Monthly Archives: March 2020

The Serpent Warriors (1985) aka Calamity of Snakes (1982)

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From the Editor’s Desk, December 10, 2022: Pure insanity! As with Delirium (out now) and UFO: Target Earth (coming in 2023), both which we previously reviewed on a whim just because we love ’em, here’s another obscurity that’s readying for a reissue. Well, not a “whim,” per se: those two reviews were inspired by our “Video Nasty Week” and “Space Week” features.

On December 10, Unearthed Films—with a special thanks to the gang at Dawn of the Discs Facebook—officially announced the April 2023 Blu-ray release of the original Calamity of Snakes as an official 2k scan restore-remaster for preservation in the Hong Kong Category III horror cinema annals.

The bonus materials include: A commentary from Nathan Hamilton and Brad Slaton, a Full Length Documentary: From Shaw to Snakes: The Venom and Violence of Early Chinese Language Horror Cinema, and Reptilian Recollections: Lin Kuang-Yung In Conversation With Chui-Yi Chung. The release, which comes with an English dub and subtitles, features three cuts: the Full Uncut version, an Alternate Cut, and a Cruelty Free Cut (but there is so much cruelty in Calamity, e.g., the hard-to-watch, extended snakes vs. mongooses battle, the jumping (well, thrown) snakes vs. samurai sword battle, the gassing and flame throwings—complete with their dying-wiggling aftermath—what’s left in that cut?).

Based on the likes, shares, and comments on the Unearthed post, everyone is clamoring for the calamity on this one!

Well, anyway: here’s what we had to say about The Serpent Warriors . . . and the career of porn purveyor, John Howard, back in March 2020.

“I’m sick of these mother f’in snakes in this mother f’in plane!” shouts Samuel L. Jackson. Only, there is no plane. But there is a temple (of dud and not doom). And we have Eartha Kitt in place of Samuel L. Jackson.

“John Howard didn’t make this or Scorpion! He only made Spine, you stupid mother f’er. Don’t make me go medieval!” threatens Mr. Jackson on your VHS-lovin’ ass.

Yes, ye analog warrior of the snowy tundras: Contrary to the web-chatter: B&S About Movies brings you this caveat emptor regarding the “specialty video” oeuvre of writer-director John Howard, he of the shot-on and edited-on 3/4-inch video, lo-res and audio-buzzing Big Box/SOV horror-classic Spine.

Nope. John Howard never went “mainstream” and he never worked outside of the adult film industry. Not only did the John Howard of Spine fame not direct the 1986 Tony Tulleners-starring Scorpion (he did, however, direct the Linnea Quigley one, also released in 1986), he did not direct this Hong Kong-Taiwan actioner. Hey, you know how it is with these Asian-Pacific Rim-produced oddities from the ‘80s VHS fringe: they’re infamous for their untraceable, Americanized director-pseudonyms—thus the John Howard-confusion.

So sure, with our adult film knowledge and the infamy of Spine, the name of “John Howard” piqued our interest—at first. Then we see the what-the-hell-why-not-we-need-a-paycheck kitchen sink cast and say, “Oh, hell yes! We must watch this!”

Yep. The same “New Line” that repacked the ’70s TV movie Death in Space.

Seriously, how can you turn away from a film starring ‘60s TV cowboy Clint Walker (in his final film) from our beloved TV movie, possessed construction equipment romp Killdozer, Eartha Kitt—as a snake-mistress bitch!—from TV’s Batman, Christopher Mitchum from the ‘80s apoc-slop fests Aftershock and SFX Retaliator, and the comely Anne Lockhart from Battlestar Galactica: TOS?

You can’t. You break out the hot-air popper and convince the little lady to go out to have a few drinks with her girlfriends. “No, sweetie, really. I’m not trying to get rid of you for a booty call. I just wanna hug my VCR and reel in the ’80s for the evening,” you assure her furrowing brow.

While its rare VHS goes for about 40 to 60 bucks in the online marketplace, beware of those bogus DVD-r grey-market rips of The Serpent Warriors (and know your regions before you buy, if you must). If there’s ever a film that the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome or Arrow Video need to reissue, it’s this slithery, beautiful disaster that, somehow “roped” Catwoman and BSG’s Sheba into starring.

“Okay, so what’s the movie about, already? Get to it R.D.”

Crazy ass heavy metal snakes, that’s what! Seriously: Every time the snakes appear, you get screeching metal guitars!

Another You Tube clip bites the dust.
Thanks for ruining the bit, content flagger.

After that, uh, I don’t know. You have to take in account this movie is a patch job from two different directors, the other being some guy named Niels Rasmussen who, if we believe the IMDb (they got the whole John Howard thing wrong, so, well, you know), he was the editor on some late ‘70s never-heard-of-it-before 3D Asian slop fest, Revenge of the Shogun Women, and the Frankie Avalon-starring ‘80s horror film, Blood Song.

Most of the film is actually culled from a 1983 Chinese nobody-ever-heard-of-it (well, if you’re a normal person) nature run amuck potboiler Calamity of Snakes starring iconic Chinese actor Yuen Kao. Kao worked on some 70-plus films from the early 1950s to the late 1980s—most notably the martial arts movies The Angry River (1971) and Flying Sword Lee (1979), for us fans of the genre. Here, Kao’s been Americanized as “Jason King.”

