1994

Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made (1994)

Starring Samuel Fuller, Jim Jarmusch

Directed by Mika Kaurismäki

Expectations: Moderately high.

Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made is a gift to Sam Fuller fans, and not of much interest to those that aren’t. It chronicles the 1993 journey of Sam Fuller and Jim Jarmusch to the jungles of Brazil to find the Karajá people who Sam Fuller met and filmed in the mid-1950s. He was sent there by Darryl F. Zanuck to scout for a film called Tigrero, which was to star John Wayne, but ultimately the picture was scrapped due to the insurance costs being too high. Fuller, frustrated with the bullshit involved with getting the picture off the ground with the studio, threw himself into his work on the screenplay for Run of the Arrow.

If I was more focused with these Sam Fuller reviews, maybe I’d have done this in order after House of Bamboo, which was when Fuller initially went to Brazil. Oh well, them’s the breaks! The work on the unfilmed movie Tigrero accounts for the lack of a Fuller film in 1956, but he made up for it big time with three releases in 1957! Some of the footage he filmed for Tigrero ultimately found its way into Shock Corridor as the dream sequences, but other than that it would seem that the experience was a waste of his time.

Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight (1994)

Starring Brian Cousins, Jennifer Nash, Michael Della Femina, Curt Lowens, David Kaufman, Alan Oppenheimer, Aharon Ipalé, Jake McKinnon

Directed by Jack Ersgard

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

I hope you like storylines that don’t make sense, title characters that aren’t the main characters and a whole hell of a lot of WTF fun, because Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight is chock full of all of those! Shot back-to-back with its predecessor, Mandroid, Invisible is a both a follow-up and a much different style of film. Where Mandroid attempted a traditional story, Invisible gives a big invisible finger to all that and decides to do exactly whatever it wants to. It’s not a very good movie, but if you’re ready for whatever it throws at you, it’s hard not to be entertained by it all.

This one is purely for those that have a good working knowledge of Mandroid‘s intricacies, though, as it never seeks to explain what happened in the previous film, or even to properly set this film up as its own thing. It just jumps right in, so if you’re not already on-board, they don’t have time to go back and pick you up. With a slim runtime of under 80 minutes, nearly every moment of Invisible is devoted to delivering incredible entertainment. It doesn’t always deliver on that promise, but when it does it’s ridiculously fun.

Double Dragon (1994)

Starring Robert Patrick, Mark Dacascos, Scott Wolf, Kristina Wagner, Julia Nickson, Alyssa Milano, Nils Allen Stewart, Henry Kingi, John Mallory, Leon Russom, Jeff Imada, Al Leong

Directed by James Yukich

Expectations: Not much.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Well, it started out pretty good, but then it just kept going and going and going. Double Dragon is such a shit movie, but it’s also not without some trashy charm. I can’t completely hate a movie with any sort of martial art component, and while Double Dragon features far less actual fighting than there should be, the fights it had were entertaining enough.

As much as I’d like to say that the film follows the video game’s plot, it does not. I’m not sure if a movie opening with a girl getting punched in the stomach, slung over a shoulder and then carried off by a gang of thugs would do very well, but the following 90 minutes of straight fighting through warehouses and forests would’ve been something to see. There’s no way this team could have effectively pulled that off, but I would’ve loved to seen them try. Instead we get to revel in the gloriously awful plot they’ve cooked up for the under-10 audience and your ~~enjoyment~~ disappointment.

Timecop (1994)

Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mia Sara, Ron Silver, Bruce McGill, Gloria Reuben, Scott Bellis, Jason Schombing, Scott Lawrence, Kenneth Welsh, Brent Woolsey, Brad Loree

Directed by Peter Hyams

Expectations: JCVD is always a good time.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

If I could go back in time and tell my young self one thing, it would be to re-watch Timecop. I remember seeing Timecop when it was first released to VHS, and being very disappointed with it. I can’t remember why, but I know that my expectations were through the roof at the time. It’s a movie called Timecop for Christ’s sake, even then I was powerless against something so instantly enticing. But now after re-watching it, I don’t know what movie I watched back then, because I clearly should have loved this movie. It’s easily one of Van Damme’s best films, and while I won’t argue that it’s a great movie, it is definitely a great, stupid action movie.

That last sentence is a great example of how much my mindset has changed on films, and perhaps when I first saw it at around age 13, I had begun to lose the eyes of a child and had started to expect more from movies. It took me a while, but over the last couple of years while running this website, I have successfully regained my ability to just sit back and have a good time. I also think I disliked Timecop initially because of my undying love for Bloodsport. I don’t know how much I’ve talked about it here on Silver Emulsion, but I love Bloodsport more than most movies. If I were to make a Top 10 Favorite Films list, it’d definitely make the cut and be near the top, as there are few films I find as solidly entertaining as Bloodsport. I remember looking forward to each subsequent Van Damme release, hoping that one of them would reach the heights of Bloodsport. None ever did, although some, like Kickboxer, Hard Target, or Lionheart, satisfied me enough to make the grade as “awesome JCVD films.” So really I think it came down to me once again looking for another Bloodsport-quality experience and not finding it here. But enough about the me of nearly 20 years ago.

