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The Exterminator 1980 movie poster, John Eastland with flamethrower, 1980s vigilante film artwork, Gritty urban action scene, Pop art style movie poster

Artist’s Blog #163 – The Exterminator (1980)

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Transitioning from the war-torn fields of Vietnam to the gritty streets of New York, we follow John Eastland, a veteran who, after a brutal attack on his friend by a gang known as the Ghetto Ghouls, takes justice into his own hands. This narrative mirrors themes from films like Taxi Driver, focusing less on character development and more on delivering unfiltered, over-the-top action sequences though. The Exterminator is like the last 20 minutes of Taxi Driver sprinkled with some mob movie violence then mixed into a typical 80’s action movie. On the topic of Taxi Driver, I blogged on this movie a while back and it’s one of my favorites. You can read this film reflection here. I’ll take this time to give a shout out to Jason Vukovich, better known as “The Alaskan Avenger.” Jason is a real-world John Eastland of sorts. Follow him on YouTube here.

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Scalps 1983 movie poster featuring Native American warrior, Scalps retro movie art, 1983 B-movie Scalps promotional artwork, Native American vengeance in Scalps, Vintage Scalps cult classic poster

Artist’s Blog #151 – Scalps (1987)

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I don’t work for a cartel, belong to the Hollywood elite, or work for the government so capturing people is not something I do. Of all the prisoners to have to watch, it would be a Native American one in their element. If they escaped, you would likely never find them. They knew the lay of the land better than you and didn’t need a map. Living off the land is what they did so, you couldn’t’ starve them out. Hunting food every day to survive made them masters of stealth and concealment – they literally practiced this to live. Tracking prey would make them great at tracking but also great at counter-tracking. In other words, they would know what a tracker would be looking for and could conceal these things to make finding them even harder. This is what I found to be a true stereotype in Scalps.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan in Conan the Destroyer, Sword-wielding Conan from 80s fantasy film, Iconic Conan the Destroyer movie still, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Barbarian role, Fantasy adventure film Conan the Destroyer

Artist’s Blog #149 – Conan the Destroyer (1984)

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I say this often and often I’m wrong, but I don’t expect this week’s collection of thoughts on Conan the Destroyer to be lengthy. If you read last week, we discussed Conan the Barbarian which is the first part in this movie series. These movies are each unique, and we’ll look at some of the things that establish each of their differences. There are a lot of similarities too. These similitudes are what I expect will make this week’s blog shorter. Sword and Sorcery tends to be Sword and Sorcery. I mentioned the question last week of which movie is better, Conan the Barbarian or Conan the Destroyer. We’ll jump into this first after now having watched these back-to-back. Grab a horse and princess and let’s some hit ice caves and fight some Godzilla monsters in this week’s discussion on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Destroyer.

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Serpentine Walk & Queen of the Damned

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I don’t expect a lengthy review out of this one and nor should you. Let’s jump back on that Aaliyah ticket. She was the main reason, I think, that anyone watched this movie. Her story is an unfortunate one. Aaliyah was releasing great music that was topping the charts and was so popular that she was easily cast in this role (probably to sell tickets) because her strength was singing. A plane crash took her life at 22 years of age. Apparently, the plane was overloaded and crashed due to this killing her and 8 others. A second popular group of people involved with this movie was a popular band, Korn. Yes, Korn with a “K” and we’ll get to that later.

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Man holding passed out woman with group of freak behind him, the words The Mutations across the bottom; The Mutations original movie poster

The Mutations: Donald Pleasence’s Hidden Sci-fi Brilliance

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As I got into the weeds with The Mutations, I expected that it wouldn’t be quality. I was Donald pleasantly wrong. Don showed up and showed out. His role in this Horror Sci-fi movie was perfect casting. The genre qualification is bullseye too. Read a full recap of the plot here but, to sum up, a mad scientist is turning people into plant/people mutants. Naturally, you see some of this on the screen complete with stereotypical but a little more modern but not enough to make it realistic creature costumes. Honestly, they presented the Jurassic Park premise in The Mutations. Jurassic Park came out 19 years later in 1994. The ending isn’t really a surprise but is left open for a sequel. I have not done research to see if one came about but, the chance was there.

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