bad/awesome flixxx review: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

"Are they missing any limbs? I hate it when they have missing limbs."- Chemist

"What do you think I am, you scrawny earthbag? I'm a woman!"- Niki

"I love yer planet."- Wolff

I found a copy of this on VHS in Flagstaff on vacation. I'd heard of it years ago, but it never made it to dvd over the years. Portions of it were shown in 3D at the movies in when it came out. I don't understand why they did that back then. I know a lot of people who don't like 3D movies. I don't really care personally. If it can make a cool flick look cooler, great, if it can make a shitty flick look kinda cool, even better. Some of them do suck, but I don't see the point in making a FEW scenes 3D. I remember one of the Freddie movies (Nightmare on Elm Street sequels) was like that I think.
But I digress. This movie got overlooked because there were a ton of great flicks that came out in 1983. This one wasn't one of those. However is DID have some amazing looking sets. It was pretty boring though and I found myself falling asleep and had to retry to watch it 3 times. A young Molly Ringwald, Peter Strauss, Ernie Hudson and ol Michael "Scanners" Ironsides himself try to make an epic space pirate rescue flick in SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE!!!





So the flick starts out with a planet blowing up. The only survivors are 3 hot chicks who escape in a rescue pod and land on a nearby habitable planet. Only problem is the planet is overrun by some dudes who look like they were all fucked by radiation and some of the creepiest fucking kids I've ever seen. They all hum in unison and sway back and forth holding lighters up like they were trying to summon Poltergeists from another dimension to play "Freebird". So a distress call is sent out that these chicks need rescuing and the man who makes it happen can win 3000 megacredits. That's big money in the 22nd century. So our hero Wolff, a down on his luck bounty hunter gathers up his fuck-robot Chalmers and heads for the mystery planet.



When he gets there there's a battle underway by these badguy space pirates driving land-ships with sails thru the desert and kidnapping the chicks to take back to their cyborg master the Overdog. They are being fought by some dudes called the Scavs who are basically just the people left on the shitty planet who are fucked and would have the chicks for themselves to scrounge up some loot to get off and away from that wasted existence. The pirate dudes get away in these crazy dive-bombing bird skiffs that are like rocket powered hang gliders. Wolff hauls ass in search of them in his weird jeep called the Scrambler.



On his journey he is almost carjacked by a teenage Molly Ringwald who is an orphan "scav". He catches her and she convinces him to bring her along so she can help him track the chicks. She's really mouthy and loud. They're almost killed by some blobbish people who live in cocoons and then again by some hot water nymphs and this big ass sewer dragon. Also, Wolff's old war buddy Ernie Hudson drives up in this Plow truck and they fight over who's gonna get the bounty thru the rest of the movie.



Finally they reach "the zone". And the Overdog is sending slaves into the pits to fight so that everyone who is rich can laugh. You know, just how it is in real life here on Earth. And finally he's getting ready to bang the chicks and steal their energy, but Wolff and Ernie and some scavs who have these badass roofed motorcycles save them. But then Molly Ringwald falls into the Overdog's maze and manages to get thru it, thinking he was gonna let her go. But of course, he lied, and now she has to get her energy sucked out. Then Wolff comes out and stabs him in the chest with an electric cord or something. I mean, the dude didn't even have any legs! How hard could he have been to fight. And since when did anyone do ANYTHING for someone that demanding who really couldn't get them if they said, "fuck you!" Those people were pussies basically. I would NEVER have let that Overdog push me around. They had all those catwalks above him... Anyone could've just dumped water on his head and electrocuted him long ago. Anyway. One other thing was, if the planet blew up, who sent out the distress signal to the bounty hunters? How did anyone know to come get those chicks? HAHA... Those were just a few of my thoughts.
I don't really recommend this one... But the sets were pretty rad. They could've filmed a better movie on them. hahaha.

Dear women everywhere, this is what I want:

Smith - Baby its you by throatwobler

bad/awesome flixxx review: Krull (1983)

"Now I know you're a lunatic. I wouldn't follow me own father to the black fortress."- Torquil

"Merrith, oh my sweet, she doesn't hold a candle to you. She's not even pretty."- Kegan

"Enter here, and die."- Widow of the Web

This was a favorite of mine when I was younger. I've wanted to review this one since I started doing these reviews, but I had to actually take the time to sit down with it. There were some things I couldn't remember, and I always got the bad guy in this one mixed up with the jewel wizard guy in Conan the Destroyer. Anyway, that's why I don't just review the movies, i make sure to rewatch them first. Without a fresh take you miss most of the good stuff. I'm looking at you Leonard Maltin. That motherfucker's book has thousands and thousands of movies. There is absolutely NO WAY that he's seen every single one of them. If he has then that's very very impressive. But I'm not buying it. Anyway, this is a superb sci fi fantasy adventure mixing old king stuff with laser troopers and alien bad guys who live in a disappearing fortress. Perfect. A young Liam Neeson is a background character along with a bunch of relatively unknowns in KRULL!!!!





After rewatching this flick there are tons of unanswered questions I have. I've researched it, and I can't find the answers anywhere. As a matter of fact, I didn't know what Krull was until I looked it up. I didn't hear the dude say it in the beginning. Its the fucking name of the planet!! Let's start with a little summary of the movie. The movie starts out with this intro:

"From the sky will come the Black Fortress. From the Fortress will come the Slayers to devour the planet of Krull. Then shall a girl of ancient name become queen...she shall choose a king...and together they shall rule the planet. And their son shall rule the galaxy."

They never say shit about the son. Who is the son? Were they going to make a sequel to this if it was Star Wars successful? Who knows? I guess they still could if anyone actually cared. But after finishing the movie, I don't know if anyone actually would. If the prophesy is correct, it would seem that either they have some more bad guys to deal with, or their son becomes the ruler of the galaxy for whatever reason. Maybe he's a dictator. Maybe he's a dickhead. No way to find out. Anyway, the story begins with this black spaceship looking thing floating down to a planet. It just so happens to be a castle, or the "black fortress". There are 2 kingdoms here, and the offspring of the kings are trying to pull the kingdoms together by getting married so they can battle the coming evil. How they know about the evil is beyond me, but they are correct, it is coming.



Troops are dispatched from the fortress called "Slayers". They are basically stormtrooper looking robot guys with these laserguns that shoot twice and then they turn them over and brandish them as swords that when clashing against other swords create this red lightning. While the prince and princess are getting married they storm the castle. Quick side note: the wedding is kind of awesome. He lights a candle and puts it in the water giving fire to water, and says the chick who can take fire from water is the one for me. AND SHE DOES! HA! That's the only way i'm ever getting married. Dip your hand into water and bring me out a handful of fire babe!! Ok, so they interrupt that and a battle ensues. The Slayers are winning, but when the occasional one dies, they scream like banshees, and then this bloody lobster jettisons from their chest cavity and drills into the ground to escape!! Its fucking brutal!! I didn't remember that shit at all! They take the chick and escape. The prince who is now the king, since both fathers are murdered is approached by the "old one" who comes to take him to help do whatever they are supposed to do. Thus begins their treacherous journey.



First Prince Colwyn has to go get this badass weapon off the top of a mountain. Its called the glave and looks like a giant spinning ninja star. He sticks his hand in FUCKING LAVA to get it and nothing happens to his hand. ???! Then they meet some men along the way and get them to join their cause. The first one is a magician named Ergo, and then they meet up with some bandits and a cyclops. They have to find this seer to tell them where to look for the fortress because it disappears every day and ends up somewhere else. The seer has a kid with him and then he tries to "see' where the fortress is, but the monster or creature or whatever of the fortress grabs his magic rock out of thin air and stops them. The seer sends them to some swamp, and then gets killed while no one is looking. A shape changer tries to kill the prince but the cyclops saves him. Then the old man is like, well there's one other place we can go. So he takes them across the hills to a forest and then climbs a mountain to talk to his old ex lady the widow in the web. Some other changling tries to kill the prince but she fell in love with him and the creature is pissed. The widow in the web gave him some minutes in a hourglass so that he could get to her and not be killed by the giant albino crystal spider. He convinces her to show him where the castle is so they can rescue the new queen.



Finally they figure out where to go but the old man has to die. But they have to figure out how to get a day's ride away in only a few hours so they go find these horses called "Fire Steeds" who can ride fast and even fly apparently. So they get there but the cyclops rescues them one last time before being squished. I won't give away the ending even though its not very good. I will say that somehow the fire from water trick ends up giving King Colwyn some magic powers to shoot fire from his hands. and before that he finally uses the glave, which is one of the coolest weapons in a movie ever. However there is still so many unanswered questions. I guess they can go unasked because it doesn't really matter. Its a pretty damn fine movie. Makes me want to go back and watch Willow for some reason. I've always dug the sword and sorcery flicks, even if they have a bit of swashbuckling in them. 2 thumbs up. Check it out on Netflix or for free on Crackle. Word up.

UPDATE!: not sure if everyone reads the comments, so this came from stephklok:

stephklok said...
courtesy of MELLOW BRAVO (www.mellowbravo.com)
the rules are as follows:

Anytime the castle moves-DRINK
Blades come out of the Glave (SHOT)
If fire where should not be-DRINK
if The Glave is even mentioned, DRINK respect the Glave
anytime someone/thing dies-DRINK
anytime someone cries-DRINK
anytime someone shape shifts-DRINK
liam neeson/cyclops talk-DRINK

you WILL be wasted if you play this game.

bad/awesome flixxx review: Freejack (1992)

"The Good Lord always says to turn the other cheek. But he never had to deal with dickheads like you."- Nun

"He Riddles me. The ancient riddle: "What's the point?" Have you ever seen an eagle flying back to his home with dinner for the Mrs. and all the little eagle babies. And he's flying against the wind and he's flying in the rain and he's flying through bullets and all kinds of hell, and then right at that moment when he's about to get back to his nest, he says, "What the fuck, it's a drag being an eagle" and right then two little x'es comes across his eyes just like in the old fashion cartoons. And he goes plunging down, and down and down and BAM. He's just a splatter of feathers and then we don't have the national bird of America no more. Did you ever see that?" - Eagle Man

"I know someone who's trying to bring me in. Goes by the name Vacendak. Well, I got a special message for you, VacenDICK. Fuck you, asshole! No one's bringing me in."- Alex Furlong

"Get the meat!"- Vacendak

I remember this movie from like Saturday afternoon movie theater or some shit from when I was younger. I remember thinking it was a great story, and it still holds up to this day. The funny thing about it was that the main character gets snatched out of 1991 and transported to 2009. And its 2011 now, and its funny how they thought things might look, and its also funny because he was transported 18 years in the future, and its probably been around 18 or 19 years since I've seen this flick. Pretty awesome. Cause there's a point in it where the main character and love interest are talking about their relationship and if it could happen "in the now" (the future) and the chick goes that was 18 years ago. And he goes, well it was just 2 days for me. Makes you think about what if you're girlfriend from 6th or 8th grade popped outta no where and was like we have to still be together. So i had this weird identification with those feelings this far into the real future. Weird. So what do we have? Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo, MICK JAGGER, Anthony Hopkins, and fucking BUSTER POINDEXTER! David Johanson himself in FREEJACK!!!!!





Hard to believe this was made 2 years after Young Guns II. Seems older than it is, maybe because of the crappy imagineering of the future. But don't get me wrong, this is a well thought out tale, no matter what other reviews may lead you to believe. With such star power you would have thought it would have risen to the top. But whatever. I'm not going to give the whole thing away, this is on Netflix instant now, and I'm going to urge you to see it. But I will tempt you with the plot and then ask a few questions for you to ponder after you've seen the damn thing. Freejack is the story of Alex Furlong. He's a race car driver and is about to have the race of his life. It is 1991.



While this tale is unfolding, we are intercut with scenes from the future. Mick Jagger (Vacendak) is riding around a dark shitty looking wasteland city in a red tank. They seem to be watching scenes of Alex's race. It is revealed that Alex is going to crash. As Alex in his timeline revs up the engine, Vancendak and crew prepare to snatch his body out of the racecar exactly one second before he is splattered all over the overpass. Then they will sell his body through an agency to rich people who are sick or dying in the future.



Buster Poindexter is his agent, Russo is his wife, Anthony Hopkins is the boss of the company that are like the bodysnatchers. They call them "bone jackers". There is also a 3rd group of baddies, but I'll leave some mystery there. Alex escapes in the future and when that happens, they call them "freejacks". Hence the title. Pretty great flick. Lots of car chases with (again) more dune buggies, tanks, and a champagne truck. There's a cool ass black dude bodyguard named "Boone". He is played by Grand L. Bush, and he is tough as shit. I was hoping he'd have been in it more. He would've been a good tough partner or something. Also a few years after playing "Honeybunny" in Pulp Fiction or the psycho sister in "So I Married an Axe Murderer", Amanda Plummer plays a nun who's tough as shit.



Ok, so go watch the movie and then answer me this: What the fuck was up with the old bum black guy? The guy who was eating the "river rats"? They call him Eagle Man in some places where I was looking him up, and his character just baffled me. He says all this prophetic shit, and even alludes to knowing something. After all that eagle talk, he says,"They aren't done with you yet Alex Furlong, your journey is far from over." or some shit like that. What foresight was he supposed to have? How did he know his name? Why did they never go back to him? Why wouldn't they just cut that line out? Was it meant to trick us? or confuse us? Well it certainly confused. Why would you have him say that and NEVER show up again at all in the movie? I was sure he was part of something. Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that dude was in that show The Wire. Yep it was Burrell. He was also in C.H.U.D. awesome. Yeah, Eagle Man. whatever. Watch this one fer sure

bad/awesome flixxx review: The Day the World Ended (1956)

"Rick, if there's no way out, use that gun on Louise."- Jim

"I just can't help it, I have this uncontrollable urge to eat meat. Red... raw... meat." - Radek

"Man created him and God destroyed him, He brought the rain and the clean air. "- Louise

Caught this guy on a late night friday horror fest thing on AMC. Reminded me a lot of the old flicks they used to do on MST3K.
They actually may have done this one. I don't know. Not the best, and not the worst. This was actually Roger Corman's 4th movie, and his first foray into cheese sci-fi horror.





