These two yahoos, accompanied by a Rolls Royce and an inexplicable soft rock soundtrack, encounter the Border Patrol while smuggling four kilos of cocaine from Mexico. Despite being outnumbered, outgunned, and outtrained, Ray and Alex manage to kill all the cops and continue their journey. Their crime spree goes on to include carjacking an ice cream truck and abducting a young woman named Karen (Keller).

Sleazy and violent COP KILLERS may be, but well-acted it definitely is not. Osco (later to star in his director wife Jackie Kong’s THE BEING) and Williams are plenty woeful, but the squeaky-voiced Nite as the irritating ice cream man is so pathetic that you’ll cheer for the villains to rub him out. The bad acting, working in concert with the slack pacing and numb screenplay, makes it impossible to generate any suspense. Why do these guys, on their way to collect $100,000 from drug dealers, stop to rob $33 from a gas station?

COP KILLERS may be one of the most obscure films ever to receive a deluxe DVD treatment. Shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm for its drive-in engagements, COP KILLERS may not have played very much, if at all, on television and was certainly forgotten by almost everyone except those who made it. Sometimes you find a diamond in the rough, but COP KILLERS is just rough. Eegee’s, the proprietor of the ice cream truck Ray and Alex steal, is a real business still active in Tucson, Arizona, where COP KILLERS was filmed. Rick Baker provided the gory makeup. General National Enterprises released it in 1977.

I can’t say that COP KILLERS is all that deserving of a nice DVD, but Shriek Show did a pretty nice job with it. The key extra is the audio commentary track featuring Williams and a moderator calling himself Adam Trash. It’s a good thing Williams is an animated speaker with a good memory, because Trash is a hesitant, uninformed moderator who fails to ask Williams the most obvious questions and relies on the actor to initiate discussion points. Williams tells us that COP KILLERS was shot in 12 days for $50,000 by porn filmmakers looking for a quick buck until FLESH GORDON’s release. He’s also a good sport about the film’s technical deficiencies, pointing out the occasional visible microphones and an amazing shot of the soundman sitting in the backseat of a car driven by the stars.

Williams also pops up on camera for an interview that hits the points not touched upon during the commentary. A ridiculous image gallery features a whopping two (!) images, neither of them all that interesting, and a trailer collection features not just the spot for COP KILLERS, but also several other drive-in flicks on DVD, including GRIZZLY and Bill Osco’s THE BEING.

COP OUT (2010)—Directed by Kevin Smith. Stars Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Guillermo Diaz, Kevin Pollak, Adam Brody. Auteur Smith (CLERKS) directs for the first time a script he didn’t write, a miserable buddy-cop comedy shot in New York for Warner Brothers. At least he brought Harold Faltermeyer (BEVERLY HILLS COP) out of retirement to compose the lively score. Jimmy Monroe (Willis) and Paul Hodges (Morgan) are crazy, out-of-control maverick New York cops serving a 30-day suspension for acting crazy and out of control. Not funny, really, but crazy. They use their time off to chase a couple of burglars who stole Jimmy’s 1952 Andy Pafko baseball card and end up busting a Mexican drug gang. The villains are very boring, and their scenes bring the movie to a screeching halt every time. What’s most amusing about COP OUT is the actor Willis’ bemusement alongside Morgan’s (probably) improvised raving, though their banter eventually grows tiresome. Brody and Pollak are wasted as rival cops intended to copy the gag-playing detectives in STAKEOUT. Also with Rashida Jones, Juan Carlos Hernandez, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jason Lee, Fred Armisen, Francie Swift, and Seann William Scott. Filmed as A COUPLE OF DICKS, but Warners wimped out and changed the title. The ridiculous 1-sheet is indistinguishable from the parody movie posters seen in Morgan’s 30 ROCK character’s dressing room.

COPS & ROBBERSONS (1994)--Directed by Michael Ritchie. Stars Chevy Chase, Jack Palance, Dianne Wiest, Robert Davi. Yes, another bad Chevy Chase comedy. This time he's a befuddled suburban father and fan of bad TV cop shows who allows a tough police detective to use his house to stakeout his counterfeiter neighbor (former Bond villain Davi). No laughs, no imagination. It's like the filmmakers didn't even try to make a good movie. Palance does a pretty good job parodying himself, but he's been doing that unintentionally for many years. Ritchie won an Emmy in 1993 for his HBO movie about the Texas woman who hired a hitman to kill her daughter's high-school cheerleading rival.

COPYCAT (1995)--Directed by Jon Amiel. Stars Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, Harry Connick, Jr. Not-bad thriller most notable for its cast--a pair of Oscar nominated actresses (Hunter won in '93 for THE PIANO) and singer Connick in his film debut as an inbred serial killer. Weaver plays a neurotic psychologist/serial killer expert who has spent the last 13 months confined to her apartment after an attack by Connick. When some psycho begins slaughtering women in the style of famous past murderers (including Bundy and Berkowitz), Homicide Inspector Hunter and partner Mulroney come to Weaver for assistance. Hunter is terrific; despite her diminutive stature and slight Southern drawl, she is immediately believable in the role of a detective. Weaver also does a good job in the film's most difficult role by not relying on the standard woman-in-peril clichs. The script provides plenty of red herrings, although you won't have much trouble guessing which supporting characters will be bumped off, and even though many of the killer's feats are not entirely plausible, Amiel's well-paced direction and the performances by Weaver and Hunter make COPYCAT watchable.

THE CORPSE VANISHES (1942)--Directed by Wallace Fox. Stars Bela Lugosi, Elizabeth Russell, Luana Walters. Unbelievably bad Monogram "horror" starring Bela as a nutty botanist who kidnaps young brides on their wedding day by dosing their corsages with a gas that makes them pass out. He's assisted by hulking moron Frank Moran and giddy dwarf Angelo Rossitto (who play brothers!). Bela hopes to use the spinal fluid of his victims (why they have to be newly married young women is never specified) to restore the youth of his bitter aging wife (Russell). Only 64 minutes long, but it packs a lot of laughs. Also with Minerva Urecal and Tristram Coffin as the hero.

CORRUPTION (1968)—Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis.  Stars Peter Cushing, Sue Lloyd, Noel Trevarthen.  One of Cushing’s worst features is this crazily plotted and sleazily produced British thriller that also played under the ludicrous title LASER KILLER.  The premise isn’t bad, and it’s interesting to see what Cushing does with a terrible script.  Dr. John Rowan (Cushing) accidentally burns the face of his model fiancé Lynn (Lloyd).  Out of guilt, he punishes himself by dedicating his career to discovering a way of recovering her beautiful features, which he does by decapitating women and using their pineal fluid and a laser to regenerate Lynn’s skin.  While Sir John’s surgeon colleague (Trevarthen) wonders whether Rowan is a serial killer, the dysfunctional couple goes away to their country home, where an increasingly unhinged Lynn browbeats her conscience-ridden new husband into continuing his deadly treatments.  In addition to a wildly stupid final reel, CORRUPTION suffers from an awful Bill McGuffie score, one of the most inappropriate I’ve ever heard.  Cushing didn’t like the film much either, but he did go on to work again with the director on the also-scorned BLOODSUCKERS.

COSA NOSTRA ASIA (1974)—Directed by John Liao. Stars Chris Mitchum, Tony Ferrer, Dick Chen, Ellie Chow, Larry Elkins. Bobby A. Suarez, who directed Mitchum in MASTER SAMURAI and AMERICAN COMMANDOS, produced this action-packed concoction that combines a GODFATHER-inspired Mafia storyline with kung fu. It was directed by American-educated Liao in Taiwan. According to Mitchum, he and Joseph Lai cobbled together the screenplay during the shoot based on Suarez’s 20-page outline. He and Suarez were also filming AMERICAN DAREDEVIL COMMANDOS at the same time, though that movie was never finished. If you’ve seen any of the afore-mentioned Suarez pictures or THE ONE-ARMED EXECUTIONER, you can imagine what COSA NOSTRA ASIA is like. In one scene, Mitchum’s Chris Ballenger and Ferrer as Hawaiian mob boss Tony Dee fight for what is said to be four hours (!), though we see only a few minutes of it. They end up fighting with gladiator swords and shields until finally collapsing in exhaustion. Ballenger is an Interpol agent who helps drive a wedge between the Hong Kong mob and the Chicago Mafia led by Don Claudio (Elkins). Mitchum’s Lanky White Guy Fu is lame, of course, though it’s funny he somehow late in the picture finds a white guy to fight who’s even worse at it than he is. At least the action is plentiful, so stop trying to follow the plot.

THE COSMIC MONSTER (1958)—Directed by Gilbert Gunn. Stars Forrest Tucker, Martin Benson, Gaby Andre, Alec Mango. During the 1950s, drive-ins were flooded with science fiction programmers about giant insects rampaging cities and eating people. Only one of them came from Great Britain. THE COSMIC MONSTER was based on a British television serial penned by silent-movie actress Rene Ray, who later adapted it for a novel. Distributors Corporation of America, probably best known for releasing Edward D. Wood Jr.’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, unleashed the feature version, written by Paul Ryder (THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE), stateside on a double bill with THE CRAWLING EYE. Both films starred blustery American actor Forrest Tucker (F TROOP), who also starred in Hammer’s THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN while in England.

Even if every other part clicked, THE COSMIC MONSTER’s dire direction by Gunn (WINGS OF MYSTERY) would probably still sink it. Stodgily paced and woodenly performed by actors struggling to find something in their flat characters to accentuate (even the normally avuncular Tucker appears deflated), the picture plods along from one technobabble conversation to the next while the viewer awaits something resembling the shocks promised in its poster (“Every second your pulse pounds, they grow foot by incredible foot!”). There must have been a lot of disappointed viewers leaving the theater in 1958.

Mad scientist Laird (Mango) and his sensible assistant Gil Graham (Tucker) are performing magnetic experiments. One accidentally tears a hole in the ionosphere, which causes cosmic rays to turn a hobo into a psycho killer and cause insects to grow larger than humans. It takes about an hour into this 75-minute movie for the melee between man and bug to get going, and even then the action is badly staged, shot, and edited with macro photography of normal insects acting as unconvincing special effects.

Benson, memorable as Solo, the gangster that gets squashed inside a car in GOLDFINGER, plays Smith, an alien who speaks perfect English with a British accent (his people have been monitoring ours for years and even teaching their children about us). His performance is the best in the movie, though Smith plays like a deux es machina. Amazingly, when he tells Tucker about his extraterrestrial origins, the American unbelievably accepts the explanation without even an eyeblink.

THE COSMIC MONSTER is one of the rarest of ‘50s “big bug” movies and deservedly so. Aside from one cool shot of a creature eating the face off some poor schmuck, there’s little of interest in it, and Forrest Tucker seems uncomfortable in it. Also with Wyndham Goldie, Patricia Sinclair, Hugh Latimer, and Geoffrey Chater. Music by Robert Sharples. Was seen in Britain as THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X.

COTTON COMES TO HARLEM (1970)--Directed by Ossie Davis.  Stars Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart, Judy Pace.  Actor Davis directed the first film to be based upon the successful crime novels of Chester Himes.  Harlem detectives Gravedigger Jones (Cambridge) and Coffin Ed Johnson (St. Jacques) investigate a shady preacher named Deke O'Malley (Lockhart), and end up trying to find a bale of cotton containing $87,000 before the mob gets to it.  The screenplay, co-written by Davis, is a bit creaky and crude, but it also features plenty of violence, car chases, humor, memorable Harlem locations and a dose of sex, courtesy of the delectable Pace.  Co-stars John Anderson, J.D. Cannon, Redd Foxx, Cleavon Little, Lou Jacobi, Eugene Roche, Melba Moore, Dick Sabol and Emily Yancy.  Cambridge and St. Jacques returned two years later in COME BACK, CHARLESTON BLUE.  Produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.

COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970)--Directed by Bob Kelljan. Stars Robert Quarry, Roger Perry, Michael Murphy, Michael Macready. Quarry is the modern-day Los Angeles vampire who kills all the young men in the cast and turns their girlfriends into his vampire brides. Low-budget feature is not bad, but it doesn't really stand out. Quarry is pretty good as Count Yorga. Narrated by George Macready, producer/star Michael's famous pop. Kelljan directed more vampire horror in THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA and SCREAM, BLACULA, SCREAM.

COUNTDOWN (1968)--Directed by Robert Altman. Stars James Caan, Robert Duvall, Joanna Moore, Steve Ihnat, Charles Aidman, Michael Murphy. Early Altman effort stars Caan as a hot-tempered young astronaut who replaces veteran Duvall in a space launch. Caan's relationships with mentor Duvall and wife Moore are strained as NASA races to reach the moon before the Russians. Was probably more exciting in the days before Apollo. As usual for an Altman film, the acting is convincing. Look for a bit by future sitcom newsman Ted Knight. Produced by William "Cannon" Conrad.

Among the more absurd scenes find J.D. bickering (“You’re an asshole!” “Go to hell!”) with his pilot friend Frank (played by director Shaw), who flies him around to provide cheap production values. Also great is when J.D., who resembles a midget Tom Poston, turns down his hot friend Katie’s offer to shower with him. Sure, he gets better offers all the time. COURIER OF DEATH is a pointless movie with dumb, circular plotting and dialogue. The title is at least accurate, in that J.D. does cause many deaths, but Shaw’s action scenes are slow and clumsy. Worth a few unintentional laughs, but other bad ‘80s regional actioners like PAROLE VIOLATORS (San Jose) and THE INSTRUCTOR (Akron) are more fun. The Lightning Video tape contains a trailer for IT’S CALLED MURDER BABY (sic), which is the R-rated cut of the John Leslie private eye porn DIXIE RAY, HOLLYWOOD STAR (with Cameron Mitchell!).

COUSINS (1989)--Directed by Joel Schumacher. Stars Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, William Petersen, Sean Young, Lloyd Bridges. Danson goes into James Garner mode, and is charming in this romantic comedy about a pair of cousins by marriage (Danson, Rossellini) who discover the affair going on between their respective spouses and decide to have one of their own. Bridges is funny as Danson's active senior-citizen father. From the director of FLATLINERS. A remake of the 1975 French film COUSIN, COUSINE.

COVER GIRL MODELS (1975)—Directed by Cirio H. Santiago. Stars John Kramer, Tara Strohmeier, Lindsay Bloom, Pat Anderson. Following the same “3 Girls” formula that made such films as SUMMER SCHOOL TEACHERS, THE STUDENT TEACHERS, and NIGHT CALL NURSES hits for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, director Cirio H. Santiago filmed this lumbering drive-in flick in Manila. FLY ME’s Howard Cohen also wrote COVER GIRL MODELS, which plays as a less sleazy, more action-filled remake with three sexy young women getting into scrapes in Hong Kong.

