The Virginian (1946) McCrae is for Western Lovers.

Synopsis: When new schoolteacher Molly Wood (Barbara Britton) arrives in the small Western town of Medicine Bow, she meets two friends and cowhands who both have romantic notions about her, the charming Steve (Sonny Tufts) and the mysterious Virginian (Joel McCrea). However, there is a cattle war on and Steve starts to take up with the conniving Trampus (Brian Donlevy) who the Virginian believes is behind the spate of rustling. As Molly begins to fall for the Virginian, she is confronted with the realities of law and order on the range.

Review: The Virginian, based on a 1902 book by Owen Lister hailed as the first Western novel, is one of the most remade properties in all of film history. Starting in 1914 with a version by Cecil B. Demille, it has been followed by versions in 1929 (starring Gary Cooper), in 2000 (with Bill Pullman), and even 2014 (with country star Trace Atkins). I was interested in the 1946 film because of my recent viewing of Ride the High Country which starred McCrae and fellow Western legend Randolph Scott. Having no context for McCrae, I wanted to go back and see what stock his classic material came from.

My first impressions of McCrae and The Virginian were that it was going to be a standard horse opera with overtones of romantic comedy. I was quite surprised when the tale descended into betrayal, the brutality of Western justice, and revenge. While there was a constant romantic thread throughout between McCrae and Britton’s school teacher, The Virginian took on a much harder edge, and McCrae was able to convey both the lighter moments and the dramatic twists with relative ease. He had a charm and affability that was quite dynamic when opposed to the mustache twirling evil of Brian Donlevy’s evil rancher.

There were also quite an impressive number of cattle driving scenes, and in one moment, a rustled band of cattle is diverted downstream to cover their tracks. While it is certainly clever on the villain’s part, what impressed me was the footage of dozens of cows treading water down a fairly fast rushing river, a scene today that would only be accomplished through use of computer trickery for fear of animal rights groups. I’m not saying I disagree, but it is an impressive sight. It was an enjoyable movie, but in the end, it left little impression apart from McCrae’s capability.

Final Note: Director Stuart Gilmore would leave directing behind and spent most of his career as am editor working of films such as The Andromeda Strain, Toys in the Attic, and Sweet Charity.

Rating: 6.5/10

The Bigger and Badder Halloween Top 13: #5: Attack of the 50ft. Woman (1958)

For the second time on this list, I will be talking about an exclusively humanoid giant, but unlike the teens in Village of the Giants, this time it isn't played so much for laughs. In the eyes of a conservative nation, which America has steadily grown out of over the years, the rise of the Women’s Christian Temperance Organization in the 1870s-80s was nothing less than monstrous. While their purpose was to ban alcohol, something that few people would rally around now, one of their main reasons was to improve the home life of women who were abused, beaten, and neglected thanks to the rampant alcoholism which had spread like wildfire among the nation’s male population. To many, the members of that group, as well as the women’s suffragettes, were nothing less than monstrous. However, these two movements were the seed of what would grow to be the modern feminist movement, which came into its own nearly a hundred years later in the 1960’s. Despite winning the vote in the 1920s and powering the country through World War II, when the men came home, they still expected to find meek partners who bent to their husband’s will, but by the late 1950s the strain between the sexes was beginning to show even in idyllic middle America. So it comes as no surprise that a movie came along and exploited the fear of the powerful woman whose cause was just, if not her methods. Granted she was still dressed in an awfully titillating style, but Attack of the 50 Foot Woman offered up a giant woman in the place of a giant movement just waiting in the wings.

Summertime Killer (1972): Chris Mitchum Turns Up the Heat on Revenge

Hot town, Summertime Killer. 

Chris Mitchum’s gonna get dirty and gritty.

 Get down, with this review 

and find out if it was great or shitty. 

All around, people getting shot dead, 

and the action’s getting hot, hotter than a match head. 

Right, now that I have that Lovin’ Spoonful parody out of my system, I'll start this review in earnest. The sweltering heat of summer has definitely arrived here at The Lair, and unlike the main character of today’s film, I don’t have a houseboat to moor in the Mediterranean. If I did, I would probably also do more dirt biking than I do now. Until then, I’m going to be here bringing you films like today’s, Summertime Killer. It’s a story of revenge, kidnapping, and action all set against the backdrop of a Spanish heat wave.

