This movie quite literally has a murderer’s row of mid 80’s comedy favorites. You’ve got Guttenberg. Bill Macy from TV’s Maude. Curtis Armstrong from Revenge of the Nerds and Better Off Dead. A pre-Simpsons Julie Kavner. Julie Hagerty from Airplane! Alan Arkin and Gilbert Gottfried as the bad guys. And, as all movies should, a perfect quick role for Taylor Negron.
Guttenberg plays constantly goofing around pre-med student Jeffrey Marx, who is sent by his father to a Central American — shot in Spain — medical school. He discovers that medicine is actually his life’s calling by illegally treating the villagers, using supplies taken from the school.
Writer and director Harvey Miller also wrote Private Benjamin, Cannonball Run II, Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again, Protocol and Getting Away with Murder.
You can do worse than this movie. Of this genre, it’s one of the better films and Guttenberg is pretty much Mahoney, which is the role that he’s best at.
I love that this movie had the working title Up the Pentagon, like the abortive 1980 Mad Magazine movie Up the Academy. It’s the only movie ever directed by Andrew Sugerman, who has executive produced movies like Shopgirl, Death Sentence and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
Ann Dusenberry, Tina the beauty queen from Jaws 2, is Melinda, a newcomer to the Pentagon who is shocked by the way that they sexually harass her. For a few minutes, I was thinking that this 1985 comedy was incredibly woke and ahead of its time.
Then I realized that I was watching a 1985 sex comedy and that Melinda will instead use her sexual wiles to get back at everyone via a campaign of her own harassment and making old men think she’s going to sleep with them.
Angela Aames from Fairy Tales and Chopping Mall— she was also Linda “Boom-Boom” Bangs in H.O.T.S. — and Rhonda Shear of USA’s Up All Night are also in this.
After Police Academy and Bachelor Party, Neal Israel and Pat Proft made this film, which has a great cast of 80’s comedy folks. It’s the ultimate hijinks ensue kind of movie, where a bunch of oddballs all lose their licenses and have to go to traffic school. Unbeknownst to them, Judge Nedra Henderson (Sally Kellerman) plans on selling their cars and keeping them from ever driving again.
Deputy Henry “Hank” Halik (John Keach, brother of Stacy) and Deputy Virginia Morris (Lisa Hart Carroll, Patsy from Terms of Endearment) are the tough cops running things.
They’re up against Dana Cannon (instead of just getting anybody to be a Bill Murray ripoff, Moving Violations at least hires his brother John), NASA scientist Amy Hopkins (Jennifer Tilly), teen Scott Greeber (Brian Backer, Rat from Fast Times at Ridgemont High), Where’s the Beef? lady Clara Peller, Wendie Jo Sperber as a hypochondriac, Lust in the Dust’s Nedra Volz, Fred Willard as a card mechanic, Nadine van der Velde from Critters, Don Cheadle in one of his first movies and Dedee Pfieffer from House 3/The Horror Show.
I love that Robert Conrad is in this. He turned down the role of Lassard in the first Police Academy and did this movie because he regretted that decision. And I adore the scene where Willard asks Sperber to get her car up on the rack and she thinks that he means her. It’s totally stupid, but isn’t that why you’re watching this?
The Police Academy cadets have graduated and have now been assigned to the worst precinct in town, where they have to help Captain Pete Lassard (Howard Hesseman) fight Zed (Bobcat Goldthwait) and the Scullions gang.
Let me tell you — a 13-yer-old Sam definitely watched this at the Spotlight 88 drive-in outside Beaver Falls, PA and laughed like a lunatic. Nothing has changed for 47-year-old Sam, except he watched this on Netflix, even though he owns two different Police Academy box sets.
Chief Henry Hurst (George R. Robertson) gives Lassard thirty days to turn around the 16th precinct or the job will go to Lieutenant Mauser (Art Metrano) and Sgt. Proctor (Lance Kinsey). This leads to Lassard calling up his older brother Eric (George Gaynes) and getting six new officers: Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg), Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow), Eugene Tackleberry (David Graf), Douglas Fackler (Bruce Mahler), Moses Hightower (Bubba Smith) and Laverne Hooks (Marion Ramsey).
