Okay, so I re-watched CHOPPING MALL last night and it reminded me of the fun that Wynorski's movie could be. The last film of his I rented was probably in the mid-90s. Since then he has made roughly 7,000 new movies, mostly B action flicks. Are any of these more recent titles worth renting? I am hoping for something that matches the fun of CHOPPING MALL.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0691061/

Most of Wynorski's pics from the last couple of years have been either skin flicks (which don't interest me) or cheapies for the Sci-Fi Channel (which I don't have). I know he has spoken out against THE THING BELOW for its amateurish CGI effects, and I'll speak out against TREASURE HUNT and CHEERLEADER MASSACRE, which are boring, lazy and cheap even by Wynorski standards.

I do like his "all-star" stock-footage-filled action movies, since they usually have good casts and pacing, plus it's fun to guess what (better) movies his action scenes are pinched from. GALE FORCE has Treat Williams, Tim Thomerson, Marcia Strassman, Curtis Armstrong and Michael Dudikoff (among others) and footage from LAST ACTION HERO, BAT 21, PREDATOR and THE LOVE BOAT! RAPTOR is incredibly lazy, swiping all of its dino attacks from Roger Corman's three CARNOSAUR movies and featuring some of the most blatant continuity errors in film history. I enjoyed watching both of them, as stupid as they are, and I'd also recommend:

EXTREME LIMITS: Treat Williams, Gary Hudson, John Beck, Steve Franken
MILITIA: Dean Cain, Jennifer Beals, Fredric Forrest, Stacy Keach (a DION BROTHERS reunion!)
RANGERS: Matt McCoy, Corbin Bernsen, Melissa Brasselle

ABLAZE I didn't care for as much, but it does have Michael Dudikoff and Tom Arnold in the same cast and a (literal) four-second Ice-T cameo (probably shot for a different movie).

That's just Wynorski's 21st-century output. In a nutshell, check out his action movies, but do it on DVD, because his commentaries are generally more entertaining than his films. I don't think he did a commentary for MILITIA, but the others I listed above have good ones.

FINAL VOYAGE with Claudia Christian and footage from Richard Lester's JUGGERNAUT. Otherwise, forgettable, as that's all I remember about it.

Wynorski's 80s to early 90s output was much more consistently fun/interesting than the last decade has been. I find the stock footage things as dull as all-else unless you're listening to the commentary, which is hardly praise for the films themselves -- hearing how they made them is entertaining, however. The only one I like is MILITIA, which Marty mentioned, because it was fairly early in the run and he actually directed some of the dialogue scenes well, getting good performances from Frederic Forrest, Dean Cain and Stacey Keach. I find ALL the Treat Williams films dispiriting.

Beyond that:
AGAINST THE LAW rocks, it's his most straight-faced flick ever, and actually has an interesting plot (and minimal stock footage). Nick Mancuso is very good in the lead, and the not-wholly-sober Richard Grieco is adequate. Jamie Pressley, Gary Sandy (WKRP!), Heather Thomas, Nancy Allen and the guy from the PAPER CHASE tv show all make appearances.

GARGOYLES, w/ Michael Pare, is pretty watchable and wouldn't seem out of place in his earlier work -- a decent pace and some OK gargoyles, along with Pare's typical stiff-but-likeable performance, make this worth a look.

ASSAULT, his goofy take on ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, is a lot of fun, but you may have seen that one. Stacie Randall was a great lead and should've got more work in her prime.

Nothing else stands out as especially worth a look -- did you see VAMPIRELLA or WASP WOMAN, his Corman showtime flicks? They weren't really "good," but they have stuff in them, if you know what I mean, whereas some of this KOMODO/ABLAZE/BARE WENCH stuff really sits there...

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. I have to admit that I have a hard time with the stock footage action films. The minute I see the re-used action footage, I am taken out of the film as I am trying to figure out what the heck it came from. I will give GALE FORCE a try though thanks to that impressive cast. And I haven't seen either VAMPIRELLA or WASP WOMAN. I will try to check both of those out.