The Lonely Violent Beach (1971): Bikers, Beaches, and Not So Bloody Revenge

If you laid out brochures for a number of vacation destinations, many people would choose to go to Sandals or Atlantis. Some might pick an iconic locale like Muscle Beach or head off to Atlantic Beach for some gambling, and Bikini Beach Resort in Panama City, Florida might tempt a number of folks. The one brochure that would never be touched is for The Lonely Violent Beach. No matter how stunning the photographs of waves on the beach might be or how many assurances there were about the area being devoid of roving biker gangs, people simply wouldn’t want to go. There could be pictures of beautiful sunsets and wide open, deserted stretches of beach laid out under a legend claiming less rape this year than ever before, and I just don’t think anyone would be convinced. Unless, I suppose, you were a member of a roving, raping biker gang who didn’t buy into the hype.

Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'?: The Osterman Weekend (1983)

I can hardly believe this month is nearly over and this should be the last of Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'? I’ve had a great time with Rutger, and we've seen him ride across fantasy landscape with a bad case of ornithophilia, be menaced by a brat packer turned cyber bully, and hunt a rapper in Oregon while accompanied by Ghandi. If there's one thing that can certainly be said about Mr. Hauer, his career has been as varied as the scope of cinema. This week's selection is no exception. Not only is it the last film of a great.... or once great director; The Osterman Weekend is a prescient film that missed its audience during its original release but speaks to today's society awash with surveillance. It was also Rutger's big stab for mainstream leading man credibility. Coming out directly after his well received performance in Bladerunner, the adaptation of spy writer Robert Ludlum's novel seemed a perfect choice for the star. However, just like the world his character enters, the mechanizations behind the scenes proved to be his undoing.

Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'?: Surviving the Game (1994)

Survival, it's for the fittest they say, and no where has this been more frequently illustrated then in the myriad of retellings of 'The Most Dangerous Game'. There have been countless film versions of the classic 1924 tale such as Woman Hunt, Bloodlust!, and Hard Target just to name a few among hundreds if not thousands. Today, I'm taking a look at Rutger getting his hunt on in Ernest R. Dickerson's Surviving the Game. Unlike the past two features in Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'?, New World Disorder and Ladyhawke, this one finds Rutger in the role of the bad guy as he pairs up with Charles F. Dutton to hunt Ice-T. Not only is Hauer on the opposite side of the law, dare I say, he doesn't appear quite as dashing as normal. With  his straggly whiskers and shoulder length hair, he looks a bit like Colonel Sanders' L.A cousin who favors ill fitting suits in the office, but on the weekend, breaks out the camo hunting gear for a little homeless hunting.

Assassination Games (2011): The Bugg and JCVD Dodge a Bullet

I had so much more planned for Action April. I really did, but instead my body decided to take action against me. So this week you're gonna get this review and one more, 2, count them, 2 Hauer You Doin'? action treats to anround out the week. I know it sounds like lofty goals, but I’m just the Bugg for the job. So what's been happening to me, well, the title of today's film is Assassination Games, and over the last week my body tried to assassinate me.... At least it felt like it. It seems the ever lovin' blue eyed Bugg had gone and got himself a pair of matching kidney stones. Those wee buggers, a.k.a 4mm of the worst pair you'd ever want in your life, brought me to my knees, and while I watched a good many movies through the pain killer induced haze, I didn't think my thoughts on them would be particularly cogent. Or less cogent than normal I should say. At any rate, I'm all healed up, and nothing gets me back into the action like a little JCVD.

Blood Games (1990):A Real American Pastime,Vengence

Since it's National Blood Donation Month and I'm picking movies with a sanguine connection, I couldn't resist checking out Blood Games, a rape-revenge flick that has balls... baseballs I mean. The Australians always have a way at cutting to the core of things, and they might not have ever hit it on the head more accurately than with their re-titling of Blood Games as Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell. That evocative title lets you now everything you need to know about the film. There will be hicks, tits, shotguns, sub-Roadhouse level redneck wisdom, and the great American pastime. In short, Blood Games is an exploitation goldmine, and there's nuggets in there big enough to make a Kanye West necklace with. This is definitely an under-seen, under-appreciated gem, and I'm proud to make it the next selection in Blood Donation Month. So sit back and relax while I tell you about a time when men struck out and women struck back... with bats and guns and buses.

