The Lost Idol (1988)

IMDB claims The Lost Idol is from 1990, but according to one of the actors it’s made earlier – so that’s why I choose something that differs from what the mighty database says. But anyway, The Lost Idol is a quite well-budgeted Thai action-adventure movie with a fun cast consisting of Erik Estrada, Sorapong Chatree, Krung Srivilai and German big guy Christoph Klüppel. Estrada was forced to take this job when he needed money, and found out he could go around the Screen Actors Guild with taking a job in Thailand. He’s not in top-form here, but still manages to be a capable hero.

The year is 1975, Erik Estrada leads a stranded group of US soldiers to safety in Thailand. On the way they take shelter in an old temple and find a golden statue. They bring it with them, but hide it in a cave to go back later to get it. But one of them, a greedy Lieutenant (James Phillips) kills them all, but Estrada gets away. Estrada finds his way to Thailand, hooks up with a female farmer and falls in love. Many years later Phillips is back in Thailand to try to get back into Cambodia to get his golden statue. He gathers a group of mercenaries, forces Estrada to join them, and goes back into the war zone…

The Lost Idol is an ambitious action movie with, it seem, a bigger budget than usual. The attractive cast of both Thai superstars and good westerners adds to the international feeling. But in the end it’s a typical jungle-action movie with a lot of explosions and a high body count. Philip Chalong tries to make it as a big and Hollywood as possible, with large scenes of carnage, beautiful jungle scenery and even some shots I think is in Bangkok. I also appreciated the use of minatures (and in both those scenes they fall apart in a nice spectacular way). The stunts are wild and as usual they save the best for last, when Sorapong and his Cambodian rebels attack the Cambodian military camp. It’s a scene which goes on forever, and I’m grateful for that.

It’s not without plasma either, with the camera-lens getting stained by blood several times during the action scenes. I also love how they include a nice, old-fashioned, fist-fight aboard a helicopter in the end. Feels like one of those old spy movies from the sixties!

Erik Estrada, a guy I like a lot, is not always with us here. In some scenes he’s visibly not that interested and just don’t give it all. It borders to just amateur action, but here and there he shines – especially in the action scenes. Sorapong is good as usual, but Krung Srivilai is a bit wasted in his part as one of the mercenaries. But at least he shoots down a helicopter before he dies. This was also Christoph Klüppel’s first movie. Later he did more or less the same thing in Mission Hunter 1 and 2, but in a bigger part. More about him later here on Ninja Dixon.

The Lost Idol is not a serious movie, it even has some comedy (in one scenes they shoot a hole in a door, in the shape of a man), but its worth seeking up for all of you that appreciates Asian jungle-action and lots of exploding guard towers!

La noche de la bestia (1988)

Some days you hit gold, some days you hit shit. Today I took a big scoop of the latter and ate it all too willingly. The reason for this shit-eating is Hugo Stiglitz, a man I’ve been almost sickly obsessed with since I first saw Nightmare City many years ago. The man can be a bit stiff, but he’s still Hugo – the no. 1 sex symbol of Mexico! This time we meet him in this late cheesy entry of eighties horror/sci-fi La Noche de la Bestia!

It’s the for the annual hunting weekend and the boys, including Hugo, is preparing with bringing a lot of beer, fishing equipment, weapons and a jolly good spirit! After at least thirty minutes of chatting, drinking, shooting rabbits and posing in way to small swimming trunks, a woman comes running and after her a truck of gun-crazy wackos in yellow hazmats and impressive mullets. She’s a scientist on the run, escaping from the result of last nights nuclear explosion (yes, believe it or not) nearby. The boys kills her pursuers and gives her shelter in their cabin. But they don’t know that she has a bloodthirsty parasite in her that want to switch body… and not only that, outside a big monster is lurking, hungry for human flesh!

Well, this sounds like fun, yeah? I would say five minutes of this 73 minute long is worth watching, and these five minutes is represented by these screenshots:






That is probably the WORST VISUAL EFFECT I’ve ever seen in a movie, and if you think it looks “ok” here, just watch the movie and see it in movement. If I understand the Spanish correctly they, after watching the huge nuclear explosions, just decide to go to bed and “let the police handle it”. When the parasite takes over Hugo Stiglitz and makes him go rampage for a minute or two is fun and quite bloody, and the monster itself – which looks silly as hell, but quite original – crashes thru the floor and tries to kill our surviving heroes it’s also fun. Ok, the flashback when the scientist’s finds the meteorite is good too and the scene where a guy get his foot ripped off is entertaining too, but that’s about it.

