The Toolbox Murders

Plot Synopsis: Ski-masked maniac kills apartment complex tenants with the contents of a toolbox.

  I love old horror films.  By old I mean late 70's early 80's, before the MPAA became censor happy.  The older films had gratuitous nudity, and lots of gore.  Not piles of it like now to make it almost laughable, but gory, bloody killings.  The Toolbox Murders had all of this.

  Toolbox centers around the world stupidest killer.  I say this because he drives around at night looking for victims.  He stops at an apartment complex, gets out of his car, gets a toolbox, and walks past a handful of people.  He enters an apartment, and kills a drunk, ugly woman.  He uses a power drill, and rips her up good.  When he's done he puts on a ski mask,  Yes, when he's finished.  Basically this woman saw him, which I guess doesn't matter as she's dead, but the people he walked by did.  So then with his crooked mask on he walks down the hallway and knocks on another girls door.  When she answers he drags her out, takes her to an empty stairwell and caves her skull in with a hammer.  Pretty blood scene again.  Then our mentally challenged killer picks up her lifeless body, and carry hers back to her apartment.  I have no idea why he didn't just kill her in her apartment in the first place.  Her roommate shows up but is quickly stabbed with a screwdriver.  Our killer, who's ski mask is still on crooked then looks out the window to watch some girls in different apartments dance around by their respective windows.  He then leaves with his ski mask on.  So to recap.  The killer walks around in public and kills one person without hiding his identity, then puts a mask on crooked, kills two more, then leaves with the mask on.  Guess I'm the only person who would be suspicious of a masked guy walking past me in downtown LA during the summer.

  So now the cops show up and interview the apartment manger, who acts surprised, and gives the cops a list of all the old tenants.  So the next night a very attractive red head decides to take a bath.  She must have been dirty, because we watch her clean herself for like 4 minutes.  And yes, shes completely naked.  As she is getting clean she decides to get dirty as well and starts masturbating.  About this time, the worlds most annoying killer, I say that because this was a good scene, shows up with his mask on wrong and mows her down with a nail gun, that is of course after he missed her like 4 times, and has to keep reloading it.  As he's already got his mask on he goes next door and grabs another girl.  He chokes her out, and takes her with him.  He must have ran out of nails trying to kill the other girl.  Well this chicks brother shows up, he lives with her, and knows somethings wrong because there;s a diet Pepsi on the floor.  That, and when they find the body downstairs and his sister is gone, he figures out something is wrong.  So he tells the cops he thinks the killer grabbed her, but they tell him he needs more proof than a spilled Pepsi.  If only she drank Coke.

  Unfortunately here is where the film really slows to a crawl.   As the girls brother looks like a dim witted version of Fred from Scooby Doo he thinks hes a junior detective.  Luckily the cops, and forensic team suck, as when he starts going to these murdered girls apartments, none of them have been cleaned.  So after watching this moron plod around for 15 minutes we cut to an apartment downtown and find our girl tied up and gagged while our killer talks to her while eating a Tootsie Roll pop.  He's nice though, he takes off her gag and brings her food.  In case you want to know the killer is the apartment manager.  You know the guy with access to all these rooms.  I guess the cops didn't think about that.

  The guy makes a good nut job, telling the girl how he cant lose her, and wanting to know what its like for her being tied up.  After about another 20minutes of just talk Fred, or whatever his name is, and his buddy find a tool box and start going through it, when, whats this, in the big swerve Fred's buddy pulls the classic pro wrestling double cross and dowses him with gas, and lights him on fire.  Turns out the killer is this guys family, also turns out this kid is bat shit crazy too as he kills our main killer, after they do battle over a doll in a wedding dress.  He then goes back to rape the girl, and then unties her and lays in bed with her hoping too spoon.  As shes been held captive, and raped, and not happy, and also as shes not tied up, she grabs some scissosr and kills the guy, then just walks down the street covered in blood as the credits roll.

So lets see, who would the biggest idiot here be.  The Apt. Manager, who doesn't know how to properly disguise himself before murdering someone.  His idiot family member, who after raping a girl he has captive keeps her untied to cuddle with her.  Fred from Scoob Doo as he doesn't know his freind is a killer.  The cops, because they have absolutely no clue, and don't even clean crime scenes.  Or finally the girl, who doesn't scream for help when shes ungagged.

