"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Dead Heat

I meant to see this when it was in theaters in 1988, didn’t get around to it until now. It’s okay. Not worth that long of a wait, but luckily I did other stuff in between.

Treat Williams (THE SUBSTITUTE 2-4) and Joe Piscopo (Saturday Night Live cast, 1980-1984) play two 1980s Movie Cops. Treat is supposed to be the straight laced one, so he wears a suit. Piscopo is the wildman who wears a leather jacket and hits on every woman who appears on camera, because that’s always funny (see also: Jay Leno in COLLISION COURSE). This was after SNL when he got really into bodybuilding, so he also shows off his muscles alot. He’s kind of a cross between a wisecracking Bruce Willis type of character and a crazy Mel Gibson one.

The two run into some weird shit while trying to stop a jewelry store robbery. The thieves (who wear leather S&M type masks, an interesting choice of disguise) get shot full of bullets without dying, so our boys have to ram them with vehicles, etc. (some good stuntwork). Later, when they talk to the coroner/Treat’s ex-girlfriend (Clare Kirkconnell) about the bodies she informs them that she actually did autopsies on those guys at a previous date. The motherfuckers were zombies!

So the two follow a trail of clues to a chemical plant, where Piscopo sneaks around and finds a weird machine from which emerges another zombie, this one a fat biker with a monster face. During a big fight Treat gets trapped in an asphyxiation chamber and killed.

But wait! The coroner figures out that machine was what they used to create the zombies, so she puts ol’ Treat in there. He comes back to life, but he has no heartbeat, and she figures out that in less than a day he’s gonna just turn into goo. So he decides to use that time to try to figure out who’s behind these zombies – who killed him.

See, I didn’t mention the name of Treat Williams’s character before, because it’s kind of a spoiler. His name is Detective Roger Mortis. He was given that name by parents who didn’t know he was gonna end up being a zombie, and after he did become a zombie nobody commented “ha ha, your name is Roger Mortis, and you’re a zombie, do you get it, ha ha. Because of rigor mortis, is why I say this.” So I can only assume that was supposed to be a subtle little touch there. Good one, screenwriter Terry Black whose credits also include episodes of Tales From the Crypt and Silk Stalkings and a video game.

I know I’m taking this movie way too seriously, but it made me kind of sad to think about this schmuck choosing to use his last hours on earth for this. There’s a few mentions of whether or not he’s wasting his life, but they don’t seem to consider it enough. He should get together with that nice coroner lady or something. And if she’s not gonna do that I’m surprised she doesn’t want to study him more. After all she did resurrect him from the dead. That’s considered pretty big, isn’t it? It might be worth learning more about it.

It also made me think how much that would suck to know you’re dying soon, it must just put so much pressure on you so you’re wasting your time thinking about whether or not you’re wasting your time. Rushing through whatever you do choose to do so you can try to sneak in that last slice of pizza, last porno, whatever, you don’t end up enjoying it enough.

It’s a dumb premise that dead bodies can be alive just by having electricity pumped into them, and they don’t really do much with the “buddy cop movie, but one of the buddies is a zombie” thing, since Piscopo gets kind of left in the background while the zombie goes off and does everything on his own. But they have some fun with it. I like that Mortis can go around on his police work and keep getting shot over and over. He can crash through a window and roll and get back up and be fine. When he gets handcuffed inside an ambulance he decides to crash the ambulance and then crawl out of the wreckage all fucked up like a Terminator. There’s a joke where right after that he shows his badge to a cop and commandeers his gun and motorcycle. Ha ha, what a great story that officer had to tell, after he got fired.

The star of the movie really is makeup effects guy Steve Johnson, whose creations here are recognizable as the work of the same man who did BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. That fucked-up biker guy is cool, look at him:

Also the scene where the resurrection machine is turned on in a butcher shop and all the different meats come to life. They have to fight a headless, footless bull corpse.

My favorite is the scene where a pretty girl suddenly gets to the end of her zombie life. Her hand transforms into a ghoul hand, then one side of her face just starts drooping, melting. She turns into goo, her limbs fall off, her head falls on the ground. You can see some serious matte lines on that thing but it was a really show-offy effect for the time. But it kind of bothers me that we hear a voice come out of a jaw. You think we don’t know about throats? Come on, Hollywood.

