Three laughs: Hologram Man

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case file #22:

Hologram Man (1995)

Director: Richard Pepin

Hologram Man is one of the cheapo direct-to-video films made by PM Entertainment Group. A lot of their oveure are pretty basic action movies that run like clockwork, delivering plenty of explosions and gunfights for the buck. In the mid-90s a lot of films tried to go futuristic with cyberspace and -punk themed movies aplenty. Hologram Man seems to have been made after seeing the trailer and production stills for Strange Days.

I reality, the film plays more like an even dumber version of Demolition Man without any of the satire from the script of that one. Basically, it is a crime / revenge story that holds futuristic technology as close as magic. People die, but live on as vengeful holograms that may get plastic skin to pass off as living once again. There are bug-ugly hair aplenty and a surprising number of character actors getting an easy paycheck by popping by the film.

In a futuristic LA a terrorist called Slash Gallagher (Evan Lurie) is sentenced to a cyberspace prison wherein he becomes a hologram. But five years in, his goons release him as a (gasp) deadly hologram. Now it’s up to renegade cop Decoda (Joe Lara) to stop Gallagher’s terrorist plans and his holographic form from wreacking revenge on him and the tech company that created him.

Three laughs (SPOILERS): 

1. In the beginning this may seem like any other LA-set action movie, with a chase scene shot at the reservoir at dawn. Slash Gallagher and his goons hijack a bus á la Speed and cop cars chase them. But since they had no budget to do them all, it's borderline amazing when some cars appear, set-dressed to look like Death Race 2000 vehicles. But they explode in huge fireballs all the same. Even the costuming seems to be half modern Terminator 2, half dystopian Mad Max with eyepatches and silly-looking plastic garb especially on Tiny Lister's character throughout.

2. After the shootout, we have a sex scene that comes from out of nowhere. It's as graphic as the one in The Room, and ends just as abruptly. We had to get the vital information about our hero Kurt Decoda. Mainly, that he's good at fucking.

3. All the "science" in the movie is highly suspectible. But you don't need me telling that it's totally silly they make prisoners into holograms. Instead, the movie has Blade Runner's William Sanderson as an evil tech expert with a truly goofy hat. When Gallagher's hologram is released, there's a silly scene where he demostrates liquid polymeric plastic by dipping his arm into it. Of course there's a molding machine for Gallagher that creates a sort of fake skin for him. Wouldn't you know that this machine is a true Chekhov's gun and a baddie gets tossed into it in the finale?

"What about Slash?" "He's slashed to me."