Samurai Cop

Samurai Cop - 1989 - USA - Action/Exploitation

Dir: Amir Shervan

Samurai Cop is bad. The production value, acting, music, choreography, even the art direction, are all deplorable.  But if you're like me and you get a kick out of terrible movies, Samurai Cop is great fun.

This film costars Robert Z'Dar, the man with the invincible chin.  You may know him from his role in Maniac Cop and his small part as a convict in the buddy cop flick Tango & Cash.  If you have seen him before, you will recognize him.  The chin is unmistakable, and unstoppable.

Samurai Cop dumps you right into the action from the get go. Robert Z'dar, who plays a mob boss big shot for a Japanese gang named Katana, starts doing some wheeling and dealing with some other Asian gangs, which almost immediately results in some sort of small scale gang war.  To be honest its so poorly scripted its nearly impossible to tell whats going on at first, or who's fighting/shooting at who. Suddenly, Samurai Cop and his trusty sidekick intercept one of the gangs' drug deals, and a lengthy chase ensues.  This film has plenty of bizarre transitions such as this one, most likely attributed to it's broken script.

The plot revolves a man named Joe Marshall, a cop trained in Japan for martial arts, who is hired by the local police department to fix the city's gang problem. Joe Marshall, the Samurai Cop, has a giant, flowing mop of overly groomed black hair, and somehow seems to charm the pants off of every girl that appears on the screen, even ones associated with the gang he is assigned to get rid of.  His acting is so shitty its mind boggling, but all these attributes boost the characters' absurdity and bring about some good hearty laughs.

Samurai Cop's charm lies almost entirely in it's shittyness.  It's not tongue and cheek in the least.  There were a few times when film goes for a joke, but the real hilarity ensues within it's sincerity at actually attempting to be a serious film. 

The script in and of itself is a source of chuckles.  Some of the lines exchanged between characters are jaw droppingly insane.  Several times throughout the film I laughed out loud and thought "did they really just say that?".  There's plenty of one liners, but they are so bad they can barely be acknowledged.

Here's some more aspects of the film that attribute to its legendarily crappy reputation. The god awful 80's synth score. It's positively delightful.  The fight choreography, something that this film has a heavy dose of, is pretty pathetic as well.  There's no shortage of laughably bad fight scenes, and one particularly hilarious scene of a guy falling down a set of stairs as carefully as he possibly can.  Its clear that a few of the Asian gentlemen have a little bit of real life martial arts training, but the Samurai Cop himself seems to have little to none.

Many films of this caliber suffer from issues with pacing, but Samurai Cop never seems to slow down.  Its action packed from start to finish, and the laughs never stop. Watch it with a friend, crack open a few cold ones and let the laughs begin.
Certified Gem.


Action - 8.5/10
Choreography - 2/10
Blood n' Guts - 2/10
Laughs - 8/10
Acting - 1/10
OVERALL - 8/10

 Joe Marshall: Samurai Cop

 A baddie gets decapitated!

 Robert Z'Dar.  For the record that's %10 beard and %90 chin.

 How am I supposed to take this scene seriously with that in the background?

 A showdown between Samurai cop and this dude.

 Samurai Cop, WTF are you wearing?

The almighty chin wields a katana.

Isle of the Damned

Isle of the Damned - 2008 - USA - Cannibal/Comedy/Parody

Dir: Mark Colegrove

The first time I attempted to watch Isle of the Damned it was with a few friends.  All of us decided to shut it off and watch something else within the first 60 seconds.  No, it wasn't because we saw something that shocked us, it was because as soon as the film starts, it reeks of trying too hard. Today I decided to give it another chance, but its still clear that this one is in desperate need of a tad bit more subtlety.

The plot revolves around a crew of idiot morons that decide to sail to an infamous island to seek out a treasure.  Their plan is quickly thwarted as they find the island is inhabited with savage cannibals. What follows is quite dull and unoriginal.

This movie claims to be a lost European video nasty from 1980, but unfortunately it doesn't take long for anyone to notice that its clearly an American film that was made in the past 10 years.  The "aged film" filters aren't convincing as the colors are still too vibrant and the picture quality is crystal clear.  The film is dubbed throughout, and the voice acting is horrifically overwrought. Clearly they were going for comic relief, but it doesn't come off as funny, just annoying.  The protagonist, named Jack Steele, sports a shitty blonde wig and a fake looking 70's handlebar mustache, and is dubbed with a blaxploitation type voice, (which I've seen pulled off well in other real European films) and the other characters are mostly dubbed with intentionally high pitched, child like, irritating voices.

Isle of the Damned is a lackluster attempt at both a comedy and a parody, and I'd say is on par with one of the later Scary Movie series or a bad Wayans Brothers film.  I chuckled maybe twice throughout the whole movie.

There are plenty of attempts at shock scenes.  Fetuses are ripped out and eaten, people and castrated, and there is entirely too much rape, Unfortunately nearly all of them are poorly executed and failed to stir any sort of emotion out of me other than apathy.  The only kill scene that I got a kick out of  was when a giant paper mache snake ate a dude's face.

One thing Isle of the Damned taught me is "Don't judge a DVD by its cover."  This film, according to the cover, is "The 1980 cult classic . . . for the first time in North America", and "Banned in 492 Countries!". (which of course is far fetched, but appealing none-the-less)  The cover art is pretty great too, and is perhaps the only thing about the film that looks vintage and authentic.

Isle of the Damned is a lousy film.  It falls flat in all aspects, and fully failed to entertain me.  Avoid it at all costs, unless your a fan of shitty parody movies and the Scary Movie series.

