"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Elisabeth Rosen’

Sanctuary

Tuesday, May 14th, 2019

SANCTUARY (1998) is not The Great American Mark Dacascos Vehicle, but it’s pretty enjoyable classical DTV (or in this case straight-to-cable, I believe) action, the kind that made me fall in love with the format in the first place. Yes, it’s messy, at times confusing or befuddling. It’s kinda gloomy looking, sometimes there are iffy line deliveries, and there are definitely parts that I laugh at that I’m not supposed to. But also there’s some showcasing of a cool actor I like, pulpy traditions of the genre are exercised, and when something really cool happens there’s a sense of underdog achievement. You’re really pulling for it to be good.

It has a convoluted chronology: it starts with our Catholic priest hero Luke Kovak (Dacascos a year after DRIVE) in a Vatican interrogation room being questioned in Italian about what happened six days ago when he got attacked by some killers from his secret past. From the story of six days ago it keeps flashing back to the larger backstory of his former career doing dirty deeds for the government and why he went into hiding to get away from it. A few times he even remembers his childhood, when a priest was his role model until Dyson (Alan Scarfe, CATHY’S CURSE, IRON EAGLE II, LETHAL WEAPON 3) took him and some other orphans and raised them to be experts in martial arts, guns and spycraft. (read the rest of this shit…)

Cult of Chucky

Monday, October 9th, 2017

I kind of want the CHUCKY cinematic saga to go on forever, or at least as long as Don Mancini wants to keep making them. He’s the guy who wrote the original script BLOOD BUDDY, that became CHILD’S PLAY, and then wrote all six sequels to date, and directed SEED OF CHUCKY (2004), CURSE OF CHUCKY (2013) and now CULT OF CHUCKY (aka CHUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN).

CURSE was the first one made for the DTV market, and CULT follows in its footsteps: lower budget, limited locations, filmed in Winnipeg, more serious tone than BRIDE or SEED except for some broad meta references and some nods to continuity. It also brings back the star, Fiona Dourif (yes, Brad’s daughter) as Nica, innocent paraplegic woman now committed to an asylum, blamed for Chucky’s murders and convinced she imagined him to ease her guilt. Of course, the dumbass doctor (Michael Therriault, The Girlfriend Experience) decides he should bring in a vintage Good Guy doll as part of her therapy, and, you know, shit may or may not happen. (read the rest of this shit…)