Project Terrible: Succubus- Hell-bent

Will Michele give me the first truly Terrible Film this Round?

It is not quite hellish, but it is dumb.  It is really dumb.  This is not 'We barely have a Plot and make faces' dumb, but its Plot is just silly.  The Film is Succubus: Hell-Bent, a 2007 Horror Film with not much of a Budget or a point.  Do you like douchebags?  Do you like vaguely-scary ladies?  Do you like random Cameos from D-List Celebrities?  If you answered 'yes' to all 3 of those, you are the target audience for this Film.  If you picked one (at most), you are most other people.  The Plot involves, well, a Succubus that targets 2 terrible people for, well, being terrible people.  They are not so bad that they deserve to die, mind you- just bad enough for you to want to hit them.  When they hit it and quit it with the wrong lady, they will have Hell(spawn) to pay.  Is it good?  Not at all.  Is it bad?  Pretty bad, yeah.  Is it Terrible though?  That is the age-old question, right?  To find out the answer, read on...

Two rich jerks go to Mexico on Spring Break.  One of them makes a play at Lilith and she goes along.  What could go wrong?

Nothing, of course.  Why do you ask?

Oh right- she's a psychopath that follows them home and ruins their personal life.  To be fair, revealing a one-night stand to his girlfriend makes them BOTH look bad, not just her.

She also attacks her, furthering messing things up.

You know what all Horror Films need?  Lots of footage of people flying Jets, of course!

No joke- this Film builds a whole Scene (several minutes long) around one of the guys doing a test-flight and Lilith taking over a plane she was riding in with her magic to make him nearly die in a crash.  I haven't seen such a strange use of magic since that Witch controlled construction vehicles.

After the death of the secondary lead, the main one (Adam) looks up what he thinks the killer chick might be.  Thanks, Exposition.com!

After cameos by Lorenzo Lamas (after the Flight bit) and Gary Busey (as a guy who sells our hero some gear), Lilith shows up at his home to finish the job.

After a long, back-and-forth bit, our hero manages to slay the Succubus, but is being arrested by Kelly Hu, since the creature reverted to normal.  Moments later, it just revives again.  Sequel Bait!

This is all just kind of cheap and silly.  While it is not nearly as bad, it reminded me alot of Witch's Sabbath.  That is NOT good company to keep.  This one is less cheap-looking (but not by much), less stupid (again- not by much) and equally-pointless.  The Succubus has interesting moments, but mostly just comes off as an Actress trying to act scary.  When she's not transformed, she, at most, pulls off slightly-menacing.  The Film oddly cuts corners at some part (implying Effects), but also spent a bunch of money on renting some Jets to film in.  Prioritize!  This is seriously the first time I've thought about The Skydivers during a Horror Film.  It is just so weird and random!  The big problem is that none of these guys are that likable or interesting.  The random Celebrity bits (also featuring David Keith as the Dad) don't add much, but I'm sure helped them raise the money to finish shooting.  Good for you?  Ultimately, this is just another dumb, Direct-to-Video Film that doesn't amount to much.  Nice Japanese DVD Cover though...

Next up, I take a short break before finishing my Project Terrible Films.  In honor of St. Patrick's Day, let's catch a curse.  Stay tuned...

Poor Bastards of Cinema: Lethal

Spending time with your friends is an important thing.  However, this can often be deadly.  Okay, it's really only like that in Lethal...

Our heroine's sister- the blond- is hanging out with her friends.  Why they're hanging out in front of a Staples, I don't know...

The evil 'Russian' Lamas drives up in his SUV and starts shooting!

All three of her friends- including her boyfriend- are gunned down by the man.  What did they do exactly?

Their death only comes because they hang out with the sister of our hero.  They only appear here to be killed off.  I don't think that they- save for the boyfriend- even have names!

Next up, a two-part look at some people who die for no good reason in an '80s cult classic.  Whatever you do, don't answer the phone!  Stay tuned...

