How did it take so long for this movie to make it to our site? Has there ever been a better high concept — alien clowns coming from space to eat humans? How did this movie even get made? Man, I have questions. Let’s get some answers.
It’s the only movie to be written, produced and directed by the Chiodo Brothers. These insane masters created the puppets and effects for films such as Critters, Ernest Scared Stupid, Team America: World Police, Large Marge for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and the mouse artwork in Dinner for Schmucks. A sequel to this has been in development forever; if I had my way, these guys would make movies all of the time.
On a lover’s lane in Crescent Cove, Mike Tobacco (Grant Cramer, New Year’s Evil) and his girlfriend Debbie Stone (Suzanne Snyder, Weird Science, Night of the Creeps) are parked when a strange object falls to Earth.
Meanwhile, farmer Gene Green (Royal Dano, Gramps from House II) and his dog — who my wife knows is named Pooh Bear without even needing to look it up — track the comet and discover the crash site looks more like a circus tent.
Mike and Debbie find the same strange tent and discover teh farmer trapped in a cottom candy-like cocoon as a Klown appears to shoot popcorn at them. They’re chased away by more Klowns and a balloon animal dog, because this movie is ready to tear out your brain, stomp on it and laugh the entire time.
They make their way to the police station where Debbie’s ex-boyfriend, Deputy Dave Hanson (John Allen Nelson, Deathstalker from the third version of that film, Deathstalker III: The Warriors from Hell), and mean-spirited Deputy Curtis Mooney (John Vernon!). Seriously, John Vernon should be in every movie, because he’s majestic in this, treating every single person with oodles of contempt.
The Klowns make their way to the town and start blasting people with lasers, punching people’s heads clean off and shrinking people down and putting them into bags of popcorn. There are also scenes of Klowns drinking people with crazy straws and a giant Klownzilla that attacks the town. Obviously, the reality went right of the window with this one. It resembles the Topps Mars Attacks! cards, with episodic encounters of the goofball Klowns running wild.
This movie frightened my wife worse than any of the many, many films that she watched in her childhood. She was already afraid of clowns, so these Klowns ended up infiltrating her dreams. Yet she still watched it all of the time. She also wanted Debbie’s jumper-tastic wardrobe, which makes a lot of sense when you see her fashion sense today.
While the Chiodos were able to get The Dickies for the soundtrack, they couldn’t convince producers to pay the money to have Soupy Sales — the king of getting pies thrown in his face — appear as a security guard.
You can watch this on Tubi, Vudu and YouTube. If you want the best possible experience, let me recommend the Arrow Video release, which is packed with more extras than a car full of Klowns, including a complete collection of the Chiodo Brothers short films and interviews with the stars and The Dickies.
This is the kind of movie that I’m glad exists. I return to it time and time again whenever life seems meaningless, because the fact that a movie about giant Klowns attacking a small town for food makes me feel better, knowing that somehow a studio bought this and allowed it to happen.
Remember Sleepaway Camp, a movie whose shock ending disturbed everyone back in 1983? Well, Angela is back — this time played by The Boss’s sister Pamela Springsteen — and a counselor at a new camp. Of course, she (that’s the pronoun I assume that she prefers) just can’t stop killing everyone.
Renee Estevez — in her second slasher month film — plays final girl Molly. She makes it to the end at least, but her fate is ambiguous.
You know that The Nails song “88 Lines About 44 Women?” That’s how I should review this movie. Just play the song and sing along:
Sean Whitmore played Tony Higgins
Molly’s guy, he lost his head
Valerie Hartman was Ally
Got drowned in a toilet stall
Brian Patrick Clarke is T.C.
His face met battery acid
Walter Gotell was Uncle John, once General Gogol of the KGB
He didn’t even get to die on screen
Susan Marie Snyder was Mare
She got drilled, literally
Terry Hobs was Rob
Also killed off the screen
Kendall Bean was Debbie
Killed with a guitar string
Julie Murphy as Lea
Stabbed by our he and she
Carol Chambers as Brooke
Grilled to death
Her sis Jodi played by Amy Fields
Also was fricasseed
Benji Wilhoite? He was Anthony.
His throat slit with Freddy’s glove.
Walter Franks? He’s Judd.
Chainsawed, he got no love.
Justin Newell? Charlie.
Also killed but off the screen.
