EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie as Creepers — in 35mm! — on Tuesday, Jan. 31 at 8:00 PM at The Majestic Tempe 7 in Tempe, AZ. CV’s Jim Branscome in person will be in person (tickets here). For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

A monkey. A girl who can talk to bugs. Donald Pleasence. All directed by Dario Argento. If you don’t immediately say to yourself, “I’m in,” you’re reading the wrong website.

Within the movie’s first two minutes, you realize you’re watching an Argento film. A tourist misses her bus somewhere in the Swiss countryside before she is attacked by an unseen person and then beheaded.

Fast forward a bit, and we catch Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly, Labyrinth, The Rocketeer) arriving at the Richard Wagner Academy for Girls — did I tell you this is an Argento movie? The head of the school, Frau Brückner (Dario Nicolodi, Argento’s wife (at the time) and mother to his daughter Aria, who also co-wrote Suspiria and appeared in Deep Red, Inferno, Tenebre and Opera, amongst other films), already sets up an air of menace. Even her roommate offers no relief, telling Jennifer how much she wishes she could have sex with the heroine’s famous actor father. At this point, Jennifer relates a horrifying story about how her mother left her — it’s a moment of pure pain in a film that hasn’t led you to expect it. That’s because it’s a true story. The true story of how Dario Argento’s mother left his family.

Jennifer tends to sleepwalk, which leads her through the school and up to the roof, where she watches a student get murdered. She wakes up, falls and runs from the murderer, ending up in the woods where she’s rescued by Inga the chimp — again, did I mention this is an Argento film? Inga works for forensic entomologist John McGregor (Pleasence). Argento was inspired by the fact that insects are often used in crime investigations to learn how old a body is and worked that into this film. McGregor knows that Jennifer can talk to the bugs.

After returning to the school, things go from bad to worse. Jennifer’s roommate is murdered, and a firefly leads our sleepwalking protagonist to a glove covered by Great Sarcophagus flies, which eat decaying human flesh, which can only mean that the killer is keeping his body — again, Argento.

At this point, Phenomena pays tribute to Carrie, with the other students making fun of her regarding her love of bugs. She calls a swarm of flies into the building, and it collapses, which leads to Frau Brückner recommending her to a home for the criminally insane. Luckily, Jennifer runs to McGregor, who gives her a bug in a glass case that she can use to track the murderer. Again, you know who. The bug leads Jennifer to the same house we saw at the film’s beginning.

Meanwhile, McGregor is killed after Inga is locked outside. True fact: the chimpanzee who played Inga, Tanga, sounds like she was uncontrollable. She ran away for an entire evening of the shoot and nearly bit off one of Jennifer Connelly’s fingers.

Let me see if I can sum up the craziness that ensues: Jennifer calls her father’s lawyer for help, who ends up bringing Frau Brückner back into this mess, who tries to poison Jennifer and then knocks her out with a piece of wood. She then KOs a cop before Jennifer escapes, going through a dungeon and a basement until she falls into a pool that is packed with maggot-ridden corpses. This is the point in the film where you may want to stop eating because it gets rather intense from here on out. As Jennifer escapes that watery tomb, she hears someone crying. That someone is Frau’s son, who was born from a rape. Jennifer asks him why she thinks he’s a monster, to which he turns to face her and scares the fucking shit out of her. Seriously, it’s jolting — the kid has Patau Syndrome, a real chromosomal abnormality (it’s makeup in the film, but looks quite true to life). He then chases Jennifer into a motorboat, but at the last second, she calls a swarm of flies to attack him. He falls into the water, and the boat explodes, and he dies, and…whew.

I know this film is 32 years old, but I will leave some spoiler space here because what happens next is crazy.

Jennifer reaches the shore just as her father’s lawyer arrives. All well, all good and then, out of nowhere, Frau cuts the dude’s head clean off. Plus, she’s already killed the cop, and she goes absolutely shithouse.

