Remote Control (1988)

Nostalgia is a big factor behind movies.  This topic always seems to come up because it’s always true.  People want to see what they grew up on.  There’s a dreamlike quality to reliving the memories of childhood even if those memories have been changed by the different artists working on a remake, reboot, or other kind of retelling.  That’s why there are movies based on 1980s and 1990s properties that are getting movie adaptations.  Other decades also get nostalgia put into movies.

1950s sci-fi was the concept that Remote Control thrived on.  It was a movie that used the cold war paranoia of the 1950s to tell a science fiction horror story in the 1980s video rental era.  People would rent a movie called Remote Control.  It was a 1950s science fiction movie about a video tape that caused people to become homicidal maniacs.  The only thing was that this 1950s movie was doing the same thing to its viewers as the movie within the movie was doing.  Are you following that?  In the 1980s, people became homicidal maniacs after watching a movie where people became homicidal maniacs after watching a movie.  I get that the explanation might be confusing.

Much like last week’s post, this will be a rundown of the movie with thoughts and elaboration throughout.  There will absolutely be spoilers, as there always are with this kind of post.  Subjects will be touched upon that could expand into larger posts at a later date.  For now, this post is going to be mostly about 1988’s Remote Control.  Time constraints mean that this post needs to be done quickly, and this is a quick way to do it with some form of decent quality put into the writing.

The opening scene set up the villain’s weapon of choice, with the movie within a movie.  A man and woman were getting ready for some kinky sex with costumes and whips and masks and stuff.  The woman went to the bathroom to get into her sexy suit while the guy sat on the bed watching Remote Control, a 1950s science fiction horror movie.  In that movie, the characters watched a movie called Remote Control.  The woman in the 1950s science fiction movie became transfixed with what they were watching when she appeared on the screen she was watching.  She then used her high tech knitting device to kill her husband before staring straight into the television.  The man who was on the bed in 1988 then became transfixed when the movie dissolved and began showing an image of him sitting in the bedroom.  After a few moments, the woman came out of the bathroom, looked at the television, and began strangling the man with a whip.

This whole section set up what the movie will be.  Remote Control (the movie, not the movie within the movie or the movie within the movie within the movie) was a throwback to 1950s science fiction while still being a 1988 horror movie.  It had a story like one of the science fiction movies from the 1950s, except updated to fit the 1980s.  The throwback was done through meta storytelling as much as it was done through straight horror writing.  This all began within the three layer deep Remote Control movie.  The audience was watching a movie featuring a movie named Remote Control that featured a movie named Remote Control.  If you think that’s as far as the meta aspects went, just wait until later in the movie when things got more ridiculous.

The main story of Remote Control began with the introduction of the main characters.  Cosmo (Kevin Dillon) and Georgie (Christopher Wynne) worked at a video rental store.  They had just received a shipment of VHS copies of Remote Control, and were setting up a display to showcase these new arrivals.  Customers were going crazy for the movie.  Everyone wanted a copy.  Allegra James (Jennifer Tilly) got her hands on the last copy and signed it out before Victor (Frank Beddor) could.  Cosmo tried to convince Allegra to take a different movie because he wanted to make Victor’s girlfriend, Belinda (Deborah Goodrich), happy.  He was interested in her, even though she had a boyfriend.

The five main characters were set up in this scene.  But there was something else about the scene that was worth noting.  Nostalgia was a big theme throughout the movie, and a little bit of unintended nostalgia came out of the rental store setting.  Rental stores are mostly a thing of the past.  People prefer to stay home and stream their movies off of sites like Netflix.  There’s no waiting in lines, no needing to have awkward conversations, and no worrying that the movie you want isn’t in stock.  You just browse, find something you like, and watch it.  All of this is from the convenience of your home.  Nostalgia can come up with the video rental stores because of the human interaction that came with them.  It was a way to meet people that lived around you and talk about similar interests in movies.  It was as much about the browsing with people as it was about getting the movies.  There was a community in the video rental stores, particularly the independently owned ones.  The people were friendly, the atmosphere was everything a movie lover would want, and you always went back wanting more.  Blockbuster changed that, and Netflix demolished it.  Because of all of that, watching this 1988 movie brought back nostalgia for the days when selecting a movie was a community experience.

When Georgie found another movie that Allegra wanted to watch, Cosmo convinced him to visit Allegra’s house and ask to watch it with her.  He was being a wingman for his friend.  They headed over to Allegra’s house.  Vincent had already shown up, wanting the Remote Control tape for himself.  Cosmo and Georgie peeked in the window and saw Vincent choking Allegra.  They thought it was some sort of sex thing.  Allegra’s next door neighbour yelled at the duo for peeping, which would cause a lot of trouble for them during the rest of the movie.  They fled, and Vincent ended up killing Allegra and her family as a result of the movie’s power.

