Tag Archives: 1993

POPCORN FRIGHTS 2023: South Beach (1993)

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Fred Williamson has made more than twenty movies as part of his Po’ Boy production company, often directing or co-directing — like this film, he had help making the movie from Alain Zaloum and a script by Michael Thomas Montgomery — the movies. This is the first and not the last of these movies that I’ve seen.

Mack Derringer (Williamson) and Lenny (Gary Busey) are ex-NFL players who have become Miami private detectives. In this film, Mack is going to have to protect his ex-wife Maxine (Vanity) when a man named Billy — never trust prank callers named Billy — starts stalking her through the phone sex line that she operates.

With help from Jake (Peter Fonda), hindrance from Detective Ted Coleman (Robert Forester) and support from his mother (Isabel Sanford), Mack finds the bad guys. At least he thinks they are. But come on. When your name is Santiago and you’re played by Henry Silva, chances are you’re the bad guy. As for Billy, well, he’s Sam J. Jones, so the jury is out.

Also known as Dangerous Action and Night Caller, it’s kind of messy, but you know, it also has this cast — I forgot Stella Stevens is in it! — and it starts with Williamson and Busey joking around on a golf course. Where else are you going to get that? And the information — Too Kool — is Brother Marquis from 2 Live Crew! Was Uncle Luke busy?

Everything is neon. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s perfect.

But if you’re making a cop movie about phone sex lines, how is “900 Number” by 45 King not on the soundtrack?

You can watch this on Tubi.

South Beach played as part of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival. They even did a walking tour of South Beach and had live comedians for this movie. To learn more, visit the official site. To keep track of what movies I’ve watched from this Popcorn Frights, check out this Letterboxd list.

Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival: The Heroic Trio (1993)

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An invisible woman — actually, Invisible Woman as played by Michelle Yeoh — is stealing newborn children who are destined to be world leaders for her boss, the Evil Master. He needs to be stopped but Invisible Woman owes him her life after leaving behind an abusive father. Luckily, she has two other heroes to push her to the path of righteousness — Wonder Woman (Anita Mui), who is the mild-manner wife of a cop by day and a sword and knife-wielding heroine by night and Thief Catcher (Maggie Cheung), a motorcycle-riding, bomb-throwing mercenary struggling to also find her good side.

It was produced by Ching Siu-tung (who directed A Chinese Ghost Story) and directed by Johnnie To, who was also the director for its thematically different sequel, Executioners.

Let me be perfectly clear: this movie is everything that I want in a film, with monstrous bad guys, unstoppable women and plenty of kinetic martial arts. Sure, it’s often style over substance, but that’s quite often exactly what I’m looking for.

I watched this film as part of The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN). You can learn more at their official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival Red Eye #7: Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993)

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H. P. Lovecraft (Jeffrey Combs!) tells his cabby (Brian Yuzna) to wait outside the monastery — he’s got a Necronomicon to find. As he races to find a copy before the monks stop him, he’s locked inside a room where he gets to discover the future through the book.

The first story, “The Drowned,” is loosely based on “The Rats in the Walls.” It tells the story of Jethro De Lapoer (Richard Lynch!), whose wife and child died in an accident, causing him to set a Bible ablaze at the funeral. He brings them back to life with the Necronomicon, but the green glowing eyes of his family as they rise upset him so much that he leaps to his death. His nephew has no such compunctions and brings back his wife Clara (Maria Ford), who comes back in the same way, nearly causing his death. Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak was also inspired by this same story. This story and the framing story come from Yuzna.

“The Cold” is based on the short story “Cool Air” and has Dr. Madden (David Warner!) injecting spinal fluid and staying inside a chilled room to stay alive forever, at least until the power goes out. Dennis Christopher, Gary Graham and Millie Perkins are also in this story, which you may have seen in Alberty Pyun’s H. P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air or the Jeannot Szwarc-directed, Rod Serling-written Night Gallery episode. This was directed by Christopher Gans, the director of Brotherhood of the Wolf and Silent Hill.

