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Crash and Burn
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Full Moon Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (29th May 2025). |
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The Film
 Unicom motorcycle courier Tyson (Drive Thru's Paul Ganus) delivers a shipment of Freon to an abandoned power station-turned-TV studio in the middle of the desert run by Lathan Hooks (Girls on the Road's Ralph Waite) and his 16-year-old granddaughter Arren (Amityville 1992: It's About Time's Megan Ward). Lathan is resentful of Unicom, who have influenced the government into banning the use of computers by civilians (who they blame for causing an economic collapse) as well as the use of Synthoid robots (because of something having to do with the Book of Revelations), but Arren insists that Tyson should stay because of the coming thermal storm which will raise the temperature considerably in the desert. Also inhabiting the studio are sleazy talk show host Winston Wickett (Basic Instinct's Jack McGee), prostitutes Sandra (Puppet Master II's Elizabeth Maclellan) and Christie (The Arrival's Katherine Armstrong) who are his guests – the topic being the use of human prostitutes in place of banned Synthoid prostitutes – Parice (The Barbarians' Eva Larue) who teaches children remotely from the TV studio, and handyman Quinn (Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part II's Bill Moseley). While the storm rages outside and the others sleep, Lathan is murdered by an unseen assailant, the power is cut (causing the temperature inside to rise), and the satellite is knocked down. While Quinn and Tyson go outside to bypass the power supply, Arren is convinced that Lathan was murdered and does some investigating of her own. She finds Lathan's illegal computer and discovers that a Synthoid was sent to eliminate Lathan and conveys this information to Tyson. Tyson reminds her that the Synthoids were programmed not to kill humans, but Arren tells him that it can be overridden with a "crash and burn" virus transmitted by UHF signals and she suspects that Unicom is using the Synthoids to eliminate rebels. They do a The Thing-type blood-drawing test to discover which of the people in the studio is not human, but the results are inconclusive. When Tyson discovers that the Freon shipment he has delivered is actually full of blood, he realizes that one of them has tricked them. While Arren is messing with the computer to try to reactivate the MEGA-1 robot lying abandoned in the dirt outside the studio, another kill order is sent and she is stalked through the hallways by Quinn. Tyson comes to her rescue by emptying a couple shotgun cartridges into Quinn. When Arren hits Quinn with a sledgehammer, she accidentally crushes his "conscience chip" which prevented him from killing humans unless specifically ordered. It also removes any means of exterior control and he sets about whittling down the rest of the cast while Tyson and Arren try go alert the outside world and destroy the Synthoid. Marketed abroad as "Robot Jox 2" which was also used for some overseas releases of Full Moon's later Robot Wars – although the scavenged remains of a giant robot in the desert might be one of the ones from Robot Jox's climax – Crash and Burn was made during Full Moon Entertainment's glory days in partnership with Paramount Pictures. Scripted by J.S. Cardone (The Slayer) – who later directed Shadowzone for Full Moon and would later direct the studio films The Foresaken and 8MM 2 and the superior low-budget chiller Wicked Little Things as well as penning The Covenant and the Prom Night and The Stepfather remakes – the film keeps its scope relatively intimate for a sci-fi film about androids and giant robots but benefits from make-up effects work by Oscar-winner Greg Cannom (Bram Stoker's Dracula), stop motion work by David Allen Productions (Puppet Master), and slick photography by Mac Ahlberg (Hell Night). Richard Band's score – one of a handful of Full Moon soundtracks that were released by Intrada after Full Moon's own Moonstone Records label folded – is heavy on the Synclavier for both orchestral and electronic parts, and it complements the action nicely. Subspecies director Ted Nicolaou served as film editor. Ganus and Ward are engaging leads and Waite is his professional self in an extended special appearance. As always, Moseley relishes his villainous roles, grinning maniacally under Cannom's prosthetic appliances while spouting a monologue (he also gets a shower scene with a topless Armstrong). La Rue has a Jennifer Beals-thing going on and Maclellan's is good as the more sympathetic "fallen woman". McGee makes his sleazy, hypocritical talk-show host memorable and earns an appropriately violent comeuppance. Unlike Robot Jox and Robot Wars, Crash and Burn was rated R has its share of violence, nudity, and language and plays more like a sci-fi slasher, making it entertaining in its own right. The film's on-set producers were David DeCoteau (Nightmare Sisters) and John Schouweiler (Creepozoids) who had both supervised Empire Pictures' offshoot Urban Classics. While Schouweiler remained stateside working on Full Moon's domestic shoots, DeCoteau was put in charge of much of the Romanian studio shoots of Full Moon productions and directing a number of them under his own name or a couple pseudonyms. 
