Bob's Burgers: The Movie

Cast: Dan Mintz, H. Jon Benjamin, Kristen Schaal

Synopsis: The Belcher family tries to save the restaurant from a sinkhole, meanwhile the kids solve a mystery, meanwhile yes there's music, meanwhile MURDER.

Review: This very evening I must slaughter a rooster in my care because we named him "Trump". Also, he keeps attacking people but mostly his shitty name. Either way excuse me if instead of writing a review I give "killing a rooster with a stick" a quick google, a'ight?

In Short: There's a product named the "Hopper Popper" that humanely kills rabbits which works on chickens too but there's nothing humane about giving a murder device a cutesie name.

Trivia: It's Bob's Burgers, ya dolt. If you like Bob's Burgers then watch the film, if not, don't. What do you need a review for?

Biggest Positive: Thank the Lord that yes, it's a musical.

Biggest Negative: The impending collapse of all existence for little Trump.

Rating: 4/5

Thankskilling

Cast: Lance Predmore, Lindsey Anderson, Ryan Francis, Aaron Carlson, Natasha Cordova, Chuck "The Dead Body Guy (Whatever that means?)" Lamb, General Bastard, Wanda Lust (This movie isn't a porno but I can't speak for other movies Ms. Lust has been in... it's possible she just got born with an unfortunately provocative name! And an unfortunately ironic tendency to show up in films with her tits out for no apparent reason... hmm...), Terry Reagan, Jessica Rees, Pat Love.

I know I usually list only a couple of people in the film but, well, I just felt this movie needed special attention.


Synopsis: Normally I write my own synopsis of the movies I review but since this movie is a particular gem I've decided to post the synopsis the film-makers have on their website...

"An evil turkey is unleashed…and he’s one “fowl” mouthed bastard! Five college kids heading home for Thanksgiving break cross paths with the turkey, who’s possessed by an ancient Indian curse. In this hilariously gory spoof, the teens must stop the maniac bird before he kills them all!"

That's right. A killer turkey... I posted their synopsis so that you didn't think I was making this up as some sort of cruel prank.


Review: The fact that this movie's very first shot is a close up of someone's tit and is immediately followed by a rather unconvincing hand-puppet turkey cackling while waving a hand axe around at the tit's owner gives you some idea about how seriously the viewer should take this film which is just as well because if I had begun thinking the film-makers were going to try and somehow make a killer turkey into any amount of a serious film I'd have been bitterly bitterly dissapointed. Instead the audience knows from the getgo that this is not in any way a film to be taken seriously and the film makers are aware of it so it's okay to laugh at the film and not feel bad!

Huzzah!

It wouldn't have stopped me laughing at it... I've seen some God-awful movies (See: anything by Bill Zebub) and laughed hysterically at how mind-numbingly terrible they are - hell, half the time it's better than watching a well-made, perfectly scripted snore-fest really but there's always a little less guilt when you know the people making the film wouldn't be crying on the inside to know you were enjoying the hilarity of their movie more than the horror (Unless I totally missed the point and have turned the film makers suicidal by my scathing words. In which case, I'd like to apologize... but won't).

Basically it's a fun little horror film. While making a mockery of the wise-cracking ridiculous bad guys we often see in slasher flicks, it manages to be a half-way decent slasher itself. Although the plot is as thin as the budget must have been, the film has been made with full knowledge that when you try and make an entirely serious horror film with a budget of $2 you end up churning out some utter unwatchable shit (Or a Lucio Fulci film, at best) so far better to make a cheesey script with a bunch of awkward comedy (A turkey actually "stuffs" a girl from behind... if you know what I mean? ... yeah, I mean it fucks her... it's a really awakard moment and I'd like to point out once more that this really really isn't a porno film. Honest!)!

Really a film about a killer turkey couldn't have been made better... if it had been more serious it would have made me vomit and if it had been less serious... well, that wouldn't have been possible. They really bottomed out on the seriousness! That's a good thing though, remember that when you decide to make a film about a killer Easter Bunny or some shit...


In Short: I'd put a cunning little Thanksgiving themed pun about being "stuffed full of gore" or "leaves you wanting seconds... or thirds!" or "so good you have to unbuckle your belt and go into a food coma with an Uncle you haven't spoken to all year"(?) but they'd all be redundant since the movie itself stole all the good ones, leaving we humble reviewers out in the dark, frankly. Fuck it.


Biggest Positive: The jokes about JonBenet Ramsay. Who knew there could be an appropriate medium for such terribly inappropriate jokes?


Biggest Negative: Well, let's face it, the hand puppet is about as convincing as a plastic dinosaur at the bottom of a cereal box.


Trivia: This movie is based, word for word, on a scroll found at the site of the very first thanksgiving. How they knew about JonBenet Ramsay back then is anyone's guess...

ThanksKilling Movie website

Troll 2

Cast: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy


Synopsis: A family decides to high-tail it to the country in a bizarrely 'ahead of it's time' kind of plot (I hear people actually do this these days thanks to Craigslist) where the city dwelling family Waits swap homes for a period of time with a bunch of brainless country livin' hicks living in the suspiciously named town of Nilbog! Unfortunately for them the entire population is run by Goblins who try to make humans eat their delicious looking booger-covered green plastic food so that they can become half-human half-plant beings which are obviously Goblins favorite foods!

Really makes you wonder about how creatures like the Goblin evolved to like the taste of such a very specific and extremely non-existant food source, doesn't it? I mean when did they first dicover that was their food of choice? When the Goblin queen just decided on a whim to bake up a batch of "turn them into plant" muffins just to see what might happen if they devoured the bloody bark-like flesh of the Plant People? Perhaps they happened upon a man who had covered himself in bark and leaves, consumed him and discovered it was good but not perfect and so set about concucting a weird complex way to somehow merge the seemingly unmergable and create the ultimate snack! Bizarrely enough, it seems that not only is it their favorite food but they've also sort of gotten sick of eating anything that isn't a man-plant hybrid. Well, it's no wonder you don't see many Goblins around anymore, is it?

In case you're wondering how this bizarre plot becomes revealed to our young rapscallion hero (Because obviosuly the Goblins wouldn't take time ot explain all this to them, that would kind of put them off eating the already disgusting looking dishes they prepare) it's quite simple. You see, the young man's grandfather passed away recently and his ghost is using his time walking the realms of non-existance, haunting the young Waits boy by telling him crazy Goblin stories, hiding from his parents so that they think the boy's nuts, helping him set fires and largely being a bit of an incomprehensible dickhead. Makes perfect sense to me!

One man's reaction to this film.

Review: I've been putting off this review because it's fucking Troll 2! It's one of the most renowned bad films of all time and I really don't think I can add any humor, wit or charm to it at all above what the internet (and this documentary) already has.

Instead, I'm going to go continue to hide under a pillow in my closet until a more sensible film comes around and I can sufficiently gather my thoughts enough to form opinions.

thank you.

I will say this though, the story between the boy and his Grandfather (especially the scene where Grandad hands him a molotov cocktail) could have been the plot of an awesome sinister version of Drop Dead Fred!

"You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!"

In Short: Too much Goblins, not enough dead Grandads.


Biggest Positive: The acting by the father in the Waits family, or perhaps just the script. It's like he's just opening his mouth and letting whatever words he can best remember come spilling out!


Biggest Negative: In spite of the name of the film, and it's predescessor (The aptly named "Troll") this film is about Goblins, not trolls. Not even a single Troll shows up. I guess it doesn't make much difference really, since arguably they weren't Trolls or Goblins, just midgets in potatoe sacks.


Trivia: No. No trivia. You go home now.

Plan 9 From Outer Space (RiffTrax Special Event)

Cast: Some dudes from RiffTrax and 3 Different Bela Lugosi's.


Synopsis: RiffTrax is a format in which you pay money to watch an incredibly bad movie while three guys talk over it making snarky comments. Plan 9 From Outer Space is basically the worst movie ever and the commentary is therefore about 57.6% more snarky than usual. Why do grown well-thinking people spend money to watch something awful while some weird people ruin the movie, you ask? Well, I guess you have to be there...

Review: Can I really review this? I mean, do I review the film itself or do I review the RiffTrax guys commentary on it? Do I review the surprise appearance by Mr. Jonathan Coulton? Or do I review the amazingly awful (in a good way) 'sponsor' videos from Something Awful? Or do I just ask a bunch of questions about who I should review and not actually really say a damn thing about it?

Yeah, that sounds good.


In Short: RiffTrax are awesome and, while I wish they were still using little robot puppets to make their commentary, they are still it seems equally as amusing as MST3K. We recently purchased their RiffTrax DVD release for Night Of The Living Dead, so you can look forward to a review of that as griping and informative as this one.


Biggest Positive: All things of the evening combined (The audience, the movie, the slightly confusing yet mildly intriguing 'O' faces Jonathan Coulton makes when he reaches high notes), I basically felt like I was right in the middle of "Giant Nerd-Fest 2009".


Biggest Negative: All things of the evening combined (The audience, the movie, the way that a nose flute has never been so masterfully used during a screening of an Ed Wood movie - at least this year), I basically felt like I was right in the middle of "Giant Nerd-Fest 2009".


Trivia: Bela Lugosi is still alive and living in the back of your fridge behind that potatoe salad you just won't throw away.




www.rifftrax.com/

The Tripper

Cast: Lukas Haas, Jaime King, Paul Reubens, Jason Mewes


Synopsis: A bunch of hippies gather in a forest in California for an annual "free love" music festival but little do they know an old enemy of the hippy lifestyle is hunting them down, one by one...


Review: I'm glad this movie had the balls to paint an accurate picture of Ronald Reagan as an axe wielding, hippy slaughtering, mass murdering maniac!

I have a new found respect for David Arquette (who directed this) because I had no idea that he had any opinions until I watched this movie.


In Short: Just say maybe!


Biggest Positive: The definition of 'The Trickle Down Effect' as "When one big asshole goes crazy and the whole world goes to shit"


Biggest Negative: The music over the end credits got a little bit preachy. The rest of the film was just amusing.


Trivia: Ronald Reagan, politically speaking, was a bit of a tool - in spite of what you might hear elsewhere.


The Tripper's MySpace Page

Requiem For A Dream

Cast: Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly 

Synopsis: Drugs. Something about drugs. 

Review: Having seen this film I realize that what I love most of all about Jared Leto is the fact that any film I've ever seen him in at some point ends up with him being fucked over severely, beaten to hell or viciously slaughtered with a hand axe. 

In Short: That review wasn't short enough for you?

"I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the heroin that you have stolen."

Biggest Positive: I think I already went over the whole "Jared Leto gets fucked" thing.

Biggest Negative: I have seen more of Jennifer Connelly than I ever needed to see... 

Trivia: This film was a 5 minute short film until they pulled an arty-director out to fill the film with weird close-ups of eyeballs and bizarre imagery that doesn't make sense. 

Requiem For A Dream's Website - (it really is it's site, even though initially it might look like spam)

Duck

Cast: Philip Baker Hall, Larry Cedar, Various Ducks, That guy from "Third Rock From The Sun" with the squinty eyes. 

Synopsis:Oh, a tale about a duck who mistakes some old dude for his mother? Perfect! 

Review: This film is very dual-themed. On one hand we have the lonely tale, which many of us will have to confront near the end of our lives, of an old man who's family has all slipped away and left him behind to face a cruel unforgiving world on his own. 

On the other hand there's a cute little duckling going "peep peep peep!"!!! 

On one hand we're faced with the enormous reality that most people on this Earth, even those supposedly designated to "help" (Such as the Fire Brigade, Recycling Plant Operators, Police) are sadly unwilling, whether purposefully or not, to see the help that the people around them, the animals on this planet and the environment around them so desperately need from each and every one of is. A grim reminder that our destruction of this planet isn't some distant-future scenario but something which is happening in the here and now that all of us, in some small way can help change for the better. 

On the other hand, did you see the way that duck tilted it's head to the side and then shook it's little behindus!?!?! 

On one hand we are forced to realize that the only people with pure and deep intent, and indeed the only people who truly put the human in "humane" (Too cheesy?) are alas, those of us who have felt true suffering and faced up to it. This film, simple though it was, made me fully appreciate the Buddhist Noble Truth: "Life Is Suffering" or the Arthur Schopenhauer line "Life Without Pain Has No Meaning". Before watching this film I truly felt that philosophies which dealt with the pain of life in general were truly cynical and nothing more but now I appreciate those sentiments on a new level, realizing that life is suffering and it is full of pain if anything is to come of it. Have you ever, for instance, met someone who has seemingly had nothing bad ever happen? Chances are they haven't evaded all the hard times that come so naturally to human existence but instead have not faced up to that pain and hardship and therefor have chosen not to suffer. If you chose not to suffer you will never truly feel the pain and will spend your entire existence running scared and cowering from it but if you face up to it you can truly see life for what it is - something which, although perhaps not usually, can be the most majestic and beautiful of gifts that could ever be given (If you believe we were "given" life by anyone). That seems to be why, with very few exceptions, in my opinion the greatest minds ever known to mankind, the greatest humanitarians to live today or in the past and indeed the people most likely on a day to day basis who truly seem to think clearly and have clear unobstructed views and opinions on the world around them are those of us who have known, and faced up to at least to some extent, true suffering. 

On the other hand, that duck is pooping right in the toilet!!! OMFG lol! 

In Short: A film of many contrasts and conflicts the most surprising of which is that the guy from Third Rock From The Sun actually has his eyes open. 

Biggest Positive: Ducks! 

Biggest Negative: Life... MovieFone site for "Duck" Trivia: Quack!

Burn After Reading

Cast: Everyone

Synopsis: I'm really not sure what happens in this film in spite of watching it in it's entirity only a few short hours ago...

Review: George Clooney's nuts and takes his shirt off, Brad Pitt's a crazy guy who, in spite of looking like a total douch-bag and dork-face, still looks hot, Frances MacDormand is quirky and says things like "Oh for Pete's sake!", John Malkovich gets all frustrated and swears at people (While in a floral dressing gown, holding a gun in one hand and a shot of liquor in the other), Tilda Swinton plays a stuck up bitch and J.K. Simmons once again plays an angry guy with a desk job.

What more could you need in a movie?

An automated sex dildo swing chair?

Done!

The perfect movie...

In Short: This review was already short...

Biggest Positive: Doesn't stop to let you cease being entertained from start to finish

Biggest Negative: I'll probably forget it existed and confuse it with a bunch of Wes Anderson and Spike Jonez films after a couple of months

Burn After Reading's Website

Trivia: I was going to see this at the cinema when it came out but when I read my ticket stub I burned it afterwards (obviously), and so was refused entry.
I set fire to the DVD Sleeve when it arrived in the mail today but fortunately my wife wrestled the DVD itself into the player before I had a chance to read the cover.
My attempts at setting fire to my TV screen were fruitless.

Cursed (2005)

Cast: Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, Joshua Jackson, Judy Greer

Synopsis: A string of bizarre animal attacks ravages Los Angelese with bodies showing up torn in two and ripped to shreds (Don't get too excited though, the film was PG-13 most of the way through). Christina Ricci and her dorky brother, Eisenberg are two siblings who manage to escape the clutches of the animal with only a few scratches but as it turns out (surprise!) that only leaves them CURSED. Soon they're discovering that they're slowly turning into vicious snarling beasts - hilarity ensues! I mean... horror ensues. This isn't Teen Wolf...

Review: I am so very glad that I didn't know this was directed by Wes Craven till after it was over because I feel it may have inadvertantly altered my view of the film in a negative way - not that I have anything against Craven but it might have set my expectations a little higher. As it was though this was a reasonable enough film, entertaining with an easy to follow yet not too boring plot - much like any other werewolf movie ever made. It was PG-13 though, which I fully understand since the whole film seemed much more geared towards a teen audience but I would far rather have seen a lot more gore in a movie with such seemingly savage beasts (A note - in the DVD extras the Film Editor claims that the DVD version I watched is actually rated R and it was only PG-13 in theaters but it's still extremely tame and personally I wouldn't have rated it above PG-13 if I were in the MPAA which I'm not so I'll shut up now). As far as the creature effects go they aren't too bad and even though it's blatantly obvious that the werewolf is nothing but a mechanical costume that is one billion times better than when you watch a film and it's obvious that it's CGI effects - I'd far rather laugh at a silly costume than lame computer effects - and the gore that there is in the film is pretty well done, so hats off there.

"You made me taste my own corn syrup..."

In short, the film was reasonable for what it is but is a far cry from being any sort of definitive or even terribly memorable werewolf movie.

Also it's a bad sign when the special features on the DVD are more entertaining than the film itself... just saying!

In Short:

Biggest Positive: They managed to not do a cheesy "Time of the month" joke!

Biggest Negative: PG-13! Fuck that shit.

- (That's harsh! I want to give this film 3 smiley's but I can't bring myself to do it...)

Cursed's imdb page

Iron Man

If you like loud obnoxious metal music, gay CG explosions, "heroes" who are drunken lay-about sleaze mongers who have absolutely none of the characteristics that make us feel empathy and/or sympathy towards them and villains who seem to have no world-conquering motive then you'll love Iron Man!


Seriously... is it just me or is part of what make the great superheroes great the fact that we can relate to them on some level? Even the high and mighty billionaire Bruce Wayne has an extreme vulnerability that makes us side with him when he's battling villains but this Tony Stark prick has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever!

