Originally written as Tiger Man by author Andrew Colvin — uncredited, of course — Voodoo Man was made in seven days along with Return of the Ape Man and was the last film that Bela Lugosi would make for Monogram.
This movie really has a dream cast. For me at least. There’s British character actor George Zucco (House of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Tomb) as a gas station owner. And there’s Bela as a doctor who captures gorgeous women and takes their life essence. And oh yes, John Carradine as the assistant who plays the bongos.
Our hero Ralph (Tod Andrews, who played the doctor in The Baby) of course comes through by the end, then writes a script about his experiences called Voodoo Man and suggests that Bela Lugosi appears in it. Yes, they made references like this back in 1944.
Voodoo Man was directed by William Beaudine, who made perhaps the most important exploitation movie of all time, Mom and Dad.
Man, Christopher Lee may rival Donald Pleasence for not being able to say no — I say this with full knowledge that the former turned from Halloween while the latter said yes to that series more than he should have — and here he played Sax Rohmer’s “yellow peril” character of Fu Manchu, who is joined by his just as sadistic daughter Lin Tang. She’s played by Tsai Chin, who was a Bond girl twice in You Only Live Twice and Casino Royale, topped the music charts with “The Ding Dong Song” and played Auntie Lindo in The Joy Luck Club.
Rosalba Neri is also in this and you know, as bad as this movie might be, Rosalba Neri is in it. You should be so lucky as to get to spend 92 minutes with her.
This is the fifth and final time that Sir Lee played Fu Manchu, if you can believe that. Also starring in this movie is plenty of pilfered footage, including the entire opening effects coming from A Night to Remember and the dam bursting being taken from Campbell’s Kingdom.
There’s lots of fog, which I appreciate, and a plot about freezing the oceans, which I am also totally down with. Man, is Fu Manchu the good guy?
A spiritual sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man — with a different cast — this movie starts with Joyce Manning believing that her gigantic brother Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning survived his fall from Hoover Dam in the last movie.
He does live, except that his face is disfigured and he’s lost his mind as it tries to deal with the traumatic fall that he took. This facial damage was because there was a new star — and also a stagehand on the film — Dean Parkin and this would disguise the fact that they changed up who would play the lead. Stranger still, the dream sequence in the movie shows original actor Glenn Lanagan.
War of the Colossal Beast was produced, directed and written by Bert I. Gordon — the king of these kinds of movies — and co-produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff. The last scene of the movie was shot in color and then made into black and white to match the rest of the film.
How in the hell did I become the defacto biographer on the career Robert Rundle? There’s no place to run: I accept my hell in life.
The rumor is this appeared on the USA Network in the ’80s? Nah, that has to be urban legend.
But I shouldn’t complain, as I am fortunate that the B&S About Movies’ staff has been unable — thank god — to locate a copy of Rundle’s fourth film, Vampire Hunter (1994). That Linnea Quigley starrer seems not to exist or at the very least it was never completed/released. The IMBb page is a barren wasteland and no VHS nor DVD greys pop up on a Google search. And that’s a shame (no, really) because watching another Linnea Quigley film (we recently reviewed 2020’s The Good The Things Devils Do) is something to strive for.
However, Rundle’s second film, Dark Harvest (1992) is out there. That one is written and directed by James I. Nicholson, the writer behind Armand Gazarian’s Badlanders, which we scratched off our apoc list a few months back. But it’s not a Rundle joint, per say, since he only produced it. Besides, I just don’t have the strength for another movie about another group of 30-year old college kids running afoul of a possessed scarecrow on an ancient Indian burial ground. I just can’t. I have my celluloid masochist limits, after all. Maybe if Rundle wrote and/or directed it, I’d take the plunge. . . .
Of course, we reviewed Rundle’s debut as a writer and director, the mess than shoved me down this defacto hell hole in the first place: Cybernator (1991). And, because we had a Ponch, a Stringfellow, and a Don Stroud in the frames, we went ahead and gave Rundle’s second writing and directing effort — and third film, overall — The Divine Enforcer (1992), a tosser. And a toss. . . .
For Rundle’s sixth and final film — not counting his three shorts, Hell’s Paradox, The Vessel, and Killswitch (shot in ’96, ’03, and ’05; probably created to entice investors) — Raw Energy (1995), he earned a co-writer’s credit alongside side director Donald G. Jackson.
