Teenage Zombies-review with spoilers

This movie is not nearly this exciting.

            The 50s monster movie sure had strange visions of what teen life was like for kids back then.  One movie that stands out for me as a really fun movie of this variety is “The Blob” which came out in 1958. It was essentially a boy cried wolf story and it was done well with a young Steve McQueen.  On the other side of the scale we have “Teenage Zombies”.

            While not awful a person can watch this and simply marvel at the amount of padding that goes into this movie.  The absolute grasping at straws the script does to come up with a plausible idea and how it comes together in this mess.  It begins with a quartet of teens going water skiing.  There is talking the ENTIRE movie of water skiing with no footage of the actual act of water skiing so I suppose it is implied.  The teens, Reg, Skip, Julie and Pam find Mullet Island during their fun afternoon.

            The island is run by a mad scientist named Doctor Myrna who intends to turn everyone in the U.S. into zombies. The island also apparently has a Foley guy that loves bird sounds because he uses the hell out of them. While exploring the island she takes their boat and captures them in cages.  A couple of their friends go to look for them with the aid of the Sheriff but it doesn’t go well.  They even find the island where their friends are and talk to Myrna but she gets rid of them. Just as two goons arrive to see the results of her mind control nerve gas.

Come up to the lab and see what's on the slab.

            She shows them it is not working well on some of the test subjects.  On a male subject he becomes listless and bored and the woman is full of rage. It sounds like they just went to a Jeff Dunham performance.  It works on a gorilla, so cheers all around.  Reg and Skip have found a way to break free. In the middle of the night they attempt to build a raft to get off the island.  The two teens arrive again with the Sheriff just as Myrna is about to zombie gas the two girls.  The two boys see what has happened and say, “Their minds are gone! Just like the rest!” Honestly with these two girls I’m shocked that Skip and Reg can tell the difference.  Then, in a shocking twist, it is revealed he is in cahoots with the criminals the whole time.  He says he was fine giving them criminals and drunks but killing kids is too far.

I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

            Because the Sheriff is waffling in their criminal enterprise, the goons shoot him.  The girls get gassed and a really lame fight breaks out.  It is more or less several games of twister rather than actual melees though.  The teens attempt to gas Dr. Myrna to find out the antidote.  She still won’t talk though and one of her goons reveals the antidote instead.  They test it on the Doctor and she throws the rest on the floor. 

            Somehow Julie and Pam are cured through editing.  The gorilla comes into the lab and tastes the de-zombification juice and goes ape (no pun intended) on one of the goons.  The teens then escape on the police boat.  When they arrive back at the police station an army peon greets them and tells them they will get medals and meet the President.  One of the kids tells them he just wants one thing his boat back.  Ha ha ha, those darn kids. 

I don't care how good it is.  I WILL NOT pay 50 cents for a milkshake.

            Like I said, it’s not the worst thing to watch.  It’s incredibly corny and the poster is much more exciting than the movie is.  If you are interested in making fun of something then it’s perfect for that. Otherwise, it’s something that really didn’t need to be made except to be drive-in fodder. 

2001 Manics: Field of Screams-review

Fuck this movie forever!

            A while back I reviewed an awful movie from 2005 called “2001 Maniacs”.  It stared Robert Englund and was just a wretched little piece of shit.  Then I discover it’s got a sequel.  Oh yes! “2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams” was made in 2010.  Most of the cast even came back except oddly enough Robert Englund.  This perplexes me. Since he has stuck it through 8 Nightmare on Elm St. movies but he leaps off this sinking ship faster than a little white girl on the Titanic. 

            Instead we get Bill Moseley who is a decent actor and should be doing better things than this.  Bill is playing the part of George W. Buckman.  The town of Pleasant Valley has not been able to get new Northern bodies to the town to kill and eat.  So after killing the Sheriff in a really stupid manner they decide they are all going to bus north and go to them.  So now Ghost can rent buses and go on road trips?

Can you guess which is the Chinese stereotype

            Meanwhile the Sheraton sisters Rome and Tina are filming their reality series with their boyfriends and camper full of the most painful stereotypes outside of a Michael Bay movie.  First off if you didn’t get the joke that Rome and Tina Sheraton are spoofs of The Hilton sisters I really think the writers of this must’ve thought just making bimbos are dumb slut jokes would make awesome filler because that is all they did when they are on screen. 

