BEN-HUR -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/13/16

 

First things first--there's this Best Picture-winning classic from 1959 called BEN-HUR, and any remake of it is likely to suffer in comparison.  As will anyone else who plays the title role besides the great Charlton Heston, or anyone else who plays Judah Ben-Hur's adoptive brother Messala besides Stephen Boyd, or any other spectacular climactic chariot race that isn't the original spectacular climactic chariot race.

If, however, you can manage to get past all that (which I myself eventually managed to do to one degree or another), while remembering that the 1959 version is itself a remake of the equally spectacular silent version with Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman, then the 2016 remake of BEN-HUR (Paramount Home Media Distribution) can be a rewarding as well as delightfully entertaining experience.

Based on General Lew Wallace's wildly-successful 1880 novel "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ", the story takes place in A.D.33 Jerusalem and is all about the loving yet highly competitive relationship between Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston, SHROOMS), a Jew, and his adoptive brother Messala (Toby Kebbell, WILDERNESS), a Roman, during a time when the Roman occupation is becoming ever more oppressive.

Complications ensue when Judah and his family are blamed for an attempt on the life of Pontius Pilate (Pilou Asbæk, LUCY), and Messala, now an officer in the Roman army, is forced to take sides against them.  With the brothers now mortal enemies, Judah's family disappears into captivity while he himself begins the drudgery-filled dead-end life of a galley slave. 

But a twist of fate allows Judah to escape during a sea battle against the Greeks, whereupon he is taken in by African entrepreneur Ilderim (Morgan Freeman, THE DARK KNIGHT, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) and allowed to enter the man's chariot in a thrilling race which will pit him against his brother Messala, the Roman champion. 

If that chariot race is the main thing you're curious about, you're not the only one.  I was chomping at the bit throughout the entire film leading up to it, and when it finally got under way, it proved to be exceptionally well-done and exciting.

 

The oval track itself was built on the Cinecittà Studios lot in Rome (much of the rest of the film was done at Cinecittà as well) and filled in with CGI to create a suitably majestic backdrop for this breathtaking sequence.  Jerusalem itself is an actual city in Italy that serves as a stunning representation of the ancient setting.

As always, the use of digital effects detracts from the kind of real-world splendor and excitement we got in the pre-CGI days, but here, the effects are integrated well enough into the live footage to augment it very well. 

As for the stunts, the sequence is loaded with visceral thrills that make it, if not superior to previous versions, at least worthy to stand alongside them. Younger viewers unfamiliar with the story will no doubt see here the inspiration for the podrace sequence in THE PHANTOM MENACE.

 

The film boasts other notable action scenes as well.  Earlier in the story, we see glimpses of furious battles during which Messala rises within the ranks of the Roman military.  Later comes the spectacular sea battle, most of which we see from Judah's limited point of view as the galley slaves, toiling at the oars, experience a grueling ordeal of terror and death while unseen carnage rages around them.  Again, the CGI in this sequence is superb. 

There's a modicum of romance, mainly between Judah and his great love Esther (Nazanin Boniadi, IRON MAN), the daughter of a slave.  Most of the film's true sentiment, however, is focused upon the relationship between the two brothers, Judah's attempts to locate his missing mother and sister, and, most importantly, his spiritual awakening. 

Here, his life intersects poignantly at key points with that of a humble, peace-loving carpenter named Jesus Christ, whose eventual crucifixion as an enemy of Rome gives the film one of its most heartrending sequences.

As Judah, Huston is no Heston, but for this more modest version of BEN-HUR--relatively speaking--it makes sense to have more of a smaller-than-life hero.  Morgan Freeman plays his usual "sage old mentor" character while looking a bit like a cross between Whoopi Goldberg and the alien from PREDATOR.  The rest of the cast perform adequately. 

Direction by Timur Bekmambetov (ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER) is good although I would've preferred less "jittery-cam" and more traditional camerawork.  As mentioned before, the Italian locations are stunning, and well-served by their digital augmentations.  There are some amusing anachronisms in the dialogue, as when Judah cries out during some early horseplay, "ARE WE HAVING FUN NOW, BROTHER?" and later when a dazzled Messala exclaims "Wow!"

The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Paramount Home Media Distribution contains a Blu-ray disc with special features, a DVD disc with the film by itself, and access to a Digital HD version of the film.  The Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The DVD in the combo pack is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.

Extras consist of the featurettes "Ben-Hur: The Legacy", "The Epic Cast", "A Tale for Our Times", and "The Chariot Race", along with deleted & extended scenes and related music videos.

While seldom on the same epic scale as its predecessors, this latest retelling of BEN-HUR does benefit from an earnest sincerity in its dramatic scenes, even when they don't quite move us to the degree intended.  And--most importantly, of course--the action scenes deliver exactly what we're looking for when we watch a movie like this, and plenty of it.

BEN-HUR -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

MY TOP 50 FAVORITE BAD MOVIES! by Porfle

If I don't mention one that you think is an extremely obvious choice, then I either don't like it or I haven't seen it yet.

(Click on the active links to read our reviews!)


1
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

2
Village of the Giants (1965)

3
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

4
Frankenstein's Daughter (1958)

5
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

6
The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

7
Teenage Zombies (1959)

8
Playgirl Killer (1966)

9
Glen or Glenda (1953)

10
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

11
The Killer Shrews (1959)

12
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

13
If Ever I See You Again (1978)

14
Valentine Magic on Love Island (1980)

15
Blood Feast (1963)

16
The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

17
Bride of the Monster (1955)

18
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)

19
Wild Guitar (1962)

20
The Cyclops (1957)

21
Teenagers From Outer Space (1959)

22
The Creeping Terror (1964)

23
Reefer Madness [Tell Your Children] (1936)

24
Zontar, The Thing from Venus (1966)

25
Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966)

26
Attack of the Giant Leeches [The Giant Leeches] (1959)

27

Orgy of the Dead (1965)

28
The Horror of Party Beach (1964)

29
Monstrosity [The Atomic Brain] (1964)

30
Battlefield Earth (2000)

31
Maniac (1934)

32
Monster From Green Hell (1957)

33
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

34
The Wild World of Batwoman (1966)

35
Robot Monster (1953)

36
Lisztomania (1975)

37
Mars Needs Women (1967)

38
The Doll Squad (1973)

39
The Crawling Hand (1963)

40
Killers From Space (1954)

41
The Neanderthal Man (1953)

42
Night of the Ghouls (1959)

43
Fire Maidens From Outer Space (1956)

44
Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)

45
Indestructible Man (1956)

46
Devil Girl From Mars (1954)

47
They Saved Hitler's Brain (1963)

48
The Wasp Woman (1959)

49
Armageddon (1998)

50
The Concorde - Airport '79 (1979)

MY TOP 50 FAVORITE BAD MOVIES! by Porfle

THE ARDENNES -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/4/17

 

Belgian director Robin Pront credits Martin Scorcese and David Fincher among his artistic influences, and after watching his feature writing/directing debut THE ARDENNES (2015), it's easy to see why. 

