Tim Kincaid may have directed movies like Breeders and Mutant Hunt, but he may be more well-known as the adult film director of movies such as Orange Hankey Left and Joe Gage’s Sex Files Vol. 2: Uncle Pruitt Taught Me How to Do It. He was made a member of the GayVN Awards Hall of Fame in 2001 and in 2011, he won the XBIZ Award for Gay Director of the Year.
Thirty-three years before this movie began, a robot rebellion destroyed most of mankind. All the people who are left are either nomads or slaves to the Dark One, who power the city and fight in death matches, which are used to weed out the number of humans left alive.
Our hero Neo is a drifter who even has a robot sidekick Klyton. They head off to save Deeja’s dad and destroy the Dark One and his Power Station, along with some new allies that they meet on the way.
The music in this was taken directly from Laserblast. Somehow, even that movie is better than this one.
Perhaps most interesting, the man who played Klyton is Dr. J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner. Before he got his degree, he was in this film, Zombie Death House and Slash Dance. Since then, he’s become the project director for Brooklyn Arraignment Court’s Mental Health Court Advocacy Program and appears on the Reelz Channel show CopyCat Killers. The set painter on this was Andrew Kevin Walker, later of Nic Cage 8mm and Brad Pitt Se7en screenwriting fame.
In light of B&S Movies Post-Apoc Week coinciding with the recent controversy surrounding the Hillary Swank-fronted post-apoc flick The Hunt (Wikipedia link),* it’s time to take another look at Elio Petri’s influential sci-fi/pop-art “human death sport” romp. (The film was previous reviewed by Sam as part of B&S Movies “Deadly Game Shows“ week**).
While the first wheat grains of the ’80s spaghetti apocalypse were planted with 1979’s Mad Max out of Australia, those stalks blossomed in 1981 with the cinematic one-two-punch of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York and George Miller’s Mad Max sequel, The Road Warrior.
However, the inspiration for several Italian-Euro apocalyptic films began with a film based on a 1924 short-story by Richard Connell: 1932’s The Most Dangerous Game—a story that inspired novelist Robert Sheckley to compose his sci-fi variations of “human death sports” that, in turn, begat the American-made Rollerball (1975), Death Race 2000 (1975), Deathsport (1978), and the later (excellent!) pasta variants of Endgame (1983)and Rome 2072 (1984). Even Ground Rules (1997), the kinda sorta post-apocalyptic romp with a bit of fake sport and some generous helpings of Richard Lynch thrown in, applies. Another variant of Connell’s novel is 1994’s Surviving the Game, a present-day variant starring Ice-T as a kidnapped homeless man hunted on preserve by Gary Busey and the late Rutger Hauer. One can also consider Eli Roth’s 2005’s Hostel as a “death vacation” horror variant of the material.
Sheckley’s grandfather of sci-fi “death sport” films came courtesy of the Italian-made The 10th Victim (1965) based on his 1953 short story, The Seventh Victim. Sheckley’s literary inspirations about humanity’s future psych-condition continued with the 1958 short story, The Prize of Peril, first adapted as the German television film, Das Millionenspeil (The Millions Game; 1970), then as the French film, Le Prix du Danger (The Price of Danger; 1983). Both films’ predictions of today’s reality television programs so influenced Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man (1987) that it resulted in a (well justified) copyright infringement lawsuit.
So the next time you pop in a copy of Kinji and Kenta Fukasaku’s Battle Royal (2000; 2010 in the U.S when Anchor Bay issued it direct-to-video; the film is based on the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami), Suzanne Collins’s teen-dystopia Hunger Games series (that ripped off Battle Royal), and the dark satire twist on the Reality TV genre with Series 7: The Contenders (2001), and (maybe?) the eventual DVD/VOD release of the controversial “political satire” variant, The Hunt—just remember that it all comes courtesy of the mind of Robert Sheckley.
The eventual 1965 film born from Sheckley’s 1953 short story was directed by Italian politician-psychologist-film maker Elio Petri. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2) as Marcello Polletti and Ursula Andress (Honey Rider in Dr. No) as Caroline Meredith—both are the top assassins-contestants who have scored the most kills in a government-sanctioned reality television series. As with William Harrison’s 1973 short story, Roller Ball Murder, and its eventual 1975 film adaptation, in Sheckley and Petri’s future, wars are avoided and tendencies for aggression are channeled through a violent sport—The Big Hunt. As with Rollerball, it’s the most popular form of entertainment in the world (just like 1987’s The Running Man; born from Stephen King’s 1982 Richard Bachman pseudonym-novel of the same name).