            The rest of the screen time between stupid killings is filled with incredibly unfunny racial stereotypes.  Let’s go through the list:

1. The Jewish stereotype. Who comments in Yiddish and loves money and talks about how he got his camera for Passover.
2. The black stereotype (I shit you not) the character’s names are Crow and Black Cherry.  Ahmed Best is in this singing in his Jar Jar Binks finest.
3. The Mexican stereotype which stops working to get high and is just there to be called names like Speedy Gonzalez and Jesus rather than the proper pronunciation that sounds like Hey Zeus.
4. The Chinese Stereotype.  This one is so painful to watch.  The character is names China Rose and she speaks in Engrish and talks about suckee and no tickee no shirtee. 

Eat this.  In memory of me.

Fuck these writers this movie is so offensive I really didn’t even want to write a

review with spoilers because too much detail just annoys me. There are lines that are appalling to hear.  Like when Black Cherry and Jesus are having sex she screams “Fuck me like you did to get your green card.”  What the fuck! And Jesus calls the Jewish guy Schindler which isn’t even apt since Schindler wasn’t Jewish.

            Continuity is all over the place and there is no excuse for it.  If a cigar is blown up in one shot it should be blown up in another.  Not whole and everything fine.  What the fuck!  I am stunned.  They couldn’t even get a real sheep.  One of the characters in the last movie had a bestial relationship with a sheep and it was always with him.  In this they had a goofy fake one and said he had it stuffed but it was clear he got this one at a ToysRus.  The movie even has the balls to have to characters openly debate which is better male on male gay sex or bestiality?  WHAT THE FUCK?!

For heavy flow days... use this script.

            Seriously this movie is awful.  I think they made it to make the original seem better in comparison and if that was the idea it succeeds but that is like taking a dilapidated house and setting the house next to it on fire to make the dilapidated house look better.  I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned by the rottenness of this movie.  How on earth did this get made?  Are there really fans of this series?

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari-a review with spoilers

​Here’s a classic German silent movie from 1920 that very well be the first movie to have a twist ending.  It is really well done for the time and considering the twist it really is an impressive bit of oddity.  For a horror movie I wouldn’t say it’s got the same atmosphere of dread as Nosferatu or the acting of Phantom of the Opera but there is an air of insane fear that makes it work.

​It starts out with an old man and a young man, Francis outside telling each other their life story.  The old man’s is boring so the young man wants to one up him.  He sees a young girl walking past.  He tells the old man that she is his fiancée.  This is odd since she doesn’t show any recognition towards him. His story flashes back to a wee town called Holstenwall where all the sets are cut in strange angles, shadows are in odd and twisted fashions and the paint job make the sets look like a children’s play.  This will make sense later.

​There is a county fair going on and the strange freaky looking Dr. Caligari arrives to the clerk’s office to get a permit for a booth at the fair.  When asked what he does he says he’s in Somnambulist act. The next day the clerk is found murdered from some sort of stab wound.  Dr. Caligari sets up his booth and Francis and his buddy Alan arrive at the fair and decide to see the act.

​Inside a cabinet Dr. Caligari has command of a 23 year old somnambulist named Caesar which he claims has been asleep all his life. Caligari commands him to wake up.  He also tells the audience he can tell the past and future and invites the audience to ask him questions. Alan rushes to ask “When will I die?” Caesar looks at him and says “Before dawn tomorrow.”  Somehow Alan gets over this news and goes with Francis to see Jane.  Then that night Alan is stabbed by Caesar under the control of Caligari

​When Francis discovers what became of his friend he tells Jane and so he and her father go to investigate.  It doesn’t go anywhere though. Another murder almost takes place so the police catch the culprit and think they have the right man.  Meanwhile while Jane sleeps Caesar sneaks in to kill her but he is captivated by her beauty so he kidnaps her.  They chase him until he dies from exhaustion.  Caligari escapes capture somehow though.

​Francis finds Caligari hiding in an insane asylum as the director.  With the help of the other doctors and by finding the director’s journals they discover that the director became obsessed with a mystic called Caligari who in 1093, visited towns in Italy and used a somnambulist to murder people.  After being confronted with the dead body of Caesar he snaps and is put in a strait jacket and imprisoned in his own asylum.

