While writing about “Silent Rage,” I pointed out how horror and action movies appeal to similar audiences, leading to inevitable crossovers between the two. The slasher movie had such a grip on the eighties that depictions of serial murderers that didn't invoke “Halloween” and its ilk at least a little bit became hard to find. Similarly, Reagan-era audiences were so used to movie cops being shoot-first, ask-questions-later lone wolves that cause lots of unnecessary collateral damage that otherwise grounded depictions of the police still frequently used some of these tropes. Since cops ostensibly investigate killers, this meant action movies with horror villains became
an identifiable phenomenon later in the decade. I guess it's possible they were all simply ripping off “
Dirty Harry” but I always think of Stallone's “Cobra,” as stock-parts an eighties action movie as you can find that
inexplicably becomes a slasher flick at random intervals, as what popularized the idea. Pretty much every big action star has done one movie such as this but Chuck Norris actually did two. After going toe-to-toe with a silent but raging killer in 1982, Chuck would play the hero against some terror in 1988's “
Hero and the Terror.”
Officer Danny O'Brien pursued Simon Moon – a lumbering, brutish serial killer who murders women with his bare hands – to his pier side lair. In the ensuing struggle, O'Brien is nearly killed but Moon falls from a ladder, leading to his capture. O'Brien, dubbed “Hero” by the press, gets the credit for catching the killer the media was calling The Terror. Three years later, O'Brien is still haunted by nightmares of the murderer while trying to start his life over, by convincing his pregnant girlfriend, Kay, to marry him. That's when Moon escapes from his prison cell, steals a van, and seemingly drives it off a cliff side. The Terror is presumed dead but O'Brien is not so sure. When new victims, barring Moon's trademark style of killing, begin to crop up around a recently restored old movie theater, O'Brien is more certain than ever that the Terror is back at it again. Will he be able to find the killer's new hiding spot, stop the madman, convince his boss he's right, and win his baby mama's hand in marriage?
After making Braddock a dad in “Missing in Action III” and trying out comedy in “Firewalker,” it was clear that Chuck Norris was trying to prove he could be more than just a kicking machine. “Hero and the Terror” represents the star's most concentrated effort yet to show off his (acting, not karate) chops. He's having sweaty, bare-chested nightmares about his encounter with the killer. He's feeling guilt over getting credit for a victory that he knows he doesn't deserve and desperately wants to prove himself again. Mostly, Chuck spends a large chunk of “Hero and the Terror” flirting and bantering with Brynn Thayer as Kay. They get romantic in her apartment, he tells her she's beautiful, takes out for dinner as she gets pregnant-lady-emotional, and even faints from nerves as she goes into labor. I've commented all throughout this retrospective that I actually like Norris as a romantic lead. He is charming enough here, having decent chemistry with Thayer and hitting most of his dramatic beats semi-convincingly. At the same time, expecting audiences to watch ninety minutes of Chuck Norris being domestic, with limited fighting in-between, is perhaps asking a lot.
While it would be untrue to say “Hero and the Terror” doesn't feature Norris doing the things he's best known for, action theatrics are truly only one part of what the film is attempting to do. The scenes focused on the murderous antagonists are right out of a horror flick. Jack O'Halloran, better known as Non in “Superman II,” plays the villain entirely silent save for yells and grunts. He is a tall, stocky beast of a man whose face is kept in the shadows, as if it's going to be revealed that he's deformed or something. His doctor talks like there's a psychological reason driving his compulsion to kill and O'Brien makes mention of how one female victim was left to be found because she wasn't “pure.” However, the script provides no actual insight into the villain's mindset. We can only make presumptions about why he drags the dead bodies of those he kills back to a lair, posing them in the nude but pointedly not sexually assaulting them. When combined with Moon snapping his victims' necks with his bare hands, and the sanity-shaking effect his reign of terror has on the hero, the natural conclusion is simple: Simon Moon is less a man than he is a monster, an otherworldly demon made flesh that cannot be explained or reasoned with.
Director William Tannen got his start in advertising, writing jingles and directing commercials before moving into feature films. This was only his second full feature – he replaced Larry Cohen halfway through production of the Billy Dee Williams vehicle, “
Deadly Illusion” – and he's not done much in the horror genre since. However, he proves adapt at the macabre stuff. Surprising and delighting me, “Hero and the Terror” is actually kind of a “Phantom of the Opera” riff. The antagonist hides out in the walled off section of an old movie palace, sneaking through the duct work to attack people in vulnerable places like the rest room. There's a well done sequence where the madman appears in a largely empty auditorium, silhouetted before the screen. The last act makes good use of the behind-the-scenes interiors of a dusty old theater. The cinematographer on-duty here was Eric van Haren Norman, previously a camera operator on “The Burning” and the second and third “Friday the 13th” films. That perhaps accounts for the atmospheric night shoots and moody mist that float through a few scenes. The slow-mo neck crackings are cheesy but, generally speaking, “Hero and the Terror” operates like an okay monster movie.
This is a good thing, as the action sequences are mostly limited to the beginning and end of the film. The script throws in a sequence of Chuck, undercover as a taco truck employee and amusingly going by “Carlos,” chasing some random thugs around a dock. This feels like the movie capitulating to expectations fans of the film's star might have, as it's the only real sequence of fighting we get before the climax. (Save for a brief though amusing scene where Chuck casually clotheslines a purse snatcher that runs by him.) That finale is good and arguably worth the wait. As in “Silent Rage,” the film gets some mileage out of putting Norris up against an enemy that's bigger and stronger than him. The way O'Brien and Moon slam and kick each other through walls and catwalks, before the fight explodes out onto the roof of the cinema, is well done. All of “Hero and the Terror” is building up to this confrontation and the film is mostly assured in giving us our money's worth after all that waiting. If nothing else, the Terror does get a suitably epic horror villain death.
I guess I didn't look closely at the back of the DVD case when I popped “Hero and the Terror” in. As the opening credits progressed, my smile grew wider as more of the supporting cast was revealed. Steve James is back as Chuck's sidekick, returning from “The Delta Force.” They get a few amusing exchanges in but, sadly, James' own martial arts skills are not utilized. Then Ron O'Neal's name popped up, making his second appearance in this marathon too. He plays the untrustworthy mayor but, aside from a brief argument with Chuck, doesn't get to show off that
Youngblood Priest energy much. Finally, when Billy Drago's name appeared in the credits, I got very hopeful. Cause why put Drago, another character actor with
a great bad guy face, in your psycho killer movie and not have him play the psycho killer? Unfortunately, that is indeed what the film does, Drago having a fairly nothing role as the Terror's psychologist. Another reoccurring face is Jeffrey Kramer, once again playing Norris' partner after doing the same kind of role in “Code of Silence.” Good to know the Chuckster was loyal to his boys.
“Hero and the Terror” ends with a very cheesy love ballad over the end credits, furthering the impression that the film is very seriously trying to sell Chuck Norris as a romantic lead. Another mildly interesting thing about the film is that it's based on
a novel by Michael Blodgett, who had some success as an actor – with memorable roles in “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” and “The Velvet Vampire” – before making the leap to writing. I wonder if the book is more or less insightful into its murderer's motivations? “Hero and the Terror” probably would've been better if it focused solely on the horror elements at play. As an action flick, it is frustratingly short on the kicking and punching. However, it is a nice display for how far Chuck has come as an actor from his earlier credits, I suppose.
[6/10][THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
No comments:
Post a Comment