The year is 1997. In a post-apocalyptic world where water is king; an orphaned kid named The Kid spends his days riding his BMX bike and scavenging the edges of the wasteland searching for anything he can use to trade to a local bartender for his favorite comic book, Turbo Rider. You see, Turbo Rider is a superhero, who does super things. The comic causes The Kid's imagination to run wild, and he dreams of becoming a superhero. One day, while roaming the dirt roads, he meets a charming young lady named Apple. The next day, he accidentally finds a Super Power Glove that turns him into a bootleg version of Turbo Rider. Along with a cowboy arm-wrestling champion named…

There have been many films of late that try to capture the vibe of days gone by, of iconic cinematic eras and in doing so pay tribute to them. There haven't been any that have done this as successfully as Turbo Kid.

A common pitfall is losing yourself in your tribute and going so far overboard that you're almost overindulging in stylistic mannerisms. Trying too hard will only make you come across as desperate. The thing that Turbo Kid does so well (and this is the main reason for me giving it full marks) is being genuine. This is a genuine labour of love. An attempt to not make a tribute to the glorious 80s but to actually make a…

You'd probably wouldn't look at a movie like this and think "this looks amazing!" More likely you'd think this would be a fun way to spend 90 minutes, but nothing else.
What Turbo Kid excels at is that it makes you care.
For the first ten minutes I was kinda worried, since it was very slow and dialogue-based. Once Apple and Zeus show up however, the film immediately picks up. Michael Ironside is great as Zeus, injecting a threatening menace while clearly having the time of his life. Its Lawrence Lebeouf however, who steals the show. She completely commits to the energy and insanity of Apple, and you can't help but love her for it.
That goes into my next…

Frightfest 2015 Film # 2

Now we are talking! So much fun, a big, brash ode to the 80's that's massively entertaining and had the Frightfest crowd eating out the palm of it's hand. Originally intended as a short for one of The ABC's of death it's obvious from the get go that this film is made with a shit ton of love (as well as copious amounts of blood).
Set in a post apocalyptic 1997 we meet our young hero The Kid (Munro Chambers), a loner who has lost both his parents he's a scavenger who hunt's The Wastelands for weapons and anything he could sell for food and water which is controlled by Michael Ironside's big bad Zeus.…

This is my Gnomestick!

I don't know if it was the fact that my theater did a double feature with Kung Fury, or the crowd I was with, or possibly both, but Turbo Kid is by far some of the most fun I've had in a theater this year. Neon-lit drink cups in hand with glowstick headbands, we were all cheering throughout both films at the best moments, and Turbo Kid proved to be as delightfully gory as I had hoped it would be.

It's a completely self-aware tribute to classic 80's scifi, taking place in "the future, the year 1997," where a mysterious nuclear fallout has wiped almost all of humanity and the straggling survivors are left to fend…

You'd probably wouldn't look at a movie like this and think "this looks amazing!" More likely you'd think this would be a fun way to spend 90 minutes, but nothing else.
What Turbo Kid excels at is that it makes you care.
For the first ten minutes I was kinda worried, since it was very slow and dialogue-based. Once Apple and Zeus show up however, the film immediately picks up. Michael Ironside is great as Zeus, injecting a threatening menace while clearly having the time of his life. Its Lawrence Lebeouf however, who steals the show. She completely commits to the energy and insanity of Apple, and you can't help but love her for it.
That goes into my next…

My 20 Favorite Films of the 2010s:

9) Turbo Kid
     Dir. RKSS
     2015

As a film fan, I of course savor every opportunity to witness a film that will leave me thinking about it long after I’ve seen it. We love to praise movies which can move us, educate us, and even reveal some greater truth about the human condition. However, there is still something to be said about a film where you can simply kick your feet up and have an absolute blast with it from start to finish, and for me, one of the best examples of that from the 2010s was Turbo Kid! Of all the movies which have payed tribute to the…