Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

Directed by: Sam Firstenberg

Writer: James R. Silke

 

 

After the great Revenge of the Ninja, it seemed that the producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus have found a winning formula for ninja movies. Ninja III: The Domination has the same writer and the same director as the previous movie, Sho Kosugi is here again in one of the leading roles, this time sporting a nice eyepatch over his left eye, and yet this movie is easily the weakest in the series. It's even worse than the first one.

 

The main problem, as it often happens, is a lack of quality action. Sho Kosugi is almost totally wasted here - he doesn't really start kicking ass until about one hour into the movie and only has time for one final fight with some bad guy, which was OK, but certainly nothing special. In the meantime we have some mainly uninspired killings by a girl who's possessed by some evil spirit, which leads us to another problem...

 

... which is that the story is stupid beyond belief! I don't know what kind of weed did Silke consume when he was writing this, but he made some kind of horror-action story that features evil spirits, possessions and even an exorcism! Take that, William Friedkin! Your movie may also have demons and exorcism, but it certainly doesn't have any ninjas! While I'm generally not against this kind of genre mixing, here it simply doesn't work. There's no memorable antagonist and the lame "horror" scenes consume valuable time, which could have been better used for some real ninja action.

 

Actually, the only reason to ever watch this is an amazing opening scene, which is perhaps the best sequence in the entire series. It features an evil ninja (actually another man possessed by the evil spirit or some evil sword or similar crap) killing some people on a golf course and then having an encounter with the police. You don't see such a carnage every day and it will surely fill your heart with joy to see so many dead policemen. This ninja is one mean mother and the way he kills dozens of cops with so little effort is simply amazing. For example, he gets rid of a helicopter pilot by throwing a shuriken at him with his foot (!) and kills some other cop by blowing a dart into the barrel of his gun.

 

Unfortunately, when this wonderful encounter ends, you can just turn off the movie because the best part is over. While this was the end of the Golan-Globus Ninja series with Sho Kosugi, they immediately went on to create another legendary ninja brand, American Ninja. We will talk about that one (and its sequels, of course) some other time.

Community (2012)

Directed by: Jason Ford

Writer: Jason Ford

I don't even remember anymore why I decided to watch this - since there's no plot summary on IMDb, it must have been because of the cool poster. They say "don't judge a book by its cover", well I think that's a load of bollocks. For example, I bought what turned out to be one of my favourite albums of all time without having ever heard of the band, solely based on the brilliant cover art by Roger Dean (the album is Aura by Asia, if anyone cares). While Community doesn't quite reach that status among movies, I'm certainly glad I've seen it.

 

Fortunately, the official site of the production company does offer a brief plot summary, so I'll just paste it from there instead of bothering to explain it myself. Here it goes:

 

"The Draymen Estate has become an urban legend. Amongst the sinister stories of strange locals and brutal violence, people have gone missing there. Two student filmmakers visit the estate in the hope their documentary will land them a lucrative career. Within minutes they are introduced to a skinned dog in a shallow grave. They quickly discover that behind the awkward smiles, the adults appear to be on drugs whilst the children roam wildly, further proof that this estate is a breeding ground for the darker side of society. A society which is about to present the students with material of unimaginable horror, turning their final project into their darkest nightmare."

 

The way the writer/director Jason Ford translated this story to the screen is worthy of an applause. He doesn't hesitate to explicitly show violence when it's needed, but never ventures into the pointless torture porn territory. The atmosphere is great - all the time there's this creepy, unsettling feeling that something lurks in the darkness nearby and this is mainly thanks to the supporting characters, who are so convincing that it's almost disturbing. I don't know where Ford found these people and how many of them are professional actors, but the way they look... boy, that's something you've got to see. In most of the films when you have a bad guy who's supposed to be insane, you'll see him screaming, shouting, swearing or generally overacting to the point when you just want to slap him on the face and say "shut up, bitch!". But these people seem like they don't need to pretend they're insane at all - you can see the insanity on their very faces (this, of course, is not an insult to the actors, but a compliment to them and the director, I hope that much's obvious :-) )! While, in terms of mere distance, the Draymen Estate is just a short bus ride away from the civilized world, it's actually a completely different world - kind of like something from a Clive Barker story, just without monsters.

 

My favourite scene is when this guy stands in front of his house and starts twitching and growling like monster and it makes you think he's about to turn into a werewolf and then similar growling is heard from everywhere! And at the same time, the two main characters are somewhere nearby, with no means of escape. I won't tell you what exactly causes the insanity in adults and children alike, but suffice it to say that the members of the community are very fond of weed and they have a rather original way of fertilizing it.

