Bloodfist VIII: Hard Way Out - 1.5/5

Well I finally made it , the final Bloodfist film to star Don "The Dragon" Wilson. I just find it amazing how many types of characters Wilson played through-out this series. He played a kickboxer in the first two films, a prisoner in the third, a repo man in the fourth, a amnesia victim in the fifth, a MP soldier in the sixth and a fugitive in the seventh. Well this eighth and final time we have Wilson playing a...high school teacher (?). Ok his character is a little more interesting that that as he is a high school teacher that's an ex-special forces agent.

Right away it's easy to see the filmmakers are trying to take this entry extra seriously. Even the trailer makes it look overly serious. Right away this a bad move as Don Wilson, though he seems like a nice guy in real life, just doesn't have the acting talent to make a serious, emotional "action" film. Like I mentioned before he's a high school teacher who is having relationship issues with his son. That is until a team of assassins sent by an old enemy show up and mow down Wilson's house with machine guns. He goes to his old boss for protection but like any action fan can predict, assassins still track him down, kidnap his son and it's up to Wilson to get him back.

For Wilson's final film in the series this was just lame. Everything about this film is forgettable. The first couple of films in the series were awful but at least they were fun. Hell I forgot about this film before it was even over. Though the film was only 85 minutes it felt like 160. The series should have died long ago and this should have been the final nail in the Bloodfist coffin but New Corcorde pictures forged on making Bloodfist 2050 without Don "The Dragon" Wilson.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Descent: Part 2, The - 3.5/5

Normally with straight to DVD sequels (that's somewhat of a lie here since it hit theaters in the UK at least) its a low budget romp that steals a few pieces of story here, a few pieces of style here and mashes together a new film for the sake of making a quick buck. That's not really the claim with "The Descent: Part 2". In fact, its actually quite the sequel that very much relies on the first to be watchable. Although not near as good, "The Descent: Part 2" does carries its weight most of the time and comes off as a nice partner piece to the modern classic.

Sarah has survived the nightmare. Two days have gone by as local authorities wrangle the news of the missing women whom have not returned from their cave expedition. But Sarah has survived and was found off the road. Unfortunately, to save her own sanity her mind has blanked what has happened for the last few days (convenient for the sake of the plot eh?) so the local sheriff and a rescue group of climbers have decided to take her back down so she can help them find the other missing women. Of course, this isn't a great idea and soon the team find themselves isolated from the world above and fighting off the crawlers as they desperately try to find their way out again.

It's been a bad week for poor Sarah. Although the plot does some odd twists and turns for the sake of the moving forward (really? amnesia?) I am impressed with how it relies on the first film so much. It's not just another group of people that stumble on the crawler community here, they rely on the plot of the first substantially. Thusly, you get no character development really with Sarah (besides some nice residual stuff from the first) and we also get one more surprise character reappearance from the first - can you guess?! Well, I'm not telling. Cause it was a nice surprise and I appreciated it. The film even likes to use some of the same settings from the first - the area with the animal bones, the place where they had to jump/swing across - and its these things that make this quite the sequel and impressed me quite a bit. Slow clap for the movie!

Now on the other hand, this film does have its problems. Continuity for one of them. Sometimes its just odd to have one character do something in one scene and then it be changed during the edit. It was a little bit off setting since this film was doing so good with story and character work (although even those have their 'der!' moments). The movie tries to pull a lot of the elements that worked with the first but never really gets them across either. Not near the tension, isolation, or friction of characters that made the first one classic. It relies on more monster shots, more gore, and more boo scares than it does that darkness and quiet that made the first one so legitimately scary. Not the best tactic considering how well it worked with the first, but I doubt it could top it so why the hell not try a different path, right?

All in all, "The Descent: Part 2" may not have been the classic that the first was, but it was a solid sequel that worked on many of its own accords. Not near as dark and tension filled (it seemed like there was a lot of light for those caves to me) but the film tries to make up for it more with monster goodness. Sometimes the plot did make you slap your forehead, like with our stereotypical shithead cop, but the focus on making it a true sequel ended up winning me over.

PS: What the fuck was with the ending? Already heard there is to be a third one in the series taking place where this leaves off, but still...really? That's what you gave me?

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Scars Of Dracula - 2.5/5

The previous sequels took their time to resurrect Dracula from the awful deaths he suffered at the end of each film before. Not Scars of Dracula, the sixth entry into Hammer's Dracula franchise. This time Dracula is resurrected within the first 2 minutes. These filmmakers didn't want to fuck around with coming up with unique ideas to bring him back. This time they have a bat (that looks so fake I swear I could see the damn strings holding it up) barf up some blood on his ashes which results in a quickly and cheaply done film dissolve into Dracula. This is the best resurrection sequence the filmmakers could think of? If it was that god damn easy to bring him back from the dead why didn't they just have a shitty looking bat barf on his ashes in previous films! This hack job of an opening just ruined my mood for the rest of the film.

