What cult movies have you been watching lately?, Here are a few of my recent viewings

Nope, 5-D. It is a new technology that Hollywood is developing that allows filmmakers to actually tickle your funny bone.

THE MISSING JUROR (1944)—Directed by Budd Boetticher. Stars Jim Bannon, Janis Carter, George Macready, Jean Stevens, Joseph Crehan. Members of the jury that convicted Harry Wharton (Macready) of murder and sentenced him to hang are dying off in strange accidents. Wisecracking crime reporter Joe Keats (Bannon), who revels in sensationalism, looks into the case for a series of newspaper features, which becomes more than just a professional pursuit when he falls for juror Alice Hill (Carter). Written in a hurry by Charles O’Neal (THE SEVENTH VICTIM) and shot just as quickly, THE MISSING JUROR roars like a locomotive right past a litany of plotholes and an opening reel packed with more exposition than a week of soap operas. Noted western director Boetticher began his career helming B-grade mysteries at Columbia, and masterfully manipulates O’Neal’s wacky plot with smart camerawork and to-hell-with-it bravado concerning the story’s big twist. And where else will you see Mike Mazurki reciting Oscar Wilde?

Turner Classic Movies is showing POOR PRETTY EDDIE at 2am tonight (technically Saturday morning) and they claim their print will be widescreen!

BULLIES (1986)—Directed by Paul Lynch. Stars Jonathan Crombie, Janet Laine Green, Olivia D’Abo, Stephen Hunter, Dehl Berti. The Morris family is looking forward to their new life as proprietors of the general store in the tiny Canadian town of Granton. Until the murderous Cullen family asserts their presence with authority in their usual manner: bullying and maiming anyone they don’t like. It seems inconceivable that an entire town and its law enforcement would allow themselves to be held hostage by these backwoods rednecks, and it isn’t until teenage Matt Morris (Crombie) lays the smack down that anyone in Granton shows any balls. Giving the Cullens money from selling land to a ski resort just isn’t a good reason for a whole town to be afraid of these guys. Usually in these movies, the town boss controls the local jobs or has a private army to keep people in line, but the Cullens are just four idiot farmers. Berti is very good as a wise, pipe-smoking old Indian, and d’Abo (THE WONDER YEARS) adds spice as the crazy-hot Cullen girl who wears wet T-shirts. Not a very violent film, but the climax has some good killing. Bill Croft, Bernie Coulson, Adrien Dorval, and William Nunn are the Cullens. Music by Paul Zaza. Shot in British Columbia. From the director of PROM NIGHT.

It was the 80s, the peak of wealthy redneck peer pressure!

RUNNING HOT (1984) - Sentenced to death for the murder of his abusive father, 17-year-old Danny (Eric Stoltz) escapes from the cops on his way to San Quentin and hides out with Charlene (Monica Carrico), a 30-year-old prostitute who has been sending Danny love letters in jail. The duo head to Arizona so Danny can see his sister one more time, but they don't know that one of the cops Danny escaped from is hellbent on getting his revenge. Wow, this was an incredible surprise. Director Mark (HARDBODIES) Griffiths made his debut with this and it is far removed from his T&A comedy hit. This is a pretty grim and relentlessly sleazy effort that is cinematic kin to flicks like OUT OF BOUNDS. What really makes it work are the two lead performances and some really odd supporting characters who feel like they stepped out of a pulpy novel. The film also packs one hell of an ending. Carrico is the real surprise here, a spunky combination of Elizabeth Daily and Caroline Williams. There is a totally bizarre scene where she starts to get it on with her sugardaddy while wearing a Richard Nixon mask. It is a shame she didn't do any more movies. Also highly recommended for some great desert locations and if you want to ogle some great 80s decor.

Aaaannnnnddd...here it is almost 2010, and it's still not out. Or even shooting.

CRY SWEET REVENGE (1977)—Directed by Geza von Radvany and Al Adamson. Stars O.W. Fischer, Herbert Lom, John Kitzmiller, Olive Moorefield, Marilyn Joi. In 1965, an expensive German production of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel UNCLE TOM’S CABIN played around the world, including the U.S., to enthusiastic response. Leave it to huckster Sam Sherman at Independent-International to land the American rights and turn it into a nasty exploitation movie. Sherman enlisted schlock director Al Adamson to film new scenes of violence, nudity, and depravity, including an opening rape (with Marilyn Joi as the topless victim) and a long sequence about a runaway slave who sleeps with a white woman and is then raped and tarred by three white men.

I-I released the now-R-rated movie with a marketing campaign that compared it to MANDINGO and DRUM. CRY SWEET REVENGE is the title used for the 93-minute version Sherman released in Australia. While it’s difficult to argue with Sherman and Adamson’s decision to sleaze it up, because they did make money with it, you can tell that von Radvany’s original film has moments of class and high drama that don’t mix well with the new scenes. Noted European star Lom is the loathsome Simon Legree, and Kitzmiller—Bond’s sidekick Quarrel in DR. NO—is Uncle Tom. I-I re-released it as WHITE TRASH WOMAN, which must have blown the minds of anyone who paid to see it.