Unlike in Universal’s controversial The Hunt (rumored—and denied—as originally being titled Red State vs. Blue State), where the “red state deplorable” contestants are kidnapped, or in The Running Man, where desirable “contestants” that are “good for ratings” are framed into playing the game, the contestants in The Big Hunt—as in Rollerball—are willing participants who desire fame and fortune by surviving the game.
You’ve got to love a film where two civilians are running through the city shooting at each other . . . and a police officer stops “The Hunter” to check his “credentials” before he allows him continue his pursuit. The rules are simple: Five Hunters and Five Victims play ten rounds. As you kill (as in Death Race 2000), you win “points” in the form of financial gains. The sole survivor of the ten rounds wins and retires to a life of wealth and luxury. Of course, there is something more deadly afoot than bullets: love.
Mastroianni’s Poletti enters the game to get himself out of debt: he’s on the hook with a mistress and ex-wife who’s already spent the winnings from his six kills. Then he falls in love with Andress’s Meredith who’s just killed her ninth victim and she intends to make Poletti her tenth victim—and his “perfect kill” in front of the camera will maximize her royalties via her sponsorship by the Ming Tea Company. Meanwhile, Poletti gets wise to Meredith’s scheme and arranges for her spectacular death with a competing television network: death by crocodile. The cat and mouse game between the two lover-assassins (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith, anyone?) is on—with one double-crossing the other.
While Petri incorporated Italian satire and Totalitarianism and fascism symbolism into his film version with the two assassins escaping the game and getting married, Sheckley’s original short story was much darker: the Meredith character’s “love” was nothing more than a ploy: she kills Poletti and wins the game. (I’ve been there and done that . . . without the death part . . . more than a few times!)
While The 10th Victim is gaining renewed interest in the wake of the controversy surrounding The Hunt, many have not heard of the film or seen it. But you have seen it, indirectly, via the patronage of Mike Myers. He paid homage to the film (such as Ursula Andress’s bullet-spraying bra and his faux-band Ming Tea) with his Austin Powers series of films. You can watch the full Italian, subtitled version of The 10th Victim on You Tube and TubiTv.
You can catch up on the wide array of post-apocalyptic adventures with B&S Movies’ “Atomic Dust Bins” Part 1 and Part 2 featuring 20 mini-reviews of movies you never heard of, along with a “hit list” featuring all of the apoc-flicks we watched for September 2019’s Apoc Month.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.
* Sam finally got around to reviewing the controversial The Hunt and, while he was waiting for its DVD release, he review the direct-to-DVD-PPV knockoff, American Hunt.
** Here’s the full list of films from our September 2018 “Deadly Game Shows” week.
We haven’t had a Friday the 13thmovie for more than a decade. Then again, if 2009’s glossy Marcus Nispel-directed Friday the 13th reboot is any indication of the kind of films we’d be suffering through, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that the lawsuit between Horror Inc. and the Manny Company versus Victor Miller has dragged on.
Jason’s been everywhere, from Crystal Lake to Manhattan, Elm Street and outer space. Yet there are some places that filmmakers had planned to take him that he never got to. Here are just a few of them.
Jason in an insane asylum: Ginny Field (Amy Steel) may have been the final girl in the first film, but when she opted to no return for the sequel, she was killed off right at the start of the second movie. I have no idea why they’d ask her back for this planned third take on the Jason mythos, where Jason would hunt her down as she rested in a psychiatric hospital. Seeing as how Halloween 2 had a very similar slasher in a hospital scenario just a year before, perhaps it’s a good thing that this was never made.
A bonkers take on Freddy vs. Jason:Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Liveswriter/director Tommy McLoughlin pitched an idea for this major crossover that would have never had the two characters even in the film. Instead, they would have existed solely in the heads of two mental patients. I can only imagine how upset audiences would have been with this film. McLoughlin also pitched a Cheech and Chong crossover at Crystal Lake that never happened, either.
