John Larson (Ian Jacklin) has lost a friend to the underground fighting world. Man, the fight clubs from the early direct-to-video 90s continue to make me so happy to watch old films that no one cares about but me. Anyway, Ian Jacklin was a karate champ, and that was enough in 1994 to get him to star in a movie.
Nick Wallace (Nicholas Hill) and John work in physical labor jobs, but there’s no money to be made working on the docks. The union has been on strike, and they’re down on their luck. It’s tough—so tough. So John leaves town, and Nick goes into the fighting world, and that brings John back to save his pal.
Paul Landis (Martin Kove) is a fight promoter who pals around with his main fighter, Mark Vanik (Matthias Hues, who is on the poster instead of the star), who finds them going around and blowing up other mob bosses like Jimmie Fratello (Richard Lynch). Yes, Richard Lynch is in this movie just long enough to reach the 90s video union rules for getting his name in the credits.
With the help of reporter Danielle Richardson (Renee Allman), fight promoter Big Man (Bob Wyatt, the director of Rhonda Sheer’s Tender Loving Careand one of the writers), neighborhood tomboy Tommy (Michele “Mouse” Krasnoo from Kickboxer 4) and Benny “The Jet” Urquidez playing himself, John will search for his missing friend. Is it silly for me to see this as two male couples fighting each other instead of just celebrating that love between them would solve things? This is not unfounded: Kove and Hues’ characters straight up get a massage together and watch the fights like an old couple taking in the theater. Bless them, I want them to be happy.
This has Brick Bronsky, Madusa and Tony “Ludvig Borga” Halme, three pro wrestlers, as bad guys, plus Lisa London (Rocky from Savage Beach), porn star Dick Nasty billed as Peter “Sugarfoot” London in a fight with Ed Neal (who played Lord Zedd), direction by Joe Coppoletta (who did episodes of Knots Landing and Falcon Crest before this movie), a script co-written by Steve Tymon (Fraternity Demon, Mirror, Mirror III: The Voyeur, John T. Bone’s Dark Secrets, the Ring of Fire movies) and the feeling that this could be a off-brand Capcom beat ’em up (SNK? Irem?) come to life.
The beauty of made-for-TV movies is that they can be way, way weirder than anything you’ll ever see on the big screen. For a blast of pure insanity — as long as you can get your brain to agree with the major reality-bending events you’ll witness — you can’t go wrong with spending a little over an hour with Bad Ronald.
Originally airing on October 24, 1974, on the ABC Network, this film tells the sad tale of Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane), a kid who is a great artist and lives in a fantasy world. So far, he’s me at 15, all socially awkward and afraid of girls. Where he is not like me is that his dad left town and never came back, leaving him with an insanely overprotective mother (Kim Hunter, Zira from Planet of the Apes) who has some mystery disease and wants Ronald to go to med school and heal her. That seems like a lot of pressure. Maybe so much pressure that after getting the Heisman and being shut down by Laurie Matthews, the object of his affection, he shoves Laurie’s younger sister Carol. The little girl just keeps verbally abusing Ronald — trust me, I’ve had things twelve-year-old girls say hurt me to this day and gotten over every punch to my face — until he shoves her again, so hard that her head bounces off a concrete block. Boom. She’s dead.
Yep. In the 70s — and perhaps nowhere more so than in a 70s made-for-TV movie — life is cheap. So Ronald and his mom do what any normal person and normal mother would do — they bury the body, hide the evidence and even hide Ronald inside a concealed room. They hope everything will just blow over — even when the police come by with questions. Nosy neighbors be damned, her boy will be just fine, provided he stops drawing, does his studies, eats right and remembers his exercises.
It should work. Except she dies, leaving Ronald alone in the house with all his cans of food. Before you get to the next commercial, Ronald has totally escaped into a fantasy world of princes, princesses and demons. His house is sold to the Wood family — mom, dad (Dabney Coleman of Cloak and Dagger, 9 to 5, Tootsie and so much more) and three sisters — Babs, Althea and Ellen.
