User reviews

This low-cost Canadian produced presentation is reasonably ordinary, but for its type not as terrible as it's made out to be. This is one of those films that the cover artwork always made it look quite interesting, but the synopsis on the back had less of an affect. A friend of mine convinced me to watch it, after the first half-hour I could see why because the story does such a great job setting up the highly-charged, innovative predicament (three astronauts in space watch on as world war three erupts with nuclear attacks on Earth) to only lose its way when a couple months later they crash-land back on earth then it becomes a very vanilla-like post-apocalyptic Sci-fi wasteland survival outing (of the very cheap, rancid b-grade kind) with some very unbelievably trite villains that come off more as joke than anything truly threatening. The head honcho played by Kevin King seemed more suited in a "Save by the Bell" episode, than as a ruthlessly imposing leader. At times I was waiting for cued laughter from an audience whenever he was on screen, as he came off more so a brat. Just as poor was Tim Choate in the leading role. Well more so eccentrically annoying. I found the support to be much better; Kate Lynch, Lenore Zann (running around in a school uniform), Maury Chaykin and John Walsch. The opening first half-hour is very well pulled off; with some striking visuals, solid set-designs and usefully gripping details. You could see where all the money went in to, but that could probably explain its weakly conceived abrupt ending. Maybe that had run out. Anyhow during its grounded action, it does create some nasty touches, edgy activity and cement an ugly intensity. Too bad it just too daft (simply lacking the colourful craziness) and at times incoherent. The story is straight-forward, although the script is flimsy and too black and white to make it completely fulfilling. Minimally junky and grim, if particularly plain post-nuke entertainment.

Def-Con 4 (1985) was a surprisingly good low budget take on World World 3. Despite the low budget and the cast of minor actors, it works. The landscape and the situations the residents on a heavily radioactive Earth are a lot similar to what it would actually be like compared to most movies that were made during this time.

A nuclear warhead equipped space station is circling above the stratosphere when the unthinkable happens. Nuclear holocaust! In a pickle, the crew aboard the space station must make several decisions in order for them to survive in a world that's nearly impossible to survive on. Can they do it? What kind of world awaits their return? A watchable film that will give you a good time if in the right mood.

Recommended.

The first half hour of this flick is so intense and well-done that you can't help but feel letdown when it quickly degenerates into Z-grade, Mad Max post apocalyptic nonsense. And it just continues to get worse and worse until the rather abrupt ending.

Three astronauts orbiting Earth watch helplessly as World War III erupts. After making an emergency crash landing, one of the astronauts in rendered unconscious while another is dragged from the ship and eaten by savages. Howe, our hero, escapes and finds that Earth has become a wasteland inhabited by post apocalyptic cretins ruled over by a snot nosed rich kid named Gideon.

If the film had maintained the tension and drama of the first half hour, this movie would have been a classic. But as it stands, it's just another Mad Max wannabe. Skip it.

Perhaps my enjoyment of this movie largely stems from my not being Canadian. It seems that the Canadian reviewers have a grudge against the film. I can only imagine that they are getting some inside jokes that I am not.

I have liked this film since I was a kid. I rank it up there with "The Day After" as one of the better post-apocalyptic movies made. A lot of people give that honor to "Mad Max", but I found "Mad Max" boring and far too campy.

"Def Con 4" takes a serious tone, which is occasionally undermined by poor acting and special effects. But the overall impression is quite good. Sure it's fun to make fun of, but this is largely because we no longer live with the fear of nuclear war on a daily basis.

I found the writing to be quite good, with an effective and interesting opening drawing the viewer into the life of the astronauts as they waited to return to Earth. The movie is actually quite solid until it is necessary for a new conflict to be introduced - when the surviving astronauts meet the teenage, post-apocalyptic Hitler, the downhill slide begins. But even then it's not terrible. It's actually fun seeing how seriously everyone is treating the subject matter. And how can you not love a movie that begins with "It is the day after tomorrow"? The movie also has quite possibly the best tractor-immobilization sequence ever committed to celluloid.

On the downside, the action sequences are rather ineptly filmed, and the acting can be a bit wooden. But, hey, it's a low-budget sci-fi film. I recommend it for a fun evening.

