Dominion has been adapted into three original video animation series: the first, Dominion Tank Police, was released in 1988, the second, New Dominion Tank Police (特捜戦車隊ドミニオン, Tokusō Sensha Tai Dominion) in 1993, and the third, Tank Police Team TANK S.W.A.T. 01 (警察戦車隊ＴＡＮＫＳ．Ｗ．Ａ．Ｔ．０１, Keisatsu Sensha Tai TANK S.W.A.T. 01) in 2006. The 1988 OVA is four episodes long and animated by Agent 21, the 1993 OVA is six episodes long and animated by J.C.Staff, while TANK S.W.A.T. is one episode long and was animated by DOGA Productions. The manga was published by Hakusensha, Kodansha and later by Seishinsha. It has been published in English by Dark Horse Comics. The anime has been released in English translation in the United Kingdom and Australia by Manga Entertainment and in the United States by Central Park Media, under their U.S. Manga Corps division.

Cyberpunk from the land of the rising sun. Masamune Shirow’s precursor to his magnum opus Ghost in the Shell. Tank Police is retro-futuristic camp, as cheesy as you would imagine a love child of the Kerberos Panzer Cops and the Police Academy films.

First aired in the States on the Sci-fi Channel in it’s first years during Saturday Anime in the 90’s.
Get connected. Enjoy the ride and tune into a channel under a dead sky and get jacked into my nostalgic drip.

Stay off the drugs, stay strapped, stay dangerous, don’t forget your burner, wetware and ballistic hardware and always keep your finger on the REWIND button.

-HaiNe

MadMax’s bastard child. A future where human birth rates are at an all time low and reptilian mutations have evolved into the new age. No, it’s not a David Icke lecture. It’s Roddy Piper starring in HELL COME TO FROGTOWN.

Roddy Piper is Hell, One of the last fertile men alive in the world and destined to help rebuild humanity. Sandahl Bergman is a government scientist assigned to Pipers’ HELL. Lost in the wastelands tethered by a shock collar to his escort (Bergman) and battling evil tribes of amphibious savages. When his companions are kidnapped by the Frogs he must navigate a nightmarish hellscape to free them and give humanity one-more-chance.

One of Roddy Pippers lesser known cult classics. Hell Comes to Frogtown is actually a very very good movie. Loaded with very convincing practical make-up and visual effects; with a story that actually looks like someone was thinking outside the box. Bergman is as beautiful and engaging as she ever was. And Roddy Pipper is just awesome.

Critical reception for Hell Comes to Frogtown has been mixed to positive. TV Guide awarded the film two out of five stars, calling it “Another of those futuristic, post-apocalyptic science fiction dramas”.^[4]

DVD Talk gave the film three out of five stars, writing, “Rowdy Roddy Piper has to save the world by diddling beautiful babes and squashing six-foot mutant toads with crummy attitudes. What’s not to like?”^[5]

Jason Cook from The Spinning Image rated the film a score of six out of ten stars, writing, “Cheap and cheerful its narrative lulls and directorial shortcomings are glossed over by a winning central performance and a smattering of witty dialogue. Its no cinematic masterpiece, but were there any talking mutant frogs in Citizen Kane?”^[6]

Though not received well by critics, producer Randall Frakes says he was glad the fans seemed to like it and “get all the jokes as intended”.

Hell Comes to Frogtown inspired the title of the “Hell Comes to Quahog” (2006) episode of animated television series Family Guy.

I really don’t want to spoil this one. So keep an open mind. Be cool. Be real. and always keep that finger on the REWIND button.

We’re taking another, longer, more loving look at the NES game library this month, and there’s so much to love. Even the cheese. From the top-notch classics to the knockoff nostalgia, everyone’s got a favorite NES game. If this system didn’t form some small part of your childhood entertainment time, then I’m not sure where (or when) you lived and still ended up on NRW. Like, how do you know any of the other shit we talk about here? Welcome to the future, man. Hit Play.

Pizza Pop!

Ark System Works, 1992

There is nothing more empty and bleak than the vacant look of defeat on Dracula’s face right here. And no, Pizza Boy’s got no fucking clue. It’s a tragedy on wheels.

Jaleco couldn’t publish a game to save their asses in the 90s. The company was well-established in the gaming industry – Bases Loaded and City Connection were notable Jaleco titles – but somehow the firm just didn’t gain much traction on the NES. Pizza Pop is a Jaleco game for the NES; I hesitate to offer it too much of its own distinction beyond that, simply because it’s so goddamned boring. Let’s be real: this is fifty other platformers, Jaleco. This is just the amalgam of every stiffly generic and circus-hued hop and jump game that has passed through the NES’s mouth, and you’ve distilled it into this dry litter for me to ruminate over.

It’s not even that it doesn’t play well. It plays okay, actually. It’s just… stale. I get the distinct vapour, ever so fragrant and hopeless, of the dying video rental shop. Drywall. Silence. Dust. Another set of bones bleached in the sun. It’s a decent game on its own merit… just a decent game that should have come out 3-4 years earlier.

The plot says you want to buy an engagement ring for your girlfriend. That’s the whole reason we’re here. That’s why you’re out hassling Dracula, getting murdered on construction sites. Some hipster asshole is also running around in clothes just like yours, making a mess for you and generally making your job a living hell.

See, that’s what I mean. It’s like they both know this has been done ten thousand upon ten thousand times before. This tale has been writ long across stardust and primordial mud. Give it up already.

I feel more than a little fucking weird playing a game where the main character is doing a cartoon version of a job several of my friends have. It just makes me empathize with them even more. The tips are shitty, and it’s even worse in real life because you can’t leap the equivalent of thirty feet in the air. KILL EVERY BAD GUY EVER BY JUMPING ON THEIR FUCKING HEAD. You also get some kind of pizza-baking paddle or something as a weapon, but there’s no point. Just jump on everything like Mario. The graphics are of uniformly low but inoffensive quality. I would feed this game to a dog but I wouldn’t eat it myself. The sound is nothing to write home about, unless you want to write a long fucking essay on questionable music loops. There is a jet-ski part near the end that I have to admit is pretty fun, but that’s like saying you like the part during the root canal where they rinse the blood out of your mouth. Pizza Pop is not memorable, nor is it forgettable. It hangs, low fruit in a busy orchard, quiet among giants. This exercise in smallness gets 4 out of 10 because there is some small merit within it; while it’s a mediocre platform game, at least it isn’t an objectively shitty platform game.

Airwolf

Kyugo/Beam Software, 1988

The PG, on-paper objective of this game is to rescue some dumb hostages or some shit. Something cheery, positive, official. We all know why Airwolf appealed to us as youthful consumers. Nine times out of ten, when you looked at the TV and Airwolf was on, what was Airwolf doing?

