2,900th Post Celebration!: Frankenstein Reborn

It is that time again!  Cue the Banner, me!

Sorry, Universal.  For my 2,900th Post (I know- right!), let's revisit a Studio who I've avoided for at least 6 months (an Immediate Response not counting, that is)- The Asylum.  Joy!  Today's Film is Frankenstein Reborn, the Asylum Version of a now-Classic Tale.  This one has many of the elements you'd expect to see, but many differences too.  This is part of the Shot Together To Save Money Series from the company.  Basically, they shot a bunch of Films together with the same Cast in varying Roles in 2005.  This includes War of the Worlds, King of the Lost World, Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse, Legion of the Dead and The Beast of Bray Road.  The Films were all released in a 6-month period and feature recurring Cast Members aplenty.  This is notable not just for the Stars, but also for the bit players.  For example, Andrew Lauer- aka some guy from Caroline in the City- appears in Beast, Legion and King- literally for one Scene in the latter!  That brings me to this Film with, well, most of those people.  Bruce Boxleitner was too busy for this shit- good for him.  This one is set in modern times and takes some odd liberties with the Story.  Rather than watching me ramble here, how about you watch me ramble down below?

The Film begins with the typical Person Gets Killed bit.  It is...Sarah Lieving!

Do I act like a dick and go 'Yea- they killed her!' or just not care?  Vote, America!

Now that that we got that out of the way, the actual Story begins with Dr. Franks (since Rhett can't play German, apparently) under arrest before suspicion of murder.  Cue Flashbacks!

So the good Doc and his comrades were experimenting on this oddly-muscular guy with a degenerative muscle disease to cure him via nanites in the brain.  Naturally.

Things eventually go awry due to some confusing Plot Point involving the Doctor's evil thoughts being downloaded (like an evil Chappie, I guess) into the Patient...or something.  You got me!

Anyhow, 2 of them continue the work on what now looks like The Mummy.

We interrupt this Horror Story for a Threesome Scene.  It worked for Invasion of the Pod People,..

They eventually resurrect the Patient...who now suddenly looks like The Mummy in the face too.

Seriously, what part of the procedure messed up face and teeth so much!!!

The Monster kills off the Doc's co-workers, the latter of whom he once loved.  Time to make a Bride under duress, I guess.

As the Flashback and Present collide, the Police, the Doctor, the Psychiatrist (aka Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse) and the Monster all meet up.  After some random gore, the Shrink zaps both Monster and Doc, killing them.

After some cheesy narration, we get some Sequel Bait.  No such luck, Frankenstein Reborn...Again!

Madam I'm Adam....and this Film is not good.  The basic Plot is fine.  The Monster Make-Up (which grotesque in ways that make no sense for the Story) is actually quite good.  The random Gore and other Practical Effects you get are also good.  Pretty much everything else lets this Story down though.  The framing is confusing as they don't just stick with 'Doctor tells Story and sets up Ending.'  Instead, we get random breaks for the Psychiatrist to meet with the Police, his colleagues, the Police again and so on.  On top of that, we get footage repeated a couple of times for no good reason.  It is the 'I told you this, but the Audience will now see what really happened' schtick, basically.  In other words, your 84 minute Film (counting Credits) wasn't long enough.  The Acting is overall good, with some (like Giles) performing better than others.  The big problem for me is that I've seen this same bunch of Actors over and over again.  First it was Dracula, then it was King Kong, etc.  It is kind of tiresome now, so imagine what it was like in 2005-6 when these Films kept popping up in order over a 6-month time.  I appreciate that they didn't bring Andrew Lauer back for a Scene Cameo Kill, though...I guess.  Overall, it is like most Asylum Films- some good ideas (usually not theirs) done in a way that is less satisfactory than it should be.  This isn't too cheesy, which is a plus...I guess.  Now let me see that 'I'm reading your stupid Text' Face, Sarah...

Next up, some super-cheesy nonsense of the good kind.  Barry Bostwick, a Werewolf and some super-ridiculous Experiment!  Stay tuned...

