Neon Maniacs!

Neon Maniacs seems like it was adapted from, or meant to spawn, a merchandising franchise like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I say this because the first scene has a fisherman discover some neat-looking trading cards before getting kilt, and this is never mentioned again and has no impact on the story. His killers never leave the trading cards for anybody else to find, so it's not like it's a calling card, just an ad for something that never existed. Such is the audacity of Neon Maniacs.

Don't lie, you want these.

The movie stars such Hollywood legends as Leilani Sarelle (Basic Instinct) and Clyde Hayes (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), so no one. Final Girl is minding her own business hanging out with the Scooby Doo gang when they all get brutally lynched by Moonman and his crew:

I guess they're the neon maniacs of the title, even though there's nothing neon about them and they're LARPers, not maniacs. They have a caveman, a samurai, an Indian, a robot, and a one-eyed lizard dog. They all live together underneath the Golden Gate bridge, which I'm sure you'll agree would make a much better sitcom than it does a horror movie.

In fact the best parts of the movie involve the LARPers trying to do mundane things like go through a turnstile. The Indian and caveman jump it, the samurai tries to chop it with his sword, and the robot zaps it with electricity that makes it spin. I wish the whole movie was like this, with them trying to figure out self checkout machines and parking meters.

I like this guy who clearly doesn't get paid enough to deal with this shit.

So for reasons that are never explained, the samurai, Indian, caveman et al take to stalking Final Girl. With her friends all dead, she starts hanging out with some sitcom guy who wants to get into her pants, and a budget Audrey Hepburn, who I guess is meant to be a goth girl or something.

The movie gleefully and wantonly sheds details and whole plotlines as it grows bored with them, which makes it seem like a first draft written by an ADD kid. Sitcom Guy has a dog in the early scenes which disappears completely from the movie, and Audrey is making a cheap horror movie about vampires which she seems to just forget about. Final Girl has a dream about raining blood that never affects anything either. And there's a cop character we keep cutting back to as he contemplates doing something, but never does.

Sitcom Guy and Final Girl: a love for the ages.

Audrey's oversized baseball cap.

The LARPers are an endearingly uncoordinated enemy for our forgetful heroes. They attack them as a group on the train, with the robot killing the driver and taking over from him. When our heroes flee from the train and hop on a bus instead, the Neon LARPers follow them, but they forget to tell the robot, and we cut back to him merrily plowing along in his train like the most contented autist you ever saw.

Clickety clack, clickety clack.

Audrey discovers that the Maniacs are kilt by water, like the Wicked Witch of the West, so she hatches a scheme to lure them to the Battle of the Bands and shoot water pistols at them (yes). This only sort-of works, but given how stupid an idea it was, we'll call it a success.

The gang then run off to the cop guy and tell him the whole story, offering no evidence, and he OKs them to ride along with the entire police department to check underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. People must just fuck with this guy all day long: "hey, I saw Bigfoot. Can I take a couple squad cars out to check the woods?" "Sure, why not. It's not like I do anything anyway."

"Alright, I'll go, but this better not be bullshit like the last seven times."

The movie ends with a great sequel hook, but tragically, and horribly unfairly, none was ever made because no one gives a crap about the Neon Maniacs. I think that's a shame, because there's more creativity and quality in the costumes, and originality in the premise, of this film than in entire modern franchises (Taken, Twilight, Paranormal Activity, etc.) and you have to credit the initiative of monsters who create their own merchandise in-universe. Imagine how much more respect you'd have for Jason if he came up with his hockey mask hamburgers by himself.

I think you can agree it's time we brought back Neon Maniacs.