Once again saving a somewhat obscure title from oblivion
Severin steps up with the release of ROBOWAR. Directed by famed Italian
director Bruno Mattei (under his pseudonym Vincent Dawn) in 1988, this film
takes several sci-fi hits, tosses those ideas into a blender and comes out as
something different if nothing else. The film was written by husband and wife
team of Claudio Fragasso and Rosella Drudi who worked with Mattei on other films.
The film opens with a series of explosions and soldiers
being shot up while a team in a helicopter says they’ve lost touch with someone
before being shot from the sky. A top secret military official and scientist
need a special team to go into the field. The officer picks a team led by Maj.
Murphy Black (Reb Brown). Mascher (Mel Davidson) is going in with them.
While the team has no idea what their mission is in detail
they know they’re going into a dangerous location. While it looks like Africa
the names of towns sound Spanish so who knows where. Mascher tells them to keep
alert and when they find what they’re after he’ll let them know. But let’s not
beat around the bush here. What they are searching for is a cybernetic killing
machine, a fusion of robot and man built to become the ultimate weapon armed
with searing heat rays, explosives and more.
As the team travels through the jungle they come across the
bodies of soldiers who’ve come up against their prey. Their bodies are melted
heaps of flesh, gooey gore clinging to skeletons. Wondering what they’ve gotten
themselves into the continue going through the jungle as cybernetic eyes watch
them while we hear the electronic vocalizing of the creation.
As the make their way to a nearby road they watch as two
jeeps filled with local military personnel or perhaps mercenaries are chasing
down two men and a woman. The men are shot and they catch up with the woman
(Catherine Hickland). Mascher tells the team this is none of their business but
Black and his men rescue the woman. The woman is named Virgin (seriously!) and
she tells them she’s part of a relief effort that was attacked. Of course they
decide to help her there. That leads to bloodshed with the army based there and
then an attack from their prey.
Eventually as the team members begin to be attacked once the
local military is decimated Mascher must tell them what’s taking place. In
addition to that he has a weapon that can take out the killing machine but he
has to be within range to use it. If he chooses to do so. His biggest concerns
are trying to fix the machine man in the field so he can get him back for
tweaking. But maybe this robo-warrior has other plans.
While watching the film I could tell exactly which films
were being combined here. The muscular no sleeve mercenary look of the team
reminded me of PREDATOR as did the views through the robo-warrior’s eyes. The
robo-warrior was a definite rip-off of ROBOCOP. And the corporate guy trying to
save the project was pure ALIEN. So when watching the extras and hearing Drudi
admit that these were the three films they had in mind to combine for this one
I was vindicated.
The movies is a typical Italian production with halfway
decent production values made on a shoe string budget that shows. From the looks
of things the biggest part of that was spent on blanks for the guns in use. How
a team like this was supposed to carry that many bullets was a mystery that was
never explained.
The acting…well…yeah it was pretty bad for the most part.
Davidson comes off fairly well here and Hickland. But as much as I think Reb
Brown must be a nice guy he’s a terrible actor. Honestly I’ve seen one good
performance from him (UNCOMMON VALOR) but this is the guy that killed off the
potential super hero films back in the late 70s when he played Captain America.
The rest of the cast doesn’t add much to the film either.
So here’s the thing about this movie. There are fans out
there rabid for any and all things Italian as well as movies that were the
filler for shelves in mom and pop video stores. These kind of movies promised
nothing and anything you got from them became a fun filled evening. People who
were kids back in those days now want to reclaim those movies and companies
like Severin are giving them that opportunity.
I’ve sung the praises of Severin more than once and I will
continue to do so as long as they do the commendable job that they’re doing
now. Because not only are they releasing this film in a newly scanned 4k version from the original negative
there are plenty of extras here as well. Those include “Robo Predator” an
interview with co-director/co-writer Fragasso, “Italian Rip Off” an interview
with co-writer Drudi, “Violence She Wrote” a career interview with Drudi,
“Robo-Lady” an interview with Catherine Hickland, “Papa Doc’s War” and
interview with actor John P. Dulaney, “The Robowarrior” an interview with actor
Jim Gaines Jr., “War in the Philippines” an interview with stuntman/actor
Massimo Vanni, “Catherine Hickland’s Behind the Scenes Home Movies”, the
trailer and an extra disc featuring the soundtrack for the film.
The film may not be
for everyone but the fans will flock to this release as they well should. And
if you have a chance to watch the film then by all means give it a look. You’ll
have some fun and it might bring back some nice memories of walking the aisles
at the local video store.
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