Millennial Trash: Cult (2007)

It still isn't any worse than Scientology.  Today's Film is Cult, a 2007 Horror Film by the man who would later bring us Dragon Wasps.  Good pedigree.  The Film is notable for...pretty much nothing.  I have a silly pretense for picking this one, but I'll get to that later.  One of its Stars- Taryn Manning- is on Orange is the New Black, while another was on Supernatural.  Is that enough for you?  One of the Writers also Wrote Girls Gone Psycho, while another was a Motion Graphics Producer (whatever that is) on Storage Wars.  I'm not really selling this, am I?  The Plot involves a fictitious Cult that dies off, but the Leader returns to try again 20 years later.  Will he succeed and doom mankind?  To find out, read on...

In a true example of lazy Writing, we get a 2-minute long Exposition Dump via a Narrator that sounds like the guy from the 1990s Outer Limits Revival.

The short version: this lady in China died, but now her spirit can bring you power.  Some guys finds her Amulet.

He tries to do a Ceremony where a bunch of Women commit suicide and give him their souls for power...or something.

Among the Women is...Sarah Lieving (Credited here as Sarah Liering for some reason)!

Yeah, she does nothing.  At all.

Moving on, the group all dies, but the Ceremony doesn't work when one Woman kills herself in the wrong way for it to work.

20 years later, the Woman's Daughter- Miner- is in College and studying the Cult for her World Religions Term Paper.  How convenient.

People in her Study Group start to die off, but the early ones are passed off as Suicide.

Yes, people often cut their eyes out and then stab themselves to commit suicide!

The culprit is the guy running the Temple where the killings took place- shocking!  He's possessed by the Spirit of the Leader, which was made possible by the power...for some reason.

The Spirit that they worship tells our heroes how to save the day.  Why she can't do it herself is...um...next caption!

After a confusing finale, they defeat the Leader and destroy the Amulet.  All is saved...until the Narrator says that it is only over for now...or something.  The End.

Eh, it isn't good.  The Film is not completely-terrible, but it suffers from so many little problems.  The Story doesn't flow in a fluid way, for one.  They just dump the Story on you at the beginning, which just feels lazy.  The actual Story is goofy.  On top of that, the Characters are pretty stock and uninteresting.  They tried a little...but not nearly enough.  There are also some dubious CG Effects that aren't really necessary for the Film to work.  When you can't do them right and you don't need them, make the right call!  The whole thing is just so uninspired.  That is really the worst thing- they didn't do anything notable or all that interesting here.  It didn't even let me get much fun out of my continual issues with Sarah Lieving in Films.  Apparently the part she was in was shot later to make the Film more interesting.  It didn't help much.  On the plus side, they give us a few subtle hints as to when it was made...

Next up, I cover the 6th and final Josh Kirby Film.  As an 'Era' ends, will it get better?  Stay tuned...

Project Terrible: Monster

Welcome back to Project Terrible! Tonight's submission comes to me from Steve Miller, Writer of Stuff, and it's...

Hey, it's Cloverfie...oh. Oh. No. It's the Asylum's Monster.

Okay, let's get this out of the way. Monster is rather obviously the Asylum's answer to Cloverfield, which is basically a found-footage version of a Godzilla movie. Giant monster attacks, people run and scream, that sort of thing. The Asylum of course had to do their own version of the film, and evidently they got the Godzilla connection too, as they decided to do Cloverfield one better and set their film in Japan.

Here's a summar...no, you know what? Here's the entire plot of the movie. Two sisters, Erin and Sarah, go to Japan to film a documentary about global warming. While they conduct an interview, an earthquake occurs. They wander around for a while, discover it's actually a giant monster instead of an earthquake, and spend the rest of the film running and crying a lot. Then they die, which the film pretty much telegraphs from the get-go. The end.

There is nothing to this movie. It's about an hour and twenty minutes long and there is no plot beyond the above. The entire movie is two sisters running through Tokyo, pointing their camera mostly at each other, and crying about how they're scared. It's probably what would happen if you found a film shot by two girls in the middle of a monster attack, which is, of course, extremely boring. I don't have a lot to talk about here, so I'm just going to put a list of the comments I wrote down while watching the movie below and call it a review.