Overall though this is a good film, a nasty treasure from the 70's so to speak.  It's a fine piece of exploitation.  Blood, violence, and nudity.  Very slow middle, but a great beginning, and nice end makes up for it.  It's supposedly based on a true story, but that has ben argued for years.  I recommend picking this one up.  Just be carefully, there was a remake done in the mid 2000's.  You want the original

Overall 3 out of 5 Stars.

Bounty Tracker

Plot Synopsis: Almost the whole staff of a tax consultant office is slayed by a team of professional killers, only Paul Damone can escape. He didn't know that his partner used to wash gangster Louis Sarazin's money and had to testify as chief witness against him. Paul's brother Johnny, best bounty tracker of Boston, visits Paul to protect him, but can't prevent that he and his pregnant wife are targeted by the same team. Now Johnny's out for revenge.   

 Lorenzo is back with a vengeance in Bounty Tracker.  So if you haven't guessed by the title he's a bounty hunter, or bounty tracker if you will.  He's Johnny Demone.  The best hunter in the business.  In one of the strangest opening scenes in film history he impersonates a nerdy Englishman to gain entrance into a hip hop bar.  Shouldn't he have been acting like a gangsta?  Well he has a flask that when opened is really a smoke bomb (yes I'm serious) he yells "fire" and everyone runs out, well everyone except for the criminal he's after.  He must have been watching the guy for a long time to know he would be the only guy to not run out of the building.  After beating the crap out of the guy and his bodyguard the cops show up instead of the firemen and arrest the guy.  That's how we learn he not really a sissy Englishman, but a bounty tracker.
  Unfortunately Lorenzo's brother works for an accounting firm who has been helping a mobster launder money.  When the firm decides to turn over the evidence Matthias Hues, the quintessential strait to video bad guy of the 90's and his team of mercenaries walk in and kill everyone, except Lorenzo's brother who runs out the back door.  Well luckily for Matthias Mr. Lama's brother is being guarded by the worst precinct in LA, as they just take him back to his house.  Yes his house, with his pregnant wife, not a safe house or anything, just his house.  But don't worry 3 cops are guarding him.  Yes 3, even though the hit squad after him just took out an entire office building.  Just about this time Lorenzo shows up for a visit.  And wouldn't you  believe that so does the hit squad, who after dispatching of the Keystone Cops kill Lamas's brother, and pregnant wife.  But not Lorenzo, he beats down and kills one of the baddies, and sends the other's running in fear.  Well not really they just leave after they pop his brother.  They knew Lorenzo was there, so obviously they are the dumbest hit squad alive as they leave behind a witness, who killed one of their team members.
  So as you can guess Lorenzo swears revenge and goes after Hues and his team.  Luckily for him he noticed a snake and knife tattoo on the guy he killed, and even more lucky, even though this is a team of mercenaries who have been around sense Name, they guy happened to get his tattoo in LA, right where Lorenzo is staying.  Talk about luck of the Irish.  So Lamas finds a crippled Latino with the same tat who tells him he used to work for Hues, and it was Hues who crippled him when he wanted to leave the gang.  Sidebar, Hues is a moron, he keeps leaving behind witnesses.  Luckily for him the cops in this town are morons.  This crippled guy now spends his time helping young men get out of gangs, or something like that.  But Lorenzo does learn that Hues studied Korean Martial arts, just blocks from where he is.  Boy for a mercenary Hues didn't leave LA much did he?
  So Lamas goes to this Dojo, and beats the crap out of everyone.  Then the evil sense comes out, we know he's the sense because his uniform is a different color, and we know he's evil because he has a cheesy mustache.  I have to admit this is one of the better fights I have seen in films.  While Lamas is doing this, Hues goes to the crippled Latino guys house and kills him, and as hes leaving the thug kids the old man helps see a guy with a ponytail leaving, and assume its Lamas.  Even though Hues is a blond, where as Lamas has dark hair, and Hues is about 1 foot taller, and 50lbs heavier.  Oh well if they were smart they wouldn't need an old man to mentor them in gang life gone wrong.  So they decide to go after Lamas, even getting the drop on him.  But he just tells them he didn't do it, and they believe him, proving they are the most trusting former gang members in history.  So they decide to help him.
  So Lamas armed with his 3 gang stooges go off for the final battle in an abandon junk yard.  As you can guess Lamas, and Hues have your typical 90's martial arts final battle.  This is no spoiler, as Lamas kills him, avenges his brother and gets the 100 thousand dollar bounty.  He then gives a cut to the gang kids and decides to hang around and help them out.  Which is good, because he obviously can make a fortune here, as the cops had been looking for Hues for years, and Lamas tracked him down and killed him in like 2 days.  That, and if a mercenary team is so stupid, the common criminals must be real morons.
  With all that said I really do dig this film.  Great fight scenes, cool 90's straight to video cast, and a good pace make this a great watch.  The only drawback is the reformed street gang kids.  They added nothing to the story, and in fact dragged it down in the scenes they were in.  Other then that though its a fantastic film, that I recommend watching.  It does not yet have a DVD release, but you can get the VHS from Amazon at a really cheap price.

