Year Of The Knock Off! Explorers (1985)

'...or it never really begins at all because Paramount didn't care if this film was finished before pushing it out to the theater.' That may have been too wordy.

Here we are at the end of another weird, but fun, year where a portion of the show was dedicated to a genre, or in this case, a cause and effect situation. I have a had a lot of fun talking to Steve about what happens when a movie comes out that is so big and successful that others want to capitalize on it... and how badly that can go. 

After our last episode, in which we talked about E.T. and the waking nightmare that is Mac and Me, I knew that there were other E.T. knock offs out there in the universe, so I went... Explorers-ing! Its a bad joke that was a half finished thought and feels thematically appropriate to what I just watched. So how off course can a film that was directed by Joe Dante (who had just come off of the wonderful horror/comedy of Gremlins, produced by Steven Spielberg), with special effects done by Industrial Light & Magic, and a catchy score by Jerry Goldsmith? Let's strap and blast off to... mediocrity?

This teaser trailer is more fun that the film is. 

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com cast listing.

So before we get into Explorers fully, I do have a bit of sad news. This film did not have anything that was truly .gif worthy. So 85% of my attempts at comedy while writing these posts has been taken away from me. Please be kind and respectful during my mourning period regarding this. 

Sorry Dee, no .gifs. 

Explorers starts off with young Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke, innocent and not realizing that one day he would lose his family to The Purge), flying through the clouds while dreaming. He sees below him a Tron-like techno landscape. It becomes clear to him that this is actually a circuit board. He wakes up, and immediately draws it out as best he can while War of the Worlds plays on his TV in the background. Once he has most of it out of his head, he walkie talkies his best friend Wolfgang Muller (River Phoenix, who would one day find a dead body with Will Wheaton, Jerry O'connell and Corey Feldman), a child genius that fancies himself as already a scientist. Wolfgang, not questioning the validity of how Ben is getting these images for circuitry from within dreams, agrees to take a look at the drawing at school the next day.

It turns out that pretty much every kid at their school, with the exception of gearhead Darren (Jason Presson, who did not find a dead body but was in Gremlins 2: The New Batch), picks on Ben and Wolfgang. Seriously, the amount of bullying and physical abuse is off putting during the short time we see them in school. At one point Wolfgang gets his pants ripped apart by another kid and no one seems to care at all, not even Ben. Then, a smash cut to a bully beating up Ben, who is then saved by Darren. 

Ben, thinking that Darren is now a friend, chases him down to see if he wants to hang out his place and watch This Island Earth. Darren, who hears that his father is home (and is heavily implied that his dad is an abusive son of a bitch but the film never ever comes back to it), decides he would rather watch an old film with a weird kid he doesn't know. 

Ben takes Darren to Wolfgang's place instead, saying that Wolfgang has been faking sick (though we just saw him at school the same day... this film is broken at times) and working in his lab in the basement. Wolfgang's house is pure chaos. His parents look like the aloof scientific types where they are constantly thinking about everything else but can't focus on the world around them. They are not cold parents, just moving from one thing to the next. 

Also, they don't care if their kids dress like the thing that is now going to haunt your dreams tonight.

Pretty sure this kid wearing this Halloween mask and Christmas bib was outside Ethan Hawke's house during The Purge. Ethan, you missed your chance to save your future family because you were chasing dream science.

Side note: Wolfgang's father is played by James Cromwell, aka Zefram Cochrane, the first human to create a warp drive system in Star Trek. So I like to think Wolfgang did come from a space travel bloodline. Also, James Cromwell once owned a talking pig and Wolfgang has a mouse that steps on keys to ask for cheese. Is this film a secret prequel to Star Trek: First Contact and a secret sequel to Babe? I didn't realize how deep this rabbit hole was going to go down. I best stop making too many connections before the New Founding Fathers of America find out and send that masked kid shown above to Purge me. 

'MERRY HALLOWEEN, PAUL. NOW I WILL SLOPPILY EAT YOUR SOON TO BE DEAD BODY.'

Turns out that Ben's drawing does do something, and Wolfgang has followed the instructions and built it. The design actually creates a electromagnetic bubble that can be moved around in 3D space. Its shape can be changed and it is able to move at virtually any speed. Anything inside the bubble is kept safe and is not affected by velocity. Good dream science, Ben! The bubble, which kind of functions like a cannonball as it blows holes through everything when it gets some speed, is sent on a zany basement destroying spree when Wolfgang's cat jumps on the keyboard. There is a lot of random destruction that goes on in this film that just gets brushed aside or outright ignored. 

The three of them decide to test this bubble field outdoors and accidently find out that you can put objects inside it and can use it for travel. Ben's love of old sci-fi films leads him to believe that they should build a ship to put inside the bubble so they can travel around in it. Darren leads the other two to a junkyard where they find an old Tilt-A-Whirl cart that they use as the base for their ship. A montage beings where the kids use all sorts of junk to complete their build. 

The ship is finished and Ben wants to name it after Jules Verne, Wolfgang wants to name it after Einstein, but Darren says he has a better idea. Without any explanation why, he suggests naming it after the Bruce Springsteen song, Thunder Road. Ben, says its perfect, but doesn't say why, and so their ship was named after a 10 year old song (at that time) that was a hit when these three were just toddlers. Because toddlers understand the angst of being stuck in life and just need to go somewhere, right? 

