1993 - ROBOCOP 3, the "B" movie alive and well.

The third in the Robocop film series and also the last one until the remake in 2014. This movie was completely clobbered by the critics and the public stayed away when it was released.  But it seemed the critics completely missed the point.  This was a "B" science fiction/action film in the great tradition of Death Race 2000, Robot Jox and Ninja III: The Domination to point out a few of the many. 

Robocop 3 the movie has it all.  Scary street gangs, robot samurai warriors, a jet pack, a flamethrower arm, lots of explosions and much over the top violence.  Robocop 3 was directed by an expert in the genre, Fred Dekker.  Dekker was responsible for Night Of The Creeps, and The Monster Squad so he certainly knew how to mix violent nonsense with some goofy humor.  

 

I can't say it's a good film, but it is certainly an entertaining one.  Any movie that has a tech savvy orphan, a beautiful scientist and a monotone robot man can't be all bad.

 

The film was written by Fred Dekker and comic book writer Frank Miller, the running time is 104 minutes.

1986 - NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, space/zombie/horror/comedy

The things I like:

• 1980's hair thing going on with the cast.
• Lack of CGI special effects, everything is mostly mechanical effects
• Space parasite slugs eating the brains out of college guys turning them into dangerous zombies.
• 1980's hair thing going on with the cast.
• B-movie actor Tom Atkins as a suicidal police detective.
• The flamethrower.
• Space aliens.
• Very gratuitous nude shower scene with the female cast.
• The mowing the zombie with a lawnmower gag.
• "Chicks in their underwear" as John Candy liked to say.

Night of the Creeps tries to mix humor with horror but sometimes it just doesn't work.  I get that an audience needs a little tension relief during a horror film but this film tends to get a little stupid.  One scene where the girl is breaking up with her zombie boyfriend is pretty lame.

The film will probably never be the cult classic the filmmakers appeared to be hoping for.  However it's a decent time killer.  It's actually pretty tough to make a film mixing horror and comedy and get that mixture just right without it tipping over into the excess of overly campy and outright silly.

A nice try.

88 minutes.