Review: Drive Angry

Synopsis: A vengeful father escapes from hell and chases after the men who killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter.

Review: Nic Cage's career has been one heck of a roller-coaster ride. From highs so high, you'd think he was worthy of a place among Hollywood's leading men legends, to lows so low, that you wonder if his agent is out to sabotage him to never working in film again, his film credits have run the gamut. In the grand scheme of all that, "Drive Angry," while not the lowest point he's ever hit, certainly is on that end of the dividing line.

Cage plays a man named Milton, who's come back from the depths of Hell, to revenge his daughter's murder and grand-daughter's kidnapping at the hands of Jonah King (played by Billy Burke) and his devil cult. All while picking up a sexy sidekick (played by Amber Heard) and dodging a hell-born truant officer (played by William Fichtner).

If that plot sounds completely preposterous, that's only because it is.The film is on the level of a low-budget grindhouse affair, but is lacking in the true grit and feeling of sleaziness that a true one would have. Cage spends the entire film with the same expression on his face, whether he's blowing people away, talking about his love for his daughter, or getting it on with a cheap floozy. Meanwhile, Billy Burke's character is simply evil incarnate, without a single redeeming factor or any complexity of any kind. He doesn't just lack depth of character, but shallowness of character. Amber Heard is simply somevery sexy arm candy for Cage, as the plot shows her to be little more than the perpetual damsel in distress, even when she's trying to kick some ass herself. The only one to bring anything of value to this proceeding, is William Fichtner as the hellspawn retriever known as "the Accountant." His deadpan expressions and flippant remarks make up most of the humor to be found (which isn't much) in this action-paced mess.

Co-Writer/Director Patrick Lussier, who's resume includes such cinematic gems like "Dracula 2000," "The Prophecy 3" and "White Noise 2" opts to leave out such unnecessary trivialities, like a coherent plot, character motivations and explanations, and emotional drama, to give more time to the much more important special effects, action sequences, and 3-D elements. Why create a mood, when you can simply blow things up?

Pretty much everything else is just explosions, car chases, and blood-letting. Some of which is fairly well done and the one sole area the film tries to excel at. We get no real insights into Cage's or Heard's characters. The script has Cage telling us how much he loved his daughter and how Heard was "waiting for something" in her life, but it's never really bought to life in the film. There is absolutely zero emotional investment in any of these characters. Even in the most shoot-'em-up action-fest around, you need to make folks care about what happens to the hero. Such is never the case here, because to do that would take time away from blasting people with shotguns and watching cars race down the highway. Despite it's R-rating, the film actually feels like it's aimed to appeal to boys between 12-16 years-old, which is only fitting as the film is on the same maturity level.

In the end, "Drive Angry" is an empty barrel, as the amount of noise made during the viewing should no doubt tell you. It hits one-note throughout its 104 minute run time and never even tries to go beyond it. I could almost believe they wanted to make a grindhouse film, except the budget for the action and special effects goes against that, as well as going after a star of Nic Cage's level (although, with films like this to his credits, that might start to change). It's too "shiny" to be a grindhouse film, but too poorly conceived to be a true Hollywood action blockbuster. I suppose if you had a couple hours to kill and were looking for a totally mindless experience, you could do worse than this film. But for the action junkies out there, you have many other offerings that will fill your need for carnage, and are better made films, than this one is. It's really only one to see, when you've seen most everything else this film genre has to offer.

Rating: 1 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Review: Prostitutes Protective Society

Synopsis: When Madame Sue and her girls become the targets of some small-time gangsters, by failing to give them a cut of their prostitution profits, the women band together and show that the boys aren't the only ones who can get bloody violent.

Review: The tales of the harsh life of the hooker, are almost as old and well-worn as the actual profession itself. The 1960's were a hotbed of such films. "Prostitutes Protective Society, " while just one of many such offerings, has an interesting flavor, even though it is far from the best this sub-genre has to offer.