Here is the Thunder Road. 

The film was shot in 1984. I would have picked the name 'Caribbean Queen' by Billy Ocean.

I don't dislike this design. It clearly looks like it was imagined by kids. Had I seen Explorers when it first came out, I would have thought that this ship is cool. There is some magic to be had in believing you could build something like this and fly into outer space. Also, this spaceship is better than anything I could ever build, so I should give credit where it is due.

They decide to take Thunder Road out for a spin and go to the most happening place you can find on a Friday night: the drive in. They happen to fly by a film called Starkiller that was purposefully made to look like a low budget Italian Star Wars knock off (with low budget design and dialog dubbing). So, in the Year of the Knock Off I get to see a film that is a spiritual knock of of E.T. that has a on purpose Star Wars knock off inside it. I honestly did not see that coming.

THE SNAKE IS EATING ITSELF.

By the way, that guy in the blonde wig is Robert Picardo. He actually plays 3 roles in this film (more on that in a bit). He also has a memorable role in the Star Trek universe, playing the holographic medical assistant program in Voyager, called The Doctor. He is never not great and I had to point him out.

So during the maiden voyage, something off is happening to the Thunder Road's computer. It appears that some outside force is causing it to be pulled into space. Wolfgang figures out how to fix it but not before some cops in a helicopter see them flying about. The cops, played by Dick Miller (of Gremlins fame) and Meshach Taylor (of Mannequin fame), are freaked out about it but only Dick Miller wants to keep searching for the ship after they lose it. 

Dick Miller gets a few more scenes, one in which he is talking to someone on the phone about the UFO he saw and how he has been having dreams about it (like when he was a kid) and then he eventually tracks down the Thunder Road and finds Ben's jacket (with Ben's home address written inside it). He confronts Ben soon after at Ben's home. Ben gets away in time to find Wolfgang and Darren about to take off in Thunder Road. Dick Miller is left to stare up in awe of them leaving in a homemade garbage spaceship. Plot thread left dangling. 

Once in space, the ship gets taken over again by an unseen force and leads them to a much larger space ship. This leads to a prolonged sequence where the three kids are split up at times and have to make their way around the large ship that looks more like a Double Dare obstacle course than a functional space ship. Eventually the three meet the two aliens inside: 

What is she doing to River Phoenix? 

Wak (Robert Picardo) and Neek (Leslie Rickert, this being 1 of 2 roles she ever did) are fascinated by Earth culture, well anything up till the 1960's as that is most recent broadcasts they have gotten while being so far out in space. Wak is a walking quote machine, going from Looney Toons characters to Ed Sullivan. Neek seems to like Wolfgang too much (She asks if he has a girlfriend). They also were the ones responsible for sending the circuitry plans to Ben in his dreams. They wanted to meet humans so bad but could no go to Earth due to germs and because everything they have seen from TV that shows humans interacting with aliens ends with humans killing them. They believed Ben was different (though they never explain why). Ben is disappointed because Wak and Neek don't seem to have the secrets of the universe and wondered what the point of being there was. 

Then enters Wak and Neek's father:

If I had hands on my head like that, I could play video games and more video games at the same time.

Father never has a name (also played by Robert Picardo). He is pissed because his kids took his smaller spaceship without his permission. Turns out that Wak and Neek are just kids too and wanted to meet new friends. That's it. 

Wak sends Ben home with a magic alien doodad and makes Thunder Road auto pilot back to Earth and has it crash land in a bay so that the tech will be destroyed. The boys make it out. 

There is a moment at the end where the three boys are up on a hillside having a discussion about if and when Wak and Neek will contact them again. Its an odd scene because it is clear that their dialogue is overdubbed (more on that in a minute) and there isn't a real resolution...

...well other than you see the three of them dream flying together over a new set of plans that have been sent to them and they wonder what will happen next.

And that's your movie?

If it feels like I just described two acts with no real character arcs and now third act to tie it all together, you would be right. This film was taken out of the hands of Joe Dante and told that they need stop editing it so that Paramount can just release it. Prior to Dante getting involved with the project, he saw that the script didn't really have a second act but was told that they can work it all out while making the film. This explains why there are complete threads that started and never pay off. Darren's father's abusive shadow is never addressed, Dick Miller's cop who may or may not have been contacted by the aliens as kid, is never resolved, there's a very light romantic plot for Ben that has a payoff that is not earned at all.  Remember the scene I mentioned above where the three of them were wondering about the aliens and the dialog was dubbed? Evidently that scene was about abuse (whether it was about Darren's father or the bullies at the school, I am not sure) but Dante needed some kind of closure for the story and dubbed the dialogue. Considering that this film was trying to have some fun at taking the piss out of the 1970's Italian knock offs that often suffered due to fast productions and incomplete scripts, it's ironic that Dante had to smash together an ending to just get Explorers watchable. 