I see mostly the Fincher of SE7EN in Pront's dark, gritty visual style and in the visceral, hard-hitting effect he achieves.  By the time it was over, I felt as though I'd been beaten and dragged through the mud in the stinging cold rain just like the two main characters, brothers Dave (Jeroen Perceval, BULLHEAD) and Kenny (Kevin Janssens).

Both are involved in a botched home robbery at the beginning, and while Dave gets away, Kenny goes to prison for four years.  In that time, Kenny's girlfriend Sylvie (Veerle Baetens) realizes that he's the cause of all her miseries and ends up falling in love with Dave.

Four years later, Dave and Sylvie are expecting a child and dreading the effect this potentially incendiary news will have on a newly-released Kenny.  Their fears, we discover, are well-founded, as the volatile Kenny's incarceration has only made him more jealous, more wildly unpredictable, and, worst of all, more prone to sudden, irrational violence.

Pront has an economical style and an artist's eye as director--as well as a terrific cast to work with--establishing a bleak world in which there seems no way out through either honest labor or, in Sylvie's case, well-intentioned group therapy (Kenny attends a session unannounced and, unsurprisingly, disrupts and intimidates). 

The first half of the movie slowly, methodically builds tension and dread, with Dave and Sylvie's secret hanging like the sword of Damocles over every scene (Kenny gets a clue to their relationship early on which we're invited to pick up on ourselves).
 

We also fear a variety of other conflicts Kenny stokes with everyone from Dave's abrasive boss, who reluctantly hires him at Dave's urging and quickly regrets it, to the Moroccan club owner where Sylvie works (when Kenny sees him touching her from across the crowded dance floor, we know there will be hell to pay).

Then, after Pront and co-writer Perceval are done slowly lulling us into a very valid sense of dread, the dam breaks and suddenly we, along with Kenny and Dave and a dead body that's in Dave's trunk for some reason, are swept away into the dark heart of the Ardennes forest where dead bodies go to disappear and sometimes the people who bring them there do too.

Pront's Scorcese influence gets a workout here when Kenny's way-creepy former cellmate Stef (Jan Bijvoet) and Stef's hulking transvestite boyfriend Joyce (Sam Louwyck) show up just to make things scarier and more violent in all sorts of ways.

I'm loathe to reveal any more, except to say that from here on in, "sudden death" isn't just a sports term.  The film saves a wicked little twist to pull on us just when we least expect it, paving the way for a mud-and-blood-splattered finale in which not everyone lives happily ever after.

The DVD from Film Movement is in 2.40:1 widescreen with both 5.1 and 2.0 stereo sound.  Language is Flemish and French with English subtitles.  In addition to a commentary track with director Proust and actor Kevin Janssens ("Kenny"), extras consist of a making-of featurette, a gritty and violent 15-minute short by Proust entitled "Injury Time", an interview with Proust and Janssens, and trailers for this and other Film Movement releases.

THE ARDENNES isn't the ideal film to watch if you're trying to cultivate a happy mood.  Not that it's as downbeat and depressing as, say, EDEN LAKE--nowhere near it--because as disheartening as it might be, it's still just so keenly clever and mischievously malicious that I actually felt strangely elated at the end, and, compared to these poor slobs, a little happier with my own lot in life. 

THE ARDENNES -- DVD Review by Porfle

HEIDI (2015) -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/25/17

 

Before, whenever I heard the name "Heidi", I thought of Shirley Temple being cute, or a children's book that I never read, or, most infamously, an American Football League game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets on November 17, 1968 which, during an intensely suspenseful fourth quarter, was suddenly interrupted by NBC for the premiere of a brand new "Heidi" TV-movie, causing frenzied football fans all along the East Coast to tear their hair out in utter, gibbering consternation.

But that was before.  Now, having just seen the latest Swedish film adaptation of Johanna Spyri's 1881 children's book HEIDI (2015), not only has my perception of the story gone up considerably, but you might even call me a fan.  At least, a fan of this wonderfully rendered and exquisitely produced version.

Anuk Steffen is disarmingly endearing in the title role as a young orphan girl pawned off on her gruff grandfather by an uncaring aunt. Grandfather is played by Bruno Ganz, known mainly these days as Adolf Hitler in DOWNFALL (2004) thanks to all those "Hitler Reacts" video memes on the internet.

 

Here, he convincingly plays an old hermit living on a mountaintop in the Swiss Alps who rejects the child at first but eventually warms up to and then learns to love her.

The mountain sequences are dazzling with their beautiful locations and photography, whether during the lush green spring and summer or the frosty snow of winter.  Heidi frolics almost as a feral child, accompanying her young friend Peter during his daily goatherding duties or just hanging out with and gradually humanizing the once misanthropic old man. 

Her happiness is short-lived, however, when mercenary Aunt Dete (Anna Schinz) returns and takes her away to the city to live with a wealthy widower--and mostly absentee father--as a companion to his wheelchair-bound daughter, Klara (Isabelle Ottmann), an arrangment from which the unscrupulous aunt makes a tidy profit.

 

Although Heidi and Klara become fast friends, Heidi's life is made miserable by the stiflingly formal regimen of upper-class life (where she is addressed by her real name, Adelheid) personified by stiff, sadistic governess Miss Rottenmeier (Katharina Schüttler), who more than lives up to her name.

Thus, Heidi's dilemma is that she yearns to escape back to Grandfather and her beautiful mountaintop home but also dreads leaving poor Klara alone in her dreary, joyless existence. 

Director Alain Gsponer (LIFE ACTUALLY) has a very nimble and imaginative style that adapts well to the various settings.  The cinematography is consistently fine, as is the film's musical score. 

