Future-Kill

Future-Kill (1985)

Directed by: Ronald W. Moore

Rating: 2 out of 4 Pentagrams

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

With a bizarre blend of street punks, toxic poisoning and fraternity humor, Future-Kill comes up Troma-esque. I had a hard time following this flick, as it’s a mish-mash of moods and ideas. Maybe I was just tired when I watched it? The plot contains two distinct settings that I haven’t seen put together before and I’m not sure they should be put together. It’s really a tale of two cities. The first being an Animal House inspired college town filled with a bunch of moronic frat boys partying their brains out and pulling gags on a rival frat. On the other side of town is a deteriorated inner-city gangland of anarchist punks protesting nuclear waste that turns people into mutant psychopaths. As it turns out they are all posers to the one truly fucked-up mutant, “Splatter”. Splatter has been mutated into a new-wave killing machine and he’s pissed.

The other mutants in his gang wish he would mellow out on the violence. They see themselves as a non-violent protest organization. Splatter enjoys killing at random.

Worlds collide when the frat boys decide to venture into the city to kidnap a mutant as a prank. Well, they F-up big time when the come across Splatter who kills the president of the fraternity. Splatter’s number one rival, “Eddie Pain” who is of the non-violent faction of mutants doesn’t like this one bit. This becomes an opportune moment for Splatter to take him out as well, pinning it on the frats.

With their car destroyed the kids flee deep into the city while the mutant army is sicked on their ass. This opens the movie up into a Warriors like running and hiding chase with punks battling frats along the way.

This was not the movie I expected. In trying to be many things, the script fails at being much of anything. It ends up just a jumbled mess of ideas that worked separately as other movies.

There are a few cool kills but nothing special. The budget provides no room for many quality effects. Not to mention the fact the production is horrible, the sound is bad and the costuming while inventive is a bit amateurish.

This is simply a misstep of the mid-eighties when everyone was trying to make the next Road Warrior or Toxic Avenger. The major downfall is the failed comedy involved. They clearly could have focused on just making a bad-ass violent sci-fi movie.  

The awesome cover art by H.R. Giger is the only inspiring thing to come of this project despite casting two stars from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They don’t do themselves any justice here. Had this movie contained a sliver of the evilness displayed by the cover art, this movie would have been sweet. 

The New Barbarians

The New Barbarians

Directd by Enzo G. castellari

Rating: 3 out of 4 Pentagrams

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

I’m predisposed with a strong fondness for post-apocalyptic themed sci-fi movies. So, I’m willing to cast aside judgment on issues of acting quality or believable costuming. In fact the more corny the acting and the more ridiculous the outfits the better. It’s what I’ve come to expect and appreciate from the slew of Road Warrior knockoffs that were produced throughout the 1980’s. Italy was a leading proponent of such flicks and The New Barbarians was one of them.

Director Enzo G. castellari is now famous for having directed the original Inglorious Bastards. I first became aware of him for directing 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx. As with a slew of other Italian directors of the era he aspired to copy successful American films for the Italian market with a much smaller budget.

The New Barbarians filmed in 1982 comes off the heels of 1981’s The Road Warrior and clearly draws inspiration from it. Mainly thematically not so much in terms of plot. The New Barbarians creates it’s own post nuclear war conditions in which a gang of death worshipers calling themselves the Templars seek to wipeout the remaining survivors completely.

The gang prowls the terrain on dirt bikes and war modified dune buggies rigged with drills, machine guns and spinning blades. The plot centers on a grizzled hero Scorpion and his young boy who attempt to thwart the evil plans of the Templar squad. The little kid is a jr. badass who picks off people by slingshoting explosives into their face. Scorpion rides around in his tricked out muscle car with machine guns spraying down the enemy.

