DevastationBob-3 Reviews

Creepshow 2 (1987)

Creepshow 2, Viewers 0

[1/10 · 22 May 2014]

While I was aware of this movie and the King stories it contained, I'd never actually seen it until today. Certainly Mr. King has some stinkers attached to his name, but I have to say that Creepshow 2 has to be the absolute worst. Dreadfully executed and ineptly casted it was a real chore to sit through.

Story the First, Chief Wood'nhead, has George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour in it, which is sad considering they've been in much better films. From the get go there's no doubt in your mind that the damn Indian statue is gonna come to life because they have it moving in the first shots. No suspense at all. So much of the opening is devoted to setting up the couple as nice old people that when revenge time comes around it's rushed through way too fast. The shotgun guy acts well and it's a shame he isn't given much more to do. Really lame. Also, they should have called the Indian Chief Rubberhead.

Story the Second, the Raft, a genuinely unsettling and creepy King story is turned into....something. HORRIBLY acted. Line delivery is so bad you don't want to pay attention to what they're saying. In the setup they say how the raft is left on the lake, which means people DO swim in it, and it's not some other lake or raft they're talking about. So it makes the whole NO SWIMMING ending kind of stupid. I guess the monster has the summers off. The trash bag on the water monster effects brought me back to the Creeping Terror. The characters are really unlikable, and i can't tell if that's intentional or just really bad acting. By the time the kids have been whittled down to two, they decide to go soft-core for no reason. It makes no sense at the time or for the characters to do that.

Story the Third, the Hitchhiker. The lady driver's constant monologue is so bland and flatly delivered it refused to go into long term memory. The rest of it is so-so for a horror short, less to gripe about than the previous two, but still not free from the flick's many flaws.

Then there's the animation. Uncle scrotum-chin (if the animation is any indication) gives some kid the comic book version of Creepshow 2, it's probably better than the movie version. I know it's Creepshow, but the animation is just ugly and off-putting. When the Uncle Scrotor character turns real it makes you wonder why they bothered making Tom Savini up like that in the first place. It adds nothing to the film. It ends with him throwing a bunch of comics off the back of a truck and driving away (much like the creators of the movie did with a good story and technical expertise). The closing music is very odd and out of place for a horror film. It made me wonder if they had stock closing credit music in the public domain that they could just use for free. Cutting down the production costs on this to negative dollars.

Kind of upset I watched it finally, but I guess the stories are still there. AVOID.

Remains (II) (2011)

Scary Good? No, scary BAD.

[1/10 · 17 December 2011]

Straight to Chiller, which is sorta like Straight to SyFy-only worse, zombie movie with unlikeable characters striving to survive their horrible career choices. Let's get to some SPOILERS...

The beginning rips off Night of the Comet with anyone enclosed in metal surviving the zombification effect, brought on laboriously in this case, by some big nuclear bomb disposal factory asploding and affecting everybody in the world, or at least Reno. Does it really matter where the zombies came from? If they introduced the characters at all, I missed it on my first (and only) viewing, but they're all kinda jerks. One scene in particular irks me, where we go from a woman the two (semi)protagonists are trying to save get ripped to pieces by zombies, they jump out a window to escape said zombies, and then share a laugh down by the pool as water squirts out of her cowgirl boots. It's really sloppy storytelling, and you really don't care if anyone gets out of this alive and intact.

It's based on a comic book that I haven't read, so I don't know if it's the comic's fault or the adapters. It was directed by the guy that directed Alien Opponent, another flick I saw on Chiller, but i didn't know that BEFORE I watched this, or I wouldn't have watched it.

The zombies stray from the norm in that they go inactive at night, which I thought was sorta original, but then another poster commented that it would have been the perfect time for these losers to escape, and that brought me back to reality.

CGI blood and bullets abound in this, which is reason enough to hate it. Let's get some squibs in here.

Some army guys show up, and then they leave, two characters disappear, but since we don't like them we don't care. Right at the very end they try and tack some back-story onto the main guy to make him more sympathetic i guess, but it's too little too late. The pacing is so off in this, you wonder if they were hoping for a sequel or something.

Again, poorly paced, badly written, and if i'd waited until tomorrow to write this review, i'd probably have forgotten most of it. Don't see.

Operation: Endgame (2010)

Toilet Paper Tiger

[1/10 · 23 January 2011]

On the cover you will see this movie has popular actors in it, Zach Gallifanakis, Rob Condry, Ving Rhames, Maggie Q and you may think, "I have enjoyed these actors in other roles." You will see guns and think, "I like guns and movies with guns in them, and I like likable actors using guns in movies." Do not be fooled, there are no good performances or gun-play in this movie.

There IS a bad and unfunny script. There is some attempt at tacking on a muddled political message. So if you like badly scripted, half-baked political thrillers without thrills you might enjoy this.

This movie is about two groups of covert intelligence operatives who exist only to oppose each other...that work for the same government in the same department. If you have no problem with that idea, go ahead and see this movie. Both groups are composed of unfleshed out sociopaths, so it's not really easy to care about the characters, but that's OK because apparently you're not supposed to. The dialogue has more f-words than punctuation because that makes it "edgy" and not annoying at all. It also makes for a fun drinking game, since it means you'll be in an alcohol coma before you're 10 minutes into this hunk of crap and spare yourself the pain of watching it in it's entirety.

It sorta follows the story of CLUE (better movie, see it instead!)and once the murder of the agency overseer is discovered, they pair up with their opposite (the person they've spent all their time opposing) and look for an exit from the giant bomb in the building (there is no escaping the giant bomb that is this movie). Once paired up, these top notch espionage agents display cunning and survival instincts that would make a Crystal Lake camper look like Bear Grylls. Rob Condry swears angrily a lot (maybe he was watching the dailies) and everyone dies, but SPOILER/Surprise! the new guy was really super competent and a mole.

