REVIEW: The Loved Ones (2009)

This is the kind of movie that turns critics into alcoholics. I really try not to bash filmmakers too hard – I mean, except for a select few exceptions, most of them put some real work into writing, directing or producing these films, not to mention the hard work actors put in. So I joke around a lot. But I’m not even kidding when I say I legitimately think the writer and director of this film need help. Like legitimate psychological help, because if not they’ll probably kill people someday.

Director: Sean Byrne

Starring: Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy

IMDb

Why do I say that? Well, read on and you'll see. You may also need some bleach for your eyes and brain to wash out the images you're about to witness. Folks, this is The Loved Ones…be afraid. Very afraid.

We start off with our main character Brent driving with his dad along some barren country road. The dad talks about how heavy metal slit-your-wrists crap is bad for you and how there’s nothing wrong with a real melody…yeah, because lord knows there’s NO melody in heavy metal music! It’s just banging pots and pans! Ugh, buncha morons…are we still having conversations like this in 2013? Fortunately a bloody shirtless guy is standing in the middle of the road, and you know THOSE are always easy to miss, right?

Officer, he just came outta nowhere!

It doesn’t even look like he walked onto the road, it looks like he was standing there the whole time! Oh, but I guess the riveting conversation just distracted them from the horribly bloody, wounded man in the middle of the street! They swerve off the road, hit a tree and die. Wow, shortest movie ever. I can’t even believe this got green-lighted! I mean, it was only a few minutes long. What a strange avant-garde commentary on the music industry…

Oh, fine, that's an old joke anyway. The movie actually skips forward six months past that incident, probably because they didn't have enough money to pay a hospital to let them film the scenes directly following. Seriously, six months later? Yeah, that works really well when we don’t know the character and had no time to get invested in him at all. Why even bother with a prologue like that if you’re only going to make it two minutes long? Just start from the damn actual beginning of your shitty movie! Why waste our time? Do you think showing us enough dumb scenes will just numb our brains for when the real stupidity starts?

Apparently Brent’s dad got killed in that crash and he has survived to make out with his girlfriend in broad daylight in the car in front of a school:

Because that wouldn’t get you in trouble, expelled and probably arrested, right? Especially since these people are clearly in their mid-20s.

I guess the story here is that this girl named Lola asks him to the school prom and he says no because, well, he already has a girlfriend as seen above, and plus her eyes are really creepy looking.

When his girlfriend is dropping him off at his house, she asks who asked him to the prom – truly one of the great romantic conversation starters. If I could have a nickel for all the times I've seen married couples who got hitched after one of them asked the other one "who was the other girl who asked you to prom?"...well, I still wouldn't have enough money to wipe this movie from my brain.

Brent then goes home and partakes in his second favorite thing next to making out in cars, climbing rocks with a dazed expression on his face:

Maybe he'll fall down and get his leg trapped under a rock for 127 hours. Then they can make a movie about that.

Apparently this is supposed to represent his depression about his dad dying, or something. It works about as well as going to a funeral in a clown suit, really, especially since we don't know anything about him. I know what you're thinking: maybe there will be more character development later. Well, you'd be wrong about that.

He gets kidnapped, and his mother realizes he's missing once his dog returns with stab wounds on his body. When she calls her cop friend, she tells him the dog has been stabbed, and he replies by asking: "What do you mean the dog was stabbed?" Uh, buddy, not sure there are that many options for the incredibly subtle and mystical implications of "my dog was stabbed." Maybe you should turn in your cop badge right now.

Also, fuck this movie for killing a dog. I don't care if it's fake. You deserve to go to hell for that even if you imply it.

I guess I forgot to mention the side-story about one of Brent’s friends going out with a rejected Jennifer’s Body cast member. He acts like a dork and she’s cold and distant for no reason…must be that damn heavy metal music again, which is apparently the root of all evil in Loved Ones land.

