The Eliminators was produced by long time budget movie producer Charles Band, who, over his varied career introduced the Trancers series, the Puppet Master series and this comic-book fantasy feature. Band was a prolific producer of mid to low budget films under his company Full Moon productions. Along with directing projects, Band, the son of producer Albert Band, inherited his fathers love for genre film making and is still producing features now. The first time I watched The Eliminators was afte a trip to the Video Store and seeing the VHS box art on the shelf  (see below)

and immediately the film became a must have rental. After several watches I later decided to purchase a sell-through edition and it became a personal cult film of mine (along with hundreds of others :-)). Over time I lost track of the film till @88films released it on BluRay and I once again enjoyed viewing the film again. Watching it now it has not lost it’s fun, comic book action kitchness , it’s clichėd one liners and set piece action scenes, pure entertainment.

The plot centres on Scientist and all round mad man Dr. Abbot Reeves (Roy Dotrice) using the body of a downed pilot to build a cyborg he calls Mandroid (Patrick Reynolds). Reeves uses Mandroid as a tester for a series of time-travel experiments, and after the latest test proves successful with a trip to Ancient Rome, he decides to disassemble Mandroid. Mandroid, decides to escape with the help of Doctor Takada, Reeves’ assistant. Takada dies as Mandroid escapes and sets out to find Colonel Nora Hunter (Denise Crosby), a robotics scientist who might be able to help him get revenge against Reeves and stop his evil plans. As both Mandroid and Hunter return to Mexico to stop Reeves, they enlist the help of mercenary Harry Fontana (Andrew Pine) a double dealing ships captain and Kuji (Conan Lee) son of Doctor Takada who is a trained Ninja. The team then embark on a dangerous revenge adventure to take on and defeat Dr Reece es in his Mexican hideout. The showdown is set as The Eliminators attack Reeves’ base and his small army of mercenaries.

As an example of of a genre mish mash, The Eliminators knows it’s origins, even so far as to Harry Fontana berating his colleagues as to why he is in a comic book adventure. The time travel elements are never fully exploited save for the beginning of the film and the finale, which was obviously a budget constraint. Mandroid is a cool character both in his full exo-skeleton and his tank track attachment and Abbot Reeves is in full on maniacal over drive as a true cmic book villain .

For me, The Eliminators is a nostalgic throw back to my VHS watching days and the chance to re-watch this film has given me the opportunity to seek out a few more of my favourite films from the days of exploring the old video stores of my teenage years. Long live the VHS.