Nope. This is not a repack of The Serpent Warriors. This is a reedit-repack of King of Snakes, aka Da she wang (1984), done up by Godfrey “Oh, no!” Ho, the master of remake-remixes.

You know, we’re a having a “Kaiju Week” in the coming weeks at B&S About Movies, and that just about sums up what’s going on with this snake fest. Remember how 1955’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters was Americanized with those annoying inserts with Raymond Burr and he’s never in any scenes with the lead Asian actors? That’s what’s going on here: you’re really getting a repack of Calamity of Snakes with awful American dubbing and worse American-acted inserts shot outside of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The “plot,” such as it is, concerns the death of Yuen Kao’s Taiwanese sister some 40-years ago on a Pacific South Seas island. The group of Americans—well, the relative of one of them—responsible now find themselves stalked by a snake worshipping tribe that’s triggered by the discovery of a den of snakes at a construction site managed by Kao.

So a zoologist-herpetologist (Clint Walker and his assistant-son, Chris Mitchum, and their lab assistant, Anne Lockhart) are dispatched to the site. The trio soon discovers the building site sits upon the ancient temple of a snake-worshiping cult (so, yes: we are in Spielberg rip-off territory here, not only with Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Poltergeist as well) and that Clint’s father was responsible for the murder of Kao’s sister. Of course, they discover it all too late and find themselves attacked by thousands of deadly snakes. And Eartha Kitt is going to take over the Earth with her reptile minions.

At least I think that’s what’s going on. . . .

Well, the one thing we do know: If you were offended by the animal mutilations committed by Ruggero Deodato in Cannibal Holocaust, then buckle up, young VHS warrior. Calamity of Snakes is beyond the offensive in its on-screen killing of reptiles. At least The Serpent Warriors gives you a reprieve from the animal cruelty and just pillages Calamity of Snakes for stock-snake footage—of which there’s plenty of it!

The Serpent Warriors’ source material: 1982’s Ren she da zhan, aka Calamity of Snakes, which is actually a horror action-comedy-thriller in the vein of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. (In this reviewer’s opinion: yes, even with the cringing animal violence.)

“I’m sick of these mother f’in pieces-o-shite movies in my mother f’in VCR!”

Okay, Samuel L., calm down. Here, have a Royale with Cheese and let the B&S About Movie hoards enjoy the original William Chang/Cheung, aka Chi Chang, version of the film, Calamity of Snakes, on Daily Motion, since there’s no online rips of The Serpent Warriors. By the way, both films are in the marketplace under a variety of titles; however, because of the two-films-in-one mess that it is, it’s hard to know which retitle is which: is it a retitle of Calamity or The Serpent Warriors? Throughout the overseas markets the titles used are Snake Inferno, Golden Viper, War Between Man and Snakes, and Revenge of the Snakes.

What we do know: The title of The War Between Men and Snakes, which itself features alternate footage, is the South Korean-language cut of Calamity. Phew! Oh, and there is an undubbed/non-subtitled, previously issued laser-disc version of Calamity of Snakes out there for the taking. Also, the release dates vary: some video repositories use dates of 1983 and 1987 for both films.

And the adult film industry-employed John Howard of Spine fame didn’t make any of them. Nor did William Riead of Scorpion fame. Neither did Joe Livingstone, aka Willie Palmer, aka Godfrey Ho . . . but he did make Robo Vampire!

Our thanks to the folks at Unearthed Films for the pull-quote.

New film Intel for 2022: Inspired by Unearthed Films’ reissue, I started digging . . . I really needed to know MORE . . . and discovered Paul Freitag-Fey’s insane, deep review of Calamity of Snakes/The Serpent Warriors from 2017 for Daily Grindhouse. God bless ya, Paul!

Paul sifted through the confusion to discover that four distinct films with a total of seven different titles were made from director Chi Chang’s original.

During its next year of release, Calamity of Snakes reached English-speaking countries via a dubbed version issued on Brentwood’s out-of-print “Eastern Horror” DVD collection (which are easily Googled). One of the first remixes was released in Pakistan as Revenge of the Snakes (1982) (artwork). Then, Korean directors Kim Seon-gyeong and Qi Zhang (either using the original Calamity or the Pakistani cut) added addition scenes (of a girl having a nightmare initiating the horror), as the film we previously mentioned, The War Between Man and Snakes (1983). This was a Korean-only release.

Then, apparently—not with the Chang original, but the Korean cut—the film was repurposed by U.S. filmmaker Niels Rasmussen, aka’in as John Howard, as The Serpent Warriors. That cut—using three different sources—edited-out the animal cruelty and most of the plot—with new sequences shot in Los Angeles, California, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Nevada. From that point, Rasmussen’s remix failed to find distribution in the U.S. but was distributed in Denmark, Spain, and Germany (as Snake Inferno), and Hong Kong as Golden Viper.

As the early ’90s arrived, the titles became more confusing as the original Calamity of Snakes was re-release as Snake’s Revenge (shouldn’t it be Snakes’ Revenge?) with newly, computer-generated snakes, while 8 minutes from the original film were cut for a 78-minute running time. And, as you can see from our VHS image above, New Line (no, not that one) finally brought The Serpent Warriors version to U.S. home video shelves.

So, in the end: If you must have the snake violence: go for the Calamity of Snakes original—which you can get in a restored version from Unearthed Films.

