Red Heat (1988)

Director: Walter Hill

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, Peter Boyle, Ed O'Ross, Laurence Fishburne, Gina Gershon, Brion James

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Moscow's toughest detective. Chicago's craziest cop. There's only one thing worse than making them mad. Making them partners.

Plot: Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Russian policeman sent after a Georgian drug dealer who has escaped to the United States and is awaiting extradition in Chicago. Jim Belushi plays his temporary partner on the Chicago police. When the drug dealer escapes, the two police must overcome their differences in order to recapture him.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Niet.

It's been over 20 years since I last saw this. I don't remember much about it. There's a reason for that...it's not memorable. Watching it again last night jogged my brain a little but I'm willing to bet that in a couple of months I will have forgotten most of it...again. It's just not really any fun and it's my second least favorite of Arnold's 1980s pictures (with a very distant RED SONJA (1985) taking the prize for the worst). In this picture Arnold doesn't so much as crack a smile (very much like a robot with a performance like one, too), Belushi is his usual wisecracking self but a lot less playful and it was nice to see Gina Gershon in an early role. I usually dig Walter Hill's movies (OK, so I've only seen (except for a couple of his later pictures) everything he did up through 1982) but this one, while well-crafted, just doesn't have any sense of fun to it. It just felt like a flick that's done by the numbers but without that spark of life that makes a movie enjoyable. I won't be coming back to this well again.

Monster a-Go Go (1965)

Director: Bill Rebane

Starring: Phil Morton, June Travis, George Perry, Lois Brooks, Rork Stevens, Peter M. Thompson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The picture that comes complete with a 10-foot-tall monster to give you the wim-wams!

Plot: A space capsule crash-lands, and the astronaut aboard disappears. Is there a connection between the missing man and the monster roaming the area?

My rating:4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

#11 on SCI-FI TRAILERS VOLUME 9 & 10 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Yes, there is a connection between the missing man and the monster roaming the area. No, it isn't exciting. Yes, it has cheesy actors but many of the performances are earnest and not all that bad, all things considered. No, it's not nearly as bad as many would lead you to believe. Yes, the music is groovy and there's even a scene with some mid-60s Go-Go dancing! No, it's not so bad that it deserves to be on the IMDb Bottom 100 List. Yes, the ending is retarded and wraps up way too conveniently (the monster just disappears mid-chase and there's some narration to suggest that maybe he's walking in space, just like in the start of the film - it's super weak). No, I can't recommend this to anyone but lovers of cheesy bad cinema but, yes, I can recommend renting the Something Weird Video because it includes LOTS of trailers and extras as well as a second feature, PSYCHED BY THE 4D WITCH (1972) (I haven't seen it yet). Yes, I'm done. No, this picture did not, in fact, give me the wim-wams although I did get them back in college. Ahh...college...

The Black Castle (1952)

Director: Nathan Juran

Starring: Richard Greene, Boris Karloff, Stephen McNally, Rita Corday, Lon Chaney Jr., John Hoyt, Michael Pate, Nancy Valentine, Tudor Owen, Henry Corden, Otto Waldis

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Terror stalks its turreted battlements...and HORROR crawls the catacombs beneath!

Plot: The plot is motivated by a brace of 18th-century aristocrats, Beckett (Greene) and Count Von Bruno (McNally). Invited to visit Von Bruno's castle in Austria, Beckett accepts, hoping in this way to prove that the count is responsible for the deaths of two of his friends. The sadistic Von Bruno toys with his guest, intending to subject Beckett to a horrible demise at the first opportunity. When Beckett meets the Count's reluctant bride Elga (Corday), he vows to free her from the accursed castle. Karloff has a smallish role as the Count's humanitarian physician, while his fellow horror-star Lon Chaney Jr. does his usual as a mute but deadly manservant.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

#12 on the Black History Month Project 2012

When you have a title like that with Karloff given second billing two things come to mind – It’s a horror picture and Karloff has a lot of screen time. I was wrong to assume both but I couldn’t help it. I’m conditioned that way since Karloff starred in a number of horror pictures with the world ‘black’ in the title. I applaude the marketing department on this one. As an adventure film it’s pretty good. I dug it. Richard Greene proves more than adequate as the lead but for me it was Stephen McNally as the evil, eye-patch wearin’ mofo, Count Karl von Bruno that stole the show. He played a right bastard and a great villain.

Despite Karloff having an awful lot of screen time (there are HUGE chunks where he’s absent) he makes great use of it. I recommend this picture for him alone but there’s more to enjoy while you’re here. The look of the picture was terrific. I really dug the castle. You’d better because most of the picture is within those walls. It’s a good adventure flick with some horror-lite bits and it’s a great one to throw on during one of those lazy, rainy Saturday/Sunday afternoons.

Black Cobra (1987)

Director: Stelvio Massi

Starring: Fred Williamson, Eva Grimaldi, Bruno Bilotta, Maurice Poli, Vassili Karis, Sabrina Siani

More info: IMDb

Tagline: There's muscle in his venom and fire in his heart!

Plot: Early in "Black Cobra," Detective Robert Malone establishes himself as a maverick, uncompromising policeman when he guns down several criminals during a hostage standoff. Next, he finds himself protecting a female photographer who has witnessed a murder. She is sought by a moronic gang of motorcyclists who have been murdering and raping at will. Malone finds them, confronts them, and takes care of (police) business.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? NOOOOOOO!

