Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

Why do I do this to myself?  Sure, I have a healthy interest in movies that are so bad they're good (I call them Lefty Gold), but sometimes I knowingly just put my mind in harm's way.  Case in point: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. I had heard that the movie was supposed to be bad, but when I found out that it had a 0% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I was shocked; even Battlefield Earth earned a 2% "rotten" rating.  Zero percent is virtually unheard of.  Maybe I just had to see it to believe it, or maybe I'm just a sucker for pain, but I chose to dive into B:EvS all by my lonesome.

If you are fortunate enough to have avoided this movie so far, here's the trailer to give you an idea of what I was working with:

This is one of those movies where the less you pay attention to the plot, the faster the nosebleeds will stop.  For reasons that are left unexplained for a while, Sever (Lucy Liu) takes it upon herself to kidnap the son of Robert Gant (Gregg Henry), the director of the DIA (which is apparently a real government agency).  As the son of a prominent military intelligence man, the kid was pretty well-guarded.  Not that it matters to Sever; she just waltzes right in and pulls some some serious Keanu Matrix shit, and suddenly, the guards are all down.  And by "Matrix shit," I mean the sequels.  Basically, she wore sunglasses at night and a long leather (hooded) trench coat while she beat up some guys who treated her like she was the damn bogeyman and not just a moderately athletic actress. 

Because trenches are made for hand-to-hand combat.

To find the boy, the FBI digs into its "super awesome former agents that can easily be talked into rejoining" files and finds Ecks (Antonio Banderas), who is busy drinking, smoking, and growing stubble at a nearby bar.  Two agents try to strong-arm him, he predictably beats their asses despite being theoretically drunk and out of practice, and he agrees to find Sever and the boy.  Why?  Apparently, Ecks' boss (Miguel Sandoval) has information on the death of Ecks' wife --- who might not really be dead!  Gasp!  I hope he's not playing with Ecks' emotions, because I can tell from his three minutes of screen time so far that Ecks is still hurting from her presumably untimely end!  So, Ecks is chasing after Sever with some FBI guys while the DIA team (led by Ray Park, who was totally third-billed in the movie and not wearing extensive makeup for a change) tries to reach her first.

From that synopsis, you might have noticed that the microscopic killer robot isn't as prevalent in the story as it is in the preview.  That's kind of odd, right?  Well, that's because it appears in the scene shown in the trailer and then again at the end.  And no, the robot thing is not called "Ballistic."  In fact, there is no reason at all for this movie to have "Ballistic" in the title.  Furthermore, aside from their initial meet-and-greet fight, Ecks and Sever are allies.  Their one fight is about as exciting as you might imagine, though:

It looks like he's going to puke from being tickled too much.

This is a movie where every character mentions that Ecks and Sever are the best at everything, as long as it's deadly.  Naturally, the film builds up to their painfully choreographed fight scene.  The result is...well, less than thrilling.  I never thought I would say this, but it made me look back on the hand-to-hand combat scenes from The Hunted --- where Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones scuffle around for half an hour in an uncomfortable man-hug --- and think "not bad."  The Ecks vs. Sever fight (the only time the "Ecks vs. Sever" subtitle is actually appropriate) is so slow and awkward that I wouldn't be surprised if the stunt coordinator was audibly shouting instructions just below the blaring soundtrack.

Okay, fine.  The title of the movie is pretty awful.  What about the acting?  Honestly, it's a little hard to judge.  The script is atrocious, definitely one of the worst major motion picture scripts to have been made into an actual movie in the past decade, so that should be taken into consideration when judging the actors.  Even with that in mind, I'm going to give the cast a universal thumbs down.  Or up.  Whichever one means they all die by Roman gladiator.  Antonio Banderas, even with his sexy cartoon bee voice, is out of his element here.

Nason-Ecks?

When Banderas is in his comfort zone (giving a smoldering glare at the camera and speaking heavily accented English), he is a decent actor.  Here, he is asked to look tired, haggard, and be an incredible bad-ass.  It doesn't work to his strengths.  Lucy Liu is better known for her semi-comedic roles than her dramatic chops, and this movie is completely without humor.  As for her action movie skills, she was definitely on par with Angela Lansbury in this one.  Miguel Sandoval just looked bored with his lines and Gregg Henry turned in one of the most MWA-HA-HA evil performances I have ever seen in a movie that did not involve world destruction.  I wouldn't say that Ray Park's performance was good, but he is definitely the only person in the cast that can pull off a convincing fight sequence.  Talisa Soto and Terry Chen also lend their charisma-free talents to this film.

Dull, uninspired acting isn't always the cast's fault; the director usually has a share in the blame.  And the first sign that this film's director should be blamed?  Wych Kaosayananda calls himself as "KAOS" in the credits.  And all this time, you thought McG was the most obnoxious director name.  Kaosayanandahas has no subtlety or any sort of rapport with his actors, or else we might have actually seen human emotions in this piece of crap.  I'm guessing that he is supposed to be more of an action director than anything else, since this is allegedly an action movie, but this is one of the worst uses of $70 million I have ever seen.  And that's taking Dragon Wars: D-War into consideration.  Nothing looks good in this film.  Nothing.  In fact, this movie was directed so poorly (and flopped so badly) that KAOS hasn't directed a movie since.  And when you consider how M. Night Shyamalan keeps getting work, that is saying something.

Okay, so this might sound like just an uninspired movie, and not a truly awful one.  Don't be deceived like I was.  This is a bad, bad movie, and it's so incompetent that it's not even fun to ridicule.  Why?  For starters,the movie takes place in Canada.  Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the FBI doesn't operate on foreign soil.  And yet, they form a "trans-national strikeforce" to track down Sever.  How did that get past a copy editor?  And it apparently never occurred to anyone that the Canadian police, armed forces, intelligence community, or the damn Mounties might show up and say "Hey, what's all this aboot you fellas destroying thirty city blocks up here?"  Seriously, they blow up a lot of shit in this movie (without any noticeable fatalities) and leave about a hundred FBI and DIA agents dead on the streets of Vancouver, and there isn't one Canadian cop in this movie.

Pictured: no injuries.

The worst part about all that action is that it's not entertaining.  At all.  Liu and Banderas are uncomfortable (at best) in their action scenes and the best scene (Liu vs. Park) still sucks.  Ray Park is an awesome stuntman, and he looks good in this, his only fight scene in the movie (just another reason this movie is stupid), as long as the action is being shown in real time.  Unfortunately, to make Liu's moves look any good, the scene is shown in slow motion, which just makes Park look incompetent when he doesn't hit her.  There is a lot of hand-to-hand combat in this movie, and that's the best scene.  Even the shoot-em-up scenes are boring and stupid.  If the DIA needs Liu alive to find the boy, why are they using live ammunition on her, including a turret gun and snipers?  And wouldn't snipers be smart enough to take cover when somebody's shooting at them?  Not in this movie, my friends.

And what about the DIA?  In this movie, they're like a rogue CIA offshoot at best, and a bunch of assholes at worst.  Why does anyone want to be in the DIA?  They're filled with men who are cannon fodder to Lucy-freaking-Liu and specialize in twitching after they get shot.  And do you know what happens when they botch a job?  They are encouraged to commit suicide.  That's right, a government agency with a government pension plan is supposed to have its members kill themselves if they screw up.  I'm not buying into that.

To top it all off, the super secret and undoubtedly expensive killer microscopic robot is the stupidest spy weapon I have ever heard of.  And that's saying quite a bit, because I have seen all the Roger Moore Bond movies.  Let's just say that having a microscopic robotic killer that you can inject into your enemy is a good idea, okay?  If that's the case, wouldn't it take millions of dollars to make each mini-bot?  And then what?  You just leave it in the corpse after you use it to kill?  That's not terribly economical.  "But these things would be untraceable, Brian!"  Actually, they wouldn't be, since the DIA performed a thermal scan (for a microscopic robot?) at the airport to prove that the mini-bot hadn't been taken aboard any planes.  So, it is detectable, if you know what to look for.  And since you still need to inject it into your target, that means you either need to stick them with a syringe or hit them with a blow dart for it to enter the bloodstream.  At that point, wouldn't it be just as easy and a few million dollars cheaper to just use poison?

Available for kids parties, Bar Mitzvahs, and assassinations.

What I'm trying to tell you is that this is a film abomination.  It has no redeeming value, not as a target of ridicule or even as a beer coaster.

Battlefield Earth

"Better than Star Wars" - an actual John Travolta quote about this film

Did you know that the full title of this film is actually Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000?  The shortened title sounds like it might be halfway decent (if you didn't know any better), but that subtitle...yeesh.  Let me take the understated route and say that any movie set 1000 years in the future has a decent chance of looking silly unless they spent years speculating about the future of technology.  Is that a fair statement?  I think I'm being damn generous.  This isn't my first bought with BE.  When it first hit the video shelves after its disastrous theatrical run, I tried to watch this with my friends at No Bulljive; excessive drinking and a break to play Frisbee in the rain didn't come close to making this watchable.  What made me think that watching it on my own, years later, would improve the experience?  I had a theory.  This time, I decided to watch the Saga of the Year 3000 in 15-20 minute chunks.  That way, the pain gets spread out over a period of weeks and I don't spend the night with self-loathing.  What made me decide to endure this pain again at all?  I caught a few minutes on TV and laughed out loud.  What can I say?  I like to mock.

Entertainment Weekly published this.  Who knew they could be kind of funny?

Let's run through the plot as quickly as possible, because that's where a lot of the hurty brain feelings come from.  In the year 3000 (A.D., I guess...which calendar do the aliens follow?), humans are an endangered species.  An alien race called the Psychlos has conquered the Earth, using it as...um...well...maybe they're draining our resources?  I'm not sure.  They like gold, though.  Anyway, the Psychlos live in dome-covered cities, spread across the globe, with their largest settlement being in New York Chicago Los Angeles Denver (?!?).  Humans are either used as slave labor or they eke out an existence in small bands, hidden from the Psychlos.  Jonnie Goodboy (Barry Pepper) lives with his tribe deep in the Rocky Mountains.  Basically, he's a caveman, just without a decent cave.  Fed up with eating dirt for dinner, Jonnie goes exploring to see just how much of his tribe's legends are true.  Along the way, he teams up with a hunter, Carlo (Kim Coates).  While they're busy making friends, the two are captured by some Psychlos.

So far, it's not good, but it could be worse.  There's a Star Wars: Episode III-worthy shout of "Noooo!" in the beginning, and it's stupid to think that human speech devolved into animal grunting without any noticeable physical changes.  Oh, and the fact that a miniature golf course withstood 1000 years of weather and is still recognizable is pretty ridiculous, but that's as bad as the introduction gets.  It never gets this good again.

Enter the Psychlos.  Terl (John Travolta), the security chief on Earth, is eager for the end of his time on Earth; he has paid his dues by living on our stupid planet, and now he wants to leave.  That's too bad.  Terl's boss shows up and tells him that his stay has been extended indefinitely, thanks to something he did with "the Senator's daughter."  Wait...that sounds familiar...is that the movie where Travolta asks someone what is worse than rape, and it turns out to be...wait for it...rape?  Never mind, that's The General's Daughter.  I never thought I would be comparing that movie favorably.

Anyway, Terl comes up with a plan.  When he sees that Jonnie, a common "man-animal," is smart enough to wield some Psychlo technology, he decides to educate Jonnie.  Why?  Um.  The end game has Jonnie and some other man-animals working mining machines to dig up gold in a radioactive area (where Psychlos can't go), so he can buy his way off the planet with (radioactive, and therefore useless to the radiation-shy Psychlos) gold, as well as with some blackmail videos he has stored up and creatively edited.  How does Terl teach Jonnie to mine?  He has Jonnie sit in front of a learning machine (we call that a television in America) that shoots education right into his face.

"Get ready for the money shot, er, an unnecessarily complete education, Jonnie"

Wait...the Psychlos have monitoring drones, but not mining drones?  That makes no se --- AAAUGH!  BRAIN HEMORRHAGE! 

Jonnie learns the Psychlo language, their history, his own history, mathematics, and all sorts of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with gold mining.  With his new-found education, Jonnie sees the weaknesses of his enemies, and teaches his fellow man-animals that now is the time to fight like an animal because four legs good, two legs bad! be inspired by the United States Constitution (really) and fight for their right to completely exterminate the Psychlo race.  The movie ends with cavemen destroying spaceships with 1000+ year-old fighter jets (let that sink in...it's okay to scream...) and teleporting (They can teleport?  Why do they have space ships, then?) a nuke to the Psychlo home planet, which destroys it like a friggin' Death Star.  That's right, humanity is saved by nuclear weapons.  Whoops, I'm sorry, nuclear weapon, singular.

Here's a fun quote from the movie: "I'm going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a diet of kerbango."  Whaaat?!?  Waaas?!?  Thaaat?!?  First of all, I love that Psychlo children are called "baby Psychlos."  That would be like telling someone that I slept like a human baby last night.  Basically, this begs the question, "as opposed to what...?"  Also, on a more personal note, that line almost made scotch come out of my nose, which only upset me more.  Just terrible dialogue.

Why is Battlefield Earth one of the most notorious movies of the the modern film era?  Sure, my description of it might sound kind of dumb, but is it really that much dumber than the bulk of what Hollywood churns out every year?  I don't think so.  No, BE plumbs the depths of awfulness by doing everything you can do in a movie poorly.

Let's start with the acting.  It's horrible.  End of story.  Honestly, John Travolta is as horrible of an overactor has ever, and his worst tendencies come out in force whenever he plays a villain.  Forest Whitaker was surprisingly bad as Travolta's lackey.  Barry Pepper was the worst, though.  The combination of his awful acting and his character's ridiculous dialogue puts him forever on my shit list. 

"The Academy saw this movie and wants my award back?  Aww, man...!"

The direction by Roger Christian is even worse.  It's not bad enough that the special effects look cheap, which is about all I expected this movie to do right, but everything in this movie is cheap.  The opening credits look like they were done with Power Point.  The Psychlos all have different accents, which is such an unnatural choice for actors to make that it had to have been made by the director ("John, you can be from Victorian England, and Forrest, you can be from Gruntsville, Oklahoma").  The camera work is wretched.  Every chase scene, which is normally something I would assume you would want to imply speed in, is filmed in slow-motion.  The camera tilts at random times, for no effect at all.  Even the transition wipes between scenes looked amateurish.  No wonder this director never helmed another major motion picture after this (or before, either, to be honest).

But maybe it all looks cool, right?  'Fraid not.  The costume design is laughably bad.

Barry Pepper, or the worst X-Men character from the 90s?  You decide.

I'm always impressed when primitive characters have long, flowing hair that is both tangle-free and not dread-locked.  It tells us so much about the culture of these man-animals, that they have lost all educated knowledge, but have still found a way to produce and use Suave shampoo.  The man-animal design is kind of stupid, but the Psychlos are where the real stupidity comes in.

Psychlos are 8-foot tall humanoids with very large skulls, bad teeth, and a lot of hair.  I don't know exactly why they wear riding pants and cod pieces, but it's certainly not for the cool factor.  What bothers me most are the mittens they call hands.  Look at the size of those things!  They are bigger than their faces and, when you watch the actors try to use them, are clearly awkward and nearly useless.  Well, at least they all attain their 8-foot tall stature by wearing Kiss-style platform boots.

The primary reason Battlefield Earth is one of the worst movies in modern cinema is not because the acting/directing/special effects and costuming were bad.  Sure, with all of that going against it, BE was going to go down as a wretched film, but it could have built a cult following if it wasn't so inept.  You see, the man-apes are acting like they're in a B-movie update of Planet of the Apes, but the Psychlos are acting like they are in a wry, British comedy about ne'er do wells who keep stabbing each other in the back (only, you know, ridiculously unfunny).  Travolta's accent doesn't help.  There are two completely incompatible tones at work in this movie, and neither one is good; the man-animals are never inspiring or clever, and the Psychlos are never evil or funny enough to make their backstabbing interesting.  Funny-bad movies typically get that way because they are played straight, but are absolutely ridiculous.  This movie tries to poke fun at the villains by making them petty and stupid, but their efforts to ridicule anything pale in comparison to the pure hate that your creative mind will come up with.

But is this the worst movie ever made?  I doubt it, but it certainly deserves to be in the competition.  If you are too stupid to take my advice and leave this one alone, do yourself a favor and put it on when you plan on falling asleep or passing out.

Still not convinced?  Well, let me tell you how awful this movie is.  When Terl drops off Jonnie to mine gold, he leaves a monitoring drone to make sure they are working.  Jonnie's plan is to travel to another location and teach all his caveman friends how to fly fighter jets because, obviously, they haven't rusted and turned to dust over the past 1000 years.  And they certainly weren't used to fight the Psychlos 1000 years ago, and are technology that they are not prepared to battle.  But what about the gold, Jonnie?  Don't worry about it.  He's just going to fly to Fort Knox and pick up the amount that Terl demanded from the mine.  You might be asking yourself how stupid these man-animals are to hand over bricks of solid gold and expect someone to believe that they were mined that way.  Apparently, not as stupid as Terl, who accepts the gold without question and apparently never checks his monitor drone to see if some man-animals took a flying vehicle for a joyride of a few thousand miles.  What does it use for fuel?  Stupidity?  Thank goodness that these gold-hungry aliens haven't found one of the largest (and most famous) stashes of gold in the world in their 1000 year reign!  Uh-oh...I think I taste bile.  Time to forget about this movie again.

I'm Still Here

In early 2009, while promoting the film Two Lovers, two-time Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix made an infamous appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman:

As you can see, he appeared disheveled, confused, and probably (to use the clinical term) stoned out of his gourd.  For most of the American public, this was the first look they had of the "new" Joaquin Phoenix --- no longer an actor, but apparently an aspiring hip-hop artist/advocate of not bathing.

What we saw on Letterman was also the climax of the documentary that Phoenix's brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, was filming about Joaquin's retirement from acting and his "budding" rap career.  I'm Still Here starts in late-2008, with Joaquin declaring his retirement to a random TV journalist at a press event.  Over the next three or four months, the cameras follow him as Joaquin tries to articulate just why he doesn't want to act anymore.  It has something to do with too much time spent on preparation and direction, and not enough time spent being creative.  Okay, that's a fair critique of professional acting, I guess.  Of course, I paraphrased JP's (as he wants people to call him) f-bomb littered ramblings.  I believe his exact words were, "mumble mumble mumble shit."  If you like incoherent mumbling, though, this movie is a gold mine.  The majority of the film follows JP as he complains about being taken seriously and all the phoniness of celebrity life; some time is spent as he tries desperately to get Sean "Diddy" Combs to listen to (and produce) his album, but that is just a symptom of his disgust with whatever it is he's trying to get away from.  Unfortunately, JP is a terrible, terrible rapper.  Worse than Macho Man Randy Savage.  And it's obvious.  He has no hope of a rap career, and he burns his bridges in the film community.  What else does a downward spiral need?  Narcissism, sex and drugs?  Check, check, and check.  Aside from the constant smoking of what appears to be pot and the frequent snorting of what appears to be cocaine, viewers get to see (well, I don't know if "get to" is the right phrase; it's not like this is a prize) JP order some hookers and abuse his closest friends for his own mistakes.  The Letterman appearance is the climax of the film, but there is plenty of falling action afterward, as JP has to figure out his next step.

As a documentary, I'm Still Here is a complete mess.  Affleck's direction is awful, the camera work is terrible, and the sound sucks.  Aside from the pretentious inclusion of an old home video to serve as a bookend to the film, it doesn't really go anywhere or have anything to say.  You would think that this was documenting the fall of Joaquin Phoenix, but it's not; he was already at the bottom when this started filming, his hobo beard just hadn't grown in yet.  JP is completely unlikable throughout, and everything he says sounds like art school bullshit.  You would hear less whining if you went to a Goth convention.  The most likable people in the whole film are the two who are the meanest to Joaquin.  Diddy gave him some pretty kind advice on his music, but scoffed at the idea of them working together, while his buddy/assistant Anton eventually tired of JP's abuse and literally crapped on his head.  But even that slight amusement is not nearly enough to make this documentary worth seeing.


Of course, this isn't a documentary.  Aside from the fact that Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck received writing credits for the film, some cast members did not star as themselves, the cameras and sound are rolling at all hours of the day (even after JP is asleep) and...well, I'm sorry, but this movie is just beyond any suspension of disbelief.  There is no way in hell that Affleck's wife, Joaquin's sister, would have let him release this movie; well, not if he wanted to stay married, anyway.  There is zero chance that professional escorts would allow themselves to be filmed (with a cameraman and sound guy) screwing around with movie stars.  And I find it hard to believe that any documentary about hip-hop would include this much gratuitous penis on camera.  After the movie was released in theaters this fall, everyone involved admitted that the film was a hoax.  Gasp.  I'm crushed.

Here's the problem: even when you know that this film is a joke (and, trust me, you know within minutes of its start), it's still not funny.  The best mockumentaries (This is Spinal Tap, Borat, Best in Show, etc.) are funny because they are, in some ways, spot-on with their interpretations of what the public assumes their characters are like (rock stars, foreigners, dog people).  But then, they surprise us with totally left-field personality traits, or so-dumb-it-has-to-be-true moments (lost behind the stage, outrageous racism, Fred Willard).  I'm Still Here doesn't make any jokes, aside from the prolonged joke of JP's rapping career.  This movie is ridiculous, but it's never funny.  That is very, very frustrating.  So, what is this mockumentary mocking?  I assume that it's supposed to be poking fun at our culture's obsession with celebrities and/or reality television.  It doesn't really matter, since this film completely fails in either respect.

This was a very upsetting film.  I don't usually look at someone defecating on the star of a film as the high point in the movie, but that is the situation I find myself in; worse, my immediate reaction was "now, hit him in the face with a shovel!"  It's difficult for me to articulate just how much I despise this film.  It's pretentious on the surface (everything that comes out of JP's mouth), and it's pretentious as a finished product ("It doesn't suck, you just don't get it...").  This is a movie that feels like it wants to say something important, aside from "gotcha!" but never even tries.  Have you ever gone on a date with someone and realized that everything they laugh at, you hate?  That's how this movie makes me feel.  There is nothing funny about this movie, there is nothing true in this movie...in fact, there is nothing redeeming in this movie at all.  "But what about the penises and the pooping?"  There's a wide world of porn out there for anyone interested in those things, and I can guarantee that the production quality would be better than this film.  Utterly worthless.

As a mini-tribute to David Letterman, here's my list of ten awful things that would have made this movie better:

• All of Joaquin's friends go to a costume party with him, and they all dressed as his dead brother, River.
• Have M. Night Shyamalan throw water on Joaquin, making him melt.  That's why he hasn't washed his hair in months!  He's one of the aliens from Signs!
• Forty minutes of dead baby jokes.
• Complementary picked koala paste with purchase of the DVD.
• The cast of Twilight made a commentary track where they explain particle physics.
• Thunderbird bum wine.
• Having Casey Affleck wake up and realize it was all a dream.  And then realize that he's in bed next to Bob Newhart.  And their home is inside the snow globe of an autistic child.
• Getting stuck in an elevator during a blackout after you've taken a pound of horse laxatives.  And there are eight other people in the elevator with you.
• In the ultimate act of defiance against the culture of beauty in Hollywood, Joaquin tears his lip open because his cleft lip was "real" and Hollywood is fake.
• A tornado hits Joaquin Phoenix's home, decimating the crew and scattering various bodies through walls, trees, and pavement.  As the movie fades to black, you hear "Why did we waste the last days of our life making something so awful...?!?"

Somebody Help Me

Rarely does a movie title capture my attitude toward the film as well as Somebody Help Me.  This is the latest cinematic gift from You Got Served writer/director Chris Stokes and his frequent collaborators, Marques Houston and Omari "Omarion" Grandberry.  This is the third film these three have worked together on, and it completes their film trilogy; they made House Party 4: Down to the Last Minute to show off their party prowess, You Got Served to advertise what excellent waiters they would be (yes, I've seen the movie, and I stand by my synopsis), and now Somebody Help Me to prove that young black actors can survive a horror movie.  Or can they?

Brendan (Houston) and Darryl (Omarion) and their girlfriends (Serena and Kimmy, respectively) head to a cabin in the woods for Serena's birthday.  When they arrive, the girls aren't terribly impressed, but decide to soldier on.  They are later joined by three other couples (including Seth, played by Christopher Jones, the villain from Served) and they proceed to all get drunk.  Think about that for a moment.  They go to a cabin that is large enough to house five couples, and these chicks aren't impressed?  They deserve whatever they have coming to them.  Ugh, and those couples...!  Each couple, with the notable exception of Darryl and Kimmy (who were rude to each other because that's funny), are a blend of mushy, clingy, and too-much-information horny.  Sure, I've had friends that joke around about their bedroom antics with their more-or-less-significant others, but these characters are just too much.  Here's an example I made up because I don't want to watch the movie again for a direct quote:

Dude: Sick burn!  Up top!
Whoa: (High fives) That's where I like her: up top!  (Flicks his tongue repeatedly and twiddles his fingers suggestively)
Lady Whoa: Aww, yeah!  This cowgirl will break that bronco if it takes all night!  (girls high five)
Dude: (To Lady Dude) I'm gonna get drunk and bone you!
Lady Dude: That means intercourse in at least one orifice!  Tee-hee!

While that is not a direct quote, believe me when I say that it's not far off.  Want proof?  Two of the couples, instead of going to bed at the end of the night, scamper into the wilderness with the explicitly stated intention of having sex in the woods. 

Not surprisingly, the four naughty young people don't come back to the cabin.  The next day, Brendan, Darryl, and Seth wander into the woods for about eight hours (!) before Brendan decides to head back  to the cabin and call the cops.  While waiting for Brendan, Darryl and Seth search some more until Seth decides that they should split up in the dark woods.  Brendan reaches the cabin, but is persuaded by Kimmy not to call the local police because they are black kids in a white area.  That might sound pretty dumb, you should consider the following:

• The local sheriff is friends with Darryl's uncle, who owns the cabin
• It's a small town; locals would be likely to spot out-of-towners
• The missing people were all white

It's not dumb, it's stunningly contrived.  So Brendan and the three remaining girls hike into the woods and find Darryl, but not Seth.  You mean that the idiot who wanted to split up is missing?  Color me shocked.  Or bored; I get those two words mixed up all the time.  Actually, Kimmy's response to this was pretty spot on; when she heard that the remaining white guy wanted to split up in the woods, she said "That's white people for ya."  Fair 'nuff.  The group agrees to return to the cabin because it is night and scary.  Once at the cabin, Seth's girlfriend decides to look for him in the woods.  Finally, they call the local sheriff, who comes over, talks a bit, and promises to check things out.

Now, this all sounds like the makings of a bad movie, right?  Well, those are the good parts.

The film has a Scooby-Doo level Red Herring; it's a creepy and possibly handicapped loner whose home happens to have pictures of the missing people and news clippings of a similar rash of local disappearances, dated three years ago that day.  Despite this circumstantial evidence (which is, of course, never explained), you know he's not the bad guy because he's the only suspect.  Naturally, the main characters, Brendan and Darryl, break into Red Herring's house, freak out and drive to the sheriff's office.  The sheriff's response to eight disappearances within twenty-four hours and a suspect with strong circumstantial evidence was to threaten Brendan and Darryl with arrest for breaking and entering.  And no, the sheriff isn't the killer, either.

The killer puts the kidnapped people in pet cages, like you might have for a normal sized dog.  And they can't kick the doors off because...um...the script asks them nicely not to.  The killer's MO is to perform non-lethal surgery on his victims, like cutting off an ear or poking out their eyes or scalping them, but his skill becomes apparent when his victims die from these clearly not lethal injuries.  Are you wondering how the killer transports all these people (at one point, it is eight adults) to his secret lair?  In a large pickup truck.  Sneaky.  What is even less sneaky than that is the annotated scrapbook of the killer's life and villainous works in his office.  On his desk.  ***Sigh***

At some point, it becomes clear that the sheriff had a case like this three years ago (to the very day!), where some young people went missing and were never found.  He must have had a suspect, because the first cabin he checks out is the killer's.  So, the sheriff stops by, hears muffled cries for help and stealthily breaks in, with his weapon drawn, ready for anything knocks on the door and calls "Hello" loudly several times.  Thank goodness he died for that.

And none of that is even the worst part of the movie!  No, it's not the lack of professional acting/directing/cinematography, either.  The worst part of the movie is the questionable existence of the killer's daughter.  She first shows up in a dream sequence, where Brendan dreams of this creepy girl on a swing, singing "Ring Around the Rosie" in an echoing voice.  At first, I assumed she was like the girls that sing "1-2, Freddy's coming for you," an omen of the killer to come (although without the lyrical relevance).  Later, though, she appears to be a real person that is trying to help Brendan avoid the killer; the killer even interacts with her.  In the end, she is seen leaving in a truck with the killer; she even acts extra innocent at a road block, convincing the cop that the driver was not the droid he was looking for.  So, I guess Brendan is psychic because he dreamed about someone he had never seen before.  But wait --- as the truck drives off, the girl looks at the camera and sings "Ring Around the Rosie" in her creepy voice!  The end.  What does that even mean?!?  I can answer that; it means that I wasted too much time thinking about this movie.

Alone in the Dark

How might you know Alone in the Dark is going to be a bad movie before you watch it?  Well, perhaps you know that it is a film adaptation of a video game franchise.  Those always make for good movies, right?  Or maybe you noticed that Uwe Boll is the director.  Or perhaps you saw Tara Reid's name above the title.  All of these are good reasons not to watch this movie.  The only reason you should watch this is if you want to see just how bad it gets.  Here's a hint: pretty bad.

For those of you unfamiliar with the video game series, Alone in the Dark is a suspense/horror game.  Basically, you wander around creepy buildings, looking for clues as to what has made everything so creepy, until you encounter a monster.  At this point you can either mash your controller buttons frantically, hoping that your character will shoot the damn thing, and/or you can soil yourself.  That basic concept makes this series sound like a natural fit for the supernatural thriller movie sub-genre.  So, should we expect a lot of eerie sets and the kind of suspense that has you waiting and for something to happen, and nothing happens and nothing happens and nothing happens and then the music gets real loud and LOOK OUT there's nothing there?  Repeat three times, and on the fourth time, exchange the "nothing" for "a zombie frothing at the mouth."  Actually, that might not be a terrible movie.  Too bad that's not the direction the filmmakers took.

The film opens with a lengthy prologue, which is immediately followed by a reenactment of the lengthy prologue.  That prologue must be pretty important to the story, right?  Actually, no.  It feels like some poor soul watched an early cut of the movie and asked "What the hell was the beginning all about?"  Instead of taking this as a hint that the plot and script are pretty bad, they just had someone do a voice over summary of the first scene.  Brilliant save, Mr. Boll!  It then turns out that the prologue and the reenactment were just dreamed by Edward Carnby (Christian Slater), paranormal investigator.  So...his dreams have voice overs?  How very meta.  Carnby was asleep on an airplane, when he wakes with a start.  The child sitting next to him helpfully tells him that there's nothing to be afraid of in the dark.  Not that the airplane was dark.  When Carnby lands, he is then followed by a creepy dude, and they eventually fight.  The creepy bad guy clearly has super powers, because he can jump high, run fast, and punch through bricks.  Carnby also appears to have powers, because he can hold his own in the fight.  That's never explained, but at least it's shot in slow-motion.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the assistant curator of a museum, Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid).  She doesn't speak, but instead acts intelligent by wearing glasses and writing on a clipboard.  Instead, an unusually well-informed security guard discusses how awesome she is to a delivery driver within earshot of her.  He also explains that the stuff being delivered is a bunch of Abkani artifacts.  The Abkani were a super-advanced culture that vanished 10,000 years ago, and their relics have been found in the most remote parts of the world.  You've probably heard of this not-at-all fictional siciety, so I won't bother you with any more information about them.  Neither will this film.

