And before you ask, finding it on the internet is cheating!
It's a film that sticks in the memory though. Because of Tom Selleck playing a near future cop trying to establish why people's formerly docile domestic housekeeping robots have gone suddenly rogue? No, I'm guessing that at the time Tom was still kicking himself for not being able to take the Indiana Jones gig when it was right under his nose, and was trying to make up for it by appearing in unsuccessful movies like this one, or the X rated Indy movie Lassiter.
Could it be that the villain of the film, dastardly manufacturer of microchips that turns droids into killers is none other than Gene Simmons of Kiss? No, he makes a reasonably effective villain, if a little monotone and his tongue undeployed.
The reason the movie is memorable is, like The Black Hole with its terrifying bowel churning robot Maximillian, that the movie is stolen by a robot. Or rather robots, and unlike the powerful hovering Maximillian with his whirling blades, these robots are small, eight legged and yet just as frightening.
These robot spiders have a seriously unpleasant, double threat. Not only do they inject their victims with acid to cause agonising pain, as is happening to Mr Simmons here;
they then explode.
They have a sinister, vibrating motion, coupled with an ability to jump like mechanical fleas onto walls next to the quivering necks of their victims...
...before plunging their acid dripping needles into the vulnerable flesh.
The film isn't an out and out turkey, it is watchable and although it never made Selleck into a major action star like he must have been hoping, he does a decent job. But to an 11 year old boy, as I was, the performances and the script just don't register.
What makes the impact is the thought of having killer robot spiders inject agonising, burning acid into your neck, a thought sufficient to make you go to sleep with a pillow over your head for a fair few nights!
Words copyright Bloody Mulberry 04/05/2013
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