Tag: action

Kaiju Mono A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Kaiju Mono (2016) – A Movie A Day 2021 #17

Kaiju Mono Japanese poster

With the recent announcement that Godzilla vs Kong will be released earlier than expected (and on my my birthday), kaiju movies have been on my mind. Plus, with New Japan Pro Wrestling beginning their first tour of 2021 today, pro wrestling has been on my mind as well. So with both of those things on my mind, I figured it was about time I watched Kaiju Mono, a kaiju movie starring the current IWGP Intercontinental and Heavyweight Champion, Kota Ibushi.

Kaiju Mono is about a skinny, nerdy lab assistant who is turned into a giant pro-wrestling superhero in order to fight a giant monster (called the Dai Kaiju Mono, or just Kaiju Mono in English) that is wrecking the city in search of its lost egg. The lab assistant, Hideto Nitta, has some quick success in his first encounter with the beast, that gains him some instant fame. However, the many different directions he’s pulled in because of his new celebrity status causes him to lose focus on what was important to him before, specifically, his massive crush on Miwa, the daughter of the scientist Nitta works for. On top of all of that, there is a secret plot by some foreign agency to steal the secrets that gave Nitta his extraordinary new abilities. It’s a simple story and a straightforward plot, and that sets up a good base for a whole bunch of goofy comedy and a few cheesy and fun fight scenes. 

That being said, the comedy stylings of Kaiju Mono will not be to everyone’s liking. I’ve seen enough of these types of lower-budget Japanese movies to come to expect a certain degree of overacting and groan-worthy jokes and situations, but I can understand that it might be an acquired taste for some people. Make no mistake, Kaiju Mono is a comedy first and a kaiju movie second. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a parody of kaiju movies, but the argument could be made. Either way, Kaiju Mono does go off on some weird tangents (like the “joke” contest to decide whether or not the scientist will help fight the giant monster), and it does feature many plot points that end up being jokey versions of action and sci-fi movie clichés. I thought it was all in good fun though, and I had a smile on my face the whole time I was watching (even when I was shaking my head). 

I do think my personal experience was heightened immensely by the fact that the star of the movie is one of my current favorite professional wrestlers in the world, Kota Ibushi. Seeing Ibushi outside of a wrestling ring and getting goofy in a movie like this was so much fun to watch. He didn’t have to stretch his acting muscles very much because it felt a lot like he was just acting as himself. Ibushi’s personality in every wrestling show and interview I’ve seen comes across as quiet, humble, and dedicated, and that’s about how he acted for most of this movie. And of course, the rest of the time he was kicking, punching, and Phoenix Splashing a giant monster. So yeah, absolutely top-notch stuff from Kota Ibushi. He should be in more movies. 

Ibushi isn’t the only wrestler in Kaiju Mono though. One of the most frightening pro wrestlers alive, Minoru Suzuki, makes a cameo at a certain point. Suzuki also basically plays himself, and he gets real dirty when he takes his own brand of fighting to the giant monster. Ibushi and Suzuki are also joined by female pro wrestler Saki Akai. Akai has wrestled for promotions in Japan such as Tokyo Joshi Pro and DDT, and in Kaiju Mono she plays a beautiful and dangerous spy who is trying to steal Nitta’s secrets. Akai was great as well, and seeing her in this made me want to look up some of her matches. In addition to the wrestlers, there seem to be a bunch of cameos that I didn’t always recognize. I’m pretty sure one of the NJPW commentators was in the movie calling the battles like pro wrestling matches, and there were a number of Japanese celebrities I didn’t recognize until I looked them up afterwards. I’ll let them be a surprise, because if you know them then it will be fun to spot them, but if you don’t know them then it won’t matter if I name them or not. 

Overall, Kaiju Mono was a good and silly time. I think you can tell exactly what to expect by watching the trailer, so if it looks interesting to you, then you’ll probably enjoy the whole movie. If you’re a fan of Kota Ibushi, then the movie is an absolute must-watch. If you don’t know or don’t care who Kota Ibushi is, then you might still have some fun laughing at this goofy take on classic Japanese monster movies. 

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Wonder Woman 1984 A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #16

My favorite WW84 poster.

I really don’t know what people want from movies sometimes. I waited a few weeks after its release to see Wonder Woman 1984, and in the meantime I’ve seen mixed reviews for the film at best. It’s currently at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and hovering around 5.5 on IMDB. There is a fair amount of review bombing going on (which has to be one of the absolute dumbest forms of protest), and some of the nastier reviews seem like they’re just looking for stuff to complain about. Don’t get me wrong, opinions are fine and great, but some opinions are better (and more well reasoned) than others. By all means, have your own opinion and defend it with whatever reasoning you think you should, but Wonder Woman 1984 definitely better than the impression a casual glance at any collection of online reviews might give you. It’s certainly not the best movie ever made (nor is it trying to be), and it’s probably not even as good was Wonder Woman (2017), but it is a fun superhero movie with some touching moments, campy laughs, and admirable performances. I’m not trying to by cynical here though, so I’m just going to leave the rest of the online chatter behind and talk about the movie from the only perspective I really can: my own. 