Snake Eater

Plot Synopsis:   The Snake Eaters are an elite division of the Marines especially trained for search and destroy missions. This actioner chronicles the exploits of one of them who has become a cop. Known as a tough loner, he returns to find the band of backwoods bad-guys who killed his parents and abducted his sister. 

First off I must let you know two things.  One everything you are about to read it true.  I have not exaggerated any of this.  And two, this film is not a comedy!  It was made to be a serious action film, and to showcase Lorenzo Lamas as a leading action star.  This was his first action film, he had only done Grease (yes that Grease) and Body Rock.  
  Lamas is Soldier!  A bad ass former Marine from an elite unit called The Snake Eaters, hence the title.  Well now he a cop, and hes on undercover work trying to buy drugs.  See he's in a ghetto apartment while two plain clothed police officers sit outside in front of the building waiting for him.  Yes right out front, in an unmarked car.  They don't wait in the building across the street or watch with binoculars or anything.  They even order a pizza while they sit outside listening to him sing Kumbia over the wire, then talk about going blind from masturbation from boredom. Well before the mobsters show up, they send in a very ugly girl who looks like UFC fighter BJ Penn with a bad weave in to make sure hes not wired.  She does this by having him take off his clothes.  Then they have sex, while the two cops giggling are laughing, and having a coronary like they have never heard anyone having sex before.  The mobsters come in, just as Lamas pulls up his pants but before they even try to sell, or make a buy, it was never really explained.  He pushes a button on the floor and nails pop up sticking them to the floor.  As the ugly girl runs out she get caught in a net.  How long was this guy waiting to have set up all these elaborate traps.  Well when the other officers finally show up they tell him hes on suspension.
  Meanwhile Lorenzo's parents, and sister are traveling in there boat down a swamp.  Not sure why there traveling down a swamp.  Well the boat brakes down and suddenly 4 hillbilly's invade. They kill the mom and dad, but keep the sister to breed with her.  See they are inbred, and they have been inbreeding for so long there brother, or cousin, or father, or whatever decides he wants a real son.
  So Lamas is riding down the highway on his Harley when a kid playing kicks a ball in front of him.  He spins out of control, hits a dirt mound and back flips through a table at his favorite biker bar.  I have no idea why.  Once there he gets into a fight with a biker gang.  He does manage to beat them up with the worst looking series of punches on film.  When hes done the cops come to tell him his family's boat was found burned, and his sister is missing.  They have no leads, so he goes to town to look for them.
  Once there he goes to a marina where, ohh no, the evil inbred hillbilly's show up.  They make a few derogatory remarks about his sister when he shows them her pictures so he starts fighting them.  They eventually get the better of him, but the old man who owns the marina yells "Hows this for a surprise boys!" then drives his Harley off the dock and into the water.  Yes you read that right.  Then the guys daughter shows up with a gun and breaks the whole thing up.  Seeing as how they have no clue who Lamas is they tell him to stay the night at there house.  He does, obviously he needs a break from looking for his missing sister already.
  When he wakes up, he finds they have taken his Harley apart and combined it with a Jet Ski!  It looks pretty cool actually.  SO he goes out into the swamp to look for his sister, when he gets about 1 minute in he crashed the jet ski, and finds his dads hat.  Two things, why does he keep riding things?  He keeps falling off of them, and two what the hell was that hat made of that it didn't burn?
  So while hes wandering around, the father and daughter from their marina show up to help him.  There not much help as the father is killed pretty much as soon as we see him.  So Lamas sets up some of his patented marine traps.  None of them work as the hillbilly's grab him and the girl.  Rather then kill them though, they do some elaborate James Bond Villain Hillbilly Style death plot.  They tie them up, stuff them in separate sleeping bags, and hang them from a tree.  That way the water will drain from there body and they will die.  Luckily for them the one hillbilly that stays to guard them gets horney and trys to have sex with the girl.  She escapes and stabs him.
  Now the music turns more up tempo as Lorenzo decides to dress up in his official Snake Eater T-Shirt.  Really its a t-shirt that says Snake Eater!, he also puts on a bandanna and gets his Rambo style knife.  He rigs the hillbilly boat so when one of them starts it it blows up.  He makes his way to there home, but the second he gets there he steps in a bear trap.  Here's a note, this is not how you build a strong action star.  One of the hillbilly sisters, who want to kill Lorenzo's sister because shes jealous her brother is going to breed with her instead of her, try to shot Lamas, but luckily Lamas's sister stabs her in the back with a big sea shell.
  Lorenzo then battles the hillbilly's and wins.  He hugs his sister and the music slows down.
  We then find his singing Kumbia again as he has ben reinstated and is on a stakeout with the same cops trying to catch a arsonist.  The arsonist is played by Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter.  He ties Horshack up, fills a balloon with some kind of chemical and stars swinging it over a candle.  So Horshack freaks out and confesses to all his crimes while the cops outside, yes there sitting right outside again, luckily none of these criminals ever seem to notice them just sit shaking there heads.
  Once again this was not made to be funny, but it sure as hell is hilarious too me!  Believe it or not it had 2 sequels.  Yes, two.  In another shocker, you can get this on DVD.  I recommend you do, as it is soo bad its entertaining.  Check it out!

