Foxfur (2012)

Foxfur (2012) won me over by its title credit sequence using Tangerine Dream’s ‘Crystal Voice’ from the original Firestarter film soundtrack, trippy synth ambience over an image of outer space. This is the first film of cult director Damon Packard’s that I’ve now seen, and knowing that it was one hour long and available for free on his YouTube made for good entry points (I’ve always been circling around his film Fatal Pulse on Tubi).

The film itself is a chaotic, low-budget odyessy with the title character Foxfur (played by multiple actresses) needing a lift to “the Bodhi Tree” bookstore to meet Richard Hoagland, one of the many names and figures that I was pretty out of the loop on, conspiracy theorists and pseudo scientists known for parallel realities and UFO insider intel. The only name I recognised was David Icke, who like Hoagland is a character in this movie, and I was clueless enough to think that the actors employed were the real people that Packard had somehow talked into being part of his production. Parallel to the free-floating conversations around fringe theories about the “dead zone” of reality are wacky comedy gags and warped lo-fi special effects. People look comically obese with pillows stuffed into their clothes, and move about like video game characters. There’s screaming in people’s faces and dialogue filled with non sequiturs. Colourful glowing lights are visible in the LA night locations, or surrounding characters like vibrating auras. Black liquid shoots through the blue skies in the daylight; random explosions occur within the darkness of night.

The effect is comparable to Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! at their most Lynchian. A running theme seems to be cultural detritus, old and new, with the prominence of a Dark Shadows Johnny Depp billboard, or the eventual transformation into middle earth fantasy (Foxfur is gifted a bow, arrow and cloak; and doubles with a billboard of the Pixar movie Brave in the background of the shot). I was laughing a lot throughout, and appreciating its singular vision, as strange and manic as it was. Recommended.

Seventh Code (2013)

Seventh Code (2013): file under the category of “good one-hour movies.”

Shot and filmed in Russia, a young Japanese woman named Akiko (Atsuko Maeda, pop singer and former member of girl group AKB48) races into frame, dragging a suitcase behind her. She is in pursuit of a Japanese man in a suit, Matsunaga (Ryohei Suzuki) who she is obsessed with. When they meet, she explains: one night, they met back in Japan, and he asked her out to dinner but never followed through. So, she has been trying to find him ever since. From there, things don’t go as planned… or maybe they do?

To say anything more would be a disservice as part of what makes the film an entertaining ride is how the story shifts and turns over the course of its short running time. Directed by Japanese filmmaker, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is best known for horror films like Cure and Pulse, but has also been involved in other genres like drama, romance, sci-fi, etc. Here, Seventh Code is Kurosawa is making a bit of a lark here, playing around with audience expectations and several genres in the tradition of a 1960s Jean-Luc Godard or a 1970s Jacques Rivette thing: is this a comedy, a drama, a thriller, a piece of pop star promotion, etc? Throughout, there are still clear elements of style and tonal weight, particularly the use of orchestral music to make certain scenes carry a sense of grandeur, even if it’s just two people talking in a restaurant, or walking to a train station. Maeda is an engaging lead presence, and moves with the playful nature of the film’s narrative: amusingly mysterious and throwaway fun, but with still some sense of substance, particularly in its underlying theme of dislocation and disorientation in another country.

There’s a copy available to watch on YouTube. Recommended.

Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990)

“Adios, bozo – this time I’m downloading you straight to hell!”

Powering through 1990s cyberpunk cinema, particularly direct-to-video terrain, and the glistening vistas of anime await. Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990) is some cyberpunk anime that I’d never heard of before, but on the title alone was compelled to check out; fundamentally three 45-minute episodes stuck together to experience in a two hour chunk. An OAV (original animated video) set in the future, the year 2808 to be exact, where three criminals have been conscripted to become “cyber police.” They must close cases or their handler, Juso Hasegawa, the police chief in charge of their special unit, has the kill-switch on the explosive collars around their neck. Our three anti-heroes are: Sengoku Shunsuke, a trash-talking punker; Goggles, a huge mohawked hacker; and Benten, an androgynous assassin who resembles a glam rocker. Each episode centres their story on a different character in the team, so there’s a feeling of variety watching it in one go, particularly since there’s also a different threat or villain including: a demonic A.I. that takes a towering automated building hostage; a military-funded cyborg killing machine out for a test run; and evidence of vampirism within the corporate elite. This is the usual cyberpunk anime type of deal, but all entertaining and evocative. There’s great cyber city backdrops and bursts of hectic action from the director of Ninja Scroll, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, though not as sicko as that particular movie, and it’s comparatively like Cowboy Bebop before Cowboy Bebop happened as well. For me, Cyber City Oedo 808 is defined by the brilliant English dub where they really lay on the coarse language with the glee of a teenager cursing a blue streak for the first time in their f-ing life; for example, Sengoku to his humourless robot assistance: “Haha. What a fucking mess! A whole city out of control, all because some shit-for-brains computer got hijacked. What’s that saying? To make a mistake is human but to really fuck things up you need a computer. Ain’t that right, shithead?” Great soundtrack too. Lots of fucking fun, dicksplash. Watched an upload on YouTube. Recommended.

