Kategoria: Revenge

#902 The Majorettes (1987)

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The Majorettes starts out as your typical early 80s copy-paste high school slasher, and not as a particularly good one at that. There’s a small town cheerleader gang, a few naked locker room tit scenes and a killer that begins doing them in.

The movie keeps ticking on all the lowest common denominator boxes until in the act two it inexplicably turns into a revenge flick as one of the jocks annihilates a local motorcycle gang. The change is so abrupt and out of place that if I was in a movie theatre, I would’ve assumed the projectionist had swapped in a wrong reel by accident. I can only assume this is all done to make the otherwise uninspired slasher somehow a bit more unique.

This change of a pace unfortunately adds only a limited amusement factor to it all, and the movie itself remains subpar until the very end.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 17%

#890 Ms .45 (1981)

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A revenge exploitation movie that makes Death Wish look like a serious drama, Ms .45 tells a story of a young woman who goes on a psychotic rampage against the mankind after getting raped.

It a dull ride with an exceptionally unpleasant cast and that stuffy 70s scent hovering all over it. The movie gets less and less interesting as the bodies pile up until I really couldn’t care any less what happens next in the movie. It replaces the violence or the prolonged rape scenes of its paragon I Spit on Your Grave with some finesse and style, but otherwise it has dropped down from the very same trash tree.

There is some kind of a cult status associated with the movie, but really there isn’t anything here that hasn’t been done much better since — or before.

80s-o-meter: 48%

Total: 8%

#784 Stick (1985)

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I don’t know how closely Elmore Leonard’s 1983 novel Stick resembles your average below the counter cheap pulp, but that’s exactly what Burt Reynolds’ directorial version of it offers. Something definitely got misaligned here, since Leonard ended up disowning the whole movie as it was released.

Stick seems to play with silly personalities that could’ve end up somewhat memorable, but here they only come across as paper thin characters right out a TV comedy sketch. Particularly soul aching to watch is the completely idiotic bozo of a crime villain the great Charles Durning has ended up playing here. Reynolds himself walks through the movie without much enthusiasm and once again ends up portraying somewhat of a caricature of his public image.

The real gem of the movie is its antagonist, a albino hit-man played by the stuntman Dar Robinson. A visually memorable baddie, Robinson’s portrayal loathsome, seemingly dead inside character holds some resemblance with Halloween series’ antagonist Michael Myers. This would sadly remain Robinson’s only feature film acting role before his untimely death one year later, in 1986.

80s-o-meter: 76%

Total: 48%

#781 Eye of the Tiger (1986)

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There’s something about the evil motorcycle gangs that one can’t take them quite seriously after seeing Clint Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose. Nonetheless, this is the enemy Gary Busey faces in Eye of the Tiger after returning to his home town after doing time in a prison for a murder.

If the name of the movie rings a bell to a well known pop song usually related to certain boxing movies, you’d probably be as baffled as I to find out the movie features the very same song by Survivor. But, it turns out this isn’t even the most confusing aspect of the movie; Eye of the Tiger is a truly mindless action packed revenge story best enjoyed after stopping to try to make any sense out of it all and just going along with the ride.

The whole over the top 80s B-action – including some decapitated bikers – is more entertaining than it really deserves to be and there’s certain hilarious charm to the off-the-wall aspect to it all.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 74%

#774 Out Cold (1989)

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A smartly written black comedy that proves to have plenty of aces up its sleeve, Out Cold starts extremely slow but does get better every minute towards the end. While the movie itself is relatively unknown, its cast of a-list actors makes up for an fresh mix. John Lithgow plays a socially awkward butcher, a character not unlike his later TV-role as Dr. Dick Solomon. Teri Garr performs admirably as the black widow wife, and Randy Quaid makes for a perfect confused detective that wanders from one scene to another, always hilariously clueless.

There’s something very off-Hollywood about the whole movie; even if the locations are clearly those of California, somehow the overall mood of the movie resembles more an indie movie shot in Great Britain or New Zealand. While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why this is, clearly some elements like the really unusual(ly bad) soundtrack play a big part here. Personally, I’m really not a big fan of these design choices, and they did bring the overall score down.

Even with its flaws Out Cold is a charming little 90-minuter that manages to earn my recommendation – but won’t be going into my watch again pile.

80s-o-meter: 61%

Total: 68%

#765 Halloween 2017: 976-Evil (1988)

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Considering that Robert Englund had very much become a household name for horror as Freddy in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, his directorial debut 976-Evil surprisingly lacks some essential ingedients to make a quality horror movie.

First of all, the movie is pretty low on scares. Secondly, as soon as the movie lead gets possessed by the evil, we kind of lose our protagonist there, leaving the audience with no-one to root for for the second half of the movie, effectively making the movie sort of a revenge porn instead of horror.

Stephen Geoffreys pretty much reprises his role from Fright Night, playing a nerdy character who finds himself empowered by the forces of the evil. While the performance here falls short of the other one, it’s still Geoffreys’ and his ability to create these somewhat of their trolley, but still much likeable characters that make this movie worth your time.

Even with its obvious shortcomings, 976-Evil is professionally executed movie that may unspectacular – but never dull.

80s-o-meter: 86%

Total: 70%

#683 Kickboxer (1989)

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A definition of the phrase guilty pleasure, Kickboxer is like Karate Kid on amphetamine, with the totally ripped Jean-Claude Van Damme taking names and kicking ass in Thailand.

Thailand proofs to an interesting and exotic location for the movie, and Dennis Chan makes for a cool and memorable Muay Thai trainer who takes Van Damme under his wing. There are some hilarious tongue-in-cheek moments among the training montages, and the scene with Van Damme dancing in a bar is just pure comedy gold.

Kickboxer is a feel good film with top notch action and some well choreographed fight scenes thrown in to the mix as well. It’s not a good film by any standard – but by golly is it entertaining!

80s-o-meter: 88%

Total: 93%