Going OVER THE TOP (1987) on VHS Wednesday

A couple summers ago my father-in-law and I were killing time between sitting on the beach and having cocktails when he flipped to OVER THE TOP (1987) on one of the cable channels. A sucker for a sports movie he settled in even though he had never seen it and it was about halfway through. In an attempt to bring him up to speed I started explaining the movie's plot as well as the backstory behind Cannon paying Sly big bucks, conning some poor slobs to market OVER THE TOP toys, etc. I'm still not sure if he believes anything I told him that day. Naturally, when Evan Romero dropped a hint that he'd be willing to review the flick for an upcoming VHS Wednesday, well, I couldn't resist. As long as I didn't have to watch it, too.

I don't know how in the hell I rope myself into reviewing stuff like OVER THE TOP for VHS Wednesdays. I guess I'm just real good at shooting myself in the foot. Of course our Fearless Editor saw me about to blow my big toe off, yet he did nothing to stop me. He knew my trepidation; knew how much I feared sticking this thing into my poor VCR. But there he sat, waiting to smile at my misfortune with some popcorn and a craft beer in hand.

Lincoln Hawk (Sylvester Stallone) is a truck driver who walked out on his family ten years ago. His wife, Christina (Susan Blakley), is gearing up to croak and wants Lincoln to bond with his estranged son, Michael (David Mendenhall). When Christina kicks the bucket, Michael's grandfather (Robert Loggia) steps in to keep them apart – permanently! But this being an upbeat 80's movie, we all know it'll end happily with some paltry and inspirational philosophy dropped along the way. Oh, and there's some arm wrestling thrown in because they wanted to make a stupid version of ROCKY.

OVER THE TOP is so damn tacky you could hang a poster with it. At the same time, you have to give it to Cannon Films for having the audacity to take a truck driving film, a father/son bonding film and an arm wrestling film and roll it into one clump of idiotic rubbish, then serve it up on a platter of sheer stupidity. On the one hand, you wanna laugh at the harebrained proceedings as the film moves along with zero fucks given; on the other, you wanna castigate yourself for watching it and never show your face in public again. Sure, it's fun to poke fun at, but just know you'll be doing it more for reasons of desperately trying to preserve what little dignity you have left (but if you're watching OVER THE TOP, it probably means you had none to begin with).

Performance-wise, no one gives a crap. Stallone looks as though he's embarrassed for himself and those watching; he moves about the sets and says his lines because it's required of him. Robert Loggia, usually dependable, looks like he'd rather be getting a root canal and a colonoscopy at the same time. The arm wrestlers are antagonizing in that 80's wrestling style and come off like cartoons – and not in a good way. Watch out for one who looks like Discount Apollo Creed.

I regret going one-on-one with OVER THE TOP. It's hot, buttery caca made for the sole purpose of showing that men with muscles can also have emotions (it fails). If it really wanted to be a good flick, it should have been about Lincoln losing the arm wrestling match and Michael, then turning into a psychotic truck driver and chasing down Dennis Weaver. Now THAT would have been a film worth watching. And one less embarrassing. – Evan Romero

Evan Romero is a regular contributor to the pages of ER and spends much of his time reading morally questionable books and watching movies no sane person would touch. He is the vocalist/bassist for the punk band Porno Holocaust (you can find them on Facebook and listen to some demos if you’re inclined). His short story “Touch” was recently published in REJECTED FOR CONTENT 5: SANITARIUM. You can read more of his reviews at ReelAtrocities.com or at PopHorror.com. He last wrote about Troma's TERROR FIRMER.

OVER THE TOP is available from Amazon, you sick bastard.

