Cellar Dweller

Cellar Dweller

United States - 1987

Director- John Carl Beuchler

New World Video, 1988, VHS

Run time – 1 hour, 18 minutes

In the wake of the fairly successful film Creepshow written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero, the 80’s hosted a short revival of interest in the horror comics of the 50’s and 60’s like Tales From the Crypt and Eerie. The idea of horror comics in film cropped up a few more times with varying success, but at the moment all I can think of are the Creepshow sequels, Cellar Dweller and Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (I think, whichever one had a comic artist character who dies right away). Anyway, the long sad death of horror film in the following decade put an end to that, and the reason I picked up this film is because I was flipping through an old issue of Fangoria which features the Cellar demon on the cover.

Jeffery Combs, star of Re-Animator shows up for a few minutes at the beginning of this one, enough time to doodle incomprehensibly over what looks like a Bernie Wrightson drawing and read some lines from a big dusty book. Behind him his own comic book monster materializes. Grabbing the axe which he drew on the wall, he battles the demon he has brought to life, and eventually sets it ablaze, leading to a very Re-animator knockoff title sequence with comic panels spinning across the screen in multi colored attempt to associate this low budget cheapie with respectable predecessors.

30 years later female cartoonist Whitney (Debrah Farentino) arrives at the same building now converted into the “Throckmorton Institute For the Arts”. As a child Whitney collected "Cellar Dweller” comics and idolizes their creator and artist Colin Childress (Combs character.) The covers of Cellar Dweller comic books are an obvious homage to those real horror comics. Unfortunately, the Institute is attended not by artists, but by really shitty fake artist stereotypes. An actor, abstract painter, performance artist and finally, “video” artist Amanda, (Whitney’s nemesis from a pre-film encounter) who all wander about without guidance ostensibly “doing” something off screen when they're not onscreen making fun of comic books. We assume anyway, lord knows there’s enough of Phillips crappy abstracts carefully positioned in each scene, he’s obviously got some free time when he’s not pawing Whitney’s smock. (see his amazing "Mullet Titty Chicken" to the right in the picture above)

Despite the house mothers warning Whitney moves into the basement, Childress’ old studio which after 30 years and the restoration and installation of a full fledged private art college upstairs (admittedly only 5 students), remains entirely untouched, undisturbed and, unlocked. Including Childress’ satanic tomes, which still lie right next to the drawing table. It’s amazing how all that evil toil was poured into making a big heavy book with a nice leather-bound cover and all those crinkly parchment pages when all anyone ever needs is the first two lines of page one to summon a host of demons. Reading that line, Whitney marvels at how interesting her idol was, what with all the Satanism and stuff, and isn’t it just so, I don’t know, interesting?

I suppose it's meant to let us know from the start that Whitney is not to be regarded as the “hot chick” of the movie, but decked out in her stiff grey linen, floor length dress she looks more like an escapee from a Spanish women in prison film. Though the performance artist (Miranda Wilson) does lather up before her pending demise, the first assumption was correct; don’t expect any soapy group fights.
For mocking her preferred media Whitney draws her fellow students (with the exception of Phillip) being eaten by a demon, or does she? Do the comic pages just draw themselves? As before, the fantasies come to life and are played out with minimal, if decent gore. Whitney discovers the mystery pages on her drawing table, and realizing she has caused the problem, splashes a little white-out on the drawings and then decides to draw all the other students back to life, which suddenly ends with a bunch of fire and screaming. So, I guess that didn’t work so well.

One gets the impression there was supposed to be a sequel, but unless you're counting the porn series I unwittingly discovered doing an image search of the title, that pretty much didn't work out well either.

The Delta Force

Nice cut-n'-paste job on Lee Marvin's head

The Delta Force

United States – 1986

Director – Menahem Golan

MGM Home Entertainment, 1998, VHS

Run time – 2 hours, 8 min.

