(1985)
Dir - Ronald W. Moore
Overall: MEH
A daft pairing of dystopian sci-fi action and college boner comedy, Future-Kill, (Night of the Alien), is the only directorial effort from Ronald W. Moore and may be of interest to genre fans for containing both Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Also, H.R. Giger did the poster art because money is a necessary evil in Switzerland too. Otherwise, we have a cast of nobodies roaming around Austin, Texas who are getting picked off by a toxic-poisoned protestor named Splatter who is dressed like a Mad Max villain, has a penchant for reckless and anti-authoritarian murder, plus he calls a prostitute a "worthless shit cunt" for having the audacity of wanting to give him head. Because 1985, there is liberal use of the word "faggot", a musical sequence in a punk rock club, and if one is generous, they can see this as a timely commentary on the class struggles inherent in the Reagan era where privileged frat boys ultimately team up with the less fortunate city folk who use theatricality and tattered costumes to make a statement against...something. Though Moore tries to interject a little post-apocalyptic atmosphere with rubbery armor, colorful fog, people with Lone Ranger-worthy mascara on, and streets littered with trash, the minuscule budget sticks out every step of the way and it comes off as a dopey and sluggish exorcise in D-rent exploitation.
(1986)
Dir - Anthony Perkins
Overall: GOOD
The first of only two directorial efforts from Anthony Perkins, Psycho III naturally finds him reprising his role as Norman Bates in full-blown cuckoo mode. Fresh off the moderately well-received Psycho II from four years prior, Perkins is still effortlessly disturbed, be it less sympathetically than before and Jeff Fahey makes for a charming and genuinely amusing scumbag as well. As far as Perkins' directorial skills go, they are admirable and flashy, ultimately providing a more interesting selling point than simply furthering the franchise with yet another excuse to have a bunch more murders go down at the Bates Motel. There are some fun, ambitious camera angles and stylized visuals, making it is a shame that the film garnished such a lukewarm box office reception as to limit Perkins' future chances to prove himself from the director's chair. He and screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue throw some dark humor into the mix, like early on during Bates' first scene where he uses the same spoon to stuff sawdust into a dead bird as he does peanut-butter onto a cracker, as well as later where he tries to nonchalantly hide a dead body in an ice cooler. It gets heavy handed at times with religious themes, plus the script's attempts at deepening the mythology are unfortunate at best, yet the film is well realized for what could have been instantly forgettable at best.
(1988)
Dir - Stephen Chiodo
Overall: GOOD
One of the 1980's best of many deliberately campy, tailor-made cult films was the Chiodo brothers' Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The only full-length project that was written, directed and produced by the special effects brother team of Stephen, Edward, and Charles Chiodo, it parodies many of the drive-in sci-fi and monster movie tropes from the 50s and 60s. This includes the predictable plot structure and formulaic characters who fall victim to one clown-related gag after the other. The title tells one everything that they need to know in this regard, plus endless mileage is gotten out of wacky set pieces like human cotton candy cocoons, a balloon animal sniffing dog, deadly popcorn guns, a flying saucer shaped like a circus tent, killer shadow puppets, and a police chief turned into a ventriloquist dummy, to name but a few. Coming from a creative team who worked on everything from Pee-wee's Big Adventure, to Critters, to Team America: World Police, the design work is endlessly inventive. Each title alien is uniquely and grotesquely stylized and along with the It miniseries from two years later, it was probably enough to help permanently transform clowns into the things of nightmares. As they should be.
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