But that’s not the reason you’re here. No, you’re here for the ridiculously over the top and bizarre torture scenes that make up most of the rest of the film. Lola and her weirdo dad apparently kidnap Brent and take him home to tie him up and have their own prom. All because he said no to her at the prom. So you see kids, if someone asks you to the prom and you say no, there’s at least a 50% chance they will kidnap and torture you for it. At least that seems to be how it works in Australia where this movie takes place…

I really have to call this movie out for something else, too – not just the torture scenes being horribly ridiculous and stupid, though we’ll get to that soon enough. But the fact that we have this girl, who is clearly demented, and her father, who willingly helps and complies for no reason I can see. Is the only given reason for their insanity supposed to be “they’re just cuckoo crazy”? Just writing characters as insane without any real depth or emotion doesn’t work, movie. Not when the film focuses so heavily on listening to them all the time, and believe me, these two characters NEVER SHUT UP throughout this goddamn movie.

You have to have logic behind it. Her father helps her kidnap and torture young men. Why? Why would he do that? What’s the story there? We need at least a glimpse of some reason so our imaginations can get to work. We also need a more believable script that treats these two like characters, rather than just punch-lines for the world’s sickest take on the Aristocrats joke.

But hey, who needs character development and plot when you have wacky pedophilic incest scenes of the father staring lustfully at her while she undresses!

At this point I remember thinking the movie was treading a very fine line. Which it almost crosses, with the implication that the father and daughter are romantically involved...well, that WOULD explain the thought process behind this movie's conception, anyway.

Truly this movie brings the class. It’s not that I don’t “get this” – it’s trying on purpose to be as tasteless as possible. But that just means it’s the lowest level of scum imaginable.

Sigh, so they tie Brent up and inject him with a syringe that makes it so his vocal cords don’t work anymore, or something. Not sure what it’s supposed to be since they don’t explain it, but it pretty much negates the only thing that could have saved this movie: Brent talking to his kidnappers. If you want to do a really hardcore, brutal movie, you need to have some conflict beyond “he didn’t go to the prom with me.” If Brent can’t talk and reason with these two nutballs, where’s the incentive to keep watching? That could have created either drama or comedy, both of which the movie is sorely lacking. All the movie is from this point on – not even exaggerating here – is ludicrous torture scenes.

Part of me just thinks they couldn't think of good dialogue for him, so they just came up with this to make it a non-issue.

Since he can’t say anything, these scenes are just boring. Before you go and say “well, you can’t expect Shakespeare out of a horror movie”…well, shut up; no one is expecting Shakespeare. No one ever was. But if I’m going to sit through your ridiculous torture scenes, you better at least try to make it dramatic or funny in some way. At least have some kind of interesting hook to make us care! This movie has none of that! It’s not scary or dramatic because all it is is just torture crap – it’s not funny because there are no jokes. Having the two villains dance around in front of him while he’s tied up shouting ‘WE CAN’T HEAR YOU! WE CAN’T HEAR YOU!’ doesn’t count as funny. It just makes them look like imbeciles.

They do that twice, by the way. Twice. That's how bereft of ideas this fucking thing really is.

And yeah, on that note, what would have happened if Brent had said yes to taking Lola to the prom? Is this just her default when people say no – torture and humiliate them while they’re tied to a chair? If he said yes, would she have just acted like a normal girl?

But those questions aren’t important. We have a scene of Lola forcing him to pee into a cup, with the threat of her father nailing his dick to the chair if he doesn’t. Why? Well…why not? He escapes after that and tries to run, but instead just gets chased up a tree and they throw rocks at him until he falls down. Then they tie him up exactly the way he was before. So what was the point of this whole sequence? To show that throwing rocks at someone is a good way to knock them out? Good instruction manual, movie. How about I try it at the next board meeting of whatever executive studio thought it was okay to push this movie on the world?

We get some more stupid torture scenes, like showing him a picture book full of other kids who they did this to. So they’ve done this before. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this shit – are you FUCKING kidding me? So what do these people do when they’re not kidnapping and torturing high school boys for not going to the dance with Lola? Do they just eat breakfast and act like normal people? “Hey, dad, pass the cereal.” “Oh, honey, this one still has blood on it from when you disemboweled that kid last week!” “Oh, I’ll just have oatmeal then.” Christ.

