Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. Written by David Lawrence Cohen. Cast: Luke Evans, Adelaide Clemens, Lee Tergesen, Derek Magyar, America Olivo, Beau Knapp, Lindsay Shaw, Brodus Clay, Laura Ramsey, Gary Grubbs. (R, 86 mins)
With his 2001 Yakuza vs. zombies cult classic VERSUS, Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura seemed poised to break out as the next Takashi Miike. Kitamura has remained busy, reaching Miike-like productivity with four films released in 2003 alone. Kitamura went on to direct 2004's GODZILLA: FINAL WARS, the 50th anniversary epic Godzilla monster mash that many purists hated but it has its charms (most notably the American Godzilla--referred to as 'Zilla--from Roland Emmerich's much-maligned 1998 remake showing up and getting killed by the real Godzilla after about eight seconds of screen time, with the villain quipping "I told you that thing was useless!"), before trying to crack the American market with the 2008 Clive Barker short story adaptation THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. Lionsgate was undergoing a management change at the time and they wanted to move away from the "horror" label that they'd earned with the massively-popular SAW franchise. As a result, all horror films except SAW got swept under the rug (including Joel Schumacher's surprisingly entertaining BLOOD CREEK), and THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, after several release date shufflings and months of the trailer being shown before nearly every movie I saw for the better part of a year with moviegoers inevitably snickering at the title, opened on a mere 102 screens to the tune of $35,000. Kitamura and Barker blamed Lionsgate for the film's failure, but while the studio's bailing didn't help, the fact remains that it just wasn't very good, with its impact significantly dampened by some bush-league CGI gore, and it's a prime example of something reading a lot better on the page than it plays on the screen.
Kitamura gives the American market another go with the Louisiana-shot NO ONE LIVES, co-produced by WWE Studios. While distributor Anchor Bay rolled it out on just 53 screens nationwide, it had a marginally better opening weekend than MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, grossing $48,000. It's too bad more horror fans aren't aware of this, or that Anchor Bay seems to be just settling for future DVD, VOD, and Netflix revenue, because NO ONE LIVES, while a tad illogical if you break it down, is the kind of raw, visceral, relentlessly-paced, drive-in-style B-movie thrill machine (Kitamura doesn't forget to include a completely gratuitous topless shot near the end) that you don't see much on the big screen these days. It harbors no illusions about being anything more or deeper than it is: pretty much everyone in the film is thoroughly loathsome, and they die in some inventively gory ways as the filmmakers do everything they can to make the movie's title a guarantee.
Kitamura and screenwriter David Lawrence Cohen cleverly sidestep any initial plot holes by kicking things off in medias res and letting the viewer piece most of the backstory together. An unnamed man (Luke Evans), referred to only as "Driver" in the credits and his girlfriend Betty (Laura Ramsey) are moving, traveling the rural back roads, in pursuit of a new start. There's a lot of vague dialogue about "having to leave," and Driver unable to control certain aspects of who he is. It sounds like the two are recovering from an infidelity on his part, with Betty saying "Just tell me you love me more than her." Meanwhile, local criminal lowlife Hoag (Lee Tergesen) and his crew of white-trash shitbags are in the middle of burglarizing a mansion when the family unexpectedly returns home only to be killed by Hoag's short-fused right-hand man Flynn (Derek Magyar). Driver and Betty cross paths with Hoag and Flynn and the rest at a highway greasy spoon and shortly after, Flynn runs Driver and Betty off the road and makes off with their car and trailer, leaving burly idiot Ethan (WWE star Brodus Clay) to dispose of the couple. Back at Hoag's house, Flynn discovers a hidden compartment inside Driver's trunk and inside is Emma (Michelle Williams/Carey Mulligan lookalike Adelaide Clemens of SILENT HILL: REVELATION), an heiress abducted from a college party six months earlier. Emma warns them that they have no idea what they're up against and that "he's going to find you and he's going to kill you...you're already dead."
We never really learn what Driver is or how he's such a proficient super-psycho. He's almost like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees if they possessed the lethal skills and training of Liam Neeson in TAKEN. So what we end up getting with NO ONE LIVES is a pair of reversals: first the tables being turned on Hoag & co, and then a reversal of a home-invasion thriller, with Driver killing Ethan and making his way to Hoag's house in a mode of transport that's, well, creative to say the least, and waiting outside while Hoag and his band of bad-tempered morons are trapped inside, risking death if they try to exit the house, and unable to call the cops because they're on the run as well. Driver has the exterior of the house and the entire surrounding woods booby-trapped (hey, he works quickly), and no one seems to take Emma's warnings seriously, especially since she seems to maybe have a Stockholm Syndrome crush on her captor, almost enjoying watching Driver unleash hell on these fools.
There's really no defending a movie like NO ONE LIVES. It's pretty dumb and it kinda flies off the rails in the home stretch, but it mostly accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do: it dives right into the action, doesn't overstay its welcome with the closing credits rolling just before the 80-minute mark, and the pacing is so furious that you barely have a chance to stop and say "Wait a minute..." It's a no-bullshit splatter flick, with Kitamura wisely not repeating the mistakes of MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN and going practical and prosthetic here: the blood is wet, sloppy, and chunky, and there's gallons upon gallons of it. While the editing may occasionally be jerky and choppy in the action scenes, the gore has an admirable old-school '80s aesthetic to it, and I think NO ONE LIVES deserves some props just for that. The film is definitely an acquired taste--if you aren't a gorehound, you best just walk on by--but it's a solid example of "check your brain at the door" horror mayhem done right. This is going to make a quick exit from the 53 theaters it's currently in (that's a little over one per state!), but I can see this getting some word-of-mouth exposure when it inevitably hits Netflix streaming in a few months.
Directed by Michael J. Paradise (Giulio Paradisi). Written by Lou Comici and Robert Mundy. Cast: Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Joanne Nail, Franco Nero, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters, Paige Conner, Wallace Wilkinson, Elizabeth Turner, Steve Somers, Neal Boortz. (R, 90 mins/Unrated, 109 mins)
A longtime cult favorite thanks to its constant airings on late-night TV throughout the 1980s, the utterly delirious Italian horror film THE VISITOR is like nothing seen before or since. For years, the following this film had in America was based on its butchered 90-minute US cut released on the grindhouse and drive-in circuit throughout 1980 and quickly shipped off to TV. This US edit excised nearly 20 minutes from the original European version, with a good chunk of that being important exposition at the beginning of the film. Code Red released the uncut version on DVD in an impressive transfer with some great extras in 2010, finally allowing fans to see the intended version and it's a bit of a double-edged sword: on one hand, the film is still completely looney tunes, filled with confused actors, memorable set pieces, some impressive set designs, some incredibly striking imagery, and what looks like the most dangerous and impractical staircase ever built in a residence, but on the other, the clarification of several major plot points significantly reduces the jawdropping WTF? factor that US fans knew and loved for so many years. In its intended 109-minute form, THE VISITOR is still completely preposterous, but its preposterous plot elements now make some semblance of sense. Don't misunderstand me: this is a mandatory piece of head-scratching cinema, but people seeing the uncut version without experiencing the truncated US cut that so many of us were so thoroughly baffled by for so many years might not see what all the fuss is about among the people who love this thing. The two versions of THE VISITOR provide a rare example where some fans might actually prefer the chopped-down version just for the sentimental value.
Filmed mostly in Atlanta, GA in the summer of 1978, with some interiors (including the memorably-designed house where much of the climactic action takes place) shot in Rome at De Paolis and Cinecitta, THE VISITOR was produced by Italian schlock king Ovidio G. Assonitis, an Egyptian-born producer/director who first gained notoriety a few years earlier with his 1975 Italian EXORCIST ripoff BEYOND THE DOOR, which he directed under the pseudonym "Oliver Hellman." BEYOND THE DOOR, with Juliet Mills as a pregnant mom who turns into a vile, vomiting, obscenity-spewing hag when her fetus is possessed by Satan, became a surprise box office hit despite a lawsuit by Warner Bros., irate over its similarities to THE EXORCIST (this didn't stop Italian producers from unleashing a flood of EXORCIST ripoffs for the next several years). Assonitis then produced and may have directed some of 1976's FOREVER EMMANUELLE before ripping off another American blockbuster with 1977's TENTACLES, a JAWS imitation that replaced a great white shark with a mutant octopus stirred from the ocean depths some by illegal drilling done by an oil company whose unscrupulous owner is played by a seriously slumming Henry Fonda. If you're wondering why Fonda is appearing in an Italian ripoff of JAWS, you might want to ask John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, and Claude Akins the same thing. And while it's not completely ridiculous to cast Huston (born in 1906) and Winters (born in 1920) as siblings, I have to question what compelled Assonitis to make it a plot point that Huston is the younger one. It's just that kind of movie. TENTACLES had an unusually overqualified cast for such a low-grade affair, but if you listen to the commentary track by longtime Assonitis production associate Peter Shepherd on 1986's Assonitis-produced CHOKE CANYON, you'll hear some great stories about Assonitis being the kind of producer who paid well-known but past-their-prime actors duffel bags full of cash that was stored above the ceiling tiles in a rented office. Fonda shot his three or four TENTACLES scenes--which consist of his character making some angry phone calls that are vague enough ("Why wasn't I told about this?" and "Just take care of it!") that I remain convinced he had no idea he was in a movie about a giant mutant octopus--in one morning at his own dining room table. That's right: Assonitis brought a skeleton crew to Fonda's Beverly Hills home, got the shots he needed and Fonda was handed a bag of money. They worked so quickly that Fonda audibly flubs a line at one point and they just left it in, as I'm sure the Hollywood legend wasn't about to listen to any of this "Let's try that again" bullshit. With that kind of chicanery in his bag of tricks, it's no wonder that Assonitis was picked to run Cannon in its final days after Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus left and before the plug was mercifully pulled.
Assonitis has always had a reputation for hiring directors just to fire them so he can take over the filming himself, with the most famous example being his Italian-made sequel PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1982). Assonitis asked PIRANHA producer Roger Corman if he had any promising employees he thought might be a good candidate to direct, and Corman gave him special effects technician and art director James Cameron, who had worked behind the scenes on Corman productions like BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980) and GALAXY OF TERROR (1981) and did some matte work on John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981). Cameron and Assonitis butted heads throughout the filming of PIRANHA II, with Cameron, unable to communicate with the all-Italian crew, required to run everything by Assonitis and usually being told no. Knowing what we know now about Cameron's mercurial, control-freak nature, this was a match made in Hell from the start, and eventually, after catching Cameron sneaking into the editing room to undo his ordered changes, Assonitis fired him and finished the film himself. Most of what's in PIRANHA II is Cameron's work, and while he went on to fame and fortune two years later with THE TERMINATOR, the "king of the world" still insists PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING is "the greatest flying piranha movie ever made."
Assonitis' paw prints are all over THE VISITOR, a combination ripoff of THE OMEN and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, with much of his usual tech crew present, and TENTACLES alumni Huston and Winters showing up for another bag of that sweet Assonitis cash (some sources erroneously list Henry Fonda among THE VISITOR's cast, but he's not in either version and was never involved, and this likely stems from someone somewhere confusing this with TENTACLES). But according to co-stars Paige Conner and Joanne Nail (SWITCHBLADE SISTERS) on the DVD extras, Assonitis actually left the directing to the director on THE VISITOR, Giulio Paradisi, a former assistant to Federico Fellini. Credited as "Michael J. Paradise," Paradisi works with cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri to create some truly vivid, memorable images throughout the film. Some of the visual effects are rudimentary and might've worked a bit better if most of the budget wasn't going to the big-name cast, but there's a stylistic ambition to THE VISITOR that's undeniable and often breathtaking. How much of the film's singularly unique look is Assonitis and how much is Paradisi's time spent with Fellini is up in the air. Yeah, it's a cheesy Italian horror movie, but it's trying its utmost to be the weirdest, most batshit insane Italian horror movie you've ever seen.
The plot centers on eight-year-old Katy Collins (Conner), who lives with her divorced mother Barbara (Nail) and her boyfriend, Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen), the owner of the fictional Atlanta Rebels NBA team. Raymond keeps pressuring Barbara to marry him, but she refuses. She loves him, but never wants to remarry, and she has a fear that something unnatural within her has been passed on to Katy, a bratty, incredibly self-absorbed child who can be politely described as a sociopath. Unknown to Barbara, it's no accident that she's met Raymond. Raymond has sold his soul to a cabal of evil and limitlessly wealthy one-percenters headed by Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer). Walker and his mystery men (one is played by then-Atlanta-based radio host and future Libertarian talk radio hero Neal Boortz!) have given Raymond financial success with his basketball team in exchange for access to Barbara, the one woman of her generation who possesses the genes of "Sateen," a cosmic demon who needs Barbara to give birth to a son to pair with Katy in order to be reborn through them and rule the universe.
