The 80s really spared no expense when it comes to sci-fi genre films and if it weren’t so we wouldn’t have gotten the greats such as Robocop, The Terminator, Aliens, Blade Runner and so on. Even most of the lesser known sci-fi films gain some popularity over the years; I like to see The Host (2013) try to get any ounce of popularity for the next 20 to 30 years.
We open on the introduction of Sgt. Jack Ramsay (played by Magnum P.I. himself Tom Selleck). He’s soon introduced by his captain to a new partner Karen Thompson (played Cynthia Rhodes) as he gets the call of a runaway robot. Cut to Ramsay and Karen arriving at a corn field to stop a pest controller robot that’s running through the field ruining the corn in the process. Karen enters the field and managed to catch it but the pest controller shorts out causing Karen to drop it and the robot runs off. Ramsay catches up with Karen and the two go after the robot; they catch up and finally caught it as the robot harmlessly explodes. Afterwards Karen asked Ramsay why he transferred to the Runaway Squad and he answered that his fear of heights kept getting in the way of his police work. Back at the police station it’s further explained to Karen by Ramsay’s other partner Sgt. Marvin James (played by Stan Shaw) that his acrophobia cause a criminal to get away. Ramsay was chasing the assailant to a building that was under construction; the vertigo set in to the point that Ramsay couldn’t keep up and the assailant got away. It’s revealed that the same assailant murdered a family; since then Ramsay blames himself and that working in the Runaway Squad would make up his mistake. Seconds later the Runaway Squad gets a code 709 meaning that a robot has committed homicide. We cut to Ramsay arriving at the crime scene and gets an update that a domestic robot model 9-12 has killed a wife and her sister with a kitchen knife while the wife’s 10 month old baby is still in the house and alive. The police set up a Floater camera and send it inside the house. They get a glimpse inside the house until the Floater is shot down by the 9-12 now armed with a magnum revolver. Ramsay goes talk to a David Johnson (played by Chris Mulkey) asking what modification he put on the robot. Johnson replies that he made no modification and has no idea why it killed his family. He freaks out when Ramsay tells him that it’s got a gun going on about “he’s gone insane” and panicky leaves the crime scene. Ramsay gears up with an EM scatter suit and a laser gun as we are introduced to the film’s villain Luther (played by Gene Simmons….insert your favorite KISS song here) as he watches. Ramsay slowly enters the house while being followed by news cameraman; Ramsay warns him to leave but the cameraman refuse ending getting shot and killed by the 9-12. Ramsay continues his way to the baby’s room but gets cut off by the 9-12. He detours to the parent’s room on one entrance while the 9-12 enters through the other; the 9-12 opens fire but Ramsay takes it out immediately with a few laser blasts. After getting the baby safely out of the house, Ramsay and Karen head to his place. There we’re introduced to his son Bobby (played by Joey Cramer); the three have a chat until Bobby is sent off to bed by Ramsay’s series 12 house robot Lois. Ramsay offers Karen to stay for dinner but she decides to go home instead. The next day Ramsay, Karen and Marvin are inspecting the rogue 9-12; Marvin finds a non-standard black with red stripe chip that didn’t came with the robot. The chip then starts smoking and then explodes as if it self-detonated. Marvin comes to the conclusion that someone modified the 9-12 with this chip; meaning this was no runaway but murder. Ramsay and Karen return to the crime scene to find any clues; they look through a door-recorder and found a video message of Luther disguised as a robot repair guy before the message cut off. Cut to a company Vectrocon Security Systems where Luther is getting the chips from a partner. Luther pays the partner and leaves however, it turns out the money’s a fake and is killed by a killer robot spider. Cut to Ramsay and Karen outside of a hotel complex where Johnson is hiding. They head on inside and apprehended him immediately; back outside they about to take Johnson to the station but he panics as sees Luther across the street and runs away. Ramsay chases after him while Karen calls for back up; Luther soon follows Ramsay and Johnson. After a chase through the alley Ramsay finally catches up to Johnson. Luther appears drawing out a high tech gun and fires at Johnson; this is no ordinary bullet as it u turns around head towards Johnson. He quickly dodges the bullet runs off again with Ramsay not far behind. Luther fires another shot and the bullet follows the two through the alley. Ramsay tries to out run the bullet to no prevail and quickly moves out of its path. The bullet continues on to its original target Johnson; he tries to get away by climbing up a fire escape but the bullet chases up to him and kills him.
