As a guy who went to "Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live" and has a Tom Servo tattoo, I was definitely familiar with "Starcrash", so HDTGM had me for at least a couple of weeks. It should have been three when they announced "Friday the 13th: Part 6 - Jason Lives", since Paul Scheer said it was on Amazon Prime. They must have watched it on that before October because Bezos knows you can sell anything horror related in October. At least to everyone but me.
A Voorhees romp is something I presumed my girl would not want to watch, so I was waiting for her to go to bed (12:00 am). I had forgotten to check out iTunes deals for the week, so I did not make it to check out Prime Video until 12:30. The time was not too late since the flick would fit this website's time restraints, so everything seemed to be going well. Six hours of sleep would be enough.
Then I found out the lack of free Jason flicks. Being stubborn, I was going to check out every subscription service to see if it was available for free. It was not, but I need content, and Pluto TV was the last place I landed on. Surely a cult flick would come through to me, and I have yet to watch a "Man versus Monster" tourney flick. I know, ironic because my first completed script is a zombie versus pro-wrestling comedy, "Main Event of the Dead". (If you want a treatment of the story, email me russthebus07@gmail.com).
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Empire Pictures's "Arena" from 1989 would take that experience would leave me the wiser B-Movie maker. As for the film as a narrative, would it be a classic like "Re-Animator" or unbearable like "Trancers"? There is no middle when it comes to a Charles Band production.
As I look at this distributor's Wikipedia page, "Robot Jox" was the last film in their filmography. If their Lovecraft adaptations was not enough to warrant respect, pioneering replacing "ck" with "x", a 90's to early 00' standard, should.
Out in deep space, a space station serves as the center of entertainment for the entire universe. This satellite holds The Arena, the greatest combat sports venue ever devised. Or at least it was that before the gangster/promoter Rogor took over. He holds more power than the leagues commissioner and using his illicit ties can determine nearly every outcome. This has lead to no humanoid being able to climb the ranks for the past 50 years and dashing the dreams of any earthling, like Steve Armstrong.
Armstrong has been barely surviving on the station. He arrived there with asperations on becoming a champion, but he soon realized that the sport is just a business. His goal is now to just scrape up enough cash to get a ticket home. Sadly, his temper does not allow him to be a great short order cook, and as a result, he ends up injuring a fighter, Vang, from the Quinn Camp, the only stable fighting the uphill battle against Rogor.
This ends up being a blessing in disguise for Quinn since she needs a new fighter, and the fans have been yearning to see a non-monster in the ring. With debts to pay, Armstrong really has no choice but to return to the ring, but it is not long before he is ready to embrace his destiny. But will destiny be enough to top Rogor's influence?
"Arena" is definitely a movie that should not be watched in a clean or sober state. That is a good place to start because that means it is watchable, and I may be encouraging you to watch. And the influences that should be applied are not because of a bad story, but because it completely comprised of knock or "Star Wars" masks and poor make up that dare not interfere with actors hairlines.
The acting for the late 80's is passable. If anything hinders the dialogue, it is the ridiculous alien jibberish they use or horrid ADR altering. As for the characters themselves, they are all ridiculous, but the premise of man goes into a hand-to-hand fight with a bug similarly structured to Heimlich the caterpillar allows for this. You know from the box art this is going to be cinema, so you can forgive a lot.
The story follows a very easy to follow narrative, and, contrary to other 1989 flicks of more realistic combat, does not involve rape and murder to push the story forward. It has every other cliché in the book and given the film's premise it does not try to reinvent them. "Arena" could have tried to figure out a way to build this world, but if it was over ninety seven minutes, you would need to start mixing substances to continue having fun watching it.
All the budgetary shortcomings to try and execute a sci-fi action flick is an experiment worth viewing. "Arena" is a rare low budget alien flick that does not try to shock its audience which is quite a refreshing change from most extra terrestrial flicks of the late 80's. It does not take the time to insult your intelligence so it is fun trip that is even more jocular the less seriously you take it.
There are times when fun can triumph fine art. "Arena" is one of those times.
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