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!

Monday, March 25, 2013

Cyber Monday: T-FORCE (1994)

One of our mottos here should be “so many movies, so little time.”  Despite plugging away at this tiny blog for nearly 3 years, we still haven’t covered 1/10 of what we want.  A perfect example is the storied catalog of PM Entertainment. Sure, we hit a few here and there (ALIEN INTRUDER, the phenomenal RAGE) but we are far from doing an all-encompassing overview.  Born from the 80s direct-to-video outfit City Lights, PM was conceived by producers Richard Pepin and Joseph Merhi (hence the PM) as an independent production company that catered exclusively to the video market with a series of action films.  They kicked off with some real cheap stuff (just to give you an idea, Dan Haggerty was in an early one), but soon kicked into high gear by getting B-movie stars like Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Lorenzo Lamas, and Wings Hauser (who even directed a few outings) in their films.

Starting around 1994, the company really started finding its groove.  The budgets got bigger and that meant the explosions did too.  Under the guidance of stunt coordinators like Spiro Razatos and Red Horton, PM was (in my opinion) producing better action scenes than most major studios at the time.  Cars flipped through explosions as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ego, always landing on a perfectly placed crash cam.  It was damn high art, I tell ya!  Even though they weren’t shown theatrically, the PM stuff was a godsend for us lame folks still going through withdrawal after the Cannon boys closed up shop.  Even better is around this time the Pepin and Merhi boys started expanding their universe and brought their style of slam-bang action over to the science fiction world (no doubt due to the success of some unknown film named TERMINATOR 2).  One of their earliest full blown sci-fi outings was T-FORCE.  Can you guess what the “T” stands for?

Now this logo I can get behind!
The film opens in an unidentified future where a group of terrorists led by Samuel Washington (Vernon Wells) take over a high rise housing a U.N. ambassador.  Five minutes in and I’m getting Wez from THE ROAD WARRIOR shooting people and throwing a woman out a window?  SOLD!   Anyway, this sounds like a job for the T-Force, a group of five cyborgs, er, cybernauts trained to kill and put the termination in their “T” name.  The team consists of leader Adam Omega (Evan Lurie), Cain (Bobby Johnston), Zeus (Deron McBee), Mandragora (Jennifer MacDonald) and Athens (R. David Smith).  Wait, you sure this isn’t a bootleg version of AMERICAN GLADIATORS?  Also along for the ride is Lt. Jack Floyd (Jack Scalia), a renegade cop who plays by his own rules and hates robots.  Can you see guess where this is going? The hostage crisis goes smoothly with only Athens taking some irreparable damage. Unfortunately, the team’s credo of “infiltrate, locate, destroy on contact” (damn, I wish they had made that rhyme as “infiltrate, locate, eliminate” has such a ring to it) ends up resulting in a helicopter with six innocent hostages onboard being blown up.

Anyway, losing six innocent civilians is always bad PR (unless you’re in the Bush administration) and Mayor Pendleton (Erin Gray, still rocking it in her 40s) orders cybernaut creator Dr. Jonathan Gant (Martin E. Brooks, who also built THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN) to dismantle the four remaining bots. Naturally, the robots object and find a loophole when they realize the order of termination conflicts with their primary directive of self preservation.  Well, actually, Cain doesn’t buy their logic and he stays behind after the other three kill their creator and decide to take out the “corrupt” law enforcement that ordered their termination.  The lawbreaking bots hole up in a “decriminalized zone” (meaning: empty factory and rock quarry) and it is now up to Floyd to track them down before they assassinate the mayor. And who better to help him out than someone who can think just like them? Yep, the hard drive hatin’ cop just got himself a new partner in cyborg cutie Cain!  They quickly jump on the trail of our renegade robots and maybe – just maybe! – Floyd will come around to the idea of having a “tin man” as his partner.

T-FORCE isn’t quite a PM classic, but it is a great time waster.  Yes, the script is clichéd as they come (if you saw ALIEN NATION [1988], you already saw this) but the film makes up for it with a good cast and action scenes every 10 minutes or so.  Jack Scalia is very good as the lead and you can buy him as the grizzled cop who holds a grudge against machines because they put his old man out of work at the auto factory back in the day.  He would do two more sci-fi action pictures with PM (THE SILENCERS and DARK BREED) and both are definitely recommended.  One other impressive thing is he does a lot of his own stunt work.  Bobby Johnston is a former Playgirl model so he was probably cast for that alone, but he is also fine as the robotic partner and the rapport with Scalia is nicely done.  Evan Lurie, who is a dead ringer for WCW’s Kanyon, is also entertaining as the lead villain (although his style did lead me to wonder why a doctor would give a cyborg a pony tail).  I do wish director Richard Pepin had done a bit more to establish the time period of the film though. Seriously, you can’t have anyone say a date?  The closest we get is someone referring to a weapon as “vintage 20th century.”  It is odd because they do a lot of things right like the cyborg designs and even little stuff like a convenience that proudly sells guns, booze and groceries.  Of course, I can’t complain too much about a film that has two cyborgs break into a sex scene after they discover a nudie mag lying on the floor of their steel mill headquarters.  Genius!

