Directed by Bitto Albertini (as Ben Norman)

Written by John Thomas (who?!)

Run Time: 87 minutes

	Belle Star (Sherry Buchanan) Ahhh…Belle Star. My cosmic princess. Before appearing in this epic movie, Ms. Buchanan had parts in Tentacles (1977) and, one of my personal favorites, Zombie Holocaust (1980). Unfortunately for us cheesy-movie lovers, she fell off the radar and hasn’t been seen on the silver screen since 1987.
	Lithan (Fausto Di Bella) The effervescent Lithan never gives up, no matter how horrible the special effects become. Throughout his 16-year film career, Mr. Di Bella appeared in various movies and Italian TV shows but has been inactive since last appearing in Computron 22 back in 1988. God speed, Lithan, wherever you may be.
	Oraclon (Don Powell) The best dressed evil overlord in the galaxy. Don Powell has appeared in a smattering of flicks throughout the decades, including several ‘Emanuelle’ films. (Kids, go ask your parents.)

Other Titles: Star Crash 2

"Prepare the uranium vapor rockets!"

- Oraclon

After receiving the acclaimed "Sci-Fi Invasion" box set from our highly esteemed Monster Shack regular Guts3d (thanks again!), I quickly browsed through the movie descriptions to begin my quest for a new review. With a title of "Escape From Galaxy 3", well, I had to look no further. And then, lo! it was the sequel to Star Crash…Huzzah! How could I resist! [NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Boy, I wish I would have called it quits after Star Crash...]

Open with standard titles over a multi-colored starry background. Hey, those stars look familiar…Actually, after a few minutes, I quickly realized that the makers of "Escape From Galaxy 3" not only reused special effects from Star Crash, they also unabashedly inserted entire scenes from the previous movie. Ahhh…the joys of an extremely low-budget film. Where would the Monster Shack be without them?

Sure enough, after the credits are over we cut to a fly-by scene across the huge "hand ship" lifted from the first movie. On the other hand, an advantage to cheap movies like this is that they don’t waste any time on useless things, like a plot. Cutting right to the chase, we jump cut to the bridge of a spaceship and see princess Belle Star reporting to her father, King Zenor, that the "cosmic radar" has picked up an unidentified ship that "doesn’t belong in this galaxy." (How did she know that? And what does that even mean?) King Zenor quickly realizes that Oraclon, "The King of the Night", is behind the latest attacks. (How is there "night" in space? Oh, never mind.)

The resident hot-shot pilot, Lithan, informs Zenor that they can hold off Oraclon if they use, wait for it…Plan Epsilon!

Cut to Oraclon’s ship: the big "hand ship" from the first movie. I guess there’s more than one "hand ship" out there since the first one blew up in the previous film. It must be like in Star Wars when the Empire built a new Death Star. Yeah, right.

Anyway, we catch our first glimpse of the mighty Oraclon, shockingly sporting a salmon and teal colored frock, azure hoodie, and an immense winged collar with silver sparkles in his beard for good measure.

When Oraclon learns that King Zenor’s ship is disabled, he calls up King Zenor and demands his surrender.

Naturally, King Zenor refuses (otherwise the film would be over), so Oraclon retaliates by launching an awesome attack comprising of 5, count ‘em, 5 space fighters.

"Turn on the laser barrier…course four-zero-thirteen, fifteenth dimension!" Lithan shouts from his battle station. (Fifteenth dimension?)

"Prepare the uranium vapor rockets!" Oraclon yells to some poor guy standing immediately beside him (who must be deaf in his left ear by now from all the shouting).

"Right on target," Oraclon laughs, even though the footage we see shows every single laser shot missing completely and shooting off into the void, so I don’t know what movie he’s watching.

"The central computer received a direct hit," Lithan informs the King. With this unfortunate turn of events, the King has "no other option" than to send Lithan and Belle Star on a diplomatic mission to the planet Anteres to plead for help. (I thought that Repairing the Computer might qualify as an option, but oh well.)

Ok, let’s see now. After flying through a laser storm of cheesy effects, Lithan and Belle Star approach…something. It’s a big red dot, so I think it’s supposed to be a planet. Damned cheap effects. Regardless, it’s a big red dot on the screen so let’s just say it’s Anteres and get on with it.

"Use the hyper-solo missile systems!" bellows Oraclon. Wow. Not just ‘solo’, but hyper solo! (Just how this scene is tied into the previous shot is unclear. In a movie like "Escape From Galaxy 3" things just sort of…happen, if you know what I mean.)

"The hydrogen booster units are already at six thousand mega-degrees!" Lithan reports as they take off from the ship. (I’m guessing that’s a bad thing?) And now I’m really confused because I thought they had already left the space station. Boy, is this a great movie.

In a fit of pique, Oraclon blows up Anteres. I think. It’s a big red dot, so yeah, I’m pretty sure that was Anteres.

Sooooo….after vaporizing Anteres, Oraclon shoots laser beams from his ship and hits King Zenor standing on the ship’s bridge (!). Man, he is good!

"You galactic idiots!" he shouts to nobody in particular when he realizes that Belle Star and Lithan have escaped. Another space battle commences with the same damned footage from before. Man, I’m really getting tired of this. "Mega-metric-teleprobe and scan the whole galaxy!..including the equi-distant cosmic tangents!" Oraclon roars after losing his prey in the chaos of battle.

By the way, Oraclon likes to shout…a lot.

With his ship disabled in the battle, Lithan is forced to make a landing on a nearby "asteroid", which is the same red-planet special effect that was just blown up. A FX penny saved is a FX penny earned, I suppose. And you’d think that Lithan, a inter-galactic star pilot would know the difference between a planet and an asteroid, but there you have it.

Upon landing on the planet’s surface, Lithan and Belle Star (still wearing her crown!) kill some run time by traipsing through a forest, over a field, through some more forest, ad nauseam, all the while amazed at such unusual things as "trees", "grass", and the sun! Some local natives, which look suspiciously like Italian movie extras, jump out from nowhere and start throwing rocks at them. Lithan takes aim with his magic finger laser ring and scares them away by firing cartoon warning shot at feet. Never having seen a curly-haired skinny dude in a blue rubber suit before, the natives flee back into the wilderness as Lithan and Belle discover a nearby village.

Meanwhile, the locals have gathered at Ye Olde Meeting Place, and are telling their leader about the "flying monster" that recently landed. I’m actually surprised the writers had the self-control to not call it a "big fire bird from the sky".

As the villager warriors sneak into position to capture them, Belle Star stands by a stream and exclaims, "It’s water! I once saw it in my father’s collection of intergalactic minerals."

"What do you use it for?" Lithan asks.

Yes, advanced alien beings that don’t know what water is. I’m also wondering about this guy’s hygiene a bit: Lithan travels through intergalactic space wearing a blue rubber suit for who-only-knows how many "cosmic years" and he doesn’t even know what water is? Poor Belle Star! Hope they had decent ventilation on the ship.

Our heroes stroll around some more learning about the planet, i.e., booooooring!, when suddenly they are captured by leather-clad, spear wielding natives. Instead of wasting money filming a trial, the movie makers simply cut to the chase and have the village elders sentence them to death, i.e., "Consumed by the flames!" After Belle Star and Lithan are led to a quarry for execution (What’s with cheap Italian flicks and quarries?) the crowd jostles for position at the top of a steep cliff. During all the shoving back and forth, a small child slips from the edge and "dangles" for dear life while his mother screams for help.

Lithan, being from another galaxy and all, somehow possesses a super-jumping ability which he employs to hop up and save the kid. After jumping back down to the ground (via the magic of playing the exact same scene in reverse) Lithan shoots a smug smile to Belle Star and murmurs, "Apparently they don’t know about psycho-kinectic energy." Realizing that Lithan is actually a pretty cool dude, what with jumping 500 feet into the air to save the kid, the village elders pardon them both and welcome them into the fold by providing them with leather clothes.

After some extremely blatant padding showing Belle Star and Lithan learning the ways of the tribe (including having sex with a few of them along the way), Oraclon enters Earth orbit. Sensing that maaaaaybe they should get the hell out of there, Lithan and Belle Star run back to their ship but can’t start it because the navigation system isn’t repaired yet. (Maybe he should have been fixing it instead of sleeping with the local folk? Just a thought.) Oh, it turns out things aren’t so bad after all:"There! That should do it,"says Lithan with a smile after repairing the ship by, literally, flipping 2 switches on the console.

"It’s the planet Earth" Oraclon says upon detecting high-levels of radiation in the atmosphere. "They destroyed themselves in an atomic war." (Actually, things look pretty nice on the planet, but whatever.)

After a brief discussion Lithan realizes that Oraclon will detect the radioactive exhaust if they start the ship’s motors so…they head back to the village! And now there’s a freakin’ communal dance! Wow, this is some serious padding here, I tell ya.

Ahhh, but we get to see some ladies teach Lithan how to eat a chicken wing. Boy, is this a compelling scene.

Now begins a few boring minutes of lifeless dancing. Joy. After the spectacle a men-only contest commences and whoever wins gets to sleep with the woman of his choice. You know, that reminds me of something I saw on the Discovery channel last week, but I can’t put my finger on it. Anyway, the village women don’t have much say as to their role in the contest, but they do keep busy by running wildly, er, I mean ‘dancing’, with torches as the men engage in this bizarre ritual. You’d think that winning your choice of sex partner would involve a pretty difficult challenge, but the test here consists merely of climbing a ladder, walking out onto a log, and jumping into the middle of a ring of fire, which puts it on par with pretty much anything you’d see on American Gladiators. Wow…Earth girls are easy.

Of course, in a bid to generate some suspense, a few guys fail miserably at this relatively simple "challenge", until finally some local yokel wins by being the first guy to jump into the flames without setting his butt on fire. I’m not kidding. It’s that stupid. Obviously, the lucky winner chooses Belle Star as his prize while Lithan watches helplessly from the sidelines burning with jealousy. In a truly corny bit, we see Belle Star and Lithan thinking of each other while they try make love to their respective local sex partner. All together now: Awwwwwwww….isn’t that sweet? In fact, their mutual attraction is so great that they break off their amorous activities and return to each other in common area for a quick round of smooching.

The tepid kissing scene is rudely interrupted when Oraclon flies overhead out of nowhere and starts zapping people from his space ship. "Enough playing around, blow up the entire planet!" he orders after vaporizing a few unfortunate villagers. Boy, jumping from killing single villagers to destroying the entire planet; this guy runs pretty hot.

"We had only one Force-Ten mega ray, and we used it," Oraclon’s assistant meekly informs him. Furious at himself for not buying more Force-10 Mega Rays at the store while he had the chance (I assume), Oraclon decides to pad the movie some more and returns to space to wait for Belle Star and Lithan to leave the planet’s surface…because he can track their exhaust or something. Whatever.

After Oraclon returns to space, the villagers turn hostile and (rightfully) blame Belle Star and Lithan for the recent deaths. The village elders order Lithan to leave the planet but he tries to explain that they must remain because of the whole exhaust-tracking-thingee. At this point I was hoping that the locals would kill Lithan and Belle Star and thus put this movie out of its misery. Unfortunately for the viewer, Lithan shoots a few cartoon laser beams into the ground to scare everybody thereby giving them a chance to skedaddle back to their ship. Once safely inside, they engage the ship’s engines and return to their own galaxy. Call me crazy, but didn’t Lithan say something about Oraclon being able to track them? Wow, this is a really tight plot.

To pass the time (and kill run time), Lithan and Belle Star engage in some kissing and light petting to test out the new sexual awareness they picked up after their lengthy stay of 1 night on Earth.

"After thousands of years our sexual powers have come back to life," says Belle Star, "we’ve acquired a powerful new dimension!"

Does that mean the only way Belle Star and Lithan can defeat Oraclon is by banging each other? Damn, Lithan, why didn’t you think of that? Hell, why didn’t I think of something like that back in high school?

Anyway, Belle Star realizes that she needs to be in the throne room itself so she can get close enough to Oraclon to kill him. Or something. Remembering that Oraclon is an idiot, Belle Star feigns surrender and asks him to teleport herself and Lithan directly into his ship in order to formalize their surrender; Oraclon the Cosmic Moron eagerly complies while never suspecting a trap in the least.

"You will live as my slave," Oraclon chortles after escorting Belle Star to the aforementioned throne room. Lithan, meanwhile, is condemned to forced labor for the rest of his "cosmic life." (I just love how they try to make things sound "spacey" by adding "cosmic" in front of random nouns.)

Naturally, Oraclon can’t resist performing the Evil Overlord’s Self-Defeating Gloat and brings in a forlorn group of "Kings and Emperors of the Galaxy" so he can crow over his latest victory. Sensing that the time is ripe for ending this silly movie, Belle Star kisses Lithan "goodbye" and then in a totally weird moment even for this movie, Belle Star kisses Oraclon while Lithan shoots lasers from his eyes that strike Oraclon and blow him up. (Reread that last sentence again and try to picture how bizarre that all was.)

With Oraclon turned into cosmic space dust, Lithan and Belle Star decide to return to Earth since "We have nowhere to go in this galaxy." Well, that’s as good enough reason as any I suppose. Oh, but they’ll lose their immortality if they go back to Earth. Oh? They were immortal? Gee, thanks for letting me know. Furthermore, if they were immortal then why were they afraid of Oraclon killing them?

As Belle Star and Lithan return to Earth, they set Oraclon’s ship to self-destruct which it promptly does via even more recycled "Star Crash" footage. (By the way, maybe the Cosmic Police will arrest Lithan for manslaughter since he abandoned all of the "Kings and Emperors of the Galaxy" on the doomed ship when he left. What a nice guy.)

Soooooo, after passing through "three galaxies and endless solar systems," Lithan finally spots Earth floating in the void. What are the odds, eh? Actually, the odds are freaking infinitesimal but don’t tell Lithan that. After landing, the villagers greet them with great fanfare. I guess the writers forgot that the villagers wanted to kill them when they left Earth the last time. Strange. Then again, I doubt even the writers cared at this point.

With cheering natives applauding their return, Lithan and Belle Star stroll off to a beach and start making out and…cue closing credits. Really, that’s it.

Ack, enough already. I gotta go work on my uranium vapor rockets.

fini

Dennis Grisbeck (January 2012)

So, you still want to watch the whole movie? Here you go!

Read more about Escape from Galaxy 3 at

Written and Directed by Cullen Blaine

Run Time: 90 minutes

Tagline: Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

Few movies cry out to be reviewed as much as R.O.T.O.R. This 80′s sci-fi cheap-o movie has absolutely everything that makes a bad movie good:

• Goofy character names
• Embarrassing racial stereotypes
• Odious comic relief
• Continuity errors galore
• Plot holes a’plenty
• Horrible synthesizer music
• Confused time lines

and the list goes on and on. How could I resist taking a closer look at this one? Obviously I couldn’t.

I would like to note that throughout this review I refer to the ROTOR robot as a "he" and not an "it" because it feels more natural since it’s formed as a male police officer.

Oh, here’s the trailer to get you started…you decide whether or not you want to continue after this:

Still want to continue? Ok…

Open with crawling text which hasn’t been a good sign since, oh, "Star Wars". The fun part is that the scrawl rolls up the screen over what is supposed to be a super-high tech metal chassis of a robot; much like the burned-up metal skeleton from the end of "Terminator". Unlike in "Terminator" where millions were used on special effects, this robot seems to have been made out of scraps of Plexiglas topped by a plastic halloween skull wearing red sunglasses.

Today’s Headlines

Murder, Rape, Robber, and Arson.

Tomorrow’s Solution…

R.O.T.O.R.

Robotic

Officer

Tactical

Operational

Research

Our objective was to build the perfect cop of the future…a machine programmed to overcome any obstacle, to combat the crimes and corruption which threaten the very existence of our society…but, something went terribly wrong.

It always does, brother, it always does…

Friday 4:55 P.M.

Cut to stock footage of normal downtown traffic while an "Eye in the Sky" helicopter traffic-jockey explains how incredibly busy the traffic is. Note that this traffic report in no way resembles the scene shown in the movie. In fact, the 12 lane highway seems to be at around 20% capacity while the reporter goes on and on about how everything is "jammed up".

Wow, now that’s some killer traffic!

Meanwhile, a couple is out driving around in the dark. "I’m leaving all my troubles at the office; no phone, no work, just a quiet peaceful weekend at the lake," says the guy. Yeah, we all know what happens when people explain how much they’re looking forward to a quiet weekend…mwu-ha-ha!

Suddenly an explosion occurs! Well, the sound of an explosion is foleyed onto the sound track; we don’t actually see anything blow up. The car pulls up into a cloud of smoke which is most likely from an off screen bonfire fanned by stage hands meant to represent the aftermath of the gigantic explosion. "What the hell?" exclaims the driver upon seeing a battered, bloody man leaning over an unconscious woman. For some reason it’s completely dark out but when they parked the car it was still dusk…maybe it took the driver a few hours to get his door open.

"Call the police!" gasps the bloody man kneeling in the road. The driver rushes back to the car to call 911, but I thought he just said he left his phone at work, so I’m already confused.

Friday 7:30 P.M.

A helpful time stamp informs us that it’s 7:30 P.M. But, is it really pitch dark in Texas at 7:30 in the summer? I guess it as. A policeman cuffs the still-unnamed, bloodied man for his transport to Division. "Buckle up for safety, sir" says one of the detectives. I’m not sure how he’s going to do that since they’ve hand-cuffed him, but it’s the thought that counts.

Another voiceover introduces us to the man in the back seat, our hero, Captain Coldyron (pronounced "cold iron")…"Two days ago I was considered a leader in the field of police robotics; today I’m thought of as a modern day Frankenstein." Yes, we all remember back in the 80′s when police robotics was in its heyday…ahhh, good times. Well, maybe he meant police robot movies since Robocop was released a year before this one and Terminator just a few years before that. Now, I’m not implying that those other movies "inspired" this one in anyway…but hey, you do the math.

Anyway, Coldyron continues his voiceover as we continue our Dallas stock-footage flyover. You see, Coldyron was working on an army of police robots to fight crime and take humans out of danger…"But how do you stop a machine that’s gone berserk with only a ‘Go’ button and no compassion?" Good question. Thankfully my DVD player has a "STOP" button when I need to take a break from this movie.

Division Headquarters 10:00 P.M.

We finally arrive at HQ where a pair of underpaid film extras, sorry, I mean Detectives, question Coldyron about his involvement with the dead motorcycle officer. Not wanting to incriminate himself, Coldyron refuses to discuss his robotics research which presumably led to the incident.

Female Detective tries to play it nice, but I think she sort of screws up her lines here,"You know that this is an official debriefing…officially not an arrest questioning…then please state so on the record, doctor,…unofficially."

"Officially!" the other Detective shouts.

Female Detective agrees, "Officially."

I hope all that made sense to you.

Anyway, throughout the questioning Coldyron keeps fiddling with a golden key-shaped object (Plot Point!) as we begin our Official Film Flashback:

"Last Thursday my life was a lot easier…," Coldyron begins.

Thursday 5:00 A.M.

Cut to Coldyron’s ranch which provides us with gratuitous padding lasting nearly 3 minutes. You’d think I’d be used to this kind of run-time filler after all the crappy movies I’ve seen but it’s just as boring as the first time. We get to see pretty much every tiny, dull detail of Coldyron’s morning routine: waking up, eating breakfast (coffee for the horse, the carrot for him…Humor!), etc. etc. After a while we see Coldyron riding around on his horse testing a new type of explosive detonation cord. Well, it’s not super exciting, but at least something is happening. Oh, and remember this cord, it’s going to show up later.

Tactical Operations Lab 9:00 A.M.

Now driving to work…wait…Coldyron did all that stuff in the previous scene before even leaving for work!? Good grief, I guess you can safely say he’s a morning person. Inside the research lab we catch a glimpse of odious 80′s hip-hop dude named Shoe Boogie (!) who starts hip-hop dancing with Willie the Obnoxious Comedy Robot. If I remember correctly, there was a mandate back in the 80′s that required all films to have at least 1 moon-walking scene. Yeah, that has to be it.

Meet Shoe Boogie and Willard. No. That’s not a typo.

Coldyron heads upstairs where he’s to present the latest developments of the "IA1138 chassis" to a team of developers from Dallas’s sister research unit. "We scientists are like the science fiction writers…prognosticators of the future." Isn’t that sort of redundant? Anyway, Coldyron fires up a handy film projector which treats us to a lovely view of R.O.T.O.R…the prize result of nearly 4 years of research.

"Is this what your research has lead up to?" asks a nearby Wisenheimer, "a tin marionette?"

"Not exactly," says Coldyron. (I’m surprised he didn’t punch him in the face.) You see, a certain Dr. Steele has developed the chassis from "an unknown alloy…simply given an obscure number." (What exactly is an obscure number?) As Coldyron continues his explanations, the crowd watches the movie screen in rapt attention as the camera pans up and down this awesome technological marvel known as R.O.T.O.R. (Thanks to my modern day technological marvel known as a "Pause Button", this shot also reveals the screws holding the tiny robot model together.)

Now that’s convincing.

A Dr. Carl speaks up next, "What’s your [take] on this unknown alloy? Is there some sort of good vibration to its molecular tonality?"

"Exactly! Watch," says Coldyron as they watch ROTOR begin a sequence of goofy movements that looks like a really bad dancer performing, well, a really bad dance.

"The chassis: how can it animate without gears or motors?" asks another who apparently didn’t see all the, er, gears and motors in the chassis close ups.

"Are you saying this thing can do anything from aerobics to Tai Chi?"

"Right! It can do karate to full-field combat," Coldyron says as we see ROTOR performing some enthusiastic karate chops. This is actually pretty funny; not only because of the rudimentary animation meant to represent state of the art robotics, but because Coldyron’s presentation is a reel-to-reel film which perfectly coincides with whatever the visiting scientists happen to ask about.

Hiiiii-keeba!!!

"God only knows this is spectacular," remarks another scientist, and I was sure he was going to start laughing, "but what exactly are we dealing with here?"

"Molecular memory and learning. All it needs is a spark: a current of electricity as a catalyst."

(So, you mean just plug it in?)

"The meta itself can learn, and teach itself." Oh, yeah. Sure.

Anyway, Coldyron goofily answers more goofy questions and his presentation finally comes to an end. After the briefing, Division Commander Buglar calls Coldyron up to his office to give him some bad news. "Let’s dispense with the social amenities and just say we did," Buglar grumbles. Uh oh. This can’t be good. Not with dialog like that. Apparently the local cash cow Senator wants a progress report and wants a progress report…pronto! Feeling the heat from, Buglar, without consulting Coldyron first!, promises the Senator that ROTOR will be ready for production in 60 days.

Coldyron insists that this schedule is utterly impossible, and refuses to be bullied despite Buglar threatening to pull him off the project:"You fire me and I’ll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin!" After some more back-and-forth with Buglar, Coldyron resigns from the ROTOR project and hands over the reins to his assistant, Dr. Houghtaling. After stomping out of HQ, Coldyron calls his girlfriend, Penny, for lunch to discuss this recent downturn in his fortunes. The lunch scene, purely designed to eat up run time, naturally includes a horrible song called "Hideaway", which is an odd choice of music since they’re eating in a huge hotel restaurant in the middle of town.

Tactical Operations Computer Center 1:30 P.M.

Back at the (cough) Computer Center, Houghtaling struggles to figure out how in the hell he’s going to have ROTOR ready in 60 days while Obnoxious Comedy Robot, Willard, stands by making wise cracks. "Punch in all the impulse codes," Houghtaling orders before heading down to the tank to "trace the circuits by hand." Sure, I guess that sounds scientific enough for me. And get this, Willard hesitates to help because he’s afraid of electricity…but he’s a robot, get it? ha ha

Dr. Houghtaling: The new head of the world’s most advanced robotic lab.

Meanwhile in another lab, a young female researcher is minding her business while Shoe Boogie moonwalks across the lab in an painfully awkward attempt to woo her. Frustrated by her continued reluctance to share her phone number with him, Shoe Boogie removes his Walkman headphones and casually tosses them onto some nearby electrical equipment so he can get a little closer to his prey. The woman eventually leaves in disgust after having endured Shoe Boogie’s futile attempts to pick her up.

The first thing I agree with in this movie

After shooting off a lame parting jibe in her direction, Shoe Boogie shrugs (I’m guessing rejection by the fairer sex is a large part of his life) and picks up the headphones with his switchblade comb causing an electric spark and…I think you can see what this is all going to lead to.

Safety protocols? We don’t need no stinking safety protocols!

Later that day we see Coldyron sitting in his truck outside a convenience store. Maybe he’s considering applying for a job now that his career in advanced robotics research has been shot to hell. After a moment or 2 some hoods pile out of a car and saunter into the store. Coldyron, sensing trouble, approaches their car and asks the driver to give him change for a dollar. I’m not sure what all this is about, but Coldyron points out that it would give him extra time to get away if he did because, ugh. Whatever. Hilariously, Coldyron goes over to a newspaper machine and purchases a paper with a handful of coins…but the bad guy didn’t give him any change! OK, now I get it: Coldyron bought the paper so he could conceal his gigantic pistol from the bad guys when he is inevitably forced to confront them. Seeing a guy looking suspiciously watching him from a payphone, Coldyron walks over and promptly begins whooping his ass! Lucky for Coldyron this was the robbers’ look out; what if it actually was some poor dude on the phone? Well, the robbers pour out of the store with a female hostage and a Mexican stand-off ensues. "Easy, Greasy…" Coldyron says to the Latino guy holding a gun to the woman’s head, convincing me that Coldyron should stick to robotics and not hostage negotiation

After some "tense" banter, Coldyron yanks out his enormous silver spray-painted toy pistol from the newspaper and blows the guy’s head off. In the commotion the woman hostage breaks free and proceeds to kick her captor’s ass with a few well placed pseudo-fu strikes. Coldyron doesn’t bother breaking up the fight between the woman and her assailant; he just watches with a look of professional admiration and remarks "Hey, lady, good job!" when she finally chokes him out. It must be a Texas thing.

Thursday 8:00 P.M.

As we see from the time stamp, it’s now 8 P.M. which means Coldyron has been waiting for the cops to show up for the last 4 hours. I guess crime really is bad in that area.

"Next time, don’t use this," says the local investigator handing back Coldyron his pistol, "the ambulance guys don’t like picking up body pieces with a pooper-scooper." (Wow, he’s so jaded!) "I don’t like it even more," cracks Coldyron in an odd line. The other cop suggests that Coldyron return to the relative safety of the research lab and not hang out in the streets with the "real" cops. To be honest, I found this criticism a bit odd since Coldyron handled himself pretty well in the situation.

Back in the lab Houghtaling and Willard are puzzled by the fact that all the batteries in the lab are drained of charge. (Uh oh…)

"You don’t think…" Houghtaling ominously says while tilting his head in ROTOR’s direction.

"He looks OK to me," Willard reassures him after a thorough 1 second peek into the tank.

Right after the 2 idiots leave the lab we see ROTOR reach up from his "suspension vault" and remove the flimsy plastic tank top. Using a POV shot with a strange pink tint, ROTOR stumbles around in the conveniently empty police station where he quickly finds the locker room and retrieves his uniform from his locker. (!) I guess the Dallas Police Department thought it would be prudent to make available a locker and uniform even though it’s going to be 4 years before the first prototype is ready. We wouldn’t want ROTOR running around nude in the off-chance of accidental activation, now would we?

Give him a locker…who cares if he won’t be ready for another 4 years.

With his custom-fitted leather uniform, ROTOR leaves the lab and heads down to the motor pool. For some reason there are rows and rows of plastic chairs set up…why? Who knows. I guess it was to show us how awesomely determined ROTOR is as he pushes his way through the sea of chairs. What’s wonderfully amusing about this shot is that it was obviously much more difficult for the actor to push his way through the chairs than they’d expected as you can plainly see him struggling several times to untangle his feet from the chair legs and continue through the ever growing mass of tangled furniture accumulating in front of him.

(Damn!…this was harder than I thought…)

Now we see what ROTOR struggled so hard to reach: his very own super-duper motorcycle standing on display (cordoned off in the middle the garage with little velvety ropes no less). Yep, even though he wasn’t scheduled for over 4 years, ROTOR’s motorcycle is gassed up and has the key in the ignition. A quick rev of the throttle and ROTOR roars out of the completely unguarded motor pool and into the night.

Friday 1:56 A.M.

Cut to a dark highway where a young couple are driving along discussing marriage and such…you know: character development. The young woman in the passenger’s seat, Sony, wants to get a career after her marriage to Soon To Be Dead Guy and blah blah blah. Thankfully, the dialog is interrupted when ROTOR pulls them over for speeding. (You know the dialog is bad when you’re happy to see ROTOR!)

ROTOR dismounts his motorcycle, which must be equipped with side-mounted spot lights given his insane silhouette in the darkness, and calmly struts over to the car. The driver gets out and awkwardly attempts to bribe him. Well, ROTOR quickly judges him guilty for speeding and puts a bullet through his head! Wow! For speeding? Who programmed this thing? Anyway, Sony leans over in her seat and very awkwardly "accidentally" pushes horn which deafens ROTOR and paralyzes him with pain! Let me get this straight: an amazingly advanced robot that is defeated by honking your car horn? Whatever.

With ROTOR holding his head in agony, Sony backs up the car and screeches away, but after a couple of minutes she decides to pull to the side and "talk this over". Yeah, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason that the cop killed your fiance for speeding. When ROTOR eventually catches up, he thrusts his arm through the window and tries to grab Sony. (I guess Coldyron didn’t get around to finishing the "Just Open The Door" part of ROTOR’s programming.) Sensing that rational conversation isn’t one of ROTOR’s strong points, Sony speeds off.

Friday 3:00 A.M.

Cut to see the local cops investigating the crime scene. One of the investigators opens the dead man’s hand and removes a police name tag embossed with the name "ROTOR". So the Dallas police actually made ROTOR a nametag? Well, wasn’t that considerate, trying to make him feel like one of the guys.

Later that day Coldyron receives a call from Sergeant Mango (!) who tells him about ROTOR’s recent mayhem. Coldyron instructs Mango to keep quiet about the whole ‘crazed murderous robot cop on the loose’ problem. Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to mention that to anybody. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Coldyron heads back to the lab to figure out how to reel in his rogue creation.

Meanwhile, Sony is still calmly driving around even though it’s been over 2 hours since her fiance was blown away. I’ll give her this much, she sure has her emotions under control. Sony eventually stops at a convenience store which is, duh, closed. Is it just me or is ROTOR still trying to catch up to her? Keep up the good work, ROTOR! Anyway, Sony calls the police and reports what’s happened (Good thing she drove around for a few hours first.) The 911 operator tells her to stay put because they can’t send any help to her since the murder took place in Dallas’s jurisdiction. (WHAT?) Wisely realizing that if she does as she’s told and stays put ROTOR will (eventually) catch up to her, Sony drives off.

Hey! What do you know: just as she pulls out, ROTOR arrives and scans the area with his, and I kid you not, "Sensor Recall" which allows him to see what has happened…in the past!!!! I couldn’t help but note that ROTOR has to take off his sunglasses for this feature to work. Must be something in the tinting.

Back at the lab Coldyron types madly at an old CRT terminal and asks the department’s mainframe about ROTOR’s status. To his dismay, the computer can’t find any information on ROTOR. (Strangely, in the beginning of the film, the last 2 words in the ROTOR acronym were "Operational Research" and have now been changed to "Operations Reserve". Ooops.)

After some more mad keystrokes, Coldyron discovers that ROTOR is no longer in his "suspension tank" and is "fully activated". With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Coldyron asks the computer one final question: "What is Rotor’s duty?" (Doesn’t Coldyron know? Isn’t he the lead programmer?) The computer responds with the words we all dread: "To Judge and Execute"…"Oh…God!" Coldyron murmurs upon reading this. But why is he shocked? The words "To Judge and Execute" are stenciled on his motorcycle for cripes sake!

Oh…So that’s his Prime Directive.

With a quick call to Willard, Coldyron confirms that there was a screw up in the lab last night but nobody thought to actually look in the tank and ensure ROTOR was still there. (Actually, Willard says that they did look in the tank but not the "suspension readout"…whatever. I sense a serious breach of protocol here…) With Willard hemming-and-hawing on the line, Coldyron hangs up and places a priority call to Mango. (Mango, really guys?) Mango informs Coldyron that ROTOR has gone nuts and is chasing a woman (i.e., Sony) all over hell and high water. Furthermore, they’ve told her to keep moving until the police get to her. (Why don’t the police just go to her? Better yet, why doesn’t she just drive to the police station?)

"Good. Nobody move until you hear from me," Coldyron instructs, which to me seems counter-productive to the whole "let’s get to her" plan.

Feeling chatty, Coldyron next places a call back to Commander Buglar to tell him, basically: nyah nyah nyah…I told you so.

"It would walk through a bus full of nuns to get to a jaywalker! ROTOR wasn’t ready..its brain functions are incomplete!" Coldyron tells Buglar, insisting that the Senator be informed of the day’s events. Buglar suggests instead that Coldyron take back control of the project and hunt down ROTOR personally.

"OK," Coldyron agrees, "and when I bring him back, I’ll ram him right down City Hall’s throat!" (Ok. But what did City Hall have to do with any of this?)

While Coldyron begins the hunt, Sony parks behind an all night cafe, sneaks in through the back door, finds a table and orders a cup of coffee. (I’m not sure how this could be considered "keeping on the move", but we have to give hapless ROTOR a chance to catch up with her.) In a strange line, the waitress apologized to Sony for having the TV on but they have to keep it turned on until the homecoming parade is over…even though it’s pitch black outside! ROTOR also manages to find the cafe…how? Who knows. Stopping in back, he pulls off his sunglasses and turns on his "Sensor Recall" ability which allows him to see Sony running inside a few minutes ago (you know what I mean). ROTOR busts into the kitchen and is immediately attacked by the fry cook. (If you think about it, the cook doesn’t know that ROTOR is a rogue robot cop; On the contrary, to him it’s just a cop coming in through the back door…and he attacks him with a knife?!) ROTOR dispatches the cook by shoving his face on the grill and I guess somebody thought it was funny to have the guy wear a pair of huge fake front teeth.

As ROTOR leaves the kitchen and struts into the dining area all the patrons flee in terror. (Why? To them it’s just a cop walking in.) Sony, of course, cowers in a booth because the script requires a slight struggle before she runs out the front door. Oh boy, here we go again: in comes a trio of rednecks who immediately attack what to them is just an ordinary police officer! After some lazy fighting, ROTOR beats the hell out of the guys, walks out front and looks inside Sony’s car. Hey, wasn’t her car parked in back? Strange. Maybe she moved it out front to at least give ROTOR a fighting chance…

Oh wait, Sony runs out to the adjoining gas station where the night clerk hides her in his kiosk. I’m not sure why he’s helping her since he hasn’t even seen ROTOR, so Sony must appear to him as a crazed woman running around in the middle of the night. Then again, maybe he’s just thankful for a little excitement with such a lousy job. Anyway, ROTOR uses his awesome rose-tinted "Sensor Recall" which promptly reveals Sony’s true location.

After ROTOR saunters over to the kiosk, he employs his usual method of apprehending people: stretching his arm out as far as he can and trying to grab them. Sony skillfully evades capture by simply staying out of his reach and crawls out the back door where she runs to a nearby semi-trailer truck. The truck driver, seeing a damsel in distress, hides her in the cab and confronts ROTOR with his pistol. Not to beat a dead horse, but again, to the truck driver this is just a normal cop chasing a perpetrator. Whatever. ROTOR shoots him and he shoots ROTOR back. Exciting. When ROTOR drags himself back to his feet, Sony easily paralyzes ROTOR by honking the truck’s horn. (OK, I’m thinking a serious re-design is needed here.)

