Vipers

Anytime you have movie researchers who genetically modify anything, it always goes awry.  Can we all agree on that?  Sure you might be able to help millions with cancer, but if the cost is a few dozen people being eaten by genetically mutated vipers, is it really worth it?  Really?

 

At the Universal Bio Tech Research Facility, they are using venom from the horned viper to help reduce cancer.  To increase the venom production, they have genetically altered the vipers.  It worked, but there is a crazy side effect.  The appetite has increased, they have become to powerful to keep in a normal cage, and they have begun to hunt in packs.  And because they are digital, they no longer unhinge their jaw to swallow their prey, they now bite and chew like piranha.

 

The research facility is on the island of Eden Cove.  Apparently Eden Cove is so small (How small is it?), ... it's so small that ... let's just say that it is a small island.  Tara Reid runs a very questionable greenhouse on the island.  We find out that she grows marijuana for terminally ill patients there.

 

Let's cut to the chase.  People on the island are overrun by the vipers, Universal Bio Tech arrives to do what they can, many people are attacked by digital snakes, and they destroy most of the snakes.  I say most, because they leave one for the evil Corbin Bernsen who runs Universal Bio Tech.

 

The best attack scene is in a tent near the water where these newlyweds are attacked and have buckets of blood thrown on them.  It might be the silliest thing that I have ever witnessed.  It happens in the first ten minutes of the movie.  Watch that and then turn the movie off.  Unless you want to watch Tara Reid over act.  Then watch the rest.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 horned vipers.

Mutant Chronicles

If you enjoy science-fiction movies (and have a heart), you will enjoy this movie.  No foolin'.  This is one of the better movies that Medusa's Face has reviewed.

 

The year is 2707.  Four corporations now control the world.  They are in constant battle over resources.  During one of the struggles, one company unintentionally cracks the seal on "The Machine", an ancient device that takes the dying or dead and transforms them into mutants.  If successful, The Machine will destroy mankind and replace it with nothing but mutants.  A brotherhood that managed to stop The Machine generations ago, a sort of religion, has a book and a device that may help stop The Machine again.

 

A group of elite soldiers are asked to go on a suicide mission to stop The Machine.  The group of ten, get transported to a "lost city" where they have to navigate through catacombs and old structures, on their journey to The Machine.  The group also battles mutants along the way and take heavy casualties.  As part of the story, the elite group gets enlightened that the mutants do not feel pain and can only be stopped by catastrophic tissue damage, bombs, or swords.  One bullet kill shots definitely are not on the menu.

 

Mutants are stabbed in the face with their own mutant limbs, hit in the head with stalactites, blown up, cut in half, ... you name it.  It all boils down to the main character putting the device in place and sending The Machine rocketing away from Earth.

 

The story moves along nicely.  Lots of action.  Lots of violence.  I don't think that I could have asked for much more from this film.  I am not saying that I would purchase the movie, but I would definitely watch this movie again.

 

I give this movie 5 out of 5 mutants.

Eye of the Beast

Most movies that I have seen with large digital threats have an unexplained "expert" who just happens to be on the scene.  At least provides a small reason for the expert to be in the movie.  Too bad the expert is James Van Der Beek and every time that he shows up on the screen I silently sing to myself, "I don't want to wait ...."

 

What we are dealing with is a large squid that has been eating all of the fish (and a few humans) near the fishing village by Fells Island.  Dawson, who's name in this movie is Dr. Dan Leland, shows up on behalf of the National Oceanographic Research Agency to collect data on why the fish may be disappearing.  He teams up with Katrina, who is the local officer for the Department of Lakes and Fisheries, and one of the fishing vessels so he can gather his data.

 

The locals have their own opinion on why the fish have vanished.  The native-Americans think that the "white man" has over fished the area and the others are blaming the native-Americans because they do not need permits.  While each of those groups argue, more people go missing and more limbs keep turning up as evidence.

 

The groups have to ultimately work together to nab the creature.  Which the squid conveniently comes out of the water to have a harpoon, connected with an electrical line, penetrate its eye and electrocute the beast.  However, it's not all digital tentacles during the movie.  Which does help the "realism" of some of the scenes.

 

Of course Dawson falls for Katrina and with the squid now defeated, they can begin to explore a relationship.  Isn't that lovely.  Awww.

 

So predicable.

 

As far as B movies go, it didn't have a lot of violence or mystery or intrigue.  The movie is nothing more than a handful of people trying to make things right for the other handful of people that were attacked by giant foam tentacles.  Not much to see here.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 squid t-shirts.

The Graves

Ghost towns don't normally have a live show that has the blacksmith crush the patrons with his hammer, but this ain't no normal attraction.

 

The "Graves" part of the movie title is in reference to Megan and Abby Graves.  Sisters who are on a mission to see the world's largest thermometer.  They are about 50 miles off track and end up in the town of Unity, AZ.  Unity doesn't have the attraction that they were looking for, but it does have Skull City.  An abandoned town from the gold mining days.

 

The girls don't pass up the chance to visit.  BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD ALERT: conversation between the sisters, "What's that?", "The entrance to the mine shaft", "You said shaft".  They have a run in with the blacksmith and do something that no one else has been able to do, kill the blacksmith.  Not the best kill scene and it also forces the movie to last longer.

 

They think that they are out of danger now and flag down a passing truck on the highway.  They confess to killing the blacksmith (in self defense) to the driver, only they didn't know that the driver is the brother of the blacksmith.  Now the brother is going after the sisters.

 

The movie continues on and throws in a bit of crazy religious fanaticism into the mix.  Apparently the town has been smelling some gas from the mine that makes you want to thrash anyone in your path and they are blaming it on Satan.  And to help purify the town, they kill any new comers as a command from a higher power.