• I'm sorry...they went to Japan to film a documentary on global warming, and they start out the film with what's basically a vacation video of sorts...but they focus entirely on just random city streets? Not major landmarks? Not tourist spots? Thrill to fascinating shots of the Japanese businessman walking by looking stressed out!
• Also, some faces were blurred in the early parts of the film, but after a little while that totally stops. What's up with that?
• These two are documentary filmmakers...who have evidently never heard of a lavalier microphone. Or any microphone, for that matter. I don't mind if you're saying they're just hobbyists, but I'm fairly sure that hobby filmmakers who are willing to spend the money to go to Japan to make a film would at least try to make sure their audio was audible. "Just speak loudly." Yeah, no.
• Later, they're interviewing a diplomat and you can hear emergency sirens over all the speech. Wouldn't you stop for a moment and pick up afterwards? I mean, I'm pretty sure the diplomat would actually know that you do that. I'm pretty sure he'd want his answers to be heard, so he'd just pause and let the sirens pass, then pick up.
• Also, do ambulances and such sound the same in Japan as in America? Maybe they do, I guess.
• And another found footage movie where someone asks someone else "did you see something?" and they say they didn't, but no one checks the camera footage to see if the "something" was recorded.
• "Who knows what their culture thinks is acceptable?"
• I'm pretty sure that mentioning that you think you saw something in the middle of an explosion is acceptable just about anywhere, as long as you don't start making Godzilla jokes.
• Didn't you do any kind of research on Japan before deciding to go make a documentary there?
• "You're still filming this?" Yeah. Yeah, she is. Why is she still filming this? How many people have to yell at this jerk before she turns the camera off and stops filming traumatized people? See, that's the problem with found footage movies. The "heroes" have to be jerks who'll stand there filming anything no matter what happens or who tells them no.
• This guy they meet in the basement has no actual emotion in his voice. He is awful. He's just rattling off words.
• There's no consistency of character in this. First Erin doesn't want to film, to the point of shouting at Sarah to put the camera down. Then for no reason, she's okay with it and films Sarah's interview with the American guy they meet in the basement. Then, she's really gung-ho about it and calls back to Sarah to make sure she's filming when another "earthquake" hits. There's no transition here, it's just "no, don't film!" to "make sure you film!" without any reason for the change. And then, after the quake, she's back to "Are you seriously trying to film this?"
• Additionally, Sarah at first is really skeptical that Erin saw something in the middle of the fireball, but then she's the one that says she feels something moving under the floor and Erin seems skeptical. Pick a side!
• Why is she trying to do a dramatic circle shot? Why would you even think of something like that? Just point the camera at the wreckage! Your sister's horrified face is not the main attraction here!
• And the guy just kind of dies during a point where the camera cuts out. Sure would be nice to see any of the action, though I guess since he was filming we probably wouldn't have seen him die anyway.
• Why are they constantly filming themselves? If they're trying to film the story of the earthquake, shouldn't they be filming what's happening? Or finding people to interview? Or something other than constant shots of themselves?
• I don't want to compliment the other Asylum found footage movie I've watched too much, but at least The Amityville Haunting understood that the cameraperson should try to film the events going on, not just himself or people reacting to things going on. I'm going to guess that the reason Monster didn't do that is simply that it didn't have the budget to actually show a ruined Tokyo or many effects shots, so they kept filming one of the actresses looking like she saw something horrible rather than filming the something horrible that she supposedly saw. That's the point at which I would say "maybe we're aiming for too big an event here" and rescript the movie to be about something that I had the budget to actually show, myself.
• "Bombs didn't go off here, so where are the people?" Yes, because in the middle of a general terrorist attack where bombs have supposedly been going off all over the city, it would be surprising for government forces to evacuate civilians even from areas that hadn't been directly targeted...yet.
• Finally. Like 20 minutes of footage (who knows how long in actual story time) after they first argue about Erin seeing something in the midst of the fire, Erin suggests Sarah should look at the tape, and Sarah does. Finally. They did have tons of downtime before this point, but it's only now that she has that bright idea?
• And she films herself saying "I don't know what to say," and cuts. She literally stopped filming, took out the current tape, put the old tape in, watched the explosion on it, stopped the tape, took the tape out, put the current tape in, turned the camera at herself, started recording, and only then realized she had no idea what she was going to say, said so, and turned the tape off. Who would do that?
• One minor compliment--Sarah and Erin do a good job generally of looking at the person who's actually filming when conversing with them, rather than looking at the camera. That does help it seem more real.
• So at one point, Erin very intelligently proposes that they take the tapes they have so far, and lose the camera since it and the presumed additional tapes that no one is ever shown holding are preventing them from traveling light and might cause them trouble. Sarah says that they need to document this, and Erin just kind of gives up and says, "Okay, then we have to film everything. Even if one of us gets hurt, we need to film that." Why? Why not just film things that seem important?
• I really don't understand why there are so many film glitches in films like these. Do cameras really break up that much when people are running around or when there are explosions in the distance? I understand a little, but their camera is cutting out or getting all distorted all the time. It's really annoying.
• Okay, so there's a really brief shot of the monster's tendril in the distance, and then the camera just focuses on Sarah's face, while she cowers. You know, if you're really intent on capturing evidence of this stuff, you should point that camera at the monster! I mean, you can still cower and hide yourself, just point the camera in that general direction while you do it!
• Why does Erin keep asking Sarah what the Japanese people are saying as they run, when:
• Sarah speaks barely any Japanese, and
• It's very obvious that they're saying something along the lines of "run along with us, you stupid Americans! It's dangerous here!"
• It's sure nice to be watching a film where I can't hear like 75% of the dialogue because they wanted to be realistic and keep all the wind noise and stuff in. Not that the dialogue I can hear is good, mind.
• You've got your sister there to film for you, and she is in fact doing just that, so why would you make her hand you the camera so you can film yourself?
• Another minor compliment--the dialogue is horrid, but Erin and Sarah do a great job with expressing emotion. Considering that the film spends so much time staring at their faces, they actually are very good at staying in character constantly and showing subtle emotional shifts. They aren't just screaming and such--they show more subtle fear and worry and hope and care. The film stares at their faces too much, but at least they do a good job while it's doing so.
• You know what else is weird about this film? Whenever there's a cut, it goes to black for a really long time. I get that you're saying the tape cut out or something sometimes, but someone edited this, right? Couldn't the supposed editor have trimmed out the blank spots?
• "Mizuchi is dead water. It is a creature that comes out when the water is dead." No it isn't. It's either a water dragon, a water spirit of some kind, or another word for the kappa. I don't see anywhere in mythology that it is used as some kind of punishment for "killing water." If anything, it seems to be potentially bad whether the water is mistreated or not.
• There are a few genuinely good moments in this. I liked Erin's insistence on filming a a video goodbye--while it's something that's been done time and again in found footage films, it was a nice one as she just tells people who she was, what she liked, and that she's happy she's with her sister. It's a nice kind of "upbeat as possible in the face of the inevitable" moment. The bit where the sisters find the Japanese woman who gave them shelter, who is cradling her dying grandfather, is nicely done as well. It's a pretty powerful performance from the woman, who cradles the dying man and insists on staying with him out of grief. Another kind of interesting bit is when the girls run into a Tokyo news crew. They actually resist the urge to cut to footage from the camera crew, and it's kind of funny having the two groups filming each other and trying to get answers out of each other.
• It's irritating how they do the "talk louder and slower" thing frequently when talking to Japanese people. It's kind of that "people who don't know our language must be hard of hearing" thing that's really very offensive.
• Weird end credits sequence where they try to turn the whole thing into a lesson on global warming. Was the Asylum really trying to make a global warming horror movie here? It's like they saw Birdemic and thought, "Hey! That worked absolutely horribly for them! Let's do it too...but only in our intro and end credits, somehow making it even stupider!"
• Oddly, Sarah Lieving's name is "Sarah Lynch," like the character, in the credits. But Erin's name in the credits is her actual "Erin Sullivan," not "Erin Lynch." Did someone goof? 
• And there's a character named Mizuchi. Like the monster's name. Are they crediting the person who did the monster's roar, or did they accidentally name a character the same as the monster?

