What the what? Last night I bumped into SPLIT SECOND (1992) on HULU and for free no less (HERE)! I was going to sit on this info until I could use it for a Sunday Streaming post but then I decided life is too short, there's no time like the present and who the heck cares? The thing is folks, SPLIT SECOND is not available on DVD and the VHS tape probably currently looks all dried up and stinky so this is your best bet for now. Sure there are a few commercials sprinkled throughout but HULU is thankfully pretty nice about keeping them short. SPLIT SECOND is kinda like if one of those ALIEN creatures was set loose in BLADE RUNNER land except that nothing could be as awesome as what that sounds like so prepare yourself to be fairly disappointed. I have no problem telling you SPLIT SECOND should be far more engaging than it is and it looks better both on paper and in your head than it actually does on the screen but there's still plenty enough going on to make it worth your while, I promise.
SPLIT SECOND comes from the same director as THE BURNING (TONY MAYLAM) and it stars the coolest guy who ever lived, RUTGER HAUER who is supported by such fine folks as plucky KIM CATTRALL, not-so-plucky PETE POSTLETHWAITE and the one and only slightly plucky MICHAEL J. POLLARD of TICKS and AMERICAN GOTHIC fame as "The Rat Catcher." RUTGER plays a gruff cop who smokes a lot and laments the death of his partner while hunting down a deadly creature that is frustratingly NOT SHOWN ENOUGH in a waterlogged (due to global warming) London in the flabbergasting future world of 2008!!!!
I think I've mentioned before that I'm prone to appreciate a mid-budgeted sci-fi flick cuz they have enough money not to embarrass themselves but not so much that they over do everything and come off synthetic and fake. Anyway, this is just a public service announcement for those out there who were waiting to see a decent presentation of this fine enough flick. I seem to recall that when I saw it in the theater it was way too dark but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore so maybe that was due to the theater I saw it in or something in my head. Who knows? You should have been sold at RUTGER HAUER anyway. Oh, and the soundtrack, she is tops too!
Other than the movie where he's a blind Samurai in modern times, this is my favorite Hauer movie after BLADE RUNNER and, probably, LADYHAWK. When I first saw it, it seemed to me to be a near dry run for a JUDGE DREDD movie, and the creature in the movie looks a lot like a character in Judge Dredd comics called Judge Death…especially with the helmet it sports.