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Reviews
The Prodigal Planet (1983)
Omaha survives a nuke!?!
SPOILERS!!! Here comes David, hero from Image of the Beast, and ready to go all the way to destroy the UNITE government! He even upgrades from calculators to computers in this one! So, yeah, what we have here basically is the quest for David, a religious snob/guerilla crusader, to get to some cave where the new Christians will be safe from the second coming of Christ. Along the way, he picks up some women--but he doesn't hit on them, no way, he's asexual or something--and tells a girl she could drop dead in front of him by having a brain clot--and dodges bullets by dancing in front of two helicopters. Oh, and they have to get from Nebraska to New Mexico (after David cracks a code in three seconds) and on the way they go through Omaha. Now, supposedly Omaha was nuked two days before, but now it's totally safe to walk around and all the residual radiation has subsided. The trees are all green. Grass grows happily between cracks in the sidewalks. Buildings and streets are completely intact--even the glass in storefront windows isn't broken. The only signs that a nuke may have hit two days before are some skeletons in the street. I love it! And what's better? Jerry is back! Diane is gone, sadly, but Jerry is around and doing well--this time with a normal moustache--and some radiation boils, to boot. I dunno, this one is a bit long, coming in over the two-hour mark. And there's some cool stuff like water turning to blood, and the sun getting super hot. But I think this one was the final in the series for a reason--the cool characters from the first two, and the first ten minutes of the third, are totally missing... Still, rumors persist that a fifth film is in the works! What they'd do after having ceased the series for twenty years, and after the popularization of the Left Behind series, would be very interesting to see. I personally hope that I will live to see the day we get another one. This is a unique and bizarre series that deserves a bit more attention--too bad MST3K never picked it up...
Image of the Beast (1981)
Don't take the mark!
MORE SPOILERS!!! I dunno if this is the best in the series, because, see, all our main characters die! Except the best characters, those being Jerry and Diane--the people who went from being peace-'n'-love non-religious hippies in the first film to full-on world government agents hell-bent on frying Christians in this one. Jerry's moustache has evolved with the times--from the dirty-scruff of 1972 to the faux dirty scruff of 1978 to the nasty "ear-lock-round-the-mouth" look in this film in 1980. I love it. This film also introduces some more new characters, who all suck. The main one, a guy named David who apparently knows everything baout the Bible even though he just picked it up last year when the rapture came and memorized it or something. Oh, and he's also a hacker. Now, this is hacking from 1980, so he does it all with a calculator. When the calculator runs outta batteries--yeah, this was back before solar cells were so common--he and his woman have to try to buy some. But they need the mark of the beast to do so! Luckily for them, David figured out how to forge the mark, and make it so genuine that it taps into some soldier's account (he killed the guy--outta self defense of course--to get it). The problem is that they both have the same account in their marks, so if they go through two checkout lanes at the same time, the computer figures it out and they're in trouble. Now, why they don't just go into the store one at a time and wait for the other to come out, I have no clue. That's right--they have to try to get through within a tight window of opportunity, which is utter and complete rubbish. I love it! So, yeah, if you wanna see the third movie in a series which is focusing on zealots trying to overthrow the new world government after all the Christians disappear by hacking into their communications networks using pocket calculators in the early '80s, I recommend this one highly. Also, if you wanna learn more about the prophecy laid out in Revelation, this one's fun--Russell Doughten returns as Pastor Turner (and honestly, this guy isn't bad at all--he brings some presence and intelligence to the films)--they even got horse people with lion-teeth and crowns and scorpion tails! (all ya get to see is the tail, though, in situations that practically reproduce the landmark Land Shark skits on Saturday Night Live). Image of the Beast gets my rarely-given rating of Golden Nugget of Gold!
A Distant Thunder (1978)
#2 in the series ROCKS!
