One of the characters yells at his friend: "You just knew Ho-Ho was going to turn out to be the fat, sweaty, desperate psycho!" And of course, we all did too...
There is no question what this movie was. There are even characters named Scott Ridley, Sam Raimi, and John Carpenter. While the surface of the film is a long-corridor (Aliens) horror movie, what lies beneath is sort of a manic, director-oriented comedy that reminds me more of Evil Dead 2 than anything else. The hyper sound to dead silence, the overly dramatic lighting, the first-person Missile Cam, the cool line followed by backlit explosion... it all leans towards a wild but fun ride through all of the most common camp in these types of movies. It's a satire subtle enough to pass as just another bad horror movie, if you're not paying attention.
Brad Dourif (who was B-B-B-B-Billy Buh-Bibbit, a long time ago, and the voice of Chucky-- and might become a little more prevalent in film after being in the upcoming Lord Of The Rings trilogy) is the great shining spot in this film, and alternates from acting well (check out his outpouring at the end) to completely terrible (awful references to hacking... "Molebdenic composite"?). And all of the best subtle jokes are bad guy parodies-- my favorite example is his inability to get his threat right over the monitors: "Turning me off won't turn you off. No. Wait. Turning you off--" click.
But the real flair here is in the direction. None of this would work if it wasn't played half serious with the sights and sounds. As the climax builds, the ambient noise cuts out completely for the doors to chime "Welcome!" cheerily. The HUD from the machine's point of view displays 1P and Hi Score. The Robocop-style machine whirring in the Hardman gear as Raimi actually gets into a fistfight (!) with the machine... there is never any "set 'em up, knock 'em down" standard cue that *these* are the jokes... but there they are. Dig in.