But, heck, it’s all good because Coldyron drives up (how did he know she was there?) and exchanges a few punches with ROTOR. Obviously ROTOR can’t be beaten hand-to-hand (but a horn, yes) and quickly knocks Coldyron on his ass before attempting to get Sony by, yes, reaching through the window as far as he can. Using the always successful tactic of simply backing up out of ROTOR’s reach, Sony slips out the other door and runs away. Coldyron tries to buy her some time by shooting/punching ROTOR a bit more, but to not much good. Just as ROTOR is about to slam the crap out of him yet again, Coldyron produces a golden metal thingee which cause ROTOR to stop and pull back. Why…what could this thing be? I hope we find out later…

Keeping in line with the film’s modus operandi:

• ROTOR tries to grab Sony
• Arm not long enough
• Sony’s runs away
• ROTOR gives chase

ROTOR hops onto his motorcycle and pursues Sony into the darkness. Back at the service station, Coldyron crawls into his truck and raises Sony on his CB radio. (Sony has a CB radio in her car? Turned on and tuned to the same channel Coldyron just happens to be using? Wow.) "The cop’s name is ROTOR…he’s gone renegade," Coldyron gasps, "Just keep moving!" Without much choice (and nothing else in the script for her to do), Sony agrees to just drive around…and around…and around until Coldyron returns with help. After a short discussion of where to meet, they agree to hook up at 4 P.M. at Cain’s Fishing Lodge. Rather unbelievable Sony is familiar with the lodge’s location. I guess it’s because she’s such the outdoorsy type.

Anyway, with Sony driving around as bait, Coldyron places a call to "Houston…Texas". Boy, that was nice of Coldyron to clarify which Houston he was trying to call…and sure enough, we get another time stamp:

Houston, Texas Friday 5:45 A.M.

Welcome to the residence of Dr. Steele. An extremelybuff woman who is, as you recall (or not), the creator of ROTOR’s ultra-secret chassis. (The one made of the "obscure numbered" alloy.) It looks like Steele has just returned from working out at the gym before a putting in a hard days robotic chassis design and it’s only a quarter to six. Tough broad. Steele happens to catch the last bit of Coldyron’s message on the answering machine explaining that ROTOR is out and on the loose and, boy, could he use her help.

Hey it’s another time stamp:

Friday 8:30 A.M.

Cut to a mechanic’s garage where ROTOR is fixing up his motorcycle and treating himself to a little juice from a car-battery charger. Since electricity is ‘cool’, the scene goes all ‘negative’ when ROTOR charges himself up. The local grease monkey sees all this and finds it so terrifying that he flees the scene hollering "Feet don’t fail me now!" and jumps into the back of a random passing pick-up truck. I guess that was supposed to be funny in a Good-Old-Boy sort of way. Ugh…but hey: This was the first random civilian that didn’t immediately attack a police officer.

After picking up Steele at the airport, Coldyron drives her to a local hotel. This gives the viewer pleeeeenty of time to hear some more back story.

"I feel like old friends. You know, we got to know each other’s papers and mathematics pretty well," says Steele.

Not to be outdone in the flattery department, Coldyron responds in kind, "Your designs on the combat chassis are the most brilliant I’ve ever seen."

"It was nothing without your own brain matrix."

Man, I just love realistic scientific jargon, don’t you?

After some more blabbing, Steele admits that it’s impossible to bring ROTOR in. (So why did you fly all the way to Dallas at the drop of a hat then?!) Coldyron disagrees, and shows her the golden de-activation key. So…maybe they have a chance after all. Regardless, they better speed things up because there’s only 15 minutes left in the movie and I’m getting tired.

Hot hotel check-in action!

When Steele and Coldyron check into the hotel, they discover that their room is #222. "Great…that’s his badge number," Coldyron wryly notes.

"Superstitious?," Steele jokes as she asks for another room just as well, "There’s no sense in tempting reality too darn much." (huh?)

"Were we playing God, breathing life into our artificial Adam?" Coldyron waxes poetic before going on to quote a few portentous lines from Milton!.

"Let’s go get ‘im!" Steele chimes in. Yeah, let’s cut the crap and get to some more goofy action scenes.

Back outside and driving around, and boy, do I love driving scenes, Coldyron explains to Steele that ROTOR is programming himself as he goes.

"Oh God! The brain matrix is modeled after your own lower brain functions!" Steele realizes, "To combat pure will, you’ll have to use pure illogic!" …and I must admit that she’s smarter than I am because I have no clue what she’s talking about.

"What do you mean?" Coldyron asks.

"You’ll have to allow yourself to fail: use your failure against him."

(Whadda whadda?!)

"Great, but I don’t know what any of that means," Coldyron admits.

"Let’s hope you never have to find out."

So…..huh?! It doesn’t matter whether Coldyron understands how to defeat ROTOR or not? What? Oh…forget it.

Friday 2:30 P.M.

Cut back to see Sony driving under a highway underpass that, surprise surprise, ROTOR just happens to be waiting on. As you can see by the timestamp, it’s now 2:30 P.M., which means that Sony’s been on the run nonstop for the last 12 hours since her fiance was shot. Yeah. That’s believable. ROTOR guns his motorcycle engine and gives chase.

Back with the others, we hear that Steele has come up with a ‘theory’: "What if I force his substructure plates apart?"

"If you got that close you could use the key," Coldyron reminds her.

"If I got that close, finding the keyhole would be the last thing on my mind…"

So, let me get this straight…you need to physically insert a key into ROTOR to deactivate him?! You don’t have a radio-controlled device for this? If I remember correctly, Americans did possess that sort of technology in 1988. (Garage door openers, anybody?) Oh, and Steele doesn’t know where the hole is…and she designed him! Sheesh!

Look! ROTOR has managed to catch up with Sony…again. (How? Ohhh…Recall Sensor; how could I ever forget?) For once Sony actually does something intelligent and runs him off a cliff destroying his motorcycle in the process. (As suggested by the small pile of burning twigs a stagehand places a safe distance from the bike.) For some reason Sony decides that it would be better to set off on foot into the wilderness instead of driving away, because, hey, how else is ROTOR going to manage to catch up with her by the end of the movie?

Muh bike! They busted muh bike!

Soooo…Sony runs around killing time waiting for Coldyron. A cut-away shot of her wrist watch reveals that it’s 4:10, which means that she’s been on the go for over 14 hours. Man, I bet she’s getting tired by now. (And she hasn’t even taken a single piss break!)

In the mean time, Coldyron and Steele have tracked ROTOR’s position by charting his "power surges" (just go with it). Coldyron pulls off to the side of the road and decides to hunt him down on foot.

"You don’t happen to know any Indian trackers, do you?" Steele asks in a cringe inducing moment.

"I used to spend every summer on the Indian reservation." says Coldyron says, "Will I do?"

"Ha! I’m like a cemetery: I’ll take anybody," Steele jests in a moment of levity. (Get it? "Any body". Yeah, I thought it was funny too. )

After a few seconds of looking at the ground, Coldyron finds a footprint. "Is it his?" Steele asks. "Well, it sure aint Pee-Wee Herman’s." (Man, talk about a movie dating itself.)

Meanwhile Sony finds a small boat and tries to float out into the middle of the lake without a paddle. And I mean that literally: she just kicks off from the beach and floats about 4 feet. It wouldn’t have made any difference even if she had a paddle because ROTOR shows up and drags her back to land by pulling on the rope Sony still has tied to the boat. Egads, m’Lady…use your brain, eh?

Fortunately for Sony, Steele also magically appears and blasts ROTOR in the back. Instead of continuing to blast him until he’s a pile of scrap metal, she tosses down the gun and starts pummeling on him. (You’d think that, being the actual designer of ROTOR’s substructure, Steele would know just how useless it is to punch on him.) In an odd bit of framing, Steele and ROTOR battle it out in the background while Coldyron helps Sony up to the truck (which is now magically parked at the lake!). Their struggles seem almost slow motion, as if they’re blocking out the fight for the next scene but didn’t realize they were in the shot and the director just decided to keep it.

Running out of options, Coldyron attempts to place ROTOR in a "stand down" mode by tricking him into thinking that all this was just a drill. I guess since ROTOR has "re-programmed" himself, he simply ignores his creator’s orders and shoves his gun in Coldyron’s face. Proving once again that he’s not quite ready for prime time, ROTOR’s crappy reflexes allow Coldyron to duck away and run off before he can even fire his gun. Man, I’d love to see ROTOR go up against the Terminator. That would be fun.

Oh, and again, Steele seems to materialize out of the ether and blasts ROTOR in the back with her shotgun. And again, she immediately tosses her weapon to the ground and starts punching the killer robot instead of blowing him to smithereens. As I expected, this proves to be a Bad Idea as ROTOR easily grabs Steele and commences to squeeze her to death, but before she dies she does get a chance to rip open ROTOR’s chest with makes the scene go all "negative-y" again for some reason. (I guess this was Steele’s "separate his substructure plates" plan that she mentioned in the truck. Wow. Good plan.)

Anyhoo, with Steele keeping ROTOR busy by letting him squeeze her to death, Coldyron produces his ultimate weapon: experimental detonation cord. (Remember that little shot from the beginning of the movie that just screamed PLOT POINT?) Sony quickly ties one end of the cord to the truck (won’t this destroy the truck when it goes off?) while Coldyron constructs a snare on the ground directly in front of ROTOR. The fact that even ROTOR manages to notice the snare speaks volumes about how lame this particular trap was.

Horns…a very serious design flaw.

Sony quickly realizes that Coldyron’s Amazing Det-Cord Snare Plan needs a little help and brings into play ROTOR’s greatest weakness: honking car horns. Blind with pain, ROTOR steps into the snare and Coldyron tightens the loop with a quick jerk on the cord. Defying all known laws of topology, Coldyron quickly fashions 3 new lassoes from the single length of cord (magic!) and promptly ropes ROTOR’s arms and neck, forcing him into a helpless ‘spread eagle’ position. Never mind that the lassoes are tossed from completely different directions than the one Coldyron is standing, but I’m wondering just what the ropes are attached to since a couple of them were tossed from the direction of the lake…

Anyway, just as ROTOR begins tearing himself loose his "electric discharge" ignites the detonation cords (I sense another design flaw here…) and BOOM…no more ROTOR. It’s unclear why the detonation cord didn’t destroy Coldyron’s truck as well since one end of it is anchored to the frame, but let’s not drag this out any longer than necessary.

Cut back to "now", i.e., the debriefing room where Coldyron has been retelling this entire story to the investigators. "I’m going to leave my report in my office," Coldyron concludes. "After that, I got a ranch. I got a horse. I got a pretty girl." Wow, is this guy romantic or what?

With his tale at an end, Coldyron struts from the interrogation room and out into the parking lot. To everybody’s great shock, Commander Buglar walks up behind him and blows him away with a shotgun! (I wasn’t expecting that, actually.) Standing over the body, Buglar stares into the camera and in his best Dirty Harry imitation grimly says, "Justice served…C.O.D." ( I have no idea what the whole "C.O.D." thing has to do with anything. Maybe it sounded "street tough" to one of the writers.)

Oh, and third, why kill Coldyron in the first place? If this supposed to be some sort of cover up, what about the years of robotics research, all of Steele’s work, the thousands of others that have worked on this project? Maybe he just had a personal grudge against Coldyron, ok fine, but then if you’re going to murder somebody, maybe you shouldn’t do it 5 feet from the entrance of the Dallas Police Headquarters. Just sayin’.

Fade to, (cough,cough), Oxford University where we see that Coldyron’s nephew, Brett, has received news of his uncle’s death via a letter from Commander Buglar. Corrupt to the very end, Buglar writes that he too grieves at the loss of Captain Coldyron, and that he was a brave man who died in the line of duty and blah blah. There just aint no justice in this world, is there?

As we proceed into the credits (happily), Brett engages in his own voice over explaining how, over time, he studied his uncle’s research papers and gleaned enough to create his own ROTOR…this time a "ROTOR II" in the form of Steele. So this movie ends on yet another bizarre note: how the hell did Brett know what Steele looked like so he could base his robot’s appearance on her? I thought maybe Uncle Coldyron might have had some pictures stashed away in his research, but if I remember correctly they met for the first time on the day of the final ROTOR battle, didn’t they? Ahhh, maybe this will all be clear when ROTOR 2 arrives; but I doubt it.

My work here is done.

The End.

Dennis Grisbeck (December 2011)

You made it this far? Really? Congratulations: You can watch the entire movie HERE

Read more about R.O.T.O.R. at

Directed by John "Bud" Cardos (Yes, John "Outlaw of Gor" Carlos…)

Run Time: 79 minutes

Tagline: THEIR LIVES BECAME A LIVING HELL!

Grant: "Steve, you know what this is don’t you?…It’s a Time Space Warp!"

Steve: "I’m not sure I know exactly what that is."

Grant: "I don’t suppose anybody really does."

——————

Why?

That is the question that arises time and time again while watching this film; this poor-man’s "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". This…this…puzzling, enigmatic strip of celluloid that I just can’t figure out.

Why, oh why, was this movie ever made?

As glib as it sounds to dismiss a film by saying "things happen, people say things", that’s exactly what happens in this film: Things happen. People say things. Nobody shows any common sense nor initiative; the characters seem to stand around waiting for the next plot event to happen to them.

Oh sure. There is a veneer of a "plot": a triple supernova takes place (took place?) 200 years ago and the cosmic waves or something have finally reached Earth causing earthquakes, flying Vacuum Cleaners from Hell, and brawling monsters that appear or disappear as the film’s budget allows.

Oh, maybe I’m being overly nitpicky. Maybe I’m asking for too much from what amounts to a weekend project for some special effects guys, then again, maybe not.

You can judge for yourself.

	Grant (Jim Davis) Veteran Western actor and star of the uber-popular hit TV show ‘Dallas’, Jim Davis does indeed exude a strong screen presence with his gravely voice and shock of white hair. But poor, poor Jim. Completely miscast in this role, he appears to be nearly as confused as the viewer as to just what in the hell is happening. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he couldn’t be bothered to care. Regretably, this was Mr. Davis’ last film before he passed away from surgery complications in April, 1981.
	Ana (Dorothy Malone) Academy Award winner Dorothy Malone (Best Supporting Actress “Written on the Wind”, 1956) plays the role of Grant’s wife, Ana. Equally miscast in this movie as Jim Davis (above), veteran actress Ms. Malone does her best to act scared, happy, and…well, whatever the script seems to require, but mostly she comes across confused and maybe a tad bored.
	Beth (Marcy Lafferty) Marcy Lafferty plays Richard’s wife, Beth and mother to Jenny (both below). I nearly knocked my beer on the floor when I found out she was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in this movie. I admit, I’m not too sure what a ‘Saturn Award’ is (and I’m not going to look it up just right now), but…Wow. An award nomination for this movie? She’s spends half her time trapped in another dimension. Oh, whatever.
	Richard (Christopher Mitchum) Yes, Christopher Mitchum, son to Robert Michum seems to have lucked out in this movie because he spends half the time ‘at work’ and the other half wandering around in the desert with a horse. Christopher has appeared in numerous TV and direct-to-DVD movies over the years, so he certainly appears to be right at home here.
	Steve (Scott Kolden) Steve, the supposed son of Grant, even though he appears to be about 75 years younger, goes through the motions along with everybody else in order to get through each scene and just plain get it over with. I did note that Scott Kolden appeared in 13 episodes of the incredibly campy (and one of my favorite) 1970′s TV shows, ‘Sigmund and the Sea Monster’, so, dude, kudos for that.
	Jenny (Natasha Ryan) Natasha Ryan has appeared in a slew of soaps and made-for-TV movies over the years, and to be honest, she’s a pretty decent actress in this movie. Furthermore, she played the daughter in ‘The Amityville Horror (1979) which is a movie that TOTALLY SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME!

Open with, surprise!, narration played over stock-footage outer space shots in order to establish the fact that "spacey" things are about to happen. Anyway, as shots of Mars and Jupiter fly by, neither of which plays any role in the film whatsoever, the viewer is treated to a series of rambling comments about the non-sequential nature of time. (And man, I really hate it when they talk about our home planet as the planet "known as Earth"…oh brother…Beer break.)

OK, back from the trip to the fridge just in time to see 3 floating balls of light (UFO’s?) explode into a bunch of sparklers. Yes, this is going to be fun, but wait!, cut to a house in the middle of the desert where a bunch of green cartoony lights are circling around and around the roof. (Why?) I suppose this sort of flying-light display is typical for a triple supernova explosion that took place 200 years ago.

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Just the normal after effects of a super nova.

We next see our aging hero, Grant (Jim Davis) and his son, Richard (Christopher Mitchum) driving to the airport to pick up the rest of the family who are returning from vacation. The car ride naturally provides another opportunity for gobs of exposition, this time in the form of an excited radio announcer who reports on the recent "trinary supernova" that has occurred. (Well, recent as in 200 years ago, but you get the idea.)

After picking up Richard’s wife, Beth, their daughter Jenny, and Steve, Grant’s young son (really, he looks like he’s about 50 years his father’s junior.), from the airport, everybody returns to Grant’s stately manner located in the middle of freakin’ nowhere, i.e., a vacant lot where the film crew was able to throw together a plywood "house" for minimal cost.

Château de Grant.

Impressed, aint ya?

Anyway, Beth and Steve are dutifully impressed at the site of Grant’s new house. ("…and it’s all solar powered!" he crows, in a line which you would think was a clumsy plot point, but actually plays no role in the plot at all.).

"Wait ’til you see the present I got for ya," Grant beams as he takes everybody around the back of the plywood house to the plywood stables.

Beth and Richard: It’s 1980! And everything is great! hee hee. Do you want to punch him in the face or should I do it?

The aforementioned surprise turns out to be a horse and pony for Steve and Jenny, which isn’t much of a surprise since, after all, they are standing at the stables.

After this legendary Equestrian Gift Giving scene sputters to a close, little Jenny takes her pony around the corner (there’s a lot of "going around the corner" so things can happen without the other characters seeing.) to the horse corral that the film crew hastily set up with 2-by-4′s. To Jenny’s surprise, she discovers a 6-foot tall pyramid, glowing green and making lots of “TRON” noises. (As I mentioned above, the rest of the family has conveniently disappeared from the shot so that the alien artifact is a “secret” for Jenny only. This first contact supposedly establishes a ‘relationship’ between Jenny and the aliens that might have been an interesting plot device had the movie been better written.) In an apparent lack of FX funds, the pyramid magically-off-camera shrinks down to about one inch tall at which time Jenny picks it up and puts it in her pocket.

For some reason, Jenny’s father Richard has to return to work and do some overtime. (Since Christopher Mitchum’s character, Richard, promptly disappears from the movie at this point and doesn’t return until nearly the very end indicates that he had a better agent than the rest of the cast and managed to get the hell out of the movie.) As Richard takes his leave (Lucky bastard!. Man, I envy him.), the rest of the family carries their suitcases inside the house only to discover that that the living room has been ransacked!

“Oh man!”, says Steve, “It looks like some bikers did it!”

Boy, yeah that makes a lot of sense, bikers are always breaking into people’s homes, tilting pictures on the walls, and tossing pillows on the floor.

“Bikers?” says Gramps.

“Yeah, before we went on vacation I saw some hill climbers,” Steve explains.

Oh. Ok, Steve. Hill climbers. Bikers. I see the connection.

A quick look-see reveals that whoever rummaged the house limited their activities to the living room. (Damned bikers!). Since the movie’s budget allowed only the living room and 1 bedroom to be constructed, Grant simply opens doors to other “rooms”, pokes his head in and says “Whelp, it’s alright in there,” before moving to the next "room".

Brilliant! I love this stuff. It completely reminds me of the scene in Manos where the parents are looking for their missing daughter by simply opening a door and say, “Well, she’s not in here."

After cleaning up the living room, (which required putting pillows back on the sofa and straightening a lamp), Grant and Ana decide to do what anybody else would do after discovering their house ransacked by bikers: barbeque hamburgers. When Jenny goes upstairs to wash (or, as Gramps says:”..warsh”,) her hands, the bathroom light glows green.

HEY! That’s just like the pyramid! Creeeeepy!

This fascinating scene also sputters to an end as Jenny washes her hands and returns to the others to eat hamburgers. Will the excitement ever end?! (Man, Spielberg has nothing on this movie!)

Later that night, Grant and Ana go for a midnight stroll through the pitch black desert. Yeah, cozy. A strange glow lights the horizon and out of the darkness comes a pair of cheap CGI spaceships that whooooooooosh over their heads. (Followed by the sound of a thunderclap…huh?)

"Gawd, Ana, we just saw a UFO," Grant sputters with about as much enthusiasm as somebody reacting to an increase in light bulb prices.

After skidaddling back to the house, Grant decides to calm his nerves with a glass of milk while Ana retires to the bedroom. Seeing the oddly undamaged hallway mirror, Ana points out that the mirror is fixed.

"By gawd, you’re right," Grant says.

Wow. The tension of the Mysteriously Repaired Mirror scene. It’s unbearable.

Suddenly the kitchen is filled with a green light. (Scary music on the soundtrack tries to convince the viewer that this green light is somehow supposed to be scary.)

Grant looks around, flicks the switch, and the lights return to normal.

You can’t imagine how exciting that was.

"You see," Ana gasps with relief, "it was just that solar-power thing."

Later that night, little Jenny wakes up to go to the bathroom. (The mysterious green light turns on as she stumbles into bathroom, but really, it’s just not so scary anymore.) After returning to bed, dry ice fog snakes in under her door and a thumb-sized alien dude appears from the fog.

Yep. It’s that bad.

With a whimsical musical number playing in the background, the alien whooooshes around the room, knocks some stuff over, and whooooshes back to Jenny’s bed, all in the wonderful spirit of "Trumpy, you can do STUPID things!" What mirth! What whimsy!

With nary a second glance, the alien does a clumsy pirouette on Jenny’s bedpost and disappears just as the alien’s mother ship (I guess) floats through the open window. (In the IMDB comments for this movie, the mother ship is affectionately referred to as the "Vacuum Cleaner From Hell", a perfect moniker for this lackluster special effect which I will continue to use.) Jenny, now suddenly frightened by the aliens (perhaps because of the abrupt change in the musical score which indicates, once again, that what is happening is scary in case you didn’t get it) hides in the closet while the VCFH extends a pair of car antennae, er, laser guns, and closes in towards the cowering child. (Mwu-ha-ha-ha).

While Jenny cowers in the closet, the aliens pay a quick visit to Ana and Grant’s bedroom. (Thankfully, everybody was sleeping under the sheets, so I was spared another unwanted shot of Ana in her nightgown.) Understandably startled by the green, clay-mation figure strolling around on her bed sheets, Ana lets out a yell and the little bugger flies back out the door. Grant grabs his pistol off the nightstand (real safe there…grandpa!) and scurries out into the hallway where everybody else has gathered after hearing Ana scream.

"OH MY GAWD! Jenny’s gone!" Beth shouts after peering into the girl’s room. . Sure enough, a frantic search of the house reveals that the Jenny has indeed disappeared. Before anybody can do anything sensible (like call the police, you morons!), an earthquake strikes. (Huh?!) Anyway, a rattle at the front door startles everybody; Grant jerks the gun in its direction without even bothering to check to see if maybe, just maybe, it’s his granddaughter. As you probably expected, the noise at the door was in fact Jenny coming back from somewhere after something happened to her. (In general, the film considers such mundane details as who, what, when, and why as too unimportant to fill the viewer in on.)

"My GAWD! I could of shot her!" Grant grumbles as he shuffles out of the room. (Well, you idiot, stop running around with a pistol when your grandkids are on a visit.)

Jenny explains to her relieved family that she was simply outside playing with her "friends": the aliens. Amazingly, Ana dismissed Jenny’s story despite the fact that she has actually seen a UFO that very night! Nevertheless, Beth insists that they get the hell out of the house at least until morning because of all the strange occurrences that have taken place.

"Where could we go at one o’clock?" Ana retorts.

(Uh, ….how about a freakin’ hotel?!!!)

Good GAWD, people!

In a surprisingly rational decision, Grant agrees to drive everybody into town. As the others dash upstairs to get some clothes on, Grant grabs a flashlight and goes outside to take a look around. A noise from the stable grabs his attention so, ever so carefully, he makes his way inside where the horses have become unruly. Oh, let me try to summarize the action in this scene:

Grant turns on the lights.

A horse whinnies.

The lights flicker.

A horse whinnies.

Grant flicks the light switch up and down.

A horse whinnies.

The lights come back on.

Grant pats a horse on the head.

A horse whinnies.

Cut to next scene.

Please, feel free to catch your breath and let your heart stop racing before continuing with this review.

After donning their clothes, Beth and the others come downstairs only to suddenly hear sound of the the car starting outside.

"Hey dad, isn’t that the car?" Steve asks. (Wow, there’s no slipping one past you, Sherlock.)

Grant tells the women to stay inside while he and Super Detective Steve go out to investigate.

Once outside, Grant and Steve notice that the car is running and the lights are flashing on and off. Wow. Now that’s creepy! The brave men circle around the car, Grant with his pistol in hand (as always), and Steve armed with a rake. (!) Seeing that nobody is sitting inside the car, Grant does the only sensible thing one could do in a situation like this: shout "Well…Je-sus CHRAAAST!" and open the car’s hood.

Little Jenny, meanwhile, smiles and asks her mom if she’s having fun as well.

"No. I think it’s scary," Beth responds.

Realizing that nobody else thinks this is entertaining (especially the viewer), Jenny tells the car to stop "playing around", at which point the car indeed shuts off to everybody’s amazement. Alas, some weird lights come zipping out of the sky and chase the family back inside, dashing their hopes of escaping to the city. (And dashing my hopes of having this movie end anytime soon.)

Meanwhile, Richard, still hard at work doing whatever the hell it is that he does, has become worried after unsuccessfully trying to contact his family on the phone. You see, all the phone lines are down due to the super nova. (Super novas will do that, ya know.) Frustrated, and just plain scared, Richard slams down the phone in disgust, rushes to his car, and burns rubber to get back home and Save The Day.

Back home the VCFH has returned (now with a blue glow for some reason) and chases everybody upstairs.

Naturally, Grant can’t resist taking a shot at the thing with his pistol…and being a super advanced race from outer space, the aliens shoot out a red cartoon laser beam and halt the bullet in mid air. The bullet hangs suspended in the light for a gooooooood 10 seconds or so to make sure the viewer can appreciate these awesome special effects. (Hey, Grant, shoot it again while it’s busy with the first bullet. Just a thought.)

OK, where was I…ah, yes. Everybody runs upstairs and takes refuge in the bedroom instead of, oh, I don’t know, running outside, getting in the car, and driving to safety. Once again proving that the aliens are a race, far, far more advanced than us mere humans, the VCFH starts eating away at the bedroom door with a laser, which sloooooooooooooooooowly burns a pencil-sized hole in the half-inch thick balsa wood prop door. Wow. Now that’s impressive.

After burning, and burning, and burning, the laser stops, the VCFH disappears, and a clap of thunder echoes through the sky. (Oh, good grief; what’s with the thunder?) The result of all this effort? A fist-sized hole in the door and some minor smoke damage. Boy, watch out puny Earthlings!

We break from all this excitement by cutting to yet another exciting scene: Richard driving home from work. (Not to mention the incredible Buying Gas In The Middle of The Night scene! Kudos, gentlemen, kudos!) Anyway, for all his (and our troubles), Richard is buzzed by a pair of UFO’s, which cause him to lose control of his car and crash into a boulder on the side of the road. (A relatively gentle ‘crash’ to be sure since the car was probably rented for the making of this movie.) Instead of doing the sensible thing, like, oh, walking 50 feet back to the road and waiting for a passing car, Richard heads out into the middle of the desert on foot to try and get to Grant’s house.

Back home, Jenny complains that she forgot her doll downstairs in the living room during all the commotion. Steve bravely volunteers to go downstairs and retrieve it, but Grant refuses to let him go downstairs without checking it out first. Quickly poking his head out the bedroom door and glancing left and right convinces him that there couldn’t possibly be any danger in letting Steve go downstairs and get the doll. But of course the VCFH is lurking in the kitchen and shoots a laser beam directly into Steve’s head and kills him. No, just kidding. But that would have been nice, eh? No, we’re forced to tolerate more time with Steve as the VCFH chases him through the front door (why not run back upstairs?) and compels him to take refuge in the stable. (Grant, possibly feeling a tinge of remorse for telling his son that the coast was clear, grabs his gun and runs outside to help him.)

In possibly one of the greatest non-sequitors in film history, 2 huge monsters suddenly appear outside the front door and start fighting! What the hell???!!! Oh, now this is rich!

Once again, I’m forced to ask this question:

WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SUPER NOVAS?!!!

Like I said, Grant and Steve run off and hide in the stables as Monster 2 bites Monster 1 in the kills him. Her. Whatever.

Meanwhile, Ana and Beth run downstairs to see what all the commotion is about but can’t see what’s going on because the monsters are at the side of the house. (Well, could you maybe find a freakin’ window that looks out over the side of the house then? Sheesh, people! Let’s show a little initiative, shall we?)

Suddenly there’s a knock at the door. And boy, the first time I saw this movie I was really, really hoping that it wasn’t going to be the monster knocking. It just couldn’t be. Nope. NO movie could be that dumb. Right?

Wrong.

You know, I put up with a lot of crap from these stupid movies, but this is really pushing it.

Let me get this straight: The monster knocked on the front door? Whaaaaaaaaaat-ever!

Meanwhile, Grant and Steve are saddling up the horse to..what? Ride away? Oh yeah, that’d be much faster then just getting in the car!!! GOD! I hate these guys. Grant, hearing Ana scream back at the house, goes to investigate but the monster smashes his head through the stable door. (Note the puppet pushed through the door is red, has a pointy beak, and bulging yellow eyes, while the stop-motion monster is orange, with a round nose and brown eyes…but hey, who’s going to ever notice something like that?)

So, being a mean, mean, space monster, the beast simply sits there with its head stuck in door instead of, oh, pushing in the door and eating everybody. (Please eat Steve! Please eat Steve!)

(Oh, and Mr. Monster, the door is unlocked anyway if you’ll notice that in the second picture above.)

The ever resourceful Grant grabs a pitchfork and sticks it into the monster’s noggin, forcing it back outside to lick its wounds. But, hey, it really doesn’t matter too much because some cartoon lights fly out of the sky, land on its head, and make the monster disappear.(Huh?!)

Sooooooooooooo, enough of the monsters, I guess.

Suddenly, Grant is back inside the house getting Ana. For some reason, the living room is trashed again, oh, and now it’s suddenly daytime. Damned super novas.

When Grant peers outside the front door he gasps (uttering the usual "Oh…my…GAWD!") at the site of a seemingly endless sprawl of spaceships, airplanes, and highly-advanced extraterrestrial vehicles. (I loved the fact that there’s even a U-Haul rental truck among the alien ships!!! I guess one of the film crew forgot to move it out of the shot.)

Anyway, a bunch of sparklers postproccessed over the scene indicate some sort of time warp is taking place as Grant runs back to the house. Jenny, however, is sucked into another dimension by the aliens (I guess. Who knows.) Beth, desperate to help her daughter, plunges into the lights and is whisked away as well.

(In a lovely gaff, the stage crew constructed a cheap facade of the front of the house for the shot which is just a simple wall, so you can easily see the sky just inside the front door of the "house"…oh dear, oh dear.)

Shocked by the latest turn of events, Grant and Ana go back to the stables to talk to Steve. (Don’t worry about trying to keep track of who is where: Characters seem to show up and disappear willy nilly, depending on whether or not the scene requires them.)

When Grant asks Steve if he’s ok, Steve looks confused because as far as he’s concerned, his father just stepped out the door a few seconds ago.

"Son, I left hours ago," Grant somberly informs him, "you know what this is don’t you?…It’s a Time Space Warp!"

"I’m not sure I know exactly what that is," Steve says.

"I don’t suppose anybody really does," Grant replies.

(If nobody knows what it is, then how the hell do you know what it is?!)

"What about Jenny…and Beth?" Ana stammers.

"The vortex took them," says Grant, the family’s newest Space-Time Warp expert.

Grant continues, "I don’t know what place they’re in. I don’t even know what time they’re in. I don’t know what time we’re in."

Wow. That’s deep, Grant.

Instead of waiting to see if Jenny and Beth return from the other dimension, Grant, Steve, and Ana hop on some horses and set out across the desert.

"What are we going to do about Beth and Jenny?" a concerned Steve queries.

"What are we going to do about any of us?" Ana nonchalantly responds. (Um, well, maybe you could wait at the house and see if your daughter and grandchild return. Sheesh.)

After riding around for a while (with no real destination…so why not just wait at the house?), Steve suddenly notices that there are 2 suns in the sky, something that you’d think somebody would notice right away, but there you have it. As if it is suddenly twice as bright, everybody shields their eyes with their hands even though it’s exactly as brightness as it’s always been. Whatever. (You can almost imagine the director saying, "OK, now pretend it’s really bright…and…ACTION!" it’s so lame.)

Realizing that there’s still about 10 minutes to go before even reaching the pathetic 80 minute mark, we are now treated to seemingly endless padding of people riding horses, shots of a double-suns, lights spinning around the house, and on and on and on. And yes, it’s as exciting as it sounds.

Suddenly, and actually everything happens "suddenly" in this film, a light flies out of the sky, turns into a blue pyramid, and Beth steps out.

Oooooookay.

"Beth, you’re all right!" Ana says with relief, "But where’s Jenny?"

"Jenny’s fine," Beth answers in a weird, spaced-out voice, "She’s with Richard."

Yeah, ok, but where the hell is Richard? What’s going on here?

Apparently the aliens have programmed Beth’s mind because she explains in a far-out voice that everything’s going to be fine and that she knows the "way". This all leads to yet another interminable walking-through-the-desert sequence while Jenny spouts on and on about how nice the aliens really are and how they are "warm" and, oh, who cares.

Hey! It’s little Jenny, running down a dirt road to greet them. At this point I’m far, far beyond trying to understand what the hell is happening. Oh, and there’s Richard on top of a nearby hill, so everybody is reunited and the script writers have gotten themselves off the hook.

I guess there was a few bucks left in the special effects budget as we see the happy gang trotting past a green alien pyramid before gazing in wonder out over an alien city that’s popped up out of nowhere. (Maybe it came out of the Space Time Warp.)

"You know something, maybe this was all meant to be," Grant waxes philosophic as they march towards the city and start their "new way of life."

And…cue credits.

Yep, that’s it.

Can I have the last 80 minutes of my life back please?

Dennis Grisbeck (November 2009)

Read more about The Day Time Ended at

Directed by John Carpenter

Story by John W. Campbell Jr. (Screenplay: Bill Lancaster)

Tagline: “Man is The Warmest Place to Hide”

Run Time: 109 min

“We’re not getting out of here alive…but neither is that thing…“
- MacReady

I remember when "The Thing" first came out in the theaters. (Yes, I’m that old.) My father had driven me and my younger brother, David, to see "The Wrath of Kahn" and, in good faith, dropped us off at the multiplex with ticket and candy money.

David and I proceeded to the snack bar and bought the obligatory coke-a-cola, popcorn, and box of "Hot Tamales" (Man! I loved those things!). The purchase of our in-movie meal now complete, we made our way down the hall towards our destination as per our paternal instructions.

As we approached "The Wrath of Kahn", full of naive excitement ("A new Star Trek movie! Cool!"), we saw a rather intriguing poster for the film playing on the next screen: "The Thing." Well, boys being boys, my brother and I skipped "Kahn" and proceeded directly into "The Thing": much to our delight and regret.

I remember being completely terrified during the course of the film. The special effects were, and still are, shocking…and I was just 12-years old! ( Special effects wiz Rob Bottin was only 22-years old when he did the effects for "The Thing".) Needless to say, we had our feet curled up onto our seats, and our eyes hidden behind our sweaty popcorn boxes for the seemingly endless 109 minutes of "The Thing". (Unfortunately we could not plug our ears to spare us from the horrifying screams and howls of the creature, along with the creepy soundtrack.

When the film finally ended, we cast our pulped candy boxes to the floor (hey, what can I say? We were kids!) and walked weakly from the theater and out into the lobby to meet our awaiting father. Noting our blanched faces, our dad suspected mischief was afoot. "How was ‘Kahn’?", he asked, as he scanned the movie posters out of the corner of his eye in an effort to ascertain exactly which film we had seen.

I don’t remember what our answer was to his query, but he immediately saw through our deception and we quickly confessed to our terrifying ordeal.

I still have fond memories of that night, and I sincerely doubt that I will ever see any monster movie that will shock me as much as the first time I snuck into "The Thing" with my kid brother. I believe the only other movie that came close was "Alien" (which I didn’t have to sneak into…my dad took me! Thanks!)

When running a "bad movie" web site, it’s a nice change of pace to review a movie that I actually enjoy. Although it’s not as fun to write, in the sense of cutting remarks and jibes. I write this review as a "tip of the hat" to one of the great monster movies of our time, so any seemingly cynical remark I make is made in the spirit of good fun. Maybe not a "classic" in the sense of "King Kong" and the like, but boy, did this film make on impact on a mischievous kid and his brother!

The Cast:

	R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) The loner helicopter pilot. Forced to take charge when things start falling apart, he survives to the end and awaits an uncertain fate.
	Blair (Wilford Brimley) The first to realize the true extent of the danger if the Thing were to reach the outside world. He takes matters into his own hands and is doomed to a lonely death for his efforts.
	Nauls (T.K. Carter) The camp cook. He makes it to the end but is killed by the Blair-Thing in the generator room tunnels.
	Palmer (David Clennon) Mechanic and lover of "wacky-tobaccy".
	Childs (Keith David) Survives to the end and must face the unknown with MacReady as the darkness presses in.
	Copper (Richard Dysart) Camp doctor. Meets a rather startling demise in an unforgettable scene.
	Norris (Charles Hallahan) Quiet guy with heart problems. His heart failure leads to some truly shocking shots of the Thing.
	Bennings (Peter Maloney) Shot in the leg by the delirious Norwegians in the beginning of the film. Deciding to be in a room alone with the Thing’s burnt remains was his last, and worst, decision he made.
	Clark (Richard Masur) Dog keeper. A quiet guy who brings a knife to a gun-fight.
	Garry (Donald Moffat) Camp leader. After being suspected of being a Thing, he relinquishes control to MacReady. He eventually meets a "hands on" death via Blair-Thing.
	Fuchs (Joel Polis) Winner of the "Worst Decision of the Film" award. What better to do then chase a shadowy figure out into the dark after the lights go out?
	Windows (Thomas Waites) Radioman and winner of the "Drop Your Flame Thrower At the Worst Possible Moment" award.

Spoiler Alert: I take the liberty of talking about future events during the course of this review, thus ruining any chance for suspense and surprise for anybody who hasn’t seen this movie. If you haven’t seen "The Thing", do yourself a favor and watch it before you read this review.

Let me repeat: Spoiler Alert!

The film opens with a shot of good, old, planet Earth as seen from space. Out of the darkness, a flying saucer races by and burst into flames as it pierces the atmosphere. As the ship descends out of sight, the (famous) title credit appears on screen. (This shot was created by taping a garbage bag in front of a smoke-filled aquarium. The bag was lit on fire and the words burned away, creating the creepy beams of lights and jagged letters.)

Antarctica. Winter. 1982.

Icy winds howl over a snow covered plain as a Norwegian helicopter flies low in pursuit of a dog. The dog runs wildly over the snow in search of a hiding place as the helicopter closes in. Without warning, the co-pilot opens fire with a rifle, desperately trying to destroy the helpless animal as it runs across the desolate wilderness.

Meanwhile, "National Science Institute Station 4", an American scientific research base, life goes on as normal: as normal as can be given the harsh conditions of Antarctica. Men play ping-pong, play video games, and generally relax.

One man, MacReady, is alone in his ‘hut’, playing chess against a computer and drinking booze. As the game progresses, MacReady is confident of a victory, until the computer suddenly check mates him. ("Cheating bitch," murmurs MacReady as he dumps his drink into the computer. I still laugh at that scene.)

The dog finally makes it to the American camp and makes its way towards the men who have gathered outside to see what all the commotion is about. The helicopter lands and one Norwegian gets out with a rifle while the other tries to toss a grenade at the dog. Unfortunately, the grenades slips out of his hand and blows him and the helicopter to pieces.

The surviving Norwegian stalks the dog through the camp, shouting incoherently (to those who can’t understand Norwegian) and shooting wildly about. One of the American’s is hit in the leg (Bennings), and the Captain, Garry, has no choice but to kill the Norwegian with a nice pistol shot to the eye.

One advantage to living in Norway is being able to understand Norwegian when it is occasionally used in the movies. So, if you want to know what the Norwegian guy is screaming before Garry blows him away:

"Get away! It’s not a dog…it’s some sort of thing! It’s imitating that dog! It’s not real! Get away you idiots!"

One small side note here. I never could understand how a man in helicopter with an assault rifle could not manage to shoot a dog from the air; especially when the dog has to trudge it’s way through deep snow. I mean, they could have just hovered 5 feet over the dog and blown it away. I read the book (based on the screenplay, not the short story) and it is mentioned that the two Norwegians are in a state of shock after what being attacked by the thing, which I can accept as plausible enough.

As the Americans rush to extinguish the flaming helicopter wreck, the dog-keeper, Clark, takes the dog inside the camp. (bum! bum! bum!)

The men take the dead Norwegian inside where an autopsy is later performed. Efforts to report this by radio are met by static. (Winter storms, you know.) As the men struggle to come up with an explanation for the violence, Dr. Copper declares that he wants to fly to the Norwegian camp. Garry hesitates at given him permission when he sees the worsening weather, but eventually complies when Copper suggests that the seemingly psychotic Norwegians might have wounded some of their own men.

While MacReady and Copper fly to the Norwegian camp, life continues as "normal", given the day’s events. Nauls prepares dinner while the others relax in their rooms. At this point, the dog (Ok, let’s not pretend any more, the dog is, of course, the Thing. Sorry for the spoiler, but if you didn’t know that by now…) makes its way quietly down a hallway, peering into the various rooms. Suddenly, the Thing halts in front of an open doorway and stares at the occupant. In a great shot, we see only a shadow on the wall as the Thing enters the room and takes over its first victim.

I tried to figure out whose room this was at one time, and came to the conclusion it must have been Norris’s room (the guy whose chest bursts open later after he has a heart attack.) Actually, it could be Palmer, because he’s the only other guy that is eventually revealed to be the Thing incognito. (Except for Blair, and I always felt that he was taken while locked in the tool shed after destroying the radios.)

Upon reaching the Norwegian camp, MacReady and Copper find the place in a state of total destruction: Buildings blown to pieces and on fire, vehicles reduced to burning husks, walls and doors blown out, and so on. (In fact, the camp used in this sequence is actually the American camp after it was blown up in the final scenes of the movie.)

Inside the base, Copper and MacReady make their way through the destruction looking for survivors. Upon entering one room, Copper looks down and sees a trail of frozen blood leading to a lifeless figure sitting in a chair. For reasons unknown (to them at least, heh, heh!), the Norwegian had slit his wrists and throat with a straight razor. Copper succinctly sums up the mood by rhetorically asking, "My God, what the hell happened here?"

MacReady and Copper push on in their quest for any type of clue. (They also walk through a demolished laboratory, complete with a set of test tubes filled with colored fluids…no sci-fi movie would be complete without those!) Copper pokes around and finds a bunch of papers and some video tapes that he plans on taking back to the American base. MacReady, worried about the weather and growing darkness, checks out the last rooms.

In the middle of what appears to be a large store room is a huge chunk of ice with a large hole melted out of the middle of it. What it originally contained is unclear, but whatever it was, the Norwegiansthawed it out and paid the price. (To put it mildly.) Puzzled by their findings, yet running out of daylight, Copper and MacReady are forced to return back home. On the way back to the helicopter they come across a pile of smoldering debris. Something in the ashes catches MacReady’s attention and they head over to look at what appears to be a charred body surrounded by empty gasoline cans. ("Whatever it is, they burned it up in a hurry," remarks MacReady.) Realizing that this finding might be a clue of some sort, MacReady and Copper find a shovel, dig up the remains, and take it back to camp.

I often thought that MacReady was partially responsible for the Americans’s demise because he brought back these remains, and thus introduced a second Thing into the American camp. However, the only death due to ‘not-dead-remains’ is Bennings, who is taken over by the incompletely burned dog-thing-remains. These remains (from the Norwegian camp) were certainly burned ‘enough’ by the Norwegians because they were aware of what they were dealing with, as opposed to the Americans who extinguished the burning dog-Thing too early.

Back at the American camp, MacReady and Copper land as evening sets. The others help unload the bizarre remains and take it inside for Dr. Blair to examine. (All of this action is observed by the dog-Thing…quite creepy, actually)

In the lab, the remains are revealed to the others, who gag and choke at the horrible sight and smell. (The actors who cough and choke in the scene are actually coughing and choking due to the noxious smoke which rises from the burnt ‘body’ during filming.) While the others stare in stunned silence, Copper orders Blair to start an autopsy. There is a nice shot of MacReady who looks away from the body in contemplation. You can plainly see that he realizes something is just not quite right with all this. (The dog-Thing, silently standing in the medical lab doorway, stares at the corpse just as intently as the men…)

Later that evening, Blair performs an autopsy in a nice gross-out scene. He professionally takes out the organs from the corpse while coldly reciting how perfectly normal everything appears to be. (Wilford Brimley, who plays Blair, was an avid hunter who had no problems handling the organs, even going so far as to give them an occasionally ‘juicy squeeze’ for extra effect.) "It seems to be normal," Blair states as the camera pans over the distorted, horrific head of the monster, which is needless to say, far, far, from anything ‘normal’.

As night falls, the men a watching TV, playing cards, and going about their routines. As Bennings sits and plays poker, dog-Thing bumps into his injured leg. Bennings, startled by the dog, orders Clark "…to put this mutt with the others where it belongs." Clark stonily complies and walks the dog to the kennel. The dog-Thing enters the cage where the other dogs lay on the hay sleeping or staring at the new comer. With everything appearing to be in order, Clark turns off the light and returns to the game room.

The next sequence is forever burned into my memory. The first scenes of the ‘Thing’, and what it is capable of, came as quite a shock to my tender eyes back in ’82. Being nearly paralyzed with horror and awe, I wasn’t even capable of bringing my pop-corn box in front of my eyes during the dog kennel scene. (After this scene, my pop-corn box was standing at the ready for the remainder of the film.)

Anyway, dog-Thing begins to gasp and growl while the other dogs start going nuts. Suddenly, and boy do I mean suddenly, dog-Thing’s head sort of, well, peels open, while arachnidan legs burst from the dog’s body. (I can’t really refer to it as a ‘dog’ any more since it has now lost all resemblance to anything of this Earth.)

MacReady hears the commotion and sets off the fire alarm. Word spreads that something is attacking the dogs in the kennel, and the men rush to investigate. To everyone’s surprise, MacReady tells somebody to bring a flame-thrower.

When the men finally shine their flashlights into the kennel, the scene resembles an image from hell. Dead and dying dogs lie helplessly entangled in tentacles and slime. One terrified dog tears desperately at the cage, trying to flee the invader. Others, seemingly half dissolved, lie stricken on the ground, barely recognizable as dogs. (I wish I could have gotten some decent screen shots, but the scene is very dark.)

MacReady is the first to act and opens fire with a shotgun, mercifully blowing away the dying dogs. The Thing attempts to escape by sprouting 2 massive arms and smashing a hole in the ceiling. As it pulls itself up, Childs steps up with the flamethrower, and the Thing shoots forth what looks like a mouth on the end of a tentacle, ringed in teeth. At the last moment, Childs fires the flamethrower and the Thing is engulfed in flame. The men wait a few seconds (but not enough…bum! bum! bum!) and rush into the kennel to extinguish the fire.

The smoldering remains are taken into the medical lab where Blair performs an ‘autopsy’ while the others watch with bated breath. (Another great ‘gross-out’ scene!)

Later that day, the men gather around Blair while he explains his findings. To everyone’s growing amazement (and concern!), they discover that this ‘thing’ has the ability to duplicate, perfectly, any living organism it comes in contact with. Everybody stares in silence, each certainly with the same thought: if it could imitate dogs, then it could imitate humans.

Grasping for clues, MacReady and the others watch the video tapes that were brought back from the destroyed Norwegian camp. After hours of boring footage, they suddenly see the Norwegians blowing a huge hole in the ice, and uncovering something buried beneath. MacReady finds the location on a map and flies out to investigate.

Upon arrival they discover what it was that was in fact buried in the ice: a gigantic flying saucer. I mean, gigantic. Norris and MacReady repel down the sides of the excavation site and take a closer look. MacReady looks around and asks Norris how long he thinks it’s been buried, to which Norris replies that the ice it’s buried in is at least 100,000 years old. (Damn!) Returning to the helicopter, they discover a hole cut into the ice. MacReady puts 2 and 2 together and deduces that this must be the spot that the Norwegians cut out whatever it was they took back to their camp. (Bad idea. Really, really, bad idea.)

Back at the American camp, the men are having a brain storming session. Nobody can seem to believe the facts, or at least they don’t want to believe. As the discussion goes round and round, Nauls come skating in from the kitchen with a ripped up pair of long-johns. Pissed that somebody would toss their "dirty drawers" in the kitchen garbage, he tosses them on a pinball machine and skates back to finish cooking. At the time, nobody realizes that this implies somebody has been taken over by the Thing.

We next see Blair in his office watching a computer simulation of some cells. (The graphics reminds me a lot of the old ‘Asteroids’ video game.)The computer program reveals the way in which cells from the Thing absorb, then imitate the dog cells. (I love the computer graphics…made just over 20 years ago…look how far we’ve come! Brings back a lot of Atari 2600 memories…ok, never mind, back to the movie…)

The computer predicts that there is a 75% chance that one or more team members is already infected. (A convenient plot device to be able to just ‘calculate’ that, but since I like this movie so much, I’ll overlook it…) Blair asks the computer to calculate how long it would take for the entire world to be infected if the creature made it to the mainland…27,000 hours…(a little over 3 years, there, I saved you the trouble of calculating it.)

Blair shakes his head in resignation, takes a pistol out from his desk drawer…a man who realizes what must be done.

Meanwhile, the guys are moving the burnt dog remains into the lab. (Or is it the remains from the Norwegian camp? Hard to say. But since the remains aren’t dead yet, and in fact attack and absorb Bennings, I can only assume it was the dog remains because the Norwegians must have surely burned up the ‘melted-face’ remains enough to kill them. NOTES FROM THE FUTURE: Widows pulls back the blanket to reveal the burned ‘melted-face’ remains…my bag. Then where are the dog remains?)

The whole ‘move the remains into the storeroom’ seems like a strange idea in the first place. Granted, it’s necessary to move the plot along, but I don’t think it is too smart…first, the room is warm, so wouldn’t they start to stink? Second, they all know that the ‘Thing’ is capable of attacking, transforming, absorbing, and imitating other life forms…would you really want that in a room in the same building you’re living in? I would have dug a nice deep ice hole and dumped the whole damned mess into the bottom, soaked it with a thousand liters of gasoline and had a nice bonfire. I mean, really, take a look at that ‘thing’…good grief! I wouldn’t want to be within a hundred miles of that!

But I like this movie, so I’m not going to nit-pick.

While MacReady clears his stuff out of the storage room, Fuchs approaches him and whispers that he wants to talk to him in private. MacReady tries to blow him off, but Fuchs insists. With a "This-Better-Be-Freakin-Good" look, MacReady and Fuchs head out to one of the snow plows to have a chat.

Bennings and Windows, the last 2 in the storage room, finish cleaning up. Windows turns and leaves, while Bennings gets some of his last stuff out. In a great shot, we see the blanket covering the remains slowly rise and fall while the 2 guys have their backs turned. Then when Windows leaves the room, we see a slimy tentacle start oozing its way out from under the blanket. So I must say: Hello?!!! Did you ever hear of the buddy system? Hello?!

In the snowplow, Fuchs confides to MacReady that Blair has locked himself in his room and won’t come out. Trying to get to the bottom of Blair’s odd behavior, Fuchs has taken one of his notebooks and reads out loud for MacReady’s edification:

"It could have imitated a million life forms on a million planets. It could change into any one of them at any time. Now it wants life forms on Earth…It needs to be alone and in close proximity with the life form to be absorbed. The chameleon strikes in the dark. I can decree that there is still cellular activity in these burned remains. They’re not dead yet…"

Oh crap.

Windows returns to the storage room to lock up and sees that Benning’s is covered in slime and tentacles…He (understandably) freaks and runs outside to fetch MacReady from the snowplow. When they get back to the storage room, Bennings is gone. Looking out the window, they see the shadowy form of Benning’s staggering away into the darkness.

Alarm sounded, the men run outside and surround the half-way imitated Bennings. Bennings-thing raises up two mutated, slimy, ‘hands’, almost in supplication, then gives an un-Earthly howl. (That howl still gives me the creeps!) MacReady kicks over a (convenient) barrel of gas and ignites Bennings-thing with a flare. Bye-bye Bennings.

This time the guys play it safe and gather up all Benning’s belongings along with Bennings-thing’s burnt carcass. MacReady ignites the whole mess with a flame-thrower while everybody stands around staring mutely into the flames. The silence is broken when somebody asks aloud: "Where is Blair?" (Doh!)

Meanwhile, Blair has been busy. Realizing that the only way to save the world is to destroy any way for the Thing to reach the mainland, Blair has destroyed the helicopters and all the other vehicles in the camp. He’s also destroyed all the radios and has barricaded himself in the communication room. Armed with a pistol and an axe (Man, there are a lot of axes in this camp!), Blair holds the others at bay while he hacks up the radios and computers, effectively cutting off the camp from the rest of the world. Alas, Blair finally uses up all of his pistol ammunition (firing down the hall at the other guys). The others charge into the room and overpower the old doctor. (We also see, to Clark’s horror, that Blair’s hacked up the rest of the sled dogs with an axe…)

Obviously a danger to the rest of the men, Blair is locked up in a tool shed outside the main camp. He’s given a bottle of booze and a sedative (I guess) to help him pass the time. Just as MacReady leaves the shed, Blair warns him to watch Clark, "and watch him close."

Good point. Earlier in the film Clark admitted to being alone with the dog-Thing for an hour or so, but later when he’s given the blood test (posthumously), he’s found to be human. So why didn’t the dog-Thing take him over?

Another thing: I always thought it was rather cruel to lock Blair up all by himself when they are pretty sure there is a ‘thing’ amongst them. Blair is defenseless and isolated from the rest of the men, and in the end, he is of course taken by the Thing. I shudder to think what it must have been like to be alone in the shed and hear the Thing open the door…coming to get him.

After Blair is secured, the remaining men discuss what course of action to take. Garry suggests holing up until spring when a rescue party will come to relieve them. MacReady isn’t to keen on that because he’s pretty damn sure that somebody is infected, and waiting would be equivalent to suicide. No, he asks Doc Copper if there could be some sort of blood test they could perform. Copper suggests a "blood serum" test, so they head back inside to get started.

When they get to the med lab they discover that the blood vault has been opened and all the blood destroyed. Fingers start pointing and tempers flare as Copper and Garry (they have they only key to the blood storage vault) begin shouting and accusing each other of sabotage.

This scene has always bugged me because, ok, who broke in and ruined the blood? Copper? No, he’s killed later by a Thing and is eventually proven human. Garry too is proven human later in the film. So who did this? This question is never answered and is never brought up again in the film.

As the bickering continues, Windows freaks out and flees from the room. At the end of a hallway, he smashes open a weapons case and pulls out a shotgun. Before he can load it, Garry runs up, pulls out his pistol, and orders him to drop the gun. Windows drops the gun and falls to the floor in exhaustion.

Garry turns around and swears that he had nothing to do with the destruction of the blood. Realizing that he’s a prime suspect in the deed, he then puts down his pistol and relinquishes his command. Garry suggests that Norris take over, but Norris demurs by saying he just doesn’t feel up to it. Childs goes for the gun but Clark steps in the way and pulls his knife on him. Once again, MacReady defuses the situation and takes charge by picking up the pistol, thus becoming the de facto leader of the remaining men.

Now, why did Norris not want to be leader? He is at this point infected…so wouldn’t it be a perfect opportunity for the Thing to overcome the last of the humans? Maybe Norris’s refusal to take charge indicates that a person might now always know they are in fact infected. (Now that’s a horrifying thought!)

Later that night, the men stand outside and burn the blood bags and anything else that the Thing might have touched in the lab. At this point, MacReady makes an interesting speech:

"I know I’m human. And if you were all these ‘things’ then you’d just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This ‘thing’ doesn’t want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It will fight if it has to, but it’s venerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies. Nobody left to kill it. And then it’s won. There’s a storm hitting us in six hours. We’re going to find out who’s who."

Man, I love that line: "We’re going to find out who’s who." Taking care of business.

After the speech, MacReady orders that the most likely infected, i.e., Garry, Copper and Clark (ironically, all of which are human) are to be tied up and sedated. Meanwhile, Fuchs is studying Blair’s notebooks and trying to come up with a new test. Busy working at his desk, the lights suddenly dim and a figure rushes by in the darkness. Fuchs puts on his jacket and follows the shape outside. Lighting a flare, Fuchs walks around a bit and stumbles upon a pair of ripped up clothes. The clothes are labeled "R. J. MacReady". bum-bum-bum!

Time out. OK. Who in their right mind would go outside alone after seeing a figure rush by them in the dark. I mean…HELLO?!! Fuchs! Are you out of your mind?!! (He pays a high price for his curiousity…) Well, I guess they had to whittle the characters off one by one, but still, even as a kid I found Fuchs’s actions a little unrealistic given the circumstances.

Once Fuchs is discovered missing, MacReady and some of the guys go outside to look for him. (With rather dim hopes of finding him, I suspect.) MacReady first heads up to the tool shed to check on Blair. The old man is sitting inside eating some canned food (with a hangman’s noose dangling from the ceiling. An odd, yet effective, touch.)

Blair seems desperate to get back inside with the other guys. OK, yes, I understand that he doesn’t want to be out there alone anymore, but he is being really, really, creepy while trying to convince MacReady to let him back in. He says things like "I’m ok now. I won’t harm anybody. I promise." And so on. I think it’s pretty obvious he’s either lost his marbles or his become a ‘Thing’; or both. Needless to say, MacReady turns and leaves Blair locked in the shed.

MacReady and the others continue looking for Fuchs and eventually stumble upon his charred remains. The men can’t figure out why the Thing would have burned Fuchs, to which MacReady suggests that maybe Fuchs burned himself before the Thing could get to him.

Fuchs’s death has also always bothered me. How did he burn to death? If I remember correctly from the book, Fuchs was attacked by the Thing and accidentally set himself on fire with the flare. Fair enough, but the remains shown in the movie are completely charred. Maybe I’m being nit-picky here, but I always felt they took a cheap short cut by essentially discarding Fuchs’s character without a believable explanation. Would it have been so hard to added a little more information? OK, fine. A lot of weird things are happening, and not everything can be explained. But still, if you are going to go to the trouble to present Fuchs’s burned remains, then a more plausible explanation should also be given.

I still love this movie. And yes, I know I’m being nit-picky. It’s part of the job.

Anyway, MacReady tells Windows to back inside and inform the others that they’ve found Fuchs. When Nauls wonders why they aren’t going in also, MacReady points out that the lights are on in his shack…and he had turned them off before he left the day before.

Back inside, 45 minutes have past and MacReady and Nauls still haven’t returned from the shack. Childs assumes the worst and orders the outside doors to be nailed shut. Norris happens to look out a window and sees a figure approaching in the darkness. He shouts for the others and then doubles over in pain, clutching at his chest.

Time out. Norris’s chest pains strengthen my theory that in some cases the infected person might not even know they are infected. Or, if the Thing duplicates somebody, does it also duplicate any weaknesses that they person has? The Thing has copied Norris, so has it also duplicated Norris’s heart condition? It would appear so. Why else would he have chest pains?

OK. The others rush to Norris and they open the door. In tumbles an exhausted, half frozen Nauls. He explains that he fled from MacReady when he found his torn up clothes hidden in his shack. More tempers flare and a fight breaks out. Nobody sees the door handle turning, as somebody on the other side is trying to get in. While they argue over whether or not to let MacReady in (thinking that he’s a Thing), the sound of breaking glass comes from down the hallway.

Childs and the others rush down the hall. Finding the door locked, Childs hacks it down with an axe, only to find MacReady nearly frozen to death. MacReady is not to be pushed around and has a bundle of dynamite in one hand and a flare in the other. Quickly realizing that if they torch MacReady then they’re all going to go ‘boom’, Childs and the others lay down the flame throwers and back away.

Suddenly Norris and Nauls jump MacReady from behind (I never knew how they got behind him when there is only one door into the room). Reacting quickly, MacReady breaks free but all the excitement causes Norris to have a heart attack.

Copper rushes Norris to the med lab and tries to revive him with CPR, but to no avail. While Norris is prepped for the heart paddles, MacReady keeps the others at bay with a flame thrower and his dynamite. Clark, however, has positioned himself behind Nauls and manages to sneak a scalpel into his hand.

In a truly shocking scene, Copper calls for the heart paddles and gives a jolt. Nothing.He charges the paddles again and this time Norris’s entire chest rips open revealing a gigantic mouth rimmed with enormous teeth. Copper’s arms plunge into the maw and are promptly bitter off at the elbows. (Copper was played by another actor who had, in fact, lost both arms at the elbows.)

Copper screams and falls to the floor. The others back away (no kidding!) and see a huge spider like Norris-Thing pop out of his chest and hang from the ceiling. The Thing screams and roars as the others can only look on, paralyzed in horror and shock.

MacReady torches the Thing with the flame thrower, but nobody notices that Norris’s head has, well, decided to remove itself from the body. The neck stretches and stretches until it rips and the head slides to the floor. It looks around with inhuman eyes and shoots forth a long red tentacle from its mouth, fastening it to a nearby chair.

As the others begin to extinguish the fire, the head reels itself over to the chair and hides under the desk where it then sprouts 8 spider-like legs and a pair of eye-stalks. Seeing that the coast is clear, the head scurries across the floor and makes its way towards the hall. Fortunately, Palmer spots the ‘thing’ and delivers my favorite line of the film. (See the movie if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)

Seeing Norris’s head tear itself away from the body and try to escape gives MacReady an idea. He figures that every part of the ‘Thing’ is like a separate entity: each part has a will to live all its own. MacReady decides to tie everybody up and take a blood sample from each person. Sticking a hot wire into the blood should cause the blood to try and escape…if his theory is correct. The others are, to say the least, skeptical, but go along with it because MacReady is armed with a flame thrower and icily states that he will kill anybody who doesn’t submit to the test. Childs calls his bluff and refuses to be tied up, but backs down when MacReady puts a cocked pistol to his face. At this time, Clark rushes MacReady with the pilfered scalpel but MacReady is too fast a puts a bullet into the middle of Clark’s forehead.

The test proceeds and even the dead bodies are tied down. Blood is drawn from everybody by slicing open their thumbs with a scalpel. (A very effective gross-out ploy.) Oddly, they all use the same scalpel, which would seem a rather easy way to introduce infected blood into a persons blood stream. In fact, the more I think about it, this doesn’t make any sense at all. Why on Earth wouldn’t they use a separate, sterile, scalpel for each person?

As MacReady starts testing the blood, the first few samples give no reaction. The test seems like a failure, and he starts to lose confidence in its validity until he sticks the hot wire into Palmer’s blood. The blood screams (!) and jumps out of the dish, onto the floor, and scurries under a desk!

Success!

Palmer-thing begins to vibrate and mutate. It’s hard to find the correct word for it, but let’s just say that his head swells up, rips in half, and turns into a big set of mouth pieces. MacReady tries to torch it but his flame thrower malfunctions (!). Windows, the only other with a flame thrower steps up to torch the monster but is grabbed by a tentacle, has his head chomped a few times and is tossed into a corner to die.

MacReady takes this opportunity to grab Windows’s flame thrower and blasts the monster. Engulfed in flames, the Thing bursts through the wall and stumbles outside, eventually collapsing on the ground. MacReady tosses a stick of dynamite onto it and *boom*! The Thing is blown to smithereens.

Screams from inside bring MacReady running back. Windows, supposedly dead in the corner, is beginning to change into a Thing, but is quickly set on fire and killed.

Having proven that the test certainly does work, the remaining members are tested and found to be human. With only MacReady, Nauls, Childs, and Garry remaining, they head out to give the test to Blair. Childs is left behind with a flame thrower with the instructions that if Blair returns alone…"burn him."

Nauls, Garry, and MacReady find that the tool shed door is open and Blair is nowhere to be found. While the poke around a bit, they find some loose floorboards. The boards are removed to reveal a tunnel in the ice. Garry, in a ‘Are-You-Out-Of-Your-Freakin’-Mind’ moment, lowers himself into the tunnel. Nauls and MacReady follow Garry and discover that Blair has been constructing a mini-saucer under the tool shed. (Damn!)

As MacReady and the others prepare to blow up the saucer, Nauls sees Childs leaving his guard post and stumbling away into the stormy night. Suddenly the lights go out, plunging the camp into complete darkness, except for the eerie blue emergency lights that mark the paths between the various buildings. MacReady suggests that the Thing made its way back inside and has disabled the generator in an effort to simply freeze itself until next spring when a relief party would discover it.

It suddenly dawns on the 3 men that they aren’t going to make it out alive. With no power, they have no heat, and thus will die of exposure in a few hours time. They also realize that they have to make every effort to kill the Thing before they die, and decide to blow up the camp building by building until they can flush it out and kill it, even if this means they will be sealing their own fates in the process.

They begin by blowing the ship and the tool shed to bits, and then move on through the camp methodically tossing molotov cocktails and dynamite into each room. The finally reach the stairs which lead down under the camp and into the generator room.

Lit only by the reddish-glow of the handheld flares, MacReady, Nauls, and Garry make their way down the steps and into the darkness below. As MacReady readies the detonator, Garry and Nauls head off down the corridors placing bundles of dynamite along the way, preparing to bring down the entire camp in one massive explosion. There is a great line here when Garry calls out to MacReady "The generator’s gone." MacReady assumes he means it’s broken and asks him if it can be fixed. Garry replies, "It’s gone, MacReady…"

I really, really, didn’t like the fact that the guys split up to set their dynamite bundles in the various corridors. I mean, DUH! I know that that everybody has to die except for MacReady, but the fact that these guys would actually dare to separate is a little hard to swallow.

OK, fine. Garry’s flashlight goes out and Blair hops out of the darkness and sticks his hand into Garry’s face. No, I don’t mean ‘pokes’ him in the face with his hand, I mean Blair sticks his hand into Garry’s face. Garry is dragged away by a thick meaty sinew connecting his head with Blair’s arm. Yummy.

Nauls hears something suspicious and heads off to investigate. Seeing that the guys don’t have their flame throwers anymore (where did the flame throwers go?), I really don’t see how anybody in their right mind would do what Nauls is doing. Then again, maybe they aren’t in their right minds.

Well, as I said, Nauls walks off to investigate and is never seen again. Finished connecting the detonator, MacReady calls out to the other guys to see if they are finished laying their dynamite in place.

Nobody responds.

Hmmm.

MacReady pulls up the plunger handle and peers down the corridor. The only sound is the dripping of water and the crunching of the snow as he slowly takes a few steps. MacReady lights a stick of dynamite and suddenly something massive charges at MacReady from under the floor. A mass of thick tentacles bursts forth and pulls the detonator down into the hole.

Without warning, a gigantic creature explodes upward from the frozen floor. At the top of the stalk-like body is a massive mouth and flailing claws. A bizarre dog-like head pops out of the side and bites madly at the air; struggling to break free and get at MacReady. (I had to increase the brightness on the screen shot to the left. If you look at the top, you can see Blair’s face has been melded into the overall creature.)

MacReady manages to keep his wits about him and jumps down a side shaft. He delivers another funny one-liner (see the movie…) and tosses the lit stick of dynamite at the foot of the creature. The monster sees the dynamite, lets out shriek, and is blown to high Heaven. The explosion sets off the other bundles of dynamite and the entire camp is leveled to the ground.

We cut to see an exhausted and near frozen MacReady stumbling through the wreckage with a bottle of booze. MacReady collapses in the snow just as Childs appears out of the darkness armed with a flame thrower. He asks if MacReady killed the creature and MacReady responds by asking Childs why he left his post. (Good question.) Childs says that he though he saw Blair, went out after him, and got lost in the storm. (Fair enough.)

Childs plops down in the snow across from MacReady as the flames begin to die and the cold presses in. Childs tries to reassure MacReady that he’s human, but MacReady wryly notes that if either one of them is a Thing, there’s not much the other could do about it at this point. Childs grins and nods weakly in tacit agreement. After a pause, Childs asks, "What do we do?"

MacReady gazes at him with glassy eyes, "Why don’t we just wait here a while…and see what happens…"

Fade to black.

Dennis Grisbeck (June 2005)

Read more about The Thing at

Written and Directed by Sam Raimi

Tagline: "Can They Be Stopped?"

Run Time: 85 min

“I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of… bodily dismemberment.”
- Voice on tape

Sam Raimi’s ground-breaking horror film, The Evil Dead stands as a classic gore-fest film that every horror fan is obliged to see at least once. Made nearly 25 years ago, the film still shocks and repulses due to the simplicity found in its delivery: Five kids go to spend a weekend at a cabin and unwittingly unleash an evil force that destroys them all. Although the plot itself has been employed countless times since, Sam Raimi’s ingenious direction, Bruce Campbell’s unforgettable performance as ‘Ash’, and the "Evil’s" blood-chilling brutality makes The Evil Dead stand head and shoulders above the other ‘evil spirit’ films of the same ilk.

	Ash (Bruce Campbell) Bruce has of course starred in all 3 "Evil Dead" films, and in my opinion just gets better and better with age. He has appeared in nearly 70 films spanning all the way back to 1975, the majority being sci-fi and horror, along with numerous cameo’s in larger Hollywood productions. Bruce has written an autobiography entitled "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor".
	Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) Cheryl takes quite a beating through the film…but keeps coming back for my. Actress Ellen Sandweiss disappeared from the cinema after ‘The Evil Dead’, but made a brief reappearance in the 2004 film Satan’s Playground.
	Scotty (Richard DeManincor) Poor Scotty almost gets away, but is mortally wooded by the forest demons. He eventually dissolves into a mucky mass of snakes, roaches, and hellish goo.
	Linda (Betsy Baker) Ash’s girlfriend in the film, Linda eventually gets her head whacked off with a shovel after being possessed.
	Shelly (Theresa Tilly) Poor Shelly. The Evil Forces took her away while getting ready for bed. Eventually beaten down and hacked to pieces with an axe.

The film opens with a POV shot of…well…the Evil Force that haunts the forest. As the Evil glides over a murky swamp towards an isolated cabin, we hear hellish laughter combined with moans and groans of the undead.

Cut to a car driving through the woods. Five youths, (two boyfriend-girlfriend pairs: Ash and Linda, Scotty and Shelly, and one girl going ‘solo’, Ash’s sister Cheryl) are making their way through the woods to the cabin that they have rented. Things go fairly well, at least until the Evil somehow tracks down their car and causes the steering to "lock up" just as a speeding truck is approaching in the opposite lane. (Standard horror stuff here, I bet Raimi had a laugh at that cliche. Oh yeah, by the way, they swerve Just In Time and avoid the oncoming truck.)

Ah yes, turning off the main road the kids come across Ye Olde "Dangerous Bridge" sign…warning bells should be sounding in everybody’s head by now. That’s the beauty of this film: the cliches that the viewer has seen over and over again crop up in The Evil Dead, but Raimi presents them with a wink-of-the-eye, as if you can hear him chuckling from behind the camera. However the film isn’t completely tongue-in-cheek, if it were then The Evil Dead would be a spoof. Raimi seasons the film with cliches, but the ‘meat and bones’ of the movie is still horror and extreme gore. In fact the film was nearly given an "X" rating because of the copious amounts of blood and violence.

The car makes it over the bridge, barely, and the kids continue driving along a truly isolated road in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. Now, I’m no ‘mountain man’, but I’ve done my share of hiking and camping, and let me tell you, this cabin is situated in BFE. (If you don’t know what ‘BFE’ stands for then ask your friends.)

As they pull up to the cabin, they notice a porch swing swaying back and forth…but there is no wind. Just as Scotty reaches the front door, the swing abruptly stops swinging. (Yuch!) Anyway, Scotty opens the door and peers inside. The interior of the cabin is pitch black, foggy (?), and has an evil looking deer’s head mounted on the wall. (Those damned stuffed heads always creep me out whenever I see one mounted on somebody’s wall…it’s just damn macabre!)

As the sun sets, Ash and the others sit inside the cabin and relax. Cheryl is free-hand sketching a clock on the wall, when all of a sudden the pendulum stops swinging. A wind blows open the curtains of the room and a ghostly voice commands, "Join us!" (OK, I would be outta there! Sorry. I’m no hero.) Cheryl’s hand suddenly turns ghostly white and begins drawing of its own accord. Terrified, Cheryl can only watch as her hand rips the paper with the pencil as it draws a demonic face on one of the sheets of paper. Regaining control of her hand, Cheryl watches in horror as the trapdoor to the cellar, located in the floor of the room, starts banging up and down…(Once again…I’m outta there!)

