Avenging Force (1986)

Originally conceived by Cannon Films as a sequel to the Chuck Norris kill-fest Invasion USA, Avenging Force re-teams the stars and director of American Ninja 1 and 2. The goofy comic feel of those films is toned down and partly replaced with a darker tone, but end the result is still ridiculous and entertaining.

Ex-secret service agent, Matt Hunter (Michael Dudikoff) comes to the aid of his army buddy and best friend Larry Richards (Steve James), an African-American politician who has become a target for a racist organisation known as the Pentangle. After Larry's family is attacked and Hunter's sister kidnapped, Matt vows to take on the Pentangle one man at a time.

The script is mostly dumb and nonsensical (after a Pentangle massacre at a Mardi Gras parade, the people in the next street carry on as if nothing has happened) and the sadism and racism of the bad guys, who think nothing of shooting women and children in cold blood while throwing the N word around makes this a cruel affair at times.

Although Dudikoff is the star, Steve James steals every scene he is in with his charisma, energy, and obvious martial arts skills.

The climax is a Most Dangerous Game style chase through atmospheric Southern Gothic swamps, replete with lashings of thunder and lightning. Unfortunately, this turns out to not be quite the end, with a 15-minute coda whose sole purpose is to promise a sequel that never happened. Still, overall this is big dumb fun entertainment, that doesn't pretend to be anything else.

Chopping Mall (1986)

A slasher film crossbred with Dawn of the Dead and Short Circuit, Chopping Mall is cheap cheesy gory fun.

The Park Plaza Mall has just unveiled a hi-tech security system, consisting of three shiny new robots programmed to disable and apprehend thieves using lasers and grappling hooks. Meanwhile, a gang of teens are having an after-hours party in one of the mall shops where they work. As the evening heats up, a lightning storm hits the mall and damages the computer controlling the robots and the highly armed mechanised menaces now want to bump off anyone who shouldn't be in their mall - which is just about anyone who is there.

Of course, a film like this is going to have a brainless plot (to repeat, the mall plans to stop shoplifters with lasers that can split a person's head open) and paper-thin characters. But director Jim Wynorski also manages to strike the right balance, so the result is something not po-faced and serious, or too irritatingly knowing, just first-class trash viewing.

Wynorksi also chucks in some in-jokes for Corman buffs, from posters for his previous films to cameos from the likes of Dick Miller, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov.

Invaders from Mars (1986)

Noisy, shrill and charmless, this pointless Cannon Films funded remake of the 1950s paranoid classic is everything the original wasn't.

The plot follows the original, with young David Gardner seeing an alien spacecraft land in a quarry behind his house. When his normally warm and loving dad goes to investigate he returns cold and emotionless. As this behaviour starts to spread, taking in David's mother, teachers and fellow townspeople, his only ally is the school nurse, Linda Magnuson. Can they persuade the Marines to help them stop a Martian invasion?

The original may have had bargain basement effects and obvious padding to the running time, but it also had a bleak mood and the feverish quality of a child's nightmare, which, in this context, makes the ping pong ball eye aliens and rushed plotting work. This version has a big budget (much of which went on the impressive special effects), and a knowing, ironic tone, with portentous dialogue, telegraphed scenes of tension and several scenes played for laughs, but little else beyond this.

The Delta Force (1986)

Inspired by a real life plane hijacking incident, The Delta Force is an odd disjointed mix of tense hijack thriller and goofy macho comic book war film that lacks the truly unhinged quality of the most entertaining efforts by the legendary Cannon Films studios.

The plot, initially at least, loosely follows the true story of the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Libyan terrorists. Amongst other things, they separated the Jewish (or Jewish sounding) passengers and shot a US Navy diver who was on board and dumped his body on the runway. The fact that all this took place less than a year before the film's release, almost feels like a throwback to the 1930s Warner Brothers boast of having stories "torn from today's headlines"

The first half has both a tense, docudrama feel and an astonishing support cast that includes Hollywood veterans Robert Balsam, Joey Bishop, George Kennedy, Shelley Winters, and Lee Marvin, all of whom do their best, despite seeming totally out of place in a violent, cheap looking 80s action film.

Eventually The Delta Force switches gears drastically and turns into an A-Team episode on steroids, complete with flat cinematography and a cheesy rousing theme tune, with Chuck Norris leading his troops into battle, then leaving them behind so he can tear around on a motorbike that fires missiles, while all around him people shoot other people at close range without anybody getting hit, and there is a plentiful supply of cardboard boxes and fruit stands to drive through.

Ultimately though, this does start to drag, the endless explosions become numbing, and knowing Norris is invincible makes it impossible to create any peril or suspense.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Over a decade after his nightmarish original director Tobe Hooper returned to make a sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This time however, instead of a minuscule budget and a skeleton cast and crew, Hooper had the big bucks of Cannon films behind him, something that proved to be a mixed blessing.

When radio DJ Vanita 'Stretch' Brock accidentally captures on tape the Chainsaw murder of two obnoxious callers, she seeks out the help of former Texas Marshall 'Lefty' Enright (a post rehab Dennis Hopper). Enright is on a vigilante quest to track down the cannibal family from the first film, who he blames for the murder of his nephew.

This film is definitely a curate's egg. On one hand, the script has some interesting ideas about family and social status, and there is a great darkly comic turn from Jim Siedow as Drayton the cook (reprising his role from the first film), whose award-winning chilli has some rather unsavoury ingredients.

On the other hand, much of the film feels like an empty, noisy, overblown derivative 80s slasher, the comedy is strained and the horror isn't that scary. The first film was as ground-breaking stylistically as it was with subject matter, but here Hooper follows where he used to lead, although I suppose this may have been down to demands from the money men at Cannon films. It feels like there is a good movie buried in there somewhere and from what I've read Cannon cut out a lot of the class war satire.

My recent viewing was my first watch in about 20 years and back then it was still banned in the UK. So, the thrill of watching something legendary (with Dennis Hopper in) on a third generation dub of a Japanese laser-disc perhaps made me gloss over the flaws. Watching a digitally remastered copy on TV, the context is more mundane, and the flaws more obvious.



The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 - Trailer by bulldog_mini

Eliminators (1986)

An affable, sometimes crazy piece of sci-fi action, Eliminators makes the best of a low budget, as well as having a storyline that predates the likes of Robocop and Universal Soldier.

Elderly billionaire recluse Abbott Reeves (Roy Dotrice) has been a busy boy, keeping himself alive with skin grafts, and transfusions, as well as perfecting his time travel matter transfer device, and turning the body of a pilot pulled from crashed plane wreckage in Mexico into a half-human, half-robot "Mandroid" (Patrick Reynolds) in order to send him to and from Ancient Rome. When Reeves orders his assistant Dr. Takada to dismantle Mandroid, Takada refuses, and is killed as he and Mandroid escape. Mandroid teams up with Takada's colleague Colonel Nora Hunter (Denise Crosby of Star Trek TNG and Pet Semetary), Takada's Ninja son Kuji (Conan Lee of Gymakta fame) and mercenary Harry Fontana (Andrew Prine) to take out Reeves. As they get closer to their target, they realise Reeves isn't just time travelling in order to collect antiques - his plans could alter the history and fate of the whole world.

For the most part, the story zips by at a great pace, keeping the twists and turns coming, as long as you don’t stop to think too hard about some of them, peppering them with plenty of gun fights and chases. The star of the show is Mandroid, who has some pretty nifty interchangeable weapons, not to mention his “mobile unit”, a mini tank which he detaches his legs to climb into. The action is not too grim or gory, making the film fine for teenage viewers, and I did wonder at one point whether anyone had planned a toy line based on the characters.

With Mandroid being, by his nature, pretty stern and emotionless, it’s left to Hunter and Fontana to maintain the human interest, and during the riverboat scenes, while they are no Hepburn and Bogart, they keep the lulls in the action going with their bickering. Lee does his best with a limited role, but his character is brought in at just the right moment to give the story a lift and an extra dimension.

