SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Leofwine_draca Lamberto Bava does it again with this Italian action movie that manages to be almost as entertaining as his cult classic, DEMONS! In many ways the film follows the same action-orientated template with hostile rednecks replacing supernatural monsters and the heroes gradually picked off one by one by the bad guys. However, the realism of the film adds to the suspenseful aspect. Beginning fairly low key, we watch as events gradually build out of hand (Bava takes time to develop the situation instead of rushing it and making it unbelievable) until the rip-roaring climax that will please action fans everywhere. Before then, the film is packed with incident and genuinely manages to stay exciting all the while. The plot is not very complex and takes influence from a number of other films. FIRST BLOOD is the obvious choice, but there are also some surprising references to THE EVIL DEAD and even a western homage! This is a film packed with burning vehicles, gunfire and lots of heroic staples. Michael Sopkiw (MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY) is great as the lead and gets to cross waterfalls, abseil down sheer cliffs and take part in some great stunt action. Stuntman Massimo Vanni even shows his face in a cameo as a dying cop and supplies some great death scenes. Sopkiw, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Campbell, breathes life into the character of Jake Sharp, who could easily have been unlikable and stiff. The character is solemn, introspective and rather rude to those around him, but nonetheless you find yourself rooting for Sopkiw as the film progresses.Bava fills a few roles with familiar faces to the exploitation fan. Playing Sopkiw's main adversary is the always imposing George Eastman (ANTHROPOPHAGUS THE BEAST) as hulking, crippled redneck, Tom. Eastman actually has a developed character (the only villain that has) and does well with his performance. The action sequences are well staged and make good use of the wooded locations for the chases. They're also bolstered by a stirring synthesiser score. The movie is pretty grim and kills off loads of "good" characters, plus a lot of animals get shot etc. Yet Bava still manages to retain the entertainment despite this overwhelming nihilism and rewards the viewer with the climatic destruction of about three dozen bad guys, all gun-toting rednecks without an ounce of wit or intelligence about them. When Sopkiw's amusingly kick-ass gun comes into play, the film explodes with gruesome gore effects (sadly excised, as usual, in the UK cut) and more explosions that you can believe possible. My only complaint is with the very end of the film which makes absolutely no thematic sense to this viewer. Otherwise BLASTFIGHTER is a must for fans of cheesy Italian action.

MARIO GAUCI Italian Cinema from the 1970s onwards is littered with examples of rip-offs of big-budget Hollywood productions, from THE GODFATHER (1972) to THE EXORCIST (1973) and from JAWS (1975) to DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978); this one here is, believe it or not, a lamentable attempt at a FIRST BLOOD (1982) clone! To start things off, leading man Michael Sopkiw hardly has the adequate physique to survive some of the harder ordeals he goes through in this film and his character is made even less interesting than Stallone's John Rambo by having him a disgraced police officer with a teenage daughter who eventually tags on for the wild ride with her fiancée' and her father's pal!! What is this - shades of DELIVERANCE (1972), now? Incidentally, the backward kid in that film's celebrated "Duellin' Banjos" sequence also makes a cameo appearance here very early in the film (as does the camera equipment, twice, in a poorly-executed car chase towards the end)! Anyway, predictably, Sopkiw is left all alone before long and he exacts a terrible revenge on his increasing horde of trigger-happy pursuers via his ultra-sophisticated multipurpose rifle which, unfortunately for the viewer, he only decides to use ten minutes before the end credits!! Euro-Cult staple George Eastman plays Sopkiw's old hunting buddy whose younger brother (along with his beer-guzzling cronies) is causing all the mayhem. What this film does have that makes it stand out ever so slightly is its unusual (for its time) pro-ecological stance since the trouble literally starts over the merciless mistreatment and exploitation of deers and the wildlife in general by the greedy, ignorant rednecks.

ericdetrick2002 I am not usually a big fan of action movies. That is, American action movies. Being a fan of Italian horror films, I was attracted to this film because of the director, Lamberto Bava. This was fun movie to watch, and kinda funny to-unintentionally. It was funny to see the Italian take on American rednecks from Georgia- did a pretty good job of it, but very much a caricature of rednecks. I don't want to spoil it, but there is a lot of over the top situations where the viewer will say, "they wouldn't do that!", or "that wouldn't ever happen!". But that is the joy of watching films, to see things that couldn't or wouldn't happen in real life. This is almost a cliché' for a action movie from the 80s. Explosions, big guns, and a sweaty dirty hero. I had to pick up a DVD-R from somebody, I don't believe that this is distributed by any company at the moment- in the US at least.

Michael A. Martinez Lamberto Bava's best film so far plays like a variation of Deliverance and First Blood. For the first half of the movie, it remains in doubt rather Sopkiw is going to strike back at a huge passel of harassing rednecks. The scriptwriters here seemed to know what we wanted and made the movie flow accordingly. You can watch the film, hate a character, say whether he lives or dies, and you'll be pretty much correct. All in all this film packs a whallop, with a good Claudio Simonetti score (same as the score in MASSACRE IN DINOSAR VALLEY). The characters likable enough (except Sopkiw's LOAD daughter) and the climax was suitably exciting and violent. Basically the two hicks in DELIVERANCE here are replaced with 500 hicks, 90% of whom die in violent explosive ways. A good movie, lots of goods, not much to complain about. There were a lot of references to EVIL DEAD, such as the fact that Sopkiw drove the same model car, lived in a similar wooden shack in the woods, and even was made up to look like Bruce Campbell! Find this movie if you can.