EDITOR’S NOTE: I am a beyond fan of this movie and therefore so happy to bring back the article I wrote on September 13, 2017 as part of a celebration of Tobe Hooper. The art used for this post comes from Studiohouse Designs.

In my Fangoria reading youth, there were two constants: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the scariest movie ever and Tom Savini was the master of gore. If you put that chocolate into that bloody peanut butter, what would you get? And in a world where Freddy, Jason and soon, Michael Meyers would all get sequel after sequel, why not Leatherface?

Two failed films into his Cannon Pictures deal, one would assume that Tobe Hooper felt the same way. And even though Chainsaw 2 would double its slim $4 million dollar budget, it wasn’t considered a success by audiences and critics for years — similar to how Halloween fans just could not see Halloween 3 as a great film until the last few years.

Whereas Chainsaw seems to be a nuanced film based on dread, mood and cinema vérité, the sequel is in your face, replete with tons of gore, overwhelming screams and saw noises and near-slapstick moments. Maybe it’s because Tobe Hooper, unlike nearly every other human being on the face of the Earth, saw the first film as a black comedy and this was just the next logical progression. For me, I saw Chainsaw 2 as a middle finger, a fuck you to the expectation that the film needed to be just more of the same. Ironically, Rob Zombie seems to have fallen in love with this film so much that he’s filmed variations of it several times and even used some of the cast.

Tobe Hooper wasn’t the only person in need of some redemption here.

Dennis Hopper’s Hollywood career –actually, his entire life — had gone off the rails. That said, Hopper’s career should have ended numerous times. After appearing in two films with James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, Dean’s passing impacted Hopper so greatly that he had a blowup on the set of From Hell to Texas where he forced director Henry Hathaway to do over eighty takes, leading to Hathaway claiming that Hopper would never work again. After leaving for New York to study with Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio, he would star in Night Tide (alongside Marjorie Cameron, the Whore of Babylon as prophesied in the Book of Revelations, no shit).

Yet for years, Hopper could find no work in Hollywood. Because he was the son-in-law of Margaret Sullivan, John Wayne gave him a break and talked director Hathaway into using him in 1965’s The Sons of Katie Elder. He also appears alongside Wayne in 1969’s True Grit — a film on which the two actors became friends. In both of these films, he dies and says his final words to the venerable screen icon.

Within months, Hopper was in two blockbusters in a summer (and had appeared in Cool Hand Luke the year before) — the aforementioned True Grit and Easy Rider, the film that made his name to so many. Stepping into the director’s chair, Hopper won kudos for his improv style and innovative editing (the truth is, he nearly had to be physically removed from the editing bay), but the film arose out of chaos — Fonda and Hopper had creative differences, Hopper was in the midst of a divorce and drugs, drugs and more drugs. Hopper even pulled a knife on actor Rip Torn during casting, a story that he told on The Tonight Show but placed the knife in Torn’s hands — a storyline switch that cost him nearly a million dollars.

The problems of Easy Rider would continue — minus the success — on his infamous next effort, The Last Movie. Hopper would say — when speaking of Easy Rider— that “the cocaine problem in the United States in really because of me.” With a $1 million budget ($6.4 million in today’s money) and free reign, Hopper went to Peru to make a movie that had been his pet project since the early 60’s — a meditation on fact versus fiction and how cinema struggles to be real. It’s also a batshit crazy film, not helped by the aforementioned drug usage (Hopper had film cans full of coke and women at the ready while editing), a little longer than a week marriage to co-star Michelle Phillips and a year plus of editing inside Hopper’s home studio in New Mexico. This entire process was documented in The American Dreamer, a documentary by Lawrence Schiller and L.M. Kit Carson (who perhaps not so coincidentally wrote Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, the movie that we should really start talking about soon). Hopper finally created a straightforward cut of the film that was much more conventional before showing it to Alejandro Jodorowsky, who told him it was a piece of shit and urged him to break new ground. Hopper destroyed that edit and the resulting film made him persona non grata in Hollywood for another decade.

Hopper went to Europe, where his drug intake increased, but he appeared in roles in films like Mad Dog Morgan before 1979’s Apocalypse Now brought him back to the mainstream. He also stepped in to direct and act in 1980s acclaimed Out of the Blue, but his old habits came back hard. His behavior on the set of Human Highway delayed the film and Hopper was up to 3 grams of coke a day, plus 30 beers, weed and assorted other substances.

So what did he do next? He staged a suicide attempt by blowing himself up in a coffin with 17 sticks of dynamite at an art happening, then later disappearing into the Mexican desert. Oh yeah — he also went to rehab in 1983.