After the lame resurrection of Dracula we then have an angry mob (more suited for a Frankenstein film) marching up to his castle to burn him to death once and all. Dracula doesn't take kindly to this and sends a group of fake looking bats back down to town to kill all the women and children. Jump to a neighboring town and we are introduced to a young brash womanizing man who gets accused of rape and while escaping police he winds up deep in Dracula territory. Finding his way to the castle he is greeted by Dracula and not surprisingly becomes his next victim. His worried brother and girlfriend track him down to the castle and come face to face with Christopher Lee himself.

One aspect I like about this sequel is that the character of Dracula is more like the character he was in the original film. He speaks far more and is the icy, yet polite host he was originally made out to be. I also like how Dracula is more violent and ferocious, even using knives to aid in his killing. Fans of blood will enjoy as director Roy Ward Baker makes this by far the bloodiest entry into the series. He even zooms the camera in on the bloody carnage giving me flashes of Lucio Fulci.

What I don't like about this sequel is that it has a cheap quality to it, making it feel more of a B-movie compared to the original films. Bad effects (bats anyone?) and cheap castle sets are just a few of the problems. The humor director Roy Ward Baker injects just comes off campy like he knew the Dracula formula had been done to death so he desperately tried to do something different. Oh did I forget to mention the lame resurrection of Dracula?

This sequel is a large step below the other films in the series and the Hammer's faltering financial situation shows up everywhere from the casting, to the plot and the effects. Despite being a disappointing entry into the series this far from the worst. The worst is yet to come...

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Bloodfist VII: Manhunt - 1.5/5

Let's play a game. The game is to guess what film this Bloodfist sequel will rip-off. We've done Kickboxer, Enter the Dragon, Long Kiss Goodnight, and even Die Hard. Well judging from the subtitle "Manhunt" a good guess would be The Fugitive. Yes this time Don Wilson is on the run from the law in order to clear his name and another in-name-alone sequel begins.

The reason he is on the run is he rescued a beautiful woman from a gang at a random bar he stopped at. To reward him she takes him to bed but he awakens to find a murder and the law on his tail. Instead of Tommy Lee Jones as the cop after him we get Steven "21 Jump Street" Williams. Williams does bring the quality up a bit in this extremely derivative film.

On his way to clear his name we get involved in a tedious web of police corruption. There is some action but it is few and far between and like expected there is even less kickboxing action then the last film. After Bloodfist VI the series could go only get better and it does but the film is this just so damn forgettable. There are much better b-grade action films as opposed to this, but like me there are other people out there hell-bent on seeing every one of these damn Bloodfist films.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Lizard In A Woman's Skin [Schizoid] - 4/5

Lucio Fulci is mostly known today as the "Godfather of Gore" with his splatter classics like "Zombie", "City of the Living Dead", "The Beyond" and "House by the Cemetery". Lucio Fulci actually had a more humble beginning in the director's field and towards the beginning of his career he directed some beautiful suspense thrillers in the giallo genre. They are a little more tame then his more popular films but in many ways these thrillers are far better and more respectable.

The first of these gialli Fulci directed was the interestingly titled "Lizard in a Woman's Skin", the title no doubt taking inspiration from the Dario Argento classic "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" with its "animal" in the title. The film opens with a rather erotic and controversial dream sequence with two women making love. Our main character wakes disturbed by her erotic dream of her neighbor and the next night she dreams of actually murdering her neighbor in the heat of passion. She awakens to find that her neighbor was actually killed in the night. Clues point the finger at her and in order to protect her and her politically famous father, she starts her own investigation to find the killer. As the film moves along the ending won't be hard to figure out but it was a real treat getting there.

Anybody who believes Fulci to be a no-talent hack who only makes movies filled with gore for shock value owe it to themselves to view this film. Fulci's direction is solid and the film is beautifully shot. Numerous sequences had me admire the film like a painting. People who want some shocking gore factor will even get a little of that as Fulci liked to shock audiences even back in his early days as a director. There is a sequence where our main character is running from a slasher and she runs into a room where there are mutilated dogs being medically tested on. The dogs apparently looked so real that Fulci was taken to court to prove that they were only special effects. See, Fulci was even controversial way back then.

There are two versions of this film available: a cut version entitled "Schizoid" and uncut version entitled "Lizard in a Woman's Skin". The Shriek DVD I have has both versions but the uncut version is taken from a VHS source and the cut version is in beautiful anamorphic widescreen. That means if I want to see the dog sequence I have to watch the cruddy VHS sourced version! Thankfully Media-Blasters fixed the problem and spliced the cut footage from the VHS version into the higher quality cut version and re-released the film on DVD. Try to see that release if at all possible to get the full effect of this classic giallo thriller that is sure to appease Euro cult fanatics.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Taste The Blood Of Dracula - 3.5/5

I have to admit, out of all the Hammer Dracula titles, Taste the Blood of Dracula is the most unique. I mean isn't Dracula supposed to taste the blood of victims instead of the other way around? Just the title alone got me interested in this fifth entry into Hammer's Dracula series.

