But what if the creation destroys the creator? Now that would be true freedom.
Project Shadowchaser (1992) is a B-movie Action Sci-Fi classic that riffs on Die Hard as much as it does The Terminator.. and it was followed by three sequels, all starring Frank Zagarino as an android.
In this video, I talk about the four films and try to determine what a Shadowchaser actually is...
Tagline:
Unpredictable. Unbeatable. The ultimate freedom fighter.
Movie Review:
John “Striker” Slade (Frank Zagarino) is an ex-military hired to rescue journalist Frank Morris from a Nicaraguan prison. Obviously this is a First Blood Part II type film, with equal parts one-man-army Commando and its B-cousin Strike Commando to take the seriousness down a few notches. The first shot of Zags we see him in his Canadian Tuxedo, setting the tone for the film, and it’s just beautiful.
Out for a morning stroll, Zags provides a thorough arse kicking to a masked gang that try and steal his hobo bag. Zags is arrested on trumped-up drug charges and coerced into working for the government to rescue Frank. He meets up with the attractive local guide Marta (Melonee Rodgers) and helicopter pilot “The Dutchman” Houtman (Werner Pochath) to shoot, stab and exploding slingshot his way through to cartoon-character bad guy Kariasin.
Yeah, this is what you came here for. Look at the names involved for starters. First off it stars the mighty Zags as John Rambo- .. I mean, John Slade – and believe me, like Rambo, there is one thing he better bring and that’s a good supply of body bags. And who is he rescuing but none other than Pygar himself, John Phillip Law! Next off are the co-writing duo of Tito Carpi and Umberto Lenzi. That’s Italian gold right there; the men collectively responsible for Escape from the Bronx, Light Blast, Ironmaster and Violent Naples. And if that wasn’t enough, the whole thing is directed by Enzo Castellari of Inglorious Bastards fame. What a pedigree!
John Steiner plays head goon Kariasin, and he must have had a whale of a time doing this. His moustached mouth is never without a Cuban cigar, his body permanently adorned in a tacky white safari suit. He’s holed up in his castle like Gargamel, muttering lines like “John Slade, I’ll get you yet!” and constantly calling for his number two by yelling out “SANTIAGOOOO!!” in a glorious accent. Absolutely gnawing on the scenery. In the obligatory torture scene, he slaps Zags in the face no less than five times. Great stuff.
The Zag’s fighting style always reminds me of Dolph Lundgren – martial arts based but with a heavy thunk behind it and added punching to the chest, and even some ball squeezing for good measure. We get a bit of hand to hand in Striker, but most of the action is mowing down soldiers with machine guns to the face. Being part Rambo clone there is lots of stealth and traps, including a grenade firing slingshot and piano-wire lassos from the tops of trees, and cool stunts like ziplining with an automatic weapon and bodies exploding out castle windows. My favourite trap has to be the corpse stuffed with explosives; very satisfying when that thing goes off.
Marta, Houtman and Frank are fine secondary characters that exist to push the plot forward but besides the Zags wiping out armies single-handed, and Steiner chewing his cigar and stroking his invisible cat, it was the short cameo of Daniel Greene as the very excited amateur boxer by night, truck driver by day scene that had me smiling. He has the job of driving a tired and over-it Zags into the metaphorical sunset; when Greene asks Zags if he likes boxing, his straight forward reply is “I hate violence”. Poetic, given what we just witnessed.
Downsides? Well, we really didn’t need the first scene in any movie to be a real live cockfight. That wasn’t cool in 1988 and it’s not cool now, but its easily fast-forwarded past. I expect that this scene might be one of the troublesome reasons we haven’t had a DVD release of the film anywhere yet. Definitely in the UK that scene would be removed entirely. That scene aside, there is nothing to complain about with Striker. I watched this on my Japanese VHS from Columbia which is uncut and in letterbox widescreen. There is something about watching Rambo clones and otherwise jungle slogs on this format. Not just VHS, but Japanese VHS. They just play so well and it seems so right.
