Movie Reviews

Shrieker (1998)

Shrieker (1998)
AKA Shriek

Starring Tanya Dempsey, Jamie Gannon, Parry Shen, Alison Cuffe, Thomas R. Martin, Chris Boyd, Jenya Lano, Jason-Shane Scott, Brannon Gould, Rick Buono

Directed by David DeCoteau

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Right upfront I’d like to say that despite the ratings I’ve given to Shrieker, it is enough of an enjoyable movie to make for a fun B-Movie watch. The parts that work do so fairly well… it’s just that everything else is really annoying. And because annoying characters and lame, meaningless dialogue eats up far less of a film’s budget than creature FX, the annoying stuff makes up a lot more of the runtime, making the film feel like something of a fun chore. Bet you’re just chompin’ at the bit to watch the film yourself, huh? 🙂

Shrieker opens with perhaps its best scene, where a couple of doctors at a hospital are killed by the Shrieker. Why the hospital has hallways lit like an abandoned warehouse, I don’t know, but I do know that it made the scene far more confounding (and therefore interesting). B-Movies should never pass up an opportunity to make the film more interesting, although I’m sure this (and perhaps most “interesting” things like this in B-Movies) arise out of budgetary concerns more than anything else. Anyway, the doctors get killed and we soon find ourselves 50 or so years in the future as a group of college kids have decided that housing on campus is too expensive, and squatting in this abandoned hospital is far more attractive.

End of Days (1999)

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne, Robin Tunney, Kevin Pollak, CCH Pounder, Derrick O’Connor, Miriam Margolyes, Udo Kier, Victor Varnado, Rod Steiger

Directed by Peter Hyams

Expectations: Arnold vs. the Devil has to be good, right?

End of Days is one of what I presume is a handful of 1999 films to use the Y2K scare as a basis for their plot. Thanks to finally seeing the film 16 years after its release, where it’s known that nothing happened when we entered the new millennium, this plotline nostalgically reminded me of the days when the American public was controlled by simple fears instead of terrorism. But it also can be seen as a “fictional historical record” of what might have actually saved our collective butts from financial and technological doom. I already believe that Arnold can accomplish anything in movie land, from defeating an alien predator to carrying a baby to term, so I might as well think that he actually saved the world from destruction.

End of Days opens with a baby being born — no, not Arnold’s — and soon after a satanic nurse whisks her away to confirm her demonic birthmark and feed her some snake blood. Y’know, the usual. For all I know, this is what happens every time an infant is born, but for the sake of this movie, I’ll assume that this baby is special. And imagine that, it turns out she is! When she has grown to maturity, this child will be the wife of Satan, but she must remain a virgin until their coupling (which will somehow seal the Earth’s fate). The Catholic church has their own sect of elite priests devoted to stopping them — they kick ass for the Lord — but it is private security officer Jericho Cane (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who ends up being the deciding factor in this holy war.

Ghoulies IV (1994)

Starring Peter Liapis, Barbara Alyn Woods, Stacie Randall, Raquel Krelle, Bobby Di Cicco, Tony Cox, Arturo Gil

Directed by Jim Wynorski

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Many moons and black magic spells ago, I reviewed the first three films in the Ghoulies franchise. I purposely chose to avoid Part 4, based on my highly negative reaction to the third film and the bothersome idea that the ghoulies of Ghoulies IV were actually dudes in suits and not puppets. Five years of writing for Silver Emulsion has cured my brain towards B-Movies far more than I could have ever imagined, so I felt it was finally time to take on Ghoulies IV. I even re-watched the other Ghoulies films in preparation and didn’t completely hate Ghoulies III! (It’s still shitty, but I was able to have fun with it this time.)

Even with these multiple years of thick B-Movie watching under my belt, I still entered Ghoulies IV with trepidation. The first two films in the franchise hold a special place in my heart as they were somewhat responsible for sending me down this B-Movie path, and I feared that Ghoulies IV would further trash the Ghoulies name as the third film had. But then the film opened with an explosion that ripping a door from its hinges, thru which a leather-clad buxom female emerged, and within a matter of moments she’s thrown a ninja star into the forehead of a well-meaning security guard. I was instantly won over — explosions and ninja stars are a quick way to my heart — and I am pleased to report that the rest of the movie continued this trend of tightly packed B-Movie thrills.

The Protector (1985)

The Protector [威龍猛探] (1985)

Starring Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello, Roy Chiao, Bill Wallace, Moon Lee, Victor Arnold, Kim Bass, Richard Clarke, Saun Ellis, Ronan O’Casey, Patrick James Clarke, Sandy Alexander, David Ho, Peter Yang Kwan, Sally Yeh

Directed by James Glickenhaus

Expectations: Jackie Chan, American style.

Like all of Jackie Chan’s American films, The Protector is a much watered-down version of the amazing action star. But in terms of his “first wave” of American films in the ’80s, The Protector is easily the best and most “Jackie” of the bunch, making it quite an entertaining film as long as you also like the general ’80s action genre. And who doesn’t?

