Warfare (2025).

Warfare is co-written and co-directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. I’m sure most people reading this are familiar with Alex Garland’s work, but Ray Mendoza might be a mystery to you. That’s because he’s a former Navy SEAL who has consulted and advised on the military aspects of many films, including Alex Garland’s 2024 film Civil War. His work on this film, however, was instrumental, because it’s the true story of his squad and an hour and a half siege they endured during the beginning of the Battle of Ramadi in 2006.

The film takes place in real time and follows Mendoza and his squad as they commandeer an Iraqi multi-unit home. Why they do this is unclear - the film does a great job of not holding the audience’s hand and simply drops you into the action and plays the scenario out in real time. No exposition dumps, no backstories. Once inside the home, they find that more and more unfriendly Iraqi men on the street are moving and gathering with a sense of purpose, and then an announcement is made over a PA system - they’re calling for arms because they’re about to murder some American soldiers.

The rest of the film focuses on the soldiers trying to get out of this hairy situation. The first attempt at an extraction goes horribly wrong and then it’s absolute chaos for the rest of the run time. I went into this completely blind as I do with all films, so I was expecting a jingoistic war film that I’ve become accustomed to, but this went in the complete opposite direction. While war films like Black Hawk Down certainly show the horrors of war, they’re also entertaining and fun. Warfare is not fun, it’s stressful as fuck. I haven’t felt this level of stress since Uncut Gems, and this is due to a few things - the filmmaking style, the realistic performances and the sound design, which are all amazingly well done.

The sound design is particularly incredible. You feel every bullet whizzing by, every explosion, every scream. There’s a “show of force”, which is called upon several times during the encounter, in which a US jet flies low to the ground and kicks up dust at sonic speeds. The first time it happened it felt like my fucking hat was going to blow off in the theater, and it wasn’t less impressive when it happened again. The first real explosion surprised the hell out of me and rumbled the whole theater. If this isn’t nominated for a sound award at the next Oscars, they’ll have made a mistake. I also always enjoy when they show comparisons with the actors to the real people involved at the end of the film. The casting in this one was on point.

I don’t think anyone will walk out of this film thinking that it would be cool or fun to join the military, which is not exactly what I was expecting when I heard the co-director was an ex-Navy SEAL. These guys go through hell. People in the squad are basically stun locked after the IED goes off. There are no heroes, there are no winners. Guys risking their lives for sledgehammers. I couldn’t help but feel awful for the people whose home was randomly chosen and then completely destroyed, and all for nothing. The way I feel about Warfare is similar to how I feel about the 1985 film Come and See - they’re both amazing, realistic depictions of war that will make any sane person realize that war is hell. Come and See is definitely more brutal, but the sentiment is the same - both amazing films that I don’t want to watch again.

Captain America: Brave New World.

I know that it’s pretty uncool these days to love Marvel movies, but I don’t care - for the most part, I love them. I grew up reading Marvel comics. I still remember for one Christmas, my mom got me a box of used comics (maybe 50?) and I treasured that box. I read those books from cover to cover, countless times, falling in love with characters like Spider-Man, The Punisher, Iron Man, and many other characters we’ve seen grace the MCU. Sure, there have been some missteps - the second Iron Man, the second Thor flick, and a few others, but overall they’ve been a pretty good time.

Once the first “phase” was over, and the Endgame credits rolled, Marvel seemed to be in a state of…”what now?”. Understandable, considering they’d wrapped up a storyline that was a decade in the making and had many actors looking to move onto something outside of Marvel. One of the amazing things about the whole Avengers storyline is that things seemed to gain steam organically. Of course it was all planned, but it didn’t seem forced. When the TV series kicked off, I just couldn’t keep up. I had a kid who wasn’t old enough to watch them and too many other things to see. I did find the time to complete WandaVision (which I enjoyed) and Falcon & Winter Soldier, which I thought had some interesting ideas, but ultimately fell a bit flat. That being said, I was interested in what they would do with the next phase, even though I had skipped some of the movies by then (I never saw The Eternals, The Marvels, or Ant-Man Quantumania). The problem is, we’re supposedly into phase 5, and nothing cohesive is happening…and more importantly, no one seems to care anymore.

From this point on, there will be spoilers.

Captain America: Brave New World is, for some reason, a direct sequel to 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. General Ross has become the President of the United States, and he has asked Sam Wilson to put together the Avengers after Sam retrieves some stolen adamantium. Ross, however, won the presidency with the help of The Leader, who he had been doing experiments on in a blacksite lab. The Leader’s goal is to ruin Thunderbolt Ross’s legacy and to make him mad so he hulks out because The Leader has been feeding him pills laced with gamma energy. If that sounds dumb, that’s because it is.

The script has five different writers credited and that’s the film’s biggest problem, so let’s start there. What I thought we were going to get was a character piece showing how it was going to be tough to be the black Captain America in our America. Let’s be honest - this country is racist as fuck, and that’s already talked about in the MCU, because Isaiah Bradley (the first Super Soldier, also a black man) was treated horribly by the United States government. What I’d love to have seen is a Godfather Part II style story where we see the WWII era Bradley and what he goes through, juxtaposed with the current Sam Wilson Captain America situation. There was an opportunity to make a stand on the current political climate. Unfortunately, there’s nothing brave or new about this film, and while there are a few mentions of “You’re not Steve Rogers”, it’s all superficial. In fact, Anthony Mackie’s Sam is the most boring part of the film. He’s not funny, he’s not charismatic, he’s just a lifeless husk without super powers. At least, they tell you he doesn’t have super powers.

The big thing that Sam wants to hold up is that he has no superpowers. He’s refused the super soldier serum, something he expresses regret over. But you’d never know it anyway, because he has a super suit that basically does whatever he wants it to whenever he wants it to. He’s got a voice activated robot airplane on his back that just knows what he’s thinking. He’s got wings that have insane powers that act via thoughts (apparently), and even when he’s not in the suit, he’s chucking around the Cap shield like it’s a tennis ball, kicking it around fast enough to knock countless enemies out before catching it on the rebound. You’re telling me he didn’t take the super soldier serum? Kicking that shield that hard would destroy the ankle of a normal man. He’s also stabbed in the gut with a small axe and just shrugs it off with plot armor. If you want anyone to identify with Sam Wilson as a ‘normal guy’, then he needs to be a normal guy.

The other huge weakness that other MCU films tend to have is uninteresting villains. There have been some great ones - Thanos, Killmonger, but for the most part the villains suck. The Leader is no different. Tim Blake Nelson is a great character actor, but the way his character is written makes no sense. He wants to ruin Ross’s legacy, which is understandable - the man gained the presidency, using your brain as the guide, and now he’s reneging on his deal. The Leader has the ability to control minds (something that is not explained outside of maybe…he has DNA? Or files on them? It’s not clear and the DNA thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense anyway since he’s just controlling whoever is convenient for the plot), so what he does is he activates people with a song and then they do his bidding…and that’s really all he does. His intelligence is simply told to us, it’s not earned. In fact, I’d argue that most of the things he does are pretty unintelligent. At the end of the film, he gets captured on purpose to enact his plan, but…I don’t think he really needed to be captured. His final hurrah is to play a recording of Ross over the speakers at a press conference, but why did he need to be captured for that? And how did he do it in the first place? Why wouldn’t he just control Ross and have him say what he wanted him to say? Or control an Avenger? Or control Sam? You can sprinkle in statistics all you want into the dialogue, it’s still not going to convince me someone is smart if they’re only doing dumb things.

And speaking of dialogue, I get that most people in America are pretty stupid, but everything is explained through exposition and it’s not how people talk in real life. There’s a moment where Joaquin hacks into the White House security camera system (which seems like it would be hard to do, but later in the movie they break into a CIA blacksite prison by popping open a keypad basically using a butter knife so it’s probably not that difficult) and he says something like, “Yes, I have hacked into the White House security system.” Everything is spelled out on the screen…except for the end credits scene, which seems like something they wrote and shot after forgetting to shoot one. It says nothing and evokes zero excitement about what’s next.

Speaking of the White House, this is a film that tries to be a political movie, but much like last year’s Civil War, ends up saying nothing. The standing message is to “see the good in people” and that, after an after school special curated speech, those in power will take responsibility for their actions because deep down, they want to do what’s right. It’s an incredibly vanilla, insanely unrealistic, and lacked the balls to go where it could have. Even the military scenarios presented are as inoffensive as it gets, and I don’t see any world in which the United States military causes Japanese casualties and they just don’t respond because “I promise, it was an accident!”

While the writing is the weakest part of this film, everything else is subpar. The chemistry between Anthony Mackie and Danny Ramirez tries to conjure the chemistry Mackie had with Sebastian Stan, but to no avail. It feels forced and corny. In fact, Sebastian Stan has a minute long cameo and it was probably my favorite part of the flick. The filmmaking is surprisingly and noticeably average, with tons of tight shots, so much so that you really doubt anyone was in the same room while filming (which was probably true). And the sets are so unrealistic that nothing feels like it has weight. The final fight (which ends with all the strength of a wet shart) was clearly all just done on a green screen down to the fake trees.

As I understand it, this film went through intensive reshoots, and if this is the end result I can only assume that the first cut was abysmal. It’s a film that is devoid of mystery and excitement. As it stands, this is the weakest Marvel film I’ve seen yet. A brave new world it is not. It plays it safe, does nothing new, and in terms of what comes next for Marvel…I couldn’t care less.

The Prosecutor (2025).

Opening Remarks.

Laying down the law.

When I think of Hong Kong actors that just effortlessly ooze on-screen charisma, Chow Yun Fat is the first actor that comes to mind. He just looked cool, no matter what he was doing. While no one else will likely come close to that level for me, Donnie Yen is certainly in the Top 5. He’s another actor who just looks cool, and at 61, while the crows feet are starting to show (no matter how hard he tries to hide them), he still looks just as fast as he was thirty years ago.

I don’t remember exactly which film brought me aboard the Donnie Yen train - either Flashpoint or Kill Zone in the mid-00’s - but I’ve been a fan ever since. The Ip Man series is very fun, Special ID was great. He’s got a very distinct fighting style (he’s studied many) that pairs blazing-fast strikes with heavy, bone crushing kicks and elbows, making every fight scene electric. While I knew what to expect on camera, I didn’t know what to expect behind it, as Yen also directed this one. He has directed films before (going back as early as 1994), but I haven’t seen any of them.

Cross Examination.

“I am the law.”

The movie opens with Fok (Yen), a police officer, recounting an encounter with a gang in a ruined warehouse. He and his team bust through the door and there’s an immediate hail of bullets volleyed at them. The shootout then plays out as Fok grabs a shield and starts taking over - it’s an extremely well done action sequence that pulls in and out of a first person perspective, almost like a high-octane first person shooter at times. Near the end of the opening, we realize he’s recounting his actions for the court, who lets the gang boss off on what essentially amounts to a technicality because of poor prosecution. It’s this moment when Fok loses all hope in his side of the justice system and decides he’s going to be a prosecutor instead. This does lead to an extremely corny moment where he leaves for the last time, the entire police force in tow to salute him on his way out. The rain that was previously coming down on his umbrella stops, he smiles and tucks his umbrella away, stating that he’s just going to have a different view (foreshadowing more than just his seat in the courtroom).

Order in the Court.

Guilty! (of great cinematography)

Eight years later, he’s a prosecutor. The transition from police officer to lawyer is pretty funny actually, he is shown studying in Australia with a powerpoint explaining what ‘Litigation’ means. Because none of the characters change one bit, it feels like it’s the next day when he comes back ready to lawyer. His first case is prosecuting a kid who loaned his address to another kid and ended up getting a kilo of cocaine in the mail, and as you can imagine, some things aren’t quite right. The courtroom story ends up following this case, which is very loosely based on a case that happened in Hong Kong, though naturally, the real-life version didn’t have Donnie Yen beating the shit out of criminals between court appearances.

The Verdict Is In: Donnie Yen Still Kicks Ass.

Donnie Yen and the Hung Jury

While the courtroom drama is fairly interesting (if not a little simplistic), when I watch a Donnie Yen flick I’m doing it for the fights.

The Prosecutor doesn’t have a ton of action scenes, but when they appear, holy shit they’re good. As I mentioned, the opening shootout is good, but the rest of the action scenes (which are mostly hand-to-hand) are outstanding. One of Fok’s main foils is an assassin named Kim Hung (Yu Kang) who moves unlike the rest of us - he almost seems like a shadow, a monster who moves with an unnatural quickness. When we first see him, he escapes in an unconventional way, but when Fok and Hung (say that three times fast) have their inevitable showdown on a subway, we really get to see his moves. I’d go so far as to say I saw many things in these fight scenes that I had never seen before - subtle things like the way someone hits the ground and slumps over or the way someone impacts with the environment. The style was improvisational but slick, an antithesis of the Jackie Chan fights of old that felt improvisational and scrappy. Every punch, kick and toss feels impactful and the result is wildly entertaining and extremely satisfying. The kid Fok was mentoring gets a chance to shine in a one vs. many scene as well before Fok shows up with a pair of hockey sticks to even the score.

