Poor Bastards of Cinema: 976 Evil (Part 1)

You can't help but kill random people, Englund!  In his Directorial debut, he gave us a pair of Poor Bastards that share some similarities.

In the opening scene, a guy goes to a phone booth and calls the titular number.  It doesn't end well.

Well, at least it didn't blow up...

Later on, we see this woman walking down the street with the card.  The phone nearby dials itself and calls her.  She has the misfortune to then walk by a Phone Store...

...and it blows up in her face.  Who are you again?

Seriously, these characters have no back-story or set-up.  Hell, I can barely call them 'characters!'  They just die because...well, the movie needed some deaths, I guess!

Next up, a young woman learns the lesson of who not to date in 976 Evil.  She's kind of asking for it though.  Stay tuned...

Crap After Dark: Dark Ride

It's all about the pacing, people!  This After Dark Horrorfest film is certainly rife with possibility.  It has some cliches, granted, but it seems like it could be interesting.  The plot involves a bunch of young adult idiots going off to party in a place that they shouldn't.  Naturally, a killer shows up and, well, kills people.  After all, the killer must kill again- thank you, Luigi Cozzi.  Unfortunately, this movie does not add anything new to this played-out premise.  In fact, it actually subtracts a bit from it.  This is de-evolutionary film-making at its worst!  The film does have a couple minor stars in it, which helps it a bit.  To see why this film goes so wrong with such a simple premise, read on...

Our heroes go on a road trip, figuring that they can save money. They have some back-story, but who really cares?

In Horror Cliche #4,385, the owner of a Gas Station shows up, says something creepy and never appears again.  Keep that one alive, After Dark films.  How else will Michael Berryman get work?

The gang ends up at the Dark Ride aka the spook house.  Most of them act like assholes.  Meanwhile, a killer- from the opening- breaks out of a mental ward.  Ruh roh.

After about an hour, all of this builds up to...a fake-out death.  Our Final Girl is still mad at one of the guys and made up an elaborate scam.  What about the killer?

He eventually starts, you know, being relevant and wipes out the cast in pretty quick succession.  This is what happens when you waste an hour on set-up!

The Final Girl tries to make the emotional most out of this scenario, but the audience is long past caring.  Can a silly and ultimately-pointless plot twist save it?

No, no it can't.  The End.

Who Edited this movie?  I wanted to give this movie a passing grade, but I just can't.  The premise- fine.  It's nothing special, but these films tend to be somewhat stock.  The acting- fine.  Again, not great.  Nobody was that annoying and they all played their parts fine.  The hitchhiker was over-doing it a bit for my taste though.  As I mentioned, the Pacing is what kills this movie.  Were any of these characters interesting enough to merit this much build-up and development?  No.  Was this plot so interesting that it benefited from this?  No, again. It's a generic, slasher movie set in a slightly-underused location that does nothing new.  They can't get the basic idea right though, making it a tedious mess.  It did give a Poor Bastard of Cinema or two though, so it wasn't a complete loss.  The bottom line: skip this Ride.  Har har har.  Take us away, thing I usually end reviews with...

Next up, a successful Japanese Director is condemned to an After Dark release.  Will this J-Horror film do more than just confuse me?  Stay tuned...

(Not So) Immediate Response: Ghost Rider- Spirit of Vengeance

I got a chance to check out the newest- and second- film from the Marvel Knights line: Ghost Rider- Spirit of Vengeance.  I saw it last night, but chose to put my focus on getting my Anniversary piece up first.

With that said, let me break down the film into the Good parts and the Bad parts...

THE GOOD
* The Special Effects are great.  New touches- like a burnt skull and 'baked' leather outfit- are nice.
* The film is wacky.  Considering it's by Nevelle/Taylor- the guys behind the Crank films- this is no surprise.
* Cage embraces the silly nature of the whole thing and does some good 'mega-acting.'  The high point: when he interrogates a guy.
* LAMBERT!  Granted, his role is fairly-small, but it is important.  His face tattoos are nice too.
* A great, unique version of Satan.  It's not the same actor from the first film, but he does a damn good job.
* Carrion is a neat villain with a visually-dynamic power.  But...

THE BAD
* This is something that only nerds like me would note, but Carrion is actually a Spider-Man villain.  That's all I'm saying.
* The plot is a bit 'meh' overall.  It just serves to get from Point A to Point B.
* The satirical tone and silly humor- at times- does limit the audience.  That's just me being impartial.
* I wanted some more supernatural stuff.  Most of the time, Ghost Rider is just killing commandos who WORK for Satan.
* Plus, no Satan transformation at the end.  Saving that for the third film?