VHS WEDNESDAY: AMERICAN NINJA 5 (1993) starring David Bradley and Pat Morita

After taking a few weeks off for a final vacation before school starts we're back with an all-new installment of VHS Wednesday and I hope you're enjoying these as much as I am. This review came about because longtime ER contributor Jonathan Plombon mentioned on Facebook that he was watching AMERICAN NINJA 5 and, honestly, I didn't know there was an AN5 (though I did grab copies of installments 3 and 4 at the Savers a few weeks back for a future installment of this column). Anyway, I suggested Jonathan write the flick up for my/your edification and, well, here you go. So, while we wait for AMERICAN NINJA APPRENTICE enjoy Jonathan's look at this overlooked stepchild of a classic 80s/90s action franchise. And if you have a VHS favorite you'd like to share with our readers, drop me a line at editor@dantenet.com!

In 1992, AMERICAN NINJA 5 continued that proud tradition forged by franchises like ZOMBIE or THE CURSE where a completely unrelated movie somehow becomes part of a series. It's like the child in an otherwise functional family that no one really wants, but that you have to accept because he's packaged with the wife. Not that AMERICAN NINJA 5 (originally named AMERICAN DRAGONS) is unwanted or worthy of stuffing in the basement NEVER to see the light of day. It deserves more than that-like seeing the light of day when he has to mow the lawn or wash the car.

AMERICAN NINJA 5 follows Joe Kastle (David Bradley, who kind of returns from the previous installments, but not really since he plays a totally different character because it's a totally different movie), who is assigned to babysitting a teenaged child named Hiro (Lee Reyes, the Junior National Karate Champion) by his Master Tetsun (Pat Morita, who shows up twice in the film, something that you wouldn't expect considering his placement on the box). As this is going down, Joe becomes involved with Lisa (Ann Dupont), the daughter of a scientist who has developed a powerful insecticide called ZB-12 that can be deadly to humans in large quantities. Of course, there's some curmudgeon who wants it to control the world, and off goes Joe and Hiro to brew up some child-endangering martial-arts mayhem.

You'll be seeing a lot of Hiro in this flick. He's a real modern '90s kid who would much rather play his Sega Game Gear (which is identified by name several times) than do anything physical (reminds me of myself), a position that he eventually changes when he sees how badass Joe is when he's kung-fu fighting.

The early '90s were a time when people loved to watch kids thrown in to dangerously violent situations (see 3 NINJAS and HOME ALONE). AMERICAN NINJA 5 is just another installment in the genre. Most of the time, the kids in these films are annoying, pompous brats whom the writers try to make "charming" by filling their dialog with smart-alecky remarks. And Hiro is as charming as they come. He never really gets his comeuppance, but he does cry in one scene, so you do have that to look forward to.

Along with the violence, there's also a weird theme of sexuality riddled throughout the film. For starters, Hiro is starting to notice girls and because of which, he constantly tells Joe about his new fuzzy feelings. Then an even weirder situation arises when Lisa invites Joe and Hiro over to her boat for dinner. Joe leaves Hiro alone so he can retire to the bottom of the boat to, I guess, have sex with Lisa, leaving Hiro up above to hear all the moaning for himself. All I could think about was how awkward this would be, both for Hiro and Joe, and probably Lisa, as well. Sadly, we never will find out how weird it could be since ninjas invade the boat. It's a miscue by the writers who probably should have kept the scene playing out just a little longer so the audience could really feel sick to their stomachs.

And this is the only time you could feel sick during the movie, because it's hardly graphic. If you're on the lookout for the traditional AMERICAN NINJA fare - flying fists and heads-a-poppin' - you won't find it here. This is strictly PG-13. One fighting sequence even teases a few severed fingers, only to reveal that Joe cut some fruit instead. Depressing.

It's not that this reviewer didn't care for the film. I did. It's just not the video that I want to be responsible for, checking its homework and buying it new school clothes. It's more like a great grandson that you see from time to time and although you never really know which grandson he is, you still give him a dollar and then move on to more important things like sleeping and trying to forget that you'll probably die before the next presidential election. – Jonathan Plombon

Jonathan Plombon is a longtime ER contributor and most recently wrote about WAVE Productions for ER 52 (see our store or buy at Amazon). Look for more from him in our upcoming Super-Sized 30th Anniversary Edition, coming in October!