It was the best of films, it was the worst of films... two words: "Engrossingly Mind-numbing". Def-Con 4 is truly an oddball. The script is incomprehensibly senseless. There is no story arc at all, it is simply a collection of characters improvising scenes. It is a great example of what I like to call "plotless development" or "one damn thing after another". The acting is uniformly bad with the exception of Maury Chaykin who is hilarious as a Canadian survivalist. I particularly love one scene in this film in which we see the detail of a mechanism of a booby trap. The booby trap has as its trigger a Canadian social insurance card. What kind of symbolism are we supposed to find in this? Either this is the deepest film I've ever seen or the it is the shallowest. Either it deserves a 10 or it deserves a 1, I'll split the difference and give it 5.

Bleak sci-fi begins with three astronauts who are forced to crashland on post-nuke earth after a nuclear holocaust. Much of the population has been wiped out, but those who remain are either savage mutant cannibals (who are first seen carving meat slices off of a severed leg) or unbelievably sadistic punks who imprison innocent people in a slave camp and are led by a fascist Hitler clone (Kenneth King). The special effects work (especially at the beginning) is good, the cast tries and there are some interesting things that happen, but overall it's a grim and unenjoyable film. The script could have used a polish or two.

Score: 3 out of 10

I love B Grade movies. I have a fondness for them which is pretty deep, but this was F Grade crud.

For some reason i read the back of the DVD cover and thought this may be interesting. Astronauts crash to earth, have to survive against the diseased and megalomaniacal survivors, criminally low budget. Sounds like a winner.

Well winner it was not. Not funny enough to warrant it being "so good it is bad" tag, the diseased people pretty much don't rate a mention, the main characters have no charisma and are pretty annoying, the bad guys are kinda OK, the main bad dude look's like a hobo's Patrick Swayze and has zero acting talent, and his offsider is a lot like Bennet in Commando, the camp, extremely unscary psycho bad dude with a mustache. The story line starts off well but begins to worsen not too soon after the start, and gets worse and worse and then plateaus and then gets worse again. The ending is finally reaches the so bad it is good stage, but if you watch that far into it, as I did, then you are a fool. By the end you are stupider than you were before.

Written, Produced and Directed by the same cretin, this abysmal effort wasted my 2 dollars spent hiring it, and my time watching it. I feel cheated. I want blood.

It is always a shame to see a movie that starts off with such a great storyline, but then falls apart at the end. The first half of this film, involving scientists in a Reagan-ear Star Wars Nuclear space station, is intriguing and suspenseful. But the second half of the film about the scientists adventures in a post-apocalyptic world is dull and sloppy. Maybe lack of money or loss of interest by the director caused the plot to go way out into left field, and they sped up production just to get the film out as soon as possible. Watch if you must, but prepare to be disappointed! The best thing about this movie is the creative box cover.

Let's get it out of the way first thing: The critics of the 80s like Leonard Maltin and Siskel/Ebert who sadistically maligned DEF-CON 4 as a wretched exercise in scum & sleaze were WRONG. I agree with another comment stating that this movie was unfairly dismissed at the time of original release. Yes it's tacky, low budget and amoral -- perhaps one of the most amoral movies of the Reagan years of home video rental. For that reason alone it actually stood out from the pack by actually daring to present it's viewers with exactly that which it aspired to. Unlike the Mad Max films or even the Italian ripoffs of the genre Max created, DEF-CON 4 has no presumptions about being a parable, having any kind of a message or examining some sort of social phenomenon. It is about nuclear war and the resultant breakdown of our North American collective society, and like those prospects it isn't pretty, easy to stomach or even make sense of.

In actuality there are actually two B movies in one here: A pretty taught little SNEAKERS/WARGAMES ripoff about a nuclear war triggered by "accident" after Lybians hijack a shipment of cruise missiles and shoot one into Russia. It doesn't detonate but manages to push east/west tensions to the breaking point, the Russians nuke America and the Americans retaliate. Instant global apocalypse, and a demonstration of one of the prevailing nightmares of the Cold War. This sequence of events is ingeniously staged by having the three person crew of a secret orbiting weapons platform observe the exchange and agonize over how to react. Should they launch? Should they go back to earth? Eventually their satellite's computer is hijacked by an unseen entity who prompts an impromptu landing somewhere near the coast of Canada, sparking the second of the two B movie scenarios that becomes a post apocalyptic thriller centered around a makeshift totalitarian regime dominated by the prep school brat of an Army general who recruits other brats, arms them with machine guns, and herds the surviving populace into a ramshackle town comprised mostly of junk.

