A few months back I was reading this book called "Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies: A Film Critics Year-Long Quest To Find The Worst Movie Ever Made" by Michael Adams. The premise is this dude in Australia named Michael Adams spent an entire year watching shitty movies by watching them one a day, sometimes more then one a day.
At the end of the book, he names what the worst movies he seen that year were. He was looking for just one single worst movie but he couldn't narrow it down to 20. If by some chance you are reading the book and don't want it spoiled, stop reading now because I'm gonna list the 20 films he deemed were terrible.
Ready? Let's go!
Dark Harvest 2: The Maize
Vampire Blvd
Big Sister 2000
Rollergator
Search for the Beast
Hollywood High Part 2
The Room
Ben & Arthur
Curse of Bigfoot
Da Hip Hop Witch
Manos: The Hands of Fate
The Party at Kitty and Stud's
The Magic Christmas Tree
Curse of the Zodiac
Green River Killer
B.T.K Killer
The Weird World of LSD
Ring of Terror
Ax 'Em
Police Academy 3
In the book, he goes into more detail about why these are the worst. I've reviewed a handful of these already. So I'm gonna be taking on the rest of these at some point. I'll put the list off to the right and update it when I review one. Keep those eyeballs peeled!
-Jason
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Q&A: Kevin Woods
It never fails. Anytime I watch a movie and talk a lot of shit about it, and give it the worst rating I could give it, somebody involved with said movie will contact me...and completely agree with me. It's kinda weird. Also what makes it weird is both times this has happened, it happened with dudes named Kevin.
To refresh your memory, here's my "award" winning interview with director of "Fear of Clowns" Kevin Kangas.
Moving onto now, this dude named Kevin Woods contacted me first as a comment on The Blog, then later on the FaceBook page, saying he was not only IN this movie, but he helped produced and do other things for "Wiseguys vs Zombies". I was stunned that this guy didn't have me killed after everything I had to say about the movie. So an interview was needed, to get to the bottom of the mess that became "Wiseguys vs Zombies".
In "Wiseguys vs Zombies" I see you were not only the producer, but the First Assistant Director, AND played Paulie. Should I blame you for the 20 minute "interrogation scene" that nearly killed my brain?
I guess you could place the blame equally between myself and Adam Minarovich. "WvZ" was for the most part a two-person shoot, crew wise. It was myself, in the role of producer, assistant director, cameraman, and occasional actor, and Adam, who directed and acted in the lead role. I can't say for sure that Adam 'wrote' the flick, though. There really wasn't a script to go by. Adam had a notebook filled with ideas for scenes and that's basically what we went by. Everything was completely improvised (as if the viewer couldn't tell). So when it came time to shoot the interrogation scene we weren't really sure of what we were doing. There were just the three of us there for the shoot (Adam, myself, and William "Freddie Six-Times" Palko) so we took turns running the camera when it wasn't set up on a tripod. We shot a lot of stuff for that scene - different takes and angles. I guess we just decided to use all of the footage for that part instead of editing it down. Yeah, it was too much, no doubt. Maybe we were worried about the movies run time or something. Of course, with it running damn near 2 hours I suppose run time should've been the least of our concerns. Top priority should've went to actually making it a decent movie.
Were you around for the filming of the entire movie? If so, where did you film it? Did it really start in New York and you went on a real road trip?
I had met Adam only a couple of weeks before we started shooting the movie. The movie was shot on a whim, basically. Adam had a camera and an idea. We had no money, but I was adamant that we should shoot it anyway. So yeah, I was around from the very beginning. And as for where it was shot...well, the entire movie was shot in South Carolina. Everything. The farthest we traveled for any shot was to the SC/GA border to get a shot of the hitmen's Jaguar crossing the SC state line.
Did you guys know you were making this movie for Troma or did you make it on your own and just sold it to Troma?
We knew from the jump off we were going to shoot it for Troma. I was (and am) a Troma junkie so in the short time leading up to shooting "Wiseguys" I was showing Adam a lot of flicks from my Troma collection. During the actual shoot we would have the actors and extras sitting around for make-up with "Citizen Toxie" or "Terror Firmer" playing on the TV to give them a sense of what we were going for. I had printed off the Dogpile 95 Doctrine of Digital Filmmaking (also known as the Bow-Wow Vow of Fast and Shitty) and had it taped to the walls and doors at our locations. We wanted to make a Troma movie, but we left out one of the most important parts of a Troma flick: the boobs. We should've thrown some titties in there.
We weren't sure that Troma would pick it up for distribution, though. We knew it was a turd, but it was OUR turd and we wanted to find it an audience. I have to credit Troma alum Trent Haaga for helping us get the folks at Troma to take a look at it. We had been emailing Trent back and forth for a while and he was a really supportive, really cool dude who dug our 'go out and do it' attitude, so he might've pulled a few strings for us. So, in all honesty, maybe Trent should share some of the blame! haha
Am I right that the kids at the end of the movie was one of you guys' kids and you said "hey kid wanna be in a movie?" Or are they actual kid actors?
No, they weren't actors. Two of the little zombies were my kids. They wanted to be in the movie so I let 'em. The other kid zombies were some of the other actors children. Oh, and I use the term 'actor' lightly here. Most of these folks were friends or college students that we recruited for cheap labor. Cheap meaning free. Hell, our entire budget consisted of two dollars and a bag of Doritos for craft services.
About the middle of the movie, you show up as a zombie. Was it cool playing a zombie? I know it's almost everybody's fantasy to play a zombie.
Hell no it wasn't fun! It was done out of necessity. We didn't have anyone else to come out and play a zombie that day so Adam made me do it. He laid a guilt trip on me. See, the movie was shot over a period of about a month and a half, shooting only on weekends and the occasional day we could round up some actors. Most people avoided our phone calls after spending a day with us. So I had to jump in there and play a zombie. The make-up sucked because the guy who was doing the make-up and effects had no fucking clue what he was doing. He was an artist, a painter, and he incorrectly thought he could figure out a way to do make-up and effects for us. We would've probably been better off figuring out a way to do it ourselves. The so-called 'zombie make-up' was just a concoction of flour, food coloring, some kind of paste, and other household crap that we could buy on the cheap. To the effects guy credit, though, he did show up every day we needed him and endured the shoot with us. He was just excited to be working on a movie. He would be off doing make-up on the actors while we were out in the woods shooting. Then we threw him a bone and let him be in the movie too (as 'Thug Zombie'). I still say that this was the highlight of his life. He seems to be the only person from the cast or crew to be proud of this flick. So some good did come out of this production.
Considering nobody in the movie knew to aim for the head to kill the zombies, I have to ask, you guys have seen other zombie movies before, right? If so, which ones do you like?
Haha, yeah...we've all seen zombie flicks before. It came down to budget. We couldn't do the headshots because we didn't know how to do them effectively and because our effects guy had no clue how to do it, either. Hell, our gunfire effects were just firecrackers stuck in the barrel of the gun. Roll camera, light firework, get out of frame, and BAM! Instant gunshot effect.
My favorite zombie flicks are any of the Romero movies. Yes, "Survival of the Dead" included. Fulci's "Zombi" is a personal favorite of mine. Basically any of the classics of the genre I've seen and loved. Who doesn't love a good zombie flick. Hell, I even dig some of the bad ones ("Wiseguys" not included).
You have two minutes to give us a valid reason for including The Goat Fucker (Later Zombie Fucker) Scene. Go.
The Goat Fucker was not our idea. Not Adam's. Not mine. Nope, it was the actor who played the Goat Fucker. He was a guy I worked with who told me he'd come out and be in the movie if he could fuck a goat. I happened to live near a goat farm so I called Adam and ran it by him. He loved the idea. We were making a movie about redneck zombies, after all, and what's more redneck than fucking a goat? So the idea for the Goat Fucker was completely the actors. He showed up, drank a couple of beers to get into character, got into make-up, and then went out and killed it. All of his lines were his own improv. I thought that he would really try to finger that goat!
Two funny things regarding the Goat Fucker: the woman who played the Goat Fucker's wife was really his wife. When she hit him, that shit was real! She was awesome and funny to watch. The other thing I wanted to mention is that the Goat Fucker scenes are one of the reasons the movie got us in trouble when it screened publicly at a nearby university. They were not happy with anything to do with the Goat Fucker or with the overuse of the word "Fuck".
(Jason: Overuse of the word "fuck"? Good thing I'm not guilty of that!)
Did the guy at the pawn shop know you were filming the movie? He's a real pawn shop owner/worker, right?
Yeah, he was the owner of the pawn shop. We needed a scene at a pawn shop or hardware store so we went in and asked if we could shoot there and he said "Sure, no problem". Then Adam asked him if he'd say a few lines and he obliged. We were in and out of there in 10 minutes.
Unrelated to Wiseguys vs Zombies, what else are you working on? Plan on doing any more Troma films?
Our latest flick, "Exhibit A-7" is making the festival rounds. It recently premiered at the Action on Film International Film Festival where it won the Xristos Award for Best Guerrilla Film, so we're getting better at filmmaking. Adam was just cast on Frank Darabont's "The Walking Dead" for AMC, so he's busy finding work as an actor as well as a writer. A flick he wrote called "Chop" (directed by the aforementioned Trent Haaga) just wrapped post-production and will be making the rounds soon. So we're still on the grind, trying to get things out there.
As for a future Troma film...who knows? I love Troma and what that they do. I love what they stand for, so maybe one day.
Jason: At this point, I'll turn to my friend and podcasting partner Nolahn of the Bargin Bin Review, who introduced this movie to me to begin with a few questions he has.
Nolahn: Wiseguys vs. Zombies clocks in at nearly two hours, quite long for a zombie movie. Any gems left on the cutting room floor?
Uh, no...nope, I think everything we shot ended up in the movie. No, wait...there was one extended scene where three zombies go on a friendly walk through the woods together and one of them lights up a cigarette, much to the chagrin of his fellow zombie who quickly grabs the cigarette out of his mouth, gives a disapproving moan, and throws the cigarette on the ground. Not sure why we even shot that sequence, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Nolahn: The film's depiction of "wiseguys" seemed to split the difference between "classic" Godfather-style mafia soldiers and "modern-day" "Sopranos"-style tuffs. Any reason why you didn't just go with one or the other?
We were just copying what we saw on TV and in movies. That's how mafiosos act, right? At least that's what we were led to believe. And we wanted the movie to be realistic! No, I'm just bullshitting. Our depiction of the mafia type was really about the age of the performers...the older mafia types (the boss, Freddie Six-Times) were the more traditional, classic interpretations. Adam, playing the (ahem) 'new generation mafioso', was loud, arrogant, quick-tempered. We weren't breaking any new ground here so we figured we'd do the stereotypical characters that everyone was already familiar with and throw them into a crazy situation.
Nolahn: You have two minutes to explain the "zombies forgo biting for backyard wresting" climax. Go.
We had a car and we wanted to blow it up. But first we wanted to fuck it all up. Adam figured that he had abused the 'actors' in this film enough, so he created this scene where the tables would turn and he would get his ass beat for a while before the car was destroyed. We're all a bunch of rednecks anyway, and as rednecks we love our wrasslin', so we decided to have the climax be a free-for-all fight with some amateurish wrestling moves ending with the car going BOOOM!
Nolahn: Anything you've taken away from making Wiseguys vs. Zombies for future projects?
"Wiseguys" was 7 years and 5 projects ago for us. If there was anything we learned from it, and learned well, it was how NOT to make a movie. We learned NOT to use your own money on making a flick, we learned NOT to ask friends to act, we learned NOT to hire guys with no clue how to do special effects to handle the effects, we learned to NOT shoot without a script...geez, man, on retrospect we had learned so much from that experience that listing them all could take all day. But each thing we have tackled since then has been better than the one before. It's a process, ya know? Trial and error and all that shit. So "Wiseguys" served a purpose for us, in the long run. We're not proud of it, of course, but we're kinda glad we did it. I'm especially happy that, seven years after it was released, it still pisses people off. At least it gets a reaction and isn't instantly forgettable. I mean, it's no "Troll 2" or anything in all of its badness, but go ahead and try to forget about the Goat Fucker...you can't! As horrid as it is, it is embedded in your brain. And that makes the experience of making the movie all worth it.
