Rainey Dawn Another one of the Mill Creek films: from their Sci-Fi Invasion 50-Pack. I consider this one the filler films - ya know the movies to fill out the pack just to make sure there are 50 movies in it - and not because it's actually a Sci-Fi or a fairly okay film. This film is not Sci-Fi so why is it in the Sci-Fi pack? This is an action film.This non-science fiction, pure action film really stinks. All I saw was some people in the beginning that looked as if they are in beginning martial arts and some really dumb sounding dialogue so I hit the fast-forward button to watch the rest of the stupid film. What I saw was trucks crashing, bulldozer running people over, a dude with a rifle, more dudes with guns and some more beginner martial arts moves. That's really it besides some ugly clothing and hairstyles.1/10

bensonmum2 Fans of trashy, bad 1970s cinema gather 'round. I've found a real winner – Death Machines. Calling Death Machines "so bad it's good" doesn't begin to explain how deliriously enjoyable this movie truly is. Sure, it's bad – in fact you'd have a hard time finding anything quite so inept – but it's also an incredibly fun experience. What little plot the movie has concerns three assassins for hire – one white, one black, and one Asian (Think of the Death Machines as the Rainbow Coalition of killers - how politically correct!). These killers are all but indestructible – they're even impervious to bullets (the movie may have explained why or how, but I must have missed it). On a mission to take out a local karate studio, they inadvertently leave one man alive. They may have taken off one of his hands, but he's alive nonetheless. The police can't seem to find any leads into the karate studio killings, so it's up to our hero, Whining One Hand (as I like to call him), to bring down the gang of killers.Oh where to start? This is one of those instances where I could easily write paragraph after paragraph about the ineptitude on display in Death Machines. But I'm not sure I can do the thing the justice it deserves. So instead, I'll summarize some of the highlights: The plot is little more than one set-piece after the next that only fit together because some of the characters are the same. The attack on the karate studio, the killing of the man in the phone booth, the bazooka shot at the airplane, the obligatory fight scene in the police station, and the bombing of the bank president – the only connection is that a familiar character or two appears in each scene. Otherwise, you might get the wrong idea and start to think the Death Machines actually had no real, coherent plot (wink, wink).The killers receive their marching orders from one of screendoms most bizarre master criminals. Madame Lee (and I only know her name by reading the credits on IMDb) is one weird cookie. To begin with, she seems incapable of opening her mouth and speaking as a normal person might. Between that, her thick accent, and the boom operator's inability to get close to her, it makes it just about impossible to understand what she's saying. And then there's that wig! Why in God's name did anyone think it would be a good look to have her wear a 12-inch high geisha wig? She looks ridiculous. Add to that her strange way of walking, her unusual choice of wardrobe, and her totally out of place facial expressions and Madame Lee is a sight that must be seen to be believed.The fight choreography is laughable. The opening fight scenes where Madame Lee is picking her three killers is beyond ridiculous. My 6 year-old son takes karate and I'm sure he and a few of his friends could have put together more believable fight set-pieces. And what's with the gun? Who told the white guy to bring a gun to a karate fight? And was it just me or were the opening fights rigged to ensure the racial diversity of Death Machines? White guy fighting white guy, black guy fighting black guy, Asian guy fighting Asian guy? It's too funny.Has there ever been a more ineffective hero than Whining One Hand? When not whining about his problems, getting beat-up by an old man in the bar he works at, or making love to the most unappealing nurse imaginable (I think I might have just thrown up a little in my mouth thinking about it), one of his lone contributions to the movie is to follow the bad guys, crawl through the tall grass, and watch as they blow up a plane and the unknown passengers therein. Does he do anything at all to try to stop the baddies? NO. He merely watches. By the time he shows up at the run-down house (that's obviously a stand-in for an opulent mansion- just use your imagination) the Death Machines have left, Madame Lee's right hand man is already dead, and yet he still manages to get attacked by the wobbly sword welding Madame Lee and her gigantic wig. What does our hero do? Again – nothing. Thank God the police were on hand to take out the dragon lady or Whining One Hand might have ended up being Whining No Hand.On and on it goes (I haven't even gotten into the technical issues, the lack of any sort of ending, the inappropriate Casio keyboard music, or the old time gospel music played over the fight scene in the grocery store/bar). Death Machines is a real hoot of a movie that I implore all fans of bad 70s trash movies to seek out. You won't be disappointed. As for my rating, I'll be honest, rating movies like Death Machines is difficult. On one hand, it's a stinker of epic proportions. But, on the other hand, I've always said that I rate movies based on my enjoyment. And with that in mind, I have to give Death Machines at least a 7/10 even with its numerous and all too obvious problems. Be warned, if the notion of a bad, plot-less 70s movie with characters that have no motivation or acting ability and big bad wigs with speech impediments doesn't appeal to you, stay away. Otherwise, enjoy!

Woodyanders A multi-racial trio of lethal and indestructible ace martial artist assassins - white guy (beefy Ron Marchini), black dude (brawny Joshua Johnson), Asian man (lithe Michael Chong) -- go around the city and bump off various folks for their evil dragon lady boss Madame Lee (a hysterically campy and vampy Mari Honjo, who can barely speak English and mumbles all her dialogue). Boy, does this deliciously dippy and dreadful dreck possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as an enjoyably awful piece of gut-busting schlock: we've got fumbling (mis)direction by Paul Kyriazi (who also co-wrote the nonsensical script), lousy acting from a lame no-name cast, a token hot naked babe, crude cinematography by Donald Rust, hilariously inept fight choreography (sidesplitting highlights include the death machines wiping out an entire school of karate students, the white guy beating up dozens of cops while escaping from a police station, and our deadly threesome opening up a king-sized barrel of hurting on a biker gang in a diner), slipshod editing, excessively bloody tomato paste-style violence, and a stupid "it ain't over yet" sequel set-up (non)ending. Bonus booby points are in order for Chuck Katzakian's alarmingly overblown portrayal of hot-tempered crime boss Mr. Gioretti and the supremely wired'n'wonky zoned to the funky bone synthesizer score by Don Hulette. In fact, this uproariously messed-up movie often plays like an unintentional (?) parody of a cheesy 70's drive-in action flick. An absolute cruddy hoot.

lemon_magic "Death Machines" takes a fairly decent premise for an action movie (unstoppable martial arts killing machines sent out to eliminate a crime boss' opponents) and turns it into an unwatchable mess. I have rarely seen such a breath taking combination of tiny budget, bad acting and incoherent script released as a so-called "movie". It's easily the worst martial-arts/action oriented movie I've seen in years, eclipsing even "Ninja Holocaust" (which at least had some good energetic fight scenes). The actual "star" of the movie is the white "Death Machine", (it's basically his vehicle) so he is featured prominently in many more scenes than his two cohorts. He's in good shape, and he's not bad looking, but as an actor he's barely there - think Chuck Norris in "The Octagon",only without any energy or emotion.This is obviously a deliberate choice on the part of the actor and director...but you have to be Arnold to pull this kind of thing off, and this guy is no Arnold.The movie (and the director) can't seem to find the time (or the budget) to film the scenes that would have answered the basic questions that it originally posed, like: Who was the shadowy figure giving the marbled-mouthed Asian lady her orders? How did the "gang war" end? Why did the mush-mouthed Asian lady decide to have her zombie assassins killed? And what the heck happened that left her assistant dead and her wielding a katana like a broom stick? It does, however, find the time to film a completely extraneous bar fight in which a sailor (well, he looked like Popeye) destroys a bar because the juke box didn't work. It's only related to the rest of the film because in the process he also K.O.'s the movie's "hero", a bartender/karate student who was a victim of the "Death Machines" first major assignment (he got his hand chopped off while they were killing his teacher). It follows this up with one of the most un-called for "love scenes" between the hero and his girlfriend I have ever watched. The segue makes no sense - at the end of the bar-fight, she's grimacing over his splayed limp body, and the next thing they are in a "tasteful" shadow montage of sex and love that looks like it came from a Hallmark card. BTW, we never see the sailor again. And wait until you see the showdown between the homicide detective and his captain - it plays as if the director and screenwriter never actually saw a movie scene placed inside a police station, but had heard of them second hand and decided to include some without really knowing how they worked. The movie is a textbook case of poor casting and community theater-level actors floundering without decent direction. The three "Death Machines" come across as clods; the "hero" knows his lines but can't carry the movie, given that his character is an ineffective wimp; his girlfriend is a charisma vacuum; and all the other minor parts are barely watchable. All this makes for a fairly poor movie- but the "dragon lady" does more to drag the movie into subterranean stinker territory than anyone or anything else. She looks ridiculous; her tiny, inexpressive face is overpowered by her ton-o-hair skyscraper wig, she wears her red silk dress like a bathrobe, and she talks with a terrible mush-mouth delivery that screams "needed time with a dialog coach". Poor lady - she was obviously way out of her element, and as far as I know, never appeared in a film again. Add to this a low-budget one-synthesizer soundtrack that never shuts up and never plays anything appropriate or interesting; crappy film stock and lighting; fight choreography that is strictly from hunger; and a general all around dreariness and lack of energy in the blocking and the stage business...and you have one lame movie. I got this as part of a 50 movie DVD compilation, so it probably cost me about 50 cents to watch it. It wasn't worth it. Feh!