Heather Binion as Phoebe.
Tongue cut out, neat and clean.
Jason Ehrlich? Emilio.
Also killed but not shown on screen
Carol Martin Vines was Diane.
Another stabbing. Another teen.
Tricia Grant had no name.
Her character was sent home.
Jill Jane Clements drove a truck.
She met Angela. Had no luck.
Anyways — Sleepaway Camp II is played for laughs versus the original. Interestingly enough, all of the cannon fodder are named for 1980’s cultural icons: Molly (Molly Ringwald), Ally (Ally Sheedy), Uncle John (John Hughes), Rob (Rob Lowe), Demi (Demi Moore), Lea (Lea Thompson), Anthony (Anthony Michael Hall), Judd (Judd Nelson) and so on and so forth.
I’m not as much for the jokey slasher, but this is fine if you’re looking to continue the Sleepaway Camp experience. A third film was shot at the very same time, Back to the Future-style, so you can keep it going even further, if you’re so inclined.
You can watch this on Tubi and Vudu for free. Learn more at the official site and you can get a new blu ray of this from the fine folks at Shout! Factory.
The art for this article comes from Fright Rags, who have it available on their high quality t-shirts. This isn’t a paid plug. Trust me, we’ve spent plenty on their site.
DAY 1. SLIP INTO SOMETHING CHALLENGING: Ease into 2019’s list by watching something with a lot of slime, body goop or questionable muck in it. Wiggle your toes in the gooey glory.
Sure, I could start off easy. But I’ve already watched Street Trash, The Stuff and Society, the two movies that most make me think of slime in films. Movies like Slime City Massacre, Slime City, The Green Slime and The Slime People seemed too easy.
Which meant that there was only one place to go: Hideshi Hino’s Guinea Pig series. Part 6 to be exact. Mermaid In a Manhole.
If you don’t know what Guinea Pig is, you probably shouldn’t.
Hino was born to Japanese immigrant workers in Northeast China and his family left just as Japan surrendered to the Soviets. They were nearly killed en route and when they arrived back in the mainland, he’s claimed that his grandfather and father were both in the Yakuza. These memories have informed his horrific manga visions in books like Panorama of Hell and Ghost School.
Hino produced the Guinea Pig series to transform his manga into movie form. These videotapes became infamous when the fourth film of the series, Devil Woman Doctor, was found in the thousands of tapes that Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki owned. Because of this controversy, the series went out of print but the series has been reissued on DVD in the US, UK, Netherlands and Austria.
In 1991, the series made international news thanks to Charlie Sheen. Film Threat editor Chris Gore had given him a copy of the series and upon watching the second installment, Flowers of Flesh and Blood, Sheen was convinced that he was watching a snuff film. He called the FBI, who soon learned that Japanese authorities were already on the case, as they had summoned the filmmakers to court to learn if the movies were fake.
Maybe everyone would have been better off if they just kept watching, because at the end of each video, there was behind the scenes footage of how the makeup and FX were achieved.
Make no mistake — these are unrelenting and sadistic films. Your capacity to withstand gore will be tested by them. But this is perhaps the easiest in a very rough lot and absolutely overflowing with the requisite slime, body goop and questionable much for today’s challenge.
The Guinea Pig 6: Mermaid in a Manhole (Za Ginī Piggu: Manhōru no naka no Ningyo) is based on one of Hino’s manga stories.
An artist is trying to cope with the death of his pregnant wife through the work he creates. For inspiration, he often visits the sewers beneath Okinawa, places that once had been rivers where he once met a mermaid as a child. Now, she has been trapped in the sewers but agrees to let him paint her.
However, all the time within the muck and bile has given her tumors all over her body. The artist takes her back to his home and keeps her in a bathtub, giving her medicine in the hopes of bringing her back to life.
The more she suffers, the more she oozes blood and pus from nearly every orifice in her body, fluids that the artist is able to use to create art. Yet with each brushstroke, she’s nearer to the final curtain, demanding that he continue painting her all the way to the point of her death.
That said — she may not have been a mermaid at all, but instead his terminally ill wife — and the fetus that he removed after her death just possibly may have been their child. Yet where did the scale come from that they discovered in the bathtub? And just what is moving in the sewers after the credits?
