EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Renee Harmon and James Bryan are kind of like two superheroes — who made movies that only I would like, it seems — who make movies on their own like Harmon’s Frozen Scream and Bryan’s Don’t Go In the Woods. Then, when fates align, they have a team-up and make Lady Streetfighter, Hell Riders, Run Coyote Run, Jungle Trap and this movie.

First off, you aren’t missing anything. There’s no The Executioner. I mean, yes, there were movies with George Peppard and Sonny Chiba with that name, but this has nothing at all to do with them. Maybe they wanted you to think this was a sequel to The Exterminator?

Lieutenant Roger O’Malley (Christopher Mitchum) and Mike (Antoine John Mottet) survived Vietnam and eventually make it back to Los Angeles. Roger is a cop, working for Aldo Ray, while Mike is an auto mechanic. Roger’s also a widower and has raised his daughter aura (Bianca Phillipi) all on his own. Now, however, she and her friends are into drugs and have started doing sex work to pay for it. There’s also a serial killer known as The Executioner killing criminals with grenades and Roger gets the job of finding him, which he does with reporter Celia Amherst (Harmon).

When Roger’s daughter gets kidnapped by The Tattooed Man, he has to not only find The Executioner, but ask him to save his daughter. Enter the man who says, “I’m your judge. I’m your jury. I’m your executioner!” And then he shoves a grenade down the pants and cut to the same explosion every time.

The music is absolutely baffling, Aldo Ray was never in the room with anyone else in this, Harmon is unintelligible, you can hear audio cues to the actors and if you told someone this was made in Italy, they’d say “It’s not good enough for that.”

Five out of five stars.

21st Century released this and licensed it to Continental Video for a double feature videocassette release with Frozen Scream. The Vinegar Syndrome double DVD is a modern version of that team-up of insanity.

You can watch this on Tubi.