'70s Trash: H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come

A Sci-Fi Classic from the man who brought you Frogs.  Okay, maybe 'classic' is not the right word.  To begin with, this film has pretty much nothing to do with the story.  Mind you, the book is not exactly the most famous work of Fiction of the last century or anything, so a lot of you may not realize it.  From what I understand, the film pretty much just uses some of the names from the book, but that's it.  The film was made in 1979, so you can probably guess what inspired the film's release.  Yes, it was the classic 1977 film ABBA: The Movie.  No, it was obviously Star Wars.  What does the Director of The Littlest Hobo(totally real BTW) bring to the table?  Well, for starters, there's Jack Palance as the villain.  If you've seen Hawk the Slayer, you'd know that he's great at that.  If you've seen him in Alone in the Dark (the Slasher film, not the Uwe Boll one), you'd realize how good he is at this.  If you've remember him as Kaleel on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, then you'd...probably be my Dad.  The film features Palance as Omus, a man with a plan and a robot army at his command.  He wants to conquer New Washington, one of the few remaining human settlements around.  Can he be stopped?  To find out whether Ovals are the dominant Shapes of Things to Come, read on...

Text Crawls- don't you miss them?  Oh and it's the tomorrow after tomorrow.  Just so you know.

The humans are settled on Delta-3, which appears to be next to Epcot.  It's the most boring place on Earth (when you're 12, at least).

Palance- who's not nearly in this film enough- wants to take over their Kingdom.  He has a robot army at his behest, which I'm mostly mentioning as an excuse to use the word 'behest.'  It's a fun word AND it makes me sound smart.

This 1979 film has one major thing in common with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (released the same year): a love of showing ships just sort of floating.  This film seems to have about 1/10 of the budget of that film, so it's not quite as interesting (which isn't saying much).

A group of scientists are stuck on a nearby planet, but find that Palance's robots don't want to make peace.  Not to SPOIL things too much, but their outfits are all red.  You do the math.

I don't actually have a reason to show this picture, but look at it and tell me that I really need one.  Awesome!

Omus has a super-deadly weapon: a shiny Disco ball that makes loud, silly noises.  Feel the...terror?  Oh and the way that he's immune to its effects is by wearing...

 This helmet.  Just...look at that.

His plans are spoiled by our heroes, a teleporting robot and a lot of moxy.  Seriously, the robot can do what he calls a Bi-Locational Transportation (or BLT).  Ha ha ha.

With the day saved, our heroes fly off into space.  Please ignore the seam in the background wall of 'space' in order to truly enjoy this effect.  The End.

It's a big, silly mess of a film.  It's really not terrible, but there's not enough interesting stuff.  A lot of the film is just ships floating around in space.  Seriously, there is a lot of that.  Watching the film in a Blu-Ray Player and on a HDTV is an interesting experience, as it desperately tries to Up-Convert this thing.  The result is that it alternately looks decent and terrible.  The prop stuff- like the ships and planets- look super-fake (which they make in SD too), while the footage of live Actors looks pretty good.  It's certainly not the best use for my HDTV, that's for sure.  As far as the film itself, it's got a decent-enough story to it.  The robots are goofy fun and there's a pretty good amount of action in it.  If you're a fan of Sci-Fi and haven't seen this film, it's worth a look.  It's by no means perfect, but is worth at least one viewing.  If you don't like Sci-Fi, it's a harder recommendation.  If nothing else, you can play a game I call Spot the Smudge(s) on the Print...

Next up, I celebrate Memorial Day with some Real American Heroes.  Yo Direct-to-Video Action!  Stay tuned...

Impossibly-Familiar Cover Art: Hard Ride to Hell

It could be said that there is a shortage of good ideas.  When it comes to Cover Art, that's still true.

2010's Hard Ride to Hell seems to be a blatant rip-off/Remake of Race with the Devil.  Let's check out the cover...

Why does this feel so familiar?  Maybe it has to do with a 2009 Horror film about Hell...

This is actually funny if you just picture the guy on Hard Ride's cover being pushed down just to the right or left of Drag Me's heroine.  Maybe they're talking or something.

