Deadly Addiction (1988)

Deadly Addiction (1988)- * * *1\2

AKA: Rock House

Directed by: Jack Vacek

Starring: Jack Vacek, Gregory Scott Cummins, Trice Shubert, Larry Washington, and Juan Munoz

John Turner (Vacek) is a COTE (Cop On The Edge, for those that may not know) in L.A. After some drug gangs murdered his wife at some point in the past, he made it his personal mission to clean up the streets and get rid of all the drug pushers. It's not going to be easy, especially when Turner comes up against the evil and seemingly indestructible baddie Turko (Cummins). Meanwhile, he finds time for romance with Sara (Schubert) and to mentor a young boy, Hector (Munoz). Is there anything Jack Vacek - or John Turner - can't do? We urge you to find out today!


A blast of 80's awesomeness, Deadly Addiction (AKA Rock House) is a true gem waiting to be rediscovered. Comparisons to some of our favorites such as L.A. Wars (1994), "Geteven" (1993), and Death Flash (1986) - and, yes, even Samurai Cop (1991) and the almighty Stickfighter (1994) - are completely warranted. We're proud to add this fun and enjoyable film to that vaunted roster.

Jack Vacek is our new hero. He is very, very cool. He has a cool mustache, cool sunglasses, a cool jacket, rides a variety of cool automobiles, and has a wide variety of stylin' shirts. And while he plays by his own rules, his COTE-ness can only be described as happy-go-lucky. His amiable charm comes out whether he's battling a picture-perfect BYC (Washington), shooting and killing baddies, or adopting injured dogs and troubled children. He always knows just what to do and say. He may have just replaced Steve Rally in all of our hearts. And that's not an easy thing to do. 

On top of being likable, and even having something of a childlike quality, John Turner (or is it Jack Vacek? It's hard to tell when one ends and the other starts) seems to have modeled his life after Sonny Crockett. He has the same job, a similar attitude, and a similar wardrobe. He even lives on a houseboat like Crockett. But instead of a Ferrari, Turner drives a Shelby Cobra with the license plate BEER RUN. Sure, it may be an odd choice for a policeman, but it's so slick it's hard to deny the charm. Welcome to Miami Vacek. But in L.A.

There's a classic 80's dance club (could it be the same one from Party Line?), and the whole film has a fantastic soundtrack, alternating between the classic sax, the wailing-guitar 'Chase Music', and to a heavy metal tune during a raid on a gang called The Rockers. Much like in the cartoons when it gets so hot the mercury bursts through the top of the thermometer, the awesomeness quotient is getting out of control!

The baddies hang out at a restaurant called Degusta, named for the head crime boss. Would you eat at a place with a name so close to 'disgusting'? Was this on purpose? Who knows? Who cares? Especially since Turner's hangout is a bar/restaurant called The Poopdeck. Apparently it is/was a real place in Hermosa Beach, California. And Vacek trumped Tom Hanks by a year with the 'Turner and Pooch' subplot. Naturally, the whole thing comes to a head at an abandoned factory of some sort. It's hard to tell what they would have made, so we called it the Shootout Factory. We've all seen them before. Get ready to hear that phrase again in future reviews.

Deadly Addiction hammers home all the right notes we love to hear again and again. It's a movie that says "subtlety is for suckers; it's party time". We can get on board with that. It is just so much fun and it's so entertaining, anyone who fails to get any enjoyment out of it should probably be thrown into a volcano. 

Schedule your "Vacek-tomy" as soon as possible.