Meanwhile, the mysterious Jerzy (Huston) has been dispatched from an unknown netherworld by a Christ-like figure (Franco Nero) surrounded by bald children to go to Atlanta and prevent Sateen's rebirth. Jerzy arrives at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (where did he get that connecting flight?) and meets with a group of bald men in jogging suits on top of a downtown building (next to the famous Equitable Building), where he stares off at the Atlanta skyline while they do weird New Age/vogueing moves behind white partitions. Jerzy starts snooping around the Collins house just as a talking toy bird bought for Katy is somehow replaced with a gun, which accidentally goes off, resulting in Barbara getting shot in the spine and confining her to a wheelchair (Katy's reaction: a mere shrug). Skeptical detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford, with some really distracting dried ointment covering a cold sore on his lower lip) keeps pestering Katy about how the gun got in the house, with his dogged persistence almost immediately resulting in a spectacular OMEN-style demise in an explosive car wreck after getting his eyes pecked out by a bird while behind the wheel (there's an incredible motorcycle stunt in this scene performed by Chuck Norris' brother Aaron). Along with an annoying, "Shortnin' Bread"-singing housekeeper (Winters), Jerzy ingratiates himself into the Collins house by posing as a sitter from the childcare service, because who wouldn't leave their eight-year-old daughter with a 73-year-old stranger who looks like John Huston? Considering that this is THE VISITOR, this is actually one of the film's more plausible plot points. After witnessing her wreak bitchy havoc at an ice skating rink and over a competitive game of Pong (John Huston playing Pong on a huge 1970s projection TV is worth the price of admission, folks), Jerzy lays out the situation for Katy: that he's there to take her away and destroy the evil part of herself that Sateen needs, and that they have to stop Raymond from fathering a child with her mother. The inherently evil Katy isn't buying it. She sneers, sasses, calls him an "old bastard," and essentially says "Game on."
Barbara wants nothing to do with having another child, and when she refuses Raymond's marriage proposal yet again, he's relieved of his duties by Dr. Walker, who tells him that "other measures" are now being taken. Specifically, Barbara is abducted by a spaceship on a dark highway and impregnated with the child of Sateen and left with no memory of the event (why didn't they just do this in the first place? Why did they have to buy an NBA team? Is it just to cram in the exploding basketball sequence that someone concocted?). When Jerzy finds out Barbara is pregnant, the stage is set for the final battle between good and evil. Or something like that.
And that's a plot synopsis from the uncut version. Imagine watching THE VISITOR without any of the "Sateen" stuff mentioned. All of that material was cut from the US version that was originally set to be released by AIP, but when they folded and became Filmways, THE VISITOR was sold to the short-lived International Picture Show. As far as the cast is concerned, most of the cuts to the US version affected Ford, Nero, and none other than legendary WILD BUNCH director Sam Peckinpah. Ford's already small role was even smaller in the American cut (which is a shame because he's really good here), but he gets a couple of crucial additional scenes in the uncut version, especially one unnerving bit where he finds the talking toy bird which repeatedly boasts "I'm a pretty bird." In the American cut, an uncredited Nero didn't even appear until the very end and had no dialogue. In the uncut version, he's introduced in the first scene and explains (via someone else's dubbed voice) all of the "Sateen" business and sends Jerzy on his mission. Also, the opening scene is different in both versions: in the uncut version, Jerzy is shown in some surreal, desolate landscape with a low, flaming sun as a robed, hooded figure walks toward him. Then, a snowy blizzard hits and the hood flies off to reveal some sort of demon-child underneath. The US cut opened the same way until the snow hit (with a shortened version of Nero's and Huston's conversation played over the imagery; mind you, we don't see Nero at this point in the US cut). The snowy part of the sequence was moved to much later in the film, intercut with the aforementioned Pong game as a vision presented to Katy by Jerzy. Either way works for that, but it's the removal of Nero's character from the opening of the film that completely eliminates any sense of coherence from the very start. We have no idea who these people are, why Jerzy is in Atlanta, who these bald jogging suit dudes are or why Raymond has these rich assholes prodding him to knock up his girlfriend.
Peckinpah's participation in THE VISITOR has always been one of its more inexplicable elements. Considered unemployable by Hollywood due to his rampant drug and alcohol abuse (painfully apparent on his 1975 misfire THE KILLER ELITE), he briefly dabbled in acting during this time to keep some money coming in, also appearing in Monte Hellman's Italian/Spanish western CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37 (1978), and getting a jokey "Introducing Sam Peckinpah" credit in the US version. Peckinpah had the biggest commercial success of his career with 1978's trucker blockbuster CONVOY, but rumors have persisted for years that he spent most of the shoot holed up in his trailer on coke binges while friend and second-unit director James Coburn, on the set because he wanted to get a DGA card and needed some experience, actually directed a large chunk of the movie. In the US cut of THE VISITOR, Peckinpah turns up late in the film as Barbara's doctor, and she consults him about having an abortion. He's shot mostly in silhouette, you never get a good look at his face, and his voice is dubbed by veteran expat actor Michael Forest. In the uncut version, he's specifically referred to as "Dr. Collins," and it's revealed that he's Katy's father and Barbara's ex-husband. Peckinpah and Nail also have an additional scene before that where they acrimoniously catch up--he's still bitter over the divorce--and she begs him for help. In the uncut version, you get a clear view of Peckinpah, though his behavior reportedly ranged from uncooperative at best to combative at worst during his brief time on the set and the skidding director was too wasted to remember his lines. Forest's voice doesn't always match Peckinpah's lip movements, and many shots of Peckinpah talking have him turned away from the camera, probably out of necessity. On the CHOKE CANYON commentary, which serves as more of a walk through every other Assonitis production, Shepherd recalls "I'm not exactly sure how Sam Peckinpah got involved in THE VISITOR, but we were glad when he left."
But it was the unusual cast and that complete lack of coherence that were major parts of THE VISITOR's appeal to impressionable kids and bleary-eyed insomniacs catching this on TV at 2:30 am back in the '80s and wondering the next morning if the entire film was just strange dream they had. You could've chalked it up to being edited for television but nope, that wasn't the problem. Renting this on VHS proved that it was just as confusing, only with minor additional splatter and some interesting swearing (young Conner telling Ford "Go fuck yourself!" is a keeper). Assonitis and Paradisi concocted the basic story for THE VISITOR, with the script written by Lou Comici (who went to write for TV shows like SILK STALKINGS and WALKER, TEXAS RANGER) and Robert Mundy, whose only other screenwriting credits are the forgotten Joe Namath/Barbara Eden comedy CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO (1984) and the Bridget Fonda/Russell Crowe bomb ROUGH MAGIC (1995).
Georgia native Conner acted only sporadically after THE VISITOR. She had a small role in the Kristy McNichol/Tatum O'Neal hit LITTLE DARLINGS (1980) and briefly appeared (as the girl with the purse full of potential self-defense weapons) in the famous "Natalie gets assaulted" episode of THE FACTS OF LIFE (at 2:50 into that clip) before logging some time as an Atlanta Falcons cheerleader in the '90s. She now owns a luxury beauty salon in Atlanta. She's an absolute charmer on the DVD commentary track, sharply recalling details of the production 30 years later and sharing warm memories of working with Huston, who took her under his wing, coaching her on her performance and how to control her distinct Southern accent. Famed animator Bruno Bozzetto contributed some animation to the climactic bird attack that's quite an extraordinary sequence in conjunction with the memorable score by Franco Micalizzi. Micalizzi's work on THE VISITOR ranks among the great scores in any Italian horror film. It's so loud, so bombastic, and so catchy that I'm shocked Quentin Tarantino hasn't appropriated it for use in one of his own films. During this time, Italian film crews were regularly shooting in the Atlanta area (films like the Bud Spencer comedy THE SHERIFF AND THE SATELLITE KID and Antonio Margheriti's CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE had extensive location work in the downtown Atlanta area). Along with Burt Reynolds' SHARKY'S MACHINE, THE VISITOR makes maybe the best use of noteworthy Atlanta locations (the Equitable Building, the now-demolished Omni, the cylindrical, rotating Peachtree Plaza Hotel, Underground Atlanta) from that era. If you've never experienced THE VISITOR, in either of its two existing forms, then you're depriving yourself of a time-capsule-worthy piece of vital Italian Eurotrash cinema. This is pretty close to as crazy as it gets.
11-minute fan montage of VISITOR highlights with selections from Micalizzi's score
6 March 2014:
UPDATE: Click here for a look at the Drafthouse Films Blu-ray release
Shane Carruth's no-budget 2004 indie hit PRIMER came out of nowhere to become arguably the greatest time-travel movie ever made. It took the flight simulation software engineer-turned-filmmaker nine years to return with his self-distributed second effort, the even more enigmatic and perplexing UPSTREAM COLOR. PRIMER's dovetailing, backtracking plot is almost quaintly simplistic compared to the mind-twister he delivers here. Carruth fashions a story here, but isn't as concerned with putting all the pieces together. UPSTREAM COLOR focuses more on mood, feeling, patterns, sound. It's too much to take in on one viewing or maybe even ten, and its mysteries aren't necessarily meant to be solved. Almost like what might happen if Terrence Malick made a sci-fi film with horrific overtones, UPSTREAM COLOR opens with graphic designer Kris (Amy Seimetz) being implanted with a worm-like parasite by a man who will come to be known as The Thief (Thiago Martins). Through this parasite, the Thief is able to brainwash Kris and control her, keeping her busy with mundane activities like crocheting, hand-writing pages of Thoreau's Walden and gluing the sheets to make paper chains, all part of an elaborate plot to get her to take out massive loans on her home equity and make off with the cash. One morning, Kris awakens with worms burrowing under her skin and no recollection of what's happened. But now she's broke, she's lost her job, and she's had some kind of surgery involving a parasite being removed from her and planted into a pig by a man known as The Sampler (Andrew Sensenig).
Kris meets and forms a tentative bond with Jeff (Carruth), an accountant and recovering drug addict who lost his job and his wife when his habit compelled him to embezzle from his previous employer. Like Kris, Jeff is putting his life back together and bears the scars of a mysterious past, figuratively and literally as he has nearly identical parasite/surgery-related scarring as Kris. As these two damaged souls drawn to one another, building a relationship and a future together, they're haunted by shared memories they can't comprehend, telepathic connections to the pigs on The Sampler's farm, and prone to almost hypnotic states where a visual or aural cue will remind them of the brainwashed trauma they don't recall...until the pieces start to come together. That is, for them. Not necessarily for the viewer. With the late-film introduction of two gardeners picking orchids and other flowers, there's some hints of a mythic "death/rebirth" Circle-of-Life motif, and one possible reading of the plot would be to say that Kris and Jeff are already dead, but I'm fairly sure that Carruth isn't going for that kind of rote, Shyamalanian simplicity. I don't think the mysteries are important to appreciate the film, though things probably become a little more clear around the 10th or 15th time through. Carruth (who also edited, served as a camera operator, and composed the very Cliff Martinez-ish score) has fashioned a trance-like film that's very Malick-ian in its visual beauty and might make an interesting double feature with Panos Cosmatos' somewhat similarly-themed and equally dreamlike and impenetrable BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW. (Unrated, 96 mins)
REVENGE FOR JOLLY! (US - 2013)
REVENGE FOR JOLLY! is the brainchild of writer/star Brian Petsos, a Second City and FUNNY OR DIE! vet who rounded up some of his more famous friends to join him in this grim, bleak black comedy that played the festival circuit over a year ago and never got a theatrical release. Even with the closing credits rolling at 77 minutes--with an extra-slow credits crawl stretching it to 84--it feels padded and overlong, but it's a great premise for a short film and has some undeniably effective and oddly touching moments amid the relentlessly graphic carnage. Low-level Staten Island criminal Harry (Petsos) lives alone, has no friends, and cares only for Jolly, his beloved Miniature Pinscher. Harry owes some people money and when he returns home one morning after drinking with his cousin Cecil (Oscar Isaac), he discovers Jolly has been killed. Overcome with grief and rage over losing the only thing in his life that mattered, Harry asks Cecil to accompany him on his search for Jolly's killer. Learning early on that the man responsible is one Bachmeier (Ryan Philippe), Harry and Cecil leave a trail of dead bodies over their 36-hour quest to locate the killer and avenge Jolly.
