Exterminator 2

Exterminator 2 (1984) * 1/2 (out of 4) In 1980 the low-budget THE EXTERMINATOR hit theaters and become a rather big hit so four years later this sequel followed. Robert Ginty returns as John Eastland and this time out he's dealing with more bad guys including the leader of the pack who is known as X (Mario Van Peebles). This sequel certainly has production companies Cannon's signature all over it and in fact I think this film owes more to DEATH WISH II than the actual first film. I say that because the exploitation factor is a lot higher here for a number of reasons. I think director-producer Mark Buntzman probably saw that Charles Bronson hit and decided to do like that film and just deliver what people wanted. Part of what people wanted from the first film was the flame-thrower, which was pretty much shown on the poster of the first film but here it becomes a major character. Whereas in the first film it was only used once or twice, here it is the main killing force as we see countless people set on fire and burned to a crisp. This effect is put to great use throughout the picture and one has to tip their hat to the stunt men were were doing these dangerous stunts on a low-budget. The biggest problem with EXTERMINATOR 2 is that the pacing is so incredibly bad that the 90-minute running time feels three times as long. At one point I thought the film was almost over and my boredom turned to shock when I realized we were only thirty-minutes into the picture. There are a few good points along the way including the silly violence, which is certainly over-the-top at times and this is especially true of the garbage truck hunting. I thought Ginty was good in his wooden way. Van Peebles is certainly a lot of fun in his own way and you've got to love the various wild outfits he wears. Is this better than the first film? Considering I wasn't a fan of either, I'd say this one here manages to be a tad bit sillier and contain some campier, wilder moments that somewhat make it more entertaining. It's just too bad that the pacing wasn't better.

Johnny Long is back to doing what he does best and that's cleaning up the New York streets of its scum. This time he's all geared up with the flame-thrower set on exterminate. When he's not flaming street gangs. He spends time with his dancer girlfriend and that of an old army buddy. Although things get real personal, when Johnny's girlfriend is brutally beat up by a power hungry gang lord of the streets, known as X. This really tips Johnny over the edge and drives him to revenge. Don't you just hate when you get through watching a movie to realise it was heavily cut, as it doesn't go as long as it's advertised on the video case (which by the way has a great cover art work). Well, that was the case here and I couldn't hide my disappointment of it. I'm not a massive fan of the original, but I was still interested in seeing the sequel after reading how much crueler and nihilistic it is in its actions. Sure, that would have been great, that's if I saw it that way, but I didn't. The deaths scenes were cut down and some (like the always mentioned subway scene and Johnny's girlfriend beat-up in the park) I didn't even get to see. Those moments where choppy as hell and had me going "What on earth just happen?!" Even the film's final standoff between X (a dreadfully juicy turn by Mario Van Peebles) and Johnny Long comes on too early in the story and then drags on for ages. Until it meets its murky conclusion. In all, it's a very inferior sequel that turns into an embarrassingly, vapid cheese-fest in the tradition of the Death Wish sequels (… namely part 3). There's no foot grounded in reality compared to the original and it comes off like an action comic fantasy. Thanks to Peebles and his laughable bunch of roaches. Robert Ginty (and his placidly stiff nature) is back as Johnny the Vietnam VET turned vigilante. On this occasion he brought with him his welder helmet and the trusty old flamethrower (the iconic picture found on the poster of the original) to clean up the dirtily decayed and crime-riddled streets. When he gets mad. Vicious punks and petty thieves better watch out! As he appears from nowhere (like a ghost) to wipe the floor. How they don't notice someone dressed like this until its to late, goes beyond me. Imagine the noise he would be make carrying all of this and how hard it would be to swiftly maneuver with it! The mangled story is basic and skips a lot stuff that happened in the original and heads its own direction… well kind of… ah, yeah its derivative. How could the cops go from knowing who the exterminator is at the end of the first feature to be at square one in the follow up? Who knows? I don't. While, there's nothing much else going on in the thin material to derail the main focus off Ginty's character and emotional build up. Still cluttering up the pace are redundant fillers (give me some break dancing) and an over-plus of scene-stealing Van Pebble posing and preaching his "He is the street" speeches. Just proving how much of a bad-ass he is. Poor Van Pebble, because he comes across as extremely wretched and too fruity looking to invoke that presence. Mark Buntzman's no-nonsense direction is ineptly junky (great campy slow-mo pieces), but he makes decent of the gritty and beat up look of the New York surroundings. It's not as prominent, say like the original, but Bob Baldwin's grounded photography gives it that rough edge. On the other-hand, the progressively clunky score by David Spear is a manipulative piece of mess. There's an explicit vibe created, but sadly its more comic style than nastily exploitive. Nonetheless it's still fun and creative in its set pieces. There are moments of ridiculously stupid and roistering fun evident, but make sure you get your hands on the uncut version. P.s. Watching the uncut version (shockingly on Pay TV?!) was a much better experience. The subway sequence was rather unsettling. Shonky, but amusing comic action.