Not to mention the whole tone is just off…keep in mind, these people nailed Brent’s feet to the floor. In the following scene, they take off his shirt and carve a heart on his chest with a fucking dinner fork. I mean really, do scenes like this fit in?

It's like the movie is stuck halfway between comedy and gore, not knowing how to channel either one properly to get laughs. It's also really painful like stubbing your toe.

Yeah. Pretty disconnected, isn’t it? You get blood and suffering and then it’s followed by a goofy scene where the dad “crowns” Lola prom queen, and then makes Brent blow a little party noisemaker like they’re five years old. Not to mention a dance sequence where the dad stands above them on a chair sprinkling glitter on them. It's incredibly tonally confused...you can't play up the gory, sadistic aspects AND the really silly glittery prom night aspects and have it work. Well, maybe you could - in an entirely different, much, MUCH better movie than this...

But hey, if those scenes aren’t riveting enough for you, we also get scenes of the best friend and that wannabe-gothic chick in the car doing mostly nothing. They make out a little, then go inside and she grabs his crotch on the dance floor. Could be worse, at least they’re not playing disco. And if you thought these scenes were too important to the overall plot, then we get the two having sex and then the principal catches them and makes them go home.

Can you even tell which one of these two is the woman in this picture?

I’m not even kidding here: this is the end of their storyline. What did we need that for? To break up the torture scenes? Granted, it’s not the worst idea in the world, but…c’mon movie, at least try and have a point.

Anyway, back in magical insane torture fuck-land, they decide to drill a hole in Brent’s head for no reason. Oh, wait, I take it back: the reason is that the director is a criminally insane pervert.

A face that only a mother could love...except literally, since her mother is a braindead catatonic. See the next picture!

There’s also some crap about a trap door in the floor with some kind of monsters inside, but we don’t see them yet. If it was a Lovecraftian entity, maybe, just maybe this movie would have gotten half a point on my rating scale. But, sigh, that is a disappointment all its own.

We never actually get a reason for the drilling a hole in the head thing…there’s this other, very minor, plot point with this old lady who they bring to the table who also has a hole in her head. She’s pretty much catatonic and serves as the ‘Grandpa from Texas Chainsaw’ rip off of the movie. Honestly, it’s even more pointless than the scenes with the best friend and the gothic chick. It goes absolutely nowhere, and mostly just seems to be a ‘look how gross we can be!’ thing. If you’ve been keeping track, with this movie that is just overkill.

Yeah so this is Lola's mom or something...why is that in the movie; to gross the audience out? Go fuck yourself Loved Ones.

Sigh, I’m tired of this review. Let’s try and finish it up…so Brent escapes, kills the dad and tries to kill Lola too. I guess listening to metal really does make you a killer. Whodathunkit?

We get a really cliché scene where Lola gets all mad that her dad died – I really hate movies like this that have sadistic, morally reprehensible kidnappers, torturers and killers who somehow get SO MAD when their plan goes wrong and one of their captives – shock and awe – retaliates and fights back. It’s stupid as hell writing. If you’re gonna go and do horrible stuff to people, you’d BETTER be prepared for bad stuff to happen right back to you. In a better movie, you could potentially elicit sympathy from the villains. But there’s really only one movie I know that has ever done it completely:

Now there’s a better movie. Way better, even.

Then Lola hits his hand with a hammer and knocks Brent down to the pit in the floor. It’s full of anorexic crazed zombies that remind me of Martyrs, which is really only half a step up from this in terms of artfulness or meaning – it’s another piece of shit, basically; just not as rancid. Somehow, even with a goddamn hole in his skull and knife-wounds in both feet, plus the numerous other injuries, he’s still able to beat them all and pretty much seems completely fine. Maybe he’s magical, I dunno. Makes about as much sense as anything else.

