Robowar (1988) User Reviews

Robo-predator.

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 4 September 2017]

From Italian trash director Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead) and writer Claudio Fragasso (who gave us the legendary Troll 2), Robowar is a blatant cash-in on the success of Predator, with a touch of Robocop for good measure. Reb Brown stars as Major Murphy Black, leader of a group of mercenaries with very silly (nick)names (Diddy Bop, Killzone, Blood, Papa Doc, Quang) who are sent on a mission about which they have very few details, but which sees them coming face-to-visor with a high-tech renegade humanoid killer robot called Omega One.

As the soldiers explore the jungle, encountering the charred corpses of victims of the malfunctioning machine, as well as groups of hostile guerrilla fighters, Mattei and Fragasso miss no opportunity to blatantly ape the aforementioned Schwarzenegger classic, with entire scenes and chunks of dialogue mimicked throughout (silliest moments: Brown throws his knife at an enemy and quips 'Don't move!', inadequately aping Arnie's 'Stick around' gag; Quang's utterly pointless sacrifice).

As with many a Mattei film, there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had at the sheer goofiness on display: Reb Brown, in his blue, sleeveless, cropped T-shirt, who looks ready for a pride parade; the supposedly cutting-edge Omega One, equipped with low resolution pixelated visual sensors and a garbled Speak and Spell voice-box that Stephen Hawking would laugh at; the group of marines wasting countless rounds of ammo shooting at the jungle while screaming; and Quang referring to himself in third person.

Great film-making it most definitely isn't, but one can't help but be entertained just a little.

Got Ammo?

[Coventry · 3/10 · 14 March 2009]

The all-time favorite movie of director Bruno Mattei – may he rest in peace – undoubtedly must have been "Predator". One of the last films Mattei made before his death was called "Cannibal Ferox 3: Land of Death" and it was an extremely blatant imitation of "Predator" where he simply replaced the intergalactic hunter with a tribe of cannibals. When I watched that film, I didn't even know yet that "Robowar" existed and was thus unaware of the fact that Mattei already pulled off the exact same trick nearly twenty years earlier! This is, again, a shameless and outright rip-off of the classic 80's action flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, yet this time replacing the alien with an out-of-control robot that was initially designed as a – surprise, surprise – hi tech secret warfare weapon. Every other even remotely memorable element of "Predator" gets copied here, like the testosterone-driven lead characters, rotting human cadavers lying all around the jungle, the blurry computerized view from inside the robot's helmet, entire pieces of dialogs and even the who-played-who end credits! Needless to say this is a terribly inept and laughable B-movie exploitation product, but it is guaranteed entertainment to watch; especially in case you're an avid fan of typically Italian trash. Bunch of beefcake mercenaries, all of them with bad-boy attitudes and carrying around heavy artillery to compensate for their lack of brain capacities, are sent into to the jungle to complete a mission they know absolutely nothing about. They end up facing a practically indestructible handmade killing machine, although it suspiciously looks like a guy in a latex suit talking like he's a defect cassette with songs for children on it. The Robo-Soldier wipes out everyone before the replacement Arnie leader (Reb Brown) discovers it was constructed using spare body parts from his buddy who died in the Vietnam War. End of story. Obviously "Robowar" is just an insignificant and utterly brainless popcorn Sci-Fi/action/War flick with nothing else than explosives and violent shootouts. Speaking of which, I guess Bruno Mattei spent most of the nearly non-existent budget on explosives and ammunition! These dim-witted mercenaries literally fire off gazillions of bullets. Multiple sequences exist of one hireling randomly starting to shoot at trees and the others joyously join in and waste an entire arsenal. But hey, giving the quality of the acting performances, a serenade of bullets is actually less painful to listen to than the atrocious dialogs. The robot is hilariously cheesy, especially when he produces noise and recollects his past. I cannot possibly reward this movie with a rating that is any higher 3 out of 10, but please rest assured it is recommended and guaranteed entertainment!

* note: if you are, like me, a sucker for old movie posters and DVD illustrations, you might have noticed that the cover image depicted here on this page is not "Robowar" but for "Robo Man", an even obscurer 70's Sci-Fi sleeper.

Very average rip-off set in Philippines jungles with lots of noisy action , shootouts and explosion

[ma-cortes · 5/10 · 1 May 2021]

Standard and mediocre cash-in on known American films taking parts here and there , dealing with a platoon : Massimo Vani, Romano Puppo, Mel Davison , Max Laurel, Gaines led by Major Murphy : Reb Brown assigned to a dangerous mission in the lush jungle . Along the way they meet and save a prisoner woman : Catherine Hickland, who at the time married David Hasselhoff, and all of them take on a lethal cyborg with fateful results .

