I’ve often said that I prefer Zombi 2 to Dawn of the Dead — at least if I am looking for a more fun movie — because it skips the political allegory and gets right to what the zombie splatter that I really want to see.

Burial Ground (also known as Le Notti del terrore, Nights of Terror, Zombi Horror, The Zombie Dead and most confusingly, Zombi 3) raises you that lack of Romero’s restraint and storytelling, doubles down by ripping off Fulci’s work which is in itself a ripoff (but a masterful one) and piles on the sleaze. No, really. This is a film that is ready to outright offend everyone.

The film starts with a professor accidentally unleashing an evil curse that reanimates the dead. He’s instantly killed. Meanwhile, three “jet-set couples” (I’ve heard them referred to this way several times and it always makes me laugh) and a creepy man child named Michael (who was played by Pietro Barzocchini, who was 25-years-old at the time…more on that soon) arrive at a nearby mansion, invited by the professor. We catch Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano, The Sect) stealing lingerie that she found in the mansion, to which her boyfriend James replies, “You look just like a little whore, but I like that in a girl.” At that point, that creepy manchild of hers, Michael, comes in and freaks out while his mom absentmindedly just stands there, nude.

It doesn’t take long before the dead attack. A maid is decapitated with a scythe because these living dead can use tools. Why are they more evolved than Romero or Fulci zombies? We never learn.

The zombies break into the mansion and attack everyone. This leads to that young creep, Michael, becoming totally shell-shocked. Evelyn, his mother, attempts to confront him, so he becomes to fondle her breasts. As he kisses her, he tries to get his hand between her legs. She slaps him as he runs away, shouting “What’s wrong? I’m your son!” He runs right into one of the party guests, Leslie, who is now a zombie. Like a Fulci librarian, he stares at her as she makes her way toward him.

At this point, everyone reasons that they should just let the zombies into the house, because they are slow and it will allow them to escape. Sure. That always works. Evelyn goes to find her son, who has been killed by Leslie. She flips out and smashes Leslie’s head against a tub, screaming as loudly as possible all the while.

Everyone runs toward a monastery, where the film decides to become a Blind Dead film. The zombie monks chase everyone to a workshop where they kill Mark with power tools. Creepy Michael has now become an even creepier zombie. Evelyn has lost her mind and thinks it’s a miracle, so she bares her breasts for her son to suck on. He replies by eating her breast off in graphic detail.

Finally, Janet is menaced by multiple zombie hands as the film ends with the Profecy of the Black Spider. Yes, that’s how they spell prophecy. “The earth shall tremble, graves shall open, they shall come among the living as messengers of death and there shall be the nigths of terror.” And yes, they also spelled nights incorrectly.

Director Andrea Bianchi isn’t one for subtlety, which films like Strip Nude for Your Killer and Confessions of a Frustrated Housewife on his IMDB credits. If you’re looking for unrepentant gore (Fulci’s through the door eye gouge is repeated here with a window), bad special effects (the latex zombie heads are near Troll 2 in their quality), playing with guts and gore ala Blood Feast and a total lack of storyline or sense, then I’d advise you watch this one.

Of course, Severin Films is the place to grab it. They claim they are “improbably proud to present the definitive version of this gorehound/sex-fiend favorite.” They’ve even completely restored a print of the film that they found beneath the floorboards of a Trastevere church rectory. You’ll get a ton of extras, including a Q and A with creepy little Pietro Barzocchini! Plus, they made “Smells of Death” shotglasses and shirts. And the artwork — which accompanies this article — is amazing. Keep in mind, this isn’t an ad. I just love that Severin is spending more time and energy restoring and packaging these films than their creators did making them.

You can also find this on Shudder if you prefer to stream your films.

This movie is a real piece of shit. But you know, it’s an entertaining piece of shit. It’s the kind of film you can say, “But yeah, did you see Burial Ground? That one is totally insane.” And I love Berto Pisano’s atonal goofy soundtrack that blares any time the zombies show up. But if you’re looking for a movie with any class, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Here’s a drink to enjoy during this movie.

This Cocktail Smells of Death

• 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1/2 oz. rum
• 1/2 oz. apple schnapps
• 1/2 oz. blue curacao
• 1/2 oz. Chambord
• 1/2 oz. blueberry vodka
• 1/2 oz. orange juice
• 2 oz. cranberry juice
• Frozen blueberries

1. Fill a glass a quarter way with frozen blueberries.
2. Combine all ingredients in a shaker and mix with ice, then pour over blueberries.

