MUTANT HUNT (1987) * ½

The head of a robotics company, Z (Bill Peterson) pumps a bunch of “Euphoron” drugs into his cyborgs and turns them into mutant killers.  The scientist who created the robots is captured by Z’s men, but his sister (Mary Fahey) escapes.  She then gets bounty hunter Matt Riker (Rick Gianasi) to help her save her brother and dispose of the robots.

Mutant Hunt was written and directed by Tim (Breeders) Kincaid.  Like most of his films, it suffers from a cheap budget.  If Kincaid has a talent, it’s making the abandoned storefronts, scuzzy basement apartments, and junkyards of ‘80s New York look like a “futuristic wasteland”.  (In fact, I think some of the boiler rooms and basement sets were reused from Kincaid’s Robot Holocaust.)  

The robot effects are pretty cheesy, but they’re good for a laugh or two.  I liked the scene where one of the mutants was handcuffed and then turned his arm into Stretch Armstrong to escape.  The messy, gooey aftermaths of the dispatched robots (especially the half-melted robot) are the best things about the movie.

The action is pathetic though.  The funniest bit comes when Riker gets chased his apartment in his underwear by some robots.  The various fight scenes and shootouts are weak too.  Kincaid even drops the ball when it comes to the kickboxing stripper.

The flubbed lines, static camera shots, and long, boring dialogue scenes filled with inane gobbledygook make much of this a chore to sit through.  The pacing is sluggish, and the seventy-five-minute running time feels much longer.  Overall, it’s not nearly as bad as Kincaid’s Robot Holocaust, but it doesn’t come close to matching the sleazy thrills of Breeders.  The music (which sounds like a rip-off of the Miami Vice theme) is pretty good though.

AKA:  Matt Riker.  AKA:  Robot Killer.