Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Director: James Gunn

Notable Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Dijmon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio del Toro

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has essentially changed the battlefield on how to build a franchise by creating smaller interconnected franchises with The Avengers heroes, their first big deviation from the structure comes in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy. Even as a somewhat knowledgeable comic book fan, I wasn’t sure who these intergalactic outcasts were when the film was announced - only knowing the name as a sort of footnote in the Marvel catalog. With this latest film though, Marvel certainly flexes their movie muscles in ways we haven’t quite seen before and the result is a pretty stunning feature full of quirkiness, heart, and some seriously hilarious moments.

The galaxy is a massive place and for a renegade scrapper like Peter Quill (Pratt) it’s a trove of wonders to sell for big bucks. A recently acquired orb though has brought quite a bit of trouble with it, including a massive bounty on his head. The only way to find out what’s in the orb and get away clean will be with the help of a rag tag team of villains…who just might find out they are more than criminals when a vicious warlord threatens to destroy an entire planet with the orb.

Guardians of the Galaxy is not quite like anything else Marvel has touched. It’s one part Buckaroo Banzai, one part The Ice Pirates, and one part The Avengers. The basic plot is pretty simple and one that you’ve seen before – a relic is wanted by the bad guys and the lesser bad guys (good guys) have to stop them. In fact, our main protagonist Peter Quill even makes a reference that it’s something like the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark in the film. He’s right. We’ve seen it before and it’s a comfortable story that works in the blend of action, humor, and heart that we’ve come to expect from Marvel at this time period. It just so happens to be damn near perfect in execution of said basic plot progressions. Even though we can basically set our watches to when our anti-heroes will save the day, it’s a blast getting there.

Slow walk. Go team.

Inside of said plot though James Gunn has populated Guardians with a massively charming group of characters. Whether it’s the dumbass charm of Quill, the asshole nature of Rocket Raccoon (voiced to perfection by Bradly Cooper), or the simplicity and humorous moments of Groot, Guardians is a ball to watch. Playing to his strong sense of timing and comedy, Gunn slathers the film quirky banter. Don’t get me wrong, he also shows a strong ability to craft some fun and outrageous action sequences, but it’s almost more fun to see Quill and Rocket argue about a bomb or that wonderful moment when they decide to work together by hashing out an attack strategy. Even the secondary characters like The Collector get to have their fun moments on screen. It’s dedication to this element that really makes the audience ease into this large new universe with ease. Truthfully, the one issue that this film has is the villains. Ronan the Accuser lacks any kind of charm or screen presence outside of his looks (I’m sure it was intentional to have him be the opposite of our heroes, but he’s kind of a snooze) and even his hench girl seems to lack a lot of personality.

The revolutionary element of Guardians is not the plot or even the characters. It’s that weird pop referential treatment of all of the above. In a weird way, James Gunn has crafted a film that’s completely self aware of just how bat shit crazy it is with its silly alien designs and ‘end of the world’ plot. Guardians plugs in jokes about Ninja Turtles and Trolls, the offbeat design of many of the characters, and plays it all to a super soundtrack straight out of the 70s. It’s irresistibly charming in this sense. It knows it’s a ridiculous space opera and it plays it up to its full potential. 

Fire on the woods!

While I wouldn’t say that Guardians is the best Marvel film to date (the lack of a great villain hurts), I will go as far as to say it’s my favorite. It’s a fun romp of ridiculous asshole anti-heroes who have to overcome their differences to save the day. Not wholly original, but wholly enjoyable. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Director: Ted Post

Notable Cast: James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison, James Gregory, Charlton Heston

With the success of Planet of the Apes for 20^th Century Fox it was inevitable that they would try to push the franchise forward. Unfortunately, there were a ton of massive debacles in trying to get this film made. Seriously, if you are interested in this franchise you should look up the behind the scenes drama that unfolded will trying to get Beneath the Planet of the Apes on the screen. These issues (everything from casting, to scripting, to drastically cut budgets) certainly take their toll on the final product of the film. Beneath is still a fun science fiction flick, but it doesn’t even come close to touching the heights of the first film.