Fred Williamson, a favorite cast in these type of films, plays another lone soldier Nadir, who doesn’t want so much to do good as much as he wants to get right in the middle of a fight. Don’t imagine there’s much else to do in a wasteland. His weapon of choice is a bow for slinging exploding arrows. The play this hilarious pimp music every time he’s making his way on screen.

Of course there’s a female who is rescued by Scorpion and needs to be further protected if he plans on making her his woman. That sets up most of the drama. There is a ton of high-speed chases and battles that take place.

This film is definitely over-the-top and cheesy but it’s so much fun it’s of no concern. There’s plenty of senseless violence and interesting characters to keep you entertained. If you are a fan of violent futuristic sci-fi, The New Barbarians won’t disappoint. But be forewarned that this is not The Terminator here, just a cheap low-budget shlockfest.

Tobe Hooper 2 for 1 Special

Masters of Horror Presents: Dance of the Dead & The Damned Thing

Directed By: Tobe Hooper

Rating: 3.5 out of 4 Pentagrams for The Damned Thing/2.75 out of 4 Pentagrams for Dance of the Dead

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

Tobe Hooper has found some magic on the small screen. After years of struggling to make successful feature films, Hopper has returned to the television medium that has previously been good to him.

I have to admit from the onset that I’m a big Hooper fan and that my opinions of his work a very biased towards that. I for instance see the good in his work even when it has been less than great. I do that because I know that he is great, this he has proven. It’s pointless to mention his agreed upon classics of the genre. But know that I for one find movies like Lifeforce and The Mangler to be really fun to watch. Many disagree. Especially with The Mangler. Their loss.

I have a soft spot for the man because he has struggled through some serious lows (Spontaneous Combustion, Night Terrors, Crocodile). His ability to pull himself back into form after so much adversity really gets to me. The 90’s where basically awash and it would seem as though he was finished. Then, out of nowhere he starts getting hired to do good stuff again. His first big return came in 04, with The Toolbox Murders. Thirty years after Chainsaw and I think that was his goriest work ever. Then he follows that up with Mortuary in 05, which again the critics pan, but I see the greatness in.

These two films to me proved he still had it. He seemed reinvigorated with youth. It probably helped to have a couple of young screenwriters providing the stories for both. Working with fresh talent and a decent budget, Hooper was back!

At that point the Masters of Horror project pops up and Hopper has a chance to continue to explore new and old territory. In hour-long segments, Dance of the Dead and The Damned Thing present tight and energetic bursts of mini-Cinema. He seems very comfortable working in this controlled format.

Both shorts are very different in look and feeling. Dance of the Dead is a more science-fiction apocalypse shocker, while The Damned Thing is classic, dark horror. Of the two I enjoyed The Damned Thing to a much greater degree. I was surprised at how far Hooper pushed the envelope with brutal kill scenes. I feel like this is as brutal as I’ve ever seen him. A supernatural force terrorizes an entire Texas town, specifically the family of the town’s sheriff. The sheriff tries to understand what’s happening and stop it but finds himself eventually overwhelmed by the madness-educing monster.

I never once considered that what I was seeing was TV. Everything about the production from the acting to the effects was just as they would be if this were a film. When the hour was up I had felt as though I saw a complete movie.

Dance of the Dead on the other hand probably benefited more from the fact that I considered it’s made for television format. A futuristic tale of a post-nuclear war town in which depraved teens sell stolen blood and beat up old people.

The title Dance of the Dead refers to a military serum that made soldiers rise up and continue bodily function after death. After the war, the serum is black marketed for use in making dead women convulse around a nightclub stage while being probed by tasers. Said nightclub, the Doom Room, is run by MC, Robert Englund himself. Englund is his diabolical best but the horror is a little thin. We mostly get a twisted love story between a bad boy and the innocent town virgin he helps turn to the dark side.

The film repeatedly employs a Natural Born Killers visual technique where everything gets disoriented and distorted. They probably could have toned that down a bit.

