The Evil Dead (1981)

Written and Directed by: Sam Raimi (Spiderman I, II & III; Darkman)
Starring: Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness), Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor (as Hal Delrich), Betsy Baker & Theresa Tilly (as Sarah York).

Favorite Line: "Join us! Join us!!"

Favorite Scene: Ash gives Scotty a double thumb jammy, resulting in an explosion of gore all over the place.

My love/hate affair with horror movies started when I was five; my sisters were kind enough to let me tag along to the theater to see Jaws, which was no big deal to me until that decapitated head comes floating out from under a boat or somewhere...I lost it at that point. Then it was Halloween when I was nine...I didn't sleep right for a week after Michael Myers disappeared from the lawn after all the knitting needles & gunshots & shit. When I was ten, it was Phantasm...that one freaked out my 19-year-old sister as well...we slept with every light in the house on that night. It wasn't until later on, when a local late night movie guy named The Ghoul started showing horror movies, that I got hooked on zombies. There are two types of movies I watch, regardless of how many times I've seen them in the past: baseball movies and zombie movies...can't get enough of either of them. It really all started for me with Night of the Living Dead ("they're coming to get you Barbara"), and Dawn of the Dead, both of which were remade, both of which didn't live up to the originals. Zombies were just better back then, creepier looking, slower for sure, but persistent. Recent zombie movies are good (The Serpent & The Rainbow, Sean of the Dead), but they lack the innate fear that late 60's to early 80's zombies emit from us.

I wrote in a previous blog about my disappointment over the survivors in horror films, where it always seems to be that at least one human gets to survive, therefore reigning supreme over our primal fears. Realistically, Mortuary (see blog archive) implies no survivors, but in an unrealistic way...a cheap way. The Evil Dead does this with flair, the winner being the unknown. Early horror movies, like The Evil Dead were masterful vessels of the fear of the unknown...not only does it scare the shit out of all of us, it doesn't cost much; a couple of PAs in the woods, shaking the tree, and ooooh, scary! Brilliant is more like it.

As you may have figured out by now, this is not one of my typical blog posts. That's because as shitty as The Evil Dead really is, it's a brilliant trail-blazer film...so this is more of a bad movie tribute review. That, and I'm taking a well-deserved break from Syfy originals...'cuz they suck.

In my opinion, the best thing about this movie is Bruce Campbell. You know you know who Bruce Campbell is, but other than The Evil Dead & Army of Darkness, you would probably be hard pressed to rattle off another one of his films off the top of your head. It's more like, "Hey, that's Bruce Campbell" when you're watching a movie that he just happens to be in. He's one of those bad actors that never got off the B list, but who also doesn't care...nor does he make excuses. He's witty and (at least on screen) charming while being a cock at the same time (think about Spiderman, when he scolds Toby McGuire for having a crappy nickname). In Evil Dead, he's the unwitting recipient of gallons upon gallons of his dying friends' blood & gore, and the only one other than Sam Raimi who really ever went anywhere. He'll put a smile on your face every time you see him in a movie, 'cuz you don't know what the hell he's gonna do...kind of like Chris Elliott...he's just got that look about him.

Evil Dead is less of a zombie movie and more of a possession film, but nobody wants to be in the same category as The Exorcist, so the zombie genre got one of film history's favorite cult classics. It starts off typically enough; five coeds driving out in the middle of nowhere to somebody's uncle's cabin for a weekend of booze & sex & whatnot. What happens when they get there is anything but. For those of you who haven't seen this movie (what's wrong with you?! See this movie!!), here's the basic premise: Scotty and Ash find a reel-to-reel tape deck with a recording of some scientist who found "the Book of the Dead" & proceeded to read incantations from it, therefore not only raising the evil in his time, but also in the time of our friends Ash, Scotty, Cheryl, Shelly & Linda...yes, the recording does that.

Cheryl's the weird one--and the first to go...she hears a sound outside and goes to investigate (no weird girl, don't go outside!), gets violated by the woods themselves, begs for a ride into town (at one point, Ash tells her to stay in the car while he goes to investigate something...but she doesn't), but the bridge is out, and she's forced to stay in the evil cabin. The evil seeps into her wounds somehow, and turns her into some sickly looking, zombified creature that gets locked up in the cellar (and remains a pain in the ass from that point on). Cheryl stabs Linda in the shin with a pencil, Shelly turns (I don't remember how...I really don't think they explain that) and Scotty has to dismember her, then he and Ash bury her in the woods. Scotty then freaks out completely and decides he's gotta beat feet out of there, only to return scarred and cut to shit by the woods. Ash goes to check on Linda, and as he looks at her pencil stab wound, she turns as well...but doesn't try to attack, just sits cross-legged on the floor and laughs really annoyingly. At one point, Ash takes her out to the shed, chains her down on a workbench and picks up a chainsaw. You're thinking "hell yeah...chainsaw", but he can't do it, and buries her whole instead. Well, she crawls out of the ground, and the scene that follows is probably still one of the goriest, most gruesome things I've ever seen, with blood and white shit flowing from Linda's zombie mouth, and ends with Ash decapitating her with a shovel (her headless body falls on top of him, gushing blood into his mouth...yum). Ash then goes back into the cabin to find Scotty possessed and Cheryl escaped from the cellar. He himself goes into the cellar, looking for god knows what, and finds himself in a madhouse situation: blood trickling into a lightbulb, over the lens of a projector (very gross, by the way), etc. He goes back upstairs, has a truly psychotic moment (you can actually see him losing his mind...go Bruce), and the climactic scene is when he figures out that if he burns the book of the dead, the zombies will die as well. And die they do...in a barrage of sound effects, stop action photography and gore that has yet to be rivaled.

