EDGE OF SANITY (UK/Hungary - 1989) Directed by Gerard Kikoine. Written by J.P. Felix and Ron Raley. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber, Sarah Maur-Thorp, David Lodge, Ben Cole, Ray Jewers, Jill Medford, Lisa Davis, Briony McRoberts, Claudia Udy. (R, 91 mins)
Taking on the dual roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has always been an opportunity for a distinguished actor to deliver a tour-de-force performance. Legends like John Barrymore, Fredric March (who won on Oscar for 1931's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE), Spencer Tracy, Christopher Lee, Jack Palance, and John Malkovich among many others have taken a turn (even Jerry Lewis if you count the Jekyll & Hyde-inspired THE NUTTY PROFESSOR), but it was 1989's EDGE OF SANITY that provided the great Anthony Perkins with his contribution to the Jekyll & Hyde canon. After nearly 30 years of PSYCHO-derived typecasting as nervous, twitchy weirdos, Perkins had long since given up trying get out of Norman Bates' shadow by the time EDGE OF SANITY came along, with multiple PSYCHO sequels under his belt, including one he directed himself (1986's PSYCHO III). There's a case to be made that Perkins wasn't being very choosy about the gigs he was accepting by 1989, and EDGE OF SANITY is Exhibit A. Produced by the always-suspect Harry Alan Towers, who shepherded many a Jess Franco project in the late '60s and early '70s, EDGE OF SANITY is probably the most jawdroppingly sordid take on Robert Louis Stevenson's source novel that you'll ever see, the possible exception being Walerian Borowczyk's 1981 masterpiece THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MISS OSBOURNE, which was least artistic and genuinely disturbing in its shocking transgressions. EDGE OF SANITY, on the other hand, is an unabashed raunchfest that seems poised to break out into a hardcore porno at any given moment. Perhaps that's not surprising given that French director Gerard Kikoine had previously dabbled in European porn prior to joining the Towers stock company, where he was assigned several of the producer's dubious, apartheid-era South Africa-lensed projects like DRAGONARD (1987) and its simultaneously-shot companion piece MASTER OF DRAGONARD HILL (1987) and the Poesploitation dud BURIED ALIVE (1990). So feverishly perverse is EDGE OF SANITY that rumors have persisted for years that Jess Franco secretly co-wrote it. Even though the credited J.P. Felix doesn't really sound like a real person and has no other IMDb credits, it's not Franco, despite the name sounding very much like his occasional pseudonym "J.P. Fenix."
Shot using more tilted Dutch angles than a Hal Hartley wet dream, EDGE OF SANITY presents Perkins' Jekyll as a milquetoast London surgeon whose experimentation with a cocaine-based anesthetic ends up inadvertently creating Victorian-era crack. With himself as the subject, Jekyll transforms into a gaunt, pale, compulsively-masturbating, crackhead Jack Hyde, sucking on a glass pipe and cruising for Whitechapel streetwalkers. They tend to turn up brutally slaughtered as Hyde's drug-fueled spree of sex murders earns him the name "Jack the Ripper." It's an interesting angle to fuse Mr. Hyde with the Ripper mythos, but EDGE OF SANITY is more concerned with letting Perkins fly his freak flag, using all the tics and mannerisms in his arsenal and borrowing a lot of his leftover Rev. Peter Shayne histrionics from Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION (1984). Jekyll already has some sexual hangups in his psyche, stemming from a childhood voyeurism incident involving a servant girl (Sarah Maur-Thorp), a figure who repeatedly turns up in various guises in Hyde's nightly travels. It's another interesting touch to have Maur-Thorp play a series of prostitutes who all look the same to the out-of-control Hyde, the id of the more outwardly proper Jekyll. But again, whatever deeper themes Fenix, co-writer Ron Raley, and director Kikoine are going for are obliterated by the garish lighting, a demeaning role for Maur-Thorp (who only made a couple of other movies before quitting acting) and Perkins' insane performance, which manages to be simultaneously fearless and embarrassing. As a goth-looking Hyde, Perkins grimaces, twists and contorts his body, moans, groans, and grunts while aggressively rubbing bare asses, sucks on a crack pipe, head-butts Cockney pimps, initiates threesomes, masturbates a prostitute with his walking stick, and repeatedly gropes and fondles himself throughout.