HIDE AND CREEP (2004) - Micro cheapie zombie flick that looks like it was made for sixty bucks and two fervid prayers is in fact reasonably entertaining, as long as you understand it's a micro-cheapie zombie flick and don't get in a tizzy about the effects or the lighting or whatnot. Zombies invade a backwater Alabama town. Like FEAST, this is a very stripped down, bare bones, genre entry that's proud to be a genre entry, but this is actually much much better than FEAST. It's essentially smarter, better written, wiser about it's postmodern "yeah this is a story" kind of thing, and frankly better acted all around. That's not to say it's great, I'd hardly call it great, I'd just say it ain't too bad all in all, given the circumstances of what it is. Call it a backhanded recommendation, then -- still a recommendation, yo. With a naked redneck -- full frontal! -- and one classic line:

MAJOR SPOILERS

Reverend who's bitten by zombie: "It's the end of the world!"

Stoner who sort of the protagonist"....but it looks like it ain't the end of that whiskey bottle, how about you passin' over a swig?"

BODY CHEMISTRY 4 (1995)—Directed by Jim Wynorski. Stars Shannon Tweed, Larry Poindexter, Andrew Stevens, Chick Vennera, Stella Stevens, Larry Manetti. Boy, this Dr. Claire Archer sure gets around. After getting Marc Singer and Gregory Harrison all hot and bothered in Parts 1 and 2, respectively, she changed her face from Lisa Pescia’s to Shari Shattuck’s for BODY CHEMISTRY III, where she played lover Andrew Stevens for a sucker. Now, she’s Shannon Tweed and still up to no good. Producer Stevens returns long enough to get murdered—possibly by sex psychologist Claire, who hires attorney Simon Mitchell (Poindexter) to defend her. It takes about three seconds for her to convince the happily married Simon to motorboat her on the trunk of his car, which becomes a big problem for him when she goes all Glenn Close on his ass. Acting and scripting are bad, but, boy, Shannon looks really nice with no clothes on. Also with Elaine Giftos, Leslie Ryan, Marta Martin, Fred Holliday, Melissa Brasselle, Wynorski as a judge, and Paul Michael Chan as another judge. Shannon seems to have given up acting, though she appears regularly on boyfriend Gene Simmons’ reality series, but Poindexter is still busy in movies and TV guest shots.

Wow, I'm actually surprised there was some serious character continuity in this series.

THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY (2009) - After the devastating beating he took in the documentary OVERNIGHT, Hubris poster child Troy Duffy returns with a thoroughly unnecessary sequel to his 1999 cult classic. I recall the original BOONDOCK as a "Blockbuster exclusive" when I worked there, and it quickly became a staff favorite. I haven't watched it in some time, and haven't really wanted to--I think the 27-year-old me probably liked it a lot more than the nearly 37-year-old me will. That said, I still think Willem Dafoe was absolutely brilliant in it, and it's definitely the primary missing element in this sequel.

Several years after the events of the first film, the McManus brothers (Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus), hiding in Ireland, return to Boston when a priest is killed in a manner mimicking their disposal of mobsters. It's clearly an attempt by Concezio Yakavetta (Judd Nelson)--the son of the mob boss they executed at the end of the first film--planning his revenge against the Saints. Also returning are the three dumb detectives, Greenly (Bob Marley), Dolly (David Ferry), and Duffy (Brian Mahoney), forced to work with yet another eccentric FBI agent, this time southern-drawling Special Agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz), a protege of Dafoe's Paul Smecker. Also tagging along with the Saints is Romeo (Clifton Collins, Jr.), an aspiring thug whose Hispanic background provides plenty of opportunities for slurs. Peter Fonda also turns up as a mysterious mob figure known as The Roman, and Billy Connolly returns as the Saints' father.

I didn't think this was nearly as bad as the reviews have indicated. It IS overlong at 119 minutes, and has more endings than THE RETURN OF THE KING (though one provides a completely unexpected and welcome surprise), and some of the gags simply aren't funny, but it gets some mileage out of the cast clearly enjoying themselves. Despite everything we've heard about Duffy, it's obvious these actors like working with him. And there ARE some funny lines ("Who's ready for a whoop-ass fajita?!!"), and David Della Rocco's cameo as Rocco in a dream provides a hilarious rant about men being too sensitive that works despite sounding like it was stolen from Denis Leary's trashcan (which means it was lifted from Bill Hicks' trashcan, but I digress). Flanery and Reedus don't really try anything new (Flanery's work is hampered by an obvious eyelift that can be charitably described as "botched"), Nelson gets some funny--and unprintable--one-liners, the interplay between the three idiot detectives is amusing, and the references and callbacks to the first film are very welcome. The big negatives are an absent Dafoe (watching this, you realize just how much he carried the first film), a sometimes-irritating Benz, who looks great but just doesn't have the chops to pull off Dafoe-esque flamboyance (she smirks as if she's stealing every scene she's in--and she's not), and a constantly-irritating Collins, who's a very talented actor but a repeat victim of Robin Williams Syndrome--one who grows instantly unbearable when he's not reined in by a director (THE RULES OF ATTRACTION comes to mind).