Apparently these things are supposed to be the previous victims of Lola and her dad. I don't even get it; why go through the trouble? Is guys saying no to your daughter for prom really such a big deal that you need to build a basement, get a soundproof trap door and feed them rats all the time? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? CAPITAL LETTERS RAGE ARRRRGGGGHHHHH

Then it’s cliché time yet again as a cop comes to the house and does the whole ‘hey, I found the captive! Whoops, the killer came up behind me and I was too stupid to be on the alert! Uh oh, I’m dead!’ routine. It’s been done in a thousand other movies, and anyone who uses it in such an unoriginal manner should be banned from writing for any other movie. Or maybe just called out for being an idiot. I dunno, either one.

It's not even like this scene was designed to get people going 'LOOK OUT!' in the theater. It's two seconds long...they wouldn't even get past the first syllable before she axes him.

Meanwhile Brent’s girlfriend figures out it was Lola who kidnapped him, because she remembers him saying it was Lola who asked him to the dance earlier…wow, kinda a big leap in logic there, huh? It could have been any girl that asked him; why does THAT mean she’s the kidnapper? Granted, the movie’s warped view of reality proves her right, but still. What if she’d gone and accused some poor sad girl who’s spent the night inside watching Dear John?

We then get the dumbest cat fight in the world as Brent’s girlfriend fights Lola. Because seriously, why didn’t she call the police? Why wouldn’t she at least get backup? Going out alone to confront a possible kidnapper is the DUMBEST thing she could have done!

Disclaimer: actually a deleted scene from the next Bridesmaids movie.

Brent climbs up a pile of bones and escapes very easily actually – I’m not sure why being stuck in the hole was a problem at all for him. He takes the police car and drives away, avoiding his girlfriend only to swerve and hit Lola instead. Just like in the beginning when he swerved to avoid the bloody guy in the road and hit the tree, remember? GET IT? So clever! So witty! If people would just stop running around in the street, this kid could finally learn how to be a good driver. Alas.

So yeah, the movie adds up to an Australian driving PSA. Which is still more meaning than you'd get from any of the torture scenes.

So they go home, hug Brent’s mom and…yeah, that’s it, movie over. I'd call it underwhelming, but frankly I think the movie didn't end soon enough. It should have ended back when the car crashed the first time, three minutes in. We get some credits, complete with the director’s name in nauseatingly pink and purple colors with glitter all around – something you want to tell us there, Sean Byrne?

This is the worst movie with a theme about driving since Taken 2. This has got to be one of the worst out there; I mean I really don’t see how much else even compares. Everything about this is grating and obnoxious, from the Z-grade over-acting to the absolutely ridiculous plot. And I mean ridiculous, because this shit is seriously just cocaine-addled. I never felt anything for the characters besides annoyance – and the occasional slack-jawed disbelief that some of the things in this film actually made it past anyone with taste. Maybe the filmmakers just threw rocks at them until they left.

The Loved Ones is about nothing; there is no meaning to it. As a horror movie it's a joke, and like The Road and The Traveler it substitutes scares and tension for pointless gore, which always sucks unless it's either really funny or has a lot of tension behind it - this has neither. As a comedy it's perhaps even worse, as none of the "jokes" are funny...they had no good material and so they resorted to over the top facial expressions and a pop song that is "ironic" in the context of the film...frankly it just made me wish I was deaf.

I hate this movie. I bet this will get a lot of people coming out of the woodwork proclaiming this as some kind of “black comedy genius,” but those people probably don’t know anything about good movies. I think the director and the writer of this flick need serious help for whatever psychotic issues they have, and I wouldn’t be quick to correct you if you said anyone who likes this movie also needs psychological help. If you have a recommendation for a good counselor for these misguided, sick souls, post it in the comments. It will be much obliged by their families and friends.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go start a support group for loved ones affected by The Loved Ones…

All images in the review are copyright of their original owners, I do not own any of them.

The Cinema Freaks Late Night Talk Show with The Lake Placid Crocodile

Good evening, faithful readers! As you all know, I have reviewed the Lake Placid series in all its bloody, crocodile-y goodness up until now. When I thought I was done last year, well, the series went and proved me wrong, popping out another sequel in the same manner as the fat lady next door with nine kids and an apartment smaller than your closet. I can’t even review these movies fast enough. I mean Jesus Christ. By the time I’m done writing this paragraph, they’ll probably have the script, casting and first scenes done for the next one.

Director: Don Michael Paul

Starring: The Lake Placid Crocodile, Kate from Angel, Yancy Butler

IMDb

To commemorate yet another successful foray into the murky, croc-infested waters of this hopefully long-lasting series, I have brought a special guest onto the blog today to talk about the film. This is a very successful up and coming actor who brings a unique and personal touch to every film he acts in. Directors have called him a pleasure to work with, and he even donates to charity with the money he gets from his movies. Ladies and gents, please give a round of applause for…THE LAKE PLACID CROCODILE!*

*From here on out, my questions will be in BOLD. Lake Placid Crocodile's responses will not be in bold.

So, Lake Placid Crocodile, how the hell are you?

I’m doing great, thanks. I just got off the set for Crocodile 3.

Awesome. And how is that going?

To tell you the truth, pretty stressful. There's only so many broken beer bottles to the face I can take.

Sounds absolutely delightful! But about Lake Placid: The Final Chapter…

Yes, yes.

Where did they get the inspiration for such an inventive title? The Final Chapter. Jesus, that’s original.

Well, they were trying to pay homage to the Friday the 13^th movies. We figure we’ll do what those movies did. We’ll title the fourth movie The Final Chapter and then release an endless string of less-good sequels every year after. People will keep paying money for them because they love making fun of them and because we get a couple of 20 year old girls to take off their shirts for two seconds.

In Lake Placid land, girls take off their tops just to go in the ocean at night and splash each other like four year olds. It's not weird at all!

It’s a pretty genius formula, you gotta admit. We won’t even really have to try that hard.

But that sounds like you'd just be ripping everyone off with as little effort as possible!

Yeah, well, them's the breaks!

You're being awfully forthcoming about the...shall we say, less flattering aspects of your movie.

You kiddin' me? This is the Internet. No matter how much shit I talk about this movie, people will still watch it anyway. Hell, I think making fun of a movie like this will just make MORE people want to see it!

Sigh...you're probably right...

Oh, I know I am.

So the movie starts off with Yancy Butler, reprising her role from the last movie as a wisecracking, croc-killing deputy. How was it working with her?

She was almost too good at her role. I mean c’mon, the first scene plays like the aftermath of the world’s worst drunken butcher-shop orgy. Then a croc shows up and Yancy just throws her machete at it and kills it instantly! Ouch! Show a little compassion! Yancy was pretty nice off stage, but when we were filming? Gave me chills. It was like she really wanted to kill us man-eating crocodiles.

I see. And what about the rest of the actors? Were there any you got along with particularly well?

Elizabeth Rohm could be okay sometimes. But I really liked the black guy! He was great because he was a total environmental-loving pussy who said the humans couldn’t kill us crocs even if we were killing people! So basically this guy gives us a free pass to do whatever we want for the rest of the movie!

What about the subplot with Elizabeth Rohm the sheriff and her daughter?

Well, the fact that the daughter is obsessed with reading and Rohm tells her to quit it and go outside is just strange. I mean, in the crocodile kingdom, we pride those among our young who take the time to educate themselves. The fact that Rohm wants her daughter to stop reading is just bizarre! Plus, the other subplot with this other law enforcement guy who she has a love/hate relationship with is just underdeveloped! I kept telling Don to watch some classic romance films and get a better idea of how to do this kind of thing, but he just kept telling me to go away so he could do coke in his trailer.

So there have been some environmental activists and crocodile purists that insist the film is unrealistic. People have said that the portrayal of crocodiles is ludicrous and that the film almost completely “jumps the shark” if you will by having crocodiles that appear to have superpowers. What do you have to say to those people?