“Whispers” is based on “The Whisper in the Darkness.” This one has monster bats and all the gore you’ve been looking for, as if the last segment wasn’t packed with enough melting people. This one comes from Shusuke Kaneko, who made the Heisei era Gamera movies Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Attack of Legion and Revenge of Iris, as well as Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

At the end, Lovecraft avoids the monks and runs into the night. This film may not be completely successful at making an anthology of his stories, but it’s pretty entertaining. It was well-received in the U.S., but a much bigger success in Europe and Asia, where it played theaters.

The Chattanooga Film Festival is happening now through June 29. To get your in-person or virtual badge to see any of these movies, click here. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

THE FILMS OF BRIAN DE PALMA: Carlito’s Way (1993)

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Al Pacino was working out at a New York City YMCA when he met New York state supreme court Judge Edwin Torres, the writer of Carlito’s Way and After Hours, the books this movie is based on. He’d tried several times to make a film version — even facing a 1989 lawsuit where he went back on his agreement to make the movie with Brando as lawyer David Kleinfeld — and screenwriter David Koepp and producer Martin Bregman to develop the shooting script for this movie, one that Pacino felt would work for himself.

Brian De Palma didn’t want to make another Scarface, but that’s exactly what critics said, saying that he was going back to that movie and The Untouchables.

How could they watch the train sequence that closes the film and see Pacino’s character stare at the billboard and have it come to life with the love of his life, Gail (Penelope Ann Miller) dancing as he drifts off and not be in love with all that is cinema?

Five years in on a three decade jail sentence, Carlito Brigante (Pacino) gets out thanks to a technicality foud by his friend and lawyer, Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). He tries to follow the straight and narrow, but follows his cousin Guajiro (John Augstin Ortiz) on a drug deal that goes wrong. The young man is killed, but the $30,000 from the crime allows Carlito to buy into a nightclub and save up for retirement in the Caribbean.

From his interactions with Benny Blanco from the Bronx (John Leguizamo) to trying to win back over Gail and the prison break to try and get Tony Taglialucci out of Riker’s, this is a movie of Carlito torn between wanting to escape this life of violence and blood yet always getting pulled back in.

Despite wanting to distance this movie from Scarface, the nightclub is called El Paraíso which is the same name as the food stand that Tony Montana worked at.

Graffiante desiderio (1993)

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I had no good expectations of this movie, as movies from the 90s by Sergio Martino — Foxy Lady, La regina degli uomini pesce, Mozart is a Murderer — have been a mixed bag. Most of the reviews online were pretty rough on it as well. And then I remembered — you alone judge whether or not a movie is a success. It is only a success to you, the viewer, if you enjoy it.

And I loved this.

Luigi (Ron Nummi) seemingly has it all. A great house, lots of money, a rising career and a ring on the finger of Cinzia (Simona Borioni), his rich soon-to-be wife. But none of it excites him. What does is when his young cousin Sonia (Vittoria Belvedere) comes to stay at his place and insinuates himself into his life. His fiancee instantly hates her, but you can get her point. Sonia is pretty much like a statue created by one of the sculptors of Rome’s artistic past that has come to life.

You can also see why Luigi is tempted. His fiancee wants to discuss money issues and appointments even while they have sex. Before you know it, he’s forgotten her and the idea that incest is kind of creepy and is right between the thighs of an angel. Or a demon. Or, you know, demons are truly fallen angels.

I’m always a fan of movies where male characters suddenly have all of their sexual fantasies come true and then realize that they are not prepared to be a part of them. Usually, these filthy thoughts last just long enough for men to get pleasure, but the idea that you have to have a life with fantasy can be frankly exhausting. And dangerous. And when the object of your desire may be not just a bit strange but a literal maniac that perhaps even eats human flesh, well, you may be on your own.

Things go from sex all the time to sex in every room to sex in public to picking up women in discos to public couple swapping in the middle of a diamond store robbery while Luigi has Sonia’s panties on his face. Yes, really.

What he doesn’t know is that his new lover can go from sexually charged lover ready to do anything for you to a jealous killing machine who even experiments with black magic, eating those she kills and showing up at your office to sleep with your boss.

With a story co-written by Umberto Lenzi (uncredited) and Maurizio Rasio (credited), this is every bad girl cliche wrapped into one and ending with an absolutely ridiculous battle between the two leads, as she — -clad in lingerie — ties him up and decimates him, including one moment where she kicks him literally in the heart with a stiletto heel.

