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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZDEskqq_vA

REVIEW: Shutter Island (2010)

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Shutter Island: B-

It begins as a cerebral noir that reveals itself as a “twist” film early in the second act, making for a real anti-climactic ending. I’d say my interest was peaked after about the first 20 minutes of the film, but Scorsese doesn’t give us enough credit for this one and flaunts all the pieces you need to put the puzzle together way too soon.

Leo is a persnickety fed dispatched to the island, which serves as a massive mental care ward for the criminality insane, to investigate a missing persons case. Things get crazy when all the crazy crazies go crazy and crazily act especially crazy. Fun drinking game: take a shot whenever anyone makes a cryptic statement that is left unanswered by other characters on screen. Double shots for dribbling inmates. You’ll be at the hospital in no time!

The acting is solid and the set designs are impressive. It is hard to get attached to any of the characters, though. The only one you develop a relationship with is Leo and he just does his thinking-owl face and pursues a plot/sub-plot that you’ve already figured out before he can even get to them. Maybe you get creeped out by semi-abandoned insane asylums that have that 19th century feel to them. If so, there are probably two scenes that will give you a cheap shiver. Other than that, there’s nothing to get scared about. Even the mummified/skeletal patient who gives the Shutter Island “shhhh” isn’t scary. She looks like someone who gets drunk off of pink wine and plays bridge with my Grandma.

There’s a quasi-Shyamalanian “twist” at the end that is supposed to be some kind of pay off for sticking around through about 90 minutes of predictability, and it is enough to bump the movie down a grade. All in all, there is a cool atmosphere and some decent talent but The Happening called and wants it’s storytelling back.

 

REVIEW: Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue (2009)

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Nightmare in Red White and Blue: A-

This is a documentary about the American horror film featuring exclusive interviews with John Carpenter, George Romero, and numerous other horror icons and contributors. Great interviews and insightful commentary on some of my favorites. Traces horror from silent film all the way to modern hits like Saw and Hostel.

There are clips from hundreds of horror films and any horror fan will appreciate the elevated dialogue on the genre. Fans like me can admit that guilty pleasures lie in low budget slasher flicks and monster gore-fests, but we know that there is artistic merit and deep social commentary to be found in many works of horror; some of the best horror movies are the ones that make us cringe at the same time we realize that we are viewing a reflection of our own society’s shortcomings.

Lance Hendrickson narrates this odyssey and I can honestly say I was actively interested the whole time. Whether you are a fan of horror or just want a crash course before diving into the genre, you should see this immediately.

REVIEW: The Box (2009)

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The Box: D

I love the premise but I hate the movie.

The first 20 minutes of the film is great. The last lot of minutes are not so great. I feel like Kelly keeps doing this same formula: Great premise/conflict that unravels into a meandering spiritual cut-up. There are neat characters but then all of a sudden everything is sprawling out of control and there are CGI blobs

Langella shows up at Cameron Diaz’s house and tells her she can push this button, which, if she does, will result in the murder of a stranger, and her getting a million bucks. Or she can do nothing and sit there with that stupid look on her face and get no money. She needs money like most people, so it’s a real tough call.

She pushes it. This happens pretty early and initiates a plug-pulling on this film which then demands the audience sit there and watch Kelly drain the tub FUCKING SLOWLY.

What could have been a cool commentary on human nature and free will with a badass Twilight Zone atmosphere winds up being a 90 minute collage of people looking worried/confused that sprays pretentious CGI all over your retina.

REVIEW: Daybreakers (2009)

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Daybreakers: C

This movie is an allegory for whatever you want it to be an allegory for.

In a near future dystopia, a plague has transformed most of the population into vampires. The few remaining humans are fugitives or kept as livestock to sustain members of the upper-vamp class who can afford to purchase their expensive and rare blood. In this way, the movie is an allegory for imbalance of wealth and resources.

The movie follows Ethan Hawke, a self-loathing vampire scientist (who sometimes dresses like a fucking Quaker) who is working on a synthetic blood to be sold to the vamps of the world who, if they don’t feed regularly, devolve into vicious Nosferatu bat-things who attack vamps/humans alike similar to the Reapers from Blade 2. There is all sorts of allegorical stuff on class warfare and societal collapse here, so if that’s your thing, eat it up.