After Taylor (Heston) and his crew disappeared with their ship, a rescue team was sent to find out their fate. A young astronaut Brent (Franciscus) finds himself stranded on the same planet as the team previous. With the help of Taylor’s mate Nova (Harrison), Cornelius (Watson), and Zira (Hunter), he will have to navigate a disruptive gorilla uprising in the ape city and investigate where Taylor ended up when he went beneath the planet of the apes.

Peek a boo!

While the first Planet of the Apes was a science fiction film with some solid thrills to be had, Beneath aims for something even more epic with bigger threats and more action. Too bad the budget constraints and cheesy script don’t necessarily allow it to reach its full potential. Truthfully, there is a great little science fiction film in Beneath – more like two great films in there. The script is just so scattered between the two halves of the film though that one really has to suspend any sort of basic belief system to even start to try and digest the film. The first half, dedicated to following a similar plot line as the first film, does add in some intriguing political commentary about militant leadership and ant-war stances. Then it sort of careens towards a crazier path (as if a planet full of militant apes wasn’t crazy enough) by actually taking our heroes – minus Cornelius and Zira who sort of serve as glorified cameos – beneath the surface to uncover bomb worshipping mutant humans with telepathic powers of illusion. If the flow between these two halves was a bit better and didn’t degrade itself into a sort of comic bookish finale then perhaps it would have worked better. It just doesn’t though.

On top of that, Beneath pushes itself more towards being an action film in many sequences to match the thrills of the previous film, but often enough it comes off as a bit desperate to entertain more than fitting for the film. A fight on a wagon is pretty impressive, but feels tacked on for example. Fransiscus, who seems to be hammered into a Heston clone here, seems to be phoning in his performance in between those action set pieces too leaving a film that just meanders through the motions. Generally speaking, most of the actors seem to be a bit limp in their respective roles outside of Gregory who delivers some memorable moments as General Ursus with his classic ‘the only good human is a dead human’ monologue. The roles of Zira and Cornelius are butchered to cameos and the mutants at the end are played with such serious cheese it’s hard not to laugh towards the end.

"We're not monkeying around now."

While Beneath is somewhat of a fun film in the campy factor, it’s such a massive step down in every category from the original that it can never shake that aura of disappointment it carries with it. Fransiscus is misused, the plot scattered and often forced, and the increased focus on action doesn’t quite pay off like they intended. While the film has some merits in the franchise as a whole (particularly the awkward and somewhat sudden ending), as a film its massively disappointing.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Scanners (1981)

SCANNERS

As a child a horror clip-show documentary entitled “Terror in the Aisles”, which was marvelously hosted by Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen, got me hooked on horror films forever. Within that documentary an image of a man’s head exploding burned its way into my retinas and I knew I had to view whatever film it came from. Thankfully my mother knew exactly what film it was as she saw it in the drive-in as a high schooler. The film was called “Scanners” and soon I found myself scouring the local video stores like a ravenous wolf to rent a copy. After a couple of stops I found it and not only was I graced with an intriguing film enunciated by the famous exploding head sequence, but it was also my first David Cronenberg experience, a director I would come to have a small obsession with.

“Scanners” tells the story of a vagrant named Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), a man that has spent most of his life roaming the streets in a perpetual fog suffering a from a constant yammering of voices talking in his head and some form of telekinesis. After being caught, a doctor informs him that he is a scanner. It’s a mutation of sorts caused by a birth drug that when harnessed can control the thoughts and manipulate other human beings. The voices in his head can only be quelled with the congenital drug known as ephemerol. Of course behind this drug is the evil corporation staple that wants to use scanners as a governmental weapon and to top it off an evil scanner named Revok (iconically played by Michael Ironside) is recruiting his own Scanner army in order to.. du du du… take over the world!

