We already talked to some length of our love of Kazahstani cinema. From the long lost action of Blizhniy Boy with Kickboxer/ MMA fighter Cung Le and the veterans like David Caradine, Carry- Hiroyuki Tagawa and Garry Busey to Beyond the Game with everyone from Olivier Grunner and Mark Dacascos to Eric Roberts and Michael Madsen.
Well, now we finally have a new trailer (and the release date) for the long gestating Diamond Cartel (formerly know as The Whole World at Our Feet). Featuring (as always) all- star cast of Armand Assante , Michael Madsen, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Tommy “Tiny” Lister, Don “Dragon” Willson, Olivier Gruner, final performance of acting legend Peter O’Toole and my personal favorite old school Kung Fu ass-kicker Bolo Yeung!
Enjoy the trailer and we’ll talk about the movie after it comes out March 31.
After the surprising success of the original The Crow movie, directed by Proyas and staring the late Brandon Lee the studio decided that The Crow concept is good enough to warrant a series ala Nightmare at Elm Street. Unfortunately The Crow mythology was never really built for a franshize. The author of the original comicbook James O’Barr did his best to keep the control of the projects with different pitches for sequels like the one with a Native American of the Crow tribe coming back from the dead to avenge his family (later comic-ized as The Crow: Dead Time) and the female Crow who died on her wedding day (now a basis for O’Barr’s still unpublished The Crow: Engines of Despair) but both were rejected.
Still unpublished The Crow: Engines of Despair
The second part ended up being a The Crow: City of Angels with Vincent Perez, actually a fairly decent film that still failed to live up to the expectation after the original. Dimension Films decided not to stop there so another sequel was put into production, this time with even less of a budget.
The movie starts with an overly dramatic execution scene of conveniently named Alex Corvis via the electric chair in the local prison. Our hero is accused of stabbing his girlfriend 20- something odd times and people are cheering his demise. He is of course innocent and as it usually goes returns from the dead with a roasted face that somehow evolves intro something alike a classic The Crow jester make- up. As he runs away we are treated to a not so good suicide dive followed by a really bad shapeshift moment! So the Crow flies with him but he also turns into a crow too, isn’t that a bit too much?
The mystical crow leads him to the police department’s evidence room, where he discovers proof that his girlfriend Lauren was killed by a group of corrupt cops. He also has a vision of the leader of the killers who has a scars on his arm. He goes to her grave and there, he runs into Lauren’s younger sister Erin, played coincidentally by young Christine Dunst (who would find much bigger success in another comicbook series some years later). She doesn’t seem to recognize him at first but when she does she gets really angry still believing he is the killer but he promises to prove otherwise and then disappears.
Unfortunately Morbus is just too gangly and funny to be a convincing angel of revenge
He tracks down his friends Leonard who testified falsly and got him in all this jam. Turns out he testified in return for a job at a CONSTRUCTION! This just might be the single worst deal in the history of film. He gets names of the corrupt cops out of him and goes on a wild killing spree.
After killing a cop via car crash (you can do fun stuff like that when you’re invulnerable) he uses the evidence he found on him to convince Erin of his innocence. It turns out her father Nathan had dealings with the cops and that started this whole mess.He owns a business company cops used for smugling drugs.After trying to prove to her that her death was a mistake he ends up killing himself. In a really cheep twit it turns out the main leader of the evil cops is- the police chef! Also a dabbler in the occult (I mean, who isn’t) and the man with the scars. Already knowing the way to cheat the crow (not so smart animal after all) he organizes and ambush for Alex in a “modern” night club (they have computers and really bad cameras and stuff). Alex of course thrives in the chaos and kills more than couple of cops. We even have a default impalement on a pipe, a staple of American cinema.
Impalement pipe- don’t leave your home without it!
Now one of the detectives manages to ignite a gas leak (remember that pipe from minutes ago) and the whole place goes up in flames and then in all the dead bodies Alex finds a severed arm with the scars. His mission is finally done. Or is it? Of course not. It turns out the Cheif of police faked it, and managed to trick the fate itself.You see having finished his task Alex is now without his powers and can finally be stopped. This moment really drags movie (even further) down. I mean if the mystical crow is this stupid I don’t thing a single death would be successfully avenged.
