Yesterday, we took a look at two of writer-director Frank Harris’s Leo Fong-starring films: Killpoint and Low Blow. The Patriot—which reminds of the later Steven Siegal war-actioner, 1992’s Under Siege—is the third and final Crown International release from writer-director Frank Harris’s resume included on Mill Creek’s “Explosive Cinema” 12-pack.
I remember going to my local, small town duplex to see what was Harris’s best-distributed film—with its splashy newspaper print and TV ads. The film was an early attempt to transition prolific television actor and Brian De Palma troupe-actor mainstay Gregg Henry (1984’s Body Double) into a leading man. You more likely know Henry from his later work on 1998’s Star Trek: Insurrection, The Guardians of the Galaxy franchise (as Grandpa Quill), ABC-TV’s Scandal, and the CW’s Black Lightning. The Patriot also stars Leslie Nielson (Airplane and the Naked Gun franchise), the always-happy-to-see-him Michael J. Pollard (where do I even begin with his incredible resume), and Jeff Conway (ABC-TV’s Taxi; 1978’s Grease).
The plot concerns ex-pro-boxer Stack Pierce—from Killpoint and Low Blow—as an ex-military wacko who steals a nuclear weapon and Henry’s dishonorably discharged ex-Navy Seal gets a chance to redeem himself.
The Patriot is a low-budget ‘80s action movie from Crown International. Now for the younger readers new to B-cinema: that may not mean anything. So just go into this not expecting “explosive,” but mediocre action and you’ll have a fun time with this dependable Frank Harris work. You’ve seen worse from the rip-off reels of ’80s Italian and Philippines cinema and you can sample it with the trailer.
The film’s soundtrack is composed by . . . well, is there any chance you’d be familiar with . . . well, with today’s state of narrow-playlist repeating American FM classic hits and classic rock radio stations, you may not be familiar with the hits “Thunder Island” and “Skakedown Cruise” by Jay Ferguson. Further back, he was a member of Spirit, which has the ‘60s progressive FM radio hit “I Got a Line on You.” The Patriot is one of Ferguson’s many soundtrack works, which includes The Terminator andA Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. He currently composes the music for CBS-TV’s CSI: Los Angeles.
Screenwriter Katt Shea’s writing-directing resume includes the direct-to-video potboilers 1987’s Stripped to Kill, 1992’s Poison Ivy starring Drew Barrymore, and 1999’s The Rage: Carrie 2. She most recently directed 2019’s Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase. (As an actress, Katt starred in 1985’s Barbarian Queen.)
It’s explosive!!!
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.
NOTE: We shared this movie last year when it was called Impossible Mission. It’s being re-released with this new title.
Rosa is a master assassin who is great at poisoning people. Now, she’s set up on a final mission where she is asked to kill a spiritual leader who keeps hacking into cable signals during the news and major soccer matches. However, she might face an even greater threat from those within her own organization.
Soon, Rosa and operative Will Gray have teamed up to sniff and snuff out that leader, but their romance may also get in the way of the mission. This movie has an interesting concept and a great beginning as Rosa slowly works a target to sleep via poison, but when you want it to be filled with action, it really starts to slow down.
This is Jimena Gala first movie and she really does well in it. I’d like to see her in more, as she seemed exceedingly confident despite this being the sole credit on her IMDB page.
You can find this movie on demand and on DVD.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us — two times now — by its PR agency.
Emmett Alston’s IMDB credits are interesting. He started with Three-Way Weekend and New Year’s Evilbefore making this ninja film, which led to him also making Force of the Ninja and Little Ninjas. Before that, he was the cinematographer on 1972’s occult-themed Moonchild.
Thanks to roles in Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination — all Cannon Films — Sho Kosugi was THE ninja of the early 1980’s. Plus, he starred as Okasa, the villain of the NBC series The Master, going shuriken to shuriken with John Peter McAllister, who was played by Lee Van Cleef.
Our friends at Crown International made this one happen. And Alston finally got his opportunity to work with Kosugi, as he was the original director for Enter the Ninja before Cannon maniac Menahem Golan. That said, this movie wasn’t a revenge effort, as both Golan and co-Cannon crazy Yoram Globus also produced this movie.
Get ready for the adventures of Spike “Lollipop” Shinobi (Kosugi), Steve “Macho Man” Gordon (Brent Huff, The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik Yak) and Jennifer Barnes (Emilia Crow, Hollywood Vice Squad) as they are sent to the Philippines to rescue a bunch of American hostages from a schoolbus. Kosugi’s real-life kids Kane and Shane are among them; they often starred in movies with their father.
