The Midnight Show: Late Night Cable-Tv “Guy-Flicks” of the 80’S

By Ken Knight

REMEMBER....

When staying up past midnight was done for a good reason? When ninjas and cyborgs were both heroes and villains? When vigilantes and secret agents made the plot thicken? When gratuitous nudity and violence ruled your TV time? When there was no such thing as "political correctness??!!

Take a trip back to the late nights of yesteryear as Author Ken Knight reviews the late night "Guy-Flicks" of the 1980s' Cable TV and Video entertainment,with a vengeance! Complete with un-cut commentary, celebrity interviews,and rare photos as well as twobrand new short-storiesany fan of the 1980's "guy-flicks" are sure to enjoy.....

Welcome to THE MIDNIGHT SHOW

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 12, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467861038

Ken Knight

Ken Knight has served in the US Military and worked in the Criminal Justice field, having always been a movie-buff since childhood staying up late watching Cable TV movies into the early morning hours. Having written four fiction novels as well, he wanted to pen a book of reviews and commentary on some of the most memorable movies of the 1980's, especially those he labels "Guy Flicks". An Autograph-Collector himself, he has met numerous celebrities over the years and respects the work that goes into performing in a motion picture. Writing fiction is his mainstay and he has many more stories to write for years to come. He may be reached at [e-mail]

Book preview

© 2008 Ken Knight. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 2/4/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4343-4148-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-6103-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007909414

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

SO DAMN LOUD…

THE NEXT GALAXY HEARD IT.

THEY ALL HAD IT COMING…

NEVER MAKE LOVE IN AN OUTDOOR JACUZZI !

ARE YOU ALRIGHT PARTNER?

OF COURSE NOT YOU ASSHOLE…I’M SHOT

ARE YOU HAVING FUN MISTER GANT…LIKE OUR NEW TOY?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH TELEKINETIC POWERS???

LET’S HAVE A PIZZA PARTY!!

THOSE THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT…

AND THERE’S NOTHING DIRTY GOING ON…

DEEDS NOT WORDS…

HEY BUD…LET’S PARTY!

JUST ANOTHER F#&KING OBSERVER

80’s Guycon:

LIKE TOTALLY FREAK-ME-OUT…!

MY NAME IS PEDRO…THAT MEANS PETER…

ANYONE UP FOR A GAME OF STRIP-VIDEO?

GO AHEAD PUNK…

YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE BROWSERS…

HOT FRENCH TEACHER IN A BIKINI BY THE POOL = A+

THE WAY OF THE NINJA…

80’s Guycon

SEX AT THE SKI LODGE…

HE’S OUT OF HERE…HIM AND HIS QUEER DOG.

WHERE IS THE GROOOOOM?

HE’S IN THE BED-ROOOOM

HIGH-YA…HIGH-YA…HIGH-YA…HIGHYAAAH…OH, THEY’RE PLAAYIN’ WITH FFIYAA!

AN NC-17 RATING IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD…

LOVE, HATE, AND A CROSSBOW….

IT CAN’T BE BARGAINED WITH…IT CAN’T BE REASONED WITH…AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP…EVER! UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD…

MAKE LOVE TO ME…

BUT I’M TWENTY YEARS OLDER THAN YOU…

BOOZE-BALLOONS!

PART ANIMAL…PART LEGEND…ALL WOMAN…

BRAINS…BRAINS…BRRAAAAAINS!!

REMEMBER WHEN I PROMISED TO KILL YOU LAST…?

A GREASY PORK SANDWICH SERVED IN A DIRTY ASHTRAY…

FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS…

I’VE SEEN SOME BIGGER…BUT YOU ARE A STURDY ONE!

YOU’RE SUCH A HORSESHIT AT SHOWING EMOTION…BUT I LIKE THAT IN A MAN.

KELLY PRESTON…FULLY-NUDE AND PRE-TRAVOLTA!