He confronts the Cheif but knowing he has an uper hand he stabs him to death all the while convincing him he really is guilty of his girlfirends death. What a deranged prick! He with a help of detective Madden and his slut secretary drag him to the taxidermy room (that exist in a police station- for some reason) and we find the sister Erin there too- with her mouth stitched shut. Now when all seems lost the crow shows up, take’s Erins bracelet, drops it on Alex and he finally comes back to life all reachached and ready to go. Man, this movie loves it’s clishes so much!
Alex being back in revenge mode manages to defeat everyone and he chooses to place the Cheif on the same electric chair that he was on. Poetic justice all the way. After that he returns to being dead, the necklaces now resting on the cross on his grave. Trivia: This movie does continue the cool tradition of having cool alternative rock/ industrial/ metal bands contribute to the soundtrack.Just listen to this Danzig track.
Unfortunately by the time the forth movie rolled over (more on that one soon) the budget for the soundtrack became non- existent and they stopped that particular tradition. Trivia, continued: It’s interesting how almost every move post- the original Brandon Lee hit turned out to be such a miss. Like I said, Dimension Films ignored some really descent story ideas from James O’Barr, just the damn author of the whole thing. Then there was a whole crazy script treatment for TheCrow V that involved resurrection of a good and evil rappers starring (then young) Eminem and Doctor Dre. That leads us all the way to today with Relativity Media remake that was supposed to be directed by Javier Gutierrez (who even went as far as to ask for O’Barr’s blessing) with Luke Evans as Eric, after that fell trough Jack Huston has signed to direct with Andrea Riseborough as (female) Top Dollar, Corin Hardy after that and then Relativity bankruptcy happened. Strangely they kept pushing the project even after the bankruptcy now with Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones, Justice League) attached as a lead by trust me- don’t hold your breath.
Bradley Cooper, once attached as Eric -thankfully that never happened.
I understand the early eighties were marked by, I don’t know, 1,050 horror slashers, each with their own little twist on the horror genre, each wanting to take a piece of the pie. But only a handful and I do truly mean 5 of 1050 were effective. Curtains was NOT one of them.
Actress Samantha Sherwood (played by Samantha Eggar) is a long time collaborator with director Jonathan Stryker (played by John Vernon). She gets the rights to his latest project Audra for him. Audra is imagined to be a mad woman. So they visit Dr. Pendleton (played by Calvin Butler) where she acts out as a charade in order to get into asylum for research (something like Daniel Day-Lewis who went living with Indian tribe for his role in “The Last of the Mohicans” if rumors are to be trusted). She is truly dedicated actor, I give her that. While being there she found out that Stryker is holding audition for her role in his mansion with 6 more other actresses ready to do everything to get the role. Even having sex and committing murder! And guess what? He left her in asylum without saying goodbye! Now she really can get mad! And she plans to get it back!
You see, the interesting thing about asylums is….
One of the actresses, Amanda (played by Deborah Burgess) couldn’t make it to the audition. After unsuccessful sexual role-play with her boyfriend (her fetish is raping) and after dreaming about herself being killed by doll, she got actually stabbed in the dark by some mysterious person wearing an old lady mask. Well, I guess that ends her career. She might appear in commercials though, like many other dead celebrities. Anyway, all the other actresses had arrived on time, including Samantha who made an unexpected cameo. There all of the girls confirmed to us once again how big sluts they are and what they would do to get this role. Especially a comedian Petti O’Connor (played Lynne Griffin) who wants to be taken seriously and who is most probably the biggest slut of them all. Washed up actress Brooke Parsons (played by Linda Thorson) even mentioned a murder. No such problems for Matthew (played by Michael Wincott) who already got the lead male role and now he can enjoy in casting couch (or jacuzzi in this case) with Tara Demillo (played by Sandra Warren).