Hologram Man (1995)

Slash Gallagher. That’s the name of the bad guy in Hologram Man (1995), a sci-fi action techno-thriller from PM Entertainment Group. No doubt direct-to-video upon its release, watching it on a YouTube rip now, the film looks like television, yet has enough budget for multiple explosions and equipment to launch stunt people into the air against a wall of flames in the background. Now Slash Gallagher (played by Evan Lurie who also cowrote the movie) is a dreadlocked megalomaniac (resembling a buff Jonathan Davis from Korn) who in the opening of the movie takes his army of goons to assassinate a US senator as part of his “revolution.” In Slash’s way are by-the-book cop named Decoda (Joe Lara) and his partner (John Amos). After one action sequence that smashes up and detonates multiple cars on an inner-city main road, there’s now a vendetta relationship between Decoda and Slash, particularly when Slash is captured and sent to hologram prison. Flash forward five years, and now LA is even more futuristic with space-ship cars and eco-domes. Decoda is no longer by-the-book but a long-haired, rule-breaking maverick and Slash has broken out of the matrix and turned into a powerful electron based force… a Hologram Man if you will.

Demolition Man is a clear influence here (and the film’s title is even name-dropped by a character) along with action sequences that recall moments from Robocop and Terminator 2 (the cocaine factory shoot-out and the truck freeway chase respectively). This is fun cyberpunk video trash that has it all: a VR training sequence that feels like a demo for a PC simulator, a corrupt corporation called CalCorp (short for “California Corporation”), character actors like William Sanderson and Tiny Lister as Slash’s henchmen, Michael Nouri from The Hidden as the power hungry governor, and Tron level effects that turn our muscular stars into video-effect body-suit wearing pixelated “holograms.” Lara resembles Nic Cage in Con Air but if he traded the white singlet for a yuppie suit, and Lurie has a haughty, over-the-top energy that is memorable. Directed by the king of PM cyber-action flicks, Richard Pepin (Cyber Tracker and T-Force) Recommended.

T-Force (1994)

T-Force (1994) is right in the pocket of 1990s VHS-era sci-fi action movie trash that I’m into, particularly anything with a cyberpunk element. PM Entertainment productions seem to have a lot of video covers where the hero – in this case Jack Scalia as a cop named Jack Floyd – holds up a gun as big as their head. It’s a true blessing how many of these flicks have been uploaded onto YouTube to watch for free.

The first 20 minutes of T-Force is another Die Hard rip-off where Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2, Commando) leads a gang of armed terrorists into a Los Angeles corporate building and says stuff like “Good to see you, Mr. Ambassador.” Then our hero cop Scalia rolls up in an open-top cool-guy vintage convertible, and assists a team of government approved Universal Soldier type “cybernauts” called “Terminal Force” who sweep in to save the day. Unfortunately when a few hostages are taken out in the crossfire, the cyborgs are set for “retirement.” Except they decide to turn rogue, talking about “self-preservation” and that the “law is corrupt.” Scalia is given the Blade Runner assignment to hunt them down, and also overcomes his Alien Nation style prejudice against robots by being partnered with the one cyborg – Cain (Bobby Johnston) – who upholds the law (and can rock some faded denim jeans).

A grab-bag of popular sci-fi action movie clichés with enough explosions, 90s ponytails, and Terminator-style cyborg-claw SFX to make it a fun time. Also, contains wacky bits of business such as an exotic dancer needing a battery recharged in the middle of their act, or the hunted cyborgs finding a porno mag in the deserted factory they’re hiding out in and decide to give “procreating” a try (cue sax solo). Recommended, if you’re into VHS action movie trash.