Frank Penny (Aaron Eckhart of Battle Los Angeles, The Dark Knight, Olympus and London Has Fallen) is a burnt out cop ready to become totally lost between the cracks on the floor of rock bottom after he killed a child abductor in the line of duty before the girl—his chief’s (Giancarlo Esposito of TV’s Breaking Bad) 11-year-old daughter—could be rescued. Now Penny’s in a race against time to find the girl—who’s stashed inside a glass box-tank slowly filling with water as a video camera streams her fate online. Complicating matters is the kidnapper’s accomplice and brother (Ben McKenzie of TV’s Gotham) who’s hell-bent on revenge, and a persistent social media vlogger, oh, excuse us, “internet journalist,” (Courtney Easton of Max Max: Fury Road) who dogs Penny every step of the way, streaming his every move.
I won’t sugar coat: the reviews on Line of Duty aren’t great. It does push the limits of credulity of cops as “supermen.” But what movie doesn’t? Do we not load up our copies of Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Speed to have fun? So, screw credibility. Sit back and enjoy the Crown Vic ride as Line of Duty is a throwback to those very same ‘90s action movies where the cop just won’t stop. As always: Aaron Eckhart is perpetually likeable and reliable. You put a police uniform on him and he’s not an actor in a police uniform: he’s a real cop.
We’ve spent time with the direct-to-video action thrillers of up-and-coming writer-director Steven C. Miller before, with his films Arsenal (2017) and, Sylvester Stallone’s Escape Plan 2: Hades , the 2017 Bruce Willis-starring First Kill. Miller’s forte is action thrillers and he always entertains. For this, his latest effort, he chose a script written by Jeremy Drysdale, who made his debut with a pretty cool rock ‘n’ roll flick that explored the myth of musician Gram Parsons of the Byrds: the comedy-drama Gram Theft Parson (2003).
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.
As Carpathian legend has it, Oleksa Dovbush was a heroic outlaw with excellent fighting skills and a gift to predict the future. After being orphaned when a lord murdered his mother, he spent his childhood in exile in the mountains, returning as a grown man ready for revenge. Oleksa gathered followers to begin a crusade against the lord, but destiny made other plans for him.
Of all the legends of this character, the colorful ballad “In a Green Grove” is said to be the best known. It’s all about the last days of the outlaw, who arrives in Kosmach for a rendezvous with Dzvinka, the wife of Shtefan. Dzvinka replies Shtefan is away at work, but does not unbolt the door. Dovbush breaks it down and is shot by Shtefan. With his dying breath, he asks his fellow Opryshky to lift him on their axes and bear him to his beloved highlands.
According to The Ukranian Weekly, “In reality, the following morning his bleeding body was discovered in the bushes, and a priest was sent for. The Polish authorities sectioned his body into 12 pieces, impaled and mounted them throughout the countryside as a gruesome warning.”
Who are we to get in the way of a good legend?
Ukrainian Robin Hood story Legend of Carpathians is available on demand and on DVD from High Octane Pictures. You can also watch it on Tubi.
Rescued from the international white slave trade as a young girl and trained as a secret government killer, Jade Black must now go after a rouge former agent. That agent has the same background as her, but has now developed a biological weapon about to destroy the world, starting with the rich and powerful men who started the human trafficking operation they were both rescued from years earlier.
Director Terry Spears also created American Terror Story and Hell’s Bell. Now, he’s lending his talents to this film which was shot entirely in Oklahoma. It stars Katie Burgess, who was in The Jurassic Games.
It’s got an intriguing premise and Burgess shows promise.If you don’t let low budgets get in your way and you enjoy spy action, perhaps you should meet Jade Black.
Agent Jade Black is available on demand and on DVD from High Octane Pictures.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR agency.
When Petey Wheatstraw (Rudy Ray Moore) was born — during a hurricane, no less — he emerged as a six-year-old talking child that beat up his doctor and then his father for keeping him awake all night. Then, his mama put him in his place and gave him his name.
