A Sidney Sheldon novel written fourteen years before this was filmed, this also gave Roger Moore the opportunity to get ahead of typecasting, seeing as how 1985’s A View to a Kill would be his last time as James Bond.

Instead of a suave British spy or thief, he played a Chicago psychoanalyst named Dr. Judd Stevens. One of his patients is murdered — while wearing the doctor’s overcoat no less — which brings Lieutenant McGreavy (Rod Steiger) and Detective Angeli (Elliott Gould) on the case. There’s already some bad blood, as McGreavy blames Stevens and his past testimony for a cop killer being institutionalized rather than being sent to prison.

But after Stevens’ secretary is killed and McGreavy gets so intense he gets thrown off the force, well, we have a movie.

Written and directed by Bryan Forbes (The Stepford Wives), this film places Moore into the middle of a murder mystery which is very outside his usual unrumpled all things handled way of acting. He even tries to get help from an old detective, Morgens (Art Carney), who saves him from a car bomb.

In fact, the movie ends with a series of goons nearly beating him to death. He’s saved because the mob boss’s wife that he’s been helping with therapy — Ann Blake (Anne Archer) — called the police herself. And notihng she ever told Stevens had anything to do with the family business. All that death — and more coming soon — for nothing.

This movie was made because Cannon saw that they’d get some cachet by working with Moore — and his Bond fame was still box office — so he was able to get this movie made and hire two of his friends, Forbes and actor David Hedison. Despite the fact that it was running on schedule and under budget, Cannon slashed several weeks from filming and took away a hefty chunk of the budget, which may have gone toward paying back some recent losses at the box office. Golan and Globus also were enraged that Forbes gave Moore a week off to visit his family after the death of his mother.

You can learn more about this movie — and how funny the twist ending is — by reading Austin Trunick’s The Cannon Film Guide Volume 1: 1980-1984.

Ex-military ops officer and current parole officer Conner Connolly (Kevin Dillon, The Blob) has just 24 hours to pay $2 million to gang leader Pettis (Leon Robinson, Derice from Cool Runnings) in order to save his kidnapped pregnant wife Candace (Brooke Butler, All Cheerleaders Die). Turns out that by saving a parolee by killing one of Pettis’ men, he’s lost his job and now has a price on his head. Luckily his old crew, which includes Brice Mason (Frank Grillo, who was awesome in the Purge movies), is ready to help him.

They’re going to need it, because they have a score to settle with Alston (Bruce Willis), a corrupt police chief who — you guessed it — is working with Pettis.

A lot of people may wonder why we get a Bruce Willis movie every week. Many of those people either don’t watch action movies or live near a WalMart, where these films on shelves or in Red Boxes need recognizable faces to sell them. So if Bruce wants to sleepwalk through these movies and we want to pay to watch him, who is really hurting?

You can find A Day to Die wherever you find Bruce Willis movies.

Kent Peroni (Stephen Brodie, Baphomet), his wife Steph (Cassie Shea Watson) and their kids Jack (Sawyer Bell) and Gabby (Lourelle Jensen) are living through the economic downturn that we’re all dealing with, forcing them to move back home into Kent’s dead father’s (Tom Proctor) house, a place that holds no happy memories for our protagonist.

But then the kids start seeing a monster, there’s an earthquake in the backyard and even the adults start feeling the temperature drop without any reason. Kent asks his friend Hector (Daniel Escudero) what he should do next, which dues ex Poltergeist means that Hector’s grandmother (Patricia Rae) is a psychic.

Of course, this seems like a haunted housee movie until the idea that Kent’s drunken and mefatherthr is trying to atone from beyond the grave from something that might be…well, look at the poster if you want to spoil the big twist, which I loved, because it’s way out there and kind of puts some peanut butter into the chocolate.

Terror Films will debut The Last Possession on the Terror Films Channel on March 4 followed by a digital and on demand release on March 11. For more information, visit their website and Facebook page. You can learn more about this movie on its official Facebook page.

Directed and written by Jeff Wallace, making his first full-length movie, Angel By Thursday is about two families connected by tragedy and coincidence. It’s about daughters trying to reconnect with mothers. About men attempting to be strong enough to care for the special needs of their brother and aunt. It’s about the interconnected nature that binds and connects people throughout the world, no matter how far away they start or how close they come together. And it’s about how we each have a very different perception of each person that we meet, as in one life, you can be someone’s hero, someone’s savior, someone’s enemy or just somebody that passes in and out of their life.

I was surprised just how much this movie made me consider my life and the roles of those within it. Perhaps you’ll watch it and get the very same feeling.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Stand-up Joe Johnson (Guy Combes, Kill Ben Lyk) has just been hired for the role of his life, playing his hero comedian Ray Kelly (Steve Guttenberg) in a film about the dead funnyman’s life. Except. that the last hack up for the starring role is dead and a heckler (Clark Gable III) is bound and determined to ruin his life and not only from the darkness of the audience.

Directed by Martyn Pick and written by Airell Anthony Hayles (who wrote and directed They’re Outside), the film shows Johnson’s Halloween party evening as he’s haunted by the heckler with a flashback to just how horrible of a human being Ray Kelly was. Guttenberg is really great in this, just filled with venom and menace.

