Tagged: 1986
VHS Verdict: ‘Thunder Run’ Proves That in the 80’s Old Guys Kick Ass!
I dusted off a VHS copy of ‘Thunder Run’ from 1986 last night and we got to see a hotshot 67 year old action star kickin’ major ass in his souped up semi truck! Yeeehaw! Yep this one was a total blast, if you’re looking for some seriously over the top action and crazy car chase trucker mayhem then you just won the fuckin’ lottery!
Forrest Tucker is the man here, a retired truck driver named Charlie who’s asked by an old friend/ Gov’t operative to drive a load of plutonium across a barren Arizona highway to lure out some psychotic terrorists and take them out once and for all. Sounds like a fool proof plan huh?
Nope this one doesn’t give us Jean Claude Van Damme or a Chuck Norris type kicking ass, instead you get an elderly bad ass geezer who tricks out his rig with a bunch deadly secret weapons he can activate via dashboard flip switches. We’ve got some classic bad guys too, their leader, a poor man’s Michael Ironside look alike with a nasty attitude and of course naturally a nasty facial scar (because we all know evil people sport nasty facial scars) does his best to be the perfect evil 80’s villain. The best part of the flick though is when the actual dangerous drive cross country begins and Charlie discovers his grandson is hiding in the cab and is fully ready for duo tag team terrorist ass whoopin!
So once the action kicks into high gear it really just does not let up. Nope this one has crazy terrorists coming after the big rig from every direction on motorcycles, fake cop cars, weaponized Volkswagon Beetles & rival semi trucks. Charlie and his grandson get down and dirty roasting terrorists with flame throwers that they’ve installed into the sides of the semi, battering rams and some truly outrageous big rig road antics.
This is the type of flick where it don’t take much more than a scratch to blow the fuck out of car with huge amounts of fire shit flying everywhere. It’s nice to actually see real explosions again in a damn movie that’s for sure. One scene in particular where they jump the 18 wheeler (with plutonium in back mind you) over a moving train! Oh and the finale through the ridiculous laser tunnel is a total blast as well. So check this one out if you’re jonesin’ for a different type of action flick and action hero as ‘Thunder Run’ will deliver the goods on all cylinders and then some! This one’s worth hunting down!
The CRITTERS are Back from the Eighties?!!
It seems the Critters back! There’s rumors going around that Warner Bros is getting ready to revive the 1980’s classic flick with a reboot or sorts. Well we all know that this new version of critters will most likely be nothing like the original movies, but a fan took matters into his own hands and came up with this awesome short film, Critters: Bounty Hunter.
This is pretty rad and it feels just like the 80’s Critters franchise we have grown to love over the years. Jordan Downey put this cool little six minute film together and if Warner wants to get the spirit of the original they should really be taking notes on this sweet little short! This is the type of Critters that we want. I’m starting to feel like the fan made movies are better than what Hollywood is coming up with these days- Check this shit out!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Matt Murdock’s Crappy Christmas!!
I love digging up cool comic books that took place around Christmas time and Daredevil #229 fits that bill quite perfectly! This is an especially rad cover of a time when Matt Murdock went homeless on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen due to the Kingpin ruining his entire life. This has got to be one of the lowest points in the characters history as Murdock is down on his luck in this grim story arc written by Frank Miller before he turned into a crazy douche bag. This issue also has one of the most brutal fights between Murdock and the Kingpin as they go head to head in Fisk’s office. It’s bloody and Matt gets his ass kicked big time…damn I’m feeling as I type this the urge to read these issues again immediately! The cover is brilliantly drawn back in 1986 by one of my fav artists David Mazzucchelli and clearly shows how crappy Christmas was that particular year for Daredevil….
The Seventh Curse: Indiana Jones….on Acid!
I finally checked out a movie I’d been wanting to see now for the longest time-The Seventh Curse from 1986! This is surely one of the coolest movies that you’ve never seen! This Chinese action/ adventure/ horror movie has got it all and I’d really expect no less from a flick by Ngai Kai Lam. If you aren’t familiar with Lam you’ve missed out big time for a long time. Most famous for “Riki-Oh:The Story of Ricky” from 1991, which is seriously one of the coolest movies ever made, The Seventh Curse is equally as good in different yet similar ways. I guess I’d best have to describe The Seventh Curse as Hong Kong’s fucked up version of Indiana Jones, and I mean that in the best way possible.
