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Review: 10 Magnificent Killers

Cheung Lik and his master are forced to battle the title assassins (one of whom is played by Bolo Yeung), as are another apprentice and master pairing with the two students eventually needing to join forces.   Sometimes enjoyable, sometimes confusing 1977 martial arts film from writer-director Yeh Fang (an actor who only directed four films, his next one in 1991!) with a far too abrupt finale. I liked a good chunk of it, just not quite enough of a good chunk to ultimately recommend the film on the whole.   I liked the early humour of a master getting continually bailed out in fights by his apprentice. I also enjoyed the ‘Whirling fist’ and the killer who arrives via a coffin and for some reason looks like a zombie. The subsequent fight is bloody good, in fact there’s so much action (almost wall-to-wall) that there’s no time for it to get dull. The downside to that of course is that with such little emphasis on plot and character it’s occasionally hard to find your bearings. So
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Review: Life After the Navigator

No one’s going to call “Flight of the Navigator” a 5-star classic, but for a certain group of us who were kids in the mid to late 80s, it’s a film most of us recall fondly. As a 44 year-old I see the film as interesting and really quite strange, whereas I responded mostly to the comedy and adventure as a kid. It still works, just differently for me now. I’d also been vaguely following star Joey Cramer’s life after the film, which seemed to take some very dark turns. So when I heard about this 2021 documentary from director Lisa Downs, I just had to see it. It’s a film about a child star gone wrong, which seems beyond cliché at this point. However, five minutes in and I was already emotional. This guy seems to have gone through a lot over the years and even during the filming of this documentary you get the sense that it’s still a day-to-day struggle. There’s a reason why addicts don’t generally refer to themselves as former addicts even after kicking the habit. It’s always an ongoing
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Review: Downhill

School chums Ivor Novello and Robin Irvine are both taken with shop girl Annette Benson. Irvine eventually gets her pregnant, but because rugby player Novello’s family is wealthier she claims the child is his, telling the headmaster that one of his students has gotten her up the duff (which is apparently seen as an indiscretion of some sort). Novello – being a good and decent chap – takes the fall for his friend because he doesn’t want the latter to lose his scholarship and knows he won’t own up to the truth. Novello is subsequently expelled and his life falls even further apart from there.   Watching the restored 100+ minute version of this 1927 silent film from Sir Alfred Hitchcock ( “Blackmail” , “Vertigo” , “Psycho” ), I got the distinct feeling that the shorter cut for once probably would’ve worked a bit better for me. However, at any length this was never going to be one of The Master’s better films. Adapted by Eliot Stannard ( “The Pleasure Garden” , “Champagne” ) from a p
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Review: Track of the Cat

Set in the mountains of North California in the late 1800s, a family of cattle farmers battle freezing, snowy weather and an almost mythological panther that is picking off the family’s cattle. The rather unpleasant and stubborn Curt (Robert Mitchum) decides it’s high time to go in search of the panther and kill it. Beulah Bondi and Philip Tonge play the miserable family elders, with Tab Hunter, William Hopper, and Teresa Wright filling out the rest of the family. Diana Lynn plays the intended love of the family’s youngest (Hunter). Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer plays an old Native-American named Joe Sam.   Of all the films in the ‘Classic Western Collection’ DVD box set I purchased cheaply a while back (I know, no one buys DVDs anymore except me), this 1954 William A. Wellman ( “The Ox-Bow Incident” , “The High and the Mighty” ) film was one of the most highly touted and anticipated by me. I don’t know what everyone else was seeing here, this is shoddy, stagey, and dull. There’s a very
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Review: Foreign Correspondent

Set in 1939, when Americans appear to be largely apathetic to the impending war in Europe, perhaps unaware of the serious threat posed by the Nazi regime. Newspaper editor Harry Davenport is looking for hard news from his foreign correspondents and decides to insert a fresh face. Enter apolitical crime reporter Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) to be sent to Europe and find out what’s really going on. After Davenport gives him the more important-sounding nom de plume Huntley Haverstock (!), he is sent to investigate negotiations conducted by a supposed peace organisation, to see whether war is imminent. The organisation is headed by Herbert Marshall, along with Dutch diplomat Albert Bassermann playing a key role. Laraine Day is Marshall’s daughter, a member of the rather amateur peace group, and the near-instant object of Haverstock’s affections. Haverstock gets barely a chance to talk with Bassermann before he is felled by an assassin, right in front of Haverstock’s eyes. Haverstock has land
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Review: Eugenie de Sade

Eugenie (Soledad Miranda) makes a deathbed confession to author/biographer (Jesus ‘Jess’ Franco himself), recounting the tale of how her depraved stepfather (Paul Muller) groomed her into a life of depravity, debauchery, and murder.   Not to be confused with the similarly titled “Eugenie…The Story of Her Journey into Perversion” (by the same director) or “Justine de Sade” (which is not to be confused with Franco’s own “Justine” for that matter), this 1973 Marquis de Sade adaptation from writer-director Jesus Franco ( “99 Women” , “A Virgin Among the Living Dead” ) is perhaps the perfect marriage of Franco, sleazy material, and actors. Basically this is what Franco’s “She Killed in Ecstasy” might’ve been like if it were based on a Marquis de Sade work. There’s a few slow spots here and there, but overall I actually think this is Franco’s best film. Yes, even better than my previous choice “Vampyros Lesbos” , and better than his more ‘respectable’ films like “Count Dracula” (a
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Review: The Reef: Stalked

Nine months after her sister was brutally murdered by her psycho husband, Teressa Liane is in the Pacific islands with her friends (Kate Lister and Ann Truong) as well as her youngest sister (Saskia Archer). A kayaking trip turns deadly when a great white shark turns up to feed on them.   Andrew Traucki was the co-director of the excellent, terrifying crocodile film “Black Water” , but I wasn’t a fan of his rather bland solo effort “The Reef” , a rather by-numbers shark film. I did rather enjoy his follow-up to “Black Water” , the quite effective “Black Water: Abyss” which wasn’t too far off the mark of the first film. This 2022 sequel from the writer-director is unfortunately a step backwards not only from “Black Water: Abyss” but it’s even worse than “The Reef” .   I suppose it’s nice to have an almost 100% female cast and strong-willed characters at that, but it’s also nothing original in that regard ( “The Descent” ), let alone enough to save this subpar outing. Even if
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