Uh, no. I won’t. And can’t (thank god), as Sam the Bossman is B&S About Movies’ defacto Donald G. Jackson archivist — and one thorny crown of the Rundle variety on my head is one thorny crown too many. Besides: a movie about virtual reality serial killers on a Z-budget? No way. Not even when the great William Smith appears in a put-a-name-on-the-VHS sleeve role.
And that bring us to this: my final, for all eternity and ever more, Robert Rundle film review.
In this, his fifth film, which also served as his fourth directing credit, Robert Z’Dar, returning from his walk-on in The Divine Enforcer, stars in Run Like Hell: a film that took Rundle — and two more screenwriters, Steven Stein and Alan Hall: a duo that wrote nothing since <smart ass remark about them never writing another film, removed> — to wrangle to completion.
Okay, so Robert Z’Dar is the only person we recognize here and care about, as the rest of the cast look — and act — like porn actors trying to go mainstream-legit, and probably are. Unlike Cybernator, with its bumbling time-projection into a Bladerunneresque “future” filled with ’80s Japanese-import cars, brick buildings, and ’50s-era Aunt Martha’s furnishings, Rundle had the good sense to get out of the big city and into the budget-sensible desert — so we can swallow the fact that we are in a 2008 on a 1995 costume budgeted-version of (skimpy n’ scanty) ’80s punk rockers.
So, if you know your apocs: a budgetary voiceover war n’ sickness-catastrophe has ravaged the Earth. The main culprit for man’s downfall: da wimin — single, indepenent women, in particular. So the U.S government declares them as the single most existential threat — trumping white supremacy, voter I.D. supression, and anything anti-green in Rundle’s brave new world. So, to the chagrin of AOC and the Squad: the women are locked up. And guess who the maniacal warden is: everyone’s favorite ex-Maniac Cop.
How dare you! How dare you let the women run free to destroy the world!
Yee-haw. We got ourselves a shot-on-video T&A apocalypse!
Ugh, finally . . . the voiceover is done. Let’s head off to the showers with four babes — Elsa, Sally, Darla, and Shotgun — in thongs. Well, that’s done: prison break time. Oh, no, not another “Paradise City” to strive for, again. Hey, not if Warden Z’Dar’s cheapjack, motorcycle ridin’ (wooden-acting) cyborg bounty hunter-assassin (well, the actor is “trying” to be robotic, after all) has anything to say about it.
What’s this?
A lone-wolf desert Ninja warrior who’s been able to fight off the mutants to make a life for himself in a wasteland junk yard? Well, time for the inept fight choreography at the old factory as chicks in thongs learn how to fight and fire-up chainsaws for the big showdown with our motorcycle-helmeted cyborg and Robert we-love-him-but-he-ain’t-no-Humongous Z’Dar because this ain’t no Mad Max . . . or America 3000 . . . Robot Holocaust . . . or, I never thought I’d say this: Fire Fight . . . for that matter. Hey, at least Mr. Miyagi of the Wastelands helped the girls lose the up-the-crack thongs for pairs of shorty-shorts and plaid schoolgirl skirts, and finally harnessed their racks in halter tops and tied-off tee-shirts.
Sorry, kiddies. There’s no online freebie streams (lucky me, joy, joy: working the contacts, I got hold of an VHS copy). But we did find this nifty “Under Three Minutes” version of the film to enjoy: if the three minute scene below doesn’t ward you off, first. Or, if you skip both, you can check out this touching six-minute tribute on the career of Robert Z’Dar set to the tune of Mötley Crüe’s “Primal Scream” — that’s infinitely better than the actual film he stars in, here.
Yeah, you hate to rag on the guys that are just passion-trying, but after having four films — Cybernator, Dark Harvest, The Divine Enforcer, and Vampire Hunter (if it was even made at all) — under your belt, shouldn’t your films get better as you progress, learning more about the craft with each film?
Uh, did you really think I’d suffer the fool that is Raw Energy, after this hour and twenty minutes of non-T&A apoc titillation, one rife with clumsy cinematography (I think that’s what it’s called) and worse, well, editing . . . I think?
Uh, no. I am running like hell from from this hand basket of VHS flotsam.
And so concludes B&S About Movies wrangling the career of Robert Rundle in our digital hand basket. Amen.
