Sci-fighters (1996 Video) User Reviews (20)

Slightly better than the average C grade sci-fi film

[mstomaso · 3/10 · 4 June 2005]

This is a low budget B movie with three interesting actors as its main attraction: Piper (who established himself well in They Live), Drago (who unfortunately never seems to get a role worthy of his abilities) and Heitmeyer (though inconsistent, she had her moments in TV's Earth Final Conflict). Piper and Heitmeyer must find a way to work around their differences and their sexual tension to defeat Drago and the army of alien virus carriers he is spawning through rape and murder.

The film starts out strong - with Drago getting into a fight with a fellow prisoner in a lunar prison and introducing the audience to his nihilism, sadism and psychosis. He dies in prison, but has been infected with an intelligent alien virus which reactivates his nervous system and uses him as a host to spread itself. Piper plays a member of an elite security force, and Heitmeyer plays a microbiologist brought in to study the virus as Drago begins his killing spree. The plot becomes more elaborate as the film progresses, and eventually takes on some details which really challenge believability. For example, it turns out that Heitmeyer vaguely resembes somebody who had been between Drago and Piper when they were in the academy together, and this is used as a device to permit a few gratuitous and silly bra scenes where Heitmeyer distracts Drago from his murderous intentions. Although the actors pull off their performances well enough, and the cinematography is relatively good for the genre, the plot is too thin to be sustained.

The bottom line is that this is not a suitable film for anybody who is NOT a fan of Piper or Drago. Heitmeyer fans will likely find this disappointing. It has little going for it besides decent acting, a reasonable script and a reasonable action-pace.

Not too bad...(contains spoilers)

[AndyVanScoyoc · 4/10 · 19 February 2003]

I have always been a big fan of Roddy Piper so it was my pleasure to watch this movie.

Roddy Piper is convincing in his role as Detective Cameron Grayson and does a good job of proving that he can act.

I was pleased to see Billy Drago as Adrian Dunn, the perverted and sicko heavy of the movie who gets his kicks by raping women and then infecting them with a hideous organism he is carrying. You can never go wrong with Billy Drago as the heavy in any movie.

The acting of everyone else is tolerable but thankfully the movie centers around Cameron and Adrian who as old friends turned rivals take up the entire story.

The action isn't bad, but Sci-Fighters is a typical cop versus bad guy story.

However, I would recommend this movie for anyone who likes either Roddy Piper or Billy Drago. They made what little there was of the movie.

Low-budget Sci-fi

[osloj · 3/10 · 2 December 2015]

Sci-fighters (1996) is a low-budget Sci-fi that doesn't go anywhere. It borrows heavily from Blade Runner (1982), Runaway (1984), The Hidden (1987), and I Come in Peace (1990). It has a nice feeling to it with the low-budget attempts at a futuristic world, but the problem is the horrible acting of Roddy Piper and a baffling performance by Billy Drago.

Roddy Piper was okay in John Carpenter's They Live (1988) but he is just unlikeable here. Billy Drago is like a drug addict here, messy and annoying. In The Untouchables (1987) he was fine, but he is a weak bad guy here, invaded by a parasite, and he only stumbles along aimlessly.

Neither Roddy Piper or Billy Drago can carry a film, even a low-budget Sci-fi one.

The plot is ludicrous as well.

Recommended:

Prison Planet (1992) Also Known As "Badlanders", Alienator (1990), Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983).

Shockingly Bad

[13Funbags · 2/10 · 25 May 2018]

This movie spent a lot of time trying to explain an incomprehensible plot. They try to just have a bunch of stuff happening instead of having an interesting story. There's at least 35 minutes with no dialogue and trust me, those minutes don't have any action either. The editing was terrible too. In one scene Piper and the woman are walking down the street talking and they go past the same neon sign a dozen times. When they stop, the camera keeps switching angles and that sign is always in the shot. Their vision of what 2009 would be like was very bizarre. There was technology that could literally do anything but America was a 3rd world mess that was mainly populated by fans of The Exploited. To top it off, they couldn't have had a less attractive female lead. This for fans of Piper and bad movies only.