Cut to everybody having dinner. Ash raises his glass of strawberry margarita and proposes a toast. Once again, the pesky cellar door flies open and everybody rushes into the living room to see what the commotion is. The kids agree that it’s probably "just some animal". (Uh, huh.) Understandably, nobody wants to go down and see what it is, so Scott, armed with a flashlight, volunteers to go down and investigate.

After a few minutes, Ash calls to Scotty, but there is no answer. Reluctantly, Ash takes a lantern and descends the dark stairwell into the cellar.

Needless to say, the cellar is dark, wet, and creepy as hell. (Kudos to the guys that lit the scene…brilliant!) Ash calls out again…still no answer. CRASH! A loud noise from behind a closed door…Ash approaches and turns the knob. The root cellar. Ash takes a couple of tentative steps inside the room when suddenly Scotty jumps out of the shadows and shouts, "Boo!" (I would have punched him in the face for that stunt!) Scotty cackles at his oh-so-funny prank before showing Ash what he has found in a corner of the room, namely a desk with a tape recorder, a shotgun, and a strangely bound book….mwu-ha-ha-ha!

Ash browses through a few pages of the grotesque book…pages filled with obscure symbols and drawings of demons, eyeballs, dragons, and other creepy topics.

Even better, Scotty finds a two-foot long dagger whose hilt is a bizarre skull-like carving.

Really now…what if you found this stuff in some rundown cabin in the middle of NOWHERE? I think you know my answer by now.

Well, Ash and Scotty decide to "take this stuff upstairs" (Doh!), thus sealing their fate. (Ash finishes by browsing to a page in the book showing the same demon that Cheryl’s possessed hand drew earlier that evening. (I always get a chuckle out of this scene. I mean, the book and the dagger are just so obviously Not Something To Mess With, yet they take them upstairs to show the girls and "check them out". Classic!)

Back upstairs Ash plays the tape while everybody is gathered around:

"It has been a number of years since I began excavating the ruins of Kandar with a number of my colleagues. Now my wife and I have retreated to a small cabin in the solitude of these mountains. Here I continued my research undisturbed by the myriad distractions of modern civilization and far from the groves of academe."

I believe I have made a significant find in the Kandarian ruins: a volume of ancient Sumarian burial practices and funerary incantations. It is entitled, ‘Naturan Demontos’, roughly translated ‘Book of the Dead’. The book is bound in human flesh and inked in human blood."

<Thunder grows louder…storm approaches…narration continues…>

It deals with demons…demon resurrection, and those forces which roam the forest and dark bowers of man’s domain. The first few pages warn that these enduring creatures may lie dormant but are never truly dead. They may be recalled to active life through the incantations presented in this book."

<Man, talk about a buzz kill…turn this crap off and have some more margaritas! Sheesh!>

"It is through recitation of these passages that the demons are given license to possess the living…"

At this point, Cheryl is completely wigged out and turns of the recorder. Scotty calls her a wimp, fast forwards the tape, and plays a little bit more of the recording. Unfortunately, Scotty stopped the recording during one of the aforementioned "incantation rituals"…when it rains, it pours, eh?

As expected, demonic forces begin to rise from the forest floor, hungry for the feast.

As the recitation playing on the tape recorder reaches its climax, a tree branch smashes through the front window and puts an end to that little party, to put it mildly.

Later that evening, Ash gives his girlfriend, Linda, a locket on a silver chain. Unbeknownst to them, an Evil Force is watching from outside the cabin. We see the Evil’s POV as it floats about outside in the darkness, moving from window to window, seeking a victim.

In another classic horror movie cliche, Cheryl, the only one sleeping alone, hears voices outside her window. What does she do? She puts on her bathrobe and goes out into the forest to investigate! (Of course, horror movies rely on people doing unbelievable things in order to maintain a steady flow of victims.)

We next see a scene which was actually edited out of the film in several countries. Cheryl is suddenly attacked by vines and weeds, which wrap her up and bind her to the forest floor. She is then raped by the vines before she manages to pull herself free from the plants. If you’ve never seen this film, the above description might sound somewhat absurd, the scene is still creepy and quite revolting.

Cheryl is chased through the woods by the Evil Force which Just Barely Misses Her as she runs back to the cabin. Ash opens the door upon hearing her screams and she collapses into the living room, weeping hysterically. Cheryl insists on being driven back to town, and often much arguing, Ash agrees to take her.

Cheryl’s dreams of escape are quickly stymied upon reaching the dilapidated bridge. As you might have guessed, The Only Bridge Back To Town is completely and utterly destroyed. The massive steel beams are actually curled back as if exploded upwards from below.

Cheryl freaks, but Ash has no option back to take her back to the cabin. Returned to the cabin, Cheryl sits zombie-like by a window, staring out into the darkness while Ash puts in an earphone and continues listening to the tape.

"I know now that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of… bodily dismemberment." (A theory that will be put into practice later in the film!…)

While Ash listens to the tape, Linda and Shelly pass the time by trying to guess cards, that is, Shelly holds up a card from the deck and Linda tries to ‘telepathically’ guess what it is. She misses card after card after card, but Cheryl, with her back turned and staring out a window, begins naming the cards in a soft voice. Her voice grows louder and takes on a strange tone, until she quickly turns around and reveals that she has been possessed.

As she floats a few feet off the ground, the demons inside Cheryl boast that the others will all die…"Like all those before you…one by one…we will take you!" With a loud groan, the demon collapses to the floor. In shock, Ash and the others gather around the motionless form, when suddenly the demon grabs a pencil from the floor and jams it into Linda’s ankle. (Another scene that was removed from a few overseas releases as being too gory. And yes, it’s pretty gruesome.)

After a brief struggle, the demon is overcome and tossed into the cellar. Scotty quickly secures the trapdoor with a chain and padlock, while the others attend to Linda’s wound. (By now Cheryl has transformed into a horrible demon, not even recognizable as Cheryl anymore…grey skin, a mass of knotted hair, blank, yellowish eyes…)

Let’s see…who’s next…ahh yes, Scotty’s girlfriend, Shelly. She goes into their bedroom to change, while we see the Evil Force staring into her room from outside. The windows shatters and she screams. Hearing Shelly’s shouts for help, Scotty runs in to see what’s the matter. Alas, Shelly is gone. Scotty goes from room to room looking for her and is suddenly attacked by a freshly-possessed Shelly who rakes her nails across Scotty’s face, ripping open his skin and sending blood pouring down his face.

Scotty crashes through a door and back into the living room with Shelly latched onto his back and biting his neck. Somehow Scotty manages to dislodge Shelly and mistakenly tosses her into the fireplace. Acting quickly he pulls her out of the flames, at which point the demon thanks him for saving her "pretty flesh", which is now the same putrefied grey color that Cheryl has.

Shelly and Scotty, once lovers, now fight to the death. In a particularly gory scene, Scotty manages to partially cut off Shelly’s hand at the wrist: Shelly completes the job by chewing her own hand the rest of the way off. Eventually, Scotty dispatches Shelly by stabbing her with the creepy Skeleton-Dagger that was found in the basement.

As Shelly lies on the floor, covered in blood and other disgusting fluids that she puked up during her death throes, Scotty gingerly walks over to take a closer look. As expected, Shelly jumps up and grabs Scotty again. Enough is enough, Scotty grabs an axe from Ash and chops the demon to bits. (Another very gory sequence of scenes to be sure, especially when the camera pans over all the dismembered ‘bits’ of Shelly, each of them still quivering and shaking…yech.)

Scotty and Ash bury Shelly’s bits in the woods and Scotty decides to take off on his own in order to get the hell out of there. Ash refuses to leave Linda behind, and since her leg is too injured for her to walk, he stays behind to care for her.

As Ash is checking on Linda, she of course becomes possessed and Ash reels back from the room and stumbles out the front door in shock. From out of the darkness falls Scotty, mortally wounded by the demons in the forest: a battered, bloodied collection of broken bones, cuts, and wounds. Ash helps Scotty to the sofa while Linda sits cross-legged in the hallway, laughing with a demonic cackle. Cheryl, still imprisoned in the cellar laughs too while mocking Scotty’s desperate pleas for help and moans of pain.

Just as Ash is about to blast Linda in the face with a shotgun, the demons play a dirty trick and pretend to have released both Linda and Cheryl. While Linda pleads with Ash not to let the demons take her again, Cheryl begs Ash to let her out of the cellar. As Ash carefully leans over to peak into the cellar to verify that she is in fact human again, Cheryl-Demon grabs his head and almost pulls him down into the gloom. Linda too, has reverted back to demonic form, but Ash doesn’t have the courage to chop her to pieces like Scotty did to Shelly. Instead, Ash simply drags Linda out into the forest and leaves her.

Back inside Ash is starting to lose his marbles. He pours water into Scotty’s mouth which runs down his face because he’s now obviously dead, but Ash pretends not to notice and keeps pouring while talking to himself about how everybody is going to be OK in the morning…"…well, not Shelly…", Ash says, as he suddenly remembers the fact that she was hacked to pieces and buried in the woods.

Eventually Ash does realize that Scotty is far past the point of holding a conversation and reels back in horror. From behind him, Linda appears with the Skull-Knife, cuts open Ash’s arm, and licks the blood from the blade. In the struggle that ensues, Linda is stabbed with the knife and "dies" on the floor in a gout of blood and mucus.

Ash takes Linda’s body out to the tool shed, shackles her to a bench, and prepares to dice her up with a chainsaw. The job is not that easy you see, for she has reverted to her human form, and Ash just can’t get the nerve to put the saw to his girlfriend’s body. Turning off the chainsaw in a What-The-Hell-Am-I-Doing moment, he carries Linda out into the woods in order to bury her in toto.

As Ash is digging the hole, Linda peeks up at him with devilish eyes, until he turns around and she quickly closes them again. This happens a few times in a cruel twist on the same type of game that Ash played on her when he was giving her the locket on the silver chain earlier in the film.

Finished burying Linda next to Shelly’s grave, Ash turns and wipes his brow. He looks down and notices the Linda’s locket laying beside the grave. As he bends down to pick it up, Linda’s hand explodes out of the grave and grabs his ankle while her other hand tears the flesh away from Ash’s leg. Ash manages to pull himself away, picks up a huge piece of wood from the ground and begins bashing the hell out of the demon. (If you look closely, you can see that the wood is actually styrofoam, and in one of the blows to Linda’s head, the styrofoam breaks in half and Bruce Campbell is trying desperately to hold the whole thing together in one piece while he continues whacking her!)

Anyway, Linda leaps into the air but Ash manages to grab the shovel and decapitate her as she lands on him. With her head laughing from a few feet away, Linda’s neck spews blood and gore onto Ash’s face until he finally manages to escape from under the corpse and run back to the cabin.

Once inside, Ash sees to his horror that Cheryl has escaped from the cellar. In a great sequence of nightmarish shots, Ash stalks through the cabin with the shotgun looking for Cheryl while he slowly loses his mind. He does eventually run across Cheryl and blasts her in the face…with no other effect then spewing more blood onto the walls.

From behind jumps up Scotty, the newest possessed member. As Ash struggles for his life in the living room (a very bloody battle I must say), the Book of the Dead is accidentally cast onto the floor beside the fireplace. While Cheryl and Scotty bite, scratch, beat, and batter Ash, our hero finally manages to crawl across the floor and toss the book into the fire itself.

Next comes a great sequence of scenes showing the remaining demons falling into putrefaction and decay: a scene over 2 minutes long employing chiefly stop motion photography, roaches, snakes, maggots, mushy, unidentifiable substances, and lots, lots, lots of blood and gore. This scene will remain a gore-film classic for a long time to come.

Ash struggles up from the gore of the demonic remains and notices that the clock has started working again, the sun has risen, and all is well. Covered in blood, Ash stumbles out the front door to face a new day, and the long trek home.

Cut to the Evil Force POV. The demon glides across the forest floor, smashes through the cabin. Ash turns and screams.

Cut to black.

Dennis Grisbeck (August 2005)

Read more about The Evil Dead at

Directed by Jean Rollin

Tagline: “God help us if they rise again!”

Run Time: 90 minutes

Before we begin, I’d like to make something perfectly clear about this movie.

It sucks.

Watch something else.

Throw your TV out the window.

Run away.

But if you enjoy crappy movies, then, brother, this will be your Shangri-la.

Zombie Lake is not only plagued by poor special effects (more on that later) and a goofy plot, but it was almost never made at all. Rumor has it that the prolific sleaze producer / director Jess Franco was slated to direct this movie, but for unexplained reasons he jumped ship a mere 3 days before filming was to start. (Maybe he read the script?) Not wanting to call it quits (but maybe they should of), the Powers That Be at Euro Cine Productions decided to dump the project into the lap of poor Jean Rollin who was ordered to hop into the director’s seat and start filming in 3 days – a pretty optimistic timeline since he’d never even read the script; something that most directors consider a plus before making a movie.

Regardless of the veracity of this story, the special effects crew should be taken out and fed to Nazi zombies for their indefensibly shoddy work on display in this film. The lack of professionalism, imagination, and craftsmanship boggles the mind. Let’s just say that the special effects are on par with the toilet paper that was glued to Henry Hite’s face in Monster A-Go Go. Actually, the toilet paper idea was pretty creative, and comparatively well done, in relation to what you will see here. You don’t believe me? Just wait.

The action begins with an attractive young woman traipsing through the forest towards the titular lake itself. As smooth blues-organ music fills the soundtrack, the young lass finds an abandoned gazebo and promptly removes all her clothing…and the credits aren’t even over yet…you gotta hand it to the French, eh? And let’s just say that after she takes off her clothes, there is no doubt that she’s a natural brunette.

After basking in the sun for a few moments, which allows the camera to lovingly glide up and down her tanline-free hills and valleys, the young woman decides to go swimming in…bum bum bum!!!…the lake! Upon spotting a hand-painted sign showing a skull and crossbones (!), she simply stops, pulls it out of the soggy ground, and tosses it aside, because, you know, she wouldn’t want to get into trouble for swimming in Zombie Lake out of season. Content that she’s alone, the girl leaps into the lake and begins frolicking about in the murky water; water which amazingly becomes transparent when we cut to the under-water camera. (A cinematic ploy which has the not unpleasant side-effect of giving even more screen time to this actress’ nether regions.)

Unfortunately for the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, the crystal clear water also reveals the fact that these shots were filled in a swimming pool.

How can I be so sure? How could I ever accuse the hard working special effects crew of stooping so low as to film in a public swimming pool?

Fair question. How about:

a) The grey wrinkled tarp that was hung on the pool wall to simulate ‘murky’ water.

b) The white tiles that creep into view whenever the water’s surface dips below the top of the tarp

or finally, and most damning:

c) The red and white life preserver that’s seen hanging on the wall through the surface of the water!

I mean, if the zombies had done a back flip off a diving board it wouldn’t have been more obvious than it already is.

Anyway, we now see a few guys dressed in campy Wehrmacht uniforms swimming around in the water beneath her. I’m assuming these are zombies and not just a group of lucky fresh-water biologists based on the green face paint that mysteriously covers their face and hands but stops at their necks and wrists…oh, and the FX crew didn’t bother to apply the green paint behind the actors’ ears either. (Good grief!). For some reason, the shot lingers on a one-eyed zombie, so I guess he’s important or something. We’ll call him "Pop Eye" for now. Anyway, Pop Eye swims around enjoying the scenery, if you get what I mean, before dragging the young victim to a watery grave in the pool’s deep end.

(Look closely: His one good eye is painted on the back of his closed eyelid (!), probably because the chlorine in the water was too irritating for him to have his eye open in the water. Really, I’m not making this up)

And you have to wonder why Pop Eye takes a deep breath of air before he resubmerges? Weird. I didn’t think zombies needed to breathe.

Back in town we see a quaint little pub where the local denizens are probably wondering why in the hell they ever gave the producers permission to film Zombie Lake in their village. A few local yokels are sitting around drinking beer when the subject of the missing young girl comes up. "If she’s not back by morning, I’ll go see the Mayor," remarks concerned citizen Chanac in a rather perfunctory manner.

Cut to said Mayors office, where a porcelain skull sits prominently atop his desk. Why? Because this movie is so spoooooooky. The Mayor, played by European B-Movie icon Howard Vernon (if you think of him as a French Henry Silva you’re in the right ballpark) reads a book while the camera pans over his intensely art adorned study. (Ooops! I guess panning the camera across that mirror so that we could see the camera man’s reflection wasn’t such a good idea! What a bunch of numbskulls.) Chanac, the guy in the pub from the previous day, pops in to report that he went out to the lake to look for the missing girl but only found her clothes. "If she doesn’t show up by tomorrow, I’ll call the police," the Mayor says as this scene sputters to an end.

Man, talk about tension!

I just wanted to take a little time out and remark that the dubbing in this film is absolutely atrocious. Remember all those Chinese kung-fu movies where the actors move their mouths for about 20 seconds while only one word is heard? Well, this is worse. At best, the people have their mouths open when the words are dubbed, which represents the apex of this movie’s dubbing quality. Never mind actually syncing the sentences with their lips. At its worse, which is more often than you’d think, people say things without even opening their mouths, people chuckle while staring solemnly at each other, and so on. The total lack of any type of synchronization between the dialog and the actors’ mouths is amusing at first, but quickly becomes bizarre. I mean…how hard could it be to at least add the dubbed dialog when the actor’s mouths were open?

The horror mounts when Pop Eye decides to leave the lake, take a stroll into town, and kill some woman who just happened to be walking by. I guess there’s some long, boring days at the bottom of the lake; What’s a Nazi zombie to do? Oddly, Pop Eye’s hands change from a normal pink skin tone to dark green from scene to scene, but I’m getting old. Maybe it’s just my eyes. I can’t imagine the special effects team could have been that careless – not these guys. Pop Eye pounces on the young woman and bites her on the neck. (Well, the verb ‘bite’ might not be quite correct, more like ‘spits some red paint and smears his lips on it’, but you get the point). This brutal ‘attack’ gives us a delightful close-up shot revealing the "scars" on his face as, and I kid you not, masking tape with green grease paint smeared on it! How do I know? Well, the fact that the tape is peeling off his face revealing normal pink skin underneath is pretty much a dead give away.

We quickly cut to see a somber procession of villagers carrying the young woman’s body through the town as shocked onlookers…well…look on. And yes, this scene was totally ripped from the original Frankenstein where the father carries his drowned daughter’s body through the town to deposit it on the Bürgermeister’s front steps. Odious, isn’t it? By the way, go ahead and give yourself 2 points if you predicted that the bite mark on the woman’s neck is now on the opposite side than the one that Pop Eye previously bit her. Well, at least the special effects guys were consistent at screwing everything up.

After the villagers unceremoniously deposit the body in front of the Mayor’s house (the woman’s skirt has been ‘inadvertently’ pulled up to reveal her panties….what a charming film), the woman’s father waits in shocked silence for the Mayor to come outside. Hilariously, the Mayor’s front doors are made of frosted glass, but not frosted enough that you can’t see him standing just behind the door waiting for his cue to walk outside! Brilliant!

You know, I’ll say it again: this movie is a freakin’ gold mine for anybody who loves crappy movies.

Seeing the despondent father, the Mayor puts a compassionate arm around his shoulder and says, "Listen…I know how you feel about your poor daughter." (I’m not sure it would be that easy to empathize with somebody whose daughter was just killed by an underwater zombie, but there you have it. )

Anyway, later that day a female news hound, Katya, has arrived to take some pictures of the locals and follow up on a story she’s heard about a…bum bum bum!!!…mysterious lake. Katya’s first stop is the pub where she orders a drink and takes in the local color. I couldn’t help but notice that one of the patrons drinking and playing cards is the father of the murdered girl from the previous scene! Those damned French existentialists! They have no souls! (Sorry. Maybe I’m reading too much into this.) Anyhoo, after sipping on a cognac, Katya announces that she’s doing a story on the legend behind the lake…"The Lake of Ghosts". (I swear she said "the lake of goats"…I even went back a few times and I pretty sure that’s what was dubbed in.) Chanac tells her that the Mayor can give her more information and escorts Katya to the Mayor’s house.

Once inside the Mayor’s abode, Katya is greeted by him and quickly escorted into his office for a chat. The film crew, on top of things as always, manages to film the gigantic junction box at the foot of the Mayor’s desk where all the Kleig lights are plugged in. Amazing. Really. I’m not exaggerating. It’s amazing. Oh, and Whoops! There’s that darn mirror. Hello, Mr. Camera Man! Nice to see you again.

After a rambling chat about ghosts (goats?), the Mayor spills the beans regarding the lake’s sordid history.

"It was the war," he intones as we cut to a flashback showing German troops stomping around the occupied village. The aforementioned German forces that occupy this village consist of 7 guys riding around in a grey truck that was certainly borrowed from a museum for the shot. Foleyed airplane sounds indicate that an air attack is taking place (apparently no WW2 airplane stock footage was available) so the Germans leap from their vehicle and drop to the ground a whole 2 feet from the truck they were just in. So, yeah, that’s probably going to help.

Not surprisingly, this unexciting battle scene proved to be a bit too much for the special effects crew. Let’s put it this way: If they couldn’t even manage to paint a guy green to make a ‘zombie’, you can just imagine the quality of this ‘battle’ scene. Oh let’s see, a guy fires his machine gun into the air accompanied by a chorus of ricochet sounds. Yes, bullets ricocheting…in the air. There’s lots of ‘bombs’ being dropped, but the ‘realism’ is ruined by the small impact craters that are pre-dug into the ground.

Boy, it’s incredible that Saving Private Ryan received so many awards while a movie of this caliber was snubbed by the Academy. It’s just not fair.

As the ‘attack’ continues, a young blonde woman runs across the road, stops in the middle of a yard near the soldiers, and screams, "Ayeyeyeeyeyyyyaaaa!" (And that’s a direct quote.)

Boy, I hope somebody has started polishing that Oscar off for her.

(Wow. It’s raining now. Strange. The sky was clear blue just 3 seconds ago.)

A Good Nazi Soldier runs over and tackles the terrified lass to the ground in order to shield her from a bomb explosion. (You are correct in presuming that the bomb explosion isn’t perfectly timed with the pair falling to the ground, but hell, it’s only off by a few seconds. That’s not too bad, all things considered. And yes, there is a big pile of dirt clearly visible where the bomb ‘impacts’ and sets off a pathetic pyrotechnic ‘pow!’ Was that reaching too far to find a third ‘P’ word? Honestly, you can tell me.)

Anyway, the handsome German soldier is wounded by shrapnel or something and is carried off to the local field hospital to get stitched up. Overcome with passion for the young soldier that saved her life, Blond Woman stands in the street and watches through the hospital window as he’s cleaned up, but she’s quickly ‘shooed’ away by a soldier. A close up reveals that…hey! It’s Pop Eye before he becomes a zombie. Wow! What a compelling back story!

One thing that I found rather odd was the way that the German soldiers never speak during the entire movie. Not even to themselves. I’m guessing that the actors didn’t speak German, but still, nobody – not a one – utters a single syllable throughout the entire war scene.

After getting cleaned up, Good Nazi Guy (GNG) meets Blonde Woman (BW) in a farm where they make love in an unnecessarily extended simulated-sex scene. Before they part ways, BW gives GNG a pendant as a token of her affection. Boy, I wonder if that’s going to show up again later in the film.

Well, war waits for no man, not even a soon-to-be-zombie, so GNG jumps back into the army truck as he and his buddies head off to war once again. (Try not to notice the modern civilian car driving behind the army truck. Good grief!)

Another jarring jump cut and our favorite pre-zombie Nazis are engaged in yet another fierce fire fight. Oh, and staying in the spirit of screwing everything up, the film crew managed to catch a modern passenger bus (!) driving past in the background. You’ll have to be quick to spot it, but it’s there.

And…..the battle rages on, complete with ‘dead’ soldiers skootching around on the ground trying to find a more comfortable position, and so on.

Oh wait. The battle is over, but we learn that Radio Freedom is ordering the French Resistance to attack the retreating German forces. Wow. I can’t wait.

(Still no dialog…so it’s been, what, 11 minutes now?)

Pre-Zombie Pop Eye, Good Nazi Guy, and the other extras wander off into the woods and are promptly ambushed by some local resistance fighters. In one of the most risible displays of special effects "magic"; Pop Eye gets shot in the eye and covers the wound with his hand as blood spurts out from between his fingers. All well and good…except for the unconcealed, plainly visible plastic tube that runs into his jacket and out his sleeve carrying the red ‘blood’. Seriously, folks: This movie contains the sloppiest special effects work I’ve ever seen before.

Anyway, after killing the soldiers, the Mayor tells the locals to dump the dead Nazis into the lake…see how this all fits together?…and the movie stumbles along.

Cut to see that BL has died in child birth which indicates that 9 months have passed since she had sex with GNG in the barn. But really, who knows. Man, that’s the sign of a good movie when you have to guess that nearly a year has gone by from one scene to another.

Anyhoo, jump back to the present where the Mayor solemnly wraps up his tragic tale. When Katya and the Mayor stand to say their farewells, you can see that the director actually wised up and hung a black cloth over the bottom half of the wall mirror so that the camera won’t be visible in the reflection, but really, it’s too little too late. And the fact that they covered only the bottom half of the mirror just draws attention to it. But hell, I’ll give them an ‘E’ for effort.

Oh, and you can open a bottle of champagne and celebrate the first line of dialog since the 19:00 minute mark and we are now at…let’s see…37 minutes which makes for an nearly 20 minutes with no dialog!

Cut to see a young girl…I’m guessing she’s about 10 years old. It turns out that she (her name is Helena) is the product of GNG and Blonde Woman’s passionate romp in the hay. (Helena is played by a young actress with an enigmatic single name: ‘Anouchka’. A quick glance in the IMDB trivia section reveals that she’s the real-life daughter of Zombie Lake producer Daniel Lesoeur. Now there’s a great trivia question for you…you’re friends will probably think you’re nuts for knowing it, but…)

Now, I’m not a math expert, but judging by the girl’s age, this would place the movie at about 10 years after the fall of the Nazi regime in France which would be…counting on my fingers here…1954. And I just have to add that this village in no way whatsoever resembles a 1954 rural French village; neither do the villagers who walk around sporting modern clothes and haircuts – including a black kid with a big afro!

Speaking of No-Way-In-Hell-This-Is-1954, we cut to see a Volkswagen mini-bus pull up to the lake and divulge its contents: A female basket ball team.

In France.

In a modern Volkswagen mini-bus.

In 1954.

Uhhhh…sure.

Even though it says "Basket" on the bus, the girls jump out and immediately start hitting around a volleyball (!). After a few seconds of this nonsense, the girls quickly doff their clothing and plunge into the lake where they giggle, jiggle, and splash water at each other all the while accompanied by a bizarre "La La La La La" song.

(At this point I’m thinking that this film was made in an alternate universe. Either that or I’m moving to France and coaching a basketball team!)

Cut to our beloved under-water swimming-pool camera which shows again…well…pretty much every nook and cranny on the swimming girls. Once again, you just gotta wonder what in the hell the director was thinking. Well, I mean, I know what he was thinking, but still…what the hell kind of movie is this supposed to be? Who was the intended audience? Cranky, middle-aged guys who sit around ogling young naked girls?…oh…I get it. Never mind.

(It’s strange how the girls are swimming in 10-feet deep water from below, but splashing around in knee-high water on the surface. Stupid French water.)

The Nazi zombies, naturally, take an interest in the all-female, all-nude, basketball team’s unexpected visit to their watery realm. The hapless babes are quickly pulled under, including one girl that is clearly shown laughing just before a green-faced zombie drags her under the water. However, one lucky lass had just exited the lake before the attack. She manages to get into her short-shorts, leaving her topless, of course, and runs to the pub where she collapses on a table. (Chanac and a few other startled patrons "take her upstairs" so she can recover…heh heh.)

If you’re ever so lucky as to actually watch this movie, make sure to note the female extra to the right who’s forced to cover her mouth with her hand in order to conceal the fact that she’s laughing during the entire scene. Boy, this is one quality production, I tell ya.

The Mayor, unlike the director, realizes that events are spiraling out of control at this point. Doing what any responsible elected official would do after an aquatic zombie attack, he calls the regional police department for "reinforcements." Heeding the Mayor’s request, the police station dispatches a pair of detectives, Spitz and Moran. (Inspector Spitz, incorrectly credited as "Stiltz" on IMBD, is played by the film’s director, Jean Rollin. There’s another good trivia question for you…but now you’re friends will really think you’re nuts. ) The pair of inspectors make their way to Zombie Lake City and meet with the Mayor.

"I hope you really don’t think that ghosts killed [the basket ball team]", Spitz sneers.

"Yes, that’s what I think," the Mayor confidently replies.

Gripping dialog, eh?

Spitz and Moran take their leave and head into town to poke around and try to find some clues to the recent disappearances.

Cut to see the zombies shambling through town in the middle of the day. Nobody seems to notice this group of sodden undead Nazis as they make their way through the narrow streets at a snail’s pace. Strange. Good Nazi Zombie (GNZ…formally GNG) stops in front of a house. Why? Oh, because it’s the house where Blonde Woman lived. Man, you can say what you want about aquatic Nazi zombies, but they sure have a hell of a good memory. GNZ makes his way into the house and upstairs to Helena’s bedroom where she’s sitting on her bed reading a book. Upon seeing his daughter, GNZ pulls open his jacket to reveal the pendant that Helena’s mother gave him after their afternoon tryst. Helena immediately recognizes the emblem on the end of the chain and deduces that this green-faced, rotten, sodden, Nazi zombie standing in her doorway is her father.

Realizing who her undead visitor is, Helena greets him with a smile and places the necklace around her neck. (As sappy music swells to a crescendo, young Helena gives the necklace a kiss…even though it’s been hanging around her dead father’s neck for the last 10 years…yech!)

I suppose this is all suppose to be touching or something.

Meanwhile, Spitz and Moran are in the pub questioning the locals about the deaths of the basketball girls. Spitz begins by approaching an old man and snarling, "I’ve never seen a ghost! How about you!?"

Wow, these guys are good!

After all the locals insist that it was ‘ghosts’ that killed the girls (OK, I’m not trying to be nit-picky, but they’re zombies, damn it!), Spitz turns to Moran and says, "Let’s split. Shit! Let’s get out of this heap of hicks!"

Yeah, that’s really going to win over the support of the locals, you idiot.

Spitz and Moran head out to the lake where they poke around the missing basketball team’s abandoned minibus.

"I really wonder what happened here…" Moran mumbles as he opens one of the girl’s gym bags and removes a pair of panties. (!)

Sensing that it’s time for another attack, the zombies rise from the murky depths…which is strange because I thought they were in town walking around. Hmmm. Anyway, they kill the hapless detectives and make their way into town (again) to kill some more people, including a guy and gal about to have sex in a barn (naturally). (I’d be much obliged if anybody could explain to me why this guy is wearing an incredibly obvious silver wig…) Feeling pretty good about himself, Pop Eye decides to get a little crazy and try a solo-attack on the pub.

Anyway, as Pop Eye stumbles around knocking over chairs and tables, the pub’s patrons simply run out the door. What a dope. Once again, it’s difficult to take a zombie attack seriously when at least 3 of the ‘terrified’ extras are laughing.

Cut to see a (very) young topless woman taking a bath in a wooden tub in her back yard. Now, I’m not sure what France’s legal age of consent is, but man, this girl seems a bit too young for this sort of thing. Granted, she’s wearing a bikini bottom (Nobody’s going to accuse the filmmakers of being sleazy or anything…), but still, this is just doesn’t seem right. Regardless, a zombie comes out of nowhere, chases the girl for about, oh, 5 feet before she falls to the ground with an "Ahhhhhh!!!!". The zombie finishes her off by spitting red tempura paint on her neck, er, I mean tearing out her throat.

Cut to yet another female victim who’s walking along a quiet street when she stops to hike up her skirt and adjust her pantyhose. A zombie (this time a guy wearing a green mask!) grabs her from behind and does his zombie thing. You may notice that the woman’s right shoe falls off in the struggle then magical reappears on her foot as the zombie throws her to the ground. Not like that is this film’s biggest problem, but hey, I’m paid the big bucks to point these things out, and furthermore it goes to show that there is something wrong in damn near every scene in this movie.

After the killing spree, the zombies return to the lake, and boy, I’m starting to think that this town is going to be running out of young women at this rate.

"We better admit that the zombies have declared war!" the Mayor announces to the villagers that afternoon. After a rousing speech the villagers decide to ambush the zombies later that night.

"They’ll probably come from the West," the Mayor declares.

Uh. Ok.

Back in the lake, an underwater shot of the zombies reveals not only the wrinkled grey tarp in the background used to cover the side of the pool, but the water filtration vents are clearly visible as well, along with a big round light. It’s really quite amazing that anything could be this poorly done.

Later that night, even though the clock on the church steeple says it’s 12 noon, the zombies return for another attack. This time the locals are ready for them and open fire with their guns…and they seem surprised when the bullets have no effect. Duh, they’re zombies! Morons.

As the villagers retreat in confusion, the zombies press the attack, except for GNZ who pops in to visit his daughter. After coming up to her room, GNZ takes Helena’s hand and they go for a leisurely stroll along a quiet footpath! Seriously, this is one weird freakin’ movie. After a while they end up beside the lake where Pop Eye and the other zombies are standing looking pissed off because GNZ seems to have a soft spot for humans. In a scene that defies all description, even for this movie, Pop Eye pulls out a bayonet and gets into a knife fight with GNZ.

Yes, two zombies engaged in a knife fight.

You gotta wonder what kind of advice the director gave these actors before the shot: "Ok, Pop Eye, your motivation is that you’re pissed off and chafing like a bear after wearing wet underwear for 10 years…"

Anyway, the struggle ends up with GNZ snapping Pop Eye’s neck and killing him, but since he’s a zombie, I’m not really sure how that would work…whatever. With Pop Eye out of the way, GNZ takes charge and gives the other zombies a look which seems to imply "she’s my daughter…hands off!" Helena smiles and kisses his hand (yech!) before running back into town.

Cut to see Pop Eye and the other zombies back in town, hmmm, is it my imagination or didn’t GNZ just kill him in the last scene?

To make a long story short, the Mayor finds out that Helena is the daughter of one of the zombies (just how he finds this out is never explained). We then see the Mayor strolling along with Katya describing recent events. (Where has she been this whole time?!) As Katya listens with rapt attention, the Mayor explains that "no weapon can stop them….nothing but apocalypse!"

Katya, slightly less dramatic than the Mayor, simply suggests trying napalm. (I had to laugh at that) Incredibly enough, one of the villagers has "an old flamethrower" that they quickly press into service.

In order to set into motion Operation Fry Those Nazi Zombie Bastards, somebody must first lead the zombies into a trap where they can be toasted by the flame thrower…but how? Yes, good, sweet, dear Helena offers to lure the zombies to their doom, but not her father, because he’s a "good ghost". The Mayor finally convinces her to betray her father with that old standby of "Your Father Is An Underwater Nazi Zombie But He Really Wants To Be Dead." Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I fell for that one.

"We’ll do it tomorrow; it’s a full moon," Helena says after agreeing to help."Bring me a whooooole lot of fresh blood."

"Fresh blood?!" the Mayor says with a note of shock in his voice…yeah, like that’s the weirdest thing he’s had to deal with in the last 24 hours.

Helena explains how she’ll lead the zombies to an abandoned mill where they will be distracted by the blood, thus making them easy targets for the flamethrower. But really, couldn’t somebody just wait by the lake and when they shamble up from the water just blast them them? I’m not trying to rain on Helena’s parade, but it just seems safer to keep them out of the village as much as possible.

Meanwhile, the zombies resurface, again, and make their way into town, again. Boy, you’d think somebody would put up a road block or something. Anyway, Katya "just has to" get some pictures of the zombies and winds up getting red paint spit all over her neck. I don’t know if her death was intended as a shocker, but, well, for those of you keeping score at home, there you have it.

