'The Occultist' is a big waste of time

The Occultist (1987)
Starring: Rick Gianasi, Joe Derrig, Richard Mooney, Mizan Nunez, Jennifer Kanter and Matt Mitler
Director: Tim Kincaid
Producers: Cynthia De Paula and Charles Band
Rating: One of Ten Stars

With one last chance to save the failing security company he inherited from his father, Barney (Derrig) takes a contract to protect the corrupt leader of a small Carribean island from terrorists, voodoo cultists and just about everyone else interested in overthrowing his government. It seems an impossible task, but Barney has help from the company's most valued agent, Waldo Warren (Gianasi), a man of many secrets and talents.


Behind that cool cover does not lurk a tale invovlving magic and hardboiled detectives. That's a shame, because if there had been that sort of vibe to the film, I might have been able to forgive the wooden and amateurish acting on the part of the entire cast, the lame camera work, the incompetent lighting, the bad sound recording, the awful pacing, and the lack of a coherent story. As it is, this is a film with absolutely nothing to offer.

Okay, that's not entire true. There is the scene where Waldo (whose big secret is not that he's an occultist--that's a different character in the film--but that he's actually a cyborg/robot with guns hidden all throughout his body) shoots several of the film's villains in a public men's room with his fully automatic machinegun penis. It was so completely out of left field that I had to rewind the scene to watch it again, just to make sure that I'd seen what I thought I saw.

This isn't the worst picture that Band has been invovled in--that honor still belongs to "The Killer Eye"--but it is pretty close. Save your time and money, because this one isn't worth either.