Cinema Freaks Live: Ghostbusters (2016)

Well, the new Ghostbusters movie is out, after all the months and months of online wars and sexism and misogyny and a whole bunch of other undeserved crap thrown at the fact that a beloved 80s classic was being remade with four women. And after all the drama, all the threats of the world ending because of this film's existence, how did this movie hold up?

It's pretty solid.

Director: Paul Feig
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones

IMDb

Co-written with Nathan.

If you want more than that, check out the video my friend Nathan and I did about it. It's the first time we've tried this, and it probably isn't going to look that good after we do more later. But check it out anyway. There are also SPOILERS in it!

(You can also check out our original attempt here, which didn't work because I fucked up on how my camera worked, and it cut off before we were done filming. But it's still a good watch in some ways.)

It was just a fun movie. Nothing great, and the plot was a bit thin and the villain a bit too lame and not every joke hit. But more jokes hit than not. And I liked the new Ghostbusters. A lot. All of them do a good job and they add charisma to it. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy have a good amount of chemistry, Leslie Jones is a huge presence on screen and Kate McKinnon is a shitload of fun to watch. I wanted to know more about these characters, and like The Force Awakens, the fact that they're totally new and original characters lends the movie a freshness and spontaneity it wouldn't have if it were a straight up remake. So they were enough to save any minor failings the rest of the movie had, and I dug it. Was a fun time.

I think the energy it had really carried above and beyond what it would have been otherwise – if this movie had felt too sluggish or boorish, it would've just felt like a slog to get through. But the energy and verve this movie had was infectious as hell. It really worked. Even the more pedestrian moments just had this crackling, lively feel and it coasted along nicely and I wasn't bored. Pacing and energy are important. This movie succeeded at them.

I wouldn't even really have much to say about this film aside from 'I liked it' if not for all the 'controversial' nonsense surrounding it. I can't even believe all the shit this movie got, and most of it for the all-women angle. It's the dumbest thing ever. This movie is not pushing some feminist angle, and just having women as the main characters doesn't make it some sort of weird political statement – fuck that line of thought. Is having any type of person in a movie aside from a white guy a political statement then? It's not. This is not political at all. It's just a fun film. I also love all the people moaning about Chris Hemsworth's character being a dumb eye-candy type of character that the women swoon over at some parts of the movie. There are so many movies where women fulfill that role the other 95% of the time and ignore movies that actually have developed characters. I hardly think one movie to the contrary is going to destroy the fabric of cinema.

A special fuck-you to human dumpster fire Milo Yiannapolous and his equally shitty website Breitbart. If you don't know them, it's a “journalism” website in the way that the dumpster behind the McDonalds in your town is fine dining. Yiannapolous constantly insults every demographic he can and then whines and whines about “political correctness” and “censorship” when people ban him from places. It's trolling, and not any sort of funny trolling. I bring this up at all because they recently had a campaign against Leslie Jones of the movie, hurling all sorts of deplorable racist insults against them. Just awful, awful stuff.

Luckily, she's better than them. And this movie is better than anything these assholes can shit out.

And that's why I'm making a point of defending this movie. Not just because it's good, but because it's worth speaking out against nonsense hate-mongering and misogyny. And seriously, guys. It's a movie. It's not fucking Selma or The Help or something, it's Ghostbusters – this much vitriol and controversy over politics in it is insane. Just get over it. It's a good, fun movie. Just go have fun with it.

Image copyright of its original owners, we own none of them.

Nostalgia, Ghostbusters and the Movies

If you've been on any movie or entertainment site lately, you probably want to kill yourself because of all this Ghostbusters news. If you haven't been, I'll sum it up in the most non-wrist-slittingly-way possible: Sony, that master of franchises, wants to put out a Ghostbusters movie with an all female cast. The Internet reacted poorly as it always does. I personally just thought it was at least something different from a remake with an all male cast, which would just be contrived as hell, so eh, whatever.

But lo and behold...

I swear it's like they're just trying to spite me now.

It's the nostalgia dollar at work again. People just love stuff from when they were kids now. I'm a 20-something millennial whatever, so I can speak from experience – we all just love remembering the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s. Why? I think it's a product of the Internet, fast moving technology and what it's all doing to our poor, putty-like brains.