Well, I think it’s ridiculous. The crocodiles in the movie were portrayed 100% accurately. For instance, scenes like the one where the giant crocodile chases the humans in their truck like a hungry lion is something I drew from my own personal experiences. They really do that, you know. Many of my friends get their lunch on weekends by chasing humans like that!

And the fact that they see in blurry distorted green-vision is totally how we really see. I’m looking at you in that kind of vision right now, actually.

The makers of the Lake Placid series are very attentive to making their crocodiles as realistic as possible. I actually served as a consultant for them on that part of the film. They came to me with all their questions.

But there’s one scene where this guy is peeing in the ocean water, looks away for a second, and then a crocodile just appears in front of him when he looks back! What do you have to say about that?

Crocodiles have always had teleportation powers. We can also turn invisible if we want. You didn’t know that?

No, I didn’t.

Maybe you should read up on your crocodile facts! That’s common knowledge now, you dunce! Geez. You humans can be pretty stupid sometimes.

Oh, we can be stupid sometimes? You wanna back that up with some proof, huh mister?

Gladly. Like how about the scene where they give a press conference to the town and basically tell them it doesn’t matter if the crocodiles have been killing people in droves for years now, and that they can’t kill the crocs because they’re rare! Isn’t that just the biggest slap in the face ever? It’s like “we know we were hired as law enforcement to protect the city and its people, but we don’t feel like stopping those crocodiles from eating you all. Sorry!”

Okay, fine. That’s kind of stupid. But it’s not like they’re just throwing the townspeople to the wolves..er...crocs. They built a fence!

Oh, you mean the fence that any moron can get past? The electric fence that poachers and hunters could easily fall back into by accident when trying to get away from a crocodile?

Well, yeah, but…

Or the fence that a bunch of kids going on a camping trip could easily drive their bus past and not even realize they were in a crocodile zone until the next day? Because, yeah, that's the explanation we get a little bit later!

Shouldn’t there be stronger warning labels? Maybe a gate with a sign on it, at least? And speaking of that bus driver, he’s a real piece of work, a real good example of the brilliance the human species can produce. Do all human bus drivers look at porn on their cell phones WHILE DRIVING?!

Danny McBride?

I’ll give you that. It was a pretty ridiculous scene. But isn’t your whole argument about humans being stupid kind of prejudiced? I’m all for equality between man and crocodile, but it has to go both ways. Otherwise, the whole thing’s kind of hypocritical, is it not?

Not a bad point. But from the point of view of this movie, it’s not hard to see why I’d be so prejudiced. I mean, this is a movie that thinks a romance means scenes of two characters who acted like they hated each other having dinner by candlelight. And then the only other romance in the movie consists of boys telling the main girl that Heart of Darkness is boring.

Yeah. Real great romance there. If you didn’t know, we crocodiles are soft at heart. Not to mention well versed in classic literature.

Very charming. But at least you got to chase and kill them all in the next few scenes.

Very true. Those scenes were a lot of fun to shoot, because…well, you know why. I think some of the other actors were having less fun than I was, though.

Well, yeah. I mean, you jumped up and bit one of their heads off. That’s got to foster some bitter feelings here and there!

Oh yeah. No special effects there at all. Crocodiles can actually jump like bunny rabbits. We usually just don’t do it for the camera. Don't like to give people a view of our asses, you know?

What was that bear trap she got caught in doing out there anyway? Just one solitary bear trap in the middle of the woods? Hell, throughout this whole movie, we don’t see one bear.

We tried to get the bear from the first movie to come back. You know, the one that I fought with at that camp site?

But he had a scheduling conflict. So we just had to drop the scene where he and I were going to have a Die Hard-style gun fight after I ate the girl’s head. It’s a shame.

That does sound like a good scene. But you did have one enemy in the film in Robert Englund’s character. He played a poacher hunting for your eggs. What was it like working with this veteran horror actor?

The fate of all great horror icons, become a self-parodic, loud redneck character in later roles...

