Solid Block of Ise

One of my minor enjoyments is b-grade scifi-movies from the 80’s and 90’s. Not the really cheesy ones, but the ones who are at the lower-end spectrum of budget and ambition. They’re still major enough to have gone the rounds in the cinemas, but lack a lot of things in pretty much every other department.

They have a tendency to take themselves way too seriously, to have silly and overblown special effects and vehicles and to generally play loose and wild with various concepts as well as laws of physics. These movies have a very cheap cartoony style, even though that style usually is the result of inexperienced directors using the same techniques that they’ve copied from other low-budget inexperienced directors.

Also, it’s surprisingly common that these movies involve at least one or two actors who either are quite respected even at the time of release, or who will become respected and famous a few years later. In other cases, it’s actors who used to be respected or famous but who has for one reason or another has fallen from grace.

These movies are usually located in the bargain-bin at various supermarkets, electronics outlets and gas-stations. You know the kind, three movies for five bucks, that kind of deal.

Two excellent examples of this type of movie is Virus from 1999 and Tank Girl from 1995. Both have this very typical cardboard-style of filmmaking, being extremely corny and usually quite enjoyable mostly due to being very cardboardy and corny. Other excellent representations of this sub-genre is The Running Man from 1987 featuring the current gubernator of california as well as Repo Man from 1984.

Late last night I encountered another movie fitting this genre of mediocrity. It was named Freejack, a scifi/action-movie from 1992 featuring Emilio Estevez and among other people Mick Jagger (!) of Rolling Stones-fame.

The premise is a deliciously silly farce about time-travelling bounty-hunters who take people just before they die and then in the future sell their bodies as hosts for dying peoples minds.

The story itself serves as a great example of how overblown these movies usually are. They almost always have outrageously campy visions of future dystopias and Freejack is no exception to this rule. Most of the movie is set in 2009, two years from now, but features hovercraft limos with bubbletop canopys for the drivers as well as various other really silly “predictions” about the future such as a mega-corporation named McCandless Corporation who owns and operates pretty much everything in the world. But, 2009 is two years away so who knows what might happen?

This is a beautiful hangover-movie. Mick Jagger is wonderfully ridiculous in his various “badass” outfits sprouting cartoony lines, and Emilio Estevez is as gloriously one-dimensional as always.

If you manage to catch this on late night cable and have a penchant for silly scifi-movies then you won’t be disappointed. It’s also excellent stocking-stuffing for people who love this stuff, a useful tip since christmas is rolling around in less than two months time.

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