STRANGLEHOLD (2026) – Quirky Comedy Crime Thriller Surprisingly Smart

There is no “they.”

That’s one of the best lines in STRANGLEHOLD (2026), and it’s said by Ron Perlman’s mobster character, in a movie that is billed as an action-comedy crime thriller. And while there are plenty of laughs throughout, and a crime, and plenty of gun toting action, the movie also has a surprisingly effective subtext about the state of life in the United States these days and just who is to blame.

Bailey (Ashley Benson) works as a stripper in a small town in Arkansas, barely getting by, as she lives in a mobile home with her drunk husband Tim (Jake Lacy) and their one-year-old daughter. Tim drinks nonstop, and he can’t even hold a job working as a greeter at the local department store. Tim is also a gun enthusiast, a self-proclaimed former military vet who takes his military training seriously, even though he’s reminded by Bailey that he only served in the National Guard and struggled to do even that. But Tim believes that the government is out to get them, from ordering people to get vaccines to giving money to foreign countries rather than helping Americans at home. His points, in spite of his being a loser of a character, reasonate and hit home, which is what I liked most about this movie, that its screenplay by Chandler Duke, Billington Garrett, and director Clark Duke tackles some real life issues and in spite of its dumb Southern boy humor is smart enough to know that the answers are gray and not black and white.

Bailey just wants to buy her little daughter presents for Christmas, and so she asks her jerk of a boss Junior (Justin Long) to either give her extra shifts or perhaps an advance before Christmas. He says no to both. In fact, he even deducts from her most recent paycheck because she’s been arriving to work late recently. Besides, he tells her, she makes most of her money in tips, and when Bailey protests, Junior tells her she’d get more tips if she stopped thinking of herself as a dancer and started acting like a stripper by adding more sex moves to her dances, saying she’d get bigger tips that way. As it stands, the only way to earn more money from Junior is to engage in sex acts with him. Yup, he’s a sleazebag.

When Bailey learns of private party at the strip club with high paying clients, most of them mobsters, she asks to work at the party, but again, Junior tells her no. Completely frustrated, she gives in and gets drunk with her husband Tim, and at this point comes up with the idea that they can rob the strip club the night of the party, which will give Tim the opportunity to put his military training skills to good use, an opportunity Tim jumps at.

And so Bailey and Tim become an unlikely pair of robbers. With assault rifles in hand, they invade the club and hold everyone hostage, including the number one mobster in Arkansas, Junior’s father, Roger (Ron Perlman) as they plan to steal the huge stash of money inside the club’s safe. But somebody presses the silent alarm, and the club’s security staff, a hodgepodge of gun toting local idiots, arrive in their pickup trucks wielding their guns, and they surround the club, erroneously believing it has been taken over by terrorists.

The first half of STRANGLEHOLD is quirky and funny. As it introduces its characters, the writing is sharp and on target. I laughed a lot early on. The humor, especially as we meet the oddball crew of rural idiots, calls to mind the work of the Farrelly brothers, and as the plot grows darker, the film channels another set of filmmaker brothers, the Coens. That’s because in the movie’s second half, as Bailey and Tim attempt to rob the club, things get a tad more serious. That being said, the movie never loses its comedic edge, and the script remains funny all the way through.

But with trigger happy Tim inside the club full of mobsters, and the hillbilly security team on the outside, the stage is set for quite the bloodbath. The body count is high in this one. Yet the script remains smart.

One of the best moments features Ron Perlman’s Roger, as he listens to Tim go on and on about how bad he has it, which is why they are robbing the club, because society has taken everything away from ordinary Americans and keeps taking away, in effect saying, “they don’t care about us anymore!’ To which Roger responds with the line, “There is no they!” Roger goes on to say that he knows poverty and grew up poor, but he didn’t let that stop him. He said he worked hard for everything he got, and he worked his way to the top, because, as he says in his big macho moment, “I’m a man!” Adding that he didn’t whine and complain like Tim.

Roger also has the keen observation saying the trouble with people nowadays is they may be poor, but they all have enough money for things like iPhones and Netflix. He then turns to Bailey and asks, “You have Netlfix?” She nods, and he quips, “Of course!” The implication being that Tim may know poverty, but with things like phones and movies, he’s not as miserable as he says he is.

This dialogue hearkens back to an earlier scene where Tim goes to the drugstore to buy a prescription med for his ailing young daughter and is shocked at its high price. The pharmacist explains that the generic brand is no longer available, and he has to pay this price for the name brand. He asks for a discount, and she tells him she understands his hardship, but she can’t. She then suggests that maybe he can put some of the things in his shopping basket back. The camera then shows us what’s in his basked, beer and video game accessories for him. He returns home with his beer and video game supplies, not the medicine, telling Bailey the price was too high to pay for. Which shows us not only the real-life frustrations of high prescription drug prices, but Tim’s decision to put himself first and his sick daughter last. Which speaks to Roger’s point later about weakness in character.

Ashley Benson is very good in the lead role as Bailey, and other than the drunken decision she makes to rob the strip club, she’s the one character in the movie with a head on her shoulders and a conscience, as she balks at their decision once the bullets start flying and her friends inside the club start dying, but of course by then it’s too late.

Jake Lacy is sufficiently annoying as paranoid hubby Tim. Lacy played a similarly annoying character on the TV show THE WHITE LOTUS (2021). He makes Tim an interesting character. He’s terribly selfish and a terrible father and husband, but his points about not being able to catch a break in this county in the here and now hit home, even though he doesn’t do anything to make his own breaks.

STRANGLEHOLD also has a strong supporting cast. Ron Perlman doesn’t show up until the second half of the movie, but he chews up the scenery as Roger, the powerful mobster. Justin Long, a terrific actor with a ton of credits who started years ago in movies like GALAXY QUEST (1999) and most recently appeared in the horror movies WEAPONS (2025) and BARBARIANS (2022), knocks it out of the park as the annoying jerk of a club owner, Junior.

David Arquette plays a goofy DJ at the club, and Chandler Duke, who co-wrote the screenplay, plays Leon, the half-wit employee who leads the security team surrounding the club. Duke nails the dumb and dumber side of the character but also captures a lot of sympathy as the beat upon character.

Director Clark Duke keeps this one energetic throughout. The humor is on point during the movie’s first half, and once the robbery begins, things get real dark real fast as people we got to know early on start dying, and there’s a sense of unpredictability which works really well here. I wasn’t really sure how this one was going to play out.

The movie also does a really good job mixing humor with horror. Tim’s truck won’t start unless he passes a breathalyzer inside the vehicle, and both he and Bailey are too drunk to make it work, so they use their baby daughter. The scene where they coax her to breathe into the device is a funny one, replaced immediately by horror as Tim says they must take their daughter with them to the robbery because they will need her to start the truck again when they get away, and once there, they leave her inside the truck, right in the middle of the fierce climactic gun battle.

And this final sequence is quite the bloodbath. The movie doesn’t skimp on the violence.