ANOTHER BUG HUNT…

GUYS NIGHT OUT…

BULLSHIT…OR NOT??

DEAD OR ALIVE…YOU’RE COMING WITH ME…

"GRAB-ASSTIC PIECES

OF AMPHIBIAN SHIT…"

BABES IN HULA-LAND…

KILLING IS AN ART FORM…

YOU DRIVE…I’LL SHOOT.

YIPPE-KAYEAAAA…MUTHA-FUKKA…

80’s Guycon

JUST TWO MORE DAYS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN…

I’M ON MY BREAK…

STAY ON IT…

The Naked 80’s…

ANDY SIDARIS

THEY SENT IN THE BEST MAN

FOR THE JOB…A WOMAN!

OKAY, OKAY…HERE’S ONE GREAT GUY-FLICK OF 1990 !

THE MIDNIGHT SHOW

GUY-FLICK AWARDS

THE BIGGEST BOOBS ON SHOTGUN STREET

Remember the Cold War 80’s?

California 80’s and

the return of the tube-top

Favorite 80’s movie scenes, funny moments, and one-liners….

The shapely of things to come….

Now that’s entertainment!

CALIFORNIA COP OUT

The more things change…..

Years of living vicariously….

The Ultimate Guy-Flicks

after the 80’s were gone….

Return of the Vigilante….(movie)

Some made the team….

some were left on the bench!

The ending credits roll…..

KEN KNIGHT’S OTHER 80’S PICKS

About the Author

THIS is the work of commentary and review regarding films and TV programs.

It is also the work of fictional fantasy and is written for reviewing entertainment without any bad intentions regarding copyright or trademark held by other parties.

The movie posters and images displayed in this book of reviews and commentary are intended for the sake of film reviewing and under fair use intentions.

Celebrity photos(autographed)contained herein were given/sold to the Author of this book of reviews/commentary by the Celebrity individuals and are intended only for reader-recognition of celebrities reviewed herein. All other snapshots were taken by the Author himself unless otherwise stated on each photo page.

Cover by Ken Crampton®

100% of the Author’s royalties from the sales of this book

will be donated to MAKE-A-WISH ® Children’s Charity.

www.R2KT.com

DEDICATED to my Parents Sara Kaye and Don, who let me stay up late all those nights back when I was a teenager, downstairs with every Cable-TV channel at my fingertips.

Also to my Hollywood friends: Tane McClure, Silvana Gallardo, Morgan Fairchild, Roberta Vasquez, Arlene Sidaris, Patty Duffek, Sybil Danning, and Hugh Hefner!

Remember when late-night TV was worth staying up for?

When the hour of midnight chimed and you sat in a dark living room or basement with your bottle of beer, mug of coffee, soda, or bag of popcorn while the most entertaining (and titillating) movies were coming on your Cable TV?

When some of your favorite actors and actresses were busy performing with gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity, and gratuitous outrageousness?

When everyone else in your household was in bed asleep, forgetting all about

you as you treated yourself to movies and shows on late-night Cable TV, some of which have never made it to DVD to this day?

WELL HERE ARE SOME OF THOSE MOVIES AND SHOWS RETURNED TO YOU OUT OF OBSCURITY TO BE REMEMBERED AND DISCUSSED IN A CRITICS-CORNER PORTFOLIO FROM YESTERYEAR……

FROM DEATH WISH II to MALIBU EXPRESS, FROM RETURNOF THE LIVING DEAD TO ROADHOUSE AND SILK 2; THE BEST OF THE 80’S GUY FLICKS EVER TO BE SHOWN ON LATE NIGHT CABLE TV ARE TALKED ABOUT, DISHED ON, CRITIQUED, AND REMEMBERED BY SUSPENSE-WRITER KEN KNIGHT.

