PHANTASM: RAVAGER (US - 2016) Directed by David Hartman. Written by Don Coscarelli and David Hartman. Cast: Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm, Bill Thornbury, Kat Lester, Gloria Lynne Henry, Dawn Cody, Stephen Jutras, Daniel Roebuck, Daniel Schweiger. (Unrated, 85 mins) Released in conjunction with PHANTASM: REMASTERED, a J.J. Abrams-funded 4K restoration of the 1979 original, PHANTASM: RAVAGER is the fifth and supposedly final entry in this beloved cult horror franchise, and the first since 1998's awful PHANTASM: OBLIVION. It's also the first not directed by series mastermind Don Coscarelli, who remains onboard as a producer and co-writer, with directing duties instead handled by veteran animator David Hartman, whose TV credits include episodes of TRANSFORMERS PRIME and the Disney Channel's MY FRIENDS TIGGER & POOH. Hartman also contributed some animated bits to Coscarelli's 2012 film JOHN DIES AT THE END and initially conceived for Coscarelli a series of short PHANTASM "webisodes" with stars Reggie Bannister and A. Michael Baldwin that were to air online. These were shot over 2012 and 2013 after numerous attempts by Coscarelli to get a fifth film rolling in the early 2000s never materialized, even after the significant critical acclaim and instant cult classic status of his 2003 film BUBBA HO-TEP. Hartman filmed enough PHANTASM webisodes that he and Coscarelli ultimately decided to piece them together into a feature-length film.
It's not exactly some kind of dubious chicanery since they were always upfront about the origin of PHANTASM: RAVAGER, but it also never manages to overcome the fact that it's a bunch of shoddy-looking, quickie vignettes that really don't hang together all that well. The focus is on Bannister's Reggie, who's first seen wandering around in the desert, taking back his beloved '71 Plymouth 'Cuda from the poor schmuck who stole it before he has the first of many run-ins with the lethal, flying silver spheres, the weapons of choice for diabolical villain The Tall Man (the late, great Angus Scrimm, who died nine months before the film's release). Reggie then finds himself in an old folks home, visited by Mike (Baldwin), who informs him that he's been diagnosed with dementia. Then Reggie's in a cabin in the woods that belongs to sexy hitchhiker Dawn (Dawn Cody), who's attacked by the spheres, and so on. Coscarelli and Hartman try to construct a story out of the tenuously-connected "webisodes" in which The Tall Man is manipulating Reggie and Mike over multiple timelines, dimensions, and often intersecting planes of existence. Mike tells Reggie of The Tall Man unleashing an "alien virus" as giant versions of the spheres hover over skylines of major cities, causing INDEPENDENCE DAY-type destruction.
Angus Scrimm (1926-2016)
If anything, the ideas that Coscarelli and Hartman put forth represent levels of ambition that are entirely too far beyond the reach of their budget. It looks exactly like a stitched-together series of cheap webisodes, and once Reggie and Mike find themselves in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (probably an idea held over from a discarded late '90s script by PULP FICTION co-writer Roger Avary, who was briefly attached to the never-filmed PHANTASM'S END) following The Tall Man's unleashing of the alien virus, the amateurish visual effects are only a notch or two above BIRDEMIC, with some embarrassing CGI fire that looked like shit when Albert Pyun was using it in the late '90s. PHANTASM: RAVAGER gets by for a while just on pure sentiment and nostalgia: Kathy Lester (now billed as "Kat Lester") returns as the Lady in Lavender from the 1979 original, Gloria Lynne Henry reprises her role from 1994's PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD, and even the most jaded cynic will smile at the first appearance of Bill Thornbury as Mike's older brother Jody. And there's the always-engaging Bannister and his four-barreled shotgun, and the emotional impact of seeing Scrimm, albeit far too briefly, reprise his iconic role one last time. But sentiment and nostalgia can only carry RAVAGER so far, especially when it starts feeling less like a fifth PHANTASM movie and more like a film student's adventures in PHANTASM fan fiction. Look, we all respect Don Coscarelli, a unique voice in genre cinema who shouldn't have to schlep this hard to get a green light. We all love Reggie Bannister and we all mourn the passing of Angus Scrimm, But we can respect and appreciate these cult movie legends without pretending PHANTASM: RAVAGER is good.
ENDLESS DESCENT aka THE RIFT
(Spain - 1990; US release 1991) Directed by J.P. Simon (Juan Piquer Simon). Written by David Coleman. Cast: Jack Scalia, R. Lee Ermey, Ray Wise, Deborah Adair, John Toles-Bey, Ely Pouget, Edmund Purdom, Emilio Linder, Tony Isbert, Alvara Labra, Frank Brana, J. Martinez Bordiu, Garrick Hagon, Luis Lorenzo. (R, 83 mins) Around the time of James Cameron's 1989 sci-fi/adventure epic THE ABYSS, underwater monster movies became a trend over the next year. In the first three months of 1989, moviegoers were offered Sean S. Cunningham's DEEPSTAR SIX and George P. Cosmatos' LEVIATHAN, with lowly, cost-cutting stragglers like the abysmal Roger Corman-produced LORDS OF THE DEEP, the Wayne Crawford-starring THE EVIL BELOW, and Antonio Margheriti's Italian ripoff ALIEN FROM THE DEEP also stepping up to meet a demand that didn't exist. Shot in 1989 as THE RIFT but unreleased in the US until it turned up on video stores in early 1991 as ENDLESS DESCENT, this Spanish contribution to the unlikely craze was ghost-produced by Dino DeLaurentiis, whose brother Luigi and nephew Aurelio produced LEVIATHAN. A legendary mega-budget showman, Dino apparently found some loose change in between his couch cushions and gave it to his aspiring producer daughter Francesca to help finance a pair of films with her then-husband Juan Piquer Simon (the other was 1988's molluscsploitation classic SLUGS). No stranger to fans of bad movies, Simon (1935-2011) was also the man behind the MST3K favorite POD PEOPLE (1983), but will forever be best known for the indescribable chainsaw killer/waterbed/bad chop suey masterpiece PIECES (1983). ENDLESS DESCENT follows the same template as its influences, with a Navy-led research team heading to unfathomable depths to investigate the disappearance of a state-of-the-art submarine. The missing sub, Siren 1, was designed by feathered-hair nautical wunderkind Wick Hayes (Jack Scalia), who was thrown under the bus by the US government when they took his initial design and co-opted it as their own. Drunk and disgruntled, Hayes is ordered by a D.C. bureaucrat (Edmund Purdom) to accompany the crew of the Siren II as an advisor in their search for Siren I.
Jack Scalia IS Wick Hayes
The crew is the usual ragtag group of miscreants, including the weaselly Robbins (Ray Wise, right before TWIN PEAKS); black stereotype comic relief (cue copious exclamations of "Aw, dayyyyum!" and "Aw, sheeeeeeiiit!") Kane (John Toles-Bey); just-one-of-the-guys Ana Rivera (Ely Pouget), and some cartoonish European types speaking with overdone dubbed voices, including Spanish Simon regular Frank Brana sporting a bizarre beard and revoiced with a ridiculous German accent as Muller. Complicating matters for the bountifully-coiffed Hayes is the presence of two Navy officers--his ex-wife Nina (Deborah Adair), and the commander of the mission, Captain Phillips, played by R. Lee Ermey, cast radically against type as "R. Lee Ermey." Plunging 35,000 feet into the ocean off the coast of Norway, the Siren II follows the black box signal of the Siren I, and loses a crew member along the way when Swedish diver Sven (played by Spanish J. Martinez Bordiu) is killed by a tentacled creature while collecting a strange seaweed sample and taking photographs. Soon, the Siren II is attacked by another creature that they fight off with an electroshock defense mechanism built into the exterior. Heading deeper into the ocean to trace the signal, the Siren II discovers an unlikely "naturally pressurized" subterranean cavern--35,000 feet below the ocean, mind you--where they find a secret laboratory and some dead members of the Siren I. They're also attacked ALIENS-style by creatures who start coming out of the rocks in a nicely-done splatter sequence. The seaweed sample sent back by Sven before he was devoured also starts to mutate into some kind of toxic life form, causing anyone who touches it to go full "Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" and mutate into pus-oozing, plant-like vegetation.
Since the film is heavily inspired by ALIENS, they also find a nest filled with eggs and amniotic sacs, overseen by a pissed off mother mutant who isn't happy about her space being invaded. It becomes clear to Hayes that someone aboard the Siren II is sabotaging the mission Paul Reiser-style, deeming the mutant life form more vital than the expendable crew. ENDLESS DESCENT is laughably cheap at times, with shots of a miniature sub that look pretty embarrassing coming out anywhere near the vicinity of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. But the gore is plentiful and gushes with enthusiasm, and the cast actually seems to be taking it somewhat seriously. It's strange seeing Ermey in such a junky Eurotrash ripoff just a couple of years after FULL METAL JACKET and MISSISSIPPI BURNING, but as he explains in an interview on Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray (released under the title THE RIFT), "you gotta pay your dues." As in the Vietnam cult classic THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA, it's quite probable that Ermey wrote--or at least spruced up--his own dialogue to suit his persona, especially in scenes where he's butting heads with Scalia's Wick Hayes, a man whose name is as amazing as his hair. Scalia and Wise also have interviews on the Blu-ray and are a bit more kind to the film than Ermey, who flat-out calls it a piece of shit and doesn't pull punches about his co-stars (he liked Scalia very much, while derisively referring to Wise as a "whiner," a "belly-acher," and a "pussy"), but concedes that had an alright time making it. Looking at it today, ENDLESS DESCENT/THE RIFT is a well-assembled, fast-paced, low-budget, lowbrow B-movie that doesn't quite achieve the ludicrous delights of Simon's PIECES or SLUGS, but still has plenty of head-scratching plot elements and ample splatter and slime to please nostalgic fans of the video store heyday.
DEEPWATER HORIZON (US/China - 2016) Directed by Peter Berg. Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand. Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Kate Hudson, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien, Ethan Suplee, J.D. Evermore, Trace Adkins, James DuMont, Douglas M. Griffin, Brad Leland, Dave Maldonado, Peter Berg, Stella Allen. (PG-13, 106 mins) This riveting chronicle of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, which led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history, reunites LONE SURVIVOR star Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg. Berg shot this back-to-back with the upcoming PATRIOTS DAY, with Wahlberg as a cop working security detail on the day of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. These three Wahlberg/Berg collaborations tentatively form a loose trilogy of ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary situations and summoning a fighting spirit from deep within to do whatever they need to do to survive. With AMERICAN SNIPER and SULLY, Clint Eastwood has also staked a claim to this territory, but Berg (who came onboard at Wahlberg's request after A MOST VIOLENT YEAR director J.C. Chandor quit over creative differences during pre-production) doesn't resort to Eastwood's hagiographic tendencies, nor do he and screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand have to pull a SULLY and invent a bad guy to manufacture dramatic tension. The tension is there from the start, when Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell), the installation manager contracted to run operations on the Transocean-owned semi-submersible oil rig, is arriving for a 21-day stint and already butting heads with corporate guys from BP, who had a longstanding lease on the Deepwater Horizon. The bad omens manifest before they even get on the rig, from a bird strike on the plane ride out, to Harrell--"Mr. Jimmy" to his loyal crew--superstitiously requesting that smug BP pencil-pusher O'Bryan (James DuMont) take off his magenta-colored tie.