This Robowar 1988 contains thrills , chills , gory scenes, jungle landscapes from Philippines , crossfire, violent deaths and lots of blown-up. It results to be an exploitative clone , rip-off of boxoffice successes , mixing scenes from expensive Rambo by George Pan Cosmatos with Stallone , Missing in action by Joseph Zito with Norris , Robocop by Paul Verhoveen with Weller and especially Predator by John McTiernan with Arnold . Played by an international cast and starring the hunk Reb Brown as one army man , giving a lousy performance and overacting, at times , as he's usually shouting and shooting . His best movie was Uncommon Valor , following several similar roles as brave heroes who frequent eliminate villain people such as : "Yor the Hunter from the future" , "Captain America" , "Captain America 2 death too soon" , "Death of a Soldier" , "Strike Commando" , "The Cage" , "The Firing Line" , "Street Hunter ," Last Fight to Hell", "Mercenary Fighters" , "The Cage 2 Arena of Death", and "Space Mutiny" . Support cast is formed by regular secondaries of the Italian B-movies, such as : Massimo Vanni , Romano Puppo , Luciano Pigozzi or Allan Collins , though the scenes of the latter were eventually deleted . And screenwriter Clyde Anderson or Claudio Fragasso himself who often used to play as cameos and brief interventions , in fact here performing the deadly Cyborg and he fainted at times , due to the real warm. All actors lost a lot of pounds when she worked on the film due to the sweaty , hot conditions of the Philippines jungles and extremely heat.

It displays an atmospheric cinematography by Riccardo Grassetti , shot on exotic location in Pasanjan, Laguna , Philippines Islands. Catching and thrilling electronic musical score from Al Festa , composed by means of synthesizer . The motion picture was regularly directed by Bruno Mattei , assisted by his habitual collaborator Claudio Fragasso who also wrote the screenplay along with his wife Rosella Drudi . Bruno Mattei was a hack professional who directed a lot of cheap films in all kind of genres, such as : "Cage Women" , "Hell of the Living Dead" , "Seven Magnificent Gladiators" , "Rats" , "Strike Commando I", its sequel "Strike Commando II" and several others . Rating : 5/10 , a regular and disconcerting production that will appeal to Reb Brown fans .

Italian low-budget PREDATOR rip-off!

[Serpent-5 · 7 April 1999]

Viewing this film on Japanese video, I can see why this film never made it to America. (I hear bootleg copies are now on sale, so be warned). There is some scenes that rip-off PREDATOR as Reb Brown and Catherine Hickland battle a mumbling robot that doesn't stop. Romano Puppo (aka Gus Stone) being in this film was a tip-off that this was another italian film. This is one of the last few films made before the italian action craze ended in the late 80's. It's a shame for Italy had lot to offer, but United States video companies stop picking them up.

Even my Reb Brown love has limits

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 6 January 2018]

An Italian ripoff of both Predator and Terminator starring Reb Brown (Yor Hunter from the Future), directed by Bruno Mattei (The Other Hell), from a script by the husband and wife team of Claudio Fragasso and Rosella Drudi (who concocted Troll 2, a movie that is at the same time not a sequel and not about trolls)? You had me at Italian ripoff.

Major Murphy Black (yep, Red Brown) is the leader of a team of commandos that are on a mission in the jungle. Only Mascher knows why they are really there - to test his new invention, Omega-1 (who is played by writer Claudio Fragasso), a robot that looks like a BMX racer with scuba gear.

But first, they have to rescue Virginia (Catherine Hickland, Witchery) from soldiers who are overtaking her hospital camp. Just like Predator, the team easily kills all of the terrorists/evil guys/generic villains, but it's just to set up the real story. Yep, Masher wanted to see how his creation would stack up against Murphy.

The robot is smart enough to kill everyone, even his creator, and destroy the one device that is supposedly the only thing that can kill it. Also, Omega-1 is really a cyborg with he brain of Murphy's old friend, Lt. Martin Woodrie.

Only Murphy and Virginia survive, despite numerous attacks by the cyborg. At the end, the cyborg corners Murphy in the jungle and shows him how to initiate his self-destruct sequence. And that's that.

Even I can't defend the fact that I waste nearly ninety minutes of my life watching this movie. On my deathbed, I will pull my family close and whisper, "I only regret one thing. Robowar." Hopefully, they realize that I mean a Bruno Mattei movie and don't think that it's a Rosebudian cipher and they have to go on a quest to discover what I mean. I also hope that none of them watch Robowar.

