making of this film. 70 cast and crew members were.” The end result is not something any human or animal should have been put at risk over, believe me.

Roar is such a bizarre product. Part “animals strike back” film, part Mondo Cane flirtation, part Golden Turkey, part vanity project, part home movie, part masochistic family production, part stunt-casting orgy, I could go on and on.

roar bloodFirst up, the general story: A naturalist lives in Africa in a large, sprawling home with dozens of lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, jaguars, etc. His marriage is in trouble (of course) and he’s in danger of losing his grant money.

His estranged wife plus his two sons and a daughter come to visit but a mix-up causes them to arrive at the naturalist’s home while he is trying to pick them up at the airport. This strands the family with a houseful of wild and very dangerous jungle cats.

The stunt-casting: Noel Marshall plays the unhinged naturalist Hank (but we’re supposed to like him). THE Tippi Hedren, Noel’s real-life wife at the time, plays the naturalist’s wife Madeleine. Melanie Griffith, Tippi’s real-life daughter, plays the couple’s daughter Melanie. Marshall’s sons John and Jerry portray the couple’s sons John and Jerry. I guess the family that gets mauled together, stays together.  

roar rippedSome critics express how creepy it is when Tippi and Melanie’s characters discuss the mother and father’s sex life. Well, if you’ll recall, Hedren and her daughter Griffith also costarred in The Harrad Experiment, the infamous 1970s movie about “free love and free sex”. In that same film, Tippi had a kinky sex scene with one Don Johnson, who would marry Melanie Griffith.

For all I know, the clan is contemplating a movie starring Dakota Johnson plus Don and Melanie in God knows what kind of storyline. Maybe Roar 2: Roar Harder. (I’m kidding!)

The Psychotronic Appeal is off the charts in Roar. Early on, Noel Marshall’s Chicago accent as his character Hank delivers a virtual monologue about wildlife and humans makes it even more laughable than it would be under normal circumstances. Another bit is when one character moronically hides from some of the lions by locking himself in a refrigeration unit. (!)

lions in roarThe shrieking Hank isn’t so much devoted to his work as he is pathologically callous toward the suffering of those around him. He treats his best friend Mativo (Kyalo Mativo) as a virtual practice dummy for all his lions, destroys another friend’s car, and nearly gets several members of the grant committee killed through his carelessness.

Even worse, his disorganized nature and disdain for safety spawn the crossed wires that cause his wife and children to arrive at his lion-riddled home while he and Mativo are looking for them at the airport. Why are we supposed to like Hank again?

The idiot even costs the grant committee one of their boats and then costs Mativo another by letting several of his tigers climb into boats that cannot handle their weight. I was soon rooting for Hank to get torn limb from limb by his own animals while Mativo stood by and laughed.

roar adThe animals are the REAL directors of this film, as will be apparent when or if you watch it. The actors are left to basically ad-lib while the lions do what they please to the cast members in each scene, so the dialogue can’t help but sound hilariously bad.

I don’t want to spoil all the laughs in this notorious train wreck but let me point out one of the few intentional laughs in Roar. Soon after the wife and children arrive at Hank’s home, a bird starts to attack Tippi Hedren but she quickly shuts the door on it. Okay, cute joke and they didn’t milk it, it was kept brief and funny. 

Despite what I’ve written so far, I would call Roar a must-see movie. It is truly one of a kind and knowing the constant danger that the cast and crew were facing while this flick was being made add immensely to a viewer’s fascination as the lions and other jungle cats go at the actors. An elephant even manhandles Tippi Hedren with its trunk! 

roar injuryDue to its reputation plus the use AND misuse of animals in the making of Roar, it was not released in the U.S. or Canada until several years after its 1981 worldwide release. There was a time when obtaining copies of the movie was an adventure in itself. It’s readily available here in 2024, though.

Adding to the mind-blowing trivia behind this flick, Ted “Lurch” Cassidy co-wrote Roar, just like he co-wrote The Harrad Experiment. And the lion Togar had once been the pet of Satanist Anton LaVey.  

I am intentionally refraining from most spoilers in hopes of encouraging more people to seek out this bizarre experiment. If you’re wary about watching Roar out of concern for the naturalist and his family, the only characters who get killed are two gun-crazy men who show up hoping to slaughter all of Hank’s jungle cats.

So, by all means watch this flick and enjoy speculating on which scenes resulted in horrific injuries during filming while you simultaneously soak in the genuinely beautiful cinematography and the grandeur of all the African jungle animals on screen. 

SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI (1967) – SOUTH KOREAN MOVIE

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wangmagwiSPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI (1967) – This attempt by South Korea to compete with Japan in kaiju films came out the same year as the much more famous Yongary, Monster from the Deep. Space Monster Wangmagwi was produced by an all-South Korean team, while Yongary was made with Japanese assistance.

Obviously, neither of those South Korean movies redefined the genre, but in my opinion Space Monster Wangmagwi, despite being in black & white, is nearly as much fun as Yongary, Monster from the Deep. That former flick begins with aliens from the planet Gamma arriving near Earth in an interesting-looking spaceship. Not revolutionary, but eye-catching.

gamma aliensThe Gammans have oddly-colored faces but that’s all we can see of them in their suits of armor, which are like the Tim Man meets the Cybermen. The conversation among these aliens as they orbit our planet is the usual grim but hilariously contradictory alien gibberish in kaijus about how Earth stands no chance, or maybe we do, and their monster Wangmagwi will eat everyone on Earth and THEN the space fleet will move in. Or he’ll attack in unison with the fleet. Hey, just keep it cazh, dude!

The Gamman leader claims his people have been preparing to invade our planet for 10 years but then makes remarks indicating they have no idea what they may face from Earth’s military. Now THAT was a productive 10-year preparation period. These guys make the Mysterians seem like a model of efficiency!

At any rate, the invaders state they have selected South Korea as their initial target because an approaching monsoon will help provide cover for their space vessel. Wangmagwi was ejected from the Gamman craft and fell to the South Korean countryside.

We viewers are told that Earth’s gravity and air pressure is so much lighter than on Gamma that Wangmagwi will grow to enormous size immediately. The monster does this and goes on a rampage amid the usual models of towns and cities that we all love seeing stomped in kaiju films. 

The South Korean government canceled all leave for its service members and ordered all of them to report to their base. Nam Koong Won played our lead character, airforce pilot Jeong-Wan Oh while Seon-kyeong Kim portrayed his anxious bride to be Ahn-hee.

Ahn-hee and her mother prove to be idiotically detached from reality by going through their preparations in anticipation of having the wedding take place the next day as originally planned. HOW?! Seoul and other cities are being evacuated!

rampageAhn-hee’s dramatics and tears boggle the mind as she and dear old Mom delude themselves that the ceremony will go off without a hitch. As Wangmagwi’s rampage continues, Ahn-hee and her mother STILL show up at the temple, with the former in her elaborate wedding gown.

Seoul is mostly a ghost town by now, with no wedding guests on hand and the groom still flying in the repeated attacks on the monster at large. When Mom tells Ahn-hee that even the minister has failed to show up, the two ladies finally accept reality and try to flee the city in tears.

What can I say about Wangmagwi? His kaiju costume is so low effort he just looks like a giant guy who wrapped a football field’s artificial turf around himself. The monster’s mask presents a fanged, ugly face and gaping maw, while his clawed hands are so awkwardly made it looks like he is constantly flipping off the viewers and all of South Korea.

ahn heeWhen Wangmagwi crosses paths with Ahn-hee and her equally foolish mother, the monster picks up the bride in one hand/ paw and carries her along with him for the rest of his rampage. Why, I don’t know. Nor do I know why – despite all the damage he’s causing – Wangmagwi has yet to eat any Earthlings like the Gammans claimed he would do.

As the Gammans’ Operation Whatevs continues, this movie gets its regulation Little Kid side hero like Japan’s Gamera always had, as did South Korea’s Yongary. In English, the kid (Sang-cheol Jeon) is called Squirrel. For my money, he’s the best supporting kid character in ANY kaiju movie from ANY country.

Squirrel not only does NOT wear short pants he also does not side with the monster wreaking havoc! This kid has guts and he climbs up Wangmagwi’s body to his head, then enters the marauding creature’s ear.

kid squirrelOur ballsy homeless kid literally unzips his fly and pisses in Wangmagwi’s ear (!) in a scene that challenges Yongary’s rectal bleeding for sheer “Why the hell is this in the movie?” weirdness. Next, Squirrel uses his trusty knife to SLICE THROUGH both of the monster’s ear-drums while holding on for dear life and dodging artillery from the armed forces attacking Wangmagwi. 

At one point, Squirrel loses his footing and nearly falls through the monster’s mostly empty head and out one of his nostrils like we’re getting an homage to North by Northwest. Eventually, the kid falls into Wangmagwi’s outstretched palm, which still holds Ahn-hee.