NOTE: As of this writing, the stream of this film on YouTube is not the best. Still, it’s worth seeing because the VHS is so rare.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Detonator (2003)

Detonator (2003)- * *1\2

Directed by: Jonathan Freedman

Starring: Randall Batinkoff, Elizabeth Berkley, Stan Shaw, Gregory Scott Cummins, Will Stewart, and Bokeem Woodbine

Beau Stoddard (Batinkoff) is a Postal Inspector on the Edge, or PIOTE. A former FBI agent, he now has to work with his ex-co-workers Robert Brickland (Shaw), Jack Forrester (Woodbine), and Jane Dreyer (Berkley) to find a mad bomber (if I may reference the great Chuck Connors film) who has been blowing people up all over the L.A. area. Most people don’t seem to approve of Stoddard’s bad attitude and unorthodox ways, but he gets results that they can’t deny (these days, we pretty much just cut and paste that sentence from our old reviews, with a new name filled in). Will Stoddard find the mad bomber before he explodes again? Will he unravel a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top? Will he do it all before the big hockey match that’s single-handedly supposed to repair U.S.-Russian relations gets blown to kingdom come? Who will press the…DETONATOR?

Detonator is a relatively decent example of what you can do if you’re planning on building a feature film around explosion footage from other movies. You won’t get Blown Away (1994) by it, but the cast makes it work the best they can. Evidently, the filmmakers took the blow-ups from Sudden Death (1995), The Glimmer Man (1996), and End of Days (1999), and, like the way cotton candy wraps around its handle while it is being made, fashioned a movie around said blow-ups. 

Detonator might not have come onto our radar if it wasn’t for the presence of Elizabeth Berkley in one of the main roles. Like with Showgirls (1995), but to a far lesser degree, it seems she’s still working hard to shed her Saved By The Bell image. However, it doesn’t help matters that co-star Batinkoff looks a lot like Zack Morris. Sorry, Mark-Paul Gosselaar. He even has the same devil-may-care attitude to life that Zack had. So, if nothing else, when and if you should decide to watch Detonator, you can make plenty of Saved By The Bell jokes.

We’ve also got on hand Stan Shaw, who seems to be the guy low-budget filmmakers get when they can’t afford Ernie Hudson. This isn’t to denigrate Shaw in any way, as he is a fine actor in his own right, but let’s be realistic here. Bokeem Woodbine has a great voice and does well as Stoddard’s sidekick, and Gregory Scott Cummins has an almost-nothing role and appears primarily as a picture other cast members look at. However, the true standout of the cast has to go to one Will Stewart as Van Wilson, one of Stoddard’s co-workers. He truly steals the show with his Kato Kaelin-like performance*.

While we give the movie credit for making the lead character a postal inspector, which we thought was different – disregarding fellow postal-inspection movies The Inspectors (1998) and its inexplicable sequel The Inspectors 2: A Shred of Evidence (2000) – in the end, the whole thing is really just more early-2000’s shelf filler. Like many movies of this type, it runs out of steam towards the end. What the movie should’ve been was Batinkoff and Berkley shooting a bunch of terrorists. Or, barring that, shooting a bunch of people who commit mail fraud. We’re surprised this wasn’t a pilot for a syndicated show, because that’s what it seems like it is. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing – it could’ve been a good show, but, well, such is life. 

Perhaps the moral of the story is, if you can’t afford your own explosions, maybe make a movie with a different plot? That’s just a suggestion, but, disregarding the fine cast, what we have here really is an exercise in editing. If that interests you, by all means check it out, but others may want to proceed with caution. 

*We’re willing to bet that’s the first time that sentence has been uttered in human history.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett 

Desert Heat (1999)

Desert Heat (1999)- *

Directed by: John G. Avildsen

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Pat Morita, Danny Trejo, Bill Erwin, David 'Shark' Fralick, Larry Drake, Paul Koslo, Gregory Scott Cummins, Vincent Schiavelli, Jeff Kober, Jaime Pressly, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, and Ford Rainey









Eddie Lomax (Van Damme) is a mysterious stranger who comes to a dusty ol’ California town. When some local good old boys called the Hogan family, not to be confused with the delightful 80’s sitcom, assault him and leave him for dead, Eddie’s buddy, Johnny Six Toes (Trejo) nurses him back to health.

