December 2nd, 2015 - Robin Hood: Ghosts of Sherwood (2012)

Robin Hood: the Ghost of Sherwood just might be the stupidest movie I've ever seen. It's just unrelentingly dumb on so many levels. Not only do character's motivations change at random... the actors actually playing the characters change! They try to cover it up with some magic potion hogwash... although I suspect they changed everything so they could have Tom Savini in their movie. (Suspiciously, the "potioned" characters only appear in scenes with him.) I like Tom Savini just fine, but I don't think he's worth completely scheduling your film around, you know? And also - bad direction, bad script, bad action, bad ADR... and it's WAY too long (at nearly 2 hours). It's poorly done at literally every level.

September 24th, 2015 - Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies (2014)

Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies is a shitty, shitty movie. Shocking, right? It seems like it was made solely to cash in on less-than-discerning and/or stupid wrestling fans (I may be both of those things) who just see a couple of big names and check it out. And I guess this does have a decent cast of rasslers. If you don't listen to me and see this film, you'll get to see "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Matt Hardy, Reby Sky, some (presumably) well-known indie names, and a cameo by the Olympic Champion himself Kurt Angle. (Who incidentally is one of my all time favorites, but after this and River of Darkness seems to be movie poison.) Pro wrestlers are seen as not being good actors - and no one here does anything to dispel that. Not that the script ever gives them anything "actorly" to do. Lest you forget, it's called Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper is the exception and has a significant role - he *almost* manages to pull the film up from the muck on the sheer strength of his charisma and innate likability. But not even "Hot Rod" (Rest in Peace) can make this thing watchable.

The main gist of the story? "The Franchise" Shane Douglas (who is also listed as a producer) is kind of a dick, and seemingly kills a guy in the ring on purpose with a piledriver. I think because he saw his opponent making out with his lady before the match? Anyways, Douglas seems to be in the hero role, but writer-director Cody Knotts makes the interesting choice to make him and unlikable asshole. I mean, save Hacksaw and Roddy Piper, every name wrestler in this film seems like a hateful idiot. Not what you really want from you "star," I think.

July 1st, 2015 - Zombie Nation (2005)

Really, really, really bad. For some reason (maybe in an attempt to thwart screencappers everywhere) the title is broken up into several parts. This is the one that best sums up my feelings toward the film. The whole thing just felt so cynical - there *clearly* isn't enough in the budget to make a decent movie... so just don't try! But I guess enough suckers (i.e. me) will watch it if you have good (and misleading) enough cover art, so I'm sure this pile turned a profit. Just throw "zombie" in the title and people will watch it. But man, from the bad acting, to the terrible sets (like, the *worst* I've ever seen), and the general "who gives a shit" attitude of the whole thing - it's just kind of a despicable film in every respect.

I mean, everything in here is so, so bad that it's hard to even know where to start. It's tempting to just make a list and call it a day. (And people have, check imdb. It's pretty damned funny. And really long.) But cripes, I may as well try...

June 26th, 2015 - Rise of the Scarecrows (2009)

Watch out! We've got some Manos-style driving footage to go with our credits! Although at least Rise of the Scarecrows has the decency to put some credits over that footage. But that's about the best compliment I can offer Rise of the Scarecrows. When you can honestly say "I would rather watch Manos: The Hands of Fate" you know you've just seen a bad movie. At least Manos has Torgo.

I feel like I've watched and enjoyed enough ultra-indie fare that I'm willing to give obviously low-budgeted films a fair shake. I mean, just because something is shot with a consumer-grade video camera doesn't mean they don't have an interesting story to tell, right? Unfortunately, the story the filmmakers here have decided to tell is that "swearing is funny, domestic violence is funny, and fat scarecrows who *clearly* can't see out of their shitty sack-masks are scary." It would be an ugly, mean-spirited film if it weren't so poorly made. As it stands, it's just really bad.

June 25th, 2015 - V/H/S Viral

I've never understood the slashies in the V/H/S series. Video Home System works fine without them, and I've never known anyone to refer to VHS as anything but. Maybe it's a copyright thing, who knows? At any rate, the title of this film at least makes sense to the plot (as there are viral videos being passed about in the wraparound segments of the film), but I can think of a couple more apt titles. V/H/S: Absolute Shit or V/H/S: Franchise Killer would have made a lot more sense.

So yeah, I didn't like it - and this is coming from big fan of the first two films in the series. I mean, I've seen worse anthology films, but those were no budget/no effort numbers. To have this brand name pretty well established and then release such a big pile is just plain bad news. V/H/S Viral is bad enough that you actually feel embarrassed watching it - and it also pretty blatantly ignores what was set up in the first two films. (i.e that these are all found VHS tapes, and that they are found footage - the first story pretty much abandons that entirely in favor of a faux-documentary feel).

May 16th, 2015 - Satan's Touch (1984)

I've watched a lot of bad movies in my life, and while I don't think Satan's Touch was the worst, it has to be the most boring. It has next to nothing to do with Satan, or even horror. That little green sticker is a lie! It's a shitty movie about old unattractive people gambling in Vegas. It looks terrible, is super dry, and most damning, nothing exciting really ever happens. The closest you get to excitement? A guy falls through a table full of knickknacks... breathtaking. If you believe imdb, Satan's Touch was directed by a 75-year old man making his feature film debut. Sounds about right.

