Ha ha, hello, and hello again! It’s Burl! Today I again
plumbed the depths of my action movie collection and came up with an obscurity, which looks as though it was filmed about ten years earlier than its copyright date would indicate! It's called Day of the
Survivalist, and it’s an awful lot like plenty of other pictures in which a
lone hero ends up in some remote place battling a nasty gang of hayseeds! Avenging Force, Quiet Cool and Bullies
all fit this paradigm, but the movie I recalled the most while watching the
present picture was Malone!
That’s because, as in Malone,
the bad guys in Day of the Survivalist
are nutty right-wing survivalists who plan to take over a valley and rule it as
heavily-armed kings after the pockyclipse! But the survivalist of the title is
actually the hero, Fletcher, who is not himself a survivalist except in the
broader sense!
Fletcher is a good-natured Vietnam vet with a pornography
moustache! He lives in L.A., but becomes disgusted with city life after he gets
robbed and shot lightly in the head! He goes home, opens up a Pepsi and relaxes
in front of the television, but is disgusted to see news of only more crime and
despair! But then something catches his eye: an elaborate ad inviting people to
come and live in a remote Oregon valley! Fletcher fondles his chin for a while,
then reasons that a spot widely advertised on Los Angeles television will be
the perfect place for him to go for some peace and quiet!
The next thing you know, Fletcher has moved to Oregon and
opened his own archery shop! At this point I thought: ha ha! Great! There must
be a murder conspiracy in this valley, where they attract people there only to
use them as The Most Dangerous Game, but this time their intended prey has a
whole shop full of archery supplies as his arsenal! But no, there’s no
conspiracy, only a handful of grumpy survivalists arming, supplying and
training themselves against what they call The Crunch: the inevitable nuclear
Armageddon and subsequent socio-economic collapse! Ha ha, but I couldn’t help
picturing an enormous Crunch bar!
The group, led by The Colonel, try to get Fletcher to join
their group, but he just thinks they’re a bunch of sillies! Then Johnny
Paycheck shows up and sings a song called “I Love Rowdy People!” Johnny sits
down with the survivalists for a brew, and they try to recruit him too! But
Johnny begs off, saying he’s a lover, not a fighter!
Pretty soon it all goes wrong and the fellows are after
Fletcher! They’re a pretty incompetent bunch, so there’s never much of a
threat! Fletcher and a local lady – the sister of the most surly survivalist
actually – go on the run, and eventually there’s some gunfire and flying arrows
and a chop or two from an axe, and then The Colonel is dead and the movie’s
over!
Ha ha, Day of the
Survivalist offers plenty of pretty terrible acting – Fletcher is the best
of the bunch, and I still wouldn’t say he was good, ha ha! – dull photography,
uninspired direction and endless running around in the forest! On the other
hand, the movie is strangely realistic in depicting how a band of right-wing,
gun-loving survivalists would actually operate in a situation like this!
They’re not a very slick or clever bunch, I can tell you! But these sorts of
clowns do make pretty good villains, as I’ve said before! With its weirdly
affable protagonist, its marvelously goofy Johnny Paycheck cameo – the most
desultory guest star cameo ever filmed, it should be noted – and its grimy
action, Day of the Survivalist is
still a strangely compelling little picture, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy
watching it! I’m going to give it two robotic lady cops!
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