I WAS SURPRISED AT HOW GOOD IT REALLY WAS.

[latchkey1 · 8 July 2004]

OK, why do people who have soo many Hi expectations about Z flicks. When I bought this movie (for 3.99) I thought "this movie will probably blow", but what the heck, I haven't seen roddy in a flick since "They Live" or "Hell Comes to Frog Town" This one was awesome. I couldn't believe people railed it so. Notice how some of these morons say stupid, idiotic things like........."Oh, the cinematography was horrible" What? who the hell cares, When I'm kicking back with my bass guitar practicing at night with some "Trees" I enjoy watching flicks, been doing this for 10 years so I know an entertaining movie when I see one and this one had me very very entertained. The acting was above average, really and the story line wasn't that hard to understand. Those who mention Logic in their review need some logic.....Logic like "It's a movie Genius". I enjoyed this movie even though people state some very stupid claims. watch it with an open mind and enjoy yourself great late at night when your solo.

truly awful

[pboots · 1/10 · 20 September 2002]

Cop chases convict carrying an alien lifeform in 2009 Boston.

Boring, formulaic and predictable low budget sci-fi; the script makes very little sense and even fails in its own internal logic. A complete failure on every level other than cinematography.

Boring and dumb

[al-ex · 1/10 · 23 April 2001]

Gee, this movie is bad. It took me three attempts to finally get through. Conversations and acting is just "artificial" and horribly bad. Story is far from being complex (least to say). I tried to convince myself that the $7 purchase price can somewhat compensate the missing parts but instead I just understood why it was that cheap. I honestly don't recommend this to anybody unless you'd want my copy... :)

slow and predictable

[MrWizard-4 · 4/10 · 22 August 1999]

Cops that shoot like the a-team. bad guy monsters that can't be killed and exhale methane. Probably some good movie in there somewhere if you can sleep through the boring bits.

A pleasant surprise

[Gafke · 6/10 · 23 March 2006]

I admit it. I thought this movie was going to be a total piece of crap. But I was wrong.

Adrian Dunn is a violent and very creepy convict serving out his sentence on a lunar base prison. When he kills a fellow inmate, he is infected with a nasty alien virus that the dead man had been carrying. Assumed dead, Adrian is shipped back to Boston for burial...but he awakens as a red eyed zombie inside of his body bag. When a rape victim turns up at police headquarters and identifies Adrian as her assailant, Cameron Grayson, aka Roddy Piper, flies into action! Turns out that Adrian was in jail for the brutal rape-murder of Roddy's wife, Katie. When the rape victim dies a horrible, explosive death, Grayson and his new friend Dr. Kirbie Younger realize that they are running out of time. Adrian is spreading his disease with every woman he rapes, and Kirbie is next on his list.

Okay, yeah. This movie is cheap looking, silly in places and suffers from an abysmal budget, but it's really not that bad! Roddy Piper is quite likable as Grayson, and Jayne Heitmeyer is a smart, resourceful ass kicker. And Billy Drago as Adrian Dunn is awesome! He really makes Adrian a sinister, creepy and somewhat pathetic monster, shuffling zombie-like through the dirty streets. His scene with a woman tied to a bed is really chilling. By film's end, he looks like a melted candle with the worlds worst case of acne. Icky! But really effective.

I've seen much worse movies than this one. "Sci-Fighters", despite its stupid and misleading title, is quite likable and enjoyable with well-drawn and involving characters. Worth watching for Drago's performance alone.

Lets put it this way the main star is an ex wressler

[evil_is_better · 3/10 · 22 May 2000]

I can't believe that hot blond didn't even get naked (though she did spill a little). Though other chicks did get naked, but not enough to save the movie. There was some other stuff but it was a haze, all in all a disappointment.

Excellent B-Movie Sci-Fi...Roddy Piper's Best Performance

[khoekstra · 8/10 · 7 July 2006]

This really is a great B-movie. Roddy Piper delivers his best performance as an actor to date, ranging from comical to serious to romantic to heartbroken.