 

While the first half of the movie is almost a pure perfection, I'm afraid I can't say the same about the rest. It seems as if Jason Ford had revealed all his cards at the beginning and didn't have a clear picture of what to do next. There are some plot "twists" that are downright predictable and the story drags in a few places. Of course, I have to stress out that the movie is never boring and that even the weaker second half is much better than most recent horror movies. So, you'd do yourself a great favour if you ignored the surprisingly low IMDb rating and checked out this cool film. And I'm adding Jason Ford to the list of people whose future projects I'll definitely check out.

Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

Directed by: Sam Firstenberg

Writer: James R. Silke

That's more like it! This "sequel" to Enter the Ninja is a vastly superior movie in every possible way. Better action, better characters, more interesting story, more ninjas (!), more deaths, all in all - much more fun.

 

Of course (we'll see this again in another "sequel", Ninja III), the film opens with some cool ninja action and a massive slaughter, which, unlike the one in the previous movie, happens to be real. Some nasty ninjas invade Sho Kosugi's peaceful home in his absence and kill his entire family. He arrives on the scene with an American sidekick too late to save the dear ones, but just in time to eliminate all of the attackers. The only person that survived the massacre is his newborn son.

 

Disillusioned with the ninja lifestyle that had cost him (almost) his entire family, Kosugi accepts his American sidekick's offer to move to America. Six years later, he's indeed in America, where he runs some kind of ninja gallery. His son is now a small schoolboy, but no less an asskicker than his dad, as we will see. Right at the beginning he easily dispatches a small group (five or six, I think) of annoying American bullies, but he does much more later in the movie.

 

The last person you should trust, if you're a Japanese, is your American sidekick. Sho Kosugi's American sidekick proves this when it turns out that he's actually a vicious heroine smuggler that uses his friend's (Kosugi's, that is) ninja figures to hide the drug. Bastard! Chaos ensues when the American sidekick gets pissed off at a mafia boss who's his potential buyer. He goes on murderous rampage that you have to see to believe it. He sports a black ninja outfit, complete with a scary mask that hides his face, so we technically don't know it's him, except that we do know it's him. But what's more important, he eliminates so many people so easily that it's just insane.

 

Then the town officials get concerned that this insane bastard might eliminate the entire US population, so they enlist the help of Sho Kosugi, because only a ninja can kill a ninja (!). And by the way, that other evil ninja also kidnapped his son in the process. As you might expect, the ultimate battle between the two ninjas (both of them wearing fine black outfits, the only difference being the bad guy's mask) takes place. I won't say it's as epic as, say, Bruce Lee's fight with Karim-Abdul Jabaar in Game of Death, but it's pretty damn close. Sure, they do a bit of that silly hand stuff at the beginning, but when it gets to the actual fight, it's great. This fight is also a bit silly at times, because the evil ninja for some reason teases Sho Kosugi with some special effects. For example, he reaches out of the pool and grabs his leg and when Kosugi cuts off his arm, it turns out it's an artificial arm. Weird.

 

All in all, this is simply a must see, not only for ninja fans, but for any action lover and B-movie fan in general. Almost non stop action, great choreography, charismatic bad guy, Sho Kosugi, even a cute blonde thrown in for a good measure... everything you could possibly want from a movie!



Black Rock (2012)

Directed by: Katie Aselton

Writers: Mark Duplass (screenplay), Katie Aselton (story)

Oh, well, here's one that's not so bad, but you won't really miss much if you skip it. It's all been done before, and it's been done better.

 

The story is as simple as they get - three girls (two of which can't stand each other because one of them screwed the other's boyfriend a few years earlier) go to some deserted island to have some fun (not that kind of fun, you sick bastard!) and perhaps rekindle some childhood memories, I don't really know. Don't blame me, I watched this from my laptop and the sound was crappy and I could hardly understand a word they were saying.

 

Not that it all matters much - what's more important is that three guys unexpectedly appear and you pretty much know what will happen. One of the girls (played by the director herself) gets drunk and starts seducing one of the guys, but when they get to a solitary place in the woods, she changes her mind and the guy is understandably less than happy, so he, as any real man would do, starts to force his way in. Abby (that's the name of the girl) is understandably less than happy about this turn of events, so she, as any real woman would do, hits him in the head with a large rock, causing him to abandon this cruel world rather prematurely (well, that's the word his mother would probably use, on the other hand most people wouldn't feel his death was a terrible blow to society).

 

When his two friends find out about this, they are understandably less than happy, and they, as all real friends would do, go for a revenge (meaning: the killing of all three girls). Our heroines are understandably less than happy about this and a desperate fight for survival ensues.

 

While the movie was generally well directed (I will leave out an obvious sexist joke here), especially when it comes to the treatment of the actual violence, which had an impact, but wasn't overly graphic, there were some problems that marred its potential. First of all, for the most part, the tension is ruined by the bad treatment of the villains. The main one doesn't look terribly smart, but at the same time he's horribly over the top, while his sidekick is too tame. So, the paradox is, even though some rather bad things happen to the girls, we never feel the bad guys are really much of a threat. Katie and her writing partner Mark Duplass should have drawn much more influence from classics like The Hills Have Eyes and Deliverance.