Mark (New World regular John Kramer), a mustachioed photographer for a women’s magazine, recruits a trio of lovely models for an overseas photo shoot. In addition to posing in skimpy bikinis, Claire (SIX-PACK ANNIE’s Lindsay Bloom) poses as a call girl to attract the attention of a movie mogul, Barbara (Pat Anderson from TNT JACKSON and FLY ME) becomes an unwitting courier of secret microfilm sewed into the hem of her dress, and bubbly neophyte Mandy (HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD redhead Tara Strohmeier) tries to learn the do’s and don’ts of both modeling and lovemaking from stud Mark.

You know what to expect from a Santiago movie: inept fight choreography, clumsy story construction, and plenty of breasts. None of the various subplots are presented very well, though the vulnerable Strohmeier uses her nonchalant sexiness and charm to steal scenes. Most hilarious are the bad guys’ regular attempts to kidnap Barbara, which are always thwarted by a mysterious Filipino with the widest collar of all time who always appears out of nowhere just in time to kung fu her assailants.

The beautiful women and entertainingly bad action sequences are enough to keep my eyes interested, though Santiago fills time with the girls posing for pictures or wandering around town just to stretch to a releasable 73 minutes. Mary Woronov (DEATH RACE 2000) plays Mark’s editor in the opening scene shot at the New World office, probably by second unit director Mel Damski (YELLOWBEARD). Also with Vic Diaz, Zenaida Amador, Joseph Zucchero, Tony Ferrar, Ken Metcalfe, Joe Mari Avellana, and Rhonda Leigh Hopkins.

COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE (2001)--Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe.  Stars the voices of Steven Jay Blum, Beau Billingslea, Wendee Lee, Melissa Charles, Jennifer Hale, Daran Norris.  Larger-than-life characters, dazzling visual effects, intricate gadgetry, loud explosions and enough bloody violence to earn an R rating from the MPAA.  Sounds like a typical summertime action blockbuster, doesn't it?  But COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE is a little different in that it's an animated film.  You've doubtlessly seen few R-rated cartoons, but this one is more than a novelty.  It's an entertaining adventure that shows how far animation and imagination have come since the days of Jonny Quest's hovercraft.

Originally titled COWBOY BEBOP: KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN' S DOOR (an evocative title that unfortunately went by the wayside shortly after Columbia TriStar acquired it for American theatrical distribution), COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE is based on COWBOY BEBOP, a popular Japanese animated television series about four futuristic bounty hunters.  26 episodes were made, and have been televised in the U.S. as part of Cartoon Network's entertaining ADULT SWIM block.  The same characters appear in the film:  charismatic leader Spike Spiegel (whose English is dubbed by actor Steven Jay Blum), gruff Jet Black (Beau Billingslea), tough grrl Faye Valentine (Wendee Lee) and eccentric computer hacker Edward (Melissa Charles), a young girl whose appearance and behavior seems a bit out of place, even in this science-fiction setting.

I'm not very familiar with the television series (where perhaps Edward's demeanor makes sense), but I had little problem following the movie's storyline and no problem enjoying the movie.  The setting is Mars in the year 2070.   More specifically, the metropolis of Alba City, which looks a lot like New York City of Earth, except for that Eiffel Tower downtown and an even larger spectrum of ethnic disparity in its population.  Tired of eating the same boring noodles every day and forced to sustain themselves by capturing low-paying convenience-store robbers, the Cowboy Bebop team is invigorated by the promise of 3,000,000 woolongs (that's a lot of money, I'm sure) for their latest mission, the explosion of a chemical tanker in downtown Alba City.  The destruction and the deaths it caused were the opening volley in a bio-terrorism plot launched by rogue government agent Vincent Volaju (Daran Norris), who has stolen a virus which causes "nanomachines"--microscopic robots made of protein--to infect the bloodstream of its victims, causing almost-immediate death.  Also to contend with is a sexy agent named Elektra (Jennifer Hale), Vincent's former lover who becomes Spike's reluctant partner and a target of the same government forces that created the deadly virus.

As with much anime, COWBOY BEBOP is wondrous to look at, packed with realistic backgrounds, vibrant colors and a compelling energy that echoes that of its characters.  Even the "extras", the figures who occupy the back alleys and crowded streets of Alba City, are fully fleshed out, provided with characterization that leaks through their detailed faces.  It's a kind of "SF noir" that director Shinichiro Watanabe has created, mixing mean-street atmosphere with a clean, futuristic dynamism that includes spaceships and monorails and pervasive advertising on every marquee.  The action is crisp and tightly edited, featuring truly exciting dogfights and shootouts and chases and better martial-arts battles than you're apt to find in American live-action movies.  Not even Buffy would be much of a match for Elektra's slinky moves.  Adding to the flavor is a wonderfully eclectic musical score by Yoko Kanno, which bundles New Orleans-style jazz, 1970's-era funk, pounding techno and a few well-composed songs into a sonic buzz that reflects the offbeat nature of the story and characters, as well as punctuating the action.

Ironically, COWBOY BEBOP in many ways comes across as less of a cartoon than many live-action films.  Certainly the dialogue carries a poetic elegance you won't find in any Bruce Willis movie, and while the bad guy/good guy/girl-who-loves-them-both triangle has been done before, the writing and performances here wring extra emotion from the situation, adding poignancy to the slambang action climax.  On the other hand, there's a lot of humor and fun that counterbalance the drama, and the concept of setting the finale at a massive Macy's-type Halloween parade featuring fireworks and enormous pumpkin balloons really captures BEBOP's freewheeling spirit.  If you're unfamiliar with the Japanese anime style, COWBOY BEBOP may be a good way to get started, since its plot, action and characters so closely mirror those of contemporary American cinema.  It's exciting, well-paced (not that it couldn't lose ten minutes or so in the middle) and absorbing enough to almost make you forget that everything you see is made of ink.

CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965)—Directed by Andrew Marton. Stars Dana Andrews, Kieron Moore, Janette Scott. Excellent special effects and a good deal of suspense successfully counteract the screenplay’s soap operatics and the somewhat stolid acting in this exciting British sci-fi thriller. Scientist Steve Sorenson (Andrews), who’s quietly dying of cancer, believes he can drill to the center of the Earth, bring the molten lava there to the surface, and use it as a virtually limitless energy source for generations to come. It sounded like a good idea at the time. The nuclear missile his team fires into the Earth causes a massive crack that travels around the globe, killing tens of thousands in earthquakes and tidal waves. Meanwhile, Sorenson’s marriage to Maggie (Scott) is threatened by her feelings for her former lover and Steve’s partner, Ted Rampion (Moore). Eugene Lourie, who also directed science fiction movies (like THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS), designed the production and supervised the miniatures and matte paintings and explosions, and it’s all very well done. Some of the physical acting by Moore and Scott during the climax looks dangerous and adds to the tension. They both also starred in DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS for executive producer Philip Yordan. Also with Peter Damon, Alexander Knox, Jim Gillen, and John Karlsen. Music by Johnny Douglas. Released by Paramount.

CRACKERJACK (1994)--Directed by Michael Mazo.  Stars Thomas Ian Griffith, Christopher Plummer, Nastassja Kinski.  DIE HARD at a ski resort.  Jack Wild (Griffith) is one of those typically burned-out movie cops--drunk, violent, abusive, disrespectful of authority.  A lone wolf.  You know the drill.  Determined to get Jack back on track after the deaths of his wife and children in a car bomb meant for him, his brother and sister-in-law invite him for a vacation at a Rocky Mountain lodge located below a huge glacier.  Wouldn't you just know that the resort is scheduled to be robbed and destroyed by a squad of mercenaries the very same night Jack and his family arrive?  And that the terrorist leader (Plummer) is the same man who murdered Jack's wife?  How do screenwriters Michael Bafaro and Jonas Quastel pile up the coincidences and lazy plotholes?  Let me count the ways.  To give CRACKERJACK (Wild's nickname) its due, it's watchable enough, thanks to Plummer's mugging, plentiful fights and shootouts, and some surprisingly professional miniature effects.  Griffith is little better than wooden, and Kinski looks beautiful, but has very little to do.  From the director of TIME RUNNER.

CRASH! (1977)—Directed by Charles Band. Stars Jose Ferrer, Sue Lyon, John Ericson, Leslie Parrish. Charles Band’s first film as a director to go out under his own name, not including an earlier sex film that played grindhouses with hardcore inserts. Not content to merely ape the zillion car-crash pictures then populating drive-ins, Band and writer Marc Marais (CURSE OF THE DEAD) throw in some EXORCIST-style supernatural shenanigans too. It has a decent sub-Schifrin wacka-wacka score by CROSS-WITS (!) composer Andrew Belling and lots of totaled vehicles. Beyond that, CRASH! is relentlessly padded and dismal.

Bitter rich old Ferrer (BLOODY BIRTHDAY) blames his trophy wife Lyon (the 30-year-old LOLITA star winding down her acting career) for the accident that put him in a wheelchair. To kill her, he sends his Doberman pinscher out to maul her while she’s driving on a country road—it just leaps in her Chevrolet Camaro convertible—and she crashes.

Lyon doesn’t die, but ends up hospitalized, amnesiac, wrapped up like a mummy with glowing red eyes, and clutching a keychain idol like the one that tried to kill Greg Brady in Hawaii (but without a customized music sting). That little hunk o’ iron brings the Camaro back to life and sends it motoring around Southern California, crashing into and blowing up police cars, while doctor Ericson (HONEY WEST) and nurse Parrish (THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION) try to figure out who she is.

For unintentional comedy, you can’t beat the scene where the demon-possessed Lyon brings Ferrer’s wheelchair to life, crashes it through a door, and squishes the Doberman to death. The poster claims fifty cars were destroyed, which may include Band’s ten-minute time-killing flashback to all of second unit director Von Deming’s car stunts in the movie to that point. Andrew Davis, later an A-list director (THE FUGITIVE), was one of the directors of photography; that two are credited and the film seems so chaotic and padded indicates some behind-the-scenes production trouble. Also with Jerome Guardino, Richard Band, Reggie Nalder, and John Carradine.

CRASH AND BURN (1990)—Directed by Charles Band.  Stars Paul Ganus, Megan Ward, Ralph Waite, Bill Moseley, Eva LaRue, Jack McGee, Katherine Armstrong, Elizabeth Maclellan.  You’ll certainly feel ripped off after viewing this Full Moon effort.  The marketing features a cool-looking giant robot along the lines of Band’s ROBOT JOX and ROBOT WARS.  What you get instead is a tame ripoff of THE TERMINATOR and TEN LITTLE INDIANS with about two minutes of lifeless robot action at the end.  It’s 2030, and global warming has ruined the atmosphere, making it nearly impossible to spend any length of time outdoors without protection.  Trapped in a former power station, which has been transformed into Waite’s low-wattage TV station, a group of strangers has to discover which of them is actually a robot sent from the oppressive home office to kill them.  Is it the company messenger boy (Ganus), Waite’s granddaughter (Ward), the sleazy talk-show host (McGee), the schoolteacher (LaRue), the handyman (Moseley) or one of the porn actresses (Maclellan, Armstrong)?  Who cares?  Slow-moving with a clichéd script by J.S. Cardone (8MM 2), Band’s movie crashes and burns dramatically, despite reuniting the cinematographer (Mac Ahlberg) and composer (Richard Band) of RE-ANIMATOR.  Also with John Davis Chandler.

CRASH DIVE (1996)--Directed by Andrew Stevens.  Stars Michael Dudikoff, Frederic Forrest, Reiner Schone.  This military-oriented direct-to-video action movie is dumb enough to have been directed by Fred Olen Ray, but Ray's frequent employer, Royal Oaks Entertainment head Stevens, did the duty this time.  Dudikoff is James Carter, a former Navy SEAL and designer of the nuclear submarine U.S.S. Ulysses.  When the Ulysses is (easily) hijacked by five Russian terrorists, Admiral Pendleton (Forrest) deduces that only Carter can prevent head baddie Richter (Schone) from destroying New York City with a nuke.  Carter gains access to the sub by out swimming it (!) and rapping a Morse code message on the hatch, spurring the radioman to understand his signal and open the door.  Like COUNTER MEASURES and AGENT RED, CRASH DIVE is essentially DIE HARD on a sub, as Dudikoff wanders around the they-all-look-alike sets, bumping off the bad guys one at a time.  Only two things really stand out about CRASH DIVE.  One is that co-star Catherine Bell, who looks fetching in her Naval uniform, surely landed her starring role on the JAG TV series from this movie.  And the familiar musical score by David and Eric Wurst, written expressly for CRASH DIVE, has popped up in several DTV features since, including RANGERS, COUNTER MEASURES and ACTIVE STEALTH.  Also with Jay Acovone, Michael Cavanaugh, Clay Greenbush, Christopher Titus, Peter Avellino and Elena DeBurdo.  Dudikoff's follow-up, COUNTER MEASURES, was titled CRASH DIVE 2 in some regions.

CRASH LANDING (2006)—Directed by Jim Wynorski.  Stars Antonio Sabato Jr., Michael Pare, Brianne Davis, Rene Rivera, Kevin Dobson, Steve Eastin.  I fear Wynorski’s days as an interesting independent filmmaker may be long in the past.  Although his soft-porn quickies for late-night cable are likely even worse, amateurish productions such as the shot-on-video CHEERLEADER MASSACRE and this poorly scripted and produced DIE HARD ripoff are light-years away from the light adventure and sci-fi quickies he made in the 1980’s or even the competent B-star-filled “stock footage” action movies he churned out several years ago.  CRASH LANDING is in that same vein, but with much lower production values, community theater casting, and lousy scripting.

Major John Masters (Sabato) is hired by wealthy Henderson Davis (Dobson) to chaperone his daughter’s 22nd birthday party, which is to take place on a 13-hour 747 flight from Chicago to Australia.  I don’t know how a man, even a rich one, goes about hiring an Air Force officer to play bodyguard, but there you go.  The daughter, Rochelle (Davis), takes a disliking to Masters for absolutely no reason at all, and her friends are your typical bunch of obnoxious beautiful (and Caucasian) young men and women.

Murphy’s Law exploded all over the screenplay by Wynorski, Bill Monroe and Paul Birkett.  The flight crew (led by the Middle Eastern-looking Rivera) hijacks the 747, which is fatally damaged and heading smack into a monsoon.  Meanwhile, the pilot is wounded, leaving Masters as the only one aboard who can fly the plane, which is leaking fuel and can only land on a tiny atoll manned by a handful of Army Air Corpsmen who have to build a runaway long enough to accommodate a 747 in about an hour in the middle of a Category 3 storm.  Never mind that the men were earlier bitching about how they were going to finish the job in five days!

The film’s biggest problem is that none of these handicaps seem very difficult to overcome.  Masters takes out all five hijackers with incredible ease, and when Captain Williams (Pare) needs to explode a giant rock blocking the runway he’s digging, hey, it’s a cinch.  We never really see the men on the ground clearing the runway—it just appears.  A cop (Eastin) stumbles onto a few accident victims, and—completely off-screen—solves the mystery and discovers the hijacking.  Clumsy continuity finds Dobson still hanging around the airport several hours after his daughter’s place departed (probably because the actor filmed all of his scenes in one day there), not that he ever seems overly concerned with her fate.  He probably read the end of the screenplay.

Hidden Fortress’ visual effects work is unbearable.  It’s no exaggeration to say that rear-projection effects of the 1940s provided a more realistic look than Hidden Fortress’ green-screen shots, and the grainy cartoon airplane exteriors are the pits.  They seem to fit with the cast though; Wynorski’s apparent strategy to cast women he’d like to sleep with over women who can act is evident here.  Female lead Davis is a dreadful actress, yet still better than the two bimbos whose car flies over a cliff in an early scene (created solely to allow Wynorski to use more stock footage).

Whereas one used to be able to count on Wynorski to deliver a professional-looking film with humor, action and good-natured nudity (he drops the ball on a bathtub scene in CRASH LANDING), he now seems only interesting in churning out as many films as possible for a paycheck.  He never was a subtle or artistic filmmaker, but he at least used to be a reliable craftsman.  I don’t believe he still is.  Also with John Beck, Sandra McCoy, Robert Clotworthy, Haley Joel, Mercedes Colon and Stefanie Sherk.

CRASHING LAS VEGAS (1956)—Directed by Jean Yarbrough. Stars Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Mary Castle, Don Haggerty, David Gorcey, Jimmy Murphy. One of many Bowery Boys movies to revolve around Sach (Hall) receiving (temporarily, of course) some sort of superpower, CRASHING LAS VEGAS is also notorious for being Leo Gorcey’s last. Heartbroken after the 1955 death of his father Bernard, who played Louie Dombrowsky in the series, in an auto accident, Leo began hitting the bottle big time. His drinking affected his performance in CRASHING LAS VEGAS so badly that he was forced to give up acting. Stanley Clements joined the team for seven more Bowery Boys outings; though they have their share of scattered laughs, the Bowery Boys just weren’t the same without Gorcey, and the Clements-starrers should be considered amusing postscripts at best.

This entry also adds a Bowery Boy—Myron (Murphy), though he makes next to no impression in the few films in which he appears. He accompanies Sach, Slip (Gorcey), and Chuck (David Gorcey) to Vegas, where the boys hope to use Sach’s new psychic powers to strike it rich. Of course, some crooks find out about Sach’s talent, and use buxom Carol (Castle) to seduce him into revealing it. Aside from Allied Artists’ hilariously cheap depiction of a Vegas casino on a B-picture budget, CRASHING LAS VEGAS’ funniest bit is a game show parody that provides the boys with their means for getting to Las Vegas. Of course, the film is more sad than funny, due to Gorcey, who is clearly blasted in just about every scene. He appeared in only two more films—a cameo in IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD and alongside Huntz Hall doing creaky slapstick in SECOND FIDDLE TO A STEEL GUITAR. Also with Mort Mills, Terry Frost, Jack Rice, Emil Sitka, and Nicky Blair.

THE CRAWLING HAND (1963)--Directed by Herbert L. Strock. Stars Rod Lauren, Sirry Stephan, Alan Hale Jr. Wacky low-budget horror film shot in Florida about a medical student who finds an amputated arm on the beach, which takes over his mind and forces him to strangle people. The arm belonged to an astronaut who went crazy in space and was blown up by NASA scientists. You'll love this for the cast alone; besides the Skipper from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND (as the sheriff), look for Allison Hayes, Peter Breck and Kent Taylor. Strock also wrote and edited this silliness. He also made I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN.

CRAWLSPACE (1986)—Directed by David Schmoeller. Stars Klaus Kinski, Talia Balsam. The director of TERROR TRAP shot this Empire production at Charles Band’s Rome studio. Just from the plot description, you can see it has Klaus Kinski written all over it. Who else could play a deranged son of a Nazi doctor who creeps through his apartment building’s heating vents to spy on the shapely young lovelies living there? The big question is why do these women agree to rent rooms from someone as obviously crazy as Klaus? He has the place boobytrapped with rats and spears, and keeps a tongueless woman (he cut it out, of course) caged in the basement. Eventually he goes double dog nuts, puts on ladies’ makeup and Pop’s old uniform, slaughters his tenants, and chases journalism student Lori (Balsam) around. CRAWLSPACE works up a bit of suspense, but the story is very thin, and all the murders take place off-screen, which is a disappointment. Very nice Pino Donaggio score, but I can’t recommend anything else about this movie. Also with Sally Brown, Tane McClure, Barbara Whinney, Carole Francis, and Kenneth Robert Shippy as the worst Nazi hunter ever.

THE CRAZIES (1973)--Directed by George A. Romero.  Stars Lane Carroll, Will MacMillan, Harold Wayne Jones.  Five years after his landmark NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Romero once again terrorized small-town Pennsylvania in this effective low-budget thriller.  After a plane carrying a virus that turns its victims into raving homicidal maniacs crashes near Evans City, the Army invades the small town, declaring martial law, setting up roadblocks and using deadly force against those citizens who oppose the containment-suit-wearing soldiers who burst into their homes.  While a dyspeptic scientist races to find a cure, a group of five residents, including a pair of volunteer firemen and the pregnant wife of one of them, attempt to discover what's happening to their town.  It's quite crudely directed and amateurishly acted, but THE CRAZIES is one of Romero's better-paced pictures and offers a nihilistic flavor that will be familiar to NOTLD fans.  Originally titled CODE NAME: TRIXIE.  Also with Lynn Lowry, Richard Liberty, Harry Spillman and Richard France.  Romero plays the town's effusive mayor, and Carole Bayer Sager and Melissa Manchester wrote the optimistic closing theme song.

THE CRAZIES (2010)—Directed by Breck Eisner. Stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson. Writers Scott Kosar (who also scripted the AMITYVILLE HORROR and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remakes) and Ray Wright and SAHARA director Breck Eisner were smart to remain faithful to George A. Romero’s original 1973 film, which wasn’t much of a hit, but remains one of the horror legend’s better pictures. It also doesn’t waste any time jumping into the story, which concerns a small Iowa town overrun with a virus that turns Joe and Jane Sixpack into murderous lunatics. Olyphant, who next played another beleaguered lawman on FX’s JUSTIFIED, is local sheriff David Dutten, who heads for the hills with pregnant wife Judy (Mitchell), deputy Russell (Anderson), and teenage Becca (Panabaker), which isn’t easy after the government drops in to clamp a lid over the town. Scenes of civil unrest, concentration camps, and black helicopters are just as unsettling in this post-9/11 world as the many gory murders and gooey makeup effects. After only two features, Eisner has established himself as a fine craftsman with a good sense of pacing and visual style. THE CRAZIES isn’t flashy, but it gets the job done as a scary little B-picture. Glenn Morshower (24) shows up briefly, and Romero fans may spot actress Lynn Lowry from the original CRAZIES.

CRAZY MAMA (1975)—Directed by Jonathan Demme. Stars Cloris Leachman, Stuart Whitman, Linda Purl, Donny Most, Ann Sothern, Jim Backus, Marie Earle, Bryan Englund. BIG BAD MAMA starring Angie Dickinson was an enormous hit for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures—the studio’s biggest to date—so it should come as little surprise that Corman had the similar CRAZY MAMA in theaters a year later. Somehow, he convinced Academy Award winner Cloris Leachman (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) to star in it. Leachman was no past-her-prime matinee queen trying to hold on to old glory (as when Corman cast Shelley Winters in 1970’s BLOODY MAMA). She was extremely popular on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and in TV-movies, getting nominated for Emmys almost every year, and it’s a mystery why she chose to do a low-budget comic action programmer for drive-ins.

One guess is that she saw something in director Jonathan Demme that Corman did and the rest of the world soon would. Later the Oscar-winning director of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and PHILADELPHIA, Demme broke into Hollywood the way many other filmmakers did—in Corman’s trenches at New World. After writing and/or producing the women-in-prison flicks THE HOT BOX and BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA, Demme made his directing debut with another one, CAGED HEAT, which garnered critical acclaim unusual to the genre. More importantly, it made New World money and influenced Corman to hire Demme to direct another violent melodrama with female leads: CRAZY MAMA.

With more humor and less sex and violence than BIG BAD MAMA, Demme’s film suffers from its lack of exploitation elements. The director and screenwriter Robert Thom (DEATH RACE 2000) are going for a screwball vibe in its attempt to parody 1950s kitsch, but instead they’ve created a lot of racket and wheel-spinning. A soundtrack packed with hit singles (“All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Money,” “Lollipop”) and Burma Shave spoofs are little substitution for wit.

Frustrated with the system after banker Albertson (Jim Backus) takes their California beauty shop, Melba (Leachman), her mother Sheba (Ann Sothern), and her pregnant daughter Cheryl (Linda Purl) steal a car and head to Arkansas to buy back their long-ago-foreclosed farm. To get the money, they pull a series of robberies with the help of Cheryl’s meek boyfriend Shawn (Donny Most), 82-year-old Bertha (Marie Earle), greaser Snake (Bryan Englund, Leachman’s son), and gambling sheriff Jim Bob (Stuart Whitman), who becomes Melba’s new Vegas husband.

Editors-turned-directors Allan Holzman (FORBIDDEN WORLD) and Lewis Teague (ALLIGATOR) try to piece together a cohesive story, but too many plot points are lost in the cacophony (like John Aprea’s photographer character), and the postscript showing us the fates of the surviving characters feels like a copout. The section of the Griffith Park Zoo also used by director Bob Kelljan in RAPE SQUAD doubles here for the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Also with Dick Miller, Sally Kirkland, Carmen Argenziano, Beach Dickerson, Clint Kimbrough (husband of co-writer Frances Doel), Will Sampson (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST), and Tisha Sterling, who plays a younger version of her real-life mother Sothern’s character. You can see Dennis Quaid making his (silent) film debut as a bellhop and THE WIND AND THE LION director John Milius as a bearded cop. Demme, who stepped into CRAZY MAMA after Shirley Clarke (THE COOL WORLD) dropped out, made a third film for Corman—the action picture FIGHTING MAD with Peter Fonda—though it was produced for 20th Century Fox.

CRAZY OVER HORSES (1951)—Directed by William Beaudine. Stars Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Ted de Corsia, Allen Jenkins, Bernard Gorcey, Gloria Saunders, Tim Ryan. The Bowery Boys, collecting a $250 debt for Louie (Bernard Gorcey), accept a race horse named My Girl as collateral. The horse’s name provides a little mistaken-identity humor when Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Hall) assume Flynn (screenwriter Ryan) is actually giving them his daughter Terry (Saunders). Mobster de Corsia and his gang switch their nag, Tarzana, for My Girl, so they can win a big race. The boys find out and instigate a game of Musical Horses. Jenkins (SH! THE OCTOPUS) is funny as de Corsia’s henchman. Also with Bennie Bartlett, David Gorcey, William Benedict, Russell Hicks, and Michael Ross. Sach wears blackface in one shocking scene. Saunders went on to play the slinky Dragon Lady opposite John Baer in the TERRY AND THE PIRATES TV series. Co-star Ryan wrote more than a dozen Bowery Boys features, as well as the infamous BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA.

CREATURE (1985)—Directed by William Malone. Stars Klaus Kinski, Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Robert Jaffe, Diane Salinger, Annette McCarthy, Marie Laurin. Filmed as THE TITAN FIND and released with a new title as creative as its plot, CREATURE is one of many ALIEN rip-offs about gooey space monsters with big teeth that chomp on astronauts with paper-thin personalities. The second film by writer/director Malone (whose next film was THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL), CREATURE does a nice job creating a mood and delivering cheap violent thrills on a $750,000 budget. The miniature work and production design by future Oscar winners Robert Skotak (ALIENS) and Dennis Skotak (THE ABYSS) are very good, as are the many gore effects. Really, the goo is the best reason to watch CREATURE—faces are ripped off, heads explode, and blood splashes everywhere.

An American research team travels to Titan, one of Jupiter’s moons, to investigate some ancient artifacts that left a previous expedition dead. They discover their West German rivals have beaten them there, but have all been brutally murdered. That is, except for one: creepy Hans Hofner (Kinski, who leads the league in creepy German portrayals), who informs the new arrivals they’re being stalked by a 200,000-year-old creature that subsists on human blood and can control the dead using squishy control devices attached to the back of the corpses’ heads.

Besides Kinski, whose star-billed role as a lascivious, sandwich-chomping astronaut is really just a five-day cameo, the only satisfactory performances are given by pretty Schaal (THE ‘BURBS) as a brainy scientist (who is forced by the script to do some pretty idiotic things) and Ivar as the ship’s captain. You’ll instantly recognize Ward, who plays the arrogant corporate lackey who’s responsible for the party’s trouble, as Matthew Broderick’s clueless dad in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF. Co-writer Alan Reed is actually Robert Short, the visual effects artist who won an Academy Award for BEETLEJUICE. The orchestral score by Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker makes the action seem more exciting than it actually is, and helps to lend a “big-budget” feel to the proceedings.

CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE (1976)—Directed by Joy N. Houck Jr.  Stars Jack Elam, John David Carson, Dennis Fimple, Thurman.  Obviously inspired by Charles Pierce’s successful low-budget Sasquatch “documentary,” THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, another noted Southern exploitation filmmaker tries to raise forearm hairs with this padded though watchable PG horror movie.  Chicago grad students Rives (Carson) and Pahoo (Fimple) drive a van to Louisiana, where they plan to investigate sightings of a hairy 8-foot biped that has reportedly been attacking the locals for decades.  The small town of Oil City is tight-lipped about the “Creature,” and the local sheriff (Thurman) advises the boys to get on back home, y’hear?  Carson and Fimple (usually cast as comic-relief rednecks or heavies) take advantage of the monster’s infrequent appearances to fill time with characterization, such as Fimple’s preoccupation with hamburgers.  More monster attacks and less male bonding would have been preferable, particularly a subplot involving the guys’ romantic pursuit of a pair of local jailbait that goes nowhere, but you could do much worse than to spend screen time following these likable guys.  Top-billed Elam plays a supporting part as a crazy old local drunk who tries to shoot it out with the monster in his shack.  Also with Dub Taylor and Jim McCullough Jr., who also wrote the screenplay for his father the producer, Jim McCullough.  Music by Jaime Mendoza-Nava, who also shot THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)--Directed by Jack Arnold. Stars Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Whit Bissell. One of the best and most popular Universal horror films of the 1950s. Explorers in the Amazon discover an intelligent Gill Man and try to capture him for study; the creature knows how to fight back, killing many people, while falling in love with the lovely Adams. Very similar to KING KONG, but on a smaller scale. Arnold generates a certain amount of suspense, even though, unlike many other monster movies, the creature gets a lot of screen time. Adams is a gorgeous heroine; the sight of her swimming in a white one-piece bathing suit while the Gill Man looks on will linger in young mens' minds forever. Originally released in 3-D. Ben Chapman played the Gill Man on land; Ricou Browning in the water. Universal makeup artists Bud Westmore and Jack Keven created the creature's memorable look. From the director of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN.

