So Let's Talk About The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead finished its midseason finale, "Start to Finish," and predictably, the Internet is full of a variety of colorful complaints. I've only really been watching this show for a year, but I've read all kinds of criticisms about it dating back to season 2 or so, and I think it's time to just sit down and talk candidly about this show. Can we do that? Let's give it a shot.

First, the midseason finale. SPOILERS if you haven't seen it, so don't read any further if that's not your bag.

The finale was mostly fine. It wasn't terrible or anything. Parts of it were quite blood pumping good - several cool action sequences and some solid tension between Carol and Morgan being the highlights for me. It moved along at a fairly brisk pace. But then it just kinda ended, way earlier than I thought it would. Maybe I was expecting a 90 minute episode or something - but even at the usual 45, they still could have resolved a few more of these plotlines. As is, it felt a bit like they just cut short before we got to a really climactic moment for any of the various storylines.

Like, really, we couldn't have had a cool climactic end to the situation between Carol, Morgan and the tied-up Wolf guy kidnapping Dr. Denise? We had to end Rick's story this year with him and the others just wandering out into the crowd of zombies? We know their deaths won't come from these things because that would have been the big emotional payoff, and that would have happened this year in this episode. The show obviously has something else planned. So what's the deal? It just feels like this was a placeholder, a stop-gap to move the show from one point to the next, utilitarian-style. Which is not a good way to do a show. The Carol and Morgan fight should have felt huge, and Rick getting to the armory should have been the climax of the episode, not some cliffhanger cut off in the middle.

Surely - predictably - they want to open up next February with a real bang in some new way. But why does the show have to sacrifice the midseason finale for that?

The show's real problem is inherently intertwined with its very nature. The show's intent isn't really to build toward some great epic climax or to have some big earth-shattering discovery for one character - it's to show the endless, droning life of a zombie apocalypse. That premise combined with the 'ooh, let's get a cliffhanger' nature of network TV inevitably leads to a lot of dead space in the show and a lot of diminished payoffs. I like the huge cast, but the number of characters inevitably leads to the show only developing them right when they're about to die in the same episode. That gets predictable fast.

Maybe it would have been better if it was an Orange is the New Black or House of Cards style show where every season is just released at once. Maybe a more out of the ordinary structure would have helped, one where all the episodes could focus on being self-contained and good, rather than several of them ending on dumb cliffhangers that end up taking weeks to resolve. The show often feels protracted to a fault, and while I like a lot of things about it, it seems like they could probably put more effort into some of the filler stuff in between 'big moments.'

Too much of the time now, The Walking Dead teases you with good build-ups and strong character acting, but then fails to deliver the real punchy moment, the zinger so to speak, until weeks later, when the moment is supposed to happen for the best ratings or some other evil reason. It'd be a better show if we could just get the good stuff quicker and keep the show rolling without losing the sense of pacing and build-up. The way it is, too many scenes and episodes feel like they came off a conveyor belt, as similar as they are to ones we've already seen before.

I do remember this show taking more risks in its earlier seasons. Things felt more dramatic, and there was a lot more blood pumping energetic action going on. The characters were livelier and showed more personality - though the show's way of showing how they adapt to the zombie apocalypse makes it fitting for them to seem so much grayer and quieter as the years go on. I don't mind the quiet moments in the show and I never have, though the dialogue could sometimes stand to be a bit more substantial and less hollow platitudes in the real sad moments. There have been a lot of critiques on dialogue in the show tending to mull incessantly over how life has changed in the apocalypse. I don't mind that aspect too much myself, as it's not like they can talk about fucking Gray's Anatomy or the newest issue of Sports Illustrated to pass the time. What do people expect?

But I get it. Is that really going to make for compelling TV season after season? Not if they don't introduce more interesting new characters. The show has had a lack of them for a while now. A few good ones here and there, but there are so many characters overall that they get lost in the shuffle, and none of them are really properly developed. And there hasn't been an awesome villain since The Governor died. But then, I hear this Negan character will be good. Here's hoping. This, I think, could really fix the show's problems.

In the end it's still a fine show for what it is. I like a lot of the main characters and there are enough good, dramatic moments going on for me to want to see what happens. But at this point, I just wonder if the show really has it in it to deliver something drastically more exciting and better. Can it really be better than it has been lately? I guess we'll see.

A Quick Review of "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright

Director: David Silverman

Created by: Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Sam Simon

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348034/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_Roasting_on_an_Open_Fire

"But he's a loser. He's pathetic. He's...a Simpson." - Homer on Santa's Little Helper

I wanted to do a quick something for the holidays, so I figured the best way to do it would be to briefly review a Christmas special, which also happens to be the series premiere of my favorite TV show of all time.

Saying that "The Simpsons" is my favorite TV show is kind of like saying my favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate (it is, by the way): not everyone would say the same, but it is almost a boring choice. But there is good reason for that: the show has influenced nearly every aspect of our culture and is permanently etched in the minds of all who grew up with it. Some people go to church on Sundays religiously; I would watch "The Simpsons" on Sunday religiously. Heck, I still watch new episodes of it when I have the time. No, it is not nearly as good as it used to be and is done more out of habit and loyalty than anything at this point. But I am not here to talk about that. In the spirit of the season, and to commemorate the 25th anniversary of its original airing (which was before I was born, by the way), I am here to give you my (short) take of "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire."