Plot - 5/10
Blood n' Guts - 5/10
Laughs - 2/10
Shocks - 3/10
OVERALL - 3/10    


Investigator Jack Steele

 A crew of boring, uninspired characters.  Good thing they all die. (Spoiler? Meh, who cares.)

Native Cannibal.

 A redeeming kill scene.

Some gore/

Adam Chaplin

Adam Chaplin - 2011 - Italy - Horror/Splatter/Revenge

Dir: Emanuele De Santi

Adam Chaplin is a movie that had been on my list of things to watch for quite some time, but due the absence of a Region 1 or 0 DVD release I had been unable to until just recently.  I am certainly glad that I can finally watch it.  Written, directed by and starring Emanuele De Santi, this is a great effort by a first time film maker, the budding talent is clear as day.

This flick takes place in a fictional land named Heaven Valley, a dark, bleak place run by the mob, where insane ultra villains run rampant, and the laws of physics seemingly don't apply.

Adam, the protagonist, is hell bent for revenge.  He tears through the city on a murderous rampage looking for the mob boss who ruthlessly burned his beloved girlfriend alive.  Adam is accompanied by a demon, spawned by his own hate and anger, who lives inside his back and occasionally comes out to join in to help mutilate his foes.  Adam and his demon rip people apart with their bare hands, possessing super human strength, allowing his fists to move at lightning speed, which makes for some fantastically gory scenes. 

The characters in this movie are great. They are fleshed out, given in-depth back stories and personalities, and the costume design is absurd and fantastically inspired.  The most intriguing character is without and doubt the main super villain mob boss, named Denny.  His costume design is fucking great and his back story is heavily detailed.

The blood and guts are beyond plentiful.  Heads are smashed and cut to bits, limbs are torn off, bodies are generally decimated.  Most of the kills happen at a cartoonishly fast pace, its very comic book inspired.  The director even went as far to refer to the style as H.A.B.S. (Hyper-Realistic Anime Blood Simulation).  There is a special feature on the DVD about it that I have yet to watch.  The only problem with this H.A.B.S. style of violence is the use of CGI.  Plenty of the kills have fantastic practical gore effects, but a good deal of them use obvious CGI blood and action effects.  This is certainly one of the films largest flaws.  The makeup crew clearly knew what they were doing, and with a bit more effort some of the kills could have been done with practical effects and camera tricks and looked fine.  Despite my undying hatred for CGI in B movies, most of the kills were so fucking brutal and awesome I was able to look past it for the most part.

Another thing that I disliked was the color scheme.  Blue, blue, blue.  Nearly every scene is drenched in highly saturated shades of blue.  It was clearly done to establish atmosphere, but I think it could have been toned down a little.

Despite it's flaws, Adam Chaplin is still greatly entertaining splatter movie, one of the best I have seen in a while, and I would highly reccomend it to gorehounds and comic book fans.  Certified Gem.

Blood n' Guts - 9/10
Action - 8/10
Makeup FX - 8/10
CGI - 4/10
Plot - 7/10
OVERALL - 8.3/10


 Adam Chaplin lurks in the sewers.

 The demon emerges for the first time.

 A freshly demolished face courtesy of Adam

 Mob boss Denny Richard performing morbid experiments.

 Denny close up.

 Impaled.

 

Cannibal Apocalypse

Cannibal Apocalypse - 1980 - Italy - Cannibal/Action

Dir: Antonio Margheriti

Unlike almost every other Italian cannibal film from this era, Cannibal Apocalypse takes place in a urban city setting rather than a jungle.  The opening scenes however, take place in Vietnam. The abundance of American military stock footage used in these scenes are a clear testament to the movie's budget restraints.  Two starved American POW's are found being held captive in a deep hole in the ground, it quickly becomes apparent that these men have resorted to cannibalism.  These men eventually bring the habit home with them and somehow it spreads across the city like some sort of disease.

The responsibility of  unraveling the mystery of the spreading cannibalism fad falls upon Norman, (played by John Saxon)  the soldier who had originally found the POW's. Norman is plagued by nightmares of the war and quite possibly a bad case of PTSD, but his issues cant compare that that of the men he had rescued..

This film has no shortage of action, there are plenty of gunfights and cap bustin', showdowns with the police and fights with thugs on the street, to be honest theres more shooting than there is flesh munching.  Unfortunately, despite all the action this film still manages to drag at parts, as there are lulls of action in the film that don't manage to contribute any significant substance to the plot.  The plot itself starts to get a little strange, characters begin making decision that didn't seem very realistic, and there were a couple of holes in the story too.

Cannibal Apocalypse is overall an entertaining film, but it cant live up the the sheer brutality of other Italian Cannibal films from the era (Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust and Jungle Holocaust, even Zombie Holocaust, which strangely enough has more cannibals than zombies in it.)  The gore is there, but there isn't a huge amount of it, and most of it doesn't look too great, which certainly hurts a movie in this type of sub-genre.

In conclusion, the flick is worth a watch if you are a fan of the genre, and I would suggest grabbing a copy of the DVD asap as it recently went out of print and I expect the price will begin to rise.

Plot - 6/10
Blood n' Guts - 6/10
Acting - 6.5/10
Action - 7.5/10
OVERALL - 6.5/10


The POW's in captivity.

A showdown in a shopping center. 

 Thugs looking for a fight.

 A rather lackluster attempt at eye gouge FX.

Burned alive in a sewer.