When I looked at the credits, I noticed several popular names like Mcqueen, Norris, and Swayze. Unfortunately, they were all siblings of the more recognizable and much more talented actors.
Death Ring is about a sport where people hunt humans for pleasure and entertainment. It takes place on an island and Billy Drago is the promoter of the event. Mike Norris plays Matt Collins, who was an ex military- special forces unit, and also the winner of the survival of the fittest competition. Collins is the human prey in the manhunt. There's a reason this movie went straight to video "It sucked" - Plain and Simple.
The only positive thing I could say about this movie was the performance of Billy Drago playing public enemy #1 Danton Vachs. Drago was excellent in his role as the lead villain, as he kills a disrespectful guest with a fork, at the kitchen table as they were preparing for dinner.
There were so many incidents that were so ridiculous that you couldn't help but laugh.
When Norris is preparing to counter attack the hunters, he puts mud over his eyebrows and on his chin in an attempt to camouflage himself. Moments later, he gets confronted by a villain and he has no camouflage on him.
The Asian Hunter has three ninja stars as weapons. He gets a visual on Norris, and he throws the stars at him during three sequences. Each one of them barely misses Norris's head, but they each hit the dead center of a tree.
Drago has some sort of militia group guarding his house. Well, as far as their shooting abilities, the phrase "He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn", would be giving them too much credit. The safest place to be when they were firing their assault rifles was to stand right in front of them. Chad Mcqueen is flying a helicopter in an attempt to rescue Norris and his fiancé. Mcqueen is approximately fifty feet in the air, in a stationary position above the mansion. The Military Personnel are opening fire at the plane. That group couldn't put a hole in a stationary target thats practically right above them.
The funniest part was when one of the hunters is looking at a map in an attempt to locate Collins. It looked like he was reading a traffic map. O'k, he really has no idea as to where Collins is, he doesn't pick up any clues or prints, and its an island with no streets. What's the point in looking at a map? It certainly wasn't a map of the island.
I'm amazed that someone can actually write a script like this, proof read it, and actually go through with it.
Plot summary
Ex-Green Beret Matt Collins is kidnapped along with his fiancée, Lauren Sadler, by crazed hunter extraordinaire Danton Vachs. Every year he holds a contest where people can purchase the right to hunt down and kill a human being. This time, Collins is to be the hunted. Vachs uses Lauren as motivation for Collins to really fight to survive and thus provide the buyers with a truly exceptional hunt. Collins is turned loose on an uncharted island and four killers set out to find and kill him.
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"I Knew it was Going to be Bad" "I Just Didn't Know it was Going to be that Bad"
a definite must see of untalented relatives
If this movie had Joe Estavez and Frank Stalone, I would have creamed my pants. But this cast of closely related to actual good actors is still more than most. Chuck Norris' son is captured and taken to an Island to be hunted. Yeah Its a Most Dangerous Game plot, but it has Dan Swazey. He looks kinda like his brother except incredibly creepy and very leathery. Someone said it looked like ET may have been his father. The Norris/Swazey tag team is even better than the Dennis Rodman/Van Dam but not as good as the double dose of Arnold in the Sixth Day, and they are an ass kicking machine. Dans best line "I'm back from the dead and I'm going t kick your ass." If you find this movie watch it, it rulz, thats right with a "z".
It predates the very similar but more popular "Surviving The Game" (1994) by two years. Death Ring was first!
From the director of "Hell Comes To Frogtown" comes "Death Ring", a movie, despite the impressive B-movie cast, could have used the talents of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.
In this complete and total knockoff of "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932),Mike Norris portrays local lunkhead Matt Collins, an ex-Special Forces soldier who can't find his place in the world. So he spends his time competing in events such as "The Survival Of The Fittest" competition.
In this unexplainably televised event, which is a cross between rock-climbing and Army basic training, bored (really bored) evil rich dude Danton Vachs (great name) (Drago) (another great name)first sees Collins and kidnaps him and his girlfriend Lauren (Isabel Glasser) who were trying to spend a lovely day at the batting cages. Luckily, "Skylord" Harris (McQueen) witnesses the whole thing before being knocked unconscious by Vachs' goons. Did we mention his name was SKYLORD HARRIS? Because his name is Skylord Harris.
Skylord is now on the case trying to track down his best friend Matt. Little does Skylord know, they have been spirited away to a creepy island and Collins is forced to play "The Most Dangerous Game" with a multi-racial group of hunters: a Mexican, an American Indian, an Asian, and an Italian, all go about hunting Collins in their own ethic-stereotyped ways. When Collins dispatches Mr. Chin, in a flash of brilliance, he posthumously re-dubs him "Mr. Dead".
Vachs has a control panel set-up so he can communicate with his minions while they hunt Collins. (and so Collins can spit snappy one-liners to Vachs deep in the woods.) Vachs minions also drink snake blood and the titular "Death Ring" is a real piece of jewelry worn by Vachs.
Exactly one hour into the film, we finally get our first "Swayze Sighting". Don plays John Blackwell, a leftover from Vachs' previous hunting party. He and Collins team up to get revenge. After searching one tattoo parlor named "Tattoo", Skylord sees the design of two overlapping triangles (like they are fast-forwarding their wrists) he remembers at the time of the kidnapping.
We won't give away the ending, but let's just say it involves a "fan favorite death" and heads are gonna roll!
Basically playing the same role as he did in the execrable "Money To Burn" (see review) with fellow castmate Don Swayze, we can only surmise that McQueen himself is a man dead-set against sleeves of any kind. Including his car, which is a jeep. Doors are too close to sleeves for this guy! It is "death before sleeves!" as Skylord sleevelessly saves the day in his rockin' helicopter.
This "New generation of action stars" (as the box only lists their last names, as if that would fool potential renters) is really close to "Lone Tiger" syndrome: where a movie that is chock full of B-movie favorites does not guarantee a good movie. That being said, "Death Ring" is basic stupid action fun.
It predates the very similar but more popular "Surviving The Game" (1994) by two years. Death Ring was first!
The end credits admonish you to not just "read the novel", but in what has to be a movie first, to "eat the popcorn". If anyone out there has read the official Death Ring novel or eaten the official Death Ring popcorn, please write in today.
Comeuppance Review by: Ty & Brett
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