Has anyone seen Wynorski's DEMOLITION HIGH? The cast looks absolutely amazing. We have Corey Haim (playing a high schooler at 26!?!), Alan Thicke, Dick Van Patten, Jeff Kober, Gerrit Graham and Jay Richardson! There is even a sequel called DEMOLITION UNIVERSITY which again stars Haim, is directed by Kevin Tenney and co-stars Robert Forester. Those sound pretty appealing.

Has his THE LOST EMPIRE made it to DVD in any region? I caught this on one of the pay channels about 20 years ago, and thought it was mind-meltingly fun, but haven't had a chance to check it out more than once in the interim. Raven de la Croix and Angus Scrimm? Kenneth Tobey and Angela Aames? Raven credited as producer and costume designer? All in the service of a ripoff of both ENTER THE DRAGON and THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME? Oh, it's chock fulla cheesy goodness. Or so I remember. I'd love to be proved wrong, though, and have been champing at the metaphorical bit to see this on DVD.

Aleck --

I've also been tapping my metaphoric foot for years, awaiting a DVD of Lost Empire. Found it in a video store years ago, didn't know anything about Wynorski, but certainly knew who Raven de la Croix was. Took it home, watched it and fell in love! Was able to make a video copy of it with my two home VCRs but the quality was about what you'd expect. Still, it's a perennial around our house, with my wife pulling it off the shelf at least as often as I do.

And yes, it's as goofy as you remember and mucho fun because of it.

Heck, even my *mom* enjoyed it!

(This may, of course, say more about my mother than it does about the film.)



SOMETHING OF A SPOILER (though I doubt much can spoil THE LOST EMPIRE):

Seriously, the main reason I remember the title (otherwise, it'd be "that movie where Raven de la Croix writhes around with a snake") is because the subject gets trotted out on a regular basis whenever there's a family get-together. I'll mention a movie as being particularly ridiculous, and my mom'll reply "well, was it more ridiculous than THE LOST EMPIRE?" Then we both start imitating the still-ranting head of Dr. Sin Do: "I'll murdalize ya!"
But then, my family's always been on the odd side.

Demolition High is OK, made around the time of ASSAULT. It moves quickly enough -- it is definitely in the upper-echelon of latter-day Wynorski.

Don't forget MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND's Angelique Pettyjohn as a whip-lashing dyke, and bald-headed Robert Tessier (not to mention SCREWBALL's Linda Shayne). I couldn't wait for the DVD so I picked up a used pre-record off eBay last year.

Some random replies:

FINAL VOYAGE is not so good, but has a great commentary. It's Wynorski and Claudia Christian drinking, laughing their butts off and mocking Ice-T. It's unquestionably more fun than the movie (the grainy 25-year-old JUGGERNAUT footage is ridiculously out-of-place). I do love how the set designers misspelled the name of the ship on the life preservers hanging on the walls (actually the same prop).

I didn't like AGAINST THE LAW very much, mainly because of Grieco, who is a terrible actor and an obnoxious screen presence. Mancuso is good in it, and absolutely Stacie Randall of THE ASSAULT (which is just okay) should have been a bigger star. I always thought she would have been good as a light TV leading actress.

DEMOLITION UNIVERSITY is pretty bad...maybe not by Haim standards. I haven't seen DEMOLITION HIGH.

THE LOST EMPIRE may be the best movie Wynorski ever directed. Boy, this would be great to see on a widescreen DVD.

Other recommendations:
DEATHSTALKER II
THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING
HARD TO DIE

Isn't there some sort of weird continuity between this and SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II with the fat janitor?

"Hard to Die" was indeed a semi-sequel to NIGHTIE NIGHTMARE (the original title for SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE 2), in that Orville Ketchum, the next-door neighbor in the 1st reappears in the 2nd -- some of the same girls return, too. There is no actual continuity between the two films, though.