No matter what title you watch this movie under —  from the original Spanish title, No Profanar el Sueño de los Muertos (Don’t Disturb the Sleep of the Dead) or alternates like Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, The Living Dead, Breakfast at Manchester Morgue and Don’t Open the Window — it’s an intriguing slice of early 70’s shock. At once a portrait of the young, hip and now generation and a zombie film, Jorge Grau’s film features scenes that still freak people out over forty years later.

I first learned of this film from the Electric Wizard song “Wizard in Black,” as a sample of the Inspector arguing with George starts the song.

George (Ray Lovelock, Murder Rock) runs an antique shop in Manchester and decides to go work on a house with some friends. At a gas station, Edna (Cristina Galbó, What Have You Done to Solange?) hits his motorcycle with her car, so she agrees to give him a ride. On the way to see Edna’s sister, they hit a dead end. George finds a short cut that takes them past an experimental insect killing machine in the fields. It uses ultrasonic radiation and is supposed to be safer than DDT. Meanwhile, a mysterious man attacks Edna.

That night, Edna’s sister Katie and her husband Martin (Jóse Lifante, Dr. Death from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) argue. Martin goes to take photographs while the same man who attacked Edna menaces Katie. Martin tries to save her, but is killed just as Edna and George arrive.

They go to the police to report the death, but the police sergeant thinks Katie was the killer. They all decide to stay at the Old Owl Hotel, as George gets the photos developed that Martin was taking to see what was really happening.

Meanwhile, Katie has gone insane and is hospitalized. For some reason, newborn babies are biting people with murderous intent — something which is not followed up on in this movie.

The developed photos show a homeless man, who later returns to trap our heroes in a crypt and bring back to life numerous bodies simply by touching their eyes with his bloody fingers. George and Edna cut their way out of the ground itself to escape, but only Edna makes it out, as the zombies won’t let go of George. A police officer named Craig, who has been following them, saves them but the zombies give chase. He soon discovers his gun has no effect as they overwhelm him and rip him apart, eating his vital organs.

As the zombies trap George and Edna all over again, they throw an oil lamp at the horde, which saves them. They decide to split up. Edna will inform the police and George will destroy the machine. Unbeknownst to them, the police — and more specifically, the inspector (Arthur Kennedy, The Antichrist) — think that they are Manson-like Satanic killers and have issued an order to shoot to kill.

Edna is nearly killed by her brother-in-law in zombie form, but is saved again by George, who drops her off at a gas station. He’s then caught by the police, who take him and Martin’s body to the hospital and switch the machine on again. The zombies — now including Katie — come to life, killing everyone in their path and menacing a sedated Edna.

Sadly, George is too late. Edna is a zombie and pushes him into a room where the police inspector shoots him four times, killing him. He even claims that he wishes that George would come to life again just so he could kill him one more time.

He gets his wish, as an undead form of George comes for him, but now, bullets cannot stop him. And in the field, the machine keeps working.

I’m in pure love with this movie. From the way it depicts the blight of early 70’s England to the way the cops treat our heroes to the downbeat ending, it’s everything that is perfect about horror movies. And the close in the hospital is packed with shocking gore that will truly stay with you. No matter what title you see this as, make sure to see it.

You can watch it on Amazon Prime.

Every movie is someone’s favorite movie. That’s why I don’t call these reviews. They’re me exploring films, trying to figure out how they happened and what they are about. How do I do that about this film without feeling like I’m kicking a limbless child?

Edward Carnby (Christian Slater, Heathers) is an occult detective and the star of the video games that you may or may not have played. As a child, he was subject to some intense experiments as he grew up in an orphanage where Sister Clara raised him. As a result, he has a sixth sense and has increased strength and agility. He also used to work for Bureau 713, which protects the world from the paranormal.

We learn about Bureau 713 from a long scroll in the beginning that is also read to us. It goes on way longer than it needs to. And then it goes on some more. It may still be running as you read this.

He’s also investigating the disappearance of the Abkani, who worshipped demons from another dimension, demons who are coming back to ours. His girlfriend Aline (Tara Reid, American Pie) is the curator of a museum which happens to have artifacts from the Abkani. There are also some paramilitary guys who are legitimately wearing paintball armor led by Commander Burke (Stephen Dorff, Blade).