​So the flashback is over. Francis and the old fellow get up and wander the yard and head back to the insane asylum where we see Caesar staring at flowers and Jane looking away.  Francis tells the old fellow not to mess with Caesar since he’ll kill you so much as look at you.  He looks like he is really into those flowers so I don’t know about that.  Then he goes up to Jane who stares vacantly and says “Jane I love you –when will you marry me?” She replies “We who are of noble blood may not follow the wishes of our hearts”.  So as you can see Caesar and Jane are inmates here at the asylum.

​Francis has obviously annoyed his new friend since he can tell his story is bull.  He leaves him to himself.  Especially when Francis sees a clean cut and shaven director of the asylum and he freaks out so much he needs to be put in a strait jacket and locked away.  Of course the director is the same actor who played Caligari but now that he has an idea as to what is going into his delusion he says he should be able to cure him.  

​So that explains the strange landscape and the odd looks of the characters.  The story is told from the perspective of a madman.  It’s a pretty clever idea when you think about it since it doesn’t make sense until the end really.  Everything in this story is the delusional ravings of insanity.  I can just image what it must have been like in 1920 to see something so bizarre.  Considering EVERY movie seems to write in a twist ending I’d say that they all owe a nod to this one for paving the way.

Dark Ride- review with spoilers

​Hey kids! Every wonder what happened to that fat freckled kid from “The Sandlot”?  Or Jamie- Lynn Sigler after her fame of “The Sopranos”?  Well 2006 gave us a portal to their career choices in the horror movie “Dark Ride”.   Our frightening story takes place on the boardwalk at Asbury Park in 1989.  Identical twin teenagers walk up to the Dark Ride.  Outside there is a seedy looking carny and a boy playing chess.  The carny asks “Round trip or one way?” clever stuff.

​One of the girls is really into the whole horror scene and the kind of person I’d have a real laugh with. The other should not have come at all on the ride.  She is obviously scared and looks like she’s about to cry.  Her sister of course keeps mocking her.  I hate people like that. Either you like horror or you don’t. It took me a long time to grow into it and until then I was a total wimp for a lot of things. But what you shouldn’t do is mock someone for not liking something you don’t like.  Different strokes for different folks….said the critic.

​Anyway back to the movie.  The tough girl is literally grabbed right out of her chair.  Instead of running the hell out of the ride like a mad woman the scared girl remains in her ride.  She sees her sister has been gutted and put on display then the mad man goes for her.  Next we fade to the credits and a montage of newspapers.  Things say stuff like “14 bodies found in ride” and “Killer to be placed in Insane Asylum” and “Dark Ride To Open Again Soon.” maybe not in those exact words but enough that you get the gist.  Oh and my favorite was “Spring Break Finally Here” must’ve been a slow news day.

​Ten years later Cathy, played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler and her friend Liz are getting ready to go on Spring Break with their friends Bill, our friend from “The Sandlot” Patrick Renna, Steve and Jim. Guess they read the newspaper article.  Jim is a creepy looking guy.  Imagine if Biff from “Back to the Future” mated with a grouper fish. This guy had Innsmouth look written all over him.  So they hope into their 70s decorated rape van and go on a road trip.

​First stop is a gas station. Bill finds a pamphlet for the Dark House and this gets them into the idea.  So they decide to head off on a wee detour to Ashbury Park.  Meanwhile a few weeks ago according to a subtitle the killer from the murder is in the insane asylum cooling his heels watching static on TV in his cell.  I didn’t know they gave you televisions in your cells in insane asylums. Though I bet that must be maddening itself because the screwball was in a straight jacket and they left it on static so unless he turns the channel with his teeth he is sort stuck between a rock and hard place.

​A couple orderlies see on his chart “Vegetarian only” so they decide to mess with him.  One of them happens to have a steak and he keeps hitting the poor asshole with it until he gets up snapping all the buckles on the straight jacket while the static on TV gives off the effects of a strobe light.  He then massacres the guards and lumbers away. Back to his hide out in the Dark Ride.