This is when Tackleberrt falls for Sgt. Kathleen Kirkland (Colleen Camp, Clue, Wicked Stepmother). And we’re introduced to the adversarial and soon friendly relationship between Zed and Carl Sweetchuck (Tim Kazurinsky).
Bill Paxton was offered the role of Zed, but turned it down as he didn’t want to sign to be in any sequels. How strange would that have been?
You can make fun of these movies all you want, but they made peoples’ careers. For example, Bubba Smith went on record saying that he made more money from this movie than playing NFL football for a decade. That’s because he asked for 2% of the film’s profits instead of a higher salary. Smart guy.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This review originally ran on May 1, 2018. Seeing as how Remo Williams is an American blue-collar James Bond, I figured that I should bring this back, while also adding some new information.
After Burton’s Batman, Hollywood wanted tentpole movies that could make sequel after sequel. So why not turn to men’s paperbacks, like The Destroyer, a series of 152 books written by the team of Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir (as well as some ghostwriters) that have 30 million books in print?
Sam Makin (Fred Ward, The Right Stuff) was a tough New York City cop who died in the line of duty before being resurrected as Remo Williams, now the CURE organization’s front man in the war against the enemies of the United States. Now with a new face, no fingerprints and training in the assassination skill known as Sinanju from the Korean martial artist Chiun (Joel Grey, who is not Asian and is actually a Jewish man from Cleveland), Remo is ready to battle corrupt weapons dealers and save Kate Mulgrew’s military officer character.
I’ve been begging Becca to watch this movie for years and she responded to it by asking, “Was this a real movie or one of those ones you like that no one knew about?” It was an actual movie. Maybe people didn’t care as much as me, because in 1985 I was fully into The Destroyer thanks to Marvel publishing a black and white comic book version.
Watching this film years later, it’s weird how little happens. “Are they ever going to do anything or is this the entire movie?” my wife asked. “This is his origin story,” I tried to say, but she’s right. For all the amazing things Remo learns to do, he gets to do very little of them. But guess what? I still love this movie.
That said, I quote this movie all the time. There’s a great line when Remo is about to run into a building and is told, “Be fast. Like a duck mating. In and out.”
Wilford Brimley is great as Remo’s boss, Harold Smith. And Michael Pataki is always a welcome face in any film. Plus you get cameos from Reginald VelJohnson (Die Hard) and William Hickey (National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation).
This was intended to be a blue-collar James Bond. Which makes sense, once you realize that they used Bond screenwriter Christopher Wood (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) and Bond director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun).
Sadly, there was a 1988 TV spinoff of the movie that never made it past the pilot stage, starring Jeffrey Meek as Remo and Roddy McDowall as Chiun (who was British and also not Asian). Spoiler warning: It’ll be on the site later today.
The original DVD of this film is out of print, so you’ll probably pay $10-15 for a used copy. Arrow Video did release it awhile back, but not in a U.S. friendly format. There’s a limited edition at Diabolik DVD that you can hurry up and get, too.
This is Roger Moore’s final Bond appearance and what a way to go — having a love scene with Grace Jones when he’s all of 57 years old. For his part, Moore would say, “I was only about four hundred years too old for the part.” He was not a fan of this movie, as he would later look back and say, “I was horrified on the last Bond I did. Whole slews of sequences where Christopher Walken was machine-gunning hundreds of people. I said “That wasn’t Bond, those weren’t Bond films.: It stopped being what they were all about. You didn’t dwell on the blood and the brains spewing all over the place.”
Walken was the third choice, as David Bowie and Sting almost played Max Zorin, the product of a Nazi genetic experiment who wants to destroy the Silicon Valley. Patrick Macnee — once John Steed from The Avengers — shows up as Sir Godfrey Tibbet and Tanya Roberts plays Bond’s love interest, Stacey Sutton. Dolph Lundgren also has an early role as a KGB agent.