Martino has ended so many movies atop a building and this is no different. Also, like so many giallo, it also closes with a mannequin launched off said building. I am for all of these things.

If Vittoria Belvedere had been around in 1972. she’d be mentioned in the same sentence as all of the giallo queens that Martino featured to the best of his abilities. Sure, this in no way outshines anything that the director made in his glorious past, but I put aside those thoughts and everything I read in advance.

It’s strange, because when I watch 90s Argento, I just get sad as past glories seem so far away. Yet Martino has always excelled at story instead of style, so I can still find so much to love even in his later work. There are moments in here that made me laugh in sheer pleasure. That’s all that we can ask from a movie.

Karate Warrior 6 (1993)

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So many times throughout the. Karate Warrior series, I have watched as the movies move away from karate itself and yet I stay with them. I blame Fabrizio De Angelis, who not only directed this but returned to write the final story. It is with great sadness that I share it with you, as I really wish there was a Karate Warrior 7.

Leo (Scotty Daffron) is the biggest moron you have ever met, yet the Karate Warrior who is Larry Jones (Ron Williams) stays by his side. That proves that he is not just a tough customer, but the kind of good person you want to lead four of six movies and a TV series in your franchise (which is the Italian exploitation version of Community‘s six seasons and a movie).

While he’s riding his bike — bike accidents are to this movie what diamond theft is to Jess Franco — he runs into the limo of a foreign leader. In order to keep his mouth shut, Leo is paid ten grand, money which he uses to take his friends Larry, Craig/Greg and Teddy to Greece because, well, why not? Maybe Fabrizio always wanted to go to Greece in the same way that surely Sergio Corbucci wanted to come to Miami and they both paid for it by making a wacky movie.

Keep in mind as I write what happens in this movie, I invented none of it. I have a great imagination, but by no means am I Fabrizio De Angelis, who I would love to meet but I am also very afraid of. The fear comes from knowing he has the power of a deranged god who makes film series that I can’t stop watching and writing about. Between this and the Thunder films, he has taken up more of my life than many of my lovers. He certainly means more than most of them. I am also not the first person who has reviewed this film that felt the need to give such a disclaimer about the veracity of what is about to happen.

After a man dressed as a mermaid is able to con Leo out of his money and the return tickets home. Leo decides to become a tour guide, despite knowing little of Greece, and scamming other people. That’s when they meet Mustafa (Rafaele Exina) who is a triple threat: martial artist, motocross racer and gang leader. He’s our new Joe Carson, who stayed back home for this final movie.

Mustafa and his young turks are menacing Elena (Gabriella Barbuti, who is also in Sergio Martino’s Craving Desire, Tinto Brass’ P.O. Box Tinto Brass and yes, improbably The Passion of the Christ), who the gangster claims to own. How does the gang solve this? By putting on a show — a karate show* — and have Larry battle Mustafa, but first, they somehow have enough money to fly Larry’s girl Betty (Dorian D. Field and his sensei Masura (Richard Goon) to Greece. Maybe Larry’s dad Lt. Alfred Jones (David Warbeck) will come too!

Before the fight, Betty says to Larry, “Make it quick. I want to go home.”

This is the fight of his life.

For this movie at least.

This movie also has a Pretty Woman makeover shopping spree at JCPenney.

How does this series end the saga? I mean, at this point, six movies in, it qualifies as a saga. Well, it ends with Leo trying to get hit by another limo when they get back home. These bodyguards, however, get out and trounce him.

That’s how a series called Karate Warrior ends.

Not with one last battle.

Instead with a chubby man comically beaten to within an inch of his life.

*Read this as Bob Odenkirk as Van Hammersly.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Undefeatable (1993)

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Kristi Jones (Cynthia Rothrock) wants to go legit and stop being in a martial arts gang. Well, her attempt to leave the Red Dragons is noble but even more illegal, as she works with organized crime to stage back alley fights where she beats up men for money that she plans on using to put her sister through college so that she can be a doctor.