Mr. Jimmy is irate over BP's cancellation of a standard cement test in order to cut costs. All over the rig, little things are malfunctioning and snowballing into bigger issues--the wi-fi, the smoke alarms, pieces of drilling equipment are showing their age or even breaking. Chief electronics tech Mike Williams (Wahlberg) stands by Mr. Jimmy in his mistrust of BP's assigned rig supervisor Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich), who thinks the gauges indicating too much pressure represents a fault in the gauge that's not a cause for concern. While most of the crew is in the mess hall celebrating Mr. Jimmy getting a safety award from O'Bryan, Vidrine and another BP rep, Robert Kaluza (Brad Leland) essentially bully senior rig worker Jason Anderson (Ethan Suplee) into proceeding with the drilling when the blowout preventer malfunctions and all hell breaks loose. It begins with a massive oil eruption followed by an explosion caused by gas leaking from damaged and aging valves. 11 people were killed in the tragedy, with 115 evacuated to the nearby supply ship Damon Bankston, captained by Alwin Landry (Douglas M. Griffin).
While any film of this sort takes some dramatic liberties, DEEPWATER HORIZON for the most part sticks with the events and the timeline as the disaster unfolded. It makes no attempt to mask its contempt for the years of systemic corner-cutting by BP, whose reps aboard the vessel are only concerned with getting the work done as quickly and cheaply as possible (and, it should be noted, they're the first ones scurrying to the lifeboats when the shit hits the fan), and Berg does a very good job of conveying that sense of encroaching dread over a compelling first 45 or so minutes where we meet the characters and get a strong sense of who they are as they go about their routines, often speaking their own shorthand and work jargon (like Eastwood, Berg understands the importance of this). It shows us that these are reliable people who know what they're doing as Berg has the camera follow them around as things get increasingly tense, shaky, and claustrophobic. The film is perhaps a bit too ham-fisted when it comes to Malkovich's cartoonishly malevolent depiction of Vidrine, using an over-the-top Louisiana drawl that illustrates what might happen if James Carville was cast as the next Ernst Stavro Blofeld. There's plenty of blame to throw to lay at the feet of BP and their negligent malfeasance without Malkovich slathering on the faux-folksy local color so thick that even the late, great Justin Wilson might politely request that he take it down a notch. The actor gets dangerously close to CON AIR mode here, and other than some scattered shots of the now-mandatory unconvincing CGI fire, it's the one big misstep the film makes.
Wahlberg is fine as Williams, who became the face of the heroic rescue, and his scenes with Kate Hudson as Williams' wife and young Stella Allen as their daughter have a believable, lived-in feeling of genuine affection that Berg wisely doesn't oversell like Vidrine's villainy. But the key character in DEEPWATER HORIZON is the no-time-for-your-bullshit Mr. Jimmy, who joins the ranks of USED CARS' Rudy Russo, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK's Snake Plissken, THE THING's R.J. MacReady, THE BEST OF TIMES' Reno Hightower, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA's Jack Burton, TANGO & CASH's Gabriel Cash, TOMBSTONE's Wyatt Earp, DEATH PROOF's Stuntman Mike, BONE TOMAHAWK's Sheriff Franklin Hunt, and THE HATEFUL EIGHT's John "The Hangman" Ruth in the annals of essential Kurt Russell characterizations. Russell is an actor who's generally liked by critics while at the same time never hailed as a great actor, and that's a shame. There's a Russell persona that the actor has perfected over the years, even in fantastical genre fare like his work with John Carpenter. Though he's proven his versatility, Russell excels at playing the kind of guy DEEPWATER HORIZON is all about: working men of ethics and principle with a strong sense of duty and a code of honor who get shit done. The Russell archetype is a quiet, thinking man's badass (Jack Burton being an exception) and even now at 65, with the lines in his aging face showing a leathery weariness that reminds one of Clint Eastwood, he's still showing everyone how it's done. Even spending the second half of the film hobbling around and blinded by glass in his eyes, Russell's Mr. Jimmy is a fearless leader. DEEPWATER HORIZON pays tribute to everyday working men who lost their lives on the job, and while it may be a Mark Wahlberg movie, the star and producer is smart enough to realize it's just as much a showcase for the underrated icon that is Kurt Russell.
SACRIFICE is one of those "outsider lured to a small town that has a deep, dark secret and everyone's in on it" suspense/horror movies that won't offer any surprises to anyone who's seen THE WICKER MAN or even HOT FUZZ. Hell, the giveaway's right there in the title. It's not really similar to THE WICKER MAN in terms of its story, but it hits the same points. Pregnant Manhattan obstetrician Dr. Tora Hamilton (Radha Mitchell) is devastated after suffering a miscarriage on the job. Looking for a healing change of scenery, Tora and her Scottish-born husband Duncan Guthrie (late '80s Merchant Ivory fixture Rupert Graves) leave NYC and relocate to the small village in the Shetland Islands where his family still resides. Tora's father-in-law Richard (DOWNTON ABBEY's David Robb) pulls some strings to get her on the staff at the local hospital, and all is going well until a woman's decayed corpse is found buried on Tora's and Duncan's property. Strange runic symbols have been carved into the victim's flesh and her heart has been carved out of her chest. Overstepping her bounds at the hospital, Tora also finds evidence that the woman gave birth a week to ten days before her murder. Hospital head McKie (GAME OF THRONES' Ian McElhinney) dismisses her concerns and after digging further, Tora uncovers an epidemic of ovarian cancer deaths among women in the village going back decades. When she brings this up, everyone seems mildly irritable and starts giving her the side-eyed sneer, making it painfully obvious that she's stumbled onto something that she's not meant to know. Of course, she's pursued by a gloved killer at the hospital while working late one night. Of course, Tulloch (Joanne Crawford), the one sympathetic local cop who thinks Tora might be on to something, turns up dead. And of course, Tora catches Duncan having a secret meeting with all of the village powers-that-be who are telling her to shut up and mind her own business.