Wonder Woman 1984 picks up Diana Prince’s (Gal Gadot) story about 65 years after her adventures with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) during World War I. The year is, obviously, 1984, and Diana is living a relatively quiet life working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. while staying out of the spotlight as best as she can. She’s still helping people by performing heroic deeds as Wonder Woman, but she’s trying to keep that part of her life a secret. Her lives as Diana and Wonder Woman start to cross over when an artifact ends up at the Smithsonian and a newly hired gemologist, Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), is tasked with finding out exactly what it is. It ends up being something imbued with great power, and local celebrity/con-man Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) has been searching for it for a very long time. Long story short, Diana, Barbara, and Maxwell all end up receiving certain benefits from the artifact, and those benefits effect them each in different ways. Maxwell, however, is driven to take more and more power, and as he gets what he wants, the entire world starts to pay a heavy price for it. Diana has to stop him, but her own desires and the actions of Barbara stand in her way emotionally and physically. 

The first thing I really love about Wonder Woman 1984 is the fantastic cast. Gal Gadot is just as perfect for Diana Prince now as she was back in the first Wonder Woman movie. She’s always the strongest presence on the screen, and Diana’s character arc is touching and significant. Kristin Wiig is also great as Barbara Minerva. The character of Barbara can come off as somewhat of a stereotypical nerd who just wants to be popular, but Wiig’s performance kept me invested even when it was abundantly clear where her character arc was headed. And Pedro Pascal is fantastic as Maxwell Lord. Max comes across as a cheesy TV personality when we first meet him, but when his sinister side comes out, Pascal manages to balance humor with a kind of manic desperation and danger. Max also has a tender side that humanizes him, and that makes his fall as he succumbs to his darker tendencies all the more tragic. Maxwell Lord is easily one of the more interesting villains in any superhero movie. 

Plus, yes, as you’ve probably seen in the trailer, Chris Pine is back as Steve Trevor, and he adds a ton of heart and humor through his performance. How is Steve Trevor back? You can maybe piece some things together from what I’ve said so far, but I won’t say any more about it. It’s fun finding out how Steve manages to be alive after having died 65 years prior, so I won’t spoil it here. 

Beyond the performances, I just think Wonder Woman 1984 is just a fun superhero movie. The action set pieces are memorable, and even though some of the jumping and swinging feels a bit floaty to me, that didn’t distract me from the overall enjoyment of seeing Wonder Woman in battle. Many action movies these days have that kind of floaty feel to any CGI aerial action, so I think the effects here are at the very least on par with most other superhero blockbusters. Some of the best moments can be seen in the trailer (like Wonder Woman flipping a truck and leaping above it), but there a bunch of fun fight scenes on both large and small scales. 

As much as I enjoy the action in Wonder Woman 1984, it does take a while for it all to really get going. Except for a brief sequence where Wonder Woman stops some robbers in a mall at the very beginning of the film, the first half of the movie is all about character building and setup. There’s a lot of talking and drama, but there’s not a lot of action during this time. So if you want wall to wall fighting, you’re going to have to wait a bit. For me though, I enjoy the characters enough that I wanted to follow them and learn more about them and their relationships before they inevitably start fighting and falling apart. The first half of the movie didn’t feel like a drag to me, but I could see where others might want to see a bit more punching and kicking.

I do think the character building in the first half of the movie is important though, because it helps make the final few scenes more emotionally resonant. Even though, yeah, certain things can come across in a heavy-handed way towards the end of the movie, I am totally fine with a bit of comic book cheese in my comic book movie. I enjoyed all of the resolutions, and I even got a little teary one or two times. Maybe I’m just a soft touch when it comes to these things.

The story in Wonder Woman 1984 is good in a very comic-booky way. Getting from point A to point B and beyond can often take a lot of logical leaps, but I’m fine with that. This is a movie about a world filled with gods and magic, so I can buy into more than a few convenient coincidences and reality-bending scenarios as I’m enjoying my bright and colorful entertainment. I have certain expectations when I go to see a superhero movie like this, and Citizen-Kane-level storytelling isn’t one of them. I’d like to have good action, interesting characters, and some nice emotional beats. Wonder Woman 1984 has all of those things and more. I was very entertained for the two and a half hours I spent watching it, and I’m looking forward to watching it again sometime soon. 

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Future Fear A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Future Fear (1997) – A Movie A Day 2021 #15

Future Fear DVD

Wow. I did not know what I was in store for when I picked Future Fear for my daily movie. I expected a good amount of low-budget cheese since it’s a movie produced by Roger Corman and starring B-movie queen Maria Ford, but yeah, I got way more than I expected. And that’s definitely not a bad thing.

