Turnaround

My Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror describes Turnaround as 'a bloodless Last House on the Left clone'; somebody get me some of whatever they were on when they watched the film. By no stretch of the imagination is this lame '80s teen thriller anything like Wes Craven's gruelling '70s horror classic.

The opening montage of motorbikes and crap magic tricks set to a cheesy pop-rock theme song suggests exactly what kind of film this is going to be: a badly-dated bit of tacky straight to video garbage.

Doug McKeon (from teen sex comedy Mischief) plays Ben, grandson of magician Theo Aitken (Eddie Albert), who has somehow found fame and fortune despite his stage act comprising of third-rate illusions. After Ben and his friends are terrorised by the most pathetic biker gang imaginable, Theo helps the youngsters get even - by rigging his house with magic tricks and luring the thugs into their trap...

This cockamamie plan succeeds in scaring the bejeezus out of the biker hoodlums, who are apprehended by the police shortly after (having identified the gang using their powerful new police computer).

Nobody is raped, nobody is shot, nobody is electrocuted, nobody is chainsawed, and nobody has their tallywhacker bitten off. There is, however, loads of nasty synth/guitar muzak and plenty of hideous '80s fashion.

A Norwegian director who had success with a feature was given all to much money to make a new film. He hires a cast of American actors including Jonna Lee and Ramon Estevez, shoots some scenes in NY,and the rest in the small town of Drammen, Norway. He uses the help of the local American Car Club to add some clunkers to the street scape, as well as using a typical US telephone boot which he moves around, adding an American mailbox, and some police stickers to one of the clunkers.

It ends up looking like..... Drammen, Norway.

The story is hopeless, suitable for 10 year olds....

The soundtrack starts of promising, but throughout the film it is succeeded by muzak.

This film must have had many involved in the making of the film who had different visions of what this film should have been. The american theatrical 1-sheet hints it is a supernatural thriller (which it is not), the British video box suggest it is a possession thriller (which it is not), the movie plays like a afterschool special or one of them family movies with messages, yet it contains (though brief) language and nudity, so it isn't for kids (but really didn't deserve an R rating).

The basic premise had these motorcycle riding gangs crash a magicians grandson's (McKeon) party, and terrorize everyone (no death or excessive physical violence)until the adults chase them away, so in the end, the master magcian (Eddie Albert) and McKeon and his friends get even with them by making them go through their haunted house of magic! It seriously plays like a "message" teen film for TV!

This is a odd film as it stars American and England actors, yet looks like it was shot in Netherlands. Film was announced on video in US back in 1987, after its brief theatrical run, but instead came straight to HBO. Never was released on video here. Real catchy title tune by Paul Carrack however. And great to see Jonna Lee, whom we don't see enough of anymore.