And that's it. Super special thanks to Kevin Woods for being a sport. A shout-out goes to Adam Minarovich for also being a sport (or at least I'm assuming since he hasn't tried to kill me yet). When I write these reviews, I don't ever really think that the people involved will stumble across my small corner of the Internet, so I just say whatever I'm feeling. Half the time I'm joking and I really don't mean any harm. So when the filmmakers or stars do contact me and they have a great sense of humor about what I've written, it makes me feel better.
Unlike SOMEONE else.
-Jason
To refresh your memory, here's my "award" winning interview with director of "Fear of Clowns" Kevin Kangas.
Moving onto now, this dude named Kevin Woods contacted me first as a comment on The Blog, then later on the FaceBook page, saying he was not only IN this movie, but he helped produced and do other things for "Wiseguys vs Zombies". I was stunned that this guy didn't have me killed after everything I had to say about the movie. So an interview was needed, to get to the bottom of the mess that became "Wiseguys vs Zombies".
In "Wiseguys vs Zombies" I see you were not only the producer, but the First Assistant Director, AND played Paulie. Should I blame you for the 20 minute "interrogation scene" that nearly killed my brain?
I guess you could place the blame equally between myself and Adam Minarovich. "WvZ" was for the most part a two-person shoot, crew wise. It was myself, in the role of producer, assistant director, cameraman, and occasional actor, and Adam, who directed and acted in the lead role. I can't say for sure that Adam 'wrote' the flick, though. There really wasn't a script to go by. Adam had a notebook filled with ideas for scenes and that's basically what we went by. Everything was completely improvised (as if the viewer couldn't tell). So when it came time to shoot the interrogation scene we weren't really sure of what we were doing. There were just the three of us there for the shoot (Adam, myself, and William "Freddie Six-Times" Palko) so we took turns running the camera when it wasn't set up on a tripod. We shot a lot of stuff for that scene - different takes and angles. I guess we just decided to use all of the footage for that part instead of editing it down. Yeah, it was too much, no doubt. Maybe we were worried about the movies run time or something. Of course, with it running damn near 2 hours I suppose run time should've been the least of our concerns. Top priority should've went to actually making it a decent movie.
Were you around for the filming of the entire movie? If so, where did you film it? Did it really start in New York and you went on a real road trip?
I had met Adam only a couple of weeks before we started shooting the movie. The movie was shot on a whim, basically. Adam had a camera and an idea. We had no money, but I was adamant that we should shoot it anyway. So yeah, I was around from the very beginning. And as for where it was shot...well, the entire movie was shot in South Carolina. Everything. The farthest we traveled for any shot was to the SC/GA border to get a shot of the hitmen's Jaguar crossing the SC state line.
Did you guys know you were making this movie for Troma or did you make it on your own and just sold it to Troma?
We knew from the jump off we were going to shoot it for Troma. I was (and am) a Troma junkie so in the short time leading up to shooting "Wiseguys" I was showing Adam a lot of flicks from my Troma collection. During the actual shoot we would have the actors and extras sitting around for make-up with "Citizen Toxie" or "Terror Firmer" playing on the TV to give them a sense of what we were going for. I had printed off the Dogpile 95 Doctrine of Digital Filmmaking (also known as the Bow-Wow Vow of Fast and Shitty) and had it taped to the walls and doors at our locations. We wanted to make a Troma movie, but we left out one of the most important parts of a Troma flick: the boobs. We should've thrown some titties in there.
We weren't sure that Troma would pick it up for distribution, though. We knew it was a turd, but it was OUR turd and we wanted to find it an audience. I have to credit Troma alum Trent Haaga for helping us get the folks at Troma to take a look at it. We had been emailing Trent back and forth for a while and he was a really supportive, really cool dude who dug our 'go out and do it' attitude, so he might've pulled a few strings for us. So, in all honesty, maybe Trent should share some of the blame! haha
Am I right that the kids at the end of the movie was one of you guys' kids and you said "hey kid wanna be in a movie?" Or are they actual kid actors?
No, they weren't actors. Two of the little zombies were my kids. They wanted to be in the movie so I let 'em. The other kid zombies were some of the other actors children. Oh, and I use the term 'actor' lightly here. Most of these folks were friends or college students that we recruited for cheap labor. Cheap meaning free. Hell, our entire budget consisted of two dollars and a bag of Doritos for craft services.
About the middle of the movie, you show up as a zombie. Was it cool playing a zombie? I know it's almost everybody's fantasy to play a zombie.
Hell no it wasn't fun! It was done out of necessity. We didn't have anyone else to come out and play a zombie that day so Adam made me do it. He laid a guilt trip on me. See, the movie was shot over a period of about a month and a half, shooting only on weekends and the occasional day we could round up some actors. Most people avoided our phone calls after spending a day with us. So I had to jump in there and play a zombie. The make-up sucked because the guy who was doing the make-up and effects had no fucking clue what he was doing. He was an artist, a painter, and he incorrectly thought he could figure out a way to do make-up and effects for us. We would've probably been better off figuring out a way to do it ourselves. The so-called 'zombie make-up' was just a concoction of flour, food coloring, some kind of paste, and other household crap that we could buy on the cheap. To the effects guy credit, though, he did show up every day we needed him and endured the shoot with us. He was just excited to be working on a movie. He would be off doing make-up on the actors while we were out in the woods shooting. Then we threw him a bone and let him be in the movie too (as 'Thug Zombie'). I still say that this was the highlight of his life. He seems to be the only person from the cast or crew to be proud of this flick. So some good did come out of this production.
Considering nobody in the movie knew to aim for the head to kill the zombies, I have to ask, you guys have seen other zombie movies before, right? If so, which ones do you like?
Haha, yeah...we've all seen zombie flicks before. It came down to budget. We couldn't do the headshots because we didn't know how to do them effectively and because our effects guy had no clue how to do it, either. Hell, our gunfire effects were just firecrackers stuck in the barrel of the gun. Roll camera, light firework, get out of frame, and BAM! Instant gunshot effect.
My favorite zombie flicks are any of the Romero movies. Yes, "Survival of the Dead" included. Fulci's "Zombi" is a personal favorite of mine. Basically any of the classics of the genre I've seen and loved. Who doesn't love a good zombie flick. Hell, I even dig some of the bad ones ("Wiseguys" not included).
You have two minutes to give us a valid reason for including The Goat Fucker (Later Zombie Fucker) Scene. Go.