I’m going to skim over a bunch of stuff right now because it can be condensed.  We have passed the setup of the movie.  The characters are in place.  The story is in place.  The different obstacles for Cosmo, Georgie, and later on, Belinda are in place.  What you need to know is that the movie Remote Control had the ability to control people’s minds and turn them into murderers.  Oh, and also that peeping thing came into play because when the police found Allegra and her family killed, it made Cosmo and Georgie the prime suspects.  The next day while working at their video store, the police showed up, kicked everyone out, and arrested them.

The bulk of Remote Control was Cosmo, Georgie, and Belinda trying to destroy every VHS copy of Remote Control that they could find.  Cosmo and Georgie escaped from the police when one of the officers saw the movie, killed his partner, and attempted to kill Cosmo.  They immediately found Belinda and kidnapped her because Cosmo knew Vincent was the killer.  Cosmo convinced her of the danger of Remote Control and they went from video store to video store to destroy every tape that had been distributed.

One of the more interesting things about this section of the movie was the wide array of movie posters that could be seen in the stores.  Surely, some of the movies were made up for Remote Control.  That usually happens in movies with video rental stores.  It prevents the need to pay to use someone’s imagery.  Not all of the movies were made up, though.  There was one recognizable poster because it was a movie I have seen.  It was a movie that was featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  It was Hamburger: The Motion Picture.  I saw that poster in one of the rental stores and got super excited that one of the movies being covered would have the poster for another movie that has been covered.

At the last of these stores, the movie kicked into its next section.  The trio of heroes found the distribution company for the movie and headed over to the production factory to put an end to the problem.  They pretended to be filmmakers looking a distributer for their newest movie.  The man running the building brought them up to an operation room where they saw how the Remote Control tapes were made.  Cosmo, Georgie, and Belinda attempted to stop the production but were prevented from doing so by the people working there.  A fight broke out, Georgie was shot, and the three ran away.

This was where Remote Control got even more meta.  When the producers showed Cosmo and crew a part of the movie, it was almost exactly what they were experiencing.  The only difference was that what they were seeing was 1950s science fiction, while they were experiencing it in real life.  When the three of them escaped the room, the “master controller” guy watched the movie to see what they would do next.  Everything that was happening in the real world of Remote Control happened in the 1950s science fiction movie Remote Control.  Except for Georgie.  There was no Georgie surrogate in the 1950s version.

Cosmo destroyed the entire production plant when he crashed a forklift into some explosive tubes.  This sequence was intercut with footage from the 1950s Remote Control as whoever was the hero of that movie drove a forklift into explosive tubes.  Cosmo and Belinda escaped the warehouse, but Georgie had passed away moments earlier from his gunshot wound.  The danger was almost over, but there were a couple more tapes that needed to be destroyed.  Cosmo and Belinda headed off to destroy the tapes that had been rented out of the different stores.

Everything was tied together in a final sequence where the pair went to Vincent’s house to get the final copy of the tape.  They encountered Vincent who was being controlled by Remote Control and fought for their lives while coming under the influence of the movie themselves.  Vincent, in one last bit of meta quality for the movie, spelled out how the ending was going to happen, and then fought to the end of his life against Cosmo.  Cosmo then played right into what Vincent was saying by becoming entranced in Remote Control’s possessive qualities and attempting to kill Belinda.  He overcame the power of the movie and destroyed the final copy before he could kill Belinda.  They went off happily together, though I have a feeling they didn’t stay together in the end.  That’s just me though.

One final scene capped off the movie.  Like any horror movie, particularly from the 1980s, there needed to be that final scene to set up a potential sequel.  That sequel never came, but the scene was there all the same.  The sole survivor of the production warehouse explosion went outside to his car and found a copy of Remote Control that he had stashed away.  He said that it was not over and the movie ended.

So that’s the movie.  That’s Remote Control.  It’s a movie that felt of the time while feeling ahead of its time.  Meta concepts like that wouldn’t hit the mainstream in a big way until the mid-1990s.  It would be interesting to see Remote Control made now, with meta concepts being more popular, and video rental stores having disappeared for the most part.  The movie could be going through streaming services which would add a new twist to the idea and give a refreshing update that would be justified.  Not that the original is all that bad.  But it would be cool to see a modern take.

Remote Control was a movie of its time and of the past all at once.  It called back to the 1950s while being a 1980s science fiction horror movie.  There’s a lot to like about it.  However, not a lot of people know about it or care about it.  It’s an almost forgotten gem of the 1980s that made it into the Sunday “Bad” Movies based on nothing more than not having an audience.  Remote Control is a lot of fun if you just go with it.