Real Hollywood stars
While rivalry between the actresses is building up naive-looking Christie Burns (played by Lesleh Donaldson) decides to take a chill out with ice-skating at nearby frozen pond. There she finds the doll in a snow and that was the cue for the masked killer to bust in with sickle in hand. The whole scene is put together in such a wonderfully campy way with the music and the slow motion. The seriousness of the acting adds to the campy feel of the movie. It’s like an Actors Studio discussion and killings happen every once in a while. Anyway, Christie used the doll as a shield and then as a weapon. She banged the killer in the head with it. Instead of unmasking the villain Christie loses her head and runs into forest where killer finds her and makes her lose her head once again, this time definitely.
The next morning, at rehearse, Stryker announces that he has found the note left for him by Christie in which she states that she is leaving mansion because this was too much to handle for her. If you think this was suspicious then what would you say for the next scene when Stryker throws that mask to Samantha, asking from her to seduce him? Does he know something? Or has the old director finally went insane in demanding perfection? I guess we are going to find out soon. As for Christie, Brook finds her head inside toilet seat. But as it is the usual case in such movies, head disappeared while she called for help. To calm herself down Brook had a sex with Stryker. Two birds with one stone. And Samantha saw them!
Oh someone clogged the toilet again
Meanwhile, killing spree continues. Laurian Summers (played by Anne Ditchburn) had danced her last dance that night. And I think we can rule out Stryker as a suspect since him and Brooke got shot while standing together and drinking. Matthew? Oh we won’t be seeing him again. He ended up the same way he lived – in a jacuzzi. Tara had put up a decent fight and almost managed to unmask the killer, but she also ended up like Christie. So we are down to Samantha and Patti. They are having conversation over glass of champagne during which Samantha confesses murder of Stryker and Brooke in pretty coldblooded manner. But the last say in this is Patti’s. To return the favor she confesses murders of other actresses while stabbing Samantha with large knife. And for all of her efforts she eventually got to play the role of Audra…in asylum! Hah poetical justice!
Conclusion: This movie is one of the slowest and most boring slasher movies I’ve seen in a long time. It takes a good third of the movie to get to what it’s all about: six actresses are auditioning for a role of a “lifetime” but they’re being picked off one-by-one by someone who would “kill” for the role. The mask worn by the killer is shown way too much and loses its creepy factor very early on. Though I must admit that such hideous and creepy mask deserves much better movie. There is no straight line here in Curtains; you have horrible dialogue, laughable acting and a hollow plot. The gore was nothing, the sex all-but non-exist and the less said about so called “twist” at the end – the better. Meh I could hardly have expected more from Canadians.
To celebrate the release of the new Black and Chrome edition of the fantastic Mad Max: Fury Road we take a look at the seemingly endless number of films it inspired: the good, the bad and the ugly!
Directed by “Italian George Miller” Enzo Castellari this movie takes a peek into distant future (8 years later) where war is raging between street gangs in post-apocalyptic New York. Amidst all of that is the gayest anti-hero Mark Gregory (who mysteriously disappeared from the face of the Earth) who manages to reunite street gangs and win against evil government agent Hammer (played by Vic Morrow). Fred Williamson also takes roll in this battle.
Another feature from mastermind of The Bronx Warriors Enzo Castellari only one year later. This time two mercenaries Scorpion (played by Giancarlo Prete) and Nadir (played by Fred Williamson) help wandering caravans fight off an evil band of white-clad bikers after the nuclear holocaust. In order to achieve this they had to go through a living hell, including Scorpion’s ass being penetrated by gang of gay Templars in this hilarious scene:
03. Made by a Pinoy c- movie maestro Cirio H. Santiago and staring our favorite Aussie bad-ass Richard Norton and eponymous. Equalizer 2000 (1987) the movie doesn’t offer much in the way of story but makes it all up with a whole lotta bullets and bombs (one babe too). Also Norton swears that the damned thing could actually work and I’m not going to question him for sure.
