Blue Ruin (2013) - One of the best thriller/revenge/crime films to come out in recent history. Very impressed on my first view years ago, and it still holds up on tonightâs viewing. Lots of suspense with some real heavy moments, interesting plot and looks great. Also really like the directorâs follow up, Green Room . I see he has a newer film released through Netflix I havenât yet watched, will do so soon, although it doesnât sound like my kind of movie based on description.
Green Room, Iâve seen and was pleasantly surprised - a pretty tense thriller.
Iâll check out your recommendation - Cheers 
Lone Wolf McQuade rocks! My favourite Chuck Norris flick.
Also, a great score by the legendary, Francesco De Masi.
I second that Toscano! Brilliant film. Even my wife likes it! Walker Texas Ranger was meant to be a McQuade series but Orion still had the rights and would not sell.
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Hope you are enjoying your time on the SWDB. Itâs great to see so much enthusiasm.
P.S. Regarding âLone Wolf McQuadeââŚnice to see that Peter Dinklageâs dad had a role⌠
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I am and thank you!!
I never realised that was dinky Peteâs dad! That just made Lone Wolf a bit more awesome! 
I was joking. I donât know the guy is.
So long as we enjoy the film, thatâs the main thing.
You got me there!!
But you are right it is awesome anyway.
All I remember of the actor is his character is called Falcone.
Nightflyers (1987) - Director: Robert Collector - 2/10 - Despite the underlying idea being quite good, Iâve got to say I was more interested in opening a can of canned bacon, which I was munching on during my viewing, rather than watching the movie itself. The meat was passable, the flick, however, was not. A lot of individual components relating to the production design such as sets, costumes, lighting and special effects look predictably tawdry and gaunt, but what ultimately makes the whole measly affair so unpalatable is its hysterically overactive storytelling springing both from the cumbersome writing and wretched execution; the narrative portrays multiple âups and downsâ and that in conjunction with its awkward handling of consecutive phases of the script makes the whole enchilada feel like it has several climaxes instead of just one. The acting is shit as well. Suffice to say, I was already pretty much exhausted after one hour of sitting through this garbage and that didnât change later. I have to say it felt a lot longer than a mere hour and a half which is probably the best approximation of what kind of emotional response this turkey elicits: the motion picture is excruciatingly insipid and eventually comes to embody the opposite of what itâs striving for.
DeepStar Six (1989) - Director: Sean S. Cunningham - 6/10 - I really donât understand why this gets panned so heavily by a lot of folks. I mean sure, it might be fairly short on originality and admittedly fails to break any new ground, but what it lacks in terms of scripting uniqueness is largely compensated by its sturdy technical execution, decent structure, relatively good chemistry between leads, engrossing interpersonal dynamics and characterization. And yeah, I get that it retreads a lot of the same ground that was already covered by other science fiction pictures, the thing is that I donât let trivial flaws get in the way of my enjoying a movie and prefer appreciating what Iâm offered as opposed to pointless nitpicking. That is not to say this thing is some impeccable accomplishment, but approaching a second-tier work of this kind with some inordinately high expectations is like ordering a steak in a drive-in restaurant and expecting it to taste like a premium chateaubriand or something to that effect. The fact of the matter is this is still a relatively successful and enjoyable little sci-fi picture graced with the overall solid rendition as well as some genuinely prepossessing performances given by main actors. The resolution is kind of stupid and doesnât exactly break the cheesy blockbuster convention weâve all come to hate, but sheesh, once youâve trudged through your fair share of shitty turkeys and youâve stared into the abyss so to speak, this should come as a pleasant surprise and a welcome relief. One of the better Abyss rip-offs out there and truth be told, Iâve seen a lot worse than this to say the least.
Runaway Train (1985) - Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy - 8/10 = 8/10 - A re-watch.
Odyssey Into the Mindâs Eye (1996) - Directors: Steven Churchill - 5/10.
The Gate to the Mindâs Eye (1994) - 7/10 = 7/10 -> 8/10 = 8/10 = 8/10 -> 9/10 = 9/10 = 9/10 - A septuple re-watch.
Beyond the Mindâs Eye (1993) - 6/10 -> 7/10 = 7/10 -> 8/10 = 8/10 = 8/10 - A quintuple re-watch.
The Mindâs Eye (1990) - Director: Jan Nickman - 9/10 = 9/10 = 9/10 - A double re-watch.