Should you see it?  If you like the Crank films or like some twisted humor in your Horror/Action films, yes.  If you like straight-laced films, no.  It's not perfect, but it's fun.

If you liked Punisher: War Zone more than The Punisher, you'll love this movie.  I know that I did!

3 Year Anniversary: 976 Evil vs. 976 Evil II

Let's mix things up a bit, shall we?  Thanks to the random shake-up over at Netflix HQ, a whole bunch of random films are suddenly in my Queue for the first time in years.  One of those films was 976 Evil, the Directorial debut of Robert Englund.  Lo and behold, this gave me a pretense to finally watch 976 Evil II, a film that has been haunting my Instant Queue for months.  Which one would I review though?  Was either one of them important enough to suffice?  I know- I'll do them both.  It's important to look at these together, since the latter is not made by Englund.  No, the sequel comes to us courtesy of Jim Wynorski, the man behind such classics as Deathstalker II, The Return of Swamp Thing and Cleavagefield.  Yes, that is a real movie.  Which one of these films is better though?  Is the original superior or does the sequel up the ante in all of the right ways?  To find out more, read on...won't you?...

Let's start with the big match-up: the Monster.  While the true evil in the film is Satan or whoever is running the phone service, he/she/it works through these guys...

Not to take anything away from the monstrous Dean from II, the original Monster wins this one.  He has back-story, even if it is silly.  His descent into evil- while oddly-paced- is actually believable.  The other one- he's just kind of crazy.

Next up, a comparison between two of the random kills.  It all boils down to spiders vs remote-control car work...

The scene in the first movie is interesting, but a bit confusing.  Our villain turns to magic abruptly and does some spell with spiders...before the woman dies of a heart attack.  In II, he controls the Attorney's car and causes her to crash into a power station.  It loses on logic, but wins on silliness!

How is the actual baddy of the film though?  The Monster is neat and all, but he's only part of the equation.  Who's the real villain...

To 976 Evil's credit, they do somewhat address this by way of having Robert Picardo running the phone.  In the sequel, it's...well, a phone.  They never show the real villain.  In fact, we only hear him a few times.  Cop out!

Let's wrap up this comparison with the movies themselves and their own wrap-up scenes...

The original film has a silly, but interesting finale.  The evil kid opens a portal to Hell itself!  Ultimately, he falls into his own portal, apparently closing it in the process.  In contrast, 976 Evil II has an astral projection blow up a truck with a bomb...before it gets tossed off of a cliff.  It's very anti-climactic, kind of like this.  The End.

*****

Which one is the winner?  Not surprisingly, it's the original.  Let's get the good points out of the way for both films first.  The original film has some good effects, mostly in relation to the make-up work.  Some of the optical effects are not that good though- see the finale.  I liked the overall plot, even if the pacing was a bit off.  The second film has some cheeky humor and is chock full of ridiculous moments.  One such moment involves all of the random objects in the Dean's house coming to life and attacking our hero.  Another crazy moment involves our heroine's friend being sucked into the TV and being attacked by the zombies from Night of the Living Dead.  No, really.  Now on to the bad stuff.  976 Evil II is full of weird, random moments that make no sense.  The two scenes mentioned before are great examples.  This is just typical for Wynorski though.  Another thing is that the movie has some really-dated optical effects, often looking worse than in the original film.  It just comes off as being weird, random and full of silliness.  It also has an abrupt and dark ending, unexpected in a film like this.  The bottom line: watch both movies.  You'll find different reasons to like them both, but the original is just better in every way.  Stinger face-off...

Next up, another After Dark film.  This one involves a plot similar to House of Fears, but is not nearly as interesting.  Stay tuned...

Indy Horror Teaser: The Prospector's Curse

Viral marketing is important.  If you don't have $20 million to blow on Super Bowl Ads and 7-11 promotions, you have to think outside the box.  That leads into this movie...

The Writer/Director of this movie was nice enough to request my help in promoting his film.  I say, 'Why not?'  After all, I'm a guy with little name recognition world-wide trying to get some attention too.

Here's the official info for you...

The Prospector’s Curse

A western-themed horror film entitled “The Prospector’s Curse” has wrapped production near the remote town of Ponty Pool, Ontario.  Set during the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890’s, the darkly comedic short is Written and Directed by Josh Heisie (‘Mail Order Bride’), Produced by Bruno Marino (‘Anything Goes’) and is currently in Post Production in Toronto, Canada.

The talent lineup for “The Prospector’s Curse” includes David Roberts (‘Curious and Unusual Deaths’), Johnny Quinn (‘Mind’s Eye: The Series’), Amanda Ives (‘I Hate Toronto: A Love Story’) and Robert Nolan (‘Worm’).