At first Zombie Mortis is supposed to be real pale and scary looking, because people get grossed out by looking at him, and he has to buy makeup to cover it up. But it wasn’t very noticeable to me. As he gets worse though the makeup is pretty impressive. Real nasty when he gets all veiny and varicose in the face.

In this attempt to mix b-action with b-horror I think they did better on the first one. I mean it’s not a great buddy-cop movie but it gets some of the absurd feel we enjoy and some over-the-top violence and crashes and explosions and stuff. The horror part only works in the special effects. The idea itself is too dumb. You couldn’t do this as straight horror, it’s just not close to scary.

They gotta have their little nods to horror though to prove they’re fans, so they have Vincent Price in here, they have Darren McGavin, Keye Luke for you GREMLINS people. Apparently Linnea Quigley plays “Zombi Go-go Girl.” If you’d like proof this was made in the ’80s, MTV’s Martha Quinn plays a newscaster, WWF’s Professor Toru Tanaka plays the butcher who tries to chop them up with a meat cleaver, Shane Black has a cameo as a cop.

DEAD HEAT is the directivational debut of Mark Goldblatt, whose only other picture in that capacity is the Dolph version of THE PUNISHER which came out the next year. He’s better known as an editor on a million movies you love, including but not limited to THE HOWLING, ENTER THE NINJA, THE TERMINATOR, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, COMMANDO, NIGHTBREED, T2, STARSHIP TROOPERS and everything else. ARMAGEDDON is not his fault ’cause there were 2 other guys on that, they all edited it like four or five times and then edited each other’s edits of each other’s edits, and then Bay thought it was way too restrained and redid the whole thing himself, is my guess.

The cinematographer is Robert Yeoman, the guy who does all of Wes Anderson’s movies. But this is pretty different from those though.


This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2012 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Action, Horror, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

48 Responses to “Dead Heat”

  1. Funny, this is on Netflix Instant and I thought “gee that’s a sort of movie Vern would review.”

  2. I’ve been on the fence about watching this on Netflix mostly because I can’t stand Joe Piscopo. The fact that it was categorized under “Horror” definitely had me scratching my head but now that you’ve reviewed it I actually kind of want to give it a shot.

    The monkey/monster thing from Big Trouble in Little China still scares the shit out of me. Also, I think it would be fun if you reviewed House 2: The Second Story (One of my favorite horror/comedies from the 80’s) and Session 9 (A pretty solid creepy movie from Brad “The Machinist” Anderson). Both of those are on instant watch right now.

  3. It sucks the Blu-ray is missing all the great DVD features including a hilarious commentary. Still love the movie especially the bullet-riddled boogie pulled off multiple times, including a four-way near the end. And McGain thoroughly enjoys playing an asshole here don’t ya think?

  4. WOW. Just Wow. I can’t believe this film really exists.

    An 80s buddy-cop(sort of)-zombie-horror-comedy by the guy who did the Big Trouble in Little China effects.

    I love it when these forgotten gems are pointed out to me, even if they aren’t really gems in any way, they are to me.

    I want that poster. It’s such a clean, perfect 80s poster / VHS design. Just perfect.

  5. The extras on the dvd is pretty good. There are some deleted scenes of which one is a dream sequence which is about Roger´s “Death-day” and has some additional monster effects. The commentary track reveals that the movie was marketed as a straight up BEVERLY HILLS COP kind movie which may explain why it tanked at the box office. But I don´t know, if i went in the theatre just expecting a generic op-movie, I would have been goddamn pleasently surprised. Which I actually was watching this for the first time on Showtime.

  6. I tried to watch it once on DVD, but I got bored with it after 30 minutes and turned it off. Okay, I wasn’t in the right mood to watch any movie that day, but so far I didn’t give it another try.