Future Fear is a sci-fi action movie starring the aforementioned Maria Ford as Anna, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Jeff Wincott as John, a geneticist who has been drawn into a nefarious scheme, and the always entertaining Stacy Keach as General Wallace, the brains behind the nefarious scheme. The main plot of the movie focuses on a slightly futuristic game of cat and mouse as Anna chases John into and through some sort of secret military installation. John is carrying something Anna wants (or more precisely, something General Wallace wants Anna to get for him), and she seems like she might just kill John to take it.

As the chase continues through the entire course of the movie, the background of the story is told through numerous flashbacks. We learn about how John was dragged into the nefarious scheme that General Wallace talks about to himself from time to time, we learn about the romantic history between Anna and John, and we learn about how Anna and John got to the point to where they’re (maybe) trying to kill each other. The background is pretty wild and involves a global pandemic, the origins of life, religion versus science, and the rise of a Fourth Reich. Bear in mind though, the majority of the movie more or less only involves the three characters I’ve already mentioned while they’re living and working in an underground bunker. So all of that grandiose background information? We learn about it through conversations primarily between Anna and John. We are told, not shown, that the planet is dying and Anna and John are fighting to save or destroy it.

The way the story is told is what really hooked me. At first the constant cutting back and forth from action to the dialogue-heavy flashbacks was a bit off-putting. I didn’t know if I was going to get into the movie, but by the end of the opening scene I was all in. The movie opens with Anna chasing John, both of them in helicopters armed with machine guns. While they continue the chase for what feels like a really long time, the flashbacks start with “one year earlier” flashing across the screen. We see uptight and disciplined Lieutenant Anna meeting laid-back and free-spirited John as Anna informs John that he’s going to be working for the military. John resists the demand, but he can’t resist Anna. Meanwhile, in the future (or the present depending on your perspective) Anna and John continue their helicopter chase. Then, slightly less than a year back in the past, Anna and John are having an Alice in Wonderland themed dinner complete with Alice and Mad Hatter cosplay for Anna and John. They get intimate on the table, but back in the future/present, the helicopter chase is coming to a dangerous end. Then the chase moves into the underground bunker. At this point, about fifteen or so minutes into the movie, I was hooked.

The flashbacks are full of fabulous melodrama. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that Anna and John’s relationship goes to some spectacularly awful places, and it’s mostly a lot of fun seeing what tragic misstep they’ll take next. Some of the scenarios get pretty dark, but it all works to show why Anna is so angry but still seems to have such a hard time killing John as she chases him. Oh, and the Alice in Wonderland (i.e. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) stuff continues throughout the entire movie. Alice metaphors have been utilized in countless movies and are really overdone, but the devotion to numerous and obvious Alice references in Future Fear is kind of endearing. John has an Alice in Wonderland obsession of sorts (with a bit of Humpty Dumpty thrown in), so Alice is a near-constant motif throughout the movie. John even starts dreaming about Alice in his recurring nightmares about his father. Oh yeah, John’s father was in the military and died, so John is traumatized by that, and that is also tied into everything else that’s going on. There’s a lot of stuff going on in Future Fear.

One person who didn’t have much going on when filming Future Fear was Stacy Keach. As General Wallace, Stacy Keach gives about 90% of his performances alone in a dark room. Wallace is in the movie quite a lot, but he’s often either talking on an intercom or just talking to himself. This is one of those instances where it seems like the biggest star in the movie was able to shoot nearly all of their scenes in one day in one location and be done with it. I’m not saying Stacy Keach is bad though. Quite the contrary. Wallace demands attention with his soliloquys even though no one is around, and his words build him up as the worst of the worst. Wallace is a Nazi-inspired, white supremacist, religious zealot who wants to use an alien virus to cleanse the planet. Did I mention the alien virus yet? Yeah, there’s an alien virus, and that’s what’s causing the global pandemic. See? Lots of stuff going on.

I don’t know if anything I just wrote makes sense, but really, Future Fear does make sense in it’s own way. Whether or not you as the viewer buy into the sense it makes is going to be an individual experience though. I enjoyed the movie for the over-the-top, melodramatic performances and the campy action told through an almost dream-like structure of flashbacks and dream sequences. It’s some high-concept stuff jammed into a low-budget movie, and it’s great to watch late at night when you’re already kind of tired and heading towards sleep. Will it put you to sleep? Maybe, but you just might enjoy it more than you expect. I know I sure did.

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Cut and Run A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Cut and Run (1985) – A Movie A Day 2021 #14

The artwork used in the Cut and Run poster.

Today’s movie choice was another decision largely guided by the film’s poster. Whenever I want to watch something old and trashy, more and more I find myself going to Tubi and skimming through their catalog. I’ll find a movie that looks somewhat interesting, then I’ll keep clicking through the recommendations that movie pulls up until I find something that forces me to stop. This time, it was Michael Berryman that gave me pause. The poster for today’s movie, Cut and Run, features an amazing image of Michael Berryman getting ready to swing a machete at a group of unsuspecting people in what appears to be some sort of jungle lake or river. That was all I needed to see. My search for the night was over.