With its cavalier attitude toward mass slaughter, it's little surprise, given some events of the last year, that REVENGE FOR JOLLY! might've made some distributors a little skittish. It's extremely unsettling seeing Harry and Cecil crash the wedding reception of Bachmaier's sister (Kristen Wiig) and start mowing people down. Petsos doesn't seem too concerned with making either Harry or Cecil particularly likable, but he makes Harry's grieving serious enough that in a strange, sick way, you understand where he's coming from. There's some surprising heart to a monologue of Harry's where he shares his favorite memories of Jolly, talking about a night where he made bologna sandwiches and fed her some bites. Petsos convincingly sells it when he says, with his eyes filled with tears, "That was a great night." The film takes place in a strange Staten Island that may not be real and may just be a revenge fantasy in Harry's head, or it's just set in an unspecified past: Harry drives a mid-1980s Cadillac, and no one seems to have a cell phone to dial 9-1-1, and there's no cops in sight, but I guess you just have to roll with it. Directed by Chadd Harbold (another FUNNY OR DIE! vet), REVENGE FOR JOLLY! is uneven and doesn't have enough material to justify even its brief running time, but there's some interesting and occasionally daring stuff here (and a cool, synth-based score by Whitey) and at least as a writer, Petsos might be a talent to keep an eye on. The large supporting cast of well-known or recognizable faces includes Elijah Wood, Garret Dillahunt, Kevin Corrigan (delivering the most uncomfortable best-man speech imaginable), Adam Brody, Bobby Moynihan, David Rasche, Jayne Atkinson, Gillian Jacobs, Amy Seimetz, Stephen Payne, Britt Lower, and John DiBenedetto. (R, 84 mins)
Written and directed by Jeff Nichols. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Jacob Lofland, Paul Sparks, Bonnie Sturdivant. (PG-13, 132 mins)
MUD, the third feature by Arkansas filmmaker Jeff Nichols, continues to explore similar territory mined in his two previous works, 2008's SHOTGUN STORIES and 2011's TAKE SHELTER. In the gut-wrenching SHOTGUN, a small-town patriarch passes and the three sons by his second wife--who knew him as a loving, caring dad--clash with the three sons by his first wife, who remain bitter and resentful that their father abandoned them with their abusive mother and started his life over as a sober, born-again Christian, consciously choosing to have nothing to do with his first family. In TAKE SHELTER, the great character actor Michael Shannon (the oldest of the first set of brothers in SHOTGUN, and a Nichols regular) plays a rural Ohio husband and father who becomes obsessed with building a storm shelter in his backyard for reasons he can't explain but possibly have to do with his mother being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the same age he happens to be. In his first two films, Nichols focuses on fractured, troubled families in rural settings, portraying them as real people instead of cliched, condescending caricatures. Nichols' characters face deep-seeded problems both psychological and genetic that stretch across generations and haunt them through their lives. MUD expands on these ideas and is simultaneously Nichols' most ambitious and most predictable work. It's raw and emotional and steadily balances a large cast of supporting characters, but being Nichols' most commercial film yet, it's also very calculated and calls its shots a little too loudly. When characters start suddenly talking about things like snakebites and antivenom, and saying that one guy "used to be a sharpshooter," then there's a pretty good chance those traits will come into play in the most crowd-pleasing way possible. That's not to say MUD isn't a well-made and engrossing film, because it is. But because Nichols is going for some crossover mainstream appeal, he doesn't so much "dumb it down" as he "unsubtly foreshadows."
Returning to a rural Arkansas setting similar to SHOTGUN STORIES, MUD is the story of 14-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who lives in a houseboat with his struggling fisherman dad (Ray McKinnon) and his unhappy mother (Sarah Paulson). He regularly travels down the river with his best friend Neckbone (scene-stealing newcomer Jacob Lofland) and they discover a small, abandoned island with a boat stuck in a tree, which presumably happened during a hurricane. But the island has a resident: a fugitive named Mud (Matthew McConaughey), hiding from the authorities after killing the abusive beau of Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), the on/off-girlfriend he's loved since childhood. Mud and Ellis form a tentative bond as the boys keep his whereabouts a secret and bring him food and supplies and agree to help him get the boat down and reunite him with Juniper, who's hiding in an area fleabag motel. Meanwhile, the dead boyfriend's wealthy, car dealership-magnate father (Joe Don Baker back on the big screen!) has assembled a team of hired killers (Baker is introduced leading them in a bended-knee prayer circle) to scour the town and track down and take out Mud.
After years of sleepwalking through terrible romantic comedies--a task he's apparently delegated to Gerard Butler--MUD continues McConaughey's ongoing rebirth as a real actor taking his career seriously, but still manages to get his shirt off a couple of times to keep his base satisfied. He's matched by the fine work of young Sheridan (of Terrence Malick's THE TREE OF LIFE), whose Ellis is really the central character. The naive Ellis, facing some growing pains with the pending breakup of his parents and convincing himself that the two-years-older May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant) is his girlfriend, clings to the idealism of the relationship between Mud and Juniper. He believes it displays the love and commitment that he doesn't see with his parents or with May Pearl, who starts giving him the cold shoulder after one date. Ellis is able to overlook Mud killing a man because he did it for love, and reconnecting Mud and Juniper will, in his young mind, set things right. In many ways, Mud is an overgrown man-child, unable to control his temper (he's beaten nearly all of Juniper's ex's), and just as naive when it comes to adult relationships. MUD is, among other things, a film about fathers and sons and the cyclical nature of things passed down. Ellis' dad demonstrates a regretful instance of violence, and Ellis himself has difficulty controlling his temper, cold-cocking at least three people through the course of the film because he just can't contain himself. And the parent-child relationships that aren't fractured are non-existent: Mud's parents were long out of the picture and he was raised by local fisherman Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard); and Neckbone is an orphan being raised by his uncle Galen (Shannon), who has moments of parental wisdom but generally still acts like a teenager. There's been some criticism leveled at the film in the way it presents the female characters as cold, selfish heartbreakers, but maybe they have their reasons: most of the male characters in MUD have some serious growing up to do.
Nichols is able to effectively fuse his usual rural, off-the-beaten path drama with a STAND BY ME-ish "summer that changed everything" movie and MUD is a worthy addition to this promising filmmaker's already-impressive body of work (SHOTGUN STORIES is currently the most recently-made film to air on Turner Classic Movies). It lacks the ambiguity of his earlier films (particularly the finale of TAKE SHELTER) but it shows that he can make a generally mainstream movie and still keep it recognizably his own. MUD is probably guilty of going with a feel-good Hollywood ending (I'm sure there's an alternate ending that will be offered on the Blu-ray) that Nichols likely wouldn't have chosen if it was Shannon starring instead of the bigger box-office draw of McConaughey, but it's still an excellently-acted and very worthwhile and thought-provoking piece of work. Currently 3-for-3, Jeff Nichols is a filmmaker you need to start paying attention to if you haven't already.