The way the film is shot was also impressive - drone work gives a new perspective to the end of a rooftop fight scene, the way the camera moves around a truck during a fight scene delivers a surprise impact when the door opens, there are flourishes of a very skilled filmmaker on display here.

Closing Remarks.

If you’re strictly looking for a fight film this may be a bit of a tough recommendation as there are a lot of courtroom and lawyer/client scenes, but honestly I think there’s something in here for everyone. This would make a great double feature with the very similar Yuen Biao/Cynthia Rothrock banger Righting Wrongs from 1986.

You can find The Prosecutor in certain theaters right now.

Flight Risk (2025).

Full spoilers incoming!

A “fuck you, it’s January” release, Flight Risk follows three people - an FBI agent, an informant and a pilot as they leave from a small Alaskan town en route to Seattle by way of Anchorage. Winston (Topher Grace) is a wisecracking money man for the mob, and now he’s on his way to testify against his old boss, Moretti. Bringing him in is Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery), a disgraced FBI agent who is on her first job back in the field. Finally, there’s the backwoods pilot named Daryl (Mark Wahlberg).

“Uh…”

Now, if you’ve seen any of the marketing for this, it spoils the first real “twist”, which is that the pilot isn’t who he says he is - he’s an assassin for the mob. This is revealed pretty early on to the audience and the passengers, and once that’s out of the bag, it’s a “how are they going to land this plane if the pilot is incapacitated” and “who can I trust” kind of movie. It’s like the last five minutes of Turbulance, but stretched out for over an hour.

“Ahh!”

There’s a lot to say about this movie but overall I thought it was a failure on so many levels, all starting with the script. I was shocked to find out that this was a part of the 2020 Blacklist, so obviously I thought that extensive rewrites had to have taken place in order to make the flick this bad, but no…the script is actually worse than the film. In theory, the set up is a good one until you start to think logistically. If Winston is an uber-important witness, wouldn’t they send their own U.S. Marshall’s plane to Alaska to get him? And wouldn’t they have more than one agent watching him, considering he’s an obvious flight risk? Wouldn’t Madolyn have vetted the pilot and understood what he looked like?

“AHHHHHH!”

Getting past how absurd that actually is, the script has a complete lack of tension and it could have been so easily fixed. Take Winston, for example. In the opening scene (which has a CGI motel in the opening shot - how easy would it have been to just point a camera at an actual motel?), Winston asks for a deal. They should have dragged that whole thing out. Once they’re in the plane, Winston should have been the wildcard. You’ve got the FBI agent and the hitman, and he should have been playing both for the best deal. At the very least, there should have been a reason that Winston needed to be kept alive. Maybe he had a large amount of money stored somewhere that only he knew about and Moretti needed him alive. As it stands, the hitman should have just killed them both the minute they got into the air. And if you really wanted to shock the audience, play against the audience expectations. Even if you hadn’t seen the marketing, the minute Wahlberg opens his mouth you have to be thinking, “He’s a bad guy.” “Ya’ll need a pilot?” Just have Wahlberg appear to play the same kind of character he ALWAYS plays because he hasn’t played a villain role since the late 90’s and then have him turn over the villain card.

“Ohhhhh!”

At its core, take Flight Risk as a cautionary tale about people doing their jobs poorly. Everyone in this film with the exception of Hasan is terrible at what they do. Winston is terrible at being a mob money man because he’s on the run and couldn’t even successfully hide out in the middle of nowhere. Madolyn is terrible at her job for several reasons. Once she incapacitates the pilot, she needs to figure out how to fly the plane. She tries on the plane radio for a bit and comes up fairly empty, and Winston says, “He’ll call it in, right?” Madolyn’s face lights up - “Call it in!” Turns out she’s got a satellite phone that she just neglected to remember. She also incapacitates Daryl 3 or 4 times and he just keeps getting out of her traps. She should have shot him the second time he got free and tried to kill her, but for the plot she keeps him there on the floor of the plane. She also makes the worst decisions in multiple scenarios, including calling out the US Marshall Service director on the phone when she finds out he’s the mole instead of keeping that card in her pocket, putting her at risk when she lands. Finally, Daryl. A hitman who, instead of killing them both immediately while in the air, tries several times unsuccessfully. He’s chatty and tries to make us think he’s real, real bad, but all he shows is that he’s a really bad hitman.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!”

In the original script, the beginning scene at the hotel wasn’t included. Had to have been a post-test screening addition because audiences are really dumb. That scene also included a CGI moose outside of the CGI hotel that looked like it was straight out of the Lion King live action. The ending is also changed for the better - in the script, Daryl doesn’t die - he just sits there handcuffed until the credits role. There’s no additional hitman at the end of the script either, once the plane comes to a stop, they all sigh and the movie is over. Daryl’s end in the film is pretty funny, sliding out of the spiraling plane only to be smacked by an ambulance that is tailing the plane VERY closely for some reason, so I’m glad they changed that. On the other hand, the way the film ends is bewildering.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

They’re getting Winston, who has been stabbed into an ambulance with absolutely NO urgency (also shout out to the medevac guy who pulls Winston off the plane by just hooking him under his arms and dragging him out exactly where he had been stabbed). When they get him into the ambulance, no one stays with him, enabling a Moretti hitman dressed like an EMT guy to jump in the back with him. By the way, how does Moretti have a person in Anchorage? How did he get to the runway that quickly with an EMT uniform? Anyway, he jumps into the back and tries to suffocate Winston, so Madolyn opens the door and shoots him in the head. Meanwhile, everyone in the back just kind of looks in casually with little to no reaction. A few firefighters just casually walk away. Remember, these people have to be thinking, “That agent just opened the doors and blew away my coworker!” Instead, they kind of peer in like they’re thinking about bidding on a dark storage unit and then the movie cuts to black.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

This movie was hot garbage. I love a good contained thriller but in order for them to work, you need a compelling argument for why everyone needs to live. You need suspense, and this movie gave us none of that. If I had to highlight a few positives - I liked Topher Grace, as annoying as he was at points. He plays the smarmy asshole so well. I also thought Mark Wahlberg was funny as the over-the-top villain and the choice to shave his head was…inspired. Unfortunately, the director, Hollywood’s favorite antisemite Mel Gibson, seemed to take the material way too seriously for what it should have been. In my opinion, they should have embraced the b-movie mentality and just went full bonkers. I felt like it was headed that way when the plane impossibly slams into a pile of snow on a mountain and just keeps flying with no issues. It felt like Wahlberg and Grace understood the assignment. It also gives me hope that, if this was one of the Blacklist finalists, that mine may someday be on that same docket.

The Gorge (2025).

The first half of this will be my spoiler-free thoughts on The Gorge. The second half of this (which will be indicated) has many spoilers, as I’ll talk through what changed from the first draft of the script to what we saw on screen.

Engorged.

Levi lives a simple life - sure, as a world renowned sniper, he kills people for a living, but other than that it’s pretty simple. He’s got no attachments, no family, and his only interest seems to be writing mediocre poetry, all traits of someone perfect for an assignment on…the gorge.

See, The Gorge is a geographical oddity that has been hidden from civilization for decades thanks to the cooperation of both the West and the East. It’s a giant chasm with a self sustaining guard tower on each side. Each tower provides one person to guard the gorge for a year, and their instructions are simple - maintain the gorge defense systems. There are sensor-activated machine guns that need maintenance and ammo restocks. There are barbed wire spindles, bombs and mines that need to be replaced. There are cloaking radars to make sure the world doesn’t understand the gorge exists, possibly the most important part of the operation, because if the cloaking radars go down, it activates Stray Dog protocol, and while the operators don’t know exactly what that is, they know it’s bad. Human contact is prohibited - no phones, no internet and no communicating with the other side. Just Levi, his thoughts, and a pair of binoculars to keep an eye on the East side operator. It’s been like this for decades, dating back to the second World War.

Dragging or rushing? He’s definitely dragging this time around.

Almost immediately, Drasa, the operator of the East side tower, breaks the contact rule. The two communicate through messages written and displayed, replying after spying the words through their binoculars. While they’re not far apart in terms of physical distance as the crow flies, they are a gorge away, and start to build a long distance relationship. When they’re not flirting, they’re defending the gorge from what early operators referred to as “Hollow Men”, odd plant-like human hybrid creatures that look like more realistic, grotesque versions of Groot. Six months in and extra horny, Levi decides he can’t take it anymore. He rigs up a zip line with a rocket launcher and slides his way into her tower, a move that goes sideways in the worst ways possible.

They are Groot?

Home sweet home.

There’s a lot to like about The Gorge. Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy play the operators and they are great together on screen. I bought the relationship between them, as we see them flirt, put on faux concerts and play long distance chess. At some point it turns from a romantic two-hander into a sci-fi/actioner with some big ideas - ideas that were so big and cool, that I thought they may have been better served by a mini-series.

The gorge itself is filled with terrifically designed imagery - trees with skulls embedded, atmospheric color-filled fog, and late 40’s architecture, along with a variety of incredibly designed, extremely creepy creatures. Spiders with skulls for bodies certainly unlocked new nightmare fuel. The floor of the gorge really feels like a land where anything can happen and everything is trying to kill you. It felt like the best sci-fi survival horror video games, right down to a very exciting action set piece featuring a jeep and a winch that felt like it was snagged straight from an Uncharted game.

I went into The Gorge with no expectations and left pleasantly surprised. It has a lot of heart, some great action sequences, and while I wasn’t necessarily surprised by anything, it did hit its predictable beats in a satisfying way. I’d recommend it to people who like genre-heavy sci-fi and the lead actors.

Script to screen differences (SPOILERS AHEAD):

…and whoever.

Unlike many scripts I read, there are a TON of changes from the original script to what made it into the final film. Were they good changes? Or did the final film water down The Gorge?

On the page, Levi is shown performing the assassination in the opening scene. Afterward, we catch up with him at a San Diego junior college, struggling to recite his poem aloud during an introductory poetry class. His PTSD is not shown in opening scenes and his is never violently awoken by his dreams, as he is in the film. We are quickly introduced to Drasa, but not at a cemetary, and her father does not have cancer. He simply wishes her well when she says she’ll be gone a year. There’s a scene where Levi shows up to his ex's house. She’s got a newborn baby and a husband, and he’s clearly not on the best terms with her. He leaves her an envelope telling her that if he doesn’t come back, she’s his beneficiary. When he finally meets the mastermind of the mission (played by Sigourny Weaver in the film), it’s an old white man named Bartholomew.

Once at the gorge, the interaction with J.D. (the operator whose shift is now over) happens mostly the same way with a few major differences. First, the Stray Dog protocol is not mentioned. Second, he jokes that, “There’s a running theory that when our tours are done...they kill us.” and that he reckons he’s going to find out. We are never shown his extraction. He learns about the soldiers of the past through logs on the bookshelf, rather than simply quotes behind the bookshelf. Some of the passages are detailed and are described as being read by the writer as Levi reads them.

Once the hollowmen show up for the first time, they are simply described as “nightmarish creatures, resembling something that were once perhaps human, but no longer...RIB-THIN AND VEINED WITH GHOULISH DEAD GREY FLESH AND RABID, FRENETIC EYES AND BONE WHITE PUPILS.”

Stockton, California.

Everything up until Levi falls into the gorge is more or less the same. Once Levi falls into the gorge, when stuck in the tree, there is no centipede monster and there’s no sticky mouth creature on at the bottom of the tree. In the script, he cuts himself down but breaks his arm while falling, and then is immediately attacked by the five horseback hollowmen. He takes four of them down with his pistol and then is saved by Drasa after getting his arm bitten by the last one. This is where he learns that the hollowmen are old military soldiers, not in the last third like in the film. Unlike in the film, the horses are just regular horses, and after she reveals her two auto-ascenders (she did not lose them in the river), they jump on horses and ride through the gorge.

This is where things get real different. Instead of heading into the church and having a big battle against the skull spiders (which were awesome) and hollowmen, they enter an overgrown town hall. In the middle of the town hall is a cage, and J.D. is locked in it and looks like he’s aged by decades. He explains that, after he left Levi, he went toward his extraction point and was ambushed by three choppers who “gassed me, drugged me, and I woke up at the far south end of the gorge. With no way to get out. I was able to last a month, exploring mid-day, hiding at twilight. Eventually the Hollowmen found me. But they didn’t kill me. Instead, they put me in that fuckin’ cage...” He then leads them into the bunker once they set him free, although he does ask them not to trust him. There’s no plant life present. The pack being used as bait is the same, but the auto-ascenders are in it. In this version, three hollowmen start firing tommy guns at the protagonists before Drasa is snagged by the trap. Levi picks up the pack that was left behind before he and J.D. follow on horseback.