But the successful mainstream comeback — and this time, he would stay — that happened after David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (Hopper begged for the role, telling Lynch that he was Frank Booth) was far away when Dennis Hopper would step into the cowboy boots of Chainsaw 2‘s Lieutenant Boude “Lefty” Enright. The uncle of Chainsaw’s Sally and Franklin Hardesty, he’s spent the last 13 years searching for the Sawyer clan, hoping to bring them to justice.

There’s finally a lead — thanks to two dumb jocks on the way to the OU vs. Texas Cotton Bowl game. They call DJ Vanita “Stretch” Brock’s (Caroline Williams, who Rob Zombie would later cast in his remake of Halloween 2) radio show and won’t hang up. She keeps them on the air long enough to hear them get attacked by a passing pickup truck. Leatherface appears, the old side of Texas coming roaring back to decimate the new Texas, cutting off part of the driver’s head in a horrific spray of gore and crashing their car, killing both of the boys.

However, Stretch made a tape of the attack and Lefty asks her to play it. He’s old Texas, too. A lawman who has been on a quest for over a decade, one that’s cost him so much (originally, Lefty was intended to be Stretch’s absent father).

This leads to Leatherface and his family attacking the radio station, with Chop Top (Bill Moseley, who Hooper found in a satire of his film called The Texas Chainsaw Manicure. Hooper’s son William would also feature this character in his unreleased film All-American Massacre. You can also see Moseley as the Deadite Captain in Army of Darkness, the 1988 remake of The Blob and in every Rob Zombie movie, just about) leading the charge. A Vietnam vet (which explains his absence from the first film), Chop Top got his massive head wound from a machete, leaving him with a metal plate in his head. He also tends to heat up a wire hanger and burn the skin at the edge of the plate to eat. He’s used his government disability checks to purchase Texas Battle Land, a decrepit theme park that his family now lives in.

Leatherface corners Stretch and slides his chainsaw between her thighs, sawing his way closer to her as her screams become moans in a really discomforting scene. Unable to take the sexual tension, Leatherface runs, telling the rest of the clan that he killed her. They take her co-worker L.G. back to their amusement park home, which has been decorated with skulls, bones and dead bodies — it’s a stunning achievement in art direction for the budget.

Lefty soon arrives and gets himself ready for battle with his own chainsaws. He goes shithouse on the place until finding Franklin’s dead body.

Stretch is discovered by the besotted Leatherface, who gives her her own mask — that of L.G.’s face. He ties her up and leaves, but miraculously, L.G. has enough life in him to help her escape…until she’s found by Drayton Sawyer (who played the same role in the original), the cook. Seems that Drayton has set up a big business, winning chili cookoffs with his special recipe. The family brings her to dinner — Chop Top treats Leatherface as one would bully a little brother — before Lefty saves her. A huge battle ensues, chainsaw versus chainsaw, before a grenade that was pinned to the corpse of Chop Top’s Hitchhiker twin brother goes off, probably (but hey, I was ready for a sequel) killing everyone.

Chop Top and Stretch survive, battling up a rock tower. I mentioned this scene a few weeks ago in my tribute to Hooper. It’s amazing — both a reference and a reversal of the ending of the first film.

Chop Top and Stretch survive, battling up a rock tower. I mentioned this scene a few weeks ago in my tribute to Hooper. It’s amazing — both a reference and a reversal of the ending of the first film.

Hooper didn’t even want to direct this film. He originally intended to produce it. Then, there was the idea that the movie (to be written with original writer Kim Henkel) would be about an entire town of cannibals — playing off Motel Hell, itself a satire of Chainsaw — with the crazy title of Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Cannon hired new writers for the massive changes they envisioned and with the budget hacked (sawed?) down, Hooper got back in the director’s chair.

Dennis Hopper would go on to achieve more mainstream fame after this film than the counterculture fame that got him there, appearing in films such as Speed, Waterworld and Super Mario Brothers. He said at the time that Chainsaw 2 was the worst film he’d ever been in, but one would have to assume that he said that before those films.

If you’re thinking — hey, this is a comedy — be prepared. The film never was released in England, was banned in West Germany and Australia, and was rated X before being released unrated in the U.S. Tom Savini was at the top of his game here (and there are even more gory scenes that didn’t make the…err…cut (there it is again), like the clan decimating football fans).

This is a film filled with excess that comments on excess. It’s filled with ridiculousness to combat the banal nature of 80’s ridiculousness. It’s also a popcorn film that could make most folks puke up said popcorn.

It’s a shame that this is the last Hooper movie to see a true cinematic release. When this played at the Drive-In Monster Rama earlier this year, I was struck by how well it holds up, as well as the supreme level of onscreen gore. It’s a film that does that rare trick — it’s humorous while being horrific, never descending into banal parody like Scream or a Troma movie. It’s the closest movie have come — other than Creepshow — to getting the aesthetics of E.C. Comics on to the silver screen.

