Twister's Revenge!

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.

One wonders how Bill Rebane every raised money to make films over and over again, after his first disastrous attempt with "Monster A Go-Go!", a film he could only partly finish before putting it up for sale. It is quite telling that the buyer was Herschel G. Lewis. But I digress... Someone has indeed given money to Bill Rebane for film-making and I am grateful for it. What would the world of cinema be without "Giant Spider Invasion", "Demons of Ludlow", "Invasion from Inner Earth", and this, arguably Rebane's "opus magnum"? Never mind that it was partly ripped off from the "Knightrider" concept. Never mind that the acting, writing, editing, etc., are sub par even for failing students at the worst community college film class in the country. Never mind that the only way an ordinary movie goer could possibly sit through such witless trash is to be drunk or stoned out of their mind. Never mind that the film stands as the ultimate proof that Bill Rebane is, indeed, crazy as an outhouse rat. Just consider how much duller life would be. Then go ahead, pop "Twister's Revenge!" in the DVD player, open the first of several fermented malt beverages, and revel in the experience. Try not to puke too many times....

There seem to be only two reactions by reviewers: Gaaaaaaah! (thus its overall 2 rating) and Yay! (burp). I watched it sober, with a few intermissions while doing other things, and found it a good slapstick comedy with acting quite adequate for what it was trying to accomplish. But then Curley Howard is one of my three or four favorite actors. The female lead had a fairly easy role: mostly one of being gagged, bound, and tied to a chair next to a ticking bomb. She also was quite adequate. The monster truck was more than adequate: it was noble, inspiring,overcoming all obstacles; sadly, its eventual tank opponent lacked personality. Delightfully, indeed considerately, all characters, both primary and minor, survived explosions, the houses they occupied being flattened, and numerous other deadly experiences with no worse effects than soiled clothing and temporary confusion. None of the characters, including the tank, could shoot accurately, but this is typical of such movies … unlike the "blood and gore all over the floor, and me without my spoon" ones. The sound on my copy was dreadful, but I've been having trouble with sound on my laptop anyway, so this may not have been the fault of my very inexpensive DVD. Would I watch this again? No, but the once was fun.

One thing is certain; you probably have not seen this film. I'm not saying it is low budget, but Bill Rebane was director, cinematographer, writer, production designer, editor, producer, camera department member; everything but actor. In fact, most of the actors were probably friends and family. That's OK if you are making a drive-in movie.

Three good old boys, who are five beers short of a six pack, are trying to steal a monster truck - a talking monster truck. Why do people fine this exciting? Watching some big truck run over crushed cars is about as thrilling as watching NASCAR - round and round we go. Whee! Anyway, these boys are dumber than dirt. But, they weren't the only colorful characters in this movie. The patrons of a local biker bar reminded me of that bar in Star Wars.

As expected over 75% of the movie was chase scenes: through the town, through the woods, and through the junkyard with a tank! Lots of shotgun blasting and explosions, but no one ever gets hurt.

This had to be a big hit down in Alabama and Mississippi.

"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)