April 13: (Evil) Plant Appreciation Day — It ain’t easy being green. Pay tribute to all the plants with a movie starring one of them.

Also known as Haunted House Elf, this Hong Kong/Taiwan crossover has a rich Hong Kong family move to a new home in Taiwan, where poor kid Wang Chi-Chiang convinces Shiao-Ming (Lin Hsiao Lan) and her brother Shiao Tai that the new place is haunted. He’s not kidding, as Tong-Tong, a jiangshi, is hopping around in the basement, stuck there for three hundred years. Then, as if that’s not enough, Shiao-Ming and Chi-Chiang decide to jump into a comic book and battle jungle monsters — A real tiger! A real swamp! Intelligent vines! — and cannibals to rescue a princess. Then, they battle a witch doctor (Wu Ma!) who can transform into a stone idol that spits out skeletons, a tiger, a rat, a dog, a witch, the Monkey King, Dracula and even Jesus, at which point the kids chase him with a cross, yelling “We’ll crucify him!” in total joy.

No, I did not make that up.

There’s also Tong-Tong’s vampire parents, who somehow have finally found him across decades of time.

Lin Hsiao Lan was in a ton of these films — Kung Fu Wonderchild, Magic of Spell — usually as a little boy. She gets to play a little girl this time, even though she was in her 20s when it was filmed. I’m on the side of Chi-Chiang in this, an impoverished half-orphan stuck with a gentrifying neighborhood and rich kids who have it all instead of what he has, which is a drunk dad. So he does what any of us would: he bullies them with tales of the undead.

A movie that steals the theme from The Shining, most of the third Mr. Vampire movie and so many other films to basically jump all over the place and often forget where it’s going. No notes, 10/10.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 12: 412 Day — A movie about Pittsburgh (if you’re not from here that’s our area code). Or maybe one made here. Heck, just write about Striking Distance if you want.

Isn’t Blood Freak made in Miami?

Yes, but this is Yinzer Blood Freak, made right here in Pittsburgh. Yes, this time, we’ve moved from the balmy Atlantic breeze to the smell of the Mon.

Herschel (Chuck Connors) has just come into town, riding down 279 when he meets Angel (Shana Connors), who lectures to him about Jesus and why the marijuana that everyone loves is so wrong. She brings him home, where he meets her opposite sister Ann (Ashleigh Schimmel), who loves to get baked and is a bad, bad girl. The kind that lures dumb biker men away from good women and the Good News. But Herschel stays strong and resists the lure of jailbait, which only makes Ann so upset that she gets him hooked on ganja. 

We get this narrated to us by Tim Gross, the man who brings us Grossfest every year, telling us about God, drugs and so much more.

One toke across the line from Ann, however, and Herschel is dancing horizontally with her. Her dad busts in, and he doesn’t kill this biker in bed with his underage daughter. As long as he’s a Christian, he’s OK and can even work at the Light of God Turkey Farm and Science Farm. That leads him to eat radioactive turkey and become a were-turkey, just as in the original. 

Directed by Daniel Boyd and Gross, written by Boyd and made all over Allegheny County, this makes me happy that it’s so good. Unlike the original, this is no dream. Nor is it played as seriously as that movie. 

You can watch this on Vimeo.

April 11:Heavy Metal Movies — Pick a movie from Mike McPadden’s great book. RIP. List here.

The year was 1992. Kevin Eastman, who, along with Peter Laird, helped turn four turtles and some ooze into a global empire, decided he needed a new sandbox. And not just any sandbox, but the glossy, psychedelic and often scantily-clad pages of Heavy Metal. He may have grown up on a steady diet of Jack Kirby, but it was the French import Métal Hurlant that really blew his mind. The Richard Corben art looked like it was airbrushed in another dimension, plus it was European, it was cool, and it was for grown-ups.

When the magazine went up for sale, Eastman saw it as the final piece of the puzzle. He’d started Tundra Publishing to make comics for adults, and Heavy Metal was already sitting on newsstands across the country, waiting for those same readers. It was a match made in a weird, sci-fi heaven. His plan? Use the mag to bridge the gap between comic shops and the mainstream newsstands. He wanted to serialize high-end European hardcovers and bring them to the masses. 

While he eventually sold the brand, he did a lot with it, including this film, which was based on his comic The Melting Pot, which he created with Simon Bisley and Eric Talbot. In November of 2007, a new 170-page version of the story was published as a special edition of Heavy Metal, which was the springboard for this series.

