Death Machine (1995)

Death Machine is just great. It got good effects, a good enough story, some good laughs and the acting is pretty nice. It's about a company that is illegally on working weapons made out of humans by resetting their brain, while their mastermind is working on something very different in the background. First of all. The acting is great on all parts. No matter if it's Ely Pouget, who gives her Hayden some real depth and still shows us, what a real bad-ass of the 80ies and 90ies looked like. With Carpenter and Ridley we have 2 characters that we are supposed to hate and we kinda do. We just also love them for their craziness. But the real star of course is always Brad Dourif. He just needs to enter the room and within seconds, he already got everyone into his role. He is pure over the top crazy, but it is just awesome, as you can see how much fun he had. The most important thing besides that, are the effects. No matter if we are talking about the gore, which is rare but effective, or stuff like the monster. The effects are great and still look great today. With the score, the camera and the fast cuts, this creates are very nice atmosphere that lets you fear for characters and celebrate Dante whenever you see him.All in all this is a really great movie, that you should already just watch, if you are a fan of Dourif in any way, or if you are into horror at all.

This horror/psycho thriller/sci fi story pits a hard-nosed, naive and ethical businesswoman against the existing power structure at a very large defense contractor, Chaank Industries. What Hayden Cale (Ely Puget) does not know is that, underlying most of what she knows as Chaank Industries, is a murderous maniac - Jack Dante. Dante is played by the remarkable, under-rated, Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Eyes of Laura Mars, Blue Velvet, Dune, Wild Blue Yonder, Lord of the Rings, etc etc). Dante will do ANYTHING to avoid having his sick little world disturbed... anything. The plot and characters are a string of clichés, but the movie does not take itself very seriously, and what results is a campy, intelligent, self-parody. Direct homages are paid to off-beat directors who frequently use comedy to liven up sci fi and horror stories - There are major supporting characters named Sam Raimi, John Carpenter and Scott Ridley. Dourif, the deft pacing of the film, and the cleverly written script make this predictable farce thoroughly enjoyable. Richard Brake makes a very good impression in a support role, and lead Puget is charismatic and manages to play her role laudably straight as a counterpoint to Dourif's utterly bizarre behavior. Death Machine was Stephen Norrington's directorial debut. Norrington has done and continues to do a lot of visual effects and robotics work on major releases which require substantial, cutting edge, effects. He also directed the decent but disappointing League of Extraordinary Gentlement and is now working on a re-make of The Crow.

Brad Dourif has made some pretty strange movies, but none as grievously annoying as "Death Machine". Do not, I repeat, do not let Dourif's presence entice you into seeing this pile of junk. He is fun to look at wearing an atrocious wig, but that's it. The acting and character development are excruciating, and the dialog is even worse. The entire film comes across as nothing more than a bad 1990s video game. Another annoyance is that the movie gives a feeling of claustrophobia, as if it was shot through a magnifying glass. Actors shouting at each other, plus the unending closeups is headache inducing. ...................... - MERK

This movie is really far from a great or interesting one but it's also a movie that starts to somewhat gets better as it progresses.It was a great movie that they decided on not making this movie a too straight or serious one. It's a movie with some quirky and comical moments. Had they decided to play this movie straight, it would had been a real bad and ridicules B-movie, with an obviously not too high budget. The movie instead now at times is even more of a spoof than a good movie on its own really.The movie is basically a whole bunch of many different genre movies thrown together, only made more entertaining to watch. It for most part makes "Death Machine" a pretty fun movie to watch but it also doesn't exactly surpasses the level of average.The script, the effects, the acting, it's all being pretty average. It's all good enough but not quite enough for the movie to stand out. I can see why this movie has a sort of a steady cult following but like basically almost every cult-favorite movie, the movie itself isn't exactly anything too great itself.It also really takes awhile for the movie to actually start off and become a good and interesting one. It wasn't about well halve way through that the movie finally really started to get my attention.It was Stephen Norrington directing debut and he must have got some attention with it, since his next directed movie would be the blockbuster "Blade", which in all honesty is the only real true great movie he has ever directed so far.All good and fun enough, especially when you're into the genre but also far from a great or perfect movie really.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/