The Himalayan (3½ Stars)

Ching Lan is framed for the murder of her husband, so she goes on the run with her childhood friend, Little Hu. They take refuge in a Tibetan temple where they're trained in esoteric kung fu, preparing them to return and take their revenge.

The problem is that it took me more than half an hour to work out exactly what was happening. Too much of the story is skipped over, while the training at the temple goes on far too long. We've seen the old kung fu routine where the novice carries water or stones up a mountain many times before, but here it really does seem to go on forever.

That's a shame because the fighting is good when it finally happens. Unfortunately, there's not enough of it. When the characters gathered for the final battle, I checked the time and saw there were only 12 minutes left. That's much too late for a martial arts film to get to its main event.

Not a bad film, but it could have been much more exciting.

The Tournament (3½ Stars)

I was shocked to hear Angela Mao's character say that Thai boxing is stronger than kung fu. That sounds almost blasphemous coming from a 1974 Chinese martial arts film. The Thai boxing scenes didn't do much to convince me. They were sterile and lacked the excitement I was hoping for.

The film improves considerably when Angela finally gets to use some proper kung fu. The fights in the middle and especially towards the end have much more energy, and this is where Angela Mao comes into her own. She's such an impressive martial artist that it's a shame the film doesn't make better use of her.

It's one of those Angela Mao films where the star herself is more entertaining than the film around her.

So many films, so little time.

Sisu: Road to Revenge (4½ Stars)

As my regular readers have noticed, I've been having a disappointing run of sequels lately. I hoped "Sisu: Road to Revenge" would break the run. It does.

It's 1946. Aatami Korpi returns to Karelia, now occupied by Russia, to dismantle his old house and take it back to Finland. A Soviet officer takes exception to this and gives chase.

It's slower to get going than the first film, but once it gets going, it really gets going. There's more gore, more mayhem, and Aatami gets considerably more battered this time around. It's a wonderfully insane action film.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Scream 7 (4 Stars)

It's OK. That's probably the best way I can describe it. I enjoyed watching it, but when the final credits rolled I felt that something was missing.

For a start, there aren't enough teenagers. That might sound like a strange criticism, but this is supposed to be a teenage slasher movie. The teenagers have always been an important part of the formula, and there simply aren't enough of them here. There are too many adults and not enough of the young characters who made the earlier films so much fun.

On the positive side, Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers are still a great combination. The chemistry between them works. It always has. Put Sidney and Gale together and there's an instant familiarity that reminds you why these characters have survived through so many films.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same way about Sidney's husband Mark. He irritated me almost from the moment he appeared. He has no charisma, adds very little to the story and, frankly, I wasn't sorry when Ghostface killed him.

In fact, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then it was revealed that he'd survived.

"Oh no!" I thought. "That means he'll be back in the next film".

And then there's Ghostface. Or, more accurately, Ghostfaces.

Yes, there are three killers again. I don't actually have a problem with that. Scream has done multiple killers before and it can work very well. The problem here is the motivation.

Karl Gibbs is basically random. He's talked into becoming a killer by Marco Davis, who's the real brains behind the operation. And Marco, in turn, has been talked into it by Sidney's jealous neighbour, Jessica Bowden.

That's quite a chain of events just to get to a group of people wearing Ghostface masks.

The trouble is that none of their motivations are particularly convincing. When the killers are finally revealed, you're supposed to have that wonderful Scream moment when everything suddenly makes sense. Instead, I was thinking "Why?" And then, when the explanation came, I was still thinking "Why?"

That's disappointing, because the identity and motivation of Ghostface are such an important part of the fun. The best Scream reveals make you look back at the film and realise that the clues were there all along. Here, the explanation feels more like the writers needed three people to be Ghostface and then had to find a reason for each of them to be involved.

Having said all that, I didn't hate "Scream 7". Far from it. It's entertaining, there are some good kills, and Sidney and Gale are still fun to watch together. I just don't think it works as well as the best films in the series.

It's OK.

But when you're watching a Scream film, "OK" isn't good enough.

Success Rate:  + 2.8

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Megan 2.0 (4 Stars)

I loved the film "Megan", stylised as "M3GAN". It was a simple but brilliant horror film with a great idea at its centre. Megan was created to protect a young girl, but her interpretation of that job became increasingly murderous. It was funny, creepy and, most importantly, it didn't need to complicate things. "Megan 2.0" takes a different approach.

The sequel is turned into something closer to a science-fiction action film, with a new AI threat, military technology, conspiracies and one plot twist after another. There are some entertaining moments and Megan herself is still the best thing about the film, but the story has become unnecessarily complicated. It's still a good film, but it's disappointing in comparison with the original. The first film knew exactly what it wanted to be; the sequel seems to have forgotten.

Success Rate:  + 0.6

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Heavier Trip: Road to Wacken (4 Stars)

Not as good as the first film.

Too much comedy.

Not enough music.

But Babymetal is cute.

Lust for a Witch (4 Stars)

The first time I watched this film I was a bit confused. It looked like a Medina film, but not quite. It features four of the regular actors from the early Medina films, Evan Stone, Alexandre Boisvert, Nicole Sheridan and Rebecca Love. I was particularly curious about the director, Michael Windsor, who's never made any other films. I wrote to Fred Olen Ray and received this reply:

"That movie has a long history. It was made by a British adult video company called Unionjaxx/RudeBrit. We used to rent them an office and some warehouse space when we had a large presence on Winnetka. Adult stuff had just become legal in the UK and they were trying to distribute their product in the US but it was awful. They wanted to make something here and came over with one of their starlets Poppi Morgan. They hired Evan Stone to put it together for them. We agreed to do their music tracking, special effects and titles in exchange for a softcore cable friendly version, but it was not up to our level of acceptability and we sat on it as being unusable for maybe what seems like a decade. I finally cut it down as far as it could go and still be a feature when I needed something to release one month and it maybe sold 1000 units. I don't remember. Windsor was one of the Brits. His wife was also one of their UK starlets known for having the biggest tits in England. Her names escapes me".

Today I did some research and found the answer. Michael Windsor was a pseudonym. His real name was Michael John. His wife was the actress Tanya Hyde, who was promoted as having the largest breasts in England.