Independence Die!: Killing American Style (1988)

Nothing quite says 'American Independence Day' like 'A Film by an Iranian Director!'  

Today's Film is Killing American Style, the 1988 opus of Amir Shervan.  

If you don't know the name, you do know his last Film- Samurai Cop.  

What may surprise many people is that it was not the only Film he ever made.  Despite how shoddily the thing was put together, that was actually a Film that followed many others!  

It is like how Plan 9 From Outer Space is somehow much, much worse than Bride of the Monster.  

In this case, I'm talking about a Film he made a few years earlier.  It doesn't quite have the inherent hilarity of Cop- since nobody changes to a wig halfway through the Film-, but it does have quite a bit of it.  

The Plot involves some escaped criminals- led by Robert Z'Dar- who take a family hostage while they are hiding out.  Naturally, the Father is a Kickboxer (and former Andy Sidaris Actor)!  The Plot gets complicated as Cops get involved, they get distracted by a Whore House briefly and it all ends in a big shoot-out.  

If you have seen Samurai Cop, you will recognize many Actors and, well, all of the Action Music.  For fans of that Film, this one is extra fun.  

If you don't know it, well, here's a slightly better Version of the Movie (quality-wise, that is)...

A bunch of Criminals (led by Z'Dar) rob some place...but then get caught.  

His Brother breaks him out (dressing like a lady) though.

They end up at a Ranch.  

Since this is a Shevran Film, the only people home at the time are 2 Ladies in bikinis.   It doesn't end well.

The Husband and Son eventually come home.  He's a Kickboxer aka 'That Mullet Guy From Picasso Trigger.'

While they try to make the Story feel serious, he dresses like this and has hair like that.

While they send him out to get the money, one of the men rapes his wife.  USA!  USA?

Since the Brother was wounded, they bring in a Doctor and it's...Costa-Rican Waiter!

As a bonus, he has a License Plate that lists him as a Doctor...but under the Actor's real first name.

As tensions rise and escape attempts happen, things get bad.  

See Old Man Cop as a criminal...

...with color-changing hair.

He's the most hilarious Actor in the Film though, so I love him!

To fill out the Third Act, the bad guy below calls in some guys.  

They die.

Enjoy this shot that reveals the squib vest, as well as this hilariously great Stuntman selling death.

It all comes down to a fight between Z'Dar and our Hero...but ultimately ends in him being shot.  Hey look, Jim Brown is here.  Why wasn't he in Samurai Cop?!?

Our Hero gives the stolen money to the Wife of his Gardener.  

Morals?  

The End.

America- the land of opportunity.  In this case, we let an Iranian man make a bunch of schlocky Action Films.  

Between him and Andy Sidaris, the 80s and 90s had their fill!  

All the hilarious beats from Samurai Cop are here, save one- the wig.  As a reminder/explanation, they filmed Samurai Cop and then its Lead cut his hair.  A few months later, they needed Reshoots...and give him a wig.  He wears it for a good 50% of the final product.  

None of that happens, although our Lead's frizzy hair is funny enough on its own.  Clearly Shervan had a type!  

Aside from that hilarity, we get awkward Dialog, generally-hammy Acting, silly Action and the same Music for *every* Action Scene.  I'll be hearing that Music Sting in my sleep for weeks!  This one kind of works better as a Bad Movie in certain regards.  It tries to be super-dramatic...but doesn't have great Actors and does have dated fashion.  It tries to be deep and impactful...but always resorts to Action Film Clichés.  

By trying to seem like it is much more than it is, the Film is almost more hilarious.  If they had just added a random Lion Head in 2 Scenes, it would be an even match.  

At least they still have the piss poor mix of real color and Color Correction...

Next time, fun time from Japan.  They continue to be insane, so why not?  Stay tuned...