By the way, how are the demonic hands coming from above?  Weird, right?

Troma-tizing: Surf Nazis Must Die

This is what I get for listening to people!  A friend of mine from work is always telling me to watch a film called Surf Nazis Must Die.  I finally gave in and watched it the other night.  So yeah, this is a Troma film (as you probably guessed).  As such, it includes many things that you expect.  You get overtly-goofy characters, terrible writing, almost no budget and a film dying for some Editing.  Good times, good times.  The film is about a post-apocalyptic world in which a gang of titular thugs try to take over the beach somewhere in New Jersey.  They don't make a point of this being in Tromaville for some reason (not that I'm complaining).  Regardless, this is yet another film in which Troma wastes a good opportunity for laughs and trades it in for...um, I'm not sure what.  Gratuitous Surfing B-Roll?  Gratuitous metal-working scenes?  To see what this film is (and could have been), read on...

After an off-camera apocalypse (big shock), New Jersey was apparently in ruins.  A bunch of Warriors-style gangs (of three people) battle for control of the beach.  The most agressive: the Surf Nazis.

The gang is very agressive and strong-arms the other gangs into submission.  This is done by, I shit you not, one guy shooting a harpoon vaguely near one guy.  You're...really weak-willed.

Now here's where I break down the good and bad here.  It's not that complicated really.

* The story becomes a revenge tale involving an older, black woman trying to kill the gang.  Good.
* It takes half an hour to even start this plot.  Bad.
* Her revenge only takes place in the last ten minutes or so.  Bad.
* She disappears from big chunks of the movie, making the movie seem padded to reach 78 minutes.  Worse.

So yeah, after setting up a potentially funny and unique revenge tale, much of the film's run-time is wasted on the other gangs and their weak, ineffectual revenge plan instead.

If you're still awake by the end, you get to see the old lady chase the two remaining gang members and killing them.  It's entertaining...but far too late to make a difference.  The *yawn* End.

The law of 'Funny Title, Boring Movie' continues to be true.  Seriously, track down a bunch of silly-sounding films- pick a nice, round number like six or eight.  Now split the films up between those with silly titles (i.e. Over-Sexed Rug-Suckers From Mars, The Incredibly-Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) and those with more normal titles (i.e. Rubber, Waxwork).  I can almost guarantee you with those that possess the goofier titles are much more boring and probably suck a lot more than the others.  The silly title is a crutch used to make your dull/stupid movie sound more interesting than it is.  With that said, Surf Nazis Must Die could have been funny.  If they had trimmed the fat and shown more of the old woman's revenge plan, I'd like it a lot more.  It would still be a Troma film, so the odds of it being 'good' were pretty slim.  If they had set up silly scenarios like her setting a trap with a Schnitzel and some dynamite, I might have chuckled a bit.  Instead, they just have the other Gangs take out all but three of the Surf Nazis on their own.  Just...wow.  In summary, you can safely skip this film.  All of the laughs that the title will give you are more than the actual film will.  Let's just focus on the two good parts of the film...

Next up, a film that came bundled with my copy of Contamination.  Jack Palance in Genre Films is usually good for a laugh, so I may be in luck.  Stay tuned...

New Crap: Texas Chainsaw

When Michael Bay says 'I can't do anything more with you,' what does that say about your Franchise?  Today's film is Texas Chainsaw, yet another film that seeks to be a sequel to the original film.  Seriously, this is like the Godzilla Millennium films- in which all but one was a stand-alone sequel to the original Godzilla- all over again!  It also does one my pet peeves- taking words out of the title for a sequel- to an all-new low/high.  It's one thing to go from The Howling to Howling II, but it's another thing to go from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Texas Chainsaw!  What is the logic here?  Did you think that you'd lose the Horror Market with the word Massacre in the title?  Is this a weird example of how we're changing as a society?  You can make horror films about people being cut to pieces by a Chainsaw, but you can't call it a Massacre (in the title)?  If so, that's odd.  Regardless, there is enough to talk/complain about in the actual film without diagramming our society as a whole and its quirks.  Set immediately after the end of the original film, this one explains what happened to the family- ignoring all of the other sequels in the process- and moves to the present day.  That means that there is a pretty major time-gap here to address.  How do they do it?  Well, I won't SPOIL that just yet, but it's worth covering later.  A couple of the original Actors are back, but it's mostly just to appease the 5% of the audience that really expects continuity between the films to be solid.  They clearly didn't see the other films- and will be annoyed later- but that's okay, I guess.  Leatherface is back along with...well, just Leatherface.  Maybe this explains the missing words in the title- they didn't will it to him.  To find out why this film fails on a number of levels, however, you'll have to just read on...