Man on Fire (1987) - Director: Ălie Chouraqui - 3/10 - I fail to recall another movie that would match this thing in terms of simultaneously being preposterously artsy as well as utterly stunted by the complete cinematic unimaginativeness of its director. The aesthetic affectation springs from the noticeably lavish budget and superficially emotional content, which doesnât really go anywhere and becomes distracting more than anything; the lush cinematography regrettably fails to redeem the ponderous structure or to rectify the completely nondescript decoupage. Protagonistâs flashback scene is constructed in such a way as to provide a point of departure for character development and is intended to depict main heroâs inability to deal with kids after some traumatic experiences in his indeterminate past, but none of that is really explored. Sporadic flashes of visual sophistication regularly get displaced by the general incompetence and apparent helplessness in other areas. Certain segments of the work are so poorly thought-out and edited I had to double-check them in order to make sure I was not imagining things. This preponderant creative sterility manifests itself particularly painfully in the way the director practically resorts to spelling things out for the audience in the most mind-numbingly direct and literary manner possible, which attests to his extremely superficial understanding of the medium. As ambitious as the film might sporadically seem, most of that ambition is completely pulverized through the remarkably rachitic, dull approach towards the subject matter and what is worse, this bromidic nature is further exacerbated by the aforementioned two-bit execution. Even decent performances from Scott Glenn and Joe Pesci fail to help much and ultimately, the whole affair ends up being agonizingly insipid and flabbergastingly cliched practically in all aspects, which makes it a uniquely paltry trainwreck indeed.
Pavarotti (2019) (Doc) - Director: Ron Howard - 5/10.
Nightmare Beach (1989) - Directors: Umberto Lenzi - 3/10 - âWelcome to spring break, the annual migration of the idiotâ. Ah yes, a Florida-based slasher with an Italian director at the helm, what could possibly go wrong. I love how assiduously Lenzi attempts to make the whole effort look as American as possible with random bikers doing bike flips in a synchronized way in the middle of the street, motorcycle gangs terrorizing everybody in sight in the stereotypically moronic fashion, pranking goofballs, wayward baseball fans, divested bimbos on the beach and so on, and so on, and so on. All of it is so absurdly caricatural and so unwarranted that I almost expected a redneck to pop up out of the blue and start yelling âyee-haw, 'Murrica, 'Murrica, freedom, yee-hawâ in the southern accent while brandishing a firearm and the Gadsden flag 'cause why the fuck not. I get it, Umberto, you guys are a totally American, non-European crew in charge of a totally American production, can you move on with the movie already? As for the flick itself, it initially constitutes a relatively engaging horror comedy of sorts with a truly impressive panoply of exceptionally inept shticks and situational jokes based on a range of slasher cliches from the era. Regrettably, what is perfectly serviceable for perhaps 20 or 30 minutes worth of running time is stretched here to an hour and a half and interspersed with some âentertainingâ, unrelated footage portraying the spring break idiocy. Suffice to say, it all gets stale and repetitive very quickly and degenerates into an eye-rollingly predictable, cliche-ridden mess towards the end. Well, they got the English dubbing right for once at the very least.
Eyes of the Beholder (1992) - Director: Lawrence L. Simeone - 3/10 - A regular late-night cable trash with no distinguishing factors whatsoever. Instead of cutting to the chase and actually depicting the trial of being terrorized by the psycho running amok and seeking revenge on his shrink, we first get a prelude consisting of a bunch of scenes bearing upon medical ethics and outlining the history of the mentally disturbed antagonist, none of which are particularly interesting to watch. A lot of it proves rather redundant and feels like beating about the bush; the instant the psycho comes to town and things finally begin to pick up, the film ends for all intents and purposes, as the ordeal itself essentially constitutes the climax of the tale. This is all too brief and what weâre basically left with is a middlingly diverting resolution preceded by the exceedingly tedious and inordinately protracted introductory stage of the narrative. To add insult to injury, the execution leaves a lot to be desired in that the director mistakes nauseously vertiginous camerawork for style apart from throwing in a number of bleary, digressive flshbacks and attenuating the focus of the story even further. âDa tale of blood-chilling terrorâ results in a cliched, pseudo-climatic and pseudo-thrilling showdown at a rapidly disintegrating suspension bridge during a storm. No one cares. Yawn.
