Bruce Cambell and Angus Scrimm, together they're a "Mindwarp"

[Fearless Freep]

Recent viewing this week was Mindwarp starring Bruce Cambell, Angus Scrimm and a bunch of people who did little if nothing else before or since.

The basic story is that  in a post-apoc world, all the survivors spend their existance plugged into a virtual reality machine called Infinisynth. They unplug occasionally to eat, and use the restroom, and then back to the machine.  One woman (Judy) can't come to grips with this, basiaclly thinking their lives are all a lie.  Her mother acts like a drugging, not wanting to do anything but plug into, not wanting to talk to Judy abuot her concerns, and not wanting to dicuss Judy's father, who is just sorta..not there any more. Everything haoppens in a small room with two VR chairs and no windows and only basic ammenities

Judy discovers a way to break through to someone else's virtual reality and innterupts her mom's dreaming, trying to get her attention and wake her up.  For this, she is dragged before the Infinisynth  System Operator (sysop), because what she did should not be possible and can not be allowed.  Judy says she just wants reality, something 'real'.  The sysop grants her that,; she wakes up, her mom is bleeding next to her, and two cops burss in, put a bag over her, and inject her with something.

She wakes up, buried slightly underground, in a desolate wasteland.  There she is first captured by some really ugly mutant dudes, and quick;y rescued by Bruce Cambell ("Stover").  He realizes she's from "Inworld", as he calls it and in their time together, in a post-apoc desolate world where radiation posioning and solar radiation are constant threats and unground dwelling, cannibal mutants ("Crawlers") are everywhere, he seems to have little sympathy for her wanting to leave her virtual paradise for 'reality' because....reality really sucks for those in it..

Eventually, they are captured by Crawlers and dragged underground to their..lair, I guess.  Lot's of underground tunnels.  The crawlers seem to spend most of their time digging through dirt to recover anything of use from the pre-apoc world.  Well, that and having ritual sacrifices of the disobedient, and drinking the remains.  It's a very bloody, violent, gory sort of cannibal mutant existance.  And overseeing all this is the "Seer" (Angus Scrimm), who it is revealed is also an exiled  Inworlder and shortly later to be revealed to be....Judy's father.  You thought Luke Skywalker and problems with the folks.  The seer created the violent, blood scrifice religion to give the Crawlers some hope and reason to live, but now with Judy around, he wants to use her to repopulate the post-apoc world withi his offspring. Stover meanwhile has been hiding out, digging up treasure, and trying to rescue Judy.  He puts up a valient effort, but is eventually caught and infested with parasitic leeches.


The main running of the movie with tthe crawlers was pretty gory, by my standards.  I'm not a big fan of gore movies so I can't really compare it to it's genre contemporaries, but it was more than I felt comfortable with.  That being said, it moved along fairly well.  

What I had a hard time with myself is accepting the movie for what it is, a post-apoc cannibal mutant  horror movie.   The opening with the Infinisynth VR existance and one person bucking the system and wanting 'reality' set up me up for the expectation of something more cerebral, especially since I'd just recently watched "Logan's Run" with some sorta similar themes.  The dawning comprehension that the "Crawlers" and the heros' time with them was the center of the movie was sorta a let down.  Once I change my expectations, though, and  took it as a horror "escape from the bloody evil overlord and his minions" type of movie, it went much better..

For a bunch of unknowns in some main parts, the actors did well.  Bruce Cambell was, well...Bruce Cambell and Angus Scrimm was evil and menacing..and creepy when you realize what he wanted to do with his daughter.   Considering she's in almost every scene, Marta Alicia (Judy), did a great job considering this is her only screen credit.  

The production was pretty good, with a good look and atmosphere.  The "Inworld"  shots were very clean and barren, as expected.  The post-apoc world above had  a  good desolate look, and the Crawlers world was a muddy, bloody, icky, mess, as appropriate.

I sitll had problems with "how does this happen?  As in, if all the Inworlders live their lives in VR fantasy land...who keeps it running, provides the food, etc..  At one point, Judy says that she is the last generation because no one ever bothers to have children anymore.  I wondered that myself.  Like, The City in "Logan's Run", the post-apoc utopian world is an interesting ideas, but is not really plausible.  The same is, ironically, true of the Crawlers world.  In the holw time above ground, we never see any other humans other than Stover and Judy, so the food supply to to keep a large (well, 50 or so, it seems) underground society running doesn't seem present.  Being cannibalistic has certain advantages in that respect, but as a food supply, that's pretty self defeating.

Still, all and all, not bad for a post-apoc gory virtual reality cannibal mutant escape from the evil overlord movie. Take it as it is an it's done pretty well.


For those who haven't seen it and want to be suprised, don't read on...





OK, the ending of this movie really irritated me.  As you can probably guess from clues dropped in the movie, the ending is the plot twist where it turns out that everything from the point where Judy woke up after talking to the Sysop to the point  where Stover was vommiting leeaches and trying to kill Judy, was just a VR simulation in Infinisynth that the Sysop was putting her through. I don't really have a problem with that, I sort expected it as a way of testing whether Judy really wanted 'reality' or not.

The problem I had was the way it was carried out.  The premise was that this was a test of Judy to see if she was strong enough to take over as Sysop (in case you are wondering, yes the Sysop is Judy's dad, Angus Scrimm)   However, from the moment that Judy gets to "Outworld" , she spends most of her time running and fighting for basic survival and trying to get back to "Inworld".  It didn't take her long to figure out that 'reality' really sucks, that maybe it's not for her, and she really wants to get back  to Inworld and Infinisynth.   I'm not sure what she was being tested for.  While I admire her will to live and and ability to fight back, she gave up her noble philisophy pretty quickly.  I don't really fault her for that  under teh circumatnces as she saw them, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of testing by the Sysop.

Then there's the test itself.  When Judy asked the Sysop if that's the way the world really is, he admits he doesn't know  because he's never seen it.  Which means that everything with the Crawlers, the Seer, etc.. was just the Sysop's nightmare for Judy.  If I were Judy, I'd be ticked because maybe the real reality outside of Infinisynth is a lot better than the Sysop's nightmare.  She never really  got her "reality" she wanted, she just got a horrble fantasy .  In the end it amounts to Judy wanted out of the system, so the system gave her a horrible nightmare to scare her back in line, which worked and now she's even helping to perpetuate it by becoming the new sysop.  The problems Judy mentioned, like no more children,  are never really addressed.

In the end, it was suppoed to be a happy ending, but the more I think about it, the more unsatisfying it is.

[wheresthecarrot]

O.k., so kinda a Matrix meets Brazil meets....well, a bunch of scary stuff?  Hmmmmm.....It sounds pretty interesting.

[Luke B (aka Luke Bannon)]

I found this movie a bit confusing too. Uh, I think I know Angus Scrimm, but I'm not sure, was he Magneto in the X-Men movie? (Don't yell or flame me if I'm wrong.) . Over all I enjoyed this movie. But still, Bruce Campbell, playing the last man on earth? Sound familiar?

[nshumate]

Scrimm is best known as "The Tall Man" from the Phantasm series (but somehow, the idea of him playing Magneto totally rocks).

For me, Mindwarp is one of those movies that slips through my defenses and hooks itself in my brain.  I know that it makes very little sense... but I think I rented it four times in a row once.

[Fearless Freep]

I agree, if you soart don't pay attention the basic illogical premises, the movie actually is pretty well done

[Luke B (aka Luke Bannon)]

And Campbell again gives a good performance. Though the whole putting people through that machine and drinking their remains was gross.

[Fearless Freep]

And Campbell again gives a good performance.

That's why I said "Bruce Cambell is...Bruce Cambell" turns in a fine performance.  Never seems to phone it on no matter what the material

Though the whole putting people through that machine and drinking their remains was gross.

Yup!  Though I had a hard time buying that a machine that could puree a human could be stopped by a baseball bat

[Musukogoji]

You may be interested to know that Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm may be going head-to-head again if Don Coscarelli can scounge up 2 million more dollars and make "Phantasm's End".