Later that night, even though it’s broad daylight outside, the zombies show up at the mill; lured by Helena’s bucket-o-blood. Helena stands inside and scoops up a bowl of blood which she gives to her father to drink. Unfortunately for the special effects crew yet again, they chose a white bowl which makes it painfully easy to see that the ‘blood’ is simply tomato soup. Yes, the movie is that pathetic. Where was I..oh yes. As the zombies drink the soup, Helena decides it’s a good time to beat feet and runs like hell. Taking their cue, the villagers move in, including one brave soul who’s carrying the putative ‘flame thrower’; a device that appears to be a huge canister of gasoline with a hose hooked up at the top. But hey, it’s painted red so it must be a flame thrower. To be fair, the next scene shows this Rube Goldberg device actually spurting out an impressive jet of napalm onto a mannequin, er zombie, so kudos to the guys who were brave enough to film this contraption while it was actually being used. I’m assuming that this jerry-rigged death contraption was fired via remote control because you never see any another person anywhere near the damned thing when it’s firing…and who could blame them?

I’m really not trying to beat up on this movie too much, really, I’m not, but I just couldn’t help but notice that the three ‘stunt zombies’ that stand around with tiny, albeit real, flames on them, are in no way the same guys who played the green zombies in the rest of the film.

Wrapping this up: The zombies all transform into various types of mannequins and are burned to a crisp.

"Don’t forget me," Helena says, tears streaming down her eyes, "I won’t forget."

No, I probably won’t ever forget this movie either. No matter how hard I try.

Dennis Grisbeck (April 2008)

Read more about Zombie Lake at

Written and Directed by David Worth

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

Run Time: 92 min

Other Titles: “Mad Rider”

“Very bad mothers! Very bad mothers! Very bad mothers!”
- Supersonic Speed Cycle

I guess it’s about time we did a nice little Italian ‘Mad Max’ rip off. Writer/Director David Worth (Kickboxer (1989), Shark Attack 2 (2001), and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002), among others) coughs up this lazy story revolving around a lone ‘warrior’ in a post-apocalyptic wasteland forced to fight a tyrannical regime called the Omega. The parallels between this movie and the Mad Max films are so shamefully thinly veiled that it makes you wonder how these people could sleep at night. (Director David Worth was reportedly hired, shipped to Italy, and told to start filming the movie before he even had a script. The producers gave him a poster for the film to use as inspiration until a script was ready. Ouch!)

It’s really quite simple to see the technique used to create the script for this move. Take the script to Mad Max and replace the following:

"Mad Max" with "The Rider "

"Mad Max’s Fast Car" with "Supersonic Speed Cycle"

"Apocalyptic Society" with "The Omega"

"Good Movie" with "Bad Movie"

Toss in a huge dump truck called "Mega Weapon" and viola: you have ‘Warrior of the Lost World’.

Let’s see, oh yes, sorry about some of the crappy screen shots. Video quality wasn’t the best this time around.

The Cast:

	The Rider (Robert Ginty) The hero, credited as ‘The Rider’, is played by pseudo-well known actor Robert Ginty (aka "The Paper Chase Guy"). Ginty’s tepid portrayal of the lead ‘Warrior’ is enough to have you cringing with embarrassment pretty quickly. Our so called ‘hero’ vacillates from wimp to loathsome, selfish bastard with a blink of an eye. Ginty does his best to play the apocalypse-hardened tough guy…but believe me, Mel Gibson would kick his ass any day.
	Nastasia (Persis Khambatta) The Rider’s main squeeze, Nastasia, is played by "Bald Headed Woman, Lt. Ilia, from The First Star Trek Movie", Persis Khambatta. (Persis was a former Miss India who, sadly, died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 47.) Persis also appeared as Barry Bostwick’s love interest in another legendary terrible motorcycle flick: Megaforce (1982). Ahhh, chicks and motorcycles, eh?
	Prossor (Donald Pleasance) Omega’s evil leader, Prossor, is played by the ubiquitous Donald Pleasance who seems to sleep-walk through his role. But to be fair, the role of Prossor doesn’t require much more than that.
	Henchman (Fred Williamson) Former Oakland Raiders, Italian schlock-film regular (Bronx Warriors (1982) et.al.), and Blaxploitation icon Fred Williamson (That Man Bolt (1973), Black Caesar (1973), Mean Johnny Barrows (1976), to name a few) also makes an appearance in this film as one of the rebel leaders. (Credited as ‘Henchman’, he is referred to as "Captain" in the film…not a good sign.)
	Supersonic Speed Cycle Since the film was made the year after Knight Rider became popular, the Rider’s motorcycle, referred to in the film as the "Supersonic Speed Cycle", is intelligent and can speak: albeit with a ‘valley girl’ voice and flashing display. Just to make sure you "get" what the motorcycle says, it repeats everything 3 times, quickly making the damn thing pretty freakin’ irritating. Despite SSC’s vast array of front-and-rear mounted machine guns, smoke generators, and rocket boosters, SSC still manages to get crushed by a big dump truck called Mega Weapon.
	Mega Weapon Mega Weapon succeeds in crushing Supersonic Speed Cycle which makes it my hero, and thus deserving of its own credit box in this review. God bless you, Mega Weapon…R.I.P.

Our movie begins with the Rider zooming down a long, empty stretch of post-apocalyptic highway, which is amazingly well maintained given that the entire world has been destroyed. It looks oddly like a modern stretch of two-lane highway, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief if you are. Deal?

My dislike for this film begins right off the bat when the Rider mumbles good-morning to SSC, resulting in the on-board computer responding "beep-beep-bop a loola" in its idiotic valley-girl voice. (Oh, believe me gentle reader, you will come to hate that bike before the end of this movie.) Anyway, the Rider and SSC cruise past an Omega patrol car which looks remarkably similar to a beat up car, spray-painted black, with two blue "police" lights mounted to the roof. The grill is festooned with 2-foot long spikes (!), and the driver is dressed in black leather complete with black motorcycle helmet. (Well, at least the evil Omega totalitarians are concerned about driver safety.) Needless to say, the Omega patrol gives pursuit. Why we hear squealing tires as the patrol car pulls out of a dirt road is beyond me. Must be something to do with the apocalypse.

A pair of evil Omega motorcycles join the pursuit as the dispatcher orders them to "overtake and terminate" the Rider. (Seeing as the only crime the Rider committed was speeding, I think the Omega is being a bit heavy handed. On second thought, if you’ve ever been caught speeding in Wisconsin, this film isn’t that far from reality after all.)

SSC confirms that they’re being pursued by "bad mothers…bad mothers…bad mothers". A quick glimpse behind him, and the Rider realizes that he’s in hot water. The Rider pushes a couple buttons on the SSC’s massive control panel, mumbles "sub-sonic", and the Supersonic Speed Cycle blasts off at a gazillion-miles-an-hour, leaving the pursuers behind. (And yes, I know that "sub-sonic" means "below the speed of sound", but I don’t know if the film makers knew, or even cared. I’ve rewound this scene many times to make sure I heard it correctly, and I’m quite sure he’s in fact saying "sub-sonic" when he obviously meant "super-sonic". Lovely.) Not to be outdone, the Omega cyclists push some buttons on their motorcycles and, according to their read out screens mounted on the dash, they rush off at "ultimate velocity".

Well, the bad guys quickly catch up and start firing their front-mounted machine guns at the Rider. (Of course, every single bullet misses him.) If you look in the background of the shot, you can see that the patrol car is a mere 100 feet behind the cycles, so I guess it used some sort of "ultimate velocity" boost in order to catch up as well. (So why didn’t the patrol car’s driver just use it in the first place and ram the Rider off the road before he went sub-sonic, er, super-sonic? Ack. Stupid movie.)

Oh, and yes, I know how idiotic and impractical it would be to mount any type of projectile weapon on the front of a motorcycle. In a nutshell, the gun would have to be aimed by steering the motorcycle directly at the target, which would of course be nearly impossible to maintain any type of accurate aim if the target so much as moved an inch. It’s so absurd, yet so often repeated in these crappy "apocalyptic" motorcycle movies…why? Because it’s cool!

Alas, the Rider takes a bullet to the shoulder from sheer random chance rather than any type of actual "aiming" on the part of the Omega. The Rider responds by pressing a red button ("bite me…bite me…bite me", SSC chimes) which results in one of his rear-mounted canons firing a blast and blowing up an Omega rider. (A rear-mounted gun on a motorcycle? Yeah, boy, that’s gotta be accurate!)

For some reason, probably just to end this ridiculous chase scene, the other Omega rider slams on his brakes causing the patrol car to ram smash into him. The patrol car then careens out of control, plunges off a cliff (that was not there a second ago!), and explodes in a massive fireball after falling about 10 feet over the side. The Rider takes off his helmet to reveal that in fact, it is ‘the Paper Chase guy’. Satisfied that he’s free to continue on his way, the Rider re-dons his helmet and hits the road again. (Where exactly is he headed? What does the Rider, you know, do?)

Oh dear, a few more miles up the road is an Omega roadblock, which looks liked it’s manned by a bunch of extras from a Devo video. Apparently the goofballs at the road block haven’t received the "terminate" orders for they simply stand there in silence as the Rider comes to a halt and surveys the scene. Realizing that the only way out of this jam is to go "airborne", the Rider punches a button which causes a lot of fire-extinguisher smoke to pour from the rear of his bike. (I guess this is the exhaust from some sort of rocket booster…who knows.) As the Omega cadre merely looks on, instead of, er, actually firing their weapons, the stuntman doubling as the Rider jumps the motorcycle over a fence about, oh, 2-feet high. Wow. The back-wheel came a good 10 inches off the ground on that one. Wow! "Airborne" indeed! To add to the ‘excitement’, the Devo extras open fire with their machine guns resulting in a barrage of about 15-billion bullets and no hits. Go Rider! Go!

Keeping with the current theme of "A Whole Lot of Nothing", the Rider continues down the, <ahem>, "Golden State Freeway", through the chaos and rubble of the fallen civilization. Please try not to notice that the "Freeway" is merely a dirt road through a modern-day junk yard. (This movie is just incredible! I mean, how lazy can you get!?) Oh yeah, and the last I remember, the sign over the ‘Golden State Freeway’ was more than 8-feet over the road and wasn’t made of plywood affixed to a pair of 2-by-4′s. (Hilariously, the illusion of a "freeway" was attempted by spray-painting white stripes down the middle of the dirt road! Incredible!)

Unfortunately for the Rider, the <ahem>, ‘ruins’, are inhibited by a pack of post-apocalyptic punks. Dressed in neon, pastel, and checkered-"Vans" right out of a "20 Things I Hate About the 80′s" video, the surprisingly well-fed, well-armed, and well-groomed ‘survivors’ attack the Rider with a barrage of crossbow bolts and rusty auto parts. (Oh…the horror of the Apocalypse!) After a few seconds, the Rider gets shot in the leg with a crossbow and he zooms off in pain. Why he didn’t just zoom off in the first place is not explained.

The punks give chase and the Rider turns in his seat to return fire with his pistol. How does he steer the motorcycle? Why with ‘auto-pilot’ of course! For some reason (which we will soon discover), the motorcycle steers itself directly into a cliff wall (where did that come from?!), and seemingly explodes into a million bits.

Hmmm, could this be the end of the film? Ha! No such luck!

Cut to a foggy, white ‘chamber’ where the unconscious Rider is laying on a table clothed only in a towel around his waist. (I really didn’t need to see this.) Spacey new-age music plays on the soundtrack as we notice the room is also occupied by white-robed ‘priests’ or whatever the hell they are. (If you look closely, you can see that the ‘room’ is created by hanging large sheets of plastic from the ceiling and placing Kleig lamps behind them. How much you want to bet that this set is actually the parking garage used later as the Omega ‘headquarters’?) One of the priests is standing next to Fred Williamson (credited merely as "Henchman")…I’m happy to say that Fred is adorned in military style khakis instead of a white toga like the others. (Freddie don’t play that!)

A high priest manages to heal the Rider’s wounds via some sort of supernatural power. This ‘power’ consists of hiding a flashlight up the sleeve of his robe in an effort to make it seem that the ‘healing light’ is emanating from his hand and not say, from a flashlight hidden up his sleeve.

The silliness continues as the Priest heals all the wounds, one by one, giving the viewer ample time to gaze upon Robert Ginty’s hairy chest. More than ample time if that’s your ‘thing’. This is a good time to grab another brew, to be honest.

We cut to outside the magic room and see that the Rider is completely healed. Anyway, he’s putting the final fixes on SSC so he can skedaddle out of there at the first opportunity. One of the high priests tries to convince the Rider to stay on and help them fight the Omega. The Rider, however, doesn’t see that as any of his business. (Boy, this all reminds me of another 1980′s post-apocalyptic movie featuring a leather-clad tough guy, lots of motorcycles and cars, and a group of friendly rebels pleading for help…man, what was the name of that movie again…hmmmm.)

Oh yes, I see now. The priest explains that the Rider has been "chosen" to help them, and that’s why he was able to "penetrate the secret Wall of Illusion" with his motorcycle. (He’s referring to the earlier scene where the SSC steered straight into the cliff wall and ‘exploded’. Obviously, SSC couldn’t ‘see’ the illusionary wall and simply detected that there was a tunnel behind it. Why there was an explosion when they passed through the illusionary wall is beyond me. As far as being "chosen", I would say it was pure chance that the Rider managed to blindly crash his way through the wall.)

Now ‘the Henchman’, (Whom I will now call Fred for the duration of this review) tries to convince the Rider to help their cause. It turns out, through Fred’s camel-choking wad of exposition (and a couple of blown lines), that Nastasia’s (Persis Khambatta) father, a one Professor McWayne, has been captured and sentenced to death by the Omega Congress. (Why? Who knows…) Apparently, Professor McWayne is a key figure in the rebels "New Way" movement. (Wow, the "New Way", how inventive.) If he’s executed, well, the New Way will be "permanently damaged".

The Rider refuses to give into the priest’s pleadings, but fails to notice that Nastasia has walked up behind him with her pistol drawn. ("What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" says the Rider upon first seeing her. I kid you not. Scream if you want to.) Taking a more aggressive approach, Nastasia tells the Rider that he has to help her rescue her father or…well, she fires her pistol in the air to get her point across. The Rider agrees to help…"for now".

"Tubular!" SSC adds. (Scream and bang your head on the wall if you want to.)

In order to get around such technical details as ‘just how in the hell will the Rider and Nastasia get into the City without being spotted’, Nastasia simply guides him through a Secret Cave that leads directly into the city. How wonderfully convenient. Dressed as "workers" in white, one-piece jump suits, the brave duo make their way through the "treacherous" caverns. (For some reason, Ginty uses a really, really whiny tone in his voice as he asks Nastasia questions like "Why are we wearing these clothes?", "Why are we going alone?" Truly, it’s embarrassing. It also makes me wonder why the Rider wouldn’t have asked these questions before. Are we to believe that Nastasia told him to take off his leather outfit, dress up in a white jump suit, grab a torch, and follow her into a dark cave…and he didn’t ask why until now?)

Blah blah blah. The cave is populated by squeaking (!) tarantulas. Well, they never show more than 2 or 3 in any one shot, so I assume that’s all the producers could get their hands on. To make things even more ‘creepy’, there’s a quick shot of a rather confused looking boa.

After surviving the "treacherous" caverns filled with 2 tarantulas and 1 snake, Nastasia and the Rider finally reach "the City". Via a secret panel (oh brother), they emerge in "Club Utopia", a type of night club that the Omega uses to pacify the populace: Imagine a mix between the Karova Milk Bar from A Clockwork Orange and a Cure video.

As they make their way down onto the main floor of the club, Nastasia warns the Rider "not to show any emotion" or else the others will realize that they are intruders. (I will say that Ginty perfectly portrays "no emotion" in this scene. In fact, throughout the entire film.) Cue a luke-warm live-sex show (implied of course) performed by leather-wearing ‘performers’. (I never thought a live sex-show could be boring, but Warrior of the Lost World manages it.)

After the seemingly never-ending Club Utopia scene, Nastasia and the Rider make their way out of the club and into the City proper via long, moving walkways. (This scene was undoubtedly filmed late at night in an airport somewhere.) Loudspeakers spew out 1984-esque propaganda, armed Omega soldiers stand on guard at nearly every corner. Boy, the future is hell, I tell ya.

Ok, moving right along, sort of. Nastasia guides the Rider through the City towards the Omega HQ where she suspects her father is being held. (One shot shows them walking through what looks like a dairy or brewery!) Nastasia eventually pulls out a computer key-pad doohickey and remarks, "We discovered a weak link that enables us to tap into the computer systems." (Hmmm. They found a link to the Omega mainframe in the brewery?) Nastasia punches a few keys which spell out "Verify Location McWayne" on her hand-held LED readout.

Well, our brave hero decides he’s way in over his head and tells Nastasia he’s just gonna leave. (What a moron! This guy is the hero?) When Nastasia reads a confirmation that her father is scheduled for execution the next day, she reminds the Rider that he did in fact promise to help, so the Rider reluctantly agrees to continue on. What a wimp. I hate this guy.

Cut to a couple of Omega guards escorting somebody…somewhere. I would think that if guards are to escort prisoners somewhere they might want to stand behind the captives…not in front. Sheesh. But what do I know. Oh yeah, now I’m completely convinced that Omega HQ was filmed in a parking garage.

An exterior establishing shot shows a community college campus, oops, I mean the "City". The City is seemingly full of guards and devoid of workers. Who pays the Devo-like guards? Why are there 300 Omega guards per each worker? I mean, there are guards everywhere: 5 or 6 on each rooftop, rows of them marching up and down the empty streets, one posted every 50 feet inside the buildings. Hell, there are even a trio of guards atop a 200-foot high set of smoke stacks! What the hell kind of society could support that kind of civil-servant / private-sector ratio?

OK, I’m shutting up now.

Nastasia and the Rider (boy I hate typing that, how about "N and R" from now on) have slipped into a column of subjugated workers and are trudging along…somewhere…escorted, yes, buy a group of guards. Oh I see. They are marching out to witness Dr. McWayne’s execution. Boy, it’s a good thing N and R fell into the exact group of 6 workers that were selected from the entire City’s population to witness this event. It would have been sad if they’d accidentally chosen the group of workers being marched off to, say, scrub the Omega toilets.

Just as the guards are about to shoot the prisoners, the Rider punches an inattentive watchman, grabs his (obviously plastic) gun, and starts firing away. Nastasia also ends up with a rifle, as does her father, McWayne. In a completely preposterous ‘shoot-out’ sequence, the trio manage to elude every single bullet fired from the, oh, seventy-gazillion guards arrayed around the execution site. Needless to say, the guards are mowed down like straw from McWayne, and N and R’s return fire. To add to the ludicrousness, the Rider even picks off each of the 3 guards perched on the smoke stacks with a single shot to each man. (The force of the bullets is enough to transform the guards into dummies as they topple lifeless from the top of the stacks.) This is truly one of the most asinine ‘shoot-outs’ I’ve ever seen.

After running through "the City" for a while, the stumble upon an Omega helicopter which, of course, is fueled up and ready to fly. The Rider hops into the pilot’s seat and fires up the machine, natch. McWayne jumps in the back seat, but Nastasia, shot in the leg, stumbles to the ground a mere 2 feet from the chopper. Instead of, well, jumping out and lifting Nastasia into the waiting bird, the Rider simply takes of and leaves her to her fate in the hands of the Omega. (Once again, this guy is the freaking hero? The Rider defends his decision by telling McWayne that the deal was to get him out, not Nastasia. What a cool guy.)

In a not-so-suspenseful scene, an Omega helicopter gives chase. As expected, McWayne picks up some sort of rocket-launcher from the back seat and fires at the pursuing chopper, which immediately turns into a plastic model of a helicopter and explodes.

Back at Omega HQ, the Omega leader, Prossor (Donald Pleasance), chews the scenery in typical totalitarian style: McWayne was a threat to the modern order, blah blah blah. Prossor is going to "destroy" Nastasia as a way of getting back at McWayne. Well, OK. Let’s just move this along then, shall we. Prossor orders Nastasia to be taken to the "Assembly Line." I have no idea what the hell that is, but Nastasia starts to scream as she ‘s carried off, so I guess it’s a "Bad Thing": this movie just really doesn’t do the viewer any favors when it comes to giving out information.

Surprise: Cut to another ridiculous scene. McWayne has taken the Rider out to some sort of ‘wasteland’ (read: quarry) where a group of ‘savages’ are having what looks like a battle-royale in order to establish who’s boss. (Is this a weekly thing? Bi-annually? Once again, it appears that our hero has some impeccable timing. Then again, it’s really not clear what the hell these miscreants are doing slugging it out in the middle of nowhere.)

Some terribly choreographed and way, way over-foleyed fighting ensues. And yes, being an Italian schlock-film, there is a midget involved (whom the Rider tosses through the air on top of one of the other combatants. Talk about ‘class’!) Before it’s all over, the Rider beats up a woman, a midget, and a couple of ‘Flock of Seagull’-esque kung-foo loonies before emerging victorious from the melee. Anyway, the whole point to this nonsense is so the Rider can prove he’s the toughest of the lot, thus he can lead the savages as some sort of rag-tag rebel army and overthrow the Omega. (Imagine organizing a group of circus freaks into an army in order to overthrow the Third Reich. Well, that’s pretty much what’s he’s attempting, even though comparing the Omega’s military capabilities to the Wehrmacht war machine might be stretching it a bit.)

OK, over to the "Assembly Line". Nastasia is strapped to a lighted table while she does her best to look look shes in agony. Prossor taps a few buttons on a remote control and Nastasia’s mind is zapped. "You will be attached to a machine…which will draw it’s energy from your body," Prossor notes, "You will be a slave…on the Assembly Line." (I would think that the machine would be the slave since it’s dependant on Nastasia, not the other way around, but anyhoo…)

In another rip-off, I mean ‘homage‘, to Mad Max, the Rider has organized the rebels and formed a convoy of vehicles. With the Rider leading the way on his Super Sonic Cycle and Fred and McWayne in the stolen helicopter, the convoy races down an empty highway towards the Omega-controlled ‘City’. (Hilariously, one of the rebels has a cardboard Tommy gun while another is decked out as a German WW2 soldier complete with MP-40 sub-machine gun. What the…?)

The rebels quickly breach an Omega roadblock by ramming their massive truck through the obstructing patrol cars as the idiot Omega soldiers duck for cover. (Oh, yes, and the Rider performs another pseudo-jump over the cars for our entertainment.) This is really exciting stuff here. Oh great, the convoy catches up with more Omega dudes and a motorized shoot-out ensues. Since the rebels also have a stolen Omega patrol car in their ranks, it’s impossible to tell who is shooting at who. To be honest, I don’t really give a damn either. (As Joel from MST3K said in their hilarious riffing of this film: "This isn’t ‘Mad Max’…it’s Sad Max!") The whole sequence is muddled, inconsistent, and utterly dull. I won’t go into all the details and continuity errors because I simply don’t have the energy.

Meanwhile, back in the "City", a pair of rebels have donned white jump-suits and blended into the general worker population. (Hint to Prossor and the Omega: Require people to wear ID Cards, you idiots!) Oh joy. Another gang of rebels have managed to sneak into the city via some other Super Secret Route. Way to go, Omega! (Incredibly, the "Kung-Fu Loonies" have decided to assault the Omega stronghold barefooted, shirtless, and still wearing their black belts! Way to blend in!)

Unfortunately for the mechanized rebels, they come across the Omega’s mightiest threat: Mega Weapon! (Yes, that’s what it’s referred to in the movie. I could never make up a name so stupid.) How to describe Mega Weapon…take a huge dump truck and paint it black. Attach some cardboard spikes and a flame thrower onto the front hood. Voila: Mega Weapon. (Oh, and make sure the flame thrower’s range is no more than 3-feet. They didn’t want to actually ‘hurt’ anybody, ya know.)

The Rider’s cycle notes that it would take "40 Megatons" to destroy Mega Weapon. (What the…?! Forty megatons?! This movie is no longer stupid…it’s just plain preposterous!) Thankfully, SSC knows of a "Computer Terminal Under" the giant truck where the Rider can stick a hand grenade and blow it up, which seems like a reasonable alternative to the whole "40 Megatons" method. (Then again, couldn’t they just drive around Mega Weapon? The thing moves at about 3 miles per hour!)

Okay. The Rider guns SSC forward at full speed directly at Mega Weapon and slide-crashes under the behemoth truck. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Super Sonic Cycle is slowly crushed under Mega Weapon’s massive tires. (To add to my enjoyment of this scene, SSC even cries out in pain as it’s crushed…oh yes! Suffer, you obnoxious bastard, suffer!)

Alas, bad news for us Mega Weapon fans: The Rider manages to shove a grenade in the aforementioned "computer terminal" under the truck and Mega Weapon explodes in a massive fireball. With his bike crushed, the Rider frantically orders a couple of the rebels to collect the remains of SSC as he hops into the helicopter. Onward to Omega HQ!!!

Anyhoo, back in the "City", a couple of rebel chicks have infiltrated the vast, complex, and air-tight Omega security apparatus by merely donning a pair of white jump suits. Furthermore, they’ve smuggled in a couple of machine guns and quickly mow down a host of guards in the Omega brewery. They appear to be making their way towards…somewhere…who knows.

OK, back outside we see that Fred has landed the stolen helicopter in a wide open field, thus giving his passengers, McWayne and the Rider, the minimum amount of cover possible from the Omega bullets. (Well, seeing how effective the Omega security forces have been so far, I guess they don’t have too much to worry about.) Noting that they are "sitting targets" in the helicopter, the Rider jumps out and instead takes cover by laying on his back completely in the open. Really, did anybody use one iota of thought when writing these scenes? It all has a ‘Just Play It By Ear’ feel to it. And it all sucks.

In a bloody, tense, exciting battle that the film-makers opted not to show, the rebels manage to overcome all the guards and round up the last of the Omega resistance out in the main plaza. Actually, it’s probably a good thing they didn’t show it because there’s no way in hell that these idiot rebels could have overcome a group of senior prom chaperones, let alone a, <ahem>, hardened security force like the Omega. (As the camera pans over the triumphant rebels, once again we see that a few of them are dressed in WW2 Nazi uniforms!)

Now for the final showdown with Prossor, who really hasn’t done crap in the film for being such an evil despot. We see the Rider and McWayne burst into Prossor’s office, where he smugly stands at his desk. After some ludicrous dialog that I will spare you from reading, Prossor reveals his trump card: A brain-wiped Nastasia sitting in a chair with a gun to her head. Prossor orders the Rider and McWayne to drop their guns or else he will order Nastasia to blow her brains out; the two rebels comply. Prossor now commands Nastasia to shoot both her father and the Rider. Wait a minute. Why couldn’t the Rider just put a bullet into Prossor’s head and be done with it? If Prossor can’t verbally command Nastasia, then he has no leverage against them. Blah.

Anyway, this scene was intended to be suspenseful as Nastasia aims the pistol at her father: Will she do it? Won’t she do it? Does anybody give a rat’s ass? Is there more beer in the fridge? After a slight hesitation, Nastasia does indeed shoot the Rider in the shoulder (the shoulder wound sends him to the floor unconscious (!?)) Alas, Nastasia’s love for her father is stronger than Prossor’s suggestions and she blows away the evil ruler instead. Oh yeah, and she’s no longer ‘brain wiped’. Love cures all, I guess.

Cut to the "New Way" victory celebration. What looks like a bed sheet painted with the words "THE NEW WAY – Freedom Equality Justice" hangs from the rafters of some sort of disused industrial building. (The sound of a cheering crowd is foleyed onto the scene…the sound of a much larger crowd than is actually shown in the shot.) As the leaders of the revolution stand on a stage in front of the crowd and bask in the applause, the camera slowly, and carefully, pans across each and every one of the clapping ‘rebel’ extras used in the film. I suspect that they might have been promised this tiny bit of screen time in lieu of pay.

Ah yes, the final nauseating kissing-scene to put the icing on this turd cake. Nastasia, dressed in the garb of a high-priest, stares into the glossy eyes of the Rider. (Cue triumphal, and very 80′s, love ballad music.) The hazy, soft lighting adds to the feeling of unrest in my stomach as the inevitable ‘kiss’ approaches. This whole scene is about as romantic as watching squid copulate.

Oh gee. One more plot twist. Nastasia actually didn’t kill Prossor after all. Why it was his robotic clone. Yes, Prossor is alive and well. Who woulda thunk it?

"Do you think the enlightened ‘New Way’ has taken the bait?" Prossor asks a shadowy figure.

"Absolutely…no doubt about it," answers the figure, who steps out of the shadows to reveal that it’s…NO! It’s Fred! "It’s incredible…the gullibility of mankind," Fred adds

No, what’s incredible is this totally idiotic and pointless plot ‘twist’.

What bait? What is the freaking point? What the hell do they think they’re going to do now? OH BROTHER!

Anyway, Prossor and Fred head off…somewhere…who cares at this point. That horrible 80′s music begins blaring on the sound track again, confirming my worst fears: More ‘romantic’ scenes with Nastasia and the Rider.

Oh gee, they’ve repaired the SSC. So I guess the ‘New Way’ has a fully functional post-apocalyptic body shop, engine shop, paint shop, and computer shop at their disposal.

"Thank you," the Rider mumbles to Nastasia as SSC bleeps out, "Kiss the girl!" When the Rider hesitates, SSC actually rolls forward and nudges the Rider in the butt, pushing him closer to Nastasia. (OK. Now it’s official: I hate this freakin’ movie!)

We are now treated to a kissing scene that lasts a full 1 minute and 12 seconds. Wow. That’s just what I needed to see: Robert Ginty grinding his face against Persis Khambatta for 72 seconds.

Cut to see the Rider driving off into the wasteland…and cue closing words:

"It is the dawn of a new day in the Lost World and somewhere there rides a…WARRIOR"

The End

Dennis Grisbeck (Jan 2006)

Read more about Warrior of the Lost World at

Directed by Kiyo Sumi Fukazawa, Atsuo Okunaka

Written by Sakyo Komatsu, Kouji Tonaka

Run Time: 97 min

“No!…I don’t wanna be killed by a monkey!”
- Johnny

Imagine yourself as a child at the zoo. The summer sun is high in the sky, the roars and cries of the animals fill the air, you’re eating ice cream: life is good. You tag along with your parents to the aquarium, the lion house, the reptile house, the sea lions, the elephants, and then, as you walk further, you notice a peculiar smell. The smell gets stronger, and turns into a stench. Your ice cream falls to the ground, storm clouds blot out the sun: life has taken a turn for the worse. Yes, you are approaching the monkey house. A concrete sweat-box filled with all manner of feces-flinging simians. Once you have smelled the stench of the monkey house, you will never forget it. I guarantee that the stink of this film will certainly bring back memories of that smell.

"Time of the Apes" was cobbled together from bits and pieces of a Japanese TV series that ran in the 1970′s. The series ran for 24 episodes and did not meet with much enthusiasm, not even from its "home crowd" in Japan. Enter Sandy Frank: buyer, producer, and importer of all manner of Japanese crap cinema. Sandy purchases the 24 episodes, gets rid of all but 4 or 5 of them, and splices bits and pieces from these remaining episodes into a film. Kind of like a Frankenstein monster pieced together from garage sale leftovers.

A funny bit of trivia about Sandy Frank and Mystery Science Theater 3000: All of Sandy Frank’s movies have been ripped to shreds by the gang on MST3K…in fact, they made so much fun of him that Sandy got really pissed off and would not give them the rights to rerun the shows featuring his films.

To say that the resulting, um, piece of work, is hard to follow, is an understatement. At best, "Time of the Apes" is a confusing jumble of scenes filled with "apes" attired in what looks like Confederation uniforms from the Civil War and bright orange one-piece jump suits. At other times, scenes crash into each other without rhyme or reason, like scattered boxcars in a train wreck, leaving you scratching your head and wondering what the hell is going on. The dubbing is awful, and everybody seems to speak in exposition only: "A trail! We will be safe if we follow it!" "An ape! He looks dangerous!" and so on.

The monkey "make up" brings to mind only one word: cheap. No. Scratch that. "Cheap" would have been spending too much money. The mouths on the apes don’t even move when they talk, their fingers look like sausages, and some of them wear tennis-shoes so they didn’t have to spend money on fake feet.

The story, and I use that term loosely, revolves around 2 children and their escort who is showing them around, ahem, Uncle Charlie’s cryogenics lab. A volcano erupts and they "accidentally" (!) fall into cryogenic containers (inexplicably referred to as "cold sleep" in the movie). They awaken 3000 years in the future to a world ruled by apes. Hmmm….does that story sound familiar? The trio run around being chased by the ape soldiers and Police Chief Gebar, which is pronounced "Gay-Bar" (!!!). They befriend a "savage" human named Godo (rhymes with Dodo, as in dodo bird) who helps them escape the evil monkeys, along with a giant UFO that appears from time to time to jam the monkey’s guns.

Sounds like a great movie, eh? Then lets get started!

The Cast:

	Johnny (Maasaki Kaji) Johnny seems to always be hungry. Isn’t that cute? Great at getting into trouble and stuffing his face whenever food is presented. When his parents suggest that he stay home since there have been so many earthquakes he simply responds: "I don’t care!"
	Caroline (Hiroko Saito) Johnny’s sister. A voice that will make your testicles crawl back into your belly. Imagine somebody dragging their fingernails along a blackboard while you chew a ball of aluminum foil…you’re getting close…
	Catherine (Reiko Takunaga) Johnny and Caroline’s escort, aunt, friend, I don’t know. It’s her brilliant idea to hide in the cryogenic capsules when the volcano erupts. Way to go, Catherine.
	Godo (Tetsuya Ushio) The mighty Godo. A savage human hiding in Green Mountain from the apes. Maker of useless booby traps (even Johnny manages to elude them), Godo likes to run around in turtle-neck sweaters and do battle with the hapless Gebar.
	Pepe (Kazue Takita) My vote for the stupidest looking monkey make-up job of all time. Pepe befriends the humans and helps them battle Gebar and the apes. You will soon wish that somebody would have made a carpet out of her…
	Police Chief Gebar (Baku Hatakeyama) Pronounced "Gay-Bar". The bumbling Chief of Police of Ape Country. My God. I wish I was making all this up, but I’m not.
	The Commander The great Commander likes to walk around in brass-buttoned Civil-War era coats. With an outfit that looks like Colonel Sanders dressing up as a pimp for Halloween, the Commander protects the humans and tries to integrate them into ape society. That the actor who played the Commander chose to remain uncredited comes as no surprise.

Our feature presentation begins with credits overlaid upon various still shots of monkeys, because this movie is about, well, you know, monkeys. Actually it’s about highly evolved, intelligent, speaking, bipedal apes, but we’ll settle for monkey pictures in the opening credits. It’s also odd to note that all the pictures show monkeys in a zoo. I wonder if this was meant to justify the ape’s cruelty towards humans in the future, since we ourselves have imprisoned them in the present. Probably not. I think it was just the easiest place the filmmakers could find to take lots of monkey pictures.

After the exciting opening credits sequence, we see little Johnny eating his breakfast rice. His mom helpfully exposits that he will be spending the day at "Uncle Charlie’s lab" (!) where there are lots of "important experiments" taking place. (Plot point!) Johnny’s father also enters the kitchen and in terribly awkward dialog (typical for this film…it seems like everybody speaks in exposition only) says that "Uncle Charlie has made a lot of important discoveries." Hmmm…as opposed to unimportant discoveries?

Johnny’s sister Caroline rings the doorbell (!) and Johnny rushes to greet her. We find out that she is to accompany Johnny to "Uncle Charlie’s" lab. (Uncle Charlie? Oh brother!) As they are about to depart, an earthquake strikes. (You know the kind…the earthquake where they simply shake the camera back and forth and the actors attempt to put "worried" looks on their faces…).

After the devastating tremor is over (resulting in a broken flower pot), Johnny’s mom insists that it’s too dangerous to go to the lab. Johnny smiles and shouts "I don’t care!", then he and Caroline skip off to the lab, lunch boxes in hand, while mom and dad smile and wave good-bye from the house.

After a nauseating POV scene showing them driving up to the lab building (somebody simply sitting in the front seat of a car filming as they drive), their friend or something, Catherine, dressed in a full-length white lab coat (of course), greets them at the main entrance of the lab complex.

With another long POV scene, this time somebody filming while they are walking down a long hallway (really, it makes a person a little seasick), we hear Catherine gleefully expositing that the lab is currently researching "cold sleep" where they are freezing "various creatures" for extended periods of time. When Caroline asks if they survive the process, Catherine giggles "<hee hee>…oh yesssssss…they’re alive when we thaw them out." Mmmm. How sweet. And the phrase "thaw them out"…just doesn’t sound very ‘scientific’ to me.