That’s right. Airwolf was tearing shit up.

And so we have this, a less-than-terrible NES version of a decent-to-OK arcade title, based off a TV show. You do a fair amount of tearin’ shit up, but there’s a moderate pace on it, and Airwolf would like to pack it in by 9 pm so the kids can go to bed. Airwolf just don’t party no more. It immediately strikes me that this game plays a lot like Capcom’s 1943, if 1943 were a side-scroller. I just immediately get that feel visually, movement-wise, everything. Maybe it’s the intermittent beach scenery and my hankering to shoot down Zeroes over Midway. Maybe it’s just that the game – or at least this part of it – is deceptively competent in its execution.

𝕬𝖚𝖋 𝖂𝖎𝖊𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖍𝖊𝖓

The aim-and-shoot first-person sections of Airwolf are clumsy and drawn-out, like most of the NES’s attempts at this kind of “realism” or “dynamics.” Lots of sprite clip interrupts otherwise acceptable pixel graphics. Outside of the slightly dated and loud sounds of war, the audio experience is sparse. What’s present is phoned-in and basic.

I will give the cut scenes and set pieces a little bit of a shout out. I always like this kind of thing, especially in 8 to 16 bit era games when each matte and landscape was its own little labor of art. Bells and whistles, the little liminal passages between… Less was more, but you had to do it big.

Airwolf receives 6 out of 10. It tried to be novel with lukewarm but not awful results, and I like the side-scrolling parts of it. Some of the random in-between shit really made it for me too, like the guy’s face on the radio screen.

Willow

Capcom, 1989

I don’t do a lot of RPGs in here, and I really should. (In fact, maybe a whole series coming up). I tend to avoid them because of the nature of RPG play: it’s a long, nuanced experience that has as much in common with a novel as it does a film. I don’t often feel that a handful of paragraphs can do that kind of thing justice.

I underestimated the mediocrity of this game. Let me take a well-aimed stab at describing Willow for the NES: it’s a lot like Crystalis, except that a film called Willow was produced by George Lucas in 1988 and that film got wrapped around Crystalis, instead of the slightly more Japanese story in Crystalis.

What passes for a climactic battle in the wizarding fucking world of Warwick Goddamn Davis.

So here we are with this can’t-go-wrong fantasy adventure, this klutz-friendly Saturday Morning version of Zelda with movie branding on it. It is extremely formulaic, mixing action with minor RPG elements like leveling and puzzle/interactions. The game has no money and you just talk to people to get stuff for free. Unfortunately, this leftist utopia is fraught with evil witches, dog mutants, and that old standby, the skeleton-people. Skeleton-people live unlife the way it was meant to be: clacking along windswept footpaths, harassing little wizards. Anyway, the catch to everything being free in this economy-free candy-land is that Bavmorda wants to kill you and has made a bunch of other stuff want to kill you. The movie plot’s subtlety is seen nowhere else in the game. Willow, if nothing else, will inure new RPG-genre players to the mind-numbing chores of reading text and level-grinding; in terms of action gameplay we’re looking at a caveman’s version of Link to the Past, but the graphics are the secret shine on this game.

But I’m not the chief…

The way the screen will change color and the grass will whip menacingly, as the battle theme starts along with the visual cues. As I said above, bells and whistles… but they count for double in the very visual world of RPG-themed games. The music, especially this piece right here (which you will hear plenty of in the game), belongs in some kind of “reverse trauma facility” government program where they use radio waves to teach you how to do drone strikes in your REM sleep. The battle theme is okay, though. I just wish, as I often do about RPG music, that the loops were longer. Oh well.

OC by Yours Truly

While Willow isn’t what I’d call truly lousy, it fails to rise above a solid “meh” in terms of action, and it feels from start to finish like it was some other game that was in development before Willow, and it got turned into Willow. It gets 6 out of 10.

That’s all she wrote… well, that’s all I wrote, anyway. Get Gruesome!

I was very recently pleased to find that one of my favorite films of all time was on youtube.

MOON OVER PARADOR was released on September 8, 1988 and stars Richard Dreyfus (JAWS, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Rookie) and TONY and Golden Globe winning actor Raul Julia.

A subtle political comedy from the late eighties that feels more Broadway production than Hollywood feature about a disenchanted actor that falls head first into a military coup of a South American nation when the dictator in power suddenly dies, our protagonist (Richard Dreyfus) is held hostage to fill in as a stand-in for the fallen Leader; albeit under the short strings of Raul Julia’s influence.

The cast is very small which is why I made the Broadway comparison. Richard Dreyfus gives a very whimsical and very humorous performance as an actor that rediscovers his craft as well his humanity with every step he fills wearing the shoes of the dictator when his new role is subverted into more improvisation than marionette and leader rather than oppressor. The beautiful Sonia Braga plays the role of the mistress to the former president and positive influence on Dreyfus’ character.

Raul Julia as always gives a scene devouring performance as a fascist in charge of the military body controlling the city of Parador. His evil intention and thirst for power is dignified and charismatic as well disarming as he delivers dialogue. His fanboy love of theater and acting serves as a delicious bait for the starved ego of Richard Dreyfus’ character.

The film opens and ends with a casting call at the New York Public Theater as Jack Noah reminisces about his time as a captive in power one memorable summer in Parador.

The film is a subdued delight and worth a viewing. The film score was written by Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia) however an actual soundtrack is almost nonexistent except for a Julio Iglesias single that bookends the film and a wonderful Sammy Davis Jr. performance.

This is one of my all-time favorite films and I’m happy I get to share it with the New Retro Wave community. So keep it tight and out of sight and always keep that finger on the rewind button.

In the world of fiction, sometimes the curtain parts to reveal a true conflict. The petty squabbles and sex-drenched tousles so popular with the masses are forced to make way for a truly apocalyptic clashing of forces. The few must take up arms against the many, and great weapons must be brought to bear. The literary cleverness and lace-doily detective bullshit fall into the flaming mouth of Hell and all that remains is the one crossing of swords that has echoed (and will echo) through eternity: humanity vs. anti-humanity. If you wish to leave moral relativism on the curb next to the garbage where it belongs, let’s call it what it is… good vs. evil.

Hence the significance of the Contra series.

Super Contra picks up the guitar where its prequel left it upon the stage, reaches back toward the amp and turns the bitch up to 11. The story continues like so many in classic gaming do: The big evil bad guy (in this case, the nebulous alien force referred to as Red Falcon) has reclaimed a piece of Earth to stage an invasion. This time, it’s not just some piece of God-forsaken jungle. It’s a whole military base, including the personnel. Of course, Earth’s leaders shit their pants and call up the two hardasses who put a stop to the first fiasco: Bill Rizer and Lance Bean.

