What happens when you team a pair of Italian trash cinema vets like David Warbeck (The Ark of the Sun God, Karate Rock) and Janet Agren (Hands of Steel, Karate Warrior) with director Tonino Ricci, a man with his own sterling Italian schlock resume of which Rush and A Man Called Rage are just a few of the highlights, and turn the whole lot of them loose with a camera crew in Britain? Panic! Pure monster prowling in the sewers panic! Why, after seeing this movie, I’ll never feel safe hanging around in my local sewers ever again! Continue reading “Panic (1982)”
Category: David Warbeck
Miami Golem (1985)
At some point in Miami Golem, I realized that local TV reporter Craig Milford was quite low functioning, albeit still adept at handling a firearm and piloting an airboat through the Florida Everglades.
But it wasn’t because he only halfheartedly said it was crazy and didn’t immediately dump his new girlfriend when she said the strange things he recorded at the university lab weren’t a message from Atlantis but from aliens from another dimension. (If a woman is hot enough her crazy talk doesn’t really register.) Continue reading “Miami Golem (1985)”
Arizona Road (1991)
Fabrizio De Angelis takes a break from making Karate Warrior movies to terrorize the undoubtedly flummoxed residents of Arizona yet again with a tale of a whiskey-soaked gold prospector, a wayward nun, and a dues-paying Antonio Sabato, Jr. Continue reading “Arizona Road (1991)”
Mean Tricks (1992)
From the absurdly spectacular slow motion shoot out on the docks that opens the film all the way until star Charles Napier (Hornsby) banters with his local partner Rodriguez and their sexy sidekick about Rodriguez marrying her despite him having heard Hornsby screw her while she was wearing a wire earlier in the movie, Umberto Lenzi‘s Mean Tricks is an appallingly proficient bad ass cop movie that not only delivers every cliche you freaking demand from such films (Rodriguez’s gruff captain is nicknamed Iron Balls!), but in the best Italian movie tradition invents its own along the way! Continue reading “Mean Tricks (1992)”
Karate Rock (1990)
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been stopped on the streets of my all-American small town and asked which of Fabrizio De Angelis‘ karate movies, Karate Warrior or Karate Rock, was better. That’s a lot like asking a fellow which of his step-kids he hates the most. Sure, you hate them all, but in different ways. Continue reading “Karate Rock (1990)”
Karate Warrior 6 (1993)
As Karate Warrior embarked on his sixth, final and most majestically numbskull quest ever, I found myself overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. After six films, I had spent more time with Karate Warrior than I had with my own father!
Wrestling with the sense of loss now that this journey was finally ending, I found a semblance of peace as I recalled the words of one of the great philosophers of our time who said “here at last, on the shores of the sea… comes the end of our Fellowship. I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.”
And Gandalf the White was right! It was totally ok to shed some tears over Karate Warrior’s last adventure! Tears of laughter! Continue reading “Karate Warrior 6 (1993)”
Karate Warrior 5 (1992)
Karate Warrior’s girlfriend kidnapped and held for ransom! One of Karate Warrior’s closest friends and newly inducted member of the legendary Extra Large Club of America implicated! A monster of a man training relentlessly for a deadly showdown at the iconic second floor strip mall karate club (right above the “Wide Fashion” store) where all of Karate Warrior’s biggest victories have taken place! And Karate Warrior only has time to train for about 30 seconds with Sensei and hoping that Sensei’s patented Most Respected Sternum Punch can somehow overcome all the freaking odds of all previous Karate Warrior movies put together! Continue reading “Karate Warrior 5 (1992)”