Cut and Run is an Italian production, but it was filmed primarily in English with a predominantly American lead cast. The film stars Lisa Blount (of Prince of Darkness fame) as Fran, a reporter who is looking to break a huge story to boost her career. Fran is joined by her cameraman, Mark, as she heads to South America to follow a lead that involves a bloody drug war, a supposedly dead cult leader, and her boss’s missing son. It’s a very convenient set of circumstances that sets up what the movie is really mostly all about: Fran and Mark trying to stay alive in a South American jungle as they are chased by vicious natives and, of course, Michael Berryman. 

Cut and Run was directed by Ruggero Deodato, and even if you don’t know that name, you might be familiar with his most famous movie: the notoriously brutal Cannibal Holocaust. While Cut and Run is not anywhere near as violent and disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, it does share a lot of the same themes. The movies are so similar that even before I realized who directed Cut and Run, I was noting many common themes. I won’t spoil anything for either movie, but both of them focus heavily on the juxtaposition of savagery and civilized society. That theme is central to Cannibal Holocaust and is explored in nearly every second of its run time. The theme takes more of a backseat in Cut and Run, but it’s still very clear when we see repeated feeds of Fran in the jungle being transmitted live to plush, high-tech offices in the United States. Also, both movies feature similar locations, and the usage of the native people is largely the same. So yeah, there are lots of similarities, but Cut and Run is WAY more accessible for general audiences.

I do think I watched the tame version of Cut and Run though. Looking at a few reviews, I see people referring to excessive violence and nudity. I saw some violence and nudity, but not to the extent I see some of these reviews describing. Also, some of the edits looked very abrupt and janky, so I’m going to blame that on the additional cuts. 

I’d be interested in watching Cut and Run again with the longer, more extreme cut so I can see what I missed. As it is, I enjoyed what I saw. It might try to do a little too much for a movie that’s basically about violence and survival (there’s a Jim-Jones-esque sub-plot and the missing son thing feels unnecessary), but it’s still fun. I will say that I was very disappointed when a certain character didn’t make it to the end of the movie, but I got over my grief and still managed to have a good time. As for a recommendation, I think Cut and Run is a fun action movie with some nice, cheesy violence. If you like action movies set in a jungle (which seemed to happen a lot in the 80s), and if you like Michael Berryman, I’d say give the movie a shot.

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Omega Syndrome A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Omega Syndrome (1986) – A Movie A Day 2021 #10

Omega Syndrome poster

So I was clicking around on Tubi last night looking for something to watch before going to bed, and even though I usually end up watching some cheap horror movie when I’m cruising Tubi, I ended up going down a rabbit hole of 80s action flicks. When I don’t really know or care what I’m looking for, I tend to let the cover/poster artwork make a lot of the hard decisions for me. Painted posters rank higher than posters with photos (with exceptions made for supremely cheesy photo collages), and the more outlandish and wacky the painting is, the better. After a few minutes of clicking, I stopped down on a movie with a poster featuring a trashy-looking image of a maniacal guy in a leather mask with some sort of gun with a giant, smoking barrel. The movie has an intriguingly mysterious title, Omega Syndrome, and to me, the poster promises violent 80s action. Of course I’m not completely naive, and I understand that movie posters often oversell the movies they advertise, but hey, it could be fun. Omega Syndrome ended up being kind of fun, but only in short bursts.

Omega Syndrome is about a Vietnam veteran whose daughter (played by Nicole Eggert) is kidnapped during a liquor store robbery. Frustrated with the lack of police action, the vet, Jack, enlists the help of an estranged friend and fellow veteran, Phil. The two men launch their own investigation that leads them into a white supremacists’ plot involving kidnapping, blackmail, and lots of murder.

It’s a straightforward story that could lead to some decent action, but overall the movie feels like it was made for TV. I suppose the killing, language, and subject matter might push it a bit too far to be shown on regular TV (the movie is rated R after all), but the editing, cinematography, and even the music cues all give it a very strong impression of a 1980s made-for-TV movie. It makes sense considering the director, Joseph Manduke, is primarily a television director, but it doesn’t make the movie any more enjoyable. 

The poster’s promise of trashy action is never really met, and what we get instead is a fairly standard crime drama that mostly focuses on the investigation being carried out by Jack and Phil. Witnesses are tracked down and threatened, the police tell Jack to mind his own business, and eventually the culprits are tracked down which erupts in a big gun fight. Up until the final scene though, the action is sparse and underwhelming. It’s fine, but it’s also forgettable, which is really what I think about the whole movie. Fine yet forgettable. 