(Warning: I am assuming most of you reading this are fans who have seen this episode a million and one times, but just in case you are not, there will be spoilers).

The episode features the Simpsons running into trouble during the holidays when their sources of income fall through: Homer does not get his Christmas bonus because Mr. Burns is a greed bastard and Marge has to use their Christmas savings to remove a tattoo that Bart got without telling anyone. Homer keeps the former a secret and tries to find ways to make sure his family's Christmas is not a disappointment. This includes getting part-time work as a mall-Santa and attempting to get rich at a dog racing track by betting on a canine with a very familiar name.

By this description alone, it sounds like a fairly typical Simpsons episode, and indeed there are many aspects within it that have carried on throughout the years. However, you will probably notice that this is very much a series under construction. The animation is rather primitive, the voice actors seem very cautious in the way they deliver their lines, and the jokes are generally safe in terms of their content. And while most of the characters are more or less constructed the way most people view them today (especially Bart), others have undergone some noticeable changes since 1989. Ralph Wiggum makes only a brief appearance, but it is hard to overlook the fact that he sounds...uh...not "special." Lisa sounds like, dare I say, a normal 8-year old girl who wants a pony for Christmas. The character who seems most out of place is Homer: aside from the Walter Mattau-style voice (seriously, that is who Dan Castellaneta originally based it on), he seems a lot more straight-laced than he does in later seasons. His intelligence nothing to brag about but not abysmal, his anger seems more abrupt and threatening, and he appears to have a relatively strong moral conscience. When he and Bart go to the race track at the insistence of Barney Gumble (who has blonde hair, strangely enough), he seems genuinely ashamed about it. That's not the Homer Simpson I know! The Homer Simpson I know would have brought the whole family with him and blow their entire life savings on that damn dog!

By the way, does anyone else who has watched this see a lot of similarities between it and "Christmas Vacation"? Both feature the family patriarch failing to turn on the Christmas lights on his house while his family watches on, getting a tree from out in the middle of the woods instead of a lot,  and, yes, not getting his Christmas bonus. They both came out around the same time so unless there was some connection between the two productions, I cannot cry plagiarism for either. My guess is that the Simpsons and Griswold families are only a small faction of people who struggle during the holidays for similar reasons.

But I digress...

In a way, all this makes sense: the show was in the process of evolving from animated shorts that would appear between sketches on the Fox program "The Tracy Ullman Show" to a full-length series. This is not exactly an easy task even today; the creators of "The Simpsons" on the other hand were doing this at a time when Fox itself was just getting started and probably had barely any budget to give them, on top of the fact that there had not been a successful prime-time animated series since "The Flintstones" ended its run twenty years prior. So you can understand if the show seems like it is trying to figure itself out. Still, it is odd to think that this would become the longest-running primetime scripted show in television history; it looks like something that would barely last a half a season today.

As the episode goes on, however, you start to see an inkling of what made the series great. Lisa leaves the pony stuff aside to give a passionate defense of her father as her male role model. Homer meanwhile gets some laughs trying to make the Santa and dog track things work (and failing), with Bart contributing to the mix.

*Spoilers start here*

And then there is the end. Once it seems like rock bottom has been hit, they encounter the dog that Homer lost money on. His name, of course, is Santa's Little Helper, who is adopted by the family as everyone learns WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT!!! Okay, it is very cheesy and cliche, but it works.

*Spoilers end here*

The Simpsons was always good at mixing humor with heart. I have the quote on top because it is a good synopsis of the episode and to a certain extend the series as a whole: while people (and animals) are flawed, they do their best to rise above it all. Even if they do not succeed, they still manage to find what is really important in life. And hopefully, have a laugh while doing it.

So that is "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire." How does it hold up a quarter of a century later? Fairly well. It is not the greatest Christmas special ever, and certainly not the best "Simpsons" episode ever (at least it is not the Worst. Episode. Ev...sorry I could not help it...). Still, it has the Christmas spirit and is, in its own little way, a very appropriate start to a beloved series.

I definitely recommend it if you have not seen it already. And if you have...see it again!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

The pictures and links on this page do not belong to me and are being used for entertainment purposes only. Please do not sue me,

Storm of the Century, Part 2

Come one, come all, to the biggest review of the year – my two-parter Storm of the Century one, that is! The first part taught us many enlightening facts. It taught us that singing I’m a Little Teapot is on par with The Exorcist in terms of scaring people, that the proper response to talking about abortion is to bash the other person over the head, and that crossword puzzles are Satan incarnate. What will happen this time? The suspense is just killing me.

Well, let’s not waste any time then!

We start off this side of the DVD with Andre Linoge killing some old lady by making her drown herself in the sink – well, give him points for originality. I don’t even know how that’s necessarily Linoge’s doing. Maybe she just dropped her dentures down there.