The writer of the film, Blair Erickson, summed up the changes Uwe Boll made to the script: “Thankfully Dr. Boll was able to hire his loyal team of hacks to crank out something much better than our crappy story and add in all sorts of terrifying horror movie essentials like opening gateways to alternate dimensions, bimbo blonde archaeologists, sex scenes, mad scientists, slimy dog monsters, special army forces designed to battle slimy CG dog monsters, Tara Reid,  Matrix slow-motion gun battles, and car chases. Oh yeah, and a ten-minute opening backstory scroll read aloud to the illiterate audience, the only people able to successfully miss all the negative reviews. I mean hell, Boll knows that’s where the real scares lie.” 

Yes, the bad guys look like aliens and basically tear everyone to pieces, other than Slater and Reid. That is — if you get that far. This is a film packed with continuity gaffes, appearances by camera people and even Reid being unable to say the word Newfoundland. For a film set in California, Canadian signage appears throughout. When Agent Cheung’s dead body is found, she visibly moves before the scene ends. And perhaps most amazingly, the creatures in the film? Their main weakness is light. Yet they show up in broad daylight to attack the two main characters at the end of the film.

I know Uwe Boll likes to punch critics, but I can handle it. Seriously, if you love a video game, there’s the worry that this man has made a movie of it. I’d do an entire week of his films on this site, but I don’t even know if I have that kind of guts.

My wife has never played Super Mario Brothers. She first saw this film at the now Hollywood Theater in Dormont as a child and it became one of the many films she rewatched over and over again as she grew up.

I’ve never seen the movie Super Mario Brothers, but the Mario character was a big part of my childhood and I played every one of his games as I grew up.

Together, we watched the film and came at it from two very different perspectives. Imagine, if you will, someone who has no bias toward this movie for how different it is from the property that inspired it and only sees it as a film about two adopted plumber brothers battling a parallel world ruled by dinosaurs.

When seen through those eyes, perhaps Super Mario Brothers is a good movie. To everyone else, it’s either a movie they hate — like lead actor Bob Hoskins — or one they can’t even begin to understand.

Producer Roland Joffé pitched the film to Nintendo, telling them that they’d have more control over the film working with his small Lightmotive company. Draft after draft of the film was made with Harold Ramis being considered as the director. Finally, the husband and wife team of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (who created Max Headroom) were selected.

At that point, they jettisoned everything that came before. The original script, by Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker, was a more fairy tale retelling of the plot of the video games. Instead, the new directors wanted the film set in Dinohatten, a dark alternate version of New York City where dinosaurs ruled. Here’s the first issue — this world appears nowhere in the universe of the Super Mario Brothers games. The team wanted a dark satire instead of a bright, colorful world. Amazingly, they convinced the producers and Nintendo to go along with their vision.

Over the next year, five scripts were written by nine writers. Sets were built and scripts were even written without the directors being on board that tried to soften their narrative ideas and make a more kid-friendly film. That said — the sets had already been built.

None of the original script remained when filming started. The principal actors, Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, began drinking through much of the filming. This led to an incident where Leguizamo crashed the plumbing van and broke Hoskins’ hand (he wore a flesh-colored cast for the rest of the production). Dennis Hopper, playing the lead villain Koopa, had open contempt for the directors, seeing them as control freaks.

Yet there was a great early buzz for the film, with an L.A. Times article comparing the set design favorably to Blade Runner (they share production designer David L. Snyder). Then Disney bought on to the film. And then the directors were shut out of reshoots and lost their final cut.

Everyone believed that kids would love the movie. Mario was such a big deal to them, this was a can’t miss bet. Kids will watch anything, right? Even if what they come to see has nothing in common with the video games and cartoons and the actual property that they loved so much, right?

Let’s get into it. The film starts with a poorly animated retelling of how the dinosaurs died off. I’m not sure if this is supposed to look like a video game or have been created in Mario Paint, but with the budget of the film, it sure feels weird. We learn that the meteorite that crashed into Earth made another dimension where dinosaurs rules.

In present day New York City, Mario and Luigi are struggling plumbers who are getting put out of business by the Scapelli Company. Those guys are also messing with an NYU sponsored dig where dinosaur bones are found under the Brooklyn Bridge by an orphaned archaeology student named Daisy (Samantha Mathis, Pump Up the Volume). While on a date, the villainous Iggy and Spike (Fisher Stevens from Short Circuit and character actor Richard Edson, who was also Sonic Youth’s original drummer) kidnap Daisy and take her to the dinosaur dimension.

