Intimate Stranger (1991)

This was one I watched on cable when it first came out, because my friend's parents had a descrambler box, so we could watch anything on Showtime, HBO, or even the pay-per-view channel. I'd always wanted to review it for the site, but when it first appeared on Tubi, I missed my chance. When it came back recently, I made sure I didn't miss it again.

Intimate Stranger has Debbie Harry (yes, that Debbie Harry, only under the name "Deborah") as an aspiring singer who makes money as a phone sex operator. When a man calls (Tim Thomerson) and claims to be killing a woman while he's on the phone with her, she goes to the police, only to have the detectives laugh at her. Luckily James Russo was listening, and as he's trying to make detective, he sees this situation as his opportunity. So he borrows a bunch of call tracing equipment and had his buddy in the department run some credit checks on the caller's credit card. As they get closer, will they be able to stop someone when they don't even know what he looks like? But can he kill her when he doesn't know what she looks like either? 

Beyond the fact that this was a fun Erotic Thriller, my biggest takeaway was that 12-year-old me shouldn't have been watching this. It's explicitly sexual and really dark. It's possible too that I didn't see the beginning where Thomerson kills a woman he has tied down to a bed, while telling Debbie Harry over the phone that "my inside stuff comes out, and her inside stuff comes out. My inside stuff is white, her inside stuff is red." The thing that did make more sense to me at the time than it did now, was Debbie Harry in the lead. I knew her from Blondie, so why wouldn't she be in a cable Erotic Thriller? But now I'm like, I know her from Blondie, why is she in this cable Erotic Thriller? It's a novelty that makes it stand out, and we even get a couple of original songs from her that are only in this film, like her cover of "Piece of My Heart." In addition to that, Thomerson is fantastic as the killer, always love seeing young James Russo in these early 90s films, Paige French was great as Harry's younger sister, and we have nice one-off scene with Tia Carrere. While this is available on Tubi, you should go check it out.

If my friend and I did start this in the middle, the thing that got us to keep watching was Debbie Harry. At the time though I didn't know that this was a novelty, that she really didn't have any other lead roles like this; but because she was in it, it made it much easier to track down 35 years later, I just had to search her name on IMDb. Watching it now, when I'm roughly the same age Harry was when she made this, I see that she was supposed to be playing a younger character, but the maturity of her personality makes that impossible. Like when she's in the police precinct reporting the murder she heard, and the detectives are laughing at her, it doesn't work, because there's no way to not make Harry come off like she's in complete control of that room. In a way though that makes it all the more interesting, because she's such an immense artistic talent that it's there in every thing she does, every scene, like when she's reading Leather Nun, or sitting in a dimly lit bar drinking Wild Turkey, or sticking her cigarette between her toes while she's lying on her couch taking a phone sex call. I can see why she didn't do more of these, because even though it's stylish and fun to watch, the story is a bit all over the place, and it ended up direct-to-Showtime, so I imagine if you're Debbie Harry the juice of these films isn't worth the squeeze. But at least we have this one.

As a 12-year-old I wouldn't have been dissecting why I was drawn to these movies beyond the sex and the hot women, but looking at it now, I can see how it informed some of my tastes later on as I grew up. In addition to Erotic Thrillers, I was watching other Film Noir at that time, like Humphrey Bogart films on The Movie Loft on TV38, and episodes of Miami Vice, which had a lot of Film Noir elements, so my brain was tuned to enjoy stuff like that. Ten years later, as the DVD market exploded in the early 2000s, Erotic Thrillers became more straight-up soft core porn and less stylized Film Noir with a lot of sex in them, but now I could get all five seasons of Miami Vice on DVD, and I could pick up both the more famous Bogart Film Noir films, and get some of the lesser-known ones in DVD bargain bins. I think as a result, I forgot how great the Noirish elements were in these 90s Erotic Thrillers, but coming back to them like I have, especially now that many more of them are available on streaming, I can see the aesthetic that I more subconsciously appreciated back then. I mean, look at that first screen I posted of Harry sitting at the bar, between the light, the composition, the colors, all of it is fantastic, and it's part of why I love these movies so much.

Another reason is all the names we get in addition to the lead. James Russo is someone we see in a lot of modern DTV playing a mob boss or a crooked cop, but there was an earnestness in a young James Russo that I always love, going back to his part in Beverly Hills Cop. I decided to finally tag him, and see that this is only his 4th film on the site, which feels low, but I think part of that is he also did a couple that we covered on the pod which I haven't reviewed yet. That's one less than Tia Carrere, who now only has five films on the site, which also feels low. She's only in this for one scene, but this is the same year Showdown in Little Tokyo and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man were released, so I think she did okay all things considered. Then we have the great Tim Thomerson, who's making his 17th appearance on the site, and is absolutely scary as the killer in this. There's one scene in particular where he's cutting the crust off a sandwich and eating it while Grace Zabriskie lies dead on the floor next to him, which was chilling. Rounding out the cast, Paige French plays Harry's younger sister. You probably don't remember, but way back in December of 2007 we saw her in Meatballs 4, so it's been almost 19 years; and then we had Mel Johnson Jr., who we all know from Total Recall, playing Harry's neighbor across the hall in her apartment. So while Debbie Harry was the biggest name, we had a lot of other great names in this too.

Finally, look at that double bill on that marquee. First off, I would love to have seen Marked for Death in the theater. As it was, my friends and I rented it as soon as it came out on VHS. It's crazy to think that Seagal's first four or five movies were so big, he was able to live off of that reputation to the tune of another six big screen movies, and roughly 40 DTV films. Here in 1990 when this was shot though, we didn't know we weren't going to get much more great Seagal after this, we thought that ride was going to go on forever. And then with The Krays, I bought that on VHS back in the late 2000s because it has the Kemp brothers from Spandau Ballet in it, but I never got around to watching it, and I have no idea what happened to that copy. The interesting thing is, in 1991, PM Dawn released "Set Adrift Off Memory Bliss," which sampled Spandau Ballet's "True." It was kind of mind-blowing at the time, "True" hadn't been released that long ago, and now it's being sampled in a hip hop song? And the video had Tony Hadley in it, giving it his stamp of approval. 35 years later, it was probably the smart move by Hadley and Spandau Ballet, because "True" has like 300 million more views on YouTube than "Set Adrift Off Memory Bliss."