Grapple Crap: Death From Above (2012)

You suck!  You suck!  Today's film is Death From Above, another film starring Philadelphia's own Kurt Angle.  As mentioned in previous review of his movie, Kurt left the WWE several years back for a lighter- and less well-paying- schedule and the chance to do new things.  Such new things have included Starring in End Game, River of Darkness and today's film, as well as minor roles in such films as Warrior and Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.  I hope you're still happy with this deal, Kurt.  So what's so special about this film?  Well, it was made fairly-recently, which means that it features many of his TNA iMPACT Wrestling comrades, as well as a few Genre Actors whose house payments must have come due.  I kid, I kid.  The story involves Druids in Pennsylvania that...wait, you're going to get stuck on that, aren't you?  I can't blame you.  There is NO logical explanation for this shit- it just happens.  Angle is the villain again- he turns Face/Heel more often than a Vince Russo character!- and the hero is...James Storm.  Yeah, a fellow TNA Wrestler is the Lead, although the DVD Box, Disc Art and Credits say otherwise.  Can he be stopped?  Can the film's 15 sub-plots get resolved?  To find out, read on...

The intro- in Sepia Tone for no reason- features some Druids that are hiding a quartet of necklaces (that look like Sand Dollars) from some force.  A P.O.V. creature attacks the lone straggler, thus setting up the title.

I say that since NOTHING ELSE in the film has anything to do with 'Death From Above.'

The story proper begins with Kurt Angle driving his truck- with his two 'friends' on-board down a steep hill.  They crash and Kurt stumbles across one of the necklaces, which he naturally puts on.  When his friends come over, he brandishes a pair of 'expensive for a Flea Market' knives and kills them.

Oh and he has red eyes now.  EVIL!

James Storm- the guy in the sort-of white- is a down-home boy who just wants to live his life.  He's bothered by his friend (former TNA Wrestler Matt Morgan) and the Sheriff (Tom Savini), who randomly picks on him twice, but quickly gives up.  Huh?

Oh and Morgan disappears after his next Scene, never to be seen again.  It's kind of like what happened to him in TNA, actually.

TNA Wrestler ODB (not to be confused with the dead Rapper) randomly appears as a Truck Stop Owner who meets a future victim and yells at a guy for 'whacking it' in her Store.  She likes to grab her boobs and yell 'Bam,' since that is her catchphrase.

No, this doesn't add anything to the movie.  I'm glad you asked.

Kurt's goal is to get all 4 Necklaces and unleash '1,000 Years of darkness upon the Earth.'  They state that this was the cause of the Black Plague and the Dark Ages.

Despite the necklaces apparently being a guard against evil magic (which Kurt mostly is by now), he easily kills the next holder of the necklace: Robert (that doesn't look healthy!) Z'Dar.  Life...has not been kind to you.  Sorry.

Storm has weird dreams about what is happening- an excuse to re-show scenes from earlier- and seeks a Psychic at his Uncle's advice.  The lady- who possesses a vague European accent- gets freaked out by what she sees and leaves.

Why is she here?  Well, she's Kurt Angle's wife (well, the one he has now!) and the mother of his latest child.  Is that still Nepotism?

The Police- who mostly just show up after the deaths have occurred- investigate a 'tablet' left at the original scene.  These two Duck Dynasty Doctoral Candidates say that it's Celtic Runes.  This is just an excuse to tell us what we already knew.

Well, that and to piss people off who can tell that the Runes are actually Nordic.  You expected historical accuracy from this film?

Since the film is so new- especially since it took a year or two to come to DVD-, I won't SPOIL the Ending completely.  It does come down to Angle vs. Storm though.

Will Storm stop him?  Will Angle win the day?  Will this mysterious Drifter (Psycho Sid Vicious) be the real hero?  To find out, watch the movie.

Holy shit- this is bad!  The movie is weird, random and just kind of meandering.  It's not so much a Plot as it is a series of events.  Some of said events are important, while others are not.  Kurt Angle kills people.  James Storm acts like a redneck.  At one point, Morgan and Storm dump two ladies in the mud, who immediately start to wrestle for no reason.  Do they think that women just do that?  The film is chock full of Wrestlers trying to be Actors, which certainly does not help the film's quality.  Besides those mentioned, the movie also features Rhyno (also a former TNA Wrestler) and at least one other as his buddy.  On top of that, the better Actors- like Savini and Z'dar- have either tiny parts, confusing parts or just don't feel all that important.  Savini's Sheriff is just confusing and is written out in a pretty lazy way, while Z'Dar's Concert Promoter (not named in the Credits) could have been played by anyone.  The whole thing is a real disappointment if you go in looking for a good Horror film.  If you're looking for silly, low-budget trash, it's a gold mine.  Bad Acting, a ridiculous plot and a shoe-string budget- priceless.  It's all cheap and trashy, kind of like this...

