ROBOWAR
(1988) Blu-rayDirector: Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn)
Severin Films
Before Bruno Mattei and company ripped off THE TERMINATOR with SHOCKING DARK, they managed to rip off and mash up three blockbusters in ROBOWAR, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.
When the Omega-1 robot soldier unit is sent to the Philippines on a test mission
to take out local guerillas and goes haywire, blasting its remote controllers
out of the sky, its maker Dr. Mascher (Mel Davidson, McBAIN) is embedded with
a group of anti-guerilla operatives to retrieve the robot or destroy it if necessary.
While the unit – Major Murphy Black (Reb Brown, HOWLING II: YOUR SISTER
IS A WEREWOLF), Corporal Neil Corey (stuntman Romano Puppo, THE
GREAT ALLIGATOR), Private Larry Guarino (stunt coordinator Massimo Vanni,
ZOMBI
3), Corporal Arthur "Papa Doc" Bray (John P. Dulaney, THE CASSANDRA
CROSSING), Sonny "Blood" Peel (Jim Gaines, BLACK FIRE), and local
guide Quang (Max Laurel, ZUMA) – is kept ignorant of what they are looking
for, they soon encounter evidence of a strange and powerful foe in the form
of gutted and mysteriously burned guerilla corpses with melted guns, and laser-guided
explosions. Although Mascher insists that they do not get involved in local
affairs, Black and his men rescue United Nations nurse Virginia (Catherine Hickland,
WITCHERY)
from guerillas and wipe them out from the village of San Pedro only to discover
that it is they who are being hunted and pursued by the unstoppable synthetic
killer who is closer to more than one member of the group than they realize.
One
of a handful of action film shot in the Philippines by Bruno Mattei and Claudio
Fragasso – co-scripting with wife Rossella Drudi (TROLL 2) – for
producer Franco Gaudenzi (DOUBLE TARGET) – ROBOWAR is an utterly enjoyable
and knowing rip-off of concepts from PREDATOR and ROBOCOP with a bit of ALIEN
thrown in for good measure. The silliness is apparent from the very start with
unnecessary code names for each of the unit members explained away by their
commander as an extension of their group name B.A.M. (Baby-Ass Motherfuckers)
and a shocking lack of organization within the unit that extends to wasting
hundreds of bullets firing on any slight movement in nearby bushes. There is
plenty of hand-to-hand combat, explosions, and plenty of grisly corpses and
severed limbs (provided by NEW
YORK RIPPER's Franco Di Girolamo) but the robot itself – imagine a
frogman suit with a football shoulder pads and a motorcycle helmet – is
the most absurd element of the film from its computer voice and POV that is
less infrared and more pixelated to its actual destructibility. The characters
are entirely two-dimensional but competently acted, with Brown doing his trademark
yelling while shooting and Laurel's guide observant but refreshingly not a mystical
native character like his PREDATOR counterpart. The film was shot simultaneously
with Fragasso's AFTER
DEATH also featuring Gaines and the Al Festa (FATAL FRAMES) score of which
was partially recycled for ROBOWAR with a few new cues and a thoroughly incomprehensible
rock theme song. As with Mattei's TERMINATOR rip-off SHOCKING
DARK, the film's visual effects are provided by brothers Francesco and Gaetano
Paolocci. Brown had previously appeared in Mattei's STRIKE COMMANDO.
Never officially released in the United States, even as a direct to video title,
ROBOWAR first reached these shores as a Japanese-subtitled import tape. Severin's
108024 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a new 4K scan of
the original 35mm camera negative boasting rich jungle greenery, rugged facial
textures, and rubbery prosthetic gore. The cinematography of Roberto Grassetti
(ZOMBI 3) utilizes diffusion in some of the bright exterior wide shots so the
frenetically edited San Pedro set-piece does not look quite as crisp as some
of the other jungle scenes but it goes without saying that this is a major upgrade
over the boots (Amazon Prime is streaming a likely unauthorized edition that
may be incomplete since the running time is still shorter than one would expect
with PAL speedup of the source). English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
mono tracks are provided of similar quality although the subtitles reveal differences
not only in the two dubs – some robot POV shots have it hearing repeated
lines of dialogue from the characters on which it is spying in Italian while
the English track has more computer voice gibberish – and the English
track also has additional lines of dialogue thrown in when characters faces
are averted from the camera. English SDH subtitles for the English dub and English
subtitles for the Italian track are provided. Carelessness in preparing the
English version of the film credits Brown's character onscreen as "Marphy
Black" and switches the onscreen credits for Gaines and Vanni. Hickland's
character is also billed as "Virgin" but Black calls her Virginia.