After that, we get some more fun times with – guess what:

a) The teapot song

b) Crossword puzzles

If you guessed “A,” you’re right! Your prize is more scenes of “Give me what I want and I will go away” written in blood, this time on the mirror in the bathroom:

Not getting old AT ALL yet, is it? Several times during this whole thing, we get Linoge repeating the line “Hell is repetition,” in regards to people eating other peoples’ eyes in hell, or something like that. Either way it’s a bit odd – is King just admitting that hell is watching this movie? I mean, so much of it is just repeating the same tropes and “scares” over and over again … maybe the movie became self-aware during post-production. That sounds like something King would write about actually!

Anyway, yeah, so Katrina Withers, who murdered her boyfriend in the previous segment, is hanging out watching the moms play with the kids, when they all start singing the Teapot song again. She starts crying, remembering her trauma when Linoge made her murder the boyfriend. All the kids are surprised by this, and then ask what’s wrong with Katrina Withers…and okay, I’ve got to stop the review for a second and address a bit of a pet peeve of mine with this whole thing: Stephen King’s overuse of characters saying each other’s full names when talking to one another in normal conversation.

"You will refer to me by my birth name, which is Michael Arnold Jonathan Caligula Jacob Cheese Sandwich Smith. If you try to shorten that in any way, I will destroy you."

Yes, it’s a bit of a nitpick, but this trope is so common in King’s writing for any medium that I just have to mention it. It’s just so contrived – nobody talks like that! Does every character have to say everyone else’s first AND last name when addressing them? It’s kinda quaint in a small-town Maine sort of way, but the way it’s done here is just over-done. Maybe King just realized he’d put in too many goddamn characters and this was the only way to keep them all straight in his own head … eh, well, any way that works I guess!

So back to the review then. It turns out Linoge is getting his kicks now by taunting Robbie about his mother, who died while Robbie was with a hooker somewhere – what a dirtbag. So the old grandma makes some scary faces and then shouts so loud that she actually creates a gust of wind that blows Robbie across the room. Then Linoge breaks out of prison as this happens:

Oh my God, the color blue is breaking out of the I Know Who Killed Me vault and threatening to usurp the world! AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

And what is he supposed to be here? Geriatric Gandalf? Dumbledore on a sick day?

Is that really the scariest thing they could come up with to represent Legion? An old codger in a robe? Why not go full stop and give him Alzheimer's in this state too, really add to the effect?

Well, whatever – he leaves. I guess there’s no incentive to go find him. I don’t think being a small-town cop had a section in the rulebook for what to do when your prisoner magically breaks out of jail and turns into a reject from a Terry Goodkind book. Might have to add that one in next year, guys!

Then they all go outside and have a good time watching a lighthouse fall down:

Will somebody turn the 'blue' filter off?!

While I’m sure King intended this to be really atmospheric and affecting, it kind of gets lost in the film and doesn’t come up that much before or after this scene … in fact I’m pretty sure they don’t even talk about it at the end after the storm has passed and all. The effects are, well, about what you’d expect from a 1990s TV special – I’d make fun of them, but it’d be kinda like making fun of a low-budget art student’s pet project for senior class after visiting the Louvre.

...

Oh, okay, just one joke: Not the director's toy lighthouse! That was a childhood relic!

And get this – guess how Mike discovers the real identity of Linoge? He plays around with some kids’ toy blocks until he comes up with…

Why don't you discover a new musical symphony via the Xylophone next? Or maybe find the cure for cancer in a pop-up picture book? The possibilities are limitless.

Yup, Legion. That’s who Andre Linoge really was this whole time – one of the most well-known demons from the Bible. While the movie thankfully never delves too deep into the whole Biblical thing, it is definitely there. Whatever floats your boat. All I’m saying is, how come he didn’t discover Linoge’s real identity through a crossword puzzle? Wouldn’t that have been more in keeping with the movie’s erudite themes?

We then see everyone fall asleep and have different dreams about the whole island being found empty and deserted once the storm clears in the future. That’s all fine and well, but there is one really silly moment: when the newscaster breaks character in this kid Davey Hopewell’s dream and looks straight into the camera and says “Davey, you’re too damn short to play basketball.”

Uh, seriously? Let me just put that into perspective for you: this is a dream in which everyone on the whole island is mysteriously disappeared. Why would being too short to play basketball factor into the equation? Moral of the story: teenagers have weird-ass dreams.

There’s also another dream in which everyone on the island is walking over a cliff and into the sea:

This part is actually kind of effective. Why did they even bother with the other scene with the too-short-to-play basketball stuff? Just stick with this, King! There’s some real effective tie-ins to the Roanoke Island mystery, as it seems like the same thing is happening again on the movie’s island. This is what King is really great at – tying his supernatural stories into real life mysteries and events. Occasionally it comes off as hokey, but a lot of the time it adds an extra dimension that really puts the viewer/reader in the story. It’s very atmospheric.

After that, we get one of the woman who was thought lost in the storm suddenly recovered. She tells them a story about how Linoge found her and then made her come back and tell everyone that if they give Linoge what he wants, he’ll go away. Shocking how new this info is, right? Then she actually does give us something new by telling everyone that Linoge wants to meet them that night. What a shock! Information that actually moves the plot forward!

But then everything is thrown back into confusion and insanity as all the kids mysteriously faint and won’t wake up. The parents are all afraid that the kids found their secret Valium stashes hidden beneath the bathroom sink, but it’s okay. Linoge shows them through the window that he has them all flying in the air with him, holding hands like a game you’d play at recess.

Just imagine it was Michael Jackson instead of Linoge there – now THAT would be scary!

Oh okay, that was kind of a low blow – but the film does have an actual child molester in it. Apparently it’s the town priest, if you can believe that … yes, King actually put in that tired cliché. Linoge reveals that secret to Mike after Mike talks to the priest about the religious implications of what’s going on. Literally – Linoge flat out tells them that the priest sexually assaults his two young nieces on a regular basis.

Uh, pardon me for asking, guys; sorry if this is insensitive, but WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STILL CHASING THIS LINOGE GUY?! Take the child molesting fuck ass out back and make sure he never does it again! Lock him up in the jail cell! You can deal with the literal demon from Hell later; just make sure this sick fuck gets what’s coming to him!

But of course they don’t and it never comes up again. Instead we get a scene where Linoge threatens to make a woman burn her own face off if they don’t listen to what he has to say. I’ll sum it up – he demands that they all meet him in the City Hall that night. So they set about doing exactly that. They gather in city hall and Linoge shows up. Before he actually tells them what he wants though, he spends some more time going around to random town people and humiliating them. How awesome. Maybe he’ll post a series of YouTube videos doing this next.

"Subscribe to my channel. You can also see my 87 impersonations in 100 seconds video too!"

But no, he actually FINALLY tells us what it is he wants. Brace yourselves. Sit close to the screen. Do not under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES miss what he says next … after all, you wouldn't want all of this time you spent watching the movie wasted now, would you? So what’s it gonna be? Does he want a lifetime subscription to their town newsletter without the annoying emails about each month’s next meeting? Does he want to know how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie roll pop? What the hell is it?

Well, listen to this: his request is one of their children. He wants to take away one of their children to become his heir after he dies in thousands of years. And if they don’t give him one, he will kill everyone on the island, children included. Jesus. Why not just hit up an adoption agency? Wouldn't that make more sense? I guess he just likes being super fuckin' dramatic and wasting a bunch of time. Hell, why not take a kid who doesn't have parents off the streets and raise him? Just goes to show you how bad orphans have it, doesn't it? Not even a demonic dying entity from Hell wants them.

He then gives the whole island thirty minutes to decide what to do. They all immediately set about establishing that they don’t have any problem giving Linoge a child if he’ll spare the rest of them. Except, that is, for Mike, who stands up and calls them all insane. His position is simple – if they give Linoge a child, how will they live with themselves from then on? Nobody really has an answer to this, except that they don’t want to die. And frankly, it IS a tough situation, and there ARE no really great answers to anything going on here. Mike gives his point and the others have their own, all rather unfounded and flawed except  for the simple fact that they don’t know what to do – because it is such a hard choice. Eventually they do have to settle on giving him a child though, simply for self-preservation.

Linoge comes and makes them all take a little rock – seven of them white and one black, and the parent with the black one is the child who Linoge will take. And if the laws of dramatic irony have ever had any presence, guess whose kid gets chosen?

That’s right. Mike, the only person in the room who didn’t like the idea, is the one who gets the short end of the stick here. Linoge turns back into geriatric Gandalf and carries young Ralphie Anderson off into the background of the ET poster.

Then we get an “epilogue” where Mike has decided to move off the island. He divorces his wife and takes his car and just drives. He eventually ends up, for some reason, becoming an FBI agent or something – isn’t that kinda random? And then he sees his grown-up son with vampire teeth – which are only shown in close-up because the movie didn’t have the kid’s parents’ permission for him to wear them himself:

I'm just amazed Andre Linoge would take the kid anywhere in the proximity of Mike. You'd think he would know better than that.

All in all I just have one question at the end of this: what the hell did they ever do about that pedophilic priest? Did they arrest him? Did they save the little girls? Come on! You can’t just tell me they let him live! Does a storm of the century with a horrific demonic entity taking children really excuse PEDOPHILIA?!

Eh, I guess it does. Innocence is dead.

So that’s Storm of the Century. All bullshit aside, I like it. It’s a good, imaginative movie with some real heart and soul to it. Unlike flops like IT or Pet Sematary, this actually takes itself seriously for the most part and delivers a good story that rises up through the rather average acting and production values. The characters, while too numerous, are occasionally very good, and the atmosphere and tension are fairly palpable.

While there’s nothing exactly arresting going on here, and the whole is perhaps too long, I kinda like the huge running time. It makes this whole thing more spacious and detailed, really giving the viewer a feel for the atmosphere it’s trying to convey, and the weight of it all is so massive that it’s really something you have to see to believe. Even for all its flaws and silly moments, Storm of the Century is impressive.