Sure, it makes him suave, cool and "macho" but it also makes him a gormless fool who I frankly was hoping was going to be blown up in the opening moments of the movie. He'd probably have made a good bad guy for Spider-man, actually! I'd have been on his side then, if the drunken fuck-headed Tony Stark was battling it out with the Amazing Spider-man then maybe I could have been like "That Iron Man kicks ASS man!" but I'd probably just have been hoping that he was played by Willem Dafoe.

In short, Tony Stark/Iron Man was a hero for people who don't really like super heroes, in my opinion. He was a sort of "Die Hard" action hero character who, in that setting, we can all side with because he's bad-ass, doesn't give a fuck and doesn't stop till all the bad guys are dead and everything around them has blown up.

So let me add to my opening statement:

If you like piss-poor heavy metal, dumb-ass explosion-riddled battle sequences, alcoholic dead-beat heroes and you don't actually like super hero movies, you'll love Iron Man.

And if anyone tells you this film was better than The Dark Knight (Especially if the person telling you is Robert Downey Junior) then kick them hard in the nuts.

Snakes On A Plane

If you need a review of Snakes On A Plane to tell you anything about it then I truly have nothing more to say to you...

"First I was like..."

"Then I LOL'd!"

Sick Girl

Another installment in the "Masters Of Horror" TV Series...


If you're not familiar with the "Masters of Horror" TV Series then let me give you a brief summary. Basically it's a series of one hour long programs created by directors who typically make horror movies for the big screen, when they create these episodes they typically either:

a) Use it as an excuse to just show a bunch of tits for an hour (It's on HBO)

b) Create some sub-standard story that they obviously wanted to make but knew they didn't want to waste their good time making a full movie out of it

or very rarely...

c) Correctly use the format their given to tell a wonderful short story... this hardly ever happens

Now, as I was perusing through the plot summary's of some of the episodes I hadn't seen yet I saw this one and noted that it was directed by someone I had never heard of (This is supposed to be Masters of horror, let's not forget), involved a "lesbian tryst" and was about some tropical insect getting loose.
This to me meant that it was probably going to be one whole hour of topless lesbians making out while a large unrealistic looking prop spider stalks them slowly while using all sorts of Freudian symbolism and gratuitous lesbian orgy shots. This may not sound at all bad for some of you but when I watch a horror film that's not what I'm looking for so I continuously skipped past Sick Girl and watched some other episodes and a few regrettably shitty movies before finally saying "Well... I guess it's time to endure..." and starting up Sick Girl by Lucky McKee

Thankfully (dum dum dum!) I was entirely wrong about this episode and while there are moments of lesbian boobage and there is a particularly odd looking bug the piece overall was a well-acted, well-written and superbly directed hour. It isn't often we see lesbians in horror films (or possibly most any films) be anything but sassy boring sluts but in Sick Girl the pair are as awkward and fumbling as any straight couple you might expect to see in any Wes Anderson film (I dunno whether comparisons to Wes Anderson films are good to you but they are to me, so that was a compliment) and it seems to me from watching this that Lucky McKee, on writing this, seemed to do what I think is wise in making a horror film that actually stands out, by thinking about the horror plot second and concentrating for the most part on the characters who were all well written and likable. To me that just makes for a story that you actually want to follow rather than just some movie where a bunch of teenagers endlessly run at a guy with a chainsaw to see who can die in the most ridiculous way... fun though that is, it definitely makes for a more lasting greatness if the film is well written.

Which Sick Girl was!

I'm going to give this 4/5 but it might just be because I was expecting a pile of trash when I started watching it. Maybe if I watched it expecting it to be great, as you might now if you haven't already seen it, it would get a more average score but rest assured it's worth checking out!

The Man Who Sued God

This film I've been meaning to see since it came out but hadn't gotten around to it until last night. The reason it took so long, I think, is because I had basically all but lost hope in films starring Billy Connolly. Not that he's not funny, quite the opposite in fact, I think he's an extremely funny comedian but no film that I had seen to date truly made his character even remotely as funny as the man himself (A few films had him play roles well and very well - A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Fido, Who Is Cletis Tout? - but just not any roles as funny as he is) and others, such as Beautiful Joe, seemed to believe that by just having him present they didn't need to worry about having a funny script because he was there, which obviously isn't the case when someone is acting out your script. You need to have a script written to match the comedian.

