Werewolf Hunter: The Legend of Romasanta‏

When I first read the title to this movie, I thought that it was going to be about a person who hunted werewolves.  Instead, it is a story of a werewolf who acts as a hunter.  Either way, it was not that bad of a movie.

 

The year is 1851.  Manuel is a simple vendor who travels from town to town, selling his material.  What he sells is not that important.  He rarely settles down is all that you need to know.  At a town that he has visited, there has been a rash of wolf attacks.  Plus, several people have been missing and it is assumed that they have been attacked by the wolves.

 

Manuel has the help of three sisters at a farm that he visits.  The oldest sister thinks that the middle sister, Barbara, is trying to steal Manuel from her and goes off with Manuel on one of his trading adventures.  She takes the youngest sister with her, leaving Barbara to manage the farm by herself.  But Manuel, being a werewolf, kills the two sisters.  Barbara realizes that something is wrong, and with the aide of a stranger and the authorities, they are able to capture Manuel and put him on trial for the murders of fifteen people.  The trial is suspended and while Manuel is under custody, he is (SPOILER ALERT) stabbed in his cell by Barbara.

 

The storyline is a good one.  Possibly because it is based on a true story.  But the gore level is at a minimum.  There is a scene that shows the transformation from wolf to man that is terrible.  Totally not needed in the movie.  Not a lot (if any) of digital effects in the movie, which is a plus for me too.

 

For the most part, it is a good movie and worth the watch.  If you were thinking like I was before seeing the movie that it was about hunting werewolves, try watching something else.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 silver daggers.

Banshee!!!

Yes.  With three exclamation points.  It might be because of the banshee scream being so loud or it might be because two exclamation points just wasn't enough.

 

Way back in 1970, three guys are getting high and watching TV.  They need to go on a grocery run and on their way, the woman that they were just watching on the TV is in the middle of the road.  So they pick her up.  But she is now what she appears to be and when the radio gets turned on, the frequency disrupts her disguise and she is the banshee.  She rips the guys to shreds and they crash into a lake.  The crash scene is pretty funny to me.  It's almost as if the producer didn't want to wreck the car, so it's a digital wreck.

 

Present day and the car is found.  The person who finds the car, Jack Gorman (Kevin Shea), is a scrap dealer and when he opens up the trunk, the banshee is released.  If you watched Attack of the Sasquatch, you will remember Kevin Shea as the hunter with the eye patch.  The banshee begins her havoc when a group of college kids show up for spring break.  Which is good, because we need some victims.  And they provide for some cool death scenes.  Being speared in the mouth, guts being eaten, heads ripped in half, torsos removed from the legs, ... all sorts of awesome gore litter this movie.

 

Jack's nephew, Rocker (oh yeah), gets in a few guitar licks too.  Towards the end of the movie, they figure out that the frequency from the guitar affects the banshee.  And Rocker becomes a rocking god on the front lawn to try and help kill the banshee.  The only problem that I had with this movie was the terrible ending.  It was wretched!!!  But other than that, it was not that bad of a B movie.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 electric guitars.

My Name is Bruce

Bruce Campbell has made a name for himself with some of the best B movies out there.  So he decided to direct a movie that spoofs the typecast that he became.

 

It's got all of the classic scenes you would expect from a good B movie.  The bad costumes, the decapitations, and a far fetched demon that has a simple weakness.  It all starts with four teenagers who begin breaking stuff in an old graveyard.  One of the teenagers, Jeff, takes an item from a grave that he shouldn't have taken.  The item belongs to Guan-Di, the Chinese God of War and Protector of the Dead, who also happens to have a soft spot for bean curd.

 

Bruce Campbell happens to be working on another film close by.  Jeff idolizes Bruce and wants him to help defeat Guan-Di.  Like some fans, Jeff has blurred reality with movies and thinks that Bruce Campbell is more like one of the characters that he played than a person in real life.  Bruce however, thinks that it is a stunt by his agent for a birthday surprise, so he plays along.

 

Bruce dashes the dreams of everyone in the town of Goldlick, including his number one fan.  But then redeems himself by coming back to fight Guan-Di.

 

It's a lovable laugh at the B movies that Bruce Campbell has made.  It's not necessary to have viewed a Bruce Campbell movie prior to viewing this one, but it would help greatly if you have prior experience with Bruce.

 

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 BC 5000 chainsaws.

A.I. Assault

The best part of creating a robot that can kill relentlessly, is the ability to create two robots that can kill relentlessly.  The opening scene only shows one of the robots, but it also showcases how brutal capability of the mechanical monsters.

 

COOL DEATH SCENE NOT REPEATED IN THE MOVIE: When the movie opens, a soldier is killed when the robot shoots a saw blade that decapitates him.  Why not use that feature more?  I don't know.  Seems like an effective weapon.  The ray gun is nice too, but the saw blade is much cooler.

 

Big names in this film.  George Takei.  Michael Dorn.  Paul Logan.  What?  You don't remember Paul Logan.  He's the guy from Mega Piranha with Tiffany, from an older post.  This is some of his earlier work.