The Protector opens in New York, as some Mad Max rejects re-wire a stop light in order to rob a semi-truck full of computers. Don’t worry about remembering this because none of it matters. It’s merely a setup to introduce us to New York cops Billy Wong (Jackie Chan) and Michael, who respond to the call. They chastise the Texan truck driver about stopping for a red light during the night in the Bronx. But the cops should’ve taken their own advice, because when they end their patrol shift by knocking back a couple of brews at the local bar, the place is robbed by a bunch of armed gunmen. Jackie’s partner is murdered, so he gives chase by land, sea and air (kinda), resulting in the murderer dying in a ball of fire and boat debris, and Jackie being given a more ho-hum job of working security at a party.

Remote (1993)

Starring Chris Carrara, Jessica Bowman, John Diehl, Tony Longo, Stuart Fratkin, Derya Ruggles, Jordan Belfi, Kenneth A. Brown, Lorna Scott

Directed by Ted Nicolaou

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

I purposefully don’t do much research so I can come to movies without too many expectations. In the case of Remote, knowing nothing led me to incorrectly assume that the title referred to a TV remote. I imagined a magical remote control as the catalyst to the typical Moonbeam storyline of a kid getting sucked into an alternate world, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In actuality, Remote is more grounded than any other Moonbeam film I’ve seen so far, and the title refers to remote-controlled planes, cars and yodeling Germans.

The storyline is fairly scattershot, but if I had to classify it as something, it’s basically a Home Alone clone. Randy (Chris Carrara) is your typical ’90s whiz kid, and his special interest is in remote-controlled devices. His best friend is a baseball-playing girl named Judy (Jessica Bowman), and they spend a lot of time together flying remote-controlled planes, and racing remote-controlled cars around the duct work in the attic of the sole model house for an undeveloped housing tract. This house is their special hideout, but when a trio of bungling burglars seek refuge there, Randy finds himself trapped in the attic with nothing but his remote-controlled minions between him and the criminals.

The Delinquent (1973)

The Delinquent [憤怒青年] (1973)
AKA Street Gangs of Hong Kong, East-Side Story, Crime Traps

Starring Wong Chung, Lily Li Li-Li, Fan Mei-Sheng, Lo Dik, Dean Shek Tin, Betty Pei Ti, Tung Lam, Fung Hak-On, Danny Chow Yun-Gin, Yen Shi-Kwan, Tino Wong Cheung, Wang Kuang-Yu

Directed by Chang Cheh & Kuei Chih-Hung

Expectations: As a fan of both directors, I’m really curious to see what this joint work is like.

The Delinquent opens by symbolically introducing the audience to our lead character, John Sum (Wong Chung), in a series of shots where he bursts through plywood paintings representative of the societal woes he struggles against. First, a rural village, which I took to represent tradition and perhaps the ways of his parents. Then it’s a modern high-rise apartment building, a seedy street scene depicting gambling and prostitution, and a final image that we cannot see. John is fed up with it all, including the unknown… he’s The Delinquent! So to have gotten all of that out of the opening moments of the credit sequence, and then spend most of the first half of the movie going over those same points, I was a bit bored and disappointed.

The story in The Delinquent is sparse, amounting to your general “young man lured into a gang” stuff. John is a delivery boy for a small restaurant, but he’s clearly not very motivated. His father attempts to drive some work ethic into him, but it’s no use. John feels like he’s better than his current situation, but with no drive to make anything happen for himself, he’s stuck in a poor, urban life with no hope of escape. The triad takes an interest in John, but not for his strong kung fu skills or his “can’t do” attitude. No, they’ve set their sights on stealing a bunch of stuff from the warehouse where his father works as the watchman, and they think they can influence John to join the dark side with women and money.

Junior (1994)

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, Emma Thompson, Pamela Reed, Frank Langella, Aida Turturro, James Eckhouse, Megan Cavanagh, Welker White, Kathleen Chalfant

Directed by Ivan Reitman

Expectations: Low, but I’m excited to revisit.

Certain films require an audience to suspend their disbelief in order for them to work, and this is probably the biggest hurdle that any viewer of Junior is going to face. The idea of a pregnant man is simply preposterous; there’s no way that the film can logically make you believe it’s possible. The explanations given in the film don’t help either, as even the simplest passing thought can deconstruct the film’s basic premise. So any viewer of Junior is asked to choose whether they will buy into the concept and just roll with it, or if they will reject it as patently absurd.

There was a time when I refused to watch Junior. It took five or six years after it came out before I was willing to see my #1 movie hero emotional and knocked up. Even then I went in with a furrowed brow and crossed arms, basically ensuring that I was going to hate it. And I did. In the intervening 15 or so years those hard edges of my film-loving personality have naturally worn down a bit, and now I realize movies are ultimately trivial, no matter how passionate I am about them (then or now). So going into Junior this time, I was actually excited.