1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (Italy - 1982; US release 1983)
Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Written by Dardano Sacchetti, Elisa Livia Briganti, Enzo G. Castellari. Cast: Vic Morrow, Christopher Connelly, Fred Williamson, Mark Gregory, Stefania Girolami, Enio Girolami, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), John Sinclair, Betty Dessy, Rocco Lerro, Massimo Vanni, Angelo Ragusa, Enzo Girolami, Carla Brait. (R, 86 mins/92 mins)
Frequently and mistakenly lumped in with the onslaught of early 1980s Italian post-nuke ROAD WARRIOR ripoffs, Enzo G. Castellari's 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS is more indebted to Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS, with a bit of John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. In it, we have warring gangs making their way across gang-controlled territories of NYC, but with a "near-future" element of the Bronx being a desolate No Man's Land, a look that wasn't hard to achieve given its state in 1982. Castellari, best known for his 1970s crime thrillers and 1978's THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, captured the look of the decayed Bronx so effectively that the film, along with examples like WOLFEN and FORT APACHE THE BRONX from 1981, stands as a powerful visual document of its era. Of course, any semblance of seriousness offered by 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS ends there, especially considering that Castellari and the Italian crew couldn't get any of the streets in the Bronx shut down for their shoot, so in this uninhabitable "No Man's Land," you clearly see cars travelling in an orderly fashion (a crew member can be seen directing traffic in one shot) and area residents standing around, obviously watching some crazy Italians shoot a movie in their neighborhood. The Bronx was so dangerous that a local Hells Angels chapter hired by producer Fabrizio De Angelis to play additional members of the main biker gang pulled double duty as security for the cast and crew during the Bronx portion of the shoot (the interiors were shot in the much safer confines of the De Paolis Studios in Rome).
I absolutely love 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS. It's one of the essential trashy Italian exploitation films of its era. It's everything one looks for in such fare: blatant ripoff of one or more American box office hits, gratuitous violence, nonsensical and illogical story, often hilarious dubbing, slumming American actors, a killer score (by Walter Rizzati), and an eye for the grime of 1980s NYC that Hollywood films rarely captured, likely because the Italians were always shooting without permits and the city didn't step in first to clean it up and make it presentable for the cameras (a good example of this is seeing just how different the same stretch of Times Square porn palaces and sex shops look in Lucio Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER and Ron Howard's NIGHT SHIFT; both films shot the same year, but NIGHT SHIFT manages to make it look safe and clean while you actually fear for the well-being of RIPPER's cameraman, especially with passersby looking right at him). Low-budget American films like James Glickenhaus' THE EXTERMINATOR (1980), Romano Scavolini's NIGHTMARE (1981), and Abel Ferrara's FEAR CITY (1984) among others, were successful at this and there's an occasional TAXI DRIVER (1976) that didn't sugarcoat things, but if you want a really accurate look at 1970s and 1980s Times Square, Manhattan and the rundown areas of the surrounding boroughs in all their sleazy, decayed, and morally decrepit glory, no one captured this energy and imagery better than permitless Italian film crews.
In 1990, the Bronx is declared a no-man's-land (a crawl explains that all "attemps" at law and order have been abandoned) and is ruled by warring biker gangs who know to keep to their own turf. The main gang is The Riders, led by Trash (Mark Gregory). Complications ensue when rich teenager Anne (Stefania Girolami, Castellari's daughter), who can't stomach being the heiress to the powerful Manhattan Corporation, which handles 60% of the world's arms manufacturing, flees Manhattan and heads to the Bronx. She's immediately attacked by a gang of hockey stick-wielding idiots known as The Zombies, but is rescued by Trash and welcomed into The Riders. Meanwhile, Manhattan Corporation honcho Fisher (Enio Girolami, Castellari's brother) sends in renegade cop Hammer (Vic Morrow) to find Anne and bring her back home. Hammer has other plans: born in the Bronx and sporting a huge chip on his shoulder about it, the self-loathing Hammer detests his origins and wants the Bronx to burn, and instead of doing his job and rescuing Anne, decides to plant evidence that he hopes will start a war between The Riders and The Tigers, the other major gang led by The Ogre (Fred Williamson). Hammer assumes that Trash and his old-school bikers and Ogre and his pimped-out henchmen will destroy each other and the Bronx in the process. He even gets help from Ice (John Sinclair), Trash's duplicitous second-in-command who has his eyes set on leading The Riders and needs Trash out of the way, resenting the influence Anne has on him ("Since he's hooked up with that Manhattan pussy, all the blood's rushed to his cock"). Hammer, fueled by rage and hubris and assisted by untrustworthy trucker Hot Dog (Christopher Connelly), gets sloppy and it doesn't take long for the not-very-brightTrash to figure out that they're being played. He's forced to journey across dangerous territory and face other rival gangs (including one called The Scavengers, who inexplicably grunt and dress like prehistoric cavemen) to get to The Ogre and convince him to band together to take on the insane Hammer, who's bringing along an army of cops for the subtly-named "Operation Burnt Earth."
Hammer's curious hatred of his home turf is about as close to psychological drama as the script by Castellari, Dardano Sacchetti, and Elisa Livia Briganti gets. The primary focus is on action and, thanks to the work of the dubbing crew, hilarious dialogue. Whether it's the background chatter of The Riders ("Yeah! Ya gotta fight to live!") or the colorful metaphors (thinking they're being set up by Hammer, Trash doesn't simply say something like "This is a bunch of crap!" but instead goes with "It could be a pile of shit outta somebody's asshole!"), something bizarre is uttered in seemingly every scene. Even Connelly, dubbing himself, gets into the act, calling Ice "fagface" and Trash "pisshead" in odd insults that were improvised by the actor himself. In his later Italian B-movie excursions, Connelly used similar strange terms, including "suckfish" in at least three different movies. The silliness continues with a random riverside drum solo, and a complete disregard for NYC geography, with scenes in "the Bronx" obviously shot in Brooklyn (including one looking at the Brooklyn Bridge and the Twin Towers), and the exterior of The Ogre's "Bronx" headquarters actually being the abandoned insane asylum on Roosevelt Island between Manhattan and Queens. But perhaps the film's biggest laugh comes from Sinclair badly wiping out on his bike in one shot and breaking several ribs...and Castellari leaving it in the movie.
