From Dusk Till Dawn came from the brains of Robert Kurtzman — the K in KNB — who wrote the original story, co-produced the film and helped create the special effects. It brings together Quentin Tarantino — who wrote the script and acts in the film — with Robert Rodriguez, the director of films such as Desperado, Sin City and, of course, the Planet Terror part of Grindhouse.

Bank robbers Seth and Richie Gecko (George Clooney and Tarantino) hold up a small liquor store and end up killing the clerk (John Hawkes, Kenny Powers’ brother on Eastbound and Down) and Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks, who despite this character dying, he came back to play the same role in Kill Bill Volume 1, a deleted scene in Machete and both Grindhouse movies).

As they hide out in a motel, Richie can’t help himself to killing and assaulting a bank clerk. As the cops get closer, the brothers take the Fuller family — Jacob, a former pastor and his children Scott and Kate (Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu and Juliette Lewis) — hostage. Using their RV, the brothers make it across the Mexico border where they contact will meet them and escort them to El Ray, a place where fugitives can find safety (this concept comes from Jim Thompson’s novel, The Getaway, which also inspired two films — the 1972 Steve McQueen/Ali MacGraw classic and the 1994 Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger not-so-classic).

While hiding out at a biker bar called the Titty Twister, everyone in the place reveals themselves to be vampires — everyone from the announcer (Cheech Marin in one of the three roles he plays here) to the band (Tito & Tarantula), the bartender Razor Charlie (Danny Trejo) and the main attraction, Santantico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek, playing a role named after the 1975 Mexican nunspoitation film where Satan selects Sister Maria to drag her fellow sisters into his domain).

The Geckos and the Fuller family only have two other people who can help — a biker named Sex Machine (Tom Savini!) and Army vet Frost (Fred Williamson!). Of course, all hell breaks loose and barely anyone survives, but what did you expect? By the end of the film, the Titty Twister reveals what it was all along — an Aztec temple. That would be explored more in the two sequels and TV series that followed.

Only in the world of Tarantino and Rodriguez can Tom Savini and Fred Williamson have just as much celebrity as George Clooney, who at times could truthfully lay claim to being the biggest movie star in the world. That said, they mean way more in my world. And throw in appearances by Marc Lawrence (Dream No Evil, Cataclysm) and John Saxon (probably my favorite actor of all time) and you have a movie that feels like it was made for my own personal enjoyment. Hell, before Clooney came on, Joe Pilato — Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead — played Seth and footage exists of him in the role.

While not as serious as the other Tarantino films we’re writing about this week, From Dusk Till Dawn is a quick and fun bit of entertainment. And check out that Frazetta poster that was never used!

JCVD not only stars in this film, but he co-wrote and directed it. Of course, he also had to go to court to battle former Bloodsport pal and noted con man Frank Dux, who claimed that he wrote this movie as Enter the New Dragon: The Kumite, but a jury rejected those claims.

In the first ten minutes of the movie, we see Van Damme as an old man who can still decimate gang members with his cane and as a clown who does parkour years before anyone knew what that was. Truly, this is the most Van Damme of all Van Damme films.

Christopher Dubois (Van Damme) is a pickpocket in mid-1920’s New York City, stealing from the mob to take care of orphans. He must run away — promising to come back — and stows away on a boat of smugglers which is eventually boarded by the ship of Lord Edgar Dobbs (Roger Moore, who seems to be having the time of his life as always).

After saving one another’s lives, Dobbs seems like he’s going to help our hero get home, but sells him into slavery where he’s trained in Muay Thai. After six months, Dobbs and his partner Harri Smythe (character actor Jack McGee, who got into acting via being a firefighter with his first role being in Turk 182) learn that Dubois has become a great fighter.

Interestingly enough, McGee repeatedly drew the ire of Van Damme by loudly farting at the end of each take. Sounds like a party!

After paying for his freedom, Dobbs brings our hero to a fight — not unlike Kumite — called Ghang-gheng. Held in the Lost City of Tibet, it’s where fighters from nearly every nation and fighting style in the wold battle for the Golden Dragon.

American reporter Carrie Newton (Janet Gunn from USA’s Silk Stalkings) and heavyweight boxing champion Maxie Devine (James Remar, Ajax from The Warriors and Raiden from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation) are also there to watch. During the fight, Dobbs and Harri try to steal the dragon and are sentenced to death, but Dubois wins the entire tournament, eventually besting Mongolia’s Khan (Abdel Qissi, brother of Michael who has appeared in many of Van Damme’s films) in the finals. He trades his win for the life of the two convicted men.

