Thursday
Jan242013

Just Wait Until He Kills You! SCREAM FOR HELP (1984) Review

A sad day is upon us: Michael Winner has passed away at the age of 77. For those who don’t know, Winner was the director of Death Wish 1-3, The Mechanic, The Sentinel, and many others. While there aren’t a huge amount of notable titles in the list of 41 films he’s directed, he must be commended for kicking off the vigilante movie craze with Death Wish and creating one of the greatest bad action movies ever, Death Wish 3. But today, I’m talking about a horror movie he directed. Not The Sentinel; no, I’m referring to something a lot more unknown and ten times trashier.

SCREAM FOR HELP (1984) Review

Christie is a normal 17-year old girl with a problem: she’s confident her stepfather is trying to kill her mother! Multiple accidents occur around their house that could have been very fatal, and she knows it’s not a coincidence. She sets out to expose his maniacal intentions to her mother and the police, but she doesn’t have any evidence and no one believes her! Christie eventually does convince her mother, and she kicks him out of their house. But this bastard isn’t giving up without a fight. With the aid of two of his friends, they lay siege upon the house, planning to kill Christie and her crippled mother and inherit all the money. But there are two things they didn’t count on: Christie and her will to live!

Everything about Scream for Help should be dull. Just look at that dull title. That dull artwork. That dull premise. So why in the hell is this movie so much fun? This was written by Tom Holland of Fright Night and Child’s Play fame, so one might say, "Oh! It’s fun in that goofy way Fright Night was!” Heck no! The reason this is so much fun is because the writing is awful! Tom Holland must have just phoned in the script, because before this he had written a really good and intelligent thriller (Class of 1984) as well as the sequel to Psycho! So what happened, man? Then there’s the outrageously over-bombastic score contributed by Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones who must have interpreted “girl following stepfather’s car on bike” as “intense car chase.”

With all this bad dialogue, the actors must be commended doing the best they could with it. Rachael Kelly does a fine job as Christie, even if it’s hard to take her seriously when she literally will not stop talking about how her stepfather is trying to killer her mother. David Allen Brooks, who also starred in one of the best monster movies of the eighties, The Kindred, does a good job as Paul, the stepfather, and everyone alongside these two were decent as well. In fact, it seems that everyone involved in this movie did a good job save for Tom Holland! Ain’t that a gas? In the movie’s defense, it does create a pretty good amount of suspense during the last twenty minutes when Christie decides to fight back against her attackers, and it all ends with an explosive finale.

Scream for Help actually would be boring if not for the awful dialogue and scenarios. The character of Christie comes off as a bit unlikable in the beginning, just because whenever Paul talks to her at all, she insults him and accuses him of trying to murder them, and this is at the point where she doesn’t even have any solid reason to suspect him! Then, when Christie’s pregnant best friend gets killed, a couple of her classmates begin accusing her for being responsible, and then they say they were just teasing! Christie then mourns her friend’s death by having sex with her friend’s boyfriend! What’s wrong with these people? Another part finds Christie and her new boyfriend (her dead friend’s!) driving fast in a car that’s brakes have been cut and the gas pedal has fallen of, and when they finally stop, the boyfriend blames it all on Christie’s driving! Of course, who can forget the classic scene where Christie shows her mother a picture of Paul doing it doggy style with another woman, to which Paul exclaims, “It’s not what it looks like!” All that and more can be found in the movie; it’s the type of humor that makes you laugh at how unrealistic it, and for the most part, the laughs never quit.

Scream for Help is basically a mix of Halloween, Home Alone, and one of those high school “teen problems” mini-movies. For a good hour it’s nothing but so-bad-it’s-good pleasure, and the last half-hour actually manages to be suspenseful while keeping the hilarity intact. The movie has a very “TV-movie” feel to it, and if not for the language, blood, and surprising amount of nudity, I would say it’s exactly like one. Unfortunately, it’s not on DVD! If you can’t tell, it’s a bit unbelievable that a guy like Tom Holland would write something like this, and I’d be interested to see what he thinks of it now. And hey, maybe Winner altered the dialogue Holland wrote, and if he did, he inadvertently made this movie awesome! Rapid-fire bad dialogue, an unbelievably ostentatious score, acceptable acting, and a decent amount of bloodshed; no matter who you are, this is one movie you need to see.

The Verdict: Scream for Help is a great example of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I was really expecting this to be a dull time, but as it turned out, it’s one of the best unintentional comedies I’ve seen in a while. Recommended.

Score: 8/10

Sunday
Jan202013

Never Touch The Crosses: THE KEEP (1983) Review

Well, I just finished Nightworld, the final book in F. Paul Wilson’s Adversary Cycle series, and what a journey it has been. I first read The Keep after watching the movie, and it soon became (and remains) my favorite novel ever. Almost a year later, I discovered the book had not one, but three sequels! Now I’ve worked my way through all of them, with the first still being the best, the two in the middle really just serving as build-up to the last one, and the last one is just incredible and a fantastic way to cap off this delightful series. So, I decided to watch the movie again just to completely cap everything off, and was delighted to find my thoughts on it haven’t changed a bit.

THE KEEP (1983) Review

In 1941, the German Army takes control of an abandoned and ancient keep with nickel crosses embedded into its walls in the Dinu Pass in Romania. One greedy soldier accidentally releases an ancient evil residing within the keep while trying to pull one of the several crosses off a wall, and this force begins killing off the soldiers. A squad of Nazis is called in to take control, but find that even they cannot handle whatever has been released. They eventually call in Jewish professor Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson) to help them. Cuza discovers the monster that has been killing them off, and makes a pact with the creature. A mysterious man (Scott Glenn) also rides into town, and seems to know an awful lot about the keep and the evil residing within it. It all culminates in a final showdown in which the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Before I discuss this movie, let’s start with a little background. This was director Michael Mann (Public Enemies, Heat)’s second theatrical movie, and he also wrote the screenplay. Mann initially turned in a three-hour long cut to Paramount, which was supposedly completely faithful to the book, but since this movie wasn’t a guaranteed success, the studio actually whittled it down to an astonishing 96 minutes. Due to this extreme case of studio interference, Mann has disowned this movie. Paramount has probably forgotten all about, and it’s all a real shame because this is one of the most underrated and overlooked horror movies not just of the eighties, but also of all time. If there was ever a time to take my opinion with a grain of salt, it is now.

With The Keep, cinematography and the score are everything. They’re the two aspects that make this movie so memorable today and why it’s one of my all-time favorites. Michael Mann is just one of those guys who shouldn’t be doing anything but making movies, just based on his talent for setting up shots. No matter what action is taking place, Mann’s style throughout the movie is utterly impeccable. Then there’s the score by Tangerine Dream, who reached the height of their popularity during this time with movies like Risky Business, Legend, Miracle Mile, etc. The music for the movie is definitely of the love-it or hate-it variety. A lot of people complain the electronic score doesn’t cope well with the WWII setting, but I feel it does a fantastic job of building on the atmosphere, as well as contributing to the almost-childlike wonder and surrealism given off by a majority of the movie. Supposedly, copyright issues with the score are one of the reasons this still remains MIA on any digital format.

Another big help with its ultimate success is the wonderful cast. The movie does focus on a few more characters than the norm’, and while they were all expanded upon in great detail in the book (and, presumably, in the director’s cut), the characters in the movie wouldn’t be half as interesting as they are without the actors. Jurgen Prochnow is great as the sympathetic and sentimental captain of the German Army, and Gabriel Byrne is equally great as his rival Kaempffer, the major of the Nazis. The two actors work surprisingly well off each other, and they have some of the best character-driven scenes in the movie. Scott Glenn does a good job with what he’s given, as his character is almost completely emotionless. The best actor, in my opinion, is Ian McKellan. He doesn’t get to do a whole lot either, but his speech to the monster at the end gives me goosebumps every time I see. The weakest performer (although she’s by no means bad) is Alberta Watson. She does good job is most of her scenes, but her acting is a little dodgy at times.

While half of the movie is missing, I wouldn’t really call this a “bad” adaptation if the book. The scenes that survived Paramount’s editing rampage are pretty faithful to the book; there are just a lot of scenes missing. Mann does exercise his artistic license a lot regarding a lot of the details. The monster depicted in the movie is different than in the book, and I’m still on the fence as to which I prefer. Here, Molasar (the monster) goes through different stages of being as the slaughter progresses, from a cloud of smoke, to being only made of muscles and tendons, and finally, to his full form (which resembles a golem). The creature effects are very good, even if the mouth articulation wasn’t quite perfect. There’s also the change as to what the cross represents at the end. At first, I thought the change was incredibly stupid, but I’m starting to warm up to the decision (even though it’s VERY obvious a big chunk of film was cut out of the climax). If you haven’t read the book, the story can be really hard to follow, with important details that should have taken two or three scenes being packed into a few lines of dialogue with disappointing results. However, since I’ve read the book multiple times, I already pretty much know what’s going on, so that’s helpful.

