Crash and Burn (1990)

AKA Robot Jox 2 : Crash and Burn
Director: Charles Band
Starring: Paul Ganus, Megal Warn, Jack McGee, Eva LaRue, Bill Moseley .USA. 1h 25m

Originally being a concept for the follow up to Robojox, a much harder end of the world scenario is placed in Band’s post apocalyptic sci fi thriller. Crash and burn does recycle some aspects from Robojox, most noeably the stop motion aniated robots themselvees but it slaps a can of terminator and max mad on to it’s murder mystery plot.

The film is set several years after a global economic collapse, and after Covid it’s easier to imagine than it was in 1990. All of fears of the future from the classic writers are dropped throughout the film, global warming, nuclear poisoning and corporation control all raise their ugly heads and Crash and Burns gives us a glimpse of what it might be like to try and live with all these oppressions but there is hope, a group of freedom fighters attempt to jam TV signals and promote messages for people to rise up against the corporations. The world is pretty dismal, it’s hot, sueper desert hot all the time, there are frequent power cuts and water is hard to find and when you drink it is probably recycled only hours before. Kids learn via some kind of interactive TV and have no connection with each other. it’s life but not a happy one.

Three Days on a Cross (2017)

Director: Aaron Martinez Starring: Nathran Martinez, Luke Fowler, Jordan Tanner, Mark Gibbons. USA. 1h 48m

I think a trick was missed in this slightly confusing theological movie. The set up follows a pair of voyeuristic researchers in a lo fi sci fi bunker, their main objective is to follow a Jesus-esquema wandering in the desert searching for his daughter after an apocalypse, it’s never clear how they are filming him, who installed CCTV in the desert in this post apocalypse world..

Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021)

Director: Jacob Gentry
Starring: Harry Shum Jr, Kelley Mack, Chris Sullivan, Anthony E Cabral .USA. 1h 44m

Jacobs Gentry’s uncanny valley neon lit thriller is a great diversion for horror fans, but unlike other broadcast horrors it fails to give a satisfactory conclusion to its own question but will raise eyebrows though it’s stunning display of solid drama and a deep dive investigation.

While logging tapes of retro TV Broadcasts, a video archivist, James (Shum Jr.) discovers a disturbing clip that he believes is a sign of early hacking, out of his armchair investigation, James is innocently trying to track down the source but it turns into a deadly cat and mouse chair that night lead to solving a slew of murders.

Here Comes Hell (2019)

Director: Jack McHenry
Starring: Tom Bailey, Maureen Bennett, Alfred Bradle, Robert Llewellyn, Timothy Renouf, Charlie Robb, Jessica Webber. UK. 1h 20m

Genre bending comedy horror doesn’t get much better than this frightful mini epic. Here Comes Hell, sees a small group of gorgeous 1930’s socialites hooking up to see one of their friends’ new purchases, which just happens to be a charming haunted mansion located deep in the British wilderness. The party includes a seance as getting a psychic grandma in on your party is thought to be terribly fun.

Maze Runner – The Death Cure (2018)

Director: Wes Ball
Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Will Poulter, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Aidan Gillen, Giancarlo Esposito, Thomas Brodie-Sangster. UK. 2h 22m

I’m a big sucker for well planned trilogies, but if I don’t feel there’s much going for them, like the Matrix, I’ll only watch the first and last. Generally the 2nd movie is just fluffy filler, something to make the fans ever eager for the penultimate showdown. I like to see the set up and close down and I feel that I’ve not missed anything by skipping straight to the final chapter here. At last we all get some closure to a franchise that has a curious beginning, the ending won’t be much of a payoff.

