For all the magical reasons that we love the old days of the video store, there was one drawback. Often, the movie that you wanted to rent just might be out of stock. So if you wanted to rent Rambo: First Blood Part II or Commando, there’s a chance that every copy of that movie may be out. Yes, in the days of streaming, this may seem crazy to you, but you couldn’t always get what you wanted.
But if you try sometimes, you just may find you get Ron Marchini.
A former U.S. Army drill sergeant, a survivor of a drive-by shooting, a martial arts tournament fighter said to be the best in the country in 1969 and the toughest opponent Chuck Norris ever faced — or so Black Belt Magazine would have us believe — Marchini appeared in a Murder in the Orient and New Gladiators before getting noticed in 1976’s Death Machines, a film in which he played White Death Machine.
It would be nearly a decade before Ron became a VHS industry all to himself, working with directors like Charlie Ordoñez and Alan Roberts to hit the rental audience with movies like Forgotten Warrior, Omega Cop and Return Fire. They aren’t good movies, but they’re great for what they are. And it’s always pretty amazing that in the midst of the jungle, Marchini chooses to always wear yellow t-shirts.
This film finds our hero — Steve Parrish is his name —in Central American but we all know it’s the Philippines. Some rebels have kidnapped American Ambassador Porter Worthington and only our man Ron — or Steve — can come in and set things right. This was probably shot at the same time as Forgotten Warrior and even goes all Boogeyman 2 on us by recycling plenty of footage and using it as flashbacks.
The best part of a military 80s movie is when the hero gears up, covering himself in weapons before killing everything and everyone. This movie has that happen twice and it has the theme song play so many times that you’ll swear it’s the only audio in the entire movie. Also, the bad guy wears a pirate hat and our hero has a samurai sword and man, this movie is so ridiculous I kind of want to watch it again. Oh, and is there a part two? You bet! And Jungle Wolf II is also known as Return Fire — and III, depending on the foreign repack.
June 20: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie — is musicals!
For the exact same reasons why I find Pennies from Heaven to be a success, I can see why it failed at the box office.
Pennies from Heaven was Steve Martin’s first dramatic role in a film. After watching the original BBC miniseries, he was convinced that it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. So he learned how to tap dance and chose the film to follow up The Jerk.
He’d later tell Rolling Stone, “I’m disappointed that it didn’t open as a blockbuster and I don’t know what’s to blame, other than it’s me and not a comedy. I must say that the people who get the movie, in general, have been wise and intelligent; the people who don’t get it are ignorant scum.”
He also told the Chicago Tribune “Everything I had done until that time had been wildly successful so that the commercial failure of the film caught me by surprise.”
But yeah. He also would tell the BBC at one point that you don’t follow up The Jerk with this movie.
During the Great Depression, Chicago sheet-music salesman Arthur Parker (Martin) struggles in his business and in his marriage to Joan (Jessica Harper*), who refuses to give him any money to start his own business. His dream is to live in the world of the songs that he writes, which leads him to wander for a while. During this time, he meets a schoolteacher named Eileen (Bernadette Peters) and falls in love with her, but he soon returns to his wife.
The affair has led to a pregnancy and Eileen loses her job. After an abortion, she becomes Lulu, a lady of the night in the employee of a pimp named Tom (Christopher Walken). Yet when they find each other again, Arthur and Lulu remember their love and run away after destroying his store.
It all falls apart when a girl is assaulted and killed, with Arthur suspected and his wife telling the police that he’s perverted. He’s arrested and goes to death row, but his fantasy life takes over, as he sings “Pennies from Heaven” on the gallows. The film closes with him telling Lulu, “We couldn’t have gone through all that without a happy ending. Songs ain’t like that, are they?”
At one point in the film, Arthur and Eileen go to see the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie Follow the Fleet and then become part of the movie and dance through “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” In Astaire, The Biography, Fred Astaire would say, “I have never spent two more miserable hours in my life. Every scene was cheap and vulgar… it makes you cry it’s so distasteful.” However, it has been reported that he liked Walken’s dancing.
Director Herbert Ross recovered from this movie bombing and made Footloose, The Secret of My Success, Steel Magnolia, Boys on the Side and many more films. Dennis Potter, who wrote the BBC series and this film, would go on to write Gorky Park and The Singing Detective.
You know who was a fan of this movie? Anton LaVey. It appears on the Church of Satan film list and Dr. LaVey went on record saying, “The sets and the characters were 100% authentic.”
