BA_Harrison

Garbage Man Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) scores a part-time gig as a stand-up comic, despite having zero aptitude for telling jokes; however, when he inexplicably grows a third arm in the middle of his back, Marty gets a shot at the big-time, the novelty of his extra limb landing him a spot on a Hollywood TV show.

I'd love to have seen writer/director Adam Rifkin pitching his idea for The Dark Backward. How did he talk producers into buying into his vision? How did he convince actors that this would look great on their resumé? Just how do you make a film about an untalented, greasy haired, three-armed comedian living in a world of absolute squalor sound like a good idea? Rifkin must be one smooth-talking devil.

Completely bonkers from start to finish, The Dark Backward is clearly aimed at the midnight movie crowd, the film striving hard for cult status - too hard for its own good: after a while, the off-the-wall nature of the film really begins to grate, not helped by a thoroughly irritating performance from Bill Paxton as Marty's obnoxious, loud-mouthed pal Gus, who engages in necrophilia, coprophilia and orgies with morbidly obese women. How does one go from the brilliance of Aliens to something so utterly insane and clearly destined to fail? Still, he's not alone... the film also stars the likes of James Caan, Lara Flynn Boyle, Wayne Newton, Rob Lowe and Claudia Christian - an impressive cast for such a weird dud of a film.

Amazingly, Rifkin's directorial career did not end at this point: he's gone on to make quite a few films, including fun action flick The Chase and the very enjoyable Detroit Rock City (but the less said about the abysmal Dawn of Sex, the better).

If you're feeling brave, watch The Dark Backward as part of a double-bill with the equally strange 1992 movie The Vagrant, which also stars Paxton.

I rate The Dark Backward 3/10, solely for featuring a human xylophone comprising of five dwarfs being bopped on the head.

Speaking in an unconvincing Southern drawl, Rachel Ward is absolutely terrible in black comedy Black Magic, and her co-star Judge Reinhold isn't much better. But this film doesn't need Oscar-winning performances to be a good time: the quirky plot, strange characters and offbeat direction are what make it so entertaining.

Reinhold plays Alex Gage, whose suffers from strange and disturbing dreams in which his dead brother Ross (Anthony LaPaglia) warns him not to visit the town of Istanbul in North Carolina. Keen to get a good night's sleep, Alex ignores his brother's advice, and travels to the town to see if he can get to the bottom of things. Once there, he meets and falls for Lillian Blatman (Ward), despite warnings from dream ghost Ross that the woman is a witch, and that it was her who killed him.

Consistently quirky, unpredictable. With suitably bizarre performances (the prize for peculiarity going to Brion James as local gangster Tom McKay) and a just a hint of noir, Black Magic is like the Cohen Brothers and David Lynch got together to make a made-for-cable movie. Death by bath-tub, a woman cursed with constipation, a crow shootout in a bar, crazy old antiques dealers, James threatening to brain Reinhold with bowling balls, novelty song Istanbul (Not Constantinople) on the soundtrack: why this one doesn't have a big cult following baffles me.

The Nocturnal Demon opens in sick serial killer mode, with a psychotic taxi driver attacking a hooker with a craft knife, slashing her throat and then urinating on the blade - and all over his victim's body!! What a start!

Soon after, we get some impressive martial arts fighting as roller-skating cutie Wawa (the lovely Moon Lee) saves some cops from a gang of armed jewel thieves (led by Yuen Wah, who always makes for a great villainous adversary).

The film is going great guns at this point, but it's not long before that blight of many a Hong Kong movie rears its ugly head: abysmal comedy. And that's the main problem with The Nocturnal Demon: whenever the film gets going, the action is quickly nipped in the bud, replaced by more gurning idiots and slapstick nonsense, making it a very frustrating experience.

The plot sees Tin (Alfred Cheung), Wawa's cousin, being pursued by the police, who mistakenly think that he is a murderer due to his uncanny resemblance to the crazy killer cabbie. Wawa and her blind grandfather (Kau Lam) try and help Tin to prove his innocence, which leads to all sorts of lunacy, none of which is very funny.

Every now and then, director Ricky Lau picks up the pace with some more fighting, but it's soon back to the silliness, which comprises the bulk of the running time. Moon Lee is the best thing about the film, providing both beauty and brawn, and the ending, in which she wears knee-high PVC boots during a fight with the killer, is just about worth the wait. Just about.