LOST EMPIRE, DEATHSTALKER 2, CHOPPING MALL, BIG BAD MAMA 2, HAUNTING OF MORELLA, TRANSYLVANIA TWIST, and AGAINST THE LAW are my favorite Wynorskis. The family-oriented HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (aka LITTLE MISS MILLIONS) w/ Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Howard Hessman, is pretty good, too.

NOT OF THIS EARTH, GARGOYLES, DEMOLITION HIGH, THE ASSAULT and the MUNCHIE flicks are second-tier, but enjoyable. Stacie Randall is also in 976-Evil 2, I think, or is it CRITTERS 4 or something. She plays a bad guy in one of those flicks before her star turn in THE ASSAULT.

I always liked the male lead in LOST EMPIRE, he seemed to really know how to delivery Wynorski dialogue, second only to John Terlesky, star of DEATHSTALKER II (my favorite Wynorski film, especially in its 78 minute cut) and CHOPPING MALL....

I always disliked RETURN OF THE SWAMP THING -- when that kinda flopped, I always thought Wynorski retreated a bit-- it was the biggest budgeted film he had made to that point, and he retreated to the world of him and Fred Olen Ray, who gets great casts but doesn't have the filmmaking skill of Wynorski, in my humble...all Wynorski's early films show a personality, and a likeable one, at that, and a level of enthusiasm. The later films seem pretty cynical in a lot of ways...

TRANSYLVANIA TWIST is great. Watch IT CONQUERED THE WORLD and HORROR OF DRACULA back-to-back, then watch TRANSYLVANIA TWIST. You won't regret it.

If it's reassuring, the guy himself was the same likeable, super-enthusiastic, and deeply knowledgeable movie fan turned movie maker as ever when I ran into him last at the Sergio Leone exhibition in LA not so long ago. He bought every Leone item in sight at the gift shop, unable to resist, charmed every attractive woman who crossed his path in a genuinely old-school chivalric kind of way, had super rare Spaghetti Western music cues he insisted we listen to in his cd-player back at the car, and he was still nursing his dream of the perfect Italian Western tribute worthy of the films in Midtown Manhattan that inspired him to get into the business at the turn of the seventies. Let's hope he finally gets to make it, though he seems happy enough living his fantasy of being Russ Meyer on his current projects...

I believe that THE LOST EMPIRE was Wynorski's first film. If so, then he hit a grand slam homer on his first at-bat! I saw it on the big screen at the Seattle International Film Festival, where it was projected at approx. 2:35-1. It should definitely be released as a widescreen DVD!

Inspired by this thread, and having last year bought the whole set of the original (as yet unread) Warren Vampiella comics, and liking the work of Talisa Soto in Liscence To Kill and Mortal Kombat, I have just tried to start watching the Vampiella movie - but it is pretty dreadful. I will try to get through it, but my heart is not in it. Is it possible Talisa is miscast? Although a very beautiful lady, and I have already said I greatly appreciated her in two other major roles, she doesn't seem to fill out the costume in a way I would have imagined a film Vampirella - perhaps a more Russ Meyer starlet was needed, and even his directorial touch.

You lucky devil!

My biggest complaint with the VHS is of course that it's obviously a widescreen movie that's been pan-and-scanned. I've never seen it widescreen but it was obvious from first viewing.

So a DVD is definitely called for. A Wynorski/de la Croix commentary would rock, too!

Wynorski edited/published a book in 1980, "They Came From Outer Space," a collection of original short stories (by various authors) that were adapted into sci-fi films. It includes "The Foghorn" (BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS), "Who Goes There" (THE THING), "Farewell to the Master" (THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL), "The Cosmic Frame" (INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN) and a number of others. The book also includes glossy plates of black & white stills from the films. Reading copies can be found for very cheap on the Amazon Marketplace.