*Do you think Ms. Harper ever thinks to herself, “Between Suspiria, Phantom of the Paradise and Shock Treatment, do you think that I can maybe not be in a cult musical movie and maybe something that could get me rich?”
Jake Turner (Ronald L. Marchini, who co-wrote and co-directed this) is on a rescue mission to liberate Jennifer Boyden, a DEA agent and the daughter of his old sergeant, who is being held by Pike (Joe Meyer, who has been in a bunch of Marchini’s films), an American drug lord in the jungles of Colombia. I mean, what was he doing anyway? Punching people for money?
Joe Estevez is in this, in case you need to know about the quality level of this film. This is a movie made for those with the kind of resolution that can watch five Philippines-shot war movies in a day and tell each and every one of them apart.
Also known as Fight to Win, this was also given the completely wrong title of Karate Commando: Jungle Wolf 3, a sequel in name only. In Greece, it was called Hamos stin agria zougla (Doom in the Wild Jungle). Now that’s a movie title. And yes, we’ve reviewed the first Jungle Wolf and it’s sequel, which is also known as Return Fire, just to add to the “sequel” confusion.
Perhaps the nuttiest thing about this movie is that the co-writer was Joe Carnahan, who went on to make Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team, Boss Level and The Grey, as well as the upcoming Western version of The Raid. Or is it? Because this is a movie that has Burt Ward as an evil doctor who helps out the drug kingpins and it’s just a cameo. And it’s also a film that was only released in the Netherlands, which must have appreciated an Indiana Jones-referencing title 24 years after Raiders of the Lost Ark.
You can watch this on YouTube. Trust me, this is not Delta Force 3.
Man, this movie has some alternate titles. In France, they call it U.S. Warrior. In Spain, Traición a un Soldado or Betrayal of a Warrior. Greece? O Hamenos Polemistis (The Lost Warrior). In the UK, they call this Forgotten Warrior. But in West Germany, this gets my favorite title: Commander Rainbow.
Steve Parrish (Ron Marchini) was escaping a POW camp when Thompson, one of his fellow soldiers, doesn’t want to be slowed down by a wounded man. He shoots the soldier, then shoots Steve so that he couldn’t tell anyone else. Luckily, some villagers saved our hero and he chose to stay behind, choosing to marry Malia (Marilyn Bautista, Driving Force, Bloodfist), one of the women in the village where he has settled. His wife gives birth to a son and the warrior soul in Steve is content to be, well, forgotten, just like the title says, as he just likes teaching everyone martial arts.
Our hero plans to live out his days in the jungle, but Thompson’s orders send him back to ‘Nam with the goal of rescuing POWs. Instead, he works with the Viet Cong to try and kill Steve, pausing to assault and murder the wife of our protagonist. Somehow, Steve gas a sword and darned if he isn’t going to kill everyone in the Philippines — sorry, Vietnam — to get the payback that his warrior spirit demands.
This movie kills so many bad guys that it needs two directors, Nick Cacas (Deadly Commando) and Charlie Ordoñez (Jungle Wolf). Parrish would return in that movie, as well as Return Fire: Jungle Wolf III, which of course has nothing to do with any of these movies.
After making his debut in Murder in the Orient(1974) with Leo Fong (Kill Point) and finding a home in our public domain hearts with Death Machines (1976), Ron Marchini retreated from the film industry to concentrate on training and writing martial arts books with Leo Fong, as well as becoming a go-to arts teacher. He returned to our drive-in screens for his third film, Dragon’s Quest (1983). Sadly, as with Arctic Warriors (1989), Ron’s third film is a Marchini title lost to the analog ages. There’s no VHS tape images on the web and the blogs dedicated to Ron’s career make no mention of the film.
So, in desperation . . . and in the grand tradition of low-budget studios recycling artwork (know your Michael Sopkiw vs. Mark Gregory movies), we made our own (it must be cheesy) Dragon’s Quest VHS sleeve with the Mexican-distributed artwork from Ninja Warriors. Oh, what might have been. . . .
Image courtesy of Todo Coleccion Online books, art, and collectibles/design R.D Francis/text PicFont.
Courtesy of the digital catalogers at the IMDb, all we know about Dragon’s Quest is that the film was shot in the native Filipino and Tagalog languages of the Philippines and that Ron portrayed a character named Dragon. Director Celso Ad. Castillo has 65 directing credits and 50 writing credits (he only directs Dragon’s Quest). His career led to his winning the “Cinema Original Award” at the 6th Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival 2010 for the horror film 666.
