Rising Storm

Of course whenever you're gonna look for a movie with a Post-Apocalyptic setting you can only be sure of the fact that the film was done on a low budget. What I don't get is why people who make these types of films don't put more effort in to making them believable (it's been done before, with little low-budget films like Star Wars and Terminator). Sex-scenes never add more cinematic value (even in a Bond film) and unnecessary sexual references just blow a movie flat.

I was actually enjoying several parts of this movie, but eventually the cheapness caught up with it and even worse, the fanatic Christian Government, where every military order ends with "Praise the Lord" or "God Bless", starts to get very repetitive really fast.

Unlike with Cyborg 3, I never really got in to the mood of this film and I think it just falls flat in comparison. A few good scenes don't make a very good feature-length film.

In year 2099 the dictator Reverend Jimmi Joe II rules the USA. History is forgotten and the Reverends history book is history now. The only thing who can make people see what's going on is the video tape of a dead DJ.

Well, this is not a very good film. It's OK if your bored, but not in any way a must see. There are at some points good cinematography, some good punch-lines and funny elements.

The plot is kind of interesting. A man taking over a country and denying all of it's real history to it's people and in stead giving out his own history book. However, this just don't work for this movie. The whole thing is just not believable enough and the costumes doesn't help. They just look silly.

If you don't have anything else to do this movie is OK.

Rising Storm is a low budget straight-to-video sci-fi comedy which I guess really should be more and more of a cult classic. There are obvious weaknesses to this film, but it is really funny from time to time.

We're in a pot apocalyptic USA in the fascist year of the Lord 2099. Yeah, just that. The States are ruled by a fascist TV-preacher which says the world was ruined by rock music a 100 years ago, and one DJ in particular, Eliot Kropfeld, is to be blamed. The main goal is to get a video tape on TV on "National TV- viewing day" where everyone is forced to watch TV.

Quite insane plot, but nevertheless this film manages to give some good messages of our live back in 1989, or even today. Excavations they do, even brings up rubber dildos (believe to be hand grenades), VHS and music from The Animals (It's my life...) And plastic cards are referred to as "a thing which made poor people rich".

The film uses cliche's from action- and war movies as well, and you'll find nods to films like 1984, Alien, A Clockwork Orange, Mad Max a.s.o. I really think that this film must have been inspired Starship Troppers as well. At lest there are some things which resembles in the film making.

The start of the movie troubles to find the pace, but then slowly the film finds it's form, and get more and more enjoyable. Cheesy, yes. But then it's supposed to be, isn't it!?

If this film had Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead and a bigger budget, it would have been a sci-f classic.

Recommended cult watching!

I have watched my fair share of Post-Apocalyptic movies and I thought I would probably like this one but it honestly didn't really grab me in a big way.

When the movie starts up and it said Directed by Franky Schaeffer, I remembered I had seen a movie by him yonks ago, 'Booby Trap' I think it was, which was another PA movie but if my memory serves I don't think it was as jokey as Rising Storm is. To set the tone of RS it starts out kind of like a parody of the opening sequence of Blues Brothers, with the character that is played by Galligan collecting his brother from Prison upon his release...it even makes the joke about the absence of the nice car they used to own.

As the movie slowly progresses we learn about the wastes being governed by a Televangelist, which is a unique plot point but doesn't add anything interesting to the movie. The brothers set off on their adventure, get up to some low-brow high-jinx and eventually meet up with two women whom end up becoming their companions. Will they bring down the dictatorship? Will they live to eat McDonald's again? Will Bill Katt make a small but significant appearance more than once? You have to watch to find out...but I thought this was really a bit drab, only half the jokes seemed to work and even then they were very mild. If you are still interested then by all means, head into the wastes for the VHS!

During one summer in my life, I did a LOT of late-night cable TV viewing. Saw LOTS of straight-to-cable and direct-to-video films. This one stands out - good cinematography, occasional bits of satire, and well-done action scenes. Rent it on a rainy day, cause there are a lot of parched desert scenes.