- Produced, written, and directed by David Heavener
- Starring
- Richard Lynch
- Robert Chapin
- T.J. Storm
- Chona M. Jason
- Deborah Sharon Stambler
The last David Heavener movie I watched — written by, directed by, and starring — was Deadly Reactor. It was an acutely painful experience, not unlike serious radiation exposure, and I was afflicted for days afterward with nosebleeds and eye-popping headaches. I’m happy to say that the current feature does NOT star David Heavener. True, he wrote it, directed it, produced it, and gives a “special guest appearance” (to paraphrase the ‘bots, can any appearance of David Heavener really be considered special?), but he does not occupy the camera for the majority of the running time. It’s still a stinky-bad movie, but my only side effect was a moderate case of diarrhea.
The future, as usual, is a gritty and cheap place, one in which bare-chested, ninja-masked goons with swords chase unarmed people around. (One man resists, which gives us a chance to see what looks like they filmed the fight choreography practice session by mistake.) All appears hopeless for a mother and daughter, until a lone fighter appears — dressed identically to the goons. (Yup, that makes the fight easy to follow.) He easily dispatches a half-dozen opponents, mainly because they use the “wait your turn to attack a solitary combatant” style of swordplay. He then rescues the helpless twosome on his motorcycle and… Wait a second. No electricity (as evidenced by the artfully placed torches lighting up the night), no weapons more efficient than swords, but we’ve got a shiny bike and refined fuels? Sure. Whatever.
Ring around the rosie…
The lone warrior is Mason (Robert Chapin), who pulls off his ninja mask to reveal his shining golden mullet, and opens his mouth to reveal the reason that Heavener felt comfortable casting Chapin as the lead: He has exactly the same level of charisma and thespian prowess as Heavener himself. To wit, none.
He takes them back to the hideout of his compatriots: Milton (Chuck Loch), your standard inept smart guy (with glasses and all!), and Regina (Chona M. Jason), Mason’s short, hot and fiesty love interest. (By the way, I didn’t find out her name until the closing credits. And I was listening hard.) The deal is — and no, this makes no more sense to me than it will to you — that people in the future like this mother and daughter are afflicted by the deadly Peeling Latex Plague, the treatment for which is only available through the AAMA, a medical organization which is now the only law to be had. Those who have the plague have to pay the AAMA for treatment, or the AAMA will hunt them down and kill them. (Look, I just TOLD you it makes no sense.) Mason, Milton, and Regina are freedom fighters who help get sufferers to the “underground hospitals” before their makeup crumbles off all the way. Their opponent is the local Chief Medical Dictator Vestor (Richard Lynch with a caduceus tattoo on his cheek — and again, I didn’t know his name until the credits rolled), whose “Dragon” goons we’ve already seen, and his right hand badass, Fullock (T.J. Storm). With the state of Lynch’s career in the last decade, it’s not often that you can say he’s “slumming,” but I think this qualifies.
Milton, though, being a general purpose smart guy, has figured out through old newspaper clippings that, waaay back in 1999, Dr. E.L. White had just come up with an incoluation for the just-beginning plague, but was murdered by the AAMA (and an 8.7 earthquake the next day effectively stymied investigation and threw all of California back to the Stone Age because, you know, if Los Angeles goes, the entire world is soon to follow, right?). Boy, if only they had a time machine to go back and get the serum before the quake and… hey, what’s this in the basement? By golly, if it isn’t a time machine!
Mullets — of the future!
Since Vestor and his Dragons are breathing down their necks, Mason volunteers to go back for the serum. He’s got the usual set of arbitrary rules: The time door will open again in 36 hours for only 20 seconds, and if he doesn’t make it back, they can never try again to retrieve him. (DO NOT ASK WHY. There is no reason, which usually means that someone will beat you up for asking.) He makes the jump, courtesy of some flashing lights. Then Regina runs down and makes the jump. Then Vestor arrives, and he sends Fullock and another Dragon through.
Mason gets the short end of the stick. He ends up with all of the possible symptoms of a time jump — splitting headache, unconsciousness, amnesia — and ends up in the hospital as a John Doe. Regina’s fate is even worse; she arrives without any symptoms at all, but does so in the middle of a “komedy” bit with David Heavener (what a special guest appearance!) as a groom in the honeymoon motel room, whose bride takes violent exception to this beautiful girl that just appears on their mattress. (It doesn’t help that Regina decides to go through the time machine topless for absolutely no reason.)
And Fullock and the other Dragon end up in the back alleys where, after a moment of disorientation, they’re well enough to kick the asses of some doped-up ne’ere-do-wells who get in their faces, in a fight with all of the heart-puming immediacy of synchronized swimming. (Everybody arrives none the worse for wear, except our ostensible hero. Know what that makes him? Wimp.) And then the ee-vil due pulls out their amazing Extend-O-Blade (everyone in the future has one — it snaps out from flashlight size to full katana with just a flick of the wrist and a splice of the film), which has a flashing detector in the pommel which homes in on Mason for them. What exactly is it detecting? I dunno, but Regina’s does the same thing. My only guess is that it’s a Mighty Mullet Detector.
Richard Lynch, looking almost as dead as his career.
So. Time travelers back to present-day Los Angeles, armed with swords. It’s like the gruesome bastard child of the Highlander and Terminator franchises. As written and directed by David Heavener.
The nice Dr. Ruth (Deborah Sharon Stambler) little by little works on Mason’s amnesia, but it doesn’t really all come back until both the Dragons and Regina all show up at the same time at the hospital for some more fighting. (I hate cars that won’t start for no reason. HATE ‘em.) Dragon #2 gets offed, and Regina and Mason escape with Dr. Ruth’s help. (Part of the escape chase features Fullock running after the car and leaping onto the back. Are they consciously trying to remind us how much this movie depends on the Terminator flicks?)
And then, of course, Regina gives Mason the best possible treatment for amnesia, i.e., sex. (Took me the longest time to figure out why she was even in this movie. Silly me.) Mason has dreams that explain his own backstory to him (how Fullock had killed his wife and child, how Vestor thought that he could break Mason’s will and make him a Dragon), and when he awakens, he remembers why they came back in time and what they’re supposed to do. Good for you, Mason. It’s now almost an hour into the movie, could we get on with it, please?
And now, proof that implant technology didn’t die out with the quake…
Remember what I said about why Regina’s in the movie? She’s served her purpose now, so as soon as they walk out of their motel room, Fullock appears (the Mighty Mullet Detector runs on Duracells, you know) and slashes her across the stomach. With her dying breath, she plead with Mason to leave his grudge with Fullock for now and instead concentrate on getting the serum before the deadline. He runs off without a backwards glance, and we never do get anything resembling grief or mourning — but I guess that given the acting ability exhibited so far, we’re lucky to be spared the display.
Well, since Mason needs to find a medical clinic (and better, get into it), he goes to the only doctor he knows, at her house. (Wait a minute — how could he know where she lives? I SWEAR, IF YOU KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS, I’LL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!) Since there are only about seven doctors in the LA area, she of course knows one who works at the right place, and since we’re two-thirds of the way through the movie, she swallows his cockamamie time-travel/conspiracy/earthquake story with no qualms. She even helps convince her associate, Dr. Stenton, who gives them all the security codes and combinations to get into the vault for the serum — when who should appear and cut Stenton down? (Hint: He’s got a Mighty Mullet Detector.) Once again, running aways is the strategy of choice, so off they go with only an hour to spare, while Fullock tails them in a stolen ice cream truck (komedy!).
Apparently Stenton worked at a place where no one even knew him, because Mason manages to bluff his way through with a fake name. While Mason and Dr. Ruth are trying to find the “secret passage” into the vault, Fullock just comes blazing through, mowing down security guards right and left, until we finally get the climactic battle.
In case you couldn’t guess, this is the designated badass.
But wait! When the time door opens (i.e., somebody turns on a blue light), Vestor jumps through from the future for his last battle, and ends up slashing Mason across the stomach before expiring. So that means that Dr. Ruth has to take the serum through and save the future. What a happy ending. I mean, aside from the fact that the hard part is yet to come: synthesizing enough of the serum for mass inoculations in a wood-burning future, while avoiding the fascist AAMA and their omnipresent goons. But how hard can that be?
As usual with movies this stupid, I’ve had to gloss over the petty inanities that fill every scene in between the big notable whoppers, but trust me, they’re there. Character stupidity, gutwrenching dialogue, lackluster fight choreography, synth-in-a-box soundtrack, and all of those ill-conceived creative choices that characterize David Heavener’s presence on either side of the camera. I’d like to say that, having seen it and written about it, I’m free of the Dragon Fury tale forever… but sitting right there on my shelf is Dragon Fury 2.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 44
- breasts: 4
- explosions: 0
- dream sequences: 2
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
- Richard Lynch (Vestor) played “Baran” in the TNG two-parter “Gambit”