Overall 2 out of 5 Stars!

Revenge of the Ninja

Plot Synopsis: After his family is killed in Japan by ninjas, Cho and his son Kane come to America to start a new life. He opens a doll shop but is unwittingly importing heroin in the dolls. When he finds out that his friend has betrayed him, Cho must prepare for the ultimate battle he has ever been involved in 

 Ok, ok, so this is far from a new film.  It was made in 1983, back when I was a young tender age of nine.  I always watched Kung Fu theater when I was little and stumbled upon this classic film around 2 in the morning on Cinemax one night.  I fell in love with it.  It was my favorite film until Robo Cop came along.  Funny thing though I've seen Robo Cop maybe 3 times in my life, and I own the Criterion DVD, but I've seen this hundreds.  I watched it this afternoon.  I wanted to be a Ninja, I bought a ninja costume and some throwing stars.  My parents didn't give a shit what I did so I soon had a sword, chain, and nunchiks, and a sweet ass belt buckle that was really a throwing star.  Cool toys for a nine year old.  My son wont be so "lucky"
  Ninjas are awesome, they run up walls, disappear in smoke, wear neat costumes, and know a bad ass form of martial arts.  Sho Kosugi was the man to me, he could kick Bruce Lee, and Chuck Norris's ass at the same time then disappear in a cloud of smoke.  He was the ninja master.  And during the 80's he was in more ninja movies they you could count.  Ninjas were everywhere.  And it was awesome!
  In Revenge of the Ninja Sho stars as Cho, wonder why they just didn't call him Sho, he could have been the Japanese answer to Joey Lawrence.  You know because he's always a character named Joey.  Anyway, Cho's family,with the exception of his mother, and newborn son are slaughtered by ninjas.  See Cho is in a different ninja gang and they kill each other.  I think, it's really never explained, but it gives him a chance to go to America with his friend Braden to open an art gallery that will feature Japanese dolls.  Problem is Braden works for the mob, and he going to smuggle heroine in the dolls.  That's a really bad way to smuggle drugs, wont customs check all packages from Hong Kong?  Also, if Cho and Braden are lifelong friends wouldn't Cho know hes a drug dealer?  And shouldn't Braden just open his own Gallery, rather then get some guy all set up from overseas?  Sounds like he's spending a lot of capitol here.   And come to think of it maybe it was Braden who had the other ninjas kill Cho's family.  That way it would be easy to get him to want to come to America.  But that is too much plot.  This is a Ninja movie damn it!
  Anyway the mob double crosses Braden, but wait, Braden is really an American Ninja.  Not too be confused with the also fantastic ninja film American Ninja, but he's a real American Ninja.  He wears a demon mask under his ninja hood and kills the mobsters who double crossed him.  He even send's a gang of thugs, complete with the most stereotypical Indian in film history complete with tomahawk's, pigtails, and yellow fringe boots to steal the dolls but Cho beats the crap out of them. Along the way he also kills Cho's mom, and kidnaps his kid.  So Cho has to put on the ninja outfit and go fight Braden on a rooftop in the middle of town.  I always wondered why they both put on there mask's before they fought.  They both new who each other was.  Oh well.  The more I think about this who taught Braden the way of the ninja?  They reference the fact it is an ancient secret!  You think Cho would have know his friend is a ninja too.  Don't ninjas hang out?  In a part that makes no real sense.  Braden kidnaps Cho's hot American girlfriend and son.  He strips her naked and keeps her tied up by a hot tub!  Yes a hot tub, naked.  Not that I am complaining, I just dont see why he didnt lock her in a closet.