Up next, a pair of films about a Curse (or two).  Can an Internet Celebrity make this film one worth watching?  Stay tuned...

Copland: Maniac Cop 3

Let's get this out of the way: I have a good reason for not doing Maniac Cop 2.  Well, I'll tell you.  You see, that film has Bruce Campbell as one of the leads- carrying over his role from the first film- but kills him off about thirty minutes in.  Why?  There is no good reason.  Why would I give this film a chance then?  Because it has voodoo!  It also stars sub-par actor turned arch-conservative Robert Davi and Robert Z'Dar...not like he had anything better to do.  If your career includes Soultaker, Samurai Cop and three Maniac Cop films, you have no better options!  Another carryover is Larry Cohen, who again wrote the screenplay.  What can I say- he's a quirky guy!  Series director William Lustig is also on board to finish out the series...until he just walked off the set one day.  Considering his last real film work was directing Uncle Sam in 1997, I'm going to go ahead and say that he made a bad call.  Speaking of bad calls, shine up your billy club for my review of...

The film begins with the titular character walking down the street and revealing the knife that is hidden in his billy club.  As my friend- and unofficial co-reviewer for the film- said at the time 'it's not exactly a hidden weapon if you have it out all the time!'  He kills a random guy and gets off his head, leading to the introduction of Davi's character.  He takes the whole 'headless corpse' thing pretty well, although one rookie does vomit at the site.  Back at the precinct, he bonds with a lady cop over at the shooting gallery.  This is Robert Davi, of course, so this scene is bereft of passion and chemistry.  We are treated to the site of a weird voodoo man showing how he brought back the undead cop to life.  Thanks, but I don't really care.  A bit later, a crazy man robs a convenience store and it's...Jackie Earl Haley!  Holy crap, this movie just got good!  Haley plays a crazed, bearded man who is robbing the store to get the drugs.  A crazy, unbalanced guy- man, Haley has range!  One highlight involves a man flying upwards into the air after Haley fires a shotgun blast at the ground.  Good-bye, physics.  

 The lady cop from before shows up and comes up with the brilliant plan of climbing onto the roof, dropping through a glass skylight and...failing to do anything before the bad guy sees her.  Yeah, she gets shot, but not before wounding Haley and killing the attendant, who was apparently in on the thing.  Our hero is struck by this personal blow to...this woman he talked to in that one scene and hit on.  He gets over it pretty quickly, though and starts hitting on the lady doctor at the hospital where the woman is staying.  For some reason, the villainous cop has taken a shine to her after hearing about how she was gunned down in the line of duty and wants himself a lady.  We're taking plot points from Frankenstein Created Woman now, huh?  By the way, random cameo from Ted Raimi as a news reporter covering the story.  He shows his devotion to her by killing a random car jacker in sensational fashion.  He tosses the guy into the air and shoots him like skeet.  That's... sure something.  He also kills some random people in the hospital, including the jerk doctor who gives up on helping the lady doctor.  He kills him by over-using the defibrillator pads on him- ha ha ha irony.

Our hero does not take the news about them giving up on helping the lady cop.  That does not stop him from starting a romance with the doctor still, nor does it really cause him to raise his voice all that much.  Incidentally, the robber is kept in the same hospital.  Yeah, that's a bad idea.  Speaking of bad ideas, Robert Forster shows up for one scene as the replacement doctor, but is killed mere minutes later by the undead cop via exposure to an x-ray machine...for about five minutes.  The cop also sets Haley free and arms him, setting up a pointless action scene.  Sadly, the man is killed while hiding in a toilet stall.  Great- now I'm just stuck with Davi.  Anyhow, our hero and the lady follow the cop after he steals the lady cop's body & heads into the tunnels under the hospital.  Apparently, they connect all the way to an abandoned church now occupied by the voodoo man.  The ritual to resurrect the woman ends in defeat, so the priest gets a stomach full of lead.  This leads to a big, fiery climax involving the titular cop being lit on fire!  As our heroes drive away, however, he shows up again & chases them...while still on fire!  He does the entire chase scene while on fire, in fact!  It ends after he gets his flaming arm cut off and he crashes into a parked van.  The End.

