Theme Song: There’s nicely done (though overused) prog-ish music throughout Stryker, composed by Filipino composer Ed Gatchalian, who doesn’t really have any other credits, but is on LinkedIn, likes to sing Elvis on his birthday, and may or may not owe some actors money for a cancelled theatre production.
First Jam
Second Jam
Interesting Dated References: Water being scarce and/or highly valuable.
Best Line: A woman wearing leather — “You don’t talk much, do you?”; Stryker in response — “Everything’s already been said.”
Social Context: The early-80s deluge of movies in which there was an apocalypse, society has collapsed, water is scarce and/or highly valuable, and the hide-tanning industry is experiencing a huge growth period.
Summary: Some guys (who are bad) chase a girl (wearing leather) who is in possession of water (which is scarce) contained within large satchels (which are made of leather).
This chase goes on for 45 minutes as Stryker (Steve Sandor, The Ninth Configuration, Mad Bull, and the famous original Star Trek episode “The Gamesters of Triskelion”) and his partner, Bandit (William Ostrander, Christine, Mike’s Murder), loom overhead in the hills watching the pursuing gang, occasionally trying to stop them.
Between the terrible overdubs and an extremely dull performance by Sandor, Stryker fails to engage from the get-go. Some people (who are fucking nerds) defend this movie because it is directed by veteran Filipino schlock-master Cirio Santiago, but this is definitely a lesser work, and complete throwaway garbage.
Santiago has made good Mad Max ripoffs (Wheels of Fire, Equalizer 2000) so it has nothing to do with him. I’ll lay blame at the feet of Sandor, who clearly was trying so hard to be stoic he ended up as uninteresting as Michael Paré in Streets of Fire.
Eventually there are some other gangs, some other chases, some other people wearing leather, and a RIDICULOUS amount of political infighting among the water-holding faction. Then Stryker rescues a baby and it starts raining. Everyone has their mouths open and are gasping and rejoicing, despite the fact that if more than two people who haven’t bathed in months/years get wet in the same location, the air smells like absolute putrefaction. I say this as a person who has spent a depressing amount of time being rained on at days-long underground electronic music festivals.
Worth Mentioning:
– There are boobs in this (the sweaty/dirty kind).
– One of the gangs that helps Stryker kill the main bad guy is made up entirely of dwarf actors.
– The uncredited pull-quote on the front of the home video release states that this movie “Pulsates with vibrant life.” I feel “pulsate” was not a good word choice.
– From IMDB: The film was remade as Water Wars (2014) which was Cirio H. Santiago’s final film. He passed away on September 26th 2008 from lung cancer at the age of 72.
Poster and Box Art: The Embassy Home Entertainment Betamax (and VHS) US release has a nicely-painted cover. Unfortunately I can’t make out the artist’s name, and online searches aren’t yielding any results.
There are several other nicely-done foreign posters, but I didn’t bother to post them. I’m just getting back into doing this website, so cut me some fucking slack.
Availability: Because the world is not fair Stryker, is readily available on fully-restored Bluray. There’s also a VHS-rip on YouTube.
Fuck yeah dawg glad your back!