Fighting Life (1981)

Director: Kei Law

Starring: Sam Chung-Chuen, Jackie Conn, Thomas Hong Chiu-Ming, Frankie Shum

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Two brothers, one without legs & one without arms, together they will persevere!!

Plot: Fighting Life is a remarkable film rejoicing the spirit of life. It is the dynamic tale of two brothers who overcome immense physical and emotional handicaps, and become vital members of society.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Sure, at some point.

Starring the two guys from THE CRIPPLED MASTERS (1979), this picture is regarded as the third in that series but there's a big difference, this film takes place in modern times while the other two are set more than a hundred years ago. Regardless, I'm a sucker for crippled kung fu movies. This one is basically a kung fu drama with one guy who has no legs and another who has no arms (he's got a flipper for one arm, though). Even though this is loaded with cliches about people overcoming their physical handicaps (and boy do they hit you over the head with that in the dialogue) and it gets REALLY sappy and the comic relief provided by a couple of bungling thieves is so over the top it's nauseating, it's what these two guys can do that's truly amazing. The final few minutes really show off what these guys can do.

Is that insane or what? Too bad you have to wait until the end of the picture to see it. One side note - every once in a while someone in one of the many crowd scenes will say the most outrageous things. If you are fortunate to find a copy of this, listen carefully 'cause it's funny as hell. Now I'm going to have to fast track watching TWO CRIPPLED HEROES (aka THE CRIPPLED MASTERS 2) (1980) and RAIDERS OF THE SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1982). Cripple fu is awesome!

ViCAP: On the Trail of Violence (2002)

More info: IMDb

Plot: Here's another fine entry into the made-for-cable, serial killer-centric documentaries genre which tend to air in the middle of the night on Investigation Discovery. This one, though not about any one particular killer, focuses a lot on several different killers, and how they led to the creation of (or were apprehended because of) the FBI's crime tracking software, called ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.) This film traces the origin of said program, from it's early days, in the 50's, when a crazy dreamer in L.A. (Detective Pierce Brooks, to be more precise) envisioned a nationwide network of police computers which would share information about crimes and criminals, therefore making it easier to connect seemingly unrelated crimes in different jurisdictions, and therefore get the bad guys. Oh, his superiors called him crazy, telling him that such a computer would cost a million dollars and take up a whole city block. Well, time went on, serial killing became more of a thing, and lo and behold, 25 years later, technology caught up with Detective Brooks' vision. He would, in fact, become the FBI's first director of ViCAP, n the late 70's.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Sure.

This is an interesting piece. It seems obvious now that having a central database for this sort of thing is a no brainer and a huge win for law enforcement across the country but it wasn't 5o years ago. It's a great story with everything you would expect in a documentary from talking heads to archival footage. I specifically enjoyed hearing about some of the early success stories. While I enjoy watching people do bad things (especially if they're really, really good at it), I really dig the flipside seeing the detectives and cops do their thing. I LOVE great police work and problem solving.

Satanik (1968)

Director: Piero Vivarelli

Starring: Magda Konopka, Julio Pena, Umberto Raho, Luigi Montini, Armando Calvo, Mimma Ippoliti, Isarco Ravaioli

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Man hunting she demons

Plot: Scarred, ugly Dr. Marny Bannister (Magda Konopka) listens to her research partner talk about the dangers of trying their rejuvenation serum without further testing, but she kills him instead, imbibes the serum, and emerges a lovely young woman. The nagging side effect is evil behavior, and she wastes no time hooking herself up with a rich but crooked businessman. When the serum wears off at an inopportune moment, Bannister kills and robs him. Scotland yard, aided by the Madrid police, try to figure out the mystery, while Bannister murders the wife of a crooked club owner, assumes her identity, and skips to Geneva to retrieve the blood money the wife had collected for turning in the gang. There she partners with the club owner's equally rich and crooked brother, and performs a striptease in his club, the Chez Mio. That's when both the cops and the crooks catch up with her.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? Nope.

Here's yet another comic book based super criminal movie with a hot broad putting the fix on bad men. I already watched one this month from 1968, THE GOLDEN CLAWS OF THE CAT GIRL, which oozes with style but isn't all that fulfilling. SATANIK is slightly worse, or rather more boring. It looks cool from time to time and it's got a groovy score by Manuel Parada but that's about it. The biggest problem is it drags. It takes about 20 minutes to get into the film and another 2 hours to get out (even though it's really only 86 minutes long).


There were things that didn't make sense like the two detectives that go after the murderer behind theses killings and that one of them shouldn't even be there and how they're miraculously able to come to conclusions that lead them along the killer's path but by their own logic shouldn't even be close. Shit like that. I was captivated by the image above. You see her in that mask and outfit on some of the posters so I was hoping for more cat burgler or spy action and got neither. It's a light crime thriller without any real thrills and the only crime is I was robbed of 86 minutes plus however long it took me to write this.

The Antichrist (1974)

Director: Alberto De Martino

Starring: Carla Gravina, Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, George Coulouris, Alida Valli, Mario Scaccia

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Deliver her from evil.

Plot: Ippolita is a paralyzed young woman with serious mental problems stemming from the death of her mother. Her crisis of faith and the intervention of a well-meaning psychologist lead Ippolita to remember her past life as a witch during the Inquisition. Eventually, Ippolita becomes possessed and starts seducing local men, only to kill them. An exorcism seems to be the only solution to stop the madness.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

When it comes to jumping on a popular film's bandwagon and riding into the ground, the Italians excelled at it and usually with poor results. Surprisingly, though, this film (coming out a year following the immensely successful, THE EXORCIST (1973)) is the best I've seen so far of THE EXORCIST rip offs - almost too good. I rather enjoyed it.


OK, so that's only one really cool scene but the attention paid to lighting, sets, special effects and so on is very solid and professional. The horror sub genre of demonic possession and exorcism created by THE EXORCIST fortunately lasted only a few short years but there seems to be ripoffs from nearly every major country for the 4 to 6 years that followed and most of them are bad. I'm sure I'll catch shit for this but I'd about rather watch this film than THE EXORCIST. At least it's got the goat orgy scene. What's THE EXORCIST got? Head spinning? Anybody can do that. Geez.

Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)

Director: James K. Shea

Starring: Mary Appleseth, Harvey Shain, Derna Wylde, Max Thayer, CHuck Pennington, Charlotte Speer, Louie Lawless, Pamela Bottaro, James Whitworth, Michael Lee

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Trapped On A Lost World of Prehistoric Monsters

Plot: A space ship gets lost and is forced to make an emergency landing on an unknown planet. The planet looks much like earth, only with no trace of civilization. Soon the crew discovers that there are dinosaurs on the planet, and blood-thirsty buggers at that. The crew hopes to be found and rescued, but they have to struggle to survive until then.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

This picture took obvious inspiration from a bunch of movies like PLANET OF THE APES (1968), ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966), LAND OF THE LOST (1974 TV show), and every stop motion animated dinosaur movie to have ever existed. Is this a bad thing? It's not an automatic "yes" but in this case it is. The stop motion effects work is outstanding! I can't emphasize this enough. If you dig that sort of thing then you MUST see this. Retromedia has put out a nice widescreen DVD of it. For everyone else, avoid it. The dialogue is awful and it matches the level of performances you get from the actors. Except for the dinosaurs, it's low budget all the way. All of that doesn't mean it's not fun to watch but when 84 minutes feels like 3 hours, you've got a huge problem. I watched this with a group of friends and we goofed the shit out it but I couldn't help but look at how much time was left after about 50 minutes. It reminded me of STARCRASH (1978) where it's so bad it's good but after 45 minutes you're ready to get off this ride. But, DAMN, the dinosaur work was fantastic!

The Night Digger (1971)

Director: Alastair Reid

Starring: Patricia Neal, Pamela Brown, Nicholas Clay, Jean Anderson, Graham Crowden, Yootha Joyce

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A lonely woman in a decaying mansion... A young stranger on a big, black bike.

