Spasms (1983) – I haven’t read the potboiler novel Death Bite that this movie was based on, but I get see it clearly in what remains: Oliver Reed as the multimillionaire with the Captain Ahab complex toward a vicious giant snake that ate his brother, Peter Fonda as the parapsychologist hired to explore the psychic connection between Reed and the snake, Al Waxman as the scuzzy private eye working for a crazy snake-worshiping cult that wants to make the giant snake its god… It’s ninety minutes looking for a reason to exist, and not finding it.
Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) – Three wandering ronin end up falling in together with a peasant revolt against the local lord who’s imposing outlandish taxes. The only way this could be more Spaghetti Western is if Ennio Morricone had supplied the score.
The Work and the Glory (2004) – The first of three movies dramatizing a multi-volume soap opera historical saga about the fictional Steed family “Forrest Gumped” into the history of Joseph Smith and the early days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I haven’t read the books, but I can see that the writer/director was trying to hew close to them — apparently mostly how the movie ends up being “this happens then this happens then this happens,” which is what results when you try to condense a 456-page novel into a two-hour movie without leaving anything out.
Abandoned Movies:
When Women Lost Their Tails (1972) – Was the original this corny and lame and set-bound? Or have my tastes somehow “matured” since I watched it?
What a Whopper (1961) – Cleancut “beatnik” humor.
Ring of Steel (1994) – Robert Chapin and his mighty golden mullet try to overcome the guilt of accidentally killing a fencing opponent by participating in underground combat exhibitions. Yeah, I don’t think that’s how it works…
The Ghost Resort (2021) – A telugu horror-comedy… I think. The subtitles were the worst I’d ever seen on Amazon Prime, and annoyed me too much to bother trying to keep up.
High-Kick Girl! (2009) – After 20 minutes of watching various Japanese people kick each other people, and then a Japanese high-school girl kick a dozen tough karate students, and then watching her go through her kata, I was despairing that there even was a story.
The Perfect Weapon (2016) – So bad that I gave up even before the star-billed Steven Seagal showed up in what was probably an extended cameo.
Re: Spasms – Leonard Maltin referred to Reed’s psychic link as a “telepathetic connection”. What made you stick it out to the end?
Re: High Kick Girl – I agree that it’s not a very good movie by any measuring stick save the one associated with face kicking. But isn’t Rina Takeda just to cutest darn thing on two legs?
Re: Perfect Weapon – Much like the Asian Connection, Seagal just plays the evil crime boss who hangs around doing nothing but having a cute Asian girl 30+ years his junior doff her duds in front of him. He sees a little bit of action at the end, but not much.
Re: Spasms – Oliver Reed’s almost always worth watching to the end — in a bad movie more than in a good one, in fact. Also, I wanted to see the damned snake.
Re: High Kick Girl – See, she also didn’t hit high on my cuteness meter.
Re: Perfect Weapon – And I was So Done long before he showed up.
“Re: High Kick Girl – See, she also didn’t hit high on my cuteness meter.”
You’re dead to me.
That’s okay, you don’t rate too high on my cuteness meter, either.
You mean to say that you haven’t fallen under the spell of my hypnotic blue eyes? I mean, they’re not quite Meg Foster blue, but still…
Meg Foster’s can shoot lasers. Can yours do that?