Category Archives: Low Budget

Stunts (1977)

stunts

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who’s killing the stuntmen?

Glen (Robert Forster) decides to join a movie production working as a stuntman when his brother mysteriously dies while doing a routine stunt. Soon more stuntmen meet similar fates. Will Glen be able to find out who’s behind these deaths before he becomes the next victim?

Director Mark L. Lester has done a lot of these standard low budget flicks and has achieved moderate success with them. The story itself is pretty basic and really doesn’t offer all that much tension or interest, but the pace is brisk and some of the stunt work entertaining. On a low-grade level it is okay.

I love Forster’s blunt, blue collar, say-it-like-it-is attitude and his presence elevates the story immensely. Bruce Glover who is the father of Crispin Glover plays one of the fellow stuntmen. Like his son he usually plays weird and eccentric characters, but here plays a normal one who you are even sympathetic to, which was a surprise turn.

The women characters aren’t locked into any dainty stereotype and are as tough and gruff as the men and I liked it. Fiona Lewis plays a journalist looking to write an article and what makes up the personality of stunt people and why they do it. She curses as much as Forster if not more and although the two eventually get into a relationship after a rocky start they continue to spar, which is fun. The beautiful Joanna Cassidy seems like just one of the guys and does all the same dangerous stunts they do and even knocks two guys flat on the their asses during a barroom brawl.

Candice Rialson doesn’t fare quite as well. Her best assets are with her clothes off and trying to turn her a dramatic actress clunks. She doesn’t even have a single nude scene here, which seemed almost like a waste. However, the segment where she keeps flubbing up her lines and they have to do continual reshoots to the consternation of the director (Malachi Thorne) is amusing.

The DVD issue from Synergy Entertainment, which is the same version you get if you buy or rent it from Amazon Instant is atrocious and looks like it was transferred straight off of a faded VHS tape. To some extent I was willing to forgive it as the graininess help reflect the low budget drive-in feel, but this version also edits out any time a character says the F-word, which got annoying. The picture is so blurry I couldn’t even read the credits to find out who did the catchy title tune ‘Daredevil is Gonna Make an Angel Out of You’, but whoever did it did well as it has a nice gritty beat and fun lyrics.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 12, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

Cracking Up (1977)

cracking up

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: It’s the big one.

It’s finally happened the earthquake that destroys California and leaves the entire state in total chaos. News reporters cover the destruction in a parody style and features young comic performers like Michael McKean, David L. Lander, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer and Edie McClurg at the start of their careers and doing their own material.

This film works a bit like Roger Corman’s Gas-Or-It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save it in that it has an animated opening and tries to somehow correlate mass destruction while only filming a small set piece inside a studio back-lot. Corman’s film at least had some edgy humor and a cinematic style, but this has neither. It is almost like a low budget comedy variety show with skits that have nothing to do with the main theme. The film has no pace or momentum and slogs along until it becomes utterly boring.

It takes till the final half-hour before any of the otherwise lame humor becomes even passably funny. Of the stuff that I found moderately amusing was the comedian at a roadside diner who beats up an audience member when he doesn’t laugh enough at his stupid jokes there is also a mailman who delivers a dead corpse to a couple who try to come up with different ways to make it useful. The segment where Fred Willard tries to sell a customer a mattress even though the customer thinks he is talking about his penis is okay and the commercial showing a trucker advertising the use of adult diapers and even getting out of his cab wearing one deserves some credit.

However, the majority of the stuff is so mind numbing unfunny that is becomes almost hard to believe. I started to think that the premise of the film was to make it a joke on the audience like with Andy Kaufman reading a long boring novel or the 60’s film from the Netherlands where a man gets in front of the camera and hurls insults and profanities for ninety minutes simply to see how much an audience can take before they would leave. If that was the case then this film almost succeeds and the best advice would be to skip it and not be the intended victim.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: July 4, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 15Minutes

Rated R

Director: Chuck Staley

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video

Alucarda (1977)

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Another Exorcist rip-off

Justine (Susana Kamini) arrives at a convent after the death of her parents. She meets up with a strange young woman named Alucarda (Tina Romero) who almost immediately professes her true love for Justine and the two make a weird pact. Alucarda then seems to become possessed and it rubs off on Justine sending the nuns and priest at the convent into a panicked frenzy to rid both girls and the place from the evil presence.