While the Swiss Alps provide some incredible eye-candy, even the believably gritty city and village settings are impeccably rendered and totally convincing.  The mansion scenes are suitably oppressive, sort of like a children's story as written by one of the Brontë sisters. I also sense something of a GREYSTOKE vibe at times, so jarring is Heidi's forced transition into so-called civilized life, with a bit of A LITTLE PRINCESS thrown in as well.

The cast are so good at their roles and the script so well-written that Heidi's story is effortlessly engaging from beginning to end.  Her eventual reunion with Grandfather and her precious mountains delivers a well-earned emotional catharsis. 

One of the film's main strengths is that it takes its story seriously--the drama and pathos are realistically handled, and lighthearted moments spring naturally from the situations without seeming forced or artificially cute.

The DVD from Omnibus Entertainment and Film Movement is in 2.40:1 widescreen with 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby surround sound.  Dubbed English or original German with English subtitles are available.  No extras.

I feel now as though I've been missing out on this story all these years, although I can't imagine it being presented in such a realistic and satisfying fashion as it is here.  There's so much more to this version of HEIDI than its innocuous-sounding title might suggest, and it should please both children and the adults who watch it with them to an equal degree. 

HEIDI (2015) -- DVD Review by Porfle

HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 8/10/11

 

I was pretty numb during the first twenty minutes or so of HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL (2011) with its hyperactive sugar-high action, "girl power" antics, self-consciously hip and overly adult humor, and the kind of rubbery-looking CGI cartoon characters that I'm sorta getting tired of looking at. 

But at a certain point in the story we find out who the real bad guys are, and it's such a neat surprise that I thought, "Okay, I get it now" and started to enjoy this tacky little bag of eye candy.  I still didn't love it, but I didn't hate it anymore, either. 

From that magical children's wonderland known as The Weinstein Company, this relatively low-budget concoction opens with Granny (Glenn Close) and her fellow HEA (Happily Ever After) agents attempting to rescue Hansel and Gretel from the evil witch's gingerbread house before she cooks and eats them.  But without the help of agent Red Riding Hood (Hayden Panettiere), who's off training with the Sisters of the Hood at their mountaintop temple, the mission fails and the witch makes off with the both the children and Granny.



Holding them captive in the Dark Castle Towers hotel, the witch tries to make Granny divulge the secret recipe for the Norwegian Black Forest Feather Cake Truffle Divine, which can make those who eat it super-powerful and invincible.  Meanwhile, Red and Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) are on the trail along with their caffeine-crazed squirrel sidekick Twitchy, until their endless bickering causes them to split up.  Naturally, they eventually learn to work together and, with the help of numerous friends, save the day.

There's action aplenty as the spunky Red and her friends fight a variety of giant monsters (including an enormous spider), underworld baddies (the scene in the beanstalk giant's glitzy nightclub is fun), murderous hit-pigs with bazookas, and other dark denizens of their skewed fairytale world.  There's so much going on, in fact, that you might get a headache trying to take it all in--even the background extras swarm with extraneous activity.  Much of it, needless to say, is designed to hypnotically dazzle young eyeballs and keep them glued to the screen. 

The oddest thing about HOODWINKED TOO! for me is that it seems like a cross between a kids' film and an underground comic from the 60s that satirizes kids' films.  At the risk of sounding prudish, I remember when movies aimed at ten-year-olds didn't have bathroom humor, drug references ("The 60s were kind of a blur," Granny reveals), and funny-animal characters getting kicked in the nuts.  When the Wolf gets crotch-crunched after being splayed over an iron bar, he groans, "I can taste my own butt." 

A jab at Disney features the words "disgustingly cute" (how dare Uncle Walt make innocuous, non-hip kid flicks that were rated G?)  "Da fan is about to be hit by da doody!" is exclaimed at one point, and when the beanstalk giant (Brad Garrett) lands on a folk-singing goat, the little guy's voice--coming out of the giant's ass, of course--faintly remarks, "I'm in a dark tunnel...and I can smell burritos."  It's funny how the "adult" humor that permeates the script is also the most puerile. 



The film is also loaded with pop culture references that only adults will get, most of whom will have to be over thirty.  Among the TV shows that are spoofed verbally or visually are "Happy Days", "Star Trek", and "Starsky and Hutch."  SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is strongly recalled when Red and Wolf visit the previous film's villain, Boingo Bunny (Andy Dick), in his Lecter-like dungeon cell, while Granny sports the same yellow and black outfit worn by Uma Thurman in KILL BILL VOL. 1.  The idea that the writers expect young viewers of HOODWINKED TOO! to have seen those two films is somewhat distressing. 

Nevertheless, there are so many gags flying around all over the place that some of them are pretty amusing, especially anything involving those strange little German tykes Hansel (Bill Hader) and Gretel (Amy Poehler).  In the meantime, older viewers may enjoy playing "spot the celebrity voice."  Panettiere and Close are okay as Red and Granny, and Warburton gives The Wolf his usual laconic quality.  Joan Cusack instills the witch with the same manic kookiness she brought to ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES. 

The Three Little Henchman Pigs are voiced by Cheech & Chong and Phil Lamarr with predictable results.  Martin Short and Heidi Klum are among the corpulent squad of yodeling mercenaries who aid in Granny's rescue.  David Ogden Stiers plays Nicky Flippers, the frog leader of the HEA, and the beanstalk giant's singing harp, Jimmy 10-Strings, is voiced by Vegas mainstay Wayne Newton (who's starting to look a little like a CGI cartoon character himself).

The two-disc Blu-Ray/DVD combo from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 widescreen and Dolby English 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include "The Voices of Hoodwinked Too!", storyboard comparisons, production artwork, three music videos, and brief videogame teasers.   

I don't watch a lot of these computer-animated cartoons myself--I prefer either cel animation or WALLACE AND GROMIT-style stop-motion--so I can't really compare the effects of HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL to the recent high-profile examples of the genre churned out by the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks.  What I can say is that although I found it too frenetic and lowbrow at times, I still managed to enjoy it to a certain extent.  But it's not exactly what I'd call a basket of goodies.

HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL -- DVD Review by Porfle

SPY KIDS 4: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/15/11

 

Am I not supposed to love this movie?  Not according to IMDb's user vote, which currently gives it about a 3 out of 10.  Fortunately, my inner ADD child doesn't read IMDb, and he thinks SPY KIDS 4: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD (2011) is like a giant gumball machine of fun which rates way more than that.

