We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
PROJECT SHADOWCHASER (1992) – hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on MonsterVision
TNT viewers who tuned in for the September 6, 1996 edition of the show MonsterVision were treated to the experience of watching drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs hosting exactly the sort of B-movie double feature I hope for when I turn to Joe Bob. Sure, it wasn’t horror perfection like the Night of the Living Dead remake and Motel Hell double feature he showed earlier in the year, but it was a damn good combo: the low budget Die Hard knock-off Project Shadowchaser, followed by the Charles Band production Zone Troopers.
But before he got down to the task of introducing Project Shadowchaser, Joe Bob had to get the episode started with one of his traditional rants, and this time the subjects was recently passed “no drinking on college campus” rules. As a member of the famous “Gang of 7” that drank 94 cases of Coors in 1 week without ever leaving the dorm room, Joe Bob strongly disagrees that college students shouldn’t be allowed to drink on their campus. As he says, “Give these people their liquor back! It’s their decision, not yours.”
Rant over, Joe Bob turned his attention to the movie, which he says is about a steroid monster android that takes over a hospital and kidnaps the President’s daughter just for the fun of it. Directed by John Eyres from a script by Stephen Lister, the movie does indeed star musclebound personal trainer Frank Zagarino as a billion dollar killing machine android called Romulus, who sports a hideous platinum buzzcut and, with a team of terrorists, raids a hospital because the President’s daughter, played by Meg Foster, is there, being treated for a case of food poisoning that she caught at the French embassy. Romulus has come to realize that money is freedom, and since he doesn’t want to be an expendable toy soldier, he’s holding the President’s daughter hostage for fifty million dollars.
Rather than fork over the cash, the FBI decides to send in a counter-terrorism team – and to get around inside the hospital, they’ll need information from the architect that designed the place. Inconveniently, that architect is currently serving time in a cryogenic prison, so they have to thaw him out so he can join the team that enters the building. It isn’t until he’s inside the building that the man they got out of the cryogenic prison, played by Martin Kove from the Karate Kid franchise, reveals that there was a mix-up and he’s not Dixon the architect, he’s a football played named Desilva, who was locked up two years earlier because he killed a redneck in a bar fight. Like Nicolas Cage in Con Air, he claimed self-defense, but the law didn’t buy it and he was put away. So not only does Project Shadowchaser lift ideas from Die Hard, but it also has ideas that would later be used in Con Air (with the hero who went to jail for killing a man in a bar fight) and the Sylvester Stallone / Wesley Snipes movie Demolition Man (with the cryogenic prison).
Desilva makes his way through the hospital, fighting terrorists and saving the President’s daughter, but the movie never manages to be very exciting or interesting. It’s fun and goofy at times, but it could have been a lot better than what it is. What’s shocking to me is the fact that it did well enough to launch a franchise, getting three sequels – all of which feature Frank Zagarino as an android. This movie did not leave me eager to see more Zagarino android action, but fans of direct-to-video action movies were apparently quite hungry for this back in the ‘90s.
During his hosting segments, Joe Bob describes Meg Foster as “yummy,” saying that when she looks at you with her unique eyes you’ll think, “This woman is going to make love to me or kill me,” and you wouldn’t care which one she does. He does feel that she was wrong for her role in this movie, which requires her to act like a spoiled daddy’s girl airhead football fan once she crosses paths with Desilva. Also wrong for their part is Martin Kove, who Joe Bob doesn’t feel has the heroic vibe of someone like Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood. Kove is best known for playing bad guys, and that’s where his strength is. He assumes that Romulus’s creator Kinderman (Joss Ackland) is meant to be a play on real-life diplomat Henry Kissinger, which would be odd for a futuristic movie released in 1992. He says the movie could have used better lighting, as it often looks dark and murky. He gets confused by the storytelling. He describes the movie as “Die Hard and Frankenstein mixed up together,” and also as “ Jason in a High-Rise.” He points out that Frank Zagarino had his own exercise video and wonders why anyone would want to look like him. He thinks it’s “kind of sucky” that the movie waits until late in the running time to explain how the unstoppable android can be killed, because movies like Night of the Living Dead and The Evil Dead let you know early on how the monsters can be killed. He also points out the best line: “There’s only one guy who thinks you’re worth 50 million bucks and he runs on batteries.”
He doesn’t mention the most interesting piece of trivia, which is that Project Shadowchaser was shot at Pinewood Studios and most of the sets were reused from the production of Alien 3.
