The Quest (1996)

Well hot damn, Enemaniacs! It’s the Fourth of July weekend! Here in the United States, we tend to use this weekend, and the next several weeks afterward (much to the dismay of dogs everywhere), to blow up whole ass chunks of our country with fireworks that are supposedly illegal but everyone can get their hands on them by way of going to a makeshift fireworks store, but I digress…

What was I talking about?

Eh, never mind. Anyway, It’s July and I decided to do something kind of clever for this month’s slate of reviews. I did a little housekeeping by looking at all the movies I covered over the past 435 reviews and came to a realization. I’ve covered a movie starting with 25 of 26 letters in the English alphabet. The only letter I haven’t touched yet? Q. Yeah, I had never covered a movie with a Q title. I mean, for shit’s sake, I have covered THREE movies beginning with X with a fourth planned for later this year!

So with that said, welcome to QULY! All four reviews this month will be a movie starting with the letter Q. To get things started, on this most sacred of sacred weekends in the US, let’s talk about a movie starring a Belgian martial artist in a movie that takes place in Tibet, and then premiered a week early in Turkey… The Quest!

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American Rickshaw (1989)

Welcome to B-Movie Enema!

This week, we’ve got a sort of strange one. American Rickshaw, also known as American Tiger, was released in 1989 as an Italian/American co-production filmed in Miami. The film was directed and co-written by Sergio Martino. Martino was a major figure in Italian giallo films of the 70s. His films All the Colors of the Dark and Torso are A+ stuff in the genre. While he continued to make gialli and other styles of horror films throughout his career, he also dabbled quite a bit in comedies and crime thrillers, known as poliziottesco films.

Despite his mastery on display in All the Colors of the Dark and Torso, Martino faded somewhat quickly. He still had a few 80s films that I’ve heard of. Most notably, he directed 1982’s The Scorpion with Two Tails, 1983’s 2019: After the Fall of New York, and 1986’s Hands of Steel. But each of the latter two films really come off as fairly cheap dystopian/post-apocalyptic types of movies. By the end of the decade, when American Rickshaw was released, Martino seemed to be making mostly cheap content for home video rentals.

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Rolling Vengeance (1987)

Welcome to B-Movie Enema. I’m Geoff Arbuckle and this is the blog you come to when you’re taking a shit, or looking for a website run by a guy you’re pretty sure you are far more cultured and smarter than, or, I dunno… you have nothing better to do on a weekend night with nowhere to go. Hmmm… Maybe I’m not doing a good job at promoting my site. Let’s see if I can do better.

The 80s! That’s the decade of Ronald Reagan, cocaine-fueled American exceptionalism running rampant, and bitchin’ music. But you know what else the 80s had? Fuckin’ monster trucks! Monster trucks rolled out of the late 70s trend of modified pickup trucks in various specialized motorsport competitions. By the end of the 70s, one truck in particular, named Bigfoot, was so modified from its original 1974 Ford F-250 that it became known as the world’s first monster truck. Following that, other popular monster trucks were USA-1, Bear Foot, and King Kong. These trucks became the star of various events like Monster Jam where they’d do high-flyin’ jumps and crushing beat-up cars under their giant wheels. If you were a little boy at the time Monster Jam started up, and word on the street is I was, or if you are a grown man, and people tell me that’s what I am, you LOVED the mayhem, the majesty, and the machinery of giant trucks smashing beaters under their tires.

Apparently, Canada was into it too because, in 1987, Steven Hilliard Stern made this week’s movie – Rolling Vengeance.

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Stunt Rock (1978)

This week, B-Movie Enema goes down under for another Australian treat.

This week’s movie comes from Brian Trenchard-Smith. He’s someone we’ve seen around these parts a few times. The first movie of his I ever looked at was one he was only a co-producer on, 1982’s Blood Tide. However, I later took a look at two other films of his that are way better. The first was also from 1982, the dystopian, Most Dangerous Game-inspired Turkey Shoot. Then, I looked at the first of two sequels to one of my all-time favorite Halloween movies to watch, Night of the Demons 2.

I pretty much knew that Trenchard-Smith was someone I could cover a large portion of his filmography in a few different ways. Hell, 1983’s BMX Bandits features a teenaged Nicole Kidman in the early stages of her career. There was a trio of movies of his that we’ve looked at over at Film SeizureLeprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space, and Dead End Drive-In. Those two Leprechaun movies could very easily appear here on this blog. But I decided to go a little more interesting for this week when it comes to Trenchard-Smith’s filmography. This week, I’m going to look at the mockumentary/action/musical Stunt Rock from 1978.

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