DEFIANCE (VESTRON VIDEO - 1980)

Man, I don’t know what the fuck happened here, but this turned out to be a brutal let down. It has all kinds of killer ingredients for baking up a fulfilling tale of revenge set in urban New York. In fact, what makes it most disappointing is that it was helmed by director John Flynn, a man considered to be a luminary within the cinema of vengeance for his cult hit “Rolling Thunder.”  This guy of all people knows how to make a movie like this work! After all, we've seen it, and it's one of the ultimate revenge movies! Though "Defiance" begins with a glimmer of promise, it never delivers that moment of excessive cruelty or violence that usually drives films of this nature. In fact, the stakes are pretty low here. You never really feel an unquenchable thirst for vengeance against the antagonists, mainly because they never get the opportunity to make your skin crawl. What actually might be the ultimate death of this movie is that it is so accessible. It is virtually a PG take on the revenge formula.

Jan-Michael Vincent stars as Tommy, a sailor who’s been forced into an extended leave due to a suspension they never bother to really bother to go into. In fact, they never really pierce the character’s mystique. Instead, we’re left to wonder what brought him to this point. Was he smuggling drugs? Did he rape another crew member? You just really never know much about the guy, which makes it difficult to get invested. He could have been a total dirtbag, which honestly would have given the story a little more weight had they gone in that direction. While this vague hardass waits out his punishment, he decides to move into a shitty neighborhood where the inhabitants are more or less forced to acclimate to his no-nonsense attitude. Eventually he meets a girl. Then he crosses a gang. You're probably thinking, "hey, I can do the math real easy on this one," but you'd be wrong. Though putting Tommy’s girlfriend in peril would have been the most logical way to kickstart this mess, the movie is too sensitive to “go there.” As alluded to before, “Defiance”’s primary ailment is that the bad guys never do anything that’s really that bad. Sure, there’s potential for bad things to occur, but the menace stops at mere suggestion. In fact, between the points where they rob a church bingo parlor and smash a roof top garden is when this thing careens into a ditch – and a really clean one at that.

"Ooooh! Jan Michael Vincent worked hard on that garden, you hooligans! He’s gonna get you!”

Even more unfortunate is that Rudy Ramos, who plays gang leader Angel Cruz, is probably the best thing about the movie. Not only does he look like a proto-“Parade” era Prince, but he’s an obvious heavy with built-in sympathy, which is a total waste since you never see him do anything really fucked up. There’s little point in going out of your way to humanize the villain if you’re not going to make the audience feel conflicted about connecting with them.

The majority of the movie feels like total filler, with the gang being jerks and the neighborhood beckoning Tommy to join their ranks and fight back. Tommy eventually decides to join their effort after a fairly minor character is murdered off screen by the villains. You get the feeling that the writers were into the idea of that feel-good moment at the end where evil is usurped, but they didn’t want to commit to depicting the sort of rousing nastiness that’s so germane to the payoff they wanted. They knew where they wanted to get to, but they took a really shitty, in-direct, and overly-long way to get there.

The second best thing about this movie is probably Danny Aiello, who plays Carmine. Now older and pot-bellied, Carmine spends most of his time with his cronies at a local watering hole reminiscing about how they used to run the streets. What’s interesting is that these old-school gang bangers really resent the new youth gangs even though they probably weren’t dissimilar to them. Conceptually, the idea of an overweight Aiello stretching out his “Lords of Flatbush” jacket coming out of retirement to teach these new punks a lesson is pure gold. This arc should have been the film’s main focus. Instead, too much time is spent on some limp-dick romance that doesn’t really drive the story anywhere.

There are fine points that could have been expanded upon, making this even more of a bummer. Some say this is a film with heart, but that’s only a misnomer for softness. The tender moments are meaningless due to the astonishing lack of grit, as they are too constant and with little contrast. Glimmers of happiness and soul in the ghetto have more meaning when the dire reality of the environment is given more punch. Instead, this feels like an attempted inner-city “Waltons” with some melodramatic moments that veer into unintentional chuckles. Overall, this was a waste of time for a lot of great actors, including Art Carney, who is basically relegated to playing “old Jewish guy who gets beat up.” This is easily the palest revenge flick of all time.

FUNLAND (VESTRON VIDEO - 1987)

Clowns aren't funny. They are horrible, terrible monsters deserving of our disgust and contempt. Their twisted faces have produced nightmares in the dreamstates of the innocent for decades. The filmmakers behind "Funland" have found a solution to this problem which allows them to succeed in making a clown humorous. Mental illness! David L. Lander (Squiggy from "Laverne & Shirley") plays Bruce Burger, the mascot for the local Funland amusement park. Bruce shows a level of commitment to his job that borders on the pathological. When a new owner takes over the park and starts making changes it sends him into a downward spiral. Bruce has conversations with imaginary people, many of whom have been dead for many years. His evenings are spent with everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Humphrey Bogart, not to mention the recently murdered former owner of Funland. As the park prepares for reopening, his plans turn towards homicide. 

