Ah....the 1980's. A fantastic era where kids were educated by muscle bound, semi-naked, Masters of the Universe and got their kicks from watching transforming robots and gobots kick the shite out of each other. It was a time of being brainwashed into buying toys and making believe that you too could smash the shit out any karate wielding bullies, no matter how big or psychotically dangerous they were. It was also a time when the Ninja ruled video store shelves and Chuck Norris had taken his rightful place as the new Jesus. He even had his own cartoon, which blatantly promoted racial stereotypes and dyslexia (kommandos!). Of course, there was also the obligatory annoying foreign boy that was always getting into trouble (i.e. kidnapped, possibly sodomized and sold into slavery), but who ended up making the bunch of psychopaths laugh at the end of the adventure with a witty racist remark.
Chuck's Karate Kommandos are currently under investigation for child endangerment
King of the straight-to-video villains was the ninja.
Ninjas were fucking every where in the 80's. In one of the most bizarre
scientific experiments of the 80's they even managed to cross breed
with turtles; but because of genius public relations by the Ninja
Council in an attempt to disguise their evil plans, they were known as
"heroes" in Europe.
I was in my pre-teen years in the 80's and, like most other kids in Ireland, I had parents that saw nothing wrong with letting their kids watch what ever they wanted. I SAW THE EVIL DEAD WHEN I WAS 3, FOR FUCKS SAKE. Now I couldn't possess people in a log cabin or turn to melted plasticine when I fucked a book on the fire, but I could throw a balaclava on, jump around like a knob and scale trees (badly). My poor parents probably thought I was practicing for the IRA's gymnastic team. The extremely lax weapon laws in Ireland in the 80's also meant that I could buy Ninja Stars and Nun-chucks from my local sports store. Our primary school's entrance door had so many ninja stars thrown at it, it looked like Wolverine tried to fuck it.
I could be a Ninja and I could get my training from the "5 videos for £5" section at my local video store, who also didn't give a shit about censorship guidelines on videos. I remember seeing I Spit on Your Grave and The Care Bears movie in the same viewing session and 4 year old me didn't have a fucking clue what was going on.
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| FATALITY: White Ninja wins by stabbing you in the balls while you fart-float in mid air. |
For some reason, in the 80's most video producers really believed that "you can't judge a book by its cover" should apply to movies as well. This led to some of the most bizarre video covers I can remember seeing. An awful lot of them were Ninja movies. Horror movies stuck to making the covers look like the movie was far gorier and interesting than they actually were. The Ninja Video cover on the other hand...well...they were a law unto themselves.
Check out some of the most mental ones below.
WHITE PHANTOM
How good a ninja can he really be, if he can't spot a fucking giant paraplegic gimp with smoke pissing out his ass floating above him. Not sure how good a choice a white ninja suit is either; bar the obvious sticking out like a sore thumb every where he goes, it must be very difficult to get all the blood and shit-stains out of it. I also like the way the self named "Enemy of Darkness" is pissing about during the day in his mothers back garden.
AMERICAN NINJA
Poor Michael Dudikoff. Surely one of the best and hardest to understand autistic B movie stars from the 80's deserved better treatment than this. Some one, some where, obviously thought "nothing says 'watch this action movie' better than a misshapen retard head and giant fists floating in darkness...oh yeah, and throw the American flag behind it. Nothing says Ninja more than the American flag".
CLASH OF THE NINJA
Neither of them look like ninjas.The guy on the top is smoking weed and the freak on the bottom looks like he just remembered he didn't plug the iron out before leaving the house. Surely showing a bit of action couldn't hurt....but then again.
NINJA SILENT ASSASSIN
With so much awesomeness in one picture, where do you begin? Personally I like the guy sitting on the car humping the wheel of a passing motor bike. The tag line should read "Tough, Violent , Deadly, likes to wear yellow...but sadly unable to dodge bullets from badly drawn guns".
GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR
A little-seen film starring the now deceased Colonel Gaddafi on a dirt bike. Also famous for starring the only Siamese twins joined by the ankles.
NINJA COMMANDMENTS
I don't know if the guy surrounded by bikes is more scared of the giant floating yellow bastard with a sword, the guys on bikes with hair helmets, or the giant bird that's being chased through the streets by the fucking sun.
Red Ninja," Hey Frank, don't Ninjas normally wear black?"
Yellow Ninja," I Suppose they do Bob".
Red Ninja," Then how the fuck are people gonna know we're ninjas and not a bunch of mental cunts running around in funky Burkas?"
