Tubi Thursday: Dark Asylum (2001)

 While his last Film did not work for me, I do like Larry Drake as an Actor (RIP since 2016).

Let's give him another shot with 2001's...

A city is overrun with fear (in Voice Over and B-Roll of a City) as a mysterious killer is on the loose.

By luck, some Cops find his lair.
It goes poorly for the first one.

They catch him, but he's shot and taken to a Mental Hospital.

Um...wrong kind of Hospital, Film.

He's put in there (off camera) and in the care of Jurgen Prochnow.

My 2nd Film of his in a row (watched, but not reviewed).

He goes full Hannibal Lecter.

Our Heroine- Paulina Porzegova- is called in to work there, even as she's dealing with some personal things.

Do you care?
Nah.

Drake is a modern Serial Killer, so he's super smart, super strong and somehow reading the Script ahead of the other Characters.

He easily breaks free of his straitjacket and kills Prochnow.  Bye!

They lock down the place- since that works and nothing else does- and now he needs the key.

He takes out all of the Cops and Security- with ease- and now he has to get Paulina.

She gets helped by a patient- Judd Nelson- and must find a way out while avoiding Drake.

After escaping the Building and getting help, Drake somehow blows up the Cops who ran in and escapes via the Sewers.

He somehow finds Paulina's Grandmother's House (was the address in the records?) and kidnaps her Daughter.

Now only SHE can stop him...and she blows him up.
That seems to work this time.  The End.

A Film that has some real potential...and then just gets ridiculous.

Drake is, yet again, a super impossible to defeat guy.  He's also suddenly taller here, as his Character is billed at 6'7, while he was 6'2.
He can choke people to death with one hand and knock people around like bowling pins.

Of course, his backhand strikes to Paulina only stun her for a second, so consistency is not strong here.

If this was just a riff on Die Hard where a Psychologist and a Patient must play keep away from a Serial Killer, it could be good.  

Hell, it sounds like a good premise for a Survival Horror Game!

This is far from the only Film to pass off Serial Killers as some sort of Superhuman Being.  That said, this Film has nothing else going for it.

Paulina and Judd try.  Drake is fun when he's a talkative killer.

The Film is just not good and keeps going way past the point where it should have.
At least there's not an alternate Title and Poster that lies to you...

Is that an Alex Ross drawing?

A Film that is not truly terrible, as the setup is good and the Actors are too.  It's just too bad that it gets plain ridiculous and over-the-top.

Tubi Thursday: Dr. Giggles

With a Medical/Asylum Theme to this year's Horror Movie Madness, I might as well check out this bizarre Film that I've never gotten around to watching.

Will this Horror Comedy kill?

This is Dr. Giggles.  He's a crazy guy who escapes from a Mental Hospital.

He's also a super genius, because reasons and returns to his hometown.

In said hometown is our Final Girl- Holly Marie Combs- and her boyfriend Not Zach Braff.

She has a heart condition and fears Doctors, so a scary one is one to avoid.

The Doctor hides out in his old House, which was apparently abandoned for Decades.  Why was it left standing when it was full of bodies?

That's not how this works.

His Dad was also a Doctor who went crazy and was lynched by the Town.  He wants revenge...and this is just Freddy Krueger's Origin Story, only Medical.

I should also note that he has a compulsive giggling fit, even if it much of it is clearly ADR (his lips are oddly still while giggling).

In spite of that, the giant man sneaks around town in full Doctor gear and picks off everyone.

As it turns out, the Son was also crazy and the Doctor hid him where nobody would look.

I won't SPOIL it.
Sufficed to say, it's gross.

Can anyone stop him as he seeks to kill everyone, because...um, reasons.

Seriously, he just kind of kills anyone, be them teens, old men or adults.

Will he get his hands on Combs?

He manages to survive being stabbed, shot and blown up.

He gets an extended chance to kill Combs in a Hospital, because nobody noticed the giant burn victim.

She zaps him with the shock pads and he breaks the 4th Wall for a bit.
The End.

A Film that can't agree what it wants to be.

It wants to be a Horror Film.  It has lots of kills, although it cuts away from most of them and usually shows only the aftermath.

It wants to be a Comedy Film.  It has the Villain giggle all of the time and act over-the-top.

I suppose there is likely an audience for this kind of thing, as shown by the continually baffling love of Art the Clown.
Dr. Giggles is arguably as much of a Mary Sue here.  He overpowers everyone, can sneak into anywhere while being as silent as a Ninja, literally walks off by stabbed in the femoral artery in one leg and just seems invincible.

With Freddy Krueger, he's literally (dark) magic.  I can make exceptions.
This is just a mental patient that is impossibly strong, silent and always two steps ahead.

It's a Film that probably worked better in Comic form, which is where it began and went back to after grossing just $8.5 million against a $7 million budget.

If people you know like this kind of stuff, let them know- just maybe be less dramatic about than Cliff here.

A Film that could really work if it either reined things in or really went for the gusto.  Instead, it is nearly a cartoon, but also tries to be shocking...and mostly fails at both.

