Jeffrey Long

As far as cheesy low budget B-Movies go, it seriously does not get any better than 1980s Italian rip-off movies. If you think of any popular Hollywood genre movie from the 70s and 80s (Exorcist, Evil Dead, Jaws, Aliens, Mad Max, Indiana Jones, the list goes on) there's a very good chance that Italy has their own very-obvious low budget rip-off of it made in the 80s, and chief among them is 1990: The Bronx Warriors, a cheesy low budget mix of The Warriors and Escape From New York. Parts of New York City (Specifically The Bronx) is left lawless and various gangs and criminals have taken over. The daughter of a wealthy company-owner runs away to escape her family and ends up in the Bronx, outside the grasp of the law, and takes up with the leader of a biker gang, who must battle deadly police assassins, as well as rival street gangs, in order to keep her safe.

There is seriously no words for how cheesy this movie is. From the glow in the dark skulls on the main gang's motorcycles, to the various themes of the rival gangs (mimes, dance troops, street hockey players), to the horrible annoyingly catchy 80s music that will be stuck in your head weeks after having watched the movie. There really is no shortage whatsoever for cheese lovers here, and that's not even talking about the horrible dialog and campy world-building on display everywhere.

The movie does slow down for quite a bit in the middle however, and outside of the very basic plot I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you what the movie is really about or how the plot progresses because it really is kind of all over the place, and I hardly understood what exactly was going on half the time...but hey look, a deadly street gang doing interpretative dance around their enemies! An undercover assassin cop with a flame thrower! Bad dubbing acting as characters shout at each other over how to run the gang! Oh, here comes that annoyingly catchy bad 80s score again!

God damn, this movie is bad in all the right ways!

The Sniper series is a huge guilty pleasure for me, and I've loved each and every entry in the series thus far, with the exception of the previous movie, Ghost Shooter. I actually had no idea a new entry was being made, much less had come out, especially since it has only been about a year since Ghost Shooter was released, so I was pretty surprised when I came across this listed on Itunes as having just come out.

I'm so happy to report that I enjoyed this movie far more than I did Ghost Shooter. This is everything Ghost Shooter wasn't - It gives the characters, both new and old, personalities, it has an engaging story, well-shot action scenes, genuine moments of suspense, and a few moments of levity and humor; all things I look for an expect in a Direct-to-Video Sniper sequel, and all things lacking from the previous entry. There's even a pretty heavy subplot about snipers dealing with PTSD, depression, and even suicide because of what they have to do in their line of work, and Beckett Jr thinking he might be starting to go down that path himself. The end scene of the movie where all the characters are saying goodbye to one another and Billy Zane's character, knowing what Beckett Jr is currently going through mentally, and knowing what he's worried about, asks him if he's going to be ok... god damn, those feels. It's a small but fairly important subplot in terms of the smaller details. Most "mindless and dumb" DtV action flicks wouldn't think in a million years to add such a small detail to their movie, but I'm glad this one did as it is a real side effect that affects snipers in the real world (and all military people for that matter, and I feel our Governments don't do enough to help them with it, but this isn't the place to discuss that).

On the flip side, however slight, as engaging as the story was it was also extremely predictable, including the identity of who the mole on the inside was. And as great as it was to have both Billy Zane and Tom Berenger back in the same sequel, AND actually have them interact with one another, I still feel as though their reunion (first time together since the very first movie) was not treated quite like how I would have liked it to be (as in, it wasn't really treated at all other than a quick dialogue exchange that while was a little funny, also felt emotionless), and neither one have a whole lot to really do. Billy Zane was simply a glorified cameo, and Tom Berenger, while he has more screen time than Billy Zane, isn't given much to do as his character has since retired from being a Sniper and now works essentially a cushy desk job and is the brains behind this movie's mission, working solely from inside the command room. Also, it took me a few scenes to realize that even was Tom Berenger as he looks nothing at all like he does in the other movies, and actually looks eerily like Edward James Olmos.

While it does have some missed opportunities within it, it's still a fun entry in the series that I enjoy quite a lot, and I love that it included aspects and little details that it really didn't have to, but definitely add to the movie. It's certainly a hell of a lot better than the previous entry was, and in fact, it's one of my top favorite entries in the entire series thus far, second to only the original.

I've enjoyed pretty much all the Sniper movies to date. Even the more recent, cheaper, revival entries, featuring Beckett's son instead of him. I always have fun with them, and as far as Direct-to-Video action sequels go they're pretty much my favorite and I always look forward to the next mission we get to see. Unfortunately, Ghost Shooter, the 6th installment in this series, was a huge let down. The script is all over the place and messy as hell, jumping around from scene to scene with hardly any direction as to where it's going, the main bad guy is essentially some faceless, nameless random, the characters are all barely even so much as cardboard cutouts, never letting us get to know them and worse, even the returning characters have 0 personality and are just mere shadows of their characters from the previous movies.

On the slight plus side, Billy Zane is once again back (though given criminally next to nothing to do, and not even any good lines of dialogue like in Part 4: Reloaded), and the action is pretty engaging at times, especially during one decently-suspenseful scene mid-way through at a lodge in the snow.

That's pretty much it though. It's hard to believe that the same guy who directed this letdown also directed the previous entry, Sniper: Legacy (which was one of my favorites in the series), as well as Tremors 5: Bloodlines, Lake Placid 4: The Final Chapter, and Jarhead 2: Field of Fire, all various other Direct-to-Video sequels I've adored.

Going into Sniper: Reloaded for the first time, I really wasn't expecting much. I loved the first two Sniper movies but didn't care much for the third, and knowing that this was a Tom Berenger-less sequel didn't really give me any hope for it. Surprisingly though, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Chad Michael Collins plays the estranged son of Tom Berenger's character from the three previous movies (and surprisingly actually looks like he could be related to Berenger), but he lacks Berenger's charm as he's a bit bland and it doesn't help that Collins is essentially the male version of Kristen Stewart when it comes to showing emotions. Luckily his slack is picked up by the supporting cast, as they're all mostly serviceable to outright great, with the love interest character certainly having the eye candy department covered.

The action scenes are also pretty tense, especially since in the majority of the characters (and us, the viewers right along with them) have no idea which direction the bullets are flying at them from, or where the next shot could be coming from. The movie is filled with many suspenseful scenes that keep you pretty riveted to the screen, and not just in terms of action ones, but some good character moments that are filled with suspense as well. In addition to that, the locations they used to shoot this movie were all breathtakingly beautiful, and the movie itself almost felt like a mini-vacation during most of it. It was also great having Billy Zane back for the first time since the original movie - he totally owned every scene he was in and it was fun seeing how his character has changed in the time since the first movie, while also paying homage to it. It also surprised me just how much Zane was in this. I was expecting a one or two scene cameo, but he was pretty much the second-main character. With that said, Sniper: Reloaded could have still benefited greatly from a Tom Berenger cameo though, since this was the only movie in the series that he wasn't in at this point and it would have been totally geektastic to have both him and Billy Zane share one last scene together in the series.

If I had one main complaint though, other then the lead actor's lack of emotion, it would be that despite this being a Sniper movie, there's very little actual sniping going on - the main lead out and out refuses to snipe at all until the final showdown scene at the very end, so the movie could have been a bit better had they actually implemented more sniping in this Sniper movie. With that said however, the lack of him sniping actually made the build-up to when he finally does give in and agrees to snipe quite worth it and the scene is easily one of my favorites in the entire movie because of that.

Overall, Sniper: Reloaded is not as good as the first two movies were, but leaps and bounds better then Sniper 3, and it's also a great jumping-on point for those unfamiliar with the series as it acts as kind of a light reboot in a 'Sniper: The Next Generation' kind of way.

I never sugar coated the fact that, Zoombies and Ghosthunters aside, 2016 was, overall, a VERY disappointing year for this B-Movie fan when it comes to Asylum movies. Honestly, one of the worst since I first started getting into Asylum movies way back in 2007. Even that year's highly-anticipated annual Sharknado entry was, IMO, the worst in that franchise.

Is Planet of the Sharks a good, well-made movie? God no. The acting is pretty dreadful across the board (made worse by some of the god awful fake accents), the CG of the sharks are ok some of the time, but pretty bad most of the time (also seems like just re-used CG models from the Sharknado movies), and the plot makes little to no sense, with a bunch of random unrealistic technobabble thrown in to try to have it make sense.

But good god it's FUN. It is fun as all hell, and THAT is what I want out of my Asylum/SyFy style B-Movies. Honestly, when it comes to these types of movies I don't give a rat's ass about acting or quality of effects, I've long ago gotten use to the low level of those things and can easily look past them (within reason). The only thing that truly matters to me is the level of fun and this has that in spades. It's set in the future and is basically Waterworld but with an army of killer man-eating sharks stalking our main cast, and going from floating village to floating village and destroying them. As a fan of low budget cheesy B-Movies, how does that not sound awesome?

