Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

• Directed by Charles Band
• Written by Alan J. Adler
• Starring
  • Jeffrey Byron
  • Mike Preston
  • Tim Thomerson
  • Kelly Preston
  • Richard Moll
• Produced by Charles Band and Alan J. Adler
• Executive produced by Albert Band and Arthur H. Maslansky

As with too many of Charles Band’s flicks from any era of his career, the impression that one gets from Metalstorm is one of impoverishment. Here, working as the director under his producer father, he tries to realize an epic yet incomprehensible script with leaden dialogue via a handful of bad actors, a score of extras, some shoddy special effects, and an acre of scrubland, all tied together with a gimmick: the theatrical 3-D process which boomed and busted in 1983. To shamelessly steal a turn of phrase from Keith Allison of Teleport City, if there is any problem with Metalstorm, it’s that it’s a terrible movie.

In a future world which, in its entirety, looks a lot like a half-mile of Los Angeles’ Bronson Canyon (for good reason), a Ranger named Dogen (Jeffrey Byron of The Dungeonmaster (1984)) is a Ranger, patrolling the arid wasteland in an angular post-apoc-mobile. Thrill to the sensible ten-and-two driving action! I suppose the countless minutes of bumping along these unpaved roads would have been moderately engaging when this was first released in 3-D… Actually, no, it probably wasn’t. At least Richard Band contributes of his more engaging scores here, to help support the extended travelogue footage.

When you’re smilin’, when you’re smilin’…

Suddenly, a poorly-bluescreened flying sled appears! It fires on Dogen’s ride, missing most of the time because its twin laser beams are wall-eyed. After several minutes of turning this way and that, Dogen manages to fire back and bring the sled down in an explosion. Its rider, who expires on the ground, is a Cyclops – a fellow with Hari Krishna hair and a slab of latex covering his right eye. And his payload is a hand-sized red crystal with a tree-like sigil on it.

Crystals, we soon discover, are a treasure commodity in this future. We immediately cut to Aix (Larry Pennell), an old crystal miner, and his daughter Clementine Dyhana (Kelly “Mrs. Travolta” Preston), working in a tunnel and exchanging some expository dialogue about them prospecting so far out in nomad territory. Dyhana finds an 18-inch quartz crystal incongruously buried in the soft earth wall, and they exult that they’re going to be rich! Rich! But when they take it out, they are confronted by green-skinned cyborg Baal (R. David Smith) and his cadre of cyclopses. One of said henchmen throws the crystal to the ground, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Baal aims his mechanical arm at Aix and – squirts him with green goo! Suddenly, Aix is transported into a bizarre vision of Baal and Jared-Syn (Mikie Preston of The Road Warrior (1981)), a pouting badboy with a costume that makes me think of red-dyed Twinkies. In the vision, Jared-Syn slashes Aix on the neck with a red crystal, and he dies – in real life, too. Everyone, say it with me: Doubleyou-tee-eff?

This is Baal. He takes after his mother’s side, you know.

Dogen sees the smoke from Baal’s raid on the mine, and gets there in time to find Aix’s body, and Dyhana cowering in the mine. After a moment of distrust, Dogen explains to Dyhana that since she and her father came out here, “the treaty has been broken,” and that meanie Jared-Syn is consolidating the cyclops tribes under him, using his son (!) Baal as his enforcer. Well, that explains everything! This scene also allows me to share with you the typical tenor of the script:

Dogen: Did you see who did this?
Dyhana: We were prospecting. I hid in the mine.
Dogen: Did you see who did it?
Dyhana: Keep away!

This scene is also notable for the fact that the kitbashed laser gun that Dyhana wields has a very obvious hair curler on the end of its muzzle.

Since Dyhana wants revenge on her father’s killer, Dogen takes her along with him as he investigates. First they go to an old shopkeeper (whose shop is yet another cave), who tells them that the mysterious red crystal is a storage crystal for life force, and the tree sigil is associated with the legendary City of Set. Then Baal and his cronies attack! After a long chase across the same half-mile of canyon, Dogen is stymied by the fact that his ride has no reverse gear, and Baal aims his goo-shooter at him (wow, that sounds really dirty). Dogen gets some good on his pants before he can drive Baal off, and goes into a vision of Jared-Syn, but the fact that Dyhana is there with him somehow, I dunno, gives him strength or something. This despite the fact that Dogen and Dyhana evince as much attraction as two strangers standing on the subway with their backs to each other.

“I feel pretty, so so pretty…”

Jared-Syn sees that he needs to separate Dogen and Dyhana, so he uses mumbo-jumbo crystal magic to transport her to his lair (which is, wait for it, another cave). He then proceeds to let Dogen work his way to his stronghold. Good plan, J.S.! Along the way, Dogen picks up a former-Ranger-turned-sot named Rhodes (Tim Thomerson, in his first outing working for Charles Band), who is reputed to know the way to the City of Set. Together they run into Cyclopses again, and Dogen bests the leader of the tribe, Hurok (Richard Moll) in single combat, making them blood brothers or something. Fun fact: It was while Moll had his head shaved for this role that he auditioned as Bull on Night Court. See, something good did come out of Metalstorm!

It’s a short movie at 80 minutes (especially for a theatrical release), and even for as short as it is, it feels like there isn’t a lot there. There’s a surprising amount of roadtrip footage, as characters go from one location in Bronson Canyon to an identical location in Bronson Canyon via roads that all look the same. Between the little-explained crystal mumbo-jumbo and the obvious (though superficial) correlation between the Cyclops tribes and Native Americans, the whole thing seems like it was constructed using random jacket copy from books in the local New Age bookstore. (The premise of frontiers, miners, lone lawmen, and surly rebellious tribes all come directly from Westerns, as indicated by the tagline on the poster: “It’s high noon at the end of the universe.”)

“Man, I wish this new DVD were letterboxed. We’re a little close for my comfort.”

In case you’re one of those people who watched The Dungeonmaster and wondered, “Why didn’t this Jeffrey Byron kid hit it big?” this movie is your answer. Byron plays Dogen with all of the charisma of wallpaper paste. I imagine them doing the first take of a scene, and Band shouting, “Cut! That was great, but Jeffrey, could we do it again with even less charisma?” And because no one wants to show up the lead, Kelly Preston stays as wooden as possible, and Tim Thomerson just comes along for the ride. Even Baal, who is a green-skinned cyborg, ends up boring; performer David Smith didn’t speak any of his lines; instead he held his face motionless and the character’s voice, looped in post-production, supposedly came from the grill in his throat. Maybe Band thought that if it worked for Darth Vader, it would work for Baal; it doesn’t. Aside from those moment in which Baal sprays green goop on someone (still the single most unexplained part of the movie), he mostly just stands there, as if nobody told Smith that the camera was rolling.

In fact, compared to all the other performers, Mike Preston as Jared-Syn seems, if not more skilled, at least more interesting. Sure, his performance consists entirely of mugging and speaking his lines as portentiously as possible, but it’s hard to reach the end of this movie and not by rooting for Jared-Syn. At least a world under his control would be a marginally more interesting place.

I have no idea why the movie is called ”Metalstorm” (maybe ”Crystalstorm” just doesn’t test as well), and the subtitle’s even more problematic. Aside from the fact that one usually doesn’t refer to a person being “destroyed,” the simple fact is that Jared-Syn escapes in the end by hover-sled, first over endless bluescreened footage of arid hills, and then through an “energy tunnel” that looks like the inside of a disco ball. Sure, all of his plans are set back, but evil overlords are used to running off, shaking their fists at heroes, to return another day with another nefarious scheme. That’s not “destruction”; it’s a minor setback.

Richard Moll! Whaddaya need a caption for?

Metalstorm was written by Alan Adler to be the first part of a trilogy, but I don’t think anyone who watched it back upon initial release (or anyone who catches it nowadays) would be too surprised that there wasn’t support for further installments. There isn’t enough in this movie to keep an audience interested while watching it, much less leave them clamoring for more.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 14
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 23
• dream sequences: 2
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• really, really blatant 3-D shots: 2
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
  • Jeffrey Byron (Dogen) played “Test Administrator” in the 2009 feature film
  • Tony Cecere (one of the background Cyclopeans) performed stunts in Star Trek 2 and on TNG