This bizarre, cheap Mexican production comes off like someone’s drug induced acid trip. Yet it has still managed to acquire a small cult following and even has one reviewer at IMDB calling it ‘brilliant’ even though I found it to be anything but and only reconfirms that there is somebody out there that will like anything. Juan Lopez Moctezuma’s direction is unfocused and undisciplined. The story borders on being almost incoherent with wild twists and story arches that occur at a breakneck pace. The special effects are tacky and there isn’t a single scare in the whole thing.

This supposedly takes place in the 18th century, but the priest wears a wardrobe that looks like he is from China even though the setting is Mexico and the outfits worn by the nuns defy any era and appear to be made by a costume designer who was drunk. The pounding rock-like score has a resemblance to music from Tangerine Dream, but a much weaker version and doesn’t connect with the time period that the story is in. It has elements that will remind you of Suspira and Ken Russell’s The Devils, but both of those films are far superior to this one and only make you wish you were watching those instead.

The acting is amateurish and over-the-top, but star Romero has an interesting look in her eyes and reminded me a bit of a young Genevieve Bujold. There is an abundance of nudity and low-grade eroticism that may make it appealing to some. I did get a kick out of the way the nuns and priest overact and wilt at simply the mention of the devil and Satanism, which I found to be unintentionally funny.

This is just another attempt to cash in on the success of The Exorcist and like the rest of them fails miserably. This isn’t entertaining even on a camp level and I would suggest avoiding it completely.

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My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: March 10, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 14Minutes

Rated R

Director: Juan Lopez Moctezuma

Studio: Yuma Films

Available: DVD

To All a Goodnight (1980)

to all a goodnight

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Santa stalks sorority babes.

An initiation stunt at a girl’s sorority house goes horribly wrong and one young woman falls to her death off of a balcony. Two years later the girls get ready for a Christmas party by inviting some boys over and soon they are all getting down-and-dirty, but then someone dressed in a Santa Claus suit begins hacking them off one-by-one.

I’m a big fan of David Hess who directed this feature as I feel his performance as Krug in the classic horror movie Last House on the Left was effectively intense and this film is also written by Alex Rebar who starred in the cheesy cult flick The Incredible Melting Man, so I wanted to cut this movie some slack, but found that I couldn’t. Things start out bad from the very beginning with a tacky flashback sequence that is wretchedly acted and photographed and then things go straight downhill from there. Part of the problem is that the scenes featuring extraneous dialogue between a lot of bland, cardboard characters that is usually used at the beginning of most 80’s slasher flicks as a sort of set-up, but here they get strung along throughout the entire movie. The killings themselves are brief and paced so infrequently that you start to forget that this is supposed to be a horror film. The tension is nil and having a setting dealing with snarky, snotty and horny sorority babes is a tiresome cliché.

The killings themselves are poorly photographed in dark lighting, so it is difficult to follow the action. The special effects are cheap and unimpressive. One scene features a couple getting killed while they have sex, which is a poor rip-off of the same scene that was done in Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood. Some fans of the film boast about the scene featuring a death of two people by an airplane propeller, but this is really no big deal because all you see are a few seconds of blood splattering on the outside of the plane and that’s it.

The script is illogical and full of a lot of loopholes. The identity of the killer turns out to be two people using the same disguise, which doesn’t make sense for several different reasons, which is too may to elaborate here. There is also a Leia character played by Judith Bridges who gets accosted by the killer in a shower stall while being completely naked, but for some reason is not killed and instead we see her at the end dancing some nutty dance, but with no explanation as to why. The policemen hired to protect the girls after the first victim is found dead do not dress in uniform and instead look like they are ready to go out to a club to pick up chicks and behave like it, which seemed wholly unprofessional and ridiculous.

Jennifer Runyon makes her film debut here. She had a brief 13-year-run, which included a co-starring role in the 80’s series ‘Charles in Charge’, but has not appeared in anything since 1993’s Carnosaur. She is certainly easy on the eyes, but her voice is too high-pitched and sounds almost like she is 8 or 9 years old or someone who has sucked up helium. Hess also casts his mother Judy Hess in a small role as Mrs. Ronsoni although in the closing credits it gets incorrectly listed as Mr. Ronsoni.