Director Menahem Golan: one-half of the defunct Israeli power production duo Golan-Globus, owners of the belly-up Cannon Pictures Group and purveyors of slash and burn 80’s action cinema. From the meat-cleaver-to-the-face political subtlety in this and some other films directed by Golan, one might go so far as to consider him a gung-ho Arab-villifying Jewsploitation predecessor to Steven Spielberg.

Really, The Delta Force is two movies, who like reluctant lovers, slowly test the waters, coyly wooing each other until finally they mate in a cacophony of exploding grenades and video game music.

The first "movie" is a shock to behold, and really deserves custody of the offspring of this unholy and awkward union. Robert Forster (Vigilante, Alligator) plays Abdul, leader of a cell of Lebanese terrorists who hijack a plane departing Athens (based on the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847). Forster has the role pegged down to a science: he made my skin crawl pistol-whipping whimpering American-Pig-Dog capitalist passengers with the sickening and deeply satisfying wet crack of vindication. (also look for staple B-actors Martin Balsam, George Kennedy and "stone free" Bo Svenson on this flight)

Meanwhile, in doo-poop land, a general, encrusted with so many ribbons he needs to be taken into dry dock and scraped, orders up the magical Delta Force in one of those "Oooooo, WOW!" moments I think you're supposed to get awed and wide-eyed about – if you're 8. Led by the withered husk of Lee Marvin (his last screen appearance before he died a year later), the dopey ass-slapping extras playing Delta Force (including Chuck’s son Eric) wait on board their code named secret aircraft "Delta 1". Just as they’re about to depart, whew, retired DF Captain Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris) shows up to join the boy-scouts, and the sausage fest is airborne for a field trip in Beirut.

The coming conflict is glaringly predictable, and few of the details need to be fleshed out. Forster continues to dominate this picture, and the cuts from hijacking scenes to thinly-veiled patriotic cock-stroking, become less and less jarring, if only because the two forces - evil, brilliant Forster, and righteous, pallid Norris (and crew) - overlap with more and more screen time. Finally, with all the hot flying lead and NES music we’ve been dipping our feet into, it comes crashing down in a deluge of predictable mediocrity, until we slip all the way into the pot to have the flesh boiled from our bones. His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Norris’s piercing “American justice” glare is at head-exploding intensity here, and strikes fear in the hearts of all. Best of all, he gets to ride a dirt-bike with automatically reloading missles and machine guns on the front and grenade launchers on the back. I think the grenades are a metaphor for a deluge of fecal spray; they shoot out of the "exhaust pipe", and in any case I am sure that unlike real grenades, these ones are super grenades that explode instantly on target, all the time.

Now, with a conveniently placed ramp, Norris can dramatically leap and wheelie his way into the sunset, coating everything in his path with a fine spray of human waste; talented supporting actors unlucky enough to be caught in his shadow, and my poor weeping eyes, included.

Poster art from Film Cynic.

Soundtrack cover art from Ruthless Reviews.

Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold

Gotta love the screener box.

Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold

A.K.A. Delta Force 2: The Columbian Connection

United States – 1990

Director – Aaron Norris

Media Home Entertainment, 1983, VHS

Run time – 1 hour, 50 min.

At this point in his career there was a definite 'Nam revenge effect that had colored every one of Norris's films since 1984. I don't think there is a single collection of films in any actor's repertoire that is more bitter, and wallows more in the 'Nam shame than in Chuck Norris. It just might be reactionary movies like these that made Americans feel so ashamed about Vietnam. This movie doesn't even take place in 'Nam but it's so egregious it makes me cringe.

The uncomfortable thing about these films is that none of them seem to realize how stupidly racist they are. Uncomfortably-funny stupid racist. Can you believe how far they’ll go? The important thing to watch in these films, and in this period of Norris films - and I call it a period in the sense that, like Picasso had a "Blue Phase", Norris had a "'Nam Revenge Phase" - is that although they vary little in plot originality, the army of bad guy character actors is remarkable. Among many other equally sinister but less well-known spring the infamous names of Christopher Lee, David Carradine, Richard Lynch, and here in DF2, Billy Drago. Along with other lesser known ones like Sonny Landham in Firewalker and Robert Forster in The Delta Force, this is a veritable Valhalla of B-screen anti-heroes waiting to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting god-fearing, milk-fed, freedom-loving America.