So, with a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue, I'd say it's time to wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi here in the States. It's definitely worth it. They may not make movies like this anymore, but they made 'em then, and we're lucky we can have them at our fingertips--until Tubi or whatever streaming service decides to take them down, of course.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104519

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Trancers III (1992)

Having done the first two of these, and being a huge Tim Thomerson fan, and seeing that this was free to stream on Tubi, I figured I'd give it a shot. Throw in that 75-minute runtime, and I was all in. This was also reviewed by our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum, so you can head over there to see what he thought.

Trancers III follows Jack Deth (Thomerson) living a mundane life in 1990s LA as a private detective. All that changes when a big android/alien dude comes from the future and press-gangs him into going back with him to fight the trancers. Deth's new mission: go back to 2005 and stop the US government's Trancer program before it gets off the ground. There he meets back up with his ex-wife Helen Hunt, who's harboring a woman (Melanie Smith) who escaped the Trancer program. She could be the key to his stopping it. When he gets caught though all bets are off. He has nothing to fear though, right? Only squids can be tranced...

It's fascinating that Thomerson, Hunt, Megan Ward, and a big android alien looking dude in a 75-minute package could drag, but this did. I mean, 75 minutes of Thomerson scowling and burning heaters in a trench coat should be enough to do it, so what did this do wrong? The biggest culprit was Deth spent a good portion of the second half of the film strapped to a chair getting tranced. Come again? He wasn't stalking the hallways, cigarette in his mouth and gun in hand, taking out Trancers? And what happened to that big alien/android guy? How was this not those two in a buddy cop paradigm? One thing thing I'll give it though: the shorter runtime makes all of these issues much more tolerable. It's a lesson to all filmmakers out there, better to be at 75 minutes than 105.

This is Tim Thomerson's 16th film at the DTVC. That's really high for a non-Hall of Famer, which begs the question: could he ever get in? Perhaps he'd already be in if I hadn't gone on hiatus for 4 years or so. Just the same, when a film has a lead of his quality, he can really make up for its shortcomings; but if he's not used right, he can also exacerbate them, and I think that's what happened here. Tim Thomerson is not a man to be strapped down to a chair and tortured most of a film. That's not what we come to a Thomerson movie for, we want the Thomerson we know a love, this guy in the trench coat mean mugging it and burning heaters, and this unfortunately didn't have enough of that.

Helen Hunt is back for the third and last time. Mad About You started in 1992, the same year this one came out. By 1996 she was in Twister, and by 1997 she had an Oscar. I was trying to think how many Oscar winners we've had on here. De Niro, Pesci, and Pacino, plus Scorsese and Kathryn Bigelow as directors; also Ernest Borgnine, Jack Palance, and Angelina Jolie. Probably the one who's had the most tags is Cuba Gooding Jr. Stallone won one for Best Screenplay, as did Quentin Tarantino, who was in the crew of the Dolph workout film Maximum Potential. It's crazy to think our site has had that many Oscar winners, since we're mostly looking at movies like this, but it's always cool when you can see someone either like Helen Hunt, who is pre-Oscar and big network TV show; or if it's someone like Cuba Gooding Jr. or Ernest Borgnine who had the great career and came to DTV after.

Look at that crazy bastard below there. How could you not center the whole film around him and Thomerson? Was it that the make-up work was so arduous that they needed to lessen his role? The two of them along with Melanie Smith should have been going into the bunker where the Trancer project was, and kicking ass and taking names. Just line up the stuntment from LA, put them in military uniforms, and let the crew take them down. In a 75-minute movie, sometimes that's all you need. But if that make-up was too limiting and they needed to do it the way they did, I get that, I just could have gone for more of him.

Finally, it looks like this is only our 12th Full Moon film on the site. Initially I was only seeing 7, but I went back and tagged some that I had missed before; but just the same, 12 is a small number compared to Cannon's 41, PM's 35, and even The Asylum's 30. For one of the all-time great DTV/low budget film companies, that's way too low. At the very least I can finish off the Trancers to get more up here, but I think this also points to a trend in my reviews: I tend to lean more toward action than anything else, which wasn't my intention when I got into this. My early DTV viewing experience was always equal parts action, sci-fi, horror, and comedy--not mention the 90s DTV erotic thriller. This might be as big an indicator as any that I need to mix it up more on the site, which I hope to do more of going forward.

And with that, it's a good time to wrap this up. I wasn't as big a fan of this as I was the first two, but at 75 minutes, that nice runtime definitely mitigates the issues I had with it. Right now all 6 of them are on Tubi, so at least watch the first two and then see if you want to keep going.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105632

Zone Troopers (1985)

This was the first of three films in April's edition of the Netflix Bad Movie night, hosted in part by two great friends of the DTVC, Mr. Gable of Mr. Gable's Reality and Tromeric at Guts and Grog Reviews. Because Tim Thomerson was born in that month (as was I), they decided to feature three of his movies, which was how we ended up here-- at least, I'm assuming it was because his birthday's in April that he was featured; I could be totally wrong though and it could all just be a coincidence...

Zone Troopers takes place during WWII, where Sgt. Tim Thomerson and his men are stuck behind Kraut lines in Italy. They're split up, and two are captured, while two, among them Thomerson, come across an alien space craft. At the same time, the two captured ones come across the alien, whom the Germans are holding in a dog cage. Thomerson and his soldier, Timothy Van Patten in all his Novocaine-mouthed goodness, rescue both the other two soldiers and the alien, and for their good deed, the alien helps them fight the Nazis.



I've only been around for five or so of the Bad Movie Nights, but I gotta say, this might be the best bad movie night kind of film out of all of them. If you're talking best movie they've picked, hands down, it's Poolboy, no contest; but Poolboy isn't really a bad movie night movie, it's more like something that's too amazing for words and you want as many people as possible to see it so you showcase it in an event like the Netflix Bad Movie Night. Zone Troopers, on the other hand, is the stuff bad movie nights are made of. It's a throwback to the kind of flicks from the 50s that in the early 90s would've ended up as Dr. Forrester's torture fodder for Joel and the 'Bots, and while it's very self-aware and meant to be silly and fun on purpose, it's not like there isn't room for interactive viewing, which makes it very enjoyable. While this is on Netflix, you really should get your crew together and all the snacks and booze/soft drinks you can handle, and make this happen.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that a big reason why this works so well is due to the lead, Tim Thomerson. He just seems to get these kinds of movies, doesn't he? And because he gets it, everything works. If you've seen him in Trancers or Dollman, and see his name on the cover of this and are wondering what to expect, expect that. Expect the kickass Tim Thomerson you're familiar with. There's really only one thing missing from Thomerson's CV, and I think we'll take care of that during Hall of Fame induction ceremonies this October.



Speaking of MST3K, it's Timothy Van Patten. (Sorry if I got "Master Ninja Theme Song" in your head.) Looking at this film from the bad 50s flick that MST3K would've ripped standpoint, Van Patten would definitely have been that annoying guy that they would've been yelling at the screen to stop talking. They may have even devoted a sketch to him. It's funny how many of those movies from the 50s had that guy. Imagine if there had been the Internet and blogging back then. Would there have been guys like me complaining "why do they always have the annoying guy in these movies? Do they think anyone likes that?"

The Nazis in this speak German at a simplified, lowest level of conversation difficulty, yet me, someone who minored in German, could only pick out bits and pieces. This May it will have been 10 years since I graduated from college, and I guess, with very few people to speak German with, it's not inconceivable that I would've forgotten so much. I tried to get back into it by listening to a learn German podcast during my bike rides, but I was losing steam and needed to get back to music to pump me up-- just bought a little Public Enemy, first CDs I've bought in years.



Finally, what do you see here? Star Wars? Solaris? It's definitely not original, right? The music was much worse, almost ripped completely from The Empire Strikes Back. It's funny though, at least with this shot, because you can't call it ripping something off so much as borrowing, or pay homage to. When we think about B-movies, especially from the 80s, I think we forget that these people are usually true film fans like us, and would've seen something like Solaris, and been a huge admirer of Tarkovsky, maybe even more so than any of us are. It's one of the things that's too bad about the current DTV environment, that the role of director is often given to an actor or stuntman or something, as opposed to an actual director. Even B-movies take on a better quality when done right.

And this, for as many things that might be wrong with it, it feels so right. Think of it as a true bad movie night extravaganza, the kind of thing you can center it on, and know everyone will have fun. Great characters, not so great characters, funny special effects, and just a whole lot of schlock-lety goodness that you need to sink your teeth into.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092298/

Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993)

This is another one that I'd been planning to do for some time, and when Emily of Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense came to me for posts featuring miniature baddies for her Vertically Challenged Villains Month, I figured I'd bump this one up and do it now too, like I did with Puppet Master II. I should point out, it's been a long, long time since I've seen Demonic Toys and Bad Channels, two of the three films that this is a sequel of, the third being Dollman, which we did sometime ago. It might mean I missed some things I'd have picked up on if those other two were fresher in my mind.

Dollman vs. Demonic Toys is like a comic book crossover of Full Moon projects, featuring Dollman Brick Bardo (played again by Tim Thomerson), who, after beings stranded on Earth, goes out to California to find Nurse Ginger (Melissa Behr), who herself was shrunk and left shrunk at the end of Bad Channels (actually, in Bad Channels it was Bunny, not Nurse Ginger who was left shrunk, but does it matter?). He makes it to her house and they form a romance, hoping to live happily ever after. Not so fast cowboy. Enter Tracy Scoggins, who has been hunting the Demonic Toys. She hears about Ginger and Brick, and thinks Brick would be perfect to take down the Demonic Toys due to his size. His big gun doesn't hurt either. The Demonic Toys won't know what hit them.



This is exactly as I described it, a comic book crossover in movie form. That's what it felt like, a cool one-off. Even the length, just over an hour, fits that vibe. As someone that grew up with comics and loved it when one-off issues were released with characters from different books put together, to see something like this that captures that vibe is really cool. Tim Thomerson is his usual awesome self reprising his role as Brick Bardo, and the showdown between him and the Demonic Toys is everything I could've asked for. Scoggins and Behr were also great, as was Phil Fondacaro, who had a small part as a security guard (no pun in tended). Add to that Quiet Riot in the film's soundtrack, and you can't lose. Even though a chunk of the film gives you enough backstory that you can watch this without seeing the previous films first, you should at least take advantage of Dollman and Demonic Toys on Watch Instantly beforehand, because it'll make this one a little more fun.

I guess we start with Tim Thomerson, right? He's so deep into his Brick Bardo character that there's no question about anything being silly with him fighting an over-sized baby doll or duking it out with a Conan O'Brien action figure. He plays it so straight, yet so cool, that it all works and makes it that much better for all of us. In fact, the entire cast plays it pretty straight, which makes all the difference in films like this. Thomerson also has an interesting distinction here at the DTVC: he's one of the few non-Hall of Famers to have more tags than some of the inductees. The question is how to rectify that: get more films for those Hall of Famers, induct Thomerson this fall, or both?



I want to stay with this shot of Thomerson here, because it's archive footage from Dollman, which was directed by Albert Pyun. I wasn't sure if I should the tag Pyun, because it is his footage that's being used. I mean, I've tagged actors for smaller appearances than the amount of footage from Dollman that we had in this. I wonder how that works as far as Pyun goes for money, or if Band owns the rights. Same with the actors, like Michael Halsey, Vincent Klyn, and Jackie Earle Haley. I don't believe they're credited either. Should I tag them or not too? There's also the character name "Brick Bardo", which Pyun has used a lot. Was there any dispute about who owned the rights to it after the fact? Another interesting Pyun connection here was Anthony Riparetti, who worked on the music. He's worked on a lot of Pyun's films, usually credited as "Tony" Riparetti.

I loved the Conan O'Brien action figure. How is that not awesome? He of course predates Conan's run on Late Night by about a year, but still. It's too bad Conan doesn't have the rights to all his characters, because you could have a great crossover with them and the Demonic Toys. Imagine Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the Reverend Otis K. Dribbles, the Masturbating Bear, Pimp Bot, maybe even the Ear of Corn, all fighting the Demonic Toys, or maybe the Puppets from the Puppet Master series. A guy can dream, right?



As I mentioned above, this film clocks in at a cool 64 minutes, which isn't much. I always hear the term "feature length" tossed around, and wanted to find out exactly what it was, so I did what anyone would do, I went to Wikipedia. According to them, there are multiple definitions for feature length, some as short as 40 minutes, but the rough standard for an adult feature is 80 to 210 minutes. Do I think this one at 64 minutes should've been longer? No, 64 worked, and I imagine, if Band were forced to make it 80, he'd just add five more minutes of archive footage from each of the three original films, and one more minute of credits, and he'd have his 80. Give me shorter with less padding every time. I always say, anything after 88 minutes is borrowed time and better be damn good.

We are two-for-two this week on Full Moon flicks, the other being Puppet Master II. I daresay I like this one even more. If you like Full Moon, you like Thomerson, and you like the old comic one-off with tons of different characters, this is your flick. Right now it's on Watch Instantly. I can't think of a 64 minutes better spent. (Okay, maybe I can think of a few ways, but not many.)