AMERICAN NINJA 5 is available from Amazon.

#TBT: Cannon's NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET (1987) from ER 11

It was thirty years ago this summer that my buddy Lou and I decided that we needed an outlet for our voluminous opinions about the hundreds of movies that we were seeing each year. The next thing I knew we were out on the tennis courts, batting about names that smacked of both pretension and our love of trash cinema. And that, boys and girls, is how Exploitation Retrospect got its name. Though many of those early issues make me cringe with in-jokes, of-the-time references and attempts at aping better writers (like Joe Bob Briggs), there's still a nugget of a readable review here and there. In this new ER blog feature, I'll be going all Throwback Thursday on you (hashtag TBT!) as I dig through the photocopied pages of the original run of the zine (43 issues published between 1986 and 1995) and yank out something I'm not completely embarrassed to share. So, without further ado and inspired by Valerie Bertinelli's appearances on seemingly every Food Network show my kid watches, here's my look at Cannon's NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET from November 1987's ER #11...

How many times do we have to see the same tired plot thrown in our faces before it's finally put out to pasture? A crazy cop and a stable cop are partners on the brink of destruction. Their zany antics get them in trouble with the superiors, but they get the job done. One of them is divorced / separated / widowed, etc., but his work gets him through. Oh, did I mention the higher-up in the department who is leaking information to the bad guys? And just in case, throw in a little racial tension by making one cop black and the other white. (Or one Chinese and one white... or one Indian and one black... and so on.)

Ho hum... NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET is another in a countlessly long line of Oreo Cop retreads with plots more suited to the television screen than the silver screen. Okay, so the opening paragraph could also be used to describe the action hit LETHAL WEAPON, but at least that flick kept the action fast and furious enough that you didn't think about how idiotic, repetitive and familiar the plot really was. That flick also had credible actors like Mel Gibson, Danny Glover and Gary Busey to carry it off. NUMBER ONE has to rely on the questionable talents of Robert Carradine, Billy Dee Williams, Doris Roberts, Valerie Bertinelli and Peter Graves! No wonder this thing disappeared in a week!!!

The story concerns the exploits of Berzak (Carradine) and his partner Frank (Billy Dee). Oh, Berzak is divorced from Bertinelli and Frank plays the trumpet at night in jazz clubs. Ho boy! It seems that ol' Berzak has been watching some guy for years because he's convinced the guy is up to no good. It eventually... LED TO HIS DIVORCE (surprise, surprise)! Finally, after letting a witness they were extraditing get killed, the two partners begin to get close to the drug ring, only to be outwitted each time when the criminal seems to have... INSIDE INFORMATION!!! This is so original!!!

The story jerks along from point A to point Z, barely connecting all the dots in between, and barely keeping me awake as well. The few action sequences are as exciting as watching bread mildew, and it doesn't help that Carradine couldn't act his height let alone convincingly portray and over-the-edge cop!!! (I noticed I'm using the triple exclamation point a lot in this review... this is rarely a good sign!) Billy Dee is no great shakes either and you keep waiting for him to start talking about all the great women he gets when he's plowed out of his skull on Colt 45. I even felt bad for Peter Graves, who still looks like he's embarrassed for appearing in AIRPLANE!

