Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1964)

Sword and sandal nonsense as the son of Hercules, Argolese (Dan Vadis) saves beautiful princess Telca (Spela Rozin) from a lion and then goes on a quest to kill a rather ropey dragon in order to win Telca's hand from her father King Tedaeo (Ugo Sasso) - the King is hard to please obviously.

Argolese completes this task but when he gets back to the village he finds everything has been burned to the ground and everyone now prisoners of the evil Demulus - except the rather annoying Babar (Jon Simons) who becomes Argolese's companion / comic relief.

Argolese goes to the secret mountain lair of the Demulus, ending up captured himself after various violent antics in endless similar looking dungeons. He defeats elephants in an epic test and saves the life of the Demulus Queen Ella (Carla Calo). Argolese joins the Demulus (though Telca and the others remain slaves). Then the evil Melissa (Marie Flore) slays Ella to take over as Queen for herself...

So it is a lot of campy fun, if not very coherent. Argolese is suitably buff and has ample opportunities to show his strength throwing rocks and hauling chains. Melissa plays a good role, gorgeous and evil.

The Bermuda Triangle (1978)

An awful movie, though the awfulness makes it strangely compelling. A small boat is sailing into the mysterious Bermuda Triangle (we get a little historical vignette about some of the ships and aircraft that have gone missing over the years) with Edward (John Huston) leading a team of stereotypes looking for the ruins of an ancient city, maybe Atlantis.

Strange happenings begin to befall the crew after a strange doll is found floating in the sea. Weird lights at night and a bizarre parrot attack. Then when the divers go down to explore some ruins there is a sudden sea quake and various columns collapse on them...

The film has many problems, and is rather long with far too much meaningless padding. Few of the characters are fleshed out or matter in any way though Peter (Carlos East), the alcoholic ex-surgeon is amusingly bitter and dark. The film also includes some pointless shark murder. Maybe it was because they were out acting most of the humans?

Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)

Another pleasing Charlie Chan romp. An experimental new guidance system for unmanned aeroplanes is stolen by foreign agents, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) tracks the system to the Olympics in Berlin where the system is to be sold to the highest bidder. With Number 1 son (Lee Chan) in the US swimming team, Chan heads over to Berlin on the Hindenburg...

As usual there are plenty of suspects and red herrings for Chan to sort through in Berlin with the help of the German police in the form of Strasser (Frederik Vodeding). Chan son's life also ends up in peril as the film becomes more a spy adventure than a crime drama.

A good Charlie Chan film that is certainly is worth watching especially for actual footage of the 1936 Olympics. It is also interesting for showing Nazi Germany in a fairly neutral light, of course a couple of years later all that would change.

No Retreat, No Surrender (1986)

Martial arts nonsense with the worst Bruce Lee ghost ever. Jason (Kurt McKinney) is a modestly skilled, but overly Bruce Lee obsessed, student at his Dad's (Tomothy D Baker) karate school in LA. When his Dad gets beaten up by gangsters, who include Jean-Claude van Damme, and they decamp to Seattle. There Jason and his friend RJ (JW Falls) gets beaten up by both local thugs and his bitter Dad.

Jason appeals to Bruce Lee at his grave (which is in Seattle of course) for help... and what do you know but the ghost of Bruce (Tai Chung Kim) turns up and starts to train him. Jason turns from being a light weight bum to a super martial artist. Sooner or later Jason will end up fighting van Damme of course...

Often pretty cheesy but with plenty of 1980s cool, even some break dancing. The action is pretty decent and often great. The ghost of Bruce looks nothing at all like the real man, unfortunately there are plenty of photos and posters of the real Bruce in the background of the ghost scenes! The training scenes are interesting though and overall this film is one of the better 1980s US martial arts films. A hit... like one of Bruce's fists.

Voodoo Man (1944)

Enjoyable voodoo nonsense. Dr Marlowe (Bela Lugosi)'s wife died twenty years ago - though she is still intact and not aged somehow. The Doctor is capturing young girls with the help of his strange and motley collection of henchmen including John Carradine and George Zucco. He is trying to transfer the spirit of the living into his dead/not dead wife using voodoo magic.

When Stella (Louise Currie) is the latest victim of Dr Marlowe's evil scheme, young reporter Ralph (Tod Andrews) begins to investigate the strange Doctor, who has a group of young zombie girls in his basement. Unfortunately Ralph's fiance Betty (Wanda McKay) is the next target for Marlowe...

A silly and creepy film, the absurdity of the premise however makes the film pretty amusing. Everything is oddly low-key and slow, Lugosi and Zucco spend most of the film in matching black cloaks - with random occult symbols on them - chanting nonsense.