As for the bad guys, they include Alby the Cruel (Blackie Dammet, the father of Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis), the insane Dr. Wolf, Rahji the Butcher, Honey Hump and her army of evil lesbians including the twins Woo Pee and Woo Wee, plus several completely evil and adorable small ball punching assassins. Yes, really.
Oh yeah — Woo Wee and Woo Pee run a brother where they promise that all of the women are “sterilized, sanitized and lobotomized.”
While I’m at it, let me tell you — Alby is my favorite bad guy ever right now. He looks like Tom Waits, he’s a Nazi stuck in a wheelchair and he has a monkey henchman. Dammit — this movie has brought back my lust for life!
This is a movie that starts with Kosugi doing sword moves around ballet dancers as if starring in his very own James Bond title sequence. It’s as awesome as that sentence makes it sound.
Let me tell you what — this film is worth the price of the entire Mill Creek’s Explosive Cinema set, where it sits head and shoulders above many of the other films we’ve been watching this week.
All good things must end. This is the final of the Blood Island films and the last movie that Eddie Romero would make for Hemisphere Pictures.
As Dr. Bill Foster (John Ashley), Sheila Willard, her father and Carlos Lopez escape from Blood Island, this movie’s Beast gets on board and goes buck wild, killing everyone he can and blowing up the ship. He survives and heads back to the jungle while Dr. Foster spends months recovering. Everyone he knew or loved is now dead.
Of course, he’s going back to Blood Island.
Dr. Lorca (Eddie Garcia), who apparently died at the end of the last movie, is still alive but horribly scarred. He controls the beast, which can live without its head and even talk and control its own body from afar.
This is less of a narrative movie for me and more a collection of magical images, as bodies squirt blood and beasts have swampy faces and make strange noises while their heads rot inside beakers and lab equipment.
To promote this one, which played a double bill with Curse of the Vampires, the producers printed counterfeit 10 bills that folded in half, with the other side revealing a poster for the film. Those fake sawbucks were scattered all around the neighborhoods where this movie played.
With Blue Sunshine, Just Before Dawn and Remote Control, Jeff Lieberman has proven himself a reliable creator of horror that doesn’t fit into any neat box. Speaking of not being neat, this entire movie will upset any clean freak, as it deals with worms that climb up from the dirt to destroy human beings. Lieberman was inspired to make this movie thanks to a childhood event involving the ground being electrocuted and worms coming out.
September 29, 1975. Fly Creek, Georgia. A transformer knocks into the ground and the worms are turned evil by 300,000 volts of electricity, including a shipment of 100,000 bloodworms and sandworms. escape the truck. That’s when we meet our hero Mick (Don Scardino, Cruising, He Knows You’re Alone), just as he finds one of those worms in his egg cream — a cold beverage consisting of milk, carbonated water and flavored syrup, as a substitute for an ice cream float. Despite the name, the drink contains neither eggs nor cream.
(Thanks to reader MH for pointing out this typo.)
At least he has an attractive girlfriend named Geri, played by Patricia Pearcy from Cockfighter, who believes him when all the local yokels make fun of our man Mick. Before long, those worms are doing more than just pranks — they’re eating people, dropping trees on them and even crawling into someone’s face to possess them. Rick Baker used prosthetic makeup for the first time in his career on this film.
This movie used so many sea worms — ordering a quarter-million at a time — that they wiped out New England’s supply of Glycera fishing worms for the rest of the year. And if everyone looks freaked out when the tree crashes into the room while everyone is eating dinner, that’s because Lieberman actually launched a real tree through the window from a crane and as everyone runs, they really believed that they were running for their lives.
Think people love this movie? Pittsburgh musician Weird Paul made the album Worm in My Egg Cream all about the worm in my egg cream scene, with all sixteen songs titled “Worm in My Egg Cream.”
Get out of here! There’s a movie starring Leo Fong (Kill Point and Low Blow) AND our all-time favorite “rock warrior” Jon Mikl Thor from Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare?
Oh, hell yeah!
Champion Korean Kata, Black Belt Heavyweight fighter, and noted fight choreographer Len Kabasinski is currently in the pre-production stages of his latest writing and directing effort to be shot in Erie, Pennsylvania. (Hey, yinz are making a movie?)
Leo Fong is Zian, a retired Special Forces commander who now runs an auto body shop in the tough inner city (Pittsburgh?!)—a city gripped in fear at the hands of “The Black Roses,” a ruthless gang who makes the rounds and collects “turf money” from local businesses. When Zian refuses to comply with the gang’s demands, they assault his grand-daughter and leave her for dead. When the corrupt cops and in-the-pocket local politicians turn a blind eye to the gang’s increasing power, Zian’s only choice is to call up his old Special Forces team, “The Obliterators,” to serve their own brand of justice.
In addition to Leo Fong and Jon Mikl Thor, the film also stars Sylvester Stallone’s former bodyguard, Mathew Karedas, the star of 1991’s Samurai Cop and 2015’s Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance.
There’s no word yet if Thor is a member of or the leader of the “The Black Roses” or “The Obliterators,” but who cares—it’s a film starring Jon Mikl Thor! We’re just stoked to see him back on the big screen. (And for you B-Movie film buffs: John Fasano, who directed Thor in Zombie Nightmare and Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare, also directed one of our favorite heavy-metal horror films: 1988’s Black Roses.)
Dude. This film is making my head spin!
Len’s crowdfunding Pact of Vengeance and you can learn more about it at Indiegogo. You can also learn more about the film’s funding campaign at Killerwolf Films’ Patreon page.
Fong previously starred in Len Kabasinski’s last writing and directing effort, 2018’s Challenge of the Five Gauntlets. You can learn more about where to get the Blu-ray and DVD at the film’s Facebook page. You can now watch it as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi TV.
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.
The low-budget genre studios of Crown International and American International Pictures responded to the box office success of George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973) with a glut of innocuous, teen-driven T&A comedies centered around vans, CB radios, and car cruising.
And Crown International Pictures gave self-professed Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini-influenced writer-director William Sachs an assignment in December 1978. And he could make whatever film he wanted: provided it had a kid in a van, generous amounts of nudity with hot chicks, drag racing and cool cars, that it starred Playboy magazine 1974 Playmate of the Year, Cindy Wood, and that he shot it in 18 days.
There months later, with a script he punched out in 7 days, Van Nuys Blvd. was on Drive-In screens by March 1979. It became a box-office hit as it played to packed parking lots on double bills with fellow teen T&A flicks The Pom-Pomp Girls (1976), The Van (1977), Malibu Beach (1978), H.O.T.S, and Gas Pump Girls (both 1979).
Get your copy as part of Mill Creek’s “Explosive Cinema” 12-pack.
In interviews Sachs mentions his admiration for Dr. Seuss’s 1953 musical fantasy The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Buneul’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and Fellini’s 8 1/2 in the same sentence. So that tells you there’s no middle ground with William Sachs: He’s either is a misunderstood genius with a deep understanding of existentialism filmmaking and uses that knowledge to poke fun at the establishment and show us the ridiculousness of trends in our culture. Or he’s a B-movie hack for Crown and A.I.P.
One thing is for sure: William Sachs never gives you a predictable movie.
When the Drive-Ins were clogged with every manner of Vietnam War movie, he responded with the 1974 surrealist war drama, There Is No 13. When tabloid newspapers like The National Enquirer reached circulation milestones, and Sunn Classics struck box office gold with their conspiracy-documentaries The Outer Space Connection, In Search of Ancient Astronauts, and In Search of Noah’s Ark, he responded with the parody documentary-satire The Force Beyond. When Star Wars reignited an interest in science fiction and all manner of galactic slop appeared in the Drive-Ins, he responded with 1977’s The Incredible Melting Man and the 1980 genre homage-parody, Galaxina (again, with a Playboy Playmate of the Year as his star). Remember all of those over-the-top Death Wish-inspired revenge flicks? He made one: 1984’s Exterminator 2.
And that brings us to his car movie satire-homage that features everything that Crown International wanted—and the surrealism of a Fellini film with an underlying theme on the art of living that he wanted. So the angst-ridden kids of the Southern California’s famed “strip” drive off into night for their kicks in their “temporary lives.” And where do they go if their rebellion lacks substance: nowhere. And that’s the point of Van Nuys Blvd.
And why is a chick licking her lips? What’s this got to do with Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini? Damned if I know. Watch the trailer and figure it out!
So, did Sachs accomplish his goal?
It depends. Van Nuys Blvd. is of a time and place. It’s time capsule of a post-sixties Americana culture filled with optimism and hope of the good old days. Anyone who was born after the mid-1960s might not be able to relate to the movie beyond its low-budget B-movie trappings. And it’ll look like just another T&A movie.
Bobby (Bill Adler, who starred in the aforementioned The Pom Pom Girls, The Van, and Malibu Beach; he also starred in the Quentin Tarantino-admired Switchblade Sisters) is a country kid who dreams of crusin’ in the big city after he sees a news report about California’s famed boulevard. So he sets off in his beat-up van. There he meets the drag-racing babe Moon (Cindy Wood) and her pal Camille (Melissa Prophet, in her acting debut; she later starred with Chuck Norris in Invasion U.S.A and in Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Casino).
When they’re arrested by Officer Albert Zass (Dana Gladstone, whose extensive TV resume led to a role alongside Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II), a bullying cop hell bent on cleaning up the boulevard, they meet fellow ne’er-do-well van lover Greg (Dennis Bowen, Gas Pump Girls, TV’s Welcome Back Kotter) who’s filled with dreams but not the tools to achieve them. Along the way the quartet befriends “Chooch,” the requisite, brawny-older wise man and “king of the strip” (David Hayward, another extensive TV resume; he’s still acting, with three projects in production) who’s lost his dreams, and his squeeze, Wanda (Tara Strohmeier of fellow T&A’er Hollywood Boulevard and The Kentucky Fried Movie). Together the sextet stumbles through a series of goalless, plotless misadventures punctuated with non-offensive softcore sex scenes and sophomoric humor. Oh, and keep your eyes open for Renee Harmon of Frozen Scream and Night of Terror in the frames.
If you’re interested in learning more about the hot-rodding and cruising culture of the ‘70s, you may want to seek out the other films in the short-lived vansploitation cycle with the first film of the bunch: Blue Summer (1973; with Davy Jones, yes, he of the Monkees), then there’s Best Friends (1975; with Richard Hatch), the hicksploitation-hybrids C.B Hustlers (1976) and Texas Detour (1978), Supervan (1977), Mag Wheels (1978), and On the Air Live with Captain Midnight (1979). There’s also a great article by Jason Coffman of the Daily Grindhouse that goes deep into the genre that we totally recommend for a read — with even more watch suggestions.
To learn about the vansploitation era’s roots: you can travel back to the rock ‘n’ roll oriented, juvenile delinquent films of the ‘60s made in the wake of the 1955’s Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause. Most of those films were produced by Roger Corman, such as 1958’s Hot Car Girls and 1959’s T-Bird Gang. Then there’s the wealth of ‘60s biker films that peaked with 1969’s Easy Rider, such as 1966’s The Wild Angels and 1967’s Hells Angels on Wheels.
As for the famed “Wild Cherry” van that stars in Van Nuys Blvd.: In 2018, that customized, 1975 Chevrolet G-10 made the news when the van was stolen and thrust into legal limbo. You can read more about the travels of Wild Cherry here and here. And Vansploitation got so insane during the ’70s that A&M Records gave away a Styx Van. Yes, Styx had a van you could enter to win!
Here’s the IMDB description: “A collection of paintings unleash horror on an unsuspecting family corrupted by the seven deadly sins of greed, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, pride, and wrath.”
Here’s the B&S About Movies description: The movie starts with a near-insane looking Richard Grieco screaming at his family about a painting, yelling “No respect for art!” and throwing his suit jacket about the room.
Oh yeah — they kind of made this movie for me.
Rolfe Kanefsky may sound like the name of a Paul Naschy character, but the writer and director is the son of Victor, who edited Ganja & Hess and Bloodsucking Freaks. His first movie was There’s Nothing Out There and he’s continued his career with all manner of movies that speak directly to me, like adaptions of Milo Manara comic books like Click and Butterscotch, as well as an entire series of Emmanuelle films that take her into space and into battle versus Dracula. He’s also found the time to write kids’ movies like Space Dogs: Adventure to the Moon and family features such as Puppy Swap Love Unleashed.
Behold! What is that scratchy voice and who does it belong to? It’s Tara Reid! Man, if the Italian horror machine was still in full swing, she’d be getting menaced by leather-gloved maniacs and her legs groped by the undead. Such a shame!
Jessica Morris, who was once on One Life to Live, also shows up. She’s appeared in a bunch of streaming horror films as of late. Hey — don’t knock paying work.
This is a fine slab of complete ridiculousness and reaffirms my faith in the world. All movies should start out with Detective Dennis Booker blowing himself away.
Frank Harris and Leo Fong! My head is swimming. Where do I begin with this review?
Well, first off, you can get both of these Crown International releases on Mill Creek’s “Explosive Cinema” 12-pack (along with Scorpion, Skydivers, and 9 Deaths of the Ninja). Second: You also get Troy Donahue (Omega Cop), Richard Roundtree (Q: The Winged Serpent), and, say what? Cameron Mitchell (Space Mutiny) appears in both?
Harris. Fong. Mitchell? Sign me up! I am going to loose my nut!
What’s that? Harris also did the post-apoc romp Aftershock and the cop actioner Lockdown (1990; trailer) with Richard Lynch from Deathsport and Ground Rules? What? No way! And Fong did Showdown (1993; full movie) with Lynch as well? Rock on! Richard Friggin’ Lynch. Rock on, Ankar Moor, you post-apoc bad ass.
Frank Harris
Writer, director, producer and cinematographer Frank Harris got his start as a reporter for a small California TV station. But his true love was film. He got his start in the movie business courtesy of the fifth film from Asian action star Leo Fong, 1976’s Ninja Assassins (aka Enforcer from Death Row), who hired Harris as a cinematographer. (I have wonderful memories of my older cousin, Bobby, who studied martial arts and was ready to go into the military, taking me to the Drive-In after seeing the film’s commercial on TV. Yes, I rented it when it came out on VHS.)
After putting one more cinematography gig under his belt with the 1984 actioner Goldrunner (trailer: race cars, motorcycles and kidnapping), Fong hired Harris to not only serve as the cinematographer, but as the producer, director and screenwriter for his eighth film as an actor: Killpoint.
Then there was Harris’s directing gig with 1996’s Skyscraper, an awful attempt to turn famous-for-being-famous ex-Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith into—not only into an “actress” and not only into a “leading lady”—an “action star.” Anna Nicole as a hot, corporate helicopter pilot who goes “Die Hard” when terrorists take over her employer’s office tower? Huh and W.T.F. It’s one of those movies where you simply can not turn away. And let me make this point perfectly clear: there’s a lot of people to blame for it, but Harris isn’t one of them; he was just a director-for-hire. (Watch the full movie at your own peril; the trailer might even be too much to bear.)
Killpoint (1984)
Cameron Mitchell returned from Ninja Assassins, this time as Joe Marks, an illegal arms dealer who robs a Californian National Guard Armory with plans to sell the weapons to L.A’s street gangs. Lt. James Long (Fong) a bitter, troubled L.A detective still dealing with the rape and murder of his wife a year earlier, gets his chance to go “Dirty Harry” —well, “Jackie Chan,” actually—when he discovers Mark’s sidekick, known as Nighthawk (professional ex-boxer Stack Pierce; worked on several of Fred Williamson’s Blaxploitation films), was responsible for her death. Teamed with FBI Agent Bill Bryant (Richard Roundtree), they bring them to justice.
Of course, while Fong was already a major star in the Eurasian marketplace, he was an unknown commodity in the States. So while Roundtree’s part in Killpoint is a minor one, as you can see from the below poster images, that didn’t stop the distributors from highlighting Roundtree’s contribution—and giving Leo Fong the short shift on the U.S Drive-In and video campaigns.
Where’s Leo?
Low Blow (1986)
Karen Templeton (Patti Bowling; her only film role) is a young, wayward Patty Hearst-type heiress brainwashed-kidnapped by the Church of Universal Enlightenment, a Jonestown-styled religious cult run by Cameron Mitchell’s Jim Jones-inspired Yarakunda.
After seeing Joe Wong (Leo Fong), a harried ex-San Francisco detective take down a couple of thugs who mugged an old lady, Karen’s tycoon-father (Troy Donahue) decides Wong is the man for the job to rescue his daughter. So Wong recruits a Vietnam vet and ex-pro-boxer (Stack Piece is back!) to get her out. Once inside, Wong fights the cult-camp’s ninjas and world-renowned martial artist and Tae Bo exercise program guru Billy Blanks (Tango & Cash, Lionheart) in his first film role.
Leo Fong
Leo Fong is still going strong at the incredible age of 91. He starred in three films in 2018: Hidden Peaks, Dragon to Dragon, and the most recent film: Challenge of the Five Gauntlets. And he has four more films in various stations of filming and pre/post production: Pact of Vengenance (with Jon-Mikl Thor!), Asian Cowboys, Runaway Killer, Hard Way Heroes, and Junkers. You catch up with Leo and his Sky Dragon Entertainment at LeoFong.com.
Other films in the Harris-Fong oeuvre include 24 Hours to Midnight with Cynthia Rothrock (1985; clip), Hawkeye (1988; full movie) (seen them on VHS), and the direct-to-DVD releases Brazilian Brawl (2003; trailer) and Transformed (2005; full movie) (honestly, never heard of them or seen them; I need to change that).
In the year 2073 the solar system is in a political divide between the hydrogen-rich outer planets beyond the asteroid belt and the hydrogen-dependent inner planets. The military surveillance vessel Ares 11 is part of the Terrestrial Alliance Fleet that patrols the 200 million kilometer-wide neutral zone of the Asteroid Belt and keeps the peace.
After their ship is attacked by a planet-to-air missile, the crippled craft slowly leaks its oxygen supply. Now the Ares’ four crew members fight for survival as they discover there’s only enough air for two of them to return to base—alive.
South Florida writer-director Robert Goodrich’s ultra-low budget feature film debut reminds of the 1985 Canadian post-apocalypse flick Def Con 4—if it stayed inside the ship and never made planetfall—and of the inventive production design of its Pacific Northwest shot-against-the-budget brethren, Space Trucker Bruce. If you ever wondered what happens aboard a spaceship orbiting the Io mining colonies of Jupiter in Peter Hyams’s Outland, Ares 11—with its “limited setting” flavor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat—is that movie.
As with the charmingly quaint Space Trucker Bruce, Ares 11 overflows with commitment across all the film disciplines—with its truly impressive set and costume design—that’s devoid from most of the minor-studio direct-to-DVD features clogging up today’s online streaming marketplace. For the astute sci-fi connoisseur, after a spending a few minutes with the four-actor cast working inside three cramped sets, they’ll find themselves watching a dramatic, psychological version of John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s 1974 University of Southern California student film, the science fiction comedy, Dark Star. Another film reference—in terms of the cramped, budget-conscious set design and costuming—is Trimark Pictures’ 1990 television/home video-distributed TheDark Side of the Moon (its plot pinched for the failures 1997’s Event Horizon and 2000’s Supernova)—and that film was backed by a major studio (absorbed by Lionsgate and now a Roku channel) with a 1.2 million dollar budget.
It’s not a CGI effect: The Ares 11 is a ’70s-styled in-camera effect comprised of a plastic pressure cleaning water tank with kit-bashed model tank and old computer parts. You can watch the behind-the-scenes production video of the assembly on Vimeo.
As many of the Amazon Prime reviews on Ares 11 prove, low-budget science fiction—for those more accustomed to Matt Damon’s The Martian and McConaughey’s Interstellar—isn’t for everyone. As someone who worked as an actor on three experimental sci-fi indie shorts myself, I wish my writer-directors had Robert Goodrich’s talents (and Anton Doiron’s of Space Trucker Bruce) and lived up to their lofty pre-production (broken) promises. Ares 11 is immensely better that the “professional,” larger-budget MST3K honoree Space Mutiny (1988) and all of the suggested watches listed on the Ares 11 online streaming pages.
First released in 2013, Ares 11 won “Best Feature” at the 2013 Palm Beach International Film Festival and the 2014 Action on Film Int’l Film Festival, as well as earning “Official Selection” status at the 2014 Roswell Film Festival and Austin Indie Flix Showcase. You can learn more about Ares 11 at Continuum Motion Pictures and check out the film’s production stills at HighTechScience.org and Hunu Films Facebook. You can watch behind-the-scenes clips—and stream the film as a PPV—at Vimeo. While Ares 11 has been in the marketplace on PPV and DVD platforms since 2015, it has recently made its free 2019 streaming debut—with limited commercials—on TubiTv. You can also rent/purchase its stream on Amazon Prime and purchase DVDs from Walmart.
By the way: we love our sci-if here at B&S About Movies. Be sure to check out our “Star Wars Droppings” week of reviews in commemoration of the December 2019 release of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Back in September we had a post-apocalypse blowout of all manner of films from the ‘60s to ’80s—and you can catch up with our “The Atomic Dust Bin: 10 Post-Apocalyptic Films You Never Heard Of” round-ups Part 1 and Part 2 that lists those 60-plus film reviews.
Oh, and speaking of great sci-fi films on a budget: Be sure to visit our three-in-one review for the Dust Channel-hosted Pink Plastic Flamingos, Skyborn, and Cockpit: The Rules of Engagement. All three sci-fi shorts are highly recommended watches.
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.
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