"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

The Hidden

Many of you have been trying to tell me this for years, and it has finally gotten through to me: THE HIDDEN is incredible. It’s kind of a sci-fi/horror/action hybrid, and it hits hard on all counts. Makes sense that it’s director Jack Sholder’s bridge between the horror of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE and the action of RENEGADES, but I’d argue it’s more cinematic than either of those. It opens with a thrilling, Friedkin-esque car chase after a buttoned-up looking guy in wire rimmed glasses (Chris Mulkey, FIRST BLOOD, BROKEN ARROW, BARE KNUCKLES, THE PURGE, THE STANDOFF AT SPARROW CREEK) shoots up a bank. He stays very calm, sometimes mildly amused as he tears through L.A. in a Ferrari, occasionally running over people (including a guy in a wheelchair), blaring a heavy metal tape, sometimes bopping his head a little. Police absolutely riddle him with bullets and destroy his car at a road block – he steps out and laughs before getting blown up. Even that doesn’t kill him.

It does put him in the hospital, where a doctor is offended by how the detectives talk about this seriously injured patient. It probly makes more sense to him after Detective Willis (Ed O’Ross, LETHAL WEAPON, FULL METAL JACKET, ACTION JACKSON, RED HEAT) spews a monologue about all the murders, injuries and robberies the guy is responsible for, ending with, “Six of the ones he killed he carved up with a butcher knife. Two of them were kids. He did all that in two weeks. If anybody deserves to go that way it sure to hell was him.” (read the rest of this shit…)

October 13th, 2020 | 24 Comments »

Welcome to Sudden Death

WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH is Michael Jai White’s new… addition to the SUDDEN DEATH franchise? I had heard it was officially a sequel to the 1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme DIE-HARD-alike directed by Peter Hyams, but I didn’t notice any continuity connecting them. It’s just a rehash of the same premise. So you could call it a remake, but since it doesn’t use any of the same names I suppose it is in the spirit of rehash DTV sequels like HOLLOW MAN 2, THE MARINE 2, WILD THINGS 2, THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2, KINDERGARTEN COP 2 and I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

White plays Jesse Freeman, ex-special-ops guy who has a new job as a stadium security job after rehabilitating from some shrapnel he got after escaping torture and kung-fu-ing insurgents overseas. His wife (Sagine Sémajuste) thinks he’s away from the family too much, so he brings his worshipful daughter Mara (Nakai Takawira, Young Simone Biles, THE SIMONE BILES STORY: COURAGE TO SOAR) and unimpressed son Ryan (Lyric Justice) with him when he works the opening game for the Phoenix Falcons. You know, of the National Basketball League. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 12th, 2020 | 22 Comments »

Open House

It’s the dystopian year of 2020 and I’m still trying to do Slasher Search – looking for interesting, obscure slasher movies that I haven’t heard of and that don’t seem to already have a following, preferably from the FRIDAY THE 13TH era. It gets harder with each review I do, as the chances become slimmer that there’s anything left that I haven’t already seen and hasn’t been dug up by Arrow or Vinegar Syndrome or somebody. It might be a snipe hunt at this point.

The best method I know is to look for things that were released on VHS and never made it to DVD or blu-ray. That’s how I found OPEN HOUSE (1987), which is clearly not one of the weird regional ones I tend to find, since it’s legit enough to have Adrienne Barbeau in it. Seven years after THE FOG she’s no longer playing the radio DJ hero – she’s the girlfriend to one. She gets tied up and he has to rescue her. Not as cool. Joseph Bottoms (THE BLACK HOLE) plays Dr. David Kelley, famed KDRX talk radio therapist. The original Frasier. Barbeau’s Lisa is a Beverly Hills realtor, and therefore one of the doctor’s two connections to a series of murders of Beverly Hills realtors. The other connection is that someone he thinks may be the killer keeps calling in to his show. But the authorities won’t listen. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 9th, 2020 | 12 Comments »

Uncaged

My friends, we have not only come to the conclusion of my exploration of the films of Dick Maas, but the culmination. His first film THE LIFT showed me that the Dutch writer/director has a strong shooting style, a taste for deadpan absurdity, and a knack for quirky character detail. AMSTERDAMNED applies that to a more ambitious I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-this story (action-packed scuba slasher), and even his 2001 American THE LIFT remake DOWN is trashy, audacious fun. (I also checked out his Halloween episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which you can read about on Patreon if you’re interested.) Some joy was dampened by the amount of screen time spent on dull procedural business in the ’80s ones, but I liked them all. I’m a fan now.

Let me bring up a completely unrelated director for a second. When I reviewed EXTREME JUSTICE recently I wrote about how Mark L. Lester doesn’t get enough credit for having directed CLASS OF 1984, FIRESTARTER, COMMANDO and SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO. And yet I (rightly or not) have little faith that Lester’s 21st century movies like PTERODACTYL, POSEIDON REX or DRAGONS OF CAMELOT would be worth watching, because I assume they’re not coming from the same place. I had similar feelings when I heard that Maas made a killer lion movie in 2016.

