Tag: Meg Foster

Future Kick (1991)

H Y P E R D R E A M

Objectively, Future Kick (1991) is one star direct-to-video trash. Yet this is right in the pocket of a low-rent cyberpunk vibe that I’m very much into. I love The Terminator, Robocop and Total Recall so much, that to see a cheap knock-off from the 1990s is a joy, for how they replicate moments on a lower budget. Usually there are practical sets and special effects, and if there’s any CGI, it’s going to be on the level of a CD-ROM video game.

In the “future” of Future Kick, wealthy people live on the moon while the Earth has become a Blade Runner type ruined metropolis, all overcrowded police stations, streets with fire drums, and illicit night clubs always cutting away to a stripper performing a dance. Meg Foster (They Live, Masters Of The Universe) is searching for her missing VRS programmer husband (VRS is “Virtual Reality Systems” as he helpfully explains to her) in the sprawl. Eventually she teams up with a sunglasses-at-night bounty-hunter cyborg played by Don “The Dragon” Wilson (his championship titles as a martial artist are given underneath his name in the opening credits). I loved how his opening narration explains that a new line of cyborgs were created to crack down on corporate crime, but they found out the corporations were responsible for too much crime, and a special task force of corporate police were created to hunt down and terminate the cyborgs (info given in the space of two minutes). There’s also a serial killer (who has a pouty Chris Sarandon Fright Night aura) with a three blade knife who rips out people’s hearts and sells them to a New Body rejuvenation corporate business on the body organ black market. And there’s also Chris Penn as a robot who does kickboxing, no doubt waiting for Reservoir Dogs to shift him out of the Best Of The Best era.

The great thing about Future Kick is that its 76 minutes long and moves at a clip, with ADR exposition papered over edits between scenes, and producer Roger Corman recycling sets and stars from other films, even footage (the space scenes I believe are from Battle Beyond The Stars) to make it to the finish line as a releasable movie. It still has enough William Gibson rip-off shit (there’s even an underground death game called Laser Blade) to make me love it, alongside other VHS cyberpunk knock-offs like Mutant Hunt, Cyber Tracker and Virtual Assassin.

Available to stream on Tubi (of course). Recommended (if you like your direct-to-video detritus).

The Lords Of Salem (2012)

I do have a soft spot for Rob Zombie – this is the guy who gave us ‘Dragula’ for crying out loud! As a director of horror films, sure, some of them feel like a pack of rabid drunks in a bar screaming horror movie references into your face, but I appreciated that he tried to do something different with his Halloween remakes and The Devil’s Rejects stands as an entertaining blood-soaked modern western. After hearing Patrick Bromley discuss it on The Pure Cinema Podcast, I was keen to finally catch up with The Lords Of Salem (2012), which marked a change in direction for Rob Zombie, making something that wasn’t a sequel or remake, and went for more of a slow burn horror film. It is a synthesis of influenced and references – Rosemary’s Baby, the original Suspiria, The Exorcist, Maria Bava movies, etc. But Zombie was ahead of the curve by a couple of years, preempting the current trends in modern horror; I feel like if his name wasn’t attached and it was released by A24, Lords Of Salem would be more critically celebrated and appreciated. Set in Salem Masschusetts, it focuses on a radio DJ (Sheri Moon Zombie – who has kind of a Jamie Lee Curtis with dreadlocks vibe) who receives a mysterious record from a band with the film title’s name. When she plays it, a strange dirge is heard and she goes into a trance. There are flashbacks, dreams and visions of a persecuted witch from long ago named Margaret Morgan (Meg Foster from Masters Of The Universe and They Live, who is effectively creepy here) Then there’s a mysterious tenant in the neighbouring apartment in the townhouse she lives in; her neighbours downstairs are a curious trio of older women who are always checking in on her (Judy Geeson from Fear In The Night, Patricia Quinn from Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dee Wallace from Cujo). Ghostly visitations, satanic flashbacks and nightmarish visions keep appearing to Sheri Moon’s character, all of which builds to a final stretch that escalates in phantasmagorical effects and stark, surrealist imagery. There is some truly batshit crazy stuff in here, a satisfying payoff to its patiently paced scene setting and world building, effectively scored by composer John 5’s dread-filled drone-y music and classic needle drop song cues (very much into the ‘Venus In Furs’ Velvet Underground vibe of dirge). While some of the film remains clumsy and flawed, Lords Of Salem is an effectively creepy and gloriously visual modern horror. Recommended.