As with much of the East and South Asian films cataloged at the IMDb, most of Castillo’s resume entries, as with Dragon’s Quest and his award-winner 666, are barren, dead pages. While most of Castillo’s films were Philippine-only distributed, several have English-language titles, so, most likely, they received distribution outside of his homeland: Dr. Yes (1965), Zebra (1965), The Tall, Dark, and the Handsome (1968), Dirty Face Max (1968), Inside Job (1970), The Virgin (1971), Isabel of the Islands (1975), Virgin People (1984), Snake Sisters (1984), Isla (1985), Paradise Inn (1985), and Virgin People 2 (1996). Unless your willing to explore the Filipino online marketplace for any possible VHS issues or grey DVDs, we’ll just have to let Castillo’s Dragon’s Quest go and live in the now.
The VHS I remember. It feels like home.
AKA Ninja Commandos and American Ninja — Distributor hornswoggling to convince us Arnie or Michael Dudikoff will appear as a ninja warrior
That brings us to Ron’s fourth film — and his first of four appearance as Steve Parrish: Ninja Warriors. At the time, Cannon was swimming in cash with their initiating a new wave of martial arts films in the ’80s with the likes of Michael Dudikoff in every derivative of “American” and “Ninja” and “Warrior” in the title — and with Ron’s old tournament mate, Chuck Norris. As with most of the Ninja-cum-Kung fu flicks of the Filipino variety, you’re getting lots of action adrift in the seas of no plot: but who watches these movies for their plots or character development? And the acting stinks, but the fights are great: but who watches these films for their acting; we came for the fights, the acrobatics, and the stunts. Look, let’s be honest: it’s action porn. We watch porn for the porn and ninja movies for ninjas. And President Reagan — via photographs — is all over the place, just so we know that, while this was shot in the Philippines, the action takes place in America — although nothing in this film looks like America.
So . . . this film rolls out the old “secret formula” trope (this time: mind control) that can either save or destroy the world — depending on who possesses said formula. Baddie Ninja Kurado (Ken Watanabe; not that one, the other one) and his evil scientist boss, Dr. Anderson (Mike Cohen), want the formula. So Kurado’s seven-man, cartwheeling gas-masked paramilitary ninja unit storms the government lab (“Top Secret” stenciled on the cover, natch) and dispatches the ubiquitously feeble security guards by fire, throwing stars, grappling hooks, swords, and ball bearings/marbles; attack-by-trees is their forte. The ninjas, led by Kurado’s best warrior (Romano Kristoff), have succeed. But they only secured half of the formula.
Now, for their next mission: storm a country mansion to kidnap the tennis pro daughter of a wealthy scientist (the ‘ol chloroform n’ burlap sack trope; I was going to use the word “gag,” but I like trope, better, for its reader-irritation levels and to display my thesaurus-ignorance in finding non-repetitive words in my writing) as leverage to secure the second half of the formula. And the ground’s guards, as well as the cops, are, once again, dispatched in quick succession, but a policewoman is kidnapped; in a prisoner exchange gone bad with a captured ninja, the ninjas murder their cop hostage. To paraphase Tommy Wiseau: Is plot twist . . . of no consequence.
Well, it’s time to call in Steve Parrish: Ninja Warrior. And, while Steve has no last name here, in interviews over the years, Marchini has stated — as well as MarchiniHeads more fanboy-manic than I — that Ninja Warriors is the first Steve Parrish adventure. Of course, there’s no character development regarding Steve’s past to confirm his Parrishness. For he just is: a lone wolf wrapped in a puzzle sandwiched in an even-fewer-dollars spaghetti, uh, noodles western, enigma. (How’s that for a non-trope laden sentence? R.D has mad skills.)
Anyway, Lt. Kevin Washington (Paul Vance), lost amid this ninja tomfoolery, knows Steve better than anybody; he calls in his old buddy for schoolin’ of his Japan-based martial arts knowledge in the ways the ninja. But Parrish soon realizes “knowing” the ninja ways isn’t enough: to defeat them, he must become . . . a Ninja Warrior.
Romano Kristoff pops up often in our Marchini reviews this week. Amid his 30 films, he worked with Mark “Trash” Gregory in Just a Damned Soldier (1988) and Tan Zan: Ultimate Mission (1988). Ken Watanabe, who also penned Ninja Warriors, also stars in our favorite Brent Huff film of all time (Hey, Sho Kosugi, we love you too.): Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985).