The few things I will remember about Omega Syndrome are some of the people in it. It was fun seeing Nicole Eggert as Jack’s daughter. She didn’t do a whole lot, but she did have a nice moment where she fought back against her kidnappers. Also, Colm Meaney has a small role as a bomb maker. I know Meaney best as Chief O’Brien from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, but I’m always delighted when he pops up in some of the crime and action movies I’ve seen over the years.

For me though, the star of Omega Syndrome is Xander Berkeley. Berkeley’s most high-profile role was probably as John Connor’s foster father in Terminator 2, but I remember him best for multiple roles including George Mason from 24 and from one of my favorite episodes of The X-Files, “Ice.” In Omega Syndrome, Xander Berkeley plays the scummiest of the scumbags, and his performance is one for the ages. He plays his character, Yo-Yo, as a dimwit with a short and violent fuse. He has these vacant looks throughout the film that show there’s not much going on up top, but he also feels like the most dangerous person in his whole terrorist group. If I could recommend Omega Syndrome for any reason, it would be to watch Xander Berkely, filthy teeth and red face and all. He’s great.

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Ava (2020) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Ava (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #9

Ava movie poster

With its exceptionally strong cast featuring Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Common, Colin Farrell, Joan Chen, and Geena Davis, I was excited to get home and watch Ava after coming across it in one my local Redboxes. The writeup promised exciting action with Jessica Chastain as Ava, an assassin who ends up on the run after a job goes awry, and I do enjoy a good assassin-on-the-run action flick. And while there absolutely are a number of fun action scenes from gun fights to hand-to-hand combat, the main focus of the movie was split between action and some heavy drama as Ava’s troubled past comes meets her dangerous present. Now, I love a good drama as well, but overall I did come away from Ava feeling like maybe the divided attention paid to both the drama and the action didn’t quite come together in a way that enhanced both. So overall, I enjoyed Ava, but I was hoping to enjoy it a lot more.

The movie starts with Ava on a mission. It’s a quick setup just to get you familiar with Ava’s work and a bit of her personality. Ava is an efficient killer, but people in her organization have problems with how she handles certain situation. Ava has had issues with getting too emotionally involved with the people she’s sent to kill (not romantically, more in a “what did you do to make me kill you” kind of way), and Simon, one of her superiors played by Colin Farrell, doesn’t trust her anymore. Ava’s direct contact, Duke (played by John Malkovich) is a disciplined and fatherly figure, and he seems to trust Ava to do what needs to be done. But when we see one of Ava’s missions go wrong and nearly get her killed, it seems clear that someone is gunning to put Ava away for good. This is the action part of the movie, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Meanwhile though, Ava takes a break from killing to go to her hometown of Boston, and that’s where the drama comes in. We learn about Ava’s dark past with her parents, sister, and ex-fiancé, and on its own I think it could be a good drama. Geena Davis plays Ava’s mom, and Common plays her ex-fiancé, so clearly the acting is great. I guess the thing that never really clicked for me is that Ava’s family life and her life as an assassin never really cross over. Obviously Ava’s troubles influence her character and affect her ability to survive as people are trying to kill her, but the drama side of the movie and the action side of the movie felt distinctly separate in a lot of ways. There’s never really a climactic scene where Ava is forced to reveal her new life to her family (well, there sort of is, but it’s very minor), and even though family ties end up being important to Duke and Simon and their work within the assassination organization, Ava is never really forced into the same position. I suppose that’s why I say the drama didn’t enhance the action and vice versa. It feels like a lot of dramatic buildup with no real payoff.

That being said, I did enjoy the movie. The actors are all great, and even though I would have preferred that the story took different turns, the people in the movie kept me invested in what happened to their characters. Also, there were multiple action scenes that I really quite enjoyed. Jessica Chastain is a good action hero, and I look forward to seeing her shoot and beat up a lot more people in the future (like in The 355 which I keep seeing trailers for in the theater).

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Devil’s Den A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Devil’s Den (2006) – A Movie A Day 2021 #6

Devil’s Den DVD cover

Have you ever wanted to watch From Dusk till Dawn, but didn’t really want to watch From Dusk till Dawn? Then Devil’s Den might be just the movie for you!

Devil’s Den is a fun little horror comedy heavily inspired by From Dusk till Dawn. It’s so inspired by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’ masterful mashup of crime and vampires, that Devil’s Den has to go out of its way to explain how the not-vampire strippers in its movie are different from the totally-vampire strippers that inhabit the Titty Twister. But let me back up a bit. 

Devil’s Den stars Kelly Hu, Ken Foree, and Devon Sawa. We first meet Sawa’s character, Quinn, as he’s driving back from Mexico with a suitcase full of Spanish Fly in the back set and his best friend, Nick, in the passenger seat. After a semi-lengthy yet entertaining conversation where Nick doubts the effectiveness of their cache of drugs, Quinn decides the best course of action is to prove the Spanish Fly’s effectiveness by drugging some strippers with the pills and reaping the rewards. This, my friends, is our hero of the story. Well, sort of. Quinn’s role as main character is taken over by two much more likable characters we meet in shortly after this opening scene. 