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106743/

Trancers II (1991)

This movie has been long overdue, considering I did Trancers over six months ago. I should've had them all reviewed by now, forget just being on part 2. But we can't go back and fix it-- actually we can, I can just mess with the dates of the posts and make it look like I did them months ago, but I'd never do that--, so I'll just do my best to get them done as quickly as possible from here on in. If you can't wait for me, though, and I don't blame you, Mr. Gable at Mr. Gable's Reality has looked at the others, so you can see what he has to say.

Trancers II takes place six years after part 1 left off. Jack Deth (DTVC favorite Tim Thomerson) is settling down with Helen Hunt, living in Hap Ashby's mansion. Turns out Winslow has a brother though, played by none other than Richard Lynch, and has as one of his top hatchetmen none other than Jeffrey Combs dressed like he was just released from a parallelogram hurling through space. So back in the future, McNulty is sent back in time to give Deth the word-- this time his ancestor is a 15-year-old girl-- and hopefully find Deth's wife from back in the future too, who was also sent back to the past, and is in the extremely hot body of Megan Ward. Will Jack Deth prevail again?



Though this wasn't the 76-minute awesomefest the first one was, it was still pretty good. It had some great one-liners, some great action, and some great performances from the entire cast, which as you could see from the synopsis, was rather prodigious. It wasn't the total 80s sci-fi tongue-in-cheek Film Noir actioner that made the first one so great, and instead it had a tendency to dwell too much on a pretty heavy duty plot that weighed things down at times, but overall, it was a fun time, and worth checking out.

Tim Thomerson is back as Jack Deth, probably his most notable role, and while he didn't have as great of material to work with here as he did in part 1, it was still pretty sweet, and he delivered. He also had to love that he got to make out with both Helen Hunt and Megan Ward. One thing that's never really been discussed before, are Thomerson's numbers for a potential Hall of Fame induction. In an actor, the two things the panel usually looks for are a big DTV resume, and one memorable role; and Thomerson has both of those. Not to mention, the fact that his birthday is only seven days after mine helps his cause: all good people are Aries.



Not an Aries, but someone who celebrated her 42nd birthday only three days ago as of this posting, is Megan Ward. She is really hot, and Charles Band understood that, because he had no shortages of close-ups on her face throughout the movie. Usually, if you're Tim Thomerson, or really, if you're any guy, you're thinking Helen Hunt as my wife, I'll take that. But then Megan Ward comes along and throws herself at you too. Not only that, but she's also your wife. I don't know how I'd feel at 45, if I were married, if my wife left and came back in the body of a 22-year-old Megan Ward. I think I'd feel kind of guilty, because I'm still 45, with saggy pecs and a spare tire around my waist. I guess if you're as awesome as Tim Thomerson, though, you're not worried about it.

Let's round out the rest of this cast. Richard Lynch, as we already know, is a first-rate baddie, and nothing changes here. I'm not going to give away his death scene, but for me, it's second only to the rocket launcher blast he took in Invasion USA for his best death ever. Jeffrey Combs could've had a bigger role, because he didn't have much to do, which for me was a disappointment. He also wasn't playing a crazy guy. He had slicked back hair and a goatee, which, when combined with his black turtleneck and black coat, made him look like he was one of Zod's gang. "Kneel before Combs!" I'd have liked to see Thomerson deal with Combs shooting red lasers out of his eyes. From the last movie, we also had Telma Hopkins, who you may remember from Family Matters, and veteran character actor Art LaFleur. Finally, in a one scene cameo, Barbara Crampton played a TV talk show host interviewing Lynch. One more I want to mention too was Alyson Croft, who reprised her role from first film as Art LaFleur's ancestor, now a 15-year-old. She was great, smoking cigars and making hard-assed detective comments, eliciting "Damn it McNulty!"s from Thomerson. That whole dynamic was one of my favorite parts of the film.



Also reprising his role is Biff Manard, back as Hap Ashby. He wears a lot of Angels gear, which back then would've been the California Angels, but now are the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and in between, they were the Anaheim Angels. In 2009, I was out in LA, and a buddy and I took the commuter rail from Union Station (which also appears in Trancers II) over to Anaheim to see the Angels play my Boston Red Sox. Very cool experience, and I recommend anyone who's visiting LA, baseball fan or not, to go check out a game there if you're in town during baseball season. The ballpark is right at the train station, so it's really convenient. (As an aside, my Sox lost that game.)

Maybe not as amazing as its predecessor, this still delivers and is well worth it. It's currently on Watch Instantly, but as I've been saying lately, the quality of Netflix's service has left something to be desired, and who knows how long after this posting that it'll still be on Watch Instantly (within days of my Dance of the Dead post, Netflix put up a note saying it'll be gone on October 1st.) For a more sure bet, look for this on DVD or used VHS. Either will do.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103116/

Blast (1997)

This is not the easiest find, which is too bad, because it's chock full of great names. If you like your Albert Pyun films filled with Pyun Mainstays, this is the movie for you. One of the difficult things about tracking down a copy, is its name makes it ambiguous in search engines. Plus there's an Eddie Griffin movie of the same name that came out later. I was fortunate enough to have a buddy overseas send me his DVD-- being the DTV Connoisseur has its privileges.

Blast takes place during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, where the villainous Andrew Divoff and his terrorist gang have taken over a swimming practice and the American women's swim team hostage. One kink in their plans: janitor/former Tae Kwon Do champ Linden Ashby is still kicking around the facility. Bad news, right? And he better save the day, because the rest of the assembled Pyun talent can only sit on their hands while Divoff bumps off swimmer after swimmer.



All right, so let's start with the good. Great cast. Let me rattle them off: Divoff, Ashby, DTVC Hall of Famer Rutger Hauer, Tim Thomerson, Vincent Klyn, Thom Mathews, Yuji Okumoto, Tina Coté, and Norbert Weisser; plus Kimberly Warren from Mean Guns. Wow. Other than Divoff, who cut a sweet baddie, everyone else was spread throughout the film with parts of varying sizes, but every one of them was solid. This had some good fight scenes and action as well, especially when Ashby was taking out Divoff's men Die Hard-style. I also liked the way Pyun cast this as a 50s/60s Red Scare type film, using terrorism as the monolithic evil, instead of the USSR. The one fault I had with the movie though, was how big the story was. There was just too much going on, and it weighed the film down at points. This effect was lessened to some degree because of the cast involved, but I went through periods where I forgot Linden Ashby was in the film at all-- and he was the lead hero! Overall, though, Blast isn't bad.

