Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Cyborg Cop II (1994 97 minutes)


As great as the first one is, this has 10 X more slow motion gunfight explosions in the first few minutes as 2 rival drug lords go at it. Enter hothead Jack Ryan and his fanny pack  who gets all pissed off and screws everything up, getting his partner killed in the process. The most dangerous of the drug guys is taken alive and of course our stupid government takes over and ships him off to a secret lab where they are working on creating the perfect cyborg soldier. The fatal design flaw is that their central cores are contained inside ordinary baseball caps and the humans are so arrogant they think they can control them with these little wristbands. So the drug lord turned cyborg becomes self aware, renames himself Spartacus, breaks those cheap wristbands and rallies the other cyborgs to blow the crap out of the lab with flamethrowers and kill all of the scientists. Then they somehow get the knowledge to clone themselves and start to create a cyborg army because humans are pathetic and the only place this can be headed is a showdown with Jack Ryan filled with more fanny pack kung fu rocket launcher slow motion glass breaking police car blowing up - ness than deserves to be in one movie. Beware of Cyborg Cop III, though, as it's not very good. 



Cyborg Cop (1993 95 minutes)


Jack Ryan is an ass kicking DEA agent with a matching leather jacket and fanny pack who gets suspended for kicking too much ass. His brother, who is also an agent, goes on a secret mission someplace that looks like the Bahamas. This mission goes SNAFU when the local drug lord (played by the guy who was the dwarf in the Lord of the Rings movies) sets a trap for his team. See, the drug lords' secret agenda is making cyborg assassins to sell to the highest bidder on the black market - the drug trade just finances it.  His other major invention is a robot arm that sticks out of the wall and answers the telephone. Of course Jacks' brother gets turned into a cyborg which pisses Jack off even more so he has to go there and raise a ruckus. This is all full of slow motion motorcycle gunfight explosion robot punching through someone's skull  battle craziness and even car chases in the Bahamas have to be set to Hillbilly banjo music + it has the all time great line 'give him the voodoo face treatment and dump his body  near the shanty town'

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Fatal Pulse (1988 86 minutes)

A black gloved stalker  is killing the residents of the local sorority house and they probably won't vacate the premises until it's way too late. This is so firmly planted on the 80's that someone is actually killed with a vinyl LP record. It also has leg warmers, a mini trampoline, skateboards, a deranged caretaker who has 'Nam flashbacks (played by Martin Sheen's brother), a midpoint music montage complete with sax solo,  way too elaborate deaths by electrocution and plaster of paris, and the police investigator is played by a porno actor. It also has the awesome characters of Brad - the tough wanna be boyfriend who talks through his teeth and pouts like a cross between Joe Piscopo and Robert Smith of the Cure, and Mark - the ultimate party bud who walks around with a bong, wears one of those novelty baseball caps with the gold wings on them, and is heralded with a sound effect from Benny Hill every time he shows up onscreen What he does at the end will either amaze you or piss you off. Brad we still hate you.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Cyber Tracker (1994 91 minutes)

In the future, the justice system will be run by computers who will use cyborgs that drive around in humvees shooting criminals with rocket launchers. Since these computers still look like those old Commodore 64's that you played Zork on with a 5 1/4" floppy, there's bound to be some problems. Thankfully, there's the UHR (Union for Human Rights), a bunch of moms and people who look like they're from Seattle who sit around drinking coffee and eating muffins (probably dumpster dived) plotting to stop this tyranny. Don the Dragon Wilson shows up to help them after he gets double crossed by a crooked senator and police chief who are working with the Cybertech company. He takes his shirt off a bunch of times and kicks Richard Norton's butt.. This is a little light on the action on the middle but still has enough people falling through glass in slow motion and big explosions (like a helicopter and a fire truck) + it has one of those crazy 'we created robots because humans are soulless zombies' rants and the line 'computers killed my brother!'. Also, it's about time a cyborg movie quoted Ayn Rand.
 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Night of the Demon (1980 92 minutes)

My step brother believes in Bigfoot - he sets up recording equipment in the woods and says he has proof. He also says the DNR doesn't t want to admit the species exists because that would mean they would need to be regulated like deer and would be too costly. If he's right. let's hope the creatures aren't anything like the killing machine depicted here. Stock nature footage music gives way to one note synthesizer bleats as bigfoot deals out death after death - from the biker who stopped to take a whizz to the frisky couple in the van. It is even clever enough to use weapons like an axe, pitchfork, someone's intestine's, and in one crazy sequence, grabs the arms of 2 girl scouts holding knives and forces them to stab each other repeatedly like 2 sick puppets.  Into the fray steps professor Nugent and his group of plucky students searching for someone's lost dad and proof of the missing link. Eventually we witness the crazed ritual of the secret backwoods bigfoot cult and (in a flashback within a flashback) the ungodly mating ritual of the creature as he rapes Crazy Wanda. By this time, your head should be ready to explode with the thought of Bigfoot actually existing. I just  hope my step brother doesn't make him mad.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Dead Girls (1990 105 minutes)


The Band Dead Girls take their image seriously. They have names like Bertha Beirut and Nancy Napalm (who dresses in fatigues and has a guitar shaped like an M-16), and songs like You've Got To Kill Yourself and Nailgun Murders. They have loyal fans that form suicide pacts - like the singer's younger sister - she's the only one who who survives one such death circle and the band is so distraught they need to take a few days off at a cabin in the woods. Lots of people hate the Dead Girls too, like the sisters' Aunt, the town minister, the sheriff who burns all of their records, and the mystery character who dresses in this sweet trenchcoat, fedora, and skull mask and kills them based on lyrics to their songs. This may be one of the only rock n roll slasher movies where we don't get to see the band play or even practice, although we do kind of get to hear one of their songs (it sounds like 45 Grave). It may bit about 15 minutes too long, but it does have a mentally unbalanced handyman named Elmo, a particularly nasty axe killing, and about 10 trick endings.

Gymkata (1985 90 minutes)

A supremely skilled gymnast must train even harder to enter 'The Game' in the country of Parmistan so the USA can put a strategic missile tracking site there. The guy who plays the gymnast was already 5 years past his athletic prime when this was made but he can still walk  up a flight of stairs on his hands (part of his training) like nobodies business. There are some guys who don't want him to make it and they even kidnap the Princess  of Parmistan to try to stop him so there are some shootouts, axe attacks, and even a car crash. The Game itself is a series of obstacles (like rope climbs) where guys in hoods shoot at you with arrows, all culminating in this closed off village where the country sends it's most dangerous crazy people, I swear they stole this part of the movie for the Resident Evil 4 game. Thankfully there are some strategically placed exercise equipment around for the gymnast to fight on, including a pommel horse part where they fight for about 20 minutes. Any country that would base its political future on guys named Thorg running around in a swamp beating up other guys deserves all of the imperialism it gets. All you had to do was say this was directed by the same guy who did Black Belt Jones and Deadly Eyes and I'm all over it + it has a really long slo-motion scene.