One of three films that paired kickboxing star Jerry “Golden Boy” Trimble and Filipino exploitation directing legend Cirio H. Santiago, Live by the Fist lives up to its scuzzy action promise by delivering all the garishly dubbed violence we were hoping for in their previous effort Stranglehold! While Cirio seemed out of sorts trying to make a Die Hard type movie set in a chemical plant with Stranglehold, he re-affirms his status here as a master of the low budget action film set in prisons, warehouses, and quarries! Continue reading “Live by the Fist (1993)”
Category: 1990s
Navigators of the Space (1993)
For Bob, it was a day like any other in a cheesy minimal effort E.T. the Extraterrestrial wannabe life. Rush through breakfast so he could make the baseball game where he’d be rightfully bullied for his utter failure to hit a fastball, hit the airboat races with his family to watch his dad bring home a sweet $5000 prize and then see one of his father’s competitors get in his face about it. Later on a gator attacked their airboat, knocking dad overboard, causing Bob to lose consciousness and end up kidnapped by a UFO piloted by a talking robot with giant human-like eyes! Damn little dude, I bet you wish hadn’t been so hellbent on hurrying through your breakfast now! Continue reading “Navigators of the Space (1993)”
Witches in Stitches (1997)
On those crybaby lists of occupations that supposedly are the most stressful, there is one significant omission that makes you question whether the pilots, reporters and taxi cab drivers just happen to have great PR working on the authors of these click bait articles. I can’t think of any other reason to be explain the absence of one of the least appreciated, most dangerous avocations to ever strap on a pointy hat and mount a broom – witches! Continue reading “Witches in Stitches (1997)”
Blue Tornado (1991)
Unlike what a lot of lazy film snobs like to say, Blue Tornado is not some Top Gun meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie. It’s much more nuanced than that. It’s actually Top Gun‘s music, fetishistic shots of jet planes and pilots with awesome call signs plus an alien abduction tacked on at the end. It even actually surpasses Top Gun since while Maverick just let Goose die, Firebird hiked up a mountain and rescued Thunder from the clutches of a bunch of alien strobe lights. Kick the tires and the light the fires on that, Mav! Continue reading “Blue Tornado (1991)”
American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993)
I only ask for three things in my post-apcolypse movies about cyborgs. One is that the cyborg should be almost invincible. It’s important because over the course of 90 or so minutes, our heroes must be able to constantly battle and inflict all sorts of escalating damage on the machine.
The movie isn’t exactly going to be to a post-apocalyptic orgy of exciting violence if the cyborg craps out when some guy cuts off its hand or pulls its eye out. We can’t be standing around at the repair shop while our cyborg is up on blocks getting a new transmission put in when we could be out getting harassed by cannibalistic mutants, can we? Continue reading “American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993)”
Interceptor Force (1999)
Earth is under assault from an almost invincible alien presence! The United States government is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world, by launching a nuclear strike against the aliens! Only one group of specially trained ass kickers can prevent this holocaust from happening! They are the Interceptor Force!
Unfortunately it turns out that Interceptor Force is made up of Olivier Gruner and a couple of other guys you don’t know! And they aren’t trained to battle outer space monsters, they’re just mercenaries! And they aren’t even called Interceptor Force! But then again, the alien invasion is actually taking place in Mexico, so the U.S. is really going to make the ultimate sacrifice on Mexico’s behalf when they nuke them! Hey, it wasn’t like we told the aliens to land in Mexico or anything! Continue reading “Interceptor Force (1999)”
Dark Harvest (1992)
You can’t really blame the group of hapless campers at the center of Dark Harvest, a borderline amateur production that relentlessly proves being stranded in the desert is as boring as you would imagine, for not really understanding the magnitude of the threat they are facing. If it was man-eating scorpions or giant ants or even mutants made radioactive by years of atomic testing, you could be irritated that they’re dilly dallying around arguing with each other since any one of those threats is so obvious, they’re probably mentioned in Fodor’s. Continue reading “Dark Harvest (1992)”