Strangers in Paradise

My review was written in September 1986 after watching the movie on Vestron video cassette.

German actor-director Ulli Lommel has made a name for himself Stateside with a series of low-budget horror and fantasy features (notably "Boogey Man"), but comes a cropper with he music video-styled misfire "Strangers in Paradise". Filmed in 1983, incoherent picture tries hard to enter the cult territory of a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" but fails.

Opening reel is in black & white, with Lommel cameoing as Hitler in 1939 Berlin, while also playing stage mentalist Jonathan Sage, who escapes in 1940 to Lonon where he is frozen. Decades later, a scientist (Geoffrey Barker) unfreezes Sage to help his right wing group of Californians in their quest to modify young people's aberrant behavior. For the jumpteenth time, rock 'n' roll music is treated by the straw man bad guys as a symbol of moral decay that must be wiped out.

Everyone in sight keeps belting out songs, while expository dialog is poorly recorded in what sounds like an echo chamber, and crudely post-synchronized with the action. Fantasy musical numbers aren't very interesting to watch here, while the eclectic music track by Moonlight Drive includes material sounding like everyone from the Doors to Devo.

Running time is padded by a boring highlights sequence that repeats mucho footage already seen and pic then ends abruptly with no resolution of the storyline.