Andy-1981 Reviews

Child's Play (2019)

An honest review after all the phony 10s

[1/10 · 28 September 2019]

CHILD'S PLAY purists -- and fans of good movies -- will find it hard it though to sit through this one. Precious little of CHILD'S PLAY's famed mythology appears in this film, instead opting to do exactly what most remakes do wrong -- "updating" the film to the techno age. Of course, the filmmakers fail to realize that none of those elements made the original film so appealing in the film place.

Here, we have none of the suspense or terror that made the 1988 film so dazzling. The film contains limp plotting, a lame backstory, distressingly undeveloped characters, terrible dialogue, and none of heart of the original movie, especially the mother/son relationship that carried the 1988 film (here, the mother is patently too young to pass as Andy's mom).

Chucky looks silly and unmenacing -- a real comedown from the sinister original. Mark Hamill has a good voice for the Joker, but here, he's definitely no Brad Dourif. Not that it would matter much, as Chucky's characterization is boring and completely stripped of any personality in this film.

I'd give it zero stars if I could.

Night of the Demons (2009)

So awful that it manages to give a worse name to terrible remakes!

[1/10 · 14 November 2010]

Firstly, the plot of this film slightly differs from the NIGHT OF THE DEMONS from 1987 that we all know and love. There are new elements introduced that explain the backstory of the possessed house where teens get turned into demons. But explaining evil is fruitless, it can't be done without sounding generic, and that's the way it sounds in this movie.

The writing, directing, and acting are all horrid. Edward Furlong looks and sounds like he is still on the same hard drugs that cost him his role in TERMINATOR 3. The others are no better, as the characters get on your nerves less than five minutes into the movie and things never improve from there.

The writing consists mainly of clichéd "chick" dialogue, as well as nonstop blatant profanities. The direction is clichéd MTV style, with swooping, rapid-fire camera-work at every turn, and production values that are far too glossy. Any chances at scares are ruined by the terrible direction and gratingly abrasive heavy metal music.

Since there is no suspense or mood built whatsoever, the gore scenes are rendered incredibly boring, so gore cannot be recommended as a reason to watch this mess. Despite having an obviously higher budget than the original, the makeup effects in the original are far superior to this film! The filmmakers were obviously too inept to take advantage of the money and new technology they had.

The nudity cannot be recommended, as the girls have ridiculous (and quite disgusting) fake breasts. Even the sex scenes and gratuitous girl-on-girl kissing scenes are as unsexy as they can be.

Speaking of disgusting, the famous lipstick scene is reenacted in a much more repulsive manner, which (like everything else in the film) seems to be done for the sake of being disgusting.

ZERO stars, NOTHING to recommend, not even of a "so bad it's fun" level -- a crappy movie you'll regret paying for. My faith in Screamfest definitely went down for showing this drivel in its 2010 lineup.

Black Ice (2009 Video)

Boy, this film is a sick necrophiliac's wet dream

[1/10 · 18 January 2010]

For starters, the production lets us know that BLACK ICE comes to you from the Abortion Bin. That statement says a lot more than the filmmakers likely intended.

The credits make sure we know the film was "written by and screenplay by Brian Hirschbine." Glad he clarified, because I never realized that the Guy Who Wrote the Movie and the Guy Who Wrote the Movie were two different people.

BLACK ICE is the profound odyssey of a repressed virgin-turned-psychotic nymph/sex murderer. Quite original! Never seen that issue explored before! This film was made by basically four people total. In fact, the movie would make a great drinking game: just take a shot each time you see a name repeated in the closing credits (or better yet, get drunk before the film, you'll enjoy it more).

Produced on an admitted budget of $1,600, the camera used here looks to have been purchased at an auction for natural fertilizer. I would say that the acting, dialogue, lighting, makeup effects, sound, and cinematography are the worst you'll ever see/hear, but this film would have to actually HAVE some semblance of those components before I could say such a thing.

No color correction whatsoever; the "coloring" effect used throughout the film (obviously something the director thought was "moody") is a major eyesore and makes it difficult to understand what's going on (giving the script a run for its money in the "what the hell is going on" department). The weird color also taints the few decent exterior location shots in the film.

Lead actress J.C. Howe is a rotund young lady whose long hair hangs below her ample ass. She's got nice, large natural breasts, and somebody obviously promised her lots of percentage points (in what is sure to be the film's astronomical gross) to shed her clothes so pervasively. Maybe if Sub Rosa pays up on time, she'll get maybe a nickel to cover each nipple (but then again, the U.S. mint would need to issue over-sized coins with those Jupiter-sized aureoles she's got). Despite her abundant nude scenes, the best shot of her breasts is in a deleted shower scene.

The film opens with her menstruating, replete with blood shown coming out. We also have an early scene where a dude sits naked on a commode, and is THEN interrupted by a fat dude in a towel. Not long after, we get a 7 minute long sex scene involving a dude wearing a goat skull. Scenes that drag on forever (sex and otherwise) cause a film that should be just a bad short film to end up nearly TWO HOURS long.

In an early scene, the girl remarks to her teddy bear that he's the only one who understands her. Given the surefire audience reaction to this incomprehensible film, that was a truly prophetic line by the writer! (oops, sorry Brian, I meant to say writer/screenwriter).