Freddy vs. Jason vs. ?: After the success of Freddy vs. Jason — which for some reason surprised Hollywood — there were sequels planned with Ash from Evil Dead, Pinhead from Hellraiser and Michael Myers from Halloween. Seeing as how any time multiple studios work together things never happen, the fact that these movies never happened makes total sense. It’s still a shame, particularly today when so many of these licenses remain somewhat dormant.
Not Jason, Tommy: After the death of Jason in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Paramount wanted to live up to their stipulations that Jason wasn’t coming back. That’s why part 5 has Roy Burns as the killer. Seeing as how man fans loved that — not at all, thank you very much — they would have hated the planned follow-up, where Tommy Jarvis would have donned the mask and spent the entire movie hunting his girlfriend Pam.
Certainly, one of these sequels to the 2009 reboot will be made: In the months and years after this relaunch, there were all manner of planned follow-ups, including Jason killing people in the winter (which had the unwieldy title of Friday the 13th: Camp Blood – The Death of Jason Voorhees), a found footage version that would answer why Jason can’t be killed, a TV series where Jason was real and filmmakers had exploited the legend that would explore the teens that grew up there (think Riverdale with machetes, I guess). There was even a pitch that would follow Jason’s childhood and how his mental connection with his mother led to him guiding her in the first film before he came back to life to get revenge for her death.
Another reboot?: A Friday the 13th movie almost made it to the big screen on October 13, 2017. However, Paramount pulled it from the schedule and replaced it with Darren Aronofksy’s mother!, which hardly seems fair. Platinum Dunes was set to produce and Breck Eisner (Sahara and the remake of The Crazies) was scheduled to direct before the plug got pulled. Producer Brad Fuller teased in interviews that this movie would have a new origin story for Jason before later claiming that the film would be an alternate reality version of the mythos. There were even rumors that the movie would start with a sack wearing killer offing teens, only to be revealed as Jason’s father Elias Vorhees. Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners) worked on the script, casting had been started and then…that was that. One rumor was that the movie was canceled because of the poor box office for Rings.
Even the game has canceled DLC: The Friday the 13th video game looked to mark a celebration of the movies, even if they weren’t in theaters, bringing together many of the film’s creators to make something new. IllFonic were originally working on a game called Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp, which was set in Camp Forest Green, before Sean Cunningham met with them and the game became an official Friday the 13th licensed product. Harry Manfredini composed new music, Tom Savini designed new kills and Kane Hodder did the motion capture for Jason. Even several of the actors in the films, like Thom Mathews (Tommy Jarvis) and Larry Zerner (Sheldon “Shelly” Finkelstein) appeared.
Sadly, the lawsuit kept constant DLC from adding to the game, including the cyborg Jason, a map for the spaceship Grendel and more kills. That said, Black Tower took over as the developers of the game and a Switch version, Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Edition, was released in August of 2019.
Forty years later: 2020 will be the 40th anniversary of this slasher series, with two dates on the calendar — Friday, March 13 and Friday, November 13 — perfect for a new film. Here’s hoping that it finally happens, but seeing as how nothing has started filming yet, the chances look about as good as a fat camp kid at Crystal Lake.
Did we miss anything? Get something wrong? How would you remake these films? Let us know in the comments!
Want to learn more about Friday the 13th? Check out our multi-part review of the entire series and more:
I hoped against hope that David Carradine wouldn’t have to be in another David Prior movie, but you know how it goes. You have to do the movies that are paying for you. Actually, I don’t know. No one is asking me to be in horrible movies all that often.
Remember John Tucker? Yeah, that guy Carradine played in Future Force. Well, he’s back. And this time, his son Billy has traveled through time to help him. Billy’s played by David Prior’s brother Ted, so there’s that. He’s named for the wheelchair-bound friend of John from the first movie, in case you remember that movie. I hope you don’t.
I guess I should try and say something nice. Well, Charles Napier and Jackson Bostwick, the original Captain Marvel on the Shazam! TV series, show up.
You can watch this on Amazon Prime with and without help from Rifftrax. Just like the first movie in the series, you’re gonna need all manner of aid to get through this. Trust me, more help than you’ll find at the liquor store.
