Bad/awesome flixxx review: Neon Maniacs (1986)

"Yeah, it was creepy. Probably your mom howling out her anti-sex warning." - teenager

"Now let me get this straight. You're telling me that these, these things are inside the Golden Gate Bridge, one. Two, that they only come out at night. And three, that they're responsible for the death of fifteen or more kids and three of my police officers? " - Cop

"When the world is ruled by violence and the soul of mankind fades, the children's path shall be darkened by the shadows of the NEON MANIACS." - Announcer

This is one of the better finds I've come across recently. I visited the very first thrift store I ever went into a few weeks ago back in my hometown and found a stack of VHS and a copy of this on DVD. Where or who that lived around there was genius enough to pick it up and dumb enough to let it go is beyond me. This is quality trash! Mid-80s monster story set in San Fran with some of the coolest looking baddies (12 of them!), 2 super shitty bands, one amazing creepy synth soundtrack, and a cast of unknowns in NEON MANIACS!!!





Our tale begins with a very quick murder of an old man on the docks. Someone or SOME THING grabs him outta the darkness. Cue creepy soundtrack and the credits. Then we have a good ol fashioned 80s teenagers buying beers and partying in the park story. How did they acquire the beers? Fake IDs I guess... they didn't show that part. But they did introduce the main characters of dork guy that the jocks make fun of, and the only girl without a boyfriend in the band full of partyers. As soon as everyone starts breaking off to fuck, sure enough, monsters come out of the dark. A Hangman, a really cool looking archer, a monkeyman w/ blond hair that seriously will haunt my dreams for weeks to come, an indian, and some other dudes roll up and wreak havoc on all of these kids. The only one they didn't get? The single chick, Natalie. She's a pretty decent looking blondie who's upset, but nobody believes once the pigs start sorting everything out.



Her classmates don't believe her either and one of the missing kids sister's tries to start a fight. They send her home til the heat dies down. This gives dork guy a chance to come over and console her. During the day he's a grocery delivery man, so he brings the stuff in, and she offers him a beer. He scores in a number of ways, #1 being that she is LAYING BY THE POOL IN A BIKINI when he comes over, because we all know, when our close friends are slaughtered, that's what we do, go chill out by the pool. #2 He scores a date with her as well. What I don't get is how the monsters got this chick's address.



Ok, so there's another character, some little nerd girl who's really into monster movies and shit like that. One of the cops investigating the scene has a son that's her classmate/amateur film crew guy. The cops found glowing slime "gook" at the scene of the crime. His dad relayed info to him, and he relays the info to her, and she (with her little hat turned sideways) turns into little monster sleuth girl. She actually goes down and video tapes the monsters, but they don't show up on her camera. So she goes and tries to reason with Natalie, but Natalie isn't having it, she just tells the girl to kick rocks. Ok, so Natalie and dorkus go on their date, but they have to take the subway home cuz his van broke down. Ape man, indian, samurai, and one of the other ones give chase and almost catch them but luckily they escape or it wouldn't have been much of a movie.



One of the monsters follows the little girl home and she shoots him with a water gun and he freaks out. She backs him into the bathroom and knocks him into the tub and melts his ass. Then she takes this new information that she's privy to and successfully convinces dork and Natalie that water is the answer to their problems. Turns out dork guy is the singer in a really hilarious sax heavy new wave band called The Outlaws. They just so happen to be in a battle of the bands against another heavy metal hair band called Genius (I think). Both of them suck in the BEST way possible. The songs are hilarious. The monsters show up along with a doctor one and a soldier one and wreak havoc on the party. A few of them are killed in the battle, but most of them get away. Then the pigs interrogate the kids. Then they go look for the monsters only to find nothing. Then the main cop who doesn't believe shit dismisses the other cops, but then gets eaten himself by the one eyed green monster guy. Killer! This is one I had no idea about, but I can't believe more people haven't seen. It is super fun and I highly recommend. CHECK it out.