Cyber Monday: Project Shadowchaser Trilogy

Frank Zagarino dies hard!

Cinemasochism: Black Mangue (2008)

Braindead zombies from Brazil!

The Gweilo Dojo: Furious (1984)

Simon Rhee's bizarre kung fu epic!

Adrenaline Shot: Fire, Ice and Dynamite (1990)

Willy Bogner and Roger Moore stuntfest!

Sci-Fried Theater: Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (1979)

Surreal Russian neo-noir detective epic!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The "Never Got Made" File #6, #7 and #8: Sho Kosugi


With all this talk of ninjas, it wouldn't be right to leave out Master Ninja himself, Sho Kosugi. You couldn't throw a ninja star in the 1980s without hitting some kind of Kosugi related ninja movie in the theaters or in the works. Here are three announced but never made Sho Kosugi features.

DEVIL'S ODDS: AMERICAN TRINITY - Man, talk about a case of "What coulda been" cinema! Sho Kosugi teaming up with legendary Paul Smith (POPEYE; MIDNIGHT EXPRESS). If the flick had delivered on only half of what the preliminary art from the mid-80s promised, it would have been a classic. And for you Sept. 11th conspiracy fans, note the image in the background.
WAY OF THE NINJA - If you were salivating at the thought of Kosugi teaming up with Paul Smith, your head might explode to think he almost made a film with KOJAK himself, Telly Savalas. Listed Executive Producer Moshe Diamant had previously worked with Kosugi on PRAY FOR DEATH (1985).

HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER - Finally, if you wonder who put the "sho" in showmanship, it was Mr. Kosugi. Here is an unrealized starring vehicle for his two sons, Kane and Shane, previously seen kicking butt alongside dad in NINE DEATHS OF THE NINJA (1985) and PRAY FOR DEATH (1985). This looks like a tough war drama and what better place to get a title than a late 60s pop ballad? Reasons for it not being made could include child labor laws, sensible parenting or lack of interest in the children's war epic subgenre.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Gweilo Dojo: NINJA TURF (1985)


Chances are you've never heard of Jun Chong. After all, how could one even notice this pint sized ass-kicker in the era of guys like Schwarzenegger and Stallone? Born in 1944, Chong began training in the martial arts at an early age and was well versed in Tae Kwon Do by the time his family emigrated to the US. He opened his first Tae Kwon Do school in the late 1960s. With the onslaught of 1970s kung fu chic (thanks mostly to Bruce Lee), Chong's business thrived throughout the decade with the instructor gracing the cover of martial arts magazines left and right. Chong even gave cinema a try as the lead in the Bruceploitation flick BRUCE LEE FIGHTS BACK FROM THE GRAVE (1976). By the time the 1980s rolled around, Chong had been studying martial arts for nearly 30 years. And with flicks being offered to every other guy who could throw a kick, it seemed only natural that Chong would get back on screens. But this time Chong did it on his own terms as he took to producing his own action flicks.

NINJA TURF (1985) - Young (Chong), Tony (Chong student Phillip Rhee) and three friends start up a security business and this results in them getting in fights a lot. The main plot doesn't kick in until an hour has passed when Young steals a ton of drug money from a client who hired them ("It was bad money and I would put it to a good cause"). Naturally, the dealer wants it back so he hires two assassins - Japan's Yoshida (Ken Nagayama) and New York's Kruger (Bill "Superfoot" Wallace) - to retrieve it and teach the boys a lesson.

