Film of the Week #76 - Death Machine

TerrorFirmer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2DNyz_8kg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUVGxfyEPV8

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109575/

In a sense, my choice here is completely deviant; focusing on a relatively unknown and low budget film. But Death Machine started, for me, my love affair with movies as a fantastically stylish sci-fi, successfully blending horror and action into one fantastic cyber-punk package and in my opinion it deserves far more credit and fame alike then it’s given. Its star, the vicious War Beast – a ruthless robotic killing machine with snapping jaws and razor claws, stands in my mind as one of the greatest dread inspiring nemesis ever to grace the screen.

Some people might consider Death Machine the poorer relation riding on the tail end of the Terminator 2 and Robocop era, but for me, it will always be Norrington’s, who went on to direct Blade, finest work and one of few titles I consider a benchmark for sci-fi movies.

Karl Hungus

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

In a sense, my choice here is completely deviant;

I can certainly see why... :pac:

For me, Death machine is one of the most ridiculously bad movies ever made, but I still enjoyed it greatly, even if it is just for Brad Dourif camping it up as the crazy weapons designer, and the completely silly killer robot. Definitely one to lodge firmly in the 'so-bad-it's-good' pile.

There's certainly some good ideas present, but for me, Blade stands as Norrington's only good film to date.

Fysh

Good lord, I think this is the first film of the week that I profoundly disagree with. It's somehow unsurprising to see Terrorfirmer sticking up for this :P

It had some interesting ideas in it, and they could even have been fleshed out into something interesting, but for the most part it was derivative trash, and rather poorly disguised under the parody stylings. I mean, it's about on a par of what you'd expect if "Harold And Kumar Meet the Bastard Child Of Robocop and The Xenomorph" ever got made.

Sure, there are worse films out there, but when you're up to your eyes in crap you're unlikely to care about which specific type of anus it dropped out of...

Karl Hungus

Fysh wrote: »

Good lord, I think this is the first film of the week that I profoundly disagree with.

You mean you more profoundly disagree with this more than film of the week #64?

Fysh

Karl Hungus wrote: »

You mean you more profoundly disagree with this more than film of the week #64?

Hmmm, I suppose I should point out that since I'm barely willing to consider Meet The Spartans as an actual film (it being more along the lines of informational excreta in audiovisual format IMO) I hadn't really registered it as being a FOTW.

Death Machine, on the other hand, I remember seeing in the cinema with high hopes that it would be a decent sci-fi horror/thriller - the vaguely xenomorph-like appearance of the killer robot being a neat little bonus. The film I actually got to see was tat, apparently made under the assumption that cutely referential names and a fairly basic attempt at visual flair would cover the crappy writing at its core.

Karl Hungus

So I take it you don't consider Death Machine as one of those endearingly crap yet enjoyable films? Maybe it was the fact that you had some form of expectation for it actually being good? I just caught it on Sky Movies at one stage, and lolled my brains out.

Fysh

I suspect it probably was my anticipation of it being a decent straight-played film that made me so disappointed. I remember looking forward to seeing it and then being disappointed; and this was back when I would happily sit through pretty much any of the Friday 13th or Halloween sequels and enjoy them for what they were.

I'd consider watching it again, but tbh what I remember of it isn't even worth whatever few quid and the couple of hours it would take me to watch it again.

Edited to add:

Looking at it on IMDB I just found the following: "The point is: This movie is a blatant *tribute* to Aliens, Die Hard, Evil Dead, Terminator, Predator, Rocky, and numerous other action/horror movies. The characters are even named after famous action/horror directors (see trivia). The plot is a brilliant rehash of nearly every great action/horror movie ever made! It's meant to be funny! People get so caught up in the details that they miss the big picture."

Which is more or less the same defence I made for Doomsday in its thread. On the face of that, I probably should give it another watch so...

Rewatching Death Machine as I type and for sheer fun it can't be beaten. I recommend that you do give it a second chance Fysh as I love it in the same way that I loved Doomsday. Both herald back to a simpler time when our action was quick, brutal and derivitive.

As it happens Doomsday actually plays homage to Death Machine, though I'll let you spot that one for yourself.

Shryke

I saw this years ago and hated it. I don't know if my opinion might change after all this time but I thought it was just terrible. I can enjoy a brainless film but I couldn't like this bag of crap, I'd rather watch Meet the Spartans*.

*I haven't actually watched this film nor do I plan on ever doing so.

Sandor

Sandor wrote: »

I saw this years ago and hated it. I don't know if my opinion might change after all this time but I thought it was just terrible. I can enjoy a brainless film but I couldn't like this bag of crap, I'd rather watch Meet the Spartans*.

*I haven't actually watched this film nor do I plan on ever doing so.

There's something about killer robot films that I love. I watched the fantastic Hardware before Death Machine tonight and both are thoroughly entertaining films. So many action films try far too hard to be importand so it's very refreshing to watch a film like Death Machine which exists for the sole purpose to entertain. It;s does'nt want to tackle any weighty issues or measure the morality of violence. It's just good old fashioned killer robot fun.

And come on, who can't love a film starring Brad Dourif? The man is one of the most underappreciated actors around.