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Neon Maniacs - New Dimension - VHS |
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Written by Jay Creepy
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Thursday, 28 May 2015 |
 
BUY NEON MANIACS FROM
AMAZON
  
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AKA:
Dodens arme, Kuoleman armeija, Evil Dead Warriors,
Maniakoi tou diastimatos, La galeria del terror, Maniacs
Die Horrorbande, Gladiadores da Noite.
Directed by: Joseph Mangine
Written by: Mark Carducci
Produced by: Christopher Arnold, Bran Arandjelovich
Cinematography by: Oliver Wood, Joseph Mangine
Editing by: Timothy Snell
Special Effects by: Larry Odien, Wayne Beauchamp,
Allan A Apone, Douglas White
Music by: Murri Barber, Michael Gusick
Cast: Leilani Sarelle, Donna Locke, Clyde Hayes,
Andrew Divoff, Victor Brant.
Year: 1986
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color
Runtime: 1h 30min
Distributor: New Dimension Home Video
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'Twelve good reasons to be afraid of the dark'
so states the cover to this New Dimension/ Guild ex-rental
VHS which apes Medusa home video releases by popping on some
very eye catching sleeve artwork. The back of the cover box
is a vision of Hmmm as six of the twelve Neon Maniacs are posed to appeal to fans of Gwar and the early
Misfits -- apart from Slash who looks like somebody has
shoved teeth into a lump of clay!
'When the world is ruled by violence, and the soul of
mankind fades, the children's paths shall be darkened by the
shadows of the Neon Maniacs'
so quotes the intro.
We open onto the Golden Gate Bridge at night. A lonely
fisherman is walking away. He finds an animal skull artefact
with what looks like playing cards of all twelve maniacs
inserted inside. A slick swinging axe, a scream, his small
part is over! We then have to give thanks to Kendall Schmidt
for the terrible credits music, it is purely like a bad old
school soap opera.
Natalie and her van full of chums are driving around
celebrating her birthday. We soon meet a horror fanatical
kid, Paula, whose room is adorned with masks, a Blade
Runner poster, Kinski as Nosferatu -- all things
cool. The van full of 80's dickheads all pour out into a
park. Drink! Music! Ball Games! Sex! Oh yes, it's that sort
of gang! Sue's crazy, she's not on the pill or anything!
We then see sets of boots approaching, a crossbow and a
noose hanging in view. Finally we see them properly as they
cut off heads, hack into bodies, etcetera with semi
effective rubber masks and decomposition make-up. The Neon Maniacs are all characters of something. For
instance, there's a biker, a Samurai, a caveman, a twisted
head thing... For all the death noises, nobody else hears
until it's too late. Natalie is the last survivor as the Neon Maniacs surround the van, until there's a flash of
lights outside and they're gone. Two cops pop their heads
in. You got a problem here, miss? The creatures and
corpses are gone.
Natalie sits at the station explaining but nobody seems to
believe her. Just a prank, just a lot of jerkoff kids.
Natalie is picked up and goes home. Her folks are away, so
she has a swim watched by the caveman dude from the gang of Neon Maniacs. She falls asleep afterwards and dreams
of blood rain to symbolise trauma, we figure out, since up
until the dream she wasn't too bothered by the slaughter she
witnessed.
Forensics find some bright green slime around the van, but
nothing else. Paula receives a call, told by a friend about
the six missing kids and Natalie's description of the
monsters. Paula almost soaks her panties. Natalie, meanwhile
is finding herself in danger from the relations of her
missing friends.
Paula, a female variation of the Frog Brothers, wearing a
Nostromo cap, has a little gang who busy themselves filming
amateur horror flicks in their community. She keeps trying
to talk to Natalie, but is constantly brushed aside. So
Paula cycles to the park and manages to find some leftover
slime. She's excited again! Thus investigates further, into
some deep dark tunnels, then by the bridge, discovering
globs of slime all over (which looks like used durex) and a
mass of dead birds by huge metal doors. A cop catches her
and tells her off. The actress who plays Paula seems to be a
lot older than the character she's playing, so to have her
wearing young teen tom boy gear and speaking in a childlike
voice is rather... interesting, in a Peter Bark kind of way.
Waiting for night to fall, she heads back, discovering an
empty cop car. She brandishes her video camera in time for
the steel doors to open and the whole gaggle of Neon Maniacs to emerge. Paula notices one hurt by falling
into a puddle. As rain falls, the creatures retreat. Paula
runs off. For some reason, the camera hasn't caught
anything!
Natalie and her new 'friend' Stephen, are alone on
the subway platform. Of course the maniacs arrive to stalk
them around, onto the train, here and there. The couple seem
rather unbothered by the whole danger they're facing.
Perhaps it's because now that Natalie can see the Neon Maniacs in proper light, she is stunned by how truly
pathetic some of the masks are (but they're entertaining
either way). Escaping the subways, they grab a bus. She
cannot understand why they are chasing her. Is this ever
gonna end? Stephen smiles, Yes it'll be alright.
One maniac attacks through a window. The driver doesn't
notice until its arm is severed and left smoking as they
throw it out. Damn kids, says the driver, it
says 'no smoking'. Ahhh, it was meant to be funny, I
see. Ho Ho Ho.
One of the creatures looking like a turd head, comes for
Paula but she isn't stupid, she's ready with a water pistol,
a bucket of water, and a full bath -- one dissolved Neon
Maniac. Finally she convinces Natalie, telling her and
Stephen about the use of water, Plain old water.
There's a battle of the bands at the high school that night.
The plan is to give everybody water pistols for the fancy
dress. Cue some hammy soft 80s rock and long scenes of
dancing. The Neon Maniacs prowl the dark school
corridors taking out the caretaker and random others until
they mingle with the fancy dress costumes. The Soldier one
opens fire and our three heroes fight back, giving the
viewer long scenes of chaos, then it's a game of cat and
mouse in the classrooms until the police arrive.
The cigar chomping police chief laughs at first, but then
decides to send his force, armed with water pistols to the
Golden Gate Bridge, through the steel doors, into the lair
of the Neon Maniacs, hoping for some answers to this
confused hokum.
This film is a wild directionless mess. Its fun at first,
but grows stale around the final chapters. There's an abrupt
eyebrow raising open ending to kind of cheat the viewer too.
That was, erm, different. said my Horror Soulmate
afterwards. Was it a failed franchise attempt? A toy market
idea? Neon Maniacs, like a low level Charles Band
release. I don't think Band would have gone near it anyway
-- no puppets or small people.
The Neon Maniacs don't look very scary; they look and
act like twats basically. With names such as Doc (played by
Andrew Divoff, Wishmaster, Faust), Mohawk,
Soldier, Hangman -- I mean, come on! Some are very
effective, others aren't. There's a gimp (every time he
appeared, my Horror Soulmate yelled: Rape her! for some
reason??!!), a Maniac Cop lookalike, but the majority are
simply lobbed together masks.

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Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 May 2015 )
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