Despite being set at Christmas the action takes place in the warm tropical climate of California, which is okay, but the expectation for a Christmas movie is to have snow and cold. Having the girls trapped in their house because of the frigid weather or being chased by the killer while trudging through deep snow could’ve helped heighten the tension and added an atmosphere.

The pounding electronic music score is the only thing that I liked and helped give this otherwise static and forgettable production a slight distinction.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: January 30, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes (VHS Print)

Rated R

Director: David Hess

Studio: Intercontinental Releasing Corporation

Available: VHS

Sitting Ducks (1980)

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Running from the mob.

Simon (Michael Emil) and Sidney (Zach Norman) are two average guys with vastly different temperaments who decide to rip-off the mob by stealing their entire day’s collections. They then hide the money in the tires of their car while driving off with it to Florida where they hope to catch a chartered flight that will take them to Costa Rica. Along the way they meet up with two ditzy ladies (Irene Cagen, Patrice Townsend) as well as a chauffeur (Richard Romanus) who dreams of being a singer.

Michael Emil, who is the brother of the director Henry Jaglom, is a very poor actor and comes off as a third-rate Woody Allen. He talks incessantly about all his neurotic problems in a monotone style that has no voice inflections or facial gestures and ends up becoming more boring than funny and he is easily outperformed by his co-star Norman. Townsend, the director’s then wife, is not much better. She shows no ability at creating a character and seems to just mouth all her lines while having this big smile plastered on her face. The overall production has an amateurish look and the story itself seems like two movies rolled into one. The first part starts out like an intriguing crime caper and then the second part becomes this free spirited road movie. It would have worked better had they taken just one of the story lines to its satisfying conclusion instead of having two unsatisfying half stories. The set-up is great, but then doesn’t go anywhere with it and the ‘big’ twist that occurs near the film’s final fifteen minutes doesn’t work and has a bunch of loopholes in it that are a mile wide.

I did like the film’s free-form style that is lacking in many of today’s Hollywood produced movies that have too much of a rapid fire pace. The characters all have a wide assortment of fun quirks and their offbeat conversations are amusing. Richard Romanus, as the group’s chauffeur and struggling musician, comes off best and his songs aren’t bad either and the scene where Simon and Sidney try to have an ‘important’ discussion while walking through a field of cackling chickens is a gem.

This forerunner to the independent film movement has a few good quirky moments and characters, but it never comes together enough to be completely satisfying. Although overall it is still enough to find enjoyable.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 4, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 27Minutes

Rated R

Director: Henry Jaglom

Studio: International Rainbow

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

Punishment Park (1971)

punishment park 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Grueling race in desert.

Political radicals from the Vietnam era are arrested and then giving a choice between either spending time in federal prison or participating in a grueling race in the desert known as ‘Punishment Park’. A news crew comes along to cover the events, but finds that the soldiers hired to monitor the race use increasingly brutal treatments on the participants and the violence and elements soon get out-of-hand. Tempers and emotions run high and ugly, angry confrontations abound.

This film really packs a punch. It has a lot of raw emotion that seems missing in so many other films. Director Peter Watkins allowed the cast to ad-lib and his loose style helps create a vivid and unpredictable atmosphere. The ongoing arguments between the prisoners and those hired to judge and interrogate them is very entertaining and the highlight of the whole film. The editing between the interrogations and the race is sharp and intense.  The violence and most especially the ending is brutal and disturbing. Despite this being a pseudo-documentary it is so skillfully done that it seems very much like the real thing.

The only flaw with the film is the fact that no policemen would allow the film crew to go free, or at least not destroy their footage after capturing their brutal and unlawful methods. Most likely the crew would have ended up receiving the same ugly fate as the other victims.

This is a very emotionally charged film that should get a strong reaction from anyone who sees it. This is also a great chance to see independent filmmaking before it was trendy and working completely outside of the mainstream.

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My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 9, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Watkins

Studio: Sherpix

Available: DVD (Region 1 and 2), Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

Streetwalkin’ (1985)

streetwalkin

By Richard Winters

My Rating:  6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Runaway turns to prostitution.