INCLUDING CELEBRITY INTERVIEWS AND COMMENTARY BY OTHER LATE NIGHT DENIZENS WHO WERE THERE GLUED TO THEIR TV SETS BACK WHEN STAYING UP PAST MIDNIGHT DURING THE WEEK WAS DONE FOR A DAMN GOOD REASON!!

The Midnight Show!

MOVIES ARE AN ESCAPE……

Why else would you pay a prodigious amount of hard-earned money to sit in a dark theater with drinks and popcorn or candy you also paid double the normal price for? It was those two hours (sometimes more) when you are lost to the story you are watching transpire on the big screen.

Drama, horror, suspense, mystery, romance, and unrealistic violence are entertaining in a vicarious way, suspending reality for the time it takes to flesh-out a story over the course of the movie’s time span. You either enjoyed and respected the totality of the film or you hated it…..

Even still, the money spent on tickets and over-priced snacks are paid for an escape from reality!

With the onset of Cable-TV and the Video Cassette Recorder (or VCR) in nearly every single American household beginning in the early 1980’s, going to watch your next fantasy escape flick was easily done with a trip to the Video rental store or a call to your Cable TV provider. Presto!~ the movies came to the comfort of your own home or domicile. Though I don’t pretend to imagine how much $$ was lost by the Motion Picture business at first when VCRs and Cable kept more folks at home late at night instead of in a movie theater, the payoff was more movies being watched by more people and the market for selling copies of movies to the public in the formats of BETA and VHS (then later laser-discs and DVDs) exploded!

I was about 12 years old when Cable TV came to my house in the early 80’s, and my parents sprang for HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and The Movie Channel all at once! I had a blast staying up on Friday nights (all school work done of course) and watching the movies I either didn’t get to see at the theater previously or movies that never made it to a theater near where I lived. The movies were an escape and later an obsession of sorts, as I had to find all my past favorites once they came to VHS and DVD formats as I grew older. One Halloween night in 1985 I stayed up late to watch the original ‘Dracula’ starring Bela Lugosi and ‘Frankenstein’ with Boris Karloff back-to-back on that Saturday night’s Creature Feature After the credits rolled on Frankenstein about 1:00am, I hit the remote and channel-surfed a bit, stopping on Cinemax channel, finding a completely different movie playing, much to my pleasant surprise. The name of the late night movie on Cable that night was called Malibu Express, a film directed by Andy Sidaris and a very unique one to say the least….a Private Detective who couldn’t shoot the broad-side of a barn but who managed to get nearly every good-looking woman he came across NAKED in one way, shape, or gorgeous form! (no, it wasn’t a porno flick, just rated R). I sat there and watched the duration of this movie as my parents slept upstairs, and watching Malibu Express (which I’ll review later in this book) made me realize that not all of the great films made it to mainstream theaters in their day! It also began a lingering pasttime for one kid staying up late drinking too much soda and watching movies until after midnight…..namely me!

I saw every single Ninja movie ever produced in the 1980’s on Cable TV and on video tape, not to mention nearly every action flick starring Chuck Norris from Forced Vengeance to Invasion USA and the Missing In Action films he starred in. I also came to know what was referred to at the time as hard-R movies on late night Cable TV, such titillating films as

They’re Playing With Fire(reviewed later in this book) and Young Lady Chatterley II both starring the voluptuous and timelessly beautiful Sybil Danning.

Movies are an escape, without a doubt some of the best vicarious escapes for us mere mortals stuck in grinding normal jobs and routines,unable to participate in sword fights with Ninja assassins, battle communist invaders with Chuck Norris, take showers on yachts with shapely Playboy Playmates, or fend off knife-wielding prowlers while Morgan Fairchild relaxes nude in our jacuzzi…..(more on that movie later!)