In what's certainly his last memorable--for better or for worse--role before his death from AIDS in 1992, Perkins simply doesn't know where to stop, and considering some of the peccadilloes he demonstrated in his direction of PSYCHO III, one can't help but wonder how much of Hyde's antics stemmed from the actor being given some wide latitude by Kikoine. You'll need to shower after watching EDGE OF SANITY, though on Shout! Factory's new double feature Blu-ray, where it's paired with 1988's haunted prison dud DESTROYER simply because Perkins co-stars in it, it ends up looking far better than it has any business being. Filmed in Budapest using some of the same sets and locations as the same year's Robert Englund-headlined PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (also produced by Towers), EDGE OF SANITY is opulent and ornate, looking deceptively high-end for the in-your-face, late '80s T&A grinder that it is. The Blu-ray features the uncensored 91-minute version, five minutes longer than the R-rated 86-minute theatrical cut released in the spring of 1989 by the short-lived Millimeter Films, an offshoot of Miramax and sort-of a precursor to the Weinsteins' later Dimension Films genre brand. It's hard to believe Perkins hit all the major promotional destinations to plug this thing, showing up to talk EDGE OF SANITY on ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT and some morning shows, as well as the late-night circuit with Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and Arsenio Hall.
One of the chintziest-looking major-studio sci-fi movies of the 1980s, MILLENNIUM spent over a decade in development before it was finally made as sloppily and ambivalently as possible. Written by John Varley and based on his short story "Air Raid," MILLENNIUM is thus far the only screenplay by the author, whose short story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" became a 1981 AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE episode that later ended up on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. MILLENNIUM was first put in pre-production as far back as 1979, with visual effects innovator Douglas Trumbull, best known for his work on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, set to direct and Paul Newman and Jane Fonda attached to star. That fell apart, putting it in turnaround and by the time it was ultimately made in 1989, the director was Michael Anderson (AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, LOGAN'S RUN, ORCA), with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd starring. It's a time-jumping sci-fi would-be epic, opening with a mysterious plane crash in 1989 that's been engineered from 1000 years into the future, with the "victims" appearing to be burned to death even before the plane goes down in 1989 but actually transported to 2989 in a "timequake" for reasons that will become clear--relatively speaking--much later. Crash investigator Bill Smith (Kristofferson) finds a strange weapon--a "stunner"--amidst the wreckage, a piece of evidence left behind by Louise Baltimore (Ladd), a warrior from the future. Her mission is to stop Smith, who senses he's met Baltimore somewhere before (because, duh, he has), and Dr. Arnold Mayer (Daniel J. Travanti, his post-HILL STREET BLUES big screen career going nowhere), a nosy physicist investigating strange phenomena surrounding a series of plane crashes, from figuring out the purpose of the "stunner" and causing a paradox that will forever alter the future in a Butterfly Effect sort-of way.
MILLENNIUM has some interesting ideas along the lines of influential '80s sci-fi masterworks like THE TERMINATOR and TRANCERS, and prefigures later genre examples like 12 MONKEYS and SOURCE CODE, but the execution is somewhat lacking. The motivation for the whole "stealing people from 1000 years in the past" is never expressed very well and for a film released by 20th Century Fox, the visual effects look like something out of a corner-cutting 1970s TV show. The entire film would probably play better if it topped out at 80 minutes and came from Roger Corman's Concorde or better yet, Empire Pictures, and starred Tim Thomerson, Barbara Crampton, and Art LaFleur instead of Kristofferson, Ladd, and Travanti. Kristofferson isn't bad but he's miscast, especially if you consider that his character is, at most, a teenager in a 1963 plane crash flashback subplot, which would make Bill Smith 40 tops in 1989, with perpetually craggy 53-year-old Kristofferson not looking a day under 65. The ending is a wreck, but it's at least better than the laughable one used for the film's overseas release and included on Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray (where it's paired in a double feature set with the incredible R.O.T.O.R.), which has a nude Kristofferson and Ladd holding one another in a LIFEFORCE-style embrace as a timequake envelops them. MILLENNIUM is watchable but it could've been something more with a little care and some more money--it's hard to picture Newman and Fonda doing the movie MILLENNIUM ended up being. Shot in Toronto, it's populated by a who's who of Canadian Character Actor Hall of Famers in supporting roles, like Lloyd Bochner, Maury Chaykin, Robert Joy, Lawrence Dane, Peter Dvorsky, Gary Reineke, Michael J. Reynolds, Brent Carver, and Al Waxman. MILLENNIUM bombed in theaters, opening in the ass-end of summer on August 25, 1989 and landing in 12th place. (PG-13, 106 mins)
The GETEVEN of ROBOCOP ripoffs, the deliriously awful R.O.T.O.R. was a video store staple back in the '80s and '90s and if physical media is dead, somebody forgot to tell Shout! Factory, who just released this on a double feature Blu-ray with the 1989 time travel dud MILLENNIUM. A regional sci-fi actioner shot in Dallas, R.O.T.O.R. was a one-and-done venture into movies by producer and star Richard Gesswein, who's such a terrible actor that his performance ended up being dubbed by special effects artist and sometime actor Loren Bivens, who actually receives an onscreen credit for his work. Conceived by screenwriter Budd Lewis and director Cullen Blaine, a pair of veteran industry storyboard artists and occasional animators, R.O.T.O.R. looks like a bad home movie that somehow got a distribution deal. It's amateur hour across the board in terms of acting and filmmaking, and if anything deserves to be the next ROOM/TROLL 2/MIAMI CONNECTION bad movie phenomenon, it's R.O.T.O.R. The only thing that might be holding it back is that those other films are utterly sincere in their misguided cluelessness, but there's enough weird, goofy shit in R.O.T.O.R. to suggest that it's fully cognizant of its own shittiness. Whether it's ludicrous dei ex machina, overripe dialogue ("It's like a chainsaw set on frappe!"), the hero making coffee for his horse, or an ultra-serious corporate board meeting where nearly every line of dialogue has a blatant Beach Boys reference (people from "The Brian Wilson Institute" and "Jardine University" asking "Is there some good vibration to its molecular tonality..." and "God only knows..." and "I get around, but I've never seen anything like this"), Allen and Blaine seem to be winking at the audience and saying "Yeah, this is supposed to be stupid," but as a sci-fi action movie, it's an abomination. Gesswein, an actor who makes Phil Pitzer look like Daniel Day-Lewis, is Barrett Coldyron (pronounced "Cold-iron"), a laconic Buckaroo Banzai who's a Dallas police captain and a renowned scientist who runs his division and a high-tech scientific research facility where he's developing robot cops for a project dubbed R.O.T.O.R. (Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research). Referred to as "Captain" or "Dr" depending on which job he's working in any given scene, Coldyron is booted off the R.O.T.O.R. project by irate politician Earl Bugler ("introducing" Michael Hunter), but the carelessness of those left in charge results in a mustached R.O.T.O.R. unit called "222" (played by three different actors, including awesomely-named stuntman Brad Overturf) activating itself and going on a rampage, singling out a young woman named Sonya (Margaret Trigg), killing her fiance and relentlessly pursuing her through the outskirts of suburban Dallas. She calls the cops, and is instructed by Coldyron to just keep moving, as he and muscle-bound, femulleted robotics engineer Dr. Steele (Jayne Smith) try to figure out how to regain control of 222 and shut it down.
Barrett Coldyron doesn't bother taking off
his shades for important board meetings
R.O.T.O.R. is insanely terrible. It takes 45 interminable minutes for Allen and Blaine to even introduce 222. Until then, the focus is on the gruff, mumbling Coldyron, the kind of guy who wears sunglasses in a board meeting and whose idea of tough talk is sleepily telling Bugler "You fire me and I'll make more noise than two skeletons makin' love in a tin coffin, brother!" The film opens with hard-boiled narration from Coldyron that's ultimately revealed to be him babbling in the backseat of a car until a cop in the front seat says "Uh, what? Huh?" (more evidence that at least some of the humor here is intentional). An absurd amount of time is spent on padding the establishing shots, where you see a character park their car and then walk all the way into a building as slowly as possible. The entire second half of the film is centered on 222's pursuit of Sonya (the character's name is misspelled "Sony" in the credits), but in order to keep it going, the filmmakers suddenly give 222 the ability of "sensor recall," where it can see which direction she's headed by replaying events it wasn't even there to record. R.O.T.O.R. is also the kind of film that drops a major character midway through (Coldyron's girlfriend) and introduces a new major one (Dr. Steele) with 15 minutes left in the movie.
Insane Beach Boys board meeting starts at 5:35.
Margaret Trigg (1964-2003)
Nobody in R.O.T.O.R. went on to anything of any significance, though Bastrup, TX-native Trigg did co-star in ABC's short-lived 1996 series ALIENS IN THE FAMILY, which was cancelled after eight episodes. She's the only star of R.O.T.O.R. who seemed like she might have some potential, but her life was tragically short: she died in 2003 at just 39, the cause of death listed as "heart attack resulting from prolonged amphetamine abuse." Smith appeared in one other movie, 1990's FLESH GORDON 2: FLESH GORDON MEETS THE COSMIC CHEERLEADERS. Lewis went on to script the 1990 Robert Z'dar/Michael Pare actioner DRAGONFIGHT and do some storyboard work before his death in 2014, while Blaine went back to storyboarding and was a co-director on 1998's straight-to-DVD Disney sequel BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: BELLE'S MAGICAL WORLD. R.O.T.O.R. ends with the promise of a R.O.T.O.R. II which, like Richard Gesswein's second acting role, has yet to materialize in the ensuing 28 years since the release of this groundbreaking sci-fi masterpiece. Where's the Criterion edition? (Unrated, 90 mins)
EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 (Italy/Spain - 1983; US release 1985) Directed by Jules Harrison (Giuliano Carnimeo). Written by Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti and Jose Truchado Reyes. Cast: Robert Jannucci (Robert Iannucci), Alicia Moro, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Eduardo Fajardo, Fred Harris (Fernando Bilbao), Beryl Cunningham, Luca Venantini, Venantino Venantini, Anna Orso, Sergio Mioni, Jose Chinchilla, Goffredo Unger. (R, 90 mins)
One of the more stunt-crazed entries in the Italian post-nuke onslaught that followed the success of THE ROAD WARRIOR in 1982, EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 kicks off what appears to be a post-apocalypse revival of sorts on Blu-ray, apparently to coincide with George Miller's upcoming reboot MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Shout! Factory recently released EXTERMINATORS on Blu-ray (they're also handling the original MAD MAX, and Blue Underground will be releasing 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX, and THE NEW BARBARIANS this summer) in an anamorphic widescreen transfer that's a significant upgrade to the decent-looking but cropped 1.33:1 edition released on DVD by Code Red in 2010. EXTERMINATORS is surprisingly good for its type, with director Giuliano Carnimeo--using the pseudonym "Jules Harrison"--indulging in some ridiculous stunts and car wrecks as well as keeping a distinct western motif to the proceedings--even shooting in and outside of Almeria, Spain, where most of the classic spaghettis were filmed--that echoes the numerous spaghetti westerns he made in the late '60s and early '70s under his usual "Anthony Ascott" nom de plume. Carnimeo dabbled in various genres, as Italian journeymen were wont to do, but he was best known for his several SARTANA westerns with titles like SARTANA THE GRAVEDIGGER (1968), and the 1970 ellipses trio of SARTANA'S COMING...GET YOUR COFFINS READY, HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL, MY FRIEND...SARTANA WILL PAY, and LIGHT THE FUSE...SARTANA IS COMING.
Presumably set in the year 3000, where cars from the late 1970s are still surprisingly functional after 1020 or so years, EXTERMINATORS centers on nomadic, lone-wolf road warrior Alien (Robert Iannucci, billed as "Robert Jannucci"), who reluctantly finds himself helping young Tommy (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD's Luca Venantini). Tommy and his family are part of a ragtag community overseen by a Bible-thumper calling himself The Senator (Eduardo Fajardo), and he stowed away on a recon mission in search of both water and Tommy's father, who's been missing and presumed dead weeks after being sent on the same hunt for water. The recon mission, led by Tommy's father's best friend (Venantino Venantini), is promptly ambushed by a band of marauding lunatics led by Crazy Bull (Fernando Bilbao, billed as "Fred Harris") and Shadow (Beryl Cunningham) in a truly memorable sequence filled with amazing stunt driving and exploding cars and craniums. Tommy, who has a biomechanical right arm (this is never really explained--he just has it) teams up with Alien, who's already pissed off Crazy Bull by stealing his beloved car "The Exterminator," and they make their way to grizzled old astronaut-turned-mechanic Papillon (Luciano Pigozzi, under his usual "Alan Collins" pseudonym). Papillon tweaks Tommy's bionic arm to make it super-powerful, capable of throwing something to split someone's skull at 200 yards. Into this impromptu group of Humanity's Only Hope comes Trash (Alicia Moro), Alien's car-stealing ex, and the four team up to gather water from a nearby mutant stronghold while constantly fighting off attacks by Crazy Bull and his "Mothergrabbers," as he calls them. It's mostly typical Italian post-nuke silliness, but EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 has an undeniable energy to it with some of the best action sequences in the entire subgenre. Before the script--co-written by Italian horror stalwarts Elisa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti--falls apart and stupidity takes over (Alien and Trash find the scarce, precious water and of course, start playfully splashing one another with it), there's actually some legitimate attempts at character development. Alien, Trash, Tommy, and Papillon form a classic spaghetti western "unholy alliance" that puts the film firmly into Carnimeo's wheelhouse.