Mari Somei, who played the mermaid, is a real trooper for her work in this, being covered near head to toe in practical and oozing effects. The artist is played by Shigeru Saiki, who is in Audition as well as several sentai shows on Japanese TV.
As for answering the Scarecrow Challenge for today, I don’t know where else I’d be able to find a movie so awash in fluids. There are literal geysers of vomit, blood, bodily fluids and even intestines filled with worms and insects spraying out all over the bathroom tile. There’s a message here about love and loss or art and death, but really, it’s nearly an hour of watching a mermaid expire in a filthy tub. Only in Japan, right?
You know how slashers go: you need to get the horny teens to wind up in a secluded place with some promise of sex and drug hijinks. An abandoned mental hospital? That’s not frightening — it’s a good place to screw!
Of course, inside the walls of this old asylum, there’s more than just a place to party hearty. There’s also a deformed maniac who just so happens to be the attorney that split final girl Kiki’s parents up and caused her mother to die a decade before. Again, in slashers, there are no coincidences. Everything has been ordained, as if by freakish fate.
Now, the former Attorney Mitch Hansen has become The Coroner, a serial killer who uses surgical tools to wipe out anyone in his way.
The dual roles of Kiki and her mother Judy are played by Patty Mullen, Penthouse Pet of the Month for August 1986 and 1988’s Pet of the Year. You may also remember her from playing the title role in Frankenhooker and being married to Joey Image, one of the drummers for The Misfits.
However, Jane — one of the many friends of Kiki set up to die, as is the wont of the slasher — would grow up to be Kristen Davis. Yes, from Sex and the City. So if you ever wanted to see her get her face sawed off…
There’s also a punk band played inside the asylum named Tina and the Tots. Tina is played by Ruth Collins, who was also in Witch Academy and was paid $100 extra to show her breasts. Because you know, you can’t have a slasher without them (actually you totally can).
This was all written by Rick Marx, who also was behind the movies Taboo American Style 1: The Ruthless Beginning, Wanda Whips Wall Street, Blonde Justice #3 and Christy In the Wild. In case you didn’t guess, those are all adult films. He also wrote Snapped for Chuck Vincent, Warrior Queen, a biography on WOR late-night fixture Joe Franklin and the two Gor movies.
Behind the camera? None other than Richard Friedman (Scared Stiff, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge). This movie is all over the place in tone and presentation, but if you rented it back in the late 1980’s — it’s pretty much a perfectly goofball slasher that would go well with a six-pack and pizza — you probably have much fonder memories than I do. After all, if you went and watched Bloodsucking Freaks without seeing it through the lens of being 15 years old and landlocked in a small town, you probably wouldn’t understand why people liked it either.
You can get this on blu ray from the fine folks at Arrow Video or watch it for free on Tubi!
Oh, hell no. Not more Def-Con 4 graphic art fuckery.
A dilapidated bridge. A decaying skyscraper. An eye patch. Armored motorcycle-knights. Mad Max spiked-adorned cars with blowers. Luigi Cozzi-spaceships. Post-nuclear action with Sergio Martino-vibes. Yeah, I won’t be confusing this with Enzo G. Castellari’s The Desert Warrior (1984, AKA Tuareg: The Desert Warrior). No wait . . . I did, actually . . . and I watched it anyway.
(“Poop, poop, poop, poop, I love you,” Sing it, Tina. Bob’s Burgers rules!)
Warning: Images do not appear in the film.No really. See for yourself: this trailer proves it.
Tuareg, the other “desert warrior” of VHS yore.
Times were obviously tough for ex-Hulks “two decades after the Third World War” when the world is a twisted jambalaya-tapeworm with Drones, Tyrogs, Zendos, Sterraz Amazonian Women, and Scavengers all bumbling about the Philippine wastelands in this way-too-late entry in the Mad Max rip-off sweepstakes. Lou Ferrigno (who went from this . . . to the CBS Network comedy King of Queens—in a clever parody of himself; an acting turn as respect-giving as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s turn in JCVD) stars as Zerak, a gay-leather Snake Plissken-baddy who scours the wastelands for the genre’s obligatory-uncontaminated females. His boss, the obligatory-horny fat slob, Lord Baktar of the Tyrogs (Hey, that’s Kragg! Canux-actor Kenneth Peerless from 1988’s The Sisterhood), wants to make babies à la George “Big Ape” Eastman in After the Fall of New York because . . . well, you know, the only way to save a post-apoc world is by rape. (Why is male sperm always potent in the post-apoc epoch and females are the ones with the bad plumbing? Oh, that’s right: fallout turns men into chauvinistic dicks.)
