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Silk (1986) - Blu-ray Review

Movie Review

4 beersJean jackets, big guns, and some backdoor action. Oh my! 

When the hits are this hard, it helps for them to be delivered by a woman "so fucking smooth" like this wiseass cop. Her name is Silk and she’s no joke. Her slick hair, pulled tight into a bun, tells you all you need to know about this woman. Her gaze alone will gut you.

Lovers of really bad B-grade action movies rejoice! Silk, the baddest lady around with a badge and an automatic weapon, has returned to kill, kill, kill, and kill some more in her quest to protect the citizens of Honolulu from all sorts of undesirables. Simply put, she doesn’t fuck around. At. All. If you are a deadbeat criminal foolish enough to get in her way consider yourself stone cold dead.  Because the heat she spreads will definitely leave a scar and so too will the wooden acting that populates this action flick, released uncut in HD for the very first time.

This action flick is a lo-fi classic of B-grade shitflicks. It can do awesome things on its dime store budget, but – with actors this flat – it has to overcompensate a flagging energy level with an abundance of hilarious music cues as clues are discovered by squinty eyes and once-solid alliances broken for good. 

"How you feeling, Slick? Feel like taking the big ride? Silk, now on blu-ray thanks to the new 2K scan from Code Red, has what you are looking for."


This is a movie in which the rocking theme song, written by Willy Cruz but sung by an identified female (seriously), plays no less than three times in the 8-minute action opener as Silk (played by Cec Verrell) decimates a whole gang of ass-wipes with one awesome moment after another. She’s stacked, smooth, and sexy as hell. In fact, when there’s no Verrell on the screen, there’s no movie to watch. She can’t act, mind you, but she damn near carries this film.

Verrell, with her slicked back hair, makes this movie and its ass-kicking nonsense all work. Knives are drawn in response to her gunplay, but even the expected montages, complete with wild guitar solos, work better when she’s present in the camera frame. Verrell isn’t a great actress by any stretch of the imagination, but – as Roxette sang – she’s got the look. The game is rougher than she thinks it will be, though. And the noose tightens when the drug ring of crime lord Austin (Peter Shilton) decides to fight back.

Silk is directed by the legendary Cirio H. Santiago (TNT Jackson), a Filipino film producer, director, writer and cinematographer who made just about a hundred of these B-grade pictures throughout the 1970s and 80s. His Philippines-shot films were HUGE at video stores back in the day. Hell, Tarantino counts him as a huge influence upon his own work, going so far as to base characters off of the ones that populated Santiago’s films in Kill Bill.

Jenny "Silk" Sleighton might be deadly serious when she’s with a badge but, because she is a woman with needs, she definitely makes time for her captain (Bill McLaughlin) when the night descends and she gets those nocturnal urges for a man’s touch. Too bad that this flick plays it safe with the sex and nudity; Silk strikes all the right poses except for when she’s being so incredibly naughty.  

In fact, even the violence is a little below what you might be expecting. I mean, as this Roger Corman-released flick does give us interesting shots of the Philippines (where it was shot), it doesn’t exactly pass the muster by checking off all the action boxes. The cast is as expressionless as they come and the hand-to-hand combat is pretty tame; ending right when it begins.

How you feeling, Slick? Feel like taking the big ride? Silk, now on blu-ray thanks to the new 2K scan from Code Red, has what you are looking for.

 

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Film Details

Silk (1986) - Blu-ray Review

MPAA Rating: Not rated.
Runtime: 84 mins
Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Writer: Frederick Bailey
Cast: Cec Verrell, Bill McLaughlin, Joe Mari Avellana
Genre: Crime | Action
Tagline: When the heat's on no one's smoother than ....
Memorable Movie Quote: "You must be the lady called, Silk."
Theatrical Distributor:
Official Site:
Release Date:
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: December 2, 2015
Synopsis: Silk (Cec Verrell, TV’s Supercarrier), the toughest cop in Honolulu, busts some small time smugglers, only to discover a larger syndicate that is smuggling Asian mobsters into the States by buying the identities of Hawaiian citizens. All this leads to a series of murders that has the police baffled, so Silk is called in to help uncover the culprits. Her sleuthing leads to several deadly shoot-outs, and evidence that incriminates one of the cops on her own force.

 

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Silk (1986) - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Code Red
Available on Blu-ray - December 2, 2015
Screen Formats: 1.78:1
Language: English
Audio: English mono track
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Region-free playback

This 1080p HD release from Code Red has been newly scanned and restored in 2k from the original camera negative. The results are quite good. Blues in the night radiates and the green of the shore provides a nice contrast. Black levels are even and edges are very fine indeed. There is a nice sheen to much of the movie, making it a totally memorable experience as this is the best the film has ever looked in its lifetime. Present in an aspect of 1.78:1, Silk sports a solid and expressive soundtrack in an English mono track.

Supplements:

Commentary:

None

Special Features:

The film is complimented by a trivia featurette called Fun Facts & Trivia. This release is also unrated and is the longer European version of the flick.

Fun Facts & Trivia

 

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Silk (1986) - Blu-ray Review

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