Curse of the Blind Dead (2020)

Director: Raffaele Picchio
Starring: Aaron Stielstra, Alice Zanini, Francesca Pellegrini .Germany. 1h 27m
Based on : the short stories “El monte de las ànimas” and “La cruz del diablo” by Gustavo Adolfo

I have to say I’m one of those horror fans who was wowed by what is now considered retro or vintage horror and I still see 70-90 as a golden age. I do however look forwards, possibly with rose tinted glasses, to find modern horrors which are able to offer something which I find wholesome and non flashy, often I am let down by green screens effects, weak characters and narratives that really don’t go anywhere but there’s always an ounce of hope that when someone attempts to go back to a cult classic and renew an old franchise they might do it with some respect and not shit on a movies history.. alas after watching this abysmal movie I am still waiting…

Posetitel Muzeya / A Visitor to a Museum (1989)

Director: Konstantin Lopushansky
Starring: Viktor Mikhaylov, Vera Mayorova,Vadim Lobanov, Irina Rakshina, Aleksandr Rasinsky, Iosif Ryklin, Yu. Sobolev, Vladimir Firsov. Russia/Soviet Union/West Germany/Switzerland. 2h 16m

The jaw dropping, mind bending and highly disjointed follow on to Dead Man’s Letters (1986), shows that Lopushansky has lost none of this amazing vision of the world after an apocalyptic disaster. Usually history is written by the victors but who really comes out on top when the entire planet sinks into a nuclear winter?

From it’s dark crimson opening, it’s clear that the world is a very different place in this complicated post-apocalyptic future, that carries on from living memories of Chernobyl. The world attempts to keep things moving as a tourist attempts to traverse the barren landscape to visit a museum buried deep below the ocean. Clothed in a long black coat and carrying a single suitcase he stumbles through massive piles of waste, fights through clouds of dangerous dust and catches the saddest looking train I’ve ever seen limp down a track. Eventually he makes it to his “hotel” a house run by rich elites that looks out onto a vibrant shore that leads to a hidden fabled Museum.

Containment (2015)

Director:Neil Mcenery-West
Starring: Lee Ross, Sheila Reid, Louise Brealey, Pippa Nixon. UK. 1h 30m

This plucky little drama horror is set in an average London tower block with average London people forced to go through an extraordinary ordeal for reasons unknown.

The lead Mark (Ross) wakes up late for work, rushing to get ready, swallowing some coffee he attempts to call his estranged wife but soon discovers that his front door isn’t just locked but epoxied shut, thinking that someone is playing a trick on him, his attention is soon brought to a loudspeaker telling him and the other residents not to panic, emergency services and hazmat suited staff are setting up a base outside the apartment and a few faces can be seen in neighbouring apartments staring back in as much dismay as him.

The Last Seven (2010)

AKA: TL7

Director: Imran Naqvi
Starring: Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan, Simon Phillips, Ronan Vibert. UK. 1h m

This violent post apocalyptic thriller is set in modern London and tells the confusing and frustrating story of seven people who unknowingly seem to be the only people left after a cataclysmic event has wiped out the rest of humanity. While they struggle with their partial amnesia each assumes his role in banding together which becomes more urgent as they are stalked by a strange hooded figure an angel of death who is stalking and killing them.

In the Aftermath (Angels Never Sleep) (1988)

Director : Carl Colpaert
Starring : Tony Markes, Rainbow Dolan, Filiz Tully. Japan/Australia. 1h  25m

There is always an element of Love and Hate with this Anime/Live Action mashup, the film will captured my affection many year ago and I still enjoy watching it, while blindingly unaware of it’s origins I just assumed two directors got together to produce this mix of post apocalyptic drama/ baroque mystery, many years later I realised how this project basically butt fucked a precious classic Anime movie and turned it into a Troma movie BUT I still adore it.

So the original Anime is  Mamoru Oshii’s 1985 undefinable classic Angel’s Egg, which sees a young girl traverse an abandoned town while nursing a giant egg and entertaining a young soldier, the film dissolves into a biblical darkness that even the director himself can’t really explain. But Carl Colpaert decided to rehash the strong imagery in between new footage filmed in the hot Australian desert and brings new life and meaning to the bizarre original.