What does that have to do with anything?  Well, Carnby shows up at the museum with an artifact for Aline to check out.  The two are apparently lovers, but Carnby vanished for several months without contacting her.  Aww...but they seemed so right for each other!  Aline scans the artifact into her computer (How?), and it immediately builds a three-dimensional image of the artifact (No, really...how?) before telling her that the artifact is definitely Abkani (What?!?  Now you're just messing with me!).  How did Carnby get his hands on this artifact?  In his exact words,

"I was in the Amazon for six weeks, tracking poachers across their transport lines and I fell in with a group of ex-Chilean military that were selling artifacts on the black market."  

Dude, if you don't want to tell me the truth, just say so.

So, I guess the super-powered bad guy was after the artifact?  It's never explained, really, but not explaining that at least avoids explaining how the bad guy knew Carnby had the artifact to begin with.  Anyway, these weird kind of, sort of, sometimes invisible monsters that look like a blend of a dog, reptile and scorpion break into the museum and chase Carnby and Aline for a while.  Then a military group shows up, shoots the dogorpions, and the field leader, Burke (Stephen Dorff), belittles Carnby for being involved.  If that makes no sense to you, congratulations, you're sane.  Apparently, Carnby used to be part of this military group, but he quit for the exciting life of the paranormal investigator.  Burke hates him for that.  Or something else.  You never find out.  But he hates Carnby and refuses to accept his help.  Until he changes his mind.  And then more super-powered people show up and kill a bunch of soldiers.  And then Carnby, Aline, and Burke figure out where the dogorpions are coming from and go there to attack the source.  Will they succeed?  Or will they just suck?

Here are just a few ridiculous things about this movie:

• The main characters are never actually alone in the dark.
• All travel scenes are done with long shots of vehicles and voice over.  Cheap.
• Christian Slater and Tara Reid have a sex scene, where she keeps her bra on.  I certainly don't want to see her mangled boobs again, but that's just weird.  It's not like she was cast for her acting ability, so the lack of nudity is absolutely befuddling.
• How do they find the location of the dogorpion source?  By combining Abkani artifacts so that they make a tower, which somehow indicates a constellation, which helps pinpoint a geographic land mass, which appears to be the United States.  Pin and point!
• An abandoned scientific lab has power, twenty-odd years after being abandoned.

This is just a mess.  Characters come and go, with no points of reference to indicate how close they are to danger.  The super-powered bad guys turn out to be sort of zombies, which somehow connects to the prologue, but not very well.  The special effects are cartoony, and even the lack of light on the set doesn't disguise it.  Characters change their personalities on a dime and randomly prioritize things.  Hey, Stephen Dorff, you've left dozens of your soldiers after they've died, but when time is a factor in the plot, you all of a sudden have to save an undoubtedly dead guy?  C'mon!  These obvious flaws are kind of funny, but the movie isn't any fun to watch.  I can like me some Lefty Gold when I find it, but this was just a draining experience.

This was a bad movie from start to finish.  And, when I say "start," I am referring to the start of pre-production.  It didn't stay true to the tone of the games and it doesn't feel like a horror movie.  The action sequences are boring and stupid.  The plot was unintentionally incomprehensible.  On paper, you would think that casting Tara Reid as the resident smart person in the movie would be the film's biggest mistake, but that pales in comparison to all the story problems.  I'm convinced that Uwe Boll doesn't understand the concept of storytelling.  In the unrated version (which I have not seen), Boll allegedly re-cut the film radically, virtually eliminating Reid from the final product.  Now, I'm not going to lie and say that Tara Reid is a fine actress, but her involvement was far from the worst thing about Alone in the Dark.  The fact that Boll would misunderstand his product's shortcomings that much makes me hope never to see another of his movies again.  I probably will, because they all look hilarious, but I should probably see this film as a lesson in how bad movies can be.

The Devil's Rejects

The Devil's Rejects is a mathematical anomaly.  The film is a direct sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, which is one of my Most Hated Movies, and is a sequel that is better than its predecessor.  That's unusual, but not unheard of.  What is unusual is just how much better it is.  In my own conservative estimate, The Devil's Rejects is at least thirty bajillion times better than House of 1000 Corpses.  I know, riiiight?  And I proved it with math!

You might have noticed that I call this a "direct" sequel.  That means that the events in this film have definite and explicit ties to those in the previous movie.  Does this mean that you need to see House of 1000 Corpses to understand or appreciate this movie?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Do not, under any circumstances, watch House of 1000 Corpses, unless you want to not enjoy six hours of your life; it might only be an hour and a half long, but you'll spend close to five hours scrubbing your eyes raw in the shower.  All you need to know about the evil Firefly family is explained in this movie.  Trust me.

The movie begins with the Firefly family in their home (of 1000 corpses), sleeping in after a night of killing, skinning, raping, or whatever they do at night.  Unfortunately for them, Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe) is leading a bunch of state troopers to their house (of 1000 corpses) with a Search and Destroy order.  The troopers attack, the family fights back, and all of a sudden the house has more than a thousand corpses in it.  One family member --- this is more of a Manson family than a blood family, mind you --- is captured, a few die, and two escape.  Well, two escape and Tiny (Matthew McGrory, the giant from Big Fish) happened to be wandering through the woods with a body, so he misses the whole ordeal.  The two escaping members are Otis (Bill Moseley), a frightening and hairy creep, and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), a psychotic but busty blonde with an annoying voice.  They meet up with Baby's father, Captain Spaulding (Sig Haig).  The Captain is a loud, fat man in clown make-up, who runs a oddities tourist trap.  Together, the three remaining Firefly family members attempt to avoid getting caught by the police.  On the way to their hideout, these three opt to torture and murder a family-style country band (which included Brian Posehn) as a time-wasting activity.  Their hideout is actually a brothel run by an old friend of Spaulding, Charlie (Ken Foree).  While they were on the run, Sheriff Wydell learned from his captive that the Fireflys had killed his brother; he decides to go around the law, and hires two bounty hunters (Diamond Dallas Paige and Danny Trejo) to help him hunt, capture, and torture the remaining Fireflys to death.  I would like to tell you that Charlie's place is a secure womb of safety for the Fireflys, but bad things happen to bad people, too, sometimes.

Writer/director/rock star Rob Zombie did not impress me with his first attempt (the prequel) in any way, shape or form.  This movie, while vile, angry and somewhat gory is actually surprisingly entertaining.  The script, which could be described as an F-bomb minefield, gives the characters some decently smart dialogue.  Some of it is funny, some of it is just angry or mean, but I thought it fit the characters well.  The characters are all unsympathetic, but that's okay --- this isn't the kind of horror movie where you root for the bad guys.  Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding are all terrible people, and you're hoping that they get what's coming to them.  There are many points where one of the innocent victims of the Firefly family could conceivably escape or overpower their tormentors, but these situations are handled so brutally that you have to admit it...these villains might be bad, but they're really good at it.

Rob Zombie also deserves a special kudos for the best use of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" in any movie.  Ever.

The acting is a little overwhelming at times, especially from Otis and Baby, but it generally fits the tone of the movie.  They are all horrible, dirty characters, and the world they live in is a horrible, dirty place.  Bill Moseley, in particular, was especially vile as Otis, the male lead and the man who mentions the title in his dialogue.  Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob's wife, was one of the worst things about House of 1000 Corpses, but she's pretty tolerable here.  She's nothing great, mind you, but seeing an attractive person being so evil makes her actions seem so much worse.  Veteran horror movie actor Sid Haig rounds out the titular characters; he's always been a B-movie actor, but never tries to be anything else.  He delivers his lines well and is pretty disgusting to look at, so I think he performs above and beyond the call of duty.  William Forsythe isn't a great actor, either, but this is the best role I've seen him in; he plays a skeevy guy so often that having him play a vigilante cop is interesting and yet a logical extension for him.  The rest of the cast might be noteworthy, but they have little screen time and less development.  Still, it was nice to see P.J. Soles pop up as a prostitute, Ken Foree (from the original Dawn of the Dead) as the brothel owner, former pro wrestler Diamond Dallas Page as a thug, and Danny Trejo as a tough Hispanic guy (way to try something new, Danny).

I think what makes this movie effective is that it takes place out in the open.  Instead of some stupid teenagers that are having sex and abusing drugs wandering in the woods, the victims in this movie are seemingly nice people.  The film doesn't focus on these characters too much, since it is not their story, but it is rare to see a Good Samaritan getting shot in the face in any movie, even a horror flick.  I think the notion that, at a moment's notice, a normal group of people could be getting ready for a road trip, minding their own business, and the next moment be living and dying at the whims of psychopaths is a frightening thought.

This is, in my opinion, one of the best horror films ever.  It is dark, disgusting, and horrifying.  It is also sincere, which makes some of it kind of funny.  The acting is excellent (for a horror movie), if only because there are no terribly designed characters that take you out of the moment, forcing you to acknowledge that there is no such thing as a razor-fingered dream monster and that you're watching a dumb slasher flick.  This manages to avoid the trappings of other villain-focused horror movies by giving the bad guys some serious (and seriously painful) obstacles to overcome; even though the Fireflys are big and bad, this movie never becomes a snuff film for their victims.  This is not a movie for casual horror fans.  If you get nightmares easily, you should avoid it.  If you watch the scary parts with your hands over your eyes, don't bother taking them off during this movie.  This is a film for the discerning horror fan.  It might not have the widespread appeal of Halloween, the rawness of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or the art of The Shining, but this is the meanest and strangely unembellished horror movie in years.

Independence Day

There are movies, and then there are films.  The difference can be subtle.  Sometimes, all it takes to move from traditional popcorn fodder to artistic statement is a single performance.  Other times, it requires a hefty dose of Jeff Goldblum and exploding the living hell out of America's landmarks.  Roland Emmerich has never directed a subtle movie (aside from Godzilla (1998) of course), so guess which route he took?

Independence Day answers the question of whether humanity is the only intelligent life in the universe.  The answer is "No, and where do you get off calling humanity 'intelligent'?"  So, yes, Elliot, there are aliens, and of course the aliens want to kill us.  Do you blame them?  Look how well we take care of things; America is now surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Inkwell.  Actually, this movie takes a much more intimate look at how Earthlings (by which, I of course mean Americans) might handle a hostile alien invasion.  Maybe, if all of America were wusses like Arizona, we would just pass a ridiculous law or two.  Luckily, the other forty-eight states (I'll be dead and buried before I recognize Mizzoura) play for keeps.  When aliens come into our atmosphere and blow all the major cities in the world to hell, that just makes us mad.  Well, it makes us panic and despair first, but after our greatest president gives a speech to a bunch of semi-professional pilots, we are ready to kick butts and mispronounce names.  All we need is a hero and a nerd to lead us to victory.  As far as heroes go, it's hard to top mid-90's Will Smith.  The man has charm, talent, and is fun to watch.  As far as nerds go, Anthony Edwards must have been busy.  Still, Jeff Goldblum is a respectable substitute.  Like many mid-90's movies, it turns out that the cure to everything is computer knowledge, so getting a cable repairman/Mensa member to go into space and launch a computer virus into the alien spaceship network sounds waaaaay too easy.  And it is.  But this isn't a movie that ever tried to be smart, so just be happy it's loud and dumb and never gets pretentious.

Is there more to the movie than that?  Of course there is.  This is a big, blockbuster film, so it has an enormous supporting cast.  In the apolitcal and non-military side of things, we have Judd Hirsch playing the broadest Jewish stereotype I have ever seen outside of Seinfeld.  It works, if only because Hirsch is funny, but damn, he is kind of offensive.  Harvey Fierstein plays an obviously heterosexual man at the cable company and Randy Quaid is a drunk pilot (with something to prove to the aliens) with James Duval as his frustrated son.  Randy is drunk in this movie, which is what I expect from all of his roles, but Duval manages to exude frustration, tenderness, and the slightest hint of acting talent in his supporting role (which is surprising, since he stars in my Most Hated Movie, The Doom Generation).

Interesting side note...I am reasonably sure that Randy Quaid wasn't even cast in this film.  He just showed up, drunk as a Senator, and wouldn't leave.  He had some story about being abducted by aliens, and the filmmakers decided "Why not?"  The rest is history.  "Uh, Brian, if that's the case, why isn't his character named Randy?"  Because he was drunk for a solid week.  He might not respond to the name Russell at first, but it only takes four or five tries to convince him of his new identity.

And then there's Jeff Goldblum as a genius/cable repairman.  He has always had a unique speech cadence, but this is the movie that makes it his calling card.  Like Christopher Walken before him, Goldblum is able to channel awkwardness in such an unexpected way that the rest of the cast simply has to bow down before him. This is also the movie script that took his vocal mannerisms and gave him a script just as ludicrous.  Whenever he has an epiphany, he speaks his train of thought out loud and it is beyond believable.  But that's how this movie works.  It takes a decent idea, makes it overblown to the point of being absolutely terrible, and keeps going until it becomes ironic.  This is the epitome of so-bad-it's-good movie making, and Goldblum's character is the best illustration of this.

The President of the United States is Bill Pullman, with a First Lady (Mary McDonnell) that seems to want him to learn to lie better than he does.  Hmm.  He has a capable adviser and a former wife of Goldblum on his staff, Margaret Colin.  Robert Loggia also serves as a military advisor, as does Adam Baldwin (to a lesser extent), but they basically just grimace and shoot things in the movie.  Will Smith is a fighter pilot with Vivica A. Fox as his stripper girlfriend.  He is buddies with another pilot, Harry Connick, Jr., who is less talented (as a pilot) and used as alien cannon-fodder/don't-ask-don't-tell jokes.  Brent Spiner also makes an appearance as a scientist that is clearly not as intelligent as Goldblum's cable repairman.  How embarrassing.

This is not a smart movie.  It is big, loud, and stupid.  The characters are shallow, the dialogue is full of cliche one-liners ("Now that's what I call a close encounter").  You don't care when somebody dies in the movie; this is basically a disaster flick, so that stuff happens sometimes.  This movie is all about the spectacle.  Want to blow up the White House?  Done.  You want Will Smith to punch out an alien?  No problem.  How about an embattled president giving the best damn speech any president has ever given, where he calls for international cooperation in front of an exclusively American audience?  We can make that happen.

I will give Roland Emmerich credit where it's due --- this is a big movie, filled with big moments.  The fact that those moments are effective (or, at least, cool looking) shows the success of this movie.  Emmerich's other films are just as stupid as this, but they lose momentum by the final act.  The pacing in Independence Day is pretty good, with a nice build-up and then waves of action from there on out.  The acting and script are definitely second to the big dumb stuff, but that's okay.  Sometimes, details like characterization get in the way and force movies to spend less time on blowing up the White House.  And we wouldn't want that, would we?

In a way, the silly things are what makes this such an enjoyable movie for me.  It's easy to go back to the special effects blockbusters of years past and be unimpressed; the effects are dated, the characters are cliche, and the personal style of the cast is questionable, at best.  Independence Day still stands up because it is not so serious.  The fact that the dialogue and plot are bad enough for even dramatic characters to be kind of funny defies the odds and enhances that attitude.  This may be a disaster movie, but it's a fun movie, too.  Is this an artistic film?  God, no.  It is the kind of big, dumb action movie that Hollywood loves to make, but rarely completely succeeds with.  And if that doesn't make you feel patriotic, I don't know what will.

Friday the 13th (2009)

Today is Friday the 13th, so what better way to spend the day than catching up with my favorite movie monster, Jason Voorhies?  This is the eleventh movie in the Friday the 13th franchise (twelfth, if you count Freddy vs. Jason, which I do), but it is allegedly a "re-imagining" of the series.  What does that mean?  Well, it's not an official reboot, but the hacks that brought you the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and The Amityville Horror (2005) remakes --- Michael Bay and co. --- decided to recycle any ideas they liked from the original series of film and pretend that it doesn't matter, because they started a new film continuity.

Personally, I don't care about continuity between horror films most of the time.  The last two Jason movies (Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X) made absolutely no sense in the greater scheme of things, so continuity is not a big problem for this franchise.

With that in mind, the movie opens with a flashback to Friday the 13th, 1980.  On that date, Pamela Voorhies killed a bunch of camp counselors because she blamed them for her son's death, years ago.  The last counselor manages to kill Voorhies and escape, but she doesn't notice the ugly little boy watching in the woods.  This misshapen lump is Jason Voorhies, who didn't die (which makes his mother's rampage even more ill advised) and takes his mother's body into hiding.  As the scene fades, we hear Pamela's voice urging Jason to kill for her...

Fast forward to the "present day."  Five teens are hiking through the woods, looking for a place to camp.  They pick a place nearby the old Camp Crystal Lake.  Two of the gang have led the group to that location because they got a tip that there is a sweet cannabis crop growing in the area.  Why this source never took the pot, I don't know.  So, at least two of the group are wannabe drug dealers.  The entire group drinks alcohol that night and one couple has sex.  As you might know from previous Jason movies, Mr. Voorhies (Derek Mears) is a little old-fashioned when it comes to teen drug use/drinking/sex.  Jason shows up and kills the living crap out of everyone there, making creative use of a bear trap and the campfire.  Well, he kills almost everyone.  It turns out that one girl, Whitney (Amanda Righetti), is the spitting image of the young Pamela Voorhies.  That means that the lucky gal gets to spend more time with Jason!

Six weeks later (so, for those of you keeping score, this movie takes place in the "present time" plus six weeks), Clay (Jared Padalecki) and his chin are combing the Crystal Lake area, looking for his sister, Whitney.  He encounters a truck full of (future Jason fodder) teenagers.  There are four guys (including Aaron Yoo and Travis Van Winkle), who are all complete jackasses, and three girls, at least two of whom are obvious sluts (Julianna Guill and Willa Ford).  The other girl, Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), decides to be nice to Clay because that's what you do when somebody is looking for his lost, presumed dead, sister.  Seriously, movie kids need to be taught some manners nowadays.  Well, the punk-ass kids are spending the weekend at one of their dad's cabins, which is in the neighborhood.  Clay is going door-to-door to talk about his sister, so he ends up knocking on their door and Jenna decides to join him in his search.  Right about now, Jason decides to start killing naughty teens.  That fills up most of the rest of the movie, until Clay and Jenna manage to find Whitney and decide to fight back.

Like I mentioned before, I am a big Friday the 13th fan.  The movies aren't usually good, but there is a certain sense of justice throughout the series: unlikeable kids do naughty things and get killed for it.  This movie stands out a bit because it tries to act as a reboot, but there is very little re-imagining done.  For starters, the origin story is basically identical to that given in Friday the 13th Part 2.  Jason spends about half of this movie with a bag over his face (like Part 2 and most of Part 3D) before finding his signature hockey mask, but if you ignore that, this could easily be Friday the 13th Part 12.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

When I learned that Marcus Nispel was going to direct this movie and it was going to be produced by the devil, I mean Michael Bay, I was uneasy.  Bay ruins movies, whether he produces or directs them, and Nispel directed the Bay-produced Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which makes my Most Hated Movies Ever list.  Nevertheless, due to stupidity or obstinacy, I watched this film anyway.

And you know what?  It wasn't bad!  The first twenty-five minutes, when the first group of kids gets mowed down, was actually pretty rad.  Within that time frame, I saw an origin story (always helpful), met five new characters, learned to hate four of those characters, and those characters all died.  Short, sweet, and to the point: me likey.  Sure, the movie slows down when they jump to "six weeks later," but there's a killing at least every twenty minutes (thirteen total, a very respectable horror movie total) to keep things interesting.  Following in Friday tradition, there is also some gratuitous nudity in this movie, including five-ish breasts (one set was obviously fake, so the definite number is uncertain).

Despite the body and boobie count, this movie still has some flaws.  Shocking, I know!  This movie tries to serve as a reboot for the series, but the local police and townies know all about Jason: if your friend was last seen near Crystal Lake, they're not missing...they're dead.  And Jason has become part of urban legends, too.  So how much of a reboot can this be, if Jason has obviously been active for quite a while?

Okay, let's pretend that makes sense and move on.  I understand Jason killing the first group of kids.  They were lame and naughty near his turf, so he killed 'em dead.  I have no problem with that, which probably makes me a sociopath.  However, he later kills a local stoner and a cop in addition to going after all the tools hanging out at daddy's cabin.  If Jason hated everyone, why do the locals ignore him?  If he hates all visitors, how did daddy build his cabin and survive?  All I ask for is a modicum of consistency, Mr. Voorhies.

Pop quiz, hot shot: Jason is able to pop up behind unsuspecting victims because A) he is the size of a linebacker B) he built tunnels under all of Camp Crystal Lake C) he's wearing sneakers.  For Sneaking.  The answers are B and or C.  My question is how Jason gets electricity to his tunnels and the camp, even though it has clearly been closed for 20+ years.  And what about those tunnels?  They look handmade, but some have grates on them, but are clearly not sewer drains.  I'm no city planner, but that doesn't make much sense to me.  Of course, Jason collects some of his victims (he only cleans up after himself sometimes) and tosses them into one of his tunnels, but that tunnel has no gross maggots or rats in it.  I guess Jason killed them all, too.

Jason doesn't reavel by tunnel alone in this film.  The man has some crazy teleportation skills on diplay in this movie.  That's okay; that ability was first established (by me) in Friday the 13th Part XIII: Jason Takes Manahttan.  Still, Whitney escapes from her tunnel prison and gets all the way to daddy's cabin, when Jason catches her.  Immediately before and after catching her (and returning her), Jason is murdering the annoying teens at the cabin.  I suppose that teleportation is a little farfetched, but the only other solution I can surmise is that Jason Voorhies has perfected Jetsons-level tube technology and sends Whitney back to the tunnels like a bank deposit.

Phew.  Now that I have all that out of my system, let's look at this movie as a film.  Ha!  I just read that sentence out loud.  Good times.  Well, despite all odds, I am pretty okay with a lot of this movie.  I think the casting was fine.  Jared Padalecki and Danielle Panabaker did a pretty good job carrying this movie, Aaron Yoo was somewhat amusing and Travis Van Winkle deserved to have an awful death, which he received.  The direction is hard to gauge.  I don't want to say that the actors were poorly directed, because they all served their purpose.  However, the film kind of goes through mini-cycles.  The first half hour was pretty awesome.  The next half hour set up the rest of the film, and the last third was pretty stereotypical slasher stuff.  If this movie ended after half an hour, I would say this is the greatest Jason movie ever.  Unfortunately, it kept going.  It's never awful, though it doesn't veer from the traditional Friday formula of most everyone dying, until plucky youngsters finally kill Jason.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie.  Remakes almost always disappoint, but this one definitely had its moments.  Is it great?  Not even close.  Still, it provides gratuitous nudity, a body count with some creative kills, and mostly makes sense.  And I learned things from it!

Somethings I learned from this remake:

• If you are having sex in a tent, but don't want your pervert friend to ogle your silhouettes, just turn off the light in your tent instead of wandering about in the woods, looking for trouble.  That gets you the gift of death via Voorhies.
• There is a huge untended crop of marijuana near Camp Crystal Lake.  Who lives there?  Jason Voorhies.  I guess that makes Jason a pothead.  So what's the lesson?  Don't do drugs, kids.
• The best compliment you can give a girl during sex is to tell her that her breasts "are fucking juicy, dude."  Women love being called "dude."
• When you're in the woods and park your car, take your keys with you.
• Judging from the not-quite-final shots, the filmmakers mourn Jason's passing, showing all the mayhem he caused and didn't have time to clean up after himself.  Why do the good always die so young?
• If you kill Jason, don't remove his mask and toss him into Crystal Lake.  He will jump out of the water (with his mask mysteriously back on) and kill you.

House of the Dead

Movies that are based on video games are not usually very good.  Double Dragon?  Super Mario Bros?  Street Fighter?  These are movies that make you shake with self-loathing after watching them, because you know you would have enjoyed yourself more if you had just sat in a bathtub filled with butterscotch pudding and ate raw bacon all day.  Again.  House of the Dead makes those movie watching experiences seem like viewing Citizen Kane while getting a body massage.

The first clue that this movie will unabashedly suck?  Clint Howard gets third billing.  Yeah.  This guy:

When you make Ron Howard look like a Chippendale's dancer by comparison, you know you're ugly.  Well, let's not pick on a guy for being less than pretty.  Ugly people often make positive contributions to society, right?  Ron Perlman and Willem Dafoe are good examples of this.  Maybe Clint will turn in a surprise break-out supporting role in this movie.  Let's see...Clint's costume is a Gordon's fisherman outfit with a hook hand.  Not a good sign.

Maybe the story is better.  It takes place off the coast of Oregon on the Isla de Muerte, which translates into "Island of the Dead."  Apparently, this is an educational film, because I didn't know that the Spanish had ever colonized, named, or even visited any part of the Pacific Northwest.  No wonder the British could never find the Isla de Muerte in Pirates of the Caribbean --- they were looking in the wrong ocean!  A group of roughly college-age kids are trying to get the the Island of the Dead for a rave.  Unfortunately, they missed the last boat leaving for the island and are forced to charter a boat (the one that Clint Howard works on) owned by Victor Kirk (Jurgen Prochnow); yes, that means that he is called Captain Kirk, and yes, the script notices that hilarious joke.  The boat gets them to the rave a little late, but it is still daylight, which makes me wonder how awesome this rave was if it was outdoors and started around lunchtime.  Aren't raves supposed to have deafening levels of music and trippy light shows?  How does that translate well into an island setting?  I guess I'm just not a raver.  The kids show up to the rave site, only to find it absolutely deserted, with a lot of the tents and equipment knocked over.  How you respond to a deserted party where many people went to great lengths to attend indicates the type of person you are.  Do you...

• A) look around and conclude that the party doesn't start until you walk in!
• B) say, "He-e-e-y, Scoob, looks like we got a mystery on our hands!" 
• C) decide that, despite the total lack of blood, that something very wrong has happened here and needs investigating!
• D) thank God that there is still lots of beer left in the kegs!
• E) go home as fast as you can, THE END.

Well...?  What kind of person are you?  Here's the answer key: (A) - a mangy, scabby whore and/or a Marmaduke fan (B) - a typical stoner and/or Casey Kasem (C) - a horror movie idiot and/or an insurance liability (D) - alcoholic and/or a frequent user of the term "Dude" (E) - a survivor.  The only correct answer is E, but this group splits between C and D.    Stupid rave kids.  

Some of them opt to wander around the island in the dark (because it got dark all of a sudden), while some decide to stay behind and have sex in a random tent.  Not to be overly prudish, but isn't that kind of what got Goldilocks in trouble?  "Somebody's been sleeping in my bed and...eeewww!!!"  In accordance with the Horror Movie Ethics Code of 1978, those lusty young adults that partake in premarital sex and/or abuse drugs are the first to die, so zombie-ish creatures attack the tent-sex girl and drag her body away, while the tent-sex guy is off peeing in the woods.  I wonder if the National Park Service has statistics for how often peeing on trees saves lives.  As this is happening, the others find a shack in the woods and decide to check it out.  After all, is there anything more inviting at night in an unfamiliar place than a dilapidated shack?  Or maybe this the titular House of the Dead?  Actually, no.  It's the place where the remaining original ravers took refuge, including the main character.  That's right...the main character has not even made an appearance in the movie so far.  The only reason you know it's the main character is because he delivered an ominous monologue (in the past and present tense) at the beginning of the film and gave brief insights into the other characters, so the script didn't have to waste time developing them.  Anyway, these ravers explain that zombies attacked the rave (killing future television actress Erica Durance) and suggest leaving the island on Captain Kirk's boat.  The rest of the movie has the kids trying to leave the island and fighting the zombies.


Obviously, this is a movie where several normal people try to kill zombies to save their own lives.  How can that possibly go wrong?  Well, for starters, you need cool zombies.  The zombies in House of the Dead are not your typical zombies.  They switch between the shuffling, moaning, classic movie zombies and the running zombies of 28 Days Later.  Oh, and then there are the water zombies.  Apparently, some zombies just spend their freetime just chillin' in the water by the island's only dock, waiting for some suckers to try and leave by boat.  Or, maybe all the zombies go to the dock to wash up after a messy kill.  That would explain the complete lack of blood anywhere on the island after the zombies attack.  That prissiness would also explain why the zombies seem to die, no matter where you shoot, punch or kick them.  This is a rare zombie movie where the headshot is hard to find.  I can't remember any, but sometimes I lose my short term memory after a trauma like this.


So the zombies aren't classic zombies, or even remotely cool.  This is based on a video game, so action is the key.  So how is the action?  It sucks.  Sucks.  It sucks worse than a kid that had a Novocaine shot to the lips and then tried to drink a thick milkshake through a coffee stirrer.  I would like to pause and congratulate myself for a great "sucking" analogy that was not vulgar; that brings my score up to Brian: 1, Rest of the World: presumably several million.  Here's a hint to the quality of this movie's action: despite dozens of explosions, the same result is seen every time --- some dude flying through the air in front of the explosion, flailing his arms.  And yet, the majority of the budget was clearly spent on the action.  Well, at least a few key scenes.  You will notice a few shots that suddenly jump into a low-rent version of The Matrix's bullet time, where everything freezes around an actor and the camera does a quick 360-degree spin around them.  That might sound totally awesome, but that's because I'm a damn poet; it is random, pointless, and doesn't even look that good.  And if you just couldn't get enough of those bullet time shots, don't worry --- when characters die, their character has another bullet time 360 spin, but this time, they aren't shooting zombies and just look sad.  Aww.


If you decide against following my (and probably your doctor's) advice and watch this movie, you might notice some symptoms of hallucination.  Don't worry.  Those two-to-three second jarring interruptions to your concentration are not actually your brain trying to punish you for watching this movie.  That will come later.  No, those interruptions to the film are actually snippets of somebody playing the House of the Dead arcade game.  The snippets do not have a direct correlation to anything in the movie; the environment and action in the game is completely independent of that in the film.  I would like to point out that the game footage includes instructions for a second player to insert quarters and press start to play.  I realize that this movie had a small budget, but a second player would have cost maybe five bucks.  It's not like they bought the arcade console; they probably just took a video camera down to Dave & Buster's.  Five dollars.  That's all it takes to make a crappy idea to insert video game footage in a movie look like it's not a cheap crappy idea to insert video game footage in a movie.


Sadly, one of the most redeeming features for this movie comes as bonus material with the DVD case.  The DVD insert has a character breakdown page, listing each character's position within the group (leader, scout, etc.) and their weapon of choice.  Hilariously, the brains of the group (according to the insert) is described as a moron by the main character.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure several of the weapons of choice aren't used by those characters in the movie.


That is the highlight of the movie for me, and it's not even a part of the movie.  How did this celluloid abomination get made, you ask?  Thank the Germans.  There is (or at least, there was in 2003) a law that allowed Germans to finance movies as a tax write-off; if the movies made money, then the investors had to pay tax on the profits, bu if it tanked, they got the entire investment written off.  Uwe Boll, you are a terrible director, but a brilliant man.  But this...this is a bad, bad, bad movie.  It's not even funny-bad.  This is, without a doubt in my mind, the most poorly made movie in the past decade to have widespread theatrical release.  Please.  Don't watch it.