Even better, not only was Eastman living a comic book lover’s dream life, but he was also married to Julie Strain, the B-movie queen and Penthouse Pet of the Year, who ended up being the animated star (and literal body model) of this movie.

The Arakacians once ruled the galaxy thanks to a rift where space and time itself leaked. They used this fluid to become immortal rulers of everything, until they were defeated. The key to this well of sorts is a green crystal (Is it the Loc-Nar? Maybe…), but anyone who finds the fountain goes absolutely out of their head.

Tyler (Michael Ironside) is a miner who touches the key and unlocks knowledge of how to get to the elixir by killing the Edenites of F.A.K.K.² (Federation-Assigned Ketogenic Killzone), a world where those touched by the fluids live. He destroys most of the world and takes a teacher, Kerrie, to be his slave, which sends her sister Julie (Julie Strain) on a blood-soaked quest for revenge.

This isn’t the original 1981 Heavy Metal, which is a movie I can watch at any and every time, but it tries its damnedest. It even has a ritual in which Julie bathes, just like Taarna, serving as a direct visual bridge to the segment we all remember from the first film.

And hey, if the plot doesn’t grab you, the audio will. Billy Idol shows up as a mysterious character named Odin, and the soundtrack is a time capsule of turn-of-the-millennium industrial and hard rock, featuring voices and tracks from Sascha Konietzko and Tim Skold of KMFDM, as well as Monster Magnet, Pantera and System of a Down.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 10: Seagal vs. Von Sydow — One is a laughable martial artist. The other is a beloved acting legend. You choose whose movie you watch; it’s both of their birthdays.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey. His April Movie Thon list is here.

I’ve seen so many rip-offs of The Exorcist over the years (or, if I want to be nicer, I will refer to these films as cash grabs): Abby, The Antichrist, Magdalena Possessed by the Devil, The Return of the Exorcist, Beyond the Door. The list goes on and on. And it is definitely one of my favorite sub-subgenres of exploitation films.

I had never seen Exorcist II: The Heretic before. I heard it was not good. Why should I let the opinions of others stop me? I do believe that films come to me at the correct time. While there may never be a time where I think it is a masterpiece, Exorcist II is so weird that I have to respect it. It may be the closest a mainstream American film ever got to emulating an Italian horror film. 

The idea of using a sequel to capitalize on the success of an earlier film was nothing new of course. Sequels had been around for a while in one shape or form, really taking off in the 1970s. We covered the “get me another” trend earlier this month. But Hollywood does not necessarily buy into the “success breeds success” mantra. It is more like, “let’s see how little money we can put into a second film and maximize the profits on name recognition alone”. 

Almost no one involved in The Exorcist wanted anything to do with the sequel. Lawsuits had already been filed over credits and profits. The producers of the sequel wanted to spend about $3 million dollars on the film (it ended up closer to $14 million, more than the budget of the original film). Linda Blair is back (although she was not down for getting that make up done again–a double was used). As is the prolific Max von Sydow as Father Merrin, in an even more diminished role. Richard Burton dons the cassock as a priest struggling with his faith. And Louise Fletcher, fresh off of her Academy Award win for Best Actress, plays a doctor with some peculiar methods.

Nothing makes sense in Exorcist II. But that aspect is what kind of makes the film great. Great is a strong word. Memorable? Pseudo-science abounds as Fletcher’s character Dr. Gene Tuskin uses some sort of flashing light, high to low tones, and brain wave measurements to “synchronize” with Regan. When Burton’s priest character Father Lamont connects with Regan, he finds the demon Pazuzu still within her. From there, we are treated to a whole lot of nonsense, including but not limited to James Earl Jones dressed up like a locust, Father Merrin’s African adventures, and a return to the MacNeil residence in Georgetown.

I was so taken back by what transpires that I almost feel like I need to watch the film again immediately with a different perspective. I can only imagine what audiences were thinking when they left the theater in 1977 after watching this one. Well, I’m sure they were thinking it was utter garbage. I’m trying to think of a modern comparison for such a change in tone from a blockbuster film and its sequel. The only one that comes to mind is The Blair Witch Project and Book of Shadows: Blair Witch II.

If nothing else, Exorcist II tries something rather than simply retreading the original story. Something films of today could attempt. I’m looking at you, Scream 7. 

April 10: Seagal vs. Von Sydow — One is a laughable martial artist. The other is a beloved acting legend. You choose whose movie you watch; it’s both of their birthdays.

“That’s for my wife. Fuck you and die!”