David Landsberg and Lorin Dreyfuss — the older brother of Richard — teamed for this movie and Dutch Treat and I have no idea who was clamouring for their duo to be in any films. They wrote and starred in this movie, which was directed by Filippo Ottoni, who wrote A Bay of Blood.

Three mob families — the Lombardis, the Zanettis and the Falcones — don’t want either of two of their children — Carlo Lombardi (Christian De Sica) and Catherina Zanetti (Valeria Golino, Gina Piccolapupula from Big Top Pee-Wee) — to get married, all while Landsberg and Dreyfuss, as detectives Donald Wilson and Paul Miller, try to keep their families from ending their relationship and lives, thanks to wildman killing machine Bruno Falcone (George Eastman, the only reason I stayed with this movie for so long; have I ever told you how much I love George Eastman?).

While I’m no fan of the slapstick in this movie, at least I can play spot the Italian actor. There’s Giancarlo Prete (Scorpion from Warriors of the Wasteland)! Hey it’s Western henchman Mario Brega! Rik Battaglia of Deported Women of the SS Special Section! Alberto Farnese from Scalps and the shot at the same time White Apache!  Voice of female giallo stars Carolyn De Fonseca as a tourist! Mickey Know from Cemetery Man! John Karlsen from Footprints on the Moon and The Church! Andrew Louis Coppola from Hands of Steel and Escape from the Bronx! Man, watch those movies instead of this one!

Humor is subjective and I’ve read plenty of reviews that love this one. Maybe it hit me wrong. That said, I aways love seeing George Eastman and it’s so strange to see him in a comedy.

I can’t find this movie anywhere, but I’m petty mindblown by the fact that this children’s movie was written by Harry Alan Towers, a man who not only was part of an alleged vice ring with Stephen Ward, Peter Lawford and the Soviet Union, but also the producer and writer of several Jess Franco movies including 99 Women, The Girl From Rio and Venus In Furs.

The husband of Maria Rohm may not be the first person I’d choose to write a kid movie about horses, but then again, I’d probably not think to hire William A. Levey, who made Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman, Blackenstein and Skatetown U.S.A. either.

Then again, if only for the sake of having several obsessions of mine in the cast, I wonder if this movie was made just for me. I mean. Murray Langsdon and Susan George are in this.

Barney Ingram’s (Mickey Rooney) prize stallion Cloverdale III has been stolen by creditor Emmett Fallon, but the horse runs away and two kids end up with it and name it Lightning. Also, the girl is going blind like a Melvins song. Or maybe not. I don’t know, any time Mickey Rooney shows up I’m reminded how much he hated Silent Night, Deadly Night and then ended up starring in Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally wrote about this movie on September 12, 2017 as part of a tribute to Tobe Hooper. It’s one of three movies that he made for Cannon and one of our favorite movies.

Following the failure of Lifeforce (at least commercially, I’m on the side of it being an interesting affair), Tobe Hooper turned to a remake of 1953’s Invaders from Mars. After several writers took a shot at the script, Dan O’Bannon (the USC film student who famously created Dark Star with John Carpenter, left for Europe in the hopes of making Dune with Alejandro Jodorowsky, then came back to the U.S. to write Alien, Dead and Buried and Total Recall, write and direct Return of the Living Dead and then die way too young from Crohn’s Disease) and Don Jakoby.

Instead of the adult oriented gore and sex that Lifeforce presented (which shows up here as a movie within a movie, main character David is watching the film and man, he’s super young for that movie), Invaders is a return to the themes of 1950’s science fiction. That said — whereas the originally intended directed Steven Spielberg would have focused on the sweetness with a slight edge, Hooper delivers plenty of edge. In fact, this entire film feels like a nightmare that the main character, David Garden (Hunter Carson, the son of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 writer LM Kit Carson and Karen Black, who we’ll get to in a minute) can’t wake up from. It’s unnerving the sheer torture that this kid goes through!

After watching a meteor shower, David sees a spaceship land behind his house. Throughout the film, the entire town gets taken over by aliens, including his parents (Timothy Bottoms and SNL’s Laraine Newman). It’s true terror — what child doesn’t have the fear that his parents will no longer love him? It’s even worse when they coldly plot your doom.

They’re not the only ones — every teacher is against him, none more than the meanest teacher in school, Mrs. McKeltch. She’s gone from that to something much, much worse — the human face of the alien invasion.

The only person who believes David is the school nurse, Linda Magnuson (Karen Black, The Pyx, Burnt Offerings, Killer Fish and so much more). Together, they rally the Marines, learn how the alien guns work, defeat the Supreme Intelligence and blow up the UFO.

Or do they? Much like its 1953 inspiration, David wakes up and the entire movie is revealed to be a dream. However, this isn’t a William Cameron Menzies film (the director of the original, whose name is given to the elementary school in this film); this is Tobe Hooper, who ends the film just like it began. David sees the UFO land again, runs to his parent’s bedroom and screams as an alien noise is heard. There is no resolution — just the return of abject terror.

This part is particularly interesting to me, as I’ve had the same dream of a UFO showing up outside my window since I was a child. I always wake up screaming, knowing that I’m looking at an object made from pure evil.

Invasion is an odd duck. Horror buffs wanted to see Hooper make another The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (they’d get their wish, but probably not in the way they’d want it within a few weeks). Moviegoers didn’t know who Hooper was enough to be a mainstream draw (Poltergeist was made three years before Hooper got his three picture Cannon deal). And fans of the original probably wouldn’t be pleased with the darker bent of this remake (despite original star Jimmy Hunt making an appearance as the police chief and the original Supreme Intelligence showing up on a warehouse shelf).

That’s not to say it’s a bad film. It’s packed with elaborate practical effects from Stan Winston (who was working on Aliens at the same time) and John Dykstra, including the amazing alien drones. The drones are literally two actors walking independently under a suit, so their movements feel more feel than today’s computerized creatures. The Supreme Intelligence doesn’t look silly; instead it’s a mix of menace and cartoony evil, like a Mars Attacks! trading card brought to life. And the film is replete with references to other films — it takes place in Santa Mira, home to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and Halloween 3: Season of the Witch) and the house that the Gardners live in was built for 1948’s Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.

This movie lost a lot of money — it made $4.8 million on a $12 million dollar budget. You know who did make money on this? Science fiction fan and sometimes writer/producer/director Wade Williams, who bought the original film in 1978. Airing the original film via television, cable and video releases made plenty of money. Add in the rights to this — Williams got a producer credit — and he may have made up to fifty times what he paid for the film. This isn’t the only film in the Wade Williams collection. He also owns the distribution rights to the films of Ed Wood, Robot Monster, The Killer Shrews, Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World and a near infinite amount of other films.

Maybe that’s why Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, those insane masters of moviemaking that made up Cannon, hated the film. They claimed it was nothing like what they were promised. That said — Hooper often spoke favorably of his time with Cannon, comparing it to the old studio system days.

With two films down and his back to the wall, Hooper had to turn back to some old friends and his old neighborhood. Within a few weeks (he made the film in June and it was released in August), he’d make the film everyone wanted to see anyway — The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. But that’s a story for another time.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon podcast about this movie here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can read another take on this movie from R. D Francis that was originally posted on August 14, 2019.

Crime is the disease. He’s the cure.

I’ve opined that if we compare the two God-tier action stars — Arnold and Sly — Arnold may have the best overall catalog, but Stallone has the better individual films. One wins the battle, the other wins the war. Or as he’d say, “Don’t push it, or I’ll give you war you won’t believe.”

Somehow Stallone was going to be in Beverly Hills Cop and wanted it to be not so funny, then he wanted to be in an adaption of Fair Game by Paula Gosling — which got made nine years later and the less said the better — and then he ended up making a movie that pretty much is every 80s over the top — no pun intended — action movie cliche all in one film.

And you know what? It’s great.

Like honestly, non-ironically great.

It’s Stallone suddenly deciding what if a slasher movie broke out in the middle of a one cop against the world movie? Zombie Squad cop Marion Cobretti against an entire cult of lunatics called The New World, led by the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson, who had to buy his own ticket to see the film), all to save the life of Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen)? Do you have any idea how many times I watched this movie? Stallone stealing Steve McQueen lines and saying, “This is where the law stops and I start, sucker!” is the kind of thing that made a young me continually watch and rewatch and take notes.

There’s a two-hour plus X-rated — for violence — cut of this movie that I’m dying to see. Throat cuttings, hands sliced clean off, children discovering said hands, David Rasche getting killed with axes and an extended ending — these are the things I want to see! We live in a world of re-releases, so why isn’t this happening? Shout! Factory had a collector’s edition release of this and nope, no footage!

Stallone has talked about making a sequel with Robert Rodriguez — as late as 2019 — but it just seems like cutting the robot out of Rocky IV, Sly sometimes likes to play with my heart.

In case you think George P. Cosmatos’ name is familiar, his son — using the royalties from this movie — would go on to make Mandy and Beyond the Black Rainbow. And I’m not the only fan of this movie, as Nicolas Winding Refn used a toothpick in the hero’s mouth in Drive to show his fandom.

So how is this Cannon? After all, the Cannon logo isn’t anywhere in the movie. Golan and Globus only get a production credit, as it was mostly a Warner Brothers movie, but they got that title in return for voiding a prior agreement the Cannon had with Stallone.