The actress I had a crush on when I was growing up was Julie Newmar best known as Catwoman from the old ‘Batman’ TV-series. I know that there have been several other actresses that have played the part, but Julie always brought in a sensual level that the others didn’t.  She also had a perfect hour glass figure and in that skin tight costume what man young or old could resist her. The fact that she balanced her performances with a hammy side, which the producers allowed her to freely ad-lib, is what always made her appearances on the show for me as an 11-year old kid, much anticipated and special.

Her Catwoman role was by far not the only thing that she did as she also starred in her own series as Rhoda the Robot in the TV-show ‘My Living Doll’ with Bob Cummings. She was also nominated for an Emmy for her performance in two memorable episodes of the classic series ‘Route 66’. In fact her performance here as the quirky non-conformist Vicki Russell I feel is the best of her career and now that this great show is finally available on DVD it would be well worth checking out.

Her movie credits aren’t too bad either. She co-starred in the classic 50’s musical ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ and also recreated her Tony award winning role as an over-sexed Swedish woman tempting her staid American host (James Mason) into fathering her baby. She also starred in ‘For Love or Money’ with Kirk Douglas and ‘Mackenna’s Gold’ with Gregory Peck. This was probably her best film performance as she plays a volatile and aggressive Indian woman and has no dialogue, but does appear nude from the backside.

In 1977 she married for the first time and dropped out of the business in order to spend more time with her husband. However, by 1983 it had ended in divorce and when she tried to get back into the movies she found the pickings to be slim. She co-starred with Tina Louise (Ginger from ‘Gilligan’s Island) in a film called ‘Evils of the Night’ that looked like it was made on a budget that wouldn’t be enough to buy a happy meal at McDonald’s. Her other film roles from the 80’s and 90’s weren’t much better with the possible exception being this one.

Here she plays the part of Queen Bee an older prostitute who befriends Cookie (Melissa Leo) who has run away from home with her brother and just starting out as a streetwalker. When Cookie realizes that her pimp/boyfriend Duke (Dale Midkiff) has beaten up her friend Heather (Deborah Offner) she becomes afraid of him and decides to start working for a new pimp. When the vengeful Duke becomes aware of the betrayal he begins to stalk her, which forces her to go on the run.

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For the most part I found this film to be redundant. Yes it is hard hitting and at times quite vulgar and graphic, but it really doesn’t show anything we haven’t seen before. The storyline is basic and predictable. The scene where Duke beats up Heather is unpleasant and a bit unsettling. If this film managed to give us some new insight into the life of a prostitute I might have given it some credit, but it doesn’t and instead becomes intent in wallowing in its own sordidness.

Of course if you’re into trashy cinema then this thing might do the trick (no pun intended). The film has a tight pace and it is never boring. The fight scenes are well choreographed and for the most part realistic looking and for whatever reason I found myself caught up in the story during the second half and seeing whether our heroine would escape the relentless psycho.

Leo is excellent and it is no surprise that she would later go on to have an impressive acting career and even win the Oscar. She shows a nice vulnerability and creates a character that is real and appealing.

Midkiff is impressive as the brutal pimp. The part where he tears up Cookie’s apartment in a psychotic rage is intense and well handled.

Newmar isn’t seen much in the first half, but comes on strong at the end. I loved seeing her shooting at Duke with a gun and when he escapes out onto the streets she gets into a car and tries running him down, which is pretty cool.  Having an older actress mixed in with a lot of younger ones creates a nice balance and hearing an actress who I grew up seeing on a kid’s show and now hearing her spew out the F-bomb is kind of funny.

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Like I said personal taste will dictate whether you like this or not, but it is interesting to note that besides Leo and Midkiff a lot of other young performers got their start here, which then blossomed into successful careers. The others include: Randall Batinkoff, Greg Germann, Khandi Alexander and Leon, which is impressive and should make this a much sought after curio by fans who wish to see their favorite actor when they were just starting out.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 20, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 26Minutes

Rated R

Director: Joan Freeman

Studio: Concorde Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD

Street Girls (1975)

street girls

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father searches for daughter.

Angel (Christine Souder) is a young woman out on her own for the very first time. To make ends meet she gets a job at a topless bar, but this leads to working as a prostitute and getting hooked onto heroin by her brutal pimp boyfriend. When her father Sven (Art Burke) goes searching for her he finds himself swept in the seedy side of life and the people who populate it almost as much as her.

This otherwise low budget and forgotten film’s biggest claim to fame is that it is the first feature credited to Barry Levinson as the screenwriter who also worked as the assistant cameraman during the production. Levinson has never talked about it in any interview and it is easy to see why. The script is filled with a lot of rambling dialogue that goes nowhere. The story is basic and boring and seems preoccupied with taking advantage of the ‘shock value’ of its topic which these days has lessened.  It’s more clichéd than anything although the scene where one of Angel’s johns asks her to put on some goggles so that he can, to her shock, pee all over her does deserve mention.

This film is very similar to Paul Schrader’s Hardcore that starred George C. Scott and came out four years later and deals with a desperate father’s search for his daughter who has gotten into the world of porn. I actually like this film a bit better to that one. For one thing this one focuses more on the daughter and her experiences while that one solely centered on the father, which wasn’t as interesting. The father here isn’t quite as one-dimensional either. Yes he has all the caricatures of a middle-aged Midwestern man from the period including being homophobic, but I got a kick out of the way he initially gets into the naked girl dancers and likes it as long as of course it isn’t his daughter that’s doing it.

The acting swings from tolerable to really bad, but I did like Carol Case as Sally who has the most screen time and looks like a cross between Susan Anton and singer Carly Simon. Paul Pompain has a certain menacing quality as the brutal pimp although watching him constantly beat up his prostitutes and even kill one didn’t seem to make any sense as these girls were his may source of income and as my friend stated who watched this movie with me “He’s hurting their resale value.”

The picture is grainy with a faded washed out look and muffled sound that makes it seem almost like someone’s cheap homemade movie and yet it is well enough paced that it remains watchable. The scene where the father and daughter finally meet I found to be surprisingly touching.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 16, 1975

Runtime: 1Hour 14Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Miller

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: None at this time.

Is There Sex After Death? (1971)

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: It’s all about sex.

This is basically a compilation of vignettes all satirizing America’s new found sexual revolution and is not all that different from other similar ‘underground’ films of that period and should best be viewed as simply a relic of its era.

Some of the bits could be considered clever, but they fail to build any momentum. The one joke premise loses steam halfway through eventually making the constantly quirky insights by the constantly quirky characters tiresome and redundant. The sex and nudity, while in abundance, also become a turn-off. The majority of the participants, especially those in the nudist colony, are so old and out of shape you really wish they would have just left their clothes on.

Writer/director Alan Abel who also acts as the host and interviewer comes off best. His unblinking deadpan seriousness, even when in the middle of complete perversity, is right on target. It also features a funny interview with transvestite Holly Woodlawn, some spontaneous on the street moments and a climatic ‘Sex Olympics’. In fact if you get this on video it might be worth it to just fast forward it to that point.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 24, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated X

Director: Alan Abel

Studio: Abel-Child Productions

Available: VHS

Chan is Missing (1982)

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Chan has their money.

This is a story about Jo (Wood Moy) and Steve (Marc Hayasi) two cab drivers who go throughout Chinatown looking for a man named Chan who took their money and then disappeared. If you have never been to San Francisco’s Chinatown district then this film gives you an illuminating look of what it is like. It shows you everything from its atmosphere, to the landscape, and even its people and their attitudes. At times it is almost like a documentary, which this probably should have been in the first place.

The main cab driver who we follow around in his search is fun in a sort of offbeat way. He is old, short, and very dopey looking. He goes about his investigation in a low key sort of way. After a while he starts to grow on you especially when he makes his wry observations.

Unfortunately these are the only two good things about this film, which on the whole is boring and heavy-handed. The search for Chan is merely an excuse by director Wayne Wang to show how difficult it is for Chinese to assimilate into American society and how they are always looked upon as ‘foreigners’, and the lack of opportunities. It is sort of like one of those movies you watched when you were in grade school where the flimsy plot was just an excuse to try to teach you something. This one works the same way where it seems more like a lecture than a movie.

Technically it is inadequate. The majority of the characters are non-actors who seem to be just mouthing the lines that they have memorized. There is also no action and a desperate need for some humor even the low-key kind could’ve helped the flow.

Certainly director Wang has gone on to do bigger, better, more sophisticated things. This film can best be viewed as an early student project, which it resembles in many ways.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 4, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 20Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Wayne Wang

Studio: New Yorker Films

Available: VHS, DVD