Babe and the Ballgirls are a traveling exposition baseball team. Along with their coach, Midnight (Ross Hagan), they travel from town to town playing local teams while the coach makes large wagers on the team to pay off their mounting debts. In one small town, they run into a bit of trouble. The losing team of hicks doesn't take too kindly to being beaten by a group of gals, and town boss Mino Collins (Ken Carpenter) doesn't want to pay up on a thousand dollar bet. Midnight and Mino rumble in a barroom bathroom, and Mino pays off the debt. However, it has taken too long for the coach to get back to his team. Midnight's daughter Babe (Laura Albert) and one of the other girls go to look for him. Instead they find Roy Collins (Gregory Scott Cummins), Mino's son, and his best friend Holt (Don Dowe) who try and rape the girls. When Midnight shows up, he gets stabbed helping the girls and Roy gets shot in the leg. Trying to escape town, the team boards their bus head out quickly, but Roy and Holt  shoot the bus off the road resulting in Roy getting crushed to death. Mino takes no small offence at the death of his boy, and soon the town forms a posse to go after the girls and kill them one by one.

If you were sitting with me right now, Blood Games would be all I want to talk about. From the quotable lines (Mino drops bon mots like "There is no such thing as pain." and "You're fucking with the devil now boy.) to the gratuitous shower scene, slow motion action sequences, and the mere existence of George "Buck" Flower in this flick, I could ramble on about this one like Tarantino on speed. So I apologize if the synopsis ran a little long. I'd also talk at length about director Tanya Rosenberg, I have no idea who she is. She only directed one film. She's not listed or talked about anywhere. It's like she appeared, dropped this exploitation gem on us, and disappeared like some kind of cult film fairy. It amazes me that this rape-revenge flick (there is a full blown rape later in the film) came about in the early 90s, well past the heyday of such fare. It's almost unfair to call this a 90s film. The French cut panties, big hair, and neon colors the girls wear places this movie squarely in the pre-grunge era when the 80s were still stubbornly leaving their mark in a new decade.

One of the big things that Blood Games has over other wrathful women film is that there's not one woman in peril, there's nine of them (and the coach, but he's only in danger long enough to get killed). Laura Albert, as team leader Babe, is the film's center, and she holds the surviving girls together as they escape into the dense woods surrounding the town. Albert is one of the only girls who appeared in movies both before and after Blood Games though now it seems she finds most of her work doing stunts on Batman Begins, Pineapple Express, and this year's Oscar nominated film The Artist. The other standout among the gals is Donna, Shelley Abblett in her one film role. Abblett delivers one of the film's most memorable lines, "I have been pushed around by men my whole life, and I'm sick of it.", a war-cry for vengeance seeking gals everywhere. While few of the girls ever did any acting or went on to do anymore, I found each of their performances enjoyable.

Veteran actor/director Ross Hagen does a fine job as Midnight, the team's coach, but sadly his role is minimal at best. Gregory Scott Cummins (Stone Cold, Phantom of the Mall) also has a small part as Roy, the sore loser, but he impresses with rampant dickery and a certain Kevin Sorbo-esque look. He also has one of the best arm wrestling scenes this side of Hands of Steel though instead of snakes it's done over candles. More impressive is Ken Carpenter as the town bossman Mino. Carpenter, who would later appear in Hellraiser: Hell on Earth as the Camera cinobite, gives a great tough guy perfromance, and his fight with Ross Hagan in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles is surely one for the books. Don Dowe, a character actor still working today, also turns in a fine performance as Holt, the dumbest of the hunters and Roy's best friend. Something about him made me think about Bill Fagerbakke as Dauber on Coach, Except, you know, more rapey. That beings us to the film's final delight George "Buck" Flower who appeared here under the name Ernest Wall, a screen name he only used once. I hope each and every one of you knows who Flower is and can imagine how good he'd be as a hillbilly named Vern. He also has one of my favorite exchanges in the film. Holt says, "Vern, you can't beat your own meat." to which Vern replies, "I can beat it better than you can." Comedy gold.

I've seen some speculation that Blood Games was intended to be a parody of female vengeance flicks, but I saw no trace of anything that could point to that. While there are certainly some funny moments, intentional and unintentional, Blood Games doesn't seem like it was supposed to be played for laughs. Like a mash-up of I Spit on Your Grave, Deliverance, and a sports film (some say A League of Their Own, but apart from girls playing ball I fail to see a correlation), Blood Games is indeed one of the best exploitation movies of the last twenty five years. Right now it's playing on Netflix Instant Watch, and I can't recommend this enough. If you like your exploitation violent, sexy, and down and dirty with a giant dollop of 80s on the top, then you really can't afford to miss this one. This film starts with a baseball game, and it is a crackerjack. When it comes to cult fare like this, I really don't care if I ever come back. I got to root, root, root for the gals to win, and the ones that die, it is a shame, but this flick gets One-Two-Three (and a half) Buggs to count for the old Blood Game. 

