I guess Ice-T is sort of the king of these now. I saw one in the store with Ice T, Angie Everheart, Richard greico, and someone equally ridiculous.
What about Black Dog? Patrick Swayze, Meatloaf, and Randy Travis. Think of what would happen if you rented that.
My favorite straight to video, as I've mentioned before, is Richard Grieco's "Tomcat: dangerous desires" I remember reading an interview with Brad Pitt he was talking about how you have to do straight to video when you come out to Hollywood and he mentioned this movie. They inject cat cells into a dying Grieco. Now he can move like a cat!!! There's a few scenes of cat dancing!! It tries and fails to do "dark" like no other. It has genuine suspense too, so it's even worse than bad because you start to get into it and feel stupid, sort of like "Ice Ice Baby"
What?
....Cat cells injected, he becomes catlike. They should have hired Danny John-Jewels(Sorry if misspelled) from Red Dwarf! And that title...what, he looks human, but he turns to beastiality? No...no...i will no turn to the "P" word for a joke!
....Tooeasy!
lester one correction Black Dog(a pretty cool flick) was a theatrical release. I should know, that's where I first saw it.
There are some other Direct To Video big shots, like Treat Williams. He's actually a good actor who started out with a respectable theatrical career, but now it's Substitute sequels for him. There's also Casper Van Dien, Eric Roberts (I wonder who's the black sheep in that family?), Billy Drago, Michael Dudikoff and Tone Loc.
Actually,"Black Dog" was a theatrical release.
Otherwise,that Ice-T movie you're talking about was "Point Doom",which was a pretty decent direct-to-video movie,with Andrew Dice Clay looking right-at-home as the nudie bar owner,and Ice-T in a semi-cameo as the doomed rival drug kingpin(a similar role he played in the recent Fred Williamson outing "Over The Edge"[a.k.a. "Deadly Rhaposdy","Justice Done"]).
Why rent Black Dog anyway? It's on USA about once a week.
Before he sprang back with The West Wing, Martin Sheen was circling the bowl with the rest of his family in the straight-to-video turd bowl. The Sheen/Estevez empire of film crap could fill many a video store.
Anything with Donald or Keifer Sutherland getting higher than fourth billing is usually one of these. Unless Keifer also directed it. At least Donald has the excuse of years of tax trouble to explain why he works so much.
Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal are becoming video kings, in the US at least. Seagal is already teaming with rappers even when his movies actually make into theeaters.
Dean Cain appears headed this way, if his TV career completely gives out.