“Scanners”, compared to the director’s previous works like “Shivers”, “Rabid” and “The Brood”, is a bit more mainstream however it is still dripping with the Cronenberisms we all love and come to know. His films usually look at the interactions between technology and humans and how one of humanities biggest fears is their body turning against them. That is all present including Cronebergs grim outlook on the synthesis of man and machine, that the humans simply do not know enough or if they do, their arrogance has them charging headfirst into detrimental experiments. Basically "Scanners" is “Cronenberg 101” and is good starting point for anyone wanting to get into what Cronenberg films have to offer as it is a little more accessible than his films prior and some to come without overwhelming the viewer.

The cast, for the most part, is great. Including the lovely and elegant Jennifer O’Niell as the scanner love interest, Patrick McGoohan as the strangely aloof Dr. Ruth and Michael Ironside in his career defining role as the off-balance villain. Stephen Lack as our lead however lives up to his name as he lacks in every department for giving an unremarkable and un-charming performance. Seriously this guy has as much charisma as a bed frame and gives a new meaning to the term “wooden”. Some people stick up for his performance as this is exactly what a confused homeless person would act. I don’t buy it and the film suffers tremendously from it. Thankfully there is Michael Ironside to make up for this miscasting for the lead as the film wouldn’t be half as good without him.

Overall “Scanners” is a solid independent film and I’m glad it was my first foray into the wacky mind of David Croenberg. The slightly tamed “off-the-wall” ideas and lack of depraved sexuality made it far more accessible than his other works around the same era, but at the same time includes all the main staples that we have all come to love from the guy. To top it off it includes one of the sickest and most memorable gore sequences ever to be caught on celluloid. It may not be the best Cronenberg film, but it’s definitely a strong one and catapulted Cronenberg into the mainstream and inspired a host of cheap, and sometimes good, sequels about a decade later. Sequels go as follows: “Scanners II: The New Order”, “Scanners 3: The Takeover”, “Scanner Cop” and “Scanners: The Showdown”.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

New Tale of Zatoichi (1963)

Director: Tokuzo Tanaka

Notable Cast: Shintaro Katsu, Seizaburo Kawazu, Mikiko Tsubouchi

After being impressively swayed by the dramatic depth and entertaining characters of the first two films of the Zatoichi franchise, I was ecstatic to dig into the third entry New Tale of Zatoichi. What villainous story would be told? What new elements would be unveiled as Zatoichi continues his trek? Interestingly enough, this third film would mostly depart itself from many of the more entertaining elements of the first two films – including most of the humor and action set pieces – in favor for the massive dramatic beats, deep atmospheric character work, and a stronger philosophical subtext. It’s even more of a slow burner than either Tale or Continues, but it’s hard to deny the brilliant level or writing and character work that kicks this third film to being just as strong as it’s first two entries.

Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) has decided that it is high time to return to his village for a visit after the incident with his brother. There he meets with a slew of old friends, including his old master Banno (Seizaburo Kawazu) and Banno’s sister Yayoi (Mikiko Tsubouchi). He also learns of an impending duel with Kanbei’s brother who intends to avenge his brother’s death and gets involved with an evil clan who plan on earning some money from a kidnapping. Just another normal day for Zatoichi.

Zatoichi simply hates candles.

While the first two films definitely took a dramatic and character driven spin with the sword slashing genre, New Tale of Zatoichi takes it to a whole new echelon for the series thus far. The characters are richer, deeper, and more tragic this time around to really keep the audience hooked. Shintaro Katsu once again stuns as our titular antihero and the film lunges to enrichen his back story with hints towards his yakuza nature and how he is treated (and reviled) by most of society. In Shakespearian fashion, the film takes a very dark streak with all of its characters though as each one seemingly attempts to flee from a haunting past that tragically continues to sabotage their futures. Poverty plagues his homeland and even his friend, his master’s sister, is an embarrassment for not being marriage material. This lends itself a bit to the main plot, which is about a kidnapping and vengeful brother hunting down Zatoichi, but really, that’s minor compared to the atmosphere and characters.