Carnimeo got out of spaghetti westerns as the genre started slowing down in the early '70s. He dabbled in gialli (THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS) and erotic dramas (the Edwige Fenech vehicle SECRETS OF A CALL GIRL) before directing several "Butch and Toby" buddy comedy actioners starring Paul Smith and "Michael Coby" (actually Italian actor Antonio Cantafora), who had a brief run in Italy as the second-string Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. 1975's CONVOY BUDDIES was released in the US in 1978 by Film Ventures, and Smith filed a lawsuit against the company when he and Cantafora were billed in the advertising as "Bob Spencer" and "Terrence Hall" in an effort to fool hopefully inattentive moviegoers into thinking it was the latest film from the popular TRINITY duo. Carnimeo made a few obscure sex comedies before directing EXTERMINATORS, but the now 82-year-old director has been inactive since 1988's RATMAN, which has attained minor cult status thanks to the presence of Nelson de la Rosa as a half-monkey/half-rat mutant running loose on a Caribbean island. De la Rosa would go on to play Marlon Brando's "Mini-Me"-inspiring sidekick in 1996's ill-fated THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and those connections generated some belated interest in RATMAN years after it was made, and his involvement was enough to get it released on DVD in the UK with the tagline "He's the critter from the shitter." RATMAN sounds a lot more fun than it really is, and it seems to be the final chapter in Carnimeo's career.
EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 was a one-and-done venture into acting for Ohio-born Calvin Klein model Iannucci, unless you count a bit part in the 1982 comedy YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE. He looks the part, though he's dubbed by veteran voice artist Larry Dolgin. The towering Bilbao, also known to Eurotrash fans for his appearances as the Frankenstein monster in Jess Franco's 1972 double-shot of DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, makes an imposing villain with his very Wez-like look, though dubber Robert Sommer carries a lot of the weight, bellowing Ron Burgundy-isms like "By the beard of the prophet!" EXTERMINATORS was picked up by New Line Cinema and released in the US in January 1985, after which the Thorn/EMI VHS could be found in any video store in America.
Unfortunately, Shout! Factory's otherwise fine edition of EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 features the 2010 Code Red commentary track with Iannucci and temperamental Code Red head Bill Olsen. True to form as the worst commentary figure in the biz, Olsen torpedoes it almost immediately by grumbling "I'm only putting this out to prove that it doesn't sell" before indulging in his usual unfunny schtick of intentionally mispronouncing names ("Anna Onion!" he says when he sees the name "Anna Onori") or taking shots at things like Detto Mariano's score and Cunningham's "big ass," and spending almost the entire track complaining about how much he dislikes the movie and how "boring" it is (less than five minutes in, Olsen gripes "No offense, Bob, but this needs more action"). At first, Iannucci seems eager to talk about EXTERMINATORS and has a good memory for the details of the shoot, but his sincerity quickly succumbs to Olsen's cynicism and he joins him in the mockery and the bitching ("Any last words?" Olsen asks at the end, to which Iannucci replies "Thank God it's over"). If you've ever experienced a Bill Olsen commentary track or witnessed his behavior online and on social media, where he claims nothing he releases sells and he frequently berates his customers, it's hard to tell if it's some kind of Andy Kaufman performance art or if he's genuinely mentally unstable. Olsen has released some fine product through Code Red and for that he should be commended, but reputable companies like Shout! and Scorpion (the latter run by Olsen's more even-tempered and socially adept brother Walter) continuing to showcase his tiresome antics on commentary tracks, ruining potentially serious discussions and good-natured reminiscing with his inane questions, pathetic jokes, and shitty attitude, is a practice that needs to stop.
Ten years after David Cronenberg's 1981 classic SCANNERS, his former producer Pierre David got the ball rolling on two back-to-back-shot sequels that have fallen into relative obscurity until the recent release of a double feature Blu-ray/DVD combo set. By 1991, Cronenberg was well on his way to becoming a respected filmmaker (he had NAKED LUNCH in theaters that same year) and had nothing to do with these sequels other than a "Based on characters created by" credit and presumably cashing a small paycheck. Both films were directed by Christian Duguay, and while he's not a filmmaker of Cronenberg's caliber, he did exhibit enough flair to eventually go on to a brief career with the major studios and has a few solid cult movies to his credit. The Canadian Duguay got his start as a camera and Steadicam operator on films like Paul Mazursky's ENEMIES: A LOVE STORY (1989) and worked in Canadian TV before making his feature directing debut with these two SCANNERS sequels.