The story is very straightforward, but extremely fun and watchable. Considering the budget they had to work with, you really have to admire what they pulled off in this film.

It's very similar thematically to "The Hidden," from 1987. There's a great "unstoppable alien" thing going on here. The chemistry between Piper and the extremely beautiful Jayne Heitmeyer is great. She is fantastic as Dr. Kirbie Younger.

I'll be honest...if you're in to serious A-list films, this is no "Citizen Kane." But if you like great B-movie fun, you could do a whole lot worse than Sci-Fighters. It's B-science fiction gold!

not bad

[winner55 · 6/10 · 1 July 2007]

Yeah, pretty much the same plot we've seen in a dozen other such films in the past ten years; but if we know those films, it's because we watched them and enjoyed them; perhaps with some sense of guilt, like there ought to be something better to with our lives, but let's admit we were entertained.

Certainly this film is not among the worst of its ilk. In fact, it is generally well made, with sharp performances from all the actors, including the Rowdy One; and the script doesn't rub our noses in sci-fi-techno-babble, it just gets on with the story.

The big disappointment is the ending; it is rushed, badly directed, badly edited. It feels like it comes looping out of another film, there's no build-up to it at all.

Too bad; if the ending had been as impressive as the rest of the film, I would have given this 8 stars, if only for effort; now it has to live with 6.

That makes it a time waster, like most of the other films of its type - not bad, just not good enough to be memorable.

Not as bad as one would expect

[JoeB131 · 4/10 · 19 January 2008]

This wouldn't have been a bad movie if they had a script doctor go over the dialog a bit.

Essentially, the world has undergone a nuclear winter, and a convict escapes a lunar prison after being infected by an alien life form designed to convert the world over to methane, and does so by raping women and infecting them with alien-crabs. Or something. Roddy Piper plays a cop who put the convict away, and Jane Heitmeyer plays the hottie doctor trying to find a cure.

Pretty much, that's all the plot you need to hang the action sequences on. Piper gets into some fights, there are explosions, cheap special effects and some nude scenes. I'm sure this film was made on the cheap, but they got a lot out of a cheap budget.

Roddy piper kicks ass

[NateWatchesCoolMovies · 29 December 2017]

Picture a bleached out, acid washed dime-store version of Blade Runner on a shoestring, bargain budget and you'll have some notion of Sci Fighters, a silly futuristic flick starring lovable wrestler 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper and B Movie stock villain Billy Drago. By most standards it's a miserable little exercise in schlock, but if that's your thing to begin with, it's a pearl. So it's set in 2009, and the film was made in 96', which going by a combination of the math and the severely bleak atmosphere, the filmmakers didn't even stretch their timeline barely past twenty years from their date, showing either amusing carelessness in writing or even more amusing cynicism for where we're headed, and how fast. The setting is Boston, and it's a goddamn slum, with perpetually overcast skies, garbage heaps everywhere and a general sense that people have given up. Piper is Grayson, a hard boiled detective on the trail of a somewhat unusual killer. Far above earth in a filthy off-world prison on the moon, criminal Dunn (Drago) has encountered some weird alien parasite which hijacks his gaunt frame and torpedos back stateside to start a murder spree. Drago vs Piper in a sad-sack, disease ridden Boston is pretty much the suitable logline, and it's not half bad. Piper makes a more grounded leading man than the film deserves, while Drago is straight up certifiable (nothing new) especially when the extraterrestrial, who has a garbled and endearing speech impediment, is controlling him. Effort is put into the atmosphere to some degree, but I feel like the success in achieving mood was probably also by accident of just leaving shit lying around set. A true peculiarity, worth it only for fans of the two actors and schlock-hounds alike.

Could have been a passable film. Failed.

[frankblack-79961 · 3/10 · 5 April 2021]

While we all know Roddy Piper is not the best, he is far from the worst. So I gave this one a shot. Drago can be interesting from time to time as well. While it seemed most of the tools were in the toolbox, it seems there was some confusion on how to use them. Only watch if have absolutely nothing else to watch. You still might turn it off though.