Back at the bar where it all started, we learn that Dubois went back to help the orphans, Dobbs and Harri went on to further adventures and Devine ending up being a great trainer. The movie closes on a book called The Quest, written by — you guessed it — reporter Carrie Newton.

This is a movie packed with fights left and right. Japan is represented by former pro wrestler and the youngest rikidozan ever, Koji Kitao. I met him once on a pro wrestling show we were on together, moments before another American wrestler insulted him by speaking pidgeon Engrish, ending up getting his shoulder torn clean out of the socket.

Pjeter Malota, who often plays in Van Damme films, is the Spanish fighter than JCVD bests in the second round. Jen Sung, who was recently on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. plays the Siamese fighter, Phang. Brick Bronsky — who directed and acting in Masked Mutilator, which Severin/InterVision just re-released — is the Russian competitor. And Stefanos Miltsakakis, who would fight JCVD in five movies and appear as Frankenstein’s Monster in Waxwork II: Lost in Time, is the Greek fighter. With a name like that, what other team could he be on?

Despite Sir Roger Moore’s seeming enthusiasm for his role, he claimed that it was the least favorite of his films. In his autobiography My Word is My Bond, he said that the movie was a poorly prepared and disorganized mess that was continually running out of money. He minces no words about how he felt about Van Damme and producer Moshe Diamant, while crediting Second Unit Director Peter MacDonald, who directed Rambo III, for making the film a success.

If you’re a Hong Kong director in America, your first movie is always with Van Damme. Ringo Lam, you’re up next.

Originally known as The Exchange and then Bloodstone, this movie was written by Scary Movie duo Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer but not credited to them. Credit went to Larry Ferguson, who wrote the remake of Rollerball as well as Highlander, The Hunt for Red October and The Presidio.

Alain Moreau (Van Damme) is a cop in Nice, France. After he attends a fellow cop’s funeral, his partner shows up and brings him to a crime scene. That’s when we rewind our minds and remember how the movie started, with a man who suspiciously looked like Van Damme getting killed.

That person is Mikhail Suvorov, who was born on the same day as Alain. He tracks the man’s past down to New York City and learns that the man was his twin brother. The Russian mafia and the FBI are all mixed up in this, with only his brother’s fiancee Alex (Natasha Henstridge) telling him the truth.

The fights are much grittier in this than any other JCVD film I’ve seen. It certainly has style and no small amount of blood.

My wife — who has had to endure more than twenty Van Damme movies in less than a week — said, “Finally, one of these was actually pretty good.” That’s about as glowing of a review as you’re going to get out of her, Jean-Claude.

Sometimes, I think that I’ve only dreamt some of the movies that I watch in the middle of the night. Like Prey of the Jaguar, which stars Maxwell Caulfield — yes, Rex Manning from Empire Records — as a former Special Ops agent whose family gets killed ala The Punisher and who gets trained by a hard ass old man martial arts master just like Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins to combat the drug lords who took out his wife and kid. Also, Linda Blair shows up as a cop, Paul Bartel plays his Q and Stacy Keach plays his M.

Somehow, this movie is 100% true. It exists. The unofficial trailer below shows every reason why you need to watch this movie (except for Linda Blair):

Would it surprise you even further that this was directed by David DeCoteau, who went from making cornball cheesecake like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama to making beefcake like Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper and The Brotherhood series, which is a male for the male gaze version of The Craft?

Derek Leigh (Caulfield) just wanted to retire, but the son of a drug lord he put away — Damien Bander (Trevor Goddard, Kano from Mortal Kombat) — has other plans, killing his pregnant wife and son. Derek remembers a superhero that his son drew in crayon and becomes him, thanks to training from his original master, Master Yee (John Fujioka, American Ninja) and weapons from his old teammate the Toymaker (Paul Bartel! I screamed loudly in the middle of the night when he showed up!).

Meanwhile, homicide detective Cody Johnson (Blair), who was in charge of the Leigh family murder investigation, figures out that the Jaguar and Derek are one and the same. Vic Trevino — Ricardo from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse — is also in this.

The best part of the film — besides Caulfield’s overacting when he learns his family is dead — is the fact that when they look up the file on Bander, this text appears for long enough that you can discover that someone was having no fun making this movie: “”DEMIAN, BANDERA E You would think that a huge file like this would tell you something. Not so. I just open up my paint program and let my brain dribble out on the monitor. Bandera doesn’t eve(n) exist, you know. He is just a character in a movie! I can’t believe that I’m trying to write bio on a man who doesn’t even exist. Now I have to write a second column. Oh, the tedium… This paragraph won’t even have the benefit of my sense of humor. I’m so over having to write this blurb that I can’t think of anything to say. This is a real bummer. PRESS ENTER FOR UPDATE.”