“He was diseased, but he was my son! And you have… Why didn’t I kill you before? I killed that no-good inspector and your professor friend to protect him! And now… I’m gonna KILL YOU TO AVENGE HIM! Why don’t you call your INSECTS! GO ON! CALL! CALL!”

At this point, Inga, the chimpanzee, comes out of nowhere and kills Frau with a razor. Keep in mind that this is not just one cut. This is a simian who knows how to get the murder business done.

Jennifer and Inga hug. Roll the credits.

Phenomena was the last Argento movie to get significant distribution in the U.S., thanks (or no thanks) to New Line Cinema, which played it here as Creepers. This version is 33 minutes shorter than the original and has so many scenes shuffled that it makes little or no sense. Also, unlike other Argento films, Goblin only has two songs in this, as modern bands like Iron Maiden and Motörhead are featured.

I love this movie. It makes little sense, but you don’t walk into an Italian horror film expecting narrative structure. You hope to see some crazy gore, some interesting death scenes and maggots — all things that this film more than delivers. I’m not the only fan of this flick — the Japanese video game Clock Tower is an homage to this film, even featuring a heroine named Jennifer.

BONUS: We did a podcast all about this movie, and you can hear it here:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie on Monday, January 9 at 7:00 PM at the Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles (tickets here). For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

Also known as 7. Hyden Park – La casa maledetta (7 Hyde Park – The Cursed House), this movie comes to us from Alberto De Martino, the man who made The Antichrist, Strange Shadows in an Empty Room, Miami Golem and Holocaust 2000.

David Warbeck plays Craig, who has recently married Joanna, a woman crippled by mental and physical issues. Well, she’s in a wheelchair, but still comes to him to learn fencing and archery, so she’s trying to stay active.

That said, there’s something horrible that’s happened in her past, but guess what? Something horrible is happening now too. That’s because after Craig gets that ring, he plans on killing her for her riches.

That horrifying event, by the way, was when a faceless priest tried to give our heroine a doll and then decided to take things a little too far. As he chased her, she fell down the steps and broke her back, which is why she’s in a wheelchair now. And as for the priest, he may be dead or he may be the person who is dressed in vestments and carrying the doll from her childhood.

Also: there’s a good chance that if Craig churns some butter with her, she’ll have a heart attack when her body relives the abuse. I can promise you that there was no mental health counselor or expert on this film to verify this diagnosis.

If the house that is so cursed looks familiar, that’s because Phantom of Death and Body Puzzle were both shot there. Also, if your ears hear something they have before, that’s because Francesco De Masi decided to reuse some of his theme for The New York Ripper and thought that no one would notice.

Also known as Monster of the Deep and Hydra, this movie is somehow from 1985 with a very 1955 concept: an American bomber drops a bomb into the ocean to keep it out of Russian hands and releases an ancient prehistoric monster. That beast destroys the ship of Captain Pedro Fontán (Timothy Bottoms) and his first mate Lemaris (Jared Martin), who refuses to tell anyone of the monster and cost Pedro his ship. While all that drama is happening, Margaret Roberts (Taryn Power) watches her friend Jill (Carole James) get eaten by the sea serpent and goes insane, but Pedro believes her and decides to break her loose because, well, look who am I to try and tell director and writer Amando de Ossorio how to make a movie? Oh, I didn’t to ruin the secret, I mean Gregory Greens.

Ray Milland also plays a marine biologist, Jack Taylor shows up because it’s a Spanish horror movie and then everyone just lets the Nessie swim off like no harm no foul. But hey — this has a giant water warm with big eyes headbutting a helicopter and if that doesn’t make you smile, I have no real clue what will. You know how you will know that de Ossorio directed this? The monster screams every time it appears.