This one has it all really, a young adventuresome cop deep in the jungles of Thailand tries to rescue a beautiful girl from being sacrificed by the evil “Worm Tribe”. In doing so he’s captured by an evil witch Doctor who casts seven “Blood Curses” on him, which burst through his legs periodically. When the seventh bursts, it will affect his heart killing him swiftly. Betsy (a strange mane for a member of The Worm Tribe), the hot jungle vixen he saved, stops the curse with an antidote, that she draws from the most peculiar place(trust me).
This however will only protect him for one year, so on the advice of his friend Wisely (Chow Yun-fat) he heads back to Thailand to find a permanent cure. Serious adventure ensues as the cop and his mercenaries battle the evil sorcerer of the Worm Tribe, a ridiculously hideous blood hungry baby-like creature, and finally “Old Ancestor,” a skeleton with glowing blue eyes that’s got some impressive kung fu chops himself and can transforms into something far more sinister!
Sound like fun? You bet it is! Throw in some great 80’s style monster effects, some great sets, jungle adventure sequences, top notch kung fu, some nice gore and a bunch of really bizarro plot twists and you’ve got a true genre classic that is not to be missed by any fan of awesome odd ball cinema. The Seventh Curse is just as cool in my opinion as Riki-Oh and it really makes me want to hunt down down more of Lam’s movies. This one pretty hard to find on dvd, but I’m sure it could be downloaded somewhere on line, or you could buy it on Amazon.com. If you’re craving some wild offbeat 80’s adventure then this one movie NOT to be missed!!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Superman the Werewolf Slayer!
Superman #422 is quite an interesting issue to say the least, Superman battles werewolves! Yeah back in 1986 Superman had a full on battle with some seriously pesky lycans . To me it’d seem like Supes would have no problem kicking a werewolf’s ass-but that’s apparently not in this issue titled “Bad Moon Rising”. He not only gets his ass handed to him but the werewolf, after the beat down, rips off Superman’s costume and dons it himself! Yeah he leaves Superman naked in the streets of Metropolis and what’s even more funny is that Superman’s worried about “being arrested for indecent exposure”!!!
This issue certainly leaves something to be desired (I think it’s awesomely funny as hell though), but it has the most terrifying cover of any Superman comic book, brilliantly drawn by The Killing Joke’s Brian Bolland!! It’s funny how such a creepy cover could contain such a ridiculous comic adventure beneath. One thing is for sure, Bolland doesn’t fuck around when he draws comic book covers-it’s one of my personal faves!
Audrey 2: Still One of the Best On Screen Aliens Ever!
Just the other evening I decided to watch “The Little Shop of Horrors” a movie I haven’t seen since the 1980’s and boy was it a treat to behold! I remember I saw this movie in the theaters when it came out in 1986, my mom was cool enough to take me! I had fond memories of the movie as a kid and for some reason hadn’t revisited it in it’s entirety since. Well low and behold this movie was even better now than it was back then! If you’ve not seen this flick I highly recommend you check it out, it’s one of the few musicals that I actually truly love and it’s a remake that’s light years better than the original!
For one I had totally forgotten it had amazing cameos by Steve Martin AND Bill Murray, and their parts in the movie are simply hilarious. It also reminded me that Rick Moranis starred in some amazing 1980’s films I hold dear to my heart like Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Ghostbusters and Strange Brew. It’s a shame we haven’t seen Moranis in a movie since 1996! I’ve heard rumors he may appear in Ghostbusters 3 though(that is if the movie ever really gets made).
