Jason (Fritz Matthews) and Mitchell (Ted Prior) are having one crazy summer. They and a bunch of other unlucky soldiers signed up for Colonel Crawford’s Vietnam POW Zany Escape Room Adventure. Crawford (David Campbell) and his goons have set up the most realistic POW experience that Southern California can provide. Of course, they take things too far and Jason, an actual Vietnam veteran, flips his shit and escapes, but not before actually killing a few of his captors. Crawford and the gang go on the hunt to kill Jason, and anyone that gets in their way. They have a helicopter. I repeat: they have a helicopter! Mitchell breaks away from the group to try and save his buddy.

When I was a kid, Vietnam War movies were my absolute jam. Now that I’m a grizzled, old, and fatuous adult with a full-time job and three cats to feed, I really don’t want war movies in my life. That’s just me. The weirdest thing about Kill Zone (1985) is that like 99% of it doesn’t take place in Vietnam at all. I didn’t read the plot before going in, so I was very confused by the setup of this movie and laughing about all of the anachronisms with uniforms, weapons, and vegetation that weren’t correct at all for the Vietnam War. Then I realized that I had it all wrong! This was my third film from the late David A. Prior, and the first that I’ve seen of his many, many action films he made during his career. I know it won’t be my last!

There’s so much yelling, cursing, and sweating in this frickin’ movie, oh my God. The overacting and generic villainy of the villains is pretty funny if you enjoy being annoyed. I’m not sure the despicable Asian stereotype with the bad teeth was a great idea, but Colonel Crawford has bad teeth too. Remember to floss, kids! But it’s not all bad. I appreciate the synthesizers stabbing me repeatedly, the “setting up the deadly traps” montage, and how the stunts rreally amped up considerably in the second half of the film, but I was already checked out. Hell, 25 minutes into the movie, I was begging for the titular Kill Zone to actually show up. Sadly, it never shows up, or maybe, just maybe, I was in the Kill Zone the whole time.

Fans of David A. Prior’s films should be very excited about this release, because Kill Zone looks and sounds excellent on this MVD Blu-ray. And boy howdy, this disc has some great extras. There is an audio (and video) commentary with producer/co-writer Jack Marino, moderated by Heath Holland of the Cereal at Midnight YouTube channel. Holland is very enthusiastic and Marino is more than willing to share tons of information about working the Prior brothers. The original Vestron Video VHS version of the film is also on this disc if you are craving that old school analog goodness. There’s also a photo gallery, trailer, and more.