The Roller Blade Seven (1991)
Overwhelming proof that letting a bunch of artistic D&D/LARP types run riot without a script is not a good way to make a film.
You’re 3 minutes into extra time against a team you can’t afford to
lose to but suddenly they are through and only it’s up to you to stop them before they score and knock you out of the cup. You know what you’re doing when you slide in heavy and get a red card for your efforts but they are not able to score and your team goes through, though you will miss the next match. You “took one for the team’ and boy, that’s what we did when we watched The Roller Blade Seven.
We’re not even sure how we got to hear about the film. Some random website listing the worst films of all time is probably. In principle a film with roller skating, ninjas, sword fighting and martial arts all set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia should be perfect Plopcorn fodder. We should have been onto a winner but we had not counted on was a filmmaking technique called Zen Filmmaking, which has all the artistic impact of a frog in a blender.
Zen Filmmaking (also known as or the art of not having a screenplay, or script or other important plot/directing materials) is the brain child of Donald G. Jackson (The film’s Director who also plays Father Donaldo) and Scott Shaw (who plays Hawk).
The Zen Filmmaking website (and we kid you not there is one at www.zenfilmmaking.com) defines Zen Filmmaking as: “There are no rules, no definitions and relies on the creative energy of the filmmaker to be the only defining factor. This allows for a spiritually pure source of immediate inspiration to be the only guide in the filmmaking process. Thereby, leading the practitioner towards cinematic enlightenment’ or We at Plopcorn would define it as “Am-dram types pissing about to create a load of shitey nonsense”
From what we can make out, Hawk is a samurai sword wielding biker who occasionally helps out Father Donaldo and the Masters of Light institute out by carrying out special missions for them. This time however, it’s personal as the evil overload, Pharaoh, has kidnapped Sister Sparrow who just happens to be Hawk’s sister, to make her a slave! However, the fact his sister has been kidnapped doesn’t seem enough of an incentive for Hawk though so Donaldo offers him a new bride as an incentive and Hawk’s interest in soon piqued; from this we can conclude that Hawk is, not only mercenary in character, but also a bit rapey.
Pharaoh lives in the Wheelzone, a ‘futuristic’ storm drain (as seen in Terminator 2 and Grease) and when Father Donaldo tells him this, Hawk eats some magic mushrooms with Tarot (played by cult star Karen Black) to teach him to skate as that’s the only way to travel in the Wheelzone; time for a drug enduced montage i think! In the Wheelzone Hawk is joined by a Kabuki mime, a pacifist and a banjo playing fella covered head to toe in bandages, who we nicknamed “Burnt Reynolds” (Deliverance reference if you didn’t get it).
The films many fight scenes are possibly some of the worst fight sequences we’ve ever seen. Have you any idea how hard it is to choreograph a fight on roller blades? Can you imagine how much more difficult it is to choreographed those fights with untrained martial artists? Well, neither could the Director and the end result reminds us of the play fighting we did when we were 9 years old. It looks like a live action role-play event being carried out by a bunch of drama students on roller blades. Shit as that sounds they then manage to make it even worse by looping action shots 3, 4 5 or more times. It’s like action hell.
We did enjoy the roller skating ninja who appears out of nowhere (on skates)… skates up to our group of heroes and kills Burnt Reynolds and the mime without anyone blinking an eyelid but only because the banjo had got on our tits by this point . Even then, seeing the death stroke poorly executed 5 times was painful.
The end of the film is just insane, and not in a good way. We won’t tell you about how we get to the finale as we’re not sure we could do it justice or that we understand what happened but the final ride into the sunset does need to be mentioned. Hawk escapes with his bride on his motorbike, which you are forced to watch eight times, all from different parking spaces in the Wheelzone parking lot. This could tip us that actually the film works on what’s commonly known as the multi-verse theory (but we think it’s just more shitey nonsense). Perhaps each fight scene or important sequence is repeated for this reason, or perhaps it’s just shitey nonsense.
We’re not sure how Hawk’s bike got to the parking lot, his bike magically disappeared when he entered the Wheelzone, one of many, many “WTF?” moments in the film. Could it be that the Wheelzone is a different dimension? When you leave the dimension to return back to your original dimension (hopefully) your bike would be there waiting for you. We need to stop trying to make sense of it to be honest and accept its all just a bit shit.
Anyway, whilst they escape they are chased by Officer Daryl Skates who mercilessly shoots at Hawk and his bride leaving them what appears to be dead at the side of the road. But are they? Hawk rises after we see the scene 5 times so perhaps he is alive in another universe but his bride? We never know.
Overall this film has little to recommend itself. At 90 minutes long there’s probably only 25 minutes of footage. Each character is introduced via a cut away telling you who they are (for example, Utility ninja) and the editing so each important scene is repeated too many times makes you want to turn it off.
We’ve not even mentioned in our review that Sylvester Stallone’s brother is one of the stars of the film as he’s hardly in it (though in it more than Erik Estrada is in Evil Cult) and the fight scene on the beach is unbelievable for the number of times it gets repeated. We haven’t even mentioned that Sister Sparrow looks like she’s a member of the KKK such is our feeling that the film is the biggest load of shit since Biff’s car got covered in Back to the Future.
It’s been a real chore to write anything about this film and that tells you everything you need to know. Watch it if you really must but we took one for the team here and you all owe us big time. Possibly the worst movie ever.
– watch at your own peril