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961)—Directed by Roger Corman. Stars Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Robert Towne. Even if you haven’t seen it, you’ve probably read about CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA’s unusual production. Producer/director Roger Corman, who was already in Puerto Rico to make BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND and LAST WOMAN ON EARTH back to back, decided to squeeze in a third film while he was there. He called his favorite writer, Charles B. Griffith (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS), in Hollywood and told him he needed a comedy script. Oh, and it had to be written for the actors Corman already had on location, and he needed it in a week. Four days after Griffith’s screenplay arrived in Puerto Rico, Corman’s cameras were rolling on the same cast he had just wrapped on LAST WOMAN ON EARTH.

One of those actors, hiding behind the pseudonym “Edward Wain,” is Robert Towne, the renowned screenwriter who later won an Oscar for CHINATOWN. Corman hired the struggling young scribe to pen LAST WOMAN ON EARTH, and when he was late delivering pages, Corman brought him to Puerto Rico to double as writer and co-star, even though Towne had no acting experience. Landing the lead in CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA only because he happened to still be on the island, Towne as Wain plays secret agent SK150, who’s undercover as Sparks Moran, a member of American gangster Renzo Capetto’s (Antony Carbone) yacht crew.

Fleeing Cuba with a bunch of refugees and a strongbox of stolen Castro gold, Capetto plans to keep the treasure by knocking off the Cuban nationals one at a time and blaming their disappearance on a sea monster. Only—gulp—there really is a sea monster that’s killing the crew. Someone it doesn’t get too quickly enough is Pete Peterson (Beach Dickerson), a numbskull who speaks in annoying animal sounds (open mouth, insert dubbed-in wildlife noise). Capetto and Sparks also play two-thirds of a romantic triangle with comely Mary Belle Monahan (Betsy Jones-Moreland), who turns plenty of heads as Renzo’s moll.

CREATURE’s genesis as a script written in one week is obvious. It’s hard to blame Griffith, who more or less rewrote his BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE screenplay—understandable considering the strict deadline Corman gave him. It features Griffith trademarks, including weird sight gags and funny names. The monster, which was reportedly built by Dickerson and played by newcomer Robert Bean (who also portrays Mary Belle’s brother), is a ridiculous concoction of oilcloth, steel wool, and tennis balls. I guess it works fine in a comedy, but I doubt drive-in audiences in 1961 expected one. Produced by Corman’s Filmgroup, when CREATURE was sold to television, Corman hired Monte Hellman (ROAD TO NOWHERE), who had done the same for BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, to film another eleven or twelve minutes of padding to fill a 90-minute timeslot (the theatrical cut runs less than an hour).

CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION (1965)--Directed by Larry Buchanan.  Stars Les Tremayne, Aron Kincaid, Pat Delany.  AIP gave Texas filmmaker Buchanan about $75,000 each to remake several of their pictures to sell to television, including 1956's THE SHE-CREATURE.  Tremayne takes the Chester Morris role as Basso, a stage hypnotist playing a swanky resort who predicts a series of baffling murders that are being committed by a sea monster.  Oh, brother, wait 'til you see it--a man wearing a green rubber suit with ping-pong-ball eyes.  It's about as scary as a pair of bunny flip-flops.  Of course, Basso can predict the murders, because he's causing them, using his hypnotic powers to regress his pretty assistant (Delany) into the killer creature.  Beach movie regular Kincaid, reluctantly finishing up his AIP contract, is hilariously miscast as an Air Force psychologist investigating Basso.  Filmed almost entirely within a country club in Lake Texoma, Texas, CREATURE is a typically inept Buchanan monster picture, full of dreary pacing, stilted performances, laughable suspense and cheap production values.  Also with Neil Fletcher and "Special Guest" Scotty McKay.  The score was compiled from previous AIP soundtracks.

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN (1955)--Directed by Edward L. Cahn.  Stars Richard Denning, S. John Launer, Michael Granger, Gregory Gaye.  One of the all-time great titles adorns this Columbia science fiction movie, which doesn’t quite live up to its name, but what could?  It’s pretty entertaining nonetheless, and clips right along at a just-right 69-minute pace.  Denning is perfectly cast as a police scientist investigating a series of murders that appear to have been committed by a bulletproof assailant with super-strength.  Revenge is the motive, as exiled gangster Granger returns to Los Angeles to kill those responsible for his imprisonment.  He recruits a former Nazi scientist (Gaye), who electronically returns corpses to life as obedient radio-controlled zombies, which are then sent by Granger to crush his enemies.  Of course it’s silly, but also quite fun, and even manages to be poignant when Denning’s best pal, detective Launer, becomes one of Gaye’s creatures.  By the way, there are actually several “creatures” in the film, and one highlight is their fight with cops on the front lawn of Granger’s estate.  Also with Angela Stevens, Tris Coffin, Pierre Watkin and Linda Bennett.  Watch for a blooper when Denning sends the little girl playing his daughter upstairs to her room.  In the background, you can see her stop and sit at the top of the stairs, probably because that was the edge of the set!

CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND (1968)--Directed by Alfred Vohrer.  Stars Klaus Kinski, Harald Leipnitz, Diane Korner.  Dave Emerson (Kinski, who doesn't look anything like a "Dave Emerson") breaks out of the insane asylum where he has been sentenced for a murder he claims he never committed and returns to the family castle to hide out.  No sooner is he back than a series of brutal murders occur on the grounds, the victims apparently slashed to death by a blue metal claw.  Scotland Yard inspector Craig (Leipnitz) investigates the crimes, not an easy task considering the red herrings in this Edgar Wallace story, which include Dave's beautiful sister (Korner), the butler, the director of the mental institution and even Dave's twin brother Richard (also portrayed by Kinski)!  This colorful, eccentric mystery includes all the hallmarks of a West German krimi, including secret passages, lurid murders and an uneasy deathtrap involving a room filled with rats and snakes.  An odd footnote to CREATURE's production history--twenty years later, rights owner Sam Sherman directed new footage of gore and nudity and crudely spliced it into the film, creating an ugly hybrid titled THE BLOODY DEAD, which should probably be avoided. 

THE CREEPING FLESH (1973)--Directed by Freddie Francis. Stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Lorna Heilbron. Good British chiller in the Hammer vein starring Cushing as a scientist who returns from an expedition to New Guinea with a mysterious skeleton. When the bones get wet, they come back to life. Cushing's unscrupulous brother Lee steals the skeleton during a rainstorm. Bad move, Chris. Also with Michael Ripper and George Benson.

THE CREEPING TERROR (1964)—Directed by Art J. Nelson. Stars Art J. Nelson, William Thourlby, Shannon O’Neil, Brendon Boone, John Caresio, Byrd Holland. THE CREEPING TERROR routinely appears on Worst Film of All Time lists for a very good reason: it’s terrible. It’s also boring, the worst sin any film can commit. Considering the backstage drama, perhaps it’s no surprise TERROR came out so poorly. According to co-star Thourlby, director/writer/producer/star Nelson vanished during shooting with a bunch of investors’ money. Thourlby managed to snatch the negative and finish the film, but there was probably no saving this badly produced, indifferently acted, clumsily directed, and flatly photographed clunker. The monster really does look like a matted shag carpet, and characters don’t understand they could easily avoid being eaten by the slow-crawling “terror” by just stepping away from it.

Nelson’s biggest mistake, if just one can be chosen, was to lay pointless narration over the picture, describing what characters are doing or saying to one another. The local sheriff (Holland), his chief deputy Martin (Nelson, billing himself as Vic Savage), and Martin’s newlywed wife Brett (O’Neil) investigate what they initially believe to be a plane crash. Discovering a strange undamaged craft, the sheriff slips inside and is killed. Martin calls in the military and a scientist named Bradford (Thourlby). Meanwhile, the space creature wanders around the countryside eating people, including a girl in a bikini who crawls inside Jon Lackey’s laughable monster suit while the same screaming sound effect is repeated on the soundtrack.

What little dialogue is in the movie is badly dubbed. Sometimes the actors’ lips are moving, sometimes not. But usually the dialogue is expressed by the omniscient narrator, who describes it over scenes of two people talking. There’s a weird and pointless scene in which Martin invites his fellow deputy Barney (Boone) over to his house and then makes out with his wife in front of him. One wonders whether director Nelson just wanted to kiss a pretty actress. You may recognize Boone (billed as Norman Boone), who appeared in a lot of TV shows later and was a regular on GARRISON’S GORILLAS.

CREEPOZOIDS (1987)--Directed by David DeCoteau.  Stars Linnea Quigley, Ken Abraham, Richard Hawkins, Michael Aranda, Kim McKamy.  Cheap, boring post-apocalyptic ALIEN ripoff about five futuristic Army deserters who hide out during an acid rainstorm inside an abandoned scientific facility.  Between shower scenes and putdowns, the soldiers are ripped apart by one of the failed experiments, a gooey, stiff-looking monster that roams the hallways.  Linnea pops her top, which counts for something.  DeCoteau must have been desperate to pad the film, throwing in a silly-looking mutant baby near the end, but even at 72 minutes, the film drags.  He made this one for Charles Band's Empire Pictures and still directs several shoddy direct-to-video movies a year.

CREEPSHOW (1982)--Directed by George A. Romero. Stars Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson, E.G. Marshall, Fritz Weaver, Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook. An homage to the EC horror comics of the 1950s, this collaboration between the director of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and writer Stephen King is a collection of five short vignettes, all with twist endings and touches of black humor. All are good; the final segment with Marshall battling an army of cockroaches is the best. King has a role in one story as a redneck farmer afflicted with a space disease after coming into contact with a strange meteor. Makeup by gore expert Tom Savini.

CREEPSHOW II (1987)--Directed by Michael Gornick. Stars George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Lois Chiles, Tom Savini. Inferior sequel to the 1982 hit, despite the participation of original writer Stephen King, producer George A. Romero and special effects guru Savini. Savini also acts in this one, introducing the three stories as a character called "The Creep". A wooden cigar store Indian comes alive to avenge the killings of storeowners Kennedy and Lamour; four sex-starved teens are stranded on a raft by a killer oil slick; the ghost of her victim chases hit-and-run driver Chiles. King does a cameo as a truck driver. Gornick was the cinematographer on the original CREEPSHOW.

THE CREMATORS (1972)—Directed by Harry Essex.  Stars Marvin Howard, Maria de Aragon, Eric Allison.  A giant fireball from outer space (represented by a cheap and unconvincing animated optical effect) rolls across the western United States, incinerating various victims, while some scientists try to figure out what’s happening.  Plodding pacing, poor acting, and shoddy special effects combine for a sleep-inducing experience.  Essex also directed OCTAMAN and the original I, THE JURY, but is best known for writing IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON for Universal-International.

THE CREW (2000)--Directed by Michael Dinner. Stars Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya, Seymour Cassel. Just call it GRUMPY OLD GOOMBAHS. Less than a month after GRUMPY OLD ASTRONAUTS--otherwise known as Clint Eastwood's SPACE COWBOYS--hit theaters nationwide, Touchstone has released another feel-good movie about a quartet of raucous oldsters living a sedentary existence but awaiting that one big last ride. Director Michael Dinner, who spent the 1990s doing fine work in television (THE WONDER YEARS, CHICAGO HOPE), has assembled a fine cast of character actors--Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel--and while the final product isn't all it probably should have been considering the talent involved, THE CREW is an agreeable lark that works just fine for the hour-and-a-half it takes to unspool.

Screenwriter Barry Fanaro hasn't strayed too far from the Miami Beach retirement hotel milieu that won him an Emmy for writing THE GOLDEN GIRLS. In fact, Betty White and Estelle Getty could very well be living just down the street from THE CREW's main characters, former New Jersey goodfellas who have retired to Florida's easy lifestyle: Bobby (Dreyfuss), the group's fast-talking leader; intemperate Bats (Reynolds), whose nickname descends from his weapon of choice; dimwitted but sweet-tempered Brick (Hedaya), who keeps in touch with all his old pals via Christmas cards; and ladies man Mouth (Cassel), who prefers to let his libido do his talking.

Fanaro's script begins pretty slowly--although Dreyfuss's spirited narration helps--until the plot finally begins to kick in after the first reel. When their landlord threatens to raise their rent--thanks to an influx of wealthy young tenants moving in--our heroes concoct a cockamamie plan to scare them off by kidnapping a stiff from the morgue where Brick works and faking a brutal shotgun murder in their lobby. Unfortunately, the corpse was formerly the Alzheimer's-stricken father of South American druglord Raul Ventana (Miguel Sandoval), who believes a rival gang is targeting him. Sandoval, on oily display as a sinister suspect in A&E's reruns of the brilliant '90s series MURDER ONE, has a fine time spoofing the typically Hollywood south-of-the-border drug dealer. To make matters worse, Mouth has innocently blabbed the plan to heavy-breasted hooker Ferris (Jennifer Tilly), who blackmails the boys into whacking her rich Jewish stepmom Pepper (Lainie Kazan). Throw in some inept Latin henchmen, a rat with a fiery tail, and a subplot involving Bobby's long-lost daughter Olivia (Carrie-Anne Moss of THE MATRIX), who's assigned to investigate the murder along with her philandering partner Steve (Jeremy Piven), and you've got a plot that doesn't really hold much water, but then again, isn't really supposed to.

THE CREW's biggest delight is its cast. Dreyfuss, one of Hollywood's most intelligent actors, bestows Bobby with a wry bite that accounts for much of the movie's humor. Between this and his splendid turn as the U.S. President in CBS's live FAIL SAFE broadcast earlier this year, Dreyfuss proves he's still among Hollywoods most pliant stars. Reynolds continues to skillfully switch from movie star to character actor, while Hedaya and Cassel are often hilarious in less showy roles. The subplot involving Moss and Piven really doesn't amount to much--and maybe should have been pared even more in a B-story seemingly leftover from Fanaro's sitcom days--but the actors do the best they can in their very thinly written roles.

Produced by Barry Sonnenfeld, who directed GET SHORTY and may have been able to give this movie that extra push towards excellence (then again, considering WILD WILD WEST, maybe not), THE CREW works best as a showcase for its four talented stars and the textured Florida cinematography by Juan Ruiz-Anchia. Keep a sharp eye peeled for the great Italian character actor Frank Vincent, who has played dozens of paisans going back to RAGING BULL and appears here as a gun dealer, and stick around for the closing credits to hear a spirited song called "Old Man Time", which is performed by none other than Joe Pesci! Also with Fyvish Finkel, Casey Siemaszko and Billy Jayne. Music by Steve Bartek.

