Author: Geoff Arbuckle

I write and talk about movies. Find me over at Film Seizure where I talk about nostalgic movies on a weekly podcast as well as have a weekly show about monster movies. I also write about B-Movies at my site B-Movie Enema!

Contract to Kill (2016)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to B-Movie Enema and the continuation of Steven Seagal Month!

And, oh boy… We’ve dodged a couple bullets already. Attack Force was a movie that was originally supposed to be about space vampires and was rearranged, reshot, and turned into a movie about a designer drug that gave people crazy superpowers that made them want to murder. Urban Justice was… actually entertaining. I enjoyed watching that one. There was a fairly straightforward plot and there were some moments I honestly had a good chuckle about.

But Steven Seagal Month moves into some pretty dicey waters with the 2010s. This week, we’re going to look at Contract to Kill from 2016. We’ve not only visited Seagal in his 2010s films before, but we’ve seen another of his films from the same year – Sniper: Special Ops. That movie was awful. In fact, I’d call it embarrassing. Seagal looked like he didn’t give two fucks. He was hardly in the movie that his name appeared above the title on the DVD box. He spent a lot of time sitting down with a high-powered sniper rifle on his lap while another person in his battalion was dying. It was bad. Like, bad bad.

Contract to Kill will likely be no better… or possibly worse.

Continue reading “Contract to Kill (2016)” →

Urban Justice (2007)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Welcome to week #2 of B-Movie Enema’s Steven Seagal Month!

This week, our large mound of pounding fudge rounds is doling out some Urban Justice. This comes to us from director Don E. FauntLeRoy. FauntLeRoy previously directed Seagal in Today You Die and Mercenary for Justimce. This would be his third and final collaboration with the actor. Aside from the trio of mid-00s Seagal action flicks, he also workj ed on the Anaconda series directing the thiyrd andm my z,a fourth films. He worked with Jason Connery, Sean’s son, on a superhero movie called Lightspeed which featured a character created bl Stan Lee.

Those directing credits aren’t too impressive, but he still has some impressive films on his resume. You see… FauntLeRoy’s real trade was as a cameraman. He worked behind the lens as an assistant early on in the 70s and 80s. He cut his teeth on TV before getting to be either an assistant cameraman or second unit cameramk,qan on films like Raging Bull, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and The Goonies. Perhaps his biggest film on the list of films he worked on as a camera guy was in 1991 when e worked on Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

When he graduated to become the Cinematographer on films, he worked on cheap-o movies like Munchie, The Skateboard Kid, and Munchie Strikes Back. However, he did work on three episodes of Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero and eventually hooking up with Victor Salva on the first two Jeepers Creepers films. Maybe the less said about Salva the better, but the point still remains, it’s not like FauntLeRoy hasn’t done some notable stuff. It maybe bodes well that this movie might look decent at the very least.

Continue reading “Urban Justice (2007)” →

Attack Force (2006)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle4 Comments

Welcome to my public suicide note!

That’s right, Enemaniacs. This month of B-Movie Enema reviews might just end me. I hope not. I have lots of movies planned and I think 2024 is going to be a good one for the blog. There’s a new season of B-Movie Enema: The Series coming soon. Despite what some people might believe when talking to me, I have no intention of throwing my life away recklessly on foolish pursuits. But… Did I bite off more than I can chew with this opening theme month?

I guess we’ll find out in four weeks’ time. Welcome to Steven Seagal Month at B-Movie Enema. I know, I know… It sure did seem as though I would never again touch a Seagal flick after the torture that was Sniper: Special Ops, but I guess I’m just a glutton for cinematic diarrhea. It’s only four weeks. That can’t lead to that much pain and suffering, right? Right?

Anyway, I start the month off with this 2006 action flick Attack Force.

Continue reading “Attack Force (2006)” →

Solarbabies (1986)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to the final B-Movie Enema review for 2023!

In 1986, the same year his production company, Brooksfilm, made the fantastic remake of The Fly, Mel Brooks executive produced this week’s movie that is getting the review treatment – Solarbabies. Talk about the ups and downs within a single year. The movie didn’t just have Brooks producing and backing the movie the whole way through, it also had a score from three-time Oscar-winning composer, Maurice Jarre. In front of the camera, you see young stars like Jami Gertz, Jason Patric, Adrian Pasdar, James LeGros, and Lukas Haas. There were also more seasoned actors like Charles Durning and Sara Douglas. The movie had a fairly decent $25 million budget, but it all fell flat. It only grossed $1.6 million at the box office. It got horrific reviews.