This was astoundingly dull. It wasn't among the worst films I've seen, but it was definitely among the most boring. While it isn't too bad in a technical sense short of some bad effects shots, it's just a poor idea for a film and badly executed at that. We never really see any of what's going on because the girls constantly film each other, which, as documentary filmmakers (even hobbyists), they should know is not the important part of what's going on. This utterly fails to remain true to its premise, and utterly fails to be an entertaining movie.

Well, that's really all I can say. For Al's benefit, because I know he loves her work so much, here's a special Sarah Lieving in Monster photo gallery to bring us to a close.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Recommend 'Night of the Living Dead 3-D: Reanimation'

I was going to write a review for this film, but I don't feel like it.  Why?  Well, this movie is terrible.  Seriously, I did not like it.  For those of you who don't know, here's a basic summary.  In 1968, George A. Romero made the seminal classic Night of the Living Dead.  However, a legal snaffu rendered his Copyright on the film moot, putting it into the Public Domain.  So, in 1990, he helped put together a Remake, which was actually Directed by Tom Savini.  It's good.  In 2006, a guy named Jeff Broadstreet made ANOTHER Remake called Night of the Living Dead 3-D.  This is not to be confused with Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3-D, a film that's apparently in Production.  In 2012, he made a sequel...I think called Night of the Living Dead 3-D: Reanimation .  This is not to be confused with Night of the Living Dead Re-Animated, a 2009 film that pays homage to the original, nor is it to be confused with Night of the Livind Dead: Resurrection, an Indy film.  It seems to show the outbreak happening for the first time, so it may actually be a Remake.  I'd diagram it more...but I really don't care.  This film has a ton of problem- just in the first half alone.  Yes, I stopped watching after 46 minutes, so for all I know Jesus Christ himself comes down and saves all of our sins.  Oh well.  Rather than do a review, here's a list of reasons to avoid this film (which is on Streaming via Netflix right now)...

1. Why is this a thing?  Seriously, why remake a Remake of a Remake of a good film.  It just makes you seem like you only have one idea- George A. Romero's!

2. The Brothers.  While I don't hate Andrew Divoff and I like Jeffrey Combs, they do not look like brothers.  This is a big distraction from your two better actors.  That leads me to this point...

3. The Other Actors.  Look, I don't really hate Sarah Lieving.  The problem is that she never really shows any range.  In this film, she really just looks judgmental and/or confused.  Oh and the other people at the Morgue are not interesting- at all.

4. Sarah Palin?!?  Seriously, there's a sub-plot involving a character called Sister Sarah on Fix News.  This is where I go to for my political commentary- a Remake of a bad movie which was a Remake of a good movie!

5. The bad, unfunny Satire.  Seriously, Fix News?  That wouldn't pass for a fake parody of Fox News.  They have a scene which the characters use the phrase 'Teabaggers' (which is funny), as if that is a relevant and new in 2012.  In 2010, sure.  Now...not so much.  Later, Combs (who's stuck with most of the 'humor' here) references 'The Grudge Report.'  You changed one letter- that's not clever!

6. Zombie Non-Action.  I can't speak for the rest of the film, but there's almost NO action in the first half.  There are- I believe- two or three kills involving Zombies in that whole part.  It's build-up, yes, but you did want people to finish your film right?  Speaking of which...

7. Hurray for 3-D?  Granted- I didn't watch this film in 3-D.  If I wanted a headache, I'd just get drunk and hung over.  That said, it's easy to spot a 'made for 3-D' scene in a film (i.e. half of Tin-Tin).  How many are in the first half of this movie?  One.  Yeah.  Sure getting your money's worth on that Blu-Ray 3-D purchase, huh?

8. Let's stop the Plot.  While the 'brothers' are discussing the Zombie problem, the rest of the main Cast is getting high.  Lieving imagines the guy they were preparing for his Funeral getting up and smoking pot with them.  The point of this is...what?  You almost have no plot, so by all means stop that cold.

