Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Murdercycle (1999) F--- the 90's!

What do you get when you combine an agent with ESP, CIA need-to-know-basis guys, X-Files conspiracy theories, classic comic book references, and strange happenings in the woods? You know the results can't be good, especially filtered through the anti-90's bias that I show in many of my reviews.


Thanks, but no thanks, Charles Band...

For years, at least 2 or 3, I saw this movie in the video stores, thinking this one looked as stupid as they get and wondering what Full Moon was thinking. I was digging through the bargain bin at DVD Planet in Huntington Beach the other day and saw this new for $1.95. Curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see how far Full Moon had strayed from their early 90's glory years. I'd seen a bunch of the stuff like The Killer Eye, Totem, and Deathbed, plus countless previews of awful, shot on digital video, shit. I guess it's just fascinating to see how the mighty, the once kings of the video store, had fallen.

Speaking of previews, there were a bunch on this DVD and Cyrptz and Delta Delta Die! looked like the kind of torture I tend to put myself through. After all, I do intend to put together some material like this shit in the near future. Can we get copies of these in the $1.95 bin please?

The movie has a conspiracy guy in it, similar to the one on X-Files who used to wear the Social Distortion t-shirts. He also bared too close of a resemblance to the quirky earthling bounty hunter from all four Critters movies. Hey, didn't they make a spin-off show about those counter culture conspiracy geeks from X-Files? Who can say? Who can remember?

As for movies with similarities to the X-Files, I never got it. For one, they were all lower budget, at least in appearance, than the show. Why throw down money to rent a product that is inferior to what is on the TV for free every week? Murdercycle can't even deliver the gore. Rated PG-13.

So the Murdercycle bleeds green. The agents and troops take a look at some small puddles of goo left behind. A conclusion is reached. That line that goes through every viewer's head, and is conspicuously absent on the screen, is an instant reminder that we've seen this scene before. "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

Check out the scene where the Murdercycle talks, that's the highlight. That scene and the one where the Murdercycle comes to be. A crashed meteor shoots out electricity from within, turning an unlucky off-roader and his bike into the Murdercycle. To be fair, the effect, done in post production, is pretty good, and works better than the rest of the movie where the Murdercycle is always shown in choppy slow motion, to add some style to what would other wise just be a guy driving a black motorcycle around the woods.

I don't want to sound like a little bitch who picks at movies that are far better than what I can produce, but during the scene where the Military Police man shows up to pick up The Sarge, it's pretty obvious that the "MP" on his helmet, was painted without a stencil.

You guys know
I hate MST3K, but maybe they should have a show where a little shit head in the corner rips on all the bad genre movies that look like the syndicated television shows of the last fifteen years. Instead of the mocking the movies, like he could deliver better than their writers and their producer, he could just tell it like it is, and chirp "fuck the 90's!"

1 comment:

warrenzone said...

I've heard 'pit and the pendulum' was their best work. I've only seen a copy of it for sale once, in all my times shopping.