And that’s 2013 for Cinema Freaks. It’s been a fun year with some great reviews, some terrible movies and even some really good, fun movies in the mix. Check back any time for more.

Images copyright of their original owners. I own none of them.

REVIEW: The Tooth Fairy (2006)

There are some things you just can’t make scary. No matter how hard you try, they just aren’t intimidating or fearful in any way. The tooth fairy is probably near the top of the list along with toenail clippings, old newspapers and dirty dishrags – except dirty dishrags can become scary with chloroform on them, so that’s probably lower on the list than the tooth fairy.

But people keep trying for some reason – first Darkness Falls and now this. Do they seriously think it’s that good of an idea to the point where we need multiple movies about it? I’ll spoil the surprise and say no, it’s not worth watching. But you’ll read the rest of the review anyway! Muahahaha!

Director: Chuck Bowman

Starring: Lochlyn Munro, Chandra West

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473553/

The film is directed by Chuck Bowman, who’s directed such classics in the past as Christy: The Movie and Spring Fling!...yeah, I’ve never heard of any of those either. It stars Lochlyn Munro, who was in Freddy VS Jason, so you know you’re getting the best star power you can get with this movie! But it also has Chandra West from White Noise and several Puppet Master sequels! Woah! The stars they brought on board for this movie are just BLOWING ME AWAY!

The film itself starts with happy, bouncy music over cheery 1940s small-town imagery that makes me wonder if I turned on the wrong movie. It looks more like a cheap Hallmark card than the opening of a horror movie. What’s the deal?

Then we see two dumb little kids going to a creepy house where apparently they can get a bike if they go inside and pull out their teeth for a creepy old disfigured lady. Doesn’t that sound like a good deal? But she chops him up with a machete after he does it anyway...raw deal, man; raw deal.

Yeah because that big red bike in the background doesn't at all take away from the seriousness and grimness of this scene...idiots.

In the present day, we see a woman named Darcy and her daughter Pam driving along and stopping at a gas station. It goes well until she meets two country bumpkins who I think were rejected from the last Texas Chainsaw Massacre circus show. They push her around a bit and get especially violent when they find out she’s married to a guy named Peter, and then they try to rape her until she steps on one of their feet.

Best service at a gas station ever?

Meanwhile, we see Peter, who is opening up a new hotel in town, where he works with a guy who seemingly doesn’t own any shirts. They get their first tenant, a hot chick who calls herself STAR, because she has four names that all spell that out. I think this cast of characters in general belongs in some kind of raunchy sex comedy or something, not a horror movie. Maybe they got mixed up with the cast of Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star or something – probably about equal levels of dignity either way, so it’s an easy mistake.

He's kind of like Gru from Angel...if he was a lot less funny and well written.

The daughter, Pam, meets this little girl who wears an old fashioned dress and doesn’t know who Harry Potter is, so of course she’s a ghost, even though the movie tries to play it up like it’s a surprise. And if you’re surprised at that, here’s another zinger for you: trying to put out a fire with gasoline is a bad, bad idea. The ghost-girl gives us a big old info dump about how there was once an old witch lady who lived in the house and killed kids after taking their teeth. Why? You’d find a more worthwhile answer in a Magic 8 Ball. Seriously, there’s no explanation. Does she just like teeth? Does she get off on it?

Anyway, we also learn that she just ‘knows’ somehow when kids lose their teeth (the explanation in Darkness Falls is looking pre-etty good right now, huh?) and comes to kill them when they lose the last one, or something. Pam thinks she’s safe at first, but then in an act of extreme coincidence, she hits her mouth on a rock after the ghost-girl leaves and loses her very last baby tooth. Aw snap.

The movie just kind of plods along aimlessly without any kind of actual interesting things going on, and I'd rather watch a 6 hour video of nothing but tax accountants filing papers and picking their noses than watch this for even one more scene. The characters seem to enjoy going on long philosophical diatribes that basically mean nothing. Like I love this one scene where Star and that kid who works for Peter have this conversation outside at night about going to college – it’s pretty much like watching two people who were raised without ever being exposed to normal human interaction, like in some kind of scientific experiment, try to converse. The awkwardness is just off the charts!

Oh, and occasionally there are a few scenes of Peter and Darcy beating up the two bumpkins from the beginning of the movie, but even those just feel like padding anyway. Way too much time is spent on this storyline, and since it literally amounts to nothing when they’re randomly killed off without any resolution to their storyline, it’s probably the most overt example of padding I’ve seen in a movie since the first half of Them.

There's also this lady in the picture below, who is an incredibly phoned-in and half-assed attempt at forcing more plot dumps on us, as she apparently knows everything with no explanation or reason for it. She comes by the house to warn the family about the evil stuff happening in the town, deciding quite smartly to dress all in black and sneak around like a house burglar - why? Just so the movie can shoehorn in a jump scare or two. I'm actually starting to miss The Ice Pirates' stupid joke set-ups watching this trash.

