Really Awful Movies

To support the site, consider picking up a copy of Mine’s Bigger Than Yours: The 100 Wackiest Action Movies. It’s for fans of Cannon Films, and those taciturn one-name action movie grunters, Seagal, Norris, Schwarzenegger, etc.

But it also showcases the genre’s lesser lights, such as Reb Brown, Brian Thompson, Brian Bosworth, Vic Diaz, and the ubiquitous Cameron Mitchell.

If you like tough talking toothpick chewers, choppers that blow up, shoot outs in abandoned warehouses, and mysterious Asian heroin syndicates, Mine’s Bigger Than Yours! The 100 Wackiest Action Movies makes an excellent gift for the action movie buff in your household/life.

Bonus: the foreword’s written by Australian action genre Ozploitation king, Brian Trenchard-Smith, director of Strike of the Panther, Turkey Shoot, and Stunt Rock.

DEATH BY UMBRELLA! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons (2016) is a must for horror completists, especially for fans who enjoy unique kills.

LA Weekly called the book, “rich with context and analysis…gruesome [yet] all in good fun…a celebration of the genre.”

Rue Morgue said, “…what separates Death by Umbrella! from your run-of-the-mill glossary is the amount of heart and appreciation within its pages…Recommended for gorehounds, list-lovers and trivia fiends…”

UK Horror Scene commented that, DEATH BY UMBRELLA! is”…a fascinating read…a gleeful yet insightful look into the world of movie gore…”

Thanks for reading. And keep an eye out for new reviews of horror, action and other genre films every Monday.

Influencer gives you the most bang for your bad title/bad promo artwork buck.

Don’t be swayed, this one is compelling as hell.

Travel as a storytelling device is something a lot of horrors have explored, including Psycho, Tourist Trap, Red Eye, Turistas, and most recently, Midsommar.

Showcasing different geographies can be really enticing – Watcher, for example, is a neat riff on Hitch’s Rear Window, but set in Bucharest instead of New York. Similarly, Calgarian director Kurtis David Harder takes us to the beaches of Thailand for some visual and cultural intrigue.

Influencer Maddison (played by Emily Tennant) is experiencing Lost in Translation ennui while abroad ’cause her boyfriend is too busy to join her, and constantly updating her socials despite being “stuck” in one of the most beautiful regions of the world.

It’s a reminder of Wittgenstein’s aside that “Hell isn’t other people. Hell is yourself.”

She lolls about in a hotel pool, chats bar-side with a scummy old British expat, an overabundance of whom can be found in Thailand, and eventually befriends a mysterious woman, a local named CW.

CW, expertly portrayed by Canadian actress, Cassandra Naud, goes from being a local fixer to a ruiner in short order.

Influencer has a great neo-noir feel and deploys some unexpected storytelling devices.

And speaking of taking you places…Everywhere you think it’ll go, it doesn’t.

**** (out of 5)

[For a further discussion of Influencer, check out the Really Awful Movies Podcast review of the film]