So it came to pass that I began writing some fiction tales as Cable TV and Video flicks kicked my own (ADD) imagination into overdrive, eventually getting published in 1999 with my first

stab at horror-fiction, a novel I entitled CRYPTX.After good reviews and some extra cash from book royalties, I did some book-signings at stores and traveled a bit promoting it while writing three more books more along the lines of suspense-thriller fiction with the titles and tales that sprang to mind in 2003, followed by THE MIDNIGHT OIL in early 2005. I then began to realize how as a starving writer, I was inadvertently influenced by films and shows I’ve seen in the past, not to mention how those late night movies triggered my own desire to write fiction myself…..I just gotta give them credit for kicking my ass into the netherworld of fiction writing for what will surely be the rest of my life.

Traveling along the east coast to Fantasy Conventions such as FARPOINT in Cockeysville Md. each Valentines Weekend in February, and DRAGONCON in Atlanta Georgia every Labor Day Weekend, (promoting my books along the way) I had the rare privilege of meeting some of my favorite celebrities from some of these 80’s and 90’s late-night Cable TV movies:

Sybil Danning, Marc Singer, Sid Haig, Sandra Taylor(aka Sandi Korn), Ernie Hudson, Lorenzo Lamas, andTanya Roberts, to name a few. Speaking with some of these folks was a treat because they are so damn nice to their fans from over the years, and fans like me appreciate it!

The interviews in this book are 100% authentic and come from the heart I assure you, a rare glimpse into how some of our favorite late night performers feel about their craft….

Nowadays, Cable TV still has it’s late night side, but I for one remember the fare being a different quality in years past, and it is just not the same in my opinion. Video rentals are more online now than in rental stores, and buying copies of the movies at any department store is nearly as cheap as renting them a few times! Nowadays it is just….different.

Call it political-correctness, call it feminism or call it apathy, Hollywood is just not making action/fantasy/thriller movies the way they made them back in the Reagan-era of the 1980’s.

The slightest amount of violence garnishes a PG-13 rating and R-rated movies are not being produced unless they have some haughty politically-correct subliminal message in the text.

Gratuitous violence is still with us but it is often just wall-banging shoot’em-ups and nowadays gratuitous nudity is just not as common as it was in 80’s action/thriller flicks like the ones reviewed here. It seems today’s leading lady actresses just don’t shake hands with the concept of getting naked for a gratuitous shower-scene during the course of the film, or losing their top in a cat-fight with their arch-nemesis at the end 

If you are like me, you like your entertainment fictionalized on the big or little screen, and may just agree as I do, that some of the best films produced in this genre are the ones that were shipped straight-to-video and subsequently to Pay-Cable TV. Some of the finest entertainment I’ve ever laid eyes on were on Cable and/or Video, and not all of these had big budgets either,

which to me means the most money spent doesn’t always correlate into the best product!

Late nights watching Cable TV and movies on video back in the 80’s and early 90’s was a unique facet of American life I think, which is why I’m writing about it and reviewing some of the movies us guys from the Generation-just-before-X experienced in our teenage and twenty-something adult years. It was a different time of TV entertainment, right on the precipice of the tech boom that gave us all the Internet, cellphone-cameras, laptops with high-speed wireless, IPODs, and DVD players installed in automobiles.

What exactly are guy flicks you might ask? Guy Flicks are films usually R-rated with plenty of violence(cartoon or otherwise) criminal investigations, nudity, straight-sex, gun-play, more nudity, and with an unabashedly male point of view in most of the script!

Who are the worst critics of guy flicks you may ask?? Muslim Imams, Mormon-missionaries, Feminists, gun control advocates, and nerds who got their lunch money taken and pants pulled down back in school. Screw’em, we’re here to have fun dammit!

So sit back, relax with a bag of chips, and read this reviewing homage to the Cable TV movies of late night yesteryear……..

- Ken Knight

LATE NIGHT IN THE 1980’S

To begin the critique of films and shows from years past one has to remember the ones that stood out above the rest really, movies that your remember the most for the little things like the vicarious violence, gratuitous nudity, all-too-casual sex, and of course the horror of some tales of darkness after midnight. It wasn’t the only thing I ever watched late at night back when I was a teenager in the early-to-mid 80’s but be damned if it wasn’t some of the finest entertainment ever produced that could be righteously called Guy Flicks.