Luckily, for a film with such a significant slow burn pace and subtle writing that relies on strong acting presence for its writing, director Tokuzo Tanaka handles it extremely well. It’s the first Zatoichi film of the series to be in color, yet Tanaka ably recreates the atmosphere and tone of the first two films and then proceeds to slather the film in visually stimulating shots that utilize the dark streaks and bright hopes for the characters in lush ways. Everything seems to carry an emotional weight in New Tale of Zatoichi even the finale where Zatoichi finally finds himself confronting a rival gang and we get our climactic and brief sword fight, it’s more for emotional punch than anything else.

Zatoichi on the road.

The lacking action and more subtle approach in New Tale will not be for everyone. Even with it’s more than impressive execution, even I felt that the film was a step down from the balance of the first two. That being said though, the emotional and storytelling impact of the film is phenomenal and more than worth the time for an audience to invest. It’s a slightly different change of focus for the franchise, but it still works in the end.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Master, The (1980)

Director: Lu Chin Ku

Notable Cast: Yuen Tak, Chen Kuan Tai, Lin Ho Nien, Wang Lung Wei

Outside of knowing Chen Kuan Tai, I went into The Master with relatively no expectations. I knew the film was from 1980 and I knew that it was a kung fu centered flick being part of Tokyo Shock’s kung fu line from Shaw Brothers, but that’s about it. Needless to say, like many of the Shaw films from this era, The Master is a mixed bag overall. It’s a fun film balanced on a charismatic lead performace and some ridiculously tiring acrobatic kung fu set pieces, but the hit or miss humor and the simplicity of the film don’t necessarily bode for a memorable flick.

When a traveling kung fu master Jin Tien-yun (Chen Kuan Tai) decides to end the underhanded debauchery of the Three Devils, he is betrayed and left terribly wounded. He finds shelter in the home of a young martial arts student Gao Jian (Yuen Tak), who then begins to learn under his secret teaches. When the Three Devils begin to hunt down the injured master, the young man must step up to the plate and figure out a way to stop them before the destroy everything.

It's not classic Shaw without a training montage!

On paper, The Master is a serviceable kung fu flick with a solid revenge twist in the latter half, gimmicky villains that our hero must defeat in sequential order, and a good dose of themes about loyalty, courage, and hard work. It’s not a whole lot more than that, but down at the basics this film works. Yuen Tak, known for being part of the same troupe as Golden Harvest legends like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Baio, delivers a fun performance as the young student of the more serious and stern Chen Kuan Tai. This leads the audience to really root for him as he works his way up to being a master himself as he heads towards an inevitable showdown with the Three Devils. The supporting cast is hit or miss, mostly due to some of the slapstick humor on display here – an obvious attempt from Shaw Brothers as they desperately tried to insert the comedy that was working over at Golden Harvest in the early 80s, and it lends the film to being a mixed bag on its foundation.

Director Lu Chin Ku and fight choreographer Hsu Hsia correct some of the cliché elements and forced humor in the film with style. The former adds some slick visual work to keep us interested even when the film meanders too far away from what’s working and the latter steals the show with the ridiculously entertaining battles of the film. Seriously though, Yuen Tak is one hell of a gymnast to be able to pull off the acrobatics of the fight sequences. Partnered with some great sets for him to use to defeat the Three Devils, the fights in The Master are easily the highlight of the film and the one true reason to delve into the film.

This is a massively difficult high five they are attempting.

