Touches You

Such a frustrating disappointment

Please don't spend money on this.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Made in 1985 when the whole world lived under the shadow of the bomb and the Cold War looked like it would never end. Its quite ironic that this film and others before it echoed the fears of the whole planet but not long after its release the political climate started to change and it seemed the threat of nuclear war would finally be gone.Starting on April 1st 1986, No, its not a joke. In fact not only is it not a joke its the day the world ends with Nukes aplenty going off. Fast forward 15 years from that nightmare to April 1st, 2001 and we are introduced to a couple of people living underground who survived the bombs.Mainly the story is about Phillip and Marlowe, however that pun is intended as they are 2 guys who dreamt of become Private Investigators so its a post apocalyptic film noir. It's so noir the movie even starts in black & white but it immediately changes to colour once the guys leave their shelter and drive into the outside world.I knew I recognised the face of Phillip (John Stockwell) and it was because I remembered him playing the role of best friend Dennis in the horror movie Christine, the guy playing Marlowe (Michael Dudikoff) appears to be the worlds greatest bit part actor having been in nothing of any importance.The helpful trawl tells you the guys are Phillip Hammer and Marlowe Chandler (ignore how their billed in IMDb.com, its wrong) and they'd grown up in a shelter full of 40's memorabilia and sleazy detective novels hence the stupid noir style names.We also learn about a power struggle over 2 keys that could fire the last nuke left on Earth. The PI's rescue a damsel in distress (who also happens to have one of those keys) from some mutants and agree to get her to the closest phonebooth (like the telephone infrastructure will have survived WW3 or been rebuilt in 15 years?) but as those mutants are dealt with by some unseen force it appears the damsel may have both of the keys. We discover her name is Miles Archer (isn't Miles a mans name?) and a radio bulletin lets us know she was being chased by criminals.She makes her phone call and bails on her rescuers having seen something that scared her but not before robbing Marlowe and dropping the keys in their car. The film then pretty much degrades into Mad Max meets the Keystone Cops and pretty much stays there. The guys discover the keys and the name on the case that contains them is Dash Hammer - Phillips father, so they set off to discover if he is alive or not.After a bizarre encounter with Disco Mutants & a girl called Rusty Mars they finally enter Edge City, the closest thing to civilization. They walk around like a complete of complete rubes and you can tell they are going to either be constantly getting in or out of danger. It appears Rusty betrays Phillip to Sternwood, the leader of a local gang for the keys and he is told he will be sold for meat as the residents of Edge City are all cannibals.There are a great deal of escapes, rescues, captures and betrayals to the point where it just gets plain annoying. We have mutant sewer monsters and more Disco Mutants which get Phillip and Marlowe separated (for no real good reason other than to allow Marlowe a brief moment of glory as he rescues Phillip from the Disco Mutants before they meet back up with Miles who takes them back to her place.Phillip discovers a book on warhead arming & launch codes and finally realizes exactly what the keys are for and why they are in such high demand. (His flashback to his childhood is extremely inaccurate as its a very well known fact that looking directly into a nuclear blast burns out your retinas so he should actually be blind).Setting off in 40's outfits that fit them perfectly (stolen from the Disco Mutants, thats what was inside the 2 packages they were carrying) Phillip & Marlowe sucker the gangs following them into a trap in the hope they will all kill each other in the confusion.There's a nice twist about the identities of 2 of the Mutant leaders which is followed by an extremely pointless battle scene (why bother fighting for something you already have?) which ends up with the keys in Miles' possession. There's an even more pointless Mexican stand off and an unusual outcome with a very weak and incredibly open ending.I assume it was left so open to allow a sequel if this had been any kind of success so judging from the lack of sequel it probably wasn't. The film is pretty boring, there are lots of periods of nothing happening interspersed with rapid paced action that doesn't last long then a bit of dialogue to following and the cycle continues from start to finish. It's a pretty good example of how not to make a movie and its only real redeeming feature is its 80's soft rock sound track full of artists no-one has ever heard of.

Pyun's ambitious effort is well-made but extremely lacking in plot and character development. Essentially, it is a half-baked post-apocalyptic comedy about two Hardy Boys-esquire young guys (John Stockwell and Michael Dudikoff) who see the world for the first time. They run into various zombies, 80s bondage/biker chicks, a genuinely creepy butcher, and several other zany and morally ambiguous characters as they search for their father.Like a lot of Pyun's films, it doesn't take any effort to level the ground for the audience. It has flashy ideas and camera maneuvers and some decent action, but it was hard to understand what was going on. Or maybe it was hard to understand that the movie WAS going on without any real plot lying underneath its surface. By the end I was giving up on it because there was no interesting conclusions or character accomplishments. If it were trippier and filled with more complex weirdness it could have been more watchable, but it still needed better characters and more fun.There is a dance number at the end that is pretty amazing though . . .

This fulfills the criterias to be a cult classic, something to love OR hate for everyone. I belong to the first category: 2 kids growing up in a nuke shelter with a large collection of detective novels deciding to be the post apocalyptic worlds first dicks, The Atomic Dicks! Fastpaced wachy post apocalyptic tong-in-the-cheek comedy. Irresistible. B-movie queen Lisa Blount pops up in this weird mix and singer Sue Saad gives a few nice songs like the excellent title song "Radioactive Dreams", the soundtrack certainly deserves to be released. Great acting, excellent photography and score. It is very low budgeted, but every last penny is up there on the screen and stretched well beyond its limit, just as it was the case with director Albert Pyun's "The Sword And the Sorcerer". This movie stands up to repeated viewing. 7/10

As a young buck I was an extra in this film in LA. There were so many extras and no real coordination, we didn't know when the camera was rolling and when it wasn't. Shooting seemed to go on forever without a break, so when you got tired you just walked off the set and went home.We knew when making it that it would go direct to video. It was actually released, and played at my local theater for about two days before it was yanked. I had never before seen a movie taken out of the theater that quickly.I'm still looking for the video just for nostalgia. I'm glad there are some people out there who can enjoy for something.