Let’s get some notes and then get out of here:

• Remote Control was suggested by @thenickisaac, who has also suggested D.E.B.S., Drop Zone, and Mom and Dad Save the World.
• I mentioned last week’s post, which was for a movie called Squanderers.
• The poster for Hamburger: The Motion Picture was featured in Remote Control.
• Tad Horino made an appearance in Remote Control.  He was also in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III and Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.
• Two actors from Halloween:The Curse of Michael Myers were in Remote Control.  They were A. Michael Lerner and George P. Wilbur.
• Al Eisenmann returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies with Remote Control, after being in Theodore Rex.
• Finally, John Lafayette was in Remote Control.  He had previously been in Jaws: The Revenge.
• Have you seen Remote Control?  What did you think of it?  What did you think of the meta layers within it?  Let me know in the comments.
• You can also let me know what movies I should check out for the Sunday “Bad” Movies in the comments or my Twitter timeline.  I’m always looking for something I might not otherwise know.  Sometimes I find movies like Remote Control that I like.  Find me, tell me, and maybe I’ll watch the movie.
• When I’m watching bad movies, I sometimes like to put clips of them up on Snapchat.  I sometimes put other stuff up there too.  If you want to see this stuff, add me.  jurassicgriffin.
• I’m excited for next week.  I probably won’t like the movie as much as this week’s movie, but that’s okay.  I’ll be diving back into the world of The Asylum.  It’s been a while since I dipped into that pool.  In fact, the last time I saw a movie from The Asylum was Little Dead Rotting Hood way back in October.  It’s nearing a year.  Wow.  Next week’s movie is going to be a western called 6 Guns.  This should be good.  See you then.

Squanderers (1996)

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a crazy time for movies.  In horror, the decline of the teen slasher was in full swing.  Computer effects were being improved so that they would soon be able to usurp practical effects as the popular choice.  Stars of the 1970s and 1980s were going into more family fare like Kindergarten Cop, Cop and a Half, Top Dog, and Over the Top.  And the family members of the stars were trying to make their own careers in the movie business, to varying degrees of success.

One of the movies starring family members of more famous people was Squanderers, also known by the title Money to Burn.  There’s a lot to discuss about the movie, which will mostly involve my descriptions of what I remember seeing.  This post might feel disjointed at times.  It will have spoilers.  There were so many things that left me baffled, stunned, and various other past tense verbs.  The movie was bonkers.

So, what’s it about?  Let’s start at the beginning.  Kevin (Jerry Spicer) was a twenty-something guy living with his parents.  His mother wasn’t happy with the situation, calling him a burnout and saying that he hung out with two bums.  Things were about to change.  Kevin found himself a new job as a security man who watched cameras that scanned parking lots.  On his first night, he witnessed the police arresting a man that they thought had a suitcase full of money from some shady dealing.  He didn’t, though.  He had already switched it out.  Kevin knew where, and that would kickstart the story.

The reason I’m laying this out is because it seemed at this point that Kevin was the main character of Squanderers.  We followed him through his life for the first fifteen or twenty minutes.  He witnessed the police situation.  He knew where the money was hidden.  He would steal the money.  Yet, the movie that followed these moments did not have Kevin as the main character.  After stealing the money, he would give it to his friends and agree to meet up later.  He was only in one more scene.

The movie I would most compare to this 1998’s Enemy of the State.  Even then, the comparison is minimal.  The catalysts of the stories were the same in that one character had something that the bad guys wanted.  He passed it off to another character, and the movie followed the character that the something was passed off to.  It was the money suitcase in Squanderers, and it was the video in Enemy of the State.  The difference between how the two movies handled that beat was what made one good and one bad.  In Enemy of the State, the main character was Robert Dean (Will Smith).  He was the character being shown throughout the beginning of the movie, with bits and pieces of Daniel Zavitz (Jason Lee) popping up.  The audience already knew Robert Dean when Daniel Zavitz slipped him the video.  It was Dean’s story, with Zavitz only coming into it to pass off the item of desire.  Squanderers followed Kevin, the guy passing off the item, instead of the people who would possess the item through the rest of the movie.  That caused a striking contrast when the main characters changed twenty minutes into the movie.  Kevin was not the main character.  His friends were.