This movie was stupid, don't see it.

Piranha 3D (2010)

Bloody boobs, and nothing else.

[1/10 · 21 January 2011]

This movie would have been a bigger hit if they hadn't wasted money on name actors to appear in it. If they'd just stuck to people willing to get topless it could have easily added a million or so to the gross. They paid Richard Dreyfuss like 50,000 dollars for a really pointless cameo, I don't even remember him having lines. Did Ving Rames character even have a name? Sure IMDb lists it, but I watched the movie first and all I could think was, "Are we supposed to care he's dying?". I only knew Dina Meyer was in it because her name was in the credits. She spends her entire role in a scuba mask. Elizabeth Shue pretty much plays the same character Kari Wuhrer does in 8 Legged Freaks, Sheriff Mom. OK, Ving, Dina and Shue aren't exactly Johnny Depp when it comes to in depth character portrayal, but come on! They're actors, let them practice their craft. Most of this movie is people screaming and running out of the water with limbs missing. Or boobs. Come to think of it, I feel i've wasted my time even writing a review for this. If you like story and character, I give this a 1 star (and only because IMDb doesn't go any lower, unlike Aja) but if all you want is blood and boobs, it's probably a 10.

Thank god for Redbox that I only wasted a dollar on this.

Cyclone (1987)

Perfectly Awful

[1/10 · 17 October 2010]

Cyclone is full of laughs and enjoyment. Bare in mind that none of this is intentional on the filmmaker's part. Because that filmmaker is Fred Olen Ray. Fred's name in the credits is nature's way of warning you that there is some plentiful bad movie coming and that you should take proper precautions. Get a lot of friends that appreciate bad movies together, and probably some alcohol too. Otherwise, you might suffer irreparable mental trauma from viewing the film sober and alone.

Cyclone stars Heather Thomas,(most famous to me for her role in the Fall Guy series), as Teri Marshall action bimbo. She lives with the Re-Animator (Jeffrey Combs) who tinkers on motorcycles for some undisclosed government agency. OR maybe it's the private sector, this point is never really made clear, and the script writer probably didn't think that much about it himself. After we see Teri pumping iron with her blonde PT and beating on some yokels we quickly realize that she is the masculine partner in the relationship. She wants to take her egghead boyfriend out dancing at a club that we quickly realize is his laboratory with some slightly different set dressing. We will see this scenery again.

However while the horrible horrible band Haunted Garage plays (I thought the song was Double Meadow, but the credits reveal it was actually Devil Metal, my bad) her boyfriend gets an icepick to the back of the head, and she'd be dead too if it weren't for some extra who gets his face slashed by the hit-man's incompetent girlfriend. Gasp! Could this be related to the top secret project he was working on in his lab? Of course. Teri goes home and via a prerecorded message, the Re-Animator tells her about his armor plated, laser flinging, perpetual clean energy super scooter. Now, why armor plating a motorcycle would be a big deal doesn't make much sense to me, sure the bike is fine but the driver is swiss cheese. Also, the energy source is a MUCH MUCH better invention than the title bike. PERPETUAL CLEAN ENERGY. To hell with the bike! Sigh! With such valuable technology on the line, you'd think the bad guys would have their best men on the job. But it's just the bozo from the nightclub and his girlfriend, a more low rent pair you couldn't find. Their vehicle of choice, a faux wood paneled station wagon. They work for Martin Landau, who will appear in ANYTHING apparently. He has promised the Cyclone to shady Asian businessmen, though it does seem that they are more interested in the power source. Teri gets visited by some government types who apparently work for the same agency as her ex-living boyfriend. They want the bike, but Re-Animator has already told her the only person she can deliver it too is the aptly named Bob Jenkins. After a crash course in super motorcycle safety, she proceeds to do so, to the tune of a song called "Edge of the Night" which I only mention because if Phil Collins wanted to, he would have a pretty good lawsuit against whoever wrote it. It sounds a LOT like In the Air Tonight. However, before Bob Jenkins can get it to safety, he gets shot by Inept Hit-man #1 and crossbow-ed by Inept Hit-man #2. Neither deciding that Teri is important enough to kill I guess. Instead of blasting them with the supercycle, we have a brief station wagon chase-Cyclone chase which ends with Teri escaping.

She hides out with her PT but...SPOILERS...she works for the bad guys! And so does...SPOILERS...one of the feds that spoke to Teri earlier! And they all know the inept Hit men! They take Teri to their secret arms dealer HQ which is...her boyfriend's lab/dance club with some boxes piled up in it, and in a vain excuse to show Heather arch her back and scream, they give her the old car battery electric torture. I was kind of surprised at this, until I remember that Teri is just a masculine character played by an actress. She's tough enough to take it until she is saved by the other female agent who shoots the bad agent as they make their getaway. (THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER) Finally after what seems like several hours of movie, we see Cyclone zap something with cartoon lightning bolts. Then there's a really big asplosion and some decent car stuntwork. Teri wins, yay. The agent makes a call to her boss that they have the superbike. Her boss is...SPOILERS...Martin Landau? The hell? If he'd just waited he would have gotten the bike anyway. The "twist" makes absolutely no sense. Hell, if Bob Jenkins worked for the agency, he would have just taken the bike to Landau anyway. Maybe they needed to downsize. I dunno.

So, Cyclone. Bad movie. Good to watch with people who like bad movies.

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride (2010)

Last Rites of director's film career hopefully.

[1/10 · 10 October 2010]

It cost me a dollar to rent this and I have to say it's the worst use I've ever put a dollar to. To think I could have put that as a down payment on a pack of gum or just turned Washington's head into a mushroom. But no, I had to rent the interminable Last Rites of Ransom Pride.

It begins with a voice-over telling us of Juliette's(Lizzy Kaplan)sad childhood and how she had to kill an evil general in his sleep. It's not a terribly long opening narration, and then we're hit with the oddly fonted subtitles telling us it's 11 years later, 11 years after she told us the voice-over or the actual events, we can only guess. By the way, the subtitles are very hard to read, which is unfortunate because they're used quite often.

Other than the little bit of back story we get, the characters aren't particularly deep. Lizzy Kaplan pretty much keeps one expression on her face for the entire flick and Dwight Yokam calls her whore a lot, but that might not have been in the script. Peter Dinklage does as well as he can with the material, but despite this contribution, his character is simply named "Dwarf" in the credits. Don't seem right.

A lot of what follows is intermittently plastered with instant replays of previous scenes and "artsy" shaky cam shots of animal skulls and birds that jerk like they're in a Tool video. These don't really add anything to the film and only serve to prolong the misery of watching it. It's not a terribly complicated story either, but Tiller sure takes the scenic route getting us there. It's like he's slowly winding a broken jack in the box. You want the weasel to pop, but you know it never will.

If you like westerns I wouldn't suggest seeing this, and if you don't like westerns, I still wouldn't.

Scarecrows (1988)

Scarecrows a real straw dog.

[1/10 · 2 August 2010]

SPOILER! This movie is terrible. It was unavailable on DVD for a long time for this very reason. However some people, (I'm looking at YOU Internet), kept talking it up and ascribing to it some cult status. I hope the cult for this one drinks the kool-aid.

We're dumped into the action with no character introduction or explanation except for what we hear over the radio on WXPO, All exposition, All the time. Somebody double crosses somebody else and we find ourselves at a spooky farmhouse surrounded by spooky scarecrows, who are stood up in a forest with no crops in sight. I waited most of the movie for a hero or even a protagonist to show up, but no luck there. A lot of the dialogue seems to have been reintroduced in post production so a lot of times, people that are talking aren't even in the scene. Characters change depending on scene convenience, the one guy that poses the idea that evil scarecrows have come to life and want to kill us is the one who, when hearing a voice over the radio that nobody else hears, insists it's his friend and turns a gun on the only other survivors. The girl who was kidnapped and is being kept alive only because her pilot father is dead risks her life to save her kidnappers. Oh, and the plane has a wooden floor. Since, i'm a sadomasochist and I watched this til the end, the credits are finished out by dedicating this movie to the director's sister and mother. I wonder if he liked them.

And the worst thing about it is, all things considered, it's a fairly original idea. Scarecrows haven't been given much limelight. Anyone with a modicum of talent could remake this and just realize all the unrealized potential and have a neat little horror flick. Until that happens, I'd give this one a miss.

Assault of the Sasquatch (2009)

Better than most SyFy movies...

[7/10 · 27 March 2010]

Ah VOD, givin' us previews for movies we might not even turn over at the video store (or, as I call it, Blockbuster). Assault of the Sasquatch is the story of a displaced Sasquatch on the rampage. As far as Sasquatch movies go, it's in my top twenty. A lot of the plot seems sorta lifted from John Carpenter's seminal Assault on Precinct 13, just instead of assorted cops and crooks holding off a siege of faceless extras in an decommissioned police station, we've got assorted cops and crooks holding off a siege of a guy in a gorilla suit at a decommissioned police station. BUT THAT's OK. The story isn't all that bad, it moves at a fairly brisk clip, and it was on demand, so I didn't have to get up from my couch to get it. Good to watch alone or with friends, a sasquatch fan shouldn't miss.

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

The fifth(?) in the series is better than the first.

[7/10 · 15 March 2010]

Prepare to be surprised. A direct to video sequel starring JCVD and Dolph Lundgren that is not only watchable, but entertaining! JCVD reprises his role as Luc Deveraux who just when he thinks he's out, they PULL him back in. Apparently being a zombie face-kicker engine of death is a hard habit to break. Dolph Lundgren is there too...though I have to admit he's not really needed. He doesn't really show up til the movie is half over and then he's not alive for very long. It's a nice nod to the first movie, but it kinda breaks up the pacing. And last but not least, some UFC guy called the pit-bull, not given too many lines but lots of spines to remove, he's definitely playing to his strengths. The story is simple, the action is intense, and there's very little acting required of the leads. If only more S2V productions followed this formula. Check it out.

Beyond Sherwood Forest (2009 TV Movie)

That rarest of beasts, a decent SyFy movie.

[6/10 · 7 March 2010]

When it comes to SyFy even a half-baked idea is better than you'll usually get. So we have Beyond Sherwood, Robin Hood vs. Dragons. Robin, Little John, The Sheriff of Nottingham, Maid Marion, Friar Tuck, and Prince John, all well known characters so we're spared a lot of back story. Somewhere along the way, the Evil Sheriff captured a shape changing Dragon who turns into the girl from Ginger Snaps during the night. He decides to sic it on that pesky Robin Hood finally so that he can usurp Prince John and take over the throne, at least, I think that's what the plot was, it IS a SyFy channel flick. The cast knows their lines, the costumes and sets are pretty cool, and the monster CGI is definitely top of the heap for SyFy. My only problem is when the monster finally does intersect with the characters, we're given this plodding sort of back story about the Tree Keepers or somesuch who live behind a Stargate in the middle of the woods that oddly enough no one has stumbled across before. Can't it just be enough that the Sheriff sics a dragon on Robin Hood? All in all the life story of the monster isn't that important. No need to make it sympathetic. Were we sympathetic for Super Gator, or Mega Shark??? Also, the medieval peasantry seems to take dragon attacks in stride. I'd have liked a little more shock from the Merrymen when a freakin' monster drops outta the sky in their midst and takes a chunk outta Friar Tuck. However, if you're at home on Saturday and flipping channels with nothing to do, there are worse ways to spend a couple hours.