Bugg Rating 

The Bugg Goes to The Drive-In Horror Show (2009)

There are things that I always tend to lean toward, Drive-Ins, anthology films, and people with whom I have shared Shiner Bocks. So let it be known, that one evening after the events of days at Horrorhound Weekend Indy 11, I did find myself sharing aforementioned beer brand with Micheal Neel, director of the anthology flick, Drive-In Horror Show. During the course of quelling our thirst, Micheal asked if I'd gotten a chance to see his film, and sadly I had not. Now that situation has been amended, and call it preferential treatment if you will, but I owe Mr. Neel another round or two.

Anthologies are a tricky thing. Some, such as Creepshow, Black Sabbath or Trick 'r Treat , go down in the books as horror classics. Then there's flicks like Grim Prairie Tales and Tales from the Hood are better left both forgotten and unexamined. The trouble tackling an anthology film is that each separate piece needs to be strong on its own so the viewer is left with an impression of each story, but there must be both balance and build or the dynamic of the film is skewed well away from point. Thankfully, first time feature director Micheal Neel, whose previous credits include three documentary features, one self produced and directed, knows his stuff and, as an avid horror fan, he must have know the traps to watch out for because he made out like Pitfall Harry swinging over a lake of 8 bit crocs.

Drive-In Horror Show is divided into five segments linked via a post-apocalyptic drive-in where the old horror classics just "won't stay dead." Manning the reels is The Projectionist (Luis Negron) with his sidekick Billy Troll, and you can't hate on segments where you learn important lessons like "the undead are so hard to please". Negron is suitably hammy as a temporary horror host, and I really enjoyed  his interplay with his supporting cast of a lolling zombie, an ax murdered concession stand girl, and a pair of griping skeleton patrons (one of which is voiced by director Micheal Need.)

The first segment Pig goes right for the audience's throat and their endurance for realistic gore. It's rape-revenge in the correct miniature proportions 5 seconds of off-screen raped and twenty of bloody, bloody, bathtub revenge. With only two emotionally charged (and gory) performances to start up the film, Neel and co-writer Greg Ansin took a big chance, and it pays off. Actress Judith Kalora is outstanding, and I would not be at all surprised to hear her name again someday.

Then in The Closet we see what happens when a literal monster in the closet gets sway over an unhappy middle schooler who has it out for his family. Let's just say the results aren't pretty, but they'd sure make Rod Serling smile. While some of the family interactions are stilted, Chis Fidler impresses as young Jamie, and watching the young actor slip from horrified to gleefully excited during his character's predicament is well worth the story's few foibles.

Fall Apart is the first story to feature a sympathetic character as the main focus, philanthropic Dr. Patrick Mazursky. The Doc does all the pro-bono work he can, but after encountering a mysterious sore on a patient, he starts down the road to a killer Frank Cotton cosplay. While I think the story almost gets away from itself, it is saved by its brief running time and ends up being both thought provoking and touching.

The Meat Man stars two young kids with wild imaginations and a BBQ loving dad they suspect might be the titular cannibalistic serial killer. My dad can beat up your dad kind of pales in comparison when one suspects that pops might be pals with Dexter Morgan. I believe this segment was the shortest, and it was a wise decision. While the premise was cute, it was the weakest story overall.

The Watcher takes us on a hike straight into slasher territory. In a third of the Friday the 13th remake's running time, it provides a better example of how to pay homage to the classics, bring the genre into the present, interesting cinematic dynamics, and create  a suspense build which executes into a perfect final climax for the film. The greatest asset this segment holds is the shooting style. Every frame has a point-of-view feeling from beginning to end,and it creates a hell of a mood.

Drive-In Horror Show is not a perfect anthology film, but even among the good ones, I can think of none that would get top honors no matter how much I favor the sub-genre. That being said, Micheal Neel's homage to drive-in horror hits all the bases. Cannibals, monsters, serial killers, revenge killers, and crazy infections (complete with shady government agents) are all staples of they drive-in's heyday. While there's precious few places you can still experience the thrill of the drive-in theater,  Horror Show is a great way to get a little of that at home. It also managed to gross me out, and so I have to give a big shout out to the folks in the special effects department. I'm not usually one to have to turn away from anything, but one portion of Pig made me nauseous. So my hat is off to you (also just in case I need to toss cookies.)

There will surely be critics who would come down harder on this film, and yes there is more I could pick apart. However when it comes to any film, and an indie especially, heart goes a long way. It came through loud and clear that everyone in this film had tons of heart. In fact, I saw a few of them get ripped out. I also saw a first genre feature from a talented new director. Sure, I might have met Micheal Neel, and you might think I'm biased toward Drive-In Horror Show, but my bias lies with things that are good to watch. Earlier I said  that I owed Mr. Neel another drink. I think as more people see his film he's going to have more and more glasses hoisted his way.