Phew. I’m exhausted. No more snake films or Hong Kong Category III films for me. Yeah, right. That’s not gonna happen.

April 2023: With the new reissue coinciding with “Day 11: What Movie Upsets You?” for our second annual, “April Movie Thon” feature, we’ve taken a fresh look at the Calamity of Snakes orginal.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Agramon’s Gate (2019)

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There’s this party. And these kids. And this psychic reader that they invited. And then, something goes wrong and someone crosses over from the other side to haunt everyone. He or she or it is named Agramon and they cannot be stopped.

This movie comes to us from Harley Warren, who also sent Eternal Code our way.

Yeah, I don’t do Ouija boards or seances at parties. Horror films have taught me so much. No one in this movie learned those lessons.

Laurene Landon (Maniac Cop) is in this, as is Yan Birch (The Stairmaster from The People Under the Stairs). They play Richie’s parents, who we see in flashbacks, and Yan’s character comes back from the dead to get this whole mess going. Or maybe it’s that demon in the title. Just you know — follow my advice. Nobody should get their fortune read or reach out to the dead. Bad stuff always follows.

Agramon’s Gate is available on demand from Midnight Releasing. You can learn more at the official Facebook page.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR company.

Scorpion (1986)

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Where do I begin with this review?

Okay, so Sam, B&S About Movies illustrious proprietor, swings by Eide’s Entertainment, a cool vintage music, comics, magazines, and videos joint in Pittsburgh and picks up a copy of Mill Creek’s “Explosive Cinema” 12-film pack—for the sole purpose of getting a copy of Brent Huff kicking ass in 1985’s Nine Deaths of the Ninja (and it really is the BEST movie in the set!). So, Sam and I get to talking about the other films on the set—1986’s Scorpion, in particular.

Directed by Columbia Pictures’ behind-the-scenes-of-movies documentary purveyor William Riead, Scorpion—the only starring role of karate champ Tony Tulleners, the one guy the “invincible” Chuck Norris could never beat—chronicles the adventures of super-agent Steve “Code Name: Scorpion” Woods. After Scorpion thwarts a Los Angeles airline skyjacking, he uncovers an international scheme involving the assassination of an imprisoned drug-kingpin turned government informant. And when the bad guys murder his partner—he lets loose his “sting” to avenge the death.

Now if this low-budget romp sounds familiar, like Steve McQueen’s Bullitt* familiar, that’s because it’s practically a shot-for-shot rip-off of McQueen’s iconic action film—right down to Don Murray (!) (Governor Breck from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes?) in the corrupt lawyer/politician role played by Robert Vaughn (watch this Vaughn scene from Bullitt to see what I mean). In fact, there’s touches of Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry”-era films in the mix (watch this scene from Magnum Force and you’ll see what I mean).

What got us into this mess in the first place!

But as with those low-budget romps from Crown and American International Pictures, the cast is the thing: it’s why we suffer through them—and enjoy them. So, in line behind the always-a-pleasure-to-see Don Murray, we also get Robert Logan from the hit ‘60s TV series 77 Sunset Strip and Daniel Boone, Bart Braverman, who’s been in everything, from 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) as a kid actor to the hit ‘80s TV series Vegas, Ross Elliot, who’s been in everything as well, from the early Clint Eastwood war movie Kelly’s Heroes (1970) and TV’s The Virginian, Bonanza, and Gunsmoke, Robert Colbert from Irwin Allen’s TV series The Time Tunnel and Hunter in the ’80s, and John Anderson, who’s been in everything, from ’60s TV’s The Rat Patrol and MacGyver in the ’80s.

So, why is Scorpion the only movie Tony Tulleners ever did, you ask? He did, after all, kick Chuck Norris’s ass three times in the ring—and Norris ended up with the film and TV career? What happened?

Did Tulleners see the film, realized it sucked, and quit Hollywood? Or did Hollywood think Tulleners sucked—and gave him his walking papers? Truth be told: Scorpion really is awful: just a like an ’80s action direct-to-video flick should be. Like Crown International Pictures awful. Hey, wait a minute. Crown made this! Ah, no wonder it’s so bad. But again, what saves this blatant rip-off of Bullitt and Dirty Harry is the fact that Crown made it—and we know the barrel of crap we are getting into with that studio—and we want to get into the muck and mire with that studio. Why? Again, it’s the crazy “Where’s Waldo” who’s who casting of our beloved UHF-TV ’60s and ’70s television reruns cast in Crown’s oeuvre.

Nope. William Riead didn’t make this.

Here’s the thing with Scorpion, the feature film writing and directing debut by William Riead: No one would be talking about this film at all if it wasn’t for it being confused with the “specialty video” Scorpion (1986) shot by John Howard of Spine fame and starring Linnea Quigley (aka Jessie Dalton). So don’t be duped by the reviews on Riead’s Scorpion, in KY Jelly-anticipation for Linnea Quigley’s “hot tub kidnapping” and “extended bondage-torture scene.” Stow the pocket rockets, boys. Move along, now.

And god bless ‘em, Don Murray is still active in the business. He most recently starred in the 2017 limited-series reboot of Twin Peaks and is currently filming the low-budget direct-to-video western Promise. Most recently, Bart Braverman starred alongside Jeffrey Donovan of TV’s Burn Notice in the two season run of Hulu’s 2016 series, Shut Eye.