The resume:
Cybernator (1991) — writer/director
Dark Harvest (1992) — producer
The Divine Enforcer (1992) — writer/director
Vampire Hunter (1994) — director
Run Like Hell (1995) — writer/director
Raw Energy (1995) — co-writer/producer
Robert — then a young Robbie Rundle — got his start in the business an actor on the early Martin Kove (Rice Girl) and James Houghton (prolific U.S. daytime-drama actor and writer, but also Purple People Eater, More American Graffiti, and I Wanna Hold Your Hand) Warner Bros./CBS-TV series Code R, which ran for 13 episodes from January to June 1977. The series was concerned with a South California island’s Emergency Services team.
“Open the gates of Hell! For I am the right hand of God!” — So speaks Father Daniel
Trust us: We aren’t plot spoiling when we tell you what we have here is a great idea of a Sylvester Stallone Cobra (1986) ripoff — with Sly as a catholic priest, instead of a toothpick-chewin’ rogue cop, after an ravenous serial killer — a vampire killer, no less.
Needless to say, this karate-horror hybrid isn’t as good as that Stallone pitch-premise. Ah, but we have the presence of a Ponch and Stringfellow and a Ron Marchini-lite karate-thespian as a priest raising a Jean-Claude Van Damme’in holy hell on a Z-movie budget.
Damn straight, I want to watch this. Load the friggin’ tape! LOAD THE TAPE! Man the drink blenders, Sam. Pull up a section of couch, Bill Van Ryn. This is gonna rock the VHS heads.
Prism. How many films from your shingle have I watched? Let me count the tapes.For the ends of spool and I shall not erase. Most quiet VCR, by remote and candle-light.
So, welcome to another never-heard-of-it-or-seen-it-before lost VHS’er that’s never been released on DVD or Blu-ray, which, unless it is reissued on either format and a freebie copy is provided to the reviewer — or the writer is paid to write the review — they/their website home, doesn’t review it. Now, true: We at B&S About Movies get our fair share of promotional DVDs and Blus, as well as box sets of reissued classics, as well as the newer 2021 fair, and we get plenty of promotional digital screeners from P.R firms. And we enjoying exposing those reissued and new films to audiences — but it’s the analog barnacles: the VHS ditties lost to the ages; the films never reissued to hard or streaming digital formats that’s our jam; the films no reissues studio shills for the greenbacks. (And that ain’t no cliched ensuing trope we’re spewing, there, my friend. Nor do we do conventional, simple summary of the plot reviews. Where’s the fun in that QWERTY’in trope? You gotta go gonzo, sans the green.)
Such a film is The Divine Enforcer — a film with more critic and user reviews than we anticipated. This is a known film?
Shockingly, yes.
So, unlike us Allegheny pugwackers splashin’ about the Three Rivers confluence, the more discriminating VHS’er have, in fact, watched this, well, let’s face it: poverty row junk, courtesy of its rusty ‘n crumbled, star-power sparkle of Jan-Michael Vincent, Robert Z’Dar, Erik Estrada, Don Stroud, and Judy Landers. So, yeah, basically, it’s a B&S About Movies all-star cast. Then, in support roles, we have the insane Scott Shaw (100 film and TV acting credits, with 153 as a producer — one of which is The Roller Blade Seven). And, do we really need to tell you about Micheal M. Foley from Ron Marchini’s Karate Cop, as well as Prison Planet and Cybernator? Well, we just did.
And that’s why we are here, today: Our review of Cyberator, in conjunction with our Ron Marchini two-day blowout, put The Divine Enforcer on our radar. So let’s sit back, together, as we enjoy this video-store renter for the first time — 29 years after its release.
Cybernator served as our debut introduction to the resume of writer-director Robert Rundle; that apoc’er served as his debut feature film. For his next movie, the movie we are reviewing today, in addition to securing the services of everyone above — yes, that is the Jim Brown, theblaxploitation extraordinaire in the cast — Rundle secured the scripting services of Randall Frakes of Hell Comes to Frogtown and Roller Blade Warriors fame — so there’s that B-Movie enticement. Then Rundle gave us Vampire Hunter (1994) with B-Movie screamer, Linnea Quigley, Run Like Hell (1995) with Robert “Maniac Cop” Z’Dar, and the return of William Smith (from Cybernator) in Raw Energy (1995). Sadly, Rundle hasn’t made a film since 2005 and, according to the IMDb, Rundle had a website, but it’s lost in the 404 error-verse.
