INFERNO (1997) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: INFERNO (1997) - Standalone DVD
PRICE: $2

Directed by: Fred Olen Ray
Written by: Sean O'Bannon
Starring: Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Evan Lurie, Rick Hill, Jillian Kesner, Tane McClure

Brace yourself. Seriously. Are you ready for this? INFERNO (aka OPERATION COBRA) is a 90s martial arts / action flick filmed entirely in India, directed by Fred Olen Ray (HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS), written by Sean O'Bannon (INVISIBLE MOM II) and produced by the one and only Roger Corman. It also stars Don 'The Dragon' Wilson (BLOODFIST I-VIII) and Evan Lurie (CYBORG III: THE RECYCLER).What a fucking combo. Surely the talented people behind such instant classics like TEENAGE CAVEGIRL, MAXIMUM REVENGE and TARZEENA: JIGGLE IN THE JUNGLE can pull of something special. Special or absolutely shit, either way I'm sure it will give me plenty to talk about.

Interpol agent Kyle Connors (Wilson) and his partner are hot on the trail of big-time criminal Johan Davaad (Lurie) who has stolen a disc containing powerful encryption software and planted a bomb in a museum. Why is he bombing a museum? Who the fuck knows, I sure don't and I'm not even sure the filmmakers do either. While disarming the bomb it explodes, killing Connors' partner and allowing Davaad to escape.
Back at the police station Connors' is told that he's been taken off the case and that he should probably take a vacation for a week or so. Refusing to give up on the case he takes his 'vacation' in India where he has located Davaad. With the help of a bumbling Indian police cadet he manages to track down Davaad and sleeps with a bunch of women along the way, just because.

I must admit I'm not all that familiar with Don Wilson's filmography apart from the first couple of BLOODFIST instalments but I always had the idea that the 'Dragon' part of his name probably isn't justified. INFERNO reinforces that feeling because in it Wilson's martial arts arsenal seems to consist only of a few high kicks, roundhouses and face-punches and not much else. And all of the fight scenes are shot and edited in that lame American style where it's all rapid cuts from one person punching to the other person blocking and then back again, because none of the actors have the ability to perform a properly choreographed fight.
And I'm pretty certain I saw the same actors playing different parts wearing different wigs. And it's surprising I even managed to notice that what with the boom mic dropping into view and distracting me all the time (I honestly saw that damn mic on at least four separate occasions). There are also problems with the audio, in some places the music peaks out and distorts horribly.

The story is completely disjointed and makes almost no sense and I'm trying to figure out if there are an ass-load of key scenes missing or if the filmmakers just didn't give a shit about having a coherent story. I'm betting on the latter. On the plus side all of the women inexplicably throwing themselves at 'The Dragon' throughout the film make for some entertaining softcore scenes, like the wet t-shirt scene (above) and not one but two scenes where Tane McClure lets her ample sweater puppies loose. Jillian Kesner (FIRECRACKER) is a nice addition too although she doesn't get anywhere enough screen time. In any case the boobs and sweating and moaning don't even come close to making up for all of the bad points and so I'm relegating this chop-socky disaster to the shit list.