Kategoria: Revenge

#1898 Wild Thing (1987)

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Wild Thing is basically a modern day Tarzan in a concrete jungle. After seeing his hippie parents get killed and being risen in a slums with a philosophy of never being seen and helping the oppressed, Wild Thing has become something of a urban myth on the streets.

The concept has potential for a different kind of a superhero (cartoon) franchise, by really making the main character a cool and mystical creature. But, Wild Thing ultimately fails to pull this off.

It is all in all quite tame ride that – while mildly entertaining – does not really live up to its full potential.

80s-o-meter: 78%

Total: 61%

#1891 A Time To Die (1982)

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A Time To Die feels like a case of someone reading through the original book by Mario Puzo too many times over, and then explaining it to someone else who also knows the novel.

As for someone with none of this background information the movie and the way that it tells its story of an U.S. Intelligence agent on a revenge killing spree feels cryptic; you can kind of understand and follow what happens, but the movie never leads you close to the characters. It’s like well you can read this in the book if you want to dig deeper.

With A Time To Die doing such a poor job in basic story telling I cannot but view it purely as a plain stupid action thrilller – which is where it fails as well. The action is poor, with no real sense of tension or showmanship. What’s worst, the revenges lack the real sense of satisfaction many exploitative revenge movies double down on.

80s-o-meter: 21%

Total: 17%

#1828 Halloween 2023: Grotesque (1988)

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Grotesque is like a gas station buffet, with little bit of everything sub par quality thrown on the plate, with hopes of someone finding even something to fill their tummies with.

At first this feels a bit unbalanced, but once you get the hang of what hodgepodge the movie is by design, this experience with deformed killers and maniac punks that look straight out of a cheap Benny Hill sketch becomes much more tolerable. Grotesque is not officially categorised as a comedy, but clearly this is the undertone throughout the movie and its surprising events.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 61%

#1821 Action U.S.A. (1989)

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Action U.S.A. is a pretty much showreel put together by stuntmen, with a thin plot used to carry the action to the next stunt.

The movie has been something of a social media darling in the last few years, and often praised for its top notch action and stunts. However, I was not sold on either. Sure, there’s plenty of both, but to me they feel pretty much run-of-the-mill, and certainly nothing to write home about.

So it’s ultimately the lack of proper script where Action U.S.A. fails. The movie borrows elements from many movies with its very Lethal Weapon influenced protagonists, but fails to create something of its own. With more tight writing and some originality thrown in this would’ve been an OK package, but if you’re not the type that gets easily excited of car chases, bar fights and stuntmen lit on fire, you will be wanting to skip this one.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 45%

#1805 Walking the Edge (1985)

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Walking the Edge is a revenge / vigilante movie portraying an asian housewife seeking revenge against the killers of her family, and finding an unexpected ally in Forster, a taxi-driver who gets dragged into the action against his will.

The leading duo is an interesting, strange couple that never seem to mix in a believable way; I would not be surprised if the two leads did not get along behind the scenes as the always seem to be unhappy sharing the same space.

The film’s vigilante theme is a standard fare in every possible way, but with Robert Forster delivering a surprisingly charming performance as the reluctant hero with an unlikely love interest to the unlikely killer, not bothered by the complete lack of chemistry between the two.

80s-o-meter: 65%

Total: 61%

#1794 American Rampage (1989)

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I’m not quite sure whether to call this one a harmless or useless action movie. In any case, the world would have remained the same even if American Rampage never existed.

The movie does a little of everything seen elsewhere in the genre, but with less oomph and craftsmanship. The female lead seems like a nice change of pace on the surface, but remembering that this is still at heart a woman revenge movie, American Rampage feels less like something new and fresh, stinking more of a typical exploitation movie of the era.

Speaking of which – since there is not enough content here to fill a VHS tape, the movie is padded with numerous far too long nude scenes to help the movie make it to to the 90 minute mark.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 21%

#1707 Halloween 2022: Slaughter High aka April Fool’s Day aka The Last Laugh (1986)

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Although the poster claims that Slaughter High is from the makers of Friday the 13th, they don’t share the same writers nor the director, so I’m not quite sold on that claim. Anyway, Slaughter High is a copy pastey slasher revenge movie where mistreated and disfigured nerd who was picked in high school gets back to his old school mates visiting the abandoned school in a class reunion, wearing an off-the-shelf old joker mask. Or is it him?

Well, yes it is. And there’s nothing very imaginative going on in the movie. The killer has gained superhuman powers and speed and will get anywhere in the school before others and can smell where they are without seeing them, while the ex students have become more stupid than ever, running around the school and getting separated from each others to be more easy targets.

