Boar (2017)

Movie titles can be confusing sometimes, as to what they’re about. Sometimes, you just don’t know for sure. For instance, this one is about a giant boar that murders people in the outback.

Director: Chris Sun

Starring: Nathan Jones, Bill Moseley, the fucking boar

IMDb

Co-written with Nathan.

Boar is an Australian horror film starring Australian power lifter and wrestler Nathan Jones, who wins the contest for the man I’d be most afraid of if he ever turned evil and decided to start murdering people. Seriously; dude’s the size of the fucking Incredible Hulk. Bill Moseley, of Texas Chainsaw and Devil’s Reject’s fame, also has a role, although this is perhaps the only movie he’s done where he isn’t a raging psychotic, so you’d be forgiven for not immediately recognizing the man.

But the real star is the boar, of course! He wastes no time at all doing what boars do best: stealthily rampaging through the night like a vampire and massacring unsuspecting tourists. Did you know that boars can basically just appear and disappear at will, like ninjas? They’re really hard to hear and see, even when they’re gigantic like the one in this movie.

The movie is essentially a slasher film where the killer is a boar. It’s like if Jason Voorhees was a boar, which was always my main issue with those movies. The story moves through a series of characters with rich and complex backstories. Like, there’s a guy and a girl in a tent fucking! And another guy and a girl telling scary stories in the woods and he tells her to shut the fuck up a few times! It’s rich stuff. Compelling narratives, you see.

There are some other things that happen, such as two crazy old guys who wander around talking about stuff and who smartly split up to go look for the boar. Splitting up is a tried and true tradition in horror movies, and anybody who’s anybody does it immediately. It’s the mark of the high-born in a horror movie. One of them even finds one of the girls who previously got gored by the boar. Instead of helping her, he kind of dawdles around as he looks for the boar, which kills him!

Man, this boar is way smarter than most of the people around here. I think that’s why it’s so angry. It’s so easy to kill these people that he’s just crying out for a real challenge. But alas, none come. The boar stands alone as the apex predator of the world. The most dangerous of all God’s unholy creations...

The movie isn’t just about boar killing though. It has depth. It’s got other stuff happening, like the day to day life of a regular Australian bar and its patrons. This tough chick working behind the bar gets to beat up a guy being a creep. Then later on there’s a long sequence of this old man going on and on about how he saw the boar at the bar, with nobody believing him. It takes up a lot of time. My theory is, this guy was terminally ill and just wanted for once in his life to act in a movie. So kudos to Boar for letting him really go for it!

Meanwhile Bill Moseley’s character and his daughter’s boyfriend wander around as Moseley tries to convince the boyfriend guy that marrying his daughter is gonna be tough and he really has to think about it. Moseley, who’s been married three times, says he’s the poster child for what not to do. Man, who knew a movie called Boar would be raising some serious and deep questions about the nature of relationships. Like, are we ever really ready to get married? Are we prone as a species to rushing things, sadomasochistically running headlong into pain, knowing we’re only likely to end up disappointed? All questions the movie wants us to consider here. Very deep stuff.

That all comes to an end, though, when they come across the boar! They’re probably the only characters in this whole fucking movie to actually see this thing. That still doesn’t stop it from ripping off Moseley’s head like he’s a rag doll. Oh well, at least the boyfriend doesn’t have to worry about Moseley being up his ass about the marriage thing anymore!

Well, actually he too only survives a few more minutes. He comes back to the family and tries to tell them what happened, only then the boar lunges out from nowhere and gores him too. IT WAS BROAD DAYLIGHT. Even pre-schoolers would be able to see a giant murderous boar hurtling toward them. Blind people would at least hear it and be like, oh damn, I better move out of the way. Don’t give me any excuses like ‘oh, the characters here were on vacation, their guard was down’ - they should’ve seen the fucking thing!

I guess what happens next is a lot of running around in the dark. Nathan Jones’ character Bernie is able to fight the boar until it gores him and leaves him for dead, though because his body is apparently immortal Superman-like stuff, he survives and comes back later. The boar is actually killed by the chick from the bar from earlier. I guess bartenders really are the most badass people in society. She can kick the asses of random weirdos trying to grope her in the bar, and also murderous boars. Do not fuck with the bartenders!

Well that was Boar. It had a little bit of everything, from horrific violence to charming family tales and even some moral dilemmas. All in all, a well-rounded movie for the discerning film goer. Check it out!

Images copyright of their original owners, I don't own them.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

February is a time when you're supposed to be all thankful and mushy and shit about people you love. Sometimes, those people are serial killers and necrophiliacs. Don't judge them; that's just the way life works at times. They deserve love too.

Director: Rob Zombie

Starring: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

In a time when most movies are judged by the standards of people who have never raped someone's corpse, The Devil's Rejects came out to prove that, yes, deranged psychotics do deserve their own fair representation in cinema, just like all those other minority groups like black people, gay people and transgender people. We have to move toward a broader and more open-minded environment for everyone. And that's why I do this blog. To promote open mindedness! Yup...not takin' it back at all...

We start this off with a corpse dragged through the woods, which I think is kind of the equivalent of a "Beware of Dog" sign for any movie. If you can't handle this, well, you better go the fuck back to watching James Wan movies, I guess. Or whatever you're into. I don't discriminate on these things.

I'm undecided on whether not being able to handle this is good or not.

We then get the Firefly family, who are not a happy-go-lucky band of space travelers, but instead a gang of psychotic killers. They get raided by the police. During this, Mother Firefly tells her daughter Baby, played by Zombie's wife Sheri Moon, that she loves her and has been thinking about when Baby was...well, a baby. I guess that isn't too hard because of the name association.

But wait! We saw them earlier with a bunch of corpses in their beds! And anyone who knows the previous film House of 1,000 Corpses knows they're a bunch of evil sick psychos! How are we supposed to be drawn into their familial affection for one another?

Wait, I know – it's because Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs up. That's how we know we're watching art.

Mother Firefly is arrested, but Baby and her brother Otis, played by Bill Moseley, escape. Otis, for those not familiar with this movie already, is a truly sick puppy. He's the kind of guy you'd expect to see in the background of a Slipknot concert, smoking shitty cigarettes and drinking, I dunno, Pabst Blue Ribbon, or something. The kind of guy who'd be driving a truck with raised wheels and flames on the hood and would beat you up in the parking lot for looking at him wrong while your girlfriend watches, thinks you're kind of a pissant anyway and have been asking for this your whole life, and considers leaving you for her friend from work who wears just the right amount of Old Spice.

Maybe they'll run into the Duck Dynasty guys out here somewhere...that'd be a mercy killing for the world...

Yeah, something like that. On second thought, I could have said “guy you'd see at a Rob Zombie concert” and been that much more accurate, and taken up less words at that.

We also get introduced to images like this, which burn into your brain even more than the dead girl from earlier, because our society has fucked up priorities.

This is Captain Spaulding, a crazy clown who ran a gas station road sideshow in the last movie and in this one, well, I guess he just fends off the sexual horny advances of his equally-fat wife. I guess the best way to describe this character would be: he's the kind of dude you'd see at a gas station at 11 in the morning buying a 24 pack of beer and cigarettes even though he was just in there last night, too. Then maybe you find out he's got a box of hardcore bondage snuff porn out in the garage.

He finds out about the raid on the house and heads out to meet Otis and Baby, who we learn are his children in this movie. It is a small world – murderers beget other murderers. He steals a car from a mother and child, but not before threatening the kid to come up with a reason he thinks clowns are scary, or else he'll come back and kill the kid and his mother. What a fun clown quiz game.

"Gee, mister, I guess I'm scared of of clowns because they threaten to kill my family! At least that's what the pee running down my legs tells me right now."

Easiest quiz ever!

Meanwhile, Otis and Baby kidnap a traveling country band and their girlfriends to hide out in their motel room. Not wasting any time, they do the sensible thing and force one of the guys' wives to strip and then violate her with the barrel of a gun.

Which, I guess, was the most integral part of this scheme...

Seriously, though – this has to be one of the scariest scenes I've ever seen in a movie. This is real fucking horror. Bill Moseley in this scene, and most of the ones that follow, just delivers this amazingly fucked up performance and you are really just scared shitless the entire time, because he seems like he really fucking means it. Am I really praising a scene in which a woman is traumatized beyond repair like this? Eh, on second thought, might not be the first thing to bring up at a cocktail party when I'm discussing movies.

Otis takes the two country musicians out into the desert to dig up some guns, all the while quipping snarkily about how their taste in music isn't up to what he expected. Somehow I'm not surprised by this – I mean, this guy's head has to be kind of a trip, huh? Equal rage at the cops chasing him and at shitty pop country music. But to be fair, I do think those two things are about equal in any respect. So I can see where he's coming from.

