Future Hunters (1985)

Posted on Apr 14, 2004 under "Cold", Action-suspense, Martial arts, Sci-fi |

aka Deadly Quest, aka Spear of Destiny

Directed by Cirio H. Santiago
Written by J.L. Thompson
Starring
- Robert Patrick
- Linda Carol
- Ed Crick
- Bruce Li
- Richard Norton
Produced by Anthony Maharaj

The B-Masters Time Travel Roundtable

And You Call Yourself a Scientist! reviews The Butterfly Effect (2004) — coming soon!
Braineater reviews El Santo in The Treasure of Dracula (1969)
Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension reviews Future War (1997)
Stomp Tokyo reviews Timecop (1994)
Teleport City gives us “They Came from the Past to Bore the Future: The Sad Saga of Time Traveling Sword and Sorcery Films” (damned overachievers…)
The Unknown Movies reviews Time Trackers (1989)

And a special bonus:
“Down at the Café With Jack and Carol and Erich and Mary” by Christopher B. Jackson
If you’ve watched many new direct-to-video movies (or, as the new term has it “D2DVD”) in the past few years, you’ve noticed just how many unimpressive movies there are cobbled together from old stock footage, with minor “original” bits to tie it all together. (Such movies show up with appalling regularity at Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension.)

How does that relate to today’s movie under discussion, dating as it does to 1985? Well, the good news is that as far as I can tell, every inch of footage was shot original to this motion picture.

The script, though, is just as Frankensteined together as anything currently besmirching the new-release wall.

I think I can even discern which borrowed elements were used to make the initial pitch: “It’s part Terminator, part Raiders of the Lost Ark!” But that doesn’t even begin to do justice to this hack job, which also manages to incorporate The Maltese Falcon, Romancing the Stone, The Road Warrior, any of several hundred interchangeable kung fu movies, every “lost world of Amazons” movie ever made, and maybe even For Your Height Only.

Oh, and it sucks, too.

As a voiceover narration helpfully informs us, we begin in 2025, almost forty years after the world falls down and goes boom. There’s one man, Matthew, who is trying to find the legendary Spear of Longinus, the fabled implement which pierced Christ’s side and thus gained phenomenal (though vague) powers, one of which is to travel through time. Matthew is trying to go back forty years and keep the holocaust from happening. Yes, all of this information (and more!) is contained in the narration; why bother with that namby “visual storytelling” when you can just unload efficient exposition?

And yup, there’s Matthew (Richard Norton) himself, driving a MadMaxMobile across an arid landscape, pursued by two more such contraptions. As usual, gasoline doesn’t seem to be in short supply; neither do the rounds which Matthew’s pursuers expend in automatic weapons fire. But Matthew outranks them there — they’ve got machine guns, but he’s got a grenade launcher!

Unfortunately, Matthew is himself outgunned by the warlord Zaar (David Light), who has a number of tanks at his disposal. Matthew is captured and dragged to a bad matte painting of a fortress, escapes, runs next door to the mission-style church (which everyone calls “the temple”) and, lo and behold, this is where Tsar is keeping the spear! How convenient!

“Must find… more… hair gel!”

I should note that at least someone did some research. I read a book a few years back that purportedly told the true story of the spear of Longinus (though, naturally, it was also vague on what the spear could actually do apart from poking crucified messiahs), and the prop they use here does look like the picture in the book. Well, except for the animated-in glow that pulses through it when Matthew picks it up. I’m hoping that really mystically-charged artifacts have better special effects. Oh, and although everyone calls it the “spear,” it’s actually just the spearhead — it’s a lot easier to run around with a desperately-sought artifact when it isn’t seven feet long.

Anyway. Tsar orders his tanks to fire on the temple rather than let Matthew get it. Everything explodes…

…And we roll opening credits and cut to 1986. The back of the video says 1989, but that’s easy enough to explain — the movie was made in 1985, but couldn’t find anyone desperate/stupid enough to distribute it for four more years.

So. 1986, same church out in the desert, though it doesn’t look much better for wear than it does in forty years. In fact, the entire landscape is just as arid and deserted as it is in the future. Are you sure there was a nuclear apocalypse? (The matte painting is notably absent, though.) A young couple is exploring the abandoned church. Actually, only Michelle (Linda Carol) is exploring it, because she wants to be an anthropologist in addition to a cafe owner because her dad died and all he left her was a bunch of money. Her boyfriend Slade (Robert Patrick) is just hanging around, waiting for her to be done; in addition, he helpfully gives us the chunk of Michelle’s backstory above through some exceptionally clumsy dialogue. (Well, exceptional compared to most movies, not to what follows in this one.)