This leads to King Koopa (Hopper) and his minions trying to get both Daisy and her necklace so that they can take over our world. Daisy ends up being the princess of the other side, with her father being devolved into a fungus (he’s played by an unrecognizable Lance Henriksen).

Along the way, Spike and Iggy realize that their cousin Koppa is evil and help the Mario brothers, all while Daisy meets Yoshi and Toad (Mojo Nixon!) is introduced as a musician who writes anti-Koopa music before being devolved into a Goomba. And Fiona Shaw shows up as Koopa’s would-be love interest who really wants to show him up by enacting his plans.

The two worlds become merged, with Koopa devolving the owner of the Scapelli Corporation into a monkey before Mario attacks him with a Bob-omb (one of the few video game references that happen in the film). Koopa then becomes a human Tyrannosaurus Rex before getting filly devolved into slime and Daisy’s father being saved. Whew!

Luigi tells Daisy he loves her (you know, Mario’s usual role) but she can’t leave her home behind. But weeks later, she returns, dressed as a warrior and asking them to return.

Want an example of how weird the film is? Hoskins didn’t even realize he was working on a video game adaption until his son asked him what he was working on. When he told him the title, he showed his dad the game on his Nintendo.

Here’s another father and son story: when asked why he did the film by his son, Dennis Hopper replied, “So you can have shoes.” His son replied, “Dad, I don’t need shoes that badly.”

Hoskins further described the shooting of the film in a 2011 interview with The Guardian:  “It was a fuckin’ nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks their own agent told them to get off the set! Fuckin’ nightmare. Fuckin’ idiots.” In that same interview, he also used the movie as the answer to the questions “What is the worst job you’ve done?”, “What has been your biggest disappointment?”, and “If you could edit your past, what would you change?”

Ryan Hoss, the webmaster of the Super Mario Brothers Movie Archive, says that the end result of the film is, for some, “an interesting, unusual, entertaining, compelling, and inspired look into this fantastical world. Others have had a hard time accepting the way the 8 and 16-bit games were adapted onto celluloid, calling the movie a complete disaster and disgrace to the video games. The goal of this website is to help its visitors better understand an often misunderstood film. What the filmmakers were trying to do with this movie had never been done before, so we think it’s important to appreciate the immense amount of thought and respect that went into creating the final product. In the end, the filmmakers did something wildly revolutionary—by making the first ever theatrical feature based on a video game property.”

We’ll talk to Ryan soon and learn more about how the site was created and how he was able to transform so many people’s love for this film into a blu-ray release.

As for my take on the film, I think I’d love it if I saw the film like Becca, as a youngster with no idea who any of the characters were supposed to be, just ready to enjoy a world where two plumbers battled evil dinosaurs. Perhaps if we all see it that way, the film is a little but better.

I know someone who said that mother! was a movie that he warned people against seeing because of its subject matter and wondered if it should even be made. And then, I know people who fell in love with the film, lavishing it with praise. Still, others were shocked by its violence or upset by its biblical imagery. Me? I thought it was fucking hilarious.

After 2014’s Noah, Aronofsky was working on a children’s film (!) when he came up with the idea for this film. During that process, he came up with the idea for this film, writing the screenplay in 5 days. He claims that the film is “a psychological freak-out. You shouldn’t over-explain it.” But that doesn’t mean that people didn’t fall all over themselves trying to! 

Star Jennifer Lawrence — also Aronofsky’s muse during filming — Lawrence claimed that the film as an allegory that “depicts the rape and torment of Mother Earth. I represent Mother Earth; Javier, whose character is a poet, represents a form of God, a creator; Michelle Pfeiffer is an Eve to Ed Harris’s Adam, there’s Cain and Abel and the setting sometimes resembles the Garden of Eden.”

Sure. That works.

Or it could be about the environment and how we’re killing it.

Or it could be about what it’s like to be a creator and see your work destroyed.

Or it could be a cover version of Rosemary’s Baby that gets way too out of control.