Paul Vance made his acting debut as Praxis in the batshite-all-over-the-place wonder that is W Is War (1983) and Mad Warrior (1984) for Willy Milan, and Slash Exterminator (1984, with Romano Kristoff) for Jun Gallardo. In addition, Vance wrote Slash Exterminator and SFX Retailator for Gallardo. Romano Kristoff, starring here for director Teddy Chiu/Teddy Page, also worked on two of Page’s best: Black Fire (1985) and Jungle Rats (1988) (that we seriously need to rewatch and review . . . for a “Philippine War Week” blowout).
If you’re a frequent visitor to the Pasta and Philippine Apocalypses and Vietnam war zones, you’ll recognize the support cast of Mike Cohen, Mike Monty, and Nick Nicholas, each who could easily have a month-long B&S About Movies tribute month based on their respective resumes.
So . . . yeah, Ninja Warriors is bad. But it’s awesome bad because it’s better made than most Rambo and Arnie Commando pasta and noodle rips. Director Teddy Page, averaging a Woody Allen-inspired one film a year across 30-plus credits, ranks right up their with Cirio H. Santiago (Equalizer 2000) in terms of quality-against-the-budget and could teach a thing or two, or three, to Godfrey Ho (Devil’s Dynamite) and Jun Gallardo (Desert Warrior).
You can stream the majesty of Ninja Warriors on You Tube. It’s a kick!’
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies
Since today (and tomorrow) is “Ron Marchini Week” (yes, a two-day week), we’re bringing Death Machines back one more time — to honor Ron’s all too short, eleven-movie career — with another take by B&S About Movies self-proclaimed uber fan and Marchini authority: moi. (Really, Sam said I can have the title, he’s already made the tee-shirts!) So, now it’s a battle of wills: who loves this film more: Herbert Death Machine, Sam Death Machine, or R.D. Death Machine? And Becca, the “B” in B&S, is our overlord. Hail, Madam Pacino, for she is the Queen of the Death Machine.
If only this sophomore follow up to Ron Marchini’s Murder in the Orient actually had the Zardoz-cum-Rollerball superintelligent machine of teeth thingy. My guess is that Rollerball was on the way and Roger Corman had Death Race 2000, his knockoff of that film, in the marketplace. Only the incisors-ridden pyramid of the cover does not spout any cool Lord Zardoz lines like “The Penis is Evil.” And Ron has no cool, knee-high red boots, skimpy speedos, or bullets belts on his bare chest. There’s no death cycles or post-apoc cars — which you think you’re getting because of the post-apoc poster dupe. I was expecting — to put this in a modern context — some Alien vs. Predator pyramid of death, with an ancient Mayan or Aztec pyramid, deep in the Philippine jungles with martial arts masters trapped inside a booby-trapped monolith, fighting their way out, with spiked walls and ceilings at every turn.
Well, guess what? We’ve been Def-Con’d. For this movie doesn’t make a lick of common sense — or any sense. Or anything that rises above boredom. Not even the great Ron Marchini is saving it with his kung-fu grips. Ugh. Thanks, Crown International.
So, Madame Lee has gathered, i.e., kidnapped, three multi-racial, martial arts masters: White Death Machine (Ron Marchini, aka John Travis of the one-two punch of Omega Cop andKarate Cop), Asian Death Match (Michael Chong of Charles Bronson’s Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects), and Black Death Machine (Joshua Johnson of The Weapons of Death) after she injects them with a mysterious formula that makes them her mindless, karate fighting soldiers. Her plan: to take over the underworld with her bullet-impervious warriors.
One things is for sure: there’s action ‘o plenty. We get a karate school vs. Death Machines blow out. We get sword fights. We get electrocutions. Death by cars (but not apoc cars). There’s a motorcycle gang (but not apoc bikes). And we think the plot concerns the student body of a karate school being wiped out (and I wish I could tell you why Ms. Lee ordered it), and the lone-survivor wants revenge for the Death Machines amputating his hand. And there’s a cop, Lt. Forrester, on the case, but what that “case” is, we guess to destroy the Death Machine warriors, is anyone’s guess.
Blame this ALL on our friends at Crown International Pictures: they got an evil martial arts movie and decided to tweak it into a sci-fi film. Oh, and we are not anywhere exotic. Just ol’ Stockton, California. So much Paul Kyriazi’s “passion project,” he who gave us the awesome Ninja Busters (1984). Now, if you know your Ron Marchini trivia — and you don’t because I am authority at B&S, remember — Paul Kyriazi and Ron fared much better withjoint work in Omega Cop (1990).
