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Twilight aka Szürkület (1990): I found György Fehér’s adaptation of a much-adapted Dürrenmatt novel to be a rather frustrating experience. There are moments here, many moments even, where its Hungarian slow cinema style, the long shots of foggy, murky landscape accompanied by an ominous score create an incredible mood of dread, a feeling of wrongness highly appropriate to its plot about child murder and a retired policeman obsessing over the case.

But whenever characters start to speak, that very sinister spell was broken and I felt thrown into what I could only read as a parody of the same Hungarian slow cinema style, dialogue scenes that go on and on and on (and on and on) because characters pause for endless seconds after every second or third word in a sentence, as if the actors had painful trouble remembering every single word in every damn line they say. Call me a barbarian, but that ain’t art.

Seedpeople (1992): Probably not art either is this Full Moon Production film directed by the typically entertaining Peter Manoogian. Instead, it’s a seed-based version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, but with more gloopy rubber monsters. It’s rather good fun in its very undemanding low budget movie manner, and while the acting is nothing to write home about, and the script doesn’t really add much (and subtracts a lot of subtext) from its, ahem, inspiration, you can’t argue with gloopy rubber monsters, or at least I’m not going to.

Mostly because they use mind control, and/or turn you into a plant person.

Get Away (2024): Speaking of things that are undemanding but good fun, this horror comedy by Stefan Haars about a British family coming to a remote Swedish (shot in Finland) island to witness a curious play and stumble into a plot of folk horror and perversity isn’t terribly deep either. You’ll either notice its big plot twist early on, or get distracted by those wacky, creepy Swedes (portrayed by Finns), and you’ll enjoy the very, very bloody climax, or you won’t.

If this sounds as if I’m going for the classic “you’ll like this sort of thing if you like this sort of thing” move here, indeed I am, because there’s little else to say about the movie apart from that. Well, it’s always great to see Nick Frost.

Past Misdeeds: Arena (1989)

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only  basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.


In the future, an intergalactic, inter-species fighting championship is held in a shoddy looking space station. Since the contestants are kept on the same physical level (except for things like size and number of limbs which won't ever be important in a fight, no sir) by magicalscientific handicap beams, a level playing field should be guaranteed for all. In truth, the championship is in the hands of evil Rogor (Marc Alaimo for a change being the evil boss instead of the evil boss's first henchman) who cheats, lies and sucks the sportsmanship out of the sports wherever he can. Under these circumstances it comes as no surprise Rogor's rude fighter Horn (Michael Deak) is the Champion of the Universe right now, and there's no chance for the only honest trainer in the universe, Quinn (Claudia Christian), to ever lead one of her fighter to the title.

That is, until a series of complicated circumstances including a punch-up in a Space McDonald's, an illegal space gambling den and the human's four-armed buddy Shorty (Hamilton Camp doing his best Ernest Borgnine) turns Earthling Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield in the beginning stages of anime hair) into her main fighter. Steve is not just as pure-hearted as Quinn, but also, as it turns out, the fighter who will once and for all lay the space sports rumour to rest that humans can't fight. Even if he has to survive sex with and a poisoning attempt by Rogor's (space, one supposes) girlfriend and (definitely) space singer Jade (Shari Shattuck), and other evil plans of Rogor and his assistant Weezil (Armin Shimerman) to get and win his title fight.

People who know me won't be at all surprised to hear that one of the few movie genres that doesn't do anything at all for me is the sports film. Turns out I don't care who can throw the ball hardest or kick his opponent in the reproductive organs the most subtly, and find the whole ideological shtick of these films rather unpleasant. Hell, I usually don't even enjoy tournament martial arts films, unless they feature a yogi with retractable arms.

But put the sports film onto a space station and make most of the fighters cute little alien freaks, and I get all excited. It seems as if the best method to convince me the general silliness of sports movies is fun lies in transporting them into even more silly space opera SF surroundings. And who am I to complain about it, seeing as I get a very fun time out of it, at least in Arena's case?

One of the best features of Arena is how serious it takes its own silliness, with nary a moment going by where the film isn't decisively not winking at its audience, even if winking would be the most natural thing to do given the circumstances. However, delivering the weird and the silly with a straight face is often the best technique to make it fun to a viewer instead of just annoying. One doesn't, after all, go into a movie to witness how much the filmmakers look down on their own work (and implicitly the audience paying to see it). Here, the knowledge of the silliness of the film's basics is taken as self-evident but not as a reason to half-ass anything.

In fact, half-assing is quite the opposite of Arena's way of going about things. Instead, director Peter Manoogian (also responsible for the awe-inspiring Eliminators), working for Charles Band when Charles Band was still doing his best to be Roger Corman and not a puppeteer, scriptwriters Danny Bilson (also responsible for a few other fine bits of fun low budget movie writing before he became a videogame company suit) and Paul De Meo (Bilson's long-time writing partner), and the usual Empire Pictures gang do one hell of a job of piling weird, interesting and often funny detail upon weird, interesting, and often funny detail. There might not have been much money going around, but what these guys had, they put visibly on screen in form of a surprising number of different aliens with actually different body types (no Star Trek "facial lumps only” aliens here), sets that may depend on the audience's goodwill yet are also built with love and effort, haircut and make-up crimes that make for a distinctly 80s kind of future, and more sight-gags than anyone could notice in a single session with the film.