Rolling Vengeance (1987)

The Citizen Kane of Monster Truck Revenge Flicks

[8/10 · 7 March 2010]

If there's a better monster truck revenge movie out there, please direct me to it. I caught this chopped up on cable, so some language and violence might have been cut out, but what I was left with was an entertaining movie about a young trucker who A-Teams a giant killer truck in his barn and goes after the drunken yokels what killed his family. I'm kind of surprised I'd never heard of this movie before I saw the listing and the world monster truck and revenge. Nobody immediately recognizable in it except for Ned Beatty Ben Gazarra-ing (it's a verb, look it up) as a sleazy bar owner with Wolverine hair and a pro-drunk driving policy. He's such a creep the local law enforcement don't seem to mind some phantom vehicle offing his kin, which was almost refreshing in a way for this type of genre film. The finale does fall a little flat in places though, but all in all this was an entertaining little flick that gives the visceral satisfaction of seeing bad guys ground under the wheels of a beWheemoth monster truck. Well done.

Gentlemen Broncos (2009)

Strike two, Mr. Hess.

[6/10 · 7 March 2010]

Like a lot of folk, I enjoyed Napoleon Dynamite. I found it funny, charmingly quirky with a sense of heart. So I looked forward to Nacho Libre, Hess' follow up, which starred Jack Black as a priest moonlighting as a masked wrestler. From the guy that brought us Napoleon Dynamite, how could he go wrong with that concept? Well, if you saw Nacho Libre, you know how he did. And it's the same with Gentlemen Broncos, another good concept, fledgling writer has his cheesy sci-fi novel stolen by a veteran writer, that is totally fumbled by Hess. Methinks Napoleon worked more through the strength of the cast and Hess's own inexperience. But the more experienced he gets, the worse his films get. GB doesn't have a bad cast, all are talented performers, but you might have to see them in other pictures to realize that. Hector Jimenez in particular, is just too quirky for his own good. A lot of the characters are, too the point that they're caricatures, and it's hard to care about caricatures. Like Nacho Libre, Hess likes parading unusual looking extras in front of the cameras, but instead of us feeling for them, it's like he's the barker at a freak show just pointing out, "Hey man, lookit this one, boy he's weiiiird!" That sense of heart I enjoyed so much in Napoleon Dynamite is definitely missing. As a fan of those trashy sci-fi novels that made up the title sequence, and obviously served as inspiration for this movie, there are homages present in GB that I liked. Yeast Farms, clone armies, robo-stags not as unusual as you might think. Jemaine Clement and Sam Rockwell are both very funny in their roles, but seeing as how Jemaine Clement IS the antagonist, it's sort of a shame he isn't used more. There's a lot of stuff that should have been cut, and in the hands of a better director a really cool concept wouldn't have gone to waste. Maybe someone can plagiarize it and realize the potential that Hess has wasted once again.

High Plains Invaders (2009 TV Movie)

The Good, the Bad, and the Extra-Terrestrial

[13 July 2009]

Caught it on-demand. Surely bound for the Sci...SyFy channel, but actually not too shabby. If you're gonna do low budget CGI, sure, you can do a snake that doesn't really look like a snake, but why not go for alien uranium suckers. I mean, how would you know what one would really look like anyway? The effects aren't too bad, and the cast of unknowns led by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy/Angel) does a good job. While the ending seemed kinda abrupt to me, I would have liked to see more of an epilogue, the script is engaging and doesn't drag. In the all-too-small genre of Cowboys vs. Aliens, High Plains Invaders is worth checking out.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Tomb of the Mummy Franchise

[2/10 · 25 May 2009]

I'm back Mummy movies, Mummy Returns hurt me in ways I'd never been hurt before, but I had to face my demons. For some reason I wanted to see Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Maybe it was that lingering hope that the first movie instilled in me, like the hope that a cheating ex won't cheat on you again THIS time on the third takeback. Maybe I just wanted to see if any film could top the Mummy Returns in sheer cinematic excressiveness (that's a word i made up that combined excrement and excessiveness). And the short answer is no, but the long answer will be the bulk of my review. The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is pretty much just a regular bad movie. Rachel Weiz didn't come back (she has a career to think of) and Brendan Fraser did (he doesn't). Replacing Rachel as Evie is Maria Bello. She speaks clearly and with good diction and thus is considered to be English. I'm pretty sure Evie was just a librarian, but now she and Rick are in a stately manor with a butler and everything. Apparently Evie didn't love Egypt enough to not sell off some of their national treasures to fund this. As expected, characterization is being ignored. Bello's Evie is pretty much just Rick with an English accent because since Terminator 2, action movie girls HAVE to kick butt. They can't just be the brains or anything, yes reincarnated Egypt-fu aside, I prefer Evie's character from the first movie. Proving genetics true, two personality inhibited action heroes will have a child who is much the same. Thus, Alex O'Connell emerges as a slightly smaller Brendan Fraser choking the screen with mediocrity and boredom, HURRAY! John Hannah is back as Evie's brother Jonathan, and some comedic relief would surely make the less actiony scenes bearable, but he's really not given that much to do. Speaking of the actiony scenes, they're pretty standard. You've got a little bad wire-fu, some cgi Kitten Men (I think they're Yeti's with an anachronistic knowledge of pro-football), and a villain who's more menacing as a CGI construct than as a living person. Jet Li, fine martial artist, but he's no Olivier. And he really doesn't do that much head-kicking anyway. The story, if you want to call it that, is pretty much "There's another Mummy and we have to stop it." Not that i'm expecting the Usual Suspects or anything, but come one, try harder than THAT. So, report card Acting-Bland, Action-Meh, Story- Huh minus. On the other hand, there were no rocket balloons. And that's why I gave it two stars instead of one.

Feast II: Sloppy Seconds (2008 Video)

Sloppy indeed.

