Twister's Revenge! (1987)

Dir: Bill Rebane

Scr: William Arthur, Larry Dreyfus, Bill Rebane

Prod: Larry Dreyfus, Bill Rebane

Cast: Dean West, Meredith Orr, David Alan Smith

Well, you can imagine the surprise gotten from the original pressing of Mill Creek's Drive-In Movie Classics set, where instead of Don Dohler's Fiend (listed on the back cover and the disk's individual sleeve inside), the film is actually this.... thing. 

In 1987, Bill Rebane gave the world another departure from his usual milieu of snowcapped Wisconsin-set fantasy films, with the release of Twister’s Revenge, a rural action comedy that perhaps was made a few years too late to capitalize on the fashionable trend of “good ole boy” hick flicks. The film’s title refers to the computerized, talking monster truck (just what we needed- a country and western version of Knight Rider), which is masterminded by the truck-rally circuit-traveling couple of Dave and Sherry. Sherry gets kidnapped on their wedding night (when the marriage is about to be consummated in a rig, no less), and so Dave and the truck speed to her rescue.

The culprits of this crime are three dorks with names like Bear, Dutch and Kelly, who wouldn't know how to steal water from Lake Superior. While obviously this zany rubber-limbed trio is played for laughs, their endless “comic” routines are even below what the Three Stooges’ gag writers would’ve thrown in the wastebasket (they spend minutes arguing over which way is left, right, north or south). And sadly, little is done with the novel talking monster truck premise, other than having its huge wheels roll over cars, which gets tiresome in the first five minutes. Whenever they do make use of the computer's sassy attitude, often its Cylon voice is unintelligible.

Hey- I like hick flicks, and while this was a genre seldom known for Shakespearian wit, this insipid affair even lacks the gall to at least do something with the clichés that were used endlessly elsewhere. Rebane’s earlier films were more clever satires of rural life when they were serious. (Really? It took three people to write this slop?) The film has exactly one clever running gag: when the truck ploughs down a shack owned by the girlfriend of one of the crooks, she runs away at top speed, and occasionally throughout the movie one will see her in the background still running... even during the end credits. This otherwise lifeless affair is simply a miserable film. People pick on Rebane's monster movies like The Giant Spider Invasion for their subpar production values, but at least those pictures still have some dignity and entertainment value.  Yes, this is worse, much worse, than any fur-covered Buick on eight legs.

MMM Rating: 1/5

Located on: Drive-In Movie Classics. Although on the original pressing of the set, Fiend was erroneously listed instead, subsequent releases properly list Twister's Revenge. Lucky us.