Joel sez:

The first two movies we’ll be riffing in Season 13 are Robot Wars (1993) and Demon Squad (2019)!

Robot Wars is a Charlie Band feature that was clearly designed for cable, but the producers really decided to go for it anyway, and created a low-budget film with scope, attitude, and some nice stop-motion robot vehicles that occasionally fight. I gotta tell you that for a few minutes, it starts feeling like The Love Boat… if the “Love Boat” was a giant mech that was fighting another boat that was also a giant mech, and they were both sinking. And on fire.

Our second movie, Demon Squad, screams “indie feature.” The producers work hard to create a film noir/fantasy vibe, without ever once acknowledging Ridley Scott’s seminal Blade Runner. It appears to take place in New Orleans. It also has more than its fair share of After Effects lightning bolts and purpley, swirly clouds from another dimension, and basically looks like the producers got a lot of their friends and family together and glued costume shop masks onto their faces. But the real attraction is the star, Khristian Fulmer, and his on-screen “Girl Friday,” Erin Lilley, behaving like they have history and chemistry.