Swordfish (2001)

 

Director: Dominic Sena

Screenplay: Skip Woods

Cast: John Travolta as Gabriel Shear; Hugh Jackman as Stanley Jobson; Halle Berry as Ginger Knowles; Don Cheadle as Agent J.T. Roberts; Sam Shepard as Senator James Reisman; Vinnie Jones as Marco; Drea de Matteo as Melissa; Rudolf Martin as Axl Torvalds

Ephemeral Waves

 

Swordfish takes a huge risk from the first scene, one willingly waving a red flag at the film critics of the time of its release, with John Travolta speaking to the camera about how unrealistic crime films are over an espresso. He even speaks about how even Dog Day Afternoon (1975) is unrealistic despite being an acclaimed film in the genre, [Huge Spoiler for that film] all because Sidney Lumet did not let the bank robbers get away with it [Spoilers End]. Swordfish as I will get into is a ridiculous film, so the brass balls of presumption to have this opening is hilarious, probably with full knowledge of the ridiculous gubbins the film gets into. Swordfish is an absurd film, and if I had to put a finger on why I hated this film once, as one of the worst films I ever saw, it is likely that I once held a stigma against "boring" Hollywood films. This was an era, the golden era of DVD rental stores, where I saw too many when my parents used to rent everything from a Global Video here in my English town. With the one or two weird titles that came through the exceptions to many of the big promoted titles of the 2000s, such as the low budget films which were able to slip in between the big budget films and be rented by accident, I saw a glut of the 2000 to 2005, to 2003 at least in terms of Hollywood. These are the titles, the pre-HD versus Blu-Ray war era of 2006, which lead to me having an allergy to big CGI explosions and remotely any sign the score was dictating the emotional cues in a film.

Swordfish is now an old film, and it presents a transitional period in Hollywood cinema, beginning with its co-producer Joel Silver. Silver would work throughout the 2000s and 2010s onwards, but his golden era is that of the golden age of American action films, from producing Lethal Weapon (1987) to Die Hard (1988), someone who expanded the types of films he was producing in the nineties with titles like The Matrix (1999) earning him success. He was however still returning to the bread-and-butter of his earlier career with action films, the changes to how they were presented how he continued from the eighties with films like the one covered in this review. Swordfish also presents us with a director, Dominic Sena, who came from the lineage of music video directors who were especially making their voices known in the nineties, working with the likes of Janet Jackson. Then there is a screenwriter with a tiny writer career altogether, Skip Woods, who was early within his work here but with the likes of The A-Team (2010), attempting to reboot the legendary eighties TV series, to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), a divisive spin-off in the X-Men superhero series, I can now see where the cartoonish nature of Swordfish comes from. This is not detraction to this film, as the flaws are a greater problem than the tonal choices, but the later films showing where this one was coming from in terms of its screenwriter’s voice. Swordfish has the mentality to throw anything at the wall, even if nonsensical, and it is to the point this can be held responsible for an urban myth of a man being personally executed by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson for treason, which just added a ridiculous cherry on top of this deeply flawed film. In many ways, tame in places but attempting edginess in others, this is a grindhouse exploitation film but on a Hollywood budget, if one with many issues that show blockbusters and exploitation films can share similar issues.

It has a plot, and that I had wrote that with tongue-in-cheek comes from this feeling like a pastiche of crime films, and not a detriment either. Hugh Jackman does find himself in a schism as someone who can played the washed and embittered figure of Stanley Jobson, old enough here to look like an aged renegade who went to prison, and crashed-and-burned after being a cool hot shot, but not as a hacker. It does not capsize his performance, but he feels like the Golden Age of Hollywood star who could never be this person in real life. If he as this character was anyone but a computer hacker, the image and style of performance would work in terms of verisimilitude. As a computer hacker, due to how it is portrayed here, it is up to Jackman's natural charisma to suspend disbelief. He has the virtue of the classical matinee idol, even when his big breakthrough was a 2000s plus phenomenon, the superhero becoming a more respectable casting choices as the films were making money, whose character in any other circumstances would not work if a similar actor like him was cast. Anyone else would have stuck out like a sore thumb, but he can make this matinee take on a hacker work in the same way Cary Grant would have stuck out, as we would have not minded, if dieselpunk was a concept in thirties Hollywood cinema.

The lynchpin that helps with the film to improve it, Jackson's character is a hero willing to commit a major hacking crime to steal millions from the US government, but he does so to earn the money needed to get legal custody of his daughter. In what could be an odd conservative slant, but I think is more a weird quirk of a film that is PG-13 for most of its tone, but prods at the older Joel Silver films which had more R-rated content, the ex-wife has connections in the adult film industry. The ex-wife is a troupe of action cinema anyway from John McClane, here a porn actress with her porn mogul boyfriend with a possible drama in a more complex melodrama even in a blockbuster action film left on the table. One where she is unhappy regardless of her career being porn or not, drinking all the time, in which no matter how she tries to connect to her daughter, her hatred for the husband pushes the adolescent away. Like some Hollywood films, i.e. many, that is not the case and she is an archetype that does cause one to wonder how many screenwriters accidentally showed axes to grind, and in the case of Skip Woods here, may have just taken a troop from films he had seen before. The demonization of porn was an idiosyncratic spin but is so slight it is a weird quirk among many.

More so as, whilst this has moments of adult risqué, factoring the one infamous moment of the film involving the lead actress Halle Berry, playing the femme fatale who brings Jackman into John Travolta's plan, this is a film a world away from a gristly reality. This makes the sudden moments of adult tone more surprising with hindsight, considering Jackman's test for the job is literally attempting to hack the US government's secret website whilst former soccer/football player Vinnie Jones has a gun to his head, and a woman is giving him oral under the work table, flickering of an old R-rated film here and there abrupt when it happens. Most of the film however is a broad over-the-top story; even if there are casualties, including one hostage in the opening at the heist blown up by a contraption she has on, one foot is in the nineties Hollywood mould and one in the new era means that everything is broad, of archetypes and lack of causality. Considering as well hacking is the title premise too, expect none of it to be realistic at all, with actors talking jargon and all meant to look cool in a "cinematic way". It is also less a concern than being a bank heist film, which presents in itself the sense of this film trying to match a new era, where the internet would become more prominent, only to still feel awkward.

The prominence of John Travolta is notable for the tone, and another factor affecting your ability to enjoy this or not is how you gauge his character and performance, the villain Gabriel Shear already idiosyncratic before you have later era Travolta acting interpreting him. I do not mind him here, and actually found him one of the more entertaining aspects, if with a caveat that the performance does expose too much. Travolta, already by this point having played Nicolas Cage, who played him, in John Woo's Face/Off (1997), an example of strange Hollywood cinema when it is done right, can have good scenery chewing. He really was knee capped, even if you do not factor in the controversies of the Church of Scientology, when Battlefield Earth (2000) was released, an adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction novel which a) had the controversies of Scientology, from its founder's voice in the text, as an albatross, b) had a drubbing that lasted to the modern day, and c) presented John Travolta as the lead evil alien in dreadlocks, giant platforms and leather costume hamming the performance so much it could turn some vegetarian. The Face/Off reference is appropriate as Travolta could have done a Nicolas Cage, who managed to ride financial debt and mockery to be an unsung hero in terms of committing himself to acting both well and/or so far up to eleven he transcended the mockery. Travolta here, since he is the most prominent aspect of Swordfish, struggles with a sense of self seriousness here, trying to be "cool" in his suits, slicked back hair, taste in expensive coffee and high lofty musings provided by Skip Woods' script. He is meant to be the awesome real anti-hero, but if Nicolas Cage had played this role, it would have worked despite the other problems with the film, whilst there is a sense of artificiality with the performance with Travolta that does undercut this. Despite being one of the memorable aspects for the better with the film, it does accidentally expose something beyond the film to consider with any other performance of his when I encounter it.