The film opens with an extremely strange yet humorous sequence with a salesman pitching to sell a snow globe in the back of the carriage. A mentally challenged boy threatens the seller to give him the snow globe, he refuses then gets thrown out of the carriage where he lies unconscious until nightfall. Sadly this is stomping grounds of 'ol Dracula so this is not the place to get caught after dark. He awakens to screams, runs and ends up witnessing the end of the previous film with Dracula dying being impaled on a cross.

Cut to story about three snobby rich British men who like to seek thrills beyond their mundane everyday lives. Sick of the bordello scene they meet up with a Satanists (Ralph Bates, one of Hammer's most under appreciated stars) who promises a night they will never forget. Horror films in the 70's started to bring more of the devil and Satanism into their plots and Hammer was no different. The Satanist convinces the trio to buy Dracula's cape, locket, and capsule of blood from the seller in the pre-title sequence. Of course the satanic mass resurrects Dracula and he then sets his sights to hunt down and kill the trio, seducing their daughters along the way.

I have to say that out of all eight sequels to the grand Horror of Dracula, this has to be the best sequel to feature the count and it is even a vampires bit above even Dracula: Prince of Darkness. The plot adds a some freshness to the typical Dracula story, especially how he is resurrected. The cast is top notch and filled with perhaps the strongest British actors at the time and the production values are as strong as ever for Hammer. The only complaint for casting is the young male lead. He was just too plain and I didn't believe he was strong enough to take on the mighty Christopher Lee. Other than that this is a top Hammer Dracula film.

Sadly this entry would mark the end of the stronger Dracula entries as all the sequels to follow would fall more into the B-movie territory with the faltering Hammer Studios.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Bloodfist VI: Ground Zero - 1/5

It was too good to be true. I knew it would be impossible to have 3 decent Bloodfist sequels to be in a row. Bloodfist VI didn't just break the string of good sequels the series had going by being bad, it broke by going one step below that by being fucking awful.

Here the filmmakers decided to rip-off none-other than Die Hard. Other than the setting this film shameless steals so many moments from Die Hard it might as well be called Die Hard: Ground Zero instead. If you know the film Die Hard as well as I do you will be shaking your head in disgust throughout the entire movie.

Here we have a terrorist group break in and seize control of a nuclear missile silo. In this group we have all the stock characters from Die Hard including a nerdy black guy with glasses spending most of the movie trying to crack the computer. Don Wilson is a MP who happens to run across the group and decides to go John McClane on their ass and take them out before they fire nuclear missiles at all the major cities. Yawn.

Typical with these Bloodfist sequels is there seems to be less and less kickboxing despite the series started out as KICKBOXING films. Here we just stare in boredom at the screen as Wilson runs around doing one quick action scene after another to save the human race. Been there, done that and WAY fucking better. Do yourself a favor, rent Die Hard again than this extremely cheap looking knock-off.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Bloodfist V: Human Target - 2.5/5

Well I just got back from the hospital. Apparently I had an aneurysm after the Bloodfist V end credits rolled. The doctor said I was lucky to be alive and that there was really no good explanation for the cause of aneurysms. I beg to differ. I knew exactly what caused my aneurysm...Bloodfist V. Not for being bad but for actually being decent. My brain just could not handle the fact that there could actually be two decent entries into the Bloodfist franchise (in a row no less!) so it just overloaded and almost left me dead.

I'm still shocked as this fifth entry is almost as good as Bloodfist IV. Like the previous two sequels again the film is completely unrelated to the other films. This time we have Don "The Dragon" Wilson waking up from a coma not knowing who he is. He is greeted by his "girlfriend" (none other than Denise "Subspecies Sequels" Duff). While taking him "home" they get chased down by guys with machine guns. Apparently Wilson's has a questionable past but was he a good guy or a bad guy? We then find out that Denise Duff is a whore hired to act as his girlfriend. The best part of the film though is that Steve fucking James plays her pimp. Remember Steve James? He played the sidekick in some of the best B-action films ever made: American Ninja, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation, Avenging Force, The Delta Force and Hero and the Terror just to name a few. This guy is major bad ass and his presence in any B-action film is greatly appreciated.

This is when the plot does a whole lot twists and turns. Wilson is then kidnapped by the FBI and says he works for them, he is then kidnapped by the bad guys and is said to work for them, and vice versa. Characters return throughout the film first playing a bad guys, then good guys, and vice versa. There are actually so many twists and turns I actually got a little tired of it by the end. MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND ALREADY...is he good or is he bad!

