A Post-Christmas Message

Christmas has now come and gone.  Was it good for you?

It is at this time that I feel the need to point out something for you to remember: while Santa may look nice and friendly...

He's not.

If you're a bad boy or girl, he will track you down and find you!

He can find you wherever you may hide.  You may not be able to see him, but he can see you.

Isn't that right, Massimiliano Cerchi?

Merry Post-Christmas...but watch your ass!

Mummies Alive Week: The Mummy Theme Park

Yes, this is real!  I found this movie and thought it was something other than what it was.  After all, there is a Mummy attraction at one of the major theme parks in Florida and I thought it was about that or something.  Nope.  This is another 'looks like it was made in the '80s' horror movie by Massimilano Cerchi.  Yes, the Director of Plankton has struck again and I've come across another one of his movies (of which there are only about seven).  Just my luck!  The plot of this film involves a rich Sheik (redundant, I guess), a Mummy theme park being built and a dumb blond who likes fashion montages.  While I would normally do a straight review here, there are just so many stupid things here to show you that I have to do it Review in Pictures-style.  If you haven't seen this film (hello, 98% of you, I guessing), you'll be amazed...at how dumb it is.  Let's get ourselves some E Tickets for our trip to...

* In a confusing opening, some men in old-looking clothes open a tomb after a model (get used to that) earthquake occurs.  However, we see via title card that only a week goes by...before they've built the Park.

* Another thing to get used to is some of the worst blue screen effects ever.  The film's release year- 2000!

* The ridiculous plot involves the Sheik building mechanical Mummies a la The Hall of Presidents around the real Mummies found in the ruins.  No, really.

* The death of many a lackey occurs here.  Nobody seems to really notice for a while though.  They're too busy trying to not stop on the models, I guess.

* Speaking of models, our lead heroine is one.  She wastes about four minutes of screen time posing in different outfits.  Throw in the model footage (not of her) in the beginning and you have a good 7-10 minutes!

* Our heroes go on a tour of the site and see the blue screens...I mean, place.  The Mummies come after them when exposed to flashing light.  What are they, the creatures from Howling 3?

* The scene of them being chased by the Mummy goes on forever.  They burn him and he chases them as a charred mummy.  The burn him more and he chases them as a skeleton.  Forbidden Zone was less silly than this scene!

* The other Mummies decide to start killing the Sheik and his men.  Cue ridiculous death effects!

* In The End, our heroes escape the Theme Park as the evil Sorceress (oops, I forgot about her) re-seals it.  She also manages to get on the model- I mean, real- train with them to escape.  Do all Mummies escape in these films?  The End.

Holy crap, this is dumb!  The plot of this movie is just silly as all hell.  Let me just summarize it quickly, since it makes its own jokes for me.  A sorceress opens up a crack in the ground, revealing a tomb and a bunch of mummies.  A Sheik sees this and spends $250 million on building a Theme Park there, complete with a concession area and Gift Shop.  He invites a photographer to take some publicity stills in order to drum up interest.  However, his half-animatronic/half-real Mummies come to life and start killing people.  That sad part is this- there is so much more crap in this movie that I haven't even covered.  This long, tedious sub-plot involving the Sheik's women fighting for his attention.  At one point, they even get miffed by a holographic Harem Girl made by a scientist!  What does this add?  Absolutely nothing, save for a longer run-time.  I read about four pages of user reviews for this film on Netflix and nearly every one of them said that they stopped after 15 minutes.  You fools- you missed all of the glorious crap!  I heartily recommend this film to anyone who loves to laugh at terrible movies.  It's a bit slow at times, but it is just ripe with material.  I'm just a little sad that it took me so long to find it.  Take us away, sacrilege...

Next up, Project Terrible returns with a tale of skeletons that kill.  You'd better give that skeleton a shotgun like you promised!  Stay tuned...

International Millenial Trash: Plankton

Given that the theme of this week is Weird Monsters, it's only fitting that the first film is from Italy.  This is the same country that brought us post-apocalyptic killer rats, zombies that throw railroad spikes through people's hands and a film where people get molested by Nazi ghosts.  Unlike those films I just mentioned, this one was not made in the 1980s.  However, it does still look like it was.  Bad production values or intentional joke- you decide!  One thing that's great about this movie is the fact that they are clearly trying to hide the fact that it's foreign.  In fact, the film's lone Special Feature of note is an interview with the Director.  It's done in English, but it's more broken than a Ford Pinto!  Nice try, guys!  The film tells the tale of some 'teens' that end up on a boat where weird experiments were going on.  Apparently, it all relates to killer fish, radioactive plankton and some of the worst CG shots you've ever seen.  They make the obvious CG doubles from Daredevil look like something made by ILM!  Will this film succeed where those other films didn't or just provide more evidence that the Italian Renaissance was a fluke?  Get out your plankton cocaine for my review of...

Oh yeah, I should note that Plankton is one of the film's two different titles.  I guess they looked the more generic title for the actual film.  We get a pre-credits scene showing our heroes (three ladies and two guys) going off in a boat.  They mock one guy for being 'cheeky' and almost leave him behind.  Ha ha- it's funny because he'd be stuck!  After some generic city shots and a title card explaining to us that this is Miami, Florida (yeah, right), we cut to the people out in the ocean.  So the point of that city establishing stuff was what exactly?  Immediately, they are floating adrift because they ran out of gas for their boat's motor.  Why am I getting Open Water 2 flashbacks?  Thankfully my instincts are wrong as they eventually 'stumble' across a yacht floating adrift.  Hey, maybe it's got those two idiots from Open Water 2 on it.  Nope.  Instead, it's pretty much empty, save for signs of previous life on board, some food and, oh yeah, a bio-chemistry lab.  It's full of fish, samples of stuff and giant microscopes.  In one unintentionally funny bit, the guy recognizes a giant electron microscope because he 'studied Biology in College.'  The next line comes from one of the women: 'That's a refrigerator.'  Yes, you must have 'studied Cooking in College.'  Sadly, that line doesn't make it into the movie.  Anyways, when they find nobody around, they decide to get drunk and eat all of the food.  During all of this, a POV shot monster wanders around, but does nothing.

Eventually, the people figure out that some weird shit was going on.  Gee, could it be related to all of the POV death shown before you arrived or maybe, just maybe, the dead body that floated towards your boat earlier?  I dunno!  Our hero- who looks like an Italian Andy Samberg- figures out that the people were doing weird experiments on fish.  This becomes pretty clear when a badly-inserted shot of a fish attacks the group.  Oh my God, my Big-Mouthed Bass has got Rabies!  If you ever wanted to see a fight scene that looked like a broken Wii game, this is your movie!  After battling the non-real fish, our hero tends to his fiancee's neck wound.  Gee, this won't come back to haunt you later.  Immediately following this, the man has an heroic freak-out when he realizes the obvious truth about the creatures on-board.  This results in him smashing the the numerous glass contrainers holding the samples.  It's eerily reminiscent of the 'this is your brain on drugs' commercial.  Take note of how he nearly maims his male friend during this whole thing too.  As Stewie once said 'Yeah, that was a reasonable reaction to that.'  As we learn, part of the rage came from the fact that his lady is pregnant.  You're not going where I think you're going, are you film?  While one of the generic blonds goes to sleep, the other goes off to see the jerk guy and have sex with him.  Unfortunately for her, he turns into a fish monster in mid-coitus due to inhaling some 'plankton cocaine' earlier.  It's pretty much what it is.  Oh yeah, that POV monster continues to wander around and do nothing.

Our dumb-ass heroes actually manage to be fooled for a bit by the man.  Yes, he turned human for like three seconds, so you must have just imagined seeing a giant fish monster!  He attacks the fiancee via a tentacle coming up through the sink...somehow before he's stopped.  When he's revealed fully, our heroes flee with the blond.  However, she begins to mutate due to being infected via her 'Lady GaGa.'  Grabbing the non-descript scientist- who was so important that I forgot to even mention him earlier- the trio run away.  However, our hero stops to light a bunch of fires in the bottom of the boat to kill everything on board.  It's there that he meets a humanoid fish monster...that is not really explained.  It's also a very obvious claymation double filling in for a CG creation.  Dario Argento introduced CG into Italian cinema with 1994's The Stendhaal Syndrome, but I guess you were too cheap to use it in 2000.  He manages to get away- since they had no budget for them actually fighting- and they flee for their lives.  Unfortunately, the humanoid monster got ahead of them...somehow, so the scientist sacrifices his life to slow it down.  As they near the exit, the fiancee stops, explaining that she is infected from the bite earlier.  Rather than hurting him, she takes the spear gun and 'Bangkok Dangerous'' herself.  Our saddened hero flees into the water and swims away, only to be killed by the POV monster.  That's why you were here, huh?

This movie sucks- big surprise!  The story is silly, barely finding time to explain itself along the way.  Even if it did, I don't care about these characters in the sligthest.  They try a little bit, but it's not enough.  As far as the action goes, there is very little.  After some early POV stuff, we pretty much get nothing until the fish scene.  I guess the weird hallucinations are supposed to suffice, huh?  What litle we get looks, well, terrible.  The way they stuck in the fish for the 'fight' scene really does look like some of the early demos of people playing Wii games where they fend off ninjas or something.  The rest of it is model and claymation work.  That was acceptable in Deadly Spawn, but that was made over a decade earlier!  The biggest problem is related to the low production values and just overall cheap look of the film.  Given that, I'm never sure if the look is meant to be ironic a la Grindhouse or is just that shitty.  If this review ever makes it to the director, be sure to let me know.  Can I recommend this film?  To the most hardcore of goofy horror/monster films, yes.  To any self-respecting moviegoer, no.  It had potential, but really failed to reach it.

Up next, a recent horror film delves into Hammer territory with a tale involving a Banshee.  Will the exclamation points in the title prove to be ironic?  Stay tuned...

