Bullet Points: Interzone
A disclaimer before I begin this review, this is NOT a paid advertisement for ScreenPix, but as a movie lover writing for what I can only assume is an audience filled with fellow movie lovers, I need to put over ScreenPix for their wide selection of movies that I have either never seen available on other streaming services OR movies that I have not seen available in quite some time.
I recently discovered ScreenPix as an add on option to my Prime Video subscription and it was the best 3 bucks I have spent all year. As I scrolled through their offerings, I instantly started adding movie after movie to my watchlist, including 1989’s Interzone…
- Guy Walks Into a Bar: Swan (Bruce Abbott, The Demolitionist) walks into an Interzone watering hole where he promptly snags a jewel off a gambling table, uses it to buy a round of drinks for a couple of guys talking about the Interzone treasure, gets into a high stakes drinking game with his new “friends, makes eyes at a hot blonde and then when the guy Swan robbed upon his arrival confronts him, it starts the obligatory bar fight and cooler than the other side of the pillow Swan leaves amidst the chaos that he helped cause! Interzone is off to a good start…
- Brand Central: Now that we have met the hero of the story, it is time to meet the villains and they are a dastardly duo… the muscular Mantis (Teagan Clive, Sinbad of the Seven Seas) and the brutish Balzakan. Mantis and Balzakan have also heard of the Interzone treasure and they are doing more than just talking about it… they lead their army to the temple where the treasure is believed to be located but they are stopped by a group of men who have sworn to protect the treasure known as The Veterans… and more specifically the energy field (known as The Barrier) that they are able to create to prevent intruders from entering. The Barrier does deter Mantis and Balzakan, but the leader of the Veterans, General Electric, knows that they will be back because General Electric knows a lot of things, like the fact that he is not long for this world and that he had a vision that one of his Veterans, Panasonic (played by Kiro Wehara, and if you think Panasonic is a strange character name you should check out his character name in The Blade Master) would find a hero and a woman with golden hair and save the day… now it is up to Panasonic to make sure General Electric’s vision comes true, so he starts wandering the Interzone countryside looking for a hero, but what he finds instead is a poisonous snake…
- And Then There Were Three: …and that’s about the time Swan finds Panasonic and saves his life! But Swan isn’t done helping people… now with Panasonic by his side they come across an auction being run by Rat (Franco Diogene), the fat bastard that was also officiating the drinking game back at the bar. Rat is attempting to auction off Tera, the hot blonde (aka golden haired woman) that caught Swan’s eye at the bar… Swan ends up emancipating Tera like only Swan can and now we officially have our heroic trio, but they are going to need a plan…
- The Plan: I am not exactly sure what Swan’s full plan was, but I know how it started and how it ended. It starts with Swan rolling up to Mantis and Balzakan’s camp in a post apocalyptic jeep with his “slave girl” Tara riding shotgun and his “prisoner” Panasonic in the back. Swan pitches a plan to team up with Mantis and Balzakan to get the Interzone treasure, using info they get out of Panasonic… Balzakan scoffs at the whole thing, but Mantis decrees if Swan can satisfy her then they can be partners… so we then see a shirtless Swann in Mantis’ bed with three women preparing him for his night with Mantis… which includes a combination silhouette dancing/bodybuilding routine by Mantis and a blindfolded Swan having various foods shoved into his mouth. The next day, Mantis alters the deal (Darth Vader style) and orders that Swan must enter “the hole” (something she may have done the night before, but ended up on the cutting room floor) and if he could slay the beast that lived inside, THEN they could be partners. Swan, with the help of a conveniently placed double barreled shotgun, does in fact slay the beast and the plan seems to be on track, as long as that plan included Tera trying to convince Balzakan to dump Mantis and get the treasure for himself and creating a civil war among the bad guys.
- The War is Over: The great Mantis/Balzakan war doesn’t last very long, in fact it ends up being a minor disagreement that lasted basically long enough for our heroes to escape their camp… so it isn’t long before Mantis and Balzakan catch up with Swan, Tera and Panasonic and seemingly neutralize them before heading back to the temple with a flamethrower that will exploit a weakness in The Barrier and allow them to get the treasure… but things aren’t always as they seem in the Interzone.
Interzone felt like it was cut from the same cloth as one of my guiltiest pleasures, Deathstalker II. While Deathstalker II had some fun with the Sword & Sorcery genre, Interzone attempted to do the same with the Post-Apocalyptic genre but it was just a bit off the mark. Still, I have to give props to Bruce Abbott for his work in the movie. Swan was great as the not so goody two shoes hero making Abbott the shining star of Interzone.
Will these Bonus Bullet Points be the shining stars of this review?
- Fun Fact: The Veterans communicate through telepathy and can read other people’s minds.
- Directed By: Interzone was directed by Deran Sarafian, who would go on to direct Jean-Claude Van Damme in Death Warrant and Charlie Sheen in Terminal Velocity.
- Missed Opportunities: I really wish we could have met more of The Veterans on a first named basis… Sony, Toshiba, Zenith and Magnavox could have added a lot to this movie.
- Memorable Quote: “I’m gonna hit you so hard your dog’s gonna die” – Swan
