A name familiar to any VHS or cable TV junkie from the ‘80s and ‘90s, Nico Mastorakis was a workhorse up there with the likes of Andy Sidaris who could crank out at least a movie or two per year for the home viewer’s enjoyment or utter confusion. Usually shooting in L.A. or his native Greece, he’s best known for his string of thrillers and action films including Blind Date, The Wind, Nightmare at Noon, and The Zero Boys, but he also veered off into other genres as well including several less-remembered comedies. Along the way he often had a knack for assembling bizarre casts comprised of familiar celebrities and total unknowns, resulting in strange genre mash-ups designed to grab your eye on a video store shelf. Virtually all of his narrative films hit DVD back in the day from his own Omega Entertainment (first via Image Entertainment, then independently), while the heavy hitters have since gotten Blu-ray special editions from labels like Arrow Video, Vinegar Syndrome, and Scream Factory. In 2024, Arrow put together the three-disc The Nico Mastorakis Collection on Blu-ray, which is basically "the rest of the stuff that couldn’t get a standalone edition." Basically these are the weird outliers from his output, spanning an eight-year period and providing a snapshot of his modus operandi outside the thriller arena.

On disc one we get started with The Time Traveler, a gentle Greek-shot sci-fi fantasy clearly tied to a pair of other films also made in 1984, Starman and The Terminator. As known as The Next One, it charts the unorthodox bond that forms when widowed Andrea (Barbeau) and her son Tim (Licht, fresh off Twilight Zone: The Movie) are out for a stroll around their home on Mykonos when they come across an unconscious man (Black Christmas’ Dullea) close to the water. They take him back to their place where he seems to be suffering from amnesia, with a mysterious number etched on his back. Calling himself Glenn, he displays abilities to perform possibly supernatural feats that get the population unsettled, and after several twists and turns, the true nature of his existence comes to light. Even if you look at the title, that doesn't really spoil what's really going here; instead it's tied to a popular conspiracy theory from the '70s and would probably rile up a lot of people if they actually watched this one. Barbeau and Dullea are both subdued here but fine in their roles, mostly wandering around through gorgeous scenery accompanied by another worthy score by regular Mastorakis composer Stanley Myers. Vestron kept their tape of this one prominent on store shelves well into the late '80s, but it looked very drab and can't compare to the rich, very colorful transfer on display here; as with the other titles in the set, the scan easily eclipses the old DVDs as well and comes with an option of DTS-HD MA 5.1 or 2.0 stereo audio with optional English SDH subtitles.

Sharing space on the same disc is the following year's Sky High, the first of his many forays into outright comedy (unless you think Island of Death is hilarious, which depends on your point of view). His love for Hitchcockian cockeyed suspense seen earlier in Death Has Blue Eyes turns up here as well in the story of three hapless American students in Greece -- Les (Hirsch), Bobby (Norcross), and Frank (Mick) -- who end up in possession of a sought-after audio cassette that can control people's minds and induce delirium. The government and some bad guys (not necessarily mutually exclusive) are after them among a sea of women wearing bikinis or less, and in what would become a recurring trait in these films, the male leads all wind up in drag at one point for a lengthy period of time because... well, '80s. That time period means you get some obligatory Russian villainy, random music video aesthetics and pop songs, and some helicopter action gags to justify the film's poster art, with a plot that feels like some whacked-out variation on the teen espionage sex comedies you'd see around this time like Gotcha!

Vestron's Lightning Video sublabel handled Sky High on VHS, with the same trajectory after that as the rest of the films. The film has a rougher look than some of Mastorakis' others around that time with some very high contrast in some scenes, but it's safe to say this is about as good as it's every going to get. Extras on the first disc include two new "self" interviews by Mastorakis, one on The Time Traveler (23m48s) and another on Sky High (18m24s) with lots of stories about how he got around local filming regulations, brought over lots of American actors around that time who were eager for a sunny vacation, and had to self finance the latter film in a way that doesn't sound too practical. You also get trailers for both films and an interview with Hirsch (11m22s), who sounds like he had a great time on Sky High despite some of the more tumultuous moments during the shoot.

The most widely seen film in the set thanks to its frequent cable TV play, 1987's Terminal Exposure basically refines elements from Sky High into a more star-studded American-shot variant mostly filmed around Venice Beach. Lenny (Hennessy) and Bruce (King) are two beach-dwelling buddies whose knack for amateur photography of women in skimpy bathing suits lands them in hot water when they snatch a shot of a woman in murderous action -- with a rose tattoo on her butt offering the only tangible clue. They decide to become amateur detectives, which tangles them up in a number of slapstick chase scenes and a hit man played by Joe Estevez who works for John Vernon (as the main bad guy, of course). The Love Boat's Ted Lange is also on hand for the first of several Mastorakis appearances, but this one really earns its place in the history books as the first solo score for none other than Stanley Myers protege Hans Zimmer, who of course went on to much bigger things with The Lion King, a lot of Christopher Nolan movies, and his production studio whose disciples have helped define the current sound of film scores.

Still clinging on to the teen sex comedy vibe that was starting to wear out at the box office around this time, Terminal Exposure is a very strange but endearing stew of crime movie capers and bone-headed shenanigans. Neither of the leads had acting careers to speak of, but they're fine here playing the same kinds of protagonists who would fill the director's other comedies. Yet another Vestron pick-up from Mastorakis at the time but one he inherited back ages ago, this might be a good place to start in the set as it's pretty much the definitive Mastorakis comedy and a good jumping-off point for everything else to follow.

Sharing space on the same disc is another riff on the "two schmucks in trouble with lots of glamorous, big-haired women" is 1988's Glitch!, which continues the formula for silly comedy, action, and dubious use of current technology. In this case, T.C. (Egan) and Bo (Donmyer) are best buddies who decide to become big-time thieves by breaking into the sprawling Beverly Hills mansion owned by movie producer Julius Lazar (Mastorakis semi-regular and onetime TV comedy staple Gautier). Through various comical misunderstandings, they're mistaken for the owners and get to pose as movie gurus when a bevy of wannabe starlets shows up for a big audition party. Also, it turns out the real Lazar is into some very shady business that could put the boys' lives in mortal danger.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" might as well be the motto for this film, which basically plays out like a summer vacation for the cast and crew who get to act as silly as possible. That includes Lange coming back in a much more sinister role long enough to get shoved down a long flight of outdoor steps, while other distractions include some silliness involving a remote-controlled helicopter and a very '80s gay ninja (foreshadowing things to come). Mastorakis even goes full meta in this one at the end with a breakdown of the moviemaking process, but if that's too heady, you get the world's greatest lingerie sword fight to balance things out. Academy Entertainment released this on VHS originally, with the DVD getting a surprising amount of retail space when it came out as well. Again on the Blu-ray Mastorakis contributes two new interviews about the films, one for Terminal Exposure (12m7s) going solo and then with composer Thomas Marolda on Glitch! (17m7s), plus trailers for both films. As usual he chats a lot about the production process, which mainly seemed to involve wrangling up the house he used for Blind Date and getting to be as goofy as possible.

Finally on disc three we get to 1989's Ninja Academy whose title gives the game away that this is part of an odd subset of Police Academy imitators that popped up in the latter part of the decade. In this case you get a bunch of misfit trainees learning how to be ninjas instead of cops, with a rivalry brewing between two of the schools. Mastorakis gets to indulge in his fondness for comic mimes here to its most insane degree here by making one part of the class, along with an aspiring 007 and other random caricatures. Among them is Egan again, this time as Josh, a pampered elite kid who has to go through ninja school under the instruction of Chiba (Big Trouble in Little China's Okamura).

Ninja Academy came along at the height of Mastorakis' interest in shepherding other young directors through the auspices of Omega, which handled films he produced for other filmmakers around the same time like Bloodstone, Grandmother's House, and Darkroom, essentially picking up the tactic he'd developed earlier with Blood Tide. That cottage industry approach carries over here with a kitchen sink attitude including scores of martial arts scenes (none of them well executed, but amusing nonetheless), more nudity than you'd expect in a premise that seems to be geared for kids, and a random storyline that makes the Police Academy films look like Chekhov. Quest Entertainment barely released this one on VHS at the end of the decade, but it became a lot easier to see from the DVD era onward.

Speaking of Police Academy, the series had wrapped its sixth film and was starring Bubba Smith by the time he appeared in the ridiculously stacked cast for The Naked Truth, the last film in our Mastorakis tour. The drag gags from earlier films take center stage here for a barely disguised, episodic updating of Some Like It Hot with - surprise! - two young men getting in over their heads with criminals. This time it's two guys named Frank (Caso and Schon) who have to go incognito with makeup and wigs as Ethel and Mirabelle after stumbling on a briefcase full of incriminating material on the area's biggest drug lord (Edelman). All of that is basically an excuse to jam in appearances by any remotely famous person who happened to be in the vicinity including Erik Estrada, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lou Ferrigno, a very game Little Richard, and Shannon Tweed apparently hanging around after Mastorakis' In the Cold of the Night. Brian Thompson (Cobra) takes top acting honors here as a dogged bad guy, and by this point you should really know what to expect from the directors' comedy approach which had nowhere else to go after going completely chaotic and self-referential with this one.

This time the disc has both films' trailers and two more Mastorakis interviews, for Ninja Academy (15m42s) with composer Jerry Grant and solo on The Naked Truth (20m30s), the latter originally envisioned as a sequel to Glitch! (which it still feels like anyway). The package also comes with an insert booklet featuring new essays on the director's career by Barry Forshaw, with a design for the limited edition featuring reversible sleeves with new art by Colin Murdoch.

Reviewed on September 25, 2024