Joel's Reviews

I have seen every version of it but probably prefer the newest cut. I still do hold all of my judgments from the theatrical version, as well. The voice over adds a dopey aspect to it that blends nicely with the sheer spectacle of the world the film creates so, it's almost a balancing agent to me. It off sets the incredible imagery and music and brings it down to a more classic detective noir feeling with that voice over. I do agree that it could have nixed the V.O. at the end, though, with Batty's poetic moment.

Trespass is a solid action flick that's very well cast.

SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)
Director: Robert Hiltzik

The beginning of this movie showed promise. Once the set up death scene happens, we are introduced to Summer Camp. The way the kids exit the buses and 2 counselors are yelling different things at them continuously, I thought the direction of the movie might be a bit on the creative side since early signs of running and voice overlapping seemed indicative.

I was damn wrong. The whole experience of Sleepaway Camp is hard to take. There are no creative kills, and I don't even like seeing murder, but I got nothing just the same. The acting is mostly atrocious aside from Chris Collette and the other 2 central characters, Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten. The story moves along like a made for TV movie of the week as a lot of scenes have the swelling music and black fade out. What the hell is going on here?

I felt funny even watching this movie because it's a murder movie for kids. I'm a grown man, and since this flick had no problem throwing in dirty old man dialog and other pre pubescent taboos, I couldn't wait until it was over.

Finally it ended. And it ended in a shockingly strange way. Very creepy. The entire movie sucked up until the ending. Boy, what an ending!

I'll never need to see this again except for maybe the last clip of the film which is so disturbing and creepy, it warrants repeat viewings.

My first time seeing this was in 1987. My last time was in 2017. That'll do it for me.

- and only for that ending!

And it doesn't hurt that it's written by the Back to the Future team of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, I guess.

Oh haha Joel. I see what you did there!

After all that discussing about it on the forum, I really need to get around Sleepaway Camp AND its sequel...

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I'd say you'll be OK not rushing for it. It's a garbage movie. It really is. It has the distinction of an ending that is very unique and scary but the film leading up to it is like a poor man's Bad New Bears as an after school special mixed with terrible acting and bad, BAD music that steps all over itself. Horrid film.

FLASHPOINT (1984)
Director: William Tannen



HBO (Home Box Office), back when it flew through space with that magic music, partnered up with Silver Screen and Tri-Star for their first release together and released Flashpoint, a good old boy western with CIA intrigue.



From the start I noticed that this movie had a strong core. The casting and performances of Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams were very natural and engaging, and mixed with the desert surroundings and pace, I could see myself really ready to enjoy this movie tremendously, and, for the most part, I did.

What I couldn't get past was the compact nature of this movie in conjunction with some of the more routine elements found in other thrillers around this time. Kurtwood Smith shows up as the CIA bad guy sent to intercept a small mission from a couple of almost out of work border patrol men played by Kris and Treat. They all do super good work and plant the story in the ground but I could tell things weren't as fleshed out as they should have been. The chemistry between the two leads was too good not to add an extra half hour to the run time, and this was not the case.

Look who's coming to dinner


The finale was wrapped up very experimentally with a few very brief flash cuts as if to indicate a preposterous revelation and that did not have a chance to resonate enough because the movie just kind of ended. And when I say the movie just kind of ended, what I mean is that the credit roll song was like long, hard slap across the face. They totally blew it, I mean completely clobbered their own great movie with those two mistakes: Too much editing/not enough development and the end title song which sounds like Rick Springfield decided to get in on the act.

It's a shame because this could have very easily been a titan film of its kind. It reminded me, and probably inspired, "Lone Star", the John Sayles film from 12 years after this.
Flashpoint is a gem of a movie, make no mistake, but it has some baggage attached to it. It's a diamond in the rough. Had it been left to more reliable producers and a director with a bit more spine and/or common sense, I can see this film having been a much more acclaimed and popular motion picture.