Stranger by Night (1994) - Director: Gregory Dark - 3/10 - An all too familiar story about a cop who apparently suffers from blackouts and might be the serial killer on the loose. The movie is afflicted with many issues, namely cheesy acting, cheesy, sophomoric dialogues and lots and lots of cliches, not to mention its extremely cheesy score, which saps the realism, drains the portrayed action of all seriousness and doesnât fit the material at all (frankly, I fail to picture any other material that would benefit from this shit). Cheese, lots of it. The problem doesnât necessarily lie in its bromidic nature, thatâs kind of to be expected to some degree from a movie of this stature, the primary issue dwells in the fact that most of the portrayed action ends up looking inordinately goofy and can be found elsewhere without the same stylistic ridiculousness. Itâs not particularly bad, but then again, itâs not especially good either and actually happens to be exceedingly mediocre and kind of boring. I can cross it off my watchlist at the very least and thatâs the best thing that I can say about the whole dismal affair.
Sketch Artist (1992) - Director: Phedon Papamichael - 6/10 - Albeit not exactly innovative in terms of what kind of story it sets out to recount or how it goes about it, filmâs saving grace proves to be its rich atmosphere and pensive, lingering narrative in the sense that the motion picture takes a considerable amount of time to develop the story and provides a sufficiently detailed background to protagonistâs ordeal, which is a welcome surprise indeed. The curious thing about the whole venture is that the viewer is able to follow eponymous sketch artistâs daily routine and instead of rushing into the central tale without much consideration to characterization or story development, we also get some additional minutiae to jazz things up. I guess what Iâm trying to say that the film offers more than just another regurgitation of the same old story in a refurbished package in the sense that it likewise delineates the sketch artistâs surroundings and milieu in a really engaging manner, setting a really interesting counterpoint to the whole tale and allowing the story to breathe so to speak. The overarching mystery eventually features one coincidence too many, shall we say, but filmâs overall good pacing and Ishamâs classy soundtrack endow the whole work with a distinctively graceful look and feel, not to mention another great performance from ever-reliable Jeff Fahey.
Bulletproof Heart (1994) - Director: Mark Malone - 4/10 - I donât know what to think about this one. On one hand, itâs hard to negate filmâs technical assets and good acting all around. On the other hand, I have to confess I fail to connect with this singular mishmash of styles comprising romance, neonoir (with all characters wearing mostly anachronistic clothes) and indie filmmaking (with scene titles, curt screen comments relating to the action, the wonky nineties sense of humor and an assymetrical structure). I definitely do not object to the idea of a decadent neonoir with a self-loathing protagonist, which is something this movie kind of represents too, however, all these disparate elements and stylistic influences clearly evocative of its era fail to coalesce into one coherent whole and only intermittently happen to work. Suffice to say, this outlandish mixture ultimately just feels kind of affected and pretentious with its contrived situations and characters often uttering their lines in the cringily somber, doom-mongering tone, talking about their dreams and feelings and ideas, yo man. Itâs one thing to imbue your flick with a sinister, gloomy atmosphere by probing into the mind of a disturbed individual on the brink of collapse and deftly intertwining dark musings with other dialogues, itâs yet another thing to insert labored pseudo-nihilistic garbage at every turn as a futile exercise in intellectual and artistic masturbation, which is exactly what this film oftentimes feels like.
Lifepod (1981) - Director: Bruce Bryant - 4/10 - I would love to praise this film for its overall attention to detail and relatively good handing of the subject matter despite having scant resources at its disposal, nonetheless, there is no disguising the fact that the motion picture unfortunately does not succeed in surmounting its readily noticeable deficiency in the storytelling department and happens to be lacking in quite a few respects as well. The film is essentially a low-budgeted, more naive take on Kubrickâs Space Odyssey, but a lot of its cheapo charm unfortunately gets obscured and undermined by the out-of-focus narrative as well as fairly obvious budgetary constraints; the narration virtually grinds to a halt at one point and then starts alternating between different characters on the escape pod in a fairly frenetic fashion. Itâs hard to put in words, but the kind of narrative disarray Iâm talking about here is very characteristic of this kind of low-budget filmmaking and regrettably renders a lot of such flicks remarkably stagnant and unbalanced despite looking good on paper and thatâs precisely the case here. By virtue of aforementioned faults, I found it somewhat insipid and tiresome, but some people are bound to disagree with me and are still likely to get their kicks from it.
