NIGHT OF THE EXECUTIONER (1992)

 Eurotrash legend Paul Naschy stars and directs a Spanish DEATH WISH rip-off. Charles Bronson gets name-dropped and we get to watch an almost 60-year-old Naschy working out(showing off his prowess from back when he was a professional weight-lifter) and blow away a ridiculous assortment of rapists and murderers. It's obviously not up to the quality of DEATH WISH but certainly as entertaining as one of the later sequels. The big bad boss reminds me of the bad guy from Inspecter Gadget who never shows his face which certainly fits the more cartoonish aspects of the film. It also has a MAD FOXES-vibe with it's rape/revenge insanity which I loved!

                                     Naschy getting pumped up!:

ALLEY CAT (1984)

 The best way to describe this female vigilante flick is that it's basically a not-quite-as-good version of SAVAGE STREETS. Similarly to that film it deals with a chick who has a family member, in this case her grandmother, attacked by a street gang and from there it's revenge time. Pretty basic stuff. You do get a lot of nudity from our star, Karin Mani, which is always nice.  Strangely Ms. Mani didn't do a whole lot of acting besides this. She did go on to appear in AVENGING ANGEL which is another similar film. She does a fairly decent job in this although overall this feels pretty tame compared to some of the other vigilante movies that came out around this time(THE EXTERMINATOR probably being my favorite from this era). Worth a look if you really dig vigilante/revenge flicks with tough women heroes kicking ass.

THE EXECUTIONER PART II (1984)

 This DEATH WISH-inspired vigilante epic starts off with some Vietnam flashback action before getting down to some Bronson-esque revenge action. You get the expected rape, stupid gangs, lame-ass mobsters and a particularly  violent hero who likes to blow people up with grenades and sticks of dynamite when he's not slitting their throats. There is no part 1 to this and it was given this sequel-ized title to confuse dumb people into thinking it was a continuation of the EXTERMINATOR series and basically what you get is a shittier version of THE EXTERMINATOR. That's not to say this is worthless though since it's actually one of those horribly awful but totally entertaining flicks that contains some of the stupidest dialogue ever written in an English movie and if that doesn't get a chuckle out of you you're probably way too serious of a human.

VIGILANTE (1983)

 Director William Lustig, of MANIAC fame, basically does a remake of DEATH WISH here but it is an awesome remake with an all-star cast and bloody violence and just enough unique touches that work well. You got Robert Forster as your main victim of a street gang called The Headhunters, which are your standard 1980's racially-mixed kind of group. To aid in in his revenge he is very conveniently friends with a group of vigilantes who ride around in a van and are led by the great Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, who does a great acting job here in what is probably one of my favorite performances by the man. Maniac himself, Joe Spinell, shows up in a small part as a sleazy Jewish? lawyer. If that's not enough of a line-up Woody Strode also appears as a wise old black man who tries to impart some wisdom to Forster's vengeance-seeking self. A little boy gets shot-gunned to death amidst various gun battles, pimps get messed-up, there's a naked prison shower-room fistfights and, of course, revenge is had. Overall this one is a great little slice of 80's action/revenge goodness right up there with it's obvious Charles Bronson inspiration!

HARRY BROWN (2009)

 Will they ever stop remaking DEATH WISH?  Probably not, but that's OK cuz I never get tired of the basic take-the-law-into-your-own-hands vigilante plot.  I'm a simple kind of guy.  While Charles Bronson was probably somewhere in his 50's when he starred in DEATH WISH Michael Caine here is in his 70's and looks around 800 years old, and the character of Harry suffers from emphysema, so that's kind of a new wrinkle I guess.  Luckily he's a former military man or this movie would be really short.  It's also all set in England so our villains here are closer to the "chav" stereotype than your typical American gangster.  The story itself plays out pretty much how you would expect without many surprises.  There is a strange sequence in a drug-lab/junkies house which was the high-point of oddness.  If this movie was made back in the 70's it would have been a lot more gritty and entertaining but since it's a new movie everything looks odd about it to me.  The look of the film(do we still call them films when they're shot digitally and no film is involved?) was the main deterrent to me.  It appears to have been shot with some kind of high-end digital camera which gives everything a flat glossy look which I guess appeals to the simple-minded type of devolved humans that still bother to see new movies in multiplexes.  I can see where maybe that works for one of those shaky-cam movies but this isn't supposed to be one of those.  Maybe when I turn 70 and my eyes start to go all fuzzy this type of cinema will look better to me.