Mutant Hunt (1987)

Some films deserve to be seen in shitty video quality rather than remastered to pristine condition. Not to worry because the copy of Mutant Hunt (1987) on Tubi is basically a VHS rip with that wavy ‘dirty tapehead’ quality over the opening credits. This is low budget cyberpunk trash that I had a blast with, basically a sci-fi rip-off shot in New York with what looks like a $400 budget (most of which was probably spent on the striking poster art which it can never live up to!). This movie is like the one scene in The Terminator where Rick Rossovich wakes up in his underpants to fight the T-800, but expanded to eighty minutes; here, fighting a robot in your white jockeys is actually a winning strategy. And if a sinister corporate villain implanted a bomb into the back of your head, if you asked nicely, they might just remove it after five minutes without question.

A corporation called Inteltrax has developed cyborgs – however the sinister boss, Z, who acts like one of the aliens from Plan 9 From Outer Space is scrambling their circuits with a street drug called Euphorianon (or something like that) to be effective killing machines. These cyborgs all wear dark shades and black clothes, and stumble around like hungover Devo-esque New Wave ravers. The bad guy imprisons the hunky scientist, Dr Haynes, who worked on creating the robots, strapping him to a table, while the scientist’s sister, Darla, escapes to find a soldier of fortune named Matt Riker to help them out. Now this Matt Riker is quite a guy – our hero is basically introduced jumping out of bed in his white underpants and having a ten minute punch up with a cyborg in his apartment. Once our heroes – including Elaine, a brassy exotic dancer/mercenary and Johnny Felix, a tech expert proficient in martial arts – join forces to hunt the escaped cyborgs, their whole plan to defeat these unstoppable machines? More fist fights! They even have a scene where gadgets and tech are handed out – no laser weapons though – and still prefer to go all Streets Of Rage on any hulking robot stomping their way through New York back-streets in the dead of night (when I’m sure there were no worries about cops busting the crew for lack of permits).

This movie also features a rival villain, Domina, a former partner to Z, who is made up a little like Rachel from Blade Runner but talks with a flat Brooklyn accent and sounds like Patti Smith. She also has her own Frankenstein cyborg kept under wraps as she strides across her room plotting to her attentive cyborg. They also keep ripping off the same shot from Blade Runner where the camera pans up to the Tyrell pyramid and you hear the score copycat the Vangelis synth tinkling. There’s also slow loading Escape From New York computer graphics, a grotesquely slimy and melting android puppet, a scene in a cyberpunk new wave bar, and lots of street fighting in deserted New York streets and an abandoned factory with wailing guitars and crusty synth on the soundtrack.

Directed by Tim Kincaid who also made gay porno under another name and this has that quality without the hardcore sex scenes. It’s very goofy, objectively complete dreck, but also a completely tactile, hilarious and fun entry into straight-to-video cyberpunk rip-offs. Recommended (if you dare).

Videodrome (1983)

VHS tape might be an antiquated medium but writer-director David Cronenberg’s sick idea to fuse it with flesh ensures Videodrome (1983) has a long shelf-life as a body-horror sci-fi cult classic. Even if the technology featured is dated, from VCRs to cathode tube TVs to cable satellite dishes, the cold eroticism and sick intrigue of this movie complicates any techno-fear with techno-arousal; the medium is the message and the message is horny and depraved. Rick Baker’s grotesquely spectacular special effects, which emphasises the tactile and gooey means that everything has a distinct physicality as VHS tapes are inserted into stomachs and heads are swallowed up by TV screens in two of the film’s most iconic images. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself responding more and more to Cronenberg’s aesthetic and mood. In the past, there was always a slight remove, a chilly distance that he was renowned for as an auteur, ideas over heart, intellect over emotion. Yet as the world gets more and more grim, Cronenberg’s work remains prescient even if we’re in a world of streaming platforms and social media. James Woods is perfectly sleazy and intense as Max Renn, programmer for Channel 83, a Canadian TV station that is controversial for broadcasting violent, sexual content. His demand for “harder” stuff comes true with the mysterious Videodrome, a pirate feed that broadcasts anonymous dungeon torture. As Max starts to become addicted to it, along with his sadomasochistic lover, Nikki Brand (Debbie Harry, perfectly cast), he goes down the wormhole of secret wars between underground parties over the use of advanced technology that causes disturbing mental and physical effects. Much like Scanners, I love that these Cronenberg joints start from a chilly, boring sense of place and eventually unveil strange conspiracies and ghoulish ruptures, an eventual apocalyptic breakdown of body and mind. They also feel like the entry-point into a larger, speculative netherworld; Having just watched Scanners II and III, I wish there were similar direct-to-video over-the-top sequels that expanded the battle between Spectical Optical Corporation and the New Flesh acolytes. Foreboding score by Howard Shore that almost works as sound design at certain points. Available to rent on iTunes. Long live the new flesh. Recommended.

Cyber Tracker (1994)

Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson is a name I know from the video store shelves, a direct-to-video action star on the lower circle of action heroes. Like Jeff Speakman or Olivier Gruner, these were recognisable names but I never saw any of their flicks. Until now. Cyber Tracker (1994) is a sci-fi martial arts thriller that is a lower budget copy of Terminator and Terminator 2. Instead of Terminators, these indestructible assassins are called Cybertackers, and instead of being controlled by futuristic AI, they’re basically robocops authorised to go all Judge Dredd on any convicted felon punched into the database. When I started watching this VHS rip off uploaded onto YouTube, I’ll be honest, there’s a voice in the back of my head going, “Why, you could be watching something good?!” But then, you get a lo-fi version of a high-tech special effect – like a gun emerging from a robotic thigh through some basic graphic effects – and the entertainment value kicks in. Wilson plays a secret service agent wearing a suit and shades who protects a Senator (John Aprea, great to see members of the On Cinema universe represented) keen to adopt more technological enhancement in society. Yet, there’s a sinister plot underfoot and Wilson is double-crossed and on the run, hunted by a Cybertracker (Jim Maniaci – who looks like a huge, bald middle-aged ex-football player, which I assumed he was). Inevitably Wilson has to team up with those he thought were terrorists, the anti-tech freedom fighters, the UHR, which stands for the Union of Human Rights – probably my favourite detail in this near-future society. This is brain-dead knock-off stuff but I was entertained. I think I was mostly impressed that this low-budget direct-to-video number could still pull off throwing multiple cars off ramps and having them explode on the streets of LA. Wilson is a better fighter than an actor, so thankfully there’s plenty of martial arts fights amongst all the car explosions and shoot-outs in abandoned warehouses. Thankfully also in the mix is long-time stunt-man and martial artist, Richard Norton, an Australian guy who’s been in cult classics like Gymkata and Alien From LA; he plays the formidable henchman after Wilson, and it’s just great to see a nemesis who looks a bit like Richard Wilkins and sounds like a Bondi life-guard in this low budget sci fi schlock. Available to watch on YouTube.

The Net (1995)

I’ve seen the trailer for The Net (1995) a zillion times but never actually watched it from start to finish, and now having seen it, I almost didn’t need to. This is the definition of an average two star movie – watchable enough, but nothing that really sticks to your MEMORY dot RAM etc, zing. As a post-Speed star vehicle for Sandra Bullock, it works because you’d like to see her star in something better (reminder: I should finally check out Murder By Numbers, huh?). Bullock plays a lonely computer expert who specialises in finding viruses in games, all from the confines of her spacious house. While doing a favour for a friend, she stumbles across a hidden link and becomes embroiled in a shadowy conspiracy. Smash cut montage of Virus Warnings, random digital images and crunchy static on the soundtrack. While holidaying in Mexico, she also becomes acquainted with a debonair Brit (Jeremy Northam) who might be a romantic interest if he wasn’t also a computer hacker assassin (and as it turns out, not very good at his job). Aside from the dated hacker tech (Sandy B debugging Wolfenstein 3D and then ordering a pizza online through Pizza.Net in the opening is the highpoint of this) and the heightened techno-fear (monologues about how “everything, our whole lives are in the computer” and a lingering close up of the hospital computer monitor that our hero smashes in defiance), this is standard 1990s thriller stuff, a pale floppy disc copy of The Fugitive, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, etc (Boot up the Grisham_Thriller.exe program and hit ‘Start’). Our plucky heroine keeps turning to people for help who either turn out to be hidden agents or are doomed to meet with an unfortunate accident. Also, The Net takes us back to the era where comedian Dennis Miller would act in things (he plays an old flame of Bullock’s, a therapist who she had an affair with, the type who can’t help make wisecracks even when she’s clearly in distress). Ultimately, much like a bad dial-up connection, The Net leaves you hanging, even the final showdown between Bullock and Northam is resolved in a way that leaves you asking, “Ah, that’s it, then?” Prosaic airport novel fare without being actually based on an airport novel. In comparison, for all its flaws, Hackers stands out as even more imaginative and dynamic with its wild swings at net-based culture. The Net: rented on iTunes. Only apply if you’re Bullock-head and a lover of outdated tech-fear thrillers.

Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)

My interest in cyberpunk/VR cinema was reawakened by how much I enjoyed watching The Lawnmower Man, just how nasty and wacky it was, and the artistry in the cyberspace sequences. With the sequel, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996; or as its called in the actual film, Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War, always a good sign), I was under no illusion that it was good or a hidden gem. Look, they couldn’t get Brosnan back (too busy being James Bond), but they couldn’t even get Jeff Fahey back (too busy making Sketch Artist II?) – that’s another warning sign. A key scene that indicated the level that this film was on: a bunch of kids (including the only returning actor, Austin O’Brien, now a teen) living in an abandoned train carriage during Blade Runner times have jacked into cyberspace but they need cyber-cycles, and to get this, a cyber-cycle program has to be uploaded into their computer. So one of the kids in the cyberspace yells into the ether, appearing on a computer monitor left behind in the real world and asks their dog to boot up the disc. Cut to a shot of a CD-ROM tray with the program disc being pushed in by a dog’s paw. Woof. But also, hilarious. Makes you feel like you’re watching a kids show on Cheez TV. The most fascinating thing about this movie is how they’ve altered The Lawnmower Man property – a dark thriller with sex and violence that was actually a box office hit – into something for kids (maybe to avoid another lawsuit from Stephen King for using his name to advertise something that had nothing to do with his writing?). Along with Patrick Bergen’s anti-tech dreadlocks and the swashbuckling score, this has surprising Spielbergian Hook vibes as this scientist (not the same character thatBrosnan played) and these teen hackers attempt to stop lawnmower-man-simpleton-turned-genius-cyber-god Jobe (here played by Matt Frewer) from creating a super cyber-city. The true villain is character actor Kevin Conway whose corporate plan is to control everyone using Jobe’s powers to extort politicians or something, and plug everyone into this other version of the internet, which looks like a polygon stadium with the aesthetics of an Animorphs book cover. I like Frewer as a presence – this is the original Trash Can Man we’re talking about here – but it’s all a bit confusing; in some scenes, Jobe is a victim who needs to be saved, in other scenes he’s a villain who needs to be stopped. The best scene is when Job turns into a Jim Carrey character doing one-liners (“Jacking in, jacking off, what’s the difference?”). This was trashy and bad but kind of fascinating – anyway, this movie is crossed off the list and it’s back to scoping any other direct-to-video 90s trash with “cyber” or “virtual” in the title. Available to stream on Shudder.