 Lomax then makes it his mission to get revenge on the Hogans, and one of his main methods of doing that is to pit a faction of other local no-good-niks against them. Lomax must be a big movie buff, because we’ve all seen that plan so many times before. He then enlists the help of Jubal Early (Morita), a nice man who annoyingly repeats all his sentences, the crotchety old man Eli Hamilton (Erwin) and the inexplicably Indian road house owner Singh (Schiavelli) to help him out. The owners of the local diner, the Reynolds family - Dottie, Rhonda, and the prerequisite Pop (Pressly, Fitzpatrick and Rainey, respectively) all love Eddie and get behind his mission quickly, and of course there’s some predictable romance between Rhonda and Eddie. Will Lomax ever turn up the DESERT HEAT?

At this point in his career, Van Damme was in a rut. After a long string of either good or successful movies, he went on to make the awful Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) and then Desert Heat, his first DTV effort after he was exiled from movie theaters. 

Despite a virtual all-star/all character actor cast, Desert Heat is a dud that’s pretty hard to sit through. The plot is yet another tired run-through of Yojimbo (1961), or, if you prefer, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), or perhaps Django (1966), Savage Dawn (1985) or the more recently-released at the time Last Man Standing (1996), or any other possible options. This movie adds nothing whatsoever to the tale, it’s just a tired rehash. At least similar DTV films like Steel Frontier (1995), Digital Man (1995), or Missionary Man (2007) tried to inject something different into the formula. Desert Heat - which based on its forebears should have been called “Desert Man” - does no such thing.

The whole outing starts on an irritating note and it’s hard to recover. It’s Van Damme spewing a bunch of nonsense as a “tilty-cam” swirls around him. It was the late 90’s after all, so there had to be things like this, and the fact that the movie is annoyingly self-aware (a character asks Dottie if she wants to go see Yojimbo in the theater...groan) hurts the final product. Desert Heat is populated with underdeveloped characters you just don’t care about, and, coupled with the movie’s lack of any originality whatsoever, makes it lose any kind of force or interest for the viewer.

 After the intro, which will unfortunately remind viewers of Bloodmatch (1991) of all things, it never seems to gain much momentum and it’s easy to see why director Avildsen took his name off the movie (even though it’s still in the end credits anyway - just another facet of the shoddy nature of the film). From Rocky (1976) to Desert Heat? Interesting career trajectory...

As far as the baddies, there are some familiar names - Larry Drake, Jeff Kober, Paul Koslo and Gregory Scott Cummins, among others. That’s one of the real shames of Desert Heat. It took a killer cast and reduced it to this crud. There are even a handful of potentially cool scenes - but if you don’t care about the characters or their plight, they don’t amount to much. 

Apparently, Van Damme’s behind the scenes meddling caused the mess we see today. Just what he wanted to change, why he thought the version after the changes was better, or how he was allowed to have that much power over the final film remain unanswered questions. But the end result is that Desert Heat is a slog and one of the weakest Van Dammes.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out write-ups by our buddies, DTVC, and The Video Vacuum!

B.O.R.N. (1988)

B.O.R.N. (1988)-* * *

Directed by: Ross Hagen

Starring: Ross Hagen, William Smith, P.J. Soles, Gregory Scott Cummins, Hoke Howell, Claire Hagen, Clint Howard, Rance Howard, and Russ Tamblyn












Buck Cassidy (Hagen) is a big-hearted cowboy who, with his wife Della (Claire Hagen) have, over the years, adopted seventeen foster children. When three of his adopted daughters are kidnapped and thrown into an unlicensed ambulance, the nightmare begins. It turns out innocent people are being taken from off the street, put into dingy operating rooms, and their organs are removed and sold to the highest bidder on the black market. 

Dr. Farley (Smith) is the sinister surgeon, Jerry (Clint Howard) is the creepy male nurse, Liz (Soles) is the secretary, and the super-evil Hugh (Tamblyn) is the agent that acts as the liaison between the desperate families that need the organs and the unwilling participants. So Buck contacts his old buddy Charlie (Howell), a retired LAPD cop, and the two of them search all over the L.A. area for the missing girls. But will they be too late?

The main reason we sought this movie out is because it contains most of the cast and a lot of the crew from one of our favorite movies, Action USA (1989). B.O.R.N. is almost like a dry run for their later masterwork. Ross Hagen, Claire Hagen, Gregory Scott Cummins, William Smith and Hoke Howell all reconvened the next year after B.O.R.N. to make the great Action USA, and the second unit director for B.O.R.N., John Stewart, became the director for Action USA, and later Cartel (1990). So when we heard that the Action USA team had tried their hand at a horror-themed film about a “Body Organ Replacement Network”, obviously our interest was piqued.

But you can tell they wanted to do an action movie all along, because there are shootouts, fisticuffs and car chases in B.O.R.N., making it less a straight-up horror movie and more a thriller with some action and horror elements.

William Smith is delightfully unintelligible as the main surgeon. Sure, it’s odd to see Smith as a surgeon, but that adds to the weirdness. PJ Soles is almost unrecognizable as the big-haired Liz. Russ Tamblyn stands out as one of the more evil baddies we’ve seen in a while. Clint Howard, playing, surprisingly, a creepy rapist, later reprised his role in Street Corner Justice (1996) (and probably a lot of his other roles as well). Rance Howard is also on board and he resembled Night Court’s Harry Anderson more than his brothers Ron or Clint.

At first it’s hard to tell who’s who in the movie, because everyone is inexplicably wearing cowboy hats in modern-day L.A., but eventually you can discern who the characters are. The editing is almost as choppy as Dr. Farley’s scalpel-work, but then there are some oddly funny moments to distract you from that, such as when Buck and a large group of people are at a large dance called “Adopt A Grandparent Day” and they’re all dancing in a circle singing “Beautiful Dreamer”.

 And sure, there’s a bit of what you might call “surgery gore”, but the main problem is that the movie needed to be tightened up. Most of the running time consists of Hoke and Hagen searching around town for the missing daughters. It’s almost like the B.O.R.N. concept couldn’t fill 90 minutes on its own. There should have been more going on plotwise. But there are enough silly/Un-P.C./worthwhile moments to keep the movie afloat.

In the music department, a band called Pigmy Love Circus plays at the aforementioned “Adopt A Grandparent Day” (good gig!) and Dawn Wildsmith is uncredited as the singer. Wildsmith was also in Cyclone (1987) with Russ Tamblyn and John Stewart, not to mention Armed Response (1986) with Ross Hagen. The end credits song (which also appears in one of the many scenes when Hagen is searching the city in his van) is “sung” by Ned Albright. It seems this was his first attempt at singing. Not just in front of a microphone at a recording session...I mean EVER. Is this the best they could have gotten? NED ALBRIGHT?

In all, B.O.R.N. is an amusing curiosity, and its claim to fame, besides its cast, is that it paved the way for Action USA.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Dead End City (1988)

Dead End City (1988)-* *

Directed by: Peter Yuval

Starring: Gregory Scott Cummins, Rob Wuesthoff, Alena Mekelberg, Christine Lunde and Robert Z'Dar

In the near future (?), criminal gangs have run so wild, normal civilians are relocated to shanty towns called “Evac Cities”. The leader of one of the most ruthless gangs, The Ratts, is a guy named Maximum (Z’Dar). In the course of their daily rounds of terrorizing and killing, they run into one man who won’t be intimidated: Jack Murphy (Cummins). He’s a factory owner who inherited his business from his father. All Jack wants to do is sit in his office, eat his Chinese food and drink his Jolt Cola, but The Ratts have other plans. They stage a siege on Jack’s factory, enraged that Jack won’t be scared away. Jack and some of the people he’s hiding, Nancy (Mekelburg), and her blind brother Malcolm (Wuesthoff), among a few others, break out their guns to defend the factory. Meanwhile, TV news reporter Opal Brand (Lunde) comes to do a story on Jack and ends up getting stuck there, so she and Jack forge a relationship. But what’s the cause of all this mayhem? Could it be a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top?

