Ape vs Mecha Ape (2023)

After the surprisingly enjoyable nonsense of Ape vs Monster, I'm delighted that The Asylum decided to return to that particular well with an even wilder sequel, Ape vs Mecha Ape.

Nearly two years after the events of the original movie, the American government has been working on a Mecha Ape program (for reasons).

The film opens with the Pentagon taking its giant robot for a test drive in the Eastern European country of Vololodrezjk (aka The Great Sovereignty), where it flattened an illicit chemical weapons factory (along with all the troops guarding it).

Understandably miffed by this, a rogue cadre of elite Vololodrezjkan Foreign Intelligence Division operatives - husband and wife Arnott (Xander Bailey) and Pavla Oalk (Iris Svis), along with hacker Blanka (Lindsey Marie Wilson), Florien (Sady Diallo), and Zara (Eugenia Kuzmina) - head to the States, with the aim of hijacking the Mecha Ape so it will steal a nuclear warhead and detonate it in Chicago.

Meanwhile, our old friend Abraham, the 45-foot tall giant ape with alien DNA in his blood, is about to be moved from his secure location, much to the concern of his main handler, Sloane (Asylum regular Anna Telfer), who has developed a canny method for communicating with the oversized primate using different coloured lights.

However, once Mecha Ape starts his out-of-control rampage (and Sloane ends up trapped inside him!), the American government decides the only course of action is to release Abraham... so he can destroy the Mecha Ape before it has a chance to set off the 1.2 megaton nuclear bomb.

Even though none of the human stars of the original movie return for this sequel, Ape vs Mecha Ape crashes ahead with such gusto that you soon forget about that and are drawn into the unfolding chaos.

The script from writer/director Marc Gottlieb (another familiar name from Asylum credits) does a great job of foreshadowing useful plot twists and - as with the original - distracting from the fact that the two giant creatures don't actually appear onscreen as much as perhaps we would have hoped (although there are plenty of shots of people looking up or reacting to sounds from off-screen).

Obfuscation of plot holes and budgetary deficiencies is handled with deft dollops of technobabble again and extended scenes of people doing anything but interacting directly with the giant ape or towering robot.

However, it's the climactic fight in the streets of Chicago between Abraham and Mecha Ape that we paid the £7 cost of the DVD for and that delivers, once it arrives. Sure, it doesn't last long but the kaiju-scale property damage is still impressive.

I realise the financial limits of an Asylum budget mean the CGI content has to be carefully shepherded but why don't they take a leaf out of the classic Toho playbook and put some stunt people in rubber suits and have them crash around on a model city?

While I don't think Abraham has quite the cachet of a Sharknado just yet, I really hope The Asylum continues this entertainingly silly franchise (although some returning human characters would be a nice, and useful, touch for continuity).

And I want to know more about the Vololodrezjkans! From just the titbits we heard about it here, I reckon that fictional country is prime real estate for a whole cavalcade of Asylum movies.

Ape vs. Monster (2021)

A long-thought lost joint Russian and American space probe crashes back to Earth after 30 years, releasing its simian test pilot, Abraham, into the New Mexico desert.

The chimpanzee, and his craft, are coated with a green, alien goo that causes him to grow at an incredible rate... and unfortunately a passing gila monster lizard sups from the liquid and transforms into a kaiju beast of its own.

Abraham is captured by the American authorities, led by Dr Linda Murphy (Arianna Scott), who has a childhood connection with the ape through the controversial work of her scientist father, Noah Murphy (Rudy Bentz).

Assisted by an old Russian friend, Eva Kuleshov (Katie Sereika), with whom there is obvious sexual tension and an unspoken past, Linda tries to study Abraham while tracking the escaped gila monster, which is tunnelling underground and has some kind of power-dampening field.

Abraham escapes while Linda is away, and it becomes a race against time as both giant creatures appear to be converging on Washington D.C. 

The military, under the gung-ho and patronising General Delaney (R.J. Wagner) wants to blast both creatures off the face of the planet, but Linda believes that Abraham is still the ape she knew as a child and is really on the side of humanity.

Oh, and there's an alien ship coming round the dark side of the Moon that seems to be beaming some kind of mind control ray at the giant monsters.

Just another day at the office.

Originally crafted by the crew at The Asylum as a Godzilla vs Kong mockbuster, Ape vs Monster is an unsurprisingly awful - yet hilarious - flick that just manages to scrape into the "so bad it's good" category, as long as you're willing to cut it a lot of slack.

If you watch the film closely enough, you realise how little the two giant CGI beasties actually appear on screen, but also you gain an appreciation of The Asylum's masterful melding of stock footage with their own material to fill out the 88-minute flick.

It should also be noted that while the giant ape certainly resembles an oversized chimpanzee more than a direct rip-off of King Kong, the mutated gila monster bears more than a passing resemblance to Godzilla.

Dramatic action scenes are broken up by protracted, earnest, exchanges of waffle and technobabble in an attempt to stitch together a nonsensical story into something an easy-going (possibly drunk) audience might be willing to swallow.

And while it starts off far-fetched, the plot of Ape vs Monster rapidly goes so far off the rails that credibility is stretched beyond breaking point and the moment they start talking about "aliens" you can't help but wonder if you're somehow watching an entirely different movie.

However, I certainly don't regret the £2.35 I spent on Amazon to buy the DVD of this movie, and I can't wait to see what Abraham gets up to next.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: At The Cinema With...

Pre-demolition: The derelict site of the former ABC Cinema in central Tunbridge Wells

These days I rarely see any movies at the cinema. I count myself 'lucky' if I manage the trip once in a 12-month period.

However there was a time - when I had a job - that I'd pop in to the cinema almost every week.

