Night of the Wilding is an early PM flick starring Erik Estrada as a defense attorney, the best in the business who never loses and sometimes wears crop-tops in his off hours. After a group of teenagers out on a night of "wilding" crash a party a clerk at a grocery store is having and beat and rape her and her friend, the rich parents hire Estrada to defend them. This presents a problem, because the prosecutor is his ex-wife. He pulls all the bad tricks you'd expect a sleazy defense attorney to do, from victim blaming and shaming to acting like the "wilding" kids were lured into a den of iniquity by a couple of "loose" women, making them the victims. Just when we think it can't get any worse, the prosecutor uses herself as bait to draw the boys out, and now Estrada has to help her, even if it means losing his clients.
This is a fun one. It is early PM, so the action isn't exactly what you want--more on that in a second when we get to Spiro Razatos--but it does deliver in the great early 90s nostalgia ways you'd want, from the fashions to the dialog, and for me that does the trick. Estrada is great as well, plus we have a small role by Joey Travolta, meaning he did both this and the AIP "wilding" movie. Similar to Bad Ass, this is also ripped from the headlines, drawing from the Central Park Five case at that time, this one follows the same playbook of removing the racial element by having the attackers be three rich white kids. As we know now, the Central Park Five were all exonerated after it was discovered they were falsely accused, but the furor that was stoked at the time surrounding themes like violence by teens, violence by young blacks, violence in New York, and violence against women, led to not only movies like this one, but also the Central Park Five being falsely convicted and losing 13 years of their lives. What we get here, in true PM style, is part ripped from the headlines, but also part plot that veers off course into a series of other killings, leading to a great foot chase, and then a sudden car flip. That's one thing that is great about PM, something that in 1990 that was supposed to be playing on exaggerated fears the public had based on narratives around stories ripped from the headlines, can now be enjoyed for the schlock early 90s movie it's become over the past 30 years.
You might be wondering, why this the film for Spiro Razatos's induction? And you'd be right in wondering that, as he really only does some stunt work here. The thing is, among his PM work, we've done all his greats except for Pure Danger, which I wasn't able to find. There were some others, like Extreme Justice and Maniac Cop 2, that he was action director on that I could've done instead, but I've also really wanted to do this film for some time too, so I figured it was good enough since he did do stunt work on it. I first got wind of who he was when I read an interview Gary Daniels did where mentioned him when they did Recoil together. As I dug deeper I discovered how big of a deal he is, especially now where he's action director on huge blockbusters like the Fast and Furious series; but not only that, he's responsible for a lot of the films that made PM as great as they are. The Sweeper, Recoil, Riot, Rage, and Last Man Standing, plus non-PM classics like One Man Force. With the vital role he played in making 80s and 90s action what we know it as, it was really more that I should've gotten him in sooner, and the only reason I didn't was due to my own ignorance. As we induct him here, this will be his 26th tag, so not quite 30 Club, but I imagine it'll be soon for him. Truly one of the all-time greats.
What is Erik Estrada wearing here? That crop top is fantastic. What you can't tell from the screen is he also has his reading glasses on. Rich attorneys with mansions in Bel Air always wear crop tops and reading glasses, don't they? At least they did in the early 90s, when it was a simpler, nicer time. Here in Philly, there's a movement to get a subway extension along the Roosevelt Boulevard corridor, and the person leading the movement is selling shirts for it, including a crop top version. In one of the pictures, a guy was wearing it, which I guess is more evidence that if you live long enough you'll see fashions come back that you never thought would--like today when I passed a kid wearing a Von Dutch trucker hat. We've seen a little bit more Estrada than we usually do on here lately, with us covering the two Andy Sidaris films he did as well. I think when I started the site I expected him to be a bigger part of it, but it didn't happen unfortunately, and I don't know when we'll see him again on here. Hopefully soon, but if not, we love you Mr. Estrada, crop tops and reading glasses and all.
PM is now at 42 films on the site, and according to IMDb, I think this is their 11th film, so it really is an early one. There are still elements of action there, especially at the end when we get a car flip seemingly out of nowhere, but it has more of the suspenseful storytelling around it that was a hallmark of some of those early ones, like the ones Wings Hauser did. This one also had the classic pairing of Joseph Merhi as director and Richard Pepin as DP. Of all the great director/DP pairings ever, for DTV action fans this might be the most iconic. While I say this is early PM, it's only a year later that we get to Ring of Fire, the PM take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and something that we think of as a classic PM flick, so that "early period" really only lasted a couple years before they were "PM Fuckin' Entertainment," and then I think they start their peak in '94 with Zero Tolerance, and that wave builds through T-Force, Hologram Man, Last Man Standing, into the Gary Daniels "three Rs," The Sweeper, and Skyscraper, giving us some of the greatest DTV actioners ever. You can also see the wave cresting at the same time as they started the LA Heat TV show in '97. We still get some greats after that, like the last of the Daniels three Rs, Recoil, and The Underground with Jeff Fahey, but nothing like the volume of that peak period. And that's what makes that peak period so astounding, the volume of great films they put out in such a short time, and when I think of a movie like this one as part of their "early period," it really drives home how short that peak period was.
Finally, it's been a while (cue the Staind lyrics) since we've had a McDonald's sighting at the DTVC. I used to make a point of showing them all the time, and have finally decided to tag them. I tried a search of my site, and if it's accurate, the last time we posted was in May of 2011, with Mutant Zombie Vampires from the Hood, which also featured a McDonald's from LA. Sorting out the films where I just mentioned McDonald's, I think this is the 11th film with a McDonald's sighting in it--I didn't count Toxic Avenger, which features a classic McDonald's Styrofoam container, but doesn't show an actual McDonald's as far as I know. 11 tags, does that mean sometime down the road McDonald's could be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Honestly, I don't eat there as much anymore, not because I'm above it or anything, but because all the Center City locations here in Philly have closed, as have the South Philly ones along Broad Street. I'd have to walk ten blocks to the nearest one, which isn't horrible, but why do that? One funny thing is there used to be one on Walnut Street, and Google Maps still shows it as open, despite the fact that the building has been completely torn down, so I guess people order from there still and it causes a mess for delivery drivers.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now you can get this on YouTube, and the version isn't horrible. Hopefully someday a company like Vinegar Syndrome, or maybe even Mill Creek, will put all of PM's flicks on Blu-ray, or maybe Tubi will get more of them so we can at least stream a decent copy, but until then, this YouTube version will work. And again, here's to you Spiro Razatos, one of the best to do it, we action fans are forever in your debt.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100259
Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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