Ronald is running out of food and really needs human interaction. Babs becomes the princess of his dreams while her boyfriend, Duane Matthews, becomes his demon. Well, he’s already killed one of Duane’s sisters, and now he’s descended so far into pure mania that who can say what will happen next?
From Ronald murdering the old lady who keeps peeking into the house to his peepholes all over the place, this is a really disturbing slice of TV cinema. There’s a truly great scare when the girls finally see an eyeball inside of those holes. And it’s a nail-biter wondering if they can escape Ronald, who finally makes his play for his princess when the parents leave town.
This is quite the effective little chiller, directed by Buzz Kulik, who was also in the chair for the incredibly famous Brian’s Song. It was remade in 1992 as Méchant Garçon, starring a young Catherine Hiegel. But man — we’re huge Scott Jacoby fans and will stick with the original!
BONUS: You can listen to the podcast we did on Bad Ronald!
Armando Crispino really only did two horror films, 1972’s The Dead Are Alive and this 1975 giallo, which is a shame, as this is a pretty decent entry in the genre. Known in Italy as Macchie Solari (Sunspots), it does indeed feature sunspot footage from space before we see any major murders. And if you’re looking for a movie packed with autopsy footage, good news. It totally lives up to its title.
Simona Sana (Mimsy Farmer, who is also in Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet and The Perfume of the Lady in Black; I am legally and ethically forced to remind you that she is a perfect angel somehow on Earth, a fragile flower of magic and splendor) is a pathology student who is trying to work on a theory about suicides, one that’s disputed by a young priest, Father Paul, whose sister — Simona’s dad’s latest fling — has recently killed herself. It turns out there’s been a whole series of self-killings which are being blamed on, you guessed it, sunspots.
I mean, what can you say about a movie that starts with several of said suicides, like sliced wrists, a self-induced car explosion and a man machine gunning his kids before turning the gun on himself? Obviously, this is a rather grisly affair, with real corpse photos spread — quite literally — throughout the film.
In between all of the gore, corpse penises, two bodies falling to their deaths and crime museums, there’s also Ray Lovelock (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) as Simona’s boyfriend, an out there Morricone score and a heroine who hallucinates that the dead are coming back to life.
The plot gets pretty convoluted, but if you’re on this site, you obviously appreciate films like this and will get past it. This is an Italian 70’s murder movie, though, so if you get easily upset about the way men behave, well, be forewarned.
Once, Ator was just a baby, born with the birthmark that prophesied that he’d grow up to destroy the Spider Cult, whose leader Dakar (a pro wrestler who appeared in Titanes en el Ring against Martín Karadagian) tries to kill before he even gets out of his chainmail diapers.
Luckily, Ator is saved and grows up big, strong and weirdly in love with his sister, Sunya. It turns out that, luckily, he’s adopted, so this is only morally and not biologically upsetting. His father allows them to be married, but the Spider Cult attacks the village and takes her, along with several other women.
Ator trains with Griba, the warrior who saved him as a child (he’s played by Edmund Purdom, the dean from Pieces!). What follows are pure shenanigans — Ator is kidnapped by Amazons, almost sleeps with a witch, undertakes a quest to find a shield and meets up with Roon (Sabrina Siani, Ocron from Fulci’s batshit barbarian opus Conquest), a sexy blonde thief who is in love with him.
Oh yeah! Laura Gemser, Black Emanuelle herself, shows up here too.
Ator succeeds in defeating Dakkar, only to learn that the only reason that Griba mentored him was to use him to destroy his enemy. That said, Ator defeats him too, leaving him to be eaten by the Lovecraftian-named Ancient One, a monstrous spider. But hey, Ator isn’t done yet. He kills that beast, too!
Finally, learning that Roon has died, Ator and Sunya go back to their village, ready to make their incestual union a reality. Or maybe not, as she doesn’t show up in the three sequels, The Blade Master, Iron Warrior and Quest for the Magic Sword.