J.D. had a much meatier role in the script.

After an argument in which J.D. urges Levi to forget about her, they descend into the missile silo. They do not find a tape explaining experiments, but find a broken warhead missile that is leaking it’s payload. They deduce that water falling into the hole hits the payload and vaporizes, and that the longer you breathe it in, the worse you’re transformed (as J.D. has been breathing it for five weeks). When Drasa awakens, instead of a brutal fight between her and Groot, she bites his finger off and quickly slashes it’s throat. Instead of getting the cool catwalk scene in the film in which Levi and Drasa maneuver through a web of living goo and developing creatures, Drasa has to try to silently walk past hundreds of hollowmen sitting cross-legged in a meditative state. When one grabs her legs, she has to run up the missile silo stairs, getting help from Levi and J.D. with gunfire and, eventually, a grenade that collapses the ladder into the silo as the three escape on horseback with plenty of hollowmen in tow.

They get to the cable, but with three people and two auto-ascenders, they take weight tallies and J.D. goes up on his own. Then, Levi and Drasa go together. Due to the weight, it’s a slower ascent than J.D.’s, and this is where the cable scene happens. It’s just them frantically trying to fend off the pursuing white walkers with kicks and elbows. Levi gets his calf bitten and J.D. tries for a sniper rifle but his vision is too blurred, so he sends them down a cable cutter. Levi cuts the cable, sending the hollowmen back into the gorge.

Going up!

There’s a long scene of the three celebrating and drinking at the east tower, but in the morning, J.D. is standing over a sleeping bag with Levi and Drasa inside. He’s got an axe and his eyes are white. Instead of killing them, he leaves. When Levi and Drasa wake up, they see him very far away and know they need to kill him before he gets to the treeline or he would end up in civilization. With his broken arm, Levi and Drasa work together to fire the longest kill shot in history. They decide to destroy the cloakers and leave together.

The last shot is the program leader, Bartholomew, reading Levi’s journal. He tells a commando to activate all of the kill teams and to get Levi’s replacement enroute, and we cut to black.

Script or final film?

“I am Groot.”

Overall, I think the final film was better than the original script. The added plot point about plant and insect DNA merging with humans led to some very cool imagery and much better looking creatures, as in the script, the creatures feel like the little guys from I Am Legend (although I’d have loved to see them use some tommy guns). J.D. isn’t a very interesting character, so we didn’t need more of him. I think the Jeep winch scene was way more exciting than the slow ascender ride would have been. The original script also had no private military subplot and no comeuppance for the leader, which, while setting it up for a sequel, was far less exciting than the explosive ending of the film.

Crack House (1989).

Crack House (1989) - Exploitation, Gang Wars, and a Whole Lot of Crack.

“There’s better things to do than dishin’ crack.”

Rick, a 24 year old high school student who managed to snag the hottest girl in school, 25 year old Melissa, even though his drop top convertible interior is covered from head to toe in Jesus paraphernalia has denounced the gang culture around him. But when his cousin is blasted in a drive, he snatches the green rag from the corpse and immediately finds himself back in the killing business. Rick isn’t good at planning, however, so he brings his Mexican gang (called the Pochos) to where the black gang (called the Greys) hangs out and they just start blasting away - it’s a pretty impressive set piece with multiple deaths. On the way out, Rick is picked up for attempted murder (a little odd, considering people were definitely successfully murdered during the shootout).

While in prison, Melissa is nearly raped by Rick’s own gang, but a guy named B.T. rolls up in a van and saves her. B.T. isn’t without his faults though, he introduces her to crack cocaine and she goes from aspiring Barbizon student to full fledged junkie in the span of a weekend. Eventually B.T. gets in over his head and he trades her to Steadman, the Greys boss in exchange for his life. Rick learns about this and convinces Roundtree to let him out so he can rescue his ex-fiance and take down Steadman, banishing crack from Los Angeles once and for all!

Aging High Schoolers and Blaxploitation Legends.

“That’s a black run house, they’re not gonna let no whip dick Chicano go waltzin’ in there.”

Gregg Thomsen plays Rick, a kid who looks way too old to be in high school, but this is a school where everyone looks like their best years are behind them. Maybe that’s just what crack does. He only did one other feature film, a B-movie featuring Joe Estevez, and it’s pretty obvious why. The few scenes where he has to show emotion are delivered woodenly. He’s not the worst actor in the cast, however. Cher Butler, ex-Playmate-turned-born-again-Christian plays Melissa, a looker with the acting chops of a goldfish.

While those actors aren’t household names, it does have some notable actors. Richard Roundtree plays a cop who is trying to corral the violence in his city. He cares enough that he’s notably disappointed when Rick is immediately found after the shootout, a sentiment he repeats when he visits Rick in jail. Steadman is played by Jim Brown (doing his best Fred Williamson impression), a role in which he gleefully beats women and calls everyone bitch. When he’s not beating or raping women, he’s tossing them to his crew to do the same. A tidbit for film trivia buffs, look closely and you’ll catch a very young F. Gary Gray (credited as Gary Gray) as one of the black gang members (coincidentally named The Greys).

Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions.

“Now look, don’t trip, but this is my bitch.”

While the action in the film is constrained by its budget, it’s still pretty raw and fun. Like I said, the inciting shootout is well done and the fights feel pretty solid. For example, in an early bathroom fight, someone’s head goes through a mirror, and when Rick confronts B.T., he puts the guys head through his van window and then blows it up while walking away. The last scene of the film features Johnny Law descending on the crack house, leading to plenty of squib work and bodies galore. They even bring in a SWAT tank.

Funk, hip-hop and 2 Live Crew.

The soundtrack and score aren’t bad but feel very typical for the exploitation films of the late 80’s - lots of bouncy funk tracks and a forgettable synth score. There are two 2 Live Crew songs and Slippin’ Into Darkness by War that elevates the one scene it’s in. One of the better songs in the film is called Rush It Baby-O (Beam Me Up Scotty) performed by the Bus Stop Creepers who appear to be from Cincinnati but I couldn’t find much about them.

Is Crack House Worth Buying?

“Shit bitch, you stink.”

Overall, Crack House was sub par. While the action was well done and the performance by Brown was memorable, the rest of the movie is a bit of a drag. Melissa’s descent into a tweaker is unconvincing and the film offers no surprises. It also makes an odd choice by completely sidelining the main character; when he goes to jail, he’s nearly invisible for the second act. Everything just seems way easier than it should be.

The Vinegar Syndrome Archive release looks and sounds good, but the extras are surprisingly scant compared to their other releases. There are two interviews that clock in at about 10 minutes each and a 4 minute location featurette. If you’re a fan of Cannon’s brand of chaos, you’ll find some enjoyment here but I’d recommend checking this one out on Tubi before forking over $30 or more.

Note: There are certainly some uncomfortable moments in the film regarding sexual assault, so if that’s a trigger for you, steer clear.

52 Pick-Up (1986).

Blackmail, Betrayal & Revenge in 52 Pick-Up

Harry Mitchell just found out that his wife is going to be running for L.A. city council. The only problem? Three masked men just showed up to show him a video tape they made featuring him and his mistress, a stripper named Cini. They want $105,000 in order to keep their mouths shut…but Harry doesn’t want to play ball.

52 Pick-Up was the second adaptation of the Elmore Leonard book, the first being two years earlier with the Robert Mitchum-led film The Ambassador. That film really used the premise loosely, changing just about everything - the two films would make a pretty decent double feature, considering there’s almost nothing connecting the two outside of a blackmail plot that goes wrong. This adaptation sticks a bit closer to the book, increasing the villains by one and moving the story from Detroit to Los Angeles.

The 52 Pick-Up Cast.

Roy Scheider plays Harry, the owner of a steel company who sells patents to NASA. He also smashes nude dancers on the side, something he never thought would catch up to him. When three masked men - a porn theater owner, a peep show manager, and the world’s worst hitman - show up with a VHS compilation of his trysts, they give him an offer he can’t refuse - $105,000 a year, and they’ll keep quiet. But Harry does refuse. Unfortunately, this lands Harry in bigger trouble when they kill the dancer using his gun. Now Harry needs to pay up or get even, so he starts working the men against one another in order to thin the herd.

52 Pick-Up boasts a cast of great actors. Roy Scheider is great (as usual) as Harry, a man stretched to his limits, but it’s the supporting cast, specifically the villains who really make the movie. Roger Ebert praised John Glover for his portrayal as Alan Raimy, the ringleader of the group, and I will attest that I thought his performance as the slimy theater owner was terrific. But I also think that because he’s the lead villain, it draws attention away from the real MVP of the trio, Robert Trebor as the peep show manager Leo Franks. He plays the character so pathetically, right down to the side-show comb over, that it’s hard to look away when he’s on screen. There’s a scene late in the film where he’s rationalizing what he might do to get out of the situation at a dive bar that is fantastically acted, so I need to give him props. Clarence Williams III is the last of the bunch, and while he was fine as the wild card of the group, I have to question his ability as a hitman, because the scene where he tries to take Harry out is as clumsy and stupid as it gets, jumping out at Harry like a goddamn magic show with a garrotte when he’s got a gun tucked in his wasteband, only to get bested by the surprised man and his wife, who is contributing nothing outside of waving a flashlight around like a kid at Disneyland who just secured her first lightsaber until she finally finds a hammer in the backyard.

I should mention Ann-Margret plays his wife Barbara. I was never truly convinced that she even really liked Harry, but maybe that was more a product of her station in life and not a sign of a bad actor. The scene in which she is drugged is very effective.

52 Pick-Up & the Sleazy Side of 80s L.A.

In 80’s films I’m always eyefishing the background for delicious decor, and 52 Pick-Up certainly delivered there. Harry’s house is filled with wall to wall whites, featuring white carpet in the bedroom, floral print bedsheets, and a big wooden dollhouse sitting atop the console TV. Over at Alan’s place, it’s quite the contrast. His mattress and box spring sit on the floor under a square filled with different colored lights, while shelving that makes up the headboard houses about a dozen different colored lava lamps. While the film doesn’t truly make use of Los Angeles, we do get nice use of the Henry Ford Bridge and a short glimpse of Dodger stadium, along with some seedier parts of Skid Row.

Is 52 Pick-Up Worth Watching?

As far as crime flicks go, 52 Pick-Up is pretty standard rental fare - just entertaining enough that you don’t regret the two bucks you spent renting it a Blockbuster, but not good enough to remember it a week after you’ve seen it. The performances are great though, and there is plenty of eye candy on screen - I haven’t even mentioned Vanity yet, who plays Doreen, another dancer at the peep joint. She is topless in this about as much as she has clothes on, and it didn’t get much better than 80’s Vanity.

Kino Lorber put 52 Pick-Up out on Blu-ray and then reissued it to correct some picture issues in 2023. The newly released disc features a commentary track from Steve Mitchell and Edwin Samuelson that I need to listen to, along with trailers and TV spots. During sales, this one hits the $11 mark, and I’d say that at that price, it’s worth at least one watch.

52 Pick-Up In Short:

What is 52 Pick-Up (1986) about?
52 Pick-Up is a crime thriller based on Elmore Leonard’s novel, following a businessman blackmailed by a group of criminals who recorded his affair. Rather than pay, he turns the tables on them.

Is 52 Pick-Up based on a book?
Yes, 52 Pick-Up is based on Elmore Leonard’s 1974 novel of the same name. There was also a looser adaptation in 1984 called The Ambassador.

Where can I watch 52 Pick-Up?
52 Pick-Up is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber and may be available on digital rental platforms.

Is 52 Pick-Up a good movie?
It’s an entertaining neo-noir thriller with standout villain performances. While not a classic, it’s worth watching for fans of 80s crime films.

Score With Chicks (1994).

I’ve reviewed my share of weird, hard to find stuff in my days, but 1994’s Score With Chicks is perhaps the most obscure. It was released by Colossal Entertainment, a company I cannot find anything on because there’s a current video game developer with the same name. It’s set up very similarly to a mid-90’s Cinemax or Playboy produced title, but I don’t think it aired on cable. It seems like it was produced for the softcore video store shelves.

Anyway, from the back of the VHS sleeve:

Narrated by Comedian Marty Keegan (they’re using “comedian” VERY liberally here)

• Women & men reveal their wildest sexual fantasies

• Jump start your dead or dying relationship

• Innovative date ideas that are romantic and affordable

• Mistakes men make when trying to pick up a woman

It name drops a few of the featured women - Tracy Dali (the only one with a picture on IMDB, which is always a good sign), Julie Smith, Reiko and Brooke Morales. Other hot chicks listed include “Sport Magazine Bikini Model” and “Coors Spokesmodel”, apparently women who aren’t worth their names in print. At the bottom of the box, it reads, “Quality guaranteed”, which is blatant false advertising.

