Def-Con 4 sounds like it should be rapper convention — the fourth one, to be precise. Or the “fo” one, if you want to properly represent…
But it’s not. It’s a 1985 post-apocalyptic film. It didn’t show up in my Year of 1985 review is because it is a Canadian post-apocalyptic film. That means all the people who made it are probably euthanized by now.
Yet, Def-Con 4 is remembered because it had a killer poster. I first saw its poster in a real video store. The gas station/video emporium I frequented did not have posters. It had signs proclaiming sales on nitrate-infused foodstuffs.
Truly, one should never underestimate the amount of culture a person could find in a gas station/video emporium. Where else could you contemplate selecting a combination of Aguirre: Wrath of God and a package of teriyaki beef jerky?
Despite the killer poster, I did not rent Def-Con 4 from the real video store. The movie had that smell about it that put it somewhere between Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn and Creature.
That gives us the perfect reason to watch it now, however. It will make a fine entry in the Sci-Why? Theater series, which includes The Dark Side of the Moon, Inseminoid, Forbidden World, The Humanoid , Starcrash and Biohazard.
Def-Con 4
Def-Con 4 is from New World Pictures. They produce multiple bangers the year before: Children of the Corn, C.H.U.D. and The Philadelphia Experiment. In fact, those movies are so important they are sometimes mentioned in this article.
The viewer immediately gets hit by a title card that doesn’t mess around:
It is the day after tomorrow. The ultimate nuclear defense system has been perfected. Security has been achieved. Global conflict is now unthinkable.
Aaaaaaaaaand everything that happens from this point forward renders each one of those sentences meaningless…
Def-Con 4 Shame
The film opens on a space station miniature that would easily be one of the top ten most realistic things on any model train setup.
It is “day 407 of the Nemesis Mission.” The mission requires three astronauts (two men and one woman) to sit around and look moody. Star of the show, Tim Choate (Blow Out and Pearl Harbor) receives a video call from his wife that requires him to display emotions. It is a mistake. I beg the movie:
“Take the camera off him, Mr. Director. Take it off him! Now! Are you insane? Choate does not have the range for this kind of lengthy closeup!”
Said director is Paul Donovan. He wrote Def-Con 4, as well. Somehow, he survived the literal fallout of this movie about make-believe fallout and went on to create the somewhat well-regarded LEXX science fiction series.
Meanwhile, the female astronaut Kate Lynch (Meatballs) pops pills and wishes she could put on too much makeup and pick up a biker gang.
“Just kidding,” she says.
Yeah, right. I know a product of the sexual revolution when I see one. She probably has a blog where she laments how shallow men are because they are only interested in dating women who aren’t old and used up.
Meanwhile, the other astronaut, Captain Walker, watches porn. I don’t know why Lynch doesn’t get together with him. They’re perfect for each other.
Ultimately, things go pear-shaped on Earth and nuclear war breaks out. Honestly, Earth likely self-detonated to avoid dealing with these three astronauts returning.
Def-Con Comedy Jam 4
Choate, Lynch and Captain Walker discuss the best place to land on an irradiated Earth. They toy around with the idea of Antarctica, but that is where The Thing is, so it is probably best to avoid that.
Somehow, Choate’s wife is still alive and sends him a message. He is determined to return to her, but Captain Walker is not onboard:
“We’re not going down to any radioactive disease land!
Ah, but they have no choice. A rogue program takes control of the space station and forces it into reentry mode. The crew frantically jettisons all their missiles, so they don’t blow up from the heat of Earth’s atmosphere. One gets stuck. It does not blow up. This undercuts whatever drama the scene managed to achieve. Maybe Donovan wanted to subvert expectations?
I also appreciate all the sharp steel edges of the space station. It looks like the interior was designed by the guy who invented the Iron Maiden.
Def-Con 44 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall
Eventually, they crash on a beach. Lynch gets knocked out. Choate and Captain Walker attempt to dig their way out because the vessel landed on its door. They hear people outside and think they are rescued. They thought wrong.
Captain Walker gets dragged out of the ship, and his severed hand drops back inside to let the viewer know he came to a bad end.
