Shot at Washington & Jefferson College and in Edgewood, right across the bridge from Tateh Cuda’s garden, The Dark Half found George Romero again working with a big studio and adapting a Stephen King book.

It has Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) trying to escape the lowbrow horror books he writes under the name Goerge Stark for the highbrow world of literature, even burying Stark in a fake grave. The problem is, well, Stark is real, the soul left behind by a vestigal twin — the brain surgery scene in the beginning is astounding — making his way to Castle Rock to destroy all of the goodness in Thad’s life.

King knows all about this, as his Richard Bachman pen name came from writer Donald E. Westlake, who wrote his more violent fiction as Richard Stark.

Sherriff Alan Pangborn, played by Michael Rooker in this movie, is the same character Ed Harris played in Needful Things. As you can imagine, he has a hard time trying to understand the fact that Thad has a dark version of himself because he’s a man who believes in facts.

I wonder if the extended time Romero spent with Dario Argento led to him portraying Stark as a bandage covered, black hat and cloak wearing giallo killer, complete with a razor blade. He’s always surrounded by swams of loud birds, which is a great tension builder.

Beyond Hutton and Rooker, Romero has a great cast here, including Amy Madigan as Thad’s wife, Julie Harris as a friend who knows Thad’s secret, Chelsea Field as Alan’s wife, plus Royal Dano and Rutanya Alda.

While I like Romero’s smaller productions, I really ended up liking this way more than i thought I would and plan on going back in to watch it again.

Directed by Johnnie To, this is a remake of Chang Cheh’s Disciples of Shaolin and stars Aaron Kwok as  Kwan Fung-yiu, the bare footed kid of the title. After the death of his father, he goes to the city to work at the dye factory Four Seasons Weaver of his father’s friend Tuen Ching-wan (Ti Lung), which is under attack by the workers of another factory owner, Hak Wo-po (Kenneth Tsang).

Kwok is rewarded with his first pair of shoes for all his hard work, but his fighting skills make him someone that the evil Hak Wo-po wants in his employ. That means that our hero becomes just another henchman at one point before needing to get on the path to redemption. There’s also romance, as his father’s friend is in love with the owner of the factory (Maggie Cheung) and a young teacher attempts (Chien-Lien Wu) to help our hero realize that he’s not just some fool from the countryside.

Ultimately, it’s a movie where someone who lost everything in the world of violence tries to have someone not repeat their mistakes. Whole I prefer the original, this is a worthy remake.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Two box set has a brand new 4K restoration of The Bare-Footed Kid as well as commentary by Frank Djeng of the NY Asian Film Festival; a newly filmed appreciation by film critic and historian Tony Rayns; a Hong Kong theatrical trailer; a UK VHS promo and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

The puppets who were once evil have now become good where new bad puppets come on in this sequel to Puppet Master 2. The demon Sutekh has sent the Totems to kill anyone who has the power of animation, including some researchers and Rick Myers (Gordon Currie), who believes that the puppets of Toulon are early AI experiments. His friends Susie (Chandra West), Lauren and Cameron come to visit and soon, they are all being hunted by the Totems. Can Blade, Pinhead, Six Shooter, Tunneler and Jester save them?

Directed by Jeff Burr (Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III) and written by Charles Band (with contributions from Steven E. Carr, Todd Henschell, Keith S. Payson, comic book writer Jo Duffy and Douglas Aarniokoski), this also introduces the robotic Decapitron, which has the video face of Toulon.

Jesse (David Lord) says he’s a ninja, but he has all these books on being a ninja in his gear and I don’t think that real ninjas learn from a book. They’re raised as ninjas, right? Or they come in as adopted ninjas like Snake Eyes or Nero in Enter the Ninja. I also don’t want to tell ninjas what to do — I mean, Menahem Golan, whose 21st Century Film Corporation made this should know better than me — but I also don’t think they battle the Klan, even if that’s a noble enough cause.