The Goat Fucker was not our idea. Not Adam's. Not mine. Nope, it was the actor who played the Goat Fucker. He was a guy I worked with who told me he'd come out and be in the movie if he could fuck a goat. I happened to live near a goat farm so I called Adam and ran it by him. He loved the idea. We were making a movie about redneck zombies, after all, and what's more redneck than fucking a goat? So the idea for the Goat Fucker was completely the actors. He showed up, drank a couple of beers to get into character, got into make-up, and then went out and killed it. All of his lines were his own improv. I thought that he would really try to finger that goat!
Two funny things regarding the Goat Fucker: the woman who played the Goat Fucker's wife was really his wife. When she hit him, that shit was real! She was awesome and funny to watch. The other thing I wanted to mention is that the Goat Fucker scenes are one of the reasons the movie got us in trouble when it screened publicly at a nearby university. They were not happy with anything to do with the Goat Fucker or with the overuse of the word "Fuck".
(Jason: Overuse of the word "fuck"? Good thing I'm not guilty of that!)
Did the guy at the pawn shop know you were filming the movie? He's a real pawn shop owner/worker, right?
Yeah, he was the owner of the pawn shop. We needed a scene at a pawn shop or hardware store so we went in and asked if we could shoot there and he said "Sure, no problem". Then Adam asked him if he'd say a few lines and he obliged. We were in and out of there in 10 minutes.
Unrelated to Wiseguys vs Zombies, what else are you working on? Plan on doing any more Troma films?
Our latest flick, "Exhibit A-7" is making the festival rounds. It recently premiered at the Action on Film International Film Festival where it won the Xristos Award for Best Guerrilla Film, so we're getting better at filmmaking. Adam was just cast on Frank Darabont's "The Walking Dead" for AMC, so he's busy finding work as an actor as well as a writer. A flick he wrote called "Chop" (directed by the aforementioned Trent Haaga) just wrapped post-production and will be making the rounds soon. So we're still on the grind, trying to get things out there.
As for a future Troma film...who knows? I love Troma and what that they do. I love what they stand for, so maybe one day.
Jason: At this point, I'll turn to my friend and podcasting partner Nolahn of the Bargin Bin Review, who introduced this movie to me to begin with a few questions he has.
Nolahn: Wiseguys vs. Zombies clocks in at nearly two hours, quite long for a zombie movie. Any gems left on the cutting room floor?
Uh, no...nope, I think everything we shot ended up in the movie. No, wait...there was one extended scene where three zombies go on a friendly walk through the woods together and one of them lights up a cigarette, much to the chagrin of his fellow zombie who quickly grabs the cigarette out of his mouth, gives a disapproving moan, and throws the cigarette on the ground. Not sure why we even shot that sequence, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Nolahn: The film's depiction of "wiseguys" seemed to split the difference between "classic" Godfather-style mafia soldiers and "modern-day" "Sopranos"-style tuffs. Any reason why you didn't just go with one or the other?
We were just copying what we saw on TV and in movies. That's how mafiosos act, right? At least that's what we were led to believe. And we wanted the movie to be realistic! No, I'm just bullshitting. Our depiction of the mafia type was really about the age of the performers...the older mafia types (the boss, Freddie Six-Times) were the more traditional, classic interpretations. Adam, playing the (ahem) 'new generation mafioso', was loud, arrogant, quick-tempered. We weren't breaking any new ground here so we figured we'd do the stereotypical characters that everyone was already familiar with and throw them into a crazy situation.
Nolahn: You have two minutes to explain the "zombies forgo biting for backyard wresting" climax. Go.
We had a car and we wanted to blow it up. But first we wanted to fuck it all up. Adam figured that he had abused the 'actors' in this film enough, so he created this scene where the tables would turn and he would get his ass beat for a while before the car was destroyed. We're all a bunch of rednecks anyway, and as rednecks we love our wrasslin', so we decided to have the climax be a free-for-all fight with some amateurish wrestling moves ending with the car going BOOOM!
Nolahn: Anything you've taken away from making Wiseguys vs. Zombies for future projects?
"Wiseguys" was 7 years and 5 projects ago for us. If there was anything we learned from it, and learned well, it was how NOT to make a movie. We learned NOT to use your own money on making a flick, we learned NOT to ask friends to act, we learned NOT to hire guys with no clue how to do special effects to handle the effects, we learned to NOT shoot without a script...geez, man, on retrospect we had learned so much from that experience that listing them all could take all day. But each thing we have tackled since then has been better than the one before. It's a process, ya know? Trial and error and all that shit. So "Wiseguys" served a purpose for us, in the long run. We're not proud of it, of course, but we're kinda glad we did it. I'm especially happy that, seven years after it was released, it still pisses people off. At least it gets a reaction and isn't instantly forgettable. I mean, it's no "Troll 2" or anything in all of its badness, but go ahead and try to forget about the Goat Fucker...you can't! As horrid as it is, it is embedded in your brain. And that makes the experience of making the movie all worth it.
And that's it. Super special thanks to Kevin Woods for being a sport. A shout-out goes to Adam Minarovich for also being a sport (or at least I'm assuming since he hasn't tried to kill me yet). When I write these reviews, I don't ever really think that the people involved will stumble across my small corner of the Internet, so I just say whatever I'm feeling. Half the time I'm joking and I really don't mean any harm. So when the filmmakers or stars do contact me and they have a great sense of humor about what I've written, it makes me feel better.
Unlike SOMEONE else.
-Jason
Jason Made A Video
I ask a Trivial Pursuit question, show you my MST3K collection, show all the stuffed animals that live here, talk about two bad movies, show you what's hanging around my desk, and just general madness all around.
If you want to ask me a question for the Ask Jason segment, send them in to invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com, or leave them as a comment to this video.
Thanks and we'll see if another video happens soon.
-Jason
If you want to ask me a question for the Ask Jason segment, send them in to invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com, or leave them as a comment to this video.
Thanks and we'll see if another video happens soon.
-Jason
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Updated Review: Urban Legend
The movie you heard about through your friends's brothers friend's nephew's best friend's roommate!
