Der Exterminator - 2. Teil

Follow-up to the exploitation classic. This one is produced by the Cannon group, which should set off alarm bells given these are the guys who made their fair share of crap back in the 80's, including the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie. True to form Cannon have injected their brand of cheese into this one as well. The Exterminator (Robert Ginty) battles a gang led by Mario Van Peebles. Sporting an impressive flat-top and clobber that would not have looked out of place in The Warriors, Van Peebles chews up the scenery at every given opportunity; Ginty, on the other hand, acts like he is heavily sedated throughout. There is a lot more explosions in this sequel and Ginty drives around in a garbage truck rigged up like a tank. The stupid level has been ramped up at the expense of the scuzz factor basically and this is a more typical cheesy 80's actioner for the most part, while it sports an often truly terrible soundtrack. Still, I did find it enjoyable enough as these things go.

This movie reminds me of a Troma film (e.g. Toxic Avenger) with higher production values. It's not apathetically bad; it embraces its cornball center, staying barely a step ahead of camp, and is thoroughly enjoyable. Early 80's gangs wearing costumes with a disco/Mad Max theme, in a solemn torchlit procession carrying the driver of an armored car into the subways to make him a sacrifice on the train tracks, several of them topless (male) with suspenders, set to an energetic synthesizer soundtrack that sounds like it could have been written for a Nintendo game.. it has to be seen to be believed. Probably inspired by Michael Jackson's video "Beat It".

My review was written in September 1984 after a Times Square screening.

"Exterminator 2" is a silly and tiresome revenge actioner, unlikely to repeat the freak hit status of its 1980 predecessor.

Formula, patterned after a successful line of Charles Bronson films, is to create audience antipathy against young street punks of mixed racial backgrounds, allowing a stalwart avenger to be motivated to wipe them out at intervals, with plenty of action. Mark Buntzman, who produced the original "The Exterminator", here wears (and shares with William Sachs) too many hats, taking over James Glickenhaus's writing and directing assignments from #1 and ending up with a contradictory mishmash.

Reprising his title role as Vietnam vet Johnny Eastland, an uncomfortable Robert Ginty is supposedly spurred into renewed vigilante action when his flashdancing girlfriend Caroline (Deborah Geffner) is at first savagely beaten and crippled, and later murdered by he all-purpose punks, led by a messianic leader ("I am the streets") X (Mario Van Peebles). However, the crudely constructed film has Ginty, in hismyhic steel helmet, army khakis and flamethrower uniform, randomly and unconvincingly incinerating punks rift from the outset, including X's brother.

Crassly violating the "lone avenger" formula, Eastland is teamed with an old mate from Vietnam, Be Gee, your friendly neighborhood black garbage man who eagerly endorses Eastland' murderous cleanup policy. Sole interesting element on view is the weird sight of Be Gee's vast Mack garbage truck, armored and refitted as a sort of tank with remote-control machine-gun turrets by Eastland for confrontations with punks, who meanwhile are trying to take over New York City via armored car robbery and peddling Mafia-supplied drugs.

Ginty has one good scene wherein he manhandles a punk for information, but generally, the sadisic element of the first film (which had him ingeniously feeding bad guys to a meat grinder, et.) has been toned down. Geffner gets to show her nude body and dancing ability, while acting honors go to Van Peebles, creating a solid physical presence with his male version of Grace Jones.

Technically, film adheres to an ugly look in keeping with its theme, though why it took such a huge crew (over 300 people are credited with behind-the-camea contributions) to ma=ke a B-picture is mighty strange. Only real sense of humor in this "serious" comic strip approach comes in the song titles: "Exterminate Me (with Your Flame)", "Shake It to Bake It" and the ever-popular "Return to CInder".

i've read some bad comments about this film on this site, mainly from people who i think took even the first film rather too seriously. this is a brilliant piece of absurd 80's action, dutifully modelled on the superb death wish series. the "street punks" are one of the best features and resemble the b*****d offspring of the warriors and mad max 2. the exterminator himself spends most of the film going berserk with a flamethrower and at one point he operates a rubbish truck armed with remote control machine guns. the action is interspersed with ridiculous love scenes involving a stripper. although i think this film does lack some of the quality of the original i found it just as enjoyable and anyone who can appreciate the death wish series should certainly enjoy this

Exterminator 2 (1984)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

In 1980 the low-budget THE EXTERMINATOR hit theaters and become a rather big hit so four years later this sequel followed. Robert Ginty returns as John Eastland and this time out he's dealing with more bad guys including the leader of the pack who is known as X (Mario Van Peebles). This sequel certainly has production companies Cannon's signature all over it and in fact I think this film owes more to DEATH WISH II than the actual first film. I say that because the exploitation factor is a lot higher here for a number of reasons. I think director-producer Mark Buntzman probably saw that Charles Bronson hit and decided to do like that film and just deliver what people wanted. Part of what people wanted from the first film was the flame-thrower, which was pretty much shown on the poster of the first film but here it becomes a major character. Whereas in the first film it was only used once or twice, here it is the main killing force as we see countless people set on fire and burned to a crisp. This effect is put to great use throughout the picture and one has to tip their hat to the stunt men were were doing these dangerous stunts on a low-budget. The biggest problem with EXTERMINATOR 2 is that the pacing is so incredibly bad that the 90-minute running time feels three times as long. At one point I thought the film was almost over and my boredom turned to shock when I realized we were only thirty-minutes into the picture. There are a few good points along the way including the silly violence, which is certainly over-the-top at times and this is especially true of the garbage truck hunting. I thought Ginty was good in his wooden way. Van Peebles is certainly a lot of fun in his own way and you've got to love the various wild outfits he wears. Is this better than the first film? Considering I wasn't a fan of either, I'd say this one here manages to be a tad bit sillier and contain some campier, wilder moments that somewhat make it more entertaining. It's just too bad that the pacing wasn't better.