Monthly Archives: December 2019

The Burning Hell (1974)

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If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? is probably my favorite religious movie ever made. Unlike today’s religious films that sneakily preach at you and make you feel inferior, that movie straight up lets you know that Communists are going to kill everyone you love and that you’re definitely going to burn in Hell forever.

If you think three years dulled the edge of Estus Pirkle, you’ve never been more incorrect. Get ready to pay, sinner!

At once a combination of regional exploitation and good old fashioned revival sermon, this movie is going to punch you in the face as many times as it can. This is the kind of film where two hippies show up wanting to learn more about God, get rebuffed, one of them dies by getting beheaded and the other runs right back to church.

You get to see people actually in Hell and learn exactly how long it lasts. This is the kind of movie that is going to either confirm your mania or let you know that everyone is insane. Seriously, they don’t make them like this any longer. That’s right — no movie made now spends as much time explaining how worms are going to eat you forever and ever and ever.

Let me quote to you from this movie. “Statistics have proven…every hour 3,000 people go to Hell; every minute 60 people go to Hell; right this very moment, someone is headed for a burning Hell.”

Ron Ormond, who directed this, survived two near-death plane crashes before finally deciding to turn to the Lord. Before that, he made movies like the 1950 Lash LaRue-starring King of the Bullwhip (he actually directed many films starring that whip-wielding cowboy) and the minstrel show review Yes Sir, Mr. Bones before going into full-on exploitation madness with flicks like Please Don’t Touch Me, Girl From Tobacco Row and The Exotic Ones. He shows here that he lost none of his touch for shocking the living shit out of you in just about every frame. Bravo, Mr. Ormond. Bravo.

You can watch this on the Internet Archive or on the YouTube link posted below.

This Is Our Home (2019)

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Omri Dorani may have only directed one movie before this, but the assured style within this film makes me excited for whatever is next. This Is Our Home is the kind of stylish horror that with a bigger budget would be on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

Filmed over eleven days at producer and lead actress Simone Policano’s house in Woodstock, New York — and mere days after producer & lead actor Jeff Ayars had an emergency appendectomy — this movie tells the tale of a struggling couple who, during a weekend getaway, meet a mysterious child who claims to be their son.

Even though this movie is only 73 minutes, it takes its time with each scene, sometimes relying only on sound and utter blackness to get across its terror. Is the child real? How does he know every secret the couple has? Is he just a manifestation of their worst impulses?

Watch this and see. I was astounded by the high quality of this film. Its long takes and pauses may make too arty for some, but count me as one of its fans.

This Is Our Home is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. That has no impact on our review.

Blood Bags (2018)

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Here’s the summary they told us: “A creature stalks the corridors of an abandoned mansion. Two friends break in and discover that all exits have been sealed off and the creature that hunts them is growing hungry for their blood; there is no escape.”

For Emiliano Ranzani’s first directoral effort, this looks halfway decent. One thing that puts it over the top is that the credit sequence looks like it had some actual thought behind it. So many direct to streaming releases just have crappy fonts on a bad background. Blood Bags actually tries. Ranzani and co-writer Scarlett Amaris also worked with Richard Stanley for his film The Theatre Bizarre.

There’s also an attempt to pay homage to Fulci and Argento by having a backstory where the killer and his brother suffer from a real malady, Gunther’s disease, which is close to vampirism. Hey — it’s nice to see some horror, any horror, come out of Italy these days. This was shot in Turin, the same city where The Cat o’ Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet were once filmed.

Blood Bags is available on demand and on DVD from High Octane Pictures.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team. That has no bearing on our review.

Before Star Wars: Invasion: UFO (1970) (1980)

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A long time ago, on a future Earth far, far away . . .

In the year 1980 Earth is visited by a race of liquid-breathing aliens from a dying planet who abducts human beings to harvest organs for their own bodies. Believing a full-scale invasion is forthcoming, an international, top-secret and high-tech military agency, SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization), is established to defend Earth. . . .

As with the Canadian-produced The Starlost, the British-produced UFO was intended to ride the sci-fi coattails created by Star Trek; as with its Canadian counterpart, the sci-fi fans that embraced Gene Roddenberry’s vision—even going as far as starting a write-in campaign to save the voyages of the starship Enterprise from cancellation, and earned it a third season—rejected the prophecies of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

The Anderson’s Century 21 Productions, in conjunction with Sir Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment (Saturn 3), previously found great success in worldwide syndication with the children’s science fiction programs—using marionettes—Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stringray, Thunderbirds (the most successful of the lot), and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

The Anderson’s then decided to take the children’s show concept one step further by eliminating the puppets, in a quest to appeal to teens and adults, while retaining the show’s SFX—and using live actors. The end result was Doppelgänger, a 1969 theatrical feature film starring Ray Thinnes (of TV’s The Invaders); the film became better known outside the U.K by its alternate title: Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.

