BAD FILMS REVIEW... (Part 5)

This is how it should be going forward after the detour of parts two and three with part four returning to the norm with movies that I stumble onto or have been recommended to me. The first two on here (the one's nearer the bottom of the page) were requested to me to review from people who thought they were bad enough for me to check out. I will be the judge as I think I have a sympathetic eye compared to many out there and will give a movie a chance. With #24 loaned to me to watch and #23 suggested a while back but has been a struggle to source.

· So Bad – Its Fantastic

· So Bad – Its Good

· So Bad – Its Funny

· So Bad – Its Not Worth Your Time

· So Bad – It is Simply that - Bad.

· So Bad – Its Awful

As an added note, it It has been pointed out that my plots are very in depth and possibly too long which my retort was that it was sign posted of when it was starting and finishing allowing you the option to jump to the end. So, I may add less spoilers and detail and just burst through it. (well, I will try!).

Highlander 2: The Quickening (#27)

Back in 1991 a sequel was released of one of my favourite movies of the eighties, (surprisingly) Highlander. After the slow growing enthusiasm of the first movie with a mere $12.3m return from the box-office the movie had a ground swell of business after the video release. With a large fan base this movie accumulated a budget of $34m to create this movie. Directed by Russell Mulcahy the story by Brian Clemens and William Panzer and adapted to a Peter Bellwood screenplay. Produced by Peter Davis, William Panzer, and Jean-Luc Defait. Starring the returning hero from the first movie Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery [which got many heads scratched with that one], joined by new cast members Virginia Madsen, Michael Ironside, John C.McGinley, and Allan Rich. Released in the UK seven months before the US and a run time of one hundred minutes. I will dive into the plot now as I think that is enough background information.

Here is the poster/cover:

The Plot

!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

Those that hunt by night will tell you that the wildest and most vicious is the tiny shrew. The words of the introduction over shots of dark ominous clouds behind a silhouetted tree. It must eat its own body weight in a few hours, and it devours everything.

Ramirez & Conner plan their attack with glowing fingers and electric power!

Set five hundred years before the start of the original film and on the planet Zeist a last meeting is held between members of a rebellion against the corrupt leadership or General Katana. A wise sorcerer Ramirez choses Connor MacLeod as a man of great destiny to lead the group against Katana. Before they get to do anything Katana destroys the group and captures both men and along with many other criminals, they are sentence to be banished to Earth where they will be immortal [not a bad punishment]. They will be forced to fight one another until only one is left where that winner gets the prize of returning to Zeist with their crimes forgiven or stay on Earth as a mortal. Katana is unhappy with this decision, but they are sent to earth and the film Highlander is inserted here.

Old man at the opera.

Winning the prize MacLeod decided to become mortal marry a new woman and invents a giant toupee to cover the gap in the ozone layer. Like a giant hood across the planet turning, it into a dark and depressing land but safe from the hole causing all this bother. After some time, the world falls into depression due to the darkness, heat, and lack of seeing the stars. Despite being an old frail man there is a growing anti-Conner feeling in the world. Meanwhile on Zeist, Katana is now worried that Conner who’s been on earth for 20 years after winning the prize may well change his mind and return to Zeist so sends two henchmen to kill the old man.

The troops are sent in.

Cutting his hand Conner’s hand heals in seconds making him realise that he is no longer alone on earth with other immortals arrived. Louise Marcus is a former employee of the giant electronic toupee corporation and becoming a terrorist against the shield (toupee) she confronts MacLeod and asks he helps her with turning the toupee off. Conner turns the offer down when the two henchmen arrive and attack one is killed, and Conner absorbs his power and grows young and powerful again.

He kills the other one and calls Ramirez. He appears at the point he was killed which just so happens to be a stage in a theatre. He gets ready and books a flight to New York.

Ramirez on stage in Hamlet.

The plot concludes

MacLeod hooks up with the terrorist Louise who has seen that everything is fine above the Toupee. They team up and plan to do something about the shield and have it turned off. Meanwhile back on their home planet Katana has decided to sort out the problem himself and goes to earth to kill MacLeod himself.

Katana arrives and knows what a tube train is and how to drive and crash it.

Katana then teams up with the shield production company that is holding the world extortion charging them to keep them safe although knowing that everything has fixed itself without the world’s pollution.

The first Conner v Katana fight

Ramirez, MacLeod and Louise break into the company and Ramirez sacrifices himself [for no good reason]. He magically holds up a spinning blade which rather than running from (he has the time) he just stands there waiting for it to drop, because it is his time.

Sacrifice time.

Which sets up the ultimate battle between Conner and Katana where he gets to wield his old sword and kill Katana allowing him to absorb all new energy and become the prize winner all over again. YEAH!

PLOT ENDS - ITS SAFE TO READ ON

Summary

I decided to include this movie purely for personal reasons. As I would have been at College when this was released and the boyish pride that came with being loyal to something was strong in this one. I loved the original movie and still do, to this date and even back then I saw the flaws straight away. It showed more cables than any other movie I’d seen before. The plot was weak to say the least!! An Egyptian, Spaniard with the strongest Scottish accent you could imagine. A Scotsman with one of the worst accents ever, a sword that would smash the others apart, a sword that couldn’t possibly be pulled apart and stand the abuse it did. There are more but I think you get the point! However, I loved it! The whole idea the theory and the story is fantastic and the soundtrack was epic which all rolled together to create one of my favourite up-epic movies ever. It just struck a perfect chord and I loved it. Now that said I was bound to love the sequel, I told everyone that I would because I was confused as to how they could make a new one unless Conner was dead and new immortals had arrived on Earth thus beginning a new game. No Conner was in it so that can’t be the case. Hang on Ramirez (and Sean Connery) was back in it as well. It must mean a prequal (those hadn’t really been invented by then but hey they are breaking ground here and things should be wonderful. Then I watched this movie and tried to defend it, it was impossible.

It is possibly one of the worst movies out there. I think I watched it once and tried so hard to like it and even brought it and never watched the video. The plot is awful and ugly, and it tries to be hip and environmental, but it even fails at that. The villain is a good villain but by any stretch of imagination he is a MORON!! You have sentenced a criminal to do his time as an immortal on another planet. OK you have banished someone from their own planet but then you make them immortal that is a pretty sweet gig. You would be a god among men with this ability. As proven with the scenes of duels and killing Nazis after getting shot themselves. Wow was a punishment that is. The whole principle is stupid. Katana hates that the punishment is that and I fully understand that. Particularly as he expects them to be killed by each other but then gets pissed off that one of the criminals’ wins. Well one of them was going to anyway. He then worries that they will return to his planet and wreak havoc. I get that so he sends his men down to kill an old man. Thus, giving him the power again and making him young again. I mean FFS! They just so happen to send two and the second death means that Conner MacLeod can bring Ramirez back. I mean PLEASE! What a dumpster fire of a plot this is. It then gets worse with a death trap of a spinning blade slowly descends onto the group. There is a door which MacLeod and Louise walk through but despite the blade being above his head Ramirez must stay to hold the blades back with his power. What f**king power is he a jedi now? Then why just stand there? Just hold it up with your Jedi powers and step out of the room. Don’t just wait for your mates to step out and wait ya dumass!!

I have a tip for anyone making a movie sequel when making a following movie respect the first movie. You don’t have to love it or just remake it (Star Wars take note) just respect it. What this movie does in an attempt to bring love characters back it shits all over the original movie. For really not a good enough reason. To have a back story from another planet and Earth is a punishment well that says a lot for those watching doesn’t it. You are scum and others think you are as well, so much so that they will punish their criminals by making them live with you. Plot holes in the first were nothing compared to this movie. You are left scratching your head for the whole movie and asking one simple and unanswerable question. Why did you bother making this movie? There can be no justification for this dog turd of an effort. There are poor movie and then there is a whole new level or poor and this transcends them. There is nothing to like about this movie, the villain is good but a complete idiot that if he did nothing everything would be find for him. Just like Basil Fawlty he must stick his nose in and wonder why it all goes wrong ‘its all your fault! Muppet!’