Urban Legend
-Jason
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Ax'Em
Before I begin, I want to mention that this review, along with 19 other movies, are part of a list that I dubbed The Michael Adam's 20. Michael Adam's wrote a kickass book called "Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro-Zombies", where for a whole year straight he watched nothing but bad movies and documented it, in search for The Worst Movie Ever!
At the end, he lists 20 films that qualify and I wrote those 20 down. I'll share the 20 with you at some later date, but for now, "Ax'Em" was on that list. So I went to Netflix, added it to my queue, and intended to review this for The Site. But in the middle of it, I couldn't wrap my head around what I was watching and realized I couldn't put this on the Site. For several reasons.
One of which is there are too many damn characters. And I think only half of them use names in the movie. But keeping them straight was difficult cause any scene of them had at least 6 or 8 people in the shot and they all were equally annoying.
But on the plus, this movie is pretty much the closest I'm ever gonna get to time traveling. This movie jumps around from 1988 to 2002 so often, I felt like I was Sam from "Quantum Leap". Except Ziggy didn't have a fucking clue what I had to do to get out of this.
What I mean by the time jump is a scene would take place in 1988, with footage looking like this:
To 2002, with footage looking like this:
There's even scenes where it starts in 1988 and it finishes in 2002. It's fucking amazing! Speaking of fucking amazing, look at what greets you the INSTANT this movie starts:
(Clearly, these were added in 2002. There's NO WAY the 80's looking footage was suppose to be anything BUT 80's footage)
I'm just gonna let those speak for itself. Because I don't understand the language.
Then it starts in 1988 at a party and something is being said. Oh yeah, another thing. This was all done with (a) home camcorder(s) so there's no boom mike or nothing. So starting your movie at a party scene with LOUD MUSIC and a tiny built in mic doesn't make for a grand opening scene.
Jump to 2002 at some university and our opening credits are being performed by a step crew! I know you all read my review of "Step Up" so you know what a step crew is. Word. And I hope you liked that MTV show from a few years ago called "Yo Mamma" cause the next ten minutes is nothing but yo mamma jokes!
I'm serious. Yo mamma so fat she jumped in the air and got stuck! Yo mamma so stupid I said a penny for your thoughts and I got change back! Yo mamma so dumb she studied for a blood test!
You get the idea. Eventually, the ten million characters in this movie start arriving and they all drive out to the woods. According to the ending credits, all the characters that went to the woods are:
Kevin
Michael
Nikki
Rock
Yolanda
Kia
Angie
Tommy
Kendra
Tonya
Shawn
Erika
and Michelle
Look at that! And there's MORE people later! FUCK!
The only person I knew on sight was Rock cause he wore weird Urkel glasses, in both time periods. So in 2002 they left their houses and end up in a cabin back in 1988. Much, much time is wasted with all those people sitting around a table, talking, and telling a joke. I should repeat the joke but I got a lot to get to.
The only two times we're not at this cabin is when two homeless guys are running in the woods, talking about some big scary guy. They make a run for it and I swear to GOD you can hear the director yell "CUT" before the scene fades out. Uh, dude, this is why there are EDITORS!
The second scene is a car breaking down and three people, two dudes named Brian and BREAKFAST and a chick named Sarah are in it. Brian and Breakfast go look for a phone while Sarah stays behind and pretends she's in a Whitesnake video and poses on the car.
It'd be cool if Sarah's name was Lunch, and she and Breakfast had a kid, they could name it Brunch.
By the way, those two instances happened in 2002.
Back at the cabin, dinner (which started in 2002 but now ends in 1988) finishes up and Rock is trying to get it on with one of the 20 girls I listed up above, even though he's with one of the other girls I listed. There's a scene where Rock is about to take a bath and a chick comes in and they start fucking in the bathtub. I don't know about you, but when I fuck in the bathtub, it's pretty uncomfortable.
While they're fucking in 2002, everybody else goes outside where it's 1988 and...hell if I know what happened next. Well, I think I pieced it together. See, the leader of this trip is Michael and he's telling everybody a story, but we don't hear it. A crappy rap song is playing instead. Then everything goes black and white and we see some kids playing, then they go home. One of them goes home to find the mean Towns man killing his family, then eventually himself. I guess this kid is the lll kid or something.
So the "flashback" ends and it's the next day. All the girls are wondering if the story Michael told was true. Meanwhile, Rock and whatever girl return from fucking last night, refreshed. There's more of these scenes but I won't bother describing them.
Meanwhile, Breakfast and Brian find a house (did they walk all night?) but Breakfast doesn't think this is a GR-R-R-REAT idea and starts running. Because he ate his Wheaties. Brian, being white, investigates the house and is killed by this zombie killer guy.
I'm just gonna mention now that during the movie this killer guy never uses an Ax. He uses a machete, a knife, a gun, a board, and even his bare hands, but never an ax. So the title is just fucking stupid and pointless. Much like this movie.
So FINALLY, the killer shows up at the cabin and attacks Rock. The killer propped up Brian's dead body against the door so it'll fall inside the house, scaring everybody. They run outside to find the killer working on their car. I guess it was the alternator.
The rest of the movie is just everybody running through the woods and a bunch of time travel. There's one scene, it's fucking amazing, where the killer swings his machete in 2002, strikes the girl in 1988, and she drops dead in 2002. Beautiful.
And to prove this isn't a real movie with a real crew so no one was watching continuity, the killer CLEARLY kills Rock but yet, he's running around. Granted, he's killed in 2002 and is running around in 1988 but later he reappears in 2002. So whatever.
One of them, The Gay Guy Who Went With A Girl "Just To Make Sure", finds a car and there's a 20 minute scene with him yelling "NUH UH! YOU DINNIT JUST SLAP ME IN THESE WOODS! NUH UH!!" This is when the movie got unbearable. So they find the car but the car battery is missing. I think it's the same car Brian, Sarah, and Breakfast was in. Sarah, by the way, was killed at some point. It's not important.
I don't understand the battery thing but one of the dudes remembers seeing a battery back in 1988 so he leaves the present to go to the past to get it. While facing mirror images that were not his own.
Half of the group meet up at the car while the other half are in some house. The killer comes in and everybody just gets pissed off and start attacking him, eventually putting a pitch fork through him. He's lying on the ground and everybody meets up at the car. Dude returns to the present with the battery and they drive off. The killer gets up, clearly not dead, and just heads back into the woods. And then I feel guilty cause this happened:
Aww. Don't dedicate shitty movies to your dead relatives. No matter how supportive they were. But then the guy that made this movie THANKS GOD in the SPECIAL THANKS section and all my guilt went away. What a dumbass.