Here, Drago plays Escobar-esque drug czar Ramon Cota, with more money than the whole world, and the ability to be anywhere at any given instant to personally stab to death anyone in the way of his business plan. The US Army, "led" by General Taylor (another veteran character-actor, John P. Ryan) recruits Norris and his goofy buddy to push Cota out of a plane as he flies over US airspace. They do, landing comfortably in a courtroom where Cota walks free and promptly, and personally snuffs the buddy's wife and kids. Consumed by grief, Buddy goes after Cota on his own, and gets caught. Norris, consumed with grief, beats the shit out of a bunch of army guys and calls it (homoerotic) training, much to the hearty amusement of Ryan who stomps around clapping people on the back and grinning like a big dumb cowboy. Now to assault Cota's impenetrable mountain base, surrounded on three sides by impenetrable security forces, and general impenetrability. But a quick thinking Norris knows that most mountains have a fourth side, in this case, a million foot high unclimbable rock cliff that eats babies and worships Satan. No sweat.

Not until after the final important gun battle does Taylor show up, all his earlier zeal for the attack conveniently forgotten so that he can sit his fat rumpled ass down, and drunkenly yell orders to shoot at stuff from his single helicopter full of "Delta Force". Why getting beat up by Norris is considered training I don't know. I wish Norris would "train" General Taylor, damn that guy is a stupid jerk.

Delta Force 2 was followed by a third entry starring Norris's son Mike, and an Italian knockoff called Delta Force Commando starring Fred Williamson.

A nice high resolution poster from Wrong Side of the Art.

And DVD cover art from Shaolin Chamber 36

Laurence Fishburne Is One of My Favorite Actors

I've always respected Laurence Fishburne because he seems to have a lot of natural grace on screen and is quite a good actor. Aside from the Matrix trilogy, he's not well known for leading roles. What is the most striking about Fishburne is the combination of these features, small roles and good acting, for which he seems to get little recognition. However, I can think of very few actors who can consistently "make" a movie, often it's a combination of elements which the actor does very well in. This is how actors often get typecast. Laurence in my thinking has not been typecast, yet remains a good actor who consistently makes each film he is in that much better by his presence. So I've compiled a list of my five favorite Fishburne appearances, some of which you do, and some which you probably don't know, and why I think they're worthy of recognition.

1.) Socrates Fortlow - Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
This one was a surprise to me. I saw it years ago on cable (it is an HBO original) and couldn't forget it. It tells the story of a guy, Fishburne, who has a dark past for which he has payed a social debt (prison) and which he continues to pay a personal debt (guilt), no matter how much he wants to be a better man, he is judged by his past. This captures a frequent dilemma faced by the homeless (though Fishburne's character is not) in which pulling oneself out of destitution is prevented by a social stereotype which one can never escape. Probably Fishburne's best role of all time, this is one case where he definitely does make the film.

2.) "Clean" - Apocalypse Now
Fishburne took this role at the age of 16 or so, and the film as a whole is epic and almost impossible to fully understand without a long course of study in post World War 2 American culture and the Vietnam War specifically. I can't stress enough that although surreal and hyperbolic, Apocalypse Now is very much a subjective American encapsulation of that war. It was co-scripted by Michael Herr whose book Dispatches I can't recommend enough. Fishburne's character is highly memorable because he captures the innocence and insanity of kids fighting a war, and of course dies tragically.

3.) Thug - Death Wish 2
The Death Wish series, at least in its early entries provided a breakthrough for numerous actors who later made a name for themselves (see also Jeff Goldblum and Marina Sirtis), usually in bit parts like Fishburne in Deathwish 2, as merely a thug in one or two scenes but making an impression nonetheless with those bitchin' cyberpunk glasses. Plus it stars my man Charles Bronson and his lady Jill Ireland.