The next day, Choate decides to leave the unconscious Lynch behind. Only a true hero can find the strength to leave a defenseless woman to savages. He plans to find a sailboat and seek out his wife. He exits the space capsule. Earth looks fine. Either no missiles landed there or lack of budget preserved the area.
Remember that missile that failed to eject? It is somehow armed and has a 50-hour countdown.
Choate comes across cannibals eating Captain Walker. He chucks a spear at them (who is the real cannibal here?), flees and immediately gets caught in a trap. Obviously, Choate is an “everyman” character. His only skill is balding.
Def-Con Men 4
It turns out cannibals did not set the trap. Choate is taken prisoner by Maury Chaykin (Dances with Wolves, The Mask of Zorro and Cutthroat Island). Chaykin plays a redneck survivor with a fortified shack.
Chaykin and Choate eat oatmeal with their fingers. I know they are survivors of nuclear war, but would it kill them to practice basic manners? Chaykin has a shack; he has furniture; he has pots and pans; he has weapons; and he has booby traps.
No way he doesn’t have silverware…or the ability to carve a spoon. That means eating with his fingers is a deliberate, disgusting choice. It must also be a deliberate decision on his part to have a face as dirty as a coal miner.
And Chaykin somehow got fat in a post-apocalyptic world.
Is a Reddit member?
Chaykin also holds a girl prisoner under his floor.
Well, I guess that answers that question. Definitely, a Reddit member.
Def-Con 4 And Twenty Blackbirds
While Chaykin checks his traps, the girl comes up and eats strawberry jam with dirty fingers. She really slurps down on them, too. She sticks her dirty fingers so far down her throat, it’s like she is bulimic.
It’s grosser than Captain Walker’s severed hand.
Eventually, Chaykin returns and decides to kill Choate. Choate bargains for his life by offering the food on his spaceship…and marijuana. Choate also reveals Lynch is still on the ship, and she is a doctor.
“What kind of areolas does she have?” Chaykin asks.
Was Paul Donovan 14-years-old when he wrote Def-Con 4? The world he created is so gross that nuclear fire is the only thing that could purify it.
Choate and Chaykin come to an agreement. They and the prisoner girl trek down to the beach in an armored front loader. By the way, the girl is played by Lenore Zann, who voiced Rogue in X-Men ’97.
Def-Con Left 4 Dead
Cannibals attack the front loader. Viewers are treated to a Mad Max-style action scene. Maybe, a Slightly-Perturbed Max-style action scene is a better way to put it.
Once they reach the beach, a guy who looks like George Peppard from The A-Team shows up with a gang of paramilitary retards. He is played by Jeff Pustil (Chicago and Saw V). They capture Choate, Zann and Chaykin. They stop the armored front loader by snagging it with rebar hooks attached to trees.
Community notes: you can bend rebar with nothing but a pair of hands and a pipe. A heavy-duty front loader has approximately 35,000 pounds of drawbar pull.
Def-Con 4 Sheets To The Wind
Pustil takes everyone back to the bad guy camp. It is full of prisoners and dudes wearing what look like covers for water heater innards. Said prisoners drag the spaceship back to camp. The missile now has 34 hours left on its timer.
Another pair of boobs is shown. What is the compensation for showing boobs in a movie like Def-Con 4? What amount would make it a decision you could explain to your kids without them shunning you?
I’m pretty sure that amount was not in the budget…
Choate is brought before the leader of the camp, Gideon. He is a fraternity-type played by Kevin King (Iron Eagle). His first question:
“Which way do the winds blow in Patagonia?”
Might as well ask how much money a movie like Def-Con 4 will pay you to show your boobs?
King, bless his heart, displays a pinch of talent. His character is genuinely despicable. What a thankless role. Not only do you have to appear in a terrible movie, you have to be terribly despised in a terrible movie. Lose-lose.
Def-Con 4 Seasons
Things become muddled. Zann explains that King brought down Choate’s spaceship with the help of a military man named Boomer (remember that rogue program?). This was done so King could retrieve a module from the spaceship that will give him the location of viable shelters around the world.