[1/10 · 29 January 2009]

It's always crushingly disappointing when you bring back the same creative cast for a sequel and they totally drop the ball in regards to the rules they set up in the first movie. I bought Feast 2 on the strength of Feast 1, a gritty little old-school monster movie with it's own sense of dark humor. Feast 2 looks like somebody made a sequel on YouTube and Dimension said, "Hell, let's run with it." (The following is CHOCK FULL O' SPOILERS.) I should have known something was amiss when a dog gets shot to pieces in the opening scene (granted he was carrying the shooter's dead sister's hand, but still...Puppy!) Feast brings back a couple familiar faces that died in the first flick (but they're all related to the director, so it's no surprise) Biker Queen and the Bartender. The Bartender (Clu Gulager of Hobgoblins fame, heh) in particular looks a lot older, his hair much whiter and longer than we last saw him, but as we're about to see, continuity is not this film's strong point.

They leave the bar in search of Bozo (that was his REAL name??) since it was his doing that blew up Biker Queen's twin in the good movie. Unfortunately the nearest town is overrun with the suddenly incredibly visible monsters. While the first flick was dark and well filmed, most of the action here takes place in broad daylight. Dead bodies are all over the place, and it's here that I start having problems. When the movie is called Feast, why are the monsters leaving so many uneaten remains about? While certainly dismembered, all the corpses parts are accounted for. Don't they know there are starving monsters in India? Anyhoo, Biker Queen and her randomly naked friends drag the bartender to Bozo's apt. where lo and behold Honey Pie (from Feast I) is holed up with some other survivors. We'll use the term survivors loosely since they get killed all to hell by the bikers. Not to be outdone, Clu proceeds to beat the snot out of Honey Pie for abandoning them in an incredibly poorly acted scene by Miss Pie. Clu doesn't do too bad, but if you want to see good actin' by a blonde girl getting smacked around by a misogynistic old guy, rent True Romance, not Feast 2. Then he flings her out of a window.

In the midst of this we are introduced to some other survivors, Cockroach from the Cosby Show playing a used car lot owner, another Gulager playing his salesman, Cockroach's cheatin' Positive Affirmation spoutin' wife, a couple midget Mexican wrestlers and their abuela. The wrestlers (who are probably the closest you'll get to noble characters in this flick) offer their hideout to everyone while they wait for an armored convoy to show up and rescue survivors. This is promptly never mentioned again. Somehow they find out a methhead has locked himself inside the only truly secure building in town, the Jail. It's decided this is the place to be, and the wrestlers who also happen to be locksmiths volunteer to sneak out and make a key that will open the jail-house doors. With me so far? It is at this point that the movie really cuts ties with making sense. While the wrestlers sneak to their keymakin' equipment under cover of dark, the used car salesman decided a Monster Autopsy is the thing to do to better "know" their enemy. This is the best reason they could come up with so they can show extensive scenes of pointless vomiting, defecation, and monster spooging. Now i'm not condemning the gruesomeness, it's a horror flick, it's expected. What i'm condemning is that it's simply not funny, it don't advance the narrative, there's really no point for it at all.

While we're being treated to extensively pointless scenes of monster autopsy, we also get extensively pointless scenes of Honey Pie trapped in a convenience store. Seems after she was flung from the window, she made her way there looking for a phone. She gets in through a vent then falls through the ceiling. Sadly the phone no workie and she's trapped. Despite the fact that the ceiling still has a hole in it and there's a DAMN LADDER IN THE STORE.

It's at this point that I gave up on FEAST II, but sadly my eyes kept watching. So I got to see some boobies, but I also got to see them kill grandma and a baby. They don't even make it into the jail. The monsters get on the roof and kill everyone. Maybe Feast 3 will make Feast 2 sensible, but I doubt it, and i'm for damn sure not gonna spend another $14.99 to find out.

Avoid this one and watch the first one again.

Meet the Applegates (1990)

Don't meet the Applegates.

[1/10 · 24 May 2008]

Meet the Applegates is a black comedy that isn't particularly funny. And not really all that black either. It really just sorta sucks in a non-spectacular and pretty boring way. One gets the impression they were trying for a edward scissorhands/heathersey biting satire on contemporary American culture. They only partially succeeded. It bites. The costumes and set design are going for that 50's era kitschy look that John Waters uses so well, but Applegates is just a cheap imitation.

The "story" is about a bunch of giant bugs disguise themselves as humans and invade America in an attempt to sabotage a power plant and wipe out a town as a first strike in the war between mankind and bug puppets. Dabney Coleman wears a dress in a phoned in performance as their leader Aunt Bea. This is as far as I can tell the only joke in the movie. Man it's dull.

As our culture corrupts them, we watch the Applegates go from the Brady Bunch to the Manson Family. Then in a rather hastily done fashion the Applegates decide we aren't so bad and try to save the town from Dabney Coleman. Along the way we get some environmental messages that are more forced than the average Captain Planet episode, but not nearly as funny.

Dabney Coleman is much better in other movies, as for the rest of the cast... three words. Ed Begley and Jr. It's about as bland and dull as the stereotypical American family they're mocking in the first place.

If you have insomnia and happen to stumble across Meet the Applegate on late night cable as I did, you might want to keep flipping, with all the channels we've got there's definitely something better on.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Dumber than you'd think

[1/10 · 28 October 2006]

Potential SPOILERS ahead.

When I'd first heard of this movie, it was described to me by my cousins as the scariest and creepiest movie they'd ever seen. So it always had a place in my mind as a movie to avoid. However, when I finally did catch it, I have to say I disagree.

This movie was incredibly stupid. Every scare is telegraphed, nothing is a surprise. Leatherface dances around more with the chainsaw then cutting anyone. It's really idiotic. The performances aren't much better than your local churches haunted house on Halloween.

