On a lonely Texas road, time, space and murder are about to collide
Stumbled across the DDF: Reel Films channel on YouTube, which has a bunch of full movies that are apparently properly licensed.
After seeing Brett Harrelson (brother of Woody) in Inferno, I went with another desert action film with less famous / successful / good relations of someone famous. And it’s a twofer! With John Belushi’s brother James being intentionally odious as the bad guy and… Roger Clinton! Yes, look out for an early cameo from the half-brother of the then-serving President of the actual United States!
Plus, this is also a sci-fi timey-wimey flick (but don’t worry, no technobabble) in the vein of Cause and Effect and Groundhog Day, and c/tenforward has been loopy for time loops lately.
- Retroactive - full movie on YouTube (missing part of opening and closing titles but otherwise intact)
- Retroactive - trailer on YouTube
- Wikipedia - Retroactive
- IMDb - Retroactive
- Letterboxd - Retroactive
Director
- Louis Morneau
Starring
- James Belushi
- Kylie Travis
- Shannon Whirry
- Frank Whaley
- Jesse Borrego
- M. Emmet Walsh
- and introducing Roger Clinton
Geoff Andrew of Time Out wrote:
With its explosive action, black comedy and far-fetched sci-fi imposed on an otherwise vaguely plausible crime thriller, this modest indie film is reminiscent of such low budget ‘80s exploiters as Tremors and the work of Charles Band. Like the most memorable of these, it’s lifted out of the rut by a quirky, imaginative script. True, Belushi’s performance is overbearing and M. Emmet Walsh turns in yet another sweaty cameo; true, too, that the frequent visual emphasis on Travis’ cleavage flags the movie’s compromised ambitions. Nevertheless, there’s more than enough energy, bravado and invention to engage the attention throughout.
I enjoyed it but then I’m a sucker for 90s action flicks.
Woah that’s a poster.
On a scale of 1 to Stone Cold where does this fall for action flicks you think?
Hmmm… not that high, IMHO.
Jim pursing his lips in the mirror while previewing an eventually-rejected look for Blues Brothers 2000. (“We’re 106 miles to Amarillo. We’ve got a time machine, a six-pack of Australian lager, it’s bright and I’m wearing sunglasses… Hit it.”)
Yes, there’s a gun but its presence is so feeble: that thing will obviously slide off the dashboard the moment there’s any action, and the goodie and the baddie will have to spend the next three minutes cracking their heads together while rummaging under the seats through dropped change, old fast food wrappers and a highway map of Oklahoma from 1982 before they find the damned thing!
There were other posters/covers I saw that were more actiony: explosions, lightning bolts, a gun actually being held and used. And in a tribute to Basil Exposition, clocks. “You know, cuz it’s timey-wimey.”
Of those alternates, I’d pick #2 as top for a combo of stylistic and actiony reasons.
#1 has a consistent and menacing look and colour scheme, but a distinct lack of shooty or blow-uppy stuff.
#3 has got two guns in use and the cheesy-but-beloved classic of a background explosion, but seems like two posters mashed together; I’d have gone with the top half.
#4 has got action appeal and the visual consistency #3 lacks, but features (now I’ve seen the film) a very minor character.
I really have no idea WTF is going on in the middle of #5, and they seem to have just picked some stock photo of a random model driving a random model of car, not the vintage Caddy featured in the film.
#6 has lightning! And more lightning! And Xzibit saying “Yo dawg, I heard you like lightning so I put lightning in your lightning!” And multiple fires and multiple guns. My choice if I was going for maximum straight-to-video action cheesiness.
But I went with the one in OP because:
You got to love a burning sky and the terrible photoshopped in gun. Classics.
I actually think 4 there is quintessential VHS cover, to get you to rent it at blockbuster, extravaganza written all over it. Even down to the blurry drop shadowed title.
6 is so weirdly good but in a way I think I’d hate the film for not being lightninged enough. It the right cheesy for modern streaming.
So many of these just immediately give me the nostalgia of knowing this was printed on cheap boxes that were oversaturated and looked like garbage.
#4 can appeal to both in a couple looking for something to rent for the evening:
#6: “not lightninged enough” :D
Yeah, I think the designer managed to cram together every lightning bolt, car crash and explosion from the entire film into a single image.