After the smash success that was Event 22: Video Games, we’re ready to roll on through to the other side with 3 fantastic options for the next great party!

Action: Bloodsports

Gamer (2009) : Our bridging movie is also the closest we’ve come to a theatrical release. In the near-future, humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player from a game called “Slayers” looks to regain his independence while taking down the game’s mastermind.

Rollerball (2002): It is the year 2005. The new sport of Rollerball, an extraordinarily violent extension of roller derby involving motorcycles, a metal ball, and many trappings of the World Wrestling Federation-is hugely popular. This is a remake of a 1975 cult classic and it…well…is spectacular in its suckitude.

Alternates: The Running Man (1987), The Condemned (2007),

Sci-Fi: Future Cops

Virtuosity (1995): Some of the most A-list talent we’ve ever had in a feature…well, before one of the was “A-list.” A virtual villain’s successful attempt to escape into the “real world,” SID 6.7, the villain program (Russell Crowe), is eventually transplanted into an android body and escapes. A reinstated police officer played by Denzel Washington, is given the chance to catch him.

Judge Dredd (1995): An adaptation of the UK Comic that takes place in a dystopian future, Dredd (Sylvester Stallone), the most famous judge (a cop with instant field judiciary powers) is convicted for a crime he did not commit while his murderous counterpart escapes.

Alternates: Split Second (1992), Runaway (1984)

Horror: Virtual Reality

Apparently, computers still scare people, because they keep making horror movies about the dangers of the internet, computers, and VR. Hell, does anybody even develop VR stuff anymore?

Ghost Machine (2009) : A special forces cadet (Rachael Taylor), a professional gamer, a security guard, and two computer techs battle a vengeful spirit that has infected their stolen military software.

Brainscan (1994): A teenager (Edward Furlong) is part of an interactive video game where he kills innocent victims. Later, the murders become real. Goretastic!

Alternates: Lawnmower Man (1992), Mindwarp (1992)

 Loading ...

Jeff Fahey, the journyman actor from such b-movies as Body Parts and Darkman III: Die Darkman, Die!, brings us the classic, heartwarming tale of Jobe, a developmentally disabled man who is made into a super-genius by the finest computer graphics of the early nineties.

Co-starring Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence Angelo, the one doctor who never read Frankenstein or anything by Michael Crichton. In fact, the good doctor also haven’t read anything by Stephen King, or he’d know that any money that comes from King’s trademark shady government organization called “The Shop”, and is going towards something that probably involves turning kittens into deadly killing machines…or some equivalent.

In about a month Jobe goes from down syndrome landscaper who uses the scariest lawnmower on the East Coast, to a blond-haired muscular version of Tetsuo from Akira. Seriously, he evens kills people with the mind scream. In no time at all he’s mowing lawns with telekinesis, sleeping with the town husssy, and telling the priest he lives with to stop beating him.

Before long, Jobe reveals his powers to the good doctor by levitating a chair. Naturally, The Shop wants to get some of that as fast as they can, so they bring him to D.C. so he can freak out in front of the Secretary of Shady Government Weapons Projects. This all leads to Jobe loading up on “neurotropic” drugs and trying to find the cheat code for god mode in real life.

The  movie goes round and round like this for some time, and eventually Jobe exacts horrible-special-effect-assisted vengeance on everyone who was cruel to him when he was stupid. Even his friends’ abusive father with that eeeeevile^TM lawnmower.

That’s generally the way King movies go. Everything is creepy and strange, until one night it all goes berserk. In this case, it’s got really a really great 80’s symphonic score, sets so mundane they might as well have been in a sitcom, and Fahey triumphing over all.

You can certainly cavalcade this a number of ways. A theme like “Virtual Reality” could partner this with the likes of Arcade and Virtuosity.

It should be noted that this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the Stephen King short story it’s “adapted” from. King actually successfully sued the producers to get his name taken out of the title.-The Management