PM's executive conference?
Of course, as with most PM films, the biggest asset is the crazy ass stuntwork.  You’d think PM stood for Plenty o’ Mayhem because they blow stuff up real good here.  In fact, the first 25 minutes is nothing but action with the high rise hostage situation.  Stunt coordinators Joe Murphy and Red Horton love them some big explosions and the abandoned steel mill (also seen in the likes of Albert Pyun’s NEMESIS and DOLLMAN) provides the perfect backdrop for goodness, gracious great balls of fire!  They have some insane stuff going down here, including some explosions so close to the actors that the singed hairs on the back of James Hetfield's neck stand up any time they go off.  Whether it is commitment to their filmmaking craft or a bit of craziness (I suspect a bit of both), it is practical stuff like real cars flippin’ and big bombs a bustin’ that makes this 100 minutes worth my time.  You can take your fancy CGI flames and shove ‘em!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Cyber Monday: METAL HURLANT CHRONICLES (2012)

If you were some sort of sadistic enabler or, more to the point, an deranged corrupter of youth, you might have held two hands out in front of my wide pre-pubescent eyes. In one hand a Penthouse magazine, in the other, a copy of Heavy Metal. Can you see the sweat breaking on my brow? How in god's name was I supposed to choose between the two? I should write a book around that scenario. It would be the cruelest story since Steve Martin's first novel.

When I was in my pre-teens and even in my teenage years, Heavy Metal Magazine was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. My mind was blown by the fact that it was a comic book, but the art was not the clean, nice art found in Marvel and DC, it was gritty, violent and frequently had impossibly gorgeous women in various states of nekkid. The stories weren't simply about a guy in tights doing nice things, they were complex and aesoteric to the point where my young mind would frequently be completely lost. It also, more than occasionally, had male nudity and while in my naiveté I didn't get why you'd want that in the first place, I perceived it as very edgy and daring. Which it turned out to be, and still is to a degree, at least here in the US.

As I learned later, Heavy Metal, was in legend and in fact, Metal Hurlant. A french magazine created in 1974 by the Les Humanoides Associés, a publishing group that included the now iconic artist Mœbius (Jean Giraud) as well as Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Philippe Druillet. In addition to featuring Mœbius (who would later work on the production design of highly influential films such as 1982's TRON), Metal Hurlant provided a home for writers who pushed the envelope as well. Famed cinematic lunatic Alejandro Jodorowski wrote more for Metal Hurlant than he ever did for movies, and his joint vision with the artists that he worked with were not limited by flaky backers, tiny budgets or prima donnas. After experimenting with a comics-only format, the magazine featured a format of short comic stories, interspersed with pop-culture articles by journalists about music, movies and novels, all of a sci-fi or underground bent.


In 1977 National Lampoon published an American version of Metal Hurlant known as Heavy Metal. Starting out with translated versions of Metal Hurlant's stories, after a few years Heavy Metal sought out its own identity by utilizing more American talent to make original content, much to the chagrin of the French publishers, who, being French, could not understand why you wouldn't want French stories. Interestingly, while Metal Hurlant began succumbing to an over-saturation of the target demographic with several other magazines created by former Metal Hurlant staffers, in America, Heavy Metal continued to flourish. By 1987 Metal Hurlant had burned very brightly, but with artists and writers turning to other outlets, Metal Hurlant was rendered silent.

That is not to say that Heavy Metal never missed a step. They had various change-ups in publication schedules, leadership (finally being bought out by Mr. Ninja Turtle himself Kevin Eastman, for better or for worse in 1992) and a little competition from Marvel's Epic Illustrated (1980-1984) which featured the likes of Frank Frazetta gracing their covers. In spite of that, Heavy Metal never went out of publication and is still in print today. In 2002 with the help of US-based publisher / film producer and owner of the the Humanoids publishing group, Fabrice Giger, Metal Hurlant was revived in France (with English, Spanish and Portuguese editions) sporting a new format that featured only the comic aspect (arguably the most popular part) and served as a platform for aspiring artists or as a showcase for excepts of graphic novels. This lasted only four years before fizzling out again.


Due to it's cutting-edge popularity in the US and Canada, a US-Canadian co-production brought to life an R-rated animated anthology film in 1981 that stayed true to the source material. Although minor tweaks were made to help accommodate a new wrap-around segment and perhaps a few less penises were rendered, the movie stayed incredibly faithful to the original stories and artwork, something of a rarity for a production with Hollywood backing.

