Always root for the Monster/Bad Guy.

After School Massacre

     Some Mean Girls get a teacher fired, and in turn the teacher goes on a murder rampage. Filmed for about $40 in some dude-bro's basement and backyard, you won't have to worry about the set being overwhelming. I used to think the worst movie I had ever seen was Flesh Eating Mothers. But that movie was so bad that it was fun to watch. This is a movie that should not have been made. Whatever they were trying to do, it didn't happen. What did happen was a bunch of snotty 'teens' (really, none are under the age of 25) get murdered for wasting film. And oxygen. Thankfully, this waste is only 73 minutes with a happy ending. And by happy ending, I mean everyone dies in the end. The end.

Need proof of killing as a necessity? Please observe the ending credits:

Saturday: Why are you using guns on a ghost?

What an Oddly nice film. Get it? ODDly?!? HA!!!

Damn you Netflix....Screamtime is out, so I guess that means....

Odd Thomas

     Based on....oh sweet Jesus, really? Dean Koontz?!? Ug....OK, lucky for us, he didn't direct this. That was Stephen Sommers, who has had a spotty track record (GI JOE:Rise of Cobra and the Mummy/Scorpion franchises). It's OK to be nervous, but I rarely ever look at the producer/director before I watch a movie. And since NetFlix kicked out Screamtime, my original choice for tonight, I grabbed for a Hail Mary of a movie...and won!

     Odd Thomas can see spirits, and they come to him to help find their killer. The spirits can't talk, but they can lead him to the scene, where he can 'read' the accident, murder, or tragedy. In turn, the spirit is free to move on and Odd is on to his next job. He also works as a short order cook and has a girlfriend. He can also see these creatures called 'bodachs' that are feed on human emotions when in extreme duress. When more and more of them start showing up, Odd figures something big is coming and must stop it before it happens. Long story short, he does. But not without a truly sad ending.

     This was a great movie that had me interested throughout its 93 minutes. Anton Yelchin is a highly underrated actor that I would love to see in more films of this caliber (and not another crappy Star Trek sequel). The critics, however have trashed this film, including Rotten Tomatoes. Fuck them, they're wrong. Watch this film.

Friday: Always root for the bad guy....

Bawls.

Deadball

Really, I don't even know where to start with this, but here goes:

     A young man in Japan throws the fastest baseball in the world. So fast, he accidentally kills his dad. Bummer. So with all that rage and guilt, he goes on a rampage indiscriminately killing people with a baseball till he's caught. From there, he goes to prison, has one of the cutest cavity searches ever. The prison guard goes elbow deep on all the prisoners, and manages to find wrenches, baby dolls, and various flotsam and jetsam within all the prisoners. She really enjoys her work and there's a lot of man-tears shed. Did I mention this was a Japanese film? Well it is, and that means everything is fucked up and over the top. Here's proof:

This is pretty much the entire film

     And that's where we get to the heart of the story: the bad-ass baseballer is being recruited to play baseball, a very deadly game of baseball where people die in the most violent manners. So it's play ball or die. Or make the other team die. Either way, it's more crazy violence, a little cheese cake, and for some reason, a Nazi sub-story. Yeah, Nazi's are behind the whole thing.

     This is billed as a splatter comedy, and it lives up to that description. I saw several things that made me laugh. Need a cigarette? Just reach off-camera to the right. There's one there every time! Our main protagonist is dressed like a cowboy, sans the 10 gallon hat. There's also a guy with a baseball permanently lodged in his skull. He's not so bright.  

I liked this film, so unless you have hemophobia, watch it. It's good insane fun from Japan.

Thursday: I was thinking there needed to be a dedicated time for screaming, but I'm having trouble finding the words to describe it or name it.....

Van Helsing is older than the eternal vampire...

Argento's Dracula

     Holy shit, somehow I got me a Rutger Hauer movie! Unfortunately, it's also a terrible attempt to retell Bram Stoker's best known novel.

So let's dig in...

     Also billed as “Dracula 3D” and “Argento's Dracula 3D” because one title is never enough. It hammers out the basic story without adding much of anything other than a terribly awkward sex scene in the first 5 minutes and Rutger Hauer. However, not even he shows up till over an hour in. Otherwise, it's trying to tell me a story I really don't care about, involving people I don't care about, and doing it as slow as possible. When Rutger shows up, as Van Helsing no less, we're already bored and sick of this silly movie. His presences was completely unnecessary and hardly believable. The action scenes are not meant for man now in his 70s! Yes, as of this writing, he's 71 hell-damn years old! That means when they filmed this, he was 68. NO, he's not an action star anymore. Split Second was a long time ago, Rut! You can't do those things anymore!

     At least the boobs were nice, but completely pointless. I have internet, therefore I have porn. Movie boobs do nothing for me. And I'm not even going into how useless the 3d probably was. This must have just been a quick paycheck for Rutger. Go see Omega Doom instead.

One out of place scene:

     At some point, a giant mantis shows up and kills the father of Drac's newest concubine. Upon inspection, the mantis was....uh....Dracula? Really? Earlier in the movie he entered a room as a swarm of flies, so yeah...totally believable and in sync with the rest of the story. Yep.

Wednesday: This movie has bawls...

So this is what happens when your anger, stress, and frustrations manifest itself into a mini monster hiding in your colon....

Bad Milo

It lives in his ass and I never once saw him bathe it. Wouldn't it stink?

     Finally, a breath of fresh air to blow out the bad movie stank that's been permeating an otherwise normal October. Sure, the premise is silly and juvenile, but it's funny. I still laugh at farts.

     Ken Marino's character is under a lot of stress, and something is growing in his stomach. Possibly cancer, but if that were the case, the story would mostly end there. No, what's living in his stomach is a small little beast that pops out of his anus at night, murders the people that are causing the stress, and returns right back up the poop shoot when it's done. Think Basketcase, but with 2 functioning legs and lives in the Hershey highway. Yeah, I made a poop joke. Get used to them because there's tons in this movie. And just when you think things couldn't get more ridiculous, you'll be mistaken often including, but not limited to, father and son having a similar trait.

Did I mention he eats people? That's Warburton he's mawing down on.

     This funny, silly, gross, and worth a watch. Unless you hate poop jokes. Then don't watch it.

Cast includes:

Ken Marino from The State, and a couple of failed sitcoms,

Patrick Warburton, from The Venture Bros, and several unimportant shows.

Peter Stormare, the best Lucifer/Satan ever! Stormare was stellar as usual and tried to steal the show.

Tuesday: Looks like another Italian snore-fest. Really, shouldn't Drac get top billing?

I must be filling in the sequel gaps...

Xtro 2: The Second Encounter

     What we have here is a movie that was filmed in Canada, financed by Britain, and based in the US. It takes place in a soooper secret underground facility that's working on inter-dimensional travel. Three poor souls dressed in Vader-like outfits are sent through the portal and then things go wrong. Only one comes back and she's brought a friend hiding in her abdomen--->and it likes to eat people! In the meantime, the only person in the world that can help is Jan Michael Vincent. His back-story is that he was one of the first to go through the portal in a Texas facility, and upon coming back, blew up the facility in order to kill the monster that followed him back through the portal.

     Picking apart this film is too easy, though I'd like to point out that when the monster first bursts out of her chest, nobody uses gloves or hazmat suits when examining her, the room she's in, the trail of material the creature left behind....touch everything, don't use gloves, freely breath in the air . Again...microbiology safeguards are completely ignored.

     Really, this has nothing to do with the first movie. It's a sequel in name only and the monster doesn't even look like the creature from the original. The acting is f-ing terrible and I'm betting the auditions were done on a Sunday morning. The story is just a weak Doom-faclity run through typical of a '90s low budget film. This is what you get when Jan Michael Vincent is your star. It's bad enough, that nobody wants to do a proper Wikipedia entry. I can't blame them. I'll most likely forget I ever saw this film.

Oh, one last note: At no point is the name or word "Xtro" used in either of the films. There's a 3rd, but I'm not touching that this year.

Monday: His name is Milo, and he's baaaaad.

Why must everything in Britain be so damn greasey.

Xtro

This is a lie. You never really see the spaceship.

    A typically British father and his painfully British son are playing in the yard when suddenly everything goes dark, and a bright light shines overhead. I guess it's a ship. All I know is it's really really bright and annoying. Dad has been abducted and we skip ahead 3 years. Mother has shacked up with a Yank, Jr is having problems coping, and nobody believed him when the explained what happened to his dad.

     But suddenly, dad shows back up after some hilarious hijinks that included being a monster, killing an innocent couple after they stopped to see what they hit with their car along a quiet road (it was him), impregnating a poor, unsuspecting woman, and then birthing from her minutes later. Ever wanted to see a woman give birth to a full grown man? It's not pretty. And if that new mother isn't dead, she'll wish she was.

    While old dad is trying to piece together what happened as he has supposedly lost his memory of all events, I would think he'd remember being a monster, killing people, and re-birthing, but hey, this is British cinema!  That means shit becomes freaky! Starting with dad eating his son's snake eggs, and when his son sees him doing this, he runs away. However, dad catches up with him, talks him down and then bites him. Sooo...he's a space vampire? Seems like I've seen this before...

    Anyhoo, after that questionable intimate moment between father and son, son starts to exhibit some strange powers. Dad reassures him and he'll eventually gain full control. Soo...yeah, it's another space vampire. Then things get really weird and really British when the son creates a friend in full clown makeup to do his bidding. His bidding was simple: murder the neighbor lady, murder the aupair, and murder her boyfriend. Oh, and create a black panther. I still have no idea why the cat was there.

    In the meantime, dad and mother head a cottage in the country (where the abduction first took place) to help jog some memories. I'm not sure why the hell her boyfriend thought that was cool, but he eventually comes to his senses and drives to the cottage, dragging Jr. along. When dad meets boyfriend, he makes his ears bleed by making a loud noises? I'm not sure, but blood started pouring out of her ears and the father and son run off to another huge, geometric light in the sky. Presumably, to be with their alien buddies. Mom's left standing in the middle of a field with nothing left....

...till she goes home and finds the alien eggs that Jr and clownboy were incubating in the fridge. One explodes in her face and she dies. And there's that damn panther again...

Sunday: This one's not over yet...