Despite perhaps having too many twists, the film ends up being a decent B-action movie...especially by Bloodfist film standards! The acting is decent and the direction is adequate. Other than the entertaining awfulness of the first film, Bloodfist IV and V end up being king of the pack in this overly long series.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Dracula Has Risen From The Grave - 3/5

Like any good vampire you can't keep Dracula down for the count (sorry, I had to do that pun). As one can easily tell from the title we find out Dracula LIVES in this fourth entry into Hammer's classic Dracula series. For this we can thank the Catholic church as a bishop and a priest head up to Dracula's castle to rid the world of evil forever. Why would they do this since the countryside has been terror free for over a year? The reason is, get this, Dracula's castle literally casts a shadow over a small villages church hence no one goes because the shadow is "evil". I'm sorry but I found that a rather weak cause for two priests to go up to go up to the castle.

While there a bishop hangs a cross on Dracula's door, says a prayer, and a storm brews in good Gothic fashion and makes the other priest fall and cut his head open. The kicker is that his blood just happens to flow directly into Dracula's mouth threw a crack in the ice, the watery grave he became trapped in at the end of the last film. I mean, really, what are the chances the blood would flow directly in his mouth? The bishop leaves without or wounded priest and heads back to town while in the mean time Dracula awakens, takes the wounded priest as a slave, and not surprisingly gets extremely pissed off at the cross hanging on his castle's door. He demands revenge and hence him and his new slave head to the bishop's nearby town.

In the new town we are introduced to our two main characters, the first being a young man looking exactly like Roger Daltry of The Who working in a bakery SHIRTLESS of all things. Who goes shirtless in a bakery, really? I guess hammer films are full of gorgeous women so it's only fair once in a while women get some eye candy. Our other main character is the Bishop's niece, a beautiful women who is dating our baker. To quote the great William Peterson line of To Live and Die in L.A.: You want bread? Fuck a baker! Sorry I couldn't help myself.

Dracula in good revenge fashion decides to take the bishop's niece as his new bride and it's up to our Roger Daltry look-alike to stop the evil fiend.

The best thing about this sequel is the dark Gothic look to it grandly achieved by new comer director to the series Freddie Francis. He is also a little more experimental behind the camera giving us more interesting camera work compared to Terence Fischer, director of the first 3 films. However Freddie can be a little too experimental as in many scenes featuring Dracula he decided to give the film a filter resulting in a rust color halo around the outside of the frame. It's supposed to give the sequences "atmosphere" but it ended up being annoying and it is extremely noticeable when the camera pans and moves. Bad idea Freddie! Another problem is Dracula himself as like the last film, he is becoming more of a one dimensional character despite the fact they play him off being more evil. I did like how they made him talk this time though. Christopher Lee has a wonderful voice and they need to utilize it more in these films.

Other than those faults and a weak plot, the film still was a good time. The acting is great and so is the score. A definite must for fans of the series though others might get tired with Dracula at this point.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Cold Eyes Of Fear [Desperate Moments] - 1.5/5

When one sees the name Enzo G. Castellari as the director of a film one expects ACTION. This is because his specialty is action films. His entries into the spaghetti western, poliziotteschi, macaroni combat genres are classic and some of the best the films the genres have to offer. He could arguable be the best action director in Italy (See "Kill Them All and Come Back Alone", "Street Law", "Keoma", "The Big Racket", "The Heroin Busters", and "The Inglorious Bastards" to see what I mean). This here lies the problem with "Cold Eyes of Fear" (or "Desperate Moments" as the opening title card reads on my DVD).

"Cold Eyes of Fear" as it is not an action film but suspense thriller, or better known to Italian film buffs as a giallo. Perhaps wanting to try something different Enzo decided to give the giallo genre a stab as they were really popular at the time this film was made (1971). The results prove that Enzo should stick with action as he seems very uncomfortable at handling the suspense/thriller genre.

The film opens with a sexy sequence that turns into a possible murder but Enzo decides to fool the audience and it all ends up being a play in front of a crowd. It's a shame the rest of the film wasn't as interesting as this opening sequence. The plot ends up revolving around an ex-con kidnapping the son of the very judge that sentenced him to prison. Not much else to say about the yawn inducing plot.

Perhaps the greatest sin Enzo makes is that the film is boring. The film just ends up being overly talky with no action. After finishing the film I couldn't believe it was directed by Enzo G. Castellari! There are a few twists but by the time they happen I was completely uninterested.

I own 37 giallo films on DVD and "Cold Eyes of Fear" is perhaps the most blah, uninteresting one in my collection. It just boggles my mind that this was directed by one of my favorite Italian directors. The film has some cool trademark Enzo camera work and it has a funky score by Ennio Morricone, but it's not enough to keep this Euro Cult enthusiast interested. Skip it unless you need a sleep aid.

Written By Eric Reifschneider