First, we're supposed to believe a radio station can't hang up on a caller unless the caller does first? I think the FCC would have something to say about that. It'd be impossible to censor any obscene calls that way. Also, what exactly does the tape reveal that Chop Top and Leatherface need to show up and silence the girl about? Some screams and a chainsaw noise. Yeah, that really points out their identities and existence. A damn autopsy would reveal the cause of death was power tool. Beyond that there's NOTHING linking them. Texas is a damn big state. And as the prologue indicates, after the first girl was found alive, the authorities found NOTHING to prove the events had happened. Plus, they could have just torched the place when they left the girl if they really wanted to be sure.

I watched it a second time last night, and I have to say it's gotten dumber. Stupid movie, and not in an entertaining way.

Lifeforce (1985)

Finally got around to seeing Lifeforce, kinda wish I hadn't bothered.

[1/10 · 4 February 2006]

Lifeforce is a late eighties sci-fi horror flick wherein a joint space mission between the U.S. and Great Britain fly out to study Haley's Comic and find a giant spaceship full of dead vampires, one sexy naked chick and two Patrick Swayze clones. Of course they bring them back to Earth, and then the naked chick runs amok, turns half of London into crazed ravenous zombies, and it's up to our heroes, an S.A.S. man and the lone surviving astronaut to defeat her in a Gothic cathedral before the vampire mothership gets to Earth and rains holy hell down upon us.

Now, most people upon hearing that synopsis might be like..."Hell's bells, I wanta see me somea that movie!" Well friends...that couldn't be farther from the truth. At two hours, Lifeforce is a chore to sit through. While all the key plot points delivered above do happen, some of them happen off screen and they're reported to us by some bored British character actors. There's a lot of drab office settings where haggard looking Brits and Steve Railsback sweat a lot and yell. The beginning is mildly engrossing with the spacemen checking out the giant vampire ship, and the end where apparently a sound stage fills in for London besieged by crazy zombies picks up a little...otherwise there's a whole lot of nothing in this movie. I'd check the credits to see who edited it, but that would mean fast forwarding the tape for half an hour to get to them.

A LOT of time is spent on scholarly types going essentially "Maybe THESE aliens are the source of the vampire myths!" Yeah, great, can we see some vampires maybe please? Once the splendidly nude bloodsucker lady escapes the lab they bring her to, she pretty much disappears from the picture. We're told she "possesses" people, which probably saves a lot of money on special effects and pays for more film stock to draaaaagggggggggg the running time even longer. The acting and plot simply aren't engrossing enough to make you not mind the length and boredom of this picture. Maybe they shoulda called it LifeFORCED.

Someone could definitely remake this one. Peace.

Van Helsing (2004)

Dracula sucks...and so does this movie.

[1/10 · 26 June 2005]

It's taken a year to come to terms with my feelings on Van Helsing...I didn't want to be another face in the sea of people who came out hating this movie. And hate it I did, but it's gone beyond just mere distaste. I've carried the seed of loathing for it in my heart, and that seed has borne a bitter fruit. No longer can I burden myself under the diseased weight of Van Helsing, I must vent my bile and share.

Mercifully, parts of it have faded, or failed to encode themselves in the first place upon my memory. I have no recollection of a soundtrack for example, which doesn't say much for it. I think I'll attack things in a more or less chronological order, and trust you'll forgive me any errors in my recounting, chalking them up to my mind's natural attempts to protect me from any longterm effects of viewing "the movie".

So we start off with a black and white introduction, no doubt an homage to the Universal Horror Movies Van Helsing draws much inspiration from. How much easier to use B&W to do this, than say...i dunno actual setting and atmosphere, or talented direction and performances. From the moment of his appearance, Richard Roxburgh is a gangrenous arrow lodged in my heart. His interpretation of Dracula as effete twit does more damage to the count than all of Vlad Tepes's crimes combined. From the way he's filmed, you assume the director thinks he's some kind of great performer, someone that deserves to have the camera on him constantly. This is simply not the case. A retarded orangutan with a sledgehammer in a Faberge egg shop has more subtlety and dignity than Roxburgh will ever be capable of. He doesn't even have an interesting face, a feature many other actors can use as a tool to heighten their performance. All Roxburgh has is Thompson Twin hair and incriminating pictures of Steven Sommers apparently.

We then cut to Paris where our hero Van Helsing is trying to kill Shrek. Or Mr. Hyde, it doesn't really matter. He certainly owes a lot to Indiana Jones and Vampire Hunter D (a Japanese cartoon featuring vampires, werewolves, and wide brimmed hat wearing, long haired mystery man which is incidentally also a much better movie for people who want this kind of monster mash entertainment done well) a source i'm sure the costume designers, etc. were well familiar with. I'll take an aside her to mention that I don't really fault Hugh Jackman with anything in this movie, and i'm sure the wheelbarrow of cash they dumped in his lap was hard to turn his nose up to. I only hope Hugh takes more care with roles in his future.

VH is sent to Transylvania to aid the Valerius family who have been ineffectually fighting monsters for generations. This raises the question...how long can a family ineffectually fight monsters before they're just a large grouping of the same last name on a buncha headstones? We're witness to their incompetence when we see that their tactics for hunting werewolves involves only one guy being given a silver bullet, and arming the rest of the hunting party with regular firearms. Also, the Valerius family can't seem to remember which accent they're supposed to be using. None more guilty of this than cinematic albatross, Kate Beckinsale as Anna. She goes from Transylvanian, to British, to British trying to sound American, and at one point Natasha from Bullwinkle, which I found odd. She may be easy on the eyes, but with Van Helsing completing the trifecta of Pearl Harbor and Underworld, If I see her name on the cast list, it's nature's way of warning you that there's gonna be some bad movie ahead.

