How's this for a promising premise: A motley bunch of extremely annoying and unlikable college frat boys are sent into a dangerous blighted urban area as part of an initiation rite. The grossly unappealing dolts run afoul of vicious malformed psycho Splatter (well played with fierce intensity by Edwin Neal of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" fame), who naturally stalks the frat boys through the back alleys of these mean city streets. Sound good? Well, it just ain't, man. Director/co-writer Ronald W. Moore lets the story unfold at a painfully sluggish rate (the opening third in particular is way too draggy and drawn-out), crucially fails to build much in the way of either tension and momentum, stages the infrequent action scenes with a crippling dearth of skill and panache, and makes clumsy sporadic use of slow motion. Moreover, the frat boy characters are a truly hateful, idiotic, and extremely unsympathetic bunch; one quite simply doesn't care whether these irritating jerks live or die. Worse yet, the acting for the most part is very poor, with Wade Reese rating as the biggest offender with his profoundly grating turn as obnoxious meathead Steve. Only Alice Villarreal manages to rise above the muck with her enjoyably spiky portrayal of feisty streetwise punkette chick Julie. Neal's fellow "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" star Marilyn Burns is sadly wasted in a nothing minor role as Splatter's bitter old flame Dorothy Grim. Things briefly perk up with a cool appearance by the funky band Max and the Makeups at a rowdy punk club, but not even a decent smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity and a handy helping of nasty gore can redeem the general tedium of this lackluster clunker. Jon H. Lewis' fairly slick cinematography and Robert Renfrow's snazzy synthesizer score are both a good deal better than this dreck deserves. A real stinker.

I didn't really know what to expect from "Future-Kill", but I certainly hoped it would be a little better than what I got. I knew the rating was bad and the reviews were unfavorable, but the Subversive DVD-cover illustration looks beyond cool and I can't resist that. For a very long (too long, in fact) time, this film raised the impression of being an unofficial sequel to Porky's with lame, vulgar and offensive fraternity pranks. Five mega-dorks, one of them resembling an exact young clone of Jim Carrey, desperately want to become members of a frat house but their ultimate initiation might just be a tad bit far-fetched and dangerous. They are dropped in the city center with provocative marks painted on their faces, simultaneously with the outbreak of a violent gang war. It doesn't take too long before they are confronted with Splatter, a seemingly half-man and half-machine warrior, who leads a gang of which I never really figured out who or what they were. Were they a government experiment? Cyborgs? Terminator imitations from a distant future? Does anyone care? "Future-Kill" is a bizarre amateur flick with a scenario that leaps from one subject onto the other without any form of logical connection or narrative. The plot borrows vital elements from great cinematic cult classics like "The Warriors", "Escape from New York" and "The Terminator", but the end result is one gigantic Sci-Fi monstrosity. The costumes and special effects are quite pitiable and there's a truckload of cheap and gratuitous nudity. The acting is terrible, but I'm willing to blame the retarded dialogs instead of the cast members. One to avoid at all costs, in spite of really cool DVD-cover art. Resist it!

First, this is an 80's movie. Not because it was made in the 80's, it could have been made in the 70's. If it was the same movie, it would be an 80's movie because of the fashion and musical styles, as well as the low-budget, junk-food film-making technique. If you are looking for some cheesy (and at times gory) fun, and that iconic 80's style, this movie is a suitable trip. It's one part frat-boy-hijinks sex comedy (like Porky's?), and one part futuristic glam-punk post-apocalyptic survival movie (like Mad Max?).The plot is a total lift from the Warriors, a bunch of horny frat boys go to a bad section of town to kidnapped a glam-punk anti-nuclear weapons protester, and end up having to run for their lives when a not-so-nice glam-punk anti-nuclear weapons protester murders a good glam-punk anti-nuclear weapons protester and blames it on them. Will the frat boys learn what it is to be a glam-punk anti-nuclear weapons protester, and discover that there is more to life than being horny and in a fraternity? Like brotherhood? I will be the minority to say that this movie ended up a delightful treat despite it's hokey Giger cover (who is a fine artist, but I don't dig him that much) Recently released on DVD by Subversive Cinema, it comes with a mini poster, has an interview with one of the actors, and an audio-commentary. The picture and sound quality are pristine, and I assume added to my appreciation of the movie. I can understand seeing this on VHS and dismissing it as worthless junk, instead of enjoyable trash! PS, yes there is some topless nudity.

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.