rhyatt1 Reviews

They Live (1988)

The best movie sci-fi movie ever made starring a WWF wrestler

[10/10 · 2 November 2009]

I will begin by saying this movie is awesome. I will continue by saying this movie isn't awesome. To try to make sense of all this you should read the review.

First of all this movie stars Rowdy Roddy Piper. I don't know if it's worse if you do or don't know who that is, but Rowdy Roddy Piper was a WWF wrestler in the era of Hulk Hogan back when there was still national debate about whether or not wrestling was fake. To imagine we used to live in a time where tards seriously believed wrestling was real is hard to believe, but those were simpler times when a black man entering a wrestling ring with a parrot on his shoulder while calling himself cocoa beware made sense.

The movie is a little goofy, but still is somehow considered to be somewhat of an underground classic. The plot is the world is being controlled by aliens who look like normal humans unless you see them while wearing special sunglasses. Not a bad idea, but not a good idea either. Just an idea. The only purpose in being able to see who's an alien is for the sake of the movie. Seeing that the guy next to you buying the paper is an alien is pointless unless you take it upon yourself to murder his alien ass. Luckily Rowdy Roddy is the one person willing to do just that.

The beginning of the movie is pretty slow and boring and mainly involves Piper removing his flannel shirt to do construction jobs and then going to live in a homeless shantytown. Since a movie about a homeless construction worker doing actual construction work would be terrible, rowdy roddy eventually discovers a church where rebels are making the special sunglasses.

After putting on the sunglasses Roddy sees that some people appear to have alien faces when he's wearing them. And although nobody has actually explained to him what it even means to see random aliens while wearing sunglasses, within 10 minutes of first putting on the glasses he's already killing two cops who appear to have alien faces.

Naturally Roddy has a hard time convincing others of this alien scheme he's discovered/imagined, but he makes a very memorable effort to when he meets his friend Frank the next day in an alley. Roddy tries to put the sunglasses on Frank's face to make him see the truth, but Frank simply refuses to wear them. What takes place as a result is by far the most ridiculous and awesome fight in movie history. In a fight that just won't end Roddy and Frank beat each other for what seems like an eternity. The fight is so ridiculous and over the top that it inspired an entire episode of southpark where jimmy and timmy beat each other in an alley in the same way.

Eventually Frank puts on the glasses and realizes Roddy was right and the rest of the movie is about Frank and Roddy fighting the aliens. They go the the alien headquarters via the use of some sort of star trek beaming device and proceed to murder everyone there whether they are alien guards, alien office workers, or humans.

All of this murder is great and necessary to keep you from give up on watching the movie, but the act of stopping the aliens is basically pointless. There's a vague explanation saying the aliens came to this planet to "use it's resources", but that doesn't even make sense when you put it in the context of this movie. The dirty aliens technically use our resources through normal living just like we do, but they're not using them at an alarming rate or anything. So rather than being diabolical they're really just being a-holes by not sharing any of their alien technology with us.

In summary this movie may deserve its underground cult status or it may be a pile of garbage. Which side of the fence you land on regarding that depends on how much you love wrestling and aliens. If you love aliens actually wrestling then you'll be disappointed for sure. If you would love to wrestle an alien yourself then you should spend more time finding a way to make contact with aliens and less time watching movies.

Combat Shock (1984)

Slightly less shocking than the GI Joe animated movie

[1/10 · 26 October 2009]

First of all here are some of the comments others have made about this movie: "gritty", "disturbing", "one of the best movies of all time", "don't watch this alone", "powerful".

Here are my comments on this movie: "ridiculous", "hilarious", "pile of feces", "made with a two dollar budget", "if any other human being is willing to watch this movie with you, murder them".

spoilers** I can't begin to say how many positive reviews I've read about this movie. If you haven't seen it and just read the reviews you'll think this is the most gripping and disturbing war movie ever made. If you have seen it you'll think some retarded apes got hold of a camera, an army-man Halloween costume, and the worst human actor in the world and made a movie in one day. This movie is so bad it's indescribable. So I'll describe it a little.

Right off the bat you'll be blown away by the horrible production value and the ridiculous acting in this movie. The first scene shows the main character having flashbacks of Vietnam. And by Vietnam I mean the woods behind the director's house. The set in no way looks like Vietnam, and this dude in no way looks like a soldier. I know the movie was shot in the 70's, but I can't stress enough how bad it looks. Movies like The Shining and Taxi Driver were also made in the 70's and they still look great. So this pile of garbage doesn't get a pass just because of when it was made. Also like I said the acting is bad and I'm way too lazy to break down why, but if you watch it you'll know that it's bad and you don't like it.

So anyway, this guy is in 'Nam and he runs into some Vietnamese and he unloads his machine gun rambo-style into some random 'Nam girl. This of course pisses off her family so when he sees this he throws his gun down and runs away like a true soldier. But they quickly catch up with him and begin beating him in some sort of real time slow motion. Meaning I don't think the director knew how to use slow motion effects so he told the actors to move at half speed, which is pretty obvious when they "bash" him in the face with the butt of a gun by gently tapping him on the head.

Next thing you know the guy is in New York with his wife and crying baby. His wife complains that he neglects her and the baby and you can't blame him when you see what his wife looks like or what the baby looks like for that matter. His wife isn't a mutant and his baby might be. For the first couple minutes the baby is hidden and you're supposed to assume it's a normal non-mutant baby, but then his wife holds the baby in the light and you see that their baby is in fact a rubber doll with a monster face. What it's supposed to be is a mutant created by this soldier's Agent Orange tainted seed, but what it really is is the worst special effects creature in the history of film. Seeing this infant is supposed to elicit a horrific gasp from the viewer, but the odds are much better that seeing it will make the viewer press pause so they can laugh at it for a while and maybe take a cell phone pic for their wallpaper. The funny thing is other reviewers commented on the sadness or disturbingness of this baby as if it could be taken halfway seriously. Words can't do justice to how hilarious and lame this baby is. The only thing sad about the baby is the fact that this movie isn't a comedy and it's not supposed to make you laugh when you see it.

The whole plot of the movie is this guy comes back from 'nam and wanders the streets of NY trying to find work to pay off the debts he owes to some street hoods. I'd have to say this is the most boring part of the movie and yes I realize I just said it's the entire plot. What I'm getting at is the entire movie is boring and terrible. I'd have to say the best part of the movie is the catchy tune they keep looping over and over as he walks the gritty streets. If there were a soundtrack to this debacle I would buy it just for that gritty elevator music.

While wandering around he encounters some old friend of his who's a drug addict and other people that you don't care about and can't take seriously.

