Twister's Revenge!

Twister's Revenge!
VHS cover
Directed byBill Rebane
Written byWilliam Arthur
Larry Dreyfus
Bill Rebane
Produced byBill Rebane
Larry Dreyfus
StarringDean West
Meredith Orr
Jonathan Goch
R. Richardson Luka
Jay Gjernes
CinematographyBill Rebane
Edited byWilliam Arthur
Bill Rebane
Music byM. Hans Liebert
Production
company
MTP Productions
Distributed byFocus Film (West Germany)
Mill Creek Entertainment
Release date
  • 1988 (1988)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$95,000

Twister's Revenge! is a 1988 American action comedy film directed by Bill Rebane and released direct-to-video.[1]

Plot

Three bumbling criminals have repeatedly tried to steal the computerized control system of Mr. Twister, a talking monster truck with a mind of its own. They make one last attempt with an M60 tank.[2]

Cast

  • Dean West as Dave
  • Meredith Orr as Sherry
  • David Alan Smith as Kelly
  • R. Richardson Luka as Bear
  • Jay Gjernes as Dutch
  • Tena Murray as Lulu
  • William Dexter as Kelly's Father (credited as Bill Dexter)
  • J. Worthington Kratz as Kelly's Mother
  • Elizabeth Gray as Love Bird Singer
  • Angailica as Love Bird Dancer (credited as Angel Rebane)

Featured Monster Truck show in Ionia, Michigan featured the following drivers as themselves:

  • Rob Fuchs, driving First Blood
  • Mark Bendler, driving Kodiak
  • Jim Miller, driving Barbarian
  • Allen Pezo, driving Lone Eagle

Production

Twister's Revenge! was filmed in Gleason, Wisconsin at a cost of $95,000. Rebane said that "We had a strong lead actor [Dean West] for "Twister's Revenge" but the girl — the lead actress — [Meredith Orr] was very weak."[3]

Mr. Twister was a custom-made monster truck belonging to a local man, David Staszak.[4] Its computer control system included an AT&T PC 6300.[5]

Release

Twister's Revenge! was released on VHS by Video First Entertainment of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1988.[6] It was also released in West Germany, under the title Ein Supertruck auf Gangsterjagd! ("A Supertruck on a Gangster-Hunt!")[7] and in Japan.[8]

It was rereleased by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2006, as part of their "Drive-in Movie Classics" series.[9]

Reviews

1000 Misspent Hours and Counting awarded the film 2½ stars, noting that Mr. Twister's onboard AI was clearly a ripoff of Knight Rider's KITT and saying that the film had a "demented mismatch between tone and subject matter. The very idea of a funny vigilante revenge film is bizarre. I hasten to emphasize that Twister’s Revenge! is not a parody of Death Wish wannabes, but rather a Death Wish wannabe that is also a comedy."

Josiah Chiappelli gave the film 3/5 on his "Hipster Holy Grail" series.[10]

Twister's Revenge! was featured on a 2019 episode of RedLetterMedia's "Best of the Worst" series.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Twister's Revenge (1987)". BFI. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019.
  2. ^ "Twister's Revenge! (1987)" – via letterboxd.com.
  3. ^ Rausch, Andrew J. (1 July 2013). "Gods of Grindhouse: Interviews with Exploitation Filmmakers". BearManor Media – via Google Books.
  4. ^ "IMCDb.org: "Twister's Revenge!, 1988": cars, bikes, trucks and other vehicles". www.imcdb.org.
  5. ^ "Starring the Computer - Twister's Revenge". www.starringthecomputer.com.
  6. ^ Twister's revenge. 5 May 1987. OCLC 23261395 – via Open WorldCat.
  7. ^ Seeßlen, Georg; Jung, Fernand (17 February 2010). Horror: Grundlagen des populären Films. Schüren Verlag. ISBN 9783894727932 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Rausch, Andrew J. (1 July 2013). "Gods of Grindhouse: Interviews with Exploitation Filmmakers". BearManor Media – via Google Books.
  9. ^ Dreyfus, Larry; Arthur, William; Rebane, Bill; West, Dean; Orr, Meredith; Smith, David Alan; Gjernes, Jay; Luka, Richard; Mill Creek Entertainment; OverDrive, Inc (5 May 2019). "Twister's revenge". Mill Creek Entertainment, LLC – via Open WorldCat. {{cite web}}: |first10= has generic name (help)
  10. ^ "Hipster Holy Grail: Twister's Revenge (1988)".
  11. ^ "Best of the Worst: Twister's Revenge". Red Letter Media.