As fuddy duddy as much of this movie feels, at least it has a great Bond song. Duran Duran killed it, pardon the pun, with “A View to a Kill,” which came about when bassist John Taylor, a lifelong Bond fan, drunkenly cornered Cubby Broccoli and said, “When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?”
The movie itself is kind of all over the place with horses being given adrenaline and airships and mines. But hey — like I said, Grace Jones pins down Bond and you genuinely worry for Roger Moore’s life. According to Moore’s biography, she had a large black dildo with her in their bed scene.
Roberts was nominated for the Worst Actress Golden Raspberry Award, but she lost to Linda Blair, who appeared in Night Patrol, Savage Island and Savage Streets. Those guys have no sense of taste whatsoever. She was one of the reasons why Moore decided to retire as Bond, as he learned he was older than her mother.
Emmett Alston’s IMDB credits are interesting. He started with Three-Way Weekend and New Year’s Evilbefore making this ninja film, which led to him also making Force of the Ninja and Little Ninjas. Before that, he was the cinematographer on 1972’s occult-themed Moonchild.
Thanks to roles in Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination — all Cannon Films — Sho Kosugi was THE ninja of the early 1980’s. Plus, he starred as Okasa, the villain of the NBC series The Master, going shuriken to shuriken with John Peter McAllister, who was played by Lee Van Cleef.
Our friends at Crown International made this one happen. And Alston finally got his opportunity to work with Kosugi, as he was the original director for Enter the Ninja before Cannon maniac Menahem Golan. That said, this movie wasn’t a revenge effort, as both Golan and co-Cannon crazy Yoram Globus also produced this movie.
Get ready for the adventures of Spike “Lollipop” Shinobi (Kosugi), Steve “Macho Man” Gordon (Brent Huff, The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik Yak) and Jennifer Barnes (Emilia Crow, Hollywood Vice Squad) as they are sent to the Philippines to rescue a bunch of American hostages from a schoolbus. Kosugi’s real-life kids Kane and Shane are among them; they often starred in movies with their father.
As for the bad guys, they include Alby the Cruel (Blackie Dammet, the father of Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis), the insane Dr. Wolf, Rahji the Butcher, Honey Hump and her army of evil lesbians including the twins Woo Pee and Woo Wee, plus several completely evil and adorable small ball punching assassins. Yes, really.
Oh yeah — Woo Wee and Woo Pee run a brother where they promise that all of the women are “sterilized, sanitized and lobotomized.”
While I’m at it, let me tell you — Alby is my favorite bad guy ever right now. He looks like Tom Waits, he’s a Nazi stuck in a wheelchair and he has a monkey henchman. Dammit — this movie has brought back my lust for life!
This is a movie that starts with Kosugi doing sword moves around ballet dancers as if starring in his very own James Bond title sequence. It’s as awesome as that sentence makes it sound.
Let me tell you what — this film is worth the price of the entire Mill Creek’s Explosive Cinema set, where it sits head and shoulders above many of the other films we’ve been watching this week.
If you didn’t get enough of Lash LaRue in The Dark Power, have I got good news for you! The master of the whip — no, not El Latigo or Indiana Jones — returns to battle aliens this time, in a movie directed by Phil Smoot, whose name I will drunkenly yell at people for years because it amuses me.
Smoot also directed — surprise, surprise — The Dark Power, as well as serving as a camera operator on Carnival Magic, a movie that has wiped out whatever brain cells I had left from art school.
Jesse Jamison (Kari Anderson) is a gun-shooting lady about to put on a show in a small Southern town — it was shot in Allegheny County and Sparta, North Carolina — and then some aliens just so happen to show up.
Luckily, she has the help of locals like Alex (LaRue) and Sunset (Sunset Carson, a former rodeo star who became a B-level cowboy star for Republic in the 1940s).
