Dangerously Close (1986)

This is one I've been meaning to do for a long time, having not seen it in forever, and not knowing until I started this blog that it was an Albert Pyun film. Sometime in the mid-2000s I saw the video for the Smithereens "Blood and Roses", complete with the movie footage in it-- there's a version that doesn't have the movie footage-- and I really wanted to see this again, and just never got around to it. Now I'm here, and we're making it happen. Also, this has been reviewed by our friends Kenner at Movies in the Attic and Ty at Comeuppance Reviews, and both of them are pretty different from the one I'm about to write.

Dangerously Close is about a prep school that has been forced to allow poorer kids from outside the district to attend through a magnet program. These kids have been targeted by a school-run vigilante group called the Sentinels, and now the Sentinels have upped the ante to the point that a core group now kidnap kids they've identified as the worst delinquents, and they scare them in a game called Hunt Down, hoping they'll transfer soon after. Then we throw Danny into this. He's one of the poor kids, but he's also an overachiever and wants what the Sentinels were born with, and wants to befriend them instead of just clean their pools. But is he in too deep when their leader, Randy (John Stockwell), invites him to hang out with them, because Danny runs the school newspaper, and they want to recruit him for propaganda? And if he's in too deep, how does he dig himself out before he too is a victim?



This one really worked for me. Very stylish, well shot, and I liked it as a different take on high school movies outside of "geeks" and "jocks". Haves vs. have-nots, but with the twist that you have Danny, who straddles both worlds due to his socioeconomic status, and doesn't know where he belongs, but ultimately is the one who can crack the case because of his ability to move in all circles. Then there's the soundtrack. I already mentioned the Smithereens, whose song plays over the credits. There's also Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love", a couple good ones from Depeche Mode and TSOL, and a great cover of "Suspicious Minds" by Fine Young Cannibals. This is just a good, 80s high school movie with loads of style and tension.

There is always the question, when you're dealing with an Albert Pyun film, of how much he had control over the finished product. Cannon and Golan-Globus were also the team that took Cyborg away from him, so you never know. If it is different, I'm curious to know to what degree, because this was pretty sweet, and I think he did a great job with it. I loved the overall mood of it, it was dripping with tension, but it looked very 80s, and he captured a lot of that. I saw somewhere that someone had this as Pyun's best, and though I wouldn't go that far, it's definitely a solid entry in his filmography.



It's time to play everyone's favorite game: name that Pyun mainstay! We'll start with that dreamy fellow above us, Thom Mathews. Then there's the film's top billed star, John Stockwell, whom you may remember from Radioactive Dreams. Don Michael Paul was in Alien From LA (he also did Down Twisted, which is one we haven't gotten to yet.) DTVC favorite Anthony De Longis was in this, I believe, as the high school cop (I couldn't tell, because he always had his sunglasses on). De Longis was in The Sword and the Sorcerer. Finally, the girl who played Judy Jetson in Vicious Lips has a small cameo as a student council member. After all that, though, it would appear that Thom Mathews is the only real Pyun mainstay-- though I imagine he didn't know at the time how many more Pyun films he'd find himself in.

I mentioned the music above, but I can't write this entire thing without bringing it up again. Two Depeche Mode songs, which were fantastic. The biggest song was had Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". My personal favorite was the Fine Young Cannibal's cover of "Suspicious Minds", which is also on their 1985 self-titled album. On top of that, the theatrical score was really great too, very Miami Vice, which added a haunting element to the rest of the mood. Part of the fun of revisiting an 80s movie is the music, and this doesn't disappoint-- I wonder if the soundtrack grossed more than the film did at the box office.



Another thing I love is the one-piece bathing suit. Don't get me wrong, I'm as happy with a woman in a bikini as the next guy, but I still love the old one-piece, and we don't see it as often today as we did back then. Remember the girl in the hot white one-piece in Huey Lewis and the News' "If This is It"? Of course you do. Here we have Carey Lowell, she of Law and Order fame, and now Mrs. Richard Gere, rocking the one-piece on the beach. Earlier she wears it in and out of the pool in one of the coolest shots of the movie. I don't know if that's a black lit matte painting that he uses to get that look or what, but it was really cool (I stuck that one in the image page, which also has the Smithereens video for "Blood and Roses). Anyway, as we always do, here's to you one-piece bathing suit, you were one of the good ones.

And also as we always do, it's time to rein this in before we go completely off topic. This is only available on VHS, but it's affordable used so that's good. I had the Media Home Entertainment version, but it looks like there's a Vestron Video version out there as well. No idea on which is better, plus, a used VHS of this at this point isn't going to be in the best shape anyway (take a look at some of the images I grabbed for instance). I think this is worth getting though if you see it in an old VHS bin. Just a solid, 80s high school thriller, directed by Albert Pyun.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090904/