Also, this just shows how film companies will green light a script before really reading it. Explorers was purchased by Paramount because it had a similar scene of kids flying like the bike scenes in E.T. The film poster shows a bike along with a bright bluish white light peeking through the fence posts that is meant to evoke E.T. as well. From the marketing to the half finished film being forced into theaters early, Paramount did not give one damn at all at releasing a good film, just one that was supposed to make quick cash. It only made about 40% of its budget back at the box office. Good call, Paramount (to further add salt in the wound, Dante's previous film Gremlins made over 14 times its budget back during its initial theatrical run).

Much like E.T.'s junk pile, this film tried to take a lot of different parts and make something that spoke to the audience, but the message did not make it out. It's unfortunate because the three leads; Hawke, Phoenix, and Presson have charisma at such a young age that you do like them. Their chemistry together is good and much like the kids in E.T., their dialogue amongst each other feel organic and age appropriate. 

The score by Jerry Goldsmith is actually quite good. Listening to it removed from the film it reveals how good natured and warm it is. Most of it deserved to be in a better and completed film. The video below has a 15 minute suite of the score. Just stop listening around the 11 minute mark. That is when it veers into the wacky Wak and Neek portions. I can go forever not hearing that part of the score ever again.

Don't say I didn't warn about what lies after the 11 minute mark.

There are moments of wonder within Explorers that makes me not want to dismiss it completely. Like I said previously, had I seen this when it came out, it may have been a film I loved because I would have been seeing kids my age that have their own problems trying to  reach for stars in their backyard. However, seeing it as a grown up and after having just watched the family sci-fi masterpiece that is E.T., Explorers feels hollow and thin, like a pilot for a TV series that never got picked up for additional episodes. 

For a film that is supposed to be a fantasy about the power of dreams, how anything seems possible when you are young, and breaking free; Explorers never takes off and that is a shame. Supposedly there are rumors that this project is going to be remade and I hope they learn the lessons from how the original failed. Let's hope they don't come up with their script from half remembered dreams and they find an actual third act or else it will fizzle on the launch pad as well.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

Hopeful younger kids that are bullied, rooms being destroyed due to alien (inspired) shenanigans, blobby looking extra terrestrials, nice inspirational score (mostly). I would give it a 5 because there is no sense of urgency that is in this film versus E.T. He wanted to get home, these kids wanted to get away but there was no big dilemma or threat they were facing if they had to return home. 

On the Ator scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Better produced and looking, but Ator has three acts. Ator is a complete film by the minimalist of standards and Explorers is not. Besides Ator has Ator in it, so that usually wins out.

Would you recommend this to anyone else? 

Not really. This is not a train wreck of a film. There is no rubbernecker appeal in even showing this to friends to have a few laughs with. Mac and Me has more group appeal than Explorers has. 

Bonus:   

If you want a much shorter story about a backyard spaceship being built with a badass sound track, check out this Smashing Pumpkins video for their song 'Rocket.' 

Bonus Teaser: 

Next post will be a very unscientific ranking of the Year of the Knock films that I watched for the blog. Watch the skies!

 

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Year Of The Knock Off! Warriors of the Wasteland (1984)

If you aren't going to put the lead actor on the poster, then at least make Fred Williamson front and center for frack's sake. 

After the discussion that Steve and I had about Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and (ugh) Solarbabies, I knew I wanted to get back into the wasteland and watch another film that was trying to chase what George Miller and company had gotten so right. I am sure I had many other options to explore, but I could not resist the siren song of finishing out the unofficial 'warriors' trilogy that Enzo G. Castellari co-wrote and directed: Warriors of the Wasteland (or The New Barbarians as it was called everywhere else in the world). Does Enzo put the pedal down and give us The Road Warrior knock off we all want or does he run out of gas and leave us with a lot of weird slow motion action?

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com cast listing. 

When we started off on this weird journey of chasing down the also rans, I never expected to watch two films by the same director, let alone three. As I was already somewhat familiar with Enzo Castellari due to his work on the cool western, Keoma (just ignore the score but appreciate what it was trying to do), I knew Steve and I would be excited for 1990: The Bronx Warriors when we decided to pair it up with our talk about Escape from New York. We had a lot of fun with that film and then we learned there was a direct sequel, Escape from the Bronx, and a sorta spiritual sequel, Warriors of the Wasteland. As I had already seen the first two films, I didn't need much of a reason to hunt down the third in the trilogy. I already knew I was going to be in for some dodgy acting, smaller budgets, slow motion action shots, a wobbly synth score, and random explosions...

...and the potential for more glorious .gifs. 

I won't give in until I am victorious... in giving you all the .gifs.

So, let's get this out of the way, Warriors of the Wasteland is not a direct sequel to Escape from the Bronx. The opening title sequence shows a city (with some halfway decent miniature work) being blown up and destroyed due to some unknown and unnamed nuclear power. The city could be New York but it isn't specifically stated. I do want to believe this as that would be an amazing way for Castellari to wash his hands of the character of Trash and the convoluted plot of people who may or may not want to escape Da Bronx. 

We then learn that we are well past the future of 1990:

If you are reading this in 2018: Happy New Year. If you are reading this in 2019, I hope you stockpiled water and found a random object that can be used as a hat. 

