Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

How about that for a film title huh, talk about getting you hyped for a sci-fi fantasy guns and swords type action flick with monsters, princesses and possibly even spaceships and landspeeder type vehicles. Well yes that's what I was thinking after seeing the poster haha I was thinking along the lines of 'Krull'. I must report that the film isn't quite how I thought it would be, yep its a sci-fi and yes it has laser guns, landspeeders and the odd monster but its terribly cheap looking in places with virtually no plot. Now I know I shouldn't expect anything amazing from an unknown film but you always hope there is a hidden gem don't you, on the plus side there is some nice imagination here mixed with a lot of elements from other obvious sci-fi. The big one eyed humanoid aliens were made up quite well and did remind me of 'Klingons' whilst all the outfits were your typical 'Mad Max' affair, especially the vehicles and the heroes leather outfit, there was a touch of 'Krull' type magic involved and of course your regular mutant baddie warrior. I shouldn't be too harsh really as it was made along time ago when certain big films were the rage and this was merely jumping on that bandwagon, in fairness its not too bad, not good but certainly one of the better cheapo fantasy sci-fi films from the depths of the B-movie abyss.

A classic 80's science fiction cheap cheese-fest like the Road Warrior - done in 3-D! This isn't a space movie at all. It takes place on a desert wasteland with lots of a vehicle chases and shootouts. There's some cool laser-fights with our serious heroes Dogen (Jeffrey Byron), beautiful gem-miner Dhyana (Kelly Preston) and a Han-Solo-ish scoundrel Rhodes (Tim Thomerson of Trancers and Dollman fame). They battle Jared-Syn (Michael Preston), a spooky dark lord with a dimensional gate and a few monsters under his control. I liked his son "Baal", a cyborg with a metal arm which sprays green nightmare-inducing acid; he was likely the inspiration for the Borg on Star Trek. There's a cool electrical warrior, a mask-of-seeing, and a funny race of Cyclops (led by Richard Moll) who have one simply have one eye cheaply covered up by makeup to achieve the effect. There's a cool cantina scene inside a town of tents, a neato cyclops sword fight with the combattants holding onto a cord, a hyperspace shuttle chase, several ATV chases and crashes, and a cool scene where an alien throws a spiked ball at the camera. It would've looked great in 3-D. It just looks quite silly in 2-D. The story is a bit lame and derivative of better movies. I still like it despite all this, for its cheesy serious dialogue delivery and concepts. There is no Metalstorm in this movie, nor does any place called Jared-Syn get destroyed.