Booby Trap

After a plague in the future kills over 100 million people certain zones are established to quarantine those infected. As the plague subsides these zones become hotbeds of criminal activity and essentially serve as a sanctuary for outlaws who take advantage of the societal breakdown and terrorize nearby cities. In one particular case some hoods led by a man named "Reegus" (Merritt Butrick) break into a home and in the process of looting it decides to cripple a young man named "Steve" (Devon Hoelscher) who is trying to protect his mother (played by Kristina David) and his girlfriend, "Rebecca" (Emily Longstreth). To make matters even worse, when his mother (played by Kristina David) files a report she is subsequently beaten and Steve's grandmother is murdered. Realizing that they are coming for him and Rebecca he decides to fight them off using his knowledge of electronics and a type of robot he has invented out of spare parts. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that it had a good premise and some adequate actors to build upon. Unfortunately, the director (Frank Schaeffer) wasted too much time by concentrating so extensively on the wild antics of the barbarians in their camp rather than devoting that time on character development. As a result the story seemed to lose focus. Additionally, I thought both Emily Longstreth and Merritt Butrick weren't used to their full capabilities. In any case, this wasn't necessarily a bad movie but all things considered I have to rate it as slightly below average.

Just when I thought I'd be seeing another action-packed turkey, WIRED TO KILL did turn out as a decent surprise. Set in the year 1998, it looks too frightening enough to make us wonder how hard we're surviving a lot of society's problems. Imagine what mankind's future would be like someday! The film has an inventive twist to the usual gun-toting theme. In it, a crippled teenager uses a radio controlled device via his computer to hunt down and blast his enemies to kingdom come! That effect makes for some slow pacing, and the film itself goes downhill a bit, but it's almost predictable for the viewer to find out what happens next. Those hospital announcements and voice-overs heard several times are silly and annoying, but they often stage its dark, frightful, maybe controversial setting. It's not so much like these "warriors in the future" movies from the 80s as this shows mankind's ability to overcome the struggling ways of fate. WIRED TO KILL isn't revolutionary nor is it dumb, but it manages us to think about what calamities lie ahead.

In the year 1998, society has seen itself regress in the wake of a plague that left several lawless quarantine zones across the United States. When a zone gang lead by Reegus (Merritt Butrick) storms the home of teenager Steve (Devin Hoelscher), the gang leaves Steve's mother (Kristina David) badly wounded. Using his salvage skills and his surveillance robot Winston, Steve teams up with his girlfriend Rebecca (Emily Longstreth) to exact his vengeance upon the gang when justice has failed.

Wired to Kill (aka Booby Trap) is a 1985 post-apocalyptic revenge film directed by now former evangelist Frank Schaeffer following his prior work as a producer on Christian documentaries How Should We Then Live? And Whatever Happened to the Human Race?. Released in 1986 to little fanfare with most critics dismissing it as another in a longline of Mad Max knock-offs, Wired to Kill on paper has a unique enough idea, but it's undermined by sloppy execution and paper thin uninteresting characters.

If you're familiar with the framework of Death Wish and Mad Max, you pretty much know how this goes to a "T". Gang does something awful, police are incompetent, protagonist pushed to far takes matters into his own hands. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is a genre that relies heavily on formula, but just because something is formula based doesn't make it bad as it just depends what you do with that formula. The movie does have the novelty of us following a pair of vigilantes with Steve being wheelchair bound and using various gadgets, robots, and traps to exact his vengeance often relying on his girlfriend Rebecca to do so for him, but the novelty is undermined by the fact that they're not very good actors with even less chemistry. While Emily Longstreth does slightly better as Rebecca (though hardly leading material) Devin Hoelscher makes so little of an impression as Steve I routinely forgot the characters name. The movie also suffers from the sloppy direction, writing, and editing of Schaeffer in the director's chair who doesn't know how to establish structure in the writing, tone in the direction, or clarity in the editing (which gets particularly sloppy towards the end). The movie has two scenes that are backed by what sounds like comedic Tuba music, and while some of the kills and traps are creative the movie's so flabby and directionless it robs them of their impact. Some of the villain performances like Tommy Lister Jr. Or Merrit Butrick try to bring something to their roles, but it's very much band-aids on bullet holes.

Wired to Kill is the kind of cheap disposable exploitation that's designed to be experienced on cable at 3:00AM, because at that point you'll be too sleepy to care and probably dream of a much better movie than you're watching. Unless you're a completionist of Mad Max knock-offs, I can't recommend this.

Recently, while digging for some old VHS tapes for my collection, I was absolutely riveted by this real cool art cover depicting a very handsome couple in some sort of post-apocalyptic civilization, and even though this is not a personal favorite genre of mine, I ended up taking this one home with me, believing I had just spend my budget for the day in a real big turkey. Well, not that big to my surprise. The real problem I found with this movie is that it can't make up its mind of what it is. On the one hand we're presented with this post-apocalyptic scenery with brutal gangs acting like animals, and people trying to survive, with our main guy named Steve (played by Merritt Butrick) who is a technology freak in seek of revenge for the brutal attack of a gang on her mother and grandma using all kind of gadgets, traps and a wheeled robot (that looks like a real cheap toy to be honest) and also with the help of his girlfriend Rebecca (played by a stunningly beautiful Emily Longstreth), but on the other hand we are shown this cute family living in a suburban house in a city with hospitals and supermarkets and police. Also the tone is quite confusing, as the movie seems to try to target a teenage audience, but then we have some gruesome violence and some blood scenes that can only aim at a more mature audience. The direction and editing is also a horror, specially towards the end, with characters that are transfered most the times to different locations in a blink of an eye without explanation, what makes its view a bit annoying. Some of the acting is real bad and over the top (as expected from a low-budgeted B-Movie like this), and overall the plot is rather silly. But on the positive side, I loved the main couple. Both Emily Longstreth and Merritt Butrick are in charge of carrying the weight of the movie on their backs and they do with great success in my opinion, although I don't think they were used to their full capacities unfortunately. Still there is a great chemistry between the two lovebirds and you really empathize with them. I also liked some of the sceneries and atmosphere, and I loved the main theme too, an electronic/synthwave tune that immediately takes you back to the 80s and puts you in the right mood to enjoy a movie like this. So to sum up and in conclusion, and if I have to be all fair in my review, then all things considered I don't think I should give it a pass, but then again there are far worse dystopian movies out there, and Booby Trap after all, although silly, is quite competent and fun, and I'm completely sure that if I had watched it when I was a kid I would have loved it, so all in all I'll rate it with a 5 out of 10, and all happy.