Future Flick – Page 2

Shitty Movie Sundays: Endgame (1983)

According to the internet, so it must be true, Endgame, from writer (alongside Aldo Florio), director, and producer Joe D’Amato, was the favorite of all the films he made. Endgame was just one of seven productions in 1983 in which he received a director credit, and his IMDb page lists 199, most of those smut. The man was prolific. And when he looked back upon his extensive oeuvre, Endgame, a mashup of post-apocalyptic sci-fi tropes, was the movie that made him smile the widest. Well, okay then.

It’s the future! 2025! Sometime in the ’80s or ’90s, nuclear war devastated the planet. Now, civilization is being rebuilt. A new fascist regime has arisen, ruling the rubble with an iron fist, and exterminating mutants that have been born due to all the radioactive fallout from the nukes. These aren’t ghastly creatures with extra limbs or Marvel-type superpowers. These are just regular folks, whose mutation makes them psychic. They are the next step of human evolution. There is also an unfortunate class of mutants who are devolving into lower forms of life, but the hell with them. The good guys dislike them as much as the fascists do. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Endgame (1983)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Space Mutiny

What a gloriously stupid movie. I’m pretty sure that writer, director, and producer David Winters didn’t set out to make one of the greatest shitty movies in the annals of shitty movies, but, that’s exactly what he did. Mission accomplished. Take a bow. Revel in the applause.

But, wait, there’s more.

Winters had to leave the set just prior to filming due to bereavement, so the bulk of this flick was directed by Neal Sundstrom, who had been hired as assistant director. And yet, there’s still more!

After Sundstrom delivered a cut, the movie was deemed too short. There needed to be more movie. So, David A. Prior, who has an unimpeachable CV in b-movies, was brought in, uncredited, to shoot some scenes featuring writhing space witches that are totally unconnected to the rest of the movie, just to push this dog’s running time to the 90-minute mark. As much as I appreciate Prior, I’m an even bigger fan of a movie having no superfluous fluff, and if that means an 80-minute running time, then all the better. Oh, if that were the only flaw in this movie. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Space Mutiny”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Driving Force, or, Dance of the Tow Trucks

Regular readers of Shitty Movie Sundays will know that there is something of a cottage industry in Mad Max ripoffs. Mostly, these flicks aren’t ripping off the first Mad Max film, but the second, where filmmaker George Miller refined the look and feel of his post-apocalyptic vision. Driving Force, from 1989, is a Mad Max ripoff, but it hews closer to the original film, which was dystopian rather than post-apocalyptic, and throws in a little of Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris for good measure.

It’s sometime in the near future. The United States hasn’t collapsed, but it does appear to be on its last legs. The middle class is gone, with society divided between the rich few and the many poor. Picture in one’s head a third world country, and one gets an idea of this film’s setting. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Driving Force, or, Dance of the Tow Trucks”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Slipstream

Slipstream, the 1989 movie from producer Gary Kurtz, is a rare film. It must be, since this is one of the few times I mention the producer of a film before I mention a director, screenwriter, or star. So, why the top billing for Mr. Kurtz?

It’s because this movie ruined him as a big time Hollywood producer. Kurtz produced Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. He produced two of the most important films in blockbuster history, having an effect on studio films that still reverberates to this day. Then, creative conflicts with George Lucas led to a split, and Kurtz went his own way. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Slipstream”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Exterminators of the Year 3000, aka Il giustiziere della strada

I’ve seen a lot of Mad Max ripoffs. American ones, Italian ones, Filipino ones…but never one from Australia. Hmm.

This particular Mad Max ripoff is of the Italian variety, and it might be the most barebones of the bunch. It has the most desolate wasteland, the smallest cast, and the least amount of tricked out hoopties. That last note is something of a sticking point. The cars are a big draw for me when watching these movies. I want to see rust buckets with all sorts of doodads welded to them to make them look tough. Crucially, they need to have been decent muscle cars at one point in their lives. In this flick, the auto de résistance is a sixth generation Ford Thunderbird, which was the heaviest coupe Ford ever made. That thing couldn’t outrun a squirrel, and belongs nowhere near a film like this. This was the best the filmmakers could do? Anyway… Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Exterminators of the Year 3000, aka Il giustiziere della strada”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Equalizer 2000, or, Supergun!

One Mad Max ripoff wasn’t enough for Filipino filmmaker Cirio H. Santiago. After the sublime experience that was Wheels of Fire, Santiago went back to the well in 1987 for Equalizer 2000. It’s a movie about a man, his leather pants, and a bitchin’ gun.

From a story by Frederick Bailey and Joe Mari Avellana (who played the bad guy in Wheels of Fire), Equalizer 2000 follows Max Rockatansky analogue Slade (Richard Norton). Slade is a member of the Ownership, a militia group that is looking to control all of the gravel quarries in the post-apocalypse. They’re the typical baddies of a Mad Max ripoff. They wear black, drive tricked out muscle cars, and are very into pillaging settlements full of honest folk.

This isn’t the best origin for the hero of the story, but he becomes a good guy right about the time the evil Colonel Lawton (William Steis) decides to make a play for control of the Ownership, leaving Slade out to dry during a battle with rebels, and killing Slade’s dear old dad in the process. Slade survives, and vows revenge against Lawton and the Ownership. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Equalizer 2000, or, Supergun!”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Future Kick

What a gloriously stupid movie. Future Kick is a textbook example of a shitty movie of the era. Everything about it is cheap, from its discount action star in Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, its discount Kirstie Alley in Meg Foster as the female lead, its bargain-basement special effects and sets, and its grainy film stock. There was even producer Roger Corman’s favorite method of saving money on a production: reusing footage from earlier films.

Once upon a time Corman addressed this oft-used technique. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, that back when he started reusing footage and/or sets, there was no such thing as a home video market. He was making films that would show for a week or two at a drive-in, and that was the last anyone would ever see of them. No one would remember when a few months later a different flick would appear reusing footage from the earlier film. Sure, that’s a fine excuse for his Poe films, to which he was referring, but Future Kick was released in 1991, well after the home video market became a thing. Reused footage in this film comes from a duo of space flicks, Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World, and erotic slasher Stripped to Kill 2, which gives viewers a healthy dose of gratuitous nudity. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Future Kick”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Nemesis (1992)

A true mark of quality in a shitty sci-fi flick from Hollywood in the 1980s and ’90s was use of the Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, California, as a shooting location. Just check out this list on IMDb. The more ruinous parts of the mill were a perfect location for a post-apocalyptic or dystopian landscape. Those portions have since been paved over for the Auto Club Speedway, but they live on in films like Robocop, The Running Man, and Nemesis, a 1992 cyberpunk, neo-noir action flick that, somehow, spawned a direct-to-video franchise.

Directed by Albert Pyun from a screenplay by Rebecca Charles, Nemesis stars Olivier Gruner as Alex Rain, a gritty detective in the LAPD. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Nemesis (1992)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Last Sentinel (2007)

Here’s some bottom of the barrel sci-fi, folks — slow-cooked to perfection and braised in poor CGI, limited locations, convoluted backstory, wooden performances, and lots of ridiculous gunfights.

From writer/director Jesse V. Johnson comes post-apocalyptic extravaganza The Last Sentinel. It’s the future! Who knows when? After crime and general nonconformity swept the United States, police officers were replaced with genetically engineered drone soldiers — living men stripped of reason and emotion, useful only as black-clad hammers in search of criminal nails. The drones eventually decided that taking over from the humans would be the best way forward, and destroyed most of human civilization. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Last Sentinel (2007)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Wheels of Fire

Who doesn’t love a shitty Mad Max ripoff? Well, probably all those people out there who, for some reason or another, don’t like substandard cinema. They will never understand the joy to be had in seeing an entire cast costumed in black leather and random bits of spray painted athletic gear. They will never appreciate the sublime rumble of vehicle chases through the desert featuring junk heap muscle cars with all sorts of doodads welded to them. Maybe, just maybe, they will find the inevitable anti-hero of the films a sympathetic character, but only because it’s a conceit that was part of film long before Max Rockatansky ever peeled away in the Pursuit Special. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Wheels of Fire”