This is PJ Soles, who used to be in classic movies like Halloween, Carrie and Stripes. Now she's a minor character in this movie. I'll pause for a moment to let the incredible sense of empathetic shame wash over you in waves.

Things get serious when that guy who works for Peter is attacked in the middle of the night, tied up and put through a wood chipper by the movie’s ‘tooth fairy’ killer. Everyone is heartbroken and deduces masterfully that he must have accidentally fallen in. Next time put a safety label on that damn thing, Peter. You gotta be more careful. Oh, and after that we get some scenes where Darcy and Peter start to reconsider their staying in this town. Yeah, they really have to think hard about whether or not to stay there after Darcy was almost raped by the locals and after Peter's hired help got brutally murdered. It's just such a tough decision!

An every day occurrence.

"Oh, I think we should move back to the city after all these bad things that happened. Like the hillbillies that tried to rape me, the murder in our basement and the crazy old lady next door telling us there are evil things afoot...we're not having a good time."
"No, Darcy, that's a silly idea, I need this place to write stories because...well, because the script says we need to stay here! Hur hur!"

And wait a minute, why is this tooth fairy killer murdering these random people? The movie outright stated that she only went after kids losing their last tooth, and even in the beginning when we saw the prologue, there was no indication she was going on any kind of murdering spree. So what the hell? This movie can’t even get ITS OWN BACKSTORY right! There’s no logic here! It would have been easy to set up some kind of escaped mental patient killing people and taking their teeth just because he’s, you know, crazy, but this half-assed attempt at a supernatural ghost story just falls flat altogether when they can’t even make up their minds on how it works or decide what the story is.

You know what this is? This is a great big case of indecisiveness, like they wanted to go halfway with one idea but then got another one they liked just as much, only both ideas were about as good as handing deadly assault weapons to people with questionable morals and chips on their shoulders during wartime. Either way, we all lose.

We get introduced to some other moron with a beard who is apparently old friends with Peter. He serves basically no purpose in the story except…no, he literally serves zero purpose! His longest scenes in this movie are the ones in which he has an overlong, pointless “philosophical” conversation with Star, and following that, they sleep together before his head gets cut off by the tooth fairy. That’s it. He contributes nothing else. WHY WAS HE EVEN IN THIS MOVIE? Maybe he caught Chuck Bowman doing some embarrassing sexual act with a monkey, or something, and tried to blackmail him. It wasn’t worth it, man! It wasn’t worth it!

So yeah, are you ready for the mindblowing finale? They find out that the tooth fairy killer will be destroyed if all the souls she’s captured get their teeth back from her. Yeah, that plot thread that sounds like it came from some horror parody movie? It’s being played completely serious in this. Through a “climactic” – hah hah – finale involving the tooth fairy killer being set on fire two times and eventually being killed rather lamely in broad daylight, the movie finally, mercifully, ends. PHEW.

Insert caption about how stupid and unscary this is here; I'm too lazy right now.

I rarely come across films that are literally worthless in every possible way including for reviewing – most of them at least inspire some discussion about the various technical aspects the makers got wrong. Not here! There’s nothing about this movie worth talking about at all. It’s worse than nothing – a sub-level of horrendousness previously undiscovered by film. This kind of tin-can-budget sewer slime doesn’t even deserve one second of your time. I have greatly overexaggerated its worth even by typing out this 1500 word review.

REVIEW: Croc (2007)

Last year, I reviewed a movie called Blood Monkey. It was a terribly frustrating film that advertised itself as a killer ape horror flick, but was really just filled with dull padding and a lack of any kind of excitement. What I didn’t know at the time was that it was part of an asininely long series of made for TV crapfests put out by Sci Fi called the Maneaters series, all low-budget movies with terrible actors focusing on natural monsters and outdoorsy themes. Joy. A whole series of mind numbingly awful films about animals killing people. At least the one I’m reviewing today was directed SO WELL by the guy who gave us The Ice Pirates though!

…wait, that isn’t a positive at all. But then, as you’ll see, there isn’t much with Croc that is.

Director: Stewart Raffil

Starring: Crocodiles...

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127177/

The movie starts off in a swamp in Thailand where two guys are hunting for crocodiles or something in a boat. That comes to a close when the croc does his favorite karate move, the Nose Chop, and slices their boat in half.

Hiiiii-YAH!

Then it’s feeding time, and we see some of the WORST CGI since the Anaconda movies; oh joy!

Amazing. Is that from a really old 90s computer game? Because it would have been state of the art back then.

But then we move onto important scenes, like our main character Jack gawking awkwardly at a hot chick who comes into his crocodile farm. He’s so smitten with her that he instructs his nephew Theo to watch her all day…creepy, but I guess it could be worse. He could be courting a fat green frog-man-lady-thing like in The Ice Pirates.

Eugh, I've got to stop putting this in reviews.

So after some stupid stunts for the crowd involving basketball-playing elephants and calling down a member of the audience to be a goalie in an elephant-soccer game, Jack finds out that the chick he’s been tailing all day is some kind of animal health inspector. She points out all kinds of silly problems like how he’s feeding the birds tiny parasites in their food, or how the water and the meat is of extremely shifty quality. But he waves it all off because the safety of his animals is no big deal, as long as he can get a dinner date with the woman. She turns him down like any sane girl would do to such a terrible actor, though.

