Marvel Comics artist Josh Baker (Eric Roberts) on a whim decides to talk to a woman he sees everyday at lunch, Cheryl (Janine Turner). While Cheryl rejects Josh's persistent advances, she suddenly faints and Josh stays with her until a 60s style ambulance comes to pick her up. When Josh tries to visit her in the hospital, he finds that they have no such record of her having been brought there. Using his skills as an artist, Josh draws pictures of Cheryl's face and tries to look for her which ends up with far reaching implications of similar disappearances connected to the ambulance and a sinister doctor (Eric Braeden).
The Ambulance comes to us from noted writer/director Larry Cohen who began his career in the 60s with TV on shows like The Fugitive and The Invaders before transitioning to low to mid budget genre films throughout his career, with such trash classics as It's Alive, God Told Me To, the Maniac Cop series, and The Stuff. The Ambulance sees Cohen return to his wheelhouse taking something ordinary (like babies from It's Alive or junk food from The Stuff) and turning it into something horrifying. While the ambulance on the surface seems like a yet another familiar "strange disappearance" thriller a la The Lady Vanishes, The Ambulance takes that familiar thriller setup on a journey of non-stop crazy that you'll be hard pressed to forget.
The movie's lead in Eric Roberts' Josh Baker is really unique for this type of movie because he's a comic book artist who's in the plot of this movie because he decided today of all days to talk to a woman he didn't know on the street. There's sort of this element of dark humor to this story where Josh doesn't seem like he's all that ingrained in this plot and almost forces his way into it through a comical degree such as when he walks down the streets of New York wearing a sandwich board of a portrait he drew of Cheryl asking anyone if they've seen her. It's honestly a pretty fun character and falls well in line with the types of protagonists Cohen created for other films of his ilk such as the Michael Moriarty characters from Q: The Winged Serpent or The Stuff. From the type of character created you can see why Cohen wanted Jim Carrey or John Travolta originally, but Eric Roberts is really good in the role. The movie has a fantastic supporting cast with Eric Braeden nicely slimey and sinister as the unnamed Doctor, James Earl Jones is also good as skeptical cop Frank Spencer, but stealing every scene he's in is Red Buttons as Elias Zacharai, an aging wiseass of a reporter who becomes an ally to Josh in his search and scores some of the most entertaining scenes. The turns this story takes are so unbelievable and surprising, that it's actually hard to convey them without spoiling the impact. This movie has Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee playing himself for no real reason and it also has some of the craziest chase sequences I can recall particularly one in Central Park that begins with a runaway gurney.
The Ambulance is such a unique mixture of dark comedy and mystery thriller that it's the kind of film only the wonderful mind of Larry Cohen could give us. I'm not sure how fairly I can judge a movie like this on objective quality, but in terms of pure entertainment value you'd be hard pressed to find a movie as crazy as The Ambulance that wasn't made by Larry Cohen.
The Ambulance comes to us from noted writer/director Larry Cohen who began his career in the 60s with TV on shows like The Fugitive and The Invaders before transitioning to low to mid budget genre films throughout his career, with such trash classics as It's Alive, God Told Me To, the Maniac Cop series, and The Stuff. The Ambulance sees Cohen return to his wheelhouse taking something ordinary (like babies from It's Alive or junk food from The Stuff) and turning it into something horrifying. While the ambulance on the surface seems like a yet another familiar "strange disappearance" thriller a la The Lady Vanishes, The Ambulance takes that familiar thriller setup on a journey of non-stop crazy that you'll be hard pressed to forget.
The movie's lead in Eric Roberts' Josh Baker is really unique for this type of movie because he's a comic book artist who's in the plot of this movie because he decided today of all days to talk to a woman he didn't know on the street. There's sort of this element of dark humor to this story where Josh doesn't seem like he's all that ingrained in this plot and almost forces his way into it through a comical degree such as when he walks down the streets of New York wearing a sandwich board of a portrait he drew of Cheryl asking anyone if they've seen her. It's honestly a pretty fun character and falls well in line with the types of protagonists Cohen created for other films of his ilk such as the Michael Moriarty characters from Q: The Winged Serpent or The Stuff. From the type of character created you can see why Cohen wanted Jim Carrey or John Travolta originally, but Eric Roberts is really good in the role. The movie has a fantastic supporting cast with Eric Braeden nicely slimey and sinister as the unnamed Doctor, James Earl Jones is also good as skeptical cop Frank Spencer, but stealing every scene he's in is Red Buttons as Elias Zacharai, an aging wiseass of a reporter who becomes an ally to Josh in his search and scores some of the most entertaining scenes. The turns this story takes are so unbelievable and surprising, that it's actually hard to convey them without spoiling the impact. This movie has Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee playing himself for no real reason and it also has some of the craziest chase sequences I can recall particularly one in Central Park that begins with a runaway gurney.
The Ambulance is such a unique mixture of dark comedy and mystery thriller that it's the kind of film only the wonderful mind of Larry Cohen could give us. I'm not sure how fairly I can judge a movie like this on objective quality, but in terms of pure entertainment value you'd be hard pressed to find a movie as crazy as The Ambulance that wasn't made by Larry Cohen.