Rounding out the creative team are Director of Photography Michael Jari Davidson (‘SICK’), and Special Effects Makeup Artist Carlos Henriques (‘Red: Werewolf Hunter’) of The Butcher Shop.

Tagline

There’s blood in them there hills!

Logline

The vengeful corpse of an old prospector haunts two gold thieves as they struggle for salvation.

Synopsis

Theodore “Tubby” Ellsworth and Jack smith are two criminals on the run, lost in the untamed wilderness.  When they stumble across a mutilated Prospector, dying on Indian ground, they promise to give him a Christian burial.  The fugitives break their oath and steal the old man’s gold…but that night, the Prospector’s corpse returns to make them pay!

Related Web Pages

Facebook Fan Page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Prospectors-Curse/141337662650150

Josh Heisie                              www.joshheisie.com

Bruno Marino                          http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3012041/

Michael Jari Davidson            http://www.michaeljaridavidson.com/

Carlos Henriques                     http://www.thebutchershop.ca/

Dave Roberts                          http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3734080/

Johnny Quinn                         http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4144359/

Robert Nolan                          http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0634349/

Amanda Ives                           http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4424849/

Get it?  Got it?  Good.  

When I get my hold on a copy of it, I'll be sure to give it a proper verdict.

Crap After Dark: The Hamiltons

All of the good stuff comes out After Dark, right?  The After Dark Horrorfest started out in 2006 as an odd marketing gimmick.  The idea- see movies that the studios 'wouldn't release.'  That's a half-truth, really.  While I don't doubt that many Studios didn't want to buy and release many of these films, it was not because they were 'too extreme.'  Realistically, these are low-budget horror films with dark content and no stars, usually, to help sell it.  These films don't necessarily 'break the mold' or 'push boundaries'- they're just hard-sells.  In the ensuing years, Studios have even released Direct-to-Video films as part of it, like The Butterfly Effect 3.  To begin this truncated look at some of the early films in the series, a generic sounding movie that doesn't do a lot to prove me wrong.  It's plain, but tries to appear weird.  It's not scary, but insists that it is.  It's plot is not that interesting, but it really wants you to think that it is.  Is The Hamiltons a post-modern, clever horror film that bucks conventions in favor of a unique flavor?  No.  To see why I feel that way, read on...

This is our lead.  He's the youngest member of the Hamiltons.  He's our narrator...for about three scenes.  Most films get that straightened, but not this film.  It's edgy!

The second-oldest member of the clan grabs two young ladies from a dive bar and locks them up in the basement.  Why?  You'll see...

Our hero has misgivings about what the family does.  What do they do?  Despite the fact that he knows and he's our sometimes Narrator, he's not telling.  That's called cheating, movie.

Will he actually be pro-active or just linger about and mope?  This is the burning question raised by this movie.  Wake me when the character develops even slightly.

One thing to know about The Hamiltons is that anyone you see that is not from the family is probably going to die.  Even random characters like this teenage girl who hangs out with the sister...despite her being about 29 years old.

In The End, our hero gives into his blood-lust.  Yeah, I guess they're all vampires...or something.  They have sharp teeth and drink blood, but also walk out in the sun.  One mystery left...

That monster in the closet the whole time- a little kid vampire/cannibal/whatever.  Yeah, saw that coming.  With no repercussions, the family moves on to a new location with a new name.  The End.

Wake me when this movie gets a point!  Let me get this out of the way- there's nothing terrible about this movie.  There's a lot of it that's not interesting, however, and that's the bigger issue.  This movie has very little to actually do.  The ladies are captured very early and just kind of hang out in the basement.  Who signs on for a movie where they stay chained in the dark and whine?  Seems like a loser of a role to me!  One big problem I touched upon earlier is how the movie cheats.  They establish that the youngest kid- that we know of at that point- is the Narrator, but he's also a character.  They don't use the 'Unreliable Narrator' trope- that would be interesting.  Instead, they use the little-seen 'Disinterested Narrator' trope- one that I just made up.  Like the obscure little 'gem' Monster Hunter, this movie plays with the idea of telling you the whole story, but won't.  That film was made as a 'Documentary' made after the fact, but chose to show you all of the events in order.  This means that the movie just blatantly withholds information from you- the jerk.  There's no better way to insult your audience than to just not tell them something because you chose to stick to a silly idea & wrote yourself into a corner.  The Hamiltons, as I said, is not a terrible movie.  It's just a movie with not much to say or do that drags its feet giving you that little amount.  On the plus side, it has a Cop who is even less believable than Asia Argento...

Next up, I take a break from all of this horror stuff to celebrate the site's anniversary.  After three years, do I still have new ideas?  Stay tuned...

VHS For The Win: The Lincoln Conspiracy

Another Holiday?  Didn't I just do a silly, VHS For The Win?  Okay, here's a movie about Abraham Lincoln...

Who is out to get Lincoln?  Off-hand, I'd say that it's the cast of The Magnificent Seven.  Those bastards!

Next up, the original update planned for this week.  Don't worry- it will still be racist.  Stay tuned...

Just For the Record...

I do watch good movies.  Granted, people- like my parents- often take me to them, but it still counts.  Here are some good, Oscar-nominated films (or featuring nominated performances) that I have seen in the last year or so...

The Artist: This homage to Silent Films- which is a Silent film itself- is great.  How do you combine unbridled whimsy and serious character drama?  I don't know- but someone did it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: It's a bleak, dark character study.  It's well-acted, well-shot and high-quality.  It's not my cup of tea for the most part, but I can't deny the quality.

Bridesmaids: Hey, it's still an Oscar nominee- twice.  This movie is often referred to as the female answer to the Judd Apatow films.  It's a pretty accurate summary, although the film is aided by a surprisingly-good performance by Melissa McCarthy.

Rango/Kung-Fu Panda 2: As you can see, the nomination process is easy if you're an animated film.  All kidding aside, both of these films are good in their own ways.  For the record though, Kung-Fu Panda 2 is better.  The former falls apart without its lead and lacks serious Direction.

Transformers- Dark of the Moon: Hey, it's up for three Oscars.  Fun fact- The Adventures of Tin-Tin is only up for one.  To be fair, this movie is not as bad as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  To be fair, kidney stones, Chinese water torture and that fish that swims up your urethra are not as bad as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  Everything without Shia is at least tolerable...at times.

Okay, so I haven't seen films like Moneyball, Hugo, The Descendants, The War Horse, Midnight in Paris, Beginners or even Real Steel (nominated for Best Achievement in Visual Effects).

Then again...what was my point again?

Steven Seagal Week: Born to Raise Hell

To see the most recent crap Seagal has to offer, you'll need to keep reading.  Seagal's Direct-to-DVD career has been steady since 2003, but there has been a drop-off in the last year or so.  Admittedly, having to fight a charge of human sex trafficking would slow most of us down.  Since then, he has made a TV show...that aired in Spain.  It eventually got to the UK and Poland, finding its way to us sometime in March.  With all of that said, this 2010 thriller is the most recent crap fed to us from Mr. Ponytail.  Unlike most of the films before, Seagal has not only A Writing credit, he has the ONLY Writing credit.  Since he's a Producer and Star here too, he gets more of the blame than usual.  The plot is simple: a pair of gangs in Romania are fighting, bringing violence to everyone in sight.  Seagal is, you guessed it, a Federal Agent.  Unlike previous films in which he worked for the CIA- alot!- or Interpol, this time he works for a made-up sub-group called the International Drug Task Force.  It's so generic that it hurts my everything!  All of the infamous Seagal stuff is here, even the seemingly-pointless Voice Double work.  You may also notice some other things that stand out here, thanks to Seagal being the only Writer.  To find out more, read on...

The film begins In Media Res with Seagal assaulting a night club with a shotgun.  As a Producer, he chose this fade-out shot of him squinting from the muzzle flash...

Two weeks earlier, a gang war of sorts is taking place between the Russian Mob and a gang of Gypsies.  Gypsy power!

Naturally, this brings in Seagal, the head of the IDTF.  He's so fat here that he can't close his flak jacket!

Oh yeah, his partner is also an idiot too.  Too subtle, Seagal!

With war on the streets, only one man can turn the tide in favor of law & order: Dian Hristov.  Kick some ass...since the Producer can't.

This guy is the head of the Russian Mob.  Clearly Seagal hired him because he looks like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

How does Seagal pay back Hristov for years of heavy-lifting?  With the insertion of him in a topless scene, of course!

Not surprisingly, Seagal's partner is killed.  More surprisingly, however, is how violent and bloody it is.  Seagal likes hyper violence obviously.

With a death on both of their sides, the Russian Mobster and Seagal team-up...for murder.  This is not a light-hearted film, to say the least!

This is the main villain.  The guy who killed Seagal's partner.  Seagal's partner who had a pregnant wife.  Guess what happens to him.  The End.

Seriously, Seagal likes to kill people on screen!  With Seagal's 'voice' as the only one here, you get a dark, ugly movie.  It's shot nice enough, but the tone and characters are gritty as shit!  Characters are shot to death- a lot.  Women are called derogatory names and struck.  Morals are pretty much tossed out the window for the finale.  In its place, Seagal hunting down and beating a man to death.  Granted, the guy was a mobster, a drug dealer, a murderer and a scum bag.  It's not like he's a guy that I feel bad for.  Even so, Seagal abandons his principles and his mission to shoot the guy's door off and kill him!  It's not even like in some of the films where he tries to arrest the guy, but he kills them in self-defense.  No, this is all about Seagal wanting to straight-up murder a guy!  You could look at this two ways.  First, Seagal is trying to emulate the 'Grindhouse' formula with harsh action and gritty characters.  That's my brother's theory.  Second, Seagal just likes to see people violently murdered on-screen, women talked down to and people not espouse good morals.  Obviously, that's my theory.  Either way, this is a dark, dark movie with no real message.  If you like to watch crappy Seagal films though, this is certainly one of them.  Take us away, really good continuity...

Next up, a look at some of the older After Dark/Fangoria films on DVD.  First up, a film about a happy film...with torture porn.  Stay tuned...

Steven Seagal Week: Into the Sun

The worst thing to happen to Japan until, you know, that other thing.  This Seagal film also takes place in Asia, as I'm sure you inferred from that awful joke.  This time, it's Japan.  Given that it's a Seagal film, you know it's either about terrorists or organized crime.  It's the latter this time, although there is a bit of the former in there too.  It makes no sense and completely ruins the plot in many ways, but it's there.  This is stock Seagal at its best and worse.  If you don't know, it breaks down to this- Seagal is a Federal Agent who is a bad-ass and knows everything about Asian culture.  To be fair, Seagal did live in Japan for many years.  To be fair to Japan, however, he did so to open an Akido Studio and get famous.  Once he got the chance, he bolted from Japan like a fat bolt of lightning.  If you like lots of talking, little action and lots of Seagal's double doing all of the hard work, you're in luck.  To see if Japan can make Seagal interesting in spite of himself, read on...

The film begins with the murder of a Japanese official up for election.  It's all part of a bigger plan to unite the Chinese Triad, the Yakuza and the Golden Pyramid from Thailand.  Bear this in mind for later.

Naturally, Seagal is called in when shit goes down.  It's good to know that even in a fully-lit rooms, God sees fits to cast shadows and cover his double chins.

I should also mention that Seagal is semi-retired and runs a sword shop.  Wow, you saw Kill Bill and thought 'I'm better than that.'  If you needed more proof that Seagal had a writing credit, there's this...

A random sub-plot comes up involving Seagal and this Japanese lady being lovers.  They share about three scenes in the movie, but whatever.

It sure was nice of Mr. Seagal to bring Mr. Hristov along for his trip to Japan.  That guy gets to see all sorts of neat places!

Random Cameo by Gamera II.  Not sure why they're watching a film from the '90s in this 2005 film, but...um, yeah.

Did you doubt that Seagal was really in Japan?  If so, here he is in a Pachinko Parlor.  Say hi to Nick Cage while you're there!

As you probably guessed, Seagal's lady gets killed by the bad guys.  This leads him to sending Hristov in to kill some guys!  That Russian/American sure can kick some ass.

As far as the villains go, they all die- violently.  The lead villain challenges Seagal to a sword fight and loses...badly.  Seagal walks off into the sunset...only to get called again as the Credits roll.  The End.

Even Japan can't make you look good, Seagal.  To be fair, Godzilla fighting Jesus would only serve to distract us from Seagal's fat ass.  I'm too harsh, aren't I?  I should talk about the good parts of this movie.  Japan is nice.  Okay, now back to the bad parts.  There's not a lot of action in this film, which is odd for a Seagal film. The best and worst parts of Belly of the Beast were the action scenes & they're sorely-missed here.  There's about three of them in the movie, not counting scenes of people walking up to each other, firing two shots and leaving.  That doesn't count!  Given the film conceit that everyone in Japan seems to know karate, this is surprising.  The film's theme is all about the youth trying to go against the long-held rules of their elders.  To that end, Seagal- who was 53 at the time of this film's release- goes around killing all of them.  Real subtle, huh?  Furthering that narrative, Seagal's character is given a young partner who doesn't know anything about Japan...despite being stationed there!  This guy serves solely to make Seagal look good and, naturally, to die a horrible death.  Good to know your place, buddy!  The bottom line: this movie is not as funny as stuff like Beast, nor is it as good as, well, most movies about the Yakuza.  Save for the bloody finale, it's just kind of there.  Take us away, unflattering profile...

Next up, the final Seagal film of the week.  This films comes to us from 2010, with Fat Seagal in all of his non-glory.  Stay tuned...