The musicians get wise on him however and try to kill him, but that doesn't go so well. My favorite scene here is when Otis is standing over the older guy and forces him to start praying to God. Otis jokingly (?) acts like the wrath of God is about to come down buuuuuut then does a “Psyche!” moment and instead declares that he is the Devil, here to to the Devil's work.

Y'know, I am fucking astounded Otis has never been caught before or got the whole family caught before now. I mean, the guy just takes every opportunity to flaunt his absolute evil in any situation. I'm surprised he doesn't just go apeshit on some poor fuck at a grocery store. “What'd you say to me? WHAT'D YOU SAY? I AM THE DEVIL! BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!” “Uh, sir, I was just trying to go to my car! I didn't mean to bump into your grocery cart!” That's always a pain in the ass for the Firefly family because that's more blood they have to wash out of Otis's clothes.

But apparently in Rob Zombie's world, being a huge asshole psychopath just makes you invincible. Which really does explain a lot about his later work, come to think of it...

Anyway. Back at the motel, Baby makes the two women slap each other in order to allow one of them to go to the bathroom, which is either every basement dwelling Reddit user's fantasy, or a serial killer's methodology put into practice. Then one of the women grabs Baby's gun and points it at her, though there's no bullets. This is all just leading up to the best knife throwing scene in the movie:

Yup! I guess the knife just...somehow slipped through the Fourth Dimension and killed her despite the fact that you'd need to have Hulk-level strength to pierce the bones to that extent at that angle. I guess being the director's wife gives you superpowers.

Captain Spaulding finally gets there and Otis gets back with the younger country musician's face cut off, clearly having been in a Buffalo Bill-ish mood all day and needing to quench that thirst. They tie the one surviving girl up and then put the skinned face on her like the world's worst Halloween mask. Since the face is of her now-dead boyfriend, I guess you could argue they're just that much closer together now.

Not sure if I should put a trigger warning for this or not...nah, it's fine.

And yes, I did just make that joke. About a girl wearing her skinned boyfriend's face. I guess I really am going to Hell now. Hooray for desensitizing! The next morning, the maid finds a nice morning wake-up call:

"Eh, I've seen worse. This isn't nearly as bad as when the Rolling Stones stayed at this motel."

The one surviving girl with the dead skin mask runs out into the street and is immediately hit by a truck. We then get a scene where the best of the best coroners looks at the body and gives his prognosis...

"Hmmm, yup, I think she might be dead."

The next scene is Baby, Otis and Spaulding in the car talking about getting ice cream. Otis doesn't want to, and they have a quibble over it, but a strategically placed scene cut awards them their sugary treat. Also in this scene we get the best line in the movie, an immortal utterance that will no doubt go down in the halls of history: when Baby and Captain Spaulding start chanting “Tutti fuckin' Frutti!” over and over again. Don't believe me? Just look:

Baskin Robbins: Perfect for an after-murder snack.

We also get scenes of Sheriff Wydell, the deranged maniac cop whose brother was killed by the Firefly family in the first movie. Given this clear conflict of interest, it makes perfect sense that he'd be the main one leading the case. While he's "interviewing" Mother Firefly, the other cops even hear him talking about his dead brother and hear her talking about killing his brother, and never once do they even suspect that Wydell might not be in the best place mentally to be on this fucking case.

"Nah, he's okay. Hell, just let him take her home and keep her prisoner in his house where nobody is looking. We don't have any legal responsibility here after all."

I guess it's easy to be a cop when your only alternative otherwise was crowd control at a fucking Shania Twain concert on a Thursday night. I mean, I guess that was the only other option for these bungholes.

But I dunno, it might be okay in the end. I mean, it isn't like he's hiring hitmen to go after them or something crazy like that...

Hey, it's Danny Trejo!

Err. Uh. Let's just move on.

The next few scenes are really just the movie going deeper into its hole. We've seen the Devil's Rejects do their thing and we've seen Sheriff Wydell's slow descent into madness. Now I guess we just have to watch that scene where Wydell realizes that all of the Firefly family's names are actually just pseudonyms stolen from old Marx Brothers films. To help him solve this mystery, he calls in a movie critic who I'm pretty sure has had sexual thoughts about his mother. I mean, holy Gods, that fucking mustache.

I'm also just now realizing after all these years that the entire plot about their names being stolen from Marx Brothers movies is completely insane. I mean, do these serial killers really seem like the types to watch Marx Brothers movies religiously? Maybe they should have taken their names from Larry the Cable Guy specials or some shit.