Yellow Ninja,"Simple, Frank. I'm gonna wear a bright red head band with NINJA on it".
Red Ninja,"What...."
NINJA 3:THE RETARDATION
There's not much scarier than a woman from the 80's with a bad hair cut on her period. Unless you realize that her shadow is a badly drawn shadow that, in defiance of all natural laws, can actually hold a sword too. Poor yellow-eyed ninja is hiding from her 'cause he forgot to pick up her nun-chuck tampons.
NINJA MASTERS OF DEATH
The perfect example of how to get what your movie's about into one picture. A giant freak whispers to his sword about what he's going to do to it when he gets home, while an unfortunate misunderstanding at the bonfire on the street gets out of control. The only way to resolve it is the age old duelling between 'enduro bike racer' and 'man in orange pyjamas'. Some day the city will burn in gayness once again.
NINJA STRIKE FORCE
If Gandhi or Michael Bay were to ever make a ninja film, I'm sure this would be the poster. A reanimated Charles Bronson pointing his gun in the face of a child off screen: check. A guy in orange overalls and a yellow tea towel tucked into his underpants holding a sword in a very impractical way: check.
Guy eating the chin of a chick with no legs: check. Oh and don't forget the fucking flaming car that was probably the script writer's inevitable suicide after we told him what we were turning his treatment of Raging Bull 2 into: err...check?
ENTER THE NINJA
Why in the tag after "Hired Assassins" are they so surprised that they kill humans? Surely that's why you hire an assassin in the first place. Either that, or you want to teach a life-lesson to the one-legged cunt of an interior designer that convinced you stars were the way to brighten up your black-walled ninja sex-dungeon.
MAFIA V'S NINJA
This promises "Kung Fu At its Best", but what I really want is to know how the guy with the claw wipes his ass? And what the fuck is wrong with pink Yi Ar Kung Fu boys' arms? Is he a thalidomide baby seeking revenge on the mafia guys that invested in the company that created the drug that turned him into a withered-arm freak? Also, why is there so much ball-punching going on it all these posters and what the fuck is McGuyver doing with - what looks like - a blue crab?
THE NINJA MISSION
"Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to silently infiltrate the city and kill the President...."
"But Sarg, there may be a problem".
"What's that Ramirez?"
"He's 60 foot tall and we're not sure if he's a ninja or a pissed-off Muslim woman with a sword".
"That might be a problem alright......"
NINJA SQUAD
Black Ninja enjoyed nothing more than sneaking up behind Pink Ninja and giving him the tickles....that was, until that fateful day last November, when Pink Ninja eviscerated Black Ninja during one of his many pranks. Now Pink Ninja poses in front of his mirror alone and ponders "Why am I Pink Ninja?"....and through the ether of the unknowable, a whispered reply is heard: "Cause you're a faggot".
NINJA THE KUNG-FU EMPEROR
The Terror Of Cold Steel is nothing compared to the terror of being covered in flaming needles by some sadistic fuck at the Ninja Halloween Party.
THE POWER OF NINJITSU
I imagine the meeting discussing the poster design went something like this:
"Hey Bob , you still have that retard kid with no arms that likes fucking about with crayons and who's never seen an actual human being to base his twisted knowledge of the human anatomy on?"
"Yes.....but we don't like to call him a retard....and my name is Mary, not Bob."
"That's fantastic Mike. Get his dribbling fucktard ass down here. I got a bunch of crayons I found on a dead kid in my sex dungeon, and I have this movie that needs a poster yesterday."
THE ULTIMATE NINJA
The Ultimate Ninja - or " faggot" as he's called by his parents - is so goddamned ultimate, he doesn't even slightly resemble what most people would consider to be a ninja. Not only that, but he can stand in FUCKING FIRE...wow ...how cool is that? I'm fairly sure that "A Fight For Ninja Supremacy" was supposed to be "White Supremacy". Poor Ultimate Ninja just screams of "Nazi war criminal found training retarded kids in coloured pyjamas". When questioned about why he was standing in a flaming pit of fear and evil, he replied "Sorry, can't answer now. I have a very important knitting needle to stare at".
NINJA IN THE USA
The thrilling sequel to "Ninja and the Toilet".
Someone stole a wicker laundry basket from a pixelated blocky freak from Tekken on the Playstation 1. If that wasn't enough, they turned it into a scary cool Ninja outfit for Halloween. Tekken guy is fucked if he's gonna allow such blatant cockery go unpunished. Dressed in his best Magnum P.I. outfit, and a cowboy hat he robbed off a gay couple's adopted child, he prowls the darkness...seeking vengeance.
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