Swayze is most popular when dancing (), or fighting people in bars but in the late 80’s Swayze decided to take a post-apocalyptic vacation of sorts. In this career left turn Road Warrior meets Martial Arts as Swayze plays. Also it’s worth noting that new regions like China are just discovering the Mad Max franchise as evident recent rip- off , the Chinese Mad Shiella. So, I guess post- apocalyptic wasteland won’t stop being a popular destination any time soon.
01. Steel Frontier (1995) places Joe Lara (Legends of Tarzan) in a post- apocalyptic Western wasteland and surprisingly- it works! Actually it’s a good candidate for my favorite Lara film. The plot is your basic Yojimbo/ Fistfull of Dollars thing but if it works why fix it. General is played by always super entertaining Brion James (General Quantrell) and Lara even goes mano- a- mano with Kane Hodder aka Jason Vorhees himself!
It is holiday season and what could be better way to celebrate it than with bloodshed? New Year is just around the corner which means many of seasonal killers are waking up from their hibernation, hungry for blood and vengeance for any demented reason they might have. And who knows, maybe this night you are going to be lucky enough to be picked for dying in the most brutal ways your twisted mind can imagine.
This MGM/Cannon offspring starts with phone talk between two friends, Diane (played by Roz Kelly) and Yvonne (played by Alicia Dhanifu). Naturally, when two women are yacking on the phone, you can’t expect any constructive conversation. And as usual, they are badmouthing Diane’s husband Richard. To be honest, Yvonne tipped him off to his wife as she had seen him wasted in Palm Springs (I really can’t blame him considering how boring is his wife). Well that was her last gossip since couple of moments later, after hanging up the phone, she ended up brutally slaughtered. Serves her right for getting involved in men’s business she doesn’t understand.
Put a sock in it…or knife!
Diane is punk rock star known as Blaze and New Year’s countdown starts with her hosting Hollywood Countdown show. she seems far too old and unattractive to be hosting this kind of show and given the way she dresses and acts she seem more like she would be more at home hosting games of bingo than a music show that seems to aimed at the punk rocker set. Also she has grown son Derek (played by Grant Cramer) who practically begs for her attention. Anyway, viewers can call her live and vote for the best song. All is going well until Diane receives a phone call from an odd sounding stranger claiming his name is Evil, who announces on live television that he going to kill someone close to her at midnight. I guess he doesn’t like songs which are presented on voting list. And he is obviously a man of his word since he butchered a nurse while having sex with her (win-win situation). He calls back Diane to inform her about keeping her promise right on Eastern Central Time and announces when the clock strikes twelve in each time zone, a ‘Naughty Girl’ will be punished ,then the killer signs off with a threat claiming that Diane will be the last Naughty Girl to be punished. Cops informed Diane about both nurse and Yvonne and now she is scared for her life.
Homicide hot line
While his mother is going through a living hell Derek cuts her red stockings and puts it over his face while watching her show. I don’t see the point of this scene since we know that Derek is not the killer. Face of Evil had been shown to us in previous scenes but there are some similarities between him and Derek. Maybe the director Emmett Alston wanted to give us false lead. If that is the case he shouldn’t have shown us the real killer before it. Or maybe it is not false lead after all? Anyway, our real killer turns out to be master in disguise. He puts false mustaches on his face (and that’s all, he didn’t even change the haircut or color of the hair) and goes to some club where he picks some bimbo with promise he is going to take her to wild New Year party. His plan went
wrong when she suddenly took her roommate Lisa with herself. Needing a time to improvise Evil cruised through streets while bimbo was dribbling into his ear about self-help meditations she has been practicing. In that moment even I felt the urge to strangle her with my bare hands. Evil had done the next best thing. He pulled over his car, sent Lisa to buy Champagne and killed bimbo by putting a plastic bag over her head. And then sliced her throat (better safe than sorry). But that was not the end of it. There is still nosy roommate needed to be disposed off. So Evil creates a trail of shoes which leads to nearby secluded dumpster. Of course, Lisa follows the trail and when she approached – big surprise peek a boo, I see you!