But – holy shit! Maas’ most recent movie – which I found as UNCAGED on Shudder, but it has apparently also been released as PREY – is a new instant favorite. It has most of what I loved about his other films, but way more of it. It’s loaded with quirky characters (both the leads and incidentals) who say and do funny things within the context of a story that is knowingly ridiculous but unashamed to take itself seriously. And unlike those other ones it never slows down for long because it has a high, unforgiving body count and provocatively over-the-top gore to attend to. UNCAGED is a total blast.

(Thank you Martijn for trying to tell me in the comments for THE LIFT. You were right!) (read the rest of this shit…)

October 8th, 2020 | 18 Comments »

Down (a.k.a. The Shaft)

“We live in a vertical world. If you can’t trust the elevators, what the fuck can you trust?”

After I got aboard the Dick Maas freight train (or elevator, I guess) I decided I shouldn’t skip his English-language remake of THE LIFT. I guess Artisan released it on DVD as THE SHAFT (with a terrible cover), but Blue Underground went back to the original title of DOWN. (And included 151 minutes of behind the scenes footage!? That’s what it says. I didn’t watch it.) One of those stock photo places has a poster from some territory using the DOWN title and it’s ugly but has the excellent tagline “You May Want to Take the Stairs…”

This is part of that strange phenomenon of overseas films remade for American/western audiences by the original director – see also THE VANISHING, NIGHTWATCH, FUNNY GAMES, 13 TZAMETI – but those are usually new directors who caught the eye of Hollywood and were seduced into some shenanigans. “Yeah, it’s great, we loved it, but make it in English now.” This is different because it’s a minor cult movie from 18 full years earlier. In an interview with Rumsey Taylor Maas said that he’d had offers for an American remake since the original movie came out, but was occupied with other projects. But by the ’90s when they were still asking, “Somehow I began taking to the idea… Elevators are a crucial part of American life, so why didn’t it become a subject for one of your big blockbusters? I tried to help you by doing it myself.” (read the rest of this shit…)

October 7th, 2020 | 2 Comments »

Amsterdamned

After watching THE LIFT as part of my hard hitting Summer of 1985 coverage I knew to pay more attention to this Dutch writer/director/composer Dick Maas. And some of you had already recommended his 1988 scuba-slasher epic AMSTERDAMNED.

As the miraculous once-in-a-lifetime perfect title indicates, it takes place in Amsterdam, and yes, it’s about a serial killer swimming around the canals and surfacing to murder people. I love that it opens with a HALLOWEEN style first-person stalking, because as is traditional you hear his heavy breathing, but this time it’s the sound of breathing in a scuba mask. When we do see him it’s a good slasher look because it’s functional but also creepy, fetishy, and all black.

The outsized scumminess of Maas’ Amsterdam is established by the cab driver who picks up a prostitute after a long day of work, first harasses and then tries to rape her before dumping her off far from home. And after being victimized by him the diver finds her. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 6th, 2020 | 28 Comments »

Worm on a Hook

(read the rest of this shit…)

October 5th, 2020 | 120 Comments »

Happy October + Patreon bonus: Young Indy Halloween episode

Happy October, everyone! I’ll be celebrating the impending pandemic Halloween with my usual flurry of horror movie reviews, hopefully including at least a little slasher searching (though I don’t know how many undiscovered gems could possibly be left on earth). I’m also happy to say that I’m in the process of finally publishing my action-horror novel WORM ON A HOOK – I will of course post incessantly about it as soon as it’s available.

I should mention that those things are made possible in part by your generous support, including on Patreon, so as a thank you I have a new bonus post over there, this time about a Halloween episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles directed by Dick Maas (THE LIFT). If you missed it last year, I wrote about a pretty funny Halloween episode of Walker: Texas Ranger. I plan to do at least one more Halloween episode post this month.

And this is a good place to ask – what’s everybody been watching and/or recommending this year? I’ve already found and caught up with some good ones, but you guys always tip me off to good stuff.

 

October 2nd, 2020 | 87 Comments »

Butcher Boys

You may not know this, because I’ve worked really hard to keep it on the down low, but Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 are some of my favorite movies. And although I don’t like any of the other chapters in the Texas Chainsaw Cinematical Franchise Property (TCCFP) nearly as much as those two, I know that for as long as they keep making them I will keep watching them and possibly kind of liking some things about them. That’s just my way. It’s what I do.

To date there are eight (8) official entries in the series:

• The two Tobe Hooper films (1974 and 1986) – Preeminent works of cinematic greatness.

• LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (1990) – I thought it was laughable at the time, but kind of liked certain things about it on various rewatches.

• TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION (1995 sequel to the 1974 original written and directed by its co-writer Kim Henkel) – I was sorely disappointed at the time, but liked it a little more upon my last rewatch.

• THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003 remake) – I violently despised this at the time, but may give it another shot some day as a gesture of grace and compassion.

• THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING (2006 prequel to 2003 remake) – Didn’t like that one either.

• TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (2013 sequel only to 1974 original) – This one is so fuckin stupid, but I got a kick out of it the way I would a lesser FRIDAY THE 13TH sequel.