Much like Without Warning, this movie somehow rips off Predator years before that movie was made. Life’s weird like that sometimes.
You can watch this with Rifftrax commentary on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Note: Michael Robertson sent me some info that adjusted this article. Thanks.
In a universe where Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) meets Peter Hyman’s Outland (1981), two rival corporations, the American-led multinational NTI, and the German-led global amalgamate Richter Dynamics, compete for the solar system’s mining rights (yes, we’re in orbit around Roland Emmerich’s Moon 44). When a geological research vessel on return from the Saturn system crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth’s Moon, both companies launch missions to discover what lurks on Titan, Saturn largest moon: what creeps is the rebirth of 200,000-year-old archaeological find in the form of an alien with the ability to control the minds of other creatures via parasitic organisms from its own body.
(If it all seems similar to the alien in 1980’s Without Warning, which 1987’s Predator ripped off, it probably is.)
Connoisseurs of science fiction’s video fringes consider this second feature film from writer-director William Malone as “the best” of the ‘80s Alien rip-offs. Ironically, that distinction comes courtesy of the 12th Annual Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film’s Saturn Award-nominated special effects brothers-team of Robert and Dennis Skotak—who would go on to design the effects for 1986’s Aliens. If you’re keeping track: Alien‘s sequel was directed by James Cameron, who designed the effects for Roger Corman’s earlier Alien knockoff, Galaxy of Terror. (Also nominated for Best Picture, Creature lost both nods to Joe Dante’s Gremlins.)
Keep in mind that Creature was produced for $750,000 and, unlike its gooey antecedent, wasn’t backed by 20th Century Fox Studios. So the Shenandoah, the low-budget spaceship of these proceedings, is no Nostromo: it’s more like SpaceCore 1 from the second-best of the Alien knockoffs, Dark Side of the Moon (1989). (Okay, some would argue Roger Corman’s Galaxy of Terror was second; these rankings aren’t “official.”) And be on the lookout William Malone having fun with his purposeful homage-plot twist to the 1951 Alien-precursor classic, The Thing from Another World.
As with The Dark Side of the Moon, the familiar selling-it-against-the-budget cast is pretty good in their clone-roles. Joe Dante stock player Wendy Schall (1987’s Innerspace, 1989’s The ‘Burbs, 1998’s Small Soldiers) holds her own as the resident Ripley. The same goes for familiar TV actors Stan Ivar (NBC’s Little House on the Prairie) as the inhabitant Dallas, and Lyman Ward (but we remember him as the dad in FerrisBueller’s Day Off) as the clone of Paul Riser’s weasely corporate executive from Aliens (which wasn’t even made yet!). Melanie Bryce, in her acting debut, is good as the leather-clad, taciturn Ash-like ship’s security officer. (Since 2009 Wendy Schall served as the voice of Francine Smith on the Fox animated-sitcom American Dad!. Melanie Bryce, who voiced Queen Bansheera in the series Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue, will be back in theatres alongside Eric Roberts in 2020’s Dante’s Hell—which has nothing to do with Joe.)
Shortly after attending UCLA’s iconic film school (also attended by Star Wars’ George Lucas and Dark Star’s John Carpenter), William Malone made a dry-run on the concepts in Creature with his spine-fluid sucking Syngenor monster in the popular Alien-esque video renter and his writing-directing debut, Scared to Death (1980). Moving up to the big leagues, he made the more expensive—but quickly forgotten—films House on Haunted Hill (1999; a remake of the 1959 film), Feardotcom (2002; with Stephen Dorff), and Parasomnia (2008), and he wrote the screenplay Universal Soldier: The Return (1999; sequel to the original).