At least the nuclear holocaust is over. What appears to be left in its wake is a world in which people want to group up in caravans and believe they are the only people left in the world, only to discover other pockets of people that believe they were the last survivors as well but yet all of these people are only miles apart from each other. However, all of the people remaining know about the Templars, a group of men dressed in white armor who's mission it is to purge the world of all humanity as it is our fault that the nuclear holocaust took place.

The Templars will kill however they need too but they mostly enjoy using modded vehicles with various weapon attachments. They have rocket launchers, spears the jut out of the front, and in one case a spinning blade the swings out at waist level. 

...waist level if you are still standing up that is. 

 There are a few people that oppose the Templars but would rather stay out of their way than to confront them head on. One of them, named Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete, who we last saw in Escape from the Bronx as Strike, the man with a shotgun that was borderline magical), is a loner and has a sweet wasteland vehicle of his own that he travels the world in.

 I know what you are thinking, you have seen that car somewhere before. And you have:

Warriors of the Evergreen Terrace. 

I kid, but wow that bubbletop on Scorpion's car is an odd design choice that gets repeated often with other vehicles in Warriors of the Wasteland. Scorpion's car is the only one that resembles a muscle car and is the closest we get to Mad Max's V8 Interceptor. Take the bubble off that thing and it is a pretty bad ass looking car. It is hard to see in the picture above, but there is a silver skull on the front end. It's a nod to the Riders in 1990: The Bronx Warriors and how their motorcycles would have light up skulls on their front. 

Scorpion's car also has a lot of gadgets and deterrents to help him for if and when he crosses paths with the Templars. Machine guns on the front, a rocket launcher in the back, turbo boosters, and a button that launches the driver side door at the enemy. It has two other important functions: 

1.) 'Power' Doors.

Before you can launch your door, you need the laziest way possible to open it.

And:

2.) Portable Sex Tent.™

Let's make love by the pale bubble light. 

You know that that sex tent is just going to slowly deflate over the course of the night, right? As a veteran of many air mattress fights, I can speak with certainty that you never win, you just hope to not be completely on the floor when the morning comes.

Anyway, Scorpion saves a woman, Alma (Anna Kanakis, who has nothing of worth to do in the film unfortunately and is in the above sex tent), from a Templar attack. Seeing that her shoulder is hurt, they try to go find out if there are any friendly Non-Templars around. 

Meanwhile, the leader of the Templars, a man named One (George Eastman, who we saw in 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Hands of Steel), is pissed that Scorpion is causing them problems... again. Turns out that One and his leadership know that Scorpion used to be a Templar and they want him punished. Mako, the protege of One, decides the best way to show his worth as a Templar and to challenge One for his leadership, is to go hunt down Scorpion and kill him.

While Mako and company corner Scorpion (not before he launches his car door at them), he gets an assist from the world's greatest badass, Nadir, AKA Fred Williamson. 

Hey, Thanos. Fred Williamson wants to have a word with you. You have his gauntlet and he wants it back.

Nadir loves the rush of victory and is the only person in the Wasteland that doesn't use a gun. He prefers to use a compound bow and 'custom' arrowheads. The heads themselves are different colors (they are attached to his forearm armor above), and they looked more like food coloring droppers to me than an array of explosives. 

For when you need to color your frosting or to blow the hell out of a target.

As for how the arrow heads are different from each other, the film really doesn't answer that question. Regardless of color, they explode and cause heads to leave bodies pretty effectively.

What color was that? Red or Blew (up)?

Mako doesn't mako it out of the fight alive and the Templars (well the single one left) is forced to take Scorpion's message back to One; to just leave him alone. Nadir sees that Alma is hurt and tells Scorpion about a caravan nearby that might be able to help her. The three of them head off to find help.

One learns about Mako's plan and subsequent failure and decides that he needs to take a different approach to stopping Scorpion: just kidding, he sends more Templars out to hunt him down since it worked out so well last time. When in doubt, keep repeating yourself until you are out of men and weird cars.

Meanwhile, Scorpion and company find the caravan and learn that they don't want to fight because they believe in something called 'God.' It is supposed to be this big moment of revelation but I had a hard time believing it as I would think that most of the adults left after the nuclear holocaust would have been functioning members of society and would have been well aware of religion. I know, I am questioning the logic of a world that has what looks like unlimited gas and well maintained roadways and the big sticking point for me is that those that left after the bomb dropped is that they forgot about religion and god? Maybe a little more character development about why Scorpion left the Templars would have made this feel better, but then I forgot I was watching the third film in a series that failed to utilize a tap dance fighting theme gang twice, so I have to let this lingering thought go. Besides, Enzo Castellari has something more more horrible to put in front of me to help me forget about this plot development.

Scorpion, knowing that the Templars are probably still looking for him, leaves Alma and Nadir with the caravan, and heads out to... someplace? Who know, it just feels like the wasteland is one 5 mile stretch of dirt and paved roadway that everyone seems to find themselves on (it's almost as if this film was made for almost no budget at all). The Templars soon find him and take him alive back to their camp. One is making a big production or Scorpion's capture, having him yolked up with a pulley system that forces Scorpion to be bent over. One then uses a blade to cut off the back of Scorpion's pants, leaving his bare ass exposed....