Since then, there has been an ill-conceived "sequel" titled HEAVY METAL: F.A.K.K.² (which stands for "Federation-Assigned Ketogenic Killzone to the second level", in case you were wondering), written by Kevin Eastman as a vehicle for his then-wife Julie Strain. Based on a single story from a more recent American issue, "The Melting Pot", it went through a decade of development and production issues before finally being released direct to video in the year 2000 as HEAVY METAL 2000. With Saturday morning cartoon-style art and an embarrassingly insipid story, it proved that Eastman should stick to what he knows best: publishing other people's work. 2007 saw rumors that David Fincher and James Cameron were interested in doing a proper all-star HEAVY METAL sequel (since Guillermo del Toro was involved, this was clearly doomed from the outset) and in 2011, brace yourself, Robert Rodriguez picked up the rights. Rodriguez has stated that he and Eastman are working on "a large scale media project" and an animated film. And you thought that Eastamn and Strain project was bad. I shudder to think of what Eastman and Rodriguez might do.


In 2011 a French production company, with the backing of Fabrice Geiger, announced that it would be releasing an anthology TV series on French TV with European distribution to follow shortly thereafter. After yet another delayed production the series was broadcast in late 2012 in it's entirety on two days, in a late night slot.

Consisting of six 25 minute episodes, this modern METAL takes its inspiration from the pages of the 2002-2004 revival and sports a razor-thin wrap-around segment that echoes the 1981 film. The opening of the series starts with a grave narration: "The last fragment of a once living planet, it's body blasted into dust by the madness of it's own inhabitants, while its head was cursed to roam aimlessly through time and space screaming in pain and sorrow. In legend and in fact, it is known as... Metal Hurlant", while a meteor that looks slightly head-like blazes through the cosmos with some synth and crunchy guitars in the background. Damn, I'm sold already! The opening credits are a montage of live-action (though heavily digitally rendered) concepts of Metal Hurlant style: a girl in black leather using a laser blaster to shoot ninjas under the moons of a futuristic city, ablaze with blue fire; a female cowboy cutting down some grizzled outlaws with a samurai sword on an alien desert planet and the like. Rocket fuel for your inner 16 year-old.


Shot on what is obviously very low budgets, in English, the stories are essentially like modern Twilight Zone episodes. I know that is sort of a hackneyed analogy, but this series really embodies that phrase like none before it. The stories are tight, concise and feature a twist at the end that throws the viewer's conceptions on their respective ears.

The first episode, "The King's Crown" (based on the same story from Metal Hurlant #142 by Jim Alexander and Richard Corben), has the Metal Hurlant screaming past a planet where the corrupt and bloated king lives in a floating castle above the unwashed masses. A once technologically advanced race has now returned to a feudal era with the remnants of its high-tech past on the periphery. The king is dying and as is the custom, a tournament is held to find a new successor. The warriors fight to the death until there is only one man standing. That man will be crowned king. In this event is Guillame (Scott Adkins) a ferociously just fighter who wants nothing more than to win the crown so that he can take his people out of their slums and bring back the technology that they have lost during the reign of the tyrant king who gluts himself on drugs and kidnapped concubines. Also in the fight are warriors with much less noble intents, including Michael Jai White, Matt Mullins and Darren Shahlavi (who played Kano in the woefully under-promoted and distributed MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY). While series director Guillaume Lubrano doesn't get the same firepower out of this fantastic group as say, John Hyams might have, just remind yourself that it's a TV show, and a French one at that, and it suddenly becomes quite an impressive thing indeed.

Other stories are a bit more cerebral: "Shelter Me" has a teenage girl waking up in a sealed bomb-shelter with her strange neighbor; some a bit more political: "Red Light" tells of a man being held by an alien peacekeeping force that has supplied arms to his people and their enemies, ensuring mutual destruction; some more epic and flashy: "Master of Destiny" originally written and drawn by by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Adi Granov for the final issue of Hurlant in 2004, boasts what appears to be half of the budget of the entire series. Embracing the feel of old school Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal, but presenting them in a modern way, only one story out of the seven (one episode has two stories) falls flat. "The Pledge of Anya" with Rutger Hauer, has a theme that has been done to death with a twist that is more than a little obvious at the halfway point. Other than that one misstep, the series is a lot of fun, simultaneously feeling fresh and yet familiar. I wish that we could have television shows like this in America. Sure, the SyFy Channel could do their own Heavy Metal series, or even someone else, but it would never be based on actual stories from the magazines. It would have to be "inspired by" so that some hack TV writers could dumb it down, fill it with wisecracks and turn it into the one thing that it shouldn't be: mostly harmless, like the awful MORTAL KOMBAT: CONQUEST series. Granted, this French series has no nudity and only the barest trickle of blood at best, and the digital effects are in no danger of overshadowing THE HOBBIT (2012), but then again, it's not homogenized baby pap either.
It may have some shortcomings due to the budget and the intended medium, but I feel that METAL HURLANT CHRONICLES is some of the best genre TV I've seen in ages. Apparently someone with France 4 (the station that aired the series) didn't have high-hopes for it and decided to make sure that it would not do well. In spite of the mediocre ratings, much like the magazine that it is based on, the series seems to be more popular outside of France. In spite of this a second season has been announced. The good news is that Sony Pictures has purchased the rights for European distribution. The bad news is, nobody seems to be interested in it here in the US, which I find somewhat baffling. It could easily be re-edited into a (rather long) feature film and given a DTV blu-ray release or shown on the SyFy Channel (this would seem like a no-brainer). Maybe they're just concerned that it would make their other programming look worse than it already does. In the mean time while we wait for the suits in American board rooms to figure it out, the complete series has been released on DVD and Blu-Ray in France (the deluxe edition comes with a hard-back volume containing reprints of all of the original stories that are in the series). While I do wish that this have been given proper backing and made into an epic feature film that would get proper distribution, I am really looking forward to seeing what they have in store for season 2.