Bugg Rating 

Check out all things DRIVE-IN HORROR SHOW here! Including where to get your very own copy! Netflix users please save it to your queue and let's see if we can help Micheal get 'Flix to carry his flick. 

Don't Mess With My Sister (1985): The 'I Spit On Your Grave' Director Hocks Up One On The Big Apple

Strangely for a director with an infamous film like I Spit on Your Grave to his credit, Meir Zarchi only has one other film listed on his résumé. Eight years after his infamous 1977 rape/revenge film, he finally got around to making his second feature, the threateningly titled Don’t Mess with My Sister. On the festival circuit, the film made the rounds under the more benign name American Junkyard, but I suppose Zarchi’s connection to the film required a more intense title aimed at titillating the exploitation market. While Don’t Mess with My Sister does eventually take off into the land of violence, it takes quite a while to get there, and for the most part, the film is a working class family drama set in the gritty world of ‘80’s New York.


Steven (Joe Perce) works as a book-keeper in a junkyard owned by his wife Clara’s (Jeannine Lemay) brothers. After Steven and Clara got married, the brothers promised to make him a partner in the business, a promise they have failed to keep. Now, Steven keeps his job resentfully while attending night school to become a full fledged accountant. One night on the way home from school, he gives classmate Annika (Laura Lanfranchi) a ride into the city, and it happens to turn out that she is working as the belly dancer at his surprise birthday party. Steven falls for the blonde dancer, and the next day at school returns part of her costume she left behind. He drives her to see one of her clients, but when the man becomes too aggressive, Steven rushes in to defend Annika taking out all his pent up aggression on the rich pervert. The two begin a torrid affair, but when Clara and her brothers find out, they begin to tear Steven’s life apart until he snaps under the pressure.

Needless to say this is a far, far cry from the 40 minutes of rape and 40 minutes of revenge that make up I Spit on Your Grave, but that’s not to say that it was bad, just different. Lead actor Joe Pierce had very little film experience before or after this film. His only other appearances were supporting roles in films like Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45, the sci-fi film The Hidden, and Ridley Scott’s Black Rain. In this singular lead role, Pierce seems to be trying his hardest to give an Al Pacino type performance, but he falls short looking nervous rather than the pensive tortured soul that he seemed to be aiming for. The rest of the cast is full of mostly first time actors who never appeared in a film since, but they all give solid performances with few exceptions. No one really brings the film down, but there’s no performance that stands out either.

Don’t Mess with My Sister gains a lot of entertainment value from the vision of gritty New York. From the junkyard to the streets of the city, Zarchi and cinematographer Phil Gries give the film a seedy, depressed look that matches the inner turmoil that Steven seems to be going through in his life. The same can’t be said of the hacky score by Todd Rice. It plays on all the notes that one would expect, and I could almost predict when the ominous strains of synth would kick in. Overall, the film is directed with far more skill than I Spit on Your Grave. Rather than just being about the rote notes of rape and revenge, Don’t Mess With My Sister has emotional depth to it. What really hurts the film is the title that seems to imply that the film would be some kind of slasher that it is clearly not.

I Spit on Your Grave will probably find this second outing from the director very disappointing and not at all what they expected. It wasn’t what I expected, but there is something about films set in New York in the early ‘80’s that always tends to capture my imagination. The drama was fairly heavy, but well acted and the pay off in the last fifteen minutes of the movie makes the first seventy minutes well worth sitting through. So if you’re a fan of character studies, the Big Apple before it was sanitized, or if you are curious what Meir Zarchi’s other film is like, then check out Don't Mess with My Sister, but just don’t expect a repeat of his previous effort.

Bugg Rating

You Don't Know Shat! - White Comanche (1968)

Hello folks, and welcome to the 2nd annual edition of You Don’t Know Shat, a month long celebration of William Shatner to coincide with the legendary actor’s birthday. Mr. Shatner will be turning 79 this year, and with a career that spans 191 screen credits and nearly sixty years, there’s no shortage of material to check out. Last year, I looked at some of my favorite films from Shatner, the arachnid attacks epic Kingdom of the Spiders, the paintball doc Spplatt Attack, Pray for The Wildcats where he rumbles with Andy Griffith, and my favorite Trek film The Undiscovered Country. This year I’m tuning my attention to films that I’ve never seen before, and each one should prove to be a fascinating trip into his lengthy career.