Robert Ginty returns as John Eastland, the ex-Vietnam veteran turned vigilante hero from the first film in this inferior sequel. This time around he comes to odds with a street gang led by Mario Van Peebles appearing here as a character named simply 'X' who makes Eastland's life that bit more miserable when he and his gang decide on a hostile take over of the city. In addition, they further manage to antagonise our hero by firstly kneecapping his girlfriend and then a bit later on murdering her in her apartment! Understandably mightily vexed by this decidedly anti sociable behaviour, our man decides to take drastic action and sets about wiping the villainous buggers out! This time around he is aided by a buddy and his dumper truck although as a word of advice; don't get too attached to his pal….. It has to be said that the film isn't a patch on its forerunner with generally toned down violence, almost comically clichéd villains and some truly awful and distracting music throughout. The action scenes to, whilst more elaborate here, are still nowhere near as engaging as in the previous film. Still, having said the above, our hero certainly looks more striking here having taken to wearing a welders mask and now utilising a flame thrower as his weapon of choice. In fact the image of this faceless, merciless killer is indeed very memorable in the same way that the white mask wearing Michael Myers is to the Halloween films, the Hockey mask wearing Jason Vorhees is to the Friday The 13th movies or the icon of the green and red jumper and the knife fingered glove of Freddy Kruegar is to the Nightmare On Elm Street films. Overall, as it stands, the movie is mildly enjoyable with a number of fairly exciting scenes involving Eastland torching the bad guys to cinders, however, as a sequel to such a great original it falls rather flat. As a final note though – COOL Break dancing!

SPOILER ALERT! I dearly love the first film and was excited to see this one, especially when I heard that gore-guru Tom Savini was supplying messed-up corpses for the production. And I hate trashing a piece of work that someone actually spent time and money to fashion---but this thing is awful, even worse than "Death Wish 3" which at least had Bronson in it. Ginty's character is a cardboard cutout, resembling the troubled loner from the first film in appearance only, and it seems to me that his garbage-man buddy is as much the hero of this disaster as he. Van Peebles as X is like something from a comic book---take out the R-rated language and he would fit right in on the old "Batman" TV show along with Liberace and Aunt Harriet. And the finale with the souped-up garbage truck was obviously inspired---using the term loosely---by the ending of every episode of "The A Team." If you disliked this abortion as much as I, stick to the original and leave this thing to collect dust on the store shelf.

As a movie itself, Exterminator 2 is pretty bad. But, that doesn't stop it from being an awesomely awful 80's action flick. Thanks to the Action Movie 4 Pack that was just released, Exterminator 2 has come to DVD. I'm a huge fan of the first movie- it was a great, brutal, visceral vigilante flick. The Exterminator was taking out the trash of the streets in crafty, violent, and satisfying ways. This time around, he has somehow donned a flamethrower. The plot is fairly simple: Baddies are back at it in New York and the leader of a gang, X, wants to take over the city. The Exterminator, of course, gets involved and exterminates all the bad guys. The movie has it's moments, but for the most part loses the gritty and grimy feeling the first had, and was so well known for. The soundtrack is hilarious; if I had been in a different room I would honestly think someone was playing Super Nintendo. I'm one hundred percent serious about that too, the soundtrack sounds like it was ripped *straight* from a Super Nintendo game, and I guarantee anyone who's played Super Nintendo will agree with me. Though what the movie lacks compared to it's predecessor, it makes up with how fun it is. Robert Ginty all mocked up in a over-sized welder's mask and massive flamethrower frying the street scum for 90 minutes works well, but it becomes slow at times. The end showdown between The Exterminator and X is awesome, and makes up for the boring portions. Oh, and there's also a random, totally unnecessary sex scene, pushing the movie into the boundaries of "Stereotypical Action Movie" category. Overall, this movie is fun by itself, and I'm sure a lot more fun with a couple buddies who are ready and willing to rip on it. I will certainly be bringing this flick to my next get together with friends, and I'm sure great times are to be had.