The film plays footage from the original film over the opening Credits.  It mostly serves to remind you how much the original film works, which proves to be a detriment to the film.  It ends with the woman escaping...

 ...and jumps right to the Sheriff- and most of the town- arriving for revenge.  They get the look down pretty well here, to the film's credit.

To the film's discredit, they shoehorn a Gunnar Hansen cameo in and Retcon Bill Moseley- who appeared in the first real sequel as someone else- into the original film.  He's here to say maybe four lines and die.  What was the point of that?!?

After the house is burned down- which sets up a continuity fiasco later-, a child is found with a young female family member.  She's killed (via Orton-style punt kick), but the baby is raised by one of the townsfolk.

Now in the present day, our heroine finds out that a Grandmother she never knew has died.  This leads to a road trip to Texas en route to Louisiana.  Ironically, they filmed the whole movie in that State instead of, you know, Texas!

Sorry, Rick Perry, but Bobby Jindal must have offered a bigger Tax Credit.  Conservative fight!

Just like in the original, the pair pick up a Hitchhiker.  Will this guy go on to be evil and later voice a Power Rangers villain too?  Only time- and SPOILERS- will tell.

This brings us to the film's biggest issue: time itself.  If this film is in set in the Present (which it is), then how is this baby that was born in 1973 only in her TWENTIES then?  I know Texas can be a backwards place sometimes, but time still moves at the same speed there!

They try to hide this all of the time.  Take this piece of Police evidence from later.  Who the hell blacks out the year on stuff like that?  Oh right- lazy Producers!

Since I don't want to SPOIL the whole thing, I'll just give you a basic rundown of the rest of the film.  Leatherface- who should be around 70 here- kills a bunch of people.  Nobody hears or smells him coming, it seems.

Random 3-D shots that add nothing.  That's something you have in common with Silent Hill: Revelation as well.  Interesting.

Oh and lots of silliness ensues.  The highlight: this guys walking around the house later and showing the Police Chief and Mayor (who could just go there) what he sees via Face Time on his phone.  That's...clever?

It all turns extra silly as motivations are revealed, characters turn Vince Russo-style and it all degrades into a mess.  To find out all of the details, watch the movie (if you insist).

Seriously, Platinum Dunes thought that this franchise was done, but you brought it back! This film is highly-confusing, highly-improbable and highly-unnecessary. Where do I begin? You made a direct sequel...forty-years later and still screwed it up. So many things happen in the movie with no major explanation and they really need one. If the Sawyer were reviled and all but one killed, how come Leatherface's little metal den was intact? Wasn't that part of the house? How did it not get burned?  After that, who is the Carson family, how did they get rich and how did they cover up the existence of Leatherface for all of these years?  Never mind the fact that nobody was apparently looking for him when the heroine from the first film had to have mentioned the GIANT WIELDING A CHAINSAW.  Getting past that, Mrs. Carson always knew where the girl was, even after she left the State?  How?  The film's basic plot is just chock full of stuff like that, plus unresolved sub-plots like the boyfriend having an affair with the friend, what exactly the Hitchhiker's real back-story is and so on.  It's a film that is both over-Edited and in need of some serious Editing.  I would start back at the Script phase, but it's too late for that.  In place of R. Lee Ermey, here's someone dressed like Jigsaw (for no reason at all)...

Next up, a look at a user request for a film with a very direct title.  When in doubt, kill Surf Nazis.  Stay tuned...

New Crap: Silent Hill- Revelation

The real evil is the almighty dollar.  Seriously, we needed another Silent Hill film?  To be fair, the Game and Comic Book versions have not stopped.  It's not like the series is dead or anything.  That said, the 2006 film did little to set the world on fire and didn't make us yearn for more films.  Say what you will about the Resident Evil films- and I have-, but they have been making them consistently.  Either there's enough of a fan-base to have five films so far, with a sixth on the way.  That probably says more about ourselves as a society than anything else, but I digress.  So what has changed between the two films?  Well, all but one cast member is gone.  The one that is still here- Sean Bean.  Given his reputation for dying in every film he's in, I'm just amazed that he survived the first one to even be able to be in this one.  Just like that film, he's barely in it, so I guess that explains a lot.  The creepy little girl from the first film is now a teenager and dressed up like the heroine from Silent Hill 3- the one in a mall- and it throws in a token mention to that.  One big issue is that the whole concept of 'Silent Hill makes you see visions of your own psyche as monsters' is completely gone for this film, apparently just excised entirely.  Getting back to Resident Evil for one last time, they at least have The Umbrella Corporation making Zombies of some kind in every film.  So will this long-delayed sequel be good or just a 3-D mess?  To find out, read on...

Years after the first film, the creepy little girl is grown up- now with a blond dye job- and hiding from Silent Hill residents with Sean Bean.

In a Mall- to make Silent Hill 3 fans happy-, she's attacked by the creatures and this Detective gets killed.  CG Gore for the 3-D market!

She finally ends up in Silent Hill at the behest of a young man from School.  This lady is the source of the whole trouble.  Why does she look like our heroine?

To be fair, the movie has some crazy creatures.  There is no logic to them- as the psychological verification for any of this-, but they look neat.  It's the 2011 Thing Prequel all over again.

Here's a shock: a Horror Sequel/Remake that nobody requested features Malcolm McDowell.  I love you, Malcolm, but you can say 'no' sometimes.

The killer Nurses are back too.  Again- there was a reason for them in the game.  Here- not so much.

It all comes down to the evil girl who is deeply connected to our heroine.  It's all totally symbolic and...totally obvious.  That's really all you've got, movie?  Okay.

Is it me or does the villain here look like the Princess from Hellboy II: The Golden Army?  I mean, the hair, the dress...everything.  It can't just be me, can it?

Hey look- Pyramid Head.  You're token inclusion here really says what you think of your audience.  That's all I've got to say here.  To find out what happens in the End, watch the movie.

It's all CG and fury, signifying nothing.  Not to sound like a broken record, but most fans of Silent Hill love the series for its psychological impact.  They are games full of people being chased by freaky monsters, but there is always more under the surface.  One creature represents this aspect of a character, while another represents his deep-seated guilt.  In this film, a bunch of random monsters exist in a Brigadoon-like town that either pulls you in, someone tricks you into going there or you can just randomly drive in there.  Seriously, there are a couple of corpses...I mean, people that apparently just kind of drove in there.  That...is just silly, movie.  The film also suffers from Main Character Syndrome.  Basically, the Final Girl runs around the whole place and always escapes (is that really a SPOILER to anyone?) from danger.  Other people around her...are not so lucky though.  Oh look- a monster.  Who will survive- the Final Girl or this bitch that we just met?  Hmm...I wonder.  The biggest problem here is that the film is just forgettable.  Once you get past the re-use of its more iconic villains, what is there?  I saw it less than a week ago and I barely remember a damn thing.  At least it has boobs to...damn you, Pyramid Head!

Next up, another recent Horror Sequel that took over 5 years to appear.  How accurate can a film about Texas be if it was shot in New Orleans?  Stay tuned...

Bollyweird: 'The Undertaker' Takes New Dehli

Okay, it's not really the title.  

Would you be as interested in Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi?  It's not that there's anything wrong with that title- in the original Hindi anyhow- but it does little to sell us in the United States.  

It's apparently part of a series of films featuring the same lead, but that's not why I picked it for review.  