Here’s a titbit I didn’t realise when going in. Striker is immediately followed up by 1991’s Project Eliminator, another Zags vehicle where he plays John “Striker” Slade again, but this time teamed up with David Carradine. Obviously that is going on the watch pile as soon as I can possibly make it happen. But for now, if you want your Italian junglesploitation with a muscle-bound Rambo clone, a mad, cigar-chewing stereotype bad guy and the obvious double-crossing in the third act then look no further than Striker. It comes highly recommended.
Trailer:
Tagline:
For years, man’s deadliest enemy has been lost in space.
Movie Review:
The crew of the Comstat 5 space station orbiting Mars are going about their daily business when the station triggers an alarm; whopping great space ship on collision course! Impact imminent in 5… 4… 3… you get the idea. Space ship “Siberia” crashes into space station, one crew member instantly killed, atmosphere venting, and the rest of the crew battle each other and their own fears. With little choice, it’s decided to explore the crashed ship. This was a bad idea. There is something on that ship that caused it to crash, and it is definitely not human. Let the hunt begin.
So I glossed over that plot pretty quickly, because you all know it. This is Aliens. This is Predator. Even a film as recent as Sunshine has this plot. It is not original by any stretch of the word. Our rag-tag crew of the wheelchair bound cigar-chewing captain Wheels (played by Bill Kirchenbauer), the crazy one called Snake (Christopher Atkins), our “hero” Kody (Sam Bottoms), the tough female warrior type Tatiana (Elizabeth Giordano, who seems to only star in films with Frank Zagarino!), the girl with the over the top Russian accent, Rea (Musette Vander, Project Metalbeast, Oblivion), the eccentric Professor, the ships dog… you can paint this picture. Even “guess she don't like the cornbread either” guy from Aliens (Ricco Ross) shows up playing basically the same role. The game here is to mentally work out early on who you think will survive, and who will not, and see if you get it right by the end.
And that fantastic plot device of the nuclear reactor going critical so we better hurry this movie along makes a grand appearance!
Our killing force (technically played by Frank Zagarino, but more on that in a moment) is gradually revealed to the audience in fragments. The first couple of kills are seen primarily through the eyes of the, as it turns out, cyborg (in a very Terminator visage). Others are in darkness or slightly off screen. We then learn that the already barely-seen Zags can shape-shift into the forms of crew members! The film just turned into The Thing as its crew versus crew, who is really who, etc. The stalk-and-kill via electric shocks and laser bolts is a blast to watch (pun intended).
The special effects are surprisingly very good. No, not 300 million dollar Hollywood good but there is nothing here to complain about. The ships in space drift along and have a good looking weight to them, the inside of the space ship switches between Red Dwarf and Forbidden World territory, and the computer generated additions are definitely more Sci-Fi and not SyFy. Fans of futuristic computers that look like 1983 are going to love this as well. And the action? Well this is, as it turns out, more of a sci-fi/horror film but just like Aliens there is plenty of bloody (and gory) violence to enable the rapid diminishment of the crew. But no kickboxing, damnit.
The only real downside to the film? A lack of the Zags! He only really shows his face well after the one-hour-ten mark (in a ninety-six minute long film), as his character spends so much of the film disguised as members of the crew. Thankfully when he does show, he is totally boss. The Zags plays a wonderfully deranged android, and his makeup (like the rest of the effects in the film) are really quite good. Part cybernetic endoskeleton, part wad of gory fleshy bits. Zags is totally believable as the android and has some obvious similarities to Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. I have actually watched these films completely out of sequence, and part three here is the first that I have seen so I cannot comment on how this android compares to the others, but I like what I see here.