With the Internet, time moves faster and people are closer together. We grew up with this Internet thing foisted on us by the over-eager minds of big tech companies. With that came the ability of hindsight to things we couldn't just watch normally without a Youtube or torrents. When people my age were young, we watched shows like everyone used to – you know, on the TV and then we had to use our memories. Nostalgia! Then Youtube came along and Netflix followed and it was all a snowball effect from there – no longer did we have to rely on just thinking about things we were nostalgic about. Now we could relive it and watch it in all its glory!

Now, even though it's not that old, we're reliving that sweet nostalgia like 80 year old men discovering childhood favorite storybooks on a trip back to our childhood home before we die of cancer. I know that sounds sardonic, but really I think it's just a human thing that everyone goes through no matter the age – we all love remembering things from when we were younger. Nostalgia doesn't have a time limit. Everything in our pasts has some kind of rosy border.

The problem came when movie studios dug their pudgy fingers into that proverbial rosy-bordered nostalgic pie. As they are wont to do, they turned it from a sort of charming, somewhat happy new trend - “we can watch all our favorite Nickelodeon cartoons on a tiny screen in our bedrooms!” - into a giant corporate megalith: the remakes and reboots we have all come to loathe more and more every year.

This is always how it goes. They listen to us, they listen to the demand – not out of some kind of love for genuine art and fun, but because they see us as money-spewing machines that will churn out dollar bills at the drop of any new movie about something we used to love. That's the corporate machinery at work. Maybe at some minuscule level someone enjoyed what they were doing, but I dunno, I just get the feeling a lot of these guys have to go visit guys wearing cowboy hats in the middle of the night and get threatened with death if they don't obey what they say:

Unfortunately, this is the way it always goes – something starts off genuine, then the big bucks come in, and it becomes a corporate, controlled version of itself. So I imagine we'll probably get a live action Hey Arnold movie with kids from various teen pop acts and maybe Shailene Woodley or Ansel Elgort thrown in as a consolation prize. Or a Rugrats movie that imitates Baby Geniuses. With dialogue written by low-rent Diablo Codys. Maybe they'll make a Powerpuff Girls movie next and then make a male version of that to appease all demographics! The possibilities!

I also just think it's strange how political pretty much everything has become thanks to the Internet. I mean, people always liked to spout off about politics, and movies have always – always – been powerful tools to espouse certain viewpoints. But with the Internet, we can make anything political now! Now, everything that comes out gets scrutinized to no end and held up or beat down by increasingly polarized, extreme opinions. When the all-women Ghostbusters idea came out, people went nuts – some people were hailing it as a victory for feminism; others just beat the old dead horse of “women can't be funny” with some bitching about "feminists ruining everything" to round out the horribleness...either way, it was a circus. Rinse and repeat with the announcement of the all-male one again.

Can't this just be a fun movie? It's fucking Ghostbusters. It was a silly 1980s comedy with great comedians in the starring roles. Now, it's a big political debate. That's what the Internet does, though – it gives all these people voices and they become so loud, they dwarf the qualities of the films we're arguing about. Movies like Ghostbusters aren't so much about the movies themselves now, so much as they are political tug-o-war talking points for feminists and anti-feminists and who the fuck ever else.

Not to say you shouldn't discuss or argue about things that bother you in these films, but you shouldn't lose perspective either. By all means, talk about feminism in movies and the all-white-male demographic of Hollywood's moneymaking elite, but not everything has to be another hurdle in the battlefield for equality – as important as it is for men and women to be equal and for there to be diversity, I just don't see Ghostbusters as being any part of that equation. I guess some people do though, so...more power to you, I guess?

(Plus, the funniest part of the whole "all male Ghostbusters cast" thing is that people have apparently forgotten that they did two movies already with an all-male Ghostbuster cast...so, whether or not you're happy with an all-male cast in some new movie, it's just hilarious that you'd act like this is some unprecedented thing. I get the idea that eventually, in an Idiocracy-esque way, people are going to forget the original Ghostbusters even existed. They'll keep on arguing about the remakes, but then go "who?" when Bill Murray's or Harold Ramis's names come up.)

I'd be lying if I said I expected greatness from a new Ghostbusters movie in 2015. But that's not even the main point, and neither is the male/female cast debate.

The point is that they're only now making any new Ghostbusters movies, because now, people think everything from their childhood is God. Why didn't they make a Ghostbusters III or spin-offs back in the 90s when the original was still fresh? Because there was no market for it then. There is one now, thanks to the nostalgia craze born from the Internet. Hollywood saw dollar signs and decided they could make money off it. That's the truth. It's commercialized, focus-tested nostalgia and it's how they do everything, from superheroes to remakes of classic horror films to now, classic childhood movies and cartoons. Nothing new under this sun, folks.

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

Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

Ghostbusters was a great film and a classic of cinema. But it wasn’t just a classic. It was the film that defined a generation. It was a movie about a bunch of working class schmucks starting up a business at their lowest point and succeeding. Never mind the fact that it was a goofy, hilarious ghost-romp - it also had heart to it and a lot of wit, and the people of the 80s were probably attracted as much to the working class, blue-collar American entrepreneurial spark as they were to the supernaturally charged antics.

And then the sequel came out.

Director: Ivan Reitman

Starring: Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd

IMDb

A lot of people really didn’t like this movie for whatever reason. I dunno - I didn’t see this as a kid; in fact I only saw it as a young adult for the first time, but I always thought it was good. While the original had more classic lines and iconoclastic scenes, this one I always thought was a good movie anyway and plenty funny and enjoyable on its own. As this year marks the 25th anniversary of this film, I thought I’d take a look and see what it was, from a more critical eye, that people didn’t like about this flick. Let’s turn on the proton packs, don our grey janitor suits and try not to cross the streams.

This one starts off immediately with a text card saying Five Years Later - and as the film was made five years in real life after the first one, I think the movie deserves an accolade for truth in advertising. Take that Guardians of the Galaxy - you should’ve waited that 26 years after the opening scene to make the rest of your movie!

We then see that this was at the very edge of that time in movies where things like this could happen and not cause an infuriated outrage immediately:

I'm never having kids.

Sheesh. If that happened in a movie these days, you’d get five Facebook pages the night after it was released crying for the beheading of the director in the middle of a crowded city street. Also, shouldn’t Sigourney Weaver be a bit better at looking after a baby when she’s fought off aliens in the past? Just saying, movie.

We then see where a ghostbusting pedigree gets you - birthday parties where little kids scream about wanting He Man instead. Most parents didn’t want a 75% naked guy with hair like Fabio at their 10 year old boy’s birthday party, so I guess the Ghostbusters were option #2. I guess getting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (i.e. real turtles with voice boxes Krazy Glued to their shells) was option #3.

That's Jason Reitman as the little boy, who would later grow up to make movies like Thank You for Smoking and Up in the Air. Call this scene a "passing of the torch" between father and son, if you will.

We also see them dancing to their own theme song at the party. Wait a second; who the FUCK recorded that song in-universe? I thought it was just a theme song! So they’ve actually gotten a real song IN THE MOVIE’S UNIVERSE to dance along to? Huh. Go figure.

This is like watching your childhood heroes get drunk and fall on their asses while trying to reclaim their former glory. Painful - going down in flames, guys...

This scene is just proof of one of the movie’s flaws … it’s a debilitating condition I like to call sequel-itis, where a follow-up to a well-acclaimed film doesn’t further the story of the original so much as deconstruct it, leaving its characters in a run-down place in life and having the first film’s accomplishments serve as a yellow brick road to the unemployment line.

Characters will do silly and demeaning things that mostly just make them look, well, silly. Instead of a continued story, sequel-itis knocks the franchise over with the proverbial flu, forcing it to lose ground and have to pick itself back up again. It takes a lot more guts and talent to write a sequel where the characters don’t fall down and regress to where they were before the first movie started again - it takes talent to write characters that continually progress. Unfortunately Ghostbusters 2 does tend to fall into this trap.

We also get Bill Murray as a TV show host on a show about weird psychic phenomena - his guests include a guy who wrote a book about the end of the world, claiming it will end on New Year’s Eve, and a lady who says an alien took her to his hotel room and told her the world will end on Valentine’s Day in 2016. Well, all I have to say about THAT is, at least we won’t have to sit through another presidential election that’s actually just a big media circus.

Also I thought aliens would have better taste in hotels than the Hilton. I mean at least go to the Marriott instead, guys. That’s the real hub for supernatural vacationing.

The guys all meet up again to help out Dana Barrett with a problem involving her infant son, who she fears is in danger from some kind of supernatural force. But we see the only danger the baby is in comes from Peter Venkman, who likes to pick up the baby and insult it for not being his child. I sure hope he doesn’t remember any of these diatribes when he gets older. Those are the sorts of things that mess a kid up.

Don't shake his hand, kid. That'll open up doors you never expected - like bursting randomly into comedic jokes...

We also get this line from Egon: "I had part of a slinky as a kid. But I straightened it."

Wow. That's got to be the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard. Good job - up there with Million Dollar Baby and pictures of starving children for sure.

They end up discovering there’s actually a giant river of pink slime under the streets of New York City - wait, this is news to people? I always knew that.

I don’t fucking know. I’m just wondering where the hell they got that construction equipment. Was it just in the trunk of the Ghostbusters car the whole time?

I guess they all somehow became masters of using that construction equipment too. Guess ghostbusting involves a lot of different skills.

They get arrested and are in court the next day with a judge that is perhaps the most extreme I’ve ever seen in my life - he screams like a Looney Tunes character and says he wants to burn them at the stake for being frauds. Geez. Either this guy was having a really bad day and just needed some Quaaludes to calm down, or he’s never judged anything more serious than a parking violation before this.

"Bahahahahahaha....my life is an unending ruinous smoldering pile of rubble. Why do they let me be a judge again?"

Then again, these days you can shoot an unarmed black kid and get off because “you were defending yourself”...maybe judges in the 80s were just more innocuous.

Dana’s troubles aren’t over either, as she is attacked by Ditto from Pokemon:

"I WILL HAVE MY MOTHERFUCKING REVENGE!"

That isn’t the only thing she’s attacked by though - she’s also under constant siege from Venkman, who she shares possibly one of the weirdest relationships ever with. He didn’t want a baby when they were together years ago and constantly avoided the subject, yet now acts jealous that she has a kid.

She constantly warns him not to try anything funny and acts like she doesn’t want to be together, but then walks around in his house wearing nothing but a towel.

"We can have sex, but it doesn't mean you can try any funny business."

Not to say either one of them is at fault - THEY’RE BOTH WEIRD AS FUCK. Being a relationship counselor for these two must be fucking fun, huh? Probably requires a person with a will strong enough not to bang your head against a wall with your eyes bleeding and your brain aneurysm screaming after twenty minutes.

Not to mention the crowning achievement of complete insanity these two characters have - after learning that a bloodthirsty centuries-old immortal tyrant is the cause behind the slime in the sewers (just go with it), what is Venkman and Dana’s plan of action? Well, the logical one of course: go on a date while the other Ghostbusters go down in the sewers and mess around with the slime.

Actually, on second thought this is some brilliant entrepreneurial work. Smooth-talk the other guys into doing the dirty work while you go eat at a high class establishment with a beautiful woman. That’s the kind of thinking that allows you to do nothing else after this movie but Wes Anderson films and become a fodder for Internet memes.

They also discover that the pink Ditto slime can light on fire when you get too close to figuring out why it exists. But luckily Ernie Hudson with a fire extinguisher is right there to save their asses, like the boss he is:

They just keep him locked in a closet with a fire extinguisher until they need him.

Down in the sewers, Winston discovers the genesis of one of the great Halloween haunted house scares - the good ole “train coming at you then disappearing” thing:

So after that stunt, the Mayor gets them into his office and they try and explain exactly what the fuck was going on. The Mayor’s aide, who hates them for no reason, ends up getting them locked up in an insane asylum, unbeknownst to the Mayor:

That's Bill Murray's brother Brian Doyle-Murray playing the doctor here. Guess that was fun at family reunions. "You didn't really want to lock me up in an insane asylum, did you, Brian? Brian? Uh...why are you so quiet right now?!"

This is another of the film’s worst moments - why are they in an insane asylum? Did nobody remember the giant fucking Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the first one? Was everyone in this movie just passed out drunk on cough syrup when the Ghostbusters were fighting Gozer in the first movie? How does nobody believe them? In terms of half-crazy TV paranormal investigators with a slightly worrisome obsession with marketing, THESE GUYS are probably some of the more believable!

