Charming and brutal

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

How's this for a promising premise: A motley bunch of extremely annoying and unlikable college frat boys are sent into a dangerous blighted urban area as part of an initiation rite. The grossly unappealing dolts run afoul of vicious malformed psycho Splatter (well played with fierce intensity by Edwin Neal of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" fame), who naturally stalks the frat boys through the back alleys of these mean city streets. Sound good? Well, it just ain't, man. Director/co-writer Ronald W. Moore lets the story unfold at a painfully sluggish rate (the opening third in particular is way too draggy and drawn-out), crucially fails to build much in the way of either tension and momentum, stages the infrequent action scenes with a crippling dearth of skill and panache, and makes clumsy sporadic use of slow motion. Moreover, the frat boy characters are a truly hateful, idiotic, and extremely unsympathetic bunch; one quite simply doesn't care whether these irritating jerks live or die. Worse yet, the acting for the most part is very poor, with Wade Reese rating as the biggest offender with his profoundly grating turn as obnoxious meathead Steve. Only Alice Villarreal manages to rise above the muck with her enjoyably spiky portrayal of feisty streetwise punkette chick Julie. Neal's fellow "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" star Marilyn Burns is sadly wasted in a nothing minor role as Splatter's bitter old flame Dorothy Grim. Things briefly perk up with a cool appearance by the funky band Max and the Makeups at a rowdy punk club, but not even a decent smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity and a handy helping of nasty gore can redeem the general tedium of this lackluster clunker. Jon H. Lewis' fairly slick cinematography and Robert Renfrow's snazzy synthesizer score are both a good deal better than this dreck deserves. A real stinker.

"Future-Kill," with its menacingly hyphenated title and H.R. Giger-esquire (turns out Giger himself actually did it) box art, was a film of quasi-mythic cult attraction in the time of VHS. Its real claim to any sort of notoriety? The participation of two actors from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns, the latter of which basically has an extended cameo). I rented the film years ago for that very reason, and didn't find it great, but didn't hate it, either; at best, it felt like a semi-coherent mix of "Porky's," "Repo Man," and the early works of Sam Raimi. After viewing it a second time, I can genuinely say I liked the film. While the current DVD version (via Subversive) doesn't perform any alchemy on the film's murky cinematography (it's essentially a port-over of the old VHS), it adds to a strangely nostalgic feel for '80s "No Nukes" protests, New Wave fashions (gotta love the Bowie-esquire eye makeup!), and no-taboo sex comedies that weren't afraid to show a lot of skin. Director/co-writer Ronald Moore has crafted an erratic, borderline-amateur feature that starts like one of the endless rip-offs of "Animal House" (pampered frat guys spurn a rival frat leader), abruptly shifts into a variant on "Escape from New York" (frat guys run afoul of a radiation-poisoned psychotic, aptly named Splatter (Neal), and even finds time to reflect on the socio-economic differences between the bourgeois frat guys and the urban "mutants" looking to live nuke-free (with the final conclusion being that neither is all that different). While Moore's directorial flourishes are minimal, the periodic use of muted slow motion during violent scenes seems to tie in with the film's contradictorily anti-violent philosophy, and is employed to good effect; and while the frat guys aren't very well-defined, some are allowed to develop as characters, to the point where the suspenseful climax actually carries a surprising (albeit low-grade) impact. While "Future-Kill"'s philosophy might not be the most thought-out, and while it may not be a model of superior film-making, it should be given credit for at least attempting to go about its slaughter with some semblance of brainpower. (The funky vintage synth score also deserves a shout-out.)

I'm sure I saw FUTURE KILL for the same reason as most people: the awesome poster by HR Giger. And like everyone else, I was disappointed to find that the movie could not live up to the poster (Giger said that director Moore actually begged him to do it). When I first saw this, at the age of 14, I thought it was the worst movie ever made. I'd still think that if I hadn't seen certain movies on MST3K since then.The plot has a bunch of annoying college boys driving into the "mutant city" to kidnap a gang-leader for their fraternity. That's when they meet Splatter (Ed Neal), a mutant/cyborg/psycho who kills the gang leader and blames it on the frats as an excuse to hunt them down and seize power. The rest of the movie consists mostly of chases. A hand-full of frats try to battle their way out of mutant city (which I think is supposed to be LA, even though it was made in Texas). There's some pseudo-political stuff about the frat boys' society being pro-nuclear weapons and the mutant-society being anti-nuke. There's talk of how Splatter became a freak due to radiation. Most people develop cancer from radiation, but splatter just shoots spikes and slaughters girls. Yeah, that makes tons of sense. At one point, our heroes rescue a mutant girl from two pro-nuke police, and she shows them "how the other half lives." The other half, it turns out, are all punk kids who dance around to a bad 80s pop-band. So our little epic is both dumb and dated. That's really all there is to it. Frat boys running around in messed up buildings while guys who look like bikers try to kill them... Oh, and it's the future.I don't think you'll have any doubt about why Ron W. Moore never made another movie. This thing is a real stinker. If you like Giger, buy his books (they have the poster without the horrors of the movie), or just watch ALIEN again. FUTURE KILL is a waste of time that nobody needs.If this description makes the picture sound good, there's another crappy movie that does the same thing, only bigger and better: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK. It's crap, but it blows FUTURE KILL off the screen.

I just saw this film and I have to say it has an interesting concept. However it is poorly done. It is still entertaining, but it would have been way better if it had a half way decent budget. I am a huge fan of Marilyn Burns(Texas Chainsaw Massacre,Helter Skelter) so thats why I was drawn to this film. The box is misleeding because she is only in the movie for a little in the begining and some at the end. SO see it at your own risk. The cheesy 80's rock songs will be in your head for days