Gangs of the Dead (2006)

A meterorite falls from outer space, crashes through a bridge, lands on a group of homeless people and turns them into drooling zombies. While the hobo zombies lumber down the street, two gangs meet in a warehouse to conduct some business and the undercover police operation prepares to take them down. Unfortunately on the way to make the bust, the police encounter the zombies and havoc ensues.

The two gangs, two officers, and a weatherman all end up making a stand in the warehouse. Even in times of the earth being overrun by homeless dead, they still can't work together to ensure their own survival.

Those looking for a true zombie film will be disappointed as there is not so much zombie in the film, as there is stupid gang members. Also the zombies have green skin and drool a thick blue liquid, which is just plain strange and not as scary as if they were drooling blood.

Devil's Prey (2001)

Five friends are handed a flyer for the ultimate rave and decides it would be a great idea to attend. The rave is in the middle of the country in a barn, there is no cost to get in, and the drinks are free. 

The group are kicked out of the rave supposedly because one of them is selling drugs.  (Isn't this supposed to be the ultimate rave?)  As they drive away from the rave, they hit a girl with their car and then get run off the road by a gang of hooded masked figures. Of the five friends, two are nice and the other three are jerks who take drugs and are completely unlikable.

The hooded guys are known as The Shadows and wear masks that look like evil Micheal Jackson clown faces. It makes one wonder how they can see anything as they are roaming through the woods at night.  Charlie O'Connell plays the nice kid.

The Unexplained: Poltergeists

A&E's series, The Unexplained, gives us stories of poltergeists from people who claim to have experienced this phenomenon. Is there conclusive proof of their existence anywhere in this epsiode? No, but that doesn't mean there isn't some enjoyment in watching people talk about their experiences seeing figures or having ladders walk towards them!

The best story revolves around the country bar of Bobby Mackay, where poltergeists push people down the stairs and try to drop ladders on them. One fellow claims to have encountered a man in the restroom who had a handlebar mustache and 1800s clothes. The narrator then tells us that the bartender found the fellow's "almost lifeless body" on the bathroom floor. The overly dramatic language tries to hide the fact that the guy fainted due to  excessive heat and possibly the ghostly figure.

The man claimed that the ghost looked just like one of the two men who killed a girl in 1896 and threw her head in the well in the basement. Amusement is added to the story when the man claims that if he takes off his cowboy hat, he looks just like the judge who was at the two men's hanging (he doesn't.)

From Beyond (1986)

Dr. Katherine MacMicheals, in 1980s glasses which take up more than half her face, is called in to examine physicist Crawford Tillinghast. Crawford is believed insane after he is found running from the the house of Dr. Pretorius, leaving the doctor on the attic floor lacking a head.

Crawford insists the Resonator is to blame as it allows creatures to come from another dimension and that is what killed Dr. Pretorius. Katherine's tests reveals that Crawford's pineal gland is enlarged, and she uses this info to convince the hospital to let her take Crawford back to the attic of death, where everyone gets in trouble with the Resonator. Pineal glands enlarge, sexual deviancy reigns, and strange creatures appear in the house. It's freaky H.P. Lovecraft and Jeffrey Combs, which is reason enough to see it.

Captain N: The Game Master (1989)

Episode: Kevin in Videoland
What can I say, but wow is this bad. Teenager Kevin and his dog Duke are sucked into the tv while Kevin plays a Nintendo game, and end up in Videoland, where Kevin must help characters from various videogames. Kevin is Captain N, and he helps the good characters fight against the villains, who are lead by the ugly Mother Brain.

This episode used the same footage of Kevin over and over. Basically the show is one long commercial for the Nintendo system and it's games. This is something that should only be watched by those who are nostalgic about seeing it on Saturday morning tv in their youth.

Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels (2000)

Remember those really crappy movies they used to show on "Up All Night" on the USA network? They were supposed to be funny but were un-watchable. There was plenty of gratuitous nudity and a story line so ridiculous that you just knew the film was based on one bad joke and lots of boobs. Well this is one of those films - except it's recent and though the plot is nonexistent, it's really stupid and not a great film, you can watch it.

An evil gang of zombies opens a hair salon in a small town, where they can rid everyone of their body hair. Anyone who gets a wax turns into a zombie. These are not your standard zombies though. There is no staggering, no rotting flesh, and no zombie makeup. In fact, the only way you can tell they are zombies is that they talk about how glad they are to be rid of their "pesky body hair" and are overly interested in sex.