The final twist in the tale seems to come from nowhere, and provoked a laugh out loud response from the audience I saw the film with, but in the schlocky, good natured context of this film, it works.

Never Too Young To Die (1986)

The success of the James Bond franchise has spawned many spoofs and rip-offs over the years, all trying to cash in on the glamour and gadgets. These range from more mainstream films, such as the Matt Helm series, featuring Dean Martin, to more off-the-wall efforts such as For Your Height Only, starring the 2ft 9in tall Filipino actor Weng Weng, and Never Too Young to Die definitely belongs on the latter end of the scale. This is mostly due to an outrageous, unforgettable turn from KISS bass player Gene Simmons as a cross-dressing super villain/nightclub singer. Throw in cameo appearances from both a bona fide James Bond, in the shape of George Lazenby, and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, as a computer geek, some truly awful 80s music, and plot twists and turns that range all the way from stupid to incomprehensible, and you have a film never fails to entertain
John Stamos (a big TV star in the USA, not so well known in the UK) plays Lance Stargrove, the teenage son of secret agent Drew Stargrove (Lazenby). Stargrove Sr dies while trying to stop evil villain Velvet Von Ragner (Simmons) from poisoning the nation's drinking water. Lance sets out on a vengeance mission, teaming up with his father’s glamorous sidekick Danja Deering, and his college roommate Cliff, who, fortuitously, happens to be a nerdy genius with a stash of deadly gadgets and weapons.
The children-taking-over-from-the-grown-up-spies is a minor sub genre in itself, and the basic premise in this is no less stupid, and requires no more suspension of disbelief than in films like Spy Kids or Teen Agent. In addition, to the writer’s credit, they did go with the classic Hitchcock “MacGuffin”, in this case the hunt for a computer disc that is somehow vital to Ragner and his plans. Despite this, however, the wheels soon come off the film pretty quickly, thanks to – well pretty much everything, from the plot, the endless continuity gaffes, the soundtrack, the wooden acting, the overacting, and Lance Stargrove himself.
Marvel as our hero outwits teenage wrestling bullies, by pointing at one guy's chest, asking "What's that?", and then prodding him in the face when he looks down. Gasp as his roommate shows off his sub-Bond gadgets, while never questioning how dangerous it might be to keep a homemade flamethrower in their dorm, or how stupid an idea it is to put a bugging device in chewing gum. Cringe at the painfully awkward attempts by Danja to seduce the son of her former colleague by constantly hosing herself down while he eats a variety of different fruits. Wince as he attempts to tackle Ragner by biting his nipple. Be warned though - your head may explode when you hear the lyrics to his theme song.  (“…Stargrove, flying like you've never flown, Stargrove, running through a danger zone…”)

 
The real star of the show is, of course, Gene Simmons, channelling Tim Curry in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, completely dispensing with his regular macho rock star persona, wearing less makeup than when he appears with KISS, but still clad in a gold corset, with a feather boa around his neck. 

Like all good villains, Ragner has a secret lair, in this case, a biker bar / nightclub, where he is the main act, and his minions, dressed like extras from Mad Max, can gather together and be addressed as “turd balls” by him. He is also a master of disguise, by which I mean everybody except the people on screen can see that it is actually him underneath a poorly fitting wig and beard, pretending to be one of the good guys. And he dispatches his enemies by stabbing with an exceptionally long fingernail, or “giving them the finger”. While too shrill and hysterical to be genuinely menacing, the performance is always underpinned with a slightly unwholesome air, as if Simmons if not actually acting too hard in order to play a sleazy megalomaniac.
Director Gil Bettman had previously made TV shows such as Knight Rider and The Fall Guy, and the whole thing certainly has a small screen feel to it, with a cheap look and often flat, generic visuals. Thankfully, the goofy script, and mind-blowing villain make for great dumb, delirious fun, and a trash classic.