Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)

Film Title: Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
Released: September 22, 2012 (Austin Fantastic Fest)
Directed by: John Hyams
Written by: Jon Greenhalgh, John Hyams & Doug Magnuson based on a story by Moshe Diamant & John Hyams based on characters created by Dean Devlin, Christopher Leitch & Richard Rothstein
Starring: Scott Adkins, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren & Andrei Arlovski

Plot: After a man recovers from a severe beating in which his family is murdered in front of him, he goes on a quest to find the one responsible but soon discovers that nothing is what it seems.

IMDb: 5.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 51/100
My Score: 3/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning is the sixth film in the Universal Soldier franchise but only the third to be recognized as canonical. John Hyams, director of the previous film Regeneration, returns to helm this entry, which he also co-wrote. Also returning are stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren and Andrei Arlovski. In past installments, the main character has been Luc Devereaux, usually portrayed by Van Damme, but his time, however, the focus is on series newcomer Scott Adkins. In the opening sequence, filmed in first-person perspective, Adkins is awoken by his young daughter telling him that there are monsters in the house. At the urging of his wife, he searches the house and discovers a group of masked individuals in his kitchen that proceed to viciously beat him with a crowbar. His wife and child are then dragged into his view and one of the assailants (Van Damme) removes his ski-mask before shooting the woman and little girl in the head. Fast forward nine months and Adkins awakens in a hospital from a coma. He is visited by an FBI agent (Rus Blackwell) that asks him if he remembers the attack and the man who killed his family, showing him a picture of a Van Damme for clarification. Adkins is released from the hospital and proceeds to piece together the gaps in his memory, said to be caused by his head injury, and to track down Van Damme for revenge. What follows is bit of fresh air for the franchise but the results fall somewhat short of the intentions, not quite reaching the heights it aims for. A few decent plot twists, which really shouldn't be that surprising to anyone familiar with the series, a couple of excellent fight scenes (the Adkins/Arlovski fight in the sporting goods store is definitely a highlight) and more blood and guts than the entire rest of the series combined try to compensate for the weaker points of the film. Repeated several times is an almost nauseating strobe effect that should be a concern to anyone who suffers from epilepsy and Adkins and female lead Mariah Bonner, who plays a stripper, have zero chemistry. I mentioned in my review for Regeneration that one doesn't watch a Universal Soldier film for depth. As if in response to that criticism, Day of Reckoning attempts not just to be a action film but also a violently gritty psychological thriller full of conspiracies, dilapidated locations and seedy characters, including prostitutes, governments agents and a memorable disfigured guy who has an office inside of a meat locker. Having now watched every film in the series, I realize that the script recycles many tropes from the previous entries, like cloned soldiers, messianic leaders and sleeper UniSol agents infiltrating the government. Not a terrible entry but also not as entirely new as it would appear at first glance.

Feardotcom (2002)

Film Title: Feardotcom
Released: August 30, 2002
Directed by: William Malone
Written by: Josephine Coyle based on a story by Moshe Diamant
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone & Stephen Rea

Plot: A police detective teams up with a Department of Health researcher to discover the reason behind a rash of deaths and they discover a website is at the center of the mystery.

IMDb: 3.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 3/100
My Score: 1.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Feardotcom is director William Malone's fourth feature film and his first since his version of House on Haunted Hill in 1999. Stephen Dorff is an NYPD detective investigating a series of mysterious deaths. He crosses paths with Natascha McElhone, a Department of Health investigator, and the two team up to get to the bottom of things. During their investigation, they realize that the only connection between the victims is that they all have damaged computers. Dorff contacts Amelia Curtis, a forensic computer analyst and friend, to see what she can retrieve from the hard drives. She discovers that all the victims visited a website called Feardotcom.com, where voyeurs can watch a serial killer named the Doctor (Stephen Rea) torture and murder his victims. Rea is the "one that got away" for Dorff, a skeleton in his closet, as he puts it. They also figure out that everyone who logs onto the site dies 48 hours after they do so of what seems to be their greatest fears (drowning, car crash, etc). Dorff decides that the only way to figure everything out is to log onto the site himself. Once he does, he finds out that it is actually the ghost of Rea's first victim (German actress Gesine Cukrowski) that is punishing everyone who logs onto the site for wanting to watch the death and suffering of others. Cukrowski was a hemophiliac in life, deathly afraid of any sharp objects, and Rea dissected her alive, thus the reason she uses her victim's greatest fears as tools to kill them. 48 hours is how long she was tortured before she died. Basically what it all boils down to is that Dorff and McElhone have to have to stop Rea in order for the ghost to stop her killing spree. And how do they do that? By logging onto the site once they find him, releasing the ghost and enabling her to exact her revenge. This marriage of serial killer thriller and ghost story horror probably would have been better served had the creative team stuck with one trope or the other. As it is, it comes across as the inbred bastard child of Seven and The Ring (the original Japanese version since Gore Verbinksi's American remake wasn't released until a month and a half after Feardotcom came out). Some inventive visuals can't save this one from the abysmal script, terrible plot and crappy performances. Nigel Terry, Michael Sarrazin, and personal favorites Jeffrey Combs and Udo Kier co-star. Universally panned by critics upon release, it did win the Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film award at Fantafestival in 2003. On the other hand, it also won the Worst Film award at both the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards and the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards the same year.