 

No quality death scenes and way too much of the seizure cam.  You know.  When someone is running away from something and they need to bob the camera up and down so that you are looking at a person's feet and the sky within two frames.  Let alone the "I'm not a main character, so it must be my turn to die" people that conveniently arrive.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 Skull City mines.

Plague Town

If your family heritage goes back to a place in a foreign land, you might want to visit the area and check it out.  If your family heritage goes back to a foreign land and the name of the place that you need to visit is called "The Ruins", do you really want to go and visit?  The wacky family in this movie does.

 

Fourteen years ago, there was something wrong with women giving birth.  The local priest is visiting a home where a lady is about to give birth.  Once the child is born, the priest, of all people, wants to shoot the baby.  The father will have none of that and hits him in the head with a fire poker and once he is to the ground, the priest gets a hatchet to the face.  Pretty gruesome beginning.

 

Present Day

 

Dad and his fiance, along with his two daughters and a guy they picked up three days ago are in the Irish countryside.  They take their chances roaming about and miss the last bus going back to town.  Luckily, the fiance packed a lunch for everyone.

 

Night falls and after making an abandoned car their base, the new guy and the blond daughter head out to try and find help.  They come across a fellow in a field, standing in front of a tractor in the middle of night, and ask for assistance.  He doesn't really want to help and shoots the boy in the neck, which prompts the blond to run away.

 

After hearing the gunshot, the father is concerned and he wants to investigate.  He finds a house and inside there are two little girls.  One of the girls stabs him with a glass shard and he tries to find them after they run from the room.  COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT:  The two girls get some piano wire stretched across the eyes of the dad and pull it through to the back of the skull.  Clip, clop.  He falls over.

 

The boy that got shot in the neck, did not die.  DISTURBING DEATH SCENE ALERT: Later in the movie, he gets chased and after having his eyes poked out, he has a vine threaded through his eye sockets and hung up.

 

The ending is very odd to this movie.  The surviving sisters escape, but are captured and returned to the town.  They are there to help breed out the sickness in the children.

 

This movie is not that bad, it's not that good either.  It has the standard horror film plot of outsiders show up where they shouldn't be and get killed off because of it.  The only thing this film is missing is a deep, dark basement.

 

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 creepy, plagued children.

5ive Girls

Is it a reform school or is it something else?  It's something else.

 

St. Mark's is a reform school for very bad girls.  So bad that they need to be locked in so that they cannot escape.  They also need to be strip searched and are not allowed any contact with the outside world.  No phones, no internet, and they are forbidden to go on the third floor.

 

Alex, the last of the girls to arrive, is the most curious of the third floor.  She is the first to visit and sees the ghost of the girl that disappeared from the school five years earlier.  But that is the least of their problems.  Something greater is happening in the school.  You see, the head mistress is using demonic powers to bring back the girl who vanished.  And for her spells to succeed, she much trade the lives of the five students for the soul of the one ghost.

 

The girls have special powers that help them defend themselves.  Mara is a healer, Cecilia may be blind, but she can read tarot cards, Leah can walk through objects in a room, and Connie is a witch who is fascinated by the occult.  Along the way, the girls get possessed by a demon and they fight the other girls.

 

Alex is able to save Mara, but at the cost of her own life.  The fifth soul is taken when the head mistress has a cross pierce her skull and the ghost comes back to human form.  But, the demon is not done.

 

The school girl uniforms is not enough to save this film.  Even the nudity is not enough.  But the spanking scene.  Oh baby.  Now that's good learnin'.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 Latin translations.

Bats: Human Harvest

I've watched digital sharks.  I've watched digital snakes.  I've even watched digital crocodiles.  With this movie, I got to see a lot of digital bats and a fair share of digital helicopters.

 

A Chechen patrol is out investigating an area close to the Belzan Forest.  They head in and are attacked by bats.  But the terribly odd thing here is that the attack is being monitored.  And in another part of the world, the Delta Team is rescuing a hostage from an Al Qaeda training camp in Iraq.  How do these two incidents relate?  They really don't.  It's only to set up that the Delta Team is one of the best and they will be used to go to Chechnya.

 

You see, this American doctor is doing research over in the Belzan Forest on bats.  Genetic research for who knows what reason.  Well, the Delta Team is being sent to extract Dr. Walsh and return him to America.  A C.I.A. agent, who happens to have a Russian accent, is to accompany the team on the mission.

 

I could go on about what this movie is about, but it's not really worth it.  There are a bunch of scenes with computer generated helicopters flying around and even more scenes of these genetically altered super bats.  The story jumps around from the Delta Team, to the Chechen rebels, to the Chechen army so much, it's hard to keep track of what is going on.

 

I was so hard to grade this movie.  I don't know if I can give a movie a negative rating.  It might encourage more people to watch it.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 digitally created helicopters.

Evilution

This is one of those movies that you know what you are going to get right from the beginning.  Lots of senseless gore.

 

A United States Army Research Facility in Iraq is overrun by an infectious substance.  One of the doctors attempting to leave the facility is stopped by the guards at the gate and they discover that he has a vile of bio-hazard material.  The guards are attacked and a bomb is dropped on the facility.  The end.

 

That would have been a pretty short movie if that was the case.  It's not the case.

 

Over in New Mexico, the facility there gets some information that the vile of material is still intact and in the area.  The doctor that was attempting to leave the Iraq facility, did escape and is trying to continue his research.  His personal research lab is in the basement of an apartment complex (a good sterile environment) and a drug addict steals the bio-hazard vile thinking that it is meth.  So the meth addict cooks himself up a high and then begins eating the flesh of people in the complex and infecting all of those people as well.