Or you could see it like I did, a movie that somehow got into the hearts and minds of the movie intelligentsia and demanded an explanation when you can see that it wears its narrative beats and allegories on its bloody sleeve. At one point — spoilers if you made it this far — I said, once the baby is born, that’s the end of the Old Testament and there will be a break in the action and then they’ll start eating the baby like it’s Holy Communion. I’m certain that folks were really upset by this scene (my used copy from Family Video has a WARNING – NO RENTAL UNDER 18 sticker), but it’s almost like a punchline. Or I’m insane. Probably.

But then why is Ed Harris a doctor? Why do we spend so much time in the laundry room? Why do vaginal openings show up in Ed’s back (yes, he’s Adam and that could be where his rib was taken from, I get it, I get it) and the floor? Oh the questions mother! will make you ask and immediately regret for putting any thought behind a movie which had to have been a piss take.

This is a movie that wants to be an allegory and then wants to be a narrative film. Like — why does 911 answer the phone like this is in the real world when we’ve already accepted that mother is Mother Nature? And why does God need a starship (sorry, I wanted to get a Star Trek V: The Final Frontier reference into this).

What’s with that yellow water? Oh, that’s just a reference to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Of course. We all knew that.

While the film had generally positive responses from critics, it got a cinema score of an F*, which suggests that the film goes out of its way to upset audiences. When confronted by these numbers — and diminishing box office returns — Aronofsky blamed moviegoers’ rejection of science, saying, “You have other people who basically believe in the power of an iPhone that they can communicate to 35 million people in a blink of an eye, yet they don’t believe in science in other ways. We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you. And the reason I wanted to come is because I was very sad and I had a lot of anguish and I wanted to express it.” 

Incredibly, IMDB reports that Paramount canceled the upcoming Friday the 13th film in order to move ahead with this film. I have no idea why both of those movies couldn’t exist in the same universe — other than the fact that this film was originally due to come out on October 13.

I love that the director wrote a letter to audiences before the film came out. With phrases like “From this primordial soup of angst and helplessness, I woke up one morning and this movie poured out of me like a fever dream” and “I can’t fully pinpoint where this film all came from. Some came from the headlines we face every second of every day, some came from the endless buzzing of notifications on our smartphones, some came from living through the blackout of Hurricane Sandy in downtown Manhattan, some came from my heart, some from my gut. Collectively it’s a recipe I won’t ever be able to reproduce, but I do know this serving is best drunk as a single dose in a shot glass. Knock it back. Salute!” this letter is full of as much pretension as the film and made me giggle just as hard.

Has there ever been a film that equates the Great Flood with an improperly braced sink and the struggle of home repair? No. There sure hasn’t, up until now.

In case you didn’t get that Javier Bardem was God when he says, “I am I” and that the end of the world was what we saw at the end by Patti Smith singing The End of the World, well, then now you do.

This is the kind of movie that people will rent on Netflix and tell all of their friends not to watch. Or they’ll be shocked. Or they’ll fall asleep (the last ten minutes of this film were a Bataan death march of me battling against ennui and boredom). Is it the most shocking film ever, one that sends millennials crying into their blogs? Dude. In a world where A Serbian Film, The Men Behind the Sun and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom exist — fuck, any number of grindhouse faves like Dr. Butcher, M.D.,  The New York Ripper and Cannibal Holocaust fit the bill — this film is a trifle. I just love that we’re insulated ourselves from culture and art attacking us that we can be upset by such a glancing blow.

Should you watch it? Man, don’t ask me what to do. Decide for yourself.

UPDATE: You can watch this for free on Amazon Prime.

*Only 19 movies have received this score so far. They are: Alone in the Dark, The Box, Bug, Darkness, The Devil Inside, Disaster Movie, Doctor T and the Women, Eye of the Beholder, Fear Dot Com, I Know Who Killed Me, In the Cut, Killing Them Softly, Lost Souls, Lucky Numbers, mother!, Silent House, Solaris, The Wicker Man and Wolf Creek.

Feed Shark

Ed Boon, one of the creators of the Mortal Kombat video game, calls this the “worst moment” in the history of the franchise. Coming from someone who loved the original film and has played every one of the games, I agree.

Christopher Lambert was seen as one of the highlights of the last film. He’s gone, replaced by James Remar (The Warriors). I always dislike whitewashing in movies, but Lambert was so game in his scenes and such an integral part of getting the last film made (Lambert’s great attitude calmed director Paul W. S. Anderson as he worked on his first big movie. While the highest salary in the film, he paid his own way to go to Thailand and do all of his own scenes for basically free there, just to ensure the movie looked better. Plus, he paid for the wrap party.) that this feels like a major loss.