The best way I can describe everything is this: The Keep isn’t a movie. The Keep is an experience. It’s impossible for anyone not to get taken in by the lush visuals and the fantastical score, and if you can ignore the choppy plot, you’re going to have a great time. While the novel was really more of a Gothic horror story (and the movie is to an extent), this is more of a fairy tale filled with the classic good versus evil scenario, a romance, engaging characters, and some exploding Nazi heads thrown in for good measure. Paramount was actually planning on releasing a barebones disc with only the theatrical cut in 2004, but thankfully, those plans got canned. Now, no news of any form of release has been given. In a dream world, this would be given the Blu-Ray treatment with both cuts intact and fully remastered, along with a slew of bonus features. But that’s just me dreaming. All I know is I will fight until the day I die to get this released in its uncut form. There was a really good HD master done of it for Netflix, which hints at a potential release, but nothing definite. I doubt the stingy execs at Paramount will sell the rights to it either, so the future does look bleak for The Keep. How sad.

The Verdict: The Keep is an aesthetically mesmerizing, if confusing, horror-fantasy that definitely isn’t for everyone. My advice: Read the book. Watch the movie. Be disappointed. Keep watching the movie to see if you appreciate it more every time. Hey, it worked for me.

Score: 10/10

Saturday
Jan192013

HAL Would Disapprove: PROJECT NIGHTMARE (1987) Review

You know what’s a really fun game? VHS roulette. The rules are simple: find a VHS tape on the internet (or in a store, if it’s still selling them) that you’ve never heard of and buy it without knowing anything but the basic plot description (maybe small things like when it was released or who’s in it), watch it, and see what happens. That’s what I did with Project Nightmare. I discovered a brief mention of it on the internet, looked it up, found next to no information on it, and decided to play a game of VHS roulette by ordering a copy. This is the story of what happened.

PROJECT NIGHTMARE (1987) Review

The movie opens with two friends, Gus (Charles Miller) and Jon (Seth Foster) being chased through the woods by something they can’t see. To make matters worse, they find that towns that should be there have simply disappeared. Fortunately, they find a secluded cabin which houses a pretty woman named Marcie (Elly Koslo) who gives them food and shelter for the night. She then gives them instructions as to where they can find a nearby restaurant. The two set out to find this place and run into the menacing light that has been chasing them, find the restaurant closed, and even encounter a man who has experienced car trouble. As they continue on into the desert, Gus discovers an underground government base and discovers what has been going on, and that nothing they have encountered has been what it seems.

 

If I could ever rename a film Enigma: The Movie, this would be it. Everything about Project Nightmare is a mystery. The actors, the plot, heck, even when it was actually made! I can’t find any information on any parties involved in the making of this movie, and the only recognizable face in the entire thing is the VHS company that released it, Academy Home Entertainment (who released classics like Killer Workout, Doom Asylum, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare as well as not-so-classics like Bloody New Year). The director, Donald M. Jones, actually directed a few un-noteworthy films “before” this like The Love Butcher, the infamous (for all the wrong reasons) slasher The Forest, and Murderlust.

 

Now, this film is a bit difficult to write about just due to how weird this whole movie is. It’s not weird in the Skullduggery fashion where all kinds of random images are just thrown at the viewer; this movie is weird in a subtle and almost surreal way. The actors all various degrees wooden, with Seth Foster as Jon being more balsa than anything else and Charles Miller and Elly Koslo easily falling under the “solid oak” category. But it’s that kind of wooden acting where it’s not really funny; just another factor that contributes to this movie’s weirdness. Oddly enough still is that there really isn’t a whole lot of dialogue spoken throughout the movie. Even during scenes where there really should be some lines thrown in, there’s not. Also, the entity that is stalking the two is merely just a flashing light effect and a weird electronic sound that’s hardly menacing.

 

The reason I put “before” in quotations in the second paragraph is that while the box says it’s from 1987, this movie is clearly from the mid-late seventies. Everything from the dated fashions even to the quality of the film give away that this is a long way from the late-eighties. While I haven’t included any pictures in this review, if you do happen to stumble across this movie, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I won’t classify this movie as “so-bad-it’s-good” or anything just because for such an obscurity, it’s decently made. There are some nice camera shots as well as some really psychedelic editing going on that makes the movie look even more seventies than it already does. And, despite the title, Project Nightmare is really more of a science fiction thriller than horror. The film does briefly turn into a horror movie at the end when a computer goes psycho, but the movie mainly consists of the two leads wandering around and encountering various strange happenings. It is definitely a slow-burn movie, and it does get really boring at times during the middle. The pace picks up a bit at the end, but not much.

 

Knowing nothing about Project Nightmare other than its plot and its provocative art, I can’t really say whether I was seriously let down or delightfully surprised. I have to agree with the one user review currently on IMDb in that I simply do not what to make of this movie. It’s decently made and has some original and pretty cool ideas, yet at the same time, it can get to be very, very dull at multiple points in the movie. It actually reminds me quite a bit of the old Star Trek episode “Shoreleave,” when the crew encounters a planet where everything they think about is turned into a reality, only not nearly as entertaining. That, and the guy who played Gus bore a vague similarity to Dr. McCoy. It’s not available on DVD, and probably will never be, but VHS copies can be found for pretty cheap on online. But hey, Savage Water is actually getting a DVD release later this year, so I guess anything’s possible.

The Verdict: While its slow-paced and can get very tedious, Project Nightmare still remains somewhat notable for its overall obscurity and its general sense of weirdness.

Score: 4/10

Bizarrely enough, I found this behind-the-scenes photo from Project Nightmare on IMDb:



Thursday
Jan172013

Clean-Up On Aisle Nine: INTRUDER (1989) Review

After the success of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II, it was going to take five years before the follow-up (and the greatest movie ever made), Army of Darkness, would see release. In that time period, Raimi made a pretty good superhero movie (Darkman), Bruce Campbell appeared in some expectedly-schlocky horror movies (Waxwork II, Maniac Cop, Moontrap, etc.), and writer Scott Spiegel decided to take the reigns on his own horror movie, with an even lower budget than the two Evil Dead movies!

INTRUDER (1989) Review

The night crew at Walnut Lake Supermarket is having a bad night. First, the disgruntled ex-boyfriend of employee Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) causes a commotion by harassing Jennifer, beating up other employees, and escaping with the lingering possibility he could still be in the area. Then they discover that Walnut Lake Supermarket is closing down for good in a short while, and they will all lose their jobs. Finally, an unseen maniac begins killing off the night crew one by one in creative and spectacularly gory ways. Can he be stopped, and who will clock-out…alive?

I watched Intruder a couple years ago, and, to be frank, I wasn’t impressed. I watched it again a little while later, and still didn’t really appreciate. Then, after recently watching Synapse’s new Blu-Ray of the movie, I found that I really dig this movie! I don’t know what I was expecting before, but this is a great example of a slasher that, instead of trying to do something new, goes with the traditional formula and has fun with it. In fact, about half way through, I realized that when I make my slasher opus (the day will come!), it will probably look something a lot like this. Subtly humorous dialogue, hilarious visual gags, buckets of blood, creative deaths, and likable characters. It’s not flawless, but it definitely provides the goods.

The overall effect of Intruder is greatly helped by its cast. Elizabeth Cox makes for one of the best (and most underrated) scream queens of the decade, and she does do a lot of screaming! Renee Estevez has a small role as well, and the brothers Raimi (Sam & Ted) pop up as entertaining cannon fodder. Dan Hicks from Evil Dead II is really good and very likable as the storeowner, and Burr Steers (who played Roger in Pulp Fiction) comes very close to stealing the show as Bub, the stereotypical stoner dude who gets one of the best deaths in the movie and one of the best lines ("I swear to God, if my brother hadn't hit him repeatedly on the head with a blender he would have killed me!"). Heck, the man himself, Bruce Campbell, has a quick cameo at the end of the movie! Everyone else does a fine job alongside them, even if there weren’t any other standouts. Another notable element of the movie is the abundance of inventive camera techniques and angles This includes several point-of-view shots of inanimate objects, like a telephone POV, shopping cart POV, trash can POV, doorknob POV, etc. While all those could have been annoying, the way they’re pulled off and their place in the movie just adds to the fun.