This is the story of seven people who've somehow managed to survive a nuclear holocaust. A navy vet and his hot daughter, some dude, another dude, an old man, and a greaser and his older stripper girlfriend. There's a terrible amount of fallout in the form of steaming mist blowing around at the top of a canyon next to the house they've all gathered in. Immediately the Navy vet says the women have to start having children!!



It seems like they are figuring out what to do throughout the whole movie. Almost every scene inside of the house starts with the stripper with one hand on her hip dancing a little jig and shaking it beside of an old victrola style turntable. Her boyfriend is a fucking jerk and he's always sitting at this desk, but it never shows what he's doing. Keeping busy I guess. He also gets the hots for the hot young daughter. The navy dude wants to set his daughter up with the clean cut guy though. That pisses the greaser off, and alerts his stripper as to his dirty intentions.



So this one guy Ravek, he gets slimed or something and basically gets a starfish of radiation on his face and starts sleeping all day, partying all night and eating wild rabbits and drinking blood. Stuff like that. He says he feels weird and then he can walk through the mist that will otherwise kill the rest of them. He says he has to come back though because there is another up there on the top of the cliffs that is his enemy. Then the chicks go swimming and they're being spied on by this creature or something out in the woods.



Supposedly there are hints throughout the flick that the monster is actually the hot daughters boyfriend who got swamped with radiation. She keeps looking at an old picture of him, and he keeps calling her by name psychically and all that. Anyway, the jealous guy tries to put the moves on the daughter but he gets a good ass kicking and then he knows the goody goody guy won't kill him, so he just keeps pushing his luck. Finally he was going to kill the goody goody, but the navy vet scientist guy shoots him first. Then the goody goody tells the vet the good news, that RAIN kills the monsters. FUCKING RAIN!! oh and then the vet dad dies in their arms. bummer. Oh yeah, there was an old man who made moonshine who had a donkey too. I think he died too. Maybe earlier than that. Def earlier. Skip it.

bad/awesome flixxx review: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

"Technically sir, tomatoes are fags."- Dr 1.
"He means fruits."- Dr 2.

"Last year, more people were killed by automobile accidents, heart attacks, lung cancer, and natural causes combined than by any one tomato."- radio announcer

I've heard about this movie forever but had never seen it until this weekend. I watched the trailer and this looked like a Troma version of Airplane! style slapstick. BUT... it sucked. Pretty bad. So bad that I don't even want to review it. So bad I just want to move on and try to forget it. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but it was a chore to sit through. Watching bad flicks is usually a pleasure for me, and I even asked my little Earth brother if he wanted to watch this with me, as I thought I was really into "Naked Gun" style humor at his age. I thought that was the style of humor this was trying to achieve, if it was, then it failed. I think I was just wrong though. It was more of a spoof on B style movies. If they were going for that, I think they should have made it in black and white. However, probably the most enjoyable moment of the movie was the beginning credits when the bright red tomatoes slam and slosh into the screen. A bunch of nobodies in a very famous independent film called ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!!!!






My first experience with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was seeing the cartoon version in the 80s that was based on this movie and its sequel. I'm not going to do a plot rundown of this one because to be honest it was pretty hard to even stay awake through it. The story was simple enough, it just went on and on- like a car that gets really good gas mileage. That was my attempt to write a noir one liner. I just made myself laugh out loud for about 3 or 4 minutes rereading that over and over-like a man who's trying not to burn his tortilla. You may not think those make any sense- like how they ended Lost. OR- why they would ever phase out Cheddar Jalapeno Cheetos.



But if you need a reason to be worked over mentally, this one is about a tomato for whatever reason gets pissed and kills this lady. Then somehow all the other tomatoes are like fuck it, and they start raging. A guy named Mason Dixon is called in to stop the tomatoes and issued a crack team of silly specialists. The main specialist is a pilot who goes the whole movie with his parachute dragging behind his back. The tomatoes gain power and start killing people everywhere. They kill most of the team and then somehow Mason uncovers a secret.



SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Some press secretary dude or something was the guy behind the guy. Or tomatoes. And Mason also figures out if you play the hit single "Puberty Love" by Donnie Osmund, the tomatoes would shrink. Then the citizens revolt on the tomatoes. End of story. Pretty bad. Don't worry about seeing it. I've heard the sequel is better. We'll have to see.

UPDATE!!! My friend Gary says I was wrong about the cartoon. It was the 90s, not the 80s. Sorry Gary. Also I was just gonna look over this one and see if I had anything else to add, but nope, fuck it, this was grade A garbage. My brother liked it though, so if you're 9, check it out.