So I was hesitant to see The Man Who Sued God perhaps because I expected it to be really lame and have Billy's character be another waste of a great talent but fortunately enough, I was wrong - The Man Who Sued God makes perfect use of Billy and is (almost) as funny as his stand-up routine for at least 50% of the movie and I realized what made his character better in this film...

Billy was pissed off!

In other films he had been complaisant, quaint, quirky but in this he rants, swears, shouts and screams just as much as his better stand up routines therefor making this film a much more compelling view than most of his films - if you're looking for Billy himself to be funny that is.

The only flaw, as far as I can see, is that it's a relatively dull plot and extremely predictable. You know right from the start that the ending is going to be a good one and the only challenge we have is trying to work out how it's going to get there and what amusing obstacles might stand in the way of our angry hero. Call me "weird" if you must, but I think I just prefer watching a film that you don't know is going to end up good or bad and leaves you a little tense. Unfortunately I suppose most comedies don't really do that which is probably why I spend much more of my time watching horror films that are probably 50/50 in how often they have happy endings.

I also think the love story could have been completely dropped from the movie without doing it any harm. No-one needs to see Billy Connolly do a full on open-mouthed kiss with anyone at anytime and expect to keep their lunch.

Sorry Billy!



The Man Who Sued God's NetFlix page - you can actually watch this online for no charge if you already have a NetFlix account if you go to that link before the 31st of December. Hurry!

Superbad

Superbad was a bit like eating dinner at McDonalds
Sure it tastes good and didn't take much thought process but when people ask what you saw/ate last night you'll feel a gut wrenching feeling like you could have had so much more. Like maybe that in spite of the hilarity involved in the film, you could have been analyzing Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock instead or something...
Then maybe you'll throw up.
Whatever, the film was funny, at times hilarious, but that's not important.
What is important is that about 15 minutes one of the main characters yells at another kid "Hey, why don't you go piss your pants again!"

What the fuck?

Another Pants Pissing movie... how can this be?

How can it be possible for so many films to be viewed that all reference or just flat out show people urinating all over themselves in such a short time together? If you don't know what I'm talking about please refer to my previous review (Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things)

I mean, really... does every movie actually mention pants pissing and pants pissers and I've just been flat out blacking it out all these years?
Am I hallucinating and it's not actually happening? and if so, why in the fuck?

Whatever...

Superbad - good
Pants Pissing - bad

Ocean's Eleven

Remember when people said things like "Did you know they're making a sequel to Ocean's Eleven?... it's called Ocean's Twelve!" as a joke?

It was funny! Get it? Because "eleven" is just part of the title and not a number indicating the film's part in a series? GET IT? Hilarity!

And then remember how they went ahead and made the sequel and went and called it Ocean's Twelve... like they were in on the joke?

Was George Clooney just trying to mess with our heads?

That's all.

Shock Treatment

The Rocky Horror picture show was by far one of my favorite (If not, the favorite) films of all time. I've loved it since I was a small child, probably too young to be watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show but there you go...
It has it all! Thrills! Chills! Laughs! Susan Sarandon in leather!
A true classic of a film, no doubt about it and would easily get 5 smiley faces if I ever chose to review it...
I know that many people reading this might be wondering why I'm going on about The Rocky Horror Picture show and I know this because I myself would have wondered, had I read this review a mere week or two ago for you see I, like many of us, was blissfully unaware that The Rocky Horror Picture Show spawned a sequel and it's name was Shock Treatment!

No, no, don't click on the link I only put it there as a hellish temptation.

Some sequels really fuck up the original film.

Some sequels are just so phenomenally God-awful that they take any sort of point that the first film made and take a giant crap all over it.

Some sequels are so mind-numbingly terrible that they make you feel nothing but an enormous amount of pity for the poor saps who were roped into reprising their roles from the original.

Some sequels are so drastically vomitous and pleasure-destroying that merely trying to recall them makes you wish you could rip out your own brain through your ears just to forget they ever plagued your life.

Fortunately, Shock Treatment is so far beyond all that, it is so awful and so despicable that it has thankfully been long since forgotten, allowing The Rocky Horror Picture Show to essentially retro-actively abort it's offspring. Praise the Lord above for the fact that this film is very little known and is rarely, if ever, associated with it's far far superior first.

You want a plot summary? Fine.

