Dangerous Seductress (1992)

After her shit-heel boyfriend tries to rape her, Model Susan (Tonya Offer) flees from Los Angeles to the home of her sister Linda (Kristin Ann) in Indonesia. While Linda’s off on a modelling job in Bali, Susan discovers an old book of spells and rituals some guy who will later turn out to be a shaman apparently randomly gifted Linda for her birthday.

Before you can say “Klaatu barada nikto”, Susan has conjured up The Evil Queen (Amy Weber). Said Queen, who had already been somewhat revived by the blood of some car-crashing robbers, promises Susan eternal life, beauty, and sexual dominance over men if she agrees to puke or otherwise spatter the blood of men she murders at the mirror the Queen appears in.

Susan is more than game, and begins to seduce and murder her way through the Indonesian nightclub scene. In a satisfying development, her evil ex-boyfriend comes to Indonesia to murder and/or fuck her – I don’t believe he sees much of a difference there – and gets a deadly example of Susan’s new, assertive manners.

At this point in his career, H. Tjut Djalil, the director/writer who brought us the glorious Mystics in Bali as well as the not quite as glorious Lady Terminator, was clearly making his movies for the international market. Thus, the Indonesian actors are mostly relegated to minor roles, and the leads are taken by a bunch of spectacularly bad American actors who look like Baywatch rejects.

Which isn’t a problem for a film quite as maniacally insane as this one is, starting with a car chase that produces quite a few flying body parts and going through so many set pieces of tasteless, sleazy beauty, it’s difficult to find words for all the glories included. So, I’ll do as the Marquis de Sade would do, and just list some of it: there’s a woman with skeletal parts who draws the flesh of dead bodies to her to finish her look, who is then held down by grabbing arms underground that won’t let her go on her evil ways this easily; she also has blue glowing nipples I always hoped would fire lightning bolts sometime during the course of the film yet never do; sexy sax and synth music that suddenly turns abstract; a sexy murder chase in a meat packing plant; blood play with fishhooks; a woman cutting her own throat to feed a mirror with blood; a sparkly glowing magic duel; an evil queen played with all the enthusiasm of a kid’s theatre performance; flame thrower candles; so much sleazy teasing with no climaxes but the big bloody death; and so much more.

All of this – and truly much more - is presented with great energy and joy, never stops to think – lest it die of stupidity – and often looks surprisingly good for what it is. I don’t exactly want to cart the old “psychotronic” out to describe this wondrous piece of cinema, but it is, and so I do.

Needless to say, this giant hunk of lingerie, blood and glowy magic made me inordinately happy while watching.

In short: Crackerjack 3 (2000)

If you were – like me - hoping for another retcon of the craziness of Jack Wild, cop on the edge, with Jack Wild doing another “Die Hard in an improbable place” bit, you will be sorely disappointed. In fact, we’re not even in the same genre anymore, and instead of weirdo action, this is a piece of unfunny espionage comedy.

The only tenuous connection to the first two movies is the first name of our hero – Jack, the most original first name available. This, though, is Jack Thorn (Bo Svenson), freshly pensioned off CIA boss who finds himself and a bunch of elderly friends in the position as the scapegoats for the insane plan of his replacement Marcus Clay (Olivier Gruner) and a bunch of young up-and-comers to detonate a neutron bomb and make lots of money on the financial markets afterwards. Despite the desperately stupid evil plan of the bad guys, this might very well have made for a funny little movie, but the script’s just too weak for that, going for inane and utterly random rambling where a clash of espionage cultures and generations could actually have been funny.

The pacing is pretty dreadful too, with scenes dragged out so incessantly even the film’s few genuinely funny basic ideas (like a blackly humorous discussion about the best ways to torture people) become boring and tedious; most of the film’s ideas are tedious and stupid, anyhow, and can’t actually be made worse by the atrocious execution. Among the actors, Svenson and Leo Rossi at least seem to have a degree of fun with their roles – I suspect much more fun than anyone can possibly have watching them going from one cringeworthy joke to the next – while Gruner is desperately misplaced in a role that plays to all of his weaknesses – like acting – and ignores all of his strengths – like fight scenes – while the rest of the cast does a perfect imitation of being drugged up and bored.

Do I even need to add that the film frankly looks like crap in a way that’s easier to explain with complete disinterest in actually making an enjoyable film by everyone involved than the film’s mere low budget, and that Simandl’s direction lacks ideas, spark, or even just the ability to avoid lulling me to sleep?

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