Tora isn't pregnant again but it's obvious Duncan is pulling some sort of a Guy Woodhouse gaslighting on her and the abundance of ovarian cancer deaths don't seem to alarm any of the men running the village. Duncan's character arc doesn't go quite where you expect it to, and there's an interesting patriarchy element that's hinted at but largely abandoned by writer/director Peter A. Dowling, who's best known for co-writing the 2005 Jodie Foster thriller FLIGHTPLAN. The village has an inherent contempt for women, and they don't quite know how to handle someone as assertive as Tora. Being American, she's already an outsider, plus she's a career woman, and she kept her maiden name after marrying Duncan. Duncan's father expresses some sneering disdain at the way his son doesn't treat his wife as a subordinate, but Dowling doesn't do much with these themes. Other than a De Palma split diopter shot that seems more show-offy than anything, Dowling's direction is workmanlike at best, rushing through the exposition and assembling the film as such that it plays like it should be a pilot to a TV series with Mitchell as a snooping, mystery-solving obstetrician. Even the opening credits look like a TV show and the abrupt ending feels like it's only missing an "On the next SACRIFICE, Tora discovers..." Mitchell does what she can with the material, but SACRIFICE is the kind of forgettable, frivolous trifle that instantly evapor (Unrated, 91 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
EQUALS (US/South Korea - 2016)
Drab, mopey, and predictable, EQUALS is another all too familiar futuristic sci-fi saga set in a chilly dystopia where emotion is forbidden and two outcasts commit the unpardonable sin of falling in love. It's all here--the towering cityscapes, the cold, expansive, antiseptic interiors, and everyone wearing the latest in THX-1138 fashions. In this particular dystopia, all illness has been eradicated but a new disease called S.O.S., or "Switched On Syndrome," is gaining ground. It's blamed on "problem genes" that cause "behavioral defects" that lead to "coupling." In other words, people's emotions are kicking in and they're experiencing things like love and desire. Violators are sent to "the Den," or a "Defective Emotional Neuropathy" facility for treatment. Like cancer, it's graded in stages, with stage 1 having a good chance for recovery if discovered early, and beyond-hope stage 3 sufferers encouraged to commit suicide. Silas (Nicholas Hoult) works in a high-tech printing facility and has just been diagnosed as Stage 1 S.O.S. This gets the attention of co-worker Nia (Kristen Stewart), a self-diagnosed stage 1 who's managed to keep her symptoms hidden from everyone at the office. It isn't long before their S.O.S. gets the best of them and they "couple," with Silas getting some help from an underground group of anarchic S.O.S. patients, including stage 2-diagnosed Jonas (Guy Pearce) and Bess (Jacki Weaver), to plan an escape from the city and go on the run with Nia. Of course, that plan hits a snag when the Big Brother-like government rolls out a just-approved S.O.S. cure, making vaccination mandatory and getting everyone back to "Equal" status. Blandly directed by Drake Doremus (LIKE CRAZY), EQUALS gets the look down with occasionally striking location work in some Tokyo and Singapore office districts, but the script by Nathan Parker (who wrote the much better MOON) cribs from too many other influences and just feels like stale leftovers. The pace is excruciatingly slow and it limps along to a tired, not quite Tangerine Dream electronic score by Sascha Ring and Dustin O'Hallorann. Ridley Scott was one of 22 producers, but even his involvement didn't get this on any more than 92 screens in the US. (PG-13, 102 mins)
VIRAL (US - 2016)
CATFISH masterminds Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman went on to direct the third and fourth PARANORMAL ACTIVITY entries before making this thankfully not found-footage Blumhouse zombie parasite outbreak horror film that spent enough time on the shelf that it ended up being released the same weekend as the duo's next film, NERVE. While NERVE got a nationwide release by Lionsgate and became a modest hit, VIRAL was buried by the Weinstein Company, debuting in a handful of theaters and on VOD. It's pretty by the numbers, with a parasitic outbreak quickly working its way across the country as President Obama (seen in footage taken from Ebola-related press conferences in 2014) declares nationwide martial law in an attempt at quarantining the virus. While the horror elements are pretty much working off a checklist--yes, the infected once again sprint around 28 DAYS LATER-style--much of VIRAL's focus is on the bond between two sisters who have had their share of family upheaval of late. Shy and introverted Emma (THE NIGHT OF murder victim Sofia Black-D'Elia) lives in the shadow of her outgoing, hellraising older sibling Stacy (Analeigh Tipton). Their mom is absent for reasons that are revealed later in the film, but they've just moved to a new suburb with their dad (Michael Kelly), who's been let go from his university job and is now teaching biology at their high school. An infected classmate sends everyone home from school, and it isn't long before the government steps in, with Dad unable to get home and the girls left on their own. Of course, Stacy doesn't listen to Dad's orders and decides to go to a party, pressuring Emma to go along. And of course, someone at the party is infected, as the parasite burrows through its host, feeding off of it and absorbing it, causing it to attack anyone in its vicinity. Stacy is exposed to it at the party, and Emma and Evan (Travis Tope), the sensitive nice guy who lives across the street, barricade her in the bathroom, Emma determined to keep her big sis alive.