Sam Neill plays a malevolent vampire CEO whose every action is motivated by profit. He is trying to monetize Ethan Hawke’s research and the human blood of the world. He is an undead poster-child for capitalist greed. Every second of his screen time is a thinly veiled indictment of capitalism and Big Pharma. Another symbolic facet to the movie.

Dafoe is the hero of the movie, but not because he slays vampires. He is the hero because he disrupts corporate profits and he figures out how to redistribute resources. Allegorically, he is a socialist with a crossbow, I guess.

There is a lot going on here, so any unified “message” of the film sort of drowns in the movie’s ambition. Weirdly, this is admirable. I don’t have much to say here, I guess. The movie reminds me of all the diseases trying to infect Mr. Burns at once: there is so much shit cluttering the “doorway” of this movie that trying to focus on any one thing is just too distracting.

There is some pretty quality gore and make-up. If you decide to watch this movie, don’t think about it too hard. Just enjoy it.

REVIEW: Blade 2 (2002)

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Blade 2: C

I thought since Guillermo del Toro directed this that there might be some cool monsters or something in it. There are. But the vampires in this are the biggest fucking pussy vampires I have ever seen. The Twilight guy is more powerful than these things.

The movie is about these monsters called “Reapers,” who look like elderly albino guys with blue contacts and CGI mouths, who feed on vampires. The movie is also about Blade again, the vampire who kills vampires. Now we have these vampires who kill other vampires, including the vampire who already spent the last movie killing other vampires. Everyone in this movie wants to kill everyone else in the movie. It’s a big triangle – maybe an octagon, actually -of vampire/kung-fu violence.

The plot has more holes than Snipes’s IRS docket, but the story isn’t the point. The characters are pawns pushed into situations of inevitable vampire carnage. It’s one of those “we have to join forces” movies with a bunch of double-crossing. The fight scenes were not my favorite. They are all highly stylized in the same way that the Underworld movies are. People flip around, defy physics, and deliver more one-liners than Schwarzenegger in Running Man. Blade gives someone a vertical suplex. I love that move!

There is gore. You’ll see. The movie isn’t incredible but it was way better than Blade 3 which made me want to drive stakes through my eyes.

Ron Perlman is in it. He is Blade’s vampire foil character who spends most of the most smirking, growling, and getting in Blade’s face. You won’t care when he dies.

See it if you are bored or if you liked the first one.

REVIEW: The Rite (2011)

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The Rite: D+

The Rite? More like The Wrong (see what I did there?)!

This movie tried to take three things everyone loves about exorcism movies and beat the audience over the head with them.
1. Skeptical priest who needs his faith to defeat evil
2. Possessed host-bodies crunching and crumpling as demon force contorts them.
3. Demon voices coming from possessed innocent mouths, saying demented shit.

Hopkins is in it and it seems like he could care less. He delivers the standard lines you hear in every exorcism movie about the power of Christ blah-blah-blah while wearing an adorable sun hat. Rutger Hauer is in it. Did you know that they have both played Van Helsing? Well they have. I wish I could just write about that, but I should probably stick to this garbage exorcism movie.

No decent scares, even for an exorcism movie. There are some jump scares, but they barely work. There is a possessed horse, which is stupid, but would make a great scene in Scary Movie 6.

If you are into carbon copy wannabe Exorcist movies, you might like it. You know the deal: building jump-scares until the final showdown with the demon.

Your mother sucks cocks in Hell, this film sucks cocks on Earth.

REVIEW: Visiting Hours (1982)

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Visiting Hours: B-
Michael Ironside (aka “The Sides”) is a psycho killer-slasher who loves him some stalking but will totally kill any bonus victims he can get away with. He gets super stoked about killing and wears a creepy black tank top that contrasts nicely with his uncooked-bacon complexion.

Shatner shats around and overacts as usual and The Sides is killed by some 45 year old victim who outwits him. I like that they don’t waste too much time on Ironside’s origin; they show three short flashbacks that give you enough room to infer that he was molested by dad and witnessed domestic violence that inspired his hunger for murder.

Is it scary? Nope. Not at all. Watch Shatner fumble through this mess and lol at the Sides’ impulse kills and weird stalking.