And writer-director William Riead is still at the keyboard and behind the camera. He made, what I think, is a pretty decent romantic-thriller that’s above the usual Lifetime damsel-in-distress flick-junk, 2001’s Island Prey (aka Broken Vows) with Don Murray, along with Ed Asner (TV’s Lou Grant), Tony Dennison (TV’s Prison Break, The Closer, and Major Crimes), and Olivia Hussey (Black Christmas, Ice Cream Man, Turkey Shoot).

From a karate-action flick to a Mother Teresa biopic. Everyone in Hollywood has has to start somewhere.

Riead’s most recent effort was his fourteen-years-in-development passion project: 2014’s The Letters, a biographical drama that explored the life of Mother Teresa and starred Max von Sydow (Flash Gordon, Judge Dredd) and Rutger Hauer (Nighthawks, Blood of Heroes). Sadly, Riead’s passion didn’t translate into box office gold: the $20 million film’s worldwide gross was less than $2 million (and does not deserve to be called-out in our “Box Office Failures Week”). The beautifully shot and acted film won the Audience Favorite “Best of the Fest” Award at Arizona’s Sedona Film Festival, while Riead won the Best Director and Juliet Stevenson (as Mother Teresa) as Best Actress at Rome’s International Catholic Film Festival.

You can watch a VHS rip of Scorpion along with the trailers for Island Prey and The Letters, all courtesy of You Tube. There’s no PPV online streams or free rips of Island Prey available, but The Letters is widely available on all the usual streaming platforms—including You Tube. There’s no online rips of John Howard’s Scorpion but, if you absolutely must see the cover, you can, on Letterboxd (don’t worry; there’s no nudity and it’s safe to look at, provided ropes don’t offend you).

Phew! See what happens when you go shopping at Eide’s Entertainment? Again, watch out for more reviews from Mill Creek’s “Explosive Cinema” 12-pack all this week.

Speaking of Tony Tulleners . . . we blew out a week of martial arts flicks with Ron Marchini!

* Hey! Don’t forget that we blew out two weeks of rubber-burnin’ mayhem with our “Fast and Furious Weeks” one and two.

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 About Movies.

First Kill (2017)

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Hayden Christensen (Outcast with Nicolas Cage . . . and do I really have to mention Star Wars?) is a disconnected, self-centered Wall Street broker who’s estranged from his wife and bullied son. In an attempt to reconnect, and toughen up his son, he decides the best course of action is to take his family on a hunting vacation to the very same cabin where his own father took him—and in the very same woods where bank robbers have just murdered their double-crossing, corrupt police office accomplice.

That’s where First Kill kicks into Hunter’s Blood mode, with Christensen’s fish-out-of-water stockbroker and his weakling son forced to tough up or die as Christensen races against the clock while evading Bruce Willis’s police chief—who believes he was involved in the heist—to recover the stolen money as “ransom” for his kidnapped son.

While watching this third collaborative effort from Bruce Willis and direct-to-video auteur Steven C. Miller (they previous worked on 2015’s Extraction and 2016’s Marauders), and taking into consideration that Willis worked with Sylvester Stallone in the Expendables franchise, I couldn’t help but think of Cop Land (1997). That’s the film where Sly made a valiant attempt to expand his resume beyond the one-dimensional action films of his past (e.g., Cobra) with a film that offered more character-driven content.

Such is the case with Bruce Willis’s Howell who, like Stallone’s Freddy Helflin, is a sheriff who rather not be bothered, but is thrust into “urban western” (well, in this case, “rural western”) circumstances and rises to the challenge. However, don’t go into this expecting John McClane . . . or all Bruce Willis all the time. This is a Hayden Christensen set piece (and the second of a two picture deal with Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films; the other was the 2015 Christian-based family film 90 Minutes in Heaven). And we all know how polarizing Christensen was as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels (he’s really not that bad of an actor).

As with our previous review for Steven C. Miller’s Aaron Eckhart-starring Line of Duty, we’re not going to sugar coat: the reviews on First Kill aren’t good. And Christensen, like Kristen Stewart (Underwater), takes a social media beating for his acting. And Miller’s direct-to-video action thrillers—such as Nicolas Cage’s Arsenal (2017) and Sylvester Stallone’s Escape Plan 2: Hades—are universally derided.

The err of film critics and movie goers (these days, renters) that tend to bash Miller’s work is that they fail to put on their retro-beanies and appreciate that Miller creates ‘90s action movie throwbacks. Think back to the major studio theatrical romps of Die Hard and Cobra, and of Speed and Lethal Weapon. They’re big, they’re dumb, they’re stupid, and they’re improbable. And we love those friggin’ movies.

For me, Miller’s films are like my grandma’s three-meat overloaded spaghetti replete with garlic and bay leaves: I’m not going back for seconds or thirds and ruining my heart and stomach lining, but that single serving is satisfying filling none-the-less. And I always go back for another artery-clogging dinner at grandma’s at a later time.

You can stream First Kill on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, and You Tube Movies. If you’d rather hard media, you can pick it up at your local Redbox or pick them up at Best Buy and Walmart.

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.

Arsenal (2018)

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Arsenal is one of those movies that, if we still had video stores, based on the marquee names of Nicolas Cage (Mandy, Color Out of Space) and John Cusack (Better Off Dead), you would have plucked it off the shelf. Those were the days when, for the 5 Videos-5 Days-5 Bucks offers many indie-stores had, you’d take a gamble on anything.