While I had a lot of fun with The Master, it’s probably not going to make my favorite Shaw Brothers list. It’s generally a pretty generic film and it’s obvious at times that the Shaw Brothers were scrapping to make this film a crowd pleaser. They even threw in a sequence with some topless prostitutes that sticks out like a sore thumb in the narrative scheme. The fights are pretty brilliantly shot and choreographed, but beyond that and a charming lead performance The Master is mostly for die hard fans.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Lucy (2014)

Director: Luc Besson

Notable Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min Sik, Amr Waked

Luc Besson has always been one of my favorite directors. While his films may not always been the artistic gut punches as they were in his early career with La Femme Nikita or Leon, it’s hard for me to deny that I’m not thoroughly entrained by most of them. For Lucy, I was pretty hyped. The trailer seemed to indicate a return to a more action/pulp oriented style and the cast caught my attention. Don’t be fooled though, Lucy is quite different overall than the trailer would have indicated. It’s still fun, but the film can still be relatively off putting in the final act.

Lucy (Johansson), a college girl in Taiwan, has had a rough night drinking with her new boyfriend. When he sets her up to deliver a package for him to a vicious crime lord (Choi Min Sik), she finds herself with some new drug stitched into her stomach. As the package begins to leak though, she finds herself gaining powers…exponentially.

"Today we learn about drug smuggling internationally..."

When Lucy first started, I was totally into it. The quirky nature of the ‘good girl in a bad situation’ who is suddenly given a B-grade action movie sense of physics and body manipulation, the intensity of Choi Min Sik (who is perhaps one of the most intense actors to ever grace the screen), and the weird cutting between Morgan Freeman’s speech as Morgan Freeman about cerebral usage and Johansson’s sudden abilities, work to deliver a fun and fast paced flick perfectly suited for Besson’s strong suits as a director. The film is certainly not great, but in a vulgar auteur manner it is massively entertaining and crazy enough to sell its bullshit science mumbo jumbo. The transformation from clueless college girl to badass of the minute was a fun transition that Johansson worked nicely and as her powers grow, the audience is able to run with it no matter how stupid they seem. I mean controlling radio and electronic waves? So many loopholes to what that actually means, but fuck it – it’s fun.

While not solely an action flick, Besson does what he does best with the cat and mouse chase elements to make it exciting and fun; pummeling the audience with gangster against cops shoot outs, a high speed car chase through the streets of Paris (that despite the sometimes awkward CGI made me crave a new entry into Besson’s Taxi franchise), and ScarJo powers that allow her to put people to sleep or lift them in the air. The problem of Lucy then rears its head in the final act as Luc Besson suddenly starts taking his own mumbo jumbo seriously. Don’t misunderstand me, some of the quirk is still there particularly when time becomes malleable in the final act, but it loses some of the fun when it becomes too philosophical for its own good. To say that the last act is bat shit insane just might be an understatement. The film folds in on itself and the previous plot holes and inconsistencies that the audience was able to write off as fun suddenly become glaringly real again. It’s striking how disorienting this sudden change feels and it left me wandering the halls after my showing trying to figure out just what Lucy wanted to accomplish.

Look at the pretty special effects...convenient powers when needed.

In a nutshell, Lucy is a film that is one hour and fifteen minutes of classic Besson entertainment that cannibalizes itself in the last fifteen minutes. It utterly derails a lot of fun that could have been had with the film. Lucy is still a fun experience as a whole and offers quite a bit of fun B-grade entertainment with A-grade budgets, but I would lying if I said that I didn’t end up leaving disappointed after my showing. I recommend this mostly for Besson fans.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Tale of Zatoichi Continues, The (1962)

Director: Kazuo Mori
Notable Cast: Shintaro Katsu, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Yaeko Mizutani, Masayo Banri

Due to the lack of home video and limited theatrical showings, many films from the decades before the 80s played out more like serials. Instead of direct sequels, they would have characters return for ‘another adventure’ or ‘another quest’ instead of relying so directly on previous entries. This is how I assumed the Zatoichi series would play out, but when they called the second film The Tale of Zatoichi Continues they sure as hell meant it. It’s a direct sequel to the first film, pulling heavily (with little in the way of exposition) on those events and building on top of them to deliver a film that almost matches the awesome execution of The Tale of Zatoichi.

Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) has been wandering about his way for the last year and has decided to fulfill his promise to return to the slain samurai’s grave in the small village where he vanquished him. Unfortunately, on his way there he has come until some unwanted knowledge about a traveling lord that his a league of samurai out for his head. On top of that, a mysterious traveling ronin and his sidekick have taken an interest in Zatoichi too, leading them towards an inevitable battle founded in the past.

Side by side, they faced each other...

The Tale of Zatoichi Continues starts off as one of the serials that I mentioned before. Zatoichi, once again played with a convincing depth and wide array of emotional bursts by Shintaro Katsu, finds himself on the wrong end of some pissed off folks although this time not of his doing. At first I wasn’t quite as sold on this approach. The wayward one armed ronin who seems to be following Zatoichi, the geisha who helps him, the evil lord; they all seemed to lack the impact and character depth that really built the first film up. Yet about half way through the film, the revelations about some of these folks come to the forefront – including an awesome twist that brings the ronin and his chasers clashing in the final act – and the film suddenly carries a lot of weight to it and the pay off is utterly worth it.

At a ridiculously brisk 72 minutes, Continues packs a lot of punch in a very short time. With a new director at the helm, Kazuo Mori emulates the atmosphere and style of the first one pretty impressively. There is a bit more action to be had, including a more traditional feeling sword fight in the opening bit and another pending duel in the last act that add to the stakes. Truthfully there are only two things that hinder this sequel from reaching the heights of the first film and it’s the rather melodramatic score and the odd way that end of the film occurs. Neither are huge determents towards the samurai film experience, but do pull it back just enough.

All against all.

For those of you that loved the The Tale of Zatoichi then following it up with this direct sequel is a must. It’s not quite as effect as the first, but the combination of smart writing, another round of brilliant characters, and a fantastic final act make this second film of the franchise a must see for samurai fans. I would even suggest watching it back to back with the first for better impact as I did.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Purge: Anarchy, The (2014)

Director: James DeMonaco
Notable Cast: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, Zoe Soul

Growing up with the gritty movies of the 70s and 80s, my tastes have always been geared towards the extremity of those films over the spectacle and clean style that proceeded. So when I was told that The Purge: Anarchy was heavily inspired by John Carpenter, I knew I had to see it. I was not a fan of the first Purge for many reasons (some of which I will get to in this review), but just having my friends tell me that this one was Carpenter inspired had me sold. To say ‘inspired’ might be an understatement though. The Purge: Anarchy is the John Carpenter film we’ve been waiting for at Blood Brothers since Vampires. It’s not a perfect film and hits on a lot of cliché beats in telling its story, but dammit I had a blast watching this grindhouse inspired modern film.

It’s the night of The Purge, an annual new American tradition where all crimes are made legal for 12 hours, and the masses are either prepping to survive or kill. For a mother and daughter duo (Ejogo and Soul) it’s a night to simply survive. For a troubled husband and wife (Gilford and Sanchez), some unfortunate car maintenance brings about disastrous results. For a man on the hunt for revenge (Grillo), it might just mean his redemption.

"It's gonna be one hell of a night."

To be perfectly honest, for those who dwell in some of the low budget films of the 70s and 80s, Anarchy is not going to feel all that new. I mentioned John Carpenter in the intro and, in my honest opinion, Anarchy is essentially a slightly off set bastard child of the original Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York. Director James DeMonaco obviously loves Mr. Carpenter (hell, he even penned the screenplay for the remake of Assault on Precinct 13) and it shows in this film. From the anti-hero antics and snarky remakes of Grillo, the dark gritty tones, and balance between thriller and action with a streak of horror, Anarchy is about as close as you get to a Carpenter film. If only it had the synth heavy soundtrack, I might have been fooled.

