Powerful

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

2009. Vicious and dangerous psycho rapist Adrian Dunn (a perfectly creepy and slimy turn by veteran bad guy thespian Billy Drago) gets infected with a mysterious alien organism while serving time in a prison on the moon. After he apparently dies, his corpse gets shipped back to Boston, Massachusetts. Dunn revives and goes on a lethal rampage. It's up to tough and weary Black shield cop Cameron Grayson (firmly played with rugged conviction by Roddy Piper) to stop Dunn before he spreads the vile contagion all over the city. Capably directed by Peter Svatek, with a tight script by Mark Sevi, a steady pace, slick cinematography by Milan Gravelle, a bleak wintry setting, nice flashes of sharp sarcastic wit, a moody score by Milan Kymlicka, appropriately hideous make-up effects which deliver several memorably disgusting moments, a surprisingly substantial amount of genuine humanity (the back story about Dunn and Grayson is unexpectedly poignant), and a rousing and gripping climactic confrontation between Dunn and Grayson, this nifty little B-film supplies plenty of solid and satisfying undemanding entertainment. The lovely and spirited Jayne Heitmeyer brings a winning mix of warmth, humor, and energy to her role as spunky microbiologist Dr. Kirbie Younger. Moreover, there are fine supporting contributions by Tyrone Benskin as the cheery Dr. Gene Washington, Richard Raybourne as wormy runt crime lord Casper, Chip Chaipku as the irate Captain Lankett, and Donna Sarrasin as doomed Dunn victim Tricia Rollins. The always reptilian Drago is marvelously grotesque and repellent as Dunn, who becomes more exceedingly ugly and repulsive as the disease causes him to physically deteriorate (sickening highlights include Dunn pulling out his hair, spitting up gross white goo, and even cutting off one of his fingernails). A fun movie.

Yeah, pretty much the same plot we've seen in a dozen other such films in the past ten years; but if we know those films, it's because we watched them and enjoyed them; perhaps with some sense of guilt, like there ought to be something better to with our lives, but let's admit we were entertained.Certainly this film is not among the worst of its ilk. In fact, it is generally well made, with sharp performances from all the actors, including the Rowdy One; and the script doesn't rub our noses in sci-fi-techno-babble, it just gets on with the story.The big disappointment is the ending; it is rushed, badly directed, badly edited. It feels like it comes looping out of another film, there's no build-up to it at all.Too bad; if the ending had been as impressive as the rest of the film, I would have given this 8 stars, if only for effort; now it has to live with 6.That makes it a time waster, like most of the other films of its type - not bad, just not good enough to be memorable.

This really is a great B-movie. Roddy Piper delivers his best performance as an actor to date, ranging from comical to serious to romantic to heartbroken.The story is very straightforward, but extremely fun and watchable. Considering the budget they had to work with, you really have to admire what they pulled off in this film.It's very similar thematically to "The Hidden," from 1987. There's a great "unstoppable alien" thing going on here. The chemistry between Piper and the extremely beautiful Jayne Heitmeyer is great. She is fantastic as Dr. Kirbie Younger.I'll be honest...if you're in to serious A-list films, this is no "Citizen Kane." But if you like great B-movie fun, you could do a whole lot worse than Sci-Fighters. It's B-science fiction gold!

I have always been a big fan of Roddy Piper so it was my pleasure to watch this movie.Roddy Piper is convincing in his role as Detective Cameron Grayson and does a good job of proving that he can act.I was pleased to see Billy Drago as Adrian Dunn, the perverted and sicko heavy of the movie who gets his kicks by raping women and then infecting them with a hideous organism he is carrying. You can never go wrong with Billy Drago as the heavy in any movie.The acting of everyone else is tolerable but thankfully the movie centers around Cameron and Adrian who as old friends turned rivals take up the entire story.The action isn't bad, but Sci-Fighters is a typical cop versus bad guy story. However, I would recommend this movie for anyone who likes either Roddy Piper or Billy Drago. They made what little there was of the movie.