As it is his habit Evil ran over to the nearest phone booth to inform Diane about his most recent achievement. Lt. Clayton (played by Chris Wallace) now can only wait for new victims hoping for killer to make a wrong move. He also follows the schedule and announces that Evil will strike again at 11 pm. And boy, was he right. Now disguised as a priest, Evil went to the local drive in theater where he unexpectedly killed some unsuspecting biker who got in his way. Beware of hand of God for it shall slice you! But the biker was not alone. Soon motorcycle band stormed in the theater which made Evil started to panic. So he quickly hijacked the car of some teenage couple who were having fun on the backseat. It seemed that the poor girl was done for especially since her
boyfriend was chucked out of the car back in theater. But she was lucky enough to take opportunity to escape when Evil went outside to have a fight with two drunken idiots he almost had run over. Boy, was his face red! Oh, Oh and the movie that was giving in drive in cinema was 1963. horror classic “Blood Feast”. See the link?
’60s slashers are the best turn on
Evil manages to sneak into Diane’s show by killing a police officer and taking his uniform. There we find out his true identity. It is Diane’s husband – Richard (played by Kip Niven). He got Diane right where he wanted her to be – in stuck elevator (which he had previously sabotaged; no porn pun intended). He explains to her that he knows about her cheating around. Derek has told him all about that. Derek also said that his mother tried to seduce him and cut his and his father’s allowance (?) So Richard got fed up of her and Yvonne. And the reason why he killed other women is that they are all the same manipulative, selfish, materialistic whores. Hm can’t argue with that. He left Diane hanging by elevator while police cornered him in good old-fashion rooftop chase. There he decides to end his life the only way appropriate for cheesy 80s slashers – ridiculous falling off the building while wearing some kind of comedian mask. And Diane somehow managed to survive. Looks like happy ending. Or is it? You see, Derek took his father’s mask, sneaked in ambulance van his mother was in, took out paramedics leaving him alone with his mother. The end?
Conclusion: Overall this one doesn’t have all that much going for it. One of the many problems here is the fact that this one comes off as a bland, boring thriller which just takes so much out of the film. Premise doesn’t really hold up that much. By using a series of utterly obnoxious story lines is where that tends to fall as the different story lines really don’t make any sense. The fact that the premise isn’t really all that spectacular enough is the prime motivator here which requires a lot of excess scenes along the way to hold itself up, some of which is found by it being dragged out indefinitely with a series of endless and utterly innocuous songs of local bands that really aren’t that great. Kip Niven thinks he’s doing this big theatrical part, but he’s too nerdy to pull it off. His body is tiny, and teeny and yet he can kill women larger than he is. He happens to be in the area where his target victims are and it gets worse: according to the movie, he didn’t plan this. New Year’s Evil ends up being one of the most lifeless, dull films that the Cannon Group ever produced. Watch it at your own risk. The fact that you’re immune to higher-quality mediocre movies just means that you have a higher tolerance for bad movies now. Thank God a sequel wasn’t made.
Movie starts as promised with a shot of seemingly badass biker on the road, testing his futuristic new bike. Turns out the mysterious biker is none other than legendaryRe-Animator mad scientist Jeffrey Combs!
This scene lasts way too long!
We cut to the local gym where Combs’s girlfriend Terry (Heather Thomas of Zapped) is working out furiously under the watchful eye of her friend and trainer … She proceeds to get some “turbo oil” (from Oscar winning old actor Martin Landau! )for her super- scientist boyfriend but some redneck bikers lose their mind over here- I guess they don’t see blonde aerobic babes all that often (strange ’cause it’s the 80’s). Anyway she shows her Martial Arts prowess and kicks their asses.
Combs seems happy to see her, and gets his oil. She insists they have to go to the Disco club. He reluctantly agrees but in turns forces her, blonde bimbo that she is- to recite some physics.That’s some really weird stuff there but it each their own.