Look at that cast. If you play the Pyun Mainstay drinking game, you'll be pretty drunk by the movie's end-- you may not even make it. It depends on what you consider a Pyun mainstay, but we have Norbert Weisser, whom imdb says has been in 18 Pyun flicks, Vincent Klyn who's been in 13, Thom Mathews who's been in 12, Tim Thomerson who's been in 9, Tina Coté who's been in 7, Yuji Okumoto who's been in 6, and Andrew Divoff who's been in 4. All we needed was Scott Paulin, Nicholas Guest, Ice- T, and Michael Halsey. And cyborgs, we didn't have any cyborgs here either.



Andrew Divoff is such a sweet baddie. I daresay this film is Div-tastic. He's probably best known for the Wishmaster series, of which I have done none of yet at the time of this posting-- I know, I suck as a human being. Anyway, in Blast, he might be one of the better Die Hard terrorist style baddies, because he has the chops to live up to Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber. If Blast shows us anything, it's that the more Divoff, the better. Div-tastic.

As I mentioned above, I liked the way Pyun drew on the old Red Scare movie. He has a couple screens of text at the beginning, talking about potential terrorist attacks in Atlanta, then ends with a screen telling us that what we were about to see was what could've happened. We're almost a month away from the ten year mark of the 9/11 attacks, and after that happened in 2001, it made sense that the discourse shifted to make terrorism the new Cold War-esque enemy, but here in 1997, Pyun was ahead of that curve (as he often is with this kind of thing). Yes, the film devolves into Die Hard at a swimming practice facility (which I think is the prison from Mean Guns, but I'm not totally sure on that), but it does have those old Red Scare film elements that give it that extra layer beyond the simple Die Hard rip-off.



Check that out, Shannon Elizabeth as a credited extra. She gets a fair amount of screen time as a hostage, but she really doesn't have any lines beyond sobbing in mortal fear, hoping Divoff's cronies don't choose her to be the next sacrifice. I thought this wasn't the first Elizabeth film we've done at the DTVC, but it turns out, as I went back into the archives, that I haven't actually done Jack Frost before. How did that happen? I could've sworn it was one of the first ones I did four years ago. Anyway, Blast came out about two years before Elizabeth's breakthrough in American Pie, and now it looks like she's fallen back into the DTV world-- when she's not playing poker, of course.

This is definitely for completists or hardcore B-movie fans, because if you don't think it's awesome to see names like Tim Thomerson, Yuji Okumoto, and Andrew Divoff on the marquee, you'll have much more trouble with the down times when the weight of the plot becomes too heavy for it. On the other hand, if you love seeing names like that, I think you'll really enjoy this one. As far as I know, here in the States this is out of print and only available used on VHS, making it probably that much more a purchase for completists and hardcore fans only; and I know there's a Region 2 DVD floating around, so if you're in Europe or another area like Australia that is Region 2 compatible, you might have better luck.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115701/

Brain Smasher... A Love Story (1993)

This is one I've been meaning to do for a long time, but it's not that easy to find. Not only is it only available on VHS here in the States (the UK get a Region 2 DVD, lucky bastards), but it's also usually expensive on the secondary market. Fortunately a buddy hooked me up with his, and now I'm passing the savings onto you... that didn't make any sense, but it sounded good.

Brain Smasher... A Love Story is an Albert Pyun flick starring the Dice Man Andrew Dice Clay as a bouncer in Portland,Oregon who runs into supermodel Teri Hatcher escaping from a band of Shaolin Monks led by Yuji Okumoto. Okumoto wants a red lotus flower, and Hatcher's sister has it, but they think they can get it through her. Now she and the Dice Man are on the adventure of their lives, trying to save the world, and maybe falling in love in the process.



This film is fantastic. A really fun 80s-style romp, similar to Big Trouble in Little China, only on a slightly smaller scale. The music was great, the dialog was great, the action wasn't lacking, and the performances more than held up their end. Not only were Teri Hatcher and Andrew Dice Clay solid, but there were tons of Pyun mainstays that were also sweet, including DTVC faves Tim Thomerson and Brion James. Top to bottom, this just works, and works really well.

It really is too bad that it's films like the Urban Trilogy-- each of which had to be fudged together because half of each film was lost in transit by Air France--, that are available on DVD and Netflix Watch Instantly, when so much of Albert Pyun's best stuff, including Brain Smasher, is out of print and only on VHS-- again, unless you're a Brit, and then you get it on DVD. I mean, this has Teri Hatcher, who is kind of a big deal on Desperate Housewives, you'd think an opportunistic distributor would pick up the rights and mass produce a bunch of $5.88 DVDs with her all over the cover.



Speaking of Ms. Hatcher, you don't need me to tell you how hot she is, and playing a supermodel means she's even hotter. She also understood the sillier side of this movie, and really made it work. This was right before she got the Lois and Clark gig, which was what made her a big star the first time, then she fell off a bit before rising again through Desperate Housewives. I wonder what she thinks of this film looking back on it, especially kissing Andrew Dice Clay. One really cool thing Pyun did with her character, as she was running through the streets of Portland to avoid Okumoto and his gang, was have her stand in front of advertisements she did as a model that were displayed in department stores and whatnot. I liked that he juxtaposed her glamorous supermodel world with her current situation, reminding us how much of a fish out of water she was-- or she was supposed to be-- plus, it made for a great shot to have multiple images of her on screen at once.

One of the ongoing jokes in the film was about Americans lumping all Asians into one ethnicity, in this case saying they're all Japanese, and that the Shaolin Monks are ninjas. Throughout, Okumoto's gang corrects people, telling them "Ninjas are Japanese. We are monks, and monks are Chinese!" The joke of course is that Okumoto is Japanese, playing a Chinese character. For me, being a fan of both Chinese and Japanese cinema, and Chinese and Japanese cuisines-- and just being an anth major in college-- I got a kick out of this, because I'm often explaining the differences to people I know too.



Now it's time for everyone's favorite game when reviewing an Albert Pyun flick: name that mainstay; and Brain Smasher had plenty. I already mentioned Thomerson and Brion James, who played great send ups of the classic 1940s Film Noir detective, grilling the Dice Man. We also already mentioned Okumoto, who played the head of the gang of monks. Then there was Nicholas Guest, another detective, only grilling Teri Hatcher instead of the Dice Man. Deborah Van Valkenburgh, who played the accountant in Mean Guns, was Hatcher's sister (she was also in Road to Hell, which I believe hasn't been released yet). Other stars who weren't Pyun mainstays included Peter Kwong, who you may remember from the Olivier Gruner flick Angel Town, but who also had parts in Big Trouble in Little China and The Golden Child; and Liz Sheridan, Jerry's mom from Seinfeld, played the Dice Man's mom. Interesting that we had a second Seinfeld connection, the first obviously being Teri Hatcher in the "They're real, and they're spectacular!" episode.