As they get ready to leave, a small biker gang (ganglet?) rides up and proceeds to molest them, because there’s nothing bikers like better than checking in on small abandoned churches in the desert to see if there’s anyone there to rape. They kick the tar out of Slade, and are about ready to take turns with Michelle, when Matthew wakes up inside the church with the spear in his hand — he’s been blown backward in time! He comes out of the church and makes short work of the bikers (one of them melts into ash when stabbed with the spearhead), but takes a bullet in a vital organ.

Michelle and Slade try to get him to a hospital, but he gives them the spear and a short, nonsensical description of it and its powers before he expires in their backseat. His last words are to find someone named “Hightower” who knows all about the spear’s power and destiny. (That, and the fact that he didn’t know what they meant when they said they were “outside L.A.” I can understand his confusion — I mean, is Los Angeles supposed to look so much like the Philippines?)

Slade’s one of those “don’t get involved” people, and wants Michelle to forget all about it after they ditch the corpse with the police, but he didn’t see someone melt to ash like she did. Plus, I guess he doesn’t have the soul of a wanna-be great anthropologist. No, he’s just a cropduster mechanic. (Gee, wonder if that will come in handy later.) And she’s not the only one who thinks the spear might be important; while they’re cleaning up the cafe, a trio of standard-issue heavies come in, demand the spearhead, and demonstrate that they really don’t know how to wreck a restaurant very well. They then leave because… um… customers are coming. (Curses! In a cafe, of all places! Foiled again!)

Michelle finds Professor Hightower’s work in the library; he’s one of the foremost experts on the spear of Longinus, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s a member of the faculty right here at the local university. (In, L.A., I mean. Where this is taking place. Not in the Philippines, where of course this is not taking place.) Unfortunately, Hightower has disappeared somewhere around Hong Kong on one of his expeditions, according to Professor Fielding (Ed Crick), who offers to take the spear off her hands. When she refuses, he then offers to put Hightower in touch with her as soon as he resurfaces, and she gives him her address. (Let’s see — you want the professor to contact you, and you know that bad guys are trying to take the spear by force; wouldn’t leaving your phone number be more appropriate? On the other hand, the bad guys seemed to intuit who she was and where she ran her cafe,so…)

“I just feel like you’re going to make me play ‘bad cop’ for the rest of my life…”

Well, more bad guys pursue them down a lonely street (in L.A., dammit, not the Philippines, despite the jungle encroaching on the shoulder of the road!), and only her defensive driving skills keep them alive. She and Slade decide that the most sensible thing to do would be to fly to Hong Kong and try to find Hightower. After all, there are only six million people in the city, all speaking a language they don’t know; how hard could it be?

Plus, they do have an advantage: Slade has a friend in Hong Kong. What’s more, he drives a taxi (and who better to track someone down than a taxi driver?). And what’s even more, he’s Bruce Li! That’s quite the ace in the hole, especially when (after driving around pointing at the tall buildings — these three minutes brought to you by the Hong Kong Tourism Commission) Slade and Li take a trip to the Forbidden Pagoda of the Silver Fox, where Hightower was rumored to have been. Well, they don’t find Hightower, but they do find an old kung fu master who cops a “Which part of ‘forbidden’ don’t you understand?” attitude and wipes the floor with Slade.

But — did I mention? Slade’s friend is Bruce Li! Which means that for the next ten minutes, we’re going to forget about the plot and watch Li and the kung fu master whup on each other. Hey, we’ve even got those exaggerated hand-to-hand sound effects that were notably absent when the master beat up Slade.

It seems like the bout will go on forever — it certainly tries to — but it’s mercifully cut short when a mysterious sniper shoots the kung fu master, although he apparently meant to plug Slade. Slade and Li make a half-hearted effort to find the sniper, but get sidetracked into looking around the pagoda for signs of Hightower. But after ten seconds of diligent searching and finding no obvious graffiti on the walls that says “Hightower was here but went thataway,” they shrug their shoulders and trot on their merry way. (They also find no one else taking care of the pagoda. I guess one kung fu master per historic landmark is sufficient.)