As it is though, it's hard to ignore or to not enjoy Rip Torn helping chew some of the desert scenery, which is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Peter Moss. Also, the score by Tangerine Dream was very appropriate. Minimal, atmospheric and sometimes pulsating, it gives Flashpoint a kind of art house feel in the realm of Michael Mann sensibility. I mean, this isn't an art house picture by any stretch, but it does have that certain something that lends to an experience of kind of sitting back, watching good performances and feeling taken care of. It's not overly mainstream, and I appreciate that about it. It does stick some convention in there but if it had been padded out a bit more and let the two stars share more screen time, I think it would have worked better. Oh, and yeah, that ending theme song. Jesus, what the hell were they thinking doing that? I mean, you just find out some crazy stuff, so a viewer with a pause button and good resolution can maybe try and figure out the twist ending when Torn's cryptic explanation may not be cutting it, and then the film totally pulls the tablecloth off and lets the dishes go clanging onto the floor.

Reminds me of Manhunter. "Heartbeat, HEARTBEAT! Listen to your heartbeat...woah ohh!!"

"Sorry, guys, I did the best I could."

"We know, Kris.....We know."

SUNDOWN: THE VAMPIRE IN RETREAT (1989)
Director: Anthony Hickox
Rating:



The vampire genre gets a true twist and mixes the western with the blood lust of Count Dracula years before Tarantino and Rodriguez did in a movie you've never seen called Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat starring Bruce Campbell as Van Helsing, Jr.

A bio engineer is recruited to a small town in the middle of the desert only to slowly learn that he is helping develop a hemoglobin formulation suitable for vampires to drink in hopes of not having to feed on the blood of humans. Yes, the monstrosity of the vampire feeding on humans has reached a hopeful end as this town of reformed creatures of the night are led by a fearless and powerful leader in Mardulak, played by David Carradine.

Mardulak keeps his townsfolk in line as the feared leader who has his own coffin deep in the cellar of his estate mansion. He is one of the good guys, or is he?

A picture like this you are likely to find in the bargain bin on dvd for about two dollars if you're lucky enough to come across it. It's true that this is a B picture and does fall victim to the usual trappings of such cinema such as bad synth bass dominated score and some community theater acting, but once it finds its groove, things start to serve a purpose and support an already solid premise into a story that keeps turning out nice little surprises that will make you smile. Smile at vampires. And blood.

Bruce Campbell comes in fresh off of Evil Dead II still firing on all pistons, delivering his trademark physical comedy which does get enough screen time to satisfy fans.

M. Emmet Walsh plays his usual nutjob self so well here and actually agrees to kneel down and kiss David Carradine's hand. It's superb acting.

David Carradine is pure silk. You can tell he is enjoying himself because the director of Waxwork and Waxwork II:Lost in Time has allowed him to tie one on during shooting, so even gun play is a sure adventure for everyone.

The movie packs plenty of decently staged action and even a few thrills here and there for good measure.

This is not really a horror film as much as it is a hit or miss comedy. Some things are funny, some things try to be, and some things are just endearing to the point of smiling. Kind of has a bunch of "awww" moments.



Director Hickox is clearly an intelligent, creative and very funny man who reminds me of the kind of scatterbrained genius of an Alex Cox. Though this isn't quite Walker, it still insists on being quirky and absurd as it toys with the vampire genre to the point of re-inventing it to Vampires vs. Vampires.

The weapons? Wooden tipped bullets and cross bows. Two conflicting gangs of vamps. Our home team who just want to be decent and drink artificial yellow colored blood substitute, and the away gang, who live in caves a few miles away, still feeding on transient humans and spending most of their time holed up like dying lepers. They feel the time has come for a revolution so now it's war on the "traitor" vampires and their leader Mardulak.

Somewhere in the mix our bio engineer, a mere mortal, and his wife and kids are caught up in an old love flame of the wife, who happens to have slept with the chief engineer at the fake blood plant. An old adversary class mate of our mortal human hero, he insists that one of the kids belonging to the family is his, and he will have his daughter and his girl, even though she left him to be with hero guy.