For the first installment, I chose the 1968 Spanish Western White Comanche [Comanche blanco] also known as Rio Hondo or Hour of Vengance. Shatner was on hiatus between the second and third seasons of Star Trek when he traveled to Spain to join Joseph Cotton in making this picture. Pulling double duty, he stars as both Johnny Moon and his brother Notah, a ruthless Comanche leader. Notah, under the influence of peyote, believes that he is the savior of his tribe sent to lead them in a final conflict with the white man. The first step is leading an army against the sleepy western town of Rio Hondo, a town already divided by rival gangs of gunrunners. Inevitably the brothers must face off, and Johnny Moon alone must stand against his brother.

When Shatner went to Spain to film White Comanche, it must have seemed like a pretty good idea. After all, Clint Eastwood’s star was on the rise because of his Westerns with Sergio Leone. Unfortunately for Shatner, Spanish director Jose Briz Mendez only had eight film credits to his name, and none of them had made any mark outside of Spain. (Mendez would only have one other film dubbed into English, the 1968 action film Devil’s Angel.) The film was made on an extremely limited budget, most of which probably went to hire Shatner and Cotton, and the low production values are clearly evident on the screen. Don’t expect sweeping shots or even basic coverage, and certainly don’t expect a masterfully acted or directed film. What you should expect is a campy good time that far exceeded my expectations though not as a Western but rather an unintentionally comic masterpiece.

Shatner doesn’t take his performance as far over the top as you might expect. He’s actually quite charismatic in that early Kirk kind of way as Johnny Moon. Now when he’s playing Notah, it was time to paint his face, doff his shirt, and get down to the business of hamming it up. I have to say that Notah, even though he’s the leader of the rebel band of Indians, doesn’t bother to grow his hair out or even look dirty like the rest of his crew. I guess it would have been a worse choice to plop a wig on Shatner’s dome, and it would have ruined the mistaken identity sub-plot when Johnny Moon rides into Rio Hondo. The final fight between Shatner and Shatner is something that has to be seen to be believed, and even after seeing it, I’m not sure I have recovered from the awesomeness.

As far as the other performers go, Joseph Cotton picked up quite a few checks by appearing in foreign made films, and this is definitely one of them. Cotton strikes a very lean classic look as Rio Hondo’s resident Sheriff (and got top billing for his efforts) and provides the kind of solid performance that one would expect from a veteran actor. Also making an appearance is Italian actress Rosanna Yanni as the requisite love interest for Johnny Moon. Yanni, who starred in Paul Naschy’s films The Mark of the Wolfman and Dracula’s Great Love, has little to do in the film but looks beautiful doing it. The strange thing about her character is how quickly she goes from being raped by Notah to falling into the arms of his twin brother. Either this girl has some serious issues or no one bothered to think that through.

Speaking of serious issues, the script was written by Frank Gruber and Robert Holt (along with uncredited Spanish writer Manuel Gomez Rivera and director Mendez, and it has the haphazard feeling of a film with too many hands on it. Plotlines are drawn in and dropped at a whim, and the sub-plot about the rival gangs in Rio Hondo seems like no more than filler. While Shatner’s action sequences showcase the best of his Star Trek fighting skills, the massive shootouts in the film are clashes between gunman who the viewer probably won’t care about or even know what their motivation was. While the script has problems with convoluted plot and inane dialog, what really brings this film down is the sets to these filler shootouts that never go anywhere.

Jose Briz Mendez had his shot at the US with White Comanche, and it is easy to see why it didn’t go over for him. Even though Shatner’s star was on the rise, even his fame couldn’t pull this film out of the mire. His presence buoyed film considerably, and it was interesting to see Shatner take on the role while he was taking a break from Kirk. It’s not the best film, but I have to agree with the Razzie’s film guide that named White Comanche one of the most enjoyable bad movies to watch. If you like Euro-westerns from the period or, like me, the acting stylings of William Shatner, then this is a film that you should check out. Just realize that you’re not going to see one of the classics of the genre, but you are going to see William Shatner throw down against William Shatner.

Bugg Rating

Jack Frost (1996): He Ain't F**kin' Frosty!

The essential reference guide known as Wikipedia tells us that Jack Frost is “an elfish creature who personifies crisp, cold weather.” That’s not the kind of thing that bothers filmmakers though. In 1998, a movie called Jack Frost was made starring Michael Keaton as a playful snowman brought back to life to reconnect with his kids. Then in 2006, a slightly more accurate (and more annoying) version of Jack Frost was introduced via Martin Short in the film The Santa Clause 3: the Escape Clause. Of course, we’re not here to talk about either of those fellows. For my money, nothing quite says Jack Frost or Christmas quite like the 1996 film about a killer snowman with a taste for revenge.

