heygirliegame

[videoreligion]

Mayhem (1986)

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Rage (Merhi, 1995)

Not gonna lie, I was a bit underwhelmed by this. The action, which includes highlights like an especially destructive truck chase and a scene where the hero leaps from the side of a building onto a helicopter, is certainly more extravagant than I expected from a DTV movie. But I found with the framing of shots a little too close and the cutting a little too tight, a lot of the impact seemed to have been sapped from the end result. And unlike the last Joseph Merhi movie I watched, Last Man Standing, this one doesn’t have a juicy enough visual style otherwise to compensate.

That other movie also felt a lot sturdier on a narrative level, with its police corruption plot that actually seemed followed through on and supported by enough of a human element. This one has some cloning conspiracy plot, but we only glimpse the cloning stuff at the beginning and the rest of the movie becomes a loosely related series of action scenes, leaving a weird disconnect with the wackiness of the premise and the more straightforward tone of most of the proceedings. And while Gary Daniels is perfectly fine in this, I missed the relationship in the earlier movie given to the hero. There is some fun stuff here between a reporter and camera operator played by Kenneth Tigar and Jillian McWhirter respectively (one pretty funny moment is McWhirter is chatting up a hunky cop only to get cockblocked by Tigar), and I guess I liked seeing Peter Jason and Mark Metcalf pop up for a few minutes. And there is one goofy scene where Daniels fights a dominatrix and her sub. But otherwise I found this slipping away in my memory as I watched it.

[soupy-sez]

FINAL IMPACT (1992) dir. Joseph Merhi, Stephen Smoke

[videomessiah]

[vhs-ninja]

Deadly Breed (1989) by Merhi & Pepin.

‘The second civil war has begun’

[trashvideofinland]

Tapa presidentti / Executive Target (1997) Nordisk Film / Nordisk Film Home Entertainment https://www.videospace.fi/release/tapa_presidentti_vhs_nordisk_film_nordisk_film_home_entertainment_finland

[cultfaction]

Rage (1995)

Directed by Joseph Merhi, Rage stars Gary Daniels as Alex Gainer, a husband, a father and second grade teacher. He is such a nice dad he sings ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ to his daughter while driving his daughter to her friends’ place for a sleep over. Suddenly a man on the run from the law dives into Alex’s car and forces his to speed away at gunpoint. With the Police chasing Alex has no choice and…

[moviesandmania]

Epitaph - USA, 1987

Epitaph – USA, 1987

‘Yes Mother… I’ve done my homework, cleaned my room, and buried Dad!’

Epitaph – aka Mommy’s Epitaph – is a 1987 American horror feature film written, co-produced and directed by Syrian-born Joseph Merhi (producer of Death by Dialogue; director of The Newlydeads; Fresh Kill). The movie stars Natasha Pavlovich, Delores Nascar, Jimmy Williams and Flint Keller.

A family has to keep moving from town…

[davealmost]

The Glass Jungle

[astralbondpro]

The Sweeper (1996) // Dir. by: Joseph Merhi

[videoreligion]

Mayhem (1986)

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Last Man Standing (Merhi, 1995)

After the initial bank robbery, as the robbers sit down and split up their share, one of them gets offended that he’s only being given thirty thousand dollars, which by his count makes up only five percent of the money. He angrily demands what his share normally would be, as he’s used to fifty percent. I’m sure what he meant to convey was that he wanted the rest of his share, but the way he articulates this makes it sound like he can’t do basic math. Listen, buddy, to go from five percent to fifty percent, all you gotta do is put another zero at the end. What that would be, I dunno, get a calculator.

Anyway, this rocks. The plot is pretty standard stuff about bank robbers and crooked cops, but it never lets up for a second, going from one great action scene to another every few minutes, the best being a wildly destructive car chase that takes a bit from Terminator 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Given the times the hero steals somebody’s motorcycle or car so he can pursue the bad guys, this plays a bit like the movie equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto game, treating L.A. like a playground for shootouts, chases and ‘splosions, although this time the protagonist is on the right side of the law. There’s even bit with a radio host insisting that movie violence does NOT cause real life violence, so you don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying all this shootin’ and ‘splodin’.

This is the second movie I’ve seen from PM Entertainment. I’m assuming the budget wasn’t astronomical, but it feels anything but cheap, with no shortage of car stunts and ‘splosions, plus a high energy visual style to match (crazy swerving camerawork during the chases, steely blue lighting during darker scenes). This is also a lot better dramatically than the last one I saw, Deadly Bet. There’s some nice supporting work from Jonathan Banks as the hero’s partner, Robert LaSardo as a tattooed scumbag like he often plays, and Jonathan Fuller as the craziest and most memorably coiffed of the robbers. And I liked Jeff Wincott a lot better in this, as honest cop seems to play better to his stoicism than gambling addict, and thought he had pretty good chemistry with Jillian McWhirter as his wife, who pulls out a few surprises during all the shootin’ and ‘splodin’. And for a different kind of shootin’ and splodin’, they even have a sex scene, which means you gotta sign in if you’re gonna watch this on the YouTubes.

[theactioneer]

Final Impact (Joseph Merhi & Stephen Smoke, 1992)

[soupy-sez]

FINAL IMPACT (1992) dir. Joseph Merhi, Stephen Smoke

[supercultshow]

Hello Supercult West! This is Supercult South Bad Movie Professor Cameron Coker (BS in “Secret Societies” with a minor in “Flimsy Gas Tanks”) and I’m reaching out to you from across the country to help hype tonight’s screening of The Sweeper!

Look at that…

It’s so full and lush…

Look at that amazing goatee…

It steals every scene it’s in!

Get those guns out of the way and show us the goods!

OH MY GOD! I can’t handle it!

Oh, yeah, I guess there’s some action and explosions and stuff too.

Pshh…whatever.

When a young boy is traumatized by narrowly surviving a run in with criminals that leaves his entire family including his policeman father murdered, he does the unthinkable: He grows a goatee. Later on in the movie he joins a secret society of super-violent badasses who have dedicated their lives to killing people who need killing. There’s some explosions, some car chases, some foot chases…a lot of people get shot. I think there’s a couple dozen counts of vehicular manslaughter. People fall off of stuff a lot too, like buildings and biplanes. This movie is like, packed to the brim with ridiculous action that I honestly couldn’t care less about right now.

But let’s get back to the real story. This kid’s family is murdered right before his eyes and 15 years later he grows up to be a renegade cop with a dirty renegade goatee. It’s, like, thick and bushy too. This ain’t no 5 o’ clock shadow male model for Fruit of the Loom Goatee. This is a “My name is Brad Pitt and I’m a producer now” goatee. It’s a scruffy, pitch-black, “I have to trim this thing every day to keep from looking like a cocaine dealer” goatee. It’s marvelous. It sits right on the border between horrifying and laughable, and it works for this gritty anti-hero narrative despite the fact that C. Thomas Howell is the one wearing it.

I guess this movie is notable for being one of the many MANY low-budget Supercult worthy films that were produced by PM Entertainment. PM Entertainment has blessed us with such classics as Shotgun starring Stuart Chapin, and Skyscraper starring Anna Nicole Smith, and now we finally pay homage to The Sweeper, starring mediocre actor C. Thomas Howell’s bad ass goatee.

Supercult West is proud to present, The Sweeper!

The Sweeper Hello Supercult West! This is Supercult South Bad Movie Professor Cameron Coker (BS in “Secret Societies” with a minor in “Flimsy Gas Tanks”) and I’m reaching out to you from across the country to help hype tonight’s screening of The Sweeper!

[vhs-ninja]

Blood Money (1991) by Joseph Merhi.