 

In one scene, the infected people are banging on doors trying to lure fresh meat out into the hallway.  Two people answer the knocks.  One, a large muscled man and the other a blond in a towel.  Moments later, the now topless blond is shoulder chow.

 

The bio-hazard material is actually an alien life form that is a parasite.  Most of the host individuals cannot communicate with the aliens and that is when the hosts become flesh eaters.  There are two people that are able to communicate with the aliens, but they are destroyed too.

 

The movie is very violent and has gore on top of gore.  It's your basic zombie movie.

 

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of 5 alien parasites.

Mansquito

Yawn.  Very similar premise as The Fly.  But instead of the fly DNA being altered in a matter transporter, the mosquito DNA was altered by radiation.

 

An inmate sentenced to death row, waved certain rights to become a test subject at Bellion Pharmaceuticals.  There, Dr. Jennifer is trying to come up with a cure for a virus that is being transmitted via mosquitoes.  The inmate gets loose, makes his way into the lab, shots are fired, and there is a radiation explosion.  The inmate gets most of the radiation and transforms into Mansquito rather quickly.

 

He begins to feed on people around him.  Nobody is safe.  Not even an ex-girlfriend of his.  Several people at a club, some bums in an underground tunnel.  The victims just keep piling up.

 

Meanwhile, Dr. Jenny who didn't show any initial signs of being infected, now starts to have mosquito-like tendencies.  Lots of carnage later, she ends up in the tunnel system with Mansquito and they are electrocuted.  Sorry to give away the ending.

 

There are a few good kill scenes in the movie, but they do not happen until the end.  One guy gets the top of his head sliced off.  And there are several fountains of blood that were formerly police officers.

 

Anytime you can get someone to put on a ridiculous insect costume, you are in for a treat.

 

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 radiation labs.

Android Apocalypse

Leave it to the human race to destroy just about everything.  Except for Phoenix.  No more fresh air.  No more fresh water.  Among some of the things to look forward to in the future.

 

However, androids have also been created to help mankind.  The "cogs" help with everything from keeping the air filtration system working to security.  And if you commit a crime, you are sent to Terminus, which is some sort of outpost where the criminals mine the fuel for the filtration systems.

 

But Terminus is something more.  It's a research facility where the creator of the androids, who has transformed himself into an android, is trying to make the cogs think like humans so that he can eradicate mankind.  One of the test droids is used out in the field to see how it handles emotions and other thoughts.  Yes.  Emotions.

 

Joey Lawrence, I mean "Joseph" Lawrence, is the test droid that begins feeling pain and emotion.  Late in the film, he is reprogrammed.  And for whatever reason, he now feels the need to walk as if his legs are stiff.  He can still bend his legs, but the motion is no longer fluid.  It's very mechanical.  A side effect of being reprogrammed, no doubt.

 

I didn't care for this movie too much.  It's nice to see that Jeep Wranglers are still being used in the future.  Too bad the movie has two of the weakest jump scenes involving the Jeeps.  Chris Jerico should have wrestled more it the movie too.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 "Blossom"

D.E.B.S. (2004)

Watching digital gators and zombies all of the time is tiring.  For a change of pace, I wanted something a little less intense.  D.E.B.S. was just what the doctor ordered.

 

There is a hidden test in the SAT that scores the student to assess if she can be recruited for a secret paramilitary academy.  Pretty clever.  All of the applicants are girls and the required uniform is a short plaid skirt.  The squad that we will be following, Max, Amy, Dominique, and Janet are assigned to take out Lucy Diamond, the daughter of a crime boss who now runs the syndicate.

 

Lucy has been in hiding, for two years, after her attempt to sink Australia.  Turns out that she surfaced so that she could go on a blind date.  She dates women and an all girl squad is coming after her.  Yep.  You guessed it, this is a love story between good and evil.

 

There are not many good scenes in the movie.  Not too many good lines either.  It's mostly a movie of girls in short skirts running around.  If that is something that you would like to watch for 90 minutes.

 

I give this movie 2 out of 5 D.E.B.S.

The Mad

This is a zombie movie that sort of makes fun of zombie movies.  I liked how this movie didn't take itself too seriously.

 

An old man grinds up some beef and delivers it to the local diner.  As he is driving to the diner, you can see a "quarantined" sign by the slaughterhouse.  That can't be good.  The diner accepts the delivery and changes the menu for the day to have the ground beef featured for the special.

 

A group of four arrives in the town as a stop over on their way to their vacation.  They get checked in to the hotel, then head off to get some lunch.  While the father and boyfriend order the special, they are not able to get the special.  It was sold out.  The chef was saving a burger patty for himself, but it has begun to move and is no longer on the plate.  Things go south pretty quick.  The other patrons begin getting ill and one female customer asks Monica (the father's girlfriend) for some aspirin.  Monica drops the aspirin and the female customer comes up and stabs her in the head with a fork.  Oh, and the female customer is not the only one who has transformed either.  Several other customers are zombies and the father begin fending them off with a prop pitchfork.

 

Slightly funny scene in the diner when the father gets shoved into the jukebox with the female customer who is now a zombie.  The music changes and they begin dancing a waltz.  Now back to the zombies.  The boyfriend gets his toes bitten off when he tries to kick one of the zombies in the head.  Then later he gets shot.  And finally when he freaks out after being attacked by the missing meat patty, he gets decapitated.  Good stuff.

 

The father/daughter are the only ones left in the town that escape.  They arrive at the farm that sold the tainted meat.  The rancher's son greets the pair and they are off to the barn to try and find the rancher.  The rancher, who is a zombie, bites his son on the forearm.  As he is gnawing away on his own son, some of the ground beef attacks the rancher.  The police arrive and everything gets under control.  Until the policeman gets attacked by one of the meat patties.