The Worst of the Worst

[erk_42 · 1/10 · 2 October 2009]

Reb Brown and director Bruno Mattei are notorious for making really bad movies, but this is the worst of the worst! An all-too-obvious PREDATOR rip-off, this movie very nearly copies PREDATOR scene for scene!! Most of Brown's movies are incredibly bad, but also delightfully fun and cheesy. This one is just a pain to watch. As for Mattei, while he's considered by many to be the Italian Ed Wood, he needs to just leave originals alone and stop trying to rip-off other versions of good movies. It's bad enough he would end up making a rip-off of TERMINATOR 2 (even though it's more like ALIEN than T2). This movie is confounded by bad acting, lame dialogue, and from the looks of it, the script is only about 15 pages long!! It rarely makes any sense at any given time! It is interesting to see Catherine Hickland in an early role (she would gain notoriety in the world of soap operas...more specifically "One Life to Live"). This film is rubbish!

BLATANT, BLATANT "Predator" knockoff

[gridoon · 3/10 · 19 July 2002]

Astonishing in its audacity! Bruno Mattei gathered a bunch of B-movie actors, threw them into the jungle, and then ripped off the basic plotline from "Predator", ripped off whole lines of dialogue from "Predator", ripped off the irrelevant action sequences from "Predator", he even ripped off the "who-played-whom"-type closing credits from "Predator"! The only difference is that the monster here is a robot instead of an alien. A very weird experience - check out the "monster's" kiddie voice! (*1/2)

Not one of Mattei's best efforts...

[HaemovoreRex · 5/10 · 7 September 2006]

Well, well, well.....this is a mightily shameless knockoff even by Bruno Mattei standards!

Despite the great cast of Italian B-movie stars assembled here including Reb Brown, Massimo Vanni, Romano Puppo and Max Laurel, this film never raises above the decidedly average mark due to its obvious lack of imagination and ambition other than to be a blatant Predator clone (sans the budget).

Not content with ripping off just the basic premise either, Mattei has directly lifted a number of scenes and lines of dialogue from the previously mentioned Hollywood blockbuster with the result at times being frankly cringe inducing.

In addition the main bulk of the film here is comprised of budget saving, boring padding tactics which usually comprise of our heroes plodding around the jungle aimlessly interspersed with some intermittent gunfire as they catch a fleeting glimpse of their hunter (a rather poorly conceived looking robot named Omega 1)

Certainly not one of Mattei's better efforts and curiously lacking the usual 'so bad it's good' charm that his work usually comprises, Robowar is overall, a fairly bland affair. A real shame.

Very badly made Predator ripoff.

[abedlaracuente · 1/10 · 24 December 2019]

Every detail of this movie down to the nonsensical lyrics in one of the songs makes this a bonafide turkey. The machine view and the constant three or four words it utters followed by "receive" makes me wonder at what very little effort was put into creating the robot character. The commandos down to the Chuck Norris wannabe are all equally laughable.

Vincent Dawn's messterpiece

[InzyWimzy · 6/10 · 16 March 2011]

Ah, leave it to the directorial talent (or lack thereof) of Bruno Mattei to make me yearn for the Citizen Kane Reb Brown classics such as Space Mutiny or Yor the Hunter from the Future.

Think of this outing as a prolonged hike in the nature preserve. Reb is Murphy Black; the leader of commando group on a mission of...actually what WAS their mission(?) as it's evident that Reb himself wasn't even sure of. Heck, I don't even know if I'd let Reb lead me in a game of horseshoes let alone on a reconnaissance endeavor. No tears are shed on this journey as people are killed and you have no iota clue (or concern) about who they are or what purpose they serve except as bullet fodder. Thrill at the menacing Omega 1 (that reminds me to get multivitamins at GNC this week) as his state of the art pixelated kill-o-vision makes him...well, pretty lame. His 8 bit speech makes him sound like he contracted a form of Robot Tourettes. I can't be too angry with him as he helps to thin the herd thus providing a semblance of entertainment. Herr Mattei also had access to bio lab skeletons and you're bloody sure that he was going to use them!

All levity aside, many thanks to Smoke Manmuscle, I mean Reb for making this trial somewhat amusing. Whether it's his high shrilled helium-ated octaves of unforgettable lines such as 'Incoming, get out of here!' and 'Move out!' or his constant bickering with Mascher (less than Carl Weathers and more like Andy Richter's shady uncle), Murphy Black weathers the storm to the beat of a Casio laced soundtrack. Beware the true horror of Robowar: the cutoff shirt prone to exposing Rebbish midriff.

The horror...the horror....

Predator in a micro budget

[kaefab · 4/10 · 28 January 2024]

Predator in a micro budget, this is what the movie is actually.

You have the same story as the predator 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura.

But its made on a micro budget with b grade actors. I really like. Reb Brown, one of my favorite movies of him is Yor the hunter from the future and i got to see this movie in theatres when i was a kid.

Reb Brown and Catherine Hickland are the only actors i knew in this movie.

The movie starts off a bit different because its not an alien but a rogue cyborg that malfunction. But for the rest its step by step the same thing as predator 1987 all the soldiers are taken one by one, there are some very bad on liner, the group is called BAM (really that set the tone for the whole movie if you watch it you know what its stands for).