It didn’t seem very likely that the 17-year old girl would so quickly find herself relishing in the midst of inhalants, drunk-driving and sex and violence in the streets but hey, nothing about this future seemed realistic.

Aside from that this was still good, entertaining TV. It didn’t hold up as strongly as Damned but it was worthy of its difference. Hooper doesn’t just do the same films over and over. In fact I feel like everything he’s ever done Is it’s own separate thing, very different from everything else. And after over 30 years in the business to continue to take chances and try new approaches is the genius of the man. He doesn’t always hit the mark dead on, but when he does it’s great. Surrounded with talent and resources, Hooper proves he deserves a place amongst the other greats like George Romero and John Carpenter.

The Masters of Horror series was a great opportunity for him to showcase his talent and will hopefully springboard him into still greater opportunities to do features again.

Warrior of the Lost World

WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD (1983)

Director: David Worth

Tagline: In another time... in a world ruled by tyranny and violence... only one man can stop the nightmare.

Rating: 3 out of 4 Skulls

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

In a galaxy far, far away, this film starts out with a scrolling back-story. That story contains all the elements of a great low-budget 80’s sci-fi flick. After a nuclear disaster that leads to apocalyptic chaos, earth has been reduced into a big-ass car junkyard.

All kidding aside, this was quite a fun rip-off of Mad Max. Rip-off might be a little rough, but the filmmakers certainly pick up their steam off the success of the classic series. Just imagine Mad Max being made on an even lower budget with a lead actor who only has two modes of communicating, mumbling in a gruff, ‘I don’t give a fuck’ monotone and screaming banshee hysteria. The Rider played by Robert Ginty, bless his heart, does his best to channel Snake Pliscan but comes up a little short. The villain on the other had, played by the great Donald Pleasance, hits the mark as Prossor, an “evil despot”, whose costume oddly resembles Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil.

But this film isn’t about great acting or even the best special effects. What this film has going for it that really won me over is spirit. It’s so cheesy and odd on so many levels but is so earnest in being a tough apocalyptic action flick. The film really brings it when it comes to borrowing source material. There’s a Mad Max element, a Big Brother 1984 element and with the Rider’s talking motorcycle Einstein, you get a weird Knight Rider element. And if you’ve always thought Fascists had cool uniforms, Prosser’s Omega Army themselves have a cool visual appeal, borrowing black uniforms with a Nazi-like armband with the Omega symbol on a red triangle.

Aside from the Omegas you have a band of outsiders or “Enlightened Elders”, who have been hiding out in the mountains resisting Prosser and his tyranny of mind control. Basically though the resisters are a fucked up gang of painted face new-wavers, white Kung-Fu experts, some mean ass transvestites and a couple of guys that look like stand-ins for WWF wrestler Mankind. This gang is appears to be held together by some old dude who imagines himself a broke ass David Carradine.

When they aren’t striving for freedom they seem to be heavily engaged in a series of Royal Rumble brawls against each other. Well, they seem very bored and pent-up without the leadership of old geezer, Professor McWayne and his daughter, the exotic Nastasia. That was probably a hot name in the early 80’s but most of those bitches turned out to be cracked out hookers. Anyway this is were the true conflict of the film comes into play as the professor has been captured by Prossor’s army and stands to face execution by way of electrocution followed by blow torch fire burning. Strong stuff.

The Rider is a reluctant hero. As a loner badass, he would basically be happy ripping through no-mans land, periodically blowing up shit with missiles fired from one of his four exhaust pipes. But fate wouldn’t leave him alone. Before he knows it, he’s roped into saving the world after he crashes Einstein head-on into a mountain during a high-speed chase with the Omega patrol. As fortune would have it, the mountain is actually a secret portal into the lair of The New Way Gods, the upper echelon of the Outsider faction. They apparently hang out with Fred Williamson in this cave resembling an ice cooler, wearing togas. They fix The Rider up real good. Consequently though they expect him to go save Nastasia’s daddy-o from the Omega concentration camp. He is after all the Chosen One. Nastasia gives him some encouragement with a gun pointed at his wang.

And so we end up with a lot of action as The Rider and Natasha go on their search and rescue mission after McWayne. There’s this hilarious scene when they’re going through this cave and a bunch of zombies make an appearance out of nowhere and for seemingly no reason other to throw some zombies in there.

I was amazed at how many kills Rider racks up, he’s a one-man killing machine, tearing down the Omegas as they increasingly prove themselves to be the worst soldiers in human history. The first mission ends with the rescue of the father while leaving behind of the daughter, which necessitates a second mission.

This film has a bunch of awesome vehicle designs that get showcased in a plethora of car chase sequences. I also have to mention the laughable sound design whereby every sound from machine gun fire to helicopter propelling all seem to be made form the same video game sound gadget.

What scores the highest note for me is the soundtrack itself. Very John Carpenter-esque. Just awesome, I love that sound, it really carried the film.

This film is great for a Friday night of mindless late night viewing. It’s wildly entertaining if you can appreciate low-budget, hammy post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

Class of 1999

Class of 1999 (1990) Vestron Home Video

Director: Mark Lester

Tagline: Hired to Teach. Programmed to Kill.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 4 Pentagrams 

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

Adults where fearful of a few things in the 80’s. One thing was the Cold-War and another was that MTV and Atari was going to turn their kids into murderous drug fiends. Well, this film would prove the second fear to be fully justified. Although Class of 1999 was released in 1990 I would have bet big money it was 1985. It carries with it all the trappings of that era of straight to VHS shlocksploitation.

I watched this film with a grin on my face the whole time.

This film is pure teen violence exploitation. I have to assume the filmmakers where taking a piss with this thing but even if they where trying to make a serious film it works just as well. Clearly though, its best to approach the viewing with the understanding that we’re just north of Tromaville territory.

In what was then the future of 1999, teenage gang violence has risen to catastrophic levels. Major cities have been quarantined off from society much like the case in Escape From New York, where the criminals are allowed to go ballistic, free of police intervention.

Inside what is known as the “Free-Fire Zone”, there is an actual high school still trying to function with Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) as it’s principle. Amongst his student body every kid snorts vile after vile of “edge”, Dresses in punk-rock leather and chains and carries a machine gun. The film tries to honor much of the gang-banger ethos, with two main gangs who fight over territory, etc.

In order to regain control of the educational system, McDowell brings in Department of Educational Defense head Played by Stacey Keach. Keach who is always the same kind of hard-ass, is so again this time with a bleach blond rat-tail. Awesome. The problem is the teachers he brings in are actually military androids being tested by the government to prep them for warfare. Well if it’s war they want its war they get. Most of this film is one kill to the next from kids killing kids to cyborg teachers killing kids. Then in the end eventually the kids kill the cyborgs. If you took The Principal and mashed it together with The Terminator and Class of Nuk’em High you get Class of 1999. Also keep in mind this is a sequel to Class of 1984.

The sub-plot to all this violence is good old-fashioned bad boy meets good girl on campus. Our main character, Cody (Bradley Gregg) has just been released from prison is trying to go straight and falls for the only non-psychotic character in the film, the principles daughter, Christy. Don't you just love the name 'Christy'? But like the Godfather, just when he tries to pull out, they pull him right back in. Gangs are like that. But after all there’s not much for a person to do in 1999 other then snort drugs and beat the fuck out of people.

This is just outrageously over the top low-budget fun. There’s some great kills and special FX towards the finale when we finally get to see the droids in robot form. There’s no time wasted here just front to back action and laughs. And like I said, whether director Mark Lester wanted us to laugh or not is beside the point, he should be fucking happy his film is so enjoyable all these years later.

If you like violence, you will enjoy this film. If you hate authority, you will love this film. If you love costume design based on early 80’s street punks and junkies, you will love this film. I loved this film.