More shots of monkeys in cages, including one that has just been "thawed out" after a sleep of over 20 years. (And imagine waking up in this movie!)

The two kids are then guided into the main control room. This room consists of two banks of, *ahem*, computers (made of cardboard and painted dark grey). The computers consist of, yes, flashing lights, dials, and other ridiculous instruments stuck through the cardboard. The controls are being manned by two technicians who are both wearing latex rubber gloves (?) and trying very hard to act "scientific": madly clicking and twisting at buttons and dials.

At that moment Dr. Lee (Is this Uncle Charlie? It’s never made clear) enters the control room and says hello. He walks over to an exterior window (!) and is joined by Catherine and the kids. Dr. Lee says that they got a warning from the "seismological institute" that there might be some "subterranean shifting" but nothing serious. The four of them stare out the window at an imaginary volcano or mountain or something. We of course don’t get to see it ourselves, instead we must trust the filmmakers that it is probably a pretty interesting sight given the "interested" looks on the actors’ faces.

I’m starting to get a little confused here. If this is an earthquake warning, as implied by the "seismological institute", then what the hell are they looking at through the window? Maybe that information was left out of the film when this mess was all spliced together. (We will in fact soon see that it is a volcano they are looking at! Now there’s a great place to build a lab!)

You’ll note a lot of weird things happening throughout this film. It gives me that odd feeling that I get when I can’t remember if I’ve dreamed something or it really happened.

Anyway, Dr. Lee takes the kids down to the labs to watch a real monkey get "thawed out". (Really, it’s like they have a freezer full of hot-dogs that they can just go and pull one out and thaw it whenever they want…)

In the lab, everybody dons lab coats and surgical face masks while a technician flips a switch. The thawing process begins as colored Christmas lights flicker and dials spin around. In the middle of the floor is some sort of "cold sleep" chamber with a frozen monkey inside. Through the magic of stop-motion photography we see the monkey thaw out. Sort of. When monkey is finally frost free, Uncle Charlie gives it a rather large injection of a brown fluid and the monkey awakens.

I must question the reason behind the surgical masks. They have them on during the entire thawing out process and then remove them once the monkey’s chamber is opened. What is the point? If there were, for some reason, dangerous fumes or microbes or something in the chamber, then why do they take them off when the chamber is opened but have them on when it is closed? Stupid movie. I hate monkeys.

As Johnny and Caroline play with the groggy monkey, Dr. Lee proudly states that they have even used "the process" on human beings; namely a wealthy man who stated in his will that he wanted his remains to be frozen. This exposition is played over a scene of a what is supposed to be the wealthy man’s body in his "cold sleep". Dr. Lee oddly states that "when he awakens, he will be even younger and healthier than before!" (Huh?!)

These awesome special effects were realized by covering a doll in that spray-on Christmas frost (the stuff you spray on your windows) and spinning the doll around in some dry-ice fog. I’m not kidding. These are some really cheap effects here (and why the hell would his frozen body be spinning?)

The miracle of "Cold Sleep"

In an odd scene change, and I mean a cut right in the middle of Dr. Lee saying a sentence, we see Catherine showing a "special lab" to Johnny and Caroline. Catherine explains that this lab is where they will be freezing humans (Hmmm…). In the middle of the lab (which has the exact same computer banks as the control room, hmmm, I wonder if it would be the exact same room as the other scene was filmed in…) there are 3 ridiculous silver, well, chambers I guess.

Well, wouldn’t you know it. Johnny goes and sits inside one of the chambers to see what it looks like from inside (!). At that very moment a volcano erupts (!!) and the chamber door swings shut, locking Johnny inside. Then in a truly inspired moment of total stupidity, Catherine and Caroline take shelter in the other 2 chambers! Oh no! A piece of the ceiling falls onto the control panel and hits a lever (!), the lever swings down and the chambers are activated (Ummm, didn’t they ever hear of safe-guards in this super-scientific lab? Also be sure to note the cardboard "computer" that actually starts to burn when the sparks hit it!).

The volcano continues to erupt, or is it an earthquake? I don’t know. Regardless, the ground heaves, windows break, trees are shattered, boulders are rolling, then the entire building tips over into a huge crevice (you have to see it to believe it).

The next scene then shows the three of them laying on beds in the completely undamaged lab. (I think we must have skipped a few episodes here. Who let them out of the chambers and put them on the beds? Why isn’t there any damage to the lab? What the hell is going on here?) They wake up and start exploring the seemingly empty building.

After opening doors to empty rooms and wandering silent hallways, Johnny steps into a room full of <gasp!> monkeys! Twenty or so apes, all in lab coats, turn to face the intruders. (Imagine the smell in there!). The humans run away while sirens warble throughout the building alerting the security apes to the presence of intruders.

Needless to say, the humans are captured by the security forces and we cut to the next scene which shows them tied to a tree. The cameraman walks around the tree showing each of the 3 humans in turn, each crying out in confusion and fear (and making me seasick with this "tilt-o-whirl" filming technique). Well as you can imagine, the apes guarding the prisoners are somewhat curious and start, er, sniffing the prisoners’ hair.

Thankfully this absurd scene is interrupted by the arrival of none other than Police Chief Gebar. (As mentioned in the introduction, his name is pronounced "Gay-Bar", good grief!)

Gebar jumps out of his jeep to inspect the prisoners, with special attention given to his cowboy boots and spurs. (!!) Gebar further establishes his authority by pointing at the prisoners with his "laser whip", which is hilariously just a radio antenna with a handle attached to it!

Rather than killing them on the spot, Gebar orders the humans to be blindfolded, untied, and then taken to a new location. The prisoners are led to some sort of quarry where they are tied to a post for execution. (Why they couldn’t be executed while tied to a tree is not explained.) As the humans have their blindfolds removed they notice all the skeletons laying about in a "scary" fashion. I guess these skeletons mean that something "bad" is going to happen.

Gebar next orders that the prisoners are to be untied, after which Catherine and the kids are shoved into a "bad" area marked by a signpost with a skull-n-crossbones on it. (Odd how the picture of the skull is a human skull…wouldn’t it have been a monkey skull?)

Yes, the scene goes on and on…Gebar marches back and forth in front of his soldiers, staring at the prisoners…walking…staring…turning…walking…when suddenly Johnny shouts: "Let’s run!" and they run away! (What the….!? Have I missed something?)

So ok, Johnny, Catherine, and Caroline run away from the apes. This is pretty much the way this movie unfolds: Strange events just "happen". Maybe an episode was chopped out of at this point. Whatever.

The apes, now suddenly 30 feet behind them, wildly open fire and unsurprisingly don’t hit anything except rocks laying about 5 feet in front of them. As the bullets fly, the humans run through the quarry, take cover behind a jeep (?) and suddenly are running through a forest (!?). The apes are in hot pursuit shouting encouragement to each other with calls of "Get them!", "Over there!" and so on.

OK. Just a minute. How stupid are these apes anyway? The 3 prisoners where standing with their hands bound not even 10 feet in front of them. Gebar orders their hand to be untied (!), then the humans simply run off! The apes can’t hit them with rifles from a distance of 15 feet, and even lose them in the forest on a single-track trail!

Wouldn’t you know it, Johnny sees a bridge spanning a chasm! Wow! Who would have ever thought of that? Well, seeing that they had pretty much evaded the apes and head a huge lead on them (not sure how they managed that, but whatever), the humans decide not to simply run across the bridge, but rather to hang under it by their fingers and scurry across from beneath it. (Once again, I suspect that some footage was discarded at this point)

As the escapees make their way across the chasm from under the bridge, apes are patrolling back and forth on the top of it. (Where did they come from?!) Well, whatever, Gebar shows up with reinforcements and they run off into the forest to continue searching. Somehow Catherine and the kids reach the other side (OK, how long can a person, even a strong person, hang from their fingers? Let alone a kid!) and make their way through some fields, over roads, you know the deal.

Eventually they see a house in the distance. Thinking that they have finally found safe refuge, they run over to the house and peer through a window. Seeing nobody, they open a door and go inside (but first leaving their shoes outside the front door…gee…aren’t those Japanese just so darn polite!). As they make their way through the house, a monkey enters a side door carrying a bundle of straw. (?) The monkey sees the humans and runs away screaming "Naked apes! Naked apes!" At that moment enters what is the absolute worst "monkey" special effects I have ever seen. Enter Pepe, the friendly monkey. Pepe lives in the house along with her mother, but is curious about the humans and befriends them.

I must point out that Pepe is obviously just some kid in a monkey mask. I mean…the mouth doesn’t move when she talks, she’s wearing a kid’s T-shirt and even sneakers!

Well, this warm scene is broken up as the local farmers approach the house, waving pitchforks and other agricultural tools, intent upon killing the "naked apes". Catherine and the others grab their shoes from the front door and run off into the forest again with the monkeys in hot pursuit (one even has a bamboo wheel-barrow on his back!!) . Oh wait, it’s not the forest, it’s some sort of field. OK, my bad.

The humans are about to be captured when suddenly the apes halt their pursuit and begin pointing to stone totems standing at the forest’s edge. Yes, they have entered the "Green Mountain", a land taboo to the apes. Why? Who knows.

Meanwhile back at police headquarters, Gebar receives a phone call from one of the soldiers informing him that the humans have escaped into Green Mountain! (By the way, isn’t that an awesome make-up job? His right eye is actually nearly an inch behind the rubber eye socket.) The District Leader, also in the room, commands Gebar to find the humans. In fact, the District Leader himself is going to speak to the troops in order to impart the seriousness of the situation upon them.

Back in the quarry, Gebar has rounded up a truck load of troops, comprising of a whopping grand total of 8 monkeys. As the DL (District Leader) gets out of his car, the monkeys do an odd "about face" and stand with their backs to him (!?). Gebar then gives the command to "about face" yet again so that they can face the leader. (What the hell kind of military protocol is that?!)

One of the solders has the gall to say that they are afraid to enter Green Mountain. The now infuriated Gebar shakes his radio antenna / laser-whip in the soldier’s face and calls him a coward. After that terrible ass-chewing, Gebar commands the apes to move out into Green Mountain and find them.

Meanwhile, Johnny and the others are making their way through the forest. They come across <gasp!> barb-wire fences! Oh no! This daunting obstacle is breached by crawling under it, using a total of about 5 seconds.

A few more feet down the trail, Johnny triggers a booby trap. Two huge rows of sharpened bamboo stakes spring up from the forest floor and nearly impale Johnny who just manages to jump out of the way (great trap). In case you didn’t understand what those two rows of spring-loaded sharpened bamboo stakes were, Catherine helpfully exposits "It’s some kind of a trap! Designed to kill anyone who enters here!" Gee, thanks Catherine.

Suddenly a large bush in front of them starts to rustle back and forth. (!) The terrified humans jump to their feet and run off. (What the hell?)

They trigger another booby trap that drops a load of rocks down from high up in a tree. Of course, Johnny manages to jump aside again. (Umm, who is it that’s making all these traps? Maybe he should find another line of work…)

Again! Another big bush starts to rustle (!!??) from across the path and they run off into the forest. What the hell is going on here?!! This time Caroline triggers a booby trapped net that hauls her up into the air. Johnny scrambles up the tree and begins to cut Caroline loose when suddenly another human appears from behind a tree: Godo! Godo is aiming an M-16 at Catherine and the kids, understandably suspicious of anybody who could escape his terrible array of booby-traps. Catherine tries to defuse the situation by asking him "You’re human….aren’t you?", to which he says nothing. (How freaking insulting can you get!)

Godo frees Caroline from the net and takes them to his home in the caves of Green Mountain. Catherine asks Godo whether or not there are any other humans around, to which he replies in a most unusual fashion. (See Classic Lines) After scratching my head over that one, Godo begins to dress Caroline’s wounds. (The scenes in which she received the wounds were not shown in this movie. In one scene she is fine, in the next scene she has a wounded arm. Gee thanks.) Godo also goes to fetch some new clothes for Catherine and the others since theirs are so "torn". (Why Godo would have a supply of women’s clothes in not explored.)

Meanwhile, the hapless Gebar and his squad of idiot apes have crossed the barb-wire fence and are setting off booby-traps left and right. Despite Gebar’s threats and his waving "laser-whip", the soldiers are overcome by fear and run away. Gebar does manage to touch his laser-whip against a couple of monkeys and administers a powerful cartoon electric shock. This display of raw power is enough to convince the apes to stick with the mission.

Now we see that Pepe has come to help. She is running through the fields and into Green Mountain in order to make contact with the humans. But wait! A UFO flies overhead! Now it’s gone! What the hell?! (I’m not making this up.)

Ok, cut scenes back to Godo’s cave. Johnny and the others are shoving their faces full of food while Godo shaves his beard. (Why?) As the human’s are eating their dinner, in runs Pepe! (I guess she avoided all those o-so-deadly traps too!) It turns out that Godo is also friends with Pepe (the other humans make no reaction to this revelation, so I can only assume that they found this out in some missing footage). Pepe breathlessly informs Godo that Gebar has set fire to Green Mountain. (It’s not everyday that I get to type a sentence like that!)

Godo grabs his M-16 and runs down the mountain, while as a sop to the viewers a voice-over explains how Godo and Pepe became friends. (Don’t worry, it really doesn’t matter, something about Godo freeing Pepe’s mother from a trap..)

Anyway, Godo comes across Gebar and his soldiers. Instead of shooting at him, the apes throw a torch and start running away! Gebar shoots one of the fleeing soldiers in the back in order to restore discipline. Godo has now breached the horrible wall of fire (actually just a burning sapling) and is swinging his rifle like a baseball bat at one of the apes. (Not to beat a dead horse, but again…why the hell don’t they just shoot each other?) Ok, whatever, the apes finally open fire and all of them miss Godo while Godo seems to kill one ape for every bullet he fires. Seeing that the cast of apes is getting noticeably fewer, Godo breaks contact and runs through some more flames (I don’t know why at this point).

Meanwhile the smoke from the fiery inferno has forced the others to flee Godo’s cave. Godo returns just in time to pull Catherine up from a cliff (?) and climb down a very convenient vine in order to pull Pepe out of the fire as well. As Godo reaches the top with an unconscious Pepe slung over his back, a host of apes appears and takes the humans prisoner yet again.

Back at the quarry, we see that Godo has been tied to a stake while some sort of ape ‘witch doctor’ is pounding on bongo drums (?) and standing beside a large owl totem pole (!?).

Gebar gives the order for the drummer to stop playing. Once the drum roll has ended, Gebar next orders the soldiers to "present arms". The apes then pick up their rifles that were laying on the ground at their feet (!!!) and take aim at Godo.

Just as it looks like it’s lights out for Godo, up drives the Commander in a very non-commanding blue 1970 Buick.

The Commander and the District Leader get out of the car and approach Gebar. At this point we see that the Commander likes to wear long, full-breasted double-buttoned Civil War era jackets, like some sort of a pimp-daddy Colonel Sanders fashion statement.

The District Leader tries to explain to the Commander that Gebar has ordered the execution without approval, to which the Commander shoves the ass-kissing DL out of the way and orders Godo to be released. (The reason for Godo’s release is, of course, not given.)

Gebar understandably protests when his prisoner is released, to which he is rewarded with a slap across the face. Once Godo is untied, he runs towards the Commander and tries to karate chop him (or something) and he too is smacked to the ground with a swipe from the Commanders hand.

Johnny, watching this (incomprehensible) drama unfold, runs to the motionless Godo. The Commander grabs Johnny by the throat and starts choking him. But wait! The UFO flies over! The the UFO disappears! (What the hell?) Catherine runs over to Johnny who is still being choked and pleads for his release. The Commander drops him and orders the humans to be taken to "headquarters". As commanded, the soldiers bind Godo and toss him into the back of a truck while Catherine and the kids cram into the back seat of the Commanders car. (?)

On the ride to headquarters, Catherine pleads for the children’s release (which makes me wonder where she thinks the kids will be released to?) The Commander reassures her, in so many words, that if they behave they will be taken care of. (See Classic Lines) At that point Johnny looks out the window and sees a cartoon drawing of a city in the middle of a huge desert (?), um, I mean Johnny sees the majestic ape city.

Ape City

The Commander finally pulls up to headquarters in his command Buick and the ape honor guard does that weird "about face" back-turning maneuver. Godo is hauled out of the back of the truck and trundled down into the holding cells while the others whimper and tag along behind the Commander through the front doors.

Godo is shoved around a bit and finally thrown into an "escape-proof" cell, a cell that "not even Godo can escape from"…(Hmmm, I wonder if he’s going to escape?) The others are thrown into a slightly less "escape-proof" cell where there are given food to eat and left to ponder their plight.

Meanwhile, Godo explores the limits of his cell. This cell is rendered "escape-proof" by some sort of electrical field that zaps him whenever he gets too close to the door. After being shocked a few times, Godo decides to test it with his shoe (?), which he removes and tosses into the force field. As expected, this attempt at breaking out results in a zapped shoe. That was smart.

Suddenly we see that Pepe has infiltrated headquarters (!) and is crawling through the air ducts. Pepe navigates through the ducts and winds up directly over the cell holding Johnny, Catherine, and Caroline. (What are the odds, eh?) Johnny sits on Catherine’s shoulders, removes the air-duct covering, and climbs into the ducts with Pepe in order to find Godo. When Caroline says she wants to come along, Johnny tells the others that it will be safer to remain behind and just "convince them that I’m still in the cell". (Ok, yeah, that will work…"No really, Mr. Ape Guard, Johnny’s standing right next to me. What? You can’t see him? No really, he’s right here.")

After about 5 seconds of crawling through the air ducts, Pepe and Johnny reach Godo’s cell (good thing he’s being kept on the same floor). Johnny opens the grate and promptly drops it to the cell floor. At that very instant, in walks Gebar, intent on executing Godo with or without the Commander’s permission. That Gebar doesn’t see neither the open vent in the ceiling nor the grate laying at his feet is beyond belief.

Gebar pulls out his pistol, inserts a magazine of ammunition, and takes aim at the helpless Godo. Gebar turns off the force field and instead of immediately shooting Godo, walks into the cell and into the range of Godo’s fists. Suddenly Johnny jumps down from the air duct in the ceiling and lands directly on Gebar’s shoulders. This is quite amazing since earlier in the scene the air duct is behind Godo, now suddenly it’s 5 feet in front of Godo and directly over Gebar. Cool!

A fist fight ensues with Johnny pounding on the top of Gebar’s head and Godo kneeing him in the stomach. Somehow Gebar is knocked unconscious and falls to the floor. Godo grabs Gebar’s pistol (which is mysteriously no longer attached to the holster by a security cord, which it was when Gebar first took it out of the holster) as Pepe hops down from the air duct. Godo heads out the door and disables another ape guard which somehow managed to hear nothing in the previous struggle.

Well, the alarm is sounded and apes start chasing Godo, Johnny, and Pepe through the building. Miraculously we jump to a scene where the trio is now outside the building in the street. (?) They pull up some sort of a grate in the middle of the street and jump down into an access tunnel or something. Who really knows what’s going on here. The idiot monkey guards don’t see them and lose their trail.

Luckily enough a truck full of guards parks just to the side of the little tunnel where the humans are hiding. When the guards scatter ("Hurry up!", "Find them!", "Let’s go!"), Godo and the others jump into the back (?) of the unguarded truck. Of course at that very moment, a squad of soldiers runs out of the building and jump into the back of the truck, while one of them gets into the driver’s seat and drives away with Godo, Johnny, and Pepe in the back with the ape soldiers. (Ha ha! Isn’t that ironic?)

Somehow, Godo has managed to put on a soldier’s uniform complete with a visored helmet. Wisely, Godo has lowered the visor, obscuring his face from the apes. If you think that is hard to swallow, Pepe is now sitting on Johnny’s shoulders within a soldier’s uniform so that they look the correct height! Amazing how none of the soldiers notice Johnny’s bare knees or hands sticking out from under the uniform in plain sight! (Really now, how exactly did these idiotic monkeys manage to conquer the world?)

Eventually the truck stops in some sort of town square and the ape soldiers jump out and scatter to do something. Who knows what. Godo and Pepe/Johnny get out of the truck and nonchalantly walk down the street. Somehow, the ruse succeeds, even when passing within 2 feet of a pair of ape soldiers. It boggles the mind how stupid this movie is. I suppose they made their way through town because the next scene shows them under a foot bridge in some kind of park. (?) A guard tramps back and forth just overhead to add to the non-existent tension.

Meanwhile, back at, *ahem*, headquarters, Catherine and Caroline are being interrogated by some bad monkeys. The apes want to know where Godo is hiding, a question to which neither of them can answer. (How would they know where Godo is?)

Whoops! Cut scenes to see Godo, Johnny, and Pepe now walking through some sort of desert area, or maybe it’s a beach. Wow! It’s a shame we didn’t get to see the missing episode showing how they managed to escape the city of apes. It doesn’t matter because, Whoa! The UFO returns and flies overhead. (We can now see that it’s an upside-down wok):

Is anybody missing a wok?

The UFO hovers overhead and extends some sort of pole with a bicycle light attached to it. (I’m not making any of this up!) The light flashes a few times, I suppose indicating that pictures are being taken, then the UFO zooms away.

Now we see that Pepe is back in town again, sneaking through the back streets as she proceeds on her way to…I don’t know. OK, now I see, Pepe and the others are making their way back to headquarters in order to rescue Catherine and Caroline.

That is a sign of a quality film: the viewer has to guess what is happening. Boy, I tell ya!

After a quick surveillance of the building, Pepe reports that Catherine and Caroline are being held prisoner in the second floor. (This building is definitely not the same "headquarters" building as before, so how the hell did Pepe know where they were?)

After a moments pause, Godo comes up with a real hum-dinger of a plan! Pepe gets a cart and fills it with hay, Godo and Johnny hide under the hay and Pepe pulls the innocent looking load right past a guard post and stops a short way down the street. Apparently it’s not allowed to stop with cartloads of hay on this street because the irate guard comes to investigate. Pepe says she’s tired, so the guard sets his rifle against the wall (!) and starts to help Pepe push the cart up the street (!!). Taking the cue, Godo jumps up from under the hay and overpowers the guard. Godo stashes the unconscious guard under the hay, steals his uniform (what freakin’ good is that? What, they can’t tell you’re human when you have a stupid uniform on?!), and he and Johnny make their way through the back alleys toward the building where the others are being held prisoner.

Godo disguised as an ape

In a hilarious continuity error, Pepe, still back at the hay wagon with the unconscious guard, is "keeping watch" when the guard that was just knocked out comes out of his guard shack! Pepe tells Godo (shown hiding under the hay again) that the guard is still there! So not only do the leave out missing episodes, but the episodes that they do use are spliced together in the wrong order! Thanks! That makes following this stupid movie soooo much easier!

Godo makes his way to the back stairway of the building (guarded by only one soldier, of course) and pulls out a rope and grappling hook from his pocket (!!). He then scales the back of the stairwell and hides behind the corner on the second floor balcony while Johnny waits at the bottom. (You will also note that Godo is now wearing leather driving gloves! Where the hell did he get those!)

After a moment’s pause, Godo attacks and knocks out a soldier (leaving the body on the balcony in plain sight) and pulls Johnny up to the second floor with the rope. Somehow, the manage to get inside the building and are running through the hallways looking for the cell holding Caroline and Catherine.

Johnny happens to glance down one hallway and notes that "There’s a guard there!" Godo comes to the conclusion that "That’s the room!" Wow! This guy is good! Using a plan so stupid I won’t describe it, the guard is knocked out and Godo opens the door to the cell. Sure enough, Catherine and Caroline are standing inside and a tearful reunion ensues. ("Johnny!" "Catherine!" "Caroline!" "Johnny!" "Catherine!" "Caroline!", and so on and so on and so on)

Incredibly, Catherine doesn’t want to leave! Instead, she tells Godo that they should remain in the building because they are under the Commander’s protection. Godo, to say the least, is rather suspicious. Godo insists that they leave, noting that they saw "traces of human beings near here" and they have to find them! (Ummm…which episode was that in?) Caroline decides that she would rather be with humans than apes (See Classic Lines) and joins Godo and Johnny. When Godo fails to convince Catherine with words, he simply grabs her by the arm and drags her from the room. (Thank you. Can we get this movie over with, please?)

In an amazing scene change, we suddenly see a pitched gun-fight between ape soldiers and Godo in an old-west town. (!!! What the hell !!!!) Wagon wheels lay around, old stage coaches are in the background… this is all quite surreal to be honest. It is obvious that the filmmakers needed a movie set to film a gun battle and they simply used an available "old west" movie set! This is unbelievable!

Monkey gun-fight at the OK Corral

Godo, firing wildly with a pistol he must have found in a missing episode, tries desperately to escape the flying bullets of the simian soldiers. As the monkeys close in for the kill…Whoa! The UFO appears overhead!

I need a freakin’ beer…this movie is way too much for a mortal man to watch in one sitting…

There. That’s better. Where was I. Oh yeah…

Gebar orders the soldiers to shoot down the UFO, at which time they put down their guns and put on surgical face masks!!! (What the hell is happening here? This is truly one of the most bizarre and baffling movies I’ve ever seen.)

The UFO shoots out a red beam of light and somehow ‘jams’ the apes’ guns just before they can open fire on it. While goofy Benny Hill-esque music plays, the apes try to get the guns to work again by shaking them in the air, chambering rounds, etc., while one monkey even looks down the barrel of his rifle to see what’s wrong with it. (Boy! That’s one elite squad of soldiers!)

Instead of just running over to the humans and bashing their brains in with their rifles (since they outnumber them 5-to-1) they puzzle with their guns while Godo and the others simply run away.

Suddenly we see Godo is back with Pepe and they steal a jeep and get away. After driving a safe distance away from the Gebar and the soldiers, oh, let’s say about 10 seconds, Godo stops the jeep and decides to wait for the UFO. (?!) (Godo also notes that "…It always comes from the East". Hmmm. OK.)

Sure enough, the UFO does appear and starts flashing a red light at them. Caroline suggests that the UFO might be signaling them to which Godo replies "Well, let’s go", and starts to drive away. (!!! I give up. You figure all this out yourself.)

Somehow, Catherine "starts to understand" what the flashing red light means (!?): "The organization known as EUCOM is now trying to take over the ape country." (What the HELL is EUCOM? Which freakin’ episode was that mentioned in?)

They decide to try and contact EUCOM for protection since EUCOM is soon going to attack the apes. (My head hurts.)

Meanwhile, back at headquarters, there has been a rebellion. Some new monkey name Luzar (pronounced "Loser", and please believe me! I’m not making that up either!) tries to wrest power from the Commander. The Commander decides to forgive him for the rebellion and agrees to kill the humans in return for getting his command back. Whatever. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about a rebellion, so go figure.

Back in the jeep, Godo has driven Pepe back home where Pepe’s mom is beside herself with joy at her return. Pepe’s mother finally notices the "naked apes" that have returned her daughter. Pepe explains that they are friends, blah blah blah. Good lord. Pepe realizes that the best thing to do is to remain at home with her mother. (Ummm, wasn’t EUCOM going to attack the apes at any minute?)

Bye bye Pepe.

Anyway, we now see Godo and the others driving along a dirt road back to Green Mountain in order to find EUCOM. Catherine notices Gebar’s jeep parked off to the side and they pull over to investigate. (You will note that this scene takes place in the same ‘quarry’ area that Godo was going to be executed in the beginning of the film. A penny saved is a penny earned, I guess.) Gebar suddenly leaps out of the jeep and explains that he has come alone to deal with Godo once and for all: this is going to be settled man to monkey.

Gebar begins to fire, Godo returns fire, and all they seem to hit is the rocks directly in front of their adversary’s feet (along with the occasional ricochet off the jeep’s windshield!). In the middle of the gun fight, Gebar shouts that he can now finally avenge the death of his wife and son (???).

As luck would have it, Godo’s gun runs out of bullets. Gebar walks closer, pistol aimed at Godo, and, and, and… (haven’t we seen all this before?) The UFO appears overhead and jams Gebar’s gun. (Uggg)

Gebar, foiled again and insane with frustration, charges the UFO,which has now landed at the cliff top. Demanding to know why they won’t allow him to "carry out justice" and kill the man who murdered his wife and son, Gebar approaches and…and…

Exciting isn’t it?

Suddenly a panel opens on the UFO revealing a movie screen. (??) We are now treated to a replay of the events which lead to the death of Gebar’s family. As Gebar watches in stunned silence, we see Gebar’s wife and son clinging to a vine, hanging over a cliff. Well, not a cliff, but a steep incline. OK, not even very steep, but they are trying to make it look really scary and really dangerous. Hey! Now the movie screen shows Godo running to the cliff’s edge and pulling up Gebar’s wife and son! You mean? Yes! Godo is good! Godo is good!

Gebar’s wife loses her grasp and obligingly rolls down the hill, er, I mean falls to her death. At that very moment, we see Gebar enter the scene and shoot at Godo, but misses his mark and accidentally kills his son.

Realizing that he is responsible for his son’s death, Gebar goes for the Oscar and has a nervous breakdown. He drops his pistol to his cowboy-boot clad feet and begins to babble on and on about how he doesn’t deserve to live. Quite touching actually. Not.

The UFO takes off, leaving Gebar a broken monkey, weeping on the ground.

At that moment, the Commander drives up (!). Gebar explains how he killed his own wife and son (Huh? His wife fell down a cliff!) Whatever. I hate this movie. The Commander tells Gebar that is was just an accident and that he has a "good heart". Gebar asks for Godo’s forgiveness and walks away sobbing.

The Commander warns the humans that EUCOM can be treacherous and that they are better off to stay with the apes, especially since the rebellion is over. (Huh!!?? What rebellion!!??) Catherine speaks for them all when she says declines the Commander’s offer of life among the apes, noting that "we are human beings and this is ape country." Fair enough. The Commander wishes them well on their journey back to Green Mountain. (Oh, so that’s where they are headed. Thanks for filling us in.)

Back on Green Mountain, the UFO shows up and guides them to a back door at the EUCOM underground bunker. Unsure how to open the massive metal doors, Godo approaches to take a closer look and steps on some sort of button which, yes, opens the doors. (Give me a break!)

The awesome EUCOM security system now breached, the humans enter the darkened hallway beyond the metal doors.

Without warning (is there any type of warning for things that happen in this movie?), weird lights fill the screen and we hear Catherine say "We must have come into the future!" (Oh. Yes. Thank you.)

Ohh! Weird! We see Caroline waking up on a hospital bed. She leaves her room and runs down the empty halls, we see a figure approach, it’s an ape! Caroline runs, stops, turns around, and now it’s Catherine behind her! (I’m just going to describe what happens. I’ve not had any idea what’s been going on for some time now.)

Caroline faints, revives, and we see shadowy figures coming towards them from down the hallway. Are they apes? Humans? Wow! Humans! Heavy!

Hey wait! It’s Dr. Lee! They’re back home! (Huh?) The good doctor explains that everything is OK now, and that Johnny is sleeping in a room down the hall. Catherine asks where Godo is, to which a puzzled Dr. Lee tells Catherine that there were only the 3 of them that ‘came back’ or something.

Catherine runs to the lab to look into the empty capsule that was to have held Godo. Catherine reaches into the capsule and pulls out Godo’s necklace. Ooooo! Weird!

Anyway, Caroline and Johnny are taken to a room where their eager parents await them. They hug, cry, hug some more and are finally reunited with their loved ones. The camera pulls back from the room…

The end.

No wait. There’s more? What the hell?

We now see Catherine talking to Dr. Lee in the lab. Lee explains that the earthquake damaged only a "limited area". Ummm…I guess that would include the area of the entire building tipping over into a crack that we saw happen in the beginning?!!!

Catherine expresses disbelief when Dr. Lee tells her that they were buried for only 7 days while the rescue team dug through the rubble to save them. Dr. Lee goes further to explain that time is in fact relative. (I agree 100%…this movie is taking forever!) Catherine can’t believe that the 6 months (!!!) that they spent in "ape country" could have happened in only 7 days. Dr. Lee says that he believes her and even shows her the evidence to back up her story. Pointing to some dials on her capsule, he indicates some "deviations in the time scale". He is right you know, look for yourself:

As Lee goes on to explain, the indicator on the right shows 3714 years and the thermometer "shows an incredibly low temperature." The thermometer indicates that Catherine and the others were exposed to "more extreme temperatures" than absolute zero, and that these temperatures "could have elongated the time scale!"

Yeah sure, buddy.

To make things even more confusing, Catherine chimes in with her own pseudo-scientific nonsense: "The capsule was in such a low temperature zone, where the universal computer was." (Huh? I say again: Huh?)

Well, now Dr. Lee understands: "It’s all very clear!…You reversed into the past! But there was another factor: the extremely low temperature, which caused the time scale to warp, and therefore, the deep freeze capsule acted as a time converter!"

Ah. Yes. I see it now.

We then fade to scene showing Godo walking alone through a desert! (?) I guess his time scale wasn’t warped enough by the extremely low temperatures in his time convert or.

We fade again to see Catherine walking down a busy city street with Johnny and Caroline eating ice cream.

May I please interject something at this point? When is this movie going to END!!!???

We hear a voice over as Catherine explains to the kids what has happened to Godo. She explains that they returned to the present while Godo journeyed to "another time zone."

"Godo," continues Catherine, "where ever he is, will always be in our hearts!"

Johnny: "Oh yes!"

Caroline "Oh yes!"

Me: "This movie sucks!"

Dennis Grisbeck (March 2005)

Read more about Time of the Apes at

Directed by David Winters

Written by Maria Dante

Tagline: “There is nowhere to hide from the enemy within!”

Run Time: 93 min

“So tell me Dave, your Viper was equipped with a new high-density atomizer escape system, right?”
- Commander Jansen

Space Mutiny is a film so completely and absolutely awful that it leaves one breathless. Almost every type of error that can be made while producing a movie can be found in this film. It is an astoundingly sloppy production full of jaw-dropping continuity errors, cheap special effects, and a story that is ludicrous to the extreme.

Regarding the special effects, all space footage in this film is stock footage from none other than old Battlestar Galactica episodes! Since this series was so popular during its time, and the model ships so distinctive, I can only assume that the makers of "Space Mutiny" really didn’t give a damn if people knew the source of the scenes. This atmosphere of disregard for the viewer is probably best represented by the opening scene of the movie: Stock footage of the Battlestar Galactica flying through space, yet they mistakenly play the footage backwards! Incredible! Another example of laziness is a scene in the film where 2 space-pirate ships are blown up: The second exploded ship is merely the same footage of the first exploding ship but they have just flipped the film so that the ship appears on the other side of the screen.

Interior shots of the space ship are filmed in some sort of factory, so it makes it hard to imagine actually being on a space ship when you can easily see that the walls are made of brick! (Not to mention sunlight streaming through the windows!)

Well, before I get even more wound up, let’s just get on with the review, shall we?

	Dave Ryder (Reb Brown) "Flight Master" Dave Ryder is a no-nonsense kind of go that likes to take out the bad guys one on one. Actor Reb Brown was a former boxer and sheriff’s deputy before stumbling into the movie business. (His film debut was in the movie "SSSSSSSS" !) Real life husband of Cisse Cameron (below).
	Lea Jansen (Cisse Cameron) Bimbo with a bod. The movie tries its best to disguise the fact that Cisse’s character is about 20 years younger than she is. Cisse has bared herself more than once in her movie career, notably in "Porky’s 2" and "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington".
	Commander Jansen (Cameron Mitchell) The wonderfully fake-bearded Commander of the Southern Sun is played by veteran actor Cameron Mitchell. Cameron has appeared in over 150 films since 1945. His latest performance is in the killer jack-o-lantern movie "Jack-O" as one Dr. Cadaver.
	Elijah Kalgan (John Phillip Law) The baddest bad guy of them all. Another veteran actor in a What-The-Hell-Are-They-Doing-Here role.
	Lt. Lemont (Billy Second) The communications officer who dies in one scene and is amazingly back at work behind her desk in the next. You go, girl!