Lots of story here. All spoon fed at an easy to follow pace.


This is a quite silly movie and should not be seen with the assumption that you're going to get epic storytelling or cinematic grace. It's a bit crude yet skillfully constructed. Dumb but emotionally intelligent. Hokey yet somehow wise and playful.

A bit of history...
This really is a movie that got swept under the rug since it never enjoyed a theatrical release. It was the final straw for Vestron Pictures run by Dan Ireland, who was a close friend of director Hickox, and Ireland let Hickox make one more big, slam bang fantasy movie of his choice (since Waxwork did some nice rental returns for the company). So the director hired writer John Burgess and they knocked out a script and Anthony got his last wish before Vestron crumbled. It's just sad that the movie lives in utter obscurity.



It predates From Dusk til Dawn, John Carpenter's Vampires, and completely stands apart as the only vampire movie I am aware of where the tables turn and the script flips in such a way to earn itself classic status. It enjoys this status in a very lonely way.

I’ve watched Sundown twice. Good, well-made popcorn flick, though as a Bruce fan, I think his character is comparatively dull in it. Still an easy movie to recommend to almost anyone.

They should have used him more, I thought. He still had his comic body language, like when he starts turning.

COP (1988)
Director: James B. Harris




Based on a story by James Ellroy, "Cop" has James Woods teaming up with Director James B. Harris for a leisurely paced, graphic and sometimes misogynistic crime thriller.

A detective having marital woes comes home to his 6 year old daughter and playfully tucks her into bed. She wants him to read her a bedtime story. Dad proceeds to dish her the dirt of a burglary case with profanity for seasoning, as the daughter giggles on gleefully, interjecting a few choice descriptions of her own. You can tell they have a strong bond. This before-bed story is interrupted by a concerned wife who has Dad follow her into their bedroom as he shuts the door. An argument starts.

I paraphrase: "She's six years old! I don't want you to pass your sickness on to her!"
Cop replies, "Yeah, a little girl. They're all little girls! The junkie out on the street, the hooker getting carved up in a back alley, the thousands of women who hate men are all little girls! Little girls that have been lied to! Lied to by their parents. Told they were entitled to a white knight in shining armor. A Mr. Right who would come and sweep them off of their feet on a big, white horse! They grown up with these delusions in their head and it's no wonder they hate their lives. It's no wonder they walk around under a spell. Our daughter needs to be ready, she needs to know now!"

It's this argument and dialog (provided as an addition by director Harris) that sets up the mentality of Cop. Woods and his partner (played by Charles Durning) sit in a car, staking out a suspect in the most recent murder. Cop asks "Why can't they fly like us? Why can't they have wings?", referring to women. His partner replies, "She'd get a lot further in life with a big set of these (motions at chest) than a set of those."



As over the top as all of this dialog is, I couldn't help but feel a little more awake watching this movie. Clearly this is a point to consider when all you see day in and day out is murder and corruption. James Woods plays Det. Lloyd Hopkins, a tireless work-a-holic who becomes personally connected to what he thinks is a string of similar murders of women. To stop the killer he must question a high class call girl, a feminist and a beat cop getting kickbacks and running drugs in the gay part of the city.



Already up to his neck in the usual foreign territory and muck, he finds no hesitation in sleeping with his leads. Him and his partner bum rush a suspect and as the man reaches for his revolver, Hopkins unloads 5 bullets into his chest killing him instantly. He goes around to the passenger side of the vehicle that the suspect bolted out of before being shot. There's a slutty girl a bit shaken up who doesn't seem to know the now dead driver's name. "I just met him tonight". Hopkins offers her a ride home and asks his partner to clean up the mess and stick around for backup while he gets off with her. The man shoots a guy dead and then immediately wants to bang his date. And she's game!

That's Cop.

It's a comedy with a thriller wrapper. It's all absurd and offensive, yet I love this movie. It does not play around, mince words, or beat around the bush. It goes right for the bush.



Even as Hopkins is having dinner with another lead played by Leslie Ann Warren (a feminist book store owner), he keeps the slick macho pig in full stride. She confides in him her deepest and most treasured divulgences as he smiles, looks at his watch and subtly squirms in his seat, desperate to get her into bed.



In the end, the film wraps up in both a conventional and surprising way. I don't want to spoil it. It's not the best ending in the world but it's a damn good one. I mean, how could it possibly cheapen what we've seen so far? There's no way.

I'd recommend this movie to guys who like a solid procedural thriller with jolts of unexpected humor thrown in. It moves like a snail in the pace department, but that's a good thing. Where else will you see James Woods sitting down for a full minute at a time, smoking a cigarette, looking super cool? This might be the only ticket in town.

Added to the list.

WAXWORK II: LOST IN TIME (1992)
Director:Anthony Hickox

Note: For Windows users hold down "ctrl", for Macs hold down "cmd" and scroll mouse wheel to enlarge.

A court room drama surrounds the following:

ANGUISH (1987)
Director: Bigas Luna


Taking cue from Hitchcock's Rear Window, spanish director Bigas Luna constructs a hypnotic blend of suspense and surrealist terror with Anguish, a movie within a film, within a movie.




An only child orderly for an optometrist office is sent on missions from his psychologically dominant mother (played by Poltergeist's Zelda Rubinstein) to collect human eyeballs.

Warning issued for theatrical release:




We soon find out, after a good amount of time, that this is a movie being watched by an audience in a movie theater. A girl, sitting with her school friend, is soon under the spell of the film and succumbs to fits of hysteria. When her friend gets up to use the bathroom she discovers a real killer is silently murdering workers in the lobby, and within minutes everyone falls victim to this lunatic who seems to be taking psychic signals from the film playing titled "The Mommy".



Bigas keeps the camera at the most opportune and gorgeous angles, using technology in film that clearly represents the medium itself. Beautifully photographed, we can see the porous elements soaking in ambient light as a man's shoes are dolly tracked down the theater aisle.



Corners of the frame are sometimes darkened as vignette, separating the carefully composed shots away from any intrusive border. The editing breathes easy and propels a slow but nonetheless fascinating cadence as the stories begin to taper into each other. By 60 minutes into Anguish, we aren't sure which movie we're watching, and it doesn't matter. The film making takes over and what we get is pure viscera. The love of cinema delivers through Anguish in several ways.



This is a damn good horror film. Fans of Demons and Popcorn take note. What this movie does is outclass both of those films. Though in technical spirit it could be comparable to Cinema Paradiso or Matinee, it's certainly not either. The violence is fairly high, though not too extreme. The director/editor took the more imaginative route in obscuring blade penetration out of frame for the most part.





The sound design is flawless. I couldn't believe how rich and beefy everything was. From the analog delays running the chants through and through, to the score accenting an open door or a broken fish bowl, everything is executed beautfully alongside the picture.

The climactic act surprised me because this film went from being a darkly lit theater experience to an action cop picture and it was handled very well. The balance was interesting. I could see how the director controlled mass hysteria and used editing techniques to push it along. I was impressed with the slight tonal shift in the last act.



Technical note: I picked up a copy of the german blu ray titled Im Augenblick der Angst. I wouldn't recommend seeing this film any other way because it needs a high quality format to be of any nutrition, like powdered milk needs water. You just won't see the same film if you take the overly compressed and blocky back door road to see it. All region players are fairly inexpensive, and if you don't already have one, I strongly suggest the investment!


As the credits roll we are again treated to this meta universe of horror at the movies and can see that after everyone has left, there remains one person in the audience who stays for the credits. Perfect tribute and a very cool little movie.



If kooky horrors with an art house aesthetic are your thing, you're in good hands with this low profile flick from 1987.

James Woods rules and Cop was a good flick. You see Best Seller?

