aka Robowar
USA. 2018.
Crew
Director – Mark Polonia, Producer – David Sterling, Photography – Alex Rimatti, Music – Ghost, Special Effects – Armageddon VFX. Production Company – Polonia Bros. Entertainment.
Cast
Daniella Donahue (Luna), Jeff Kirkendall (Caesar), Marie DeLornzo (Scorpion), Tim Hatch (Drax), James Kelly (Squirrel), James Carolus (Fighter)
Plot
It is the year 2039 after the world has been destroyed by nuclear war. The ruins are ruled by the dictatorial New Order, commanded by the masked Caesar who has control of a number of old mining robots that he has converted into fighting machines. The resistance is led by The Fighters. A sortie from The Fighters set out on an expedition to revive a downed robot to fight for them. However, Luna is captured by the New Order where Caesar announces plans to make her his bride.
Twin brothers Mark and John Polonia became filmmakers in the VHS heyday of the 1980s. Beginning with Hallucinations (1986), the Polonias who were then only eighteen years old, went on to make a series of genre films that became legendary for their cheapness. Over the next two decades, they put out a heap of cheap VHS and dvd films. John died of a heart aneurism in 2008. Since then, Mark Polonia has continued on as a solo director. (See below for the other Polonia films).
BattleBots was Mark Polonia’s take on Michael Bay’s Transformers films – all conducted on a budget of about $1.98. It was released after Bay’s last Transformer film Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) and before the Transformers spinoff film BumbleBee (2018). BattleBots should not be confused with BattleBots (2015- ), a reality tv show where people build combat robots.
Mark Polonia is working with the kind of budget that the average Michael Bay film wouldn’t even spend on catering in a single day. This is more than evident from the opening credits scenes against which we see two BattleBots fighting in the desert. It is clear that these are not being conducted with multi-million dollar Industrial Light and Magic visual effects and that what we have is actually two actors in bulky costumes that resemble Transformers who charge and wrestle with one another. There are a limited number of these scenes and they are repeated throughout. Although for all they are mentioned as weapons, we never actually see the BattleBots being deployed in action anywhere beyond these repeated scenes.
The rest of the film is stretched out between the two rival factions, which seem to consist of less than half-a-dozen people per side. The Fighters appear to have been outfitted by attendees to some Steampunk event and come wearing goggles and headpieces with cogs, lenses and machine attachments (although these are never actually employed to do anything). The evil New Order is run by Polonia regular Jeff Kirkendall wearing a cape and a cheap mask (although he is sometimes seen without) doing a low-rent Darth Vader impression – most of his scenes appear to have been shot on the stage in front of a large video projection screen.
The film radiates its cheapness in the various low-key interactions. All of the film seems to have been shot on location – there is no credit for set designer, for instance. Even the special effects explosions have been shabbily optically superimposed over the action, while the fight scenes are unrehearsed and the BattleBot sequences are simply repeated over and never interact with the humans.
The Polonia Brothers films are Hallucinations (1986), Splatter Farm (1987), Hellspawn (1993), Saurians (1994), How to Slay a Vampire (1995), Feeders (1996), Night Crawlers (1996), Bad Magic (1998), Terror House (1998), Feeders 2: Slay Bells (1998), Blood Red Planet (2000), The House That Screamed (2000), Hellgate: The House That Screamed 2 (2001), Dweller (2002), Gorilla Warfare: Battle for the Apes (2002), Night Thirst (2002), Holla If I Kill You (2003), Among Us (2004), Dinosaur Chronicles (2004), Peter Rottentail (2004), Preyalien: Alien Predators (2004), Black Mass (2005), Razorteeth (2005), Splatter Beach (2007), Wildcat (2007), Forest Primeval (2008) and Monster Movie (2008). John died of a heart aneurism in 2008. Since then, Mark Polonia has continued on as a solo director, making the likes of HalloweeNight (2009), E.V.E. of Destruction (2011), Empire of the Apes (2013), Camp Blood First Slaughter (2014), Amityville Death House (2015), Channel 13 (2015), Death Reel (2015), Jurassic Prey (2015), Bigfoot vs Zombies (2016), Sharkenstein (2016), Amityville Exorcism (2017), It Kills (2017), Land Shark (2017), Revolt of the Empire of the Apes (2017), Alien Surveillance (2018), Frozen Sasquatch (2018), Ghost of Camp Blood (2018), Bride of the Werewolf (2019), Deadly Playthings (2019), Amityville Island (2020), Children of Camp Blood (2020), Return to Splatter Farm (2020), Shark Encounters of the Third Kind (2020), Camp Murder (2021), Dune World (2021), Invasion of the Empire of the Apes (2021), Noah’s Shark (2021), Sister Krampus (2021), Virus Shark (2021), Amityville in Space (2022), Doll Shark (2022), Feeders 3: The Final Meal (2022), House Squatch (2022), Reel Monsters (2022), Sharkula (2022), Saurians (2022), Cocaine Shark (2023), Jurassic Shark 3: Seavenge (2023), Motorboat (2023), R.I.P. Van Winkle Part 2 (2023), R.I.P. Van Winkle Part 3 (2023), Saurians 2 (2023) and Yule Log (2023).