• LEATHERFACE (2017 prequel to 1974 original) – I liked this one quite a bit. Though it’s a different sort of thing (a criminals on the run movie) and makes a few choices that bug me as a CHAIN SAW purist, it’s probly the most worthy non-Hooper one.

BUT WAIT A MINUTE – did you know that I’m missing one on that list, a 2012 the-names-and-details-have-been-changed type unofficial sequel written and produced by Henkel? Somehow I never heard about it until very recently, when JK tipped me off in the comments for my NEXT GENERATION review. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 1st, 2020 | 15 Comments »

Get Carter (2000)

Nearly 30 years after GET CARTER and its American cousin HIT MAN there was another version of the movie and/or its source novel, Jack’s Return Home by Ted Lewis. It starred Sylvester Stallone and was almost universally hated. Unsurprisingly it doesn’t fare well if hung up on a wall next to the 1971 version, but I find it at least interesting as an exercise in adaptation and an oddity in the Stallone filmography. And maybe I’m a little easier on it because it takes place in Seattle, with some of it actually filmed here.

In the mid ’90s, the ground was shifting under everyone’s feet. Hair metal bands felt displaced by Nirvana, MC Hammer decided he had to sign to Death Row Records, and the action heroes of the ‘80s were starting to see the writing on the wall. So by the end of the decade the once dominant Stallone was trying to find his place in a new world. JUDGE DREDD (1995) had been a notorious flop, and ASSASSINS (1995) and DAYLIGHT (1996) were poorly received. He couldn’t get Tarantino to cast him as Max Cherry in JACKIE BROWN. Though COP LAND (1997) had been one of Stallone’s best performances, it didn’t seem to bring him the critical credibility he was looking for, and his followup, the thriller D-TOX, was sitting on a shelf (it would be barely released in 2002 under the title EYE SEE YOU). Stallone been pigeonholed by his massive success as a larger than life action god, and many critics were more interested in rooting for his failure than seeing him evolve, or even return to his roots. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 30th, 2020 | 15 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
  • Hey bud, thanks for reading.

    Don't feel obligated, but here are some

  • WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM

    if that's your thing:

  • 1. Patreon

    Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!

  • 2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody

    click here for my Amazon author page

    (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)

    EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.

  • 3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines



    (you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)

  • I also have an Amazon UK one:

    (I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)

  • 4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products

    (I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)

  • 5. Spread the word

    Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.

    THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN

    * * * *

  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

    • Franchise Fred on The Rip: “There was also a Ben Affleck joke in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday so this completes the Adkins/Affleck trilogy! And they…” Feb 9, 22:50
    • Gary Pitchford on The Man Next Door: “After hearing about this film for over twenty years, I have finally seen it on the Asylum DVD Premiere Edition.…” Feb 9, 19:52
    • Miguel Hombre on The Mastermind: “I really, really liked this one. But then again, I’m a long time big fan of Reichardt and her movies.…” Feb 9, 14:17
    • Alex R on The Mastermind: “It’s a slow movie and I liked the Monty Python end, but I also wanted more. Maybe 20 more minutes.…” Feb 9, 13:40
    • PetrosMT on The Wrecking Crew (2026): “To anybody on the fence about seeing this. It’s really good for what it is, almost a throwback to actions…” Feb 8, 17:41
    • Curt on Anaconda: “Maj, that was my reaction too, but then I saw the movie and it turns out the trailer is misleading.…” Feb 8, 16:34
    • Mr. Majestyk on Anaconda: “There’s something about the premise that I just can’t get over. Like, these two guys want to remake ANACONDA because…” Feb 8, 15:56
    • KayKay on Anaconda: “Or think of it as Black’s own BE KIND REWIND…with Anacondas.” Feb 8, 15:42
    • KayKay on Anaconda: “I usually avoid the tired phrase “best enjoyed with your brain switched off,” but ANACONDA (2025) practically demands a lobotomy…” Feb 8, 15:19
    • CJ Holden on Queen of the Damned: “In 2001 popsinger Melanie Thornton died in a plane crash. She used to be one half of La Bouche, just…” Feb 7, 13:23
    • Acid Burn on Queen of the Damned: “I think about that a lot, too, Inspector. There were eight other people who died with Kobe Bryant in that…” Feb 7, 09:31
    • Inspector Hammer Boudreaux on Queen of the Damned: “I remember when Aaliyah died I saw some newspapers headlines that were basically “AALIYAH DIES IN PLANE CRASH also 8…” Feb 6, 15:42
    • geoffreyjar on Match Point: ““I don’t know what happened but at some point in the last couple years I think we as Americans became…” Feb 6, 07:16
    • Steven E on Queen of the Damned: “The new TV series is really brilliant IMO, one of the very best shows of the last few years. I…” Feb 6, 06:27
    • Adam C aka TaumpyTearrs on Knights of the City: “By the time I finished Vern’s third paragraph I was adding this to my watchlist. Gonna save the rest of…” Feb 5, 23:27

  • Recent Commented on Posts

  • Most Comments