Then as a gift to anyone watching, the movie comes to an end when the guy can't take it anymore and blows his brains out in his apt. Hopefully you didn't put one in the chamber yourself and end your life before this point in the movie. Once again this lame ending is in no way "gritty" or "shocking". Also it should be clear to anyone who's made it this far in my review that I fast forwarded through huge chunks of the movie.

So in summary this movie is indeed a nightmare for the viewer. However not in the way the director intended. Rather than shocking you or surprising you this movie will make you poop your pants in sheer amazement at how bad it is. I suppose if the whole point of this movie was to make the viewer relate to the horror and isolation that soldiers felt from being in Viet Nam then it did succeed at that. After sitting through this mess I definitely feel like I went through enough atrocities to be awarded a Purple Heart.

Phenomena (1985)

This movie will make you question everything you know about toddlers

[3/10 · 20 October 2009]

Spoilers- This movie is the story of a mysterious killer terrorizing a European countryside and an all girl's school. The fact that the killer ends up being a toddler with a deformed face should in no way make you like the movie any less.

This is the type of movie you either love or you hate. If you're the type of movie watcher who loves toddlers with deformed faces killing young girls who are eventually saved by insects and monkeys with razor blades then you'll love this movie. However if you're the type who likes to see toddlers with normal faces killing older women who are eventually saved by birds and monkeys holding pocket knives then this movie is not for you.

This is actually Jennifer Connelly's first movie, which is odd because it's an Italian horror film and she's not Italian. It's also odd that I in no way researched if this is actually her first movie or if she's Italian or not.

Phenomena is your typical Giallo (Italian slasher/murder mystery, you tard) with an unknown killer and plenty of gore. At the beginning of the movie without seeing who the killer is you see he is breaking out of chains on a wall so he can kill a girl. Based on this you assume he's pretty bad-ass and definitely not a toddler.

The plot of the movie is that Jennifer (that's her character's name too) goes from America to an all girl's school in Europe to study. The girls at the school harass her just because she can communicate with insects. She does things like make bees be nice to her and she can see through the eyes of maggots, which would be totally useless in most situations, but when you're trying to solve a series of murders it's helpful (maggots end up on dead bodies, dummy).

After running away from the school the girl meets an old dude with a monkey who obviously wants to bone her and possibly involve the monkey. However he is murdered, to the surprise of the monkey, along with other random characters throughout the movie.

Once the girl realizes a killer is on the loose and everyone at the school hates her she decides to go back to America. One of the teachers from the school offers to let her stay the night at her house and since this is the girl's last night in the country before flying home you know this teacher is going to end up having something to do with the killings. And the only thing lamer than the teacher turning out to be the killer would be the teacher having a toddler who ends up being the killer.

So the teacher goes crazy and knocks Jennifer out and throws her in some room that leads to a dungeon. In the dungeon is a pit full of decaying body parts and also some guy chained to the wall. Considering the killer escaped from being chained to a wall earlier you assume this guy is the killer. But he's not. He's just some dude who was chained up to later be dealt with by the killer. One can only assume that rather than killing out of spontaneous rage this toddler killer must get his rocks off from torturing people. It's the only way to explain why he has victims queuing up in the dungeon.

Now, to the killer himself. First of all the reason that movies with mysterious killers rarely work is because the director always has to go way out of his way to make the killer end up being someone shocking. Meaning the killer has to be the most ridiculous character in the movie just so the viewer can't say "I knew who the killer was the whole time!". Anyway, as Jennifer is running through the house she stumbles upon a room with a toddler standing in a corner Blair Witch style. She tells him that he doesn't need to hide his face anymore so naturally he turns towards her, but when she sees his freak face she screams and runs away. No wonder this toddler can't trust anybody.

At the end of the movie the toddler chases the girl and jumps on a boat and feebly swings a knife at her in an attempt to kill her and makes you wonder how he managed to kill anyone at all up to this point. Naturally to save herself the girl calls in a swarm of flies to eat the toddler's face and then he catches on fire. The boat was on fire. I didn't mention that.

Finally for one last surprise the teacher shows up and is about to kill Jennifer when the monkey pops out of the woods with a razor blade and proceeds to slowly and awkwardly slice up the teacher's face like a monkey would really do it if it had a razor blade and a reason to kill. This is probably the most realistic part of the movie. Except for a toddler having his face eaten by flies on a burning boat I mean.

In summary, there could have been 3 terrible movies made out of the potluck of ideas in this one movie. In the director's commentary on the DVD the director said the only reason he didn't make it into 3 movies is because the toddler actor demanded everything to be crammed into one. Ironically that Italian toddler grew up to be one of the most demanding actors in Hollywood today: Morgan Freeman.

The House by the Cemetery (1981)

The family should have moved straight into the basement

[1/10 · 19 October 2009]

The first review I saw on this site about this movie was someone calling it a masterpiece. This movie is as much a masterpiece as Friday the 13th IV isn't a masturbation piece. And that doesn't even make sense. But neither does this movie.

Spoilers- I could sum up this movie by saying it's about a fruity looking Swedish kid who moves into a house with his parents and eventually watches them get murdered in the basement by some 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm. However, I'll add a little more.....

First of all this movie is crazy boring. Secondly, it involves some 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm. Now those two sentences shouldn't be referring to the same movie, but in this case they are.

From what I can piece together the family moves into this house out in the countryside so the dad can research the death of a colleague who also lived in the same house. The colleague basically hung himself as a result of living in a house haunted by an 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm. Like in many haunting movies the colleague dude conveniently left a cassette tape explaining just enough about the bad stuff going on in the house to make the viewer decide not to turn off the movie yet. As you continue to let the movie play you'll quickly realize you made a mistake.

So the family moves to the house and the Swedish boy starts seeing some 1800's-ish looking girl, but it's hard to tell since this movie was made in the 70's. Her clothing may have been normal small town 70's gear rather than 1800's gear. Also some googly eyed babysitter chick shows up and generally acts strange, but never does anything and is eventually killed. Which doesn't make a lot of sense because there's a scene where an 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm (yes THE 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm) kills some broad in the house and the babysitter cleans up the blood the next day to hide it. So if she's helping this basement monster out why does he later trap her in his basement and kill her? Maybe she didn't do a good enough job of cleaning up the blood and she was already on thin ice with him to begin with.

General strange noises and what not happen in the house and at some point there is the discovery of a grave in the living room, which is obviously where this 1800's doctor is buried. Or is he buried? Well he might be. Whether or not he's the guy in the basement with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm is up to speculation, but it is mentioned in the movie that the doctor performed devious experiments when he was alive. So the doctor either created this basement monster or he IS him. Either way, the movie is so boring you won't care. All you'll care about is why this guy in the basement is 99% monster except for his one normal arm.

