Neon Maniacs |
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 • USA • 1986 • 91m •    • Directed by: Joseph Mangine. • Starring: Clyde Hayes, Leilani Sarelle, Donna Locke, Victor Brandt, David Muir, Marta Kober, P.R. Paul, Jeff Tyler, Amber Denyse Austin, James Acheson, Chuck Hemingway, Bo Sabato, Jessie Lawrence Ferguson. • Music by: Kendall Schmidt.      Something disturbing is going on in San Francisco each and every night. Certain locals who are out at night, are being set upon and slain, by someone or something, to be found in the morning mutilated or parts missing. Ocassionally they are never found at all ditto the parts that go missing. Tonight one teen is going to witness a massacre at the hands of this lethal mystery. And might be able to shed some light over it to the cops. That is if she survives the night.
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Review:
When I popped this film into my DVD player, I was ready for what was coming. I knew that this movie was going to be cheezy beyond all hope and that the acting and music was going to be terrible. Yet in spite of all my mental preparation...I still could believe how terrible this movie was! And I've seen some bad films in my lifetime! And I've managed to enjoy a few of them precisely because they are so bad like for example Troll II or Demon Wind, but Neon Maniacs was just too god awful.
I thought, well its got a cool premise. Twelve different creatures killing off people left and right? I thought there were some possibilities for cheezy, trashy entertainment. Something maybe along the lines of The Toxic Avenger films or something. You know, the type of movie that you KNOW is low grade but you can have some fun with. Well, sadly that was not the case with Neon Maniacs.
First off, we get the creatures. Heres the thing about them. They look stupid! I mean, there's one thats supposed to be some sort of jungle boy and his got this little bikini on...there's one thats supposed to be a samurai...one is supposed to be a war veteran. But heres the thing, you can never really get a good look at them. It seems the budget was so low that they hid the make up and their faces in a lot of shadows.
So you can never really connect with any of these creatures or monsters. They are just a bunch of undefined shadows, and I mean this both literally and metaphorically. Heres the worst part: these villains are weak! They have absolutely no motivation as to why they kill! They have no origin story to accompany their sad existence! They are just there! And they kill! Thats it! You'd think that with such a wide range of characters appearing in a movie you'd have some sort of cool reason for them being who they are. I mean as it is, they are these crazy ass cartoon characters Samurais, war crazy veterans, Indians, biker dudes who we know absolutely nothing about! They just pop up from their underground layer with their crazy Halloween costume get up and kill people. What is this a reunion for the Village People? As far as we know, there's no mutants, no alien invasions or toxic waste being spilled anywhere...these guys just exist. And it didn't matter to the filmmakers to explain to the viewers why.
Anyhows, aside from the villains looking absolutely ridiculous and giving me a few reasons to giggle, we also get some of the worst characters in the universe! Girl survives the killers attacks, so what does she do after 11 of her best friends are murdered? She goes to school as if nothing had happened! Then, when one of the characters knows where the villains hide out and what kills them she decides to go to the local battle of the bands show instead of trying to get people to help her and kill the creatures? Come on! Where are her priorities? One of the characters is a horror movie director wannabe...and shes filming her vampire movie in a graveyard. The vampire in her little film is about to suck the blood from a virgin. But there's one little problem, shes filming this during the daylight! Heellllooo? Anyhows, there's many little things like this that let you see that a bunch of idiots were the ones in charge of making this movie.
The movie has some of the worst music ever committed to a motion picture. Ever seen one of those crappy ass wedding videos with that terrible syntheziser music on the background? Well thats exactly what they used through out this whole movie! And it really really blows! Trust me on this.
Aside from all this, I found some mild enjoyment in the 80s nostalgia trip that the movie is. It reminds you just how bad the fashion and fads from that decadent decade were. In one scene there's a "battle of the bands" going on...but just between TWO bands! One band is a Chicago wannabe (we get to hear not just one but TWO of their god awful songs!) and the other is a mix between every other hair band that existed in the eighties.
Anyhows, I found this movie only to be good for a giggle. You'll only enjoy it if your previously warned of how bad it is and you are ready for it. Or if your really into this type of bad film and enjoy watching a film thats so bad, that you just have to watch it to see where films can go when handed to complete incompetents. Watching Neon Maniacs only works if you know that this is just a huge piece of cheeze thats meant to be laughed at instead of taken seriously. You've been warned!
Review by spacemonkey_fg from the Internet Movie Database.
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