User Reviews

Near Phoenix, Arizona, there's a small town with the highest concentration of millionaires living there. When a psychopath in full Native American regalia (Koslo) sets up shop there and begins killing people with his bow and arrow, the townspeople soon realize he's going to continue sniping people from long distances until he gets the millions of dollars he's requesting. So naturally Oliver Reed, Stuart Whitman and Jim Mitchum are called in to use their manliness to put an end to the madness. Will they succeed? "Give me back my son!!!!!!"...is what you won't be hearing in this tame, mediocre outing. Once again we've fallen prey to what we call "Lone Tiger Syndrome" - that being where we see a movie because of its stellar cast, and then are disappointed because many familiar B-movie names do not necessarily a good movie make. Fan favorite Jim Mitchum is decent as the cowboy Vietnam vet Tracker (great name) but he doesn't get enough screen time to develop his character, a common problem in these "star-studded" affairs. We also love Oliver Reed, but, inexplicably, he resembles Jerry Lewis in the scenes where he wears sunglasses. A lot of his dialogue concerns his drink orders. We'll leave it at that. Stuart Whitman is always a professional, and Deborah Raffin of Death Wish 3 (1985) fame is onboard as the classic (and pretty cliché) female reporter. The standout character, once again, is Paul Koslo as the baddie. He strongly resembles Kurt Russell, and does a great job (not quite as great as his turn in The Annihilators 1985, but once again, he actually had screen time in that one).

While there are a handful of okay kill scenes and maybe a few chases (and one exploding helicopter), this movie is filled with, well...filler, and the whole outing is stodgy, kind of like The Hit Team (1971). The movie doesn't fulfill the potential of the cast, and it's just not exciting enough. The killer Indian should have had some goons, but perhaps the budget couldn't allow for them because all the stars had to be paid first. Yet again we come back to the fact that there's no one, singular character we care about. It's all kind of a jumble with the multiple characters. Sure, Koslo tells his enemies they have to "pay the wind", which is a precursor to Red Scorpion 2 (1994), but sadly the proceedings are slow and yawn-inducing.

As for the tape itself...no one sings the praises of Vestron more than we do, but they botched this one. It's a horribly obvious pan-and-scan disgrace. They make it seem like the camera is resting on the seat of an exercise rowing machine that someone is tipping up, then tipping back. At least they used one of the more accurate of this movie's many titles. Most of the others make it seem like it's going to be a horror movie of some kind. If you do ever check this movie out, unfortunately we recommend NOT to view the Vestron tape.

Featuring the song "Victor's Theme: Shoot Him" by none other than Roger McGuinn and Patrick Ferrell, Ransom leaves a lot to be desired. We've certainly seen a lot worse, but we wish the powerhouse cast would have done something more worthy of their talents.

This road runner isn't just a harmless solo running bird never bothering anyone. He's got a mission, and that is to be paid or continue to kill. As we first see Paul Koslo, he shoots two young people necking in their car, simply because. A police station is his next target where his crossbow impales several officers, followed by his demands to get $1 million to stop his reign of terror. Dressed in native American clothing as well as painted up, he has the amazing talent to escape the most intense situations. A small town parade leads to a chase where the law seems to be doing his work for him, resulting in deadly car crashes that he wasn't even responsible for.

With a cast led by Oliver Reed, James Mitchum and Stuart Whitman, this action thriller is enjoyable in spite of its disturbing story. I actually found myself laughing and deciding that it was worth sitting through when Reed, playing a very determined federal officer, grabs a microphone out of the hand of ambitious young reporter Deborah Raffin and speeds off. You already know going into films like this pretty much how they are going to win, but the important thing is that they keep your interest which this does succeed in doing. One of the things about it though that is confusing is that it seems to have three titles, one of which has been used as a generic title for several other films, pretty much losing this in the shuffle.

Also known as The Town That Cried Terror, Night Hunter, Assault in Paradise and Maniac*, this was directed by Richard Compton (Angels Die Hard, Macon County Line, tons of episodic TV) and written by John C. Broderick (who wrote and directed The Warrior and the Sorceress; well, kind of...read my interview with William Stout) and Ronald Silkosky (The Dunwich Horror).

The town of Paradise is run by the rich William Whitaker (Stuart Whitman). He's being targeted by a Native American named Victor (Paul Koslo), who starts killing people and demands a million. If he's not paid, more will die. Instead of relying on the police, Whitaker pays Nick McCormick (Oliver Reed) to end his problems.

Seeing as how the desert is an area he doesn't know, Nick hires a tracker (Jim Mitchum). Now, both these two are supposed to be efficient killers, yet they keep getting lost and Nick spends most of his time drinking - Oliver Reed, playing not against character - and getting down with a TV reporter named Cindy (Deborah Raffin).

Somehow, this movie also has an end song by The Byrds' Roger McGuinn and Patrick Ferrell, as well as a score by jazz musician Don Ellis, who also did the score for Ruby, The French Connection and Kansas City Bomber.

It's kind of a slasher, kind of Native Americansploitation, kind of a socially aware movie and also, totally not because Paul Koslo is a white guy with blonde hair playing a Native American.

*See all the ads in this article at the essential Temple of Schlock. 1977's Maniac! Release has a different opening scene by Miller Drake and Joel Rapp where a killer in a clown mask shoots a young couple in a convertible Son of Sam style.

A sniper clandestinely jaunts around a city, randomly killing people and demanding that he be paid a ransom in order to stop. In response, a take-no-prisoners, rough-around-the-edges law enforcer steps up to take down the threat by any mans necessary.

Sound familiar? If you think I'm talking about Dirty Harry, you're right. I'm also talking about "The Ransom," which I myself saw under the title "Maniac!" and have also seen under "Assault on Paradise" and "The Town that Cried Terror!" (the distributors seemed unusually fond of their exclamation points). It was a trend in the 1970s and early 80s for hack directors to churn out low-grade knock-offs of successful, high-budget fare in attempts to cash in on the craze; we still see this phenomenon today with direct-to-video flicks that were tossed together in response to some pop-phenomenon (case in point, the direct-to-DVD "Snakes on a Train" and "Zombies on a Plane" made in apparently two weeks in order to prey on the interest generated by the "Snakes on a Plane" phenom). However, in the 70s/80s, these movies actually made it into the theaters, and more often than not they starred people that the audience actually recognized.

The movie is rather tame by 70s standards; there's really not that much blood to speak of, no nudity (that I can recall), and limited profanity. In a year that saw some of the nastiest of the exploitation nasties hit the screen, "Maniac!" is notable for being more silly than sleazy. Even if it had been produced independent of "Dirty Harry," the script, on its own merits, is one massive exercise in corniness. Start off with the fact that the sniper here is a disgruntled former competitive swimmer named Victor who has a bone to pick with the United States because of Vietnam-- I think. His motives are never really addressed in the movie itself, and are left to be explained by the film's closing song, an obscure Byrds number. To show his solidarity with the disenfranchised, Victor dresses up like a Native American and talks in pseudo-mystic metaphors; oh yeah, and instead of using bullets, he kills his victims with a jacked-up crossbow. He's apparently also got an accomplice who dies halfway through the movie in what's supposed to be some kind of mid-film twist, but it's so poorly executed and messy that it's not really clear what's going on. I got the impression that it was supposed to be the narrative equivalent of Harry finding out that he has to let the Scorpio Killer go free halfway through "Dirty Harry." Even as I write this I'm not certain if there was really another guy or not, and if so, who the hell he was and where the hell he came from.

In order to bring Victor down, the townsfolk retain the services of Nick McCormick (Oliver Reed), a rough-and-tumble detective who's so macho that he can make a woman willingly go to bed with him by pulling a gun on her, holding it at crotch level and telling her it's loaded (Reed's "ladykiller" scenes come across as parodies of the misogyny rife in 1950s lad culture; I'd call it clever satire if I weren't so sure that it was unintentional). The movie never really explains where Nick came from; we're just supposed to presume that all corrupt land barons read "Soldier of Fortune" magazine and are familiar with its want-ads.

Judging by his performance, Reed didn't seem to particularly care where he was going to end up after this. It's often hard to tell whether or not he's sober; there's parts of the movie where it becomes almost impossible to focus on the plot, as Reed's blatant drunkenness takes center stage. Most of his dialogue is delivered in a tooth-clenched growl that is either Reed acting very poorly while sober or very good while intoxicated. He's also inexplicably on the verge of breaking out into a body-drenching sweat in several sequences, even when men of comparable weight and wearing similar clothing have visibly dry skin, another indicator that the sauce was driving his performance just as much as any actor's motivation. Nevertheless, given the material, Reed actually does a pretty decent job. Hammered or not, taken tongue-in-cheek, Reed's fun to watch here.

The movie unfolds sloppily, with mediocre action sequences mixed in with bad subplots about corrupt businessmen and promiscuous TV reporters. There are some car chases, a fairly tense cat-and-mouse sequence involving aforementioned corrupt businessman and Victor, and eventually a kind of boring mountaintop climax that employs the ridiculous cliché of the bad guys killing one another off and allowing the hero to walk off into the sunset with clean hands. The action sequences are actually the highlight of the movie, as whatever money could have been spent on a competent writer and sober actors was apparently dumped into the film's rather impressive location shoots and cinematography. Much of the action takes place in the mountains of Phoenix, AR, and the camera crew was at least adept enough to give us some incredible eye candy.

It's hard to tell while watching it if it ended the careers of everyone involved, or if they all knew that they had reached the end of the line and intentionally chose this project out of either desperation or as a means of career suicide. The director, Richard Compton, had a minor success a few years prior with "Macon County Line," a western-exploitation film; after this, he spent the remainder of his career directing episodes of TV series. Granted, some of them are top-notch--his "Star Trek: The Next Generation" effort, "Haven," is a highlight of that series' first season. Still, it seems to be a step down to go from writing and directing your own movies to hopping around different TV series.

If you're looking for cheap entertainment and happen to find this, either on VHS or bootlegged on DVD, pick it up; it's worth an afternoon.