The rest is Hugo and his gang of Mexican macho men talking, drinking, swimming, burping and joking (I think, but they laugh sometime and the story also include an exploding blow-up doll gag). It’s a pity because they have a cabin by the lake, a crazy monster and primitive gore – so why don’t the use it more, dammit?! If I made this movie it would be five minutes talking and the rest just pure monster mayhem! The ending is “meh” by the way, and seem to be a bit sentimental and serious, which is hard to take serious because we just saw a big papier maché monster trying to whip our heroes to death with its tongue!

But I own this on original DVD, which still makes me cooler than all of you. Ha!

Ninja Terminator (1985)

How do you review a movie like Ninja Terminator? The answer is not at all. Instead I'll give you these three screenshots which says it all. Brilliance, nothing less than brilliance.




But I have to ad that it's extremely entertaining, even more than you ever could the imagine. The fights are fun and with a lot of acrobatics, and the South Korean/Hong Kong co-production they used for the other half of the movie as some great fighting and seem like a good little martial arts movie in it's own right. But of course, what would Ninja Terminator be without Richard Harrison walking around aimlessly in a colorless apartment just waiting for his stand-in to show up, run out to the nearest park and do some smokin' Ninja-fighting?

She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)

I’m the first to confess that She Killed in Ecstasy was a slight disappointment when I first saw it. But I can explain: I’ve just seen a lot of über-gory, fantastic eurocult classics like Zombie Flesh Eaters, Deep Red…yeah, all the classics and suddenly this slow, atmospheric revenge-drama took over my TV and almost bored me to death. But like all of us, you’ll get older and sooner or later you don’t crave the latest gore flicks – you want something else. That’s where Jess Franco shows up and brings his special kind of sleazy poetry to the world.

She Killed in Ecstasy is a strange, poetic revenge-story, very odd and very slow. But every frame is filled with tension and the marvelous cast, from Soledad Miranda in the lead to the victims: Paul Müller, Howard Vernon, Ewa Strömberg and finally Jess Franco himself is one of the most solid casts he’s ever had in a movie. Franco keeps the story simple, without any long and boring explanations. After Dr Johnson (Fred Williams) kills himself after being almost bullied out from scientific group, maybe of jealousy, his wife decide to take revenge on his death lures the doctors into a sex-trap which ends with her cutting or suffocating them to death!

This is so far from the typical revenge movie, it never becomes sleazy, even if it has a lot of nudity and some violence, but stays more on the arthouse-side than the exploitation side. The subtle acting from everyone involved, except maybe the great Howard Vernon who almost makes a Hitler-like performance when he stands on a stage condemning Dr Johnson, is powerful and has an aura of realism and depth. The victims, how selfish they might be, still feels human after all and never becomes stereotypical baddies. Jess Franco, a man I think is quite a decent actor, makes one of this best jobs here and it’s very obvious, whatever he said himself about this movie, that both the character and story is something he cared for very much.

Low on zooms, Franco uses stylish and simple angles with really showcases the fantastic sets. Maybe not the normal hotel rooms (Franco must be the master of portraying hotel rooms by the way, a Franco-movie with out that kinda room always seem to miss something), but the wonderful exterior locations and the fantastic surrealistic house on the island. The light is most of the time almost naturalistic, but never turns ugly or pornographic.

She Killed in Ecstasy might lack that kitchy madness that so many people love, but it has poetic revenge, a great cast and a visual style that still is one of the most unique and atmospheric I’ve seen. It’s a movie that takes it’s time and you might not like it the first time, but sooner or later it will starts to bug you (like a lot of Franco’s productions) and soon you will sit there again, inhaling the power of Franco at his best.

Soo Lui Laek (1989)

I’ve picked one movie from my VCD-collection, something according to ethaicd is titled Soo Lui Laek. If this is correct, or even the year, I have no idea. But it’s another of Panna Rittikrai’s early movies, produces in the backwaters of Thailand with a cast of his typical stuntmen and some other guys I haven’t seen before.

For once the story was extra hard to understand, but I what I could understand it’s a about a failed robbery where Panna Rittikrai, maybe, gets his hand – without knowing it – on the jewellery and then at least two gangs of criminals tries to find out what happen. But really, I have no idea. That just what it seems to me when watching the film.

