Psycho Horror Double Feature: Psycho Kickboxer/Canvas Of Blood (DVD Review)
Rated: UR/Region O/1:33/Number of Discs 1
Available from Shock-O-Rama Cinema
Psycho Kickboxer (1997)
Directed By: David Haycox and Mardy South
Starring: Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Ralph Richardson
Starring 5-Time World Kickboxing Champ CURTIS BUSH! Left for dead after the brutal murder of his father and fiancée, up-and-coming kickboxer Alex Hunter embarks on an odyssey of vengeance. Coached by a wheelchair bound Vietnam Vet, Alex is transformed into an avenging streetfighter – a one-man vigilante and skull-crushing killing machine known as The Dark Angel. Using controlled fury and a hunger for revenge to seek retribution against low-life criminal scum, Alex must elude a beautiful journalist eager to unveil his identify while destroying an army of inner city assassins.
Let us not sit here and try to fool ourselves into thinking that Psycho Kickboxer (formerly The Dark Angel:Psycho Kickboxer) isn’t the star of this one, two punch here. The movie’s poster is front and center on the box and the photo is also the main menu screen. This movie gets top billing and rightfully so! Let us also not try to ignore the fact that this film is totoally bat crap crazy! Yes, the movie does indeed pack some of the worst acting you have ever seen this side of porn. It also packs some awesome gore along the way as well that we can’t at all ignore. If you want a good laugh and something that might be along those weird lines of “So bad it is good” you could take into account this film as exhibit A.
Of course that isn’t to say that it will be everyone’s cup of tea either. The movie still fills like it over stays its welcome from time to time and unless there is action on screen or a head being blown off the bad acting doesn’t really do anyone any good. The film has its charm, believe me when I say that. The film also has negatives that is hard to over look all the same. The acting is funny, there isn’t anyone here who will be winning any awards, but when you see heads flying and blood gushing it does get a bit hard to dislike something, especially something that is like this.
- TV News Spots
- Color Booklet
- Trailers
Canvas of Blood (1997)
Directed By: Joel Denning
Starring: Jennifer Hutt, Jack McClernan
Armed with a bizarre mechanical appendage, Vietnam Vet Paul Hanover begins a bloody quest to avenge his daughter’s botched surgery. Using the Special Forces skills he learned in Nam, he turns his enemies into grisly works of art that baffle the police while offering clues to his identity.
I won’t be giving Canvas of Blood a score here, because it feels more like just an extra than a film that shares a bill with something along the lines of Psycho Kickboxer. It would also bring the overall rating of this release down a bit too much and that wouldn’t be good, because you do need to see the main film regardless of its shorcomings. Canvas of Blood isn’t nowhere near as entertaining overall, but it is a film of the same vien and does make a nice double feature with it. It is about the same in all areas only it doesn’t have the charm. So come for Psycho Kickboxer and don’t base the clearly inferior Canvas of Blood on your overrall opinion of this DVD.