Lance Bean. Now there’s a name you’d better wear like a bad motherfucker if you intend to be taken seriously, ever. And he does.

Konami released Super Contra in 1988 for the arcade and the NES (titling it Super C for American audiences), also dropping versions for Amiga and DOS. For the purposes of this article, I’ll be looking mainly at the arcade and NES versions.

If you’ve played the original Contra, you’ll find minimal surprises in terms of gameplay when you first leap off the helicopter in Super C. The same basic ideas apply: you’re blasting and trying not to get blasted in turn, while scooping up better weaponry along the way. The action is a bit more intense, and the stakes are every bit as high. Playing with a buddy ups your survival chances, as you’ll definitely want someone watching the rear.

I suppose I was bullshitting you a little bit… Super Contra has some top-down stages that are a little different from the chase-view “base” levels present in its predecessor. Threats come from everywhere, 360 full degrees of danger pressing in… but the added perk of these levels is the presence of “Shells” (read: screen-clearing bombs) that come in handy in a tight spot. They’re sparse, though, so use them wisely.

Graphically, both versions of the game are simply doing more with the same toolset than their predecessors did. This is most evident with some of the boss designs; where you faced down a lot of giant-robot-looking shit in Contra, you’ll be seeing a lot of gnarly bio-monster art here, and it’s stunningly well-done. It’s even a little frightening. The soundtrack shines, and is probably the strongest point for me personally. Konami rarely failed to deliver in this department (which I suppose still rings mostly true today), and Super Contra is no exception. No one likes a lame first level music track, and that’s not a problem anyone has to worry about here.

Super Contra is a sequel where sticking close to the original format was the best possible idea, and it comes off extremely well. It’s every bit as pulse-pounding and intense as its predecessor, if not more so. I give it 8/10.

Good evening, boils and ghouls. I’ve got another crinkling creepfest for you as we tiptoe closer and closer toward that magical last day of October… Halloween. I hope you’ve all got some fun plans. I plan on going as a man who stands on his porch and yells at kids. I’m on a budget this year and already have all the stuff I need for the costume. I did bring some candy, though, so strap in for another Grab Bag.

I went deep diving through the ROM mausoleums and the silent catacombs stacked with floppy disks, hoping to pluck a few motes of dust worth examining. Horror is historically a hit-or-miss genre in video gaming, with the misses only diminishing significantly among computer titles and consoles of the Fifth Gen and newer. I remember playing the NES’s Friday the 13th and being very confused and disappointed, which ended up cosmically balancing out years later when I first played Silent Hill 2 at a friend’s house, in the dark, with a 5.1 Surround Sound system, while I was (in my feral youth) high as hell. It was awesome to be frightened by a game in the same way a good horror film can make you squirm or jump.

Nonetheless, I digress: There were some good eggs before things moved to CD formats and low-poly gore. Several personal computers of the late 80s and 1990s were making leaps and bounds in graphical and audio capabilities, two picturesque examples being the Amiga series and the lovely Japanese-domestic X68000. It is my educated professional opinion (something I could not say in real life without laughing) that the NES was ill-suited for the horror genre with exceedingly few exceptions. Inf act, none come to mind. To support this statement, I’d like to point out that a solid majority of the attempts made at NES horror titles were left in the hands of LJN – the canned-tomato shitbird degenerate gambler among NES development teams. Which leads me to my first game (yes, we’re gonna rag on LJN again, we will never stop)…

Beetlejuice

LJN, 1991

System: NES

Unfortunately, it is not, in any appreciable way, showtime.

I’ll start off with a frank statement, an observation that strikes home like the spanking of a truly furious parent: LJN is responsible for an entire dynasty of early-gen licensed titles whose strongest tie to their source material is the use of said franchise’s trade dress. Their games are like warm, dented tins of ass left in the summer sun as a booby trap; I’d go so far as to say that giving one of LJN’s video games to someone as a gift qualifies under international law as an act of war.

The woeful truth is that, despite being significantly less terrible than LJN’s earlier shit-gobbling train wrecks for the little gray box, Beetlejuice is still this kind of game, in a nutshell – a loosely coherent and surprisingly desolate adaptation of a film that really didn’t have the potential for a good video game in it. The film was released in 1988, but was apparently scooped up in one dangling, errant arm three years later for this purpose. Go figure.

I love the film, is the really crushing part. The dark and irreverent humor, the excellent FX and soundtrack, an all-star cast (including a great role for the late Glenn Shadix, who I sincerely wish had lived longer and done more)… Hey, you remember the part where Beetlejuice leaps around the sheer ravines and cliffs surrounding the Maitlands’ home and stomps on giant bugs repeatedly?

Ladies and gentlemen… this… is Beetlejuice. Unforgivable.

Yeah, I don’t either, but that’s a big part of the video game.

I’ll cede a few bright spots for Beetlejuice’s NES incarnation, though:

1. It has a fun little powerup system that revolves around how your power is to scare the shit out of people, and you can buy uses of these abilities that are kept in a sort of inventory. The one early in the game lets you slough off your flesh and become a skeleton.

2. The game has both side-scrolling and top-down action, similar to the far superior game Super C.

3. While nothing in the implied sequence of events seems to make any sense when compared to the film’s story, The exposition and cut scenes and other fluff at least attempts to suggest that things are going the same way. You are also obviously supposed to be in the same places from the film, however cartoonish and exaggerated they may seem.

Otho gets all Squirrel Nut Zipper on your ass while you look on in dismay… just a skeleton standing fully erect on a high, narrow shelf. I like how EVERY surface looks like it’s covered in fire-orange shag carpet.

This game gets 4/10 from me. It’s really not up to what Beetlejuice deserves (if you’d try to capture the film’s flavor in an 8-bit game in the first place – a dubious choice), but it’s more of a solid attempt than you’d expect out of NES-era LJN. It doesn’t make me less mad at them for Uncanny X-Men, Back to the Future, Wolverine, or that Spider-Man NES game that they should have all gone to prison for… but it did surprise me that it was actually kinda sorta playable. Oh, here’s the soundtrack if you want it… it’s not really good or bad, but the loops are kind of short so it doesn’t make for great active listening.

Fright Night (Microdeal, 1988)

System: Amiga

I had taken a few glimpses at this one, but knew I’d want to save talking about it until October.

