I bought these "Big Box of Evil" DVDs from San Francisco a long time ago but never bothered watching any of them.
I do this all the time; I buy things but can't be bothered watching or listening to them. Porno is no exception. It's a disturbing trend, I know.
'The Force of Evil' starts out with a crispy critter pulled from the wreckage of a hit-and-run.
Is it a TV show?
What looks like a sweaty George Kennedy observes the chaos without saying a word.
He then enters Lloyd Bridges office unannounced and pulls that whole Max Cady stunt about being wrongly prosecuted and owed a certain amount of his time back from the stolen years. A menacing passing reference about Bridges 14-year-old daughter alerts him to the fact that Kennedy hasn't changed his ways since being incarcerated for vile offenses.
So, this is the 'Cape Fear' that came after the black-and-white original release?
Max Cady is pulled over and harassed at Bridges request and stop the press! Time out. For a dude who's just spent seven years in prison, he's sure sun-blest with a 'Point Break' tan.
If you were to close your eyes and listen to Cady's voice, you'd swear it's James Earl Jones.
Cady starts with the mind games and doesn't mess around when upgrading to arson to destroy a barn and living horse. It's a clear message sent to Bridges but cloaked in secrecy.
With pillow talk, Bridges lets slip that information at Cady's trial was deliberately withheld about Cady being a pyro obsessed with dead bodies and even working in a crematorium as a sick perversion to fulfill his desire for fire and dead bodies.
The cops are played for fools, as Cady knows the law only too well and uses it against them as they overstep the mark in their surveillance of his movements and infringe upon his legal rights. You know the ones? Where the law protects the criminals but not the victims? I always think of Eastwood when this subject arises. "Well, the law's crazy."
Unaware, Jessica Lange is looped into Cady's twisted game one morning as he carries her groceries with sinister underlying intentions.
The daughter is then targeted next with speed boat rage, which causes Bridges to be goaded into assaulting Cady, resulting in a meaty right cross that's delivered not half bad for an old man.
I wasn't going to say anything, but does Lloyd Bridges kind of look, dress, and sound like Donald Trump at times?
I don't know if it's just the poor quality of my DVD-R rip, but Bridges family truckster looks key lime pie in color.
Cady is so brazen in his assessment and plan that those seven years gave him ample time to hold his royal flush before laying it down and watching 'em squirm.
He holds all the ace cards.
But it's kind of sad in this movie to see how the law turned in his favor and protected him with leeway and free reign over the people he terrorized.
With targets on their backs, Bridges entire family packs up and heads out of town, but they don't get far and return for some reason.
At the 40-minute mark, the infamous De Niro scene where he gets bashed by the dumpster happens in the daytime in this version. Bridges underestimates Cady and sends his own 15-year-old son and a few of his boys to do a man's job on him. We have three versus one, and Cady looks confident in his skin about taking on three college football thugs for hire. Let's see what transpires. I got a whole buck says Cady does a number on these clowns. The odds are so short that you'd lay out a hundred to only win 10 cents back. The kids come equipped with Double Dragon pipes, only to have Cady smile in their faces. See, he even anticipated their move in his chess game. He's got all the bases covered and done his homework. It's on, here we go! A clumsy swing and a miss by the first goon knocks down another accomplice. Some MMA grappling ensues, followed by a raised knee, and then a right cross will do the third one in. His afternoon is over.
It's a shutout.
The three goons only managed one good right, while Cady's stats read eight punches thrown, eight punches landed, and one stiff kick for good measure, free of charge.
And this is all service with a smile.
The fight only lasted 26 seconds.
So, what can we deduce from all this violence, people? Well, Max Cady wasn't tampered with in the prison shower.
In desperation and as a last resort, Bridges stoops to murder as an option and, surprisingly, actually follows through with it.
I'm not buying how he administered his death blow, but Cady soon curls over, and Bridges and Jessica Lange are no sooner taxiing a corpse around with the intention of dumping it in, of all things, a wishing well.
They're actually doing it.
A respectful law-abiding doctor and mother of three break the law that could land them 24 to life.
I hope this doesn't turn into one of those boring courtroom dramas for the duration where closing statements take hours to complete.
Just as I was about to say, why don't they dump some quick-setting cement on top of him, Cady defies the afterlife and returns again as the living.
Wait until those two fine, upstanding murderers hear about this.
Their other daughter looks like that "How dare you!" activist. Or perhaps Marcia Marcia Marcia?
You gotta hand it to Cady though; he just sent a hand through the mail, which scared the mother and daughter, and the brother busted in screaming, "You could have given me a hand." They should have handed him the package.
Cady sure has a lot of time on his hands if his only commitment is seeking revenge, which occupies all his waking hours.
It's hard not to draw a comparison to 'Cape Fear' at the end with the floating river boat, and I was going to award this movie the perfect 10/10 rating until it went down this river, I mean avenue, but, come on, movie, at least tweak that ending and don't make it so obvious.
Bridges and Cady get into fisticuffs at the end. It's pretty even, so I'll give it a drawn result. For an old man, Bridges can throw a punch. Didn't he break or strain his back in that episode of 'Seinfeld?'
Good stuff by all involved.
70s TV was awesome and sadly missed.
Why can't TV be like this again?
Other than the NFL, I haven't watched commercial TV in about 15 years, maybe more.
TV used to be entertaining and not full of whining and crying reality has-beens once, believe it or not.
There were quality movies and shows back in the 70s and 80s.
Not any more.
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