Rating: 2.5 Stars

Adventure in Sahara (1938)

Starring Paul Kelly, C. Henry Gordon, Lorna Gray, Robert Fiske, Marc Lawrence, Dick Curtis, Stanley Brown, Al Bridge, Ray Bennett, Charles R. Moore, Dwight Frye, Stanley Andrews

Directed by D. Ross Lederman

Expectations: Moderate.

Adventure in Sahara opens with a lot of mystery. In Paris, a man on a runway receives a telegram just before he is to board a plane. The telegram states that his brother is dead and that he “would know the details.” Indeed, our man Jim did know the details, but he does not share them with us just yet. That’s where the mystery comes in! Anyway, he immediately leaves his job at the airport to join the Foreign Legion, and he asks the recruiting officer to station him under the command of Capt. Savatt. The officer agrees, and with that his Foreign Legion adventure begins!

By focusing on the trials of an entry-level soldier in the Foreign Legion, the film has something of a military vibe, but it actually feels like more of a western than anything else. The film is based around the solitary Fort Agadez in the middle of the Sahara desert, which is constantly under threat from ~~savages~~ ~~Indians~~ Arabs. Of course, this leads to a climax resembling a “Defend the Alamo” situation as the Arabs storm the fort, although in this “western” there are machine guns and hand grenades. Pretty fun stuff. Adventure in Sahara doesn’t necessarily live up to the adventure in its title, but it definitely delivers an interesting story and a fair amount of exotically skinned western action.

Bullet to the Head (2013)

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang, Sarah Shahi, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jason Momoa, Christian Slater, Jon Seda, Holt McCallany, Brian Van Holt, Weronika Rosati, Dane Rhodes, Marcus Lyle Brown

Directed by Walter Hill

Expectations: Moderate and hopeful.

Bullet to the Head is a film that many will likely hate. Its story is convoluted and dumb, it’s needlessly gratuitous in its violence, and it looks more like an episode of a crime-themed TV show than a movie. But despite the odds stacked against it, Bullet to the Head succeeds by blunt force. This is far from being a good, well-made film, but it’s entertaining in all the right ways as long as you’re able to get into its groove. If nothing else, it should be impressive that Stallone is able to hold his own on-screen at 67 years old against people half his age.

Bullet to the Head opens with a hit. James Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone) and his partner bust into a posh hotel room and quickly dispatch of the man inside. For reasons unexplained, James does not take out the sole witness to their crime, a woman hiding in the shower. When they go to get paid they find that the job was a set-up, as another hitman (Jason Momoa) kills James’s partner and almost does the same to James. Meanwhile, Taylor (Sung Kang), a cop from Washington DC travels to New Orleans to investigate the murder of his ex-partner (AKA the man killed in the opening hit). But while the New Orleans Police Department is standing in his way, Taylor finds an unlikely partner in James.

It Happened in Hollywood (1937)

It Happened in Hollywood (1937)
AKA Once a Hero

Starring Richard Dix, Fay Wray, Victor Kilian, Franklin Pangborn, Charles Arnt, Granville Bates, William B. Davidson, Arthur Loft, Edgar Dearing, James Donlan, Bill Burrud

Directed by Harry Lachman

Expectations: Moderate.

It Happened in Hollywood may be the title that this film released with, but the film’s original title of Once a Hero (which for some reason is the on-screen title featured on the DVD release), is much more apt to describe the work at hand. Sam Fuller called this film his “first real screen credit,” and while it eventually led to bigger and better things for Fuller, It Happened in Hollywood feels like it contains even less of a Fuller influence than Hats Off did. But that’s OK, as this one is a much more cohesive and enjoyable film overall.

Like a great many films throughout the ages, It Happened in Hollywood is about a silent film star that has trouble making the transition to talkies. Unless I’m forgetting something major, this is the earliest film I’ve seen to use this somewhat common story framing device. I suppose this could be linked to Sam Fuller’s effervescent love of focusing on things relevant and topical before other filmmakers jump on the bandwagon.

Beware! The Blob (1972)

Beware! The Blob (1972)
AKA Son of Blob

Starring Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford, Richard Stahl, Richard Webb, Shelley Berman, Godfrey Cambridge, Larry Hagman, Carol Lynley, Marlene Clark, Gerrit Graham, J.J. Johnston, Danny Goldman, Rockne Tarkington, Dick Van Patten, Tiger Joe Marsh, Sid Haig, Burgess Meredith

Directed by Larry Hagman

Expectations: Moderate.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Beware! The Blob is a sequel to The Blob, but it’s also not. There’s nothing to connect the two films other than the blob. Beware! The Blob is also a horror comedy, but the genre line is blurred with enough genuine comedy and enough genuine horror to make anyone question which should be labeled as the primary genre. I’m gonna go with horror even though I feel it’s more of a comedy than a true horror film. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m going with that only because a fan without any interest in horror would never choose to watch this, nor would they find it all that funny. Probably. I can’t speak for everyone.

