Review of Enemy Territory (1987) by Kunst J — 28 Jul 2011

This is one of the greatest under the radar movies that not many people even know about. Starring Ray Parker Jr. The guy who wrote the theme for Ghostbusters, along with an unknown actor named Gary Frank, they're basically held hostage in a ghetto gang controlled tenement building, where they have to depend on the help of the folks who live in the building to hide and make their escape from the psycho 80s street gang, "The Vampires".

The gang led by the brilliant as always Tony Todd, is a typical 80s stereotype for what gangs were in movies at the time, wearing headbands and sleeveless leather jackets. They terrorize the people in the building going from apartment to apartment looking for Parker and frank.

Beating and killing almost everyone in their path, the movie never lets up and is a constant thrill ride the whole way through. This isn't super super violent and plays the blood and gore to a minimum, but when someone dies in this, its taken pretty seriously and isn't like a cliche action movie where its just touch and go when someone dies.

Stacey Dash from Clueless and Deon Richmond (the token black guy from not another teen movie) play two younger kids in the apartment helping the two main leads find secret tunnels and shortcuts to escape the gang.

Ray Parker really held his own during the whole movie, and I was amazed he never really had a movie career after his solid acting job in this, and Gary Frank even though annoying really played the scared nerdy white guy perfectly, so you actually felt for him when he was forced to kill people.

Overall my review couldn't do this movie justice, you just have to see it for yourself...if you can find it that is because this movie for some stupid reason is out of print and hasn't been released on dvd because of rights issues or something.

If you can find it online or on vhs I suggest buying it and watching it. I found it online and it just blew me away with how solid and awsome it was. If you like 80s semi cheesy but entertaining gang suspense movies set in the ghetto, and if you're a Tony Todd fan this will be your cup of tea for sure.

Also if you like Jan Michael Vincent and want to see him play a crippled, pissed off, paranoid, Vietnam vet, in a motorized wheelchair...then this is your movie lol.