FILMS… Cyclone (1987)

#1980S #AllPosts

 

Rick’s (not so) supersecretly styled motorbike is like the wind…

 

Teri’s boyfriend Rick is murdered, little did she realise he was working for military intelligence as he leaves her, a mission should she choose to accept it.

 

Cyclone Trailer 1987 (Entertainment in video EV), 2ombieboy’s VHS Vault

 

This year it was hard to whittle down to just the one film in the so bad it’s good category for a review of this ilk. Since my last post for this yearly tribute where I reviewed Loch Ness (1996) – as this genre is now kind of my niche – Darlin Husband has discovered – and rediscovered – a multitude of sins of his favourite movie kind. He’s also insisted I review them all with some reviewed since then. And these always fabulous movie ideas coming every day, hour…

The following gems are just some of those added to this review list… The Wraith (1986), Fright Night (2011) – aka the Colin Farrell version -, Invitation to Hell (1983), It Happened at Lakewood Manor (1977), Post Mortem (1998), anything with Ray Milland at his most cantankerous and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (1979). The last of these movies, he recalled is not just about cheerleaders. But one I have to write about as some characters attend the same Dallas disco as Bobby and Pam did in the first series of Dallas. And they indeed did do just that, but I digress.

This R-rated feature film, Cyclone (1987) also made the never ending to do list. With a crazy script including the line… “You are as plastic as your tits”, who could refuse. It stars Heather Thomas – aka the blonde stuntwoman and babe for many – from The Fall Guy (1981-86) – a pretty blonde, who dads everywhere raved about. This actress is not to be confused with Heather Locklear from TJ Hooker (1982-86) / Dynasty (1981-89). Heather Thomas stars alongside Jeffrey Combs, Martine Beswick, Troy Donahue and Martin Landau.

The film’s opening credits are seen with someone zooming about on their motorbike in varying terrains and weather types. This takes up about 3 minutes of the 1 hour and 29 minute running time, and it’s I assume just to reinforce its impressiveness with supersonic sound effects heard in the soundtrack. It would be more amazing if they hadn’t added the rider POV scenes where you feel like you are riding the motorbike and then you hit a brick wall just to read the film title. So I’m personally more impressed by the cast that I mentioned earlier.

This film then begins with this cool rider revealing himself as Michael Carrington Maxwell Caulfield Rick Davenport (Jeffrey Combs). Rick stops his motorbike just to tell a wee boy – who was probably the director’s kid or the kid who wrote this film – that the motorbike must go “back to the workshop” before he zooms off again.

We meet two young nubile women at the gym, where they are strengthening their pectoral muscles. (To put it much more appropriately.) These best friend blondes are – not Heather Thomas but Ashley Ferrare – Carla and the Heather Thomas as Teri Marshall. Teri forgoes a shower as she has to pick up some oil and motorbike parts for her boyfriend’s “little project”.

Teri excitedly tells Carla that Rick has finished his one-man man-project, so they are going clubbing at the Lava Club that night to celebrate. Carla turns down an offer to cockblock join the pair… After Teri gets some sexually implied jeers from some men on leaving the club with Carla, Teri gets on a motorbike to carry out Rick’s bidding (and it won’t be the last time) while Carla deals with these men.

Rick – the dude on the motorbike we met earlier – is donning his science gloves, as he sprays some paint on his prized motorbike and his wee face is full of happiness as he checks out various measurements. This man and machine scene cuts to Teri buying oil. As she speaks to the old man shop owner, his roving eyes indicate that Heather’s attributes come in a pair. She also buys her boyfriend some gizmo for his motorbike which looks like an iron bar. She wallops and hits a few guys with this weapon who leer at her after she leaves the shop, proving she’s super feisty.

Meanwhile (in a bid to look more geeky), Rick is now wearing safety goggles and is welding something. After Teri joins him, she’s feeling amorous while Rick mansplains more about his motorbike that he’s now named Cyclone – how manly is that??. The motorbike is now raring to go and he claims this motorbike’s paint was used on “stealth bombers to beat radar but I jazzed it up” and it also has some impressive “Turbo modifications… blah blah blah”. Teri just accepts all of this jargon, as you do when you are young and in love.

Rick then snogs Teri, as she talks geeky stuff – at his request – and he is obviously turned on. She leaves to doll herself up for the disco. Rick gazes at his own creation, and we learn that his armoured motorcycle comes with both rocket launchers and laser guns. These weapons are activated by looking at an inbuilt computer screen 80s style and then pressing a button on the helmet.

Teri is now ready to boogie wearing something like two-piece gym wear – but smaller – and the pair go clubbing. As they dance away, some random albino guy (Dar Robinson) is watching them and this man’s punk ladyfriend stabs Rick in the neck with an ice pick. Teri is super upset, as Rick falls down dead…

Next, we see the crime scene being cleaned with a mop by the disco’s cleaner (and not a cleaner of the Jean Reno kind.. see explanation HERE). This cleaner diligently cleans around and not within the tape-created outline of what would have been Rick’s dead body. Inside this outline, is a large splodge of “blood”. Detective Cutter (Bruce Fairbairn) quizzes the shocked, Teri who is as confused as we are as to why Rick was murdered.

Then a couple of very British Agents working for the US Military, Waters and Knowles (Martine Beswick and Robert Quarry respectively) appear on the scene. Waters offers to take over the questioning from Cutter, and he steps reluctantly aside. Teri discovers through these two agents that Rick was working for the US Military on a secret project, and now they want access to this project. She tells them, she knows nothing about this…

After arriving home, Teri finds the place in disarray – so she tidies it up (so maybe it normally looks like this). She even takes down the photo of her and Rick, pinned to the wall with another ice pick without any questioning or upset. Then after entering Rick’s not so secret lab after pressing a button, she unintentionally activates a video from Rick on his computer. Rick tells her in his video, more about the armour-plated motorbike’s qualities – including lasers, rocket launchers and a transformer (read MacGuffin) which can change hydrogen into fuel which makes “pure, clean power”. I think she would have preferred a sex tape to remember him by… but hey ho.

The motorbike and this “transformer” are worth a whopping 5 million dollars in street value! Rick asks her to deliver the motorbike to Bob Jenkins (Troy Donahue), the only person he can trust in Intelligence… In the meantime, we discover her house is being watched by two men on a stakeout. Also, the evil Bosarian (Martin Landau) is planning on selling Rick’s “transformer” device to the Chinese once he gets his sticky little hands on it. He has dispatched two of his best to obtain it, the albino and the punk girl from the disco.

Then after riding all night and into the morning, Teri meets with Bob Jenkins (Troy Donahue) after outwitting Landau’s accomplices in a motorbike and car chase. Bob is shot dead as those accomplices (read arms dealers) catch up with Teri… So Teri zooms off on the motorbike again to talk to Carla and as Carla is her BFF, she is the only person Teri can trust…

Judging from the plot and the set-up for some of these scenes, this was written by a 15 year old boy. Or a grown man still harbouring a crush on Heather after The Fall Guy. This man also decided on Ms Thomas’ wardrobe, and those mammaries in close up memories of Ashley Ferrare’s opening moments. Despite this obvious for the boys’ fan service, the script is pure hokum in a so bad it’s good way. The film has some impressive stunts, staged explosions and use of firepower. These compensate for those flaws.

Tell me if Rick was working for the government, surely the wee matter of him showing and telling his girlfriend about this motorbike project would have been against his job description. His secret lab – hidden behind a fireplace – could have been easily found by those more than diligent Soviet Intelligence operatives… Elizabeth and Philip from The Americans (2013-18) in less than five minutes had this movie had a Cold War themed cross over with this espionage TV series.

Heather Thomas impressed me as a leading lady and she was feisty, gutsy, vulnerable and loved up as the script demanded. She had lovely credible chemistry with her costars, especially Combs. Combs appeared to be enjoying himself in his scenes talking science stuff which by now was his forte after starring in Re-Animator (1985). To be honest, I did appreciate his mansplaining more about the motorbike modifications in his video for Teri in more simple terms. He did lose me at,

“Turbo modifications we’re talking 60 PSI or better and with this nitrous oxide system this thing is pushing out at 400 horses”.

Martin Landau appeared to have filmed his scenes – bar one – in his personal study. However, his presence, gravitas and ability to keep a straight face in this movie were all appreciated. Martine Beswick is always a treat, especially after her role in Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) as Dr Jekyll’s (Ralph Bates) evil alter ego, Sister Hyde – was sadly underused. I’ve really loved discovering more gems from this two-time Bond girl’s filmography. Her small but pivotal role in Devil Dog: The Hound from Hell (1978), is one I’d recommend for your guilty pleasure watchlist this year.

I read on IMDB HERE that Linda Blair was offered this script at a time when it was called Cycle Warrior. But she turned it down as she wanted to concentrate on making comedies! However after Heather Thomas accepted the role of Teri, the film title was changed to Cyclone.

In 1984, some three years earlier, Blair had also boasted a One Woman with Weapons vs the Bad Guys in a so bad its good movie. This is as she literally kicked some ass and was equipped with a crossbow in Savage Streets (1984). This film was long after she’d also taken to two wheels, albeit on each foot in Roller Boogie (1974). But these actresses’ coincidences don’t end there. Both actresses were Zapped (1982) with Heather Thomas in the original film, and Blair in the sequel and who was Zapped Again (1990), in what one man told me is their seminal work.

 

Weeper Rating:  0 /10

Handsqueeze Rating: 🙂🙂 🙂 🙂  🙂 🙂 🙂🙂 🙂 /10

Hulk Rating: ‎   ‎        ‎/10

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Sixth So Bad It’s Good Blogathon 2024 No 3

This review was added to Taking Up Room‘s Sixth So Bad It’s Good Blogathon.  Other reviews here with this cast include Heather Thomas in The Fall Guy and The Love Boat. Jeffrey Combs in The Man with Two Brains. Dar Robinson in Airport 77. Martine Beswick in The Six Million Dollar Man and Falcon Crest. Robert Quarry in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Martin Landau in his Remembrance Post and Ed Wood. Troy Donahue in Fantasy Island and A Summer Place.

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