At the same time, Stingray (Don Niam) has beaten and assaulted his wife Anna (Emille Davazac) for the last time. She runs away and soon, every woman he meets becomes her as he rapes, murders and takes the eyes of ladies all over the city. One of those women ends up being Kristi’s sister, so our heroine has to stop fighting for money and start battling for revenge alongside Detective Nick DiMarco (John Miller) and one of her sister’s professors, Dr. Jennifer Simmons (Donna Jason)

Undefeatable takes place in a world where every single person knows martial arts. I wish that I lived in this world, a place where high kicking battles are always happening when you walk down the street. It was directed by Godfrey Hall. You can guess who that is. Yep, Godfrey Ho, who couldn’t resist the urge to not be Godfrey Ho, remaking this movie with the same footage and new scenes with Robin Shau as Bloody Mary Killer.

It also is made in a reality where men like Stingray use animal-based martial arts to take eyes, so many eyeballs that he can fill a fishtank with them. This is also a world where when someone is in the hospital, it’s totally normal to bring them enough cold chicken soup to feed them for the rest of their natural life. Most of all, I love that Cynthia Rothrock is dressed like a character from a Japanese beat ’em up arcade game — leather bomber jacket with chains — fighting dudes in red ninja costumes for cash and beating up a guy named Bear, at which point his poor girlfriend looks at him and says, “Oh Bear…” like this has happened so many times before.

It has cinematography by Robin J. Cook (Despiser), who may be the only person to work with Don Dohler, Menahem Golan and Godfrey Ho.

You can watch this on Tubi but you should really go all out and grab the new Vinegar Syndrome 4K. The movie has been newly scanned and restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative and you get both Undefeatable and Bloody Mary Killer. Rothrock contributed the commentary to the former and Brandon Bentley did the Godfrey Ho remix. Plus, there as brand new interviews with Ho, cinematographer Phil Cook, Rothrock, Don Niam, and actress and assistant director Donna Jason. Need more? This has it, with a video essay about Rothrock by film historians Samm Deighan and Charles Perks, a comparison of the two movies by Chris O’Neill, trailers, a 12-page booklet with an essay by writer and film historian Danielle Burgos and reversible sleeve artwork.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

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If the first movie is close to the comic with some kid elements and the second backs off from that, the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie goes all into silliness, as the turtles go back in time to feudal Japan and switch places with the honor guard of Lord Norinaga (Saburo Shimono).

It’s all because of some things that April O’Neil (Paige Turco) buys at a flea market, including a scepter for Master Splinter. At least Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) gets to be in this one, even if he just sits around for most of the movie.

Only Brian Tochi (Leonardo) and Robbie Rist (Michelangelo) did voices for all three of the original movies, but Corey Feldman returned as Donatello and Tim Kelleher is Raphael, with James Murray taking over as the voice and puppeteer of Splinter.

Co-creator Kevin Eastman said of this movie, “What we tried to do with the third movie was to make it as good of a story as we could. We went through a painstaking level of do’s and don’ts, what they could and couldn’t do. We wanted something that would be good for all ages again. I call movie one the best, movie two the worst, and movie three halfway in between.” A lot of the ideas in this come from the “Masks” story in issues 46 and 47 of the original comics. The time scepter looks a lot like the one that Renet, the apprentice timestress of Lord Simultaneous uses.

What we do get to see is the Turtles helping Lord Norinage’s son Kenshin (Henry Hayashi) and his lover Mitsu (Vivian Wu) to stop the war between villages and the sale of guns to the samurai by Walker (Stuart Wilson). The whole idea of not changing time is never even considered by this movie.

The costumes were made by All Effects Company instead of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. I guess Golden Harvest was pretty much done with the movies by this point and didn’t feel like spending much.

This was directed by Stuart Gillard, who wrote the script with Turtles creators Eastman and Laird. He also directed Lost Boys: The Thirst, War Games: The Dead Code, the remake of The Initiation of Sarah and the Disney movie Girl vs. Monster.

Even though I don’t like this one, I did do this art of a Samurai Leonardo.

SALEM HORROR FEST: Mahakaal (1993)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This movie was watched as part of Salem Horror Fest.

There are people that are just going to watch this movie — which combines Freddy Kreuger, Michael Jackson, Bollywood song and dance numbers and a low budget — just to laugh. And you know, I kind of dislike that foreign remix cinema is seen as such a joke. You try making a movie that lives up to a Hollywood big budget movie within a country that can’t raise those funds while working within the confines of the way movies are presented. Most of u slack the imagination and sheer nerve to do it.