Connelly and Williamson were no strangers to B-movies during this time and both would continue to work in the Italian exploitation scene, reuniting a few years later on 1987's Williamson-directed THE MESSENGER. Always employed but with his BLACKBOARD JUNGLE and COMBAT days long behind him, Morrow failed to get much of a career bump from co-starring as the rival coach in the 1976 blockbuster THE BAD NEWS BEARS, and was mainly doing TV guest spots and drive-in flicks like 1979's THE EVICTORS and 1980's HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP. He starred in the 1978 Japanese STAR WARS ripoff MESSAGE FROM SPACE and had already worked with Castellari on the Italian JAWS ripoff GREAT WHITE, released in the US in the spring of 1982 and quickly withdrawn from circulation. He co-starred with a then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer on the short-lived 1980 ABC cop show B.A.D. CATS, but it was cancelled after six episodes. Estranged from his two daughters (including actress Jennifer Jason Leigh) from his first wife and in the midst of a divorce from his second, Morrow's professional and personal lives weren't at their pinnacle by the time he agreed to star in 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, and on the BRONX WARRIORS DVD commentary, Castellari tells a story of Morrow breaking down on the flight to Rome after seeing the warm father-daughter affection between the director and daughter Stefania, saying he wished he had that kind of relationship with his daughters. According to Castellari, it was while Morrow was working on 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS that he learned he got a major role in the John Landis segment of the big-budget, Steven Spielberg-produced TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, and that he was due to begin work on it when he was finished working on the Castellari film. Morrow's spirits picked up tremendously, and he told Castellari that he believed things were finally looking brighter for him and that he was going to try to repair the fractured relationship with his daughters.
Of course, everyone knows that Morrow never finished shooting TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. He and two children were killed in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 when, amidst explosions and pyrotechnics, a hovering helicopter crashed on top of them, crushing one of the children, with the blade decapitating the other child and 53-year-old Morrow. The actor had expressed concern over such a dangerous stunt while carrying two young children, but this was his most high-profile role in years and he wanted the scene to be perfect and didn't want to be seen as "difficult." Morrow was dead just three months after GREAT WHITE appeared in US theaters, and with the Italian practice of not shooting with live sound and instead dubbing the dialogue later on, Morrow didn't live long enough to voice his performance in 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, so he was dubbed by veteran voice actor Ed Mannix, whose gruff tones can be heard in countless Italian exploitation films from that era. Cut by six minutes (eliminating a couple bits of gore, the Hells Angels onscreen credit, and the appearance of a campy gang of tap-dancers, all restored on the 2004 Media Blasters DVD), 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS was released in the US in April 1983 by United Film Distribution, nine months after Morrow's death, with TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE hitting theaters two months later, with Landis' segment with Morrow as a loudmouthed bigot who gets the tables turned on him included but slightly restructured and understandably feeling incomplete. The film was a modest box office hit and had its moments (most notably, John Lithgow's performance in George Miller's segment), but the resulting lawsuits and settlements dragged on for years as the tragic and completely avoidable deaths of Morrow and the children has, to this day, left a dark cloud hovering over the entire project.
1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS also introduced the world to the enigmatic and elusive Mark Gregory. Just 17 years old at the time of filming, young Marco di Gregorio was discovered working out at a Rome gym that Castellari frequented. Rechristened "Mark Gregory," the novice actor's screen presence is, in a word, awkward. His strange, halting posture and his pulled-too-high jeans are a sight to behold, and, well, there's no really delicate way to put this: he's got a chick's ass. This, and his apparent orientation (Williamson said in the DVD's accompanying interview, "Let's just say he didn't leave any footprints in the snow") weren't lost on the Hells Angels playing his fellow Riders, who, according to Castellari, openly razzed and insulted the actor, who didn't speak or understand much English. Gregory seems to be phonetically mouthing English, and was dubbed by the very Noo Yawk-sounding Steven Luotto. Gregory would eventually bulk up a bit more and gain some more confidence in his screen presence, never again looking quite as silly as he does here. Following 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, Gregory reprised his role as Trash in Castellari's inferior sequel ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX. Shot in 1983 and released in the US by New Line Cinema in 1985, ESCAPE is unremarkable except for Henry Silva's over-the-top, coffee-spitting performance as a psycho sent in by the Manhattan Corporation to once again exterminate Trash and the denizens of the Bronx. ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX was skewered on MST3K under its alternate title ESCAPE 2000, which is not be confused with Brian Trenchard-Smith's ESCAPE 2000, aka TURKEY SHOOT.
Gregory also starred in the FIRST BLOOD knockoff THUNDER WARRIOR and its two sequels, and he appeared in several other Italian exploitation outings, such as 1983's ADAM AND EVE VS. CANNIBALS, aka BLUE PARADISE and 1987's DELTA FORCE COMMANDO (playing the villain opposite Williamson), and left the movie industry after 1989's AFGANISTAN: THE LAST WAR BUS, aka WAR BUS COMMANDO. For years, rumors circulated that he was serving time in prison on a murder charge or that he was working in a Rome pizza joint, and even Castellari and his son appeared in a video on YouTube asking for information from anyone that knew Gregory's whereabouts. A BRONX WARRIORS "Hunt for Trash" fan site found someone who claimed he knew a guy claiming to be Gregory, but the photos were unconvincing, to say the least, and the guy seemed entirely too young to be Gregory. I even briefly--well, for a day or so--teamed with none other than Stefania Girolami herself to investigate a "Marco di Gregorio" on Facebook who looked very similar to Gregory. She contacted him and he said he wasn't the guy, but even Girolami said the resemblance was pretty strong. It's interesting to think that in this day and age, with fan conventions and all the technology and the social media and all the ways to internet-stalk someone, the obviously off-the-grid Mark Gregory has successfully transformed himself into the J.D. Salinger of Eurotrash cinema.
Where are you, Mark Gregory? You have a huge fan base. Tell us your story!
