2025 Popcorn Frights Film Festival Coverage
Making Megaforce review
It’s been said that every movie is someone’s favorite. Making Megaforce may just prove that to be true.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Making Megaforce
Directed by Bob Lindenmayer
Written by Bob Lindenmayer
Starring Bob Lindenmayer and Barry Bostwick
Making Megaforce Review
I had to look up if Megaforce was a real movie. This happened roughly five minutes into watching the new documentary Making Megaforce. Even with film clips and interviews with the people who made it playing in front of me…I couldn’t be 100 percent sure it wasn’t an elaborate bit. Had I waited…it would have become clear that it was a real movie. One that has somehow escaped my worldview for the 43 years that it has existed. Bob Lindenmayer, the director of this documentary, sure didn’t miss it. He loves it more than anyone in the world. Including those people who made it. But why make a documentary that is ostensibly about that love? Well, it turns out that Making Megaforce finds an interesting and somewhat moving answer to that question.
Megaforce was (allegedly) released in 1982. It was a box office bomb and a critical disaster. It was then promptly forgotten by everyone in the world. Almost. A young Bob Lindenmayer never forgot it. In fact, he’s spent an incredible amount of time and resources collecting memorabilia and even building the vehicles seen in the movie. And now, he’s made a documentary about it.
Making Megaforce isn’t just about Lindenmayer’s passionate fandom for this odd movie. He’s tracked down several people involved with the making of it to tell its sad story. Director Hal Needham passed away before he began production…but he did get to meet him once. It happened when Lindenmayer brought his recreated Megadestroyer buggy to a screening of the film attended by Needham. Parked it right out front. Got an autograph and everything.
Producer Al Ruddy did get an interview in the can before he died. He won an Oscar for producing The Godfather and another one for producing Million Dollar Baby. In between he produced…Megaforce. Throughout Making Megaforce he interviews the producers, stuntmen, editors and VFX artists who made the movie. To a man, they seem stunned anyone wants to ask them anything about the movie Megaforce. Lindenmayer also talks with other fans of the movie about their experience seeing it for the first time. It’s a well rounded look at the how and why of something that, frankly, no one asked for. Lindenmayer knows it. It’s referenced on the post for the documentary.
Making Megaforce isn’t all production talk, vehicle recreation and fan memories. It becomes an unexpected story about the friendship forged between Lindenmayer and actor Barry Bostwick. You’ll probably remember Bostwick best from his role as Brad in The Rocky Horror Picture Show or as the mayor in Spin City. He also starred as Ace Hunter in Megaforce. Bostwick seems equally amused by Lindenmayer’s love of the film and affected by his passion. He’s quick to point out that he often can’t remember what Lindenmayer is referring to when he talks about the film…but is equally quick to share anything he does remember, perform lines from the movie…and encourage his biggest fan turned friend’s love for the property.
Making Megaforce takes us on a location visit to the desert, a hunt for a lost vehicle that results in a surprising discovery, and behind the scenes of recreating the weapons used in the 1982 film. Throughout the journey the documentary of one man’s personal love for something inherently silly becomes about something much bigger than that. It starts to make you think about the guilty pleasures in media that you unabashedly adore. While it’s fun to listen to people explain how horribly wrong the ultimately cheesy final effect of the film involving a flying motorcycle went…it becomes a surprisingly moving experience watching Lindenmayer and his crew head into the desert to play an expensive version of make-believe.
There’s a child-like wonder that never faded from Bob Lindenmayer about the movie Megaforce. The same one that you probably have about a movie that matters to you. His just happens to be a bad movie that no one remembers. Even the people that made it. I couldn’t help but be moved by the whole scene. Watching a stuntman recreate a jump from the movie…onto a TV playing a negative review from Siskel and Ebert. Bob Lindenmayer riding a recreated Megaforce motorcycle side-by-side with his friend Barry Bostwick (AKA Ace Hunter). Eventually taking to the sky, of course. With a mixture of VFX and homemade action figures. It felt like it was a special thing to love your favorite movie as much as you want to. Even if you’ll never love anything as much as Bob Lindenmayer loves Megaforce.
Scare Value
There’s an earnestness to Making Megaforce that makes this documentary something special. I got a bit emotional at the end watching a dreamer’s dream come true…because he made it happen. All over a movie I’d never heard of and will almost undoubtedly never watch. Making Megaforce won’t sell you on the movie in its title. It isn’t trying to. But it will justify your love for whatever piece of media you hold dearest. Which makes this personal story to the filmmaker a personal story for everyone.