I guess it’s something like this for Combs…
He relents and she drags him to the party with some kind of ridiculous hybrid Punk/ Disco band is playing. Unfortunately some crazed Mad Max extras suddenly show up and stab Combs to death. Man, he should have guessed- nothing good ever comes out of Disco music.
It turns out her boyfriend was secretly working for the government. They hope she can take them to his project so secret that not even the secret service can find it. They follow her but they have no idea that the secret lab was actually in her apartment all along. As she enters message from Combs plays and he entrusts her to the secret of the super- bike the Cyclone, it’s rockets and lasers included. Only person that can be trusted is mysterious man called Bob Jankings, her mission is to find him and hand the bike over to him.
So basically her dead boyfriend is trying to get her to risk her own neck too. Being a blonde bimbo that she is- she accepts.
I don’t know why but she drove all night long, I would guess that something as powerful as Cyclone can get her to another city in in mere minutes, but I guess I was wrong. Unfortunately as they meet, Bob Jenkins, the dude who’s suppose to solve all this mess, gets shot, with a crossbow none the less!!!
Cyclone is supposedly the cutting edge of the military technology but in reality it looks just like Chuck Norris’s bike in Delta Force.
She does the only thing she can think of, drives over to her gym teacher Carla (Ashley Ferrare). Unfortunately (again) it turns out villains were (again) one step ahead of her. They take Carla hostage and blackmail her into giving the secrets of Cyclone (there’s a ground-breaking power supply called Transformator that is needed to power the bike).
In a shocking twist it turns out one of the agents from the beginning was in fact behind the death of her boyfriend. Somehow it seem that secret service is way less benevolent that previously presumed. They offer her half a million dollars, their chief drives a hard bargain but she refuses. Mad Max character proceeds to torture her, strangely attaching electrical wires to her thighs of all places.
Then we have another double cross, it turns out Carla was on it too! So, I guess everyone in her live is some sort of a secret agent. Then, the only remaining agent not in the warehouse shows up, that’s the lady agent Martine Beswick (former Bond girl and the star of Hammer film’s Dr. Jackyll and Sister Hyde). She seems to be the only one not on the payroll as she shoots up the place. She shows no mercy and even her old partner ends up on the floor riddled with bullets.
She freed herself and got to the bike and then it turns out Transformer was in her boobs all along! Too bad nobody though of checking there. Agents then go straight after her but now we finally see the Cyclone in full power! She starts shooting lasers like there’s no tomorrow and all resistance proves futile. Seeing what people would do for revolutionary technology like that she destroys the Transformator and hitches a ride home– ’cause in the 80’s progress is always pure EVIL.
Verdict: Now despite the lack of budget and it’s ridiculous story-line I still prefer Cyclone to the whole overrated Fast and Furious franchise. This at least has some actual nice stunts work with real (not animated!) cars and some genuinely planed (and otherwise) funny bits. FF for the most part has none of it.
His movies are cheese as hell, but Fred Olen Rey never fails to entertain and you have to give him credit for that.
While we wait for the loooong time second coming of a Mortal Kombat movie franchise (this time produced by Aquaman’s James Wan) someone’s been working hard on the Kombat movie of their own.Committee Films from Ghana’s Kumawood (not to be confused with Ugandan Wakaliwood) decided not to wait on Hollywood so they made their own knock-off adaptation of the game!
Now, the complete lack of resources and/ or professional production are really evident as well as their obvious enthusiasm for the game series. But actually they put in an incredible effort into staging action sequences as close (you might say too close) to the games as possible. And seeing Black Raiden (I call him the Black Thunder) is worth the price of admission alone. Anyway the first trailer is now out and I’m guessing we’ll be reviewing this movie at some point in 2017. Now GET OVER HERE and watch this trailer!
PS If you liked this you might also enjoy Ghana’s Alien VS Terminator crossover.
We enthusiastically talked about the first post- Expendables 2 movie for Chuck Norris- The Finisher. Unfortunately that project never came into fruition (even though they were talks of it shooting in Australia with out favorite Aussie badass Richard Norton directing) but now we finally have some good news for all you Norris fans out there!