Director Leon Klimovsky shows up and somewhere along the line, you realize this is more Jaws than Godzilla. It’s so ridiculous that you can’t help but love it. I mean, most of the monster footage is a hand puppet. That’s pretty great.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve featured these amazing Cannon movies before, but Kino Lorber has put out an incredible box set of blu ray discs featuring newly remastered in 4K and 2K versions of each film., as well as audio commentary for Missing in Action with director Joseph Zito, moderated by filmmaker Michael Felsher; an interview with Missing In Action screenwriter James Bruner; new commentary of Missing In Action 2 by director Lance Hool, moderated by historian/filmmaker Daniel Kremer; new commentary for Braddock: Missing In Action by action film historians Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; and trailers for all three movies. You can buy the box set from Kino Lorber or each film individually: Missing In Action, Missing In Action 2 and Braddock: Missing In Action.

Missing In Action (1984): Once upon a time, the story goes that James Cameron wrote a treatment for Rambo: First Blood Part II and everyone in Hollywood wanted to make it. The people that wanted to make it the most were our beloved friends at Cannon, who somehow rushed this out two months before Stallone’s character returned to rescue the POWs still left behind.

Cannon may have not been at the level of working with a star of Stallone’s calibre — and pricetag — as of yet, but they would be.

As for star Chuck Norris, he was approached to make the film by Lance Hool and the idea of making a movie that redeemed American soldiers in Vietnam spoke to him, as his brother Wieland died during the conflict. “Vietnam was a tragic mistake. If you don’t want to win the battle, don’t get involved,” said Norris.

Hool and Norris took the project to Cannon Films, who liked the project, and seeing as how they already had a similar script in development, they signed Norris to be in not one, but two movies. Except that the movie intended to be the first movie, the Hool-directed version, ended up being the prequel, released under the confusing title of Missing in Action 2: The Beginning.

But man, talk about stacking the deck. The film that was the sequel that became the first movie — welcome to the world of Cannon — was directed by Joseph Zito, who mastered the slasher genre between The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter before making this as well as the perhaps even better — or wilder — Invasion U.S.A. and Red Scorpion.

This movie is everything Cannon in one film, outside of hiring someone like John Cassavetes to direct it or Norman Mailer to write it.

Colonel James Braddock (Norris) is a US military officer who spent seven long years in a North Vietnamese POW camp — if you want to see that, watch Missing in Action 2: The Beginning — a place that he somehow escaped a decade ago. Against the objections of Senator Maxwell Porter, he joins a government team that has come to meet Vietnamese officials in Ho Chi Minh City about the existence of still-living American POWs.

I love that Braddock has no time for the normal action hero cliches of romance. When he’s invited by Ann Fitzgerald (Lenore Kasdorf, Amityville Dollhouse) up to her room for a nightcap, she feigns mock indignation as he strips down, thinking that she’s about to get some of that sweet Chuck Norris karate directly below her belt. She turns and sees him dressed in full black commando gear, ready to climb out her window and start doing some work.

In order to get the dirt he needs on General Vinh (Ernie Ortega) and General Tran (James Hong, always a welcome actor in any movie), he must go into Thailand and recruit his old buddy Jack “Tuck” Tucker (M. Emmet Walsh), who has become the king of the black market. Then, Chuck does what Chuck does, including blowing up more of the Phillippines than ten other movies shot there and the famous moment when Chuck rises from the water holding a M60 machine gun and blowing gigantic holes in nearly everyone.

“One of the biggest thrills of my life came when I went to a theatre to see Missing in Action, and all the people stood up and applauded at the end. That’s when my character brings some POWs he’s just rescued to a conference in Saigon, where the politicians are saying there aren’t any more prisoners of war,” said Chuck. And you know, more than thirty years later, as I watch this movie on my couch, I shouted in pure joy out loud and I’m pretty much so left wing that I’ve become right and then left again.

Such is the magic that is Chuck Norris.

Missing In Action 2: The Beginning (1985): Only with Cannon can you have the sequel be the prequel when it was supposed to be the first movie. The Joseph Zito-made Missing In Action was considered to be the better of the two movies, so this one was turned into the second movie, but everything worked out pretty OK.