The relationship between Emma and Stacy is where VIRAL attempts to differentiate itself from so much of its type, but it's not enough to get the film to the next level. Joost, Schulman, and their PARANORMAL ACTIVITY writer Christopher Landon spend too much time on the same old zombie apocalypse mayhem, with the added bonus of CGI worms burrowing out of peoples' orifices. This is another horror film that depends too much on its characters doing idiotic things to advance the plot, like Emma and Evan chasing an escaped Stacy into an abandoned house where, of course, at least a dozen infected appear out of nowhere. Had the girls just stayed home instead of going to a party, none of this would've happened to them. This is also one of those teen-centered films where parents (other than the sisters' dad and Evan's asshole stepdad) are nowhere to be seen, thus enabling horny kids played by actors in their mid-to-late 20s to disregard police and government orders and orchestrate a kegger. And if it takes everyone else who's exposed about four seconds to turn, why does it take Stacy half the movie? There's no logic in the tired horror elements of VIRAL, but it does get a big boost from the convincing chemistry between Black-D'Elia and Tipton, and a scene where Emma sticks her hand into an opening in the bathroom door to make physical contact with an infected, practically rabid Stacy in an attempt to remind her of her human side ("I know you'll never hurt me!") is genuinely tense, emotional, and well-played by the two stars. Black-D'Elia and Tipton aren't able to completely salvage VIRAL from being a genre afterthought, but they're good enough that you'd probably rather see them working together in something other than a dumb horror movie you've seen a hundred times already. (R, 86 mins)
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (US - 2016) Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Written by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk. Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Peter Sarsgaard, Haley Bennett, Luke Grimes, Matt Bomer, Cam Gigandet, Jonathan Joss, Sean Bridgers, William Lee Scott, Griff Furst. (PG-13, 133 mins) As unnecessary as almost any remake nowadays, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN brings some revisionist multi-culturalism to the table but little else, instead choosing to coast by on the strength of its cast. And when that cast is headed by the always excellent Denzel Washington, it's enough to get the job done, even if it has zero chance of escaping the shadow of either John Sturges' 1960 original or that film's inspiration, Akira Kurosawa's immortal 1954 masterpiece SEVEN SAMURAI (and, lest we forget, the Roger Corman-produced STAR WARS-inspired variant BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and Bruno Mattei's 1984 sword-and-sandal take THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS). Washington is reunited with his TRAINING DAY and THE EQUALIZER director Antoine Fuqua and his TRAINING DAY co-star Ethan Hawke (also in Fuqua's BROOKLYN'S FINEST), who also brought along his BFF Vincent D'Onofrio (also with Hawke in THE NEWTON BOYS, STATEN ISLAND, BROOKLYN'S FINEST, and SINISTER and a star of the Hawke-directed CHELSEA WALLS), who was in JURASSIC WORLD with Chris Pratt, giving MAGNIFICENT '16 the feeling that everyone involved is having a good time with old friends. That helps, because the story itself is as standard and formulaic as it gets, adding an unnecessary revenge element in the late-going that veers from the sense of selfless altruism and sacrifice that was key to the heart and soul of SEVEN SAMURAI and MAGNIFICENT '60. It undermines it to a point where you feel that Washington's character has essentially lured these other six saps on a suicide mission, but that's probably putting more thought into this than Fuqua and co-writers Nic Pizzolatto (TRUE DETECTIVE) and Richard Wenk (THE EXPENDABLES 2 and, yes, THE EQUALIZER) had in mind. MAGNIFICENT '16 isn't likely to be mistaken for a great western, but it's entertaining, fast-moving, and the cast--most of it, anyway--is solid enough to help gloss over the bumps along the way.
In the years following the Civil War, the small frontier town of Rose Creek is under siege by malevolent robber baron Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who couldn't be any more predestined for villainy if he was named Snidely Whiplash. Bogue wants to commandeer a nearby gold mine and offers the citizens either $20 each for their parcel of land, or death, giving them three weeks to decide. When Bogue and his henchman murder several of the town's men in cold blood, including rancher Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer), Cullen's widow Emma (Jennifer Lawrence lookalike Haley Bennett) ventures to the next town to hire bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Washington), offering him every penny Rose Creek has to take on Bogue and his goons. Chisolm recruits local gambler and wiseass Josh Faraday (Pratt) and they in turn bring in others--sharpshooter and Civil War PTSD case Goodnight Robichaux (Hawke), his knife-throwing Asian pal Bobby Rocks (Byung Hun-Lee), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), eccentric tracker Jack Horne (D'Onofrio), and (noir/hard-boiled guy Pizzolato really showing some Dashiell Hammett love here) Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), a lone Comanche cast out by his tribe. They arrive in Rose Creek and send a message to Bogue by killing all of his regulators charged with keeping an eye on things. Together with Emma and her husband's friend Teddy Q (Luke Grimes), these seven warriors establish a bonding camaraderie as they fortify Rose Creek, training the terrified residents to defend themselves, knowing the nefarious Bogue is on his way with a few hundred men to level it and massacre everyone.
It's a story that's been told so many times that there's nothing in the way of surprises, and the new additions don't really fly, whether it's the incongruity of the melting pot make-up of this post-Civil War motley crew or the late addition of a Chisolm revenge subplot that makes his reasons for doing this personal. The actors are generally good, with Pratt brought on to be Chris Pratt and Washington being the fearsome and intense badass that he always is in Fuqua films. Looking thin and frail, Hawke's Goodnight Robichaux seems to be going for a Val Kilmer-in-TOMBSTONE riff that never materializes, and Lee, Garcia-Rulfo, and Sensmeier don't really get any defining characteristics other than being Asian, Mexican, and Native American, respectively. A madman-bearded and typically mannered D'Onofrio, who too often overacts rather than acts these days, turns in a grating performance, using a high-pitched, wheezing squeal that seems to be his idea of an insane Andy Devine. A sweaty, twitchy Sarsgaard is gifted with a great western bad guy name in Bartholomew Bogue, but is otherwise pretty one-dimensional, coming off like a stock western baddie version of Gary Oldman's crazed DEA agent in THE PROFESSIONAL. It also doesn't make any sense that, after losing about 150 guys in the attack on Rose Creek to gunfire and explosive booby-traps lined along the town's perimeter, only then does Bogue order his few remaining toadies to bring him the Gatling gun to mow down dozens of Rose Creek citizens. Why wouldn't he just use that in the first place? MAGNIFICENT '16 also ends on a sour note that reeks of studio meddling, with a completely needless coda featuring voiceover by Bennett's Emma, culminating in the dumbest invocation of a movie's title since I AM LEGEND faded to black with Alice Braga narration declaring "This is his legend." MAGNIFICENT '16 works just fine as empty calorie, junk-food cinema, and Washington's gritty persona carries it far enough that you can't imagine the sense of sheer mediocrity the entire project would convey without him.
