Yor, the Hunter From the Future

Yor, the Hunter from the Future struck with a vengeance in 1983.  It is widely considered to be one of the most enjoyable bad movies ever made, especially among my generation-kids of the 80’s.  Part prehistoric adventure, part sci-fi, and all fun, this beast of a movie has it all for fans of campy B-movie fare: a silly plot (and I use that term loosely), questionable acting, hilariously bad dialog, and laughable effects.  These components are not meant in a derogatory way; it’s part of the immense charm.  Without movies of this stature, I would probably be writing about something boring!

Our movie follows the exploits of Yor, a barbarian hero who travels around bearing a constant wide grin and toting an axe, which he uses frequently when he crosses dinosaurs, giant bats, and purple cavemen, while on a quest to discover his people. I will discuss the film with specific plot points, so if you do not want to read any spoilers…you are probably at the wrong site.  You should skip to the bottom of the article where I grade the film.  Suffice to say, you should locate a VHS or burned copy of this ASAP, especially if you enjoy movies like those you would see on a typical episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The choppy narrative of the film is often attributed to it originating as a mini-series in Europe, and then edited down to its theatrical length.  While I have not confirmed this, it would explain the odd tone and pace of the story.  As he marches around, he meets up with a clan of hapless but friendly cavemen.  They are being attacked by a triceratops, which is actually an herbivore, but go figure.  He swings his axe, and saves the day.  In return for saving them, he is granted a new wife, in the form of Ka-laa, played with great 80’s big-hairiness by Corrine Clery. Yor travels around with her and her adoptive father for the rest of the movie, encountering strange and entertaining threats.

At one point, our hero gets in a skirmish with the purple cavemen, who steal Ka-laa in hopes to populate their purple clan with beautiful big-haired people I guess. Yor and Ka-laa’s guardian Pag try to figure out a way into their cavern without being overwhelmed.  As fate (and script) would have it, they are attacked by a giant bat creature. They shoot an arrow at it, and it dies immediately, falling to the earth with instant rigor mortise.   Yor gets an inspiring idea, and what follows is perhaps the greatest single scene in movie history.

Yor decides to hoist the dead rigor mortise bat over his head and use it like a hang-glider to enter the cavern, taking the cavemen by surprise and kicking much butt to the tune of his awesome theme song.  I love that.  I wish that every time I did something epic, I’d have my own theme song blaring. He flies in, and all you hear is “YOR’s WORLD! HE’S THE MAAAAN! YOR’S WORLD!”  If the energy of hearing your own theme doesn't inspire you to accomplish great things, something is wrong with you!

I won’t divulge the whole movie in this review, but I have to tell you about the final act. Yor and his friends travel to a mysterious island to search for clues about his origins.  While there, he encounters The Overlord, who runs things with his army of androids.  These guys look like a love child between Darth Vader and one of his Storm Troopers.  Yor battles the Overlord, who we’re told is the bad guy, although, come to think of it, I never really saw him to anything particularly evil.  We just know he has a dark cloak, and a beard; so, these two factors are enough to communicate to audiences that he is the bad guy.

Yor and his friends meet up with some other blond good-looking people who are decedents of his relatives.  They stage an uprising, and Yor and his caveman friends demonstrate an amazing mastery of futuristic weapons and technology, firing laser cannons and using time-bombs as if they were trained by Seal Team Six. Hey, if you’re looking for logic you are not in the right place! Yor has to swing across a chasm to deliver the bomb which is going to go off in 8 minutes. Unfortunately, he lets the cable he swung on go, and can’t swing back.  What follows here is the second most awesome scene ever, right behind the bat-glider incident.

Gal, despite being in his 60’s, grabs the cable and literally swings out to Yor, and flips upside down, allowing Yor to jump out and grab his wrists. They swing back, land safely, and Gal flips back up and jumps down, too.  This movie is flipping awesome.  Naturally, they escape just in time to not be blown up, and the narrator tells us how they live happily ever after, but he doesn't tell us how the caveman knows how to fly the star ship. Who cares, this movie is the greatest thing ever.

Yor was played by Reb Brown, a former athlete who boxed professionally and also played football at USC.  Here, he kind of looks like a cross between Steve Oedekerk from “Kung Pow” and He-Man from Masters of the Universe.  His acting is not real deep, but it is not a requirement in this project. He handles action scenes well, and is likable.  The film was directed by Antonio Marghereti, a prolific film maker who is also known for “War of the Planets” and “Hercules Against Karate”….man, how have I not reviewed that last one? Note to self: Locate “Hercules Against Karate”, like, now.  Marghereti made too many movies to list here, and his influence is wide, as noted by Quinten Tarantino’s film “Inglorious Basterds”, when a character shouts ‘Marghereti!  Marghereti!”.  It’s kind of a subtle reference, kind of a gift for the small group of the population who even know who that is.

Overall, this movie is great.  It has everything for people like me who like Bad Cinema.  It is mostly clean, with some bloody violence involving Yor hacking up the occasional dinosaur, but violence with other humans is fairly bloodless.  My only beef is the way some of the characters dress.  Their loin cloths do not hide much, so you see a little more of Yor than you would probably like to when he jumps around. It’s not anything you don’t see at the beach, but…yikes, it’s not my thing. Oddly enough, the women are better covered than he is.  The special effects are about what you would expect from a low-budget indie movie.  The dino’s are animatronic, and the sci-fi elements are pretty basic; not the same level you’d see in Star Wars, that’s for sure.

Still, I’d recommend this to anyone who is already a fan of B-Movie’s with a sci-fi/fantasy theme. 3 out of 4.