They get back to the hotel just in time to catch Michelle once more entertaining thugs (but this time, it’s Asian thugs) who’re on the trail of the spear. More fighting ensues (man, they oughtta bottle that Bruce Li and sell him in corner stores), and the thug leader spills the beans about Hightower being somewhere in — the Philippines! Boy, I thought we’d never get there! And extra weirdness: Hightower is supposed to be looking for the fabled Venus Valley, an Amazon-inhabited lost world somewhere in southeast Asia where the shaft of the spear is hidden; the spear and the shaft have to be brought together to have any power (excepting, one assumes, that whole “travelling through time” thing, and that “turning the impaled to ash” thing).

So. Over to exotic Manila we go, where Slade and Michelle ooh and ah some more at the buildings (these three minutes brought to you by the Philippine Tourism Commission). But there’s a mysterious someone who’s waiting for them — an evil, nefarious white supremacist who wants the spear to rid the world of all the inferior races, even if it takes a nuclear cleansing! We don’t see his face right off, but that’s okay; he’s got the most overacting hands I’ve ever seen, which makes up for it. And really — given that there are absolutely NO other characters it could possible be (unless you think it’s Bruce Li), I’ll just clue you in: It’s Professor Fielding, the guy from the university who offered to relieve Michelle of the spear. And let’s just think about this: a), how can someone on an academic’s salary afford a foreign villa, plus all the equipment for his neo-Nazi army? and b) would a white supremacist be really happy with his secret hideout in the Philippines, surrounded by, you know, all those brown people (quite a few of whom are among his footsoldiers)?

“Hmm… I wonder how much this would go for on eBay?”¹

Fielding’s goons try to nab Slade and Michelle at the hotel; many luggage carts and potted plants figure in the ensuing chase, as you can well imagine. The goons grab Michelle, and Slade follows in a convenient vehicle. Check this: Apparently the international date line runs right through the Philippines, because mid-pursuit it changes from the pitch-black night to the middle of the day. Slade, ex-Marine that he is, fights his way through Nazi fodder to the inner room where Fielding and his chief goon loom over Michelle and the much-sought Professor Hightower (Paul Holmes), the latter manacled to the wall. Fielding triumphantly pulls the spear from Michelle’s shoulder bag, and… they leave. Kill the captives here and now? Nah — not when he can fire rockets at his own villa from a helicopter to kill them, right? But Slade and Michelle had enough time to escape the villa first (Hightower, not so much), and gee, wouldn’t you know it, there’s a second chopper right there, ready to go. Heck, an extra copy of Fielding’s flight plans to the Venus Valley are sitting right there on the seat.

You know, it’s one thing for a movie not even to try. It’s another when it proudly displays the fact, practically walking up to you, slapping you in the face, and proclaiming, “We’re not even trying!”

But this chase doesn’t get very far, because Fielding has a remote explosive wired to his second chopper. But he waits long enough before pushing the button that Slade and Michelle can jump to safety in the water. And it’s only a minor delay; on land, Slade immediately finds a small aircraft hangar and steals a single-prop plane. And of course, he’s got the flight plan memorized, so off they go after Fielding again. But now there’s no place to land near the right coordinates, and they’re almost out of fuel, so they have to bail out again (using a parachute this time) while the plane crashes.

(You’d like to think we’re somewhere near the end now, wouldn’t you? WOULDN’T YOU? Ha ha ha ha HA HAHAHAHAHA*cough*cough… Hack…)

We’ll cut short their bickering “banter” in the jungle; suffice it to say that, for the first time since I originally saw Romancing the Stone, I really wished I were watching it again instead. But that’s all cut short when they stumble, yes, right into the Nazi camp and into Fielding’s clutches. Michelle’s again almost about to be given the “rough love” treatment by one of the Nazis (boy, does she ever attract Mr. Wrong) when the camp is attacked…

…by Mongols.

[thunk]
[thunk]
[thunk]

“And THAT’S for standing me up on Prom Night!”

Even just reliving the scene as I write about it makes me want to poke at my cerebral cortex with a straight pin until I skewer that specific memory. Why are there Mongols on horseback, with swords and primitive firearms, inhabiting a Philippine jungle? Not only is there no answer, no one even acts like it’s a question.

Cue really boring battle between Nazis and Mongols as a lot of extras we’ve never seen before get killed. Ten minutes later, when the smoke clears, Slade and Michelle have once again escaped into the jungle with the spear. And there, they meet…

Okay, let me preface this. I’m thinking that the original intention was to get this movie into drive-ins, and the assumption was that by this time, just about everyone there would be making out and paying no attention to the screen. (After all, who wouldn’t be turned on by all the “jungle bickering” bits? Not to mention all of the “Michelle almost gets gangraped yet again” scenes.) And you know, if I were at the drive-in for this flick, I’d neck with just about anything to distract me from the feature. But you really have to feel bad for anyone who was getting hot ‘n’ heavy, happened to glance up at the screen, and saw…

… midget Filipino cavepeople.

Seriously. It’s like they hired every midget, dwarf, and other variety of little person in the Philippines (plus a few children thrown in to fill out their numbers) to wrap themselves in burlap and meet Slade and Michelle in the jungle. They’re a friendly sort, but they’ve been having awful trouble with the Mongols, so they make a deal with Slade and Michelle: You help us defeat the Mongols, we’ll show you where the Venus Valley is. (You know, where the spear’s shaft is. That goes with the head of the spear of Longinus. That Matthew brought back from the future. I thought you’d appreciate the recap, since we’ve moved so far away from the initial premise that the opening scenes must seem like a distant memory.)

And now? Now a full fifteen-minute digression as Slade, Michelle, and the Mighty Munchkins sneak up on the Mongol camp and attack. Here are some things you may not know about Mongols: Their camps are liberally decorated with oil drums. And they buy modern chemicals in plastic containers to mix their own gunpowder for their primitive firearms. Oh, and despite their reputation as ruthless warriors, they can be easily taken on their hometurf by a dozen midgets and two whiny Americans.

Fifteen irreplaceable minutes of my life later, the Mongols are wiped out, and the cave-dwarfs cheerfully point the way to the Venus Valley. Of course, before they get that far… you guessed it. Right into the hands of the Nazis again. By this time, I was about ready to slip Fielding a Jackson to just kill them and be done with it, but no; before he can do anything decisive — Amazon attack! (Filipino Amazon attack.) They kill a bunch of Nazis and take Slade and Michelle prisoner.

Aaaagh! Shaved Ewoks!

And when Michelle tells what they’re looking for, the Head Amazon declares that the only way to earn the right to go up to the cave at the end of the valley is single combat. Not Slade; Michelle. Boy, that’d be a real nailbiter if we cared. As it is, despite the fact that the awkward Michelle is facing the Amazons’ undefeated champion, it takes little time for her to knock her opponent into the crocodile pit and earn their passage.

And in the cave, they find… well, a stick. (What were you expecting?) Oh, and Fielding, showing up for his last-ditch attempt to get the whole spear-and-accessory set for himself. Slade and Fielding fight; Fielding gets killed with the spearhead. (Oh, irony… or something.) Naturally, the cave decides to collapse into huge styrofoam boulders, but Slade and Michelle are dug out by… the cavemidgets. (”Hey, we’ve paid for the whole troupe through Thursday — maybe we should use them again!”)

Michelle emerges into the sunlight, fits the spearhead to the shaft, holds it aloft, and… The end.

That’s it? The spear doesn’t DO anything?

Nope. Roll credits.

This pitiful excuse for a motion picture comes to us courtesy of Cirio H. Santiago, notorious hack director from the Corman stable who has quite possibly directed more forgettable post-apocalyptic movies than anyone before or since (with the possible exception of Albert Pyun). But even having seen several of Santiago’s other movies, I still couldn’t anticipate that he could put his hand to such an ill-conceived — or unconceived — project. It’s a movie that surprises and horrifies you by hitting what you thought was bottom pretty early, then digging several sub-basements below that.

More horrifying is that the screenplay is by J.L. (aka “J. Lee”) Thompson, director of the last two Planet of the Apes movies. Thank whatever you hold holy that, of all the filched crap that shows up in here, he didn’t throw in any talking chimps.

And in retrospect, it’s easy to see the best part of the movie: Richard Norton as Mad Max ripoff Matthew, waaaaay back there at the beginning. Sure, he’s no master thespian, but his fight scenes were energetic and well-paced, looking natural and unchoreographed. I could have watched ninety minutes of meaningless post-apocalyptic combat of that caliber pretty easily, relatively speaking…

On the other hand, if Matthew hadn’t brought the spear back in time, there’s no reason to suppose that a world-cleansing freak like Fielding would have ever had a chance to get ahold of it… so the only thing making the apocalypse possible is the effort of the man trying to keep the apocalypse from happening.

Well, whaddaya know. This whole movie is even more useless and pointless than previously supposed.