Living to Die (1990) – Wings Hauser.

'They all feel the same when the lights go off!'

A PM Entertainment DTV crime thriller with Wings Hauser, directed by Wings Hauser? I'm all over this like sweet mustard on a salty Polish sausage, dude! The routine bubblegum noir shtick is given additional savour by the magnetic pull of Arnold Vosloo and darkly charismatic hunk Wings Hauser. The familiar plot unfurls comfortably like a well worn sleeping bag, being a somewhat cosy, though far from disagreeable affair. Living To Die is a solid once only for Hauser, PM Entertainment addicts, and some of the banter proved sharper than expected, I can't be certain, but the juicier ripostes certainly felt ad-libbed? Less histrionic gun-play and slow-mo vehicular mayhem than usual, but the dynamic Hauser ably kept this watchable Vegas potboiler afloat almost single-handed. Keeping expectations low, Living To Die certainly remains a decent enough DTV time-killer. For the sake of full disclosure, I remain a huge admirer of Mr. Hauser's work, and own a large number of PM entertainment titles on DVD, so my positive impression is, perhaps, not altogether objective! (NOT) spoiler alert: Wing's gets to boink the bodacious-looking broad (Darcy DeMoss). T & A cognoscenti will greatly relish the exquisite vision of the distractingly delectable DeMoss in the blissful buff.

 Junk Films (2007) – Tsurisaki Kyotaka.

The famed creator of Orozoko The Embalmer unleashes another unflinchingly bloody shockumentary, one that generously provides a quite literally eye-popping preponderance of expressly mortal, frequently gruesome, real-life, video-immortalized death. While the contents can be intimately graphic, this largely unfiltered view of man's terrible fragility has always maintained a macabre, if occasionally inexplicable fascination for me. Junk Films is a vivid, morbidly voyeuristic compendium of internationally curated outré material, often sad, unexpectedly bizarre, with brutal, blood-spattered crime scenes, grisly road accidents, revered ancient burial rites, and random gory incident. I have no qualms over my undeniably adolescent appreciation of Faces of Death'd corpse-porn, in all of its notoriously suspect, mostly grim, trashy, crudely prurient, and often wholly exploitative guises. The myriad ills of our world are not the fault of extreme horror/gore/shockumentaries, it is simply because the human animal is a base creature, and has been foolhardily allowed to propagate unchecked. I found the material collected at the Thai vegetarian festival to be the most compelling, as the stultifying repetition of human roadside carnage proved somewhat numbing. There is a briefly amusing moment when you can see fat-bellied tourists gawking at the blazing riverside funeral pyres, the lurid camera's eye making sure we had a good long look at the melancholic sight of a jutting, partially charcoaled human leg.

 Ostermontag (1991) – Heiko Fipper.

Incestuous maniac Heiko (Heiko Fipper) lusts for his half-sister Fabienne, who, justifiably, loathes him absolutely. Once Heiko discovers Fabienne's twin sister Helen replaced her for his demented fornications, he brutally unleashes a most sadistic reprisal. While the cast's 'performances' prove uniformly monotonous, the almost eerie blandness of suburbanite psycho Heiko thankfully heightens the innate weirdness of this splendidly sordid S.O.V monstrosity. The grubby VHS quality, and lack of controlled lighting provides a near-constant reminder of Ostermontag's core-deep cheapnis, a dingy D.I.Y delve into a creepy young man's murderous obsessions. And it is the film's queasy predilection for incestuous malfeasance that endows Herr Fipper's notoriously lo-fi splatter-fest with an additionally vile patina of delicious scumminess! There's a deeply entrenched porn-y vibe throughout which will either turn on, or violently repel those who patronize this Germanic sickie! I've always appreciated the softer edges of analogue video, everyone appears drenched in a greasy orange haze, it is the darkly nostalgic hue of long-forgotten wedding videos, and vintage D.I.Y schlock. Ostermontag is many things, none of which have any artistic value, yet the entirely novel concept of kick-jogging may well have some commercial value? Fipper's cheapjack, and hugely chucklesome carnage is good, not especially clean, cathartic fun for the voyeuristic, way more forgiving S.O.V junkie. Almost every skeevey-looking dude with a moustache dies horribly, and I sincerely believe therein lies a valuable lesson for us all!

 Armstrong (1998) – Menahem Golan.

