Friday, March 28, 2008

Satan's Little Helper

First of all, let me express my complete disbelief at imdb's claim that this film was rated R! What the fuck? I've seen harsher episodes of The Power Rangers.

Anyhow, this film was so extraordinarily close to being as bad as Jack-O, which I'm not even sure I reviewed because it was so atrociously bad... a note to the makers of Jack-O and Satan's Little Helper, almost any type of genre can have a child as a lead role in it without too much difficulty (Nothing more than batting eyelids and a cute face will suffice) but for horror, unlike the adult cast in most horror films, you need to have a child who is an extraordinarily good actor to be able to pull of any amount of creepiness, fear, rage whatever... otherwise you just ruin any sort of mood you might be able to create without them... an no offense to the kid who played Dougie in this film, he seemed to be a reasonable enough child actor, but this wasn't some Disney movie with a talking dog, this was meant to be horror... at least to some degree...

Really though, I can't pin the blame of this failing it's horror genre on some kid! This movie wasn't in the least bit scary and the only piece of gore was inflicted on a latex cat! What a crock...
Attempts at "horror-comedy" were short lived and pointless, suspense was slim to none, special effects were non-existent...
So what did this movie have going for it that makes it worthy of a review when Jack-O did not?

This guy:
For sure, this was the most horrible looking bad guy I've seen in a long time but hell, every time this guy gave a shaky Frat boy style thumbs up, or shaky middle finger I couldn't help but chortle... I'm not sure if he was meant to be creepy or was meant to come across as an awesome drunk moron, but whatever the case this guy made the film for me... at least, made it fall short of being a complete waste of time and effort


Peek-a-boo!
You guessed it, his face wasn't animated at all! You might have been misled by that last picture into thinking there were some sort of special effects used on this guy but there were not...
I just realized who he reminded me of!
Remember in Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey when Evil Robot Bill loses his head?
Well this character was pretty much like the decapitated body... except he lasted a good 2 hours acting like that, rather then half a minute...


That's just uncalled for!
But her complete lack of emotion, hatred, lust, rage or love show exactly how everyone else in this movie acted. If they had all had masks on, with huge fixed expressions like Mr. Satan here then the whole film would have been roughly 95% more interesting than it was... it may not have been any good but hell, it would have been original!

J-Dog!
Yeah, and if everyone else had no lines whatsoever it would have improved the film immensely.
Also, if the film had only been 5 minutes long.
Also, this film could very well have just been a 2 second video clip on YouTube of some guy dressed as Satan giving a shaky thumbs up then flipping the bird at the camera and it would have captured the best parts about this film...

Would it have killed them to make Jesus go ona killing spree, by the way?

That may have improved it also...

I have to watch a good movie soon, otherwise my "one out of five" movies are going ot go waaaaaay past any other ratings...

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Death Row

It's important to say that perhaps a week ago I was in my kitchen mixing a vodka seltzer drink I thought to myself "I wonder what alcoholic delight could be mixed with Root Beer or Dr Pepper?", since Cola is a main staple in many alcohol-soft drink combinations I thought it would be nice if some of the sodas I actually drink were usable in such a fashion, however I couldn't think of any that would mix well... but I gave up on the thought! Until, just before watching this movie when I was making a Mochatini (Vodka, Chocolate Liqueur and Coffee Liqueur) and I thought "Hold on, would Chocolate Liqueur go in Root Beer?". I almost snubbed the whole thing out as a pointless endeavor when I decided that even if it was disgusting I'd still drink the fucker. So I added one shot of Chocolate Liquer to a glass of nice cold Root Beer! And it worked! Kind of... more or less the flavors cancelled each other out to make a relatively bland drink but I at the very least discovered that it was possible to mix some sort of alcoholic beverage with my Root Beer. So I can now set forth and enjoy a life of alcoholism while still enjoying my favorite soft drink! As for a review: Don't ever watch this fucking film. If anyone knows of any delicious alcohol recipes using Dr Pepper or Root Beer, kindly comment!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man is in part a documentary about Grizzly Bears in Alaska but is far more accurately a documentary about Timothy Treadwell who, in spite of his cartoon-character like name, was a slightly eccentric "eco-warrior", who braved it out in the wilderness "protecting" grizzly bears until he was ultimately mauled to death and eaten by one...

The film was by renowned director-with-a-foreign-accent Werner Herzog, who compiled the documentary/film using a lot of footage of Timothy Treadwell, most of which was shot by Timothy Treadwell. It's spliced together not in the way I imagine Timothy Treadwell wanted it but instead focuses a lot of the attention on Timothy himself, which I'm sure wasn't Timothy's (primary) goal and only shows the hunking great furry muscle bound killing machines in relation to him, reacting to him or being pointed to by him...

He also makes friends with a bunch of foxes.

Not much point to that sentence but it's true and they are pretty fucking cute.

*SPOILER AHEAD* (if you can call information on a non-fiction film a spoiler?)

I was at first very anxious and sad by the fact that Timothy was killed and eaten by one of the very creatures he was studying and befriending but Werner makes very sure to point out, in spite of what everyone else is saying about Timothy being a fool who shouldn't have been getting close to such fearsome beasts, that the bear that killed him was not one of the ones that he got close to and that it was later in the year, closer to when they get ready to hibernate that he was killed.

So yes, Timothy Treadwell made a mistake returning to the place where he studied bears long after he's usually there but Werner also points out that it was because some fat-assed fucker started an argument with him at the airport about his ticket or something! The nerve! Fuck humanity, I'm going to go get eaten by a bear!

Fuck it all!

Fuck this world!

Fuck everything that you stand for!

No... that's slipknot... but anyway, the sentiment of it rings true in this film! Or at least from Timothy Treadwell himself... especially in one very vulgar scene that Werner had to dub himself speaking over so as not to offend too much...

Anyhoo

This film is a must for all fans of Werner Herzog who also like Grizzly Bears.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Slipstream

I'm pretty sure I just watched Slipstream.
I'm almost certain it was a movie written, directed and starring Anthony Hopkins...
Though it's perfectly possible that what I actually watched was actually just a promotional featurette about Slipstream.
In many ways that would make a lot of sense. Well, at least some sense.
It's also within the realms of possibility that what has actually happened is that I've just seen a trailer for Slipstream and basically convinced myself that I saw the entire film.
Not that Slipstream was the sort of confusing film that David Lynch might vomit up over a weekend. In fact it was fairly coherent and straight forward by comparison to the likes of his films.
Or maybe it was completely confusing and I simply didn't understand?
That's a likelihood too...
It's actually likely that Slipstream isn't actually a movie at all and just a bizarre and twisted figment of my own imagination. Perhaps it's a book I watched in a dream? Who knows.
That's it, I'm pretty sure Slipstream doesn't actually exist. Or maybe it only exists and we don't?
I found this trailer for it online...



... but that doesn't prove a God-damned thing!