I am genuinely shocked this film came out in 1995. It feels more like 1987, and it demonstrates its influences from that era clearly. Director John Eyres - of the first three of the Shadowchaser films - clearly enjoys his outer space sci-fi, having also produced Monolith, Convict 762, Dark Planet, and Xtro II. He has managed to film a quality little sci-fi-actioner with dabs of horror that feels like an 80’s film, in the Roger Corman tradition. There’s never any slow-down, no pointless character arcs, just a group of mis-matched space crew members being picked off one by one by a deranged shape-shifting android. What else do you need in a film?
Oh yeah, did I mention it’s a Nu Image production? Watch it now.
Highlight:
The Zag’s first line of the movie is to call, in a robotic voice, out to the ship's dog; “Here boy! Woof! Woof!"
And an awesome decompression chamber head explosion!
Trailer:
Tagline:
When Terrorism Threatens America, They Threaten Back.
Movie Review:
Oh sweet jesus, this was just appalling. Easily the worst Zags film I have seen so far, by a long shot. The only redeemable feature of the film was the Zags himself; other than him, this film featured the worst acting I have ever seen in anything made available for sale to the public. This truly is student film quality. The camera is the shakiest I have ever seen (I had to close my eyes a few times to give them a rest), not even able to focus on a television screen without wobbling all over the place. Hell it can't even stay in focus a lot of the time, and horrible effects are employed to simulate motion such as spinning the camera in a circle like a bad transition.
Most of the film nothing actually really happens. Frank flies stock footage jet, crashes stock footage jet, walks through desert, gets captured, escapes, comes back to get MIG and bad guys. All the while the most obnoxious Casio keyboard soundtrack plays underneath. The action, when it happens, is atrocious. I roughly estimate that half of this film is stock footage of jet fighters flying in circles, military helicopters zipping about, and soldiers running on sand. You can tell when it's stock footage, too, because the camera stops fucking shaking. When it actually is Zags or somebody else shooting, the muzzle of the gun is mostly just out of shot so that no effects have to be used. In a battle scene in the final third - the only vaguely passable part of the film - we do see some actual guns being fired by the stars of the movie. Woop-de-fucking-do.
And the dialogue. Oh, the dialogue. Some choice lines include "I'll have all your asses like white on rice", and "That major night time drop that became a goat fuck." Excuse me? Became a what? If it wan't for that one line, this film could have passed for family time viewing. Not that you would want to subject your family to this, but that's beside the point. And I can't forget the brilliant line Zags spouts during the final dogfight with Conn: "Oh you know America, the country that paralysed your nation? Forced your people to sell trinkets by the road side? Hahaha." What in the actual fuck.
Director J. Christian Ingvordsen has made a living out of direct to video action - which should be applauded in my books - but this is the first film of his I have seen, and it's not good. Can you believe there are four of these Airboss movies? FOUR. According to his IMDB bio, "The AIRBOSS films feature state of the art digital and miniature effects as well as unprecedented access to United States military hardware." What film was this guy watching? It certainly wasn't the first Airboss film, that's for damn sure.
No. Just no. But I won't write off Ingvordsen from seeing the one film. Our friends at Comeuppance Reviews enjoyed his film Comrades in Arms, so I'll check that out at some point. I have to see the Airboss sequels: Airboss II: Preemptive Strike, Airboss III: The Payback and Airboss IV: The X Factor. I really, really do.
Highlight:
Frank had BAD DOG written on the front of his helmet. That's it.
Sourced From:
An ex-rental VHS from around the time the film first came out.
Trailer:
There's a video on YouTube that claims to be for Airboss, but none of the footage in that trailer was in the movie. Who knows, maybe it's really and just another feather in the cap for this shit-storm of a movie, but as it doesn't represent Airboss at all, I decided not to include it.
Tagline:
The world is waiting...