Chong's first foray into producing is an odd, yet enjoyable 80s action flick. Odd in the sense that it has no plot for the first hour and that lead tough guy Chong spends a lot of time crying about his drunk mom not loving him. Oh, and like the previously reviewed RUSSIAN TERMINATOR, there is some wonky retitling going on here as there isn't a single ninja in NINJA TURF (its original title was LOS ANGELES STREETFIGHTER). And, oddest still, in that Chong, who was in his 40s when this was shot, is supposed to be playing a high school student!?! Initially I thought there is no way he could be in high school. Maybe it was community college. But sharp-eyed junkie head Tom spotted this:


The supporting cast is sprinkled with familiar faces. Brinke Stevens shows up as a drug dealer's girlfriend and supplies the film's only nudity. In addition, future stars Thomas Wilson (Biff from BACK TO THE FUTURE) and Loren Avedon (KING OF THE KICKBOXERS) have small roles as gang members. Perhaps the most famous co-star in this day and age of the internet(s) is Mark Hicks. Hicks is a member of Young's crew (aptly named Mark) and he achieved internet superstar notoriety as the famous Afro Ninja, the guy who attempts to do a flip with some nunchaku and falls on his head. I'm sure you've seen it. Here he is crying about his birthday:


And while NINJA TURF is filled with plenty of unintentionally hilarious bits like this one above, the film has a certain appeal. Director Woo-sang Park (under the name Richard Park) directs the action scenes well with a focus on the marital arts talents of the leads. In fact, this might be some of the best U.S. action choreography from that time period because they shot it in the style of Hong Kong martial arts flicks with an emphasis on long takes and complex routines. Chong and Rhee would re-team a few years later on SILENT ASSASSINS (1988), to be featured in part 2 of this retrospective.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The "Never Got Made" File #4 and #5: Dueling Siegfrieds


Both ads here are circa 1982. I wonder what could have possibly spawned such an interest in sword and sorcery films with musclebound protagonists? ;-) Yes, the effects of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) were felt worldwide and, naturally, the Italians jumped on the genre quickly. Of course, leave it to the Italians to go wayyy out there and adapt an act from Richard Wagner's opera DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN (THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG) in order to cash in on the CONAN craze.

SIEGFRIED THE NIBELUNG lists one Peter Newton as the director. That is, of course, the pseudonym for Joe D'Amato and chances are this project morphed into ATOR THE INVINCIBLE of the same year.


THE SWORD OF SIEGFRIED had the irascible Lucio Fulci listed as the prospective director. Again, this specific project did not materialize, but Fulci did get his fantasy freak on with CONQUEST as short time later.



One has wonder if legal technicalities played into the changing of both from SIEGFRIED projects to regular sword and sorcery projects. Ha, like that would ever stop the Italians!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Mats Helge: THE RUSSIAN NINJA (1989)

That crazy Swede, Mats Helge, takes a second swipe at the ninja genre, but on a much smaller scale this time out.

THE RUSSIAN NINJA (aka THE RUSSIAN TERMINATOR) begins with an immaculately coifed fashion photographer, Mike (Frederick Offrein), having a photo shoot interrupted by a wealthy man in a white limo (Timothy Earle desperately trying to hide behind a fake mustache and glasses) requesting, bribing and ultimately blackmailing Mike into returning to his old mercenary ways and helping his daughter, Eve (Playboy Playmate Helle Michaelsen), who’s boyfriend has been kidnapped by individuals unknown. So sets the gears in motion to provide Mike with an excuse to kick ass, take names and generally look like George Lucas and Gunnar Hansen’s long lost lovechild. We discover that the kidnappers are after a certain politically valuable document in Dad’s office that Eve and childhood friend/bodyguard (Ramon Sylvan of ANIMAL PROTECTOR, 1988) are to steal in exchange for the dude-sel in distress. Meanwhile Mike is hot on their tail and the mysterious Russian Ninja follows them all, presumably to protect the document. This is actually one of the films big weak points (I mean aside from the acting, fight choreography, dialogue and production values), the ninja is not only a background figure, but is one of those “good” ninjas. Mats, what the hell were you thinking? There are NO good ninjas, unless they are the ones fighting the evil ninjas. Anyway, our ninja skulks in the shadows until ultimately uttering lines in an almost Schwarzenegger like mumble such as “You got a problem… You’re gonna die.”