These movies can be a bit of a Russian roulette when it comes to entertainment. This falls perfectly in-between being just boring and having some decent action. There’s a lot of fights and most of them is pretty good, but lacks the imagination of some of other movies also starring Rittikrai. People fly thru the air, lots of direct contact, but never becomes special enough to remember. The body count is high after all, but that’s about it.

If you want to see a pedestrian story with average fights, see this one. Just don’t except a new Gerd Ma Lui or 2 Nuk Soo Poo Ying Yai (aka Thai Police Story), or even an explosive action-fest like Mission Hunter 1 and 2.

Flood (1976)

The beauty with Irwin Allen is how he cast his productions, always very competent character actors – even in the main roles, and always some old movie star. It’s the last thing I appreciate extra much. It’s similar to how Swedish director Arne Mattsson worked, always gave the old-timers something to do, let them be a star in something bigger. In Flood Richard Basehart and Gloria Stuart represents the classic generation of actors, and of course both of them is excellent. But Flood is mainly a man’s movie, a manly man’s movie. Robert Culp, Martin Milner and Cameron Mitchell, all three middle aged men with young hot girlfriends!

Story? Yes, it’s the same as always. A coming disaster in form of a poorly constructed dam, a small town with a mayor that refuses to believe in that something so absurd as a dam-disaster can happen and the man of warning himself, the all American hero (with his buddy, the tough helicopter pilot). And then the dam bursts and…yeah, you all know it by now!

Nothing bad with clichés, I love them, and Flood indeed delivers some of the most juicy clichés since Earthquake! Everything from the boy-in-peril to pregnant-woman-in-peril to the meeting with the officials that ends with them not believe in our hero – and everything in-between! The budget is slightly higher than Cave In and here there are actually extras, and bigger sets… and a miniature of the dam! And visual effects! And even a stunt or two! Not much of course, because the main effect scene is when the dam bursts and then we’re treated to some stock footage, a couple of scenes where water is flooding into houses and over streets. Not much visible casualties as usual in Allen’s TV-productions.

But Flood is something for us that loves and appreciate TV-movies. It’s often effectively told with out to much unnecessary scenes, and it’s always guaranteed political correct – in that special seventies way we all like. It’s a movie made by pros, and I can’t complain about anything special, except maybe that it – as always – needs more disasters to feel really spectacular! Robert Culp and Cameron Mitchell is favourites of mine, especially Mitchell who was one of the most underrated actors of his generation. Here’s a weird thing, Roddy McDowall, another fantastic man and actor, shows up in the beginning – but then he kinda disappears! Maybe I looked away the moment he died or departed from the story in some other way. Weird!

Flood is out from Warner Archive in a great-looking release, and like the other in their Irwin Allen-collection, this is a must for the serious disaster- and TV-movie fanatic.

Interview with Blackie Dammett from 9 Deaths of the Ninja!

(another interview I did many years ago, this time with actor Blackie Dammett, who also is the father of Red Hot Chili Pepper's lead singer Anthony Kiedis)

Fred Anderson: How did you first became interested in acting?

Blackie Dammett: As a kid in Grand Rapids Michigan (like almost everybody else everywhere) I dreamed of Hollywood and the movies. I watched them in darkened theaters and read about them in magazines. Our family often took vacations to California and Los Angeles in particular. As a teenager I ran away from home several times--hitchhiking and even hopping freight trains to LA?2500 miles from my home.

As a young man in college my good grades earned me a scholarship to UCLA (university of Californian in Los Angeles) where they have a motion picture curriculum. I earned my degree in theatre arts specializing in motion pictures. during college (where I took obligatory acting classes) I met among others Richard Dreyfuss, Joey Bishop's son Larry, the doors Jim Morrison and Greg Friedkin, son of David Friedkin who produced "I Spy" - the TV show with Bill Cosby and Robert Culp and who wrote "The Pawnbroker" with Rod Steiger. My intention was writing and directing, and after UCLA I went to work at MGM as a writer, getting job through David Friedkin. He introduced me to James Komack who produced "Welcome back Cotter" with a young John Rravolta and "Chico and the man" with Freddie Prinze and "The courtship of Eddie's father" with Bill Bixby.

Komack hired Greg Griedkin and myself to work on the Bixby show as apprentices. Eventually MGM hired us as writers and we worked on a few scripts until the studio changed hands and we were not renewed by the new administration.