Strange Invaders (1983)

1983. It was an amazing year for those of us who were born in the early 70’s. We were old enough to appreciate the excessive style of 80’s entertainment.  Everything was over-the-top!  That year, I rocked out to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, saw the last truly good Star Wars movie, and discovered the amazing Wild River Country Park in Little Rock. It was a great time to be a kid.

One of my favorite movie memories from that year came in the form of Strange Invaders.  I didn’t get to see it until it came on HBO, but every time it surfaced my brother and I stopped whatever we were doing to watch.  For one reason or another, this crazy movie mesmerized us.  Naturally, since it was on HBO, it received lots of airtime. The channel even then had a remarkable talent for showing you the same movie over and over. We didn’t complain, though.

Cut to the present. I hadn’t seen it since then, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered it as part of a DVD collection in the clearance rack in Big Lots.  Oddly enough, Strange Invaders hasn’t aired to my knowledge much at all in 25 years. Granted, it was not Citizen Kane, but still…I mean, they air Pooty Tang for cryin’ out loud.

If you’ve never heard of this, you’re not alone. It ran briefly in the cinema, and then later became a cult hit on cable before being placed in the carbonite chamber and largely forgotten until Big Lots purchased a stack of them from some distributor. It is included with three other movies with “Invaders” or “Invasion” in the title as one of those theme collections. Naturally, I was curious as to whether it measured up to my memories of staying up late to see it every time it aired in 1983.

I wasn’t let down.

Less B-movie, and more of a loving homage to B-movies, Strange Invaders is a fun romp through the genre of Flying Saucer films.  The story involves an Everyman named Charles, who is divorced and lives in the city. He agrees to take his daughter so his ex-wife can go to her home-town on a trip. She doesn’t return, and as movie convention goes, he goes to investigate.  Here, the movie borrows the guy-goes-to-weird-place motif from countless other horror movies.

While there, he discovers a small town full of residents who are stuck in the 50’s. We soon figure out that each resident is not really human, and actually is an alien in human skin.  You see, in the 1950’s saucers came to town and aliens took over. They were only interested in this town, however. Apparently, they want to study humans, possibly for the purpose of later invasion and colonization. Where they failed was they do not understand that human culture is in a constant state of evolution, so although the story takes place in the 80’s, the inhabitants still dress like it’s the 50’s, use 50’s vernacular, and even drive old cars. This gives the town an ambiance that is both retro-cool, and simultaneously creepy.

I’m going to include some important plot points ahead, so if you don’t want any spoilers, this is your fair warning. OK, here goes…

 

Charles Bigelow discovers that his ex-wife is really an alien sent to Earth to learn about the planet, but she loves it and wants to save it. If you’re paying attention, that makes the daughter half-alien. The aliens aren’t real happy with the former Mrs. Bigelow for interbreeding, but take an unnatural interest in the daughter. Charles tries to explain the alien situation to the FBI, but is only treated like he is crazy. He takes his story to a tabloid reporter, played by Nancy Allen. Miss Allen also played in Robocop, as Robocop’s partner. She plays the part with sarcasm and disbelief, until she has a run-in with an alien herself.

She also faces disbelief from her landlord, played by the great Wallace Shawn. He has a marvelous way of playing characters that are high-strung, cocky, and nerdy all at once. If you don’t know who he is, try to remember The Princess Bride, where he is the boss character running around exclaiming, “INCONCEIVABLE!” He always plays the same way; high-pitched, wild-eyed, and hilarious.

At any rate, Charles loses his daughter to the aliens and has to get her back. He and the reporter head back to the mysterious town, only to face resistance from the FBI who really know what’s going on. It seems the aliens have an agreement with the US Government, which has been keeping their existence secret.  Charles makes it to the town anyway, and learns that the alien mother-ship is on its way back to retrieve the inhabitants, including his daughter.

The finale is pretty good, bringing the mother-ship in and letting us see the aliens in all their gooey glory. The daughter saves the day with her Force Lightening abilities, something we didn’t know about until the end. That’s ok, this Deus Ex Machina didn’t bother me because by this point, the movie has already laid the ground rules, which are basically, “Leave your disbelief at the door”.

Special effects are wonderful for a movie made in this era. There are plenty of times when we see the aliens in their normal state, and it can be awesome. The makers used practical effects to show aliens who look human peel their skin off and reveal their true selves. During the finale, we see a whole town full of people walking to the mother-ship, all while their skin oozes off to show their actual appearance. The design is kind of a cross between the typical “greys” with some reptilian features.

Aliens all have Force Lightening abilities, and absolutely hate cars (they blow them up frequently). Another ability they share is the ability to suck the soul out of humans. The effect is kind of alarming, as it resembles a person emptying out like a tube of tooth paste. In addition, the soul, or spirit ball, or whatever it is, floats away and is still sentient. When you see a kid’s energy ball sucked out of his body, you’ll hear his or her voice still saying things, calling out for the parents. I remember this aspect upsetting me a little as an 11-year-old, so maybe this movie is not for little ones, but every parent can make their own judgment.

Strange Invaders borrows from lots of great movies, and does so un-apologetically.  You’ll see bits of Invaders From Mars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and War of the Worlds. It is not as original or as good as any of those, but it is not meant to be. There is a consistent nudge-and-wink quality that is present, reminding us that this is not a serious character study or statement about the human condition. It serves as a reminder of the movies of yesteryear without devolving into parody. I'm going to rate this one 3 1/2 out of 4, falling just shy of 4 only because it's not totally original, being mostly a salute to several other superior sci-fi films from back in the day. Highly recommended!

Didja Know?

Eagle-eyed fans of the original “Lost in Space”, will spot June Lockhart and Mark Goddard in this movie, as part of its salute to campy cult science fiction shows.