The makers realised how bad this movie was when they turned a $34m budget into a $15.6m return from the box office. If that doesn’t spell the word flop, I don’t know what does. The facts of the matter if you want to watch this gem you probably cannot anymore. The only versions available have been tweaks and cut and changed in a desperate attempt to turn this a half decent movie. What is that expression? You cannot polish a turd and despite the best efforts the story is horrid and the movie that I was desperate to love turned into a disaster and when they released the third movie, they ignored the second movie ever existed with the exception of the title that had Highlander 3 rather than Highlander 2 (a do-over). They could of run with Highlander: Mulligan we’ll put things right. They completely ignored all aspects of this movie to make the third. Fair play to them for putting their hands up and saying we want nothing to do with that thing and we are standing on the shoulders of the first movie not the second.

When it comes to scoring this movie I guess you know where it is going and I want to get this out there for the public to see that I cannot stand this movie and honestly I must of seen this movie less than five times and I know how awful it was that I haven’t even bothered to watch it again to write this review I will just leave it that no matter what you are doing and what’s happening in your life it is not as bad as wanting or being tempted to put this movie on and give it the air time. Go and watch the first movie twice and pick the plot holes and flaws out of that it is more fun than anything this movie can offer in any way, shape, or form. It is simply awful, and it may be my personal reasons for hating it, but this is one of the worst movies I have ever owned.

The Verdict:

Highlander 2: The Quickening... It’s simply awful.

The Killer Shrews (#26)

A movie from 1959 which means that my new seam that I plan on mining it is not just the eighties (see previous review), but we are going to be going for all era’s of shit movies. I am not saying this movie is shit because I haven’t seen it yet (I am lying I have seen this movie) that’s why its here! I will add just to add a bit of honesty here, this is much better than many movies already reviewed on here. Sorry getting back to the reason why I am here this movie must have been a huge success with a made-up budget of $123,000 it went on to make a million! Produced by the legend Ken Curtis the American Singer and Gordon McLendon the radio broadcaster. Written by Jay Simms and Directed by Ray Kellogg who invented cornflakes (OK maybe he didn’t). It stars Alfred DeSoto, “Judge” Henry Dupree, Baruch Lumet, Gordon McLendon, Ken Curtis, Ingrid Goude, and James Best. That is the entire cast by the way, and I am aware of James Best and that’s it. The producers had to get themselves a part and they roped in Ingrid to be the beautiful female lead. Then there is pretty racist role given to Henry Dupree which I will get to later once I watch the movie.

This movie of ‘The Killer Shrews’ (non) horror flick was up against some pretty weak competitors this year with the likes of Ben-Hur, Some Like it Hot, Rio Bravo, and North by North-West. With such weak competition you might be surprised to know that this movie ranked a very lofty 172nd in that year’s box office scores. This movie starred James Best who went on to become ‘Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane’ in ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’ I have ruined this for you as when I watched it for the first time realising who that was is just fantastic to be surprised with when you watch a movie that you think is rubbish and then are taken aback. Here is the poster:

Whoops!!! I can only humbly apologies as this is clearly NOT the poster for the film as it’s just a picture of a bar of Toblerone chocolate. I have no idea what happened there!?! Let me apologise again and give me a second to correct this with the correct poster. Give me a second or two and I will go online and find the poster. Aha I think I have found it now. Apologies again here is the poster I was actually after.

OK to sell this to you a bit more here is some of the blurb they used. They had to eat three times their body weight each day... OR STARVE! On an isolated island, a small group of people are terrorized by giant voracious shrews in the midst of a hurricane.

Should I shut up and get onto the movie now?

The Plot

Those that hunt by night will tell you that the wildest and most vicious is the tiny shrew. The words of the introduction over shots of dark ominous clouds behind a silhouetted tree. It must eat its own body weight in a few hours, and it devours everything.

OK we are off for a scary thrill ride now.

We begin on a ship as it sails towards an island the Captain Thorne Sherman and his trusted number two Rook Griswold. They are discussing a hurricane thats due to hit and they think it'll be safer to sit this one out close to shore and then sail home the next day.

Rook and the Captain.

There is a bit of camaraderie between these two with the captain saying if he had autopilot, he wouldn’t have to put up with him. While his retort is if I weren’t here who would you chew out? They explain that a hurricane is about to hit, and they are pleased to see an island that they are aiming for. It is owned by a man named Cragis who’s name is on the crate that they are bringing. They decide to leave the stuff on the ship to weigh it down along with using the heavy weather hook. They paddle ashore they spot three people walking towards them and their interest is peaked. They walk to meet them. The older man is Dr Cragis who shakes hands with Captain Sherman. He spots the younger man carrying some heavy weapons. Double barrelled and a pistol. The captain is new as the previous guy wasn’t here and they are now low on supplies, the doctor also requests a passenger for the return leg the blonde lady who is also in the greeting party. The doctor’s daughter, they look very disappointed when the captain says that he won’t be leaving today or even unloading. The four head back when the three came as the likeable black guy Rook Griswold heads back to the boat. The captain asks about the weapons and is told about the dangerous animals on the island, and he tells Rook that should he come back ashore to wear a gun. They head in different directions.

Not exactly sure how the captain leads the way when it’s his first trip, but he takes them to the house. Which has a high heavy looking fence around the building they invite the captain in for cocktails. Mario looks incredibly surprised by this request.

Mario - The plumber from that game thing.

Who’s Mario? It just so happens he is a plumber that’s staying at the house. OK I may have made that up, but he was in the house, and he was surprised by being asked to make martini’s. “Si Señor,” a bow and he goes to mix the drinks. They are propping up a small bar when the girl leaves to get changed and some bloke walks in a sits down. Ignoring the doctor calling him as he reads his papers, sits down and starts typing. Radford is oblivious to anyone else in the room, well its Dr Radford Baines to be precise. He is eventually introduced to the captain, but he is too busy talking about the different batches and introducing them to different factors. The Doc explains that he is another assistant. I think that’s the entire cast introduced in the first ten minutes ready to be eaten later in the movie.

The doctor gives more conjecture about being practical scientists about taking small mammals and scaling them up [Based on the movie name you can really see where this is going!].

The Captain is getting to know Ann.

Ann the daughter arrives and whispers to her dad the doc before the captain asks that she drops the Captain when talking to him he prefers Thorne. Thorne is now quizzing the doctors about whether they have been through a hurricane before, with a big one due to hit tonight. He tells the doc to open some windows because the hurricane will lower the pressure. The assistant doctor comes in with a shrew saying it is the sole survivor of batch thirty. It’s not a breakthrough but it is step in the right direction. The captain asks how big they get and all three exchange worrying glances.

Now it is getting dark, so Rook decides to leave the boat and I ask why now? He doesn’t answer me and rows to shore. Meanwhile Mario has stopped chasing coins and rescuing princesses long enough to be asked to take the captain somewhere he can freshen up. Mario is asking when the captain is going back which he explains he will wait for the wind to die down before deciding to sail. Mario sees his point and the Captain is glad.

Ann had a go at Jerry for getting drunk and leaving the cage door open. He storms out but returns after listening to the Captain and Ann chatting. Jerry is not a happy man, and it sounds like he was engaged to Ann and as of last night they are not. The captain heads out to the porch to watch the hurricane (as you do). Meanwhile Rook is hearing strange animals and his torch and gun are no match for the failing film quality and crackles and speckles ruin the mood. It is finally now that we get to see the shrews.

Killer Man Eating Shrews No Less

They do look somewhat like some dogs that have had some fur glued to their heads and backs. Including a tail much longer than the ones under the glued-on fur. It is as this point there is a fantastic cut and redo. As Rook flees the giant Shrews he trips and then falls over a log landing in a perfect position to be eaten. Instead, they cut, and he goes back to the spot before he fell and this time rather than falling, he decides to climb a tree instead. Very amusing. Whilst he is up the tree, he calls for help and we are supposed to believe that he cannot be heard because of the thunder.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Rosco I mean Captain Thorne is standing watching the rain whilst Jerry is threatening Ann to keep her mouth shut when daddy doctor walks in. They try and find the captain and he is literally inches from the door in the living room with his back to the door watching the storm. He could of easily of heard them call for dinner. Opening the door, he comes in for dinner.