MURPHY'S LAW (US - 1986) Directed by J. Lee Thompson. Written by Gail Morgan Hickman. Cast: Charles Bronson, Carrie Snodgress, Kathleen Wilhoite, Robert F. Lyons, Richard Romanus, Angel Tompkins, Bill Henderson, Lawrence Tierney, James Luisi, Janet MacLachlan, Jerome Thor, Robert Axelrod, Randall Carver. (R, 100 mins) Charles Bronson's career in the 1980s was defined by his association with Cannon's Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Starting with 1982's DEATH WISH II and ending with 1989's KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS, Bronson starred in eight Cannon productions, with the only outliers during that period being 1984's grisly THE EVIL THAT MEN DO (released by Tri-Star) and 1986's ACT OF VENGEANCE for HBO. DEATH WISH II provided Bronson with his first hit after a string of flops like LOVE AND BULLETS (1979), CABO BLANCO (1980), BORDERLINE (1980), and DEATH HUNT (1981), successfully reigniting his career and setting the tone for the Bronson formula that, with rare exception, would typify his work for the remainder of the decade. Critics were rarely kind to Bronson's '80s vehicles, but he enjoyed a few years as a reliable box office draw, with 10 TO MIDNIGHT (1983), the aforementioned THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, and DEATH WISH 3 (1985) all doing big business. DEATH WISH 3 opened the same day as William Friedkin's TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. and the sequel A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE, and landed in the #1 spot. Nearly 25 years before Liam Neeson made geriatric tough guys a box office trend, 64-year-old Charles Bronson was so popular in the fall of 1985 that he emerged the victor in a box office battle with Freddy Krueger.
Much of 1986's MURPHY'S LAW is typical of Bronson/Cannon product of the period: as in 10 TO MIDNIGHT and the later KINJITE, he's playing a cop whose tendency to take the law (and sextoys) into his own hands and play by his own rules gets him in hot water with the department; he's tangling with a villain who has an axe to grind against his embittered cop; and he's directed by veteran journeyman J. Lee Thompson (THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, CAPE FEAR), who would become not only a go-to Cannon guy (KING SOLOMON'S MINES, FIREWALKER), but also Bronson's favorite director as the decade went on. Thompson directed five of Bronson's eight Cannon titles, and the pair collaborated several times prior to the Golan-Globus phase of their careers, all the way back to 1976's ST. IVES. A stoical man known for keeping to himself and being standoffish until he got to know someone, Bronson was a man who didn't let just anyone into his inner circle, so he obviously felt a personal and professional connection with Thompson.
But MURPHY'S LAW also allows a bit of a departure for Bronson, which he may have wanted after the cartoonish excesses of the previous year's DEATH WISH 3, directed by Michael Winner. Now a beloved cult classic with its ridiculous plot, over-the-top characters (The Giggler!), and quotable dialogue ("It's MY CAR!"), DEATH WISH 3 is the funniest Bronson movie ever, even if that's not the intention. MURPHY'S LAW gives Bronson some room to act a little as burned-out, alcoholic L.A. cop Jack Murphy. Starting the day with a belt of booze and carrying a flask with him on the job, Murphy is pretty much a walking dumpster fire. Heartbroken over being abandoned by his cheating wife (Angel Tompkins), Murphy regularly tortures himself by going to the trashy strip club where she dances, disgusted by her and her job but still longing for her, unable to look away. A constantly hungover Murphy can barely get himself out of bed, and observing his morning routine play out is actually difficult to watch. Bronson looks like hell throughout MURPHY'S LAW, never more so than in the opening credits, where he seems to be in physical pain waking up, dragging himself to the bathroom, gargling Listerine, grunting, resting his head against the mirror, and looking like he's just about ready to give up on life. Considered a washed-up drunk by most of his colleagues (who mercilessly razz him about his ex's job), except for his only friend, horndog partner Art Penney (DEATH WISH II and 10 TO MIDNIGHT's Robert F. Lyons, another Bronson inner circler with whom the actor liked working), Murphy isn't about to get any sympathy when his ex-wife and her new boyfriend--the sleazy strip club manager--are killed with his gun. Murphy insists he's being framed by pissed-off L.A. mobster Frank Vincenzo (Richard Romanus) as revenge after Murphy kills Vincenzo's idiot younger brother in a hostage situation, but nobody cares. They're just happy to see Murphy crash and burn.
Of course he's being framed--not by Vincenzo but by Joan Freeman (Carrie Snodgress), a psycho killer who's just been paroled and is obsessed with vengeance after being put away by Murphy and his now-retired partner Wilcove (Ben Henderson) a decade earlier. Freeman follows Murphy, learns his routine, hides in his car, knocks him over the head before using his gun to kill the ex and the boyfriend while he's unconscious, and drives him home, with Murphy out cold the whole time. Assuming he blacked out in his car after a night at the bar, Murphy doesn't think much of it when he wakes up and finds himself parked outside his own house. But after he's arrested and realizes none of his fellow officers are going to help him, he orchestrates an escape, taking with him an unlikely partner-in-crime in Araballa McGee (Kathleen Wilhoite), a homeless, potty-mouthed street criminal who stole Murphy's car at the beginning of the movie. As Freeman continues a killing spree that implicates him, a now-fugitive Murphy is on the run with Arabella, now considered an accomplice, the pair determined to prove their innocence...if they don't kill each other first!