4.) Capitan Miller - Event Horizon
I loved this movie when it came out because I love science fiction and I love gore, and this was strictly creepy and had both. Watching it years later, it's pretty dated, especially the primitive CGI which I remeber being sooooo rad, but which almost hurts now. Anyway, a great starring role for Fishburne in a forward thinking gorror-sci-fi movie that does a good job playing up the idea that man's pursuit of science has broken some fundamental barrier between natural and The Beyond.

5.) Lt. Charlie Stobbs - Red Heat
This is where Fishburne makes a dumb movie with an good plot tolerable, so I guess you could say he makes the movie in a roundabout way. Soviet cop Schwartzenegger, with an Austrian accent and no acting ability, and Chicago cop Belushi with a handful of dick jokes and sexist bigotry are almost intolerable. Fishburne (along with Peter Boyle) save a fairly interesting plot from sinking beneath the dead weight of the leads.

So there you have it. I think Laurence Fishburne is a great actor, one of my favorites and definitely worthy of respect, if you weren't sure, check out these movies, your doubts will vaporize.

Nightbreaker

Nightbreaker

United States - 1989

Director- Peter Markle

Alliance Releasing Home Video, 1989, VHS

Runtime – 1 hour 38 min.

My buddy Daniel picked this up for me in Canada (hence the Canadian distributor) because he and I are both atomic science history nerds and he knows I like war flicks, so props to him. Director Markle also helmed a decent non-reactionary Vietnam flick BAT*21 starring Gene Hackman and Hot Dog The Movie, starring boobs and skiing, before he went on to a career primarily in TV. Estevez of course now trains children to ice skate and his dad is the President and ironically a traitor to his country. In any case this film addresses the very real issue of American atomic testing on its soldiers. For a real life look at this see the excellent documentary called Radio Bikini all of which Randywilharm has uploaded to YouTube.

Martin Sheen is haunted neurologist Alexander Brown, in Las Vegas to observe the surgical implantation of one of his newest devices. At a reception for the event a reporter and some vets approach him to confirm their story of radiation poisoning so they can collect disability payments. Flashback to 1956 where Emilio Estevez plays the young doctor Brown at the Nevada Test site to witness Operation Boom, (I made the name up, the on screen explosions are taken from archival footage) and to run personality tests on some exceedingly dumb GI’s (commanded by Joe Pantoliano) with whom he nevertheless sympathizes.

Hangin' out with his BI buddies at a bar, Estevez/Brown meets another scientist Sally Mathews (a young and stunning Lea Thompson) whom he impresses with his science nerd gee-whiz act.
Later they set up one of the infamous “test houses” that are so well known now (see also The Hills Have Eyes 2006). This is where the movie starts to get interesting because of the historical footage cleanly spliced into the narrative. The whole thing starts to get fairly eerie because (if you’re like me and have a nuclear war fetish) it casts a little “reality” over the proceedings, like this scene, which is obviously leading up to some archival footage.

Not so much with the kissing in the pool which follows, but I won’t complain about that too much since it is Lea Thompson. Estevez/Brown asks the bit actor GI’s more questions that they answer with practiced affectation, and regurgitating a bit of dry camaraderie he marches with them into the infantry trenches to participate in operation Boom 2. Despite Brown’s concerns, orders are to march from the trenches toward ground zero as the dust settles. Estevez/Brown still doesn’t believe that the Army is -as Sally insists- willfully using the men as guinea pigs.

While at base watching some test footage of actual pigs getting fried in operation Boom 3, Estevez/Brown and the grunts start to get a strange feeling of deja-vu. Again, the historical footage woven into all of these scenes gives the rest of the simpleminded made-for-TV pap an air of creepy legitimacy, like a rotten apple spoiling the whole barrel, only in reverse. Which is good, since it distracts me from pulling out my Korean and Cold War uniform books to critique the accuracy and go full-nerd.

Sheen/Brown is coming to terms with all this in Vegas by the way, after years of denial. Convinced all these years that she was sterile Brown’s wife blows up when it comes out that it was his radiation roasted nuts. That’s all it takes for his denial-house-of-cards to begin collapsing. But back at the science banquet just as he starts to come clean publicly and the disabled vets roll in all heartstrings and vindication, the credits scroll leaving this movie about just one guy assuaging his minor personal guilt, and fuck-all for the glow-in-the-dark veterans.
Now, a word from our sponsors.