The story here revolves around Madame Sue and her bevy of brothel beauties, as they run afoul of some low-rent gangsters who are trying to muscle in on their profits. When the girls fail to capitulate and hookers start turning up dead, Sue and her clan arm up and bring the fight straight to the guys!

These no-budget crime sexploitation films are a dime a dozen. But what helped this one to stand out from some others I've seen, is the sheer amount of brutality in it. While certainly tame, even laughable, by today's standards, back in the mid-60's this was no doubt very shocking. Watching the hookers as they are killed one by one was very sadistic. One of the worst examples was the first killing, where the girl and her john are machine gunned down right in the bed. Not to be outdone, though, the girls get their revenge in the end, as the gangster boss ends up getting "Bobbited." Such visceral assaults help to break up the dullness and monotony of the rest of the film.

Barry Mahon, who wears many hats in this outing (listed as director, producer and cinematographer) is no stranger to this brand of film. He really gives you a good feeling of the seedier side of this lifestyle and vocation. Some excellent scenic shots of 60's NYC really helps to give you a good visual display of the world in which people such as this dwell. Some of which, I'm sure is to accommodate the complete lack of a budget.

Of course, the violence and atmosphere aside, this is far from a good film. While the scenic shots are great, there is just way too many scenes of watching the girls and gangsters just walking around town. It drags the scenes between the violence to a slow crawl. This wouldn't be an issue, if the actual story had some truly interesting aspects to it. But there are the many segments where the budgetary constraints take you out of the moment. One scene that exemplifies this, is when Madame Sue and a couple of her girls "go to the country," as they plan how to take out this gangster boss, which consists (I kid you not) of them laying nude on their bellies in a pile of sand on the floor. The acting skills of the cast is pretty much non-existent, as well, which is only belabored by the fact that many of the girls walk around topless in many scenes, where nothing sexual is even inferred (much less shown), including multiple shower scenes. The girls have no problem peeling for the camera, even though the sexual content reasoning for them to do so is very minimal. So, flesh fiends will certainly get more than their share here. It's just an obvious shortcut to generate interest, in a plot and script that has little of such to offer. The dialouge is laughable and the delivery of it even moreso. Cue card reading at it's finest, I'm sure.

In the end, "Prostitutes Protective Society" isn't a film that will appeal to many. Genre fans will probably be able to derive some entertainment value out of this, thanks to it's seedy vibe and violent panache. Those who are not already cineophiles of this stuff, though, would do well to stay away from this outing. Only die-hard grindhouse sexploitation fans need apply here.

Rating: 1 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Review: The Toy Box

Synopsis: Ralph persuades his girlfriend, Donna, to participate in a bizarre swingers party, where the guests are to perform erotic plays in the presence of a corpse - Ralph's millionaire uncle. The players are promised gifts from the "toy box." But it's not long before they discover the players are being murdered and that the uncle isn't all he seems to be!

Review: Without a doubt, this is probably the strangest and most bizarre sexploitation film I've ever seen. And given the amount of them that I've watched, that's truly saying something.

The plot revolves around a swingers party, where the guests act out sexually perverse scenarios for a man called "Uncle" to obtain gifts from a mysterious "toy box." But when a couple of the guests suspect all is not as it seems, including the identity of "Uncle," we go from a very commonplace sexploitation piece and veer off into an insanely wild and absurd story involving aliens and humans sold as drugs.

This film isn't so much shocking, as it is it off-the-wall kooky. For the first 45 minutes, I had little idea what I was watching. It isn't until the end of the second act that the pieces of this oddball story start to fall into place. The film does live up to it's perverse billing, though, as you see plenty of weird sexual antics, not the least of which is faux necrophilia, faux cannibalism, and the first (and only, I believe) display of a woman molested by a bed. Yes, you heard right, she is sexually pleasured by an actual bed. The murders, such as they happen, are mostly off-screen implied than shown. And when you get the big revelation of who "Uncle" really is, as well as what this party is really all about, well, it'll make about as much sense as anything else you've seen up to that point.

