Hard to Die (1990)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Breasts.How many of you, back in the 90s, actually rented it thinking you were getting "Die Hard?" None of you? Now how many rented it because it had a bra on the cover? Yeah, that's what I thought.Its another one of those movies I caught on HBO too late when I was a kid. Thank you latch-key childhood.You know the film already, it's Slumber Party Massacre. You know the film already, they hire a whole bunch of women, they film each one of them naked, they find an excuse to dress them in undies that, really, are only worn in the bedroom with the intention that they be taken of.......and then they work a loose...a VERY loose plot around it and have all the women scream and run around, which I am pretty sure movies like this inspired Bay Watch.So, really, why read this review, you already knew what you were going to get before you rented it.

This may have been the tamest NC-17 movie I have seen. There is a heaping helping of nudity (where the main cast takes turns showering) but no sex and a surprising lack of gore or violence. It feels like a PG-13 horror flick if you slapped on an insane amount of cleavage. If you're not into boobs, there isn't a ton here for you (or on most parts of the internet).For a short movie it seems to drag at points, specifically towards the end. Characters can be stabbed over and over again and return to be shot a scene later, and then again the next 2 scenes. Gunshots have no visible effect other than the character wobbling pretending to have been shot (Guns can also be shot almost indefinitely without reloading until the plot requires it). In some ways it adds to the camp but this movie could have been cut down to an hour.The kills aren't anything to remember, but the ending is pretty funny and the film has buddy cops getting donuts, hilariously awful line delivery and an incredible amount of boobs. Watch this movie if you like those things.

You have got to admire a movie that sets and then surpasses its own goals. HtD gets right up in your face and asks you if you want to see a slasher movie with five luscious babes (each with a distinct personality, of course) dressed in lingerie (unless they're in Daisy Dukes or in the shower without any clothes at all) running around a building after-hours and firing automatic weapons. Of course you do! Well, HtD delivers. Throw in Orville Ketchum, some irrelevant filler material shot at a porn filming session, and a bizarre cameo by Forrest J. Ackerman, and you've got a most-excellent B-film! Keep in mind that Jim Wyrnoski is not shy about using material from other films. In Sorority House Massacre II (which beats out HtD only marginally as the best B-movie, because it actually features a haunted house,) he used lengthy unrelated scenes from Slumber Party Massacre as back-story to SHM II. In HtD, he uses the events of SHM II, as well as the same footage from SPM, as a back-story. What makes this more than mildly amusing is that most of the actors/actresses, and many of the scripted characters, in HtD are the same as in SHM II. HtD acknowledges the events of SHM II with a wink at the fact that most of the characters in that movie died. You owe it to yourself to see SHM II prior to seeing HtD.I won't spend a lot of time on the plot. Let me just say that, through a series of improbable and illogical events, the five female leads end up wearing virtually nothing as they are stalked through a closed office building one Saturday. Quite a few people die, though usually off-camera and unrealistically, and "Orville Ketchum" lives up to his reputation as one of the funnier and more-difficult-to-kill B-movie actors. (The scene where he staples a bandage to his abdomen is priceless.) One final observation...unlike many of the straight-to-video movies being churned out today, HtD actually has some decent production standards. Cheap, yes, but competent. The film has been correctly exposed and color-compensated. The audio levels and re-recording are quite acceptable. There are no artsy-fartsy camera angles or unnecessary CGI effects. It is simply a better-produced movie than most of the dreck out there today.And it is a hoot! Either you get it, or you don't. Highly-recommended for nekkid-wimmen-in-slasher-films fans.

(*1/2 out of *****) In a cross between Die Hard and the Slumber Party Massacre (and Sorority House Massacre) movies, a deadly spirit is released into a high-rise office building while a group of pretty female co-workers who work for the ACME Lingerie Company are staying late doing inventory on one of the upper floors (as well as showering and trying on the merchandise). As in Sorority House Massacre II (which was filmed and released roughly the same time as this one and which, with the exception of the building setting, basically follows the same plot), one of the girls becomes possessed by the demon and starts butchering her scantily-clad friends before they even get the chance to have a pillow fight. Luckily, the remaining gals find a crate full of automatic weapons and, next thing you know, bullets are flying, blood is splattering, and breasts are bouncing. I won't lie to you, T&A can often carry an otherwise lousy movie a long way, but that's hardly the case with this one (still, I went ahead and gave this turkey an extra half-star solely for its wall-to-wall display of frilly teddies and lace panties.) Orville Ketchum (as `Himself') appears as the same character he plays in SHMII, and he even narrates a near-identical flashback sequence lifted from the original Slumber Party Massacre. As a testament to the bad writing and Wynorski's equally bad direction, the tiresome and ridiculously indestructible Ketchum pops up around corners every three or four minutes and just stands there looking stupid -- a very bad idea. Seriously, he's one of the most annoying characters in B-movie history, and if he's meant to provide comic relief, it doesn't work. Joe Bob Briggs `LOVED' this movie, and it admittedly does have its charm, but not enough of it to cover up the wretched acting, writing, and directing. Low-budget and horror movie cameo king Forrest J. Ackerman has a lengthy role as Dr. Ed Newton, who sits in his office the whole time. The back of the video box shows pictures of scenes from an entirely different movie. Wynorski has the honor of being responsible for some of the worst drek the slasher genre has to offer.Lowlight: The death scenes are laughably staged -- one girl gets pulled off-camera from behind by somebody with a hook, and then an obvious bucket-full of fake blood is splattered against a concrete wall. Stupid, stupid stuff.