What you’re really coming for is Caulfield on a Kawasaki Ninja, carrying a crossbow, ready for battle with throwing starts that he has dipped, one point at a time, into sleeping serum. There are numerous moments that made me so overjoyed to be alive in this movie that I just kept rewinding them and then jumping up and down in abject glee. There aren’t enough stars in the world for this movie, but I’ll give it at least two.

James Foley has an interesting IMDB resume, with films from Reckless, At Close Range and Glengarry Glen Ross to Who’s That Girl (he also directed Madonna’s videos for “Live to Tell”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, and “True Blue”), Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. As I’ve always said, there’s a fine line between arthouse and grindhouse. Fear is a movie that despite its bigger budget pedigree and future A-list stars has one foot surely planted in the grime of exploitation. And that’s why I kinda love it.

Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) is sixteen and living in the midst of a turbulent blended family between her father (William Petersen) and new mother (Amy Brenneman). In my strange head, I’ve shipped that Petersen is really his character from Manhunter, starting over again in life as anything but a cop.

That said — Nicole is a wannabe bad girl, sneaking into bars with real bad girl Margo (Alyssa Milano)  when she meets David McCall (Mark Wahlberg). He’s gorgeous and charming and says all the right things. But her dad hates him immediately. There’s an undercurrent of incest in this film — it’s never shoved in your face, but there are hints of it, that Nicole’s father is perfect a bit too protective, a bit too defensive of her when his wife says she looks like a slut.

Keep in mind, every single time you hear The Sundays’ cover of “Wild Horses,” you’re getting a sex scene, including one where David’s hand finds its way between Nicole’s thighs on a rollercoaster. Oh Fear — you understand the movie that you ought to be so well.

Soon, David shows his true nature, keeping Nicole out too late and assaulting one of her friends when he thinks the guy is trying to get with his girl. He even gives Nicole a black eye which, oddly, brings her together with her stepmother, which is a troubling narrative when you start to think about it too much.

Of course, she takes him back and even when her parents demand that she not have visitors when they leave town, she gives him the code to their house so they can make love. Daddy, however, can’t trust the guy — even if the stepmother does, allowing him to help with her gardening — and discovers that his background is full of lies.

Everything has to fall apart. Nicole watches Margo smoke crack at a party and sees David take her off to a bedroom for sex. In my favorite scene in the film, Margo tells Nicole’s little brother that she can’t wait until he grows up so she can ravage him — he’s eight — before the bomb gets dropped that Nicole knows she had sex with her man.

David becomes obsessed with Nicole, tattooing his own chest with the words NICOLE 4 EVA in a scene that should be watched over and over again. He also goes off, choking out Margo, killing that gentleman who dared to hug Nicole and cornering her in a mall bathroom. Then he goes further, destroying her dad’s Mustang with the graffiti “Now I’ve popped both your cherries!”Her dad replies by breaking into David’s house, where he finds a shrine to his daughter.

Once David discovers that dad has been to his house, he responds in the only language he knows: abject violence, turning this movie into a teenage Last House on the Left. It starts with the beloved family dog, Kaiser, being beheaded and only gets worse from there. Sure, things turn out fine, but wow, getting there will necessitate years of therapy for everyone.

Universal Pictures is currently working on a re-imagined version of this film with more of a female perspective. Here’s hoping it isn’t afraid to go too far, with a maniacal Donnie Wahlberg screaming “Let me in the fucking house!” Seriously, he was never better than he is in this movie, just a vision of complete young love gone wrong.

You can watch this for free on Tubi.

L.E.T.H.A.L. (Legion to Ensure Total Harmony and Law) is back, tracking a Native American pro wrestling criminal mastermind known as The Warrior, who makes his money via diamond smuggling, art theft and making pornography. But once he breaks into the L.E.T.H.A.L. database and steals files on its agents, he goes too far!

You know who else is back? Andy Sidaris, sitting in that director’s chair, making the right decisions. I’m not saying that his son Drew — here executive producer along with Arlene Sidaris — did poorly. But you really want the master at the helm.