The tape starts with the full title, How to Score With Chicks, and quickly hits us with a full length rock music video that starts with the lyrics, “Little bit o’ classroom, sexy 103, professor stops a teachin’ bout the different sexualities” and features ladies just kind of awkwardly dancing in different areas (and by dancing I mean shuffling around like they have a case of the crotch crickets) and riding around in cars and stuff. After that, we’re introduced to Professor N. Likeflynn (Marty Keegan, who also wrote, directed, produced and probably served grilled cheese for lunch), the man who is going to teach hapless 90’s gents how to pick up women in a pre-Internet world. Framed in front of Yankee Stadium (the guy is clearly a baseball fan, this thing was produced by Homerun Productions, another entity I can’t find anything about), N. Likeflynn looks less like a guy who spends his time on mattresses with women and more like the guy who would sell you a mattress. He lets us know that you can’t score without a game plan, and promises to help you build one over the course of the next 50 minutes or so.

With a PHD from Beaver Valley Prep.

We’re then treated to our first “comedy skit” in which comedian Vic Dunlop (who also starred in the cinematic gems Meatballs: Part II in 1984 and Can I Do It ‘Till I Need Glasses? (another film I have to seek out from 1977) talks about how he doesn’t like to date because you have to clean yourself up and then starts making animal noises. He’s got coverings on his eyes that look like the Saw spiral for some reason and is wearing a dad hat that simply says, “HEAD.”

Fitting that a misogynist movie about picking up chicks starts with nightmare fuel.

After each segment is a short music video with a generic backing track showing off topless women, the real reason people spent $19.99 at Suncoast Video, afterall.

The tips start with pickup lines. We see a few people bomb with a lady at a bar after trying tried and true lines like, “Hey baby, you got a boyfriend with a Trans Am? You want one?”, before transitioning into N. Likeflynn’s real winners - attacking womens’ “Mommy Complex”. At the grocery store, ask them how to tell if a melon is ripe and then tell them you don’t know where the shit on your shopping list is, and by the end of the interaction, you’ll be on their shopping list. It continues at the laundromat where N. Likeflynn gives some sound advice about not hitting on women who are folding men’s underwear, and then acting like you’ve never seen a washing machine before to ensure that female’s clean clothes end up on your floor. Nothing like appearing to have never done basic household chores to win a lady’s heart. The professor also gives you some unconventional places to snag women, like the ladies room at a stadium or, if you’re ugly, the Braille Institute. There’s also a pretty funny shot outside of a Sanitarium where N. Likeflynn is spouting nonsense and an employee just walks out and stares awkwardly at the camera, like “What the fuck is this guy doing in our parking lot?”

Vanessa Williams has a short cameo sitting in her living room, a credit curiously missing from her IMDB page. After that, we see a few Studio City dummies giving their best pickup lines. I’d be shocked if any of the people featured are still alive today.

Some more sound advice from the Professor - women are programmed to say no to everything except the word shopping. He tells us that your advances need to be vague, and all you have to do is say, “Do you want to get together sometime?” In the beginning of this scene, Marty is outside of the WB lot, a place he’s definitely never been inside of. There’s also some random radio chatter going on so it sounds like Marty forgot to turn the stereo off in his Trans Am. At the end of the scene, Marty is walking out of the New York Stock Exchange building talking about high yield prospects as people in the background again stare at the camera.

We’re then treated to a skit where a child takes out an older woman set to a laugh track and then a segment on what women look for in a man. Unfortunately they were only able to convince two people to participate in the strip mall parking lot that day, so to pad the scene, there’s an odd skit where someone dressed as Cher belts out a parody song while a guy walks by the Greek Theater in the background looking at the camera wondering why he didn’t choose to walk one block over.

The next piece of advice is to ask a woman out for lunch, because from her point of view, it’s safer and she only needs to stick around for an hour. And for the man, it’s cheaper than a night out and counts as a first date, so she can rationalize sleeping with you on the second date without feeling like a floozy.

I’m obviously a fan of lists, so I was looking forward to the Professor’s worst 10 ideas for a first date. He pulls some gooners off the street and critiques their ideas. There are some insanely weird moments here with some “Blind Date-esque” graphical overlays used straight from Marty’s camcorder menu.

The Stucco Serial Killer.

An extremely inebriated guy who has never worn a baseball cap before goes on some weird rant about bat sizes that is supposed to be funny but he sounds like Donald Trump when he’s asked a question - he rambles and slurs his words until he thinks you’re confused enough to roll his eyes into the back of his head like The Undertaker and just stops talking as if he’s finally completed his very first thought. He finishes by pointing off camera saying, “And here’s the perfect example over here, she loves the big thick ones.”, but we never cut to anything. We also get an extremely disturbing first date idea from a guy who says he would take a woman to a party because you can “get them drunk and take them home quite a bit easier.” I was expecting the Professor to jump in here and tell him that’s wrong, but instead we’re told that taking a woman to a party on a first date is a bad idea because they might meet someone more interesting (and definitely less rapey) than you.

What the fuck hat

He then interviews some women who read their ideal dates from queue cards and, I’ve got to be honest, I just couldn’t go any further. I skipped through the last half hour hoping there would be something I thought was dumb enough to find funny or something I could mine for comedy but it was complete and utter garbage. We end with a Batman parody character who wears a Batman Halloween costume cowl but calls himself Cat Man because…reasons, who drunkenly tells us that he learned something from this video - we’re all home run hitters, and next time we step to the plate we’re trying to take one deep, we’re not looking for a walk. A supremely insightful way to end this 56 minute bomb. The credits then roll to absolutely no music.

Martin Keegan is clearly a big baseball fan - turns out, he had a podcast in 2012 based on the Anaheim Angels baseball team. Like most podcasts, it lasted 4 episodes, but he did get to talk to Tim Salmon and Jim Abbott. He’s got an active yet seldom seen YouTube channel and I’ve looked for a way to reach out because I have so many questions about this project but I keep coming up short.

Some other tidbits for you - in the credits, there’s a special thanks credit to a producer named Lang Elliott, and I don’t know why I do these things but I looked him up on IMDB. He produced a film last year called Max Patkin: The Clown Prince of Baseball which doesn’t have any information, not even an actor, but it’s his first thing produced since 1989. His other production credits include two parody films starring Tim Conway as a dwarf named Dorf - Dorf on Golf and Dorf and the First Games of Mount Olympus, and a video store dust collector from 1989 called Cage that stars Lou Ferrigno. The IMDB description of Cage reads, “Vietnam vet suffers brain damage, he and buddy open bar. Gangsters pressure them into brutal cage fights, which they resist, leading to conflict. Brain-damaged vet’s childlike mentality juxtaposed with violent situations.” After watching this “film” I may not be closer to being able to score with chicks, but at least I got a new filmography I can chase after.

The Order (2024).

“This is Alan Berg, signing off. Sayonara.”

In 1983, a white supremacist named Bob Matthews started recruiting people into what would become “The Order”, a white separatist group hell bent on waging war in the United States with funds collected from robberies and counterfeiting. His group’s story was first told on the small screen in 1999, when Peter Gallagher portrayed Bob Matthews in the Showtime original film Brotherhood of Murder. Now, The Order, directed by visionary director Justin Kurzel, revisits this dark chapter in American history with a different take in this true(ish) story.

Nicholas Hoult takes on the role of Bob Matthews in The Order, which gives equal screen time to the Nazis who are trying to fund a war through nefarious activities and the law enforcement teams trying to bring them down. Jude Law plays Terry Husk, a 26-year veteran on the force who’s trying to reopen the Coeur D’Alene office in Idaho when an eager local police officer named Jamie Bowen (played by Tye Sheridan) points him in the direction of an Aryan church tucked into the Idaho wilderness. Based on a tip he got from an acquaintance who’s gone missing, he suspects that this church is into more than just sermons - counterfeiting, bombings, armed robberies and murder are all possibly on the menu. What follows is a classic cops-and-robbers flick that’s elevated by stellar performances, gripping cinematography, and a timely exploration of extremist ideologies that will be sure to scratch your small time crime itch.

A Film Rooted in Atmosphere

There’s so much to like here but I’ll start with the cinematography. The Pacific Northwest is some of my favorite scenery in the country and it’s seldom looked better on-screen than it does here. I was first introduced to Director of photography Adam Arkapaw’s work in True Detective, he was the DP there as well and he just knows how to get the most out of the terrain. He captures the haunting beauty of the region - its dense forests, mist-covered valleys and imposing mountains create a setting that feels both serene and menacing, but also uniquely American (ironic, considering the film was shot in Alberta, Canada). The natural landscapes serve as a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding on the streets, making the violence and tension even more jarring.

While the filmmaking isn’t flashy, there are some shots that show a bit of flair while adding to the experience instead of taking you out of the movie. For example, there’s a shot of a person getting out of a car and the camera is mounted to the doorframe, so when the door opens, we’re shown something the character doesn’t yet see, adding to the tension of the scene. The aftermath of said seen is also lingered upon, forcing you to take in the senselessness of what just transpired. These small flourishes are sprinkled throughout the film, like Kurzel telling you he’s there, even if you don’t normally notice.

Thrilling Robbery Sequences

The action scenes in The Order are another standout aspect of the film. The robbery scenes are meticulously crafted, thrilling and realistic. Unlike many heist films that glamorize violence, The Order portrays these acts as quick, brutal and chaotic. There are no senseless killings, these Nazis want the money and they want to get out as quickly as possible. When people do die, it’s never gratuitous or glorified, although some reviewers did feel that the Neo Nazis felt a little “too cool”. The score that accompanies these scenes is also amazing. Justin Kurzel brought his brother Jed Kurzel in for the score, crafting a visceral soundscape that feels both modern and timeless.

Stellar Performances

While The Order looks and sounds great, it’s the performances that truly carry the film. Nicholas Hoult is chilling as a careless Nazi gunslinger, someone who has grown tired of rhetoric and inaction and decides to use The Turner Diaries as a blueprint for a violent uprising within the United States. Hoult portrays Matthews as both charismatic and terrifying, making it easy to see how he could recruit others to his cause. His ideals are simplistic - white = good, other races = bad, but the script does a good job of portraying how joining his cult might seem appealing for those who were feeling lost or disenfranchised, and we see this when he recruits a new member at the Sunday proud boy barbeque.

Jude Law delivers a deliciously nuanced performance as Husk, a lawman who says he wants to take it easy while continuously doing the opposite. Husk is a character full of contradictions, one who at times mirrors Matthews and Law captures this complexity beautifully. There are a few times that Law gets to really show his chops - there’s a scene where he’s unable to foil a robbery in process, partly because he didn’t have proper backup, and his frustration leaks through the screen. His ability to convey a mix of anger, guilt and determination is a testament to his skill as an actor. His mustache game is on point too.

Not to be outdone, Tye Sheridan also deserves mention for his role as Jamie Bowen. While his character has less screen time than Law or Hoult, he makes the most of it. His enthusiasm matches Husk’s nicely and I liked the way they played off of one another.

A Sobering Reflection on Extremism

Another aspect that made The Order compelling is its exploration of extremist ideologies and their consequences. The film doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths about how groups like The Order recruit and radicalize individuals. It shows how economic instability, social isolation and a sense of disillusionment can create fertile ground for hate to take root. When he’s recruiting Tony Torres, for example, he uses a combination of fearmongering and false promises of belonging to manipulate him.

Unfortunately, it made me reflect on the fact that in 1983, Nazis used to have to hide on farms in the middle of nowhere because America still remembered that Nazis were bad. It was one thing all political sides could agree on. Now, they’re in the White House and posting proudly on Facebook and what used to be called Twitter. It’s a bleak reflection of our current reality, but one that makes films like The Order all the more important. By shining a light on the dark corners of history, we’re challenged to confront uncomfortable truths. If only we would learn from them. Maybe someday we’ll all once again agree that the only good Nazi…is a dead one.

Krazy House (2024).

Krazy House Review: Written in Front of a Live, Studio Audience

“Thou shalt not kill.”

I’m honestly not sure where to start with this one.

Set in 1990, Krazy House starts as a typical late-80’s, early 90’s sitcom called The Christians that looks like an amalgamation of both Married with Children and King of Queens. Like those shows, it’s filmed in front of a live studio audience and starts out in a very light hearted, goofy way. Bernie Christian, the matriarch of the family, is juggling his faith and his family. He’s the stereotypical Kevin James kind of protagonist who means well, but continuously causes more problems than he’s solving. When he’s not falling down the stairs (much to the delight of the studio audience), he’s breaking everything that isn’t nailed down, much to the chagrin of his modern, breadwinning wife, Eva. His indifferent, gum smacking daughter Sarah and son Adam, a burgeoning scientist, are opportunities for life lessons about being good people and looking towards the lord. Sounds like the perfect setup for a religious TV show for those times; you know the type - a character walks through the front door and the crowd goes wild?