While the Tunbridge Wells town centre cinema (pictured above, years ago and well past its prime, and now - after a lot of faffing about - demolished) was still open, and I was friends with the manager, I saw pretty much everything that came out.

Of course, at the time, I was entertainments' editor for the local paper and self-appointed cinema critic.

I even had my own regular - and well-read (if not well-written) - column: At The Cinema With...

But when Odeon bought out the site then closed it so it didn't draw audiences away from their new, dismal, overpriced grottiplex on the out-of-town industrial estate, the rot started to set in.

I still went reasonably regularly, even though I had to pay(!), and got to see pretty much everything that interested me.

These days, now that I can't drive, it's just too much hassle. It's expensive, as well as inconvenient... and there are "other people" there when I'm trying to watch films.

To mangle Jean-Paul Sartre: "Hell is other people."

Despite what you might see elsewhere (in some movies, actually) watching a film is NOT a social experience, especially when you're paying the sort of money now being asked just to get through the doors.

If I've made the effort to go and see a film, I don't want to hear other people chattering, whooping, parroting dialogue, munching popcorn etc

I want to be in my own little bubble where I can sink into the story unfolding before my eyes.

And remember, more often that not, the people telling you that you HAVE to see a film on the big screen are those who will benefit financially from your inconvenience.

Truth be told - and it's probably a product of my age as much as anything - I find that far easier to do at home these days.

With the advances in home entertainment - the quality of TV screens and Blu-Rays, for instance - there is no longer the need to go to the cinema and pay a fortune to get annoyed with the unappreciative crowds of oiks who treat it as a social club.

Sure, I'll have to wait two or three months (sometimes a bit longer) for the movies I want to see to come out on Blu-Ray, Netflix, Prime Video, Sky Cinema etc, but I've realised I don't mind waiting.

It's a small price to pay for being able to watch a film how I want to, in comfortable surroundings with minimum distractions.

"Watch Out for That First Step, It's a Doozy!"

After a young man gets separated from his friends while in the woods, he falls into a 10-foot deep pit of spikes, impaling him through the leg, and leaving him trapped. He quickly learns that his fall was not an accident.

Pitfall is a survival horror film starring Richard Harmon, Alexandra Essoe, and Randy Couture. In Theatres May 29.

Sometimes the simple ideas are the best. Pitfall looks like a compelling cross between a Jason Voorhees slasher and a Dungeons & Dragons wilderness adventure.

In this house, Pitfall is already on the list for a future Tim and Paul DVD* Night viewing.

* NB. In this day and age the term "DVD" also embraces streaming, Blu-Rays, VOD etc

Lord of The Elves aka Age of The Hobbits aka Clash of Empires (2012)

Okay, confession time. I have a bit of a weakness for Bai Ling. I know she's not the world's greatest actress, but I find her alluringly watchable in whatever awful B-movie she turns up in.

And Lord of The Elves is a classic of that genre. Crafted by the masterminds at The Asylum as a mockbuster of Peter Jackon's first Hobbit movie, this was originally called Age of The Hobbits until the lawyers stepped in and its name changed to Lord of The Elves.

Then, without any warning or explanation, it suddenly underwent a bland renaming to Clash of Empires.

The Blu-Ray I have of this is entitled Lord Of The Elves, but for the sake of clarity I should point out at this stage that not only is the word "lord" never used in this 82-minute flick, but there are also no "elves" in it, nor is that word mentioned either.

Of course, both of these words do have connections with the rather popular Lord of The Rings movies, but that's surely a coincidence, right?

Inspired by real-world archaeology, the action of Lord of The Elves takes place 12,000 years ago on Flores Island, Indonesia (where examples of an early hominid, Homo floresiensis, were found in 2003).

But this is an Asylum movie, not a National Geographic documentary. As well as being populated with giant lizards, some of which can fly (like dragons), and giant spiders, the island is home to three types of human: the diminutive vegetarian Tree People, cannibalistic cavemen called the Rock Men (who ride the flying lizards on occasion), and a tribe of hunters that the Tree People refer to as "giants" but are simply humans.

When the Rock Men raid the Tree People village - to stock up on snacks for their cooking pot - one family escapes, fleeing to the land of the "giants", where they gain assistance from Amthar (Stargate SG-1's Christopher Judge), Laylan (Bai Ling), and a couple of disposable prehistoric red shirts.

Together, despite being severely outnumbered, they stage a rescue mission on the Rock Men's encampment in the hope of saving the captive Tree People.

Shot on location in the jungles and mountains of Cambodia, Lord of The Elves certainly looks mythic.

It just kind of falls apart when people get involved.

Eric Forsberg's script is simplistic, to say the least, and much of the acting is am dram level. While some bad dubbing contributes to this, I have a suspicion that Christopher Judge was the only true actor on set, and most of the rest were Cambodian locals randomly roped in because they 'looked the part'.

I'm sorry, I can't help myself...

Except for eye candy, I'm not exactly sure what Bai Ling or her character really contributed to the movie. Being generous, you could say that Laylan has a basic revenge arc, but she could easily have been excised from the movie and nothing would have changed.

Of course, I might not have been so keen to watch it. But that's a different story entirely.

The giant creatures, and the faux-dragons, are delivered as mediocre CG monsters, but actually they're not so poor that they take the audience out of the moment (come on, you're watching an Asylum joint, what were you expecting? Marvel Studios level CGI?).

The monsters help add some colour to the otherwise human-centric "fantasy" tale , which, barring its prehistoric setting, has an element of Willow about it as well.

Let's be honest, Lord of The Elves (or whatever you want to call it) is not a great movie, and bears absolutely no resemblance to any of the big budget Hobbit movies.

However, if you're a fan of classic cavemen movies, such as One Million Years B.C., Clan of The Cave Bear, Quest for Fire, When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth etc then you might be able to eke out some silly fun from this nonsense.