If you live in the States, either keep your eye out in used VHS bargain bins, or bite the bullet and make the Amazon purchase, but this is one you'll need. If you live in the UK, take a break from all that Steven Seagal buying and pick this bad boy up. You won't regret it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106475/

Dollman (1991)

This movie has the triple threat of Charles Band, Tim Thomerson, and DTVC Hall of Famer Albert Pyun. Throw in its availability on Watch Instantly, and it was a must. I mean, how do you not love the idea of Tim Thomerson as a cop from another planet who chases a criminal to Earth, where he only stands 13 inches tall?

Dollman is pretty much what I just said above. Thomerson plays Brick Bardo (classic Pyun name), a renegade, violent cop from a planet 10,000 light years away, who chases after the living severed head of one of his oldest enemies, into a ban of energy that transports them in their space ships to Earth, the South Bronx to be exact, where they're only 13 inches tall. Bardo finds he can help a local woman in her fight against crack dealing gangs that have taken over her neighborhood, but she isn't sure she wants his help because he's so violent-- even at 13 inches!



This is a lot of fun. Sure, it has a couple too silly for words moments, like when Bardo jumps out of an upper story window to the street below, where he grabs onto a moving car and rides it to where the baddies' hideout is; but for the most part it's just a fun low-budget sci-fi actioner, with a lot of familiar faces and some pretty gory shoot-outs. The film starts with a hostage situation in a laundry mat on Bardo's home planet, and he shows up, everyone there expecting he wants to help. Nicholas Guest, the cop on the scene, asks him what he plans to do. "I'm going to wash my whites in hot water, and my colors in cold water with a warm rinse." "What?" "This is where I do my laundry, and that's what I plan to do." It starts out this awesome, and pretty much keeps it going from there. Throw in appearances from other Pyun mainstays Vincent Klyn and Michael Halsey, and a baddie played by former child actor and current it actor Jackie Earle Haley, and you have a formula for a good time.

We've been on a pretty good string of Albert Pyun films lately, so hopefully we'll keep that up. It's hard to go wrong with a movie about a violent cop played by Tim Thomerson that's only 13 inches tall and likes to blow people apart with his custom made firearm, and with a running time of 75 minutes without the credits, that's usually an even surer bet. Beyond the camp, there were also some really cool sets and shots, especially of Tim Thomerson with a fallen building behind him that looks like an old mushroom box or something. Obviously, this movie is more about fun than anything, but it's always good to see some shots that are more on the artistic side, because it tells us, the viewer, that at least the process is being taken seriously, even if the content isn't meant to be.



This role by Jackie Earle Haley came a few years before his 13-year hiatus, which saw him come back in 2006 with an Oscar nomination. Not a bad deal if you ask me. I actually really liked him on the few episodes I've seen of Human Target. Here he plays a gang lord who comes across the severed-head bad guy Thomerson was chasing, and while he's trying to carve out supremacy in the South Bronx, he's also after Thomerson because the severed told him he could become a problem. It was a good role. I don't know that we could get him in another Pyun film now though.

"Back off Warchild, seriously." It's time to take inventory of this film's Pyun mainstays, starting with Thomerson. There was also Nicholas Guest, Michael Halsey, and DTVC favorite Vincent Klyn, listed here as "Vince Klyn". None of them get more than a scene or two outside of Thomerson, but it's always good to see them.



According to imdb, Dollman was filmed both in LA and in the South Bronx, so I'm not sure how much of the South Bronx stuff was filmed on location or back out in LA. I've actually been to the Bronx before-- maybe not the South Bronx, I'm actually not sure where exactly I was, because we were lost. I was with a couple classmates in college going from UMaine to DC for an anthropology conference, and the girl driving had these weird directions that involved getting off of one Interstate in the Bronx, then getting onto another. It was a trip, and when I saw the highway we wanted, the girl was like "we can't go that way, it's a one-way street", and I was like "Jesus, just go, let's get the hell out of here." It's always funny to get rural Maine mixed with the city, because rural Maine never has any idea how to cope with it. I would like to go there again under better circumstances though. The parts we were in didn't look that bad.

You've probably learned more than you wanted to about my brief experience in the Bronx, so I'll wrap this up. Simply put, 75 minutes, Albert Pyun, Tim Thomerson as a 13-inch violent Dirty Harry style cop, and a good amount of gore and fun. What more could you want?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101751/

Trancers (1985)

This is one I've been meaning to do, probably almost as long as I've been doing the DTVC, and with it available on Netflix Watch Instantly, it's only been a matter of time. Our friend at Mr. Gable's Reality has looked at this one before, and has also looked at some of the other ones, so you can check that all out on his site. As an aside, I hyperlinked your cover photo for this, so I hope you're not upset.

Trancers has DTVC favorite Tim Thomerson as a police officer in 2247, whose mind is sent back in time to 1985 LA, in order to stop a criminal mastermind who is trying to whack the ancestors of the three oligarchical benevolent leaders of 2247, essentially vaporizing their entire lineage. The criminal has a scary, diabolical technique, where he turns weak-minded people into Trancers, virtual zombies who look like regular people until confronted by Thomerson, then they attack him and look more like zombies. It's a race against time, as Thomerson and Helen Hunt, the girl from 1985 he's befriended, try to protect the ancestors before the baddie can get them.

76 minutes. That's right all you filmmakers who feel like you have to add filler to make your movie more substantial, Trancers clocks in at a cool 76 minutes, and it's probably more awesome than your 100 minute painfest. I'm just saying. Also, put the computer away--or only use it when you have to, as opposed to using it as a crutch--because this looked really nice, and in 1985, they weren't greenscreening and CGI'ing us to death. This was just a really fun low-budget sci-fi flick that has only gotten better over time.

Tim Thomerson was great, as always, but I think this might be the first one we've done where he was the main star. If anyone is awesome as the Film Noir-style detective, especially with the voice for the cool detective narration, it's him. This will be his ninth film we've done, and of the other 8, only two, Gangland and Gale Force weren't Albert Pyun films, so it's usually as a Pyun mainstay that he finds himself on here. The Trancers films are as big a part of his legacy as his work with Pyun, so I'm glad I'm finally getting this first one reviewed.

This is only the second Charles Band directed film we've done, the other being the Gary Busey flick, The Gingerdead Man. The bigger thing of course that he's known for is creating Full Moon Pictures, which is probably something that should get him a Hall of Fame induction, it's just we haven't even done that many of those films either. It's something I plan to rectify, especially since a lot of the Full Moon catalog is making its way onto Netflix Watch Instantly.