Why the creature so delicately holds these two tiny creatures for so long is never revealed and we fans of bad movies wouldn’t have it any other way. Oh, and I forgot to mention Wangmagwi’s long-range weapon – his forehead has a hole in it which shoots foamy chemicals that set buildings on fire as he stomps along.   

wangmagwi picSo, while our monster continues its rampage, which consists largely of stomping the ruins of buildings he’s already leveled rather than focusing on new targets, Ahn-hee develops a protective attitude toward Squirrel in Wangmagwi’s palm prison.   

Scattered here and there throughout the movie, we viewers have been subjected to incredibly lame comic relief from some of the fleeing victims of the space monster’s destruction. Two groaningly broad middle-aged men make a series of bets with each other about their comparative courage in the face of danger. One of them even wagers his own wife! 

Even weirder, in one tightly-packed mob of refugees, a businessman takes the general order to evacuate VERY seriously. He can’t keep his bowels in check any longer and desperately steps to one side, lowers his pants and craps onto a newspaper. Seriously.

If you’re wondering where he got the newspaper, he grabbed it off another guy who – I swear to God – PUNCHED a boy shining his shoes and stole it, only for Bowel Man to take it from him in turn. And, as hard as this may be to believe, when Crap Man was straining at his stool his face was intercut with the strained face of a nearby pregnant woman who was giving birth in that same crowd of evacuees.

Elsewhere, a looter gets trampled to death by a panicked crowd before he can get away with his loot. I’m assuming this is not meant to be funny but who can be sure in this flick?

pilot heroAs Space Monster Wangmagwi hurtles toward its finale, we rejoin our heroic pilot and groom to be as he and his military superiors exchange the most inane non-sequitur remarks about what their next plan of attack will be. Hilariously, little of it makes sense and some of it is contradictory.

At length, the only definite development seems to be that if South Korea’s wonder-weapon fails against Wangmagwi, they’ll have no option except using nukes on the monster. None of this is belly-laugh funny, but it’s genuinely comical as these woefully indecisive military men half-ass their way through the crisis. 

Our male lead Jeong-wan Oh gets the glory of flying his jet with whatever the wonder weapon is inside it right into Wangmagwi, while simultaneously bailing out. As he descends via parachute, he scoops up Ahn-hee and Squirrel in his arms in comically unconvincing fashion, thus freeing them from the space monster’s loose grasp. 

As the trio make their way to safety, they see that the plane-with-wonder-weapon ramming into Wangmagwi … did nothing but start a small fire on part of his torso. HOWEVER, the Gammans make the truly defeatist move of giving up, stating that the Earthlings are more dangerous than they thought they were. (?)

gammansNot only do they decide to retreat back to Gamma, forever abandoning their planned invasion of our planet, they push the button that detonates an explosive they strapped to the monster’s back, blowing him to smithereens. Hey, and we thought the Earth forces were ineptly run!

And so, the world is saved, Ahn-hee and Jeong-wan Oh reschedule their wedding and they decide to adopt the heroic street urchin Squirrel. The End.

Space Monster Wangmagwi is low on destroyed models, even lower on logic toward the end, and, though dismissed by some critics as boring, I feel it deserves So Bad It’s Good status. All of my fellow fans of Psychotronic Movies would likely enjoy this obscure, not always predictable kaiju flick.

FOR MORE REVIEWS OF BAD MOVIES CLICK HERE.  

TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (1987) – BAD MOVIE

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tales from the quadead zone coverTALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (1987) – The second and – to date – final movie written and directed by Chester Novell Turner. The man’s films became so renowned for being legendarily bad that in 2014 a documentary about their making was released under the title Return to the Quadead Zone.

Once again, it’s time for Balladeer’s Blog’s standard warning for readers who are not into the more remote, violent and tasteless corners of the cinematic universe. Don’t go past the “Continue reading” mark.

black devil doll from hellOver a decade ago, I reviewed Turner’s first movie, Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984). That shot on video disaster is remembered as much for its low-budget, low-talent horrors as for its thoroughly bizarre sexual relationship between the animated, homicidal, dummy-sized doll and the leading lady.

That actress, Shirley L. Jones, is back in the starring role for Tales from the Quadead Zone AND crafted the hilariously inadequate special effects in the 62-minute mess. This time out, Jones portrays the mother of a slain child.

ghost fromIn a macabre nightly – well, day-for-nightly – ritual, Shirley reads bedtime stories to the ghost of her late son Bobby. Via visual effects so cheap and unconvincing that even the original Doctor Who series would have rejected them the ghost enters the living room and sits down in a chair near his mother.

