Also known as Violent Love, this is the first movie ever produced by Cannon.
Directed by Rudi Dorn and an uncredited John Gaisford, this movie finds drug dealer Walter Dorland (Paul Negri) fighting with his wife Margaret (Joan Armstrong) over her threatening to turn him itnto the police, so he visits a hypnotist named Korba (Peter Adamson), who hypnotizes Miklos (Noel Beckett) to assault and kill his wife while she stays at the couple’s cabin for the weekend.
I list this here for its historical importance, seeing as how this is an example of how Cannon took European exploitation, released it in the U.S. and made money. At this time in our history, a roughie like this was the absolute height of decadence. One imagines it could play on TV today.
If your child is sick, you’ll do anything you can to make them better. But what if a possession could heal the brain cancer that your son is suffering from? What would you do?
Directed by Kelton Jones and written by James Cullen Bressack, this is the story of former priest Ben (Jonathan Stoddard) and his wife Norma (Daniela Palavecino), whose son Alex is seeing visions of a cult while being struck by a rare form of brain cancer.
I’ve said it before, I will say it again, but if an elderly neighbor comes to you with a medical procedure that involves roots and rituals, move. It happens here, as one such non-traditional medical procedure leads to Alex dying on the operating table and coming back to life, yet different. Like devil inside him different.
Vernon Wells mentioned to me just how much he enjoyed being in this film. It’s a really intriguing concept that while not completely realized or perfect still has plenty of frightening visuals along the way.
Of the Devil is available on digital and VOD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
So yes, by adding Cannon Video and this late in their life movie, we can say that Tobe Hooper did four movies for Cannon. Written by Rom Globus — I’m unsure if he’s related — and Daniel Matmor, this was produced by the revised Cannon team of Yoram Globus and Christopher Pearce along with Harry Alan Towers and Allan Greenblatt.
Robert Englund was signed early, thinking that this was a movie about Marquis de Sade based on his short stories, but then he’d be playing an evil relative of de Sade named Paul Chevalier. Then the movie moved from a period movie to a modern story. Then the shooting location changed from Egypt to Israel. Then the original director Gerry O’Hara quit.
In an issue of Fangoria, Hooper spoke highly of the movie, saying “Nightmare is not exactly a horror film, even if there are many horror elements in it. It’s more of an erotic thriller, and I’m very happy to be able to do something different.” The title changed along the way as well.
Beth (Chandra West) goes to Israel to meet her father, the archaeologist Dr. Matteson (William Finley, who like Englund was in a much better Hooper movie, Eaten Alive) who is studying Gnostic cult ruins. One night, as Beth wanders the streets, she’s nearly attacked by some men and saved by a woman who has a book from de Sade. Her father is killed as he finally gets into the burial ground and the cult kidnaps her for a sacrifice when she’s not passing out and having dreams about a horse racer making sweet love to her. Then the girl helps her escape the cult and then some monks save the day, then we go back in time to the day de Sade died.
You may read that and say, “That makes no sense.”
You’re right.
Honestly, if Jess Franco made this, I would have loved it. That said, he would have found a way to make it more interesting. This is an absolute mess with wild overacting, non-stop sex dreams that get in the way of the plot and no plot for them to get in the way of.
This was a Global Pictures movie, even if it has the Cannon logo.
You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode that discusses this movie here.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This Van Damme movie first appeared here on July 9, 2019.
Death Warrant is the first movie sold by David S. Goyer, way before he wrote Kickboxer 2, Demonic Toys, Pet Sematary 2, Dark City, the three Bladefilms (he directed Blade: Trinity), Ghost Rider, the Christopher Nolan Batman films, Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman and Terminator: Dark Fate. It’s directed by Deran Sarafian, who directed To Die For, a 1989 vampire rental favorite, as well as episodes of House and Lost. He also directed another rental favorite, Claudio Fragasso’s (Monster Dog, Shocking Dark, Rats: Night of Terror) apoc-romp Interzone that stars Bruce Abbott (Re-Animator).
Detective Louis Burke (Jean-Claude Van Damme) of the Quebec Royal Canadian Mounted Police has come to Los Angeles to confront the man who killed his partner — Christian “The Sandman ” Naylor. After finding bodies hanging from the ceiling, he’s able to defeat his enemy, shooting him multiple times in the chest.
More than a year later, Burke joins a task force to solve a series of murders inside California’s Harrison State Prison. Burke will pose as an inmate while attorney Amanda Beckett (Cynthia Gibb, Jack’s Back) acts as his wife in the undercover sting.
Burke soon becomes friends with his cellmate Konefke (George Jenesky, who played Francis “Psycho” Soyer in Stripes before changing his name to Conrad Dunne) and an older clerk named Hawkins (Robert Guillaume!). Despite saving the two men multiple times, they refuse to speak about the murders. In fact, no one wants to talk.
Luckily, with the help of a teenage hacker (Joshua John Miller, who would later write The Final Girls), they discover that human organs are being sent out of the prison. That’s when Burke learns that the Sandman is still alive inside the prison.