SPOILERS AVAST! Right, so, seeing as how A Thief in the Night was all a dream, well, it's almost as if this film starts from scratch. The only things carrying over from the first film are the main characters--bless 'em all--and the fact that the rapture came. People are fine, having come together under a world government and receiving the mark of the beast--which is just a tattoo symbol of 666 in binary numbers. Seriously, no one seems to spaz out except the new Christians, who only just realized the evangelicals were right when they all disappeared. For everybody else, it's fine. Well, except weird things start happening, straight outta Revelation. I dunno, it's utter rubbish, but I love it all. I mean, you get the beheading of true believers and the big Blob-inspired cliffhanger ending where you don't know if our heroine is gonna be beheaded or not--that rules. And the fact that the filmmakers basically had to reestablish everything because film #1 was just a dream, well, I think it's great fun. Very innovative stuff here for the
low budget and the fact that it was filmed in my home state of Iowa. I'm all for this kind of filmmaking, even if I'm utterly offended by the views it presents. God bless free speech and the videostore girl who turned me on to this epic, ya know it? Plus, this golden nugget of gold is followed up by a third film in the series: Image of the Beast (filmed in the year of my birth, good ole 1980)!
A Thief in the Night (1972)
"Left Behind" of the '70s
SPOILERS AHEAD! I saw this film at the urging of the girl who works at the videostore, who described it as "Total MST3K." And how right she is. Granted, the film has a regional interest for me, as it was filmed in my hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. Basically, this is Left Behind from the early '70s, and it goes to show that the evangelicals have been pumping out religious propoganda aimed at scaring non-believers through the art of film for over thirty years now. The music is also right on, from the hit "You've Been Left Behind" (later covered in a decent version--something i can say even though i'm not a fan of Christian rock) to the thematic drum 'n' trumpet music reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, the clothes and hairstyles are the best; Linklater surely stole the look of the character Jerry in this film for Dazed and Confused. As for story, well, the rapture comes and millions of Christians simply disappear--non-believers are left behind and life goes on as usual (except for the bit about the UN making a single global government called Unite, which uses the mark of the beast--your choice of back of the hand or on the forehead--for commerce and labeling of citizenship). Honestly, everything seems fine, except for the easily swayed citizens of the world who willingly accept one government, oh, and the underground new Christians, who are freaking out nonstop. Stuff gets crazier and crazier and the heroine--who I've failed to mention--thinks her old friends are trying to kill her. And then, yup, turns out it was all a dream. Granted, after she wakes up, we have a deja vu moment where her husband's electric shaver is in the sink--just like the beginning of the dream! But who's to say he didn't step out for a smoke? Eh... Whattaya expect from Russell Doughten (who appears as the grandfatherly preacher who misled his flock), the man who produced 1958's smash hit horror film starring Steve McQueen: The Blob! And thankfully for us, this wonderful golden nugget of gold was followed by A Distant Thunder, where we discover her husband really did disappear in the rapture... (by the way, the whole series of 4 films has been released on DVD with loads of cool extras!)
Father Dear Father (1973)
Horror, Oh Horror
I happened to catch this movie one late night over Xmas on BBC 1, and boy do I wish I hadn't. Actually, I shouldn't be cruel. My mate and I stayed up watching it, and we've had fun taking the p*** out of it since then. This film desperately tries to go for political correctness, but it was filmed in 1972, and they were crap at being PC back then. For instance, one of the main character's daughters gets a flat above a black couple from Jamaica, and madcap hilarity ensues when Daddy gets the wrong flat and thinks his daughter is living with a black Jamaican, whose father was imprisoned for cannabis trafficking--since, ya know, English girls in 1972 weren't supposed to date non-white, non-English heathens (even though many did, i'm sure). Actually, that wasn't the most offensive thing about the film--what really got me was how camp the dad was. Patrick Cargill minces all over this film, and even has a scene in a bed with a St. Bernard--bestiality, anybody? The worst problem, though, is that the film can't make up its mind on where to go. At first you think it's about Daddy's struggles being a single parent, then you think it's about his daughters striking off on their own, then you think it's about divorce and remarrying, then it's about racial tensions, then it's over. Although the opening is pretty kick ass, with a giant party in Daddy's house that wakes him up. At first we were hoping the party would lead to some boobs onscreen, but alas, no boobies are to be seen in this film. If you come across this movie, change the channel. If you own the master copies, burn them.