1987 in Film – Missile Test

Last Man Standing (1987), aka Circle Man

Filmmakers Damien Lee and David Micthell have been in the b-movie business for over forty years each. Their work graced the trashier shelves of video stores from Vancouver to Hamburg, and now reach wide through the tubes. To Shitty Movie Sundays, their contributions compare favorably to contemporaries such as David Winters, Mark A. Prior, or Cirio H. Santiago. None household names, but for the mutants, solid bona fides.

Last Man Standing is an early effort from both, with Lee and Mitchell sharing screenwriting and producing credit, while Lee directed. The film is a heavy-handed depiction of underground bare-knuckle cage fights. It was a surprise to see how earnest Lee and company were at times. This flick can be dreary here and there, and has the feeling of a shitty version of On the Waterfront. Continue reading “Last Man Standing (1987), aka Circle Man”

Hard Ticket to Hawaii

What a gloriously stupid movie. Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Andy Sidaris’s magnum opus from 1987, is not the most watchable shitty movie of all time, but it is a contender for the ‘so bad it’s good’ championship belt. It’s a subtle distinction, I know. But, if boxing can have dozens of belts, why deny such granular categorization to misfit movies?

Written and directed by Sidaris, Hard Ticket is very self-aware. There are no pretensions of narrative weight, or, since this is an action flick, realistic violence. This is a bloody flick, to be sure, but it’s how the blood is spilt that is hooey (see, skateboard scene, frisbee scene). Continue reading “Hard Ticket to Hawaii”

Overkill (1987)

Overkill 1987 movie poster I’m going to do something that would make all the journalists in my family, living and dead, recoil. I’m going to quote Wikipedia. Of filmmaker Ulli Lommel, the unpaid army of contributors at Wikipedia sayeth:

[He] was a German actor and director, noted for his many collaborations with Rainier Werner Fassbinder and his association with the New German Cinema movement. Lommel spent time at The Factory and was a creative associate of Andy Warhol, with whom he made several films and works of art.

This guy was a high-falutin’ artist. At some point in the 1980s, though, Lommel threw off the shackles of fine art and dedicated himself to a career in shitty movies. Thus freed, he brought viewers a string of glorious cheese, including Overkill, from 1987, which he wrote (with David Scott Kroes), produced, and directed.

Overkill follows Los Angeles cop Mickey Delano, played by Steve Rally, whose main claim to fame is being a three-time Playgirl Magazine centerfold (there is even a brief scene where Delano, undercover, shakes it as a male stripper). Continue reading “Overkill (1987)”

Urban Warriors, or, The Worst Day at Work Ever

Urban Warriors movie poster If you, dear reader, are convinced that you’re watching something familiar during Urban Warriors, then congratulations. You are a connoisseur of 1980s Italian Mad Max ripoffs. Only someone with knowledge of this strange subgenre of film would recognize that Urban Warriors, the last film from director Giuseppe Vari, shares much footage with The Final Executioner, released three years earlier in 1984. This flick isn’t the only movie to recycle substantial amounts of footage from The Final Executioner. A couple of years later The Bronx Executioner did the same thing, only in a way that destroyed just about all narrative consistency. Urban Warriors has a plot that one can follow.

Brad, Maury, and Stan (Bruno Bilotta, Bjorn Hammer, and Maurice Poli) are doing computer technician stuff in an underground bunker. Right in the middle of the workday, World War 3 breaks out, spreading nuclear apocalypse over the entire world. The power in the bunker is knocked out, so the trio has to make their way to the surface. It takes them days to find a way out, and when they do reach the surface, Vari shows us the ravages of atomic warfare — a rocky yet pristine hillside, and a small office complex whose glass sides gleam in the sunlight. It’s about as low effort as one will ever see in a post-apocalyptic movie. Continue reading “Urban Warriors, or, The Worst Day at Work Ever”

Timesweep

Timesweep movie poster Someone out there, somewhere, owns the rights to Timesweep, the 1987 magnum opus from writer/director Dan Diefenderfer (screenplay credits were shared with Larry Nordsieck and John Thonen). As of this writing, Timesweep is nowhere to be found on streaming services, outside of the nooks and crannies where someone has uploaded an old VHS transfer. For shame. This movie is right up Tubi’s alley, and I’m sure whoever owns the rights could use the extra fifty bucks. Anyway…

Timesweep tells the tale of a bunch of mild-mannered 30-something Midwesterners who find themselves trapped in an abandoned building that is hopping through time. Monsters, aliens, zombies, a crazed hermit, killer bugs, and more abound, providing the audience with a surprising amount of gore for so moribund a budget.

The building in question is an old film studio that is slated for demolition. An architecture professor, Vincent Hill (Kevin Brief), a film professor, H.G. Lewis (Frank Vrooman), and students have gathered to explore the old edifice before it’s gone forever. Joining them is a local news anchor covering the story, Angela Markell (Denise Gray), and cameraman Mike Romero (Michael Cornelison). Mike is the rebel of the movie. One can tell because he shows up two minutes late, and he’s rocking a beige jacket. Yeah, there were some wild folks in Kansas City, Missouri in the 1980s. Continue reading “Timesweep”

The Kindred

This movie was on the way to being a lost film. Released theatrically in 1987, Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow’s opus, The Kindred, hadn’t seen a home video release since the VHS days. But, Synapse Films dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s, and produced a 4K digital release in 2021. Good for them, because this is a creature feature that deserves to be seen.

Taking elements from monster flicks, cabin in the woods flicks, and mad scientist flicks, The Kindred follows a group of post-grad medicos who are trying to survive attacks from a gooey human/sea creature hybrid at a country house. Continue reading “The Kindred”

The Brave Platoon, aka American Force: The Brave Platoon

There are some bad movies out there. I should know. I’ve made a list. Some offer vast reserves of entertainment. Some, not so much. Others, like The Brave Platoon, a Hong Kong production filmed in the Philippines, never let things slow down too much, but sacrifice everything for the sake of pace. It’s the anti-film — hostile to art, hostile to storytelling, hostile to technique, and convinced that anyone who would bother to watch a movie like this doesn’t deserve any better. They might be right.

From director Phillip Ko, working from a screenplay by Godfrey Ho, The Brave Platoon, also released as American Force: The Brave Platoon, tells the story of a communist insurgency in Luzon, and the government’s effort to squash it. Really, that’s the story. It’s big time stuff for a small time movie. The American Force of the alternate title is a group of three commandos: Randy, Billy, and The Duke, who are tasked by American military advisors in the Philippines to track down and kill Soviet officer Kalashnikov, who is hidden in the jungles of Luzon funneling arms to insurgents. I would love to list who played these characters, but the film’s credits don’t say, and even the internet offers no clues. Continue reading “The Brave Platoon, aka American Force: The Brave Platoon”

Mutant Hunt

Writer/director Tim Kincaid’s Mutant Hunt, from way back in 1987, was never meant to look as good as it does now. Sure, it was shot on 35mm film, but it was a direct-to-video release. For most of its history, Mutant Hunt was seen by viewers in 480p, formatted for CRT televisions, and that is the version available on streaming platforms. But, the folks over at Vinegar Syndrome came to the rescue yet again, having released a high def Blu-ray in 2022. That means that for the first time, except for some lucky folks who saw a limited theatrical run in Europe, viewers get to see the silliness that is Mutant Hunt in all its glory. Continue reading “Mutant Hunt”

Aenigma

From Lucio Fulci’s latter days as a filmmaker comes Aenigma, an Argento-like revenge flick set at a women’s college in Boston, although principal photography took place in Sarajevo.

Written with Giorgio Mariuzzo, Aenigma takes the basic plot elements of a ‘prank gone wrong’ horror flick, combines it with a bare bones setting and bare bones surrealism, and spits out a movie with a superfluous main character, and a purposeful avoidance of exploitation.

At St. Mary’s College in Boston, Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic), daughter of the school’s cleaning lady, Mary (Dusica Zegarac), is being prepped for a big date by her roommate, Kim (Sophie d’Aulan), and her boyfriend, Tom (Dragan Bjelogrlic). They go through the usual 1980’s teen outfit montage trope, before Kathy is finally dolled up and ready to meet her date, the college’s athletics instructor, Fred (Riccardo Acerbi). But, all is not well. The girls at the school despise Kathy’s humble origins, and the date is a cruel prank, set up just so all the girls can gather and laugh at Kathy’s presumption that a hunk like Fred would actually like her. Kathy flees from her tormentors into the path of a truck, and is left in a coma at the hospital. Continue reading “Aenigma”

StageFright (1987), aka Deliria

Ferrari (Piero Vida) is producing, and Peter (David Brandon) is directing the most low-rent and desperate dance theater production ever to hit off-off-off-off-off-Broadway. It’s the story of an owl-headed serial killer who preys in the slums, raping hookers and Cinderalla alike, while Marilyn Monroe serenades the scene with a saxophone from above.

Such is the setting for George Eastman and Sheila Goldberg’s (writers) and Michele Soavi’s (directing his first feature) film StageFright. The film is a classic slasher, featuring a limited cast in an isolated environment, who are chopped to bits at regular intervals, before the whole thing is wrapped up in a bow at the end. There’s not much to set this film apart from the many, many slashers that populate the horror genre. The good news for viewers is that StageFright is a good film, with a swift pace, plentiful gore, believable characters, and a setting that works. Little foibles of Italian cinema show up here and there, mostly involving the motivations of the bad guy and the unlikely coincidence that introduces said bad guy to the plot, but, whatever. This is a fun flick. Continue reading “StageFright (1987), aka Deliria”