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.

Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988)

If you could have any wish come true, what would it be? Have Sorority House Initiations gotten out of hand? Where is the best place to keep a jive talking imp trapped for all eternity? All these questions and more are explored in Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.

The story starts off in Animal House territory, with three nerds ogling female students before getting roped into helping with their sorority task of stealing a bowling trophy from a shopping mall. It then takes a turn towards The Monkey’s Paw, with the discovery of an Imp that had been trapped inside the trophy, an Imp that can grant people one wish. The wishes go horribly wrong, of course, and the gang find themselves trapped in the mall, at the mercy of the Imp (with one of them turned into a lookalike of Elsa Lanchester as The Bride of Frankenstein).

The obvious criticisms of this film are kind of pointless. It looks like it was shot for next to no money, in a few days, with a half-baked script and a shitty puppet character, because it was, and the arch, knowing tone of the film acknowledges this, and revels in it.

If you can cope with this, and/or you are a fan of any of the holy trinity of scream queens in the cast (Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer) then it is definitely worth a watch. Quigley especially shines, her spunky heroism making the men look stupid and going some way to correcting the leering sexism of the shower scenes.

The soundtrack I found also particularly memorable, veering between nauseating schmaltz, generic 80s chase music, and what sounded like outtakes from late 80s era Skinny Puppy.



Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) Grindhouse Collection from Full Moon Screeners on Vimeo.