Why are the zombies doing this? I have no idea. They never tell us. The whole town becomes zombies except for two crusty old sea captains, a barber, and his friend's girlfriend.

There is an error in one scene where the evil zombie lady is chasing the heros on her motorcycle and her front wheel is not moving at all. Yes, I know they film it on a trailer, but they should have shot it so that you could not see that her tire was stationary. It looks ridiculous.

Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud (2007)

When the Hatfields accidentally kill one of the McCoy's daughters, and beat up Ricky McCoy because he's dating their sister Jody, all hell breaks loose as Ricky asks Pumpkinhead to wreak havoc on everyone named Hatfield...except for Jody because he loves her, but kill the rest of her family because it would serve them right.

Yes, the Hatfields and McCoys are still fighting it out in the fourth installment of Pumpkinhead. And what better to ensure that you can live forever in peace with your fiance than to kill her entire family? Ricky seems to be a little short sighted on his quest because I can't think of anyone who would thank their betrothed for the complete destruction of their feuding family.

Ed Harley (Lance Henricksen) shows up every once in awhile to say that calling Pumpkinhead is a really bad decision. But he's never direct about why, so no one gets what he's talking about - wouldn't it be easier just to tell Jody that in order to stop Pumpkinhead she has to kill Ricky? Before the poor thing figures it out, there's only one member of her family left. And actually, she doesn't figure it out, Ricky does.

The town, homes, and interiors look like something out of the late 1800s, which is disconcerting since you keep think you're looking at the old Hatfield-McCoy feud and the something will occur to remind you that it's present day. Also the two families are interchangable as each has five million members and except for the fathers and grandpa in the wheelchair, they're just a sea of nameless faces. Who just got killed? I don't know. They all look the same.

Also since they all live in the same house, you'd think Pumpkinhead would dispatch them all in one night. But he takes his sweet time about it, leaving the family to wonder what is happening and why they are getting killed. This leads to speculation that it is a bear, to which one replies, "It ain't no bear doing this. Bears don't just go after one family." No truer words have ever been spoken.

Also watch for the accents flying all over the place. Some sound like southerners, others sound like French Canadians. What the hell is up with that? Ricky is especially bad and goes in and out of his confusing accent.

And thanks to the filmmakers for not using CGI for Pumpkinhead. I'm so sick of CGI monsters which may look nice, but are obviously not real. It's much more effective to have a real monster in the film.

The Slaughter (2006)

A group of stereotypical college kids head out of town to clean up a house that has been uninhabited for forty years. I'm not sure how they got this job since they are the worst workers in the world. Only two of the group take the job seriously, while the others focus on having sex, smoking weed, or sulking.

The guy who hired them is a total ass, and for some unknown reason, hangs out at the house with the kids, who he obviously can't stand. Before they've even started cleaning, he threatens that he will sue them for breach of contract. He also gets the leader to agree that they will clean without getting full payment. It makes no sense.

There is a flesh covered book in the basement and a scary demon lady who keeps appearing. The water in the attic starts working and prompting one girl to take a bath. Why do people insist on taking baths when they aren't dirty and the tub is in a huge attic in an abandoned house?

This is one of those stories where everything has to line up and certain things must occur in order for the demon to return to earth. The zombie makeup is decent, but the scary demon lady has one of those stupid devil voices and herky jerky movements.

Stupidest line - "I guess when I blew myself up, it reversed the power."

Stupidest visual - the spooky demon lady creature wears underpants.

Death Warmed Up (1985)

Death Warmed Up is an odd film from New Zealand in which a doctor is experimenting on peoples brains. I'm a bit fuzzy on the whole thing, but a young man named Michael is hypnotised by Dr. Archer Howell and kills his parents. He is captured and sentenced to jail time.

Years later after being released, Michael goes on a vacation with his girlfriend Sandy, and another couple named Lucas and Jeannie. They end up on the same island where Howell now has a lab and Michael wants revenge. The four enter the tunnels on the island, get lost, meet two mutants they had gotten into a fight with on the ferry, and are chased around the tunnels by the mutants on motorbikes.

One of the girls gets injured and the other wants to take her to the hospital. But Michael says no because that is where Howell works. The mutants break out of the hospital tunnels and start roaming the streets, which apparently is not unheard of as when the bar owner hears there is trouble at the hospital, he knows the mutants are on their way.

The four friends end up being taken to the hospital by the doctor's goons, who save them from the mutants for some reason. Then havoc ensues. Michael and Sandy are the only ones who make it out of the hospital, but he's crazy and the movie ends oddly, with Michael walking off and Sandy crying next to the car.

One thing to note in this film is a beach scene where the guy is wearing a little bathing suit and he has an enormous package. It took up a major portion of the screen and prompted the thought, "he's got an armadillo in his trousers." It was that huge. But the really odd thing is that it was so prominently featured because the cameraman appeared to lying on the sand right next to his leg. Very very odd. See this film if only to gasp in disbelief at his massive crotchal region.

Offerings (1989)

A young boy who doesn't talk falls down a well after being scared by one of the neighborhood kids who picks on him. Cut to ten years later - he's been in a mental institution because he killed his mother, who was very abusive. Did the fall somehow make him snap? What were his injuries? We never know.

But now he's lying in a bed at the local sanitarium where he is heavily sedated. Unfortunately the new nurse waits a few seconds too long to give him his sedative, so he kills her and escapes. He then proceeds to track down and kill all the kids who tormented him. Oh those kids.... The interesting thing about this slasher flick is that all the violence happens off screen.

Tourist Trap (1979)

Chuck Connors is a freak who owns a tourist attraction that the new highway has bypassed. So he doesn't get many visitors anymore. But I'm not sure who would really want to go there to begin with as it's mostly creepy mannequins strewn about the yard and standing around in the house.

Apparently he's also telekinetic since things fly around and kill people stupid enough to come to the close tourist attraction. I guess since Carrie was a hit they decided to have things flying around this movie.

Bram Stoker's The Mummy (1997)

Egyptian artifact hunter Abel Trelawny is mauled by a mummy in his own home - the indignity!  His daughter Margaret comes home and tries to solve the mystery of what attacked her Dad.  

With the help of his old assistant Corbeck and her exboyfriend, who is curator at an Egyptian place, they set out to solve the mystery of Abel's mummy attack.

Ridiculously enough, Abel has a mummy under the stairs in the basement and another in a packing crate packed in shredded paper. But stupidest of all, he has Queen Tera, the mangy seven fingered mummy, in his study.  Gee, ya think maybe it's a bad idea to store the Queen of all curse-mongers in your study? 

Nightmare Weekend (1986)

"Hey, you're quality and I'm quality", is the best pick up line the pinball tough can muster. If only the movie were also quality, but no, that would be too easy. A scientist turns personal objects into a small metal ball, which rolls or flies over to a person and goes into their mouth. With the ingestion of the strange silver ball, the subject turns into a drooling mutant, which makes one wonder why a scientist would work to perfect this product.

Needing subjects for his useless experiment, three young women end up going to his house for a vacation. They swim, cavort while scantily clad, and have sex with guys they pick up at the local bar, which is an incredibly lame place.

There is a subplot about the scientist's daughter, a rollerskating teen with a primitive computer that talks to her through a puppet named George. The puppet drones on in monotone, as it's a computer, and protects the daughter from any harm that may come to her - which is a good thing since her dad is a mad scientist.

The movie doesn't have any idea where it's going or where it's been. Nothing makes sense and people keep going to that lame ass bar to hang out.

Rocktober Blood (1984)

Rock star Billy Eye Harper goes nuts and tries to kill his girlfriend and backup singer, Lynn Starling. Lynn escapes, testifies at his trial, and Billy is convicted for murdering twenty-five rocknrollers (!?)

Two years after his electrocution, Lynn is leading his band and ready to rock. She's recorded the song Billy wrote for her, Rainbow Eyes, a horrible pop metal song that will get stuck in your head and make you regret ever hearing it.

As Lynn prepares for her upcoming tour, she does aerobics, takes a vacation, and is stalked by Billy, who seems to be back from the dead. Problem is no one else ever sees him. So is Lynn insane or has Billy really come back from the dead?

Billy is supposed to be scary but he really looks more like Mike Reno from Loverboy than a singer in a metal band. I think a huge part of the problem is the headband. And the Kiss type makeup.

Frostbiter (1996)

Two idiot hunters on Manitou Island break a sacred circle of skulls and release the spirit of the Wendigo. Other hunters get stuck on the island in a snow storm and take refuge in the old shack that is within the broken circle. The shapeshifting Wendigo tries to kill them all before they can figure out that they must close the circle to contain it and save themselves.

The music throughout the film is too loud, which makes it really hard to hear the dialogue. There is some claymation like something out of a Ray Harryhausen film.

Arachnid (2001)

A ragtag band of scientists and their nature guides crash land on an island full of spiders when their plane mysteriously stops working. There is a subplot about the female pilot looking for her brother, a navy pilot who has disappeared while flying a new plane.

There is lots of icky spider spit and their webbing looks like cotton candy. The characters aren't too bright. One of the women falls into a hole, something grabs her, and she loses her shoe. A guy then sticks his frickin' head down the hole to retrieve the shoe, real bright.

Oh yeah, and the giant spiders are alien life forms that come from outer space. But don't let that fool you because it's only touched upon and overall the movie is not that interesting.

Thrillkill (1984)

Carly writes programs for video games, which sounds very cool until you realize that it's the early 1980s when computers were the size of a car and games were in he incredibly primitive DOS format. (Do kids today even know what DOS is?)

Carly has just finished programming a new game called Thrillkill. Perhaps this game was cutting edge in 1984, but I find that hard to believe it as it's not even up to the level of something like Berzerk, from the early 1980s.

For the past three years, Carly has been siphoning money from her employer through fake accounts. Caspar, the head of the company, has figured out something is going on and sets out to make Carly pay for her disgressions. Caspar has a voice like Dracula and uses random pauses mid-sentence, kind of like a cross between William Shatner and Bela Lugosi.

The convoluted storyline involves Carly's sister showing up unexpectedly with a friend, a secret password written on a book of matches, and location of the stolen money hidden within the game, which one must play and beat in order to enter the secret password. How inconvenient.

With twists and turns in the storyline, and no one who is actually what they appear to be, there is potential for a good movie. Unfortunately, it's not a very good storyline, or a very good video game. In the words of Thrillkill, "Welcome to Thrillkill, the game that plays you." Uh yeah, right.

Terror in the Swamp (1985)

A professor and his lackey experiment on a Nutria (a small rodent) to produce a large animal that can be hunted for it's giant pelt. The man sized rodent with a tail is running wild in the swamps, which anagers hillbilly brothers Jessie and T-Bob because their traps are being poached.

Rumors of a monster in the swamp prompts the offer of a reward for a fur-bearing animal weighing more than one hundred and fifty pounds. This sends tons of Cajuns into the swamps, riding in boats filled with shotguns and alchohol.

The sheriff decides to send Green Berets to locate the monster. They stomp carelessly through the woods and end up shooting at a kid, which makes one wonder if they are Green Berets due to the color of their hats, rather than any real military training.

There is a crazy swamp lady who laughs too much, T-Bob cries, and a shack explodes during a fight. The Nutria is never seem very clearly as it is too dark in the woods to tell what he looks like, but the one glimpse we do get appears to be a man in a shabby ape suit.

Also there is Officer Bruce, not the brightest guy on the force. When Bruce finds clear mystery liquid in a jug, he sniffs it and takes a big swig. He also decides it is a good idea to spray insecticide on the river where the drunken rednecks are boating during the monster hunt. The clouds of insecticide make it difficult for anyone to see and cause the hillbillys to discharge their guns, drive in circles, and drink even more.,

The Visitor (1979)

Eight year old Katie is an odd, creepy little child who finds a gun in a present box at her birthday, wields it like a lunatic and shoots her Mom, paralyzing her from the waist down. Mom hires housekeeper (Shelly Winters) who knows there is something evil about little spooky Katie. Detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford) is investigating the birthday party shooting and knows there is something not quite right with Katie. But he doesn't get much done when a bird flies into his car and he promptly dies.

Katie scares everyone except super old Jersey (John Huston), who wears khaki outfits, babysits her, and has come to the US to walk on rooftops in front of a line of bald men holding boxes. While Katie dispatches everyone in her path, Jersey always has the upper hand in their interactions. Katie gets angrier and angrier until, in a scene right out of "Enter the Dragon", Katie chases Jersey into a room of mirrors. Her frustration grows as all she can find is his reflection, and in anger smashes mirror after mirror.

There is only one genuine scare in the film, which is when Mom comes home after leaving Katie in the hospital, but finds her playing Pong in the living room. Oddly enough Mom doesn't seem concerned as to why or how Katie has come home, but apologizes for their fight earlier in the day.

When creepy Katie turns around, she is a monster with light is streaming out of the holes in her face. She pounces on Mom, drags her to the second floor, and then throws her down the stairs. This is when Jersey sends the freakin' birds.

Anticipating the public fury over Jersey's birds of death, the movie ends with happy kids in hot Jesus Heaven, while Katie smiles and gazes about lovingly. To make the point perfectly clear and avoid the lawsuits for emotional trauma, we are then treated to the phrase, "We don't kill kids. We just kill evil." Well played, Jersey....well played.

Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

Lucy Liu is Sadie, a reporter for a local paper, who stumbles upon a vampire, ends up his next victim, and wakes up in the morgue as a vampire with no idea what's happening. You'd think a vampire who decides to kill the vampires who killed her would make for an exciting plot, but you'd be dead wrong.

The movie is mostly Liu standing, walking, and staring. There is a whole lot of nothing in this movie, and what is there, is slow moving and often pointless. There are flashbacks all over the place and most come on without warning so it may take you a second to realize that the film has cut back to when she was human.

In one scene, she stands on the edge of a bridge, watching the traffic below before deciding to throw herself over the edge. The next thing we see, she is in a bed with bandages on her face, being nursed back to health by a man who says "Welcome to Mexico." So I guess when a vampire falls off a bridge, they land in Mexico. Uh yeah.....

On the plus side Sadie has a crossbow which only takes her 4.3 seconds to load. On the downside, she spends most of her time standing around doing nothing. Adolescent males should note that Liu is naked a few times during the film.

The Quick and the Undead (2006)

Ryn Baskin, a cut-rate, spaghetti western, Clint Eastwood type, collects pinkies from zombies as the US government has a bounty on zombie fingers. His rival, Blythe Remington - a soap opera name if ever there was one - steals Ryn's bag of pinkies, leaves him for dead, and plans to infect people with the zombie virus in order to make more money on pinkies.

The US looks like a spaghetti western, with dusty ghost towns dotting the landscape. Remington and his gang hole up in a huge building which isn't ideal for securing against zombies. Ryn, who is immune to zombie bites because he sucks out the poison, follows them to get his bounty back and havoc ensues.

The zombies are few and far between. While some of the makeup is pretty good, the zombies themselves are fairly lame and appear not to have any idea how to effectively stagger.

Terminal Justice (1995)

When I first looked at the cover, I thought it said Cybertech PhD, which sounded ridiculously awesome!  But alas, it was not to be.  Bobby Chase is  a cop who has night vision eyes due to a tragic eye accident during the war in Russia.  After his old partner is killed, Bobby vows to track down the killer.   

In another part of the plot, Bobby is assigned to protect an actress whose image was used for a virtual reality sex program.  There are threats to kidnap and clone her, so Bobby must be on guard.

Luckily it's 2008 and the police can link right into his night vision eyes so they see everything he does.  Yes, 2008..... a bad choice for a future film as it's not far enough into the future.  The computers of the future are laughable, and all the future technology is embarrassing.

Mutant (1984)

Two brothers end up in a small town where something is amiss. They find a dead body which disappears after they try to report it, making the local sheriff label them as troublemakers.  Then the younger brother disappears.  When the older brother tries to figure out what happened, he discovers that the town has a zombie problem.

Chiller (1985)

In the cryogenic storage chamber there are shuffing feet covered in tin foil. This rouses our guard to investigate, thus finding his replacement who jumps out from behind a storage tank, as well as a leak in one of the containers.

The leaky cylinder contains Miles Creighton, a big league executive who died ten years earlier. His mother couldn't bare to part with him and had him crygenically frozen until such time as the process of bringing the dead back to life had been perfected. Unfortunately the temperature in the container has dropped below the point where he can be refrozen and the only option is to attempt to revive the human popsicle that is Miles.

Thankfully Miles was wrapped in the finest tin foil known to man, thus preventing freezer burn, and doctors are able to revive him. He lingers in a coma until violent convulsions wrack his body, while an inept nurse fails to call anyone to assist him. Luckily it doesn't signal death, but life and Miles is deemed good enough to go home, where he immmediately creeps out his sister and finds that his dog hates him.