Yuletide Crap: Psycho Santa & Satan Claus

I'll be direct with you: these movies are simply terrible. Not 'bad funny' like your Starcrashes or your Space Mutinies. No, these are the 'oh dear God, this hurts so bad' kind of movie like Sex Medusa (more on that movie later), Idaho Transfer or Waiting for the Giants. The thing is that I pretty much expected this, but was willing to fall on the sword for all of you. How about you repay my ignoble sacrifice by clicking on my Ads? I should also mention that these films are part of a three-movie set. The third one is called The Christmas Massacre & is apparently just as bad. When you get three movies on one disc, you are not getting quality! This is a fair warning to anyone that sees as Something Weird disc and thinks 'this should be fun.' Let's get down the nitty gritty though in my review of (first)...

Psycho Santa

The film begins with a woman running around a garbage dump as a man in a Santa suit meanders after her. Hey guys, you want to explain any of this? They don't and instead jump to a man watching television- scintillating. After a bit of nagging (don't yell at me for bad writing for women), she convinces him to go to a Christmas party with her. Just because he is a 'dick,' he decides to tell her the tale of a crazy killer that murdered on Christmas. Isn't it nice to spend the holidays with the ones you love? The first tale involves a trio of women who rent a cabin to have some 'lady time' every Christmas. Again- a movie clearly written by a man. What we get as character establishment is a five minute scene in which one of them wanders around and picks up rocks, while the other takes a shower (complete with random close-ups). We get more padding in the form of a 'dance' scene with one of the women before they finally question their friend's location. As it turns out, she has been segmented and placed in the Christmas present boxes & the killer shows up. Mind you, we see none of that & merely told it by our narrator. His second tale involves a burglar duo who rob a blind woman's house, decide to drown her for no reason, but open the wrong door and die.

What killed them, you ask me? As it turns out, the killer was hiding out there. We find this out in an interrogation scene so badly lit that you can never see the cop's face! The interrogatee is the husband- who was out that night- and he explains a bit about the killer. I'll spare you it, save for the fact that he is obsessed with Christmas music. In another tale, the killer dresses up as Santa and kills a kid in a cabin (off-screen, mind you). He stabs the mother as well, who proceeds to drag her near-dead ass across the ground for over 3 minutes straight, only to unplug the phone line when she gets there! We get another related tale involving two siblings going to see the woman and child at said cabin. Their car breaks down and they wander around...and around...and around. Finally, he attacks the girl when the duo split up (always a good call!), but she runs away. This is where the credits footage comes from, by the way. He catches up to the guy, but the husband shows up, turns on a music box to make the killer freeze up & sets the house on fire. To close out the tale, the couple stops the car to check the trunk and gets attacked. The f-ing End!

Satan Claus

Another movie about a crazed man dressed as Santa? Hurray! This character begins the film by driving around and singing a Christmas song, just replacing nice words with 'blood' and 'entrails.' He randomly attacks one lady and cuts her head off, at least giving us actual on-screen gore! The woman is questioned about the attack at a police station that has a few, well, let's just call them odd things. First off, a board above the chief's desk has a picture of Bill Clinton, despite this movie claiming to be made in 2008. Secondly, and most importantly, the place has no power! At night, the police station is running off of moonlight and reflections from neon signs! How low-budget do you have to be to not be able to afford electricity?!? Anyhow, we learn that the woman was the police chief's wife and we get some ACTING! Our focus switches to a young man (read: 3o) who wants to be an actor, but all he can do is work as a Santa on the street. He also has a voodoo lady for an adopted mother, which may play a part in the story. At his job (also with no light), a friend of his is randomly-attacked by the Santa killer. He chases after him, but the film's lack of light makes it appear that he is running in space!

The killer continues his habit of taunting the cops and leaving no evidence behind. We also get to see that he is decorating his tree with human limbs. That's ho ho horrible. He kills more people, but my interest level is really not that high. The super-low production values show through in many of these scenes, including a bit where a passing train's shadow blocks the shot! We do more with the story between our hero and the woman whose boyfriend was attacked earlier. The voodoo lady gives our hero a necklace early on that is supposed to protect him from evil spirits. As it turns out, this is a good thing to have. The woman he protected, you see, is actually an evil woman who has taken a man's soul & made him into the titular killer. That man: the police chief. Of course, this movie blatantly cheats by having the Psycho Santa played by a different actor! She explains her whole plan like a bad spy movie villain before the police woman shoots her. The End.
These movie suck in every way you can think of. Psycho is a bad slasher movie disguised as an anthology film, only it is all about one person. On top of that, there is almost no blood, no plot and no direction. You think that with a narrator in the story that we would not have two people wandering around like Hansel and Gretel! The killer is silly, stupid and uninspired. The only interesting aspect of him is that he is entranced by Christmas music, but film counteracts that both times it comes up. Satan is worse in many ways, since it has the plot of a decent horror film in theory. The budget kills this movie even more than the bad acting and bad direction. Mind you, it could be argued that the money could have gone to hiring good actors, but their bigger priority should have been getting some damn light! You can do a million times better than these films and should.
Up next, an iconic 80s horror film that everybody is already talking about. Why shouldn't I join in? Stay tuned...