Of course, the big draw to Intruder is the notorious gore effects, done by the Academy Award-winning group, KNB Effects. Aside from a few instances when a head is noticeably fake, they’re all fantastic! Spiegel perfectly utilizes the grocery store setting by killing everybody off in ways befitting it: death by meat hook, butcher’s knife, hydraulic garbage disposal, and in the graphic highlight of the movie, an incredible death by bandsaw! Even some of the most boring kills always have some sort of added extra to them that make them great, like a guy getting stabbed with a knife that goes through and then punctures a pack of beer behind him, causing a fountain of blood and booze to erupt! Surprisingly, there’s no nudity on display, but this movie is so fun, you won’t even notice! However, the identity of the killer is rather easy to deduce, but I must say, when the it is revealed who the culprit is, the actor playing the guilty party does a phenomenal job of acting utterly bonkers in what has to be one of the best (and enjoyably over-the-top) “crazy” performances of the decade!

However, the one problem with Intruder is that it is so paint-by-the-numbers. Of course, Spiegel paints those numbers like a Monster addict, but it’s one of those movies where you can pretty much guess how the entire movie will go within the first twenty minutes. The ending does defy the traditional slasher conclusion somewhat, but like The Dorm that Dripped Blood, an unexpected ending does not make a slasher original. Another thing that isn’t really a problem more than a minor complaint is the music. On their shoestring budget, they probably couldn’t afford to hire a original composer, so they just used stock music. It’s not too terrible, but an original score would have been way more effective. Although the music Ted Raimi is constantly listening to is quite catchy.

Intruder doesn’t reinvent the slasher subgenre, nor does it try to. It’s as straightforward as they come, but Spiegel’s clever directing and wry humor, along with some outstanding grue, elevate it to near-classic standards. The Easter egg-riddled cast, resourceful and likable final girl, great final chase, ingenious camera shots, and a killer who’s had one too many Red Bulls also contribute heavily to the movie’s overall success. Synapse released this on a Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack back in 2011, and it’s definitely the way to go when watching it. The transfer looks great, and is definitely a step-up from the Wizard Entertainment DVD that was released a while ago. It also comes with a heap of great bonus features, including a fun and insightful audio commentary provided by Spiegel and producer Lawrence Bender (who also produced a majority of Tarantino’s films; Tarantino has stated his love for Intruder a few times in the past), a making-of including nearly everyone involved in this movie, cast auditions, extended gore scenes, clips from Night Crew (the original short film that led to the making of this), a featurette on how the film was butchered when it got released onto home video a still gallery, and some trailers that spoil who the film’s killer is. It’s a release definitely worthy of your money. As a side note, I included the DVD art for this review only because it (as well as the Blu-Ray) is the only art that doesn’t spoil who the killer is. So please, don’t look it up.

The Verdict: Intruder is a modest, low-budget gorefest that embraces everything that makes these movies so entertaining and throws in its own brand of charm for good measure.

Score: 8/10

Since the trailer is so spoiler-ific, here’s the best kill in the movie:

Sunday
Jan132013

How Do You Review Perfection? MIAMI CONNECTION (1987) Review

There are moments when I look back at all the garbage I’ve ever sought out and watched and just think, “Why? Why do I continually do this to myself? These movies are rarely any good.” Yeah, it can get pretty depressing at times, but I carry on, searching for lost gems in a bottomless pile of crap. But it’s films like Miami Connection that make it all worth it.

MIAMI CONNECTION (1987) Review

A ruthless gang of drug-dealing, motorcycle-riding ninjas has just acquired a large supply of cocaine and plan on moving it from Miami into Orlando. However, one thing stands in their way: Dragon Sound, the hottest new band in Florida. Led by Mark (Y.K. Kim), the band not only are musical geniuses, but black belts in the art of tae-kwon-do, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to let some ninja punks invade their hometown without a fight! The gang sets out to dish out justice their own way as they go up against the ninjas and their “stupid cocaine.”

This…this right here is why I do what I do, people. This may be the most difficult review I have written thus far, just because of how hard it is to put the experience of watching Miami Connection into words. In fact, I really don’t know where to begin. Hmm…let’s just start with me saying that this movie, by nearly all accounts, is abysmal. Everything associated with filmmaking is terrible, from the acting, to the writing, and even to the editing! The cinematography is decent, however, and the fight scenes are really awesome. This movie was Y.K. Kim’s (an inspirational speaker and tae-kwon-do grandmaster) attempt to spread his ideas to a wider audience, so with a miniscule budget and a lot of heart, he set out to do just that. Despite a few scenes where Kim’s character explains how great tae-kwon-do is, and the movie does have themes concerning the importance of family and friends, but for the most part, it’s all just 100% concentrated eighties kung-fu craziness.

The actors who play the members of Dragon sound were all, for the most part, pupils of Y.K. Kim, and it’s quite obvious that none of them had any experience in this field. They’re all different degrees of terrible, with Maurice Smith’s turn as Jim being the highest level (the movie reaches a hysterical zenith of badness when Jim discovers his long-lost father has sent him a letter). At this time, Kim barely knew English, which becomes obvious when he has any sort of speaking part and you can barely understand what he’s saying. That being said, the music in this movie is really good! Well, saying it’s “good” is going a bit far, but for your stereotypical electric guitars ‘n’ synthesizers, it’s awesome (“Against the Ninja” and “Friends” are stand-outs), and their on-stage antics (explosions, flashing neon lights, big hair, mullets) are to die for.

The biggest entertainment source in Miami Connection is the so-bad-it’s-a-riot moments. A lot of the dialogue spoken by the actors is pure ad-libbing, and when it comes to improvising, these actors are still awful! Whether they’re hurling insults at a person who’s been beaten up (“You gotta watch out for girl scouts, y’know?”) or yelling at the musician you just fired (“Your music’s for old people!”), the laughs are non-stop. Then there’s the final fight between the white ninja and Kim, and while the white ninja is supposed to be Asian, at one point, his mask partially comes off, revealing not only a white man, but a white man with a bushy mustache! If there is a fault to be had with the movie, it’s that there’s a lot of unnecessary scenes thrown in that could have easily been taken out. While a lot of these scenes are superfluous, most of them have a lot of corny charm to be found in them (the scene in the computer class featuring those dinosaur machines), with the exception of a lengthy biker scene, where the gang of biker ninjas head to a bar for some good times. This leads to an excruciating scene filled with bikers drinking beer, smoking, and some of the worst boobs ever to hit the screen, all set to a song called “Tough Guys.” Ehh.

Where the movie really shines (in a positive way this time) is in the fight scenes. Kim proves he deserves his title as grandmaster by dishing out amazing (and sometimes slow-mo) ass-kickings throughout the movie, including a spectacularly violent finale when Kim and another member of Dragon Sound go nuts with katana blades and slaughter mass numbers of ninjas. The locations for the fights vary and are all really neat: a construction site, a swamp (no gators, though), a train yard, a night club, and more! And it all ends with the statement, “Only through the elimination of violence can we achieve world peace.” Truly touching.

I’ve watched Miami Connection three times since I first saw it in November, and the experience has only gotten better. I even got to view it in the theater, which was a wonderful experience, even though there wasn’t exactly a large audience. This is the kind of movie where even if I had watched Night of Horror ten times in a row, a single viewing of Miami Connection would make it all better. I am VERY glad Drafthouse Films rescued Miami Connection from obscurity, giving it the royal treatment with a brief theatrical run and all kinds of cool goodies offered on their websites, from shirts to VHS tapes to vinyl records and beyond! I am the proud owner of a Dragon Sound shirt, and it has since become my favorite article of clothing to wear whenever I want to feel at my best. The picture quality on the Blu-Ray is a little sketchy because Hurricane Charlie really did a number on the original print. It’s the best the film will ever look, and the gratuitous amount of grain just adds to the fun. It also comes with some cool bonus features, like an audio commentary, a making-of, deleted scenes (which mainly consists of stuff like the band trying out instruments, one of them giving a guitar demonstration in class, etc.), a very depressing alternate ending, a Dragon Sound reunion concert (age has not been kind to Angelo Janotti’s voice), a “Who is Y.K. Kim?” video, and a sweet trailer created by Hobo with a Shotgun-director Jason Eisner. A definitive edition if there ever was one. In the late-eighties, pretty much every action movie seeing release was either a rip-off or had a plot that had already been done to death. However, there really isn’t anything similar to Miami Connection; Y.K. Kim (who wasn’t a movie person at all) created something he felt was right, and it’s this kind of delightful innocence that drives the film. Well, and the incredible fights, the crazy finale, the terrible acting, the appalling ad-libbing, the killer soundtrack, the surprising amount of gore, and the lightning-fast pace. It's cemented itself as my fourth favorite movie of all time, and rightfully so.

The Verdict: Hilarious, action-packed, and sweetly naive, Miami Connection is the best so-bad-it’s-awesome movie in existence, no questions asked. It’s actually quite simple, really: if you don’t like Miami Connection, I don’t like you. It’s cold, but that’s the way it’s got to be.

Score: 10/10

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