Film / News
Dodgy dojos and execrable elves
If you weren’t quick enough to grab a ticket for Bristol Bad Film Club’s sold out screening of Uninvited, you have two more opportunities to wallow in Hollywood’s outflow pipe before Christmas. First up is the unintentionally hilarious 1977 blaxploitation movie, Black Samurai. This one stars Jim Kelly and his impressive afro, whose promising career(s) began in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee. By the late ’70s, however, things were looking a bit desperate for Kelly as he signed on for veteran trashmeister Al (Fiend with the Electronic Brain, Satan’s Sadists, The Naughty Stewardesses) Adamson’s typically shonky attempt to fuse the Bond and blaxploitation genres. The official blurb goes like this:
Robert Sands (Jim Kelly), super-agent of D.R.A.G.O.N. (Defense Reserve Agency Guardian Of Nations), is interrupted from his vacation to rescue former flame Toki (Essie Lin Chia), daughter of a top Eastern Ambassador who has been kidnapped by the evil Janicot (Bill Roy), Warlock leader of a devil-worshipping cult.
But that hardly prepares you for the appallingly shot fight scenes, terrible dialogue, killer midgets and trained attack vulture. Undeterred, Kelly went on to star in such films as The Amazing Mr. No Legs and was still at it in his sixties with 2009’s Afro Samurai. The (other) BBFC are screening Black Samurai in a real Bristol dojo – the Templegate Dojo, no less – on November 21, with all profits going to the non-profit My Tactics organisation.
This year’s Christmas turkey arrives at the Bierkeller on December 17 in the festive form of 1989’s Elves. Like a beautifully gift-wrapped giant box containing a small turd, it promises both elves and Nazis, but delivers just one solitary elf. That said, the priapic little fella is part of an evil plan to take over the world with a pint-sized master race. But first, he needs a virgin to impregnate. And three young ladies with eighties hair are about to take an innocent walk in the woods. Only department store Santa Dan Haggerty (y’know – the beardy Grizzly Adams star) can prevent this crime against Christmas. As one suitably unimpressed critic marvelled, this is “as bad as a B-movie about killer elves can be.”
Profits from the screening of this one go to Crohn’s and Colitis UK. For more info and to book tickets for both events, head over thisaway
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