One of the astronauts encounters a survivalist hilariously played over the top by veteran character actor Maury Chaykin, who steals all of his scenes with a blase attitude ("Just get in your rocket ship and fly off to Central America."), his home made converted front end loader tank contraption, and a kilt. He also has a teenage schoolgirl boarded up in his basement, the less said about which the better. His character is the only one in the film who emerges as an actual person, and when the story shifts it's emphasis away from his fate it looses that central core of interest. In any event the astronaut strikes up a deal with the survivalist for the space capsule's food supply and the female astronaut still on board, leading to their capture by the renegades and a series of bizarre scenes of social chaos that seem to have been inspired by Spaghetti Westerns.

I will admit that the film is a bit of a mish-mash, and hard to keep track of because it changes gears so quickly. At one minute it's a high tech space thriller, the next a grim survivalist tale, then social satire and finally a big, stupid shootout. But in all fairness it's only the final twenty minutes or so that loose their footing in absurdity, with the main detraction being the role of the Army brat dictator kid, who's grip on the surviving populace is never fully explained. Why are the others following his lead? Since nobody bothers to tell the audience, the kid remains a caricature rather than a character, and the final conflict between the astronaut and him remains something of a contrivance rather than a believable series of events. The ending is also annoyingly empty of any kind of meaning at all, with the movie more or less simply being over at some point. You know, whatever.

But if anything the movie has actually gotten more poignant over the decades since it's creation: We now live in a world where middle eastern fanatics do indeed shape global events & have shown themselves capable of inflicting apocalyptic events. We've also seen events like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina where social order has completely broken down, resulting in the kind of mind boggling escapades depicted in the latter part of the film. It's no longer just an escapist nightmare/fantasy to suggest that what is being depicted in the film might actually happen, and the filmmakers should indeed be congratulated for pretty much getting the look of the apocalypse right ... though I do think that people would have found more opportunities to wash their faces & would think that ammunition for firearms would be a bit more of a rarity.

The long and short of it is that DEF-CON 4 is not the unwatchable disaster that many might have potential viewers believe. It's a grim, grimy, somewhat distasteful endeavor for sure, but then again so was the prospect nuclear combat toe to toe with the Ruskies. Don't knock the film for having more or less gotten the aspect of what that might mean correctly.

7/10

One of the better eighties post-apocalyptic films was and is Def Con 4. It bombed in 1985 but has gone on to gain a small cult following. It is the story of three astronauts, one in particular, who witness war and nuclear holocaust from a satelite. The space footage is well shot and a genuine sense of dread reigns as we watch them contemplate the deaths of their families and of civilization.

When their satelite is forced to land they fall into a nuclear wasteland fillled with armed militants and plague ridden cannibals. This is perhaps one of the dirtiest looking movies of its day, which rather adds to the already oppresive atmosphere. Unfortunately Def Con runs out of steam toward the somewhat hurried finale. Yet if your not easily put off by the brutal tone of the movie, its science fiction worthy of 90 minutes of your life.

All right, the plot is thin and at times unbelievable, but the acting and effects are competent. The film's target audience were the teen-aged denizens of the last of the American drive-ins, and it's typical Cold War nuclear-midnight material. While in outer space, three astronauts witness the obliteration of the cities of earth in a full-scale nuclear war. When their spacecraft's automatic return mechanisms are commandeered, they land in a remote and highly radioactive section of Canadian coastline, where totalitarianism and cannibalism rule the day.

I saw this one at a drive-in when I was 19, and watching it now reminds me of the feel of my beat-up car's leatherette seats, the smells of popcorn and hot dogs from the poastapocalyptically unclean snack bar, and several other less seemly teen pleasures that ultimately overran and sealed the demise of the drive-in venue as the rest of the world abandoned it for home video.

