The advantage of this humble fantastic action movie is that it is not boring. He is very stupid, naive, with template characters, sins with modest funding, but you do not get bored from watching. The film’s director, Jim Winorsky, who, I think, does not need special representation for fans of the action-packed b-movie, seems to have sewn a patchwork blanket on the screen from scraps of several scripts, whose pages spread out and mixed under the same cover. The general story absorbs the rudiments of a domestic thriller drama, killer shooters in the form of an action movie with a “good” warrior and a bunch of “bad” soldiers, and even fiction about cyborgs! It could have been three pictures, but it turned out to be one.
It all begins with a despot husband who works as a policeman in a small town, who one day forces his wife to resort to extreme measures so that she takes up his service weapon. It would seem that this is enough for a paranoid chamber thriller about a woman carrying the corpse of her husband, trying to cover up the traces of a crime. Only the author of this is not enough, which is why he develops the plot of a mysterious man who escaped from a secret laboratory headed by the military. A stranger wanders into the house to a bloody hostess, and a typical B-category fighter comes into action with frequent shootouts, fights, malicious faces of negative characters and a brave hero protecting a frightened woman from mercenaries stranded on the tail. But what awaits us next is another genre surprise, where the most important thing is not to read the synopsis for the film, otherwise the surprising effect will not work.
Such a strange kaleidoscope of confused plot twists and turns, surprisingly, quite amusing, because few people will look for reliable heroes and their clear motives in the "video tape" action movie, when there are stupid, but perfectly working clichés from a weak woman whose house is besieged by evil villains, her new friend, whom she sheltered, who began to deftly deal with villains, using various hand-to-hand techniques and aptly shooting from conquered weapons. All these mercenaries are colorful guys, “bimowishly” making terrible faces, chips are constantly flying from the lead-lined house, there is a dark-dark night in the yard, somewhere in the finale the main futuristic intrigue is hidden, and even mandatory high-speed chases will be. Well, it's okay that old Wienorski cheated-saving by inserting a clipping from his other film "Devil's Phone 2" ("976-Evil II"), where a motorcyclist runs away from a truck, but the pyrotechnics thundered, and for "beshka" a lot is not necessary.
In addition, the director summoned a number of recognizable faces from second-rate tapes or actors, whose fame ended without really having time to start. For example, you can meet Rick “Death Snatcher” Hill, Zach “Gremlin” Galligan, Cory “missing boy” Feldman and someone else, including a cameo by Wynorsky, playing a scientist, ridiculously walking in a white coat and cool sunglasses. In fact, it is noticeable how they all perfectly understood that they were filmed in a simple action movie, released “straight-on-video”, so frankly amused themselves on the set, not taking anything seriously, setting the viewer on this. Why is the super laboratory represented by the usual corridor of the plant? What kind of mercenaries are always shooting at random, but not at the target? The fighting has been going on for so long outside the small house, and the vigilant neighbors and police have not reacted? The answer is simple: welcome to the world of b-movie with its own laws, allowing you to perceive the surrounding reality somewhat differently than in real life.
That's how the movie came out. Recommending it for viewing will be a thankless affair, because cheap fantastic action films are much brighter and logically slimmer, however, if you, like me, saw it for the first time in the pre-internet period of the reign of video tapes, when almost every new cover on the store window temptingly promised to brighten up the evening or two with another action movie, then the tide of nostalgia is ensured.
6 out of 10