A Full Moon shot in Romania movie directed by Charles Band himself, this one is all about a fleshy speciman that washes up in a water treatment plant that everyone wants for themselves. There’s a scene with a woman in a bikini and an ape mask stealings aid specimen by gunpoint, so there’s definitely a few memorable moments, right?
There ends up being four different specimens. One has a little body and an enlarged deformed head with two pairs of eyes and two mouths, plus tentacles. There’s also a blob with a face, a hairless ape that likes breastfeeding — another memorable moment — and a skeleton with porcupine-like spines.
That said, this is the kind of Full Moon movie that really leaves me cold. It makes time stand still and you keep looking at how much time is left, the only joy being the moments when the little guys are on the screen. More goopy fetus babies! Less human beings talking in rooms!
It was a smart idea to take a story by Stephen King — “Chattery Teeth” — and Clive Barker — “The Body Politic” — and turn it into a portanteau. Oddly, the whole idea came about because of agents.
Creative Artists Agency met with Garris about writing the pilot script for a John McTiernan-directed horror series that would have the same actors every week and a storyteller named Aaron Quicksilver — played here by Christopher Lloyd — introduce each story.
After writing a pilot script based on “Chattery Teeth,” Garris pitched the series to Fox, who wanted a two-hour movie, which brought in the Barker story. McTiernan then left the project, with Garris taking over.
In the film King-penned tale — the home video flips the order — Quicksilver meets a hitchhiking couple who are newly married and tells them the story of a man who grabbed some poorly made novelty teeth at a gas station, teeth that somehow become alive and devoted to protecting his life. Then, a pickpocket learns the Barker story, all about a world in which our hands become their own people and rebel against the people they are attached to.
Matt Frewer being in both stories really helps. He’s the kind of actor who improves every role he touches. And Garris is able to turn this material into a gripping film; it helps that he was friends with both authors, as they had cameos in his film Sleepwalkers and Garris also directed the original The Stand, The Shining TV movie, Riding the Bullet Desparation and Bag of Bones.
The second in this series of 19 — 19! — films starts with Anita (Amanda Lee, House of Mahjong) mourning the death of her boyfriend and calling DJ Cheung Fat (Allen Ting, who is in the first three of this series), who jokes that maybe she should kill herself if she misses him so badly. She does and her ghosts haunts him. Wow — what a downbeat way to start off what was set up as a fun horror anthology.
In the second chapter, a group of friends on a boat trip save a mysterious woman from the wreckage of another vessel. The moment she is on their boat, the supernatural comes with her, leaving the young people all alone, surrounded by uncaring waters and an army of ghosts.
Then, another DJ — DJ Sam (Louis Koo, who was in the first seven of these movies) — quits his job because of the deaths of his co-workers in the past stories. To get over his grief, he starts street racing but then encounters a ghost of his own as he races through the night streets.
With most of the same cast as Troublesome Nightand more of an edge, you may find something to enjoy in this one.
Imagine my surprise as I started putting together anthology week to learn that there weren’t just a few Yam Yueng Lo or Troublesome Night movies. From 1997 to 2003, they made 19 of these movies and a 20th edition to celebrate the 20th anniversary in 2017.
The streets of Hong Kong are haunted, as we learn from four loosely connected stories in this film. It starts when several young people decide to camp outside a cemetery, which is never a good idea when you really think about it. One of them, Ken (Louis Koo, who was in the Hong Kong remake of Cellular that was entitled Connected), meets a mysterious woman (Law Len, the spider demon from the Journey to the West movies) who changes his life in a supernatural way.
His friends return to the city without him as Mrs. To (Christy Chung, who was born in Montreal and ended up in Hong Kong where she won the Miss Chinese International Pageant without being able to speak the language before becoming an actress in movies like The Bride with White Hair 2) waits in vain for her husband (Sunny Chan, Hold You Tight) to arrive for their anniversary.
This leads to a ghost story where Jojo (Teresa Mak, who is also in the eleventh and seventeenth movies in this series) falls in love with a spectral entity. This segment might not be frightening, yet it is steamy and nearly approaches art. That said, I’ve never seen someone have passionate sex with a ghost as blood streams down the walls all over their Mission: Impossible poster.
Finally, we catch up with the survivors joining Peter Butt (Simon Lui, who was in nearly every one of these movies) for a movie, but the restless ghosts in the theater go all Demons and trap everyone in a 60s world of endless hallways.
While a few of these stories were directed by Victor Tam Long-Cheong and Steve Cheng, The Untold Story and Ebola Syndrome director Herman Yau seems like the real force behind this. They made one or two of these movies every year, so some of the humor may be dated — and localized for Hong Kong, but when has that stopped us from enjoying their films — yet this movie is plenty of fun.
June 23: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie — is 90s action.
Dobermann (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan) got his first gun at his baptism. Now, he leads a gang of bank robbers, made up of his knife-throwing deaf girlfriend Nat the Gypsy (Monica Bellucci!), Olivier who is also a woman named Sonia, Pitbull and even a priest who likes to put grenades into the helmets of motorcycle cops.
A sadistic cop named Christini (Tchéky Karyo) has been chasing Dobermann for what seems like an eternity and he decides that this will be the night he catches him. He sets up an ambush in a club as the gang celebrates their latest bank robbery and his methods are even worse than the villains.
This film may have an opening CGI animation that looks dated and sure, it’s highly influenced by Tarantino, but it’s packed with action and incredibly cool villains as protagonists. There’s been a sequel planned for a long time and I hope that it gets made. If you’re into gunplay set to music by Prodigy, I mean, you really should watch this. I also realize that this is a very small subgenre of action film fans, but so it goes.
Director Jan Kounen and Cassel would go on to make Blueberry, which is based on the comic books by Jean “Moebius” Giraud. That makes sense, as this film is also based on a comic book by Joel Houssin.
The alien in this movie has a funny way to go about saving its planet. It’s mating with us, but also killing us, so that seems kind of over the line, you know? How lucky for that alien to land in an all-girls school, I guess. Or unlucky, if I’m taking the side of the humans.
Also known as Breeders, this movie left me with so many questions. Why is Ashley the only teacher? Who is that woman in the leather running about the place? Why is she called Space Girl? Is this a remake of the 1986 film Breeders? Can a shotgun kill a breeder alien? Was the ending setting up a sequel?
Sadly, the actress who played Space Girl, Kadamba Simmons, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend not long after this movie was finished. I really enjoyed her in this film, a true bright spot in a film that’s kind of dull.
Body and Soul is a little-seen Bruno Mattei film in which has a model named Ljuba (Christine Dowell, who only made this movie) getting horizontally involved with a uranium thief.
By 1997, Mattei had realized what most horror directors have learned today about Christmas movies. If a genre sells, make every movie you can within it. The Italian exploitation mindset, already used to the giallo and sex comedies, was easily able to adjust when the world wanted knockoffs of Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction. Mattei made several films in this field like A Shudder on the Skin, Belle de Moirre, Snuff Killer and Legittima Vendetta.
Author’s Note: Please note this is a film review that addresses the creative art of filmmaking only, which attempts to help the viewer reach an understanding regarding the creative development of its subject-film genre. This review is not a political dissertation in support of or in contradiction of any sociopolitical belief system (we get into Fascism and Nazism, here) and is not intended to incense any reader regarding social or free speech/opinion issues. This review was written as an affectionate tribute to our “Space Week” theme of films set in outer space.
Yes, we know this film is loved in some quarters. . . .
Ode toBattlestar Beverly Hills, aka Melrose Place in Space, aka Space: 90210
Oh, how much do I hate ye; Starship Troopers? Let me count the ways. For the depth and breadth and height that I cherish Escape from New York, My said hatred is thrust upon Escape from LA; That is how much I hate ye. Oh, ye wooden, California pretty girls and fancy boys in space; For how much I love Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm Is how much I also hate Phantasm II; For that is how much I hate you, ye faux-fascist star troopers In your hockey-plastic, Buck Rogers wears.
Is it your driftwood acting? Is it your unconvincing CGI on a multi-million budget? Is it Casper Van Diem’s soap opera sheen; For did he think he’d get a Tom-like cruise, Onward to A-List stardom in his feature film debut? Is it that the sheer force of Michael Ironside And the amazing-in-every-film Clancy Brown Can’t erase the perpetual goofy-gaze of Denise Richards (“I want to be a pilot!”) Or the macho, toothy-mugging of Jake Busey? And forget not the thespin’ boondoggles of Dr. Doogie.
Frack! This movie sucks the feldercarb off Doc Brown’s flux capacitor. I need a shot of tranya, Commader Balok. Fesarius-me the hell out of this mess of Klendathuian space crap.
Well, looks like we’ve got a Battlefield Earth II sequel.