Dragon Crusaders (2011)

You have to admire the unrepentant chutzpah of The Asylum for its continued use of unattributed quotes making grandiose claims on their DVD boxes.

For Dragon Crusaders, an "anonymous critic" has declared it: "an epic action adventure in the tradition of Clash Of The Titans and Reign Of Fire!"

The Reign Of Fire angle being that it features dragons and the only Clash Of The Titans (presumably the remake) connection is the use of dodgy CGI - and, to be honest, it's actually a bit better here.

Dragon Crusaders is typical, low-budget Asylum mockbuster fare, but I've always contended that their fantasy, sword-and-sorcery titles are among their best - 2006's Dragon was the first Asylum flick I saw and remains my favourite.

A group of outlawed Knights Templar are fleeing across faux-Medieval England to find a sanctuary from the pursuing soldiers of the king (who we never see and are quickly forgotten about) when they are distracted by sounds of battle in a nearby town, which is being raided by pirates.

The Templars - of course - ride in and save the day, slaying the pirates, and then heading out to the pirate ship (which looks oddly anachronistic) to finish the job.

Unfortunately, as they arrive, a captive witch - Neem (Shinead Byrne) - on the ship has just finished invoking a curse that any who set foot on the boat and have shed blood will be transformed into demonic gargoyles.

The curse has a couple of twists - first anyone affected by it, but slain before the transformation takes place, will rise as a revenant and secondly the purer the soul of the cursed the longer the transformation will take.

Dispatching the pirate-revenants with the aid of wandering warrior woman Aerona (Cecily Fay), Neem reveals that she found the curse in a grimoire she stole from the "Black Dragon" sorcerer who has her people in thrall.

And the only way to break the curse is to travel to the Black Dragon's fortress and slay him. Oh, and Faolon (Steve McTigue) is called the Black Dragon because he can transform into one and has another seven, smaller dragons under his control.

There's witchcraft, bickering, internal disputes, chaste romance and some pretty decent fight scenes (even if one of the largest, against an entire 'village' of the sorcerer's slaves, just seems to suddenly stop without any resolution) along the way and if you can ignore the plot holes, dreadful acting, cheesy dialogue and laughable attempts at banter, Dragon Crusaders is an okay film.

Welsh-location filming certainly adds to the verisimilitude, and the woodlands and sweeping, rolling landscape makes for a dramatic backdrop to the action.

A 'silent' knight turns up at one point, peppering our heroes with arrows, seemingly commanding Faolon's dragons and then challenging the lead Templar, John (Dylan Jones), to single combat... but then disappears from the story as suddenly as he appeared.

Throw in some exploding salt peter for good measure, some slick fight moves from Aerona and the Templar's resident archer (Feth Greenwood) and there's quite a bit to keep you entertained for an hour-and-a-half as long as you aren't expecting a replay of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings or either iteration of Conan The Barbarian.

The Lady Assassin (2013)

A bevy of gorgeous women run an isolated coastal tavern/brothel with the sole purpose of killing and robbing corrupt officials in the top-notch, Vietnamese period martial arts flick, The Lady Assassin.

When they free a hostage from a funeral caravan, the leader of the group, Kieu Thi (Thanh Hang) decides to take this new woman, Linh (Tang Thanh Ha), under her wing and train her to become an assassin, like them, so she can seek revenge on the local warlord Quan Do (Le Thai Hoa) who killed her family.

Yes, it's a classic martial arts revenge story that harkens back to the golden age of kung fu movies - but it plays out magnificently, against a background spectacular landscapes and certainly helped by the universal good looks of the central female cast.

Despite some fleeting dodgy CGI, the stunts and wire-fu action is fantastic and the relentless story escalates to a protracted fight around the tavern that takes the entire third act of the movie as Quan Do and his never-ending legions of black-clad, ninja-like soldiers assault the women's base of operations.

Along the way there, we are treated to some great plot twists and character development, a fair degree of family-friendly titillation, a musical number, and a chaste sapphic sub-plot as Linh becomes part of the female family of assassins.

My main gripe about the movie is that although it was Vietnam's first 3D movie and the country's biggest box office hit to date, when I first saw this in 2014, Terracotta Distribution had only released a standard DVD of this movie - despite some very obvious "3D" moments.

The Monkey King (2014)

For those up on their Chinese mythology (or fans of the old Japanese TV show, Monkey!), the basic story of The Monkey King is a familiar one, although this latest big screen adaptation adds a few flourishes and twists to the traditional tale.

At its heart though, it's a straight-forward morality play about a naive and egotistical animal spirit, Sun Wukong aka Monkey King (Donnie Yen), being tricked into helping the evil forces of the Bull Demon King (Aaron Kwok) get through the Gates Of Heaven and attempt a coup against the Jade Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat).

Kam-Yuen Szeto and Edmond Wong's script is very clever, giving the well-known tale a fresh coat of paint rather than a total overhaul.

For instance, I liked the introduction of the low-key romance between the Monkey King and Silver Fox (Xia Zi Tong), that added an extra layer to explaining his willingness to go along with the Bull Demon King, and unlike many Western films this sub-plot doesn't slow the phenomenal pacing of the main story.

Although The Monkey King is two hours long, it moves along like a bullet train, but where it falls down is the rather inconsistent quality of its special effects.

While the blend of "people-in-costumes" creatures and CGI gives the movie a certain charm - the 'costume creatures', for instance, evoke memories of the old Monkey! TV show... and Power Rangers - the computer graphics lurch from breath-taking to appalling.

Rather oddly, for me, the equally unpredictable subtitles on my Thai-import DVD didn't hamper my enjoyment of the movie.

Some lengthy dialogue scenes merited no sub-titles (particularly, for some reason, when Sun Wukong was speaking) and at other times screeds of text would race across the screen at migraine-inducing speed.