You think he's gonna make it...the sun's up...he stumbles out the front door of the cabin...but then you remember that Linda gouged the shit out of his leg during their fight scene...all of a sudden, the evil races through the woods, over the woodshed, through the cabin, and as Ash turns around to scream...end credits.

Boom! Evil-5; Humans-0. Take that.

Like I said, it's a bad movie, but Sam Raimi is a really decent writer/director, and whoever did the camera direction was a genius. There are some really interesting angles, some very stark camera work that lends to the overall spookiness of the film, the lighting is ahead of its time, and the gore is absolutely outstanding. The acting is sub-par, and Scotty is wearing a belt buckle you can toboggan on, but Bruce Campbell carries the whole thing, and although I'll bet he and Raimi were friends (everybody in this film is from Michigan except for Betsy Baker), he pulls off a cult-classic performance that Ed Wood would've been proud of.

If you haven't seen The Evil Dead, I highly recommend you get with the program. It's a cult film that stands alone within the horror cult genre. Don't believe me? Watch the trailer: The Evil Dead

Ogre (2008)

Director: Stephen R. Monroe
Written by: Chuck Reeves
Starring: John Schneider (he was Bo Duke), Ryan Kennedy, Katharine Isabelle, and again, a whole lotta nobody.

Remember John Schneider? He reached the zenith of fame as Bo Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard, a show that was pretty highly rated back in the 70s...I, for one, never missed an episode. Unfortunately, John peaked back then, and has been on a downward spiral of mediocrity ever since. Enter today's victim film, Ogre (yet another Syfy original). Although John's career is in the toilet, I have to say he's aging well and really seemed to be enjoying this particular role. He plays a magi turned Magistrate in 1859 Pennsylvania, where for some reason, the men in the town are still referred to as "Sir" & "Lord". I wasn't aware royalty was recognised in the U.S. in the mid 19th century, but oh well...it's the writer's first movie--ever.

This movie was bad even for Syfy original standards. It's a sloppy The Village meets Blair Witch Project debacle. In a small Pennsylvania town in 1859, villagers are succumbing to some sort of strange disease; the only symptom evidently being angry looking blisters on the palms of their hands. Sounds like syphilis to me. The disease is never given a name or revealed, but it's serious enough for John Schneider to conjure up an idea to save the village: they have to make yearly sacrifices to "the Ogre", which is a manifestation of their disease and all their sins. A myopic two year old could see the underlying M.O. on this one; Schneider is using the Ogre to keep the villagers scared, and him in control...boooring.

Fast forward to "Present Day". Four retards wandering around in the Pennsylvania wilderness looking for the same legendary village that started the annual Ogre feedings. One of them, Terry (Kyle Labine) is SUPER excited, and has a map to prove it. His three friends (who aren't all that impressed about being out in the woods), are reluctantly indulging his obvious obsession, but of course reserving the right to fuck with him about it the whole way. When a path appears out of nowhere, Terry goes apeshit, and starts running in the direction he assumes the village to be in, and trips over a HUGE tree, breaking his widdle pussy ankle. Mike (Ryan Kennedy) and Jessica (Katherine Isabelle) decide to go for help, and leave Terry and Leah (Kimberly Warnat) to "set up camp". Bad, bad idea. While Mike and Jessica are gone, Terry finds the doors that lead to the Ogre's lair, which look like the double doors that lead to a tornado shelter, only bigger (amazingly enough, there's no overgrowth on the doors, they look just like they did back in 1859). Terry is now damn near frantic with excitement, 'cuz holy shit, this could be the proof they've been looking for! He goes over to the doors...pries them open (while hobbling around on his good foot), and PROMPTLY gets eaten by our friend the Ogre. Leah of course freaks out, and runs like hell...but the Ogre is as determined as a zombie, and it's buh-bye Leah.

Meanwhile, Mike and Jessica find a "Do Not Enter" "Village Closed" sign along the path, stumble upon the village they've been looking for, and--you guessed it--everybody (except the ones eaten by the Ogre over the years) is still alive. As Mike and Jessica peek into the town hall meeting, the villagers are having a meeting to see who the "chosen one" is gonna be this year. Except now, 149 years later, people are starting to grumble a bit...but John Schneider and his magical orb on a stick put them in their place by choosing poor Stephen Chandler (Brendan Fletcher), zapping his hand and branding him with a pentagram inside a circle. Mike and Jessica are discovered, and thrown into jail with Stephen.

The village elders choose one guy to be the bad guy and go talk to Bo Duke about standing up to the Ogre...because the insanity has to stop. Bo's answer to that, of course is that he has no control over any of it, and to even think such a thing is to tempt the Ogre's wrath (see a little Christian social commentary evolving here?) Schneider concedes that perhaps the answer is to offer up the "outsiders" instead of their own, therefore saving all of them from their impending doom for four years (they don't know that Terry and Leah have already been eaten).

Well, Mike and Jessica escape with the help of John Schneider's daughter Hope (Chelan Simmons), they all head for the woods, but when they get to the "barrier", only Mike and Jessica (being outsiders) are able to cross; John Schneider's spell prohibits the villagers from crossing over without being turned into energy and blowing up. "Go now...and never return" says Hope. Do they listen? Hell no, they hitch hike to the nearest sheriff's station, tell them the completely asinine tale of the village, the Ogre & all that, and when they realize the sheriff doesn't believe any of it, they steal the cop car, get it stuck in the mud, grab the shotgun, head back to the village on foot, and stage a coup against the Ogre.

Okay...lemme catch my breath.

The movie has its moments...there's some good gore; John Schneider is having a blast being an orb-on-a-stick wielding, magic conjuring man witch; a couple of the chicks are hot. The Ogre, on the other hand, is some of the worst CG I've seen since Spiderman, and the acting is over the top. The premise is ridiculously flimsy, and like I said before, a total The Village rip-off.