Finally: I am a movie gun nut, so just like another Cannon actor, Charles Bronson, Stallone had his own custom gun made for this movie, a 9mm Colt Gold Cup National Match 1911 that fires Glaser Safety Slugs. This bullet was designed in 1974 in response to the possibility of having to use a handgun on an airplane by the Sky Marshals and having to deal with ricochets on hard surfaces and possible excess penetration. It’s a pre-fragmented bullet that uses a traditional copper jacket, which means that instead of a solid lead core like conventional hollowpoint ammunition, it has a compressed core of lead shot.

It does not shoot through schools.

Finally, action movies are mirrors upon themselves. While Cobra reunites Dirty Harry actors Andrew Robinson and Reni Santoni, Sylvester Levay’s song “The Chase” would end up in trailers for Bloodsport and Marked for Death.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon commentary and watchalong here.

Is it strange how much Dangerously Close feels like the last few years of life? I mean, life is high school, right? And aren’t The Sentinels, the far right student villains of this movie, pretty much anyone that does their own research and demands to know why they can’t have white history month? Man, between this movie and Avenging Force, Cannon was hitting this subject head on while also getting to roll around in the muck, which is how all good exploitation must behave.

Written by Scott Fields (who also wrote Under Cover), John Stockwell (who stars in this and yes, also wrote Under Cover and directed it too) and Marty Ross (who was one of the New Monkees a year later and that fries my brain) and directed by Albert Pyun, who would make Cyborg, Alien from L.A. and Down Twisted for Cannon, Dangerously Close is the kind of weird movie I get obsessed by.

I mean, Roger Ebert said that the Pyun “devoted a great deal of time and thought to how his movie looked, and almost no time at all to what, or who, it was about.”

That’s my jam.

At the private school Vista Verde — a nightmare for me, as my parents frequently debated sending me to a school just like this — The Sentinels have gone from a student group to a military unit that assaults the undesirables of the student population thanks to the leadership of Randy McDermott (Stockwell).

I’d like to think that I’d have been Donny Lennox (J. Eddie Peck, who was Kevin “Blade” Laird in Lambada), a poor kid who got in because he knew how to write. He and punk rocker Krooger Raines (Branford Bancroft, 3:15, Bachelor Party) are just two of the kids who don’t fit in and they’re soon joined by Brian (Thom Matthews, Tommy Jarvis himself), who has left behind the group after they go too far and McDevitt’s ex-girlfriend Julie (Carey Lowell, Law & Order), who splits from the group leader after she screams at him that all he cares about is using her mouth and wow, that language is shocking exploitation dialogue even years after this was made.

Let me tell you, I love this movie. It’s so odd because the town where it takes place is perfect and yet has more fog than any place in California other than the Sunset Strip. It’s got a cast that includes Debra Berger, Angel Tompkins (The Teacher playing a teacher?), Dedee Pfeiffer (making this a mini-The Allnighter cast meet-up with Bancroft, who played Bartender Joe in that Susanna Hoffs vehicle), March 1982 Playboy Playmate of the Month Karen Lorre, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. (making this a Return of the Living Dead reunion with Matthews), Don Michael Paul (who would go on to direct so many direct-to-video sequels like Kindergarten Cop 2, Death Race: Beyond Anarchy, The Scorpion King: Book of Souls and Tremors: Shrieker Island) and Gerard Christopher (the syndicated Superboy). Everybody in that group is way too attractive to play high school students and teachers. And it has a wild soundtrack, with everything from T.S.O.L., The Lords of the New Church, Lone Justice, Fine Young Cannibals, Depeche Mode and The Smithereens, whose “Blood and Roses” is nearly the theme song for the film.

Also, the Keanu Reeves and Kiefer Sutherland made-for-TV movie Brotherhood of Justice is strangely the exact same story and also has Don Michael Paul in it.

More people should be talking about this movie.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon podcast about Dangerously Close here.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Roman Polanski said to the New York Times, “The people who finance films don’t care what your personal problems are, your image, whatever. They’re interested in figures. They look them up the same way an insurance company does. And they know that if they spend $5 million or $6 million, $10 million on a film by me, their risk is quite limited. But once you have a subject complicated, more ambitious, like Pirates, even if you have a delightful script and great enthusiasm, even if you promise them heaven, they are afraid. That has nothing to do with my legal problems in America. What do they care for it? Do you think that they have a moral streak in them, that they really hesitate?”

Those legal problems?