  ​The young adventurers have meanwhile picked up a young nubile hitchhiker girl.  She seems a bit nutty and slutty but that is Jim’s type so she is welcomed aboard.   They make it to the Dark Ride.  Jim breaks inside and fiddles with the electricity getting it up and running.  Everyone except Cathy goes into the ride.  Cathy stays in the van.  So everyone is wandering around the ride having many a jump scare when the hitchhiker tells Steve to follow her. He does so and she shows him Cathy with her throat slashed. He freaks out but it was just a gag.  He is still pissed and gets mad at everyone for being in on since it was Bill’s idea.  Turns out Bill’s cousins were the two twins that died out here and coming out here was his way of making closure….ok. Honestly, I don’t know what Steve is so pissed about.  I’ve had jokes played on me and when they are good sometimes all you can do is appreciate how good your friends got you.

​He goes to pout though. Everyone else finds out they are locked inside the ride.  Jim goes to fix the power which keeps messing up and the others just wander around like morons.  Soon Cathy and Liz find Steve dead and foul looking decorated as a grim marionette in the Ride.    The Jim and the hitchhiker have decided to do their own thing. She is blowing him; of course he is such a half fish man to notice the killer decapitate her as she is doing this for a crude throwaway gag.

​Everyone is running in different directions like idiots now. Liz gets killed off screen.  We also get a security guard that comes in to find out what the commotion is.  Cathy runs to him and like a total jerk just lets him die as the killer is right behind him because she says nothing.  She takes the van and is about to book it to safety until she gets a text message from Jim that says HELP.  So she drives through the ride hitting the killer and knocking onto a bed of spikes.  Jim is glad to be alive. Bill comes out of hiding as well.  Jim asks where he was and Bill stabs him with a knife.

​It turns out Bill was that little kid playing chess outside the Dark Ride in the beginning.  He was the killer’s little brother. Cathy gets out of the van runs outside crying loudly and we fade to black. That wasn’t a bad twist at least.  Since every movie nowadays just HAS to have one to seem clever it’s nice when one works.  Considering the rest of the movie is bucket of “who cares” that is a good endearing quality to this movie. I still don’t think it’s all that scary or interesting but don’t you feel better now that you know what became of those actors…..I know I sure do.

Seance- a review with spoilers

So until something new comes out worth seeing and writing about I feel I need to keep sharp.  I picked another random fearnet.com wonder and got “Séance”.  So I’ll write about that for now.   Well it’s got better production value than most straight to video horror films so that is a plus. It has Adrian Paul of Highlander fame so the B-movie status confirmed.  Alright, what do we got to lose?

Well it starts in a dorm room.  An Ashley Simpson lookalike gets up and sees some shampoo bottles in a state of disarray. So she creeps up to the shower and we see a horrid little dead girl ghost inside.  It leaps at the Ashley clone’s throat strangling her. She wakes to reveal it was all a dream…or was it?  The bottles were neatly arranged and so she goes into the bathroom armed with an oscillating fan and is promptly scared from behind by her roommate coming in to pee.

So we discover this dump is a college dorm that used to be apartments. You know, I’m going to call bullshit on that right quick.  I’ve never heard of any college that converted an apartment to dorms by just slapping a sign outside and saying it’s a dorm.  Usually, and you can correct me if I am way off base here, they demolish the older building and will actually build new dorm rooms over that.  Oddly enough though, this dorm does seem to have been converted a slight bit since being an apartment complex.

There is a common shower which allows the security guard to spy on them through a peep hole at times and a common room with a piano and transported out all the kitchens but really let’s not get into that.  It’s weird enough when you have to see a kid with his dorm filled with Gorilla metal shelving?  Good god.  Do I need to go into how stupid that is for a dorm room to have something as hard core as heavy industrial shelving? But you know what I’m just talking about their stupid fake dorms.  I haven’t really talked about this movie.

The Ashley Simpson doppelganger is named Lauren, she Melina and Allison share a room.  They are all staying over Thanksgiving break.  Allison’s boy toy Diego is also there watching over his roommate’s parrot.  The parrot says nothing but looks awesome.  He immediately becomes my favorite character in this piece of shit.  So after everyone teases Lauren for seeing a ghost they go and a small bottle of bourbon from the security guards desk.  This tiny bottle manages to get four full grown college students tore up.