It seems Brad and Janet, having completely and miraculously forgotten anything that happened to them in the previous film find themselves in the audience of a strangely unappealing and boring musical gameshow. Having no recollection of the events which preceded them however, seems to have ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNIFICANCE WHATSOEVER, as ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens in this film which has anything to do with the original in any way whatsoever, except that it stars Brad and Janet, both of whom are played by completely different actors. Janet doesn't look a thing like Susan Sarandon and she can't lip-sync for shit

Check it fucking out?!!?

Sure, she looks like she's whispering the correct words but it doesn't look a thing like she's singing them...

Whatever... basically this film has none of the appeal of the original, the songs are cringe-worthy and irrelevant and the whole theme of the film (Something about how Television controls our lives and minds, maybe?) is so completely un-backed up and lost in a mindless bubble of shit-acting and poor singing that what Shock Treatment ended up looking like is a movie, how it would appear, if Uwe Boll decided to remake a Terry Gilliam movie.

Awful.

Save yourselves and don't ever try and seek out this pile of trash as I did...

The Butterfly Effect

We recently had the good fortune to find The Butterfly Effect for $1 on VHS on the bargain racks at a Video Store recently...


... a movie which is easily worth at least one and a half times that amount! Score!

The Butterfly Effect is a movie I've seen a few times and is by far one of the best time-travel based movies there is (Just below Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure! Of course!), and easily one of the ones with the least time-travelling plot holes that most fall prey to. Coupled with the fact that Ashton Kutcher is the lead role who had, until then, mainly played "the goofy stoner kid" in anything else he was in made for interesting viewing given that he made an awesome performance in this. You hear that Ashton? Awesome! Where are you now? Stop playing dumbass pranks on celebrities and trying to produce failed attempts at sit-coms and get back to acting in slightly edgy films, dude! Duuuuuuuuuuuude! Saaaweeeeeeeeeeet!

So, Butterfly Effect = Awesome! All the way through until the VHS tape gets to the end...

It's then I remember that the version I've seen countless times was the Director's Cut in which (SPOILERS AHEAD) Ashton's character realizes that in the end it is inevitable that no matter what he does he is going to fuck things up for someone in some way and so he watches the home video reel of his mother giving birth and goes back to then when he was still in the womb and strangles himself with the umbilical cord! Awesome! Thus, he never is born and the girl he loves never decides to hang around in that shitty town to get abused, the brother isn't hanging out with them to fuck things up by blowing up a baby and making Lenny crazy and his mother probably doesn't go chain-smoking because she doesn't get her hopes up with a surviving baby (Also something left out was all the still-births his mother had before Ashton's character's birth, though I think that was a deleted scene that didn't even make it to the director's cut! For shame! It implied that there had been many other time-traveling stoner kids before Ashton's character who had all come to the same conclusion that they had to kill themselves before they were born! Extra awesome? I thought so).
Instead the version we bought (Which I call the "shit-assed version") ends with him just going back and not killing himself but still managing to fix everything and make everything perfect and thus destroying any point that the film might have made about inevitability and the dangers of changing things in the past to change the present. Instead we end with an ending in which Ashton's character has potentially perfected everything, instead of fucking up everything, which is exactly how the movie should have ended... and it did! In the director's eyes...

"I swear! I didn't know we bought the version with the lame ending, Lenny!"

It was still enjoyable. Funny, exciting, at times disturbing. But all in all, I think if I had seen this ending first, I wouldn't have remembered The Butterfly Effect as being such an awesome movie all these years...

Still, I think I give it 4/5 all the same:



The Butterfly Effect - Apple Movie Site

The Signal

Who doesn't like movies about fucked up shit happening because of weird telepathic, radioactive, mind controlling hypno-signals coming through the T.V.?
Well, a lot of people... probably why this film wasn't terribly popular as far as I know but it should have been! And it's popular in my book, gosh darn it!


Anyway, the film is split into three parts (It also has three directors - coincidence? Or a sign of something more sinister?) each of which deals with, firstly the fact that a strange transmission is coming through all T.V.s, telephones and radios that is somehow driving everyone who watches or listens to it crazy but mostly following the steps of a young woman named... uh... I forgot her name... whoever! Who is being pursued by her enraged husband Lewis and her secret lover Ben both of whom have different degrees of "the crazy" from watching the strange broadcast.

This film is excellently done, each director manages to get you to really see how every single character genuinely thinks they're the sane ones and everyone else went nuts and then quickly switching it up and reminding you that "Oh! That guy's crazy too, I forgot he likes to spray rat poison in people's mouths! Silly me!".