ＡＭＩＧＡ ＨＡＵＮＴＳ ＭＹ ＤＲＥＡＭＳ

On the one hand, Amiga machines had relatively rich graphics and sound compared to their well-known rivals in the PC market; on the other, I literally never knew one fucking person who owned an Amiga rig until I was in college and met a dude who collected vintage computers. Much like we saw in the X68000 article, a good portion of developers for the Amiga were small-scale or in-house programmers. However, Microdeal was kind of a big deal back in the 1980s-era computer scene. They had earned their stripes writing an impressive library of software for the Tandy CoCo and the British-domestic Dragon 32. As the eternal boxing match went from 8 to 16 bits, Microdeal divided its efforts between adapting its old games for the newer sets and throwing some new stuff out. The latter was a bit more profitable for them, but to make a long story short, they cashed in their chips in the 90s.

But before nailing the coffin shut, they did produce a really interesting game based off the kick-ass 1985 film Fright Night. In a rare (but not unique) twist, you play not as the unlikely hero Charlie Brewster, but as the suave yet monstrous Jerry Dandridge. Jerry prowls his home nightly, killing two birds with one stone as he cleans his domain of pesky vampire-hunters… getting himself a nice multi-course supper in the process. Another example of a 3-year delay on cashing in, this game is a far better product than Beetlejuice for the NES in so many ways that we won’t even get into it.

YOU’RE SO COOL, BREWSTER! Sorry. I’ll see myself out.

I will start with the negative, since it’s really not that overwhelming. The big issue I had with it is that the entire game takes place in Dandridge’s home, and the elements of play really don’t change. Your goals, environment, abilities, and even your victims remain static… it seems almost as if the Fright Night universe gets stuck in some bullshit Dr. Who style time bubble as you kill the same 3-4 people over and over again while prowling the same set of rooms. The monotony is occasionally broken by Dandridge’s unsafe working conditions; there are hands in the floor, and sometimes a tit-ghost will cross paths with you while you’re on the hunt. Occupational hazards of being an undead sex machine, I guess. Despite all, the game is still fun… at least while its shelf life holds up before you get bored of the limited breadth of experience.

Jerry looks embarrassed, but not repentant. Listen dude, maybe if you stopped murdering women and drinking their blood in your house, you wouldn’t have to deal with Jolly Green Tragedies floating around in your hallway.

The graphics are mind-blowing when compared with similar systems of the time period. Jerry’s house is richly appointed and rendered in great detail. I especially dig the wall portraits; Jerry shows pride in his heritage by littering his walls with framed pics of his fellow nightmare creatures. The characters are also well-drawn and their animated reactions to the snarling vampire’s entrance make for some pretty good shit. The game, not unlike the film, has a sense of humor about itself. While the soundtrack can best (and most politely) described as minimalist, the digitized sound contrasts it as another redeeming quality.

I’ll throw Fright Night for the Amiga 6/10. It’s well-produced, bears lush detail, and only falters slightly due to its narrow gameplay style.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Advanced Communication Co./Bandai, 1988)

System: NES

Sometimes, within the first five minutes of playing a game, you can tell that the men and women responsible for the actual product had far less enthusiasm than the marketing/licensing people who sent out the memo.

“Just… okay, look, Ron. We need to have a goddamn title screen. Trust me, I want done with this as much as you do. You know what’d work? Some heinously curled lettering and… a green monster hand. Just like in the book!”

Let’s talk about the red flags clearly visible in this spiritually numbing jug of cold piss they tried to pass off as a game. Is it based on the 1886 literary horror classic? Uh… it has the same titular character(s). Otherwise, it’s not a story or game… it’s some kind of artistic statement centered around obliterating the dignity and willpower of the hapless player who fumbles into it.

Yeah, one of the obstacles in Dr. Jekyll’s path to wedded bliss is a fat woman in a Franciscan robe who sings at you, and the music notes hurt you. How tongue-in-cheek, how avante-garde, how… revolutionary, to depict a classic piece of early horror literature in the style of Tom & Jerry.

First off, take a look at those graphics. You know what they remind me of, in their style (read: lack thereof)? Those rinky-dink unlicensed Bible-themed and Chinese pirate-published carts that are still mentioned readily by NES fans as possible proof that cutthroat capitalism can put people who are competent at programming into a sweatshop-style environment. Just like Bible Buffet and Grand Dad, this game palpably reeks of the woe inherent in its origin. I bet if you pressed one ear to the cart like a conch shell, you could hear the baleful moaning and the rattling chains. Let’s have it writ plain: IT’S VERY CLEAR THAT THIS NES GAME WAS NOT CRAFTED BY MINDS ONE COULD DESCRIBE AS HAPPY.

The developers did have a pretty innovative idea for continuing the saga of two men in one man: You play as Jekyll, who is on his way to his wedding, on foot. The problem with this plan is that apparently every single man and beast along his route sees Henry Jekyll as a mortal foe who must be viciously murdered at all costs. Every injury not only reduces your vitality but also increases your “Anger Meter.” You know what, if I couldn’t even walk to the church in my hometown without being bitten/shit on/disintegrated by casually-dropped spherical black cartoon bombs… I’d be pissed to. I’d have a “meter.”

If your Anger fills to 100%, you transform into the Incre…. I mean, Mr. Hyde. Inexplicably, this also turns day to night instantly and transmutes your mundane earthly assailants into supernatural monsters, too. You know what you have to do to escape this shadowy realm and turn back into poor Dr. Jekyll?

YOU HAVE TO BRUTALLY KILL EVERY LIVING THING YOU SEE.

Yeah, that’s Hyde on the right-hand side of this dime-store Ninja Gaiden shit. I don’t know what that other thing is. Some kind of ninja fairy with an apocalyptic trumpet. DON’T EVER DO THIS AGAIN BANDAI DO YOU HEAR ME

Doing so reduces your Anger… and when it’s empty, you’re Henry again, and you can keep walking to your wedding, as well as increasingly absurd situations wherein your death or loss of self become constant risks.

This all sounds cool on the surface (despite being more of a Bruce Banner meets Jules Verne thing than any kind of faithful follow-up to the original tale). When you actually PLAY this shit, the cool factor nose-dives and crashes into your soul. I’ve already mentioned that the boxy, sloppy, unimaginative visuals hang heavy. The sound throws a curveball at you by somehow being expertly done and simultaneously being the single most ghastly sensory offense present during play. When the dogs bark, they don’t sound like dogs; the digitized snippet sounds distinctly like a very large man yelling “BIP” at you in the same tone of voice you’d use to caution a child not to touch the stove. There is a bird in the graveyard who constantly strafes back and forth over you, peppering you with what appear to be pre-coiled mounds of brown, non-bird shit. Every time it pulls the trigger on its abomination of an anus, the sound effect sounds like someone petulantly shouting “NOOOOO” through a maxed-out auto-wah pedal off some shoegaze guitarist’s setup. Jekyll & Hyde made me profoundly grateful that NES games do not convey olfactory, tactile, or gustatory stimuli. Who even knows what you’d feel, smell, and taste when you pressed Start on this abusively foul program.