Boomer is played by Alan MacGilllivray, who went on to produce The Rick Mercer Report. Poor MacGillivray…he had to play his main scene with what looked like a genuine loogey dangling off his chin. It made a person want to wipe his face with a moist towelette wetted with sulfuric acid.
Next up is a sham trial reminiscent of The Dark Knight Rises. Def-Con 4 is likely one of Nolan’s most inspirational movies.
Choate, Lynch, Zann, and Chaykin are sentenced to hanging. King offers a deal, however. If one of them pulls the gallows lever, that person can go free.
Choate steps forward. Before he can pull the lever, Boomer crawls through the background (he’s crippled) and shoots King in the leg. Boomer is killed for the trouble, but here is the crazy part:
Was Choate going to pull the lever and hang his friends? It appears so. And if Choate had a clever plan I missed, I’m not going back to figure it out. No one should have to watch any part of Def-Con 4 twice…
Def-Condolences 4 Victims Of This Movie
Lynch is freed to tend to King’s leg wound. King wants more painkillers. She tries to inject him with potassium to kill him. He turns the tables on her and injects her instead. Lynch dies
She does not say “thank you” for being freed from this movie, but it is implied.
Choate escapes somehow. Zann yells for help in her cage. Pustil pees on Chaykin. The missile countdown hits 12 hours. Chaykin is then taken to be executed, but he demands last words so he can “die with dignity.” He gets on his knees and begs for his life.
Ha-ha! Comedy!
Choate arrives just in time with the armored front loader, killing the executioners, who must not have heard him coming from a mile away. Chaykin and Choate deliver weapons to the prisoners. For whatever reason, one of the prisoners is shown rising from a very soiled toilet to join the revolution.
Def-Con 4 is like if herpes were a movie…
Def-Con 4 Roses
Everyone runs around camp and shoots at each other. Choate rescues an old lady who has been in a cage for the whole movie. As soon as she takes her first steps as a free woman, she gets shot.
Choate and Chaykin end up at the beach in the movie’s only nice shot: the front loader is silhouetted against the sky while driving along a lake. They arrive to rescue Zann from King and Pustil, who are on a sailboat heading for a safe shelter.
To do this, Choate and Chaykin simply swim out to a moving sailboat that has a substantial head start. Maybe Michael Phelps trained them before the apocalypse.
Choate catches the boat. Zann throws him a rope. Zann distracts King and pushes Pustil overboard. Choate climbs aboard. King threatens Zann with a knife. Choate jumps back overboard. Zann pushes King into the water.
It’s not exactly Jackie Chan-level choreography…
Pustil and King return to their base. As they walk past the spaceship, King notices the one nuclear missile still in its launchers.
“Hey,” he says. “Is that supposed to be there?”
Ka-boom!
Choate, Zann and Chaykin sail away to maybe have babies together. How that will work is anyone’s guess, but we need not worry about the details. A title card assures us:
THE FINAL VICTORY HAS BEEN WON. MANKIND CAN NOW REST IN PIECE.
Blind and Def-Con 4
This is one of those times where a poster sold a movie. Cannon Films would be so proud! Alas, the movie cannot live up to the poster, which promised destroyed cities and skeletons in astronaut suits. What we got was gross and haphazard. Also, whatever happened to Choate’s wife, who told him she was alive and needed help? I guess sailing to a safe shelter with Zann was a trade up for Choate, even with Chaykin as a third wheel.
“Sorry, honey. Good luck with envying the dead!”
I’m glad I never rented Def-Con 4. Its tagline was “The last defense. The last hope. The battle for the future of the world has begun.” I never saw any of that stuff in the film. The possibility that none of the people involved with this movie could function at a basic cognitive level must be considered. Even the title is suspect.
The DEFCON system is used to describe the U.S. military’s defense readiness condition. It works on a countdown principle and has five states. DEFCON 1 is the worst. It means nuclear war is imminent or underway. DEFCON 5 is normal peacetime conditions. DEFCON 2 means forces are ready to deploy and fight in less than six hours. The next stage, DEFCON 3 is the highest peacetime alert level. DEFCON 4 means heightened intelligence watching and increased security.
Yet, nothing about the film Def-Con 4 displays “heightened intelligence” at all…