 

Overall, it's a fairly dumb movie.  But, it is good rainy day material.  Nothing too violent or scary.  And some light hearted scenes to keep you watching.

 

I give this movie a 4 out of 5 anabolic growth hormones.

Deadgirl

This is a very bizarre movie.  I would like to say that most of the movie revolves around necrophilia, but the woman who is being raped is not dead.  She is an undead.  That sums up quite a portion of this movie.

 

Two students (JT and Rickie) decide to play hooky and visit the abandoned mental institution.  They bring some beers and begin trashing the place.  Something that you would expect from teenagers.  They continue to explore the facility and find a room that has a sealed door.  They enter the room to discover the body of a naked woman, only she is not dead.  She is however, strapped to a table. 

 

JT discovers that the woman on the table cannot die.  He has strangled her, broken her neck, and even shot her.  But each and every time, she remains alive.  With the raging hormones of a teenage boy and a restrained nude woman available, the raping begins.  JT starts to go mad with wanting to have sex with the woman all of the time.  He begins to skip school a lot more and even spends nights with the woman.  At one point, he even puts make up on the woman.

 

Later in the movie, we get our first act of violence when Johnny, classmate of Rickie and JT, gets bitten (in a very sensitive spot) by the table woman.  He tries to cover up his problem, but it manifests into him having violent diarrhea and passing all of his intestines.

 

The movie ends with a few kids being bitten and the Deadgirl getting free from the institution.  Yawn.

 

I had a hard time sitting through this movie.  Not because of the necrophilia, but because of the lack of violence.  I thought that it was going to be much more of a zombie movie.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 table women.

I Am Omega

I am Omega has very few alpha moments.  Zombies already roam the land and waiting to either eat you or be part of a bullet buffet.

 

Renchard, played by Mark Dacascos (a.k.a. Amerian Iron Chef's Chairman), has a very elaborate security system at his house for alerting him whenever the zombies try to invade.  And because of the system, he has been able to survive.  Every so often, he goes into town, fights zombies, and strategically places time bombs on the gas lines.  This is what you see for almost half of the movie.

 

The movie picks up after Renchard receives a video call, on his laptop, from a woman who is trapped downtown.  She needs to get to Antioch and Renchard is not in the mood to risk his life to save her.

 

He gets in the mood real quick after a couple of ex-marines show up and destroy his house.  The three of them begin going through the sewer lines to get to the lady, Brianna.  The sewers used to carry in ocean water into the city and the zombies do not like the salt.

 

The movie keeps moving along, Renchard gets to the girl, the two of them escape, the surviving marine shows up, and PLOT TWIST ALERT wants to kill the girl because she is part of the cure for the zombies.  With no more zombies, he can't go around killing them.

 

The ending is very weak.  It is almost as if the writer(s) didn't know how to end the movie.  It might be a better book than movie, but I am not going to read the book.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 zombies in the sewer.

Boy Eats Girl

This movie was made in Ireland.  So it makes the cut for being a "foreign" flick here on Medusa's Face.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

A lady is working inside of an old church, when she finds a secret passage to a crypt.  All sorts of items are there that were from missionaries who lost their way.  The priest catches her and sends her on her way.

 

The students at the town school are preparing for the end of term disco.  The shy fellow that wants to ask this girl out, can't seem to pull the trigger, and sees her later in another guy's car.  Thinking the worst, he goes home and begins drinking.  While drunk, he flirts with thoughts of suicide and puts his head in a noose.  Every teenager keeps one of those in their bedroom, right?  With a nudge from his mother, the son is strangled to death.  Good thing this is the lady who was helping out at the church, because otherwise she wouldn't get the voodoo book and bring her son back to life.

 

So we now have our first zombie.  Only, he's not that much of a zombie.  It's not until he bites the cheek of another student when the zombie virus is spread.  The next thing you know, just about everyone in town has become a zombie.  Even the priest!

 

There is one funny scene where the love interest of the story, climbs on a tractor and begins shredding most of the zombies on her property.  But other than that, the killing scenes are minimal.  The zombie cure is a bit odd too.  A bite from a poisonous snake.  Who would have thunk it?

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 zombie priests.

Zombie Honeymoon

This is a story of undying love.  And a zombie husband.  But mostly about what you do for love.

 

The newlyweds head off to a house, close to the Garden State Marina, directly after the wedding ceremony.  The vegetarian husband enjoys surfing and the non-traditional bride enjoys drawing.  The couple head to the beach for a little surfing and drawing.  While drawing, this man walks up from the water and vomits blood in the grooms mouth.  Just the way that every honeymoon begins.

 

Off to the hospital and the groom dies on the table.  Or at least that's what the people in the ER think.  Because 10 minutes later, the groom is sitting up.  The doctor orders him to get some rest, so they wait and then he is released.

 

The couple dream of moving to Portugal and do not think it's going to happen soon, so the groom quits his job, the bride quits her job, and then they give up their apartment, all in an effort to force them to go to Portugal sooner.  This is how everyone begins married life, right?

 

Finally the zombieness starts kicking in on the husband.  It's discovered when the wife comes home from the grocery and finds the husband in the shower eating the intestines of a neighborhood jogger.  He pleads with her not to go and through the power of love, she stays.  But she makes him promise that he will not eat or attack her.  Cuz you know, you have to look out for number one first.

 

The best man and maid of honor are invited for dinner to celebrate the couple going to Portugal.  It's a very awkward dinner moment when the vegetarian groom wants some of the best man's steak.  But it does lead to a good line for the next morning when the groom tells his bride, "I guess vegetarians don't make good cannibals.  Do they?"