 The screenplay comes from power duo Bonnie and Terry Turner, years before they would have their careers launched by scripting studio comedies like "Wayne's World" and "Tommy Boy." There is a mean streak and a subversiveness here that disappeared completely from their work after this point. The grossly bottom-line driven mentality of the corporate world is savaged throughout the runtime, something that probably proved difficult to do when writing for a major television network during their time on "Third Rock from the Sun." Nonetheless, it is fortunate for all of us that they were unleashed and raging hard at this point. The result is a comedy that has a certain amount of heart and warmth without sacrificing the sting of its bite.

VENDETTA (VESTRON VIDEO - 1986)

The women-in-prison genre is an interesting phenomenon in that it created a surprising number of distinctive and original stories while operating within a very narrow set of parameters. Look no further than this entry which was conceived and co-written by stuntman Emil Farkas. It spins the familiar concept of the avenging enforcer who gets locked up in the big house to get revenge, but it veers in some interesting directions. 

For starters, our protagonist is a Hollywood stuntperson. Laurie Collins (Karen Chase) is working on the set of a feature film when her younger sister is murdered in prison where she is being held after murdering her own rapist. The nature of how these early stunt scenes are presented shows an authenticity that clearly comes from the filmmakers being experienced within that particular world. You see a similar level of accuracy in many biker films of the same period, most of which were being helmed by or at least crewed by stuntpeople. The real advantage to this set-up is that once Laurie lands herself  behind bars you can easily believe that she is physically and mentally capable of the badassery she unleashes. You've already seen evidence of her skills. 

Laurie's chief rival in the big house is the swine-like Kay Butler (Sandy Martin), a perpetually sweaty sociopath with an appetite for chaos. In one of the films more questionable sections, Kay arranges offsite conjugal visits for herself to be ravaged by a man to alleviate the stress of being the queen of the cell block. Kay is responsible for the death of Laurie's sister, which should be enough to get the audience against her. Thankfully, the film never misses an opportunity to have her do something despicable or gross, making the blood-soaked resolution to the revenge plot that much more satisfying. 

Another interesting aspect of VENDETTA is its willingness to slip away on bizarre tangents. One of the highlights involves a talent show performance in the prison mess hall in which a female Prince impersonator executes a full musical number/striptease that is both arousing and sort of hilarious. There is a level of commitment to her performance coupled with the total leftfield nature of the sequence itself that makes your brain contort into brand new and pleasurable shapes. There is ambition here but it never undermines the commercial need to deliver salacious content every 10 min or so. Like the best of the WIP movies, it sneaks clever moments into the proceedings while keeping its brow uncompromisingly low.

GHOST WARRIOR (VESTRON VIDEO - 1986)

For a long time this was only one of those movies I only had vague recollections of seeing late at night on TBS or TNT as a kid.  I always dropped in on it randomly, just in time to catch the classic samurai fighting cops in urban Los Angeles. Those scenes really haunted me, and I’d periodically describe what I did remember to friends with the hope that it might seem familiar to someone else who might even remember the title. Years later, while digging through the stock room at Gamefellas, I chanced upon a Vestron Video tape which had a surprisingly great oil-painted cover and a description that rang a bell. Sure enough, "Ghost Warrior” (a.k.a. "Swordkill") was the film I’d seen so many years ago as a kid.

Going into this, all really I remembered was the situation, and nothing about how this Samurai from the 1500s winds up in 1980s Los Angeles, so this was a fresh experience for me. All I really knew was that if this movie didn’t somehow have a sushi bar scene I was going to be pissed. I was not disappointed.

The movie begins with a prologue which takes place in feudal Japan, where we are introduced to noble samurai Yoshimitsu in the midst of rescuing his lover from some heavies on horseback. Yoshimitsu winds up dueling for his woman and wins. But these dudes are jerks without honor so he ends up with an arrow in his shoulder, which sends him toppling off a cliff and into the icy waters below.

Flash ahead to the 80s, where a couple of hikers happen open Yoshimitsu perfectly preserved in a block of ice. You’d think this would be a major discovery, but somehow the samurai winds up in the clutches of a private American corporation who intend to thaw him out for television appearances. Not really, but they never really let you in on why they’re so interested in this centuries-old warrior.

The corporation also hires Chris Welles (the lovely Janet Julian), an expert in oriental culture to serve as a sort of mediator. Chris doesn’t speak Japanese well, but that doesn’t matter since Yoshimitsu’s dialect is s dated that it hardly resembles modern Japanese. This is a particularly intelligent twist one would not expect to find in a production of this caliber, but it is much to the film’s credit. Still, even though she doesn’t speak his language, Chris is well versed in samurai custom, allowing her to communicate with the warrior once he’s off ice.

There’s always a point where things go to hell in these kinds of movies, though, and in this case it comes in the form of an orderly whom you can tell really likes to party hard. You need cash flow to party really hard, though, and so he decides to snag Yoshi’s invaluable antique sword. Instead, he winds up getting his ass stabbed. Frightened, Yoshimitsu flees while security is too busy watching W.A.S.P. videos.

From there, we get Yoshimitsu wandering the streets of Los Angeles, where he is oddly low profile alongside all the other weirdo punk rockers and winos. This portion of the film is sadly too short, which is unfortunate because watching him slice through contemporary thugs is easily the film's greatest reward.

The film’s final quarter drags a bit as Chris attempts to harbor the samurai. They never really come out and have them fuck, instead merely imply infatuation between the two characters, which is a wasted opportunity. Worst of all, the film's ending makes makes the entire affair pointless. If anything, I was hoping for more vigilante style squashes featuring the samurai and some Death Wish-style hooligans. Instead, they wrap it up, bummer style.

There’s still some goodness to this Empire Pictures production, though I wouldn’t exactly say it’s in their top tier of ass-kickers. Richard Band actually produced one of his finest scores for this film, and even though it drags a bit, the film’s finale certainly feels of a larger scale than most other Empire productions. Performance-wise, the charismatic Hiroshi Fujioka (Kamen Rider) absolutely commands as Yoshimitsu. Aside from the plot holes, a horrible narrative track from Janet, and a lame payoff, there’s enough good to make this watchable and worth owning.

This was apparently available on DVD in both Germany and in Japan as part of a box set, though both were very limited in terms of their release, and both go for way too much money now. 

VHS HALLOWEEN - DAY TWENTY-NINE: POSSESSION (VESTRON VIDEO - 1989)

Obscure at this point, but once seen it's not easy to forget. A genuinely unsettling and unconventional horror film that everyone needs to experience at some point. SEE IT!

VHS HALLOWEEN - DAY TWENTY-FIVE: THE UNHOLY (VESTRON VIDEO - 1988)

Not a widely revered film, but I remember going to see this several times during the course of its run because I was so impressed by both the ample doses of mood, gore, and eroticism. I was also a huge fan of Ben Cross, who starred in one of the first films I was ever taken to the theater to see, "Chariots of Fire." In fact, the cast is very solid, also featuring Ned Beatty, Hal Holbrook, and Trevor Howard. Not sure why this film has never found more of an audience, but it left a strong impact on me and is one of those movies that made the year 1988 such a strong one for horror.

VHS HALLOWEEN - DAY SIX: SQUIRM (VESTRON VIDEO - 1976)

I honestly believe that back before TBS was wrenched from Ted Turner's bosom that the call letters stood for "The Beastmaster Station." It seemed they ran that movie multiple times every week, and back to back after their WCW show on Saturday. TBS was at one time one of the greatest and most entertaining basic cable networks ever. It was a man's station, glutted with the Stooges, "Gilligan's Island", Chuck Norris movies, and weirdo late night horror excursions. I used to imagine that Turner himself had a lot to do with the programming. I envisioned him sitting in his office late at night, drinking bourbon while watching TV. I could clearly picture him grabbing the red TBS phone on his desk and saying, "I wanna watch one of them 'Boggy Creek' movies. And start it five minutes late. I gotta take a crap." It was easy to imagine that the balls-out insane lineups of bizarre 70s horror, stupid sitcoms, and knuckle bruising macho action flicks were all piled together at the whim of some wasted eccentric millionaire who thought, "Nothing good is on TV! Fuck it, I'm starting a SUPER STATION!" I know that's what I'd do if I were rich. It would be "Duckman" for an hour followed by "Food of the Gods" and then "American Ninja" followed by four hours of the "The Munsters."

TBS introduced me to a lot of weird movies during its late night runs. In fact, I taped a lot of obscure horror and sci-fi off of both channels which wasn't available on ANY format at the time. Of all the movies that they would air on late night weekends, "Squirm" was without a doubt the most memorable. The plot is absolutely bat shit: after a hurricane hits a rural swampy town, downed power lines pump electricity into the muddy soil which drives the underground population of blood worms insane. City Boy Mick is fortunate enough to be visiting this hick town around the same time while visiting his girlfriend's family. While bumbling around town and getting bounced by envious locals, he stumbles across a few bodies, and eventually discovers that these night crawlers are stripping the flesh off the locals after dark.

The concept of killer worms infesting a town is insane, and I've seen the film described as tongue-in-cheek, but I think the only humor to the film is the odd-ball premise. Otherwise, director Jeff Leiberman (also responsible for "Blue Sunshine") conducts this in a pretty straight forward manner. The film is not without humor. It's definitely quirky, but for the most part, it's treated very seriously, and the imagery throughout the film of the worms invading ordinary situations is absolutely evocative. What makes this a great horror film is that it takes something that is completely absurd and makes it plausible through the quality of the surrounding characters and extraneous situations. By all right, the concept of killer night crawlers is bullshit. But the world within which this problem is set feels real enough to make it work. Absolutely recommended. Check out the trailer from the fantastic AussieRoadShow.

SLAPSTICK OF ANOTHER KIND (VESTRON VIDEO - 1982)

This has been described as the absolute worst Vonnegut adaptation ever. Somehow in my head that statement translates as "fucking amazing." Starring Jerry Lewis, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman, everything about this just looks monstrously bad, but even in the most horrible wreckage can be found a sort of beauty. This could be a best of the worst contender.