We see later that she’s talking to her bosses, who run a rival crocodile farm down the street. She says that she didn’t shut down Jack’s farm because the problems she found were all rather minor…wait, so feeding the animals parasites and having unsanitary water and food are minor problems? And even she didn’t ACT like they were very minor when she was there, so what the hell? When she gets back to her bosses it's like “Oh, they're basically mistreating these animals in every conceivable way…it’s no big deal!” Some animal welfare inspector you are, lady.

And it seems like the guys running the other farm don’t even know her name when she’s about to leave, despite the fact that they were acting like they clearly knew her in the beginning of the scene? I mean, they did hire her to look into Jack's farm; it's not like they'd forget her name that fast in real life...oh, screw it; nobody proofread this slop anyway.

Then the movie decides to delightfully treat us to scenes of what we all wanted to see in a killer croc movie, POLITICS. LOTS AND LOTS OF POLITICS. Yes, this is the movie for you if you wanted a bunch of scenes where the characters talk about debts and what’s going to happen if their farm closes down! In one scene, Theo spies on the rival croc farm owners and finds out they’re plotting against them, taking a few pictures for proof. They chase him down and he gets in the car with Jack who just happened to be driving by, only they get caught by the police and the gangsters at the same time. The gangsters break his camera memory card (how do they get away with this when the police are there? Are they corrupt? It’s never really explained), but it turns out he switched it with a spare one, so the whole scene was pretty much pointless.

In another scene we see Jack escape from a debt collector by having some smoke cover them while he runs away on the beach…I’m sorry, was there a crocodile anywhere in this? Did they really think all of this would be interesting to us? Why do I get the idea this director would be liable to make a werewolf movie and focus on the main character dealing with his insurance agency? Or maybe he’d make an alien movie and focus on the main girl’s pregnancy dilemmas? THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

Phew, so in case you were dumb enough like me to watch this movie past that point, we actually DO get another scene with a crocodile, believe it or not. Because I guess the riveting world of crocodile farm politics just wasn’t enough for this movie. But seriously, movie, you could at least try? The scene goes like this – the girl’s boyfriend goes underwater to make out with her legs or something, and the croc gets him, but all she does is stand around and look confused. How come she doesn’t just look under the water? Might save her…oh wait:

Whoops! Message gained from this scene: sex is bad. We should all just abstain from even looking at the opposite sex, and that way we will never be eaten by crocodiles.

So seeking an opportunity, the rival croc farm leaders decide to do the normal thing for this situation and break loose a bunch of crocodiles from Jack’s farm, to make it look like one of them did the nasty, bloody deed. This actually does get Jack’s croc farm shut down by the police, even though I’m not sure that should be their first priority when there’s a croc on the loose KILLING PEOPLE right now. Deal with the farm itself later, guys! I’m not even sure what this is supposed to accomplish, anyway. It’s not going to stop any more murders from happening, so why the hell are they focusing on shutting down the farm as their first priority? And wait…I don’t even really care! I often forget that I’m stooping to lower intellectual levels when watching these things.

Yeah, you really need that many cops to hand the guy a piece of paper and shut down his farm, right? I bet these idiots also send 10 cops to save a cat stuck in a tree while there's a serial killer investigation going on.

We get some more banal banter and boring acting, with the police about whether or not to cut the captured crocodile open to see if it’s the one that did the killing. God, it’s like every time we get a kill in this movie, we have to suffer through six or seven scenes of nothing but talking and legal nonsense. HOW IS THIS ENTERTAINMENT? How did they mess this up? All they had to do was make a stupid slasher movie with a crocodile eating people! Was that not complex enough for the writers? Was the chief marketing audience for this movie grad students who wanted to feel smart for watching something about the legalities of crocodile farms in Asia? What’s the draw in that? Can someone explain it to me?

So then we see some more EXCITEMENT when the two guys who run the other farm debate about whether what they did was right or not…man, I miss Lake Placid. Hmph. At least that movie had ACTUAL STUFF HAPPENING. Jesus.

I really like this one scene where on TV it shows this guy on a boat being filmed from up above in a helicopter (or something…), with a croc swimming around him. The narration explains that it can’t be Jack’s crocodile because it’s a different kind. But there’s something off about this scene…

Oh, I know. WHY THE HELL ISN’T ANYBODY HELPING THIS GUY? He’s just down there stuck on a boat with a huge man-eating crocodile, no big deal at all, right? Seriously, they’re just filming him for the news and not making any apparent attempt to save him. That’s pretty harsh. In another scene, we see a family of four being warned that there’s a man-eating crocodile on the loose, and they just kind of blow it off. They get theirs, though, when their little boy gets eaten by the giant CGI croc just moments later, like the croc was waiting for a cue or something.

"I'm a douchey white suburban dad, and I'm right about everything. When you tell me there's a man-eating crocodile in the water I think you're joking, just because I haven't seen it yet."