CRIME CLUB (1973)—Directed by David Lowell Rich. Stars Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Rush, Paul Burke, Victor Buono, Richard Hatch. Charles Larson (THE F.B.I.) wrote and produced this unsold pilot about an exclusive Los Angeles club of judges, detectives, attorneys, policemen, and other law enforcement figures who were available to brainstorm various mysteries. Bridges stars in the opener as private eye Paul Cord, who returns to his former home of Santa Luisa, California to investigate the apparent suicide of a young friend, Hugh London (Hatch), son of his former flame Denise (Rush) and her husband Robert (Burke), who despises Cord. Paul’s dogged examination of the clues lead to several red herrings, many of them Hugh’s friends and family, and to attempts on his life. Rich crafts a fine mystery that emphasizes plot over action using a very good cast of actors, which also includes Martin Sheen, Cloris Leachman, David Hedison, Belinda J. Montgomery, Frank Marth, William Devane, Alan Napier, and Mills Watson. Like THE NAME OF THE GAME, SEARCH, and other popular shows of the era, CRIME CLUB would have featured alternating leads Bridges, Buono (as a crafty judge), and another uncast actor.

CRIME CLUB: THE LAST KEY (1975)—Directed by Jeannot Szwarc. Stars Robert Lansing, Scott Thomas, Eugene Roche, Barbara Rhoades, David Clennon, Michael Cristofer. Thomas, whose shortlived series THE NEW LAND had recently been cancelled, stars in this pilot about an exclusive club of crimefighters based in New York City. CBS had tried this idea two years earlier with Lloyd Bridges in the lead. Like THE NAME OF THE GAME, the series would have featured Thomas, Lansing (12 O’CLOCK HIGH) as defense attorney Alex Norton, and character actor Roche (THE CORNER BAR) on alternating weeks. A creep named Frank Swoboda (Cristofer, who later became the big-time writer/director of ORIGINAL SIN with Angelina Jolie) confesses to a series of icepick killings. He didn’t do it—museum photographer Peter Karpf (Clennon) did—but he takes responsibility so he can bask in the attention. Swoboda’s stripper sister Angela (raven-haired Rhoades) doesn’t believe Frank’s story and hires private eye Jack Keesey (Thomas) to find the real killer. I love the idea of a Crime Club, and an early scene of the club’s members reenacting a murder and spitballing possible solutions is fun. I don’t know why neither pilot took off, and I’d like to see some producer give it another shot. Writer Gene Kearney (KOJAK) takes a few liberties in logic, but his script is, in all, a fine procedural. Guest stars include Biff McGuire, Kathleen Beller, M. Emmet Walsh, Carl Gottlieb, and Martine Beswick. Director Szwarc, Kearney, and producer Jack Laird knew each other well from working together on NIGHT GALLERY.

CRIME DOCTOR (1943)—Directed by Michael Gordon. Stars Warner Baxter, Margaret Lindsay, John Litel, Ray Collins. First of ten Columbia B-pictures starring Oscar winner Baxter (IN OLD ARIZONA) as the Crime Doctor, a sleuth created by Max Marcin for CBS Radio in 1940. A man is tossed from a speeding car and found by partying college students, who take him to a hospital. When he revives, he can’t remember who he is. Taking the name Robert Ordway, the man (Baxter) moves in with his physician, Dr. Carey (Collins, later police lieutenant Tragg on PERRY MASON), and begins studying for a medical degree. Ten years later, Ordway opens a successful practice with Carey. Hilariously, the 54-year-old Baxter plays Ordway at ages thirty and forty and not believably. Baxter and Collins were actually the same age, though Collins, who portrayed the Crime Doctor on radio, is playing older.

Ordway becomes a pillar of society, including the head of the parole board. Some crooks, including the sly Emilio Caspari (Litel, who is terrific), suspect Ordway is actually Phil Morgan, who doublecrossed them for $200,000 of stolen loot and was murdered by them, or so they believed, for it. With a nervous mixture of relief and worry in believing he may have been a criminal, Ordway investigates Caspari and his accomplices on his own. CRIME DOCTOR has a bit more going on than most of these ‘40s B-mysteries do and is nicely anchored by Baxter’s stalwart turn. The crooks aren’t sure whether or not Ordway is faking his amnesia, which makes them dangerous. Gordon had Boston Blackie and Lone Wolf quickies under his belt already when he tackled his first and last Crime Doctor. He later directed Doris Day movies and sitcoms.

THE CRIME KILLER (1985)--Directed by George Pan-Andreas, Leo G. Morrell.  Stars George Pan-Andreas.  I have no idea who Greek filmmaker Pan-Andreas is, but he certainly assembled a wonderfully inept and frequently hilarious vanity production.  He plays Zeus, a cop who is tossed off the force for killing two corrupt cops in self-defense.  After the U.S. President’s wife and child are murdered, the CIA forces Zeus to return to crime fighting, not that Zeus needs much urging.  After all, he is the Crime Killer.  For some reason, he recruits two old ‘Nam buddies to train for thirty days under an asshole drill instructor, even though they don’t use any of their new training on their mission.  Really, I wouldn’t spend much time trying to figure it all out.  It’s entertaining enough just listening to Pan-Andreas earnestly reciting his wonky dialogue (did I mention that he also wrote the screenplay?) and engaging in head-scratchingly obtuse conversations with the overboiled Morrell as Zeus’ police boss.  The first reel is a little tough to sit through, because the direction is so inept and the photography so dark that it's hard to tell what's going on.  After the titles finally roll (illustrated by Greek imagery that has nothing to do with the movie, like a statue that fires beams from its eyes!), it's one mockable moment after another, including gratuitous 'Nam flashbacks, slow-mo kung fu (that shows the actors' kicks missing one another by a mile), inappropriate humor, crazy plot points and ridiculous dialogue.  I'm sure the story of how George Pan-Andreas talked someone into giving him money to write, direct and star in this movie (which was released on video by New World) is fascinating.

CRIME STORY (1986)--Directed by Abel Ferrara. Stars Dennis Farina, Anthony Denison, Bill Smitrovich, Darlanne Fluegel, David Caruso. Michael Mann (THE INSIDER) was the executive producer of this feature-length pilot which aired on NBC. Set in Chicago during the early '60s, CRIME STORY--both the pilot and the series--followed two charismatic characters: slick mobster Ray Luca (Denison), who's trying to make inroads among the connected bigwigs of the Windy City, and Lt. Mike Torello (Farina) of the Chicago Police Department's Major Crimes Unit. Torello and Luca become archenemies after Ray guns down a pair of Mike's friends--one a cop, the other the son (Caruso) of a close friend. Fluegel (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.) plays Torello's wife, while Smitrovich (Corky's dad from LIFE GOES ON) is solid as his partner.

Like Mann's previous series, MIAMI VICE, CRIME STORY showcases a lot of style--slick production values; gritty camerawork; lots of period music, clothes and cars--but it isn't style over substance. It's very sharply written and acted, especially by Farina, a relative neophyte to film who was a real-life Chicago cop for nearly twenty years. His tough but sensitive portrayal clashes well with Denison's oily performance as he plots a clever course up the Mob ladder. Credit casting director Bonnie Timmerman with much of the show's success. The supporting cast includes Billy Campbell, Stephen Lang, Eric Bogosian, William Russ, Ted Levine, Michael Rooker, Joseph Wiseman and Jon Polito, many of whom were unknowns at the time. Todd Rundgren composed and conducted the score. Del Shannon re-recorded his #1 hit "Runaway" for use as the theme.

Despite much critical acclaim, NBC cancelled the series after two seasons. The show really got way out there. After the first 13 episodes, the setting switched to Las Vegas, and the season ender found Luca being zapped on a nuclear bomb testing range! Somehow he survived to see Season Two, and moved to Central America with Torello still on his tail.

CRIME ZONE (1988)--Directed by Luis Llosa.  Stars David Carradine, Peter Nelson, Sherilyn Fenn.  Roger Corman produced this cheap SF actioner in Peru.  In the oppressive future, martial law has made major crimes almost extinct.  It goes without saying that the government's totalitarian reign has also mostly wiped out freedom and joy.  So much so that ex-cop Bone (Nelson) and hooker Helen (Fenn, just after popping her top for Charlie Sheen in THE WRAITH) want to escape to a legendary city where rule is more democratic.  Shady Jason (Carradine) offers them that chance, but only if they perform a series of robberies for him first.  Jason turns out to have a hidden motive for his recruitment of the two lovers, but it's doubtful you'll wait around long enough to discover what it is.  Murkily lensed by Cusi Barrio, CRIME ZONE is hard to see and hard to sit through, jammed with limited actors emoting on cheap sets.  Carradine seems to have put some thought into his role, but there's little else to recommend in Llosa's film.  The director did become one of Corman's few Concorde/New Horizons discoveries to move up to major studio films, helming SNIPER, THE SPECIALIST and ANACONDA before returning to Peruvian television.  Music by Rick Conrad.  Carradine and wife Gail Jensen were associate producers.

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989)—Directed by Woody Allen.  Stars Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow.  One of Woody’s best films is this light mystery that focuses on two separate subplots that seemingly couldn’t be more disparate in subject and tone.  Landau plays a prominent physician who decides to murder his neurotic mistress (Huston) when she threatens to reveal their affair to the community.  Meanwhile, broke documentary filmmaker Allen, unable to finance the “important” work he wants to do, is forced to shoot a puff piece about his smarmy brother-in-law (Alda), a jerk who produces lousy TV sitcoms.  Landau was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, even though he clearly has the lead role.  He didn’t win, even though he’s even better here than in ED WOOD, the film for which he finally won the Oscar.  All of the performers do great work, but Landau is the standout.  Allen received Oscar nominations for his direction and screenplay, which is tight, thoughtful and often hilarious.  Sam Waterston, Jerry Orbach, Claire Bloom and Joanna Gleason are in it.

CRIMES OF PASSION (1984)--Directed by Ken Russell. Stars Kathleen Turner, John Laughlin, Anthony Perkins, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison. Ridiculous thriller with Turner as a respectable fashion designer by day, exotic hooker "China Blue" by night. Perkins proves once again there's no role he won't take by portraying a psychotic, perverted, twitchy, masturbating priest named Peter. Turner looks great with no clothes on, but there's no other reason to watch this dumb film. Music by Rick Wakeman of Yes. From the director of TOMMY.

CRIMEWAVE (1985)--Directed by Sam Raimi. Stars Brion James, Paul L. Smith, Reed Birney, Sheree J. Wilson. This very strange comedy was co-written by Raimi and the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, who earned an Oscar nomination for their FARGO screenplay. Raimi returned the favor by directing second-unit on THE HUDSUCKER PROXY. All involved with CRIMEWAVE were reportedly not very happy with the results, but it does have its moments. James and Smith are psycho exterminators who also work as hitmen. Birney is a schmuck framed for a murder, and relates the narrative in flashback while on death row. Bruce Campbell appears briefly as The Heel ("Why don't we go back to my place for a little Scotch and sofa?"), but should have played Birney's role (allegedly the film's backers didn't think Campbell was charismatic enough for the lead; why did they believe Birney was?) Also with Louise Lasser, Emil Sitka and Ted Raimi. The crazy slapstick humor and violence foreshadow Raimi's next feature, which was EVIL DEAD 2. By the way, James was not dubbed; that weird cartoon-like voice he uses was his own. Produced by Robert Tapert. Music by Joseph LoDuca.

CRIMINAL LAW (1989)--Directed by Martin Campbell. Stars Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Tess Harper, Joe Don Baker. Thriller about a Boston lawyer who wins his client an acquittal on murder charges, then later realizes the client was guilty and is killing more people. Is interesting primarily because of the backwards casting: Bacon plays the psycho murderer, while Oldman plays against type as the straight-laced American attorney. Good tense direction by Campbell (NO ESCAPE). Music by Jerry Goldsmith.

THE CRIMSON CODE (1999)--Directed by Jeremy Haft.  Stars Patrick Muldoon, Cathy Moriarty, Tim Thomerson, C. Thomas Howell.  MELROSE PLACE pretty boy Muldoon and RAGING BULL starlet Moriarty, eight years his senior (but looking older), are an unlikely romantic duo in this watchable serial killer flick.  Both play FBI agents and partners assigned to a task force that track serial killers.  They also strive to be selected for their boss Heywood's (Thomerson) "Red Team", the squad that actually apprehends the killers.  While investigating a murderer named The Silencer, so dubbed because of his habit of cutting the tongues from his victims, Muldoon discovers that two serial killers have died in mysterious accidents and six others vanished over the last eighteen months, leading him to believe that someone is murdering them--a "serial killer killer", so to speak.  CRIMSON offers few surprises and more than a few annoying plotholes, but Haft manages a bit of suspense here and there, and the veteran supporting cast makes up for Muldoon's emptiness and an atrocious performance by Howell as the Silencer, who must have prepared by shaving his head, glowering into a mirror and listening to tapes of Mark Hamill voicing the Joker in TV cartoons.  Also with Fred Ward, David Beecroft, Dave Brown and Victor Cowie.  Originally titled RED TEAM, THE CRIMSON CODE is a senseless title and not even as interesting as RED TEAM, I don't think.  Filmed in Winnipeg.

THE CRIMSON CULT (1968)--Directed by Vernon Sewell. Stars Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, Michael Gough, Mark Eden. Former TWILIGHT ZONE and STAR TREK scribe (as well as noted science-fiction author) Jerry Sohl adapted this unsuccessful waste of four horror movie icons from a story by H.P. Lovecraft. A young man (Eden) travels to the English mansion of J.D. Morley (Lee) to investigate his brother's disappearance. There he has hallucinations of an exotic green-skinned woman (Steele) wearing a goat headdress surrounded by leather-clad sadomasochists in a torture chamber. Karloff plays a good-guy professor of the occult who tries to help Eden, while Gough is pretty embarrassing as Lee's idiot servant. It's great to see Lee and Karloff sharing scenes together--and they certainly do their best--and Sewell tries to keep things interesting by tossing in all sorts of psychedelic effects, but the story just isn't interesting. This was Karloff's last major production; he later shot some scenes for director Jack Hill in a Hollywood studio that were used in four low-budget Mexican horror movies. Karloff died February 2, 1969 at age 81. Also with Virginia Wetherell, Rosemarie Reade and special guest Rupert Davies. Music by Peter Knight. Produced by Tigon Films, which attempted to mine the same genre ground already covered by Hammer and Amicus. Originally released in England as CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR, it has also been seen as CURSE OF THE CRIMSON CULT and THE CRIMSON ALTAR.