The screen is graced with the opening credits which look like they were produced on a Comadore 64. (Please, this is not a jab at Comadore!) As the credits end, we see the opening shot of Battlestar Galactica, oops, I mean the Southern Sun as it flies backwards (!!!) across the screen. As luck would have it, a narrator fills us in on the back story:

"Thirteen generations ago, our overpopulated world built ‘The Southern Sun’. A self-sufficient space ship that would be home to thousands of migrants for the ten light-year journey to a new and uncolonized world. The current descendants have come to accept the Southern Sun as their home and work for a better future for their children. While most of the inhabitants of this generation are content, there are some who have grown restless and impatient."

So let’s see. The world is so overpopulated that they build a gigantic "generation" ship that will take thousands of people to a new world. Would a reduction of thousands of people really make a dent in the overpopulation of a world with billions of inhabitants? It would be like trying to reduce the world’s population by sending off the student body of a local community college.

During this narration we see a shot of the bridge, staffed by an awesome crew of about 5 people tapping away at old IBM keyboards. For some strange reason all female crew members wear high-cut blue leotards. Well, it is the future so who knows what could happen.

OK, fine. The ship and its, *ahem*, thousands of inhabitants are flying through space. (But they might want to stop flying backwards if they ever want to reach their destination.) As the narration ends, we see the leader of the "restless and impatient" rebels. (Impatient for what? To reach their destination planet? What the hell can anybody do about that? Drive faster? Stupid movie.) The leader of the rebels and head of security, Elijah Kalgan, (pronounced as ‘calgon’…yes…just like the old ‘Calgon…take me away!’ commercials…) and his bodyguard, a blonde pseudo-buff dude who wears red body armor and not much else, are stomping around in the bowels of the water treatment plant. Ooops. I mean walking around the ship. ‘Tense’ music clues the viewer that these two are Up To No Good. Oh yes, I see now. Kalgan is placing a bomb onto a big something or other, which I can only assume is Something Important. (It looks like an industrial clothes dryer.)

Back on the bridge, the communications officer, Lt. Lemont, receives a call that a damaged ship is being escorted into the Southern Sun’s landing bay. As the pilot of the rescue ship radios in, the crew of the rescues ship are "Balarians" (No, not Bulgarians…). As we find out later in the film, the Balarians are a race of women gifted with telepathic powers and the ability to drive men wild with desire. Or something.

Just a minute. What are the odds of stumbling across a tiny shuttle in the vast expanses of interstellar space? Whatever. I guess the Balarians are important to the story because they do provide a lot of dance scenes (not to mention that they are all pretty hot looking too).

Cut to more Battlestar Galactica footage which is suppose to represent a squadron of "Stingray Fighters". (Of course the fighters make roaring jet noises despite the fact that they are in outer space.) Inside the Southern Sun, the Commander’s daughter, Lea, stops by the bridge on her way down to the docking bay to meet one of her friends, Professor Spooner,who has just arrived from God knows where. (Once again, arrived from where? This ship is on an interstellar journey, i.e., between stars. Just where are these people arriving from?)

I must point out that the actress who plays Lea, Cisse Cameron, is obviously in her 40′s. In Space Mutiny she is supposed to be a young hotty…a gambit which falls flat on its face. Cisse is in fact the real life wife of Reb Brown, the actor who plays the the film’s hero. I digress.

As the fighters are making their approach, out of nowhere appears a group of pirates (!). These pirate ships are of course simply stock footage shots of the Cylon ships from Battlestar Galactica. While we’re nit picking here…pirates?! What the hell are pirates doing in interstellar space? Just who do they pirate? It’s not like this is a shipping lane rich with merchant space ships…

I hate this movie.

Well, since the producers of this film had some extra Battlestar Galactica footage laying about, we are treated to shots of space battles that really have no relevance to the story at all. The number of "pirate" ships varies from shot to shot, as does the number of Stingray Fighters. For some reason, the pirates attack the Southern Sun itself and are quickly destroyed.

Meanwhile, in what seems to be a different film altogether, Kalgan and his bodyguard are still Up To No Good. Wandering around in some sort of factory that is supposed to be the Southern Sun, there is apparently no sign of any kind that the ship is under a massive pirate attack. (Previous scenes showed the ship in flames in several places, yet we see Kalgan casually walking through the ship as if nothing is happening.)

Kalgan and American Gladiator reject. (Note sun coming in through window in the upper left…this is suppose to be a space ship…)

Being a bad guy, Kalgan detonates the bombs he had previously placed around the ship. The point of this sabotage escapes me, to be honest. What I mean is that he too is on this ship, so what does he accomplish by damaging it? Is he trying to bring about political change? Is he trying to destroy the ship? What the hell is going on here?

Back on one of the Stingray fighters, our hero, Dave Ryder, is having trouble controlling his ship. "I’ve lost power!", he screams from his fully operational cockpit, which tends to contradict his assertion of power loss. We then notice that Dave has activated the "Pilot Ejection System". As others have noted before, the usefulness of a pilot ejection system in outer space seems dubious at best.

The computer display informs the viewer that "Collision Unavoidable" and that the "Automatic Beam-Off" (?) is beginning. As you might have guessed, Dave manages to, er, "beam off" his crippled fighter and reappears on board the Southern Star dressed in his silver body suit and motorcycle helmet. Sorry, I meant pilot’s suit.

The stricken ship crashes into the landing bay, or maybe not, but it does crash into the ship. Lea runs towards the wreckage screaming out for Professor Spooner but is carried off kicking and screaming by Dave who warns her that the fighter is "gonna blow!" (As Dave runs away with Lea slung over his back, we see the crashed fighter in the background which is oddly smaller than Dave. Man, that must have been a tight fit. Not to mention that he was also carrying Professor Spooner as a passenger.)

As fire rages in the landing bay, Kalgan cackles like a 1950′s mad scientist. I’m not too sure how the bombs he planted had anything to do with the crashing of an incoming space fighter, but there you go. Nothing really makes any sense in this horrid movie, so you just get used to stuff like that. OK, yes, back on the bridge the Commander blames the crash on a sudden loss of power, which I suppose we are to understand was a result of Kalgan’s bombs. Yet, wasn’t it the battle with the pirate ships that damaged Dave’s ship? Furthermore, it was Dave who complained about losing power in his ship, not the Southern Sun…stupid movie.

After things calm down a bit, one of the ship’s officers, Blake, reports to Kalgan that a group of "strange women" were aboard the shuttle. (‘What shuttle?’, you may well ask. Good question.) Anyway, Blake apologizes that his report is so "scanty" (?) and returns to his post. The "strange women", previously identified as Balarians, are shown to their room, which is simply an empty room. Talk about hospitality. The Balarian leader telepathically commands the men to leave the room. (You can tell she’s the leader because she’s the hottest one of the group.)

Back down in the basement, or whatever the hell this big pipe-filled room is supposed to be, Kalgan drives up in one of his security vehicles with the name of the vehicle stenciled on the side: "Enforcer 1". To show what a tough guy Kalgan is, there’s even a rifle strapped to the side. (Strapped to the outside and in an awkward position no less, but still, he’s a BAD GUY.) This aura of authority is compromised by the fact that the "Enforcer 1" is actually one of those drivable floor buffing machines (!). You know the kind…those that 80-year old janitors drive around at about 1 mile-per-hour.

Kalgan pulls up to his Partner In Evil (still waiting for a name…PIE for now) and says, "Perfect timing…two birds with one stone." (Cackle-cackle).

"Who would have thought one ship could cause so much damage!" PIE replies. Since there are about 5 guys in white suits sweeping up the floor, I fail to see what massive damage PIE is referring to. Maybe it’s off camera or in a different movie.

Kalgan smirks and exposits, "That Viper’s missile pods took out the entire winching system for the docking bay doors!" OK, yes. I guess they will never be able to repair that. I just want to note that the actor playing Kalgan really, really chews the scenery whenever he gets the chance. I’m pretty sure his script was annotated with "ACT EVIL!" before all of his lines.

PIE notes that the damage will take 2 weeks to repair, thus rendering the Southern Sun completed isolated. Boy, I hate to beat a dead horse but, how much more isolated could they be than they already are? They are on a multi-generational 10 light year journey, for cripes sake! Oh yeah, gee, it’s going to take 2 whole weeks to repair…what, they’ve already been in space for 13 generations! It’s not like they’ll be landing any time soon.

OK, now we get to the meat of the plot here. Kalgan is determined to force the crew of the ship to land at "Corona Borealis" instead of their original destination. On this planet, Kalgan intends to "accumulate wealth and power" beyond his wildest dreams. (Can a person "accumulate" power? How does that work?) Anyway, so I have to wonder again…if "Corona Borealis" is an inhabitable planet, why the hell don’t they just land there anyway? Why bother continuing through space for countless more generations when an inhabitable planet is right there!? Man, my head hurts.

Cut to a meeting room where PIE and his Evil Henchman are discussing practical details concerning the take over of the Southern Sun. With cheers of "We can do this!" and "Yeah!" from his partners, PIE lays out his plan. "It’s true! We have the power to do this!", shouts PIE, "But this would directly oppose the law of the universe! [??]" Umm kay. One of the engineers refuses to go along with the treachery and is promptly stabbed to death.

Back on the bridge, our hero, Dave Ryder, meets the Commander and his XO, Captain Scott. Before they can get started with the briefing, the Commander asks for Dave’s "space status card" (huh?), which Dave immediately withdraws from his belt. A swipe of the card in a computer reveals that Dave Ryder is in fact, Dave Ryder. (If you look closely at the screen you can see his occupation is listed as "Flight Master" (!)) Anyway, Dave requests to see a video of the his crash into the docking bay. Oh great. It’s one of the incredibly advanced computers that has a voice synthesizer which "says" everything that appears on the screen. I guess this is to ensure that even those bridge crew members that can’t read will still be able to understand what is happening in the ship.

Well, enough of that I guess. Cut to the Balarian chamber where they are dancing around a bunch of those ‘plasma’ balls, you know those ones that you can buy in novelty shops which shoots out those glowing plasma trails when you put your hand on it? Yup. They are dancing around those. You have to hand it to the makers of this film…they sure cut every corner when making Space Mutiny.

The Balarians are sending a telepathic message to a couple of male crew members who begin dreaming about having sex with the Balarian witches. Well, one of the crew members wakes up and tries to gain entry into the chamber but is quickly reprimanded by the guard on duty outside the door. Hmmm…Great scene. That was really exciting.

Back to the bridge. Dave explains that the Viper’s "new high-density atomizer escape system" was only "hooked up" to the pilot, thus he was able to escape the crash but Professor Spooner had no chance to escape. (If you wondering who Professor Spooner is then join the club. Actually, he’s just a plot device feebly employed to generate ‘friction’ between our two leads, Dave and Lea.)

At that moment Lea enters the bridge and is promptly scolded for trying to run into the flames and rescue Spooner. "The pilot chickened-out!", she shouts, oblivious to the fact that Dave, sitting just beside her, was in fact the pilot. (And just how did he "chicken out"? His ship had no power!)

Well Dave has had enough of her accusations. "Listen, lady!", he shouts. "Doctor!", hisses Lea in reply. (Lea’s a doctor…uh-huh…) "There wasn’t enough time to switch to the auxiliary backup system!", continues Dave in a rather redundant description of the system. This truly, truly wooden performance continues for awhile before Dave stalks off to "file his report."

Now that tension has been created between the 2 leads, just imagine how much more sweeter it will be when they finally fall in love. Ooops!

Meanwhile, back at security head quarters, Kalgan has intercepted a crew member making a report to the bridge. It appears that somebody has been stealing explosives. In fact, "We’re definitely short on conventional ballistic explosive." (Conventional what?!) Soon To Be Dead Crew member continues, "Somebody with direct on-line access to Central has been transferring large amounts of explosives and then simply covering the requisition." (Ohhh…that old trick!)

Well, gee. Kalgan sends some guards to deal with the leak. Soon To Be Dead Crew Member runs through the water treatment plant, damn, sorry, I mean ship, and is soon cornered, where else, on a catwalk high above the concrete floor below. With a dubbed cackle (You can see that his mouth is closed!) Kalgan steps out from the shadows to confront the would be do-gooder. "You have two choices", Kalgan informs the crew member, "Join me or the Deep-Freeze." Engineer Cadell (gee thanks for telling me his name 5 seconds before he dies) chooses instead to jump off the catwalk to his death. (!)

Dave, in the meantime, is trying to mend fences with Lea. He finds her in the greenhouse where she’s watering big orange plants. (Hey, it’s the Future!) Dave continues to defend his decision for a bit longer and then Lea obviously blows her lines when Dave looks at her in complete silence for a second or two then curiously shouts, "Hey! I don’t need this!" even though Lea didn’t say anything.

OK. They have to fall in love at some point before the end of the film, so it might as well be now. For no apparent reason, besides the fact that the script mandates so, Lea suddenly wants to be friends. Dave isn’t ready to bury the hatchet and storms off again. (Ahhh…the tension is killing me! When will they fall in love?)

Now comes one of the most horrible scenes I have ever laid eyes on. Yes. The dance scene in the ship’s lounge.

Bad 80′s music.

Garish multi-colored clothes.

White people dancing like white 80′s people.

White people dancing like white 80′s people with hula-hoops. (!!!)

(By the way, is this were the "thousands of migrants" come to relax? It would probably get a little crowded in there. It looks like there’s maybe room for 50 people, tops.)

Anyway, as Dave is leaning against the bar checking out the dancing, in comes Lea in her blue and silver space suit. She shuffles across the floor and does some really, really, bad dancing before catching Dave’s eye.

To ensure her catch, Lea even begins to twirl a hula-hoop around on her waist, oblivious to any sort of "beat" or "rhythm" in the music. So yes, Lea is standing in the middle of the dance floor spinning a hula-hoop. (The Future!)

Folks, this is a really bad film here.

Oh by the way, not to ruin the magic of the moment, but if you look carefully you’ll see that this "club" is actually filmed in the same "basement" as the "docking bay." They simply added some lights, a dance floor, and a "bar", viola!

To spare you some excruciating dialog, Lea and Dave decide to "start over" and try and to be friends. As pleasantries are exchanged, Lea notices that Lt. Lemont (the communications officer, you remember that, don’t you?) is being led away by 2 security officers. (Do you really think you would notice something like this from across a room full of people while trying to pick somebody up at a bar?)

By the way, all security officers wear black ski masks and plastic wood-working goggles. (Sinister!)

"Let’s go check it out", suggests Dave in yet another entirely unbelievable line. (Nothing like shoe-horning a plot along, eh?)

As expected, Lt. Lemont is escorted to Kalgan who is seated in another of those floor-buffer-thingees. This particular floor-buffer is chauffeured by his American Gladiator Wannabe body guard (man, I wish they could give me a couple names here…), allowing Kalgan the opportunity to blast Lt. Lemont with his laser gun and "race" off in their Enforcer car.. (Why? Because she received the report concerning the missing explosives. Wake up! C’mon! Almost halfway through this movie! Don’t wimp out on me now!)

When Dave and Lea discover Lemont’s body on the floor, Dave magically has a huge laser pistol in his hand. (Seeing that he has no pockets in his pants, I really don’t want to think about where he might have been keeping the gun while sitting at the bar.) "There they go!", mumbled Dave with about as much conviction as an actor can muster while watching his career go down the toilet. Lea and Dave hop into a second, incredibly convenient, Enforcer floor-buffer car, and race off in hot pursuit.

How to describe the chase scene…hmmm… Imagine two floor-buffers "racing" around a water-treatment plant with cartoon "laser gun bullets" being fired between the cars. (The film is occasionally sped up in a vain effort to hide the fact that these cars have a top speed of one mile-per-hour.) The laser-beams seem to hit everything but the Enforcer vehicles. In fact, some of the beams enter the frame from areas nowhere near either of the cars. Go figure.

Just as things get too exciting, we cut to the bridge. Captain Scott enters the bridge. In a jaw-dropping continuity error, Scott walks past Lt. Lemont, busily working at her computer. Hmmm…wasn’t she killed in the previous scene!!!???

The Amazing Resurrected Lt. Lemont

My lord! How lazy can a movie get?

Scott and the Commander try to discover who’s behind all the sabotage. After a few seconds talking, they come to the conclusion that whoever is responsible may be trying to divert the ship into the Corona Borealis constellation. "That’s pirate territory", remarks Scott. (Ohhh! Scary!)

"It’s always very dangerous to speculate," says the Commander, "though it would have to be somebody on this ship." (No shi* Sherlock! Gee, ya think so?) Captain Scott mulls this over a bit and suggests that it may be the Enforcers (no not the cars. I guess the security forces themselves are called "Enforcers". Wow. Cool.) Not wanted to tip their hand to the mutineers, the Commander orders Captain Scott to keep this information "Top classified secret."

OK, back to the chase scene. Since the movie makers could never come up with a way to have the car chase end and the pursuit continue on foot, they simply cut to Dave and Lea running through the ship looking for Kalgan and his Body Guard. They wind up in some sort of cryogenics lab where a crusty old caretaker keeps bodies ‘on the ice’ so to speak. It’s actually a sort of storage area for anybody that the Enforcers consider a threat…they just send them down to "Deep Freeze" and freeze them. (But only if they’re "redeemable". Non-redeemable crew members are shot into space. I’m not sure when a body is considered redeemable, indeed, nor do I have any idea how I would ever redeem one.) As Lea and Dave make their way past a row of frozen bodies, the viewer can’t help but notice that they are in fact a bunch of guys wearing silver underwear and wrapped in plastic wrap (!).

The caretaker takes his leave of our heroes, giving them the chance to mull over their plans. Lea wants to attack the mutineers who number around only 150, so in all honesty, Lea’s plan does make sense. Dave poo-poos the plan by saying, "It would be a blood-bath." Whatever. Noting that the mutineers have "broken inter-galactic law [!]", Lea repeats that something must be done. (Wow. You think so? Can we…umm…get on with this?!)

Alas, before anything can be decided, Kalgan and his men discover Dave and Lea in the deep-freeze room and another exciting (not) laser-gun battle ensues. The Enforcers chase Lea and Dave through the pipe-and-girder filled ship, firing madly and missing by tens of feet on every shot. I mean, really. How the hell can you aim at somebody 20 feet away and hit the ceiling?! It’s absurd! Dave of course hits everybody with one shot. Well, what do you know, Dave spots a collection of red tanks marked with a sign "Methane Gas…Danger!". (A closer look will reveal these methane tanks to be fire extinguishers covered with red spray paint…sheesh! What a film…)

Give yourself two points if you guessed that Dave shoots the cans and they blow up real good. The resulting fire is enough to cover Dave and Lea’s escape. Oh joy.

Back on the bridge, the Commander is searching through the computer files regarding the Balarians. As the computer says everything that’s on the screen (I really, really hate that in the movies), we see the Balarians performing another of their odd plasma-ball ballets. After a bit of gyrating, we realize that the Balarians are sending a telepathic message to the Commander. The Balarian leader magically appears in the Commander’s chambers and says, "Commander…it is now time for us to talk."

The Balarian Leader, Genera, tells the Captain that the people of the Southern Sun are falling prey to the powers of Darkness. (I don’t know, they’re pretty crappy dancers, but the majority of them seemed alright…) Genera walks across the room, crouches beside the Commander and places her red, glowing hands on his chest. What this cartoon red light is suppose to signify is beyond me. I don’t the writers were completely sure either.

OK, yes, now I see. Genera tells the Commander that she has just "shared the way to the truth" via the whole red-glowing-hand thingee she just did. "Face Kalgan and his evil!", Genera commands the Commander.

Later, or the next day, or sometime, who knows, the Commander is holding a meeting with Dave, Lea, and some other crew members (Dave is dressed in a white muscle shirt, which seems a tad informal when being addressed by the Commander of a star ship.) The point of the meeting is to offer Dave the position of "Flight Commander". I’m not sure if that’s the Commander’s job or what. It’s never clear, and in hindsight now that I’ve seen this movie 5 times, it really doesn’t matter.

A celebration then takes place in the officers lounge to celebrate Dave’s promotion. There’s about 15 people present, and sadly, the same music is playing in this scene as there was in the horrifying ‘hula-hoop-dancing’ scene from before. (Why do all the women officers wear workout leotards? Not that I’m complaining…) Dave notices that Lea is absent from the festivities, takes his leave of the Commander and Captain Scott, and hurries down to the green house to find her.

Now we see the second most horrifying scene in the film: Dave and Lea writhing and grinding on each other under a sheet. (Please notice that the "grass" in the "greenhouse" has wrinkles in it…gee…that wouldn’t be astroturf, now would it?)

Meanwhile, the Balarians are still dancing and manage to lure a couple Enforcer dudes down into their room. The two men are later found sprawled senseless on the floor. The wayward Enforcers are taken down to Deep Freeze where Kalgan is awaiting them along with his Body Guard. The Body Guard beats one of the guys for a bit then they are led away to be frozen. Once again I have to ask…what exactly was I suppose to get out of that scene? That Kalgan is Evil?

Well, that scene over, we are treated to another pointless scene showing 2 Enforcer officers going for the Exposition of the Year Award. We find out that Kalgan has made a deal with some Pirates to help them get off the ship. (What? I thought they were trying to divert the ship itself? What the hell?)

At that moment comes a message over the radio from the Alseka Pirate Fleet. "You have entered the Alpha-Delta Restricted Zone," the pirates inform the crew of the Southern Star, "…surrender immediately or be blown into astro dust!" (Wow! Astro dust! That’s gotta hurt.)

A gigantic space battle ensues, realized by gigantic amounts of Battlestar Galactica stock footage. (Not to mention a smattering of "explosion" shots from early scenes of the movie. Try not to notice that.) The Commander fires 2 missiles, each hit their designated targets and the pirates are destroyed. Huh. That was exciting.

The crew heads down to the lounge in order to celebrate their victory over the pirates. Try not to notice that it’s the exact same "party" scene shown previously during Dave’s promotion party. In order to convey the sense of relief felt by the thousands of crew members, a group of 11 men are shown pumping their arms in the air while shouting "yea!". (Boy, you know, it’s really hard to imagine that this movie is taking place on a "ship of thousands". Actually, it’s hard to imagine that this movie is taking place on any kind of ship at all.)

As the "celebration" continues, a voice comes over the loudspeaker and says, "To all on board: Congratulations! We have successfully defended the Southern Sun against the latest pirate attack. We must now focus on internal problems. [!?]"

Dave appears from atop a catwalk and addresses the jubilant crowd below: "Will the officers of the watch please form three groups…The first group is going to be responsible for making weapons (??), the second group is going to act as soldiers [??], the third group is responsible for getting food and supplies."

OK, so we will have 4 guys making weapons (What the…?), 4 guys "acting as soldiers", and the rest gathering food? What the hell is Dave talking about?

Ah, yes, I’m so blind. Dave and the gang are going to barricade themselves in the engine room in order to prevent the Enforcers from taking over the ship. (I would have thought the bridge would have been a more strategic place to control, but oh well.) Dave concludes his speech by shouting "Now let’s get out there and kick some ass!" (I’m not sure how much "ass kicking" they can do while barricaded in the engine room, but let’s just go with the flow.)

While all this…stuff…is happening, Kalgan kidnaps Lea and has her taken…cue evil music…to his headquarters. Up on the bridge, the Commander receives the news of his daughter’s capture from Kalgan himself. The evil Enforcer leader gives the Commander just 12 hours to turn over the ship to the Enforcers or else Lea will be "ejected into space." A brief discussion with Captain Scott convinces the Commander to stand up and fight against the Enforcers. (Really! There’s 150 Enforcers and several thousand ‘good guys’…kick the bastards into space already!)

Meanwhile, Kalgan is preparing to torture Lea a bit with a laser dental drill ala ‘The Marathon Man’. I don’t really see why he wants to torture her since she has no information to give him (from what I can tell so far she’s some sort of botanist). Oh well, I guess he’s just EVIL…

Ooops. I spoke too soon. He’s trying to get Lea to tell him about the Commander’s "contingency plans". Umm, would she know of these plans? And contingency plans for exactly what type of situation? "A Group of Buffer-Car Driving Silver-Suited Wackos Trying to Take Over the Ship" situation?

Dave, having learned of Lea’s peril, sprints off to rescue her. He overcomes a couple of idiot guards and steals a uniform from one of them. (A uniform which in no way could have possibly fitted him. Oh yeah, and what good is the uniform if you don’t have a mask to hide your face. Moron.)

Fed up with Lea’s refusal to divulge the plans, Kalgan begins drilling into Lea’s front tooth. (The laser drill consists of goofy cartoon "light" with the sound of a dentists drill foleyed onto the soundtrack. Why a laser would make the same sound as a dentist’s drill is not clear.)

Just as things are starting to get uncomfortable for Lea, in walks Kalgan’s Evil Partner. "I see you’ve got the girl", he says after seeing that they’ve gotten the girl. Kalgan turns off the laser and offers to escort Evil Partner back to the engine room. Did this make any sense to you? No? Good. This is some really clever script writing. Now Lea is alone with Bonehead Bad Guy (BBG) who is supposed to guard her until Kalgan comes back. (Once again, the point of this previous scene was…?)

Oh no. Lea is seducing BBG. In fact she’s talked him into removing his uniform. Man, talk about a contrived pile of crap. I’m sorry. I’m only human…and a human can only take so much Space Mutiny. Blah blah blah. Lea kicks BBG to the floor when Dave arrives Just At That Moment. Lea steals the uniform from BBG then she and Dave run from the room. BBG is tied to a bank of computer monitors. Just so you know.

Dave and Lea make their way through More Gigantic Rooms Filled With Pipes, and eventually overcome a pair of guards sitting at a computer. (The brief melee included Lea kicking one of the guards in the groin. What is so irresistible about it that filmmakers have to include at least one groin-kick/punch in every film?)

Meanwhile Kalgan is on a rampage back at his headquarters after learning of Lea’s escape. "You let that space-bitch escape!", he growls at his cowering underlings. (Umm…"Space bitch"? Oh, brother!) Kalgan orders that their "plans" now be put on "red alert!" (I didn’t know you could put plans on alert, but what do I know?)

Dave eventually delivers Lea to her anxious father on the bridge. Here they all learn that the Chief Engineer, MacPhearson, is a traitor. "This is serious", says Captain Scott, "He knows all of our codes!" Dave agrees and decides to go deal with him…alone.

Some more confusing "battle" scenes ensue. Back in the Gigantic Room Filled With Pipes (the same room that has served as docking bay, disco, engine room,…) the Enforcers are a attacking the good crew members of the Southern Sun. Kalgan opens fire on Dave but, of course, misses wildly. (Dave usually hits with one shot, typically resulting in the stricken Enforcer tossing himself over a railing so we can watch a slow motion "ayieeeeeeeee" falling scene.)

I just want to interrupt this review and say that this is one of the most half-hearted, uninspired, lame "laser battle" scenes I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch. I know return you to you Space Mutiny.

Ah yes. Good. Now my life is complete. An explosion resulting in not one, but two, crew members flipping through the air as a result.

MacPhearson, the treacherous weasel that he is, nonchalantly makes his way out of the fray and to another Gigantic Room Filled With Pipes And One Computer Bank. MacPhearson quickly dispatches the 8 or so people working at the computers and then proceeds

Hey wait! Two more guys flipping through the air! Not only that! They are flipping through the air over a railing! Yes!

Did the film makers really think that this kind of crap is exciting?

Two more are shot and flip over a railing. Well, to be fair, it was the same two from before, the shot was just filmed from a different angle.

Another guy flips over a railing! Incredible! And another! I’m not making this up! It’s unbelievable! Another!

Dave and the others are finally overwhelmed and forced to retreat into the engine room. (Umm, wasn’t that where they just were?) Anyway, an Enforcer with a mohawk (!) calls off the other Enforcers because he assumes that Dave and the Good Guys are all dead. (I think. There’s really no point in trying to guess the motivations a character’s actions in this film.)

MacPhearson is now trapped in the room where he dusted the 8 other guys. (Don’t ask.) Three more guards approach him and he shoots two of them, and yes, both of them topple over the railing!

But wait, here comes Dave. Not only that, Lea is hanging from a rope (!!) with one arm. (Where the hell did she come from? What the…?) Anyway, for no other reason than The Script Says So, MacPhearson leaves his fairly easily defended location and clambers down into the "gas expulsion sump" instead.

MacPhearson tries to weasel himself out of his predicament as Dave opens a valve connected to a bank of tanks filled with, yes, methane gas. "What’s that smell? What are you doing?", asks Lea as she watches Dave open a valve connected to a bank of tanks filled with methane gas.

Dave ignites the gas with a blast from his laser and watches as the flames consume the wounded MacPhearson. How nice. (By the way, the flames slowly make their way across the floor to where MacPhearson is sitting just like a trail of gasoline would do. Methane gas would have exploded. Not to be overly picky, but this movie deserves it!)

"Now it is time for Kalgan", whisper the Balarians as they dance around their plasma balls.

I think the end of this movie is in sight.

Kalgan gets into his buffer-car, straps on his silver motorcycle helmet, and begins driving around for some reason. Dave and Lea, also for some unexplained reason, are driving around in a buffer-car as well. Kalgan comes out of nowhere and rams Dave, knocking Lea to the floor. (In a truly ridiculous shot, there is a close-up of Kalgan while he’s "driving". You can plainly see that the background is not moving even though he’s supposed to be zooming around. I guess it was too expensive to actually mount a camera to one of the cars for the shot. To be fair, there is also a close up shot of Dave where the background isn’t moving either. Double-suck!)

Another buffer-car chase ensues. With the ridiculous close ups where they are obviously sitting still, the cartoon "sparks" when the cars ram each other, and the "sped up" footage so the cars look like they’re going faster than 1 mile-per-hour, well, you’re really in for a treat if you ever dare to watch this movie.

Wow. Lea, on foot, opens fire with her laser pistol. She accidentally hits Dave’s buffer-car and puts him out of the chase. (!) Kalgan takes advantage of the situation and floors it…aiming to run down Lea who obligingly stands still in the middle of the hallway. ("Take this, you space bitch!", Kalgan shouts.) Lea dives out of the way at the last second, or maybe she was hit, it’s hard to tell.

Suddenly, Dave’s buffer-car has magically fixed itself and he aims it directly at the oncoming Kalgan. At the last moment, Dave jumps from the buffer-car as the two vehicles collide head on resulting in a gigantic explosion. Bye Bye Kalgan.

By the way, Lea’s OK and she and Dave get married.

Oh. One more "by the way". Kalgan’s not really dead. The last scene shows a scorched Kalgan leaning against a pipe in a Dark Gigantic Room Filled With Pipes…eyes are closed…camera zooms in…eyes open…Kalgan glares at camera.

The End.

Hey, Space Mutiny…bite me!

Dennis Grisbeck (August 2005)

Read more about Space Mutiny at

Written and Directed by Tim Kincaid

Tagline: “It’s machine vs. man in the ultimate battle for the future!”

Run Time: 79 min

I just want you to know that I came back from vacation yesterday and here I am writing about an absolutely terrible movie called Robot Holocaust…what the hell is wrong with me?

The movie itself is another entry in a long list of crappy 1980′s Mad-Max-Fall-Of-Civilization films, however Robot Holocaust manages to plunge deeper into the crap pile than all of its peers. The plot? A group of savage humans fights to overthrow their cyborg masters. The rag-tag group of rebels include a muscle-bound "Conan" type, a telepathic "leader" and an Amazon woman, along with a cast of other discardable characters. Oh yes, there’s also a gut-wrenching robotic comedy relief "C-3PO" rip-off that tags along and will have the viewer shouting "WTF?!" more than once.

Oh yeah, and the evil overlord, creatively named Dark One, looks like an avocado.

Writer/director Tim Kincaid is actually a fairly prolific porn writer and director. Often using the moniker "Joe Gage", Tim has directed not a few "truck stop" (!) themed adult films including El Paso Wrecking Corp, Truck Stop I-95, Orange Hanky Left and a series of four Joe Gage Sex Files films. What demons possessed him to attempt a sci-fi flick is beyond me.

The production values in this movie are bottom of the barrel. Most of the interior shots take place, yes, in a giant factory of some sort full of pipes and steam. Scenes requiring exterior shots were mostly taken in a park (complete with still serviceable walking paths and trimmed plants). The "ruins" are in fact a long shot of the New York City skyline filmed from behind a pile of dirt in order to hide automobile traffic. For example:

Boy, that really gives you a sense of desolation and ruin, doesn’t it? I especially like the well maintained foot path through the "wastelands" in the bottom picture.

The Cast:

	Neo (Norriss Culf) The hybrid Nomad who saves New Terra from the terrible Dark One, and ends up stuck with Klyton as a side-kick for all eternity. Kind of makes you feel sorry for the guy. Norriss Culf appeared in 2 other films, both in 1986: Another Tim Kincaid bomb Breeders, and as a "Cult Member" in Necropolis
	Torque (Rick Gianasi) Since Torque is the only robot that actually has a firearm in this strangely gun-free post-apocalyptic world, he is certainly the one-eyed king in the land of the blind. Ranking just below Valaria in the Dark One’s evil hierarchy, Torque runs back and forth pulling levers and escorting prisoners. However, he does deliver a pretty decent ass-whooping to Neo at the end of the film. An interesting side note: The actor who plays Torque, Rick Gianasi, starred as Harry Griswald in the hilarious Troma Team spoof: Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D (1991). It’s a small world…
	Klyton (Joel von Ornsteiner) And the Oscar for The Most Idiotic Robot of All Time goes to… The actor who portrays Klyton has also appeared in another Tim Kincaid DTV cheese-fest, Mutant Hunt (1987) (credited as Cyborg Fighter). He has also shown up as another of the "Cult Members" along with Norriss Culf (above) in Necropolis (1986). Joel’s last appearance is noted as "Hog’s Man Green Eyes" in an Amish post-apocolyptic thriller entitled Deadly Reactor (1989). Wow.
	Valaria (Angelika Jager) The Dark One’s right-hand man, woman, er robot. (Ooops! Did I give something away?) Angelika Jager has got to be the worst actress I have ever seen in my life. However, I give her some bonus points for being pretty hot. Robot Holocaust was Angelika Jager’s first and only film appearance. Ouch!

As is typical for crappy films, we begin with wads of exposition via an unseen narrator:

"The last city still stood.
The remaining home of what was left of the civilization of New Terra.
The society had been all but destroyed by the Robot Rebellion of ’33.
When the Robots had turned on their masters by the billions, the ensuing chaos that led to a radiation spill,
far more deadly than any nuclear warfare….
The world had been brought to its knees by the…

ROBOT HOLOCAUST"

Keep in mind that this narration is played over shots of the, *ahem*, ruins of civilization, such as construction areas, knocked over houses, and so on. Basically, it would appear that the cameraman took a day touring the city and shooting quick footage of anything that looked "futuristic" and "ruined".

We’re off to a great start I tell ya!

After the opening credits, we segue from a scene of a partially demolished parking ramp, er, I mean apocalyptic desolation, to a shot showing 2 topless barbarian men in a hand-to-hand battle to the death. Surrounding the fighting area is the usual crowd of Apocalyptic Survivors, all of which are oddly very well groomed and muscular, given the fact that this is, after all, after the fall of civilization. For some reason, one of the barbarians is clutching a burlap sack filled with God-knows-what while watching the proceedings. Man, the future is going to be hell, I tell ya!

The two combatants "struggle" for their lives as the evil robot Torque looks on with approval. Another robot, Klyton, a robot that you will soon wish you could banish to Hell, roams through the crowd pick-pocketing the unwary people in the crowd. (Since all of the people seem to be wearing nothing but loin clothes, I’m not too sure what "pocket" Klyton is "picking"…I’ll leave that up to the viewer’s imagination.)

Just when you thought you were safe, our helpful Narrator rejoins us with more exposition: "The remaining humans of New Terra became known as ‘Air Slaves’ [!]."

You know, quoting crappy narration is not my idea of fun, so I’m going to just cut to the chase. The Dark One, "an evil being", controls the air inside the city while the air outside the city is poison. You see? Inside city: Good. Outside city: Bad. This really isn’t rocket science, you know…

There are legends of humans outside the city that have "acclimated" themselves to the poison air and can somehow breath it with no ill effects. (How the hell they "acclimated" themselves to a toxic atmosphere is anybody’s guess.) Ah yes, right on cue. Down a flight of steps wanders one of these nomads. Klyton the Funny Pick Pocket Robot makes his way to the stranger and tries to relieve him of what looks like a set of .50 caliber bullets that are stuck in his belt. (Apocalypse!!!)