Joe Bob gives Project Shadowchaser 2.5 stars out of a possible 4 stars, which is slightly more generous than I would be with it. Still, I love seeing Joe Bob host this sort of B-movie.
ZONE TROOPERS (1985) – hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on MonsterVision
The fun really kicks in with the second half of the double feature, the “aliens on the World War II battlefield” sci-fi action movie Zone Troopers. This is how I’m always saying Joe Bob’s double features should work: save the lighter, livelier movie for the second half of the show. As mentioned, this was a Charles Band production, and it also served as a reward for Trancers screenwriters Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo after that classic film’s positive reception. Now only were Bilson and De Meo given the chance to write Zone Troopers, but Bilson also got to direct the film, and they were given creative freedom with it. What they delivered is a highly entertaining, very comic book-y war movie.
Trancers stars Tim Thomerson, Art LaFleur, and Biff Manard are reunited here, with Thomerson and LaFleur playing U.S. soldiers Sergeant Patrick Stone, a.k.a. Iron Sarge, and George "Mittens" Minnensky, while Manard plays combat journalist Charlie Dolan. Timothy Van Patten is also along for the ride as the comic book-loving soldier Joey Verona. This quartet are making their way behind enemy lines in 1944 Italy when their radio goes on the fritz and their compasses start spinning wildly. After a battle with Nazi forces, they come across a crashed spaceship and its sole survivor, a freshly hatched alien that looks like a cross between a monkey and an insect.
The aliens have weaponry that help our heroes take on the Nazis in a major way – and the alien activity out in the Italian wilderness has caused such a commotion among the enemies forces, even Hitler himself shows up on the scene – just long enough to get punched in the face by a briefly-captured Mittens.
Zone Troopers is a whole lot of fun, and while Joe Bob is occasionally hesitant to fall under its spell, he comes to like it more and more as the movie goes on and gives it a well-deserved 3 stars.
Before the movie starts, Joe Bob takes a moment to complain that Project Shadowchaser doesn’t follow the rule that all movies of its type should follow: “When the monster is dead, the movie is over.” There’s too much going on between the moment when the android is defeated and when the end credits start to roll. Also before Zone Trooper begins, Honey the Mail Girl comes in to give Joe Bob a letter that was supposedly sent in by a fan on Death Row.
During his Zone Troopers hosting segments, Joe Bob describes the film as a satirical sci-fi war comedy with cheesy special effects and says it’s a one-of-a-kind story... and let’s hope it remains a one-of-a-kind story. He says you can tell it’s a Charles Band production because it has the goofy comic book feel all of his movies do and points out that Tim Thomerson must be Band’s favorite actor. That’s not a problem; Tim Thomerson should be on everyone’s list of favorite actors. He puts a lot of focus on the character played by Timothy Van Patten, who he calls the forgotten Van Patten. He really likes the Joey character, even though some moments, like Joey’s line that they should “Think like a Martian,” cause the movie to walk a fine line between being goofily charming and being stupid. He says that the Nazis in this sort of movie will never kill an important character until we’re nearing the end, and he really starts to like the movie when the bear-looking alien befriends the Americans... even though there’s so much going on around that time, he also gets a bit confused.
The combo of Zone Troopers and Joe Bob Briggs is a real joy, providing exactly the sort of pleasant vibe that I hope for when I watch these old MonsterVision episodes.
ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS (1967)
In 1956, producer/director Roger Corman brought the world the sci-fi horror film It Conquered the World, about a mutated vegetable alien from Venus coming down to small town America and kicking off a large scale invasion by sending out winged creatures that implant mind control devices into people through a bite, then drop dead. The following decade, self-proclaimed "schlockmeister" filmmaker Larry Buchanan got the opportunity to remake multiple American International Pictures releases as late-night TV movies – and one of the films on that list was It Conquered the World, which Buchanan remade as Zontar, the Thing from Venus.
With Hillman Taylor, Buchanan rewrote the original screenplay, but they didn’t make much in the way of changes. Zontar plays just like its predecessor, it just happens to be in color... and it looks a lot worse in color than the original looked in black and white.
Anthony Huston was given the task of following in the footsteps of Lee Van Cleef to play a scientist who tried his best to warn the U.S. government not to launch a satellite into orbit because alien lifeforms are watching our planet and don’t want humans to overstep their bounds. But, of course, the satellite was launched – so the guy (named Tom Anderson in the original and Keith Ritchie here) covers his own behind by getting in contact with a being from Venus who plans to carry out an invasion of Earth, making sure he’ll be spared.
