After the recent news that Shout! Studios bought the U.S. rights for the new Deathstalker movie staring Daniel Bernhardt just before it’s premiere on Locarno Festival (Switzerland) we finally have the release date for the movie too! North American release date is October 10 with Shout! handling U.S. and Raven Banner handling it’s native Canada.
Japanese and German- speaking territories rights were also sold at the Locarno Festival with more to follow.
With this and the long gestatingRed Sonja reboot (coming out today!!!) this is shaping up to be a fun year for Sword and Sorcery fans. (And that’s not even counting the comicbook side with the titular Deathstalker from Vault Comics, Titan’s Conan and Savage Sword of Conan and Dynamite’s Fire and Ice.)
Just ahead of the official premiere at the 89 Locarno Film Festival Shout! Studios has closed the deal and acquired the English- speaking territory rights for the new Deathstalker movie, directed by Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman, Frankie Freako). That’s great news for us Sword and Sorcery fans- it’s been decades since the last sequel (Deathstalker IV) of the classicCorman series was in cinemas and now we can actually expect a new one later this year.
Daniel Bernhardt (Bloodsport 2, Matrix 2, John Wick) Martial Art movie veteran stars as a Deathstalker a forth actor to carry a titular role. He is joined by comedian Patton Oswald who voices the minuscule wizard Doodad as well as well Nina Bergman, Paul Lazenby and Christina Orjalo.
Deathstalker and the wizard Doodad
Movies follows the Deathstalker comicbook series by Vault, Deathstalker: The Damned Blood by Seeley ,Terry and Russelpresented by legendary guitarist Slash (Guns N’ Roses) who is also the executive producer of the movie- as well as a co-composer of the Deathstalker (2025) theme (w/ Bear McCreary and Chuck Cirino).
6 years after his unlikely comeback with Color Out of Space (staring none other than the legendary Nic Cage) Richard Stanley is back at it again. In his first UK production since his debut Hardware (1990) Stanley is preparing to shoot a Rock Festival meets Lovecraftian Horror film called Iron Donkey.
And if that isn’t enough he is casting a number of Rockstars and at least one Martial Arts star, because the first casting is surprisingly a Hong Kong action movie veteran Cynthia Rothrock (Yes, Madam, China O’Brian & Black Creek).
“The stars have aligned to conjure this dream into manifestation, a perfect storm of metal, martial arts and cosmic horror, precision calibrated to burn its way into the brains of a whole new generation of metal fans. It makes me hugely happy to be back in the UK and to be returning to my cultural roots with this supernaturally charged psychedelic hand grenade, freely inspired by a real-life misadventure from my younger years. Given the current state of the nation, I firmly believe Steel Donkeys is exactly what Britain both needs and deserves…”
Movie is to be shoot during a Bloodstock Open Air festival (in Derbyshire) in August with additional filming in KK’S Steel Mill, owned of course by none other than K.K. Downings (ex- Judas Priest). Doesn’t get much more Metal than that.
Heavy Metal meets Horror ( ala Trick or Treat) has always been one of the sub-genres we had crazy fun with, so we can’t wait to see more of this project– hopefully we won’t be waiting long.
A sheriff’s sister seeks revenge against the terrifying leader of a group of outlaws after discovering he brutally murdered her brother, his wife, and other family members in a gritty southwestern town.
For fans of 80s and 90s Martial Art flicks, movie is significant as a reunion of China O’ Brian (1990) team of Rothrock, Keith Cooke and the late, great Richard Norton almost 35years after their last film together. And the rest of the cast is also rounded out with who’s who ofold school Martial Art movies with names like Don “Dragon” Wilson, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, Keith Vitali and Ninjutsu pioneer Stephen Hayes all there.