Steve Seagal movies are not subtle.

They are blunt-force trauma wrapped in a silk kimono and topped with a ponytail that defies the laws of physics.

LAPD Detective Mason Storm (Seagal) got too close to the truth. The wrong shady politician got tipped off, and some dirty cops blew their way into his house, killing his wife and putting him in a coma for seven years. During that time, he’s cared for only by Andy Stewart (Kelly LeBrock), a nurse who apparently thinks the best way to revive a comatose patient is to let kittens walk all over him. Keep in mind that at this point in the movie, Seagal looks like White Jesus and is super sweaty. 

Lt. O’Malley (Frederick Coffin) is the real MVP here, keeping Storm hidden and legally dead” while he rots in a hospital bed. When Storm finally wakes up—recovering through acupuncture (this is during the Japanese phase of Seagal and shoutout to Bad Movie Bible for pointing this out), herbs, and sheer ego — O’Malley is there to reveal he’s been raising Storm’s son this whole time. Is O’Malley going to die just to provide more revenge grist for the mill? You know it. No one survives being Steven Seagal’s best friend.

The final boss is Senator Vernon Trent (William Sadler), who ends the movie with a shotgun in his mouth before it is directed at his groin. This comes after Seagal spends ninety minutes barely selling for anyone. Even after being riddled with bullets earlier in the film, Mason Storm treats a coma like a minor case of the Mondays.

Seagal did not get along with director Bruce Malmuth (the ring announcer for The Karate Kid and the director of Nighthawks), saying, “I think it’s a miracle that this guy can put one foot in front of the other.” Whatever happened to Malmuth’s cut of the film, Warner Bros. demanded the movie be heavily cut and re-edited to a 90-minute running time to maximize how many times a day it could play. There’s a legend that an alternate ending was also filmed, in which Storm kills Trent and says, “Take that to the bank.” He also supposedly set the big bad on fire inside a fireplace.

More potential IMDbs: “When it came time to film this scene, Seagal, director Bruce Malmuth and several of the producers got into a spat, leading to Seagal storming off set and into his trailer, upset. It was William Sadler himself who suggested Storm shoot at his groin and miss, making an insulting comment about his small genitalia. The producers liked the idea and sent Sadler to Seagal’s trailer to pitch it, feeling that he would not have listened to them if they had brought it to his attention. Seagal liked Sadler’s idea, returned to the set, and they filmed this ending instead in just a few hours, putting the matter to rest.”

This movie’s original title was Seven Year Storm. Warner Bros. changed it. But Seagal gets marketing. His line “I’m gonna take you to the bank, Senator Trent… the blood bank,” wasn’t even in the original script. It was all ad-lib and ended up in the trailer.

I would put this on the “good” side of the Seagal equation. There’s a lot of him cracking bones and cracking jokes, usually at the same time. It also reminds you that at one point, Seagal was married to LeBrock and for that, we should respect him. A little, I guess.

It also follows the Cobra playbook of going totally overboard in a convenience store. That’s how you do an action movie: put the hero in a situation we’ve all been in, let him decimate some jobbers, and never — ever — let him show weakness. Seagal lives up to the title; he doesn’t just survive a coma, he treats it like when you wake up with your arm still asleep.

Hard to Kill was remade twice in Turkey as Cheetah Ram and Shastra.

April 9: Do You Like Hitchcock? — Write about one of his movies.

After Torn Curtain and Topaz were failures, Alfred Hitchcock went back to murder. After those two espionage films, this was an actual Hitchcock film, one in which former RAF squadron leader Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a man with a history of angry bursts of violence, becomes the prime suspect in the Necktie Murders, which have actually — way too early spoiler — been committed by his friend, Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). 

Yet this is a film of firsts. It’s the only Hitchcock film to receive an R rating in the U.S. during its initial release, and it would be the first time nudity appeared in one of his movies. Those scenes, which are also filled with detailed murders, were so harsh that actresses Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anna Massey refused to be in them. Body doubles did the job instead.

Hitchcock, ever the technician, used a Linhof Technika camera for many of the film’s ultra-tight close-ups, capturing the grit of early 70s London. He also returned to his roots, filming on location at Covent Garden, where his father had been a vegetable merchant. You can almost smell the rotting produce and the stale ale.