  This film has it all, violence, blood, nudity, and ninjas.  Man I love ninjas.  This was hardcore violent action, not like that pansy Bruce Lee  who just kicks people.  No, these ninjas break necks, stab people, poke out eyes, throw spikes, they mean business, ninja business.  Even Cho's kid beats the crap out of kiddie street gang who try to take his bike.  This is not a family to mess with.  This film was basically remade a few years later as Pray For Death, which I will review soon.  I cant recommend this enough.  It holds up year after year.  I showed it too my wife once, she watched it without falling asleep, so I guess that counts as a female recommendation.  Check it out now!

Overall 5 out of 5 stars PERFECT REVIEW!!!

Showdown

Plot Synopsis:  Ken has just moved from Kansas with his mother. He talks to a girl named Julie, not knowing that her boyfriend Tom is very possessive of her. 


I like this film, it;s like a hidden treasure that most people have never heard of, let alone have seen.  It has nothing going for it on originality or acting, but its good fun.
  Billy Blanks, who is the male version of Katherine Hegil when it comes to being a wooden actor stars as Billy, see he's not trying to stretch anything already.  He's cop who accidental kills a kid during a scuffle at a party he and his partner go to break up.  The kids brother vows revenge.  Kind of, he just yells for a few seconds.  Billy runs off, and turns in his badge.  Beat's doing all the paperwork I guess.
  Flash forward about 6 months and we meet Ken, a kid at a new high school.  Turns out Ken has just smiled at the head high school bully's girlfriend, played by a young Christine Taylor.  Can you guess where this is going?  Ken gets beat up, by Tom the Bully, who just happens to be a Karate master.   Luckily Billy, who is now the school janitor helps clean him up.  Ken gets beat up the next day, then the day after that.  Pretty violent beating actually, but the film is rated R.  Finally....wait for it.....Billy agrees to train Ken in martial arts to stop this bully.  I know, I know your already groaning, but here's the cool twist.  The evil sense training Tom, is the kid who swore revenge against Billy when his brother was killed.  Ok so not really a shock, but I forgot to mention, there not fighting in a tournament.  They fight in a underground arena where there are no rules!  I thought that was a cool twist.  
  Usually I would bitch about the fact some guy who trains for 3 months could not beat a guy who has probibly trained half his life.  But I finnaly figured if it's a janitor training you they must know how to speed up the process.  You know what would be cool, if the re-edited the training sceens and had Billy yelling "punch, punch, punch" in his Tae Bo outfit with the Tae Bo music in the background. Ok, back to the review!
  The film is cool, the acting is horrible, but I liked they fight in a underground arena.  Billy Blanks did the choreography, and the fight scenes are very well done.  The film was made before Tae Bo, but when Tae Bo hit big it was repacked as starring the Tae Bo Master.  It didn't help sales.  It doesn't even have a DVD relese here in North American, only in the UK. It plays on Cinemax once and a great while.
  I recommend checking out it.  It's mindless fun, and only like 80 minutes long, so you have nothing to lose.  Its a hell of a lot better then Tekken.  You know the film I said I would review today.  I cant review it, because I couldn't finish it.  I only got 20minutes in and turned it off.  It made my head hurt.  It's crap.  So I watched this instead.  You should too,

Overall 3 out of 5 Stars!