I would have loved to have seen more of how Kelly’s character and how his darkness both shaped and inspired Johnson and less of the slasher scenes, which feel kind of grafted on. It’s more of a gamble to make that type of dark film instead of a slice and dice which is easy to sell, one imagines.

At 81 minutes, for once I wish this movie was longer and had more room to breathe. Or maybe better structure and editing. It’s frustrating because there’s a great out of character performance by Guttenberg and a really good idea for a film buried under so much dross.

Heckle is now available from Uncork’d Entertainment.

During a massive pandemic — umm, we can all relate — and the lockdown that results, Clay (Osawa Muskwa) and Julian (Dean Persons) have to sell their campground. While that seems like it’ll be rough, the buyer’s representative Vanessa (Anne-Carolyne Binette) seems nice enough. But the actual buyer Aaron (Michael Czemerys) and the urbanites that he brings with him are the worst humanity has to offer.

Actually, the worst humanity has to offer are zombies, who show up near the end of the film, just as the two groups are ready to destroy one another.

I must confess to some zombie burnout. However, I liked the way this movie worked its way into the actual attack. Directed by Ding Wang (The Killing House) and written by Diane Janna (who was a location manager on another walking dead film, Warm Bodies), I understand why this has to be a zombie movie and the scenery looks great and it’s definitely a different take on the genre.

If you have more of an appetite for brain eaters, well, you’re going to enjoy this.

World Ends at Camp Z is now available on Digital and On Demand from Média DW. You can learn more on the official Facebook page.

Featuring Grammy award winner Bobby Rush, Grammy nominee Shemekia Copeland, award-winner Castro Coleman and plenty more acclaimed musicians, this movie was filmed entirely in the blues clubs of Memphis’ Beale Street during the 36th International Blues Challenge.

232 winners of local contests came to this competition to compete for medals, recognition and perhaps even record contracts by performing in the clubs along Beale Street, the most celebrated blues location in the world.

Director Larry Lancit produced and directed Reading Rainbow in past, but he and Cecily Lancit, who wrote and executive produced this film, have turned out a movie that feels very much of today. I loved seeing the different bands from all over the world bring their love of the blues to one of the bastions of the genre and get to play their hearts and souls out on what could be the biggest stage of their careers.

You can watch Blues On Beale on Tubi. You can learn more on the official site.

This group’s main ritual is called Jilling Off and it’s all about erotic massage for women and nothing at all for the men. With limited resources, Peggy decides that the group’s fortunes lay in a Niagra Fallls health and wellness show. She and her Sensual Seekers are working to create a trade show booth that will get them the funds they need.

I love that the official site for this movie is directly from the cult and totally in character. Written by Rachel Gayle Webster (who edited I Am an Electric Lampshade), Susan Juvet and director Jay Buim, the film works much the same way, a mockumentary about how the cult attempts to save the world via the female orgasm. If you’re easily offended — or stuck home with your parents — this may not be the right choice. Otherwise, it’s an entertaining look at just what it takes to believe in something, no matter how much the rest of the world doesn’t.

Adventures In Success is now available on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video.

Soldier of the Night AKA Night Soldier is surprisingly a slasher, a movie in which a man dreams of being a soldier after he is drafted but a problem with his spleen keeps him from service, a fact he keeps from his new lover. As their relationship blooms, she keeps hearing about a serial killer targeting Israeli soldiers. After meeting his father, she’s told that her boyfriend is no soldier, but then what commando missions does he take on every single night?

Dan Wolman also directed Nana, Baby Love and Up Your Anchor for Cannon. I’ve read this is the first Israeli horror film and while it plays slowly, the close of the movie is pretty harrowing, with a series of brutal attacks and the final fate of its antagonist being quite rough.

The idea of a pre-PTSD soldier having a mental breakdown is intriguing and there’s a good movie somewhere in here. That’s often the Cannon way. There’s an idea that demands an incredibly nuanced film to explore it and what ends up on the screen is often the opposite and that’s what’s fascinating.

Originally called The Last American Preppie and the first appearance of Andrew Clay’s Dice character, Making the Grade has Eddie Keaton (Judd Nelson) and Palmer Woodrow (Dana Olsen) making a deal. The con artist will work with the rich kid to keep him in class at the Hoover Academy, which will keep him in money. In return, Keaton gets paid ten grand — which he owes to Dice — and gets to drive away in a brand new Porsche.

Hijinks ensue.

Directed by Dorian Walker (Teen Witch) from a story by Charles Gale (Ernest Scared Stupid) and a screenplay by Gene Quintano (the writer of Comin’ at Ya!, Treasure of the Four Crowns, King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, three Police Academy movies, Operation Dumbo Drop, Loaded Weapon 1 and Pittsburgh’s second best action movie Sudden Death), this plays like any number of 80s bad kid does good comedies. Of course, it’s all for the love of a good woman, Tracy (Joanna Lee).

But hey look — there’s Ronald Lacey, perhaps better known as Toht, the German soldier who had a coin burned into his hand before his entire face melted right off in Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as Gordon Jump and Dan Schneider, who would go from Better Off Dead to creating much of Nickelodeon’s programming before he got canceled.

There was supposed to be a sequel called The Tourista, but it never happened. I think I may be the only person who would have watched that.

For more info about this movie and an interview with Joanna Lee, purchase Austin Trunick’s perfect The Cannon Film Guide Volume 1: 1980-1984.