Karl Armstong only directed this movie and Perfect Mate, mainly working as an editor, often on animated films like How to Train Your Dragon and Over the Hedge. Perhaps he found his calling because making ninja movies was not it.

Despite flashbacks from his ninja master (real-life ninja master and let’s not be racist, but non-Asian man Stephen K. Hayes who was in kung fu magazines a lot, so your mileage on him being an actual ninja master may vary), I wonder exactly how much Jesse learned. Mostly he rolls around in the mud. He does ride a Ninja motorcycle, which is the kind of thing that I also don’t think ninjas do.

Someday, someone will make a ninja against the Klan movie and it will be amazing. This, however, is not it. Ninja Vengeance was made in 1988 and not released until 1993. I imagine it had some type of bad movie radioactive half-life and therefore had to be kept from the rest of the world. Avoid at all costs.

What if Bonnie and Clyde were alive in 1993 and pulled the same crimes? Well, this movie has that for you and it has Maureen Flannigan as Bonnie and Scott Wolf as Clyde.

Directed by John Shepphird (Firestorm, Jersey Shore Shark Attack), who co-wrote the script with Steve Jankowski, who wrote several of Shepphird’s movies like Chupacabra Terror, Blood Money and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.

Wolf was best known for being on Party of Five while Flannagan was Evie on Out of This World. This movie was her attempt at changing her image, which mainly means lots of violence and even more sex. It’s kind of wild that this movie got out there a year before Natural Born Killers and does a lot of the same things without all the meta commentary and multiple film stocks.

The true revelation for me was that the cop who is tracking them down, Sanchez, is Don Novello. Yes, Father Guido Sarducci. He’s great in this and he’s completely serious.

The other thing is that this goes from Clyde being in love from afar to a romance on the run to an actual relationship, yet the darkness that grows around them gets intense, as we all know where the movie ends. And yes, the close is bleak and bloody and it’s unexpected even though it’s expected. I mean, the squib budget for this film must have been the entire budget.

Steve Carver has a pretty good track record. I mean, if he only made Lone Wolf McQuade, An Eye for an Eye, Steel, Jocks, The Arena, Big Bad Mama, Capone, Fast Charlie…the Moonbeam Rider and River of Death are all pretty fun or weird or at least have a moment that entertains you.

Joe (Justin Lazard) is a killer. He’s not elegant, but he’s ruthless. But the law has finally caught up with him and he’s facing the chair.

Or maybe not. Mary (Rachel York) makes him an offer on behalf of the U.S. government: train to be an elite hitman or die. Under the watchful eye of Saunders (Eb Lottimer), Mary trains him to be an unstoppable assassin.

His first mission is to kill Ambassador Chavez (David Carradine) at a Washington, D.C. art gallery. He easily pulls it off, but angers Saunders when he leaves a loose end: an innocent tourist who photographed the crime scene. That woman is killed in a fire.

So yeah. El Butch Nikita.

Mary gets suspicious of her boss and learns that he’s really working not for the interests of the U.s. but instead using his killing machines to commit legal murders for crime boss Emilio Cordoba (Frank McCarthy). Saunders next commands Joe to kill Congressman Clark (JoeStraderr) and also tells Mary to erase him afterward. Of course, Joe is in love with Mary, so they run off together, pulling off their own killings, like wiping Cordoba off the map.

Then, the two infiltrate the toxic chemical lab that is Saunders’ base. Joe blows it up real good and heads off to sleep with a blonde, just like James Bond would, but Mary ends up saving him from her, as his love interest — for the evening — ends up being a killer.

After having his books The Park Is Mine and The Fourth War into movies, Stephen Peters started writing movies of his own. He got set for life when he wrote Wild Things. For this one, he had Menahem Golan giving him the initial story, which for all we know was a few words, as his story for Ninja 3: The Domination was “Female ninja.”

Sure, Deadly Heroes is pretty much The Delta Force and it has the same chase scenes from Killing Streets, but if you’ve learned anything from Cannon Month, it’s that I forgive Menahem Golan on a level that I only extend to Joe D’Amato, Bruno Mattei and Jess Franco.