The nomad, Neo, grabs Klyton’s arm at the same time he deftly taps a "deactivation" switch on the back of the bumbling robot’s neck. Using telepathy (How hcould you communicate with a robot using telepathy?), Neo inquires as to the proceedings taking place in the pit below.

Klyton explains that once a month the Dark One sends out a robot slave-driver to pick the two strongest slaves and have them fight to the death. The winner is taken to the Power Station for his "reward". As you may have suspected, the reward is death. "In this way the Dark One can prevent the Air Slaves from developing leaders who could lead a rebellion." Oh Dark One, you are so clever! I can’t help but think that people would get a little suspicious if the monthly "winner" simply disappeared after being escorted to the Power Station for his "reward". Wouldn’t that just encourage the Air Slaves to appear as weak as possible in order to avoid being picked out as one of the strongest? (Stupid movie.) And why do these "fall of civilization" movies always have a host of muscle-bound warriors? Where do they get the food to support such a physique? Don’t body builders have to consume thousands of calories per day to maintain their form?

Klyton continues by saying that he is just a "poor free-bot"…forced to pick pockets in order to pay for his own upkeep. Gee. OK, well that explains that plot hole! Thank God!

Cut to lousy matt painting of the so-called Power Station. It sort of reminds me of the cover for a Queen album I once saw, but I may be wrong. OK, fine. Power Station it is. Housed in this mighty edifice is the machinery responsible for cleansing the air in New Terra. Pretty exciting, eh? Gee, I wonder if this building is full of huge pipes, steam, and generators, exactly like, say, a modern day power plant?

Next shot…inside the Power Station. Hey! It’s full of huge pipes, steam, and generators! Damn, I’m good! Out of one particularly large cloud of steam walks our Eeeeevviillll mistress, Valaria. (Played by actress Angelika Jager who speaks with such a thick accent (Italian? French? German?…) that most of her lines are incomprehensible. Joel and the Bots had a blast ripping her diction to pieces.)

Valaria, sporting a golden spandex leotard, riding crop, and floor-length feathered boa (!) makes her rounds while Dark One speaks to her via voiceover. (Whether Dark One is telepathic or just uses some sort of loudspeaker system is unclear…and irrelevant when you think about it…and really, you shouldn’t think about this movie too much.) Apparently the Dark One senses an intruder in the amphitheater (better know to us as The Place Where The Shirtless Guys Are Fighting To The Death).

Back at said amphitheater, the two barbarians are still fighting each other. For some reason, Torque decides to speed things up (Thank you, Torque!), hands a knife to one of the combatants and orders him to kill the other. The crowd shouts their disapproval of the unfair advantage given to the fighter. ("No! He’s our brother!" one peasant shouts. So what is it that they are upset about? That one guy is going to kill another? I hate to point out obvious, but this is a Death Match, so you have to expect that, you know, somebody is going to die…am I right?)

Anyway, the crowd begins to shout "No winner! No winner!" I assume they are referring to the fact that they don’t approve of the death match and that they’re not commenting on the quality of the film. Back at the Power Station, Valaria overhears the commotion via some sort of big yellow ball and sends toxic air rushing into the amphitheater in order to quell the uprising.

The toxins quickly knock the crowd to the ground, who begin clutching their throats in agony. Neo is unaffected by the poison, and remains standing. Oddly, an attractive young woman, Deeja, and her father, Jorn, also appear to be unaffected. Jorn wisely tells his daughter to play possum, and she reluctantly falls to the floor, feigning suffocation. (How Torque failed to notice their immunity to the gas for so long shows just how idiotic these robots are. I mean, they were standing an entire 5 feet in front of him.)

Torque suddenly notices that, hey!, Jorn is still standing. "Who stands against the forces of the Power Station?," says Torque. (I guess Torque can’t see Klyton and Neo because they are in the shadows or something. It’s really a sign of a great movie when the viewers have to figure this kind of thing out for themselves.)

"Restore the atmosphere and I will identify myself!" says Jorn.

Torque contemplates this offer for a second and answers, "Very well." (These robots are supposed to be our masters?!) The air is restored, or cleaned, or whatever, and Torque zaps the two death match fighters just to reiterate that he’s in charge. (You know, don’t mistake kindness for weakness…Whatever, Torque…whatever.) OK, fine. Deeja hides herself in the crowd while Torque escorts Jorn to the Power Station for interrogation.

Man oh man, I know nominate Robot Holocaust for this year’s Golden Exposition Award. Now it’s Deeja’s turn to explain…and explain…and explain. Deeja explains to Neo that her father is a "scientist" (of course), and he’s developed a "small device" which "subverts the Dark One’s atmosphere control." (Yes, I know this makes no sense, let’s just go with the flow.) Well, duh, Deeja’s father only made 2 such devices.

Deeja does in fact give us a quick glimpse of this "device" nestled in her ear. Hmm. An atmosphere filtration device that you stick in your ear?

Neo’s turn:

"I have been sent here by the Rebel Society from what you call The Wastelands". (A "Rebel Society"? Isn’t that an oxymoron?) Blah blah…and man, that’s not a cop out of typing up this review. These guys just talk and talk and talk. I’m doing you a favor by summarizing…a huge favor!) Look, Neo has a "friend" in the Power Station that can help them overthrow the Dark One. With the help of some Air Slaves (equipped with breathing devices), Neo and his new gang can sneak their way into the Power Station, find his friend, and then start the rebellion.

There. You owe me a big favor for that.

So, let’s see where we are at. Neo, Klyton, Deeja, Dorky Air Slave Guy #1 (DASG1) , and Dorky Air Slave Guy #2 (DASG2) all head out into the, *ahem*, wastelands on their journey to the Power Station. (Wait a minute. How do those 2 Air Slaves survive out here? Isn’t the air poison? Man, this is great continuity.)

Dorky Air Slave Guys 1 and 2

After awhile, and again, there is no indication to how long they have actually traveled, the group enters some sort of mutant infested wilderness. (This wilderness is in fact a park, which can easily be discerned by the foot paths threading through the neatly cut grass.) As luck would have it, the party is surrounded by a bikini-clad Amazon tribe. (Upon seeing the Amazons, Klyton the idiot robot freaks out, makes a "beep-boop-beep" noise and takes refuge in a tree! Comedy!)

The Amazon leader, Nyla, decked out in a white vest, leather bikini, and furry white knee-high boots demands to know what Deeja is doing in the "She-zone" in the company of "male scum". Neo jumps in to answer but is quickly ‘hushed-hushed’ when Nyla insists on speaking only with Deeja.

"I walk on a mission with these men to save my father," says Deeja. After a bit of wrangling over the trustworthiness of men, one of the Dorky Air Slave Guys snidely asks, "Then how can your tribe survive [without men]?"

"We use men to breed with us to create future warrior women…then we dispose of them." (Hey, I can think of worse ways to go. Also, isn’t this sentence a bit ambiguous? Do they dispose of the women warriors or the men?) Nyla points in the direction of the last man that "ventured into our territory." Yes, it’s a buff dude in a loin cloth named Kai, bound between 2 trees.

When Nyla remarks that the Amazons are finished breeding with Kai and he is scheduled to be destroyed, DASG1 asks, "And he has nothing to say about this?"

Ummm, since Kai is bound to a tree awaiting execution, I would venture to say that NO, he does NOT have a say in all this.

"The first thing we do when we find one of you [males] is to remove your tongue…men chatter so," says Nyla. ("Men chatter so"…I wonder if people in an apocalyptic wasteland will be speaking like that.)

"You cowardly bitch," growls DASG1 as he pulls his sword. Nyla pulls her sword and a fight appears imminent. Just as all hell breaks loose, Neo uses the old I Wouldn’t Do That Because There’s A Laser Pointed At Your Head trick. Nyla falls for it, puts away her sword, and grants Neo a "fair fight".

Once again, I assume they will be fighting for Kai’s release, but really, why does the viewer have to figure this out?

Ho hum. Over to the "fair fight". As an Amazon woman places a knife in the ground our narrator informs us that "A knife is placed in the ground." Ah yes. Thank you. So that’s what she was doing when she was placing the knife in the ground. DASG1 and Nyla tussle a bit while "exciting" music reminds the viewer that this is in fact "exciting". After a few seconds, DASG1 wrests the knife from Nyla’s hands and tosses her to the ground. Just as he is about to cut her throat, Neo jumps in and stops the battle.

"By the rules of our tribe, I belong to you to do what you will with me," says Nyla. (Hey! When do I get to live in an apocalyptic wasteland?!)

"What do you suggest?" asks Neo.

"Kill me," replies Nyla, "because if I get the chance I will kill you." (This last statement seems to contradict the whole ‘Now I Belong To You’ laws of the tribe, but anyway…)

The astute viewer may have been wondering how the Amazons can breathe the poisoned air. Good question. "Your people are like me," says Neo. Well, that’s good enough for me. Another plot hole patched! Now I’m getting a little pissed. The script goes to the trouble to mention the "poison air" but then whenever characters are required to live in the polluted atmosphere, they just say that their "people" have developed a natural immunity. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

"You can help lead us to the Power Station," suggests Neo to Nyla. (Umm, really, why bother? Neo was perfectly capable of leading them before they met the Amazons, and even worse, Nyla has stated that she intends to kill them when she gets the chance. So what’s the point of dragging her along? Oh yeah, The Script Says So.)

Nyla agrees but adds, "Once my debt is paid then I will kill you." (See previous comments about bringing her along.) Neo orders Kai to be released and the rebels continue their journey to the power station. (Why does Nyla agree to release Kai? That was not part of the deal…or was it? Stupid movie.)

Cut to "deep in the Power Station," as our narrator informs us. We see an odd device that looks a bit like a phone booth but is referred to as "the Pleasure Machine", so I guess we have to go with that. Stepping inside the Pleasure Machine is Valaria, who whips off her top while a naked man and woman stand outside holding one of those glowing plasma balls that you can purchase in any novelty store. (Super-Duper-Futuristic!) Valaria dances and touches the plasma ball while the Machine does its business. Moving right along…

The Dark One interrupts this lovely scene by saying, "The Pleasure Machine is for reward…not for habit." While an abashed Valaria exits the Pleasure Machine, the Dark One reminds her that their are "other matters" to attend to. Yes, I suppose ruling a planet would require a little paper work every now and then.

Enter Torque and Jorn who stand quietly while the Dark One commands Valaria to interrogate the prisoner. "Torque…free this man from his bonds," orders Valaria in what is one of the most wooden deliveries I have ever witnessed. The interrogation continues as Valaria tries her best to be Eeevvviilll, but boy, is it excruciating to watch. I almost feel embarrassed for the actress…almost. Hell, everybody involved with this shit sandwich is just going to have to take a bite.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Valaria gives Jorn a choice: either explain how he is "impervious to our atmospheric controls" or be exposed to "worlds of pain beyond your imagination." (Ouch!) Jorn refuses to divulge his secret and as a result is taken to "the Crystal."

A yes, about time for some narration:

"At the Crystal, Jorn can see that the Dark One is aware of the rebels every move." This seems an odd statement since the Crystal is just a plastic ball with a pulsating green light in it. Well, yes, since the Script Says So, Jorn "sees" that the Dark One knows of his daughter and the rebel band heading to the Power Station. Regardless of the risk to his daughter, Jorn refuses to talk. "She would have wanted it this way," says Jorn. (Um, if you say so.) Fed up with Jorn’s insolence, Valaria orders Torque to take Jorn to the Room of Questions. (Alright already! Just pull out his fingernails and get on with it!)

Meanwhile, the rebel band has reached the "caverns". These caverns look strangely like a pedestrian tunnel in a park, but let’s just suspend disbelief for a moment, shall we? Why enter the tunnels? To avoid the Dark One’s surveillance, and probably to see some really cool monsters. (Well, don’t count too much on the second one.)

As the band enter the tunnels we learn via our beloved narrator that "The mutants continue to follow the rebels even as they enter the underground cavern." Well, gee. Isn’t that so scary. By the way, these "mutants" look a lot like the extras from Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" video, spooky stuff. The video, not Michael. OK, yes, actually both.

Nyla leads the rebels into the mouth of the cave. Silence is required since the caverns are full of "sewage worms". (So is this a sewer or a cave?) These blind, pink, buck-toothed worms are attracted to sound, so every step has to be made with complete silence. Oh brother, try not to notice that these "worms" are simply hand puppets stuck through holes cut into the "cave" wall. This is utter crap here, folks.

After a failed attempt to sneak past one of the worms, Neo declares, "There’s only one way…we chop our way through!" (OK, somebody do something for cripes sake! Let’s go!)

Great plan Neo. Just as they take their first tentative steps, DASG1 gets chomped in the neck. (No great loss, I admit, but still, this plan just doesn’t seem too hot.) After some pretty lousy fight scenes which make both rebels and worms look completely ludicrous, the rebels escape the caves and take refuge in an "oasis".

(Do worms eat mutants? How are the mutants going to get through the caverns and attack the rebels? Ooops! Didn’t mean to give that away!)

By the way, to all you fans of Dorky Air Slave Guy #1, he survived the bite to his neck and is straggling along with the rest of the rebels.

At the oasis the rebels bend down to take a drink of water, but quickly back away upon seeing bubbles seeping up to the surface from the murky depths. When Nyla is asked what is making the bubbles she replies, "You don’t want to know." Well, I did want to know, but we never find out, so that was that. I assume the producers ran out of F/X money and decided to drop the whole subject.

Great stuff.

Back at the Power Station, the Dark One informs Valaria that the rebels have been spotted again. (Which makes me wonder why they left the caves in the first place…isn’t that why they went in there? To escape surveillance?) No matter, a group of Transbots are en route to intercept them. But wait, Nyla and her Amazons have had no problem smashing Transbots to pieces before, so Valaria suggests sending the mighty Torque to deal with the rebels himself.

Having had enough chit chat with the Dark One, Valaria heads over to check on Jorn’s interrogation. "His will is strong!" Torque reports. When Valaria asks how much power has been used on the prisoner, Torque replies that they’ve taken him up to "Level 7". (Ohhh! Not Level 7!)

"Take him to nine!" commands Valaria. Apparently Level 9 involves enveloping the prisoner in cartoon electrical beams. Alas, Jorn survives. Seeing that Jorn has a natural resistance to cartoon special effects, Valaria tries a psychological attack and mentions that Jorn’s daughter, Deeja, will be the first one that Torque will kill upon finding the rebel group. (Man, rub it in a bit, will ya? Sheesh!)

Meanwhile, the rebels make their way through the, *ahem*, wastelands. DASG2 notes that DASG1′s neck wound is infected. At that moment, out leaps the group of mutants that have been following the rebels since the beginning of their journey and a wild melee ensues.

Let’s see if I can simply summarize the events of this epic battle: Mutants clobber and kill the infected DASG1. Mutants throw rocks, rebels swing their swords. Oh wait, Klyton the Idiotic Comedy Relief Robot tries to shoot a mutant but his gun "jams". Ha ha! Comedy! Oh yeah, somebody pulls a sword "out" of a mutant’s "side" leaving a long bloody "wound" (strawberry jelly). Man, I hate this movie.

Just as things are looking pretty grim, Klyton activates his force field, "…my only power as a free-bot!" (Huh? What the hell is he talking about? Why couldn’t he have activated the force field in the tunnels so the worms couldn’t bite them?) Funny how the force field looks exactly like the cartoon electric "beams" used to torture Jorn in the previous scene. Amazing. Klyton’s force field manages to hold back the remaining mutants long enough for the rebels to flee deeper into the wilderness.

As the rebels get within eyesight of the Power Station, the narrator tells us that they will experience another example of "the Dark One’s cruelty." No, it’s not the cruelly terrible matte painting of the Power Station. It’s the rotting bodies crucified on inverted crosses. "These are the ‘winners’ of the Air Slave battles," Klyton helpfully exposits. (Pretty nice that Klyton knew that. Thanks for filling us in.)

Neo walks over to one of the ‘winners’ and removes a ring from a rotten finger. Klyton breaks in again by noting Neo has finally found who he was searching for…, "It was his father…" (Beating a dead horse here, but how the hell does Klyton know that?!!)

Back in the Power Station, Valaria decides to show Jorn the Dark One. As the camera does a slow zoom into Jorn’s face, we hear Darth Vader-like breathing. But don’t worry. You don’t get to actually see the Dark One because it probably would have cost too much money to create. Thanks again, guys!

Outside, the rebels have reached the Super Secret Entrance to the Power Station. How secret is it? Well, it’s nicely labeled with a big red sign just to make sure the rebels don’t miss it. This movie really makes a guy think. Yeah, I’m thinking right now: "What the hell am I doing watching this crappy movie."

The entrance leads, three guesses now, to what appears to be a Huge Room Filled With Giant Pipes. As the rebel band presses onward, Nyla stops and says that this is the furthest she’s ever been. Somehow, and who knows how, Klyton knows that this tunnel is called the "Vault of Beasts".

Ohhh! Are you scared yet? Gee, I hope those no more of those super-scary mutants or those super-mean pink hand-puppet sewage worms down here!

"The Dark One has installed a series of traps," continues Klyton, "designed to ensnare those who would try to invade his domain." I think it would have been easier to just take down the big red sign outside the tunnel entrance, but what do I know? Despite Klyton’s warnings of the, er, dangers that lie ahead, the rebels press on. Well, I guess they have to don’t they? Either that or the movie would have to end now. Well, a guy can dream, can’t he?

Back in the "amphitheater" the Air Slaves are busy at work fueling "the Dark Ones power supply." One of the Air Slaves decides to sabotage the works, noting that if the Dark One is monitoring the rebel’s progress towards the Power Station, then they can’t be monitored at the same time. Yes, the Dark One’s surveillance system has 1 channel. Once again, these guys rule us? Anyway, the plan is to fill sacks with sand instead "fuel" or something. That way the Dark One’s power cells won’t be refueled but it will still look like they’re working.

Look, if you can explain that plan better than me, then feel free to watch the movie yourself. I dare you.

Meanwhile, Torque is observing the rebels progress through the Vault of Beasts. At an opportune moment, Torque pulls a level and opens a pit right in front of DASG2. Pretending not to see the pit, the actor does his best to appear startled as he helpfully topples into the 3-foot deep abyss. So, yeah, it’s like falling from the top of a child’s bunk bed. No, maybe not that high up. Needless to say, Neo has no problem hopping down into the hole and helping DASG2 up and out again.

Back with Valaria, Jorn still refuses to talk. Now the Dark One pulls rank and decides that the only way that "he can know" is to "join" the Dark One himself. At this point, I’m willing to join the Dark One if it could get things moving! C’mon! How freakin’ long can it take to get somebody to talk around here? Get medieval on his ass already!

Oh man, here we go, back to the Vault of Losers. Nyla stumbles across a dead body. "We are not alone!" Klyton says, stating the obvious yet again. Neo gives the order to draw weapons, astutely noting that "We could be next," and they move on. (Wow! I guess that’s why he’s the leader.)

As Neo and the ragtag rebels continue onward, Valaria and Torque are discussing their next move. "I’ll lead them to The Beast of the Web," says Torque after the Pit of 3-Feet Depth failed to kill anybody. "Your programming is more advanced than I thought," Valaria replies.

I wonder if they show movies in Hell…if they do, I’m pretty sure Robot Holocaust will be one of them.

OK, now I guess we can finally see The Beast of the Web. I’m all a-twitter with anticipation.

The group comes to a halt and begins to discuss whether or not the Dark One knows they are immune to the poison gas. DASG2 notes that, in fact, he and Kai are not immune, to which Nyla the Amazon Woman slams them for being weak men.

Sounds like a pretty contrived conversation, even for this film, doesn’t it? Well, the whole point of this "diversion" is to give Deeja the opportunity to walk away and get trapped in a web. It’s fun to note that there is no possible way Deeja could ever become entrapped in this web. First, it’s right in front of her. Second, when we see that she is trapped, she’s in fact trapped on the other side of the web, so she would have had to walk around the web and then throw herself into the strands from the back side.

Oh yeah, The Beast of the Web. Well, we only get to see one big, hairy, leg, half-heartedly grasping at Deeja while she screams for help. Neo and the others run up and stab around the corner where the Beast is supposedly "standing". (Once again, never shown). Eventually, the stage hands get tired of waving the leg, oops, I mean Neo kills the Beast, and Deeja is freed.

Well actually, it looks like Klyton pointed his finger at the Beast and a bunch of sparks shot out. So you can give Klyton credit for the kill if you’re keeping score.

Oh wait. The Beast isn’t dead after all. The stage hands simply dragged the prop back into the dry ice fog.

Meanwhile, the Air Slaves who are busily pouring sand or something into the Dark Ones power cells (?) are going over their plan one more time. I’m not sure why they explain yet again what they are doing, but there you go. Yes, put sand in the power cells. Yes, deny the Dark One his power so the rebels have a better chance to succeed. Yes, it’s risky. Yes, yes, yes. Already: YES! I got it!

Back in the Power Station, Neo and the others are cooking dinner over a camp fire. I’m not exactly sure where they find wood for a fire, but we’ll just overlook that for now. (Yeah, like that’s the biggest plot hole in this film!) Nyla is eager to attack now that night has fallen. As Neo explains that he wants to wait until morning, Klyton notes that the Power Station can’t track them at night, which would seem to be a pretty damn good argument for going along with Nyla’s plan and attacking at night. "Sleep," suggests Neo, "They don’t even know if we are alive."

First, how the hell does he know that? Second, well, if they don’t even know if you are there or not, then attack! Deeja sides with Neo and agrees that a bit of sleep would be in order so they can be refreshed when morning comes. (Yes, and also when the Power Station’s tracking systems come back on line. Good plan.)

Later that night, Kai wakes up and notices that DASG2 is missing and awakens Neo, who concludes that Bray has went ahead alone. Bray! Bray! Dorky Air Slave Guy #2 is named Bray! Thank you for telling me that 2 minutes before he dies. (ooops!) The commotion wakes up the others, including Klyton (a robot that lays on the floor and sleeps?!!) who immediately remarks, "He is heading towards the Power Station." Oh dear, not again, but, how the hell could Klyton know that? (Klyton must be one of those Plot-Hole Patcher 9000 models…I mean, he knows everything.)

Alas, the movie continues, along with my agony.

Valaria asks Torque if he has released the Surveillance Drone. (I’m surprised they didn’t call it The Drone of Surveillance…stupid movie.) "Yes," answers Torque, "It has been caged for sometime now." (Uh, ok. Is that a bad thing? Does that really matter?) "It should be very hungry," Torque adds. Whatever, dude. Valaria orders Torque into the tunnels as well in order to destroy the Drone in case it attacks Deeja. Huh? I thought they wanted Deeja dead. Oh wait. That was several minutes ago. Apparently the film makers have forgotten that plot point.

Anyway, DASG2, no wait, Bray, has in fact went ahead into the Power Station alone. Why? Because the script says he has to. Well, he turns a corner and out pops the Surveillance Drone. Alert viewers, hell, even a viewer that is merely awake, will immediately notice that the Drone is simply one of those stupid sock-puppet Sewage Worms with springs (!!) attached to its head in order to give it a ‘mechanical’ appearance. To say that this particular prop is not terribly convincing would be an understatement.

Ok, fine. Bray screams and dies. I assume. In keeping with this movie’s precedence of never showing any type of special effect requiring expenditure of money, we don’t actually see the Drone kill Bray. I think that if you imagine a pink sock attacking somebody you’d pretty much be visualizing what’s taking place.

Back upstairs, or wherever the hell Valaria is, she contacts the Dark One and reports that the rebels have reached, are you ready….The Chamber of Despair. (Oh buh-rother!!!) The Dark One is not impressed with Valaria’s performance, but she reassures him that they will all soon be dead. (Yeah, and I will soon be asleep if this doesn’t pick up real soon…) Once again, Valaria assures the Dark One that Deeja will be captured alive. Why? Who the hell knows.

Ok, back downstairs.

Man, this movie sucks. Upstairs to Valaria…downstairs to rebels…upstairs to Valaria…downstairs to rebels…COME ON! LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH! AYEEEE!!!!

Nyla spots Bray’s lifeless body leaning against a wall. Anybody watching this movie (and brother, I salute you if you made it this far!) will immediately notice that the, ahem, actor portraying Bray is sitting behind a cardboard wall with his head stuck out through a hole. A "body" is placed under his head so that…oh…I don’t know…something can pop out of his chest? The angle of Bray’s head is so impossibly incorrect that you can actually see places where his shoulders aren’t even attached to his neck.

Oh boy, big surprise. Out of Bray’s chest pops a sock with springs attached to it. Sorry, I mean the Surveillance Drone. Neo rushes over and chops it to pieces. Do you think you would actually get to see that? Nope. No way. He just hacks at something just off the edge of the shot. Yippee! Another beer please and I think I can finish this review.

After hacking the Drone to pieces, Neo hands Bray’s sword to Klyton. Gee, I wonder if there’s going to be any hilarious comedy relief scenes involving Klyton unskillfully wielding the sword against a superior opponent? I’m all a-twitter, I say!

The next obstacle in this seemingly endless succession of ineffectual barriers called The Vault of Beasts is an electric fence. As the group comes to a halt, Nyla inexplicably walks over and touches the fence. A huge shower of sparks explodes from the contact and Nyla runs like hell off scene. (I suspect that the actress was either genuinely freaked out by the explosion or was in fact injured.)

The contact with the electric fence sounds an alarm and Valaria orders the ‘Guard Bots’ to their stations. (Hilariously, the most Guard Bots you ever see at one time is 2…no money for any more costumes than the pair that are suppose to represent a ‘horde’ of killer robots.) Understandably, the Dark One is finally fed up with Valaria’s incompetence. As Valaria tries to reassure the Dark One yet again that everything is in control, the Dark One zaps here with a bunch of cartoon electric beams, that yes, are exactly the same as those used by Klyton against the mutants, and yes, exactly the same as those used to torture Jorn.

Following the films pattern of switching back and forth between Valaria and the rebels, we, yes, switch back to the rebels to see how they are coping with the electric fence. Not too good actually. However, Klyton suggests that he can "re-adjust his circuits" to match the fence’s frequency. (Or some other load of crap like that.) When Klyton touches the fence, a Roman candle goes off, sorry, I mean a huge shower of electrical sparks erupts from the fence. Unfortunately for Klyton, the electrical surge fries his circuits and he runs around like an idiot until Deeja deactivates him (to my great relief).

As expected, we switch back to Valaria and Torque. The unfortunate droid is getting an earful from Valaria for letting the rebels "get past the gate." Well, Valaria, I haven’t you do squat yourself, so maybe you should cut old Torque some slack. At least did something when he opened the Pit of 3-Feet Depth under DASG2.

"Activate the power in all sections of the stations," commands the Dark One. Valaria proceeds to do so but discovers that the Power Station is running at "only one-fourth percent of capacity." Now, 1/4th percent is 0.0025 of full capacity, something that I would think would have been spotted long ago. I’m pretty sure the actress meant to say "one-fourth of capacity" and simply blew her lines and added the "percent" on her own. Valaria commands Torque to “Go to the master monitors and report to me the level of energy storage accumulated from the Air Slaves.” Yup, that sounds like a good place to start.

Meanwhile, Neo and the others have managed to repair Klyton. (Yippee!) This was pretty fortuitous because the rebels have come across an iron wall with no apparent way through. (Well, it looks like a door actually.) Thankfully, Klyton the Plot-Hole Patcher just happens to have explosives stashed in his throat. Gee, that was lucky! Klyton places the explosives in the upper corners of the door and they quickly explode. For some reason the door doesn’t blow inwards as it would in any normal universe. Instead, it slides upward, the rebels rush through, and then the door quickly slides back down behind them. Cinema magic!

"What is to stop them now?" demands the Dark One. "The Guard Bots will contain them," replies Valaria. We cut to see 2 bots standing around. Upon seeing the rebels rushing at them with swords drawn, the droids look at each other and simply run away. (Har dee har!) (And by the way, where the hell are the other robots? There was a robot revolution, wasn’t there? Billions of robots, if I remember correctly from the opening narration…) In one last effort to appease the Dark One, Valaria reminds the evil overlord that there is, (sigh), one last obstacle remaining that will surely destroy the rebels.

This "final" obstacle consists of a bomb with a bunch of highly-visible wires strung across the hallway with the bomb itself also in plain view. Since this "trap" is completely visible, the script requires Kai to turn around for no reason and take a couple steps backwards in order to entangle himself in the wires. (Quality film.)

"I’ve seen these devices before," says Neo, "at the edge of the wastelands." Well, I feel safer already. As the tension builds (not!), Neo talks Kai through the defusion procedure, step by excruciatingly boring step. You know, I want to tell any future film makers that it’s not exciting to watch somebody defuse a bomb in step by step. Sorry, it’s just not. Maybe if they had just cut to the always-exciting "Which wire do I cut…the red or the green" scene it would have been ok. But when Neo tells Kai to raise his hands (Kai raises hands), unscrew the lid (Kai unscrews the lid), lift the detonator (Kai lifts the detonator)…get my drift?

Here we go again. Yes, back with Valaria and Torque. The Dark One is finally fed up with Valaria’s incompetence."One more chance!" warns the Dark One. (Oh man oh man oh man oh man….is this movie taking forever or what?!) Eager to please her master, Valaria commands Torque to summon the Guard Bots. (Who? The ones that ran away? Good plan.)

The Guard Bots, one wielding a sword and the other twirling a spiked ball attached to a chain, move into position. (Here’s a hint to all you future Evil Overlords: Equip your Guard Bots with GUNS. Not swords. Idiots!)

Well, the melee begins. Nyla takes on Ball-Swinging Bot and quickly dispatches it by simply crouching down and stabbing it in the stomach. Klyton takes a few perfunctory swings, staggers back from the impact, and somehow manages to "entangle" himself in a metal wheel. (Comedy! Comedy! Comedy from Hell!) When I say "entangle", I mean he has one of his arms stuck through the spokes and can’t figure out how to free it. Here’s a hint: pull it out and walk away, you freaking moron!

Never before have I hated a robot as much as Klyton.

Neo decides to tangle with Torque because, well, he’s the hero I suppose. Torque quickly gets the best of him, and tosses Neo against a wall. Let’s see…who’s missing here…oh yeah, Valaria.

There she is! Out of the dry ice fog jumps the evil Valaria! Deeja, who was walking backward (!), is quickly corralled and lead away by a triumphant Valaria who presents her to the Dark One. "See," Valaria gloats, "I told you I would get the girl." The Dark One is grateful for Deeja’s capture, but notes that Valaria’s usefulness has come to an end. “Life isn’t always fair…Especially when one isn’t really alive!" says the Dark One.

Valaria turns and runs in an effort to flee from the Dark One’s wrath. She scurries past a huge machine which sets off another Roman candle, oops, I mean an electrical charge. The sparks, or whatever they hell they are, burn off Valaria’s face, revealing…are you sitting down…really…this is quite a shocker…Valaria is a robot!

"Dark One, can you hear me?" Valaria shouts in a completely different voice than she had before. Strange how burning the skin off her face has also given Valaria a different voice. Now Valaria’s pissed. In a vengeful rage, Valaria reaches out and pulls the Handy-Dandy Super-Self-Destruct-Lever. Valaria informs the Dark One that the timer is set to blow in 5 minutes (Would she really need to tell him that? I mean, he is The Dark One…) , which is odd since the countdown clock shows 30 seconds, but anyway…(By the way, give yourself 2 points if you guessed the "countdown clock" is a standard darkroom clock used to control photo enlargers.)

The battle with the robots continues. Kai is chopped down by a Guard Bot. Klyton gets off his butt (a little too late!) and pounds the murderous bot to bits with a big pipe. Hey, where were you 5 seconds ago when Kai was alive? Thanks for nothing, Klyton!

Meanwhile, the Dark One interrogates Deeja regarding her and Jorn’s immunity to the toxic atmosphere. "I don’t know," replies Deeja to the Dark One’s queries. Pretty exciting stuff, eh?

Cut to Torque and Neo who continue to fight it out, and I have to say in all honesty, Neo is getting his ass kicked. After a short tussle, Torque tosses Neo against a wall and takes aim with his laser gun. Just as Torque fires, Nyla jumps in front of the beam and absorbs the entire cartoon…sorry…laser blast. In a most incredible stroke of luck, as Nyla falls to the floor her hand brushes against the Self-Destruct Deactivation Switch and stops the countdown exactly one second before detonation. I wish I were making all this up. And yes, I know that Nyla the Man-Hating Amazon died protecting a Man…blah blah. The irony…oh, the bitter irony.

Now that Nyla is dead, Torque takes aim at Neo once more. Well, he’s the hero, so he can’t die, so just as Torque is about to pull the trigger, the Dark One orders him to the Room of Questions. Whew! That was close! (What the…!?)

Seeing that her plan to blow up the Power Station has been foiled, Valaria reappears beside Deeja and reminds the Dark One that she could force the Air Slaves to start working again, thus replenishing the power cells. "How?" asks the Dark One. In reply to this fair question, Valaria states that Deeja has the answer. (OK, I’m really confused here, and there really is no way in hell I’m going back to try and figure all this out. Maybe I blacked out for a few seconds somewhere along the line.) Just one comment, if the Dark One wants to force the slaves to work, can’t he just poison their air? I mean, hasn’t he been doing that all along? Great story!

Valaria figures that by showing Deeja the fate that has befallen her father, she will be shocked into revealing the secret of forcing the slaves back to work. As two massive metal doors slowly open, the narrator rejoins us with the following words:

“All that remained of Jorn was his head. The rest of his body was completely engulfed…by the Dark One.” To see Jorn’s head perched atop what looks like a giant avocado is probably one of the most stunningly hilarious scenes I have ever witness in any movie…ever!

I mean, you’ve got to shake your head and think, "You’ve got to be f…ing kidding!"

Now Valaria gloats to Deeja that since her father is (partially) ingested by the Dark One, the evil overlord has all the information he needs. So, please, if I may ask: Why the hell did they need Deeja alive? What is going on here?!

OK, Neo is still fighting with Torque, and as usual, getting his ass kicked. This time I suspect Neo will defeat Torque because the film’s runtime is almost to an end. (How sweet that will be!)

Valaria now says that the Air Slaves can be disposes since they "have all the information they need to power the station from within." (Huh?) With that, Valaria throws a lever and poison air floods the Air Slaves living areas. On cue, the slaves clutch at their throats and roll on the floor as you might expect.

Now we are starting to wrap things up here. Klyton takes aim with his crappy laser gun, fires, but the gun won’t shoot. "Not again!" Klyton exclaims, because, well, that was supposed to be funny. Maybe in Hell that’s funny. Klyton fires again and this time the gun works, emitting a cartoon laser beam directly into Valaria who collapses to the floor.

Meanwhile, Neo is still fighting with Torque.

COME ON ALREADY!!!!

Neo chokes Torque with a chain, (Choke a robot?), jumps around, runs away, hides, jumps back out, and manages to defeat Torque with a series of sword blows that before had no effect on Torque, but now are lethal. Go figure.

Almost done.

Realizing that life as an avocado is not for him, Jorn begs for Deeja to finish him off. Deeja refuses because she loves him so much. Whatever. Klyton gives Neo his laser gun and Neo heads over to zap Jorn and the Dark One once and for all. "No! We can rule New Terra together!" the Dark One grovels in an attempt to save his life. Thankfully, Neo ignores the pleas and fires the laser gun. We now see yet another shower of sparks from behind Jorn as the Dark One howls in agony and dies. I guess. Jorn looks dead at least, and there were a lot of sparks, so I guess that’s bad for the Dark One.

Yes, well, time for one more stupid scene. Klyton finds the lever used to turn back on flow of fresh air to the Air Slaves. Gee. I’m so relieved.

As ‘emotional’ piano music plays, Neo explains to Deeja that her father would have wanted it this way. Deeja is still rather irritated at Neo since he, you know, killed her father. But he was an avocado, so I think she should cut him some slack for that. Deeja remarks that she’s going to return to "her people" and finish the work her father started. "Leave me alone!" Deeja suddenly shouts at nothing in particular, indicating a possible blown line. Neo, fed up with Deeja, walks away leaving the grieving daughter alone in the Power Station to fend for herself.

As the narrator jumps in for one final load of narration about Neo returning to his people to bring them to the "Last City". Blah blah blah blah We see Neo and Klyton in one of those "Walking Off Into the Wastelands To Meet Their Fate" type scenes.

The kind of scene you see in a lot of cool post-apocalyptic movies.

Except this one sucks.

Dennis Grisbeck (September 2005)

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