Creature (1985) - Director: William Malone - 2/10 - In spite of its decent production values, there is no escaping the fact that this is an extremely crude and pointless reformulation of Alien (1979) and The Thing (1982) with not much else going on in its coarsely constructed plot. Not only is the whole work devoid of any originality, but also the story begins to disintegrate along the way with gaping plot holes popping up here and there and scriptâs logic being on the tenuous, dubious side. What is worse, filmâs pacing gets ridiculously dilatory towards the resolution, which probably would made sense if the film wasnât such a gigantic fuck-up on so many fronts. Hence, the narrative simply grinds to a halt at a certain point and then slowly proceeds towards the end, thereby becoming a test of patience instead of a nailbiter as intended; these excruciatingly vapid longueurs are there to build tension and eventually scare people, but needless to say, it doesnât work at all. Last but not least, the denouement verges on being a bona fide deus ex machina with the most far-fetched, laughably preposterous explanation given afterwards, I mean really atrocious. And yeah, sure, Kinski gets to play the fitting role of an old perv and grabs a few butts, but whatever. There is practically nothing of interest in this completely inconsequential, incoherent and featureless dud unless you find Kinski groping women and smirking like a pervert absorbing.
Nightmare City (1980) - Director: Umberto Lenzi - 4/10 - You can describe the entirety of its utterly perfunctory plot with just three words: tits, gore and action. Thatâs all you need to know about this thing and to be perfectly frank, there is almost nothing to speak of outside of these three rough denominators. It kind of, sort of works for the most part, but there is no denying the fact that a large chunk of the narrative (if not all of it outright) feels subordinate to these three goals insofar as most of this poor excuse for a tale feels merely like a pretext to embark on a number of action sequences featuring zombies running rampant. Consequently, the motion picture is completely out-of-focus, the characterization is as cursory as they come (certain characters are only introduced to be later disposed of in the zombie-related fashion), the action quickly gets remarkably repetitive and gratuitous and the absence of something that could bind all consecutive scenes together in more robust fashion makes it all too conspicuous. With that being said, all action bits are invariably shot and edited in an exquisitely vehement manner, which readily betokens Lenziâs affinity with the action genre and actually makes it a lot more fun to watch than it would normally be if it wasnât for Lenziâs knack for action.
Solar Crisis (1990) - Director: Richard C. Sarafian - 3/10 - Itâs an incomprehensible mess with which I failed to connect on any meaningful level. I guess the story kind of makes sense and kind of coheres more or less when you really strain your mind, but a large portion of the narrative is simply unfolded in such a preposterously convoluted fashion that I failed to bring myself to absorb the movie in a more active way by consciously trying to unravel the byzantine structure and attempting to wrap my head around this muddled jumble of a sci-fi pic; I just sort of sat back and waited for the flick to end without much cognitive participation on my part. Itâs hard to believe this piece of crap had a budget of over 40 million fucking dollars because most of the film looks like shit anyway and this impression is not exactly dispelled by the the inchoate structure or tepid performances given by pretty much everybody with the exception of Jack Palance maybe. All in all, the end result is another horrible case of destructive studio interference, which turned a probably already mediocre motion picture into an obnoxiously tedious and incohesive clutter with practically zero redeeming qualities whatsoever.
The Kiss (1988) - Director: Pen Densham - 7/10 - I donât think Iâve seen another horror flick that combines self-aware comedy with more serious content as dexterously as this one. Apart from being a fairly conventional, but highly successful as well as atmospheric horror yarn, The Kiss likewise indulges in unabashedly over-the-top stunts and brisk ridiculousness. Whatâs so impressive about the work is that it remains entirely satisfactory by regular standards despite being in part very goofy indeed and oddly enough, all of its individual constituents fit together perfectly and donât really feel internally incongruous for some reason. The whole tale essentially constitutes a riff on two horror tropes, namely an outsider wriggling their way into the family unit as well as the topic of witchcraft, both of which are amalgamated in a surprisingly adept fashion. Moreover, Iâve got to say that the whole enchilada is paced extremely well, which further props up the already steady, firm flow of the narration and makes it all the more fun to watch. I mean there is not a whole lot to complain about really, maybe except for a couple of cumbersome transitions here and there, but thatâs about it. Last but not least, the flick showcases one of Paculaâs best performances Iâve seen as well as features probably one of the most hilariously over-the-top, devil-may-care endings Iâve had the pleasure to witness. The showdown is definitely very adventurous and audacious in its stupidity, but the resolve with which the movie goes about it makes it a winner in the end. A minor classic? Possibly. A bit of an acquired taste? Definitely.