In 1977, Polanski was arrested at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for the sexual assault of 13-year-old Samantha Gailey, who had modeled for him the day before at the home of Jack Nicholson. He pled not guilty, Hollywood came to his defense and his attorney set up a plea bargain where five of the six charges would be dropped. The charge that was left would be unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

He had to serve 90 days of psychiatric evaluation and his time served ended up being 42 days. Somewhere along the way, the judge on the case told several people that he was going to ignore the plea bargain and make certain Polanski died in jail.

The day before he was to be sentenced, Polanski left the country on a flight to London then Paris. And that’s where he’s stayed, making major movies, a French citizen protected from extradition with all those charges still pending.

In 1988, Gailey sued Polanski for sexual assault, false imprisonment, the seduction of a minor and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Five years later, he settled with her.

In 2009, he was arrested in Switzerland and in jail for two months. The United States were denied extradition and he was a free man again. Strangely, Polanski blamed Harvey Weinstein for the new focus on his sexual abuse case in the 2000s and claimed that the now-disgraced producer brought up the rape accusations again to stop him from winning an Oscar for The Pianist.

As of late, Gailey has said, ” It’s been 40 years. Enough.”

Polanski replied, “She is a double victim: My victim, and a victim of the press.”

Anyways…Pirates.

After Chinatown, Polanski wanted to make a movie that wasn’t loaded with messages and education and with that, I think we can all agree that he succeeded. Polanski intended Jack Nicholson to play Captain Thomas Bartholomew Red and he would pull a page out of The Fearless Vampire Killers and play the sidekick.

The problem? Nicholson wanted paid. When asked how much he wanted, he just said, “I want more.”

It took until 1980 for the film to get to any stage of production. In between, he made The Tenant with Isabelle Adjani, then the arrest happened and then he made Tess with Nastassja Kinski — who he started dating when she was 15.

After that, Filmways and producer Arnon Milchan announced they would finance the movie, to be shot in Tel Aviv at a $24 million dollar budget, which would also include building a new studio and water tank. All the money would go to special effects and there would be no stars.

Then that didn’t happen either.

Carthago Films and producer, Tarak Ben Ammar took over the production and spend $8 million over the next half decade or so as the movie stayed in development. Luckily, just before shooting was to start, Dino de Laurentiis made a deal to release the movie in Europe and in the U.S. with MGM/UA. Ammar got three more banks to put up more money.

Numerous stars were picked for the lead role and finally Walter Matthau came on board. He would say, “”I didn’t like the script. I didn’t understand the script. First it was the ship against the pirates, then the pirates against the ship, then the ship against the pirates. I didn’t think it was funny or adventurous or anything.”

Things had to get better after that, right?

The budget went to $40 million, storms made the shoot pretty much out of control and Ammar kept on a happy face, because they were bringing jobs to Tunisia even if Polanski was, in his words, “disaster prone.” And then he was unhappy with MGM/UA, paid off their investment and brought in Cannon Films.

Things really had to get better after that.

Did they get better after that?

“We make mistakes. Pirates was one of them,” Yoram Globus told the Los Angeles Times.

The movie made s $1.64 million and $6.3 million worldwide on a budget of somewhere above $40 million.

Yes, it failed, even after it opened Cannes, during which the Neptune sailed into the Cannes harbor on the festival’s opening day, with all the cast on deck in their pirate costumes. And then nobody had any idea what to do with that ship, so it sat in the harbor at Cannes or sixteen years, a reminder of just ow much of a failure this movie was.

We should probably get to the movie.

Pirate Thomas Bartholomew Red (Matthau) and his cabin boy Jean-Baptiste (Cris Campion) start the film lost in the middle of the ocean on a raft (not a rat thanks for catching the typo! They do eat a rat later though) when they’re picked up by a Spanish ship known as the Neptune. They’re immediately placed in the brig along with the sip’s cook (Olu Jacobs) who may have tried to kill the ship’s captain (Ferdy Mayne, who made this movie the year after he was in Night Train to Terror, which are both choices and a journey)because there’s Aztec gold inside the ship.

The captain dies and Don Alfonso de la Torré (Damien Thomas) takes charge of the ship. He’s in love with a noblewomen’s daughter, Maria-Dolores (Charlotte Lewis), who Jean-Baptiste has also fallen for. Our protagonists try to enact a mutiny, which leads to a rebellion and a massive fight scene and then Maria-Dolores is nearly assaulted because this is a movie that “young audience will enjoy more than the adults” to quote Polanski.

Shenanigans ensure and this movie ends up feeling like two years instead of two hours. The ship looks great though, right? It makes me wonder why Polanski made this movie look so realistic — I mean, there’s a rat eating scene and everything looks absolutely caked in filth — when everything else in it is a farce.

I’d been warned by how bad this movie was and despite me continually testing my resolve by watching the full filmographies of Bruno Mattei, Joe D’Amato, Jess Franco and way further down the chain of so-called bad movies and you know, this is the very definition of a bad movie. And I don’t believe in the term so bad it’s good. This is bad. From now on, I will compare every bad and boring movie that I watch to Pirates and they will become better by that comparison.

