Arthur Roberts Movies

The horror film Hammerhead concerns a scientist who creates a creature with the fused DNA of a man and a killer shark. His fellow scientists send him to a deserted island as punishment, but the creature is on the prowl and looking to get revenge for his creator. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The world is in trouble when terrorist Lars Rynark finds himself in possession of the deadliest biochemical agent known to man. Unless he's paid handsomely by the government agencies from across the globe, Rynark insists he will detonate the agent--and he's crazy enough to do it. Only three government officials stand between Rynark and his terrorist legions; a position which proves precarious, indeed. Directed by Sherman Scott, Rapid Assault features Tim Abell, Jeff Rector, Arthur Roberts, Lisa Mazzetti.

~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

This erotic thriller (which shares no thematic links to the first Friend of the Family, though they both star Shauna O'Brien) concerns Alex (Paul Michael Robinson), a new father who meets Linda (O'Brien) while on a business trip to New Orleans. When Linda's boyfriend storms out on her in the midst of dinner in a restaurant, Alex offers to front her the money to pay the check; one thing leads to another, and she ends up spending the night with him. Before long, Alex comes to see the error of his ways, and he returns home to his wife Maddy (Jenna Bodnar). However, Linda isn't about to give up on Alex so easily; when Maddy announces that she's hired a nanny to help watch the baby, Alex is shocked to discover that it's Linda, and now he has to figure out how to keep her at arm's length while keeping his secret from his wife. Directed by cult hero Fred Olen Ray, Friend of the Family II was also released under the title Innocence Betrayed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this action thriller, Nick Adams, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, goes undercover to enter a prison run by the tyrannical but efficient warden, Pike. He does this after his partner is killed doing undercover work in the same prison. The prison presents a harsh environment and fighting between inmates is rampant. Luckily, Adams was trained to fight in the Marines and he can take on any of them. But then his nemesis Jimmy Wong, a prominent mob leader, enters the facility. There the crooked wheeler-dealer has set up a gun-running arrangement with prison officials who let him have the run of the place. Wong uses this to exact his revenge on Adams. Action ensues, culminating in a prison break where the two fight it out while hanging from a fleeing helicopter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A deliberately campy remake of a Roger Corman low-budget sci-fi outing from 1957, this horror film tells the gruesome story of a bloodthirsty alien who comes to our planet looking to replenish his planet's declining food supply. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This high-tech spin on the slasher genre pits a group of sex-obsessed teens spending the night in a shopping mall against the mall's marauding robotic security guards -- whose programming turns homicidal after a bolt of lightning scrambles their control circuits. Director Jim Wynorski cut his exploitation teeth working for Roger Corman's legendary "B"-movie factory New World Pictures in the '70s and '80s, and this film's comic early scenes contain homages to that outfit's heyday -- with humorous cameos from Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov (reprising their characters Paul and Mary Bland from Bartel's Eating Raoul) and the ubiquitous Dick Miller. The majority of the film, however, is essentially a teens-in-jeopardy story, with the lethal bots unleashing their amped-up arsenal and bringing the victims to nasty ends amid buckets of gore -- such as the unforgettable moment when one woman's head is targeted by one of the droids and blown up like an overripe melon. (The shot is repeated during the end credits.) ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this basement-scraping sexploitational actioner, an angry young woman gets bloody revenge against the mobsters who killed her lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Then professional potheads Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong teamed up for Cheech & Chong: Up In Smoke, which features the drug-addled duo on a road trip throughout California; that is to say, a road-trip they hope will culminate in finding some quality weed. Instead, a series of mishaps result in their respective deportations to Mexico. Desperate to get back to the states so they can perform in their band's gig later that night, Cheech and Chong unwittingly agree to drive a very unique car across the border -- rather than steel and various metal bits, the vehicle is constructed entirely out of marijuana. Back in the States and accompanied by two extraordinarily out-of-it female hitchhikers, the stoned group meanders about in an attempt to get their musical performance together, and narrowly escapes from local law enforcement agencies on numerous occasions despite their complete inability to realize they were being tailed to begin with. The incredibly low-budget movie surprised critics, grossed millions, spawned a series of lesser follow-up films, and cemented Cheech & Chong's cult-status among potheads across the globe. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

In this family film, based on John D. Fitzgerald's award-winning children's novel, set in Utah during the early 1900s, a young boy has great fun conning his family, friends, and neighbors, until he finds himself in hot water. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dale Messick's inexplicably popular Brenda Starr has to be one of the lamest comic strips ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public; thus, any filmed version of the strip had nowhere to go but up. Jill St. John stars in this feature-length TV pilot film as plucky girl reporter Brenda Starr. While searching for a Howard Hughesish recluse, Brenda ends up in the wilds of Brazil at the mercy of voodoo-practicing natives. Happily, both St. John and special guest villain Victor Buono recognize the material for what it is, and make no effort to take things seriously. Brenda Starr debuted on May 8, 1976; no series of any kind followed. Other cinemadaptations of Brenda Starr include a 1945 Columbia serial starring Joan Woodbury, and a much-delayed (though not long-awaited) theatrical feature of the 1990s starring Brooke Shields. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide