Imagine you’re a Hollywood studio. Let’s say you’re New World Pictures. You want to ride this wave of post-apocalyptic goodness from Mad Max, but you’re just been hit by the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike. What will you do now?

Go to New Zealand, that’s what.

Also known as Warlords of the 21st Century and Destructors in Italy, this film doesn’t really break any new ground. But it does live up to its title — it has a battletruck.

As it usually happens in thee films, Earth has been wiped out as the result of a thermonuclear war that started over fossil fuels. Now, gas is the most precious of all commodities.

The opening narration that tells us all of this is awesome. That’s because its actor Randy Powell, who also plays Judd in the movie, transmitting a ham radio broadcast in Los Angeles, California to the filmmakers back in New Zealand.

While exploring a compound once thought to be radioactive, Straker (James Wainwright, Killdozer) discovers all the diesel fuel that the world will need. But his orders to kill the owners are ignored by his daughter Corlie (Annie McEnroe, who was in Snowbeast and is married to Edward R. Pressman, who produced Christmas Evil, Conan the Barbarian and all of The Crow movies, amongst many others). On the run and lost in the desert, she meets our hero, Hunter (Michael Beck, The Warriors, Xanadu, Megaforce). 

What’s up with all of the heroes after the end of the world getting names like Hunter and Stryker? I mean, I dig it, but their parents really must have all been consulting the same Refinery 29 articles about “What to name your child after the bomb drops.”

Hunter has a bad ass motorbike and lives in the walled city of Clearwater Farm, an actual democracy in the midst of all this lawlessness, but soon Colie’s father finds her and attacks. As her dad’s mercs destroy the city and torture Rusty the mechanic (John Ratzenberger in a post-nuke movie!) to learn the secret location of where Hunter really lives. 

If our hero is going to defeat Straker and his battletruck, he’s going to need more than just a bike. He’s going to need an armored car of his own. Hunter doesn’t care about anything, even blowing up all of the fuel just to prove a point. Of course, he’s going to kill everyone in his path, save the girl and then take off into the desert all by himself. That’s how these movies work.

Director and co-writer Harley Cokeliss would go on to direct several episodes of Hercules and Xena, as well as Black Moon Rising and Dream Demon.

You can get this movie on a double DVD along with Deathsport from Shout! Factory. It doesn’t break much new ground, but it’s still a fun movie.

The first of the Rambo films has an interesting pedigree. It comes from director Ted Kotcheff (the original Dick and Jane, North Dallas Forty, Uncommonn Valor, Weekend at Bernies) and was based on a downbeat 1972 book by David Morrell. When Stephen King taught creative writing at the University of Maine, he used First Blood as a textbook. Ten years, eighteen screenplays and three studios later, the film finally got made.

Back in 1982 when the film rights were first sold, producers considered Steve McQueen for the lead. Sheriff Teasle was offered to both Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall, but they turned the part down. Lee Marvin turned down playing Colonel Trautman, but Kirk Douglas eventually took the role. He quit just before shooting began, as he wanted the movie to end like the book, where Rambo and the sheriff fatally would one another, Trautman kills Rambo and sits with the dying lawman. Rock Hudson also signed up to be in the film, but he had to undergo heart surgery, leaving Brian Dennehy to play Sheriff William Teasle and Richard Crenna to play Colonel Samuel Trautman in what would become the character actor’s most iconic role.

Seven years after his discharge, he left Vietnam, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is wandering America. A visit to Hope, Washington to see an old friend is cut short when he learns that his former military brother has died from cancer that was caused by Agent Orange.

As he wanders the highway, Sheriff Teasle begins to harass him, finally driving him to the unskirts of town and telling him not to come back. When he does, he’s arrested for vagrancy, resisting arrest and possession of a knife. The police are brutal to the former war hero, as Deputy Art Galt (Jack Starrett, Nam’s Angels, Race with the Devil) and the other cops spray him down with a hose and even attempt to dry shave his face. Rambo snaps and decimates the outmatched lawmen; he;s a former Green Beret who won the Medal of Honor.

Galt chases him from helicopter, taking shots at him even though he’s been warned not to, which leads to his death. Rambo informs the police that the man’s death was his own fault, but the rest of the police come in shooting. Our hero, such as it is, dispatches each of them with non-lethal traps until only Teasle remains.

Even more officials — state police and national guard — come in, along with Rambo’s mentor and former commanding officer Colonel Sam Trautman, who advises that Rambo just be allowed to leave town. All hell breaks loose with Rambo nearly killed in an abandoned mine before escaping and destroying much of the small town. As he prepares to kill the sheriff, Trautman convinces him to surrender and Rambo collapses in tears, screaming “Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off! It wasn’t my war! You asked me, I didn’t ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn’t let us win!”

The first rough cut of this movie lasted three and a half hours long and was so bad that Stallone wanted to buy it and destroy it before it ruined his career. After heavy re-editing and a second ending, where Rambo doesn’t commit suicide, the film became a great success. The character itself would change as America moved from a country unsure of how to deal with the war in Vietnam to one that embraced its status as the world’s policeman; the next Rambo film would present the character in a completely new way.

Rocky III did more than just extend the franchise. It boosted the careers of two nascent superheroic characters, Mr. T and Hulk Hogan, as they made their way into the 1980’s cultural zeitgeist and even a titanic team-up at WrestleMania. Yet here, they’re just enemies for Rocky to gather his wits and eventually defeat. 1,200 people auditioned to be Clubber Lang, but there couldn’t be anyone else but Mr. T in this role.

Stallone went hard to get into shape for this movie, getting his body fat percentage down to his record low of 2.8%. He did that by eating only ten egg whites and a piece of toast a day, with fruit every third day, along with two miles of jogging, two hours of weight training, eighteen rounds of sparring, two more hours of weight training and swimming every single day.

Rocky has held the heavyweight championship for five years and defended it ten times, leading to fame, wealth and celebrity. In fact, he’s even moved into boxing versus wrestling matches against opponents like Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan). But his manager, Mickey (Burgess Meredith) knows that James “Clubber” Lang (Mr. T) is the man who can beat him.

While unveiling a statue of himself, Lang shows up and challenges him to a title match, claiming that Rocky has been hiding from him. That turns out to be true, because unbeknownst to our hero, Mickey has been keeping Rocky away from anyone who would hurt him as badly as Apollo Creed did. He goes on to tell him that Lang is hungry and that Rocky will never last three rounds with him because he’s become civilized and lost the eye of the tiger.

The training montage here shows that Rocky is distracted while Lang has risen from the Chicago streets and is very much like a younger Balboa, save that he’s cocky and brutal. When the two first meet, it erupts into a brawl that causes Mickey to suffer a heart attack before the match even starts. After the fight — a second round KO title win for Lang — Rocky tells his mentor that the fight is over and that it ended in the second round. He doesn’t tell him that he lost and his father figure dies happily.

Rocky slips into a deep depression that is only stopped when Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), his former arch enemy, offers to train him in exchange for a favor. Along with Tony “Duke” Evers (Tony Burton), Apollo brings Rocky into his Tough Gym, giving him the footwork, style and speed that he lacked, finally becoming the gladiator that he was born to be.

The fight between Lang and Rocky is different the next time — Rocky destroys him in the first round, then allows his opponent to batter him in the second, taunting Land and claiming that he can’t put him away. This is all a ruse, as Rocky defeats him in the third, finally finding, as the song sings, “The Eye of the Tiger.”

Apollo’s favor? One more rematch, this time in private at Mickey’s gym. Now the men have become friends and finally are on the same level as the film ends.

When Mr. T took his mother to the premiere, she angrily walked out, upset at the lurid way that he yelled at Rocky’s wife Adrian (Talia Shire), saying “I did not raise you to talk to a lady like that.”

As always, Stallone knows where his characters ended up. He saw Clubber Lang as later becoming a born-again Christian and a ringside announcer.

This would be the last time that Rocky would battle for the title. Now, it would be time to go to Russia and then back to the streets. Stay tuned.

What if you combine the director of Jackson County Jail — Michael Miller — and Chuck Norris, America’s favorite karate man, then make Chuck fight the Frankenstein Monster in a movie that’s as if John Wayne wandered into a slasher? Then you’d have 1982’s utterly bizarre Silent Rage (or the 2009 remake, Indestructible).

Seriously — Chuck Noris sidekicks an unstoppable killer. Why you’re reading this and not looking for this movie is beyond me.

Somewhere in Texas, John Kirby (Brian Libby, Floyd from The Shawshank Redemption) kills two of his family members and is stopped by Sheriff Daniel Stevens (Norris) and his deputy Charlie (Stephen Furst, Animal House). Kirby breaks free and is shot several times before being brought back to life by his psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas Halman (Ron Silver!), who is working along with genetics experts Dr. Phillip Spires (Steven Keats, Death Wish) and Dr. Paul Vaughn (William Kinley, the Phantom of Paradise himself!).

Now the killing machine is mute and unkillable and even worse, on the run. Somehow, Sheriff Dan is dating Alison, the sister of Dr. Tom, and Kirby is killing everyone in his way. So Chuck Norris does what he does best — sidekicking. After lots of murder, he sidekicks the monster down a well, where he survives to set up a sequel that never came.

Michael Miller said the film was written with Norris in mind, telling Coming Soon: “You don’t hire Chuck Norris not to do karate. It wasn’t like it was an old John Wayne script that they ended up giving to Chuck. He does his thing. I think the idea was to try and broaden the audience in that it wasn’t a karate movie. In my mind, it was a Frankenstein movie. It was like Frankenstein meets Chuck.” What it wasn’t was inspired by slashers, as Miller wasn’t a fan.

“At the end, the guy is still not dead. But that never happened. I would have liked that. You can see that this guy is not a slasher. He kills people the way Frankenstein’s creature kills people. He throws them and bang,” said Miller.

Meanwhile, Miller worked with most of the crew for this movie and Stephen Furst on another film that came out in 1982, National Lampoon’s Class Reunion. And listen for the song “It’s The Time For Love” on the soundtrack. That’s Peg Bundy, Katey Sagal, singing.

You can watch this on Crackle or on Amazon Prime with Rifftrax commentary.

The Westgate Cinema in New Castle, PA wasn’t a fancy or clean theater. Yet for most of my childhood, that’s where we saw films for $1 before 5 PM, with my family often sneaking into multiple showings or even more than one film a day. The Toy was one of those films, a movie lost in the miasma of the years between ten and twelve, mixed in with other moves like The Incredible Shrinking Woman, the Jerry Lewis vehicle Hardly Working and The Cannonball Run.

Jack Brown (Richard Pryor) is in danger of losing everything — his marriage and his home — and becomes so desperate for a job that he dresses up like a traditional Southern maid to serve lunch to businessman U.S. Bates (Jackie Gleason).

He’s quickly fired, but Bates’ spoiled son Eric (Scott Schwartz, who yes, went on to appear in A Christmas Story and perhaps more infamously adult films like Scotty’s X-Rated Adventure) — upon being told he can have anything in the store — asks for Jack. Yes, he wants to own a black man as his toy, a fact that powers the whole film.

Bates’ henchman Sydney Morehouse (Ned Beatty) sets up a deal where Jack will be Eric’s live-in friend in exchange for enough money to save his house. The trouble is that the humiliation isn’t worth any money. Yet this is an 80’s movie, so of course, the kid’s rough edges get smoothed out and the two come an understanding, eventually working together to expose the father’s brutal personal and business demons.

This was the movie that Richard Donner followed his work on Superman with. Gleason is, as always, a delight. He was supposedly rough on Schwartz during filming, as the comedian loved to ad lib and it threw the young actor off.

Gorgeous is not a word one would associate with a film as brutal and infamous as The New York Ripper, but here we are. For all the squalor, vice and viscera that the movie displays, somehow the new Blue Underground 4K reissue of the film is also awash in deeper colors, sharper resolution and more clarity. I wondered, “How can a low budget Italian grindhouse movie from 1982 be improved any further than the last release of this film?” Turns out I was wrong. This is a whole new look for the film.

Not bad for a film that its writer, Dardano Sacchetti, said came from a director who “nurtures a profound sadism towards women.” The New York Ripper isn’t an easy watch. In fact, a UK censor claimed was “simply the most damaging film I have ever seen in my whole life.” For all the times I wonder why some reviewers feel the need to list the trigger warnings in a film, I can admit that the entirety of this movie is basically one big trigger.

It’s also a movie that came out at the end of the slasher fad in the U.S., at a time when mainstream critics were finally confronting films that had been playing grindhouses and drive-ins for years. It barely played the U.S. in 1984 before being released in censored form on VHS in 1987. It still hasn’t been released uncut in England.

I have a slightly different view of the film than most. In a world where people obsessively watch Law and Order at all hours of the day and night, The New York Ripper offers a very similar story with one glaring difference: there is no center of morality. There’s not a single redeeming character, save perhaps Fay Majors and Susy Bunch. There isn’t a sympathetic killer nor a beaten down cop with a hidden heart of gold. This is New York City standing on the brink of Armageddon at the end of the 20th century. There isn’t room for goodness, just a struggle to survive.

Beyond Fulci unleashing every evil impulse he has when it comes to gore and destroying human bodies, the real part of this film that makes it so hard to swallow is the overwhelming feeling of misery that imbues every frame. No one is getting out alive or unscathed. Cops choose their own careers over the prostitutes that they may or may not be able to admit that they love. The very same cop, whose morality is very much in question, rails against the open marriage that is the closest thing to romantic love in the film. And the movie ends with a dying child in a hospital bed repeatedly calling out to a father who now cannot answer her. There’s grim and then there’s this film.

So why am I so excited to have this new 3-disc limited edition in my collection? Because I feel that it’s an important part of Lucio Fulci’s career. It’s nearly a bookend with another of his giallo works, Don’t Torture a Duckling. Unlike his giallo contemporaries like Argento and Martino, Fulci has no concern with fashion or hyper colors. Instead, he uses the framework of the genre — hidden killers, red herrings, psychosexual motive — to rail against the inhumanity of morality and religion, while at the same time fascinatingly being as immoral as it gets.

After this film, Fulci would create Conquest, a baffling fog-entrenched take on the sword and sorcery film that I absolutely adore, and Warriors of the Year 2072, which is the final film he’d work with Sacchetti on. It’s the beginning of a downward slide in quality and health for the Godfather of Gore, although I like some of his later period films more than others, such as Murder Rock, Aenigma and The Devil’s Honey.

This Blue Underground release is packed with extras, including audio commentary from Troy Howarth (author of Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films), interviews with Sacchetti (who pulls no punches, discussing just how little he cares for original writers Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino); actors Howard Ross, Cinzia de Ponti and Zora Kerova; a discussion of the film with Stephen Thrower (author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci); a breakdown of the film’s locations in 1981 and 2019; and an incredible feature with poster artist Enzo Sciotti, who shows how he creates his iconic posters. That interview is more than worth the price of this set alone! Plus, there’s a soundtrack of the film’s music and a booklet with an essay by Travis Crawford. I really have no idea how anyone can top the care, quality and love that Blue Underground bestowed on this release.

This isn’t a movie for everyone. It’s maximum Fulci without the benefit of the supernatural to dull the edges of the sadism on display. Yet it’s a well-made film that keeps you guessing and takes you on a near mondo tour through the uncertain haze of the death throes of New York City before Times Square was reinvented as a tourist-friendly paradise. For lovers of extreme cinema and Italian exploitation, there’s plenty to quack about here.

DISCLAIMER: I was sent this movie for review by Blue Underground, but I would have bought it regardless.

I pity the kids who didn’t grow up watching Night Flight. While the rest of the teenage world was out getting drunk and laid from 1981 to 1988 (although syndicated repeats would last until 1996), I was parked in front of the TV, soaking up the knowledge that would lead to lifelong obsessions in music and media.

Night Flight also curated movies that otherwise would never find an audience or ones that had simply disappeared. From the two Andy Warhol horror films to The Brain, Daughters of Darkness and Pink Flamingoes to Fantastic Planet, The Kentucky Fried Movie and Liquid Sky, the show brought incredibly strange films that even the largest video stores might not carry directly into my home. For a kid trapped in a cultural desert an hour from Pittsburgh — hardly a media force save for being the center of zombie movies — Night Flight kept me going.

Set in the fictional town of Charlestown, Pennsylvania (the same place that writer Nancy Dowd also covered in her film Slap Shot), Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains feels like my hometown. It’s the kind of movie that demands to be seen, one that should have never been derailed by a disastrous screening in Colorado.