In summary you could say this movie is about a family being haunted and eventually killed by an 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one monster arm or you could say it's about a family being haunted and killed by an 1800's doctor with no eyes or mouth and one human arm. But no matter how you look at it, they all die and you'll also die a little inside when you go to google this house so you can stay there for a night and make your own bootleg ghosthunters TV show and try to sell it to the travel channel only to find out that you can't even find this house because nobody cared enough to put it's real location anywhere on the internet.

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981)

Zombies all up in your grill

[1/10 · 30 October 2008]

Forget that Notti Del Terrore garbage that's listed as the movie title, this movie is called Burial Ground, you're in America now.

I'm going to start off by saying that there's something in this movie that's so ridiculous that you won't even remember anything else that happened in the movie after you're done watching it. But we'll get to that later….

**Spoilers**

Who am I kidding? We're getting to it now. In the movie there's a supposed 10 year old kid who is literally played by a 40yr old midget/dwarf actor (and I'm assuming he's a dwarf because he doesn't have stubby midget limbs) but this disturbing freak trying to be passed off as a kid isn't even the ridiculous part. That comes at the end of the movie when this "kid" becomes a zombie and actually eats his mom's boob while he's breastfeeding. Now I can understand why he (the actor) would want to breastfeed since dwarfs are crafty and will find any excuse to get some boobage, but why in the hell would the character he's playing who is a 10 yr old boy be breastfeeding?? Who are the people who made this movie?

The actual plot of the movie is about some professor dude who discovers a tomb where the zombies have apparently been residing. When he first sees them and they start stumbling towards him to kill him he says "Stand back! I'm your friend". But they eat him anyway. Freaking zombies.

After that various people arrive at a nearby house to stay for the weekend and to battle zombies (they just don't know it yet). Pretty quickly the zombies start showing up and by "pretty quickly" I don't mean they arrive in a speedy manner because these zombies are slow as hell. Back in the 70's and 80's zombies were typically very slow like in Night of the Living Dead and then recently zombies have gotten some quicks in movies like 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. But these zombies are seriously slow to the point where they can be outwalked. In one scene as a girl and guy are running away from the zombies in the Italian countryside the girl conveniently steps in a bear trap just to give the zombies a chance to catch up. I didn't realize there were enough bears on the loose in Italy to warrant keeping bear traps out on the house grounds, but let's move on.

And besides their speed problems, they look hilarious to boot. The majority of the zombies are dudes in obvious rubber masks with eye holes cut out like that flame retardant Beetlejuice costume you had in the 5th grade.

The funny thing is towards the end of the movie the zombies seem to evolve and they start using weapons and learn to climb walls. At one point when the people are trying to board up the house a zombie pops out of the bushes and throws a nail through a woman's hand from 20 yards away as she's trying to close a window and it pins her to the wall. Then two other zombies stand under the window and cut her head off with a sickle while another catches it like Charles Barkley getting a rebound. Earlier in the afternoon these zombies couldn't catch a girl stuck in a bear trap but by the time the sun is setting they're running elaborate schemes that involve more teamwork than making the spread-offense work in college football.

There's also some sort of subplot towards the end that involves a priesthood of zombie looking guys who are just dudes in robes and make-up instead of rubber masks. Really the whole point of this is just for one cheap scare when a guy thinks he's found help and the priest pulls his hood back to reveal he's a zombie. Tricky zombies.

Then in the last scene the 3 remaining people are trapped in some dungeon area and this is when the dwarf guy who's playing a kid comes back as a zombie and the mom is so happy to see him she busts out her funbags and lets him go to town. And finally it all ties together when the priesthood zombies come in one door while the atheist zombies come in another and they're all together to kill the last of the survivors. They definitely have different methods though even if the zombies are all on the same team. The old school zombies eat their final victim while the priest zombies find a working table saw (yes, this dungeon in the middle of nowhere has electricity and shop-class equipment) and they just force their victim's head into it. You know the non-priest zombies don't approve of this, but what can they say? The priesthood zombies have robes and live in an abandoned church while the other zombies live in dirt, so they don't really have a place to say anything.

On a final note I'll say this movie is unbelievably boring for a zombie movie that involves priests, bear traps, and a dwarf. But on the bright side this movie did bring national awareness to breastfeeding dwarfs posing as kids. So the next time you're out and you see a dwarf innocently buying groceries or pumping gas tell him that you know what he's really up to...

Chopping Mall (1986)

Robots could do anything in the 80's except chop stuff

[5/10 · 28 October 2008]

Once you begin watching this movie you're immediately going to ask yourself why a shopping mall would ever need such extreme security. Even the set of Short Circuit didn't have this much robot security.... I guess back in the 80's it made perfect sense to have high powered robots guard malls due to the Robocop craze and all, but did this mall really need 3 robots?

**SPOILERS**

In a nutshell Chopping Mall is a ridiculous 80's movie about killer robot security guards murdering teenagers who are trapped in a mall for a night. And although this movie is called "Chopping Mall" when you get down to it there is no actual chopping of any kind in this movie, but the "mall" part is accurate and the title is such a great play on words I guess they figured the dirtballs who rented this movie wouldn't split hairs.

The opening scene shows the unveiling of the security robots at the mall to a group of important looking people who ask just enough questions to make the plot of the movie as obvious as possible to anyone confused by robots. It seems like these people at the unveiling would be local citizens, or newspaper reporters, but instead they're all doctors and scientists who are identified as being scientists by their stereotype white lab coats and doctors by their beard/glasses combos and also the guy on stage says "you have a question, DOCTOR?" to make sure that as you're watching you realize this robot unveiling isn't to be taken lightly and smart people care about it.

After this we learn that a group of rowdy teenagers conveniently plan on having a party that night at the furniture store (it has beds… for boning). Who the characters are doesn't really matter. And that's it, they don't matter.

As it turns out, the night all of this takes place happens to be the night of one of the most sinisterly accurate lightning storms in the history of all storms. And if you've ever seen a horror movie you know that a lightning strike can do anything from bring Frankenstein's monster to life, to… well bring Jason to life in Friday the 13th. Basically lightning brings various bad guys to life.

So the next thing we know various lightning bolts hit some random generator on the mall roof over and over to pound it into the viewer's head that this lightning is going to somehow makes the robots evil, even though the robots aren't in any way hooked up to this generator. Where the robots are is the 3rd floor scientist lab where TWO scientists in white lab coats monitor the robots. So basically this mall is so important they've hired two scientists to work every night to monitor the potentially deadly robots they've unnecessarily bought for mall security. Also one of the scientists is killed while looking at the spread in a playboy mag, so that's comedy gold. The robots and scientists surely must be more expensive to have than anything in the mall that's being protected, but this movie isn't supposed to make sense. It's supposed to accomplish the following:

1.Find a way to show 80's girl's boobs: the teenage party accomplishes this.

