BURNING AMBITION (1989)

 Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku (THE GREEN SLIME, BATTLE ROYAL etc.) made SHOGUN'S SAMURAI back in the 70s and this is Hong Director Frankie Chan's 80s sorta remake of that. I don't think I've ever seen Kinji's version so I'm not sure how similar this one is plot wise but I do know that instead of being a samurai flick set in feudal Japan though this is a modern-day(or at least modern-day for the 80s) Hong Kong gangster flick. Full of wall-to-wall action including kung-fu, gun-fu and even some car-fu battles this one is pretty enjoyable throughout. It's also all a pretty epic tale of backstabbing double-crossing in the life of a crime family. Yukari Oshima and a few other ass-kicking ladies have some great fight scenes to give it some variety. The one unique, and sometimes frustrating, aspect of this one is that who we are supposed to root for to ultimately be victorious seems to shift from scene to scene. If you can, like myself,  appreciate those grey areas and not having any clear-cut heroes to attach yourself to this one is good asian action flick to check out.



               Apparently this was released under the snazzy title MEGAFORCE in France!:

THE AMITYVILLE CURSE (1990)

 I guess you could call this AMITYVILLE 5(which was also the original working title) but that doesn't really matter because this doesn't really seem like much of a sequel. It does take place in the town of Amityville but the house looks completely different and now it has a confessional down in the basement that a priest got murdered in that was moved there from some cursed church, I think. The whole thing is kind of a confusing mess and since I watched it a few days ago it's now just a dreary blurry memory that is thankfully fading fast. Most of the film plays like a crappy slasher movie with ghosts offing people in various ways. It's all pretty boring though as most things from the 90s were.
 There were 5 more Amityville films making a whopping 10 movies in all that, outside of the first 3, I don't think I've even heard anything about though I think the next one is the one about the cursed clock that looks like it might be the worst sequel ever.

The whole stupid AMITYVILLE saga!:
1. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)
2. AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)
3. AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983)
4. AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES (1989) TV-movie about a haunted lamp from the original house
5. THE AMITYVILLE CURSE
6. AMITYVILLE 1992: IT'S ABOUT TIME (1992) a cursed clock!
7. AMITYVILLE: A NEW GENERATION (1993) a cursed mirror!
8. AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE (1996) a cursed dollhouse!
9. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005) some shitty Hollywood remake
10. AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING (2017)

There's also THE AMITYVILLE ASYLUM (2013) and THE AMITYVILLE PLAYHOUSE (2015) but I think those are just tangentially related.

DIRTY LAUNDRY (1987)

 Comedies that aren't funny are pretty hard to defend. I will not even try with this one. One thing I found interesting about this one is the cast. As the head bad guy you get Frankie Valli of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons and GREASE fame. As his main muscle you get, Nicholas Worth, the large imposing psycho from DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE. Also Sonny Bono shows up for a bit. Sadly all of this all-star power doesn't really add much to the proceedings and it's all a rather dull attempt by some mobsters to regain some lost money. The VHS box makes this look like a POLICE ACADEMY rip-off which it isn't but there is a scene which spoofs MIAMI VICE so I guess that's sorta similar but also not particularly funny. Also to add insult to injury it's rated PG-13 so don't expect any boobs which would have at least spiced things up a bit. Pretty good dumb 80s comedy to skip.



The dude from 80s hair-metal band Kingdom Come shows up in this one scene which I guess might be of interest to someone:

 

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)

 The first AMITYVILLE HORROR film, as well as ghost movies in general are not my favorites so I had very low expectations going into this 2nd chapter. I will not say my expectations were necessarily exceeded but at least this one has a few quirky oddball plot details that keep it from being the totally generic re-hash that I had anticipated. Of course you get the same old creepy house but this time instead of just haunting our new occupants(a dysfunctional family headed by Paulie from ROCKY(Burt Young)) they have to deal with their oldest son, conveniently named Sonny, being possessed by some bad spirits. There's also an out of the blue, creepy brother-sister incest thing going on and papa Paulie beating on his wife and kids frequently for additional uncomfortableness. Things do ramble on for a lot longer than necessary after it feels like the movie should be over and it all just feels like they tried to shoe-horn THE EXORCIST into a dumb ghost story but you do get to see some kids viciously murdered which is pretty rare(especially in American films) so I guess it should get some bonus points for taking a few chances if nothing else.




The trailer and this poster states that the film is actually a prequel to the first movie but that fact is never made all that clear in the actual film which clearly takes place in the 80s and not the early 70s as it would have to in order to fit in that timeline:

VAMPIRE MEN OF THE LOST PLANET (1970)

 Al Adamson is a director that more times than not lets me down. This attempt of his to make a sci-fi film with vampires in outer-space is no exception to that rule. Probably more commonly known as HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS this one recycles lots of footage footage from earlier films including that constantly reused scene of those two lizards(made-up to look like dinosaurs) fighting each other from 1940s ONE MILLION B.C. They get away with using old black and white footage because most of the movie is itself in black and white. Most of the scenes that take place on the alien vampire planet are tinted different colors, which the ads called "Spectrum X color!" You get lots of scenes of cavemen(because it's apparently a prehistoric planet) battling vampire cavemen and occasionally other monsters like the bat-demons and claw monsters. While that might sound exciting it's not exactly executed particularly well. The reason for this is probably because these bits were "borrowed" from a 5 year old Filipino film titled TAGANI. John Carradine doesn't do much but give advice every once in a while. My favorite parts are the opening sequences of folks on earth being overrun by bloodsuckers while the great Brother Theodore narrates. If only the rest of the movie could maintain that kinda insane energy level. Other aliases=  BLOOD CREATURES FROM THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, CREATURES OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, CREATURES OF THE RED PLANET, HORROR CREATURES OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, SPACE MISSION OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, SPACE MISSION TO THE LOST PLANET and THE FLESH CREATURES and probably more.





                                    An Al Adamson Drive-In Double Feature crapfest!:

More Adamson  drive-in goodness(badness?)!: