August is typically a slow time at the multiplex, but Hollywood is working in overdrive this year. In addition to popular holdovers like Deadpool & Wolverine and Twisters, there three new movies hitting the multiplex this weekend: Borderlands, an adaptation of the hit video game franchise from director Eli Roth; the romantic drama It Ends with Us with Blake Lively; and the creepy horror movie Cuckoo.
That’s a lot of choices, but if you don’t feel like going out this weekend, there are plenty of options at home, too. HBO and its streaming service Max have a bevy of movies — some famous, some less so — that are just waiting to be streamed. The following three selections are all underrated in one way or another, and will help you pass the time just as well as what’s showing on the big screen.
Hollywood Homicide (2003)
Hollywood Homicide is one of those movies you wouldn’t quite recommend anyone to see in theaters, but it makes for ideal home viewing. Harrison Ford stars as Sergeant Joe Gavilan, a longtime detective working the Hollywood beat who is unexpectedly paired with the younger, yoga-practicing detective K.C. Calden (Trap‘s Josh Hartnett, still in his heartthrob phase). They are tasked with solving the murders of a rap group named H2OClick. After first believing the deaths to be gang-related, the duo quickly discovers that the motive may be more personal than they thought.
Hollywood Homicide shouldn’t work; buddy comedies usually rely on strong chemistry between the two lead stars, and Ford and Hartnett just don’t have any spark between them. (The actors reportedly hated each other during filming). Yetm the movie is still engaging thanks to director Ron Shelton’s smart script, relatively straightforward direction, and an eclectic supporting cast that includes Oscar winner Martin Landau, future MCU star Anthony Mackie, rapper Master P, country singer Dwight Yoakam, and Motown legends Gladys Knight and Smokey Robinson.
Hollywood Homicide is streaming on Max.
Poltergeist III (1988)
There’s underrated, and then there’s just plain hated, and Poltergeist III is loathed by the few people who even remember it. I like it; it’s silly and almost always stupid, but it’s also inventive and never boring. The second sequel to the 1982 horror hit follows little Carole Anne, now a precocious preteen, as she stays with her rich Aunt Pat (Nancy Allen), her husband Bruce (Tom Skerritt), and teenage sister Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) in their fancy high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago.
The previous film’s villain, Kane, has followed her there, and still wants her to lead him and the other spirits into the light, or afterlife. As Carole Anne tries to ignore Kane’s increasing sinister presence, the high-rise itself becomes a prison designed to trap her and her extended family from leaving. Will Carol Anne once again break free from Kane’s grasp? And what does Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein), the gentle psychic from the first film, have to do with all of this?
The answer, of course, is rubbish. None of this makes much sense, but boy, is it cool to watch. It’s rare that horror films are set in fancy skyscrapers, and the director, Gary Sherman, makes the most of the setting. Watch as a swimming pool is turned into a frozen lake in which an iced-over teen suddenly breaks through or how a small puddle in the building’s parking garage can turn into a portal from another world. Poltergeist III isn’t high art, or even art, but it’s silly fun that you can watch on a lazy weekend afternoon.
Poltergeist III is streaming on Max.
Mortal Kombat (1995)
For some men around the age of 40, hearing that familiar guttural scream “Mortal Kombaaaat!” is enough to evoke a wave of nostalgia that just might knock you out. That scream was featured in the title track to Mortal Kombat, the 1995 movie based on the popular fighting video game of the same name. Like the game, the plot is pretty simple: a handful of human warriors are selected to fight in a tournament in another dimension named Outworld to save Earth from invasion by the Outworld’s Emperor and his minions.
The director, Paul W.S. Anderson, is a specialist in this kind of B-movie hokum (Event Horizon and 2001’s Resident Evil were still in his future) and gets the appeal of the video game series just right: The silly characters all laced up in colorful spandex; the kinetic action scenes, which faithfully mimic the special movies and settings from the games; and the techno soundtrack, which thumps the narrative along.
Yes, there’s some questionable casting (the French-Canadian actor Christopher Lambert as the Japanese god of thunder Raiden is a particular groaner) and some really nasty mid-90s VFX (how Reptile is portrayed is a joke), but that just adds to this movie’s low-rent appeal. The 2021 remake is technically better and more faithful, but far less fun.
Mortal Kombat is streaming on Max.