The biggest problem with a film like this for all its mad turns, a film about hacking that eventually however leads to a bus of hostages being carried along in the air by a helicopter, entirely in the fantastical more over the top than most fantasy, is one that lead to me being ambivalent to blockbusters from youth. So many, as here, we would dismiss as "mindless" to munch popcorn to, but in truth, for all of us saying we want to have serious profound dramas all the time, most of us just want to have a fun time but with the issue always instead finding something wanting. So many of these films as here you could pluck out cast members and plot points entirely underutilized and see the problem was always that the films skimmed over their most interesting aspects. With the aspects you begin the count being underutilized, the real folly of many blockbusters I dismissed in my youth were where you had weirder, more tantalising premises never fulfilled.

Whatever you think of the acting potential of Vinnie Jones, the notorious Wimbledon F.C. soccer player who was as known for his aggressive on-pitch style as much as for the work he did as a player in a variety of team, he gets little here it is strange he was even cast. Considering the only time you see him stand out, threatening to use rocker launcher ammunition as a suppository on one of the hostages, is just near his end of a role as a generic thug, all the real issues with blockbusters was always the lesser sum of all the parts of their high budgets and casts. The example which stands out is with Halle Berry. It is tasteless to say this, but Swordfish became the film where she as an actress was comfortable going a topless nude scene sunbathing. It only becomes sleazy when reduced to the images of a celebrity as a sexualised object, rather than the actress comfortable committing to the image of eroticism, something you get from the "Mr. Skin" attitude of reducing an actress' entire career to a compilation of her nude scenes out of context, a reference to a real life website that specializes in locating, posting, and rating instances of female nudity in television and film¹. In context, the scene is not tasteless, but plays as a sex comedy bit where Berry, who did the scene to become more confident in her own body onscreen², becomes the figure in control, whilst it is Hugh Jackman who becomes the punch line to the empowered and comfortable woman, even blushing in his character in the moment. Far more insulting with time having past is simply how little Berry actually has to do. It is more egregious your sole female lead has nothing to do, a femme fatale who may be playing both sides but is a blank slate. Even a "dumb" action film could have benefited from what film noir did, the ability to give actresses in these potentially dubious roles meaty performances as compelling figures, something you could see Halle Berry do in what little she has here, but never gets.

Swordfish is okay, where really the issue is of how so many of these films have everything but feel like disparate parts. This is more so the case as, for a film released a few months before the 9/11 Twin Towers tragedy and the start of the second Gulf War, one of the more compelling loose ends is the knowledge that Travolta's character is actually a black ops agent, a thief who is stealing his own country's money to fund protecting the country from terrorist threats. This kind of subversive touch, lost in the ballyhoo, could have been something to let breathe and allow this a knowing air of subversion and weirdness. This is more so now, as mentioned in the review, it is likely due to this film, from one glib comment in this film from Travolta about U.S. President Thomas Jefferson personally seeing to a treasonous person, that people thought this actually happened despite the fact the screenwriter clearly added that into the dialogue as a fictitious flourish^{3a & 3b}. This perverse afterlife to the film is weirder than fiction, making one wonder what this series of fragments, proudly as over-the-top as possible, could have been if playing more to these crime tropes fully committed to a mad edge. Far from the worst film ever made nowadays, Swordfish however from my teen years, like many of those films, could have been lodged fully into the memory if it had the courage to go up to eleven than just come off as silly. Face/Off, brought up earlier in this review, was a silly film I first saw in my teenage years, but it is remembered for good reasons, which is not surprising as director John Woo, able to fully unleash his style from his eighties Hong Kong films, came from a style of filmmaking that never let the stranger or even kitsch aspects undercut taking their dramas seriously nor not making the action scenes as inventive as possible. If this got sillier and Travolta got to pontificate more on movies over espressos, Swordfish could have been something more even if it had become a favourite “so-bad-it’s-good” movie for people to talk of on podcasts, but instead what it is cautious as too many of these films are.

 

============

1) The nadir of this, which I am amazed was allowed to go forth, is of course when Seth MacFarlane hosted the 2013 Oscars and performed the song We Saw Your Boobs, which came off as a demeaning when, to be honest, a song called "We Saw Your Butt" about male nude scenes might have avoided this by playing to a jovial glee without the gender bias.

2) Halle Berry bares her soul, written by Bruce Kirkland for Canoe.ca, archived from the original published July 11^th 2012, originally published July 20^th 2009.

3a) Execution on the White House Lawn, taken from Monticell.org.

3b) Jefferson still survives, unlike the other guy, written by Anna Berkes for Jefferson Library.wordpress, published November 5th 2008.

Axe (1974)

 

aka. Lisa, Lisa or California Axe Massacre

Director: Frederick R. Friedel

Screenplay: Frederick R. Friedel

Cast: Leslie Lee as Lisa; Jack Canon as Steele; Ray Green as Lomax; Frederick R. Friedel as Billy; Douglas Powers as the Grandfather

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

It is incredibly obvious why, when I first saw Axe, I could not appreciate this film as it was and once viewed it as one of the worst I had seen. As someone who grew up in Britain, naturally the Video Nasties was a concept I had learnt of as a teenager and gained a fascination for early on. Thankfully, this was also in the 2000s and the DVD era, when I was able to start watching these types of films and you could actually see them. One of the official members of the list, and among those which were actually prosecuted, I expected balls to the walls luridness, only to get this slow burn tale about a young woman named Lisa (Leslie Lee), living with her disabled grandfather in the middle of nowhere, terrorised by a gang of three member. It was a film I once found even at 66 minutes slow and dull to a painful extreme. Nowadays, I rightly see many of its virtues, the Video Nasties list a curious and at times motley crew of titles defining a lot of fascinating areas of genre cinema at the time, such as the Golden era of Italian genre cinema to this, among the regional American titles which flourished between the sixties and eighties.

With its more infamous title the one I prefer - it is snappy, yet fits the tone as well as befits the southern Gothic vibes the production has - it is interesting as a film not quite in the horror genre but in many at once. It begins as a crime drama, following a group of criminals - one the ruthless and cold leader, the second the sadist, and the last played by the director-writer himself as the one with morals, becoming more uncomfortable with that his colleagues are capable of. They are the kind of men, the two with a desire to harm, to put a cigar out in a man's mouth and dismiss accidentally killing him in his room whilst he was with his boyfriend. Even on the run, they terrorise a woman working by herself in a small store, tormenting her and even playing William Tell with a gun. Beyond this, due to the length of the film, and its succinct plot, there is not a lot to add to the premise, barring that it becomes obvious Lisa herself has mental health issues, with hallucinations and even contemplating suicide at one point, living by herself on a farm with a paralysed grandfather with only the chickens she tends to (and kill for food) there for her. She also, defying what they expect of her as a merely casual figure they can manipulate, someone more than capable with intelligence to get rid of their threat out of the house.