The first Exterminator film which came out in 1980,is a far better film than this one.The problem with this one is a low budget,poor acting,bad story,it's a bit like Death Wish 3 but with a different actor.Ginty should of avoided this film at all costs.I've seen worst revenge films than this,but i can't remember when."If your lying-i'll be back.Robert Ginty is a good actor but this don't do him justice.

I've never seen the first "Exterminator". I hear it's actually a really good movie. If that's true, then it is nothing like it's sequel, "Exterminator 2". To call "Exterminator 2" an awful movie would be generous. But, it would be a lie to say that I didn't enjoy watching it. I was channel surfing one night, and I felt like I just had to see an 80's action movie. You know the feeling? Anyway, I searched through the channels for anything starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (still can't believe he's the governor of my state!), Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, or Chuck Norris. Instead, I found "Exterminator 2". So I start watching this. In the movie, a bunch of street punks rob a store, murdering the store owners in the process. The punks make their getaway, but suddenly - a guy pops out of nowhere with a flamethrower and torches them! And I'm thinking "Woa! Awesome to the max, dude!" Even though I hadn't seen the first movie, I caught on to the plot quickly. Why? Because there is no plot. Just this dude with a flamethrower running around setting bad guys on fire, with the help of his garbage man sidekick. The bad guys want to take over the city, by the way (and they also wear hilarious looking costumes - you'll have to go to a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show to see people in more ridiculous outfits). Best of all, "Exterminator 2" is set to delightfully corny synth music. You'll have that stupid theme tune stuck in your head for days. There are a couple of scenes that drag on and on; I wanted to shout "Get on with it!" during these parts. And also ***SPOILER ALERT*** the end of the movie is depressing. Other than that, "Exterminator 2" is a thoroughly enjoyable picture. That is, if you are in the mood for something dreadful.

"Exterminator 2" brings back the great Robert Ginty as flamethrower wielding vigilante John Eastland, but has nowhere near the impact as the first film. That's not to say that it's not enjoyable, but overall it's silly stuff. Directed by Mark Buntzman, who produced the first film, it sees Eastland start to date an exotic dancer named Caroline (Deborah Geffner) and make friends with an outgoing garbageman named Be Gee (the excellent veteran character actor Frankie Faison). Eastland agrees to take on a job as a garbageman (!), but finds his happiness threatened by the activities of a street gang led by the fiendish "X" (Mario Van Peebles, in a breakthrough role). Of course, Eastland has already been up to his old tricks by torching various criminal scum, but is he going to be ready for this particularly sadistic gang? The viewer can have an interesting time checking out the early appearances by actors who would go on to become busy and recognizable if not famous: Irwin Keyes, Arye Gross, Thomas Calabro, and John Turturro, who has a bit. The gang members basically come across as cartoons and there's a certain goofy quality to a lot of the dialogue, performances, and situations. (If nothing else, the audience may find "Exterminator 2" laughable enough to be entertaining.) The music is also particularly amusing, providing the perfect accompaniment for assorted violent goings on. Ginty is reasonably engaging although his character of Eastland was a more compelling individual the first time. Faison is superb and shows off a natural charisma. And Van Peebles makes the most of his demented & depraved role, making for a pretty good antagonist. Especially entertaining is seeing Ginty turn Faisons' garbage truck into an assault vehicle and watching the final cat-and-mouse chase between hero and villain. There's plenty of characters going up like Roman candles to keep the viewers interested. All in all, this is decent enough, and it might be worth watching it along with, say, "Death Wish II" and/or "Death Wish 3" for a dose of vigilante vs. gang escapism. Six out of 10.

When I was younger I paid actual American currency to purchase what I thought would at least be escapist action entertainment. The only service this film has done me is collect dust that might have accumulated on more precious things such as my Shannon Tweed collection or my sister's episodes of Full House. Movie has so little action, no point, and Brewster's Millions feel to it that the point was to spend what little money they had as quickly as possible to churn out the least entertaining item possible. Check out the first one instead, a very serviceable Death Wish-type revenge flick.

This movie reminds me of a Troma film (e.g. Toxic Avenger) with higher production values. It's not apathetically bad; it embraces its cornball center, staying barely a step ahead of camp, and is thoroughly enjoyable. Early 80's gangs wearing costumes with a disco/Mad Max theme, in a solemn torchlit procession carrying the driver of an armored car into the subways to make him a sacrifice on the train tracks, several of them topless (male) with suspenders, set to an energetic synthesizer soundtrack that sounds like it could have been written for a Nintendo game.. it has to be seen to be believed. Probably inspired by Michael Jackson's video "Beat It".