After finally completing one long gestating project, stop- motion creature feature THE PRIMEVALS, Charles Band found another lost gem of his Full Moon filmography. It’s a Tony Todd movie he directed almost exactly 20 years ago that ran into financial trouble just 2 days before the production was supposed to end then even worse had it’s negatives lost for decades. Negatives were finally found last year and the Band was hard at work at finishing the movie and now it can finally see the light of day.
Despite being filmed in ’00s Cutter’s Club is an extremely old school horror feature with practical effects by John Carl Buechler (Halloween 4, Friday the 13th 4) and some nice cinematography by the late Mac Ahlberg (Re-Animator, From Beyond). Script was by Neal Marshall Stevens (Thirteen Ghosts).
You can see the official trailer bellow and if you like what you see you can watch the moviefor free on Tubiright now.
Back in December we spoke about the fantastic Tiger Cops: Project A short- a love letter to the 90s Hong Kong/ Girls with Guns genre in which the titular heroine Inspector Tiger (Maria Tran) finally confronts the mysterious crime boss White Ghost played by none other than Hong Kong movie villain royalty Richard Norton (Mr. Nice Guy, City Hunter, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars).
Richard Norton with “Black Bear” Sifu Damien Chauremootoo
Well, now we finally have the release date for the short film (spoiler: you won’t have to wait long) and the full trailer too. You can enjoy it bellow via Fideo youtube channel:
Starring: Maria Tran, David Hong, Wilson Zou and Richard Norton
And the fun doesn’t stop with Tiger Cop: Project A on the 17.03. because Norton also filmed a short cameo in Tran‘s next installment of her Echo 8 film series, Echo 8: Beyond that we can hopefully expect by the end of the year too. It’s a good time to be a Kung Fu movie fan for sure.
No Retreat No Surrender (1985) was at the time a rare hybrid of Hong Kong and U.S.A.– an attempt to bring Asian Martial Arts movies to American audiences. It was written by Keith Strandberg and directed by Corey Yuen (Dragons Forever, Yes, Madam) in his English language debut. (Yuen would go on to have a successful career in the west from No Retreat 2 to working on Jet Li‘s American movies like Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die & The Expendables as well as effectively launching Jason Statham as an action star with TheTransporter.) It also notably had remaining vestiges of 70s Bruceploitation genre by inexplicably having a main character being trained by a ghost of Bruce Lee (Kim Tai-Chung aka Tong Lung.)
Directed by Oliver Harper (In Search of the Last Action Heroes) documentary features interviews not only with the likes of No Retreat producer Ng See-yuen, original cast members such as Kurt McKinney, J.W. Fails, Peter “Sugarfoot” Cunningham as well as sequel’s Cynthia Rothrock and Matthias Hues but also with famous fans such as Scott Adkins(Undisputed, Ninja). The only one missing is The Muscles from Brussels himself, Mr. VanDamme.
As of now movie is over 40% financed on Kickstarter and if you want you can pre- order it right here. I have no doubt this will get to 100% in no time.
Fantastically named Urge to Kill (1989), the final movie of Derek Ford, produced by a WM regular Dick Randall (Don’t Open Till Christmas, Pieces) never got a proper release in cinemas (or even an official VHS) – but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth discussing. In fact it just might be the opposite.
Why is she green, again?
Movie starts with Peter Gordeno playing a hard- partying 80s record producer named Bono Zorro (!!!) who also has an unlikely interest in artificial intelligence (more about this soon).
During a late night working at the studio he finds a hot blond Melanie (Sally-Anne Balaam) hiding among the instruments (what are the odds), turns out she’s an up and coming singer hopeful that he would listen to her demo tape. He doesn’t but decides to take her home instead (after a bit of a striptease routine ofc).
Surprises continue as it turns out Zorro lives in a penthouse completely controlled by a state of the art (like we said) artificial intelligence Central Environment Control System aka S.E.X.Y. (acronyms aren’t his strong suit). Maybe one day people will learn we shouldn’t give all the control over to the machines.
After spending the night together Zorro rushes out of the apartment and leaves Candy alone- with a big remote controller for his A.I. She gets bored and calls her roommate Julie to come over.