Straw Death : Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Scarecrow films are either hit or miss.  Actually, that's a bit of a generalization.  

In actuality, there are only a few good ones- Scarecrows being a highlight- and the rest are kind of shit.  In a lot of ways, the Made-for-TV movie is the same way.  

There are some good ones...and then there is shit like The Langoliers.  Yeah, that one.  

So what happens when these two combustible elements combine for one event?  

The result is either a film that will be utter shit or one that will be inexplicably good.  I wonder what this one will turn out to be.  

The film stars a bunch of a character actors, so that's a good sign.  If the film is terrible, I can go 'hey, I know that guy.'  Interestingly enough, the film stars Larry Drake- aka 'Durant' from Darkman and Darkman II- as a very out-of-character guy.  

Unfortunately, he did not take Robert Downey Jr's advice from Tropic Thunder, so this did very little for him.  

Will it to do more for me?  

Get out your highly dangerous farm equipment for my review of...

The film begins with a young girl hanging out in a field with her best friend- a retarded man.  Yes, Larry Drake is playing a mentally-handicapped person again.  Words fail me, gentlemen.  

The pair hang out for a bit while some townsfolk talk about how they suspect that something bad will happen.  Well, it will with that attitude!  The pair wander around for a bit before a dog breaks through a fence and attacks her, despite Drake warning her not to.  

The townspeople hear the bad news: the girl is dead.  The men in town (all four of them) form a group to catch him, while the guy flees.  He runs to his mother, who convinces him to play 'the hiding game.'  

The men eventually find him dressed up like a scarecrow in the field.  They pretend to leave, but shoot him instead.  It's right then that they find out the truth: the girl didn't die.  

Yeah, they just killed him for nothing.  

They're put on a trial, but the judge finds a lack of evidence against them.  

Evidently, nobody wanted to talk.  

They escape punishment, which upsets both the mother of Drake and the town's D.A.  

I suppose you only get so many murder cases in this town, so you have to make them count.

Time has gone by and the spectre of murder hangs over the men involved.  On top of that, the woman holds a grudge for them killing her son.  

Oh yeah, the parents of the girl haven't told her that Drake is dead.  You may want to get on that eventually, folks!  

The girl begins to talk to an off-screen person who she says is Drake.  Yeah, you're either crazy or in a horror film with no budget.  I think it's the latter.  

One of the men is disturbed to find a scarecrow in the middle of his field, despite him having no crops out there.  I can't imagine that it's a good thing.  When he goes to show the others, it's not there.  The leader of the group makes a big 'to-do' about them not ever meeting up in person again.  One of them gets drunk that night and wanders around his barn when he hears a noise.  He ends up falling into his farm equipment and dies.  

Who started it up though?  

Who turned it off before the police arrive?  

Don't look at me- it's that menacing figure in the shadows!  Another one of the guys sees the scarecrow in their field and freaks out.  

With the recent death, I'm not sure that you're entirely wrong to do so.  Of course, it won't help keep you alive.

With the other two acting very suspicious, the lead guy tries to keep them in line.  It probably doesn't help when another one of them gets killed, huh?  

He begins to get worried himself and turns to the most likely suspect: the mother.  He confronts her in her home, only for her to die of a heart attack.  He covers the evidence by setting the house to blow up via an open gas line and a burner.  They don't blow up that dramatically, but whatever.  This movie's actually decent so far, so I'll try not to be picky.  

With the mother dead and the third man dead- he's so important that his death is not shown- there is only one suspect to him: the little girl.  You may have reached bottom when you try to kill a little girl, fella.  

He confronts her at a Halloween party, but gets stopped by a cop.  

By the way, the most suspicious thing this guy does is never take off his Postman uniform- ever!  Do you at least wash it?  

Seriously though, it all leads up to a big chase through a corn field involving the man and the girl.  He chases her until a thresher starts chasing him.  He runs right into a scarecrow and dies...because a pitchfork was out.  

In the aftermath, the thing moves, revealing that Drake's spirit was in it.  The End.

This movie...is actually pretty good.  The plot is simple and effective: people do a bad thing and live to regret it.  

As a made-for-TV film, it's all about atmosphere and characters.  In that regard, it's quite good.  I was kind of hoping for more horror and/or action though.  

Once I realized what I was getting, I tried to embrace it.  As it is, it's a good effort.  While I still was left wanting more, I can't complain about what I actually got.  The acting is good overall, but some people tend to shine more.  

Drake is not bad in his role- I just can't see him as anything other than Durant.  Mind you, this film pre-dates the Darkman series by a good ten years, so it's not their fault.  

If you understand that you're not getting a real horror film and can accept that, check this movie out.  

As a film, it's far better than crap like Dark Harvest or The Messengers 2.  Of course, so is an hour of Chinese water torture while listening to the cast of Glee cover songs non-stop.  

So yeah, give this one a look.

Up next, the fourth part of Lamberto Bava's made-for-TV horror films gets reviewed.  On the plus side, it has no Ogres, Grim Reapers or Zombie Dads.  Stay tuned...