Future Fear (1997)

Tagline:

Something's eating away at humanity.

Movie Review:

It's the future or something and humanity has been mostly destroyed by a virus that crashed to earth, orchestrated by the evil Nazi-like General Wallace (Stacy Keach, from actual good movies like American History X) who wants to bring about the coming of the next Aryan race. Dr. John Denniel (Jeff Wincott, The Killing Man, No Exit) flies a helicopter badly, trying not to be shot by his ex-wife Anna (Maria Ford, Alien Terminator, Ring of Fire, Future Kick) in another helicopter also flying badly. They are both scientists who have created an embryo from a gibbon that will, for some reason, save humanity. She's shooting at him because they are having a lovers quarrel about whether they keep the embryos alive or harvest them to save the planet. Wincott eats a sandwich in the middle of a battle and complains about the lack of pickles.

This is a steaming pile of horse shit. I've only seen a couple of Jeff Wincott movies so far but surely this has to be the worst one by a country mile. In it's 77 minute run time I've made a cup of tea followed by a strong black coffee, got some cheese and crackers for a snack, had a power nap for an hour and have already begun writing this review. After this sentence I have to go back and watch the last twenty minutes and I am not looking forward to it, but I can't procrastinate any longer. I have dinner to cook.

Roger Corman movies are usually fun to a degree but this was even worse than Starquest II aka Mind Breakers, which was filmed the same year (probably back-to-back with this). Outside of a pretty funny fight between Wincott and Ford involving a toilet plunger, and hearing the same "whhoOOOOoooaaah!" yelp from Wincott whenever he falls off or into something, this movie was devoid of any redeeming qualities. The producers were trying to be too serious and clever by filling it with Alice in Wonderland quotes and hell, even a couple of hallucinatory scenes involving Alice herself holding a white rabbit. The sets look like they are going to fall apart and the production is so cheap that when we see footage of 'humanity on the brink of collapse', it's just a bunch of Indians fighting police at some kind of rally - I'm not sure if this is stock footage or ripped off from another movie.

As usual the cover of the DVD makes it look pretty awesome but those gunships are nowhere to be seen; the only things in Future Fear that fly are the missile that launched the virus and the ridiculous helicopters. I don't know why any of the cast agreed to perform in this piss, but here we are. Stacy Keach no more than phones his lines in than stands in front of a black wall and reads them off cue cards. He finally leaves said room in the last five minutes to enact his evil plan. I never really understand why Anna is that annoyed at her husband that they get into a helicopter fire-fight in the first place but it at least started the movie off with a 'so bad it can't possibly be bad' note (it was).

There's a ridiculous scene where Wincott goes into a bar (there are bars in high-security scientific research buildings?) that has an electrified floor. He defeats this floor by standing on top of a tray of glasses then hurling water at a control board to short it out. Wincott discovers a nursery filled with dead teachers and children (there are nurseries in high-security scientific research buildings?). Wincott hurls his machine gun into a spinning blade to stop it moving, and succeeds. At one point in the movie Wincott says to the camera "I feel like I'm in a poor man's Raiders of the Lost Ark." Not even close, buddy.

Amazon has the American VHS for sale, brand new and not from a third-party seller, for $47.90. That's apparently a saving of 20% off the RRP of $59.98. You would have to be suicidal to spend that kind of money on a piece of arse movie like Future Fear. I got this as a present and I still feel ripped off. Water torture would be more pleasant than sitting through this dreck again. It's totally incoherent with its jumping time between "now" in 2018 and "1 year ago". The acting is appalling, the plot abominable and the effects abhorrent.

At least Maria Ford got her kit off. And Jeff Wincott ate two sandwiches.

The Video:

I reviewed the New Concorde R1 DVD, part of the "Maria Ford Collection". The fullscreen video does the job well enough, though it can be grainy at times. The audio is quiet but adequate. Runtime 77 minutes.

Sourced From:

A gift. So I can't return it. As much as I want to.

Trailer:

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