So how did this all go wrong?

Continue reading “Solarbabies (1986)” →

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

He was 98 lbs. of solid nerd until he became… THE TOXIC AVENGER!

Welcome to a brand-spankin’ new B-Movie Enema. As it were, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, my Enemaniacs! To celebrate, let’s visit Tromaville, New Jersey, the home of everyone’s B-movie uncle, Lloyd Kaufman. Kaufman and his producing partner Michael Herz co-directed this breakout film for Troma Entertainment.

Now, I’ve covered several movies released by Troma from within the distribution arm of Kaufman and Herz’s entertainment company. I’ve even covered a few other movies that featured Kaufman as an actor. Only once, though, did I ever cover a film actually funded, made, and released by the Troma team. I’ve not brought this one up for quite some time. It used to be one that I would reference often, and definitely compare to when I’d see a movie of a particular level of quality. Do you guys remember which one that was?

That one is the cinematic diarrhea disaster that was Pot Zombies.

Continue reading “The Toxic Avenger (1984)” →

The Harder They Come (1972)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to a new B-Movie Enema review. This week, we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to look at a movie that is an outright classic. This week, I’m going to look at 1972’s The Harder They Come by Perry Henzell starring reggae star Jimmy Cliff.

The Harder They Come is widely considered one of the most important films to ever come out of the Caribbean and very likely the most influential Jamaican film ever made. It was a massive hit in Jamaica. Henzell believed the success was mostly due to the naturalistic portrayal of black Jamaicans in recognizable locations and the local people portrayed in a way that allowed the black folks on the island to see themselves on the screen for the very first time. On top of that, when it was exported around the world in late 1972 and early 1973, the film is largely credited for bringing reggae to the world, especially the United States where it became a sensation. In the U.S., the film was distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures where it eventually became a midnight movie hit.

The only issue is that the Creole dialect spoken by locals, known as Jamaican Patois, was so thick, that it struggled to be the same sensation outside Jamaica. It became the first English language movie that required subtitles in the United States. Still, the reviews were mostly good. It would go on to become a cult classic over the decades.

Continue reading “The Harder They Come (1972)” →

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to yet another B-Movie Enema, my dear Enemaniacs! This week, we’ve got ourselves a real adventure. In fact, the title says it begins here. What it doesn’t say is that it also ended here. That’s right, I’m going to be writing many, many words about 1985’s Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins!

Where to start? Well, let’s start with our titular hero. Remo Williams is the lead character in a series of pulp adventure novels that go back to 1971’s Created, The Destroyer. He was created by authors Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Sapir wrote a handful of other books, but none were as popular as his Remo Williams co-creation. Murphy, on the other hand, is a little more interesting.

Murphy wrote the screenplay for 1975’s The Eiger Sanction starring Clint Eastwood. In 1989, he worked on the story for Lethal Weapon 2 with Shane Black. The TV Series Murphy’s Law was also based on the Trace series of books that he also wrote. Most interestingly, Murphy would be married to Nancy Cartwright from 1988 to 2002, the pair having two children. Who is Nancy Cartwright, and why does that name sound so familiar?

Continue reading “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)” →

Dr. Caligari (1989)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

It’s December here at B-Movie Enema Industries, and that means things are getting a little cold. But I’ve got something to warm the bones. By that, I mean something really weird. This week, I’m looking at the avant-garde 1989 Dr. Caligari.

I don’t want to say this is a remake of the German expressionism classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but let’s try to sort all this out. That original version I just mentioned was released in 1920. This was during a time of massive film experimentation in post-World War I Germany. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the most influential early films in history. While 1922’s Nosferatu is a more influential monster film, Caligari twisted the way a story could be told. That wasn’t just a clever way of using the word twisted to describe the look of the film. There are multiple reads about how the narrative plays out.

Dr. Caligari, in the original that is, was a man who went from town to town and did sideshow-like performances with his somnambulist, Cesare, who is forced to obey his every command. Cesare is Caligari’s instrument of revenge against those who wronged him. It turns out that the character who is telling this story is actually a patient in an asylum. Caligari is actually the head doctor there. The other main characters, Cesare, and the girl whom Cesare falls in love with, Jane, are also inmates. It’s an early example of a twist ending and an unreliable narrator in a film.

Continue reading “Dr. Caligari (1989)” →