NUMBER ONE ranks right up there with some of the most unwatchable dreck Golan and Globus have ever dumped on us. There are the same guys that have given us AMERICAN NINJA 2, AVENGING FORCE and UNDER COVER? I find this hard to believe. One star. It could have been one and a half if Bertinelli had gone nude, but it was negatory on the celebrity skin so points had to be deducted. – Dan Taylor

Post Mortem: The credits for NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET reveal some interesting names. The screenplay is credited to a number of scribes including Gail Morgan Hickman, who wrote the story for the mediocre Dirty Harry flick THE ENFORCER as well as the Bronson vehicles MURPHY'S LAW and DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN. Unfortunately, other screenplay credits go to SNL writer Rob Riley, Andrew Kurtzman (who also contributed to such delights as CAMP NOWHERE and DOWN PERISCOPE) and James "Don't Call Me Jim" Belushi. Given that pedigree it's a wonder veteran director Jack Smight (HARPER, NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY, AIRPORT 1975, MIDWAY, FAST BREAK and countless television shows) was able to make anything that resembled a coherent film. Future SIMPSONS composer Alf Clausen provides the music and in West Germany the flick was known by the more colorful title of DER BERSERKER, which sounds like an Olaf Ittenbach movie.

NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET is available from Amazon.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS (2014)

Before we turn the calendar to October and kick off the 2015 installment of 31 Days of Fright, I wanted to dash off some thoughts on Mark Hartley's latest doc, a look at the legendary Cannon Films that seems to have divided fans of the wildly hit or miss studio.

Few flicks have been as highly anticipated by yours truly as Mark Hartley's warts and all look at the wild world of Golan, Globus and Cannon films as told by the people who were there.

I was there, too, but as a passionate fan of the company who willingly plunked down cash I frequently didn't have an abundance of and time I probably could have been putting to better, more productive use. But none of that mattered when there were Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff, Jean Claude Van Damme and Charles Bronson movies to watch!

Notorious for their penny pinching and passionate hucksterism, movie-loving Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus didn't invent the exploitation film sales model but, for a brief time, they certainly appeared to have it perfected. Films with nary a word of script would be sold to territories around the world (usually based on a poster of one of their stars holding a machine gun or samurai sword it seems) in order to finance operations and productions.

Unfortunately, what began as a truly low budget, seat of your pants operation churning out content for the multiplexes and video stores of the 80s somehow lost its way. A company that once blanched at the thought of a $30 million budget became notorious for throwing money at everyone from Sylvester Stallone (OVER THE TOP, COBRA) and Christopher Reeve (SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE) to the Dereks (BOLERO) and director Tobe Hooper, whose trio of flawed but beloved flops – LIFEFORCE (1985), TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986) and INVADERS FROM MARS (1986) – helped set the company on the course to financial disaster.

The picture painted by Hartley's documentary is one of chaos, with the cousins making seat of their pants decisions, combining disparate concepts into head-scratching wholes, chowing down off of Styrofoam plates in their offices, confusing films and people yet never acknowledging their errors, and loving today what they hated yesterday. In other words, probably what was going on at a lot of low budget film companies struggling to stay relevant as the film world slowly changed during the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Filled with often hysterical, sometimes bitter anecdotes about the company and its leaders, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO is packed with appearances from those in front of and behind the cameras who produced some of the best – and admittedly worst – sinema of my youth, including the aforementioned Hooper, MGM CEO Frank Yablans (who clearly hated the "garbage" Cannon gave him to distribute), Dolph Lundgren, script reader David Del Valle, Michael Dudikoff, Lucinda Dickey, Franco Nero, Cassandra Peterson, Richard Chamberlin, Oliver Tobias and directors Sam Firstenberg, Albert Pyun and Boaz Davidson, just to name a few. Alas, Golan, Globus, Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and Sly Stallone are conspicuous by their absence. (The cousins, in true Golan-Globus fashion, produced a rival doc called THE GO-GO BOYS and completed it first, much like the battling break dancing flicks discussed in ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.)

I've read complaints that ELECTRIC BOOGALOO doesn't adequately celebrate what Golan and Globus accomplished, nor does it champion the love fans have for the likes of COBRA (1986) or Hooper's over-the-top horror efforts. But that's not what the picture is about and, quite frankly, it didn't bother me as it's not meant to be a love letter to the admittedly hit or miss studio.