A little bit Ramsay and Karen head to Vectrocon where Johnson used to work as an electronic engineer. They come to a dead end on Johnson but immediately get a call of a runaway sentry robot in the Vectrocon building. Cut to one of the company’s secretary Jackie Rogers (played by Kristie Alley) being zapped harmlessly by the sentry robot. After a failed attempt to shut down the robot remotely, Ramsay goes on in to shut down manually. And by manually I mean Ramsay smashes the robot with a chair….SELLECK SMASH! Ramsay tries escort Jackie but she’s insists that she’ll be fine; while trying to leave Jackie drops her purse revealing Luther’s chips and the templates to make more of them. Apparently Luther has her getting the rest of the chips and the templates or he would kill her. She informs Ramsay that Luther is at a meeting at the Ritz Hotel. At the Ritz Hotel Ramsay has a squad of cops ready outside of Luther’s room. He quietly enters the room looking through a crack open door to see Luther making an arms deal. Karen busts in and has Luther and the arms dealers cover; Ramsay soon enters the room. Luther activates a Floater which releases a smokescreen; Luther gets his high tech gun shoots Karen but she’s only wounded. He then shoots the two arms dealers dead and takes a hooker hostage. He orders Ramsay to drop his and he does; Luther makes his escape through the stairs to the roof. Killing a few cops along the way. Ramsay soon follows up the stairs to the roof but Luther gets away by chopper. Back at in hotel room Karen is still incapacitated with the live microshell in her arm. Not taking any chances with a disarm robot, Ramsay decides to take the bullet out himself. Ramsay managed to get the bullet out safely and discards it before it explodes. While Karen is making a speedy recovery, Ramsay and Marvin are looking over one of the high tech bullets and Luther’s chips confiscated from the bust. The bullet itself has built in propulsion system, directional nozzles and electronics at the tip. These bullets can be programed to go after specific targets and the signature, a person’s body heat. Basically these bullet are like miniaturized heat seekers or smart bullets as Marvin would called them. As for Luther’s chips they are design to override CPU commands turning any computer into a killing machine. A little bit later Ramsay gets a call from Luther who has tapped into the police security cameras watching Ramsay. Luther demands Ramsay to surrender Jackie and the chips to him or he’ll kill her. However, Ramsay plans on moving her to a safe place. Ramsay and Jackie head out in a robot controlled police car while Karen follows in a regular police. On the road the escort is being followed by hired henchmen of Luther; they deployed a Lock-On (a small mobile smart bomb) that’s targeted on the escort. Karen arms a laser gun on top of the police car blasting the Lock-On. More Lock-Ons are deployed and approaching fast towards the escort as Karen continues blasting them. Ramsay and Jackie bail out of the police car and into Karen’s before a Lock-On takes the robot controlled car. Twelve Lock-Ons are approaching fast to the last police car; Ramsay suspects that they are somehow tracking Jackie. Jackie takes out the chip templates from purse tells him to throw the purse out the window. All of the Lock-Ons converged on the purse and explode.
Later at a restaurant Ramsay and Jackie wait for Luther to show up for the templates. Luther calls Ramsay through Karen’s earpiece to send Jackie to him. Ramsay asks to send Karen at the same time and Luther agrees but not before Jackie secretly splits half of the templates and gives it to Ramsay. Jackie walks towards Luther while Karen walks towards Ramsay. Jackie gives the templates to Luther but he soon after kills her knowing that he’s got only half of the templates. Luther open fires on Ramsay and makes his escape; Ramsay avoids the smart bullets but was unable to follow Luther. Back at the station they got a trace on Luther from a bug Ramsay put on the templates and head to a hospital. However, it turns out to be a diversion as we cut to Ramsay‘s desk as Luther disguised as a cop gain access to his personal files and finds out where he and Bobby lives. Ramsay and Karen return to the station and notice that his computer was accessed. This alerts Ramsay that Luther knows where he lives; Ramsay calls home but gets no response. Ramsay and Karen head on over to his place only to find it a wreck, Lois severely damaged and Bobby gone. As the two try to repair Lois, Ramsay answers a call from Luther demanding him to bring the rest of the templates to a construction site alone if he wants to see Bobby alive. Ramsay leaves Karen behind but she knows he’s via Lois replaying the call. Ramsay arrives at the construction site where he’s greeted by the killer robot spiders on standby mode. Ramsay goes up an elevator as his vertigo starts setting in. Ramsay gets off at the higher floors where he meets up Luther and Bobby. He tells Luther to let Bobby go and he complies; Bobby gets in the elevator and heads on down. However, Luther has programed the robot spiders to kill anyone who gets off the elevator. Ramsay shouts to Bobby to stop the elevator but the controls do not respond. As the elevator makes it to the ground floor Karen arrives entering the elevator and gets Bobby to the top of the elevator to the next floor. Luther gets rather piss and opens fire on Ramsay. He manages to avoid the smart bullets and makes it to the elevator but ends up speeding towards the very top instead down to ground floor. Ramsay looks at the elevator systematics and finds a reset button at the bottom of the elevator cart. As he about to go through an access panel on the floor, Ramsay gets some nasty company via three robot spiders. As he’s climbing on the side of the elevator, he managed to take out two of them but gets stung by the third one and ends handing on the edge of the elevator. Ramsay pulls out a live cable and takes out the third spider. He makes it to the reset button and elevator starts up again. The elevator stops at the floor where Luther is waiting on Ramsay. He has Ramsay at gunpoint but he starts up the elevator while grabbing Luther’s leg. As the elevator speeds to the ground, Ramsay slams the stop button bringing the elevator to hard stop causing Luther to fall to the ground with the awaiting spiders. Luther is covered and stung to death by the killer robot spiders. The film ends with Ramsay reunited with Bobby and just to bring this up because the film brings it up a few times Ramsay and Karen began to share feelings for each other.
My Final Verdict: The words fun, intense and entertaining seems to describe this film enough. The use of robots in commonplaces is quite practical and rather compliant it's believable. The music is freaking awesome; each score is not some average techno music you find at a night club. Each music score’s got heart in their tone. Making most of the scenes feel rather intense; of course that’s the kind of style of composing you expect from Jerry Goldsmith. And oh another good example of the man’s works Total Recall. Do I have to explain how badass Gene Simmons is; he’s like the 80s Tom Hiddleston.
So that’s one sci-fi film but I can still taste the stagnation of The Host in my brain. So let’s see if the next review Eve of Destruction will fix that problem; stay tuned.
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