"You can't piss on hospitality!"
Happy New Year to all. Hopefully some slightly more frequent reviews will come with the coming year!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
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.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Troll

Cast: Noah Hathaway, Jenny Beck, Phil Fondacaro
Synopsis: The Potter family move into an apartment building only to find a Troll from the basement is rebuilding his ancient troll army by consuming the tenants with his magic ring and turning them into weird tree people.
Meanwhile the thousand year old witch living upstairs turns out to be an ex-princess troll-hunter. Good thing too!
Review: Well! What a movie! It had it all. Bad acting, poor effects, bad acting, shitty directing, bad acting and a main character named Harry Potter (Quite evidently the entire Harry Potter franchise owes the makers of Troll a good few billion dollars worth of copyright money! Pay up J.K!)!
The thing is this movie has a sequel (the appropriately named "Troll 2" which is currently on my T.V. since we got the double feature through NetFlix which will get it's own shitty review after this one) which is allegedly the worst movie ever made so it's definitely something to look forward to but while watching Troll with it's absolutely appalling... everything, you have to think to yourself... will I survive Troll 2? I mean, this movie had nothing going for it at all. Nothing!
Well I can only imagine that where Troll was just bad... just plain awful and maybe what Troll 2 has going for it is being so incredibly bad that it's funny (a la Manos: The Hands Of Fate!).
Let's hope so...
In Short: This film sucked. Avoid at all costs. I'll let you know if Troll 2 is worth the effort once I've seen it.
Biggest Positive: Harry Potter's dad dancing around like he was having an epileptic fit to awful 80's pop-rock.
Biggest Negative: From what I've seen of Troll 2 so far, the biggest negative in the first Troll is the fact that the main character didn't have an imaginary dead Grandpa friend to talk to like the kid in the sequel seems to.
Trivia: This movie was made purely so that there could be a sequel made for strange ironic humorists to follow like a bizarre cult 20 years after it was made.
Troll's Wikipedia page
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Rambo (2008)

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz
Synopsis: We find a somewhat retired looking Rambo hunting for king cobras in the wild plains of Thailand and selling them to some creepy underground snake-fighting pen (as you do) when suddenly and without warning a gimpy bald guy asks him to lead him and his group of bible bashers into the midst of a war-torn Burma. Being the hot blooded, war seeking, wild action hero he is he dives right in like so many blood thirsty lunatics before him! No, not really. He tells the dude to fuck off but when his slightly prettier blonde girlfriend says "paaaweeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?" how can he refuse?
Explosions and many many exploding blood-red bodies ensue!
Review: The perfect movie!
I kid you not. Rambo, as we all know, is an 80's action icon so there's two ways that a sequel this far away from the awesomely violent (non pg-13) blood curdling, foul mouthed action films of that era could go.
It could turn itself into a mock-up of itself and play to the inherent humor that lies underneath any super-macho action flick and end up with a bunch of stupid mumbling teens muttering that "Well it was fun but it wasn't as good as Hot Shots!". It would be hilarious and make millions! (And swiftly be forgotten about within a month of it's release)
Or Sly Stallone could say "Live to make an R-rated bloody, fucking serious motherfucker of a sequel, or die (Hard with a vengeance) for nothing!".And that he did!
Let's list the awesome things about this film
- The film was filled with blood flying from every area of anyone's body that it could possibly splatter out from.
- The "plot" and vague hint at any idea of a romance for John Rambo was short-lived and only served (rightfully so) as brief moments in between the carnage with which to catch your breath.
- There were fucking gun fights. Not just gun fights, fucking gun fights. Never have I felt so invigorated when someone was blown into pieces than during some of the battles (Which were more like one sided massacres really)during this film!
- Sometimes, after about a thousand people had been blown up, sliced, stabbed, shot or smashed they would play sad music to give you the sads thus making the movie deep - before getting right back to explosions and gun fights
- It was only 90 minutes long! Definitely something lacking in the modern action flick is the film-makers ability to not jerk it off into a 2 - 2 1/2 hour fucking epic. Action films should be 90 minutes long and no longer! Any longer and it's a piece of trash trying to pass itself off as decent entertainment.

In Short: The only reason to not give this 5 smileys out of 5 is because there was dialogue in the film which frankly, brought me down.
Biggest Positive: The shakespearian quality the film has in that we, the audience, the observers are aware of the inevitability and the fate by which all the characters in the film will fall even before they, the characters, themselves could be aware of such.
(i.e. you know whenever Rambo shows up some fucks are about to get their shit fucked up, son!)
Biggest Negative: Too much romance, not enough human killing.
Trivia: Before this film was filmed there, Burma was a neutral peace-loving country but the film's explosions and gun fights sparked off a civil war that has raged the country for the past 60 years. For this reason Sylvester Stallone was unjustly sought out and captured by the United Nations for crimes against humanity. A crime which he is only partly responsible for. He promptly escaped his maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Sylvester Stallone.
The Official Rambo Movie Website
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