YouTube montage created by a Mark Gregory superfan
Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Written by Giovanni Simonelli. Cast: Christopher Connelly, Marina Costa, Lee Van Cleef, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Mike Monty, Rene Abadeza, Protacio Dee (PG-13, 94 mins/101 mins)
The Italian exploitation scene wasted no time ripping off Steven Spielberg's 1981 blockbuster RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, with veteran journeyman Antonio Margheriti (YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE), aka "Anthony M. Dawson," becoming Italy's go-to director for contemporary and period jungle action movies. Going back to the early 1960s, Margheriti dabbled in everything: peplum, sci-fi, gothic horror, 007 ripoffs, spaghetti westerns, martial arts, crime thrillers, and even a ripoff of a ripoff with 1979's PIRANHA-inspired KILLER FISH, but he really found his niche in the 1980s with a near-constant stream of jungle/commando/explosion actioners. In quick succession, the busy Margheriti and his frequent star David Warbeck cranked out HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (1982; released in the US in 1984) and THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984; released in the US in 1986), in addition to their ongoing Vietnam-themed outings like THE LAST HUNTER (1980; released in the US in 1984), and TIGER JOE (1982; released in the US in 1986). In 1985, without Warbeck, Margheriti made one more INDIANA JONES knockoff before turning his attention to a series of WILD GEESE imitations with British TV star Lewis Collins while his contemporaries like Bruno Mattei focused on ripping off RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II. JUNGLE RAIDERS was produced by the Italian B-movie outfit L'Immagine, and was acquired by Cannon and given a very limited US theatrical run in the summer of 1985, making it one of the few Italian exploitation films to not wait anywhere from one to four years to get a token US release. JUNGLE RAIDERS turned up in US video stores not long after and could be found in most of them until the end of the VHS era.
In 1938 Malaysia, adventurer/con artist Duke Howard, better known to the locals as Captain Yankee (Christopher Connelly) and his affable sidekick Gin Fizz (Margheriti regular Luciano Pigozzi, dubbed by the gravelly Robert Spafford) run a scam where they take rich vacationers on a trek to find a rare piece of treasure. However, it's all a staged set-up between Howard and some locals pretending to be "natives," as Howard's pal, US government official Inspector Warren (Lee Van Cleef) looks the other way. Warren comes to Howard with a legit pursuit: lead a pair of academics--Maria Janez (Marina Costa, dubbed by Carolynn De Fonseca) and Professor Lansky (Mike Monty)--deep into the jungle and into a volcano to find the priceless Ruby of Gloom (the US trailer calls it the "Ruby of Doom," which sounds better). Howard isn't too keen on the idea, but agrees when Warren blackmails him with a report from American authorities over a Texas oil man being swindled by a Duke Howard on a search through Mexico for "Montezuma's diamond-studded toilet bowl." Howard, Gin Fizz, and their other pal Alain (the ubiquitous Rene Abadeza, in a rare instance of playing something other than a nameless native in an Italian jungle adventure) lead Maria and Lansky to the Ruby, with Borneo pirates led by the nefarious Tiger (Protacio Dee, dubbed by Ted Rusoff) in hot pursuit.
JUNGLE RAIDERS was made with a larger budget than most Italian copycats, though as he did until the end of his career, Margheriti still relies--perhaps too much--on obvious miniatures for the big explosion and chase sequences. You can clearly see immobile action figures sitting in model trucks in several shots during a big chase. Margheriti tries to be slick about it, but by 1985, it was harder to convincingly pull off these 1950s techniques. Unlike a major Hollywood movie, Margheriti's miniatures are so obvious that they only succeed in drawing attention to themselves rather then seemlessly blending. And the less said about the precocious child who can communicate with his lovable pet cobra (!), the better. Still, it's a fun and fast-paced B-movie, with enjoyable performances by Connelly, Van Cleef, and Pigozzi.
JUNGLE RAIDERS wasn't Cannon's first RAIDERS/INDIANA JONES ripoff: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus also had their in-house Allan Quatermain franchise kick off in 1985 with J. Lee Thompson's remake of KING SOLOMON'S MINES, with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone, which was followed by a 1987 sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD. Additionally, Golan & Globus handled Ferdinando Baldi's 1983 3D Italian/Spanish co-production TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, with forgotten American-born '60s spaghetti western third-stringer Tony Anthony as one J.T. Striker (in his introduction to FOUR CROWNS on The Movie Channel's Drive-In Theater, Joe Bob Briggs called it "the first hit in a series of one for Tony"). By the time JUNGLE RAIDERS was released, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II happened and, using the same Filipino locations, most of the Italians gradually moved on to RAMBO ripoffs and other Namsploitation, most notably Bruno Mattei's infamous STRIKE COMMANDO, which co-starred Connelly, Pigozzi, and Monty (in 1987, a badly-dubbed Connelly also took on the mandatory professor role in another Italian RAIDERS ripoff, Mino Guerrini's rock-bottom THE MINES OF KILIMANJARO). Margheriti belatedly joined the RAMBO game with 1989's INDIO (featuring the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Brian Dennehy, the latter inexplicably slumming in an Italian knockoff at the height of his Hollywood character actor fame) and its 1991 sequel INDIO 2: THE REVOLT, but mainly stayed busy with his WILD GEESE ripoffs: 1984's CODENAME: WILDGEESE (given a decent-sized US release in 1986 by New World), 1985's COMMANDO LEOPARD, and 1988's THE COMMANDER, with the latter two never given official US distribution.
The US release of JUNGLE RAIDERS was uncut and ran 101 minutes, receiving a PG-13 rating from the MPAA, with the VHS print cropping the 2.35 image to the full-frame 1.33. The German print available on the bootleg and torrent circuit, titled DIE JAGER DER GOLDENEN GOTTIN (translated: THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN GODDESS), dubbed in English, omits some of the violence and other minor bits and comes in at 94 minutes, but it's the full 2.35 image, and seeing as its one of Margheriti's and L'Immagine's more generously-budgeted '80s films, obviously benefits greatly from the intended framing.
Kitamura gives the American market another go with the Louisiana-shot NO ONE LIVES, co-produced by WWE Studios. While distributor Anchor Bay rolled it out on just 53 screens nationwide, it had a marginally better opening weekend than MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, grossing $48,000. It's too bad more horror fans aren't aware of this, or that Anchor Bay seems to be just settling for future DVD, VOD, and Netflix revenue, because NO ONE LIVES, while a tad illogical if you break it down, is the kind of raw, visceral, relentlessly-paced, drive-in-style B-movie thrill machine (Kitamura doesn't forget to include a completely gratuitous topless shot near the end) that you don't see much on the big screen these days. It harbors no illusions about being anything more or deeper than it is: pretty much everyone in the film is thoroughly loathsome, and they die in some inventively gory ways as the filmmakers do everything they can to make the movie's title a guarantee.