Slaughter High isn’t a bad slasher and has proper production quality to it, but other than that it’s totally and utterly uninspired product.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 37%

#1635 War Cat aka Angel of Vengeance (1987)

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There’s a group of survivalists living in a desert that after clashing with a motorcycle gang decide to make a game of human hunting out of one of the females. Needless to say it does not go as planned as she decides to fight back instead.

War Cat revisits the often seen human hunting / female revenge concept, and does not bring anything that new to the mix. It does perform as expected, so those who are fans of the genre will find something here to spend easy 90 minutes with.

80s-o-meter: 82%

Total: 61%

#1599 Halloween 2021: Deadly Daphne’s Revenge aka The Hunting Season (1987)

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Deadly Daphne’s Revenge kind of shouldn’t be in this Halloween feature, but little did I know it wasn’t strictly speaking a horror movie, but more of a thriller. It seemed to be made in the vein of I Spit On Your Grave and its numerous 80s copies, but what it ends up is kind of a made for TV style movie that looks like it was shot in mid seventies, with quite terrible acting, a few quite interesting plot twists, and an ending gone horribly wrong.

It’s in this ending that the movie finally claims its name, and introduces some horror elements, but .. well … it’s just plain stupid, isn’t it.

80s-o-meter: 50%

Total: 43%

#1590 Halloween 2021: Necromancer (1988)

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Ahem, so okay.. Apparently there’s a Necromancer living in this suburban garage who then helps one girl to take revenge on a gang of fellow high school students that raped her.

Necromancer is an exceptionally bad and credibility look into supernatural mumbo-jumbo, coupled with some piss poor special effects. And I’m being polite here.

I just skimmed through the movie once again before rating it to see if it would have any redeeming qualities to mention. But no – the movie starts ok but just keeps getting gradually worse and worse towards the end.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 11%

#1585 Halloween 2021: The Aftermath aka Zombie Aftermath (1982)

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I’ve been somewhat in the know about the cult status of The Aftermath, but 30 minutes in to the movie I did not understand quite why; it’s pretty shoddy, but not quite bad enough to entertain, and visually it’s more close to movies you’d see towards the early 70s – including its beginning, lifted straight out of the original Planet of the Apes. Also the way the camera was operated and framed seemed to be a bit off all times.

It was only after digging to the internet for more information that I learned how the whole movie is a brainchild of the movie’s lead Steve Barkett, who also wrote, directed and edited the movie. Considering how much harder all this was not only to finance, but to pull off technically, my hat is off to Barkett. Overall, well done – the movie looks better than many bigger budget movies of the 1978.

You read it right. The movie was actually shot originally in 1978, but it took Barkett four years to shoot additional footage and to get the movie released. Released in the UK as Zombie Aftermath, the movie does not actually contain any zombies, and is very slim in the scary department as well, falling more closely to dystopian action movie category, rather than horror.

80s-o-meter: 28%

Total: 45%

#1567 The Last Fling (1987)

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John Ritter and Connie Sellecca, both seasoned TV and made for TV movie actors star in this TV movie made by ABC. As far as made for TV movies go, this one fares very well, resembling your quite average feature film made with a modest budget, and actually got distributed widely as a rental movie as well.

Ritter plays a popular playboy grown tired of one night stands, while Sellecca portrays a role of a fiancée who goes out to try to match her groom’s wild stag party – with dire consequences.

The story is nothing to write to home about, but solid acting work of both leads and good production quality make The Last Fling an a-ok time passer.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 72%

#1563 Extremities (1986)

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Well, here’s a weird sort of screen chemistry ongoing: Extremities is a tragic movie of horror of the events that unfold when an intruder enters the home of a woman, with the intention of performing sexual (and deadly) violence on her – and it therefore feels odd to say, but the leads Farrah Fawcett and James Russo actually go well together on the screen.

Extremities is rooted in female revenge movies genre first capitalised in I Spit On Your Grave (1978) and continued in the 80s with the likes of Naked Vengeance, Ms .45, Extremeties and The Ladies Club. But similarly to the recent Positive I.D. (1986), Extremities bravely wanders off the trashy path of the genre to try something new.

The exploitative revenge porn aspect is still there, but here the heroine stops to think about the morals of her vigilant act as she balances on the very verge of the point of no return, realising she’s damned is she don’t and damned if she does. It’s this part that totally make Extremities worth checking out as it begs us as the viewers to ask ourselves those very same questions.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 85%

#1543 Positive I.D. (1986)

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Positive I.D. is probably the best twist I’ve seen to date in the woman revenge genre as it concentrates more on the identity – and loss thereof – affected by personal violation.