Sunday, March 3, 2013

The "Never Got Made" Files #96 - #98: The Many Journeys of C. Courtney Joyner


Joyner directing TRANCERS III (1992)
Having covered C. Courtney Joyner’s unmade works from the 1980s and 1990s in parts one and two, we now jump forward to the present to focus on some of his more recent projects.  The new millennium found the always active Joyner not slowing down.  In addition to scripts for television, Joyner got to write for some comics and contributed chapters to film books on Lon Chaney, Jr., John Ford and John Wayne.  In 2009 he also saw the culmination of years of work with the release of THE WESTERNERS, a collection of interviews with some of the western genre's best filmmakers.  Of course, he still had plenty of film ventures in the development stage at this time and in our final piece we’re going to examine three of them.

#96 - BLACK GLOVES (2005) 

Promotional art for BLACK GLOVES
This serial killer script, also know as PAPA, shows Joyner returning to his horror roots.  He describes it as a “woman in jeopardy” thriller and it focuses on Kathryn, a young law student who discovers a shocking secret while trying to find her real father.  She locates him but discovers he is a serial killer, who is soon captured by the F.B.I. after trying to kill her.  The bad news?  His long standing desire to kill was fostered by his desire to kill his own relatives and in locating him she has reenergized his drive while giving him the ultimate target.  And you thought your girl had daddy issues?

Sounds like a pretty easy sell, right?  Well not in Hollywood where execs want a script’s synopsis in five words or less, preferably with a similar movie mentioned (legend has it a top exec once described a project they were fond of as “like DIE HARD but set in a skyscraper”). Fighting such odds is tough, but Joyner prevailed.  “BLACK GLOVES was sold to [producers] Pen Densham and John Watson a few years ago,” Joyner reveals. “They tried to get that going at MGM and didn’t.”

The end result of dealing with studios
So what is the hold up?  Would you believe something as simple as a title?  When I hear a title like BLACK GLOVES, I immediately think of the 1960s/70s Italian giallo subgenre that featured black gloved killers prowling around with a razor while spying on unsuspecting heroines. “Thank you very much!  That is exactly what I wanted people to think of,” Joyner exclaims with joy.  “And then, of course, O.J. Simpson happened.  So now everybody thinks it’s a reference to that and I go, ‘No, no, no!  It’s not O.J. Simpson, it is DEEP RED.’  Say DEEP RED to a development executive and see the reaction you get.”

Indeed, chances are you say “giallo” to a studio exec and they start thinking of Bill Cosby and pudding pops.  Mmmmm, pudding pops. Solving the title problem was a snap compared to the office politics: “MGM was in the process of a changing of the guard, and was sold, which is always death to a script in development, and that’s what happened with us. John and Pen are great producers, and they devoted a lot of time to the project, but everyone gets run over when studios reorganize.” Thankfully, the rights have fully reverted back to Joyner and he feels it is something that might be worth dusting off at some point.

#97 - COP WAR (2005-present)

Around the same time period, Joyner developed a script with old friend Sheldon Lettich, a screenwriter-director best known for his RAMBO III (1988) screenplay and various collaborations with Jean-Claude Van Damme.  The inspiration for this contemporary action flick came from an unusual source: the 1928 Herbert Asbury non-fiction book dealing with early 20th century gangs in America’s biggest city.  “I had gotten a hold of a copy – years before the Martin Scorsese movie – of the [Asbury] book THE GANGS OF NEW YORK,” Joyner discloses.  “My father had a first edition of it sitting in our house forever and I read it.  I was so interested in the fact that these police departments at the turn of the century in New York City basically had this shooting war going on.  Most of it was ethnic – the Irish versus the Italians. Reading a lot about what was going on in L.A. – whether it was the Rodney King or even going back to the Manson investigation – there was never a lot of cooperation between the LAPD and the Sheriff’s department.  I thought, ‘What if things got so bad that an actual shooting war broke out between those two facets?’”

