Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on November 3, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
With this DVD season having seen Dark Sky’s amazing two-disc reissue of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, MGM/Fox’s impressive special edition of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and—almost—Dark Sky’s disc of Tobe Hooper’s second shocker Eaten Alive, it’s only appropriate that the rear is being brought up by Subversive’s release of Future-Kill. This Austin-lensed 1985 cheapie has made its minor fame via the presence of the original Chainsaw’s hitchhiker Ed Neal and heroine Marilyn Burns (though the latter only appears in a couple of scenes); it’s really more of an urban thriller than a horror movie, however, and despite its title, it contains very little to suggest it’s set in the future.
Instead, after a brief introduction of Neal’s murderous Splatter character, the first act is made up of Animal House-esque hijinx by a bunch of frat brothers who party like it’s 1979. As a rather ill-conceived “penance” for one of their pranks, a bunch of these guys are sent to the bad part of town, instructed to kidnap a “mutant” and bring him back to the house. But don’t get your hopes up, deformed-human fans; the “mutants” are actually anti-nuke protestors who face-paint and style themselves in ’80s punk fashion. The only monstrous one is Splatter, who’s encased in a metallic mask and armor, has an automatic drug-shooting device attached to one arm and sports deadly finger-knives (this movie was lensed a little while before the first Nightmare on Elm Street was released, so at least i part is somewhat forward-looking…).
In any case, the frat boys run afoul of Splatter, who kills one of them and the leader of the non-violent “mutants” and frames the interlopers for the latter murder. The rest of Future-Kill is a low-rent, generally unexciting variation on The Warriors as our heroes are chased all over downtown Austin by their new made-up enemies, with occasional pit stops for one of the guys and a cute punk girl to debate ideologies and a visit to a rather tame punk nightclub so that she can show him “how the other half lives.” Since Splatter doesn’t confront his quarry till the final scenes, there’s a gratuitous sequence along the way where he slays a woman who has ill-advisedly come on to him, though this may well be the only instance in cinema history of a victim being dispatched via corrugated metal sheeting.
It’s no surprise when we learn, via the disc’s audio commentary by Neal and writer/director Ronald W. Moore, that both this setpiece and some of the early frat scenes (written by the producers) were added to the film after the first assembled cut ran only about 50 minutes long. The duo’s discussion is understandably sporadic during the first act but picks up as the movie continues, as Moore acknowledges his debts to Warriors and Animal House and the pair have fun recalling a guerrilla production in which they often shot without permits and, at one point, stole electricity to light the location. Neither man seems deluded that they’ve created a work of art here, though Neal does insist that they made a better movie than Ishtar or Cleopatra (!), on a budget smaller than that of the TV commercials on which he subsequently found employment.
Packing a greater volume of entertaining anecdotes per minute, though, is the World of Ed Neal featurette in which the actor talks on camera about not only Future-Kill and Chainsaw’s legacy but subsequent genre credits like My Boyfriend’s Back and Satan’s Playground. Here’s where you’ll also find discussion of Future-Kill’s other notable element, the poster created by Alien designer H.R. Giger; Neal has a special interest in this particular piece of art, as he kept the original painting after the film was released, and ultimately sold it for enough money to buy a houseboat! (For those who could never afford such a collectible, a small replica of Giger’s work is included in the DVD package.)
Although Future-Kill (per Moore on the commentary) was shot on 35mm, the 1.85:1 image has the look of a transfer derived from a 16mm film. It’s well-mastered, but the colors and clarity on the source material aren’t as sharp as they could be (with noticeable registration bounce in a handful of scenes), and the disc’s mono soundtrack can’t help but reflect an uneven original audio mix. And while the packaging doesn’t make much of it, this is the original uncut version of the movie, which had to undergo a few seconds of gore trims to avoid an X rating.