And its study on its female suspect and the enigmatic change she goes through is really interesting. Much more so than any your typical female revenge porn movie could provide.

A low budget movie shot with mostly unknown cast, Positive I.D. manages to find its own, weird slightly out of tune tone of voice that makes the movie viewing experience quite unique and rewarding.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 85%

#1481 Face of the Enemy (1989)

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Featuring one of the most interesting synopsis’ I’ve encountered in the recent years, Face of the Enemy is a low budget drama thriller about a former CIA agent who after getting caught and tortured in Middle-East has since returned to home and working as a guard, until he one year recognises someone who he suspects is one of his captors that has since moved to the states under different identity. After the officials decline any help he takes the actions to his own hands and decides to prison the suspect to his cellar and force out the confession out of her.

With Face of the Enemy the director Hassan Ildari has managed to create an intriguing little thriller with minimalistic elements. The trip to the depths of the human psyche is dark and interesting from the start to the end, but Face of the Enemy in its 100 minutes of running time does very little but scratch the surface of what could be hidden underneath; this is one of those concepts that would’ve probasbly worked even better as mini series.

That, or a novel.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 70%

#1465 Sacred Ground (1983)

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A mountain man in mid 19th century Oregon builds a cabin to the Native American’s burial site and then revenges the death of his wife by kidnapping a woman from the tribe and killing the chasing tribe members with a repeater stolen from the vendor who lent his horse to him.

In the age of political correctness all the depictions with Native Americans seem a bit uncomfortable, and I’m not sure it Sacred Ground does justice to the Paiutes. I kind of like how the movie handles the disputable decisions of its caucasian lead – this is not the heroic, virtuous character often seen in classic Western movies – but I’d appreciated if the movie had included more the point of view of the tribesmen.

The real star of the show are the Oregon nature and mountains, and the movie captures well what I’d imagine the life there might’ve been back then.

80s-o-meter: 0%

Total: 43%

#1450 Blue City (1986)

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Blue City is the kind of a movie that’s firmly detached from any reality and where there are no real motivations or consequences for the actions of the characters.

Judd Nelson as the lead proves to be a tough cookie for me handle; he always seems to be borderline annoying in his roles, and unlike in From The Hip where he managed to turn his negative traits into something positive, in Blue City his totally wild and rebellious character comes off totally unlikeable.

The quite implausible events in Blue City would be easier to accept if the cinematography supported the fantasy aspect of the plot with a more fictitious setting and characters. But, if you manage to accept early on that Blue City takes place in Fantasyville, Hollywood, chances are you will enjoy the movie more than I did.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 60%

#1442 The War of the Roses (1989)

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I haven’t been shy on saying about how Danny DeVito is one of the Hollywood’s unsung heroes, that has never received the critical acclaim he should’ve – both as a director and an actor. The War of the Roses, his second feature film after Throw Momma from the Train is once again a good looking, well directed piece of cinema where it’s only the manuscript that runs out of steam before the end.

A black comedy about a couple going through the most devastating divorce ever evolves from a love story into a spiral of revenge that in the end devours them both. But it seems that the story lacks one more step in evolution; the characters become more and more two dimensional caricatures – until the last showdown that manages to revive some more dimensions to them.

The War of the Roses is a good movie with a constant feeling of huge untapped potential that the movie never quite redeems, and although the leads Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas perform well on the screen, it’s DeVito himself whose appearances always leave me hungry for more.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 75%

#1404 Halloween 2020: The Weirdo (1989)

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An oddball of a youngster gets bullied by various people until he reaches his breaking point.

There’s an argument to be made that The Weirdo isn’t a horror movie at all. It’s a revenge movie, and not a very good one at that. The concept has been used many times much more effective, touching, gruesome, shocking – you name it – way, and served in a visually more splashy fashion.

Only interesting aspect in The Weirdo is how the main character is just not simple innocent victim, but like many outcasts he can also be bit of an asshole, even towards the people that care for him.

80s-o-meter: 50%

Total: 4%

#1364 Chained Heat (1983)

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Apparently one of the definite women in prison movies of the 80s due to featuring Linda Blair, Chained Heat wasn’t the movie that’d finally convert me to a fan of the genre.

What I liked about it was just how over the top (and all over the place in general) the movie is. This is the weirdest prison I’ve ever seen with seemingly no boundaries: every prisoner is free to roam wherever they want and are often invited to the warden’s private luxury room of sexy-time with jacuzzi and cameras.

Other than that, it’s pretty standard ride. The women are much too sexy and well groomed to be prisoners, all the guards are sadists and the movie culminates with your typical vengeful prison riot.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 25%