#SpaceHunter

[thefugitivesaint]

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) A film that was almost instantly forgotten when it was released just days before ‘Return of the Jedi’ hit theaters. It was the one of the last movies to use 3D as a marketing gimmick to get audiences into seats. I was 9 years old when I saw it and I loved it. Adult me? *shrugs shoulders* It’s ok.  The stills I took (from a digitized VHS copy) where meant to give you a flavor of what the movie is like. The plot is as bare bones at a plot can get and the world building is severely undercooked. It all goes something like this: a luxury space ship suffers from some catastrophic space event that forces passengers to abandon ship. Three of those passengers land on Terra XI, a planet that was devastated by some kind of virulent plague and has become a kind of post-apocalyptic hellscape. Bounty hunter/mercenary Wolff (Peter Strauss) receives a “broadcast” about the stranded passengers and sets out to retrieve them and collect the reward of “3,000 Mega Credits.” Soon after arriving on Terra XI, while trying to rescue the three passengers, they are abducted by agents working for the local tyrant Overdog (Michael Ironside). Wolff decides to head off to free the women from Overdog and, along the way, runs into Niki (Molly Ringwald) and Wolff’s former colleague Washington (Ernie Hudson).  The story is a loose narrative of episodic action sequences involving strange creatures and weird people that are given almost no clarification as to who they are or why they do what they do. It is briefly mentioned that Overdog was once a scientist named McNabb who was sent to Terra XI to combat the plague (with two other scientists) but no explanation is given as to why they became tyrants or why they started experimenting on the Terra XI’s population. I guess that’s all the narrative the creators thought was necessary (this movie did come out in the wake of ‘Mad Max II: The Road Warrior’ and that movie is almost purely action with hardly a plot to drive it so..) This was Molly Ringwald’s second film and the score was composed by Elmer Bernstein (who also composed the music for ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘The Magnificent Seven’ to name two). The 3D-effects are as clunky as one might suspect. The overall effects (some of the miniature work is by legendary ‘Terminator’ animator Pete Kleinow) and production design (which is doing most of the heavy lifting here) are a mixed bag of competent execution and outright jankiness. Overall, it’s one of those modestly budgeted science fiction films from the 80s that didn’t hit it big, barely raked in a profit, and quickly faded into obscurity. It’s worth one watch if you’ve never seen it.  And, should you have any desire to put this movie into your brain, you can do so here (this might be a better quality copy than my digital VHS transfer). Oh, what folk have gabbed about the movie over at letterboxd. 

[gameraboy2]

Michael Ironside as Overdog in Spacehunter (1983)

[movieposters1]

[duranduratulsa]

Now showing on my 80's Fest Stevegoolie Saturday Night...Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone (1983) on classic DVD 📀! #movies #movie #scifi #spacehunter #spacehunteradventuresintheforbiddenzone #mollyringwald #PeterStrauss #michaelironside #erniehudson #andreamarcovicci #dvd #80s #80sfest #durandurantulsas6thannual80sfest #Stevegoolie #svengoolie #METV

[techaddictsuk]

Land of Doom (1987)

I thoroughly enjoy the goofy nonsense that Land of Doom presents and there is one particular reason for this.

[darktripz]

[femaleziegfeld]

i wrote about my weekend at the movies in Varnsdorf ! :)

[horrororman]

More #horror films that were released on May 20th...

#Maniac (1963)(UK).

#TheEvilEye (1964)(US).

#MarioBava

#SpacehunterAdventuresintheForbiddenZone (1983)(US & Canada).

#scifi

#MollyRingwald

#Mosquito (1995)(US)(video premiere).

#GunnarHansen

#DominionPrequeltotheExorcist (2005)(US)(limited).

[metaphoricalcolours]

molly ringwald films, the official cinema release poster vs the dvd release cover (part 1: 1982-1986)

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I had a dream last night that I found a bargain bin DVD collection of a bunch of shitty 3D movies from the 80s and it came with two pairs of those red and cyan glasses, and I was so disappointed to wake up because I wanted to have a b-movie marathon...

[jeanstapleton]

wyll loadout of beauty & grace

[revvethasmythh]

I've been dragging my feet in act 3 for so long 90% because I'm just very intimidated by the iron throne, but I think I've finally got a good game plan to tackle it and I am sending up a thank you prayer to tymora for giving past me the insight to make my core team stupid mobile to begin with

[movieposters1]

[80smovies]

[cultfaction]

Cult Faction Podcast Ep. 103: Spacehunter - Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

Spacehunter – Adventures in the Forbidden Zone is this week’s spotlight subject! Produced by Ivan Reitman and directed by Lamont Johnson this 1983 American-Canadian Space Western stars Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson, Michael Ironside, Andrea Marcovicci, Hrant Alianak, and Deborah Pratt. All that plus your usual banter from three men who should know…