Fortunately there’s a Statue of Liberty cameo to save us all:

Man that's a lot of people waaaay too happy about seeing the Statue of Liberty marching toward them. How do they know it isn't the bad guy here? They can't see the Ghostbusters from way down on the ground!

That's several thousand dollars in property damage, good job!

I wonder if they’ll use this as a promotional campaign for the city - hey, if you want to experience NYC the right way, take a ride in the Statue of Liberty! It may destroy the city’s streets and sidewalks, but it’ll drive our tourism industry through the roof faster than shiiiiiit. Then go gorge yourself on hotdogs.

So they all save the day, even Louis Tully, who dons a Ghostbusters outfit in a clear case of "nobody needed to see this ever":

I'd say this is jumping the shark, but frankly I'm still traumatized by the word 'shark' after seeing Creature.

So that’s Ghostbusters 2. I still like it. While I won’t say it’s as good as the original by a long shot, I also wouldn’t say it’s bad either. I don’t really know how any sequel they made to Ghostbusters would have been satisfying to fans - after all, most of the cast and even director Ivan Reitman didn’t want to do this at first and only changed their minds later. The genius behind the first Ghostbusters was, in part, because the guys were nobodies; they had no reputation and they just sort of came out of nowhere and captured the worlds’ hearts.

In the second one, not only do people know about them in the movie’s universe, the WORLD knows the Ghostbusters exists in real life. They had huge reputations. For a movie about a bunch of down on their luck schmoes, it doesn’t really work so well when your losers are actually the biggest stars in the world in real life. The cartoon had already aired at this point too, and so a lot of the quiet and somewhat mature wit of the first movie is replaced with goofy slapstick and over the top emoting. And that’s a bit of a letdown.

However, the movie as a whole is still very enjoyable overall. The electric energy and bounce of the first movie is still there, the supernatural goofy plot is still there (albeit maybe not as dark and occult as the first movie’s Gozer plot) and the characters are still really good. There are a few dumb moments, but for the most part the characters - especially Bill Murray and Harold Ramis - carry the film higher than it would have been otherwise, and the chemistry and energy between them is still very ripe and present throughout the runtime. So despite a few goofy 80s-movie moments, a couple dumb cliches, I still really enjoy Ghostbusters 2. I can see why some people dislike it, but it’s good in my books.

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

REVIEW: Sting of Death (1965)

For this week’s review, I will take you back in time. Back to a time when things were more innocent. When people just liked to dance all day on sun-drenched docks and didn’t have to worry about anything except guys dressed up like mutant fish monsters killing them. Oh those were the days. Put on your nostalgia goggles and let’s dig into the wonderful wrongs of Sting of Death.

Director: William Grefe

Starring: Joe Morrison, Valerie Hawkins

IMDb

Got your nostalgia goggles ready?

Okay then! How about some booze?

Great! And the weed?

You’ll need it. Trust me.

We start off by establishing that girls wear bikinis and put on suntan lotion while sitting on docks - and they did so back in the 60s, too! And then we see that apparently sitting around sunbathing while fancy music plays is enough to make you a target for the worst scuba diver since Goofy and Donald Duck tried to find Atlantis and came up with a plastic fishbowl accessory.

Those fins are really dirty. Go clean them you neanderthal!

It’s also amazing how she gets replaced with a blow-up doll when he’s dragging her through the water…

If they got her to stay underwater that whole time, she's the one who deserves a movie made about her, not the shitty looking monster. If not, well, I guess one of the actors had a blow-up doll lying around in his trailer.

After that, I guess we get introduced to our main characters. For the uninitiated to 60s horror, they’re sort of like 80s slasher characters. Except instead of drugs and beer, they tuck their shirts into their pants, slick their hair back and talk about going to church or something. They’re all pretty interchangeable, except for one character, which is Egon.

No, not the Ghostbusters character…this guy is a shy and socially awkward misplaced caveman who can apparently sneak up on people even though he’s the size of a house. I bring this up because it’s a big deal. And because he is the killer.

Yeah, try not coming to work hungover next time, buddy!