Yep — The Exorcisthas now met its match. And its match is the man who made Dolemite.
After being beaten by a gang, Petey was trained in the arts of kung fu and self respect, taking a vow to never bow to any man, living or dead. He grows up to become a nightclub comedian — just like Rudy Ray Moore — but two rivals kill his best friend’s son and then machine gun everyone at the funeral.
Lou Cipher — eight years before Angel Heart — offers Petey a deal. If he marries his daughter, he and his friends can come back to life and get revenge. Petey agrees and uses Satan’s pimp cane to get back against those that did him wrong. But can he get out of a deal with the devil?
The comedians who kill Petey are Skillet (Ernest Mayhand) and Leroy Daniels. They were a real comedy team who started out on the chitlin’ circuit all the way back in the 1940’s, where they worked with Redd Foxx and LaWanda Page. They also made appearances on Foxx’s show Sanford and Son.
How can you not love a movie that lists stuntmen as marshall arts performers in the credits?
Director Leo Garren only made this one movie and his directing career is limited to an episode of I Dream of Jeannie and a short film called Hootpurr. He was better known as a writer, working on shows like Vega$, Quincy M.D. and T.J. Hooker. Plus, he wrote the Band of the Hand, a movie I keep trying to get to and write up for the site.
He was joined in the scriptwriting by Vernon Zimmerman, who wrote and directed The Unholy Rollers and Fade to Black, two of my favorite movies. He also wrote Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw and Teen Witch, so top that! They were also aided and abetted by Steve Katz, who wrote for The A-Team and Hardcastle and McCormick, as well as Doran William Cannon, who wrote the original story. His credits include Brewster McCloud, the 1980 TV version of Brave New World and a little film called Skidoo, which explains why this movie is just so strange.
The original screenplay was written in 1969 with the goal of being “the biggest piece of schlock,” combining two hot genres — biker films and supernatural horror.
Set in 1919, this movie was shot on location at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. After being acquired by Twentieth Century Fox, it gathered dust on the shelf while the studio re-cut it into a more straightforward occult-themed horror film. Well, they tried, because this movie is still really odd.
It’s also been released under its working title, Grassland, as well as The Shrieking and Charms.
After the First World War, a loosely knit band of motorcyclists — let’s call them a gang — make their way across the U.S. on the way to California. Right now, they’re in rural Bingo, Nebraska, where they lose a hot rod race and flee after a dispute.
The gang includes Archibald “Whizzer” Overton (Keith Carradine, who I never realized was Martha Plimpton’s dad), Golly (Mike Combs, in his only acting role), Jimbang (Scott Glenn, The Right Stuff), Chupo (Robert Walker, Beware! The Blob, Easy Rider, The Passover Plot), Gibson “Giblets” Meredith (Gary Busey!) and a woman named China (Doria Cook-Nelson, the wife of Craig T. Nelson who shows up in The Swarm and Evil Town).
They hide on a remote farm owned by two sisters, Acacia (Hilary Thompson, the wife of Alan Ormsby and an actress who shows up in The Fury and Nighthawks) and Oriole (Cristina Raines, who of course starred in The Sentinel). Their Native American shaman father has just died and Oriole must run the farm with an iron fist. Despite letting the bikers stay, Giblets tries to assault Acacia. He gets hexed and an owl promptly rips out his eyes.
Oriole supplies them with a wheelbarrow and a shovel, as she does not want the man buried on her land. However, they supervise the funeral.
Soon, Acacia is falling for Golly. And Oriole and Whizzer grow close, but China soon reveals that the man is a liar. He was never a veteran but instead a mechanic who is trying to invent a better life story for himself.
So, you know, Oriole does what anyone else would. She takes some of China’s hair, sews it into the mouth of a toad and gives the girl horrific visions. Then, she begins to take out the gang one by one.
Jimbang attempts to shoot Oriole, but his gun lives up to his name, as it misfires and kills him instead. Chupo gets possessed and attacks Whizzer against his will. After he’s sliced with a sickle, Oriole makes love to Whizzer, who also kills the frog who is an effigy of China. Whew!
Acacia, tired of Oriole using their father’s magic for evil, renounces him, just as she shows up clad in his robes. But it all strangely works out — Golly stays behind with Acacia and on the only bike left, Oriole drives away with Whizzer riding on the back. Four fighter jets — it’s 1919? — pass overhead.
What did I just watch? Because I think I loved it.
Oh yeah! Dan Haggerty has a small role as Brother Billy and Iggie Wolfington, who represented actors in at least 10,000 equity cases as part of the Actors’ Fund of America, plays a bandmaster. John Carradine is in some of the production stills as an old gunfighter, but he never shows up in the U.S. cut of the film. Perhaps once someone like Vinegar Syndrome or Severin gets their hands on this, we’ll know more.
While Norman Mailer considered Hex one of the top-ten best films of 1973, it basically sat and sat in the valuts of 20th Century Fox. For his part, Garen was happy with the re-cut of the film that he completed, referring to it as “sort of carnival, snake oil, underground comic book entertainment. The only trick I tried to pull off was to keep the audience constantly shifting. When it gets serious, I pull the rug out. It goes from blatant farce to serious to scary to balletic to phantasmagoric.”
Trinity Home Entertainment released this on DVD way back in 2006 under its Charms title. Seeing as how this is near impossible to find today, I’ve decided to share it below. It comes from the Deranged VisionsYouTube channel, which always has so many completely berserk offerings.
Eddie Romero directing and John Ashley starring? That was all I really needed to know. Man, anything remotely connected with these two — like the Blood Island films — and I’m ready to go.
This was also the first release for Roger Corman’s distribution company New World Pictures. After successfully distributing Beast of Blood in 1970, Kane W. Lynn’s Hemisphere Pictures tried to get the distribution rights to this, but got cut out of the deal.
Ashley’s new company, Four Associates Ltd. went on to produce The Twilight People, The Woman Hunt and Ebony, Ivory & Jade. As for Lynn, he worked with Sam Sherman to make Brain of Blood. Me? I’m happy all around at whatever these maniacs decided to make.
While Ashley would say that this was the most cerebral of the Philippines-based horror movies he made — and its success led to Corman making more movies there like The Big Doll House — Eddie Romero would say, “We really tried for quality. I don’t think it did very well. They prefer out and out gore.”
As World War II ends, Satan himself — Vic Diaz from Night of the Cobra Woman — spares Joseph Landgon’s (Ashley) life if he becomes his disciple. So over the next 25 years, Langdon possessed people and forces them to do the bidding of his dark master.
However, he wants to free himself from the Lord of the Flies, but instead becomes a hairy monster who could pretty much be a werewolf. He’s in the body of Phillip Rogers now and that man’s wife tries to save him. An old blind bandit named Sabasas finally saves him, asking him to pray for his soul just as an inspector catches up to him and shoots our — well, I guess he isn’t the hero — turning him into an ancient corpse.
Mary Charlotte Wilcox, who plays the wife, is also in the absolutely bonkers film, Love Me Deadly, which I love me dearly. She also shows up in Psychic Killer, Black Oak Conspiracy, Strange Brew and was a cast member of SCTV and Maniac Mansion.
Once he moved back to America, Ashley produced The A-Team. In one episode, he plays a movie producer trying to get a movie made. That movie? Beast of the Yellow Night.
You can watch this on Amazon Prime or with Rifftrax making fun of it on Tubi.
Ray Mandel (Thomas Jane; 2018’s Predator) is a jaded, rough-hewed patrol officer from LAPD’s Olympic Division assigned to train an ambitious rookie cop on the night the entire squad is on high alert to hunt down two cop killers. Also complicating their night of patrol is an unhinged cop that’s gone into law breaking-rogue mode with a vow to catch the killers at any cost.