The end mercilessly comes when Mike, Jessica and the villagers stand up to the Ogre, and Hope figures out her dad's magic (John Schneider is killed by the Ogre while looking for Hope, I guess his contract ran out before the movie wrapped), and she magically pushes the Ogre outside the barrier, where he blows up like Stevie did. The spell is lifted, all the villagers blow up themselves, a touching moment is had between Mike, Jessica and Hope, happy ending, roll credits.

If you don't laugh at this movie, it'll put you in a bad mood for a week, so thank goodness for my reviews, right?

Until next time...here's the trailer.

Meltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)

Director: John Murlowski
Writer: Rick Drew
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Amanda Crew and a whole lot of nobody.


Favorite Line: "I'm not gonna walk in and tell the directors I'm scrubbing the mission 'cuz 'Dr. Chicken Little' has a bad feeling."

Favorite Scene: The gang finds a frozen food factory, go into the reefer to check things out & there's a frozen guy sitting there with his eyes open and an actual icicle hanging from his nose...classic.

Have you ever noticed that when science fiction movies contain more science and less fiction, it kinda pisses you off? When Luke and the gang go to Endor in Empire Strikes back you're like "Okay...little furry creatures living in a primitive culture, I can accept that, because it's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...continue to entertain me, Mr. Lucas." But when a crew of douchebags (led by King Douchebag) fly a couple of space shuttles out to an asteroid in order to drill into it and blow it in half, your reaction is more like, "Oh, c'mon...that's soo not gonna happen, ever", and "Why the hell is Steve Buscemi doing this piece of crap?"

Doomsday movies do this a lot; they use muddy scientific logic seemingly in hopes to befuddle the movie watcher into believing the unbelievable. The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Armageddon & tonight's victim, Meltdown, all share this particular fondness for futility. The premise is not only flimsy, it's frighteningly unbelievable; some scientific agency (which is never named)throws a nuke at an asteroid the "size of Iceland" that's hurtling toward earth at "ten times the speed of a bullet", the nuke blows the asteroid into three parts, the biggest of which is still on a collision course with Earth, but evidently there's a miscommunication because the asteroid skims our stratosphere, nudging the planet of its axis, and pushing it closer to the sun, causing a 10% spike in temperature, therefore plunging us into global blackouts, drought and looting...all within the first 24 hours.

I don't even know where to start making fun of this movie. The only real reason I watched it to begin with is because of Casper Van Dien...if you've read this blog at all, or you know me personally, you know that Starship Troopers is my favorite crappy movie. Casper is a horrible actor, with no real redeeming qualities, and has about as much depth as Harrison Ford, but he seems to put a lot of enthusiasm into his roles, it's kinda fun to watch...plus, he's completely oblivious to his own mediocrity, and that's admirable. He's married to royalty, you know.

Well, I paid the price--dearly--for watching this flick. It's no Starship Troopers, I'll tell you that. Seems like the only thing that sucks more than Syfy channel originals is Lifetime originals. It starts with a well-meaning but "my hands are tied" scientist type (Vincent Gale) telling his greedy bureaucrat boss that throwing a nuclear weapon at an asteroid is irresponsible, and that the human race is gonna pay the ultimate price, to which boss man argues that if they don't, the asteroid will destroy the planet regardless, so what's to lose? Difficult to argue with that logic, to be honest...perhaps they should have brought in Bruce, Ben and the rest of the Space Douchebag crew to fly out and drill it first...it worked out in that asteroid movie. By the way, am I the only person who thought Armageddon sucked? How did they get that many credible actors to agree to that piece of shit?

From there, it's like Armageddon meets The Stand meets The Day After Tomorrow. Officer Tom and friends embark on a seemingly futile trek to--get this--the Arctic. Along the way, they experience cars blowing up due to gasoline back firing in the fuel line into the gas tank...umm, wouldn't the radiator blow first? I mean, it's only 116 degrees...I've been in that kind of heat, never saw any cars blow up; they go into a series of drainage tunnels and run across some "tunnel people" and a dirty cop that ends up kidnapping Nathan (with some help from his paramilitary friends in a suburban outfitted with some kind of refrigerant re breathing system) because Nathan knows a guy with an airplane; they retrofit a refrigerated truck to make a vehicle like the one they took Nate away in, only to be shot at & leaking freon; then stumble upon a refrigerated food factory (where the dead icicle guy is) just in the nick of time...freon for EVERYONE, HAHAHA!! Ultimately they end up at an airport, Nathan and Officer Dirty are there, Nathan's friend's plane blows up due to that back firing fuel issue when he flies too low, lots of people get shot, and there's a predictable ending that comes a little prematurely...I mean, you're looking at the clock saying to yourself, "They've only got five minutes left, they better wrap this shit up". Another, "Let's finish this fucker, we're outta money."

Here's the 411 on how they ended it: Kimberly asks Nathan the scientist if the whole Earth too close to the sun thing could ever be fixed. "Sure," Nathan says, and goes on to lay down a crazy theory about the other planets' gravitational pull correcting the Earth's orbit, and if that happened, it would begin to rain due to the planet shifting back into its cool path. Well, guess what? That's exactly what happened, after all the shooting (Nathan gets hit in the leg, but is walking fine by end credits) and the fuel back firing, and the dead people and all the rest...here comes the rain. Boom. Happy ending.

See? Even in doomsday films, people win every damn time. It's sad when you think about it...our inability to admit defeat, even when the demise of our species is caused by our own stupidity. One day a film maker is going to make a movie where EVERYBODY gets it in the end...that would be a brave move, not pandering to the fragile human psyche.

This movie has no redeeming qualities; the explosions are crap, the dead people are caked in sloppy makeup, the dialog and the science are offensively ignorant...I'm actually bummed that I watched it, but like I said, I did it for Casper.

If you ever see this movie on your channel listings, please, I beg you, watch something else.

Don't believe me? Check out the trailer.

Dog Soldiers (2002) (click to watch trailer)

Favorite Line: Sarge: "My guts are out" Coop: "We'll just put 'em back in again".

Favorite Scene: Spoon and one of the werewolves have a Rocky/Apollo Creed moment in the kitchen...Spoon does pretty well, but get absolutely DESTROYED in the end.


So it's werewolf week on Chiller, which means lycanthropes and humans battling it out to see who's the dominant species. Amazingly enough, every werewolf movie I've ever seen has the humans claiming victory...just once, I'd like to see the werewolves win. It's the Alien vs. Predator syndrome: I anticipated that movie's release for MONTHS, because I finally thought that the humans were gonna get it...only to be more disappointed in it than I was in Spaceballs (I actually walked out of the theater during Spaceballs). Why is it that humans have to prevail at the end of all these horror movies? Be it werewolves, zombies, vampires, or fog...the humans (who are typically really stupid humans, to boot) always come out on top; with the exception of Final Destination 3...evidently death was tired of that movie series as well...because everybody bought it in that one...and even then, they made a Final Destination 4, to punish us. But as a wise man once said, there's never been a good episode four. Unless you count Star Wars, where Lucas started with episode four...but then he ruined it with episode one...I didn't need to see Anakin Skywalker as a precocious six-year-old...it somehow cheapened the pure evil that was Darth Vader.

But I digress.

I have to admit, I've never been a huge fan of werewolf movies; in fact, as I write this, The Howling with the ever-talented Dee Wallace Stone (remember her from E.T. and Cujo? Of course you don't) followed up by The Howling II, Your Sister's a Werewolf, is showing...quite the double bill of excrement, don't you think? But be that as it may, Dog Soldiers was probably the best bad movie I've seen in a long while (Starship Troopers is still my favorite bad movie...who could forget the line, "You kill bugs good"). It's a British-made film, which is proof that all you need is a charming accent, and you can suck at acting all you want...we'll excuse it. The trailer hails it as "One of the most explosive, brutal and purely enjoyable horror debuts since the Evil Dead". Well, yeah...even though The Evil Dead was zombie movie gold, and Bruce Campbell carried the whole movie on his back, overall it still stunk. The trailer also calls Dog Soldiers "Jaws, Aliens & Predator with a werewolf twist". Maybe Aliens & Predator, because there are military members in it...but Jaws not so much...and why does everybody tout Jaws as the end-all, be-all of horror movies? It scared me when I was six...I watched it when I was 36, and laughed at it...the special effects are HORRIBLE.

But I digress yet again.

Like I said, Dog Soldiers isn't half bad; there are some truly exceptional (albeit unbelievable) explosions (unbelievable because somebody survives the main house explosion by hiding in the crawl space...watch the trailer, you'll see what I mean); there's a hot Scottish/Irish/British chick (her accent changes) in a semi-see thru wife beater, and a horrendous but hilarious "put up your dukes" fight scene between one of the soldiers and a werewolf (he literally does the put up your dukes pose, it's priceless). The violence is gratuitous...in fact, Sarge (played by Sean Pertwee...right, that Sean Pertwee) even says "I expect nothing but gratuitous violence from the lot of you", and that's just for a training exercise. Some of the most notable violent scenes are when one of the soldiers is running from the werewolves, and as he looks back, impails himself on a tree limb...and he must have been busting it Jesse Owens style, 'cuz that limb goes ALL the way through and like two feet out the back of him...awesome. There's a pretty gruesome beheading/head tossing combo that's deliciously gross. Coop uses a Braveheart sword to cut of a werewolves arm...pretty awesome. But my favorite is when Sarge gets gutted--his guts are literally out of his body--and not only does he get up and keep going, he runs...those Brit soldiers are tough as nails, I tell ya.

Like I said, the acting is pretty bad, but there's a dynamic among the players that is strangely compelling. And in true British fashion, they put the kettle on for tea...after the werewolves eat the front of a Land Rover.

The premise is predictable...werewolves attack people, people fight back, sole survivor rises victorious. If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. This one at least tries to be different by adding the element of trained fighters to the mix..even though they would have all been "killed" during their exercise, due to the fact that--as they were under strict radio silence, mind you--they had a campfire going, smoking & joking, telling scary ghost stories. None of my platoon sergeants would have put up with that shit. Once they get attacked by the werewolves, all hell breaks loose, and they amazingly enough stumble upon a chick in a Land Rover who takes them to the "only farmhouse for 300 miles other than mine, and I'm not home". Once they get to the farmhouse, they're puzzled by the fact that the fire's going in the fireplace and the stew's on the stove. But where are the people? Hmm. Well, let's just break down the door and commandeer this place, in the name of the Queen, amen.

There's a LOT of shooting, but amazingly enough, these aren't Hollywood guns...these guns run out of ammo eventually...kind of a realistic plot setting in my opinion. But of course, these are lycans, remember...only SILVER bullets can kill them...they kinda know this, but the bullets do seem to hold the wolves off a little...so have at it. Two of the guys, including Sarge, are only injured, so of course they start to turn (pre-dict-a-BULL!). And as they're picked off one by one, you start to get that "maybe this is it...the one where no humans survive" feeling. And you would almost be right.

Turns out, the people who live in the farmhouse ARE the werewolves, and the hot Scotch/Irish/Brit chick (her accent changes, remember?) reveals that she, too is a lycan, and she's picked Cooper to be her mate, because after all, "It's that time of the month". She tells Coop, "Being nice to women will get you nowhere--being nice to me will get you killed. You may think we're all bitches, but I'm the real thing." ...whaaaat? Sarge says, "It all makes sense now, we ate their porridge, we slept in their beds...they're pissed." Ummm...Sarge...I think those were bears in that story, but you're on a roll...and you're British and I like your accent, so go 'head. Anyway, Megan (played by Emma Cleasby, who was born in England, which is probably why her accent keeps changing) turns, and all of a sudden, it's just Coop and Sarge against the werewolves...but Sarge is turning as well, remember? There's alot of running around, frantic camera work to imply panic, and a very emotional "I love you, man" scene between Coop and Sarge when Sarge forces Coop into the crawl space to get away from the impending explosion, which Sarge achieves by cutting the gas line (don't worry...no continuity error here...their gas is supplied by propane tanks) and hitting the stove ignitor. Watch the trailer, 'cuz that house explodes like a mofo...it's a good one. But like I said earlier, Coop, Sam the dog, and one werewolf miraculously survive the blast, and Coop wrestles with the lycan a little before finding a--you guessed it--silver letter opener to stab the big, bad wolf with. Game over, run credits.

But wait...where did the letter opener come from, you ask? It came from the completely unecessary opening scene, where this couple is camping, and the chick gives the guy the letter opener as a congratulatory gift (he got a promotion), then they get mauled by the werewolves, who evidently are kleptomaniacs in addition to the bloodthirsty murderer thing.

Two things to note: one of the soldiers complains throughout the movie that he's missing a soccer match, and Megan keeps flashing the werewolves with a camera, which seems weird until it's revealed that she's one herself...so that's why she won't shoot the werewolves, not because she's a zoologist! During the credits, the photos she clumsily took are showcased...and they're AMAZING! Such graphic captures of the violence that took place that fateful evening; and then, at the very end, today's newspaper with the huge headline: some soccer team beats some other soccer team (can you say ironic?), and the byline: A pic of Coop with the caption underneath: "Werewolves ate my platoon". Ha!

Like I said, overall this isn't that bad of a flick...the character dynamic is oddly compelling, there's that ever-present dry British wit, even with the prospect of being eaten by mythological monsters; those groovy explosions, and a couple of really corny lines that will make you laugh out loud.

My advice: intoxicate yourself, pop some kettle corn, settle in and, why the hell not? See this one.

Nighty-night...maybe I'll watch The Howling II, Your Sister's a Werewolf afterall.

Dinoshark (2010)

Favorite Line: "Is your dinoshark running weed, too?"

Favorite Scene: Dinoshark jumps out of the water and eats a helicopter...that's flying.

I'm not even sure where to start ranking on this movie. It's basically a playground full of nobodies; Roger Corman was really the only name that I recognized AT ALL...he plays a marine biologist, and is also the executive producer...look up his production resume...it's basically just decades worth of crap; directed by Kevin O'Neill, who also directed Dinocroc (can't wait to see THAT one). O'Neill's special effects resume, on the other hand, is actually pretty impressive, including Bram Stoker's Dracula, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Blade, to name a few. As a director, though...he sucks. The actors are a gaggle of t.v. extras who seemed to have won a crappy movie lottery...there's one guy, he plays the bartender who evidently has guerrilla connections (they need explosives to try to kill Dinoshark, and Luis can get 'em), and this is realistically his first english speaking movie...it's almost like he was really the bartender in the town where they shot the movie, and Roger and the gang said "Hey...wanna be in a movie?" But for real...there is NOBODY in this flick that's even semi recognizable...it's almost not even worth the review; it was definitely not worth watching.

I could realistically sum this movie up like this: Melting glacier releases prehistoric shark into ocean near Alaska, shark swims down to Mexico, eats a bunch of people, hot chick kills shark.

That is really the whole movie...the plot has no real twists or turns...oh, it tries to turn, but the steering must have been broken or something, because it stays on its boring course the entire length of the film. Here's a couple of examples of how the geniuses behind this piece of crap try to twist things: the female protagonist, Carol (played by Croatian born Iva Hasperger, who's accent fades in and out throughout the entire film) is doing some internet research to figure out just what kind of scary creature they're all dealing with, and when she's done, stands up & strips off her shirt to reveal her miracle bra...I actually had to rewind it and call my girlfriend into the room to prove to myself that I really saw what I thought I saw...a total WTF moment. There's also some flimsy side premise of an all-girl water polo match that is moved from the local university's pool to the marina...because it's "better P.R.".

It's a total Jaws ripoff...but like, from an alternate universe where...shit, I don't even know what happens there. Dinoshark's second victim is some girl who decides to take a swim all by her lonesome...and I'll be damned if it's not almost exact to Jaws's first victim. Even the music is reminescent of Jaws...it's like enough already.

The male protagonist, Trace (played by Eric Balfour--another comatose resume, and resembles the Mexican Vanilla Ice) has some of the worst lines I've ever heard...EVER. Mind you, he's a charter boat captain, and he lays down this gem: "Just keep the boat pointed right". Now I know nautical terms are cliche, but come on...at least try. Throw a "starboard" in there somewhere. He's also the proud utterer of "that was the first time I tasted food made with love". Really? He lays a line on Carol about going to the Naval Academy to please his daddy, then washing out. And then there's the story about being chased by pirates in--where else?--the Carribean; but he battled them, and they left...riiight. Trace isn't the only one who says corny shit, Roger Corman tells a Mariachi band that their music is awesome, "but could you keep it down a little?" No Roger, they can't...their instruments aren't amplified, you moron...coincidentally, Roger was born in Detroit in 1926, looks like Detroit schools have ALWAYS sucked. Carol gets one of the best lines of the movie though, when she says "Welcome to the endangered species list, you bastard". It's a DINOSHARK, Carol...when you kill it...it's extinct...or is it?

Other than a couple of cool surfing scenes and beautiful Mexican landscaping, this movie has zero endearing qualities. At least the other movies I've reviewed to date at least had some semblance of plot, character establishment, and effort...this movie just falls flat on it's face across the board. There are recycled scenes, really sloppy edits, bad camera work--both shots and composition--no gratuitous nudity because it's a Sci-Fi channel original, and the acting, my god...it's absolutely atrocious. It's as if a retarded squirrel did the research, then handed it off to a mop to write it.

Dinoshark is retarded, too. It eats two boats, a helicopter, a jet skiier & a parasailor...but only half of its second victim, Rita...guess Mexican just doesn't agree with its touchy prehistoric stomach.

And just when you think it just can't get any worse, the ending hits you: Dr. Reeve finds out through his DNA research that dinoshark is covered with armor, and it's only weakness is its eyes...not its eyes and its mouth...just the eyes. Well, Trace, Carol and Luis take the explosives that Luis picked up and go a'shark huntin'. The climactic scene is when Trace (speeding directly toward dinoshark on the vacant Sea Doo) jumps up in the air, and throws a grenade (the pineapple kind) directly at dinoshark's eye (who's also jumping toward Trace). Nevermind the fact that Trace is riding a Sea Doo that lost its rider, therefore losing the pop-out key that you attach to your life jacket, therefore rendering the Sea Doo USELESS. He doesn't throw the grenade down dinoshark's gaping mouth, which, one would think, would make the damn thing just blow the hell up...NOOO...again, he aims for the eye (remember, it's the shark's only weak spot), and only stuns it. What finally kills dinoshark, you ask? Carol, on the bow of a speedboat, with (get this) a speargun. Dinoshark survives explosives, thousands of bullets, and indigestion from eating Rita, only to be killed by a speargun. Peter Benchley literally rolled over in his grave when that happened...in fact, I'm glad he's not alive to see the dark place that shark movies have gone.

I don't get it...why are people so infatuated with sharks? Why does Sci-Fi keep churning out this excrement, and more importantly, why the hell did I watch it? The last one's easy, I watched it so you don't have to.

I'm going to bed...see you in a couple of days.

P.S.: Click the movie title above to see the trailer.

Mortuary (2005)

Favorite Line: "Together we can stop graveyard babies"

Favorite Scene: One of Jonathan's friends wants to see the dead bodies in the embalming room, one of which turns out to be that friend's piano teacher; "I have a lesson with him tomorrow", she says. Not anymore, bitch.

This whole thing started, realistically one night when I was flipping through channels and absolutely nothing was grabbing me...you know the feeling, you've been through the channel guide 3 times, and it's like some sort of a conspiracy against you personally...nothing but reruns of crappy talk shows from earlier in the day, infomercials and reality T.V. And then, almost magically...a shitty horror movie rears it's ugly head...sometimes you get lucky, and there's actually a well-known star--that you like--in it that brings an element of sanity to balance out the excrement that is the acting from the other players in the film. Like Betty White in Lake Placid, even though there were quite a few well-known actors in that one, everybody but Betty forgot how to act...except maybe Oliver Platt...he sucks, but he's charming, so he's excused. So that's how it started for me, sitting in the dark of the living room, unable to sleep, watching a movie called "Baghead", which I'll review at a later date, because, holy shit that one sucks on a level that's almost paranormal. The seed was planted with that one...and I discovered that two separate channels on my cable provider offer a nearly never-ending library of garbage...now I find myself seeking them out. The movies are mostly sci-fi and horror, and the common thread among them seems to be haste...kind of a "let's shoot this fucker before the money runs out mentality", with stars that can't even see the "D" list from where they're standing...they're either on their way out, or on their way in.

That was the case with Mortuary, which actually has a few ties to Hollywood semi-nobility. It was directed by Tobe Hooper, who also directed Poltergeist, Salem's Lot, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, not too shabby of a resume, relatively speaking. Watching this movie though, made me wonder if Tobe owed somebody a favor, kind of like Paul Verhoeven going from Basic Instinct to Showgirls. Two notable actors are in it as well, Denise Crosby, who was Lt. Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Lee Garlington, who is probably best known as the "Nazi cow" in Field of Dreams who wanted to ban books. Everybody else is pretty much a nobody, including an EXTREMELY annoying Stephanie Patton, who plays the main character's little sister, Jamie.

I actually thought it was a Verhoeven film, because in the first scene, Denise Crosby and her two kids are let into the mortuary she inherited by Greg Travis, who was in both Showgirls and Starship Troopers, both of which are Verhoeven abortions...and anybody who watches as much t.v. as I do knows that actors, writers and directors work together repetitively. I was actually shocked to find out that Tobe Hooper did this flick, like I stated above, he's done some decent work in the past.

So there's the premise, single mom with two kids inherits a REALLY rundown mortuary that looks like it should have been not only condemned but demolished years ago, with what they all assume to be septic overflow on the lawn, and the obligatory attached graveyard, complete with mausoleum filled with caskets from the mid- to late 1800's (in near pristine state, mind you...probably rented by the hour from the local mortician) and a secret room with a uniquely shaped keyhole that amazingly enough matches one of a set of keys that mom found in the embalming room. Evil ensues.

Upon closer inspection of the rest of the house, the teenage son, Jonathan (played by Dan Byrd, currently in the series Cougartown with Courtney Cox) discovers a small, cell-like room complete with...you got it...bars on the window. At this scene, I looked at my girlfriend Kim, and said, "hey mom, can I have this room?". Guess what happens next? Bingo! Jonathan inherits that cozy little shithole, just like it was supposed to happen that way (has Tobe Hooper gone senile?). Jonathan also notices a name carved into the windowsill (the windows overlook the graveyard, just as an FYI): Bobby F.

Bobby F is Bobby Fowler, horribly disfigured son of the former owners, who is as legendary in this movie's one-horse town as Michael Myers or Freddy Kruger. Evidently, Bobby was born with a cleft palate and lip, and was beaten mercilessly by his parents until he went missing when he was ten. Eight years later, his parents were brutally murdered in the mortuary, and as Aunt Rita (Lee Garlington) keeps saying "You know Bobby Fowler's still alive; I see him out back stealing food from the dumpsters...he's partial to the banana creme pie"...but Aunt Rita is also somewhat of a hippie relic, with a self-professed "memory for shit" due to her liberal drug usage in the 60's...it wouldn't be a shitty horror movie without a few corny stereotypes, now would it?

Right away, you know something's wrong...especially when mom cuts her hand & bleeds on the embalming room floor, and some weird root-type thing crawls out of the floor drain and soaks up the blood...more on that in a minute. Jonathan chastises his mom for letting his younger sibling help with the cleaning of the embalming room, where they also find a ton of rock salt and an ice cream churn (remember the salt, it becomes important later on). Jonathan is also the first to notice someone--or something--stalking around in the graveyard while he's out having a clandestine smoke on the front porch.

From that point on, it's basically chaos...almost like everybody on the crew was working on a different movie at the same time...the characters are played clumsily, the storyline is muddy and contrived, of course there's the obligatory gore, violence, nudity and teenage angst. Amazingly enough, it's still a relatively entertaining film, with just enough camp to make you laugh through the really bad parts.

Once the characters, the legend, and the sheriff's desire to "end graveyard babies" is established, it's time for the plot to thicken. Unfortunately, the plot is about as thick as onion skin. The creepy, root thingy that came out of the drain is some sort of evil that emanates from an underground well that one can only assume comes from hell itself. It invades the dead, who attack mom, the sheriff, a couple of teenagers and a few others that are never really explained, puking black tar-like shit directly in their victims mouths...and all of a sudden, we have a psuedo-zombie movie. Mom serves gross black soup to her kids and some of Jonathan's friends, and forces everybody to be thankful for something...all the while exhibiting very rude behavior. In fact, rudeness seems to be the common thread among the zombie-ish...and they all end up around the well to hell with noneother than Bobby Fowler (Aunt Rita was right) holding Jamie over the well to "feed it...do it now!", as they scream at each other about giving thanks, ending graveyard babies and "shut up, punk!"...very convoluted.

And then, the rock salt melts one of the zombie-people-things, and the lightbulb goes on. The "living" grab all the rock salt they can and begin the onslaught...throwing salt on mom, the sheriff, and ultimately, into the well to hell. It works, they all melt, and the survivors can breathe a sigh of relief out on the front lawn (mom threw a few patches of sod down to give the place curb appeal). It's finally over, exhausted, they collapse. But it's not really over...somehow mom didn't really melt away to salty nothingness; she comes out & grabs Jamie, takes her off screen, and Jonathan (who's lying on the sod) is grabbed by the evil black fluid and sucked into the ground...cue death metal music and end credits.

The movie sucks. But it has a few endearing elements: Dan Byrd is actually a halfway decent actor, who is obviously paying his Hollywood dues; like I stated before, there's some comic relief, almost like the writer knew the movie was shit, so decided to wink at the viewer a few times as if to say, "yeah, it's shit & it only took me two hours to write, but enjoy it anyway"; there's one scene where Jonathan and Rita's neice are talking about the mortuary and dead bodies, and an extra who's sitting at the counter of the diner Rita owns subtly pushes his plate away in quiet disgust; and a scene where Jonathan and his friends are smoking weed...the joint is actually fuzzed out...like they do for nudity, you know? Hilarious.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the trailer: Mortuary

The Bad Movie 411 Guy
badmovie411guy@gmail.com

Grizzly Park (2008)

Favorite line: (rich fratboy to kid with swastika, white power and Nazi SS tattoos) "Hey, are you like, a white supremacist or something?"

Favorite scene: Big scary bear swats chick's boob, completely ripping it off...boob explodes, sending implant flying...implant explodes on a tree, then drips down the tree in slow motion...cinematic genius.

I chose this one as my first review because it was just soooo bad. If this is any indication, the tagline for the movie is "Eight troubled young people. Six days community service. It's gonna be a bear." (courtesy IMDB.com)

The premise is extremely flimzy, as with most of these flicks: Eight people are stalked by a rogue grizzly bear AND--get this--a serial killer! Enough said.

It was a crapfest out of the chute, eight kids who commited "misdemeaners", including prostitution, date rape, and impersonating a police officer...I want to meet the legal Einstein who can plead that shit down, he'she would come in handy in a pinch. These kids are given community service that entails cleaning up the trails of a state park that are conveniently located two day's hike into the woods. They are driven up to the rendezvous point in a D.O.C. van driven by the serial killer who has a gigantic blood stain ALL OVER the front of his shirt...'cuz he stabbed the real D.O.C. officer. When Ranger Bob (played by Glenn Morshower) sees the stain, he asks Jerry the serial killer, "What's that stain?", to which Jerry replies with some bullshit about it being a jelly stain from a doughnut, or something equally ridiculous...Ranger Bob, how could you not know that's blood?? Fasten your seatbelts and put your trays in their upright positions, it gets worse from there.

Ranger Bob gives them some sage wilderness advice (don't feed the animals, stay on the trail, etc.), then asks them to introduce themselves...I'll spare you the ignorance that comes from that...but suffice it to say, all eight of them are really stupid people. Just as a side note, most of these movies are usually written, directed, produced & sometimes acted by the same person, which is a delicious recipe for shit...Ed Wood tried to do this in the '50s...it's Orson Wells Syndrome, and for some reason, it's rampant in this particular genre.

The hike up to base camp is semi-uneventful; one of the girls (who's borderline retarded) has to excuse herself to pee, and befriends a skunk by saying, suprisingly enough, "here kitty kitty", and feeding it some energy bar. "Kitty" of course follows her back to where the others are, and sprays the entire group, save good 'ole Ranger Bob, the voice of reason, who asks the really dumb girl, named Bebe (played by Emily Foxler), "Didn't I tell you not to feed any of the animals you encounter?", to which she replies, "I thought it was a forest cat." It's at this point that you really realize that you are watching a truly shitty movie. As they reach their first night's sleep spot, one of the other campers tells Ranger Bob that there's a quicker, easier route to base camp according to his GPS system (he's a computer hacking identity thief, but still stupid). Ranger Bob is adamant that they stay on the trail, 'cuz of "all the wolves spotted in these parts lately". More on GPS boy in a minute.

Meanwhile, Jerry the serial killer is packing up some kind of golf cart on steroids with all the provisions for base camp, when the other ranger, Ranger Mike sees Jerry's knife (also stained with blood) and says, "Nice knife, that'll come in handy around here". C'mon Ranger Mike, really? By the way, I'm not just calling them Ranger Bob and Ranger Mike for shits 'n giggles... that's how they refer to themselves! ,Jerry ultimately stabs Ranger Mike, goes up to base camp, smashes the C.B. radio, gets stalked and killed by the bear and is really a non-threat in the film...I expected more...like Jerry and the bear were in cohoots or something...very disappointing.

Day two starts with GPS boy and one of the girls deciding to follow the "quicker, easier" trail. They (amazingly enough) get lost, GPS boy gets his leg caught in a wolf trap, ends up hanging by his ankle from a tree, bleeding out, when lo and behold, a wolf appears. The girl he's with...get this...SWINGS him toward the wolf and runs away...but of course, the wolf (played by a husky with gel in his fur to make him look "wild") catches her, and eats her...feet first. Now, I've watched a lot of documentaries on wolves, and it's common knowledge that canines go for the jugular to kill, then just eat indiscriminately...either the director forgot to do his research, or the wolf just wanted to see the look on the girl's face when he ate her feet first...we'll never know.

Once at basecamp, hijinks ensue. There's a latina gang-banger who smuggled a pistol on the trip to kill "Scab" the white supremicist, and decides to make that particular move while Ranger Bob is looking for GPS boy and wolf girl, and Scab is huffing gasoline...she uses her feminine wiles to seduce him...but Scab (even though he's high as Mt. St. Helen's on gas fumes) doesn't fall for it, and grabs her gun...they kiss, she grabs the gun back, throws it on the ground...and all of a sudden, they're in love.

Ranger Bob decides that since Jerry the serial killer isn't there to counsel them (remember, he's supposed to be a D.O.C. officer), that he'll do it...you know, 'cuz he's qualified n shit. So he asks for a volunteer, and the prostitute makes a rude comment...coincidentally, her file is on top, so Ranger Bob decides to start with her. Her story is that she commands $5K a night (whatEVER) because she has expensive taste, because "I'm not gonna wait around for daddy to buy me Prada". The rich fratboy put a 15 year old girl in a coma durning strangulation sex & has no remorse because "it's not like I have feelings for her or anything" and it was "the best sex I ever had".

Well...the bear starts killing people, picking them off one by one, starting with the kid who impersonated a cop, who...get this...is wearing a bear costume to scare the girls so they'll come running into the boy's cabin. The kill is actually fantastic, the bear rips the top part of this kid's head off...leaving the bottom part of his jaw agape and his tongue flailing about...very graphic, but hilarious at the same time.

The violence is, of course, gratuitous...as is the nudity. At one point you start to wonder why on earth this bear is so pissed off at community service providers. Toward the end, frat boy, Bebe and over-priced prostitute girl are holed up in a rickety shed. Frat boy gets pulled out of the window by the bear...the girls grab his arms to pull him back in...and his arms get ripped from their sockets...very realistic. As the arms are lying there, bleeding on the ground, Bebe asks prostitute girls what time it is, which you think is a completely irrelevant question, until prostitute girl actually grabs frat boy's Rolex off his severed arm...cinematic orgasm.

Now mind you...Ranger Bob is gone while all the killings are going on...they started the day after the round robin counseling...and when he comes back, he finds the only survivor--Bebe--blockaded in a cabin...she's distraught, because remember she's really stupid, and all her counterparts are dead. Ranger Bob tells her to pack her shit, they're leaving. She obeys, and while she's packing, she makes a call on her cell...which is amazing, since there's NO CELL SERVICE in the area...a fact they make abundantly clear early on in the movie. Maybe it's a sattelite phone...we'll never know. Regardless, it turns out that she's not really stupid...she's just been playing dumb...but for reasons never really clarified specifically. Ranger Bob overhears her conversation, and sneaks away off screen for a while. Bebe comes out of her cabin, turns a corner...and THERE'S THE BEAR!! This is where my favorite scene happens...her implant just EXPLODES on that tree (a maple, I think)...and now it's just Ranger Bob.

Flip to civilization...there's a bunch of reporters and cops at the place where the kids got on the van...and the assumption is that Jerry the serial killer is responsible for all the deaths, and is still at large.

Ready for the twist? Last scene...Ranger Bob petting the bear, looking directly at the screen. "You think it's wrong what I did?" he asks..."See you next year"...cue dramatic music, end credits.

Some people would say, "Well, there's two hours of my life I'll never get back", but I really enjoyed the campiness, the bad dialog, and the fact that they spent most of their budget on what turned out to be some pretty impressive special effects. I'm not telling you to see this movie, because holy shit does it suck...but if you ever find yourself flipping through channels and you see it...DVR it, watch it when you stoned or bored to death...you will be entertained.

Don't take my word for it...watch the trailer

Thanks for reading...let the journey continue.

The Bad Movie 411 Guy.