Here it is: the movie Bad Movie websites everywhere are obliged to review if they want to flesh out the “Y” sections of their archives. It’s certainly worthy, nominated for three Razzie Awards, including Worst Original Song, Worst Score (it “lost” both to The Lonely Lady) and quite-unfairly-named Worst New Star (he “lost” to Lou Ferrigno).
Not that Reb Brown isn’t a star in his own, strange right. But by 1983 Brown was a long way from “new.” He built up quite the career catching bit parts on every 1970s TV show you might actually remember. Scratch The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Rockford Files or Happy Days with enough force and you’ll find Reb Brown already there. But fame is a fickle bitch, unwilling to give Reb the time of day even after he played Captain America. Twice.
The 70s were a spiteful decade, driven by desperation…but at least that drove innovation. Occasionally, a truly weird experiment in movie lunacy (like Reb Brown’s first movie, the turning-men-into-snakes epic Sssssss) escaped the wreckage of Hollywood’s old studio system. But the 80s saw Reb slumming more and more as the character of the times changed. The desperate spite of 70s gave way to the angry spite of the 80s, a trend exemplified in the rise of the American Action Movie. Like an intergalactic race of cyborgs, Action Movies rose to international prominence by assimilating everything in its path. Our culture adapted to service theirs. Resistance was futile. And Reb didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing. Continue reading Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)
This was one of those movies, purposely not screened for the critics in advance of its release last year. The movie industry is a vain, attention-hungry animal, and it never shies from the media spotlight without good reason. Occasionally a movie comes along so hobbled, so hackneyed, screening it for criticism becomes an open solicitation for capital-T, Trouble.