 

The screenplay has its ups and downs, but to explain it in detail would mean to spoil most of the movie. Generally, I think the whole cheating story should have been left out (after all, the viewers don't need to know the real reasons of the animosity between the girls) and some dialogs could have been improved. There are also some really stupid decisions by the characters, the most problematic of which is the attempt to reach a boat by swimming through the cold water. But, on the other hand, I'm thankful for this, since it leads to a totally unexpected scene, which we will call the freezing scene. This is my favourite part of the movie, for all the wrong reasons, hehehee. Anyway, I would also prefer a higher body count, but that's just nitpicking really.

 

Overall, a solid fight-for-survival (TM) story, not exactly The Hills Have Eyes, but certainly worth a look. Especially the freezing scene :-)

Enter the Ninja (1981)

Directed by: Menahem Golan

Writers: Dick Desmond (screen story and screenplay), Mike Stone (story)

We're gonna take a short break from all those horror movies and go into something completely different - a ninja movie! Having ninjas in movies warms my heart and fills it with joy. I know nothing about martial arts, but I sure like ninjas! Having said that, this movie was rather crappy :-(

 

Franco Nero plays some American guy who at the beginning kicks some serious ninja ass and kills many people, only it turns out that they're actually not dead because it was all part of his ninja training. Why would they bother with all those special effects, I have no idea. For example, his final step was to cut off the head of some old dude (apparently his teacher or something), but it turns out he didn't really do it, it was just a doll. Anyway, he becomes a ninja (sporting a cool white ninja outfit) and everyone's happy except Sho Kosugi, playing a mean spirited black ninja who, as I have understood, hates the fact that some whitey has become a ninja.

 

After finishing his training in Japan, Franco Nero travels to Philippines to visit some old friend and his wife. They own some kind of property, complete with fruit, workers and stuff, but they have problems with a rich bastard played by Christopher George, who wants to buy the land from them by force because there's oil there. Nero steps in, kills an insane amount of people and goes for Christopher George and his goofy henchmen.

 

There are two main problems with this movie: First, it can't decide whether it wants to be a comedy or straight action film. Nero is dead serious in the lead role (and he looks like Oliver Reed, too!), while Christopher George's villain is some kind of buffoon who you simply can't take seriously, which takes a lot of the impact of the action. Speaking of action, that's the second problem - there are some good fights, but there's simply not enough ninja action! Franco Nero kick ass left and right, it's true, but he rarely wears his supercool white costume. Sho Kosugi is good, but he doesn't have enough screen time. The inevitable fight between the two of them at the end is too short. So, the best part of the movie happens to be the opening credits, where some guy dressed in black (Kosugi himself, I presume) does some ninja stuff over some nice percussive music.

 

This is the first part of a "trilogy" of ninja films which have nothing in common except that all of them are produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and have Sho Kosugi (but each time in a different role). I have already seen the "sequel", Revenge of the Ninja, and I can tell you already that it's much, much better than this one. It will be reviewed in a few days.

The Sleeper (2012)

Directed by: Justin Russell

 

Writer: Justin Russell

 

 

 

 

Well, for a change here's a new slasher film that doesn't suck! This achievement is made even more spectacular by the mere fact that this is a direct rip-off of Black Christmas, the legendary movie that (almost) started it all (and it also happens to be one of my favourite movies). When you mess with a legend, you can easily get burned. Ask Glen Morgan for example - his official Black Christmas remake was stupid unwatchable crap. So, what did Justin Russell (the writer, director and pretty much everything else here) do to avoid the pitfalls that are usually the death of most of his colleagues?

The most important thing is that he tried his best to make this look like a real damn movie and not like some crappy home video. Most of the scenes are carefully set and there are some really nice establishing shots. The movie actually takes place in 1981 and I can only congratulate the director on the bravery of attempting to recreate the era in such a low budget movie. While he doesn't succeed completely (certainly not as Ti West did with The House of the Devil), you still get a refreshing feeling of something different - the clothes, the music, the interiors, etc. - it's all done very nicely, the only small problem is, as one IMDb reviewer has nicely observed, that the photography is a bit too polished for the time. But that's just a minor objection. One great consequence of this setting if that finally we get a break from listening to teenagers bitching about their cell phones not having a signal.

As I said, the movie heavily borrows from Bob Clark's Black Christmas without an ounce of shame. There's a sorority, there's a lot of girls, some boys, mysterious killer, scary telephone calls and everything else. There are many people here (some would say - too many), which is great for at least two reasons: 1) They don't have enough screen time to "develop" and become irritating, and 2) It's more victims for the killer! Seriously though, except for the two guys, pretty much no one was getting on my nerves too much.