Lorenzo Lamas Week: Sci-Fighter

When in doubt, go with crap you own.  I really, really wanted to do Terminal Justice for this week's reviews.  That didn't happen...so I'll just have to do it later.  In the mean-time, here's a movie I bought on the cheap from Hollywood Video and have done nothing with for two years.  Time to dust this crap off...is a sentence that should never be said again.  Sci-Fighter is known by many names, including X-Treme Fighter, which my DVD is called.  The film features Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Lorenzo Lamas and a few other people that some of you may know.  The plot involves a virtual-reality game in which people do kung-fu.  This is not to be confused with Virtual Combat, a 1994 film featuring Don "The Dragon" Wilson doing the same thing.  It's also not to be confused with Sci-Fighters, a movie featuring Roddy Piper and Billy Drago...that is also Out-of-Print.  The gimmick here is simple: real, credible martial artists.  This is not all about show- it's about substance.  These guys really know what they're doing...and are really boring.  The reason I even own this film is for this reason.  To find out more- and why the movie is not called Sci-Fighter- read on...

Early on, we see Lamas in a computer simulation trying to rescue a hostage.  It's all part of an experiment to help save lives...or something.  Either way, Lamas is in the film for five minutes.

The movie shifts awkwardly to Don and his family life.  It's important that you relate to this character...because I don't.  Hey look- a TV that connects to something...but what?

Seriously, Don can't act worth shit.  When you are supposed to act or react, you should change tone or expressions.  He just makes this awkward face for 90 minutes.

"Help me, Don, your acting is the only thing that can save me.  Oh crap- I'm screwed!"

Do I care that Cynthia Rothrock is in this movie?  Nope.  Any film that features stuff like this just gets that reaction.

If you were wondering where Lamas is, he appears in this fight scene from the beginning.  If you tint it blue, it's still Stock Footage!  Oh and the two leads meet for about twenty seconds.  Yea.

Without Lamas, X-Treme Fighter still features lots of action.  Unfortunately, it involves Don and this middle-aged guy...on the beach.  Have fun with the same two Judo throws over and over again!

The climax involves Don fighting some muscular guy and then Scorpion, this lady who can make bad particle effects appear.  In a film about Don's son learning to stand up for himself, Don saves the day...alone.

Don's son does do an exhibition the next day...or whenever this takes place and does well.  That makes up for...well, everything.  The End.

Exceptionally-bad...to the X-Treme!  Good God, this movie should not suck as much as it does.  Consider the basic premise: a bunch of martial-arts experts fight each other with a vague connective-thread throughout. How do they mess this up?  I don't quite know.  I wouldn't say that these guys don't know martial arts or how to fight on film, because that's not true.  However, when they do fight each other, it either appears too-staged or not professional enough.  The movie is full of awkward pauses, clear misses and just generally fake-looking fighting.  Did they just not give a shit or were they just rushed for time?  I will say this- Lamas continues to not try at all.  Like Blood Angels, Alien 3000 and Lethal (to a certain extent), he barely appears.  In this film, he has about three scenes, only one of which involves any action.  Even that bad scene is re-used later, just with Don showing up at the very end to change things a bit.  He really just wanted that meager paycheck, huh?  Considering that this is a guy who later went on to make a Reality Show...with his Mother, I'm not that surprised by any of this.  The bottom line: this movie's only good trait could have been it's acting.  There was barely any budget, barely any plot and zero drama.  For whatever reason, all of the action sucks serious balls.  Take us away, super device made up of two bike helmets and a Nintendo Gamecube...

Next up, a week of films with Steven Seagal- minus one Holiday film.  First up, a much-less fat Seagal stops terrorists- but nobody cares the second time around.  Stay tuned...

Lorenzo Lamas Week: Blood Angels

You give vampires a bad name!  This 2004 Lorenzo Lamas films is about sexy, lady vampires.  Good so far.  Unfortunately, the plot is a ridiculous mish-mash of Evil Dead, Blade and random shit.  There's another thing that really drags this movie down: Lorenzo Lamas doing comedy.  Just picture that for a second, will you?  This movie does that weird thing where it goes through a weird, tonal shift in the last twenty minutes.  You know, like how the first half of Bruce Almighty is about comedy and the second half is about him learning to make hard decisions.  It's bad here.  The plot of this movie involves sexy, lady vampires opening a night club, only to find that their old captor- Lamas- is still on their trail.  It all builds up to a very silly finale.  Try not to skip right to The End and just read on...

The film begins by talking about the Necronomicon and even steal the 'spinning the book away from the screen' shot.  Off to a good start!

Our heroines are a bunch of lady vampires who escape from a white room by killing 'Renny.'  Ugh.  Don't worry- he comes back...somehow.  Don't ask.

Our lead heroine invites her sister to stay at her club after their father is abusive to her.  She doesn't give the 'I'm a vampire' speech though...