Helen Hunt is very hot in this, as she usually is. I wonder what Tim Thomerson thought when she won her Oscar, or even before that when she was on Mad About You, making $1 mill an episode the final season. Did he think "I had a love scene with her" or "I carried her over my shoulder while she wore a cute Santa's elf costume"? Maybe he didn't, but I thought that as I watched this film. He probably sat back during the Oscars with a glass of good scotch and a cigar, and thought "The kid made it. Good for her." That's why he's Tim Thomerson and I'm not.

There's a great scene in a nightclub with a punk band singing "Jingle Bells," and it had me thinking. Recently a buddy posted a picture on Tumblr of Johnny Rotten with a crazy look on his face and the caption "Johnny Rotten just found out what kids today consider Punk." This movie really drove that home, because in 1985, punks were scary, and it took badasses like Tim Thomerson to deal with them. They didn't marry Ashley Simpson or Paris Hilton, they didn't have their A&R men get their songs featured on The Hills--they probably didn't even have A&R men--and they weren't very nice. Pop Punk should be an oxy moron, not a genre to describe Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne.

What's 76 minutes and availability on Netflix Watch Instantly, right? Not a big deal, and the return is pure awesomeness. Get after this one if you haven't already, and get after it again if you haven't in awhile--you won't regret it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090192/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Hong Kong 97 (1994)

This one was placed on my radar after Albert Pyun himself commented on my Spitfire post that he shot that, this, and Heatseeker all at the same time, which was why there was some overlap in the actors. I liked the Robert Patrick and Ming Na on the cover, and couldn't wait to see what Brion James and Tim Thomserson were like. If anything, it would be a fun ride with that kind of cast.

Hong Kong 97 takes place as control of Hong Kong was being transferred back to China. With that expectation and potential upheaval as the backdrop, we have Robert Patrick, a hired assassin for a major corporation based in the city. After he kills or upsets the wrong person, a large bounty is put on his head. Co-workers Thomerson and James try to help him, while he seeks refuge at the home of former flame Ming Na, who needs to get out of dodge herself with her grandfather, because he's wanted for defecting from China, and could be arrested by the army if he's not out before the transfer. Now Patrick is trying to figure out who's after him, how he can get Ming Na and her grandfather out of the city, and clear his debts, all at once.



I liked this one. It might either be too light on the action and too heavy on the Noir for some people, or too heavy on the action and too light on the Noir for others, but it worked for me. The down times, where we either had Brion James talking in his British accent with Thomerson or Patrick, or the catching up with one another/sexual tension scenes between Ming Na and Patrick, didn't feel boring or like padding. The best element was the use of Hong Kong's transfer to add to the tension. I think the move Pyun made by setting a scene in Ming Na's place while she's packing her things to move out really added that tension the best, because maybe we can't all relate to Hong Kong moving from British to Chinese hands, but we can relate to the feeling of moving, and the time when the move is almost there, that feeling of inevitability and impending change. It pervaded every other element of the movie, and for me, tied it all together.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this was shot at the same time as Spitfire and Heatseeker. I think out of all three, Hong Kong 97 worked the best. The biggest cast overlap was Tim Thomerson, who appeared in all three films. Then you have Brion James, who was in the beginning of Spitfire, then had a major role in this, and Tina Cote, who had a major role in Heatseeker, then appeared in the opening credits to Spitfire. I thought I remembered Robert Patrick being in Spitfire for a second too, but I can't find any proof of that. What would've been cool is more Thom Mathews and Norbert Weisser, even Vincent Klyn. There should be some kind of Albert Pyun mainstay battle royale with all of these guys together-- maybe that could be the Mean Guns remake...



You're probably wondering why I included an image of Robert Patrick nude, crouching down, and shooting a gun. I just wanted to say I was impressed with Pyun's excellent Skin-a-max style directing in this scene. He displayed a great ability to avoid showing Patrick's junk without making it look like he was purposefully obscuring that area. I wonder what Patrick thought when he saw that in the script: "sweet, I'm having sex with a hot chick, and then... I run around the hotel room buck naked, dodging bullets and firing at gunmen crashing through my window? I need to talk to my agent..."

I know a lot of the readers are big Tim Thomerson fans, so I should warn you now that he gets killed off about midway through. He's great while he's there, especially talking with Brion James, and Brion James survives, so at least you have him to make up for anything you're missing with Thomerson. Seeing Thomerson reminds me yet again that I need to get those Trancer films up, so hopefully I'll do that soon.



You gotta love Ming Na. She was also great as Chun Li in Street Fighter, which came out the same year as this. You could see here, though, playing off Robert Patrick in their non-action scenes, where she would start the ball rolling into her better acting gigs, like ER. As far as Van Damme leading ladies go, I'd say she's in a tie with Mia Sara for best of all time.

This is only available on VHS. Amazon has it pretty cheap used, so that's a great avenue to go. I personally liked it, and it has a great cast to boot. Definitely worth giving a look.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110052/

Knights (1993)

This is an Albert Pyun flick that I've been meaning to get to for a while, but for one reason or another it's always been pushed back. Well, it will be pushed back no more, it's time to bake this cake. Also, our friend Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic reviewed this as part of his Albert Pyun Fest, if you want to check that out. (By the way man, I hotlinked your cover image. Hope you're not mad at me...)

Knights takes place in an undetermined spot in the future, after the apocalypse, in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. As humans are trying to pick up the pieces, they're having problems with some super powerful cyborgs, led by Lance Henriksen, that need their blood to sustain their systems. All hope looks to be lost, until Kris Kristofferson shows up, a cyborg created to kill these other cyborgs. On his way to exterminate them, he saves Nea, a girl squatting with one of the tribes, and he teaches her how to fight against the cyborgs. Together, they look to defeat this scourge on humanity.



I had a lot of fun with this one. Sure, there are nits to pick about it I guess, especially if one were taking it too seriously, but as far as I could tell, this was meant to be a fun ride. It had a heavy stable of actors, from DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, to major Pyun mainstays like Tim Thomerson and Vincent Klyn (though both in small parts), in addition to the stars I already mentioned. Plus, there was the gorgeous scenery of the national park, which Pyun spared no expense in delivering to us in all its glory-- essentially allowing it to be a character on its own. Maybe the fight scenes weren't what you'd want, especially because it seemed like he went more for Japanese samurai film style fight scenes over the Hong Kong actioner, which worked for me, but might not have for some others. Also, the whole deal with Kathy Long fighting with Kristofferson's torso tied to her back might have been too silly for a lot of tastes, though again, not mine. Hey, if you're in it to have fun, it doesn't get much better than Knights.