Just a cool photo of Chuck stretching Norton from our friends at Action Elite
Chuck has signed to appear in African (Botswanan to be precise) movie with some B- movie heavy hitters like Michael Jai White (Spawn, Black Dynamite) and previously mentioned Richard Norton, now a famed choreographer having worked on Mad Max: Fury Road, Suicide Squad and Ghost in a Shell). The writer is Motswana- born Edward Sebati and on the directing duties we have none other than the action maestro Isaac Florentine of Undisputed and Ninja fame! I see him as a sort of heir to the Menahem Golan of the legendary Cannon Films(just better).
McDaniels brothers, only their mother can tell them apart!
Movie centers around the two brothers Sasha McDaniels and Dumisani McDaniels who end up caught up in a net of poaching, robbery, murder and even a serious political conspiracy.Chuck is of course playing their cool uncle Sean Kane. Pre- production is well on the way and filming should beginning early 2017 and I’m sure I speak for all of us- it was about damn time!
Deadly villain Sahili played by Aurelien Henry Obama,much deadlier than the regular Obama!
We followed closely as Manos Returns was shaping up and now after the previous announcement of the cast , we now have the first teaser trailer too!
Here’s a short synopsis and be sure to enjoy the magnificent return of The Master.
Four friends get lost on a road trip and stumble on a hidden cult lead by the sinister Master and his servant Torgo. As they try to escape, they get caught up in the power struggle between Debbie, given to Manos as a child 50 years ago, her mother Maggie, and the other souls twisted by their time serving the dark god. A sequel to the B-movie classic, Manos – the Hands of Fate.
As I had already stated in my previous review (It’s Alive), we broke our promise given to ourselves that we wouldn’t watch any other movie directed by Larry Cohen. Well, this movie made us to spit on our promise. And to lick it afterwards. Really, it is not surprise, When you consider that we are suckers for trailers for 1980s trash movies, low budget giant monsters and David Carradine.
Oh I just cleaned this
The first minutes of the movie reveal to us that director was not intending to hide anything. We see a window cleaner hanging out from the Empire State Building, doing his work and stalking some woman inside. Suddenly, a huge bird shows up from nowhere and rips his head off, leaving the rest of the body spraying blood on freshly cleaned window. At the bottom detectives Shepard (played by David Carradine) and Powell (played by Richard Roundtree) is trying to resolve a mystery of missing head. He doesn’t seem very much interested in it so movie takes us to a hotel room where police finds out a body of skinned man laying in bed. They conclude it was some sort of ritual in question. Or perhaps prices of hotel room are skinning people alive. Anyway, we get to see
dramatization of skinning after which scene jumps to a big slice of pork in restaurant. Or is it a pork? Obvious mobsters are holding a meeting in there. A nervous looking wheel-man Jimmy (played by Michael Moriarty) is trying to strike a deal with mobsters for their next robbery. Meanwhile the bird has been putting the snatch on various people from New York’s rooftops. One of them is hot young chick who were getting her tan completely naked in the moment when the bird snatched her. Blood starts dripping from the sky on unsuspecting passengers and mass panic breaks out.
The robbery went wrong and now Jimmy is running around trying to escape the mobsters who want to knock him off. He climbs into the decrepit tower atop the Chrysler Building, stands shivering in the wind, and chuckles proudly to himself, “Hah. I’m almost afraid of almost everything but I’m not afraid of heights.” Then he stumbles on the nest and the cadavers strewn around it, a nightmarish sight. When he hobbles back to his trashy apartment his girlfriend mentions something about making bacon and eggs. “No eggs,” moans Jimmy, “I don’t ever want to see another egg ever.” Meanwhile, the bird snatches another victim. This time it was a construction worker who was trying to find his stolen lunch. Well, his days of eating are over. The only thing left of poor man is his leg which fell down on the street causing a mass panic to break out again.