The cast is a virtual who's who of 60's and 70's exploitation films, with the curvaceous sex bombs, Marsha Jordan and Uschi Digard, among the most notable of them. All the actors don't really do much acting, as the film is much more centered on the sexual displays, as most films of this kind are. They are well shot scenes and a few are even quite erotic. As is typical of such fare, the guys are the average, hairy males you would find walking the streets in the 70's, while the women as all have bodaciously banging bods and curves. No one ever said that sexploitation films were bastions of gender equality.

Writer/director Ronald Victor Garica was obviously out to make this a very different kind of exploitation film. In that he certainly succeeded, as there is no other film I've seen that is anything like this. Of course, being unique doesn't make this an excellent effort. During most of the first act, much of the voice dubbing is off, which can be distracting. To cover for this, Garcia falls back on Doris Wishman's classic trick, of have the actor that's supposed to be speaking facing away from the camera, thereby circumventing the need for proper dubbing. The music sounds exactly like what you'd hear on old episodes of the classic "Star Trek" series and some of the special effects are, well, just not that special. Garcia's attempt to blend horror, sci-fi, and sexploitation into a cohesive form doesn't really play out, but it does make for some strange and intriguing scenes, which will probably hold your attention, until you get to the revelations behind what you've seen.

"The Toy Box" is unlike anything you could ever hope to see, then or today. While I can't quite call it "good," the quirky and outlandish nature of the film does have a very strange entertainment value to it. Within the world of sexploitation films (and, more broadly, of film in general), this one defies easy categorization and stands alone in its erratic and eccentric tone. Fans of the genre should check it out at least once, just for the experience of the sheer spectacle of it all. But don't expect it to make any kind of lasting impact on you, except to, perhaps, have you never look at your bed the same way again.

Rating: 2 Stars (out of 4)

Review: The Acid Eaters

Synopsis: A group of office workers go every Friday afternoon to the White Pyramid, a 50-foot tower of LSD run by the Devil. Groovy!

Review: Films that focus on the psychedelic side of the 60's are always something that will leave most people scratching their heads at some point, with linear thought not a major concern of the film-makers. But this sexploitation attempt at doing so will more likely leave you bored out of your skull!

The basic plot, if you can call it such, is about a group of 9-to-5 workers, who spend their weekends getting high on LSD and having body-painting sex orgies at the lake. That is, when they don't go looking for a giant white pyramid of LSD and end up trapped inside by "the devil." No, really. That's the story here.

Director Byron Mabe is no stranger to the sexploitation genre. His work on films like "A Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine" and "The Head Mistress," while certainly not award-winning material, at least had some of the sleazy and entertaining charms one expects of this brand of film. With this one he over-reaches his bounds, as the attempts to marry the drug culture to soft-core porn is a mix that just does work here.

None of the characters ever really get developed. You don't really learn enough about anyone to care or understand what's going on with them. In fact, only the script seems to outdo them in the underdevelopment department. If there was some kind of coherent plot here, I surely missed it. Nothing in this film gels together. One scene we're watching them get high and frolic at the beach, then someone is killed, and then we go to the white pyramid. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it. The camera work isn't all that great, as we get "treated" to an over use of looped segments of the gang riding on motorcycles and scenes that just drag on way too long, or pathetic attempts at being psychedelic, with some swirling colors and the like. Really, it's like they just took every tired cliché of these kinds of films, slapped in some boobies jiggling around, and called it good. At just around an hour long, it easily feels four time that in length as you are watching it. Even the ample curves of the delicious Pat Barrington can do nothing to make this piece of garbage watchable. The fact half the cast of this film never did any others after it, I think pretty much says all that needs to be said about the quality and worthwhile value of this bomb. Heck, I don't even think getting stoned could help you to enjoy this pointless and pandering mess.

It is possible to make an interesting as entertaining psychedelic film. "The Acid Eaters," however, will never be one of them. It is a blatant and obvious cash-in on the drug culture of the times, that does nothing to advance any insights into it and only insults the intelligence of the audience that watches it. I really can't say enough about how horrible this movie is. It really gives stoners a bad name... even worse than the one they already have. Avoid this turkey at all costs, as I'm pretty sure it'll do more to damage your brain cells than actual LSD will.

