We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
THE BARBARIANS (1987)
Director Ruggero Deodato (yes, the same filmmaker who was behind the infamous Cannibal Holocaust) and screenwriter James R. Silke were hired to make a sword and sorcery movie for the legendary film company Cannon, and they didn’t mess around when approaching this task. They delivered a fun, fast-paced adventure film that has a simple, straightforward story, some good action, and, for the most part, an enjoyably light tone. It also has a good score, thanks to Pino Donaggio and Natale Massaro, and some cool cinematography, courtesy of Lorenzo Battaglia. And it all wraps up in just 87 minutes!
An opening narration gives us all the set-up we need: Once upon a time, long ago, there existed a world of savage splendor in an age made for adventure; a time of darkness, demons, and sorcery. It was a time when man, woman, and child were ruled by the sword – but one tribe had the right of safe passage throughout this world. At the dawn of time, the tribe’s then-king had traded a mountain of gold for a magic ruby, which contained something more precious than earthly treasure: the secrets of music, laughter, and kindness. The tribe became the entertainers of the land; the storytellers and musicians. So they were welcomed everywhere. But, of course, there were greedy forces out there who didn’t hesitate to attack the tribe in an effort to steal the ruby. And once the narration is over, a tribe headed up by Richard Lynch as the evil Kadar attacks the entertainer tribe’s caravan in an extended action sequence that’s reminiscent of a Mad Max franchise action sequence, but the characters are on horseback and in wagons instead of driving cars and trucks. Some of the evil characters even look more suited to living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland than in a magical, ancient age. The sequence ends with the tribe being captured, but not until after the ruby has been safely taken away. The people are taunted, beaten, humiliated, murdered. Kadar is about to kill two young boys, orphans that were adopted by the tribe’s queen (Virginia Bryant as Canary), when she makes a deal: she will obey him and do whatever he wants, as long as he spares the children. He takes a deal. He swears that as long as he lives, the boys, who are named Kutchek and Gore, will not be killed by him or his men.
There’s a loophole. Kutchek and Gore are separated and sentenced to hard labor in a prison called The Pit, which is overseen by a character called the Dirtmaster, played by horror genre icon Michael Berryman (best known for The Hills Have Eyes). Once they’ve reached adulthood and grown to be hugely muscular men, barbarians played by “the Barbarian brothers” Peter Paul and David Paul, they are to battle each other to death in a gladiator match. That idea falls apart when they recognize each other, team up, and manage to escape from Kadar’s village. Once they’re free, Kutchek and Gore enlist the help of outlaw girl Ismene (Eva LaRue) to try to rescue Canary from the cage Kadar keeps her in. But rather than be rescued, Canary wants Kutchek and Gore to retrieve the magic ruby from the monster-infested, dragon-guarded Forbidden Land that it has been hidden away in.
Peter Paul and David Paul certainly had the builds to play barbarians, but their characters are not intense badasses like you might expect. They play Kutchek and Gore with an immaturity, like they’re a pair of overgrown children – which does make sense to some degree, since the characters weren’t given any education beyond a young age, but also shows that they somehow got through their experience in The Pit without being hardened by it at all. (I mean psychologically; their muscles were clearly hardened by it.) Because of this, the movie has a family friendly feel to it, even if there are some elements that parents might not want their kids to witness.
My mom didn’t mind if I saw what The Barbarians had to offer. I clearly remember renting this movie on VHS when I was around the age of 4 – and I loved it. It took me around 37 years to get around to watching the movie again, but I’ve always had a positive outlook toward The Barbarians because I know my young self enjoyed it a lot. Revisiting it decades later, I still found that there was a lot to enjoy about The Barbarians. I had a good time watching this movie, and won’t be waiting another 37 years to watch it again.
SURF NAZIS MUST DIE (1987)
Sometime in the near future. The California coast has been hit by a devastating earthquake. Harley-riding mama Eleanor Washington (Gail Neely), who is simply listed in the credits as Mama, lost her home in the earthquake and has had to move into an assisted living facility – but her greatest loss comes soon after, when her son Leroy (Robert Harden) is murdered by the gang of Nazi surfers that is seeking to take over the coastline. So Mama gets her hands on some guns and grenades and heads out for revenge.
Directed by Peter George, who crafted the story with Jon Ayre, Surf Nazis Must Die has one of the greatest titles in cinema history. Unfortunately, Mama’s rampage of revenge is saved for the last 15 minutes of the film’s 83 minute running time. Most of the movie focuses on the surf Nazis, led by a guy who calls himself Adolf (Barry Brenner), interacting with other gangs and acting like idiots. There’s so much footage of people just hanging out and surfing, the movie is so padded out with nothingness, it almost seems like George thought he was making an art film. Then the characters start talking and it becomes clear that this is not an art film.
The title and set-up made it seem like this was going to be an entertaining movie, but I was disappointed by it overall. I didn’t find it to be a very entertaining viewing experience – at least not until the climactic sequence. It was fun to watch Mama finally get her revenge.
BLOODSTONE (1988)
Dwight H. Little directed by my favorite of the Halloween sequels, the 1989 film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers – and oddly enough, the movie that got him in the running for the job was the 1988 release Bloodstone, which sounds like it would be a horror movie (in fact, Full Moon brought us the vampire movie Bloodstone: Subspecies II in 1993), but is actually an action adventure film that blends a “wrong man” set-up with some screwball comedy and plays like a low-rent knock-off of Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones. Nothing about this movie cries out “Halloween director,” except for maybe the inclusion of blue moonlight lighting... and yet, Little was able to bond with Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad over the making of Bloodstone, as Akkad felt it was reminiscent of a movie he had made called Lion of the Desert, and that’s how we got Halloween 4.
Bloodstone was written by producer Nico Mastorakis, the guy who brought us films like Bloodtide, The Zero Boys, and The Wind, and Mastorakis intended to direct the movie himself – but the story was set in India, and for some reason, he wasn’t able to make the trip there. So he had to find a non-union director who could step in for him, and he chose Little, who already had a couple of low budget action movies to his name.
The story begins in 1221, when the daughter of a Maharaja died young in a tragic accident and her blood was infused with a large ruby that was intended to “bring fortune to those who have good in their hearts,” but also “death and destruction to those who have evil in their minds.” The “bloodstone” eventually ended up in the hands of the British, but jump ahead to the late 1980s and Paul Lorre (Jack Kehler) has stolen the stone and taken it back to India. With the authorities, headed up by Charlie Brill as Inspector Ramesh, closing in on him, Lorre drops the stone into the luggage of traveling American Stephanie McVey (Anna Nicholas), who has come to India with her husband Sandy (Brett Stimely), a former police officer. The stone then falls out of the luggage, into the trunk of irreverent taxi driver Shyam Sabu (Rajinikanth).
Ramesh isn’t the only person out for the stone, as international fence Ludwig Van Hoeven (Christopher Neame) also wants to get his hands on it – and Von Hoeven has a bunch of lackeys that proceed to cause a lot of trouble for Sabu and the McVeys, even abducting Stephanie early on, so Sabu and Sandy have to team up to rescue her.
Bloodstone didn’t turn out very well, and while Little has suggested that the movie is mediocre because the McVeys were played by non-union actors who weren’t up to the challenge, I don’t think union actors could have done much to elevate the material. This script, mixed with the low budget, was always going to result in an underwhelming movie that wouldn’t work 100%. Still, it’s an okay B movie. Little did say that Rajinikanth was “amazing” in the film, and his performance is definitely the best thing about it.
When he had to host Bloodstone on his The Movie Channel show, drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs didn’t even give it a star rating (he uses a four star rating system). Instead, he just described the film as “dog doo-doo.” That’s a bit overly harsh. It deserved at least one star. Maybe even one and a half!
HEART EYES (2025)
Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy worked together on the films Freaky (which Landon directed from a script he wrote with Kennedy) and Time Cut (which Kennedy co-wrote and Landon produced), and they joined forces again on Heart Eyes, which Landon produced and wrote with Kennedy and Phillip Murphy. And just like Freaky mixed elements of body swap comedies with the required slasher element of a blade-wielding maniac and Time Cut did the same with time travel movie elements and a blade-wielding maniac, Heart Eyes lifts a lot from the typical romantic comedy. Then has people getting hacked and slashed.
Directed by Scare Me and Werewolves Within’s Josh Ruben, this one stars Olivia Holt (who was in the time travel slasher Totally Killer) as Ally, who has just come up with an unpopular advertising campaign for the Seattle-based jewelry company she works for. Her boss calls in a popular designer named Jay (Mason Gooding from the most recent Scream sequels) to work with Ally on fixing the campaign – and when he walks in, Ally realizes this is the same guy she just had an awkward interaction with at a coffee shop earlier in the day. The day happens to be Valentine’s Day, and of course Ally and Jay are going to have some more awkward interactions but eventually end up falling for each other.
The twist here is that a slasher called the Heart Eyes killer, who gets their name from the fact that they wear a mask with heart eyes, has shown up in Seattle after leaving a trail of corpses in other cities on Valentine's Day the previous two years. The Heart Eyes killer targets couples. And when Ally kisses Jay outside of a diner in an attempt to show off in front of her ex-boyfriend, who has a reservation at the diner with his new girlfriend, the slasher mistakes them for a couple. Heart Eyes then proceeds to spend the rest of the movie relentlessly pursuing Ally and Jay, killing other people who cross their path. Along the way, Ally and Jay also have to deal with the fact that detectives Hobbs and Shaw (Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster) think Jay might be the killer.
I’m a big fan of slasher movies, they’re my favorite type of movie to watch (which is why I started the Dissecting Slashers series here on Life Between Frames), and this one did not disappoint. It’s a fun movie with a good sense of humor (Ruben said he used my beloved Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI as a guide on how to balance scares and laughs while making the film) and some cool slashing, and the cast did well in their roles. I actually found Mason Gooding to be way more interesting and charismatic in Heart Eyes than he ever was in either of the Scream movies he’s been in so far.
If you like slashers, check it out! This could be one that's worth going back to every Valentine's Day.
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