This is what one would think of a small regional production, made with a low budget, if you wished to have an example of this era of regional genre cinema, and with a premise which you could easily adapt into a short story or a radio drama. That is to its advantage as that does not mean the film has no personality. I could not help but think of a film which tried to recreate this era of seventies genre cinema but felt lacking for me personally. Ti West's X (2022), which attempted to be a seventies throwback by being set in the time period, in which a porn shoot at a farm ends up with the elderly owners finding out and starting to get violent, spring to mind and a lot of the reason why I felt it did not work was that it felt more like a horror film in terms of a series of shocks and gore moments than what Axe is, a drama which just happens to live in the skin of a horror film. A lot of modern horror films feel, for me, more inclined to a well worn series of sudden shocks rather than nestling in its mood, even if the point as with Axe originally, it felt like it dragged significantly with its dialogue scenes and lack of constant pervading threat in scenes until things escalate.

It does become horrifying, whilst in a way which makes the British prosecutors who viewed it as potentially harmful to British society ridiculous. Whilst not seeing many films like this would naturally cause one to feel shock for how intense this eventually gets, the Southern Gothic reference I made befits. Barring some extensive use of fake bright red gore, the gruesomeness is standard in horror films even from the Hammer horror films eventually when they had to catch up with their competition, or it is implied in an appropriately horrifying way. Blood on a pure white kitchen sink, which comes from a decapitated chicken, and the implicit idea of axe dismemberment, than explicitly show a fake mannequin being chopped up as Herschell Gordon Lewis would have in the sixties, is how Frederick R. Friedel depicts the violence. The most gore image onscreen is a simple prosthetic on the back of an actor's neck and a lot of fake gore, so it comes really apparent the notoriety this got on the Video Nasty list is a mass paranoia of what it suggests, evoking images of more gruesome dismemberment onscreen (like a few of the films which did get on the list) when it is merely perceived. There is even an ominous use of Campbell Tomato Soup which, whilst absurd out of context, fits for the scene in its shock.

The use of a tool which can be found in any D.I.Y. store was also clearly an additional fear at the time for being possible to have as a weapon in reality, not able to be separated from said reality. The idea of this being the film which got the name "Axe", like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise getting chainsaws and fellow Video Nasty The Driller Killer (1979) for drills, befits as here, the axe feels like something, in a true crime tale spun out in stories in the modern day, as here someone would end up using if not to murder someone but to at least dispose of the body, the gruesomeness felt with a weapon you have in the shed as a viewer, which could happen with greater ease in real life and not just in a movie. Additionally, the film has an ill-ease provided by its droning electronic score, composed between George Newman Shaw and John Willhelm, which helped emphasised a woozy atmosphere which helped the film immensely. Axe among some notorious films in the Video Nasty collection was one of the quieter members, befittingly like its lead Lisa in that the film seems out of place among the unruly and more controversial of that list like the cannibal films, but it has its own strength which has to be admired, alongside the knowledge this was really a project made by Frederick R. Friedel where he wanted to make a film even if from his own resources.

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

 

Director: Tony Scott

Screenplay: Shane Black

Cast: Bruce Willis as Joseph Cornelius "Joe" Hallenbeck; Damon Wayans as James "Jimmy" Dix; Chelsea Field as Sarah Hallenbeck; Noble Willingham as Sheldon "Shelly" Marcone; Taylor Negron as Milo; Danielle Harris as Darian Hallenbeck; Halle Berry as Cory; Bruce McGill as Mike Matthews

Ephemeral Waves

 

Shit, we’re being beaten up by the inventor of Scrabble!

I have no idea why I hated The Last Boy Scout back in the day. I guess I was not vibing to these types of action films. We had a lot of them in the family DVD collection, among the early Warner Brothers ones where they released them in cardboard DVD cases, and alongside not really appreciating action films for what they were, I likely dismissed this film outright too for being offensive rather than carefully pinpointing what aged in films from the past. The Last Boy Scout, and Shane Black’s more profane and witty storytelling, vibes for me more now even if arch, part of a solid film from a fascinating era when Hollywood movies could be very adult in tone.

The first scene really is a highlight to a production that, to my surprise, was an absolute nightmare to even get to the finish line as a final production, melding Black’s snark, Tony Scott’s skill as a director, and great Hollywood production value, a grim existential breakdown of a football player who, in the rain during a game, brings a gun on the pitch. And it is Billy Blanks, a wonderful cameo from a b-movie star, usually in martial arts films from this period, which he can be proud of and stands out more as a scene if you recognize him. I come to this film too as an unapologetic Tony Scott defender, always with the sense of him being an underdog even next to his brother Ridley, and that sequence the best in here showing his skill. Top Gun (1986) was propaganda, but it is beautiful to look at whilst the melodramatic and eighties lush tone adds the work where the story and its soundtrack win you. (Even all the jokes about its homoerotic tone (if by accident) adds to this to make it more rewarding). Days of Thunder (1990) is a melodrama, only rather than what were once called “women’s pictures”, it is about male NASCAR racers with Tom Cruise and Michael Rooker’s love-hate relationship as the leads a proto-bromance. The run of films with the likes of Domino (2005) and Déjà vu (2006) that ended Tony Scott’s career, which I need to return to, showed he how interesting a director he was when he went full bore into visual experimentation, some of the most unique of the time and genre, and with Déjà vu’s science fiction premise, producing one of the most unique and mind bending car chases using a form of split screen Brian De Palma would be proud of.

Among these films, The Last Boy Scout is more conventional even next to The Hunger (1983), but this is in mind to how much this film struggled to get finished. Alongside the script from the original Shane Black version being drastically changed, as expected with all script revisions, Damon Wayans and Bruce Willis were hostile to each other, producer Joel Silver steered it to the more conventional action scenes, and Tony Scott’s habit of shooting extensive footage took multiple people to edit it all into final results¹. He however was staying his ground on what he wanted to shoot, so this film if it has an auteur, even if compromised, is his and Shane Black’s together, and you can still see the virtues of both in this. Here Scott is the traditional stylist to a modern day noir, made at a time when Shane Black was a low end in life and feeding off pulp crime paperbacks¹, taking the broken down detective from them and making Joseph Hallenbeck (Willis), the detective at his lowest among others before him crossing with James "Jimmy" Dix (Wayans), a disgraced American football star, finding themselves forced together over one of the former’s protection jobs. This leads to a conspiracy with the US football league and politics, whose flaw in not being fleshed out is explained by how the film went through a long process in being actually completed. There is a lot more cursing than in traditional film noir but humour is literally a self defensive weapon in Shane Black’s world, an effective self defensive maneuver multiple times including “your wife” jokes being able to leave someone defenseless to a broken bottle to the neck. Alongside the setting being Christmas, an obsession for Black, and this feels like his work to the point even Danielle Harris, playing Willis’ thirteen year old daughter, gets one liners.

