Reviews

Yes, indeed, the bloody British have done it again, and I literally mean "bloody". It's a low-budget ripoff of "Alien", one containing plenty of gory holes, limbs and entrails. Although the sets and visual effects are cheap-looking, the screenplay causes its characters to behave foolishly most of the time, and the electronic score may drive you mad, director Warren keeps up a brisk pace to prevent you from becoming bored, while Geeson delivers a pretty chilling performance.

Decent performances by a cast of familiar TV faces enliven this routine horror yarn about a mental patient (Hutton), hospitalized for a murder he didn't commit, who learns astral projection, and uses his new powers to bump off the people he holds responsible for his arrest, his mother's death while he was imprisoned, and the price of meat! One of the murders is unwisely played for comic relief, and Hutton's monster makeup at the end makes him resemble Michael Sarrazin on a five-day bender.

I imagine Cannon was pretty excited about the concept of teaming up the two leads from their earlier "American Ninja" trilogy. Unfortunately the two barely appear on screen together, and Bradley (who resembles a less macho Rick Springfield) is a woefully inadequate screen presence. Booth--whose son appears to have been the screenwriter...or was it Booth himself using a pseudonym?--gets all the best lines and chews enough scenery for everybody. There's nothing here you haven't seen a dozen times before, but it should keep you awake if you stumble upon it on late-night cable.

Two murder victims have turned up in London; one was found floating in the Thames, the other suffers what appears to be a heart attack at a soda stand. Both have one thing in common: they each had a mysterious key attached to a gold chain. Scotland Yard Inspector Richard Martin (Drache) investigates (with his veddy-British comic relief partner Holms), and discovers there are seven keys in all. But where is this door with seven locks? And what does a young heir coming to town for his 21st birthday have to do with it? The mystery involves a mad scientist conducting genetic experiments in the basement of a spooky old castle. This German-made black-and-white "krimi" based upon an Edgar Wallace story is fast-paced and fun.

Well-paced and -produced jungle adventure with an heroic Weissmuller, a fetching O'Sullivan and a better-than-average supporting cast. I could have done without seeing the stock footage of Weissmuller battling that croc for the third time though. Not one of the best Tarzan adventures, but you could do a lot worse.

Kicking, shooting and beating aplenty in this Hammer/Shaw Brothers co-production starring Whitman as a hitman with a conscience. Not much here you haven't seen before, but Whitman is OK, the music is kinda funky and, while he doesn't have much screen time, it's always great to see Peter Cushing.

Ten-speed-pedaling tough-guy priest (Ventura) and taciturn ex-cop (Hayes) team up to solve a million-dollar bank heist and capture Chicago mobster Joe Snake (Williamson) in Windy City-lensed but Italian-produced action flick. There isn't much here that you haven't seen before, but the production values are appropriately gritty, the action is fast-paced and bloody, and it's nice to see the image-conscious Hammer cast against type as a bad guy. Hayes wrote the musical score as well, and released the soundtrack on Enterprise Records.

More serious than you would expect from a "Rockford Files" movie, this is a sometimes powerful if heavy-handed attack on the media and the way in which it covers "juicy" stories. While there isn't much of a mystery here, the excellent cast--particularly Hal Linden--makes the movie very watchable. This sat on the shelf for two years before CBS finally aired it, and the plot closely shadows the real-life case of Richard Jewell, who was unfairly accused in the press of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombings.