Weirdling_Wolf Reviews

Pescador (2011)

A very fine film, with an exquisite performance by Crespo.

[8/10 · 5 June 2024]

This compelling Columbian/Ecuadorean crime drama is given additional bite by being based on a true story. A sizable quantity of cocaine is washed up on the shore and we follow poor fisherman Blanquito(Andrés Crespo) as he gamely tries to woo the glacial beauty (Maria Cecilia Sanchez) and sell the drugs. I enjoyed this well-made, lively Ecuadarean crime drama, the quality performances are wonderfully natural, and the able director shoots 'Pescador' in an engagingly loose verite style. The director's visually engaging choices of exterior locations added a great deal of texture, on a more personal note, I found the rumpled, endearingly sad-faced Crespo's performance to be a hugely sympathetic one.

For Those in Peril (2013)

A beautifully bleak, folk horror-inflected drama.

[8/10 · 5 June 2024]

A sensitive, childlike young man (George Mackay) is the sole survivor of a tragedy at sea. Upon his dazed return, the superstious inhabitants of this remote Scottish fishing village become increasingly hostile towards him, convinced he was responsible for the incident. Cruelly ostracized, his unerring belief that his brother didn't perish at sea compulsively pushes him ever deeper into obsession and one final mad desperate act of salvation. This beautifully bleak, folk horror-inflected drama benefits enormously from the sublime cast's natural, unaffected performances, and gifted writer/director Paul Wright strikingly proves himself a more than capable helmsman. Having an undeniably haunting quality, 'For Those in Peril' is steeped in an oblique mysticism that I strongly connected with, and the wyrd, Lovecraftian climax is quite delicious!

White Tiger (1996)

another knockout hit from this handsome, blue-eyed, hard-hitting Brit!

[8/10 · 4 June 2024]

After his partner, and best friend (Matt Craven) is brutally gunned down by vicious drug lord Victor (Cary Tagawa), initially straight-shooting DEA agent Mike (Gary Daniels) goes rogue seeking revenge, by any means necessary! Richard Martin's exciting Heroic Bloodshed-inflected DTV punch-fighter rewardingly delivers the explosive gun-happy goods! Amiable, good-looking martial artist Gary Daniels is on excitingly agile form in this punchy, fight-packed 90s DTV actioner. I never quite understood why the muscular, fleet-footed Gary Daniels didn't become a much bigger star, as his more than credible CV features some thrillingly action-loaded bangers! A rightfully popular actioner, White Tiger is another knockout hit from this handsome, blue-eyed, hard-hitting Brit!

Enter the Game of Death (1978)

A bravura Brucesplotation banger!!!!

[8/10 · 3 June 2024]

Thrillingly helmed by noted Brucesploitation avatar, Lee Tso-nam, and starring one of the micro-genres greatest exponents of bellicose Bruce Lee battery, Bruce Le! This furiously fight-packed 70s 'fu fest is still an exciting watch for vintage Martial arts addicts! Bolo Yeung fans will also appreciate the rewarding fact that the great man is featured prominently in the exhilaratingly punch-packed Enter the Game of Death. This bravura Brucesplotation banger has a WW2 espionage plot that doen't overstay its welcome, and the director cannily stuffs his dazzling action-fest with crisply choreographed combat! Bruce joins the Blue Robe undergound resistance organisation and proceeds to take on all comers with his signiture salvo of rapid-fire fists, annhilating Nunchuku flicks, and killer KO kicks, courageously confronting each increasingly deadly Kung Fu master in this towering Game of Death.

Betrayal (1974 TV Movie)

A quality time-eater for vintage thriller fans of all ages!

[8/10 · 1 June 2024]

Betrayal is an above average 70s TV thriller by experienced genre filmmaker Gordon 'Cry of The Banshee' Hessler. The capable cast's performances are all peachy, and Hessler does a credible job mounting all the essential Hitchcockian tensions. Bravo!! Like one of the perpetrator's more corpulent victims, 'Betrayal' is a trifle soft in the belly, but I found it to be consistently entertaining. Veteran composer, Ernest Gold's lush score is a slick complement, and as a wholly gratuitous aside, the deliciously devious Gretchen (Tisha Sterling) is one smoking hot, lean cuisine tamale! This classy 1974 ABC movie-of-the-week gem remains a quality time-eater for vintage thriller fans of all ages! As a final thought, Tisha Sterling & Amanda Blake have great chemistry, generating far more sympathy for their predicament than one might expect.

The Big Shots (1972)

Juliet Berto's sex appeal is a veritable force of nature!

[8/10 · 31 May 2024]

Director Robert Enrico's gripping, twist-laden French 70s crime drama remains a thrillingly vivid exemplar of Gallic crime noir. Much like a refined vintage cognac, a great number of these enigmatic 70s French crime thrillers improve with age! This hard-boiled yarn successfully maintains a palpable tension all the way until its pulse-quickening climax. Including the compelling performances, and Roubaix's idiosyncratic score, I thought the shadow-steeped photography was excellent, and the talented director did a terrific job with the nervy heist itself. I admire doomy, existential crime thrillers, wherein the onus is on substance, rather than style, and grit, rather than quick to tarnish veneer. Avid petrol heads might care to note that legendary automotive daredevil Rémy Julienne provides the expert vehicular thrill-spillage. François de Roubaix's memorable themes complement the page-turning plot, earthy performances, and zesty action, with sublime elfin beauty Juliet Berto's sex appeal being a veritable force of nature! Robert Enrico's electric 'Les caïds' is a muscular, downbeat, briskly told, outstandingly well-made 70s policier that readily rewards repeated viewing.

Zui hou nu (1979)

'Eagle Claw is VERY dangerous, but I have my secret Kung Fu!!!'

[8/10 · 31 May 2024]

Raised from infancy by apes, her natural ability for deadly Kung Fu is frequently the cause of flamboyant jackanapes! So, it is with great shame that I openly admit to having only just recently discovered the acrobatic antics of sultry simian sired Chop Socky siren Lady Iron Monkey! Where has she been all my Kung Fu-loving life? As the great poets so often claim, love can be found in the most unexpected of places! This pacy, enchantingly silly Kung Fu fantasy stars Kam Fong Ling, Chen Sing, Lo Lieh, Wong Tai Liang, and is fuelled by dynamite electro funk, fabulously acrobatic fights and a fearsomely feral protagonist you certainly don't want to monkey about with! Festooned with oddball characters, a consistently goofy vibe, and boisterously interspersed with playful episodes of broad slapstick tomfoolery. While I think it is entirely fair to say that the more noisome comedic interludes get lost in translation, on the whole, Lady Iron Monkey's jocular shenanigans are pretty fun! This magnificent monkey girl sets my heart in a whirl, a dazzling kung Fu pearl, heroically hirsute, button cute, a ready match for any bellicose brute, Lady Iron Monkey is a bona fide hoot!

Soul Brothers of Kung Fu (1977)

Objectively top-tier Brucesploitation.

[8/10 · 30 May 2024]

Hugely affable HK action hunk, Bruce Li, and fiesty newbie Carl Scott make for a dynamically quad-fisted, thug-thrashing team in this heroically hectic, combat crazy Kung Fu spectacular! Soul Brothers of Kung Fu is a truly epic Brucesploitation brawler, and, happily, there's little in the way of a plot to dilute the street tough, skull shattering, solar plexus punishing action!!!! Excitingly choreographed fight sequences, super amplified Foley, minimal clowning, Bruce Li's Iron Finger'd insanity, righteous coming back from a near-fatal beating power-training, plus a bone-crunching final act make this some objectively top-tier Brucesploitation.

The Challenge (1970 TV Movie)

Darren McGavin is inspired casting as the gritty mercenary!

[8/10 · 30 May 2024]

During an escalating conflict, in an attempt to avoid a present nuclear threat, two hardy combatants from the opposing nations are tasked to fight one another on a small, somewhat inhospitable pacific island. 'The Challenge' is another exemplary, compellingly acted, rewardingly cerebral, hard-hitting, 70s TV Sci-actioner. The Challenge has a fine cast: Darren McGavin, Mako, James Whitmore, Paul Lukas, Broderick Crawford, a young Sam Elliot, with leads, McGavin, and Mako proving wholly convincing. This gripping, agitprop ABC movie-of-the-week highlighting the innate futility of war has a robust narrative that remains entirely relevant to this very day. With the constant threat of jungle-borne malaise, booby traps, toxic water, sudden death by ambush, and military duplicity, the tension is relentless, as the two fatigued warriors reach the unjust, and inevitably nihilistic endgame.

The Girls of Huntington House (1973 TV Movie)

A truly deligthful TV drama!

[8/10 · 28 May 2024]

I very much enjoyed this touching TV melodrama about a bustling maternity home for unwed, teenage mothers-to-be and their new, kindly, somewhat oversensitive English teacher Miss Baldwin (Shirley Jones). A well-written, soulful, thought-provoking story that is given additional zip by the quality of its believable performances. I must say, The Girls of Huntington House really does have an exemplary cast: Sissy Spacek, Mercedes McCambridge, Shirley Jones, and pretty Pamela Sue Martin. Unsurprisingly, the effervescent Spacek is quite lovely as the spirited folksy songbird Sarah. Earnest, quirky, saccharine-free, and pleasingly lachrymose at times, there's something about this vintage Lorimar production that I found curiously soothing.

Dynamo (1978)

highly-charged Dynamo remains some pretty electrifying old school 'Fu

[8/10 · 27 May 2024]

One for avid Brucesploitation aficionados, and neophytes alike, and I think it is entirely fair to suggest that the snappy moniker is ably earned!! An honourable, fleet-fisted cabbie (Bruce Li) is groomed to stardom by an increasingly unscrupulous ad agency until they push him too far! Charismatic, preternaturally agile Kung Fu practitioner, Bruce Li is on dynamite form, and many of his whirlwind fight scenes are crisply choreographed with no lack of satisfyingly crunchy Foley! Right on!!!! The talky gubbinz of warring ad agencies provides an unwelcome distraction from Li's exciting, evermore devastating combat skills. I must openly admit to getting an additional frisson of 'Fu-freak-out pleasure whenever lighting swift, steel-sprung, head-knocking Dojo-destroying hero Li righteously don's the iconic yellow & black Game of Death tracksuit! Overall, Hwa I Hung's highly-charged Dynamo remains a pretty electrifying old school 'Fu extravaganza, the brusingly bellicose battles being frequently boosted by some killer funk riffs, and the strenuous training sequences are pretty dope. Bruce shows no fear in Korea, proves he's the No.1 man in Japan, delivers a dynamic display in the U. S. A., and never puts a foot wrong in Hong Kong!

Hauser's Memory (1970 TV Movie)

Once again, David McCallum delivers another outstanding performance

[8/10 · 27 May 2024]

NBC's Hauser's Memory is a gripping, well-made Euro-Sci-spy thriller with Robert Webber, Lili Palmer, Leslie Nielsen, Susan Strasberg, with another compelling lead performance from the consistently excellent, David McCallum. A noted Scientist working with laboratory animals is asked to utilise his, as yet untested, procedure upon a human subject in order to transfer one deceased individual's memory into another living human subject. Needless to say, once the potent psychoactive serum has been administered, the pell-mell story provides a wealth of exciting, twist-laden incident. I simply can't get enough of these smart, well-acted, inventively written 70s TV movies! Anything but disposable entertainment, Hauser's Memory is a bustling hive of delicious intrigue, excitingly directed by the enormously experienced TV dramatist, Boris Sagal! The terse, increasingly sinister Cold War thriller is given additional production value by its handsome exterior location shots in Copenhagen, Berlin and beautifully baroque Prague.

The Swiss Conspiracy (1976)

German music maestro Klaus Doldinger's inhumanly funky score is a real banger!

[8/10 · 26 May 2024]

Right off the bat, this (mostly) entertaining, glamour/glossy, visually appealing 70s Euro-thriller has a wealth of awesome Euro-cult credentials! Ably directed by B-Scion, Jack Arnold, and thrillingly framed against the alpine splendour of Switzerland, The Swiss Conspiracy is additionally bejewelled by some hefty thesping talent. Aggrieved clients of a highfalutin Swiss bank are being blackmailed, and sleepy/gruff alpha dude David Janssen is tasked to sleepily unmask these shady perpetrators. Like its somnolent star, the plot isn't exceptionally rigorous, yet the dazzling exterior locations are sublime, and the charismatic supporting cast provides a welcome distraction from the frequently undernourished text. My only gripe, and it is only a gripe-let, I feel that David Hess was greatly underused as a disposable rent-a-thug. That being said, scintillating siren, Senta Berger is distractingly luminous, and German music maestro Klaus Doldinger's inhumanly funky score is a real banger!

Superdragon vs. Superman (1975)

The wild, psychotronic Kung Fu dopeness herein is joyously off the dial!!!

[8/10 · 26 May 2024]

The wild, psychotronic Kung Fu dopeness herein is joyously off the dial!!! Pallid, Ginger-nutted villains are after Dr. Tings revolutionary, petroleum-based food supplement, and bullet-fisted Bruce Li's Green Hornet must acrobatically prevent the formula falling into their wrongful hands! Bruce Lee Against Supermen has some good crunchy Foley, kinda like an enraged baboon snapping a fistful of frozen peanut brittles, and is excitingly fuelled by muscular guitar psychedelics! I maintain a healthy penchant for notable foot chases in cinema, there's a boffo one in the French Connection sequel, Seagal don't do no running, man!! And I can now add Bruce Lee Against Supermen to the vaunted pantheon. High points are this gallopingly goofy actioner's pronounced weirdosity, low points are the unsophisticated, mostly clunky combat. As ever, handsome hero, Bruce Li is affable, charismatic and fun to watch!!! Happily, the director saves the very best for last, as the climatic blood n' sinew battle is propah Bobby Dazzler!!!

Meng nan da zei yan zhi hu (1978)

'Pulling a big one draws a lot more heat!' Right on!!!!

[8/10 · 25 May 2024]

Another perky, perpetually punch-packed, kick-crazy, eagle-fisted example of gonzoid Brucesploitation with powerhouse Bruce Li. Goofy dubbing, crash zooms, soothingly muffled Foley, pirated film themes, Bolo Yeung, crude editing, and Bruce Lee's agent going Gung Ho after a criminal counterfeiting gang. To give the director credit, a great number of the energetic fight scenes are enticingly fleet, and well choreographed. 'Storming Attacks', while low budget, is one of the more demonstratively hard rocking examples of 70s Brucesploitation. I personally dig on the urban Kung Fu flicks, the denim, bell-bottom cords, snug turtleneck sweaters, and tracksuits aesthetic is tha bomb!

'Pulling a big one draws a lot more heat!' Right on!!!!

Hanzo the Razor: The Snare (1973)

penetrating interrogations via Hanzo's uniquely persuasive appendage!

[8/10 · 25 May 2024]

The indomitable, hard-faced Hanzo returns for more martial mayhem and brutally administered justice in Hanzo The Razor : The Snare, such uncommonly refined bellicosity of this grandeur is rare! Director Masumura luridly ups the ante with splendidly spicy S & M shenanigans, blaspheming Buddhists, Draconian torture, witchy abortionists, and penetrating interrogations via Hanzo's uniquely persuasive appendage! With seamier shades of pinku extremity and bountiful arterial blood-letting, this fiendishly gripping snare is sure to capture your interest. This lusty instalment of shadowy, evilly conniving government corruption, despicable vice and lechery is dramatically heightened by maestro Isao Tomita's pulsing, sitar-spiked synth score!

Blonde Fist (1991)

quirky 90s time capsule is a joyous reminder that Margi's a phooken goddess, mate!

[8/10 · 24 May 2024]

Ravishing platinum-topped pugilist Margi Clarke is on prime gobby form as pugnacious single mum Ronnie O'Dowd in cult 90s Lively-bird drama 'Blonde Fist'. This engagingly rough-hewn, Kirby-set gem about a boozy working class scrappin' scouser and his no less hot-headed daughter is a comedic knock-out ripe for rediscovery! While some of the dramatic elements are a trifle ham-fisted, Frank Clarke's mostly witty text scintillates with a number of eminently quotable zingers!

There's a brief appearance by a young, snot-nosed Stephen Graham, Margi's fiesty prison scrap with fathole (Big Alice) remains a squalling cat-fighting treat, and the still-gorgeous Giallo Siren Carroll Baker is an absolute riot as sassy, warm-hearted ex-showgirl Lovelle Summers. You have to hand it to Margi as it takes some Promethean chutzpah to gamely deliver this deliciously clunky line to her absconding ex: "Don't come back 'ere like a thief in the night!!!!" and, almost, get away with it! I'm not claiming Blonde Fist is Ken Loachian quality, but the noisome protagonists are frequently fun, and this quirky 90s time capsule is a joyous reminder that Margi's a phooken goddess, mate!

Lung men bei chi (1976)

Brucesploitation rocks!!!!!!

[8/10 · 23 May 2024]

'Bruce Lee's Deadly Fingers' (1979) Dir. Joseph Kong Hung.

Bruce Lee's Deadly Fingers is a rumbustious example of higher echelon, bone-breakingly bellicose Brucesploitation! Another globe-trotting, eyeball popping, non-stop nun-chucking, dazzlingly chop socky clotted iteration of the 'Finding Bruce Lee's Kung Fu Finger Book' school! There's stab-happy street scum, pool hall pugilists, brutal Kung Fu thuggery, prog rocking sounds, grindhouse Grab-assery, and relentlessly fleet-fisted martial arts mad-hattery! Once snug-vested hero Bruce Wong masters Finger Kung Fu, his deadly digits, and steel-tempered sinews can fatally punch through bone like a prong!

Mang quan gui shou (1979)

marvel at all enjoyably scrappy chop-comedy-socky shenanigans herein!

[7/10 · 23 May 2024]

Novice fighter, Bruce Li is suckered by two bogus Kung fu teachers until he is montaged into a next-level, lightning-swift power-fighter of awesome magnitude by affable Kung Fu vagabond (Yuen Siu-tien). Alongside sleek, powerhouse pugilist Dragon Lee, the no less mighty martial artist Bruce Li remains one of my most beloved Bruce Lee copyists!!! I sincerely feel these actors energetically mimic Bruce's iconic style out of a profound love and reverence for the great man. Others express a dimmer view of Brucesploitation, but they probably prattle on turgidly about mobile phone apps, wormy artisan cheese and overpriced 4K Blu-rays, so, phook 'em! Bruce Li rocks hard, dude, as does his lively street-tough Kung Fu action/comedy extravaganza, Blind Fist of Bruce Li! Douse the grey cells in one's preferred intoxicant, greasily stuff one's cakehole with yummy plastic cheese and marvel at all enjoyably scrappy chop-comedy-socky shenanigans herein! While these films occasionally have all the aesthetic refinement of an over-fermented herring, the pedantic, frequently surrealistic dubbing are, for me, all part of the micro-genre's goofily pugnacious charm. I must admit to having been wholly absorbed by the righteously revenge-fuelled, fists-of-frenzy climax.

"In Kung Fu, you have to be fast, or you'll die!!!" I think a young Yngwie Malmsteen took this maxim a little too much to heart!"

Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

Uniquely dazzling entertainment!

[10/10 · 23 May 2024]

'Belladonna of Sadness' 1973 - Eiichi Yamamoto.

I found the exquisitely ornate animated fantasy Belladonna of Sadness to be a uniquely bewitching, kaleidoscopically sensual, deliriously psychedelicized experience! It is quite unlike anything else, Yamamoto's compellingly adult, Raven dark fairy tale exits in its very own hermetically sealed, brightly bejewelled cosmos of creative excellence! Watching this ravishing 70s phantasmagoria without any preconceptions actively heightened the sublimely immersive experience! The gifted actors voicing these vividly drawn characters are quite brilliant, and the oneiric acid/psyche score is a perfect complement to the eldritch, other-worldly visuals.

Mr. Mean (1977)

if y'all want the job done clean, and y'all got the folding green, you can rely on Mr. Mean!'

[7/10 · 22 May 2024]

Super bad icon Fred Williamson directs Fred Williamson in the Fred Williamson-tastic 70s hit man thriller Mr. Mean. Williamson's Mr. Mean is one virile and brutish hombre, and when he's not being a virile and brutish hombre he's kicking yo' muther's ass!!!! Hired to kill a sleazy mafia skell (Lou Castel), Mr. Mean is soon a marked man, but he brutally unmarks himself by kicking every muther-lovers ass!!! Right on!!!! Additional funky vibes are groovily gleaned from the pristine Ohio Players score. Scrappy scads of chronic, haymaker Kung Fu, dapper threads, Vesuvius hot chicks, Postcard perfect Rome locations, burly Alpha Raimund Harmsdorf, and a frankly bewildered Lou Castel makes Mr. Mean one righteously Euro-freaky scene! This action-jacked, enjoyably cheapnis Blaxploitation/Eurocrime, head-knocking hybrid is one bumpy ride, brother man, and comes with a funky little twist-let at the end. Right on!!!! Williamson is still the phooken man!!!!

'In between the sheets he's a dream, out on the streets he's a killing machine, but if y'all want the job done clean, and y'all got the folding green, you can rely on Mr. Mean!'

The Terror Within (1989)

one of the superior bargain-basement, blood-basted subterranean Sci-shockers!

[8/10 · 22 May 2024]

Ably produced by prodigiously talented B-Movie Tzar Roger Corman, The Terror Within is a rumbustious post-apocalyptic, splatter-spectacular! Not unlike fellow cellar-dwelling dystopian fromage-fest 'Creepozoids', this is one of the superior bargain-basement, blood-basted subterranean Sci-shockers! Civilisation all but wiped out by a genocidal super-virus, the remaining vestiges of humanity work within reinforced subterranean bunkers, while 'things' start hotting up in the arid wasteland above! These grossly mutated, ghoulish-looking gargoyles are no longer content to forage above ground in the sun-bleached Mojave Desert, they breach the security of the survivor's far from impenetrable bunker! Fatefully penetrating one of the Mojave crew, and it is not long thereafter that leader Hal (George Kennedy) breaks out the LASER WEAPONS, and flamethrowers in a courageous attempt to destroy 'The Terror Within'!

The clearly gifted director works nigh on miracles with such a meagre budget, Thierry Nots is seemingly blessed with an alchemical ability to turn base celluloid into blood-burnished B-Movie gold! Robustly supported by a lively, talented cast, featuring a suitably steely, heroic turn by handsome Alpha dude, Andrew Stephens. There's an effectively moody score, some spectacularly splashy FX, and the monstrously malign, man-hunting mutant remains a joy to behold! In a multitude of gore-ious ways, Theirry Nots's exemplary 80s Sci-splatter 'The Terror Within' is a winning example of how you can get a bigger bang from your miniscule B-Movie buck, just by effectively utilizing a killer-looking monster!

The Curse (1987)

'There's something hinkey in the water, and it sure 'aint fish doodie!'

[7/10 · 21 May 2024]

Luridly Lovecraftian horror rocks!!!!

'The Curse' aka 'The Farm' (1987) - David Keith.

After a large frozen alien globule crash lands dramatically on a small farm, the produce, livestock and increasingly psycho farmer's wife become toxically infested with gross, parasite-infested space goo! Hey!!!! Sometimes that's pretty much all the highfalutin' dramatic ingredients I really need! Throw in a bible-bashing redneck, his poisonous lard-ass son, some gruesomely exploding, wormy cysts, and I'm pretty much set! This gorgeously gloopy Sci-Shocker 'The Curse' is still a pretty fun, luridly Lovecraftian 80s fright flick!

Death Triangle (1993)

all is not well within Moon Lee's outwardly delectable noggin.

[8/10 · 21 May 2024]

Moon Lee goes absolutely postal in the rather uneven Cat III curiosity 'Yes, Madam '92' : A Serious Shock Death Triangle'. This occasionally bizarro, somewhat skewed shoot 'em up is bejewelled with the irrepressible, hard-hitting, head-splitting hell-cats of heroic bloodshed: Cynthia Khan, Moon Lee, and Yukari Oshima. If, like me, you righteously groove on adrenaline-soaked, female-led fight flicks with deliriously acrobatic action-overload, heightened by voluminous Foley, then, Albert Lai's off-beat HK crime/female scorned potboiler is not one to miss. The rather unwieldy title is a reference to the hugely ill-fated love triangle that inspires all the conspicuously unheroic bloodshed herein. This frequently feels like some demented martial arts melodrama, since the erratic tone, and unexpectedly loopy narrative threw me a bit. The very early scene wherein Moon Lee's excessively volatile cop May annihilates a fellow cop in an ostensibly friendly sparring match kinda suggests all is not well within May's outwardly delectable noggin.

The Lone Runner (1986)

Miles O'Keefe was always one of my favourite B-Movie warlords!

[7/10 · 20 May 2024]

Manly muscle-cake Miles O'Keefe and sultry siren Savina Gersak provide the scrummy eye candy for Italian icon Ruggero Deodato's exciting 80s action/fantasy 'Lone Runner'. Despicable desert bandits have kidnapped the handsome princess (Gersak) and steel-sinewed, stubble-chinned, crossbow-master hero Garrett(O'Keefe) rescues her for, hopefully, some plentiful, greatly deserved reward nookie! Not all too frequently mentioned, 'Lone Runner' remains a fun actioner, and maestro Deodato has never been a slouch when it comes to shooting thrillingly slam bang action scenes! I don't care who knows it, 'The Malacoots' is a righteous moniker for a brawling band of desperate desert brigands, and I also dig on composer Charles cooper's synth-tastic score! The Spaghetti Western dubbing and exotic middle-east location are manifestly part of the film's charm, and to its credit Lone Runner features some bravura stunt work, which is nothing less than what one expects from a quality Italian genre picture. I must profess to having an admittedly childlike appreciation of the stout-hearted hero who is capable of almost preternatural feats of derring-do! With an ice-breaker jaw that's tighter than a squirrel's sphincter, tall, heroically chiselled, conspicuously hunky Miles O'Keefe was always one of my favourite B-Movie warlords, and Lone Runner is one of his very best!