While the resulting tones and style aren’t new, the ability to see a film like this in wide release (and putting up successful numbers) is rather fresh and fun. DeMonaco knows how to blend a bit of grindhouse into a more mainstream styled film and it worked for me. While many of the characters can seem a bit cliché for their own good (the husband and wife duo was a bit forced although a turn for them in the final act was solid gold), the mother/daughter combo seemed effective and Grillo turns in a great 80s style anti hero performance. I’m pretty sure he just unofficially made an audition for another reboot of The Punisher during this film with his tough guy ass kicking (and stern jaw) and if he doesn’t get that role when it comes to fruition then I’m going to be pissed.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the lacking horror elements of this sequel. Let’s remember now, it’s a sequel to one of the big horror surprises of 2013. Not that the original Purge was all that good. It severely lacked horror elements itself and the by-the-numbers approach to a home invasion flick just felt like The Strangers if it was a neutered film. Yet, Anarchy is the kind of film that truly runs with the silly grindhouse concept of The Purge. Instead of run-of-the-mill jump scares and tension, this sequel adds a bit of titular chaos to the mix. Sure there is tension and atmosphere, some of the God’s eye view shots of our heroes on the city streets were impressive, but the random bursts of violence and debauchery make use of the concept much better: a neighbor threatens sexual assault at gunpoint, a fire truck zips by on fire, a man is pinned to the walls of a bank for losing trust funds. This film truly goes to show the evil streak of humanity on screen and not just for exploitative reasons. A subplot involving a militant rebel group against The Purge attempts to throw some moral light to humanity. Although this element is more or less left open for further installments (here’s hoping for some They Live anti-mainstream commentary), it’s a great balance that really worked for this reviewer.

All in the details...

I was pleasantly surprised with the resulting film that I saw in The Purge: Anarchy. It hits some basic thriller beats and character plot arcs, but the execution of the gritty style and 80s style action thriller foundation is superb. This is not a film for everyone (and even those of a more skeptical mindset might pick at some of the obvious plot progressions towards the latter half of the film), but for this reviewer it was a remarkable throw back film that hit the spot. It comes highly recommended.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Dragonwolf (2014)

Director: Raimund Huber

Notable Cast: Kazu Patrick Tang, Johan Kirsten, Macha Polivka, Guk Srisawat

There have been a decent amount of low budget B-grade action flicks in the last year that have entertained me and I’m always a sucker for a silly kung fu flick, but I won’t lie when I say that Dragonwolf tested my patience a bit. While I have yet to check out Bangkok Adrenaline from the director of this film Huber, I don’t think I will be anytime soon. Dragonwolf desperately tries to balance some of the silly martial arts elements of low budget Thai action and a more serious and theatrical beats of a gangster drama. The mix is astoundingly bad. It’s not bad enough to be tongue-in-cheek entertainment and it’s not good enough to sell the more serious tones. It rests in being a film that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.

Mozart (Tang) and Julius (Kirsten) have been friends and ‘brothers’ since they were children. Living on the streets and improving their fighting skills, the two start working for a crime lord as enforcers and drug runners and work their way up the ranks quickly. When a woman enters their lives and begins to tear them apart, betrayal and violence starts to find a way into their lives and Julius leaves Mozart for dead. Now Mozart must find a way to topple Julius and take his revenge, before it’s too late.

Unlikely duo.

Dragonwolf too often plays out like a martial arts soap opera and it’s irritating. While the entire ‘vengeance in the name of love’ isn’t necessarily new for thrillers or kung fu films, when you throw as much bro love/hate and pining moments motivated by semi-romantic flashbacks as this film does, then it gets to be a little grating. To make matters even worse, the acting from all parties is about as hammy and forced as you can get. There are brief moments where some real emotion feels like it comes forward (Kirsten in his debut role has a few moments), but too often it’s ruined by some of the super melodramatic score or the copious amounts of needless nudity. At over two hours long, Dragonwolf could have cut a lot of the overly dramatic beats out and it probably would have doubled the entertainment of the film.