In order to facilitate a lot of truly outlandish comedic scenes, there isn’t much of a plot. Plots get in the way of inspired, unconnected moments like an opening credit sequence of a kitten exploring a field, a long-haired hippie asking for a haircut from a clean-cut barber (played by stand-up comic Shelley Burman), or when a group of hobos (two of which are Larry Hagman and Burgess Meredith) do their best to battle the blob with a pitchfork. The plot here is nonsensical and pointless, but its free-flowing nature helps the film from getting too dull as the blob absorbs and assimilates its victims into its gelatinous mass.

Mama (2013)

Starring Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse, Daniel Kash, Javier Botet, Jane Moffat, Morgan McGarry, David Fox, Dominic Cuzzocrea, Christopher Marren

Directed by Andrés Muschietti

Expectations: Moderate.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

If I were to judge movies solely on how much they entertained me, then Mama would rank pretty high. Not at the level of a favorite, or even a great experience, but one that simply does its job and delivers the fun supernatural thrills I’m looking for in a ghost story. The plot isn’t all that hard to figure out if you’ve seen any previous ghost story, but the creepy tactics it uses to sell itself were more than enough to win me over. I rarely get scared anymore during these kinds of films, but even after I had turned the lights back on after the movie I was still twisting my head to look behind me, convinced that Mama was there to swallow my soul.

The film opens during the 2008 financial crisis that swept the US, and one man affected by it has snapped. He kills his wife and drives away on icy, dangerous roads with his two young daughters. Their car goes over an embankment, but they survive and seek refuge in an old cabin in the woods. He clearly isn’t a horror movie fan, as you know as well as I do that you should generally turn around if you encounter a creepy old cabin in the middle of nowhere. Ah, but if they did, we wouldn’t have a film! From here, the story goes into an unexpected but fun direction, but I will say no more. In a film that hits a lot of the same notes as many other ghost stories, you need to know the least amount possible so that the film is able to play with all the cards in its deck.

Dead Dudes in the House (1989)

Dead Dudes in the House (1989)
AKA The Dead Come Home, Hexenhaus, The House on Tombstone Hill

Starring Mark Zobian, Victor Verhaeghe, Sarah Newhouse, Douglas Gibson, J.D. Cerna, Naomi Kooker, Eugene Sautner, Rob Moretti, James Griffin

Directed by James Riffel

Expectations: Moderate.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Dead Dudes in the House was the title given to this film for its Troma release, and while it’s not the most fitting title for the actual film, its blunt force encapsulates the quickly escalating horror of the film very well. There is little time spent here for anything other than straight horror thrills and killers stalking dudes. As long as you’re OK with that, this is an outstanding film that will entertain B-Movie fans completely. Troma isn’t known for their quality films, but this one is great. And not “great for a Troma movie,” it’s just plain ol’ great.

The basic storyline is one horror fans will have seen hundreds of times: a bunch of friends venture out to a remote house that unbeknownst to them is home to evil spirits and their doom! In Dead Dudes in the House, the house has recently been purchased by one of the dudes, so he has brought a bunch of dudes to help him fix the place up. There is a clear delineation amongst the dudes, though. On one side we have the white-collar dudes (the new owner of the house, his sweater-wearin’ friends and their girlfriends) and on the other the blue-collar dudes who seem like hired help to do most of the dirty work. That’s what it seems like anyway, but there’s also moments where it seems like they’re all friends, so I don’t know.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Starring Jason Momoa, Stephen Lang, Rachel Nichols, Ron Perlman, Rose McGowan, Bob Sapp, Leo Howard, Steven O’Donnell, Nonso Anozie, Raad Rawi

Directed by Marcus Nispel

Expectations: Super low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Against all odds, Conan the Barbarian is not a gigantic failure. They sure try in a lot of ways to drive the film into the ground, but thankfully they aren’t completely successful as this re-imagining of Conan’s origin story is pretty damn entertaining. But a good film it is not, although I was pretty fooled for the first 30 minutes or so. This section is by far the best in the film, and as soon as it’s over and Conan is actually Conan, things start to turn south.

This isn’t really a remake, as the story is completely different from John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian. In broad strokes they are somewhat similar, though, as both films open with Conan’s family being brutally murdered by an evil villain and Conan wishing for revenge. The villains are nothing alike, but they share a foreboding, formidable screen presence, inspiring a young Conan on his quest for revenge. So I suppose in this way it is a remake, but a remake in basic premise alone.