Julie Strain finally plays one of the good guys — Willow Black — and she definitely excels at being in charge. She’s joined by Julie K. Smith (Penthouse Pet of the Month, February 1993) as Cobra, who is wearing a mask and working undercover at an adult club. And then there’s Shae Marks (Playboy Playmate of the Month, May 1994) as Tiger.

Former WCW wrestler — and the man whose match with Booker T doomed a WWE-led revival of the brand in one night — Marcus Alexander Bagwell shows up as Warrior, who never leaves his wrestling gym, constantly putting on traditional Native American garb and beating people up.

Rodrigo Obregon is back as Manuel. And now, Gerald Okamura is also on the side of good as the team’s martial artists instructor, Fu. He also likes to dress up and sing as a Chinese Elvis, which both makes perfect sense and none at all. Such is the Sidaris Universe.

This is also the most meta of the series, as the L.E.T.H.A.L. safehouse has posters for Savage Beach, Hard Hunted and Do or Die. And I just adore their headquarters, which looks like a nondescript office building with Southwestern art on the walls and older women just typing away at desks. Is this what happens to field agents when they’re tired of getting into hot tubs and hot water?

You can get it as part of Mill Creek’s Girls, Guns and G-Strings box set or on blu ray.

Oh those heady days of 1996, directly between Batman Forever and the movie that destroyed not only a franchise but nearly a genre, Batman and Robin. That said, the history of this movie goes beyond that.

The Phantom is a newspaper adventure comic strip that was created in 1936 by Lee Falk, who worked on the daily strip until his death in 1999. first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. Based in the fictional African country of Bangalla, The Phantom is also known as “the ghost who walks,” and is the 21st in the line of Phantoms, as it’s considered a legacy identity. Falk had already been a success with another character, Mandrake the Magician.

That character was going to be turned into a movie by Sergio Leone, as was The Phantom, but that project never materialized. Then, Joe Dante was attached to the project, working on it with the writer of Innerspace, Jeff Doam. The project was pulled when the budget was too high, particularly because of a winged demon at the climax. A year later, the movie was back in production without the demon and the funny parts of the script were not played as comedy. Dante refused to take his name off the film, so he’s credited as an executive producer.

Originally, the Phantom was going to be either Bruce Campbell or Kevin Smith — Ares of the Hercules/Xena TV shows — before the role was given to Billy Zane. The story was based on three different Phantom stories: “The Singh Brotherhood,” “The Sky Band” and “The Belt.”

We start back in time, as a young boy watched Kabai Sengh (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat) murder his father. He jumps into the ocean and washes up in Bengalla, where he is given the Skull Ring and devotes his life to fighting crime. The identity of the Phantom is passed down from father to son, which leads people to think that the hero is immortal.

In 1938, Kit Walker (Zane), the 21st Phantom, fights a group of mercenaries led by Quill (James Remar, The Warriors) in the jungle over the mystical Skulls of Touganda. It turns out that Quill is the Phantom’s Joe Chill — he killed his father — and has escaped to New York City with the Skulls. Also, the Phantom’s dad (Patrick McGoohan — The Prisoner!) shows up from time to time to give him advice ala Obi Wan-Kenobi.

Meanwhile, Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson) comes back into The Phantom’s life, as she was a college girlfriend. Her uncle owns a newspaper that has been investigating businessman Xander Drax (Treat Williams, Dead Heat) who is connected to all the business that the Phantom is battling.

That’s when we meet the most fascinating person in this movie, Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a femme fatale air pirate who, in the newspaper strips, is in love with the Phantom.

Of course, the evil Kabai Sengh’s descendent is behind everything, leading to a battle in the jungle with the Skulls and the Phantom’s ring being the fourth skull that can stop them.

The Phantom feels like a movie out of time, much like The Rocketeer and The Shadow, earlier 1990’s films that failed to find an audience. That’s not a bad thing, but just the facts. People weren’t ready for sunny, happy heroes.

This movie was requested by Pete Stein, who I’ve been friends with for a long time. I’m glad he’s reading the site and hope he enjoys this article.

Peter Jackson and his partner/co-writer Fran Walsh conceived of the idea for this movie during the script-writing phase of Heavenly Creatures. Robert Zemeckis nearly directed it as a spin-off of the Tales from the Crypt TV series, but he was so impressed by Jackson and Walsh’s first script that he decided that Jackson should direct. Universal granted Jackson and Zemeckis total artistic control and the right of final cut privilege.

At the time this movie was shot, it had the most complex visual effects ever attempted. Jackson’s Weta Digital and Weta Workshop created computer-generated imagery, as well as scale models, prosthetic makeup and practical effects. The studio was inexperienced with computers, which led to an arduous eighteen-month process of creating the film.