Writer-director Robert Rodriguez gives his own inner child free rein here and the result is a consistently inventive and lightning-paced romp packed with just about everything a kid might want to see in a movie.  Not the least of which being the chance to vicariously get swept up in a series of wild spy adventures with a couple of kids--make that Spy Kids--who suddenly find themselves having to save the world.

Rebecca Wilson (Rowan Blanchard), who loves to pull practical jokes, and her twin brother Cecil (Mason Cook), a brainy bookworm, are the typical bickering, competitive siblings.  Their dad Wilbur (Joel McHale) stars in a TV series called "Wilbur Wilson: Spy Hunter" but is unaware that his own wife Marissa (Jessica Alba) is herself a former OSS superspy now retired to take care of their new baby. 



In addition to struggling to connect with her dubious stepkids, Marissa is suddenly called back into action when a supervillain known as the Time Keeper threatens to end the world as we know it by accelerating time.  Needless to say, Rebecca and Cecil eventually end up as OSS agents themselves when the discontinued "Spy Kids" program is reactivated, with Rebecca's prankish ingenuity and Cecil's superior intellect saving the day.

The film opens with a very pregnant Marissa in hot pursuit of the Time Keeper's impish second banana Tick Tock even as her contractions begin, which gives us a good idea of the story's lighthearted and fantastical nature right off the bat.  It also gives us a taste of the endless barrage of cartoony CGI sight gags that will increase exponentially for the rest of the film, climaxing in the Time Keeper's vast clockwork lair with its huge rotating gears and deadly spinning second hand.

Once it gets going, the action never stops.  A surprise attack on the Wilson home by the Timekeeper's henchmen sends Rebecca and Cecil--via prerecorded holographic messages from Marissa--into an elaborate panic room where they hop into rocket-propelled jet luges that whisk them on a screaming aerial joyride to OSS headquarters with the bad guys hot on their tails. This is fun stuff, kids, replete with barf bag bombs (Cecil gets airsick), multiple sight gags, and thrilling special effects, during which their tiny robot dog Argonaut keeps up a steady stream of lowbrow one-liners (Ricky Gervais does a great job voicing the mutt who thinks he's a canine James Bond).

The OSS headquarters turns out to be like a theme park filled with awesome gadgets which the kids avail themselves of before striking out on their own after the Time Keeper.  Eventually the entire Wilson family, including Spy Baby of course, is united in the fight, only to be thwarted by "time bombs", freeze rays, and other unforeseen dangers.  Fans of the first three films will no doubt be pleased to find the original Spy Kids, Carmen (Alexa Vega, looking sharp these days) and Juni (Daryl Sabara), now grown up, joining in the action themselves. 



Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook are perfect as Rebecca and Cecil and perform like pros while still coming across as real kids.  Not only are they good, natural comic actors but clearly are very directable as well.  McHale and Alba make an appealing couple, with Jessica looking especially fit in a series of skintight spy outfits.  Jeremy Piven, appearing in multiple roles including OSS leader Danger D'Amo, does an outstanding job and is key to making some of the film's more heartfelt moments work.  Speaking of which, the subplot with Marissa trying to fit in as the kids' stepmom is nicely handled, as is the message (non-too-subtle, but this is a kids' movie) about not taking time or family for granted.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Extras include a Robert Rodriguez kid interview, "Spy Kids Passing the Torch" with Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara, deleted scenes (with Danny Trejo as "Uncle Machete"), "Rowan and Mason's Video Diary", "How to Make a Robotic Dog", "Ricky Gervais as Argonaut", and "Spy Gadgets."  The film is available both as a single DVD and a 4-disc combo pack with Blu-Ray+bonus, DVD+bonus, Blu-Ray 3D, and Digital Copy.

As colorful, fast-moving, and frenetic as any anime or CGI cartoon, SPY KIDS 4: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD is the kind of giddy-fun thrill ride of a movie that I wish I'd been able to see as a kid.  Apparently there are some pretty convincing reasons not to like it, judging from its low IMDb rating, but darn if I could find any of them.  I even enjoyed the fart jokes.

SPY KIDS 4: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD -- DVD Review by Porfle

BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 2/13/10

 

 

After having recently watched the third season of the British TV series "Robin Hood", I found SyFy Channel's BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST to be woefully bland and uninspired by comparison. Even the fact that it has a big, dumb bad-CGI dragon flying around doesn't help.

In a flashback, young Robin Hood watches as the dragon kills the Sheriff of Nottingham and is felled by arrows from his father and the Sheriff's successor, Malcolm (Julian Sands). Wounded, the creature reverts to its true form, that of a naked woman named Alina (Katharine Isabelle, GINGER SNAPS, FREDDY VS. JASON, CARRIE remake) with hyper regenerative powers. Malcolm wants to capture her in hopes that he can use her blood to give himself immortality, and when Robin's dad objects, Malcolm kills him.

Jump forward a couple of decades, and it's the old story of Robin stealing from the rich and giving to the poor while Malcolm, now the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, struggles endlessly to capture him and gain the favor of the equally-evil Prince John. He orders Alina, whose still-beating heart he holds hostage in a jar, to find Robin and his merry men and kill them. Robin, meanwhile, sets off on a quest to enter the mystical Dark Woods (from which Alina was banished as a child) and find the Keepers of the Trees, who possess a plant which can neutralize her dragon powers and make her mortal.

You're probably well aware that "Robin Hood" stories don't usually feature stuff like sorcerers and flying dragons, but this is SyFy and they have to squeeze some wince-inducing CGI in there somewhere. The idea that somewhere in Sherwood Forest there's this big floating doorway into the Dark Woods which has somehow escaped the notice of the general public for several years is equally farfetched, and the thought of Robin Hood and his small and lackluster band of Merry Men wandering around in there trying to locate the "Keepers of the Trees" struck me as a pretty non-thrilling quest.

Besides Little John and Will Scarlett running into some typically bad-CGI wolves along the way, their lengthy encounter with these robed bores is about as enchanting as a Rotary Club meeting. ("It is the law of the woods," their leader informs Robin at one point, to which he responds, "Where I come from, it is the men who make the laws...not the trees.") Later, they get captured by the Sheriff's men and, after the usual clever escape from jail, have it out with the bad guys as Robin and Malcolm go at it sword-to-sword in desultory fashion. To make things worse, our hero performs rather unheroically during this battle and comes off as a decidedly smaller-than-life character.