Sadly, in these digital days when you have to pay $5.99 to $7.99 for a digital rental, we don’t gamble that much on movies. (And I ask you: Was Arsenal even on cable VOD? Was it even available on Redbox? Did Walmart carry it in their cutout barrels in the electronics section? Honestly, I’ve never heard of Arsenal.)

It’s that retarding digital distribution environment that causes a film like Arsenal—an admittedly slow, but decent film noir action-thriller overflowing with ultra-violence and complex-beyond-cardboard characters—the type of characters we don’t get in the big studio set pieces that cut-out emotional layers and concentrate on the bullets—to being ignored at the digital box office. (Arsenal was a theatrical release in Europe.)

And this is how a hangover from last night’s holiday frolicking on the last Friday night of the year leads to your Saturday morning of couch surfing and channel grazing with your bowl of Coco Puffs (Fruity Pebbles, if you got ‘em) as you discover a well-written and well-directed film on a tight budget ($10 million is a “low budget” in these comic book franchise days): when it plays on the SyFy Channel.

Yep. Hollywood is a cruel, filmmaking mistress. Oscar be a bitch in gold clothing.

When we first meet the Lindel brothers, the younger, middle-school J.P always looks up to his older, high-school brother Mikey, who’s a face-slapping dickhead one minute, then a giving, caring brother the next. When their ill-drunk grandmother decides it’s time to leave the Terra by shotgun suicide, Mikey supports them both by working for Cage’s small-time mobster, Eddie King, making coke deliveries and committing petty crimes-for-profit.

Now grown up, blue collar brothers, J.P (now Adrian Grenier, HBO’s Entourage) is a responsible owner of a construction company; Mikey (now Johnathon Schaech, That Thing You Do!) is a black sheep that causes chaos, not only in his own family, but J.P’s. When J.P floats a 10 G loan to help his older brother pay off some family responsibilities, Mikey decides to buy coke from Eddie King and “flip it” to 20 Gs. Then the coke is stolen. And Eddie thinks Mikey ripped him off. So he kidnaps and ransoms Mikey for 300 percent more than the coke is worth. “You little brats owe me! I raised you!” screams Eddie King as he punches a chair-tied Mikey in the face.

So J.P—doing something his brother would never do for him—sets out with their childhood friend Sal (a perpetually black-clad and baseball-capped John Cusack), now a rogue undercover cop, to rescue Mikey. And they open up the “Arsenal.”

Arsenal is the type of movie Nicolas Cage—he openly admits—makes to pay down his highly publicized tax problems. It’s also the type of movie that gives top-billing to Nicolas Cage and John Cusack—who everyone came to see—then pulls the ol’ bait n’ switch with Johnathon Schaech and Adrian Grenier—that no one came to see (but they’re both very good here). It’s also the type of film where Nicolas Cage lets loose his unhinged, biblical self as we listen to the traditional religious tunes of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Oh Freedom” as his Eddie King character gives CGI-blood-flowing-out-of-the-mouth, slow-motion beat downs by baseball bat and fist.

Now, in case you haven’t figured it out, Arsenal wants to be “Quentin Tarantino”—but you end up with another “Boondock Saints.” But we all loved Boondock Saints . . . remember?

Anyway, Cage, as is the case in his lean, direct-to-video-in-the-U.S-and-theatrical-release-overseas years, portrays another one of his patented, over-the-top cartoonish characters. Cage is known for his extreme form of method acting—where he rips teeth out of his head without anesthesia, spends five weeks with his head wrapped in bandages, walks around in corpse paint, eats an all-raw meat diet, and has hot yogurt poured over his feet to prepare for a scene. So, when we see Cage’s name, we wonder: What crazy-ass play from his “Noveau Shamanic” playbook is he going to run with this time?

This time: he’s running the “Tony Clifton.”

Eddie King in Deadfall, Arsenal and . . . Tony Clifton?

I don’t know how else to describe it. From the first moment of his very limited screen time (about 20 minutes combined, tops; same for John Cusack), the VCR centers of my brain loaded a VHS of Andy Kaufman’s old Tony Clifton routines. Cage’s Eddie King is (maybe not) a parody of Kaufman’s boorish lounge singer—complete with a fake nose and oversized sunglasses, a droopy walrus mustache and the kind of fake wig an insecure bald man would wear and think he’s “sexy.”

Oh, yes. The Cage never disappoints. And the Cage never treads middle ground. He’s either a master of his craft . . . or he’s past-his-prime awful in the eyes of the viewer. Either way, you’re leaving entertained.

Oh, and there’s an additional twist to Cage’s Eddie King: It’s the second time he’s portrayed the character. It turns out Arsenal serves as a sequel to the film Deadfall (1993)—despite the fact that Cage’s character dies in Deadfall. So, in actuality, Arsenal is an Eddie King prequel. (I’ve never heard of or seen Deadfall, either. Help us out, SyFy!) Oh, and the character of Buddy, Eddie King’s older brother in Arsenal, is played by Christopher Coppola, the real-life older brother of Nicolas Cage (born Nicolas Coppola), who directed Nick in Deadfall.

And there are a few, additional twists to writer-director Steven C. Miller’s Arsenal.

While it isn’t a prequel-sequel, Arsenal is Adrien Grenier and Johnathon Schaech’s second paring: they also starred in Marauders (2016), another film written and directed Miller. Arsenal also unites the two lead actors from the 8MM franchise: Nicolas Cage starred in 8MM (1999) and Johnathon Schaech was in 8MM 2 (2005). And Arsenal is the fourth collaboration of Nicolas Cage and John Cusack: they worked together Con Air (1997) and Adaptation (2002), and the no-one-saw-it, The Frozen Ground (2013). (Caveat emptor: they’re not in any scenes together in Arsenal.)

Say what you will about Arsenal (IMDb users were not kind), but Steven C. Miller knows how to bring on the action with morally-screwed characters. His other films include First Kill (2017, starring Bruce Willis), 2018’s Escape Plan 2: Hades, and Line of Duty (2019, starring Aaron Eckhart). Miller’s also directed a remake of Silent Night, Deadly NIght and almost brought a new version of Motel Hell to the big screen. Arsenal’s first time screenwriter, Jason Mosberg, created the 2018 limited original series One Dollar for the CBS All Access digital platform.

So do yourself a favor. The next time you see Steven C. Miller’s or Jason Mosberg’s name on something, give it spin. You’ll be entertained.

And what in the hell is this about? “Nic Cage Bitch” is our Nicolas Cage blowout written by Paul Andolina of Wrestling with Film. It’s a must read for all fans of the Cage, so check it out and learn about some Cage films you may have missed, such as A Score to Settle, Between Worlds, Kill Chain, Outcast, Rage, and Seeking Justice.

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.

The Silencer aka Body Count (1995)

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Just look at that VHS-’90s resume of David A. Prior: The spa ‘n blades romp Killer Workout, the David Carradine post-apoc flicks Future Force and Future Zone. The Filipino actioners Firehead and The Final Sanction. And while he didn’t direct them, through his Action International Pictures, aka West Side Studios (aka in homage to AIP – American International Pictures), founded alongside David Winters and Peter Yuval, Prior was involved in the production of the holiday horror Elves, the Battlestar Galactica rip-off Space Mutiny, the apoc-slop Phoenix the Warrior, and the exploitation zombie mess directed by our beloved game-for-anything John Saxon, Zombie Death House.

Watch the trailer.

. . . And as we’ve said many times before when referring to the direct-to-video oeuvre of David A. Prior: Here’s another one from the bottom of Action International’s very tasty barrel. Another piece of B&S wisdom: What David A. Prior movie doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

And how did we come up with this review, you ask?

You can either blame Mill Creek Entertainment or Pittsburgh’s Eide’s Entertainment. Take your pick!

Makoto (Sonny Chiba!, Kill Bill: Vol 1), a cold-blooded assassin, escapes from prison to extract his revenge on the mean streets of New Orleans against an elite squad of “Special Crimes” agents headed by Eddie Cook and Vinnie Rizzo (Robert Davi of Maniac Cop II and Steven Bauer from DePalma’s Scarface!). As Makoto and his sexy-vicious partner Sybil (Red Sonja? Brigitte Neilsen? *) execute the squad members one-by-one, it’s up to Tango & Cash, Rizzoli and Isles, Starsky and Hutch, Cook and Rizzo to find the deadly duo and stop the carnage.

“Hey, dude. What about me?”

Oh, yeah. Hey, Jan-Michael Vincent. I didn’t forget you’re Detective Reinhart. That sucks that Sonny Chiba tossed you off the building so early in the movie. We dig your work here at B&S.

“Yeah, well. You didn’t do me any favors by reminding everyone I did Alienator, buddy.”

“Hey, did I ever tell you ‘The Tractor Story‘?”

Hey, Cindy Ambehul? Sophie from the Seinfeld episode ‘The Burning’? What are you doing here?

“I know. I know. I’m so ashamed I was in this. I mean, I went from from Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead to this?”

Well, you were trying to build a theatrical resume and break out of television. It’s all good, Cindy. Besides your were uber hot and ass-kicking in this as Special Agent Janet Hood. That catfight with Brigitte saved the movie. And, I must say: You were the best of the Seinfeld babes of all time.

“Even hotter than Susan Walters?”

You mean Mulva-Doloris from ‘The Junior Mint’ and ‘The Foundation’? Oh, hell yes, Cindy!

“Hey, thanks for being a gentleman and not making any jokes if ‘they’ were real and spectacular.”

You bet, Cindy.

As you can see: what we have here is an exploitation cast wetdream . . . in a very bad movie. And that’s the way we like it here at B&S About Movies: mindless and fun, and oh, so “Prior” plotted.

Well . . . I challenge you to come up with a better review . . . and find a freebie VHS rip online. God bless those public domain DVDs collecting mold in the bins at The Salavation Army.

* Brigitte Neilson recently made the news for giving birth to a new baby at the age of 54 (story link) and that she would allow herself to be purposefully infected with the Chinese Cornavirus for a planned vaccine clinical trial to be done in London (story link). And get this: Robert Davi has 15 . . . yes, 15, films in various states of pre-and–post production, with a resume now at 161 credits.

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.

8 Slices (2019)

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8 Slices is all about a small-town pizza place named Patronies Pizza is about to go out of business, just as its employees begin to question their place in life and their part in the American Dream.

It get it — I’ve been feeling the same way, wondering that if all my hard work and energy is going nowhere, that nothingness and apathy are the new order of the day.