  7. Ray Gabriel – whoa, I JUST got through watching House 2: The Second Story literally a few days ago, it’s weird that you would mention it

    you can’t really call it a horror movie in the least (whereas the first House was indeed horror) it’s more like a kid’s adventure movie, but looked at from that viewpoint it’s pretty cool, I liked it a lot

    the only problem was it needed more of John Ratzenberger’s adventurer/electrician character, he was awesome

    oh and seeing a young Bill Maher was hilarious

  8. Oh, I love HOUSE 2! Saw it as a kid one afternoon on TV and loved it. A few years ago I re-watched it on DVD for the first time in years and I’m happy to say that it kiiiiiiiiiiiiinda still holds up. And with kiiiiiiiiiiiiiinda, I only mean that I see now way more flaws in it, than when I saw it as a kid, but nothing that really destroys the movie for me.
    Shit man, I want a Dogapillar! That thing was cute.

  9. There’s a movie called R.I.P.D. coming out next year (get, it? get it?)

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790736/

    A recently slain cop joins a team of undead police officers working for the Rest in Peace Department and tries to find the man who murdered him.

    Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Bridges… hefty cast.

    I wonder if they are going to yuck it up or play it serious.

  10. BR – I bet on it being an action comedy, because let’s admit it, the concept begs for it. I hope its good, but this is Ryan Reynolds. HE’s sorta been a bad luck charm on these sorts of big budget studio movies lately. Not his fault (well not most of it), but after WOLVERINE and GREEN LANTERN and potentially this too, why are some people still insisting upon him for leading the HIGHLANDER reboot?

    Vern – just curious, do you have Netflix Instant or just Netflix or what?

  11. methinks the producers of the House series learned that the original movie was a hit with kids (since it was scary without being too graphic) so they decided to make the sequel more directly aimed at kids

  12. and you know, it’s kind of interesting how they took the basic premise (weird stuff happens in a house) and implanted it in a totally different genre, how many other sequels have done that other than Aliens?

  13. Griff, I agree that House 2 is definitely a supernatural special effect comedy more than anything but it does have some horror elements to it. That skinless horse the creepy cowboy rides used to scare the shit out of me as a kid.

    And CJ, ditto on the dogapillar. I want one so bad.

  14. I’m pretty sure R.I.P.D was a comic book. So, adaptation, not remake.

  15. At one point this was the goriest movie Little Majestyk had ever seen. Naturally, I loved it with the all-encompassing passion of a thousand suns, even though the disintegrating love interest really freaked me out. Then I saw FRANKENHOOKER like six months later and I knew that normal movies would never be enough for me.

    DEAD HEAT always made me fantasize about using the concept of an unkillable but not indestructible cop but losing the zombie part. He’d use reckless tactics like jumping out windows or crashing his car through buildings or shooting himself in the head just to cause a distraction. He’d get all gory and fucked up but then everything would grow back a few minutes later, even if he gets blown in half or decapitated. (It would still hurt, though, and he would probably need a weakness. Maybe he can drown?) I guess that’s just Wolverine’s powers but they’re never gonna make a hard-R gore movie starring that particular musical-comedy superstar so I would like to see someone else take that concept and run with it. Since the gory bits would mostly happen to the hero and not the villains, it would turn the sadism common to the action genre and turn it into heroic masochism.

    But yeah, DEAD HEAT is a good one. Since you’re on an action-horror kick, Vern, I’ll recommend FULL ECLIPSE with Mario Van Peebles. It feels kind of like a Shannon Tweed movie about werewolf cops directed by a guy who saw THE KILLER, so there are some over-the-top two-fisted gun battles. Most of the time the werewolves just look like klingon wolverines but then at the end one of them turns into a bear. So it’s worth a look.

  16. I liked this movie from back in the day. Shane Black and Terry Black are brothers, right? These guys and Fred Dekker have written some good ones I think. On the topic of finding out who killed you before you die, I also sorta liked DOA–orginal and the remake. Even though I agree its depressing, I think it can be done in a badass way if you have a down and out type who doesn’t really have anything else but that one final mystery to solve. Seems like a good hook to me.

  17. Always liked this fillm. It just seemed so off the wall at the time with some incredible practical effects and a fun premise.

    And can anyone her tell me please, why is Joe Piscopo so disliked?

    Every time I’d hear his name referenced in a US TV show it was always in a derogatory manner but he always struck me a likeable guy in both this and WISE GUYS.

  18. karlos – I guess it has to do with his fitness thing and how everybody said he was abusing steroids back in the day. People don’t look positively at people who “cheat” in any form. I know it can’t be for his TV work cause he was actually one of the better talents on SNL. He always shined on the show during his day when the cast had a lot of lackluster talent involved and people consider him one of the ones along with Murphy that saved the show from total cancellation at the time.

    Seeing DEAD HEAT many times back in the late 80’s is actually one of my earliest movie memories. I’ll have to revisit this one since I haven’t seen it in over 20 years though.

  19. Gvdobson:

    googling… you’re right, it’s a comic book.

    But does the comic book R.I.P.D. play serious or jokey? I can’t tell.

    Because Vern is right: for this odd subgenre cops+undead, “You couldn’t do this as straight horror, it’s just not close to scary.”

    If they try to play it straight, I smell an expensive bomb.

    Ryan Reynolds, dude: pick better movies.

  20. Broddie – Many thanks for the answer. I now know why Al Bundy holds him in such low regard.

    BR Baraka – From what I read, R.I.P.D. was played straight as a comic book.

  21. Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwan

    October 8th, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    I saw this movie on TV when I was a kid and it sorta blew me away with its unexpected blend of genres, especially horror and comedy. I didn’t know you could do that kind of thing. I also didn’t know who Piscopo was so there was no baggage there. Wonder how it holds up.

  22. MAJESTYK: Did you ever play the WOLVERINE: ORIGINS videogame? Pretty mediocre GOD OF WAR ripoff, but one of the few cases where the tie-in game is actually more violent than the movie. When you were shot they’d blow chunks of flesh off you (exposing your adamantium skeleton) which would grow back over time. Pretty cool. Made me long for the R-rated Wolverine movie that will never happen. Although with Mark Millar now consulting on all Fox Marvel productions, who knows? Maybe we’ll have R-rated gorefest superhero movies where all the heroes are abusive racist assholes.

    I watched DEAD HEAT a few years ago and wondered why the hell I hadn’t heard of it before. There’s some cool scenes (the butcher shop, the melting woman) and the creature effects are great. Unfortunately it leans pretty heavily on the comedy, which is a problem because it’s nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is (eg Roger Mortis).

    If anyone is interested in the R.I.P.D. comic there’s an 8-page preview on Dark Horse’s website. Seems pretty jokey; the hardass cop does a duck impression to distract a demon in the opening scene. I don’t like that. Reminds me of LETHAL WEAPON 4.

  23. “Although with Mark Millar now consulting on all Fox Marvel productions, who knows? ”

    CrustaceanHate – We’ll never see a R-rated Marvel non-Punisher movie in our lifetime. Of course to be fair with Rothman resigning (cough *fired* cough), maybe Fox w/ Millar can be more better with their Marvel properties instead of being fucking scattershot. There was no fucking reason why the FANTASTIC FOUR series, which should be a license to print money, had to that lame. Nevermind that WOLVERINE ORIGINS movies that sucked and yada I don’t want to go off topic like I almost did just there.

    Ah screw it. I do wonder with Marvel’s success, Fox pulling this move with Millar, what will DC do? I’m really surprised they haven’t haven’t a similar producer/supervisor gig to Bruce Timm. God knows the Internet would implode if that actually happened. (It won’t because I don’t see how Timm and that Snyder/Nolan Superman would gel, but nevermind.)

    Oh and I’m not against a DEAD HEAT remake.

  24. RRA: Oh, I know that an R-rating is impossible, which makes Millar a really weird choice given his predilection for extreme/senseless violence. There are plenty of other Marvel writers who would be better suited to curating a series of fun, PG-13 blockbusters. Maybe they are aiming for a “CHILDRENS COMIC-STRIP BOOKS ARE SRS BUSINESS GUYS” alternative to Disney/Marvel’s lighthearted, family-friendly movies (but still PG-13 I guess).

    FANTASTIC FOUR didn’t have to be as condescendingly lame as it was, but I don’t think you could have ever called the FF a “license to print money”. They don’t have the crossover appeal of Spider-Man or the X-Men or even the Punisher. FF is nobody’s favourite comic book.