Together the two screenwriters came up with a story of warring cop factions that, when not arresting folks, wage war over the city streets in Pittsburgh. “Sheldon had the idea that, since I’m from Pittsburgh, to set it in an urban setting and we went for Pittsburgh,” Joyner says of the plot.  “A rookie policeman discovers his senior partner is involved with corruption that involves his entire precinct. When he tries to report it, he finds himself at war with his fellow officers.”

With Lettich’s Van Damme connection, it was only a matter of time before the “Muscles from Brussels” took interest in the project.  “Jean-Claude Van Damme was interested in it for a while because, of course, he and Sheldon have a very good history,” he reveals. “Sheldon was always going to direct it. It’s come awfully close a few times.”  One of those times was a close call as the script almost undeservedly ending up as the basis for the direct-to-video S.W.A.T. II for Sony (the world was eventually blessed with the unrelated S.W.A.T. sequel S.W.A.T.: FIREFIGHT in 2011).  In 2005 a prominent director of THE WIRE also got involved, but the film was still not made.

What COP WAR almost became:


As it stands now, the script is still open for development and hopefully Lettich can get it on the front burner again. Crazy cop stories like the recent Christopher Dorner case in Los Angeles show the subject matter will always be relevant. “It’s always been an active project,” Joyner explains of the script, “and every once and a while Sheldon will call me and say, ‘Oh guess what?  Somebody wants to do something with COP WAR again!’”    

#98 - BOXCAR BOYS

Early 20th Century railroad camp
It is only fitting that we end our coverage with this script as it is one of Joyner’s personal favorites, alongside DOUBLE ACTION MAN (aka WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN) that John (ROLLING THUNDER) Flynn tried to get made.

Like the aforementioned COP WAR, BOXCAR BOYS also found its origin through a bit of historical research after Joyner had moved away from Hollywood for a period and was living in North Carolina.  “Here is the thing I discovered – in certain states, particularly in the South, the railroad companies themselves actually owned the land and the property around where the land where tracks existed,” he details.  “That is why they could have the rail hops as a private police force and nobody could do anything because, essentially, they were enforcing law on private property.  You would see the pictures of the tent cities around the railroad yard during the Depression.”

Early 20th Century unsanctioned boxing match
With this setting in place, Joyner began fashioning a scenario in the best tradition of hard hitting Depression era classics like EMPEROR OF THE NORTH (1973) and HARD TIMES (1975).  “I set this in one of the tent cities and the rail hops are having boxing matches there with these guys they are essentially holding prisoner,” Joyner reveals of his script. “They capture this one kid who is sneaking on a boxcar and he’s deaf, but he’s a good fighter.  And he becomes kind of famous. So the hoi polloi of the surrounding cities come in and it becomes a bigger and bigger thing. The height reaches where they have one match that brings in everybody turns into a race riot.”

With his script completed, Joyner got the labor of love to his agent and the “Jack Dempsey meets Jack London” style scenario drew immediate interest from several parties.  “It got me a lot of notice,” Joyner says.  “A producer got a hold of it and at different times we had Christopher Walken attached, we had Burt Reynolds attached, we had Harvey Keitel attached.  All kinds of people.”  One of the more fascinating interested talents was a man legendary for using his fists in real life and having been a participant in one of moviedom’s greatest fist fights in THEY LIVE (1988).  “Roddy Piper really, really wanted to do it,” he reveals.  “He would be playing the bad guy, which I thought would have been great.  He gave me some great feedback.”

Fargo directs Chuck Norris on FORCED VENGEANCE (1982)
Originally Joyner wrote the film with the intention of also making it his third directorial feature.  However, like DOUBLE ACTION MAN, he realized a more experienced director might be in order.  “Again, this really required someone a hell of a lot better than me as I’d only directed two movies now,” he says of the decision to let other directors look at it.  “This was a period piece and kind of a big thing. About two or three years ago, I gave the script to James (THE ENFORCER) Fargo as we had the same agent.  Jim really liked and his background with Clint Eastwood was a perfect fit.  We tried to get something going at Hallmark and we couldn’t.  I know Jim would still very much like to do it. I love that piece and it really attracted some good people.  But, as often happens, we get the folks but couldn’t get the money.  I have high hopes for that as I feel it is a real quality piece of work.”

As it stands, Joyner’s BOXCAR BOYS is still something he cherishes to this day and hopes to see made into a feature film.  “You almost have a whole different feeling about that kind of work and your commitment to that work than I do with the [writing] assignments” he acknowledges regarding personal projects versus writing assigned works.  “That doesn’t mean I blew anything off, but your emotional investment is a little different.  There’s a little bit of difference between that and sitting in the bathtub and going, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got a great idea for a movie’ and nursing it along yourself.”  