The interesting thing is knowing, whilst an action film at heart which Joel Silver steered more towards the one liners and action, this has a vein of melancholia in its macho bravado which is explained by the place Shane Black was said to have at the time, one of great depression at a time when he was not part of films with his scripts. This is a film where the one liners are literally self defensive not just to villains but against male anxiety and angst, hiding behind snark to cope through the likes of addiction and the loss of loved ones, With credit to Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, despite tensions on set, they were two perfect casting choices for a Shane Black script. Willis in particular, in mind to his career’s very erratic history, including the turbulent time even here with Hudson Hawk (1991), is someone capable of a great deal in his roles, someone who could balance pathos and comedy perfectly with his work, taking what was a generic noir protagonist and making him have flesh in this case.

The film would in delicious irony be accused of being woke nowadays. This is lost a little in how much the film plays it safe with car chases and action scenes, the film turned into a production for the box office first, but with Willis’ back story as a secret service agent fired due to a corrupt politician, and corrupt politics and gambling the central themes, it is amazing even if shooting people are the answer in these films how many would not fly in certain parties minds nowadays in how suspicious of authority they are, a film noir trope Shane Black definitely took the heart. Whether it is one of the best of this time is with the caveat that, once you known how nightmarish the production history was, you can see it in the plotting pace, but so much does work. Some of the dialogue is un-pc, which has not aged the film well when they appear, but alongside how rare they are, most of the film shines instead. For a film I was once dismissed, even its inclusions as an action film, including twists involving an unfortunate accident with a helicopter blade, stand out because in spite of the chaos making this film, it gelled together as a rewarding film with too many good one liners, too much interesting pathos and Bruce Willis dancing a jig in the least expected of times.

=======

1) Who killed The Last Boy Scout? Bruce Willis, Shane Black and the making of an action masterpiece, written by Owen Williams for The Telegraph, published 31st May 2016.

Wrestlemaniac (2006)

Director: Jesse Baget

Screenplay: Jesse Baget

Cast: Rey Misterio Sr. as El Mascarado, Adam Huss as Alfonse, Jeremy Radin as Steve, Leyla Milani as Dallas, Margaret Scarborough as Debbie, Catherine Wreford as Daisy, Zack Bennett as Jimbo, Irwin Keyes as The Stranger

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

With a premise about a homicidal lucha libre wrestler, someone like me who grew up with pro wrestling as an obsession would be interested in this. Back in the day, I was so disappointed I viewed Wrestlemaniac as one of the worst films I had ever seen. Nowadays, returning to this, I would never say something like that anymore. It is instead a low budget slasher you would have to come to with lowered expectations than I had, though it does start off with real wrestling footage over the credits, which is cool. The review is actually going to be fairly positive, in that in reality, subjective opinion on whether you the reader would enjoy this or not is really the issue here. Instead I like to view this as a legitimate apology to its director/writer/editor Jesse Baget.

They got an actual figure of note to play the titular homicidal wrestler, which does befit what the premise is about, though we will need to clarify one thing. that Rey Misterio is not the figure most, like I did, grew up with in the World Wrestling Entertainment company, nor if you are older and grew up with as the legendary figure of high flying acrobatics in the late World Championship Wrestling. That is Rey Misterio Jr., the nephew of the man starring in this, Miguel Ángel López Díaz, Díaz taking the name Rey Misterio Sr. to distinguish between the two. He is an important figure in his own right, a figure with a prolific list of records and acclaim, and in mind to an aspect of this involving the villain's personal "mask" collection from defeated opponents, a strong record we will get into about how many people he won the masks (or hair) from in lucha libre bouts. He is also the start of the Rey Misterio lineage which, alongside other figures who donned the mask, also includes the aforementioned Rey Misterio Jr., whose accomplishments alone are worthy to making his uncle proud internationally.

Surprisingly he is not the only other figure with a connection to the profession, as one of the figures who stands out in the cast as well is Leyla Milani, who plays the adult film actress Dallas. Milani, an Iranian Canadian actress/host/model, was in the WWE's own Diva Search, a talent competition to find female stars for their programming which, to be brutally honest, has not aged well as a concept in terms of "Diva" was entirely about figures who could be glamorous and seductive for the male heterosexual audience. This is an issue when wrestling fans and promotions have moved to having female wrestlers as credible as their male counterparts rather than figures meant to appeal to that audience only. This is not either to dismiss women who were comfortable to play to a glamorous image as a wrestler or non wrestler, be they manager to valet, or even played up to being explicitly sexual in their personas, who deserve as much respect in what they have contributed to the history of wrestling; instead the bigger issue is that the WWE's track record of how they have portrayed women, and uncomfortable scandals we will not get into to keep this review light hearted for a review about a deliberately nasty slasher, have left a bitter taste. Even in going back to the likes of the Diva Search competitions that company had will be something, especially because of the scandals, that will have new uncomfortable light. Thankfully, Milani's career is quite a diverse one so we do not need to linger on real history that needs to be brought up in a sombre, fully detailed written piece on the WWE's history of gender politics. By the time of this film, she had already become a model on the American version of the Deal or No Deal game show, alongside roles in a variety of other television and film roles, and by the modern day she founded and runs Leyla Milani Hair¹, a luxury hair care company which is adds a nice turn for a review like this to get into. It is certainly a tangent I did not expect to include, but it is a cool one to add.

It is a befitting thing then, in the traditional of legendary wrestlers like El Santo making films in Mexican genre cinema but not taking the mask off, that Rey Misterio Senior took on this role, a slasher film where an amateur porn shoot made the ill advised decision to get lost in the Mexican back roads, and end up at an ominous and abandoned ghost town. Alfonzo the sleazy director and star, three actress (one mostly unconscious from drinking too much most of the role), the camera guy with a knowledge of lucha libre wrestling, and the stoner who lent the van should have taken the warning of the sleazy owner of an abandoned gas station, which got a pop for me as it is Irwin Keyes as the nameless figure. Instantly recognisable, of all things in his list of cameos and turns in many genre and cult films, it is an obscure horror comedy Frankenstein General Hospital (1988) which made him stand out for me since youth, as the Frankenstein's monster. That this is the film, whether its virtues nowadays, I immediately think of when Keyes appears is funny with hindsight for the brief role he gets here.

Keyes warns of an old ghost town where a wrestler who gouged his opponent's eyes out got shoved into, which gets more elaborate for what is a very short film, less than eighty minutes, and director-writer Jesse Baget clearly made with limited resources. Suffice to say, we have a masked wrestler named El Mascarado who just appeared to destroy the Russians at the Olympics in wrestling competitions, likely to have been built from the bodies of multiple luchadores by scientists, but was an ill advised figure to represent his country of Mexico as he murdered his opponents in training. Considering some actual Mexican genre films - The Batwoman (1968) by René Cardona is about luchadores being kidnapped to create a race of fish men - it is a wacky premise you can work with even in a gory slasher premise. What we get is prime example of the 2000s straight-to-DVD era of lower budget genre films, which will inevitably get their Bleeding Skull or retrospective articles to praise them and get nostalgic about. There is certainly an aesthetic to them too now enough time has passed from my younger self hating this, which stands out from the 2010s equivalent in that this visual looks like it was shot just before the clear sheen with high definition cameras of the 2010. With its mix of greyness and moments of dark shadows, it has a grungy feel as a result, and this has enough budget to find a solid location for the ghost town. Set it up well in set design at a lower budget, it is limited to a few cast members and is simplified in the structure, but we do not have a film here like in the 2010s which could have been shot in someone's house, not an insult to those films but showing there was a higher budget here as a comparison.