I’m also very hungry for pizza.

This is Nick Westfall’s second full-length film and it definitely has the feel of Empire Records, my go-to workplace ensemble movie. In case you’re wondering why this pizza place is going out of business, well, I’ve never seen so many people work in a pizzeria.

Also, I’ve never been to a pizza place where all of the employees pretend to be famous writers. Mostly, they’re gruff old Italian men or their children who are getting screamed at by their angry elders.

Speaking of frequently yelling parental figures, one of the customers looks and acts exactly like my father-in-law, a man who is obsessed by pizza like no one else I’ve ever met.

Want to know more? Here’s the official site.

Hey! This is our second Dove approved movie! Man, now I have to make up for that with something really insane.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR company.

Top Cop (1990)

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Who does a Top Cop battle? Well, after he loses his partner, he goes up against a drug kingpin and his goons. There’s too much corruption. There’s too much strife. And way too many trans fat oils if this is what a top cop looked like in 1990.

Vic Malone, the top cop of the title, blows up eateries and saves women and pretty much gives his life for our entertainment, if home movies can be considered at such a high level. As the star, stunt coordinator, associate producer and special effects for this movie, Stephen P. Sides took on many roles. He did all of them probably as well as he could. Ah, Crown International, what magical BS you weave before my eyeballs giving these movies money and then somehow, decades later, they end up in my living room.

The director, Mark L. Maness, has the nickname of Chunky. He’s the kind of affable dude who wears a t-shirt under a blazer and is given to quotes like, “Dreams are the fabric from which we can weave our reality.”

If by fabric, you mean Cottonnelle, then yes, fabric.

Somehow, Leonard Maltin said that this was the best erotic thriller of 1990. So, if this movie teaches you anything, it’s that even Leonard Maltin can be swayed by blow, both in the occupation and the noun forms of the word.

Much like so many of the movies we’re watching this week, this is available on the Mill Creek Explosive Cinema set. If you’re feeling as sadomasochistic as me, it’s the best movie that I’ve ever seen set in Arkansas about drug-fighting cops with type 2 diabetes.

Ants on a Plane (2019)

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The title pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Instead of reptiles, we have ants. Hey, don’t laugh this movie off and make with the bad Samuel L. Jackson imitations. Besides, this flick is more of the “Uh, excuse me. But I want these goshdarned ants off this goshdarned plane” variety.

And, as this 2019 New York Post article shows, it really happened on a United Airlines Italy-to-U.S flight. And there’s nothing like a real “nature run amok”* event to breathe new life into an old TV movie. And besides, this eco-terror romp is directed by George Mendeluk, he of my fondly remembered, pre-cable TV movies Stone Cold Dead (1979) and The Kidnapping of the President (1980).

It’s good to visit with you again, George, my friend.

When do the snakes show up?

Utterly annoying Caribbean vacationers and honeymooners from the Canadian Campus of the Ed Wood School of Thespian Arts—the type of “skilled actors” that leave you rooting for the little lost rain forest ants—are on a return trip from to Miami from Columbia. The cardboard cast soon discovers that a mutated, “super-organism parasite-hive” of deadly bullet ants burrowed its way into a human host—who subsequently “Aliens” them up on the plane. And the ants swarm from his every orifice and make a run for the air vents. And they turn the plane’s electrical system into dinner. And they kill people in the bathrooms because, well, even in the throes of death, one still has to pinch a loaf—ants be damned.

Luckily an entomologist (Jessalyn Gilsig) with a whiny daughter (for the human relationship drama) and a hunky U.S sky marshal (Antonio Sabato, Jr. (for the romantic angle) just happen to be on the plane—that no country will allow to land for fear of spreading an ant plague. (Make a note: Mutant Columbian rain forest ants BAD: don’t fly them in under any circumstances. COVID-19 Coronavirus good: load ’em up, land ’em, stock pile ’em at an army base. Why? Because we think The Walking Dead really happening would be, like cool ‘n stuff.)

F’ the ants, Jessalyn. Cut the friggin’ limes and let’s party with the “good” Corona.

U.S TV fans will recognize Jessalyn Gilsig from her starring roles in the series Boston Public, NYPD Blue, Friday Night Lights, Nip/Tuck, Heroes, Glee, and, most recently, ABC-TV’s Scandal.

While ex-daytime TV actor and former Playgirl-Calvin Klein model Antonio Sabato, Jr. has done a commendable job making his bones on TV series such as Earth 2 and Melrose Place, and his excellent portrayal of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas in 2009’s Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas, we, the staff at B&S About Movies, always go back to the fact that his dad is our beloved Italian exploitation actor Antonio Sabato, Sr. from Seven Blood Stained Orchids and Escape from the Bronx. (Sabato, Jr. recently made the news regarding his industry-wide blacklisting for his Republican political beliefs and not being able to find work, having to sell off his possessions and take work in the construction field to make ends meet. You can read more about it at The Blaze and The Washington Times.)

Since this Canadian TV movie has a strong female lead, it became quick programming fodder for the female-centric cable channel Lifetime in 2007—and having a “hot” Italian-born Sabato as a leading man doesn’t hurt its female fan base.  This eco-terror flick eventually rolled out as a TV movie and direct-to-DVD feature in the overseas markets from 2008 to 2015 under the titles Swarm, Deadly Swarm, and its original title, Destination: Infestation. Of course, courtesy of the United 2019 incident, it was reimaged once again with a new exploitive-marketing title, so as to align it with Samuel L. Jackson’s Snakes on a Plane for its free-online streaming debut on TubiTv.