She gives her some massage and a leaves her in a tanning bed while taking a shower all under the watchful (and jealous) eye of S.E.X.Y. That of course proves to be fatal. And if exploding boobs weren’t enough for her S.E.X.Y.burns Melanie turning a regular shower into an acid bath!
In the meantime Zorro visits his main girl Jane. He tells her he has a groupie back in the apartment and that he’d like her to meet her. Now, for a man living a life of debauchery Zorro seems enthusiastic about women like he’s a teenager. He tries to call her but S.E.X.Y. blows him over and says that it doesn’t compute.
When they arrive back (this movie isn’t rich with locations) they find an empty apartment but we do get his surveillance footage of two girls playing around. Plot important stuff for sure. Now, to help cure his disappointment Jane makes a call for some new bimbos and in no time a dominatrix lady Tiga and her subordinate show up, but honestly they are a downgrade compared to the first pair.
After their little performance Zorro takes a bubble bath with two of the ladies while Tiga goes to the bathroom and bizarrely gets killed by a electric toothbrush. This might be the first time I see something like that in a movie. S.E.X.Y. makes Zorro pass out and drown helpless Susan. Jane arrives in time to save him but then completely freaks out after finding detached female arms in the bath (happens to everyone)
S.E.X.Y. even manifests physicallyas a green, alien looking woman
Movie descents into madness with call girls having a cat fight with a mud- wrestling video in the background. Zorro loses his mind while Jane tries to escape by attacking the computer with a butcher knife (always a good idea). Unfortunately S.E.X.Y. doesn’t go down without a fight.
Verdict: If you’re into 80s synth music and aesthetic, sleazy and old SF this just might be the film for you. It definitely delivers on all of those fronts, now where it falters is long sequences of people just talking or making phone calls and at some point movie does get repetitive and starts to feel like a giant fever dream. But those are the limitation of Z level productions. Still, an (almost) single locationerotic horror centered around an evil computer is a hell of an idea– you got to give them that! Someone should definitely revisit that concept in the future.
...and I can’t believe this lady never made another movie!
PS In fact if Gene Simmons of KISS ever wants to get back to acting ( after Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die and cult Japanese Detroit Metal City) he should snap the rights for this one, I can totally envision him as a sleazy record producer B.Zorro and his wife Shannon Tweed as his main squeeze Jane.
After the news of the new Return of the Living Dead(1985) sequel ( expected Christmas 2025 ) it turns out there’sanother little thing brewing in the ROTLDuniverse and that’s the return of everyone’s favorite scream queen Linnea Quigley as the iconic punk redhead- Trash in Trash’s Revenge!
SHE’S BACK!
As always campaign is up and running, this time on CineBacker and you can check it out right here.
Not even a month after we got the final trailer for the long awaited Chinese Hercules documentary all the enthusiasm has seemingly evaporated. Bolo Yeung’s son David Yeung has decided to block the release of the documentary- supposedly acting on his father’s behalf.
“I am incredibly grateful to have such a loyal and supportive fanbase. However, I want to make it clear that I did not give permission to Hussar Entertainment Productions-or any other party-to create or release any documentary about me, including the recent trailer for Chinese Hercules…”
Why would he randomly decide to stop the release of the movie now when he seemingly did nothing for 5+ years of production is a mystery to me (and I doubt he was not aware of the work in progress for all these years). Now, all the hours of interviews of Bolo Yeung’s various co- stars including some who are no longer with us will be lost. And being a passion project of dedicated Bolo fans Chinese Hercules was to be released for free on their youtube channel, so there was no money to be gained either way.
Bolo & David Yeung
So, what exactly happened behind the scenes (don’t forget that one of the producers actually worked with Bolo on Diamond Cartel) and what really prompted this decision- we might never know.
Only, you don’t really need a permission to make a documentary about a public figure…
Worsemovies 