Blockbuster Trash: Horror (2002)

I could have waited another year.  Last October when I switched the page to entirely horror films for that month (a change that's mostly become permanent), I narrowly decided against reviewing this film, as well as The Last Horror Movie.  I still haven't bitten the bullet on that one yet, by the way.  However, I did see this movie and now you get to endure it alongside me.  In 2002, low-budget auteur (aren't they all) Dante Thomaselli made his 'masterpiece'- a confusing mess of a film that blows its creative wad about twenty minutes into it's 70-minute runtime.  The film tells the conjoined tales of a group of 'teens' who just broke out of a drug treatment facility and a 'religious' family that is doing weird, sacrificial work to their daughter.  When these two stories careen together, the real film begins...and just sort of meanders to the finish.  It is, however, a contender for Weirdest Stunt-Casting in Horror Film History.  Who does it star?  The Amazing Kreskin.  For those of you who don't know who Johnny Carson is, this man was a hypnotist and over-all stage performer.  Apparently, he was in high-demand in 2002 and took this acting gig.  Fun fact: in 2009, Kreskin did a stunt where he would prove that UFOs exist or he'd give $50,000 to charity.  When none showed up, he claimed that they came by after the cameras left, hence he wouldn't pay.  Nice guy, huh?  Get out your inexplicable zombies for my review of...

A young woman is hanging up Christmas decorations (I guess I'm about two months early- oops) when she hears a noise.  It comes from a black goat, who was walking in the snow.  How did it make a noise again?  This freaks her out, leading her to bang on the door asking for her parents.  A moment later, a freaking man with a full goatee missing the mustache shows up and puts her in a bag.  Thanks for cooperating with him, honey.  After the credits, we cut to a group of idiots in a van.  One of them runs in, as the movie lingers on the dead body of a guard.  As it turns out, the guy shot the guard, who worked for the Drug Rehab Facility that they were in.  They drive off for a bit, indulging in some drugs from a bag.  Where did they get them?  According to the leader, it came from a visiting Pastor that was there the other day.  Yeah, that's a believable story!  In the other story, the girl wakes up and sees some freaky shit.  That guy who abducted her is apparently her father, who is a faith healer.  When the mother sees the girl watching a ceremony from the window, she alerts the father.  He responds by doing a hand gesture, causing the girl to faint.  Sure- why not?!?  In addition to that, her grandfather (Kreskin) is a hypnotist who does such great tricks as 'You're stiff as a board' and 'you can't stand up.'  Hurray?

Eventually, the two stories careen into one.  One of the druggies wakes up to find his face all blue and covered in freaky veins.  The group runs into a house, which just so happens to be the one where the girl is being held.  The lead guy wanders in, sees the couple as floating pumpkins and shoots them.  When the girl wakes up, she's upset to find her parents dead.  Yes, I can see why you loved the people that drugged you and kidnapped you.  You must be...from Stockholm!  After this, all hell breaks loose.  The movie pretty much loses all narrative focus, choosing to show random scenes with no rhyme or reason.  Speaking of which, we see a dream/flashback where the girl walks home with the grandfather, he disappears, a monster bites her and, when she talks to the parents, she says that he died a week ago.

More randomness- why not?!?  This is the breakdown for you...
* A horny couple from the teen group get separated after the guy throws up blood on her.  He wanders off and gets killed by zombies.  By the way, there are zombies here.
* The girl from the duo goes into the attic and gets killed by something I don't recall.  It must have been interesting.
* The remainder wander around for a bit, while we get random dreams and shit.
* Kreskin spends nearly ten minutes on a group hypnosis session that adds nothing.  This is apparently all real though, assuming you believe the Producers.
* The lead girl gets killed by zombies in the woods, but they can't afford a death scene, so she just sort of gets surrounded and dies.  Hurray.
* In the end, we see via a flashback that Pastor Kreskin (not his name) gave the guy the drugs, setting this whole thing up.  Hurray- it's over!

This movie sucks- long and hard.  It's a seventy-minute film that just sort of meanders between plot-less scenes for the last forty.  There's an overall narrative (kind of), but it boils down to 'how do we get out of here?' and nothing more.  It's just a pretense to use the grab bag of random horror ideas that Dante had lying around.  Why couldn't he have just skipped coming in to work on this day?!?  He wasn't even supposed to be there!  The thing starts out promising enough with the goat and all, but quickly spirals downhill from there.  Much like Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus, it has enough interesting moments to fill a trailer & nothing more!  Was there a point to this movie?  Honestly, I'm asking you!  The story is nothing, the acting is bad and the effects are barely-there to begin with.  You can just keep skipping this movie like I did.  There's no need to see it.  You can see the ghost and the floating pumpkin heads here.  Watch something better this Halloween season.  The Abominable Dr. Phibes is available on disc somewhere and just waiting for you to pick it up.  Take me home, silliest actor credit ever...

Next up, I won't skip out on a Halloween film this year.  All joking aside, this one is a film that is so bad that it will make you skip the apples and go right for the razor blades.  Stay tuned...