MORE SPOILERS!!! I dunno if this is the best in the series, because, see, all our main characters die! Except the best characters, those being Jerry and Diane--the people who went from being peace-'n'-love non-religious hippies in the first film to full-on world government agents hell-bent on frying Christians in this one. Jerry's moustache has evolved with the times--from the dirty-scruff of 1972 to the faux dirty scruff of 1978 to the nasty "ear-lock-round-the-mouth" look in this film in 1980. I love it. This film also introduces some more new characters, who all suck. The main one, a guy named David who apparently knows everything baout the Bible even though he just picked it up last year when the rapture came and memorized it or something. Oh, and he's also a hacker. Now, this is hacking from 1980, so he does it all with a calculator. When the calculator runs outta batteries--yeah, this was back before solar cells were so common--he and his woman have to try to buy some. But they need the mark of the beast to do so! Luckily for them, David figured out how to forge the mark, and make it so genuine that it taps into some soldier's account (he killed the guy--outta self defense of course--to get it). The problem is that they both have the same account in their marks, so if they go through two checkout lanes at the same time, the computer figures it out and they're in trouble. Now, why they don't just go into the store one at a time and wait for the other to come out, I have no clue. That's right--they have to try to get through within a tight window of opportunity, which is utter and complete rubbish. I love it! So, yeah, if you wanna see the third movie in a series which is focusing on zealots trying to overthrow the new world government after all the Christians disappear by hacking into their communications networks using pocket calculators in the early '80s, I recommend this one highly. Also, if you wanna learn more about the prophecy laid out in Revelation, this one's fun--Russell Doughten returns as Pastor Turner (and honestly, this guy isn't bad at all--he brings some presence and intelligence to the films)--they even got horse people with lion-teeth and crowns and scorpion tails! (all ya get to see is the tail, though, in situations that practically reproduce the landmark Land Shark skits on Saturday Night Live). Image of the Beast gets my rarely-given rating of Golden Nugget of Gold!
Review of Image of the Beast