The quasi-invisible Bobby’s quasi-invisible buttocks make impressions on the seat cushion in what turns out to be the technical high point of this flick. Shirley produces an amazingly thick book titled Tales from the Quadead Zone and reads a pair of twisted bedtime stories to her late child.

thick bookThe first story lives up to the aimless, inane and idiotic levels of writing and directing that C.N. Turner established in Black Devil Doll from Hell. It features an absurdly stereotypical family of white hicks who cannot afford enough food to provide nourishment for the parents and numerous children … despite how overweight some of them are. 

The oldest brother hits upon an insane solution. He fetches his rifle and shoots to death some of the children. Quick cuts then show us that at the start of each successive meal the psycho blows away another family member to stretch out the available food.

And no, that doesn’t make sense because the first murder apparently made enough of a difference for their groceries to feed the entire family. Fewer mouths to feed should mean that additional deaths are not necessary for there to be enough food for everybody.

The murderous hillbilly doesn’t force cannibalism upon the family so that’s not the answer. Nor is it ever made clear how Big Brother prevents everyone from fleeing or overcoming him as the days and meals go by.

Turner doesn’t even care enough about his own story to provide a real conclusion. Onscreen text informs viewers that the only survivors of the family were put in the witness protection program. No, not an insane asylum, the witness protection program. The End. Now it’s back to the all-black cast. 

shirleyUp next Shirley reads her ghostly child a story about two brothers whose sibling rivalry has been lopsided all their lives. The one brother excels at everything while the other fails at everything. Brother Number One even stole the other’s wife.

This is established via expository dialogue so mangled that we viewers can barely understand any of it, but the inferior brother seemingly killed the other. Flushed with victory, the schlub stole his brother’s body from the funeral home and now uses makeup and props to make his brother’s corpse look like a clown. The body then comes to life and drags his killer down into death with him.     

And that’s it for the storybook tales. According to the documentary about C.N. Turner’s films Black Devil Doll from Hell started out as just one story intended for Tales from the Quadead Zone but evolved and expanded into Turner’s first feature release instead.

Showing even less creative ambition than he did talent, our auteur never bothered to come up with a replacement story for this follow-up flick. Nor did he bother changing the title, because “quadead” would imply four stories but without the hellish doll tale we are left with just three – the two I summarized above and the wraparound story with Shirley and her son’s ghost.

masc graveyard smallerThat wraparound segment ends with Shirley’s man coming home from work and being furious with her for reading from the supernatural book and/or for communicating with her dead son. Or thinking she can communicate with her dead son?

It’s possible her enraged spouse just thinks she’s nuts for believing she gets nightly visits from Bobby. The fuzzy dialogue doesn’t quite make that clear as the man severely beats Shirley with the enormous book.

Our heroine fights back and her man winds up dead. Police sirens are heard arriving and the typically cheap writer-director didn’t even spring for cop costumes because the two policemen are dressed very casually.

Shirley kills herself rather than be arrested, but we viewers are shown that this is actually a happy ending for her because it reunites her with little Bobby. The same sub-Doctor Who special effects from earlier establish this in clumsy fashion.

Thus ended the cinematic output of one Chester Novell Turner, often called the black Ed Wood but even Wood showed more passion for his work than Turner did. Sadly, neither of his movies are So Bad They’re Good, they’re just plain bad. The only real fun from watching them comes from marking them off your list of must-see film turkeys, bird-watcher style.    

FOR MORE BAD AND WEIRD MOVIES CLICK HERE.


LOOK WHAT’S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY’S BABY (1976) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

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look whats happened to rosemarys babyLOOK WHAT’S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY’S BABY (1976) – With The First Omen currently in theaters, its creative team’s obvious desire to make their Omen prequel seem more like Rosemary’s Baby made me decide to review the often forgotten made-for-television sequel to that horror classic. 

Let’s be clear that this telefilm has nothing to do with Ira Levin or his later sequel novel Son of Rosemary. Levin’s genius was sorely missed in Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, an aggressively “meh” little nothing. After all, in addition to his novel Rosemary’s Baby, Ira Levin wrote the books The Stepford Wives, A Kiss Before Dying, The Boys from Brazil and Sliver

Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (henceforth LWHTRB) featured Ruth Gordon as the only returning cast member from the 1968 movie, reprising her role of Minnie Castevet. Ray Milland played her husband Roman Castevet and George Maharis portrayed Rosemary’s actor husband Guy Woodhouse.