Former SEAL, and current military hard-ass Rod Armstrong (Frank Zagarino is tasked by B-icon Charles Napier to investigate the illegal trade of nuclear arms by Mafiosi thugs in Moscow. A serially gun-happy B-Actioner by maestro Golan, starring Charles Napier, Joe Lara, Richard Lynch, and lava-hot honey baby Kimberly Kates??? I'm on this like the rosiest cheeks on a busty Bavarian milk maid! The only cat that portrays intractable Soviet menace with more tempered steel than Stalin is main man Richard Lynch, the absolute go-to guy for bravura, Baltic-bred B-villainy! I can't quite appreciate the point of noisily berating a conspicuously 'B' actioner, just because it is almost indistinguishable from the last DTV shoot 'em you watched, a no less inane concept than chiding an honest barkeep for pouring you another pint of Guinness that tasted exactly like the previous one...Hey!!! if it 'ain't broke, right???? I dig straight shooter Zagarino's work, and his joyously lunkheaded, Gung ho shoot 'em ups, they remain an entirely guiltless pleasure, a peccadillo, more than ably sated by action impresario Menahem's energetic, Moscow-set Kalashnikov-fest Armstrong. I remain unashamedly team Zagarino, and Armstrong is arguably one of his sharper efforts, and fans of righteous, fearlessly fighting femmes/ girls-with-guns will rate the kinetic chase/fisticuffs by the distractingly delicious Kimberly Kates.

 Blue Desert (1990) – Bradley Battersby.

Comic book artist, and recent rape victim (Courtney Cox), up-sticks, moving to the Arizonian boonies, and very soon discovers sleepy tumbleweed towns have abusive skells too. Took a trip back to the early 90s with Bradley Battersby's suspenseful indie psychodrama Blue Desert, and it wasn't half bad at all, having far more of a noirish Red Rock West vibe than I recall. While brooding Craig Scheffer's twitchy performance won't garner plaudits for subtlety, I found his attractively hirsute, desert stoner persona strangely compelling. Blue Desert is arguably a mite lightweight, but it remains a robust thriller, the angelic Courtney Cox is cute as a button, providing for a vulnerable, greatly sympathetic protagonist. No midnight movie classic, but the performances are solid across the board, Battersby's angsty, paranoid thriller climaxes zestily in a satisfyingly rigorous manner.

 Skinheads (1989) – Greydon Clark.

An angry group of grossly misguided young men and woman, their lizard mentalities inflamed with obsolete, retrograde politics, lay siege to a small mountain town, only to be forcefully repelled by a skinhead-hating vet, excellently portrayed by cult hero Chuck Connors. Is this a savvy upgrade of 'Fight For Your Life'? Who knows, but Skinheads arguably remains one of the more credible agitprop exploitation titles of the 80s. Any socially conscious narrative, no matter how basically executed, that bluntly confronts the unthinking contagion of prejudice is absolutely worthy of consideration. My appreciation of 'Skinheads' is, naturally, merely my own reading, others, must, and will, form their own conclusions as to the perceived thematic merits of Greydon Clark's lurid dissection of a brutalist, sadly still present subculture...where's Chuck Connors when y'all need him, eh? Is it anyway justifiable using violence to combat thugs that oppress the weak and defenceless for their own twisted idolatries? It remains a vastly complex issue, but, surely, to merely stand idly by, and do nothing, is tantamount to complicity, is it not? It is interesting to note that Madolfian supermen are wholly unafraid to utilize poison ivy for intimate toiletry purposes, and that a crucified, modestly-sized bonehead provides an adequate snack for a roving hungry bear.

 Merchant of Death (1997) - Yossi Wein.

A young boy (Michael Paré), witnesses the slaughter of his family, and during adulthood, he recalls disturbing details about the tragedy, and ruthlessly seeks long overdue justice. The spectacularly gonzo shoot out at the beginning of the film is definitely an attention grabber, and happily, Yossi Wein's explosive Merchant of Death is a generous provider of boy's own, Berretta-blasting mayhem, along with some truly epic, monster-sized pyrotechnics! Formulaic Text and plot are serviceable for a 90s DTV actioner, what makes Merchant of Death memorable is charismatic lead Paré, and its tantalizing generosity of thrillingly big bangs for your B-action buck! Not for the first time, handsome head-knocker Michael Paré proves himself to be a gutsy gunslinger, a distractingly gorgeous, absolutely credible action star who always commands the viewer's attention.