Since they’re on patrol, we’re in the car a lot and there’s not much action as Crown Vic favors the philosophical over the action, but when the action hits, it’s gritty and violent—so we feel like we’re on a real night of patrol. These aren’t the cartoon cops of the Lethal Weapon variety with non-stop, over-the-top action. It’s not all running, fence-climbing, building jumping and gun fire in the life of a real officer, after all.
She’s a sweet ride.
Don’t let the fact that you haven’t seen Crown Vic listed on your cable system’s VOD menus, and that it’s a selection in your local supermarket’s Redbox, deter you from giving this low-budget ($3.6 million) thriller a chance. I sure didn’t see this Thomas Jane-starrer listed by my cable service provider—and I’ve watched a lot of Thomas Jane movies because of, well, Thomas Jane. He killed it in The Punisher. We dug ‘em in Deep Blue Sea (1999) and one of the best of the Stephen King adaptations, The Mist (2007). So if Crown Vic was available on-demand, I would have rented it. And I am not much for Redbox, but for Thomas Jane, I’m all in.
Crown Vic moves along at a snappy pace courtesy of solid acting from all concerned—mainstay TV actors David Krumholtz (The Good Wife, Mom, Num3ers), Bridget Moyhahan (Blue Bloods, the John Wick franchise) and Scottie Thompson (The Blacklist, NCIS, 12 Monkeys: The Series)—buoyed by dark ‘n gritty cinematography and sharp editing that measures up to its fellow, dark cop dramas Training Day (2001), the Kurt Russell starring Dark Blue (2002), and David Ayer’s End of Watch (2012).
Writer-director Joel Souza is relatively new to the scene with a short resume of six films since 2010. If Crown Vic is any indication, he’s a name to watch. You can watch his latest film on Amazon Prime, Redbox, Google Play, Vudu, and You Tube Movies.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.
Action superstar Dominiquie Vandenberg and acclaimed filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson, director of Triple Threat and Accident Man — which was based on the 2000AD comic — team for 2020’s most explosive action blockbuster — The Mercenary.
Well, that’s what the press release said and who am I to try to question them?
Maxx (Vandenberg, Triple Threat, Gangs of New York) is a legionnaire turned mercenary. When a mission in South America goes wrong, he’s left for dead but is nursed back to life. Now, he wants to live in peace, but we all know how that works. His old mercenary buddies cross the path of Maxx and his new friends. That means that in order to find peace, Maxx is going to have to turn back to war.
Expect lots of squibs and bullets flying through the air. If you’re looking for an action film and well, there haven’t been any in awhile, this is a decent pick.
The Mercenary is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team.
“If ghosts can think and remember who they are, then the physical brain is not the only place where we store our inner selves.”
That’s the first thing this movie wants you to know about it. If you like Insidious and The Conjuring sort of movies, good news. Here’s one with evil 3D printers and people training one another to be mediums.
This is the first full-length film from Portuguese writer/director Paulo Leite. It’s pretty well done and has an intriguing premise, as Helen was once a medium but gave that up when her daughter killed herself. Today, she’s dedicated to brain research. However, she also needs ghosts to do her research, as she’s investigating the fields that the soul leaves behind.
Star Celia Williams, who plays Helen, and Elizabeth Bochmann, who plays the artistic Elsa, are real-life mother and daughter. She comes to be trained along with Helen’s best friend’s daughter Moira, but when science and the paranormal collide, no one’s lives will be unchanged.
If you’re sensitive to strobe lights, however, you may want to skip this one.
Inner Ghosts is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR firm.
Welcome to a new feature here at B&S About Movies and one we hope you’ll be a part of.
If you’re a moviephile like we are, you have huge stacks of films in your house. One of the things that makes me really happy is to check out the towers of movies and pick which one is my favorite. As we’re constantly adding new movies, these stacks change all the time, offering me near-unending moments of joy.
Feel free to send us photos and writeups of your stacks or hauls that you’ve recently bought. Let’s celebrate movies together!
PS – When possible, I’ve tried to list places where you can stream or buy these films so you can watch them.