Truthfully, the only real thing that Dragonwolf has going for it is the action. The choreography from Tang (whom also plays Mozart) is pretty impressive overall. Whether it’s the style vs style of Mozart vs The Trio or the weapon battle towards the end, the action is pretty decent and fun to watch. The blood drops that this film earned come mostly for this aspect of the film. Now if only it didn’t drag on in between these set pieces and make me want to take a nap then perhaps this film would have been more enjoyable as a whole experience.

That being said, there is a campy aspect to Dragonwolf that might appeal to some people. The opening sequence (which features sepia tones and a shaman) is delightfully bad and invoked quite a few laughs from me. The unintentional hilarity of some sequences does have its place in the cult world and many will dig into that portion of the film. I can’t say that I didn’t occasionally find this film funny, even with it’s very, very serious approach. So it does have that going for it.

Yes, this is a real fight from the film.

Otherwise, Dragonwolf is perhaps one of the worst action films I’ve seen all year. Its one saving grace is some decent action set pieces, but the rest of the film is a chore to work through. As a Z-grade flick, it might have its place as a bad flick for some folks, but even then I was having trouble choking it down. So be warned, Dragonwolf is a film to very cautious going into…if you even want to try at all. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

SX_Tape (2014)

Director: Bernard Rose

Notable Cast: Caitlyn Folley, Ian Duncan, Chris Coy, Diana Carcia

I like to think I’m the kind of film critic that is able to put aside my own distaste for a style and learn to look at it through unbiased eyes. Does the film utilize the style well? Does it accomplish what it attempts to accomplish? For found footage horror, there has been films that do raise the execution above the general shitty reputation to receives. For a film like SX_Tape though, there are not a lot of redemptive qualities for it. It’s generic with little in the way of scary elements and the story is just a basic combination of found footage horror mixed with the haunted hospital setting. In fact, some of the plot progressions come off as almost offensive in their stupidity.

Jill (Folley) and Adam (Duncan) are attempting to prep her artwork for a show. When they discover an abandoned hospital, they decide to check it out to see if maybe it would be the edgy place for her edgy artwork. Things take a turn for the worse when two of their friends show up and tensions mount as Jill begins to act stranger and stranger.

I had to be tied down too...just to finish the damn film.

The biggest issue with SX_Tape is that is sits precariously on top of a double-edged sword. On one hand, it does an admirable thing by keeping the plot decently vague so that the viewer can figure and put things together on their own. On the other hand, the story is so bare in quality writing, characters, and dialogue that I wasn’t even interested in putting any effort into understanding or caring about what was happening. By the time that the two friends show up and the four head back into the hospital (?!), I was a bit confused by the asinine progression the plot was going. By the time they introduced a love triangle with the characters (all of whom turn out to simply be giant assholes as people) I felt like turning off the film. Not only did the plot seem to be going nowhere, but there was no redemptive qualities in any of the dumb decisions for the characters. There was no reason for me to keep going.

I did though. Tricking myself into thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, there was an ace in the sleeve for the ending. There’s not. No final twist. No sweeping moral highlight. No purpose. I even thought that there might be some kind of clever and brutal spin to the ghostly apparition that appeared (rarely) in the previous acts of the film. Well there is sort of a last scene with a brutal bit of violence, but it makes no sense and it’s not worth the time.

After the film I felt like this: broken and beaten.

Considering that the director of this film delivered one of the great modern classics of horror in Candyman, I’m almost stunned at how inept this film was from the ground up. There are no scares, no characters to give two shits about, and no plot to wrap your mind around. SX_Tape is handedly the worst horror film I’ve seen all year and one that I highly suggest skipping for your own sanity. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider