Post by Quorthon on Apr 24, 2006 16:54:57 GMT -5
Quickshot Collection IX: Ghost in the Machine, Alien Intruder, Damnation Alley
Ghost in the Machine
1993
R
Imagine if you took Lawnmowerman 2 and made a crappy version, then splice it with a lame serial killer thriller. Wait, you think Lawnmowerman 2 is already a crappy movie? Boy, are you in for a treat. This is actually worse.
This monstrosity revolves around a serial killer who’s known as the “Address Book Killer.” See, he steals an address book, then goes and kills everybody in it. No shit. And yet, his kill count isn’t even up to 20… Kinda makes you wonder about the lifeless shut-ins he’s stealing these things from. At any rate, on he’s also a tech whiz because that apparently makes perfect sense (to the filmmakers at least) when he’s rocketed into being a creature made entirely out of electrical current. Oh yeah, that’s right. Just like in Lawnmowerman 2, this guy is reduced to being electrical impulses who kills people via their various electronics devices. Except here, he enters the electrical world by being, apparently, swallowed up by an X-Ray machine in a hospital during a thunderstorm. So, anyway, he starts stalking this woman and her kid and her address book inhabitants in bizarre and nonsensical ways. He shows up to terrorize the kid while he’s playing a Virtual Reality video game. For no reason whatsoever, the kid’s face appears on his VR counterpart, and while there aren’t details of any sort in the images or game, somehow the ability to blast off an arm exists. Trust me when I say that VR games were no where near this accurate. Actually, they also really lacked anything even remotely fun. Eventually, the kid and his Mom and some computer hacker genius (not kidding) pull the super-electro-killer out of the world of copper cables and into our world. He looks like a Jobe from the first Lawnmowerman… if he was crappily animated by a blind man in a high school equipment closet. Of course, bullets don’t hurt him, but magnets sure fuck him up.
This film really has no good merits, pretty much at all. Not since the ridiculousness of Wes Craven’s Shocker has the world of science and technology been so thoroughly eviscerated and replaced by malevolent ignorance and fantasy. And this makes Shocker look competent. The endless early 90’s Rap music doesn’t help things, either. Of course, the inept script and mindless direction aside, the film also suffers with room-temperature acting, substandard atmosphere, and near endless stupidity. The violence and gore are decent enough. But, it’s best to just avoid this one. 2/10
Alien Intruder
1993
R
I swear. This movie has got to be a rejected fan script for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Seriously. It’s about a ship of fools captained by Lando Calrissian himself, Billy Dee Williams with four prison inmates (brought along to make up the crew) and an android who meander into a “forbidden zone” to “rescue a lost ship.” Actually, Billy Dee Calrissian just wants to meet back up with a sexy alien babe and is dragging these clods along as an expendable crew.
Okay, here’s where it’s all Star Trekky: After five days of work, the four crewmates (the former convicts) all get to relax in wacky Virtual Reality worlds where they get to bang the chick of their choice the whole time. Yeah, like on the Enterprise, but where the intention is to “get some.” Instead of a “holodeck,” though, these idiots just lay in beds and basically “dream” into their VR worlds. One guy is a 50’s biker badass, one guy is in the “ye olde west,” one guy is in a 1940’s-like Noir deal (in black and white no less) and the last guy spends his “VR weekends” on a beach in a luxury house ignoring his cyber-babe so he can jog or lift weights. One of the inmates on this trip is an explosives expert who was only apparently brought along to be the tough guy explosives expert. Eventually, the sexy alien chick shows up in everyone’s cyber-realities and kills off all their beloved fake babes. Then she gets all lusty and turns all the guys against each other. The android? We get to see him stand silently, walk silently, and die quietly. Other than that, you've got the smart and attractive inmate, the smart nerd inmate, the long-haired inmate, and of course, the big tough explosives wanker.
Now, this alien babe doesn’t make much sense. She’s either real or digital or a magician or something as she just jumps from one place to the next convincing the men to shoot at each other. I think she’s just poorly written. Easy as that. The acting is average at best for an underground film of this nature from the early 90’s, and the special effects are truly laughable. However, the “fantasy VR worlds” are done in almost top-notch form. What the fuck? I mean, the freakin’ spaceships look dreadful! There’s no class, no style, no personality! Their movement in space is more sterile and emotionless than the Enterprise sleeking across the screen in front of another phosphorus red planet in the 1960’s Star Trek! All in all, it’s actually pretty stupid, but watchable. Kinda like Maximum Overdrive, or The Wraith. Stupid, but entertaining. Some decent nudity. 5/10
Damnation Alley
1977
PG
This film follows some would-be heroes as they survive a nuclear holocaust in 1970’s America. It starts out at a protected military base that burns down for the stupidest of reasons—a cigar falls on a Playboy magazine and just happens to be too close to explosive tanks! Then some military guys trek out across the desert landscape that was once America in gigantic armored motor-homes of some sort.
Along their way to, um, Albany in New York (which they believe apparently survived the nuclear holocaust unscathed), they cross vast expanses of listless desert and, an abandoned city filled with killer cockroaches, and some rednecks. Each and every shot reeks of continuity issues with bizarrely coated hues which carry little or no explanation. One shot will be all blue-ish, the next, coated in ugly green hues, the next two will be fine, but different constrasts of light and dark, then the next one will be a hue of green with really queer “lightning” in the sky. The whole movie is like this. I mean, this was the best they could do for the post-apocalyptic radiated earth? It’s so fucking ugly! And after a while, on a big enough screen this can get really irritating on the eyes! It also has some needlessly giant scorpions what are spliced into the film in the most obvious possible way. They’re purple for no reason.
Eventually, the token black guy is eaten by cockroaches, the rednecks are blown up, a little kid and a woman are found separately, one of the RV’s is destroyed, and they find Albany (or something) which not only survived the unexplained nuclear holocaust, but reverted to the perfection of Leave it to Beaver’s America. Overall, fairly insipid, and occasionally boring. 3/10
Ghost in the Machine
1993
R
Imagine if you took Lawnmowerman 2 and made a crappy version, then splice it with a lame serial killer thriller. Wait, you think Lawnmowerman 2 is already a crappy movie? Boy, are you in for a treat. This is actually worse.
This monstrosity revolves around a serial killer who’s known as the “Address Book Killer.” See, he steals an address book, then goes and kills everybody in it. No shit. And yet, his kill count isn’t even up to 20… Kinda makes you wonder about the lifeless shut-ins he’s stealing these things from. At any rate, on he’s also a tech whiz because that apparently makes perfect sense (to the filmmakers at least) when he’s rocketed into being a creature made entirely out of electrical current. Oh yeah, that’s right. Just like in Lawnmowerman 2, this guy is reduced to being electrical impulses who kills people via their various electronics devices. Except here, he enters the electrical world by being, apparently, swallowed up by an X-Ray machine in a hospital during a thunderstorm. So, anyway, he starts stalking this woman and her kid and her address book inhabitants in bizarre and nonsensical ways. He shows up to terrorize the kid while he’s playing a Virtual Reality video game. For no reason whatsoever, the kid’s face appears on his VR counterpart, and while there aren’t details of any sort in the images or game, somehow the ability to blast off an arm exists. Trust me when I say that VR games were no where near this accurate. Actually, they also really lacked anything even remotely fun. Eventually, the kid and his Mom and some computer hacker genius (not kidding) pull the super-electro-killer out of the world of copper cables and into our world. He looks like a Jobe from the first Lawnmowerman… if he was crappily animated by a blind man in a high school equipment closet. Of course, bullets don’t hurt him, but magnets sure fuck him up.
This film really has no good merits, pretty much at all. Not since the ridiculousness of Wes Craven’s Shocker has the world of science and technology been so thoroughly eviscerated and replaced by malevolent ignorance and fantasy. And this makes Shocker look competent. The endless early 90’s Rap music doesn’t help things, either. Of course, the inept script and mindless direction aside, the film also suffers with room-temperature acting, substandard atmosphere, and near endless stupidity. The violence and gore are decent enough. But, it’s best to just avoid this one. 2/10
Alien Intruder
1993
R
I swear. This movie has got to be a rejected fan script for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Seriously. It’s about a ship of fools captained by Lando Calrissian himself, Billy Dee Williams with four prison inmates (brought along to make up the crew) and an android who meander into a “forbidden zone” to “rescue a lost ship.” Actually, Billy Dee Calrissian just wants to meet back up with a sexy alien babe and is dragging these clods along as an expendable crew.
Okay, here’s where it’s all Star Trekky: After five days of work, the four crewmates (the former convicts) all get to relax in wacky Virtual Reality worlds where they get to bang the chick of their choice the whole time. Yeah, like on the Enterprise, but where the intention is to “get some.” Instead of a “holodeck,” though, these idiots just lay in beds and basically “dream” into their VR worlds. One guy is a 50’s biker badass, one guy is in the “ye olde west,” one guy is in a 1940’s-like Noir deal (in black and white no less) and the last guy spends his “VR weekends” on a beach in a luxury house ignoring his cyber-babe so he can jog or lift weights. One of the inmates on this trip is an explosives expert who was only apparently brought along to be the tough guy explosives expert. Eventually, the sexy alien chick shows up in everyone’s cyber-realities and kills off all their beloved fake babes. Then she gets all lusty and turns all the guys against each other. The android? We get to see him stand silently, walk silently, and die quietly. Other than that, you've got the smart and attractive inmate, the smart nerd inmate, the long-haired inmate, and of course, the big tough explosives wanker.
Now, this alien babe doesn’t make much sense. She’s either real or digital or a magician or something as she just jumps from one place to the next convincing the men to shoot at each other. I think she’s just poorly written. Easy as that. The acting is average at best for an underground film of this nature from the early 90’s, and the special effects are truly laughable. However, the “fantasy VR worlds” are done in almost top-notch form. What the fuck? I mean, the freakin’ spaceships look dreadful! There’s no class, no style, no personality! Their movement in space is more sterile and emotionless than the Enterprise sleeking across the screen in front of another phosphorus red planet in the 1960’s Star Trek! All in all, it’s actually pretty stupid, but watchable. Kinda like Maximum Overdrive, or The Wraith. Stupid, but entertaining. Some decent nudity. 5/10
Damnation Alley
1977
PG
This film follows some would-be heroes as they survive a nuclear holocaust in 1970’s America. It starts out at a protected military base that burns down for the stupidest of reasons—a cigar falls on a Playboy magazine and just happens to be too close to explosive tanks! Then some military guys trek out across the desert landscape that was once America in gigantic armored motor-homes of some sort.
Along their way to, um, Albany in New York (which they believe apparently survived the nuclear holocaust unscathed), they cross vast expanses of listless desert and, an abandoned city filled with killer cockroaches, and some rednecks. Each and every shot reeks of continuity issues with bizarrely coated hues which carry little or no explanation. One shot will be all blue-ish, the next, coated in ugly green hues, the next two will be fine, but different constrasts of light and dark, then the next one will be a hue of green with really queer “lightning” in the sky. The whole movie is like this. I mean, this was the best they could do for the post-apocalyptic radiated earth? It’s so fucking ugly! And after a while, on a big enough screen this can get really irritating on the eyes! It also has some needlessly giant scorpions what are spliced into the film in the most obvious possible way. They’re purple for no reason.
Eventually, the token black guy is eaten by cockroaches, the rednecks are blown up, a little kid and a woman are found separately, one of the RV’s is destroyed, and they find Albany (or something) which not only survived the unexplained nuclear holocaust, but reverted to the perfection of Leave it to Beaver’s America. Overall, fairly insipid, and occasionally boring. 3/10
