SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER (2004)

And 2004's "Dumb Ass of the Year" Award goes to...Douglas Whooly!  Poor Douglas Whooly is a highly-disturbed little kid who's obsessed with the extremely shitty-looking video game "Satan's Little Helper" so much so that he dresses up like a devil and rambles on constantly about helping Satan...he also wants to marry his older sister.  So now when she comes home from college for Halloween and brings home her new boyfriend, Douglas is really upset and runs off to find Satan.  He doesn't quite find Satan, but he does find a serial killer in a demon outfit and decides to give him a helping hand killing people.

That story idea sounds equally both promising and stupid and guess what?  That's exactly what happens.  Once you get over the very low budget, SLH isn't so bad at the beginning.  The kid who plays Douglas definitely does a good portrayal of a kid too stupid for his own good and as wacky as the story sounds, it's actually kind of believable for a little while but then it gets a little too grand for it's own good and instead of playing it subtle, it spreads the malevolence all over town "Needful Things"-style and fails completely.

Despite the silly ending, SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER is still a fun lite-horror film that's greatly benefited by the presence of Katheryn Winnick who is absolutely gorgeous and does a fine job considering she isn't given much to work with.  It kinda brings to mind Jennifer Pudavick's standout performance in WRONG TURN 4.  Anyway, since there's not really any blood, gore or nudity I would imagine that most horror fans would hate it, but if you're opening minded and can appreciate a film with a low budget then check it out.

Are those "buttons" on the right actually stickers?!

THE VIRGINIAN (1946)

I've never read the novel "The Virginian" by Owen Wister which I've heard was really good, so I can't compare this film to the source material.  But I liked the movie.  Barbara Britton plays a young woman who travels out West to take a job as a school teacher in a small Wyoming town.  Upon her arrival she immediately gets the attention of all the men in town including two old cowboy friends Joel McCrea and Sonny Tufts.  At first they make a game out of winning the affections of Barbara, but then things take a darker turn when Sonny joins a group of cattle rustlers (ran by the all black wearing Brian Donlevy).

A bunch of the standard old western stuff happens...horses racing about, campfires, square dancing, trash talking, shootings, people can't read, gambling in a saloon, frontier justice, posse tracking down rustlers and so on.  The town of Medicine Bow is described as just a bump in the road, but it looked like your standard western backlot to me.  Some of the outdoor scenes were obviously shot on a soundstage and McCrea is quite a bit older than Britton, but despite all those things THE VIRGINIAN was still an entertaining film and one I would gladly watch again.

CYCLONE (1987)

Nerd/stud supergenius Jeffery Combs creates a motorcycle with all kinds of weapons on it: lasers, rockets...well, that's about it.  Also, despite the fact that it can deploy a parachute, it's not as fast as you would think, since it could barely even outrun an ancient station wagon!  What it does have though is an almost endless supply of energy thanks to a gadget that's about the size of a smartphone and can somehow extract hydrogen out of the air and convert it into energy.  Naturally, the bad guys want this energy supply and will stop at nothing (outside of hiring non-idiots) to get it.  So pretty much the entire film is just these morons making lame attempts at getting the power source...night club attack, car chase, kidnapping, torture and another car chase.  Boring.

Made with what looks to be the budget of an episode of "Knight Rider" or even "Street Hawk", CYCLONE is pretty lame.  The action scenes aren't even 80's television quality, the dialogue is stiff, top-billed Heather Thomas never even gets close to naked, Martin Landau slumming, silly story with a dumb as hell ending, cheap looking sets, an ear-destroyingly bad "punk" band and Jeffery Combs as a serious actor...hahaha, well alright that was pretty funny and the high point of the film. 

Worth a watch for fans of lower end action films.