It is a film, by coincidence, that manages to still be strong in content but with the ironic hindsight that this not be as extreme as other films of this time period. Saw franchise films were out and about at this time, and "torture porn films" were popular enough that, with a trailer on the same British Revolver release DVD I viewed for this review appearing, even Saw found itself so popular to have a low budget film clearly inspired by them like Are You Scared? (2005) exist. Wrestlemaniac comes at an interesting point where there was a greater easing of some nasty gore in British film classification, and means that the films which got the eighteen certifications, the highest outside of porn classification, had to be much more brutal or have content which was more an issue for the classificators, a real turn of time from our notorious Video Nasties era of videotape censorship. It leads to some unintentional results out of the film's hands as, whilst there is some gruesome stuff here, it is odd to have the amateur porn premise as an initial construct as, with a film that was rated as suitable for fifteen year olds in the United Kingdom to see, it merely leads to one scene of a little female nudity. The script is more interested in vulgar one liners off the back of a sex comedy and some cursing, and does not feel sleazy for the possibility of that premise at this time, nor years later, at all. It feels less like this was a compromised part of the film, but that Wrestlemaniac found itself in a shift in horror films of that era where those Saw films, or Eli Roth's Hostel (2005), were theatrical releases that got nasty and wide distribution.

It is a slasher film, and not of the post-Scream (1996) era of self reflection, but a throwback to the older eighties ones, specifically so many which came out off the wave of Friday the 13th which got their hands on one good location as this does, and did their best with what limited production they had. A Doom Asylum (1987) came to my mind this viewing, barring the broader comedic beats, in terms of one location of the titular asylum, some actors and some gore. Slashers even the eighties had archetypes and stripped down plotting, let us not lie. They are charming for their fans, but the basic structure of them, with the acclaimed exceptions or those who deviate, have the same pace of this in setting up the archetypes and then letting the killer pick them off, this one not even needing a weapon, and more boss in using his bare hands as a result. The aesthetic differences, and how the characters are written, are obvious twenty years on from the eighties here, though even the nastier tone is not really that distinct to a time period of when the film was made.

The immediate thing to point out, that I should have not expected, is that this was an actual lucha libre slasher film even with an actual luchador in the main role. No one is killed with flying head scissors or powerbombed into a bed of spikes. Forgive the use of actual wrestling move terms for the non-fans for a moment, but the closest here is death by backbreaker and a top rope (top off a barrel) body splash, but not much else. It is a masked hulking brute in the centre just in a lucha mask, which means that this really does not play to the ideas of the medium. Wrestling in cinema is surprisingly not large, as beyond the luchador films which would include filmed bouts, usually it is real pro wrestlers in acting roles but not expecting them to bring their skills from the squared circle into the scenes. The only true nod to the medium is the concept of mask vs. mask wrestling types. Except the versions where a wrestler, non-masked, sacrifices their hair on a match, the loser would be forced to unmask if both or one put their masks on the line, a tradition especially significant in Mexican wrestling which did cross over at times over the years in other companies around the world. Here however our killer, when you do not have a mask, compensates for this by peeling his victim's faces off. This does, alongside present the idea of Achilles' mask, does mean that the film is still gory especially when it gets to the "mask" collection.

It does everything it wanted to do as a film, including an abrupt choice of final girl which does change things up. Alongside a score full of drones and tense electronica which is distinct, by composer Jim Lang, this does something as well which does require a HUGE SPOILER WARNING NOW. That being that this is the rare slasher film where the villain wins. Going to find himself in the van left after this, heading outwards into the world even if involving ripping more faces off, it comes less as nihilistic but an abrupt change of pace I have to praise the film for, with SPOILERS ENDING NOW. Truthfully, Wrestlemaniac is just not my film in taste. In the right context, I could see people liking this, and it did not deserve to be buried by my younger self. Film making is hard, and as the time has passed and I have seen more of the lower budget films being made over the decades, Jesse Baget is like many from this time onwards, directors who plug away with work and went through the trends that were popular or considered practical as a director in this area of straight-to-DVD/straight-to-streaming era of cinema. Even cult figures of the eighties, the golden VHS age, like Jim Wynorski or David DeCoteau eventually did this, and that goes from making horror films to either making a Christmas film or a cute animal film by the time you enter the 2010s. In the case of Baget, he did a film in 2014 that was both at the same time, named The Three Dogateers, which meant that he did one better.

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1) Leyla Milani Hair's main website.

Killjoy 3/Killjoy Goes to Hell (2010/2012)

Director: John Lechago

Screenplay: John Lechago (with Carl Washington for Killjoy 3)

Cast: Trent Haaga as Killjoy, Al Burke as Punchy, Tai Chan Ngo as Freakshow, Victoria De Mare as Batty Boop and Jessica Whitaker as Sandy

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Consider it a bonus, bozo!

When Killjoy 3 was produced by Full Moon Pictures, it was as much rebooted at the same time in 2010. The first film of eight years, it frankly ditched the existence of Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil (2002), following from the original 2000 film as a reset. Truthfully, the franchise will not be to everyone tastes, especially the first two, but this is an interesting case where the sequels, rather than spinning their wheels, actually begin to expand the simple template of before and become really idiosyncratic. The two sequels covered here, as more came after, are not perfect even for this context, but the step up is admirable and makes this a far more entertaining franchise at this point in its history, to the point they helped me come to enjoy this franchise.

Killjoy 3 is still a low budget film, shot in mainland China and disguised as an American location, set around only two locations, the home of a professor who trapped Killjoy, a homicidal demon clown, in a mirror, and inside the mirror itself. The almost sound-alike of Joan Jett's Bad Reputation, introducing the leads after a party needs to be cleared up at the professor's house, shows at the get-go the lovably homemade nature of these films, including the use of a Puppet Master film for the characters to watch. Aptly like the Puppet Master franchise and others from Full Moon, Killjoy got a posse from this point on, the head of minions trying to figure out how to escape, even if it means trying to figure out the magic mirror's manual, and finding it even has Chinese language translation. That reference also shows that, from this point on, there is clearly an emphasis on more humour from these films on, which helps a lot even if one or two jokes between the films have became un-PC by 2020. It certainly rejuvenates Trent Haaga, who took on the role of the evil demon clown from the second film, able to have more to work with now he can be funny and, by Killjoy Goes to Hell, even pathetic for comedy effect.

Killjoy 3 still has to follow a conventional premise where a young woman Sandy (Jessica Whitaker), at the professor's house, with her boyfriend and friends, have a mirror delivered at the door next morning with the trapped soul of a demonic clown. As a result of this, the tone is still being fleshed out for this new take on the franchises, the cronies Killjoy has in particular not getting as much as they do in the next film. But they stand out aesthetically: one is a hulking if dim-witted clown, a mime sadly underused in Killjoy 3, with a brother sticking out his side, and the most interesting of the trio, a succubus named Batty Boop played by Victoria De Mare.