Writer-directors Justin Hewitt-Drakulic and Alex Lee Williams created this film about the sleepy village of Hellmington, a place that Detective Samantha Woodhouse (Nicola Correia-Damude, The Strain) thought she left behind ten years ago. That said — as much as you can never go home again, you probably shouldn’t.
All those years back, troubled high school senior Katie Owens mysteriously vanished. That ties into why Samantha is back, beyond the fact that she’s dealing with the death of her estranged daughter. She’s also dealing with the death of her daughter, an event that has destroyed her marriage and career.
Soon, she learns that her father’s death is one of many that ties into Katie Owens. There’s also the matter of her insomnia, hallucinations, self-doubt and a centuries-old cult that runs the town.
This film was the winner of the 2015 Cinecoup Film Accelerator Challenge, which granted them a million dollars in financing. The original version of the film was a documentary that only focused on the Katie Owens disappearance, but the final film ended up becoming a narrative story.
The filmmakers spent their money the right way, getting great actors like Correia-Damude, who they’ve said was the reason the film was able to finish on time (she supposedly nailed 9-12 pages of script a day, an amazing feat) and Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers), who was the selling point to get me to watch this.
Between the arty shots and the soundtrack by Cults, this film aspires more to the arthouse than grindhouse. If you’re a fan of True Detective, you’ll see its influence all over the film. That said, for young filmmakers making a film that’s pretty much going direct to streaming, it’s head and shoulders above the competition.
HELLmington is available now on DVD and streaming on demand.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team but that has no bearing on our review.
Roger Corman protege Carl Colpaert made his directorial debut on this film by combining repurposed excerpts from Mamoru Oshii’s (the original Ghost In The Shell) anime Angel’s Egg with new footage shot in America. The result combines live action and animation to create the story of two soldiers, Frank and Goose, and their lives after the end of the world.
Frank and Goose start the film on the hunt for oxygen, with only six days left. After a violent confrontation leaves Frank injured, a small girl named Angel appears holding an egg. It turns out that Angel is really an angel and she has to decide if she wants to help mankind survive or allow it to fade away in the apocalypse.
Meanwhile, Frank meets Doctor Sarah, another survivor, and they share an interlude where he plays her a haunting theme on the piano (Horatio Moscovici’s “Carnavalito Tango”).
While not the greatest movie I’ve ever seen, this movie still deserves to be checked out. It’s pretty incredible that the Corman factory got their hands on the anime rights so cheaply and when they realized just how little Western audiences would comprehend it, they just went all out and made it into a new film that can stand on its own.
Beyond a new 2K version of the film, this Arrow Video release also includes newly filmed interviews with producer Tom Dugan and actor Tony Markes, as well as Before The Aftermath: The Influence of Angel’s Egg, a new appreciation of Mamoru Oshii’s original film by anime expert Andrew Osmond.
Remember Killer Workout? Yeah, that was David Prior. So was The Final Sanction. Now I’ve finally crawled to the bottom of the post-apocalyptic barrel that is Future Force, starring David Carradine, who I would like to think knows better, but he learned how to be in films beneath him from his dad, kind of like that kid in the anti-drug commercial movie from the 1970’s.
Back in 1989, this movie was set in the far-flung future of next year — 2020. That’s when law enforcement has become so bad at their jobs that they turn to metal-armed John Tucker (Carradine) and his bounty hunter team, C.O.P.S (Civilian Operated Police Systems).
All the corruption has led to Tucker becoming a bitter, washed up drunk. One could argue that life is imitating art right here. Regardless, he’s been hired to protect a reporter from the cops, because she can finally prove just how corrupt they are. And oh yeah — Tucker’s partner is evil, so even the C.O.P.S. are against the two of them.
If you should remember Kung Fu, all the better, because Carradine’s denim jacket has one of the symbols from the show on the back. Sadly, it looks and sounds like Carradine would rather be anywhere else but here. It’s even more amazing that he turned up for the sequel: Future Zone.
Amazon Prime has this movie with and without Rifftrax. It’s also non-riffed on You Tube. Honestly, I don’t know how you could watch this without the riffs.
All hail Brian Trenchard-Smith! Where most films today bore your eyes out, his Australian-born breed of mayhem has been etched in my memory for years. Who else could create such a wildly disparate catalog of film, including The Man from Hong Kong, Stunt Rock, BMX Bandits, Turkey Shoot, Night of the Demons 2and so many more.
Only he could make this high concept — in which a dystopian punk rock future relegates its teenage ne’er do wells to a drive-in prison — work.
In this apocalypse, the economy has collapsed due to the manufacturing industry collapsing and cars have become so rare that their parts are a constant commodity battled over between gangs and salvage companies. That’s where the drive-ins come in — they’re concentration camps for kids that can’t find work or are part of those gangs.
The prisoners soon find no reason to escape, as they’re permitting access to drugs, alcohol, junk food, exploitation films and new wave music. The inside of these prisons are preferable to the outside and therefore, no one ever wants to leave.
Our hero, Jimmy is known as “Crabs” and has been lured to the Star Drive-In as a date night with his girl Carmen. As soon as they start to make out, the wheels of his car are stolen by the police, which means that they’re now part of the population of the doomed.
Soon, Crabs is trying to escape as well as coming into conflict with the racist gangs that run the drive-in. Yet Carmen goes the other direction, embracing the junk food that her health-obsessed boyfriend dislikes and falling in with the drugs and anti-Asian racist mentality of the gangs.
Finally, Crabs makes one last attempt at escape, jumping a tow truck out of the drive-in. This final stunt, performed by The Road Warrior Guy Norris, cost the majority of the film’s budget and was the most expensive stunt filmed in Australia by that point, setting a world record for a truck jump at 49.378 meters or 162 feet.
This movie has always been a favorite thanks to its eighties’ neon magic. I have to confess, spending the rest of my life eating junk food, doing drugs and watching Trenchard-Smith’s movies at a drive-in doesn’t sound like all that apocalyptic of a future.
You can watch this for free on Tubi or get the blu ray from Arrow Video. If you’re interested in more Ozploitation, may I recommend Severin’s Ozploitation Trailer Explosion and the documentary Not Quite Hollywood, which you can get from Diabolik DVD.
We still call football soccer in the US and much like the metric system, most folks don’t even think about it after they get out of grade school. Yet for some that love it, it becomes a way of life.
Based on the autobiographical novel by Dave Roberts, this movie recounts the author’s teen years as he supported the worst football club in the country.
Brenock O’Connor (OIly from Game of Thrones) plays young David, who forgoes school and even a normal social life to follow his ailing soccer team across the country. He soon becomes part of the crew with the team’s much older supporters — think the guys in the stands cheering on the Cleveland Indians in Major League — while falling for the team manager Charlie’s daughter, Ruby.
While my love of soccer can be questioned, my love of a coming of age film can’t. There’s nothing you haven’t seen before in here, but it’s well-made and cute in parts. I must admit to having a set of Subbuteo soccer figures as a kid, so seeing those on Dave’s desk made me smile.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team. That has no impact on our review.
David Engelbach wrote Over the Top, Death Wish 2 and two episodes of the TV shows Lottery and MacGyver. He also wrote the 1984 TV movie Goldie and the Bears, which starred Hulk Hogan. He’s only directed one film — the Cannon Films produced America 3000 — and you’re about to learn all about it.
“Nine hundred years after the Great Nuke. The world man created, he destroyed. Out of the darkness and ignorance of the radioactive rubble emerged a new order…and the world was woggos.”
After a nuclear war in the year 1992 — surprise! — mankind has gone back to the Stone Age and is ruled by Amazon women who keep men as wild animals to be used for labor and sex.
Two young guys, Korvis (Chuck Wagner, who was on TV’s Automan and is in The Sisterhood; he went on to be a theater actor and was a ringmaster for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus) and Gruss run away and find the weapons-filled bunker of the President of the United States of America.
Laurene Landon (who was in the commercials in The Stuff), Galyn Gorg (Angie, the nuke addicted bad girl of RoboCop 2), the first Isreali mime Shaike Ophir, black belt Karen Sheperd (The Enforcer from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) and a monster named Aargh the Awful — who is a Bigfoot with a boombox — all show up.
With that kind of description, it should be much better than it is. I’m sad to tell you that it drags and that it seems like only Australians, Italians and Filipinos can make proper post-apocalyptic movies.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.