 

Here are the need-to-knows:

 

1. Robots were built to take over the front line on military attacks to save soldier's lives.

2. The robots have begun to learn on their own and must be stopped.

3. The COOL DEATH SCENE ALERTs are at a minimum.

 

When Paul Logan jumps in to help save the day, he does this tumble roll that is very comical.  Not worth saving the movie, but worth seeing.  It's these types of scenes that make my heart sing.  Gore at a minimum, plot jumpy, and digital effects that could have been polished.  All things you would expect from a movie like this and it delivers completely.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 lightning strikes.

Alien Siege

The world has been enslaved by an alien race that wants to harvest humans for their blood.  They need the blood to create a vaccine for a disease on their home planet.  But they don't just take the blood, they take the people.

 

A total of 8 million people are to be harvested by the alien Kulkus.  The contribution by the United States is 800,000.  A lottery is created to see who will be chosen to be sacrificed.  Dr. Stephen Chase's daughter, Heather, is one of the chosen, but he doesn't want to let her go.  He tries all movie to keep her from being processed, but she gets sent to the space ship that does the blood work.  Turns out, she is one of a handful that can withstand the pressures of the medical experiment being performed by the Kulkus.  Not only that, but her blood might be the perfect cure.

 

It doesn't matter, Dr. Chase is one of the leading researchers studying a Kulkus vessel that crashed on the Earth 50 years ago.  And he's a sneaky one.  He hid material, Genexium, that the Kulkus were looking for up in the drop ceiling of his office.  Cleaver, huh?

 

Heather gets help from the very soldiers who are gathering up the people for the Kulkus.  Carl Weathers is in charge of the soldiers.  I guess he should have punched some more discipline in them.

 

The aliens have superior fire power, but they have wretched aiming skills.  I guess the few explosions that they created must have shocked the military into doing their bidding.  Even if you enjoy science fiction movies, you will have a hard time enjoying this one.  Definitely one to miss.  One of the best lines of the movie, "That's one for the humans."

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 rebel strikes.

The Midnight Meat Train

I saw the title of this movie and I thought to myself, "oh baby".  Does this movie have over-the-top violence?  Yes.  Does it have brutal gore?  Plenty.  Does it have a good story?  You betcha.  Big problem though, ... the ending.

A serial killer is loose on the subways.  He's a butcher.  Really.  He works at a meat packing facility.  He rides the subway at night and brutally, and I mean brutally, kills his victims with a hammer.  He has some other tools, but the hammer is the weapon of choice.  He performs several COOL DEATH SCENE ALERTS by smashing his hammer into the heads and faces of his prey.

A photographer, who is trying to make a name for himself in the art world, begins taking several pictures at night to capture the mostly unseen side of the city.  This includes witnessing a potential rape and photographing the assailants.  But he also happens to catch the butcher in a photo and it becomes his obsession.

Things move along well with the movie.  The storyline is solid.  The acting is good, partly because there are some recognizable faces in the movie.  The big problem I have is the ending.  It is almost as if the writers could not figure out a feasible solution to the story, so they through in this bazaar twist.  It is awful.  Period.

The subway conductor is aware of the killings.  The police officer assigned to the case is also aware.  That didn't really bother me.  It was the last minute addition to the story that ruined it for me.

Suspense: 9
Brutality: 10
Gore: 9
WTF? Ending: 0

Seriously.  I thought that I was going to get a B movie when I saw that title.  I guess not.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 century old subway schedules.

Headless Horseman

Ichabod Crane was to have had a problem with the Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow.  But the locals from Wormwood Ridge say that it really happened in their town.

 

A van full of college kids need to get to a party.  They take a short cut through the woods, run over a bear trap, and get towed to Wormwood Ridge.  Once at Wormwood, they notice how the townsfolk are creepy.  Apparently, every seven years on Halloween, ole Headless comes out of his tar pit from hell to collect heads from any strangers who are not part of the town.  How they lure in strangers into this town is another trick.  I guess people come to see the midget.

 

Predictably, one by one, most the kids have their noggins removed from their bodies.  The first one is a COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT: decapitation occurs when a college kid pokes his head out of a car trunk and Headless jumps on the trunk.  Another COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT happens when a girl gets hit in the head and falls backwards into a bear trap.  There are several scenes like this and one where the tow truck girl runs over her father.  There should have been more scenes like this in the movie.  Maybe some more scenes with the midget too.

 

The gore could have been a little more over the top, but overall, worth seeing.  Add in some gratuitous nudity and you have an instant classic.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 mace wielding, headless horsemen.

Dog Soldiers

This film is set in Scotland.  If you have trouble with Scottish accents or terminology, do not watch this film.  It's not worth the headache of waiting for the violence.

 

A training exercise goes awry when a group of soldiers with blanks come across the captain of a special forces operation.  The captain is the only soldier left after his camp had been brutalized by some werewolves.  The group gets picked up by a lovely lady who brings them to a house for shelter and to tend to the wounded.

 

The soldiers have encounters with the werewolves for most of the movie.  And action and violence is not that bad.  There is one mishap in the film that shows the poor editing.  A soldier who falls to the ground gets up with a handgun, then a second later, he is shown going to the ground again only to come up with a rifle.  There are some good scenes, but the movie money are the scenes with the werewolves.  It looks like a guy wearing a fur suit and a large fabricated wolf head.  It's those kind of special effects that are being replaced by digital creatures.  I love the big silly outfits.  Just love them.

 

The twist at the end is ... well, I won't say.  For the most part, the story moves along nicely.  The action is there and the over acting is at a minimum.  I wanted more gore in the violence.  A chopped off had here and a severed head there is not enough.  Even when one of the werewolves is stabbed in the head with a water faucet (with blood pouring out of the faucet), they could have had more of that type of violence in the movie.

 

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

Fireball

I didn't know what to expect out of this film.  It starts out rather odd, but it has a fair storyline.  Out of the usual made for TV movies that I have watched, this one is set apart from the rest.

 

Tyler Draven (Scott Draven in the mug shot), is a former linebacker who has been kicked out of the league for using steroids.  But these are no ordinary steroids.  These are designer, DNA based steroids.  And they are so powerful, they have altered Dravens' blood chemistry.  After being picked up for assaulting a news reporter, the judge lets Draven know that he will be picked up and prosecuted in a federal court.  But before he can get picked up, the breaker box blows and he is caught in the fire of his jail cell.

 

He is brought to the hospital with 90% of his body burned, but due to the steroids, he is able to recover almost immediately and then goes out on a revenge rampage.  He gets the clerk that made up rumors about him.  He gets the judge that sentenced him.  And he gets the reporter who has been hounding him since he got out of football.  His big mistake is when he goes for the nuclear power plant and tries to take out some of his former fans.

 

The violence is at a minimum, but they have a lot of explosions in the film.  And as an added bonus, the male federal investigator and the female county fire investigator DO NOT HOOK UP.  Thank you to the producers and writers for not giving in to romantic peer pressure.

 

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 flaming foot prints.

MacGruber

There have been several Saturday Night Live skits that have gone to the big screen.  Some have gone straight to DVD.  MacGruber is not a classic, but it will do for an afternoon waste of time.

I admit, I have not seen many of the MacGruber skits on SNL, but I have the basic idea of MacGruber.  He is a spoof of the TV show MacGyver.  A guy who is supposed to be able to make weapons from everyday items.  Sorry, ... I am not a MacGyver expert.  I never watched the show.

MacGruber needs to save the world from Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), who has a stolen nuclear weapon.  And MacGruber uses his unorthodox approach to get information as well as defend himself.  His signature move is to rip out the throats of his attacker.

It's one long SNL skit and it is absurdly crazy.  I did laugh at the "upper decker" that MacGruber left for Dieter.  But let's just say that I was happy that the movie is only 90 minutes long.  I don't know how much longer they could have milked the skit.

I give this movie 2 out of 5 celery stalks.

Ghost Voyage

This is supposed to be a movie about how you can get a second chance at life, if you can see the error of your ways.  I wish that I had a second chance to decide to watch this movie.

 

The movie opens with a couple of thugs going to loot the other people in the room while they are still unconscious.  Everybody wakes up on a boat, nobody knows why they are there.  The steward gives them the rules of the ship.  Do Not Breach Any Closed Doors.  Do Not Go Into The Captain's Quarters.  Do Not Refuse Any Orders From A Member Of The Crew.  No Smoking.  And they mean no smoking.  The first guy to go outside, lights up, and gets taken out by his own smoke.

 

The good thing about this movie is that it is not very predictable.  The bad thing about this movie is that it jumps from scene to scene so much that you lose interest in the characters quick.  The drug user goes off to get a hit and he gets attacked.  He dies rather strangely because he ages first before he dies.  No others in the movie have that happen to them.  The blond and the movie producer go into the captain's quarters, so ... yes, they die.  The two thugs who were looting the other passengers try to smoke out the steward and they breach a door, ... dead.  It keeps going on like that throughout the movie, but there are no real quality kill scenes.

 

The two passengers who find their own faults are then given a second chance and then the cycle repeats with new passengers.  Yawn.  Don't waste your time with this one.  Unless you have trouble falling asleep.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 ships at sea.

Supertroopers

Sometimes you know what to expect to see in a sophomoric type of comedy movie.  Other times you get the unexpected.

Expected: boobies.
Unexpected: full male frontal

Expected: cops playing by their own rules.
Unexpected: patrolman so far out of the box that it is humiliating.

The state highway patrol in an area of Vermont is on the chopping block due to fiscal limitations.  The state troopers have made a drug bust, but the local police have taken over part of the investigation.  Procedure aside, the state troopers and local police do not particularly care for each other.  So much so that they have a fist fight during the film.

One of the state troopers begins a relationship with the lone female officer on the local police.  The two of them attempt to take down the police chief to save the state troopers jobs.  SPOILER ALERT: the local police are in on the drug running and are the protection.

I guess I was expecting more silliness from this movie.  Don't get me wrong.  There are plenty of scenes where things are not normal.  Like when two of the state troopers have a chugging contest with pancake syrup.  I wonder how many drunk college kids tried that one after seeing this movie.

I give this movie 2 out of 5 Afghanimation monkeys.

Avatar

The James Cameron one, not the Last Air Bender.  Complete rubbish.  There I said it.

Life on Pandora is great for the natives.  They live one with nature.  Twelve foot tall.  Able to command creatures by using thoughts transmitted by their ponytails.  GET A HAIRCUT, HIPPIES!!

What is so fantastic about this place?  It can't be the Unobtainium mineral that the humans are trying to collect, because the natives do not even use it.  It must be that everything is phosphorescent at night.  Sure it might be cool to sleep in a leaf for a night, but guess what.  IT'S A LEAF.

The big corporation stereotypes are trying to get the Unobtainium and they use the marine stereotypes to be their muscle.  The corporation/military people send in the paraplegic marine to spy on the natives so that they can get the mineral rights.  Meanwhile, researchers are just trying to understand the natives and the world of Pandora.

The story is good.  But did everyone go nuts over this movie because of the computer generated graphics?  Just because the cartoon looks a lot more life-like doesn't mean that it is a better movie.  It just means that the graphics looks a lot better than the stick figures you drew back in elementary school.

I like nature.  I like going to the grocery too.  Does that mean I am a bad person for not wanting to kill my dinner? 

To quote a good friend of mine, "It was basically 'Dances with Space Wolves'".  Well put. 

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

Reign of Fire

Dragons can hibernate for several years, like a million of them.  And when they come out of hibernation, they are hungry and angry.

 

While digging at a construction site, the drill comes across a void.  The son of one of the workers there is playing about and goes into the area to look at the void.  Besides seeing a lot of nothing, he also gets treated to seeing a dragon.  That boy grows up to be Quinn (Christian Bale), who in the year 2020 is helping keep a small group of people alive and away from the dragons.

 

Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) leads a few soldiers and battles the dragons.  His group believes that the way to destroy the dragons is to essentially keep them from breeding.  There is one male that lives in London and the rest of the dragons are females.  Van Zan and his group are able to harpoon and kill one of the dragons.  While there is much rejoicing, everyone knows that they are not finished with the danger until all of the dragons are killed.

 

The male dragon is confronted by Quinn and Van Zan.  SPOILER ALERT: the dragon is killed.  I won't tell you how, in case you thought of watching this movie.

 

The graphics are very polished.  And everyone does a great job in their role.  I just wanted more action.  And for an area that is supposed to be overrun with dragons, you don't get to see the numbers of them until the end.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but don't get your hopes up too high.

 

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of 5 dragon eggs.

Jack Hunter: The Lost Treasure of Ugarit‏

From my research about this movie, Jack Hunter has two more of these films. This one was bad enough, but in the interest of self-torture, I guess I am going to have to find the other two.

 

In case you didn't think that this was a rip off of the Indiana Jones movies, just wait until Jack Hunter lands in Syria.  But I am jumping ahead of myself.  Jack intended to take pictures of an ancient tablet, but plans change and he has to steal it.  He and Professor Frederic read the very ancient Ugarit language on the tablet and the professor thinks that it is a riddle to get to the ancient, mythological weapon, the Star of Heaven, which is comprised of the Eye and Iris.  The professor is killed and the tablet is taken.  Jack continues the quest for Frederic, over in Damascus, Syria.  And when Jack arrives in Syria, he has on a very nice Fedora hat.  Please.

 

Jack and his Syrian love interest, Nadia, get in and out of trouble trying to find the Iris.  The Eye is in Egypt (second movie), so we are just worried about the Iris.  Albert (villain) Littmann, is also looking for the Iris.  He is backed by the Russian mafia and has a lot more resources than Jack.  Indiana Jones fought Belloq and the Nazis.  I guess to make this movie more modern, they chose the Russians.

 

Bad fight scenes, bad side kick, and tons of convenience for Jack's group.  It is laughable.  There is one scene where Jack and Nadia are running away from a group of men and all the while Jack is yelling to the side kick to start the truck.  Replace truck with plane and you get a sense of where that idea was stolen.  I don't have much hope for Jack in the next installment or the third.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 Bishri Mountains.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

At first glance, you might think that this is another slasher film where everybody dies except for the main character and his love interest.  Well, you would be partly right.  Add in a boat load of comedy and then you have this movie.

 

These college kids are going camping and they forgot their beer.  So they stop in to get beer at the corner store and enter in Dale and Tucker.  The kids think that Dale and Tucker are a couple of backwoods hillbillies and think the worst.  But Dale just wanted to talk to one of the pretty girls.

 

Tucker sank his life savings into a fixer-upper vacation home that he and Dale are going to so that they can begin working.  It just so happens that the college kids have set up camp nearby and then the trouble starts.  There is one misunderstanding after another and also several killings that happen accidentally.

 

As you can see, I am not giving away much to this movie because it is so much fun to watch.  There is a lot of things to laugh at and the movie keeps you entertained the entire movie long.  I would definitely recommend watching this movie once or twice.

 

I give this movie 5 out of 5 Memorial Day Massacres.

Adam and Evil

This movie takes a long time to develop.  An extremely long time.  And the twist at the end is outlandish.  Something tells me that the writers didn't know how to tie all of this together.  They had a plot, they had a group of characters, and they had their killer.  What they didn't have was a plausible way to make all of the pieces fit.

 

A small group of high school graduates, who all look like they are in their mid to late twenties, are going away for a weekend to celebrate.  They picked a campground that hasn't seen any real action in a while.  A murder had occurred at the campground and the murderer was never caught.  That doesn't seem to stop these kids from camping out.

 

They set up camp and begin to have a little fun.  One kid has a lot of fun with the sheriff's wife.  As she is leaving his tent, one of the other guys witnesses her leave and thinks nothing of it.  Except, he is the first victim.  It's not until the next night when they discover his body in the tent.  Then the panic starts and the victims begin to pile up.

 

I won't give away the twist that the writers threw in for the ending, but the one person who they thought was doing the killing, actually saves them in the end.

 

For the Storyline: D-

 

For the violence: D

 

For the Silhouette Movie Sex: D

 

Not much to look forward to with this one.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 Lake Nede Campgrounds.

Andre the Butcher

Ron Jeremy has made a living in film.  Most of the films that he has been involved with are pornographic.  That's why I was so happy to see him with his clothes on for this movie.

 

A group of cheerleaders is heading down to Florida for regional competition.  The Beavers and their rivals, the Game Cocks.  While driving down the highway, the Game Cocks throw stuff at the Beavers and drive off.  When the Game Cocks truck breaks down, the Beavers stop by.  Not to help, but to kick their rumps.  While the Game Cocks are recovering from the butt kicking that they just received, they get a visit from Andre the Butcher.  We learn towards the end of the film that Andre is a lost soul on Earth doing the devil's bidding by sending more souls to hell and Andre gets to eat the corpse.

 

The Beavers don't get to make it very far down the road after the accident caused by Cookie "stimulating" Jimbo.  The decide to walk, looking for help.  They don't find any help, but they do happen to find a vacant house.  The Beavers break into the house and begin to relax a little.  In the meantime, two convicts have escaped from the local prison.  It must be a problem around there, because the opening of the movie also had an escaped convict that Andre threw a butcher knife into his right eye.

 

You know the formula.  One by one the characters get taken out by Andre.  Every so often there is a COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT like when Andre head butts a convict and crushes his skull.  And in the end, they stop Andre.  There aren't as many cool death scenes as I wanted, but it works.  Andre gets his right arm blown off twice.  I say twice because there is a scene where he sews it back on and another scene where he uses a heavy duty stapler gun to reattach his arm.  It could have been a little more comedic too, but over all, if you know what you are sitting down to watch, it's not that bad of a flick.

 

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of 5 old men with harmonicas.

Alien Apocalypse

Aliens have come to Earth to loot the planet of trees.  They are like giant, space termites.  But these termites also eat human heads and fingers.

 

In Oregon, the "mites" have a sawmill, just outside of Portland, that has several human slaves.  If the slaves escape, the bounty hunters corral them up and return them to the camp.  As a punishment for fleeing, they get a finger removed.  The slaves have to get the lumber ready for transport back to the home planet of the "mites", where it is being sold for food.

 

A team of four people have returned from a 40 mission to launch a space probe.  They have been in cryogenic sleep and did not know about the alien invasion.  Why did they have to be in cryogenic sleep, I don't know.  All I know is that they came hurling back to Earth from space and are about to become slaves themselves.

 

Bruce Campbell plays Dr. Ivan.  He and his love interest, Kelly, are able to break out of the sawmill and make it to Freedom Valley.  The ex-slaves of Freedom Valley do not want to fight.  They just want to co-exist with nature.  Sounds like an old hippie commune to me.  But, they all believe that the president is building a resistance army to fight the aliens.  This is far from the truth.  In fact, the president is tucked away with several other members of congress, just watching the days go by.

 

Dr. Ivan heads up a small band of people and they storm the sawmill.  It's one of the funniest parts of the movie.  Several shots are reused, but you see someone using a sword or shooting an arrow.  The next thing you see are body parts flying about or aliens getting arrows to the eye.  It's comical for sure.

 

There is not much to watch in this film other than Bruce Campbell.  It's no Army of Darkness, but he does a good job delivering the lines and fighting the aliens.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 alien termites.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

If you were to hire Jack Brooks to fix a plumbing problem, chances are that you would have to spend more money to fix his fix than if you would have hired someone else.  However, if you need him to takeout some nasty monsters, you will probably have a higher success rate.

 

When Jack was a boy, he witnessed his sister and parents get attacked by a monster.  He was able to survive by running away, but that lead to anger issues.  He visited a counselor to try and help his aggressive behavior, but the counselor has not been able to help Jack.  There is a funny scene with Jack telling his counselor about an incident at Wong's and Jack is distraught because he really likes their egg rolls.

 

Through the advice of Jack's girlfriend (Eve), Jack has begun taking night classes at the community college.  It's not much, but we get to meet the members of the class and the professor (Robert Englund).  The professor asks Jack to look at a plumbing problem at his house and that's when the fun begins.  After Jack breaks the well pump, a gas is released and the professor gets sort of enchanted by the gas and digs up a crate, which has a skeleton and a black heart.  He eats the black heart and becomes a monster.

 

It takes a long time to set up, but the professor (now monster) has begun eating the students and transforming some into monsters themselves.  Jack is able to escape, but while driving away, the radio plays "Beyond the Sea", which happens to be the same song that his family was brutally killed to and he returns to release his aggression on the monsters.

 

I would have liked the story to get established a little sooner than it did, but it was worth the wait.  The movie is super silly with a main character that is fun to watch.  Jack seems to blow his stack with very little persuasion.  It reminds me a little of Army of Darkness.  Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is not quite there, but it's at least in the same ballpark.

 

I give this movie 4 1/2 out of 5 egg rolls.

Ice Queen

If you had been in a state of suspended animation for several hundreds of years and then came out of hibernation in a lot of pain, wouldn't you go postal on everyone that you laid eyes on?    I know I would.  And that is how the Ice Queen behaves, for the most part, too.

 

A convoy carrying a barrel of bio-hazard material is targeted for an ambush.  The convoy is shot at by a helicopter and luckily the one vehicle containing the barrel is intact.  Otherwise we would have a very short movie.  The contents of the barrel is the ice queen.  She is being transported by plane and the pilot has other ideas for the ice queen.  Too bad the ice queen has ideas of her own, like ripping off the pilots forearm and then freezing him from the inside out.

 

Enter in the main characters of the story.  Johnny, who is the lovable hunk.  Elaine, the buxom girl who is always too cold, if you know what I mean.  And the others.  Johnny and his friends work at a ski lodge.  It is the day after the season ended and they are out trying to clear some of the avalanche potentials.  But when the ice queen takes off the pilot's arm, the only other person on the plane is the doctor who is studying her and he doesn't exactly know how to fly a plane.  So it crashes and sends a large avalanche to destroy the lodge.

 

Long story short, the ice queen begins taking out the people that work at the lodge.  She reigns until Johnny manages to lure her into the hot tub at the lodge.  No quality kill scenes.  And only one line that really stuck out.  "Out of my way doc, it's showtime in Bitchtown," said by Johnny's boss as she goes after the ice queen.  There is a terrible cat fight scene between Johnny's girl and Elaine.  And another scene when Johnny's girl attempts to attack the ice queen with a ladle.  That should give you an idea on what kind of film you are watching.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 hot tub scenes.

Minotaur

I have to admit, the only minotaur I am familiar with in film is the one in Time Bandits.  But at least that movie had some midgets in it too.  This movie lacks midgets and the minotaur looks more like a bull than a man-bull combination.

 

The ancient island of Minos had nothing better to do than to try and create a living god.  So the queen had sex with a bull and for 13 months, she carried this creature in her womb until it was time to give birth.  These people need to get out in the sun more or something.  That's just crazy.  Any way, the creature lives in the labyrinth (not the David Bowie movie) beneath the palace and the people of Minos demand a sacrifice of 8 youths, every three years, from a city across the sea.  The people of Minos are convinced that someone from the other city killed a prince of Minos and this punishment to the city.

 

The king and queen of Minos are brother and sister.  This makes for a creepy moment when the king asks the queen to carry his seed.  She is not a fan and goes into the labyrinth with the youths.  She has a plan to escape, but the king finds out and thwarts the plan.  Most of the kids get taken out by the minotaur.  The first girl becomes a blood vapor, another girl gets a horn through the back of her head and out of her mouth, many others get impaled by the horns.

 

The hero of the story figures out that the gas that is in the labyrinth is flammable and is able to char-roast the minotaur and then kill it with its own horn.  The survivors of the labyrinth escape and rejoin the people in the palace, where the queen murders her own brother.

 

Overall, the story moves along.  The reason that the hero goes to Minos in the first place is to find his lost love.  He finds her, but she is a mummy.  Which I applaud the writers for that.  But they did sneak in a survivor who has his own little corner and has been living off of rats for who knows how long.

 

I wanted a more man/bull creature for the minotaur.  From the images that I remember, it was a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man.  Not what the film portrayed.

 

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 minotaur horns.

Assault of the Sasquatch‏

If you have seen the commercials for a certain beef jerky that messes with Sasquatch, then prepare for a movie long commercial without the product placement.

 

Three poachers set up traps in a state wildlife preserve.  They catch a bear and then they catch something more.  The Sasquatch.  After drugging the creature, they intend to deliver it to a fellow who is willing to pay $1 million dollars for it.  Seems like a low sum to me, but then again, I am not in the Sasquatch business.

 

They storyline jumps around a bit.  Obviously the Sasquatch is the main focus, but there is also counter-story between the former policeman turned forest ranger, the relationship he has with his daughter, and these two nerds who run around with a video camera yelling at the top of their lungs at people asking them if they have seen the Sasquatch.

 

The Sasquatch likes the ladies too.  He becomes a peeping tom when one girl heads off to the shower.  Then to get closer to the girl, he breaks into her home and is about to walk in on her when suddenly her pet chihuahua foils his plan.  The dog gets stomped for ruining the moment.

 

There are a few cool death scenes in the movie.  A cop gets stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors, a pimp gets beat with his own arm before getting crushed by a propane tank, and a "Dead End" sign gets thrown into one of the nerds.  A few other gems during the film that will keep you watching.

 

The movie is okay, but it needed more senseless violence from the Sasquatch.  Throwing car tires and postal boxes at people are good, but there wasn't enough punching through heads from the Sasquatch.  It would have made this movie an instant classic if there were more of those scenes.

 

I give this movie 3 out 5 eye patches.

Kaw

If you have not seen the movie, The Birds, then I guess this movie could be somewhat entertaining.  At least the ravens were not all computer generated.

 

A flock of ravens have gone mad after they had eaten the meat of some diseased cattle.  The Mennonite farmers didn't disclose that they could have diseased cattle and they have doomed us all.  Mennonite are not to be confused with Amish.  The Mennonite have some of the modern day luxuries, such as black sedans, but they still have a commitment to traditional methods.  I could go on about the Mennonite religion, but this movie is about murderous ravens.

 

The ravens attack and kill several people in the town.  And the flock has a weird ability to sense danger.  During the movie, one of the deputies, heck .. I think he might be the only deputy, comes out with a gun and the flock goes wild.  The deputy retreats and the situation becomes more calm.  Well, as calm as it can be for a flock of ravens.

 

There is not much to see here, but I do have to applaud the people who put this film together.  There are not a lot of scenes with digital crows attacking people in front of a green screen.  It looks like they used some real birds along with some marionette birds.

 

It's not that great of a movie.  It is a cheap rip off of The Birds.  There is no way to disguise it.  At least they could have had the sheriff be named Alfred or Hitchcock.  Something like that to give a slight nod to this movie's predecessor.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 basketballs.

SS Doomtrooper

Creating a digital superhuman to destroy the enemy is one thing, but to do it in the 1940's, well now you have something.  While the Allies used nuclear power in a bomb, apparently the Germans used it to genetically alter some soldiers.

A German facility has begun testing genetic alterations on some animals.  And the head scientist is ready to take his testing to the next level and use a human test subject.  A lucky soldier is put in the both and when he comes out, he transforms into a nine foot wrecking ball of a man.  He is outfitted with gear and will be used to prevent the rag-tag bunch of Ally criminals that are out to destroy the facility.

The problem with having a nine foot super trooper that cannot be stopped by the Allies, he cannot be stopped by the Germans either.  The Doomtrooper has a few enhancements from the transformation.  He now has the ability to electrocute his victims via touch, he can withstand the blast of several grenades and a direct hit from a tank, but can't take someone cutting him with a pocket knife.  What a joke.

If they are not fighting the digital creature, then the group of soldiers are performing great heroic acts.  At one point in the movie, the "actor" can't think of how to get out of a situation, so he coughs while practically screaming for another soldier to open fire.  Pathetic.

Very few, if any, scenes to get excited about.  If you enjoyed The Thin Red Line, then this is a movie for you.

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 French resistance soldiers.

Candy Stripers

This is the kind of B-Movie that I like.  Barely any plot explanation, mostly non-digital special effects, and over-the-top senseless violence.  Add in some gratuitous nudity and you have the making of a classic.

 

Two girls are heading down the highway in their truck, when they encounter an overturned vehicle.  They investigate the scene and then they are on their way.  But there is something in the truck bed, and it means business.  Because the passenger is now in the hospital.  A candy striper sit and waits with the patient and when the patient wakes up, she calls the candy striper over and asks for a kiss before she dies.  The candy striper obliges and gets some sort of alien cucumber transferred to her.

 

The local basketball team is playing a game with a tough opponent and fights break out in the course of the game.  A few of the team get sent to the hospital for their injuries and this hospital is not exactly top notch.  There is a scene where the doctor is laughing as he tries to reset a dislocation of one of the players.

 

The infected candy striper begins to infect several other candy stripers and also some of the nurses.  COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT: A candy striper slices the neck of one security guard and a police officer shoots her in the forehead.  She drops, but comes back to life.  Another COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT: another candy striper pulls the heart out of the janitor and claims, "Men can be so heartless."

 

There are several scenes like this during the movie.  I was hoping for a few more, but there was enough to keep you watching.  The captain of the basketball team and his love interest are able to save the day.  But not before a head gets ripped off or having someone else getting their face melted off.  Worth the watch and even worth to watch again.

 

I give this movie 4 1/2 out of 5 insulin guns.

Sea Beast

It's not often that you lose a member of your crew in this fishing village.  But for one captain, he loses his entire crew.  Just not all at once.  We have a long movie people!

 

The digital sea beast for this movie is a cross between The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Predator.  The sea beast, not the movie plot or dialog or action or any other similarities, just the sea beast.  The sea beast has the ability to camouflage itself to an almost invisible state.  It has a paralyzing venom that is also a toxin.  It also has a tongue that has enormous reach and strength.  If this were a better movie, everyone would have a plush sea beast on their mantle.

 

Captain Will is trying to make ends meet and can't catch any fish.  One of his hands just got taken overboard and now a second hand has gone missing getting the boat ready to go back out to sea.  A green goo is found on the pier and Ms. Arden, who is a biologist, helps Captain Will determine that it is a toxin that behaves much like a deep sea angler fish.  Only this fish can live out of the water.

 

The third crew member has taken Captain Will's daughter to "the island" to have a get away weekend.  The island is crawling with younger sea beasts.  The two of them manage to keep alive.  In one scene, the crew member (Danny) has the sea beast's tongue wrapped around his ankle and to save him, the daughter (Carly) drops a heavy stone on the tongue which forces the tongue to drag the sea beast's face into the stone.

 

The only other scene worth watching is when the Harbor Master, Barbara, gets her head bitten off by the momma sea beast.  Other than that, it's business as usual.  And they get to kill the sea beast.

 

It's not that scary of a movie and the story jumps between characters a lot.  I would have liked to have seen more action when the digital sea beast was on screen.  Or maybe a foam sea beast that the people can wrestle with or something.

 

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 fishing vessels.

Dinocroc

Another mad experiment goes wrong when a research lab tries to use DNA from an ancient crocodile to splice into new specimens.  I don't even remember why they wanted to do this research.  I only know that the town of Grant's Lake is going to have some problems.