THE CRIMSON GHOST (1946)--Directed by Fred C. Brannon and William Witney.  Stars Charles Quigley, Linda Stirling, Clayton Moore.  One of Republic's last great serials is this 12-chapter masterpiece, which pits two-fisted scientist Duncan Richards (Quigley) against an evil mastermind called the Crimson Ghost, who conceals his true identity behind a marvelously effective skull mask.  The Crimson Ghost's target is a device called the Cyclotrode, which, despite its cheapjack design, is able to short-circuit all electrical equipment, including automobiles and airplanes.  Imagine what a weapon it could be if fallen into the wrong hands.  GHOST features a lot of terrific, energetic fights; in Chapter One, Quigley (or likely his stunt double) actually runs up the side of a wall and flips over Jackie Chan-style to get the drop on his opponent.  Future Lone Ranger Moore glowers well as the Crimson Ghost's chief henchman, and the appearance of the beautiful Stirling, who had previously headlined her own serials, THE TIGER WOMAN and ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP, is always a plus.  THE CRIMSON GHOST was re-released theatrically in 1966 in a cut-down version called CYCLOTRODE X, and it's also available on videocassette in a colorized version under its original title.  Dependable stock players Kenne Duncan, Stanley Price, I. Stanford Jolley, Tom Steele, Dale Van Sickel and Bob Wilke also appear.

CRIMSON RIVERS (2001)--Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz.  Stars Jean Reno, Vincent Cassel, Nadia Fares.  This taut French crime drama has often been compared to SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and SEVEN, I suppose because on the surface it's about two detectives--one young, the other older--pursuing a serial killer who mutilates his victims and displays them in a gruesome manner.  That CRIMSON RIVERS really isn't any more similar to those American hits than that does not mean that it isn't worth watching.  It definitely is.  Columbia/Tri-Star chose to release it directly to video in the U.S., which is a shame, because I think it could have attracted a healthy box office similar to that of, for instance, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (rumors of an American remake are imminent).

In CRIMSON RIVERS, or LES RIVIERES POURPRES as it's known in its home country, homicide detective Niemans (Reno of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and THE PROFESSIONAL) is called to investigate the brutal mutilation and murder of a librarian who was found hanging from a snowy mountain hundreds of feet over the university where he worked.  His hands had been hacked off, his eyes gouged out, and his body suffered five hours of pre-mortem torture.  Simultaneously a couple hundred miles away, a younger, hipper detective, Max Kerkerkian (Cassel, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF), looks into two seemingly unrelated, unimportant cases:  the desecration of a young girl's grave and a breaking-and-entering at an elementary school.  Eventually, clues lead the two policemen to a common path--a surprisingly complicated and sordid one involving incest, baby switching, Nazis and an intense young glaciologist named Fanny (Fares).

One of CRIMSON RIVERS' great joys is untangling its complex plot, which unravels at just the right pace, never allowing us to get too far in front of the story's protagonists, but not leaving us scratching our heads either.  Each step Niemans and Kerkerkian take plugs another piece into the jigsaw puzzle, and, although Kassovitz purposely lets us on to the killer's identity earlier than you'd expect, it's to his credit that the revelation doesn't cause the story to flag.  Kassovitz also knows how to aim his camera at precisely the right spot to generate the most suspense, and as far as his action scenes go...let's just say that CRIMSON RIVERS features one of the wittiest foot chases I've seen in quite some time.  Reno's world-weary wisdom and Cassel's cocky energy work well together, and their performances are aided by the fact that both dubbed their own voices for the English-language release.  Although it seems like hardly a month goes by that Hollywood isn't tossing another forgettable serial killer movie out to theaters, CRIMSON RIVERS is one that'll bring back your faith in this overcrowded and more frequently underwhelming genre.

The DVD features CRIMSON RIVERS in both French and English.  Since the stars dubbed their own voices, I chose to watch in English with English subtitles (for the instances in which the French accents were a bit difficult for me to decipher), and that felt like the right way to go, since the English subtitles removed a lot of the naturalism from the dialogue, nuances that would have been missed if I had used them with the original French soundtrack.  Thierry Arbogast's cinematography and Bruno Coulais' score are top-notch.  Also with Dominque Sanda (THE MACKINTOSH MAN), Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Kerim Belkhadra.

CRIMSON RIVERS II: ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE (2004)--Directed by Olivier Dahan.  Stars Jean Reno, Benoit Magimel, Christopher Lee, Camille Natta.  Good sequel that isn’t as good as the original, but still worthwhile.  Jean Reno returns as Parisian detective Niemans, who investigates the strange murder of a man found entombed Poe-style behind the concrete wall of a monastery. Later, a customs agent is murdered by a robed figure who uses a nailgun to crucify his victim.  Meanwhile, a younger detective (Benoit Magimel) runs over (literally--with his car!) a raving man who bears resemblance to Jesus Christ and rants about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  The two detectives join forces when they learn their cases are connected, and a third detective (Camille Natta), a religion expert, discovers that the victims all bear the same names and occupations as the real Jesus' twelve apostles.

Christopher Lee is the main villain, an ex-Nazi, but the subordinate villains are a lot of fun.  They're sorta like ninja priests.  Faceless assassins dressed in brown priest robes, these guys confound the cops with amazing physical agility and strength.  The movie's best setpiece has Magimel chasing one of these guys on foot halfway across Paris, bouncing off of buildings, leaping through glass windows, jumping on and off of trains, and climbing into an abandoned steel mill.  It's an amazing foot chase, even better than the witty one in the original CRIMSON RIVERS.

In fact, director Olivier Dahan makes wonderful use of interesting locations in addition to the mill, including the famous Maginot Line, which includes hundreds of miles of underground tunnels and waterways built to fortify the French border against the Germans in World War II.  Dahan stages some intriguing, creative killings and boosts the bad guys' credibility by having them thwart Reno and Magimel's opposition at every turn.  Luc Besson's script suffers somewhat from its implausible premise, although I was mostly able to swallow it fine.  The story is ridiculous, but Dahan's stylish direction keeps it from flagging.  The leads have no chemistry together, and their characters are thinly developed to the point where it didn't really matter who the detectives were on the case.  It could just as easily have been Starsky and Hutch on the job.  I still recommend CRIMSON RIVERS II on the basis of its taut action scenes, slick visuals, catchy score and Christopher Lee.

CRIMSON TIDE (1995)--Directed by Tony Scott. Stars Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen. This slick thriller was an early box-office hit in the summer of '95. Russian rebels are threatening a nuclear attack against the U.S., so a nuclear submarine (the U.S.S. Alabama) is launched into the Pacific in case a preemptive strike is needed. When orders to attack come from Washington, Captain Hackman wants to nuke the rebels immediately, while executive officer Washington would rather wait for confirmation. After all, a launch of nuclear missiles would mean the beginning of World War III. Soon the sub has been split into two separate cadres, each threatening mutiny against the other. Film is hampered by an awkward opening featuring some dull exposition and a schmaltzy, sell-out ending, but director Scott does a terrific job of making the submarine scenes properly realistic and claustrophobic, and leads Hackman and Washington bring enough skill to their characters to make neither of them totally right or wrong. The only villain here is war itself. Michael Schiffer's screenplay contains enough technobabble to make Tom Clancy's fans happy, but it doesn't get in the way of the suspense. Quentin Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite, adding dollops of humor and pop-culture references. Also with Matt Craven and Rick(y) Schroeder. Music by Hans Zimmer.

CRIPPLED AVENGERS (1978)--Directed by Cheh Chang.  Also known as RETURN OF THE 5 DEADLY VENOMS, this Shaw Brothers production takes a potentially tasteless concept and turns it into a really nifty kung fu movie.  An old man and his adult son, whose hands have been replaced with metal ones that fire deadly darts, run their village using fear and use their formidable kung fu to cripple their victims.  They poke the eyes out of one, deafen another, cut the legs off of a third, and squeeze one’s head in a vice so tight that he becomes an “idiot”.  The four spend three years in service of a martial arts master who teaches them how to use their disabilities to great advantage in battle, and then they return home for a revenge-soaked showdown with their tormentors.  Cheh has fashioned no cheap kung fu quickie.  There’s lots of style and widescreen grace in his picture, which has scenes that may remind you of current Hong Kong dramas like HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS and HERO.  Unlike the graceless followup, CRIPPLED MASTERS, which used actors with genuine handicaps, the stars of CRIPPLED AVENGERS fake their infirmities well and do an excellent job of fashioning their martial arts to fit their characters.

THE CRIPPLED MASTERS (1982)--Directed by Joe Law Chi.  The print I saw carried no credits.  I won't say much about it, since it's so crazy, it's best if you discover it for yourself as the film goes along.  Suffice to say that a guy who has his arms chopped off and another guy who has his legs dissolved with acid train themselves to learn kung fu so they can kick the asses of the people responsible.  The dubbing and storyline are as ridiculous as you would expect from a Hong Kong production of this vintage, but there's lots of fighting.  And not just normal kung fu either, but lots of fighting involving guys with no arms or legs.  The actors really were missing their limbs, which makes their feats more amazing.  I suppose some would consider the concept to be tasteless, but it definitely shows, in a warped way, the physically handicapped overcoming their flaws to triumph over evil.

CRITICAL MASS (2000)--Directed by Fred Olen Ray.  Stars Treat Williams, Udo Kier, Lori Loughlin, Andrew Prine.  When the second shot of a Phoenician Entertainment movie is a sign reading "Cyberdyne Industries", I know damn well what the first ten minutes are going to be like:  a lot of exploding police cars, an exploding office building and a freeway chase between a van and a helicopter.  How did I know this?  Because that's what happened in the film that Ray stole his stock footage from:  TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY.  The climax is swiped from UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, a process that finds two buses chasing each other atop a desert plateau in the long shots, but the actors are seen in their close-ups standing in a grassy field.

I guess it's a testament to Ray's professionalism that CRITICAL MASS is as watchable as it is, despite the sloppy production and dumb scripting by someone whom I suspect of being Phoenician regular Steve Latshaw using a pseudonym (the coffee-swilling government worker gives him away).  A terrorist group led by Sampson (Kier) steals an atomic bomb from "Cyberdyne" and hijacks a closed-down nuclear power plant on its last day of operation.  Only a handful of security officers are on staff, including Mike Jeffers (Williams), an amiable fella and bad gambler who lost his previous job as a local sheriff following a scandal in which several federal agents were killed.  Also on the premises are Senator Cook (Prine) and his press secretary Janine (Loughlin).  Kier's men murder everyone except Jeffers, Cook and Janine, who manage to hide deep in the bowels of the plant.  Yes, it's DIE HARD in a power plant, as Jeffers bounces around, knocking off Udo's guys before the Eurobaddie can detonate his bomb.

Much of CRITICAL MASS' amusement value comes in watching Ray's dumb fantasy world operate.  A Defense Department worker wearing a miniskirt.  People who forget to lower their voices while hiding from other people standing just feet away.  Federal law enforcers who decide not to become involved in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, preferring to let the local hick sheriff take care of it.  As usual, Williams is a real sport, while Loughlin provides solid (and solidly attractive) support.  I don't know Phoenician would be able to stay in business if not for the cooperation of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who constantly provide the company with locations.  CRITICAL MASS is fun for what it is, but what it is ain't a whole lot.  Nice to see Prine, Charles Cyphers (HALLOWEEN), Blake Clark and Richard Gabai working, though.  Also with Shanna Moakler, Doug McKeon, Richard Anthony Crenna and Richard McGonagle.  Music by Neal Acree.

CRITTERS (1986)—Directed by Stephen Herek. Stars Dee Wallace Stone, M. Emmet Walsh, Billy Green Bush, Scott Grimes, Terrence Mann, Nadine Van der Velde, Don Opper. New Line Cinema, which already had the Freddy Krueger horror franchise, launched another with this uneven swipe of GREMLINS. CRITTERS was the directorial debut of Stephen Herek, who went on to make bigger Hollywood films like MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS and THE MIGHTY DUCKS, but to this point had toiled in Roger Corman’s New World system as an editor and production assistant.

The tiny town of Grovers Bend, Kansas is invaded by nasty round creatures with glowing red eyes, sharp teeth, and quills they can shoot like a porcupine. These Krites are escaped convicts from a prison asteroid and are pursued to Earth by a pair of shapeshifting alien bounty hunters, one of which assumes the form of rock star Johnny Steele (Mann).

For all their murderous fury, the Krites do less physical damage than the hunters, whose choice of weaponry is like swatting flies with an A-bomb. The furballs land their stolen spaceship on a farm belonging to the Brown family—patriarch Jay (Bush), mom Helen (Stone), teenage daughter April (Van der Velde), and young horror fan Brad (Grimes)—who team up with sheriff Harv (Walsh) and drunken manchild Charlie (Opper) to battle the wee beasties.

Give most of the credit for CRITTERS to Stephen and Charles Chiodo, whose company designed, built, and operated the Krites and imbued them with personality and a definite sense of menace. Herek goes for a light touch that occasionally undercuts the horror, and it’s hard to tell whether he’s aiming for an adult or juvenile audience (GREMLINS was clearly meant for adults who still enjoyed Chuck Jones cartoons). Also with Lin Shaye, Ethan Phillips, and Billy Zane (TITANIC) as April’s “dork from New York” boyfriend. Score by David Newman.

CRITTERS 2 (1988)—Directed by Mick Garris. Stars Scott Grimes, Terrence Mann, Don Opper, Liane Curtis, Barry Corbin, Herta Ware, Roxanne Kernohan. Many CRITTERS cast members returned for the New Line sequel, which was the film directing debut of horror stalwart Garris (THE STAND) and was written by Garris and David Twohy (PITCH BLACK). It’s an entertaining little monster movie, but suffers the same problem as the original, which is that its silly humor (including cartoon sound effects and the aliens having a word in their language for “bitchin’”) seems aimed at kids, but it’s packed with PG-13 nudity, profanity, and gore.

Teenager Brad Brown (ER regular Grimes) returns to Grovers Bend to spend Easter with his grandmother (Ware), just in time for some Krite eggs to get mixed in with the church’s Easter egg hunt. CRITTERS 2 plays out much the same way as the original, except the little hairballs terrorize the whole town, rather than just the Browns’ farmhouse. Town drunk Charlie (Opper) has since joined shapeshifting bounty hunters Ug (Mann) and Lee (Kernohan, who whips out the gratuitous breasts), and the trio returns with their gigantic guns to kill the Krites. Oddly, nobody recognizes Ug as rocker Johnny Steele. Musta been a one-hit wonder.

Corbin (NORTHERN EXPOSURE) replaces M. Emmet Walsh as Sheriff Harv, and Curtis plays the spunky teen female lead. Garris had little budget to work with—the town of Grovers Bend is obviously a bunch of flats erected in a large parking lot—but he juggles it well, and the lo-fi critters are fun villains. Also with Eddie Deezen (“Kill more Krites!”), Tom Hodges, Sam Anderson, Lindsay Parker, and Lin Shaye. Orchestral score by Nicholas Pike (GRAVEYARD SHIFT). It’s funny to think about Mann starring in LES MISERABLES on Broadway in between CRITTERS movies. Hard to believe this got made before GREMLINS 2 did.

CRITTERS 3 (1991)—Directed by Kristine Peterson. Stars John Calvin, Aimee Brooks, Don Opper, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Cousins, Joseph Cousins, William Dennis Hunt. New Line released CRITTERS 3 directly to video in the winter of 1991. Ah, let’s face it, you only care about this movie because it’s the film debut of 16-year-old GROWING PAINS co-star DiCaprio. Director Peterson’s specialty was making softcore erotic thrillers for Roger Corman, which didn’t come in handy when helming a PG-13 monster movie.