These are a couple of YouTube videos of segments of the originalarchival footage used in Nighbreaker, the first one from teachertube being the house that is a well known image and the centerpiece of an establishing scene in the film. The second, uploaded by timboo is one that I hadn't seen before and is what really drives the moral agenda of the film home. Below is an alternate VHS cover I got from allmovies.com.

Gorezone #5 - Bad Taste

Back when nobody knew who the hell Peter Jackson was a little magazine called Gorezone, the red headed stepchild of Fangoria (itself the offspring of Starlog Magazine I think) did this little article on his first movie in January 1988. If you don't like Bad Taste you are in the wrong place. One of the reasons I love all these old movies and held on to these magazines is because of the hands on technical gore, and Bad Taste is at the top of the offal heap on that front.
Most of these pictures are well known since Jackson got big with Dead Alive/Brain Dead and beyond, but it's interesting to read the way they talk about the whole thing knowing what's happened since.

Evil Spawn

Evil Spawn
United States - 1987
Director- Kenneth Hall
Camp Motion Pictures, 1987, VHS
Run Time – VHS: 1 hour, 30 min., (DVD: 1 hour, 40 min.)

Evil Spawn comes in several versions, on the VHS tape, and the credits on the DVD as well claim that Kenneth J. Hall directed this trash-splat classic. IMDB adds a second name, Ted Newsome, but, on the DVD (cover art featured below) in the special features, Fred Olen Ray also claims to have directed it.

In any case, the story is a classic self-referential B-movie from the 80’s. Low budget and crude, it relies on the base exploitation draws (girls, and gore) and plays them to the hilt. Plus the entire movie is scored by a two-bar knockoff of one single track from Ennio Morricone’s The Thing soundtrack (Humanity, Part II), which actually works out pretty well.

In a janitorial closet/laboratory a woman with an awe-inspiring pompadour mullet releases an insectoid hand puppet from its storage crate. The insect attacks a guy in the lab who staggers into an alley and attacks a young couple. Ripping the man’s arm off in a geyser of blood just before the woman is able to crush the attacker against the wall with her jeep.

Pompadour (Dawn Wildsmith, an F.O. Ray regular) visits her boss, a drunk, or at the very least incredibly near death John Carradine. Just before dying he mutters something about his work at which Pompadour scoffs and returns home to stroke a gun, wear a wig and act insane. She has an unexplained stalker fetish for Lynn Roman, an aging Hollywood starlet trying to land the lead role in a movie called “The Savage Goddess”. Unfortunately Lynn (Bobbie Bresee) is considered too old and instead is offered a role in “The She Demon”. Doesn’t sound like a big difference to you and me, but to Lynn, this is a hearty portion of shit soup, so she goes into a downward spiral of vanity depression. In an attempt to recapture the youth she thinks will land her the lead. She’ll do anything, sunbathing, drinking cocktails, injecting alien serums peddled by sinister women with giant pompadours who break into her home. After a nightmare in which she becomes a rotten zombie while accepting an Oscar, this last option begins to sound pretty appealing.


The serum does make Lynn more attractive, at least to her sleazy biographer who intermittently narrates portions of the film while smoking and banging on his typewriter like a noir detective. Lynn confirms the results by checking herself out in the mirror and taking a shower, which is nice, but a bit ironic since Bresee herself is aging, yet she is the lead, and her lady parts are prominently featured. Nudge nudge.
But the side effects, oh yeah, the “hell hath no fury” side effects. Whenever Lynn finds herself getting brushed off for younger women she mutates into a giant clawed insectoid alien, with a vanity problem.
Which is plenty more excuse to deliver the goods, first with her own assistant Elaine (the gorgeous Pamela Gilbert who vanished from the films shortly hereafter) who takes a very generous skinny-dip in the pool before getting devoured by bug/Lynn, and of course the adulterous husband, the biographer, the agent…

One of my heroes Richard Harrison was listed as a star in several places, including IMDB which had him top billed. After watching the VHS with nary a sign of ol’ Richard, I bought a DVD which promised an extra 10 minutes of runtime. Unfortunately, still no Dick Harrison, that 10 minutes was entirely Fred Olen Ray being a self absorbed douchebag. But, there are a few special features that did make the DVD a worthwhile investment. The cover art on the VHS is waaaayyyy better and comes from Camp Motion Pictures who have released a good deal of super low budget 80’s fare on DVD that is well worth tracking down. So you win some, you lose some.