(Although it’s not Anderson-production related, the Doppelgänger concept of an astronaut trapped on mirror-Earth on the far side of the Sun was repurposed for The Stranger, a 1973 The Fugitive-styled U.S TV series pilot.)

Doppelgänger was successful enough in U.K theatres and U.S Drive-Ins, so the Anderson’s decided to expand the concept once more, which lead to the creation of their first live-action TV series, UFO, which utilized the same actors, props, costumes, and locations from the film.

While the 26-episode series, which ran from late 1970 to early 1973—set in the “future” of 1980—was able to expand its reach beyond the U.K into U.S syndication, the show’s U.S broadcast failed to appeal to Star Trek fans and live up to its U.K rating success. With the hopes of increasing the show’s appeal, a subsequent retooling of the show—taking it off the Earth and concentrating more on “moon-based action” as UFO: 1999—eventually morphed into Space: 1999. (Once Star Wars-mania was in full effect, Anderson also has that precursor cut into overseas theatricals, beginning with Destination Moonbase Alpha.)

. . . Then some guy named George Lucas with a crazy space opera called Star Wars came along.

So while Canada’s CTV and 20th Century Fox Television were slicing up episodes of The Starlost into a theatrical features, ITC edited six of the twenty-six episodes of UFO—Ep. 1: “Identified”; Ep. 6: “E.S.P”; Ep. 16: “The Man Who Came Back”; Ep. 21: “Computer Affair”; Ep. 22: “Confetti Check A-Ok”; and Ep. 24: “Reflections in the Water”—into a Star Wars-inspired theatrical feature film for syndicated television and foreign theatrical distribution.

Italy’s KENT and INDIEF Productions took ITC’s theatrical film concept one step further and took the series’ remaining episodes and created five more films: UFO: Red Alert . . . Attack on Earth, UFO: Destroy Moonbase, UFO: Catch them Alive, UFO: Contact . . . They are Landing, and UFO: Annihilate. And in the midst of Star Wars-mania in Japan, the Anderson’s version, Invasion: UFO, met with great success in 1984.

As far back as 1995, and since 2009, there’s been several attempts to reboot the series into a theatrical film, headed by producer Robert Evans (The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby) with American actors Ali Larter (the Final Destination film series, the Resident Evil video game series) as Col. Virginia Lake, and Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek, the 2008-2013 sci-fi series Fringe), as Paul Foster (originally played by almost-James Bond, actor Michael Billington), attached. Subsequent rumors had Matthew Lillard (Wing Commander, Scream) and Neal McDonough (Star Trek: First Contact, Minority Report) attached for the role of Col. Edward Straker (originally portrayed by Ed Bishop; the only actor to appear in all 26 episodes).

The rebooted film was to be set in the year 2020. And here we are, coming up on the year 2020. The year 2040 is looking pretty good to me now.

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Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker is currently in theatres and was released theatrically on December 20 in the United States.

About the Author: You can read the music and film criticisms of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.

Before Star Wars: The Starlost (1973) (1980)

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A long time ago on a Canadian TV set (and a few U.S ones) far, far away . . . lost somewhere in a galaxy between Star Trek and Star Wars. . . .

Over 400 years ago, upon the destruction of Earth, humanity launched Earthship Ark, a 50 miles wide by 200 miles long, multi-generational starship consisting of a community of biospheres—each containing a different Earth society. Then, in the year 2790, before the Earth’s orphans could reach their new world at a distant star, an accident sends the ship off course and seals off the biospheres . . . and the survivors are unaware of the others . . . and that they are on a spaceship. . . .

(And if this all sounds a lot like 2008’s Pandorum and 2016’s Passengers, it probably is.)

Watch the opening credits sequence.

Robert Kline, a 20th Century Fox television producer, wanted to capture some Star Trek thunder, which was breaking ratings records during its initial, early ‘70s syndicated run. So he approached sci-if scribe Harlan Ellison, who wrote one of Star Trek’s best-remembered episodes, “The City on the Edge of Forever.”

The initial concept of The Starlost—which bears striking resemblances to the “lost moon base” concept of the later, British-produced Space: 1999—was an eight-episode television mini-series to be co-produced with the BBC. When the British broadcaster rejected the pitch, and with no American network keen on the idea, the show’s budget was revamped as a low-budget indie production for syndication. The Canadian CTV network, along with 50 NBC affiliates, bought the idea, which was now expanded to an eighteen-episode arc. And they bought the idea, in part, courtesy of the star power of noted Canadian actor Keir Dullea, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. (The series also featured later Battlestar Galactica actors Lloyd Bochner and John Colicos, along with Barry Morse from Space: 1999.)

So what could go wrong? Everything that Murphy’s Law and Catch-22 had to offer.

In addition to securing Ellison (who we all know for his infamous lawsuit regarding the “similarities” to James Cameron’s The Terminator to Ellison’s The Outer Limits episodes “The Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand”), six-time Hugo Award winner and Analog Magazine editor Ben Bova was hired as the show’s science advisor.

As with screenwriter Martin Amis expressing his dissatisfaction with the changes to Saturn 3 in the pages of his acclaimed 1984 novel, Money: A Suicide Note, Ben Bova expressed his dissatisfaction in the 1975 novel, The Starcrossed, which depicts a noted scientist’s dealings as a science advisor for an awful science fiction television series.

Harlan Ellison, in turn, penned a lengthy diatribe-forward to the novelization of his original pilot script, Phoenix Without Ashes, by Edward Bryant, a script which was revamped (“dumbed down” according to Ellison) as “Voyage of Discovery.”

Then problems arose with the special effects headed by Douglas Trumbull (2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running), which resulted in addition budgetary cuts.

So, when you have three of science fiction’s top disciplinarians—Harlan Ellison, Ben Bova and Douglas Trumbull—turn on you, you know you have problems. And Keir Dullea, who’s had his share of career clinkers—and wasn’t shy in expressing his disdain for his past projects, such as the sci-fi Jesus romp, The Next One, and the Futureworld rip-off, Welcome to Blood City—wasn’t a happy camper, either.

And, with that, 20th Century Fox Television saw the writing on the wall and cancelled The Starlost after 16 episodes—and shelved the never-filmed episodes “The Gods That Died” and “People in the Dark.”

Then, somebody by the name of George Lucas came along with a crazy idea of updating Flash Gordon with Douglas Trumbull’s special effects wizardry from 2001: A Space Odyssey. . . .

So, with a renewed interest in science fiction properties, the studio pulled the mothballed The Starlost for rebroadcast in 1978. Then, in the throes of the cable television boom with “Superstations” hungry for product, 20th Century Fox stitched together several episodes into five TV movies, which played as foreign theatrical features, in 1980.

Those feature-length films were:

The Starlost: The Beginning
The first feature created from episodes 1, 2, and 3: “Voyage of Discovery,” “Lazarus from the Mist,” and “The Goddess Calabra.”

The Starlost: The Deception
The second feature created from episodes 9 and 10: “Gallery of Fear” and “Mr. Smith of Manchester.”

The Starlost: The Invasion
The third feature created from episodes 11 and 12: “Astro-Medics” and “The Implant People.”

The Starlost: The Return
The fourth film created from episodes 4 and 14: “The Pisces” and “Farthing’s Comet.”

The Starlost: The Alien Oro
The fifth film created from episodes 7 and 13: “The Alien Oro” and “Return of Oro.”

The remaining of the 16 episodes not utilized in the films was: Ep. 5: “Children of Methuselah”; Ep. 6: “And Only Man Is Vile”: Ep. 8: “Circuit of Death”; and Ep. 15 and 16: “The Beehive” and “Space Precinct.”

During the video store boom of the ‘80s, all 16 episodes were released in a VHS boxed set, while the five feature-length films were released to DVD—each individually, and as a box-set. In 2008 VCI Entertainment reissued the full series to DVD. Early this year, Roku began replaying the episodes.

In the end, a project that was hoped to build on the syndicated enthusiasm for Star Trek, earned not the respect of that show, but appears on critical lists with “The Worst Science Fiction Shows of All Time,” which include Irwin Allen’s Lost in Space and the plastic Star Wars knockoff, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

You can watch various scenes and full episodes on the official, You Tube Starlost TV portal.

