Uncle Jasper reviews: Blind Fury (1989)

Blind Fury (1989)

Starring Rutger Hauer, Terry O’Quinn, Brandon Call, Noble Willingham, Lisa Blount, Nick Cassavetes, Rick Overton, Randall “Tex” Cobb, Meg Foster, Sho Kosugi

Directed By Phillip Noyce

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Sometimes you just have to roll with your intuition. No matter how silly and bizarre your idea initially looks on paper you just gotta go on with that gut feeling, confident that there is something about it that just feels “right”. I would imagine that’s how director Phillip Noyce and writer Charles Robert Carner felt as they sat down gingerly, committing this unique slice of 80s action to celluloid.

Blind Fury is a film that once again proves just how versatile and universal the Japanese samurai film was. After the Italians made Yojimbo into a western, and George Lucas threw a little bit of The Hidden Fortress into Star Wars, I guess it was only a matter of time before we had Rutger Hauer combing American highways as a Vietnam veteran incarnation of Zatoichi, taking on the mob almost single-handedly with his walking cane which housed a razor-sharp samurai sword.

Intruder (1989)

Intruder (1989)

Starring Elizabeth Cox, Renée Estevez, Dan Hicks, David Byrnes, Sam Raimi, Eugene Robert Glazer, Billy Marti, Burr Steers, Craig Stark, Ted Raimi, Alvy Moore, Tom Lester, Emil Sitka, Bruce Campbell, Lawrence Bender, Scott Spiegel

Directed by Scott Spiegel

Expectations: Moderate. I expect the film to be awful, but the FX to be awesome.

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Two years after co-writing Evil Dead 2 with Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel got his chance at his own full-length feature film. Based on an earlier short of his, Intruder is quite modest in its budget and aspirations, but achieves true terror and suspense. I’m sad that I never happened upon this film before, as it would have easily been a favorite for many years. Up front it’s important to be aware of a couple of things though. On the DVD boxart, Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi’s names are prominently displayed. Red flags should come up at this, as low-budget trash horror has a knack for playing up the small cameos of big names to trick people into buying or renting. Thankfully, I knew beforehand that Bruce Campbell was only in the final thirty seconds, as this could have been a very different experience if I went in blind.