In Your Face!: Parasite

The idea of 3-D films has always been odd to me. Films are not entertaining enough, so we need shit coming at us? As a film buff, that has always been a questionable bit of logic. The issue also comes as to whether the 3-D element would be the key selling point (Coming at Ya!) or just a bonus feature (Friday the 13th, Part 3). Enough talk- let's review...

Parasite

To begin with, this is a very overly-complex setup to an otherwise simple film. Basically, some weird experiment got released and f-ed up the free world. How and why is never quite elaborated on. All I know is that people live in messed up houses, criminals are everywhere and people in silver instead of cash. What an arbitrary choice of currency, film!

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Our hero is a mysterious man in a very 80s car who arrives in a tenement village disguised as a town. The only people are an older lady who owns a house, a general store owner, his cute young helper (pre-fame Demi Moore), a gas station owner and a group of thugs. I wonder which one will be the bad guys? Our hero settles in at a guest room held by the lady and gets acquainted with everyone. He has a mysterious secret relating to his 'research' and a canister. More on that later.

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Around this time, another mysterious man shows up to one of the film's five sets. He wears a suit, drives another 80s car and, oh yeah, has a laser gun. This is the first thing of the sort in the film. I should also point out that no major 3-D effects have been seen so far. He questions people about our hero, but takes a while to get anywhere, which is odd. You see, the town is very small when they show it, but very large when it comes to the other guy. It must be the TARDIS effect. Meanwhile, the gang stirs up trouble.

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Being a gang, they have to threaten everyone for any reason possible. They eventually get to our hero and wonder about his parcel. After beating him up and stealing it, they find...a monster in a can! Finally, some 3-D! The thing wreaks havoc and kills at least one of the member. Meanwhile, our quiet villain gets closer. Our hero gets to know the young lady, who agrees to help him out with his problems.

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The whole thing eventually comes to a peak. Our hero fights the gang members, making time to work in some 3-D effects. The other villain finally shows up and fights the scientist as well. We get our third monster appearance in a monster movie and a big flaming finale. The day is saved...well, sort of. The whole apocalypse thing has still happened. The End.

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To be honest, this is not a good film. It takes a long time to get started, has too much going on and never really explains all that much. The acting is lacking, the sets are super-minimalist and the direction is merely adequate. I should explain that it was directed by Charles Band, the head of the Band family of directors/producers/writers. These are the people that brought us Puppet Master vs. The Demonic Toys, Robot Jox 2 and Evil Bong. I guess that I should not have been expecting anything better.

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Let's get away from the 80s and do some new 3-D. Stay tuned...