Monthly Archives: April 2013

REVIEW: Leprechaun (1993)

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Leprechaun: B

Watch Jennifer Aniston and her loser friends get terrorized by an evil Leprechaun. All the ingredients and talismans from classic Leprechaun-lore are there including the 4-leafed clover, rainbows, and pot of gold. Even though this movie about a demonic Leprechaun probably only exists because the writers were scraping the bottom of the how-can-we-make-this-fairytale-character-who-isn’t-in-a-horror-movie-yet-scary barrel, it is a classic and entertaining splatstick. If you’ve never heard of the films, the Leprechaun is a crude and slightly racist midget who loves LOLing at torture and death. He has magic powers which he uses to murder people in ironic and Looney Tunesesque scenarios.

Some 1980’s bro finds a pot of gold in Ireland and the Leprechaun hides in his luggage and makes his way back to the States. He murders the guy’s wife and drives him insane. The bro uses a 4-leafed clover to trap the Leprechaun in a box. Some 90’s bros accidentally free the Leprechaun from his prison ten years later and he immediately begins a killing spree motivated by his misplaced gold.

The kills are cool and the cartoonish tone that the movie takes makes it fun. You laugh while people are injured and killed and the Leprechaun drops numerous puns/one-liners. The comedy is mingled with the horror aspects of the film in a very successful way; there is serious gore, but also a Leprechaun cackling while riding a tricycle. At one point, he even smashes into Jennifer Aniston’s vehicle in a little Leprechaun car. Before he can reclaim all of his ducats, the Leprechaun is killed by a 4-leafed clover / gasoline explosion combo. His little skeleton is proof that he’s been killed. There is a lame cliffhanger involving a single gold coin.

The cult success of this film inspired several sequels and (unfortunately) multiple imitators that tried to capitalize off of the adored elements of the film. All of a sudden, there was a Rumpelstiltskin movie, a “Wishmaster” movie, tons of elf/fairy horror films, and (incredibly) more Leprechaun horror films not associated with this character or franchise.

REVIEW: Sleepaway Camp 2 (1988)

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Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers: A-

This relatively unknown cult classic will appeal to you if:

1. You like horror films with creative/disgusting death sequences. My favorite is when Angela, the killer camp counselor, drowns a camper in an outhouse by using a larger branch to submerge the unlucky victim’s head beneath the muck. Classic.

2. You like gratuitous nudity. Lots and lots of it. You’re sold already, aren’t you?

3. You like the 80’s. The perms, mullets, and short shorts.

4. You like happy, yet oddly creepy camping songs that get stuck in your head for days. “Oooooohhhh, I’m a happy camper! I love the summer sun. I love the trees and forest; I’m always having fun!”

5. You like your movies to follow the plan: The promiscuous, drug-abusing teens go first, and that’s that.

6. You like sequels where seeing the original is not required. I’ve actually seen the original, and I’d advise against it. They tell you what you need to know in the beginning around the campfire, anyway.

REVIEW: Robot Ninja (1989)

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Robot Ninja: C+

“I am the Robot Ninja, and I kick ass”.

This is what the hero of the movie says the first time he appears in costume. That line is way more awesome than “I’m Batman” or Superman’s “A friend”. But here’s the problem: the hero is A) Not a Robot. B) Not a Ninja and C) Does not kick ass, and in fact gets beaten to death by criminals at the end of the movie.

Spoilers? No-because the whole time you’re watching the movie you’re thinking “This idiot is going to get killed….and that’s just fine with me”. As a plus, the actor is very handsome. I sincerely hope he’s enjoying his life as a bartender in West Hollywood and has pride in having this movie under his belt.

The Robot Ninja is this dude who decides that he should do good things for the community, and then goes out at night and gets his ass kicked by muggers and black people. A lot of times. Then he starts shoving sheet metal into his wounds. This does not make him stronger. He never learns Ninjitsu or gets a computer brain. He just covers his wounds with sheet metal.

The Robot Ninja is a comic book artist by day. Besides his night life ineptly fighting crime, he starts drawing comics that predict the future. At the end, he illustrates the cause of his own death and goes and gets killed. And he’s such an idiot, it makes total sense. And he doesn’t just die, he bleeds out while drawing his last comic-which is of him being dead. Roll credits. Then you can turn it off and do something else.

Bruce Ward (Robin from the 60’s Batman show) plays his boss and is all fat and gay and shit, which I dug. At least watch until Robin starts yelling and then injures his own hand. It’s pretty funny.

Also, there’s this one criminal who is pretty awesome. You’ll know him when you see him. He’s a terrible actor but you can see he’s really trying to do a good job. I give him an E for effort, but an F in “not being shitty”, which makes him average. That seems fair to me.