Ator is played by Miles O’Keefe, who started his Hollywood career in the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan the Ape Man, a movie that Richard Harris would nearly fist fight people over if they dared mention it. He’s in all but the last of these films, and while D’Amato praised his physique and attitude, he felt that his fighting and acting skills left something to be desired.
Ator the Fighting Eagle pretty much flies by. It does what it’s supposed to do — present magic, boobs, sorcery and swordfights — albeit in a PG-rated film.
The first time I saw The Apple, I was in the throes of losing my job, starting a new company and feeling lost. This movie not only made me feel like I could go on but also inspired me to start writing more about films and why they mattered to me.
You know how everyone thinks Cannon put out some completely crazy movies? If you haven’t seen The Apple (also known as Star Rock), you haven’t seen their full power. Directed by Menahem Golan, this slice of sheer madness is a movie I use to test the resolve of anyone brave enough to watch movies with me.
The genesis of this film begins in 1975. Israeli rock producer Coby Recht was signed to Barclay Records and began to feel distrustful of show business. He worked this into a story with his wife, Iris Yotvat, and brought it to the attention of his longtime friend Menahem. After hearing the demos for the song, the producer/director instructed Recht to go to Los Angeles immediately. They were making the movie.
Yotvat said, “That was marvelous. That was just fantastic to think that it was going to be a movie all of a sudden. It was just amazing.”
It wasn’t going to stay that way.
Recht and Yotvat lived in a villa that Menahem provided, writing six screenplay drafts in three weeks. As those drafts progressed, the story became more comical and less Orwellian. Soon, things were getting corny, out of touch and out of date. If you’ve seen any of the movies that Golan was involved in, you can see how that might be true.
After auditioning thousands of hopefuls, Recht settled on Catherine Marie Stoutdatedhe lead role of Bibi. Who is a singer. Not a dancer, like Stewart. He figured she could learn, but the producers decided to have her voice dubbed.
Tensions only got worse once filming began, as what started as a $4 million movie turned into $10 million and then more. Editor Alain Jakubowicz claimed that Golan shot around a million feet of footage, with six cameras covering every dance number, up to a four-hour rough cut.
The movie got way bigger than its scriptwriters intended. Shooting in West Berlin lasted forever, with a five-day covering opening number, the song “Speed” being filmed at the Metropol nightclub (which held the world record for the biggest indoor laser show), and some scenes were actually shot inside a gas chamber that had killed people during World War II.
Nigel Lythgoe, who later was a big part of American Idol, choreographed the film, saying that some days were “really, really depressing” and others “very, very stressful.” The cast and crew hated the script, but here they were, making the film.
Menahem and Recht’s battles soon got worse. The writer felt he should be in London mixing the songs (the sessions had more than 200 artists involved), but Menahem demanded that he show up at the shoot. The first day he was there, he witnessed the uncut version “Paradise Day” which featured fifteen dinosaurs and a tiger that broke free and escaped. This scene also contained elephants getting their trunks stuck in the set, actors collapsing while wearing a t,oo hot brontosaurus costume and a set that made it near impossible for people to dance on and cameras to move around. Removing this scene makes the Biblical end of the movie come out of nowhere. That’s right. None of this is in the film.
nearlyerine Marie Stewart has stated that nonfor e of this rattled Menahem. In fact, he was convinced that The Apple was going to be embraced: “Menahem was very passionate about what he was doing. He had very lofty ideas about the project. He thought this was going to break him into the American film industry. It had, you know, all the elements that he thought were necessary at that time. It was the early eighties and there were a lot of musicals. And Menahe,m thought that was his ticket into the American film industry.”
So what happened?
The plot is basically Adam and Eve meets Faust. Bibi (Stewart) and Alphie (Georgmeetmour) are contestants in the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival. They’re talented but easily defeated by the machinations of Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal, Kronsteen in From Russian With Love) and BIM (Boogalow International Music).