No, I picked it due to its villain: The Undertaker.  

Even most non-wrestling fans can recognize The Phenom, but I'll give a quick summary for the rest of you.  

The Undertaker has been a staple of the WWF/WWE since late 1990, holding multiple titles and holding an Undefeated Streak at Wrestlemania (the Super Bowl of Pro-Wrestling) of 21-0.  Now here's the catch: this film does not really feature The Undertaker.  

Back in 1994, a story was done involving a fake Undertaker (nicknamed the Underfaker) battling the real one.  Two years after that story was dropped as quickly as it started (they had one match, I believe), the man who played the role- Brian Lee- got cast as 'The Undertaker' in this film.  

It also features another Pro-Wrestler- Brian Adams- and a whole bunch of people speaking in dubbed Hindi.  

Here's another thing: this movie was made in Canada.  I'm not sure why really, but that's what happened.  It's the story of crime, gambling and undead Pro-Wrestlers working for villains in Canada.  

To see how this crazy film ended up, read on...

The film begins with a wrestling match on the roof of a Canadian building between Fake Undertaker (wearing a silly sash) and Crush, who's back-story here is that he ate all of the Miners trapped with him.  Ew and huh?

Fun Fact: Crush here would later serve as a Bodyguard for Randy Savage on his Rap Tour.  

That has nothing to do with anything, but does give me an excuse to link to this.

Their match is...well, it's not good.  Lee has Undertaker's mannerisms down, but his performance level...not so much.

Crush ends up dying, but his body gets discovered with a link to the criminals clutched in his hand.

This is still a Bollywood film, so prepare for the first of several Musical Numbers that completely stop the story cold.  

Yea.

I suppose you're wondering what film this is a Rip-Off of.  

There's not one in particular for the whole film, but they do steal whole sale from Rumble in the Bronx.  Here he is doing a move called The Flying Lewinsky.

Our hero becomes the Champion for the lady Mobster and faces off with The 'Undertaker.'  

How does that go?

Ow.

While he recovers from that, let's stop the film for yet another Musical Number.  

There's only seven (or so).

In their second face-off, our hero finally emerges victorious.  The real Undertaker has been buried alive (twice), locked in a coffin (at least twice), burned alive (at least once) & forced to try and make Giant Gonzalez look good at Wrestlemania.  

He's a survivor.

Remember when I said that they ripped off Rumble in the Bronx.  In the Climax, our hero chases a bad guy on a Hovercraft and even runs him over with it.  

Subtle, huh?

Our heroes jump away from a poorly-blended digital explosion and live happily ever after.  

The End.

If you like crazy things, this is for you. 

 If you don't know who the fake Undertaker is, you may not find this as funny.  

As an actual film, the thing is way too long (nearly 3 hours) and poorly-paced.  The opening fight, for example, is really long.  Basically, it's like watching the Kane & Undertaker vs. Kronik (also featuring Brian 'Crush' Adams) match.  

If you've seen it, you'd know what I mean.  If you can deal with the length of the film, it's got a lot of action in it.  Granted, most of it is silly, but you take what you can get.  

As a Bollywood film, it's pretty much all fluff.  There's very little substance here.  What is a bit odd in addition is just how much blood is in the film.  It plays like a mostly-All Ages film (save for some murder), but gets REALLY bloody at the End.  

Oh and I still don't know why this was made in Canada and features a bunch of American Pro-Wrestlers.  Your guess is as good as mine.  

If you're a fan of obscure and crazy films, this is *almost* the motherload.  That would still be The Dragon Lives Again, of course.  

Take us away, great choreography...

Next up, a look at a pair of recent Horror Sequels with a weird thing in common.  First up, we return to Silent Hill since...um, 3-D is profitable.

Mondo Trivia: Deadly Blessing

* Here's a weird one.  In the UK, they cut the finale of the film.  They.  just.  cut.  it.

It's not for violent content (there's no blood) or suggestive content (i.e. sex).  Why did they cut this then?

* According to reports, they cut it 'to avoid confusion.'  Wow.

Words fail me, gentlemen.