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Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker is currently in theatres, released theatrically on December 20 in the United States. Click through with “Before Star Wars, “Exploring: After Star Wars,” and “Star Wars Droppings” to see all of our reviews for the week to celebrate the release. And there’s MORE with our feature . . .

50-plus more movies!

About the Author: You can read the music and film criticisms of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.

Japan Does Star Wars: The War in Space (1977)

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When you mention the country of Japan in the same breath as Star Wars, nostalgic Jedi hearts reminisce about American actor Vic Morrow setting sail on a solar sailboat to save the world from Ninja-suited space battalions in 1978’s Message from Space.

As with Bye, Bye Jupiter, Toho Studios’ later tokusatsu science fiction film, the majestic fun of The War in Space (known as Great Planet War, aka Wakusei Daisensō, in its homeland) was also unknown on U.S shores (outside of comic book store-distributed grey market VHS rentals)—until a 2006 DVD release. (Featuring both English and Japanese language tracks, special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano appears in a subtitled interview vignette on the DVD.)

As with Disney’s bid for some Star Wars box-office returns, they took no chances and went with what they knew—and simply retooled their underwater adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) into a space opera. And not let’s forget that George Lucas retooled the Asian cinema classic, The Hidden Fortress, to create the framework that he then covered with pieces of The Dam Builders, Casablanca, and The Seven Samurai (read our “Ten Star Wars Ripoffs” investigation for more on those roots).

So, keep those influences in mind when watching Toho Studios’ debut entry in The Kessel Run that is, like The Black Hole, an outer space reboot of Toho’s old 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea rip-off, 1963’s Atragon. (That’s the film’s poster side-by-side with The War in Space; above, right. Notice the similarities, not only between the one-sheets’ graphics, but the design-homage to Atragon’s “Gotengo” vessel vs. the “UNSF Gohten” in WiS.) Sci-fi and Asian cinema aficionados will also notice plot and design similarities to the worldwide popular, groundbreaking anime Space Battleship Yamato (itself treated to an excellent, big-budgeted live-action version in 2010; the full movie is on You Tube!).

Initially announced as a sequel to Toho’s 1959’s alien-invasion epic, Battle in Outer Space (which The War in Space plot-mirrors in places), it’s more alien invasion mayhem triggered by a worldwide electromagnetic inference by way of a comet’s close call with Earth.

Of course, as with the much later Lifeforce (1985), the comet served as a cover for a fleet of UFOs that destroy the UN’s orbiting Space Station Terra. This leads the UN to complete the financially-plagued Gohten project, an intergalactic warship.

And with that, the Earth’s space marines jet off to Venus, where the alien forces have established a base of operations . . . and the George Lucas space battles ensue against the alien’s mothership: a baroque, oar-spouting, sea faring space galleon—that we became acquainted with a year later courtesy of 1978’s Message from Space.

When it comes to Star Wars rips, no one does it better than Toho Studios.

Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker is currently in theaters and was released theatrically on December 20 in the United States.

About the Author: You can read the music and film criticisms of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.

Ten more Christmas movies to ruin your holiday

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Somehow, for as much as I dislike Christmas, I find myself watching tons of holiday movies. Much like the fruitcake that no one wants to eat but me, I continually try and binge as many seasonal films as possible. Each year, I discover movies that boggle my mind and upset my sensibilities.

2019 is no different. As I enter the end of December with nothing but rage in my heart and a determination that I will have Dr. Phibes-like revenge on my enemies in 2020, I try and remember that this season is one of love and forgiveness, not stress and recrimination.

Here’s the list from last year, where I demanded that you scream “Horray for Santy Claus,” meet the Ice Cream Bunny, meet incestual Nazis for family dinner and battle both Satan’s henchman Patch and Kirk Cameron.

Now, one more year is here and again, I’ve decided to take ten holiday films and gift you with a list of Santa-themed cinema that will decimate nearly any family gathering. Want people to leave? Put one of these on.

1. Sint: The Nightmare of Santa Claus, as the poster above claims, is the kind of movie that will save you thousands of dollars from your kids. No child is ever going to put out milk and cookies or send Santa a letter again after this one. It’s truly horrifying and a movie that not enough people that post-holiday horror lists ever discuss.

2. Dial Code Santa Claus: Home Alone ripped this off yet didn’t take its menace and pure fear. All hail Shudder for finally sharing this movie with America this Christmas, as this is a holiday horror film that everyone should see.