I often take a look at this stack and proclaim to my wife Rebecca that this is the finest of all the stacks in the house. It’s just packed with some of my favorite movies and so much strangeness. Here’s a brief overview of the discs within it. You can also click on the hyperlinks to read longer reviews.
The Night Brings Charlie:This late-in-the-game slasher was sent to me by my friend John S. Berry and was directed by Tom Logan (Shakma). It’s really murky and dark, both in how it’s shot and in its themes. Not one for a first date, let me tell you that much.
The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave: I can’t think of many giallo where someone is eaten by foxes. This is the lone one I can come up with. Plus — Marina Malfatti and Erika Blanc are in it! You can watch this for free on Tubi.
Night Gallery complete set: If you’ve never watched this Rod Serling series, you’re missing one of the greatest times in television. Sure, the episodes aren’t focused at all, as Serling was feuding with producer Jack Laird, but when it fires on all cylinders, it destroys everything in its path. I first discovered this series via the TV Guide Book of Lists, where Anton LaVey listed the most Satanic moments on television. Most of them were from this show. I’ve never been the same since. We also own the limited edition book that breaks down each episode’s creation as well as several prints of the paintings from the show. You can watch episodes for free on NBC, too.
Night Killer: Thanks to my friend Matt Hanke, I own the limited edition Severin slipcase of this insane Italian film, which has the title Non Aprite Quell Porta 3, which means Don’t Answer the Door 3, positioning this movie as the third installment of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s anything but. I could go on and on about this movie — and do — but I’d suggest you just head to Severin and grab a copy for yourself.
Nightmare Beach: Someone let Umberto Lenzi loose in America and he got John Saxon to come along for the ride. A slasher that is pretty much unhinged, this is everything I love about Italian junk cinema — soft colors, rampant sleaze and a murderous motorcycle with an electric chair for a seat.
Nightmare Before Christmas: Not every movie we own features guts and gore. This would be a fine example. It may never get written up on this site, but it’s in our library.
Nightmare Castle: Despite owning four different copies of this movie, it’s never been written up on our site. I really gotta get on that — a Barabara Steele gothic horror film that isn’t on here? I feel shame.
Nightmare City: This Umberto Lenzi thrillride is just pure chaos, a moebius strip of blood, ooze, gristle, gore and gunfire. It also has a scene where aerobics dancers get reduced into corpses and another where a major character falls off a rollercoaster. Just writing this quick paragraph makes me want to watch this movie all over again.
Every single A Nightmare on Elm Street movie: We covered these films in depth last year:
Night of the Bloody Apes: One of the parts of having OCD and a large video collection is the fact that I may never own every movie I want. For example, I want every single AGFA/Something Weird release. Until then, I’m hunting down old SWV DVDs in the wilds of used video stores. I found this one at the Exchanges in Squirrel Hill and treasure it — it even has Feast of Flesh and lots of bonus trailers. You can watch this on Tubi.
Night of the Creeps: Tom Atkins forever! This is one of the greatest goofball movies ever made, packed with both grossout moments and real emotion. Oh man, I love it so. You can watch this on Shudder.
Night of Dark Shadows: The sequel to House of Dark Shadows, I saw this at the drive-in and hunted for it for years. I really need to get on a Dark Shadows/Dan Curtis week here on the site.
Night of the Demons 2: This is yet another in the many sequels that my wife loves way more than the films that came before them. Also, this is an American demon movie, so it has nothing to do with the many, many Demons films from Italy.
Night of the Hunted: Otherwise known as La Nuit des Traquées, this is yet another Jean Rollin film that I’ve added to my collection and never had the time to watch. Again, I need to get on this.
Night School: No, not that Night School. Nope, this is an American giallo that gets so close to hitting the mark that it upsets me just how great it could have been. I hunted for this forever before finding the Warner burn on demand disc at an Exchange in Monroeville. You can save yourself the hard work and just watch it on Shudder.
That’s the first stack! Share your stack with us! Comment here if you’d like to be part of this or email us at bandsaboutmovies@gmail.com.
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