With his fussily-trimmed beard, costume-like clothing, and less than rugged demeanor, Robin Dunne makes one of the least impressive Robin Hoods ever. Mark Gibbon is a passable Little John (although both he and Katharine Isabelle currently fail to list this film on their IMDb pages), while Richard de Klerk's Will Scarlett reminds me of a belligerent Gilligan. Erica Durance makes a nice-looking Maid Marian, but since this is a "modern" retelling she is given the fighting skills of a warrior woman and further diminishes our hero by besting him with a staff.

As Prince John, David Richmond-Peck does a fairly good job although he resembles a grown-up version of Butch from "Our Gang" and falls far short of Toby Stephens' delightful interpretation of the character in the recent TV series. Julian Sands, of course, does his best as the Sheriff but can't manage to rise above the dull script (which boasts such anachronistic lines as "I've taken out an insurance policy") and murky, unappealing production values.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Surround 5.1, with English subtitles. A "making-of" featurette and a trailer are the extras.

Okay if there's nothing else to watch but hardly worth going out of your way to see, BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST is a lackluster effort that may leave you pining for Errol Flynn, or even Kevin Costner.

BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST -- DVD Review by Porfle

DINOSHARK -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/3/11

 

Compared to its follow-up, SHARKTOPUS, I found the highly-rated SyFy Channel fishfest DINOSHARK (2010) to be superior in just about every way.  Of course, that's like saying falling out of a two-storey window is superior to getting run over by a bus, but at least the first one is sort of exciting on the way down.

Eric Balfour, an actor I like for some reason after seeing him in Larry Bishop's bonehead biker flick HELL RIDE and the TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE remake, plays "Trace McGraw", who has returned to Puerto Vallarta to resume running a charter boat for tourists.  He meets a gorgeous blonde teacher named Carol Brubaker (Iva Hasperger), who joins him in the search when their mutual friend Rita goes missing.  Rita, of course, has been eaten by a dinoshark, and Trace and Carol end up going after the prehistoric beast themselves as it makes a beeline for its next beachfront buffet.

Lacking a big star like SHARKTOPUS' Eric Roberts, DINOSHARK benefits from the fact that some of the leads are actually pretty good actors (although Roger Corman is fortunate he didn't have to audition for his brief role as a fish expert).  And lucky for them, the script isn't nearly as dumb.  It does have its moments, though, as when Trace discusses his next course of action against the monster with friend Luis:

Trace: "So, what...we'll need explosives, right?"
Luis: "Yeah.  I'll try to get some from my friends at the army base."



Talk about convenient!  Nothing like having some pals at a nearby army base who don't mind lending you a few grenades and rocket launchers.  And then there's the helicopter scene, which is just plain goofy (but in a good way) and allows Balfour to intone a wry reference to JAWS.  Other echoes of the Spielberg classic abound, including a direct quote of its famous "DUN-dun DUN-dun" theme music as a hapless couple in a canoe try to outrun the toothy terror. 

The film is really pretty similar to a regular shark movie anyway--the Dinoshark isn't all that much bigger than Bruce, and it does pretty much the same things in the same way, aside from being able to leap out of the water to snag surfers and para-sailors in mid-air.  As co-producer (with his wife Julie) Roger Corman has said, you don't tease the viewer in a TV-movie the way you would for a theatrical film--you show the monster right away.  And sure enough, DINOSHARK isn't five minutes old before we get a gander at the head, the tail--the whole damn thing.  It isn't a bad-looking critter, really, resembling a cross between a shark and a big horned toad.

By being way less outlandish than its follow-up, this film's SPFX manage to be a bit more convincing even though they're still on the chintzy side.  The CGI guys aren't asked to overextend themselves as much, and manage to turn in some passable effects along with the more wince-inducing ones.  A big mock-up of the monster's head is used in several closeups of swimmers being chomped, but most of the attacks take place underwater and are digitally rendered.  The gore level is somewhat higher than in SHARKTOPUS, especially when Rita's leftovers are washed ashore.



Kevin O'Neill, whose only other director credit is this film's 2004 predecessor DINOCROC, is a visual effects veteran of films such as the FEAST and PULSE series and TV's "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys."  So in addition to being able to stage action scenes pretty well, he also knows where the SPFX are going to go later on.  The lush, scenic Puerto Vallarta locations are milked for all the added production values they can yield as the film breaks out into a festive travelogue montage at the drop of a hat.  The roving camera also manages to zero in on an abundance of frolicking bikini babes throughout the film. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Besides a trailer, there's a commentary track featuring Roger and Julie Corman and director O'Neill.

The finale is pretty lively as the finny fiend makes its way to a heavily-populated resort beach where a sailboat regatta and a women's water polo match are being held, complete with a wide array of human appetizers bobbing around.  Balfour gets a cool final confrontation with Kid Din-o-Shark (I keep imagining J.J. from "Good Times" doing the play-by-play) and Iva Hasperger delivers one of those badass action-movie one-liners to top things off.  All in all, DINOSHARK is a pretty fun movie to watch, and not just in a derisive-laughter kind of way. 

DINOSHARK -- DVD Review by Porfle

Jack Nicholson's WACKY Early Bit Part in "The Little Shop of Horrors" (1960) (video)

Seymour Krelboin (Jonathan Haze) inadvertently kills the dentist, Dr. Farb (John Shaner). 

The next patient is masochistic pain freak Wilbur Force...
...played by a VERY young Jack Nicholson.

Seymour must now pretend to be the dentist.

This was only Jack's fourth appearance in a movie.
But it's definitely one of his funniest.

The film was shot in only two days...
...on sets left standing from "A Bucket Of Blood."

"Little Shop of Horrors"
Director: Roger Corman
Writers: Charles B. Griffith, Roger Corman


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Jack Nicholson's WACKY Early Bit Part in "The Little Shop of Horrors" (1960) (video)

KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 4/18/10

 

If you're a fan of movies that look like they were shot with a camcorder (mainly because they were), yet are somehow--perhaps inexplicably--fun to watch, then J.R. Bookwalter and Tempe Entertainment have come up with another fun way for you to waste a few hours of your life that you probably wouldn't have done anything productive with anyway.

