Robot Ninja
Director– J.R. Bookwalter
Cast- Michael Todd, Mike Shea
Country of Origin – USA
Distributor - Tempe
Number of discs – 2
Reviewed by -Scott MacDonald
Date- 05/01/2019
When I got into horror really hard in my teens, I was originally guided by the "Vault" titles on House of Horrors dot com. That site and their corresponding message board "Horrorspeak" helped guide my bourgeoning taste in horror past the 80's slasher franchises that had made up my cinematic diet until that point. One of the titles recommended was an 8mm zombie shocker called "The Dead Next Door". Like everything else on the site, I began to seek it out, and that is where I began to find the cinematic world of J.R. Bookwalter and Tempe Entertainment.
J.R. Bookwalters' debut film was the Dead Next Door, and throughout the next 2 decades he would continue to make amazing shock horror on a shoe string budget, while also helping distribute other such similar titles on to DVD and Blu-ray at the height of those formats popularity. Unfortunately, the tides have turned, and Tempe has seen its last days this year. I will be cliche for a moment and say that every cloud has a proverbial silver lining, and with that closure they have created an immense, well-restored edition of Bookwalter's 2nd film Robot Ninja.
Robot Ninja follows Leonard played by Michael Todd. Leonard is a comic artist whose most popular creation "Robot Ninja" has been bought by a network, and turned into a campy 60's Batman type show against his wishes. Because of this Leonard decides to become his character in real life, and fight crime in his town using brutal methods.
Robot Ninja is a film that has been little seen since the days of VHS. Bookwalter was not happy with how the film came out, but it must be said this Blu-ray release brings new life to the film. The film has an over the top sense of humor combined with excellent gore that really help the film betray its low budget origins. Add into that some quirky small roles for Scott Spiegel (Intruder), Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead), and Burt Ward (Batman '66) and you get something that is certainly a precursor to comedic superhero shockers like Kick Ass, Super, and The Specials.
The film is presented in 1080p in a 1:33:1 aspect ratio preserving the original aspect ratio of the presentation. Everything looks great here, a new 2k scan of the original 16mm elements were done here and the remastering process makes everything look well-detailed, with stable colors, and blacks, and also manages to keep a natural film like look to the film. The audio is presented with a DTS-HD 5.1 track in English that serves the film well, with sound coming through crisp, clear, and with no obvious issues.
Tempe packs the disc with lots of interesting extra features. The set is separated into 2 discs with one DVD and one Blu. The DVD contains the original VHS version of the film, a featurette on Robot Ninja, and BTS footage with commentary by Bookwalter. There are 4 commentary tracks spread across both discs, and they all are interesting even though their is some overlap. The first disc contains a restoration demo, an interview with Quigley, and an interesting location tour with the director's son hosting, plus a Robot Ninja inspired short on disc 1. Overall Tempe has put together an excellent package for a film that deserved a larger audience, and it comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