So Drac's masterplan involves inflicting his bride's shorties on the world. But Movie, you say, don't vampires make other vampires by biting people? Isn't there a whole village of inbred idiots protected by ineffectual monster hunters ripe for the taking? No, we want cgi gremlin knockoffs. Oh, OK, I'll just lie back down and you can continue to kick my groin then, OK?Now, somehow, Frankenstein and the Wolfman tie into making the winged monkey's plan work, but for the life of me, I can't remember how, the hallmark of a really great script. There's so many plot holes pointing them all out may take up more space than IMDb is prepared to provide, so I'll just hit the highlights, some spoilers may follow, but nothing I say is gonna spoil this movie any more than the filmmaker's themselves have. During the carriage chase down winding roads, our fearless heroes fool the flying vampires by having a duplicate carriage on a side road....which should have been plainly visible to any airborne undead. If the wolf man is the only thing that can kill Dracula, why the hell does he keep them around? And it sure would seem that having the antidote handy would be a pretty effective means of negating the threat any potential wolf man assassins might present, but he keeps the tiny vial in a giant room of his goofy wire shrouded tower. Finally, Anna can have the crap kicked out of her by various monsters throughout the movie, even getting dropped five stories by a flying vampire onto a stone floor with a minimum of discomfort, but all it takes is VH to shove her onto a velvet couch while he's wolfed out to kill her.

Van Helsing continues the tradition of incredibly stupid movies with a CGI comb-over that completely fails to distract from the glaring flaws inherent within, the tradition started with such movies as Dragonheart, the Lost World, Armageddon, etc. In addition, it's the second part of a career suicide note that Steven Sommer's started with the Mummy Returns, a vile movie that was without equal until Van Helsing came along. And there, is the only category where it excels.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

well...what did you expect?

[1/10 · 17 May 2005]

Well, after having my hopes dashed for another groundbreaking trilogy by episodes I and II, I really wasn't expecting all that much from III and for once, I wasn't disappointed. I can accept that Lucas made these for "a new generation", but I can't help but feel .... an addition of open contempt for the "old generation" while watching them. Quite frankly, George Lucas is a lousy director and storyteller.

While real actors like Ewan MacGregor and uh....Ewan MacGregor do their best with the material given to them, most of the heavy scenes involve Hayden Christiansen, who is to good acting what a pile of kindling is to good acting. He's terrible. In one or two scenes he brings it up to bad, but for the most part....the stink made my eyes water. I am unfamiliar with the acting of Ian McDiarmid, and after watching his inane scenery chewing performance, i can understand why. Maybe under the supervision of a talented seasoned director the performances could have been salvaged, but Lucas is at the wheel and...nuff said.

Sure, there's visual effects galore, and if anything is gonna appeal to the new viewers, it's gonna have to be that. It sure won't be the plot. Once more Lucas proves he's a Tell not Show director and we're treated with exposition laden speeches the likes of which haven't been seen since the opening of Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark. (Incidentally, I don't know who's better, Lucas or Boll) I think back to the clean, sleek storyline of episodes IV-VI and then to the jarring trainwreck of trade federations, droid armies, and racist alien stereotypes that comprise eps I-III and it boggles my mind that they could have come from the same person. Not that they did...maybe the original authors are buried out in the same vault where the original prints were stored.

Did this flick even need to be made? Nothing I saw in this new trilogy fired my imagination the way the casual mention (e.g. a Clone War) did in a New Hope. The genesis of Darth Vader was one hundred times more engrossing when caught second hand from Alec Guiness and Frank Oz's hand up a puppet's butt. Does anyone want to see what Dorothy did the previous three months in Kansas before she went to Oz? Well, all negativity aside, I think the next one, episode IV, is gonna be GREAT.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

don't believe what the trailers show you....

[1/10 · 6 May 2005]

Yet another historical epic with little attention to history and an improbable superman protagonist. In Kingdom of Heaven, Orlando Bloom plays a french blacksmith with an English accent who after a brief and interrupted sword training session, is apparently equipped for knighthood and leading the defense of a city under siege from the forces of Saladin. Now, if you can swallow that, you shouldn't have any real problems with KoH, however, if that statement made you shudder, please avoid imbibing this movie.

Script aside, It certainly looks impressive, bringing that epic feel we've come to expect from a Ridley Scott flick. With impressive costumes and sets bringing to life the middle ages, the only thing really ignored were the people IN the costumes, living IN the Middle Ages. Characters are thrown on screen with little more introduction than, I'm sneering I must be Bad! This is a quick and easy way to point out the villains to us.

I had similar issues with Gladiator, why can't characters in these period pieces just BE the regular Joe? Gladiator can't JUST be a gladiator, he has to be a deposed Roman general with vengeance on his mind, because a guy that does bloodsport for a living just wouldn't be interesting enough. So here with Bloom's Jack-of-all trades blacksmith, who inexplicably knows desert irrigation, military tactics, and oratory while wooing a queen and looking pretty. Obviously, a less grandiose tale, while retaining the set pieces, etc. just wouldn't cut it with today's audiences I guess.

Tail Sting (2001)

Too wretched for late night cable

[5 April 2003]

Wow...this flick was so bad it shouldn't appear on IMDb as a "movie". The lead actress, HORRIBLE, it's almost refreshing to know that the casting couch is still in use, there's no way she read for this standing upright. Believe me, I understand that as movies go, this is firmly in the straight to video tradition...but please, at least PRETEND to hide the mic guy, he's in more scenes than the leads. The scorpion effects aren't much better than what you might get out of a Wal-Mart vending machine. I'm not even gonna point out the plot holes, suffice to say with so many holes in one place there shouldn't have been a movie there at all...but there was...and it's called Tail Sting. You've been warned. Peace.

Lone Wolf (1988)

We're not dealing with Michael J. Fox here...