With all this luxury and wife [to be] abuse going on the token black guy is up a tree firing a pistol at the three of four giant shrews below. He clearly went to the Stormtrooper school of killing as they are not stopping until he conveniently falls behind some bushes where the Shrews run behind and all you get it shaking bushes and his screams. Your imagination can do the rest for this kill.

The dogs sorry I mean Shrews - The Killer Shrews!!

A lightning bolt hits a tree, and it falls as the Shrews watch on. The captains knows that if any trees should fall, they would fall away from the house so there is nothing to worry about. [How does he know that? The answer is simple. Don't Ask!] In fact, he is going to go back to his ship. Which is on the ocean in the middle of a hurricane, Why? Is being on a ship safer than being in a heavy protected house? I’m just asking for a friend.

Ann tries to Stop Captain Sherman

The tension rises as Toblerone boobs asks the captain to stay. He asks is it because you are scared or lonesome. She says both. He declines so she points out that no-one opens that gate after dark. Nah he is still going to leave so she pulls a gun on him to stop him leaving, he wants answers, and she will tell him now, so she gives up the gun. ToblerAnn (see what I did there?) tells the Captain Rosco P that there are 50 to 100 Giant Shrews running wild on the island. They have grown up to five hundred pounds of pure killing machines and to stay safe he has to stay behind that fence. He then thanks her for not letting him go out there and ‘thanks for saving my skin’ the number increases quickly as the captain says there is two to three hundred out there. Jerry walks in and says if you played row boats instead of turning detectives then you wouldn’t have had to have worried about them would you. The captain is so caring and thoughtful he doesn’t mention that he has left Rook behind on a ship to do battle with a hurricane and if that don’t get him the 300 giants shrews might. Nah not even a word about him. The doctor walks in and he explains that the shrews continued to grow. There was only six of them and they grew and grew and escaped and then we didn’t see them anymore. The sunlight hurts them, so they hide during the day and forage during the night. They tried to get into the compound so the food supply must have run out and now they are hunting us. Jeeze they really look like Toblerone’s don’t they.

I suddenly want to eat some chocolate.

The shrews have gotten into the barn and the horses cry out as the Shrews kill and eat them (you must imagine that as they didn’t have the budget for that). The horses sound like human voices apparently and finally the Captain is suddenly concerned about Rook. Well, I am just glad that someone is. Jerry punches him in the face because he thought he was going to open the gates.

The doctor explains why they chose the island and as the Shrews won’t go in the water. The plan to leave on the boat tomorrow as soon as its light. Leaving one person on watch through the night, they all retire for the night except for Mario who wanders around with a torch. He finds Jerry drunk who talks a lot of trash and then says that the two of them should team up to outlast the others. He lets Mario take his turn 'on watch' while drunk Jerry goes to sleep, at the same time one of the Shrews has broken into the kitchen and as Mario comes in, it hides in the basement.

Like a puppet on a stick.

Mario and the captain head off to find it and kill it. Not much happens as loud scary music plays, finally something happens as the Shrews leaps up and bites a lump out of Mario’s leg. Captain Thorne kills the shrew with the gun and the other men run down to the cellar. Its too late as Mario is already dead. That was quick from a single bite.

Doctors doing scientific stuff.

They do tests and science guy says that the saliva has a high poison count. The doctor confesses that they put poison out to kill the wild Shrews weeks ago, they must have absorbed it and now they are more deadly than snakes. The doctor says that the walls are two foot deep so they cannot get in, but the Captain is still worried. Cut to the outside wall being chewed through by a shrew and a handful crawling through the hole to run around in the kitchen.

At ten to six the captain hatches a plan. We throw the dead shrew out and see if it gets eaten if nothing does then I will go get the boat ready and fire a flare for you to join me and Root when we are ready and we can all get off this island.

Whoops sorry again!

Not sure how these errors keep happening.

Next morning, they go and check the bate and nothing has touch it after 20 minutes. So that must mean its safe and they all escape the island just by walking off it. Climbing in a boat and Bob’s your Uncle. The captain is off, but Toblerone suggest that Jerry goes with to protect him. [Yeah, I am sure that’s going to happen.]

SPOILER ALERT AS I AM GOING TO THE FINISH NOW.

Well true to form Jerry pulls a double barrel on Rosco P Coltrane and tells him to keep away from Toblerone Ann. Captain slugs him and takes his gun off him then the dogs I mean the Shrews are running. They reach the boat and Rook cannot hear them shouting [BECAUSE HE’S DEAD AND YOU LEFT HIM!!] Then find a shoe and some blooded clothes that were Rooks. Captain is angry for nearly 5 seconds before they realise the Shrews are following them and have to run. Jerry gets ahead and gets inside the compound first and locks it behind him. The captain is forced to jump over the fence and then beats him up and is about to throw him out of the compound when he stops and leaves him on the floor. Telling the others that Jerry has tried to kill him twice in the last five minutes. ToblerAnn offers them coffee and goes to the kitchen when one burst into the room and bites Dr Rad. Who sits at the typewriter and types all his symptoms right up until his death in 2 minutes time. Meanwhile the other ‘four’ Shrews are now eating their way through the walls.

Oh no the shrews are breaking in.

They escape to the outer compound and find some metal drums where the captain hatches yet another plan. Finding large chemical drums, they start welding them together finishing it off by tying the barrels together with rope. Cutting some eye holes, they carry the barrels and slowly move along like a tank. Jerry is too scared and decides to hide up on the roof as they leave.

Like an old Roman Soldier tactic, shields at the ready.

After they have gone, Jerry just walks out without any shrews in sight, until he walks into a pack of them and gets eaten conveniently behind some more bushes.

Just as ToblerAnn is about to pass out in the metal tank walker she realises that its sand underfoot and they must be on the beach and nearly at the boat. This revelation makes her get more strength and more consciousness and they speed up and basically route march to the sea. After wading out till they are really deep with the barrels nearly full, so they duck under the bottom and swim for the safety of the boat. See –

There is a reason for showing you this shot as you will see in the next one. Will highlight later but they have reached the boat and are now safe see below.

PLOT ENDS - ITS SAFE TO READ ON

Summary

I shall begin my summary with the picture below which highlights that they looked after the actors in this movie. See they didn’t actually make them swim in water they merely asked them to pour a bucket of water over their heads. Which is highlighted in the picture below, where they have dry sections of clothes particular the sides and under chocs remained dry. The Doctor cunningly wore dark clothes so you cannot see the dry bits compared to the wet bits. Well, it was either that or he actually swam in the sea.

Introduction into the next set of movies is due as I believe I have found a new seam worth mining of bad movies or at least watching some movies again to see if my initial opinion that this was shite was correct. Maybe I was having a bad day and missed something important that turned this movie into a hidden gem. I will be going back to the eighties which is an era that I thought I knew well with a rich plethora of horror movies many of which I know and love. Well, I never heard of a movie called Chopping Mall an eighties horror movie that set robots against humans in a shopping mall that turned dangerous.

Clearly a low budget movie starring no less than seven actors in total but still has more spent on its special effects budget than on the actors based on watching this. I will come back to the special effect a bit later as I will begin going through this movies many faults, but I will begin the next paragraph with a positive.

The first thing to mention about this movie is that it only lasts 1 hour and 6 minutes so even if you loved it, you get a speedy gem of joy to cherish if not you don’t have to endure this for too long. I have perhaps overindulged with the plot above as I wanted to make this sound like an epic but you can tell that each room is filled with vast areas of nothing. There are some issues with sound and wherever I’ve seen this the same part has poor film quality which you could easy put down to time damaging some of the sections. Time and not enough love will do that to a movie. This is a sixty-two-year-old movie so you should expect something to go if its not had lots of love over the year.