This was directed by Lance Hool, who sold the script to Chuck Norris, who was looking for a movie to pay tribute to his brother Wieland, who had died in Vietnam. They took the script to Cannon, who had a Vietnam POW movie in development, so that’s how we got two movies so quickly. Also, I’m amazed that Vietnam movies were impossible to make in Hollywood before Stallone and Norris changed everything.

Years before he freed US POWs in the first film, Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris was tortured in a North Vietnamese POW by Colonel Yin (Soon-Teck Oh, who was also in Good Guys Wear Black). He and his fellow soldiers have been forced to grow opium and if they want to be released, Braddock has to confess to war crimes. I mean, it’s Chuck Norris. Do you think he’s going to do that?

Yet that’s exactly what Captain David Nester (Steven Williams, X from The X-Files) believes should happen and he’s joined the side of the enemy as they subject the Americans to torture like guns being shoved in their faces and fired with no bullets. Then, after a fight that Braddock beats Nestor in, he gets a live rat dropped in a bag covering his face while they tell him that his wife thinks he’s dead and has remarried.

That’s also not a fake rat.

Then, to add even more pain, Braddock exchanges an admission of guilt to Yin’s charges of war crimes in order to get medicine for Franklin, a soldier with malaria. Yin overdoses the soldier with opium and burns him in front of Braddock, who escapes from the camp and — as you can imagine — murders every single other soldier, which includes pro wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka.

This came out three months after the first movie but still made $11 million at the box office.

For more info on all three Missing In Action movies, get Austin Trunick’s The Cannon Film Guide Volume 1: 1980-1984.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode about Missing In Action 2: The Beginning here.

Braddock: Missing In Action 3 (1988): Directed by Chuck’s brother Aaron and this time, Norris is Colonel James Braddock all over again, but we’ve discovered that his wife Lin Tan Cang (Miki Kim) isn’t dead, a fact that Reverend Polanski (Yehuda Efroni, Cannon utility fielder) imparts his way. And there’s another surprise. He has a 12-year-old son, Van Tan Cang (Roland Harrah III).

Don’t get used to having a wife Braddock.

Before you can say “Cannon pictures,” Vietnamese General Quoc (Aki Aleong) kills Lin and has his soldiers take Braddock and Van to be tortured.

The real co-star of this movie is Chuck’s Heckler & Koch G3 with grenade launcher and shooting bayonet. While Chuck used to base his movies on Reader’s Digest, this time he was looking to 20/20 for material.

This was supposed to be directed by Joe Zito, then Jack Smight, but after all the creative differences, it all worked out with Aaron. Chuck told reporters that “It’s probably the best movie I’ve ever done.”

Sadly, a Philipines Air Force helicopter used in this film crashed into Manila Bay, an accident that killed four soldiers and wounded five other people on the same day that the verdict from Twilight Zone: The Movie case was delivered in Los Angeles Superior Court.

This may not live up to the first two films, but it’s still pretty entertaining. Sadly, Cannon was in so much financial trouble that they couldn’t even afford to publicize it, which nearly caused Norris to sue the company.

For more info on all three Missing In Action movies, get Austin Trunick’s The Cannon Film Guide Volume 1: 1980-1984.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode about this film, click here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on December 23, 2017.

After the father-and-son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind finished up with Superman III and Supergirl, what else was left but to explain the mysteries of Santa Claus to children all over the world?

Who should direct should an endeavor? How about John Carpenter? No, really. However, the auteur wanted to have a hand in the writing, musical score and final cut of the movie. Plus, he wanted to cast Brian Dennehy as Santa.

Other directors included multiple James Bond series director Lewis Gilbert, The Sound of Music director Robert Wise and again, another James Bond series director (and the man in the chair for Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins), Guy Hamilton.

Finally, Supergirl director Jeannot Szwarc was selected. He’d also directed Jaws 2 and Somewhere in Time. He had a great relationship with the Salkinds and TriStar Pictures.

The result? A movie that got horrible reviews and made half of its budget back.

But hey — sometimes bombs are great. So let’s get into it.

