Nomads (1986) - August 18, 2015

[Scottie]

Nomads (1986)

A French anthropologist moves to Los Angeles and is followed by the evil spirits of an extinct tribe he once uncovered.

[jmb1381]

Originally Posted by iScottie

Nomads (1986)

I watched this awhile back on Netflix and enjoyed it. Depending on what special features maybe on it, I may try to pick this up.

[Caution_Zombies]

ive never seen this, but I might blind buy because of my love for 80s horror type movies, plus of John McTiernan & Pierce Brosnon

[StingingVelvet]

Yeah, McTiernan and Brosnan plus 80's genre film should equal right up my alley. I hear this movie is horrible though. Will probably try and see it ahead of time.

[jc480]

I think you're right Velvet...I've been aware of it for a while as an old fart and I recall that it was not a good movie...never bothered to watch it.

If someone finds it entertaining please say so I'm always happy to revisit my impressions!

[Abby is Q]

I hated it. I've tried to block it from my memory. All I remember were terrible French accents (not even in a funny way), gangster eskimos (not as funny as it sounds on paper), and a nonsensical plot where a woman sees visions through a dead man and she wanders around the city solving a plot that didn't really make much sense. It's not scary, it's not suspenseful, it's not worth watching.

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm probably one of a few but I liked it back in the days, and still do now. I can understand why people hate it though, as it's certainly strange and messy, but I like that...

[warrian]

I really think this movie is incompetence disguised as overly artistic intentions. But that said, It has it's moments. It's straight-faced, moody and has gotten under my skin over the years. I've got it pre-ordered.

[Member-222782]

I think I've figured out why this film seems universally disliked: Pierce Brosnan's irritatingly fake French accent . I think of this movie as a companion piece to Neon Maniacs, just without the deformed freaks and featuring adults instead of teens.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by cine74

I think I've figured out why this film seems universally disliked: Pierce Brosnan's irritatingly fake French accent .

Well, there's that, but it's also because it's simply a stunningly bad movie. In terms of sheer ineptitude, it rivals Howling II; at least there was some fun to be had with that beast. Try as she might, Mary Woronov can't shimmy Nomads into anything watchable. I have no doubt this will be one of their worst sellers.

[Todd Tomorrow]

I only watched this for the first time recently and it truly is a stinker. When you read the synopsis it almost sounds like it could be interesting with an original mythology. Unfortunately nothing about it works, from the incessant Ted Nugent heavy metal noodling on the soundtrack, to the unnecessary thought transference flashback structure, to the supernatural threat which turns out to be a bunch of mystical New Wave hipsters, to Lesley-Anne Down's horrible hairstyle. She looks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards. The only reason Brosnan got film offers after this wretched film is because nobody saw it or his awful performance. And it's never remotely scary.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by cine74

I think I've figured out why this film seems universally disliked: Pierce Brosnan's irritatingly fake French accent . I think of this movie as a companion piece to Neon Maniacs, just without the deformed freaks and featuring adults instead of teens.

His French accent was indeed very bad, especially when he speaks French. The blame also falls on whomever wrote those lines, with a shamefull grammatical mistake: "Ils sont des Inuats". Valid French would be: "Ce sont des Inuats".

There's only one movie I know of where the actor does an even worse job. In Groundhog Day when Bill Murray declaims a French poem. As a French speaker I couldn't make a word out of it. It's like listening to opera, even as a native one still can't twig a word.

In the French dub he's German, with a valid German accent. I'm really not fond of dubbing but on rare occasions it can be good.

[stinky bean]

I have a soft spot for it. It's wacky enough that it entertains me and I like the way that it's shot. Fun to see Mary Woronov and Adam Ant in the movie too.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by stinky bean

I have a soft spot for it. It's wacky enough that it entertains me and I like the way that it's shot. Fun to see Mary Woronov and Adam Ant in the movie too.

Mary Woronov is the only good thing about the film (she often was) but she's only in it for a couple of minutes.

Adam Ant doesn't amount to much more than a glorified extra.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

I only watched this for the first time recently and it truly is a stinker. When you read the synopsis it almost sounds like it could be interesting with an original mythology. Unfortunately nothing about it works, from the incessant Ted Nugent heavy metal noodling on the soundtrack, to the unnecessary thought transference flashback structure, to the supernatural threat which turns out to be a bunch of mystical New Wave hipsters, to Lesley-Anne Down's horrible hairstyle. She looks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards. The only reason Brosnan got film offers after this wretched film is because nobody saw it or his awful performance. And it's never remotely scary.

Ain't that the truth. I can only assume no-one at 20th Century Fox saw it either when they hired John McTiernan for Predator.



Every other movie star or director has a horror movie or straight to video turkey in their past, and Nomads is John McTiernan’s skeleton in the closet and one of many for Pierce Brosnan in those wilderness years between losing out on playing Bond to Timothy Dalton and finally getting the part a decade later. It’s a very silly, very 80s number that has an interesting malignant supernatural threat it doesn’t really know how to weave into a story beyond presenting it in the style of a bad Adam Ant music video. Which isn’t too surprising since Adam Ant is one of the film’s evil entities, along with Josie Cotton and Mary Woronov looking disturbingly like an ageing drag queen. The results ain’t pretty.

Lesley-Ann Down is an overworked doctor who gets her ear bitten by a manic Brosnan who promptly expires in E.R. after saying something in French and in next to no time she’s having nightmarish flashbacks to being a French house hunter in Los Angeles. From here on Down’s part largely consists of falling down, lying unconscious while various tests are run on her or retracing her patient’s footsteps in a daze, the bulk of the film being taken up with the last week of Brosnan’s life as he and his outrayjuss Fronch axe-ent discover that the new house he and his wife have moved into is the scene of a brutal murder that attracts a gang of homicidal leather-clad neo-punk Inuit spirits drawn to scenes of great calamity who hang around Santa Monica in their black van dancing to Ted Nugent songs and beating up people in parking lots. No, really.