3. Blood Beat: I’ve watched this movie more times than I’d like to admit to you and I fall in love with it more with every single viewing. It takes all the fear of the holidays at your significant other’s family’s home and boom — it adds a possessed samurai helmet and psychic powers and sex scenes that are also murder scenes and man, just watch it. It’s on Amazon Prime right now.

4. Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation: Pure drugs. This movie is for people that do LSD before they hang out with their extended family and then people discuss their behavior every Christmas thereafter. If you watch one movie where a bug is inserted inside someone’s special place this Yuletide, make it this one. This is available for free — with ads — on Vudu.

5. Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker: This movie is astounding. A human toy child, Mickey Rooney beating a child to death, toys that come alive and tear people to shreds…it’s everything you need to power through the last few hours of the season. You can watch this for free — with commercials — on Vudu.

6. J’ai rencontré le Père Noël: No moment in this movie makes sense or is based in the world that you know. It is 100% batshit insanity and everything you need for your holiday season. This might be my favorite non-horror holiday film, because, well, it’s pretty much a horror film without trying to be frightening. It’s on Tubi — feliz navidad!

7. The Magic Christmas Tree: Available on The Internet Archive, Tubi and Amazon Prime, this movie is seriously a hate crime against children. I have no idea how the kids that watched it even survived. I barely made it and I’m in my late 40’s. That means that, well, I kind of love it.

8. Home for the Holidays: You know what makes my holidays bright? A made for TV movie. But not just any made for TV movie, but a proto slasher that sees three sisters — Freddie (Jessica Walter, Arrested Development), Joanna (Jill Haworth, The Brides of Dracula) and Christine (Sally Field, Steel Magnolias — menaced by a hooded killer. No matter what holiday you’re celebrating, you can’t go wrong with a John Llewellyn Moxey movie. You can watch this on Amazon Prime.

9. Santa’s Slay: If I say to you, “Bil Goldberg as an evil Santa,” you may run from this film. You shouldn’t. It’s so much better than it has any right to be. Bonus points for casting Dave Thomas in this movie!

10. Rare Exports: A Santa that wants to kill everything in its path and a quest to capture elves and send them to American malls? Yeah, Rare Exports isn’t like any other holiday horror you’ll watch this year.  It will also teach you not to swear around Santa. You can check it out on Shudder or Amazon Prime.

Happy holidays, everyone. No matter what you celebrate, what movies you like and how much you care about this season, thanks for coming to our site. It’s a labor of love, one that some folks don’t understand. But thank you for supporting it. Here’s hoping you get some great movies under your tree and some fun movie themed stuff, too.

A Christmas Cruise (2017)

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David DeCoteau made The Wrong Cruise for Lifetime, which also stars Vivica A. Fox, and that movie uses the exact same establishing shot of a cruise ship as this movie. Welcome to the world of DeCoteau, where stock footage and ADR rules the day.

This is the second combo of Fox and DeCoteau that I’ve watched this holiday season. Obviously, I’ve made an advent calendar for myself filled with feces.

NOTE: The actress and director have worked together way more times than I thought was possible, including The Wrong Roommate. Sadly, I fear my OCD means that I’m going to be watching all of them.

When Pam Stevenson’s (Fox) best friend Becky (Jessica Morris, who has been in DeCoteau’s The Wrong Man, The Wrong Mommy and The Wrong Teacher, as well as A Mermaid for Christmas) takes her on a Christmas cruise — see, the title pays off — the aspiring novelist somehow finds the love of her life onboard.

That said, the ship they board is the Queen Mary, which hasn’t sailed for years, and all of the film’s locations look like banquet rooms at some hotel.

Kristoff St. John — who was on The Young and the Restless with Fox — died this year and this was one of his last films. Thanks to his IMDB page, I learned a fact that I would never have found out otherwise: he was childhood friends with both Soleil Moon Frye and her brother Meeno Peluce. I never realized that these two 80’s stars — Punky Brewster and Jeffrey Jones from Voyagers! — were related.

This movie also has Rib Hillis (he used to be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), Cristine Prosperi (Imogen Moreno from Degrassi: The Next Generation), Corin Nemec (the titular Parker Lewis from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) and Reatha Grey (whose acting career started all the way back in the blacksploitation movie Welcome Home Brother Charles).