 

It takes a long time before the zombie kills begin, but when they start, they come in heaps.  Travel agent, video store customer, sheriff, several deputies, the best man, the maid of honor.  They all are gnawed upon and killed.  But unlike most other zombie movies, the victims do not come back to life and create a never ending cycle of future zombies.

 

The end of the movie is bizarre.  Does the groom die?  Does the bride?  It's hard to tell.  And I am not about to watch it again anytime soon.  If ever.  Nothing too memorable about this movie.  The zombie kills were weak and predictable.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 vegetarian zombies.

Dance of the Dead

Remember when you went to prom and you had to blow up the gymnasium because everyone inside was a flesh eating zombie?  Yeah?  Good times, good times.

 

The grounds keeper of a cemetery doesn't seem to mind it when he is trying to keep a flower vase upright and a hand comes at him out of the grave below him.  He just snips it off with his hedge clippers and goes about his business.  It just so happens that the town is next to a nuclear power plant, so this must be a regular occurrence for him.

 

Meet the kids of Cosa High School that we will be watching throughout the film.  The popular kids, the cheerleader, the nerds, the bully, the student counsel, and so forth.  They will be the main focus of the movie.  It's prom time too, and everyone is looking forward to the Hawaiian Hula Prom.  Unless you are not going to prom, then the night is going to be pretty boring.

 

Well not this time, because if you are not going to the prom, you will help save the town from the army of zombies that have just begun to take over.

 

There are a few good face stomping scenes.  A scene where a guy is beaten with his own arm and even zombie frogs.  I don't know how the dissected frogs came to be zombies too, but I am not complaining.

 

This movie takes a lighter look at zombies.  It still has the gore and senseless violence that you would expect from a zombie movie, but lets the castaway teenagers win the day by killing all of the zombies.  Overall, not that bad of a flick.

 

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 spiked baseball bats.

Dead Man Walking (2005)

The opening scene to this movie is one of the best openers that you will ever see for a zombie movie.  If you like uncontrolled camera movements and lots of senseless violence, this is a movie for you.

 

We arrive at Harwood Maximum Security Prison after watching a man shotgun four people coming after him,  had some blood splatter on him, and he is now sick.  When he arrives at the facility, he is sent to the infirmary to be checked.  He tells the doctor that he has been infected by an experimental bio toxin that transfers through body fluids.  After he pukes blood on the doctor, he is sent to solitary.  On his way to solitary, he pukes on several other prisoners.  

 

You can already see what is going to happen here, don't you.

 

Yep, the prison has to be put on lock down while the prisoners riot and also begin eating each other and the guards.  The zombie roller coaster keeps going along, getting just about- everyone in the prison infected.  From the family who came to visit their loved one, to the conjugal visitor, and even the warden's son, no one is safe.  Yeah.  Bad day for "bring your kid to work" day for the warden.

 

Like other movies before it, the real action doesn't happen until you are close to the end of the movie.  That's where the over the top gore comes up.  Intestines being eaten, forearms being ripped off.  Part of just about every modern zombie movie out there.

 

For the introduction to the movie, I give it 5 out of 5 shotgun blasts.

 

For the zombie action, I give it 2 out of 5 zombie children.

 

For the unnecessary and completely senseless violence, I give it 2 out of 5 arm bites.

 

For an average rating of 3 out of 5 maximum security prisons.

The Crazies

I would have liked this movie a bit more if the story would have unfolded quicker.

 

The small township of Ogden Marsh, IA is pretty proud of their baseball team.  A good part of the town shows up for opening day and it's a good thing that the sheriff is there, because a man with a shotgun shows up and disrupts the game.  The sheriff tries to talk the gun out of the man's hand, but conversations end when the sheriff shoots him dead.

 

Three hunters come across a body attached to a parachute out in the woods.  After the discovery, things in the town change dramatically.  One guy locks his wife and son in their house, then sets it on fire.  The coroner has sewn shut the mouths and eyes of several people in the autopsy lab, one not dead yet, and he also tries to kill the sheriff with a bone saw.

 

Now the fun begins.  Citizens of the town are relocated to a tent city where they are divided into fenced in areas.  A truck plows into one of the fences and the passengers of the truck start unloading on the guards, starting a riot where lots of people escape.  This goes on and on for a while.

 

It's not until much later when the sheriff, sheriff's wife, and deputy interogate an official that knows something about all of this.  A biological weapon, designed to destabalize a population was accidently lost and discharged in the area.  The incubation of the weapon is 48 hours, you either die or you don't have it.

 

The only two survivors are the sheriff and his wife, and they are on their way to Cedar Rapids, IA.  But they are being tracked, and this might happen all over again.

 

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of five biological weapons.

Furnace

This movie is supposed to be inspired by real events.  I don't know where this prison is, but I hope that they keep the South wing closed.

 

The movie starts out with a security guard going home to his wife and redecorating the bathroom with his head grits.  There are some flashback scenes that show some parts of his day.  Like when he loses two fingers.  Not enough to kill yourself, but frightening.  During the flashback, we see that the guard was not alone when he lost his two fingers.  The inmate that was there is not responsible for removing the fingers, he was just a witness.  He just happens to witness a little more than he bargained for and winds up dead too.

 

Detective Turner was investigating the suicide, but he wants to investigate a little further.  He visits the Blackgate Prison to collect some information.  Finds out that the area where the guard lost his fingers has been closed for 50 years.  It's being reopened to help accommodate some new arrivals.

 

Detective Turner and the prison psychologist hit it off, have some boring movie sex, and she showers up.  But when she goes to get the towel, she grabs a charred up little girl and the detective gets treated to a guy covered in ash coming out from under his bed.  It ramps up the shock and frightens the two of them.  The detective and psychologist visit the south wing one more time, but this time they go to the previous warden's office.  There, they are treated to a vision of what happened to the warden and the little girl.