The evil leader soon signs the duo but they soon fall victim to the darkness of show business. Bibi is caught up in the drugs and sex and glamour, while Alphie is beaten by cops and nearly dies to save her. He also lives with a woman who is either his mother, lover, or landlady, and no one ever explains to us.
Eventually, they escape and live as hippies, having a child. Mr. Boogalow finds them and claims that Bibi owes him $10 million, but soon God, known here as Mr. Topps (Joss Ackland, The House That Dripped Blood, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey), takes them away in his Rolls-Royce and the Rapture occurs.
There are numerous scenes where people put stickers, called BIM Marks, all over their faces. Everyone has camel toe. And the movie is nearly 100% disco.
The movie premiered at the 1980 Montreal World Film Festival. To say it did not go well is an understatement.
Attendees hated the film so much that they launched giveaway records of the soundtrack at the screen. Menahem was so devastated that he almost jumped off his hotel balcony before being saved by his business partner, Yoram Globus. A similar scene happened at the film’s second premiere at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood.
The director said, “It’s impossible that I’m so wrong about it. I cannot be that wrong about the movie. They just don’t understand what I was trying to do.”
I get it, Menahem. You were just trying to get people to understand the power of love and music and being hippies a full decade after any of that mattered. You didn’t care if anyone else got it. You had a vision. And we’re not talking about any of those critics today. No, we’re talking about you. We’re talking about The Apple.
This is a movie that wears its heart messily all over its spandex crotch. The songs are ridiculous. The dancing is, at times, poor. The story makes no sense at all. You’re lucky to sit and witness it. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched it!
BONUS! You can hear Becca and me talk all about The Apple on our podcast.
Also known as Five Savage Men, this starts with everyone on a stagecoach being killed, other than schoolteacher Alice McAndrew (Michele Carey, The Choirboys), who is assaulted and left for dead by Pudge Elliot (Keenan Wynn) and his henchmen, who include Peyote (Joe Turkel, not tending bar for Jack Nicholson) and Jamie (Pepper Martin). I mean, they crucify her to the ground in the desert before they do it and I get it, it’s a revengeomatic, but in the ways of Michael Winner — this was directed by Ron Joy and written by Richard Bakalyan — that assault goes on so long that we begin to feel complicit in it.
After they depart, Native American Chatto (Henry Silva, who was Sicilian and Spanish) rescues her — why didn’t he jump in sooner? — and not only brings her back to health, he also teaches her how to kill and becomes her lover, which seems kind of odd, but what do I know?
The law, led by Sheriff Allan Pierce (John Anderson), thinks Chatto is behind all of this. You can see where that is going. What you won’t expect is an acid rock soundtrack by Rupert Holmes, who had two hit songs about cheating, “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” and “Him.” I never knew that he created the AMC series Remember WENN.
I have a friend who loves James Storm so much that whenever someone complains, he always sends them a picture of him that says, “Sorry about your damn luck.” Even people in our friend group who have no idea who he is—a star for TNA Wrestling for some time—love him now.
In this, Storm plays former world champion Tommy Majic, who someone wants to see fight again, so they kidnap his wife Cindy (Tracey Birdsall). There’s also Suzi (Finnish rock star and stuntwoman Jessica Wolff), who was planning on a marriage of convenience to a rich man, breaking the heart of her fiancé, before men kidnap them and her friend from Japan, who has come to see her get married, Akira Fujiyama (Kaori Kawabuchi). They’re all now in Hotel Underground — they even kidnapped her mom (Christa Billich) — a place that is both an underground fight club and also a place where a man named Dr. Butcher (Big Bad Ralph) cuts people up and also pops out as if he were a character in a dark ride. Oh — there’s also Debi (Australian rock star and pro wrestler Nicole Sharrock), who wants to kill men who abuse women.