I have never hoped to be so wrong in my life. 

This is all going on while the rest of the Templars are in a loose circle around Scorpion and One, staring expectantly. One stands behind Scorpion, flips up his weird leather codpiece and then the film just kinda wigs out for 10-15 seconds. I am not saying that the copy I was watching had an issue with playback, but that the editing and pacing of the scene implied a lot of bad stuff was going on to Scorpion. For a film that had a smidge of nudity in the early parts and a lot of heads exploding through out, I seriously though that Warriors of the Wasteland was about to get really dark (Warriors of the Waist-land?) and have Scorpion be sodomized in front of the Templars. You can tell that's what One wants to do, but the scene is mercifully broken up by a sneak attack from Nadir. This forces the Templars to stop whatever the hell they were planning on doing and go give chase. Scorpion is freed just long enough to tied to the back of a motorcycle and be drug along through the dirt. 

Nadir and his explodey bow saves the day, again.

It's pretty awesome when you know you are blowing a guy's head off and have to do a double take because you are still surprised at what happened.

One, upset that Scorpion escaped yet again from him, decides to attack the caravan that Alma is now with, thinking that Scorpion will be forced to come there to face him. The Templars take all the caravan members hostage and wait.

Scorpion, rattled, lays low for a moment with Nadir and gets his vehicle repaired and upgraded by 'Young Mechanic', no name is actually given for this character. He is a very young kid, like 9-10 years old, that lives by himself in what looks like a food truck that has a bunch of random fans and industrial bric a brac attached to its outside to show that he is way more capable with technology than a 9-10 year old post nuclear holocaust should be. Scorpion's car now has a new weapon (more on that in a minute) and the kid has made blast proof plastic shielding. With Scorpion's car being fixed, Nadir goes about repairing Scorpion's confidence. This takes all of 30 seconds and then they are back on track to go face down One and company.

The three of them (the kid, who is also an expert sniper with a slingshot, tags along) assault the Templars at the caravan camp. Nadir and the kid clean house while Scorpion seeks out One. One starts shooting at Scorpion, only to find that Scorpion has clad himself in plastic blast proof armor (that for some reason, requires that he doesn't wear a shirt under it). Unable to shoot him, One abandons his men and flees the camp. Scorpion faces off against One's second in command.

'Why isn't he wearing a shirt? AHHH MY FACE AND MY SENSE OF BEWILDERMENT!'

Scorpion shortly leaves the camp to chase down One. As Scorpion catches up to One's vehicle, he deploys' his new car weapon: a large extendable drill. He proceeds to drive up to the rear of One's vehicle, drills through the back of it and into One himself. Screwed (ahem), One drives off the road and crashes his vehicle, causing it it to explode. If this was Castellari's not so subtle attempt at commentary on the fact that One had tried to sodomize Scorpion earlier and he is now getting violated from behind by Scorpion, then my hat is off to him. That would show some kind of revisiting of imagery and bring closure to a disturbing portion of the fim. I am 50/50 on whether this was intentional or not. Sometimes a large drill destroying a car and man from behind is just a large drill destroying a car and man from behind.

Scorpion returns to the camp. Nadir, Alma, and the kid are safe, as well as most of the caravan. Scorpion needs to make a choice, to stay or go. The film ends and doesn't really give you a definitive answer and that is actually okay. No need to tack on a super positive ending for a film that wasn't setting up a meaningful character arc for much of anyone at all.

And that's your film.

I think Warriors of the Wasteland is Castellari's most focused film of the Warriors Trilogy. Its plot is so thin that it didn't need to wander off and waste time doing other things that I think it helped make it the most approachable of the three. Probably also helped that there was no budget and that this film was made to focus more on the car stunts and action, so plot would have stepped all over that. 

Also, credit to Castellari and some of his shot set ups. It is unfortunate that the locations they used were all flat and brown (I know its a wasteland, but it really looked drab and uninteresting) because some of the camera movements and they way he chose to tell the story worked quite well. You can see the talent behind the camera at work. I said something similar about his decision making in shot selection for Escape from the Bronx, and it shows that he was a more than competent film maker. I do wonder what he may have been able to do with a better script and an actual budget. 

I can also appreciate what Castellari was trying to do with the slow motion during the action sequences but it never really clicked with me. For a movie that is built upon the promise of kick you in the teeth action like the Road Warrior, slowing down the stunt work just feels counter intuitive. I also think slowing it down really showed the lack of budget. At least it was a conscious decision by Castellari to do something different, it just didn't work for me. Your mileage may vary.

The duo of Giancarlo Prete as Scorpion and Fred Williamson as Nadir worked well. They didn't necessarily like each other, but they saw they were on the same side and eventually grew to trust each other. It is a trope but one that works and their chemistry was good. I really missed Williamson's presence in Escape from the Bronx and I am glad that he was back for this third film. As ridiculous as his outfit looked, I never doubted his ability to explode the world with his bow and arrows.   

 It wouldn't be a rambling blog post without me mentioning the score. I was excited to hear what this film had in store for me as I really, really, enjoyed portions of the scores from 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx. What I found was very underwhelming and ultimately, disappointing. Check out the intro theme here:

That drum beat just drives me nuts. It feels off the mark for me. The rest of the score is less inspired than that. I will not be revisiting it again like the other two films. 

