Neonkiller

Ah! I've been after this one for years. Nobody's going to accuse Enzo Castellari of being high brow or filling his films with attacks on Roman Catholic dogma or thinly veiled metaphors about the futility of human endeavour, but action wise, this guy's untouchable. Light Blast is no exception. Car chases, gun fights, gore, car chases, explosions, car chases, this film has the lot. Especially car chases.

Thomas Moore (aka Ennio Girolami, the now sadly departed brother of Enzo) is a crazy scientist with an even crazier light weapon that he uses a couple of times (causing folk to melt ala the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark), and is now blackmailing the city of San Francisco. Cop Erik Estrada (King Worm from Adventure Time) is on the case, which mainly involves chasing after Moore's hired goons and graphically killing them, or tailing them using various vehicles to buildings and killing them there, or chasing hoaxers in cars causing death and destruction.

We first see Estrada during a hostage crisis where he turns up in the buff carrying a turkey with a gun inside it. This was the first indication to me that Enzo wasn't taking this one too seriously. That, and when Estrada jumps on the back of a pick up truck, thrusts his badge into the driver's face and says "Follow that car" and does this several times until we see a motorcyclist dropping him off outside of a henchman's place, which leads to the awesome 'fight in a mortuary scene'.

Basically Erik gets into a three way fight with one of Moore's hired goons (hired goons?) and a crazy nurse who kicks him in the knackers about 100 times. Fantastic.

Although there's…kind of not much plot to speak of, Light Blast is jam packed full of the stuff brain dead Italian action fans want to see, so you're not going to hear any complaints from me, because I'm a brain dead Italian action fan. As long as people are shooting at each other or things are blowing up, I won't get confused. This is another winner from Enzo – I've still not seen a bad film by him. Good music too, from the De Angelis brothers.

Massimo Vanni fans take note: Massimo's cameo lasts long as these words, uttered by me during the film: "Ah, there's Massimo. I wonder how long it will take him to get killed? Well, there he goes."

A bitchy kung fu nurse raising pain and a bulldozer smashing the bits out of the automobile that Erik ("Ponch") Estrada is stuck in may be the only best parts from LIGHTBLAST. Everything else is pointless all the way through. Cookie-cutter action / car chase elements supersede the flesh-to-bones visuals and a science-fiction theme, making this another in an endless string of "cop versus bad guy" action turkeys! Estrada is terribly miscast here. Enzo Castellari fared much better with the underrated, but gritty cult classic 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS. A great waste of precious time well spent.

Things were never quite like this in CHIPS for Erik Estrada who appears in this highly enjoyable action yarn from the ever dependable Enzo G. Castellari.

A mad scientist is threatening to blow up the city with his devastating laser cannon unless his ransom demands are met and it's up to our man Ponch- erm, I mean Inspector Ronn to stop him.

Some great body melt fx, a number of exciting high speed car chases (with an especially cool one at the climax), plenty of shoot outs and in one scene, a fight in an undertakers with a mad female mortician(!) all combine to make this a fun ride from start to finish. Add to this a cool musical score that backs up all the said action and what more could you ask for in a film?

Highly recommended!

Lightblast is quite entertaining movie, in the trashy way. It doesn't promise more than it can offer - it has pretty childish plot, just average actors, characters aren't introduced and there's too much car chasing scenes. Still, I love the way Lightblast delivers the action: it's quite gory and entertaining, like in many other Castellari's movies too. Action and human melting scenes (that are ripped off from the ending of the Raiders of the lost ark) are definitely best that movie offers. Otherwise it's just an another nameless B-actionpack. So, if there's any way you can get hold on this movie (yes, I know it can be difficult) and you like good B-action from early 80's, this is the movie for you. Lucky for me, movie has been released in Finland at the early 80's on VHS, otherwise it would be mission impossible to find. Recommended for all trash-movie fans.

The first time I saw this movie was a couple years ago. It was at the end of some old tape that had been lost with time. And it only had the ending of it. Some friends and I just happened across it one night and we couldn't stop laughing at it. In fact we liked it so much that I scoured the Internet for the full version of it. I was finally able to buy a used copy of it and have loved it ever since. I would have to say that now this is my favorite movie. Next is Black Belt Jones.