Quinn and Nick pull into a strip club named Devil’s Den, and as they scope out the place for two victims, two other people are scoping out the place for reasons that remain a mystery until later in the movie. One of those people is Leonard, played by Ken Foree, and the other is Caitlin, played by Kelly Hu. Both Leonard and Caitlin are sitting alone at separate tables, and they’re not there for the beers or the breasts. They’re both looking for something or someone, but they don’t begin to reveal their true intentions until Quinn’s plan goes awry. 

Quinn slips a pill into one of the dancer’s drinks, and at first the Spanish Fly seems to be working. The drugged dancer, Jezebel, played by Dawn Olivieri, becomes aggressive in her requests to take Quinn to a secluded area for a “private dance.” Quinn, of course, is thrilled, and he’s led down a hallway and out the back door of the building. Quinn starts to get nervous, and rightfully so, because Jezebel has gotten so worked up by the Spanish Fly that she can’t control herself anymore. Jezebel reveals her true monstrous face as she claws at Quinn and bites at his neck. Luckily for Quinn, Caitlin was following him and Jezebel, and even luckier for Quinn, Caitlin has two pistols that she unloads into Jezebel.

When Caitlin and Quinn make it back into the Devil’s Den, all hell has broken loose. The strippers have all turned into what I assumed were vampires, and they are tearing the customers apart. The only person besides Caitlin who knows how to fight is Leonard, and he’s swinging a katana around, chopping off heads left and right.

So that’s the setup, two criminals stop at a strip club that’s infested with stripper-monsters, and everyone who survives the initial massacre has to band together in order to survive. Sounds a lot like From Dusk till Dawn, right? Well it’s totally different, because Leonard explains that the strippers aren’t vampires, they’re ghouls. They’re not trying to drink blood, they’re trying to eat flesh. So yeah, totally different. 

I’m just having a bit of fun with the plot though. I actually did enjoy Devil’s Den, and beyond the basic setup, the movie is pretty different as it goes on. We learn about who Caitlin and Leonard are and why they’re there, and the star power of Kelly Hu and Ken Foree absolutely helped sell me on the goofiness of the story. I immediately liked then, but I never got to where I liked Quinn. He is a whiney, selfish douche who got into the whole mess by trying to drug a woman and take advantage of her. He has a bit of a redemption arc, but by that point in the movie I was hoping for a random ghoul attack to take him out. But two out of three isn’t bad, and Caitlin and Leonard (and there ridiculous backgrounds) more than made up for Quinn. 

Plus, you know, stripper monsters are pretty much always fun. Sure, it’s a bit of a rip-off of From Dusk till Dawn, but I don’t care. A fun movie is a fun movie even if I’ve kind of seen it before. Also, as I understand it, Zoe Bell doubles for one of the ghouls who has an extended fight scene with Kelly Hu, and that is super fun to watch. So yeah, I’d recommend Devil’s Den for people who enjoy silly horror movies with a fair amount of blood and boobs. 

Devil’s Den – Trailer from Ken Ohara on Vimeo.

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Zombie Fight Club A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Zombie Fight Club (2014) – A Movie A Day 2021 #5

Zombie Fight Club Poster

I’m a huge fan of zombie movies. At least, in theory I’m a huge fan of zombie movies. I love the idea of zombies, and I love the versatility of the sub-genre. Yeah, that’s right, I used the word “versatility” when describing zombie movies. Even if a multitude of zombie movies use essentially the same plot over and over, the potential for variety is definitely there. Some of my absolute favorite movies and television shows of all time include zombies as a main focus, and they range from trashy splatter movies, to hilarious comedies, to historical action/dramas and beyond. The potential metaphors that zombies can be used for are numerous, and in the hands of a skilled set of filmmakers, a zombie movie can have great impact and meaning. But of course, with so many zombie movies having been made over the decades, many of them aren’t going to be so great. Zombie Fight Club falls firmly in the “not so great” category for me.

Zombie Fight Club is a Taiwanese zombie/action movie with lots of blood and guts. All of that sounds good so far, right? Of course it does. On top of that, the movie is filled with beautiful women and men in in skimpy outfits fighting hordes of the undead. So we have all the makings of a nice and trashy zombie movie that emphasizes fun over quality, and on that level I did enjoy Zombie Fight Club. The bloody action was fun, and the practical effects, when they were used, were over the top in a great way. A lot of the bullets and gore were digitally added though, and that was a whole lot less fun for me. I’m just not a big fan of purely digital effects when they look as overly fake as they do here. But then, I love practical effects even when they look fake, so that’s a contradiction I’ve had to learn to live with. Overall though, the action and blood (and skimpy outfits) are easily the best things about the movie, and they make it worth watching for some light entertainment.