All in all its entertaining for what it is, but don't expect much.

Another one of Mattei's xerox classics (two-for-one this time)!

[udar55 · 10/10 · 21 March 2011]

"Reb Brown stars in this action-packed adventure story of fighting men pitted against an unseen enemy, a force more powerful than the fiercest weapons. Recruited by the CIA to rescue hostages held by guerrilla fighters in a Central American country, Brown and his men encounter an enemy unimaginably more deadly than any on Earth - because the Omega One is not of this Earth!"

What you have just read (save the references to Reb and Omega One) is the VHS plot synopsis of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle PREDATOR (1987) because that is exactly what this Bruno Mattei flick rips off! Why waste my time cooking up a synopsis, right? A virtual scene-for- scene, shot-for-shot remake of the big budget sci-fi epic, ROBOWAR is bad. So bad that it is amazing. There are some liberties taken with the "source" material though. Reb Brown's top secret unit is named B.A.M. (Bad Assed Mutherfuckers). When they assault the village, Brown throws a smaller knife into a mercenary and then quips, "Hang around!" as opposed to Arnold's "Stick around." Oh yeah, and the group's native empath is named named Quang and of Filipino descent. Sadly, no "What's got Quang so spooked?" line. Mattei usually wouldn't settle for just one flick to rip off and throws us a curve ball by also copying 1987's other classic sci-fi flick, ROBOCOP. You see, Omega One turns out to be part man, part machine. Even funnier, the human chunks inside are Brown's old Nam buddy Woodrig. And, yes, Brown does say, "Woodrig, it's you!"

Bruno Mattei does Predator, results are predictably awesome

[Bloodwank · 7/10 · 7 April 2012]

There was very little chance of this film not being badass. A combined rip-off of Predator and Robocop directed by hack trash grand wizard Bruno Mattei and starring veritable Colossus of kick-ass charisma Reb Brown in the Arnie role, along with Massimo Vanni looking like Chuck Norris and the always reliable Jim Gaines, and a script by husband and wife super-scribes Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2, Zombie 4: After Death)) and Rosella Drudi. Oh and our Claudio is also the guy in the robot suit, credited under his regular pseudonym of Clyde Anderson. Anybody reading this already knows whether this film is for them or not, people generally are either Mattei fans or have sh!tty taste. But for your sake dear reader I shall go on, lest you not be quite convinced. The pacing is the only drawback here, the film takes a little while to really get into the groove so during the first third there's mostly the dialogue to go on. Fortunately the dialogue is worthy of Mamet, my favorite line being probably "You walk like a ruptured duck" . Clearly a film that should be shown to screen writing classes as an example of how to get this sort of thing right. The action is pretty steady when it gets going though. Things tend to alternate between people and trees being shot up real good, and trees and huts being blown up real good, with occasional people being blown up real good for varieties sake. Oh and there is a bit of knife work, but I don't know that I'd describe it as real good. It's OK though.Basically if you like films full of people walking around in the jungle and shooting at trees with occasional explosions and a robot that speaks in comically mangled digital gibberish then this is a film for you. I like all of these things, so Robowar was definitely a film for me. It even musters up occasional pockets of genuine excitement and suspense in amongst the hilarity and repetition, with a climax that is more affecting than one might expect. There's no gore other than mangled corpses and a severed limb, and no sleaze which definitely hurts things, but as far as goofy action trash aimed at the undemanding goes this is definitely a winner. Not as good as the classic Strike Commando mind you, but in Mattei rip off terms this is pretty darned decent. Way better than Shocking Dark at any rate. So watch it folks!

Yeah, a creature who sounds like "Twiki" from "Buck Rogers" was a great idea.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 26 July 2022]

This is the type of movie that is meant to make the viewer feel stupid because they are spending so much time laughing at it that they forgot what little of a plot there is. The actors were also obviously hired by their ability to scream for long periods of time, and after a while, you want to scream back at them. Poor Catherine Hickland, coming off the canceled soap "Capitol", obviously took the first job that came along, and the materials she's given made me feel sorry for her.

It was interesting to note in the opening scene a very masculine black man wearing a tank top that says "African Queen" on it. That's probably the most intelligent observation that I can make about this rip off of recent blockbuster hits, so blatant that even 35 years later, it reeks of pathetic commercialism, and there's only pleasure in knowing that this didn't really make it far in the theaters, probably going to home video 4 months after being released, a sure sign of a flop. They make some good used out of the locations very far up in the northwest, but I truly couldn't find anything to care about with this other than to find out if Mel Blanc had provided the unintelligible sounds coming out of whatever is stalking the group.

Another Rip-off From Mattei

[Michael_Elliott · 7 March 2018]

Robowar (1988)

* (out of 4)

Maj. Murphy Black (Reb Brown) leads a group of men into the jungles where they can't possibly imagine what is about to attack them. Inside the jungle is an alien creature who will slowly stalk and kill them.