They dork around the lonely dorm thinking they are in fact all alone.  But there is a Crispin Glover lookalike that is staying behind over the Thanksgiving holiday too.  His name is Grant and he is an ass.  Lauren connects with him because not only does he believe her about the ghost he has footage of her on video.  He shows it to her.  But he tells he won’t show it to anyone because he doesn’t want Ghostbusters and what not coming into his room turning it into a freak show.  All I know is with footage like that of a full figure apparition the “Ghost Adventures” crews head’s would explode. All they get is shadow figures and orbs and crap they call spirits.

So Lauren pouts in her room to her friends. Diego says they should hold a séance and try to bring the girl and maybe the guy that also lived on this floor back to chat with them and see what they want.  They think the little girl died in the 60s falling down the elevator shaft. So why they are dead janitor into it not knowing who he is really I am not sure.  All you need to know is they summon Adrian Paul who is pretty much silent the whole movie; except he wanders around whistling “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and killing folks.   If that is creepy to you then the Count from “Sesame Street” must have scared you to death.

He can only be seen when the lights are out.  He slowly kills Laurens friends one at a time.  Then they figure out if they let him possess one of them and then die it will kill him.  Diego gets possessed in this process and as such takes a pair a scissors to his throat.  So he dies.  Shouldn’t that have ended the movie?  I guess not, because we had to see a few more deaths leading up to the big jumbo finally. Grant gets possessed and then sacrifices himself by diving down the empty elevator shaft.

I know he wanted to kill Duncan McLeod but by that rationale shouldn’t he still be alive?  And here’s another thing at one point ghost little girl shows Lauren a collection of her old baubles and whatnot that was hidden under the linoleum of the bathroom.  No wood underneath?  So I guess, either these women NEVER stepped in that one spot thus bending the linoleum and reveling the secret until this moment when Lauren could cut the linoleum to get the items OR they weight so little that they don’t effect the floor one bit.

Whatever, this movie is ridiculous.  There is no gore.  No real scares to be found.  The humor is stale and the characters are painfully one dimensional and it is highly unbelievable.  It’s not a good movie.  But I’ll give Adrian Paul this. It must feel nice to not be doing the same old thing as usual.

Red: Werewolf Hunter-A review with spoilers

            As much as I enjoy the internet shows “The Guild” and “The Adventures of Neil” and laughed a lot at “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”, it really is a bad sign when the only star in your movie is Felicia Day.  If that is your only draw then maybe you are better off running for the hills.  This made for TV movie was laughably bad.

           

Let’s start with the beginning. First we get a bit of text

“Many many moons ago,

almost too many to count,

in a small village deep within the forest,

there lived a young girl her

hair a red as the setting sun.”

What the hell does this have to do with anything? Not a thing.  There is a small hovel and an old Granny is reading to her BLONDE granddaughter.  Suddenly she hears a howl and tells her to haul butt up the ladder to the attic to hide. 

            Granny does about as well as Betty White in a bullfight while a really crappy CGI werewolf beats the crap out of her.  Still, the young girl yells “Leave her alone!” This gets the werewolf’s attention so that Granny makes a killing blow before keeling over with an eye missing.

            Flash forward to the present. Felicia Day is in what looks like a ghost town. Wandering with her gun out Felicia Day looks like she’d cry to use a pistol. She has NO gravitas at all.  Nathan, her fiancé, is meeting her family for the first time.  Exposition is shoved down our gob. Since characters are meeting one another you find out Nathan and Virginia, Felicia Day’s character, are FBI agents.  Nathan is apparently a total dumb ass too.

            Nathan asks her brother Jake, “Why do they call her Red?” For real movie?  They are asking why Felicia Day, a blazing red head is called red? Either way her brother can’t seem to make up an answer and tells Nathan he needs to ask Virginia.  So since this is a piece of crap movie they need to let you know that cell service is bad. Nathan goes to find a signal and gets bumped into by a balding bloodied guy.  He whispers “Gabriel” and falls over.