Rating: 0 Stars (out of 4)

Review: Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI

Synopsis: When Tommy Jarvis goes to make sure Jason Voorhees is dead for good, he unintentionally brings him back to life. Now, the unstoppable killer is off on another killing spree! Will Tommy stop Jason, or will it be vice versa?

Review: As one of the longest running horror franchise in movie history, there really isn't much left up the sleeve of the "Friday the 13th" series to scare us with by the sixth installment. So, they decided to focus less on horror and a little more of fun. The results are not too bad, as far as sequels go.

Determined to make sure Jason is dead once and for all, Tommy Jarvis (played by Thom Mathews) digs up his body with the intent to cremate him. Instead, he accidentally reanimates Jason and the killing spree begins again. Can Tommy stop the now-undead murder machine, or will the local Sheriff (played by David Kegan) and a town that wants to move on from the horrors of Jason Voorhees end up getting him, along with all of them, killed in the process?

Right off the bat, if you are expecting straight-on horror from this outing, you are sure to be disappointed. Writer/Director Tom McLoughlin opts to take things a bit less serious than past chapters of this saga have been, adding in an element of humor to the mix and toning down on the graphic gore (although, personally, I think we could have used a little bit more of the latter). It's a formula he would use in many of the horror works he'd do after this, for both the big screen and the small one. While in less capable hands such things usually become a train wreck, McLoughlin never lets the humor stray too far into goofy slapstick and utter parody. There are a few of the in-jokes and camera mugging moments that are groan worthy, but overall the humor never totally overpowers the more horrific aspects of the film, as has happened in other attempts like this.

The cast, which is mostly a "who's who" of television roles, does an overall solid job with the material they are given, with Thom Mathews and David Kegan the real standouts. Mathews does a great job of making you feel for Tommy's plight, while Kegan's sheriff is a great foil to Tommy. Jennifer Cooke (who fans of the 80's television series "V" will remember) is sexy, but never in a trampy way. In fact, there wasn't really anything in the way of nudity in this film, unlike so many others of its kind, but I never even missed it, as I was just having a lot of fun watching things unfold.

In a lot of ways "Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI" was one of the earliest films that help to bridge the gulf between horror and humor, that many others would follow for the next couple of decades. And while those efforts are certainly a mixed bag, I think they made it work well enough here to make an enjoyable little popcorn horror-comedy, provided you don't think about the actual plot too much. Die-hards of straight-laced horror and gore, as well as this saga's previous chapters, will probably not find this film to their tastes. But for horror buffs who can take their scares a little less seriously, this film is a great way to kill an hour and a half and have some fun doing it. It's a fairly enjoyable sequel to this franchise and certainly a decent horror-comedy in its own right.

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Review: Deadly Weapons

Synopsis: After the mob hits a guy with a list, one of the hoods keeps the list for himself to blackmail the people on it. When the mobsters find out he's a double-crosser, they off him, which angers his busty girlfriend. She then goes after them using the only two weapons she has.

Review: Crime drama and sexploitation go together like peanut butter and jelly, and Doris Wishman is certainly one director who made a career off blending the perverse with the criminal. So, you'd think with a gimmick like Chesty Morgan at her disposal, you'd have an easy winning sleaze-fest. Sadly, you'd be very much mistaken.

In "Deadly Weapons," Chesty plays a woman named Crystal, who's boyfriend is a member of the mob. But when he double-crosses his boss, he ends up dead. So, Crystal sets out to revenge her lover with the two best weapons she has: her enormous breasts! That's as far as any story development goes.

To say the plot here is tissue thin, is really an insult to tissues. Little in this freak show makes any sense. We never learn what the information is that the crime boss is so eager to recover. And when Chesty's character goes for her revenge, there is absolutely no planning of any kind. She just packs up and miraculously finds her targets. The attempt for a twist ending, unlike Chesty herself, falls completely flat. Throw in some of Wishman's typical directorial excesses throughout the film, like lingering camera shots of the floor or ashtrays and plants, as well as a group of actors who don't know how to deliver lines, even they are sent by Western Union, and you have a train wreak larger than Chesty's own boobs.