I know, I know – I really disappointed a lot of people by revealing that fact. But just hear me out. If I had not told you guys that, the reveal would have been so terrifying that none of you would be able to sleep for weeks. Did you know that the Chernobyl disaster was caused because the people at the plant were watching Sting of Death at the time and were so surprised by the twist, that dozens of people died? It’s true. Most people won’t tell you about that part because they don’t want it to happen again.

They talk about boring things for a while. Mostly it’s a bunch of shit about who’s coming to the party and what not. They find a dead body washed up on the docks and say that maybe they should call a doctor who can do an autopsy and find out what’s wrong with him. Uh, I don’t think it matters THAT much to you guys what’s wrong with him. And yeah, maybe calling an ambulance would be the best idea when you find a dead body. Isn’t that like saying “hey, there’s a fire over there. Maybe I should call the fire department”?

But screw that shit, we have dancing to do!

Yeah, this becomes a “thing” in the movie for way longer than it probably should be. It’s a party, sure, we get it. Does that really mean we need creepy close-ups of people grinning like they just sucked in helium?

Or an abundance of ass shots?

Well I guess that isn't AS bad...

Not to mention the music, which is about as nerdy as you can get. I guess it’s still better than the 90s and early 2000s disposable waste featured in the Hitcher remake. Ugh – shivers, every time…

So eventually Egon shows back up and they decide, as a hive mind apparently, to make fun of him and chase him off the dock, like a bunch of jackasses. Why? Because they are jackasses. I mean seriously, what kind of cretins pick on somebody just because they look a certain way? What kind of asinine, horrible person would actually do that? I guess it’s just what passed for fun before the Internet, because nowadays we prefer to keep our bullying online.

But I digress – he gets chased off and then they just continue dancing. Even the one chick who scolds them for it stops caring in a second or two and just rejoins the dancing like nothing was wrong…talk about a short attention span. And seriously, MORE DANCING?! Why do we need more? In what unholy, hellish dimension is this considered entertainment? I’ve seen more enjoyable spectacles watching fat trailer park families at Walmart! It’s seriously just embarrassing. I bet if we showed this to these people all these years later, the ones who are still alive would pretend to have dementia so as to not have to face what they created. Nobody could watch this even a year or two later and pretend they were proud of it.

After that we get some more talking about boring stuff like who’s going to do what at the party…I can almost see my boredom as a physical entity. I mean good god. It’s like being at a party with an old folks’ home. Even 80s slashers had more compelling dialogue than this! I may not be speaking for everyone here, but I’d sure as hell take booze and sex over ‘what are we going to do next at the party?’ I mean come on! Give us a death scene or something!

Oh, and we also see one girl jump in the pool and then everyone starts talking about how she might die in the water. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be ironic, if they really think you’ll die if you go in a pool alone, or…

Ohhhhhh. Was it supposed to be foreshadowing? Well, then it was the worst attempt at foreshadowing I have ever seen. Thank you, Sting of Death…you deserve a goddamn medal for that.

Anyway, yeah, she gets killed somehow in the water and nobody seems to see the monster, how amazing…I guess they were all too busy talking about their oh-so-important party chit chat. Seriously, how can they be so blind? HE’S RIGHT THERE. You’d think a full-grown dark figure in a swimsuit, in a tiny swimming pool, would attract a little attention, but I guess in the 60s it was pretty commonplace. I guess whatever this guy was saying to this woman was just too important to notice someone being attacked in the pool.

Real stand up people there…better not hang out with them. If you ever get mugged, they'll probably just ignore it. But don't worry - they're having a really good conversation!

After that we see one of the guys get attacked too, so everyone goes out on the water in a panic to take them to a hospital. While they’re doing that, I guess they get attacked, because the boat flips over and several of them die.

Like every party in the 60s, it started with bullying, had some dancing in the middle and ended up with complete carnage and chaos. No wonder our generation is so fucked up.

What is our heroes’ next move? Well, the only logical course of action: go home and eat dinner calmly!

Oh okay, this isn't the immediate next thing they do, but come on, it might as well be...how are they so casual? One of them says "Today was awful." Heh heh, yeah, THAT'S a bit of an understatement..."two people got attacked and many more were injured, what a bad day! If only we hadn't just ignored the big, dark, noisy shape in the water the first time..."

You sad, despicable pieces of crap.

The movie also shows us a GREAT plot twist by revealing Egon as the killer!