This Ion television TV movie lacks the sheer insanity of the director’s other films, so my hopes of talking cats and holiday puppies were dashed. Instead, two older people found love on a holiday island. Then again, if I want to watch more DeCoteau seasonal fare, there’s also Christmas Matchmakers (also with Fox), Carole’s Christmas, My Christmas Grandpa (again, with Fox), A Royal Christmas Ball and Runaway Christmas Bride.

Bah humbug.

You can watch this for free on Tubi and Amazon Prime.

I Come In Peace (1990)

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Roslyn Frost shared a great list of holiday movies that no one else considers on her Twitter, which inspired this watch. You should totally check out her YouTube channel, which is awesome.

By the way, her list was…

  1. Christmas Evil
  2. Night of the Comet
  3. The Oracle 
  4. Calvaire
  5. Blood Beat
  6. Inside
  7. I Come in Peace

We were just discussing this movie as we opened Christmas gifts, because it has a different title now. Over the last few years, people have started referring to it by its original title Dark Angel, which was changed in the U.S. because there were two movies with that title in 1925 and 1935.

Director Craig R. Baxley started his career as a stuntman before moving into stunt coordination and second unit directing. Since then, he’s directed one of my favorite movies no one ever talks about — Stone Cold — as well as Action Jackson and the Stephen King adaptions Storm of the Century, Rose Red, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer and Kingdom Hospital.

Jack Caine is a rough around the edges cop — he’s Dolph Lundgren, too — who is at war with the White Boys, a gang of white collar drug dealers who do stuff like kill partners and blow up police stations. They’re led by Victor Manning, played by Sherman Howard, who was Bub in Day of the Dead.

Caine is partnered with a by-the-book federal agent named Arwood “Larry” Smith, played by Brian Benben who you may remember from the HBO series Dream On. If you were a teen when there was no internet and you wanted guaranteed nudity.

Meanwhile, an alien drug dealer named Talec has come to Earth to leech out peoples’ brains. He’s portrayed by Matthias Hues, who is related to Engelbert Humperdinck and took over Van Damme’s role for No Retreat, No Surrender 2. He’s being pursued by Azeck, an alien cop. The guy who played him Jay Bilas, is on ESPN as a college basketball announcer, as he played for Duke University and was drafted fifth in the 1986 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks. He was an assistant coach at Duke and is a practicing attorney in North Carolina.

David Ackroyd, who was in the TV movies Exo-Man and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, plays Smith’s boss. Betsy Brantley (the body model for Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) is Lundgren’s girlfriend, a coroner who helps him track the alien criminal. Michael J. Pollard has a cameo as a criminal, World Celebrity Chess Champion Jesse Vint (Forbidden World, Deathsport) is Talec’s first victim and Al Leong shows up too, because he has to in any movie with cops and/or aliens.

Screenwriter David Koepp would move from this movie into some real blockbusters, like Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, The Shadow, Mission: Impossible, Stir of Echoes (he also directed), Panic Room, Spider-Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and many more. He’s had an incredibly successful career and it all really got rolling here.

There’s been talk of a sequel for years, but at this point, I think only people like me — and maybe you reading this — would care. That said — I’m there whenever it comes out.

The Christmas Consultant (2012)

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“No excuses. I double dog dare you.”

These two sentences laid down the Christmas movie challenge from R. D Francis. I don’t want to take the Lord’s name in vain on the day of His birth, but I came really close.

A holiday movie. With Hasselhoff.

Pure cruelty.

Originally airing on the Lifetime Channel on November 10, 2012, this movie follows the holiday misadventures of the Fletcher family. Perfume executive Maya (Caroline Rhea, TV’s original Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and her husband Jack somehow get put into the Christmas stress of having family and clients over for the big day. Luckily they hire Owen (Hasselhoff), a planner who specializes in Christmas parties.

If you’ve watched one of these holiday movies — dude, I’ve watched way more than a few — you know that Owen has a sad secret and that’s he’s going to fix everything for this family.

Director John Bradshaw pretty much specializes in holiday movies now, while writers Brian Sawyer and Gregg Rossen have similar IMDB credits.

If you can look at the poster for this film and not want to slice your wrists with a sharpened candy cane, then you might just make it through the challenge. I, as well, double dog dare you. I must say — it has the worst green screen effects I’ve seen probably ever. Becca walked in, and as she always does, yelled “WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING?” This time it wasn’t a naked Italian girl being strangled by Ivan Rassimov, but instead, a horrifying sleigh ride.

You can watch this on Tubi, the LIfetime Movie Club or on IMDB TV.