(1980)
Dir - Kinji Fukasaku
Overall: MEH
An intercontinental doomsday film from celebrated Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku, Virus, (Fukkatsu no Hi, Day of Resurrection), exists in multiple versions that range in length and also present different degrees of hopelessness. The premise is a variation of every post-Hiroshima-bombing disaster epic, with the specifics here revolving around a super virus that moronic scientists have concocted; a virus that breaks free and wipes out the entire human population in a span of seven months. Well, the entire human population save some scientists and whatnot who are up in Antarctica where the sickness cannot survive, which forces a couple hundred men and eight women to set up their own cooperative counsel in order to move forward and repopulate after such world obliteration. Allegedly the most expensive Japanese movie at the time, the ensemble cast is loaded with recognizable faces from all sides of the globe, plus the use of some stock footage otherwise disguises what is essentially a talky affair where individual character arcs and thrilling set pieces are kept to the bare minimum. Still, its combination of bleak circumstances and logical human behavior prevailing, (or at least giving the situation its best shot), are admirable.
(1983)
Dir - Efren C. Piñon
Overall: WOOF
Top-to-bottom awful, The Killing of Satan, (Lumaban ka, Satanas), is one of many Fillipino genre films with zero production qualities going for it as well as various ingredients thrown in willy-nilly style. For one, the lead is a pudgy middle-aged man with a mustache who has all of the charisma of a candy bar that was stepped on, plus two different bad guy's wear ridiculous devil costumes right out of a dollar store Halloween bin. Considering that one of these villains is supposed to be the Devil himself, you can imagine how threatening of a presence he has on screen with his constant mugging, red cape, and pitch fork. Along the way there is a naked elf thing that climbs up walls, horrendous laser effects, inane dialog, a cage full of also naked women, snakes being murdered on camera, slap-dash editing, and about two pieces of random, library-cued music that never, ever, ever stops playing. Director Efren C. Piñon has zero chops from behind the lens as well as none of the finances to pull off anything besides one embarrassing set piece after the other and despite how ridiculous the entire ruckus is, the pacing remains comatose-inducing throughout. So in other words, good luck staying awake long enough to find anything to deservingly point and laugh at.
(1988)
Dir - Tjut Djalil
Overall: MEH
One of the more notoriously absurd mockbusters ever made, Lady Terminator, (Pembalasan Ratu Pantai Selatan, Revenge of the South Sea Queen), is too stupid to take seriously on any level, which is exactly what has given it such a long-standing reputation. Shot in his native Indonesia with a mix of local and Caucasian actors, the hilariously wretched, ADRed dialog is the first thing that slaps one across the face when viewing. Well, that and some opening sex scenes involving a mystical goddess who has a snake in her vagina that bites off men's dicks when penetrated. It is this combination of puzzling perversity, sensationalized/quasi-folklore, embarrassing production values, and the bulk of the plot being a direct rehash of James Cameron's 1984 blockbuster that make for a singular, terrible end product. As the title villainess, Barbara Anne Constable starts off as not a woman but as an anthropologist, (paraphrasing an actual line of dialog), only to get her legs spread and her clothes ripped off by the aforementioned sex serpent, at which point she spends the rest of the movie mugging like a badass, having more sex, and unloading countless rounds of ammunition at literally every person she sees. A handful of "wait, what?" moments are laugh-out-loud funny, but the film's relentless buffoonery and virtual abandonment of narrative grows tiresome by the explody showdown.
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