Try to imagine a cross between Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) and Chains (1989)  - note that it’s Chains - not The Warriors (1979) - because Dead End City is what you might call a “cheap and cheerful” tale whose threadbare plot and certain chintziness gives away its low-budget origins. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, especially as Peter Yuval, who also directed Firehead (1991), seems to have some aspirations of lifting this movie above the crowd, but its penury inevitably keeps it down.

It gets off to a funny start, with fan favorite Robert Z’Dar running around town yelling at people and harassing them, all the while wearing a suit jacket with an ascot, while his fellow Ratts wear the classic “80’s gang baddies” getups we’ve all come to know and love. Z’Dar enlivens any role he’s put in, and here is no exception. Gregory Scott Cummins, who forever will be in the hall of heroes because of the legendary Action U.S.A., makes yet another bid for being a leading action star. Sure, the market was flooded at this time with tough guys, everyone from Stallone to Van Damme to Edward Albert and Richard Norton and so many others vying for the video store patron’s dollars and attention. While Dead End City may have its deficiencies, Cummins certainly isn’t one of them, and he can easily stand as a leading man in his own right. For more Cummins, check out Bail Out (1989) and Cartel (1990).

While the whole “futuristic warzone on a budget” may recall you to some of Ron Marchini’s classics, the music by Brian Bennett immediately puts you in AIP mode. Remember, this is the amazing musician who composed the killer song for Jungle Assault (1989). But there aren’t enough ideas at work to make Dead End City feel like a fully fleshed-out concept. It can barely sustain its 80 minute running time (not 88 as the VHS box states). For this reason, it gets very repetitive and dumb.

If you’re looking for action for pennies on the dollar, Dead End City certainly won’t tax your brain. Thanks to the presence of Cummins and Z’Dar, this is just barely worth seeing.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Cartel (1990)

Cartel (1990)-* * *

Directed by: John Stewart

Starring: Miles O'Keefe, Don Stroud, Crystal Carson, Gregory Scott Cummins, and William Smith












Chuck Taylor (O’Keeffe) is a plane courier (not inventor of Converse sneakers), flying solo and delivering packages. One day, he unwittingly carries a shipment of cocaine across the Mexico border into California. Even though he’s innocent, he gets sent behind bars. The evil drug lord behind the bust is one Tony “The King” King (Stroud). He is also captured and sent to the big house, and then a prison movie scenario begins. King escapes, and Taylor follows. After King sends some goons, led by Rivera (Cummins) to terrorize Taylor’s family, he goes on a rampage of revenge to kill all the baddies involved.

Getting off to quite a rockin’ start, we see Miles O’Keeffe cruisin’ in his plane, wearing his aviator shades while the very Foreigner-like theme song, “Flying Blind” by Kenwood Hall pumps on the soundtrack. Because this is from the makers of the classic Action U.S.A. (1989), there are plenty of back-to-back action scenes and impressive stunts. It then goes to a prison scenario, with an underused William Smith, who really barks his few lines. There’s also a prisoner who looks exactly like Mr. Bean.

What’s great about Miles O’Keeffe is his unapologetic emotionlessness. He proudly can stand in the hall of wooden actors alongside Michael Pare and Don “The Dragon” Wilson, but with O’Keeffe it just seems like he doesn’t try to hide his expressionless acting in any way. And he says as little as possible. So a lot of the fun of Cartel, and other Miles outings, is his acting style.

Interestingly, one of the Martial Arts choreographers on the film was Isaac Florentine, later to be a well-known DTV director in his own right. You can see the roots of how he learned his craft by watching Cartel.

It is a tad on the long side, and even though it is filled with action and stunts, it’s not quite as good as Action USA, but very few things are, so don’t take that as an insult. It still has a similar vibe, and Cartel is well worth checking out.