STRANGLEHOLD is a movie that isn’t on a lot of people’s radar, but this comedy crime thriller really worked for me. It’s got fine performances by a veteran cast, and best of all, it has a really smart screenplay that is full of sharp humor and some surprising social commentary that at first glance seems like a playbook for conservative unrest in the nation, but upon a closer look reveals a much wiser take on what’s wrong with the country these days, a mix of poor economic conditions and poor human choices that speaks clearly to the notion that what’s wrong with the nation isn’t “them” but “us,” as people need to take ownership of their lives in spite of the odds stacked against them.

Then again, as Junior says earlier and Bailey repeats later, sometimes you just get f*cked.

I give it three stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

PRIMETIME (2026) – Stylish Story of TV Host Chris Hansen Struggles to Make Any Point

Here is yet another example of style over substance.

PRIMETIME (2026), a new drama based on the true story of NBC TV host Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and his quest to catch online child predators on national TV, is generally getting decent reviews, mostly for stylish direction by Lance Oppenheim, and a really good performance by Pattinson in the lead role.

But its story, specifically what it chooses to focus on, is a head scratcher, and for me, definitely gets in the way of the storytelling here. So, it’s no surprise that the screenplay was written by two first-timers, Ajon Singh and Luke Dittrich. As I’ve said many times before, I’m a story guy, so if the story doesn’t work, most of the time for me the movie doesn’t work either, and that’s the case here with PRIMETIME.

Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, who is intent on becoming a respected TV journalist, and so when he learns that his show is getting high ratings, and that the network is putting it up against the hit TV show LOST, he’s enthralled and goes all in at trying to make his show top in the ratings. So, while the nation believes he’s doing wonderful work catching online predators of children, the movie shows him in a rather negative light. He’s more interested in ratings than catching child molesters. He’s also having an extramarital affair, which doesn’t make him a complete hypocrite but does tarnish the upstanding moral citizen image he’s projecting on TV. He also doesn’t treat his co-workers well, including his faithful producer, Andie (Merritt Wever) who because of his ill treatment of her is considering jumping ship and joining a rival network.

So, Chris Hansen is a problematic guy, and Robert Pattinson plays him this way, but the movie doesn’t really make a strong case that he’s a hypocrite. And that’s the problem with the story in PRIMETIME. It doesn’t make a strong case about anything.

Then there’s the subplot about a young man who is working hard to become an actor, Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), and he catches his break when he is hired by Hansen’s show to play the teenage boy who lures the predators into the home to be caught on television. A lot of screen time is spent on Plum, which is another headscratcher since this story has much less to do with him than Hansen. Yet, the main story arc eventually follows Plum, and of all the characters, it’s Plum who the movie focuses on near the end and goes out of its way to makes sure we know his fate. So, now PRIMETIME is a story about a struggling actor?

The screenplay by Ajon Singh and Luke Dittrich meanders and never really hammers any of its points home. I never understood what this story was going for. Chris Hansen is a bad guy and cares more about TV ratings than catching criminals? I get that, but nobody in the movie seems to get this, and Hansen just continues on. The movie’s plot points just never resonate.

Lance Oppenheim’s direction is stylish, that much is true, and that’s probably the best part of the movie, the creative way it is filmed. And it does capture the superficiality of the TV show.

And Robert Pattinson does indeed deliver a potent performance as Chris Hansen, but it’s not enough to carry this movie, even with a solid supporting cast. And while Pattinson does make Hansen a lively character, one thing he doesn’t do is project what’s going on inside the guy’s head. I didn’t always know what he was thinking or what was driving him. It’s supposed to be the drive for top ratings and legitimacy, but Pattinson’s performance doesn’t always make this clear. At times Hansen just seems like a blank slate going through the motions.

I really enjoyed Merritt Wever as Hanson’s producer, Andie, and for my money, she gives the best performance in the movie. Her story arc is an interesting one, as she puts up with all kinds of disrespect from Hansen to the point where she questions her commitment to the show, even though Hansen’s annoyances aside, it’s a show she believes in.

Skyler Gisondo gets copious screentime as Dan Plum, the struggling actor whose break comes when he works on the show, but why the movie spends so much time on his story is a question mark for me, as it takes away from the more important stories of Chris Hansen’s motives and the capturing of the child predators. Gisondo is fine in the role, but unfortunately the character adds little to the story.

And that’s the biggest beef I have with this one. PRIMETIME has the potential to be a potent movie, a deep look at the role of TV and the exposing of these child predators. But the movie does not tackle these hard questions. It doesn’t really deal with, is Chris Hansen a good guy or a jerk only interested in ratings. We don’t really know. We don’t even know what the movie is saying about the role of TV in exposing these predators. Is it good work? Or just a circus? It doesn’t even dare put the audience in the uncomfortable position of feeling sympathy for these predators, people entrapped by an aggressive TV show. But worst of all, it has nothing to say about the victims of these predators or their plight.

At the end of the day, it may be stylish, but it’s also, sadly, superficial.

It’s a story that simply lacks clarity and focus. It seems to have no idea what it wants to say with its story, and as result, ends up saying next to nothing. As such, it struggles to make any point whatsoever.

I give it two stars.

=END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

HEART OF THE BEAST (2026) – Adventure of Man and Dog Trapped in Alaskan Wilderness Entertaining and Emotional

One week earlier…

This has become my least favorite gimmick in movies these days. It’s up there with it was just a dream. Ugh!

It occurs when after an opening sequence, the words one week earlier (or fill in some other time, three weeks, a month, whatever) appear on screen, and we are taken back to events which occurred before the sequence we just saw. This can be a clever way to tell a story, but more often than not, it spoils the majority of the movie because we already know what is going to happen. And movies these days use this storytelling gimmick a lot. Way too much for my liking.

It’s used here in HEART OF THE BEAST (2026), a movie I otherwise liked a lot, but its opening sequence does the movie no favors. It’s the story of a man James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his faithful dog trying to survive in the Alaska wilderness after a plane crash, and the movie opens with a young woman driving a pick-up truck along an Alaskan road only to stop when she sees a dog standing alone in the middle of the road. She gets out of her vehicle and approaches the dog. Then: one week earlier.

So, we already know that the Brad Pitt character isn’t making it out of those woods! Pretty dumb storytelling, if you ask me.

The good news is, it’s about the only thing dumb about this movie, which is actually quite good. But it would have been even better without the needless spoiler in the opening sequence.

James is a former Special Forces veteran, recently retired, who is on a trip with his dog Odin, a specially trained combat dog, into the deep wilds of Alaska to enjoy some rest and relaxation. We learn their backstories when they meet up with a retired miner, Watkins (J.K. Simmons) who spends one night with them, time enough to share a beer and listen to their story. They saw deep horrors of war, and Odin was severely injured. He now has some titanium teeth, scars around his snout and eye, and a prosthetic leg. Odin also suffers from PTSD and experiences disturbing nightmares.

Later, after their twin engine plane crashes deep in the wilderness, James and Odin have to attempt to travel nearly 50 miles on foot through the rough terrain in order to get back to civilization. And that’s basically the plot of HEART OF THE BEAST. It’s man and man’s best friend bonding together and fighting for survival against the elements and predators, as they deal with violent thunderstorms, a harrowing trek over a raging river on an unstable fallen tree, a bear, and a persistent pack of wolves.

HEART OF THE BEAST is definitely a dog movie, a genre that has been with us forever but that has also seen a resurgence of late. What’s a dog movie? Simply put, a movie with a dog as a central character. In recent years, we’ve seen ARTHUR THE KING (2024) with Mark Wahlberg, MEGAN LEAVEY (2017) with Kate Mara, and the superb horror movie GOOD BOY (2025) about a dog that can see ghosts, to name just a few. I’m a dog person, so yes, I generally really enjoy movies about dogs. As such, it’s true I might be a tad biased towards HEART OF THE BEAST, but I think it’s a safe bet that even if you’re a cat lover, you’d still enjoy this movie.

Its story is a good one, and the adventure provides plenty of thrills and suspense throughout. But the best part of this movie is the bond which exists between the Brad Pitt’s character and the dog. They’ve been to war together, and so they are incredibly close. as James says, he has no other family, and his closest relationship is in fact with Odin. And as they have to fight to survive in the Alaskan wilderness, their bond strengthens, as they once again find themselves in life threatening situations. Their relationship is special, and anyone who has been close with a dog will know that this bond depicted in the movie is real, that humans and dogs can be this close, and it’s a relationship that will tug on your heartstrings. Have some tissues ready for this one.

While Brad Pitt is very good and believable in the lead role as James, honestly, this one belongs to its canine star, Odin. Four dogs are listed in the credits as playing Odin, but only one, Uber, played him as an adult. The other three are offspring of Uber and played him in the flashbacks when he was younger. Uber is a very expressive dog with remarkable expressions, and director David Ayer takes full advantage of them. Odin is the best character in the movie, and with apologies to Brad Pitt, Uber gives the best performance in the movie.

Director David Ayer has directed a bunch of movies, and for me his work has been a mixed bag. I enjoyed his World War II adventure FURY (2014), which also starred Brad Pitt, as well as the Jason Statham actioner THE BEEKEEPER (2024). On the other hand, his other Statham vehicle, A WORKING MAN (2025) did not work for me, nor did his DC action flick SUICIDE SQUAD (2016). HEART OF THE BEAST, a phrase which refers to the deadly Alaskan wilderness, is one of Ayer’s better and more satisfying movies.

He also makes full use of the awe-inspiring scenery. That being said, this one was not shot in Alaska, but in New Zealand!

The screenplay by Cameron Alexander tells a straightforward story of friendship and does a good job of putting the two characters in harm’s way. The only drawback was the “one week earlier” construct to open the film.

HEART OF THE BEAST is a highly entertaining adventure movie and features a movie-stealing performance by Uber the dog as Odin, as well as a brave performance by Brad Pitt who spends most of the movie beaten and battered and covered in muck. It also tells a worthwhile story about a special relationship between man and dog and demonstrates how important and close such a relationship can be. So much so that it will most likely make you cry.

I give it three stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

SHOCK SCENES: DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings – Part 4

This is a reprint from 2016, updated to include links to the actual endings to the Dracula movies.

—Michael

 

SHOCK SCENES:  DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings

Part 4

By

Michael Arruda

Welcome to Part 4 of our look at the endings to the Hammer DRACULA series, where we examine how Dracula met his demise in the various Hammer Dracula movies. Previously we looked at the endings to the first six Hammer Dracula pics.  Here in Part 4 we’ll look at the rest of the series.

And remember, if you haven’t seen these films, there are major spoilers here, so proceed with caution.

DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972)

Dracula meets the 1970s!

After the success of the Dan Curtis film THE NIGHT STALKER (1972), the movie that introduced reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) to the world and had Kolchak hunting a vampire in present day Las Vegas, Hammer decided that for its next Dracula movie they would take Dracula out of the 19th century and put him in the heart of present day London, which at the time happened to be 1972.

DRACULA A.D. 1972 also marked the return of Peter Cushing to the series, as he played Lorrimer Van Helsing, a descendant of the original Van Helsing.  On paper, it  sounded like a neat idea.  In reality- mostly because “modern day” at the time was the groovin-yeah-baby year of 1972, the film really doesn’t work- at least not the way Hammer intended.  THE NIGHT STALKER, it ain’t!

However, that being said, in spite of it being lambasted by critics and doing poorly at the box office, DRACULA A.D. 1972 is actually a pretty fun movie.  I’ve always really liked this one.  The dialogue is so over the top and overdone, it’s a hoot!  It’s like watching an episode of SCOOBY-DOO.

It’s also a lot of fun seeing Peter Cushing return to the series as Van Helsing, even if he is playing one of Van Helsing’s descendants.  As usual, Christopher Lee doesn’t have a lot to do as Dracula, but he makes the most of his few scenes.

Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham) isn’t doing her grandfather any favors when she removes the knife from Dracula’s (Christopher Lee) heart during the finale of DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972).

Unfortunately, the ending isn’t anything to brag about, even with Cushing’s Van Helsing battling Lee’s Dracula once again.  Compared to the ending of HORROR OF DRACULA, the ending to DRACULA A.D. 1972 is slow and tired.  There’s a brief chase, this time with Dracula chasing Van Helsing, a brief scuffle, and then an all too easy death scene where Dracula falls into a pit of wooden stakes, set up there earlier by Van Helsing, although how he would know Dracula would fall inside is beyond me!  This is followed by the obligatory and not very impressive Dracula-turns-to-dust scene.

Far out, man!

Not really.

 

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973)

Immediately after the release of DRACULA A.D. 1972, Hammer went into production with their next Dracula movie, THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973) which again starred both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and once more took place in the 1970s.

The attempt was made to improve upon DRACULA A.D. 1972, and so in this film the hippies are gone, and instead Dracula acts likes he’s a villain in a James Bond movie as he tries to take over the world with the help of other devil worshiping dignitaries. When Scotland Yard investigates and learns about the satanic cult, they turn to their resident expert, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing).

It’s a fairly interesting plot, but it’s all rather flat, and I’ve always enjoyed DRACULA A.D. 1972 more.  Because DRACULA A.D. 1972 performed so miserably at the box office, Hammer decided not to release SATANIC RITES in the U.S., until that is, five years later when it was released under the ridiculous title COUNT DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDE in 1978.  The only good thing about the delay was I was 14 at the time, and when it opened at my local theater, it provided me with my first opportunity to see a Hammer horror film on the big screen.  Cool!

The ending to SATANIC RITES is actually a bit better than the ending to DRACULA A.D. 1972.  The confrontation between Dracula and Van Helsing is a bit longer this time.  It starts in a fiery house and then continues outside, as Van Helsing leads Dracula into the woods where he is able to get Dracula caught in a thorn bush.  See, in this movie, thorns are representative of Christ’s crown of thorns and as a result are fatal to vampires.  At least Hammer always remained creative!  Of course, what would a Dracula movie be without a good staking, and so Van Helsing drives a stake through Drac’s heart for good measure, which leads to the undead king’s umpteenth disintegration scene.

Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) prepares to do battle with Dracula in THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973).

The best part about this ending is that after Dracula disintegrates, all that is left of Dracula is his ring, which hearkens back to the ending of the first film in the series, HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) where Dracula’s ring also remains after his disintegration.  In HORROR OF DRACULA, Van Helsing does not take the ring, and when Dracula is resurrected in DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966) he wears it again.  This time around, at the end of SATANIC RITES, Van Helsing does take the ring, symbolizing that this time Dracula is truly done for, which is appropriate, since this was the final Christopher Lee film of the series.

I say final “Christopher Lee” film in the series because even though Lee said his days as Dracula were over, Hammer wasn’t finished, and they would bring back Dracula for one more movie, without Lee.

 

THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974)

This is one weird movie.  After the commercial failure of their previous two Dracula movies, Hammer decided that Dracula in the 1970s was not a good idea, and so their next vampire tale would once more be a period piece. THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES was originally not going to be a Dracula film at all, but simply a vampire movie, but this horror-martial arts combo was co-produced with The Shaw Brothers Company who insisted that since their Asian audiences loved Dracula, that Dracula had to be incorporated into the movie.

And so an introduction was filmed with John Forbes-Robertson hamming it up in thick Joker-like make-up as Dracula, where we see his spirit enter into that of an Asian warrior who had visited Dracula’s castle.  Dracula wants to seek out new blood in the Far East, and now inside a new body, he is able to assemble an army of Kung-fu vampires— the seven golden vampires— without people knowing who he is, except that old nemesis Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is also in the Far East and hot on his trail!

 

One of the seven golden vampires in THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974), Hammer’s final Dracula movie.

There are martial arts fights galore in this very unique film that somehow actually works.  It also has a fantastic music score by James Bernard.

Unfortunately, the ending is rather lame.  After all that choreographed martial arts fighting, Dracula returns to his old body where he is promptly done in— in very undramatic fashion- by Van Helsing.  It’s a very weak way to end the series.

 

Aside from the ending,  THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES is actually a pretty enjoyable movie.  And even though he’s not really involved in the fight sequences, Peter Cushing still enjoys lots of screen time as Van Helsing, and as always, he’s excellent.

Look also for the inferior yet worth checking out re-edited version entitled THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEET DRACULA (1974).  This version was originally released in the U.S. as an exploitation flick.  It’s fun to compare the two.  THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES plays out like an elegant atmospheric A-List Hammer vampire movie, whereas THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEETS DRACULA plays like a choppy incoherent blood fest shown at the Drive-In after midnight.  Same movie, different editing.  It’s fascinating to watch these two versions back to back.

So, that about wraps things up.  Thanks for joining me on this four part look at the various Dracula demises in the Hammer Dracula movies.

Join me next time for another SHOCK SCENES when I’ll we’ll look at other memorable scenes in horror movie history.

—END—

THE WEIGHT (2026) – Depression Era Adventure Speaks to Our Times

Perfection is a rare thing in the movies.

Coming close to perfection is just as rare.

THE WEIGHT (2026), a new period piece adventure starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe comes close to perfection.

The story takes place in Oregon in 1933, amidst The Great Depression, and single dad Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) is struggling to get by with his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry). In fact, they get evicted from their apartment and find themselves homeless. While searching for a new apartment, Sam and Murphy are accosted by a group of aggressive men who don’t take kindly to the father and daughter being in a back alley, even though Sam explains they’re trying to contact someone inside the building as they are looking for an apartment to rent, and when one of the men gets too close to Penny, Sam reacts and engages the men in a fight. It turns out, these guys are cops, and suddenly Sam is arrested and thrown in jail.

He finds himself months later working a prison chain gang, building roads, led by a demanding officer, J.J. Clancy (Russell Crowe). Clancy takes note of Sam’s intelligence and ingenuity, and he offers Sam a chance to get out of prison early in order to get back to his daughter before she is adopted by a foster family. The job involves helping officers move gold through the Oregon wilderness. If Sam and his handpicked convicts complete the job, Clancy promises all of them will be released early.

So, Sam accepts the offer, chooses three fellow convicts who he has come to know, and they are off to carry gold on foot through the dense Oregon mountains and forest. Not only do they have to brave the elements, but they do not completely trust the guards who are accompanying them, as they fear these men will simply kill them once the job is done under the false pretense that they were trying to steal the gold. Plus, there are plenty of prospectors in the woods, and if they discovered what these men were carrying, they would definitely try to steal it.

There is no shortage of intense adventure and intrigue throughout this story, as a character says in this movie, gold does strange things to people. But Sam isn’t interested in the gold. He is laser focused on one thing, completing the job and staying alive so he can get an early release and get his daughter back. It’s what drives him in this story, and ultimately what drives the movie forward.

I really, really liked THE WEIGHT as it has a lot of things working in its favor. It’s got an air-tight compelling story, interesting characters, and topnotch acting, led by Ethan Hawke in one of his best performances.

It’s no surprise that the screenplay by Matthew Booi, Leo Scherman, and Matthew Chapman sets the story during the Great Depression. We have reached the stage in the here and now in the United States where it’s safe to say life is most uncertain, and day to day life for most people is becoming more and more desperate, and it’s a period that years hence may be looked back on as difficult and as dreadful as the Great Depression. So, just as movies from the 1950s like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) and plays like Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE resonated so well during that decade because in real life at the time people were living through the McCarthy hearings, today, a movie like THE WEIGHT resonates so well because life in present times is gradually reaching similar levels of desperation to that found in the 1930s.

Director Padraic McKinley takes full advantage of the scenery to give the movie a strong sense of place, and he also carves out some very tense sequences, from one in particular involving a rickey foot bridge high above a river, to some grueling and brutal fight sequences.

The acting is superb. Ethan Hawke, who I have enjoyed in such movies as THE BLACK PHONE (2021) and SINISTER (2012), gives one of his all-time best performances here as Sam. The character is laser focused on completing the job in order to get his daughter back, and he’s not above killing people to do it. Hawke makes this knowledgeable character, a guy who has engineer smarts and worldly common sense, believable. He’s also a World War I veteran who survived trench warfare. He’s a stand-up guy and an easy hero to root for.

He’s supported by an exceptional cast.

Julia Jones shines as Anna, a Native American woman who flees for her safety and freedom and ends up meeting and joining the men in the wilderness. She and Hawke enjoy a nice chemistry together, as Sam understands her plight, and she quickly understands that she can trust him, something she can’t say about the rest of the men.

Austin Amelio, who can play an untrustworthy weasel in his sleep, as he has done so memorably before, playing Dwight on the TV show THE WALKING DEAD (2015-2022) and a similar character in the movie HIT MAN (2023), is at it again here as the sketchiest of the convicts on the team, Rankin. In fact, one of the other men refers to him as the most annoying man he’s ever met. But in this movie, characterizations run deep, and Amelio’s Rankin is more than just a weasel. And Amelio delivers a really good performance in this complicated role.

Avi Nash and Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen round out the convicts, and Sam Hazeldine, George Burgess, and Alec Newman play the untrustworthy officers they work for.

Russell Crowe, as he always does, delivers the goods in a supporting role as J.J. Clancy, the man who sets the gold-moving plan in motion. His scenes with Ethan Hawke are some of the best in the movie. Unfortunately, Crowe isn’t in this one a lot, as he’s offscreen during the movie’s main action sequences in the Oregon wilderness.

If I had any qualms about THE WEIGHT it would be that in spite of the gripping adventure, things tend to work out neat and tidy. This one, especially with what was at stake for the characters, should have been a tad messier and darker.

But all in all, THE WEIGHT is an exceptional movie, cinematic, exciting, and moving, and as such, its Great Depression setting speaks to our current uncertain and increasingly traumatic times.

I give it four stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

RESIDENT EVIL (2026) -Zach Cregger’s Reimagining of Video Game Horror Movie Provides Nonstop Thrills and Excitement

Fasten your seatbelts.

Zach Cregger’s RESIDENT EVIL (2026), a reimagining of the RESIDENT EVIL movies, all of which are based on the Resident Evil video games, is a roller coaster ride of a movie, a series on nonstop intense and very funny adventures from start to finish. If you like horror movie action and one thrill after another, you’ll love this movie.

It’s the story of Bryan (Austin Abrams) who’s been tasked with delivering a high-level medical package, which he assumes to be some sort of human organ desperately needed to save someone’s life— interestingly, we just had the same exact plot premise in last week’s action thriller RUNNER (2026) starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson—and Bryan accepts this dangerous task because it pays a lot of money. And it’s dangerous because he has to travel over treacherous snow-covered and icy backroads to get to the destination.

On his way there, while struggling to drive both because of the difficult driving conditions and because he’s on the phone with his girlfriend discussing her pregnancy, he is unable to brake in time to keep from hitting a woman who all of sudden stepped in front of his car. When he finds her on the side of the road looking bloody and battered and unable to speak, and genuinely kind of weird looking, he helps her into his car and plans to take her to the hospital where he’s heading to deliver his package.

But in this movie, nothing goes as planned, and the less said about what happens next, the better. But basically Bryan realizes that he is driving into a house of horrors, because some sort of experiment has changed everyone in the area into aggressive mutated creatures.

RESIDENT EVIL was directed and co-written by Zach Cregger, the man behind two of the more critically acclaimed horror movies in recent years, WEAPONS (2025) and BARBARIAN (2022), both of which were exceedingly creative and smart, but neither of which completely worked for me. These were two very heavy hitting horror movies. RESIDENT EVIL is much lighter fare, in that it doesn’t take itself as seriously, and as a result, for me, it’s a better movie than both WEAPONS and BARBARIAN.

Austin Abrams, who also had a role in WEAPONS, is really good in the lead role here as Bryan, and he has to be, since he’s in nearly every scene. He’s a guy who just wants to deliver his package but is constantly thrust into one ordeal after another. He’s constantly chirping, “What the f*ck? and “No f*cking way!” as you would be if you were going through what he was going through. He’s attacked by a dog, he has to traverse through a darkened tunnel, as well as navigate through a city street while mutated creatures are hurling themselves at him from the rooftops above. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many well-done scenes in this movie, all involving Bryan getting into predicaments and having to get his way out of them.

To be honest, about two-thirds of the way through, this formula begins to be redundant, as it becomes clear that this movie is never going to add any depth to the proceedings. What you see is what you get. Bryan escapes the tunnel, and suddenly next he’s met by a new threat, and you kinda figure out he will get out of this one as well because he needs to move on to the next threat. Don’t get me wrong. The movie never becomes dull and boring, because each of these situations is fun and exciting. But you get the sense you’re playing a video game as Bryan, and that’s because this movie is of course based on a video game! And that’s the level of storytelling here. It never rises above video game status to become a full-fledged movie.

Yet it still works, because usually in a movie like this, the repetition becomes incredibly boring, but here, the screenplay by Cregger and Shay Hatten is refreshingly funny. I saw this in a packed theater, and there was plenty of laughter. The situations are also more creative than most. In other words, it’s not just Bryan shooting creatures. While this does happen, most of the sequences are engaging and well-choreographed.

While Austin Abrams carries the show, he’s supported by a fine cast who show up for various scenes, usually not surviving for the next one, folks like Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry, and Kali Reis.

I was not a fan of the earlier RESIDENT EVIL series, which starred Milla Jovovich, so I can easily say this this new one is the best RESIDENT EVIL movie by far, but that’s not saying much, because the previous series was pretty forgettable.

But this RESIDENT EVIL is not. It’s really good. It’s also quite graphic, with plenty of blood and gore, but most of it played for laughs.

If you’re a horror movie fan, you will love RESIDENT EVIL. If you’re not a horror movie aficionado, as long as you can get past the graphic blood and guts, you may find yourself enjoying this one as well.

I definitely enjoyed it, but that being said, it’s still limited by its video game origins, in that while it’s fun and thrilling, there’s nothing deep, resonating, or even cinematic about it. It’s a video game movie that happens to be blessed with a better than average screenplay. Which for most people looking for 90 minutes of escapism is enough.

I give it three stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

SHOCK SCENES: DRACULA’S DEMISE – A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings – Part 3

This is a reprint from an article I wrote in 2016, updated to include video footage of the movies’ endings.

—Michael

 

SHOCK SCENES:  DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings

Part 3

By

Michael Arruda

Welcome to Part 3 of our look at the endings to the Hammer DRACULA series, where we examine how Dracula met his demise in the various Hammer Dracula movies. Previously we looked at the endings to the first four Hammer Dracula pics.  Here in Part 3 we’ll look at the endings to the next two films in the series, TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1969) and SCARS OF DRACULA (1970).

And remember, if you haven’t seen these films, there are major spoilers here, so proceed with caution.

TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1969)

Give credit to director Peter Sasdy.  With the exception of the first two Hammer Dracula films by Terence Fisher, HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) and THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960), TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA is probably the best looking of the Hammer Draculas.  The cinematography is clear, crisp, rich and colorful, with deep dark reds and blues spilling onto the screen like a bruised corpse dripping blood.

While most of the Hammer Dracula sequels are shot in a way that make them look like horror films, TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA looks like a PBS drama.  The cinematography here is simply a step above the rest.

And Christopher Lee has never looked better as Dracula. Gone are the red bloodshot eyes (for the most part – they’re back in some scenes) and pasty white face shot with green light in DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968), and in their place is a more noble and princely looking Lee.  In fact, at times Sasdy’s camera makes Lee look about ten years younger.  Other than way back in HORROR OF DRACULA, when he was only 36, Christopher Lee is probably photographed at his handsomest as Dracula here in TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA.

Dracula (Christopher Lee) in the desecrated church in TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1969).

 

The film gets its title because in this one, a young devil worshipper Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates) gets hold of a vial of Dracula’s blood, spilled after the vampire was impaled on a cross at the end of DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968).  To resurrect Dracula, he mixes his own blood with Drac’s and then orders the men he has brought into his circle to drink it.  Hence the title.

While TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA may be richly photographed, it’s not my favorite of the Dracula sequels.  Its story doesn’t always makes sense, and its characters simply aren’t as likable or as developed as those in the previous films in the series.

TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA also has the strangest ending of the entire series.

Young Paul (Anthony Corland) attempts to rescue his girlfriend Alice (Linda Hayden) from the clutches of Dracula (Christopher Lee) who’s hiding out in a desecrated church.  Paul places crucifixes throughout the church and puts a white cloth over the altar.  As you might imagine, Dracula is none too happy about these changes, and there is a struggle.

Dracula flees to the upper level of the church to get away from Paul’s crosses, and when he smashes a stained-glass window, he turns to see the entire church lit with candles and looking like it’s ready for Sunday Mass.  It’s a miracle!  Unable to withstand this sudden burst of holiness, Dracula falls from his perch and proceeds to disintegrate into ashes once more.

Scratching your head?  Me, too, and I’ve seen this ending multiple times.  It appears as best as I can figure it, that in this movie, God destroys Dracula!  Yup, that’s about the size of it.  It’s a weird ending, and worse yet, it’s simply not very satisfying.  It also serves as proof that the characters in this movie aren’t up to the task of destroying Dracula, so, why destroy him at all?  I still think some of these Hammer Dracula sequels would have been even better had Dracula simply survived at the end.  It would have given these movies some very dark endings which would only have made them more memorable.

And while the special effects in the disintegration sequence are impressive, they lack the excitement and thrill of the effects in HORROR OF DRACULA.

It all makes for a very bizarre and rather disappointing ending.

 

SCARS OF DRACULA (1970)

While TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA may have had the strangest ending to the series, the next movie, SCARS OF DRACULA, has the worst ending.

SCARS OF DRACULA was an attempt by Hammer to give Dracula more screen time, which is a rarity since even in the best of the Hammer Draculas, like HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), for example, Dracula just isn’t in the film very much.  The Hammer Draculas always made the most of Dracula’s brief screen time.

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968), Hammer’s biggest money-maker of all time, struck a nice balance with its Dracula scenes, and Dracula seemed to be in this one more than the other films.  On the other hand, it took Dracula nearly half of TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA to show up, which no doubt left viewers disappointed, regardless of how richly photographed that movie was.

In this regard, giving Dracula more screen time, SCARS OF DRACULA  succeeds.  Dracula (Christopher Lee) shows up within the first few minutes of the film and is in this one quite a lot.  He also has a field day, as SCARS OF DRACULA is probably the most violent film in the series, as in addition to biting people on the neck, Dracula also whips, stabs, impales and brands his victims here.  Ouch!

Dracula (Christopher Lee) doing his best Norman Bates impersonation as he stabs a victim in SCARS OF DRACULA (1970).

The other neat thing about this movie, and which makes it stand out from the rest of the Hammer Draculas, is the way Dracula appears and disappears. In the previous films, most of Draculas entrances were all highly dramatic, often with undead king baring his fangs and hissing in some genuine shock scenes.  Here, director Roy Ward Baker made the interesting choice never to show Dracula enter or exit a room.  Suddenly, he’s just standing there, and when a character turns around for a moment, he’s suddenly gone.  Even though it’s not the traditional Christopher Lee interpretation, it works.

So, for the most part, I really like SCARS OF DRACULA, even though its cinematography is vastly inferior to that of TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA.  More so, it’s inferior to the cinematography of the rest of the Hammer Dracula’s as well.  There’s something very rushed and cheap looking about this movie, which goes against the Hammer Films formula of making sure that at the very least their films looked like they had a high budget.

But the ending is the worst and takes the rest of the film down several notches.  Dracula is on the roof of his castle, once more battling a young man over his girlfriend.  Dracula needs some lessons on dating.  Anyway, Dracula grabs a spear and prepares to hurl it at his adversary when a lightning bolt zaps the spear and ignites Dracula in a fiery blaze.  So, in the last film Dracula was desroyed by God.  This time he’s done in by— the weather?   Yep, Dracula is struck down by Mother Nature.  How implausible is that?  If you can’t write characters who are worthy of destroying Dracula, just let him survive already!

Dracula bursts into flames and as he screams in agony, he’s filmed in ridiculous slow motion.  When he falls from the castle roof, the shot of him plunging down the side looks as realistic as one of the freefalls of Wile E. Coyote.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love SCARS OF DRACULA.  But I don’t like the ending.  At all.

So, that about wraps things up for Part 3 of our look at the endings to the Hammer DRACULA series.  Join me next time for Part 4, when we’ll look at the endings to the rest of the films in the series.

See you then!

And thanks for reading!

—Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

COYOTE VS. ACME (2026) – Sympathetic Treatment of Wile E. Coyote a Fun Delight

True confessions time.

While I’m a lifelong Looney Tunes fan, one series of cartoons by these guys I’ve never really been all that into has always been… the Road Runner vs. Coyote adventures. Watching the Coyote fail the first few times was funny, and after a while, I just kinda lost interest.

So,,, when COYOTE VS. ACME (2026) was released at the end of August, I can’t say that I was all that excited to see a movie with Wile E. Coyote as the main character. Which is why I just caught up with it this past weekend.

In the tradition of movies like WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988) and SPACE JAM (1996), COYOTE VS. ACME is a mix of live action and animation, and with the technology available in the here and now in 2026, the blending of the two is seamless and exceptionally well-done.

After losing to the Road Runner yet again, Wile E. Coyote catches a TV commercial featuring a lawyer, Kevin Avery (Will Forte) who promises justice for those who have been victims of accidents. While Coyote has a list a mile long of accidents stemming from all the Acme products which never worked properly, Kevin isn’t interested in any big cases, but Coyote takes matters into his own hands, and the next thing Kevin knows, his little firm is taking on the huge Acme corporation, led by powerhouse lawyer, Buddy Crane (John Cena). And the case is on. It’s Coyote vs Acme!

As I said, not being the biggest fan of the Coyote vs. Road Runner cartoons, I wasn’t exactly all in for this story, and early on while things are amiable enough to hold interest, I wasn’t exactly loving this one, but about midway through, the movie flips a switch and it’s here that things really start to resonate. Kevin realizes that Coyote isn’t even interested in winning the case. He just wants to catch the Road Runner, and when Kevin calls him out, and tells him he’ll never catch the Road Runner, Coyote is crushed, and suddenly he’s a sympathetic character. And it’s here where the movie goes from being a fun animated comedy to a more rewarding animated movie. I bought into Coyote’s character and frankly enjoyed him more here than in any of the old Road Runner cartoons. The themes of friendship and dedicated work ethic lift this one to a higher standard.

Obviously, the humor is present throughout the movie, but it’s this emotional connection between Coyote and Kevin that made this movie work for me.

Will Forte is fine as Kevin, while John Cena hams it up as super lawyer Buddy Crane, and the movie’s theme of the little guy taking on the huge corporation also resonates.

But the true star of this one is the animation and more specifically, the character of Wile E. Coyote. In addition, the Road Runner is more impactful than in any of the old cartoons, and Foghorn Leghorn gets to be quite the villain. It was also fun to watch the animated version of Peter Lorre, a mainstay in the old Looney Tunes cartoons back in the day, as a key character in this one.

Dave Green’s direction is spirited and energetic, and the screenplay by Samy Burch, based on a “New Yorker” article by Ian Frazier, is both funny and surprisingly poignant.

I went in to COYOTE VS. ACME with modest expectations, but left having really enjoyed this one.

I give it three and a half stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

RUNNER (2026) – Alan Ritchson Bona Fide Action Star Pairs with Owen Wilson for Highly Entertaining Actioner

Have you seen the new REACHER movie? It’s called RUNNER.

I jest.

RUNNER is not a new REACHER movie.

But I’ve been a fan of Alan Ritchson since he started playing the character Jack Reacher on the superb TV show REACHER (2022-2026), and since he began playing the role he’s made a bunch of movies where he kinda plays the same type of character, which isn’t a bad thing (most action stars do this) as I really like his onscreen persona, and the character he plays in the new action movie RUNNER (2026), a guy named Hank Malone, is so close to Jack Reacher you’ll feel like you’re watching a big screen adaptation of the character.

RUNNER, not to be confused with the THE RUNNER (2026), an action thriller starring Gal Gadot which just came out last week!—you know, we just had this issue a few months back when the thriller THE PASSENGER (2026) came out in June upon the heels of the horror movie PASSENGER (2026) which had just come out in May. Hmm. I think Hollywood needs to spend more time coming up with titles for its movies.

Wait a minute. Hold on. This just in. It looks like next week there will be another action thriller coming out called… THAT RUNNER.

Er, no!

Moving right along—

Back to today’s movie, RUNNER, which stars Alan Ritchson as a former soldier named Hank Malone who now lives in Australia and works as a runner, which means he’s a delivery driver for a company which caters to high-priced items. Malone has a backstory, as he’s also a recovering alcoholic, as years earlier he had drowned his emotional war scars in booze, and when his young daughter was dying from cancer, he wasn’t there for her. When she died, he felt tremendous guilt.

Malone’s current delivery involves transplanting a human organ which is on its way to a local hospital where a dying young girl awaits it, and in addition to the organ in a specially sealed case he’s also transporting its handler, an exceedingly talkative individual named Ben Bishop (Owen Wilson). But a dangerous cartel also wants the organ for its dying matriarch, and they will stop at nothing to get it. Trouble is, once Hank learns that a little girl’s life depends on his getting this organ to the hospital, he is determined to complete the job, and as he tells the little girl’s mother over the telephone, he’s not an easy man to stop.

And there’s your plot. It’s a buddy movie, as two opposites, the ultra-serious and unstoppable Alan Ritchson and the talkative and sensitive Owen Wilson, are paired together to fend off a murderous gang of thugs, with a pull-at-the-heartstrings emotional plot, as their mission involves saving the life of a little girl.

Some may find this emotional plot a bit much, and at times the emotions are poured on real thick, but I was enjoying the pairing of Ritchson and Wilson so much I didn’t care. So, yes, Ritchson and Wilson do share a winning chemistry here, and their scenes together, once the action plot gets moving, drives this one along nicely.

I’m a big Alan Ritchson fan, and he doesn’t disappoint here, even as he plays a character that is very much like his TV role of Jack Reacher. Like Reacher, Hank Malone is pretty much unstoppable, possesses unceasing confidence when dealing with the bad guys, and is basically a one-man wrecking machine. Right now, Ritchson is one of my favorite action stars. In addition to the TV show REACHER, he’s also starred in the movies MOTOR CITY (2026), WAR MACHINE (2026), PLAYDATE (2025), and THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE (2024), and he’s been really good in all of them. Sure, his range is limited, but I’ve made this case before, that he reminds me a lot of an early Arnold Schwarzenegger, who certainly didn’t have a lot of range early on, but grew as an actor the more movies he made. Ritchson shares a similar larger-than-life action persona as Schwarzenegger, a persona I really enjoy, and I suspect that, like Schwarzenegger, his range will grow as he continues to make more movies.

I hadn’t seen Owen Wilson in a movie in a while. He’s been making movies and TV shows right along, but the last time I saw him in a movie was in WONDER (2017). He’s really good here as Ben Bishop, and the character is every bit the hero as Ritchson’s Hank. He also gets some of the best lines in the movie, and he and Ritchson work well together.

RUNNER was directed by Scott Waugh, and he wows with the action scenes here. There are several really wild car chase sequences which come off as really cinematic with some nifty camerawork, and in addition, as is expected in any Alan Ritchson vehicle, some really intense and brutal fight scenes. And the action isn’t done here, as there are some well-choreographed shoot out scenes as well. Waugh previously directed THE EXPENDABLES 4 (2023), a movie I did not like all that much, and NEED FOR SPEED (2014), a film I liked a bit better. I enjoyed RUNNER more than both of these movies. For me, it’s Waugh’s best movie yet.

The screenplay by Miles Hubley and Tommy White scores high with the dialogue and banter between Ritchson and Wilson, and it does serve up a right-to-the-point plot: lose to the bad guys, and a little girl dies, so there’s plenty of emotional drive to root for Ritchson and Wilson. But speaking of that emotion, the screenplay does lay it on rather thick at times, but I was having so much fun I didn’t mind. That being said, there were a couple of scenes involving long conversations which got in the way of pacing, especially since in terms of plot Hank and Ben really weren’t supposed to be having time to have these long conversations.

I enjoyed Leila George as Kate Baker, the mother of the little girl who is dying. She even gets to enter “kick-ass-never-mess-with-a-desperate-mom” mode when she joins the fight near the end, taking part in the bloody final battle.

The movie goes out of its way to highlight moms and how much they care, and ironically, in spite of doing this, the main villain in this one, the dying matriarch, is a brutally nasty mom. Equal time, I guess?

Speaking of villains, that’s one thing that’s missing from RUNNER, a worthwhile villain for Hank to tangle with. Rodrigo Santoro plays the son of the dying matriarch, and he’s the leader of the gang that is chasing down Hank and Ben. Santoro is certainly entertaining enough, and his performance is fine, but in spite of having Hank and Ben pretty much outnumbered like 50 to 2, the film enters into the Bugs Bunny syndrome where nothing Hank does seems to go wrong, and he pretty much wipes the floor with the bad guys. The fate of the precious organ and Hank are never in doubt.

But overall, I thought RUNNER was one of the more entertaining action movies I’ve seen all year. The large audience I saw it with seemed to agree. There were some cheers and lots of out-loud laughs for both Owen Wilson and Alan Ritchson.

Alan Ritchson is a bona fide action star. This movie only adds to that assertion.

I give it a rousing three and a half stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

SHOCK SCENES: DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer DRACULA Endings- Part 2

This is a reprint of an article I wrote in 2016, updated to include video clips of the movies’ endings.

-Michael

SHOCK SCENES:  DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings

Part 2

By

Michael Arruda

Welcome to Part 2 of our look at the endings to the Hammer DRACULA series, where we examine how Dracula met his demise in the various Hammer Dracula movies. In Part 1, we looked at the endings to HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) and THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960).  Now, it’s on to Part 2.

And remember, if you haven’t seen these films, there are major spoilers here, so proceed with caution.

 

DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966)

Although THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) was a sequel to HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), it didn’t feature Christopher Lee.  DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS did.

And that’s because Lee had avoided reprising the role of Dracula like the plague to avoid being typecast, but after years of unrelenting Hammer pressure, he finally gave in and agreed to play the role again, providing fans a chance to be terrified once more by their favorite blood-sucking vampire.

DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS was released eight years after HORROR and the story takes place ten years after the events of the first movie.  It was once again directed by Hammer’s top director, Terence Fisher.  DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS probably comes closest to any of the other sequels to duplicating the feel of the original, although it certainly lacks its potency.

Dracula is absent for the entire first half of the movie, as the film uses this time to build up the dramatic rebirth of Dracula.  This in itself is a good idea, but the problem is, once resurrected, he’s only in the film for about 20 minutes before meeting his demise once again.  To me, Hammer would have been better served not to destroy Dracula at the end of every movie.  After all, he had survived hundreds of years before Van Helsing finally caught up with him and destroyed him, so wouldn’t it make sense if he survived that long again?  Wouldn’t it make him scarier if it really were that difficult to stop him?  Of course it would!  Plus, when Van Helsing defeated him, it made sense because Van Helsing was a brilliant scientist, a one-of-a-kind adversary for Dracula, but in the subsequent movies Dracula’s opponents  are less and less impressive, yet they still destroy him.  But I digress.

The ending to DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS is actually very memorable, but not quite as powerful or as visually impressive as the ending in HORROR.  Once more, Dracula is chased back to his castle, this time by the knowledgable Father Sandor (Andrew Keir) and the dashing young Englishman Charles Kent (Francis Matthews) as they try to rescue Kent’s wife Diana (Suzan Farmer) from Dracula.

As Dracula’s coffin lay on ice by the castle, having fallen there from the back of the horse-drawn coach at the end of the exciting chase, Charles attempts to drive a stake through Dracula’s heart before the sun goes down, but he’s too late.  Dracula bursts from his coffin and engages Charles in a physical battle on the ice.  Diana urges Father Sandor to shoot Dracula, but he tells her it would do no good, because as we all know, bullets cannot harm vampires.  But Diana grabs the rifle anyway and fires a shot, which rips a hole in the ice, which gives Father Sandor an idea:  according to vampire lore, vampires cannot cross running water (who knew!) and in this movie, they can’t swim, either!  How convenient!

So, Father Sandor shoots around the ice, allowing Charles to escape but trapping Dracula on the quickly sinking slab.  Dracula tries to hold on, but slides screaming into the underwater grave beneath the ice of Castle Dracula.  While it doesn’t contain the eye-popping special effects from the HORROR OF DRACULA ending, it’s still a pretty unique and impressive ending to a Dracula movie.  And director Terence Fisher gives it style, as the last part of Dracula to fall into the ice is his cape in a dramatic last shot.  We even get to see Dracula submerged in his icy grave as the end credits roll!

Dracula (Christopher Lee) slips into his watery grave in DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966).

It would also prove quite convenient for resurrecting Dracula.  After all, Dracula was reduced to ashes which blew away in the breeze in HORROR OF DRACULA.  It took half of DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS to set the events in motion for his resurrection.  It would be much easier in the next film.  And there would be a next film because DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS made lots of money at the box office.  There would be no turning back now for Christopher Lee and Hammer.

As Dracula movie endings go, the conclusion to DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS is very, very good.  Definitely worth a look.

 

 

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968)

The third Christopher Lee Dracula film for Hammer was the aptly titled DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968).  Terence Fisher did not direct this movie, making it the first Hammer Dracula film that he did not direct.  In fact, Fisher wouldn’t direct any future Hammer Dracula films.  While he helmed HORROR OF DRACULA, THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, and DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS, from here on out Dracula would be in the hands of other directors.

For DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, it was Freddie Francis, a respected camera-man who also directed many horror movies.  While I’m not as big a fan of Francis’ work as I am Fisher’s, Francis struck gold here with DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE.  In terms of style, it doesn’t come close to the Fisher Dracula films, but it boasts a strong script by Anthony Hinds in spite of it being a simple revenge story.

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE was so successful at the box office that it remains today Hammer Film’s biggest all-time money maker.  Dracula was Hammer’s bread and butter, and because of this, there would be four more Christopher Lee Dracula movies over the next five years.

Dracula (Christopher Lee) shows up much quicker this time around than he did in DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS.  A pair of priests go to Castle Dracula to perform an exorcism to keep Dracula’s spirit confined forever, but one of the priests, a cowardly sort, loses his way (literally and figuratively) and slips and falls on some ice, banging his head, cracking the ice where we see Dracula resting below.  The blood from the priest’s head wound seeps below the ice and makes its way to Dracula’s lips, reviving him.

While I do like DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE a lot, its ending isn’t the strongest part of the movie.  It’s okay, but it certainly falls several notches below the endings in the previous movies.  This time the hero is young atheist Paul (Barry Andrews) who’s trying to rescue his girlfriend Maria (Veronica Carlson) from Dracula.

Dracula forces Maria to remove the cross by the door to his castle, placed there by the priests at the beginning of the movie. She throws it off a cliff, where it lands upright, which is about as realistic as having Dracula spend an entire movie chasing down Maria in the first place to get her to remove the cross from his front door when he could have hypnotized anyone from his neighborhood to do it in about a minute’s time.

Paul arrives, he scuffles with Dracula, and they both fall off the cliff.  Paul is fortunate enough to grab onto some bushes, breaking his fall, but Dracula is not so lucky, as he lands directly onto— you guessed it!— the cross sticking out of the ground.  Yup, Dracula is impaled on a cross.  Sure, it’s somewhate dramatic, although like I said, it’s rather far-fetched.  There’s lots of blood dripping from Dracula’s wound and eyes as the cowardly priest, who had been turned into Dracula’s slave, redeems himself by reciting a prayer to help destroy Dracula once again, and he is destroyed, this time being reduced— not to ashes– but to gallons of blood.

Dracula (Christopher Lee) gets a bad case of heartburn in DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968).

Not a bad ending, but also not one of the best. Still, the rest of DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE is excellent, and this one may be the most satisfying and entertaining sequel of the entire series.

 

 

Okay, that’s it for now.  Join me next time for Part 3, when we look at the endings to the next films in the Hammer Dracula series, including TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1969).

See you then!

—Michael