It was in the early 1980’s that my parents first got Cable TV hooked up in our home. I can see the place now, there on Old Courthouse Road just about a hundred yards before an Elementary School (and where a Funeral Home stands now). I lived in a community where my grandparents lived on a hill next door, and Uncle and Aunt over on the next hill and 17 acres of land to play upon, ride motorbikes upon, even set up a shooting range on…..(good ol’ days now lost to urban sprawl).

Cable TV was a great entertainer for a 13-year old boy at a suburban residence, and I have to say I wouldn’t have enjoyed countless hours in front of a TV set if it were not for HBO,Cinemax, TMC, Showtime, and MTV. Though I was one of those kids who liked to play war in the woods with my buddies armed with BB guns, or ride my dirtbike on a rugged trail, I did have the fortunate ability to stay up late enough (for a teenager with homework) to catch some of the best guy flicks the 1980’s had to offer and some of them I’ll never forget. Which begs to wonder what you might think is meant by the term guy flicks? Well you’ve surely heard the term chick flicks in regards to those romantic-comedy films with centralized female characters revolving around relationships chiefly the protagonist (heroine) female and more antagonistic male falling in love within some next-to-impossible scenario ending with a moral relativism of some yet-to-be-determined conclusion…..

Guy Flicks are not pornos by definition though they do not exclude the possibility that some well-shaped young woman takes her top off or enjoys a long hot shower within the first 30 minutes of the film, and senseless violence coupled with gun-play, sword-fighting, or bombs detonating are a guarantee! It’s guy entertainment, unless of course the male viewer shuns the entire masculine entertainment stratus and prefers to tend his flower-garden outside while wearing his pink shorts and looking forward to someone reading him a bedtime story when the sun goes down…..

GUY FLICKS are just that, flicks enjoyed by guys who aren’t afraid to indulge the entertainment of vicarious sex and violence and no big budget Hollywood political-correctness is even necessary.

GUY FLICKS are entertainment the early-to-late 1980’s saw produced and shown in movie theaters as well as private households (thanks to Cable and the VCR) to the ninth degree! So many great examples of what I’m talking about, I don’t have enough room in this book for them all….however, I do have my own favorite picks, a few of which never even made it to DVD in the United States.

Would it be too much to ask of Hollywood if such a flavor of movie entertainment could ever be reborn out of the morass of political-correctness and stale pop culture prevalent these days and nights where there are no more films like The Wild Life or Malibu Express or even grinding thrillers like The Seduction where both sex and violence are cartoonish yet entertaining to watch.

Where are the modern versions of The Last American Virgin? or Porky’s?

Where are the new Death Wish films or the updated Ninja movies?

Why not a new Return of the Living Dead remake complete with a punk-rocker-chick dancing totally naked on top of a cemetery tomb?

I’ll tell you why, and it’s not because tastes change! It’s because of the simplest form of Hollywood-imposed censorship(political-correctness to some of you). What Producer/Director wants to push a film plot featuring a white male vigilante gunning for street punks whom just so happen to be minorities? What Producer/Director out there in mainstream Hollywood nowadays goes for the busty-nymphomaniac-inviting-guys-into-her-place-for-a-pizza-sex-party scene when they’d be skewered by Feminist critics in the Press for including such a sexist subplot in their R-rated comedy film??? My point exactly!The decade of the 1980’s was a pivotal point in American entertainment with the advent of Cable TV for everyone, the Video Cassette Recorder in nearly every home, and late night TV-viewing changed forever…..

SO DAMN LOUD…

THE NEXT GALAXY HEARD IT.

V00_9781434341488_TEXT.pdf

HEAVY METAL an Ivan Reitman-Leonard Mogel Production. Directed by Gerald Potterton. Based on original art and sketches by Richard Corben, Dan O’Bannon, Angus Mckie, and Thomas Warkentin. Featuring the celebrity voices of John Candy and Harold Ramis.

