TO THE VANISHING POINT

Last time out, Foster fought off black robbery horrors with fangs (Into the Out Of, 1986). This time, more ambitiously but also more predictably, Chaos and Evil must be defeated lest the entire universe come unraveled. The Sonderbergs—hard-nosed businessman Frank, his earth-mother wife Alicia, teenage music-freak Wendy, and glum, overweight preteen Steven—are driving from L.A. to Las Vegas for their vacation when they stop to pick up a hitchhiker: Mouse, a weirdly clad and made-up woman, sings magically and claims to be 4,000 years old. Mouse eventually explains where she needs to go: the Vanishing Point, where all roads lead. It emerges that the Spinner—it weaves reality in various strands and knits them up as neatly as you please—is out of whack. Mouse must reach the Spinner and sing it back to health before the evil Anarchis can destroy it and usher in endless chaos. Where Mouse goes, so willy-nilly do the Sonderbergs, slipping into and out of different realities, some amusing, some horrifying, all threatening, in their efforts to reach the Spinner. They pick up a useful ally: huge, crazy supergenius Indian Burnfingers Begay. Incidents multiply pleasingly, but there's no narrative tension—we know exactly where the Sonderbergs are headed and what will happen when they get there. Inventive details, then, but a mediocre concept. One advantage: you can skip the bits that don't appeal without missing a thing.