And yet, the plot was still easy to follow. Yes, I might have missed some moments of witty (or profound) dialogue, but the visual storytelling was so spot on that I still felt as though I had my finger on the film's pulse.

That's not to say it's simplistic. This is an Asian fantasy after all, so there are some insane segues and moments of mind-baffling surreality that trigger 2001: A Space Odyssey flashbacks, but you watch enough of these movies and you learn to just go with it.

Interestingly, The Monkey King serves as a prequel to the better known story of Monkey and Tripitaka's 'Journey To The West'; we just get a teasing glimpse of young Tripitaka in the closing moments.

Genghis - The Legend Of The Ten (2012)

Locked in a civil war with the rebellious Hulin tribe, the hordes of Genghis Khan (aka Chinggis Khaan aka Temujin) are stricken by plague and so a ten-man squad (an "aravt") is dispatched into the mountains to retrieve The Great Physician, a renowned healer.

On the way, they come across a burned-out homestead where they discover an abandoned baby and immediately adopt him into their group - little realising he is the son of Harkhor (G.Zolboot), the son of Hulin leader Hukhtumur (Ayurdadi), who is now tracking them believing the aravt responsible for the death of his family.

Meanwhile, The Great Physican and his granddaughter Unumunkhlei (D.Ganqeqeg) have been captured at their camp by Hukhtumur, who needs the Physician's skills to cope with his own illness.

Just to make matters even more complicated, the Hulin tribe has a treacherous snake in its midst who is seeking to turn events to his own advantage.

I believe this was the first Mongolian film to hit the West and what a way to introduce yourself to the world.

Filmed on location in Mongolia, with an all-Mongolian cast, this couldn't look more authentic and it is a visual treat, from the ruggedly-interesting faces of the cast to the fine detailing on the arms and armour of the warriors.

The sweeping landscape provides a suitably epic backdrop for this nicely paced swords-and-saddles adventure that works best when focussing on the tense cat-and-mouse hunt by the troops on either side of the conflict as they attempt to complete their missions.

Although the DVD blurb talks about great battles, this movie is really more about the samurai-like code of honour and loyalty (to each other and to their ruler) the aravt live by.

Of course, there are a number of fight scenes, but these are really only skirmishes - and unfortunately this is where  occasional weaknesses show themselves with some odd framing and editing of shots.

The front cover of the DVD proclaims this as "the untold story of the greatest warrior in history". It isn't. It also shows a massive horde of cavalry charging at the viewer: this scene doesn't appear in the film either.

There's also blurb on the back of the DVD box about these ten soldiers being Genghis Khan's elite bodyguards - this is also nonsense.

They are simply a unit of soldiers chosen for an important mission. Genghis Khan doesn't even appear in this movie which is named after him (I suspect by Western distributors). Calling this film Genghis makes as much sense as calling a World War II movie about a squad of British soldiers Churchill.

It's almost as though film distributors feel the need to "dumb down" foreign movies, especially when they come from exotic locales like Mongolia, because they don't believe Western audiences are smart enough to take a film as it is.

For gamers seeking inspiration with a different cultural experience, and don't have an issue with subtitles, then Genghis: The Legend Of The Ten is a great starting point as an insight into Mongolian life during the reign of Genghis Khan. 

Here's hoping we get more of these historical tales coming out of Mongolia now.

Marketa Lazarová (1967)

It should be obvious now, if you've read a number of my film reviews, that I have a soft spot for those of a Medieval bent, but have no problem with foreign movies, subtitles, epic durations, black and white, symbolism, non-linear storytelling etc

However, the much-lauded Czech film Marketa Lazarová sorely tested my patience with its plodding, yet rambling, narrative that unfolded at a glacial pace and suffered with a surfeit of "telling rather than showing".

At its core is a basic Hatfield & McCoy feud between two neighbouring clans in 13th Century Czechoslovakia - one headed by the bandit Kozlik The Goat (Josef Kemr), the other by struggling businessman Lazar (Michal Kozuch).

It's a harsh winter, but matters only get worse when Kozlik's family kidnap a nobleman from Saxony, which provokes the King to send his representative to crush the villains and rescue the young man.

Kozlik tries to entice Lazar into siding with him against the King, but when that stratagem fails, Kozlik's son Mikolás (Frantisek Velecký) kidnaps Lazar's virginal daughter Marketa Lazarova (Magda Vásáryová), who had been preparing herself to become a nun.

Bizarrely - in an almost Twilight-like twist of logic - Marketa eventually falls in love with Mikolás and the last third of the movie plays out against the backdrop of their doomed romance.

On paper, the plot sounds quite inspiring and straight-forward, and about 90 minutes in there's a really impressive battle scene when the King's forces, led by Captain Beer (Zdenek Kryzánek), attack the Kozlik hill-top fortress.

But away from this, everything moves so slowly and, even with the frequent "chapter introductions" that are thrown up on screen (as you would find in Victorian novels) to help explain what was going on, it feels as though the story is jumping around - but without any rhyme or reason.

There are also moments of casual European full-frontal nudity and one extended, surreal dream sequence but these just come across as arbitrary and without any real purpose to the narrative.

And it's a 159 minutes long. And you feel every, single minute.

Some of the praise heaped on this film is for its lack of special effects in its fight sequences, but conversely it's worth pointing out that Mikolás has a one-armed brother, Adam (Ivan Palúch), and on a number of occasions you can tell his "lost" arm is simply tucked inside his baggy shirt!

Marketa Lazarová is also quite dark, in appearance as well as tone, often making it difficult to follow what is going on. This also isn't helped by the subtitles - which suffer not only by often being unclear who they are associated with but also I suspect some weak translating along the way.