The DVD cover art referred to above.

Among the alternate titles for this film the only one I found art for was The Alien Within.

An Eye For An Eye

I know this is the DVD art, but it's the same as my VHS box.

An Eye for an Eye

United States – 1981

Director – Steve Carver

MGM Home Entertainment, 1998, VHS

Run time - 1 hour, 46 minutes

In his second Steve Carver helmed movie (the other being Lone Wolf McQuade), The Norris plays another bull-headed, single-minded good-cop with little tolerance for any way but the "my-way". Everybody else gets round-housed down the "hi-way". All the better, supporting actors just drain attention away from The Norris. If you've ever wanted to see The Norris kick serious drug-peddler ass in a bright-red Members Only jacket or a puffy lumberjack-chic vest you get to see it here. Isn't that dandy. I also think this might be only the second movie in which I've seen The Norris crack a smile. It can be a little bit frightening, but don't let that deter you, it doesn't last for long. Even if it's completely formulaic, An Eye For An Eye doesn't pull any punches, just do not take it on an empty stomach.

On a big time undercover investigation, The Norris, here named Sean, and his over-the-hill partner, who's so unimportant I forgot his name, are set up, and partner is burned to death while pinned by a car. Sean resigns, throwing a hissy fit to Police Capitan Richard Roundtree. Partner's 26-year-old wife, Linda, a local news anchor, fake-cries on The Norris' shoulder and immediately does a long boring TV expose on the drug problem in San Francisco. As if this is something that is going to ruin their enterprise, "The Drug Business" sends some thugs after her. Just before they mercifully stifle her forced and wooden shrieking, she calls Sean, and tells him she found "something".

Later, Right before Roundtree kicks him out of Linda's apartment Sean encounters the deceased's neighbor/best-friend/coworker Heather. CAUTION: Weepy plain-looking ear and eye irritant. Sean goes to Linda's dad's house, a diminutive asian fellow (Mako) named…James. Duuuhhhhh. Okay then. Grrr, James want's revenge for his daughter's death so he ordered home delivery thugs, and he and Sean team up Double Dragon style.

Sean takes Heather to his wharf-side display home to add to his collection of emotionally dependent accumulate. There, she dramatically increases the stomach turning "Queasy Factor" of Sean's ratty dog as they frolic gaily about in his gilded cage. At his sizzling sweaty sexiest after waking up from a "flashback-to-the-first-scene" nightmare, Heather runs her fingers through Sean's dewy moist chest carpet and gradually sinks below the surface into Stockholm Syndrome. Retch.

The uncomfortableness of this quaint warm moment is quickly replaced by reaffirming masculine brutality when Sean and James team up again, first at the TV station where they discover the not very surprising heavy-handed truth about the powers behind the San Francisco drug trade. And finally with a tender moment on a grassy hillside outside the kingpin's decadent mansion. Disappointed with Sean's performance, sensei James quips, "I do not think this is going very well!" in his best wise Chinese guy sidekick voice.
The subsequent massacre of nearly every moving thing in the mansion has no effect on their chipper moods, Heather included, and they stroll gaily away from the bloodbath arm in arm, smiling and laughing in socially acceptable racist comic relief, apparently unconcerned that they just took something like 80 eyes for an eye.

Where's the dog? I need some playful yapping. Do not crush or chew, swallow whole. In case of ingestion, induce whiskey.

Some classic Embassy clamshell VHS box art.

Nice poster art I found at Atomic Pulp