They get into an argument about Elvis Presley, which ends in Wydell threatening to murder the critic if he ever says anything bad about Elvis again. Gee, he sure does care about Elvis Presley's reputation just as much as he cares about catching the psychopaths who killed his brother! I mean he gets mad at them both in the same way. But fuck it, he's still the best man to solve this case! Conflict of interest? No problem! Murderous rage at small things that suggest he might have a meltdown soon? Not even a blip on the radar of concerns!

I mean, he could probably kill a prisoner at this point and still nobody would bat an eye!

It happens. I mean, being the sheriff is a stressful job and shit.

Oh...oh, well, okay then. I guess that was a stupid thing to say. Killing the prisoners is okay so long as you have a good reason. Like, if you just don't like them, or if they say something that annoys you. That's some good old fashion deep fried Southern justice.

The Firefly family, meanwhile, is busy meeting up with two other Rob Zombie trademarks: a Ken Foree cameo who runs a brothel. Yes! Good job. Everyone in the world is either a murderer or a prostitute. There are no other options. Rob Zombie, you truly are a humanitarian.

Otis, Baby and Spaulding start having a pretty good time, and we get some scenes of them partying. However, it turns out Ken Foree's character was actually just a dick the whole time who sold them out to Wydell and his hitmen goons. In this movie about murderers, rapists and corpsefuckers, I'm just shocked one of them was a big ol' Judas. Shocked!

This short scene reminds me of how good parts of this can be underneath all the filth and violence. It's a genuinely dramatic scene and a real tense moment where Haig shows so much in that look without even saying a word.

So they get taken back to their old house and tortured for a while. One of the best parts of this sequence is when they're trying to take the blame for one another and save each other from Wydell. Like there's one bit where Wydell asks who killed one of the dead cheerleaders found in their house, and they all shout at him that they individually did it, to keep the others from further punishment. That's...the most oddly sweet defense of violent rape and murder I've ever seen. And yes, I too am amazed I just wrote that.

We also get a scene where Wydell chases Baby through the dark like a hunter...you know, like in a normal slasher movie, this scene would be the killer chasing the normal, straight-man character. But here it's the other way.

And you sorta feel sorry for Wydell too - when he shouts at her about "how do you feel being helpless and tortured?" he does have a point.

Personally I think this is a pretty normal occurrence. I mean, he's just trying to do his job. What's a little murder and cold drunken vengeance if he gets the job done, after all and catches the bad guys? That's what our tax dollars are going toward, after all.

Then Tiny, the misshapen freak giant of the family who I forgot to mention throughout the rest of this because he wasn't in it (which should be his acronym-name frankly), kills Wydell and helps them all escape. There are also some pictures of them just having fun and being happy from the past, and I think it's good that they have this great collection of home movies. I wonder how that's organized..."oh, here's the tape of us torturing that hitchhiker! And then there's one of Baby's 18th birthday party where we went to Red Lobster!"

...nope, just as pants-shittingly scary as when they were actually killing people.

The last scene is our three vile murderers riding off into a bright sunny day, “Free Bird” playing while the cops shoot the shit out of them and kill them. Which is exactly what Lynyrd Skynyrd had in mind when they recorded that song. It's perfect musical synchronicity.

So that's The Devil's Rejects. It's got zero moral character or bright spots to it. It's just a dark, fucked up trip with lots of gore and violence. I mean, fuck it, right? It's offensive to good taste and completely morbid and pitch black, and that's why it's a hoot to watch. Obviously those things don't work without a certain kind of nuance to the writing, but the movie makes it work with some dark comedic timing and some very wryly funny moments, as well as some of the scariest scenes in modern horror anywhere. They even fit in a few dramatic moments here and there. It's tasteless as fuck and some people just won't like it, but what movie is so bland that anyone could like it? The phrase "anyone can like it" usually isn't much of a compliment when you think about it.

The difference between this and the very average House of 1,000 Corpses, or the awful Halloween remakes, is that here, Zombie finally hit the sweet spot he wanted to. He humanizes these characters. No, they're still not quite likable in a traditional way – they do too many horrible things to really call them the protagonists, but I don't really think this is the type of story that needs a protagonist. It's a bunch of awful, evil, vile killers meeting their match and getting a bit of what they dished out for years at the hand of another vengeful psychopath. It's a pretty cool deconstruction of the usual slasher movie tropes.