And speaking of which, let me say, as an American male of the heterosexual persuasion, I love me some boobies. But Chesty's aren't sexy at all. Not just because their massive size is so unseemly, but she really doesn't even know how to use them effectively. There's a striptease scene she does about halfway in the film and it has to be the most unerotic thing I've ever seen. She just looks like she walking through the whole movie bored out of her mind. Even a scene where she bathes is completely unenticing.

Is there anything worth seeing here? Well, there is some nice scenic shots of the old 70's Las Vegas and Miami. And the opening montage during the credits is as close as Chesty comes to doing anything of value with her ample mammaries. That's about it, however.

No one ever goes into a sexploitation film like this expecting great cinematic brilliance, but you do expect some level of entertainment value, either by arousal or unintentional humor and a fun plot. This film has neither of those qualities, which given Chesty's figure you might think wouldn't be possible. There was certainly enough potential with the material and assets here to make something that could have been some dirty fun, but there was simply no follow through by anyone involved with this production. What you end up with is an uninteresting and unerotic film, which is pretty much a kiss of death in this genre. Unless you are a total Doris Wishman die-hard, this one should be an easy skip for you.

Rating: 1/2 Star (out of 4)

Review: Sweet Georgia

Synopsis: Georgia is the sex-crazed nympho wife of rancher Big T. Unfortunately, because Big T is an ugly, abusive drunk, Georgia looks for her lovin' elsewhere - from the stud ranchhand, to Virginia, her virgin step-daughter. But when Georgia makes it with dumb ol' Leroy, everything gets violent.

Review: Southern hick sexploitation films from the 60's and 70's are not exactly a rare commodity, but this one is a little something special because you have two of the genre "royalty" working together: Harry "The King of Sexploitation" Novak and Marsha "The Queen of Soft Core" Jordan.

In "Sweet Georgia," Marsha Jordan plays the title role. Georgia is an insatiable nmypho, who has no problem getting it on with anyone, from the ranch hands to her own virgin step-daughter. Seems everyone gets a piece of her sweet loving, except her drunk, fat and abusive husband. But when a sexual encounter in the stables leads to a horrible accident, things take a dark turn for everyone.

As with most films of this type, the production values are pretty low and the acting abilities of everyone, save the sensuous Marsha Jordan, almost non-existent. It's pretty much left up to Marsha and her voluptuous curves to carry the film, which she actually does fairly well. The story is pretty thin, as it revolves around this group of people stay with the drunken head of the household, only until he strikes some gold from his mine. Of course, he never does and this part of the plot is quickly forgotten when everyone starts having their trysts with Georgia. There is some nice full frontal nudity of Marsha, too, which is always a treat for the viewer. The sex scenes are not over too quickly, nor do they feel as though they are dragging on, either. Marsha's girl-on-girl scene with Barbara Mills is particularly erotic. The dialog is corny and unintentionally humorous (with lines like: "Shut up and lay me!") and except for Marsha, all the other actors sound like they are reading their lines off cue-cards. Fortunately, Ms. Jordan's banging bod and steamy screen presence is enough to hold things together and keep it interesting enough until the final act.

The last third of the film does take a rather morbid and dark turn that you don't see coming, which really helps it to stand out from other such sexploitation efforts of the times and will help make it a bit more memorable than most. It's also one of the last films Marsha Jordan did, before leaving the business.

"Sweet Georgia" is slightly better than the typical entry of this genre and shows why Harry Novak really knew how to take such inane concepts as this and make them entertaining, if not always interesting. Genre fan are sure to get some fun mileage out of this effort. If you are a fan of the buxom Marsha Jordan, this one is definitely a keeper for your collection. All in all, it's pretty decent fare for this brand of film and certainly worth a viewing or two.

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)