I love how the Wikipage on Starship Troopers—as with the Wikipage for Alien that tries, and fails, to hide the multiple film and literary plagiarism lawsuits against that film—tries to hides the fact (via multiple edits) that Melrose Place in Space began its production history as a totally unrelated, outright ripoff of Robert A. Heinlein’s late ‘50s classic novel, Starship Troopers, known as Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine. Now, the updated Wikipage tells us that the film adaptation of Heinlein’s novel jettisoned his superior (common sense) title for the dumb, exploitive-cum-ripoff title of Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine.
(That’s as awful a title as Dan O’Bannon’s original title for Alien: Star Beast; a title that he blindly fought to keep (he thought “Alien” was stupid) for his remake (no, it wasn’t, he claims) of It! The Terror from Beyond Space and ripoff (no, it wasn’t; he never saw it, he claims) of Planet of the Vampires. Right, Dan. And Sam Raimi never saw Equinox, either. And even O’Bannon’s title was a clip: it was the title of a 1954 Heinlein novel.)
Uh, wrong, A-List studio digital content managers stacking the digital Wiki-decks.
The script for Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine was already in the production cue, and then—when the similarities to Heinlein’s book came to light, a rush was made (probably to stave off the eventual, Harlan Ellison-inspired lawsuit against James Cameron’s The Terminator, natch) to license Heinlein’s novel—purely for the title, while pinching some character and location names from the book, so as to make us think we were getting a Heinlein adaption (another Heinlein book-to-film was 1953’s Project Moonbase). (Man, this is as awful as all of those bogus Philip K. Dick adaptations that don’t resemble his books.)
Paul Verhoeven—who wowed us with RoboCop and Total Recall (speaking of Phil K.), shocked us with Basic Instinct, and made us groan with Showgirls—was certainly well-intentioned with Starship Troopers. He is, in fact, a superior filmmaker, and his pre-stardom films Soldier of Orange, The Fourth Man and Flesh and Blood are proof of that fact (see all three, do it). But then he had to go and toss out Heinlein’s novel and stick to the inane Bughunt script: Starship Troopers is Starship Trooper in name only.
Films, like novels, are subjective. And many read Heinlein’s novel as racist-offensive; that it was pro-fascism and pro-militarism, with a desire that the world should supplant democracy for nationalism; that the only way to solve the world’s problems—real or imagined, or to institute your version of “right”—is by dispensing a large-scaled Wehrmacht. And to that end: Verhoeven decided to infuse a blatantly exaggerated anti-propaganda and anti-conformist message, which, again, was the point of his extraterrestrial “big bug movie’: a critique of America’s military. (Yeah, right. America’s military is the force that needs to be taken to critique-task. Insert my eye-roll, here.)
My read—big surprise—of Heinlein’s novel is different: I don’t see it as “pro” anything: I read it as anti-everything. In my read—wholly against Verhoeven’s tongue-in-cheek celluloid interpretation—is that Heinlein’s point is that a fascist way of doing things doesn’t work. Nationalism will not work. In fact, I read Starship Troopers as a novelistic precursor to ‘70s nazisploitation: films misconstrued as glorying Nazism (and a mere post-review of one of those films gets you suspended-to-banned from social media platforms). To say that Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is pro-fascism is to say Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom is pro-fascism and glorifies Nazism.
And that assumption on Pasolini’s masterpiece couldn’t be more wrong.
Yeah. I’d rather jump aboard this starship.
Uh, no thanks: deboarding.
As we discussed in our review of Naomi Holwill’sFascism on a Thread: The Strange Story of Nazisploitation Cinema (2020), a brilliant document on that unpleasant genre of film, Pasolini’s wasn’t (as was Verhoeven, in my opinion) using Nazism or Fascism as theatrical window dressing (do un-dumb the fact that ST was just a stupid f’in, big alien bugs movie). Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom was a societal mirror forced into our face. American comedian Lenny Bruce wasn’t “filthy” for the sake of filth: the ‘60s world was smut-ridden; he simply made us—forced us—to look at society in its true form, as a warning for us to change the err of our ways before society was lost (and the ways we behave on social media these days, we’re already lost). And Pasolini’s film was, too, a horrifying lesson of the absolute corruption of power, a power-corruption in the same vein that Otakar Vavra’s Witchhammer (1970) addressed the issue.
And that’s what Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is to me: a lesson on the absolute corruption of power; that man, unchecked, would be so maniacal in his dominance that—when of Oliver Cromwell runs out of witches, Hernán Cortés runs out of Aztecs, the Mayans are wiped off the Earth, the last and American Indians are reservation-stockpiled, and when there is no gold at the end of Gonzalo Pizarro’s El Dorado-rainbow (a crazed dominance explored in Werner Herzog’s 1972 film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God)—man will conquer bugs . . . and squash them, well, like bugs, for domain and wealth.
No. Heinlein (IMO) is not comparing Jews or Negros to bugs; saying those peoples are lower than bugs and need to be exterminated like bugs (dear lord, don’t people read?). Heinlein’s pondering: When does it end. When is enough, enough. Is there an end to all your survey. What will man do when there is no one left to conquer and to subjugate?
Heinlein’s books were, in fact, an education on the value of racial equality and the importance of racial tolerance—not stamping out other races and religions for the superiority of another race or political system. It’s a book against what we know today as “cancel culture.”
How can Michael Ironside read the book and be a fan of the book, and then, reportedly, chastise Verhoeven for “making a fascist film” while on set? Maybe if Verhoeven actually read the book that he, reportedly, disliked, he would have realized the book was already a parody; that a biting sociopolitical statement laid inside its pages. So, Paul, we didn’t need a cast of thirty-something, shiny, happy pretty teenagers, along with bogus internet-social media feed inserts (based on Nazi propaganda films, ugh, who cares), to tell me: fascism: bad. The message was already there inside the book, Hollywood.
Then, there’s the muddled plot—and the utterly annoying-to-wooden, perpetually goofy-toothy “I want to be a pilot” grin (all I kept thinking of was Hermey the Elf from the ‘60s TV holiday special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with his “I want to be a dentist” wishes) of Melrose Place tenant Lt. Carmen Ibanez. She’s in a high school (?), romance with John “Johnny” Rico. She puts military junk in his head, to the chagrin of his parents, who don’t like her, and convinces Johnny that, to impress her, he needs to join up and “be a citizen.” Then she—because he’s on the military fast track to pilot-dom (and smarter than the 35% math-scoring Johnny)—reciprocates the flirts of Lt. Zander Barcalow (Patrick Muldoon; the only one up to the Ironside-Brown challenge) to the point the love-triangle she instigates inspires fisticuffs between her two suitors. (That’s so very Ross-teasing-Rachel Green of you, Carmen.)
Wanted: Carmen Ibanez: 12 million counts of murder.
Then, Carmen gets her “I want to be a pilot” wish! And while she’s on third shift—in lone charge of the helm of a multi-billion dollar starship and the lives of a hundreds-strong crew (and in-defense of the Earth, mind you)—Melrose-babe decides it’s proper military etiquette to have a little coffee clutch with Zander on the bridge. And while she’s hoping to have a little post-Starbucks Zander-in-the-uniform-pant, she misses the warning for a bug-asteroid coming out of Jupiter hyperspace—which was the whole point of the ship’s stationary orbit: asteroid patrol. And the asteroid rips away the ship’s communications array. And there’s no way to warn Earth. And her hometown of Buenos Aires is wiped off the face of the Earth by said bug-oid. And 12 million people are dead because Lt. Ibanez decided two-timing Johnny (who she subsequently dumps via hard-disk mail—again with the “I want to be a pilot” lamenting) with Zander over coffee-to-sex was more important than monitoring the helm. Of course, the logical thing to do is to promote Ibanez to Captain—and give her first chair, which was Xander’s old job (I think he died, or something). And, wasn’t it established that the spacecruisers have hyperdrives? So, if communications are out, why not hyperdrive back to Earth—ahead of the asteroid? And, in the opening scenes, didn’t one of the faux-propaganda films clearly show a space cannon obliterating an almost-ready-to-hit-Earth asteroid? Arrgh!
Is there a deeper message about Manifest Destiny and American Imperialism in the frames? Is this a plight of the American Indian allegory? Nope. Ol’ Capser just likes killing big creatures and blowing up stuff. There could have been a message . . . but welcome to your A-List “tent pole” summer of cinema.
Step aside, sweety. Men be killin’ intergalactic dinosaurs, here.
What is it with women-in-space flicks? It’s the ’50s Bechdel-fails all over again with the likes of Project Moonbase and Gog and King Dinosaur! Why can’t the women be smart and moral? Why must they be vapid, sex-driven, teasing jezebels? We need more Ripleys and Lamberts and less spandex-William Deerings and Lt. Ibanezes in sci-fi, I declare!
