Review of Red Scorpion (1988)

Red Scorpion (1988) is an action film.

Directed by Joseph Zito (The Prowler (1981), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)).

Written by Arne Olsen (Cop and a Half (1993), Repeaters (2010)), Jack Abramoff and Robert Abramoff.

Starring: Dolph Lundgren, M. Emmet Walsh, Al White, T.P. McKenna, Carmen Argenziano, Alex Colon and others.

Once again Dolph Lundgren plays a Russian, however, this time he’s the good guy. For the most part. He’s a Soviet Spetsnaz trained, KGB agent sent to an African country to fight the damn anti-communists. Oh, you can stop right there, I see where this is going. I saw Avatar, I know he’s eventually going to join them, because his higher-up is a major asshole. Get it? Major? Because he’s a soldier? Ah, nevermind.

His first night there, Lundgren gets drunk, gets into a fight with a couple of people, speaks gibberish with a Russian accent, sings an amusingly senseless rendition of the anthem of USSR and other things that are supposed to make us believe he is truly a Russian guy with Russian guy troubles, which are mostly remembering his native language should contain at least some actual, existing words.

Obviously he’s too Russian for some people, so some officers come by and throw Nikolai Lundgren into a jail cell. There he spends about an hour pondering his devotion to his country and he figures that since they are treating him like a huge, violent and drunk guy, while torturing someone else, he’s on the wrong side.

So he teams up with an African man and an American reporter and they escape the prison. The reporter, played by M. Emmet Walsh, really hates Nikolai for being „a fucking ruskie”, let me guess, they’re going to be pals by the end of the movie. Spoilers. Yes. Yes they are.

For some reason, the only music you can hear in Africa is that of Little Richard. Seriously, there’s at least 6 fucking instances of Little Richard on the soundtrack. I like him alright, but it doesn’t make sense. Is this an homage to Predator or something?  I don’t get it.

Lundgren is sort of ok, but most of the time I can’t even understand half of his dialogue, the role is completely one-dimensional and the whole movie is exploitative of the 80’s action hero cheese craze, for example, having Nikolai getting ready to go swimming, with no other purpose than to have him shirtless for an entire action sequence. And I’ve always liked him better as a villain, Rocky IV, Universal Soldier, never cared that much for him as a protagonist.

The action scenes are not very memorable, maybe except a couple of  bits during the climax. Nikolai (at this point randomly smeared himself with black paint, because that’s the best camouflage in the desert) is fighting like hundreds of military guys and then suddenly one of them appears with no shirt on and holding a knife. Why? Did he think he’s the protagonist? Stand out moment is when Nikolai shoots a guy’s arm off. That was nice.

Red Scorpion is basically a First Blood knock-off, having both Nikolai and Rambo be disillusioned by their service to the country. But, while Rambo was actually an interesting character and the movie did comment on aspects of Vietnam, Red Scorpion is stylistically more similar to later Rambo movies and having this overblown action, an actually dumb hero, and the Cold War propaganda so blunt and heavy-handed, that it just doesn’t hit any intelectual or emotional beats.

There’s also another part of the movie, which just comes out of nowhere. Nikolai starts hanging out with some bushmen and for a while it becomes this odd buddy movie having his relationship with one of the bushmen resemble that of Robinson Crusoe and Friday, surprisingly this is the most enjoyable part of the movie.

Overall, it’s dumb, not consistently entertaining, entirely forgettable. It’s just your typical B-grade 80’s action flick, lacking anything that would make it stand out from the other one  and somehow made on an almost A-budget. Not recommended.

“Hey you want to know why I’m wearing cut-offs? Have you ever heard of nevernudes?”

Review of Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) is a horror/mystery/thriller film and the second film in the Hellraiser film franchise.

Directed by Tony Randel (Infested (1993), Children of the Night (1991)).

Written  by Peter Atkins (Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), Wishmaster (1997)).

Starring: Ashley Laurence, William Hope, Clare Higgins, Doug Bradley, Kenneth Cranham, Deborah Joel, Barbie Wilde, Simon Bamford, Nicholas Vince and others.

The Hellraiser franchise, I sort of have fond childhood memories about it. I remember a time when I was about five and watched one of them (probably one of the first three). That is, I watched it for a few minutes, until my mom came in and turned it off. That might be the only time I remember not being allowed to watch something, not because it’s past my bedtime, but because there’s a guy with a ton of nails in his head. Then some time later, during my childhood I bought a lollipop, it was from the high-end, where inside the wrapper they had one of those tattoos, that you stick on your arm and hold under stream of water. So for about a week I had an awesome Pinhead tattoo on my shoulder. So now, whenever I think of how I used to watch a lot of R rated movies when I was a kid, I remember this one time when I wasn’t allowed, probably just because of the intriguing image of Pinhead.

Enough about my traumatic childhood, let’s get into the movie.

It starts with what seems like a recap, but it’s just random clips from the previous movie, that were totally unnecessary, since later on they go over what happened before. If that’s like a setup, to get you in the mood, then if you haven’t seen the previous one, you’d be like „oh, so it’s going to be about a bunch of monsters and cartoonish lighting bolts” and yes, this movie also has probably the only 80’s special effect, that I don’t like – the stupid drawn lightning effects, they are horribly dated, when other effects leave me wondering why modern movies do shitty CG effects instead.

We see the creation of Pinhead, but you do only see him turned from human to a cenobite, nothing is really explained.

Kirsty from the previous movie wakes up in a psychiatric hospital (always a pleasant surprise) and has the brilliant plan of telling the truth – monsters from hell came through a puzzle box and killed her family, leaving behind a bloody mattress, which works as a gateway. Of course no one believes shit like that and the main doctor there keeps the mattress for himself.

I like Ashley Laurence a lot, if I had to choose from all the virginal heroines from horror movies, she definitely would be one of my favourites, because she’s actually not bland. Also she reminds me of Heather Langenkamp.

In the room next to Kirsty’s there’s a girl who just solves puzzles all day. I bet this won’t play any part later in this movie about a puzzle box.

The doctor’s protege sneaks into the doctor’s house and finds out that doctor is actually a sick bastard, who has been studying some of the mystical shit. He puts one of his patients on the mattress (how nice of him), but then the mental guy starts cutting himself and from the mattress emerges Kirsty’s skinless stepmother Julia.

The first two Hellraiser movies had a lot of skinless people, but they later abandoned this, which sucks, since the skinless make-up is just mind-blowingly good. It’s terrifyingly realistic and disturbingly beautiful. This one could be a bit much for people who aren’t used to horror movie special effects.

So for a while skinless Julia just walks around the house in doctor’s white suit and leaving blood stains everywhere. The doctor has a very medical idea, he bandages her up so she looks like the Invisible Man.

Julia kills and devours a bunch of people until she looks like Clare Higgins again. So Julia and doctor guy open up a puzzle box and all things go to hell. See what I did there? To do it, they bring in the puzzle solving girl, but really, what’s the point, the box seems like the easiest puzzle ever. It’s like twist/push a button, a part emerges, twist that and it’s done.

Sadly as the cenobites appear logic disappears from the movie. There’s a bunch of random imagery in the cenobite realm, like babies with their mouths sewn shut, clowns, Kirsty suddenly appearing in a living room that starts bleeding, the puzzle box changing shape, people having blurry sex, something about Leviathan the lord of the labyrinth and other things that happen only because it’s not the real world. It would be ok, if the characters were as surprised as I was seeing those things, I feel like I’ve missed a meeting on „random hell stuff”.

The doctor becomes a cenobite and develops a knack for one-liners like „The Doctor’s in” and „I’m taking over this operation”.

Overall, a decent sequel with some great effects work, but a terribly confusing third act. Recommended.

“Shh, you don’t have to say a thing.”

Review of The Dead Pool (1988)

The Dead Pool (1988) is a thriller/mystery/action film and the fifth and last movie in the Dirty Harry film franchise.

Directed by Buddy Van Horn (Pink Cadillac (1989), Any Which Way You Can (1980)).

Written by Steve Sharon, Duck Pearson and Sandy Shaw.

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, David Hunt, Jim Carrey, Evan C. Kim, Michael Currie and others.

Harry is back, his hair now is even whiter, face wrinklier, constipation frown even more intimidating and why he’s not in retirement or jail is anyone’s guess. Harry has changed, he is now a lot more liberal. But one thing stays constant. If there’s one thing Harry hates more than criminals, it’s bureaucracy.

