Wrath of the Ninja

Back in the day, the anime fans that existed really had very little to go on.  The internet wasn't as widely available as it is now, and VHS copies of things were effing expensive.  In fact the average price of an anime VHS was $30 to $40 dollars, regardless of quality.  Often times if you wanted a whole series the entire thing wouldn't come out, or every tape had around 2 or 3 episodes if you were lucky.  Add on the fact that the most widely available series was Ranma, which didn't seem to have numbers on the cases to tell you which one was next and you have a confusing world of releases you had to already know about to get.

Luckily you had Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.  These companies tended to carry a decent amount of OVA or movie releases that you could simply rent for the evening.  The titles that they seemed to have the most of were released by two companies, Urban Vision and U.S. Manga Corps.  They had others sure, but for whatever reason they got almost every release these people did.  This one is from U.S. Manga Corps so we get to look at that little M.D. Geist logo on the cover somewhere.  If that doesn't say "quality" I don't know what does.

Anyway, this film was pretty common.  Wrath of the Ninja: The Yotoden Movie is of course a movie edited together from a longer OVA series.  I have seen both, and I can say that the OVA is better, but this isn't as bad as some people think.  When we start this movie we are greeted by some woman named Kasumi/Ayame who is almost raped by some dudes she runs across.  It turns out she is a ninja and kills a few of them.  Fairly soon, she meets two other ninjas and it is discovered that these three wield magical weapons that can stop some demons with their cool powers.

It also pays to mention that Nobunaga Oda is rapidly taking over as well.  Various groups of ninjas must fight various other ninjas who are backed by various demons.  Oda of course gains demon powers and they must use their cool weapons to kill him.  Each character gets a redemption arch and there is plenty of action.  Violence is all over this movie, and that is great because the story isn't very strong.  When watching this, the story seems to go both way too fast, and way too slow all at once.  If you are wondering if the story is improved by watching the longer OVA instead, it is but not by a whole lot.  Sadly it is near impossible to find the OVA now, but rather easy to get the VHS or bootleg DVD of this so good luck with finding it.

The English dub is fine by the way.  By fine I mean good in that 90's we don't care sort of way.  There is a baseball reference for example and this thing takes place in feudal Japan.  However, it is likable in that cheesy way that other not so great dubs like Gundam Wing are.  I would say however that the overall acting quality is just a tiny bit better than you could expect from this era though.  The story makes enough sense but it seems like there is something missing from the exposition that would otherwise make it more interesting.  This is also present in the OVA but not nearly as bad.  One of the worst things about this movie is that there are characters who are killed in a very dramatic way shortly after being introduced to them.  The problem is we don't get enough time to really care about these people so the deaths just don't seem to matter much.  This of course is not so much a problem in the OVA version.

I would honestly recommend this movie if you want some cheesy, violent, anime ninja action.  It is pretty easy to get through and isn't incredibly long.  Don't take this movie seriously and you will probably enjoy watching neon red blood and neon blue swords slashing.  Really, it is fairly entertaining for this kind of thing if you don't mind just turning your brain off and letting it be fun.  That's what these types of releases are all about anyway.  If you need that old school 90's anime nostalgia fix, this is a great start.  Then you can move on to things that are much better, but seeing as how this is pretty cheap, I'd say go for it.

Green Room

Amidst a world of summer blockbusters just starting, a small horror film gets a release and sadly people don't seem to know about it.  This is a tragedy as this is the best horror film this year so far.  Now I am not saying you shouldn't go see some big named superhero film in the theater, in fact I recommend that movie as for at least the next few weeks it is going to be the most referenced pop culture thing until the next pop culture thing comes out.  But I do urge people to also try to pay a bit of attention to the smaller things that might get overlooked during the season.

Green Room is a fantastic little horror film about the terror of what a human can do to another human.  It also has a great setting.  A punk band consisting of Pat, Reece, Sam, and Tiger, some young um... punks are doing a little tour and things aren't going so well. They seem to be losing money, and spirit when a gig gets cancelled.  They get another gig added because they are very out of money, but are warned that they will be playing for some skinheads.  The band decides to do it anyway and attempt to hide their disgust.

After the gig they accidentally witness a murder and end up trapped in the green room of the venue. The band must either talk, or fight their way out.  The only problem is these people are unreasonable and lead by Patrick Stewart.

If you love horror or thrillers, this is a must see.  Be forewarned however, this movie is brutal.  I don't mean violent brutal, although there is plenty of that.  It is the kind of brutal you see in a movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  During the film, I was disturbed, and genuinely worried for the characters in the film.  Patrick Steward is great and creepy in this movie and I hope he does more interesting movies like this in the future.  The main characters are all pretty likable and that makes the whole film a bit more exciting than your average horror movie.  I love it when this happens because I want to root for the heroes as opposed to the villains sometimes.

I am not going to give anything away though.  It might or might not be playing in an area near you, but keep an eye out for it and avoid spoilers if at all possible.  If even one person sees this and decides to go check it out, then I've done my proverbial job.  If you have any interest in this at all, go see it before it leaves your theater and gets replaced by some movie about mutants fighting some apocalypse guy.

Willow Creek

I recently sat down to watch this movie, based on the fact that I love Bigfoot things.  Now I don't believe there is a Bigfoot or anything, but I find the idea fascinating.  Whenever I see a Bigfoot movie, I am interested in seeing it without any real knowledge of the film beforehand.

In the vein of The Legend of Boggy Creek, Bobcat Goldthwait has decided to write a horror comedy film.  This seems like the right idea to me, at least it did before I watched it.  You see The Legend of Boggy Creek is brilliant in a way that few horror films ever have been.  It is a sort of staged documentary about a Bigfoot creature with chilling interviews set up beforehand.  Much of that film plays out like a weird nature documentary though and it is great for those who are paying close attention and don't mind their movies to be a bit slow.

Willow Creek however is a found footage film, with all the problems that come with it.  The two main characters are Jim and Kelly (not Jim Kelly the martial artist) who go to Bluff Creek to do a little documentary for Jim's birthday.  Jim is a Bigfoot enthusiast while his girlfriend is a non-believer.  The first part of the movie takes place in the town near this area where there is Bigfoot stuff all over the place, including themed restaurants, and book stores.  There are a handful of interviews with the townsfolk and honestly this is the best part of the movie.    There is a character who is the Bob Dylan of Bigfoot Folk Music that they interview who is great for example.  This is building a bit of tension around Bigfoot the mythos, and Jim and Kelly's relationship.  I think this part is handled well.

Then they go camping.  Most of the movie at this point takes place on one night where they have an encounter.  At this point I kind of dislike the main characters and I hope that they not only find Bigfoot, but get killed by him.  The problem with the ending is that it suffers from the curse of The Blair Witch Project.  Nothing really pays off in the end.  I am not going to tell you what happens, but needless to say, they check off every found footage trope in the book.  Too bad, this could have worked out too but kind of ends up being forgettable in the end.

This is nowhere near the worst Bigfoot movie that exists, but sadly I don't recommend it.  The movie is just kind of boring.  That isn't because I hate slow movies by the way.  I love Deep Red for example, and I just mentioned I like The Legend of Boggy Creek as well.  I also love Night of the Living Dead, which is mostly just people yelling at each other, boarding up windows, and watching TV.  I love that movie though.  This sort of thing can be done well, I think that with only a little work, this movie could also have been great though.  If it sounds at all like you will like this movie, go ahead and watch it.  You may like it more than I do, and it isn't way long.  My opinion is just an opinion, so make your own judgement by reading between the lines on this one.  I could easily see this one being in someone's specific taste.