Arena is the sort of movie that goes so out of its way when it comes to creating its world (even if its is a very silly world), it even features two pretty alien musical numbers for its not-all-that-alien singer Jade where most films would have contented themselves with a mock swing number with synthies instead of horns. The film isn't creating a believable future (not that it's out to do that), but it sure builds a place out of cheap sets, concepts and ideas plundered from Hollywood films of the 30s to 50s, pulp SF, and energetic enthusiasm.


That the few fights the film contains aren't all that great to watch (it seems Steve's fighting prowess consists in his ability to actually move faster than a snail) isn't much of a problem in this context, for who cares about the quality of the fights when everything else that happens on screen is so fun to look at?

In short: Demonic Toys (1992)

Police woman Judith Gray (Tracy Scoggins) has a very bad night. Her partner and fiancée is killed during an apparently completely unsupervised undercover operation. When she follows the two perpetrators into a nearby warehouse, things become really bad. Turns out the place is the home of a demon who prefers to show himself in the form of a little boy. Said demon has chosen Judith’s unborn child to become his new body. Towards that goal – and because this is a Full Moon feature – he possesses some toys, namely a potty-mouthed baby doll, a jack-in-the-box (including the box), a crappy silver robot that shoots lasers and the teddy bear from hell. They lock Judith, a chicken delivery guy, a random teenager, the surviving killer and a security guard in the warehouse and proceed to murder their way through the cast, while the demon taunts Judith with exposition, while various other supernatural crap occurs.

In retrospect, this relatively early phase of Charles Band’s and Full Moon’s obsession with evil dolls, puppets and whatnot is pretty fascinating. At this point, the company could still afford professional actors, and – while things certainly had to be done on the cheap – the company’s products still looked like real movies. Director Peter Manoogian had been working with Band since Empire times, and while nobody will probably get out the auteur label to pin on the man’s work, his direction generally shows craftsmanship and the ability to treat the weird stuff the script (in this case written by a young David S. Goyer) throws at him with the appropriate seriousness.

Which is a good thing in a film containing stuff like that talking murderous baby doll. Otherwise, all the entertainment value of the general craziness would be drained away by the film smugly winking at its audience. So yes, while Demonic Toys does have a clear idea of how silly it is, it clearly sees no reason not to treat its audience to as much entertainment as it can wring out of the nonsense. Goyer’s script also contains some genuinely good ideas that tend to be used rather bluntly – a problem his scripts still suffer under, just that the bluntness here is appropriate and often needed to make the film’s low production values work, Goyer today doesn’t really have that sort of excuse anymore.

Anyway, while one needs to keep one’s disbelief and probably one’s sense of being a very serious grown-up suspended quite heavily to enjoy Demonic Toys, the film really works hard for our enjoyment. It’s not a thrill-a-minute ride, but there’s something fun, something entertaining, something low-brow funny, something interesting, or something whacked out bizarre (did I mention how the teddy bear later transforms into a teddy bear werewolf costume thing?) happening at least every two minutes, the film putting all its money right on the screen. I, at least, couldn’t help enjoying myself quite a bit. There’s always something to be said for unapologetic yet enthusiastic genre nonsense, and I wouldn’t want to miss it and films like it for the world.

In short: Enemy Territory (1987)

Unsuccessful insurance salesman Barry (Gary Frank) thinks his luck is finally turning around when his boss is giving him the opportunity for some easy money by closing a life insurance deal with a Mrs Elva Briggs (Frances Foster). Unfortunately, Mrs Briggs is living in one of those nightmarish towers city planners thought were ideal for stacking poor black people in, and Barry quickly falls foul of the local gang, the Vampires, under their fearless leader, The Count (Tony Todd) who does everything in his power to kill Barry.

Despite being trapped in the building, Barry’s not completely out of luck, though: a very helpful Vietnam vet named Will (Ray Parker Jr.), Mrs Briggs and her grandchild Toni (Stacey Dash) are going far beyond the call of basic human decency to help him fight off the Vampires and escape. Also appearing are another, but racist, crazy and wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet (Jan-Michael Vincent), and the proverbial helpful little boy (Deon Richmond).

In 1987, Charles Band and his Empire Pictures wanted a bit of that tasty ghettosploitation money too, and because, one assumes, all actually serious and thrilling variations of this generally problematic genre had already been done, director Peter Manoogian set out to make this humungous piece of cheese that couldn’t even afford an actor to play Will and had to go with Ray Parker Jr.