Kill and Kill Again

Plot Synopsis: Dr. Horatio Kane has been kidnapped, and is being forced to create an army of martial artists who will help take over the world. His daughter, Kandy Kane, enlists the help of Steve Chase (and a few of his friends) to rescue her father before it's too late.  

 Just what is the greatest martial arts film ever made?  Most people say Enter the Dragon.  Some say Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  The Octagon is quite popular.  I know a few people who would say Bloodsport.  There all idiots!  Kill and Kill Again is hands down the greatest Kung Fu film ever made!  It's so good I still have the Beta-Max video tape.  It has everything you could want in a film.  Action, comedy, romance, evil villains.  Everything a serious film watcher would love.  I absolutely adore this film.  I first saw it when I was a little boy.  It played on cable no stop in the 80's and I watched it every time it was on.  This was the film that made me love martial arts.  I watch it at least once a year to this day.  I can recite the film verbatim, and even mimic all of the fight scenes.
  Kill and Kill Again stars James Ryan as Steve Chase, the worlds greatest martial artist.  The film starts with him at a hotel to receive an award for being the worlds best martial artist.  Didn't know there was such a thing.  Well hes running late as he's busy beating the crap out of a couple of guys who tried to assault a hot blond chick.  Turns out it was a set up and the blond, named Kandy Kane wanted to see just how good Chase is.  She liked what she saw and tells him she need him to rescue her father who has been kidnapped by the evil Marduke!  See her dad was working on a formula to extract fuel from potatoes, and turns out he discovered a by product which is a mind control serum.  So Marduke somehow not only found out about this, but got his hands on it and has taken over an entire town and renamed it New Babylonia.  He holds Enter the Dragon style matches with his champion The Optimist, and plans on releasing this potato mind control serum into the worlds water supply.  I have to say Marduke is a great villain.  Not because he;s evil, but because he wears a fake beard.  Yes a fake beard.  How do I know it's fake?  Because it is so cheap you can tell its glued on.
  So Steve Chase must go into new Babylonia and save the world.  But he needs a crack team.  Joining him will Be Kandy Kane, a martial arts master, Gypsy Billy, a former world kick boxer.  Gorilla, a former pro wrestler who now has a lifetime ban from the sport for biting peoples ears off.  Hot-Dog, a fast talking con man.  And The Fly, who is not only a Kung Fu master, but he can levitate, and walk down walls as well.
  As Marduke knows Steve and his team are coming for them, he has traps set up around every corner.  By traps I mean about 50 guys to attack the group, and also for Marduke to see if Chase is as good as they say, as he wants him to fight his Optimist.  Basically this is an excuse to have a large scale martial arts fight every 5 minutes.  Which is a good thing.  In fact in this 90minute film, I would say 70minutes of it are fight scenes  Basically Chase and his team drive about 10 miles get stopped by a group of Marduke's evil martial artists and a fight ensues.
  Of course Chase and his team make it into the town, are caught and each have to fight in a martial arts tournament, where Chase does his final battle with The Optimist.  It's really not that much of a battle as Chase handles him almost with ease.  The town is saved, and the potato mind control serum is destroyed.
  This really is my favorite martial arts film.  Its fun, has almost nothing in it but action, and the chemistry between all the leads is actually very good.  I have seen this well over 100 times easy.  The DVD is out of print and sells for a pretty good amount of cash.  Unfortunately its just a VHS Transfer, so hopefully one day it will get the release it deserves.  If you don't mind dropping over 50.00 though, just buy it.  It's the best martial arts film ever.  Some idiots will say "No, Enter The Dragon is the best martial arts film ever made."  Like I said, their idiots.  The bad guy in Enter The Dragon had a fake hand.  This bad guy has a fake beard!

