The Campbell Chronicles: #9: Mindwarp

This is it: the very movie where Bruce settled into his b-movie machismo milieu.  Moreso than Maniac Cop and Moontrap, Mindwarp sets in stone an image that Army of Darkness would go on to solidify a year later.

So what makes Mindwarp special?

To begin, it's one of the few movies in existence that was produced by Fangoria Magazine.  The horror mag had its own production unit briefly in the early 90's, and Mindwarp is its best known and biggest entry.

Plot details and thoughts exist under the jump:

The movie revolves around Judy, an "Inroader" living in a futuristic world colonized by people who escaped a polluted Earth.  Inroaders spend the majority of their time unconscious, plugged into a computer fantasy world called the Infinisynth, sort of a cross between virtual reality, roleplaying and the internet.  They wake up to go to the bathroom and eat a violet colored goo that's dispensed into Dixie Cups, and that's about it.  Judy finds this life extremely dismaying and dissatisfactory, as it means that she's never experienced anything real in her life.  A moment of rebellion leads to her accidentally murdering her mother while in the Infinisynth system, branding her a traitor and causing her to be dumped into the deserted wasteland that is Earth.

There, Judy meets Stover, the world's last living uninfected man.  He lives off of opossum, kills things with a flaming crossbow, and lives underground to avoid the menace known as the Crawlers.  It turns out that they and Stover were once of Earth's lower class, left to deal with the "shit" that the upper-class Inroaders left behind.  The Crawlers have become mutated by the chemical waste surrounding them; Stover has avoided mutation by avoiding them.  But with Judy beside him, his Adam and Evil Idyl will soon come to a violent end.    

A lot of Mindwarp works, and works well; the horror is convincingly horrific, and the performances, especially the one given by Angus Scrimm, are memorable.  Bruce goes far over the top with this role, ramping up the camp bit by bit by bit, until he's running across the desert with his eyes bugged out; it's a choice that works quite well for the material.

But that plot.  Ugh, the plot and the twists it chooses to take - only to dump us upon the compost heap of an ending that nullifies the audience's emotional involvement.  If you invest heavily in your horror characters, this movie isn't for you.  But if you like 90's style gore and post apocalyptic Bruce is your Bruce of choice, then Mindwarp might just chill your spine.