While
Brown is absent from the extras – having participated in releases of HOWING
II and YOR: HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE – the extras are pretty comprehensive.
In "Robo Predator" (23:06), co-director/co-writer Fragasso discusses
how he became involved with Mattei, their different approaches to storytelling
(with former editor Mattei believing anything can be fixed in post), directing
AFTER DEATH at night while ROBOWAR was shooting during the day using the same
camera equipment, and the scenes he directed when Mattei fell ill (including
the climactic bits filmed at the same native hospital set as his zombie film).
In "Italian Rip-Off" (9:18), co-writer Drudi recalls working with
Mattei and Fragasso to convince Gaudenzi to do a PREDATOR/ROBOCOP ripoff when
he was concerned after seeing the original films that there would be too many
effects to be affordable. She recalls some of the changes made to the film,
including a love interest for Laurel's character (scenes of which were shot
but not used). "Violence She Wrote" (21:51) is more of a career interview
with Drudi, expanding on a similar piece from Severin's Blu-ray of VIOLENCE
IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, from her beginnings as a teenage horror writer writing
under a pseudonym, the difficulty of being a female screenwriter – feeling
more accepted by producers than fellow writers – contracts that prevented
her from receiving credit under her own name (including Joe D'Amato's 11 DAYS,
11 NIGHTS under which she was credited under the protagonist's name "Sarah
Asproon") and her collaborative relationships with Fragasso and Mattei.
"Robo-Lady" (11:34) is an interview with actress Hickland who was
offered the role based on the popularity of the American soap opera CAPITOL
in Italy. She recalls the hot shooting conditions in the rainforest, the locals,
and her co-stars, particularly Brown and Dulaney but also finding ways to relate
to the non-English speaking cast and crew (including Mattei). In "Papa
Doc’s War" (12:50), actor Dulaney recalls leaving Italy as the film
industry wound down and trying to find work in England before actor Mike Monty
(THE FRENCH SEX MURDER) convinced him to go the Philippines and meet Mattei.
He recalls Brown being instructed by Mattei to do the screaming while shooting
thing and avers to the rumors surrounding English-speaking Danish co-star Davidson
that had the locals shunning him. That subject is covered with less discretion
by actor Gaines in "The Robowarrior" (9:02) who reveals that even
mild-mannered Brown almost came to blows with Davidson. He otherwise discusses
how the film overlapped with AFTER DEATH not just in the shooting but in hanging
out with both casts during downtime.
In
"War in the Philippines" (17:23), actor/stuntman Vanni recalls getting
to know Mattei through his editor cousin Vincenzo Vanni (PORNO ESOTIC LOVE)
and Fragasso and Drudi before they got into the movies. When Mattei asked him
to come along to the Philippines because he did not have a stunt coordinator
on the first few films he did there, Vanni asked if he could bring along fellow
stuntman and friend Ottaviano dell'Acqua (ZOMBIE's worm-face poster boy), working
on the film's stunts, and Puppo's claustrophobia when doubling in the robot
suit (Fragasso is erroneously credited as the robot actor although he may have
worn parts of the suit for shots featuring Puppo as his film character having
to interact with the robot). Just as welcome as the behind the scenes video
on the AFTER DEATH Blu-ray is Catherine Hickland’s Behind The Scenes Home
Movies (15:14) in which she jokes around with the English-speaking cast members
and tries to relate to the Italian ones, but the footage also features an on-set
appearance by actor Luciano Pigozzi aka Alan Collins (BARON BLOOD) who had become
something of a go-between for Italian filmmakers and the Filipinos. The disc
also includes the film's theatrical trailer (2:39). Also available in a 3,000
copy limited edition
with bonus CD soundtrack. The limited edition is also available directly from
Severin Films in a Robowar
Bundle with T-shirt, enamel pin, and sticker. (Eric
Cotenas)