We’re now deep in the 80’s and rest assured, this movie won’t let you forget it. We get to see a young Jim Carrey acting mental and lip-synching to „Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns n’ Roses during the filming of some The Exorcist inspired music video, directed by Liam Neeson with a more prominent Irish accent. Watching it now, it seems sort of delightfully bizarre, but back then?

Carrey is in the movie for like 5 minutes, however, and dies from a drug overdose. Oh, and in exchange for their song to be used as the background for Carrey’s junkie rock star video, Guns n’ Roses members cameo in his funeral scene. In another scene Slash even gets to shoot a huge-ass harpoon through a window.

When they want to assign a new partner for Harry, even he himself acknowledges that his partners aren’t the luckiest of people, but maybe he just doesn’t want an asian partner. I know he slept with an asian chick in Magnum Force, but who wants a partner, who is a bad driver. Ok, you might call me racist, but the movie isn’t any better, because soon we find out that the asian cop knows martial arts.

Patricia Clarkson is also in this and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this young, but she’s still hot so it was no surprise she was stunning back then.

The dead pool is this game where people predict death’s of famous people and suddenly the ones from Liam Neeson’s list start dying. The idea is kind of interesting and makes the movie very mysterious, but then again the game is pretty pointless, since celebrities don’t actually die like every other weekend. Although, if I had this list, Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston would’ve definitely been on it.

It’s also a decent commentary on celebrity pressure and violent movies influencing people to be violent. Liam Neeson is an arrogant horror director, who’s movies are being replicated in the ways some people are killed, so there’s some slasher movie elements thrown in. And it sort of goes with my opinion, that only already unstable person could be influenced by a movie enough to go out with a hockey mask on and slash teenagers with a machete. But to quote this movie „Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has them.”, I’m thinking about making this the tagline of my blog.

There’s a very interesting chase scene, where the chaser is an RC car. A pretty fucking powerful one at that. And watching the chase I realised that it must be a bitch to live in San Francisco. All those steep streets, it’s like going up the stairs for a whole block, I mean, you must feel like Rocky when he ran up those stairs in Philadelphia, but what if you just want to go to the store for some smokes? You’d die, before you had the chance to develop a cancer.

Overall, a fast and entertaining movie, cheesy, but with at least some substance. Not one of the better Dirty Harrymovies, but recommended nonetheless.

“Duuuuude, Mr. Popper’s Penguins is so funny on heroin.”

Review of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) is slasher/horror/thriller film and the fourth entry in the Halloween franchise.

Directed by Dwight H. Little (Tekken (2010), Marked for Death (1990)), best-known for his work on various hit TV shows.

Written by Alan B. McElroy (Spawn (1997), Wrong Turn (2003)).

Starring: Donald Pleasance, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, George P. Wilbur, Kathleen Kinmont and others.

No more picking up the next day after the previous one. This one picks up 10 years after the original and it’s cool that it is in like real-time, since 10 actual years have passed. This rather long period of time leads to Raymond O’Connor playing some security guard, who recaps the previous movies in an everyday conversation manner, which was just painful to watch. Not a good sign, when the first couple of minutes are hard to watch.

But then we hear again one of my favourite movie themes and after the Silver Shamrock song in Season Of The Witch, it’s like …um, music… to my ears.

So Michael Myers is kept in some sanitarium and is in coma (or is he just waiting?) and two things strike me as very odd about this. First is that how come Sam Loomis, who has been trying to kill him so desperately is ok with him just being kept there. Wouldn’t he try to somehow get the job done? And the second is that given how Michael can survive being shot at a bunch of times and getting burned and stuff, wouldn’t some medical scientists be interested in what keeps this guy going?

Of course Michael doesn’t stay in coma, which results in Sam Loomis going after him again and now we really get to see Loomis’ obsession with Michael. I didn’t really care for his character too much in the previous ones, but here I thought Donald Pleasance was just awesome. Oh, and guess on which day of the year do they decide to transport Michael and he wakes up? Halloween? Nope. The night before. Dodged a hugely improbable plot convenience right there, huh?

Danielle Harris is the cutest little girl ever. I usually hate children in movies, but Harris is adorable. And growing up she hasn’t changed much. Sometimes child stars grow up and look just weird, but she’s as hot now as she was cute then. Harris’ character is Laurie Strode’s daughter and she has an amazing hereditary trait – she is having nightmares about Michael, who she has never seen in her life.