Quick Blast Review:
It's the "future" (2015, which must have looked a long way away in 1999), and NASA is planning a mission to the new space station, Skyhook. On the trip will be space veteran J. J. "Jim" Hendricks (Daniel Baldwin, ) Russian cosmonaut Capt. Previ Federov (Frank Zagarino). Hendricks keeps failing the pre-flight test scenarios and is grounded, which he reacts to by resigning. With a space on the launch freed up, NASA takes the opportunity to get some repairs done to the space station by sending up Amanda McCord (Teri Ann Lin, Pure Danger). And a guy from Family Ties (Scott Valentine) is the ground commander.
Federov and co. make it to the space station and Amanda soon discovers that the computer on the station isn't broken, it's been sabotaged. That's when Federov and the Russians already aboard unpack some weapons and take over the place. He demands that Russia pulls back their invading army from his home country of Tajikistan or he will blow up world cities with satellites he now controls, thanks to the space station. This is despite the fact that NASA is an American organisation and has no sway over Russian politics, but whatever, this is a TV movie. Who's gonna save the day? Why that's freshly discharged "Jim" Hendricks of course, who will fly the experimental X33 shuttle - that launches like a regular jet plane (!!?) - along with a team of soldiers to infiltrate the station and take it back from the invading Russians.
This is decent but unremarkable, and chock-a-bloc full of stock footage. For two bucks I'm not complaining, and if you catch it on TV (where it belongs) then give it a go. The action isn't in massive quantities but its worth the price of entry alone to hear Zagarino's hilarious Russian accent! His true Zagarino accent shines through constantly, though he is still better than the Scottish-Russian abomination Sean Connery flaunted in The Hunt for Red October. Baldwin is okay enough as the Bruce Willis character, though action is not his forte. He sneaks around a lot and doesn't crack any good one-liners. He's pretty generic, overall, but serviceable. He should have gotten angry and thrown something, I would have cared a bit more.
The science is lame but it's the future, so they can get away with that; magnetic boots for gravity, though nobody's hair stands on end etc. There is still the special toilet with the hose pipe though. The opening act is ripe with dialogue such as "If you didn't have such a chip on your shoulder, you wouldn't have such a crack in your record."
The Final Fifteen:
Hendricks has snuck on board and freed the captive American astronauts, including Amanda who has been trying to send messages back to Ground Commander Family Ties using random bits of circuit she found in their holding cell. They manage to turn the life support power off to the station which co-incidentally gives the exact same amount of time to stop the satellites auto-firing their payloads - fifteen minutes.
Cue some wrestling and gun firing to and from Federov and the other Russians until he's finally taken out by Hendricks. The power is restored and the payloads aborted with, you guessed it, one second to spare. But that's not all; now Hendricks has to overcome his failed attempts during the opening acts' training scene and land the damn shuttle. Oddly the voiceover says "Catastrophic failure", fades to black, and then everyone is on the ground hugging and cheering at their safe return?!
Sourced From:
My bargain-basement two buck shop RAAM Multimedia DVD. Picture was fine though overly compressed, so in fast scenes it was a little messy. You get what you pay for!
Movie:
Tagline:
The Cold War has Just Heated Up.
Back of DVD:
CIA agent Bob Taylor (Charles Napier) arrives in Moscow with his new wife Susan (Kimberley Kates) with a highly secret vieo tape of Russian missiles leaving an unknown base near Moscow under the cover of darkness.
Are these missiles destined to be aimed at the US or are they being smuggled to a terrorist organisation. The Americans need to know where these missiles are going, the only person who can help them discover their destination is Armstrong (Frank Zagarino) an ex buddy of Bob who now trains an elite Russian anti-terrorist squad under the command of Colonel Zukov (Richard Lynch). Zukov is from the old guard, corrupt, ruthless, and will stop at nothing to gain control.
Movie Review:
Here we have a late 90's Nu Image bad action flick and wow, does it ever live up to the description of 'bad action'. Particuarly the 'bad' part. But honestly it's a lot of fun anyway so here we go.