THE END?

Preproduction art for THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN NEMO
While we’ve reached the end of our series on Mr. Joyner’s unmade screenplays, don’t think the man has any notions of slowing down.  With a new year comes a myriad of new projects.  On the publishing front, Joyner just saw HELL COMES TO HOLLYWOOD, a 2012 horror anthology featuring his “One Night in the Valley” short story, nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, and 2013 promises the publication of SHOTGUN, an original novel series from Kensington / Pinnacle Books, and the highly anticipated WARNER BROS. FANTASTIC, a look at the studios’ genre output from McFarland press.  On the movie side, Joyner has scripted the enticing sounding THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN NEMO, which is scheduled to go into production this year.  And, of course, he’ll probably get a call from Sheldon Lettich about more interest in COP WAR.   As for his other unproduced works, Joyner is level headed and knows it is the nature of the game.  “Every writer who's done any work in Hollywood goes through these exact same experiences,” he concludes. “My adventures aren't unusual or special at all. Unfortunately, more projects are not made than made, and it really is a case of beating the odds when something goes before the cameras. So I just keep pounding away, and hope someone takes notice.”

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Prison Prescription: DESTROYER (1988)

As is sometimes the case in Copywood, one good idea becomes a basis for an entire wave of films. Literally in the case of the waterlogged films of the late '80s. The likes of DEEP STAR SIX (1989), LEVIATHAN (1989), LORDS OF THE DEEP (1989) and THE RIFT (1990) all were brought to life due to the fact that a little movie called THE ABYSS (1989) was being made by some no-name director. This was much in the same way that for a very brief span of time, prison-based horror films became all the rage. You know what they say, the candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long and in the case of prison pictures, all it took was Wes Craven's SHOCKER (1989), a soulless, desperate attempt to recreate the success of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984), to fry that high-concept all to hell.

Released literally one month after PRISON (1988), this is probably more like what Irwin Yablans had in mind when he came up with the story for PRISON, though to their credit, writer-producers Peter Garrity and Rex Hauck realize that, again, having a fellow prisoner terrify fellow prisoners isn't going to work.
It's not just the filmmaking that's hard...

Convicted of the rape and murder of 23 men, women and children, serial killer Ivan Moser (Lyle Alzado) is sent to the chair. It's never said which prison this was supposed to be, but it seems pretty obvious that it's Texas since Warden Karsh (Pat Mahoney) wears a white Stetson and is more interested in frying the sonofabitch than finding out where the remains of the 24th victim are that Moser just confessed to. After Moser gets rendered extra crispy, the prison power fails and a riot ensues. Well, at least that's what we're told. It's pretty obvious that the riot was one of many corners cut. The riot, the largest in history, resulted in the deaths of 13 guards and 37 inmates forcing the prison to close.

Now, a year and a half later, a low-budget film crew (obviously inspired by Roger Corman's productions), take over the abandoned prison to shoot a trashy women's prison epic titled "BIG HOUSE DOLLS". The screenwriter, David (Clayton Rohner), decides that he should use this opportunity to do some simultaneous research on the history of the prison, which the residents, including the local British cabdriver, are strangely superstitious about. In between clashes between the director (Anthony Perkins, playing it straight down the line) and his scenery-chewing leading lady (Lannie Garrett), there is some attempt at light romantic chemistry between David and his girlfriend Malone (Deborah Foreman) who is the stuntwoman on the picture. I'm pretty sure the only stunt Foreman ever pulled off was in the bathroom trying to get on her Flock of Hairdo. Also we have to get in the antics of other members of the crew, such as those of Rewire (Jim Turner), the special effects guy that's half geek, half stoner. These scenes take up way too much of the movie, but once we do find out that Moser is "half alive" and living that half-life in the prison, things pick up speed.

Just because you are low budget,
doesn't mean you can't compose cool shots

While at first it might seem like a stroke of preposterous casting, Alzado makes the movie. Alzado's eyes bulge as much as his steroid-bloated muscles to the point where it seemed like he was in danger of having a stroke at any moment. The producers didn't go out of the way to do any complex make-up, outside of some appliances marking the spots where he was electrocuted (the main one, amusingly being the bald spot on his head), but they really don't need to. Alzado is The Hulk in pinkface with a completely psychotic laugh that actually at times is downright testicle-shrinking. I mean, the guy is 300 pounds of pure 'roid rage mixed with sheer lunacy. In my humble opinion, one of the most disturbing moments in a mainstream '80s slasher film can be found right here. The scene in which Moser straps Malone in the electric chair and rubs his face on her thighs while calling her "mommy" is only topped by the queasy moment where he slowly cuts and eats her hair. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a movie of this era where the slasher villain masturbates while peeping on the girls he's about to kill. The movie may not have a lot of gore even in it's uncut form, but it does have its moments.

