Terror Squad

Four Arab terrorists, probably Libyans, sneak into the US through the Canadian border. They badly botch an attempt to blow up a nuclear power plant in Indiana. The four that survive are badly pursued by the police, who mostly crash their cars. The terrorists shoot up a town's main street and run down an old man with their car. The pursuing police chief then runs over the old man (a bad dummy).

Meanwhile, a bunch of actors apparently in their twenties are portraying high school students. One of them plays guitar with the janitor, except that on the soundtrack is bad synthesizer music, the same kind of bad synthesizer music that is on the soundtrack. Later, a bunch of the students are in detention. The guitarist plays some more synthesizer music in detention, even though he doesn't have an amp. A jock makes farting sounds with his armpit, except that it sounds more like a synthesizer playing fart sounds.

The now two surviving terrorists, apparently having evaded the police, burst into the detention room. Thus the stereotypical Arabs meet the stereotypical high school students. The police and SWAT surround the school, and miss dozens of opportunities to get into the school and/or shoot the terrorists. The students and their teacher frequently do things to make the terrorists nervous and angry (and one of them is quick to anger anyway), which only results in getting themselves injured or killed.

As others have noted, when the terrorists leave the school in a bus, they are very clearly in a full-length bus. At some point while the police are following them to the airport, it clearly turns into a short half-length bus. I'm at a loss to explain how the filmmakers thought they could get away with that, especially since there are lengthy shots of the bus both when it is long and when it is short.

I recently watched Terror Squad (1987) on Tubi. The storyline follows terrorists seeking revenge against the US, going on a killing spree, and then hiding out in a school. Local authorities strive to bring down the terrorists and save the children.

Directed by Peter Maris (Land of Doom), the film stars Chuck Connors (Tourist Trap), Kavi Raz (Pet Sematary), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), and Marco Kyris (Con Air).

This is a movie with a horrible concept and poor execution. The fear of terrorists was the premise, but the terrorists' points, method of communicating their stance, and overall objective were painful. Both the acting and writing for the villains were poor. While there were a few good shootouts and corpses, even those felt cheaply executed. This has a strong '80s feel in terms of characters, dialogue, and circumstances, with a few '70s-style car chase scenes sprinkled in. The finale was laughably bad, both the background music and overall conclusion were dreadful.

Overall, there's absolutely nothing to see here. I would score this a 2/10 and recommend skipping it.

My review was written in April 1988 after waching the film on Forum video cassette.

"Terror Squad" is an exciting B-actioner, despie its absurd premise of Libyan terrorists invading Kokomo, Indiana. Unluckily, pic failed to get a theatrical tryout, going directly to home video shelves.

Chuck Connors, back in his trademark Brooklyn Dodgers jacket, is tghe loal police chief when a commando squad from Khaddafy-land attacks a nuclear power plant. There ensues a spectacular car chase, the lengthiest and one of the best since the classic Barry Newman fpi "Vanishing Point" of 1971. Terrorists, led by Kavi Raz and hothead Joseph Nasser, kidnap a high school class and hold them hostage while Connors comically uses "Dog Day Afternoon" expicitly as his guidebook to negotiations.

Topnotch action directed by Peter Maris lifts this one out of the lookalike boredom of made-for-vid titlesl, and indicates he is ready for a theatrical assignment. Young cast, essaying stet roles in a "Breakfast Club" detention setting, is okay and tech credits are impressive.

This is a tremendously bad thriller from the late 80s, and the dating shows. The bad guys are cartoon caricatures of Libyans. They cross the US-Canadian border into Indiana (think about it) and immediately fail to blow up a nuclear reactor in Kokomo. What follows is the longest sustained car chase I know of (35 minutes), with old cars, abandoned factories, and other unwanted props getting blown to hell with rocket launchers. Finally, they take over a high school during detention hours (described by one terrorist as a "steenky place!"). It's "Breakfast Club" meets "Die Hard" then, as jocks and nerds band together to defeat the baddies. Meanwhile, the police and SWAT teams led by Chuck Conners surround the school and proceed to do nothing, even when the terrorists' numbers are reduced to two and clear headshots present themselves repeatedly. Finally, it's a mad dash for freedom as the terrorists and their pretty-girl hostage board a Ford Bluebird school bus and head for the airport. But is it a big Bluebird after all? The final set of exciting stunts wouldn't work with a full-size bus, so it miraculously (and VERY clearly) transforms into a Hoekstra minibus halfway through the chase.

I've said enough -- this is an overlooked classic.

I lived in Kokomo when this was filmed. Yes the Temporary short bus was a classic. But let's not forget the others: The ever-full LAWS rocket, launching from inside the car(no damage to the inside of the junker).

and, during the wild shooting spree on courthouse square, the bullets bouncing off the comic book store sign's Superman Picture!!!

But, for such a LOW budget, the carnage of the courthouse shootings was very realistic(real world-not Hollyworld). Also, during the LONG car chase, the streets reported over the police radio during the chase match the locations on the screen.

This production ran out of money for FX for the last few explosions, so they recruited help from a local gun store to blow things up.