It’s the week before the holiday and, even though there’s a massive snowstorm going on, serial killer Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) is being transported to his execution. The truck with Jack in it collides with a truck carrying experimental genetic material. Jack gets hosed down by the genetic goop, and his body becomes fused with the snow causing him to become a giant killer snowman. He can now make good on his promise to Sheriff Sam Tiler (Chris Allport) that he would find a way to get him. Jack starts terrorizing the citizens of Snowmonton, and he’ll have his fun before he melts away.

I’m not sure if people are not getting the joke, but Jack Frost is a film that has been much maligned over the years. Rotten Tomatoes for example gives this film an 8% freshness rating while the sappy 1998 Keaton family film gets double that. If you watch this with the intention of seeing a serious film, then you’re going to be disappointed. If you are looking for a well-made slasher, you will be let down. However, if you want a silly piece of holiday nonsense that brings with it a hefty dose of black comedy, then this is the film for you. I was pretty much laughing the whole way through, and I have to give it up to director Michael Cooney for setting the proper tone throughout. If a film can feature a girl being raped by a snowman via his carrot nose and still have me laughing, then it’s doing something right.

One criticism that’s been leveled at this film is that the special effects are terrible. I won’t argue with that at all. They are, but that was part of Jack Frost’s charm. When Jack grabs hold of one lady to pound her face into a box of Christmas ornaments, his hand is obviously a felt covered glove and the head part of a mannequin. If it had looked better, then it might have looked like the film was taking itself seriously, and I can assure you that it was not. If the effects don’t convince you lines, “I’m the world most pissed off snow cone. “and “I ain’t fucking Frosty.“ should. Jack Frost is and extremely self-aware film, and it boggles my mind that over the years people seem to overlook it. When I read reviews of the film, it gets lambasted for being bad, but just like films such as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, it knows exactly what it is.

Much of the credit for how enjoyable Jack Frost comes off has to go to Christopher Allport as Sheriff Tiler. Allport does a great job as the dippy small town cop, and I enjoyed every moment he was on screen. Allport was a career long character actor, and it’s too bad that he didn’t get many lead roles. I could easily see him being a fine comedic lead. Unfortunately, Allport died in 2008 when he was caught in an avalanche. The irony is not lost on me, but I’m not going to make light of this talented actor’s untimely death. I look forward to getting a chance to check out Allport in the sequel, Jack Frost 2: Return of the Killer Mutant Snowman, and I will definitely be on the lookout for him in some of his roles in films such as Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars and 1979’s Savage Weekend.

The other really great performance is Scott MacDonald as Jack Frost. He has many great moments in the film, and the first of which comes even before he turns into a snowman. The look on his face is priceless in the scene where the genetic material is hurtling toward him, and I love his line, “This is going to hurt.” MacDonald has a long résumé that includes a season on the HBO series Carnivale, but as a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fan, I found it most interesting that he played one of the more memorable one episode characters, Tosk.

Jack Frost also features a couple of supporting characters that I have to mention. It’s notable that this is the first film in American Pie sexpot Shannon Elizabeth’s career, and I’m sure she’s proud to be a participant in the first (and probably only) snowman rape scene ever. (Which is capped off when Jack puts his carrot nose back on his face and says, “I guess Christmas came a little early this year.”) Veteran character actor F. William Parker is also very entertaining as the Snowmonton’s deep discounting hardware store owner. Marsha Clark gets more than a few funny lines as police dispatcher Marla, and Paul Clark, who played the Dad in the classic film The Last American Virgin, shows up here as the town Doctor.

Jack Frost is a silly, silly film, but I had a lot of fun watching it. It will surely become a flick that I turn to every holiday season now. Going into a film about a killer snowman, you should have pretty low expectations. The great thing about Jack Frost is that it has low expectations of itself. If you’re on board with the joke, then I think you’ll have a good time, and you’ll definitely never look at carrots quite the same way again.

Bugg Rating

Will Terrifying Tuesday Get Hostile when I Check Out Hostel(2005) ?

I’ve only been abroad once in my life, and it was on a trip to Europe right after I graduated high school. As soon as I descended onto foreign soil, I sought to ingratiate and learn about the cultures I was being exposed to. There were a handful of others on the trip with me, and surely, we were thought of as the nerdy bunch by the rest of the group. The others proceeded to march around the ancient ruins, impressive museums, and religious grounds with all the arrogance and boorish behavior that has become expected of the American tourist.