Could it have been better? Yeah, sure. But it's certainly enjoyable enough as-is as well, despite its previously-mentioned shortcomings. In any other recent Asylum-filled year, this may have come across as just average, but in a rather lackluster Asylum year, Planet of the Sharks was one hell of a sight for sore eyes.

This was better than I expected it to be based off all the negativity I'm seeing everywhere for it. Still, with that said, it's not a very good Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, however it IS a pretty decent horror flick if you look at it as being it's own thing separate from TCM. Leatherface, as we know him, doesn't really become that character until the final 10 seconds of the movie, and there's a twist aA very obvious twist, but a twist all the same) as to who that character actually is, and it doesn't really make much sense, given his personality, size, and build, when there's another character in the movie that fits all that to a T, and he's only there to be a red herring (kind of like in Vacancy 2, which is a prequel as well, there's a hotel owner that looks IDENTICAL to the hotel owner of the first movie, only younger...except, hey guess what? In a twist it turns out he's actually a totally different separate character and is in fact not the same character he was made to look and act identical to, because THAT totally makes sense...)

But putting that stuff off to the side, there's a lot to like here as well. Tons of bloody gore with practical effects for the gore shots, a fun almost Devil's Rejects-type story, and Stephen Dorff absolutely stealing the show every time he's onscreen, chewing the scenery with the best of them. If they had made the red herring character actually be Leatherface instead of doing the predictable-as-hell dumb plot twist, and if they had made him "become" the Leatherface we know and love earlier in the movie before 10 seconds from the end, this actually would have been a really good TCM movie. As it stands, it's not a good TCM movie, but it is a decent horror/thriller all the same, as long as you look at it as being a separate entity from the TCM franchise. With that said, it's still better than The Next Generation and Texas Chainsaw 3D.

The first movie is one of my all-time favorite Found Footage movies, so it goes without saying that Part 2 was one of my highest anticipated movies of this year. Unfortunately, despite being made by the same guy, with all the same actors, it’s like they totally forgot or didn’t understand what made the first one so good. Yes, I liked seeing the Halloween Haunt attractions in the first movie and getting to go inside of them and explore with the characters...but that doesn't mean I want an ENTIRE movie of JUST that. I'm being 100% serious when I was this movie is an hour and 30 minutes, and OVER an hour of that is nothing at all but these characters (the same ones from the first movie, having survived the events and being up for doing pretty much the exact same thing all over again) traveling and experiencing these new Haunts. OVER AN HOUR. The last 20-odd minutes is really the only portion of the movie that even attempts to try to be creepy and have creepy stuff happen to the characters, but even that it fails at. Where the first movie tried to be creepy in its subtlety and creepy imagery...this one throws all that out the window for some in-your-face action that isn't scary in the least. Also, even though these are the same characters from the first movie, and they were quite likable there, I couldn't stand them in this movie, all of them coming across as giant annoying pricks.

And that ending....jesus christ, I didn't think we could have an ending that was worse and more anti-climatic than the ending of the first, but they managed to do it. Not only that, but they went one further by having the ending make this ENTIRE movie 100% pointless. The only reason this movie even gets so much as 2/10 stars from me is because I liked that the characters kept acknowledging the first movie instead of ignoring it, it's acted well, and visually it's nice to look at. That's pretty much it though.

I can't believe this steaming pile of shit was made by the same people as the first. It's not even close to being in the same ball park.

This is easily one of my favorite Found Footage horror movies. The idea of traveling across the U.S. to document Halloween-themed haunted house attractions (Or Haunts, as they're called), searching for the most extreme one they can possibly find, lends itself to the Found Footage format really easily and really well. Even when nothing scary is going on the movie gives us plenty of fun visuals by bringing us along inside these various Haunted House attractions, and giving us interviews with those who work for them that, in all honesty, makes these portions of the movie almost more interesting for me than the actual horror parts of the movie, plus these characters are fun and all have great individual personalities that make it easy to watch them. Add to that some truly terrifying and tense edge-of-your-seat moments and scenes throughout, both in terms of unexpected jump scares as well as unnerving suspense, plus creepy-as-hell visuals with all those damn freaky clown masks and the way the people under them move their bodies and interact with the main characters.

This movie has been added to the annual Halloween time Watch list, and it's always a joy to revisit. My only issue is with the ending, it's horribly anti-climatic and a total weak let down when you find out what actually happens to these characters compared to what you're thinking will happen to them based off discussions and situations during the movie. Other than the ending though, this is easily one of my top all-time favorite Found Footage horror flicks.