Overall 5 out of 5 Stars!

Tuff Turf

Plot Synopsis: A new kid at school must battle a vicious gang when he falls for the leaders girlfriend

 Forget that Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science crap, this is where its at.  Sex, violence, sleaze, and a bad guy who looks like David Hess's son.  Oh yea, it stars James Spader, and Robert Downey Jr.
  Tuff Turf centers around Morgan Hiller, played by James Spader.  He comes from a rich family, who for one reason or another, are now poor.  See his dad lost his job, and they had to move to the hood.  They never said what his dad used to do, but now he's a cab driver.  Which brings me to wonder, could his dad not have gotten a cab driver job back where they lived before?  So Spader rides around the seedy parts of town at night on his 10 speed bike, guess his dad sold his car, when he stumbles across Little David Hess's gang robbing some old guy.  Morgan breaks it up and peddles off, so he can go home and get some sleep before his first day at a new school.  See where this is going yet?
Well when he peddles into his new school, who do we see also attends?  Yes David Hess Jr.'s gang.  Hess Jr. is actually Nick, the leader of a tough street gang that runs the school.  Not much of a gang.  he just has three other members, and his smoking hot 80's slut style girlfriend.  So Morgan meets Robert Downey Jr in class and the two become best friends.  Downey even invites Morgan to see his band play later that night.  As the two BFF's are leaving Nick and his gang spray paint Morgan, and smash his bike.  Morgan doesn't seem to care as he's busy staring at Nicks slut Frankie.  Bad choice in names.  I went to school with a girl named Frankie.  She was a fat bag of yeast.  Ugly as a CHUD.  But this chick is hot.
So later Morgan steals a car and drives off to see Downey's band play.  In a cool twist, all the music is from Jim Carrol Band.  Can you guess who shows up as well?  That's right Nicks gang.  They don't see Morgan at first, as hes busy dancing with Frankie.  80's dancing baby.  You know where everyone is dancing completely in sync.  Well they grab Morgan, beat him down, and steal his car.  Problem is, he stole the car in the first place, so Nick and his gang get pulled over and arrested for car theft.  This was just a dumb scene though, as nick and his boys already had a car.
Seeing as how Nick and his boys are sitting in jail, Morgan decides to start romancing Frankie.  He picks her up in Nicks car, see the guy never should have left it parked by that club, and takes her to a country club, then a jazz bar.  I have to say this was a huge slow down to the film.  It goes on for like 20minutes, and is just very boring.  But the action picks up when Nick and boys trap Morgan in the locker room at school, and beat the shit out of him.  Its actually a cool scene.  they take towels and load then up with locks, then just whip the shit out of him.
Later that night Nick proposes to Frankie, and as he looks like David Hess, she has no choice but to say yes.  So when Morgan finds out about this, he does what any man would do.  He asks her to have dinner with him at his parents house.  Yea, sounds dumb, but its going somewhere,  See Nick and his guys see her there, and when she leaves they ask he to help them rob some shmuck, like they were doing in the opening scene.  She says yes, until the shmuck in question is Morgan's dad.  She freaks out, so Nick and his guys attack.  Well, its not much of an attack.  Morgan's dad actually beats the shit out of all of them until Nick shoots him.   Whoich makes me wonder, if a 50 year old fat guy can beat the crap out of all of these guys, why was everyone afraid of them?
  She calls Morgan from the hospital to tell him what happened, and rather then stay by his dads bedside he takes her home to have sex with her.  80's sex.  You know where you hear the slow music as the girl gets naked, then you see a few random sex scene shots before it fades out and you have to uses your imagination.  Well Nick sees this, which proves he has no life and just sits outside Morgans house and watches him, and flips out.  He beats down Frankie's dad, and smacks the shit out of her as well.  Then he calls Morgan, and tells him to meet him at the warehouse in 20 minutes.  I wonder how Morgan knew what warehouse to go to.
  Anyway Morgan shows up, and the 80's fight ensues, with Morgan holding his own until Nicks gang grabs him.  Just as Nick is going to shoot him, Robert Downey Jr. shows up with two doberman pincher's and evens the odds.  So Nick, and Morgan have, what is actually a cool fight scene that features, swinging from a rope, a board with nails, an axe, a gun, and a fair amount of blood.  Not only does Morgan win, he actually kills Nick, then takes Frankie to the jazz club as the credits play.
  Great film.  Spader was actually a bad ass pretty boy.  Robert Downey is fantastic in everything. Kim Richards, as Frankie cant act, but who cares.  She was hot. And Paul Mones as Nick was effective, based on the fact he looked like David Hess's son.  The soundtrack is good, and I love that fact its not your typical 80's high school film.  Its pretty hardcore in spots.  Highly recommended.

