Enemy Territory is another movie in a long tradition of tower blocks and council flats being turned into all out war zones, think of The Raid, Attack The Block & Dredd. But add some elements of Walter Hill’s The Warriors, a dash of The Lost Boys and dollop of any black and white buddy movie from the 80’s, I’m gonna go for Running Scared. Then you get a taste of what to expect in this really surprisingly brilliant low budget little gem.
Tagline – In Enemy Territory they take no prisoners. You’ve got to kill your way out…
Insurance salesman Barry (Gary Frank) gets sent to pick up a policy sale from an elderly woman in a notoriously rough housing project called Lincoln Towers. Being naive and well pretty damn dumb he strolls into the tower block and gets himself “marked” right off the bat. What he didn’t realise was this high-rise building is run and terrorised by a tough gang called The Vampires, lead by their ferocious leader, The Count (Tony Todd).
It’s not till Barry gets to the top floor that he becomes aware that The Count wants his blood after he promises to kill this “Ghost”. Luckily Will (Ray Parker Jr) was funning a young lady as shots are fired outside and being the telephone repair man he is, comes racing to the rescue. Fortunately our handsome Will is an ex Vietnam veteran and ex Ghostbuster and takes control of the situation. But it’s not long before The Vampires turn up again and all hell breaks loose.
Baffled tower block guard to Barry – “And they sent a white man? This time of night? Are you from Neptune or Vulcan or some such!?”
With a solid bunch of very likable characters being met along the way as our heroes try their best to escape. From the sweet old lady Elva Briggs (Frances Foster) to her sexy niece, the wise and feisty Toni Briggs (Stacey Dash). You get an outrageous bonkers performance from Tony Todd as he barks out orders to his men whilst spouting out silly, almost poetic vampire lines and keeps shouting for his trusty side kick “Psycho“.
There’s a small cameo, almost scene stealing part from messed up wheelchair bound war veteran Parker played with a crazed look in his eye by Jan-Michael Vincent. But grabbing the limelight from him was young baseball bat rolling rookie “cop” Chet played by Deon Richmond.
Seriously if you like 80’s films and like me this one had passed you by then I thoroughly recommend it. Unfortunately it’s not really had a proper DVD release and apart from VHS cassette this eighties movie has only seen a disc release in the Netherlands of all places, which sadly seems to be a reproduction of the VHS source. So if you want to see this like I did then you’ll be happy to know some kind fellow has uploaded it to Youtube here. It has Dutch subtitles but seriously it’s not a problem. If you want to see it then that it’s I’m afraid.
Grab some garlic and a wooden stake, a 4 pack of beers and sit back and roll the cameras. Enjoy….. Mikey Wolfman
Further Reading Links
Wolfmans Cult Film 
[…] style movie with Ray Parker Jr that I’d reviewed in my early days of my movie blog called Enemy Territory (1987). It comes very recommended it’s really […]
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[…] unfortunate that it’s the best you can get, at this time. Like the film I reviewed called Enemy Territory (1987) you can add it to the, “crying out for a proper release“, list. If you want to […]
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