And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. Revelation 19:17-18 That’s definitely just generic cartoon dookie. I never thought cartoon poop would be a sign of the End Times. C’est la vie.

Here’s my parting shot: if I were Jekyll in this game, I’d be postponing the wedding and re-planning it somewhere I didn’t have to play The Running Man to just arrive. It seems like an awfully long distance to walk, with or without the poop-birds, bip-dogs, and dapper bowler-wearing arsonists.

Jekyll & Hyde gets 2/10. This game was like non-consensual hardcore S&M with me as the bottom. The only difference was, instead of getting my balls crushed or my nipples obliterated, this game went straight for my spirit and wrenched me into a state of ego death. And real talk: just the sound the turd pelican makes has me convinced that dead people can see ME while I play it. Bandai, how can you normally be so decent and crisp and clean, then offhandedly hurl a hex like this on the world? What would Kamen Rider think?

Via con diablos, Fright Fans. One more gruesome article coming up before All Hallow’s Eve… Have fun and check your apples for razors.

I’m also going to try out a new rating system, a little more in-depth than my usual screed of just rating a game using one lazy star-rating. I will rate individual aspects on their own, and then use these to evaluate the overall picture of the game.

Phantom Fighter

Marionette/Ponycanyon (FCI)

1988 (1990 US)

When I say that they should have just called this game Straight-Up Just Kicking Ghosts in the Fucking Face, I don’t mean to cheapen or degrade it. The activity mentioned in my suggested title is what you end up spending 90% of your time doing, but it actually totally rules. Various reviews before mine have consistently given Phantom Fighter slightly above-average ratings overall, and I’d have to concur with the prevailing opinion here.

This is the game in one image. It’s not even a bad game, though! It’s just… I mean, this is it. This is what you came to town for. You’re doing this. A lot of this.

Apparently based off a 1985 film called Reigen Dōshi in Japan and Mr. Vampire in English, Phantom Fighter places you in the role of a kung fu master who has the special gift of placing his foot right into ghosts and making their trick asses regret being ghosts in the first place. Several villages nearby have been having problems with “kyonshi” (which I think is just a Japanese-ized rendition of the Chinese word “jiangshi,” a type of undead creature commonly described as a hopping vampire) and have petitioned you for help. Since you are a man of virtue and can kick the unliving shit out of undead monsters, the adventure begins.

I gradually cleared out the first village and people kept giving me scrolls. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were for until later I used several of them to learn things called “High Jump” and “Wolf Move.” Apparently, you expand your repertoire of sick techniques by studying with a master, and the scrolls are currency. I also had to collect some “jades” that unlock a seal so I could kick something else’s ass (a boss ghost who left Alucard-style movement trails behind him).

He thinks he’s got tricks. His actual trick is hitting really fucking hard despite moving in slow motion. 

There’s not a ton of variance in the enemy except for how powerful they are, but fighting the kyonshi is fun once you get the timing and spacing down. It’s nice that the items and upgrades don’t overwhelm the game, but I wish things progressed faster on that end… the sprawl seems a little unrewarding, especially early on when you could struggle a bit.

Gameplay 7/10 (it’s fun to beat the shit out of Wuxia vampires)

Audio 8/10 (pretty good OST, especially the combat music)

Graphics 6/10 (good for NES type stuff)

Theme 8/10 (I’m a sucker for the M.A./horror blend)

Big Picture: 7/10 (A bit underrated!)

The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants

Imagineering/Arc Developments/Acclaim

1991

This is a polarizing title in the NES library. A lot of players love it because it’s 1) the first Simpsons video game 2) brutally “challenging.” Another camp despises it because it’s 1) banked completely on its licensing 2) fucking stupid hard, not to mention boring.

I played it for about 20 minutes and fell into the second category.

Bart has all the maneuverability of an overripe fruit someone dropped on a hot day. He lopes and bumbles through a perpetually overactive environment as he tries to turn purple objects red. Purple objects are apparently one crucial ingredient necessary for the space mutants (the only well-rendered things in the game) need for some kind of devastating weapon.

Well-drawn, but yeah, they’re doing this. I mean, I know The Simpsons is goofy and silly. But this is the nadir, I think.

You can get on a skateboard, which helps you get hurt more and faster. You also pick up various implements that I guess are supposed to help you, but really don’t unless they are oriented toward a specific puzzle solution. Toy stores and tool stores sell them to you, and you buy them using mystery money that just tumbles out of random shit. You’re able to stand on things that make no sense and can’t stand on surfaces that make perfect sense. This game is an affront to the platform genre, AND I HOPE YOU LIKE THE SIMPSONS THEME BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT PLAYS OVER AND OVER AND OVER, AN 8 BIT VERSION OF THE SIMPSONS THEME.

I’m standing on a non-surface, the point where a surface terminates and becomes a nearly sheer vertical edge. Non-Euclidean geometry? Demoniac defiance of physics? Both equally likely.

I am unashamed to admit that I did not finish the first level. I’m sure if I asked the Pope he’d give me an indulgence on that one. No sane or virtuous human being would willingly smash themselves into this hellmouth more than once.

Gameplay 2/10 (Bart needs to go see a middle ear doctor or be evaluated for head trauma)

Audio 1/10 (fuck you)

Graphics 5/10 (it has moments, and I can’t fault it on authenticity either)

Theme 4/10 (eh, I think they just knew we’d buy a Simpsons game)

Big Picture: 2/10 (Skip it. If you’re into it, we’ll have to agree to disagree, and also agree that I worry about your well-being.)

Holy Diver

Irem Corp.

1989

Let me jump right on the tiger, to quote the Man Himself… the Wikipedia article claims there is no relationship between this game and the Ronnie James Dio album.

Nah, bruh… I’m sorry… that’s motherfucking DIO.

Here’s my interpretation of this awesome (and sadly non-export) platform game: You play as Ronnie James Dio, champion of humanity and righteous heavy metal. You murder every evil thing you find with outrageous magic and basically nothing can stop you. That’s all the story I need, man. I am an unironic and unashamed fan of all things Dio. Plug me in. It’s time to rock.

“Between the velvet lies / there’s a truth that’s hard as steel / the vision never dies / life’s a neverending wheel”

This game is actually pretty good. It’s a solid blaster-platformer, with a reasonable difficulty curve and a good sense of accomplishment. As you utterly destroy more and more of the wicked demonic creatures, you find power-ups and new spells that make you even more undeniably rad. I was throwing several different kinds of magic into the face of evil and changing forms by the time I needed to stop and write this article.

A lot of the imagery makes it completely clear that this game is directly inspired by Dio and Dio-era Sabbath. I mean, stylized crosses with skulls that look like they could come right off of an early-80s Sabbath album cover? Come on. In other ways, the game reminds me visually of another Japanese game, Getsu Fuuma Den, except more crisp and polished. If I could say anything negative about this game, it’s that I wish it had a little more variety and depth when it came to the magic and power Dio could wield against the forces of evil. He is, after all, master of the fucking moon. The audio is also a bit below standard for a game where you play as Dio.

It’s the sign of the southern cross / Fade away, fade away / Break the crystal ball / Fade away, fade away / I can’t accept it anymore

And you are playing as Dio. We’re not gonna screw around on that point. That is exactly what is up in this game.

Gameplay 7/10 (it’s not absolutely perfect but it’s a lot of fun)

Audio 5/10 (sadly, this part does not rock like Dio, but I can live with it, it’s not awful)

Graphics 8/10 (heavy metal!!!)

Theme 10/10 (RONNIE JAMES DIO IS DESTROYING DEMONS WITH WIZARD POWERS.)

Big Picture: 8/10 (I want to send away for a FC cart of this, shadowbox-frame it, and put it on my wall. It is a fucking cool piece of retro VG history.)

Thanks for reading, and I’ll fill another suspicious paper bag with games real soon!

“You are the strongest chain / and you’re not just some reflection / so never hide again”

With Saint Patrick’s Day just around the corner and the cultural outrage over police brutality still a hot topic. This month’s RetroMovie will be William Lustig’s Maniac Cop.

 Maniac Cop directed by William Lustig the infamous director of Maniac and stars Tom Atkins, Laurene Landon, Bruce Campbell, Robert Z’Dar and Richard Roundtree as Commissioner Pike. The film was written by Larry Cohen the writer of a handful of Columbo episodes, Return to Salem’s Lot (87),Cellular(2004) and the director of Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem and the Master’s of Horror episode “Pick Me Up”.

 The setting of this piece is New York City of the 1980s: The filth, the violence, the sex, the despair, the moral drought and the corruptionof yesterday; when police officers dressed like police officers before they were militarized and loaded with clunky utility belts and AR-15’s. 

This movie takes the common and modern fear of law enforcement and amplifies it. What do you do when the people paid to protect you start to become as violent as the criminals they pursue and turn on the public? Themes of deep police corruption and good cops betrayed are at the center of this violent grindhouse thriller. 

When a series of late night murders take place the NYPD is on the hunt for a serial killer on the loose. The only problem is the victims are all unrelated and the only description of the murder is that he is wearing a police uniform. Lieutenant McCrae is investigating the case but is pressured to suppress any information about the killer wearing a uniform from the press or else cause a public panic and mass hysteria. 

Enter a philandering cop played by a young Bruce Campbell and officer Theresa Mallory (Laurene Landon) into the mix as they are soon implicated in the investigation and together with Detective McCrae must put a stop to the killing before the city completely turns against its law enforcement. 

From the beginning of the film you are thrown into a seedy environment where danger comes in all kinds after midnight. The pacing of the film might turn away younger viewers but for the sake of plot development serves its purpose of being a slow pressure cooker until the action kicks in. 

– Compared to its sequels which are way more kinetic with their action, this flows more like an urban thriller than typical slasher film.

These films are Robert Z’Dar’s best known films outside of small roles in action films like Tango & Cash and Samurai Cop. Often typecasted because of his size and his large jawline, Robert was possibly “born” to play Officer Matthew Cordell; a large imposing hulk like figure of carnage. 

The other performances are pretty good. Bruce Campbell plays a douchebag and is a good match for Landon’s ballsy heroine. Tom Atkins is gritty and hard boiled like a Frank Miller detective. Richard Roundtree plays the typical superior who doesn’t care what has to be done to get the job done as long as it’s by the book and not messy. 

The music is recurring and unmemorable except for the haunting theme of a lone whistler.

 The setting however, is the main selling point much like it was in Death Wish and The New York Ripper. Splashes of twirling sword batons and broken necks match sublimely with the night time environment and urban lighting. 

If I had to recommend one film from the Maniac Cop trilogy, it would be this one – the very first chapter in the Matthew Cordell trilogy. 

  Maniac Cop was released May 13, 1988. It played in 50 theaters and had a U.S. gross of $671,382. The film was mostly panned by critics at the time of its release. 

A remake directed by John Hyams and produced by NicolasWinding Refn was announced in 2015 and scheduled for a 2017 release with a screenplay written by comic book writer Ed Brubaker (Captain America, Criminal,Fatale, The Fade Out, Kill or Be Killed)

Watch it like you would a peep show. Sit back, get comfortable and keep your eyes on the experience and your fingers on that blue rewind button.

Naxat Soft (which eventually became known as Kaga Create before becoming defunct in 2015) was a big swingin’ tent pole in the late 1980s in Japan. During this time, they would earn a reputation for producing some insane titles, many of which were made for Hudson’s PC Engine. Many of you will remember my rant earlier this year about how cool that console was… the one we came to know as the Turbo Grafx 16. You may even remember my prominent mention of a pair of completely bonkers pinball sims…

The first to hit shelves was Alien Crush, Developed by Naxat and Compile in 1988 and released for the PC Engine. The game is fairly simple and straightforward; you’re playing pinball. The interesting twist is that you’re playing pinball inside some kind of bio-mechanical alien amalgam, simultaneously trying to defeat it. The main pinball area is divided into two screens, and when your ball goes from one to another the screen will go blank for a moment. This can be disorienting, but I quickly got used to it. There are also a handful of bonus screens, which you access by getting your ball to land certain places. You can “beat” Alien Crush, but it takes a while… longer than I have patience for. It’s still a lot of fun to just play it like a regular pinball game though, and see how high you can get your score.

A couple of the bonus stages seem more “Spooky cartoon haunted house” themed, but what the hell. We’re playin’ pinball here, not putting on a Hollywood production.

Two years later, Naxat followed up with Devil Crash (Devil’s Crush outside of Japan) for the same system. This pinball epic was themed much differently, and is often considered the more memorable because of it; Devil’s Crush features prominent and unabashed occult/horror imagery. To phrase that differently, Devil’s Crush is metal as hell. A few improvements were made to the concept visually and play-wise, most notably that the main play area’s three divisions scroll as one image when your ball moves through them. There are also many more things to do; plenty of little monster men to smash, just as many (if not more) bonus screens to find, and a woman’s face that gradually wakes up and turns into a horrid reptilian monster as you drop into certain point-spots.

Oh shit, here we go!!!

The picture of elegance, charm, and sophistication.

As evidenced by any screenshot or gameplay video you watch, these games have amazing graphics for the time. The music for both is astounding, and has in fact been reproduced in non-VG format. I particularly like the track “Lunar Eclipse” from Alien Crush, as well as its main title theme, and I consider Devil’s Crush‘s main table theme to be the best music out of the two games.

Devil Crash was released for the Mega Drive and Genesis; its title in America was changed to Dragon’s Fury, since our Protestant sensibilities have for so long found horrible fire-breathing dragons far more tolerable than old Scratch. A sequel to that game, Dragon’s Revenge, was produced for the MD/Genesis in 1993, but went largely ignored for no good reason. It is a passable game, but a far cry from these originals.

“Yeah, the American MD/Genesis port? I don’t care. Farm it out to those guys who used to be Atari before Atari shit the bed with the lights on…. WHAT? They’re calling it Dragon’s Fury? Hahahaha, those Americans are vanilla as hell. The check cleared though, right?”

I gladly grant both of these titles a 9 out of 10. Visual/virtual pinball is something you see weave its way in and out of popularity through the time period, with games like Crue Ball and even Sonic Spinball; I feel that the Crush Pinball pair of titles loom over all as the sometimes unsung rulers of the roost.

Keep your eyes peeled for shrieks & creaks & some other spooky shit (all retro VG related, of course) as we wrap up September and get into September’s cooler cousin, October!!!

BONUS: If you read this far, here’s a treat! Here’s me rocking at Alien Crush and here’s me sucking ass at Devil Crash.

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2016/09/15/alien-crushdevils-crush-19881990-naxat-soft/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2016/02/04/salsa-the-motion-picture-1988/ https://newretrowave.com/2016/02/04/salsa-the-motion-picture-1988/#respond Thu, 04 Feb 2016 18:51:14 +0000 http://new-retro-wave.com/2016/02/04/201624salsa-the-motion-picture-1988/ It was 1988 and Cannon Films head honchos Golan & Globus apparently were interested in capitalizing on the next dance craze to sweep through suburban malls across the country. 

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It was 1988 and Cannon Films head honchos Golan & Globus apparently were interested in capitalizing on the next dance craze to sweep through suburban malls across the country. They already had a big hit with 1984’s Breakin’ and they were hoping for lightning to strike twice. This time, I guess they flipped a coin and decided on jumping on the Latin demographic. No they didn’t do a movie about the ‘Freestyle’ phenomenon. Instead they created the SaturdayNight Xanadu Fever‘type film that is Salsa: the motion picture.

            Starring Robby ‘Draco’ Rosa, Rodney Harvey, Magali Alvarado, Miranda Garrison, Valente Rodriguez and Angela Alvarado. With cameo appearances as themselves by recording artists: Bobby Caldwell, Chain Reaction, Willie Colon, Leroy Anderson, Celia Cruz, Grupo Latino, Tito Puente, H. Wilkins and many more. The film is directed by Boaz Davidson (Last American Virgin). Distributed by The Cannon Group and released on May 7, 1988 with a runtime of 97 minutes.

            That’s right it’s Valentine’s Day. The oddball holiday when you’re partner climbs a ladder and straddles a high horse as he or she waits to be given tribute in the form of forced romantic gestures. Never mind the moments of intimacy or the 364 days you might be fortunate enough to have a partner in arms no, this is the day to be fabulous. Don’t be a schlep. Put your love where it counts – on a credit card. Be the guy that everyone wants but can’t have. Be that guy or gal. Spend, spend, consume; dinners, Ferris wheel rides, horse & buggies through the park, chocolate, maybe a ring or matching letterman jackets, that new dress she wanted, that denim apron he’d been talking about, it’s all marketed and for sale. Nothing says, “I love you” like the romantic night out, you’d been saving up for.

            Now, why shouldn’t you do those things? Well, because you are better than all that nonsense. You’d rather stay at home and cook your own meals, knit someone a sweater, play X-box together and all the little things you two (or more) enjoy every other day. So, instead of compromising and being a scratching post for pussy cats, chill out with a drink and tune into the Valentine’s Day Retro Movie for 2016’ Salsa: The Motion Picture. It’ll make you laugh and cringe and tap your foot. The film is dated as hell. There aren’t really a lot of great salsa songs here. Instead the soundtrack is a hybrid of Latin artists with pop arraignments not unlike anything produced by Emilio Estefan with the Miami Sound Machine. The acting alone earned Robbie Rosa a Razzie Award for Worst New Star. Robbie Rosa’s hair alone deserved a Razzie. Warning: this film is filled with Jheri Curls. Wet dripping, sprinkler type Jheri curls. Be forewarned and keep your rain boots on. As well, be prepared for the dialogue and the “Saturday morning cartoon” delivery of said dialogue in this film.

            The films story is about a young Puerto Rican who dreams of being more than just a simple mechanic and aspires to become a professional dancer. He (Rosa) enters the Grand Salsa Competition with his girlfriend with intentions on winning and using some of the money to visit Puerto Rico and live happily ever after as the Salsa King. I’m not kidding… that’s what the plot is. There’s only one obstacle and that is the person running the competition Luna or La Luna herself. Luna takes Rico under her wing with the ulterior motive of splitting him up from his girlfriend and molding him into her new dance partner. In a Meta kind of way imagine she’s using his vitality to rejuvenate her career and status. The Elizabeth Bathory of Salsa.  

            There’s dancing, lots of dancing. There’s music; yeah there’s music. Best part is – it’s just long enough to enjoy and short enough to not commit suicide. Either way, it’s fun and fun is all that matters in the end. So microwave your popcorn, grab your snuggies and get your cuddlebug on with your mate. It’s (sort of) Salsa time to go way back to 1988 and get your activator application on. Stay slick, stay happy, stay in love when it’s good and feeling right. And keep your ring fingers on that rewind.

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2016/02/04/salsa-the-motion-picture-1988/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2016/01/30/adventures-of-bayou-billy-1988-konami/ https://newretrowave.com/2016/01/30/adventures-of-bayou-billy-1988-konami/#respond Sat, 30 Jan 2016 19:57:08 +0000 http://new-retro-wave.com/2016/01/30/2016130adventures-of-bayou-billy-1988-konami/

The games we remember from the golden era fall into two categories: the classic, undeniably great ones… and the ones so ridiculous we can’t forget them. They’re not even necessarily bad (although many of them are), but they’re just so… well, bizarre that they become etched into our memories for decades.