Video
Released to VHS and laserdisc by Paramount in 1991, the film's DVD history was a bit more convoluted. When the film turned up on DVD in 2000 as part of Koch Vision's distribution deal with Full Moon, it made use of the laserdisc master which was matted to 1.66:1 – a number of late Empire Pictures and early Full Moon productions having been shot with a 1.66:1 hard-matte in the camera for 1.85:1 theatrical matting and minimal cropping to 1.33:1 for VHS and cable – but it also had four reel change points where there was a few seconds of blackness (which was presumably edited out of the Paramount master) and that was what was carried over to Full Moon's own Charles Band Collection Volume One. While Shout! Factory was able to source available HD masters from MGM of Empire productions for Blu-ray, Full Moon could only supply them with available video masters for their circa-2010 deal, but the transfer in their Giant Robot Action Pack double feature with Robot Wars turned out to be the fullscreen video master. A long time coming, Crash and Burn has finally received an HD remaster from the original 35mm camera negative. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray sports virtually identical framing horizontally to the earlier 1.66:1 transfer, matting off additional slivers at the top and bottom without impeding the image that could have been further matted to 1.85:1 for theatrical projection. The opening credits look a bit soft and noisy; after that, however, the image looks overall brighter than the earlier video masters, revealing Ahlberg's use of backlighing and smoke in some of the brighter interiors. Cannon's effects look as rubbery as ever – appropriately enough in the case of the film's synthetic character – but Full Moon's technicians (including Band as director) apparently did not consult the older master and prints as they have neglected the grading of some of the darker scenes as well as the day-for-night tinting of the exterior scenes; as such, the shot of the satellite dish being blown over in the middle of the night takes place in bright daylight while the scenes around it are still at night (with a character mentioning the need to get the power back up before sunrise). Otherwise, the presentation did not have to go far to improve on what came before even if it exposes the rough edges of David Allen's miniatures and models. 
Audio
The default audio option is a Dolby Digital 2.0 rendering of the Dolby Stereo/Dolby Surround-compatible Ultra-Stereo track while a 5.1 Dolby Digital upmix track is also included. The upmixing algorithm is conservative, giving scoring and effects some spread but do not look for any convincing split surrounds. The 2.0 track is more than sufficient, although an uncompressed option would have been preferable. Both the 5.1 track and the optional English SDH subtitle track can only be selected via your remote's audio and subtitle buttons (or the drop-down menus of whatever software player you are using). 
Extras
The bulk of the extras have been ported over from the earlier Koch DVD edition including the pre-VideoZone behind the scenes featurette (6:59), the blooper reel (6:00), and the theatrical trailer (1:05) but Full Moon has recorded a brand new audio commentary by director Charles Band and actor Bill Moseley. Band admits to not having seen the film since the Paramount screening – recalling that rather than sending a VHS tape to the studio, he would stage 35mm screenings on the Paramount lot – and a lot of his memories from hundreds of shoots run together but the shoot is still relatively fresh in Moseley's head as one of his early larger roles. While Moseley recalls the use of the same run down steel mill location seen in severl futuristic eighties and nineties films as well as the steam-driven power plant for the interiors – incredible hot temperatures but ice cold running water with a P.A. behind the vents simulating the air conditioning in shots – his various improvised lines, mannerisms, the special effects make-up – although he is not credited, Moseley recalls Norman Cabrera (Scarecrows) applying his make-up – and tricks like spitting up Welch's grape juice while being sheepish about the shower sex scene, Band recalls the glory days of the Paramount distribution deal, working with Ward on this and Arcade, the contributions of Ahlberg and David Allen, his penchant for casting beautiful women, and comparing the budgets and shooting schedules of that period to the more than halved ones of the more recent Full Moon productions. The rest of the extras consist of five trailers for other Full Moon titles, although there is also start-up material promoting Full Moon's streaming services and Delirum Magazine. 
Overall
One of the handful of early Full Moon productions from the start of the studio's distribution deal with Paramount Pictures, Crash and Burn is a nifty little sci-fi programmer in its own right that also paved the way for the studio's subsequent vein of science fiction output from Trancers sequels, Robot Wars, and Mandroids.
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