Point is, excellent movie, excellent point, excellent acting, excellent excelsiur, excellent overall.

Definitely see this one if you like movies about people going nuts and talking to severed heads.


Do You Have The Crazy? - Official "The Signal" website

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

This is one of the best new films I've seen in a while... at least since Hatchet. And The Dark Knight... and Tropic Thunder was pretty cool. Well, okay, maybe I've seen quite a few recent enough films that were pretty cool but the point is after watching Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, you'll feel as though it's the best film you've seen in a long time
Basically in "Jack Brooks" (Or will it be known as "Monster Slayer" when people come to give it a short, easy-to-say, title?) we follow the unlikely hero trying to cope with everyday life while throwing random fits, destroying toasters and basically being unable to manage any semblance of normality. That is until he inadvertently assists a demon to work it's way back from the bowels of hell and into Robert Englund! The horror!
Then he decides maybe it would be a good idea to kill it... hmmm... you think?

Steven Tyler's cameo

Jack Slayer, or Monster Brooks, or whatever is excellently done and it's only flaw is that it takes quite a while to really get into the action, fortunately the characters (Or at least the main character) is humorous and enjoyable enough that it doesn't matter that he only spends the last 10 seconds of the film facing any demons.

I know the film-makers, fans of the film and indeed fans of any film ever may hate me for saying this but believe me I mean it as a mighty mighty compliment, but it really made me think that someone out there saw Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (the series, not the lame-ass film) and thought it would do better on HBO.

And they're right!

Jack Monster: Brooks Slayer doesn't actually have any vampires in it though, but any fan of Buffy knows that most of the well thought out bad guys in that series weren't vampires anyway.

For those who want a comparison that doesn't make you vomit, the film is also very similar to the Evil Dead series. The bad guys who get summoned by the main blob-like demon are very much like deadites (see "Steven Tyler" above) and the "Joe The Plumber Turns Evil Hunter" type storyline is very similar (in a "nod of the hat" kind of way) to Ash from The Evil Dead series.

And... uhh... and then, as if by magic, the review ended.

Official Site for Jack Slayer Monster Brookingstine Whatever

EDIT: I truly wish that I had spent a large portion of this review making un-necessary comparisons to Joe The Plumber over and over again

Killer Tomatoes Strike Back!

WHen I were a lad I recalled a Saturday morning cartoon show named "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes"...
... to which this image does not relate. However, around the same time I saw a movie a few times that was pretty much in the style of Airplane or Naked Gun about the aforementioned Killer Tomatoes. I had never seen anything of the movie or the series for many moons until one day my wife and I were perusing the "These movies really suck so we're selling them for a buck" section at a local movie rental store and saw the movie "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" on sale!
I remember thinking that it looked too old to be the movie I recalled as a child but really, how many movies could there possibly be about these Killer Tomatoes?

Apparently at least two, as I discovered on watching the movie that it was not the movie I recalled but was clearly related to the movie I had seen. The movie I had seen had been a sequel of all things! I dunno why anyone made a sequel, the movie "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes' was a relatiuvely amusing enough concept but a fairly unfunny film (it had moments), but I do recall that the film I recall was actually rather amusing, so my search continued...

Until just recently when I spotted "Killer Tomatoes Strike Back!" on sale at Wal-mart!
"There couldn't possibly be three movies about the Killer Tomatoes, could there?", I stupidly thought to myself and snatched up "Killer Tomatoes Strike Back!" and begun to watch! Only to discover that this was actually a sequel to the movie I had seen!
"There's a fucking Killer Tomato trilogy?!", I hear you scream...
Well, not quite because there is yet another one named "Killer Tomatoes Eat France"

So, four films and a T.V. series and as far as I can tell the only one that was any sort of funny is the one that doesn't seem to be on sale anywhere I go, "Return Of The Killer Tomatoes"

Four films? I mean, really...
Both of the films I've seen (recently) have been relatively funny ideas, but overall very unfunny films with only a few laughable moments...

A great disappointment for my childhood, which eagerly awaits the remake which is comign out next year

Yes, five Killer Tomatoe films will be in existence as of next year (So they say)! Five!!! How do Killer Tomatoes manage to scrape together a fan-base to somehow sustain themselves over five films?

It's because of me, isn't it?
I'm the one sad lonely bastard soul out there buying Killer Tomatoe films in the vain hope of somehow, one day, finding the elusive Killer Tomatoe film I so fondly remmeber from the realms of yester-year...