Hey, what's Ozzy doing in this flick!?
Interestingly the US release of THE RUSSIAN NINJA underwent a title change courtesy of Arena Home Video. During the mid to late ‘80s everything coming into the country or even domestic stuff hitting video received a title change to include the word “ninja”. Low-budget films such as Richard Park’s LOS ANGELES STREETFIGHTERS (1985) got a nifty retitling to NINJA TURF in spite of the fact that there isn’t even anything remotely resembling a ninja in the entire film. So you’d think Helge’s RUSSIAN NINJA would be wholeheartedly embraced by video distributors. And you’d be wrong. In 1990 Arena Video decided that ninja’s were passé and they wanted to sell it as a TERMINATOR film, predating the massive direct-to-video cash-ins on the success of TERMINATOR II (1991). Only the brilliant Godfrey Ho saw the opportunity of capitalizing on both, releasing NINJA TERMINATOR in 1985.

RUSSIAN NINJA has it’s good points to be sure, but suffers from a general lack of exploitation value after the opening scene up until the last 10 minutes. Sure there is some badly (and amusingly) staged hand-to-hand combat, but it really needed some bloody squibs, a better car chase and something exploding. Anything exploding. Cardboard boxes catching fire. Anything! The other big cardinal sin Helge commits is casting a Playboy Playmate for his female lead and not having any nudity. Seriously, you paid her to be in the movie, people are paying to see her in the movie… that’s just bad consumership. If people wanted to see her acting acumen, she would have had a career as an actress, not as a nude model. Does that sound shallow and chauvinistic? Come on now, you know it’s true.

Kenny Rogers knows when to hold 'em.
That said there is some unintentional fun to be had. The helicopter stunt that consists of the Russian climbing on to a helicopter in flight, getting in a fight and throwing the guy out only to have the camera cut to a wide shot revealing that the copter is only a mere six feet off the ground is freakin’ priceless. Offrein manages to go the entire movie without changing his flat expression once. Whether he’s telling his wife (who looks like a pajama-clad Ozzy Osbourne from his No Rest for the Wicked days) that he must be going on a dangerous mission or strangling a badguy with his own automatic weapon, his deadpan never falters. Step through it in slow motion if you don’t believe me. It’s pretty impressive. Also, it must have been a long time ago that Mike was a serious badass because through most of the movie damn near everyone kicks his ass and he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with that fancy gold-plated .45 of his. Then again, Eve’s bodyguard isn’t much use either as he gets his butt whupped by Mike half-way through the film and when he stands at the bottom of a flight of stairs shooting up at the stationary female kidnapper he empties his gun and she turns around and walks off without so much as a scratch. There are some great bits of dialogue as well, one of my favorites is between the kidnappers and Eve.
Male Kidnapper: “Eve, have you got the papers?”
Eve: “Yes, I've got the papers… Got my boyfriend?”
Female Kidnapper: “Of course we've got him. I've got him. Who do you think we are? A bunch of assholes?!”
Classic!

Widely credited as a sequel to Mats Helge’s NINJA MISSION (1984) due to some promotional art, this is merely Helge’s next film after making NINJA MISSION that has the word “NINJA” in the title and at least one character in ninja garb. Other than that, no relation. I suspect this was Helge's way of drumming up some meager financial backing. I don’t want to get to technical here, but to broaden the gap, NINJA MISSION had a gazillion times more action, effects, and locations. You know, what they call a “budget”. While I have been unable to track down all of Helge’s films, from what I’ve been able to see, his films tend to arc downward in budget and production values from NINJA MISSION and BLOOD TRACKS (1985) to his second to last film THE FORGOTTEN WELLS (1990), which is so budget starved that it makes similarly themed under-ground spelunkers like Albert Pyun’s ADRENALINE (1996) seem like mega-budgeted thrill-rides. Fortunately most of Helge’s efforts are vastly entertaining inspite of, sometimes because of, their attempts to compete with Hollywood action films. Also, the stories about the man himself which include tales of him being deaf because of all of the explosions in his films and doing prison time due to bookkeeping issues, really only add to the appeal.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

The "Never Got Made" Files #2 and #3: HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP 2 and PIRANHA 3


Both of these projects are circa 1991 and neither film got made. HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP 2 carried the subtitle THE NEXT GENERATION. Note producer Ovidio Assonitis' pseudonym Oliver Hellman (clever) slated to direct PIRANHA 3. Interestingly, Roger Corman did produce remakes of both films in 1995-6 for Showtime. A second remake of PIRANHA is forthcoming. Ugh.