Truly parents of the year, people! Exemplary work! Give them a medal! Ugh…

They meet a guy played by Michael Madsen, whose only character trait is ‘guy with gravelly voice so you KNOW he’s a tough veteran.’ He’s some kind of croc hunter, or something. He doesn’t really do much of any importance throughout this whole thing, but that’s because nothing of any importance happens in the rest of the movie anyway. I mean, are you really surprised? Did you really expect the film with as much purpose and meaning as that Rugrats All Grown Up cartoon to pull itself together in the last act?

There's one scene of note where a bunch of the other croc farm leaders get massacred by the croc when it SOMEHOW hides in their pool and they don't notice - plot convenience at its worst:

OK, seriously, how does he not see the crocodile? They're both underwater. How do you not notice that?

Is he just blind or something? Seriously, how do you mess this up? Is the crocodile just super-silent? Does he have camouflage powers? WHAT?

But otherwise it's just bland as all get out. Pretty much it just plods on and on and makes me want to go to sleep. The final battle is an unpleasant and unentertaining cobble of horrible wooden acting, illogical scenes, bad CGI and completely stilted, un-engaging fight scenes that pretty much couldn’t be any worse if you put frigging Space Eunuchs in there. I mean, the final battle gives more importance to the scene of the characters trying to get Jack’s leg free from the mouth of the gator, than the actual fight scene with said gator beforehand! I’m serious. They kill the thing in like, a second, and then spend a minute or two more debating what the best way is to make sure they don’t have to amputate Jack’s leg. Oh, yes, I’m SO INVESTED in what’s going to happen to Jack’s leg after this is all over! Please, spare me the suspense; my heart is about to give out! God, what a load! This movie is awful!

But then again, what was I expecting from this anyway; groundbreaking cinema? No, how about just mild entertainment; the bare minimum of laughter or excitement to keep me from falling asleep? Croc didn’t even have that, and even for a Made for TV movie it’s bad. Director of Ice Pirates, you failed again. Go sit in the corner.

Review: The Washingtonians (2007)

Director: Peter Medak

Starring: George Washington's teeth.

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0854548/

I think this movie is every history lover’s nightmare. Because it seriously defies all logic and presents one of the most out-there, ridiculous plot premises ever seen on film. Would you believe me if I told you that this movie tells us that George Washington was a cannibal, feasted primarily on young boys’ flesh AND inspired a cult of ravenous followers dedicated to protecting that secret from the American mainstream?

Well, you had me up until that last part!

No, that is seriously what this movie wants to tell a story about; pass me the Jaegermeister and a pillow while you’re leaving the theater. It’s seriously stupid, and if you try to take it the least bit seriously then you will probably hate it. But it surprisingly works, and is done with the appropriate attention to comedy and knowledge of its own silliness to be entertaining. There are even some scary moments here that are really good. It’s that strange blend of horror and comedy that sort of amalgamates itself into one festering mass of sloppy, chaotic evil…and I love the hell out of it.

Okay, so the story is basically that this family comes to the only town completely full of old people with nobody else of any other age group to settle their grandfather’s estate and get all the taxes worked out. Their daughter looks about 11 or so but acts about half that age – seriously, SHE’S AFRAID OF EVERYTHING. For Pete’s sake, even a painting of George Washington scares the bejeebus out of her and makes her scream like she is being murdered. Oh, and the parents find a scroll inside the Washington painting that tells them that George Washington was a cannibal – they don’t believe it yet, but they do think it’s interesting. Then we get some shots like these at the funeral, proving to us what a wonderful, quaint little town this really is:

Things like this are the best parts of this movie, grossing you out and just being really frigging creepy. Old people are scary!

After holding onto the scroll about Washington, the characters’ lives start to get significantly more interesting as they get some weird nightly visitors:

"We're here for the Renaissance Festival! OPEN UP OR WE'LL EAT YOUR INSIDES!"

After that the dad calls his friend the history professor to see if he knows anything about what’s going on. He comes over in the middle of the night to talk about it. The professor starts to tell a story of government manipulation of events, paranoia and historical revisionism, only to cap it all off by saying that George Washington liked little boys. WOW. That’s really something! That scene lost all tension faster than a Dennis Hopper movie! And how the hell did this guy escape capture if they don’t want anyone to know about the secret?

Bon appetit!

So the family gets kidnapped by the Washingtonians, and they’re about to be eaten when these guys show up to crash the party:

Cockblockers...

It all ends rather happily with a twist that I will not ruin for you here. It’s too good. You have to see it for yourself.

That’s The Washingtonians. It’s weird, it’s creepy, it’s…weird…and it certainly keeps your attention. For as stupid as it is, it was intended to be that way, and it will make you laugh as much as it will make your skin crawl with how creepy it is. The story is completely ludicrous, but put it in the same category as Bubba Ho-Tep, for example, and it becomes a lot more enjoyable. This is a pretty good movie that I recommend to anyone who likes this kind of comedic horror slop. Now, I’m off to change my name before the Washingtonians find me!