In fact, only Liu Kang (Robin Shou) and Kitana (Talisa Soto) are played by the same actors from the previous film. Robin Cooke, who played Reptile, plays Sub Zero here, with that fighter gaining a much larger role.

Did you like Johnny Cage last time? Lots of people did. Bad news — he’s killed seconds into this new film to get over new bad guy Shao Khan. He’s opened a portal from Outrealm to Earth (hey wait — didn’t we just fight a tournament to stop that from happening?) and has brought back his queen (and Kitana’s mother) Sindel back from the dead.

Sonya Blade (now played by Sandra Hess, who played the cave girl in Encino Man) brings in her partner Jax and they immediately battle Cyrax and Mileena. Then there’s Nightwolf (played by Litefoot, the Native American who also portrayed Little Bear in The Indian in the Cupboard), a shaman who will guide Liu Kang and Kitana toward defeating Shao Khan. Another fight against Smoke and Scorpion, with the help of Sub Zero, happens and Kitana gets kidnapped.

Raiden meets with the Edger Gods, who don’t really give any answers. I have several questions for them. Like, why are we fighting Shao Khan when we won a tournament to stop things like this from happening? And why is there a fight every ten seconds instead of character development like the first film? Or why didn’t you bring back the actors we liked in these roles? And why doesn’t the “Toasty!” guy show up?

Nightwolf makes Liu Kang pass several trials to gain the power of Animality, which allows him to shapeshift into a new form. He must pass the self-esteem and focus trial. The trial of temptation, where Jade tries to get in his karate pants. And there’s a third test, but we never get to it!  One assumes that he passes it, as we’ll see in the finale.

Raiden gives up his immortality to fight for Earth, which means that he needs to cut off his hair. Jade is a double agent and while the good guys rescue Kitana, they still face tough odds. Raiden reveals that Shao Khan is his brother and their father, Shinook, is favoring his evil sibling. After a big battle, Raiden is killed at the hands of that very same brother.

Another lengthy fight sequence happens, with Motaro, Ermac, Sindel and even Noob Saibot all showing up.

Liu Kang then shows what an Animality is by turning into a poorly rendered dragon in a scene that makes this movie seem more dated than the 1995 original. Luckily, the Elder Gods discover the shenanigans afoot and declare another round of Mortal Kombat.

Aren’t you glad we have Liu Kang on our side? He defeats Shao Kahn and allows Raiden to return as the Earth realm wins again.

Director John R. Leonetti would go on to be the cinematographer for The Scorpion King, I Know Who Killed Me, The Conjuring and The Insidious series before directing Annabelle and Wish Upon. He’s done great work in those films, but this film feels so much cheaper than the original. It’s weird, because that film succeeded because it transcended it’s junk food origins while the sequel just piles way too much on.

Original directed Paul W.S. Anderson decided to do Event Horizon instead of this film. He hated the results and that’s why he’s stayed close to the Resident Evil franchise throughout its sequels.

It’s hard to hate a movie where alien monsters battle ninjas, so if you accept this one as goofy chop socky fun, it’s fine. But when compared to the original — and with the rich mythology of the Mortal Kombat video games at its fingertips — this one really suffers. There have been rumors of a franchise reboot for years, including two online series. Here’s hoping the next one recaptures the first film’s magic.

The first Mortal Kombat video game is essentially Enter the Dragon with some magic and ninjas added. So it stands to reason that the movie should be pretty much the same idea — a martial arts tournament to the death with implications for our entire world. And the movie delivers the goods.

Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Soldier, the Resident Evil films, the Death Race remakes) was totally the right actor for this film — they feel like the 90’s in concentrated form. You’ve got your hard techno beats, your neon colors, green screen early CGI and plenty of quips during the Kombat.

The realms of Earth and Outworld come together for the Mortal Kombat and create a battle to the death, with the provision that if Outworld wins Mortal Kombat ten consecutive times, its Emperor Shao Khan may invade the Earth realm.

Standing in his way are Shaolin monk Liu Kang, Hollywood action star Johnny Cage and a military officer named Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson, I Know What You Did Last Summer). Cameron Diaz was originally up for the Sonya role but got hurt during filming. Helping them is Raiden (Christopher Lambert, Highlander), the god of thunder and Earth realm’s defender.