I'm 100% comfortable in my appreciation of stuff like MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, the violently cartoonish DEATH WISH sequels and LIFEFORCE – my wife can attest that I blurted out "I LOVE that movie!" about 20 times during our screening – even in the face of those involved telling me what a flat out disaster the filmmaking process was. But that's okay, I love what I love and no amount of anyone telling me how bad it is or what a horrible experience it was will change my mind.

BOOGALOO marks the third major behind-the-scenes documentary from Hartley after the revelatory NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION! (2008) and 2010's MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! (which I found sorta "fun but meh"). Unfortunately, I don't see the uninitiated coming away from the flick with a laundry list of titles they want to track down a la NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD. In fact, seeing clips from Cannon flicks I'd never bothered to watch like SAHARA (an epically awful looking Brooke Shields vehicle), MATA HARI (with Sylvia Kristel and her boobs) or BOLERO (a then controversial skin flick from John and Bo Derek) did nothing to convince me I needed to watch them, though I did just drop $3 on a VHS of the insane looking GOING BANANAS starring Deep Roy in a role original pitched to Clyde the Orangutan from the Clint Eastwood flicks.

If I have any complaint about BOOGLOO it's that I would have liked to have heard more about Cannon productions that never happened – like SPIDER-MAN or GOLEM starring Charles Bronson – but that's a minor beef and maybe somebody out there is toiling away on a definitive oral history of such projects.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Bonus features on the disc – which I got dirt cheap from Amazon – include 25 minutes of deleted scenes (fingers crossed for more interviews with The Dude) and a half-hour of Cannon trailers. – Dan Taylor

Dan Taylor is the editor and publisher of Exploitation Retrospect and is currently working on what looks to be a massive new issue due out later this year. He loves LIFEFORCE, AVENGING FORCE and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE but hates, Hates, HATES Tobe Hooper's TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. Check out more reviews at the website and follow ER on Facebook and Twitter.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO is available as standalone disc or as part of a Cannon 10-Pack featuring such films as INVASION USA, COBRA, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and BLOODSPORT.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO Limited Screenings

In advance of its DVD and VOD release later this month, Warner Bros. is holding limited theatrical screenings of the much anticipated doc ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS from filmmaker Mark Hartley (MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD).

Check out the Warner Bros. site to see if your town is one of the lucky venues for what's sure to be a fun night of Cannon love.

If your town isn't included or – like me – you probably can't make a screening, the flick will drop of September 29th and will be available as a standalone disc or as a bonus disc in10 flick Cannon set being issued by Warner Bros.

Check out the trailer below...

Scream Factory to Go SCHIZOID in 2013!

If you haven't noticed, the folks at Scream Factory have been knocking it out of the park lately, thanks to releases like HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, the upcoming THEY LIVE Special Edition and recently announced titles like THE ISLAND, THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN and PHANTASM 2. 

And today comes the news that they'll be releasing three Cannon titles on DVD (possibly Blu-Ray depending upon the elements) next year, including 1980's SCHIZOID (aka MURDER BY MAIL) starring Klaus Kinski as a suave psychiatrist.

Here's the lowdown from their Facebook page...

** EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL "Halloween Weekend" ANNOUNCEMENT**  

Cannon films X-RAY (1981 - aka: HOSPITAL MASSACRE with Barbi Benton), SCHIZOID (1980 - starring Klaus Kinski) and THE GODSEND (1980 - starring Donald Pleasence's daughter, Angela) are on tap for a release late in 2013! All three have never been out on DVD before.  

As mentioned yesterday, these films will not show up on our schedule until later in 2013 so we cannot confirm they will be on Blu-ray as we have not seen the masters yet. We say this only to manage expectations. More details on these fun flicks will be presented next year.  

Have a great "Trick or Treat" filled weekend!

I haven't watched the flick in years so I'll be anxious to see how it fares. Here's my review of SCHIZOID from the special Kinski issue of ER.