Most of the movies I saw in what is now a forgotten, overgrown lot behind a commuter parking area (a summer storm tumbled what was left of the big screen years ago) were similarly produced with nuclear hysteria in mind, usually with unknown talent and enormous plot holes (what, exactly, were the sources of gasoline in the desert wastelands of "Mad Max" and "Cherry 2000"?).

These "B" films represent a period in American cinematic history that, while rarely critically laudable, nevertheless reflects the morality issues of generations. Our fear of the atom had metamorphosed from the accidental gigantism of everything including common insects, rodents and the occasional slowly-driven-mad citizen to much more tempered, though not always realistic, pondering of civilization after a full-out attack...and most of these films played out on the other side of our windshields.

So, spray on some bug repellent, haul the TV out to the garage, and enjoy some Mom's-car make-out sessions with your spouse. This film makes it 1985 all over again.

"Def-Con 4" can basically be described as a mundane and ordinary post- apocalyptic Sci-Fi/thriller from the mid-80's, but at least it has a couple of semi-original elements in store. There were most 'after the nuclear bomb' movies were uninspired clones of "Mad Max: The Road Warrior", with flamboyantly tuned vehicles and deranged Mohawk villains, this film at least tries to put the emphasis a little more on depth and characters drawings. Although I really like "Mad Max" and most of its clones (especially the Italian ones), admittedly it's not a very plausible post-apocalyptic scenario that all remaining survivors will go bonkers and drive around in eccentric buggies. Anyway, "Def-Con 4" starts from a fairly inventive viewpoint. Whilst orbiting around in a satellite and minding their own business, a three-headed crew of astronauts witnesses how our planet Earth is destroyed during a short but devastating nuclear war between the US and USSR. Two months later, their board computer get "hijacked" and the satellite crash-lands in unknown and probably extremely hostile territory. Quickly after their captain Walker is ripped to pieces by unseen assailants, sole survivors Jordon and Howe end up in a secluded camp run by a pretentious teenager. He's the leader because his parents were rich, influential and owned a helicopter. You'd think people don't care about financial status anymore in a world destroyed by nuclear missiles, but apparently they do. "Def- Con 4" is full of illogical and implausible stuff similar to this, as a matter a fact. Do you reckon it only takes two months for survivors of a nuclear holocaust to turn into cannibalistic savages? Two months of hunger and disease and people are ready to devour fellow person's ripped off arms and rape women with nicely red aureoles. We're doomed, I tell you. Still, if you manage to overlook the dumb errors in the script, this might become an enjoyable little Sci-Fi treat with a decent first half hour and a familiarly tacky climax. The "evil" characters are quite funny and actually come across as pathetic instead of menacing. Kevin King tries hard to act like a genuine bastard, especially when he deliberately drops the freshly baked steak of his paralyzed computer specialist in the mud, but it really doesn't help that he has a cute baby-face and high school jock attitude. His first commander is a sort of albino Nazi and their legal system is a throwback to Medieval times. You survived atomic bombs and now you're going to hang people?!? Please!

I have to say that I am very surprised at the very low 3.5 rating! This film is very underrated and I must say that it is genuinely one of the best movies I've seen. Okay this movie is very low budget and at times cliché but the subliminal message of the whole storyline is intriguing. Not many people will see this but there are many references to past dictatorships and sociological theories. If you can try and watch the movie without acknowledging its low budgetness then perhaps you can witness some fine acting, particularly from Alan MacGillivray, who plays the eventual hero of the film, Boomer. I am surprised from his sheer excellence in his performance as Boomer, that his career did not extend to bigger and better things. This film is a hidden gem. Highly recommended.

How bad can a science fiction movie get? Fred Ray Olen - the master of shitty sci-fi flicks - would die of envy if he ever saw "Def-Con 4". This is by far the worst movie I've ever seen. Lousy effects, crappy story and BAAAAAAAAAAAD acting. Sometimes movies are so bad you sit there with that B-movie smirk - smiling because the flick stinks so much that it actually (and unintentionally) is funny. Here - I just wanted to rip my my own head off and feed to it to the smelly Golden retreiver next door - hoping that the furry menace would choke on my tortured eyeballs.

This is what the back of the DVD-cover says: Three astronauts return to Earth two months after a nuclear holocaust and find disease-crazed humans wandering through shanty towns constructed from the refuse of the previous civilization.