Oh, he was a character. I never liked the Nightmare movies after the first couple, but his scenes were pretty crazy in this movie. I don’t even care that he wants to steal my eggs. I mean, it’s not like they were really mine. You think I’d really let my own eggs be used in a movie? Hell no.

It was grape juice in that thing really.

Plus, there’s one moment where he clearly has more sense than any of the other characters.

Oh really, and which moment was that, pray tell?

It’s when he shows up with his boat at the shore and invites them all to come with them. Now, of course he has ulterior motives. But they don’t know that yet. They actually have to THINK ABOUT whether or not to go with him on a boat, or stay on an island where half of their team has been killed off already. Gee, maybe running from the crocodiles will work the 5,000^th time, right?

Well, they DO have crocs in the water just waiting to eat them if they go in…

The damn boat isn’t even that far away. C’mon. And they get everyone on the boat pretty easily without any real problems. The only guy who stays is the teacher guy. He tries to run for a few seconds and then…well, just look:

Not to mention the girl's first thoughts afterwards are "I really wanted to give him back my school library books"...you humans are weird.

Woah! Now that’s some grade-A cheese there! How did that taste?

Like red food coloring. And cotton balls used to stuff that dummy.

Well, it sure made for an entertaining shot. So there was also some fuss made by activist groups about the fact that the crocodiles in the movie become super crocodiles by eating each other. Some people feel this will encourage real crocodiles to eat one another in the hopes of becoming super crocodiles.

Real crocodiles would never do such a thing. Unlike you humans, we don’t let movies act as instruction manuals for us. You people let shows like Dexter or video games like Mortal Kombat influence your children so far to the point where they kill their friends and siblings because of it!

Plus, the whole thing is overstated anyway in the film. I love how the dumb scientist is like “well, we knew they’d have a food shortage, but we didn’t think it’d get THAT far…” Isn’t that kind of like saying, “well, when we didn’t pay our electric bill until a week later and our power went out, we didn’t think ALL the food in the fridge would spoil”?

Fair points on both counts. So, the ending of the movie – we get Robert Englund trying to take the policeman’s kid hostage, and then getting eaten after his plan fails. Rohm kills you by shooting at you and then ducking out of the way as you plow into the electric fence.

Yeah. Those scenes were entertaining. That damn fence, though.

And the ending – how did you feel about the fact that you lost at the end? Rohm and her daughter reconciled, that policeman and his son reconciled, the daughter and son got together and Yancy Butler had your head on a plaque, which is about equal with all those other reconciliations...

She really just stole that plaque from Gatorland.

Well, we didn’t lose, really. Just look at the last scene! The radio broadcast says there are no more crocs at Lake Placid, but apparently they were just in waiting for girls in tight clothes running by…

What? But I thought this was the Final Chapter!

Ha ha ha…oh, you know how those wacky horror sequels work. You’ve reviewed a number of them.

But the way THIS is playing it, it’s like the officials killed THAT ONE crocodile…well, you, I guess…and then immediately declared that there were no more, without bothering to even look!

What can I say, they probably just needed to go back home and drink until they passed out. Just like the writers of this movie.

Sigh…so anyway, what’s next on the horizon for you as a budding actor, Lake Placid Crocodile?

Well, we’re starting production on several sequels. Like Lake Placid in Space!

Lake Placid Gets Crunk!

And Lake Placid and the Seven Dwarves!

Oh, I bet THOSE will be classics.

Either way, you’ll still end up reviewing them somehow!

Images in this review are not mine; they are copyright of whoever owns them.

REVIEW: Sharknado (2013)

There’s a disturbingly prevalent trend in movies nowadays where especially horror movies seem to like trying to be bad. Mostly this comes from the pop-culture phenomenon of people loving to “riff” on silly things in movies. Which I am a complete stranger to of course…but it seems that young filmmakers and studios trying to ride the wave have caught onto this and decided to just go all out and make films that were over the top bad on purpose, with corny actors and plots more suited to SNL joke sketches. Of course, this wasn’t a new phenomenon, as movies like Bubba Ho-Tep, Killer Klowns and others proved back in the 80s and 90s. But where those movies were actually funny…a lot of these new movies are just gimmicky nonsense with as little effort put into them as possible, which the creators mistakenly mistook for comedy.

