Hell Comes To Frogtown (R.J. Kizer and Donald G. Jackson, 1988) Review

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“Well maybe you oughta try making love to a complete stranger in the middle of a hostile mutant territory and see how you like it!” The 1980s saw (for a time at least) the last terrifying hurrah of the threat posed by global nuclear decimation as slamming a fist upon the red button gave way to deals, draw-downs, and perestroika. At the time, however, the possibility of a radioactive apocalypse was still very real – perhaps as real as it had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis (as detailed in Joe Dante's Matinee) – and as such, the topic was ripe for plundering to form the basis of many genre pictures that did gang busters business on the video rental circuit. With the likes of Creepozoids (David DeCoteau, 1987), the atomic paranoia of the real world painted a bleak future to be expressed on the silver screen – and sometimes that included gun-toting man-sized frog men on the hunt for fertile women, as was the case with Hell Comes To Frogtown...

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Turbo Kid: Mini Review...

What's it about?
An apocalypse, ravaged by acid rain and pollution, has obliterated much of the human race, with those still left alive reduced to scavenging and bloodthirsty combat. The year is 1997. The Kid (Munro Chambers), a lone teenager scrabbling through the rubble for the plastic relics of the 1980s, and all-round comic book obsessive, one day stumbles into Apple (Laurence Leboeuf), a curiously manic pink-haired waif whose previous best friend is a festering corpse. As he teaches her about the rules of the wasteland - which is ruled over by the monocular Zeus - he finds the mysterious remains of his hero: Turbo Man - arm blaster included - and takes on the mantle of 'Turbo Kid'...

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"Kung Fury" - rogue cops, laser raptors, and who else but those damn Nazis?

Okay, so I'm a little late to the party on this one, but with so much on the World Wide Web vying for your attention - and with the vast spread of 'clickbait' headlines hovering above wasteful nonsense that never delivers and is only there to 'generate hits' - sometimes you can overlook a good thing.

Sometimes you can overlook a great thing - like Kung Fury - a thirty minute short film from David Sandberg and Laser Unicorns Productions that crams in more neo-1980s fun than you can shake the entire decade at. In the words of the filmmakers themselves: "Kung Fury is an over-the-top 80’s action comedy that was crowd funded through Kickstarter. It features Kung Fury, a Kung Fu renegade cop who travels back in time to kill his Nemesis, Hitler. The film features nazis, dinosaurs, vikings and cheesy one-liners."



The full version of the film is freely available to watch on YouTube HERE.

It was sitting on my 'Watch Later' list for a couple of months, and when I finally got around to viewing it I thought to myself "Why on earth have I waited this long to watch this?!" - so in case you're not one of the 19.8 million hits that this fantastically crazy short film has received GO AND WATCH THIS NOW!

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The Expendables...

It's interesting that the reviews for this flick have been so split, and that the reviewers who didn't like it also didn't like Rambo. I on the other hand absolutely loved Rambo - proper, old school (with modern techniques) balls-out hardcore action ... like the dictionary definition of "bad ass" made into a movie.

Now along comes The Expendables, and as it said explicitly on the tin, this is an old school throwback to 1980s action cinema - but, yep, with modern techniques and a modern pace. Think along the lines of Cobra, Red Heat, and Commando - but remove the cheesiness, and ante up the action by a hundred and there you are.

It's all about big dudes, big personalities, big muscles, big guns and even bigger explosions - and the big finish to this movie certainly delivers on all of those to exhausting lengths (in a seriously enjoyable way). Many of the classic 80s action flicks - the movies that served action icons of the era so well - had a simple plot, and it's no different here. If you want a complex, conflicted and troubled arse kicker, look elsewhere - the spiffing Bourne trilogy, or Daniel Craig's James Bond are there and waiting ... The Expendables is just about being awesome.

Jason Bourne et al are, if I dare to stagger into a mangled comparison, akin to Nirvana. They delivered a hard edged sound but with the lyrics exploring the deep, dark depths of Cobain's troubled mind and life. The Expendables (and Rambo, for that matter), is akin to AC/DC ... catchy rock riffs with thunderstruck raspy lyrics. AC/DC are bad ass - and The Expendables is bad ass.

Some of the big names might be somewhat sidelined, some might say, but they all tear up the screen with their big-time presences. Stallone (an 80/90s action icon) and Statham (a 00/10's action icon) are the leads here, and they have a nice rapport going throughout. It's a rapport which infiltrates the whole movie - a nice, unobtrusive mix of humour amidst the exploding buildings, flying bullets, and splattering gore.

Speaking of which, there is some pretty obvious CGI gore littered throughout the movie. It's properly good fun, no doubt, but certain shots could have used a bit more work to blend the CG-claret more smoothly into the existing picture. That said, the action and cutting are so fast-paced you won't have time to linger - and thankfully the shaky-cam doesn't run roughshod over the proceedings. Again the movie strikes a nice balance - between understanding and seeing all the cool action stuff, and giving the audience a suitably rough ride for the duration.

Like with Rambo, I eagerly await this flick on home video release. I had a properly fun time, with a grin from ear-to-ear, and I do hope the DVD/BR release is jam-packed with equally arse kicking extras. The protagonist's souls may be tortured, but they don't whine about it, they blow something up instead. It's classic action with a modern sense of showmanship ... and I can't help but think that at least some of those complaining about the movie have completely and utterly missed the entire point of the movie.

Back to the 80s (2010)...

This was a project that was similar in many ways to Hereford's Got Talent (2010). Not only did it also take place the Hereford Courtyard Theatre, but it was also a single camera project - and being single camera, it means you have to be keep as focussed as possible on the camerawork as it's basically going to be two 80 minute takes cut together in the edit.


I've done a few of these sort of demanding shooting gigs now, and they do have their limitations (you are rarely afforded the ideal position from which to film, low light, some audio issues, and you have to treat it like one big take throughout - unless you're working on a two-man-two-camera team), but despite the challenge it is always quite rewarding to do. The only thing that actually bothered me was having to compress the quality of the video to fit onto a DVD - the drop in quality isn't overtly apparent, but was necessary due to the length of the edit, which was 138 minutes!

Back to the 80s was an epic musical set in the American 1980s as performed by the Year 6 pupils of three local primary schools - Year 6 being the final year of primary school; Year 7 being the first year of high school. Like with HGT, the project allowed me to have a good play around when it came to the opening and closing titles, the central conceit being to use various fonts from 80s TV and film (e.g. Blade Runner, Back to the Future, The Terminator, and Teenage Mutant Ninja (Hero) Turtles).


All in all it was a fun (if somewhat limiting) project to do (which came to me at the last minute - on the day of, in fact) and it's a good way to strike a balance between not being overly intrusive into the performance (visually speaking), and maintaining the audible sense of audience participation that those who partook would naturally want to re-experience.

Back To The 80s completed...

The epic primary school leaver's musical "Back to the 80s" was completed today, weighing in at an epic 2 hours and 19 minutes.

Similar to Hereford's Got Talent, it was a challenging project what with trying to get the sound as best as you could (e.g. fighting against the large differences in dialogue and music volume), and shooting from far away from the stage, and in addition with this project having a long running time the final render had to be compressed in order to fit on the DVD. Plus being single camera you have nothing to cut away to - so the actual filming in such a situation takes a lot of concentration to keep the frame as steady as possible, while also providing some movement and a range of shots - all without cut aways. It is tough, it can limit you, but it can also work.

Even with technical issues, and the set-up not being a filmmaker's ideal position from which to film, it came out well and I hope those involved enjoy being able to see it again and relive their onstage epic.

Back To The 80s...

The other day I got a last-minute call to do a shoot & edit job on a project called Back To The 80s - a musical put on by Year 6 students from three primary schools (Year 6 being the final year of primary school before you enter Year 7 and High School).

So I was back in the main theatre at the Hereford Courtyard Theatre, where I'd only been a few weeks prior doing a shoot & edit on Hereford's Got Talent, and I'm now off to edit the whole thing together.

Compared to my Year 6 leaver's shindig, now fifteen years ago (blimey!), it was a big old affair. Our gig was a random show that we put on (mostly left to our own devices) ... I can barely remember it, but I was reminded that I was part of a duo doing corny jokes and funny voices, and then we all got book tokens. Times change I guess, but then again I went to a quite small primary school - and our year was a mere 9 people.

Onwards to the edit!