This movie is...well, not that good.  The story is stupid, the acting is not that great and even the maniac cop is barely shown in full-screen.  Clearly, the budget was lower here as he is often shown in silhouette or in shadows.  How can you make a film about a mutilated Robert Z'Dar and not show me the goods?!?  Even so, this film has a pulpy air to it that makes it hard to stay mad at.  It's like that weird-looking puppy that breaks everything- part of you just has to love it!  Haley is great fun in the role and Z'Dar does what little the script asks of him just fine.  It's fitting that we get a Ted Raimi cameo, since the first film has Sam Raimi in those duties.  In fact, that actually is a good symbol of this movie.  We start out with Sam and Bruce Campbell, lose both of them and end up with just Ted.  Sorry, buddy- you're still the best victim in Midnight Meat Train.

Up next, I close out another Cop series with the third film in the Cyborg Cop series.  More robots!  More kung-fu action!  More fanny pack action!  Stay tuned...

Cop Land: Samurai Cop

Another bad movie about an action star playing a law enforcement officer- hurray!  This one comes to us from 1989, although it was not exactly a big movie.  According to stories, this movie was found in a vault over in some Italian guy's villa.  Is that true?  Who knows?  The thing is this: all of this is more interesting than the movie.  Don't fear though.  There is a saving grace: Joe Bob Briggs.  The man is a great movie reviewer and newspaper writer, although it is hard to find the latter today.  However, he did find time to put his voice on a few Movies in the form of some Commentary Tracks.  If you ever thought 'there is no way that I can make it through Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter,' try it with Briggs' commentary.  This is the case today, so let's see if I can manage in my review of...

I know that you're going to kill me for this, but I have to resort to the format of Challenge of the Tiger one last time.  I defy you to write a review of this like a real movie!  I won't do it tomorrow- I swear.

In a nutshell,...um, I got nothing.  I know that we get a hero that seems to be the guy from Rock & Roll Nightmare, the catcher's mitt-face guy from Soultaker and a token black guy.  Incidentally, the lead actor has one credit: this movie.  Fun fact: if you put our hero's hair on the villain's face, you would have the man behind The Room!  This has something to do with a Japanese businessman doing something illegal.  If you really want to know, watch the damn thing.  In the meantime...

+ Our hero has a long, crappy fight in a parking lot.  He finds time to rip-off the original Indiana Jones film, give us a silly effects shot and to stand still as Z'dar shoots his men with a paintball gun...I mean, a real gun.

+ Our heroes have a car chase/shoot-out which involves the titular cop shouting 'shoot!  shoot!' every three seconds.  Good times.

+ In a random scene, the titular cop hits on a woman who works in an office.  This actually prompts Briggs to ask 'what is the point of this scene?'  Don't look at me, man!

+ In a laughable scene, a woman is tortured for information with...bacon grease.  Really, guys?

+ Our hero fights the legendary action star Gerald Okamura...with sped-up kung-fu.  This video sums up how stupid this is.

+ The final fight borders on parody and features Z'dar having a sped-up sword fight with the Samurai Cop.  Even Briggs is not clear whether or not this is a parody.

+ The movie ends happily, although ruins this with a final shot of our steroid-ridden hero in a speedo.  Yeah, that was necessary!

This was actually THE OTHER TIME he was in a Speedo.

I won't lie: this movie hurts.  It is so awfully-bad, ridiculously-stupid and amazingly-terrible that I wish it had stayed in the vault that it may or may not have come out of.  There is some fun to be had here, but only if you can really suffer through the terrible nature of it all.  If you are a sadist or feel the need to see every bad action movie (guilty), it is worth a watch, but solely with Briggs' commentary (UPDATE: Now with Rifftrax too!).  

Up next, David Bradley stars in a bad action movie.  This time: it involves robots, so it has to be better than American Ninja 5...right?  Stay tuned...