Plot: Effective psychological love story with a macabre twist not found in the original Joy Cowley novel. The dreary existence of middle- aged spinster Maura Prince takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of young handyman Billy Jarvis, but there is more to Billy than meets the eye. This well-crafted film, full of sexual tension and Gothic flavor, was Patricia Neal's second after her return to acting, her real-life stroke worked deftly into the story by then-husband Roald Dahl.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Had I seen a good widescreen print of this it might have fared better but besides the excellent Bernard Herrmann score, it's rather slow. That's not to say it's not worthwhile but I found it boring but not so bad that you couldn't see the potential for a better film. There's just no tension. You've got the great background score but you've also got a good story that unfortunately just plods along. The performances are fine but the direction spends too much time getting from scene to scene. This is one of those pictures that I came to watch ONLY because of the composer. I'm glad I did but now that it's over, I'll just stick to listening to the soundtrack instead.

CLICK HERE & CHECK OUT THIS FANTASTIC UNUSED CUE

Tarzan and the Jungle Boy (1968)

Director: Robert Gordon

Starring: Mike Henry, Rafer Johnson, Aliza Gur, Steve Bond, Ron Gans, Edward Johnson, Jose Lewgoy

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Eric Was Just a Boy, But He Could Still Teach the Mighty Tarzan a Few Secrets of the Jungle!

Plot: A reporter comes to the jungle looking for a boy who was lost a few years ago. She goes to Tarzan for help. They go to the chief of the tribe where he was seen and they tell them that there is such a boy on their land. At the same time the chief's two sons, Buhara and Nagambi are battling each other to see who will the next chief. Nagambi cheats which Tarzan notices and saves Buhara. Because of his treachery the chief declares Buhara the new chief. But then they discover that only Nagambi knows where the boy is, and because Tarzan foiled him, he intends to find the boy and kill him. Buhara tells them that he will try to find him but their custom doesn't allow strangers on their land and anyone who violates that will be killed, and he warns Tarzan that he will kill even him if he enters their land. Tarzan decides to go and find the boy anyway and tells the reporter that he has to do it alone but she decides to follow him after he leaves.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

This is the first Tarzan picture I've watched since TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE (1959) which I saw about this time last year. Gordon Scott made a great Tarzan in that one. Not only that, it was a stellar jungle adventure movie and it was lots of fun. Cut to 1968 with JUNGLE BOY and it's a few steps in the wrong direction.


Mike Henry was OK as Tarzan (his voice sounds pretty damn close to Fess Parker's as Davy Crockett and it feels out of place) but then it's really hard to stack up to Scott's solid portrayal. Henry donned the loin cloth for three Tarzan pictures in '66, '67 and '68, with this being the last one. I'll get to them eventually but I think I'll have to space them out with the Gordon Scott pictures. This flick is OK but it's flawed.


15 minutes into the film Tarzan and pals end up at a Segunda tribal competition to see which son of the Chief will assume their pop's job. The competition lasts TEN MINUTES. No big deal, right? Yeah except we literally watch them race each other, swim, jump over spears, etc and there's very little spoken. All of this serves two purposes - to show us that one of the brothers is bad and the other is good and it's there to fill up 10 minutes of screen time which isn't necessary because the picture runs an hour and forty minutes anyway.


It's dumb stuff like this that brings the movie down a notch or two. Tarzan insists that the female photographer doesn't go with them and then he quickly changes his mind after she tells him otherwise. I hardly think the Lord of the Jungle is going to succumb to some city broad so easily. it's not like she flashed a boob or anything.

Say, wait a second...this isn't the picture I signed on for!

???????!!!
(and don't try to justify it simply because the chimp is female)

Brazil provides a lovely substitution for Africa (although it's supposed to be set in Africa) with some beautiful location shooting. William Loose's score is good BUT every time, and I mean EVERY TIME, Hilda (a chimp that is to the Jungle Boy as Cheetah is to Tarzan) or Cheetah show up, Loose vomits up a ridiculously silly theme. It's awful and embarrassing. Apparently the film makers think you have to have shitty music to speak to the kids at their level. When will they ever understand that you don't have to talk down to kids for kids to enjoy a movie?


The action is fine but the film suffers from being too long and rather dull. It's a shame they couldn't come up with a better character than Jungle Boy. It's a weak story but the gorgeous scenery is almost worth watching this for. If you like Tarzan pictures you'll want to see this in the great new widescreen print that Warner Bros. released as part of their burn-on-demand Archive collection. It's a lesser entry into the long-running series but not a terrible one. Gee, that hardly sounds like a recommendation.