    It will be interesting to see what DC does. Disney/Marvel has done a great job maintaining a consistent tone with all their movies, but DC is all over the place. Bruce Timm is great and DC’s DTV animated movies have been of a surprisingly high quality, but I’d like to see Grant Morrison write a comic book film. Even if it’s terrible it’s bound to be fuckin’ nuts. Realistically though, I think DC is going to learn all the wrong lessons from the NEW 52, DARK KNIGHT and GREEN LANTERN and make all future film adaptations dour and serious and humourless.

    Sorry for nerding up this thread everyone.

  25. DEAD HEAT is a classic guilty pleasure, I saw it years ago as a kid when it was new and still have a certain fondness for it even know. I would recommend it to anyone just looking for a good time with an old entertaining movie. also how can you not love any thing with a cast like that, sure Piscopo is annoying and a classic movie douche, but I think everyone else pretty much makes up for him. Awesome old school make-up effects, too. I really miss those days.

  26. I promise this will be my last CBM related posting in this thread and we’ll get back to DEAD HEAT mania, but let me respond quickly to CH. If only as a fuck you to Joe Piscopo. Sorry but…yeah fuck you Joe Piscopo. Never liked you dude. Sorry. Actually I’m not.

    To be fair, Millar was involved with those Ultimates reboots which gave inspiration to the Marvel movies, especially Thor and Iron Man. So I understand the logic behind Fox hiring him. I’m sure Marvel likes that “one of their own” is running their independent cousin properties that they don’t control.

    “FANTASTIC FOUR didn’t have to be as condescendingly lame as it was, but I don’t think you could have ever called the FF a “license to print money”. They don’t have the crossover appeal of Spider-Man or the X-Men or even the Punisher. FF is nobody’s favourite comic book.”

    Funny, some people said the same thing about Iron Man and Thor, two characters which quite honestly were inbetween obscurity and identifiable when it comes to the the general public (and maybe only if they were aware of the Avengers in the firstplace) before those movies. Or for that matter, who outside of TOMB OF DRACULA fans knew about Blade before Wesley Snipes made his franchise and became his identifiable role? That upcoming GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie, based off a title obscure even among CB readers, I can’t say it will be good or it’ll be a hit. But I can see it working very well as a picture, I can even see people respond well to it. I would say the same as well for ANT-MAN.

    Fact is I look at FF, and a wonderful fun adventure movie can be made with that dysfunctional family of misfits. Hell we’ve already had a great FF movie, it was called THE INCREDIBLES. It can be done, and I know I know it can make money. Marvel could…shit they would pull it off. Fox? They burned the house down already. I can’t say I like that they still have matches.

    “Even if it’s terrible it’s bound to be fuckin’ nuts. Realistically though, I think DC is going to learn all the wrong lessons from the NEW 52, DARK KNIGHT and GREEN LANTERN and make all future film adaptations dour and serious and humourless.”

    I like your Morrison suggestion. I would even suggest a Zantanna movie, and get Paul Dini to script it. (And it would rock.) And unfortunately, I think WB is going to fuck up as you predict. They’ll either go too Nolanized (in the wrong way) or be watered down Marvel like GREEN LANTERN and be called out for it.

    The difference between Marvel/Disney and DC/WB is that Marvel more or less is run by fans who’ve so far successfully catered to the fanbase and the non-fan mainstream by (in my opinion) making adaptations that try to give you an idea somewhat of why such properties appealed to readers in the first place. Sometimes even arguably better. DC isn’t even its own film company that runs its own adaptations. It’s a meat puppet for Warner Bros, suits who for the most part aren’t fans or even like that shit or get it. They only like Superman or you know who because they’ve made money before.

    Let me give a clear example in this difference in mentality. Despite being supposedly one of the “Big Three” characters of their company, WB has never made a Wonder Woman movie or even came close. Notice how recently they’ve positioned to only produce it after the Justice League movie, sorta like how Marvel has done with that Black Widow movie after AVENGERS 2. Which in translation means they don’t really want to make it and keep putting it off. They would rather eat rocks than produce a WW movie, and give poor excuses like it won’t work because its a girl actioneer or that there hasn’t been a good sort of female CBM made before. Sure put her in a Justice League picture, but WB really thinks a WW movie is a loser financially unless convinced otherwise.