Corinne Burns (an incendiary Diane Lane, who is also perfect in Streets of Fire) is already a star as the movie begins. She struggles to support herself and her sister and when she’s interviewed by a local TV station, she lashes out and gets fired by her boss. Teenage viewers fall in love with her and in a follow-up interview, she’s even more belligerent and sarcastic.

Corinne attends a Metal Corpses concert put on by small-time promoter Lawnboy where she’s amazed by a punk band called the Looters. The two bands could not be more different and they’re at constant war, so Lawnboy brings The Stains — Corinne’s band with her sister and cousin — on tour to act as a buffer.

The first show goes horribly. The girls can barely play and Corinne yells at the audience in a near-monotone voice before flipping out on them. Then, the Corpses bassist OD’s in the women’s bathroom. Corinne takes advantage of the media, claiming that he died of a broken heart, knowing that he could never have her. She claims that she never puts out and debuts a new look — streaked hair, pink war paint and see-through clothing — that is soon imitated by female fans.

The media falls in love with her, with men hammering her antisocial attitude and lack of talent while women see them as female empowerment. Girls start running away from home to follow the band. Meanwhile, the Looters frontman Billy shares his illiteracy and feelings behind his song “Join the Professionals” as an attempt to seduce Corinne. They make out in a hotel room shower, but does our heroine really put out? Does she simply fall in love and run away with the rock star?

Their romance soon falls apart when an agent reveals that Billy wanted The Stains replaced on the tour. Corinne goes from blood when she steals the very song Billy confided in her about and makes it her first single. Things happen fast — maybe too fast, one of the few bad things I have to say about this movie — and the girl become the headliners and cut out Lawnboy.

At the Stains’ first show as the new lead band, Billy incites a riot by convincing the band’s followers that The Stains have become corporate sell-outs. The agent cancels their contract after the concert falls apart, but Corinne gets paid by threatening the man with a can opener, a movie she learned from Billy.

After one last TV appearance, where a male journalist laughs at her, Billy apologizes and asks for her to come back. She refuses, wandering the streets until she finds a group of girls with guitars, all listening to her sing on the radio.

That’s where this movie should end.

Dowd was unsatisfied with the editing and final cut of the film, which led to her changing her name on the final credits. She was also groped by a camera operator on set, which only added to her dissatisfaction with this movie. The tacked on ending — where The Stains have become an MTV success on Lawnboy’s new record label — seems glittery and polished and at odds with every moment of the film’s grit.

The music is great, though. That’s because other than The Stains (Lane, Laura Dern and Marin Kanter), they’re all real bands. The Looters have actor Ray Winstone as Billy, but otherwise are an all-star punk lineup with Pail Simonon from The Clash on bass and Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook on guitar and drums. The Metal Corpses have Fee Waybill and Vince Welnick from The Tubes as members. And Black Randy and The Metrosquad also show up.

This movie was directed by Lou Adler, who is also a Grammy Award-winning record producer, music executive, talent manager, songwriter, film producer, and co-owner of the famous Roxy Theatre. He produced and developed Jan & Dean, The Mamas & The Papas and Carole King, including producing her record Tapestry, which is considered one of the all-time greatest albums of all time.

Adler also guided the careers of Cheech and Chong, working on their albums and then producing and directing Up In Smoke. He also produced The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its sequel, Shock Treatment, before this film.

My favorite scene in the film is when Christine Lahti, playing Jessica’s mom, is asked about her daughter and nieces on TV. Instead of piling scorn on top of the girls, she instead relates how much she misses her sister and how proud she is of her daughter for rising out of the cycle of abuse where every woman in their family has been told that they’re nothing.

The only other issue I have with this film is that the camera seems to linger with the male gaze on the young bodies of Lane and her fans. It seems to want to titilate and provide female empowerment at the very same time. That said — it’s hard to watch a movie made in 1982 and force it to conform to the morals we’ve learned nearly three decades later.

We featured Ladies and Gentleman, the Fabulous Stains — with a second look — as part of our weekly “Drive-In Friday” featurettes with a tribute to the old USA Network’s “Night Flight” programming block from the ’80s.