Someone please pass me a bacon
Shepard is investigating the skinning job in local museum. The curator (played by Larkin Ford) explains to him that it is sacrificing ritual of ancient Aztecs to their God which is some kind of flying serpent named Quetzalcoatl. So Shepard takes some books, puts two and two together, figures out what’s up and shows his boss a sketch of the beast. The boss says something like, “A fifty-foot wingspan! Wow. With wings like that you could fly in from New Jersey. Everybody knows New York’s a good place to eat.” (All of this is played perfectly straight) Meanwhile, at the other side of city, the mobsters finally trap Moriarty and he promises to lead them to the money they’re after. He takes them to the Chrysler Building and sends them up into the dome where they are gobbled down by Quetzalcoatl. “HAH!”, Moriarty shrieks as he scurries away — “EAT ‘EM! EAT ‘EM!”. But couple of mobsters weren’t enough to satiate beast’s hunger. It feels munches for it’s favorite food – a naked idiots who are swimming on rooftops. So it went to the nearest building and grabbed couple of them for a road.
Is it a bird? A snake?
Jimmy marches into the police station and says he knows where the bird has it’s digs. All he is asking in return is immunity from prosecuting, exclusive rights on all photographs of the bird and, of course, one million dollars. That’s a spicy meatball! detective suggests they go into his office because there are too many reporters around. “Bring ’em in,” says Moriarty. “Bring in the cameras and the newspapers! Bring RUPERT down here!” I must say again that Moriarty does a beautiful job of creating this character. He acts stupid, with his gaping mouth, but he has a seedy kind of intelligence too, the sort of intelligence a frightened but greedy child might have. After bit of negotiating and attempted police brutality city agrees to Jimmy’s terms so he leads the cops to the secret nest where Shepard shoots the egg full of holes. And everything is filmed by movies camera. There follows an argument over whether Jimmy should get his reward. He claims he’s showed them the location, which is what he promised to do, but the police argue that just getting the egg isn’t the same as getting the bird. Seriously, where is the bird?
The bird is soaring magnificently over the city picking up on it’s next meal. Meanwhile, Cops are following the real culprit – Curator. He is ready to sacrifice himself for Q (since the blood for sacrificing must be given willingly). Powell interrupts ritual and chases cultists to the top of the building (where, for some reason, is located Statue of Liberty). That was a big mistake since the moment Powell stepped onto rooftop he got grabbed by Q and dropped down to street in hilariously animated scene. Needing another sacrificial lamb. Shepard saw entire encounter and gathered the squad who managed to shoot down the bird but not without casualties, in a scene which resembles the final scene from King Kong. Also, you should check up onto this masterpiece of animation and stop-motion in the video below.
Needing another sacrificial lamb summoner of the Q (who’s name I don’t know; he just appeared from nowhere at the end of the movie) breaks into Jimmy’s apartment trying to convince him to give willingly his body, soul and blood for the glory of Quetzalcoatl. Shepard busts in and kills the villain in a manner of the worst movie death we all know from one Turkish movie Karate Girl. It took 5 shots to kill the villain and he died 3 times. It seemed that the all loose ends were wrapped but final scene reveals to us that one egg…SURVIVED! Now we know where producers of Godzilla got their idea from.
Conclusion: The movie refuses to take itself seriously. I think sometimes the script tries to get solemn but it can’t help chuckling at itself. After all it’s about this big bird or reptile, an Aztec God, who has built a nest and laid an egg in the dome of New York’s Chrysler Building. One of the producers was being interviewed and the reporter remarked that the movie was nothing but schlock with a perfect method performance by Moriarty right in the middle of it. The producer beamed and said proudly “The schlock was my idea.” The less said about effects the better. Apart of Michael Moriarty no other character was even close to convincing. If you’re carrying around inside your head a schema of Michael Moriarty as Ben Stone, assistant DA on “Law and Order,” the grim, determined, rigidly moral prosecutor, this movie will shake you up. I won’t go on with badmouthing. After all, it gave us fair amount of fun and laughter. So, my humble opinion is that you should watch this movie if you want some cheap pass time.
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