2.Trap the kids in the mall with the robots: them losing track of time while doing the nassssty gets them locked in and trapped.

3.Find a way to squeeze in a scene where something gets chopped off in order to justify the title: This was a failure.

4.Have the robots kill the kids: and robots who have to do boring security work but are equipped with lasers and electrocuting tazer darts are bound to find an excuse to kill people.

There's no need for a lot of detail, but as was said the teenagers are trapped in the mall for the night and have to find various ways to fight the robots and various ways to be killed by them. Luckily for the kids there's a sporting goods store in the mall that literally has AK 47's on the shelves with boxes of bullets on nearby tables (this was pre-9/11 so you could get away with those things). As mentioned before, the robots themselves can shoot lasers out of their eyes and they do this with no accuracy whatsoever. Watching the robots chase the kids while trying to shoot them with lasers is like watching an episode of GI Joe where Cobra is firing a ridiculous barrage of laser beams directly at the good guys while managing to not hit a single person. Seriously, did anyone ever get shot in GI Joe besides that one time Flint took one to the heart and had to float around in that tank in his underwear? Actually he didn't even get shot, he got hit by some kind of snake turned into a spear or something. Don't act like you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway back to the story..

Every time the robots kill someone they say "thank you. Have a nice day" so of course at the end the girl says that to the final robot right before she blows him up.. and it's back to the drawing board for the scientists.

At the end of the day this movie really summarizes what the 80's were about: Nerds, Boobies, Robots, Scientists, and Malls. In a way it's sort of a documentary of the time. And needless to say, after watching this movie you'll no longer have any desire to go to your lame local mall where the security guards are human and have no desire to kill you.

Pieces (1982)

Sherlocke Holmes meets Friday the 13th

[1/10 · 13 October 2007]

This movie is funny, but not funny enough to watch more than once or funny enough to laugh at with friends (think Troll 2). Pieces is your typical 80's teen slasher movie with a little bit of murder mystery thrown in to make it unique (but not good). The story is about a faceless killer who goes around a college campus killing teenage girls at times when they just happen to be getting naked.

**SPOILERS**

The beginning of the movie shows the origins of the mystery killer and explains why he has a desire to chop up ladies. Actually it doesn't really explain any motivation other than the dude liked nudie mags at a young age. The strange thing is the opening scene is set in the 40's. This is strange because the kid has a large collection of full color nudie mags and a nudie puzzle... in color... in the 40's. I didn't realize mags like Playboy were readily available in the early 40's, but that's beside the point. The kid's mother catches him with the puzzle and threatens to burn it all so he kills her with an axe and chops her up. What we should have learned at this point is that this kid is deranged and will do evil things as an adult, but what we've actually learned is this kid really likes his porn.

After that the text on the screen says it is now 40 years later, which seems like a pretty big jump for a movie that opens with a kid chopping up his mother. You'd think that something might have happened worth mentioning in the 40 year gap, but I guess he led a pretty boring life up until the mid 80's.

From that point random killings start happening at the college and you as the viewer are left to guess who the chainsaw killer is. The obvious suspects are a fat janitor who just happens to use a chainsaw in his daily work to throw you off, a loser kid who is recruited by the police and obviously can't be the killer because he's under 40 years old, a anatomy teacher who pops up right after each person dies just to throw you off, and the dean of the school who obviously couldn't be the killer because he's the dean and he knows police are there. Oh wait, he is the killer.

As I mentioned before this movie earns it's slasher movie title the old fashioned way...with half naked girls being hacked up. There's the stock skinny dipping scene, the overdone lockerroom shower scene, the 80's aerobic scene, etc. If you're reading this and are getting some wack ideas to go watch this movie for the nudity factor then simmer down, you already saw it all in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Anyway, some of the ridiculous things about this movie to question are as follows: Before anyone is killed at the college a random girl is skateboarding down a sidewalk and skates face first into two guys carrying a pane of glass (the director must have pulled this idea from a Tom and Jerry cartoon). This makes no sense because she wasn't murdered... was she? There's no reason to believe the killer had anything to do with this and no reason for it to be in the movie.

As I said before, why is it 40 years later when all this happens? Why did the killer grow up and work his way up to becoming dean of a college before he began killing random women? Why? Apparently he waited 40 years and became a dean because the director thought the viewer would never guess the dean would be the killer. His whole life led up to this point just to throw you off when you were guessing who the murderer is.

One strange and funny scene is when the fat janitor guy stumbles upon one of the dead girls and then when the cops come in the room he goes WWF on them before they even ask what happened and just starts attacking everyone even though he's completely innocent and had nothing to do with the murder. Once again this is just a case of the director trying to throw you off as to who the killer is by making characters do things that would make no sense in real life.

The final problem I'll list about this movie is the last scene. It is so ridiclous and such a stray from the entire movie that I would say it ruins the movie if everything you had seen to this point hadn't already ruined it. After the cops shoot the killer in the head and throw a sheet over him another cop bumps a wall and a dead woman's body falls out onto the kid. OK, that's fine, it's supposed to be one final scare I guess. But then as everything is wrapping up and the cops are about to leave the house, the kid goes back to grab his coat and out of nowhere the dead womans hand reaches out from the sheet and begins to tear off the dudes wedding tackle THROUGH HIS JEANS. Huh? When did this become a movie about nut grabbing zombies? What the hell made the director throw in this wacky scene at the very end of the movie? The entire movie was about a chainsaw murderer not zombies. It's baffling, but I suppose there's no good way to end a movie this bad so the director just said what the hell.

As far as seeing this movie goes I would go straight to scene selection on the DVD menu, select the last scene, fast forward to the very end, and then watch the kid get his nads zombie scratched before you take the DVD back to Best Buy for a refund.

Logan's Run (1976)

Could have been a good movie

[1/10 · 6 August 2007]

*Contains Spoilers*

This movie could have been pretty decent considering the material it was based on. I never read the book myself because reading takes too much time and energy and I'm lazy, but it's easy to see the story could be compelling.

The problem is that nothing is ever explored in detail or adequately explained. For instance, the entire point of the movie is that when you turn 30 you're killed off at "carousel". Logical reasoning would be that this is done to avoid overpopulation in a domed city. OK, that makes sense if the outside world is uninhabitable as seems to be the suggestion. But that theory is destroyed in the middle of the movie when Logan and the girl leave the dome and wander around outside. OK, so if it is possible to live outside then why have a society in a dome for one thing, and secondly why randomly kill people to avoid overpopulating a dome that isn't necessary? It seems the easy solution would be to have the "elite" or the "chosen" live in the dome and maybe kick them out at age 30 to live with the undesireables, but there's no reason to kill them. It's just a random plot device for the sake of building a fake world and a story.