 

It would have been nice to know the story of the warden and the little girl sooner.  I was more confused than scared when the furnace broguht the little girl back to life and she begins killing off inmates.  And even knowing the story, I still don't know why she was killing the inmates.  That part was never really explained.

 

I give this movie 2 out of 5 furnace children.

Dinoshark

What's better than having a prehistoric shark being brought back to life?  No, seriously.  What is better?

 

On the Alaskan coast, a glacier calves and releases several tadpoles from the ice into the water.  Only they are not tadpoles, they are mini-sharks.  Hey, I don't write them, I just watch them.

 

Fast forward three years.  And change the scenery to Puerto Vallarta.

 

Trace, who grew up in the area, but hasn't lived there for a while, returns to find his old friends are still hanging out at the same bar.  They introduce Trace to a new member of the group, Carol, who is a teacher at the local international school.  She teaches environmental science with a focus on aquatic ecosystems.  Lucky for us.  If she wasn't conveniently plopped into the group, where would we get our insight from on the dinoshark?

 

Several people are eaten.  Several boats and kayaks are destroyed.  The kills by the dinoshark are pretty weak.  Although, there is one scene where the dinoshark munches on one couple and there is a splatter of blood that reaches the camera lens.  That was pretty cool.

 

When the first attempt to coral the dinoshark fails, the local sheriff declares, "Dinoshark season is officially open."  Big words, but the dinoshark breaches the water and takes down the force's helicopter.

 

Long story short, the only way to kill the creature is to shoot it in the eye and that happens.  But at the end of the movie, they show another glacier calving and more dinoshark tadpoles moving in the water.  So is this the end of dinoshark or not?

 

I think that someone lost a bet and wanted a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, if you ask me.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 water polo players.

Sea Snakes

This is a story of greed that turns into a story of snakes on a submarine.

 

On a remote island in the Pacific, two researchers have successfully bred some pit vipers with some mutant snakes.  The offspring have mutated chromosomes and are loaded with radioactive isotopes.  The offspring are also growing at an alarming rate.  Apparently the momma is out on the island somewhere because it swallows a local.

 

A submarine that was a museum piece three months previously has been decommissioned and is being sold to Taiwan.  Enter Luke Perry.  Luke is going to be the delivery boy for the sub.  The sub will have a skeleton crew who are mostly fresh out of submarine school.

 

Using satellites and ground intelligence, the U.S. Navy now knows that the Chinese plan to perform some naval maneuvers near the research facility.  Feeling that the research facility will be compromised, an evacuation is ordered.  The researchers are only supposed to take back four snakes, but the assistant takes all of them with him.  The decommissioned sub is the only vessel in the area and they are given new orders to perform the evacuation.

 

The sub gets the researchers, the snakes get loose on the sub, and the Chinese are driving their big boats around.  The plan was to "leave the snakes alone."  Kind of the if you don't bother them, they won't bother you notion.  Only, these snakes are aggressive and bother the crew.

 

The story doesn't work for me and there are no real quality kills.  It wasn't the most productive use of my time.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 Luke Perrys.

Left for Dead

This is a story of revenge in the mining town of Amnesty.  The year is 1880.  After a preacher ends his affair with a prostitute, she goes insane.  With the help of other prostitutes, they manage to kill everyone else in town.  The preacher makes a deal with the devil to live on as a ghost to one day get his revenge.

 

15 years later.

 

Three men are chasing another man, named Blake, all the way to Amnesty.  The preacher ghost appears and starts taking out the three chasers.  One guy gets his guts spilled out and another gets shot.  The third is allowed to live and "deliver a message".  The man being chased thinks that he is going to die too, so he offers the ghost a smoke.  Note to self, remember to always offer blood thirsty ghosts a cigarette.  Because, the preacher ghost likes the friendly gesture.

 

These women are also after Blake.  It seems that Blake knocked up one of the girls and the group is trying to make things right.  So now everyone is in the town of Amnesty.

 

The preacher ghost must remain in the town and he is not allowed to go into the church or beyond the graves.  Good information to have in this situation.  But apparently it is common knowledge, because most of the time spent in the town is in the church.

 

It takes a little while, but we finally know that the group of women are the whores that went insane.  The preacher ghost starts getting his revenge by cutting throats and gutting women with this primitive hook.  He even gets one with a pick ax.

 

The final battle has Clementine (Blake's wife) in a shoot out with the preacher ghost.  The only weapon that hurts the preacher is his own guns.  Clem gets one of the guns from the preacher, so it is a fair fight.  She begins to get visions of what happened 15 years ago.  Now she knows why the preacher ghost has been wanting to kill the whores.

 

So remember kids, if you want a group of insane prostitutes to kill your entire town so that you can roam the land as a blood thirsty ghost, you have to end your affair with your lover.

 

I give this movie 2 out of 5 preacher ghosts.

The Big Easy

This movie is really not that bad.  In fact, it's a pretty good movie.  It's the accents that are bad.

 

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone.

 

The Big Easy is a movie about a corrupt police unit in New Orleans.  Dennis Quaid is a homicide lieutenant that takes a few liberties with the law.  Parking violations, traffic violations, and taking some money on the side.  Ellen Barkin is the assistant district attorney investigating a potential corruption ring within the department.

 

Quaid is on a case where a wiseguy turns up dead over some heroin.  All signs point to a rival crime boss in the dispute.  During the case, Quaid is framed for an extortion charge.  Which doesn't help him with Barkin since she has an inquiry into the department.  The extortion case gets thrown out and Quaid solves the original case concerning the heroin AND Barkin finds out who the cops were that tampered with all of the evidence.  It all wraps up nicely.