Knowing my luck, this guy is going to find me and kick my ass. People that make these kinds of movies seem to have a way of finding me. Thankfully, his name was hard to spell so I didn't use it. So take THAT!
Ok, this movie is fucking terrible. Trying to describe this movie is like trying to describe Bigfoot. It was far away, blurry, but you saw it and when you try to tell people about it, they look at you like you're crazy. But here's the weird thing-I had FUN watching it. I think if I watched this with a group of friends, we'd have fun tearing this movie apart. It's so FUCKING shitty that you have to laugh at it. I guess what I'm saying is this is the black version of "The Room".
Oh hi Rock. I did NAWT sleep with that girl in a bathtub in 2002, I did NAWT!
(Even though I had fun watching it, it was fucking terrible.)
-Jason
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Jason on Jason: Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood
You have to wonder what people think when they are filming a movie thats PART 7 to something. But this 7th outing has an interesting cast. You got Bernie from "Weekend at Bernies" and...well, that's about it. Other people looked familar but looking at imdb doesn't bring up anything.
Anyway. The first 5 minutes is a rehash of everything from part 4 to part 6. We revisit how Tommy in part 6 tied a chain around Jason and sunk him to the bottom of Crystal Lake. After the credits roll, we go to Crystal Lake and a couple is arguing inside a cabin house. A little girl, named Tina, hears this and gets upset and runs out to a boat and goes to the middle of the lake. Tina's dad runs out to stop her but Tina yells stuff at her dad, including "I wish you dead!" Soon, the entire unstable pier collapses, killing Daddy.
Like Tommy in part 5 and 6, the teenage version wakes up from this dream/memory. She's in the car with her mom, who looked familar but all I saw was she did a shit-ton of voice over work, including "Jem" and "Transformers". I don't know how you go from doing that to part 7 in a movie franchise. Well, unless you got a shitty agent.
Mom and Tina are driving back to their childhood cabin home at Crystal Lake. So I'm guessing the dad dying happened before Jason's reign of terror. Tina was in a mental hospital, trying to deal with the fact she might've killed her dad, using telekinesis.
Yes, I said telekinesis.
And OF COURSE, their old cabin is next door to a WILD party going on by some teenagers. If it was an old couple who retired there 25 years ago I would've been surprised. Or thought I was watching "The Waltons".
At the wild party is a bunch of teenagers, I guess, and they all have names but does it really matter? There's the Nerd, the Stoner, the Bitch, the Shy Girl, and the two or three people who die in the next five minutes. And surprisingly enough, a black couple. Now THAT'S something you don't see often.
Waiting for Tina at the old house is Dr. Crews (Bernie) and he's trying to help Tina get through her problem, ok not really. He's trying to exploit her telekinesis for whatever reason. It's not really explained. And yes, she really does have it. She makes things moves and even lights matches on fire.
So how does Jason fit into all this, you're wondering? Well, he's chained up RIGHT OUTSIDE THEIR FUCKING HOME, in the lake, with severe water damage. Tina goes outside all upset and thinks her daddy is still in the lake. Uh, I'm sure they fished him out how ever many years ago, sweetheart. But she still tries to connect with him but instead she connects with Jason. He wakes up and the chain just snaps in half and now...
What, you didn't think I like Eminem?
Anyway, Jason returns and Tina faints. Now why Jason didn't kill her right then and there remains a mystery.
So now that you got the set up, let's go through this quickly with my patented Dash Points (TM):
-The party in the cabin is for a dude named Michael and it's his birthday. He and his girlfriend are hiking there and Jason kills them both.
-At the party, a dude named Nick liked Tina so brings her over to the party. Most of the people seem to like her except for Melissa, who is a major bitch.
-The stoner smokes weed.
-The nerd is trying to come up with the new Star Wars.
-The black people are having sex.
-Tina's Mom finds out Dr. Bernie is exploiting Tina and is pissed.
-Tina has psychic visions of Jason killing most of the teenagers at the party and freaks out.
-Melissa wants to fuck Nick, but he rebuffs her, so she tries to get it on with the Geek to make Nick jealous but this doesn't work.
-Pretty much everybody I just mentioned besides Tina and Nick are killed by Jason.
-The best kill from this movie has to be the black chick getting killed by a party favor. Awesome.
-Once everyone is whittled down to just Tina and Nick, Jason comes after them and Tina uses her psychic powers to kill Jason. I'm gonna reinstate that in case it got lost in this paragraph:
TINA TRIES TO KILL JASON USING PSYCHIC POWERS!!!
First she loosens a power line and electrocutes him. When that doesn't work, she throws tables, couches, bookcases, dead bodies, plants, plants with dead bodies in them, and my unemployed cousin at him. Oddly enough this doesn't stop him. I do wanna point out that Tina literally just stands there and THINKS hard while shit flies at Jason. This is the laziest Final Girl I've ever seen. She might as well just go upstairs and lay in bed while kicking Jason's ass.
Anyway, she causes stairs to collapse on him. His mask falls off and we get a good look at F13Pt7 Jason and it don't look good.
Tina makes a sandwich while psychically kicking Jason's some more. The fight ends up in a basement where Jason is covered in gas and soon lit on fire, which causes the entire house to explode. I guess Tina psychically turned the gas stove on or something.
Anyway, we think it's over but nope. Jason just suddenly appears and starts attacking Nick. Tina, mentally tired, tries one more thing and you aren't gonna believe this shit:
Tina again thinks about her father and holy fucking shit, she manages to raise her Dad from the grave, whose body was still in the water I guess, and he grabs Jason and pulls him under the water. And both Daddy and Jason simply vanish. Alrighty.
Well, that's about it. Tina and Nick just get transported to the hospital and it simply ends. No final twist. No quick jump scare. Nothing. I think they weren't sure a part 8 was coming. But you and I know better.
This movie is no Part 6. It's more like the first three films, I guess. But with psychics. I sense an upcoming sequel where Jason squares off with Miss Cleo. I mean, what is SHE doing lately? When you get to part 7 of a series, you tend to run out of things to say. I just can't wait till I get to Part 8. Now we're really into shit territory.