Films like Warriors of the Wasteland and the Warriors Trilogy are the reason I wanted to do the Year of the Knock Off to begin with. Is this one a hidden gem? Absolutely not. Was it worth the trip to go through the three films and see some ridiculous action, over the top explosions, find some more fun synth film scores, and to see how Castellari and crew were able to plan these films and shoot them all in six months? Most assuredly. 

The circles I have been traveling within these knock off films has caused my orbit with film itself to get wider and more interesting. If the short term sacrifice is that a little time is spent with a not so great Road Warrior also ran means I get a greater appreciation for how hard it is to make a great film in the long term; I will do it every time. 

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off? 

Let's see what it had in common with The Road Warrior:

• Post apocalyptic wasteland
• Weird looking cars (with bubble tops?)
• A lead character that just wants to be alone but can't stop himself from doing the right thing.
• Kids that are smarter than they should be (maybe the boomerang kid in The Road Warrior wasn't the brightest, but he knew to wear a leather strap around his hand while throwing a razor sharp boomerang).
• No shortage of gas or that gas still functions properly.

I will give Warriors of the Wasteland a 6 because it really did try to go for the aesthetic of The Road Warrior but kind of fell on its keys. 

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Ator swung harder by trying to make its own mythology that was different than Conan the Barbarian, while Warriors of the Wasteland introduced The Templars and their mission, it really did nothing with it. Ator is just a more fun time than this film. If only Ator had Fred Williamson in it. Every film that does not have Fred Williamson is missing Fred Williamson and is lesser by all accounts. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

If you were curious like me and wanted to see what the third film of the Warriors Trilogy would look like, yes. If you aren't already on board with how weird Italian cinema can be, then maybe not. This would be a nice easy fun watch to have on in the background while people have a few drinks. You don't have to think to hard and you can take a shot every time Nadir takes a shot with his bow and be good and drunk by the end. 

Bonus:

If you want to watch the movie for 'free,' it is on Youtube. Decent enough copy of it too. Remember, the nuclear holocaust is just next year, so don't dilly dally.

Also, looks like RiffTrax has gotten to this gem of film already so if you wanted to watch it with some quality commentary on top of it, there ya go.

Bonus Bonus:

Everytime I think of wasteland car combat, I can't help but think of one of my favorite Playstation One games, Vigilante 8. I really wish they would make a new version (there was an updated version released for the Xbox Arcade a while ago, but it was just an update of the original) because I loved the late 70's setting and the combat was fun. 

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Year Of The Knock Off! Bad Dreams (1988)

This post is a week late and for that I apologize. I know everyone was on the edge of their seat wondering when I would poorly type out half baked thoughts on a film you may or may not have heard of while I post weird .gifs and images from said films. Much like the difficulties I had when I was trying to write about Spacehunter, I had the majority of this post already written when I made the fatal error of attempting to save it as a draft on Blogger. Evidently there is a known issue that drafts don't save correctly with this platform and I am not the first person to lose all of their work. It sucks. I had some amazing jokes and commentary that has been lost to the ages. No, don't go looking for it, it was too good and I set the bar way to high. It's for the best.

The film I chose to watch for the blog for October is one that was chasing the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. But, Paul, why did you decide to look at a Nightmare knockoff and not another Child's Play pretender? Well, Dolly Dearest and its made for TV blandness turned me off to the cursed doll subgenre of horror for a bit. 

So before I accidently lose this post's contents, let's have some Bad Dreams. 

The trailer doesn't shy away from the goop.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing. 

First, a small warning. Bad Dreams isn't the greatest film, but it does have some surprisingly effective gore in it. If you are bothered by such imagery, then maybe you should steer clear of this discussion as I will be sharing some gnarly .gifs. We good? Good.

Bad Dreams starts off in the mid 1970's at a farm/compound called Unity Fields. It is lead by the charismatic and very creepy Franklin Harris (Richard Lynch, more on him later). He is talking about the 'ultimate joining' of man and woman in unity while he is bringing his followers up one by one to be baptized by a ladle of liquid. He tells them its the final break with the old world and with the dawn, a new day begins, a day of unity. 

He sees hippies. Hippies for miles.

One of the followers, Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin) is somewhat hesitant to take Harris's invitation but slowly does so, being baptized. That evening, the house that the members of Unity is living in explodes into a ball of flame and Cynthia is pulled unconscious from the fire, the only known survivor. The injuries from the explosion put Cynthia into a coma for 13 years.

RIP hippies. The fire probably stank of Patchouli and Grateful Dead album covers.

When Cynthia wakes up, she finds herself in the care of Dr. Berrisford (Harris Yulin). Cynthia can not remember the specific events of the night when Unity Fields burned and Dr. Berrisford believes group therapy can help her recover her lost memories. The group therapy though, is composed of people who are suffering from borderline personality disorder and it is not quite apparent why Cynthia would be placed with people who's biggest challenges are with anger, delusion, and self harm. The leader of the group, Dr. Alex Karmen (Bruce Abbott) doesn't understand why Berrisford placed her there as well but goes along with the placement because Berrisford is his superior. 