All stars for Billy Drago

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 13 April 2023]

Billy Drago spent four hours or more getting into makeup every day for this movie but man, Drago was an intimdating guy even without the latex. Here, he's Adrian Dunn, the former partner of Cameron Grayson (Roddy Piper). He killed Cameron's wife and was sent to a jail on the moon, because this movie takes place in 2009 and director Peter Svatek and writer Mark Sevi (Scanner Cop II, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute, Dream a Little Dream 2) thought that man would be living there within 13 years. Well, right now it's 2023 and I am not writing this from the moon.

But man, this movie goes past expectations by starting with Drago fighting another convict with buzz saws, killing that criminal and then ripping some alien virus out of his face and putting it into a hole he's cut into his arm. He dies, but really he becomes monstrous and is sent back to Earth as a corpse that wakes up and instantly assaults and infects a woman.

Now, every woman that Dunn sees looks like Cameron's dead wife and he keeps knocking them up with alien virus creatures. Luckily, Dr. Kirbie Younger (Jayne Heltmeyer) is around to help figure out how to stop the virus. She also looks just like - you know it - Cameron's dead wife.

This is a perfectly fine straight to video science fiction movie that makes good use of Piper. I can always watch more movies with Drago as the bad guy, too.

Not bad at all...

[Clever Jones · 9/10 · 1 March 2000]

You'd think that a film like this would really suck, but to be honest, it's really pretty good. Billy Drago is terrific in this role, and has a lot of presence. Roddy Piper is fine. The rest of the cast is made up of homegrown talent from here in Montreal.

There's nothing terrible about the film, and nothing magnificent either. Sets look fake, acting is fine, script is a tad weak, but overall this film really delivers on action.

6.5/10

An enjoyable low-budget futuristic sci-fi flick

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 15 February 2010]

2009. Vicious and dangerous psycho rapist Adrian Dunn (a perfectly creepy and slimy turn by veteran bad guy thespian Billy Drago) gets infected with a mysterious alien organism while serving time in a prison on the moon. After he apparently dies, his corpse gets shipped back to Boston, Massachusetts. Dunn revives and goes on a lethal rampage. It's up to tough and weary Black shield cop Cameron Grayson (firmly played with rugged conviction by Roddy Piper) to stop Dunn before he spreads the vile contagion all over the city. Capably directed by Peter Svatek, with a tight script by Mark Sevi, a steady pace, slick cinematography by Milan Gravelle, a bleak wintry setting, nice flashes of sharp sarcastic wit, a moody score by Milan Kymlicka, appropriately hideous make-up effects which deliver several memorably disgusting moments, a surprisingly substantial amount of genuine humanity (the back story about Dunn and Grayson is unexpectedly poignant), and a rousing and gripping climactic confrontation between Dunn and Grayson, this nifty little B-film supplies plenty of solid and satisfying undemanding entertainment. The lovely and spirited Jayne Heitmeyer brings a winning mix of warmth, humor, and energy to her role as spunky microbiologist Dr. Kirbie Younger. Moreover, there are fine supporting contributions by Tyrone Benskin as the cheery Dr. Gene Washington, Richard Raybourne as wormy runt crime lord Casper, Chip Chaipku as the irate Captain Lankett, and Donna Sarrasin as doomed Dunn victim Tricia Rollins. The always reptilian Drago is marvelously grotesque and repellent as Dunn, who becomes more exceedingly ugly and repulsive as the disease causes him to physically deteriorate (sickening highlights include Dunn pulling out his hair, spitting up gross white goo, and even cutting off one of his fingernails). A fun movie.

Don't let the Corny title fool you.

[OliveNymph · 9/10 · 5 August 2019]

I really enjoyed this and was pleasantly surprised. Roddy piper and Billy drago drew me to it and they did not disappoint. Good performances, decent story and the effects/stunts were impressive for the small budget they had to work with.. I totally recommemd