I was blown away by Razorback’s visuals. I expected the film to be a runaway box-office success and Mulcahy’s career launched into the stratosphere. You see, like a mad sports fan, I was barracking for this film. In the ’80s, selling Australia to the world was like a sport. Musically we had sent bands like Men at Work, Mental as Anything and INXS off to attempt to break into the US market. Likewise, Australia was trying to do that with film.

I had pretty high expectations going into this film — not that it would be good, but that it would hilariously, confoundingly weird. And I was not disappointed. But I discovered that it was also actually pretty good. Sure, it’s crude. Yes, the special effects are more surreal than they are real. Certainly it’s schizophrenic. But realism seems to be the least of this film’s concerns. What it is, instead, is an incredibly energetic, offbeat, thriller that has one foot in The Evil Dead, the second foot in Hong Kong horror/action films, and a third foot in films like Alejandro Jodorowski’s Holy Mountain. Although it’s fun to watch it alongside previously mentioned piece of crap horror films, it’s nowhere near that level of incompetence. It makes sense, in it’s own batty way. But that’s the same way that vampires, demons, animated little skull bats, and demon tree rape make sense.

What I love most about this movie — and believe me, I absolutely love this movie — is that every single scene, every single pose, and every single line of dialog, is so expertly staged. It’s like a series of themed photographs. Hill is meticulous to the point of obsession with staging and writing Streets of Fire. The dialog is stilted and phony, but in a weird way that is totally believable. It’s fifties tough guy slang, but with the rapid-fire panache of the eighties, or maybe of a really good forties film noir. So really, not so much how tough guys talked as it is how we think tough guys talked, playing once again to the concept of American mythology.

I can embrace them without having to save face by saying, “they’re so cheesy they’re cool” or any of those other post-modern condescending things that people regurgitate to make themselves feel better about liking something that might be the slightest bit silly. You folks know me. I like the movies because I like them; not because they’re so bad they’re good or because of any sense of irony. Breakin’ and Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo are simply feel-good, fun-loving musicals with a charismatic cast, fabulous dancing, decent music, and a positive message about believing in yourself, believing in your dreams, accepting others, and the joys of dancing up the walls of your pad in order to impress cute Hispanic girls

Conan the Destroyer was silly enough to signal the end of the sword and sorcery genre, just as Conan the Barbarian was cool enough to signal the beginning. I guess in a way, that is fitting. Dozens more sword and sorcery films were made even after Conan the Destroyer destroyed the genre’s coolest character, but those were stragglers that mostly ended up going direct to video, not unlike the legion of glam metal bands that came around in, say 1988, and just missed the boat. In a way, Conan the Destroyer is the Danger Danger or Enuf z’nuf of the sword and sorcery world.

1984, United States. Robert Brian Wilson, Starring Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Britt Leach, Nancy Borgenicht, H.E.D. Redford, Linnea Quigley, Leo Geter, Randy Stumpf, Will Hare, Tara Buckman, Charles Dierkop. Directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr. Although I’m a huge fan of horror, I’m not so hot on slasher films. Oh sure, I like [...]

Mark Gregory returning as Trash is also charismatic, though he’s not given much more to do than kick ass and look like a member of Saxon. That’s fine. As I said when I reviewed the previous film, I much prefer the tough-ass heavy metal hero to the namby pamby goth rocker heroes we seem saddled with now. You know, putting on a long black PVC trenchcoat doesn’t make you look like an ass-kicking hero of the future. It makes you look like a member of The Damned, and while I have my share of Damned songs I enjoyed, I’d much rather have Manowar on my side during a fight.