Argh! I thought the plot holes and dumb character motivations from BSG: TOS were feldegarb (more so after Lt. Sheba, daughter of Cain showed up). And I thought Wing Commander (1999)—with Freddy Prinze, Jr.’s pretty-boy-amid-the-awful-CGI-stars—was daggit dung. Low-budget epics like Convict 762 (reviewed this week, look for it) and Space Mutiny have an excuse for their bad CGI and dumb characters and Bechdel-fails, as it’s a par-for-the-course that I expect and accept. But multi-million dollar A-List films like Starship Troopers—and Escape from L.A. (don’t get me started)—do not get that pass. They just do not, as I will not accept the “nuff said” logic that Starship Troopers “is a great movie” simply because Denise Richards and Dina Meyer are board as eye candy for the hormone-infused teens in the audience (and the he-man characters in the film).
By the Kobol Lords, I hate this movie. And I could surely count more ways (like the stupid-as-ass, backflipping faux-XFL football game; recruits handover paper induction forms to a behind-the-desk clerk using a rubber-notary stamp . . . in the friggin’ 23rd century: why not have recruits micro-chipped and hand-scanned, for example) . . . but that’d be like kickin’ a sick daggit when it’s down.
And besides, it’s time for lunch . . . as I read Sam the Bossman’s love for this movie with his October 2018 review. I hope I can keep my lunch down.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
From theEditor’s Desk, 2022: This article began as a single review for Convict 762, as part of our May 2021 “Movies in Outer Space Week” tribute to the 1977 anniversary release of Star Wars.
We’ve since watched screenwriter J. Reifel’s three other films: Timelock, The Apocalypse, and Dark Planet as all four films went into simultaneous production for EGM Film International—with Charles Band’s Moonstone-imprint dual-distributing each on home video and cable television. As result of the four films’ production synergy—as well as their production-recycling of sets, costumes, and effects—we’re now providing a brief overview of Reifel-EGM’s other three films. Yeah, they’re the same, but different.
The late, requisite screen baddie Billy Drago—best known for his breakout role in Clint Eastwood’s Palerider (1985)—brought me here. Billy Drago—of Chuck Norris’s Invasion U.S.A. (1985) and Hero and the Terror (1988)—kept me watching. And Billy Drago—who made Hunter’s Blood (1986) watchable and Banzai Runner (1987) bearable—made me take the journalistic plunge on Convict 762, so as to put another one of Drago’s film’s on the B&S site—out of admiration and respect to the dynasty that is Count Drago.
Another name amid the credits of Convict 762 you’ll recall is Luca Bercovici (who will always remind me as Dennis Christopher’s faux-brother), a writer, director, an actor who—across his 60-plus acting and ten-plus writing and directing credits, we don’t mention enough on this site, outside of his appearance in Space Raiders (1983) and his writing and directing Rockula (1990). We’ve never gotten around (and probably won’t) to reviewing his writing and directing debut of the Gremlins-cum-Critters rip Ghoulies (1985), which turned into a four-part franchise.
Where’s Vin?
Then, with Josh Whedon reactivating the Alien franchise in 1997 with the series’ fourth entry, Alien: Resurrection, Luca decide, for his sixth directing effort, he would direct the fourth—and final—screenplay of the once prolific, low-budget scribe J. Reifel. Reifel saw four of his sci-fi scripts go into simultaneous production in 1996 for EGM Film International (The Shadowchaser franchise and 1998’s Outside Ozona), with Timelock, The Apocalypse, and Dark Planet for Charles Band’s Moonstone-imprint for dual-distribution on home video and the Sci-Fi Channel (in the days before the double-“y”).
Now, because of Michael York starring, I’ve seen (and don’t remember because it wasn’t very good) Reifel’s Dark Planet. And sadly, if not for the retro-UHF channel Comet running Convict 762 this past January 2021, I never would have sought it out on Tubi to watch. And, even with the presence of Billy Drago, I’ll soon forget this film once it publishes and is lost amid the 1,000s of other reviews at B&S About Movies. And speaking of distribution and Charles Band’s marketing tomfoolery: In the wake of the success of David Twohy’s Pitch Black (2000), Moonstone reissued Convict 762 to home video with a Riddick-esque cover. But be not ye duped, oh, star explorer, for this ain’t a Riddick romp, not by a long shot.
Don’t fall for the dick faux Riddick.