Plagorism is one of the most serious crimes that a writer can commit and often times it will end their career or at least put a black cloud over it. For some reason filmmaker Bruno Mattei ripped off countless movies in his career. Often times he would not only rip-off plots but also entire sequences, lines of dialogue and much more. With that said, for some reason Mattei is still a "legend" in his own way as bad movie lovers flock to his films.

ROBOWAR is a rip-off of PREDATOR but it also rips on ROBOCOP. The alien here stalks the people in the jungle just like PREDATOR but his outfit is pure metal like ROBOCOP. I can understand how some people would watch movies like this and have a good time with their badness but sadly this film isn't in that "so bad it's good" range. Instead, ROBOWAR is just a really low-budget movie and a really bad one at that.

The performances, direction, editing, story and pretty much everything else are downright awful but that's to be expected. What's so bad about this movie is that it really doesn't reach a sleazy level as the violence is rather tame and there's not much blood or gore. In fact, just take a look at a sequence where a group of men are shot up with some large guns. The men are hit with countless bullets but not a drop of blood spills.

The action scenes are all rather stupid but the ending is nice in terms of explosions. As far as the alien goes, it looks incredibly silly and it almost looks like a futuristic version of the killer seen in THE NAILGUN MASSACRE. I'm sure some might find a few laughs in how bad the movie it but sadly it's too boring to be enjoyed.

If Robocop and Predator had a cheap Italian baby (from the makers of "Troll 2")

[a_chinn · 2/10 · 17 July 2021]

Pretty terrible Italian mash-up of "Robocop" and "Predator." Reb Brown, best known for "Uncommon Valor," Conan knock-off "Yor: Hunter from the Future" and the hilariously awful 1970s made-for-TV Captain America movies plays Maj. Murphy Black, the Arnold "Predator" analogue, leading a commando group on a jungle mission, only to find themselves being hunted by a deadly cyborg. Checking the film's credits, "Robowar" was directed by Bruno Mattei, who specialized in cheapie Italian exploitation flicks, ranging from women in prison to nunsploitation to zombie to mondo documentary to cannibal to Nazisploitation films. However, Mattei has made a few enjoyable films, but the biggest tipoff this film is going to be a terrible movie is that the writers are the same folks who wrote and directed "Troll 2," which if you're not familiar is widely considered the worst film of all time (yes, even worse than "Plan 9 From Outer Space"). Unfortunately for "Robowar" it's not really a so-bad-it's-good kind of film as is "Troll 2" so you can't even be ironically entertained by it. You're best off skipping this one, though if you really need an Italian cyborg movie, watch Sergio Martino's "Hands of Steel" instead.

completely devoid of imagination, but with lots of explosions and 80's music!

[Aylmer · 6/10 · 18 June 2008]

Bruno Mattei must be the only person in on his own joke. I simply cannot understand how he made such a career out of such blatant ham-fisted ripoffs of famous Hollywood movies. Sure, Italy and The Philippines are known for cashing in on the latest trends - like with all the post-nuke flicks to flood out of both countries immediately after MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR. But no one until Mattei had the gall to just brazenly ape a popular movie scene-by-scene, shot-by-shot, line-by-line.

ROBOWAR is an obvious remake of PREDATOR, only changed slightly to accommodate the total lack of budget. Here it's a government-engineered cyborg out destroying massive amounts of stock footage from DOUBLE TARGET and STRIKE COMMANDO. Thankfully, the bulk of the actual film is largely stock-footage-free though you'll recognize a lot of the locations from other Mattei/Fragasso Filipino films like the old hut from AFTER DEATH.

The great cast (including Romano Puppo, Massimo Vanni, Jim Gaines, Max Laurel, etc.) actually turn in surprisingly good acting. Even star Reb Brown performs much better here than in his other Italo-Filipino outings. Not Olivier-quality of course, but COMPARATIVELY good. It's amazing too considering Mattei stages them either theatrically (everyone crammed into a master-shot) or shoots them shot-for-shot like scenes in PREDATOR. Good, yet idiotically staged action scenes come fast and furious but are interspersed with more than enough filler shots of Reb Brown and Co. wandering through the jungle.

The only real kudos go for the pyrotechnic crew for plenty of lovable slow motion explosions, as well as Al Festa and his wonderfully cheesetastic 80's synthesizer spectacular score. While nothing as heinously 80's as AFTER DEATH and COP GAME, it's in a pretty similar league.

People who like this film and get a kick out of line-by-line ripoffs should also seek out Mattei's not-quite-as-fun-but-still-hilarious SHOCKING DARK, which did the same thing with ALIENS and TERMINATOR.

Robowar is shameless...ly entertaining fun!

