(1986)
Dir - Samuel M. Sherman/Brett Piper
Overall: MEH
This dopey low-budget schlock excursion from producer, screenwriter, director Samuel M. Sherman, (stepping in behind the lens allegedly after co-screenwriter Brett Piper was dismissed), gets off to a solid start with the banger title song by George Edward Ott, but things are awkward from there. Raiders of the Living Dead, (Dying Day, Dark Knight), exists in at least three different versions, some credited exclusively to Piper and some not, and some explaining less than others. In any event, they all deliver a clumsily executed zombie movie that fits more in with D-grade drive-in cheapies from the 1950s then the era of gory slasher nonsense. To compensate for both Piper and Sherman's lifeless direction, music is played almost continually throughout scenes that are only suspenseful on paper, barely establishing any characters or sense of plot as a needlessly suspicious reporter roams around the suburbs while zombies haphazardly chase him once in awhile. Scott Schwartz from A Christmas Story shows up as a teenager who makes a laser gun and then goes undead hunting with his grandfather without either one of them bothering to notify authorities, but otherwise the film is void of many recognizable faces. It is detrimentally void of anything really, only sporadically being stupid and low-effort enough to point and laugh at, never with.
(1987)
Dir - Robert Collector
Overall: MEH
The first feature-length film adapted from the works of George R. R. Martin, Nightflyers brings to cornball B-movie life his 1980 novella of the same name. Martin penned the screenplay along with official input from producer Robert Jaffe, much of the former's source material getting the standard jettisoned treatment to cram everything into an acceptable running time. Doug Timm's aggressively cheap keyboard score takes about fifteen minutes to finally chill for a bit before things settle into a hackneyed plot about a sentient spaceship computer going AWOL while a small crew of affordable actors ADR their campy dialog. Though nothing here reinvents the wheel on paper, there are some inventive ideas in Martin's script, namely consciousness transference and how humans and emotionally-charged artificial intelligence interact with each other. Yet the Roger Corman caliber production values and some scenery-chewing performances undermine any bold intentions. Catherine Mary Stewart, James Avery, and a particularly trying-too-hard Michael Des Barres are among the names who take things seriously, and the special effects work is a mixed bag of unconvincing and admirable considering the clearly meager funds that were available. It is hardly a sci-fi thriller that anyone will remember once the credits roll, but it has some "little movie that could" energy that saves it from being an embarrassment.
(1988)
Dir - Jon Hess
Overall: MEH
Shot in Canada in order to take care of those convenient tax breaks, Watchers kicked-off a forgettable and measly budgeted straight-to-video franchise based on the Dean Koontz novel of the same name. Because Canada, Michael Ironside is present doing his usual cold villain routine as efficiently as he did in both better and worse movies, joined here by a top-billed Corey Haim as a teenager who unknowingly teams up with a lab experiment Golden Retriever. Oh, and there is also another lab experiment on the loose, this one a gorilla monster that brutally murders people off screen until the last ten minutes. It is a good thing that this is the case since the B-level production clearly could not afford a convincing monkey suit for its rampaging beast, Ironside himself coming off far more sinister as the relentless NSO agent that is out to get the dog, stop the monster, and kill whoever he feels like while smirking and poorly managing the government cover-up that he alleges to be in charge of. Canine lovers will enjoy the bits where Haim's super-smart furry friend types on a keyboard and plays Scrabble, and Ironside fans will probably get a kick out of him effortlessly playing another scumbag, but otherwise this is a dopey chore to sit through. Director Jon Hess maintained a tone that is part cutesy and light, part brutal and R-rated, all with a monotonous script where characters keep being one step ahead of other characters until the lackluster finale that finally shows off how not convincing the killer mutant animal is.
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