And your next question probably is: What the f..k!!! DVD-cover? Did you actually rent or buy this crap? Nope, got it for x-mas 2004 as a part of a 5 disc/10 movies boxed-set named "SCI-FI - 10 GREAT FILMS!".

Riiiiiiiight.....

I haven't seen DEF-CON 4 for several years and if it's as bad as I remember it I hope to never see it again . The story is grim and lacks credibility . A space station witnesses the third world war and a trio of survivors wait for the radiation levels to drop so they can return to Earth , and when they return they find that the survivors are well armed barbarians where it's survival of the fittest

This movie doesn't concern itself with the intellect of post apocalypse authors like John Wyndham or John Christopher , it's trying to be similar in genre to the likes of MAD MAX etc . The problem is that it doesn't have the budget to do so . We see no devastated cities and most of the action takes place in North American woodland which is an obvious budgetery descion on the part of the producers and not a creative one . There probably wasn't much of a movie to start with but if there was the exploitive scenes take it down to an even lower level . For example the hero walks through woodland ( Did I mention most of the action takes place in the sticks ? ) and comes across a bunch of survivors who are carving up a roast dinner - A human leg ! There's another scene with a severed arm and a couple of other gory scenes . I know that the likes of 28 DAYS LATER and THE OMEGA MAN suffer from gaps in logic but at least they're entertaining and enthralling unlike this contrived unsympathetic mess

A group of American astronauts orbit the Earth in a top secret nuclear warhead carrying spaceship. Suddenly World War 3 breaks out down below and the ship is unexpectedly put into a program to land. On arrival on the planet, they are soon captured by a warlord who has emerged after the war.

Def-Con 4 is a low budget Canadian attempt at a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action-thriller. These films were ten-a-penny back in the mid 80's. They were often low budget but full of enough action and violence to get away with it. This movie certainly fits the criteria but it fails to impress. I think this is due to a mix of things. The budget is perhaps TOO low, meaning that the sets are very limited. There are also no characters to get overly excited about. There's no one really worth rooting for and that doesn't help. And finally, the story line just seems so under-developed and almost random. It's taking the audiences credibility to the limit to think that the day after a nuclear war, the general population will resemble a Mad Max movie.

Not terrible but not good. If you have a tolerance for cheesy and cheap 80's sci-fi movies then you could find something here of interest.

Def Con 4 is one of those movies that is pretty much unique in the world of B grade cinema. First off, why do so many imdbers dislike this? There are thousands, perhaps millions of movies far worse off. The acting and special fx are actually pretty good for such a low budget film. The beginning of the film has a great sense of dread. The music by Christopher Young is awesome! There is some over top emoting from the lead actors that is slightly lame, but overall a good relic from the cold war. This may be one of the more underrated Canadian sci fi movies of the 80s, although much of the plot and characterizations goes way lame in the second half. In summary, it's a good bad movie that is more good than bad.

This is definitely a B movie, the acting all needing a little coaching, and of course, now very dated. However, the actors are all young (save one or two), there is a pretty large cast and its easily possible to look past that. The script and the story are pretty solid. The sets/props are much better and at times this strange little concoction throes up a truly Mad Max quality Dystopia. The guns/gun blasts are tinny and a mistake. More attention here would have been an easy way to instantly improve this piece. But having said that I must confess it was an enjoyable experience. The cgi (or achieve footage?) of nuclear explosions seemed very real, was done well and gelled well with the flow. For a B movie I only counted two glaring plot holes, neither of which distracted from my enjoyment, and with a dash of tangental thinking may have just been explainable. The cinematography and editing have a modicum of flare. And lets not distract from how important and brave the ambition here. It's not as good as The Day After or Threads, but its plausible and not that far removed in comparison. For me it was good enough to have imagined it from that same universe as those two seminal works. And like I said, for me at least, it was never boring and I definitely enjoyed it.

I will note that the dvd cover art is misleading. At first I thought the movie must be about a cute robot!

Def Con 4 starts off well, but then digresses into a boring plot line with forgettable characters. Fortunately, it's only 85 minutes long, although those last 45 minutes may seem like an eternity. Anyone else wonder what ever happened to those crazies living out in the woods?