#2 - HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP 2



#3 - PIRANHA 3

Friday, April 9, 2010

On the Celluloid Chopping Block: Mats Helge's BLOOD TRACKS (1985)

For those who need an introduction, Sweden has a couple of internationally famous (or infamous) exploitation directors, none more prevalent in America than Mats Helge. If you’ve spent any time scouring video stores for cool low-budget movies in the ‘80s you will no doubt have stumbled across a film from New Line Cinema’s Smart Egg production company titled BLOOD TRACKS. Released in the US in 1985 it was marketed so as to make audiences think that it had something in common with Wes Craven’s 1984 hit A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Of course the only thing they had in common was a genre and a distributor, but they wouldn't have had to worry about that lame tie in if they had used the full poster art which featured a hair band and a lesbian make-out session. Oh wait, that's a dude on the bottom. Ah, the 80's when tough guys on a Monday morning spent more time in the bathroom than their girlfriends on a Friday night.

BLOOD TRACKS is easily Helge’s most ambitious and big budgeted work, a fact that will sadly be lost on first time viewers. The plot is classic fromage: A metal band named Solid Gold has come to an unidentified, presumably American mountain town in the middle of winter searching for the best spot to shoot a scene for the video to their new single “Blood Tracks”. Unbeknownst to them, the abandoned factory where they plan to shoot is home to a group of brothers and sisters who have been living there for over 40 years. Of course the band and their crew trespassing on their land doesn’t go unpunished and the body-count is pretty impressive. Clearly influenced by Wes Craven’s 1977 hit THE HILLS HAVE EYES, I actually enjoy this one more. While Craven was happy to hit one note and stick with it, Helge takes the idea and runs with it. Why have a family encounter this regressed family of savages, when you could have a rock group? Not only is a rock group more entertaining but they have hot chicks! Why have them be simply a group of savages when they could have a back-story about spousal abuse and be obsessed with Christianity? Granted, Craven’s film is more serious and disturbing, but Helge’s riff is infinitely more entertaining and rewatchable. Yeah, I said it. I'll take Helge over Craven any day of the week.


The once popular Swedish band Easy Action is credited with being the first Swedish glam metal band and after being formed in 1982 cut two albums, appeared in BLOOD TRACKS and broke up in 1986 when founding member Kee Marcello signed on with Europe. Seemingly modeled in sight and sound on Philadelphia glam rockers Cinderella, they actually preceded them. In '82 the band allegedly stole their name from another established Swedish band at the time and were sued in ‘83 by Poison, who claimed they plagiarized the chorus of their song “I Want Action” for their establishing hit single titled “We Go Rockin’.”

Unlike many films that try to use a band as a central focus for the plot, Easy Action is actually really entertaining in their cheesiness. The title song, which ranks right up there with the title song from Robert Ginty’s WHITE FIRE, is actually seriously catchy and will get stuck in your head every time you see the words "blood tracks".

The biggest problem with BLOOD TRACKS is that it appears to be one of those movies that got brutally censored every time it passed into someone’s hands. At present there is no known completely uncut print that I am aware of. If you know differently don’t hesitate to contact me. Until recently I thought it was hopeless to find even so much as a scrap of extra footage for this film.

The American release which was rated “R” is cut to ribbons. What is really surprising is that it’s not gore that our censors decided had to go! Mainly because most of the gore was already cut.
All I had ever heard and read was that there was no “uncut” version of BLOOD TRACKS on video and technically that still may be true. I had also read that the Japanese VHS was not “uncut”, this is technically true, but the interesting thing is that it is quite literally 3 minutes longer and contains three minutes of extra footage (I’ll save my diatribe on the illusion of video running times for another day). Looking at the video box covers is a clear metaphor for what is actually in the film versions.