However, not all is weak tea with this direct-to-video potboiler: Convict 762 has its strong points beyond Billy Drago’s presence. And those strengths come in the form of the stellar, Cormanesque up-against-the-budget production design led by art director Ron Mason (who’s work you know these days for The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy franchise). Kudos also goes out to set designers Denise Dowden (who vanished from the business) and Ann Shea, who ended up at CBS-TV (to work on several of their long-running series, including The Big Bang Theory). Tip o’ the hats as well to costume designer Wendy Benbrook, who’s still at it with FX-TV (most recently working on You’re the Worst). Courtesy of that behind-the-scenes-team’s collective efforts, Convict 762, again, taking into consideration it’s a low-budget product touched by the hand of Charles Band, looks really good. That is, until the CGI spaceships and exteriors (really bad, like Escape from L.A. bad) rear their ugly head, and then the rest of the cast chokes-on-screen in comparison to the thespin’ excellence of the always-making-chicken salad-out-of-chicken-shite Count Drago.
At the risk of insulting the still-(for the most part)-at-it actresses: Having been down more horror and sci-fi rabbit holes than the average VHS-rental dog, I’ve seen more than my fair share of low-budget B-renters starring reformed porn actress of the Traci Lords and alias-starring Michelle Bauer, aka Pia Snow, variety. Hey, it’s par for the course when you celluloid-mainline too many Fred Olen Ray and David DeCoteau movies. So, when I see a cast of unknown names like Shae D’lyn (still at the game on Orange is the New Black and Boardwalk Empire; a 96-episode run on U.S. TV’s Dharma & Greg) and Tawye Fere (from Rockula?), well, what would you think? So, I deserve a Bechdel pass on this one.
The truth is: If Lords and Bauer—who have more than proven their B-acting chops over the years—along with Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens, were on board as the all-female crew of the star cruiser Alexandria, this film would be so much more awesome for it. For with films like this: you must ditch the unknowns for a full-on-familiar exploitation cast—or the film simply will not work. (And this film, ultimately, does not.) On the other hand: Roger Corman hired both Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray to co-create Dinosaur Island (to get more mileage out his expensive Carnosaurfootage) and that film works because, not only of their B-Movie triumvirate pedigree, but because they hired reformed adult actresses Michelle Bauer, Becky LeBeau, Deborah Dutch, and Toni Naples—which is why more have seen that film instead of this one.
At first, the idea of a crew of Ripleys and Lamberts sounds like a great idea. Until the script Bechdels-off-the-rails into a 1950s sci-fi throwback (Project Moonbase) (and I know that is NOT the film’s intention), with bits about women—even behind the command of a starship, mind you—are still bad drivers who get lost in asteroid fields because they can’t read star maps (and I thought Denise Richards’s character in 1997’s Starship Troopers was badly written; yeah, we’re giving that a new take, this week, for “Space Week”). (At least Bercovici keeps them in Nostromo-wears and out of the skimpy-wears.) Oh, and the gals forgot to get gas (or plasma, or atomic-somethings) poured into the drive-tanks. But, in the ladies’ defense: asteroid damage forced them to jettison fuel to save the ship from exploding (or something). Luckily, a penal colony (ugh, and we cue David Fincher’s Aliens 3, again) on the only-populated planet in the system is their lone option for repair and refueling. And it’s there that they meet Jason Vorhees and The Terminator, uh, I mean Mannix and Vigo. (Uh, yes, the very-similar Jason-in-space flick, Jason X, showed up in 2001—and Ron Mason worked on that film’s artistic team.)
Mannix (Drago) and Vigo (Frank Zargarino of the aforementioned Shadowchaser franchise and a few Philippine knockoffs, most notably the Mark Gregory classic Ten Zan: The Ultimate Mission) both claim to be the last prison guard and last prisoner survivors of an inmate uprising that resulted in the deaths of everyone on the colony (and one of them is an android-cum-cyborg). Now, in the tradition of the last-two-men-standing-in-mistaken-identity-to-the-danger-of-a-group-of-bad-decision-making-ne’er do wells . . . I know I’ve seen this before . . . and I can’t place it. (Damn it! Was it a ‘60s Star Trek episode?) So, I’ll just say it pinched (reminds me) from the 1986 Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell actioner The Hitcher, where Hauer’s psycho leads others to believe Howell’s the serial killer. And whoever the serial is, here (the script, to its credit, does keep us guessing), they Jason-cum-Xenomorph-offed the Alex’s entire crew—sans Shannon Sturges, here as Commander Nile. Now, Nile could be a Ripley, but she has so much caked-on make-up and hair product (thus, the my-bad porn assumption) that the rugged-Alien ass-kicker the character aspires to be, is lost. (Sturges guested on several TV series; she retired in 2014.)
In addition to the Alien (sans the Xenos, natch) and The Hitcher, you’ll see a bit of The Thing (running through a dark complex contemplating ‘who is who”). What you won’t see: decent acting. What you will see: sharp, inventive set design and cinematography that isn’t exactly competing with its big-budget inspirations (but it’s pretty damn close), but it all certainly looks (way) better that the worst (and even the best) of ‘80s episodes of Battlestar Galactica. It’s just too bad the women-nauts of the Alex are more William Deering eye candy than kick-ass sexy Ripleys. (Ugh. Do not get me started on Glen Larceny’s Buck Rogers series.)
In the end: Convict 762 is for Luca Bercovici curio-seekers and Billy Drago completists only. And we expect and accept bad CGI—and poorly portrayed and scripted characters—with films like these: we do not except or accept it with A-List junk like Escape from L.A.(1996) (what were you thinking, Pam Grier?).
You can watch a free-with-ads-stream on Tubi while Moonstone Entertainment offers the trailer on their You Tube channel.
Timelock (1996)
Logline: It’s the 23rd century, and the world’s most dangerous criminal has taken over the maximum security prison on asteroid Alpha 4. Caught in the middle are a petty thief and a prison transport pilot.
Timelock is your basic “space prison” shenanigans romp—one that pinches unabashed from Aliens and Aliens 3, as well as Peter Hyams’s Outland, and every other “peril in space” romp set at a remote penal colony or terraforming facility during the video ’80s.
Timelock feels like it was made ten years too late—or released ten years too late, like a late ’70s, Alfonzo Brescia Star Wars rip—and works better in a binge-watching session alongside other ’80s Alien knockoffs, such as Roger Corman’s Forbidden World (1982; scripted by Jim Wynorski, natch), William Malone’s better Creature (1985), and Roland Emmerich’s even better Moon 44 (1990)—more so than John Carpenter’s Escape from L.A. (1996), which more than likely is Timelock’s raison d’être. Needless to say, while each are serviceable in slicing through the Brother-typed cheese, ex-Bond Girl Maryam d’Ado ain’t no Ripley and the always likable Arye Gross (A Matter of Degrees; even when space-grunged up) ain’t no Plissken.
Timelock appears on the U.S.-based, retro-UHF-TV channel Comet from time to time—sometimes double-featured with Convict 762. You can also watch Timelock on Tubi and Moonstone Entertainment offers the trailer on You Tube.
The Apocalypse (1996)
Logline: A salvage pilot and a bartender-wannabe space jockey go against a crazed computer programmer and the head of a criminal gang who have equipped a spaceship with nuclear warheads and plan to crash it into Earth.
This time out: Sandra Bernhard (TV’s Roseanne; The King of Comedy, Bruce Willis’s Hudson Hawk) takes the Maryam d’Ado role while Cameron Dye (Valley Girl) takes the Ayre Gross role—and Frank Zagarino’s back from Timelock as the same-but-different villain. Well, he’s “back,” here, since The Apocalypse was released, first. Yep. Sandra Bernhard’s J.T Wayne is even less a Sigourney Weaver as she brings on her best bad-ass sneer under space helmets during spacewalks as she endlessly fires ammo rounds aboard her ersatz Nostromo.
Anyway, the “apocalypse” is brought on by a chick named Goad (Laura San Giacomo of TV’s Just Shoot Me!, Sex, Lies, and Videotape): a mad computer genius who loads a space cruiser with with explosives and Solarium, an unstable fuel source, on an Earth-collision course. Frank Zagarino is Vendler, J.T. double-crossing lover and crew member who wants the Solarium honey hole for himself. Dye is Lennon: our bartending-errant “Han Solo” who steps in the fight between the salvagers and terrorist hijackers.
Look, if you need a film with Shakespeare computer-access quotes as passwords and Jack Nicholson-inspired villains spouting lines about pigs and hairy chins from children’s nursery rhymes, then this is your movie. Oh, by the way: the miniatures and platework is actually better, here, than in the next film. . . .
Moonstone Entertainment offers the trailer on their You Tube portal and they stream the film on Tubi.
Dark Planet (1997)
Logline: When a habitable planet is discovered in orbit around a star on the far side of a wormhole, the Earth’s two warring factions form an alliance to save the human race.
So, you’ve made it through Timelock and The Apocalypse. Can you make it through this third film—on your way to Convict 762?
Oh, you just have to! Why?
Because Albert Magnoli, of Prince’s Purple Rain (1984) and Sly Stallone’s Tango & Cash (1989) directs Paul Mercurio from the critically-lauded Strictly Ballroom (1992) and the critically-lambasted Dan Aykroyd turd, Exit to Eden (1994). And who in their right mind passes on any Michael York movie—from Logan’s Run to The Omega Code, baby! No one.
In fact, Micheal York’s ersatz interstellar Hitler, here, isn’t that far removed from his evil Anti-Christ turn in that TBN apoc’er, as he sets the Babylon 5-cum-Firefly-ripoff events in motion. Paul Mercurio is Hawke: our put-upon Snake Plissken pressed into service by the pseudo-Nazi uniformed York who overlords the genetically-engineered humans known as Alphans—but this ain’t no Aldous Huxley Brave New World joint by a long shot.
Remember how Snake was the “only man for the job” because he successfully flew the Gullfire over Leningrad? Well, the now-in-prison war profiteering Hawke is the only man to successfully navigate a wormhole. My longtime celebrity crush, Harley Jane Kozak (Arachnophobia), is our Princess Leia-Ripley amalgamate working with the scruffy nerf herder that is Hawk. Yep, the always welcomed character-actor Ed Ross from good ‘ol Pittsburgh (Red Heat) is villaining the joint as B-actress extraordinaire Maria Ford is the resident android joining in the double-crossing intrigue beyond the wormhole. Hey, there’s Frank Zagarino, back for another villainous turn.
As with the other three films in this ersatz series: Every shot in Dark Planet (the worst of the quartet) is underlit, but for atmosphere or to hide the production’s shortcomings, we ask? Then the proceedings only get worse once those in-camera miniatures (it’s not “bad CGI” as oft complained) zip around the awful wormhole platework.
Oy! The bane of my sci-fi youth, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, is looking pretty good to me now. And it’s hard to believe this was made in 1996 and not 1986. Sure, it’s better than an Alfonzo Brescia Star Wars rip, but what direct-to-video star romp in Alien‘s back wash, isn’t? And you know what’s crazy? For as much as the direct-to-video/cable Alien-rip, Within the Rock (1996) looks like it’s part of the EGM Film International sci-verse . . . it’s not! And that film actually isn’t that bad.
You can watch the trailer on Moonstone’s You Tube portal while Tubi offers a free-with-ads stream.
Wrapping it up: On a star-rating system between 1 to 10, I’d give these 5 1/2 stars, each. You’ve watched worse . . . Star Crash, The Humanoid, Escape from Galaxy III, anyone? Oops! There’s Space Chase daring you to load ‘er up.
All the drive-in, TV movie, and direct-to-video sci-fi you can handle: DO IT!
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Future War was the directorial debut of Anthony Doublin, who has created special effects and miniatures for movies like Re-Animator, Bride of Re-Animator, From Beyond, The Blob remake, Scanner Cop, Willy’s Wonderland and more. He’d go on to make Manhater, Voodoo Dolly and Slaughtered, but his career nearly ended here, as after seeing the first rough cut, he walked away.
Even during the shooting of the movie, the crew joked that it would end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Well, they were right.
The Runaway (Daniel Bernhardt, Bloodsport 2-4, Bone Breaker in Logan) is a human slave kidnapped from some past time, pushed into the future and now hunted by Robert Z’Dar, Mel Novak and dinosaurs. He thinks Earth is Heaven itself, so he has that going for him, plus he knows kickboxing.
So yeah, somehow he gets to our Earth and gets involved in a street gang and a nun who used to be Angel, pretty much. The fact that I know that the actress who plays Sister Ann, Travis Brooks Stewart, was also in Bikini Hotel proves that I have watched way too many USA Up All NIght movies (she was also the art director and set dresser of that movie).
In the original ending, Sister Ann abandoned her training as a nun to join Runaway and her former gang friends to battle cyborgs. One of the film’s backers was upset by this ending, as he felt it was disrespectful to the Catholic Church. So they had to shoot an entirely new ending where Sister Ann takes her vows and Z’Dar battles the Runaway one more time and then our hero becomes a counselor for runaways, because, yeah. He’s the Runaway.
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