Radio Active Dreams

published in Fatal Visions No.1, Melbourne, 1988

Who is Albert F. Pyun and why does he keep making these films? Let's face it: if a director can churn out a few films in as many years, and each film is part of the same subgenre, then we're dealing with dedicated exploitation. With Radio Active Dreams (1985) and Lunar Madness (1986) Pyun and has just about single-handedly defined the apotheosis of the mutant-nuclear-holocaust-Rock-video subgenre (other examples of which are Night of the Comet, America 3000, She, and Cherry 2000 - all of which are not to be confused with the Italian-Mad-Max-copy subgenre). In other words, his films go over the top.

Sometimes they're good; sometimes they're bad; most times they try to be 'so-bad-they're-good. The 'bad' in Dreams is its two main young-guy actors (one of whom is John Stockwell, the nice kid in Christine) who are basically so wholesome you want them to die. They don't, but that's life in Hollywood. Still, we get to see a lot of mean punks, a stupid giant rat, and an ironic image of futuristic hippiedom (which ends up played for real in Less Than Zero). Okay - you probably hate teen films as much as the next person, but I'm perversely attracted to them because they reveal just how desperate the entertainment industry is in exploiting the youth market.

These post-nuke teen flicks are the best because they even try to suggest a moral about youth and the future - when, in fact, the real nightmare depicted in Dreams and Lunar Madness is that, even in the future, there will still be an entertainment industry exploiting anyone dumb enough to have believed that there actually is or was something called 'youth'. So Dreams ain't a total film. Who cares? Give me this kind of hit and miss pseudo-slick mutant film any day.

Text © Philip Brophy 1988. Images © respective copyright holders