Even taking that away though, this is probably one of the most realistic serial killer movies ever made that wasn't based on a real life story. While, yes, this is rather sensationalistic in the amount of crimes the Firefly family has committed without being caught, and yes, they are a bit too powerful – it's not just like they're bogeymen like in a Friday the 13th movie. They do horrible things but they also interact with one another like normal human beings at other times (albeit extremely profanity-laden normal human beings), and they have a certain underlying sense of community with one another. It's funny and a bit poignant, and pushes your buttons because then you remember the heinous things these characters did in the first act of the movie.

I don't really know if Zombie intended that, though. I mean, have you seen his other movies? I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't mean to do any of that and was really just kinda fucking with the audience. So was this an unholy accident of a film; fated to be more than its creator ever intended it to be? Fuck it, I dunno. Just go watch the Tutti fuckin' Frutti scene again.

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

Repo! A Musical Review (Repo the Genetic Opera, 2008 review)

Due to the fact that this is a musical, I’m going to do a lyrical review. That’s right, get ready for something different!

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Starring: Anthony Stewart Head, Alexa Vega, Sarah Brightman

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963194/

Darren Lynn Bousman, creator of the better SAW sequels, made this film

Which is kind of like saying that the better half of a horse’s ass was in charge

It’s really silly and really over the top by large.

And if I had a choice I’d rather watch Dr. Horrible again, or any other musical in the world.

But since I’m not that lucky I guess I’ll keep trucking

And give this thing a whirl.

The film starts off blaring like the sirens uncaring

Without any subtlety they launch into song with this guy

Who looks like The Crow, without much to show

For why we should care about his ridiculous shiny hair.

Oh pish posh! It's a Tim Burton tea party!
I might as well put it out there now,
It's no better than anything he's been a part of.

Apparently we’re in a world that uses cheap-ass comic panels for a trite backstory

And it's quite gory, but that doesn't mean it's got any class.

There’s some stuff about humans falling prey to organ failure, what a plot device!

And this demented Newt Gingrich sells them new organs at a price:

If they can’t pay their taxes then he sends a guy to cut them up again!

Oh how I hope this isn’t what he has in store if in 2012 he wins…

Political jokes might be passe,
But I can't help it, what can I say?
He looks too much like him
For me not to take a stab or two at my whim.

Then we get some girl who’s outside for the first time in a while

Running around a graveyard, because that’s the best place for a child

And she meets the Crow-lite, who sings some unmemorable tunes

Which do nothing but attract the police – you buffoon!

And instead of trying to hide, like a sane person would,

He just screams louder and louder; would probably wake the dead if he could!

Dude, you’re doing it wrong; you’re not supposed to scream when you’re being chased

That will just alert the cops to your whereabouts. You think you’re some kind of ace?

How retarded are you; were you dropped on your head? But hey!

I guess I shouldn’t expect much from a guy who looks like he was rejected from KISS, killed himself and then was resurrected from the dead!

Then the girl is taken home where we see that her father is Giles from Buffy.

Oh how lovely.

He’s too good an actor for so silly a flick

How did they even get him to sign on for this?

Did they give him a really big check?
Did they beg and insist,
Until they pushed him to a boiling point like a time bomb ticking?

Apparently the daughter is surprised she saw dead bodies

In a graveyard…truly he has not educated her spotlessly at all.

"Hey, don't go outside."
"Okay, I'll obey you and never lie!"
Seriously, that would be unrealistic.
The movie's got teenage rebellion right in my eyes.

He sings some songs about his dead wife,

Who he had to kill because she was poisoned

The lyrics are crap, but hey, compared to the SAW movies it deserves at least a clap.

Giles keeps his daughter locked up because he’s actually the REPO Man

Who cuts out peoples’ organs if they don’t pay their taxes!

Character motivations? Consistency in actions? What are those?
You can tell lots of weed was what these writers chose.

Wait, what?

This is a real plot thread? Not a farce?

He takes too much enjoyment in this by far

For such an otherwise passive character,

This writing makes no sense

I am filled with no suspense.

So Newt Gingrich is dying and one of his crazy children will have to take the throne

Will it be the Leatherface ripoff? The neurotic Jim Carrey?

Or Paris Hilton? That last one is not a joke – it really is her!

How could a film sink so low? My brain hurts!

She plays a character addicted to plastic surgery

What a fitting fit, what a perfect stupid story!

Am I really going to go so low
As to make a Paris Hilton and political joke
In the same review? I don't know.
(PS, I feel sorry for those guys in the rear,
I'm not sure this is what they had planned for their careers!)