The first victim we meet is Brenda Blaney (Leigh-Hunt), Richard’s ex-wife, who runs a dating service. They’ve already turned down Rusk, as he’s a pervert, so when he comes back, he quickly assaults and strangles her. Her secretary comes back from lunch, just in time to see Richard wandering around, trying to get in. When the body is found, he’s now a suspect. He hides with a former co-worker, Babs Milligan (Massey); they have sex, and hours later, she runs into Rusk, who kills her as well.

In a time before DNA evidence, Richard is totally screwed. He even goes to prison for the crime and escapes, only to make his way back to Rusk’s flat to find another dead body in the bed. Luckily, Rusk comes back to the scene of the crime just in time to be caught by Inspector Timothy Oxford (Alec McCowan).

One of the film’s most famous sequences involves Rusk trying to retrieve a monogrammed tie pin from the rigor-mortis-clutched hand of a corpse hidden in a potato truck. It took three days to film that scene, and Foster (Rusk) actually had to endure being covered in real potato dust, which is apparently quite the skin irritant.

Michael Caine was Hitchcock’s first choice for the role of Rusk, but said, “He offered me the part of a sadist who murdered women, and I won’t play that. I have a sort of moral thing, and I refused to play it, and he never spoke to me again.” This does not explain why he plays a woman killer in Dressed to Kill. Spoilers again, huh?

In the article “Frenzy at 50: The most violent film Hitchcock ever made,” Mark Allison writes, “On the surface, this project bore everything that audiences could expect from the ageing auteur – a murdered blonde and an innocent man clearing his name, served with lashings of suspense – but with the greater permissiveness of early 1970s cinema came a much nastier tone than Hitchcock had ever attempted before. Without fear of censorship and facing competition from a new wave of exploitation cinema, from U.S. splatter horror to the Italian giallo, Hitchcock unleashed all his voyeuristic impulses on this shockingly brutal film. The result is, perhaps, just the sort of horribly graphic murder story that he’d always wanted to make, if only he’d been allowed.”

Speaking of gialli, Dario Argento was proclaimed the man who “out Psycho-ed Psycho,” if we are to believe the newspaper ads for The Cat o’Nine Tails.

Yet here’s Hitchcock making a giallo, a film about a strangler who uses neckties, just like a movie that would follow the very next year, Torso. For me, it’s nowhere near the excesses of the Italian psychosexual killer genre, even if Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia thought it was so disturbing that she wouldn’t allow her children to watch it.

Roger Ebert said, “Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy is a return to old forms by the master of suspense, whose newer films have pleased movie critics but not his public. This is the kind of thriller Hitchcock was making in the 1940s, filled with macabre details, incongruous humor and the desperation of a man convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. The only 1970s details are the violence and the nudity (both approached with a certain grisly abandon that has us imagining Psycho without the shower curtain). It’s almost as if Hitchcock, at seventy-three, was consciously attempting to do once again what he did better than anyone else.”

April 8: Zoo Lover’s Day — You know what that means. Animal attack films!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey. His April Movie Thon list is here.

Louisiana has many problems, one of which is an invasive species of rat called nutria. These pests are indigenous to South America, but ended up in Louisiana in the 1930s in an attempt to cultivate a fur industry. It did not result in a profitable, lucrative market, and many of the creatures were released into the wild (along with a hurricane in the 1940s that provided an escape for the nutria). Turns out that the climate and environment of South Louisiana was ideal for the proliferation of the animal, and they began to destroy the wetlands and the overall ecosystem of the area.

As a native of Louisiana, I can tell you that there is always a solution to any vermin problem–if you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em! And that’s just what New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme attempted to do in the 1990s. He had already basically decimated the redfish population in Louisiana’s waters by serving it blackened with a ramekin of butter on the side. Perhaps he could rebrand nutria into the next local delicasse. Slip it into a gumbo. An ètouffèe. Simply batter it and fry it. Heck, put it in the school lunches. It tastes like chicken, right? In this case, rabbit or turkey.

Turns out even people from Louisiana will not eat just anything. Or at least not pay top dollar for it in a fancy restaurant. Cajuns in South Louisiana, as put on display in the regional eco-thriller Terror in the Swamp, would have no issues catching anything that moves and finding a use for all of the animal’s parts. As two characters joke in the film, “How many Cajuns does it take to catch a possum? Two. One to catch it, and one to watch for cars”. Poor Boudreaux and Thibodeaux. Will they never learn?

In Terror in the Swamp, the thought of nutria as a food source does not really play a role in the plot. Instead, it is all about the fur. Some biologists have released something that has mutated a nutria into a Bigfoot-type monster stalking the bayou. Once a reward for the beast is posted, every redneck in the parish is ready with their shotgun and their boat. Just be sure to have the proper hunting license so you do not get into trouble with the game warden.