Along the way, we meet Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto, License to Kill), Kano, Sub Zero (François Petit, who would go on to be the head trainer for the WWE in the mid 90’s), Reptile (who is played by Robin Cooke, who is also in Picasso Trigger and China O’Brien), Goro and Jax. They’re all here to be part of Shang Tsung’s tournament.

Despite Johnnny Cage defeating Goro, Shang Tsung kidnaps Sonya (who until this point had been a take charge woman and suddenly becomes a helpless girl in distress. Ah, the 90’s!) and draws them all to Outworld. There, Liu Kang faces his greatest fears and defeats the sorcerer, releasing all of the souls he had stolen, including his brother’s.

Everyone goes to the Shaolin temple to celebrate, but the skies turn dark and Shao Khan appears. With the voice of Frank Welker, he screams that he is here for everyone’s souls. All of the good guys show their fighting stances, cue the Mortal Kombat theme and we’ve set up the sequel.

Where this film gets it right is that it sticks to the source material. Better than that, it introduces concepts that would become part of the mythology of future games, such as Emperor Shao Khan, Outworld, Kitana, Jax and more.

It’s funny to me that so many critics savaged this movie. It’s fun as hell and true to its inspiration. It’s a video game version of a Hong Kong martial arts movie — a mixture of bastard pop culture that no one wants to claim as anything but a guilty pleasure. This doesn’t look like a cheap movie, as even though it’s over 20 years old, it’s packed with effects that hold up and fight scenes that continue to be impressive.

I don’t even want to tell you how many hours I put into the last Mortal Kombat game. Or brag that I know the difference between babalities, fatalities and friendships. The thing is, even if you haven’t played a single game of Mortal Kombat, you can still enjoy the movie. And if you love the game, unlike so many video game adaptions, you won’t feel let down. That’s actually high praise after some of the films I’ve endured this week.

Street Fighter features many of the characters from the game and some of them hit the mark. Many of them don’t. And for years, I wrote the film off. I wondered, why did they pick Raul Julia to play M. Bison? After finally watching it, I now know that no one else could have played him.

How much do you really love the game? Then you’ll probably hate how idiotic Ken and Ryu are. You’ll probably dislike that E. Honda isn’t Japanese. And you’ll have trouble with the fact that Dhalsim is a scientist and that Charlie and Blanka have been turned into the same character.

But if you can get away from that, you pretty much get a live action cartoon. There’s a great scene where E. Honda and Zangief (Andrew Bryniarski, Leatherface in the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) have a fight while Godzilla sound effects play. Kylie Minogue is great as Cammy, even if her costumes are a little more modest than the video game. Wes Studi makes a fine Sagat. And the fights are really fun.

Best of all, Julia really makes M. Bison sing. There’s a great scene of him trying to seduce Chun Li in his chambers and he has a portrait done of him by John Wayne Gacy. And he brings a Shakespearean gravitas to a role that a lesser actor would not work hard on at all. The fact that he was suffering from stomach cancer (he died two months before the movie was released) is amazing when you see how much he put into his performance.

Street Fighter was the first movie that Steven de Souza directed. Up to then, he’d been better known as a writer, working on films as diverse as 48 Hours, The Return of Captain Invincible, Commando, The Running Man, Bad Dreams, Die Hard, Die Hard 2 and Hudson Hawk. He was beholden to a really rough schedule while working on the film, as Capcom had a hard and fast date that he had to hit. That said — he succeeds in making a silly take on the franchise. There’s even a Goofy falling sound effect made by one of the enemy soldiers!

Instead of the poster for this film, I decided to share the image that ends the film. It made me laugh out loud and here’s hoping you’ll find it as entertaining as I do.

Andrzej Bartkowiak has been the cinematographer on three films that were nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards: The Verdict, Terms of Endearment and Prizzi’s Honor.  But he may be better known for his films that combined hip-hop and action, like Cradle 2 the Grave, Exit Wounds and Romeo Must Die. He’s also been behind two video game films: Doom and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

That said, Time selected this as one of the top 10 worst video game movies, along with House of the Dead, Wing Commander, In the Name of the King, Hitman, BloodRayne, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Double Dragon, Street Fighter and Super Mario Brothers. Trust me — it’s not that bad. And films like this (and a few others on the list) don’t belong in the same wastebin as Uwe Boll films.