While Beckett attends a party hosted by the state attorney general Tom Vogler (George Dickerson, Blue Velvet), she plans on telling him that her boss is behind everything. At the last minute, she finds out that he’s behind it all — his wife needed a liver transplant and even all his money and power couldn’t get her one. So he used the prison as a way to murder healthy prisoners and harvest their organs and kept making money from it after she got better.
Sandman has been sent to the prison to kill Burke and shut it all down. During a riot, Hawkins is injured but saved by Priest, but seconds later, Sandman kills the younger man. Finally, we get a big battle in a boiler room between Burke and Sandman that has all manner of craziness — burning against the metal door, kicking the bad guy in the flames and having him walk out and keep fighting and finally a bolt going through the Sandman’s head to kill him.
There’s also some conjugal romance between our hero cops, if you’re coming here for some tender moments. I think not. I think you’re coming for Van Damme kicking a serial killer into a furnace.
Merrill Ross (Michael Dudikoff) was once a Green Beret but now he’s the employee of an company in the Middle Eastern nation of Qumiri. The company gets attacked, his co-workers are taken hostage and Ross must battle through rebels and the CIA to make sure that his friends get out alive.
The bad guy is Rawlings (Todd Curtis), who you will love as much as you will hate. His permed up hair is astoudning, as is his devotion to his craft, explaining to those he’s torturing or fighting just how he plans on using their nerve endings to kill them. The scene where he explains the pleasure and torture zones to Keren Tishman is just…deranged. In the best of ways.
Meanwhile, R. Lee Ermey is the Texas oil tycoon causing so much of this insanity to happen.
Dudikoff is way against type in this. Smoking, drinking, swearing. But then he mows down twenty people without reloading and you realize, yeah, this is the movie you turned up for.
This is the kind of movie where Dudikoff stabs a dude with a pool cue and the villain responds with, “My mama said there’d be days like this.”
Though Chain of Command was released in other countries in 1994, its U.S. video release wasn’t until January of 1996, making it the final Cannon movie released in America.
Directed by Aaron Norris and written by Ian Rabin, Anthony Ridio and Brent Friedman, this movie beat End of Days to screens by five years and allows viewers to watch Chuck Norris sidekick a demon, which is something I highly love.
Chicago cops Frank Shatter (Chuck Norris) and Calvin Jackson (Calvin Levels, Adventures In Babysitting) have a case that takes them the whole way to Israel where they end up coming up against Satan’s henchman Prosatanos (Christopher Neame), who has been alive since he was stopped by King Richard (David Robb) back during the Crusades and trapped in a tomb under the Earth.
Prosatanos’ scepter was shattered by the King into nine pieces which were sent to nine holy places around the world. Now, Prosatanos must battle Shatter and Jackson for the fate of the world.
You’ll pray to the dark lord by the end of this movie that Jackson is murdered, as he keeps yelling things like “Either that guy is nuttier than a Snickers or there is some real heavy shit going down!”
Also: Frank Shatter is the best Chuck Norris name ever and the fake name I will be using at every restaurant where I must give my name for the rest of my life.
World War III has made the human race sterile. If that’s not bad enough, an AI now rules all of humanity. So when Mary (Nicole Hansen, who was in the Billy Idol videos for “Cradle of Love” and “L.A. Women”) is able to bring a fetus to life, she must take it through the most dangerous city on the planet.
Charleston, South Carolina.
Anyways, she has to get the baby to Europe, where humans still run things, but an android killer (John Saint Ryan) is tracking her, but luckily, she has another mulleted cyborg, Austin (Joe Lara, who was Tarzan on the syndicated Tarzan: The Epic Adventures), protecting her.
Directed by Cannon vet Boaz Davidson and written by Bill Crounse and Brent V. Friedman, this is the kind of movie that puts a baby in the kind of tube that you would use at a drive-thru bank. Yes, I still use the bank instead of the internet. I fear the computers in this movie.
When Ginny Grafton (Ami Dolenz) is kidnapped, so the young man who’s been in love with her all through high school — Fraser Sweeney (Stephen Dorff) — teams up with town rebel Daniel “Mac” MacDonald (Michael Dudikoff) to go across the country to rescue her.
Also known as Street Hunter, William Lucking and Peter DeLuise plays the kidnappers, Dee Wallace-Stone plays Fraser’s mom and even Samantha Phillips (Phantasm II) and Kimberley Kates (Chained Heat 2) show up.
The problem for everybody is that Ginny is no kidnapped princess and uses everyone against one another, even running from the kidnappers only to go to a concert and hook up with the lead singer of the band.
This movie can’t figure out whether it’s a coming of age story, an action film or a comedy. It can be all of those things, but it’s not particularly good at any of them. It’s directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, who also made Hercules In New York. That should tell you what you’re getting into. That said, I enjoy Dudikoff and Dorff, so this movie was watchable thanks to them.