I drifted into public relations and ended up working for Alice Cooper's company The Image Group, which had clients like John Lennon, Three Dog Night, NY Dolls, Sha-na-na, Peter Yarrow, Paul Butterfield and others.

One day I was walking down Hollywood blvd and ran into my friend Karen Lamm, who was then married to Robert Lamm from the group Chicago (she would later marry beach boy Dennis Wilson, the one who drowned). She was coming out of acting classes at the Lee Strasberg institute and casually mentioned she thought I ought to try it. I did. Eventually I studied with the master Lee Strasberg himself (Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters, etc.).

Within a year I was working. "Walking Tall - the final chapter" was my first film. a week after we returned from Tennessee I did Starsky and hutch and then went right into Charlie's angel's. The rest, as they say, is history.

FA: I agree! Tell me about Class reunion. You?re character there was very weird.

BD: Probably my second most bizarre character. Class Reunion was the follow up to National Lampoon's animal house with John Belushi and was a (relatively) big budget highly anticipated film (by far my biggest
paycheck and I worked more days (40 some) that any other actor). It was written by John Hughes (Home alone, Pretty in pink, etc) but too bad he didn't also direct.

He was a fresh faced kid out of Chicago and it was his first movie. The producers picked Michael Miller to direct, a guy with a drinking problem who had screwed up some earlier films and gave him one last chance to redeem him self. Although he started out sober I guess he slipped because the film never had a real good focus and although it opened big it never had legs at the boxoffice and most critics panned it. The LA Times gave it a good review however and said, "Dammett is perfection as the pathetic psychopath". I remember I beat out Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger) and several other good actors for the part of Walter Baylor.

In a scene where the witchcraft girl uses her special powers to throw me into a wall they had me hooked up to one of those reverse catapults they use for shotgun blasted actors. The first time it worked great, but the wall shook so they did a second take. The stupid SFX guys braced a 2X4 board perpendicular against the back of the wall and when I hit it, I separated my rib cage at the breast bone and I had to do remaining 80% of the film in considerable pain which seriously impaired my physical humor. It was the same SFX people that shortly thereafter were responsible for Vic Morrow and the 2 kids being mangled to death by the crashing helicopter blade in Jim Landis "Twilight Zone".

FA: So, the most important of all, how did you get involved in the
classic Nine Deaths Of The Ninja?

Even before I came to the audition in the Century City (section of Los Angeles) offices of the producer, I decided to make him a German terrorist raised in North Yemen and I brought the Sydney Greenstreet-esque white topical suit, the tu-tone spectator shoes, and nazi stuff myself. It was the mid-80's when LA heavy metal bands had a proclivity toward anti-social behavior like nazi symbols so they were easy to find. My entire costume in the movie was my own creation.

In the script Alby had this strange fascination with Rahji and I carried it to extremes. During the audition I made up the scene where I couldn't get my cigarette lit and had a fit and tore up the producer's coffee table overturning water glasses and throwing magazines around the office and scaring the hell out of everybody. The director loved everything I did in the audition and told me to create my own madman.

FA: Alby the cruel is a pervert, a crazy bad guy. How did you work with this fantastic character?

BD: I didn't see him as a pervert, more stressed by the situation and the environment which was easy to relate to since as a film crew we were in almost the same predicament as the fictional characters. An inhospitable
jungle, poisonous snakes and spiders, sudden monsoon rains, a guerrilla communist army lurking in the dark trying to kill us, petty fights and jealousies within the cast and crew. and like in the story occasional breaks from the horror of the war when we had our rest and recuperation in Manilla with all the sex and tropical foods and garish night life.

The crew was international: an American director, Indian producer, ex-patriots from many countries living in the Philippines at the time in production and crew. And American, Japanese, Indian and Philippino and probably a few other nationalities in the cast.

FA: Some final words to our readers?

BD: I must say, of the 20 some movies and 30 some TV shows and about 50 plays, Nine Deaths Df The Ninja was one of my favorites because I could and did get to chew up the scenery because:

a). ...the part itself was so outlandish and...
b). because we shot the movie in the Philippines during the NPA's war against president Marcos and the country was on the verge of collapse and life itself was absurd. We had a battallion of soldiers protecting us in the jungle and every store in the country had an armed guard with a machine gun.

Fred