So, if you haven’t already figured it out from the VHS cover: we are dealing with a religious-based thriller. A monsignor (Erik Estrada, stepping way down from his first post-CHiPs work in Light Blast; most recently in The Hallmark Channel’s Dead Over Diamonds) and his assistant, Father Thomas (Jan-Micheal Vincent, stepping way down from his work in Alienator; in this case: yes, his work in Ice Cream Man is better, even though that, in itself, is awful) — both in the ol’ sit-down-thespian-roles-for-a-paycheck — recruits a new priest, Father Daniel (Michael J. Foley), to their Los Angeles parish. The newcomer priest proceeds to turn vigilante (as Vincent did in the HBO-dumper pastiche of The Warriors and Death Wish in 1980’s Defiance) and takes on various thugs and criminals that rule the neighborhoods.
Of course, knowing Foley’s skill set as we do, Father Daniel (wow, where was Ron Marchini, he was made for this role) has mad martial arts skills — and he’s armed with a stockpile of crucifix tossing-blades and a Boondock Saints-style pistol with a cross on the handle — only that 1999 film wasn’t made yet.
So, amid Father Dan’s daily duties of cleaning up the city of drug-dealing scumbags (cue Jim Brown and Robert Z’Dar) and protecting his landlady (call Judy Landers to set), Father D. runs afoul of Otis (cue Don Stroud, hacking at the ham), who claims to be the bloodsucking — and beheading n’ skull-stealing — vampire terrorizing Los Angeles. Assisting Father Dan in the fight is, Kim (Carrie Chambers; made her debut in Karate Cop alongside Foley; also appears in Sleepaway Camp IV* and Bikini Carwash Company II) with her psychic link to Otis.
So yeah, this purely a Michael J. Foley and Carrie Chambers joint, with Estrada and Vincent washed-up and on-board doin’ the now de rigueur Eric Roberts (Lone Star Deception) walk on-to-sit down role, a mantel recently taken up by Nicolas Cage**. Ditto goes for Jim Brown and Robert Z’Dar in their blink-and-you’ll-miss ’em-put-a-name-on-the-box roles. Oh, and we get to see Asian singer Hiroko belt out her 1990 Enigma Records’ release, “My Love Is Waiting” (You Tube). Oh, and there’s lots of gratuitous boobs bouncing about the frames.
Yeah, it’s awful. Really awful.
And it’s also sad.
Jan-Micheal has his script taped inside a newspaper as he “reads” about the ongoing killings; Estrada, is well, Estrada, who wishes he didn’t cop an attitude during his CHiPs heyday and tank his career, and Don Stroud — a B&S About Movies hero — is out of shape, pasty, and saddening as he goes full-on Shakespeare (with a little tongue) to a boiled, bloody skull. But, again, we get Ponch and Stringfellow and a priest raising holy hell. So what’s not to likey here?
Not a damn thing.
You can roll it on You Tube — complete with original Prism VHS opening trailers, so this is truly a retro, home-video ride. However, if an hour and thirty minutes of a martial arts Catholic priest is too much too handle, the fine folks at Cine Arcadia Productions confessed their fandom for The Divine Enforcer by cutting out the fat and distilling the film down to — get this, 17 minutes — with this You Tube upload.
Me? I’m an analog masochist. I’m went for the Full Monty-hour and a half ride, baby! Which is why Sam the Bossman runs drink blenders. Toastin’ the livers is required with a flick such as The Divine Enforcer.
Joe has had his car stolen by CD and Adele, a couple on the run with some ill-gotten cash who have even worse criminals after them. Can he connect with these strangers and save all of them? Or are some people well beyond being redeemable?
With a title that comes from late 1800s Victorian slang that means “don’t lie to me,” as dog sellers would often pass off mutts as high pedigree show breeds, this movie also proves another truism a little closer to our time. As Notorious B.I.G. said in the late 1990s, “the more money we come across, the more problems we see.”
Shot in eight days between COVID-19 lockdowns in Ireland with director Pauric Brennan, the cast and writer Mark Hampton as the only crew, this movie looks way better than the challenges that it faced as it got made. Hampton was also somehow able to write this tight crime yarn with just four characters in only two months.
This is probably the best ninety minutes you’ll spend trapped in a car with a group of drug addicts this year. Or maybe not, I don’t know how you lead your life.