All in all, this movie is entertaining because it’s ineptly made but you can tell that the people who made it were trying their best. Please join me in honoring Robin and all of these low achievers who brought us this shit-covered gem.

REVIEW: Mr. Brooks (2007)

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Mr. Brooks: F

Mr. Boring. Just awful. If you are in the mood to watch some bullshit, here it is.

Costner plays an un-scary Patrick Bateman-like popular yuppie by day, schizophrenic serial killer by night. He winds up taking another psycho under his wing and they kill people. I think the writers were going for a dark character study with this one but the tortoise-like pace and lack of chemistry between Costner and Dane Cook put me to sleep. Mr. Brooks’ arguments with his sinister alternate personality are externalized as his id appears in the form of some annoying dude for like a thousand of these “debate” scenes.

Demi Moore is the best part of this movie. You can quote me on that. She is a hot-shot cop who sniffs around the old murder files and starts to pick up on Brooks’ shit.

SPOILER: One of the reasons the movie didn’t get a UV: Mr. Brooks outsmarts Dane Cook and murders the fuck out of him with a shovel.

I guarantee that you’ll see every kill coming a mile away and the dialogue is fake as hell. No one talks like the people in this movie. Even the deranged Brooks debates about murder are goofy as fuck:

“Finding someone you think would be fun to kill is a bit like, well it’s a bit like falling in love. You meet a lot of candidates, and you like some of them, and they’re nice. But they’re not right. And that special one comes along, and your heart beats faster, and you know that’s the one.”

If you thought that was “deep,’ you should check this film out. You’ll probably have an existential meltdown when Dane Cook works some of his jokes into the movie.

REVIEW: Hellraiser 3 (1992)

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Hellraiser 3: C

Hellraiser 3 keeps in line with Hellraiser 2 in that Pinhead is still trapped in a fucking rock. He somehow got his identity divided and exists simultaneously as his human self and the demonic cenobite. His human self is stranded in a black hole somewhere while his cenobite self is the only part of him trapped in stone. That’s mostly where the original ideas stop. Then the old Hellraiser formula kicks in…

Pinhead, while trapped in the rock, has to use his limited supernatural powers of intrigue to temp some idiot into opening the cube with the promise of accessing new levels of hedonism that walk the line of pleasure/pain. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES WHERE HE NEEDS HUMANS TO SUMMON HIM. Only through this can he fully bust out of his rock and start ritually hooking motherfuckers. Things start going his way when douchey 90’s Night-at-The-Rocksbury club rats become mesmerized by the box and start getting murdered. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES WHERE PEOPLE START IRONICALLY START DYING BECAUSE OF THEIR INFACTUATION WITH THE BOX. The club owner is the hedonist/evildoer character who will inevitably empower the cenobites through his own shittiness. JUST LIKE IN EVERY OTHER HR MOVIE. He buys the Pinhead rock thinking it is cool modern art, some assholes are systematically slaughtered by the power of the cube, and (of course) some do-gooder gets wise to what’s happening. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKING MOVIES! The temptation gradually becomes manipulation, and then becomes possession.

When Pinhead finally busts out, two things happen: some decent carnage occurs as he summons cenobite backup (one cenobite uses possessed CD’s to telekinetically slice people), and a sub-plot is fully exposed that (I think) explains that Pinhead’s identity spilt somehow resulted in the total corruption/evil of rock-Pinhead. Apparently, the human-Pinhead (who, again, was trapped in a vortex the whole movie) was the only thing keeping the original Pinhead from being a ruthless asshole. The Pinhead consciousnesses fuse and him becoming more complete somehow vanquishes him. Okay. The ending is some “THE END” with a “…?” after it shit. JUST LIKE…

 

REVIEW: Raptor Island (2004)

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Raptor Island: D+

I watched Pterodactyl the other night. When  I saw that Raptor Island was next, I let out a long breath, sadly mumbled “fuck it,” resigned myself to the idea of watching it, and thought about my life during the credits of Pterodactyl.

Lorsnzo Lamas leads a team of soldiers in pursuit of (what else?) terrorists to fucking Raptor Island! You can see where this is going and what kinds of shenanigans to expect. Cheaply rendered CGI raptors feast on soldiers and terrorists alike. All the same ingredients of Pterodactyl and all the same lamentable movie-making. My favorite Lamas quote (with a straight face, standing over comrade’s fallen body): “Secure his body men; I don’t want those raptors gettin to it!”