It is not for the obvious reason, as her design, even for titillation, is inspired by nude body painting which the actress had done on herself for both films, but also because playing the foil to Killjoy, you get a shot in the arm for humour and charisma. Named after the animated character Betty Boop, it is very clear too she is inspired by Harley Quinn, not the version Margot Robbie would bring to life, but the original character created not from the Batman comic books, but originally a figure from Batman: The Animated Series (1992-9) who became so popular, she crossed into being a canon character for the franchise. Specifically it is the original voice actress Arleen Sorkin who was also the inspiration in appearance and personality, as De Mare plays her role as the exasperated girlfriend with a voice like an old Hollywood gangster movie moll which she fully commits too, becoming the best thing with Trent Haaga of these two films.

Killjoy 3 still struggles through issues of lower budget horror and genre films, the plot basic and recreating the original Killjoy premise, but this is a higher budget take so far in the series, and is able to flex its muscles a bit more if stuck having to play to a conventional story to reintroduce these characters. Instead, it is the characters themselves, and where the next film goes, where you see director-writer John Lechago is able to have fun between the movies, with a knowing humour of Killjoy as a sarcastic evil clown. Haaga is allowed to play for yucks as much as there is now gore, coming by the end of this entry with people being served for dinner and a head being crushed by a comedy mallet. That this bothers to nod back to the 2000 Killjoy is to be admired too, as it is not wanting to separate itself from the source, as a prominent character from that original film is important here, whilst with the humour that this story has works, as much stemming from Killjoy being stiffed as a demon of revenge by the person who conjured him.

There is still the problem with a lot of exposition, as much to bring viewers up to date on the previous films, which were bare bones but they may have not seen, and also an issue with genre films in general in being unneeded. However, you are seeing this franchise really attempt to expand this character. And it pays dividends with John Lechago returning as editor-screenwriter-director for Killjoy Goes to Hell, a very unconventional sequel to any horror franchise and the best of all the four that came from the first quartet of this series. A huge reason for this is the premise, making Killjoy himself the actual protagonist, an evil clown demon who is now sympathetic as an anti-hero. Now he has been resurrected in Hell by a witch and unfortunately now has Satan himself putting him on trial for being crap at his job as an evil homicidal clown. With all his demonic names stricken permanently off from existence, he will become nothing unless he can defend himself as being legitimately evil.

This continues the resolution of Killjoy 3 where, huge spoiler, Sandie was committed in an asylum. Here, connecting this to that last film, is the issue of closure, detectives still trying to figure out what happened, especially as she is now permanently in a laughter based psychosis. Even if it is slight next to the main plot, it helps adds more to the plot of what is still a horror comedy, especially as there is some logic to this like the main detective and her psychiatrist, not believing the Killjoy legend, still taking it seriously as a concept that might have influenced the scenario psychologically. Even if with obvious CGI too, this is a really idiosyncratic film in ideas, where Hell is literally a skull faced spaceship with parts of a castle and a factory built on a meteorite, cruising in outer space. The joke of the main character being on trial for incompetence really works, with one of his spurned former lovers the prosecutor, and a former human turned new demon named Skid Mark his bumbling defence attorney with interior motives. There are some jokes and dialogue which has not aged as well, trying to be edgy, but for the most part even with its profane amount of language, this was actually funny for me, over-the-top and with gags like needing a translator of a mime translating a clown speaking carny which did win me. This alongside such sights like custard pie-ing a person so hard their head is crushed to goo on the wall, and this is what I want in my lower budget horror films and horror sequels in general, an attempt at creative imagination.

It still struggles with the limits of the budget, still limited in sets and with an ending involving a demonic clown rebellion involving a group of extras tussling in a room with careful editing, but I have to admire the production. This is a work which is a lot more ambitious with being a sequel than trying to repeat the previous films, something not learnt from far more known horror franchises in general. When jokes land, they are funny, and there is even an abruptly sombre scene as, with an inspired take on Hell being a cosmos in space, Satan shows that the ninth lower circles of Hell is literally a place of nothingness. I see this as an admirable way to try to expand a sequel to any horror film into something idiosyncratic and, more importantly with the exception of the second film, actually make sitting through the others necessary and able to be more appreciated. The franchise continues after this, John Lechago returning for Killjoy's Psycho Circus (2016) with Charles Band having produced all the films beforehand or in a co-producing them. Band is not there for Bunker of Blood 07: Killjoy's Carnage Caravan (2019), with an entirely different director and screenwriter on that production. John Lechago himself, just for the fact I was not expecting Killjoy Goes to Hell to turn out as it did, has gained a respect for me as, honestly, watching the franchise beforehand, they are films I admire for the fact any film production is a challenge to complete, making me sympathetic on any level, but by his involvement in the series, I was enjoying these films regardless of their production values.

Killjoy 1 & 2: Deliverance from Evil (2000-2)

 

Director(s): Craig Ross (Killjoy) / Tammi Sutton (Killjoy 2)

Screenplay(s): Carl Washington (Killjoy) / Douglas Snaffer and ammi Sutton (Killjoy 2)

Cast(s):

Killjoy: Ángel Vargas as Killjoy The Demonic Clown; Vera Yell as Jada; Lee Marks as Jamal; D. Austin as Monique; Jamal Grimes as Michael; William L. Johnson as Lorenzo; Corey Hampton as "T-Bone"; Rani Goulant as "Baby Boy"; Napiera Groves as Kahara; Arthur Burghardt as the Homeless Man

Killjoy 2: Trent Haaga as Killjoy; Charles Austin as Nic Gordon; Logan Alexander as Lieutenant Harris Redding; Debbie Rochon as Denise Martinez; Nicole Pulliam as Cecile “Ce-Ce” Washington; Choice Skinner as Raymond “Ray-Ray” Martin; Olimpia Fernandez as Charlotte Davis; Jermaine Cheeseborough as Eddie Jasper; Tammi Sutton as Lilly; Rhonda Claerbaut as Kadja Boszo

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

The original Killjoy, the only one of the franchise I had ever seen over years, was one of many low to micro-budget horror films I picked on for that reason. A lot has changed over the years with my tastes in cinema, and Killjoy is interesting, from Full Moon Pictures and Charles Band, as a film made by a black filmmaker making a horror film set around a black cast, which should not be the immediate thing to pick up from in a review on the film aside from the fact, with mostly white directors and productions making the most well known horror films at this time into the Millennium, you get here a minority voice when even the horror genre did not feel as well representated as it probably should have always been. This story opens with a young man named Michael whom, asking a woman named Jada out, gets brutalised by her boyfriend Lorenzo and his gang. They do not suspect him to practice occult arts and try to bring forth the titular Killjoy, a homicidal clown figure. Michael neither expected to be killed by Lorenzo, who takes him to the woods to scare him, only to realise too late his gun was still loaded.