The occasionally nonsensical subtitles made me strongly suspect that the film makes a lot more sense in its native tongue, if you can remove the barrier of having to rely on someone else's condensed translation of possibly complex or multi-layered ideas.

A number of pretentious and dull film periodicals, which take movies way too seriously, are quoted on the DVD box cover as proclaiming Marketa Lazarová "the best historical film ever made" and "the most convincing film about the Middle Ages made anywhere".

Don't believe them. It may have been when it was made in 1967, but there have since been far better, far more accessible and far less tedious films made about the Middle Ages.

I had been really looking forward to this as I had read such great things about it online, but in the end Marketa Lazarová was a major disappointment and very mundane after the ridiculously inflated praise it has somehow garnered.

SINBAD WEEK: Sinbad of The Seven Seas (1989)

As the original 1947 Sinbad The Sailor movie proved, you can make an excellent Sinbad film without Harryhausen effects as long as you have a great cast and script - Sinbad Of The Seven Seas has none of these.

I guess my spidey-sense should have been tingling by the mere sight of Lou 'Incredible Hulk' Ferrigno grinning on the cover of the DVD case.

And if not then, by the fact that the film opens with a contemporary framing device of an annoying  mother (Daria Nicolodi) reading her equally annoying daughter (Giada Cozzi), Edgar Allan Poe's The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade (although Poe's story bears no similarity to this sorry affair).

So far, so Princess Bride. But the narration continues, even as the scene shifts to Sinbad and his multi-racial crew, and then it continues some more and it pretty much never stops throughout the whole movie!

And if that wasn't bad enough, all the dialogue by the main characters has been rerecorded and dubbed over - quite badly and quite obviously.

Not that the actors are that good anyway, nor do they have quality material to work with and little apparent direction from Enzo Castellari, master of the spaghetti western and director of the original Inglorious Bastards.

From start to finish, Sinbad Of The Seven Seas is a dreadful script performed by dreadful actors, with the only comparison I can make being the distinctly British tradition of pantomime. And like pantomime, unless you are under six, Sinbad The Sailor is - in equal parts - likely to bore you to distraction and have you laughing out loud at its awfulness.

The only performer to come out of this with any kudos is John Steiner as villainous vizier Jaffar, clearly the only one in on the joke, who is gloriously over-the-top and arch, switching between delightful smugness and being his own worse enemy. Not only does he tell Sinbad where he has hidden the magic crystals that Sinbad must track down but then, having summoned a magical storm to batter Sinbad's ship, he runs it ashore on one of the islands where some of the crystals are hidden!

Inexplicably Sinbad is joined on his adventures by a Viking (Ennio Girolami), a Chinese soldier of fortune called Samurai (!!!) (Hal Yamanouchi), effete prince Ali (Roland Wybenga) - who is to marry the caliph of Basra's cute daughter, Alina (Alessandra Martines) - as well as a bald chef and a cowardly dwarf called Poochie (Cork Hubbert).

While chasing after the magic jewels that Jaffar has scattered - like a pointless video game - they encounter a number of ludicrous obstacles, most of which are overcome by very bad fight sequences (Sinbad has an odd habit of throwing his sword away and simply wrestling whatever he is facing).

The only scenario that shows a bit of initiative is Sinbad's seduction by Amazon Queen Farida (Melonee Rodgers) and her ultimate comeuppance.

I can't even bring myself to discuss the surreal cameo by bodybuilder Teagan Clive as Jaffar's co-conspirator, Soukra, the S&M dominatrix witch, except to say, like the rest of the film, it will leave you perplexed, bemused and possibly in need of counselling.

Unless you are in a particularly masochistic mood, really love ultra-low budget bad movies or are aged under six, Sinbad Of The Seven Seas is best steered clear of.

"NANU NANU" AND HOPPY EASTER!!!

As part of my current "get fit" kick, I was quite adamant that I didn't want chocolate for Easter, so Rachel and I exchanged non-edible gifts this morning before heading out for an Easter Egg hunt event.

I got Rachel a beautiful, tiny (and working) ceiling lamp for her latest dolls house project, while she got me a box set of Mork & Mindy DVDs (it has an egg on the cover!) and a miniature table tennis set.

Rachel confessed that when the ping pong set was ordered, she hadn't realised quite how small it was!

Knowing my "no chocolate or sweets" request - and my poor willpower when it comes to such treats - Rachel's parents got us some delightful Easter socks instead, which we wore today on our exhausting adventure.

I'll tell you more about that - and share of pictures of the 'celebrities' we met - later on, when we're not so tired out. 

Please be aware that Rachel, Alice, and I were not participating in the egg hunt, just the other fun activities that were going on around it.

Eggs-ellent Easter Socks

Ator The Fighting Eagle (1982)

"During the childhood of mankind, while some colonies have only just discovered fire, others are already using technology, Inventor Akron discovers the 'radiating matter' which can be used to make earth a paradise or a hell. Soran, a strayed former pupil of Akron, steals his invention. Akron sends out his daughter to fetch the invincible Ator to fight Soran..."

-- so reads the descriptive blurb on the back of my DVD of Ator The Fighting Eagle. Only that's not the plot of Ator at all! But then the poster shown above is also rather misleading as Ator never uses a three-headed flail and his animal companion is a cute bear cub - not a sabretooth tiger!

This (unintentionally?) hilarious, cheesetastic film has Ator (Miles O'Keefe) on a mission to rescue his new bride, Sunya (Ritza Brown) - who he had believed was his sister until the moment his 'parents' gave their blessing to his wedding plans - from the Temple Of The Spider.

A mockbuster years before The Asylum made it an artform and released to cash in on the original Conan movie, Ator has a by-the-numbers, Joseph Campbell "hero's journey"/Star Wars storyline.