The whole thing seems like a straight-to-DVD exercise, and considering it's from Stage 6, that was probably the intent (indeed, this is the first Stage 6 offering I've seen from somewhere other than my living room recliner). It's nothing one needs to run out and see, but BOONDOCK SAINTS fans will find it worth one viewing, as it neither tarnishes nor enhances the original.

This post has been edited by Mark Tinta on Nov 25 2009, 08:15 PM

MOON was also a Stage 6 production...amazing as that is.

POLYMORPH: SPECIAL EDITION (1996) - Although as I saw this streamed over Netflix I have no idea what makes this any more or less special than POLYMORPH: REGULAR EDITION. Frank And Revealing commentary on the commentary track? Bonus scenes? Outtakes? A cameo by Larry David? What?

Anyway, another microcheapie made for about twenty six dollars and half of a Meat Lovers Pizza. A rough knockoff of THE HIDDEN, with an alien who possesses people and it's all getting mixed up in a crime story, blahblahblah. The kind of movie some folk actually overrate, not so much because it's good -- even the good reviews I've read of it suggest it's really not that good -- but because people like the idea of these kind of movies and want to support them, good/bad/indifferent. But lay this up against HIDE AND CREEP and I'd suggest that the differences in quality become apparent. For instance, for all the straining for effect that the script goes through in POLYMORPH (and man, you can feel the poor thing tying itself up in knots) there ain't a single real memorable line in the thing, whereas HIDE AND CREEP has a couple.

A really good example of the abiding sin of low budget exploitation movies, the Terence Tryhard syndrome. POLYMORPH obviously has some real talent and desperately wants to be better than it's component parts, but it lacks the budget to really shoot anything memorable and you can feel the movie constantly banging it's head up against those constraints. On the other hand, it doesn't want to comfortably sink down in the morass of true exploitation and give me what I want, which is basically nudity and blood and fart jokes, indeed gets rather huffy at the mention of it, like a dowager being propositioned in Times Square. "Well I nevah!"

And so it just tryhards, it just keeps straining at being something it ain't, all the while denying what it is. And that ain't no way to live. As such disappointing, nothing in here that a naked redneck jogging down the road wouldn't have helped. With nobody you know in all the parts -- not too bad, actually, generally competent actors.

This post has been edited by Doug Bassett on Nov 25 2009, 07:40 PM

WRONG TURN AT TAHOE (2009) - If you wallow in enough straight-to-DVD trash, a legitimate gem is bound to pop up one in a while, and WRONG TURN AT TAHOE is a prime example. It does lose momentum with a badly-paced final act, but overall, it's a mean, excessively violent, funny, dark, outrageously profane crime thriller with strong characters, often hilarious dialogue, and three very solid performances.

Joshua (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is a collector for mid-level crime boss Vincent (Miguel Ferrer). Given a tip from a junkie associate that Vincent is being targeted by a thuggish dealer named Frankie Tahoe (the ubiquitous Noel Gugliemi), Vincent and Joshua kill Tahoe, only to discover that he was employed by big-time dealer Nino (Harvey Keitel), who isn't happy that one of his best employees has been whacked. Then things spiral out of control.

Expecting another bad straight-to-DVD Cuba Gooding Jr. vehicle, I was completely surprised by WRONG TURN AT TAHOE. Gooding has rarely been more intense, and he looks lean and the age lines in his face lend some lived-in credibility to his role (even if he's a little too old for the part; his character was raised by Vincent, so either Gooding's too old for his role or Ferrer is too young for his, but they make it work). Gooding may be the top-billed star, but this really is Miguel Ferrer's film, and it's the best role the veteran character actor has had in a long time. He's especially good in his verbal sparring with Keitel, who has limited screen time, but makes the most of it. The film was written by first-time screenwriter Eddie Nickerson, based on a short film he'd made previously, and directed by Alexandre Aja protege Franck Khalfoun, who also made 2007's unexceptional thriller P2.

Paramount has released this for rental only under their "Paramount Famous" banner (?), and it doesn't actually go on sale until January 2010. I don't know about video stores, but Netflix already has it, and it's definitely worthy of a spot in the queue.

Hmmm. I just saw this trailer on Sunday on the DVD of THE GOODS, and it didn't look that impressive, but maybe it deserves a look. That's what this board is all about.