A Violência do Futuro

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.

The only thing good about this movie is the artwork on the promotion poster by H. R. Geiger. Anti-nuke protesters who all looked like punk rockers of the late 1970s, and somehow became non-violent, (except for their leader, "Splatter") occupy the cities. Fraternity boys descend on the punkers to do some violence on them and turn them into victims. Bad acting and bad plot then descends on the real victim, you, the viewer. I gave this a "2" because a few sexual scenes at least give it MST3K potential.

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.

The idea for this film must have looked good on paper. No wait. On second thought, there's no way it could have. Let's see what we have here: In an unspecified future, after some sort of non-descript social collapse has left the inner cities inhabited only by freaks, a group of frat boy jerks decides to play a hazing prank that involves them driving into the heart of the city where they are stranded and under attack by post-nuclear punks. Can they make it back to the suburbs? Who cares?

An intriguing, although unsuccessful, meshing of different ideas, "Future-Kill"'s biggest problem is that its various concepts don't gel. In fact the Troma-esque frat-boy comedy at the very beginning of the movie is so jarring (and gross) that it almost seems like part of a different film altogether. The rest of the flick follows suit.

Only high points: Seeing how many times you can spot the microphone boom in the camera shot, And the cool H.R. Giger cover art on the box, which incidently gives the illusion that this film has some class. It doesn't.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Future-Kill; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.50 Direction: 1.25 Pace: 0.50 Acting: 0.50 Enjoyment: 0.75

TOTAL: 3.50 out of 10.00.

Future-Kill is one of those IMDb-listed films where you have to query the genres listed. Sci-Fi - just: Adventure - not quite: Comedy - NO! - not unless the awful acting, dire dialogue, feeble FX, and mad makeup give you a fit of the giggles.

Writer and director Ronald W Moore delivers a stinky wet fish of a story to the audience. There's nothing new or eye-opening in the narrative. However, there was an obvious opportunity at the start of the movie to make the story more powerful and emotional. Unluckily for the poor viewing public, Moore chose not to pursue this fascinating avenue. Instead, he opts to tell the tale of a group of frat boys taking their pranks to a new level by kidnapping a mutant from their part of the town. Of course, frats are not known for their wisdom: I mean, what could go wrong? Well, a mutant leader gets killed, and our lucky lads are in the area to get framed for the murder. Now the boys are on the lamb from the rest of the muties: Who, in turn, are hunting their pretty norm arses. This plot should've been engaging and thrilling. Sadly, Moore is unskilled at creating the atmosphere to entice and engage the viewer. His dialogue is trite and cringeworthy. The characters are so flat you could use them as the perfect ironing board. And it's here that the opportunity reared its head. Splatter is the lead villain. However, in the opening scene, we see him chatting with another member of the group he's associated with, and it's a non-violent group. This scene shows Splatter is attempting to go straight. Now imagine how much better the story would've been to display his inner conflict in addition to his basic compulsion to hurt people. But, as I stated before, Moore didn't possess the skills to make it happen - just look at his bog-standard stereotypical frat boys. The severe lack of individual personalities definitely adds to the yawn factor - and yes, I nearly fell asleep watching this flick.

Moore doesn't improve when he moves behind the camera. Though you can see that he's endeavouring to make the picture more engaging by employing lighting, colour, and compositional shots, he never entirely makes it work. I would put down his unfortunate miscarriages on the terrible script and his lack of skill at pacing a film. The dullness originates from his capacity to hold a shot in frame for too long. And there are too many of these. One of the worst, and the best example, is when the frats are sitting around discussing their plans. The dialogue is claptrap, and the performers appear to know that as they put in one of their most shoddy performances. However, Moore does his best. He uses upward angles and close-ups to add interest, but he holds them too long. There's a segment where one guy on the sofa is gabbling away, for a good minute or two, before his friend replies. He filmed the two minutes plus conversation from one position low to the floor at an upward angle. The screen showed everyone sitting around, hardly moving. It is the worst scene in the film. Regrettably, there are many similar overly-long scenes in Future-Kill.

The cast is a mixed bag. Each of the performers has their problems throughout the picture. Not one of them delivers a stable or entirely credible performance. However, this drawback may stem from either the script, which is poor, or the director, who isn't totally on top of his game; but in this case, I believe it's the lack of talent on the performers' part. It doesn't help matters much when you consider that most frat boys are way too old. A couple of them even possess a reclining hairline. Didn't Moore know any teens, or had he merely given the parts to friends and family?

All in all, Future-Kill is a dull dud of a Sci-Fi Action film. Every fan of the genre should steer well clear of this flick. Unless you're looking for a cure for insomnia, then feel free to give it a try...oh, and pleasant dreams.

I may be an aggressive a-hole of a mutant, but I'm trying my best. But By God, if you don't read my IMDb lists - Absolute Horror, Killer Thriller Chillers, and The Final Frontier to see where I rated Future-Kill, I swear I'll rip your head off and (Expletives redacted for the sake of human decency. Please think kindly of your fellow man, be they mutant or otherwise.)

Take Care & Stay Well.