Mack Lambert

Like many I grew up with these stories. The collection of folklore by Schwartz were a bizarre assortment that played to my morbid sense of humor. The illustrations by Stephen Gammell were a ripe slice of insanity.

The documentary is a mix of the controversy surrounding the books, the private lives of Gammell and Schwartz, and a tribute to both men and the influence they had over generations of academics and artists.

With the upcoming film, this doc is a nice prep for what producer Guillermo Del Toro will unleash in a matter of weeks.

That's what I would describe the latest (and hopefully last) entry of the Rampage series from director Uwe Boll. This recent film is a huge disappointment given previous films like Postal, the first Rampage, Assault on Wall Street, and Tunnel Rats 1968 seemed to signal a maturation as a filmmaker.

This film focuses on Bill Williamson solidifying his legacy as a voice for the oppressed, but ends up coming off as a Che Guevara by way of Osama Bin Laden. He's a terrorist who somehow successfully assassinated the President and others in the Federal Govt. And we're also supposed to believe that Williamson's followers would have infiltrated the federal agencies trying to track him down, essentially nerfing them. This is a fantasy movie with little to no basis in reality.

The film mostly covers Williamson proselytizing to his followers and the FBI trying to find him. The screenplay was written by Boll and actor Brendan Fletcher, who plays Williamson. This is basically Boll stroking his own ego, trying to show the world he knows what needs to be done to make our planet a better place. He tries to make Williamson a sympathetic figure with moments showing him as a father and husband. Makes sense. Some women have wanted to be the wife of Charles Manson or Richard Ramirez.

As a viewer, I was more sympathetic to the FBI agents, Molokai and Jones. They were given depth. We knew about them, they became more relatable. They were real compared to the cartoonish Williamson.

What struck me the most was the fixation of explosions and violence done to police. Yeah, some cops are dirty and corrupt, just like anyone of any race, creed, what have you. We see so many shots of them flying through the air and being blasted with gunfire. This is anarchy cop murder porn.

The first Rampage film was an interesting look at a nihilist becoming a mass murderer, and how ideology can lead to extremism. And that's where the series should have ended, by not becoming a series.

I would rate this two stars because Steve Baran and Ryan McDonell as the two FBI leads are the stand outs and deserve to be in a better film.