Widower Clifford (busy ‘70s TV actor Calvin), his teenage daughter Annie (Brooks), and his young son Johnny (the Cousins twins) pass through Grovers Bend (which has apparently transported from Kansas to Arizona) on their way to L.A. and accidentally pick up some Krite eggs. Where did they come from, and where did they get their new powers? The end of CRITTERS 2 indicated all the Krites were blown up for good.

Screenplay by David J. Schow (THE CROW) is filled with coincidences, clichéd characters, implausibilities, and critters farting. It also rips off a bowling gag from CRITTERS 2. The Krites make their way to the basement of Annie’s slum apartment building, which also catches on fire and has its power and communications cut off by its evil new landlord (Hunt). Can the (surprisingly few) residents of the building make it to the roof before being consumed by fire or Krites?

Brooks is a plucky Final Girl, and DiCaprio is more believable than his adult co-stars, though he would probably rather forget this film exists. Also with Katherine Cortez, Geoffrey Blake, Jose Luis Valensuela, Diana Bellamy, Frances Bay, Bill Zuckert, and Terrence Mann back as Ug if you hang in there long enough. CRITTERS 3 is bad, but ends with a tacked-on “trailer” for CRITTERS 4 that looks intriguing.

CRITTERS 4 (1992)—Directed by Rupert Harvey. Stars Don Opper, Terrence Mann, Angela Bassett, Brad Dourif. Critters go to outer space and battle Angela Bassett, one year before her Oscar-nominated performance in WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT. She (or her butt double) even has a PG-13 nude scene. Bassett must have filmed this just before BOYZ IN THE HOOD and MALCOLM X, and it’s weird to see her in a direct-to-video sci-fi movie with a 4 in its title. She’s good as a spaceship pilot and helps bring some elegance to a movie that isn’t very good.

CRITTERS 4 opens with the closing scene of CRITTERS 3: bumbling bounty hunter Charlie (Opper) receiving instructions not to destroy the last two Krite eggs in existence. While placing them aboard a transport vehicle, he stupidly pulls a FAR OUT SPACE NUTS and falls into suspended animation. Fifty-three years later, he and the eggs are revived aboard a space station, where the Krites hatch and start chomping the crew.

Harvey, directing his first and only film, takes 37 minutes to present the first critter attack, killing time until then with bickering astronauts in 1990s haircuts who say “chill out.” Sets and script feel incomplete, and producer Harvey allowed himself only two Krites (which don’t even shoot their cool poison quills). As the executive producer of 1982’s ANDROID (which also starred Opper), Harvey swiped visual effects footage from that Roger Corman sleeper to get extra production value on a slim budget.

CRITTERS 3 is a bad movie, but it at least tried to give its audience what they wanted. CRITTERS 4 pleases nobody. Also with Anders Hove (SUBSPECIES), Paul Whitthorne, Eric DaRe, Anne Ramsay (MAD ABOUT YOU), and the voice of Martine Beswicke. Mann shows up in his fourth CRITTERS movie and the third in which he walked through.

CROC (2007)—Directed by Stewart Raffill. Stars Michael Madsen, Peter Tuinstra, Sherry Phungprasert. The director of THE WILDERNESS FAMILY, MAC AND ME, MANNEQUIN 2, and THE ICE PIRATES makes a killer crocodile flick for the Sci-Fi Channel. Do you think it will be good? It isn’t, but Madsen’s crusty turn as a Quintesque crocodile hunter almost makes it worth your while. The special effects are better than the CGI crap that usually turns up in these cheapjack monster movies, and the Thailand location shooting provides extra production value (and a great excuse to showcase lovely Asian girls in bikinis). Greedy mobsters who want to take over the tourist trap owned by Jack McQuade (Tuinstra) break into his croc farm and let some out. One is blamed for the death of some teenagers, but only Jack believes the real culprit is a vicious 20-foot crocodile that’s still on the loose. You’d be much better off watching ROGUE.

CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986)--Directed by Peter Faiman. Stars Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, Mark Blum. Amiable comedy from Australia was a surprise box-office smash, thanks to the considerable charms of former TV star Hogan. He plays Down Under adventurer Dundee, who saves gorgeous American reporter Kozlowski from a crocodile attack and returns with her to New York City. There he encounters challenges by transvestites, hotel bathrooms, and Kozlowski's boyfriend (Blum). Hogan and Kozlowski fell in love shooting this film, and they later married. Hogan co-wrote the script for this, his film debut.

CROOKED (2007)—Directed by Art Camacho.  Stars Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Gary Busey, Fred Williamson, Olivier Gruner, Martin Kove.  Maybe it's true. You really can't go home again.  I haven't seen a Don "The Dragon" Wilson movie this bad since...REDEMPTION, which also was directed by Art Camacho. CROOKED is as paint-by-numbers as they come with nobody involved acting as though they gave a damn. It's almost completely lifeless. Everyone moves and speaks in slow motion. Editing is awful, as many shots go on for a second too long, after everyone has finished speaking or moving out of frame. You can't really fault Wilson and Olivier Gruner much, because they act about as well as they usually do. It's obvious, though, unless Camacho is an even worse director than I think he is, that The Dragon's fighting skills have waned. He's not yet at Seagal-level where a double does all the fighting with jiggly closeups of his head cut in, but he's not far from Chuck Norris WALKER, TEXAS RANGER either.

And Gary Busey... He's pretty shameful. Camacho deserves blame too, because he obviously gave Busey no direction whatsoever. Busey makes no attempt to play a big-city police captain. He rambles on about the same flaky New Age-y stuff that he does in interviews, and he may well have believed he was filming a new episode of I'M WITH BUSEY. Fred Williamson, who is third-billed, surely shot all his scenes in one night, and is gone from the picture less than 15 minutes into it.

Bill Martell's story is strictly standard stuff. Some cops (including Fred) and the government witness they're protecting are all killed by a young mobster named Nugentti (Michael Cavalieri) and a cop on the take, whose face we don't see. However, you'll guess his identity approximately 0.29 seconds after he appears. Escaping is Angel, a sexy hooker (Diana Kauffman) on her first assignment, who's hiding in the bathroom when the baddies shoot up the joint. She gets away with a key to a locker holding some money, and even though this plot point occasionally rears its head, nobody seems very committed to it.  Busey assigns two cops who hate each other to the case. One is straight-laced Homicide dick Wilson; the other, rebellious Vice cop Gruner. For some reason, Busey appoints them U.S. marshals, even though 1) I don't think he can legally do that, 2) there's no reason they need to be marshals, and 3) this is another plot point immediately forgotten.

Wilson and Gruner quickly grab Angel and take her to a series of safe houses, each of which is eventually invaded by Nugentti's ninja-clad goons, who are summarily dispatched by the heroes in lumbering fashion. Camacho and Martell attempt a red herring--how do the bad guys always find the hiding place?--by having Angel place a surreptitious phone call. We never learn who she called or why, even after it's established that she isn't the one selling Wilson and Gruner out.

Oh, yeah, Martin Kove appears in this movie too, oh so briefly and with little purpose.  I guess if you're a Don "The Dragon" Wilson fan, you might want to check this one out. He and Gruner get to play sex scenes with topless large-breasted silicone-enhanced actresses and occasionally kick a stuntman in the face. CROOKED both looks and sounds cheap with drab digital cinematography, flat sound and a wretched score. To be fair, everything in the trailer actually occurs in the movie, but it's a lot more interesting in two minutes than it is in 93.

CROSSFIRE (1947)--Directed by Edward Dymytryk. Stars Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan. Ryan is brilliant as a psychotic anti-Semite who brutally beats to death a Jewish Army officer. Young plays a pipe-smoking cop trying to unravel the mystery. Adapted by Richard Brooks from his own novel, which was about the death of a homosexual. That subject was still taboo at that time, so the victim was made a Jew in the screenplay. The story is still powerful though, and Ryan found himself typecast as killers for a long time. He and Brooks had been in the service together, and lobbied hard for the role of Montgomery. Film was a box-office hit.

CROSSPLOT (1969)—Directed by Alvin Rakoff.  Stars Roger Moore, Claudie Lange, Alexis Kanner.  In a role not far afield from THE SAINT, the TV series that make him an international star, Moore plays a London advertising executive who is tricked into hiring a certain Hungarian model (Lange) for a major layout.  It’s all a manipulation that lands him on the run from the law and in the middle of an assassination plot.  Producer Robert Baker could have jacked up the budget a little bit—it seems like Moore plays half his scenes in front of an unconvincing rear projection—but Rakoff keeps the pacing strong and the action scenes relatively exciting.  CROSSPLOT is lightweight entertainment with an appealing turn by Moore.  Also with Bernard Lee, Martha Hyer and Derek Francis.

THE CROW (1994)--Directed by Alex Proyas. Stars Brandon Lee, Ernie Hudson, Michael Wincott, David Patrick Kelly, Bai Ling, Michael Massee. Will always be known as the movie Lee was filming when he was accidentally killed on the set by a dummy bullet fired from a prop gun. It's too bad the movie isn't a fitting memorial. Slick but slow-moving film about Eric Draven (Lee), a rock musician who is killed along with his fiance by a gang of punks. A year later, a crow brings him back to life, and Draven swears vengeance against the four hoods that killed him. The visual style is strongly influenced by the BATMAN movies. Lee really doesn't do much except fire a lot of guns and dispatch a few karate kicks, but it is clear he had some screen charisma, and very well may have become an action star in the Schwarzenegger/Seagal mode. It's too bad we'll never know. Interesting cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, but Proyas's style-over-substance music-video background betrays him. Music by Graeme Revell. Based on the comic-book series by James O'Barr. Followed by a flop sequel and a TV series.

CRUEL JAWS (1995)—Directed by Bruno Mattei. Stars David Luther, George Barnes, Kristen Urso, Scott Silveria, Richard Dew. “There’s only two ways to kill (a tiger shark): kill them or starve them.” That pretty much sums up the absurdity of this Italian JAWS ripoff by horror hack Mattei. If you loved TROLL 2, this incredible mix of silly plotting, terrible acting, stock footage poaching, and inappropriate music choices (including the theft of John Williams’ STAR WARS theme) should turn you on just the same. Hampton Bay is plagued by shark attacks—just before the big regatta! The sheriff (Luther) wants to close the beaches; the greedy hotel magnate (Barnes) wants to pass off the grisly deaths as boating accidents. The magnate is also evicting the hilariously Hulk-Hogan-looking Dag (Dew), who runs a tourist attraction with his teenage son (Silveria) and his crippled little girl (Urso). Most, if not all, of the shark footage is cribbed from GREAT WHITE, and the storyline is obviously straight outta Spielberg’s movie. “We’re gonna need a bigger helicopter!”

THE CRUEL TOWER (1956)—Directed by Lew Landers. Stars John Ericson, Mari Blanchard, Charles McGraw, Steve Brodie, Peter Whitney. Manly men and the manly things they do are the focus of this Allied Artists potboiler. Tramp Tom Kitttredge (Ericson, later on HONEY WEST) is mugged and tossed off a moving train. He’s taken in by Stretch Clay (McGraw), the boss of a small group of traveling steeplejacks that includes friendly Casey (Brodie), dull-witted Joss (Whitney), and bad girl Mary (Blanchard), also known as The Babe. Their latest job is a water tower, which is ably reconstructed on a soundstage for the actors (the rear screen projection is excellent) while stuntmen (or possibly actual steeplejacks) nimbly leap about the real thing for Landers’ camera. The manly stuff is mostly fighting—in bars, with rival steeplejacks, or with each other over women. Sometimes they even fight with rival steeplejacks in bars. It’s certainly an interesting milieu for a melodrama. Warren Douglas’ screenplay travels tried-and-true territory, but the acting is good, and Landers (HOT ROD GANG) keeps it all rolling along at a good clip. Give credit to director of photography Ernest Haller and his crew for schlepping their equipment way up there to get high POV shots. Also with Alan Hale Jr., Dick Rich, Carol Kelly, and Stafford Repp. Score by Paul Dunlap.

CRUISING (1980)--Directed by William Friedkin. Stars Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Don Scardino. A very controversial and surprisingly graphic crime drama starring Pacino as Steve Burns, a young New York City policeman who is sent undercover by Captain Edelson (Sorvino) to investigate the bloody slayings of homosexuals involved in the grimy S&M scene. More than just a whodunit, CRUISING's thrills are also psychological as Burns gradually becomes more comfortable cruising the bathhouses and gay bars in his search for the killer. He strikes up a friendship with his gay neighbor Ted (Scardino), and gradually becomes desensitized to the aberrant sex practices he witnesses during his investigation. It all leads up to a fascinating twist ending in which the explicit killings continue, even though the main suspect has been arrested.

Friedkin caught a lot of controversy from gay activists--even while CRUISING was being filmed--because of its portrayal of homosexuals as deviants and murderers. I can understand why they might feel this way (Ted is the film's only sympathetic gay character), but Friedkin took care to explain in an opening disclaimer that his film doesn't group all homosexuals together, but chooses to examine one small segment of gay culture. It's hard to believe CRUISING could get an R rating today, as Friedkin fills the screen with more male nudity, orgies, gay kissing and simulated sex acts than I can remember ever seeing in a mainstream studio feature. Friedkin's screenplay doesn't always hold water during the police procedural scenes, but, although his depiction of Pacino's immersion into the S&M underworld is dark and disturbing, I was engrossed at the same time I was repelled. Which, I imagine, was precisely Friedkin's intent.

Also with Joe Spinell and Mike Starr as a pair of closeted cops, Jay Acovone, Gene Davis, Allan Miller and Sonny Grosso. Keep your eyes peeled for early appearances by James Remar, Ed O'Neill, William Russ, Leo Burmester and Powers Boothe. Jack Nitzsche provided the sparse score, which is punctuated by several punk tunes. Friedkin followed CRUISING with another critical bomb, DEAL OF THE CENTURY.

THE CRUSH (1993)--Directed by Alan Shapiro. Stars Cary Elwes, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Rubin, Kurtwood Smith. This ode to statutory rape stars Elwes as a magazine journalist who rents a room from a wealthy Beverly Hills couple. Their voluptuous 14-year-old daughter (in a star-making performance by drop-dead gorgeous Alicia Silverstone) falls for Cary in a big way--so much that when he rebuffs the assertive blonde's advances, she attacks his perky girlfriend (Rubin) and tries to kill him! Director Shapiro often photographs Silverstone in bikinis and various stages of undress, which, considering the actress's age, makes the viewer uncomfortable. The thriller portions are laughable, especially the climax. Graeme Revell composed the score. Silverstone won three MTV Movie Awards for this film, and went on to star in three Aerosmith videos.

