In an
attempt to find something totally awful and remarkably unremarkable to close
out “1980s Post Apocalyptic VHS Rentals”, I discovered a little film that goes
by the name “Survivor“. It has a four star rating on IMDB and over
half of the dialogue is dubbed inner monologue, written like some prose poem.
Sure signs that I’ve found myself a turd in the rough. But ya know what?… It isn’t
as bad as all that.
Out there
somewhere, relegated to someone’s musty basement and stored on reels of
magnetic tape, only now finding their way to the human eye by Youtube and what
not, are wretched works of post apocalyptic fiction. I have failed to find one
of these films. Perhaps it’s a good thing. I know they are out there.
Somewhere. But the “Action Movie Time Machine” isn’t about traveling time to
find stinkers. It’s about finding the obscure, the little known and about
finding out Action Movie roots.
With that
said, the “Action Movie Time Machine” is synched into a parallel time stream
for the year 1998.
The year
is 1987. Construction begins on the Channel Tunnel, connecting the UK and
France. Wang Chung gets everyone to “Have Fun Tonight” and Reagan tells the
Soviets to “Tear down that wall!”. Also a nameless astronaut kills a guy in
“Survivor”.
THE
SKINNY
“Survivor”
begins with our main character, an unnamed NASA astronaut, played buy Chip
Mayer. Well the man’s real name is Christopher Mayer, but he is credited as
“Chip“. So for the purposes of this review, I’ll call him “Astronaut Chip”.
For NASA,
Chip was given the task of deploying a laser defense satellite from his space
craft, “Challenger 2”. It seems in this time stream President Reagan’s “Star
Wars” project came to fruition. But before the satellite became operational,
WWIII began and Chip watched the whole thing unfold from space. This whole
NASA/astronaut plot was also used in a similar movie “Def-Con 4“, about
an astronaut who return to a post-WWIII Earth in search of his family.
Chip
later re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and began traversing the post nuclear war
desert-like landscape of Europe, searching for a place to live. Though the war
is over, scavengers and survivors still fight to the bitter end if they think
there may be drinkable water near.
One of
these very scavengers, a Turk who nearly killed Chip, told him about a “promised
land” south of Budapest. Since then Chip has been traveling the railways on
his solar powered rail car…thing, in search of it. Soon this leads Chip to a
night time run-in with a pair of survivors who live on a boat in the desert
(what was once an ocean). This run-in gets him stabbed and left for dead, then found
and taken in by a former Soviet credited as “The Woman”. Since she has red hair
and is a communist, I think I’ll call her… “Red”.
On Red’s
sea side villa (a wrecked and rusted out ship), Chip and Red share a tumultuous
relationship. A relationship based exclusively on suspicion and sex. This is
fine and well, until one day as Red is fishing for lunch, a man grabs her by
the hair and drags her off. Chip see this and chases after them.
Chips
follows for days, through the desert, until he discovers the ruins of some sort
of underground facility that contains fresh water. As Chip investigates the
facility, he sees people living and working underground. Operating machinery
and growing plants that don’t need sunlight. This is a self sustaining facility.
There is just enough food, water and electricity for one hundred and fifty
people. If a baby is born, then someone must die. That’s just how closely this
ecosystem is balanced.
This
ecosystem has been maintained for years by a council of scientists (An engineer,
a surgeon, a biologist ect…), but has since been overthrown by Kragg, Richard
Moll, who has pillaged the facility’s resources and raped it’s fertile
women. Kragg sees the apocalypse as not the end, but the beginning and himself
as the future. He wants to control the facility so he can breed a new race of
people who will eventually repopulate the Earth and exterminating all other
survivors.
Chip
learns all about the facility and Kragg from the council, who also tell him
that Red originally worked at the facility and escaped after Kragg claimed her
as a sex slave. The council then assign Chip with the task of killing Kragg,
which would free Red and allow the ecosystem to return to a balance.
Chip
agrees and moves to confront Kragg. When he does, Kragg explains his rather
interesting world philosophy and asks Chip to join him. Things go south pretty
quick. A bit of a cat and mouse chase takes place before they engage in hand to
hand combat and soon, Chip manages to stab Kragg up through the jaw and out his
head.
After
this, the film ends with Chip and Red, now back at her ship, watching the sun
set together. So… what about the people living in the facility? Oh well. The
End.
THE
VERDICT
If my
synopsis seemed a bit sparse it’s because there is a pretty simple story with
very little dialogue. As I mentioned in the beginning, most of what’s said is
Chip’s inner monologue or voiceover from the Turk or Red who fill in back
story. It’s kind of a strange way to tell a story, but that’s not to say it
doesn’t work. It reminds me a lot of Frank Miller’s “Sin City”, which is heavy
on noir like inner monologue.
I also
like the idea of watching WWIII unfold from space. Seeing the blinding white
flashes at either end of the Earth’s surface, hearing nothing due to the vacuum
of space and wondering if you’re the only human left alive. It’s a pretty heavy
idea and I don’t think I’ve seen it (“Survivor” and “Def-Con 4” talk about it
but don‘t show it.). Not even in a contemporary film which would be infinitely
more feasible with CGI. Perhaps someday.
I admit,
“Survivor” wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It isn’t the best but it is
competently made and held my attention. It was a shot in the dark and I’m glad
I had the opportunity to see it. Watching this on Youtube is a lot like renting
VHS back in the day. You see the name, the cover art and a brief description,
and that’s all you’ve got.
There
were hundreds of thousands of films released on VHS and over half were straight
to video. It was easy to feel cheated by spending your hard earned money
renting a pile of crap with superb cover art. At least this way I don’t get
charged late fees or have to worry about rewinding the damn thing. In a strange
way “the digital age” and Youtube are breathing new life into that old rental
experience. The adventure and the mystery is still there, it’s just a little
lazier.
I’m Cory
Carr and this concludes another trip on the “Action Movie Time Machine”. Until
next time, Semper Fi Punk!
For more
from Cory, check out his website slaughterfilm.com, where
he and his good friend Forest Taylor record weekly podcasts, reviewing the
films that are legendary, even in Hell!
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