Directed by Fred F. Sears, The Werewolf tells the tale of Duncan Marsh, who has been operated on by some doctors who want to create perfect humans who will survive the coming nuclear winter by injecting irradiated wolf serum into their blood. Of course, the side effect is that they become werewovles, but there you have it.
Not only is this science fiction werewolf one that doesn’t require a full moon to transform, even if the budget necessitated day for night shooting, he can also be killed by normal bullets. Man, when will scientists stop playing God? Or the devil? Or whatever creates lycanthropes?
Sheriff Jack Haines is played by Don Megowan, who is usually on the side of the monsters, playing the Gillman in The Creature Walks Among Us and the monster in the TV show Tales of Frankenstein. He also shows up in another werewolf film, the 1974 TV movie Scream of the Wolf.
The Werewolf is one of four movies on Arrow Video’s new Cold War Creatures: Four Films From Sam Katzman set along with Creature with the Atom Brain, The Zombies of Mora Tau and The Giant Claw. Each film has a 1080p blu ray presentation, along with a fully illustrated 60-page collector’s book featuring extensive new writing by Laura Drazin Boyes, Neil Mitchell, Barry Forshaw, Jon Towlson and Jackson Cooper, as well as 80-page collector’s art book featuring reproduction stills and artwork from each film and new writing by historian and critic Stephen R. Bissette, the former artist of Swamp Thing. Plus, you get two double-sided posters featuring newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin and reversible sleeves for each movie with original and newly commissioned artwork for each film by Matt Griffin.
TheWerewolf has tons of great extras, like an introduction by Kim Newman, commentary by Lee Gambin, a visual essay concerning the role of women in the films of Sam Katzman by historian and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and a Super 8mm version of this movie.
Known as The Trollenberg Terror in England, where it was made, The Crawling Eye has exactly what you want to see: a giant eyeball. If we didn’t have this, we wouldn’t have The Fog, as this movie directly inspired John Carpenter. See, great things can come out of a movie whose special effects consist of cotton balls stapled to mountain photography.
Originally a six-episode TV miniseries, this was remade with American Forest Tucker placed into the lead so that audiences in the states would have someone to root for. Or maybe they’d be like me, excited to see gigantic eyeballs come rolling along at the camera.
He plays UN troubleshooter Alan Brooks, who has traveled to the Swiss mountain of Trollenberg to learn why the heads of climbers are being torn off their body and why a mysterious cloud is seen in the wake of the bloody destruction.
Do you know how you defeat a giant eyeball? A Molotov cocktail. Horror movies make you smart, right?
In the days before the Super Bowl being the biggest event there is, Superdome was an ABC Monday Night Movie that was used to promote Super Bowl XII. It’s also known as The Super Bowl Story and Countdown to the Super Bowl.
Directed by Jerry Jameson (Airport ’77, The Bat People), this is one of those disaster-style big cast movies, in which the Cougars — I guess the NFL wouldn’t let any of their teams be in the movie — are all in trouble. There are marital issues for Ken Howard, bad business decisions by Tom Selleck, as well as an assassin! And Michael Pataki!
Man, I love any movie that features Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith, much less David Janssen and Donna Mils. It’s not great, but you know, you could do worst. And you have.
This movie has a good FX pedigree: Willis O’Brien, creator of the stop-motion animation effects for the original King Kong, was the special-effects supervisor. There’s an urban legend that the spider pit creatures that were cut from that film show up here. While Ray Harryhausen’s An Animated Life would claim that many of O’Brien’s models were still in storage at RKO when this was made, many of them were pretty decayed by that point.
An earthquake happens in Mexico and a new volcano rises, along with someone who believes that a demon bull has come out of hell. If only it could be so simple. Instead, the beasts are gigantic prehistoric scorpions.
How do you kill a monstrous scorpion? You fill an arena with meat and then shoot it with a spear that’s attached to an electric cable, then spark that thing up. You have to admire that level of ingenuity.
October 1958 Playboy Playmate Mara Corday was probably used to this kind of thing by this point, having already dealt with Tarantula and The Giant Claw. I can see dealing with one giant monster, but three? Yeah. That’s being a magnet for kaiju.
An even bigger coincidence is that six of the actors in this movie — Carlos Rivas, Mario Navarro, Pascual García Peña, José Chávez, Roberto Contreras and Margarito Luna — all appear in another Willis O’Brien-animated giant monster movie, The Beast of Hollow Mountain.
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