Soundtrack by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Devo, Stevie Nicks, Nazareth, Sammy Hagar, Journey, and Grand Funk Railroad. 1981. Color Animation. Rated R.

One tagline hailed this animated epic as a Universe of Mystery. A Universe of Magic. A Universe of awesome good and terrifying evil. That’s one way to describe the absolutely out-of-this-world animated film that surpassed every sci-fi/fantasy film of it’s time period with it’s over-the-top storyboards and thrilling yet spooky tales all played out in superb animation for the adult audience. It’s a smorgasbord of story-after-entertaining-story from the perspective of a traveling evil (glowing) orb that seduces and destroys whomever dare touch it.

The short-stories are adult-oriented science-fiction that are all original and to this day I can’t think of any sci-fi tale that has really copied the HEAVY METAL movie anthology tales to any recognizable degree, and so HEAVY METAL (the movie not the music) remains unique and unfettered for the next generation to enjoy on DVD and beyond.

I remember seeing this flick on CableTV real late at night, only after midnight and well past 1am in duration, but well worth staying up to catch it! My favorite stories in HEAVY METAL the film were DEN (starring the voice of John Candy) where a little nerd on Earth is trnasported by accident to the distance netherworld of another galaxy where he is embodied in a bald, muscle-bound man called Den who also happens to have a big you-know-what which he happily uses on the young lady he stumbles across and saves her life, so she rewards Den with her shapely body (that only happens nowadays on other planets where the women are less prudish and don’t demand your car keys and deed to the your house in exchange for nookie ).

Den doesn’t have a dime to his name and doesn’t even know where he’s heading and yet he gets the best-looking blonde chick on the planet, how cool is that?! (he’s just lucky he’s not back on Earth because if he was, he’d be sued for sexual-harrassment).

The B-17 story was awesome in it’s visual graphics and booming soundtrack. Dan O’Bannon’s concept of a B-17 Bomber Crew flying into a vicious battle over the skies of WWII Europe and are shot to pieces as death claims them in a stunning way unseen in animation to this day. It’s a visual treat much like the rest of this film that caters to adult tastes in entertainment sprinkled with adult humor throughout the length of the movie.

It’s been available on VHS for 20 years and now readily-available on remastered DVD so if you have not seen this masterpiece of sci-fi/horror adult animation, then by all means grab one at the store or online and see what I’m talking about!

HEAVY METAL is also an adult fantasy magazine that has been around since the 1970’s and continues to provide spectacular sci-fi/horror stories for adult readers as well as art work by legendary artists such as Richard Corben and Simon Bisley as well as Luis Royo, but also up-and-coming artists who are good in their craft!

HEAVY METAL the movie continues to have a following and a sequel was made by Kevin Eastman called HEAVY METAL 2000 in the late 90’s and that film can be found on VHS and DVD still. HEAVY METAL is a memorable guy flick though I have to admit I was surprised to have a woman who goes to my Church mention how much she liked HEAVY METAL the movie back in 1981 when it was in theaters! I failed to ask the woman which story was her favorite in the film, but reminded myself to never assume guy flicks are never enjoyed by a female of the species here and there. Yeah, even in Church I met a female fan of the classic animated film HEAVY METAL! So to all you HEAVY METAL Fans out there male and female, raise your weapons in the air and shout Han-O-Ver-Fist!!!

THEY ALL HAD IT COMING…

V00_9781434341488_TEXT.pdf

DEATH WISH II A Golan/Globus Production. 1982/1 hour 29 minutes/color. Directed by Michael Winner.Based on characters created by Brian Garfield. Rated R. Starring

Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Vincent Gardenia, J.D. Gannon and Silvana Gallardo.