Overall 3 out of 5 Stars

Black Roses

Plot Synopsis: Demons hypnotize the general public by posing as a rock and roll band. 
  Ahh the 80's, a time of horrible hairband music, ugly cloths, and very cool straight to video movies.  Black Roses is one of those films.  In all actuality this film should suck.  But it's really good.  I first saw it on the old USA Up All Night show.  I then went out and bought the cool VHS tape with the 3D cover.  Then a few years back Synapse Pictures released a gorgeous DVD transfer.
  Black Roses centers on a Heavy metal band named  Black Roses.  Their lead singer is Damion.  A typical 80's glam metal band.  By typical I mean crap.  big hair, sissy vocals, Spinal Tap reject back up players, ugly outfits, the whole nine yards.  Well there music turns people into zombies, or something like that.  They go to a sleepy town to put on a series of shows at the local high school.  The kids are all normal, they even look up to a cool teacher.  We know he's cool because he has a Tom Selleck mustache, and wears jeans to school with his zip up hoodie.    At first the parents, and school board don't want the band playing there, as heavy metal music is evil.  That was a huge taboo around this time.  But when they go to check out the bands first show they see Damion, the singer is dressed nice, and singing slow love music.  For some reason the parents don't stick around, they just go "Ohh this isn't so bad" and leave halfway into the first song.  Once gone our Band pulls a magic trick of some sort and is now dressed in full heavy metal cheese costumes.  They start singing there God Awful music.
  The next day the kids start acting different.  Angry, aggressive, rebelling against authority.  Our one stereotypical Italian kid gets yelled at by his dad for having an earring, and suddenly a giant monster pops out of the stereo speaker and sucks the dad in.  The kids go back to the concert the next day, yes, it's a whole series of crap music, and become further possessed by evil.  One kid runs his mom over with a car, another kills her abusive step dad, and also the girlfriend of our hero teacher.  The principal gets thrown out the window.  And in one very weird, but amusing scene a girl seduces her freinds dad by playing strip gin rummy.
  Just as our hero is about to spring into action, one of his students shows up to sexually entice him.  She's pretty hot, and gets naked.  When he pushes her away she tuns into a weird looking cross between a demon, zombie, and that hot thing from Splice.  It's not much of a demon, as he beats it to death with a baseball bat.
So he finally decides he has to take the band out, and goes to there concert.  As everyone is in a trance he starts dumping gasoline on stage.  Guess he doesn't really like his students, as he must be planning on burning them to death too.  He gets caught, as hes basically 2 feet from our lead singer, who morphs into a demon, along with the rest of the band.  Demon may be too strong.  More like big rubber monster.  Luckily as I said before there not that tough, as our hero starts fighting them off, complete with sound effects after each hit.  Just when all is lost, and our teacher is grabbed he does the dreaded "Kick the rubber monster in the balls" bit and lights the stage on fire, while the band plays.  Which is much cooler then the band playing as the ship went down in Titanic.  Somehow this causes the kids to go back to normal, as they leave the building.
  As this is 80's horror, we cut to the final scene where our teacher, and the mayor are watching TV too learn that the Black Roses will be playing a set of shows in Madison Square Garden!
  Ok, I know this sounds bad.  Truth be told it kind of is.  But it is entertaining.  I hate the music.  But watching a rubber monster get kicked in the balls is funny.  Plus it has good, and bloody scenes, with nudity, so there is something there for the fan of 80's horror.  If you like 80's horror, dig Heavy Metal, or just like cheesy films check this out.  The DVD transfer is fantastic.  If you a child of the 90's you may want to avoid

Overall 3 out of 5 Stars.