The Spirits of Jupiter (1984)

Directed by Russell Kern [Other horror films: N/A]

I’m not sure what this mid-80’s obscurity was supposed to be, but if there’s one thing you can say about The Spirits of Jupiter, you have to admit it’s unique.

Reminding me a bit of films like The Crazies and The Carrier, The Spirits of Jupiter deals with the impact that an astrological event has on a small Colorado town. People go crazy – some of it’s harmless, such as lying on your back and riding a bike in the middle of the sidewalk – but most of it results in violence, especially from the police force, who end up shooting everyone on sight.

It’s not an easy movie to describe. There’s a lot of action sequences and chases (be it chases in the air between a helicopter and a plane or ground chases on motorcycle), so it has an action vibe going, but it also has people becoming unstable, resulting in massive death and violence, which is where I’m guessing the horror label comes in. Oh, and let’s not forget this is caused by the gravitational pull of Jupiter or something (they give a six, seven minute explanation of what’s going on about halfway through, but I was already checked out, tbh) which gives the film a science fiction twist.

Here’s the thing – the movie doesn’t have a bad idea or set-up. It’s a mildly interesting idea – a rugged, mine owner has to go into a town full of crazies and rescue his son and daughter – and the action sequences on their own are all pretty solid. In fact, there’s a decent amount of solid scenes in the film.

For instance, the hero early on, who is also a plane pilot, is leaning out of his plane and shooting people, which was hardcore. A police officer pulls over a woman and, upon seeing her license is expired, shoots her in the head. A woman complains to a butcher about the quality of the meat, and gets her hand chopped off. The police lined up a group of people and shot them all down. And let’s not forget the motorcycle chase toward the end.

However, here’s the other thing – this movie is an hour and 47 minutes long. It’s way too damn long, and while some of the sequences are decent, they don’t pop up near enough and, truthfully, they’re probably not worth it anyway. There’s also the matter about some of the comedy – a lot of it comes from Richard Luna’s character, but there’s other characters, such as the manager at the mines (IMDb doesn’t list many credits, and the VHS rip that I saw this in does not lend much clarity to the matter) who just have sort of a slapstick feel. It’s intentional, I’m sure, but it’s not particularly enjoyable.

I admit, I thought Rex Cutter made a nice, rugged lead. He had an occasional John Wayne thing going, which I can appreciate in short bursts. James Aerni was amusing at times, and made an okay antagonist when he bent that way, I guess. Otherwise, given the scant nature of the credits, I’ll just say that few even came close to standing out, aside from Richard Luna as the self-monikered Nostradamus, a character who cared far too much about coffee and not near enough about being sensible.

If you’ve seen The Spirits of Jupiter, and you can excuse the lengthy runtime, you might have had a good time with it. It’s lower-budget, but I certainly don’t think it’s a movie that didn’t try. To be clear, I don’t exactly know what it was trying, but I do know that it tried. It’s not a movie I liked that much – portions were okay, but getting there took so damn long – but if you want something different, and you have a couple of hours to waste, give it a shot.

5.5/10