646f9e108c Josh Baker meets a very special woman, Cheryl, in the streets of New York. Suddenly she collapses, and she's picked up by an ambulance. When Josh wants to visit her in the hospital, it appears that she hasn't been admitted in the hospital. Josh follows the roommate of Cheryl, and she disappears after a ride in the same ambulance. It's up to Josh to solve the secret behind this strange vehicle. I was never really censored as a child. It was part of growing up as the typical latch-key kid of the era, and part growing up with a father that loved movies and took me just about everywhere he went.<br/><br/>So, when it comes to movies like "The Ambulance" it was a "you stay home, at 10, watch your little sister and I'll go rent a movie for us." Today leaving someone that age at home and in charge would be neglect, back then it was common…and of course dad came home with a B-Movie Gem.<br/><br/>Why not? He always treated my sister and I like little adults and not children and his taste in movies always came down to: "I haven't seen something like this before." It's an attitude that stuck with me over the years. If it's entertaining I like it, if it's original, I like it even more.<br/><br/>The Ambulance, especially if you are a 10 year-old in 1990 was awesome. I mean, it had Stan Lee in it and that was BEFORE he made cameos in all the Marvel movies. AND, it was a movie about a guy that made comic books. It was like crack for a 10 year-old, I couldn't get enough if it.<br/><br/>Plus, it's campy as all get-out. Everything is just a little too earnest, a little too over-done and it makes for just a fun movie to watch. Right down to Darth Vader chomping on his gum in every seen.<br/><br/>I know, I know, it's James Earl Jones, but when you are 10, it doesn't matter, he is still Darth Vader.<br/><br/>It should be a cult hit and I am sure it has a little following out there somewhere. It's far from a great film, but it's still unique and campy enough to have that cult love behind it. More and more I love the work of writer/director Larry Cohen and I can only encourage people to check out his versatile imagination. "The Ambulance" is less ambitious, comical and outrageous than some of Cohen's more famous achievements (like "God Told me To", "It's Alive" or "Q the Winged Serpent") but it definitely is a well-elaborated and entertaining B-movie. Once again, Cohen succeeds in turning a familiar and every-day topic into an exciting and rather suspenseful thriller. Inconspicuously and well organized, a group of fake nurses and doctors drive around New York in an old-type of ambulance, picking up diabetics that suffer from a 'sudden attack'. After they're brought into the cool conveyance, they disappear and no one ever hears from them again. The womanizing comic-book artist Josh Baker coincidentally stumbles upon this suspicious organization when a broad he's been stalking for a long time is taken away in front of him. His search for the girl results in a tense and involving movie, filled with ingenious plot-twists and adorably eccentric New York-characters. The screenplay is very clever, the dialogues are well written and there isn't a dull moment in the entire movie. 'The Ambulance' isn't a horror film so the deaths aren't as sadistic as in other Cohen films and there's also the lack of pungent social criticism. Still, this is a truly cool movie that deserves a wider audience. Judging by his performance here, I'd say it's unjust that Eric Roberts' career went to waste so badly. He looks a little goofy but his lines are exhilarating and his bad-boy charisma definitely works for the character he plays. Even more amusing are the supporting roles like, for example, James Earl Jones as the weird and over-stressed copper and Red Buttons as the persistent journalist. Check it out!
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