Even though I firmly believe that horror films, or maybe just films in general, should not fully explore all of the ideas that they raise, this film throws out a lot of intriguing details that are left hanging. Perhaps they were more fleshed out in the original script (seeing three writers credited with a script is usually a sign that the concept was drawn and quartered by too many cooks), but here they take a back seat to some of the more mundane aspects, such as David and Malone's relationship. I particularly like the gameshow obsession that is in the beginning of the film. Moser is introduced feverishly watching a show that is clearly supposed to be Wheel of Fortune minutes before his execution. We cut to the TV screen and see the puzzle with the clue being "sentence". As in "death sentence". While he is being led to the electric chair you can hear the gameshow announcer (the one and only Gary Owens) in the background talking up the high points of a prized La-Z-Boy recliner, complete with musical cue as Moser sits in the chair. Later in the film, we find out from one of the townies that one of Moser's victims was the Vanna White-esque co-host. It's a cool idea but it never really goes anywhere past that point. The idea was borrowed from a few different places, most likely RUNNING MAN (1987) and it's quickie cash-in cousin DEATHROW GAMESHOW (1987), but actually is really well implemented here, except that it gets forgotten about in the ensuing milieu.

It's also worth mentioning that the US R-rated release, like so many horror films of the day, is missing some of the gore due to Jack Valenti's posse of cinematic luddites. A leaked tape included the original cut, but unfortunately it's been decades since I've seen it and can't seem to find a copy of it anywhere these days. As I recall main censored scene was the one in which Officer Callahan (Bernie Welch) is impaled on the end of a jackhammer (where did that come from?). In the R-rated release version the tip of the jackhammer pokes through the wall behind Callahan and drips blood. In the uncut version, the jackhammer breaks through the wall and blood gushes out. Sounds pretty tame today, but back then that was enough to give one of the genteel MPAA biddies an attack of the vapors.

Is it the greatest slasher flick of the 1980s? Maybe not, but it is pretty damn fun, has some cool ideas, it's very well shot and quite frankly, Lyle Alzado is completely off the charts as Ivan Moser. Plus, it beats the orange jumper off of the following year's high-profile, semi-ripoff SHOCKER (1989). That alone should be enough for someone (say, *ahem* Shout Factory) to give this a nice widescreen, uncut release.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The "Never Got Made" Files #93 - #95: The Many Journeys of C. Courtney Joyner


In part one of our C. Courtney Joyner profile, we covered a trio of unmade films from the 1980s, a decade where Joyner was a fairly busy man.  Well as the 1990s rolled around, he found himself even busier.  Having survived the collapse of Charles Band’s Empire Pictures, Joyner soon found himself the most consistent screenwriter at Band’s new company Full Moon Entertainment.  He even wrote and directed a couple of features while there (TRANCERS III [1992] and THE LURKING FEAR [1994]).  While the scripts were high on creativity, the films were low in budget and suffered as a result.  Not to worry though as Joyner soon found himself graduating from B-movies to becoming part of the A-team as his screenplays in the new decade took a more adult tone and attracted some major players.

#93 - DOUBLE ACTION MAN (WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN) (late 80s/early 90s)

Erotic mystery-thrillers were all the rage in the late 1980s to early 1990s thanks to films such as FATAL ATTRACTION (1987) and BASIC INSTINCT (1992), so it isn’t a stretch to think the similarly tinged DOUBLE ACTION MAN sprung from there.  The ironic thing is that despite being one of Joyner’s personal favorites of his unproduced scripts, it initially didn’t start with him and was written before the T&A thrillers were doing big business. “DOUBLE ACTION MAN was a script I wrote for an independent producer,” he reveals of the script initially written in 1986.  “They had a script that was not good and they hired me and it was basically a case of ‘guys, you just have to throw away what you have.’”

Replace "daughter" with "wife"
Joyner’s basic instincts (ah, boo yourself) proved correct as he put together a tight screenplay that explored how one man reacts to the crushing duality of his spouse. “The plot was that a Joe Blow, average American guy has his businessman’s job and his wife is selling real estate,” he explains of the script’s design.  “And his wife is murdered.  He finds out that in fact she was not selling real estate, but she was a high priced escort and that she was also doing pornographic movies for the money.  It was really our version of [Paul Schrader’s] HARDCORE (1979), where he has to go and explore this whole other side of her life that he didn’t know existed in this underbelly.”

Initially Joyner was looking to make this his third directorial effort, a sharp 180 from his first two genre features.  However, as the script’s reputation grew, he realized it might be something bigger than what he could handle. “We were going to try and do it for kind of a low budget or mid-range budget,” he says.  “That would be cool to try and set me up as a director because I had my eye on that, but the project was too big.  We required someone who knew what the hell they were doing, not me.”