You’ve seen worse. But I’d still rather watch a “killer bee” movie, such as The Bees, The Deadly Bees, Killer Bees, The Swarm, and Terror out of the Sky. Hell, even Locusts.

Eh, but still, Mendeluk is a long ways down the road on his extensive, 70-plus Canadian and U.S. resume that began with the highly-rated TV flicks Stone Cold Dead (starring the awesome Richard Crenna and Paul Williams from Phantom of the Paradise, Smokey and the Bandit) and (the aforementioned-linked) The Kidnapping of the President (starring the always welcomed Hal Holbrook and William Shatner). Mendeluk’s most recent work—with, yet again cable-dumb criminals and annoying heroine-damsels—was the 2017 Lifetime damsel-in-distress flick The Wrong Babysitter (that’s appearing on various streaming services and Smart TV platforms in late 2022).

You can rent Stone Cold Dead on Vudu/trailer. The Kidnapping of the President is available for rent on Amazon Prime, but there’s a pretty clean VHS rip for free on You Tube. You can watch Ants on a Plane for free—with commercial breaks—on TubiTv, or pretty clean DVD-rip without commercials on You Tube.

* Back in January 2020, we went crazy reviewing nature-strikes-back films with our “Nature Run Amok” week. Here’s the full list of those reviews so you can catch up.

Arachnia (2003)
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
Congo (1995)
Crawl (2019)
Cruel Jaws (1995)
Flu Birds (2008)
The Giant Leeches (1959)
Invasion of the Animal People (1959)
Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)
Jaws (1975)
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
Kiss of the Tarantula (1975)
Monster Shark (1984)
Monster Wolf (2010)
War of the Insects (1968)
Night of the Cobra Woman (1972)
Play Dead (1981)
Rattlers (1976)
Sharks’ Treasure (1975)
Slugs (1988)
The Uncanny (1978)
Underwater (2020)
The Wasp Woman (1959)
WolvesBayne (2009)
Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1985)

And there’s even more “nature run amok” films with our December 2018 shark tribute week, “Bastard Pups of Jaws,” which features everything imaginable—from 1976’s Grizzly to 1977’s Orca, from 1979’s The Great Alligator all the way out to Renny Harlin’s 1999 shark romp, Deep Blue Sea.

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.

Outpost Earth (2019)

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This pulpy offering of old school fun from Brett Piper (Mysterious Planet, Arachnia) and the Polonia brothers (Empire of the Apes) takes its cues from Independence Day while it tips its homage hats to Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation classic, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956).

Outpost Earth wastes no time with bumbling, first-act set ups rife with character development (aka, no superfluous Jeff Goldblum and Margaret Colin bickering, thank you). We came for action and we get action. As the opening credits roll, Earth is reduced to a burnt out dystopia where the last remains of humanity are hunted by the alien invaders and their otherworldly “hunting dogs” (aka giant, stout lizards).

Kay (Erin Waterhouse) is a radiant, supermodel bow-hunter who, like so many Italian Giallo and Post-Apoc female-protagonists before her, never smudges her makeup (there’s always an errant makeup and fashionable clothing stash in the apocalypse). She wanders the wastelands kickin’ alien ass and fighting off the ubiquitous human cannibals in her search of supplies and food.

After Blake (Titus Himmelberger, of the Polonia brothers’ Amityville Exorcism and Sharkenstein) gets Kay out of a jam with some aliens, he meets her sister, Penny, and a ragtag group of survivors, including the omnipresent, white-bearded professor, Uncle Zayden, who tinkers around in his lab to discover a way to defeat the aliens (Rolling Stone voted him the “Smartest Man in the World”).

Of course, even in the direst of circumstances, the quest of greed and power is the rule and the human race can never work together, so we have an eye-patched psycho named Manny who kidnaps Penny. During Kay and Blake’s daring rescue of Penny, they come to discover the secret to operating one of the aliens’ crashed ships—which can give them an advantage to wipe out the aliens’ command center.

What makes the films of Piper and the Polonias fun is that they’re CGI-free throwbacks to the exploitation films of yesteryear—whether you grew up in the Drive-In ‘70s or the VHS ‘80s. Instead of green-motion tracking, we get aliens with well-made masks and full-body suits. Instead of After Effects computer-animated monsters, we get in-camera stop-motion monsters.

It’s evident that Brett Piper and the Polonia brothers, Mark and John, are one of us. They love those UHF-TV, Drive-In, and direct-to-VHS films of old. And with nary a budget that wouldn’t cover a day of catering on a major studio film, they do a commendable job giving us something fresh and new to watch, while feeding our brains with the nostalgia that we love in our films.

Oh, did you know that most of their films are shot in Cambria County, west of Pittsburgh (and near Altoona)? Hey, us western Pennsylvania “yinzers” gotta stick together. So they’ll always get the love here, at B&S About Movies, as we bleed the black & gold.

So don’t be a jagoff and check out Outpost Earth, will yinz? You tell ’em, Billy Gardell! And don’t forget, we dedicated one of our “Drive-In Friday” featurettes to Brett Piper and screened four of his films, including Queen Crab and Muckman.

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.