The weak link here are the murder scenes. Russell has obviously studied the classic slashers well, which is evident by his building of the tension through the camera positions, the murderer POV, etc., but the murders themselves are either badly directed and edited, or they are ruined by bad special effects. For example, the first murder features a surprisingly explicit head violence scene - the killer raises a hammer above a completely unaware Jessica Cameron and where most other directors would make a cut and show a wall behind being sprayed with blood, Russell bravely decides to explicitly show how the hammer hits, and ultimately breaks, the poor victim's head. The problem is that the head model is horribly unconvincing which takes a lot from the effect of the scene. The same goes for the beheading scene later in the movie, where the severed head is shown, but again the model looks very bad. Nobody expected Tom Savini, but I'm sure there are people who could have done a better job with the same amount of money. And while I can only congratulate the director on showing almost all of the murders explicitly, the way those scenes are cut, the way the victims and the killer move, it's simply not convincing enough.

As I said above, due to the large number of characters, the body count is significantly higher than in most similar movies and killer is really entertaining with his prank calls and crying into the phone (?!) and similar weird things. Strangely, the killer's face is shown from the very beginning, yet we never learn who the hell he is. I actually like this, it adds a strange feeling of mystery.

The ending deliberately features every single horror cliché we have seen before: the victim runs, the killer walks; the killer is killed, but he isn't dead; the killer (previously extremely efficient) suddenly turns into a complete moron when faced with The Final Girl et cetera - all those things we loved in the old movies. There's also a completely gratuitous dance scene, the weirdest one since Calvaire, yet somehow strangely cool due to the great disco music.

All in all, I am very satisfied with this movie and I'll pay attention to Russell's further efforts. I'm already looking forward to seeing his Dead Stop Holocaust. He just has to pay some more attention to his murder scenes and he's good to go.

Blue Monkey (1987)

Directed by: William Fruet

Writer: George Goldsmith

This is why I love the eighties, the best decade in the history of humankind! Not because this movie is any kind of unforgettable masterpiece - it's far from it. In fact, for the standards of that wonderful decade, it's a completely average monster flick that you watch today and forget tomorrow. The catch is - that completely average 80's monster movie would easily blow to pieces 98% of today's genre offering with one hand tied behind its back.

 

Contrary to what you might expect from the title, there are no monkeys of any kind here, much less blue ones, though it would certainly be cool to see a blue monkey wreaking havoc and killing people. But let's not underestimate the villain here - while not being monkey (not to mention the lack of blueness), the giant insect does its best to bring as much pain and sorrow as possible.

 

The story takes place in a hospital, where a patient is admitted after somehow being hurt by a plant (!) Soon more and more people are coming and it seems a giant epidemic is about to take place. Things get worse when a huge parasite gets out of the man's mouth, runs away and gets in contact with some growth hormones. It transforms into a giant ant-like creature and the fun begins.

 

The screenplay is a bit confusing at first, with its somewhat unusual combination of the epidemic and the giant monster storyline, but we don't care about the story anyway. We want to see hideous monster violence, and we do get it! A first few killings are shot in that slightly irritating monster POV style that's mostly used for the budget reasons rather than the artistic ones, but at the later stage of the movie we see the monster in full glory (ah, those wonderful pre-CGI days!) together with some cool beheadings and other kinds of killing. The characters are the usual suspects - a concerned cop, a brave female doctor, a goofy scientist guy who's fascinated with the monster, a small kid, etc. Those clichés are certainly not irritating in any way - it's just how things go. Remember, what we don't have are retarded jocks, irritating stoners, blonde sluts, stupid idiots that make dirty "jokes" all the time etc.

 

As I said, the monster looks rather good and the rest of the technicalities is also completely fine. The music is of that stringy type that's usually used to build the atmosphere in the disease movies and it does a pretty good job here, too. The direction also does the job - you won't run away screaming to another room, but there's a good rhythm that keeps you entertained and when violence comes, it's mostly shown in full glory.

 

To tell the true, I've never heard of this movie before I found it on a friend's HD a few years ago. It's not unusual that it didn't make any kind of impact - in the eighties monster movies were on fire, we had Tremors, we had Slugs, various kinds of killing alligators, insects, sharks, octopuses, ants... Imagine an animal - there was a movie with that animal. Today of all animals we have sharks and an occasional crocodile, that's it. All other horror movies are either about zombies or ghosts or just some found footage crap that's not actually about anything. Watching older movies is like having a glass of nice cold water on a hot day. And it's not just about horror - I'm preparing to watch a truckload of ninja movies these days! Yyyyyyyyyyeaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!