[16 August 2002]

We've seen the story a thousand times before, quiet community, new kid in town, and then...squirrels start disappearing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure things out, Werewolf. What follows is a celluloid skidmark that would make J. Piquer Simon wince and scurry into the night mewling. I've seen bad porn movies...a lot. And what's more, most of them were better acted than this. Jiminy, even the casual walking shots were more forced than a Brian Dennehy sex scene. I guess you save money if instead of actors you just use some people you met in a bar after last call. Our heroes look a little long in the tooth to be highschool...hell, they look too old to have kids in highschool. The ages would be more distracting if the acting wasn't so heinous. It really belies description. All I can say is I long for the restraint of a young William Shatner. The more I think about it, I believe this movie was shot in Bizarro world, where such acting would be considered good actually. And when I say Bizarro world, I of course mean Canada. Mullets abound in this wretched little film. Be forwarned. Peace.

The Four of the Apocalypse... (1975)

Four for the mild inconvenience

[1/10 · 23 July 2002]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Urkh...damn you cheap DVDs! Damn you with your phony writeups that make you seem like GOOD movies!!! Such a dvd is the anchor bay release of Quattro dell'apocalisse, Italian for, We had the horses, why not make a Western?

You know, a mistake a lot of people make is confusing Spaghetti Westerns with Spaghetti Westerns filmed by Sergio Leone. This was the mistake I made with Quattro Del Monte or whatever. While the beginning slaughter of the "sinners" in the town was pretty much what I expected from a spaghetti directed by schlockmeister, Lucio Fulci ( avoid at all costs, he's no Dario Argento...though come to think of it...neither is Dario Argento) the rest of the movie failed to deliver anything remotely resembling entertainment...in fact what it did deliver was a crazy naked man named Butt. No gunfights...no Eli Wallach...no nothin!

There are some of the requisite spaghetti elements...beautiful girl (thought not a beautiful italian girl), evil mexican Chaco, and some great cast names, if Fabio Testi isn't the GREATEST actor name ever I'll eat this DVD, the only thing it's good for, really.

If you're a fan of the genre, I'd steer clear of this one. This movie is mostly many long stretches of the four travelling to lousy, lousy AM music that vaguely follows the story like some Prozac-stuffed Greek Chorus. I mean, with a title like Four for the Apocalypse, you're expecting some APOCALYPSE!!! You want a SPOILER????

NO APOCALYPSE. They're out in the desert, hatless, but seemingly fine until evil Chaco asks to join their party dressed like some gaudy pinyata stuffed with guns. He proceeds to kill about half a million ducks...what DUCKS are doing in the DESERT is beyond my guess, before he betrays them. Now this part is hardly the traumatic violence-fest I was expecting. They're tied up, a little ropeburned around the neck, Chaco rapes the prostitute (though she's so gonked on peyote she sleeps through it, and Chaco isn't exactly a marathon man.) He's tied them up with the aid of the drunk bought by whiskey, who gets an attack of conscience, tries to stop Chaco from leaving, and gets shot in the leg for it. Not exactly pleasant...but it's no Book of Revelations Hell Torture I was fearing. And from the looks of things...they wouldn't have made it that far without Chaco feeding them ducks and whiskey and peyote! They wander around some more, find a ghost town, eat the dead drunk's butt (Don't ask) and eventually it's just Stubby the gambler left. I've condensed nigh two hours of pain into that paragraph. At this point, the director remembers the movie is a western, and Stubby finds and kills Chaco. Then he rides away and a dog shows up.

Don't get this one, it's not even that gory for you Fulci fans. My greatest regret is that I made a friend watch this with me, both of us western fans. He can still see out of his left eye, and the projective vomiting and random weeping have quieted down a bit. Sorry man, Peace.

The Scorpion King (2002)

Live free, die well, don't pay for this movie...

[21 April 2002]

When I first heard about this movie, it was planned as a straight to video release. It seems to have taken a little detour to the big screen on it's way to your friendly local videostore with no change in quality or content. Come on, this was the longest episode of Xena I've ever seen. The fight scenes, scantily clad females, the pointless sprinkling of actual historical names and places used completely wrong, and the smattering of CGI. You can watch this for free in syndication.

Of course, Xena/Hercules didn't have the Rock. If you're a major Rock fan, you'll probably see this anyway and I'm not gonna stop you. Go, enjoy, he raises his eyebrow and everything, you'll freakin' love it. This review is for the non Rockaholics.

The Mummy as a series started well, and then took a sharp right turn into Hell with the Mummy Returns, to date, one of the most painful and traumatizing experiences I've had in a darkened theater. Mummy Returns was so bad it made the Mummy bad. While the Scorpion King ISN'T Mummy Returns bad (rocket powered balloons??? <swallows tongue, convulses>) it's not that great either. It's a little less than par with the gamut of sword and sorcery flicks that followed the original Conan, coming behind Beastmaster, but before Deathstalker IV, and about equal with Krull. I can't remember any one liners, none of the action scenes really stand out, and the acting is pretty average. Kelly Hu is a nice bit o' fluff, but doesn't really exhibit any acting beyond what she did on Nash Bridges or Martial Law. You won't see her again, less they need a Bond girl or something.

This isn't meant to be some historical epic. When in the opening scene the Rock shoots some Viking/Foghat-roadie into orbit with a triple bow and arrow arrangement, I kinda threw believability out the window. Mindless entertainment is what they were aiming for. One outta two ain't bad. I wanted to stick around after the credits to see if that guy ever came back down...but my crew wanted outta there pretty badly.

I think if the fight scenes had been choreographed better, it might've saved the movie. How much does that Ying-Yang Ping guy Crouching Tiger cost anyway? I refuse to believe he charged that much for the Musketeer (a flick that almost topples Mummy Returns from the crap throne) I think a little more style might've helped Scorpion King out.

To sum up, I've been stung by a bee before, does that mean I will always have bee blood in my veins? Peace.