Crumb (1994)

Starring Robert Crumb, Aline Kominsky, Charles Crumb, Maxon Crumb

Directed by Terry Zwigoff

Expectations: High. I remember loving this.

Well, once again I find myself staring at the blank, white screen of Notepad wondering what to write. This is the second time I’ve seen Crumb, and it’s definitely an interesting film to revisit. I first saw it in 2004, and it was my introduction to the work of Robert Crumb. I remember being fascinated by his art, and how the film depicted him and his brothers very honestly. This time around those same things stuck out to me, but the underlying theme of the film — the question of the line between art and pornography — was something I don’t remember focusing on before. This is a huge reason why re-watching films like this is such a rewarding experience, as the film easily takes on a new life when seen through more mature eyes.

The film succeeds primarily because of Robert Crumb’s inherent charm and director Terry Zwigoff’s ability to capture raw moments, seemingly without influencing them. The first section of the film is spent laying the foundation of who Crumb is and how he started, but as it goes on it begins to subtly explore Crumb’s fascination with women, and his hatred of them. In his work, he’s always been very open and honest about the feelings that populate his mental world, and the film does its best to capture reactions to these feelings on both sides of the argument. But Crumb never seems malicious towards his wife, although at one point he tells an ex that the only woman he’s every truly loved is his daughter. This is obviously a pretty harsh thing to say, and as Crumb laughs it off with a genuinely good-natured smile, I got the feeling he was fucking with us a bit.

Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994)

Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994)
AKA Virgin Hunters

Starring Morgan Fairchild, Ian Abercrombie, Brian Bremer, Christopher Wolf, Sara Suzanne Brown, Michele Matheson, Don Dowe, Tamara Tohill, Laurel Wiley, Robin Joi Brown

Directed by David DeCoteau

Expectations: Pretty low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

From the risque, James Bond-inspired opening titles, to the striptease dream sequence about 30 seconds into the film, you might guess that Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 is more softcore than sci-fi comedy, and you wouldn’t be totally wrong. Full Moon had an off-shoot company called Surrender Cinema that traded solely in late-night fare for Cinemax and the like (and this film was released by its predecessor company, Torchlight Entertainment), but despite what the jazzy porno music might make you think, this is actually a real movie. Well, one with a few gratuitous, lengthy softcore sex scenes, that is. I had previously removed the softcore films from this series as they don’t offer much traditional movie content, but Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 is definitely a worthwhile film for review.

The film opens in the year 2019, as a group of teenagers (all born in the year 2000, get it?) do their best to pay attention to their history teacher’s propaganda about how the corporation always knows best and stuff like that. But Vin can’t focus on his studies because the girl in the row in front of him has an ass that just won’t quit. He can’t stop looking at it, and he begins to fantasize about her slowly stripping for him and asking him if he likes what he sees. This leads us into the necessary component to any great sci-fi story: the reveal of what defines the world. In this version of 2019, all sex, as well as lustful thoughts, have been outlawed and all reproduction is performed via test tubes.

Lurking Fear (1994)

Lurking Fear (1994)
AKA H.P. Lovecraft’s Lurking Fear, Shocking Fear

Starring Jon Finch, Blake Adams, Ashley Laurence, Jeffrey Combs, Allison Mackie, Paul Mantee, Vincent Schiavelli, Joseph Leavengood, Michael Todd, Cristina Stoica, Luana Stoica, Adrian Pintea, Ilinca Goia

Directed by C. Courtney Joyner

Expectations: Moderate. If nothing else, Jeffrey Combs is in it.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Lurking Fear is yet another Full Moon film based upon an H.P. Lovecraft tale, but this is definitely one of the minor entries into that sub-genre. Ever since Stuart Gordon scored a major genre hit with Re-Animator, Full Moon has loved going back to the Lovecraft well and Lurking Fear shows them trying that schtick without Gordon’s involvement. It doesn’t work out near as well without him at the helm, but the film is definitely interesting enough to hold your attention.

The story starts off as a couple of separate tales that eventually intersect. The only problem is that once they do it kinda feels like each story’s characters have done a Purple Rose of Cairo and walked out of their movie and into another. I guess this is because the gangster story starts in the city, and the deserted town story feels distinctly removed from that setting. It creates a disjointed feel to the overall movie that even white-eyed, subterranean-dwelling mutants can’t fix. Although I do have to give them credit for creating characters distinct enough to feel like they come from their own worlds.