An American couple arrive in Moscow (Charles Napier as 'Bob' and Kimberley Kates as 'Susan'). This itself is funny as he is about 25 years her senior. Though I suppose I shouldn't be a prude about these things. Times are changing, and all that. They are very obviously being followed by another car as they leave the airport and Bob can't stop sweating. When they get to their hotel, Bob hides a VHS he had in his pocket (!) inside the rooms video player. Hopefully his wife won't tape over it with Russian sitcoms, because it's probably important.
Somewhere else in Moscow, a blond guy drops out of a helicopter on the roof of a government building and shoots a grappling hook to the opposite window. The guy swings over, smashes through the window, beats up the guard then kills the whole room of military officers by sliding along the boardroom table on his back and letting rip with his machine gun. Oh no, it was a fake, and the blood was just jam or something. Haha. Turns out his name is Armstrong and he has been hired by the Russian Colonel Zukov (Richard Lynch as a bad guy again) to train Zukov's elite KGB forces. Frank Zagarino as Armstrong is pretty funny in this. The guy is a pretty average actor and his line delivery is terrible but he has fun in this role anyway.
Bob goes to see Armstrong at his apartment. He tells him that something is going down in the Russian military - there are plans to sell nuclear weapons to the Middle East - and he needs to help to stop it. Just as Bob is about to tell Armstrong about the video tape, a bunch of mafia guys burst in and shoot the place up, killing Bob but Armstrong escapes out the window. Charles Napier really had a short part in this as he buys it really early on. When the mafia guy (Joe Lara, credited only as Ponytail because, like, he has a ponytail) shoots him and blood splatters on his shirt he gets upset and yells at the dead Bob "Look at what you did!" - then shoots him another half dozen times. One of Ponytail's henchmen chases Armstrong in his car through the city streets, swerving to miss a pram (nice cliche) and crashes into a pile of boxes.
Kimberley Kates is pretty hot. After the funeral of her husband, she gives the video tape to Armstrong. Not liking what he sees on the video he goes to see 'the only person he can trust', a young Captain in the army, and convinces him to go to the army depot and stop the sale of the weapons. Susan decides to have a shower and, well, you can definitely tell that a male directed this movie. The door bell rings (room service, that she didn't order) so she quickly dresses in a light shirt (without drying first) and answers the door. Even though she pulls a gun on the guy, I think his expression would have been the same regardless ("oh my god, boobies"). She spends the next ten minutes soaked, headlights beaming, fighting off Ponytail (who had hidden in the room service cart, that old trick), escaping out the window and running down the street (still soaked, and with no pants on). I was surprised at how much action Susan had in this scene. The best part is when she runs along the hoods of parked cars with her persuer trying to knock her off with his own car. Then she rolls under a tram!
There's a few other good parts in the movie like the chase on foot through the derelicts, the fight with Ponytail's fat friend ("No speak English good!", "Then speak English bad!"), the foiled sniper attempt on the President at the opera (which Susan gets all prettied up for) and the finale is classic bad action material with Armstrong armed with twin AK47's trying to defeat ticking clocks, untie Susan from a chair, and stop bad guys that come back from the dead for a final shot. Joe Lara isn't bad as the sleazy Mafia guy, but I loved his daft accomplice that kept getting in trouble from his boss for doing the wrong thing ("I kill her now boss?").
There's nothing at all new in this movie; you've seen all of it before, and you've seen it done better, but "Armstrong" is still a fun ride. What I found strange was that this came out in 1998 - it certainly feels more like a 1990 movie, but I guess that's what happens with cliched bad action flicks: you lose all sense of time. It's not done particularly well or anything but it's pretty serviceable as a late night bad action flick and doesn't overstay its welcome.
The Video:
Being a Nu Image from the 90's the picture is full-frame. The picture is perfectly fine with good colours and deep blacks for a movie of this quality, and the audio is clean and clear. Nothing to complain about here. I reviewed the R2 DVD. Runtime 95 minutes.
Sourced From:
eBay for 93c.
Trailer:
More Screens:
