Archive for Bad Movies

Meals for Monsters Feeds THE LAUGHING DEAD (1989)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 1980s Horror, 2013, Bad Acting, Evil Spirits, Jenny Orosel Columns, Just Plain Bad, Meals for Monsters, Occult, Reanimated Corpses, Zombies with tags , , , , , , on March 13, 2013 by knifefighter

MEALS FOR MONSTERS: THE LAUGHING DEAD (1989)
Movie Review and Recipes by Jenny Orosel

The Laughing Dead 1989 online

There are horror movie fans who can appreciate a good scare, a well-crafted look at the darkness of the human soul, perfectly paced suspense. This one is not for those fans. No, this time I present a Meals for Monsters for those of us who love garbage. Yes, you, with the TROLL 2 T-shirt, the well-worn VHS of WEASELS RIP MY FLESH, the ones who have every line of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE memorized. For those of you eagerly searching, hoping that there might be one movie left out there even worse than the ones you’ve seen before. Whatever the worst one is that you’ve seen, here is one to top them all: THE LAUGHING DEAD (1989).

A priest leads a group to explore some Aztec ruins. The cast of characters include some obnoxious New Agers, an obnoxious runaway, a couple of obnoxious frat-boy-style tourists, and an obnoxious former nun kicked out when she gave birth to a now-obnoxious teenager. Oh, and that teenager is the secret love-child of said priest in question. Luckily, the former nun kept the parentage quiet so, while she was defrocked and defamed, he happily got to keep his post (something which embittered her to no end). Did I mention the priest was no prize either? They get to the ruins and come to find that an evil doctor is trying to bring the evil Death God to life, and in the process, raises a bunch of the dead. Cue battle for the fate of humanity.

How painful is this to watch? Let me count the ways: poor performances, poor dialogue, poor pacing. Not a single character is remotely likeable, so there’s no one to root for. And by the time they’re killed off, you’ve got such a ‘blah’ feeling about the movie as a whole, it’s hard to bring yourself to cheer. What makes it even more painful is that the director should have known how to make a halfway decent fright flick. THE LAUGHING DEAD was directed by horror writer and one-time Horror Writers Association president S.P. Somtow. So it’s not like this was directed by a sixteen year old who’d never crafted a story before. And the majority of actors aren’t professional…actors, that is. They’re writers, which makes for some interesting trivia (Tim Powers, Bruce Barlow, Gregory Frost, Wendy Webb, Ed Bryant and Forrest J. Ackerman all show their faces), but let’s face it: unless you’ve seen them around or at conventions, you’ll have no idea who’s who, especially the ones in zombie attire. Playing “spot the writer” isn’t as much fun when you wouldn’t recognize them in front of you.

There are a few things you can do when encountering a movie this painfully bad. You could block it from memory and pretend you never witnessed it. You could dedicate a small portion of your life warning others to stay as far away as possible. Or you can have a party with your other bad film fan friends and share your pain. And what better way than throwing an Endurance Party? You all gather around to watch the flick, and each person who groans, curses at the screen, or runs screaming from the room is eliminated. The last person holding in their pain wins.

Alcohol would definitely help make THE LAUGHING DEAD more enjoyable to watch. But, during an Endurance Party, that is the last thing you want to do. But what if your friends refuse to watch without some adult beverage refreshment? I recommend the Faketail. They’ll think they’re getting a good, strong drink, but they’ll be left sober enough to experience every painful frame:

THE FAKETAIL

drink

Ingredients:
Cherry Juice
Apple Juice
Gin

Directions:

Pour one part cherry juice and one part apple juice. Gently float one tablespoon of gin on top of the drink. The drink will smell like an alcoholic beverage, and for the first few sips, taste like one.

*****

I pondered making an authentic Aztec meal. After all, the movie is based on the Aztecs, right? Plantains were a staple in ancient Aztec cultures. Then I started thinking about how well-researched and historically correct the Aztec references are in THE LAUGHING DEAD, and adjusted my recipe to the movie’s level of authenticity. I present to you:

MEAT BANANA SPLITS (aka Stuffed Baked Plantains)
(Serves 3, adjust the recipe depending on how many people are in attendance.)

dinner

Ingredients:
3 green plantains
3 tbsps. Butter
1 ½ pounds various meats (I used 1/2lb taco meat, 1/2lb chicken sausage and 1/2lb pulled pork)
Salsa
Cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut a slit in each plantain, through the peel, about halfway through. Stuff 1 tablespoon butter into each slit. Bake for an hour, or until the plantains soften.

Peel the plantains. Half the plantains lengthwise, using the slit as a guide. Arrange on a plate with three scoops of meat. Place the cheese directly onto the meat and top with salsa. Add a vegetable or salad for a side if you feel the need to make it a somewhat rounded meal. Otherwise, enjoy!

*****

After enduring the entirety of THE LAUGHING DEAD, a reward is definitely in order. I leave it to you whether or not the ‘drop-outs’ at your party deserve cake. Not just any cake, but…

BLEEDING CAKE

dessert

Ingredients:
1 box lemon cake mix (plus ingredients as directed on the box)
1 jar cherry jam
1 package unflavored gelatin
1 tub vanilla frosting

Directions:

Bake the cake in a 13” x 9” pan, as directed on the package. Cool in pan for an hour. Meanwhile, melt the jam down over medium heat. When it just begins to bubble, dissolve the gelatin package into the jam. Heat and stir until completely dissolved.

Using the back of a wooden spoon, poke holes in the cake of varying deepness. Spread the melted jam over the top of the cake, making sure to fill the holes. Refrigerate for an hour or until set. Spread the frosting over the cake until you can no longer see the jam layer. Can be made up to two days in advance.

I’m not normally one to advocate putting your friends through pain. But, as many other bad flick fans can attest, there’s a certain thrill at finding one that’s even worse than any you’d ever experienced. And that is one thing I can give THE LAUGHING DEAD, and one thing that makes me sad. I think I might have truly found the worst of the worst, and it’s going to be a long haul trying to top this one. And, in a sick, masochistic way, I look forward to the challenge.

© Copyright 2013 by Jenny Orosel

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Bill’s Bizarre Bijou Visits SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (1972)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 1970s Movies, 2012, Adult Fairy Tales, Bad Acting, Based on a True Story, Bill's Bizarre Bijou, Campy Movies, Family Films, Fantasy, HOLIDAY CHEER, Just Plain Bad, Magical Movies with tags , , , , , , on December 20, 2012 by knifefighter

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou

William D. Carl

This week’s feature presentation:

SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (1972)

bbbsantaposter

 

Welcome to Bill’s Bizarre Bijou, where you’ll discover the strangest films ever made.  If there are alien women with too much eye-shadow and miniskirts, if papier-mâché monsters are involved, if your local drive-in insisted this be the last show in their dusk till dawn extravaganza, or if it’s just plain unclassifiable – then I’ve seen it and probably loved it.   Now, I’m here to share these little gems with you, so you too can stare in disbelief at your television with your mouth dangling open.  Trust me, with these flicks, you won’t believe your eyes.

The Christmas Season is well known for its holiday music and movies, but there is a dark side to the trend of luring kids into matinees to bear witness to forced holiday cheer.  For every MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947), there is a SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964).  For every IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), there’s a corresponding SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984).  Actually, there are probably more dreadful Christmas movies than good ones.  Somewhere far below the schlocky entertainment offered by the likes of serial-killer turned snowman JACK FROST (1997), the Mexican drugged-out inanities of SANTA CLAUS (1959), or the hell on earth that is JINGLE ALL THE WAY (1996), there is the cesspool entitled SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (1972/1970 – I’ll explain the date mix-up later).  I’ve watched hundreds of Christmas movies over the years, but this one is the true low point, lacking anything even closely resembling entertainment or Christmas cheer.  It is a gut-punch to all that is beautiful and holy.  It is the first Christmas movie made for children that seems designed to suck any happiness from every starry-eyed child in the world.

You think I am exaggerating?  Super glue your eyelids open and turn this baby on.

Behind the credits, kids dressed as elves in outfits made by the producer’s grandma sing an unintelligible song.  The only words I can make out are  “la-la-la-la-la.”  They pet toys, while the credits announce “Thumbelina Insert by B Mahon!”  One elf looks outside for Santa and spots stock nature footage of a herd of moose grazing in a summer field!  What season is this?  A female narrator who sounds like Truman Capote on downers informs us that Santa’s sleigh is stuck in the sand on a beach in Florida.  It was so hot, the reindeer have all gone away, and Santa sits in the sleigh, sweats a lot, and waves his hat in front of his face.  Sure enough, a too-skinny Santa sits in his sleigh looking around and perspiring, then sings a song through dubbing, “Woe is me…who will give me a helping hand…and get my sleigh out of the sand?”  Yep, that half inch of sand is really keeping him trapped and preventing lift-off.

Random kids are shown doing things like skipping rope, playing with dogs, wrestling like gay Greeks, and jumping off the garage roof wearing a parachute.  Then, Santa falls instantly asleep, as if his meds just kicked in.  The racially diverse group of children, resembling a Benetton ad from the late 1980s, hears an echoing Santa voice calling them and run to the sleigh.  Even Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer (and their pet raccoon on a string) steer their raft to the beach to a kazoo band playing Old Man River from the musical SHOW BOAT.

The kids rush off to find something to pull the sleigh from the half inch of sand, leaving Santa alone to sweat again for another couple of long minutes.  Santa, instead of being proactive, just sits in the sleigh bemoaning his predicament.  This guy gets around the world in one night delivering millions of toys?  I doubt he could get to the cupboard for the Doritos.

Santa and the kids strap a pig to the sleigh.

Santa and the kids strap a pig to the sleigh.

Eventually, the kids return with various animals to help pull the sleigh out of the sand.  First, a little girl brings a man in an ape suit, but the sleigh is stuck too tightly.  Then, two kids bring a mule, then a screaming pig, a terrified sheep, a brown cow, and a horse.  Then, Santa bitches for several more minutes about how he has to get out of the sand so he doesn’t disappoint the children all over the world, but he does nothing to actually escape!

The kids return, so Santa decides to tell the kids a story, and so begins Barry Mahon’s 1970, filmed at Pirate’s World Amusement Park film, THUMBELINA.  A hippie-chick with terrifying eyebrows wanders the amusement park while a whole new set of credits play again (is Santa relaying the credits to the kids in his story?).  Eventually the mini-skirted chick ends up in a room full of dioramas portraying the tale of Thumbelina, a girl no larger than a clothespin, all narrated by a disembodied voice over a PA system.  A single lonely woman goes to a witch to have a child and is rewarded with a freakishly miniscule daughter.   The tiny girl leaves her spinster-Mom’s home to get married to a horny frog.  She escapes, lives with a woman in a mole costume and eventually falls in love with a rich old mole.  They all resemble a relatively restrained furry convention.  And, yes, everyone sings a lot of dull songs on semi-professional sets.  To be honest, although THUMBELINA is pretty bad, it’s a typical kiddie matinee from the 1960s—no better or worse than most.  These things were churned out with ridiculously low budgets and actors from local amateur theater troupes all over the world.  Other examples of this odd sub-genre include THE MAGIC LAND OF MOTHER GOOSE, 1967 (directed by the Wizard of Gore himself, H.G. Lewis!), THE PRINCESS AND THE SWINEHERD, 1968, and LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND TOM THUMB VS. THE MONSTERS, 1965, which I would love to see!  So, if you remember after the hour of Thumbelina, yes, Santa is STILL telling this story to the children on the beach!

As bad as the Thumbelina segment is, it’s like CITIZEN KANE (1941) compared to the Santa segments . . . where we are again, watching Santa sweat while the kids watch him.  Nobody seems very motivated to get Santa back to the North Pole.  Oh, to return to the cut-rate flower power hippie musical from Pirate’s World.  The one directed by Barry Mahon, yes THAT Barry Mahon, who directed PAGAN ISLAND (1961), FANNY HILL MEETS DR. EROTICO (1969), A GOOD TIME WITH A BAD GIRL (1967), THE GIRL WITH THE MAGIC BOX (1965), and THE DIARY OF KNOCKERS MCCALLA (1969).  He was the obvious choice to helm a kid’s feature based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale!  It does, however, explain the strange erotic tension between Thumbelina and Mr. Digger, the mole.

Thumbelina meets a mole woman in the "movie within a movie" in the movie SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY.

Thumbelina meets a mole woman in the “movie within a movie” inside SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY.

Back to Santa in the sand. . .

The kids suddenly run away, as if learning Santa Claus was a sex offender…or an algebra teacher.  Santa strips off his coat and belt, and an antique fire truck (helpfully pushed by a visible production assistant) driven by a guy in a cheap white rabbit suit arrives, and all the kids are piled up in back.  It’s a vision of horror as the fire truck is shoved through Pirate’s World and down to the beach.  I’m starting to see why this film was made—it’s a 90 minute advertisement for a pathetic amusement park!  Yes, this could be the best WTF! moment ever in a children’s production.  And it goes on forever!  For.  Ev.  Er.  Santa exclaims, “Why my old friend the ice cream bunny!”  The hell-spawn rabbit, which had to terrify children everywhere, gives Santa a ride in his fire truck.  Then, Santa teleports the sleigh back to the North Pole.  What?  Why didn’t he just do that at the beginning instead of complaining for what seemed like days about being stranded?  Plus, why is this an ice cream bunny?  There isn’t a scoop of ice cream to be seen!

Full of padding (including an entire film from two years previous), SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY is easily the worst Christmas movie ever made.  From the terrible direction, the lousy acting and dubbing, the bad songs, and the freaky sexy vibe between tiny hippie chicks and earth-burrowing mammals, to the ridiculous ending and scary/evil rabbit suit, this is a movie that can honestly only be enjoyed under the influence of controlled substances or while RiffTrax pokes fun at it.  There has never been another movie like this one.  Thank God!

I give SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY one closed-down amusement park out of four.

The Santa image that haunts William Carl's nightmares.

The Santa image that haunts William Carl’s nightmares.

© Copyright 2012 by William D. Carl

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ALEX CROSS (2012)

Posted in 2012, Action Movies, Cop Movies, Crime Films, Detectives, John Harvey Reviews, Just Plain Bad, Murder!, Prequels with tags , , , , , , on October 23, 2012 by knifefighter

“Alex Cross” … It’s Utterly Unwatchable
Movie Review by John D. Harvey

Sigh …

Honestly, I like movies. I have in the past written positive movie reviews, though I wouldn’t blame you for thinking otherwise based on the skewering that I gave TAKEN II a couple of weeks ago, and now ALEX CROSS in the following paragraphs.

I’ll say this, though. As much as I disliked TAKEN II, it’s practically a masterpiece compared to ALEX CROSS. With that in mind, if you don’t feel like reading any further than this paragraph, then that’s fine. I won’t be hurt. Just because I lost 90 minutes of my life watching ALEX CROSS, it doesn’t mean you need to lose the next several minutes of your life reading about how much I hated it.

So anyway, ALEX CROSS attempts to reboot a neglected franchise based on thriller/mystery author James Patterson’s novels featuring the brilliant Detroit  police detective/psychologist, Alex Cross (now played by Tyler Perry). Previously, Morgan Freeman occupied this role in ALONG CAME A SPIDER (2001) and KISS THE GIRLS (1997). Directed by Rob Cohen (better known for his THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise films), ALEX CROSS is sort of origin story. But it’s also a police procedural, and a serial killer thriller, and a buddy cop movie, and it even tries its hand at a bit of comedy. Who cares? It is essentially a failure regardless of genre or marketing category.

This time, Cross tracks an artistically-inclined killer nicknamed Picasso (Matthew Fox), who is one of many dimensionless stock characters in this film. There’s also Cross’ loyal, wise-cracking partner, Thomas (Edward Burns); a slick but untrustworthy foreign businessman (Jean Reno); and an oafish police chief (John C. McGinley), who of course, at one point, dismisses Cross from the case at the most critical moment (because we’ve never seen *that* in a cop movie before).

There’s not much of a plot beyond that. Picasso kills someone, and then Alex Cross and his team are on the case, and then they track him down via unlikely, and not clever or original, clues. Honestly, most of what you’ll see in ALEX CROSS is a litany of tropes and clichés that you won’t see in a modern thriller unless it’s an over-the-top comedic spoof. This is not an over-the-top comedic spoof.

As far as the acting is concerned, most of the performances are phoned in, lackluster, and predictable. Tyler Perry’s take on Alex Cross is ham-fisted and incongruous.  Matthew Fox (who had better be happy that he still has LOST checks showing up in the mail) overacts the serial killer role with a twitchy, kooky, psycho-eyed intensity. I mean, this guy couldn’t wait in line at the deli without everyone knowing that he’s got bodies buried in his basement.

ALEX CROSS‘s action sequences are equally abysmal. The fight scenes are particularly annoying because there is so much “shaky cam” (to conceal talentless fight choreography) that it looks more like it’s the cameraman that’s getting beat up.

And finally, there’s the ending, which I suspect was written up on the back of a cocktail napkin at the end of three-day whiskey binge by someone with massive head trauma. It makes no sense. It’s rife with plot holes large enough to accommodate an aircraft carrier. It’s … just … dumb.

In conclusion, don’t see ALEX CROSS. It’s dreadful.

Rating: ZERO KNIVES.

ALEX CROSS
RUN TIME: 1hr 41min‎‎
RATING: PG-13‎‎
DIRECTOR: Rob Cohen
WRITERS: Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson
CAST: Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, and Ed Burns

– END –

© Copyright 2012 by John D. Harvey

John Harvey gives ALEX CROSS ~ zero knives

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Quick Cuts: ATTACK OF THE BOARD GAMES!!

Posted in 2012, Based on a Board Game, Fun Stuff!, Quick Cuts with tags , , on May 25, 2012 by knifefighter

QUICK CUTS:  BATTLESHIP AND ATTACK OF THE BOARD GAMES!
With Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, Garrett Cook, Daniel Keohane, Paul McMahon and Mark Onspaugh

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  First, an apology.  I know everyone and their grandmother are spouting their takes on the games-into-movies bit, since the new movie BATTLESHIP is being released this weekend with no apparent connection to the famous board game which shares its name.

That being said, remember, we’re Cinema Knife Fighters.  We’re guaranteed to come at you from angles not seen anywhere else.

So, ready for QUICK CUTS?

We asked our panel of Cinema Knife Fighters to choose another famous board game and then come up with a pitch/synopsis for a movie sharing the same name.  The catch is, like BATTLESHIP, it should have nothing to do with the game.

This is what our panel came up with:

*****

MARK ONSPAUGH:  The signals came from space – meaningless letters in a jumble – but

then, our top scientists decoded the message… S.C.R.A.B.B.L.E.!!!

Savage

Crab-like and

Repulsive

Alien

Beings

Barbecue the

Living on

Earth

Tonight, Terror gets a Triple-Word Score!!!

*****

GARRETT COOK:  OPERATION:  THE MOVIE: A man, a woman and her son are abducted by a mysterious lunatic and given shock collars. They are forced to extract a series of objects from dead clowns. If they fail or make a misstep in their surgeries, electric shocks are administered. Can these innocent people escape this madman’s clown torture dungeon or will the butterflies in their stomach lead to the worst malady of all: DEATH????

OPERATION!

 

*****

 PAUL MCMAHON:  I came up with three.

SCRABBLE

A terrorist virus is unleashed on the streets of America which causes hallucinations and violent behavior. Army scientist Belle Delarosa (Reese Witherspoon) discovers the virus is spread when victims see the capital letter “E.” Can she and the reporter ensconced with her (Nick Cage) remove the letter from existence in time? Don’t miss M. Night Shyamalan’s newest thriller!

ANTS IN THE PANTS

Seth Rogan stars as Donny Quixotic, an unemployed loser who inherits his dad’s popular “Pants Pocket Diner.” Being the owner gives him a chance with the hot hostess Aldonza (Jennifer Esposito), but puts him at odds with the kitchen boss, Sam Carras (Sean Ashmore). Donny’s increasingly desperate attempts to gain Aldonza’s affection are interrupted when swarms of mechanical ants stream out of the sink drains and begin to devour everyone in sight.

TWISTER

A disgruntled contortionist and magician gets tired of rude people and starts casting them into a magical blob-like world where they must live out their days with bones of jelly. A mixture of CGI animation and real-life action, written and directed by Zack Snyder!

*****

MICHAEL ARRUDA: Here’s mine

BATTLING TOPS – two Hooters’ waitresses fight over the same man in this raunchy comedy.

ROCK ‘EM SOCK ‘EM ROBOTS – a documentary of the presidential primary campaign.

LIFE – Six friends pile into a car and hit the road, carefree and full of possibilities, on a journey to see where life takes them.  Some go to college, others go into business, all of them remain unemployed.

*****

L.L. SOARES: And now it’s time for a special “Animals Attack” all-night grindhouse movie marathon, brought to you by Hasbro!

COOTIES

They start out living in your hair, but this mutant strain of head lice begins to grow out of control! No longer content with feeding off follicles, they begin to chew off entire human heads! WATCH as the disgusting beasts gobble up human brains and skeletons! SEE children fleeing their schools in abject horror. Will they be able to come up with bottles of RID big enough to handle these humungous parasites!!! Filmed in horrifying Cootie Color.

HUNGRY, HUNGRY HIPPOS

A new virus, created in a lab in deepest Africa, is accidentally released on the outside world. The nearby animals are affected, but none so much as the hippos, who suddenly become very aggressive, and acquire unquenchable appetites for human flesh! SEE what happens to a group of poachers out on an ivory expedition, as giant, unstoppable hippo jaws clamp down on them!! WATCH as unsuspecting tourists out on safari wriggle in agony as they’re gulped down by vicious hippopotami!!  HEAR the screams of those doomed to an unnatural death!

ANTS IN THE PANTS

A new sexually transmitted disease involves the transmission of vicious fire ants that burrow beneath the skin around the groin! As immoral teens have sex at sleepaway camps, the ants are spread from camper to camper with horrifying results. Soon, everyone is scratching themselves in the most embarrassing of places. SEE fleshy boils erupting with hordes of death-dealing ants! WATCH as camp counselors scream and flail their limbs in agony!!

BARREL OF MONKEYS

A crusty old sea captain opens a barrel of grog, but instead of ale, the barrel is full of killer monkeys who take over his ship and kill everyone on board! As the death ship travels across the sea, it attacks all other ships it comes into contact with, as the monkeys loop arms to create a simian bridge between their ship and their victims! The apes reproduce at an alarming rate, with super intelligence and a taste for human blood. SEE the ships arrive at ports, where dockworkers have no clue what horrors await them, as the monkeys take over the earth! Whatever you do…..DON’T OPEN THAT BARREL!

*****

DANIEL KEOHANE:  The scene: four red cars screeching around a turn, pursued relentlessly by two green vans. On the next turn, one van sideswipes a car which careens off the road, tumbles down a convenient grassy hill and comes to rest at the edge of a large precipice, rocking back and forth precariously. The driver slowly turns to climb into the back seat to see Arnold Schwarzenegger walking from the van. Arnold stares through the back window at the hapless driver and says, “Sorry…” before kicking the car over the edge.

Cue explosion, then the words

SORRY! 

explodes onto the screen.

“From the epic board game loved by generations. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hillary Swank, and Joe Pesci as the Yellow Player.”

Close up of Arnold’s face, removing his sunglasses. He smirks and says, “Apology accepted.”

This film has not yet been rated.

*****

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  And there you have it folks, our take on board games turned into movies.  That’s it for now.  On behalf of Mark Onspaugh, Garrett Cook, Paul McMahon, L.L. Soares and Daniel Keohane, I’m Michael Arruda.  Thanks for joining us!

Good night everybody!

—END—

© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, Mark Onspaugh, Garrett Cook, Paul McMahon and Daniel G. Keohane

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Pickin’ the Carcass: THE AWAKENING (2010)

Posted in 2011, Demons, Just Plain Bad, Michael Arruda Reviews, Pickin' the Carcass, Possessed By Demons, Supernatural with tags , , , , , , , on November 30, 2011 by knifefighter

PICKIN’ THE CARCASS:  THE AWAKENING (2010)
By Michael Arruda

 

THE AWAKENING (2010) was excruciatingly painful to review.

It was so bad I feel guilty giving it press within the pages of this site, but since I decided to watch it, and since it is available on streaming video for others to see, I’d best get the word out that this one’s not worth one second of your time.

A guy named Roy (Kevin Lowe) gets invited to a rave by a beautiful hot blonde.  Roy invites a group of his friends to tag along, and they agree.  Trouble is, the rave is held way, way out in the middle of nowhere.  But, heck, it’s a rave, and there’s a beautiful blonde, so these guys don’t care that it’s happening in the middle of the woods.

Roy and his buddies end up getting lost—of course— and they find themselves in a small town where the locals warn them about “strange goings on” in the area and advise them to stay away.  I think I saw this in DRACULA (1931).  Like all good horror movie travelers, they ignore this advice.  They do meet up with a young graduate student, Katie (Nancy McCrumb), who’s researching an Aztec god, and she’s in the area looking for relics pertaining to this god.  She joins the group on their way to the rave.  Why the hell, not?

It turns out that this Aztec god is some sort of a demon, which wakes up—hence the title—just in time to crash the rave and ruin everyone’s good time.  Obviously, Roy and friends are the last survivors, and the second half of the movie is all about their attempts to escape from the murderous demon.  So, if you’re still awake for the second half, it does get a tad better, but a tad better than horrid isn’t saying much.  Trust me, you don’t need to watch any of this.

There is so much wrong with THE AWAKENING, I don’t know where to begin.  I guess I’ll start at the beginning.  The tone of the beginning is all wrong.  It’s supposed to be light and funny, and Roy and his friends are supposed to be fun and goofy, but the humor just doesn’t cut it.  There’s also a very upbeat soundtrack with plenty of songs—more songs than dialogue, frankly—that seems out of place in a horror movie.

The writing isn’t sharp.  Brian Schaefer wrote the screenplay, and I can’t say that I was impressed.  I didn’t like the characters, mostly because they weren’t memorable and I didn’t care for them, and I didn’t like the story.  This movie should have been titled WHERE’S THE RAVE?  because the characters spend the first half of the movie trying to get to the rave, and in the second half they’re fleeing a demon who’s an Aztec god, which I found less than compelling.

We don’t even get to see the demon because he hides inside the bodies of his victims a la THE THING, but unlike THE THING or even INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS there’s no paranoia over who’s the monster because as soon as the demon enters his victim’s body he turns into a murderous machine, so you pretty much know which buddy of yours is the monster. He’s the one with the shotgun shooting everybody.

One thing I did like was when the demon switched from one host body to another, (and he did this simply by touching the person he wanted to enter) the person he exited didn’t automatically die.  That person would regain consciousness just long enough to become the first victim of the demon’s new host.  These were the only moments of the movie that resonated on an emotional level.

The rest of the movie was horrible.  The acting was bad, although to be honest I’ve certainly seen worse acting, but the folks in this movie didn’t do anything to distinguish themselves.  There wasn’t one single character in this movie I cared for.

The special effects were the worst I’ve seen in a movie all year.  There’s one shot where a guy gets shot in the face, and the split-second sequence is so god-awful fake looking I thought I was watching a Claymation scene.  This is the level we’re talking about here.

Director Vince Rotonda also had a very strange directing style, filling the movie with lots of quick cuts and brief scenes.  It just didn’t work.  It certainly had the look and feel of a comedy, especially something you’d see on television.  Trouble is, it wasn’t funny, and the horror aspects of this movie were so lame they were almost amateurish.  The folks who made this movie need to practice a bit more before releasing something else.

And the fact that we never see the demon doesn’t help.  It continually switches from one human body to another, so the menace in this one is just people possessed by the demon.  Not that exciting.

THE AWAKENING couldn’t keep an insomniac awake.  You know, there’s a dreadful mummy movie called THE AWAKENING (1980), starring Charlton Heston.  That one, a complete dud, is a masterpiece compared to this mess.  I’ve seen scarier TV commercials.

A yawn fest from start to finish, THE AWAKENING is easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year.  Calling it THE SLEEPING would have been more apt.

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda

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Friday Night Knife Fights: TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM – Part 2

Posted in 2011, Friday Night Knife Fights, Garbage, Psycho killer, Sequels, Slasher Movies, Vampires, Werewolves with tags , , , , , , , on May 27, 2011 by knifefighter

FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS- Free-for-all Cage Match
TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM:   Which one of the three is the WORST series? Part 2 (Conclusion)
By Michael Arruda and L.L.  Soares

 …..Previously, on FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS:

 (the camera buzzes as the film rewinds, then starts again)

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  Moving onto our next question, if you were allowed to improve one of these franchises, which one would you like to improve, and just how would you improve it?

L.L. SOARES:  The way to improve these movies is to simply stop making them.

(A gargantuan cheer erupts from the audience, and suddenly LS is receiving a standing ovation.  Even MA stands to give him a hand.)

MA:  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

LS:  I know.

(film fades to black)

And now the conclusion to FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS:

(The camera starts again. The audience’s ovation finally dies down)

MA:  Welcome back to FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS.  L.L. and I are continuing our discussion of TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM, attempting to determine which one of the three is the worst series overall.

Now, LL, you were just saying that the best way to improve these movies would be to simply stop making them.

LS:  Why continue making crap?  End these things and put us out of our misery.

At least the SAW franchise claims to have done this. A new SAW movie always came out around Halloween time for years, but that’s gladly over with. Instead, we’ll get a new PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movie every October.

How about something new and different, instead of retreads?

MA:  Unfortunately, that’s the Hollywood formula.  As long as the retreads keep making money, Hollywood will keep churning them out.

I definitely agree with you on this point, that the best way to improve these franchises is to stop making them. However, if I had to choose one I’d want to improve, I’d choose SCREAM.  I’m not interested in touching either TWILIGHT or SAW.

To improve the SCREAM movies I would tweak the SCREAM formula by having the hip in-the-know-about-horror movies banter spoken only by characters whose lives aren’t in danger.  As soon as these characters are threatened by the masked menace, I’d have them react realistically, meaning they’d be scared to death, and they certainly wouldn’t be making wisecracks about horror movies.  That’s how it is now, and it kills any authenticity these stories might otherwise have.

And that’s all I have to say on the subject.  I’m not really all that interested in improving these series.  I’d prefer they’d just go away.


We’re getting closer to our goal of choosing the worst of the three.  Of the three series, which one has been the most painful to sit through?

I’ll go first this time and answer my own question, and I’m going to cheat a little bit here, as I’m choosing two.  See, for me it’s a tie between TWILIGHT and SAW.

By far, TWILIGHT has been the most boring series to sit through.  Never in my life have I experienced boredom at the movie like this.  It’s awful!  I would pay someone to stop making these films, they’re so dreadfully slow and painful.

But as horribly boring as TWILIGHT has been, SAW has been just as painful, but for different reasons.  For me, it comes down to the subject matter of these movies.  I just don’t enjoy horror tales built around torture.  Seeing people suffer agonizing tortures just because, and the films really don’t justify Jigsaw’s actions, is not my thing.  How can you justify Jigsaw’s actions anyway?  Even if he had just cause, what he does is indefensible.   Jigsaw and his antics are about as fun as the flu, and as realistic as DYLAN DOG.

LS: See, this is where I have a problem with your argument, because, as far as I know, you haven’t seen that many of the SAW movies. I know I’ve had to review them alone for years. I’m guessing you only saw one or two of them. So it’s not really fair that you judge all of them if you haven’t seen them. On the other hand, I’ve had to sit through all of the movies we’re talking about.

MA:  Not fair?  What, are we on the playground?  You’re right.  I haven’t seen as many of the SAW movies as you have, but I’ve seen enough.  Are you telling me that in the later films things get better?

LS:  I’m saying that Jigsaw does have a justification for his actions—however lame—and that is he’s trying to put bad people in a life-and-death situation in order to wake them up and make them change their lives.

MA:  What a thoughtful guy!  And I already knew this, as this plot point was in the films I saw.

LS:  I admit, this gets tired fast, but it is how he justifies his actions. I don’t think it’s any more stupid than every character in a SCREAM movie suddenly being an expert movie critic or Taylor Lautner taking off his shirt every five minutes in the TWILIGHT movies.

To be honest, the SAW movies just don’t bother me as much as the other two series do. I find the movies brainless, but entertaining. And they don’t repulse me like the SCREAM or the TWILIGHT movies do. The SAW movies may not be great, but I don’t mind them that much.

MA: At least SCREAM, for all its faults, has a set of recurring characters I enjoy watching, and the first movie had a good sense of humor and some decent thrills.  I can’t find anything redeeming about TWILIGHT or SAW.

LS: Who needs “redeeming?” I just want to be entertained. The SAW movies are the only ones that even come close to doing this. So they’re the lesser of three evils. And while you enjoy watching the recurring characters in the SCREAM movies, I despise them all and wish they’d just die already. So not everyone shares your affection for those dumb-ass characters.

As for me, I’d say the worst of the bunch is a draw too, but between two different movies.

The SCREAM movies because they irritate the hell out of me, and the TWILIGHT movies because it’s torture trying to stay awake while watching them.

MA:  And now for the big question, the final question of the night, when we decide the winner— or loser— of tonight’s competition:  which one of the three- TWILIGHT, SAW, or SCREAM— is the worst series?

LS:  The worst of the three is a tie between the SCREAM movies and the TWILIGHT movies.

MA:  There seems to be a lot of ties tonight.

LS:  They are bad in different ways. The SCREAM movies feature annoying, self-aware dialogue that doesn’t sound natural and thinks it is much cleverer than it is. Also, with each sequel they become more and more like the lame sequels they make fun of.

MA:  True.

LS:  The TWILIGHT movies, in comparison, don’t even try to be scary, because they’re not horror movies at all. They’re romance films playing dress up. And they’re abysmally boring.

MA:  Also true.

Okay, my turn to pick the worst.

I’m going to go with the SAW movies as the worst of the three because they have so little to offer.  Mindless violence, gruesome pointless tortures, and no story or decent characters whatsoever, the SAW films rely solely on the gross-out for their horror points, and this just doesn’t cut it—heh, heh— for me.

As much as I abhor the TWILIGHT movies, they don’t turn me off like the SAW movies.  They just put me to sleep.

With SCREAM – I actually like the characters, and the story in the first one was a good one.  Even though they’ve gone downhill since the first movie, the SCREAM films are still not as twisted and sick as SAW or as boring and dull as TWILIGHT.

So, my pick as the worst of the three is SAW.

It looks like then, since I picked SAW, and you picked both TWILIGHT and SCREAM, that we have a three way tie.

LS:  Let’s be honest here. They all suck.

MA:  I guess that’s apropos, that they each received a vote for The Worst Series.

With just the two of us here tonight, it would have been difficult to pick just one worst series anyway, unless that rarity of rarities occurred, and you and I agreed, and we both chose the same movie.  Maybe we’ll do this again sometime with some guest panelists.

LS:  I hope not.  I really don’t want to talk about these movies again anytime soon.

MA:  I agree with you there.  Still, there may have to be a rematch at some point.

So, hopefully nobody out there is disappointed, but tonight’s results reveal a stalemate.  Which one is the worst series?  It’s a draw, as TWILIGHT, SAW, and SCREAM all received one vote, meaning, they’re all horrible!

There are no winners here tonight, only losers.

LS: I guess I need to get off the stage then.

MA:  My prayers have finally been answered.

Well that wraps things up from here.  This has been FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS.  I’m Michael Arruda, and on behalf of L.L. Soares and myself, thanks for joining us tonight.  Good night, everybody!

—-END—

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Friday Night Knife Fights: TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM! – Part 1

Posted in 2011, Friday Night Knife Fights, Garbage, Horror, Psychos, Sequels, Serial Killer flicks, Slasher Movies, Vampires, Wes Craven Movies with tags , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2011 by knifefighter

FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS- Free-for-all Cage Match
TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM:   Which one of the three is the WORST series?
By Michael Arruda and L.L.  Soares

(BELL RINGS)

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  Welcome to another edition of FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS.  Tonight we have a special Free-for-all Cage Match.

L.L. SOARES:  You mean we get to be in a cage, and I get to clobber you to a pulp?

MA:  No, it means rather than having two subjects battling it out, tonight we have three.  TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM:  Which one of the three is the WORST series?

LS:  Damn!

MA: What? You don’t like this topic?

LS:  No.  I just wanted to bash your brains in.

MA:  Oh well.   You’ll just have to settle for trying to do it in the figurative sense, although be prepared to have your figurative brains spread all over this arena.  (smiles)

LS:  This means war.

MA:  Then, let’s have at it.  TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM.   Which one of these series is the absolute worst?

(LS hands MA a club, and he’s holding a large pick-axe.)

MA:  What are we doing with these?

LS:  I just have to do this to get this out of my system.  Feel free to join me.  (Dumps a heap of film canisters at their feet, and he begins to smash them to smithereens with his pick-axe.)

MA:  Are those what I think they are?

LS:  Yep.  TWILIGHT, SCREAM, and SAW.

MA:  I think I will join you.  (They smash the film canisters into tiny bits and pieces.)  That felt good.

LS:  Too bad we have to talk about these clunkers now.  Can’t we just tell people the films stink and go home?

MA: No, we have a bout to decide.  We have to determine which one of these three series is the worst.  To that end, here’s the first question for tonight.

Which one of these series is doing more harm to the horror film industry right now?

LS:  All three franchises are guilty of putting out crappy product that makes the genre looks lame. But I don’t think the SCREAM movies are important enough to have much bearing anymore, and the SAW movies are supposedly finished.

MA:  I hope so!

LS:  The TWILIGHT movies don’t really count, because they have their own niche audience that has nothing to do with horror fans.

MA:  You can say that again.  I always thought TWILIGHT fans were young teenage girls, but at least in my neck of the woods—.

LS:  And you mean that literally, because you do live in the woods!

MA:  I don’t live in the woods!  Sure, I live in a rural community, but it’s not the woods!  Anyway, as I was saying, when I’ve seen these movies, the theaters have been packed with adult women, many of them middle-aged, and—even stranger— adult couples, as if these movies are good date movies.  Very strange that the teen girls have been outnumbered.

I don’t think any of these movies are truly doing harm to the horror film industry, either.  I don’t give these films that much credit or power.

I think SAW gives horror a bad name because it’s the kind of movie that people who aren’t horror fans point to when they complain about all that’s wrong with horror, and in this case, I’d have to agree with them.  I know a lot of horror people who also think the SAW movies are pretty bad.

TWILIGHT,  I think , is mostly laughable. The true fans like these movies because they love the books, but the rest of us see them for what they are: pretty boring love stories masquerading as vampire tales.  They are the most boring films I’ve seen in many years.

I know in the past you’ve pointed to SCREAM as a franchise that has hurt horror, saying that SCREAM led to a bunch of weak horror movies that had teens for characters and were played for laughs, and you’re not the only person I’ve heard say this.  I just don’t think SCREAM was ever that influential, and as far as having teens for characters, horror movies have had teens as main characters going back to films like HALLOWEEN (1978) and way, way back to the 1950s with films like I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957) and I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957).

But you’re right about there not being a whole lot of good horror movies during SCREAM’s heyday, but I think this is more a coincidence than a result of SCREAM’s influence.

LS: Well, I guess you’re entitled to your opinion. Even if it’s wrong.

MA:  So, of these three series, which one do you think is the best?

LS:  SAW is better than the other two because at least it tries to be interesting in creating different, elaborate ways to kill people.

MA:  And I completely disagree!

LS:  So what? You already had your say.

That said, the SAW movies are repetitious and predictable as well. Even though Jigsaw is dead, his disciples keep things going (and with flashbacks, it’s like Jigsaw never left). So it’s pretty much the same thing every movie. Basically, the SAW movies are just as bad in their own way— except they don’t annoy me as much as the SCREAM or the TWILIGHT movies.

MA:  If I had to pick one I think is better than the others, I’d go with SCREAM.

(LS screams)

MA:  SCREAM is better than the other two because I liked the first SCREAM movie better than any of the movies in the other two series.  I actually liked the first SCREAM a lot.  I thought it was clever, funny, and scary.  The series just gradually went downhill from there

I didn’t like any of the SAW movies, and it goes without saying, I didn’t like any of the TWILIGHT movies either.

Moving onto our next question, if you were allowed to improve one of these franchise, which one would you like to improve, and just how would you improve it?

LS:  The way to improve these movies is to simply stop making them.

(A gargantuan cheer erupts from the audience, and suddenly LS is receiving a standing ovation.  Even MA stands to give him a hand.)

MA:  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

LS: Thank you, thank you.

(Audience continues to cheer as camera pans away.)

-–END PART 1—-

COMING NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT:  THE CONCLUSION OF FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS- Free-for-all Cage Match
TWILIGHT vs. SAW vs. SCREAM:   Which one of the three is the WORST series?

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QUICK CUTS – Worst Superhero Movies

Posted in 2011, Quick Cuts, Superheroes with tags , , , , , on May 13, 2011 by knifefighter

QUICK CUTS:  Worst Superhero Movies
With Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, and Daniel Keohane

With the release of THOR, the latest Marvel superhero movie, we asked ourselves: What’s our least favorite superhero movies? 

Here are our answers:

Daniel Keohane

SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) was one of my least favorite - too much of the same, I mean how many times can you have MJ hanging in the air from something at the climax?

Also, GHOST RIDER (2007)  - one of my favorite comics as a teenager- was also awful.  The story (and unfortunately the acting) were so stilted that any cool effects in the film just couldn’t make up for it.

 ****

Michael Arruda:

 My top 3 least favorite superhero movies are:

  1. DAREDEVIL (2003)
  2. HULK (2003)
  3. BATMAN FOREVER (1995)

****

L.L. Soares:

My first thoughts were:

DAREDEVIL (2003), starring Ben Affleck was pretty damn awful. At the time it came out, I tried to apologize for it and cut it some slack, but on subsequent viewings (or partial viewings, because I couldn’t sit through the whole thing again), it’s just plain horrible. Affleck is horribly miscast, as are most of the players. The spinoff of ELEKTRA (2005) with Jennifer Garner was pretty much unwatchable as well. They should never let these two near a comic book movie again.

The saddest part is that Daredevil was once one of the coolest characters in comics (mostly when Frank Miller wrote and drew the comic), and the movie pretty much just turned him into a joke. I can only hope someday someone does it again, and does it right.

..But then I remembered those awful Joel Schumacher BATMAN movies, which were some of the worst movies ever made. I’m talking about the twin terrors that are BATMAN FOREVER (1995) and BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997). Complete dreck.

And yeah, SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) is pretty horrible. I never liked whiny Peter Parker all that much anyway, but at least in the second one, he had a terrific villain in Doc Ock. The third one should have been just as good. I mean, it had two great villains in it – The Sandman and Venom – and both were completely squandered. Venom especially should have made a big impact on the big screen and he just –fizzled. Totally lame-ass movie, including Peter Parker dancing down the street like some extra from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL (2006).

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ARE YOU SCARED 2

Posted in 2011, Garbage, LL Soares Reviews, Psycho killer, Sequels, Serial Killer flicks with tags , , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2011 by knifefighter

ARE YOU SCARED 2 (2009)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares


If you read this week’s Cinema Knife Fight column, where Michael Arruda and I reviewed the movie ARE YOU SCARED? (2006), you might think things can’t get much worse than that one.

You’d be wrong.

Despite all its flaws, and the fact that it was a pretty blatant rip-off of the SAW movies, the first ARE YOU SCARED? at least had a coherent plot, and you could tell what was happening throughout. In other words, it made sense, even if it was a bad movie.

ARE YOU SCARED 2 doesn’t even attempt to tell a coherent story.

First off, I don’t even know why this one is billed as a sequel. It has absolutely nothing to do with the first movie. Even though the villain of the first one, Shadow Man (Brent Fidler) survived at the end of the first movie (sorry to spoil that for you, folks!) and could easily have continued his story in this one.

Instead, ARE YOU SCARED 2 starts off showing us a group of fun-loving idiots who go around digging up hidden suitcases all over the place. They’re professional scavenger hunters and the group we’re watching, “Team DNA,” is one of the best (or so we’re told). They’re made up of four friends: Dallas (Tristan Wright), Andrew (Chad Guerrero), Taryn (Andrea Monier) and Reese (Kathy Gardiner). They check the Internet each day for new challenges, and are given coordinates by strangers to the next hidden item. The “prizes” can be anywhere – we first see them navigating through a junkyard to find a cache in the trunk of a rusty old car. And they film their exploits and post them on their site, where they actually have a following (!). The girls even do “sexy chat’ on the site.

So you think, “Okay. This new movie has nothing to do with the first one – which was bad anyway – so all we can go is up, right?  The fact that this movie is a complete departure from the first one’s plot is a good thing, right?”

Wrong.

This time, we see another guy in an isolated room watching a bunch of computer monitors. This time it’s not Shadow Man, though. This time it’s CANDYMAN (1992)! Yes, Tony Todd himself appears in this movie for some bizarre reason (Can’t he get better roles than this?). He follows these morons’ scavenger hunts online, and decides he wants to be in on the fun. So he posts the coordinates to his spooky old house online (the scavenger hunters have no idea who posts each hunt – it could be anyone). Team DNA decides to accept the challenge and track down the coordinates to the house and get inside.

From here, the movie just plunges into complete sewerage.

The kids find the hidden suitcase pretty fast in one of the upstairs rooms. But it has a severed arm handcuffed to it. They assume the arm is fake and find a ton of money inside the suitcase. So they’ve hit the jackpot, right? Not so fast. Sleeping gas fills the room and knocks them out. And when they wake up, they’re part of a brand new game. This time, instead of a scavenger hunt, it’s hide and seek.

It turns out they’re not alone in the house. Also hiding inside are two nutjobs (Mark Lowry and Dallas Montgomery). One talks constantly in a Southern accent and always seems to be on the verge of crying. The other one is a hulking Leatherface wannabe in a skull mask. Tony Todd is their “boss” (in the credits, he is just called “Controller”), and tells them to hunt the kids down and kill them. All the while, Todd is filming the goings-on for his own internet reality show – which caters to the underground snuff film crowd.

The psychos hunt the kids. The kids wander around the house with a GPS unit that Todd has provided for them, trying to get out and avoid the killers. And Todd watches and films everything that goes on in the house, and in the surrounding woods, with surveillance cameras that are posted everywhere.

Reese, who’s actually very pretty, gets captured first and tortured by Southern Guy, while Skullface tracks down the rest of them. There are a lot of close calls, violent confrontations, and twists. Some of the kids are driven to tap into their dark sides. But it all culminates in utter stupidity.

First off, I have absolutely no clue why Tony Todd is in this movie. Technically, he runs a snuff site and wants to make money off the footage. But why is Tony Todd the ACTOR in this one? It appears as if most of his scenes were filmed separately (until one of the kids finally find him towards the end), and amount to him sitting in a chair, watching computer screens and talking to himself. That is, when he’s not spouting soliloquys to his pet turtle, Timothy. Most of his scenes seem completely incoherent. Sure, he’s still got one of the best voices in the business, and could make anything sound great, but the dialogue he’s forced to expound here is just ludicrous. It’s like someone on an acid trip wrote down a bunch of gibberish and then gave it to Tony to say in his scenes alone.

The psychos could be interesting, but they’re not. Southern Guy just pretty much tries to imitate Edwin Neal’s performance of Chop Top from the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974), talking in a strained voice and making all kinds of goofy faces. First he does something horrible and then he begs his victim to forgive him. Then he does something else sadistic. I have to admit, it’s more of an effort than this movie deserves, but not enough is done with this character. Skullface has a nice spooky presence but most of his scenes just involve him breaking doors in and crashing through walls. Nothing all that scary. It would have been nice if the insane characters had a bit more of a backstory or a smidgen more character development. Who are these people? How did Tony Todd find them? I guess it really doesn’t matter, after all.

The kids, the main characters — the ones we’re supposed to identify with — are completely annoying. You don’t once think “I hope these kids live.” They’re just idiots. Reese, while pretty enough, is incredibly whiny and you’re glad when she’s captured. But her friends don’t even seem to care. At one point they have a chance to get away, but they go back. Not because they want to save Reese (hell, they don’t even acknowledge she may be in trouble), but because they want revenge on the person who did this to them. Poor Reese! It makes sense that we don’t care about her, but you think her friends would!

Aside from the fact that the kids are horrible actors, that the dialogue throughout is dumb, that the psychos just aren’t scary enough, that Tony Todd’s scenes force him to say nonsense (in a very cool voice), and the production values aren’t very good (this isn’t filmed anywhere near as well or atmospheric as the first one, and instead opts for a more “reality TV” look that is just lame). Aside from all that, we don’t even get to really see most of the kill scenes! A lot of the time, I had no idea what was going on. Someone would be struggling with a psycho or getting tortured, and you’d see their face, but the real damage is done off-screen and you have NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THEM. I found this completely annoying and stupid. No matter how bad the first movie was, it at least took the time to show you a drill boring through someone’s forehead or an axe chopping someone’s head off. But in ARE YOU SCARED 2, most of the gore happens off-camera and we don’t even get to enjoy it!

Andy Hurst, who directed the first ARE YOU SCARED? isn’t even around for this one. Sure, we pointed out he did an awful job, but compared to ARE YOU SCARED 2, the first one was a work of genius! In the second movie, the culprits are John Lands and Russell Appling, who both wrote and directed the movie. I only mention them, because frankly, we should know who turned out a movie this bad, and perpetrated this crime against cinema.

By the end, I realized I’d just completely wasted 94 minutes of my life. Of course, I should have known better. The first movie was bad enough. You’d think I would avoid the second one like the plague. But I was curious to see just how bad Part 2 was. And I wanted to see what the great Tony Todd had to do with the storyline. Todd is the one I feel worst for – the guy is a talented actor and deserves a lot better than this crap.  Won’t someone making a good movie hire this guy for Chrissakes? And not just for a cameo like in HATCHET (2006)!

So no, when I was watching ARE YOU SCARED 2, I was NOT scared. Not for a second. But I was annoyed and sad by the time the credits rolled. Because I realized I was dumb enough to sit through this one.

As for a rating — how many knives I give this one — let’s just skip it this time. To talk about giving this one a rating is a joke. I can’t believe I watched this one right to the end.

-END-

© Copyright 2011 by L.L. Soares

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ARE YOU SCARED?

Posted in 2011, Cinema Knife Fights, DVD Review, Garbage, Psychos with tags , , , , , , , on January 24, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: ARE YOU SCARED? (2006)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares


FADE IN

(The Scene: The interior of an old warehouse. As MICHAEL ARRUDA and LL SOARES stand in front of a filthy metal wall, a projector suddenly plays a film clip on it)

LS: Hey, that’s me!

VIDEO IMAGE OF LL: Yeah, I’d love to be on this show. I could use the cash. Heaven knows I’m not going to get rich writing Cinema Knife Fight. As for what scares me? Having to sit through really awful movies.

MA: You must be pretty scared, then.

LS: Whatever do you mean?

MA: We just sat through the movie ARE YOU SCARED? Can’t get much more awful than that.

LS: Well, um, it wasn’t THAT awful.

MA: Yeah, sure. Then why don’t you start our review then?

LS: Do I have to?

(MA nods his head)

LS: Okay. Since there was nothing for us to review this weekend at the theater, we decided to review a DVD. Instead, we ended up checking out OnDemand movies on our cable system, and drifted over to FEARNET, which happened to be showing this particular film, called ARE YOU SCARED?

MA:  I actually watched it streaming through Netflix, which is another great way to get movies these days.

LS:  I’d heard a little bit of buzz about this movie – it even spawned a sequel – and thought it might be a good one to review. But I could have been wrong about that.

MA: I’d say so.

LS: ARE YOU SCARED? bears a very strong resemblance to another movie franchise. That would be the SAW films.

MA: Ya think?  When this one started, I thought it was another SAW sequel.

LS: Point taken. This one’s a blatant rip-off that tries to do a clever variation on the theme. But it’s not all that clever.

You see, in this movie, the victims think they’re part of a new TV show called, ARE YOU SCARED? It’s kind of a cross between that TV show FEAR FACTOR and the SAW films. People send in their videos saying why they should be on the show, and what scares them. Then they’re filmed facing their fears head on, in a gross, abandoned warehouse. These scenes involve stuff like power drills and shotgun blasts to the chest.

Where the SAW movies had this pretense of “teaching people a lesson,” things are a little different in ARE YOU SCARED? Because in the SAW movies, there’s always the chance, however slim, that the victims might be able to survive their torture. They have a fighting chance. But in ARE YOU SCARED? there really isn’t a chance anyone is going to win. They’re all pretty much screwed from the get go.

MA:  That’s kinda how I felt watching this one.

LS:  Six kids wake up to find themselves trapped in a warehouse. They’re told they’re on the show, and surveillance cameras are everywhere. But the only viewer is a mysterious “Shadow Man” (as he’s called in the credits, played by Brent Fidler) who sits in a control room with a dozen very old computer monitors (these look like the first home computers ever made – they are ancient!) watching as each of his victims try to “beat” their phobias.

Each person is shown the video they sent to the show, their audition tape, and then they undergo a creepy torture that incorporates their individual fears.

The acting is pretty awful all around. In fact the acting and the production values made me think an awful lot of a bad TV show, or one of those “original movies” made by the SyFy channel. Especially bad are two cops who are trying to track this killer down, Detective Jay Bowman (Eric Francis) and FBI Agent Christine Robinson (Jennifer Cozza). In fact, Eric Francis might just win the prize as the worst actor in this movie.

MA:  Yep!  He was the worst.

LS:  As for the Shadow Man, he doesn’t send any puppets in to do his dirty work, like that pesky Jigsaw from the SAW movies, but he does like to watch everyone on video screens and likes to talk to his victims in a spooky voice.

DEEP SPOOKY VOICE:  This movie sucks.  Don’t bother.

LS:  What the—?  (turns to see MA, who is speaking through a voice-changing device)  Hey! Cut that out.

MA:  Sorry.

LS: By the end, we find out that the Shadow Man has a personal vendetta against one of the victims, and that is the main motive behind all of this, but it doesn’t explain why everyone else had to die. Then again, these kids are so stupid and annoying, that’s probably reason enough.

MA:  Yep, I agree one hundred percent.  I thought the explanation at the end was stupid and pointless.  If you don’t tack that ending on, at least the Shadow Man would have been a mystery, even though he still would have been ridiculously underdeveloped as a character.

LS:  I actually kind of liked Brent Fidler as the Shadow Man. Half his face is disfigured and my favorite scenes are of him sitting in front of his ancient computer monitors, watching horrible things happening to people, and he’s laughing out loud in his chair. For some reason, that was pretty funny.

MA:  Maybe because the rest of the movie was so awful!  I didn’t like the Shadow Man.  Sure, his scarred face was a little creepy, but when you come right down to it, he’s boring.  Take away that stupid creepy voice, and all you have is an old man with a scarred face watching computer monitors.

LS: He’s not that old!

MA: You don’t even get the PHANTASM/Angus Scrimm factor, as he hardly says a threatening word.  Ah, the Tall Man.  Where are you  now?

TALL MAN:  I’m right here behind you.  Come here, boy!

MA:  Yikes!  He still gives me the creeps.

TALL MAN:  I said, come here!

MA:  You’re talking to me?  Are you talking to me?

LS:  Scram, shorty.  Can’t you see we’re reviewing a movie, here?

TALL MAN:  I can’t see anything.  I dropped my glasses.  Why do you think I’m asking to come here for?

MA:  I don’t know.  I thought— well, if you need help finding your glasses, that’s another story entirely. (approaches TALL MAN.  Suddenly there’s a loud CRUNCH! sound.)  Oops.  Were these your glasses?  (holds up a crushed pair of eyeglasses.)

TALL MAN (growls):  Why, you—!  Kids today!  (exits)

LS:  Speaking of kids, none of the kids in the movie is great, and they’re all pretty forgettable. Soren Bowie plays Dylan, an annoying skateboarder and Althea Kutscher plays a girl named Kelly. They probably stand out the most, even though they’re not much better than the rest.

MA:  I agree.  (in background TALL MAN blindly walks into a wall, before stumbling out a doorway.)  I actually didn’t think the acting was all that bad, except for the people playing the two cops.

LS:  Even though this movie is a rip-off of another film and pretty laughable, I have to admit I found ARE YOU SCARED? to be entertaining at least. You’ll find yourself laughing at this movie more than anything, and you certainly won’t be scared.

MA: Entertaining?  ARE YOU SCARED? was about as entertaining as a drill to the forehead!

LS (turning on a large power drill):  That can be arranged!

MA: If I ever have to watch the sequel, I might take you up on that!

ARE YOU SCARED? was a complete waste of time.  I didn’t like this movie at all.  You hit the nail on the head.  It’s a rip-off of the SAW movies, a franchise I think is horrible.  So, if you’re like me, and you don’t like the SAW movies, you’re not going to like ARE YOU SCARED? It doesn’t offer anything different or better than the SAW movies.

I was hoping that this one would be creative.  I like the TV show SCARE TACTICS, where people are scared CANDID CAMERA-style (anyone out there remember that old gem?) and the show is actually pretty funny.  Not that I was expecting ARE YOU SCARED? to be funny, but I hoped that the threatening situations the characters found themselves in might be variations of the situations found on SCARE TACTICS.

This was not the case—not in the least.  The only situations the characters found themselves in were torture situations.  This story provided one scene of torture after another, interspersed with incredibly awful scenes of two bad actors playing cops.  Oh, this is a lot of fun!  ARE YOU SCARED? was a complete waste of 90 minutes for me.

LS: It was only 84 minutes.

MA: Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Spock.

It doesn’t even provide a good villain.  The Shadow Man is about as compelling as a real shadow and about just as scary!  Heck, even a cardboard cutout of Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man is scarier than the Shadow Man!

I also thought the ending was stupid and unnecessary.  I think it’s about time movies stop giving us revelations about secret family members.  “I AM your father!”  “She’s his sister!”  “The killer’s his mother!”  “It’s the baby!”  “It’s the dirty uncle!”

Well, that last one I haven’t seen, but you know what I mean.  Can’t villains/killers just be evil for the sake of being evil?  Or maybe they just don’t like people?  Or perhaps they suffered from a bad childhood?  But, stop with the chasing down of a relative bit already! Give us a break for a while, will you?

I give ARE YOU SCARED? one knife, and I only give it one knife because other than the two actors playing the cops, I didn’t find the acting all that bad, and the direction by Andy Hurst was pretty good, in that the film looked good.  But I don’t recommend this stinker at all.

LS: I guess I give it one knife, too. I’m surprised they got away with making a movie that is such an obvious SAW knock-off. But it’s still better than BEHIND THE WALL, your choice the last time we reviewed a movie off cable. Remember the one about the ghost in a lighthouse? That one was almost unwatchable. But don’t get the idea I’m recommending this movie at all, because I’m not. It’s pretty bad.

MA:  I enjoyed BEHIND THE WALL better.  I’d rather watch a lame ghost story movie than a lame torture movie.

(A room down the hall lights up)

SPOOKY VOICE: Come on, go into the room. I have a game for you.

LS (to MA): Didn’t I tell you to quit using that voice changer device?

MA:  It wasn’t me!

SPOOKY VOICE:  I’m the real deal!  Now go into the room!

LS: Screw that, I’m going home. I’ve already spent too much time here already.

MA: Me, too.

SPOOKY VOICE: Aw c’mon. Please? Pretty please?

MA:  Pretty please?  What kind of a spooky voice are you?  See ya, pal!

(LS and MA leave out of the front door)

SPOOKY VOICE (Pounding furiously on the wall): PLEASE!  PLEASE!  PLEASE!

FADE OUT

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gives ARE YOU SCARED? - 1 knife

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LL Soares gives ARE YOU SCARED? - 1 knife


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