This is a movie made with plenty of pro wrestlers and stuntpeople, like Jessica Wolf and Erika Reid. Director Steve Ravic has worked with the same crew — and many of the same actors — on several of his films. In this, he’s making something with flashbacks, weird color patterns and layered edits. It’s kind of wild and also feels like it could have been a VCA movie from the 80s, quality-wise, just without sex. There are so many stories going on, sometimes all at once, but this isn’t something you see on streaming and think it will be the finest in cinema. Enjoy it for what it is — an underground fight club populated by pro wrestlers with issues. I feel like I have lived this.
Ms. 45 is a punk band that seems like they fight the audience as much as they play songs. Sisters Emma (Emily Alatalo) and Amy (Michelle Argyris) only get along when they’re on the stage, while Cassie (Kiriana Stanton) and Jill (Chelsea Muirhead) get along so well that they’re expecting a child. However, on their first tour, they run into Sam (Jason Rouse). They are soon recruited into the army of gladiators that battle for glory in his father, The Emperor’s (Julian Richings) kingdom, which is probably somewhere under Iowa.
But you know, with chainsaws for arms and robot legs, kind of like an import Tokyo Gore Police without the willingness to be as offensive as possible. Sure, faces get chainsawed off, and there’s one incredible moment — spoiler — where a fetus is kept in a jar, removed from one of the girls.
I did, however, like Driller (Ryan Allen), the only gladiator who has ever earned his freedom. And inside this, there’s plenty that could make a much better movie with a willingness to go further as well as be more authentic when it comes to how women actually relate to the world and how punk rock bands work. That said, you can shut your mind off and enjoy a movie where women somehow end up with robot parts in a junkyard empire that’s been around for a hundred years. It’s not perfect, but did you expect it to be?
Director Andrew Thomas Hunt is a partner in Raven Banner and has helped several Canadian projects be released.
When Tori (Chelsea Durkalec) is killed — maybe in Fight Valley, an underground MMA club and come on, she totally died there because why would this movie even get made and why would it be named Fight Valley otherwise — her sister Windsor (Susie Celek) moves back home and meets up with her girlfriend Duke (Erin O’Brien) and their friend group, which includes Yanni (Kari J. Kramer), and Jamie (Cabrina Collesides) — the Knock Around Girls — and starts to train with Jabs (Miesha Tate).
Fight Valley sounds better than Camden, New Jersey, right?
The sisters grew up on different sides of Jersey. Tori was with her dad, fighting in the streets, while Windsor was with her rich mom. So now Windsor has to get revenge and fight the big bad Church, played by MMA fighter Cris Cyborg.
Director and writer Rob Hawk has plenty of MMA stars on hand, like Amanda Serrano and Katlyn Chookagian, so the fights look good, even if the idea that a rich girl could defeat Cris Cyborg with a few weeks of training is hilarious. But hey — it is a movie.
There’s also plenty of “your sister was a lesbian, are you too?” content that you could say is representation, but it totally feels like exploitation. Your mileage may vary.
Elizabeth (Sherilyn Fenn) and Joseph (Doug Jones) have kidnapped fifty women, who will all fight to the death, or their loved ones will get shot by a sniper. The elite will watch the action, as they always do. How do these rich people build these underground empires filled with fight clubs?
Anyways, Zoë Bell plays Sabrina, an ex-military brawler, and this movie avoids what you’d expect — the women in prison things like nudity, showers and lesbian power games. Instead, it shocks you with — spoiler — Rachel Nichols getting killed off early and women who somehow learn how to do killing blows with no training at all. And this feels more like a torture porn movie than a fight tournament film.
There are some evil women, like Phoebe (Rebecca Marshall), good ones, such as Teresa (Tracie Thoms) and all in between, all fighting for, well, who knows why. Maybe because the rich and powerful, as I have learned by watching movies like this, love to watch poor people fight for their pleasure.
Speaking of Thoms and Bell, they were in Death Proof, along with Rosario Dawson, who has a small role in this.
Directed by Josh C. Waller and written by Robert Beaucage, this is pretty repetitive, with fight after fight. I can certainly suggest better rich empires having poor people fight for their twisted desires, but hey—it’s well made. You have to give it that.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.