moonspinner55

Cheap outdoor saga from Columbia Pictures (filmed in ColumbiaColor!) is nothing more than a padded co-feature meant to take up space on the bottom half of a marquee. Robert Knapp shows not a smidgen of screen charisma as a vengeful husband who rides into Laredo to confront his wife's killer, winding up in prison for murder. He escapes and later frees a mercurial Mescalero girl (played by busty Jana Davi), setting off a personal feud with the Apaches. There's a fistfight and a brawl with hatchets that temporarily rouses this woebegone, wooden-Indian western filmed in L. A.'s Bronson Canyon. NO STARS from ****

Three small town kids, two boys and a girl, all born in the same hospital at the same time (during a solar eclipse!), have turned into vicious 10-year-old killers. This B-grade thriller can't decide if it wants to be a twisted tale with a streak of black comedy mixed in or a straight horror movie. Likewise, the three devilish brats never quite emerge as characters; one minute they're peeping at a neighborhood girl dancing topless, the next they're killing the girl's father and their school teacher. Showing kids firing guns or using bats as weapons isn't bold--at least not without filmmaking craft behind it. This underachiever has been made without a semblance of thought, wit, suspense or, indeed, talent. * from ****

Maybe/maybe not black spin on 1975's "Shampoo" has hetero hairdresser bedding his clients (occasionally reluctantly)--though he's really sweet on his receptionist, who's in trouble with racketeers. Blaxploitation softcore nonsense from co-writer and director Greydon Clark is generally terrible, though sleepy John Daniels is amusing in the lead. Used for his muscular physique and nonchalant swagger, Daniels never broke out of 'himbo' roles; he isn't a very good actor, but he has presence. *1/2 from ****