[tarbosh22000 · 10/10 · 23 January 2012]

Major Murphy Black (Reb) and his team are sent into the jungles of the Philippines to track down and destroy a rogue robot.

Much has been made that this is just an Italian knockoff of Predator (1987) and Robocop (1987) (but especially Predator)...that's all well and good, but, that aside, is this movie worth seeing? The answer is definitely yes! For a movie with almost no plot, it's surprisingly fast-paced, and rather than have a lot of dialogue, it's mainly yelling and shooting machine guns. However, there are some gems, such as "You walk like a ruptured duck!". Maybe something was lost in translation, but we're sure glad it was. There are other silly one-liners, but this was our favorite.

Fan-favorite Reb Brown is out in force here - looking especially ripped in his child-size half-shirt, he gets to command his team with his trademark screams. But let's not forget about the cool nicknames of the people he's stranded in the jungle with - "Blood", "The Hunter" and "Papa Doc". Naturally, they were picked for this mission because they're "The Best". As for the robot, we get some pixelated "robo-vision", and it seems like a guy in a motorcycle outfit. But he also has a confused, scrambled, "robo-voice" as well, which seems heavily influenced by Buck Rogers' Twiki and his famous "bidi bidi bidi". It doesn't exactly inspire terror, but hey, who's to say how we'd feel if we were in that situation? As if this wasn't awesome enough, the robot can shoot lasers. Of course, they're of the "pew pew" variety! That alone raises the coolness quotient of this movie. And because this never received a VHS release in America (maybe they didn't want to roll the dice with rights issues?), we were sadly deprived of this minor gem in the 80's and 90's. Honestly, it's still pretty hard to find, presumably having been released largely in Japan and Italy, and we thank Sutekh over at Explosive Action for hooking us up with a copy.

If you ever wished Predator was an Italian-made Exploding Hut movie shot in the Philippines, and had a robot instead of a "Predator", this is surely the movie for you. Featuring a great synth score by Al Festa and released in the golden year of 1989, Robowar is shameless...ly entertaining fun.

For more action insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT

[kirbylee70-599-526179 · 7/10 · 15 July 2019]

Once again saving a somewhat obscure title from oblivion Severin steps up with the release of ROBOWAR. Directed by famed Italian director Bruno Mattei (under his pseudonym Vincent Dawn) in 1988, this film takes several sci-fi hits, tosses those ideas into a blender and comes out as something different if nothing else. The film was written by husband and wife team of Claudio Fragasso and Rosella Drudi who worked with Mattei on other films.

The film opens with a series of explosions and soldiers being shot up while a team in a helicopter says they've lost touch with someone before being shot from the sky. A top secret military official and scientist need a special team to go into the field. The officer picks a team led by Maj. Murphy Black (Reb Brown). Mascher (Mel Davidson) is going in with them.

While the team has no idea what their mission is in detail they know they're going into a dangerous location. While it looks like Africa the names of towns sound Spanish so who knows where. Mascher tells them to keep alert and when they find what they're after he'll let them know. But let's not beat around the bush here. What they are searching for is a cybernetic killing machine, a fusion of robot and man built to become the ultimate weapon armed with searing heat rays, explosives and more.

As the team travels through the jungle they come across the bodies of soldiers who've come up against their prey. Their bodies are melted heaps of flesh, gooey gore clinging to skeletons. Wondering what they've gotten themselves into the continue going through the jungle as cybernetic eyes watch them while we hear the electronic vocalizing of the creation.

As the make their way to a nearby road they watch as two jeeps filled with local military personnel or perhaps mercenaries are chasing down two men and a woman. The men are shot and they catch up with the woman (Catherine Hickland). Mascher tells the team this is none of their business but Black and his men rescue the woman. The woman is named Virgin (seriously!) and she tells them she's part of a relief effort that was attacked. Of course they decide to help her there. That leads to bloodshed with the army based there and then an attack from their prey.

Eventually as the team members begin to be attacked once the local military is decimated Mascher must tell them what's taking place. In addition to that he has a weapon that can take out the killing machine but he has to be within range to use it. If he chooses to do so. His biggest concerns are trying to fix the machine man in the field so he can get him back for tweaking. But maybe this robo-warrior has other plans.

While watching the film I could tell exactly which films were being combined here. The muscular no sleeve mercenary look of the team reminded me of PREDATOR as did the views through the robo-warrior's eyes. The robo-warrior was a definite rip-off of ROBOCOP. And the corporate guy trying to save the project was pure ALIEN. So when watching the extras and hearing Drudi admit that these were the three films they had in mind to combine for this one I was vindicated.

The movies is a typical Italian production with halfway decent production values made on a shoe string budget that shows. From the looks of things the biggest part of that was spent on blanks for the guns in use. How a team like this was supposed to carry that many bullets was a mystery that was never explained.