The titular protagonist even picks up an Obi-Wan-style mentor, Griba (Edmund Purdom), and a money-driven Han Solo-ish female rogue Roon (Sabrina Siani) along the way to help him blow up the Death Star... er... destroy The Temple Of The Spider.

It's all tied-in to a very long - and highly detailed - prophecy about how Ator's true father, the legendary Tauren, was doomed in his quest to defeat the Spider Cult and so the destiny has passed to his son, Ator.

The main problem is Ator is rather a rubbish hero - frequently bested in combat, gullible and, frankly, not the sharpest tool in the box - he is constantly being rescued by Roon and the cute bear cub.

The fights are joyously lacklustre, which only adds to the humour, and a couple of times Ator simply abandons Roon during a fight when his attention is distracted by something else.

He only appears to be able to beat people if he catches them by surprise - or has an incredibly powerful magic shield of zapping to hand!

Couple this with stilted and corny dialogue, some wonderfully WTF "monsters" (the walking dead that simply disappear, the blind warriors, the shadow demon, the shapechanging sorceress, the giant spider etc) and all the elements combine to make Ator The Fighting Eagle an incredibly entertaining - and amusing -  way to waste 90 minutes of your life.

That said, as Italian swords-and-sorcery films go, it's head and shoulders above Conquest, the scenery is surprisingly interesting - with strange statues dotted around the landscape - and some of the 'encounter' ideas aren't half-bad.

The Green Knight (2021)

Although The Green Knight has been available to stream on Prime Video for ages now, it wasn't until I came across the Blu-Ray in an Amazon sale the other day that I finally decided it was time to clear 130 minutes in my schedule and sit down to watch this Arthurian epic.

It's Christmas in the court of King Arthur and aspiring knight Gawain (the perfectly cast Dev Patel) is seated beside the king, his uncle, when the mysterious emerald-skinned Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) rides in and issues an honour challenge.

He will allow someone to strike him, but then the following Christmas they must seek him out in The Green Chapel and he will repay the blow in the kind.

Gawain, with the loan of King Arthur's sword (is it Excalibur?), beheads the Green Knight, but then the supernatural entity picks up his head and rides off.

Eventually, time passes and the aged Arthur (a brilliant turn from Sean Harris) tells Gawain he really should go and find The Green Knight.

Thus begins Gawain's odyssey across the misty realm of Ancient Britain, searching for The Green Chapel where the unearthly knight will be found.

A hypnotic, often unsettling, blend of gritty Medieval verisimilitude and mythological magic realism, odd things happen throughout A24's The Green Knight and are just accepted as par for the course.

On his journey Gawain helps a ghost, meets a talking fox, mystical tokens are lost and found, and our hero is nearly flattened by hauntingly ethereal giants (who look like they've stepped out of the classic 1973 French animated movie Fantastic Planet).

As far as I can figure - and it feels as though you are diving into a dense text as you try to follow along on a first viewing - the story is primarily concerned about upholding a chivalric code of honour, a parable about being true to your word.

For some bizarre reason, although I've heard the tale of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight several times, I can never remember how it pans out, but the dialogue-free extended epilogue of writer/director David Lowery's adaptation of the original 14th Century text is sublime.

Although prone to occasional atmospheric mumbled dialogue and minimalistic, naturalistic, lighting that makes some scenes as dark as The Long Night, there's a lyrical quality to the narrative of Lowery's The Green Knight that buoys you along. 

While not the traditional swords-and-sorcery, knights-and-armour type of film that I enjoy, it certainly doesn't feel like an arduous two hours if you allow yourself to sink into the world David Lowery has conjured up for us.

It's not necessary to know the names of all the characters and their backstories (in fact, if you check IMDB very few of the characters even have names), because The Green Knight isn't that sort of story, rather it's a period piece told using modern technology but as it would have been recounted "back in the day".

We also don't need to know where the giants came from or how the fox spoke, because these were aspects of Medieval storytelling that were just accepted in stories told around the campfire.

That said, on a more academic scale, I strongly suspect that with a bit more reading about - and research into - the subject matter of The Green Knight, more will be gleaned from this great movie upon subsequent viewings.

When The Raven Flies aka Revenge of the Barbarians aka Hrafninn Flýgur (1984)

Having survived a Viking raid when his parents were killed and young sister kidnapped, Irish youth Gest (Jakob Þór Einarsson) spends 20 years planning his revenge.

Arriving in Iceland, it isn't long before he's Yojimbo-ing things up between his two targets, the blood-brothers Erik (Flosi Ólafsson) and Thord (Helgi Skúlason).

These Vikings had fled to Iceland with their men, to escape the wrath of King Harald of Norway after a failed coup attempt, so they're not exactly trusting to start with.

Gest very quickly starts playing them off against each other, and when one is killed you expect the film to be heading into its final act.

However, things get complicated when Gest discovers not only has one of the men married his sister (Edda Björgvinsdóttir), but also fathered a child, Einar (Gottskálk D. Sigurdarson) with her.

An almost legendary film that's hard to track down these days, When The Raven Flies goes by several names (the "When" seems to be optional in the main title, for instance), including Revenge of The Barbarians in the States and Hrafninn Flýgur in its original Icelandic.

Touted as the "most authentic Viking film ever", this Icelandic-Swedish co-production from 1984 certainly benefits from its shooting locations in Iceland, complete with black beaches and craggy hills; and unremitting weather, alternating between torrential rain and gale-force winds; as well as a cast speaking Icelandic.

But When The Raven Flies also owes a debt to the sword-and-sorcery genre so prevalent in cinema at that time, not that there's any magic or monsters in this one, but it has that gritty, Earthy, small-cast feel of so many similar cinematic stories featuring people swinging swords and axes.