I've seen Best Seller a few times since 1987 when I rented it on vhs. I enjoy it each time. Those 2 movies belong back to back esp with co-stars Durning for Cop, and Dennehy for BS.

DESPERADO (1995)
Director: Robert Rodriguez




I bought Rodriguez's book "Rebel without a Crew" back in 1995 at the recommendation of a friend of mine. We'd both grown up together watching movies and loving them, much, much more than the casual movie goer. He was into editing between two VCR's and had just bought a Canon 8mm video camera. I just watched what he did most of the time. After I read the book, my life was changed. I was told, in very easy going terms, that I, too, could be a film maker, in fact, I may already be. I agreed with this. I knew what I liked and what I responded to, and in some psychedelic way, I'd been making pretend my whole life was a movie, anyway.

I immediately saw El Mariachi followed by Desperado, which was still fresh in the theaters. Though I liked Desperado, I couldn't help but feel like Rodriguez betrayed his original star Carlos Gallardo, who played the guitar case toting hero mariachi in first picture, which was made "without a crew" for $7,000.

Over the years, I had made my mind up, based mostly of my imaginative and increasing distaste for anything Rodriguez-related, that I didn't care that much for Desperado. Even though this author/filmmaker gave me confidence to be a filmmaker myself, and that what he said in his book clicked with how my mind worked out obstacles, it didn't seem to be enough. Before too long, give or take a decade, I was pretty much anti-Rodriguez, figuring him for a hack guy who broke the doors open like the legendary mariachi himself, but soon becoming complacent, over stylizing typical B genre films, and never really taking the craft seriously. To make a long story short - I wanted Robert to direct a drama, and a good one at that.

I'm still waiting...

Last night, out of boredome, I popped in my dvd copy of Desperado and much to my pleasure, I found myself adhered to the entire film without falling asleep, and better, laughing plenty, and not just chuckles. I got some real belly laughs out of this thing. So glad I watched it.

The humor comes from the writing and casting as Antonio Banderas has a great ability for physicality and comedy. He twirls around like a tazmanian devil just to adjust his collar. Very dramatic. Lots of unnecessary flair. Funny stuff. Also, the new mariachi played by Banderas has some great frustrated and angry reactions, as well as his counterpart nemesis in the picture, who, cannot for the life of him, remember his own car phone number. There is a nice, even coating of jokes in this movie that aren't "hit you over the head" funny, but instead play for subtlety and I would imagine will only connect with a certain age group and social disposition.

The action sequences I can only describe as something like "if Sam Peckinpah directed a ballet with ninjas for the cast". Every camera set-up was meticulously thought out and the coverage and staging was so fluid (not relying on vari-speed tricks as far as I could tell), that by the time it went into editing, I can only imagine how fun it must have been to cut it together. Rodriguez even masters the art of lighting and smoking a cigarette, as just the proper amount of sound, smoke visibility, and movement is part of the alternate angle in a 2 shot. Amazing technicality. It's very apparent that Robert Rodriguez is a musician. You can tell by his writing, blocking, staging, movements and editing. Not to mention, he utilizes Los Lobos for the score in a superb manner, furthering the action blockbuster "look" of this $7 million film to a poetic tribute for El Mariachi.

I am no longer mad at Robert Rodriguez. Not after seeing Desperado again. It's an action comedy and nothing more, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better action picture that is funnier, or a funnier picture that has more action from an American filmmaker.

I may decide to investigate some of his other work that might've been glossed over due to my prejudice. And by the way, Carlos Gallardo does get to come back as the mariachi's sidekick in a couple of sequences (memorable ones, too). That's Hollywood, I guess.

I always liked Desperado... Such a fun film very reminiscent of its time, too. It does exactly what it sets out to do and I like that exactly for that reason.

Hi Joel. This is one of my favorites. Liked your review. But I must admit after all these years, Claudia Christian is still what excites me the most.



Warning people, there's obscene.





Yeah, Im a dirty old man.