These characters, they’re really grating

They sing about brains and blood and copulating

With all the grace of a box of rocks.

Bill Moseley plays one, always a stock

Who can never ever play anyone who isn’t a stark mad raving lunatic.

The other guy wears peoples’ skins over his face, and boasts about getting laid.

It’s almost like this movie is a TCM 2 reunion! Oh, what a dreadful proposition!

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was not good at all.
I hope these idiots realize that Bill Moseley's not a star
And his character in that movie will not get him far
Please, oh please, don't go down that road!

But Gingrich has some brains, he doesn’t trust any of them even a grain

And so he picks Giles’s daughter Shiloh, whose mother was his ex-lover

Who Giles stole away from her, so he poisoned her and killed her

And made Giles think it was his own fault…gee, this is sounding like a soap opera.

And what am I supposed to do

With all the random singing in this?

I know it’s a musical but the songs have no flow and no sense

And they just sing at random whenever they want

I’ve seen more coherence from random bums on the street.

So then Gingrich entices Shiloh to come out with him

Where they partake in ridiculous song and dance

Like something you’d see on a drugged out Vaudeville show.

It’s really kind of boorish, just a little corny

There’s no rhyme to these songs so why should I rhyme in this?

Paris Hilton threatens to sing and she’s already singing when she says that

Does anyone who made this have any brains?

I think not.

Then we see this guy again:

I think they forgot about this guy,
It's really quite a shame.
His character had no purpose
Who will take the blame?

Did you forget he was in the movie yet?

I almost did…

So then we get this lady who sings for their silly carnivals

Because she was too stupid to read between the lines

When they offered her a cure for blindness!

There would be no story if these characters were even a little ornery

And just once did the smart thing and read the fine print. What a sham!

And she was Shiloh’s mother’s best friend, which makes her Shiloh’s godmother

Oh what a coinky-dink! Does everyone in this film know everyone else?

So of course Blind Mag (that’s her name indeed) goes to the house

And breaks the careful illusion that her father put up

Which really could have happened any time…and hey, here’s a drinking game!

Have a shot every time someone in this film mentions Shiloh’s mom!

That’d have you in a coma by the time the dawn came.

Sarah Brightman sings well
But can she save this sinking ship?
It's too early to tell, but she's got more makeup on her lips than most actresses wear in a lifetime.

So Giles gets mad and won’t tell Shiloh why he can’t help Mag.

And she sings about how she’s a teenage rebel at seventeen years long

After which he hits her, which I would do too if any child of mine

Ever sung such a poor and terrible song!

Gingrich wants Giles to help him kill Mag because she wants to break contract

And because I guess we don’t have enough stories in this movie already,

Seriously, it feels like it’s going to overflow any second!

There’s another overblown opera that night and Shiloh’s invited

Gingrich is plotting to kill her father too, because he won’t kill Mag

The whole thing is so convoluted even the actors have no idea what’s going on!

But it’s OK; we have more ear-raping, eye-gouging fun to engage in!

No literally…eye gouging.

Eyes, gouged out.
I guess Brightman was tired and really wanted out.
Can't blame her at all for that, she's done enough
Getting through this flick must have been tough.

After that Giles is captured, and on stage they pretend it’s part of the act.

Giles reveals that he made Shiloh sick on purpose,

Poisoning her blood so he could keep her to himself.

What a shitty parent! I think he deserves what he gets!

In a Hamlet-esque ending everyone dies,

Gingrich has a heart attack and never again will he rise.

Giles lies dying in his own blood

And they try to portray him as a noble father doing what he could.

NO! I shout, NO! He’s an awful father, no matter his intention.

He deserves nothing but scorn and lifelong detention.

But I guess we need some kind of heartwarming final scene,

For afterwards we get nothing but the reveal that the bad guys took over; how obscene!

And more sequels could result now! Oh, I don’t want to be sober.

Phew! That was tougher than I thought. Okay, I might as well expound on this rambling thing before people lynch me, because I do know a lot of people enjoy this film. I actually did not hate Repo! The Genetic Opera. It was silly as hell and some parts of it were pretty bad, but overall the dramatic arc was halfway decent, and in the mode of Sin City and Sucker Punch it was pretty OK. Some of the singing was truly excellent, especially Anthony Head’s and Sarah Brightman’s, which should be no surprise. Paul Sorvino was excellent too and young Alexa Vega was damn good herself.