CRY BLOOD, APACHE (1970)--Directed by Jack Starrett. Stars Jody McCrea, Joel McCrea, Jack Starrett, Don Henley. Violent and crudely made western shot without synchronized sound. Jody McCrea (who also produced) and his band of outlaws kill and rob a group of Indians. The Native American survivors band together to slaughter the evil white men one by one. Western legend Joel McCrea (Jody's pops) as the lone survivor remembers the tale in flashback. Starrett's third film as a director (after RUN, ANGEL, RUN and THE LOSERS, both starring William Smith) is a major step down; it seems to basically be a glorified home movie (veteran heavy Tessier directed the second unit). Now you know the type of people Henley was hanging out with before the Eagles hit it big in 1972.

A CRY FOR HELP (1975)—Directed by Daryl Duke. Stars Robert Culp, Elaine Heilveil. Culp (I SPY) is outstanding as cynical alcoholic radio host Harry Freeman in this tight against-the-clock thriller by COLUMBO creators Richard Levinson and William Link and MURDER, SHE WROTE creator Peter S. Fischer. Freeman regularly berates the listeners who call in to his early-morning program. Then a young runaway (Heilveil) calls. She sounds fragile and frightened and talks about suicide. Harry gives her the bum’s rush, as usual, but soon after begins to believe the call was genuine. From the DJ booth, he engineers a frantic investigation, pleading with police, psychiatric professionals, and the radio audience to identify and find the girl before it’s too late. Duke (PAYDAY) tells Fischer’s story more or less in real time, and it really moves. If A CRY FOR HELP has a major flaw, it’s that it would have played better in the dead of night, rather than morning drive. Heilveil is awfully sympathetic and makes her character deserving of Harry’s efforts to save her (and, in doing so, he redeems himself as well). Also with Michael Lerner, Ken Swofford, Chuck McCann, Bruce Boxleitner, Ralph Manza, Lee de Broux, Lieux Dressler, Granville Van Dusen, and Julius Harris.

CRY OF A PROSTITUTE (1974)—Directed by Andrea Bianchi. Stars Henry Silva, Barbara Bouchet, Fausto Tozzi, Vittorio Sanipoli. Silva is at his most badass in this grim crime drama that opens with a beheading and heroin stuffed into a dead boy’s tummy. He’s an American-educated Mafia hitman named Tony Aniante who whistles a tune before each kill. He is summoned to Sicily to stop a gang war, but, YOJIMBO-style, ingratiates himself with both sides. A prostitute does cry, but only because Tony takes a belt to her (and you thought he was the movie’s hero). As played by Barbara Bouchet, among the most carnal of Eurocult actresses, ex-hooker Margie, the wife of a Mafia don, fellates a banana (Silva’s poker-faced reaction is priceless) and rubs milk on her body to run Tony’s motor. Violent movie racks up a heckuva body count and some impressive action sequences, including a stalk-and-shoot staged within a labyrinthine Sicilian neighborhood. Silva’s character—an asskicker of few words with a childhood secret that fuels his revenge among the underworld—is somewhat reminiscent of Charles Bronson’s in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.

CRY SWEET REVENGE (1977)—Directed by Geza von Radvany  and Al Adamson. Stars O.W. Fischer, Herbert Lom, John Kitzmiller, Olive Moorefield, Marilyn Joi. In 1965, an expensive German production of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel UNCLE TOM’S CABIN played around the world, including the U.S., to enthusiastic response. Leave it to huckster Sam Sherman at Independent-International to land the American rights and turn it into a nasty exploitation movie. Sherman enlisted schlock director Al Adamson to film new scenes of violence, nudity, and depravity, including an opening rape (with Marilyn Joi as the topless victim) and a long sequence about a runaway slave who sleeps with a white woman and is then raped and tarred by three white men.

I-I released the now-R-rated movie with a marketing campaign that compared it to MANDINGO and DRUM. CRY SWEET REVENGE is the title used for the 93-minute version Sherman released in Australia. While it’s difficult to argue with Sherman and Adamson’s decision to sleaze it up, because they did make money with it, you can tell that von Radvany’s original film has moments of class and high drama that don’t mix well with the new scenes. Noted European star Lom is the loathsome Simon Legree, and Kitzmiller—Bond’s sidekick Quarrel in DR. NO—is Uncle Tom. I-I re-released it as WHITE TRASH WOMAN, which must have blown the minds of anyone who paid to see it.

CRYSTAL HEART (1987)--Directed by Gil Bettman. Stars Tawny Kitaen, Lee Curreri, Lloyd Bochner. Pallid drama is a slight remake of THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE. Curreri was born without immune defenses, and must remain encased in an artificial environment. He falls in love with a sexy rock star (Kitaen). Funniest scene finds the two leads attempting to make love through a sheet of plexiglass. Kitaen looks great nude, but that's about the only reason to see this.

CUJO (1983)—Directed by Lewis Teague. Stars Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone, Ed Lauter. ALLIGATOR director Teague is perfectly cast for this suspenseful killer-pup flick from the pen of Stephen King (though he reportedly replaced Peter Medak during production). It’s still one of the best King adaptations with its natural performances and one corker of a third act. I imagine most people who watch CUJO soon forget the first half, which chronicles the crumbling marriage of Donna (Wallace) and Vic (Kelly) Trenton, their timid little boy Tad (Pintauro), Donna’s unsatisfactory affair with handyman Steve (Stone), and the family of mechanic Ed Camber (Lauter), who exist only to set in motion the extended setpiece that makes up most of the second half. Tautly staged by Teague, it traps Donna and Tad inside the tiny Trenton Pinto with no defense against the Cambers’ rabid St. Bernard Cujo. Little Pintauro is either one of the best child actors I’ve seen or he’s really terrified in his scenes with the dog, because his hysterical crying is chilling. Likely, any CUJO remake would jettison the subtext developed in the opening scenes in favor of a larger body count. Also with Mills Watson, Sandy Ward, Kaiulani Lee, Jerry Hardin, and Billy Jacoby. Charles Bernstein’s score is very good. Teague’s next film was another King movie, CAT’S EYE.

CULT OF THE COBRA (1955)—Directed by Francis D. Lyon. Stars Richard Long, Faith Domergue, Marshall Thompson, William Reynolds, Jack Kelly, David Janssen, Kathleen Hughes, James Dobson. This agreeable horror movie plays pretty stodgily under the frumpy hand of B-movie director Francis D. Lyon (DESTINATION INNER SPACE), but it’s definitely worth viewing for its amazing cast of young contract players who went on to television stardom.

Richard Long (THE BIG VALLEY), Marshall Thompson (DAKTARI), David Janssen (THE FUGITIVE), William Reynolds (THE FBI), and Jack Kelly (MAVERICK) play G.I. buddies in Asia just after World War II. For kicks, they sneak into a snake-worshipping ceremony, but a sixth pal (James Dobson) does something stupid, one of the cultists is killed, and Dobson soon dies of a cobra bite. Weeks later, the five survivors return to New York City, where sad sack Thompson, who has just lost his girlfriend (Kathleen Hughes) to roommate Long, takes up with pretty new neighbor Faith Domergue. Who is a deadly snakewoman looking for revenge.

There was a time when the five male stars were on television constantly, either in prime-time series or in movies playing in late night, and watching their familiar faces earnestly learning their craft in the 20s and early 30s is great fun. So is the movie, by the way, particularly the first couple of reels in which Lyon and U-I’s production designers create a visually appealing backdrop for exotic adventure.

Once the action shifts to Greenwich Village, the film settles into a routine of actors being bumped off one by one, a slight precursor to a later generation’s slasher flicks. The men are unsurprisingly killed in reverse order of their billing, which throws cold water on the suspense. On the other hand, Lyon handles the shock scenes fairly well, and the sloe-eyed Domergue is perfectly cast as the mysterious femme, er, snake fatale. Universal released it on DVD as part of its Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection set, but it’s straight-up horror without a touch of science fiction. Also with Leonard Strong, Walter Coy, Olan Soule, Bing Russell, and Ed Platt (GET SMART).

THE CURIOUS FEMALE (1970)—Directed by Paul Rapp. Stars Angelique Pettyjohn, Charlene Jones, Bunny Allister, Michael Greer. After a decade of working as Roger Corman’s assistant director on films like PIT AND THE PENDULUM and THE TRIP, Rapp got the urge to direct a film of his own. The result is this futuristic sex comedy starring Angelique Pettyjohn, a pneumatic blonde best known for guest shots on GET SMART and STAR TREK.

In 2477, when an oppressed society is ruled by the Master Computer, a group of horny young people gather regularly in a cave to screen stag movies from 1969. The bulk of Rapp’s film is THE THREE VIRGINS, the film-within-a-film, about Susan (Pettyjohn), Pearl (Jones), and Joan (Allister), who use a computer dating service to find their soulmates. With a script by Winston Paul, songs and score by Stu Phillips (BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS), and professional but flat lighting by Don Birnkrant (ATTICA), THE CURIOUS FEMALE plays very much like a protracted LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE with boobs. Meta jokes about low-budget filmmaking of the 1960s are pretty good.

The cast isn’t bad at light comedy, particularly Greer (SUMMER SCHOOL TEACHERS) as Bixby, the dating service head who deals with a variety of oddball customers. The rape and gay humor haven’t aged well, but the rest of the material is relatively harmless—quaint, even. The leading ladies are attractive and happily not shy. Top-billed Pettyjohn is constantly photographed in—and out of—costumes that accentuate her tremendous bust. You’ll probably recognize Joshua Bryant, Lincoln Kilpatrick, and maybe Ron Gans, who is better known for his tremendous narration of drive-in trailers. One of many films of the era to use what I call the Mary Tyler Moore font in its credits. Rapp’s next and last film was GO FOR IT, a surfing documentary narrated by Gans.

THE CURSE (1987)—Directed by David Keith. Stars Wil Wheaton, Claude Akins, John Schneider, Kathleen Jordon Gregory, Malcolm Danare, Amy Wheaton, Cooper Huckabee, Steve Carlisle, Hope North. Actor Keith (AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN) made his directing debut with this terrible Italian horror movie produced by Ovidio Assonitis (PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING) with second unit direction by Lucio Fulci (THE BEYOND) and a screenplay by David Chaskin (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2). THE CURSE is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” which also inspired DIE, MONSTER, DIE and CREEPSHOW.

A meteor screams outta space and plops down on the Tennessee farm of Bible-thumping Nathan Crane (Akins), where he rules his wife Frances (Gregory), dimwitted fat son Cyrus (Danare), and stepchildren Zack and Alice (the real-life Wheaton siblings). The visual effect of the meteor touching down is honestly the worst ever seen in a film released by a major Hollywood studio. While the local physician (Huckabee) and realtor (Carlisle) cover up the meteor’s existence, the space rock infects the local water supply, which turns people who drink it into raving lunatics.

THE CURSE is probably the first film to turn a Tennessee Valley Authority rep (THE DUKES OF HAZZARD’s Schneider) into a hero. Most of the acting is terrible, though not Akins, who brings a little humanity to his harshly drawn Fundamentalist. The horror unfolds on the colorless sets too slowly, and when it does, it builds to little more than a lame crumbling miniature. The three CURSEes that followed have nothing to do with Keith’s film. Also with Steve Carlisle and Hope North. Music by Franco Micalizzi (VIOLENT NAPLES).

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)--Directed by Terence Fisher. Stars Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, and Christopher Lee as the Monster. The beginning of Hammer Studios's reign as the leading producer of quality horror films. Cushing is the mad doctor who creates a living creature from old body parts stolen from cemeteries. Lee is very good as the Monster, second only to Boris Karloff. Lee also played the Mummy, Fu Manchu, and Count Dracula. Film features typically high Hammer production values, plus plenty of blood and sex. Script by Jimmy Sangster.

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN (1958)--Directed by Edward L. Cahn. Stars Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards, Adele Mara. Probably your only chance to see character actor Anderson's (THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN) in a starring role. He doesn't appear to be enjoying himself as Dr. Paul Mallon, a scientist investigating the remains of a man turned to stone during the destruction of Pompeii 2000 years earlier. The Faceless Man was a gladiator who cursed the village to doom when he was denied the love of a senator's daughter. Turns out Mallon's artist fiance Tina (Edwards) is the reincarnation of the creature's lover, bringing the plaster caster back to life to stalk again and save her from Pompeii's demise. Of course it shambles along so slowly you would think anyone could outrun the beast, but it manages to strangle and crush a few people along the way to its bubbling demise.

About the only thing that shambles more slowly than the Faceless Man is the script by SF vet Jerome Bixby, who's probably better known for his TWILIGHT ZONE ("It's a Good Life") and STAR TREK ("Mirror, Mirror") teleplays. Filled with much tongue-twisting gobbledygook posing as dialogue and little pace or logic, CURSE hits all the perfunctory keys on its way to a pull-it-out-of-your-ear climax. Anderson, the nominal hero, does nothing to save his love from her watery fate, and spends much of his screen time flat on his back after another butt-whipping by the creature. Also with Luis Van Rooten, Gar Moore, Felix Locher (FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER), Jan Arvan and Bob Bryant, who wore the Faceless Man costume designed by Charles Gemora. Played in some scenes by a papier-mch figure, the Faceless Man suit looks okay in black-and-white, although it always looks more like plaster than stone. One of five films directed in 1958 by Cahn, including IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, which was also penned by Bixby. Music by Gerald Fried.

CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER (1983)--Directed by Blake Edwards. Stars Ted Wass, Joanna Lumley, Herbert Lom. Embarrassing attempt to make money off the brilliant talent of Peter Sellers three years after his death. Wass is a Clouseau-like bumbling New York cop who travels to England to find the missing Inspector Clouseau. Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, and Capucine are seen mostly through old footage from the cutting room floor. Slickly made by Edwards, but a bit on the ghoulish side. Niven was so ill, he had to be dubbed by Rich Little! With Robert Loggia, Harvey Korman, Burt Kwouk and a surprise appearance by Roger Moore. Believe me--Ted Wass is no Peter Sellers.

CURSE OF THE VOODOO (1965)--Directed by Lindsay Shonteff.  Stars Bryant Halliday, Dennis Price, Lisa Daniely.  An arrogant white hunter (Halliday) on an African safari shoots and kills a lion.  One of the local tribes, the Simbaza, which worships lions, places a curse upon him.  He could care less, until his return to London, whereupon he is beset by hallucinations and visions of Simbaza assassins.  As his doctors scratch their heads looking for a medical cause of Halliday's odd behavior, the hunter begins drinking more and more, influencing even his bitter estranged wife (Daniely) to look after him.  Also known as CURSE OF SIMBA and VOODOO BLOOD DEATH, CURSE OF THE VOODOO is a very boring movie, stocked with long takes of characters walking, driving and dancing and offering one of horror cinema's most unlikable heroes.  Halliday, quite frankly, deserves all the punishment he receives, making it difficult to root for his eventual cure.  Composer Brian Fahey works hard to make us care, but no go.  Mystery writer Leigh Vance and THE AVENGERS scribe Brian Clemens combined on the dull screenplay.  Released Stateside by Allied Artists.