If you’re a Kyriazi completist as much as you’re a Marchini one, the rest of his writing and directing credits are: The Tournament (1972), the aforementioned The Weapons of Death (1981), One Way Out (1987), and Forbidden Power (2018). And get this: prior to making his debut with the 12th century samurai adventure The Tournament, Paul worked for NASA in their press department filming space launches. So, the next time you watch late ’60s and early ’70s Mercury and Apollo shots, Paul’s eye is behind that camera.
You can get a copy on the numerous Mill Creek sets we’ve mentioned. You can stream it on Amazon Prime or get the Blu-ray at Vinegar Syndrome. A 4k restore of its original Techniscope camera negative, the VS Blu features all-new interviews with its director and actors. But hey, there’s a copy on You Tube to enjoy.
And Does Ron Marchini fair better with his third movie, Dragon’s Quest? Well . . . well, let’s just say that’s a tale and a half, and we’re reviewing as part of our Ron Marchini (two day) tribute, so strap in.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
There’s nothing quite like Mill Creek’s multiple box set reissues of the epic Death Machines to inspire this first review in our two-day celebration of the eleven films of Ron Marchini.
Yeah, we love yah, Leo Fong and Ron Marchini. And it’s great to revisit with you after all these VHS-years in your dual-feature film debuts. But wow. There’s a reason why we don’t speak of Filipino writer-director Manuel Songco with the same fervor as his Pacific Rim brethren of Cirio H. Santiago (Vampire Hookers), Jun Gallardo (Desert Warrior), or Godfrey Ho (Robo Vampire). While Songco directed four more Philippines-only quickies in 1975 before retiring, there’s a reason why this was the final film in his 23-film producing career that began in 1956: The sound on Murder in the Orient is awful. The dubbing-for-U.S. audiences (remember, this is post-Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon and Tom Laughlin Billy Jack) is dreadful. The jump-cuts and editing faux pas would give Alfonzo Brescia (Star Odyssey) pause. And the accents: so think that you couldn’t cut through them with machete and a samurai sword.
Did I mention I love this movie? It’s movies like this serving as the cornerstones to the video store-Eighties that made that post-high school-dreading-college life worth living.
Nothing like a cover-better-than-the-movie DVD reissue.
Okay. Let’s get this out of the way: Fong and Marchini are enemies. They kick each other’s asses in a fight scene: they decide to joint forces for the common good.
Their fight — and ensuing bromance — is the result of present-day, rival karate gangs coveting two samurai swords engraved with a treasure map to a Philippines-buried cache of Japanese World War II gold. One of the swords is already in the possession of the Golden Cobra, and the head boss, King Cobra, wants that other sword. So Gustavo, his second-in-command, calls in the infamous assassin Kang the Butcher — and during the acquisition, the sister of peaceful Hong Kong martial arts instructor Lao Tsu (Leo Fong, of the Frank Harris two-fer Killpoint and Low Blow) is killed. Once in Manila, Lao meets Paul Martelli, his dead sister’s American boyfriend, who’s also looking for answers and revenge. Now they must fight an endless supply of Golden Cobra warriors and stop the sacred treasure swords from falling into the wrong hands.
Home, Sweet Home: Ah, the VHS sleeve I remember.
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 5 Gauntlets. And he has four more films in various stations of filming and pre/post production: Pact of Vengeance (with Jon-Mikl Thor!), Asian Cowboys, Runaway Killer, Hard Way Heroes, and Junkers. You catch up with Leo at his website, LeoTFong.com. And good news: you can watch Challenge of 5 Gauntlets as a free-with-ads-stream on TubiTV.
Born in California and rising through the U.S. Army’s ranks to become a drill sergeant, in his civilian life, Ron Marchini earned the distinction as the best defensive fighter in the U.S., and, by 1972, was ranked the third best fighter in the country. Upon winning several worldwide tournaments, and with Robert Clouse’s directing success igniting a worldwide martial arts film craze with Enter the Dragon (1973), the South Asian film industry beckoned. After making his debut in Murder in the Orient, Marchini began a long friendship with filmmaker Paul Kyriazi, who directed Ron in his next film, the epic Death Machines, then later, in the first of Ron’s two appearances as post-apoc law officer John Travis, Omega Cop (so good, we reviewed it twice).