Unfortunately, Terror in the Swamp is not as exciting as I had hoped. Directed by Joe Catalanotto, the influence that Charles B. Pierce had on him is very evident. While Catalanotto worked on The Town That Dreaded Sundown, it is Pierce’s The Legend of Boggy Creek and springs to mind every time you see a man in a hairy suit traipsing about the Louisiana bayou. Couldn’t we have at least gotten a close up of those carrot-orange teeth nutria have?

Even as a defender of Louisiana regional horror, I cannot get too excited to recommend Terror in the Swamp to anyone. Unless you are from Louisiana I guess. It’s always nice to have some sort of representation on screen. To those who are starving, even the bitter tastes sweet. Speaking of starving, I could go for a little something. I wonder how nutria would taste in a jambalaya? Probably pretty good as long as you season it properly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. You can listen to her podcast at https://thecinemajunction.com. 

Her latest book is Japanese Cult Cinema: Best of the Second Golden Age. She writes for Horror & Sons and Drive-in Asylum. She has also appeared on the podcasts Japan on Film, Making Tarantino, Making Scorsese, The Rad Revivalhouse and contributes to Cinemaforce. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or follow her on Instagram @jennxlondon. 

April 8: Zoo Lover’s Day — You know what that means. Animal attack films!

The artwork on the VHS cover for this hard-to-find early ‘80s thriller promises a vicious ghost monster dog. First, we get a better-than-average look at the horrors of renting a room in a shared house in the middle of the woods in Texas. 

The movie begins with the handsome Ken moving into the old stone manor and getting to know the other six tenants. Mitch Pileggi (The X-Files) plays Woody, the roommate from Hell. A “macho” guy in the attic room who delights in bullying the others and playing practical jokes. What an asshole. I would most definitely put cayenne pepper on his doorknob if I lived in this house. 

Then there’s Eisenhower or “Ike.” A war-obsessed whiny postal worker with a vicious dog who looks like a young Howard Stern. Ike is carrying a torch for Sharon – one of two unfortunate women who live in the house. We also have Jerry. A nice, young guy who indexes books for a living. The most horrifying job in all of publishing.  Jerry is terrified of dogs, having been bit by one as a child. He’s nervous and prone to nightmares so naturally, he’s the first character to sense when something supernatural is going on. Of course, no one believes him. 

Woody shoots Ike’s dog when it bites someone. He later digs it up and puts in Ken’s bed as a practical joke when Sharon starts giving Ken attention. 

The joke goes awry and Ken is accidentally electrocuted by an old lamp introduced as a clear health and safety violation in the first scene. 

The next night, Woody’s new puppy is disemboweled by an invisible growling entity. It also kills Ike. 

When a detective comes to take statements, Landlord Aldo Ray bursts through the door in all his Aldo glory demanding to know “What have these people done this time?” Ray’s commitment to playing his character with utter contempt toward his tenants is part of the reason why I enjoyed this movie immensely. 

We’ve all had a slumlord like this, right? The kind that doesn’t replace faulty lamps and then gets pissed off when people get electrocuted because, “It’ll give me a bad name!” Later, he bursts out of the bushes with a flashlight under his face at 4:30 am and summarily evicts everyone with no paperwork. No notice? “My shotgun’s all the notice I need!” I seriously love watching older actors portraying grumpy characters later in their careers. Ray Milland, are you listening? Aldo is giving you a run for your money in this film. 

The finale features a nice twist ending where there’s no ghost dog at all. It’s Jerry who turns out to be the worst kind of roommate a person can possibly have. He’s not a werewolf. He’s a feral maniac. Aldo dispatches Jerry with his boomstick, saves Sharon and the credits roll. Landlord Aldo was right. All he needed was his shotgun. We should have listened. 

There’s very little gore here. The movie functions best when it’s simply showing us the characters interact. All the actors are fully onboard with this movie. It’s a shame Robert A. Burns didn’t write or direct another feature-length project. Its dark, dry humor struck the perfect tone. Fingers crossed a boutique label puts this one out someday! 

You can watch it here, complete with a set of great trailers from the original VHS: https://www.facebook.com/TCSMFilmLocations/videos/robert-a-burns-mongrel-1982/1647824725372338/

April 8: Zoo Lover’s Day — You know what that means. Animal attack films!