Check out our buddies, Direct To Video Connoisseurs' and Explosive Action's take on it too.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Bail Out (1989)

Bail Out (1989)-* *
AKA: W.B., Blue and the Bean

Directed by: Max Kleven

Starring: David Hasselhoff, Linda Blair, John Vernon, Gregory Scott Cummins, George "Buck" Flower, and Danny Trejo




Bail Out is a silly action/adventure/comedy which isn't very funny, at least not intentionally. The original title "W.B., Blue and the Bean" (which appears after the end credits, while "Bail Out" is the title in the opening credits. Did they forget to change it?) should give some indication of the movie's intentions.

Roger "White Bread" Donaldson (or W.B. for short) (The Hoff) is a part-time tennis instructor and part-time bounty hunter. He has two associates - you guessed it - Mason "Blue" Walcott (Tony Brubaker) and, of course, The Bean (Tom Rosales). When heiress Nettie Ridgeway (Blair) is abducted by drug lords (led by Cummins of Action U.S.A. (1989) fame as Zaldizar) and spirited away to Mexico, it's up to our three heroes to save the day. They have to get her to court on time in order to collect a million dollars. The three buddies want to open their own bail bondsmanship so they can stop working for the haranguing Aram Haronian, their boss. Will they succeed?

While it is funny to see the mighty Hasselhoff with his mullet and giant cell phone hamming it up for all the world to see, and an attempt is made at politically-incorrect humor ("these guys drive worse than the Orientals!", "Roasted Colombians, nothin' finer!", etc.) sadly it all seems a bit forced and unfunny. Once they get to Mexico, there is a stereotype Mexican character that is very, very annoying. The movie was already on pretty thin ice by then, and the addition of this character did not help at all.



There are some car chases, shootouts and horseback riding, and the cast is full of familiar faces such as Trejo, Flower, the Hoff, Blair, and a surprising appearance by Gregory Scott Cummins as the drug lord. We were so used to seeing him as the all-American good guy from Action U.S.A. He truly has a lot of versatility. John Vernon is also on hand as Linda Blair's father. What is he truly up to?

Nothing really weird or truly noteworthy happens in Bail Out. It's all pretty standard fare, so stupid at times it almost insults the audience's intelligence. We know it's a direct to video movie starring The Hoff, but come on. Give us some credit here. But then again it was directed by Max Kleven, the "mastermind" behind Fugitive Champion (1997). At least Chip Mayer was nowhere in sight. So if you can survive all the groaners for jokes and some middling action, you MAY be entertained by Bail Out if you are in the right mood (i.e., a really goofy mood).

Bail Out was released on VHS in the U.S. on the great Vestron label. We couldn't find any commercially-released version of the film under the "W.B. Blue and the Bean" moniker. If you have a picture of that, please send it in.

NOTE: Because there are so many boxcovers for this title, we have decided to change things up and are pleased to present...the BAIL OUT GALLERY! Enjoy!


















Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Action U.S.A. (1989)

Action U.S.A. (1989)-* * * *

Directed by: John Stewart

Starring: Gregory Scott Cummins, William Hubbard Knight, Ross Hagen, Barri Murphy, Cameron Mitchell, William Smith, and Hoke Howell












Action U.S.A. is simply awesome! From the title on down, the movie delivers in every possible way.

Truly the Crank (2006) of its day, the plot blasts off when rockin' dude with an attitude Billy Ray (who drives a hot Corvette with the license plate SLEEK 1) is offed by some gangsters and his girlfriend Carmen (Murphy) goes on the run and goes into the police protection of FBI agents Clay Osborne (Cummins) and Panama (Knight). The bad guys bring in the big guns with Drago (Hagen), a cowboy with a big gun and a bad attitude. They are on the trail of some stolen diamonds Billy Ray supposedly had, and that the gangsters want, including Frankie Navarro (Mitchell) and corrupt agent Conover (Smith). Will Osborne and Carmen develop a relationship while on the run? Will Panama be okay? Hang on to your seat!

One of the genius things about Action U.S.A. is that the filmmakers were smart enough to give it a simple plot so they could include the maximum amount of action, and the film is a speedy 80 minutes. The film is by stuntmen, and for the fans. Because they worked in the stunt industry, they had a firm grasp on what the audience really wants. On top of the non-stop crazy stunts, chases, helicopter stunts and blow-ups, there is actual chemistry and humor amongst the cast! The good guys are likable and the bad guys are evil/funny. This movie truly has it all.

The characters of Clay, Carmen and Panama work off each other perfectly, as do the baddies Drago and his henchmen Lucky and Hitch. Clay and Panama have a pre-Roddy Piper/Billy Blanks thing going, but with less bickering. They also have some great outfits, such as Panama's black suit and pants with white socks. He also has a belt AND suspenders. Those pants aren't going anywhere. But I digress.

Shot in Texas, the film bears a bit of a resemblance to Sno-Line (1986) in some ways. There is a much better than average barfight, but everything in this movie is above average. The game is really stepped up here. If you see this somewhere, you must buy it because it has a lot of re-watchability. If this ever was to be remade by Hollywood, it would be filled with CGI junk and stupid tricks. This has stunt after stunt made by the pros, and it's great to watch. It's the real thing. It's refreshing.

There are some great songs to complement the action, and the music is by Del Casher, the inventor of the wah-wah pedal (although no wah's are heard on the fist-pumping soundtrack).

This movie is a hidden gem and a true fan favorite. It has to be the best thing ever put out on the Imperial label.

The presence of genre favorites Cameron Mitchell, Ross Hagen and William Smith brighten the movie even more. They all look like they are having fun. If this movie has any flaws, it's that it could have used a bit more Cam. That's really the only negative to this engaging, thrilling, fun and upbeat experience!

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Stone Cold (1991)

Stone Cold (1991)- * * *1\2

Directed By: Craig R. Baxley

Starring: Brian Bosworth, Lance Henriksen, Sam McMurray, Arabella Holzbog, Gregory Scott Cummins, and William Forsythe












Ah, Stone Cold. What a classic! In the tradition of Cobra, he puts the "force" in "enforcement"! It has a very similar style of highly entertaining macho-stupidity as seen in fellow classic Road House (1989), a period in our nation's history where such things flourished.

John Stone (The Boz) is a cop who goes undercover in a biker gang to weed out the leader, Chains (Henriksen) and his dangerous crew.



Okay, the plot isn't much, but how 'bout that Mullet! Only in 1991 can you get away with that hair. Boz has a couple of good lines like "Cleanup on aisle 4", very reminiscent of Cobra's "I don't shop here".

Henriksen always puts in an excellent performance. He's at his best as the villain. Forsythe looks young (and a little heavy) here, but he doesn't disappoint. The climax at the courthouse is hilarious! You gotta see it to believe it!

On top of everything else, there are many quotable lines. They truly don't make movies like this anymore,  which is a travesty. Stone Cold will always hold a special place in my heart.



Comeuppance Review by: Ty

The Underground (1997)

The Underground (1997)- * * *

Directed By: Cole S. Mckay

Starring: Jeff Fahey,  Jastereo Coviare, Jillian McWhirter, Gregory Scott Cummins, and Brion James















The Underground is another winner from PM Entertainment. Fahey plays Brian Donnegan, a cliched cop character who has to stop the killings of rap stars. He gets in too deep after his partner is killed. Now he must stop the murders any way possible. He's doin' it freestyle...


Because this is a PM flick, you can expect good stunts. The pyrotechnics are cool and the car chase at the end is a blast. Jeff Fahey puts in an emotionless performance, but it works. The plot is silly and the dialogue worse, but that's part of the B-movie fun. If you like this one, I also recommend Hologram Man

In the end: If you like Jeff Fahey (and who doesn't...) or PM movies (and who doesn't...), check this one out.


Comeuppance Review by: Ty