You can learn more about Ron Marchini with his biography at USAdojo.com. An interview at The Action Elite with Ron’s friend and Death Machines director Paul Kyriazi also offers deeper insights.
Sadly, there are no online trailers or streams of Murder in the Orient to share.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
It’s pretty amazing that the reboot of this venerable 80s show — which lasted seven seasons and only ended when star Richard Dean Anderson told TV Guide, “The only reason it went off the air was that everybody was ready to move on. I was physically exhausted and had no life.”
In the new series, Lucas Till plys Angus “Mac” MacGyver, an undercover government agent for the Phoenix Foundation, a covert agency that the rest of the world believes is a think tank. An Army EOD technician, Mac prefers to use non-lethal means to stop his enemies and excels, as always, at solving problems with unique scientific feats.
The new version of the show was created by Peter M. Lenkov — who created the comic RIPD that the movie is based on — and takes place inside the same universe as his other two shows, Magnum P.I. and Hawaii Five-O. Lenkov also wrote Demolition Man, Son In Law and the second and third Universal Soldier films. A sad thing to report is that he was removed from all of the CBS shows he created in 2020 because it was said that he fostered a “toxic work environment,” with Lucas Till telling Vanity Fair, “I’ve never worked this hard in my life, and I am fine with hard work. But the way Peter treats people is just unacceptable. I was suicidal that first year on the show, because of the way he made me feel. But the way he’s treated the people around me — that’s just my breaking point.”
But a positive thing is that the series is actually pretty fun to watch. I wish that it had been a better experience for the people making it. Horror fans will also enjoy seeing appearances in season 4 from some of their favorite actors like Keith David, Peter Weller, Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) and Tobin Bell. The Tenderloins (James Murray, Sal Vulcano, Joe Gatto, and Brian Quinn), who you may know from Impractical Jokers, also appear as waiters in one episode.
This season also finds the Phoenix Foundation being rebuilt as a privately funded entity to go up against CODEX, a secretive organization that is coordinating multiple catastrophes to get the attention of world leaders. They also possess something called File 47, which is about the end of the world. Any time the team gets close to the truth, the agent from that group always commits suicide rather than reveal their plan.
There’s even an episode with Mac loses his short-term memory and must undergo a dangerous treatment that sends his brain back in time, where he meets numerous people from his past and the past of CODEX, such as Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, his mother, his evil self and even Nikolai Tesla, who helps him regain his memory and teaches him the secrets of Shiva, a superweapon he’s created.
Season 4 moves at a quick clip and it’s pretty cool that there’s an underlying story arc throughout the episodes. You can catch the DVD box set, which has just been released from Lionsgate and CBS Studios.
There’s so much fog in this movie, Lucio Fulci got jealous.
So much fog that the Elizabeth Dane wrecked.
So much fog…
You get it, right?
A bunch of lizard people emerge from under Los Angeles and use their fog machine to invade the city because, well, we nuked them out of their homes. Luckily, Tom Gregory (Robert Hutton, who also directed the movie) joins with a group of survivors to battle the slimy reptiles, who can’t deal with salt or their own spears.
Susan Hart — who would one day marry American-International Pictures president James H. Nicholson and appear in their beach movies — is one of the humans battling the mucky scaly heels.
This entire movie was filmed in the studios of KTLA but ran out of money after nine days. The slime creatures cost most of the money and none of the stuntmen or Hutton got paid. There was also the wild thought to use small people as giant voles who would lead the invasion, but when they watched the footage, it was too silly to use. Just think of that, as this movie is one of the goofiest films ever made. I wish I could watch that footage.
Hutton would go on to write Persecution, which was one of Lana Turner’s last films. It’s just as goofy — maybe more — than this one.
The alien in this movie has a funny way to go about saving its planet. It’s mating with us, but also killing us, so that seems kind of over the line, you know? How lucky for that alien to land in an all-girls school, I guess. Or unlucky, if I’m taking the side of the humans.
Also known as Breeders, this movie left me with so many questions. Why is Ashley the only teacher? Who is that woman in the leather running about the place? Why is she called Space Girl? Is this a remake of the 1986 film Breeders? Can a shotgun kill a breeder alien? Was the ending setting up a sequel?
Sadly, the actress who played Space Girl, Kadamba Simmons, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend not long after this movie was finished. I really enjoyed her in this film, a true bright spot in a film that’s kind of dull.
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