By the way, other kids laugh about her being an orphan. Really? Is that a common thing? I mean, it’s not like she lives in an orphanage, she has a family, her clothes are nice and everything. The fact of someone being an orphan isn’t funny at any age, there’s just not that much to it. You don’t have parents. Being adopted is at least a bit funny, having no parents is not. I don’t want to read too much into a slasher movie, but I think little kids psychologically wouldn’t find not having parents funny, because we all have this fear of suddenly losing parents.

Here, watching one of the most basic horror movie clichés – lightning storm during dramatic moments, I realised that I’ve never actually seen lightning bolt light up a room in real life.

I actually kind of loved the ending, although it wouldn’t really work out if they went for the idea, it’s just like the same thing in two of the Friday the 13th movies.

Overall, it’s not bad, but Halloween movies have this problem of taking themselves seriously when they are not and ending up not all that entertaining. Still, I recommend it, even though it was a bit bland.

"Hey, Michael! I brought this gun here, I know they don't do shit for you, but don't I look like Dirty Harry or something?"

Review of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) is a slasher/horror/thriller film and the seventh entry in the Friday the 13th franchise.

Directed by John Carl Buechler (Troll (1986), Ragewar (1984)), mostly known for his special effects work.

Written by Daryl Haney (Mockingbird Don’t Sing (2001), Emmanuelle, Queen of the Galaxy (1994)),  and Manuel Fidello mostly known for not writing anything before or since.

Starring: Kane Hodder, Lar Park-Lincoln, Terry Kiser, Kevin Spirtas, Heidi Kozak, William Butler, John Otrin and others.

So the movie starts off with random death scenes from the previous films and a voice-over narration, explaining why Jason Voorhees is hanging around at the bottom of a lake.

Although we did see Jason waking up dressed a bit differently at the end of the last film, apparently he decided it was not time yet, so here we see him “dead” again. No one thought it might be appropriate to drag Jason’s body out and cremate or something, since people keep going to the lake and swimming in it.

I think after a while people would just decide to stop hanging around Camp Crystal Lake, since more than a few people have died there, but no, they never learn, to think about it, they actually deserve to die for this idiotic behavioral pattern. Go, Jason!

This marks the first time Kane Hodder puts on the iconic hockey mask and becomes the fan favourite. Although his Jason isn’t in the best condition, with his spine visible, all roughed up, life at the bottom of a lake is hard, you know.

It has none of the comedic tone of the previous one, instead we get more supernatural elements and daddy issues, since our main character is Carrie, no not in the sense of late first menstruation, but she has some telekinetic abilities. I don’t mind that much, because, to be fair, Jason hasn’t been just the disfigured fellow next door for the last few movies either.

Also none of the previous films has looked so 80’s, except maybe the black “shit’n’sing” guy in the fifth one.

Of course some camping couple decide that they should take a machete to chop some wood, instead of, you know, an axe. What are we, in a rainforest?

Almost sadly, they seem to have tried to make a serious movie, but that is not what people expect when they go to see the 7th film in a slasher series. It would be fine if they had succeeded, but what they succeeded at was making a serious, dull and unentertaining movie with a ridiculous concept. And that’s the thing, it is an interesting idea, just poorly executed.

Elizabeth Kaitan is sort of hot in her little role. There’s little nudity, just some ass Kaitan’s tits and underwater ones. Not that I notice or anything. The lack of nudity and more importantly gore is something we have to thank the good old MPAA for. Those bastards.

It has one of the best kills of the series, where Jason just picks up a girl in a sleeping bag and smashes her against a tree. That was seriously awesome.

Although you can do just about anything to zombie Jason and he is unfazed, apparently when you pour some gasoline on him, he starts covering and stepping back. Maybe due to the fact that he knows that a minute later the wooden house he is in will be slowly burning and then for no reason randomly blow the fuck up. This might not be uncommon, since the characters outside run away from it and then duck right before it explodes.

The ending also goes into some ridiculous nonsense

It’s hard to really feel sorry for not-Carrie, since she is the one who resurrected Jason.

Overall, not bad, but also not very entertaining. I think you can skip this one and go straight to Jason Takes a Cruise Ship. Not recommended.

Pictured: Jason putting on a custom-made condom.