9.  The Plot.  Remember that whole thing from Night of the Living Dead 3-D where Sid Haig made zombies by burying them with toxic waste?  Well, that's the plot of this one too.  I gave this the benefit of the doubt as a sequel, but their dad isn't Sid Haig.  So yeah, this is just a rehash...of a dumb story.  Seriously, this sucks.

10. Meta Writing for the Win!  The straw that broke the camel's back is a scene where Combs talks about Zombie Outbreak Conspiracies.  He mentions Outbreaks in 1968, 1978, 1985 and 1990.  Yes, they're referencing Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead and the Remake of Night.

One- note how they ignore Day of the Dead, as it's about A WORLD-WIDE OUTBREAK, but do include Return, which itself says that Night happened, but not Dawn.  Also note that three of those films had no explanation for the Zombies.

The real kicker, though, is when Combs asks if they are fast or slow Zombies.  When told that they are slow, he replies 'Oh, Romero Zombies.'

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!

You can't pull that crap unless you're supposed to be a real Comedy.  This is just...crap.

So, in summary, do something else with your 46 minutes.  It will be better spent than mine.  Feel free to tell me if the rest of the movie is better.  I doubt it.

Next up, one Frank Henenlotter film deserves another.  After a (crap) Zombie film, how about one about brains?  Stay tuned...

Instant Asylum: The Beast of Bray Road

Well, it's not a rip-off (at least directly)!  This *original* film by The Asylum is supposedly based on some real events that I'm sure didn't happen.  So, you took a break from ripping off stuff like Transformers and I Am Legend to just steal from real life?  That's...better?  According to Wikipedia, this is a fairly-popular Urban Legend from the '80s and '90s.  Great, so we're neck-deep in Boggy Creek II territory!  From what I can tell, the film borrows somewhat loosely from the myths and just decides to make some shit up.  They also explain everything, which kind of goes against the point of making a film about an Urban Legend.  Of course, there are numerous films where Jack the Ripper is identified and caught, so I guess history is cinema's bitch!  Sarah Lieving is here again, which I'm sure will help this film.  I should also mention that this film shares a connection with a few other films by The Asylum that I've covered in the past.  More on that later.  Read on as we attempt to burn...

In the Pre-Credits scene, a woman ditches her drunken boyfriend to go home alone.  After a convenient car failure, she is killed by the beast.  Only her head appears in the film after this...

Our lead is Jeff Denton, playing the Sheriff who is new in town.  Incidentally, Denton is also the lead in 2005's King of the Lost World (as its 'Jack'), The 9/11 Commission Report and Dracula's Curse.  I mention that for reasons that will be clear later...

Andrew Lauer (who was in Legion of the Dead and Lost World) is also here for a small part as a redneck.  Why is he here?

As I mentioned, Sarah is here, this time playing a Bar Owner who is 'sassy.'  Wait- she was in Lost World, Dracula's Curse and The 9/11 Commission Report too.  Hmm...

In an odd bit, Lauer's abusive spouse is killed off by the monster, which doesn't kill the wife.  She never reports him missing and the scene is never mentioned again.  As a side note, Lauer has now been killed in Asylum films by a giant spider, a mummy and now a werewolf.

A Cryptozoologist (Thomas Downey) shows up in town to investigate the creature, which upsets the Sheriff.  Hold on- he was also in Dracula's Curse and Lost World too.  Plus, he was in War of the Worlds with Lauer and Lieving (in cameos).  How cheap is this studio?

Oh right- the plot.  The monster wanders around, looks silly and spends too much time on-screen.  It's a giant fur coat, people!

In the climax, we learn that Lieving was the monster all along.  She tries- successfully- to convince a Deputy that the Sheriff is the monster, despite the blood all over her lips and the giant bite wound on the Sheriff's neck.  Your cops suck!

It all concludes with a battle between man and she-bitch...I mean, beast.  She burns up, but this sets up a sequel...that will never be.  The End.

