Twister's Revenge!

Twister's Revenge is one of the most hilarious movies I have ever seen. Absolutely full of bad acting and bad filming. I grew up in Wisconsin, in the very area where all of Bill Rebane's crazy movies were filmed. I have even been to his main location many times as he is my cousin's grandfather and they lived next door to each other when my cousin and I were little kids growing up. I know quite of a few of the extra actors in this zany film about a monster truck with artificial intelligence. Yes, it's a bad movie, but has fantastic value as comic relief when you just don't feel like thinking. I actually have an original tape somewhere. If you're into cheesy plots, half naked women and bad guys with that are definitely not the brightest crayons in the Crayola box, then this movies is for you!

Here's another movie courtesy of Bill Rebane, director of such other cinematic gems as Monster-A-Go-Go and Giant Spider Invasion. In the movie Twister's Revenge we have a talking monster truck which takes on three 2nd grade drop-outs. When the 2nd grade drop-outs fail in their plan to take the truck, they decide to take the pretty lady computer programmer as a hostage instead. Endles footage of a giant truck roaming around the countryside is featured, with it occasionally running over other vehicles and smashing through hillbilly homes and outhouses. Toward the end we are treated to a showdown between the truck ("Twister") and a US Army tank loaded with ammo which happens to be parked off-base for some unexplained reason.

Perhaps if you are seven years old then this movie might be entertaining, but otherwise forget it.

"Twister's Revenge" is a redneck's wet dream of a movie, or anyone's who thinks there's no greater pleasure in life than watching giant vehicles roll over things. But the rest of you need not despair, because you can still enjoy this movie by making fun of all the people (or maybe the two or three people) who like this movie for legitimate reasons.

Three dumbasses hatch a plan to steal a talking monster truck, and when their plan fails, they decide instead to kidnap the wife of the truck's owner and hold her for ransom. She spends the rest of the movie tied up in a cave with a stack of dynamite and a coffee maker, while Twister (the truck) and his owner drive all over the countryside knocking down the houses of the three dumbasses. The climactic duel takes place between Twister and a fully functional army tank, which happens to be sitting in a junkyard garage. Along the way, one of the dumbasses falls into a hole filled with outhouse sh*t (which a makes a good metaphor for the entire movie, by the way), and a girl band led by a heifer in blue spandex performs a musical number in a bar where the patrons wear gas masks for some inexplicable reason.

This film is like "Dukes of Hazard" crossed with "Benny Hill," except that to compare it to either of those other shows implies that it's anything other than a grade Z movie. It's quite terrible, but also terribly entertaining.

The actors are all horrible, but one of them, R. Richardson Luka, who plays Bear, the dumbest of the dumbasses, manages to deliver something resembling an appealing performance. He's a good looking guy with a terrific build, and maybe it's just the fact that he doesn't look like he crawled out of a pig trough that makes him appealing, but whatever it is I felt that the movie wasn't quite the same whenever he wasn't on screen. Fortunately, he's on screen almost all of the time.

Grade: D- (I can't give an F to a movie that made me laugh as much as this one did)

Maybe this movie wouldn't be written by people who are so mean if some people thought "Hey, maybe it's the only thing a 8-year-old kid with a stomach-ache has to watch when he's stuck at home." I laughed at it even though it made my stomach hurt even more.

I liked it because it was not too hard to figure out and it's funny to see adults dumber than me.

None of the people who saw this movie mentioned the junk yard scenes were probably filmed in a real junk yard!! And the back-ground music was at least as good as the Eagles Greatest Hits.

Hint: the ending involves a tank! So watch it.

Bill Rebane's an erratic director, eh? I loved the low budget daftness of The Giant Spider Invasion and thought The Game was interesting, if a little dull. My copy of the Alpha Incident is sadly faulty but what I've seen of Demons of Ludlow was pretty impressive. Here, with Twister's Revenge, Rebane takes on comedy, mixes a little Knight Rider in there, adds a bit of Benny Hill and comes up with a film whose enjoyment will depend on the viewer's forgiving nature. Either that or you'll hate it right away.

Twister is a monster truck with a very expensive computer on board, and three hicks want to steal it and sell it. Easier said than done, as the hicks aren't very bright and Twister is very smart. After several failed attempts the hicks get touch, capture the fiancé of Twister's owner, and set off with a bazooka to get the truck. Many buildings explode or get destroyed, cars are crushed, and much slapstick ensues.

Is it good though? I don't know. It's always good to see what folks can do with a low budget, so you've got to give Rebane his credit there, but on the other hand your enjoyment for this film is all down to your tolerance for slapstick. And B-movies. And bad actors.