Bruce Abbot's name may sound somewhat familiar. He was Dr. Dan Cain in the Re-Animator films. He was the straight man to Jeffery Combs's Dr. Herbert West. Can someone get type cast as a well meaning doctor that has shit go crazytown no matter how hard he tries to not let that happen?  

'My diagnosis? Yes.'

Cynthia seems moderately well adjusted considering her cult past and 13 years gone. She is trying to figure out her next steps in life as she has no friends or family or anything waiting for her outside the hospital. There's only one problem though; she keeps seeing Franklin Harris showing and  up asking her to join him on the other side, to be unified with him and the rest of his followers. One particular creepy moment involves Cynthia in an elevator full of people when he appears.

'Third floor: kitchen wares, comas, and burned up hotdog men.'

No one believes Cynthia that she is seeing him, they do believe that she is processing what happened to her years ago. After doing some 'scream therapy' (where all the group members screamed into pillows), Cynthia's memories of that last night flood back. She recalls that the liquid that Harris was baptizing members with was just straight gasoline. He pours a large tub of it over his head and lights a match, causing the house and the people inside to quickly get covered in flames. Some people react more slowly than others.

This is how I finally was able to get out of my Columbia House cassette club membership. As soon as her memory is filled in, Harris starts appearing more and more, trying to get Cynthia to kill herself and cross over to him. If she refuses to do so, he threatens that he will start taking those that are around her. She doesn't want to believe him but soon people do start to die around her in odd ways. Cynthia has a vision of seeing Harris baptizing her (in a creek, not with gasoline). As she is watching herself being forced underwater by him, Cynthia sees that it is no longer her in his hands, but a girl from her therapy group. When she snaps out of her vision, she hears commotion coming from the nearby hospital swimming pool. The girl from her group and her vision has forcibly drowned herself.  Later on, a group member that was once a reporter for a scandal magazine tries to convince Cynthia that they could both leave the hospital and sell her Unity Fields story and start her life over. The former reporter is getting on an elevator to go and get their belongings when Cynthia sees Harris waiting for her friend. The doors close and Cynthia races down the stairwell in hopes of stopping Harris.  Spoiler: She didn't.

With two very gruesome suicides in less than two days, the press come to ask an obvious question: Is it a coincidence that the girl from the suicide cult wakes up 13 years later and those around her are starting to kill themselves?  Dr. Berrisford dismisses this and simply states to the reporters that people with borderline personality disorder have a predisposition to committing suicide. He believes the therapy he is overseeing that Dr. Alex Karmen is conducting is the correct way to treat these people.

And as soon as he makes this statement, we find that two other group members, a not-so-secret couple, have snuck off after lights out to go have sex in a ventilation room with a large ominus spinning fan behind them. Cynthia, drawn out into the hallway due to some sounds she is hearing from the vents, looks up and see Harris in the vent beckoning her to join him. You would expect that because the couple that were having sexy times by the spinny fan would be the next victims and their blood would come out of the vents above Cynthia. You would be right. How it happens though, is not something I would expect many people to guess.

Worst. Sprinker. Ever.

There's is way more blood there than two horny people could produce. This doesn't even show that just before this happened a janitor gets a Double Dare sized portion of human slop dropped on him (including at least one hand). You have to believe that a hospital has some kind of protocol on how to deal with such a large biohazard. This will take days to address...

...or one guy with a mop in the very next scene. Give that man a raise.

As the numbers of the group dwindle, Crystal believes that Harris is actually killing them off till she finally joins him. Dr. Karmen decides to stay the night with Crystal in her room, to show her that there won't be any more deaths. 

Meanwhile, the last few members of the group have cops posted outside their room doors. Ralph (Dean Cameron), one of the more violent and aggressive group members, is alone in his room with a very large knife. Earlier in the film, Ralph confided in Cynthia that when things get to be too much, he makes a hole in himself to let it all out and he feels better. He shows her his abdomen that is filled with pinhole scars. Ralph with a knife is bad business. What he does with it though...

Turn away while you still can...

You have been warned....

You have only yourself to blame...

JESUS CHRIST.

I don't often swear out loud when watching a film by myself, but that hand jammed onto the knife made me say say stuff that I am not going to type here. Needless to say Ralph is not in a good state of mind after he does this. This sequence eventually leads to Ralph stabbing himself to death with scalpels in front of Cynthia and Dr. Karmen. 

Dr. Berrisford wants to now put Cynthia in isolation and Dr. Karmen disagrees and threatens to get a court order and Berrisford fires Karmen. Somewhere along the way, Karmen has one of the anti-depressants that was given the group members and decides to pop it on the way out the door, you know, as medically licensed professional doctor are oft to do. This leads to him having this vivid hallucination in the parking lot of him killing Berrisford. Dr. Karmen has a hunch and goes down to where the prescriptions are kept for all the patients in the hospital and checks his group members's records. The pharmacist there has a familiar face. Or at least a familiar voice. 

You might better know him as Roger Rabbit.