I never woulda guessed! You have completely taken me off guard, movie! Bravo. I also love how they show you he's the killer this early, thus effectively eliminating any suspense for the next 45 minutes of the movie.

Yeah, he goes into some cave with flashing spaceman lights and computers all around, puts his hands in some kind of opening and then transforms from a jellyfish space-alien monster into human again. Now, keep in mind this was before drugs got big in the 70s. Your guess is as good as mine what the hell the explanation behind this is…how does he have this stuff and, more than that, know how to use it? Is he an alien? I dunno. The movie never tells us! Perfect.

Then we get some more long drawn out bullshit where a bunch of the characters leave to try and go to the mainland. They stop in some Everglades type clearing and enjoy the wilderness for a while, because nothing says “people are getting attacked in the water” like going even further out into the wilderness, right? This one chick leaves the group and gets attacked by the monster. I think she deserves it. How can THIS sneak up on you? Is the guy really that hard to hear coming? There have to be some leaves or sticks or something cracking underneath those gigantic swimming fins!

Nothing? Nothing at all? Fine…ugh…

There are some other scenes with Egon trying to romance this one girl back at the camp. They’re really short and not all that fleshed out, but that’s not a surprise. We also get shower scenes, like this one, which rips off a kind of famous movie from a sort of well-known director…I can’t place which one though…

I always thought Psycho could have been improved if the killer wore elephant droppings and dirty vines as a costume. This movie gets it right.

Yeah, keep rubbing your forehead there, princess; someday you'll get it clean...

Hmm. Must be Rear Window.

So he kills this girl by putting a hand on her throat. I guess the special effects are really just that bad. He looks kind of like an astronaut that got eaten by a lawnmower.

Look at that thing on his head. I've seen that in the pillow sections of Walmart.

Then he kidnaps the one girl he likes and takes her to a cave under the water where he threatens her for thinking he’s ugly even when she insists she doesn’t. She hasn’t given any indication that she does, but still he throws a fit anyway. Then, because he doesn’t want to be ugly, he sticks his hands back in that thing again and electrifies himself. Because electrified people are totally not ugly at all! I bet nobody will make fun of you now…

Also, seriously, what is up with this underground alien robot magic cave? How can he just stick his hands in that thing and transform into his costume, which we see him take off like regular clothes in an earlier scene? In fact, what even is that thing? Is it a spaceship? Is he a superhero? An alien? What? WHAT?!

Okay, whatever…so in a very sexist re-enactment of how a caveman usually got a new girlfriend, this one guy comes and saves the girl.

"I'm here for the Asylum remake of The Time Machine?"

Seriously, the women in this movie are portrayed as weak as hell. She barely puts up a fight at all, which at first makes sense because he’s a fairly large guy. But when her friend comes in, they fight for a few seconds and then he kicks Egon once or twice and that’s the end of it! He wasn’t that tough! Are you telling me a woman has such a hard time standing up for herself at all that she couldn’t get away from this wimp? Come on!

Oh who am I kidding, look at the movie I’m reviewing, at the time it was released…I’m wasting my breath.

Anyway, yeah, check out the awesome fight scene these guys have. They shove each other’s arms a little, kick each other once or twice and that’s it. Real gripping. Kind of like the last time I watched my four year old cousins play-fight in the backyard.

And your guess is as good as mine what THIS shit is:

Looks like a science fair project done by Doctor Who villains.

The cave blows up or something and the two heroes get out, but sadly drown in the ocean before they can resurface, because they forgot they couldn’t breathe underwater.

…

…

Okay, that didn’t really happen, but wouldn’t it have been a much better movie that way? I think so. This was just ridiculous. Terrible story, no good effects and very little suspense. It’s just crap. But it is very enjoyable crap in its way…I won’t lie and say there’s absolutely nothing of worth in it, because there are very funny moments here and there, even if the movie didn’t intend them to be. But that’s usually the best kind of camp anyway, the schlocky kind. It’s terrible, but it’s also terribly endearing. I’d rather not see those dancing scenes again though. That was far scarier than the monster in the movie.

*Heart attack*

You can watch the full movie of Sting of Death at this location: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlt08v_sting-of-death_shortfilms#.UeTHn43VCSq

Enjoy!