    Marvel wouldn’t just go ahead and try to make a WW movie, it probably would’ve been produced already. They’ll shrug away all those petty excuses and look at the obvious: She’s the top female CB character among the two big companies. (Marvel has no comparison.) Good adventure/action movies respond well universally, even if its a girl in the lead. (Oh and beautiful girl smashing shit will attract the men who won’t mind no penis protagonist) It involves Greek mythology, which has been financially fruitful when mined*. Also in this parallel universe, WW would’ve been produced with the selling idea that it would lead up to the Justice League movie, both blockbuster properties that would pretty much advertise each other. (In retrospect, a genius notion by Marvel.) In short, this WW movie would’ve made money and everybody else feels stupid for not realizing this obvious shit earlier.

    Just imagine this what if universe that we probably can’t get. Asides from the given established franchises, this DC universe could’ve included WW and maybe The Flash and probably a Green Lantern reboot perhaps (include Guy Gardner dammit!) Then outside of Justice League, branch out. Embrace the horror/occult thriller with a proper Hellblazer movie (and Sandman TV show on HBO), remake Swamp Thing as Greenpeace with balls, play with magic like I think a Zantanna movie could pull off. Have some laughs with Plastic Man. Aim bluntly at the teenage/young adult marketplace with Teen Titans (I’m surprised WB hasn’t yet after Harry Potter and Twilight) and so forth.

    *=That’s what baffles me. Hey WB, remember you made money with your recent CLASH OF THE TITANS remake? I mean Greek myhology makes money, WW is about Greek mythology, which like COTT also includes action and audiences like action. Duh, right?

    So anyway, how about that Treat Williams fella? Has Vern reviewed THE EAGLE HAS LANDED yet? or PRINCE OF THE CITY? Yeah I like him.

  27. “or you know who”

    hmmmm, could it be BATMAAAAAAAAAAAN?

  28. You bring up some good points, especially about WW (*cough* Gina Carano *cough*). If you want to talk about it some more we should probably move this to the forum.

  29. CH – sounds good. You’ll easily find it in the Nerd Shit section.

    Griff – you said his name, not me. We should redub him Banana Man because he’s not Ralph Fiennes.

  30. @RRA: What does it take… to change the essence of a comic book geek?

    BTW, it looks like somebody hijacked yer Gravatar. Perhaps a little rough justice courtesy of Joe P. Mayhap you should not have dissed him.

    And IF he was playing a cop in this zombie yuckfest for the ages, shouldn’t he have been credited as “Joe Pisco Po-Po”? Just sayin’.

  31. “BTW, it looks like somebody hijacked yer Gravatar”

    Nope, that’s my gravatar. I like to think that black space rapes your eyeballs out, polluting your very soul.

  32. There’s a good no budget movie like this called REVENANT i saw at a film fest about two guys who get zombified and become criminals and heroes and stuff. Hopefully it’ll get a wide release.

  33. @Brimstone: It’s already on DVD. I rented it from a Redbox last week. I almost bailed within the first 15 minutes, but was later glad I didn’t. Goofy but still entertaining. Loved that Dirty Harry reference.

  34. RRA – no, no Netflix. Seattle still (knock on wood) has some video stores, including the biggest one in the world. For my situation that’s far superior and I’ll do it for as long as I can, up to and including renting at that same place where Will Smith got SHREK in I AM LEGEND.

  35. I’ll meet you there, Vern. We’ll share the last copy of OUT FOR JUSTICE.

    I remember DEAD HEAT well. It was in my rotation tapes off HBO (or more likely Cinemax, since HBO prided itself on quality movies back then.) never quite excellent but a fun premise. I liked the idea of a death day party.

  36. If RRA is gonna bring up a Treat-a-thon then Vern should revisit his Stephen Sommers bigotry and check out the pre-The Mummy Treat-fest Deep Rising. Titanic crossed with Aliens featuring Wes Studi and a rogues gallery full of recognizable lovable rogues. Plus Kevin J. O’Connor of course. And Anthony Heald. Ridiculous cheese, so scrumptious.

    As one of the few I guess old enough to have seen Dead Heat in the theater, this was a glorious time for makeup effects with Robocop and The Hidden the previous year. I miss Orion, New World and the old New Line. Dead Heat had a mostly full theater and there were a few squeals during the butcher scene. But mostly there were a lot of laughs as they actually had fun with the ridiculous premise something we rarely get today.