Moving on from the quality of the film itself there were other things that distracted me. This is a proper old school low budget movie and trying to hide the poor elements of the movie. Starting with the story it is very weak and for me they basically went - How can we make a horror movie without any actors? Aha - stick them on an island which limited the people there to exactly how many actors we can afford and/or can talk into performing in this. Tick! But what evil force could they be battling? I dunno, Why not just have some mutants running around! Great - What the most terrifying thing you can think of? Bears? Lions? Wolves? No, they are already really scary, and people will spot that we have made fake ones. We need something that is scary, but we can control ourselves. We need to produce something that is dangerous to the characters but are controllable and easy to work with. Dogs we can train dogs!! Perfect but we need to make them scary. We could stick something over them, like fur or foam. They put some fur on some hounds. Yes, that works lets call them something else. Looks up mammals that eat a lot and eats live things. Shrews we’ll just call them shrews. Done we are really onto something. With a bit of movie jiggery pokery close ups here and special effects there this will be too easy. Off we go – a cheap yet epic story is born.

I must admit that even for the period the special effects on this movie are laughable. Sellotaping fur on dogs would not convince a toddler and the rubber faced head on a stick pushed through holes with teeth the size of a small canoe again would not convince a blind rabbit that these shrews were chasing them. With that said this movie made me jump more than once. Were they good jump scares, again no but there was something about the lighting and the face of the shrews (I even hate writing that) in the shadow it is very slightly spooky and eery? You know very quickly that this movie isn’t going to scare you so when you get the jump scare, they are more of a surprise. You do not see one beast kill anything in this movie, the killing of Rook is behind a bush likewise with the jerk of the piece Jerry. The horses are killed ‘Off Camera’ and the screams sound like humans. The wires pulling the bushes to simulate the Shrews attack is poor and that’s a compliment.

The acting is just as poor as the special effects. Dr Rad is simply unbelievable and poor character all around. He is simply not needed except to be shrew fodder. They tear his trousers along with Mario’s who dies almost instantly because of the poison saliva, or they couldn’t afford to have an attack on screen so they made something up. The doctor is almost patronising. Ann has an accent that she mentioned but doesn’t explain why she has it. Jerry plays a drunk a little too well (no he doesn’t). Why the captain lets him off with trying to kill him twice in less than five minutes I don’t know why. He even produces the plan to save the douche as well. Why? It is not logical but even then, the realistic character of Jerry still turns him down to climb on the roof. And then get down and run out into the island to be killed behind a bush. Ann is wooden but I was putting that down to the accent and not speaking in her native tongue. Rook and the Captain were the best and believable, yet Rook is never on screen and I’d assume the Captain was the only one that got paid to appear in this.

To conclude and in all honesty, this is a poor effort all around and it is summed up right at the end where they climb out of the sea dry. The special effect is awful, the acting is atrocious, the story is weak and cobbled together, the film is cheap and everything about this is laughable. Which I think is why I like it and would recommend giving this steaming pile of dog sorry Shrew dropping a watch. If I could put my finger on it, I would explain it here but I like the movie and it is not because of the Toblerone’s as they just add to the reasons to laugh at this flick. The film from beginning makes you giggle and those laughs just keep coming as despite those behind the camera’s clear hard work to make a thriller, but they have ended up with a comedy. Which is why I liked it because they just ran with it. Unlike Rook who fell into the perfect position to be eaten by the shrews only to miraculously reappear back before he fell over which sums up the comedy gold of this movie. Seriously go watch this and play spot the mistakes or bad acting all for yourselves.

THE VERDICT –

The Killer Shrews = So Bad – It’s funny and worth an Hour of your time.

Chopping Mall (#25)

A movie that was originally released at Killbots may have been a reason why I have not heard of it. It hit an unsuspected world in 1986. Written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell and produced by Julie Corman. Jim Wynorski doubled up by having directing duties as well. It cost a budget of $800,000 if you compare that with the most successful movie of that year ‘Top Gun’ which had a production budget of $15 million. Chalk and cheese by any standards. Budgets are just budgets if you look at 1999’s Blair Witch movie it had a budget of $500,000 and went on to make nearly $250 million. That said any movie changing its name is not a sign there is normally a negative reason for this. Normally (but not always) its down to the movie not selling so in a desperate bid to make more money they change a name to get to a different audience. Added to that it rarely works. I have seen this movie relatively recently and I thought it was bad so I will give it another go and see how we go from there. I will begin as always with the poster.

Not the Killbot poster.

Also, when the poster has very little to do with the actual movie is also a worry. Not the robots do not have human hands and they do not carry body parts around in carrier bags. I can see why they changed away from Killbots though.

The Killbots Poster

The robots do look like something out of a return to Oz movie and could easily be a Disney movie about a rogue robot befriending a young boy to hide him from his evil mall running owners that use him like a slave. It doesn’t look like a horror movie poster does it. However, this is closer to the movie story that the post that they ran with above. Shall I get to the plot now.

THE PLOT

We begin in fake ending as a robbery is thwarted by a robot and then ‘The End’ pops up just to fool us. The robots use speedy wheels and tasers to bring down the criminal. This is a presentation of the robots. It is explained that they have pincers and darts to bring a person down. The eye lasers can cut through any debris, and they are bullet proof. The crowd is assured that nothing can go wrong.

There are multiple attempts at humour during the presentation and then in the opening shots which are quite feeble attempts. Including insulting a fat bloke and a chef using his shirt to clean a spatula. Guess what? A thunder and lightning storm suddenly hits outside and strikes the mall roof which shoots a bolt into the robots who activate. The scientist doesn’t notice as he is busy looking at porn. He gets stabbed through the magazine and into his throat.

We meet the three boys who I guess will be the main victims, sorry I mean characters. They are being left in charge of a shop. The nerdy one of the group’s Uncle owns the store, this means they have the means to have a ‘after closed party’ using the furniture stores items for sale on a Friday night. The three consist of a run of the mill guy forever called ‘normal’ on this review who has a long-haired blonde girlfriend. A douche jock who chews with his mouth open and has a big breasted blonde-haired girlfriend. Finally, the dork who is in charge for some reason, as his uncle is away and for some reason trusts him. They each have a date and the long blonde who initially comes across as caring and nice is trying to set up a fellow waitress ‘Alison’ with the dork for the party. Here is a pic for reference:

Douche (Jock) on the left and 'Normal' on the right

Nerd or Dork I'll let you decide.

Blonde (with 'Jock' in the background)

Long Blonde and 'Alison'

Meanwhile a random couple have broken down in a car. They are a car repair company, and the woman proves she is a better mechanic as she repairs the car before the guy does. He has to be convinced to go to the party at the store, but they agree to go. Here is a picture reference of them at the party.

The 'New' couple.

The guy chewing gum with his mouth open manages to grope the blonde in front of her dad and gets away with it. They kiss also with the gum! How is that possible, well its gross anyway.

Meanwhile, the replacement lab guy arrives to relieve the other ‘dead’ guy and finding him missing assume he has already left for the day and takes over. Sitting and reading a book. The secretly active robots are behind him and slowly creep up. The robots could of killed him easily about three times by now but for some reason they are sneaking up and not wanting to be spotted. Why? I have no idea there is no one else in the room and no one can see them doing anything so why stay in secret when they already know they are going to kill this guy.

The driving couple have joined the party with loud music, snogging, and dancing is in full affect. The first blonde with the ‘normal guy’. The nerd and the girl are introduced and smile while soppy music plays. Just saying hi gets the blonde and the normal guy going. The amount of clothes worn by all is being reduced. They all start shagging on the beds that they are trying to sell during the day. Elsewhere in the shop nerd and the new girl watch a crappy movie [yes I recognise it and I might have to review it sometime]. They are clearly not having sex so they must survive. The other three couples are getting it on so they must be doomed.

Dick (that's his real name before you say anything)

Hey, they have the guy from Gremlins (Dick Miller who played Billy’s neighbour the one who drives the big truck whose TV plays up because of Gremlins on the aerial) mopping the floors. When the three robots go online and start going around the mall. He is mopping with the dirtiest mop ever. He is doing his best when the first bot arrives to the un-sinister music. The bot knocks the bucket over and then asks for ID. It first a taser into the mop water then electrifies it killing him.

Jock chewing guy gets sent out by the blonde to buy cigarettes from a machine. Synthesizer violin music plays as nothing actually happens, he turns as he hears something. The mall pay phone rings instead which is followed by yet another poor attempt at a payphone joke. THEN THE BOT ARRIVES!! It asks Jock for ID which he shows but that doesn’t stop it, so he gets tasered and then as he is on the floor the robot slits his throat with those mechanical arms.

The toes are already crunched.

The boobs sorry I meant ‘blonde’ goes looking for him. Finding him wiggling his toes she finds him in the shadows and trips over him pulling him into the light revealing his sliced throat. The robot arrives and gives chase as she runs away. Robot 1 is chasing and firing lasers at her back that seems to burn holes in her shirt but then as she reaches the store it hits her head and it explodes (like the dude in scanners). Boom!! Not sure why it only burnt her clothes before rather than bore straight through her back. It leaves nothing on her shoulders and a mere two streaks of blood on the window of the store as her friends stood and watched. [OK backing up here, my questions are if his throat was cut, and he was dead why he wiggled his toes.][Oh, just thought of another why didn’t they use this laser before! If they are on a killing spree this would be the most effective weapon!] Then it cuts back to the girl lying dead on the floor with the back of her head still attached [Hang on it was just blown off but now it’s back? HOW?]. There is yet another feeble attempt at humour when the robot says, ‘thank you, have a nice day’ and no it isn’t funny. What is funny is that the robot runs over the poor actresses while she plays dead on the floor it runs over her toes at it drives past.

A second robot ‘Robot 2’ arrives, and they smash through the glass shop doors. Entering they fire their lasers at the three remaining couples as they run away. Missing everyone of them but hitting items around the store. The robots are now shooting different coloured lasers with one firing blue with the other red. Red is firing loads and the blue every so often, that said they cannot hit any of the people they shoot worse than stormtroopers. When up against metal doors these super high-tech lasers leave just brown burn smudges on the door. [Leaving me confused as to whether they are powerful or not]. It is at this point that the store closes and all the outer doors are sealed and locked tight until 6am tomorrow morning. They work out that they could crawl through the ducts and climb their way to the ground floor car park which isn’t locked and they would be free. Only the girls get up there before the robots arrive splitting the boys and girls up.

Long blonde says she is too hot, and the robots are cooking the vents to get them out. Then she says she wants to go and protect her man. She screams that she wants to get out. Meanwhile the boys are running and go to a sporting goods store and stock up on guns and shells. God bless America they are tooled up and look like the A-Team. They shoot a weapon luring the first Robot out. Taking aim, they blast it with everything they have. [They do this whilst standing in the open with no cover whilst facing a robot with killer lasers] The robot drives towards them ignoring the bullets like they weren’t there and starts firing its laser. No need to worry as it misses all of them. [My word this is a shit movie]. Sorry I digressed, eventually they take cover and continue to hit the Robot with every shot meanwhile the robot cannot hit one of them. This has to be the wrong way around, right? They role a gas canister in front of the robot and shoot the canister (A’la Jaws) BOOM it blows up. We don’t see them cheering as we cut back to the girls in the vents knowing that if they reach the car park they can actually escape with their lives. Blonde decides she’s getting out and breaks a vent and drops back into mall to starts searching for the boys.

The boys grab two more gas canisters whilst the girls make petrol bombs. Alison the geeky girl grabs a flair [please take a note of this as we will need it for the plot later] whilst the other girls make petrol bombs. Why can you buy petrol (that’s Gas Americans reading this!) at the mall? Nope, I don’t know! The first robot (Robot 1) has repaired itself and is back online. A robot chases the girls, and they scream a lot before they light one of the petrol can’s and slide it into the path, but the robot just drives through it. It shoots long blond in her back and she goes down. The robot is at point blank and firing but failing to hit anyone of the girls let alone the prone girl on the floor right in front of you!!

Robot cannot hit a damn thing!

The robot then shoots the petrol can in her hand and rather than exploding like you would expect, it merely sets the girl on fire and absolutely nothing else. I mean nothing. Honestly, just her alone, not even the can. See -

The girl is on fire.

Not even the other petrol cans have gone up just our poor girl who didn’t want to stay in the vents. The boys arrive and seeing his girlfriend burning the ‘normal’ guy starts firing again. Once again not bothering to take any cover from the killer lasers.

Seriously take some ****ing cover people!

Admittedly the robots couldn’t hit a barndoor with a shovel but still you would think they would step to one side at least. They run and dub sound on of sneakers on the floor and the steps on the stairs are laughable. Especially as normal guy follows, and his shoes make no sound at all on the same stairs. Luring number 2 into the elevator they blow the canisters the boys have set up and the lift falls destroying number 2 for good. Normal guy is drinking beers and starts some in-fighting blaming the girls for getting out of the shafts which was his girlfriend’s fault. Then nerdy guy hatches a plan of going to the roof to shut down the computer which will shut down the robots. Cue excited electro music.

SPOILER ALERT AS I AM GOING TO THE FINISH NOW.

They run around some more with the ‘normal guy’ eager to revenge his girlfriend getting ahead. He turns at the top of the stairs saying hurry up its perfectly safe as one sneaks up behind him throwing him off the top of the mall. Plunging 5 or 6 floors to his death. He leaves quite a neat puddle of blood around his undamaged body. They run some more but suddenly the escalators are working again so the robots can use them to change floors and hunt them down. Don’t ask why they are suddenly working again just accept it and continue.

They hide in another shop while one robot lasers his way through the door. Robot 3 goes to a higher level to continue the search. The group rest and snuggle together while the robot is burning its way in. They decide to hide in plain sight using mannequins and continue shooting at the robot that does nothing to it.

You just can't spot them humans can you?

They pull some of the blankets there revealing a mirror which the robot shoots and it’s the first thing it has hit all night as it hits itself. Sending itself into a laser firing frenzy. For some reason the dark hair Linda just stops in the open to watch the laser show. Gets shot. (like duh!) Making boyfriend angry who then drives a cleaning truck at the spinning robot which electrocutes him and the truck and this somehow kills Robot 3. How? Don’t ask such questions just accept that that an electrocuted robot firing lasers dies when hit by a small electric vehicle. Simple. Moving on, don’t dwell on this.

The boy dies from the shock and then the robot explodes just to prove that it is dead. The final ‘non-sex’ couple are left alive. With one robot left rather than destroy it they plan on using the computer to shut it down still. Oh, I just noticed that they put the bandage for Alison’s arm over her jumper like a sleeve garter.

Oh no Alison has been hurt!

Seriously what is that doing? Sticking her clothes to the wound? Sorry I forgot the motto of this movie. Simply don’t ask and move on swiftly. She just better not pull that sleeve down. Sneaking into the lab a random thing falls down on Alison which I have no idea what it was or why it would fall just at that time. Seriously what the hell is that thing? [Answers on a postcode to…]

Random

This is the same point where the nerd waves a gun on the wrong side of the door. Seeing as if a robot was there, it was would have blown his arm off before he knew anything. This movie is getting worse. [I didn’t think that was possible]

The only way to make an entrance.

They walk down dark corridors and try and open clearly locked storage cupboards. Alison walks straight into a robot and screams. The boy comes running and shots at the laser. The robot reports a laser malfunction and throws a canister at the boy who appears dead on the floor making Alison sad and angry. She runs and the last remaining robot gives chase, to some really upbeat 80’s electro pop music. She runs into a pet store and hides under a cupboard shielded by a bag of dog food. The robot smashes cages and spiders and snakes crawl all over Alison who doesn’t move. Good girl you just stayed alive. She gets up removing the clear rubber spiders (may not be as clear in the pic below) but this is so she could stamp on them. See the director cares for animals, just not actors.

Rubber Spiders.

It is after she stands up that the shot clearly leaves the words ‘cock starter’ on the right-hand side of the screen for some random reason. See:

Now thats what I call advertisers.

Sorry I digressed again. She tiptoes around until she screams at something that jumps out at her and the chase continues into the mall. She hides by climbing over the banister but slips and falls. Luckily onto a marque that saves her except she can’t get up and has to crawl everywhere now. She finds the flair (remember the significance from earlier) and headbutting her way into a paint shop. She opens lots of tins of paint and throws it everywhere, calling the robot in. It slips on the paint, and she throws the flare into the paint shop, and it blows up killing the last robot. YEAH!! Victory but she is back crawling again, for some reason. Oh no, she can hobble at last, and her nerdy man is back with a toilet roll mopping up a load of blood off the bac k of his head. They embrace and the camera pans up to the top of the mall. The End.

