A Violência do Futuro

I just saw this film and I have to say it has an interesting concept. However it is poorly done. It is still entertaining, but it would have been way better if it had a half way decent budget. I am a huge fan of Marilyn Burns(Texas Chainsaw Massacre,Helter Skelter) so thats why I was drawn to this film. The box is misleeding because she is only in the movie for a little in the begining and some at the end. SO see it at your own risk. The cheesy 80's rock songs will be in your head for days

FUTURE-KILL! Holy crap, I revisited this one last night and was shocked at the disconnect between my childhood memories of it and reality. I thought it was cutting edge stuff at the time, but it is just awful. The setting is a futuristic Austin, TX (I assume, they never say) where a gang of painted up punks protest nuclear armament. A bunch of college frat guys head down to the ghetto to play a prank on them, but end up running into radiation-mutated Splatter (Edwin Neal, TCM's Hitchhiker). Splatter kills pacifist anti-nuke leader Eddie during a scuffle and blames it on the frat boys. After that, the film is THE WARRIORS with a $50 budget as they kids try to escape and get help from sympathetic punks including Dorothy Grim (Marilyn Burns). From 30-year-old frat guys to laughable punks, director Ronald Moore gets everything wrong. One would think the re-teaming of CHAINSAW stars Burns and Neal would lead to some interesting moments, but the film has none.

I'm sure I saw FUTURE KILL for the same reason as most people: the awesome poster by HR Giger. And like everyone else, I was disappointed to find that the movie could not live up to the poster (Giger said that director Moore actually begged him to do it). When I first saw this, at the age of 14, I thought it was the worst movie ever made. I'd still think that if I hadn't seen certain movies on MST3K since then.

The plot has a bunch of annoying college boys driving into the "mutant city" to kidnap a gang-leader for their fraternity. That's when they meet Splatter (Ed Neal), a mutant/cyborg/psycho who kills the gang leader and blames it on the frats as an excuse to hunt them down and seize power. The rest of the movie consists mostly of chases. A hand-full of frats try to battle their way out of mutant city (which I think is supposed to be LA, even though it was made in Texas). There's some pseudo-political stuff about the frat boys' society being pro-nuclear weapons and the mutant-society being anti-nuke. There's talk of how Splatter became a freak due to radiation. Most people develop cancer from radiation, but splatter just shoots spikes and slaughters girls. Yeah, that makes tons of sense. At one point, our heroes rescue a mutant girl from two pro-nuke police, and she shows them "how the other half lives." The other half, it turns out, are all punk kids who dance around to a bad 80s pop-band. So our little epic is both dumb and dated. That's really all there is to it. Frat boys running around in messed up buildings while guys who look like bikers try to kill them... Oh, and it's the future.

I don't think you'll have any doubt about why Ron W. Moore never made another movie. This thing is a real stinker. If you like Giger, buy his books (they have the poster without the horrors of the movie), or just watch ALIEN again. FUTURE KILL is a waste of time that nobody needs.

If this description makes the picture sound good, there's another crappy movie that does the same thing, only bigger and better: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK. It's crap, but it blows FUTURE KILL off the screen.

I picked up Future Kill because of the Giger artwork on the box and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre alumni in hopes that it would be good crappy film (you know, like Ghoulies 3). What I got was a hybrid of genres, and something that I had already seen when I was younger. Look at the storyline: A group of teens running from a gang in the city because they have been framed for murder. It wanted to be a futuristic version of the Warriors so bad (it even starred someone who was featured in The Warriors). It's certainly no Warriors or anything to write home about, but it's not as bad as you'd think. With no budget whatsoever the filmmakers actually made a credible feature. It never once gets boring and the characters are fun to laugh at. What was up with the beginning though? It's like they were trying to make the next Porky's and then realized that the movie was titled "Future Kill." It doesn't really fit with the rest of the flick. I couldn't really decide whether the movie was sci-fi, horror, or comedy, but it does star Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and features Bill Johnson who played Leatherface in TCM 2. With that cast, how could it not be a horror movie? But the real question is, why is one of the alternate title Night of the Alien?

The best part of this movie.... the cover art created by H.R Giger

I got sucked in by the cover when it first came out and I was to STOOOPID not to watch it!

Do spend time looking at Giger art if you aren't familiar with him.