Rosemary herself was portrayed by Patty Duke, who had missed out on playing the character in the 1968 film. In the role of Rosemary’s son Adrian/ Andrew was cult actor Stephen McHattie. 

The tepid tale kicks off when Adrian is 8 years old and Rosemary has spirited him away to avoid some weird new ritual that Ruth Gordon and her fellow Satanists want to subject the boy to. The villains use some of Rosemary’s personal possessions to cast a spell tracking her down.

She and little Adrian are huddled in a synagogue in another city. The Satanists cause some minor uproar in the synagogue but because it’s a holy site they cannot abduct her or injure anyone inside. The next morning, Rosemary and Adrian slip away to a bus station. Like an idiot, she STILL hasn’t learned not to trust her husband Guy, who is now a big star thanks to his deal with Satan in the original movie.

She wants Guy to wire money so she and Adrian can take a long bus ride. Guy dutifully informs Ruth Gordon and company, and they have Marjean, a prostitute played by Tina Louise, another devil-worshiper, offer Rosemary and her son shelter for the night while they wait for Guy to supposedly send money to them.

look what r bThe next day, Rosemary exits the picture, taken away by a Satan-controlled bus whose door closes before Adrian can join her. Marjean holds Adrian to prevent him from running off while he watches his mother get taken to her doom by the remote-controlled empty bus.

The next portion of LWHTRB starts off with the portentous title The Book of Adrian appearing on screen. Despite the mostly dull open, those words did get me to refocus on this little honey, hoping it would get better. 

Forget that! It’s twenty years later and Adrian (now played by McHattie) has grown up to be the kind of wimp that Damien Thorne could kick through all nine circles of Hell. He’s the embodiment of the term “failure to launch” and is still dominated by “Aunt Marjean” whom we learn has convinced him that his mother’s death by bus was really a crash that killed both his parents, so he has no idea his foster father is a famous actor.   

Yes, Adrian is twenty-eight years old now, and though you’d think the son of Satan would have been led into a powerful position and getting ready to challenge Heaven’s authority, you’d be wrong. Despite having been raised by a woman who is part of the Castevet’s cult of Satanists, Adrian is a nobody loser like Otto on The Simpsons.

Next, Adrian and his slacker friend Peter (David Huffman) get into the kind of trouble you’d think they’d have gotten out of their systems back when they were teenagers. They go on a joyride and pick a fight with some bikers.

Okay, I give this thing points for making it seem like Adrian’s pal Peter will be his unholy version of the Apostle Peter with more disciples to follow. Once again, however, it lets us down and the two remain so boring you wouldn’t think they’d get into any trouble worse than stealing hubcaps. 

Ruth Gordon and her hubby show up at the tawdry little casino run by Aunt Marjean and drug Adrian into unconsciousness. Yes, at the tender age of twenty-eight the cultists have finally decided that Satan’s spawn is ready to get involved in some mischief. (I was half-convinced he was still a virgin at this point, while Damien Thorne had been setting up threesomes for himself in military school.)

Guy Woodhouse, still beholden to the Castevets, shows up that night to participate in the upcoming ritual. Adrian’s nosey buddy Peter recognizes the movie star and spies on him, the Castevets and Aunt Marjean. 

mime makeup

Look What’s Happened to Marcel Marceau

The Satanists have adorned Adrian with white mime makeup while he was knocked out, and the cultists chant and chant in Latin, asking Satan to make his son get up and go look for a job or something. Or clean his room, maybe.

At length the ritual works and Adrian wakes up, then frantically runs out onto the casino’s dance floor. (Disco Son of Satan!) He possesses all the other dancers and induces odd behavior. (Disco Inferno? Had to be said.)

Peter was still looking on, and though I expected him to deny three times that he knew the dork in mime makeup causing an uproar on the dance floor, he instead tried to convince Guy Woodhouse to help him save Adrian from whatever was going on. (Movie Star = Emergency Responder to Peter.) 

Guy kills Peter and frames Adrian for the murder. Adrian, having been energized by the dark ritual, continues his stint as the dullest devilspawn EVER by lapsing into a coma. I’m not joking.

Up next, the words The Book of Andrew appear on the screen, and if you thought The Book of Adrian was hopelessly boring, The Book of Andrew smites you and puts you in your place. Our Antichrist-as-loser drama continues as our main character remains in a coma indefinitely. (This guy is a dynamo!)