PLOT ENDS - ITS NOW SAFE TO READ ON...

Summary

This is a poor effort to put it nicely, when a movie makes you ask questions like how does that happen? Is one thing but when it makes you ask that question over and over again, there must be an issue. There is a part of me that is tempted to say watch this just so you see how bad it is and then you can laugh at what I just wrote above. If like me, you watch this a while ago and thought it wasn’t too bad then like me your memory is clearly going, and you should seek medical assistance.

In fairness the acting was just about standard for a B movie, meaning it was poor but just about passable. That said I don’t think any of the actors went on to do anything else of note. Except for Dick who was killed in the very same scene he was introduced in.

For a horror movie you need the villain(s) to be scary and not like a character from a kids Disney movie from the nineties. The badies here are laughable, but you are laughing at them rather than with them as they kill someone and follow it with ‘Thank you, have a nice day’ which just isn’t funny. The movement is funny, there killer arms are funny, the lasers can’t hit shit and the clampy hands are just funny. You should not laugh at them you should fear them. The one in the lift that does a sixty-eight point turn just to get blown up is funny, I am just not convinced it should be.

They followed the traditional rules of the youngsters that don’t have sex survive whilst those that do have intercourse die horribly at the hands of the villains. Oh! did I mention (boys or girls) that there are actual real life boobs in this movie? Does that make a difference to the story or the film itself? Well – No not at all. Does it make the movie any better? Again no… as the French movies suggest this doesn’t improve much of the quality and for me doesn’t sell a movie much either. Sorry I was getting to a point there but distracted myself. The point I found weird was that these youngsters had organised a sex party basically. They all got there had some beers, danced a bit then they each couple had a double bed with clean sheets to use. I am starting to think it is only me that finds that just a little bit weird that they ignore each other and just go for it. Knowing the others are within ear and eye shot. Is that just me being an old fart? And not down with the kids of the eighties. Hang on I was a kid of the eighties and I never had a sex party like that. Well, not one I am prepared to admit on here. If I am honest if I heard what the couple on the sofa heard I would be finding a TV further away maybe even a different store.

The dead guy moving his toes is worth watching because you cannot unsee it and you watch it each and every time. Yes, B-movies always have a breathing dead victims but moving is a whole new level. I know he was playing a douche, with his open-mouthed gum chewing which really annoyed me. I felt like the movie wanted us to like him, I just didn’t like him from the get-go. Sorry, just don’t like him.

My suggestion is that if you are looking to start reviewing pants movies this would be a good place to start. It has many plot holes to pick on. Acting that needs some fine tuning but very eighties. Monsters that are funny and not scary at all. One dimensional characters and a poor story that feels cobbled together you might be able to dig something else out that was so shite that I missed then have at it. You might just want to watch this to appreciate the hardship I go through just to write this stuff.

THE VERDICT –

Chopping Mall = So Bad – It’s exactly that BAD!

Dragon Storm (#24)

A movie made for TV is always an ominous start for any review, but this is a Sci-Fi Channel’s finest effort. It has sword fights, bows, and arrows, dragons, naked princess, fights, fire battles, castles and feasts. It has everything! Working on a meagre budget for a movie, of just $1 million, it was watched by over three million people on its first airing. Starring Tony Amendola, Maxwell Caulfield, Angel Boris, and the legend that is John Rhys-Davies. Again, I had not seen too much (or anything) of what to expect beyond the recommendation of “its such a bad film that we couldn’t get beyond the first 20 minutes” and handed over to me to watch and release my view to the world. Directed by Stephen Furst and written by Patrick Phillips and Sam Wells this was given to the world in 2004. I shall give you a shortened Plot (as promised) and then get into the review. Starting with the poster.

The cover poster

THE PLOT

We begin in Carpathia in 1190 and out in space there are some space rocks flying through the cosmos. Six of them, not five or seven but six exactly fly straight into the earth’s atmosphere and into a small province of the divided-up territories of Carpathia. The rocks are in fact not rocks but eggs! Yes, that’s why there is half a dozen of them! It is all explained. The eggs open and dragons come out and start flying around and burning people alive. One in particular is hit first and burst into flames – Cut to next scene – where the man [Still alive!] staggers towards a fort with his waistcoat smoking (side note this is how smoking jackets were invented) but no longer on fire. He enters the fort and then the dragons turn up and burn the fort to the ground. A messenger escapes and runs to a close by castle. Where the king [John Rhys-Davies – who will be called King JRD from now on] thinks its all rubbish and his second in command [Tony Amendola] is there to support. The dragons destroy the castle and a small band of men King JRD, Tony (second in command) and three other soldiers escape and decide to head for a neighbouring king and castle.

JRD at Christmas dinner just about to read the crackers joke.

Getting lost in the woods they stumble on a huntsman who points out they are heading in the wrong direction. JRD offers him a silver coin to bring them to the castle. Which he disagrees with until King JRD promises his ring which is solid gold in exchange for taking them to King Wednesday’s castle. Arriving, the king is forced (weakly in my opinion) to hand over the ring. The hunter leaves and heads back into the woods. Meanwhile the dragons are settling into the new home and have decided not to attack anyone else that the audience is aware of. You hear that King JRD was struggling with feeding himself and his people and was planning on invading the other kingdom anyway. Although he arrives at the castle claiming he brings a warning of the dragons that will be attacking King Wednesday whilst trying to hide the fact they are escaping from the hollow shell they have left behind. King JRD is clearly someone not to be trusted.

The huntsman finds a dead man with claws in his back and singed earth and buildings around. He removes one of the claws (which are hollow) just as King Wednesday’s men arrive. The huntsman is captured in the woods as he is clearly wearing a ring that he cannot possibly own and has not paid any taxes to King Wednesday. So, he is brought in and chained up in a dungeon. King JRD arrives and takes his ring back and leaves the huntsman to the whim of King Wednesday. [I would like to interject here that the huntsman’s wig makes him look like Garth from Wayne’s World]

In this scene Wayne forces Garth to attend a G'n'R concert at crossbow point.

King Wednesday’s scientist (Please don't ask - just roll with it) has found a dead dragon as one egg thing died on impact with the earth. This allows the scientist Chappy the opportunity to do an autopsy on the Dragon and work out that its skin is very well protected but just like the Death Star there is a weak spot. In the throat where the gas to ignite the flames, if you hit it there it will go up just like the erm, the erm well the Death Star. Ker-boom! It is this scientist that tells us that there are five left. The huntsman is interrogated by the King and with the latest information supplied by the scientist he decides to set up a taskforce team to attack the dragons. Queue a musical montage. OK there isn’t a musical montage the guys go to an outside bar (why is it outside? IDK!) they start a fight between the two strongest looking men to take the victor into their team.

Princess Wednesday probably had a proper name in the movie.

Princess Wednesday decides to join the group along with a woman who just so happens to have a Ballista which is more accurate than any ever before. How lucky was that? And her parents have been killed by the dragons and she wants revenge. How lucky is that? Well, the team set off to attack the dragons. The second in command is sent along as well, but King JDR gives him a secret mission of killing the huntsman, so he doesn’t tell of their plan and the ring.

"Hi, I was just wandering if you have considered changing your energy supplier?"

SPOILER ALERT AS I AM GOING TO THE FINISH NOW.

The dragon’s natural born instinct for staying alive it is pretty stupid as their attack position is to fly upright exposing the most vulnerable point to aim at. They take care of two of them and then find a big mountain which they assume would be a perfect home for the dragons. The team realise they are protecting something so after many of them are killed that the scientist decides to go into the mountain and then comes out with an egg. Which they use to protect themselves as the dragon won’t attack its own young. In the night second in command tries to kill the huntsman but he wakes up and tries to talk him out of it but the second in command points out that King JDR has his wife and will kill her for not following orders. [I thought only five survived!]. The princess arrives and kills the second in command. They then head back to Castle Wednesday only to discover that King JDR has taken over and taken the real king and his men hostage in the dungeons. The team sneak in and free the king and the men who then fight against the band of men who have supported King JDR to take over the kingdom. A battle ensues and the huntsman kills the final dragon by shooting the weak spot and making it explode. The kingdom is return to the rightful king and the world is free of dragons and good again.

