Blast From The Past Movie Review: DEATH RING (1992), E-Book Discounts

In which the sons and brothers of prominent action stars play THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Also $0.99 discount for dozens of e-books (including two of mine) for the next four days.

Back when I was probably in middle school, I watched the film Death Ring on the now-defunct TV network UPN. It was basically an adaptation of the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” (evil rich people hunting humans), although I don’t think I actually read “TMDG” until high school. When one of my Boy Scout friends first started up Myopia Movies I suggested we do an episode on it, but it was only available on VHS at the time and nobody seemed interested in shelling out for a format they might not even have a player for.

Well thanks to TubiTV a lot of VHS classics (for a certain value of “classic”) are available for streaming (like this one) and I was able to watch it for the first time in probably close to 30 years. How did it hold up?

The Plot

Retired soldier Matt Collins (Mike Norris — Chuck’s son) wins a survivalist competition and goes out to celebrate with his wealthier girlfriend Lauren (Isabel Glasser) and old war buddy “Skylord” Harris (Chad McQueen — Steve’s son). Unfortunately, he’s come to the attention of the evil Danton Vachs (Billy Drago) and his lieutenant/concubine Ms. Ling (Elizabeth Sung). Vachs and Ling oversee a jungle island where people can pay $100,000 each (in 1992 bucks) to hunt humans for sport. Ling and two cronies kidnap Matt and Lauren and take them to the island where Matt is to be the latest quarry.

Matt has to evade four extremely dangerous people while Skylord investigates his disappearance and Lauren is held hostage. The hunt is on, but who is the mysterious John Blackwell (Don Swayze — Patrick’s brother)?

The Good

*The movie gets to the point pretty quickly. We start with Matt running what’s basically an Ironman Competition and then cut to Vachs and Ling watching him on TV. It isn’t long until Vachs dispatches Ling and a couple thugs to kidnap them and the hunt begins. The movie is short and moves fast, which works out well. This is an action-thriller in the vein of its better equivalent Hard Target and doesn’t need a long runtime.

*As written, Vachs is an interesting villain — well-traveled, evilly cultured, often subtly racist and insulting toward his clients, and so devoted to his ideas about the sacredness of the hunt that he blows off inducements to spare Matt that other, baser villains might indulge. And as things go wrong, his weirdly cultured and pseudo-chivalrous attitude begins to crack and some uglier tendencies (yes, worse than kidnapping people to hunt for sport) begin to emerge.

*The presence of Blackwell is pretty creative — although I’m not familiar with the “hunting humans” genre beyond having seen a few movies, he has no equivalent in “TMDG” and even before he’s formally introduced his character plays a major role in upsetting Vachs’ schemes.

*Although I’d only remembered Ling as basically a cliched sexed-up Asian female stock character, she’s actually a lot more developed. She’s Vachs’ chief of staff and overall second-in-command, even leading his thugs on snatch missions. She has a back-story (an Amerasian teen enslaved by the Vietnamese Communists to kill Americans) that could make her an interesting villain protagonist in her own story. Much has been made lately of the submissive “Lotus Blossom” or scary “Dragon Lady” stereotypes, but she’s definitely not the former and doesn’t include all of the traits of the latter either. Well, for most of the movie at least. She kind of falls off a bit at the end.

*Although I thought Skylord’s investigation subplot was kind of stupid (more on that later), it does have some surprises.

*There are some legitimately funny lines in the script.

*Things get gloriously absurd at the end.

The Bad

*The acting is mediocre. Although it’s not the total festival of nepotism I’d expected, none really stick out, and Norris seems particularly flat even in situations where I’d expect Matt to be a lot more emotional. Glasser is the one best at actually emoting, while Drago’s stiltedness might be part of his character — despite his class and sophistication, he’s still a creep and predator and a lot of his persona might be an act.

*And although Glasser is better at emoting than the others, Lauren spends most of the film a passive captive, with only the occasional bit of initiative. Although this isn’t unrealistic (see this range of responses to threats), she could have been a bit more spunky. The one time she’s not could have been better built up — whatever helpless-female socialization she’s been filled with since childhood finally breaks and she just goes berserk. One line, something like, “Oh the hell with this!” What I’d remembered about her (that doesn’t actually happen in the movie) was much more interesting. And the class friction between Lauren and Matt isn’t explored as much as it could be, especially given how Vachs is her social peer in a way Matt isn’t. She could be just as alienated from the rich California crowd as Vachs, but for much better reasons — she disdains them for being shallow and self-absorbed and he disdains them for being weak and lazy.

*There are other good ideas that aren’t explored well — Matt has a troubled military past, the Native American hunter Apache (Henry Kingi) insists on going only by his tribal identity and practices some sort of ritual before the hunt begins, the Chinese hunter Chen (George Cheung) meditates and emphasizes the importance of respect, and the authorities might be onto evil lawyer Mr. Temple (Donegan Smith). And although they did try with Ling, she only gets one line elaborating on her own back-story and goes full cliché at the end calling Vachs “the master,” which she never did earlier. And Blackwell is underused, only showing up toward the tail end of the film.

*Vachs and Ling have two butch female minions and one is literally named Bambi. When Matt sarcastically asks is the other is named Thumper, Ling agrees. Where have I seen this before? I think this was supposed to be a joke rather than a rip-off, but it felt derivative. And Bambi and Thumper don’t really do much besides push Lauren around. Better to leave them out completely and focus on Vachs and Ling as evil counterparts to Matt and Lauren.

*Skylord’s subplot could have been tightened up to allow more time for the hunters and the hunt on Vachs’ island, which would in turn allow for more development for Lauren, Vachs, and the lesser villains. Despite some cliché-averting surprises, it takes too long and brings in too many one- or two-scene characters, especially Skylord’s love interest Cindy (Tammy Stones) who either should have shown up earlier or shouldn’t have been in the film.

*The ending is kind of rushed, complete with some rather inept gunplay.

The Verdict

Some good ideas and fun to watch (especially if you don’t go in with years of higher expectations), but it doesn’t live up to its potential. Good for Tubi or TV movie fodder but not more than once. Hard Target is the better example of the concept. That said, a remake with a better script and a stronger cast could be a lot of fun.

(I’ll have a “how I would have done it” outline out to you all in December. Although going forward only my premium subscribers will get my full concepts, this one will be totally free.)

6.5 out of 10.

The Thing in the Woods and Battle for the Wastelands (and more) E-Book Discount 11/22-29

Two of my novels — the small-town creature feature The Thing in the Woods and the steampunk military fantasy Battle for the Wastelands — were discounted to $0.99 for your Kindles starting November 22. The promotion will run until November 29, leaving you four days to check them out (largely) risk-free.

Also, this promotion is part of a larger Black Friday promotional campaign featuring the works over 100 authors. Most are indies like me, but there are a number of classic works available at a discount, including books by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the complete collection of Conan stories by Robert Howard.

Enjoy!