Be it the '80s or modern day US censors prefer to delete violence. Now since the legendary American Morality Czar, the vile Jack Valenti has stepped down, we have had much less censorship in cinema, but it's still there. In the ‘80s above the waist nudity was acceptable and even copious in horror movies. Interestingly the US version deletes almost all of the nudity in the film and even goes to the extreme of having the two scenes of nudity that are left in panned and scanned to crop nudity out of the frame!

In the scene with the couple who are trapped in a car after the car is buried by an avalanche the girl is naked when they pull her out. Why is that? That’s because in the full scene the girl takes off her clothes while making out with the band member that includes a brief dialogue exchange. This is actually intercut with some dialogue that takes place between the sound guy and the cameraman in the house. That is deleted also. And amazingly when the girl is being pulled out the car, the US release pan and scans most of her bare ass out of the frame! During a scene where two topless girls are being groped and attacked with a squirt-bottle, the US version pan and scans so that the door takes up most of the frame and most of the nudity is cropped off screen.

There are actually several other scenes at various points in the film where the band members are making out and getting naked that are completely cut out along with any scenes that are intercut with the extended nude scene (if that makes sense).

The only bit of violence that is extended in the Japanese version is where the director “Bob” shoots the dwarf "Sonny" who is wielding nothing but a squeak toy. In the US version he shoots him once off-camera, cutting to a shot of the dwarf already slumped over dead, then another off-camera shot. In the Japanese version Bob shoots him on-camera, chambers another round and shoots him a total of five times while asking why they killed his friends, showing the bullet hits for each shot. The dwarf slumps over and the same off-camera shot is heard as in the US version. Clearly New Line felt the killing of a defenseless, mentally-retarded dwarf was considered to be too brutal for an R-rated American crowd!

Unfortunately no matter which version you watch there’s still a bunch of gore missing. Linda’s death (the girl tied to the wall with the counter-weights) is still a complete mystery. I’m guessing she was torn in half (the two counter-weights appeared to be attached by cables to her wrists, and there is a quick close-up of blood pouring down the middle of her face), but sadly it’s the same in both prints. The bit where the Police Chief (Mats Helge regular Frederick Offrein) shoots the one of the last brothers at the end still looks like it’s missing the coupe de grace. Plus there’s a moment where it looks like something happens to John right after one of the girls gets impaled with a pick-axe. He looks like he’s stunned by something painful and then limps through what’s left of his screen time. Whether that is censored or just an editing kerfuffle, I can’t say.

Interestingly the US version contains an extra shot of the girl who gets impaled on a section of rebar. Even though the initial shot of her impaling is shorter by a few frames, after cutting to a reaction shot of her attacker, the camera cuts back to a wide overhead shot of her bloody body, a shot that is missing from the Japanese. Also the severed arm gag in the US version is panned and scanned so you can see the bloody stump and the hand opening up, where as the Japanese version stays almost dead center cropping off the bloody stump, ruining the effect entirely.

The really bad news is that the Japanese tape looks like crap. Even after I adjusted the colors and contrast with my video processor it’s still just a muddy as hell transfer and the tape is old so it’s really grainy and has lots of drop-outs at the end, resulting in a lot of scenes where it’s difficult to see what’s going on.

The man, the myth, the legend,
back when making a cheap movie still took a helluva lot of effort.

If anyone has any other info on this or any of Mats Helge films, or hell, if you have his e-mail address, drop me a line and let me know.


Easy Action reformed last year and their website has a funny as hell band's-eye-view of making BLOOD TRACKS as written by one of the band memebers.

Thanks to the super-Swede, NinjaDixon, for uploading a super-rare clip of the uncut girl-split-in-two scene!


The "Never Got Made" File #1: THE BOARDING HOUSE (1982)

Robert Quarry, Reggie Nalder and Angus Scrimm? Filmdom...what a cruel mistress you are!