The acting...well...yeah it was pretty bad for the most part. Davidson comes off fairly well here and Hickland. But as much as I think Reb Brown must be a nice guy he's a terrible actor. Honestly I've seen one good performance from him (UNCOMMON VALOR) but this is the guy that killed off the potential super hero films back in the late 70s when he played Captain America. The rest of the cast doesn't add much to the film either.

So here's the thing about this movie. There are fans out there rabid for any and all things Italian as well as movies that were the filler for shelves in mom and pop video stores. These kind of movies promised nothing and anything you got from them became a fun filled evening. People who were kids back in those days now want to reclaim those movies and companies like Severin are giving them that opportunity.

I've sung the praises of Severin more than once and I will continue to do so as long as they do the commendable job that they're doing now. Because not only are they releasing this film in a newly scanned 4k version from the original negative there are plenty of extras here as well. Those include "Robo Predator" an interview with co-director/co-writer Fragasso, "Italian Rip Off" an interview with co-writer Drudi, "Violence She Wrote" a career interview with Drudi, "Robo-Lady" an interview with Catherine Hickland, "Papa Doc's War" and interview with actor John P. Dulaney, "The Robowarrior" an interview with actor Jim Gaines Jr., "War in the Philippines" an interview with stuntman/actor Massimo Vanni, "Catherine Hickland's Behind the Scenes Home Movies", the trailer and an extra disc featuring the soundtrack for the film.

The film may not be for everyone but the fans will flock to this release as they well should. And if you have a chance to watch the film then by all means give it a look. You'll have some fun and it might bring back some nice memories of walking the aisles at the local video store.

Robowar (1988)

[jonahstewartvaughan · 7/10 · 23 April 2023]

Eighties Horror Retrospective #19

Robowar (1988)

(7/10): Another Fragasso and Mattei collaboration, I also forgot to acknowledge that Rosella Drudi worked with Fragasso as writer on a pretty consistent basis as they were in a relationship.

Robowar is one part Robocop, one part Rambo, one part Predator and the rest is just pure insanity.

It's about a squadron of soldiers who are sent to a remote island with an advisor who is there as he knows about what they're up against, however he refuses to give up the information once there.

They're then hunted by what appears to be a bogey with a high powered gun and biker helmet on, who they later discover is actually a past soldier who had been taken from the battlefield after he had died and turned into a weapon.

So we have an unidentified killer hunting soldiers in the jungle, there's our predator influence;a man who had died in action and resurrected as half machine, there's robocop; and finally we get all of the war based action from on, former, man who is massacring many professionals, there's our rambo.

I have to say that this one is just insanely fun and brainless.

I however actually think that the score here was done pretty well, effects were of varying quality, the robot killer is a dude with a vest on and a biker helmet but the gore effects are pretty solid.

We get many breaks from the horror for action oriented scenes which is a nice change of pace and fits the tone of the film well.

I think it is worth a watch, even if you're not a fan of horror movies it plays out more like action/war with a bit of sci-fi thrown in than horror, it's a mish-mash of genres really and it isn't even necessarily good, it just entertaining.

Original and visionary

[Bezenby · 8/10 · 18 August 2014]

Not wishing to go down the road of the late eighties Italian haunted house films of Lamberto Bava, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci, Marcello Avallone and Fabrizio Laurenti, Bruno Mattei instead relocates the slasher film to the jungle, and instead of screaming teens pits a bunch of muscle bound soldiers against an unstoppable killing machine. Believe me, you haven't seen anything like this before.

Reb Brown (Strike Commando) stars as Reb Brown (Strike Commando), leader of the Big A*s Muthf*ckas, a squad of soldiers hired to go into the jungles of Venezuela to stop guerrilla activity. What a line up! You've got Romano Puppo (Street Law, Bronx Warriors 2), Jim Gaines (After Death), and a buffed up Massimo Vanni (Street Law, Bronx Warriors 2 and After Death). Some other guys too, including an ethnic guide in touch with nature (Where does Bruno get these ideas?), a doctor and a mysterious gentleman along for the ride that Reb is suspicious of, but judging by the skin tight, half-t-shirt Reb's wearing when he gets off that boat, I'm guessing Reb doesn't think about things too deeply so he lets him come along anyway.

Things get strange for our macho mo-fos the moment they discover a pile of human bodies torn to bits. What we the audience know but Reb and co don't is that there is an experimental soldier/robot on the loose, killing everything in sight, and that guy who's joined them is its creator. I know, it sounds a bit like Robocop, but Bruno has the insight to inject a bit of originality to the film, including Reb going head to head with a bunch of guerrillas and picking himself up a chick sidekick into the proceedings.