Killjoy is an odd one to try to review as, over seventy minutes, you cannot really elaborate on its premise, where the ominous creepy clown arrives a year late to bump off Lorenzo and his friends in an ice cream truck with a dimensional wormhole in the back. This is insanely economical in getting to the chase in the beginning, getting through the plot with little chaff, and concluding in a short running time. Set around Jada being under threat from this spectre, despite having long split from Lorenzo, this still has a personality, just in terms of being an early digital 2000s film, such as the vaporwave Windows 95 synth score if disarming for a horror film, or how Killjoy's opening gambit, in an ice cream truck that sells bootleg Sonic the Hedgehog headed lollies, is to drive up to Lorenzo's friends and offer them special weed. Effectively, this character is inspired by Freddy Krueger if not preying on people in dreams, able to wander in real life and taking people into the ice cream truck. Said truck sends them to a scary warehouse out of dimension where he can kill you in a variety of ways with wisecracks following. It cannot really do the elaborate effects of the Elm Street franchise, though this presents the warning to never smoke a random joint you find lodged in a chain link fence, or you will be lit up in many ways than one, and at its short length, there is no time to mood building. Thankfully you do get, in its swift length, Ángel Vargas as Killjoy, someone who brings energy to the proceedings because he decided to swing for the fences with the performance, plus a subversion of a genre trope of a no bullshit elder sage who cuts past being mocked for his supernatural warning to the leads by just providing them the truth psychically.

Sadly with Killjoy 2, a lot of this established lore goes out the window, and it feels more disappointing for me because a) this is a female filmmaker, again which should not need to be pointed out barring how at the time female filmmakers even in genre cinema were more a minority voice, and as someone who has come to admire micro-budget films, I have to respect anyone who tries to make a film. This is especially the case as a film where J. R. Bookwalter, a director of this field behind the likes of The Dead Next Door (1989), helped as a co-producer. Nonetheless, I have to admit I was not taken by this sequel, which promises a more elaborate premise, a group of criminals, petty thieves alongside a few women, including a sex worker caught for soliciting and a psychologically traumatised woman who was done for pyromania, who are taken by two police under orders to help construct a house to compensate for their crimes. You can also see a semblance of a very interesting premise as one of these criminals had cocaine planted on his by two white cops, a semblance of a political critique if there ever was one.

All minor demeanour figures, regardless, find themselves stuck in the woods with just the two cops sent to keep an eye on figures who double their number, a logic gap not of concern when the guys are goofing about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and getting condoms thinking they can seduce the female officer. Things go south when, after the car breaks down, someone is shot by a local thinking they are trespassing, by the director herself playing a hillbilly stereotype with a shotgun. In the chaos afterwards, Killjoy is summoned presuming he could heal him only to cause bloodshot, despite the warning of the voodoo priestess they wander into the home of. Killjoy is abruptly introduced after said priestess introduces him for the first time in the dialogue, and it is here that the film feels very disconnected from the original, sadly as much because Ángel Vargas is not here to reprise the role.  Whilst the new actor Trent Haaga does a good chicken impression and tries, what they established with the character in the first film is lost, and the sequel in general is a significant step down from before. Barring one scene where chattering teeth are used to gruesome effect off-screen in a wooden outhouse, there is a film here which feels too restrained to fully embrace a chaotic tone, trying to tell a story which is less interesting than if it had jettisoned it.

As her first film, thankfully Tammi Sutton would continue to direct and produce after this production, which in mind to how IMDB can be challenged for accuracy, was a film shot in only eight days¹. That does not necessarily equal a film can falter, but in this case struggles there is the sense they could not get much onscreen barring the essentials, and what they were able to create was material which did not win me over. Craig Ross Jr., the director of the first film, directed other films and television, never returning to the franchise as did Angel Vargas, never returning to the Killjoy role whilst Trent Haaga would reprise the role in sequels. There is a significant gap where the franchise was put on ice by Full Moon, taking to 2010 with Killjoy 3. This leaves this as a double bill of the early version of the character, before a reboot in many ways, from the 2010s onwards. Killjoy would come dormant for those eight years before the additional sequels would fully immerse this as part of the many franchise that Full Moon Entertainment would have under their belt; truthfully, Killjoy 2, if I still had any of the venom of my younger self, would replace the first film as one I once had on a "Worst List", but I do not even feel that way inclined anymore, only disappointed it did not appeal to me whatsoever, wishing what is here over rewatches will grow on me in spite of that initial disappointment so I can be able to appreciate it. Killjoy is an economically put together film which does not have the lurid weirdness of other micro-budget films, but I can appreciate for what it does, accomplished and tries, so I find the long time to reach it with happiness.  

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1) IMDB's trivia page for Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil.

Versus (2000)

Director: Ryuhei Kitamura

Screenplay: Ryuhei Kitamura and Yūdai Yamaguchi

Cast: Tak Sakaguchi as Prisoner KSC2-303, Hideo Sakaki as The Man, Chieko Misaka as The Girl, Kenji Matsuda as Yakuza Leader with butterfly knife, Yuichiro Arai as Motorcycle-riding yakuza with revolver, Minoru Matsumoto as Crazy yakuza with amulet, Kazuhito Ohba as Yakuza with glasses, Takehiro Katayama as Red-haired assassin, Ayumi Yoshihara as Long-haired female assassin, Shōichirō Masumoto as One-handed cop, Toshiro Kamiaka as Samurai warrior, Yukihito Tanikado as Cop with Barrett

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Why did I hate a film once made with hard work and independent grit, a two hour epic combining martial arts, splatter horror and post-Matrix cool? Apparently, because a younger self could not appreciate such good aspects, thus providing evidence youth does not mean good taste. There is unfortunately details I came to learn in regards to this production, which is not the fault of Versus but the inherent problem with any work with people involved who can reveal through themselves the ugly side of human beings, that I had to begin this review with and will have to talk of, as these came like sudden thunderbolts to learn at the worse time, when coming finally around the Versus as a film. As a film itself, this tragic detail is a shame as I can at least appreciate now that Ryuhei Kitamura put his time and effort into this project, one which was a difficult production just from the decision to make it an outdoor shot in the woodlands, liable to constant issues of weather conditions and practicality in getting through the shots with expected strain. Based on a mid-length film before, a lower budgeted project Down to Hell (1997), he took the idea from that of woodlands where those killed within its unholy grounds immediately return undead, and expanded upon it in a film which spun away from a sequel to its own concept. One evoking Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981), and its lore of gates directly to Hell, but specifying that there are 666 of them confirmed in Kitamura's world, and at the Forest of Resurrection where this film is set, this has the 444th.

The premise is very simple, and with hindsight, one can envision Versus, as a true independent production, as being the equivalent of a lot of micro-budgeted films from the West, usually shot in VHS in the past, which showed its creators wanting to make the films they grew up watching. The only difference with this was how it was able to put together production to create something very elaborate, one which managed to breakout to a wider audience through film festivals and distributors, in the case of the United Kingdom riding the wave of interest in Asian cinema into the 2000s that distributor Tartan Films made a huge part of their DVD era, with the Tartan Asian Extreme line this belonged to. Like a micro-budget film, the premise is simple, that two convicts have escaped the law, one of our lead and the closest with an actual name as Prisoner KSC2-303, played by future actor star Tak Sakaguchi in a breakout role. The set up is that these two convicts where to met a group of yakuza, only for this to immediately go south when they argue and the leader of the yakuza is killed, immediately bringing to their concern the forest they have chosen to meet at having rejuvenating properties. They have a woman they have kidnapped, played by Chieko Misaka, in tow, and there will be more goons, and two cops, one not impressed his severed hand was still connected to KSC2-303 by handcuffs, the other a braggart who yet has access to a cannon masquerading a long distance rifle. A big bad, set up in a chambara period prologue, is pulling the strings with intentions to unlock the powers of Hell's 444th gate for himself. Neither helping anyone but this villain is that this forest was where the yakuza were dumping their victims quietly in, leading now to there being undead who still had their firearms on them when buried and attempt to still use them.