While the overarching plot may not be that original - we've seen it played out with samurai, Wild West gunslingers, fantasy warriors, and gangsters - the Viking period, with its set attitudes to honour and ritual, gives it a fresh feeling.

The verisimilitude is heightened through the use of unusually-fashioned weaponry, which I'm presuming are the 'real deal' compared to flashier Hollywood armaments.

I also loved the fact that everyone rode the small but powerful horses native to Iceland, just adding another layer of authenticity to the drama.

The film is, naturally, violent throughout, but the bright red 'blood' - and avoidance of too much dwelling on injuries - lowers the gore factor down to almost Saturday evening family viewing.

Easy to root for, Gest is a pretty cool hero, armed with his spear-concealing shepherd's crook and an array of deadly throwing blades.

While he's barely set foot in Iceland before he's killing off bad guys, it's all part of a methodical, long game.

And I couldn't stop myself from making Batman comparisons (inspired by the murder of his parents before his eyes), even though it's never expressly stated how long Gest spent on his training and how long on actually setting his Machiavellian scheme in motion (we discover that it began quite some time before he arrives in Iceland).

Possibly because it's subtitled, I must confess at times I felt this 105-minute tale dragged a bit in the middle (there is an English-language cut of the film on the DVD, but that was about quarter of an hour shorter and I wanted the full experience).

However, the pay-off at the end is worth the time invested, especially as it sets up the potential for another cycle of violence... as happens with blood feuds.

When The Raven Flies turns out to be the first part of a Viking Trilogy, but, except for brief trailers on the disc, I know nothing (yet) about the subsequent films, In The Shadow Of The Raven and The White Viking.

I was lucky enough to snag a DVD - via eBay and shipped in from Germany - for just over £3, around a tenth of the price I've seen the film listed at (when it crops up on either eBay or Amazon).

If you like Viking films, then I'd definitely say this is one worth hanging on for, just be careful not to pay over the odds.

DEATHSTALKER WEEK: Deathstalker (2025)

Warrior and scavenger Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt) is pulled into the "machinations of the gods" when he steals a magical amulet from a dying prince on a battlefield.

Teaming up with goblin-dwarf wizard Doodad (Laurie Field, voiced by Patton Oswald) and thief Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo), this trio of rogues have to first undo the curse on Deathstalker that has bound the amulet to him.

Then they have to find an (impractical) four-bladed magical sword and thwart the apocalyptic plans of the evil sorcerer Nekromemnon (Nicholas Rice), his right-hand goon, the undead Jotak (Paul Lazenby) and their legions of monstrous Dreadite soldiers.

Written and directed by Psycho Goreman's Steven Kostanski (who was born three years after the original Deathstalker was released) Deathstalker (2025) is a loving tribute to vintage, low-budget, swords-and-sorcery flicks.

It is set in a land awash with Hawk The Slayer mist, and our heroes fight their way through a never-ending onslaught of Power Rangers (and Psycho Goreman) style rubber-suit monsters and Evil Dead-style stop-motion creations.

And, yes, the infamous porcine-faced humanoid makes a return appearance, although he's had a bit of a glow-up since the original movies. You may call him a pig-man, but to me he's a Gygaxian orc.

The ultimate weapon that Stalker is seeking - as I suspected the other day - is even an on-the-nose homage to Alert Pyun's The Sword and The Sorcerer.

In fact, the only thing that really differentiates this from the earlier Deathstalker movies is the total absence of sleaze. There's no nudity (gratuitous or otherwise), not even a hint of sexual tension between Stalker and Brisbayne. Instead, they are treated as <shudder> equals!

And, you know what, I didn't miss it. Deathstalker's linear plot is a blood-spattered, non-stop riot of over-the-top cartoonish violence, interspersed with some witty dialogue, subtle foreshadowing, and a cavalcade of rubbery monsters that could easily have just rolled out of an old school Dungeons & Dragons adventure.

You may recognise him as Kirill from John Wick or Agent Johnson from The Matrix Reloaded, but Daniel Bernhardt, who has a definite air of Jon Hamm in his mien, is superb as the titular antihero and the door is definitely left wide open at the end for sequels.

I, for one, would welcome further adventures with Bernhardt reprising the role.

The only nit I would pick with Kostanski's script - and this is as much personal taste as anything - is giving Deathstalker a backstory that necessitates him having a "pre-Deathstalker" name.

Honestly, this is completely unnecessary as the name could have been excised from the script and it would have read just as well if he was a "man with no name" type.

The film was part-funded by Kickstarter in 2024, but (for reasons) as there were no Blu-Rays (or even DVDs) on offer as incentives I just chipped in at the lowest level to get my name in the credits... because I'm easily pleased.

This did mean I had to import the Blu-Ray off my own back this week - thanks to eBay.

I know there are going to be those who moan about what's missing from the traditional Deathstalker formula (even though, surprisingly having now seen the film, it is front-and-centre in the comic book spin-off released by Vault Comics in the wake of the Kickstarter).

However, if anything, 2025's Deathstalker proves you can still make outrageous, trashy, dark fantasy sword-and-sorcery movies in this day and age that cater to audiences both old and new.

My "thank you" in the credits: best $10 I've ever invested in a Kickstarter 😉

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Albert Pyun

Back in 2022 we lost the B-movie maven Albert Pyun.

He'd hit the ground running in 1982 with his first movie, The Sword and The Sorcerer - which gave us the legendary blade-firing Tri-Sword.

And it was through this movie, which I wrote about on a previous blog back in 2011, that he achieved a god-like status in my eyes when he made contact with me via the comments section of that post.

My write-up had concluded with a trailer for Tales of An Ancient Empire,  the long-awaited sequel to The Sword and The Sorcerer.

It so happened that I had acquired what I thought was an 'official' DVD of that sequel via eBay, but as Albert would go on to explain that was actually an unsanctioned early cut that he was not best pleased to discover was out in the wild.

