“Confessions are only admitted under torture, otherwise you might confess just to avoid torture and it wouldn’t be a true confession.”
Stuart Gordon’s THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM opens with Grand Inquisitor Torquemada (Lance Henriksen, STONE COLD) and his Spanish Inquisition goons pulling a dead body out of a coffin, convicting him of heresy and giving him 20 lashes, which busts him apart until he’s a pile of bones. The man’s family watch, outraged, while a bunch of other rich people smile to themselves and lick their lips. Torquemada crushes the dead man’s skull into powder and uses it to fill an hourglass. That’s all before the credits start.
So, this movie is not fuckin around. And you guys know how I feel about a movie that’s not fuckin around. (Usually positive.)
Even still, it kinda snuck up on me. It’s a Full Moon production, and they’re doing a period piece (Spain, 1492) in the one castle they have access to, lots of fake looking wigs, some actors delivering their lines in a modern tone, some not. And then there’s a shitty looking font on the credits and they still couldn’t bother to change the title (it calls it THE INQUISITOR). And as it gets into the plot about a woman falsely accused by the Spanish Inquisition it seems like it’s gonna be mostly sitting through gruesome torture scenes: public whipping, burning at the stake, some citizens enjoying it, others being forced to watch, people tied to racks, screaming, getting slashed and/or sexually humiliated. But that’s just the fuel to a story that really comes together, a nice amalgam of Edgar Allan Poe ideas, adventure and most of all an extreme caricature of the type of hypocrites who stand in judgment of others to hide their own faults. Gordon worked in theater for years before RE-ANIMATOR made him a Master of Horror, and I imagine this is alot like one of his plays. (read the rest of this shit…)
There was a time, I must admit, when I didn’t properly appreciate HARD TARGET. I had already been intoxicated by the unadulterated John Woo of THE KILLER, BULLET IN THE HEAD and HARD BOILED (in that order, I believe) so when I watched his 1993 Hollywood debut I could only see the compromises. American Woo was less violent, less stylish, less emotional and built around the stiff toughness of Van Damme instead of the smooth charisma of Chow Yun Fat.
But with the passage of time comes wisdom and context. From the perspective of today we can see that HARD TARGET stepped deeper into the Woo Zone than any of his subsequent American films save for FACE/OFF. More importantly, it’s clearly a masterpiece among Van Damme vehicles, themselves an enjoyable body of work that can benefit from some Woo. A pessimist sees HARD TARGET as Woo watered down with Van Damme. But I’m an optimist now so I know it’s a refreshing glass of Van Damme spiked with a shot of Woo tequila. (read the rest of this shit…)
The penultimate HELLRAISER, Rick Bota #3, is not really better than the previous DTV entries, and definitely way worse than any of the theatrical releases, but after three pretty samey ones in a row it was briefly refreshing to see the series, for the first time, try to pander to dumb young people. Elements include: an addictive internet game, an exclusive invite-only theme party, teen suicide, masked orgies, cell phones. Coming only 3 months after DEADER and from the same director it’s nice that it’s crappy in a completely different way.
Whoah, it’s like The Matrix
In the interim, LAND OF THE DEAD and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS had come out. That’s about it. Impossible to detect a change in the horror landscape. Instead of sticking with the times I guess they wanted to pull a LAWNMOWER MAN or BRAINSCAN type deal and base it around computer technology, so that the movie would already seem laughably dated and out of touch by the time it was finished editing.
The story is about a group of twenty-something friends (and one ex-friend) whose buddy Adam has just died horribly. We don’t know how it happened, but it had some connection to their shared obsession with a video game called Hellworld.
Two years later they’re thrilled to solve a virtual Lament Configuration and get invited to “a Hellworld party!!!” at a mansion on “86 Hillbound Drive.” It’s hosted by the great Lance Henriksen, who has a collection of puzzle boxes and weird babies in jars and claims the mansion was designed by LeMarchand, all of which delights his guests. There are young people dancing, drinking, mingling, some of them topless or just having sex right out in the open like it’s EYES WIDE SHUT. The host gives them all a cell phone and a paper mache mask with the phone number on the forehead so people will call and proposition each other. (read the rest of this shit…)
Those of you who participate in the “Twitter” brand social media platform might have seen an account called “One. Perfect. Shot.” It follows the simple idea of posting beautiful frames from favorite movies, so you can admire their composition and lighting and what not. For example here’s a nice one from today:
LONE WOLF AND CUB: BABY CART IN THE LAND OF DEMONS (1973) DoP: Fujio Morita | Dir: Kenji Misumi pic.twitter.com/WDk4HtwDu4
I didn’t know this at first, but the guy that does it is Geoff Todd, who was the editor over at Daily Grindhouse when I did a column there. He also collects them at a websight, oneperfectshotdb.com, complete with, like, articles and shit. He asked me to write some of those articles and shit, and he’s always been good to me, so what the hell. I will be writing one or two perfect essays a month over there.
Since most of his readers probly don’t know me from Adam and Steve I figured I should introduce myself with a movie that truly represented who I am and what I represent, not only as a writer but also as a human being here on this planet just trying to get by and travel this journey you know what I mean so obviously I wrote the only thing a man in that situation CAN write, a little piece called:
I know I’ve written about this movie a couple times before, but come on. It’s fucking STONE COLD, man. This won’t be the last time either. “Stricly Bozness,” by the way, is what I wanted to call my book on the films of Brian Bosworth before I determined that too many of them (including the barely aired TV show he starred in) were unavailable for me to do it. Maybe some day.
Anyway, check it out and feel free to comment over there so they know somebody gave a shit.
I know Valentine’s Day is a made-up greeting card company holiday, but that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate by watching the notoriously bad Bruce Willis sex movie that you guys voted #1 in the outlawvern.com “Review Suggestions” feature. If my movie watching happens to match up with the agendas of Hershey’s Chocolate and the local florists then so be it. It seemed right anyway.
I never saw this before. Of course I knew its reputation. It won “Worst Picture” from those Razzies assholes but also Best Sex Scenes of All Time from those Maxim assholes. So I was surprised when I watched the opening scene. A woman is getting dressed and putting on makeup. She’s very manic and keeps freaking out and having a fit. She messily smears lipstick all over her mouth. She gets her purse and starts to put a handgun in it, for protection I assume. But then she hesitates, thinks about it, puts it in her mouth instead. Real suddenly, as if on a whim.
But then she decides not to blow her brains out. She decides to give the gun a blowjob. And that’s where director Richard Rush (THE STUNT MAN) decided to put his director’s credit. If I had known it was gonna be nuts like this I would’ve watched this a long time ago. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hey fellas, you know how you like comic strips and all that? And you know how you are also a huge fan of Lance Henriksen from ALIENS, STONE COLD, HARD TARGET, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, PISTOL WHIPPED, the TV show Millennium, and others? Well that’s interesting because Joseph Maddrey, co-writer of the Henriksen autobiography Not Bad For a Human, dropped me a line to let me know that he and Henriksen have written To Hell You Ride, a 5-issue comic series for Dark Horse Comics. The first issue comes out December 12th. (read the rest of this shit…)
EXCESSIVE FORCE is a pretty generic cop-who-can-kick action movie from Jon Hess, the director of ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION. That would be funny if it was the same guy that did NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but I guess that was Jared Hess. It’s written by and stars Thomas Ian Griffith.
Griffith reminds me a little bit of Jeff Wincott. He’s a slim guy, not muscled out like Van Damme or somebody, with long hair and a dangly earring. He tends to wear long coats and scarfs, looks more like somebody who would play a troubled musician than an angry cop. But he’s a real martial artist who’s apparently good at kicking, so (much like Van Damme and his splits) he’s always looking for openings to kick guys in the face, just so you remember he can do it. I’m surprised he doesn’t use his feet to open doors, turn lights on and off or scratch his nose. (read the rest of this shit…)
SAVAGE DAWN is a post-apocalyptic-town-harassed-by-bikers movie very similar to STEEL FRONTIER except way crappier looking and without all the great cars and car stunts. I’d almost give it a very, very lenient semi-pass just because Lance Henriksen, with bleach blond hair, gets one of his rare leading man roles, except… no, I wouldn’t want anybody to think I sort of recommended this movie. The best thing I can say is I’ve seen worse.
But if you insist on seeing it the DVD is #3 on a triple feature with CAGED FURY and DRUG TRAFFIKERS. Don’t say I or the cover didn’t warn you. (read the rest of this shit…)
Lance Henriksen is one of my favorite actors. His chiseled-from-clay face and gravelly voice are always interesting even in the worst movies (and in my opinion he’s done some of those). They imply a life full of experience, and work perfectly for his wide array of roles, from humane robot (in ALIENS of course) to flamboyant cowboy (THE QUICK AND THE DEAD) to heartless rich madman/pianist (HARD TARGET, probly others). Now Not Bad For a Human, a new book credited to Henriksen and Joseph Maddrey, gives us insights to both the art on screen and the life that inspired it.
I am not a history buff. I am not highly educated. I don’t necessarily have what you would call “a curious mind” when it comes to history. And I don’t really dig on civil war movies. It all just seems like a bunch of dudes running around in muddy fields yelling and stabbing. But for some reason lately I caught a weird case of interest in that era. I don’t know man, I understand that slavery was a way of life for those people and they were raised to be racist, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around that whole concept. How can somebody be willing to die to take away somebody’s freedom? How can that be the thing you really believe in?
I just don’t get it. But so much of that conflict still echoes in our lives today: in race relations, class relations, politics, institutionalized racism, relations between different regions of the country. So it’s important shit. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
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“Confessions are only admitted under torture, otherwise you might confess just to avoid torture and it wouldn’t be a true confession.”
There was a time, I must admit, when I didn’t properly appreciate HARD TARGET. I had already been intoxicated by the unadulterated John Woo of THE KILLER, 
The penultimate HELLRAISER, Rick Bota #3, is not really better than the previous DTV entries, and definitely way worse than any of the theatrical releases, but after three pretty samey ones in a row it was briefly refreshing to see the series, for the first time, try to pander to dumb young people. Elements include: an addictive internet game, an exclusive invite-only theme party, teen suicide, masked orgies, cell phones. Coming only 3 months after DEADER and from the same director it’s nice that it’s crappy in a completely different way.
Those of you who participate in the “Twitter” brand social media platform might have seen an account called “One. Perfect. Shot.” It follows the simple idea of posting beautiful frames from favorite movies, so you can admire their composition and lighting and what not. For example here’s a nice one from today:
I know Valentine’s Day is a made-up greeting card company holiday, but that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate by watching the notoriously bad Bruce Willis sex movie that you guys voted #1 in the outlawvern.com “Review Suggestions” feature. If my movie watching happens to match up with the agendas of Hershey’s Chocolate and the local florists then so be it. It seemed right anyway.
Hey fellas, you know how you like comic strips and all that? And you know how you are also a huge fan of Lance Henriksen from ALIENS, STONE COLD, HARD TARGET, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, PISTOL WHIPPED, the TV show Millennium, and others? Well that’s interesting because Joseph Maddrey, co-writer of the Henriksen autobiography 
EXCESSIVE FORCE is a pretty generic cop-who-can-kick action movie from Jon Hess, the director of ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION. That would be funny if it was the same guy that did NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but I guess that was Jared Hess. It’s written by and stars Thomas Ian Griffith.
SAVAGE DAWN is a post-apocalyptic-town-harassed-by-bikers movie very similar to 
Lance Henriksen is one of my favorite actors. His chiseled-from-clay face and gravelly voice are always interesting even in the worst movies (and in my opinion he’s done some of those). They imply a life full of experience, and work perfectly for his wide array of roles, from humane robot (in ALIENS of course) to flamboyant cowboy (THE QUICK AND THE DEAD) to heartless rich madman/pianist (HARD TARGET, probly others). Now 
I am not a history buff. I am not highly educated. I don’t necessarily have what you would call “a curious mind” when it comes to history. And I don’t really dig on civil war movies. It all just seems like a bunch of dudes running around in muddy fields yelling and stabbing. But for some reason lately I caught a weird case of interest in that era. I don’t know man, I understand that slavery was a way of life for those people and they were raised to be racist, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around that whole concept. How can somebody be willing to die to take away somebody’s freedom? How can that be the thing you really believe in?
