Blastfighter (1984)

Directed by Lamberto Bava

A Recommendation 

This very entertaining backwoods revenge movie was to be a futuristic, post-apocalyptic flick by Lucio Fulci. Problems intervened, the original story was scrapped leaving only the title that, while very cool sounding, make

BLASTFIGHTER (Italian, 1984)

s very little (if any) sense. Nevertheless, director Lamberto Bava managed to make a fun and nasty action film with a few touches of Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood thrown in for good measure. 

American actor, Michael Sopkiw (2019: After the Fall of New York, Monster Shark, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley) is Jake “Tiger” Sharp, a disgraced cop who has just been released from prison after serving an eight year sentence for killing those responsible in his wife’s murder. Upon emerging from jail, Tiger is met by a benevolent cop who shows him this outlandish gun that can just about destroy anything. Interested, Tiger takes the monster mayhem maker and heads out to his cabin in deep woods to finally be at peace. Once he pulls into the small town, Tiger is all but immediately frowned upon by the degenerates at the grocery store, whose only pleasure they get from life it seems comes from harassing out of towners, drinking a lot, and poaching deer. 

Tiger lets their taunts wash over him and gets to his cabin. In the distance he sees some hunters killing a deer. So he tries his own hand at hunting with his new mega gun, but once he has a deer in his sights, Tiger holds off and spares its life. Eventually, Tiger comes across a fawn and takes it back to the cabin to care for it. He drives into town for supplies with the fawn riding shotgun and when he comes back with his purchases,  the fawn’s throat has been slit courtesy of the rotten good ol’ boys. One of said boys, Tom, played by George Eastman (a.k.a. Luigi Montefiore) tries to hold back his “friends” from being the complete monsters that they are, but says that they are going to do what they want. (Even though Eastman is taller than all the other guys put together.) 

Tiger has no problem with him and Eastman tries to be as diplomatic as he can, but it just will not work. All that Tiger wants is to be left alone, but the baddies just keep at it, eventually hunting Tiger and his heretofore long-lost daughter Connie (Valentina Forte) who somehow found her dad in a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere. The scumbags take to raping Tiger’s daughter. And if enough wasn’t already enough, watch out when Tiger finally unleashes the super powered gun. There’s blood, explosions, and there are even some attempts at having your heartstrings tugged at no matter how superficial. You want to see Tiger take down the whole nasty lot of villains and that is what you get. 

Filmed on location in the beautiful wilds of Georgia, I would definitely count Blastfighter as one of Lamberto’s best. Certainly the best in that he did not have Argento producing and co-scripting for him (that would be the original Demons). The music is by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis and I really dug the synth music and the honky-tonk country theme. All said, if you are an Italian genre fan, do yourself a favor and check it out. Note: Michele Soavi (Director of Stagefright (a.k.a.Aquarius, Delirium, Bloody Bird), The Church (La Chiesa), The Sect (U.S. titleThe Devil’s Daughter), and Dellamorte Dellamore/Cemetery Man), has a small role in the film as Pete.

Justin
.