After breathlessly, terrifyingly explaining to his wife that they have no fixed address so “Zhey are Nomads! Just like zee ones we ‘ave zeen everywhere we ‘ave been!” (oh yes, he’s an anthropologist) as if people living out of a car in LA was the most horrifying discovery mortal man could make, he naturally becomes obsessed with following and documenting them. Thanks to a convenient phone call from Irving the Explainer (actually the writer-director desperately trying to shoehorn in some exposition) and a helpful nun in a dream who makes him a nice cup of tea before the rest of her order suddenly appear to maniacally run around one of their hanging sisters while flashing their breasts we discover that they’re not just any old gang of homicidal leather-clad neo-punk Inuit spirits but ones who not only can’t be photographed because they died the wrong way but also bring calamity to anyone who looks too closely at them, drawing them into another world where they become bikers who can’t pass the California state line. The moral of the tale? Never buy a house from Nina Foch, never photograph Mary Woronov when she’s dancing on a car and never let a French anthropologist bite your ear just before he dies.

The germ of the idea is not without potential, but the film has no idea what to do with it leaving the biggest mystery quite how John McTiernan went from this to Predator in just one year.

[StingingVelvet]

Part of me wanted to get this for Brosnan and McTiernan, especially with the 80's-riffic trailer, but the reputation is just way too bad on this for a $18 blind-buy.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Part of me wanted to get this for Brosnan and McTiernan, especially with the 80's-riffic trailer, but the reputation is just way too bad on this for a $18 blind-buy.

It's definitely one you should watch before you decide not to buy.

[schlock]

Originally Posted by Aclea

[Show spoiler]Ain't that the truth. I can only assume no-one at 20th Century Fox saw it either when they hired John McTiernan for Predator.



Every other movie star or director has a horror movie or straight to video turkey in their past, and Nomads is John McTiernan’s skeleton in the closet and one of many for Pierce Brosnan in those wilderness years between losing out on playing Bond to Timothy Dalton and finally getting the part a decade later. It’s a very silly, very 80s number that has an interesting malignant supernatural threat it doesn’t really know how to weave into a story beyond presenting it in the style of a bad Adam Ant music video. Which isn’t too surprising since Adam Ant is one of the film’s evil entities, along with Josie Cotton and Mary Woronov looking disturbingly like an ageing drag queen. The results ain’t pretty.

Lesley-Ann Down is an overworked doctor who gets her ear bitten by a manic Brosnan who promptly expires in E.R. after saying something in French and in next to no time she’s having nightmarish flashbacks to being a French house hunter in Los Angeles. From here on Down’s part largely consists of falling down, lying unconscious while various tests are run on her or retracing her patient’s footsteps in a daze, the bulk of the film being taken up with the last week of Brosnan’s life as he and his outrayjuss Fronch axe-ent discover that the new house he and his wife have moved into is the scene of a brutal murder that attracts a gang of homicidal leather-clad neo-punk Inuit spirits drawn to scenes of great calamity who hang around Santa Monica in their black van dancing to Ted Nugent songs and beating up people in parking lots. No, really.

After breathlessly, terrifyingly explaining to his wife that they have no fixed address so “Zhey are Nomads! Just like zee ones we ‘ave zeen everywhere we ‘ave been!” (oh yes, he’s an anthropologist) as if people living out of a car in LA was the most horrifying discovery mortal man could make, he naturally becomes obsessed with following and documenting them. Thanks to a convenient phone call from Irving the Explainer (actually the writer-director desperately trying to shoehorn in some exposition) and a helpful nun in a dream who makes him a nice cup of tea before the rest of her order suddenly appear to maniacally run around one of their hanging sisters while flashing their breasts we discover that they’re not just any old gang of homicidal leather-clad neo-punk Inuit spirits but ones who not only can’t be photographed because they died the wrong way but also bring calamity to anyone who looks too closely at them, drawing them into another world where they become bikers who can’t pass the California state line. The moral of the tale? Never buy a house from Nina Foch, never photograph Mary Woronov when she’s dancing on a car and never let a French anthropologist bite your ear just before he dies.

The germ of the idea is not without potential, but the film has no idea what to do with it leaving the biggest mystery quite how John McTiernan went from this to Predator in just one year.

Hahaha! Great write-up. Although I don't think it was your intent, I do think you have probably enticed some people to actually buy this now out of how bonkers-bad it sounds. I only saw this film once on VHS when it first came out and was kind of "meh" about it then, didn't hate it though, but I think it's probably very dated and mind-numbingly bad now. But you do kind of make me want to see it again.

[DarknessBDJM]

I enjoy Nomads. I like gang/punk films and I like supernatural mysteries, this combines them. If you're looking for an A quality flick due to the people involved I guess one may be disappointed, but it's a b genre flick and I never expected it to be anything else.

The grain and compression looks good in this one as well (at least from my cursory loom through), it's in line with other movies that MGM HD has played since 2009 or so that Scream has put out.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by schlock

Hahaha! Great write-up. Although I don't think it was your intent, I do think you have probably enticed some people to actually buy this now out of how bonkers-bad it sounds. I only saw this film once on VHS when it first came out and was kind of "meh" about it then, didn't hate it though, but I think it's probably very dated and mind-numbingly bad now. But you do kind of make me want to see it again.

That's the problem - just like characters in horror movies always doing exactly what they're told not to do, sometimes the more you warn people about bad films the more they end up wanting to see them...