So when Seema has a nightmare of a scarred man wearing steel claws, our western minds instantly see this as a cheap knock-off. But the film plays with expectations, as the villain is not some average custodian, but the evil magician Shakaal, who needed children to increase his magical powers and was only stopped by Anita’s father, who has kept the claw glove in a drawer all these years later.

An American — even an Italian — remix film would not take everything. Bad Dreams may have a burned up villain and Taryn from Dream Warriors, but it is very much its own film. Night Killer only takes the mask. Mahakaal takes everything, even the actual music from the first two A Nightmare on Elm Street movies and keeps on giving.

There’s also the Michael Jackson-loving Canteen, who becomes a werewolf by the end of the movie because, well, who knows. This isn’t the kind of linear cinema that you grew up on. Strangely — or not that much when you think of it — there’s another Bollywood Elm Street cover called Khooni Murdaa that even takes the end of Dream Warriors but redeems itself because it tells the origin story of Ranjit — Fareed Krueger — who escapes prison and gets thrown into a campfire, creating the dream version that destroys everyone else.

APRIL MOVIE THON 2: Santo: la leyenda del enmascarado de plata (1993)

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April 6: Viva Mexico — Pick a movie from Mexico and escribir acerca de por qué es tan increíble.

Directed and written by Gilberto de Anda, Santo: The Legend of the Silver Mask tells the origin of El Hijo del Santo and how he came to wear the mask of his father. It’s also about the issues a young kid obsessed with Santo has with growing up.

My wife said that if you want to die, you should play a drinking game where you do a shot every time someone says Santo. There’s no way you would survive.

Hijo Del Santo’s pro wrestling debut was under the name and mask of Korak. His father would not agree to this, as while he wanted one of his sons to carry on the name and legacy, he wanted them to graduate college first.

Months after he got his Communication Science degree, Hijo del Santo made his debut with the mask of his father as a team with Ringo Mendoza versus Coloso Colosetti and Sangre Chicana. While fans were skeptical of him at first — Santo cast a very big shadow — he soon showed that he was an even better wrestler than his father, if not as big of a cultural icon.

While all this is happening, Don Severo tries to steal the farm of Marcos Arriaga, a widower who lives with his young son Benito. Benito is such a fan of Santo that he even wears his mask when he takes test in school.

Then, when the elder Santo dies of a heart attack, Benito is left depressed and hoping that Santo will return. He goes to Mexico City to find him while El Hijo del Santo trains and learns from his father’s sidekick, Carlitos (Carlos Suarez, who really was Santo’s friend in his later movies). There’s an amazing moment when he takes El Hijo del Santo into the near-Batcave of Santo which is filled with inventions and cool cars. They open a locked box which contains the original mask of his father and fog comes out of it.

At the end, when Santo saves Benito and his father by deflecting bullets and blowing stuff up real good with his laser car — just after winning the mask of Espanto Jr. — I couldn’t help but get excited. This is nowhere as good as the movies of his father, but El Hijo del Santo really should have gone wild and fought slasher killers and demons.

Espanto Jr.’s real name is Jesús Andrade Salas. He was such a rival of Santo that he lost his mask and hair three times to him. When AAA formed, he jumped there and eventually became an evil Santo named Santo Negro and had a lot of heat. Santo’s family objected to the idea of a fighter coming from South America to destroy El Hijo del Santo and take his mask, so they forced AAA to stop using the name. Instead, Salas became the original Pentagon and did a similar angle with AAA star Octagon. He had to retire in 1996 after he collapsed in the ring and was replaced by the former Metalico as Pentagón Black. There’s also a Pentagon III who lost his mask and hair to Octagon and, if you watch AEW, the one-time Zairus and Dark Dragon is now known as Pentagón Jr. or Penta el Zero M. He’s the nephew of Blue Demon Jr., so if El Hijo del Santo was still wrestling full-time or if his son El Nieto del Santo ever gets started, he’d be a natural rival for him.

There’s also some great footage of Santo hitting some of his topes in this that make them seem really dangerous and in your face, as well as Blue Demon looking so smooth in the ring.

You can watch this on YouTube.