 

I just couldn't take the fake cajun accents by a lot of the cast.  And if it wasn't a fake cajun accent, it was a fake southern accent.

 

I give the movie 3 1/2 out of 5 ettoufee.

 

I give the accents 0 out of 5 roux.

Boa vs. Python

We begin with the Royal Reptile Rumble in the square circle and two masked wrestlers.  Python and Boa.  Two men who have absolutely nothing to do with this movie.  We are concerned with one of the men in the audience who is expecting a large "package" to be delivered.  That package is an 80 ft. python.

 

The package has other ideas and breaks free from the 18 wheeler hauling it and gets into a Philadelphia Water and Power facility.  The local officials are called to the scene and so is the FBI.  Agent Sharp finds a large scale and after consulting with another agent, they conclude that this might have something to do with a botched CIA project.  "And get me Monica Bond!"

 

For a person who is associated with the Miami Aquatic Research Institute, Monica Bond sure does like to hang around women in bikinis.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  After a time filler to show that she can hold her breath underwater, she gets transported to the Longreen Snake Reserve in Elkins, WV to meet Dr. Emmett.  Dr. Emmett is one of the nation's leading reptologists.  He has also grown a large Scarlet Queen Boa.

 

Broddick, the guy expecting the package, begins to welcome his guests.  Tex (from Lubbock), Mr. Foley (the greatest military sniper), Mr. Danner and his son James, and Littlefield (master huntsman).  They are planning to hunt down the 80 ft. python for sport.  To the hunt!

 

Basically, Team Broddick is out to kill the python and Team FBI is going to deploy the boa to hunt the python, only neither of the two camps know that the other one is on the case.  Yet.  FUNNY LINE ALERT: Mr. Danner to his son, "God, I hate you."

 

The two snakes end up at the water facility and everybody dukes it out.  Big guns, expensive tracking technology, and flooding are all used to try and stop these two large snakes.  The boa wins the battle of the snakes and now the researchers need to find the boa.  So there could be a sequel, but it wouldn't have Broddick there to rip his shirt off.  So I don't know how it could be as good as this one.

 

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 Broddicks

The Maze

Five college-aged friends are on a mission to visit a corn maze in Garfield County.  And they don't care when they get there, they are going to go into that maze.

 

The opening scene is a little spooky.  The coroner or medical examiner is checking out a burnt skeleton.  He finds a trinket which begins the story.  Three guys and two girls are on their way to visit a corn maze, but are delayed because of a flat.  They finally get to the maze, but the sun has already set.  I know I wouldn't let complete lack of light keep me from entering a corn maze that "sometimes takes people hours to get through".  Would you?  Of course not.

 

The five of them go in the maze and begin a ridiculous game of "tag".  Only, they are not alone in the maze.  There is a man in a red hooded sweatshirt and he has a knife.  The boyfriend dies first, then the girlfriend, the owner of the maze who came out to investigate the noises he heard, the guy with goatee, and the guy with the stripe on his jacket.  The smoker girl (she smokes or at least attempts to smoke) is the only one who doesn't meet her maker due to the red hooded man.  To try and stop her assailant, she sets the maze on fire.  So now you know about the charred skeleton.

 

In one scene, the guy with the stripe on his jacket is running away from Mr. Red Hood.  While he is running, the red hood guy is stationary and is able to stab jacket boy in the back of the leg, accurate enough to bring the runner down.  The mop up is pretty easy after that.

 

Smoker girl gets sent to the sheriff's office.  Saying, "I killed him" after a police officer asks, "what happened?" will usually get you taken downtown for questioning.  I won't give away the ending.

 

For much of the movie, you get to see a lot of the interior of a corn maze.  Or maize maze.  Whoa!  I just blew my mind.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 corn mazes

Princess of Mars

You have to watch this movie from start to finish, because if you don't, you will be lost.  I suspect that the writers were sitting around getting high or drunk, pitching ideas for scenes, and then had to find a way to tie it all together.  It does all come together, but at the cost of watching the entire movie.

 

A marine in a remote area attempts to rescue a hostage.  Only, the hostage is in on it and is instrumental in the marine getting wounded.  The marine ends up at a military unit where he is told that all of his organs are failing, but on a 16GB flash memory stick, there is a way to reconstruct him atom by atom.  Oh baby.  Here is where it starts to get sideways.  The physicians fix the marine, but his new mission is to go to Mars 216, a different Mars in a different galaxy.  Cue in obscure roller coaster of light and now the marine is on a different planet.

 

Mars 216 has humans and these other biped aliens.  There are some additional creatures that you are introduced to, but these are the main parties of interest.  Traci Lords is the queen of the humans on the planet.  So there is a benefit for taking the intergalactic ride to Nowheresville.

 

Of course, the two groups can't get along and of course, the marine has to be a part of history's weakest sword fighting scenes so that he can save the day.  And after he does save the day, ... it's back to his original mission as if it was all a dream.  Or was it?  Creepy.

 

Overall, this movie had some unintentional comedy and was fun to watch.  I'd even watch it again.

 

I give it 3 1/2 out of 5 Air Stations

MegaSnake

This is one of the better movies I've seen recently.  It's got some quality kill scenes, funny lines, and a happy ending.  Aww.  Now, "break out the shotguns and gas up the ATVs.  We got us a big ass snake to kill."

 

Back in 1986, this family who are followers of a church that handles snakes, accidentally gets the father bitten and killed by a poisonous snake.  There are two boys in the family.  Fast forward twenty years.  The boys are now grown and still live with their mother.  The younger brother is now an EMT and the older brother is in the snake handling business.