20 things to learn from ANTHROPOPHAGUS 2

It seems only appropriate for my first post here to reach wayyy back into the Video Junkie archives. Joe D'Amato's ANTHROPOPHAGUS 2 (a/k/a HORRIBLE; ROSSO SANGUE) is one of the first flicks I snagged back in the early 90s when I started diving into the bootleg market. How could I not? It was the "sequel" to the mighty ANTHROPOPHAGUS - a film whose posters haunted me as a child in Germany - and saw director D'Amato re-team with gut-munching lead monster George Eastman (a/k/a Luigi Montefiori).

While the end result, sadly, didn't reach the levels of first film, it is still a nice slice of Euro-horror sleaze. It is not truly a sequel, yet retains connections to the first film (the Greek origin; Nikos now being named Mikos). Riffing more off John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN & HALLOWEEN II, the follow-up has the titular beast popping up in a seemingly football-obsessed America and - in a plot twist that pre-dates [REC]2 by about, oh, 28 years - is being pursued by a Vatican-authorized priest (Edmund Purdom, surprisingly giving his all). Oh, did I mention the monster now has flesh regenerating powers now? That is about all the plot you get before hulking Eastman escapes a hospital and shows up at a house to harass a babysitter and her charges.


ANTHROPOPHAGUS 2 got a new lease on life last year as shady Mya Communication released the flick on DVD under its HORRIBLE moniker. Revisiting it brings back many memories and the DVD (a very nice transfer with some so-so inserts) is worth a look. So, without further ado, here are twenty things you can learn from ANTHROPOPHAGUS 2:

  1. Most Americans occasionally slip into an Irish accent for no apparent reason.
  2. In America, people dress up in suits and cocktail dresses for a Superbowl party.
  3. If you’ve just escaped from a Vatican-run laboratory in Greece, the best place to flee to would be America since you don’t need any ID to get into the country.
  4. When in danger from a psychotic killer, it’s best to send small children out alone into the night to get help.
  5. Even if you are a flesh-regenerating, cannibalistic, homicidal maniac, priests will totally freak you out!
  6. No medical condition is too severe to keep you down when you are being attacked by a psychotic killer.
  7. Apparently the Anthropophagus Beast needed bus fare while in Greece.
  8. Americans are never far away from multiple bottles of liquor, which they always drink neat.
  9. In America, you need to leave the real police work to the white cops.
  10. Not even a serial killer running around town is a good enough reason to drag the police higher-ups away from the big game!
  11. If you are in traction, you must lay there and do nothing except play with your compass. No music for you, even if there is a player in the room.
  12. Apparently Eastman holds a grudge against getting hit randomly by a car; wonder what the butcher and Michele Soavi did to piss him off?
  13. Italian, er, everyday USA butchers pack meat AND heat!
  14. Only George Eastman could make big white sneakers scarier than they already are.
  15. Parents will give up calling to see if their kids are okay if they see the lights go off at their house in the distance.
  16. Doctors feel guilty when they hit someone with their car but don't stop to help them.
  17. If big guys with gaping stomach wounds aren’t her type, what exactly does the nurse go for? Little guys who’ve never been scratched?
  18. Greek priests dress like Catholic priests
  19. If said priest is convincing enough in his story, you give him a car and gun and say, "Good luck!"
  20. That bum was totally not drunk. He was not drunk!
ANTHROPOPHAGUS 2 UK trailer:

VidWho?

Welcome to the semi-resurrection of the old VidJunkie.Com in blog form. I've been hesitant to do this as, hell, who doesn't ramble idiotically about movies on a blog these days? Hipsters spreading misinformation and alleged "journalists" who have never seen the movies their talking about make me even more of a cranky old man. Damn hipster kids! Get the hell off my virtual bloodstained lawn!
Erm... what was I saying? Oh yeah, welcome. Welcome to those who remember the old stand-alone site that is now gone and those that don't.