My main issues with Zombie Fight Club start right in the title though. You’d think the movie would be about a club of some sort where people fight zombies. Or maybe the zombies fight each other. But what you get for the first hour of the movie is what feels like a riff on the scene in the apartment building towards the beginning of the original Dawn of the Dead. So after a while, I gave up on the “fight club” promise of the title and just settled for “zombie fight” instead.

In this first section, we meet a few different groups of people living in the same apartment building. We’re introduced to a guy and his girlfriend who get some drugs and have a party, what appear to be gang members who have kidnapped someone, and a group of police officers who are coming in to raid the place. People start turning into zombies after taking drugs (even though this doesn’t make a lot of sense given some various factors that I don’t really want to go into), and the building is quickly overrun. Meanwhile, it turns out all but one of the cops are dirty and are just trying to rob and kill the criminals they were sent to take down. The one good cop, Andy, separates from the rest of the officers when everything starts to fall apart, and Andy ends up pairing with the girlfriend of the guy who got the drugs at the beginning of the movie. So for the first hour of the movie, we follow Andy and the girlfriend, Jenny, as they try to survive and escape. We see some of the other people in the various apartments fight and die, but Andy and Jenny are the loose focus of the movie.

Then, over two-thirds of the way through the movie, we jump forward in time. We thought Jenny and Andy might have escaped, but in the new post-apocalyptic world, they are both slaves in a new society. The new society is run by a psycho ex-professor who we briefly saw murder his daughter’s friends after his daughter was killed. It’s super random, and this late in the movie, I wasn’t sure I was ready for a whole new beginning to the story. I mean, there are less than 30 minutes left in the movie when the time jump happens. But hey, we finally get to see the Zombie Fight Club!

The fight club is a pit where the slaves of this new world are forced to fight for their lives against the undead. So, not so much a fight club, and more of a murder-for-entertainment situation. Think of The Governor from The Walking Dead and the zombie fights he put on. It’s similar to that, but with slaves instead of (mostly) volunteers. And really, the whole new world situation is a lot like The Governor’s city in The Walking Dead, just way over the top. And yeah, I’ve been referencing other things while describing Zombie Fight Club, but it really does seem like the movie isn’t trying to hide its inspirations. Many scenes felt like the filmmakers saw something in something else that was cool, so they decided they wanted it in their movie even if the plot got completely twisted out of shape to make the scene happen.

So anyway, in the final 30 minutes of the movie we follow Andy and Jenny as they try to escape to freedom which has been overrun with zombies anyway. The end.

This really felt like two movies mashed together, and it would have been better had this been two separate movies. But as it is, I still enjoyed Zombie Fight Club for how goofy it is. It doesn’t take itself seriously, so I shouldn’t take it seriously either. I’m sure I’ll watch it again sometime, because now that I know what to expect, I can enjoy it for what it is: dumb, fun, and bloody.

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The Tournament (2009) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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The Tournament (2009) – A Movie A Day 2021 #3

DVD Cover

When I saw the DVD case for The Tournament, I didn’t have very high hopes for the movie contained within. The title is generic, and the cover is reminiscent of many other low-budget action movies packing the department stores of the world. But, as much as I’m not a fan of the floating-head-style of marketing that seems to dominate the home video market, in this instance it worked on me. Seeing Kelly Hu’s floating head next to a gun was all the convincing I needed to spend part of my evening watching The Tournament, and I’m glad I did.

The Tournament is an independent British action movie starring the aforementioned Kelly Hu alongside Ving Rhames and Robert Carlyle. The setup for the plot is rather generic, so my reading of the DVD case was fairly accurate in that regard. The tournament within The Tournament is battle-royale-inspired scenario where thirty of the world’s top assassins are brought together into a small town and set loose to kill each other in any way possible. There’s a group of anonymous rich people from all around the world watching from a secret location (by hacking into security cameras, satellites, etc.), and bets are made on which assassin will be the last one standing. The lone survivor wins the tournament and gets a giant cash prize along with bragging rights. Each assassin is implanted with a tracking device that also reads their vital stats (so the team in the control room can track who is dead), and if there isn’t a winner after 24 hours, all the tracking devices will explode. So, you know, a lot like Battle Royale.

So that’s the setup, but the actual story focuses on just a few of the assassins and one random civilian. Ving Rhames is Joshua, an assassin who has won a previous tournament. We learn early in the movie that he’s not back because of the promise of money and fame; he’s here for revenge. Someone close to Joshua has been killed, and he’s been led to believe one of the assassins participating in the current tournament is the person who did it. Elsewhere in the city, Lai Lai Zhen (played by Kelly Hu) is a somewhat stoic assassin who ends up feeling obligated to protect Father MacAvoy (played by Robert Carlyle), a drunken priest who gets caught up in the tournament after he accidently ingests one of the tracking devices. Lai Lai Zhen’s motivations for participating in the tournament are a mystery at first, and much of the story involves peeling back the layers of her story as she and Father MacAvoy converse more and more. A few of the other assassins are also featured throughout the movie such as Ian Somerhalder’s eccentric American psychopath Miles Slade and Sébastien Foucan’s quiet and smart free-running French assassin Anton Bogart, but the remainder of the thirty assassins are essentially props to get punched, kicked, shot, and blown up by the stars of the movie. And boy do they get punched, kicked, shot, and blown up.

I didn’t expect the action in this movie to be as fun as it is, so even though I enjoyed the story going on between our three main stars, the excessively violent and bloody action was the biggest treat for me. The movie begins by showing the final moments of the tournament that Joshua previously won, and the screen is filled with blood, bodies, fire, and bullets. It’s a great way to set the tone of the movie, and the action sequences throughout the remainder of the film always lived up to the promises made by that opening scene. There are some great martial arts sequences with Lai Lai Zhen battling various assassins in hand-to-hand combat, and there are huge set pieces with car chases, explosions, and many, many bullets fired. The action is abundant and varied, and it always kept me entertained. Plus, the movie doesn’t shy away from copious amounts of blood and gore (there is no shortage of exploding heads and bodies), and that will always get bonus points from me.

As you might expect, there are a few twists and turns in the movie’s story. The twists aren’t super twisty though, and even though I pretty much immediately figured out what was going to happen well in advance of it actually happening, I was still thoroughly entertained. The stars did a great job of getting me care about their characters, and the over-the-top action sequences had me smiling the entire time. Definitely check out The Tournament if you ever get a chance.

 

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The Hunt (2020) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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The Hunt (2020) – A Movie A Day #93

The Hunt is the movie that was supposed to come out last year, but was delayed after people started making assumptions about what the movie is and what it means. I really don’t want to go into all the details about why it got put on hold, but it had to do with some mass shooting that took place prior to its release, as well as certain people taking to Twitter to sow the seeds of misinformation and polarization. Just Google The Hunt if you really want to know the details.

Regardless of the reasons The Hunt was delayed, I figured the people who were talking and tweeting the loudest about how horrible it is were probably going to be wrong. The people who seem to rage the loudest about how morally reprehensible a movie is tend to either not understand it or never even bother watching it. The Hunt hadn’t even been released when people clamored for its shutdown, so clearly they hadn’t seen it. But hey, a movement for censorship is all you really need for a great marketing campaign. So, good job everyone.

I saw images for The Hunt and read brief story summaries around the time it was first supposed to come out, but I don’t remember seeing a trailer for it until much later when a new release date was announced. The trailers looked fine, but certainly not great. The heavy-handed political mockery present in the trailer really kind of turned me off. Like, I’m fine with political mockery and satire, but I’m just not entertained when it comes across so obviously and with so little subtlety. But I thought maybe the trailers were just playing up the political satire angle to take advantage of the already politicized comments about the movie flying around the internet. With my expectations low, I went into watching the movie with as open a mind as possible.

So I saw it, and I didn’t enjoy The Hunt very much.

The movie is about a group of people who are kidnapped and hunted for sport. The hunters are rich and elite, while the hunted are middle class and below. The hunters get caught up on gendered pronouns and hoping everyone is pro-choice while the hunted get worked up about immigration and crisis actors. You see where this is going? Yeah. It’s like the writers cherry-picked the most politically polarized comments from the internet and crafted them into dialogue to be spoken by characters who might as well be cardboard cutouts of real humans. But I think I’m being too nice. I don’t think many things were “crafted” in The Hunt. It’s a wooden attempt at political humor that, for me, falls completely flat. I got just as much laughter and joy out of the comments on the YouTube page for The Hunt‘s trailer as I did with the characters in the actual movie. Also, don’t go look at the comments on the YouTube page for The Hunt‘s trailer. They’re mostly atrocious.

Anyway.

Here’s some stuff I liked about The Hunt. Betty Gilpin’s character of Crystal was pretty interesting. Well, I should say that Betty Gilpin’s performance was interesting. Crystal came across as somewhat of an enigma. While everyone else was wearing their political ideologies on their sleeves, Crystal was quiet and calculating. She was more concerned with staying alive, and it quickly became clear that she had a past that would help her to not die. Crystal’s true nature remained a mystery all the way until the end, and even when the movie ends, her true motivations arguably remain ambiguous. So yeah, Betty Gilpin is good.

What else do I like about The Hunt? They mentioned a movie I do really like, Tears of the Sun. I liked that. I also started to want to watch Tears of the Sun while sitting in front of The Hunt.

Anything else? No, not really. Everything else was just varying shades of mediocrity or head-shaking moments of attempted humor. Nope, I didn’t like it.

It’s funny though. The hubbub about the movie stemmed largely from fears that it is meant to incite division among the American people. I just find it hilarious that when reading comments from people who have only seen the trailer, different people will bee 100% sure that the movie is insulting them regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. The movie skewers all sides. It looks like it’s trying to be smart, but it’s not. Not at all. People just love to get mad at stuff. The Hunt isn’t worth getting mad at.

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