            Nathan runs to get help but when he returns he finds out the dead guy turned to ash.  Needless to say the entire family, Marcus, Jake, present day Granny, and Virginia decide to tell Nathan they hunt werewolves. He decides he needs time to let this sink in.  So he goes wandering in the woods.  Nathan gets caught in a storm and bumps into a werewolf.  He shifts and knocks him to the ground then says “Gabriel!” and bites him.  Okay. So the werewolf says his own name before biting people.  That is really pointless.

            Felicia and family find Nathan on the ground.  His wounds have healed.  They are freaked out since there is a werewolf that can phase at will and are breaking the truce.  They don’t think Nathan has been bitten so it’s no biggie.  “Maybe he is cut out to be in this family.” Marcus says Granny replies with “Maybe they wanted him to survive.” REALLY?  That is insightful.  Truly she is a wise matriarch.

            They go to there blade style arsenal where they get silver weapons.  They even explain to Nathan they have an easy method to test if a person is a werewolf.  Do they bother to try it on Nathan though?  Gosh no. That would be something a sane person would do.

            They go back into the ghost town and explain to Nathan that werewolves are destroyed by silver.  They town they are in was attacked by werewolves and were turning the rest of the town so they killed everyone.  Holy shit! These are the good guys? They see a car drive by full of “rogues” so they whip out there weapons and kill the werewolves.  I call foul! They weren’t even doing anything.  Profiling! Then they open up the cars truck to reveal a kidnapped girl who said she was going to be their next game.  Well, that puts my profiling argument in its place.

           

            So we see a mass of humans hanging from chains scared out of their wits while the werewolves who look more like homeless people roam among them looking mean.  Gabriel gives a rousing Saruman speech to the wolves “You will taste man flesh!”  They let the people out to hunt them down and kill them.  But when they transform the CGI is really bad.  They don’t look like wolves at all.  They look like rat/monkey/men. And why the hell can werewolves in movies climb walls? Is that a wolf trait?    Anyway one of the humans, a teen boy tells Gabriel, he wants to be turned rather than die.  Hell, I didn’t know they had options.  He was lucky.

            So while camping out during the full moon Nathan turns. Luckily Virginia stuns him with a stun gun.  What a weak werewolf.  Virginia gets in an argument with Marcus over whether they should kill him or not.  “Not everything is black and white Marcus.”  Ok up until now it has been for you.  You killed a whole town because they were werewolves you psycho.

            Virginia, Marcus and Jake go to kill the werewolves leaving Granny with Nathan.  She tells him how her husbanded turned into a werewolf and she found a way to turn him back human. But he resented her for it because it liked be a wolfman so much.  So when he succeed in turning himself again.  She killed him. Wow….I guess psycho runs in the family.  At least it isn’t brains.  The three hunters are caught by a single gas grenade. 

            Virginia is hanging in chains and the other brothers are going to be hunted.  Luckily one was able to sneak a knife in his boot.  He kills a great deal of werewolves but both of them are torn apart by Gabriel.  Nathan goes in the morning to rescue Virginia.  After finding the bodies of the two brothers he is met with no resistance.

           

            There is a gearing up for war montage.  Nathan gets locked in a cell again.  Virginia kills tons of werewolves with a harpoon cannon then she is able to beat them in hand to hand combat.  Nathan changes forms in his cell and breaks free and kills Granny.  For whatever reason she looks just like the Granny in the beginning of the movie, missing an eye.  Now there is a Gabriel and Virginia fight and match banter for a while until Virginia rams a Harpoon into him. 

            She sees that Nathan is on the loose and killed Granny.  So she goes after him.  But she is not careful and gets knocked out wolfman Nathan who proceeds to bite her.  She wakes in the morning and finds Nathan.  She is broken up about the situation.  He thinks they can live together still as werewolves.  They embrace and she shanks him with a silver knife.  Wow what a totally cold-hearted bitch move.  Is she going to kill herself to make sure this lycanthrope curse ends? Nope.  Next we see her reading to a little blonde girl on her lap.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! WTF! Well at least she didn’t have enough problems living with the curse she moved on with her life. 

            What a piece of crap. But honestly what did I expect form the network that brought us such gems as “Frankenfish” “Sharktopus” and “Ice Spiders”. The only draw is Felicia Day and I’m sure she just was happy to cash that check at the end of the day.  It doesn’t even have the funny camp value you get form a Bruce Campbell movie.  Good lord what a glorious waste of time.