The term the Ugly American comes from a book of the same name written in 1958 by authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. In the book, one character describes the Americans that had come to Southeast Asia to stem the flow of communism by saying “For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance.” Ironically, the character called the Ugly American, a brutish engineer, is the only one who lives among the people and truly tries to help them.

I know this is a long way to go around to getting to talking about film, but Eli Roth’s much maligned film Hostel, tries to illustrate the new face of what the world knows as The Ugly American. While the film achieves this with mixed results, I’m starting to believe it should be required viewing before you can get a passport. Just so on the off chance that some tourists might just think, “That could be me so maybe I ought to know a bit about where I’m going and maybe I should leave the Bermuda shorts and fanny packs at home.”

Roth’s Hostel presents us with a trio of young men, Americans Paxton and Josh (Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson) and the Icelandic Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), who are traveling across Europe and staying in various hostels. As the film opens they are in Amsterdam, they meet a Russian man who tells them about a hostel in Slovakia filled with gorgeous and slutty women. Naturally, the next day the trio sets out on a train headed for the village, and along the way, they meet a very creepy Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasák) who spins tales of the hostel’s wonders before putting his hand on Josh’s knee. Once they arrive at the hostel, it seems like all it's cracked up to be including co-ed rooms with a couple of exotic hotties. When Oli and an Asian girl go missing, things start to go downhill, and soon Paxton finds himself alone in the foreign country. He begins to investigate their disappearance, but ends up almost suffering the same fate as his friends.

Before I go any further, let me say that while the Americans in the film are portrayed as horny rubes, there are not any really nice European characters either. Hostel may make Yanks look like dummies, but it portrayed Europeans as either treacherous, sadistic, or at the least, terribly rude. In some ways, it plays with the stereotypes that both groups have with each other. Of course, with all such narrow categorizing, there is a bit of truth mixed in on both sides. Hostel is a film that ignores the exceptions and focuses on those preconceived notions that we all have of each other.

Of course, the problem is that all the things I’ve extrapolated from the film are shakily drawn out, and I think this is where the weakness of the film comes in. Roth carries his themes well right up until the point where Paxton is drawn into the murderous underworld. After that, the film becomes an adventure film that is more about survival and escape than looking into sociological issues. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, I rather enjoyed the back third of the film nearly as much. After putting off this film for many years, I was quite surprised at how the violence was portrayed.

Hostel has been credited as one of the groundbreaking films in the “torture porn” genre, a label I have yet to understand or agree with on any film. While obviously (spoiler alert) the people who have travelers kidnapped to torture and kill them fetishize violence, I never felt that the film or filmmaker were making the violent spectacle in any way titillating. Roth even pulls away from the torture and murder making the unseen impact the audience. There were even a couple scenes where the violence was played for laughs. The guy who slips and cuts himself apart with the chainsaw and what happens when Paxton catches up with the people who set him up both seem more like fates that Wiley Coyote might suffer. Compared even to last weekends The Final Destination, Hostel is not the gorefest everyone has made it out to be.

Hostel does have quite a few problems that make this film not stack up against his debut feature Cabin Fever. The main problem I have with the film is the loss of the thematic thread in the final act, but I do have a few other qualms. I have a hard time with a movie that has no characters in it that I can either like or relate to. The characters struck me about the same as the jerks in Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. I hesitate to say that the film makes you feel like they deserve what they got, but it does make you want to smack them and make them a bit more conscience about the world they live in.

My last gripe has to do with the gore effects. While a few of them were rather realistically gruesome, there was at least one scene (at the very end of the film) that was one of the worst effects I’ve ever seen in a major production. While I tip my hat to Roth for using practical effects, that particular one took me out of the film right at the end of the story, and it left me quite confused as to why it was so poorly done. I even entertained that he might have done it intentionally, but I think that is just Monday morning quarterbacking on my part.

I would really be interested to see what other folks thought about this film because it’s not the travesty that I had been lead to believe, but it’s certainly not the game changer that a few have called it. I am also very keen to see how the story progresses and the many cameo appearances in Hostel 2. I’ve seen two out of three of Roth’s films now, and I still don’t think he’s made his best one yet. I think it’s a shame how underrated he currently seems to be, and I hope that his charismatic performance in Inglorious Basterds does a bit to change that. That’s all for now folks. Join me back here tomorrow for another film from the Hitchcock library that is sure to be a thrill.

Bugg Rating