The sequel to 1974’s hit DEATH WISH, also directed by Michael Winner. It is the dawn of the 1980’s and Architect Paul Kersey is in Los Angeles with his Fiancee’ (played by his real life wife

Jill Ireland) and his traumatized-but-recovering daughter. While the soundtrack plays to it’s sardonic theme(Rocker Jimmy Page had a hand in this one!) we find Paul Kersey enjoying a day at the park with his family only to naturally come across a roving band of thugs looking for an easy target for theft. They find their next target as Paul Kersey pulls out his wallet to buy some ice cream.

One stolen wallet and a foot-pursuit result in Kersey roughing up one thug while the others escape.

As if on-cue, the thug Kersey beat wants some payback on the man whose wallet he stole in the first place, and he brings his goon-buddies along for the ride as they find their victim’s address via his driver’s license from the stolen wallet. What happens next is one of the most controversial scenes in major motion picture history….the gang-rape and brutal murder of Kersey’s maid, followed by the kidnap and rape of his daughter who dies trying to escape her gangland captors.

I found the sheer violence of the break-in of Kersey’s home in L.A. by the thugs, (one of whom played by a young Laurence Fishburne!) to be gratuitous in it’s length of time carried out on screen, and Hollywood editors trimmed the break-in/rape/murder of the Maid named Rosario down by about two minutes or so, cutting the DVD release’s footage of this scene greatly. Matter of fact, the only way one may obtain a copy of an un-cut version of Death Wish II would be to score a copy off of Ebay with Greek-Subtitles, as that version of the film is uncut from start to finish.

The role of Rosario the maid was portrayed by Silvana Gallardo (who had roles in Starsky and Hutch series in the late 70’s among others) and her stunning depiction of a helpless female victim of a break-in/gang-rape was harrowing to say the least, and disturbingly horrific for an acting role.

Full-front-and-back nudity as well as four male actors convincingly-portraying a rape with her, had to be one role few actresses would ever agree to perform, even to this day! Silvana Gallardo is a superb actress and pulled it off, her character of Rosario at the end of the intruder-scene by the one thug taking a crow-bar to her head as she tried in vain to call the police, dying fully-nude on the bedroom floor of Kersey’s invaded household.

Of course, the result of such savagery perpetuated against his maid and daughter(who was kidnapped and fiendishly raped later by the gang members then she died jumping through a window of their hide-out, impaled on a rod-iron post) resulted in the Paul Kersey character resuming the mantle of Mister Vigilante and proceeding to hunt down and kill each and every one of the criminal gang members involved, their faces etched in his memory as he stalked them.

The amount of box-office draw for the first (of five) Death Wish Sequels was good despite the critics dishing on it as grotesquely violent and the Ratings people threatening it with an X rating which sent the Director and crew back to the cutting room to make changes. In 1982 with Video Cassette Recorders not entirely in every household, an X ratingwould be disastrous for a major motion picture such as this one, as far fewer theaters would ever show it at all if it were Rated-X.

Some fans of the series opine that this one was the worst of the five DEATH WISH films, while some like it for it’s excessive violence and killer-one-liners such as when Bronson corners one goon(played by Kevin Howard) and sees the man’s crucifix-necklace then asks if he believes in Jesus? When the rapist-goon says yes, Bronson’s character replies You’re gonna meet him then shoots the thug dead where he stands. Fans of the films never forget that one…..

Each gang member Bronson’s character tracks down dies in the utmost violent manner befitting the savagery he had carried out before he crossed Paul Kersey, the written script and directing of this film paying homage to vehement revenge-fantasy by knowing exactly what the audience wants to see happen to the gang who raped and pillaged Kersey’s family. Director Michael Winner clearly had a keen eye for the viewers he knew would watch such a movie and he probably out himself in their shoes as to how best to portray a revenge-thriller like DEATH WISH II, the climate of the street-hunt Bronson’s character walks through coupled by the Jimmy Page soundtrack, makes for a brooding but fascinating story portrayed on film, one of violent and inhumane streets, apathetic street denizens that’ll slit one’s throat and then go have dinner on your corpse, not to mention the sheer brutality of the thugs once Bronson’s character engages each of them…..hardly any of them go quietly and even wound the Vigilante more than once.

