Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Timebomb (1991)

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When an apartment building goes up in flames, bystander Eddy Kay (Michael Biehn, The Abyss) runs inside to save a woman and her baby. There’s only one problem: Eddy Kay is thought to be dead!

Okay, there’s a second problem: Shadowy agents keep trying to kill Eddy. If he’s not being hit by a van, he’s attacked in his sleep by a knife-wielding intruder. (Two of his would-be assassins are played by The Last Boy Scout’s Billy Blanks and pro boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, which would absolutely intimidate me; a third is played by Watchers II’s leggy, never-more-scorching Tracy Scoggins, which would absolutely arouse me and put my guard down.)

But why aim to eradicate a simple watch repairman? Heck, Eddy’s practically a kid since he rides his bike everywhere, collects jigsaw puzzles, eats PB&J for lunch and showers with garden shears — children still do that, right?  When Eddy starts having weird visions in which he utters “I don’t have eggs, only sausages” in Hungarian, psychoanalyst Dr. Anna Nolmar (Patsy Kensit, Lethal Weapon 2) wonders if he’s having memory problems. Eddy disagrees:

“I’ve got a really good memory. I’ve always prided myself on that. I can remember, like, the smallest details of my childhood and my friends, their names. I used to have a friend named Kevin Richards. We used to call him Kevvy. We used to get into trouble together, play sports.” 

Well, in that case …

Don’t judge Timebomb by that rudimentary dialogue. Created at the height of Hollywood’s home-video premieres by Israeli writer/director Avi Nesher (Tales from the Crypt Presents: Ritual), the sci-fi conspiracy thriller is honestly four-fifths stellar, exhibiting a heavy, heady streak of Philip K. Dick-level paranoia. In fact, it’s embedded with enough shared elements to resemble Total Recall, but on a remembered-for-wholesale budget (hence the studio backlot’s less-than-towering inferno).

Luckily, Nesher isn’t parsimonious with the slam-bang. The movie’s imaginative set pieces are well-executed, from a 3 a.m. assault on a mental institution to a daylight shootout in an L.A. porno theater. That the latter occurs while porn star Victoria Paris (Miracle on 69th Street) feigns pleasure from the big screen has to be a joke on Nesher’s part.

I know for sure it is when Eddy and Dr. Anna, on the run and en route to Mexico, stop for cash at an ATM and the supposedly intelligent doc waits for a receipt. “Fuck the receipt!” Eddy yells. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Comedy

Survive Style 5+ (2004)

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A recurring bit in Survive Style 5+ finds hitman Vinnie Jones asking each person he may or may not execute, “What is your function in life?” It’s a question the Japanese film itself cannot answer. As its nonsensical moniker suggests, logic commits harakiri. Mind you, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Set in the run-up to Christmas Eve, five stories separately unfurl their setups before interconnecting thereafter to varying degrees of success. Aside from Jones (Snatch) and his interpreter (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Cloud), we meet three young burglars, and a man (Tadanobu Asano, 2021’s Mortal Kombat) constantly fighting with his wife (Reika Hashimoto, Blind Beast vs Dwarf) because she won’t stay dead no matter how many times he murders and buries her.

An advertising executive (Kyôko Koizumi, Tokyo Sonata) constantly churns out ideas for concepts that amuse herself, but not her clients, one of whom is played by legendary Street Fighter Sonny Chiba.

Finally, a hardworking family man (Ittoku Kishibe, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi) is stuck thinking — and acting like — he’s a chicken after the hypnotist (Hiroshi Abe, Godzilla 2000) dies in the middle of his stage show. Although Kishibe’s mantle is hardly bare, he deserved an award for diving in headfirst, no matter how ridiculous.

As absurdist as it is go-for-broke, Survive Style 5+ is one of those movies better experienced than described. In fact, its state of delirium seems designed to resist description. Prior to this energy-to-burn omnibus, Gen Sekiguchi directed shorts and commercials, which may be why none of his debut feature’s segments quite lands with a satiating payoff. Among the quintet, the chicken dad comes close, but I know that’s strictly my adoration for Cake’s cover of “I Will Survive” talking.

When Survive Style 5+ works, as in the action-packed battles of spouses Hashimoto and Asano, it casts a spell. And when it doesn’t? Well, to jostle back to Jones’ pre-assassination inquiry of purpose, his unluckiest targets are swiftly dismissed and dispatched with a curt “You’re not necessary.” I wish Sekiguchi asked himself the same and excised the burgling trio — the one story that adds or offers nothing. As is, the movie stands at two hours, which can be death for a comedy, even a bizarro one operating by its own intermittent rules. Survive Style 4+ might have had fewer negatives as a result. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

Ice Cream Man (2026)

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Baylen Bay, the fictional setting of Ice Cream Man, looks to be the dictionary definition of “idyllic.” Since the movie is directed by Eli Roth (Thanksgiving), you know that’s pure facade. Like, one block over, perhaps a young Kyle MacLachlan is stumbling upon an ant-laden ear in the grass.

On Roth’s block, however, the suburb’s children are all abuzz over the new dispenser of frozen desserts (Ari Millen, TV’s Orphan Black), whose truck blasts a Silver Shamrock-esque earworm of a jingle. Once kids eat his treats, they’re susceptible to an act of Weapons-style witchery hearing that tune unlocks: mass parricide.

Thanks to his lactose intolerance, our preteen protagonist (Charlie Zeltzer, a real find) is spared. He spends the last two-thirds of the movie under siege in school — shades of 2014’s Cooties — as his classmates prey upon anyone not following the Pied Piper of Popsicles. (“Is this some kind of Zombie Pajama Day Challenge?” asks one confused faculty member.)

This is Ice Cream Man’s demarcation point, as Roth, unshackled from an MPA rating, goes whole-hog on the gore — so soupy, so chunky — that you’re either in or long gone. I’d be the latter, if not for Roth and co-writer Noah Belson stirring in an equal amount of gallows humor. Sight gags get increasingly ghoulish, like a stairwell sight of two kids playing a game of Operation using a teacher as the bulb-nosed board.

Despite sharing a title and a tagline, this scoop of goop isn’t a remake of the 1995 Clint Howard vehicle. Call this one Children of the Cones — or, if you’re hip to the Brits, Children of the Corneo. Bound to offend more people than it delights, Roth’s exercise in splatstick with sprinkles feels less fully formed than his usual work, perhaps as a self-imposed challenge or an idea he simply needed to knock out of his system. I’m glad he did if that’s the case, although he’s capable of more than this flavor allows. Still, if only all genre throwaways were canny enough to visually reference Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, with neither a stretch. —Rod Lott

In theaters Friday, Aug. 7.

Mystery

The Samurai and the Prisoner (2026)

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At first glance, The Samurai and the Prisoner, a literary adaptation set in late 16th-century Japan, hardly seems like horror/thriller auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s usual cup of sake. Within a few minutes, when it suddenly reveals itself as a murder mystery, all makes sense.

The film takes place almost entirely at a castle ruled by Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki, 1999’s Gemini), who’s already anxious about an imminent enemy siege when a young visitor is found dead. The boy appears to have been shot with an arrow, yet no weapon is located. It’s almost a locked-room puzzle, if not for a mere 3-inch gap.

To crack this case, Murashige leans on his adversary’s envoy, Kanbei (Masaki Suda, Kurosawa’s Cloud), held captive in the castle’s dungeon, to pore over the clues and form a hypothesis. Kanbei’s deductive skills prove excellent — I mean, he’s got the time — and three more devious crimes will confound the castle before the end. If managing all that chaos isn’t enough for m’lord, he does so while grieving the loss of his true love: a precious tea urn. 

Understated humor like that is layered throughout, most notably in an extended bit concerning a slain general’s head; Murashige is uncertain which clan can claim the honor of killing because, as a soldier reasons, “We were fighting in the dark, no names were given.” 

Obsessed with matters of ritual and religion and oneupmanship, the picture is as meticulously crafted as it is purposely episodic. As the weather turns, a new whodunit presents itself for Murashige to pass to Kanbei to solve, making The Samurai and the Prisoner far from an ordinary costume epic, even if those majestic visuals and powerful lead performances suggest otherwise. Its two-point-five hours move quickly, although no pace can completely hide the occasional meandering. —Rod Lott

In theaters, expanding Aug. 7 and 14.

Thriller

The Man in the Back Seat (1961)

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As Batman famously noted, “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.” And some nights, as the crooks of this Brit crime corker learn, you just can’t get rid of the unconscious bookie handcuffed to the briefcase full of cash you just stole from the doggie races. 

A year before playing robbers in Vernon Sewell’s acclaimed thriller Strongroom, Derrin Nesbitt and Keith Faulkner play the robbers of/in Sewell’s The Man in the Back Seat. Harry Locke (The Creeping Flesh) essays the title character, spending almost the entire 57 minutes knocked-out — and likely handing a template to Terry Kiser to utilize nearly four decades later in Weekend at Bernie’s. In contrast, Nesbit and Faulkner, meanwhile, spend much of the movie attempting to find the proper tool to separate the gentlemen from their riches. 

Emerging from the mind of Edgar Wallace, that job is easier said than done, not to mention a fool’s errand. At every turn, their simple quest is hampered by one inconvenience or another, from a flat tire and lack of adequate parking to nosy coppers and a nosier wife (Carol White, Something Big). That qualifies it as a “one crazy night” picture à la After Hours — only not funny. 

Nor is meant to be. It’s a sober example of crime-doesn’t-pay cinema from the bottom half of the bills, with a short detour into British kitchen-sink drama when White is involved. Back Seat bends the rules of reality in its abrupt conclusion, heralded by SUDDEN! BLARING! TRUMPETS! — an unexpected kick to your movie-watching pants. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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