The most interesting thing about the KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE disc is that it's a double-feature containing the original 1991 flick directed by Bookwalter and shot in Ohio for about $2,500, plus its 2007 remake by Canadian director Brett Kelly (THE BONESETTER, MY DEAD GIRLFRIEND). With sixteen years of cinematic progress separating the two, you'd think that Kelly's version would be a significant improvement. And technically speaking, you'd be correct--it isn't nearly as hokey and slapdash as the original. But somehow, it isn't quite as much fun, either.

As the 1991 version begins, we meet Jeffrey (Matthew Jason Walsh, who co-scripted with Bookwalter), a nebbishy, inept night-shift clerk in a convenience store. When he drags himself home after work--to the only house in the neighborhood that is permanently draped in a shroud of ground fog--he's forced to clean up the blood-splattered Girl Scout currently decorating the kitchen after trying to sell cookies to Jeffrey's mom, who happens to be a vampire.

Imagine character actress Kathleen Freeman or "Everybody Loves Raymond"'s Doris Roberts as a frumpy, yet bloodthirsty vampire in curlers, a housecoat, and fuzzy slippers. That's Jeffrey's mom. Cherie Patry is hilarious in the role, always furiously nagging Jeffrey to stop trying to be normal and be more of a vampire like his late father and herself.


She wistfully regails him with stories about how vampires used to rule the world, with humans as their cattle, until they began to be hunted down and wiped out over the centuries. Then she frumps back to her comfy chair in the livingroom to watch TV and munch on Girl Scout cookies and stray kitty cats. And when she's not doing that, she's beating the bloody bejeepers out of Jeffrey with a big wooden crucifix while screaming at him like a bull moose in heat.

Well, Halloween's a-comin', and Mom's planning to snag herself a tasty trick-r-treater or two to snack on, while Jeffrey dreads having to help with the slaughter. Mom gets all done up as a wicked witch, and really looks natural in the part. She invites a mother and her little boy, who's dressed up like Robot Ninja ("He's cool! He kills people!" the kid gushes) into her house and the horrific fun begins, with Jeffrey as a reluctant accomplice. But before long, the resulting missing-persons investigation will lead the local law dog, Sheriff Blake (Tom Stephan) right to Jeffrey's doorstep.

Meanwhile, a pretty young girl named Nina (the cute Shannon Doyle) starts hanging around the convenience store and becoming romantically interested in Jeffrey for some damn reason that I couldn't quite fathom. She does explain at one point that he reminds her of a pet mouse she once had. So I guess I was just wasting my time back in high school, trying to get girls to like me by acting "cool" instead of behaving more like a pet mouse.


Anyway, Jeffrey's attraction to Nina rouses his mother's ire to rabid-dog proportions and the whole thing inevitably ends in a bloody showdown between Jeffrey, Mom, the sheriff, and some torch-wielding townsfolk, with poor Nina caught in the middle of it all.

This early J.R. Bookwalter effort is, to put it mildly, "unpolished." But it's also a lot of fun, especially the scenes with Jeffrey and his crazed vampire mom. The acting is a mixed bag, with some of the cast giving pretty solid performances (I love watching Matthew Jason Walsh and Cherie Patry screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and emoting their asses off) while others range from fair (Tom Stephan as the sheriff reminds me of a poor man's Kevin Spacey and does a pretty good job when he isn't staring directly into the camera) to totally inept.

But that doesn't matter. The script is tongue-in-cheek fun (despite Bookwalter's efforts to make it serious, Walsh insisted it be more in a NIGHT OF THE CREEPS vein), the story toodles along at a nice pace, and, except for a too-abrupt ending, KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE '91 is a fairly entertaining flick overall.



So now, on to Brett Kelly's 2007 remake. This time, the story is taken a lot more seriously (as executive producer Bookwalter originally intended) and the movie is not only better photographed, but contains some nice stylistic touches, a good score that reminds me a little of the music from PHANTASM, and a more consistently talented cast.


Kelly himself plays Jeffrey, who works in a video store this time, while Karen Landstad gives us a totally different take on "Mom." This time, she's sexy--sort of like an older Morticia Addams--and retains an air of the decadent vampiric royalty that existed long ago. Nina (Anastasia Kimmett), no longer an innocent high school girl, is now a streetwise drug addict who falls for Jeffrey because he's so unlike the abusive punks she usually hangs around with.

Brett Kelly gives his remake a good deal of atmosphere and draws some pretty deft performances from his cast while doing an okay job himself as Jeffrey. The story is tweaked quite a bit by scripter Janet S. Waltham, with some scenes switched around and altered (mostly for the better), and, as mentioned before, some characters are changed extensively.

Chip Hair (who might want to consider changing his stage name) is solid as Sheriff Blake, and a long exposition scene in which he tells his secretary why he believes there just might be vampires roaming their streets is placed much earlier in the story for better effect. The ending is a tad better, too. And this time, for those of you keeping score at home, Jeffrey actually gets past first base with Nina.


Of the two Jeffreys, Matthew Jason Walsh's portrayal is my favorite. A gawky, painfully shy scarecrow hiding behind long locks of stringy black hair, cowering like a whipped dog one moment and exploding with suppressed rage the next, Walsh's goofball energy and intensity compensate for his lack of acting refinement.

In comparison, Brett Kelly's portrayal is competent but rather bland, and far outshined by his skill as a director. And while Karen Landstad is exquisitely decadent and sexy as "Mom", Cherie Patry's dowdy, bug-eyed harridan is a pure delight and easily the highlight of this disc.

The DVD contains both films, a bunch of trailers for these and other Bookwalter and Kelly flicks, and a couple of talky, informative commentary tracks by the directors. For those of us who enjoy independent filmmaking on the low, low end of the budgetary scale, by people who obviously love to make movies, KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE is a whole evening's worth of breezy fun and an interesting double-take on the vampire mythos.

KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE -- DVD Review by Porfle

BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE: ZOMBIE COP & MAXIMUM IMPACT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/15/09

 

 

Tempe Entertainment hits bad movie fans with their worst shot once again with BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE, the fourth in their BMP series which has previously offered such non-hits as GALAXY OF THE DINOSAURS, CHICKBOXER, and HUMANOIDS FROM ATLANTIS. This time we get a double-dose of disaster with a couple of quirky quickies, ZOMBIE COP and MAXIMUM IMPACT, which, depending on your tolerance for no-budget shot-on-video schlock, should have you either giddy with delight or scrambling for the "eject" button.