Anyway, the remainder of the telefilm needs to live up to that scary chapter title The Book of Andrew, so we viewers get to see the Andrew-est, bookingest tale EVER to come along. Our star emerges from his coma … with amnesia.

Ellen, his nurse, is played by seductive and shifty Donna Mills, so she might as well be wearing a t-shirt that says “I Joined the Castevet’s Satanic Cult and All I Got was This Lousy T-Shirt”. She tells her formerly comatose patient that his name is Andrew.

look what coverHe fearfully tells her about what little he remembers about a ritual, mime makeup and, most frightening of all … a disco dance floor! Ellen assures him that she believes him and helps him escape from the hospital. 

Ruth Gordon and Ray Milland learn that “Andrew” (Why the name change? We are never told.) has come out of his coma and has escaped the hospital. They inform Guy, who fears that the young man may hunt him down and kill him to avenge Peter, so he gets in his car and drives off.

Ellen and Andrew/ Adrian check into a hotel, where she seduces him. He falls asleep afterward, which made me start to wonder if this entire production was just one big troll of its viewers.

The sleeping son of Satan dreams about Ellen in monster makeup slashing his chest, then wakes up. I would imagine this Monstrous Ellen was added just so the creative team could add a seemingly scary scene to the commercials for the telefilm.

At any rate, Andrew books on out of the hotel room looking for Ellen. Guy Woodhouse tries to kill him by running him down with his car, missing Andrew but hitting the nearby Ellen before crashing. Andrew checks the vehicle and sees that Guy has died in the accident.

Confused, Andrew/ Adrian runs off into the night, never to be seen again. I’m serious. Anyway, apparently the Satanists had finally realized that this schlep was never going to make a half-decent Antichrist and we are shown that Ellen has survived the accident.

Under the closing credits she gives birth to the child that Andrew impregnated her with during their one-night stand. This yawn-fest’s final twist is to reveal that Minnie and Roman Castevet are Ellen’s grandparents, and they’ll help raise the infernal child to be … well, probably an insurance salesman or something if the father was anything to go by.

Believe it or not, there was no demand for a sequel to this dull, disappointing and relentlessly dopey flick. Never learning “what’s happened to Rosemary’s Baby” after all is a fitting finale. 

FOR MORE FORGOTTEN TELEVISION CLICK HERE.       

NEIL BREEN: HIS FIRST FIVE BAD MOVIES

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Neil Breen making a faceHere at Balladeer’s Blog my love of enjoyably bad movies has been well established. You can count me as one of the many “Human Breens” as fans of filmmaker Neil Breen are called.  

Neil Breen (PBUH) started out as an architect and realtor with minor show-biz dabblings as a dancer in Madonna’s Vogue video and as a cop in Scream. Years later Breen surfaced once again in the entertainment world, this time as an independent filmmaker.

Neil Breen realtorAs with the best of the bad auteurs Neil churns out productions that are uniquely his own. There is no mistaking a Neil Breen film with a film made by anyone else. Picture The Room’s Tommy Wiseau trying to make a David Lynch movie. But with a LOT more needless violence against laptop computers.

Read on for a look at the first five examples of Breen Cinema.

Double DownDOUBLE DOWN (2005) – Neil Breen starred, wrote and directed this movie – and quite obviously he or an associate even wrote the IMDb description of the plot. That description calls Double Down “an edgy action thriller,” which would certainly come as a surprise to anyone who has actually SEEN the film. 

Double Down set the pattern for all things Breen, which is to say it redefines Vanity Projects AND Mary Sue-ing. He casts himself as (insert some sort of human or superhuman paragon here) who (engages in some sort of activity) while looking down on everyone else with a judgmental air of disapproval and ennui. And needless to say, he’s the BEST at looking down on everyone else with a judgmental air of disapproval and ennui. (Sure, but can he climb anything?).

Breen is often the only character in his films who is right or who even has any valid points to make. Neil’s cinematic philosophy  seems to be “Well, I can’t just film myself masturbating but let’s see how close to that I can get!” 

Neil stars and directs himself as Aaron Brand, a master assassin who is also a master computer hacker and master political fixer and master car thief. A man like this makes enemies. And I mean Neil Breen, of course, not his character Aaron Brand. But Brand has his own issues.   

Brand boasts about fixing elections and robbing nations of their water supply and other assorted heinous acts. (Yet he sleeps in his car. Go figure.) He has planted various high-tech traps and bio-weapons around the world to use as leverage if his legion of adversaries gets too close. So they target his lady instead.

Despite his near-omnipotence (THE defining quality of every character Neil Breen plays) somehow Aaron Brand failed to prevent her from being killed while bathing with him. His late gal’s consciousness was somehow projected into untold numbers of holograms around the world (or something), and it is through those holograms that she speaks to Aaron from beyond the grave (or something).

Breen’s obsessive antipathy toward laptops couldn’t be more absurd if he roamed the world shooting every laptop he encounters, like some Spaghetti Western hero on a revenge quest. In a way, laptops are to Neil Breen as clocks were to Salvador Dali and become a theme in his future movies. But his use of canned tuna as a metaphor ended with this debut feature.

Anyway, Aaron’s dead but computerized (or something) woman is somehow powerful enough to subject him to a repeating time-loop (or something). He keeps waking up next to his car in the Nevada desert and relives some of his past missions (or something), ultimately motivating him to want to destroy Las Vegas in its entirety … or to SAVE Las Vegas. (?)

There’s also lots of anthrax and a crazy old man who gives our hero a rock that cures cancer. No, I’m not kidding. It may sound impossible but there’s a good chance you’ll understand Breen’s films LESS with each subsequent viewing. Now THAT’S a Master of Badfilm!

INeil Breen I am here ... now AM HERE …. NOW (2009) – And I’m going to review this movie …. now. Neil Breen made it official with his second film: he is going to be to Las Vegas what Andy Milligan was to Staten Island and William Girdler was to Louisville. And somebody needs to explain to Neil that an ellipse consists of three dots, not four. (When you can’t get the punctuation marks in your own title right …)

This time around Neil portrays the only figure that is nearly as awe-inspiring as himself: God. Technically called the Being, Neil’s character is revealed to be the creator of life on Earth. He is thoroughly disgusted with lesser beings for not being as wonderful and virtuous as he considers himself to be. And I mean Neil Breen, of course, not his character the Being. (Sorry. That’s the last time I’ll do that. I promise.)

The Being is walking toward Las Vegas where he interacts with various sinful and immoral humans and is frankly fed up with them. Think Godspell in the Desert with no songs but with lots and lots of baby heads in the sand.

Violent crime has never been this funny as Neil encounters street thugs who shoot, rape and kill but also take time out to ATTACK A CANCER PATIENT IN A WHEELCHAIR! Now that’s cold.

Neil Breen as The BeingThe Being unleashes his powers on these miscreants but doesn’t spare the other types of evil-doers in the world. The movie’s central villains are corporate rich pigs and corrupt politicians who are as one-dimensionally evil as the people that propagandist Michael Moore depicts in his conspiracy kook flicks.  

These bad guys – who recite their stilted dialogue even more listlessly than Neil Breen does – ultimately get theirs in over-the-top ways, like by getting crucified in the desert by the Being.

In the end, just like another desert-dwelling doer of good works (Mad Max. Who did you think I meant?) the Being cures people, raises from the dead (kind of) and then sends forth his disciples to spread his teachings.   

Anyway, the Breen-iverse of this movie as always consists of simplistic moralizing and large-breasted women. And don’t forget the corrupt politicians who make a point of explaining to each other how corrupt they are in tedious detail.

Seriously, in real life a shadowy figure would suspect their co-conspirator of wearing a wire if they spelled out their sinister plans aloud all the time.

Neil Breen Fateful FindingsFATEFUL FINDINGS (2013) – Neil Breen IS Dylan, a powerful psychic (or something – he got weird superpowers from a relic) who is also a master computer hacker (yes, again) and novelist. If he solved murders he’d already be the lead character in a television detective show. Come to think of it, there IS a murder in this film.

The poster captures it all: Neil Breen’s face looming large, a few women who turn out to have fairly nice breasts AND the world’s greatest menace … laptop computers. These laptops don’t fare any better than the ones in Double Down, I’m afraid.

And speaking of Breen’s debut effort, he apparently didn’t like playing a character with various subtle shadings like in Double Down. In Fateful Findings he once again depicts a figure with no significant faults like in I Am Here …. Now. He also takes part in one of cinema’s most unintentionally hilarious sex scenes of all time. Okay, TWO of cinema’s most unintentionally hilarious sex scenes of all time. 