Anyway, Racela (Shari Shattuck), the bitchy “Princess Leia” daughter of Cortaz (Anthony East, Lord Jar of The Sisterhood!!) and the niece/granddaughter of the bloated, sash-adorned President Antarius of the techno-advanced Drones (Mike Cohen of 1985’s Warriors of the Apocalypse!), is out for a romantic, wasteland drive in a Logan’s Run-cum-super mutant Hot Wheels buggy (complete with vacuum cleaner-SFX engines). So Racela has a tiff with her boyfriend, jumps out, and gets captured by the desert-bandit Zendos for breeding. You know how it goes in the post-apoc Philippines: Zendonians aren’t having any luck raping the female Sterrazs, and the Tyrogs are sterile skank hoes no one wants—not even The Humongous. Not even the bald Urak dude from After the Fall of New York who gets his eyes gouged-out by a robot claw.
Anyway, love blooms when Zerak the Tyrog rescues Racela the Drone and they become the resident spaghetti western Moses and Zipporah tearin’ up the Exodus sands with a Star Wars (I mean, Star Crash) laser battle assault on the Drones’ fortress—after the usual low-budget/no-budget and off-screen yakity-yak nuclear holocaust. (Oh, no . . . RED ALERT . . . TEXT SCROLL plot-set up . . . lazy-writing warning . . . and, depending on what bogus-title version you see: voice-over narration to back up that text.) Oh, and get this: Zerak and Baktar close this epic with a friggin’ hug: A HUG, and Zerak and Racela stroll into the post-apoc sunset accompanied by the synth-pop ditty, “Love Will Find a Way.” (Dear Lord, we don’t need another hero!)
If you’re looking for something with no holocaust and no acting, with the same ‘ol apoc-props, not-special effects, sets, costumes, and action (Apoc-déjà vu: I swear this film is recycling footage from Cirio H. Santiago’s Filipino films, i.e., Stryker,Wheels of Fire, and The Sisterhood) lacking in plot or point: this is your movie.
If you’re cool with the fact that the bridge and skyscraper, the Mad Max cars, and the spaceships never show up—and you’re okay with a couple of ‘70s-era jeeps with machine guns: this is your movie.
If you find excitement with Star Crash laser blasts, a kiddie thunderdome match, a low-rent Humongous, recycled Roman galea/centurion helmets, Darth Vader warriors, white-clad “New Confederacy” penis soldiers from After the Fall of New York, and an appearance by the TOMY Omnibot 2000 doubling for R2D2: this movie is for you.
The Def-Con 5 caveat: That drippy Drones-mobile takes me back to those Hot Wheels with glass domes (Hairy Hauler, Silhouette, Splittin’ Image) and those ‘70s-era model kit cars and cycles (Monogram’s Cherry Bomb, Revell’s Beatnik Bandit, and the bright-green airfoil “Dragonfly” chopper-trike I can’t track down). I wish that old AMT Interplanetary UFO Mystery Ship, AKA “The Leif Erickson,” made an appearance to make up for the Def-Fuck we got on the spaceship cover tease.
The Def-Con 4 caveat: Filipino apoc-king Cirio H. Santiago did not make this movie. But how we wish pasta-apoc guru Enzo G. Castellari did, so we had some Trash.
The Def-Con 3 caveat: Beware of those bogus alternate titles: Sand Wars (Are you kidding me, Mr. Distributor?), Nuclear War and Kill Count with new artwork (more friggin’ skyscrapers?)—and all references to the country and year of origin removed—so as to dupe, you, the responsible post-apoc buyer, into thinking you’ve discovered some new, lost apoc-poo.
The Def-Con 2 caveat: Turns out that “nobody” director, Jim Goldman, is really a “somebody.” Duck and cover.