This is one I’ve wanted to visit for some time now. I saved it for a rainy day.

Adventures of Bayou Billy is a retooling of a Famicom game called Mad City, which was released in 1988. When exporting the game to America and the PAL region in 1989, Konami decided to redo a lot of the graphics and scale up the difficulty a little. They also added something fairly rare at the time: DCPM-coded digital voice samples. What’s actually neat about the game is that it’s three games in one: you will do some hand to hand fighting, some action driving, and some shooting (either with the Zapper or the controller).

In either game, you play Billy West, a survivalist and ex-soldier who lives in the bayou and spends most of his time fighting the crime lord Godfather Gordon. Guess what Gordon does to get your attention and set up one big showdown in the Big Easy?

Very original! I think I’m beginning to learn something about living in a video game: don’t ever love anyone or anything, or it will be used against you.

That’s right. Your scandalously curvy girlfriend, Annabelle, is in trouble! Gordon not only has time on his hands, but apparently a lot of money to throw away on your murder as well, since you’ll deal with threats ranging from gators and thugs to airplanes and helicopters. The baddies (even the gators) drop food, weapons and armor occasionally, and these help a lot since Billy actually isn’t all that great of a fighter. His repertoire consists of a punch that has lousy reach, a kick that has slightly less lousy reach, and a jump kick that looks like some Riverdance shit. Some enemies even drop guns, which give you bullets for yours. When I say “some,” I mean “very few.”

You know all those strongmen downtown in New Orleans. Always out swinging their cartoon ball-and-chains in their perfect white bell bottoms. Scandalous! 

Get used to this.

In stages 2 and 7 you have to scoot carefully along and shoot it out with more of Gordon’s goons; depending on the game type selected, this can be done with the Zapper (plugged into the other controller port) or the controller (via a movable crosshair). The latter technique is much slower and will probably get you killed. You always magically have bullets in these stages, regardless of how empty your bullet counter is in the street-fighting portion of the game.

Gray is the preferred color for swamp ops. Gray sweat pants. Any true operator knows that.

Stages 4 and 5 are kind of like a racing game, except blue jeeps and prop planes are constantly trying to murder you. In the original Famicom version, your jeep had a life bar, but in the US version, one mistake kills you. I guess they figured that since us Americans are obsessed with cars, we’d appreciate the hardcore hell-on-wheels version.

Yes. Apparently you are going 180 mph on a dirt road. No big deal.

Bayou Billy is a pretty respectably hard game, right from the beginning. It’s so hard that it has a practice mode. I can play any of the three game types in practice mode and get my ass annihilated halfway through. The actual game is damn near impossible for me; I admit that I had to watch a longplay just to get a look at all of it. The bosses in the main game seem uncompromisingly brutal in that way beat-em-up bosses often are, with huge hit ranges and more durability than a Panzer tank. Once you make it to New Orleans, things get super ridiculous, with circus strongmen and full-on gangster gunmen joining the fray as regular enemies. In fact, the first fight you have in the front yard of the mansion is with three men armed with guns. Inside the mansion things get outright absurd during the final showdown:

The graphics are pretty cool, meeting the standard for Konami games of the era with rich colors and decent texturing. Enemy design isn’t terribly creative, but the swamps and streets of Louisiana look alive and are rendered with authentic detail. The music for Bayou Billy is a hidden diamond; I am especially enamored with the default side scrolling stage music and the boss theme. Konami rarely screws up the music part of anything, and this is no exception. That fighting stage music is probably something you could put on in a club and people would make the best of it! The voice samples (there are only two of them) are all right, but they’re characteristically fuzzy and it’s obvious that they were added as an afterthought.

I’d give Adventures of Bayou Billy 6/10. It’s not a great game, but it’s a weird game. It took a novel approach to diversifying gameplay, it had great music, and it’s one you remember if you encountered it back then. After all, fighting alligators with a stick is pretty hard to forget.

We’ve got some real treats in store for you next month, RetroFans! Stay tuned!

]]> https://newretrowave.com/2016/01/30/adventures-of-bayou-billy-1988-konami/feed/ 0 https://newretrowave.com/2015/10/14/remember-this-freddys-nightmares-1988-1990/ https://newretrowave.com/2015/10/14/remember-this-freddys-nightmares-1988-1990/#respond Wed, 14 Oct 2015 20:35:20 +0000 http://new-retro-wave.com/2015/10/14/20151014remember-this-freddys-nightmares-1988-1990/  Freddy's Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series was an anthology series featuring different individual stories; each episode being a two-tier story, with the second half focusing on a character that played a minor role in the previous role.

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 Do you remember this gem? Does anyone remember this short lived series based on the Wes Craven horror franchise? Well I do. And it was awesome.

 

                Freddy’s Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series was an anthology series featuring different individual stories; each episode being a two-tier story, with the second half focusing on a character that played a minor role in the previous role. The show’s host and sometimes episodic antagonist was Freddy Krueger. He’d appear like other horror anthology hosts, supplying short monologues, puns and hints at the night’s story.

 

                The pilot episode was directed by Tobe Hooper, and begins with Freddy Krueger’s prosecution on child-murdering charges ending in a mistrial due to the discovery that his arresting officer did not read Freddy his Miranda rights. A mob of parents eventually corners Freddy in a boiler room (his workplace), leading to him being torched by the police officer, dying and gaining his familiar visage.

 

            Some of the featured actors who went on to later become notable were: Robin Antin (The Pussycat Dolls), Morris Chestnut, Mariska Hargitay, Eva LaRue, Phill Lewis, John Cameron Mitchell, Bill Moseley, Lori Petty, Brad Pitt. Other notable guest stars featured in the series were: Timothy Bottoms, Jeffrey Combs, Jeff Conaway, Mary Crosby, Ellen Albertini Dow, Tony Dow, Diane Franklin, Richard Gautier, Tamara Glynn, Bob Goen, Tiffany Helm, Joyce Hyser, David Lander, George Lazenby, Lar Park Lincoln, Dick Miller, Susan Oliver, Jay Thomas, Tracey Walter, Jill Whitlow and more.

 

            There has never been a DVD release of the series apart from two episodes being included on a Nightmare on Elm Street Blu-Ray collection in 2011.

 

            NBC’s Chiller network at one time aired short marathons of the series but stopped in 2011. However, EL REY network has acquired the rights to the series in 2015.

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