I sort of liked the side-plot of the New York Commissioner and politicos wringing their hands over the new vigilante-killings in L.A. suggests they cover-their-ass by sending the very cop who let the vigilnate go free in the first place, go out to L.A. and talk to Kersey and try to make him stop killing muggers and rapists lest he be captured and New York taek the fall for letting him go back in the 70’s!The old, burned-out Detective with heavy allergies was a good role to cast alongside Bronson, a character whose duty it was to uphold the law but also saw the success of the vigilante to have an unprecedented effect of making the streets safer! It was not until the final shoot-out between Kersey and the remaining thugs that the old cop finally truly sides with the vigilante…..

And yes, the little guns like the .32 cal. Automatic Kersey used in DEATH WISH II were not the over-rated Magnum handguns like in other films of the genre, and that was realistic for it’s own sake. Pistols like the ones the Kersey character used in DEATH WISH II were cheap and very disposable if necessary. Why buy a pricey firearm you may well have to toss in the river later on???

Plus there’s the need to properly conceal such a firearm under inner-city conditions where gun-control laws are the most draconian for law-abiding citizens seeking to defend themselves!

missing image file

Cover image of DVD Release. DEATH WISH II.

Real-life Vigilante Bernard Goetz who shot a couple of muggers on a New York Subway was reputed to have been influenced by the Death Wish films, but that is in the eye of the Beholder of course. The 70’s and early-80’s Vigilante Films as I call them, from the Death Wish movies to Escape from New York, The Warriors, Savage Streets, etc. were spun from that era’s crime-crunch and seemingly-useless criminal justice system where violent felons got off for legal technicalities, or were paroled from prisons after serving not even half their sentences! The criminal justice system of the time focused a bit more on the rights of the accused as opposed to the rights of the victims. Things have changed a little bit since then, but not too much. Hollywood answered the frustration Americans were feeling over the crime wave of the 70’s and 80’s from coast-to-coast, and their answer was the Vigilante Flicks like the

Death Wish films, among others of the type featured from the mid-70’s to late 80’s.

DEATH WISH II was a balls-to-the-wall-shoot-em-up massacre of a movie where one peaceful man gets back at the bastards who ruined his life and took his only daughter from him, a film that speaks to the heart of vengeance itself and asks the eternal question: Is vengeance ever justified?

Well, after the movie-goer sees the Kersey character’s home broken into, his poor maid gang-raped and skull smashed by a crow-bar, his daughter kidnapped and raped again(in slow-motion) by the leader of the gang, then dies trying to escape her tormentors….few (if any) of the audience would frown upon what the Paul Kersey character does after the funerals! I’d wager even the most liberal of viewers would not have argued for the vigilante’s arrest once he put all of the gang members down for their dirt-nap!

DEATH WISH II was one action-film some could say was as unreal as any of the other shoot-em-up movies of the 80’s like COMMANDO(more on that film later). True, it’s doubtful a real vigilante would have wholly-sympathetic cops on his side nor have their killings covered up by City Politicians, or get-away-clean every time and not arrested by the Police once Investigators were on the case. True, the Paul Kersey character might have been discovered and locked up in the real New York City if he hunted bad guys by night without a silencer on his pistol, but this is Hollywood, and despite it’s flaws, only Hollywood could give us an escapism where a vigilante is a hero who gets away scot-free after clipping all of the bad guys…..

Going out to personally shoot all of those gang members and common street punks is not something most real folks could ever do themselves except for in their own violent fantasies (i.e. Hollywood escapism). To venture out and stalk then murder someone even for revenge is not in every normal human being’s psyche, least not with such ease as it was with the Kersey character in the Death Wish films. DEATH WISH