Since this is a Neil Breen flick it goes without saying that all the female characters just adore him, even a sixteen year old girl that Neil magnanimously turns down. (Sheesh! Even Tommy Wiseau made it so that his on-screen girlfriend was cheating on him.) A dog licking its own balls is nothing compared to the affection Breen heaps upon himself in his movies.

While everyone around him struggles to endure their various crises Neil’s Dylan is their touchstone of course. In the end he uses his hacking abilities to expose corruption in government and finance. The movie presents all that in an even more unintentionally funny way than does Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack Goes To Washington.

And not even Laughlin ever penned a line of dialogue that compares to Breen as Dylan lamenting over the body of a dead friend with the words “I can’t believe you committed suicide. I cannot believe you committed suicide. How could you have done this? How could you have committed suicide?” Classic!

And in an ending full of poetic justice … or something … the corrupt politicians and corporate rich pigs all commit suicide because Neil exposed their wrongdoing. These suicides are presented in a howlingly inept way as Neil smiles approvingly.

If you watch only one of Breen’s movies it should be THIS one. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what goes on in its unhinged storyline.  

Neil Breen Pass ThruPASS THRU (2016) – By this point Neil Breen was showing how truly little he brings to the table (a table designed AND built by himself, naturally). Just as Fateful Findings recycled many story elements from Double Down, Pass Thru recycles many story elements from I Am Here …. Now and Fateful Findings.

Instead of being a God who is disgusted with humanity and sets out to teach them the error of their ways, this time around Mister Breen portrays Artificial Intelligence from the far future who is disgusted with humanity and sets out to teach them the error of their ways. Mostly by killing them off by the millions … and by crashing their parties for simplistic moralizing. (Genocide, sure, but social faux pas? What a monster!)

The bloom may be off the proverbial rose by this point in Breen’s career. Unlike his previous efforts Pass Thru never  made me feel like I was watching something that was bad in a fresh new way. It was just the same ol’ same ol’. The only new twist was the way that – for some reason – insurance agents have been added to Breen’s list of nefarious human beings. (?)  

Neil Breen Pass Thru 2And since Double Down was described on IMDb as “an edgy action thriller” I say Pass Thru should be described as “the definitive Nicolas Cage bio-pic.”   

So what’s next from Neil? Will he play a god-like being sharing a cure for cancer while setting straight every misguided or evil figure on Earth while in his spare time he beds down with a long line of ladies, all of whom give birth to babies which all sport the head of a full-grown Neil Breen?

neil breen 2TWISTED PAIR (2018) – My fellow Human Breens will be thrilled to hear that the one, the only Neil Breen (PBUH) has released his latest cinematic effort. He once again wrote, starred and directed. This addition to the Breeniverse is titled Twisted Pair and features Neil sharing the starring role with the only man who could possibly hold their own with him on the big screen: himself.

As if one Neil Breen pompously setting straight the human race about what moral lepers we are wasn’t enough we now get Breen Times Two or Breen Squared or however you would prefer to describe it. Neil portrays identical twins Cade and Kale, who merge with a form of Artificial Intelligence, gain super powers from it and then set out to save humanity from itself. Same ol’ same ol’ in other words.

We get some Sheer Breenius right off the bat as the twins are listed in the credits as Keith and Kale but are referred to as Cade and Kale in the dialogue. Don’t ever change, Neil.

Anyway, Keith (Or Cade) and Kale are “Identical Neil Breens/ All the way/ They walk alike/ They fly alike/ They even give tiresome lectures with an air of moral superiority alike/ … What a Twisted Pair!/ You will lose your mind/ When Neil Breen/ Is Two of a Kiiiind!” 

twisted pairConflict is the essence of drama, of course, and though Keith and Kale just KNOW they are the Supreme Breens fit to reform humanity the twins disagree about the way to approach their mission. The two members of this Breen Trust clash when one of them decides the human race must be browbeaten into submission while the other decides that the human race must be SAVAGELY browbeaten into submission. Fifty Shades of Grey takes on new meaning here.

Anyway, in Twisted Pair the number of computers destroyed may be larger while the body count and the women’s breasts may be smaller but otherwise it’s pretty much Breen-ness as usual.

Remember the tagline to the Christopher Reeve Superman movie: “You’ll believe a man can fly.” Well in Twisted Pair you WON’T believe how hard you’ll laugh when you see Cade and Kale fly.

The Twisted Pair trailer is below: 

FOR MORE BAD MOVIE REVIEWS CLICK HERE:    https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/   

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2017-2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 





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