A young kid learns named Paul Cartowski learns that terrorists are taking over a flight out of the Athens airport with plastic guns. He tells his dad Brad (Michael Paré), a former CIA agent and Navy SEAL, who tries to stop them and is injured. The terrorists take his wife and head to North Africa, with Cartowski in hot pursuit along with his former SEAL buddy Grant (Jan-Michael Vincent). Our hero is taken and tortured — I mean, what action hero didn’t get electroshock trauma in the direct to video era — but he comes back with a ton of SEALs and everyone dies.

That said, the bad guys seem badder because their leader, Carlos, is Billy Drago. Man, Drago is from Kansas and is part Native American, but I never have any idea where his accent is coming from other than being lunatic Drago. Whether he’s Frank Nitti in The Untouchables or fighting Chuck Norris in Delta Force 2: The Columbia Connection, he’s always menacing in a way that seems non-acting.

Damian and Gregory Lee wrote this, using the secret name Joseph Goldman. Damian is probably best known for the movies Abraxas and Ski School.

The main reason to watch this is that it’s a Menahem-directed movie. Nearly all of the film’s crew members were Israeli, including cinematographer Yelhiel-Hilik Neeman, art director Avishay “Avi” Avivi and actors Alon Abutbul, Uri Gavriel and Galit Giat, who is Alya, the female terrorist who tortures Paré. This was her first movie and she’s incredible. Gabi Arami, who was the awesome cab driver in Killing Streets, has the same role here due to this using so much of that footage.

I mean, this is very nearly a Cannon movie. How do I know? Yehuda Efroni is in it. And wow, there’s Menahem himself as a fisherman!

Jack Dameron (Richard Norton, Rage and Honor) was raised by Mr. Fung (Joe Mari Avellana) after his family was gunned down. Seeing as how Fung was business partners with his father, he feels bound by honor to raise Jack along with his son Chiang.

Fast forward and Jack is getting promoted to chairman of his adopted father’s company — Chiang (Franco Guerrero) is into some dark stuff — and his wife Sarah (Karen Moncrieff) is going to be a trial attorney in Thailand despite being a gaijin.

To get back at Jack, Chiang sets him up for the murder of Noi (Tetchie Agbayani), a woman who Jack maybe got drunk and slept with at a trade show. He has his Jamaican henchman I-Ron (Chuck Jeffreys) force her to call Jack, who rushes over just in time to find her stabbed, and then the police arrive just in time for them to find her blood all over Jack.

Chiang is now in charge and Jack has to rely on his wife as his lawyer, but he also has to tell her that he cheated on her. And now she’s pregnant, too? Oh man.

If direct to video martial arts movies have taught me anything, complex legal matters and relationship issues are best solved with kicking someone really hard.

Director Anthony Maharaj also made Return of the Kickfighter, Innocent Adultery, The Fighter and Secrets of the Shell which promises to be about “Seduction, Betrayal, Obsession – Erupt to the Rhythms of an Exotic Caribbean Island.”

Writer Tom Huckabee produced and wrote Taking Tiger Mountain as well as being involved with writing four episodes of the Ghostbreakers series.

Paul (Paul Johansson) is in trouble. He accidentally filmed Officer Garland (Maxwell Caulfield) beating a suspect to death, so now that evil policeman wants to get the tape and take out the cameraman. Paul screws up by bringing his girlfriend Katy (Karen Moncrieff) into all this danger but things go from bad to worse when redneck maniac Lance (Jan-Michael Vincent) and his equally messed up girlfriend Devon (Kelli Maroney) kidnap them Kalifornia-style.

Director and writer Peter Foldy does fine with this except for when Lance and Devon completely disappear and you miss them, because they’re the best part of this movie.

Unless you love direct to video action movies — well, this is not really all that filled with action, but that’s the closest it gets — or want to see Maxwell Caulfield in a cop uniform and I know who you are, you can skip this.

Or you can watch it on Tubi.