ROBOCOP (1987)

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

In the future things are all fucked up.  Crime is through the roof, corporations have taken over everything, cats and dogs are definitely not living together, mass hysteria.  So, in order to gets things back under control (and therefore make themselves a lot of money), the Omni Consumer Products corporation (who own the Detroit Police Department and want to fully privatize Detroit into a manufactured municipality called "Delta City") comes up with the brilliant idea of taking a recently murdered cop, wiping his memories and turning him into a crime fighting zombie/robot.

That works out well for a day.  The new "RoboCop" goes around (in the high point of the film) kicking criminal ass (and even shooting one guy in the dick!!!), but then his memories start to resurface and things go south.  At the same time, there's a power struggle among the OCP executives that spills over into violence on the streets, since one of the biggest criminal kingpins in town is protected and funded by one of the scumbags on the OCP board.

For an 80's action flick, ROBOCOP is entertaining enough.  The violence leans more towards being gratuitous in a black comedy/social commentary sort of way, than it does in being a straight-forward action movie.  I'm sure there's some kind of social message in there somewhere (probably about how giant corporations are bad, m'kay?), but I really don't care.  I'm just here to be entertained.

Solid acting by a strong cast, good pace that lags some in the middle, a Metallica poster, some dude buying that for a dollar, portion of a song by a Ministry side-project (P.T.P), RoboCop getting kicked in the RoboNards, a David Lee Roth poster, a few hyperquick tits that weren't even worth taking screenshots of, some blood, a cocaine bottling machine that looked like it was dumping 40% of the coke onto the floor, a poster for the Cure, bitches leaving, explosions.

Worth a watch, but I'd really love to see an extremely dark and ultraviolent remake with less troubled memories and more killing the fuck out of bad guys.

Part 2 - RoboCop 2 (1990)
Part 3 - RoboCop 3 (1993)
Remake - RoboCop (2014)

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

Yep, this is the one without Michael Myers in it.

After Michael's "death" in Part 2, the filmmakers wanted to continue the Halloween series, but instead of making it about Michael, they wanted to have it based on the actual Halloween holiday itself.  That's not a bad idea (and I'd love to see a series like that nowadays), but they should have just called it something else instead of HALLOWEEN III.  That boned the entire thing.

So, in this first (and only) installment of the new Halloween holiday series, we get a creepy tale about a company, Silver Shamrock Novelties, who's masks are all the rage.  Every kid wants one, but could there be something sinister going on over at Silver Shamrock?  After a pair of mysterious deaths at a hospital (both concerning a Silver Shamrock mask), a doctor and a relative of one of the victims head off to the nearby Silver Shamrock factory to see what's going on.  What they find ain't cool.

As a stand alone film, HALLOWEEN III is an interesting movie and with a bigger budget it might have actually been more successful, but as it is, the obvious low budget undermines the creepiness of the story. During scenes that should have been ominous or scary, I was too distracted by the cheapness of the sets to be scared. Despite this, Dan O'Herlihy did an outstanding job as the owner of Silver Shamrock. My thoughts might have drifted in some scenes, but when he was on the screen he had my complete attention.

Zero nudity, very little blood, mild violence, good acting, jacket shoulder pads, catchy as fuck jingle that will drive you crazy, mild pacing, heavy INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS influence, insects, snakes, guy in a fireman hat overacting.  Worth a watch for the curious.

[Technically, if you want to be a movie nerd about it, Michael Myers is in the film twice.  Once we see him in a commercial on a television in the bar.  Next we see actor Dick Warlock as one of the "assassin androids"...he played Michael in HALLOWEEN II.]

Part 1 - Halloween (1978)
Part 2 - Halloween II (1981)
Part 4 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Part 5 - Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Part 6 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Part 7 - Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Part 8 - Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Remake 1 - Halloween (2007)
Remake sequel - Halloween II (2009)
Sequel to Original - Halloween (2018)
Direct Sequel 2 - Halloween Kills (2021)
Direct Sequel 3 - Halloween Ends (2022)