However, when a trio of Russian handymen show up at the door, things take a turn…and the studio audience doesn’t pop for them. See, Bernie has (as he usually does), caused a mess in the kitchen. His stew bubbles over and he messes up the sink, adding to the kitchen destruction he caused earlier when his arm caught on fire and he lit up the wall. After initially dismissing the Russians, he lets them in to fix the problem…but the problems at the Christian house have only just begun. Once the Russians are in, the show takes an insanely dark turn and it only gets more bonkers from there. While the film starts as a deconstruction of the nuclear family sitcom, it ends as a bloody mess where no one is safe.

A Promising Start that Falters

“Well, who could that be?”

As someone who grew up with this kind of show, I appreciated the idea of things more than the execution. The problem is that it’s a very thin premise for a movie and once we went from the traditional sitcom style about thirty minutes in, Krazy House lost a bunch of steam for me. Had we stayed in that style, I think it would have fared a bit better. What started as a bold and innovative take on the horror/comedy genre transitions into a more formulaic (albeit still insane) narrative that felt a little more safe. The shift both diluted the charm and exposed pacing issues.

At just 86 minutes, Krazy House should feel tight and fast-paced, but oddly, it doesn’t. Instead, it feels overstretched, particularly in its latter half. Certain sequences go on for too long, and the narrative begins to meander. By the time the climax rolls around, it’s hard not to feel like the film has overstayed its welcome. It’s similar to how I felt about Kevin Can F*** Himself, which I liked for a few episodes but couldn’t stick with.

This isn’t to say that the latter half of Krazy House is devoid of merit. There are still moments of brilliance scattered throughout, particularly in the performances. Nick Frost plays Bernie and he looks like he’s having a ton of fun. His portrayal of the devout, bumbling family man who is thrust into absolutely absurd circumstances is really fun to watch. Frost handles the tonal shifts with ease as his face is caked with more and more blood, moving from slapstick comedy to genuine peril.

Alicia Silverstone is great here as well as Eva. Her sitcom character is obviously there to serve as the voice of reason, even when the story veers into the territory of the outrageous.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Krazy House is how much potential it squanders. The film’s premise—a family inadvertently hosting a group of criminals disguised as workers—offers so many opportunities for clever twists, dark humor, and innovative storytelling, especially in the context of a Christian-style Al Bundy house. The decision to shift from an experimental, sitcom-inspired approach to a more conventional style feels like a missed opportunity to do something truly unique. The initial absurdity of the film is what makes it stand out, and abandoning that shooting style in favor of a safer, more traditional look ultimately works against it.

Final Thoughts

Heeeeeere’s Bernie!

At its best, Krazy House is a chaotic romp with standout performances by Nick Frost and Alicia Silverstone. At its worst, it’s a sluggish, overly long exercise in missed opportunities. While the film may not fully deliver on its promise, it’s worth a watch for fans of offbeat comedy and those who enjoy seeing talented actors elevate flawed material. And when I say offbeat, I mean it. What starts as a goofy family that wears custom knitted church sweaters devolves into goblins conjured while smoking crack, two VERY strange babies and multiple decapitations. Nothing is off limits in this one.

In the end, Krazy House is a mixed bag. It’s not the genre-defying, nostalgic cut up it could have been, but it’s also not without its merits. The energy that the Dutch directors Steffen & Flip infuse their other work with (like the New Kids flicks) is certainly here. If you’re in the mood for something quirky and don’t mind a film that struggles to stick the landing, give it a shot, especially if you grew up on stuff like Married With Children and Family Matters.

Gladiator II (2024).

Note: This review is spoiler-free.

Are you not entertained?

Rumors of a sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winning epic Gladiator have swirled for years. Nick Cave’s now infamous stab at Maximus’s journey through time and space was certainly an interesting pitch, but obviously never panned out. Over the years, several screenwriters were attached, but nothing promising materialized until David Scarpa, Scott’s collaborator on Napoleon, came into the picture.

IMDB has a spoiler right in the logline if you’re the kind of person who wants to go in blind, so I’ll mask that by saying that this story focuses on a man named Hanno who lives a quiet life in Numidia…until the Roman Empire comes knocking. Led by the Roman General Marcus Acacius in the name of insane twin rulers, Rome easily overwhelms the city, pillaging it and killing Hanno’s wife. Bad move. Now a slave, Hanno is bought by the political artist Macrinus, a man who yearns for power and will pull all the right strings to get more of it. At the start, Hanno wants one thing - the head of Marcus Acacius, but as he wins the crowd, he must look to his past to return the glory of Rome to it’s people.

The original film, anchored by Russell Crowe's unforgettable, Oscar winning performance as Maximus, left an indelible mark on cinema, blending action, a powerful story of strength, vengeance and redemption, and Hans Zimmer’s legendary score. Matching the magic of the original, a rare film that slayed the summer while winning multiple Oscars would be a tall task for a sequel.

Does it succeed? Like the film itself, the answer is a mix of triumph and tragedy, but overall, I was entertained.

“You will be my instrument.”

All of the performances are good, but as these things usually go, Denzel Washington steals the show. He plays Macrinus, a political puppeteer armed with more rings than my first apartment’s coffee table and a set of slaves who want to win their freedom in the Colosseum. As expected, his performance is magnetic. With his signature gravitas and razor-sharp delivery, Washington dominates every scene he’s in, reminding us why he’s one of Hollywood’s all-time greats. Whether he’s engaging in verbal sparring or delivering monologues laced with menace, his presence elevates the entire film, and the way he says “politicssssss” will probably live in my brain forever. He also gets to participate in some of the bloodiest scenes in the film, which was fun.

Paul Mescal plays Hanno, and while his portrayal is earnest and emotionally layered, he struggles to fill the immense shoes left by Russell Crowe. Maximus was a larger-than-life hero who commanded every frame; Mescal, by comparison, is more subdued, often overshadowed by the sheer charisma of his counterparts. It’s not that Mescal’s performance is bad—far from it—but he lacks the commanding screen presence that made Crowe’s Maximus unforgettable. In the second half of the film, Mescal even adopts vocal inflections reminiscent of Crowe’s Maximus. Pedro Pascal, who’s become one of my favorite actors, is great as the man in Hanno’s sights, and obviously there’s a lot more to his character. He’s a General who is tired of the death around him, but the twins simply won’t let him retire to spend time with his wife. Speaking of the twins…both Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger absolutely brought their A-game as broken descendants of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus. Hechinger has had an especially great year, also starring in one of my favorite films of the year, Thelma.

Into the Colisseum.

Part of the appeal of the original was the mixture of melodrama and action, and while some of the shots feel dated now, the battles still hold up. The sequel delivers, ratcheting up the action in thrilling ways. While the first was limited by 2000’s technology, this one adds new wrinkles to the arena, putting our gladiators up against men and animals, including a nod to the first film’s deleted rhino scene (you can see what was left on the cutting room floor in one of the Blu-ray special features).

The combat is more brutal than the first, drenched in blood, sweat, and grit. Ridley Scott’s direction shines here, capturing the chaos and brutality of the arena with an unflinching eye, while showcasing the grandeur and cruelty of ancient Rome. I do, however, have two complaints about these scenes. First, they seem to end way too quickly, as if Scott was too eager to move on to the next plot point. The abruptness disrupts the flow and left me craving more time to soak in the tension and stakes of each fight. I wanted more moments where the gladiators interacted with the crowd, caught their breath, or savored their victories.

The other nitpick I had about these scenes were the logistics of the other gladiators. For example, there’s a scene early on where Hanno and his fellow slaves are facing off against one man on a large animal. When the Roman warrior is ejected from his beast, he finds himself going one on one with Hanno, which we definitely want to see. But where are the other six or seven gladiators? They just disappear from the frame, presumably just hanging out in the background eating discarded leafs of lettuce while their brother in arms tries to stave off death…and this happens a few times, and I’d say it pulled me out of the action, but Scott did that right when the swords stopped swinging. I get it, we want to see Mescal’s Hanno, but you’ve got to have the other guys doing something.

A visual feast.

If there’s one thing you can count on with a Ridley Scott joint, it’s stunning visuals. The first one still holds up, and while you can tell things like CGI birds are there, even at nearly 25 years old, it’s never distracting. Gladiator II is more of the same. Scott’s eye for detail is on full display, from the sprawling sets of ancient Rome to the intricate costumes that bring the world to life. Several breathtaking overhead shots of Rome stood out, and every Colosseum scene feels monumental. The cinematography captures both the grand scale of the city and the intimate moments of the characters. Fans of historical epics will find plenty to admire here, as the film immerses you in a world that feels both authentic and larger than life, and if you liked the look of the first one, you’ll love this scenery too.

Standing in the shadow of greatness.

The one major complaint I had with the movie was that the climax simply cannot live up to the rest of the film. The final confrontation feels oddly muted and at the same time, extremely implausible. What could have been a climactic battle that mirrored the emotional stakes of the original instead becomes a disappointingly anti-climactic exchanges. This was an opportunity to see another deck stacked against our main character, but, while bloody, it just could not measure up to the rest of the film. Because of this, it fails to deliver the emotional payoff that the narrative has been building toward, and for a film so focused on legacy, this ending feels like a missed opportunity to truly honor the spirit of the original Gladiator.

That being said, I think that the film did pay homage to Gladiator in smart ways. Nothing really feels forced. I sat there wondering, “How are they going to force the phrase, “Are you not entertained?” into this film”, and luckily they never did. There were other lines that were smartly placed, however, and certain characters who return are used really effectively. The score is good, but does feel like an imitation of the original (although I must admit that I teared up a bit when I heard the famous Hans Zimmer riff as the credits rolled). Luckily, the plot is not just a rehash of the first, although I was a bit worried it would be after the first twenty minutes. And that’s the tough thing about sequels, they’ll inevitably be compared to their predecessors.

Gladiator was a cultural phenomenon, a film that transcended the historical epic, sword and sandal genre to become a modern classic that still holds up today. The sequel doesn’t quite reach those heights, but it’s still a worthy addition to the story that honors the legacy of the original while forging its own path, even if that path is occasionally uneven. For fans of the original Gladiator, this sequel offers plenty to enjoy. It’s ambitious, visually stunning, and packed with excellent performances, particularly from Denzel Washington and Fred Hechinger. If you’re a fan of Ridley Scott’s historical epics (most notably The Last Duel and Gladiator, of course), you should see this. I had a great time, and I’m excited to revisit it when it hits 4K UHD.

The Ultimate List of 200+ Holiday Horror Films.

Happy holidays.

Grab some milk & cookies and strap in for the biggest holiday horror list on the Internet.

If you’re looking to add a dark twist to your holiday season, holiday horror and Christmas horror movies mix festive cheer with a side of chills and thrills. These films combine the cozy atmosphere of the holidays with typical horror insanity, perfect for those who crave something crazy with their holiday spirit. I believe that I have compiled the ultimate list of holiday horror films, from classic Christmas horror movies you won’t want to miss to the very worst of them. At current count, there are 199 films on the list (which means for now, my title is a lie, but soon it’ll be accurate!).

The list.

Here’s the list, which is housed on Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/e8Qa6

Whether you’re a die-hard fan of holiday horror or just looking for some unique Christmas horror movies to watch this year, these films are a great way to shake up the season. From killer Santas to haunted holiday homes, holiday horror movies offer a refreshing, suspenseful escape from the usual holiday cheer.

If there’s a Christmas horror film missing from this list, please let me know! I’d love to add it. You can do that by commenting below, commenting on the Letterboxd post, or emailing me at forcefivepodcast@gmail.com.

The Austin Film Fest Screenplay Competition is a Scam.

According to the Austin Film Fest’s website, “Austin Film Festival’s Script Competitions stand a league apart. No velvet ropes, no VIP areas.” What they don’t advertise is that there may be no one actually reading your script or you may be getting feedback spit out from AI generators…and even when there’s proof, they don’t care.

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Screenshot taken from the AFF website.

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In most cases, entering a screenplay competition is a waste of money. The script I submitted, Winter War ‘84, is one that I’m proud of and I had a ton of fun writing, but I wasn’t expecting to win the competition. It’s a brutal siege film that caters to grimy exploitation/action fans, but after writing something more serious, I wanted to write something that was just fun. The thing about the Austin Film Fest that caught my eye was this part of their terms and conditions:

All readers are required to provide constructive notes for each script.  Most importantly, they are also required to read each script in its entirety in order to give the full consideration that each writer deserves.