Sunset Heat (1992) - Director: John Nicolella - 5/10 - I had absolutely zero expectations going into this thing and I was genuinely positively surprised in the end. I mean sure, itâs got two or three protracted and completely gratuitous Skinemax-ish moments, but these arenât something the legendary fast-forward button wouldnât remedy. Other than that, the movie comprises a fairly engaging, serviceable if a little unremarkable story thatâs handled in a moderately prepossessing fashion without relying too much on mindless action. I guess whatâs refreshing about the material is that it knows its limitations, doesnât attempt to be something it isnât, sets up realistic goals and focuses on presenting its tale in a relatively stylish and expeditious fashion instead of shooting for something beyond its reach. Surprisingly enough, inner dynamics of the plot end up feeling more balanced and reasonable than in case of other flicks of this kind; the overall standardized feel the pic exhibits throughout its duration happens to work in its favor in the sense that the movie concentrates on the narrative delivery and some modest character elaboration with no frills and no bullshit, which makes it outshine other ventures of this sort by virtue of mere simplicity and immediacy. It is not anything all that special and there is no disguising the fact that it is somewhat derivative, granted, but most of it also happens to work very well within its modest framework and doesnât overstay its welcome, which is something that cannot be said about all movies out there and thatâs something to be cherished as well.
Megaville (1990) - Director: Peter Lehner - 3/10 - The underlying premise is kind of unusual and deserves to be explored more thoroughly in a more accomplished sci-fi vehicle as opposed to this muddled, incoherent and quite frankly, impenetrable mess of a motion picture. I wish I could say something more substantive about this, but Iâm afraid itâs one of those movies I canât get into at all. Most of the overall story is obfuscated by extremely shoddy production values, its out-of-focus, tentative narration as well as the general, ubiquitous deficiency in the cinematic realm, which manifests itself in poor framing, tenuous structure and lackluster approach towards the subject matter, which clearly deserves more scrutiny and finesse to come to the foreground. Regrettably, the theme of the movie just sort of lingers in the background without conducing to the overarching plot in any meaningful capacity and ultimately, what weâre left with is a shallow, extremely superficial sci-fi yarn that turns out to be yet another episode of futuristic folks doing futuristic stuff and speaking sciency claptrap to remind its viewers of the fact that theyâre dealing with the sci-fi genre.
Lifeforce (1985) - Director: Tobe Hooper - 7/10.
Fear City (1984) - Director: Abel Ferrara - 4/10 - If the movie paid less attention to stripteasers shaking their butts and actually focused on developing the core of its story, it could possibly prove its worth and perhaps be more interesting than it ultimately turns out to be. As such, the motion picture only superficially skims over its central demimonde and instead of elaborating on its characters or the depiction of the strip club underworld, it just drifts around with little focus and no real blueprint as to how and what it sets out to portray, so we get a little bit of everything and by extension, nothing at all. People come and go, but no firm narrative strand is ever established and what weâre ultimately left with is a middling thriller with some exploitative bits thrown in; the forced exploitative content, New York locations, the disco music as well as extremely distinctive string sections actually make this one feel a lot more like a 1970s movie rather than a work from the 1980s. I suppose some people may find something of interest here, but I doubt I will ever revisit it again.
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Detailed reviews and eloquently written. As horror fan NIGHTMARE CITY is oft hailed as a classic glad someone actually exposes it for what it is.
Outstanding as usual, Mickey.
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Recent talk of Stanley Baker led me to watch a couple of his films I had recorded on the set top box a while ago.
Hell Drivers (Endfield / 1957) and The Criminal (Losey / 1960)
Enjoyed both but probably Hell Drivers slightly more. The soundtrack to The Criminal was better though. Supplied by British jazz legend Johnny Dankworth and the silky voice of his wife, Cleo Lane.
If you (like me) are a fan of British films of the 1950s and early 60s thereâs plenty to enjoy in both. Baker always delivers.
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Absolutely!
I Love this film.
A superb cast, and an opening theme from Henry Mancini that could raise the deadâŚ
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