Back in the past, Santa (David Huddleston, The Big Lewbowski himself) is a woodcarver who takes his wife Anya (Judy Cornwell, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?) and reindeer, Donner and Blitzen, into the snow to deliver gifts to children. One night, though, the snow is too much and they all die. The end.

The movie would be pretty depressing if this is where it all ended. Instead, they are transported to the ice mountains at the top of the world, some Shangri-La-type place where Dr. Strange and Iron Fist got his powers. They meet a whole bunch of elves, including Dooley (one of the blind men in 1972’s Tales from the Crypt), the inventor elf Patch (Dudley Moore, Arthur) and Puffy (Sean Combs). Our hero learns that his destiny is to deliver gifts every Christmas Eve, along with an entire team of reindeer. Finally, as the holiday approaches, the Ancient One (Burgess Meredith, The Devil’s Rain!)  — I told you this was Dr. Strange — renames our hero as Santa Claus.

PS — Anthony O’Donnell really played Puffy.

Fast forward to modern times and Santa is exhausted. His wife suggests he get an assistant and a competition between Patch and Puffy ends with Patch winning, but his modern machine makes work that isn’t up to Santa’s standards.

Santa meets some kids — a New York City orphan named Joe and a rich girl named Cornelia — and Patch quits his job and starts working for B.Z. (John Lithgow, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension), an unsafe toymaker that Congress is trying to shut down. Patch takes reindeer feed and makes lollipops that allow children to fly, allowing B.Z. to create a new holiday on March 25 — Christmas 2. This all makes Santa pretty sad, as Patch is becoming the new face of Christmas. Or Christmas 2. Look, I don’t know.

The newest toy for Christmas 2 will be candy canes that allow kids to fly (why a different product shape is needed is never really discussed), but when they are exposed to heat, they explode. B.Z. and Towzer (Jeffrey Kramer, Graham from Halloween II), his head of R&D, decide to let Patch take the fall. Joe and Cornelia get involved, Patch tells them he never wanted to take over for Santa and they all take the Patchmobile to the North Pole.

The reindeer — despite Comet and Cupid having the flu and who knows why this is even a plot point — help save Patch and everyone has a dance party because of Return of the Jedi. Santa and Mrs. Claus adopt Joe and Cordelia, keeping them away from the rest of the world and certainly adding the kids to some kind of Code Adam list, Meanwhile, B.Z. has eaten too many candy canes and flies into space, where one assumes he dies in the cold vacuum of space. Santa does not care, laughing heartily as he has crushed Patch’s spirit for good and kidnapped two human children to do his bidding. Or maybe it’s a happy ending.

For a movie that’s all about the magic and meaning of Christmas, the product placement for McDonald’s, Coke and Pabst Blue Ribbon — this is a kid-centric film — is problematic.

Marvel even did a tie-in comic, which at least has Frank Springer art.

These are the kind of movies I hated as a kid — message films that told me how to feel, act and behave. This is why Godzilla and King Kong are my idea of holiday films — beasts condemned by the world who only want to destroy the works of man! Feliz navidad!

Amy Heckerling followed Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Johnny Dangerously, a movie no one seemed to get at the time and one I still can’t get my wife to watch. Working with writer Robert Klane (Weekend at Bernie’s) she had a tough task. Follow National Lampoon’s Vacation.

This time, the Griswolds — Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo return but Audrey and Rusty are played by Dana Hill and Jason Lively — have won the game show Pig in a Poke and won a trip throughout Europe. The game show scene is great because John Astin is host Kent Winkdale and the father of the Froeger is Paul Bartel pretty much being Paul Bartel.

Throughout the movie, Clark keeps nearly killing Eric Idle on a bike, as well as knocking down Stonehenge, turning a Oktoberfest into a brawl and finding a video that Clark shot of his wife in the shower has become the biggest movie in the old country.

I remember laughing at this movie but feeling like something was missing. That was John Hughes and how his story may have gone big for the laughs but was based in vacations that every family has had. That’s why that movie and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation are multiple watch movies for so many and this and Vegas Vacation are just there.