John Flynn directs James Woods
on BEST SELLER (1987)
The project soon found itself in the very capable hands of John Flynn, director of such hard-hitting thrillers as THE OUTFIT (1973) and ROLLING THUNDER (1977).  With Flynn’s involvement came attention from a number of well-known Hollywood male leads.  Expressing interest in the project were James Woods, who had previously worked with Flynn on BEST SELLER (1987), John Travolta and even David Bowie.  The script also saw a title change to WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN, a title which was later bought for the Andy Garcia-Meg Ryan 1994 alcoholism movie.

Unfortunately, the project was never able to get off the ground. When asked during our conversation which of the screenplays he wished had been made, Joyner cited this one.  “I liked that script, I was proud of that script,” he reveals.  “I loved working with John [Flynn].  I really thought that was a good piece.  That was disappointing that it didn’t happen.  To be able to have meetings with James Woods and all that, I got very excited about all that.” Alas, all hope is not lost though as Joyner currently owns this script 100% so perhaps we’ll see it one day in the future.

#94 - OUT OF STEP (early 1990s)

Producer
Paul Maslansky
Another popular subgenre during the 90s was the “______ from hell” that saw everyday relationships turning to chaos for (usually white) couples.  We got the roommate from hell (PACIFIC HEIGHTS [1990]), the babysitter from hell (THE HAND THE ROCKS THE CRADLE [1992]), the roommate from hell again (SINGLE WHITE FEMALE [1992]) and even the secretary from hell (THE TEMP [1993]).  Life is hard out there for suburban white folks, cinema told us.  So what could be even more terrifying than all of those “from hell” entries? How about step children?  As if divorce weren’t bad enough.

Producer Paul Maslansky was trying to get steer away from his POLICE ACADEMY work and return to the type of thrillers that he began his career with as he was producing THE RUSSIA HOUSE (1990) at the time.  It was Joyner’s work on DOUBLE ACTION MAN that brought him to Maslansky’s attention.  “Paul had a fellow working for him at the time whose name was Phil Goldfine,” he says. “Phil was always very supportive of me and I believe WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN was the script that he read.  He liked it a lot and Paul liked it.”

Joyner was brought in and given the idea for this thriller by Paul’s wife at the time, Sally Maslansky. “She had an idea for a thriller about stepchildren terrorizing their new mother,” he explains.  “I thought that was an interesting take on the thriller, kind of turning things around so instead of the evil stepmother it is exactly the reverse.  And, of course, the father doesn’t want to hear anything bad about his own kids and all of that stuff.  It was interesting.”

Producer Richard Donnar
If Joyner’s DOUBLE ACTION MAN attracted big male names, then this Warner Bros.-owned script did the exact opposite as the tale of a stepmom battling evil step kids drew the attention of several big female stars at the time.  Kathleen Turner and Michelle Pfeiffer, who has just worked with the Maslanskys on THE RUSSIA HOUSE, were mentioned as possible leads.

Even after the Maslanskys exited the picture, the script drew even more attention.  “I remember a year or two after it didn’t happen with the Maslanskys that Richard Donner and [his wife] Lauren Schuler got involved,” Joyner discloses.  “And so did Sally Field.  [Her production company] Soapdish stepped in and they got interested in it.  Whether they just read it and said, ‘we might be able to do something with this’ or whatever, then they either decided they didn’t want to move forward or hire another write or what have you.  That was just a straight writing assignment.  We did it, everybody seemed pleased but it didn’t go further than that.”
 
#95 - MINDFIRE (early/mid 1990s)

We don't have much on MINDFIRE,
so here is a mind on fire!
The world is constantly bemoaning the lack of originality coming out of Hollywood.  Well, it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying on Joyner’s part.  The last unmade script we’ll discuss this time is MINDFIRE, a spec script that Joyner wrote and plays out a like cop thriller with a little extrasensory perception on the side.

“MINDFIRE was about a young girl who was psychically connected to a maniac,” he reveals.  “What he does is he can understand the connection and make her have delusions.  So she feeds the police false information without knowing it. That was the idea.  I thought if you had someone else is psychically aware, can’t they be manipulated.  It is like if someone is eavesdropping on your phone, can’t you feed them misinformation?  This would be the same thing, but only with psychics.  It’s in there on the shelf, maybe I ought to dust that one off.”

Despite having one of those hooks that movie execs love to hear (“It’s LETHAL WEAPON with E.S.P.” you could say), the script never got made.  “Nothing every happened with MINDFIRE,” Joyner reveals of the early 90s action-fantasy script. “My manager at the time, Cathryn Jaymes, was very good at getting my stuff out and that went to Joel Silver and Larry Gordon.  Nobody ever jumped at it, but it got me some meetings about potential writing assignments.”

Stay tuned for our third and final part where we discuss some of Joyner's more recent efforts.