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Review: Mitchell

Joe Don Baker plays the sleepy-eyed but dogged cop of the title who thinks there’s a criminal connection between sleazy lawyer John Saxon and crooked businessman (AKA drug kingpin) Martin Balsam. Harold J. Stone plays a criminal higher up on the chain than Saxon and Balsam. Robert Phillips plays the superior officer, Jerry Hardin is a desk sergeant, and Linda Evans plays a hooker/love interest for our leading man.   As shabby as its lead character and performance, this 1975 husky cop movie from director Andrew V. McLaglen (who later made the underrated actioner “The Wild Geese” ) and screenwriter Ian Kennedy Martin (creator of TV’s “The Sweeney” ) is an uneven experience. Lead actor Joe Don Baker’s performance is far from his best work. In fact, it’s proof that he’s a much better support player than lead. However, the bleary-eyed, yet determined cop character he plays here is not without some interest. His often lack of giveashit is amusing at times. Baker’s Mitchell actually ...
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Review: The Changeling

After witnessing the shocking deaths of his wife and child, composer George C. Scott moves from New York to Seattle to accept a teaching position. He rents an old house and it’s not long before strange and unsettling things appear to be occurring. He investigates with the help of the woman who found him the house in the first place (Trish Van Devere). Ruth Springford plays Van Devere’s co-worker, Jean Marsh briefly plays Scott’s ill-fated wife, and Melvyn Douglas plays an elderly senator who is somehow connected to everything, going all the way back to the early 1900s.   Well-paced, emotional, occasionally terrifying 1980 film from director Peter Medak ( “The Ruling Class” , “The Krays” ) is one of the best ghost/haunting films you’ll ever see. If you’ve seen the “Insidious” films, this was clearly one of the inspirations. George C. Scott, normally a tower of strength and full of power and bluster, is heartbreaking and sympathetic here. You’re so engaged in his personal loss a...
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Review: The Undead

Val Dufour plays a researcher for the American Institute of Psychical Research. He picks up a prostitute (Pamela Duncan) to take to psychiatrist/professor Maurice Manson for a unique psychological experiment. He wants to prove a point to Manson by putting Duncan under hypnosis for a 48 hour period so that she can travel back in time to a past life. That time appears to be vaguely Medieval, where Duncan is now an accused witch. Richard Garland plays her Medieval love interest, whilst Allison Hayes and Billy Barty play a witch and an imp respectively, who want to sell Garland’s soul to The Devil (Richard Devon). Dick Miller plays a leper, Mel Welles a verbose gravedigger.   Mixing Medieval trappings with an eerie Bridey Murphy-esque psychological story involving hypnotism and past lives, this curious 1957 Roger Corman ( “A Bucket of Blood” , “The Intruder” , “Tomb of Ligeia” ) film sure is one of his more ambitious films. That ambition won out for me over some of the lumps and bu...
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Review: Black Mask 2: City of Masks

An operative named Dr. Lang (Scott Adkins) is tasked with rubbing out Han Fung, AKA The Black Mask (Andy On). Meanwhile, a scientist named Moloch (Tobin Bell) is conducting genetic experiments on a group of professional wrestlers (Rob Van Dam, Andrew Bryniarski, Traci Lords, Tyler Mane, and Michael Bailey Smith among them) to create animal-human hybrids. Teresa Maria Herrerra plays one of Moloch’s scientists whom Black Mask tries to turn against Moloch. Jon Polito plays the requisite sleazy wrestling promoter.   A Tsui Hark film featuring martial arts, genetically altered professional wrestlers, Traci Lords, Rob Van Dam, Scott Adkins, and Tobin Bell. This has to be a classic, right? Not even close, it’s terrible. I guess I need to remember that while he gave us the fun “Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain” , Tsui Hark is also the man who gave us green explosions and Rob Schneider teaming with Van Damme in the pathetic “Knock Off” . This 2002 follow-up to the Jet Li masked supe...
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Review: The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried

The title character is essentially a German version of Hercules, a virile warrior (played by Raimund Harmstorf) who wants to marry the comely Kriemhild (Sybil Danning). However, her brother the King first demands a favour from Siegfried. He’s got marriage on the mind too, but it’s complicated. You see, the King has a little problem. A little problem that can be solved by Siegfried’s titular…er, long sword. So in true Cyrano fashion (albeit kinkier) the King asks Siegfried to stand in for him in the boudoir and pleasure the very demanding Queen Brunhild in the dark so she agrees to marry The King.   Also known as “The Erotic Adventures of Siegfried” , this somewhat obscure 1971 softcore romp from director/actor Adrian Hoven (who produced “Mark of the Devil” of all things) is light-hearted, naughty fun. With so many boring softcore films out there I like to commend films that do it right like this, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” , and “Emmanuelle II” . So if this is your thin...
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Review: House of 1,000 Dolls

Sancho Gracia tells his friends George Nader and wife Ann Smyrner that his wife (Maria Rohm) has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, nightclub magician Vincent Price and his assistant (Martha Hyer) whose biggest trick is bringing a beautiful woman on stage and making her disappear. Hmmm.   One of Vincent Price’s lesser-known genre pictures, this 1967 ‘white slavery’ film was directed by Jeremy Summers of “Five Golden Dragons” mediocrity. A film with Vincent Price and this lurid subject matter ought to be a winner. With Vincent Price, mud wrestling, sex slavery, and so forth the plot synopsis reads much sleazier and interesting than the experience of watching it actually is (I hear the German cut is even sleazier, with scenes filmed without Price or Hyer’s knowledge, the usual Harry Alan Towers tactic). Scripted by the film’s producer Harry Alan Towers ( “99 Women” , “The Bloody Judge” ), it’s too talky and unwieldy.   I can understand the obscurity of this one, even Price see...
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Review: The Snorkel

Peter Van Eyck devised a way to murder his wife. He drugs her, gasses the room, seals it up, hides under the floorboards and uses a snorkel attached to air pipes to that he can breathe. When the body is eventually discovered and police see that the house has been locked from the inside with no signs of anyone else around? The crime is judged to be suicide. Van Eyck can emerge from his hiding spot at a convenient time and walk away unscathed. However, his young stepdaughter (Mandy Miller) already suspects Van Eyck of having killed her father some time ago and is determined to prove him guilty of this crime as well. Betta St. John plays Miller’s governess who falls under the charming Van Eyck’s spell, whilst Gregoire Aslan plays the police inspector who dismisses the child’s accusations.   Based on a story by character actor Anthony Dawson (co-star of “Dr. No” and “Dial M For Murder” ), this is essentially a Hammer version of Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” . A nifty 1958 crime...
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Review: Puppet Master II

Paranormal psychologists (including Charlie Spradling) converge at a hotel in Bodega Bay after hearing about the events of the first film. Unsurprisingly, Andre Toulon’s living puppets don’t take kindly to visitors and start bumping them off. Nita Talbot plays a psychic, and Steven Welles eventually turns up as a heavily-bandaged man who claims to have inherited the hotel. He allows them to stay through their investigations, but won’t allow them into his quarters. George ‘Buck’ Flower and Sage Allen play a couple of elderly farmers.   Full Moon’s resident FX guy David Allen ( “The Primevals” ) takes the helm for this 1990 sequel to the film that helped build Charles Band’s other company after the end of Empire Pictures. Although most reviews state that Allen wasn’t up for the task of directing, I actually think this one’s ever-so slightly better than the first film. Basically “Prince of Darkness” with puppets, it’s essentially the same film done marginally more effectively, w...
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