The Def-Con 1 caveat: The saga of these contaminated, inert desert bozos is only for the most non-discriminating, post-apoc VHS packrat storing their copies of Future Force and Robot Holocaust in a 50-megaton proof bunker amongst their David Prior and Tim Kincaid Def-Fucked ineptitudes. While you don’t want to, as B&S Movies’ proprietor Sam would say, give Jim Goldman a “David Prior-kick in the dick,” you will want to give Goldman a solid “Tim Kincaid-broadsword thrust into the brain,” so as to spare us video fringe survivors a sequel.
And thank Lord Humungous . . . there wasn’t one. No need to flush the bombers, General Jack Beringer. The video fringe is safe. If we can make it through this celluloid compost, we’ll be able to deal with Wez—no trouble at all. Plus, Jim Goldman never produced or directed another film and screenwriter Bob Davies never wrote another film.
Boom! You’ve been consumed by the mushroom cloud. Learn your Def-Con numbers.
Jim Goldman, AKA John Gale, is Filipina Jun Gallardo gone incognito who, after Bruce Lee’s untimely death, took the 100-odd hours of footage from Bruce’s unfinished final film and “directed” Golden Harvest Studios’ bogus 1974, first version of The Game of Death. Across his 54 credits, Gallardo flushed/dumped the VHS Rambo–Commando cheese-clones* that we love: The Firebird Conspiracy (1984), Commando Invasion (1986), and the BIG KAHUNAS: the Linda Blair-starring SFX Retaliator(1987), and the Shannon “Ms. Gene Simmons” Tweed and Reb Brown (Yor!, Space Mutiny!) non-war epic, The Firing Line (1988). (The Filipina nom de plume of Bob Davies is anyone’s guess. For when you script something this epic, there’s no way you wrote just one.)
At least the Jun Gallardo-connection didn’t kill the career of ex-MTV video babe Shari Shattuck (38 Special’s “Caught Up in You”; Sam, is that you chuggin’ the Bud at the 00:19 mark?), who we LOVE around here at B&S Movies. (Oh, man, I got the VHS shakes!) Amid her 50-plus U.S television and film credits: Shari starred in our FAVORITE piece-o-George Kennedy-fecal matter, the crazy cat movie, The Uninvited, the warped, how-did-it-ever-get-made movie with the asparagus-sex scene, Death Spa (1987), and the Don “The Dragon” Wilson’s wooden Steven Segal-rip, Out for Blood (1992; how have you not reviewed that one, Sam?). She eventually went “legit” with Jack Smight’s (Midway, Damnation Alley) genre-too-late Beverly Hills Cop/48 Hours-rip, Number One with a Bullet (1987), and Steven Seagal’s directorial debut, On Deadly Ground (1994; Shari’s scene/clip). You can catch up with Shari in this interview regarding her most recent film and top-billed role (hopefully, not her last), Scream at the Devil (2015; trailer).
May The Humungous be to your backs and may the radiated sands rise to meet your feet as you watch the full movie on You Tube. All praise Lord Baktar!
Our images our clickable?! Yep. Really!
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.
* We unpacked a cornucopia, a virtual plethora of Pacific Rim war flicks with our crazed Philippine War Week I and II features. Yeah, we love our Jun Gallardo and Teddy Chiu flicks, well, anything under K.Y. Lim’s Silver Star Film Company shingle. So sue us. Or make fun of us. We don’t care. (Now, we gonna stuff our faces with sugar-shocking hopias.)
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.
Donald G. Jackson sure made a lot of post-apocalyptic films. Roller Blade, Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force, The Rollerblade Seven, The Legend of the Rollerblade Seven, Return of the Rollerblade Seven and three different movies in the Helltown series. He also made I Like To Hurt People, a movie all about pro wrestling. These things would all come together to create this film, where “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays Sam Hell, the last fertile man on Earth.
In the post-apocalyptic wasteland of this film, atomic fallout has led to men and women being unable to breed. The government seeks out those that can make children and uses them to keep the human race alive. Meanwhile, frogs have become able to walk and talk like humans, all while falling for human women.
Sam Hell (Piper) has been located by the government as they followed the trail of pregnant women left in his wake. They wanted to use him to breed their collection of fertile women, but it turns out that the frogs took all of them. So now, he must use his fighting skills to break into Frogtown and rescue the women, then knock every single one of them up.
The team behind this operation — Spangle (Sandahl Bergman, who was also in the near-perfect post-apoc film She) and Centinella (Cec Verrell, Hollywood Vice Squad) — outfits Hell with a codpiece that will cause his junk to explode if he tries to run off.
Of course, hijinks ensue. A Frog lady named Arabella (Kristi Somers, Savage Streets, Girls Just Want to Have Fun) falls for Hell. Spangle is drugged and ensures the Dance of the Three Snakes for the Frog leader Commander Toty. And Nicholas Worth — serial killer and necophilliac Kirk Smith from Don’t Answer the Phone — shows up as a Frog who tortures Hell.
This film is worlds better than I ever imagined that it could be. The part of Sam Hell was written with Tim Thomerson in mind, but New World wanted Daniel Stern. The final two actors considered for the role came down to Piper and Ed Marinaro. I think they made the right choice.
You can get this from Vinegar Syndrome, who have a features packed blu ray they’ve just released that I’ve gotta get.
Cirio H. Santiago, so many of your movies have crossed my path. You pretty much owned the market when it came to post-apocalyptic films made in the Phillipines, thanks to movies like Raiders of the Sun, Dune Warriors, Equalizer 2000, Wheels of Fire and Stryker. (And we can’t forget the majesty that is Firecrackerand the Jaws rip, Demon of Paradise.)
Now, you’ve taken the end of the world to its logical extreme: women against everybody.
We don’t have much time until 2021 AD. That’s when women will be enslaved by men after a nuclear war. Luckily, The Sisterhood will be ready to protect them. They start the movie by kicking the asses of Mikal (Chuck Wagner, who is also in America 3000and was Automan) and his men.
The Sisterhood also rescues Marya (Lynn-Holly Johnson, For Your Eyes Only), whose family was killed by the aforementioned Mikal. The two members who save her are Alee (former Breck girl Rebecca Holden) and Vera (Barbara Patrick, Lord of Illusions). If her last name seems familiar, that’s because she was Barbara Hooper before getting married to T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick.
Each of the members of this female fighting force have super powers and Marya’s is the abolity to speak with her hawk, making her a distant relative of Marc Singer. Alee can shoot lasers out of her eyes. Vera can heal people with a touch. Throw in the religious nature of the Sisterhood — they’re led by the mysterious ghost known as Reverend Mother — and you have a movie that is the needle in the end of the world haystack.
Now, they must battle their way through a city filled with evil men, ruled by Lord Barak, who is played by Robert Dryer, who caused big issues for Linda Blair in Savage Streets.
During the swordfights in this, Holly-Johnson cut off a stuntman’s finger. Do you now realize the immense pressure and danger people went through to entertain you with these post-apocalyptic pictures?
There’s also a character named Dynamite Willie who keeps the peace at his bar by lighting sticks of dynamite and yelling as loudly as possible. He might be the best part of this movie.
Also, this is one of the lone films where one of the bad guys learns a lesson and changes his ways, which is incredibly forward thinking for a Phillipines made, Roger Corman produced Mad Max ripoff filled with bare breasts and cars with rocket launchers on them.
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.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to have toy guns and military toys were not allowed in our house. I can remember thinking how strange it was that my grandfather loved war movies so much, hearing him listen to screaming and bullets and explosions in films late into the night when he’d get home from a double shift at the mill. And yet here I am, thirty years later or so, pretty much doing the same thing, watching Stallone movies at 6:12 AM while the rest of the world enjoys their last few minutes of sleep.
The first time I saw Rambo III was at a friend’s house unbeknownst to my parents. And this kid was obsessed with Rambo, right down to the necklace and knife that had a compass and opened up to hold tools. Yeah, 1988 was the kind of time when kids idolized war movies. We didn’t know that war was a funny thing and that the very Taliban soldiers that we cheered on in this film would one day change sides because global diplomacy is funny that way. It was simpler to just hate and fear Russia back then than it is today, where nothing at all seems sure and everything feels made up.
But I digress. Let’s talk about John Rambo.
Colonel Sam Trautman tracks down Rambo in Thailand, where he’s stick fighting for a monastery. He wants nothing of the war, even when shown how Russian troops in Afghanistan are killing civilians. Trautman goes on the mission and is captured, with all of his men killed. That’s when Rambo tells the man in charge of this op, government suit Robert Griggs, that he’ll rescue Trautman.
That leads me to one of my many rules of movies. This one is simple. Never trust a government spook. And my second rule: never, ever trust Kurtwood Smith.
Rambo soon meets arms dealer Mousa Ghani and asks him to bring him to Khost, where Trautman is being held. The Mujahideen in the village take to Rambo after he plays a game on horseback with them, but after a Russian helicopter attacks them, they refuse to help him. Instead, only Mousa and a young boy named Hamid are willing to help.
Rambo — of course — destroys everyone in his path to save his mentor. He uses everything from his bare hands to explosive arrows and even a tank to kill everyone in his path. And while the Russians almost take them out, the brave Afghani people rise up to rescue our heroes.
This movie used to end with a dedication to the brave Mujahideen, but now just thanks the gallant people of Afghanistan. That said, Masoud is based on Ahmad Shah Masoud, a real-life Afghan resistance who later became the minister of defense before leading the resistance against the Taliban. And in the original cut, Rambo felt so at home with the freedom fighters that he stayed here versus going back to America.
Up until Back to the Future Part II, this was the most expensive movie ever made. And, like many Stallone films, it was fraught with issues. Just a few weeks into filming, most of the crew including the director of photography and director Russel Mulcahy (Razorback, Highlander) were fired.
Stallone told Ain’t It Cool News that Mulcahy “went to Israel two weeks before me with the task of casting two dozen vicious looking Russian troops. These men were supposed to make your blood run cold. When I arrived on the set, what I saw was two dozen blond, blue-eyed pretty boys that resembled rejects from a surfing contest. Needless to say, Rambo is not afraid of a little competition but being attacked by third rate male models could be an enemy that could overwhelm him. I explained my disappointment to Russell and he totally disagreed, so I asked him and his chiffon army to move on.” Mulcahy was replaced by Peter MacDonald, a veteran second unit director.
The Guinness Book of World Records went on to label this the most violent film ever made, with 221 acts of violence, 70 explosions and over 108 on-screen deaths. They should have held on for the next one in the series, which goes way beyond this. Of course, this won Stallone another Razzie for Worst Actor, but I don’t think he was all that concerned. After all, he got paid a Gulfstream jet to be in this movie.
My Best Friend’s Birthday was co-written by Craig Hamann and Quentin Tarantino when the director was still working at Manhattan Beach’s Video Archives. With just $5,000 they spent four years making the film along with several of their video store and acting school friends, including Roger Avary.
The original cut was about 70 minutes long, but due to a film lab fire, only 36 minutes of this comedy still exist.
There’s at least one recognizable face here other than Tarantino, who plays Clarence Pool, one of the leads. It’s Allen Garfield, who plays an entertainment magnate. Garfield is a tragic story, as the actor suffered a stroke after being cast in Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate. Polanski decided to use Garfield’s paralyzed face for his character rather than hide it or recast the role, but Garfield suffered a massive stroke in 2004. Since then, he’s been a resident in the long-term nursing care section of The Motion Picture Home.
How did Garfield even get involved in this? He was Tarantino’s acting coach at the time.
The plot concerns Clarence trying to give his friend Mickey (Hamann) a great birthday, but failing every step of the way. It all starts in a radio station, where there’s tons of Tarantino’s pop culture banter and an early version of the Pulp Fiction drug snorting tragedy. Since this is a comedy, it involves itching powder.
Roger Avery commented on the film by saying, “Had we ever finished the film it would have looked something like a sloppy version of She’s Gotta Have It; a miracle considering the budget. Contrary to legend, the rest of the film was not “lost in a lab fire.” It was simply never finished due to loss of steam.”
Rich Turner, who plays Oliver Brandon, was later cast in minor roles in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and as the American tourist in Avery’s Killing Zoe. Mickey’s ex-girlfriend is Linda Kaye, who would go on to do stunt work in films like Bad Dreams, Reservoir Dogs (she gets hit by the car) and Pulp Fiction, where she gets shot in the scene where Marcellus and Butch fight in the street.
Crystal Shaw Martell is in this as Misty. She’s also in the films Evil Spawn, American Drive-In, Sword of Heaven, Hard Rock Zombies and Hardbodies, as well as working as a production assistant on The Being.
Some of this movie became part of True Romance. While it’s not a great film per se, its a fascinating initial glimpse into what Tarantino would later make.
B&S About Movies 
_-_Computer_History_Museum.jpg){kind=link}
You must be logged in to post a comment.