But the bad is just as prominent. The songs aren’t catchy at all and they’re forced so awkwardly into this thing that it just becomes downright embarrassing to watch. Like one scene they’re in this limo and Paul Sorvino’s character is singing about how he got the daughter into the limo – you really need a song for that? I mean, they sing everything! They sing when they’re just making casual greetings and pointless banter, and segue into normal talking without any rhyme or reason to it! It’s completely haphazard and all over the place. And some of the visuals are just awful. I mean really awful. Like the bowels of Hot Topic, Spencer’s and the Goth kids from South Park spewed out their worst possible creation ever and it actually made a movie – that would still be more dignified than this movie sometimes.

So some parts are good, some parts are bad, and the whole thing just comes out kind of jumbled and directionless. It’s really not for me and I don’t enjoy it too much, but I guess I can see how people would. So with that said, this is the perfect Valentine’s Day movie.

Wait, what?

Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Director: Tobe Hooper

Starring: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Bill Moseley, Bill Johnson

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092076/

The legend goes that 13 years after the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they finally decided to make a sequel. And it sucks. It sucks hard. Do you need more?

Our movie starts with a few seconds of text recounting the legend of the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, and thusly reminding us of how good that one was. We then go to an open country road where some dork wearing kooky prism-sunglasses is shooting a gun out the window for no reason. He and his companion call up a sexy radio hostess named Stretch, whose name is clearly ripe for any number of sexual innuendos, and joke around with her while playing chicken with some poor shmuck who was probably just trying to get home and eat lunch or something. Gee, listen to the way that prism-sunglasses kid is laughing…it’s like audible AIDS. He gives off this really shrill, piercing laugh that I actually think is exploding my---

Oh, hey, radio girl is playing The Cramps. That’s much better. Thank you, movie.

Buuuut it’s not long before we switch right back to the two asshole brothers who want to prank-call her again, because they clearly have nothing better to do on their trip to the Texas low country than prank call innocent people and make their lives that much more annoying. Well, movie, I’ve got to give you credit; you’ve already made me want to kill these guys myself! I can’t wait till Leatherface does it later.

And luckily we don’t have to wait that long, as he actually shows up on the road a second later and attacks them after the driver calls him a pig-fucker and tells him to back up – which Leatherface does, right before he gets out his chainsaw and cuts their car to pieces while it’s already moving. For some reason he’s wearing a weird zombie-scarecrow costume or something that covers his face, even though it falls off and you can see it’s him; that’s fucking weird. And the whole thing gets caught on Stretch’s radio tape…

The next morning we get introduced to our main character, played by Dennis Hopper. Yup, Dennis Hopper again; he’s been appearing in almost every god damn movie I’ve watched lately, like he’s fucking haunting me or something. He’s playing a washed up sheriff who has been hunting the Texas Chainsaw Massacre killers ever since the first movie and none of the other cops really take him seriously or believe anything he says. But Stretch comes to talk to him and try to help him, and he refuses…I guess he just doesn’t like publicity that much.

So then we go to a Chili Cook Off where a famous chef is winning for the second year in a row. “It’s the meat,” he says, when asked what his secret is to making it so good, with a twinkle in his eye. Gee, that couldn’t possibly be foreshadowing the fact that he’s probably a bad guy and is using cut-up humans killed by Leatherface to make it, could it? Not that I’ve ever seen this movie. Just a healthy bit of speculation, mmm.

After buying a chainsaw at the World Chainsaw Emporium, Hopper goes to meet with Stretch the radio girl at her house, apparently having changed his mind as he wants her to play the tape of the two morons getting killed on the radio for everyone to hear…he says it’s so that the law will realize that he’s not just a joke, but really, I think it would just get her in huge amounts of trouble and probably even set Hopper back further, but hey, what do I know, I haven’t been chasing the Leatherface family for 14 years. And he introduces himself as Lefty. That’s right; our crime fighting team in this movie is named Stretch and Lefty. Why does that sound more like a bad comic strip you’d find in the Sunday papers or something?

So Stretch plays the horrific murder noises on the air for everyone to hear, and that guy from the Chili competition hears it from someone on the phone while driving a truck that only Kurt Russell from Big Trouble in Little China would drive. Oh, and it doesn’t matter, but he’s actually driving with the chili open and sitting on the Texas-shaped trophy he won sitting next to him in the passenger seat. That’s…really strange. Then that night after Stretch is all alone, she gets ambushed by Bill Moseley, playing one of the Leatherface family. He stumbles around chewing the scenery and acting like a ham until Leatherface pops out of the records room, where he’s apparently been hiding this whole time – gee, how did he even stay put that long? I thought he was like some kind of barbaric savage who couldn’t do those kinds of things to save his life.