Later in the movie an old man is discovered who lives outside and is perfectly healthy for a crazy old dude.. proving that the only real problem with the outside world is that there are no resources. But that could easily be changed by building a Hilton and a Wal-Mart.

Maybe in the book nobody can live outside, but once again I didn't read the book and I'm not reviewing that. I'm reviewing the movie, dummy. That's right, I called you dummy.

Another problem I have with the movie is that there is no explanation at all as to who runs the domed city. There is a computer with a female voice who guides the group of Sandmen (cops), but there has to be more to it than that. Is this computer just a suped-up version of Windows Vista that gained intelligence? And what authority does it have to run a dome city? It's a freaking computer that (as we find out at the end of the movie) can just be shot with one blast and destroyed. So the obvious question is who programmed the computer and put it in charge? Plus how does this infamous computer keep tabs on what's going down in the city? In this "futuristic" movie the people don't even have cell phones yet they could build an intelligent supercomputer to run a city? Makes sense.

Other things that don't make sense: -The "runners" are sometimes just randomly running circles around the mall area when the police are after them. Seems like they would go outside or actually hide somewhere, but I guess seeing someone get blasted for running is better than seeing someone run to a closet to hide.

-The people never know their parents because they are told they're reborn after being killed at age 30. So are people making babies or are the babies just genetically created. There is no explanation if there are people making babies the old fashioned way and it's a cover-up or what.

-The random collection of dirties living in the run-down dome area. Are these guys just runners who were too lazy to find sanctuary or what? Obviously the sandmen know they're down there so why not just wipe them out? They don't seem to put up much of a fight so might as well just murder them all.

-The robot in the ice area. Are you kidding me with this mess? I know the special effects were bad in the 70's but come on. I've seen trash cans that looked more like robots than this guy. Plus who is he anyway? And why does he freeze runners in ice and store them all naked in a cave? Is the robot just a perv or what?

One last problem with the movie was the overall lack of 70's nudity to make the movie watchable and transition the scenes. Yeah there were some 2 second glances, but that ain't cutting the mustard. Seriously, when you've got a skinny dipping scene that doesn't show any nudity then you've got problems. I mean, I don't like nudity or something..

Overall I would say either don't watch this movie ever, or read the book. But then again what if the book is no good? You might as well just watch the movie and get it over with and then write a funny review about it.

Silent Hill (2006)

Daaaa this movie bites and stuff

[3/10 · 25 August 2006]

I don't understand all of the good reviews for this movie. I've played the game a little, but I'm not an expert on it by any means. So I have an outsiders perspective and a little bit of an insiders perspective. Either way you slice it, this movie bites.

For one thing the CGI was horrible, as it usually is in most movies. Why not just stick a freaking actor in a rubber monster suit and have him shuffle around? It's cheaper and better on the eyes. The first two monster scenes with the little screaming green guys and the armless monster on the road, were so fake that I felt like I was sitting around an apartment watching some sad-ass loser play this game. And everyone knows that watching someone else play a video game is the most horrible and boring experience in the world.

Besides the horrible CGI another problem was the way the story was told. I appreciate them getting to the meat of the story quickly, but when the first scene immediately shows a girl running around the woods and then collapsing after muttering about Silent Hill, and the next thing you know the mom is suddenly going there, it seems rushed.

Plus the whole deal about how the town has been "abandoned" for years is way too hard to go with. So an entire town is just sitting there with houses, stores, restaurants, schools, etc, and nobody is doing anything about it? At the very least, looters would come by and steal crap. At the most there would be an expose on CNN and the mayor of Silent Hill would be interviewed and asked the tough questions like why wasn't he taking steps to get the town back to an inhabitable state. Sure I know that it's based on a video game, but if you're going to base the story in the real world then it needs to make some sense.

Another issue I had was the focus on the little girl. Sure, I assume it's from the game (I can't remember because even though I said I played the game a little the truth is that I played it for about 5 seconds and then I made a Michelena dinner and went to sleep on the couch) but I'm sick of scary movies relying on little kids to give people the creeps. The Ring already played out that angle and ran it so far into the ground that it's totally useless anymore. Kids aren't scary. That's all there is too it. If a little kid is giving you mess just kick him down some stairs and call it a day.

***Spoilers here*** Also the whole story revolving around witchcraft is about as un-scary and as uninteresting as possible. Witches aren't scary. Witches, kids, and the Frankenstein Monster (that's right, Frankenstein is the scientist, not the monster you tard) are the last things you should use for cheap scares. Luckily Frankenstein's Monster didn't make an appearance here, but there is a possibility of Silent Hill 2 so hold your breath.

So why is it that after being killed by the witch hunters the little girl was able to make a deal with the devil and get revenge? Does that mean if a guy is hit by a car he can work out a smaller contract with the devil so he can get revenge on the person who hit him? Is there some level of horrificness that your death must reach in order for you to make a deal that allows you to get revenge in the afterlife? And why was the mom able to arrange a deal where she let the demon enter her so she could bring it to the Sanctuary? Isn't the nature of demons that they don't usually have your best interest in mind? I guess she found one of the good ones. It seems like once she helped the demon/devil or whoever it was, he would then say "well thanks for helping, I really liked how we came together as a team there...man, the looks on the faces of the townsfolk were priceless when they realized you had brought me in with you... uhhh anyway I guess this is where we say good bye.... and of course by good bye I mean I'm going to have to kill you now. so I guess you should close your eyes or something... unless you want to see it coming. I don't know, you tell me what you want." Obviously I've raised a lot of questions in this review that need to be answered. Also I've formed the pilot of my new sitcom about a demon who has to share an apartment with a guy because of a zany twist where the demon sold his soul to the guy by mistake.

Infection (2004)

Wait for the American version, and then don't see it

[1/10 · 6 May 2006]

This movie definitely had potential to be scary, but ended up all over the place. Anyone who tells you that you don't like a movie like this because you "don't get it" is reaching too hard and obviously trying to be cool film-buff-guy.

The premise of the movie is a small hospital staff is in a rundown hospital and they try to cover up an accidental death of a patient and then discover an infected patient.

The movie is really slow at first, but it does start to pick up once the patient arrives with the infection. A doctor who wasn't involved with the cover up decides to try and research the new patient and the other doctors go along because they suspect he knows what they did. For a while this idea is explored as the doctors search for the missing patient and they each start to become infected themselves. That idea alone is enough for a decent scary movie, but it just ends up getting too wacky at the end.