PLOT ENDS - SAFE TO READ ON

Summary

If you do not know Maxwell Caulfield starred in Grease 2 and Electric Dreams. He has done a wealth of theatre shows and television including Dynasty, The Colbys, Beverly Hills, 90120, Spider-Man and British shows Casualty and Emmerdale. Tony Amedola has been in countless films and television appearances. Star of the show must be John Rhys-Davies who (if I need to mention) was in Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Living Daylights, Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I won’t list the rest or his TV work, but he is a fantastic actor and the best thing in this movie. I wanted to show the calibre of those on the screen as they have some notable talent appearing here and they do not let the side down. The acting from the main names in this movie was fine and full credit to them. Maxwell’s wig did make him look like Garth from Wayne’s World, which still didn’t dent his performance. This gets a tick from me.

I am guessing you are waiting for me to turn on this movie so I shall move onto the special effects and the clear CGI dragons. Well, pull up a chair before reading on as I wouldn’t want you to fall over backwards. The dragons were seamless in comparison to so many other Sci-Fi Channel movies. They didn’t look real, but they are dragons so how should they look? The director clearly realised that the real problem with CGI is when there is interaction between actors and what is in the mind of the director. This movie swerves this perfectly by having the dragons flying around and never really interacting directly with people. They are flying high above them and as a result it works. The dead one is clearly a prop, the egg likewise the effects work. OK they are far from perfect and having a budget of $1m will never see the greatest movie ever so I am of the opinion this is not really an issue with this movie.

Hey Myers, you are ticking off what is usually the problem with these types of movies and not saying there is any problems at the moment. Are you finally going to give a Sci-Fi movie a high score? Honestly no I am not. This is a stinking pile of a turd of a movie and the reason for that in my opinion sits with the director or the writers as the idea and concept is fine in principle. The application to that Dragons attacking old villages and castles is woeful at best. It feels like an empty goal with a striker about 30 or 40 yards out (so not a sitter) but a really good opportunity to hit the spot and yet somehow manages to curl the ball into the corner flag. The first man we meet gets torched in seconds then moments later he is wandering around as the flames have gone out, so these dragons aren’t that powerful then. Moments later they are destroying a fort followed by a castle with ease. No problems for these guys. Then there is the dialogue between the characters, the King is confused as to be a slimeball or evil plotter. Which ever the plan it doesn’t work. You have the best actor in the movie scheming and meddling without a logical reason. The huntsman has his ring, so he wants him dead. Why did you give it away? He doesn’t know your plans to take over the Wednesday Kingdom so why potentially ruin it all by risking killing him off and gathering suspicion. There is no logic in it. The dragons are plot points rather than villains of the piece they could have continued their rampage but instead after the first attacks go off smoke a fag behind the bike sheds whilst the school pulls a troop together to fight them. Then decide to fight them one at a time until the first two are dead and the three then decide to fight together. The troop have one Ballista which (we know has a faulty firing mechanism). If two attacked at the same time these guys are done for.

The Dragons are very convenient enemies that only appear when they should and are happy to sit in the background when not needed for the ham fisted plot points. There is a lot going on with the plot which means they are trying to cram so much into a small time and half of it isn’t needed. The Princess who is introduced by the King with a description for the audience rather than a name. Yes, she does get naked boys with hair taped down to prevent seeing too much but what was the point of that scene at all? I have no idea. Yes, she is the love interest for the huntsman but that was clear before and adds very little to the main plot. There are so many things going on that takes away from the story of humans v dragons which this movie could have been. The Weasley king does little to the story and keeps coming back into it just so he can invade the Kingdom he has just escaped to. Leaving his people to survive the dragon attack alone why would they stand for him and risk their own lives for his benefit? There is no reason for this and there is less than twenty of them as well. Against a fully stocked and guarded castle yet this whole takeover takes about 5 minutes of screen time. Only for the huntsman to free the small number of prisoners and they recapture the castle in even less time. My question is what’s the point of this plotline? Have the two faction’s unite and fight an epic battle against the invading dragons would be more of a plot that having a huntsman killed on the whim of a nob of a king. The crowns of both the kings could of easily of come out of Christmas Crackers. The issues with this movie make you pick more holes in it than necessary like people with fillings and gun-powered filled dragon claws. Let alone the plot points of having the right people turn up just at the right time. Equally the attempts at humour fall woefully flat but not for the effort of the actor but it just didn’t work. There was not enough time before the plot rolled on at pace as they tried to cram more in. This is a poor movie and its poor because it could have been so much more. A simple plot with tons of dragon battling action would have worked without the pointless human interactions. You could easily save yourself an hour and thirty-six minutes watching something anything else!!

THE VERDICT –

Dragon Storm = So Bad – It’s exactly that BAD!

Zoombie (#23)

On this part of the blog, I have moved onto movies that have been requested to me to watch. In comparison to many other movies in this section of the blog this is a relatively young movie being released in 2016. It may be young, but it has already spawned a sister movie called Aquarium of the Dead and a following movie called inventively Zoombies 2 which was in fact a prequal, to this movie. I have no idea about the money involved in this movie and if I am completely honest, I cannot be asked to research it either. This movie has a list of stars actors in it with Ione Butler, Andrew Asper, Kim Nielsen, LaLa Nestor, Brianna Chomer, and many more. There are many cast members that are introduced as monster fodder. This movie has got traction from the Sharknado trick of being so poor that its good as so many people like it for being bad. As usual here is the poster -

The poster.

Being completely honest with you, I went into this movie without doing any research at all beyond seeing the poster above and seeing a trailer when trying to source it on streaming services. When I finally found it and sat down with my popcorn along with the review pen and paper, I was ready to be terrified.

THE PLOT

The movie begins with an advert for Eden Zoo that is opening soon. Introduced by the owner director explaining that she is working on her grandfather site and his drive for collection and saving animals that are endangered. They have an app that is linked to chips that are in each animal so you can see where they are within the paddocks and cages. This zoo is huge and has a waterpark of slides and swimming pools within, along with zipwires going across the whole place.

We then see a small monkey that has arrived at the zoo that dies and then returns with white eyes and attacks the three scientists in the room. Pulling out eyes and pushing large cabinets onto others and nasty things in general.

The monkey's that start all the trouble.

After the advert we join the owner/director, and her daughter are entering the zoo along with a mini-bus full of interns joining different sections of the zoo. Each one is dropped off to the area of the zoo they will be working within. One with birds, one with the gorilla and so on. One of the security guards is going to check on the science block as they have an alarm triggered but not turned off. The boss is worried and asks if she should go but it happens all the time, so they are not that worried. When he doesn’t come back a team of five go back to check. Including the new intern security worker. The boss’s intern and three security guards.

They find a scientist behind a locked door and opening it to help him they inadvertently allow the small monkeys to launch a surprise attack and then leave the quarantined area. Killing the two tag along security guards. The remaining three give chase to the monkeys looking to contain them.

They reach the warthog paddock after the warthogs have already changed and attacking their captors. The staff escape into the trees where they are attacked by giraffes who ripped them from the trees. Rescuing one of the annoying girl interns in the process. She decides that she is getting out of the zoo and takes their jeep and heads back to the entrance. Leaving the survivals with little weapons no radios or other technologies.

Meanwhile the manager and her daughter have lock themselves into the administration building and keeping track of the animals via a blown-up version of the app. See -

Here the head of security is checking the issues before heading to the vet lab.

This app on the large screen is that good that not only does it track the animals, but it also changes from a yellow dot to a red one once the animal changes side and becomes one of the undead horde. The employees are green dots and so are the intern’s that have just arrived today. I assume they secretly stabbed them with a chip when they weren’t looking. If they didn’t have a chip, how were they being tracked?