Mom declares her zombie son head of the company and he promptly throws out everything the company has done over the past ten years, including charitable activities, church donations, and snuffs out anyone who gets in his way. Even though he's super creepy, Mom worships him and hardly anyone questions what a jerk he is. No one even seems all that unnerved by the fact that he's been dead for the past ten years, which is very odd.

After the family priest figures out that Miles has no soul and Miles tries to rape his sister, Mom's brain starts cranking and she locks him in the freezer, only to send us right back into a loop to the beginning of the film where there are now multiple cryogenic container failures in the storage facility. Uh oh....

There is never any explanation for the tin foil feet in the opening sequence. Also it seems like a major design flaw to have to walk through the cryogenic storage room to get to the security control room. Their architect should be shot.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

When I think of Richard Burton and James Earl Jones, I think of two really great actors. So how the hell did they get into the mess that is Exorcist II?

While the movie asks if goodness brings evil upon itself, the movie's answer is a convoluted mess of nothing. Instead we get the Synchronizer, in which Father Lamont synchs up with little Reagan MacNeil via a hippie head band adorned with flashing lights. We are also treated to Reagan tap dancing to Lullaby of Broadway in the most disturbing see through hat, intercut with scenes of Father Lamont being chased and hit with stones while on his African trip to find the demon Pazuzu. Since the two are synched, the effect of the stones on Lamont's head causes Reagan to stagger and catapult off the stage during her tap dancing routine.

The film also features hordes of locusts, Dana Plato as a child who can't talk, a psychiatric institute with glass rooms which afford no privacy during treatment, Reagan's house of mirrors, and James Earl Jones in a giant locust suit. How could they go so wrong?

The most memorable moment of this movie is when Father Lamont tries to beat out a fire with a crutch. A crutch?!? How the hell is that going to help? In fact, if Lamont hadn't interfered, perhaps the flaming box of fire would have gone out after incinerating itself.

Instead Lamont's flailing crutch spreads fire throughout the basement passageway until Dr. Tuskin grabs a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. Yes, sad but true - there is a fire extinguisher in the hallway but Father Lamont chooses a crutch as a valid implement of fire fighting.

Nightmare at Noon (1988)

A mute albino in a van filled with computers puts a green glowing substance in a small town's water supply, which turns them into homicidal maniacs. Ken and Cheri Griffiths who are traveling through town in their RV and get trapped in town after the albino's minions turn on some sort of machine that generates a force field around the town. Sheriff George Kennedy and his deputy daughter try to control the town and stop the homicidal townsfolk from killing each other. 

Under Siege (1992)

Steven Seagal is Casey Rybek, a former navy seal who has been busted down to cook status after punching out a commanding officer. He's loved by the Captain and crew, except for a few officers who are sticklers and the irritating Commander Krill, played to annoying perfection by Gary Busey.

It's the Captain's birthday and Rybek is planning a special meal, but Cmdr. Krill locks the troublemaking Rybek in the meat freezer because he has plans of his own - namely flying in a stripper, band, and catering crew. Not the best idea when you're on a battleship carrying nuclear missiles, but no one really questions it.

Before you know it, the entire crew are locked below deck in the foc'sle, courtesy of Cmdr. Krill and the cut throat band mercenaries who came aboard under the guise of musicians and caterers. Led by the the animated Tommy Lee Jones as the currently insane fomer CIA agent William Stranix, the bad guys plan to load the nuclear missiles onto a stolen submarine, then sell them for millions of dollars.

It's a great plan except for one big problem and that hideous problem, such as it were, is Steven Seagal. Rybek's position as the cook belies the fact that he has special forces and counter terrorist training. Cmdr. Krill's disdain for Rybek as well as Rybek's propensity to state, "I'm just the cook," lead hijinks to ensue as Seagal proceeds to kill or maim everyone within a hundred foot radius.Under Siege is a fairly decent action movie and arguably Seagal's last flick before his expanding ego and waistline made his career self-destruct. After watching his recent films, I was stunned at how thin and young he looks here. It's too bad Seagal didn't have a better grip on why it's not a good idea to be in charge of everything on his own movies. If he had people around him who dared to say no, and who he was willing to listen to, then maybe he could have stayed on top of the action film genre.