 

The older brother needs some new snakes and finds a tattoo parlor where a Native-American works.  The Native-American is one of the last Keetowah tribe members and has a very rare and deadly snake named Unteka.  There are three rules when handling Unteka.  One, Unteka should never be removed from its jar.  Two, never feed it anything living.  And three, never fear the heart of the snake.  But there should have been a fourth rule, ... always turn your back on a guy who you have just met so that he may steal Unteka.  The older brother follows rule four.

 

He then breaks rule one, which leads to the breaking of rule two.  Seeing his snake escape, the older brother finds these two hillbillies and seeks their advice on killing Unteka.  He tries stabbing the snake and burying it, but that doesn't seem to work.  The snake grows and grows.  Killing more and more.  Which leads to a music montage where the two hillbillies fashion a crude flame thrower.  That doesn't work either, and the county fair is coming up soon.

 

Of course, Unteka makes its way to the fair.  And of course, Unteka begins biting off the heads of people on the Rock 'n' Roll Express ride, the Love Bug roller coaster, the bumper cars, and whatever else it can sink its fangs into.

 

One of the funnier scenes is when the children are learning about electricity from this guy on stage.  This kid notices the snake and our hero on stage leaps into action and tells the serpent, "That's it.  Time for some feed back," as he attempts to electrocute the snake.

 

Rule three saves the day as the younger brother is swallowed whole and cuts the heart out of the snake from the inside.  From the inside of a seventy-foot snake.  Yep.  Saw that one coming when I started watching this.

 

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 Untekas.

Bloodrayne II: Deliverance

I didn't see Bloodrayne 1: Not Deliverance, so I am not sure if I should have seen these out of sequence.

 

The setting is the wild west.  The town of Deliverance, Montana is waiting for the railroad to come through and help build the town up.  The mayor believes that with a new train station and coal mine that is close by, the town will begin to prosper.  A reporter from the Chicago Chronicle is sent there to cover stories about the wild west ways, not some small town trying to get on the map.

 

After a band of men come into town and start kidnapping the town's children it is made clear that they are not to be messed with.  The lead guy, who we later find out is Billy the Kid, is shot, but remains alive.  He remains alive because he is a vampire!

 

Our hero, Rayne, is a woman dressed in all leather.  That may have been her attire in Bloodrayne 1, I don't know.  All I know is that she is pretty handy with a gun and these demon blades that are strapped to her back.  The real action doesn't begin until the ending of the movie.  And even then, it is a bit weak.  Not many quality kills other than a guy getting gunned down by a gatling gun.

 

There is a open door for a possible Bloodrayne 3 as Rayne is off to Tombstone, Arizona now.  I guess I have to see the rest of the trilogy to see if any of this makes sense.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 vampires

Street Trash

The main focus of this movie is bums.  The bums in this community have made their home in the neighboring junk yard.  And the entertainment for these bums seems to be drinking and violence.  Not always in that order.

 

The local liquor store owner finds a case of "Viper" in the basement of his store and sells it dirt cheap.  Either to get rid of the hooch or because he feels sorry for the bums.  The first bottle of Viper is stolen by one bum from another and to celebrate his victory, the bum goes off and drinks his spoils.  COOL DEATH ALERT: The bum becomes a boiling mess of flesh.  Good thing he was sitting on the throne when he was drinking it.

 

For the bums to make money to buy their booze, they wash car windows.  One unsuspecting citizen tries to talk to the leader of the bums and gets removed from the car and forced through the windshield.  This prompts the police to come out to the area and investigate the crime.  That is when a second bum starts having some Viper and also melts, he is on fire escape and drips onto a pedestrian below.  I wouldn't mention this scene, but I found it hilarious because as the cop is arguing with another citizen, the guy who got hit with the toxic goo is slowly being melted away.

 

There are several COOL DEATH SCENEs in this movie.  Almost all of them involve Viper.  If Viper is in the scene, stay tuned because there will be a toxic geyser of blood or it will involve a person's skin melting off the bones.

 

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 Vipers.

Kingdom of the Spiders

Kingdom of the Spiders is one of those instant classics that creeps you out.

William Shatner is a veterinarian that lives out west in Verde Valley, Arizona.  A small town where everyone knows everyone.  The movie begins with a rancher trying to get a calf ready for the county fair.  Only, when he puts the calf out in its pen, it gets sick and they have to call in Shatner.  Shatner gets some blood samples and sends it off to the lab at University of Arizona.  The results are personally delivered by the university lady to Shatner, and the calf's death is determined to be due to spider venom.

The university lady wanted to come to town so that she could see the carcass and also investigate where the calf was killed.  The rancher tells the two that he found a spider hill on his property and they go to view it.  "I don't think DDT is going to kill them".  If you don't know what DDT is, it kills everything that flies, crawls, walks, or swims.  But somehow, the tarantulas that built this mound have adjusted to the poison and changed their eating habits.  Since there are no more insects for the spiders to eat, they are now going after larger prey.  It is determined that the spider mound must be burned.  Don't worry.  The spiders must have known that they had a potential fire hazard on their hands and built an escape hatch.

The spiders get into everything.  Trucks, homes, and even the crop duster that was used in spreading some poison in an attempt to kill off the eight legged demons.  The tarantulas have organized themselves into an aggressive little army and begin picking off people in town.  Nobody is safe and panic runs wild.

Shatner and a small group think that they will be safe a lodge just outside of town.  They board up everything and try to make sure that lodge is impenetrable from the creepy crawlers.  But the spiders are clever.  From knocking out the fuse box to crawling through the vent fans, they are doing whatever they need to do to get to those people.  The movie ends with the entire town covered in spider webs.

Tarantulas: 1
The town of Verde Valley: 0

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of 5 tarantulas.