Mindwarp

Review

For some reason, the 90s had a whole slew of "virtual reality" sf/action thrillers. From Total Recall to Existenz (it is late and I have may have misspelled the misspelling, I apologize...), they are generally known as classics in the SF field and are, if you factor in The Matrix, probably the biggest contribution to the genre throughout the decade, Michael Crichton movies and "updates" of Alien nonewithstanding. Maybe it was that time right before the Internet became a household time waster and right in the midst of the belief that VR videogames were about to change the lives of human everywhere. Look at the "cyberpunk" of roughly the same time, the concept of a "metaverse" was still in full effect (later getting dropped for more mundane telecom).

I have no clue how I failed to pay attention to Mindwarp before now, but it is one of the earlier members. And, well, that is about the best you can say about it. Almost everything it brings to the table is handled better elsewhere. Do not take this as throwing the movie away. It is a fun little sf/action movie with Bruce "My Middle Name is Bow Down to Me" Campbell as the second biggest role (which strangely gets first billing). It also has some actress who does an ok job but somehow never acted in anything again, at least according to IMDB.com.

With this sort of film, you had best have a bowl of popcorn and you had best be ready to enjoy yourself. How about "the whitest post-apocalypse ever" at the beginning with nothing but white people, white robes, white furniture and white walls? How about Bruce "I'm the One with the Gun" Campbell with a long distance sniper crossbow and a sword strapped to his "I escaped from Ralph Bakshi's vision of the apocalypse" back. His anger at the "In-Worlder" and his insistence on eating possum? There has to bea drinking game here somewhere.

Mind control leeches, a race of mutants that live, literally, in a garbage pile, a man with a mask who is their spiritual leader who wears (at all times) some sort of claw/glove thing (presumably in case Freddy ever attacks), a giant blender that juices folk, some sort of baby thing and loboto-preggo the revenge (complete with Stargate-like head decoration), mutants that might have escaped off the set of an early Peter Jackson movie, quicksand, and corpses on crosses. Oh, and Bruce Campbell reads the bible at one point in time. Bruce "the real almighty" Campbell has a straight up Bible in hand...

Take a shot.

There are better "is this real?" movies and there are better "post-apoc mutant zombie attack gorefest junk pile religion gone awry" movies (wait, are there?) But you have to lighten up sometime and this is a good movie to say "Why the hell not?" to when one of those nights comes around.

Oh, did I mention the gratiutious meat hooking in one scene? Projectile brain leech vomiting? Get out there and rent this thing!