Honestly, the way I see it? Some people made a shitty drama about a guy with a lucky streak who wins a lot gambling in Vegas. Then, once they realized the movie sucked, they threw in some Satan business and shot an extra minute or two of new footage, and horror fans in video store across the land were bamboozled by cool title, rad cover art, and the most misleading plot synopsis I've ever come across. By the way, my copy is a VHS tape that I got about 15 years ago from a Video Update store closing sale. I've moved this damned thing like 6 times. And I can honestly say that it's the first time I've ever owned a movie that, after watching it, I wanted to just throw it away. I resisted that temptation and will probably keep it (for some reason). As far as I can tell, it's not available in any other format. And honestly, I'd feel bad for anyone who would spend the time to transfer it.

April 9th, 2015 - Psycho Shark (2009)

You'd think a film called Psycho Shark (aka Jaws in Japan in its native country) would at the very least have some solid shark action. But sadly, you'd be mistaken. There's an ocean, and some underwater cameras, but maybe a total of ten seconds of shark "action" spread out over only two scenes, one of which is a dream. The later scene is a solid WTF moment, but it hardly makes the journey there worth it.  So what does Psycho Shark have to offer? Lots of recycled footage, a half-assed found footage angle, a super underdeveloped story about some sort of cult (I think?), and a lot of young women in bikinis ogled by the camera - kind of to the point where it's uncomfortable. But counterintuitively, there is zero nudity. And hardly a shark to be seen.

It's just a bad, bad movie. The story is not clearly explained, but from what I can gather: Two young women (Mai and Miki) go on a vacation on a very isolated section of the beach. No one else is really around besides the innkeeper (who lends them a video camera to "create some memories," - although the underlying message is "I will steal this and sell it to perverts") and this guy Kenji, who Mai gets a crush on. While Kenji and Mai are out doing their romantic thing, Miki finds a video tape of three other girls who also liked to videotape themselves frolicking in the ocean and zooming in on each other's breasts. So we get to watch the three friend footage while the main Miki/Mai/Kenji story unfolds. They sort of run parallel to each other, but don't worry - Psycho Shark does nothing interesting with it.

April 5th, 2015 - Beaster Day (2014)

I don't care how hard up you are for holiday-themed entertainment on Easter - Beaster Day (aka Here Comes Peter Cottonhell) should be avoided at all costs. Don't get suckered in by the title, or the pretty cool box art, or the "giant killer bunny" premise. It's a low budget effort - imdb has it at $150,000 - but someone is getting hosed somewhere because I have a hard time believing it was that expensive. And actually "effort" would probably be overselling it. It seems to be part of the trend where filmmakers will come up with a marketable title, and then worry if there's even enough there to shoot a movie. And here, I guess they figured a puppet, super-shitty CGI, and a threadbare story would be enough. And Amazon bought it, so there's that. And then I watched it, so there's that too.

February 6th, 2015 - Bigfoot Wars (2014)

Nope!

This movie sucks. I know that will come as a shock to a lot of you who expected a movie called Bigfoot Wars to reinvigorate the horror genre, but nope! It's really, really bad, and not in an entertaining way either.

I watched this the night prior to a big vacation, so maybe my mind wasn't totally in it. And it was in less than ideal circumstances - I bought a little portable DVD player so I could watch movies on the trip, and the sound is just *terrible*.  Trying to write about it now (more than 2 weeks later - the vacation threw me for a loop), I can't remember too much of anything. So sorry for the brevity of this entry. But here's what I've got:

December 14th, 2014 - Road Hell (2011)

Avoid at all costs. I want to be done with thinking about Road Hell, and kind of want to stop this entry here. But the show must go on.

Road Hell is an anthology - our main wraparound story is about a bickering couple (an asshole business man and his pill-popping "Real Housewives of Jersey Shore"-esque wife) who end up in a hotel... imdb says a "horrific accident" led them there, but I thought maybe she had to go to the bathroom. Despite walking in on the super janky guy working at the front desk screwing an inflatable sheep, they decide to stay there. I reckon out of spite - for each other and for the audience. From this stupid, stupid set-up, they witness 3 tales of terror... one on the hotel TV, one that manifests in the middle of the room out of nowhere, and a third that I don't even care anymore.

October 19th, 2014 - The Marsupials: The Howling 3 (1987)

So, I had really hoped Knight Chills was going to be the worst thing I had to watch over the next few months.  It seemed like a good bet - but Jesus, The Howling 3.  Just two days later.  I was tempted to just put "F (forget!) This" and be done with the review, but I have "professional standards" to keep up.

I was recently bitching about how franchises nowadays needed and "Architect" - someone to watch over all the moving parts.  But the Howling could have used it - there is no reason for this to even be a Howling movie - I don't know where, or why, other than cashing in on the name, this even exists.  Because the thing is, the first Howling is really good, I thought.  It had some good NYC sleaze to go along with it's quality werewolfing.  Part 2 was a big disappointment, but nothing could have prepared me for part 3.  Had I done my research (I never do), I'd have learned that Phillipe Mora, who was responsible for part 2 - didn't like how the studio meddled with part 2.  So he bought the rights to the Howling 3 book (which has squat to do with his movie) so he could give it another go with his vision.  Oof.