Action

Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankamen (1968)

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In ’60s cinema, Italian superhero movies were 2 lire a dozen. However, only one is from the guy who would give cinema a naked Amazonian girl impaled anus-to-mouth on a spiked pole. Working under the Americanized moniker Roger Rockefeller, future Cannibal Holocaust chaos agent Ruggero Deodato wrote and directed Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankamen early in his career.

Mauro Parenti (Justine de Sade) stars as Guy Norton, bearded count by day, Parisian superhero by, well, day. Norton exhibits primo sartorial choices that go out the window when costumed as his crimefighting alter ego. As Fenomenal (Italian for “phenomenal,” if you haven’t guessed), he’s dressed all in black, save for his hands and belt buckle; capping the outfit are sensible shoes on his fleet feet and pantyhose over his head. Super powers are nil, but he can legibly write his name inside a briefcase to trick a thieving bandit.

Fresh from foiling a heroin ring at sea, Fenomenal is tasked with hunting for an ancient relic, the whereabouts of which are hidden in hieroglyphics on the mask of ol’ King Tut, currently on exhibition. Villainous Gregory Falco (Gordon Mitchell, White Fire) wants his hands on it. A woman named Mike (Enter the Devil’s Lucretia Love, Parenti’s soon-to-be spouse) wants her hands on Norton; she introduces herself as being the daughter of “the canned meat king.”

Because Bruno Nicolai’s score is seasoned with jaunty “ba-da-bah-bah-bah” ziggalybops, none of Treasure of Tutankamen is to be taken seriously — good to know since logic is negligible. People get double-crossed; take the pic’s word for it when you’re told. A Eurospy staple, fun is had with all kinds of transportation — cars, speedboats, yachts, helicopters, wheelchairs — but the best scene is something right out of the Matt Helm pictures: Fenomenal fights a fez-wearing goon in a ladies’ sauna. As towel-torsoed women run and scream, Feno dodges thrown chairs and punches.

Phenomenal? Hardly. But it’s passable, as long as you know it’s no second coming of Danger: Diabolik. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Bermuda Island (2023)

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Prolific production company Mahal Empire gets Lost when an airliner bound for Puerto Rico is struck by lightning and goes down down down, in Bermuda Island. Washed up on the shore of what looks like paradise, the survivors face no food, no potable water, no aloe vera, no Wi-Fi and a band of green-hued, limb-ripping creatures on the loose and out for blood.

Looking not unlike homemade Predator costumes, these beasts treat the survivors’ tummies like your grandma does dirt when it’s time to plant petunias. Meanwhile, in hopes of saving alive, the humans split into two factions. One is led by a regular Robinson Crusoe (a fully OTT John Wells, The Penny Dreadful Picture Show) who claims to have been trapped in the Triangle for 100 years. The other, fronted by a surly ’n’ burly FBI agent (Wesley Cannon, who also produced) who just copies the other guy. And Mahal Empire regular Sarah French (Death Count) finds a reason to disrobe.

Although Bermuda Island is goofily constructed and unleashed on the cheap, first-feature director Adam Werth makes the trip a hoot. He even comes close to earning that proverbial extra half by not pretending the movie is anything other than a brainless B-level outing. With no shortage of goop and a squishy soundtrack to boot, it strongly resembles a modern-day addition to Hemisphere Pictures’ beloved Blood Island trilogy. Whether in daylight or the dead of night, scenes always offer clear views of carnage.

While not every actor is as comfortable on camera as French, Wells or the cameoing Tom Sizemore, who perishes before the plane crashes, several Mahal Empire players are legitimately funny in their roles. Sheri Davis makes for a commendable ever-complaining Karen type; Greg Tally is a near-riot as a pretentious Goth named Midnight; and then there’s Alexander Hauck, somehow able to tell a monster that just ripped his heart out, “I hope you get food poisoning.” —Rod Lott

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Thriller

The Banker (1989)

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Prostitution’s a tough gig, even for Santa Monica’s finest. You might contract an STD or, per The Banker, a laser-guided crossbow arrow through the noggin. Even if the film didn’t reveal right away that titular man o’ finance Spaulding Osbourne is the killer, we’d know it because he lives in a warehouse, watches a wall of 16 television sets and keeps a Little Golden Book of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on his coffee table.

On the other hand, he has one redeeming quality: no love for cocaine bros in bolo ties.

Hunting Osbourne (Duncan Regehr, The Monster Squad’s Count Dracula) is police detective Sgt. Dan Jefferson (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown). It’s only a matter of time before Osbourne targets Jefferson’s ex-wife, TV reporter Sharon (Shanna Reed, TV’s Major Dad), who’s recently ditched segments promoting the Magic Sandcastle Jamboree for on-air editorials against the murderer.

Luckily for the good guys, Osbourne leaves a calling card at each homicide: a blood pattern on the wall that looks kinda like Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. As Jefferson tells his lieutenant (Richard Roundtree, 1971’s Shaft), “We’re looking at one strange son of a bitch!”

William Webb’s directorial follow-up to the ho-hum Party Line, The Banker hums along nicely. It certainly helps going from Leif Garrett (who cameos here) to Forster. In a variation of his role in Alligator, Forster’s Dan is likely an alcoholic and lives in a treehouse. This allows Forster to give what he was so gifted at: a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. Dana Augustine’s screenplay aids and abets with appropriate dialogue, including the concluding anti-quip, “I’m Dan, I’m a cop and you’re fucked!”

All in all, The Banker is the type of sleaze that’s polished just enough that you don’t feel a need to shower afterward. Who could’ve guessed that in 1989, Forster was less than a decade away from a career-reviving Academy Award nomination? Or that Roundtree would end the millennium returning as the iconic cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about? Or that former Playboy centerfold Teri Weigel and her Tupperware breasts were about to turn to porn? Or that Jeff Conaway could still run? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Generation X (1996)

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Until Blade righted the ship in 1998, a curse hovered over attempts at live-action film and TV adaptations of Marvel Comics. Case in point: Generation X, less-than-lukewarm Fox pilot movie of the teenage X-Men spin-off comic book, then just 2 years old. Although full of special effects and ably directed by the underrated Jack Sholder (The Hidden), Generation X tumbles laughably in its painfully transparent desire to connect with a hip, youthful audience.

Six teen mutants gather at Professor Xavier’s gifted school to learn how to rein in their powers, using them only for good. Looking like an emaciated version of MTV’s Puck, Refrax (Randall Slavin, Monster High) shoots lasers from his eyes, while Jubilee (Heather McComb, F.A.R.T. the Movie) shoots fireballs from her hands. Buff (Suzanne Davis, Fear Runs Silent) is blessed with the upper body of Fabio, while the others … hell, I don’t recall.

Under the tutelage of silver-wigged vixen Emma Frost (The Apple dancer Finola Hughes, who boosts her performance via push-up bras, which made flames shoot out my eyes), the high-school superheroes band together to battle the evil, mad scientist Tresh (Matt Frewer, Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War).

Although the kids are extremely unappealing, Frewer is the film’s true liability. Aping Jim Carrey’s Riddler shtick to the unfunny T, Frewer is embarrassing. He gets one good joke out of the hundred he spews over the course of the film, and since it involves the ugliness of the hair of the stretchy-armed Skin (Agustin Rodriguez, Strange Days), it’s a joke the audience had written long before.

Equally banal is scripter Eric Blakeney’s insertion of pop-culture references in hopes of passing the show off as some cutting-edge, in-the-know, hip-and-with-it flick. When Emma and her Irish partner (Prom Night III’s Jeremy Ratchford, whose Banshee possesses a sonic-boom scream) present themselves to security as “Officers Hootie and Blowfish,” the line isn’t merely stupid, but expired upon airdate.

If this pilot is indicative of how the Generation X series was poised to go, good thing they quit while they were ahead. —Rod Lott

Comedy

To Catch a Yeti (1995)

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Corpulent rocker Meat Loaf (Wayne’s World) stars as Mr. Big Jake Grizzly in the Canada-lensed, kid-friendly comedy, To Catch a Yeti. Big Jake and his donut-dreaming sidekick, Blubber (Richard Howland, TV’s Lost Girl), attempt to catch a yeti. ’Tis a noble pursuit.

Eschewing the true definition of a yeti, the film gives us not an abominable snowman or a super-sized cryptid, but an abomination of a puppet: a furry, rat-tailed, buck-toothed gnome who giggles like a hyena that somehow survived being hit by a BFGoodrich tire.

Escaping Big Jake’s sweat-mitted clutches, this so-called yeti seeks refuge in the backpack of a hiker who unknowingly brings the little scamp home. The hiker sticks the thing in the fridge, feeds it frankfurters and calls him Hank. The scene in which Hank discovers toothpaste may be the most pornographic thing you will see outside of pornography.

Without fail, the man’s precocious daughter, Amy (Chantallese Kent), quickly loves Hank like she would any other mutated, decidedly unvaccinated creature brought home by her parents, so it’s only a matter of time before Big Jake and Blubber chase her and Hank all over town. Unfortunately, at film’s end, the yeti is released into the wild, not drawn and quartered. Given a scene depicting little Amy and Hank sharing a bed, I will not write off the possibility of the legacy sequel, To Birth a Yeti. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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