Rising Storm (1989)
★★ — Rising Storm (1989)
Rising Storm arrived in 1989 at the tail end of a modest boom in low-budget dystopian science fiction, riding the cultural anxiety of Reagan-era America and its uneasy relationship with televangelist politics (figures like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker had both imploded spectacularly in the preceding two years). The film was shot in Namibia and South Africa, an unusual and logistically demanding choice that lent it a genuine sense of geographical strangeness, even if the production resources were clearly limited. Director Frank Schaeffer was the son of the influential evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer, making the satirical treatment of fundamentalist theocracy a pointed, if eccentric, creative choice. Zach Galligan, fresh from the Gremlins films, leads the cast alongside B-movie regular Wayne Crawford, who also had a hand in production.
A-Z World Movie Tour Namibia What even is this film? Rising Storm feels like someone threw Mad Max, A Clockwork Orange, and a late-night B-movie script into a blender and hit puree. Set in a dystopian near-future where society is barely holding on and youth gangs run wild, it aims for gritty, surreal chaos but lands somewhere closer to confused and unintentionally funny. The tone lurches from grim prophecy to absurd spectacle without ever deciding what it wants to be. The plot is thin and half-baked. Something about rebellion, control, and a government cracking down on dissent, all filtered through a grimy, sand-soaked lens. The acting is stiff, the dialogue stilted, and the costumes look like they were made from scrap metal and leftover punk gear. It’s all so serious in delivery, yet so ridiculous in execution that it’s hard not to laugh. And then there’s the scene (the infamous “vibrator grenade” moment) which is so bizarre, so utterly out of left field, that it becomes the film’s most memorable (and probably only) highlight. You’ll question whether you saw it right. It’s not without a certain trashy charm. Rhe synth-heavy score is oddly catchy, and the cinematography has flashes of style amid the grime. But as a whole, Rising Storm is a mess: poorly paced, narratively incoherent, and too committed to its own strangeness to realise how silly it is. Still, if you’re in the mood for a cult oddity with a story that makes no sense and moments you’ll never unsee, this forgotten 89-minute trainwreck might just be your kind of chaos.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 1989 | Watched: 2025-07-27
Where to watch (UK)
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Amazon Video
Buy: Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon UK
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