I included an image of the raptors so you can see the level of CGI we’re dealing with. Not only do you have to suspend your disbelief and pretend that Lamas is anything other than a pill-head with a bad tan, but you also have to pretend like those fucking feeble, shivering polygons that slunk around to the same 30 second clip of “raptor” noise are dinosaurs.

REVIEW: Pterodactyl (2005)

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Pterodactyl: D

Pterodactyl is ptero-terrible but I was entertained during most of the movie.

Some scientists/students on a field trip meet some terrorist-hunting Marines in the woods in rural Turkey and all of a sudden, pterodactyls start eating everyone! How’s that for a plot, asshole?

The CGI looks like PS1 but who cares; if you sit down to watch this movie, you know what you are getting yourself into. This movie was made during a unique window of time in which CGI in horror films was just god-awful and Sharknado had not been made yet. Bad movies with post-Sharknado era self-awareness that are “so bad, they’re good”  were not being mass produced for mainstream audiences, so any movies like Pterodactyl that didn’t take itself seriously wasn’t doing so because the filmmakers thought they would get paid. It was because the movie was a piece of shit and/or no one cared. This is part of why I don’t hate this movie: I don’t feel like it not taking itself seriously is a gimmick being sold to me.

Anyway, if you were hoping for something at all like Jurassic Park, prepare to watch that hope get eviscerated by a pterodactyl. Check this out: Coolio plays one of the soldiers! His only role in the film is to blast shit with automatic weapons and deliver one-liners. When the terrorist ringleader gets dropped into the dactyl nest at the end, Coolio lowers the assault rifles he holds in each hand and quips “Damn! Judgement by dinosaur!” while the dactyl babies tear the guy up.

There is a plot worse than most video games’ and a lot of guns, dinosaurs, and carnage. The movie didn’t age well. Don’t watch it unless you love Coolio or you have brain damage or both.

 

REVIEW: Alien Seed (1989)

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Alien Seed: D

Welcome to B-movie Heaven! Alien Seed is one of the most low budget pieces of garbage I have ever seen but it is so fun to watch.

“So bad it’s good” is a thing now, and I agree that it is a legitimate concept, but it is totally subjective. What I think is bad-good, someone else might think is bad-bad and vice versa. All you can do is make your case, so disagree if you want, but to me, this movie is 24 karat bad-good.

This was the first time I watched a movie and organically experienced the “so bad it’s good” phenomenon. This was probably circa 1997, so video stores and Fangoria were the only way you found out about stuff like this. There was no “buzz” about Alien Seed; watching bad movies was relegated to nerds (like me) who laughed at MST3K. There was no mainstream adoration of crap like this. We were living in a pre-Sharknado age when then SciFi channel played shitty movies for people to watch unironically.

If I sound like a hipster (“I liked garbage before it was cool!”), that’s not my point. I just want to emphasize the special place this movie has in my heart because I found it with all the same likelihood you’d find treasure at a landfill. My love for how cheap and awful Alien Seed is was ahead of its time, so I can never forget it.

Extraterrestrials get the brilliant idea to inseminate some random woman with their “Alien Seed” in the hopes that her hybrid offspring will trigger a doomsday (or second coming, depending on how you look at it) on Earth. A reporter named Timmons, played by this guy who is a worse actor than a mannequin on a skateboard, somehow figures out what’s happening and takes it upon himself to be the woman’s protector a la Kyle Reese from Terminator. The guy can’t even deliver his fucking terribly written lines correctly when he arrives at the woman’s apartment with Chinese food.

Knock-knock-knock.
“Who is it?”
“Take-out.”
“I didn’t order any.”
Timmons aggressively storms into her apartment.
“I did.”

This exchange is so wretched and miserable that the first time I saw it, it became an inside joke with my friends and me for over a year. He looks like Steve Blackman on estrogen supplements.

Amid all this exciting Chinese food eating and not-acting, along comes Erik Estrada, a mad scientist who also figures out the Alien Seed situation. He concocts a plan to kidnap the woman, harvest the alien-baby for his own twisted agenda, torture / reveal his plan to Timmons, and laugh a lot. Check it out: Erik Estrada is the best actor in the film! Next to Timmons, he looks like Sir Antony Hopkins.

A B-movie cat and mouse game ensues. There is a deplorable car chase that is full of bloopers and sped-up footage and no special effects beyond that. There is no alien action because, face it, they couldn’t even afford a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers level of alien make-up.

I had a hard time figuring out when the movie was taking itself seriously (if ever) and when it was embracing the stench of its own schlock. The fact that there is a shred of question here should be a testament to Estrada’s acting. If you are in the mood for everything ugly from the 80s and sub-Dolamite production, here’s your bad-good diamond in the rough.