I’ve gotten BLCKLST coverage on scripts before that has certainly not been in my favor, but it’s important to see that criticism so that you can improve your work. So I submitted my screenplay to three different categories in the hopes that I’d get some feedback that would make me better, costing me $135. If you’re early and only submit to 1 category, it’ll cost you $55. From there, things go up. Unfortunately I did not get what I paid for, but rather received confirmation that no one actually read more than 9 pages of my script.

Here is a link to the feedback was given. The feedback starts with what they believe the plot is.

This was instantly fishy. Not only is this not a movie plot in general, it’s certainly not the plot of my story. In the first scene of my script (which will be linked below), you’ll see that while the ‘army buddy’ does return from his time of service and two of the characters reminisce about their time wrestling as youths, it’s merely the setup to get the characters out of an extremely toxic environment.

Next up, we have the ‘concept’, which is even more bizarre.

The first sentence is incorrect. While the two friends do like wrestling, they never plan to get back into the ring and “show each other what they’re made of”. My script certainly isn’t an original concept (it’s a siege movie directly influenced by Assault on Precinct 13 and Green Room), but I do think that it offers some unique perspectives. Of course you’d need to read it to know that. Now, the final sentence here is where my blood started to boil. Not only is objectifying women not really a script ‘concept’, it’s also a blatantly false accusation. More on that in a moment, because we need to look at the ‘overall’ feedback.

Before I address their comments, I should explain what the first scene really consists of. After seeing some wrestlers on-screen, two characters, Grant and Yancy, are forced into the kitchen with a bunch of very toxic drunks and Yancy’s extremely awful girlfriend. It’s designed to show what a pushover Yancy is as we see him verbally abused by everyone in the room. They’re constructed as awful people. Now, looking through the first few pages, one of the big jokes is that Yancy’s girlfriend has slept with nearly everyone in the room. There’s also an insensitive moment where one of the characters calls the Japanese ‘Japs’, but it’s because he’s ignorant. That moment is neither glorified by me or celebrated by characters in the scene. There are also no moments where ‘little people’ are referred to in any way.

The sentence, “Almost like the writer took advantage of the time period so they could make these insensitive jokes.” feels particularly odd, considering nothing said really leans on the time period and are conversations you could overhear at a bar right now. It felt like the reader read something they were incredibly offended by (although what that could be is a mystery to me) and decided it wasn’t for them…then comes the next sentence.

“Wrestling at the capacity that they do must take a lot out of them.”

…what? This comment almost makes me think the first few pages weren’t actually read, but rather run through an AI/chatGPT client once they realized it wasn’t for them. There’s one wrestler on the first page who gives a promo to the crowd.

Then there’s a dig on my structure and scene pacing which I instantly discount by this point knowing that the ‘reader’ didn’t read the script at all.

There are then three more boxes. In ‘structure’, they say that pieces of the story are missing and the actual point of the script is vague. Sure, if you only see the first 10 minutes of the movie, you’re certainly missing pieces of the story and the actual point would be vague. That’s why you watch the other 90 minutes.

The ‘characters’ dig is where I really think things get unfair. To call my female characters ‘flat, mere punchlines to jokes made by the men’ is insulting. If they had read the rest of the script, there are two characters (Wendy and Ruby) who are both strong characters integral to the plot. Again, had they read it, they’d know that.

I did reply to the email I received, briskly informing them of my experience and received this reply, which I just cannot believe based on the feedback I received.

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Unfortunately, it appears that I was not the only one scammed out of receiving meaningful notes on my work. Here’s an example by this Twitter user that was told that their structure was…basically the structure of a screenplay. Probably written by AI.

Here’s a thread on Reddit that, similar to mine, outlines how inaccurate the feedback is compared to what’s actually in the script.

I have since found out that the Austin Film Festival does not pay readers for their time during the first round, which is a scumbag move in and of itself. When someone really has little motivation to read hundreds of scripts, it makes it pretty likely that they’ll try to find a way to cut corners. According to reports, they received close to 15,000 screenplays submitted to the festival. Even if all 15,000 were early birds at $55 (they weren’t) and only entered into one category (they weren’t), that would equal $825,000 for the screenplay competition alone. They can pay their readers.

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Since then, I’ve emailed their Screenplay Department Director, and received this response:

What was this review going to get me? Well, I hoped it would get me $135 back, since that’s what I spent on entry fees. Like I said, I didn’t think my script was going to win (and the winners have already been announced anyway), but entering a contest like this means that everything should be judged fairly, and fair means actually having the script actually read.

A few days later, I received this note from Alyssa:

Apparently, they ‘agree with the reader’s overall evaluation of the script.”, which is baffling, BECAUSE THE READER DID NOT READ THE FUCKING SCRIPT. “The reader comments are complimentary with your entry which you opted to receive, your fee covers the competition submission.” The Austin Film Festival did not read my script, therefore, they did not hold up their end of the bargain in this competition submission.

Many people did receive valuable feedback and coverage from their readers. I’m happy for those who got what they paid for. But the AFF needs standards, a series of checks and balances, and accountability. I do not believe that I (among others) was given a fair shot because that would require actually reading the script.

If you’d like to see my script, here’s Winter War ‘84. It’s not about a group of old friends getting back in the ring, but you’ll know that once you…read it.

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If the Austin Film Festival did anything like this to you (using AI, clearly not reading your script, etc.), I’d love to hear about it! Send me details below and I’d be glad to add it to this post.

The Devonsville Terror (1983).

The film starts three-hundred years prior in the New England town of Devonsville, 1683, as a woman is mixing ingredients into a giant cauldron heated by a wooden fire. I’m not sure what she was making in this pot, but it looked like enough soup to feed two-hundred people. Unfortunately, she never gets to try the soup, because a bunch of townspeople snare her and two other women because they’ve been branded as witches. With expedient “trials”, they’re all found guilty and sentenced to die in gruesome ways - one is fed to pigs, one is burned alive, and the worst one is strapped back-first to a wooden wheel that’s then set on fire and rolled down a hill, crushing her face and body with every rotation.

We then flip to the present. Devonsville is your typical backwoods yokel town, a place where there’s one shitty general store and the doctor is also the mortician and the town psychic. A woman named Jenny Scanlon gets off of the bus with a suitcase and a dream - to be a grade-school teacher at what’s probably the only school in town. The rest of the townsfolk appear to be incel men. There’s Walter Gibbs, the general store owner who recently killed his sick wife by suffocating her with a pillow because she wouldn’t shut up, Ralph Pendleton, an old dude who constantly tells his wife to shut up, and then a few guys in their mid-late 20’s who just can’t stand the idea of a woman working or having their own thoughts. Jenny quickly makes friends with two women, but the townspeople really don’t like that.

As the Devonsville Terror progressed, it felt more prescient than ever. The men in this town - uneducated, inundated by local superstition and the uninformed word of their elders, continuously working to both indoctrinate their children while holding down the rights of women. They have a big problem with these three women, and not just because they’re outsiders. They hate one because she’s a radio DJ who is trying to preach female empowerment. They hate another because she cares about the environment. And finally, they hate one because they think she told her class that God could be a female and that she’s sexually teasing the simple townsfolk by walking around and living her life. The rural town pictured here could have easily been 1683, 1983, or 2023. I saw very little difference between the men in this film and the ones packing the parking lot of drag shows with American flag button-ups and ‘Stop the Steal’ signs.

Donald Pleasance plays the town doctor, whose office is carpeted wall to wall and features a giant deer head mounted on the wall. He’s the only one interested in helping Jenny, who he believes is the reincarnation of one of the Devonsville Inquisition witches. He has a stakes in figuring this mystery out; one of his relatives was involved in the slaying of the witches and his family has been cursed ever since, each dying by being eaten by worms…and he’s now got worms crawling out of his arms. During routine checkups, he puts the townsfolk through weird hypnotism sessions that feature him yelling at people who are put under blinking lights, and he somehow gets confessions out of them for things that happened 300 years prior.

The radiant Suzanna Love, plays the main character. She often collaborated with her husband, director Ulli Lommel, really not doing much of note outside of his productions. She co-wrote the film, along with several other Lommel movies like The Boogeyman, Brainwaves, and Strangers in Paradise. The only other recognizable actor aside from Pleasance and Love is Paul Willson, who plays Walter Gibbs. He’s probably best known now as Bob Porter from Office Space, but he’s been in a ton of guest spots on TV shows over the years, including Malcolm in the Middle, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Big Bang Theory.

The production is clearly low budget but does have a certain backwoods charm to it. It was filmed at Bill Rebane’s Shooting Ranch Studios in Gleason, Wisconsin. Established in the mid-1960s, this studio serviced the image, documentary and advertising film needs of national, corporate and institutional clients for over two decades while becoming the one and only full-time feature film production studio in the midwestern United States. Certain scenes, like the opening flashback scenes, are very dark, clearly just using the woods behind Shooting Ranch. Yet the ending, when we finally see some carnage, is very well done. We get an exploding head and a melting head, lingering on the latter as it dissolves for a good thirty seconds, complete with moving jaw. The one-classroom schoolhouse in Merrell, Wisconsin for the cost of an exterior paint-job.

In closing, The Devonsville Terror was a decent, slow boil witch film that actually portrays the men as the real villains. There aren’t many surprises in the story, but you will be wondering how far the chauvinists will be allowed to go before they experience their wrath.

The film was originally released on VHS in the mid-80’s and made it’s on-disc debut in 1999 as a double feature with Lommel’s film The Boogeyman by Anchor Bay. Vinegar Syndrome released this version, cleaned up with a 2K scan from the 35mm negative. While the disc doesn’t contain a commentary, they did line up interviews with several of the people involved with the production and got an archival commentary with the director, who died in 2017.

Burning Paradise (1994).

I’m most familiar with Ringo Lam’s work in the modern crime genre. His Chow Yun Fat films, City on Fire, Full Contact, and Prison on Fire, are all great films, and even his American experiments like Maximum Risk and Simon Sez are really entertaining. I had never heard of Burning Paradise, which was Ringo Lam dipping his toe into Chinese historical Qing Dynasty folklore, until it arrived on my doorstep courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome. From the back of the box: “A staggeringly violent martial arts epic, BURNING PARADISE is considered one of director Ringo Lam’s (City on Fire) best and most underrated films, as well as his only foray into the Wuxia genre. Produced in collaboration with visionary filmmaker Tsui Hark, BURNING PARADISE separates itself from other kung fu films of the time by incorporating dark fantasy elements and bloody fight choreography with a slick production value and bleak storyline. Vinegar Syndrome is proud to present this seldom seen gory martial arts shocker in its first English-friendly Blu-ray release, restored in 2K from the original camera negative.”

This is a Fong Sai-yuk film. Fong Sai-yuk is a Chinese folklore legend who was first mentioned in wuxia stories dating back possibly as far as 1928. The tales about Fong Sai-yuk start with his upbringing - his father, Fong Tak (方德; Fang De), was a wealthy merchant, while his mother, Miu Tsui-fa (苗翠花; Miao Cuihua), was a martial arts expert and the daughter of Miu Hin, one of the Five Elders of Shaolin who escaped the Shaolin massacre. Sai-yuk trained in martial arts from his mother from an early age.

When he was still 10 years old, Sai-yuk was challenged by Lei Lao Ho to a duel and accidentally killed him in a battle. Following the fight, the local authorities were ordered to find Sai-yuk and beat him to death. To escape those who pursued him over the killing of the aforementioned master, Sai-yuk ran to Fujian Shaolin Temple to hide from pursuers. There, he was accepted by the temple occupants and trained with them in martial arts.

Due to this incident, Bak Mei and his disciples decided to seek revenge on Sai-yuk. Because of this, Sai-yuk left the Shaolin temple to train more in Shaolin Martial arts and traditional techniques.

Obviously this exciting backdrop is perfect for dramatic action films. The first film made about him was called Fong Sai-yuk Sets Fire to Hung Wan Temple back in 1949, and since then he’s been the subject of many films and television series. The Shaw Brothers put out various kung-fu films centered on him, including Shaolin Temple (1976), The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978), Return to the 36th Chamber (1980), and Disciples of the 36th Chamber (1985), all of which they produced, as well as distributing Heroes Two and Men from the Monestery in 1974. The two most well known films are probably Fong Sai-yuk and Fong Sai-yuk 2, both of which released in 1993 and star Jet Li as the titular legend.