SPOILERS AHEAD

It turns out the green slime/infection is apparently a virus of the mind that has infected all of the doctors involved in the dead patient cover up. Basically the doctor's guilt is causing their subconscious to become "infected". When they first presented this idea it seemed kind of lame, but at least it was creative. Then the next thing you know the doctor who wasn't involved in the cover up and discovered the infected patient turns out to either be a hallucination of the main doctor or he was actually the patient who was mistakenly killed at the beginning. That really isn't clear and seems to just be a random twist thrown in to make the story seem deeper.

Another stupid thing is how the director keeps cutting to sequences of a swingset outside the grounds of the hospital. The swings move on their own as if to suggest some type of ghostly activity which makes no sense at all considering the movie is in no way about ghosts or a haunting of any nature. The short swingset scenes are just tossed in for general creepiness, but have no bearing on the story at all. Of course this works for some idiots who are desperately trying to read more into the movie than there is and to make it out to be thought provoking and mysterious rather than accepting it as just being totally jumbled up.

Another crazy ghost scene involves a nurse who runs into an old woman who says she's the mother of the patient who was accidentally killed. Earlier it was pointed out that nobody would miss the patient because he has no family and nobody ever comes to see him. As the camera angles change, in some shots she has no head for some reason. I suppose the woman could be attributed to the nurse's guilt over killing the patient by accident, but why make her headless in some shots? Why you ask? For random creepiness of course. It has no reason for happening and no bearing on the story, but it sure is scary to see a headless old woman right? I guess that's what the director thought when he was writing this script while watching dragon ball Z reruns and noshing on ramen noodles.

Another problem is the very end when a nurse who wasn't at the hospital all night comes back in the morning and discovers the last surviving doctor. This part also almost makes sense until the director screws it up with wackiness. The nurse calls the police because she finds the dead bodies of the staff and realizes the doctor must have gone crazy and killed them all. OK, that's good if that's where it ends, but it isn't. Then as she is leaving the hospital the ambulance lights turn green (like the slime and the lighting throughout the movie) and she freaks out and runs back inside and accidentally cuts herself only to find that.... she's bleeding green blood! hmmm that's supposed to be scary right? Too bad it's not because she has no reason whatsoever to be infected. She has no guilt or remorse because she wasn't involved with the accidental patient death so she couldn't be "mentally infected" as the film seemed to suggest the other doctors were. So why would she start hallucinating and seeing the green tones and green blood? It's just another random twist thrown in for the hell of it. Is she losing it because the hospital is just generally a bad place or did she possibly eat a bad hot pocket on the way to work? If you've got the stones, watch the movie again and maybe you'll figure it out.

The last problem with the movie is the young doctor at the beginning who used to be a pediatrician and was called out by another doctor for not knowing how to do stitches. This dude isn't in the film at all except for the beginning so the zaniness is in full effect when he suddenly wakes up at the end of the movie and apparently realizes that he was practicing doing stitches on another doctor and killed him overnight. Huh? What's the point of this? He also wasn't involved in the cover up and shouldn't be infected so why would he have randomly killed another doctor in the night?

This ridiculous movie was obviously all over the place. It could be a story about how guilt can take over the mind, but then it suggests it's just a story about a evil hospital where basically any sort of general bad things can happen. In the end the only bad thing to happen will turn out to be the fact that you rented and watched this movie when you could have been watching the fifth showing of Kindergarten Cop on AMC that day.

Cursed (2005)

slightly scarier than Teenwolf

[1/10 · 27 June 2005]

Before I get to the review I think it should be noted that Corey Feldman was supposed to be in this movie, but his scenes were cut. Normally that information would bode well for a movie, but not in this case. All you really need to know about this movie is that after seeing it you'll be left wondering how bad Feldman's scenes must have been that they weren't good enough to make it into this pile of garbage.

This movie is a less clever version of Scream with a video game werewolf tossed in. The only thing worse than the plot "twists" are the ridiculous cgi effects.

********spoilers********

The movie begins with the over done scene involving teenagers at a carnival encountering a fortune teller who sees blood in their futures. This particular fortune teller seems to deal in the immediate future because less than 5 minutes later the girl who's palm was read is in a car accident with Christina Ricci that results in her being killed by the werewolf. Here is the first CGI nightmare when her lower torso is ripped off and her digital remains crawl around on the ground in an attempt to gross out anyone afraid of Adobe Photoshop.

The story revolves around Christina Ricci, who works for the Craig Kilborne show (why?) and her wimpy brother who has the jimmies for the class hottie that happens to be dating the guy who always picks on him. Believe it or not, word is that this movie has been years in the making which is the best explanation one can come up with as to why the writers chose to have Ricci work for the Craig Kilborne show (it's cancelled now you tard). The only thing lamer than that would have been if she worked for Carson Daily. Although seeing that metrosexual get killed by a werewolf might have given the moviegoers something to cheer about.

The other main character, who is obviously the werewolf, is Joshua Jackson (aka Pacey from Dawson's Creek or the guy from that horrible Skulls movie). They try to sell Pacey as a playa who is ready to settle down with Ricci, but gets foiled by all of the hot women hitting on him at parties and what not. Oh yeah, and he might be the werewolf.

The rest of the ride to the final battle isn't worth analyzing, but I will say that one especially horrible scene involves a female werewolf flipping the digitized bird to Ricci after she insults her hair and skin.

From here we get to the last scene were Pacey comes to convince Ricci that they can be happy together as werewolves and she rejects him on cue so he decides to kill her. Surprisingly though she kills him instead. Surprising if you missed the entire movie because you thought you were at Shark Boy and Lava Girl and wore 3-D glasses the whole time that is.

Needless to say, immediately after chopping off Pacey's head, Ricci and her brother walk outside and the hot girl is suddenly there and just happens to like the brother and makes out with him in the yard. Then he walks her home with her gay friend and Ricci makes a joke about having to stay home and spend all night cleaning the house. ha ha. Oh yeah, too bad she just decapitated her boyfriend 2 minutes ago and his murdered carcass is laying on the kitchen floor.

So basically the camera cuts away to the credits and it's considered a happy ending. This seems impossible for the characters who have just had to face the fact that they live in a world were werewolves can come at night and kill you. I mean once you reach that point wouldn't pretty much everything else scare you? "Hey honey, what's that noise outside the window?" "Oh it's nothing dear, oh wait a second...maybe it's not nothing. I forgot, WEREWOLVES EXIST."

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Peanut Butter and Jelly were great too until someone put them in a jar together...