Of course, this movie has accusations of its own. Lewis said that Polanski had forced himself on her while she was auditioning for a role when she was 16 and he was 50. But then again, se claimed at the time that she was the one who pursued him, telling News of the World, “I knew that Roman had done something bad in the United States, but I wanted to be his mistress. I wanted him probably more than he wanted me.”

Obviously, she’s in this movie as María-Dolores de la Jenya de la Calde, appeared arm in arm with Polanski at Cannes a year after the incident and said in an interview, “I’d love to have had a romantic relationship with Polanski and a physical one. You can’t help falling in love with him. But he didn’t want me that way.”

That said, the world has changed a lot since 1986. So I really and honestly have no idea who to believe and the only ones that know are the people directly involved. I can dislike Polanski’s character as much as I want to and so much of watching exploitation film — most film — is to not whitewash what any individual has done. But I can definitely say that Pirates is a horrible movie that I suffered throughout.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon suffer through Pirates here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We just reviewed this as Kino Lorber has put it out on blu ray. That article was on February 13, 2022, but it’s Cannon Month, so let’s get more Bronson!

Lee J. Thompson and Charles Bronson wore together several times. Six, to be exact, with this movie, St. Ives, The White Buffalo, Caboblanco, 10 to Midnight and The Evil That Men Do making up the full list of their collaborations.

Writer Gail Morgan Hickman’s (The Enforcer, Death Wish IV: The Crackdown) script was one that Cannon liked, but at this point, they’d started to overspend, so they weren’t forthcoming with the money the film would need, as producer Pancho Kohner, Thompson and Bronson. The team took the movie to took Hemdale and were immediately given the green light with a much better deal.

Cannon sued for breach of contract and claimed that they had already pre-sold most of the worldwide rights and stated that it would damage their company if someone else made it. After all, Cannon often pre-sold movies based on loglines and pasted together ads well before the movies were made.

A lawsuit was avoided, allowing Cannon to financed and released the movie, with Hemdale getting foreign video rights. As for Bronson, Kohner and Thompson, they got a three-movie deal with Cannon, which ended up being the aforementioned Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Messenger of Death and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects.

Bronson plays Jack Murphy and at 65 years old, you really get the sense that just like his character, he’s exhausted. Indeed, he was often frustrated at the delays between takes and would shout, “Let’s shoot! Let’s shoot!” as he wanted to get back to his family. As for Murphy, he has no family, as his ex-wife (Angel Tompkins, who was the titular The Teacher and also was in The Farmer) has started dancing at a men’s club frequented by other cops, making him the target of their jokes. So he drinks away his days and wastes his nights watching the woman he chased away attract other men.

Meanwhile, a woman he put away named Joan Freeman (Carrie Snodgress, who Stallone wanted to be Adrian in Rocky, with Harvey Keitel as Paulie, but money was a major issue; she’s best known for her role in Diary of a Mad Housewife; Neil Young wrote the songs “A Man Needs a Maid,” “Harvest,” “Out on the Weekend” and “Heart of Gold” about her) is out of jail and conspiring to ruin his life, as if it can be further ruined. She begins killing those close to him — mostly cops, as she blames them just as much as him — ending with his ex. Soon Murphy’s headed for jail with many of the criminals he put there.

Somehow, as Murphy is first arrested, he’s handcuffed to Arabella McGee (Kathleen Wilhoite, Road House, Fire In the Sky), a potty mouthed homeless girl that he’d recently arrested. As she repeatedly verbally abuses Murphy with phrases like butt crust, monkey vomit, jizm breath, sperm bank, dildo nose and snot-licking donkey fart, Arabella doesn’t speak like anyone in any movie ever, which is why I find her so endearing and this movie just so delightfully odd. Wilhoite was a method actress and felt that probably her character should have looked more homeless, but she got to keep all of the designer clothes that her character wore, so that probably made wearing it in the film much easier.

Before fiming started, Thompson and Kohner coached Wilhoite all about how to best get along with the tempermental Bronson, which worked, because they got along well according to reports.

She also sang the movie’s theme song!

That said, she wasn’t the first choice for the role. Supposedly, Madonna was up for the role but wanted a million bucks. So was Joan Jett, who had just been in Light of Day. While she didn’t get the part, she ended up growing close to Bronson’s wife Jill Ireland. In a Q&A on her official fan site, Jett answered the question “How did the song, “Don’t Surrender” come about? And who is Jill Ireland?” with the following:

“Jill was Charles Bronson’s wife, also a wonderful actress. We met over the possibility of me co-starring with Charles B. in a movie. We became great friends, she turned me on to crystals, etc. and taught me a lot during our friendship. When she died, I was very upset, but channeled that (what I saw in Jill: strength, honor, dignity) and wrote “Don’t Surrender” with Desmond, inspired by Jill.”