He sent me a link that allowed me to view the first 18 minutes of the actual cut of Tale of An Ancient Empire... and it was such an improvement on the first version I had seen.

I've always had a preference for sword-and-sorcery B-movies, so my knowledge of the rest of Albert's vast oeuvre was very limited.

IMDB, which has a lengthy biography of Albert, says this of him:

"He is credited with pioneering the cyborg sub-genre and is considered to be a maverick and renegade in independent genre cinema. With over 50 titles to his name, he has enjoyed a prolific career spanning 30+ years and has earned himself a fevered cult following."

I did enjoy his take on Captain America, from 1990.

From our brief interactions well over a decade ago, Albert came across as a genuinely nice, and enthusiastic, film fan and it was his willingness to reach out to me all those years ago that really made an impression.

That he was keen to engage with a random small-time blogger such as I and ensure that I saw, and reacted to, the film as he had actually envisioned it spoke volumes.

Albert Pyun passed away on November 26, 2022, at the age of 69.

HEALTH UPDATE: A Fall At The Final Hurdle

An atmospheric path through the wilderness of Ashdown Forest

As I've mentioned before, after seven months of limited (sometimes almost zero) mobility due to the sudden onset of osteoarthritis, a lot of hopes were hanging on pain-relieving steroid injections in my lower back - which would have allowed me the comfort to do more, beneficial, exercises.

The injections were scheduled for yesterday. Rachel and I got to Maidstone Hospital, checked in to the Pain Clinic, were assigned a room of our own, did all the paperwork, answered all the questions, and waited for the pre-injection tests.

Unfortunately, it turned out my blood sugar was too high for the injections to go ahead. This was despite drinking litres of water and marching around the room. I managed to bring it down slightly, but the kindly doctor (the head of the department) said it just wasn't going down quickly enough.

The Pain Clinic can keep my place open for six months, but now I've got to work on diet and exercise.

It's all very depressing.

To pick myself up today I suggested to Rachel that we go for a walk on Ashdown Forest, which is a half-hour drive away. 

This was my first proper, outdoor walk since my latest problems began, so I think I might have been a bit overambitious, expecting to stride across miles of the legendary forest at my first attempt.

Thankfully, Rachel correctly judged that around 20 minutes was a good start.

My fitness cheerleaders: Rachel and Alice

Honestly, just walking (and, by extension, running) for the sake of it is the most boring form of exercise I can imagine, so I've started a new hobby - photographing trees and landscapes.

I need purpose (beyond simply "you'll get fitter") for my walking, and this happens to overlap with my current interest in the works of JRR Tolkien.

This is something that cycles around every year or so, usually when I'm in the middle of my regular rewatch of the Extended Editions of The Lord of The Rings trilogy (I'm just about to press 'play' on The Return of The King this week).

Thus, once we got to the Hollies car park in Ashdown Forest, we wandered, I took pictures, Alice had a good sniff and scented some new smells, and Rachel got her steps in. 

I've declared that we should be doing this more often (something Rachel has always said, but now it's me saying it and suddenly that makes it important!). Therefore, I can get more tree pictures and landscapes for my folder... and get fit as a side benefit.

The bigger struggle will be improving my diet (my dislike of fruit and vegetables could be a major issue there). But that's a topic for another post.

I do love trees - and this one has character

Going One Better Than The Magnificent Seven

Pivotal 1971 Hong Kong action flick, The Invincible Eight, is getting a swanky UK Blu-Ray release on March 16.

Directed by Lo Wei before his Bruce Lee hits The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, The Invincible Eight is a classic Hong Kong wuxia adventure from Golden Harvest’s earliest years.

Starring Nora Miao (The Way of The Dragon), Angela Mao (Hapkido), Paul Chang Chung (Police Story), and James Tien (Yes, Madam!), it follows eight warriors seeking revenge on a ruthless general protected by the Imperial army and deadly whip-wielding henchmen.

Featuring legendary fight choreography by Sammo Hung, who also stars as one of the villains, The Invincible Eight helped cement Golden Harvest as a powerhouse in martial arts cinema. Eureka Classics proudly presents this martial arts masterpiece on Blu-ray for the first time outside Asia.

Putting The Fun Back in Defunding The Rich, To Give To The Poor

The trailer for the new "gritty" Death of Robin Hood movie led to a brief conversation with author Phillip Reeve about the paucity of "fun" Robin Hood films that hove closer to the original legends.

This got me thinking about the wonderful vintage TV serial, The Adventures of Robin Hood, which is still a fixture of Talking Pictures TV's Saturday morning line-up years after I first found it on their schedule.

Starring Richard Greene as Robin, this is the show whose theme music became an the immortal earworm:

One of the other reasons I love this rollickin', rebellious, series from the mid-1950s is that I soon realised every episode could supply me with either a top-notch story hook or an interesting non-player-character (often both) for whatever pseudo-Medieval roleplaying game I was noodling with at the time.

After loyally watching the half-hour show, week-in, week-out, for months on Talking Pictures, I eventually invested in the 18-dsic box set, containing all 143 episodes.

My discs

The Adventures of Robin Hood is most definitely a "fun", Boy's Own Adventure take on the legends of Robin and his Lincoln Green-sporting band of Merry Men, and one of my favourite iterations of the outlaws of Sherwood Forest.

The best is, of course, the mid-80's Saturday evening TV show Robin of Sherwood, where Michael Praed and then Jason Connery (after a mystical bit of Time Lord-style regeneration) took the title role in a show that blended arcane magic and myth with traditional tropes to create a truly unique and memorable programme.

This was another show oozing with very British ideas for a particular take on Dungeons and Dragons-kind of gaming.

Robin of Sherwood