Just the name L.A. AIDS Jabber is going to offend you or make you want to see this or perhaps even both. Originally released as Jabber in the 90s in the most limited of releases — in the thousands and all self-distributed by creator Drew Godderis — this is the story of Jeff (Jason Majik) and what happens when he finds out that the illness that he’s been feeling could very well be a death sentence.
1994 is a very different place than 2022, but then again, is it so different? We’re still dealing with a pandemic that has been politicized, except that when AIDS was unleashed, it was originally thought to be some form of cancer that only impacted homosexual men (shades of the media as monkeypox became this year’s illness) and any stories of straight men or women didn’t appear on the news.
So when Jeff finds out from his doctor that he has HIV, the disease that causes AIDS, he’s certain that this is the end of his world. Then why shouldn’t it be the end of the world for everyone he can take down along the way?
Jeff gets the bright idea to start filing his blood into syringes and tracking down everyone who wronged him, then injecting them with his infernal hemoglobin. And thus we have a shot on video movie — by necessity, as you can learn in my exclusive interview with Drew — that is filled with shock upon shock.
The thing that’s most astounding about this movie is that despite being SOV it doesn’t seem like a low end production. Yeah, it’s sleazy — would you expect a movie with this title to be any other way? — but it also explores the life of the cops on the case as well as what drove Jeff to go for broke. And man, the soundtrack! It sounds amazing!
Back in 2000, Snopesexplored the urban legend that drug addicts were placing their used, HIV-infused needles into pay phone coin slots in order to infect others, as well as another story about AIDS terrorists leaving HIV needles in movie theater seats. Yeah whatever, crazy people of the world. L.A. AIDS Jabber got there first. And of course, it did it better.
Visual Vegenace has put out the first wide release of the movie — available from MVD — since it was self-distributed by director Drew Godderis himself and the blu ray is packed with newly produced bonus features and commentary from the original creators such as:
Director’s Introduction to Movie (2021)
Commentary Track with Director Drew Godderis
Lethal Injection: The Making of L.A. AIDS Jabber with Director Drew Godderis
Bleeding The Pack: An Interview with Lead Actor Jason Majick
L.A. AIDS Jabber – 2021 Locations Visit
Interview with Blood Diner Director Jackie Kong
Growing Up On Set: Justin Godderis
Actress Joy Yurada Interview
Cinematographer Rick Bradach Interview
Interview with Actor Gene Webber
Liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine
L.A. AIDS Jabber Photo Gallery
Blood Video Fanzine Essay by Billy Burgess
L.A. AIDS Jabber Trailer (2021)
Limited Edition Slipcase — FIRST PRINTING ONLY
Collectible folded mini-poster
“Stick Your Own” VHS stickers
Reversible BR sleeve featuring original VHS art
Visual Vengeance Trailers
For more details on the label and updates on new releases – as well as news on upcoming releases – follow Visual Vengeance on social media – IG, Facebook or twitter
I love when filmmakers send me their movies and ask me to watch them. It’s always a daunting proposition — all I do is throw a few hundred words at something that may have been their life’s work, you know? That said, when Catherane Skillen sent me a copy of her film AVA: A Twist In the Road, it didn’t seem like the kind of movie that I usually have on the site.
But then I watched it and I’m honestly fascinated by it.
Ava (Skillen) and Bobby (Bill Lewis) are an older couple who, if you met them, you may think that they’ve been married forever. But Ava came along as the second wife, taking care of Bobby while his first wife had mental issues and was hospitalized for years. Now, they travel the world, he keeps her in a gorgeous condo and she wants for nothing other than to have more of his time, because all Bobby does is work.
It’s not a bad life. It isn’t perfect. But again, it’s not a bad life.
But then Bobby dies. And that’s when everything changes.
Everything Ava owned belonged to his company. And his son Bob Jr. (Steve Dellatori) has been waiting to get Ava out of his life forever.
The reason why I’m fascinated with AVA is that it has such an intriguing narrative because it drops us into her life and by the end, we’re unsure if she’ll be able to succeed. All of her monetary possessions no longer seem important to her, she’s found an actual job that before would be beneath her and she’s trying to connect with others. And then…that’s the end.
The camera in this has a strange focus, darting all over, cutting to images in the middle of conversations and at times feeling hallucinatory yet that adds to the overall experience for me. Because unlike so much of what we consume for entertainment, AVA is incredibly real and honest. It feels lived in. It feels authentic.
There are moments when the tone wildly shifts — I saw one review that took the movie to task for this — and I think that makes it feel true to life. And while not all of the acting is perfect, Skillen is really great at the role. You can’t help but be on her side.
I’d really be interested to know how she was inspired to make this. It seems like she acted in the 70s — an episode of Columbo in 1976, the TV movie Dog and Cat in 1977 with Richard Lynch and an appearance in 1978’s Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold and the TV series Jessie in 1984 are all that are on her IMDB before she started creating AVA as a web series in 2017.
So yeah. If you have a movie, send it my way. I do so love seeing original visions. This is definitely one of those. And it’s cool to see an older — but still fabulous — woman in the spotlight (and heading up the creative end, too).
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