SCANNERS II: THE NEW ORDER (Canada - 1991)
Aside from some mild profanity and the rather tame splatter bits--the exploding heads aren't nearly as well-done here as in Cronenberg's film--SCANNERS II could almost be a TV-movie. Taking place ten years after the events of the first film--though the math doesn't make sense once the entire plot is revealed--SCANNERS II focuses on David Kellum (David Hewlett), a veterinary student with Scanner abilities who gets roped into the devious machinations of Commander Forrester (Yvan Ponton), a fascist police official with designs on turning the city into his totalitarian playland. Forrester and Dr. Morse (Tom Butler) run a secret Scanner lab where Forrester's ultimate plan is to corral the telepathic Scanners and use them to expose, control, and eliminate the criminal element. Kellum also finds out he has a long-lost sister, Julie Vale (Deborah Raffin) and that they're both the Scanner-gene-carrying offspring of Cameron Vale and Kim Obrist, the characters played by Stephen Lack and Jennifer O'Neill in the 1981 film. SCANNERS II largely follows the same formula as the first film, right down to an inevitable showdown between good Scanner David and evil Scanner Drak (Raoul Trujillo), who's essentially a stand-in for Michael Ironside's Darryl Revok. Written by B.J. Nelson (LONE WOLF MCQUADE), SCANNERS II basically is what it is: a watchable, straight-to-video-level sequel, even though it did get a limited US theatrical release in the summer of 1991 before turning up on video store shelves. Hewlett, a regular presence in Canadian film and TV who would go on to become a fixture in the films of CUBE director Vincenzo Natali, is pretty bland here but does sport a sublime mullet. American actress Raffin, whose career was starting to slow down by 1991 even though she was still in her late 30s, gets second billing but doesn't appear until over an hour into the film and has little to do other than show David a couple of new Scanning techniques. That's a shame since the late actress (she died of leukemia in 2012) was a consistently appealing TV and big-screen presence who rarely got the quality roles she deserved (cult movie fans probably know her best today as Charles Bronson's doomed love interest in DEATH WISH 3). Many of the Quebec-based cast, especially Ponton, sound dubbed, but the real standout is a scenery-chewing Trujillo as Drak, who seems to have spent a significant amount of time studying Ironside's performance and trying to top it at every turn. Other than Trujillo's level of commitment to crazy, SCANNERS II is harmless but mostly forgettable. In addition to a required-by-Canadian-law appearance by character actor Vlasta Vrana, the film also features an Aldo Nova-written hair metal closing credits tune, "Mind to Mind," performed by Alan Jordan, that probably could've been a hit had anyone saw the movie. (R, 104 minutes)
SCANNERS 3: THE TAKEOVER (Canada - 1992)
Ditching Roman numerals for this second sequel, Duguay's SCANNERS 3 is generally considered the low point of the trilogy, but it might be time to reconsider that. While neither film comes close to approaching Cronenberg's film--and to their credit, they don't even try--SCANNERS II generally felt like a watered-down redux. SCANNERS 3, on the other hand and as misguided as it may be, goes for camp and comedy throughout and proves to be quite entertaining if you just shrug your shoulders and accept it. Once more, we have a good Scanner (Steve Parrish as Alex) taking on an evil Scanner (Liliana Komorowska as Helena). They're siblings and Alex is in self-imposed exile in Tibet after showing off some Scanner party tricks and accidentally killing his best friend. Helena, meanwhile, is meek and mousy until she gets a dose of her scientist father's (Colin Fox) experimental new Scanner drug, which basically turns her into a fire-breathing bitch-on-wheels, strutting, vamping, and cooing across the screen as she offs her nemeses, assembles a Scanner army (the film was titled SCANNER FORCE in the UK), and discovers she can control the thoughts and minds of the population through TV signals (which also allows Duguay to pay tribute to Cronenberg's VIDEODROME). While Parrish is a hero so bland that he makes you long for the dynamic magnetism of 1991 David Hewlett, Komorowska (who married Duguay not long after making this) just lets it rip. It's not a good performance by the general definition of "good," but there's no denying her enthusiasm. It's almost as if she treated this entire film as a potential demo reel to audition for an over-the-top 007 femme fatale. Nelson is one of three credited writers for this one, along with David Preston (SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, THE VINDICATOR) and Julie Richard, so it's hard to tell where this film's campy direction originated, but there's a clear attempt made to make Helena the quippy, snappy Freddy Krueger of the SCANNERS series, especially when Komorowska animatedly declares "I had a headache THIS big!" There's also a scene in a posh restaurant where she telepathically forces an asshole business exec (Peter Wright) to spill wine on himself and foolishly dance around that seems more fitting in a Jim Carrey movie than in a SCANNERS film. So, while the shift toward comedy is dubious, SCANNERS 3: THE TAKEOVER shows off much more gore and at least has more of a personality than its predecessor, with Komorowska turning in an undeniably spirited performance that's really hard to dislike. If you catch this in the right mood, you might find yourself having an unexpectedly good time with it. This one never made it into US theaters, instead going straight to American video stores. (R, 100 mins)