[1/10 · 25 March 2005]

This is the movie you always dreamed about when you were 10 years old. But looking back, you also dreamed about stood slapping Macho Man and mud wrestling Miss Elizabeth in the square ring, so what did you know?

This movie is the worst product to ever come from such a great 10 second brainstorm. Everything about it was wrong from the set up to the finish. The idea that Freddy is no longer feared and must resurrect Jason to inflict terror and subsequently nightmares back into the masses is lame even for a movie about a zombie with a hockey mask fighting a disfigured demon who wears a derby.

Sure these two guys were great in their own respective universes, but how did it ever get to the point where someone decided to financially back this movie? Like I said before, the idea of getting Jason and Freddy together sounds great...until you actually sit down and think about it. Apparently nobody ever did that with this idea and we all got stuck with it.

The movie is made up of numerous horrible rehashed ideas that aren't worth mentioning or remembering. Luckily I can't remember most of them.

So I'll skip to the final scene which gives us the big fight between Jason and Freddy that we've all been waiting one and a half hours and 15 years for. The CGI is so obvious that each character could have been given a life meter and an on screen time limit and nobody would have noticed. The fight scene itself was jazzed up with so many Matrix style flips and kicks that Bruce Lee himself may not have been able to beat these guys in a one on one kung fu match.

This movie is proof that you can't relive the past. Jason and Freddy should have been left alone so people could dream about how great it would have been to see them fight. Unfortunately now we all have been slapped in the face with the knowledge that fantasy is always better than reality and movie monsters don't disappear once their respective careers fade away, they go off and study kung fu.

Now put your Miss Elizabeth posters back in the closet and sell your copy of Freddy vs. Jason on ebay.

Munchies (1987)

As Mr Pibb is to Dr Pepper, Munchies is to Gremlins

[1/10 · 24 March 2005]

This movie was made for people who found Gremlins too serious and Critters to hardcore. Like many of the critters/trolls/gremlins movies of the 80's this movie is bad. The sad part is that there's no punchline to that comment. It's just bad and not in a funny way.

The problem with this miniature monster movie is that it actually tries to be funny and ends up being as successful in doing that as Howie Mandell was in Walk Like A Man. What made the other 80's horror movies into classics was that they were genuinely trying to be scary, but were hilarious because they failed so miserably. Someone must have told Bettina Hirsch (yes THE Bettina Hirsch)she had a knack for comedy before she started directing this movie. Unfortunately they were wrong.

Sure seeing a weird little mutated cross between a ferret and a tumor wearing a brown trenchcoat and throwing pool balls at an outcast from the Lost Boys is amusing, but not enough to save the movie.

By far the most annoying part of the movie is the Paul character. His Paul Reiser wannabe schtick is enough to make you start fast forwarding from the time of his first scene until the ending credits only stopping once to see a scene where a munchie throws pool balls at a guy...not that I did that.

So the bottom line is run, don't walk, to your nearest Blockbuster and shake hands with the manager and thank him for not having the grapes to stock this pile of garbage on the shelves.

Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985)

Did we really need a prequel to this series? The answer is yes, we did

[8/10 · 24 March 2005]

This movie has no use for a plot and it makes no apologies about it. The closest the entire film comes to forming a plot is when the words "Geneva Convention" are randomly thrown out by Chuck Norris in the first couple minutes. Luckily Colonel Yin quickly shoots down the idea that the real world has any bearing on the movie's setting and we're off to the races- Jungle style.

***there may be spoilers****

The beginning of the movie shows all of the members of Norris' crew being captured and declared Missing In Action (hence the title). From that point on the movie is set ten years later where we find the men still being held hostage and all but forgotten.

For some reason the prisoners just don't seem like they have been there ten years though. In the opening prison camp scene one of the prisoners is complaining how he can't sleep and explains that every time he closes his eyes he sees his wife GINA! If he had been there ten years wouldn't he have established at some point that his wife is named Gina? Couldn't he just say "when I close my eyes I see my WIFE!"? Well either way, the story is they've been there ten years so we'll go with that. Why they have been held hostage in a remote Vietnamese torture camp for ten years without being killed makes no sense although there is a faint attempt to explain it for the sake of giving the men a reason to be there, the colonel a reason to torture them, and the film a reason to exist.

The reason Norris and his men are being held, you ask? Apparently the Vietnamese colonel is a very prideful man (although he's not above sentencing himself to live in a jungle prison camp for ten years in order to monitor it and ensure that nobody escapes) and he requires that Norris sign a document stating that the Americans have committed war crimes against the Vietnamese and accept their guilt. The fact that this is the entire reason these men have been held in the camp for TEN YEARS is completely ridiculous. We are to believe that Norris is such a dedicated soldier that he refuses to sign the document even though he could simply sign it, go home, eat a pizza, get some reinforcements, and go back to finish off the remaining Vietnamese and any record of what he signed.

Because Norris refuses to sign the document the vengeful, yet oddly patient, Colenel Yin keeps him there and occasionally tortures him now and then for good measure. Apparently Colonel Yin has no problem imprisoning, degrading, and killing human beings, but he draws the line at forging someones signature.

The movie does provide some of the best jungle action pre Arnold Schwarzenegger's Predator however. There are some good fight scenes with many two and even three hit combos dealt out by Norris. Throughout the movie the Colonel always has the upper hand and uses the line "you lose" every time he foils Norris. With a one liner as great as that there's little doubt that it will be used against him once Norris turns the tables by the end of the movie. And in the jungle Norris doesn't disappoint.

By far the best part of the movie is the end when Norris gets his mitts on a cache of Columbian firearms/explosives and comes back to the camp for sweet revenge.

And the most hilarious part of the movie is the fact that the only escape from the jungle camp is by crossing a very long wooden bridge over a huge ravine and this wooden bridge is guarded by a guy who's only weapon is a flamethrower. Stop and think about that. Instead of a machine gun, they give the guy guarding the WOODEN bridge a flamethrower to defend himself. So does that mean every time someone tries to escape he shoots at them with the flamethrower, the bridge burns down, and he has to rebuild it the next day to go back to the camp?

In the final scene Norris gets his revenge and beats down the colonel like an arcade wizard using cheat codes at the Mortal Kombat machine. Like I said before, the phrase "you lose" is conveniently dropped right before the death blow is administered. What more can you ask for in a movie that gave the entire premise away with the title?

Troll 2 (1990)

Don't buy this movie if the green icing seal has been broken

[1/10 · 23 March 2005]

Troll 2 makes Troll 1 look like Citizen Kane. In other words it's bad. Really bad. This movie is so bad that after watching it you'll want to run out and rent Ghoulies to get the taste out of your mouth.

The opening scene has trolls chasing someone through a misty field to the tune of 80's techno music and it only gets better after that.

*********I'm ashamed to say this about such a stupid movie, but this review contains SPOILERS******************

The movie involves a family moving to a town named Nilbog (that's right it's goblin spelled backwards even though the movie is called Troll, not Goblin) and swapping houses with some hillbillies. When watching this movie it's best if you go into it prepared to not ask any questions. Why a family would move into another family's furnished, food-stocked house is better left unexplained. Also why a family would proceed to eat the other family's green icing covered dinner is also better just accepted as normal.

The green icing on the food is a repetitive theme throughout the uhhh...film. It's apparently some sort of troll dna juice that turns the digester into a troll. Although that is never really explained. Another tool the clever goblins..err trolls have come up with is Nilbog milk which also turns the person who drinks it into a troll. If it's that easy, it seems like they could turn the entire world into trolls by mass producing Nilbog milk, but maybe that's not their intention. What the trolls get from turning other people into trolls is never explained like in so many monster takeover movies. The monsters/zombies/trolls/aliens always want to turn humans into their likeness and that's universally accepted, but why? What benefit do they get from making people like them?

Anyways, I digress. The good news for the family is the young boy has an ally in the form of the ghost of his deceased grandfather. The old man has the ability to appear to the boy to provide convenient warnings regarding the trolls just because he hates them that much.

One of the strangest scenes in the movie (there are a lot of them) is when the kid receives a vision from grandpa that he must pee on the green icing covered dinner his family is about to eat to keep them from becoming trolls. Luckily he does this right before his sister unknowingly is about to eat some tainted GREEN ICING COVERED CORN ON THE COB. That's not out of the ordinary at all right?

Another wonderfully horrible scene is when two guys venture into the weird troll witch's lair and one of them is turned into a plant, which doesn't really seem to bother him too much.

This movie is so horrible that every adult should be required by law to see it at least once. Newer DVD players are actually being coded to reject this movie upon reading it. Maybe next time a family will move to a town named Llort and the adventures will start all over again. Oh yeah, and maybe next time they'll throw in some gratuitous nudity to transition the scenes. The R rating the nudity would have provided would have actually been a public service because it would have kept impressionable children from watching this mess.

Blood Diner (1987)

This may be the best film ever made

[10/10 · 23 March 2005]

This movie is the classic old tale of two men trying to construct an Egyptian goddess for their castrated uncle from the severed body parts of young women.

This is one of those rare unknown cinema gems that reminds you of what 80's horror/slasher movies were all about and why video cameras were ever invented in the first place. It also contains the best movie line ever written: "On that night, on this mission, I lost my gentitals and my life." And yes, Uncle Anwar really says "gentitals".

The plot of this movie is thrown together as loosely as the body parts used to construct Shiitar. The movie is lightly based on Blood Feast with some horrible special effects and 80's hairdos thrown in.

There are more classic moments in Blood Diner than there are in most B horror movies combined. You'll be laughing all the way to the blood buffet from the weird stuffed talking dummy in the rival diner to the guy getting his head smashed by a car with hydraulics which causes an onlooker to ask "hey man, you OK?". The movie even has token 80's horror flick nudity when the brothers go into a topless aerobics class (don't ask why) and mow everyone down with a machine gun. Hey, it happens. Another epic scene is when a fat guy driving a van and listening to mambo music repeatedly runs over a dude in a failed yet hilarious attempt to kill him.

If you haven't seen this movie I suggest you quit your job and study it for the next few months. You'll be swinging a meat cleaver screaming SHIIIIIITAAAAAAAR!!!!! before you know it.

The Ring Two (2005)

This makes Ghoulies look terrifying

[4/10 · 21 March 2005]

There's no doubt this movie was bad, but how bad it was probably depends on how much you liked the first movie. If you loved the first one then you're bound to think this one bites. If you merely were entertained by the first one you'll probably like part 2 and add it to your DVD collection along with Blair Witch Project 2 and Freddy vs. Jason.

Like others have said here, the abandonment of the video tape theme makes this movie a total departure from the first one. It went from being original to becoming Poltergeist part 20.

****spoilers**** Here are the problems as I saw it: In the first scene the highschool kid is killed in front of the girl. There's never been an explanation to how the victims look so freaky with the contorted faces and all (which is good, over explaining can be bad) but it almost has to be explained if there was someone in the movie who witnessed it and was affected by it. Did the girl sit there and watch Samara come out of the TV and kill the guy?

After all they've been through why would the mom become a detective again and start prying around once she found out there was a video tape in the area? She already knows there are more tapes out there because she made sure of that at the end of the first movie. So why would she be surprised or bothered by the fact there are more tapes? Why mess with it, the rules seem to be if you don't watch the tape nothing happens to you.

And that's really the main problem with this movie. The rules completely change. If Samara can come to get people without having them watch the tape then what's the point of the tape at all? Is there a loophole where once you've seen the tape and have vanquished her she reserves the right to come back into your life at any time? Which still doesn't explain how the newspaper guy is killed by Aidan when he's possessed by Samara. The newspaper worker never saw the tape. The answer to this question seems to be that Samara can now kill whenever she wants because she has possessed Aidan and gained access to the real world. But if all Samara really needed was to possess a kid in order to access to the real world wouldn't she just have done that years ago? The orderly at the insane asylum indicates many mothers have come to visit Samara's mother implying their kids were possessed also. So did each mother who had a possessed kid defeat Samara? If not, why isn't Samara still using one of those other kids?

Also the deer scene was completely over the top and useless. It had no bearing at all on the plot. The CGI was so obvious I expect that to be used in the inevitable Ring 2 playstation game.

The ending was also disappointing. When the mom takes one for the team and decides to let Samara take her into the TV it gets wacky. I liked how she ended up in the other world in the well with Samara. That was a good idea and it should have been left at that. It would have been pretty scary and disturbing to think of the mother spending eternity in the well with that freakish demon girl having to pretend to be her mommy. On the other hand, the director decided to have Rachel climb straight up a slimy, slippery well like an action hero and then slam the giant rock slab lid on the well just in time while giving a ridiculous one liner "I'm not your F***ing mommy". Seeing Samara chase her up the well like a human spider was aight, but not very suspenseful because it was obvious Rachel was getting out.

The end really ruined a mediocre movie. How can you make a pact with a demon/ghost to save your son and then back out of it? If this Samara girl isn't even able to take care of business on her own turf (in the crazy spirit world) then why should she be feared at all? Shouldn't this area be set up in Samara's favor? As far as Rachel escaping, how is climbing out of a well in the spirit world and jumping off a cliff somehow a warp zone back to the real world???

My advice is to wait for this movie to come out on DVD and then rent it with some cronies and make fun of it.