  37. Crom! I love this movie. The “funny guy” is annoying, but the movie is quality fun. And, you know, Vincent Price!

  38. clubside – Quite awesome of you to bring DEEP RISING up. That is by far still Sommers’ greatest achievement if you ask me. Kick ass & very fun b-movie just like we like em around here.

  39. True. Stephen Sommer will never be as awesome as when he made DEEP RISING!

  40. I second the love for PRINCE OF THE CITY. What a great movie.

  41. Yeeeeeeeeeees!!! This is one out of the two movies, I’ve watched way back when and enjoyed quite a lot, but cannot remember the titles of so that I can rewatch that shit. Been walking around like a lunatic trying to describe the two movies to people who seem like they know everything with no luck so far.

    Remembered the scene where they keep pumpin each other full of bullets, when I read a Lobo comic-book later on by Simon Bizely that had the exact same sequence with the exact same bullets-on-top-of-bullets-in-their-bodies detail. Coincidence?

    Now if I can only get the title of that other movie. It has a Woody Allen or Roberto Benigni comedy feel to it. Where the main Allen/Benigni character has a small shop downtown Rome or Paris or somewhere like that and our guy delivers the orders on rollerskates. Mad fun ensues when he one day by accident goes through the craziest route (because of all sorts of random “bad luck” and obstacles) with a drink on a tray, and it gets filled on his way with all kinds of weird extra ingredients (dove shit, paint etc.). This transforms the drink into some kinda magical potion that heals whoever drinks it from whatever. Of course, as you can imagine, he has to somehow recreate this far-out rollerskate route, cause now there’s a huge demand on this potion, with people queuing outside his shop and so on. Very funny shit!

    Ring any bells? Anyone? Help me out here?

    If I get the title to this one too, and now that I know that other movie is called “Dead Heat”, I can sleep peacefully once again…

  42. SO many people predicting that there’ll never be a gory-as-shit R-rated Wolverine movie (or even an R-rated superhero movie) is cracking my ass up right now, just seven years later. I mean, LOGAN isn’t DAY OF THE DEAD or anything, but a little girl chucks a head she severed out of a doorway. That’s pretty extreme for the flyover folks.

    That said, we may never see the likes of it again. Who knows?

  43. SO many people predicting that there’ll never be a gory-as-shit R-rated Wolverine movie (or even an R-rated superhero movie) is cracking my ass up right now, just seven years later. I mean, LOGAN isn’t DAY OF THE DEAD or anything, but a little girl chucks a head she severed out of a doorway. That’s pretty extreme for the flyover folks.

    That said, we may never see the likes of it again. Who knows?

  44. At least until JOKER comes out anyway.

  45. Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that’s a thing that’s actually happening. I was thinking more of the Disney/Fox merger and the questionable future of the Deadpool franchise. Not that I particularly give a crap about Deadpool, but it was nice to have that option. And to watch Ryan Reynolds getting pegged along with a bunch of ten-year-olds who learned A LOT about life that day.

  46. Honestly I think that’s the best bet for DC movies to compete with Marvel at this point. Just do a bunch of crazy one-offs that don’t necessarily connect to one another. I like that the new SUICIDE SQUAD movie is just openly being like “we got rid of everything that was dumb about the old movie and are just giving it another shot- check it out?”

  47. The first time I saw this on late-night TV in the mid-1990s I was pleasantly surprised by it. The movie seemed to be having fun. Although I never forgot the title, it was an obscure enough movie that it took me another ten years to find a copy. It was a DVD my friend bought for me online. Unfortunately the audio on the DVD wasn’t that great and we had to turn the volume up all the way to hear it, and even then we missed some things.

    The first time I saw it, when Lt. Herzog first appeared in the movie I thought “Hey, is that Dean Koontz?!” (This was before Robert Picardo became much more famous from STAR TREK and before Dean Koontz got hair transplants.)

    Unfortunately, Joe Piscopo is a total Trump supporter. Oh well. The movie’s still good. Movies are a collaboration between many people. Give it a chance.

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