Bullet Points: Shocking Dark (1989)
I always get that sense of excitement and intrigue when Chris the Brain tells me that there is a movie on Amazon Prime that “looks like a Chad Cruise movie”. It’s a text I usually get once every couple of months, and when I pulled up the synopsis for Shocking Dark I knew that the Brain finally got me. The next logical thing to do was to sneak away from my family for a few minutes and try to enjoy one of the few things we have left in this life; Italian exploitation films that totally rip off classic movies.
Synopsis: In a polluted future Venice researchers work to improve the situation. One day, unknown forces start killing them. A team of soldiers and a couple of civilians is sent to investigate. Soon, they encounter strange murderous creatures. via IMDB.com
- Venice: It’s supposed to be the year 2000 or sometime shortly after. There is a toxic cloud over the city that has destroyed life and the Italian government evacuated what was left of the city. Now, there is a company (who you can almost guarantee are evil) doing some tests there that can’t be on the up and up.
- Help us: There is a team of scientists, or at least I think they’re scientists, who send an S.O.S. .for help from whatever military force is listening. The military guys have some pretty funky uniforms but everyone is speaking English, so who knows? The decision is made to send in an ultra badass team to save the survivors. This should be good….
- Not so shocking: Holy shit! The elite team of Marines are called “The Megaforce”! That may be the only thing in this entire film that is shocking cause that is a pretty badass name. The rest of the introduction of the team is stolen from the similar scene in Aliens (I’m fine with that). Instead of the hardcore Sgt. Apone in Aliens we get gender-swaped version with Koster (Geretta Geretta). Her opening line is as follows: “Alright you bunch of pussies, I’m back and I’m kicking ass!” I like her already!
- Comrades: Despite being very racist and aggressive toward each other, the scenes with the Marines together are my favorite ones in film. It was early enough in the film that I hadn’t grown tired of the homages to other movies but that was about to wear off.
- The monsters: I don’t really understand what was going on with the creatures in this film. One minute they looked like some Lovecraftian things and the next they didn’t. This picture probably makes them out to look much cooler than I ever remember them in the film. To say that I was disappointed with how they were used in the movie would be a massive understatement. Shrouded in darkness and mist, these things straight up sucked!
- Bargain bin Newt: The Marines run into a “little girl” that looked more like a teenager to me. I was hoping she would be too terrified to speak for a while but she did nothing but blabber on and on. It was horrendous. IMDB tells me that this is her only acting credit so small miracles do happen. She mostly runs around with the Dollar General brand Ripley played by Haven Tyler. Tyler looked like Meryl Streep compared to many of the other actors in this movie but that isn’t much of a compliment considering the talent here.
- The Tubular Company: What a name for your vicious bad guys. The movie is so full of shit by the time that they reveal the goings-ons in Venice that I really didn’t care. If you’re going to outright steal from Aliens and The Terminator you should at least try to do it justice. I’ve seen pornos with better scripts than what we got here. We’re eventually led to a point where they’ve tried to remake Aliens but with a Terminator in it, and Dollar General Ripley is off to save teenager Newt from the rubber-suited mist monster. They only thing that could make this movie worse would be a time travel gimmick….
- Holy crap, they did it: Sarah aka Dollar General Ripley really sucks at opening doors but she hands Terminator guy his ass no less than three times. Then, like a true ignoramus, accidentally transports them back to Venice before the collapse. Sadly, Terminator guy comes to and get his ass kicked one more time when Sarah tosses him a GameBoy and kills him. Yep, it’s all true. That’s what happened and I dare you to watch it and tell me I’m wrong.
Oh yeah….this movie was released under the title Terminator 2!
The Verdict: Shocking Dark is not just a bad movie, it’s downright embarrassing. The template they follow, being Aliens/The Terminator, is so simple that you would have to be an idiot to screw it up. There are a few scenes that I liked in the film and a couple of characters that weren’t too bad, at times, but the biggest problem with the movie is that it has no identity other than trying to be Aliens. Even the things I liked in it were only good because they were stolen straight from better films. As a guy who loves watching knockoff movies of his favorites, this one was a massive waste of my time. Skip it and watch Aliens instead.