Gary Daniels is Lance Henriksen's right hand man. He does have some good fights, so it's not as bad as the smaller roles we've seen him in-- especially lately-- but he's by no means a main star. This is not one of those moments though where I'm going to complain about the size of his role, because I think it worked perfectly here. He wasn't going to be the main baddie over Henriksen, and Pyun's getting Kristofferson was way too big a coup not to have him as the hero. Plus, Kristoferson gave the film that Western element, that, when combined with the setting, made for a really great aesthetic. It should also be pointed out that in 1993, when this was made, Daniels didn't have many starring roles to his credit, so considering his status at the time, this was the perfect sized part for him.



Another move Pyun made in this film that really worked for me was the shifting of the protagonist, having the girl, played by kickboxer Kathy Long, take over. Again, if you're picking nits, you'd complain that it's impossible that she'd learn enough martial arts in four weeks to be able to take down all the guys and cyborgs that she does. My answer to you would be "you're okay with the cyborgs that need human blood to feed, but a girl learning martial arts in four weeks is what you're stuck on?" One of the things I've always loved about Albert Pyun's work is his consistency in trying new things and rethinking the old standards, and a big one is in casting women as heroic leads. He's doing from the director's and screenwriter's chairs what Cynthia Rothrock is doing from the actor's. His films may not always work-- and not work for myriad reasons that don't always have to do with the idea of the film itself-- but at least we know he's trying to new things, which is a lot more than we can say about a lot of other people we check out on here.

Tim Thomerson versus Lance Henriksen. I know, I've never considered it before, but this film raised the question... okay, I raised the question, after seeing the movie. Anyway, Tim Thomerson had a small part in the beginning, and then that's it for him, but it had me thinking, what if? Now, I'm not taking anything away from Lance Henriksen's performance in Knights, because he was excellent as the slightly goofy, slightly gross, yet very evil baddie, I'm just putting it out there, who makes the better baddie overall? Or rather, who makes the better DTV star? I'm calling it a tie for the sake of political correctness, but by all means, weigh in and let me know... hell, am I crazy for even asking?



I've never been to Arches National Park before. We almost went while I was out in Colorado, but we spent too much time getting to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and it was just too far away to get there and back to where we wanted to go. As far as Knights goes, Pyun takes full advantage of this beautiful scenery. He plays with the space in a way that I was critical of him for not doing in Mean Guns with that film's prison setting. He really made it into another character, the way someone like Woody Allen makes New York City into one of his film's characters. It just added another layer of depth that made the movie that much more enjoyable-- though I'm a bit of an outdoors buff, so I might be unique in that assertion.

As far as I can tell, this movie is VHS or bust, so if you can get it, I'd go for it. Don't spend too much, but $5 is a good price. This is just a lot of fun set in a beautiful location with a lot of names you recognize. Ain't nothing to get mad at here.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107333/

Nemesis III: Prey Harder (1996)

I managed somehow to get my hands on Nemesis 2 and this film on VHS. These suckers are a little bit harder to come by than one might think. I have a beat on part 4, so don't worry about the end of the Albert Pyun Nemesis saga ending prematurely here. Anyway, before we get to part 4, we have a little business to attend to first with part 3.

Nemesis III takes place right where the prior installment left off-- sort of. It starts 22 hours after part 2, but then goes back in the form of flashbacks and whatnot. In the future, the cyborgs have sent a whole bunch of trackers and assassins and such into the past to get our homegirl, Alex. We find her lying in the desert with a massive head wound and amnesia. She runs across Tim Thomerson, whom she thinks is a good guy, but he just wants to scan her with his laser eyes and take her back to the future-- he's a bad cyborg named Farnsworth 2, get it, because he was Farnsworth in part 1. Anyway, a struggle ensues and she stabs his eye then her memory comes back. From here, we find out somewhat how she went from taking out the Nebula in part 2, to lying on the ground with a head wound in part 3.



And therein lies the rub, as we like to say here at the DTVC. The film starts by bombarding us with images from the previous film, which would be great if we hadn't seen it, but we have, so we're like "yes, I remember that! Give me something I haven't seen yet!" Then you get the amnesia thing, with more flashbacks, then the realization that we were watching what will now become the end. It was too awkward for me, and hurt what would have been a very fun movie-- made it more tedious than fun. It would be easy to attack the film for the low-budget special effects, but you're here at the DTVC, if you can't handle low-budget special effects, you may want to find a Tumblr account devoted to scenes from Avatar and Inception.

What I liked about this one was how it attempted to bring more in sci-fi elements, which was what part 2 lacked. I also liked that Pyun cast two of his better mainstays, Norbert Weisser and Tim Thomerson. That at least let's us know we're watching an Albert Pyun movie, and these guys seem to do Pyun films better than most actors he casts. They get what Pyun is doing, and they're good at selling it. I would have had a lot of fun with this one had it not been for the flashbacks and weird storytelling method. Simple is often the easiest way to go, and the best for us, the viewer-- and overly complicated or gimmicky often ruins what could be a potential winner.



There's one scene with Thomerson that was so awesome. He's driving around in a jeep with some grunt cyborg, and I guess the guy says something that upset him, because he hauls off on the dude, then kicks him out of the car, and shoots him. And shoots him again. And again. And again. At some point I don't know what to make of it, I'm even like "dude, just die already!", but he still gets up, and Thomerson still shoots him. It was fantastic.

I don't know what to say about the special effects. I had fun with them, but someone else might find them tawdry or crass. One thing he does is adds in lasers and green eyes on the cyborgs. Another involves this fish-eye effect that obscures these golf cart things that the cyborgs drive. I don't know what that was-- maybe some kind of hyper speed-- but obviously it was more funny than cool. You have to ask yourself on those things what you're going into a film like Nemesis III: Prey Harder for. For me, it's just that sort of thing, so I'm good there. It's the awkward nonlinear storytelling that threw me for a loop.



I decided to use this seventh paragraph to mention that there's a trailer for Albert Pyun's new film, Tales of an Ancient Empire, over at his site, pyunmovies.com. As always, for any news on Pyun's projects, you can click on the link to his site over in the "Other Great Sites" section.

As for Nemesis III, it's up to you. It is still fun, just pretty tedious due to the way the story was presented. You see the same scenes and images repeated, and the repetition becomes frustrating after a time. If you're a completist though, and can get a hold of this and it's partners cheaply, I'd say go for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113950/