{"id":9981,"date":"2024-12-11T17:37:33","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9981"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:37:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:37:33","slug":"stryker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/11\/stryker\/","title":{"rendered":"Stryker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stryker <\/strong>(1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Action-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, rape, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Cirio H. Santiago\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Cirio H. Santiago\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ed Gatchalian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ricardo Remias\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 2, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steve Sandor, Andria Savio, William Ostrander, Julie Gray, Monique St. Pierre, Mike Lane, Jon Harris III, Ken Metcalfe, Joe Zucchero, Michael De Mesa, Catherine Schroeder, Tony Carreon, Pete Cooper, Corey Casey, Camille Ships.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0A movie as monumentally bad as Stryker<\/strong> could only come from the Philippines. Such a blatant knock-off of The Road Warrior, one of several that came out in the early 80s, could only come from New World Pictures. Two things immediately come to mind when I think of Stryker<\/strong>. First, the poster was displayed in the foyer of one of my usual haunts (the City Line Theater) for several months yet never opened there. Second, one of the \u201cstars\u201d of the picture is Monique St. Pierre, the model featured in the centerfold of the Playboy magazine I had hidden under my mattress at the time (I was 15). Stryker<\/strong> didn\u2019t play at any theaters near me. I didn\u2019t get to see it until years later when I purchased a used copy from a video store going out of business. I think I paid three bucks for it; I still felt ripped-off.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Watching it again the other night (it\u2019s on Blu-Ray, go figure), I was reminded of a couple of MTV videos from that period: Loverboy\u2019s \u201cQueen of the Broken Hearts\u201d and Tom Petty\u2019s \u201cYou Got Lucky\u201d, both of which had post-apocalyptic settings. Stryker<\/strong> looks like an extended music video. One of the characters even looks like a member of Loverboy with the way he dresses. I got a good laugh from that. In fact, I got several laughs out of Stryker<\/strong>. It\u2019s so bad; it reaches the level of unintentional comedy. It just begs for the MST3K treatment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A nuclear holocaust has turned the world into a barren wasteland where water is the most precious commodity. He who controls the water has all the power. That would be Kardis (Lane, Frankenstein 1970), an evil warlord whose leather-clad goons are looking for an idyllic place called \u201cThe Colony\u201d. As the movie opens, they chase down Delha (Savio, Death Screams) in order to force her to reveal its location. She\u2019s saved by Stryker (Sandor, Bonnie\u2019s Kids) and his sidekick Bandit (Ostrander, Buddy Repperton from Christine) only to be recaptured a few minutes later. Stryker and Bandit hijack one of Kardis\u2019 water tankers and use it to rescue Delha who\u2019s being tortured. They manage to get to her mid-rape. It turns out she\u2019s looking for a guy named Trun (Metcalfe, TNT Jackson) to help defend the Colony against Kardis and his army. Wouldn\u2019t you know it, Trun happens to be Stryker\u2019s brother. Are you ready for another surprise? Stryker has a personal vendetta against Kardis (he killed his wife). Kardis is pissed at Stryker for cutting off his hand in retaliation. You know how these things go, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0WOW! There is just so much to mock Stryker<\/strong> about. Let\u2019s start with the premise. Water may be scarce, but there doesn\u2019t seem a shortage of petrol with the souped-up cars, motorcycles, jeeps and tanks the characters tool around in. Where does it come from? I didn\u2019t see a single Texaco station. And there must be a Zipperhead or some fashionable boutique in the vicinity. The characters aren\u2019t exactly dressed in dirty rags as you would expect from desert dwellers in a post-apocalyptic world. Hair and makeup doesn\u2019t seem to be a problem either. Why let a little thing like the end of the world stop folks from looking their best?<\/p>\n

\u00a0At one point, Stryker encounters a band of gibberish-speaking midgets in the desert. I thought immediately of the Jawas from Star Wars; all that\u2019s missing are the brown hooded robes. Sure enough, they show up again later wearing brown hooded robes<\/em>! I damn near busted a gut laughing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting in Stryker<\/strong> is terrible. Lead actor Sandor looks like he stepped off the cover of some goofy romance novel. The man is absolutely talentless. The difference between him and Mel Gibson is that Gibson didn\u2019t speak much in The Road Warrior. Every time Sandor opens his mouth, we\u2019re reminded he can\u2019t act his way out of a paper bag. Ostrander, the guy who looks like a member of Loverboy, fares a little better despite not having much to do expect kill bad guys and make goo-goo eyes at one of the women in the Colony. That reminds me, there\u2019s a gang of tough women (one of them St. Pierre) from the Colony riding around the desert looking to fight the bad guys. They\u2019re deadly with their crossbows and arrows. They\u2019re also HOT! Hmmm, I\u2019m liking this end of the world thing better and better.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Stryker<\/strong> is a cheap-looking movie. Shot primarily in the Marinduque Mines, the action mainly takes place in the desert and dark caves. I doubt the makers spent a lot of money on building sets; they just used whatever was there. The synth-heavy score by Ed Gatchalian is just like any heard in any given Italian-made cheapo. That it rips off Italian-made knock-off flicks says very little about the Filipino film industry. The dialogue is horrendous. The plot makes no sense; there\u2019s no logic to it. There\u2019s zero character development. The romantic subplots, if you can call them that, feel shoehorned in. The action scenes are pretty good. In its defense, Stryker<\/strong> has plenty of action, violence and stunts. The vehicles are pretty cool. I already mentioned how hot the girls are. Delha looks mighty fine in those tight shorts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0No two ways about it, Stryker<\/strong> is a bad movie. Written and directed by Cirio H. Santiago (TNT Jackson), it\u2019s absolute junk. BUT it\u2019s the good kind of junk. It\u2019s entertainingly bad. To be fair, it\u2019s actually rather engaging. I had fun watching Stryker<\/strong>. There\u2019s no reason this movie should be remembered but Movie Guy\u2019s mind works in mysterious ways as you all know. I remember the poster from the City Line Theater. I liked the art. It looked like a cool savage action flick. Who knows? I might have loved it at 15. I probably would have thought it was cool. At 51, I know what Stryker<\/strong> is and I don\u2019t care. Sometimes a bad movie can be a total guilty pleasure. That\u2019s what this is. Please don\u2019t think less of me.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stryker (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Action-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, rape, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Cirio H. Santiago\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Cirio H. Santiago\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ed Gatchalian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ricardo Remias\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 2, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steve Sandor, Andria Savio, William Ostrander, Julie Gray, Monique St. Pierre, Mike Lane, Jon Harris III, Ken Metcalfe, Joe Zucchero, Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,27,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-b-movies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Stryker-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10343,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981\/revisions\/10343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}