A couple of weeks ago I was shopping in Joplin with my mom. Of course, no trip to Joplin is complete without a stop off at Vintage Stock (movies, music, games, comics, etc!) So while mom was doing her thing at one store I was at Vintage Stock doing mine!



So many movies to choose from-such a limited amount of money-HAH! I worked my way slowly through the rows and rows of DVD titles with a sense of anticipation and glee that only a fellow movie nut could begin to understand.


THE QUIET EARTH. Oh yeah, better get that one!  MAD MAX.  Definitely! Last copy was stolen. FEAST, FEAST II, and FEAST III.  You bet! I'll give my home-brew copies to a friend. The FEAST trilogy is a major guilty pleasure of mine.  Yeah, I know-I should be ashamed, but Im not.  I still laugh hard at each and every sick and inappropriate gag-so shoot me!  Anyways, my stack of movies was piling up pretty quick when I happened upon a double feature DVD of Rutger Hauer staring in Omega Doom (1996) and Blind Fury (1989). Oh hell yeah!  I got that little flush of nostalgia you get when you run across something you remember very fondly from long ago.  In this case I'm referring to Blind Fury.  I must have rented/watched that movie a hundred times back in the day.

Blind Fury tells the story of Nick Parker, a soldier who is presumed to be killed while trying to save his buddy in skirmish during the Viet Nam war. Blinded but not killed, Parker is trained to enhance his remaining senses and become a lightening quick swordsman. Years after the war Nick finally decides to seek out his old friend Frank Deverauex and reveal the truth to him. Unfortunately, Deverauex has hit hard times thanks to gambling debts and is now in danger of losing his family over it. Parker intercedes and lots of action, humor, and sword fighting ensues!


While Blind Fury isn't quite the EPIC I remember it being twenty years ago it's still damn entertaining and a good example of why Rutger Hauer reigned as a dominating force in my movie and video obsessions of the 80's and 90's.


I've mentioned previously that BLADE RUNNER is one of my all time favorite movie obsessions and much of that can be attributed to the brilliant work Hauer did in that film as the replicant ROY BATTY.


Even though Hauer is most closely associated with BLADE RUNNER by most film-goers, seeing BLIND FURY again made me want to give a shout out to some of his other work that Ive watched incessantly over the years when I probably should have been trying a little harder to do chores, homework, and other things. They are listed in roughly my order of appreciation for them.

LADYHAWKE (1985)

 If Ladyhawke proves one thing it's that you don't need CGI and 3-D and an ungodly huge budget to make an entertaining, captivating fantasy with characters you care about! (Clash of the Titans 2010-I'm talking to YOU!) I've often thought that LADYHAWKE is one of the most under appreciated films of the last 30 years, for sure.



I'd read a few articles about Ladyhawke in Starlog Magazine before the film debuted. It was a small film and a fantasy one at that so I didn't think the chances of it making it to my hometown were very big. I turned out to be wrong, thankfully. I remember being the only person at the seven oclock show on its opening night. At that time I was much more into science fiction than fantasy but anything with Rutger Hauer was going to be alright with me!
Ladyhawke is the story of a valiant knight Navarre and his beautiful love Isabeau who suffer a terrible curse. They are always together and forever apart because Navarre is doomed to turn into a wolf by night while Isabeau becomes a hawk during the day. Joining them in their quest to break the curse is the young thief Phillipe. Can they beat the curse before it's too late?

Now, I'm not one to enjoy romantic movies, fantasy or not, but I admit that this movie really got to me. It has romance, humor, daring-do and great heroes and evil villains and an awesome soundtrack.  What more can you ask for?

THE HITCHER (1986)
OK, seriously....forget the re-make! It doesn't deserve to lick the dust from my battered vhs copy of this Rutger Hauer classic!

Yeah, we've all seen evil hitch-hiker movies before but this is the GODFATHER II of evil hitch-hiker movies! This is the Citizen Kane of the hitch hiker genre! If you like terror and suspense and one WTF moment after another, this movie is for YOU, my friend!
A top notch script and awesome turns by C. Thomas Howell (Remember when you KNEW who he was??) and Rutger Hauer elevate this from exploitation movie to main event status.

IMDB summerizes the film thusly: "A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher's crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped." 


I couldn't have said it better myself! Rutger Hauer rocks as the evil John Ryder!  Is he a ghost? A demon? A nightmare come to life? Maybe he's all of that and then some!  Watch this movie with your girly friend.  You can thank me later, man!

WEDLOCK (AKA DEADLOCK) (1991)


Ahhh, Wedlock! I remember this bad puppy being on endless rotation on the HBO/Cinemax circuit-and I would watch it start to finish each and every time I saw it on.

Wedlock is about a bank robber that's double crossed by his lecherous friends and winds up in prison. It's a prison of the future so there are no cells with bars-just neck collars that will explode and kill you dead if you stray too far from the prison grounds-or from your prison "mate" who wears a companion device.

Frank Warren and his reluctant prison "mate" Tracy Riggs manage to escape the prison but they can't escape each other! Warren works feverishly to free his bonds and get revenge on his friends before time runs out!


Yeah, Wedlock is just what it appears to be-escapist nonsense.  It's one of those movies that goes down nice and easy after a 12 or 13 hour work day where you just want to relax, turn the brain off and watch some heads get all kinds of blown up. hahahahaha.

This flick benefits from Rutger Hauer's easy charm and humor. It just comes off the screen that he knows its all hooey balloooey and he's enjoying the ride.

In the next installment of Rutger Hauer Ate My Homework! we'll look at
Split Second
Wanted: Dead or Alive
Escape From Sobibor
Surviving the Game

Plus, we'll check in on Rutger to see what he's done in the last several years.