Taking over the Peter Graves role as the friend and fellow scientist who realizes that people around his town are falling under the alien’s spell and decides to stand up against the alien invasion is John Agar, who’s well-remembered by horror fans for the string of B-movies he starred in, including Tarantula... and this turkey.
It Conquered the World was a fun, somewhat goofy movie that worked pretty well for the most part. Zontar, the Thing from Venus never works as well as its predecessor did, and most of the time just comes off as a less effective, less interesting, difficult to watch reshoot – and it makes you feel sorry for Anthony Huston, because he’s not Lee Van Cleef. The only standout reason to remake It Conquered the World would be to improve the special effects, as the alien in that movie looked ridiculous. The alien did get a complete redesign for Zontar... but it still looks horrible – and it’s actually even worse here, because the janky winged monster Buchanan brought to the screen doesn’t have the charm that original vegetable monster had.
Zontar, the Thing from Venus is an interesting curiosity to check out after you've seen It Conquered the World - but if you're only going to watch one version of this story, It Conquered the World is the one to go with.
PLAY DIRTY (2025)
Author Donald E. Westlake, working under the pen name Richard Stark, wrote twenty-four novels about a career criminal named Parker, and several movies have been based on the Parker novels – you just might not have noticed because Westlake refused to let filmmakers use the name Parker in their adaptations unless a whole series of films were planned... and it almost never was. That’s why Lee Marvin played Walker in the 1967 film Point Blank, Jim Brown played McClain in the 1968 film The Split, Robert Duvall played Macklin in the 1974 film The Outfit, Mel Gibson played Porter in the 1999 film Payback, etc. They were all renamed versions of Parker. The first actor who actually got to play Parker with his proper name was Jason Statham in the 2013 movie Parker, where the filmmakers were open to the idea of launching a franchise. The franchise just didn’t happen.
Now, the rights to the Parker character have landed in the hands of Amazon MGM Studios and filmmaker Shane Black, who has give us some crime classics as Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Nice Guys. It would seem that Parker and Black would be the perfect match... but I have to admit, I found Black’s Parker movie Play Dirty (which lifted its title from Black’s early draft of the Lethal Weapon 2 script) to be surprisingly underwhelming.
Black directed the film (which, like most of his work, is set around Christmas) from a screenplay he wrote with Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi – and even though they had the rights to adapt any Parker novel they wanted to, they chose to write their own original story that just happens to feature the Parker character and another Westlake/Stark character, Grofield.
Parker was always getting double-crossed in the books and the same happens at the start of the movie, when he and some associates pull off a racetrack robbery, then one of the thieves, Rosa Salazar as Zen, opens fire on everyone else, killing all of the thieves except for Parker, who gets away wounded. Zen gets away with their $400,000 score and uses it to fund a bigger caper: she’s going to steal a treasure worth $1 billion from the corrupt president of her home country and use it to help her people. To pull this off, Zen is working with a criminal organization called The Outfit, which Parker has a troubled history with.
Although he wants to avenge a friend that was killed by Zen, Parker partners with her to pull off the treasure heist and brings another friend, LaKeith Stanfield as Grofield, in on the action. A lot of shootouts with mercenaries and Outfit henchmen ensue, along with some large-scale chase and smash-up sequences that feature some really off-putting CGI. Things get convoluted and the movie feels like it goes on for too long, even though it’s only 128 minutes.
The writing doesn’t feel as sharp as you would expect from a Shane Black movie, given that there was a time when he was one of the best (and highest paid) screenwriters around – but he is coming off the disappointing Predator sequel The Predator, so maybe he has lost a step in recent years. There are hints of the old Black brilliance here and there, and some of the supporting cast handles his brand of humor well, but one of the downfalls of the movie for me was the casting of the lead actor: Mark Wahlberg, who stepped in when Robert Downey Jr. couldn’t fit the project into his schedule. For me, Wahlberg is not the sort of actor who can really handle the Black vibe and dialogue.
I found Play Dirty to be mildly amusing and fun from time to time. Toward the end, it was testing my patience – and from start to finish, it fell short of my hopes and expectations. It’s okay, but it’s a step down from classic Black. If he continues the Parker series, I hope it will get better from here.
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