Man this movie knows how to get your attention, coming at you hard and fast in the opening credits, leaving several bodies in its wake. The slickness of the production had me a little excited straight away – throw in Robert Z’Dar and a cheesy, pulsing, synthesiser score, and the whole thing comes out looking pretty promising…
Tag: 80s
Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987) – To infinity and beyond!
The poster promises “Big Movie. Big Production. Big Girls.” I’m not convinced they thought too hard about the last part, and the rest is an outright lie. What we do get is a tacky, Star Wars take on Richard Connell’s short story The Most Dangerous Game. So it goes, our unsuspecting, shipwrecked slave girls stumble into the dark and misty world of an insane hunter hermit and must fight for their freedom…
Firecracker (1981) – A fistfull of awesome
Firecracker aka Naked Fist, both sound like a hell of a good time, but I’m going with the former because this is one dynamite movie. Filmed on location in the Philippines, you can practically feel the humidity suffocating our black belt heroine as she delves into a twisted world of drugs and blood sport in search of her missing sister. Plenty of blood and clothes are shed along the way in this action packed display of excess…
Deathstalker (1983) – Swords, sorcery, & stupidity
What a tangled web of fantasy and intrigue we have here. Spun from the blandest of materials, and woven so ineptly into a short and sweet tapestry of trash. It’s a dirty, sweaty spectacle, taking directly from Dungeons and Dragons, He Man, and The Lord of the Rings…
Cyclone (1987) – Superbikes and synthesisers
Don’t be fooled by the title, this is not a lame disaster movie about inclement weather, it’s actually an awesome, totally 80s, on-the-run flick, involving a radical, military prototype motorbike that shoots lasers and runs on hydrogen. There’s a tonne of goodness on offer, including a half-decent story, a sweet future bike, destructive car chases, teen heartthrob Heather Thomas, and stuntman extraordinaire Dar Robinson…
Robo Vampire (1988) – You won’t believe your eyes
Prepare your whole body, all of your senses, and warn your immediate family, because Robo Vampire is an experience out of this world. It features a trash can RoboCop, brought to life in Hong Kong to fight a minor drug lord and a Chinese wizard who controls jumping, flipping, smoke breathing, firework shooting, immortal vampires. Take that and throw in half an hour of Thai (I think) mercenaries recovering prisoners from evil dudes, the kind who throw jumbo cartons of eggs on the ground for no reason…
R.O.T.O.R (1988) – Stupid SciFi shenanigans
Imagine taking The Terminator and RoboCop and melting them for scrap in Megacity One, while a Noir protagonist watches on, narrating of course. Now water it down, and throw in irrelevant mouthfuls of dialogue, and you’ve got this strangely amusing, postmodern rubbish heap…
Miami Connection (1987) – Retro overload
Let me introduce you to a corrupt, 1980s Florida with beaches and neon as far as the eye can see. Here, a spirited Tae Kwon Do band fights a camp, camo-wearing street gang and a horde of drug-dealing motorcycle Ninjas. They do so only with the power of friendship and martial arts, all backed by a deliciously cheesy, original soundtrack…
Private Resort (1986) – Dudes in paradise
Private Resort is a crisp, cool comedy, light on substance but full on fruity flavour, best served chilled. While the narrative is not exactly a square meal, between avoiding the bad guys and chasing chicks, our would-be teen heartthrobs have their work cut out for them…
The Last American Virgin (1982) – Teensploitation shenanigans
The Last American Virgin is kind of the missing link between the sexploitation comedies of the mid 70s and the teen comedies of the 80s – very gritty and low budget, but also having a keenly youth-sympathetic story and production. It’s finest feature is definitely the soundtrack, Davidson rather impressively spent most of whatever modest budget he had on it. Consequently it’s one of the best Pop soundtracks in film history…
Trashy Trove 