In its own ridiculous way, Enemy Territory is a pretty fine time, though, at least if you’re the kind of person who finds joy in great moments in film like the scene where Jan-Michael Vincent explains that he’s housing his cat not as a pet but as food taster in case anyone should poison his spam, but that he needs to shoot his cat from time to time and get a new one because cats give people bugs like AIDS. Or the fact that the Vampires might be the least threatening gang ever put on film with their adorable vampire shtick, the least psycho guy called Psycho I’ve seen in a long time, and Tony Todd ranting nonsense towards his very bourgeois (and also quite bored) looking gang members without once breaking down laughing because of the idiocy of its all.

It is of course utterly impossible to take any of this shit seriously, but it is rather easy to be very entertained by it. Plus, curious enough for an exploitation film, Enemy Territory seems to lack any mean-spirited bone, resulting in a movie that really just wants to play around for ninety minutes, and then walk off with a friendly smile and the cost of a video rental. That’s alright with me.

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On WTF: Arena (1989)

Sports movies are kind of boring, aren't they?

But what a about a sports movie taking place in true space opera outer space, about an Earthling proving once and for all that humans are the best when it comes to physical violence?

That's a question this week's column on WTF-Film and Arena are going to answer.

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Eliminators (1986)

When mad mastermind Abbott Reeves (Roy Dotrice, whose British accent clearly denotes his evilness) doesn't need the pilot he turned into a memory-less cyborg he dubbed Mandroid (Patrick Reynolds) for his time travel experiments anymore, he tries to kill him. Fortunately for Mandroid, Reeves main scientist Takada (Tad Horino) has developed a conscience and helps the human garbage can escape, paying for it with his life.

Takada has given Mandroid (does it show how much I like writing "Mandroid"? Mandroid!) the name of a Colonel Hunter as his best bet for help taking Reeves down. Colonel Hunter turns out not to be a brilliant military lawyer but highly competent scientist Nora Hunter (Denise Crosby). Nora is shocked when she realizes that Reeves has used some of her inventions for EVIL. So off she, Mandroid and her little surely not R2D2-inspired scout robot that can turn into a ball of light go to Reeves base somewhere - and I quote - "in the wilds of Mexico" to kick evil mastermind ass.

They have to fight through evil lesbian river guides, a tribe of Neanderthals, Reeves's security force that isn't led by Richard Lynch but by a fat guy named Ray (Peter Schrum) who is fond of lumberjack shirts and a suspected escapee from a Burt Reynolds movie, and their own lack of a decent plan.

Fortunately, the duo also makes new friends in form of roguish river guide Harry Fontana (Andrew Prine channelling his inner Han Solo), and Takada's son Kuji (Conan Lee) who just happens to be a badass ninja. But will even the awesome power of cyborg, scientist, rogue and ninja combined be enough once Reeves - as part of his plan to go back in time to ancient Rome and become god king of the world - has turned himself into Cyber Cesar?

I know I'm beginning at least two thirds of my write-ups of Charles Band productions that don't feature dolls, puppets, or muppets with declarations of happiness regarding their absence, but you know what? Eliminators does not feature dolls, puppets or muppets, and I am pretty happy about it. Even better, Eliminators is that rare exploitation film that keeps the promises its marketing material makes, as it does in fact feature a team of a cyborg, a mercenary, a scientist and a ninja in an awesome attempt to try and milk (at least) four slightly different exploitation markets at once, just as its poster promises.

It's awe-inspiring to say the least. Of course, that sort of character mix can only lead to a movie full of classical comic book silliness (a fact the film even jokes about) with cartoonish humour, cartoonish characters, and a decidedly cartoonish plot. Naturally, if you go into a movie like Eliminators expecting anything else, the joke's on you right from the start.

I for my part was mostly surprised by how generous director Peter Manoogian provides all the semi-thrills his budget allows for, with quite a few not exactly riveting but enthusiastic fights (when your only vaguely talented on-screen fighter is Conan Lee, you have yourself a problem; let's not even start talking about him not being Japanese), equally enthusiastic action scenes, and a whole lot of moments of gratuitous strangeness. While the former two elements make for a pleasant enough watch, it's the last which truly brings Eliminators charms to the surface. This is, after all, a movie that shows Roy Dotrice donning a plastic version of the Iron Man armour without a helmet but with a red cape as part of his plan to go back in time and conquer Rome all on his own, and a film whose Mandroid is a) called "Mandroid" and b) in possession of an awkwardly awesome tank "mobility unit" (off go his legs and on goes the rest of him onto a mini-tank thing) that to describe properly goes beyond my abilities and that will turn out to be good for nothing but making him less mobile.

You can't argue with that (nor with a tribe of Neanderthals that has invented whooshing powder and bow and arrow), and really, why should you? Eliminators is a movie that enjoys its own cheapness but isn't lazy about including everything it can afford, leaving a boy like me with the pleasant impression of having watched a film made by people who may make horrible nonsense but who also care about making said nonsense as entertaining to their audience as they can.

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