What had amazed me most though was “Audrey 2” the carnivorous talking alien flytrap! It was amazing to see this movie monster come to life once again. It’s easily one of the coolest movie monsters I’ve ever seen and in the special features we see just how complex it was to bring it to life for the camera. How they created this creature’s mouth movements was beyond amazing. It wasn’t just a simple puppet. As Audrey 2 grows even larger and becomes more hungry the effects become even more incredible. By the finale of the movie it’s a hulking behemoth that’s a pure wonder to observe. Everything about the movie blew me away, from the sets, to the effects, to it’s awesome songs and it’s charming wit. This film has aged incredibly well, do yourself a favor and check it out again and if you’ve never seen it you’re missing out big time on some 80’s gold!
Oh yeah and the Dentist song is amazing still-they don’t make em’ like this anymore!
More Universal Dork Halloween Movie Picks! Heavy Metal Horror!
Here we go again with another movie pick for you this Halloween that you should be able to easily find for a Halloween horror movie night! Let’s face it movies are expensive to go to these days-and who the hell has got the money to risk on a shitty mainstream Hollywood horror flick these days? Well save some money and fear not fellow dorks I have got another gem for you to check out!
Trick or Treat from 1986 is a GREAT little bundle of cheezy horror served up they way it should be in the 1980’s-with a rockin’ metal soundtrack! Yeah this movie is all about heavy metal and the harm it can do to you when you play records backwards! Back in the 80’s people were obsessed with playing vinyl backwards because they swore all the metal bands were putting subliminal evil messages in their music! However I bet if you played some Patsy Cline albums backwards long enough you’d sure as hell hear something that’d be perceived as evil!
Anyway this rad movie has Marc Price, Family Ties’ “Skippy”, as our teenage metal head outcast nicknamed “Ragman”. He’s picked on by the jocks and longs for love from one of the most popular girls in his school. Well one day he gets a present for local metal DJ played by Gene Simmons, a final unreleased record by his favorite artist Sammie Curr, a recently deceased heavy metal superstar. When he takes it home and plays it bad things begin to happen and soon Sammie Curr returns from the dead with demonic powers and even more fucking bad ass rock and roll chops! Throw in a few monsters, some rock n’ roll and a ton of 1980’s electricity flying all over the place and boom-instant classic.
This is pretty much the perfect 80’s horror flick it’s just a damn good time all around. The perfect movie to drink beers with friends on Halloween. The more recent dvd releases of this movie have put pictures of Gene Simmons & Ozzy Osbourne on the cover implying they are the major stars of the movie, laughably they end up in the movie for a combined total of maybe a minute and a half tops! Still there a ton of fun to be had with this cult favorite, if you haven’t seen it check it out this Halloween and if you have it’s probably time to rock out to this once again!
Lesson of the Day: If You Wanna Win Don’t Drink Motor Oil!
Last night I watched “Over the Top” from 1986 for the first time and boy was it a treat! Folks movie just don’t get any cornier than this-and at the center of it all we got Sly Stallone arm wrasslin his way to the top! Making all his dreams come true! Well along the way he’s got a lot against him and the final act of the film is part Rocky, part Karate Kid and yeah pretty over the damn top. I mean who knew that people got so into arm wrestling in the 80’s?! Well the best lesson I learned from the movie can be seen here as one of Sly’s opponents learns that drinking motor oil before arm wrestling doesn’t necessarily mean success!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week!
Here we have on of my favorite comic book covers and annuals, Incredible Hulk Annual #15! This one not only has a beautifully drawn cover by Mike Zeck, who really didn’t dabble much in the Hulk territory very often, if at all but it also is one helluva great issue of non stop action! This time around the Abomination is not quite feeling himself as his body has been taken over by the spirit of Tyrannus! It’s also during the time when The Hulk was gray again back in the mid 80’s. The inside is incredibly drawn by Hulk legend Sal Buscema, and this issue features some of his best Hulk art ever…
Ditch the Hero and Get With The Zero Boys!
I just recently was able to see yet another great 1980’s horror movie that I had never seen before! These are really great moments for a person like myself who really thrives on a great 80’s flick that delivers the goods! Better yet is seeing one that somehow slipped through my hands up until now. This most recent movie is The Zero Boys way back from 1986.
To say this is a flat out horror movie just isn’t fair as it’s taking equal parts from 80’s action movies like Rambo and blending it all together into one fun mess of a schlocky good movie! Continue reading
Universal Dork 