The two films, which were originally shot in the early 90s with a combined budget of around $5,000, really aren't that bad, and re-releasing them under the "Bad Movie Police" banner seems to be simply a way of making them more appealing by playing up their camp value. Heck, any time someone can take such a small budget and limited resources and manage to make something that resembles an actual movie that is even mildly entertaining, I have to give them credit.

The first film is ZOMBIE COP, which tells the story of two cops, Gill (Michael Kemper) and Stevens (Ken Jarosz), who track down an evil voodoo master named Doctor Death (James Black). Gill and Dr. Death manage to shoot each other, but before he dies Death puts a voodoo curse on Gill which will cause him to rise from the grave and stalk the earth as a zombie.

Gill makes his way to Stevens' apartment and, after a brief "Oh my god, you're supposed to be dead!" exchange, Stevens lends Gill an old cop uniform and some gauze to wrap around his head to make him less conspicuous (!!!) and before you know it, Zombie Cop is on the beat! The partners then go on the prowl for Dr. Death, who has also risen from the grave and is planning to turn a bunch of schoolkids into zombies or something.

Michael Kemper actually looks pretty cool in his Zombie Cop getup and seems to enjoy playing the role, especially when blasting bad guys with his pump shotgun or reciting his catchphrase: "Your rights have been waived!" There's plenty of no-frills action along the way, including a lengthy car chase which is pretty impressive considering that most movies this cheap wouldn't even attempt something like that.

Some of the comedy relief is pretty lame--the towel-headed convenience store clerk who is constantly being robbed, a character inspired by Apu of "The Simpsons", doesn't generate much hilarity--but Dr. Death's panicky, inept henchman Buddy (Bill Morrison) is amusing.

And I really liked this throwaway gag from a TV news report: "Meanwhile in Hollywood news, the proposed new 'Frankie Kroger' movie, that would feature 'One Day At A Time' star Bonnie Franklin as Kroger's mom, has been canned. When asked why, studio officials report that Ms. Franklin's appearance on the screen was...just too scary for the kids."

The second feature in our double-bill is the generically-titled MAXIMUM IMPACT, which also stars Ken Jarosz and James Black. Jarosz is insurance salesman Jerry Handley, who is attending a conference in Cleveland, and Black plays Mr. Huntsacker, an underworld flesh peddler who will be providing the "entertainment." Jerry declines such indulgences, since he's engaged to be married in a month to his fiancee' Jan (Jo Norcia), but his childhood buddy Phil (Scott Emerman) is rarin' to go.

Unfortunately, Phil arrives just as Mr. Huntsacker is looking for someone to star in a snuff film that has been commissioned by a millionaire sicko, and ends up with a gun barrel in his mouth. Jerry witnesses the deed and rescues Tonya (Christine Morrison) who was tricked into doing it. The perturbed Mr. Huntsacker sends a hit squad to Jerry's house and the dirty rats execute Jan right there in front of the Christmas tree. Jerry, who seems to have undergone some kind of extensive military training in the past and happens to have an arsenal full of automatic weapons and grenade launchers in his basement, goes into full-scale revenge mode, with entertaining results.

MAXIMUM IMPACT is a low-fi version of the typical Hollywood action-revenge flick and manages to be pretty entertaining. Ken Jarosz is an okay lead, while James Black delivers the kind of performance that would lead to a successful acting career in films and TV series such as SOLDIER and "Six Feet Under." Bill Morrison returns as Mr. Huntsacker's scarfaced trigger man George, and Michael Cagnoli is pretty amusing as his bumbling toady Bernie. Considering that the budget on this movie was a little over $2,000, it delivers a fair amount of action and suspense along the way.

Both films were directed by Lance Randas and feature many of the same cast and crew. Each one features a lively commentary track with producer J.R. Bookwalter and various other participants. The picture and sound have been newly-remastered for DVD, and if the 90-minute running time listed on IMDb for ZOMBIE COP is correct, it looks as though they've been trimmed a bit, too, since each film here runs barely longer than an hour.

If you demand high production values in your cinematic entertainment, and stories that don't fall apart if you take them seriously, then by all means steer clear of this DVD. Otherwise, you should have a lot of fun with this latest entry in the BAD MOVIE POLICE series. It takes me back to the old days of watching cheapo double-features in my local grungy movie theater, but without the sticky floors.

BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE: ZOMBIE COP & MAXIMUM IMPACT -- DVD Review by Porfle

VALENTINE MAGIC ON LOVE ISLAND (1980) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/19/15

 

A billion years from now, when they're talking about the worst of the worst made-for-TV movies of all time, VALENTINE MAGIC ON LOVE ISLAND (aka "Magic on Love Island") will still hold its own on the lips and in the hearts of junk film junkies of the far-flung future. 

If they still have lips and hearts, that is.  And even if they don't, this brain-warp of a movie will make them feel as though their lips are shriveling in disgust as their hearts break from sheer id-curdling incredulity.

A bizarre hybrid of "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island", from a time faraway back when people still flocked to watch those multi-segment, faded-star-packed chunks of 70s-schlock entertainment, this 1980 crapfest belatedly distills the worst of both and throws in the worst of just about everything else it can get its hands on for good measure. 

The show's incredibly cloying theme song, nauseatingly crooned by a guy with a fake Jamaican accent, lets us know what we're in for:

Floating like a flower in de sea
Waiting to be found by you and me
Feeding all your needed fantasy
Love Island, Love Island
Your island of love

Not on any map or any chart
Only to be found inside your heart
There to give de love in you a start
Love Island, Love Island
Your island of love

The papaya, tasty pomegran'te
Helps you do de t'ings
The t'ings you t'ink you can't [!]
T'rough de voodoo of de island chant
Love Island, Love Island
Your island of love

In de sun your body wants to play
Urging you to let it have its way
T'row your inhibitions in de quay
Love Island, Love Island
Your island of love

Janis Paige, a facelift or two past her prime, stars as a mysteriously magical matchmaker named Madge who brings unlikely couples together at her tropical island paradise resort.  She's supposed to have supernatural powers, but instead of using them for evil--intentionally, anyway--she's like a gushing, overripe Cupid making love connections between grievously mismatched souls with the help of her two bubbly teenage charges, Dominique Dunne (POLTERGEIST) and Christopher "Peter Brady" Knight. 

When things aren't going as love-positive as she'd like, Madge resorts to everything from Tarot cards and crystal balls (so to speak) to whipping up chocolate-dipped roses and other confections that put the love whammy on anyone who eats them.  This is how, heaven help us, she gets Howard Duff romantically interested in Dody Goodman, if you can entertain that thought for more than a few seconds without blacking out. 

The awkwardly-staged intro segments for each main character show us who needs a quick love pair-up on Love Island, and why.  Mary Louise Weller (ANIMAL HOUSE's "Mandy Pepperidge") is shown modeling sexy lingerie for pushy photog Stuart Pankin at his smarmiest before rebelling against the horrible grind and insisting upon an island vacation.  As she goes into freeze-frame, Fake Jamaican-Accent Dude returns to hip us to her plight:

Lady wit' de curvy frame
Sometimes she play nervy game
She needs mon, her ways to tame
Who will be de one?

The "mon" in question, horribly enough, just might be none other than Bill Daily of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Bob Newhart Show" fame, here playing a clumsy assistant pastor with Coke-bottle glasses who's a big movie buff.  This guy is such a loss that the head church-guy himself suggests he go away--that is, "get" away--to Love Island as quickly as possible.  Bill's inevitable dating-profile-in-song goes like this:

Man who shy, he miss a lot
Don't use half of what he got
Who'll untie his tied-up knot
Who will be de one?
[The last line, in this case, is spoken dramatically for extra romantic emphasis.]

The horror continues with Bob Seagren as an injured pro quarterback who's one sack away from permanent disability ("Mistah wit de muscles so, he has also big ego..."), a cute pre-nose-job Lisa Hartman as a cornfed checkout clerk named "Crystal Kramer" smothered by her clinging mom (Dody again), and Adrienne Barbeau, God love her, as the fed-up mistress of an overbearing business executive (Duff) who flees to you-know-where.  Her lovelorn lame-erick:

Love may not be on her mind
But she seek and she will find
In de plan dat life design
Who will be de one?

Duff hires a private detective to tail Adrienne, and he turns out to be Rick Hurst, who also falls for her, and...I know what you're thinking.  "Adrienne Barbeau and Rick Hurst?  No. Please, please, just...no."  Well, I hate to say it, folks, but yes.  Just yes.  He will be "de one."  (Or...will he?  Hee hee.)  Rick gets his own verse but I couldn't make out the lyrics because they're warbled bad-Supremes style to catch us off-guard. 

When we finally make it to Love Island, a ghostly Madge wanders around creeping out the new arrivals with her frozen grin as they get off the boat and start intermingling with all the grace of short-circuiting bumper cars.  This is where the true horror (there's that word again) begins, with each potential love-match seemingly more incongruous and repellent than the last and Madge presiding over it all like a sickly-sweet spectre of schmaltz.

Mary Louise Weller starts the ball rolling by strutting around in a revealing swimsuit and getting upset that people are ogling her body instead of her mind, but ends up making out with horndogger Bob Seagren all over the place while Chris Knight lusts after her from afar.  Yikes.  Weller is apparently allowed to ad-lib some of her dialogue in these scenes.  Not a good idea.

Additional laughs are generated by Bill Daily taking off his glasses to appear more attractive to the opposite sex and mistaking Lisa Hartman for Dody Goodman's 50-year-old sister.  Lisa's upset at first, but after dumping her salad in Bill's lap he sorta starts to turn her on, which is just gross.

Things get weirder when Bill and Bob end up stranded on the other side of the island by themselves, one immobilized by old injuries and the other blind as a bat without his glasses.  Madge, who planned the whole thing to force the two men to work out their differences (and "grow") materializes from out of nowhere like Glinda the Good Witch and heals Bob's knee with a laying on of the hands.  Ohhh-kay... 

Much of the "humor" in this part of the movie comes from Dody trying to fix daughter Lisa up with anything in pants, which, unfortunately, includes Rick Hurst.  This leads to Rick dressing in drag at one point in order to avoid Dody.  Watching this scene is like seeing the entire concept of comedy suddenly take a huge dump. Later, Rick actually hits on Adrienne while he's in full "mom" makeup and muu-muu, and she accepts.  Concept of reality now fully and horribly subverted, thank you very much.

Things hit rock bottom when Rick takes a comedy-relief break to bare his soul to Adrienne with one of those desperate "tears of a clown" speeches that's puppy-dog pathetic.  ("You see, I was always the class clown...the bumbler, the fumbler...girls laughed at me...")  More sensitive viewers may not survive this scene. If you do, you might actually make it to the end of the movie alive.

TV veteran Earl Bellamy, who actually did direct episodes of "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat" among many, many other things, does his best with what he has to work with here, which isn't much.  Meanwhile, the photography often renders even the genuine tropical locations murky and mundane. 

Performance-wise, Bob Seagren does his best to murder the art of "acting" but in this crime he has several accomplices.  Even the better actors in the bunch are stymied by ditzy dialogue in a story whose multiple plotlines compete to be the stupidest.  It's telling that the person who seems to fit most comfortably into this frothy concoction of crud is Dody Goodman, playing the dumbest character in the whole movie. 

Everything climaxes (I wish) with the big Valentine Costume Ball, where the couples are coupled once and for all.  Naturally, Dody shows up in a ridiculous chicken suit that she made herself.  Rick Hurst, as a wand'ring minstrel or whatever, continues to push the boundaries of unfunny right up till the bitter end. 

Naughty Dominique eats one of Madge's special love confections and gets high as a kite, leading me to believe that there's a tad more LSD than "magic" in Madge's recipe.  And just in case everybody's "fun quotient" has yet to be adequately met, Howard Duff shows up.  It's truly a magical evening!  (Ehh...)

As hard as I've tried to describe it, this movie simply defies description.  Although I will say that it's smarmy, cloying, cutesy, banal, schmaltzy, senseless, silly,  dunderheaded, inane, inept, indigestible, and incredibly stupid. The script, the acting, the casting, all technical aspects of the production--everything about it is stunningly, stupefyingly awful.  

Without a doubt, VALENTINE MAGIC ON LOVE ISLAND is one of the all-time most horrendously horrible things ever concocted for public viewing. An absolute cringe-inducing joy to watch.  Fascinatingly bad.  I love, adore, and cherish this movie.  I've seen it at least twenty times.

Watch the full movie on Youtube

Watch the original promo on Youtube

"Love Island" Theme
Music by Peter Matz/Lyrics by Norman Gimbel

VALENTINE MAGIC ON LOVE ISLAND (1980) -- Movie Review by Porfle