Judge and Jury (1997)

That was an excellent one.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Coming late to the party after such films like "The Horror Show", "Shocker" and "The First Power". The murky supernatural action "Judge and Jury" follows almost the same formula of a convicted criminal coming back from the grave after being sent to the electric chair. Now Joseph Meeker is seeking vengeance against those who put him there and also involved in the murder of his girlfriend during the hold-up. He has his eyes on former pro-footballer Michael Silvano and his family, as he believes that's the man responsible for his girlfriend's death. In all it's trashy and outrageous with an extremely animated live-wire performance from David Keith as the vengeful spirit who likes to dress up in costumes. You know the Freddy Kruger influenced villain…. Still I didn't find anything menacing about his performance, it was more clownish and in which case he does dress up as one. The lame brain plot has very little to it (protagonist being pursued by a spirit while trying to protect his family) and feels straight-forward (chuck in the usual family drama and turmoil with our protagonist haunted by the traumatic experience), but it doesn't hide the fact there's numerous inconsistencies in the writing (mainly surrounding the villain) and the ending is somewhat a whimper. However it does keep a quick pace, throws up plenty of action sequences with bombastic stunt-work (surprisingly some moments do impress for such a production) and the script can have rapid tongue. The performances are reasonable. Martin Kove has an unintentionally goofy presence to him as the guy who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and must battle the spirit. Cult actor Paul Koslo shows up looking all weathered as the cop who put away Meeker and Kelly Perine is another sort of comic relief who gets paired up with Kove with some amusing interplay. Laura Johnson and Thomas Ian Nicholas (of "American Pie" fame) play the Silvano family. Director John Eyres is the man behind the project and you know what you would get looking at his flimography… low-grade and plain-looking, but there's a certain liveliness and gritty kick to the b-material that makes the mayhem entertaining. Oh and don't forget the slow motion. "I believe Joseph Meeker is dead"!

Okay, so what we have here is a nice little B-movie with some ridiculous casting-decisions, an over-the-top-of-the-top bad guy who likes cross-dressing and looking like a bozo (literally), and a pre-fame Thomas Ian Nicholas (from "American Pie") with long wavy hair and cool posters of Martin Kove on his bedroom wall (where can I get those??)! That kid is so rad, apart from the fact that Martin Kove in this movie plays his dad! I mean, seriously.. who the hell has a GIANT poster of their own DAD hanging on the wall?? But anyway, he tears it down after his parents has an argument, so it's a good plot-piece (i.e. the kid losing faith in his dad, and thus removes every idolizing image he has of him in his room).Anyways, back to the plot: David Keith (NOT to be mistaken by Keith David, who is one helluva cool guy) plays this maniacal homicidal lunatic biker-type, Joseph Meeker, who gets arrested during a stick-up, where his girlfriend Mary (played by Patricia Scanlon, who we all know from her other movies where she plays memorable parts like "Woman from Brooklyn", "Cocktail Waitress" and "Stoned Customer") accidentally gets killed, after they both needlessly had offed a few people themselves.So after getting arrested by Detective Lockhart (Paul Koslo, The Omega Man, Joe Kidd, etc.), he wows revenge from beyond the grave on all those who captured him and killed his girlfriend - i.e. Detective Lockhart and family-man/football-star Michael Silvano, who is played the ever-so-lovable Martin Kove, who we all know as the bad-ass John Kreese from the "Karate Kid"-movies, as well as from "Rambo II" and "Death Race 2000", where he also played bad-ass "shoot-first, think later"-type characters.Okay, so after Meeker's execution, where he talked about "getting some pussy" to a priest and did other obscene things, he somehow returns from the dead, and haunts Silvano's family, chasing him and his buddies around for about 3/4 of the movie. Oh yeah, somehow Meeker has a shotgun which shoots exploding fireballs (that for some reason have no effect on whoever gets hit by them)! And he wears about a dozen of ridiculously redundant costumes while making quite a few memorable quotes (none of which have been added here yet - and I don't really feel like it at the moment)..Highlight cameos: Kelly Perine plays this unfortunate homeless cab-driver who gets hijacked by Silvano, and then decides to tag along for the rest of the movie (big mistake), and also a short cameo by the fantastic Bob Minor (who always plays this big ass-kicking black dude) as a pool-playing biker, who happens to hang around in the wrong bar at the wrong time.Verdict: Guilty of the charges of being a hilariously bad B-movie, full of ridiculous dialogue and tons of badly scripted (and filmed) scenes, which should make the viewer roll on the floor laughing, rather than cowering behind the sofa, which was probably intended by the makers of this movie. Good bad stuff. 6/10

If this is not heavily featured on every list of "what not to watch", it should only be because those keeping that particular list are not aware of its existence, which, as long as that remains so, is the acceptable alternative. I'm not kidding you, this is a *bad* "movie". Joseph Meeker returns from the dead, with various vague, undefined supernatural powers, the most employed of which would seem to be appearing in new, increasingly comical-looking and ridiculous(and never scary or creepy... in general, when this goes for the latter of those, it winds up just being bizarre, and attempts at the former just don't work, period) outfits and stereotypes/archetypes, and he is portrayed by David Keith(whom I respect in... well, at least Daredevil), doing a more often than not terribly inconsistent(which could also have to do with script) and often over the top performance. A character or two have personalities so unbelievably irritating that they're painful to watch. The editing thinks it's considerably more clever than it really is(and what on Earth was with the red tint for the flashbacks?). Cinematography... oh, dear. Framing, coverage, effective use of angle(that one could be attributed some to editing, too, perhaps), please, guys, stop me when I say something you've ever heard about the existence of. As far as the technical side goes, this is a pretty lousy excuse for something more worthwhile to put in the projector than unexposed film. But why stop there? The plot is just poor. The basic idea's been done, and it's been done so much better than this(The Crow would be one). The way it's told is gimmicky, and while there is some explanation behind the flashbacks, it still doesn't satisfy. Pacing is about non-existent. The lead is distinctly unlikeable, and there's more personality in a barn door, not to mention that those are also considerably less wooden. Kelly Perine and Thomas Ian Nicholas? What in the name of all that is good and just(pun intended) are you doing in this? Perine, you were already funny before this, on The Drew Carey Show, Nicholas, well, I haven't seen you in anything preceding American Pie, but if nothing else, you *were* funny later on, and in those productions, the amusement was intentional. Dialog is... the less said, the better. Language is unrestrained, and tends to be stupid. The violence is shoddily done, and they don't even seem to care to try to hide it(hinting at it might have been the smarter strategy). Characters, don't get me started. Why spend so much energy on portraying unexciting, at times utterly illogical, events? The more you think about this, the worse it gets. It's not even passable as a "bad horror flick", or a B movie(it may very well pass through the rest of the alphabet, and go further still), it couldn't scare you on the scariest day of your life if it had an electrified scaring machine. I recommend this only to people who want to disprove how bad this is, and don't say I didn't warn ya. 1/10

So much for JUDGE AND JURY, which lives up to its nonsense title. What good is there? The lighting is terribly foggy! Another horror movie you ask? Well, that's perfectly explainable. David Keith actually does pretty good at disguising clowns, chefs, and other shenanigans while being the killer who escaped death row. But overall, despite some new twists, it's reasonably stupid. Unapix has been putting out some ludicrous productions recently, and this one only means so much. We, the jury, find this film guilty for its indecent exposure to many of us sitting around believing it's a total waste of our time!