Very randomly a herd of three elephants arrive and the boss nerdy spreadsheet king points out that the zombie animals won’t attack the elephants as they have no natural predators in the wild so would be left alone. The zombie animals will just come along and release them from the cages that they must have been in, just so they could ignore the elephants and let them run wild of course. [This makes perfect sense, doesn’t it] not only the nerd who knows nothing of animals produced that and stops the others from shooting and they climb on the back of the elephants and ride them across the zoo. The animation for this part of the movie is shown slightly below.

Even in a still shot the Elephants look like they are levitating.

They reach a safe spot where the gorilla man and his intern arrive and stay with them. Then they see a video link into the gorilla cage and see the gorilla laying on the floor. So, the zookeeper leaves the safety of this building to go and rescue the gorilla. Or the Cross River Gorilla to be precise as it’s the last one in the world it needs saving. Its too late and the gorilla attacks and kills him.

The Cross River Gorilla, turned Zombie Killer.

It then gives chase of the others, and the lead guard must sacrifice himself to save the others. Which is rubbish as he doesn’t need to do this and all he achieves is to slow it down as it still gives chase and attacks the other.

Meanwhile a random red dot has entered the admin building where owner and daughter are hiding and tracking everyone. It turns out to be a koala.

The Killer Koala

The darling angel of a daughter smashes the koala to bits around the room covering herself and the room in koala juice, blood, and flesh which she seemed to enjoy just a little too much.

As the zipwires were introduced at the beginning they must be used to get the three survivors across the zoo to the admin building. Throughout the movie all that anyone has talked about is the birds as if they get contaminated, they could infect the world. While all the other animals are running amuck and killing anything alive but not trying to escape. The police have arrived and send a SWAT team in to rescue everyone but the good news is that they managed to inject themselves with tracking chips so they appear as blue dots on the tracker so boss lady can follow them. Just like aliens she sees them surrounded by red dots of the Ring-Tailed Cats (they look like lions to me!) but its too late they don’t listen, and the zoo’s rescuers have been destroyed. Leaving those left behind with a choice and that is the destruction of the zoo for the good of mankind (humankind then!) or leave and let the world burn.

SPOILER ALERT AS I AM GOING TO THE FINISH NOW.

They are going to blow up the Ave-you-ary or aviary to the rest of us. They get there to find that the birds have already turned, and two zombie Macaw’s are about to smash their way out of the ave-you-ary and take over THE WORLD!!

So, these two birds start head banging the glass which the app has this covered as they have a glass damage monitor as each hit removes around one percent of the glass and it counts down. As all good horror movies love a countdown. Just as the glass reaches 1%, they blow it to bits thus destroying the entire zoo and all the zombie creatures within and ipso facto saving the world.

PLOT ENDS - SAFE TO READ ON

Summary

Well not if you are the director as I am about to tear this movie a new one. I am unsure where to begin with the impossible plot maybe as the movie begins with the owner woman explaining that she is picking up where her grandfather left off. Which instantly left me with questions such as if she is picking up where he stopped why isn’t the zoo already open? What the hell was he doing up to this point. The zoo is massive, and I mean massive, the sheer size of it makes London Zoo look like a petting zoo. How can they afford all of this? Whilst paying for the upkeep of the animals. They have elephants, lions, ringed tailed cats and the only Cross River Gorilla in captivity. Well, sell it to another zoo and fund yours for another year on the profits since you are not open yet where has the income come from? Why build massive display theatres they can display animals on a stage when you could not and use that money to open another enclosure. Why pay for television adverts for a zoo that is a- not open and b-not advertising an opening date. They cannot afford better security cameras or to employ more than one zookeeper per department and must hire interns for the financial support they bring in. Yet they are advertising on TV for a zoo that will be opening ‘soon.’ One keeper per ‘zone’ yet they have four security guards and one of the best apps that tracks everything within the zoo’s area. Including the SWAT team that appeared as blue dots. Jeeps which appear as green rectangles which hold green dots within when they are combined. When the animals turned into zombies the app tracked them as red dots. How did it know? Simply unreal. Then there is ultra-urgency about the birds getting out and infecting the world. They even mention that a rat got into the enclosure which the zookeeper killed. If a rat could get in there, then why couldn’t it just run out the gates of the main entrance? The answer is easy there is nothing to stop it. It could just go just as much as any other zombie creature that was running around the zoo. Why would the elephants be safe at the beginning of the movie but then not at the end of the movie when they were needed for a stampede situation? The threat created by this movie feels exactly like what it is – made up. The fear is fictional and if the situation was true, they would not been able to contain anything let alone have the police camped outside waiting to invade and kill everything. It would be too late as they would be breaking out and running long before anything would be stopped.

Ok the plot had more holes in than a string vest that was not the worst thing about this movie as the animation were horrid. Truly awful. The elephant riding scene was horrendous and reminded me of the words and pictures character that was moved around the screen like a puppet on a stick.

There he is - Charlie I think his name was (By the looks of it - the boy has just watched this movie!)

Bouncing around the screen unnaturally just like those floating elephants and the people cut in half stuck on their backs like a pop-up book display. They looked like they were floating rather than walking down that road. I will add that the CGI throughout the entire movie is just terrible to a point where it distracts from the story. Which was equally crap, but the animation was so bad that I was impressed that they used a hand puppet for the mouth of the giraffe as it grabbed people out of a tree. I haven’t even mentioned the man in a gorilla suit yet. All I can say is have you ever watched ‘Trading Places’? The computer graphics do not mix with the live action at all. ‘Bed knobs and Broomsticks’ had more realistic mix of graphics and live action than this.

So, the plot was lacking of anything to make you invest in the situation you then couldn’t visualise the peril they were in as visually it looked terrible. So, were the actors believable? You know what they were probably the best asset of this dumpster fire of a movie. They were believable when on screen on their own. When interacting with the cartoon creatures trying to kill them, they were very lacking in anything believable and ultimately rather than liking one and hating another I didn’t give two hoots for any of them. The cutie girl and daughter of the owner felt like a spoilt brat who has made friends with a gorilla and probably pushed the staff around and was a bitch when mummy wasn’t around. When the koala turned up, I wanted the koala to win that battle. Then I thought to myself a more fitting end for the brat would have been the super mega rare gorilla ripped her to bits. This didn’t happen and the smug little err person escapes and I would wonder if she were in the sequel as this would be irritating straight away. I didn’t like any of the characters which made me not care if they survived or not. Could they act yes of course they can, and the level of acting differed across the story but overall the main characters allowed you to believe what they were saying. How they acted in the interaction with props and animation left them exposed to a fundamental issue of this movie.

If I were told this was a comedy and to watch it as such, I may have gone into this with a different attitude and actually appreciate the ‘so bad its funny’ tact. I watched this as a horror movie which simply let me down on all counts. I did laugh and aloud when they were riding on the elephants, but the rest of the movie was spent going how are they doing that, or they can’t do that? Why haven’t they just done this? What has stopped them doing that? I was simply confused to the stupidity of many of the characters and the decisions they made. The head of security for example says don’t call the police it will be all done by the time they arrive, simply do not bother. Then in the very next scene he asks when the police will arrive? Hang on a minute, I thought you said not to bother calling them? So, which is it lad? The number of monkeys varied depending on when you are looking there was four then six then three then five then back to six again. Why wouldn’t the elephants be attacked? Why would the woman run off in the jeep? Why wouldn’t you let her out at the gates? Why does no one follow the owner/director’s advice when talking on the walkie-talkie, She can see the app with all the creatures on it and she screams get out of there or look to your left and not one of them follows the instructions? Why are the parrots headbutting a glass in tune? What is the actual importance of the birds in the Ave-you-ary? Why not release them as soon as you couldn’t contain the other animals, so they were out of harms way? Why not make a logical decision throughout the movie? I am going to stop there as I think you get the point. This movie is poor, and I am being generous. Is it one of those movies that are so bad that its good? The abridged version of that is NO! IMDb has this at 3.3/10 and Rotten Tomatoes has an audience score of 16% and no professional will review it so there isn’t a score on that side. I think you can work out where my score is going to go.

THE VERDICT –

Zoombie = So Bad – It’s exactly that BAD!