In one of the craziest scenes since the demon breasts from Mausoleum, this lady vampire's boobs turn into leeches which suck this guy's blood.  It's crap CG- see the stinger- and random.  These leech areola monsters never show up again.

In a flashback, we learn that the ladies escaped with the Necronomicon- which doesn't have a mouth- and planned to use it to turn them into full vampires.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention- they're half-vampires.  No, really.

Lamas shows up- his first real appearance in 20 minutes, minus flashbacks- and takes over the place.  Thanks, crappy green screen effect!

As it turns out, Lamas' big plan was for them to use the ceremony to summon an Elder God.  It's represented by this weird tendril-face thing.

In a really, really stupid moment, our heroines turn the sister into a vampire.  As half-vampires, two of them must bite her to turn her.  No, really.  They beat Lamas up, he cracks some jokes, turns into a crappy, CG vampire and gets cut into pieces.

In spite of that, he survives, setting up a sequel that doesn't exist (I think).  The End.

People continue to make worse and worse vampire films.  This movie is odd, randomly-paced and ridiculous.  There are a number of silly, made-up vampire rules and powers.  Lamas can turn into bugs.  When those get smashed, he can turn into blood like Stephen Dorf in the Alternate Ending to Blade.  He can bring 'Renny' back to life, but without actually making him a vampire.  That's not even getting into half-vampires.  Basically, they're Vampires, but they don't have the 'cool powers.'  They do have the weaknesses though, making me wonder what the point even is.  I laughed my ass off when they explained that two of them had to bite the sister to make her a vampire...after she was already dead.  Never mind the whole idea of mixing Cthulu lore haphazardly into this film.  What is the point of it?  You made up shit like leech-areola monsters, but still felt the need to bring in the more 'fantastical' stuff too?  If this film was better paced, it would be an easy recommendation- albeit ironically.  As it is, it's a funny film to watch after the First Act, even if the Third Act turns into Lamas making awful jokes with a wooden delivery.  Seriously, who wrote the Third Act of this movie?  If you want funny, check out this wannabe-Poser art...

Next up, with my final Lamas film not coming through for me, I'll go with my back-up.  Lorenzo Lamas, Don 'The Dragon' Wilson and a Nintendo Gamecube walk into a film...and suck!  Stay tuned...

Lorenzo Lamas Week: Alien 3000

I finally get to explain just how crazy this movie is!  After watching this movie initially, there was so much that I wanted to say.  Well, now I have the chance.  Here's the short version first: Alien 3000 is a lame, Predator rip-off featuring a bunch of people even I don't know.  Longer version: Lorenzo Lamas Produces a lame, Predator rip-off, but barely shows up in it and never meets the main cast.  No, really.  Lamas' name apparently helped this film get funding, so he pays them back by barely giving a shit!  What a Renegade!  There's another weird thing about this movie, but I'll get to that a couple panels in.  I will also say this: there is so much silly crap in this movie that I can't cover it all.  Even with all of these Screen Caps, I can assure you that you're missing out on some material.  To find out what my teasing is all about, read on...

A trio of people are out camping when a freak Earthquake opens up a cave.  They wander in, but are quickly killed off by an invisible beast, like so...

The Government is investigating the cave and the destroyed bodies.  The investigation is not going well, as you can see...

Our heroine is the sole survivor of a trip to the same cave before.  You know, the one that JUST OPENED!  Her flashbacks are also made up of different film stock and feature, wait for it, Tim Thomerson.

You see, this movie is the unofficial sequel to Unseen Evil, which featured Tim.  They changed actresses though, leading to new footage awkwardly mixed into the old footage.  Speaking of awkward mixing...

Lorenzo Lamas is in this movie- kind of.  He works for the government and gets an exposition dump about the aliens, before going off to 'the rescue.'

An alien breaks loose in the lab, leading to him blowing up the building...with a grenade.  Nice model, guys.

Does this effect look familiar?  I should also mention that the creature from Unseen Evil is a spider-type alien a la Alien vs. Hunter.

Lamas and his friend wander around the same sets, but about two scenes behind the main cast.  They eventually take some swords from the cave...and get killed by them.  Bye, Lamas!

After a lot of false endings, our heroine finally kills the alien by blowing up it's head.  She meets up with the Park Ranger- sadly, not Tim- and leaves with the gold.  Did I mention that there was gold?

...Unfortunately, their happy ending is ruined by some crappy, CG ships arriving and more aliens showing up. It's goofy times 100!  The End.