Pairing Bronson with a younger co-star was a good idea and the actor seems to be legitimately enjoying himself...or at least as much as Bronson could enjoy himself. If Golan and Globus had their way, Arabella would've been played by Madonna, who was offered the role but wanted more money than Golan was willing to spend. According to Bronson historian Paul Talbot in his book Bronson's Loose Again, Joan Jett auditioned and PURPLE RAIN's Apollonia Kotero and Prince protegee Vanity were also courted (Vanity would co-star in Cannon's 52 PICK-UP that same year) before the role went to the less expensive relative newcomer Wilhoite, a 22-year-old actress/singer who got an "Introducing" credit even though she already logged appearances in several films and TV shows. Best known to horror fans as the eccentric psychic in 1986's WITCHBOARD ("Psychic humor!") and to TV viewers as Sherry Stringfield's irresponsible older sister on ER and as Liz Danes on GILMORE GIRLS, Wilhoite has a likable presence despite some of the incredibly stupid insults she's required to spew. On the commentary track for Twilight Time's new Blu-ray release of MURPHY's LAW, Wilhoite says that the script by Gail Morgan Hickman (THE ENFORCER, NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET) was originally filled with some really foul and offensive lines for her that were softened to abrasive but silly-sounding zingers like "jizzum breath," "snotbutt," "dinosaur dork," "toejam," "Ya snot-lickin' donkey fart!" and "Kiss my pantyhose, sperm bank!" In spite of being tasked with playing a grating character, Wilhoite, who also sings the closing credits theme song, manages to win you over as Arabella. She does a solid job of playing off of Bronson's cranky persona, and Bronson has some legitimately heartfelt moments late in the film after Murphy finds himself reluctantly bonding with the obnoxious, troubled young woman who, of course, has a heart of gold.
In addition to allowing Bronson some unexpected character depth, MURPHY'S LAW also gives Bronson a different kind of villain in Snodgress' Joan Freeman. Like an angrier and completely deranged version of Sondra Locke's SUDDEN IMPACT vigilante, Snodgress, a Best Actress Oscar nominee for 1970's DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE, makes a memorably maniacal villain without ever going overboard into over-the-top histrionics. The film also makes terrific use of some iconic L.A. locations, from a chase scene through the Grand Central Market and the climax--where Murphy is forced to take on Vincenzo's goons and a crossbow-wielding Freeman--inside the legendary Bradbury Building, so memorably featured as the gloomy home of William Sanderson's J.F. Sebastian in 1982's BLADE RUNNER. By this point in his career, Bronson seemed hesitant to approach departure projects like he did post-DEATH WISH in the 1970s with films like the romantic FROM NOON TILL THREE (1976) and the bizarre THE WHITE BUFFALO. But 1986 saw him tackle the seemingly familiar but surprisingly complex Jack Murphy in MURPHY'S LAW as well as starring in the HBO biographical film ACT OF VENGEANCE, where he played Jock Yablonski, the doomed United Mine Workers president whose 1969 murder was orchestrated by his chief rival Tony Boyle, played in the film by Wilford Brimley.
MURPHY'S LAW opened the same day as the Tom Cruise/Ridley Scott fantasy LEGEND, landing in second place for the weekend. After that, the big-screen fortunes of both Bronson and Cannon began to wane: two 1987 releases, ASSASSINATION (where he was reunited with DEATH HUNT director Peter Hunt), and DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN (directed by Thompson) didn't even debut in the top five at the box office, and his next two films, 1988's low-key MESSENGER OF DEATH (Bronson doesn't even kill anyone!) and 1989's KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (both directed by Thompson) only received limited theatrical releases before heading to video stores. It can't be a coincidence that Bronson's declining box office clout came at just the time huge and over-the-top Joel Silver-produced extravaganzas like 1987's LETHAL WEAPON and 1988's DIE HARD were reinventing the action genre. The comparatively low-budget Cannon productions couldn't compete, and even an unstoppable force like Clint Eastwood found himself losing audiences with underperformers like THE DEAD POOL (1988) and PINK CADILLAC (1989). Eastwood tried to fashion his own Joel Silver-esque buddy actioner, pairing himself with Charlie Sheen in 1990's THE ROOKIE, but nobody cared. It was out with the old (Bronson, Eastwood, and Chuck Norris) and in with the new (Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger). Eastwood was 62 when he managed to finally establish himself as a serious filmmaker in the eyes of the critics with 1992's Oscar-winning UNFORGIVEN, but by the time KINJITE immediately vanished from a few theaters in 1989, it was clear that, regardless of their entertainment value (KINJITE is great!), there wasn't a place at the multiplex for action movies starring a 68-year-old Bronson being directed by a 75-year-old Thompson.