I have to admit there are a few good scenes in this whole thing that do invite a few scares and some tension. Like when Leatherface corners Stretch in the room and runs his chainsaw up her leg…but for the most part the silliness of Bill Moseley and the temper tantrums of Leatherface afterward kind of drag it down.

So then Stretch decides to follow them. While she’s driving, apparently the sound guy for the movie was so bored that he decided to put in goofy, over the top music that has nothing to do with the TCM franchise. And why the hell is she following them? What, she couldn’t just alert the law enforcement? I know they didn’t believe anything had really happened, but come on, lady, YOU COULD HAVE SHOWN THEM YOUR WRECKED UP RADIO STATION. That’s veritable proof right there! You don’t have to go after them alone, you frigging idiot!

She gets chased by a car that is driven by Hopper, imagine that, and she ends up standing right in the very spot where there’s a trap-door to cave in the ground on her. Hopper gets out his chainsaw and starts screaming his head off as he goes to attack the Leatherface family madhouse, which is full of things like giant statues of hands holding knives, twisty slides like you’d find on a playground and walls that are full of fresh human entrails – weird family decoration, but I’ll go with it. But man, Hopper is a terrible cop. Does he just go in screaming and shouting every time he wants to apprehend a suspect? Imagine how that would have worked in Silence of the Lambs. He would have been dead in two seconds. He really doesn’t think this is going to, uh, alert anyone of his presence and possibly get him killed? Well, again, I guess I’m not the expert here. He probably knows best.

Hey, kids, let’s play PLOT ROULETTE! This is a game where we spin the great wheel of movie sequel plots and see what we’re going to have to deal with. Today’s plot wheel winner is…the sympathetic serial killer! Yes, Leatherface actually falls in love with Stretch, and tries to hide her from his crazy family by putting the face of her dead best friend over hers and also putting his hat on her head, too, and then tying her up so she doesn’t get away. It turns out he’s still alive, though, even though his face was skinned off…and actually, what follows is a really touching scene that’s also equally hard to watch and brutal, as he stumbles around, having been beaten within an inch of his life and had his face cut off. He manages to untie her and even talk a little, but he falls over and dies. This scene is actually really sad, and one of the only moments in this damn movie that actually evokes some kind of emotion.

But ugh…then we have to go back to watching Bill Moseley and that Chili cook guy who is apparently the head of the family. These two characters are so damn annoying and grating to the ears that they had me hoping that Dennis Hopper would show back up again. Hell, even Stretch herself is hardly sympathetic anymore. All she does is scream and she’s the one who got herself into this whole thing in the first place, so what the hell should I feel sorry for her for? Luckily Hopper does show up – although any protagonist whose choice of attack is a chainsaw to the other guy’s ass as he runs away is kind of questionable, but I’ll overlook that if we can get this movie done with faster.

I think one of the funnier parts is how Dennis Hopper has this armory of chainsaws, all of different sizes, tucked into his uniform like guns or knives or something – I’m not sure they’re supposed to be used like that, dude. And FINALLY Stretch kills Bill Moseley and puts the audience out of their misery of his horrible performance. In a startlingly cartoonish climax, the old grandpa throws a hammer at Dennis Hopper, who ducks, so it hits Leatherface, who falls over and knocks the floor in on the Chili cook guy, who loses control of the bomb he was about to explode.

Wow. Did we just enter the fucking Looney Tunes?

But no, the movie isn’t done torturing us yet, so Bill Moseley comes back and fights with Stretch some more until she finally knocks him down the mountain and into a pipe like he’s a golf ball at a mini golf course. Phew.

This just sucks. It’s got a few redeeming factors and a couple scenes that were okay, but for the most part, it just sucks. It completely eschews the tension and atmosphere of the first movie by putting in a bunch of annoying fuckholes screaming and cackling all the time and it gets rid of the cool Texas outback setting in favor of a carnival funhouse that just isn’t nearly as impressive. There’s just nothing about this that works or creates any kind of fear. The acting is over the top and annoying, the plot is just boring and…well, that’s all I need to tell you why this sucks. I guess in between the first one and this one, director Tobe Hooper lost his marbles or just stopped giving a shit, because this just isn't any good at all. If you see a copy of this, spit on it. That's all, folks!