Mai (Sombat Metanee) was once on the side of the law but is now a mercenary and the leader of a gang that uses rampaging elephants to get their way. But when his pregnant wife Shu (Aranya Namwong) is taken by an even more evil criminal (keep in mind they have stolen her back and forth throughout this movie), he must work with corrupt cop Ching Ming (Yodchai Meksuwan) to rescue her.

This is kind of a Western. While most Westerns give you horse chases, this movie gives you elephants flipping cars like they’re made of cardboard and stomping goons into the dirt. In the most did I really just see that moment of the film, one unlucky stuntman gets slapped across the face with — and there’s no polite way to put this — elephant cock. It’s the kind of practical effect you just don’t get in Hollywood.

I usually associate huts exploding with the Filipino action boom of the 80s, but Thailand was light-years ahead in the blowing up grass-roofed real estate department, if this movie is to be believed. 

The version floating around on Tubi is dubbed by a single voice actor who sounds like he’s reading a grocery list while recovering from a mild sedative. He provides the voices for the hero, the villain and possibly the elephants. He was likely dubbing five other features that afternoon and had a bus to catch, so we have to cut him some slack.

Also known as Rumbling the Elephant and Kill for the Truth, this has proved what I have always believed. Elephants make everything better. Whether they are being used as tactical assault vehicles, just hanging out in the background of a shootout or just standing still while a man runs face-first into their veiny pricks, they bring a dignity to the screen that the human actors just can’t match.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 7: Jackie Day — Celebrate Jackie Chan’s birthday!

While the world celebrates the man, the myth, and the jumping-off-buildings legend, there’s no better way to honor Jackie Chan than by revisiting the high-octane, bone-crunching sequel that defined his Golden Era: Police Story 2.

If the first film was a lightning bolt, the sequel is a sustained thunderstorm of choreography and pyrotechnics. Here is a deeper look into the chaos, the comedy, and the literal blood, sweat, and tears that went into this masterpiece.

Chan Ka-kui (Jackie) is back in a film directed and co-written by Jackie. After Police Story, he’s been demoted to highway patrol, a change that delights his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung), who is thrilled. No more death-defying stunts, just speeding tickets. But peace is short-lived. The man he arrested, Chu Tu (Chor Yuen) and his henchman John Ko (Charlie Cho) have already been released from prison, as Chu Tu claims that he only has months to live. During that time, he plans to ruin Chan Ka-Kui’s life.

After they keep trying to get him to snap, he finally does once John Ko and some bad guys beat up May and her aunt (Lisa Chiao Chiao). He finds them in a restaurant and gets revenge, but is so embarrassed that he resigns from the police. He and May plan a vacation, but he can’t even go to a travel agency without a bomb threat calling him back to duty, just in time for the mall to blow up. At least he’s seen as a hero and welcomed back to the Royal Hong Kong police.

Now he has four new enemies —  Tall Pau Hung (Ben Lam), Ken (Yun-Kin Chow) and two bomb experts, one who is both deaf and mute (Benny Lai) — and by the end of the movie, they’ve kidnapped May and forced Jackie to wear a vest covered with explosives. 

Jackie learned to put bloopers at the end of the movie after making Cannonball Run. He didn’t really understand that these bloopers shouldn’t be life-threatening. In a terrifying sequence involving falling metal frames, a stunt went sideways. Maggie Cheung suffered a massive scalp laceration. The injury was so severe that she couldn’t finish filming her close-ups, which is why, in the final act, May is often seen from behind or with her face obscured. That’s actually Crystal Kwok filling in.

Jackie himself didn’t escape unscathed. During a stunt in which he was supposed to jump through a pane of glass, he accidentally aimed for the wrong one. Unlike the sugar glass used in Hollywood, this was real, thick glass, resulting in severe cuts across his body.

While Jackie is the face of the franchise, the Jackie Chan Stunt Team is the backbone. Mars (Cheung Wing-fat), Jackie’s long-time friend and stunt double, is the MVP here. Not only does he play a fellow officer, but he also stepped in for some of the most dangerous physical impacts. That iconic, wince-inducing moment where a character is kicked through a bus windshield? That’s all Mars.

Man, they could have made twenty of these movies and I would have seen every one of them. Police Story 2 perfectly balances Jackie’s signature slapstick with stakes humor and some of the most intricate playground-style fighting ever put to film (the playground fight itself is a masterclass in using the environment as a weapon).

It’s a reminder that back in the late 80s, Jackie Chan wasn’t just making movies. He was barely surviving them. Happy birthday, Jackie!