 

One of the funnier moments of the beginning is when one of the research team is trying to control the specimens after they begin to fight amongst each other.  She does this by banging on the glass and yelling, "Stop it!"  When that fails, she enters the chamber so that she can get attacked by one of the small dinocrocs.  What ... could .. she ... have ... been ... thinking?  "My taser will protect me!"  Sure.

 

The movie does not get any better after that scene.

 

The "croc doc" comes in to help get the dinocroc.  And what do you know, he's Australian.  He's an expert for tracking crocodiles.  If you want to track this croc, all you have to do is wait for the dramatic choir to start singing.  It's like the dinocroc theme or something.

 

The sheriff and deputies attempt to hunt down the croc, but they fail.  Five of the deputies are killed, which is apparently the entire force.  A plan is eventually put together to attempt to gas the croc with carbon monoxide.  Cue the montage.  Nothing says we don't have a lot of time, but want to show that we can get a lot of work done in that short time like a montage.

 

Two large gates are constructed and they lure the dinocroc into a sewer pipe, gas the croc.  They think that it's dead, but there is about 20 minutes left in the movie, so of course it's not dead.  Only after being hit with a nearby freight train, does the dinocroc become immobile and can have a large metal pipe shoved into its eye.

 

I know it's predictable.  I know that the female lead is eventually going to have a romantic encounter with the male lead.  And, I know that the person running the research facility will eventually get killed by the experiment that was created at their lab.  So why watch it?  I'm asking myself the same question.  No good kill scenes.  The digital dinocroc is more dinosaur than crocodile.  But they did have a real three legged dog named "Lucky", so I guess that was cool.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 three legged dogs.

Supercroc

Have you ever watch a movie so bad that you forgot it and watch it again?  I am guilty of that happening for this movie.  Supercroc is a super crock.

 

In the Los Padres National Forest, approximately 65 miles north of Los Angeles, a small team of soldiers is performing a maneuver.  Possibly a training exercise.  It doesn't seem to be too terribly important, because two of the team are not focused and keep talking of their wedding plans.  Meanwhile, back at command, they are monitoring the team's movements.  The command center is a small room that can barely hold six people and a couple of wide screens.

 

Of the first unit, only one soldier survives the brutal onslaught of an 80 foot digital crocodile.  The surviving female soldier that happens to be from Florida and is conveniently an expert on crocodiles.  A second unit is deployed to perform a rescue mission.  All of this seems rather normal military procedure.

 

Here is where the movie breaks down for me.  There is some research doctor lady in the command center.  She send a unit of soldiers out in a white van to collect a few of the eggs that the other two patrol units had discovered.  How she is allowed to manipulate the soldiers is amazing.  And the fact that they obey the orders from her is something else.

 

The Supercroc is mad and now is on the hunt for her lost eggs.  Supercroc has survived an air strike, being gassed, and being shot.  She is going to get to those eggs.  The eggs are moved to the AFB in Los Angeles.  The research doctor lady steals one of the eggs and hides it in a dumpster, then she is crushed by Supercroc.  The Supercroc finally gets taken out with a bomb to the belly.  And I was thankful that it finally got killed.  But now they have to worry about the dumpster egg.

 

I don't know if the people who wrote the film had much faith in the military or if they just didn't have the budget.  The people in charge panic a lot.  One solution was to nuke the croc.  I am glad it didn't come to that.  Seeing the digital crocodile attack the digital helicopter was fun, but the over-acting by several of the cast is just too much to take.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 crocodile eggs.

Bottoms Up

I originally was going to watch and review a classic, non-b movie to list here for April Fool's Day.  Instead, I just watched another Paris Hilton movie.  I guess the joke was on me.

This is not as bad of a movie as Pledge This!, but even having Jason Mewes around doesn't save this film.  It almost seems odd to look at Paris Hilton as a brunette.  I wonder which came first.  Her platinum hair color or her fame.

 

Owen (Jason Mewes) is a bartender at his dad's failing steakhouse.  He is one of these "Cocktail" type bartenders who flip the bottles around and create a show.  And he's pretty good at it.  He wants to enter a contest to win the prize money for his dads' steakhouse.  Only, the competition is out in Los Angeles.  He leaves Minnesota and is going to stay with his gay uncle Earl.  Owen enters the contest and loses.  But he still wants to find a way to get the money for his dad, so he begins helping out uncle Earl.  Uncle Earl works at the gossip program "The Hollywood Scoop".  Think of it as TMZ.

 

Owen has to blackmail Paris Hilton in order to try and get an interview with her boyfriend, who happens to be the hottest young actor around and refuses to give interviews.  Everything falls into place and it all works out in the end.  Basically, ... Owen needs to get the interview.  After getting to know everyone, he is in turmoil over if he should screw over his new friends or let things continue on without changing things.  He finally screws over one of the jerks of the group and wins the girl and the money.  The end.

 

A few boobs at a pool party and a couple of good lines.  But other than that, this is a yawner.  There are several familiar actors in the movie.  Look for "Silent Bob" (who is not silent or named Bob) and "Jackie Chiles" (from Seinfeld).  Paris Hilton looks like she is playing herself.  Bored, looking at her phone.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 fecal therapists.