After a Mars research station is attacked, Dr. Todd Carmack sends a distress call that is answered by a team of Marines, led by Asher “Sarge” Mahonin (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). John “Reaper” Grimm (Karl Urban, Dredd) and his sister, Dr. Samantha (Rosamund Pike, star of Becca’s go to DVD, Gone Girl) are there to retrieve critical info before the base is destroyed. We learn that they were born on Mars and their parents were killed here. All that remained after their accident were skeletons of genetically enhanced humans.

Of course, all hell breaks loose — literally. Demonic monsters attack, The Rock ends up being the bad guy, innocent people get killed, a long first-person sequence happens and there’s plenty of action. Seriously, the movie is short on story and long on special effects and gore. It’s like an Alien movie without the xenomorphs, I guess. Or much excitement. It’s competently made, but an hour after it was over and I started writing this, all I could remember that I enjoyed was that the Rock played against his usual character and that Karl Urban got to be the hero.

Released in 1987 by Technos, Double Dragon is the spiritual successor to Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (known to the US as Renegade), a game that was inspired by the high school life of creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto. Basically — you fight to survive.

When Renegade was released in the U.S., it was localized so that it appeared to be a video game version of The Warriors, with punk rock inspired bad guys. Double Dragon takes that to the next level, where Billy and Jimmy Lee (or Hammer and Spike, as the original cabinets called them) have to battle through hordes of post-apocalyptic punkers to rescue Billy’s girlfriend Marian. There had never been a game like this before, where two players could beat up a near endless array of bad guys and even steal their weapons from them. It felt like you were in a movie. So making a movie of Double Dragon — and its many sequels — seemed like a great idea.

Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2) is a crime lord looking for a magic medallion called the Double Dragon, which has been broken into two pieces. He already has one half, but now he needs the other.

Meanwhile, brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee (Scott Wolf of TV’s Party of Five and Mark Dacascos, the American chairman of Iron Chef and Mani from Brotherhood of the Wolf) and their adopted mother Satori (Rambo: First Blood Part II) are racing home to beat curfew after a martial arts tournament. Oh, a curfew? Yeah, it turns out that in the Los Angeles of 2007, an earthquake has made the city an apocalypse, lorded over by gangs. One of those gangs, led by Abobo (one of the game bosses) attacks, but they’re saved by the Power Corps, led by Marian (Alyssa Milano, Commando, every 90’s boy’s bedroom wall). Coincidentally, Satori has the other half of the medallion and Shuko mutates Abobo so he can go back out and get it.

The gang attacks again with Shuko even possessing their mother. The boys escape thanks to her sacrifice and go on the run as Shuko unites the city’s gangs, which have Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes) among their members.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “This has nothing to do with the video game I’ve played and loved so much,” congratulations. Welcome to the world of 1990’s video game adaptions!

Will Billy and Jimmy finally stop being dweebs and learn how to fight? Will there by rollerblade attacks on an evil shopping mall? Wil they fight over Marian? Will there be fart jokes because all video games are really for children and not adults despite all evidence to the contrary? Who are the Power Corps and what do they have to do with Double Dragon?

Amazingly, this movie was written by Paul Dini, who created the most perfect media adaption of Batman ever, Batman: The Animated Series and also wrote for Lost. Wow. I’m kind of shocked. So I asked Dini on Twitter and was delighted by his reply:

There are some weird Frank Miller-esque talking heads on Channel 69 News, played by George Hamilton and Vanna White that try to make this movie into Robocop. Oh yeah — Andy Dick is also the station’s weatherman. They have nothing really to do with anything else in the film.

Because I come from Pittsburgh, allow me to make fun of Cleveland, where this was filmed. The boat chase sequence was filmed on the Cuyahoga River and ends with a gigantic explosion filled with 700 gallons of gasoline and 200 gallons of alcohol. Despite warnings in all manner of the news, the explosion caused a panic, leading to 210 phone calls to emergency services in 10 minutes. Oh Cleveland.

This movie defines the word missable. I have probably played hundreds of hours of the video games they inspired it and have often written my own tales in my head of my character’s motivations. Every single one, even back to when I was 16, are miles beyond this film. I’ve never seen a movie before where a bad guy hugs someone until he passes out, so there is that.

Then again, if you always wanted to watch a kid-friendly version of The Warriors, I guess this could be it.