Dr. Karmen discovers, with the help of the pharmacist, that Berrisford secretly switched the therapy drugs to ones that are hallucinogenic and spike aggressive behavior. Berrisford was purposefully making his potentially suicidal patients tip over the edge and actually kill themselves to prove some theory about behavior he was researching. Franklin Harris wasn't really there. Berrisford was the real monster. 

Karmen confronts Berrisford as he is trying to get Cynthia to choose to jump off the roof of the hospital. Cynthia, drugged out of her mind, believes if she jumps, she will join Harris and the rest of Unity. Karmen saves the day and Berrisford ends up falling off the building. 

The film ends very quickly and then the credits play. With this song.

I was completely confused as to why Sweet Child O' Mine would be at the end of this film. Evidently, Bad Dreams was coming out right before Guns N' Roses blew up and became the biggest rock band in the world. Per the trivia for the film, the video for the song was supposed to be a tie in to Bad Dreams and was to show clips from the film. Axle Rose's girlfriend nixed the idea as she didn't want the song, which was about her, to be related to a film full of mentally unstable people killing themselves. Probably a good call.  

So a couple of comments about some of the cast and people behind Bad Dreams. First, this film was produced by Gale Ann Hurd. She's got a writing and producing credit on The Terminator, producing credit on Aliens (which came out two years prior to Bad Dreams) and is an executive producer on The Walking Dead. She knows how films and productions should work and is responsible for a lot of great stuff. I don't know why this was her very next project after Aliens. She feels too good for something like this. 

Second, this was written by Stephen E. de Souza (with the director Andrew Flemming). He is responsible for writing the scripts for 48 Hrs., Commando, The Running Man, Die Hard, Hudson Hawk, Judge Dredd (the Stallone One), and Street Fighter. He has more misses than hits, but he has memorable films. I don't really have more to add about him other than I was surprised that this was one of his films considering that he is mainly known for action and comedy. 

Third, Richard Lynch, who played Franklin Harris, was really good in this film. He had the right balance of magnetism and creepiness that made him always compelling to watch when he was on the screen. When I learned that in 1967, while under the influence of drugs that he had set himself on fire and burned 70% of his body, I lost my mind. I can't image what that would be like to go through and then one day take a role in which you play a character the purposefully douses themselves in gasoline and then lights themself on fire. I know he didn't actually do this during filming, but there has to be a long hard look in the mirror before you shoot that scene right? God damn, he elevates the quality of the film every time he shows up and knowing that he is playing a man who burned to death in light of the events of his actual life, it just makes his performance stronger.

I can see how Bad Dreams is trying to walk in the shadow of Dream Warriors. You have a burned up boogeyman reaching out from beyond the grave to a group of psychologically and emotionally challenged people who are on the verge of commiting suicide with very little push needed. Hell, the lead, Jennifer Rubin, was in Dream Warriors as Taryn, the punk rock girl with 7 foot tall mohawk. 

She's bad and beautiful. Just not in this film.

Also, the name of the film, Bad Dreams, is supposed to make you think that this film is trying to be Elm Street. There is one big problem with this though: CYNTHIA NEVER DREAMS IN THE FILM. No one dreams and then ends up dead. All the deaths happen while everyone is awake. There isn't even an attempt to do a headnod or eye flutter to imply that someone just accidently fell asleep and now they are in the boiler room Unity Fields. Maybe it is supposed to set you up for the fake out that the real cause of the problem was drugs, not dreams. In that case it works... kind of. 

I think there is an interesting idea in Bad Dreams, I just don't know if it was handled well. The notion that someone who was a part of a cult in which all the members voluntarily let themselves die and they did not,  and how would that affect their world view and their sense of purpose along with their self worth is an very compelling idea. Having their guilt manifest itself as a burned corpse of their leader/father figure adds layers to that. Then mix in that this all could be supernatural or their guilt or the drugs they are being forced to take and you have a film I want to watch. Bad Dreams somehow tries to do this but falls on its keys in a way that is hard to put my finger on. I think its biggest sin is that none of the characters are really relatable (most of the group members are obnoxious) and you don't really ever feel sympathy for any of them. If I don't care about anyone in the film, then I won't care when their blood coats an entire floor of a hospital.

Bad Dreams isn't a bad film, and it is worth watching for Richard Lynch and the gut twistingly great gore effects. I am glad I checked it out even if that hand stab is going to haunt my dreams (the ones I will have actually have, unlike the none that happened in the film) for quite a while.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I am going to go with a 7. It had the following:

• A burned up hotdog man tormenting people from the afterlife (kind of).
• Jennifer Rubin who was in Dream Warriors.
• Charles Fleischer who was in the original Nightmare on Elm Street.
• A death involving falling from a great height.
• A group of psychologically challenged patients being picked off one by one.
• A well meaning doctor trying to help his patients but ultimately can't.
• A rock song playing over the end credits (GNR is pretty good, but they are no Dokken).

If Bad Dreams had ended up being purely supernatural, it would have bumped the score up higher, but there is still a lot these films have in common.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Ator has less hand stabs and a way more awesome end credits song, but Bad Dreams is a better made film. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else? 

Yes, this is an interesting film to seek out if you have seen all the Elm Street films and are looking for a little different take on the same formula. Just don't eat while watching it. 

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