Handcuffed together, the two go on the run, stealing a helicopter and landing on — and crashing through, Demons style — the growhouse of some well-armed marijuana farmers, which gives Murphy the chance to save Arabella from a group assault, making me wonder if Michael Winner directed this movie. You can tell he didn’t because it’s quick, they don’t succeed and the camera doesn’t linger like a lunatic.

Then again, Thompson also made Kinjite…

Anyways, the duo ends up getting along better and better, with even the hint of romance by the end. They take up in the home of one of one of his old partners, but the killings move there too.

Of interest to fans of Jason Vorhees, the growhouse is a location from Friday the 13th Part III and his partner’s house is from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Murphy thinks that the killings are the result of a vendetta between him and mobster Frank Vincenzo (Richard Romanus) before making his way back to the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles, the same place where Freeman was arrested for shooting her boyfriend, a security guard at the building.

The Bradbury is a historic LA building and you may recognize it from noir movies like the original I, the Jury and D.O.A. as well as a more futuristic take on the genre, Blade Runner. The building demanded that no food or drink was permitted on set during filming, but not having craft services was worth it, because the close is tense, with the cops working for Vincenzo gunning for Murphy and Freeman stalking him with a crossbow and then attacking him with an axe.

Murphy’s Law is also filled with roles for plenty of great tough guy actors, like Lawrence Tierney, Robert F. Lyons and Bill Henderson. It’s a movie that both embraces and escapes many of the things you expect from a Bronson movie It’s violent, profane and removed from reality, but I love how it has both a female protagonist and antagonist, lightening the normal testosterone-filled world of Bronson just enough to make things a little different. The dialogue is beyond ridiculous, which made me love this movie even more. It’s beyond quotable, including the line, “Don’t fuck with Jack Murphy!”

You can get the new blu ray release of this film from Kino Lorber. It has some great extras, like commentary by Wilhoite and film historian Nick Redman, an interview with Robert F. Lyons, two radio commercials and a trailer.

Dutch mercenary Sergeant De Koning (Everett McGill) has been left alone in Korea after his platoon, who have been committing numerous war crimes, are attacked. Then the Korean girl he’d pushed into prostitution ends up becoming more important to him and he tries to help her little brother alive. De Koning also makes the journey from the kind of soldier who would get everyone drunk on the front lines — leading to that deadly attack by the Red Chinese — to some level of redemption.

Directed by Hans Scheepmaker and Dae-hie Kim, who co-wrote the script with Henk Bos, Field of Honor was delayed in its native Netherlands for more than a year because of the bad reception it got at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s not as horrible as reviews at the time suggest, but in no way as good as other similar war films of the 80s like Platoon.

Paul Nicholas directed and wrote Chained Heat — and Julie Darling — so The Naked Cage feels like a ribfest play, going back to play the hits.

Michelle (Shari Shattuck, who shows up in some of the worst — and I mean best — movies of the 80s video horror era like Uninvited and Death Spa) has left the farm for the city to work at a bank just in time for her ex-husband Willy (John Terlesky, the second person to play Deathstalker) and his prison lady Rita (Christina Whitaker) to try to knock it over. They take Michelle hostage, Willy gets shot and somehow, the police take Rita’s word that our heroine was part of the robbery and that’s how we get to, well, The Naked Cage.

Of course, Rita ends up in the same jail, which is a hell hole were all the prisoners wear their own versions of the uniform which doesn’t make it a uniform when you think about it. Angel Tompkins (The Teacher) is the warden who, of course, is corrupt.

Luckily for Michelle, she’s in for bank robbery, which wins her some points with her fellow inmates instead of making her fresh meat. As for me, I’m happy that Lisa London — who was in Guns and Savage Beach — and Leslie Scarborough from Stewardess School are in this, because it reminds me that instead of using my mental acuity for doing something that means something for the world, I can instead instantly recall actresses from movies I saw on Cinemax thirty years ago.

Also: Carole Ita White, who played Trouble, is like a WIP lifer. Se was also Cheeks in The Concrete Jungle, Spider in Chained Heat, Ms. Jenkins in Savage Streets (not WIP but so close) and Nurse Turner in Hellhole.

One has to wonder how the Fabulous Thunderbirds felt about “Tough Enough” being in this movie. I’d like to think they loved WIP films. Right? That song was in every movie that was filmed in 1986, including Gung Ho, Wise Guys, The Money Pit, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ruthless Peopleand Tough Guys.

You can watch this on Tubi.