So now that you’ve gotten a little history lesson, back to Burning Paradise. This film starts with Fong Sai-yuk and his master Chi Nun fleeing from Manchu government agents. Chi Nun is hurt, so Fong Sai-yuk puts him on a horse and sends him away, ready to face an army of horseback riding warriors on his own. Almost right away, we see the skill Fong Sai-yuk has and we understand the brutality we’re going to see on screen, when he splits a Manchu warrior in half at the waist, leaving his bottom half still riding the horse while blood squirts out like a fountain. That was the moment when I went from interest to attention. He gets away, but his time on the lam is short lived - he, Chi Nun, and a prostitute named Tou Tou are eventually surrounded - they kill Chi Nun and capture the other two, taking them to the Red Lotus Temple, a prison that there is no escaping thanks to a sadistic warden named Kung and his unrelenting booby traps. The rest of the film is about motivating the captured Shaolin Monks to rise up and try to escape the Red Lotus and rescuing Tou Tou from Kung.

There are a few really cool foils to go up against Fong Sai-yuk. The first is the leader of the Manchu soldiers, Crimson. Fans of the film Master of the Flying Guillotine will appreciate the influence here, as his staff topped flying guillotine is the coolest weapon in the film. The second is a mysterious masked female warrior named Brooke, and the third is Hung Hei-gun, a master of Tiger Claw style and Shaolin Monk traitor who now works as Kung’s foreman. The fight scenes, which are unrelenting, are very exciting and well done. The fights between former brothers in arms, Fong Sai-yuk and Hung Hei-gun, are the best of the bunch. Both men want to win, but deep down they don’t want to severely injure the other, so it’s a delicate balancing act of hurting and helping their opponent. The booby traps are also a fun added wrinkle, as spikes, trap doors, hidden guns, and more are waiting around every turn to cause destruction and death. Like I said before, the film is also pretty gory in parts - heads are ripped off, spikes impale people, someone even gets cut in half by one of the trap doors.

Dissenters of Burning Paradise normally cling to the changes in tone, but that never bothered me. There are a few moments of oddly placed comedy and a romantic subplot between Fong Sai-yuk and Tou Tou that never felt genuine, but I still really dug the film. I think this is an easy recommendation if you’re into Kung-fu films, wuxia films, or just want to see Ringo Lam doing something way different than his modern crime films. Unfortunately, Hong Kong audiences weren’t as kind in 1994. The film was considered a big box office flop, making only around $23,300. Unsurprisingly there’s no Roger Ebert review on this and it doesn’t look like Kevin Thomas reviewed it for the LA Times, but I was able to find a review from Joey O’Bryan from the Austin Chronicle from 1994. It reads, “As usual, Lam dazzles with a combination of violent action, wicked irony, and down-and-dirty script mechanics, while producer Hark provides the generous production values that give the whole affair that extra gloss. Newcomer Kwan Tin Sang's performance as Fong has made him the hot new action star in Hong Kong, and his stylish acrobatics are sure to keep audiences happy. However, it's Lam's bizarre direction that makes this one of the better chopsocky efforts in recent memory. He manages to make the genre's clichés seem brand new again, creating a considerably darker and more sinister piece than your typical martial arts picture. Picture Abel Ferrara directing a Jet Li movie and you'll get the idea. Although the finale is a slight letdown, for the most part, Burning Paradise is a terrific movie that tells an old story with a new attitude.” Now, he mentioned Kwan Tin Sang’s performance has made him the hot new action star in Hong Kong, but unfortunately, his career never really took off after this. Also known as Willie Chi, he starred in just four movies total - this one, Drunken Master III, The Little Drunken Masters, and The 18 Shaolin Golden Boys, all within a 3 year span. After 1996, he just kind of disappeared and I cannot find out what happened to him.

Film4 from the UK reviewed the film eleven years after it’s release in 2005, saying, “Creative effort by the chop-socky-tastic Lam to rework an old story (first told in 1928) of some Shaolin monks imprisoned in the Red Lotus Temple for instigating an uprising against Manchu. Lam gives the story a new twist by envisaging the temple as a kind of Quake-type fortress complete with bottomless pits, traps, poison gases and other nasties that await the two fighters who are assigned to free the monks. Some amazing cinematography and art direction lift this endeavour out of the ordinary - but horse-lovers should beware.” And yeah, they’re right - a horse gets its head ripped clean off by that flying guillotine at one point.

The Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray is beautiful, and contains the following special features. A Commentary track with film historian & author Samm Deighan, “A Rare Confidant” (16 min) – a brand new interview with actor Wong Kam Kong, Archival interview with Producer Tsui Hark (5 min), Video essay by filmmaker Chris O’Neill (20 min), Original theatrical trailer, a 12-page booklet with essay by martial arts film historian and author Grady Hendrix, and newly translated closed captions.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

The Stage.

America Chavez is a teenager with the ability to traverse the multiverse. She becomes the target of the Scarlett Witch, who wants to absorb her powers in order to travel to a universe in which her kids are real.

Spoilers incoming. Proceed at your own risk.

The Review.

It’s fun to watch a film and think, “What could I have done here.” when you see filmmakers kind of write themselves into a corner. On one hand, you have Doctor Strange and Wong, two people who control magic and for all intents and purposes, are the most powerful magicians in the Marvel universe called the 616. On the other hand, you have Wanda, the Scarlett Witch, the most powerful witch in the 616. So as a screenwriter, what do you do with this?

Unfortunately, in the case of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the writers decided to go a familiar route, making these all-powerful characters selectively use their powers when it’s convenient for the plot. Take Wanda, in just one example. She finds herself going up against the all-powerful Illuminati, comprised of universe 838’s Reed Richards, Captain Marvel, Black Bolt, and Peggy Carter. From the onset, she gains the upper hand making Black Bolt’s mouth disappear in a horrifying (and frankly, awesome) scene that sees him blow his own brain out in panic. From this point on, we know that she can simply erase body parts…so…why not just do that to everyone. Hey, Reed Richards, now you have no brain. Doctor Strange, I’ll go ahead and just make your heart disappear. Instead, she does the typical, “Now I’m going to fight the rest of you with my red bolt hands!” move, because…movie.

And don’t even get me started on the travesty that Wong is in this movie. The sorcerer supreme, a man who can teleport (unless the movie puts a stupid anti-magic rule in place on one mountain, because if they didn’t, he wouldn’t be stuck on a ledge for the better part of an hour, even though others do use magic on that mountain later on). He warns of the power of the Darkhold being combined with the powers of America Chavez, and says that if the Scarlett Witch had both, she could enslave the entire universe…but then gives up exactly where the Darkhold is after she threatens four of his low level soldiers. It was a pathetic moment, which is made even more awful after, later in the film, he suggests that Doctor Strange kills America Chavez by taking her powers because, in his words, “It’s the only way.” If you NEED to have Wong give up that information, make him strong. Allow her to kill the four unnamed soldiers and then allow her to have a battle of minds with him that she, after a struggle, WINS. He just gave the fate of the universe up for the lives of four seasonal hires.

America Chavez is also a weak point in the film. She’s just not that interesting - the angsty teenage character has already been done in a much better way with the Spider-Man franchise. And the fact that she doesn’t know how to control her power until a short pep-talk is ridiculous.

“I can’t do it.”

“Yes you can.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I can lol”

And the fight with music notes may be one of the worst things I’ve seen in a Marvel film yet.

You want a good way to end this film? You instead have America Chavez bring the 838 Scarlett Witch into the 616 and reveal the evil witch’s desire to kill her and take over as the mother of her children…at which point, the good Wanda rips the evil version in half. That’s how you end this threat. That’s how a Wanda looking to protect her children would act.

There were two aspects to the film I enjoyed. I liked the Illuminati moment and the cool reveals both in characters and actors. I loved that Reed Richards was arrogant to the point of stupidity, as it fits his character. I also really liked the horror aspects in the film. This is the scariest Marvel film to date with nods to several horror franchises from Frankenstein to the Ring. It’s got some horrifying imagery and several deaths that, with a drop of blood, could have easily been rated R. I’m wondering what Sam Raimi, director of the Evil Dead franchise, ended up cutting out. I hope we get to see an unrated cut, but even then, I may fast forward through the rest of the movie to get to the new stuff.

The End.

I did not like this film. With all of the fantastic possibilities of a multiverse, we got saddled with a cold, CGI mess that, yet again, puts the fate of humanity in the grip of people who just use their unlimited power when convenient. With so many interesting settings that we could end up in, how did this film feel so bland? There’s a better story to be told here. On top of that, Danny Elfman, of all people, mailed in a forgettable score.

In the stinger, we see Clea introduced as she brings Doctor Strange into the Dark Dimension, but to be honest, I’m not really interested in where they’re going.

Extreme Prejudice (1987).

“Terminate…with extreme prejudice!”

The Stage.

Six soldiers who operate outside of the law descent onto a small town outside of El Paso with a mission - they need to steal some documents from a drug kingpin. Stuck in the middle is a Texas Ranger with childhood ties to the gangster.

The Review.

There’s a scene late in the movie where Nick Nolte and Powers Boothe meet at a dusty bar south of the border and it felt like the perfect microcosm of this film. Everything just feels so dirty and sweaty, the stench of spilled liquor that’s never been wiped up almost emanating from the screen. A place without health codes and regulations, an older, simpler time when lawmen and criminals had genuine respect for each other, but in the end, brute force was the way problems were solved.

Walter Hill took a script that was rewritten time and time again, with directors like John Milius and Jonathan Demme attached at points, and crafted a really fun modern western b-movie in which people still don cowboy hats but traded in their revolvers for machine guns, and pulled together an all-star cast for the gunslinging. Nick Nolte plays Jack Benteen, the only person playing it deadly serious. He’s an old-school Cary Grant, quick-witted but even quicker on the draw. Powers Boothe plays Cash Bailey, a scenery-chewing son of a bitch who normally kills who he can’t buy. He’s got money, a fortress…an empire. And in the middle, we’ve got a small group of soldiers with a mission to rob him, led by the always terrific Michael Ironside. His performance in Scanners would never be topped, but I absolutely loved him in this role. Rounding out the cast is a gang of amazing character actors like Clancy Brown, William Forsythe, Tiny Lister, Rip Torn, and the guy who can’t beat Steven Seagal in a knife fight while he’s on his knees in a bodega in Marked for Death. It’s like a who’s who of late-80’s henchmen.

The script, which started development over 10 years before it was finally filmed, is filled with enough twists and turns that it could easily be made into a 6 episode mini-series in todays climate. Apparently over 45 minutes were cut from the final product, including a lot of the final showdown that I’d love to see. Despite some things feeling jumpy thanks to those cuts and some clear continuity challenges, the story feels pretty straightforward. The real strength in the script is the nuances of the characters. You start to care about some of the bit players, so when someone unexpectedly dies halfway through in one part of the operation, there’s a bit of an emotional sting. It also never falls prey to typical genre tropes. The respect between everyone feels real, and plays into the climax in a major way as we see both an honest attempt at an old West gunslinger showdown and a cap tip from William Forsythe’s Atwater as he delivers a sly word of warning to Benteen between shots of tequila before lead starts flying. It’s no secret that the twists and turns are barreling straight towards a showdown, and when it happens, it does not disappoint. There are clear nods to Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch as we get a massive shootout between all kinds of interested parties in a small Mexican villa.

The End.

I really liked Extreme Prejudice. It moves at a breakneck pace and almost every character feels well realized. The only weak link in the film was the character of Sarita, played by Maria Conchita Alonso. It felt like they shoehorned the character in as some sort of pink link between Benteen and Bailey, but there was no chemistry between any of them and it really didn’t feel like Sarita liked either one. We didn’t need her to make the story work, but without her, there would have been zero female representation in the film. That being said, I still really liked the movie. I could see this as a spiritual prequel to No Country For Old Men, with Jack aging into the role of the jaded Ed Tom Bell.

I was extremely impressed with the disc from Lionsgate’s Vestron line. Although they were unable to source the uncut version (which may not even exist today), the picture looks great, the sound bangs, and the extras are plentiful. We get a feature length commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke, an hour long interview with Walter Hill, twenty-plus minute interviews with Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown, a featurette about the cinematographer, and rounding out the package are a few trailers. For around twelve bucks, this is an amazing value, and if you like fast paced 80’s action films or neo-Westerns, this film is going to be right up your alley.

Hobgoblins (1988).

Welcome, lovers of sleaze and horror that time forgot. Today, I offer for your approval one of the most famously failed attempts at a Gremlins ripoff. No, it’s not Spookies, Ghoulies, Munchies, Critters, Elves, or Trolls, but one of the worst rated films of all time according to the Internet Movie Database…1988’s Hobgoblins. Filmed in less than a week for about $15k, it’s lived in infamy for years because of Mystery Science Theater and countless YouTube “Worst Films Ever Made” videos, yet somehow, for no good reason, I’d never checked it out…until now. There doesn’t seem to be a better way to open up the Vinegar Syndrome Collectors Club, so let’s dive into Hobgoblins.

The story starts at a Los Angeles film lot that is apparently all but defunct, yet there’s still a boss who’s working there burning the midnight oil and still a team of security guards that work there overnight. One of the security guards, an old-timer named McCready, seems to be the only mainstay. The other position is a revolving door of young kids because they keep going into the one place that McCready tells them is off limits - an old film vault in the basement, where I guess they die? See, it’s filled with creatures, and McCready has apparently spent the last thirty years of his life there to prevent them from escaping. The moment we hear this from McCready, you realize he’s a big stupid idiot, because these things are normally locked behind what looks like a foot and a half thick bank vault door and a separate cage on the outside, but as we see not one, but two dimwitted kids open up both doors, we realize McCready just doesn’t keep anything actually locked. When these things eventually escape, there’s no one to blame but this old piece of trash security guard.

The one who finally lets them out is Kevin, a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kid who needs a job, probably so he can get enough money to leave his toxic girlfriend. After his first night at work, he comes home to Amy, who’s just a real piece of work. She’s constantly irritating everyone around her, but Kevin just worships the ground she walks on. We’re also introduced to Kevin’s friends in this scene, all simple sex-obsessed caricatures of people you’d never actually want to be friends with. Aside from his bitchy girlfriend, there’s the leotard wearing woman who’s clearly in heat, her tough guy sex-starved Army boyfriend and the horny nerd who only uses Kevin for his home phone so he can call a sex hotline called 976-SCAG for thirty second oral fantasies. These scene ends with a play fight on the lawn, Kevin vs. Army guy to see who wins a battle of smacking rake handles together. After Kevin loses, Amy tells him she’s disappointed because he’s never made her proud. Red flags all over the fucking place, Kev.

The next night at work, Kevin lets the hobgoblins out because stupid ass McCready again left things unlocked, and the geezer comes clean. Thirty years ago, the hobgoblins touched down in a tiny spaceship right in the middle of the movie lot, and they stayed there as his little secret for a while. They have a super power that allows them to tap into peoples’ minds and gives them their wildest dreams, but apparently it always ends badly and they destroy themselves, so he locked them in the vault and just hoped no one went down there, I guess. Now the creatures are loose, and lazy McCready just decides he’s too old to fight them, so he gives Kevin the rules - their weakness is bright light, and if you kill them, the fantasy they’re tapping into dies as well, presumably saving whoever they’re controlling. Once daylight hits, he’ll never be able to stop them, so he’s only got a limited time. The stage is set for an epic showdown - the hobgoblins vs. Kevin the Simp.

Of course the hobgoblins just go straight to Kevin’s house, because I’m guessing there was no money left in the budget for other extras. The friends are still there, now having a dance party and Amy is still uninterested in everything, dancing like the worlds wettest blanket. Before we get into what happens, we need to discuss the look of the creatures. They’re essentially Gremlin knockoffs, but without the benefit of animatronics. What we’re left with are either puppets being controlled like Muppets, or they’re just sitting there looking stupid. The models are hilariously bad looking, like hairless cats who glued the hair of other dead cats on them to fit in. They’re bad in hand puppet form, but even worse when you have to see a poor actor rolling around on the floor with something that just looks like a ragged plush doll.

The fantasies the hobgoblins tap into with regards to the gang are obvious enough. The nerd things he’s about to get with the phone sex operator, the army guy thinks he’s Rambo, and Amy becomes a stripper. Everything comes to a head at Club Scum, the place Amy is dancing. It’s a wacky sequence, giving us a full five minute music performance from a band on-stage, followed by a tame dance scene by Amy in which the only article of clothing that comes off is a glove, and then things get really weird as Army guy starts tossing live grenades that appear out of thin air around the bar which only seem to phase those flying off-screen because of the explosions.

Eventually they round up the hobgoblins and drive them back to the studio, but before they can try to redeposit them in the vault, Kevin is challenged to a nunchuck fight in the parking lot by a guy he pointed a gun at earlier in the film. I instantly recognized this dude as Chris from the film Deadly Embrace starring opposite Mindi Miller. Of course Kevin learned from his stick fight loss in his front yard earlier in the day and wins this sticks on chains battle in one of the worst fight scenes I’ve ever seen. At the end of the film, the hobgoblins just go back to the vault on their own and the old guy reveals that he used to be a munitions expert in the war and blows up the vault, which he probably could have done thirty years ago. What a fucking idiot.

The End.

It’s easy to see why this film is known as one of the worst things ever put to film. There’s hardly a redeeming quality about it. It’s like a car wreck- not the kind you can’t help but look at as you pass by, but more like the one that’s just slowing you down to the point of annoyance so you instinctively look over just to see who the assholes were that made you late for work. It appears to be going for horror comedy, as Gremlins perfectly did four years prior, but it fails on both levels. The dream sequences are absurd, much like J.D.’s on Scrubs, but unlike the Bill Lawrence medical masterpiece, the scenes are so poorly written and unfunny that they just seem like juvenile confusion. The craft behind the camera is abysmal - if you go in thinking of playing a drinking game every time you see a continuity error, you’ll be dead from alcohol poisoning before the third act.

This was written and directed by Rick Sloane, a guy who somehow kept getting financing to make six Vice Academy films. He also had one film in the middle called Good Girls Don’t in 1993 that features a quote, “Brash and gutsy stripper Bettina and mousy secretary Jeannie who are framed for a murder they didn't commit.” which sounds delightful. He hasn’t made anything since he rode the Hobgoblins nostalgia into a 2009 sequel that looks dreadful and not in a so-bad-it’s-fun way.

Hobgoblins has a long history of physical media releases, although this 2016 release is the first time it’s been on Blu-ray. It was released on VHS first by Trans World Entertainment in 1988 and later on laser disc from Star Classics. It’s had multiple DVD iterations, starting with Rhino's MST3K version, a 2002 Retromedia DVD that was unfortunately full screen only. It was also featured on a 2007 Morella triple feature with THE CREMATORS and HOUSE OF TERROR, and finally was given an anamorphic widescreen 2008 special edition from MicroWerks. In fact, the most interesting extra from the Vinegar Syndrome release is actually one that wasn’t produced by them, but rather a carryover from the 2008 special edition DVD, and that’s Rick Sloane’s feature length commentary. As he drones over the film, he seems almost morose, a man defeated by his film’s reputation over the years. He mentions that he didn’t even see the hobgoblin creatures until the day of filming, but had to shoot anyway. The track almost made me feel sorry for the guy, as he didn’t have many positive anecdotes about the film aside from the score and his own cinematography. There are, however, some funny moments where he reveals that the neighborhood they filmed in was next to a crack house. There are new interviews with Sloane in which he outlines his film deal and how the home video market really allowed him to make the movie, and with Kenneth J. Hall, the creature designer, who reveals that he was not happy with the way his puppets were used in the film and that he wasn’t paid to be on set to supervise it.

For some reason there’s something endearing about the film. It reminded me of a time when I was out there just picking up a camera and writing a cheap script and then you’d just go…film it. There’s something inspiring about that. Not inspiring enough for me to watch the film again, because as the director kind of puts it, it’s a piece of shit, but inspiring nonetheless.

I scoured the internet looking for other opinions on the film, but most of the positive reviews are clearly facetious. I couldn’t even find archival reviews, although my reach isn’t that great. There’s one critical review on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s not far off from my opinion - that the MST3K episode is better.

The Mob (1975).

The Stage.

Seasoned drug smuggler and thief François “Chico” Tremblay is tired of his modest lifestyle and thinks he should be bigger in the Montreal crime scene than he is. Given the opportunity to earn $50,000 for killing a prominent New York City gangster, he leaps at the opportunity, ignoring the warnings of Montreal’s leading mob boss, who has forbidden local criminals from taking the assignment. Upon his return, Chico discovers he is being pursued from all sides, prompting an unlikely response: he calls a local talk radio show and starts revealing the mafia’s most carefully guarded secrets. As his revelations get more shocking, so do the tactics of his adversaries, culminating in a devastating gut punch of a finale.

The Review.

I’ve seen a lot of crime/mob films in my day, but to this point I don’t think I’d ever seen one from Canada. This film was put on Blu-ray by Canadian International Pictures with a partnership with Vinegar Syndrome, so when it was released I jumped at the chance to see it.

The film is an interesting Canadian time capsule, a past where bell bottoms and plaid suits ruled the streets and grooming, well…who needed it? The story allows us to tail Chico, a cocksure moron with a hair trigger, and his friend Gaby, a honey entrepreneur by day, relaxed mobster by night. In terms of the films tone, it’s not flashy, not showy. It feels very down to Earth, very matter of fact with the way things happen. At one point, a major character dies and it’s just kind of shrugged off by the filmmakers. Without the big production of character deaths, it actually gave the film an unsettling feel, as if we were watching a documentary instead of something groomed for the screen.

About halfway through, once we get to the radio station aspect of the picture, things slow down a bit, which was unfortunate. The cops and the radio host get a lot more screen time and the momentum is a bit lost. Chico, as despicable as he is, is a much more interesting character. It’s fun watching as the walls slowly close in on him while he’s hiding in a low cost motel on the outskirts of Quebec, especially because you’ll probably want him to bite it. Unfortunately the film doesn’t quite stick the landing and kind of fizzles out, a far cry from the title of the chapter stop, ‘Chico’s Last Stand’. I was expecting some kind of big shoot out, but didn’t get that.

The lead actor is played by Marc Legault, and I thought he was pretty good. He’s apparently still acting today with 56 credits, so if you catch this and want more of him, there’s plenty out there in both French film and television. The film was directed by Jacque Godbout, whose work I’m also unfamiliar with. I’ve seen this referred to as Montreal’s answer to The Godfather and I wholeheartedly disagree with that kind of comparison. Aside from dealing with organized crime, there’s no similarities with that film or frankly many others from the 70’s, and feels more like a precursor to Carlito’s Way with a Mean Streets look and tone.

Let’s talk about the Canadian International Pictures disc, which features a

The Ranger (2018).

The Stage.

After stabbing a police officer, a group of asshole punk musicians hole up in an old cabin in a national park, a park that’s protected by a sadistic park ranger who takes all offenses very seriously.

The Review.

The Ranger is a competently made film. Jenn Wexler clearly knows what she’s doing behind the camera - shots are framed nicely, the colors and lighting are striking, and the small amounts of gore are well done. It’s not a good film, however, and this all comes down to one thing - the script. Wexler and Giaco Furino co-wrote the film, and in my opinion, it fails on two fundamental levels.

First, slasher films hinge on the audience liking either the victims OR the killer. In this film, you’ll like neither. The Ranger, our killer, just isn’t chewing the screen enough to attach the audience to him. It’s like Jeremy Holm (House of Cards, Mr. Robot) is having just enough fun that his character doesn’t come across as serious, but not enough fun to elevate him into the pantheon of amazing slasher antagonists. His motivation for killing - keeping the park clean - is hilarious in theory, but we don’t get enough kills to make it seem as funny as it should be. Some kills involving people outside of the band would have gone a long way.

Speaking of the band, they’re all absolutely awful. The main character, Chelsea, a pink haired deer in headlights, is the most likeable of the bunch, but that’s not saying much. The fact that she’s even with the band is the most confusing part of the film. She has a history with the mountain that is supposed to seem important but never feels that way. The other three bandmates, led by her boyfriend Garth (a poor man’s Dave Franco), are complete shitheels. Whether they’re lighting illegal fires, spray painting trees, or stealing from stores, there’s not one redeemable quality between them. They steal a van that’s painted and decorated like that kid we all knew in middle school who was inspired to use white out to decorate his sneakers the day after he discovered the Sex Pistols. There’s one other person in the mix, a hopeless drug addict who was asleep in the back of the van when they stole it. The character of Garth is so unlikable and so disrespectful to his girlfriend that it’s baffling as to why someone like Chelsea would be with him in the first place.

Another big problem with the script is that the third act includes a bunch of moments that just make no sense. There’s a pivotal moment for our final girl that comes across as so stupid that it’s almost unbelievable. It’s the equivalent of Michael Myers cornering Laurie Strode, but instead of lopping her head off, she asks Michael to let her do it herself. Michael hands the knife over to her, which she then sticks into Michael’s neck. You want her to get away, that’s fine - but think of a more creative way to make it happen. In another scene, our Ranger, who had previously made an allegory to animals being boxed into a corner, traps himself in a corner by going up into a tower while being chased with a gun. For a seasoned ranger, it made zero sense for the character. You want him up there, that’s fine, but think of a more creative way to get him up there.

The End.

There are promising things about the Ranger. Like I said, the film is well directed and stylish. I’m interested in seeing Jenn Wexler’s next film, Sacrifice Game, which also features Chloe Levine, because she’s clearly talented, but the Ranger is a poorly written film and there’s no amount of talent behind the camera that can make up for a bad script.