Woof woof.  The plot of this movie is silly, shallow and repetitive.  Basically, the monster kills random people- be they whores or rednecks- while our heroes just kind of wander around.  There's a whole sub-plot where a bunch of people in town- including the Deputies!- try to exploit the monster's appearance for profit.  Does it go anywhere?  Nope.  When your movie barely reaches 70 minutes, you've got to fill in the gaps somehow!  The whole thing is just so repetitive and tries to compensate with gore.  There's nudity too, although not much to speak of.  To be honest with you, the film has so little to talk about that I was more interested in pointing out how The Asylum clearly shot several films back-to-back instead.  When a tangent gets more attention than the plot, what does that say?  All in all, I can say that I've seen Sarah Lieving killed on-screen twice now.  I've waited a long time since Monster's cop-out to say that!

Up next, September begins with a pair of Mexican Dracula.  Viva la vampiros!  Stay tuned...

Instant Asylum: Invasion of the Pod People

How do you fail at making Exploitation?  Today's film is a 2007 'effort' by The Asylum to cash in on the big-budget film The Invasion.  In case you didn't know, that film was was Remake of the 1993 film, which itself is a Remake of the 1978 film...which is itself a Remake of a 1956 film.  The difference is that those two films were good, while the 2007 ones are not.  While it's fun to talk about the mainstream version being cut and re-cut by the Wachowskis to add more action, I'd rather talk about this abomination.  Rather than discussing the plot in my own words, I'll read you the short summary provided by Netflix- "Melissa (Erica Roby) has noticed some changes in her female friends and co-workers lately. Namely, they've been disrobing and engaging in lesbian lovemaking. Once she traces this trend to a mysterious interstellar plant, Missy makes a troubling discovery. Those lesbians weren't her friends at all -- they were alien clones!"  Prepare for disappointment as I try to stop the...

We begin with a blatant theft of the opening from the 2007 film...only made cheaper.  

Considering how little this film explains the titular creatures, this intro seems super-pointless!

Asteroids strike the Earth?  It's a shame that you can't actually afford to show that.  

Instead, here is this shot of a local fire (which may actually be in Monster)…

This is the real villain of this movie.  

Just stop and consider that for a moment before you move on.  I'll wait.

Instead of actual visual effects, you get a bunch of these weird shots of people *apparently* emerging from the pods.  

The DVD cover has a naked woman emerging from one, but you knew that we would never see that here.

This guy warns our heroine about the threat of the clones.  

Naturally, he does so by showing up at her house and threatening her with a gun.  

After he's had his say, he kills himself...just so we can be 'shocked' to see 'him' later.

Sarah Lieving is a very important character here.  She's so important that she has one Scene before being turned into a Pod Person in the next one.  

Thank you, pointless cameo.

Remember the whole 'lesbian' plot that is mentioned in the synopsis.  Well, it's all built around this one, three-minute scene.  

I hope you weren't going to see the movie just for this (for many reasons)…

On the plus side, Sarah Lieving gets killed!  Yea- I hate her for...reasons that seem more petty as time goes on (Editor's Note: Still not sorry in 2021 though).

After a lot of confusion, betrayal and...mostly talking about things, our secondary heroine makes her escape...only to get caught.  

I bet you didn't expect the film to end focused on someone other than the Lead, did you?   The End.

Eat me, movie!  The plot of this film is slow, tedious and...well, slow.  The original film worked because it dug deep into the hysteria of the time (The Red Menace) and presented real characters.  The 1973 version worked due to its strong writing, scientific focus and a great cast.  This movie fails because its characters are one-dimensional, the pacing is terrible and there is no real pay-off.  It's like making a movie about Godzilla, only you make it a plot point that Godzilla turned into a person and was planning to rob a bank.  I can excuse a lack of CG in the original two films, since it pretty much didn't exist.  In this film, there is no excuse for at least a couple of effects to make the tedium better.  On the plus side, I didn't hate Sarah Lieving here.  She had about six minutes on screen and died, so maybe that's what she should stick to.  I'm just kidding, Sarah...mostly.  This film is really not that interesting, unless you're a fan of these movies or watch them ironically (like me).  I'll leave you with this image of a newly-spawned Pod Person...with a band-aid on their elbow.  Oops.

Next up, Instant Asylum wraps up with a werewolf movie.  The real monster of the film, of course, is Sarah Lieving...god dammit.  Stay tuned...