Raunchy, R-Rated 80s Sci-Fi Escapes The Wasteland In Style

By Robert Scucci
| Published 31 seconds ago

1988’s Crime Zone is what you get when Blade Runner and 1984 are tossed into a blender, with the whole thing executive-produced by Roger Corman. The result is a gritty, low-budget sci-fi action flick that leans hard into familiar dystopian themes. The common man lives under a tyrannical, totalitarian government, intimacy is illegal, wars are fought on multiple fronts, and everybody is just trying to make the best of their suffering while hoping there are enough rations to go around. It’s a bleak place, but dare I say, a stylish one.

While far from an original premise, even by 1988 standards, Crime Zone remains a fun flick about escaping a retro-futuristic hellhole that feels a little too easy to imagine. For me, it’s the ultimate form of wish fulfillment. One day, when it’s us against us, eating whatever slop the government hands out before they execute our fellow citizens on live TV under the guise of protecting the proletariat, you’d hope the escape is as sexy and vibrant as it is in Crime Zone.

A Rebel, And His Babe, With A Cause

Bone (Peter Nelson) is the perfect protagonist in Crime Zone because when we meet him, he’s getting fired from his government job for insubordination. He hates authority and blindly following rules “just because.” Living in the police state known as Soleil, and belonging to the socioeconomic group known as “subgrades,” Bone and his friends, Creon (Michael Shaner), J.D. (Don Manor), and Alexi (Orlando Sacha), spend their spare time shooting pool at one of many government-sanctioned brothels. That’s where Bone meets and quickly becomes infatuated with a prostitute named Helen (Sherilyn Fenn).

Though Bone and Helen quickly become an item, Soleil forbids unauthorized romantic or sexual activity, meaning they have to keep their relationship a secret. Fed up with the current state of affairs, and ready to jump each other at a moment’s notice, they resolve to escape the oppressive regime and start over beyond its fortified borders.

They turn to robbery to raise funds, but their plans change when they’re confronted by a mysterious man named Jason (David Carradine), who gives them an offer they can’t refuse.

Jason, always smoking a cigar and showing up at suspicious times, tells Bone and Helen that if they help him steal classified records from a government building, he’ll help them leave Soleil and guide them to Frodan, another nation-state that might offer a better life.

The problem is Jason keeps moving the goalposts after they do his bidding, which eventually leads to the couple robbing a bank for extra funds. Now fugitives, they need to figure out an escape plan on their own, though Jason continues showing up at the worst possible moments, his motives becoming clearer with each encounter. With no one to trust and everybody looking to make an example out of them via public execution, our heroes have to figure out how to get out, even when it already feels like game over for Bone and Helen.

Gritty, Sexy, And All Too Familiar

Crime Zone isn’t the most original movie, but for a low-budget B-movie aesthetic, it’s a solid romp through an industrial wasteland that doesn’t feel too far removed from where society could be heading. If you’re fluent in the cinematic language found in Blade Runner, RoboCop, and the Terminator films, you might scoff because you’ve seen it all before. Watching it in a vacuum, though, is a rewarding experience. It wears its tropes on its sleeve, but they work shockingly well in this context.

Movies like Crime Zone were everywhere in the 80s, and your mileage will vary depending on how deep you’ve gone with the genre. For what it’s worth, Crime Zone has enough twists to keep things engaging, a believable level of action for a police state setting, and just enough moral ambiguity between our heroes and their mysterious guide to keep you guessing well into the third act. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it spins hard enough to justify 96 minutes of your time.

As of this writing, Crime Zone is streaming for free on Tubi.