Terror Force Commando (1986)

Ripped from the headlines of 1985 which your local newspaper surely never covered! But that didn’t mean it never happened! Just that no one gave a crap about it! But if you weren’t so wrapped up watching The Goonies and rocking out to “Sussidio” then you might have realized that half a world away, events were transpiring that demanded the armed intervention of none other than Richard Harrison! Of course I’m talking about the Pope’s trip to Cameroon! Continue reading “Terror Force Commando (1986)”

Blood Debts (1985)

It’s every avid picnicker’s worst nightmare! Just when you’re settling in for a little potato salad and grab ass in the woods, a bunch of hunters show up and start shooting you and gang raping your old lady! It’s almost as bad as ants!

But this isn’t just a picnic gone horribly wrong! This is the picnic from hell because as the girl escapes her attackers, she starts yelling for her daddy! The picnic must have almost been in her backyard because her daddy comes running out of his house just in time to see his daughter blasted to death! And then they shoot him in the head! The only way this picnic could get any worse if it started raining! Continue reading “Blood Debts (1985)”

Rescue Team (1983)

Whenever it’s time to assemble yet another team to bring back more of our boys from Vietnam (watching these POW movies can leave one with the impression there are more Americans left in Vietnam than Vietnamese), special attention must be made to signing up the right combination of talents. For instance, you need an explosives or a demolitions expert, but you’re probably wasting a team slot if you take one of each since both are likely proficient at blowing up bamboo huts. (There’s nothing wrong with lots of exploding huts of course, but you don’t want it coming at the expense of guys having their throats slit by the knife expert.) Continue reading “Rescue Team (1983)”

Empire of the Dark (1990)

Empire of the Dark is like what would happen if your fat, out-of-shape, middle-aged dad who liked to stand around in the yard on the weekends with his douche friends waving swords at each other ever decided that merely being the embarrassment of the neighborhood was insufficient when there was a whole home video market he could be humiliating his relatives in. Hopefully any family members would be smart enough to steer clear of any involvement. After all, the only thing worse than one man having delusions about a career in film is passing those delusions on to his child. In some of our more liberal states, such antics may even amount to child abuse! Continue reading “Empire of the Dark (1990)”

Fireback (1983)

What’s the perfect gift for a one man army? The One Man Army Gun of course! Sensibly code-named Omega (you’ll likely have already killed everyone with Omega before you can announce its official name during battle), it’s an automatic rifle, machine gun, grenade launcher, has a mini-missile and comes with built-in radio so that you can proudly broadcast all your carnage to your envious friends whose Omega hasn’t been delivered yet! Continue reading “Fireback (1983)”

Killers Are Challenged (1966)

In what has to go down as one of the great disappointments in the history of cinema, at no time during director Antonio Margheriti‘s Killers Are Challenged does star Richard Harrison (Giants of Rome, Messalina Against the Son of Hercules ) ever utter the phrase “the name is Fleming. Bob Fleming.”

Despite being deprived of what would have certainly provoked snickers among even the actors in the scene where that line might have been uttered, the film does not disappoint in any other area as it manages to ineptly attempt to cash in on the James Bond craze of the mid 1960s with all the success of its preternaturally dimwitted lead character. Continue reading “Killers Are Challenged (1966)”

Revolt of the Praetorians (1964)

RevoltofthePraetoriansPosterThe historical record of the assassination of the Emperor Domitian being a combination of mundane palace intrigue and anti-Domitian bias clearly wasn’t the stuff of a sword and sandal fetish film starring tanned hunk Richard Harrison so it was left to first time director Alfonso Brescia to make the story much more well hung with action, all in the patented Italian style of the era. So it is then that Domitian finds himself being beset by a commando raid of jugglers lead by a midget!

It is a testament to the greatness of both the film and Brescia (Cross Mission, Beast in Space) that such an event not only didn’t seem silly, but entirely necessary! After all, those jugglers carried clubs which could be used to clout unfriendly Roman guards to unconsciousness while storming the secret passage that ran underneath the palace! Continue reading “Revolt of the Praetorians (1964)”