The lads start to get the idea that they're being stalked, which leads to several scenes of Massimo et al firing wildly into the foliage, no doubt a satiric remark on Mattei's part regarding the futility of US military might versus guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. Also, Reb (and Jim Gaines!) scream like girls every time they fire their machine guns, a reference to Strike Commando. Reb also gets in a couple of quips, saying 'Don't move' to a guy he's impaled with a machete, complete with a wink to all the ladies out in the audience. Hollywood take note: this is how you do an action horror film.

Okay, okay, I'll level with you. This film bears a lot of similarity to another film you may have seen, set in the jungle and involving marines facing something they've never encountered before, being picked off one by one in various gory ways. And that film of course is After Death. Not only does the hospital from that film turn up here in an unforgettable home made napalm set piece, but the very soundtrack from that film turns up at various times. As an even more glaring example of the intricities of Bruno Mattei's conceptual continuity, the director of that film here plays the killer robot. Vast legions of fans devote themselves to finding all these 'clues' in Mattei's film.

So, although Massino, Romano etc put up a good fight, you know the film is going to boil down the Reb being the Final Girl. There's a few twists at the end I won't reveal here, and I'm sure Mattei's making some comment about the faceless terrorist threat the West faces every day by having the Venezuelan extras played by Filipino actors, but that's just the multi-layered complexities of a Bruno Mattei film (hell, I'm still finding things in Zombie Creeping Flesh after all these years).

This film is crying out for an American remake, probably starring someone weedy and terrible, like Adrian Brody. I can't think of single person who could replace Reb in such a role. Also, check out the mixed up credits for Jim Gaines and Massimo (Alex McBride) Vanni – another little in-joke for us uber-fans.

Laughably bad but entertaining

[karlosdaynjer · 7/10 · 22 November 2022]

As noted previously, this is essentially an Italian very low-rent mashup of Predator and Robocop. This allegedly elite military team is sent into the jungle for a mission that is not clear to even them. These super soldiers waste hundreds (thousands?) of rounds shooting at things they can't even see, easily using more ammunition that they could have possibly brought. They loudly broadcast their position everywhere they go, make ridiculous mistakes, and as a consequence, everyone you think will die does. I don't think that's a spoiler. As if edited with a chainsaw, dead people show up after they've been killed - not unlike Space Mutiny, another Reb Brown film. Oh, and in the post-credits, Reb's character is called "Marphy", as opposed to "Murphy" as he is in opening credits.

My rating is for how much I enjoyed the film, not its actual quality rating, which I give a generous 2.5/10.

Deliciously cheesy Italian "Predator" rip-off

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 18 September 2019]

A squad of mighty macho meathead commandos led by the rough'n'tumble Major Murphy Black (Reb Brown in peak ripped and rugged form) run afoul of a lethal high-tech android warrior while out in the jungle doing a covert mission.

Boy, does this hilariously horrendous honey possess all the right wrong stuff to rate highly as a real four-star stinkeroonie: We've got ham-fisted (mis)direction by notorious schlockmeister Bruno Mattei, hysterically lousy dialogue, chintzy (not so) special effects, tacky gore, ineptly staged action set pieces, lots of stuff blowing up real good, and, best of all, a pathetically laughable and unimpressive robo-baddie that looks like a guy in a motorcycle helmet and black leather jumpsuit who keeps saying stuff like "precede" and "hot target" in an extremely annoying tinny metallic voice. Rossella Drudi's shamelessly derivative script blatantly copies "Predator" right down to having similar characters, situations, and even a few groan-inducingly dumb one-liners, plus adds a dash of "Robocop" for extra cruddy measure. Al Festa's pumpin' synthesizer score hits the rousing rockin' spot. An absolute crappy hoot and a half.

"Technology Hasn't Got Feelings!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 3 June 2021]

After the explosive opening credits -Literally, stuff is blowing up all over the place!-, ROBOWAR begins.

It seems that a cyborg has gone rogue, and a team of ultra-abrasive, tub-of-testosterone commandoes are dispatched to hunt it down and neutralize it. Into the jungle they go, so that everyone can wear RAMBO gear and sweat a lot. A definite PREDATOR vibe is prevalent, and it's obvious that most of our musclebound heroes will become prey.

Some scenes are direct PREDATOR lifts, adding to this movie's parody of that movie's characters.

Intergalactic omni-star, Reb Brown plays Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator, Major Murphy Black. Brown, along with his fellow performers, make Arnold look like the greatest actor who ever lived! However, this movie's crowning achievement is their quarry, called Omega One, that looks fairly solid. Alas, it speaks, emitting a squeaky, buzzy "voice", best described as C3PO shoved up R2D2's cannister!

Irredeemably absurd, at least there's something going boom every few minutes to distract our lilting attention. Plus, something hilarious happens every few seconds!

The idiot robot is a wonderment all on its own!

DO NOT MISS: The explosion / flying trousers scene toward the end! It's a riot!...