Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 8:2	Budget Small

Oh, joy, another frat boys in the inner city movie, but wait! It is set in the future!

The movie opens to a party at a frat house. The usual zaniness ensues until one group of guests arrive and are escorted to the frat's president's office. Apparently as a prank, these guys blew up a the prez's car. Paying for the car and apologizing do not appease the guy and he insists they do something humiliating (as if appearing in this film isn't humiliation enough). The guys not only refuse but decide to tar and feather the prez instead. This rather upsets their frat president who apparently promises that the guys will go to the city and bring back a real live inner city denizen. Unfortunately, the run afoul of Splatter and spend the rest of the movie running around, hiding and fighting various gangs. As the sun rises, the survivors head back to the frat house.

Just a note; in the interest of full disclosure, the only reason I am reviewing this movie is to make fun of it.

Okay, here is some free advice. If you don't have much of a budget, don't set you movie in the Future. Seriously. When something is set "in the future" it creates an expectation that the viewer is going to see something, well, futuristic like flying cars, skateboards without wheels, girls in velour miniskirts and go-go boots, lasers, teleportation, spaceships, someone pretending that their wristwatch is a two-way radio. These will either be done well enough that the audience will buy into it (Star Trek) or done so poorly that the audience will snicker (Critters 2). Either of these can be entertaining, in fact, while I have several times reviewed movies with amusingly bad special effects, I can't find a single example of a good special effects movie set in the future. But really, does the world really need another review of Star Wars? I think not, especially when there is an almost complete lack of reviews for Future Kill.

Future Kill is supposed to be set at some time in the future. Apparently some laboratory (specifically the Thompson Research Laboratory) that worked with high levels of radiation was abandoned-in-place* smack in the heart of the city. The climatic scene takes place in what appears to be a walk-in fridge that contains something so lethally radioactive that it causes flesh to melt in about 10 seconds. The door swings open, the bad guy stands in front of it and someone stabs him in the stomach and he falls inside, then he starts to be bothered by the radiation. I'm no scientist, but would a bit of sheet metal and wood make any difference at all here? Wouldn't everyone in the area be slightly dead?

Lets look at this picture and make some assumptions about the Special Effects budget, shall we. Our beleaguered warriors end up at the bad guys HQ which just happens to be the aforementioned Thompson Research Laboratory. I would not hazard a guess as to why the traffic flashers are there, perhaps the bad guys are scared of the dark? And the dark is our first clue to the budget's limitation. If your set looks like crap, don't throw a lot of light on it. The film noir guys learned this years ago, but the also learned the second part of the equation, light your subjects well. Use your lighting to bring the focus to the characters. This looks like there is a Klieg light just to the left and below eye level of the actors throwing a big ass shadow on the wall. Yes, it does outline the actors and keep them from fading into the background but it is too strong. Next lets look at the sign. At first blush, the sign looks okay. Sure it is in an odd place, this hardly looks like a public entrance, but as you look closer you realize that the sign was made using an air brush. The art director simply got a piece of presentation paper and air brushed the sign including the frame. Don't get me wrong, it is a good looking sign and good use of limited resources, but if your budget does not allow for a proper sign over one of your most important locations, you don't want to set your movie in the future. Which brings us to the third item in this screen shot. The green light and fog room. Sigh. Perhaps a "reimagination" of a Jeopardy episode would explain this best.

Contestant: I'll take "Tired Movie Cliches" for 100 Alex."
Alex Tribek: You open a door and the room is filled with green light and fog. What instrument do you most want?
Contestant: What is a giger counter?
Alex Tribek: Correct! We also would have taken any zombie-killing device - like a chainsaw.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Green light and fog means radiation and/or zombies. It also means that anything exposed to this green light and fog for any amount of time is going to attempt to kill you and possibly eat you. This is a standard B movie "shorthand". Green light=radiation. I wonder if this does not come from the color of radium that used to be put on wristwatch hands so that you could see them in the dark? Note that once our heroes get inside the building they wander around several similar looking hallways that are bathed in different colors. I think the art director was trying to disguise the fact that either there was only one hallway that they could use or that all the hallways looked alike.

So anyway, you are probably wondering about the plot. Apparently a bunch of happy-go-lucky frat boys who find it amusing to torch someone's car and then take umbrage when saying "I'm sorry" doesn't seem to satisfy the victim, end up having to go downtown and kidnap a member of an activist group. Try to keep in mind, these are the good guys. Unbeknownst to our lads, the activist group itself is having a power struggle with the pacifist leader becoming concerned about one of his trusted aids, Splatter (who knows the most about the lab they are hiding out in). When our boys make a grab for one of the gang, they run into Splatter who kills the chapter president. Everyone flees except for the pacifist leader who complains to the troublemaker. At this point the splatter kills the whiney little pacifist and blames it on the frat boys. The frat boys must fight their way across a hostile city to reach safety (which is nothing like the plot from "The Warriors"). There are a few fight scenes but a great deal of the movie's running time is made up of just that; running. The guys run down this alley, into that deserted building, up the other street and through the woods (just kidding about the woods). They do get to catch their breath when they end up in a bar and the movie stops while we watch and listen to the band play a song. Now, I don't mean that a band plays in the background while the boys have a beer, the camera focuses on "Max and the Makeups" for a complete rendition of their hit "Xerox". I am not sure what it says about the internet, but if you go to YouTube and search for Max and the Makeups, you can find a video of the song.

Which brings us to one of the things the movie maker did right. He got lots and lots of free stuff. I am willing to bet that most of the minor roles were done in exchange for a screen credit as there are about 40 actors listed on IMDB. Only one of them, Edwin Neal, has any kind of a resume (starting with "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Of the others, Marilyn Burns was in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with Edwin, a couple more were in a Japanese TV series that Edwin also was involved in. But my favorite is Jeffery Scott who has two screen credits to his name; "Future Kill" and 1979's "The Warriors". Also with only one screen credit to his name is the writer/director, Ronald W Moore. Huh, and his future looked so bright.

So, is the movie worth seeing. No. It is not bad in any interesting way. There is a certain Ed Woods feel to the way the movie was made. When you look past the movie to some of the background you really get the feeling that Moore was part hustler/ part con artist. H.R. Giger who did the art work for "Alien" was somehow persuaded to do a cover for the movie, apparently he was moved by Moore's tearful assertion that the movie would be nothing without great cover art. I have to disagree with that, the movie is still nothing even with great cover art.

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* Abandoned in place means that a facility was just walked away from. Typically large amounts of equipment are left behind. back