The long shoot was also because there were several scenes where ghosts and humans interacted, which needed to be filmed twice: once with the alive humans on set and again with the ghosts on blue screen. This called for precise timing from the actors. To make sure the film could make it to the screen in time, $6 million more was given to add more animators to the team.

Sadly, The Frighteners wasn’t a success. It’s a hard movie to classify. It’s humorous and full of wonder in one scene, then completely terrifying in others.

It’s all about Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox in his last big movie role before he went back to TV for Spin City), an architect who loses his wife in a car accident and gains the power to see ghosts. He becomes friends with three of the: Cyrus (Chi McBride), a 1970’s gangster; Stuart, a geek from the 1950’s and The Judge (John Astin with 5 hours per day of makeup making him look like a zombie gunslinger).

The ghosts haunt houses until Frank ” exorcizes” them for a fee, fleecing people out of their money. After Frank cleanses the home of Ray Lynskey and his wife Lucy, an entity called the Grim Reaper (which looks like something out of Michele Soavi’s Cemetery Man) marks Ray as his next victim. Only Frank can see it and he can’t save the man. He then realizes that his wife had a similar mark, a number, when she was found dead. Now, the police and FBI agent Milton Dammers (Jeffrey Combs, who completely and utterly owns this role, a man driven insane by all his work with the occult) are after him, thinking he is a serial killer.

After the newspaper’s editor attacks Frank in an editorial, she’s killed despite Frank trying to save her. The Grim Reaper strikes again, but the police arrest our hero. Now, he’s targeted Lucy, who has fallen for Frank. Dammer then kidnaps Lucy, revealing that he was a victim of the Manson Family and we learn that the Grim Reaper is the ghost of Johnny Bartlett (Jake Busey), a hospital orderly who killed twelve people in 1964 before he was caught and killed. He always wanted to be the best serial killer ever — better than Charles Starkweather — and his girl Patricia (Dee Wallace Stone!) is still in love with him and helping him up his number from beyond the grave.

Can Frank save Lucy? Can anyone stop the Grim Reaper? The story will go beyond life and death to give you the answers. I really love this movie and watch it at least once every few months, then get sad that so few people dig it as much as I do. Come on, people!

In 1962, Topps put out a card series called Mars Attacks! Kids loved them. Why wouldn’t they? Every card shows horrific depictions of humans, Martians and animals shredded, blasted and annihilated into oblivion, along with plenty of implied sexuality. Parents went crazy and the cards were pulled from the market, but not the memories of the monster kids who dug them so much. 34 years later, Tim Burton finally succeeded in bringing it to the silver screen.

This is a star-studded affair that seems to delight in massacring every actor it gets its hands on. Imagine the star-studded Irwin Allen disaster movies of the past, but put in aliens with laser guns shooting everything and anything in their path. Want to see Jack Nicholson die twice as two different characters? This movie has you covered. Interested in seeing Glenn Close get murdered by a falling chandelier? Tune in. How about seeing Jack Black get blasted into a glowing skeleton? This is the only movie I can think of where that happens.

The Martians are the real stars here, making duck like noises and going bonkers when doves of peace are released, they slaughter everyone in their path, including Michael J. Fox. They take his girlfriend Nathalie Lake — and her pet chihuahua — hostage and switch the heads of her and her mutt. Oh yeah — they also behead Pierce Brosnan and hang his head upon a line, keeping him alive.

To say this movie is ridiculous is an understatement. Kids who love video games end up being our nation’s greatest hope. A nuclear attack is turned into a hit on a Martian bong. Jim Brown plays a boxer — who has Pam Grier as his ex-wife, of course — who is dressed as an Egyptian and who knocks out aliens throughout Las Vegas along with Tom Jones. And the real secret to defeating the  Martian menace? Slim Whitman’s voice.

I love that this movie reduces casting to “Can you get us someone like Jim Brown,” and then they just got Jim Brown. Joe Don Bake, Martin Short and Rod Steiger even show up!

Interestingly enough, in 1982, Howard Stern did a sketch during the first week he was on the air at WNBC. In “Slim Whitman Versus the Midget Aliens From Mars”, Whitman’s singing was used as a weapon against invading aliens. Years later, when Tim Burton was on the show, Stern told him about the sketch and Burton replied, “You should have sued me.” Perhaps that’s why Eric the Actor was always taunted with the music and “Ack! Ack! Ack!” Martian language from this movie.