And we can't forget to cover the film's prevailing obtrusion: it gets in your face with gory, borderline pornographic, necrophilic sex. The director obviously woke up one day and vowed to make a film as gross and disgusting as possible. Only problem is, his lack of talent and film-making savvy caused him to not realize that the scenes in question (like the entire film) are far too cheesy and cheaply staged to be as provocative or shocking as he wants them to be.

The extras are far more entertaining than the film. When the writer/director is interviewed, the caption actually poses the question "what was it like making your crappy film?", to which the director replies, "absolute hell". Well damn Brian, think about how the people watching your crappy film feel! At some points he correlates BLACK ICE to real-life experiences with sexuality and insecurity, and he also states very confidently that the $1,600 used to finance this film was money "used wisely". He delivers all the above statements with a hilariously straight face.

The blooper reel bears the caption "The Worst Takes of Black Ice". When I saw that, I said "oh crap, does that mean they're gonna show the whole damn movie again?"

Ultimately, BLACK ICE is a good title for this film. Much like a tragic road accident caused by black ice, the script for BLACK ICE looks like it was filmed after someone who overdosed on hot Mexican food had a "tragic accident" all over some blank script pages.

This film was not even a real film, just an exercise in cheesy, wannabe nihilistic necrophilia. But I won't call the filmmaker a loser. Nope. The word "loser" is reserved for us. Those of us who rented this. And Brian, thank whomever you call God for inventing insomnia, because it's the only reason you got such a well-detailed review tonight.

RATING: 1 out of 10 (only because IMDb won't allow negative integers)

Friday the 13th (2009)

This garbage is Friday THE 13TH meets Farrelly Brothers meets Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE

[1/10 · 20 February 2009]

(Slight spoilers, though nothing major. Hell, the whole rotten movie is a "spoiler")

Upon viewing the opening third of this movie, I swear I thought the film had been written by Peter and Bobby Farrelly (the talentless brothers behind such pieces of dung such as THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, and ME, MYSELF, AND IRENE) because the film assaulted the audience with embarrassingly crude, off-color, profanity-ridden dialogue.

The film also stoops to presenting distressingly stereotypical characters, including blatantly adding the token black guy and the token Asian guy and then tries to poke fun at it! ("Just because I'm black, that mean I can't listen to Green Day?") The film didn't get any better from there.

As a longtime, die-hard Friday fan, I cringed as I watched the filmmakers completely destroy the myth and character of Jason Voorhees by turning him into a psycho, inbred redneck -- directly out of the Texas CHAINSAW series (directed by an individual who directed the crappy remake of that, and using actors from that remake too!). Absurd was the plot point of Jason holding the girl hostage (for reasons that were never truly made clear)-- since when has Jason EVER done anything like that? Oh right, we're making him into Leatherface now.

The lighting was awful, the kills were mostly too fast and too dark to be enjoyed, Derek Mears was OK but unremarkable as Jason. I'll credit him for doing the best with the sickeningly bad material he had to work with.

Worst of all, the film tries to have it both ways -- it tries to create a scary Jason, but makes the characters so repugnantly unappealing that the audience is rooting for Jason. You can't have your cake and eat it too: either have a scary Jason that we're rooting against because he's the villain, or portray him as the (anti)hero who's there to wipe out teenage scum. Not both.

A couple good touches, such as the topless skiing scene (even though that didn't show off what it could've) and the ax kill (now THAT was pure Jason) can even begin to save this pile of sludge. But I'm sure we'll have another awful remake (or sequel to a remake), since this crap hit it big at the box office.

Grade Z tripe.

Transformers (2007)

What on earth do people like about this gibberish?

[1/10 · 31 October 2007]

Ooops, I'm sorry, I didn't write an actually summary in the "summary" line. Well, here's an accurate summary of this film: BOOM! BANG! SMASH! CRASH! EXPLOSION! KABOOM! That's all. That's it. That's the film.

A couple hundred million dollars spent on CGI and visuals, with a script that was ostensibly written by a couple of kindergarten kids with crayons. Absolutely no real plot, zero character development, a lead character that even a mother couldn't love (yet we're supposed to root for him), and a ridiculously undeveloped love story that makes even the most superficial romantic comedies look good. And let's not forget the horrendously bad dialogue; I died a million deaths when I heard the transformers uttering phrases such as "My bad", and "what's up my bitches". And let's not to mention the abhorrent product placement (ebay shelled out big money to be advertised here, I'm sure!).

"We learned English from the world wide web." -- Optimus Prime

This film is STRICTLY for people who love brainless CGI laden smash-em-up films.

Street Girls (1975)

Fans of sleazy 1970s exploitation will love it

[2/10 · 25 June 2005]

Future top-notch director Barry Levinson co-wrote this sleazy quickie about a "moralistic" father (who is homophobic yet enjoys strip clubs) searching for his runaway daughter amid a world of prostitution, heroin abuse, and strip club dancing, in all of which she is involved. On the way, he encounters cross-dressers, violent pimps, and his daughter's fellow hookers.

Tons of nudity and seedy characters populate this flick. The acting ranges from decent to hammy; it's hardly surprising that only a couple of the cast members made a single film before or after this one.

Paul Schrader must have seen this before writing the markedly similar HARDCORE (released in 1978), but his version was a definite improvement.

This one was enjoyable for the gratuitous female nudity, little entertainment otherwise.

MPAA: Rated R for abundant nudity, language, drug use, a sex scene, and a couple scenes of violence.