As for the friends, that was where the family members of movie stars came into play.  The two friends were John (Chad McQueen) and Scott (Don Swayze).  Both had notable roles throughout their careers, but Chad McQueen was really only known for his low budget work and his role in The Karate Kid as one of Johnny Lawrence’s buddies.  His career never took off beyond that, even with having been the child of Steve McQueen.  Don Swayze fared a little better.  He looked like his brother, Patrick Swayze, and although his 1980s and 1990s career had about as much success as Chad McQueen’s, his turn of the millennium work was a little more notable.  He went from the low budget world to some high profile HBO work.  Swayze still isn’t a star, but he gets steady work, even if it’s nowhere near how big his brother was.

John and Scott took the money that Kevin had left them with and began spending it on expensive things.  They wanted to impress women.  The movie got a little carried away with their spending, and never acknowledged how much money they spent.  The suitcase had 300 thousand dollars in it.  They were handing people wads of cash, buying cars like there was no tomorrow, and even bought a waterfront house.  Maybe money could stretch that far in 1996, when Squanderers was released, but that seems like too little cash for them to make all of those purchases.  They brought women home by using the money and there ended up being multiple sex scenes.  Eventually, their fun would come to an end.  Lieutenant Ford (Joe Estevez) began investigating the missing money and all signs pointed to John, Scott, and Kevin.

Joe Estevez was the third family member of a more famous star that was in Squanderers as well as numerous other low budget movies of the time.  He is the brother of Martin Sheen, which then makes him the uncle of Charlie Sheen, Ramon Estevez and Emilio Estevez.  Renee Estevez of Sleepaway Camp II is also his niece.  That’s a lot of family connections, since the entire family seems to be in the Hollywood business.  Joe is still doing work to this day, having recently appeared in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance.  It might not seem like a big movie appearance, but Joe Estevez is the Daniel Baldwin of his family.

Lieutenant Ford was investigating the missing suitcase because the money belonged to the mob.  He wanted it so that he could take down some of the mob members.  John and Scott met up with him at Kevin’s house after hearing that Kevin committed suicide.  That’s right.  The guy who seemed to be the main character at the beginning of the movie was dead.  His friends didn’t believe that he would kill himself.  Ford was at Kevin’s house investigating the suspicious circumstances of the death.  Scott and John wouldn’t tell him anything and instead headed out on their own.

The rest of Squanderers involved the man who was arrested earlier chasing John and Scott around Los Angeles because he wanted his money.  The only thing I want to write about from this part is the one scene in which Kevin returned to the movie.  I said earlier that he was in one more scene.  After the friends decided that Kevin had been murdered, a scene played that showed some of what had happened.  The scene felt entirely out of place.  It didn’t show his death in any way near to what they described.  It was mentioned that he had been shot.  The scene showed the mob guy hanging Kevin out of a helicopter.  Nowhere near the same.  So, that’s what Kevin returned for.

Squanderers was a crazy low budget action movie that wasn’t good at all.  It took three relatives of more famous actors and gave them a bunch of money to burn (heh, the alternate title) and let them do whatever they wanted.  It ended up feeling like a waste of time.  Most of that could be placed on the story. It was just two dudes spending a lot of money to get women.  Or it could be the fact that the main characters changed twenty minutes in without it benefiting the story.  Whatever happened, the movie was bad.  That’s why I watched it.

These notes will be better than the movie:

• Squanderers was suggested by @J0shArcher, who also suggested Torque and Metal Man.
• Sleepaway Camp II and Top Dog were mentioned in this post.
• Will Smith was mentioned in this post.  He was in Winter’sTale.
• Patrick Swayze was mentioned briefly.  He was in Road House.
• Squanderers featured Tom Parker, an actor who was also in Howard the Duck.
• Julie Strain returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Squanderers.  She was previously featured in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.
• Melanie Good made a second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Squanderers after showing up in Jack Frost 2: Attack of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
• Kymberly Herrin was in Squanderers.  She was also in Road House.
• Finally, Joe Estevez was in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance, which was featured a few weeks ago.  He was also in Squanderers.
• Have you seen Squanderers?  You probably haven’t but I needed to ask anyway.  Have you seen any of the early 1990s or late 1980s low budget action featuring relatives of more famous people?  Let me know about this stuff in the comments.
• The comments are also a good place to let me know what movies I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Hit me up and let me know.  If not in the comments, find me on Twitter to tell me.
• I have a snapchat account where I sometimes share clips and images from the bad movies I watch.  Do you want to see this stuff?  Add me.  jurassicgriffin.
• The final thing for me to leave a note about is what movie is coming up next week.  Sharknado 5: Global Swarming is out today, but that’s not what I’ll be writing about.  I’m going to be watching Remote Control.  I’m not entirely sure what it’s about.  It was another suggested movie.  This will be an interesting watch, I think.  We’ll see next week when I put up the post.  See you then.