EVILS OF THE NIGHT (US - 1985) Directed by Mardi Rustam. Written by Mardi Rustam and Phillip D. Connors. Cast: Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Julie Newmar, John Carradine, Tina Louise, Karrie Emerson, Tony O'Dell, Bridgett Holloman, David Hawk, G.T. Taylor, Kelly Parsons, Bonnie J. Karlyle (Dawn Wildsmith), Amber Lynn, Paul Siederman (Jerry Butler), Shone Taylor, Jody Swafford, Lisa Stanyo (Crystal Breeze), Traci Escobar. (R, 85 mins) Though they've made a name for themselves with their restorations of classic 1970s and early 1980s hardcore porn films, Vinegar Syndrome has also become a devoted curator of some of the worst genre films of the 1980s. After giving new life to forgotten batshit Z-listers like THE EXECUTIONER PART II (1984) and NIGHTMARE WEEKEND (1986), among others, Vinegar Syndrome has just released the 1985 sci-fi/alien/slasher/T&A hybrid EVILS OF THE NIGHT in a new Blu-ray set that includes the 85-minute theatrical cut and an extensively re-edited 93-minute TV version. A legitimate contender for the PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE of its decade, EVILS OF THE NIGHT has an inane plot that takes forever to get going, primarily because director/co-writer Mardi Rustam spends an inordinate amount of time on several softcore sex scenes involving minor, extraneous characters played by moonlighting porn stars like Amber Lynn, Jerry Butler, and Crystal Breeze (these actors are completely cut from the TV version). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but by the time everything is finally set in motion, it looks like Rustam is hastily piecing together three or four different movies and hoping it all works itself out. That's actually perfectly fitting, as Rustam got his start producing haphazardly-assembled Al Adamson stitch jobs like the legendarily awful DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971).
There's the extended Skinemax-style sexcapades of the porn actors. There's some camping teenagers (among them Karrie Emerson and HEAD OF THE CLASS' Tony O'Dell, both on their way to the next year's CHOPPING MALL) who appear to have wandered in from a FRIDAY THE 13TH ripoff. There's a team of alien doctors--John Carradine in a silver spacesuit as Dr. Kozmar, Julie "Catwoman" Newmar in a low-cut dress as Dr. Zarma, and GILLIGAN'S ISLAND's Tina Louise looking frumpy as Cora...yep, just Cora--who have arrived and commandeered an abandoned rural hospital where they're harvesting the blood and plasma of abducted teenagers in an effort to keep their species eternally young (one look at 79-year-old Carradine and his arthritic hands and you'll conclude that their efforts are failing). Then there's Kurt (Neville Brand) and Fred (Aldo Ray), a pair of dipshit mechanics being paid in some kind of alien space tokens (unconvincingly portrayed by a handful of quarters) to abduct the teenagers and keep them captive at their garage until Kozmar needs them. This hardly cuts into their workload, since every time we see them, Kurt is sweeping the same spot or thumbing through a Playboy, while Fred paints the same wall red, all of this despite having several cars in the garage that are waiting to be repaired. EVILS OF THE NIGHT is that kind of movie. Nothing makes sense and no one seems to be on the same page. Watch the scene where Emerson's character is fleeing for her life from Ray's crazed Fred, but can't really convey the urgency of the situation because the most she bothers mustering is a leisurely jog to elude him.
Rustam was better known as an exploitation producer, with Ray Danton's PSYCHIC KILLER (1975) and Tobe Hooper's EATEN ALIVE (1976) being his most noteworthy productions. Distributed to the drive-in circuit in the fall of 1985 by Terry Levene's Aquarius Releasing, EVILS OF THE NIGHT was Rustam's first released attempt at directing a movie himself, as his EVIL TOWN was shot mostly in 1977 but unreleased until 1987. Still going strong at 85--he's interviewed on the EVILS Blu--Rustam's third and last film to date as a director is the Casper Van Dien-starring 1997 biopic JAMES DEAN: LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG, which is only notable for being the final film appearance of the legendary Robert Mitchum. Even in his early days with Adamson, Rustam always managed to corral enough cash to get some slumming name actors in his productions, but EVILS OF THE NIGHT goes a bit further by mixing up old Hollywood vets like Carradine, Brand, and Ray (the latter two probably crocked) and veteran porn stars who probably saw this cheap project as their ticket to legit cinema or, at the very least, a SAG card. That extends to Rustam co-writing the script with veteran XXX writer Phillip D. Connors, whose credits include such titles as ORAL MAJORITY 2: THE BIG GULP, DEEP THROAT III, and BACKDOOR SUMMER II.
Carradine, Newmar, and Louise visibly hold the material in contempt while carrying themselves like pros, but Brand and Ray are a pretty sorry sight. Ray was used to junk like this and had even taken a supporting role in the hardcore porno western SWEET SAVAGE a few years earlier. Brand (1920-1992), one of the most decorated American soldiers in WWII and a long way from his days as Al Capone opposite Robert Stack's Eliot Ness on the classic ABC series THE UNTOUCHABLES, was no stranger to Rustam productions (his sustained level of amped hysteria in Hooper's EATEN ALIVE must be seen to be believed, and both he and Ray were in PSYCHIC KILLER). but seeing him here, thumbing through nudie mags, gorily drill-killing a scantily-clad young woman, and grunting "Sure would like to hump one of 'em" after stringing up his latest female victim for the aliens is a little depressing. Brand's career had been declining for years (though he had a solid supporting role in William Peter Blatty's 1980 cult classic THE NINTH CONFIGURATION), but this was hitting bottom, and that includes his jerking-off scene in Bert I. Gordon's insane THE MAD BOMBER. Though it would be another seven years until his death from emphysema in 1992, Brand retired from acting following EVILS OF THE NIGHT, making it a particularly demeaning swan song for the veteran character actor. Also featuring laser beams, future Fred Olen Ray regular Dawn Wildsmith, and some songs by none other than Eddie Mekka (Carmine on TV's LAVERNE & SHIRLEY), EVILS OF THE NIGHT isn't quite on the level of jawdropping insanity as THE EXECUTIONER PART II and NIGHTMARE WEEKEND, though it comes close in the final third, right down to a surprisingly clever and funny climactic callback to Kurt's too-long shoelaces becoming his undoing that's almost proto-Larry David in its timing and execution. EVILS OF THE NIGHT is a total piece of shit, but the bit about the shoelaces shows that at least some thought went into it.