Evil comes in all sorts of forms, apparently.  What can I say about a random movie full of random scenes and random characters.  This movie is a sequel to a movie that nobody ever saw...but still gets so much wrong.  Did they actually watch the other movie?  I mean, they use clips from it, but get so much of it wrong!  For example, Unseen Evil is about some alien spider-thing released when people stole some treasure from a cave.  Alien 3000 aka Unseen Evil 2 is about a humanoid alien-thing released via a random earthquake that kills people who take some treasure...or just hang around near the entrance.  I should also mention that our heroine learns about the treasure link in the last film, constantly telling others to leave the treasure behind.  She apparently forgot all of that when the last film ended and when she was re-cast!  So much of this film is cheap and terrible.  For example, the scene in which Lamas blows up the building.  He tosses a grenade, it cuts to stock footage of a bunch of oxygen tanks, it then cuts to a bad model (see below) and then that model blows up.  Just wow!  If you like terrible, low-budget movies, check this one out.  It's good for all of the reasons that good sci-fi films like Alien is- sort of.  Take us away, crappy, paper mache model...

Next up, yet another 2004 film with Lorenzo Lamas.  In it, he plays an evil vampire...in a night club...with ravers.  Stay tuned...

Lorenzo Lamas Week: Raptor Island

At last, the Lamas film that I've been dying to see!  Raptor Island has a very dubious reputations among certain people on the Internet.  Some film critics I've read- like those at The Smithee Awards- have gotten a lot of material out of this crap-fest.  Who am I to not partake as well?  The film is a cut-and-paste job as far as Syfy Channel films go.  "A group of ______ go to an _______, but find that it is infested with giant _____."  If the film is so generic, why cover it then?  Well, there are a number of reasons.  First off, Lamas fights Dinosaurs- need I say more?  Second, the Special Effects.  They're...well, you can guess.  I should also mention that the Director- Stanley Isaacs- only has this film to his name, although he did write other films- including Megalodon.  Quite a pedigree, huh?  To find out just why this movie is hilarious, read on...

Lamas is the leader of a Navy S.E.A.L. Team that has to take down some gun-runners.  This plot-point is pretty minor, but it does get them to the island...

...where the titular creatures attack.  I'm sorry, but could you make your 3-D models not look 2-D please?

I'm sorry, but this crap bears another viewing.  This...is an insult to the Playstation 2.  These look like animated toys!

As it turns out, the Raptors have been breeding like crazy on this island due to some toxic waste being dumped there.  How did the Raptors get there originally though?  Want to explain that one, movie?

Speaking of silly, covering themselves in this radioactive mud makes the Raptors not see them.  Our heroine actually questions why it works and Lamas' character makes up a half-assed excuse.  Speaking of which, you're covering yourself in radioactive mud!

I should mention that the lead gun-runner is the bad guy.  He barely does shit here, but he is essentially invincible until the finale.  Kudos.

The island is coming apart.  Shocking, I know.  It may have something to do with the explosives you set in the volcano.

After nearly running out of fuel, this one guy on the ship- who is super-important apparently- stops by to pick up our heroes.  They shoot at a green screen...I mean, the bad guy.  He gets eaten by his T-Rex, ending his inexplicable survival on an island full of death.

In a goofy twist ending stolen from Jurassic Park 3, the Raptors swim away to the mainland.  The problem- they're in the middle of the South China Sea!  The End.

Evolution is not catching up to you, Lamas.  This movie is just chock full of hilarity.  It's not a comedy...but it is hilarious.  The plot is so stock, allowing you to focus on the terrible shit.  Isn't that what we all want in a movie these days?  I hate it when good characters, plot and special effects get in the way of my derisive mocking of the film!  This movie does have some decent moments in it, but not all that great.  Lamas is actually in this movie a lot, since I guess he had all that free time from barely being in Lethal.  If you like good movies, the terrible CG effects ruin the movie.  If you like to laugh at terrible movies, the terrible CG effects make the movie.  The plot is not designed to actually explain itself- just to get the characters from scene to scene.  Seriously, where did the Raptors come from?  Furthermore, where did ONE T-Rex come from (since there is no mention of there being others)?  Were there some Stegosauruses and Pterodactyls on the other side of the island that we just never saw.  No, if you want to see Pterodactyls, watch a movie with Coolio.  Take us away, random, unlabeled device of some kind...

Next up, a film with a confusing back-story and relationship to another film.  Who cares- Lorenzo Lamas fights a Predator!  Stay tuned...