-Jason
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
New Review/New Mass Invasion/Five Year Anniversary!
Ok folks! It's up! Today's the day! Quit your job and help me celebrate five years of watching shitty movies and trying to be funny.
To help celebrate, I got some friends to watch "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" and we all wrote about it. Luckily, I still have some friends afterwards.
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie
Also keep an eye out on the blog for something special in the upcoming days, starting today, as well!
If you're wondering what Nolahn thought of the rest of the movie, you can check out this review here:
Nolahn's Garbage Pail Kids Movie Review
This being my five year anniversary review, I need to thank you, the reader, for coming to this site. Even though I know half of you are friends of mine, I really do appreciate it. And ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Maria, who done 11 of these damn Mass Invasions. Maria, you are tops. Not Topps, the makers of these cards. Well, maybe you are, I don't know. I'll trade you and find out I guess.
Anyway, thank you and here's to another five years!
-Jason
Monday, August 09, 2010
I'm So Vain, I Think This Podcast Is About Me
Holy shit, it is!!
Dylan, the head herder over at The LAMB, came up wit this neat idea for a micro-cast, where he interviews a member of the LAMB about stuff. I was the first to say "ME ME ME!" and so last week we did and this is the result.
Dylan, the head herder over at The LAMB, came up wit this neat idea for a micro-cast, where he interviews a member of the LAMB about stuff. I was the first to say "ME ME ME!" and so last week we did and this is the result.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Summer of 90's: 1990-Graveyard Shift
So I'm wrapping up the 90's thing with this. What the hell, I started in 1990, might as well end in 1990. Let's do the time warp again!
"Graveyard Shift" is based on a short story by Stephen King and boy does it show. I'm sure they added in a few scenes just to make it a movie length cause for a good chunk of the movie, nothing happens.
The story takes place in a textile mill and we focus on one guy, who's oddly enough wearing a red shirt so I guess this movie has an awesome sense of humor. Red Shirt is running the cotton picker in the...basement? No that can't be, the basement is mentioned later. I don't know where this thing is cause people walk down stairs to get to it.
Anyway, Red Shirt is visited by mice and rats and he talks to them like students. He picks one up and puts it through the cotton picker, which kills it. The mice and rats don't like this so they send in their ringer: some giant shadowy thing off camera that kills Red Shirt.
After the credits, we find John walking through town. He's a drifter who worked and lived everywhere along the East Coast. The setting of this story is Maine, where all of King's stories take place (well, except for the Langoliers but whatever) ((Oh right, The Shining, ok whatever)) (((Oh yeah and Children of the Corn-ok I take back what I said, jesus)))
What was I saying?
John finds a place to live and goes to the mill to get a job. We meet Warwick, who has the same haircut as my Uncle, so now when we go to family get togethers, I'm gonna have to be leary of him. Warwick is the manager/owner of the mill and he has a problem (besides mice and rats and red shirts dying). The basement is a safety hazard and needs to be organized and cleaned in a week or else the mill is going to be shut down. So Warwick needs a cleaning crew to go down there and clean it up.
This is the plot which is stretched out over an hour. Warwick hires John to do the cotton picking. People in the mill and the town give John a hard time for whatever reason. There's a shitload of rats. And Brad Dourif is the Exterminator.
Dourif gets a Robert Shaw-like scene where he talks about rats being used as torture in Veitnam but it literally came out nowhere and I couldn't understand what he was saying cause he was all dirty and sweaty. In fact, every single person in this movie was so incredibly sweaty. Where was this filmed, the Mojave Desert?
There's some more sub plot stuff of chicks Warwick is banging and trying to bang. One chick he was banging finds out she's on the basement clean up crew and is pissed about this so she smashes his car to hell. I should institute a new movie rule/law:
If a nice car is shown, by the end of the movie, it will be trashed. I demand credit for coming up with that.
I also wanna mention this quickly. In a scene in a diner, a guy is in the background reading "Ben". This movie is cute.
John eventually hooks up with Jane (wow, what boring names. Sorry, Mr. King) and eventually Warwick has his cleanup crew put together. So the night of the cleanup, the crew (including John, Jane, a black dude, and three people that pick on John for whatever reason) are in the basement cleaning up with one dude with the hose loves his job a bit too much and wipes out the rats with the hose. I guess they didn't put the lotion on it's skin.
Warwick's a funny guy cause it looks like he's not around then whenever something happens that interests him he just shows up. There's a part where John is moving some stuff and he finds a underground enterance. Suddenly, Warwick is there and opens it up. Soon, the entire crew goes down into the tunnel. But Dumbass Hose Guy freaks out, breaks the stairs, and falls into a pool of water where he's eaten.
The last 20 minutes goes by pretty quickly. Brad Dourif is suddenly killed when a tombstone falls on his head. The other people that made fun of John die quickly. Warwick decided to go batshit insane and smear himself with dirty and go on a rat rampage. John and Jane manage to get away by finding a tunnel that leads to whatever this giant creature is home.
Warwick decides he's not crazy enough, stabs Jane, and wants to kill John. The creature shows up and munches on Warwick. John finds that this hideout leads to the cotton picking room (now wait a cotton pickin' minute! Sorry, I had to say that at least once) and the giant creature, which we don't ever really see clearly, follows.
The monster gets caught in the machine and John throws a pop can at the on switch, and this manages to chomp the monster into bits. John is now laying on the floor and a horde of rats desend upon him and....fade to black. Aww, it's "Inception" all over again!
The first half of the movie is good and the last 20 minutes or so is fucking awesome. The middle part, clearly the part added to King's story, is a bit slow. I'm all for setting up a story, but jesus this took forever. I was just "Ugh, get in the basement and get eaten by that giant rat thing whatever already!" And they probably didn't have to kill Jane, that was kind of a pointless kill.
Anyway, that's it. I know I missed a shitload of 90's movies but between work and the weather (the Misses insists I go outside, I don't know why) I haven't had the time. But there's good stuff coming up so stay tuned for that!
-Jason
Monday, August 02, 2010
B Movie Meatloaf: Flu Birds
This month's theme for the Meatloaf is "Sci-Fi Original Films". (I refuse to use the retarded spelling they came up with), which isn't easy cause a lot of those aren't out on DVD, and all the good titles (Sharktopus anyone?) was taken. So I was really scraping the bottom of the fucking barrel on this one.
This movie oddly enough came out right when bird flu was ending and swine flu was beginning. Look out for Flu Swines this fall!
We start with two hunters out in the woods and one of them is dubbed for some reason. They walk around and argue when some giant ass birds swoop down and kills one and bites the other. The other stumbles through the woods until Ranger Garrett finds him and takes him to the hospital.
Meanwhile, a bunch of "teenagers" are out in the woods as part of a "Kids At Risk" program, where their councilor is forcing them to go camping. For whatever reason, the fat guy, named Porky, is walking around the woods blindfolded. Soon, Porky and the councilor is attacked by said birds. I'll say this about the movie, it didn't take long to set up the plot.
Unfortuately that means I have another hour and 20 minutes before the end. Fuck my life.
Just to get this out of the way, the kids are (in no order): Jackson, who gives everybody a Swayer-like nickname. Jackson is a major asshole and I kept wishing he'd die already. There's also Lola, the slut who hooks up with Jackson. There's Derrick, the black one. The one Jackson calls "hip-hop" cause he likes rap. And there's Ava, who looks like Avril Lavinge in some angles.
Hey hey! You you! I don't like your shitty bird movie!Jackson declares himself the leader cause he's an asshole and thinks the flare gun is a real gun and points it at everyone. They run through the woods, with Ava carrying a injured Porky. They find an abandoned Fort and hide in that, but they soon realize two things:
1. It's full of explosives
2. It's full of leaking gas.
Gosh, how is THIS gonna play out?
Despite the gas thing, Jackson stupidly lights the flare off in the fort, killing a minor character that was there for 10 minutes. They realize they need to get out before the gas kills them, but the birds are outside. They need a distraction.
Meanwhile, Garrett takes Hunter #2 to the hospital where his old girlfriend Dr. Hale is looking at him. She determines that the hunter has a rare type of bird flu that isn't found in this country. And the only way it's contaigous if it's passed through bodily fluids. So it's an STD then.
By the way, this hunter dude doesn't look right. I would've pulled the plug hours ago if he started looking like this.
Back at Fort Gassy, the stupid kids vote on if they should throw Porky out to the bird while they run. Ava doesn't want to do it but everyone else agrees, so they do and it works. Alrighty then.
Thinking they've finally gotten away from Jackson, I figured everyone else would've ran their own way to safety but no, after Jackson tries to fuck Lola, the birds return and they all team up again. They eventually find the hunters cabin and hide out in there. Unfortuately, they find the hunter's guns and Jackson now has a REAL gun. Aw fuck.
Now I have a shotgun. Ho. Ho. HoDr. Hale called CDC and as a result they sent fuckin' every agency out to the hospital to contain this thing. The leader of the C.I.A, who's French for some reason, is like "nobody can leave!" but Garrett is like "I'm leaving" and Frenchy is like "ok".
Garrett and Dr. Hale leave to look for Ava and the kids, because Ava found a walkie-talkie and used it to talk to Garrett. Sucky thing is, no one knows how to navigate in the forest, so telling him where they're at is gonna be tricky. Nice.
But once they get to the cabin, Garrett knows where that's at and heads that way. But there's all kinds of drama like:
1. Derrick getting bit by a bird, so he's getting sick.
2. Jackson knowing Derrick is sick so he keeps shoving the shotgun in his face.
3. Frenchy is ordering an air strike on the area where the birds are.
4. The birds are outside the cabin and need...another distraction.
I got a new Desktop picture!*Sigh* Derrick sacrifices himself while everyone runs and Frenchy is about to blow up the area when Garrett says he and the kids are still in the strike zone. Frenchy agrees to wait five minutes (I don't got FIVE FUCKIN' MINUTES, DENNY!) while Garrett finds the kids, try to outdrive an animal with fucking wings, and eventually crash the car. A bird attacks the helicopter Frenchy is in and it crashes. Even though it was carrying explosives that was suppose to wipe out a forest, it just merely goes "Boom" and that's it.
They all head BACK to the fort, where Ava comes up with the plan to blow up the fort using the explosives AND the gas. WOW! REALLY??? But someone has to stay behind. Because Jackson got spit on by Derrick (long story, don't ask) he thinks he's sick and decides to stay around to blow the fort up. Everyone is like "cool. Peace out" and leaves him behind.
Now clearly, Dr. Hale said there was five birds. Two birds enter the fort when Jackson blows the place up. When everyone is walking away from the explosion, they say "that's it. They're all dead."
WHAT?? No! Oh god, they're gonna make a sequel. Ugh.
Anyway, that's it. They all walk away, movie ends. No mention how all this got started or what the fuck was going on or jesus christ this movie was fucking long, even though it was only an hour and 25 minutes.
Well, it's a Sci-Fi original movie, so it sucks ass. The acting is terrible. The CGI is terrible. Everything is terrible. I didn't root for a single person cause everybody was annoying in their own way. I wish the birds ate everybody. Hell, I wish the birds ate ME so I didn't have to watch this shitty movie.
-Jason
Sunday, August 01, 2010
I Suck/News and Stuff
So my summer blog-a-thon kinda came to a stand-still in July. I did pretty good for awhile there. So here's what's gonna happen:
1. I'm gonna do one last offical entry sometime this week. It's gonna be "Graveyard Shift" cause it's what Netflix sent to me.
2. I still need to do my B-Movie Meatloaf entry for this month.
3. I also have something mega important coming up for the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the site! It's gonna be mega-awesome. And I love saying "mega".
So to everyone keeping up with my summer series, I'm sorry. I think I did ok but it wasn't as much as I wanted.
In the meantime I'm gonna do something on Twitter and my FaceBook group. I realized I'm behind on my movie watching (regular and reviewing wise) so I decided to set up a regime of at least 1-DVD-A-Day. I cleared out my Netflix and refilled it with all types of movies I need/want to see. I'll probably throw some TV shows in there from time to time. And I will count Instant Watch as a DVD. Theater movies probably won't count. So if you haven't added me on Twitter, do so here. Or if you haven't clicked "Like" on the FaceBook group off to the right, do so there. It should be fun.
And finally, this:
I. Cannot. Fucking. WAIT!
-Jason
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