Amid his major studio dealings with MGM, he revisited the concepts from Creature once again with his 1990 screenplay Dead Star, a modest $5 million picture (the cost of Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars, which was partly recycled into Galaxy of Terror). Envisioned as a “Dead Calm” (1989, a thriller about a psycho loose on yacht in the ocean) in space, the script was about a space expedition that discovers alien artifacts and brings them back to Earth; one artifact unleashes an evil force. Purchased by MGM and sent into development hell and jettisoning Malone along the way, the film was eventually released as 2000’s Supernova, a muddled mess of a story concerning black holes and supernatural forces—which ripped off the plot from the previously mentioned Alien clone, The Dark Side of the Moon.
Shortly after its release, Creature—known by its original title, Titan Find, in the overseas markets in its dual theatrical-home video-television run—fell into the public domain. In those lawless celluloid lands, it appeared on numerous VHS and DVD reissues through a wide variety of imprints and cheap-jack public domain box sets—along with shoddy artwork-encased grey market DVD-rs.
William Malone decided to rectify the situation in response to fan requests for a proper digital restoration of his most-popular film. In 2013 Malone announced he was going to release a copy of the film’s answer print in his possession (the first version of a motion picture printed to film after color correction on an interpositive and sound properly synced to the picture) in an uncut and widescreen format for the first time on DVD and Blu.
From his Facebook page (posted with the artwork, seen below):
“This is a completely NEW high resolution transfer from the Camera Original Answer Print done in Widescreen Scope format (2:35 aspect ratio). This also [is] the original longer cut under its shooting title (and UK release title) TITAN FIND with never before seen footage and loaded with extras. It features [a] Director’s Commentary, [and] Art Gallery with original pre-production art and on screen interviews with [the] director and cast members. The initial release (March 16) with be the SD version with Blu-ray to follow at a yet undetermined date. This is the first authorized DVD of this title and the only WIDESCREEN version ever available.”
Then MGM, the current right holders over the film, who let it fall into the public domain in the first place, and remained silent as it was released on numerous public domain and grey-market imprints, filed an injunction.
And here’s where the real horror—of legal red tape—begins.
The film’s video distributor, Charles Band’s Media Home Entertainment, began selling off its assets in 1990, ceased operations in 1993, and was rolled into 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. However, the film’s production company, Trans World Entertainment (not the retail company of the same name that operates mall-based entertainment chains), was defunct by 1989. Its intellectual properties, in turn, came under MGM’s tutelage after the Great Lion purchase Orion Pictures, which purchased Epic’s film libraries from Polygram Filmed Entertainment.
The short of the story, to paraphrase Pvt. Hudson from Alien: “Restored DVD and Blu over, man. Movie over! What are we gonna do, now?”
Caveat emptor when you see these DVDs in the marketplace. They are not “official” DVDs promoted as William Malone’s “wide screen” answer print/director’s cut of the film. Malone’s release was stopped by rights holder MGM Studios. To date, Creature, aka Titan Find in the overseas markets, is still in the public domain — bootlegged and pirated — on a variety of foreign imprints with varying degrees of quality in both artwork and film-image quality.
As of this writing, Malone’s version was never official released through any legitimate seller sites. However, that didn’t stop the grey market: they stole Malone’s DVD artwork and started manufacturing their own copies. Caveat emptors are afoot on those releases: the grey market sellers don’t have Malone’s answer print—and don’t possess the 1” video masters—and are simply ripping the 1985 VHS into DVD-rs. And when that “Malone version” appears on shadow seller sites, it’s marketed as “rare” and carries an exorbitant price.
Or, did Malone dupe us all? Is this another Rocktober Blood 2: Billy’s Revenge, which promoted its production with a promoted a DVD and Blu reissue of Rocktober Blood? That release also tossed around the phases “authorized,” “full restoration,” “high resolution transfer,” and “aspect ratio”—then stuck everyone with DVD-rs ripped from a VHS tape source.
Nope.
I believe Malone was sincere in his efforts and he simply got screwed by the major studio, public domain, and grey market system—again. So, come on, MGM! Work with Malone and give the fans what they want: a full DVD and Blu-ray restoration of the best of the ‘80s Alien clones. And it’ll make a hell of a lot more money that Supernova did—you can bank that.
So, for now, save you pennies and watch a very clean copy of Creature uploaded by the responsible folks at the web’s premiere free streaming service (with limited commercial interruptions): TubiTv. Or you can go commercial free on YouTube.
And while it doesn’t have any gooey aliens, I’d love to suggest a very well done, commendable ultra-low budget effort also influenced, in part, by Alien: Space Trucker Bruce. It’s a film loaded with heart and soul and deserves a watch. Double for the recently reviewed Ares 11 and Monte Light’s Space.
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.
Fred Brown comes home from the Vietnam war, finds his wife in bed with a new lover, and goes wild, killing her and both of his parents. As he cleans off his knife, a falcon tears out his left eye and blinds him in the other before he says goodbye to the son he’s spared. Also: it’s the same house from The Beyond!
That’s just the beginning of this film, a movie that I can’t even begin to piece together. Most importantly, I question why Robert Vaughn would have signed on for it. Did he need money this badly?
But don’t get me wrong. This is a 1980’s Filmirage movie with controversy at the heart of who created it. That means that no matter what, I’m going to love it.
There are three different people who could have directed this movie.
Aristide Massaccesi, who you probably would know best as Joe D’Amoto. Most of the crew members believe that he was the director. In an interview in the book Spaghetti Nightmares, he said, “It seemed to me that the most sensible thing was to give the job of directing the dialogues to Michele Soavi’s assistant, Claudio Lattanzi, while I took care of the special effects scenes. In the end, I let Lattanzi sign as the director.” He was also the cinematographer of this movie under his alias Fred Sloniscko, Jr.
Claudio Lattanzi, who assisted Soavi on his documentary film Dario Argento’s World of Horror and was an assistant on his film Stage Fright. D’Amoto, who also produced the latter, offered Lattanzi a chance to direct Killing Birds when Soavi turned down the film as he was about to make The Church with Argento.
The controversy doesn’t stop there, as even who wrote this movie is under suspicion.
Over Christmas of 1986, Claudio Lattanzi wrote a story called Il Cancello Obsoleto about a record producer who invites a rock band to a deserted house to record a tune, without knowing that Nazi soldiers are buried there. This sounds like a combination of Sodoma’s Ghost — which wouldn’t come out until 1988 — and 1989’s Paganini Horror.
D’Amoto asked him to replace the rock band and the Nazis with killer birds, wanting to call the movie Talons. However, Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi claim that the movie was based on their script Artigli, which means…Talons.
The truth is probably that D’Amoto didn’t want his name in too many places, so he just did what he always did — just about everything and either gave people credit or used one of his many names to cover the rest.
Anyways…
Twenty years later, a small group of college seniors, Steve Porter, Mary (Leslie Cumming, Witchery), Paul, Anne (Tara Wendel, who is also in Ghosthouse and Tenebre), Rob, Jennifer (Lin Gathright, who is also in D’Amoto’s Eleven Days, Eleven Nights, Part 2) and a local cop, Brian, are looking for the green billed woodpecker, a rare species which went extinct four years after this movie.
Fred Brown, that man who went wild on his family, gives them plenty of info and they use his old home as a base, but find nthing but a rotting corpse. But then all sorts of even stranger things — odder than a corpse in a truck — happen.
That’s when the kids start dying left and right, like a zombie beating Jennifer to death, Brian being burnt to death, Mary getting killed by a zombie, Rob getting choked by getting his necklace caught in a generator and another zombie getting Paul.
It turns out that Steve is Brown’s son from all those years ago and the dad tells them that the zombies only killed those who were afraid of them. Well, yeah. They’re zombies. Finally, he tells them to leave and we hear him scream. That’s the end!
Charitably, this film is a mess yet I loved nearly every single frame of it. It’s pointless and confusing and even its titles don’t line up, because it’s called Killing Birds–Zombi 5 in Italy and Zombie Flesheaters 4 in the UK.
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