Presented in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack by Shout! Factory offshoot Scream Factory, the SCANNERS II/SCANNERS 3 set (both films are on one Blu-ray and one DVD) isn't exactly Blu-ray demo-worthy but look nice in 1.78 transfers. The biggest downside of the set is that it contains zero extras, not even trailers. An interview with Duguay would've been a nice bonus feature (if for no other reason than to discuss the shift in tone with SCANNERS 3). Duguay (born in 1959) went on to make the 1992 pre-007 Pierce Brosnan thriller LIVE WIRE before getting some acclaim in sci-fi/horror circles with 1995's SCREAMERS. His best film is probably 1997's Carlos the Jackal-inspired THE ASSIGNMENT (with Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, and Ben Kingsley), which didn't get much attention when it was released but has a small cult following thanks to its many years as a 3:00 am insomniac cable staple (check one of the lower-profile HBO or Showtime channels; it's probably on tonight). Duguay's most widely-seen film is 2000's THE ART OF WAR, one of Wesley Snipes' better efforts from the bygone era when Wesley Snipes movies played in theaters. After 2002's box office dud EXTREME OPS, Duguay left the major studios behind and settled into TV movies like 2008's COCO CHANEL with Shirley MacLaine. In recent years, he's been busy directing movies and miniseries for Italian TV. After the well-done SCREAMERS, it looked as if Duguay might've gone on to become a go-to Hollywood journeyman of the old Richard Fleischer sort to name just one, but in a changing cinematic environment, perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. I always thought he'd have a bigger career than the one that's panned out for him. Just on the basis of some spectacular action sequences in SCANNERS 3, there's no shortage of genre films of the last decade that could've been made better by the professional craftsmanship of an experienced vet like Duguay.
Duguay moved on to bigger things, but the SCANNERS franchise didn't end with this trilogy. Pierre David himself directed 1994's spinoff SCANNER COP (featuring the late, great Richard Lynch), which was followed by 1995's SCANNER COP II, which was retitled SCANNERS: THE SHOWDOWN for American video stores (and it co-starred Robert Forster!). A remake of Cronenberg's original film was announced in 2007, with SAW II/III and REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA director Darren Lynn Bousman attached, but the project fell apart. There was also talk of a SCANNERS TV series around 2011, but thus far, nothing has materialized.
Another batch of cult hits on Blu-ray from the unstoppable Shout! Factory!
JOSHUA TREE aka ARMY OF ONE (US - 1993)
Some outstanding car chase sequences highlight this Dolph Lundgren actioner that was shot in 1992, bypassing US theaters and retitled ARMY OF ONE when it belatedly hit video stores in late 1994. Looking much bigger than its relatively lean budget, JOSHUA TREE benefits from having experienced stunt coordinator and veteran second unit director Vic Armstrong (whose career as a stuntman dates back to 1967's YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) making his directorial debut. Armstrong's storytelling and directing of the non-action scenes are frequently clunky and lacking polish, but when the focus is action, which is quite often, JOSHUA TREE really works, coming off very much like a hard-R, John Woo-inspired version of the Charlie Sheen comedy THE CHASE, which came out around the same time. Lundgren is Santee, who transports stolen cars in a big rig with his buddy Eddie (Ken Foree). Eddie is killed and Santee is framed for the murder of a highway patrolman by corrupt L.A. cop Severence (George Segal), who runs a hot-car operation with his partner Rudy (Beau Starr). Santee escapes custody during a prison transport, taking local deputy Rita (Kristian Alfonso) hostage and hellbent on vengeance against Severence. Armstrong takes a while getting things revved up, but the second half of the film is basically one long car chase after an incredible shootout at a chop shop owned by Asian mobster Jimmy Shoeshine (Michael Paul Chan, perhaps best known as the Korean convenience store clerk in FALLING DOWN).
