Shameless Self Expression

Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren are two Vietnam soldiers, one heroic, the other psychotic, who both die in battle. Lundgren, paranoid and all-whacked out had killed several civilians and even fellow soldiers he deemed ‘traitors’. In the present day they are re-animated (after being cryogenically frozen since the late 60s, presumably) via a top-secret, non-sanctioned military operation called UniSol, headed by Colonel Perry (Ed O’Ross). These re-animated zombies are turned into unstoppable killing machines to be controlled by computer technology, and able to sustain great damage and regenerate quickly. On a hostage-rescuing mission, one of the UniSols (Van Damme) starts to have flashbacks to his past as a dutiful soldier named Luc Devereaux, and he subsequently flees in confusion, aided by a nosy TV news reporter (Ally Walker – smoking and swearing instead of genuinely acting ) who stumbles upon the UniSol program. On the run (and headed for Devereaux’s hometown), they are purs...

The normally sleepy small town of Centreville is overrun by a zombie outbreak, with the laidback sheriff (Bill Murray) and his deputies (Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny) having to fend off the horde, with a few other assorted townsfolk still alive. Danny Glover and Steve Buscemi play locals, Caleb Landry Jones is a dorky store owner and comic book geek, Tilda Swinton is the local mortician, whilst Selena Gomez plays an out-of-towner. Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Carol Kane, and Tom Waits have cameos, the latter a recurring one as a dishevelled hobo.   Writer-director Jim Jarmusch ( “Mystery Train” , “Dead Man” , “Only Lovers Left Alive” ) goes mainstream with this 2019 zombie-comedy film. It’s not quite up to the level of a full recommendation from me, but I’ve got to admit it gets closer than I expected going in given the filmmaker and subject matter didn’t thrill me before watching it. In fact, up until it collapses at the climax with half-baked meta-movie bullshit, this is actually ...

James Fox stars as the rather aimless playboy son of wealthy James Mason, the former loses quite a sum of money on a darts bet to his rather cruel shipping magnate father. He then informs Fox that he and his half-brother have been disinherited. However, Fox and his thick-headed half-brother John Alderton soon hatch a plan that will see a substantial amount of Mason’s business wealth redirected to his two scheming sons. This scheme involves the title hippie-ish American rogue Duffy (James Coburn, in his element), a slight acquaintance of the two half-siblings who is apparently an expert in smuggling and heist-like matters. Susannah York plays Fox’s main squeeze, who nonetheless insists she isn’t the type to be tied down to any one person.   It’s as easy to see why James Coburn briefly became a star as it is to understand why his stay as a top leading man was so short. This unfairly maligned 1968 caper from director Robert Parrish ( “Lucy Gallant” , “Fire Down Below” , “Saddle t...

A vacationing family (headed by Harold P. Warren) gets lost somewhere out in El Paso, Texas. They stop at an inn manned by an oddly misshapen creep named Torgo (an addled John Reynolds) who offers them a room for the night. Turns out that pervy Torgo serves a sinister fella named The Master (Tom Neyman, probably the best of a very bunch of actors) who is looking for a new addition to his harem of zombified women.   Every now and then someone seems to want to dethrone “Plan 9 From Outer Space” as the Worst Movie Ever Made. More often than not, the results are just tedious and annoying ( “Showgirls” and “The Room” spring to mind), though “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” , “Terror of Tiny Town” , and “Troll 2” are at least viable contenders in my opinion. This 1966 low-budget oddity from writer/producer/director/star Harold P. Warren has been heralded as a bad movie classic by movie geeks for a couple of decades now. I first became aware of it on IMDb’s Bottom 100 list years...