Sadly this is where what was a celebratory review, with a sense of humour, has to nose dive into reality. It can sadly be confirmed that said villain is played by Hideo Sakaki, a prolific actor and director after this for film and television, who was arrested for accusations of sexual assault in 2024, part of a series of accusations Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine reported in March 2022 about him coercing actresses in sexual situations under the pretence of helping their careers¹. Sadly lead Tak Sakaguchi is connected to another scandal, all connected to a huge MeToo movement which began in the Japanese cinema industry in the late 2010s, where he was directly connected to allegations connected to Sion Sono. Unfortunately, this is a director I had immense fascination in for films like Love Exposure (2008), Sono having allegations of sexual harassment published by a Shukan Josei PRIME article from April 4th, Tak Sakaguchi apologising for his part in luring a woman to Sono in one incident². Details like this unfortunately make it difficult to engage with any production, worse in this case as this is your two lead actors, but this is sadly what happens with hindsight, a film left stranded in the past in knowledge that those involved can be alleged, or in the case of Hideo Sakaki arrested, for undefendable crimes, squandering artistic creativity in favour of absolutely indefensible actions if proven true. I could not consciously ignore this, even if this leaves a bitter taste to the review from onwards, which is a shame as everything else in context to this film is fun and entertaining, and do deserve their place in the sun as someone originally not a fan of Versus, only with this happy ending having a bitter undercurrent too running side-by-side.

Versus itself, back to the film itself and its virtues, was made with overt interest in international cinema as Ryuhei Kitamura, trained in filmmaking whilst living in Australia, wanted to make the films he liked, not only the older action films from Japan itself which he felt had died out, but also with proud influence from international cinema. This is from action films from the West, martial arts films from other countries, and also the splatter horror of the likes of Peter Jackson's early work like Bad Taste (1987), another homemade low budget breakout hit, to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films. You can see this was a work of love having to deal with what resources they could access - they had a limited time with certain camera equipment at one point, hence why there are abrupt moments of spinning the camera around with close-ups in style - but this was thankfully the case where the crew and cast were committed to the project. This is not surprising considering the individuals involved in this project that would go on to shape a lot of pop culture into the 2000s. Thankfully, there are individuals in this production without accusations published who have contributed a lot to Japanese pop culture, especially its face in international fandoms. Co-writer Yūdai Yamaguchi is among that trend, that the likes of Sushi Typhoon started to lean into, of unconventional genre mash-ups which were more focused for Western audiences, becoming a director in his own right with the likes of Meatball Machine (2005). Composer Nobuhiko Morino, bring some nineties drum n bass to the proceedings, became a frequent collaborator with Yamaguchi and Ryuhei Kitamura. There is also the figure of Yûji Shimomura, the action director, someone who would become a huge name not necessarily in cinema, but in terms of video games, as the director the cinematic and action scenes for the likes of the Devil May Cry and Bayonetta franchises, a figure in that field who brought a level of spectacle into cut scenes and helped pave their cult statuses for memorable sequences as much as the acclaim of their gameplay.

The slightness of the film in plot, a simple tale of someone who wishes to open the door to the realm beyond death, is contrasted by the sense of personality to the film. The influences are seen, between a sword being held in the air like the Highlander films, to a Peter Jackson Brain Dead (1992) era joke of someone having their head punched through, with the camera showing us the shot between the elaborately designed (and impressive) special effect. But the sense of humour and playfulness is the film's, even when making jokes of that era of cinema when the first Matrix film was a huge global hit and this is making jokes about the lead not finding any of the sunglasses he finds being cool enough to wear, or that he needs to steal the leather jacket among other clothes of a dead man who stayed so. Versus arguably has a virtue that, even if tragically marked by the sins of those who made it, so many people were involved, and everyone onscreen, even if they do not even have proper names for the characters, has a personality and can heal with issues of watching the film with hindsight to real life. This can vary from the short yakuza, the runt, who constantly has additional firearms on his person even one piece is stolen, and is going full method in acting like a caffeinated ferret, to the cops, one with the issue his primary hand for punching was taken, and the "Expert" who claims to have trained with the FBI, and learnt to be an expert of woodland tracking living in Yellowstone Park in the USA. A personal favourite of mine in the cast, actor Kenji Matsuda, thankfully got a career in the likes of Kamen Rider series and other tokusatsu work, the flamboyant figure as vivid in his performance as the character's suave dress sense, eventually turning into a literal cat-goblin when characters join the necromancer heavy's side. Even what was something I was not a fan of in my youth, the ongoing joke the lead has to knock the female lead out to keep her safe, is contrasted with hindsight with two women in the cast who get to play as tough as the male cast and take part in the fight scenes. These characters may not have as much screen time as hoped, but they all get a scene to stand out in.

 It is a spectacle film, the logical conclusion to every film fan who wanted to make a film in the woods, where everything is based on what is cool. It is not enough to punch a man's heart out, you need to take a bite from the freshly produced object. Swords can have laser sights regardless of their practical use, and everyone manages to find new armaments regardless of how and where they are stored. Even in terms of an actual plot, it is ambitious to cut to a chambara setting for the back-story, and the ending, which is more of a twist for the sake of it, does feel unpredictable. [Huge Spoilers] Considering how it is built up KSC2-303 is not exactly a true pure hero, but an amoral figure with some virtues, it is built up that one day he could just become an amoral figure in another reincarnation who wants to destroy everything, and the villain was at least moral evil. [Spoilers End] Like a few micro budget films, there was an alternative cut, an Ultimate Cut, where Ryuhei Kitamura wanted to improve aspects with some new footage. There is nothing drastic thankfully barring CGI planets in space in the opening with an emphasis over the lead as more amoral than presumed; instead, this version adds some additional scenes which do not jar explicitly new content, some improvements in the practical effects and just a general tweak in places. It is telling though I am happy, now on the film's wavelength, that I am happy with the original theatrical version as is, even if you do get a blood spurt for a decapitation in the original version that is a mere trickle among moments changed.

It also was a happy conclusion as, whilst sadly spoilt be the horrible tales in real life beyond films, it did lead to Ryuhei Kitamura becoming a director for a Godzilla sequel, and even getting to work in Hollywood, the same journey that Peter Jackson would have. That is enough to place a better opinion on Versus, even without the entertainment I found from this with a fresh perspective, as this was the case of one of these home spun films which became a true calling card, and because of this, I cannot hold anything but a positive bias for this film.

 

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1) Japanese film director arrested over sexual assault allegations, published by Kyodo News on February 21st 2024.

2) Sono Sion Accused of Sexual Harassment, published by Arama Japan in 2023.