When it was released on VHS as ARMY OF ONE, the film was apparently snipped of some of its more over-the-top violence to secure an R rating. This Blu-ray is R-rated, but it almost has to be the uncut version. There's gore galore, all done with practical effects as stomachs are shot open, throats are sliced, and brains splatter against walls. Not without its structural and pacing flaws, but overall, JOSHUA TREE is a very fun B-movie gem, with Lundgren an engaging antihero (Armstrong says the character is based on Humphrey Bogart in HIGH SIERRA, which is seen on a TV set at one point), and Segal enjoyably over-the-top as the bad guy. Also with Michelle Phillips, Geoffrey Lewis, Bert Remsen, Khandi Alexander, Denver Mattson, Nick Chinlund, and the great Al Leong. Shout's Blu-ray is 2.35:1 and the bonus features include the alternate ARMY OF ONE ending in 1.33:1 (including some extended Lundgren/Segal brawling), a commentary with Armstrong and his co-producer/second-unit director brother Andy, both of whom are featured with Lundgren in a 25-minute documentary retrospective. Either ending works nicely and doesn't make much of a difference--the Armstrongs admit that the ARMY OF ONE ending is probably more satisfying, but they prefer the original JOSHUA TREE finale. Ideally, both versions would've been included, but with the ARMY OF ONE ending in 1.33:1, it's likely the elements didn't exist for a proper widescreen transfer. (R, 102 mins)
THE NEST (US - 1988)
"They're Creeping Up on You," the E.G. Marshall vs. cockroaches segment of George A. Romero's CREEPSHOW (1982), and Guillermo del Toro's MIMIC (1997) are the standard-bearers in grossout cockroach cinema, but this enjoyably icky 1988 Roger Corman production is a close third (in fact, MIMIC borrowed one of its major plot elements from THE NEST). The small coastal town of North Port finds itself under siege by a mutant strain of cockroach thanks to the usual scientific experimentation gone awry. To combat the cockroach nuisance, a breed of cannibalistic cockroach was created with the intention of consuming the existing roaches. Bred to die out after one generation, the flesh-eating cockroaches adapted and survived, developing an immunity to pesticides and an ability to mimic what they consume. Boasting better production values than many Concorde/Corman releases of that era, multiple visits to Corman's beloved Bronson Canyon, memorable gore scenes, and headed by a veteran actor (aging TV star Robert Lansing as the mayor) who seems to be taking the project seriously, THE NEST still plays very nicely today. The film also benefits from solid supporting turns by Stephen Davies (best known as the American mob lawyer deemed a "long streak of paralyzed piss" by British gangster Bob Hoskins in THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY) as the requisite eccentric, comic-relief exterminator and Corman regular Terri Treas as the human villain, a man-hating mad scientist responsible for the cockroach mutation and who seems perversely turned-on by the mayhem she's created. THE NEST marked the directing debut of THE HOWLING co-writer Terence H. Winkless, who continued working for Corman for a number of years, most notably helming one of Concorde's biggest successes, 1989's Don "The Dragon" Wilson kickboxing classic BLOODFIST. Winkless contributes an engaging commentary track that covers pretty much anything you want to know about THE NEST (even pointing out various bits of footage recycled from other Corman productions) and working for the Corman factory. THE NEST is entertaining B-movie trash at its finest, and certainly in the upper echelon of Corman's extremely prolific late '80s Concorde output. (R, 88 mins)
PRISON (US - 1988)
Made in the waning days of the beloved, short-lived Empire Pictures, PRISON didn't get much of a theatrical release but did get enough coverage in Fangoria that it became an instant cult hit on video. It was also an early directing effort for one Renny Harlin, who helmed A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER later the same year and was in the majors by 1990 with THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE and DIE HARD 2 opening on consecutive weekends. Over the years, Harlin earned a rep as a bit of a Hollywood uber-hack, but PRISON is the work of a young and ambitious filmmaker and in retrospect, is probably one of his best films. It holds up remarkably well, thanks in large part to some unusually strong performances for a low-budget, late '80s horror flick. The late, great character actor Hall of Famer Lane Smith has one of his rare lead roles and absolutely runs with it in a terrific performance as the edgy, paranoid warden in a decrepit prison that's haunted by the ghost of a vengeful convict wrongly executed 20 years earlier when Smith was a guard. The prison's been closed since that execution, but state budget cuts have forced its reopening as an alternative to building a state-of-the-art facility. Of course, it doesn't take long for the evil to be unleashed as Smith, his guards, and the convicts (including a mysterious Viggo Mortensen in an early role) are all fair game for supernatural vengeance. Harlin and screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner let the film unfold at a (perhaps too) leisurely pace (it could probably lose about 15 minutes), but it does effectively establish an ominous and atmospheric mood and once it gets rolling around the midway point, it doesn't let up. Convincing special effects and a solid cast of recognizable character actors from movies and TV (Chelsea Field, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Arlen Dean Snyder, Hal Landon, Jr., and Tiny Lister among others) add to the quality of this very well-done chiller that was one of several entries in a strange 1988-89 prison and/or vengeful-prisoner-back-from-the-dead horror craze (along with DESTROYER, SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK, THE CHAIR, THE HORROR SHOW, and Wes Craven's SHOCKER). Shout's Blu-ray/DVD combo pack presents the film in 1.78:1 and features a 40-minute retrospective documentary and a commentary with Harlin. RE-ANIMATOR and TRANCERS may get all the glory, but PRISON also ranks as one of the very best films that Empire made before they folded and Charles Band parlayed that notoriety into '90s video store and horror merch staple Full Moon. (R, 103 mins)