#11 on the Black History Month Project 2012

Boy, did Fred Williamson change. This is 1987 and he’s sleepwalking compared to his charismatic persona of the 1970s. This is a ‘pay the bills’ picture and it’s obvious he doesn’t care. This Italian production is barely middle-of-the-road for the time period with lackluster action and a cheap & uninteresting synthesizer score. I was bored in the first 15 minutes and I never really recovered. I’m sorry I watched it. I thought for sure there would be something fun but noooooooooo. Apparently there are 3 sequels – that’s 3 movies I’m really not interested in after seeing how this one turned out. Who knows, maybe they’re masterpieces compared to this. I’ll probably never find out.

Invitation to Ruin (1968)

Director: Kurt Richter

Starring: Roger Gentry, Moe Weise, Kathy Williams, Bobby Ross, John Bliss, Julia Blackburn

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Eroticism in the Tradition of DeSade!

Plot: Pick-up artist Jerry Sloane is hired by mobster Ernie Pulaski to lure girls for his white slavery ring. Once Ernie gets his claws on them, the victims are turned over to mute Mama Lupo (she lost her tongue after tattling on some fellow schoolgirls), who tortures them in her dungeon and addicts them to heroin. Jerry unwisely falls for Ernie's daughter, resulting in a particularly painful, if appropriate, vengeance.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch this again? Nope.

#27 on 42nd Street Forever Vol. 2: The Deuce (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

There are two versions out there - you've got the 71 minute 1968 original and then there's the version released in '75 with painfully obvious (and yet sometimes cleverly seamless) hardcore sex inserts that runs an additional 8 minutes. I wish I had seen the '68 version. Is it bad enough to be called INVITATION TO RUIN 79 MINUTES OF YOUR LIFE? No, but it's no skip in the park either. There's barely a story and barely a budget but it's got something in there to like. First of all, one of the many loves of my life has a major role, Kathy Williams.


She really is a horrible actress but I'm strangely drawn to her in every picture of hers I've seen. She needs to have my babies. Someone PLEASE put her in touch with me. I want autographs, lunch dates, the works. She fascinates me. Then there's the evil mob boss, Ernie, played by Mo Weise. Weise has moments of being so good he doesn't belong in this picture and he does a convincing job as a sleaze merchant scumbag. The rest of the actors need help but that's what you expect and want in pictures like this. I really would've liked to have watched the shorter version without the sex because A) it would have been shorter and B) it was that really grainy, hairy, close-up 70s sex that feels like it belonged in one of those classroom films from the 60s and 70s, the kind of thing that would have turned us kids off of sex for a couple more years. At least the stock library music was groovy. Watch the trailer instead.

Wild, Wild Planet (1965)

Director: Antonio Margheriti

Starring: Tony Russel, Lisa Gastoni, Massimo Serato, Carlo Giustini, Franco Nero

More info: IMDb

Tagline: WILD is the Word For This World!

Plot: A deranged scientist is using his employer's top-secret bio-laboratory to engage in clandestine eugenics experiments. When he starts kidnapping leading citizens for use in his twisted tests, it's up to rogue cop Mike Halstead to come to the rescue of all and sundry, including his lady friend Connie, who is also being held captive by the madman.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? Noooooooo!

#10 on SCI-FI TRAILERS VOLUME 9 & 10 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Man, that is one kick-ass movie poster. Too bad it only gives you a fraction of what it looks to deliver.

I can't put my finger on the reason why but this bored me silly. The model work is super cool in that hip 60s kind of way...


I was diggin' on that but the story would have been better suited in a picture half as long. The story is decent, the acting was OK (it's hard to tell because I saw the English dubbed version and the voice actors sounded bored - I'm sure the original Italian language dub is much better), the special effects were cheesy fun but the pacing is painful.


I have GOT to get me one of those cars. The futuristic aspect with what goes on in the characters' daily lives is neat and far out. There were some real head scratchers like when a henchman accidentally leaves a victim alive and the chick boss kills him for failing to finish the job and then drives away, leaving the victim crawling on the ground!!! If this picture weren't so damn pretty to look at I'd be super pissed. It is neat seeing Franco Nero in an early role a year before he achieved world wide stardom with DJANGO (1966). I really need to watch that movie again but with the Italian track. The English dub on that one is horrible, too.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Director: John Frankenheimer

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When you've seen it all, you'll swear there's never been anything like it!

Plot: A former Korean War POW is brainwashed by Communists into becoming a political assassin. But another former prisoner may know how to save him.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? YES!!!

#8 on SCI-FI TRAILERS VOLUME 9 & 10 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

It's been probably a dozen years since I last watched this and, thanks to my sketchy memory, I'd forgotten how it ended although I remembered everything but the most important (and shocking) detail. Frankenheimer is one hell of a director (well, at least he was until the '80s). That man knew how to make a taut thriller. The cast is superb no matter how you slice it. It's great when you watch movies like this that are 50 or more years old and they still pack a one-two punch to the gut. If you dig this one then you MUST see Frankenheimer's next film, SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (1964) and Sidney Lumet's masterpiece, FAIL-SAFE (1964), two political thrillers that will make you crap yourself with tension.