Enter Sharknado…

Director: Anthony C. Ferrante (because a middle initial makes you look artsy)

Starring: Tornadoes, sharks, Tara Reid

IMDb

Yes, this is perhaps symptomatic of a lot of these kinds of films. I’ll give you an example. What is the plot? “Sharks come out of tornados and fly and kill people on land.” I won’t lie and say that doesn’t sound like it has the potential to create some very funny scenes, and it does have its moments. But just a funny premise isn’t all it takes to make one of these kinds of films. Frankly I can’t even say the movie’s name without feeling bad about it.

We start off with some bullshit on a ship with two guys re-enacting scenes from the Christopher Nolan Batman movies, sitting at a table in a dimly lit room and talking about supposedly serious mob shit. Okay, maybe not, but they’re so overly melodramatic and have nothing to do with the actual plot. Mother nature apparently agrees with me, and appropriately sends a shark to kill them all:

Then we switch to something very logical with an alternative rock song and a sunny beach day where everyone is having fun. We see John Heard from the Home Alone movies drunk in a bar, bothering some girl with a scar on her leg. It kind of looks like gills, so obviously she’s actually a fish woman from Mars.

If only...

The main guy’s name is Fin, and he goes surfing with some girl who calls him grandpa…I’d say this is stupid, since he looks about 35, but given today’s MTV generation being into ‘teen moms’ so much, I think it’s realistic. Plus, we see that calling Fin grandpa is apparently all it takes for the sharks to attack that girl. We get the same scene you’ve seen in every shark movie ever made. I do love it when movies have nothing original to offer…oh, wait, but it’s supposed to be bad. That makes it OK.

The only thing they don't do is just flat out play the Jaws theme over these scenes.

Fin goes to save his friend, who gets bit by one of the sharks, and successfully brings him back on land…which prompts the girl from the bar to come out and scold Fin for almost getting killed. Yeah, Fin, how dare you save people and bring them away from vicious man eating sharks! You inconsiderate ass!

In the bar, they hole up and hide as a storm comes and floods the beach. A newscaster who sounds like she’s talking to retarded kids comes on TV and talks about how bad the storm is. Fin acknowledges this and says they should all leave the bar and go home, because telling people to go outside when a huge hurricane is about to come through is an awesome idea, right? He then calls his ex-wife and asks if she and his daughter are okay, to which she rudely cuts him off thinking he’s asking about money. Even though he says he wants to know if they’re okay, she thinks he’s calling in the middle of a bad storm to ask about money. What a great catch she must’ve been…

Also, as soon as he gets off the phone, the scar-girl who works at the bar jumps on him for no reason, and he says he’s her boss – oh, is THAT what he is? What subtle exposition! I guess too much time was spent on girls calling him grandpa to find out that he owned the bar…got to play to your strengths, you know?

"Hi, I'm John Heard. I only took this role because they said I could have all the beer I wanted and hang out at the bar most of the movie."

Anyway, enough time has been wasted already. We see Fin, the scar-girl, whose name is Nova, Fin’s friend and John Heard – they probably just found him drinking at the bar and put him in the movie without him noticing – pile into a car and try to escape. I’m not sure driving around is the best way to combat a frigging hurricane, you idiots. Try finding shelter first.

There are a few scenes like this, where people tell them that "it's just a bit of rain"...come on, it's clearly not. Are you that delusional? Hurricanes don't just switch on and off whenever you want, you know. They're dangerous. If you're standing outside in the middle of one, it's probably not a good idea!

They drive around for a bit and see sharks kill a bunch of people. These are probably some of the better scenes in the movie; I mean really what else did anyone go into this looking for? So I won’t really bitch about it too much. John Heard gets killed off, probably because the director spent most of his money on hookers in his trailer during most of it and didn’t have enough to keep paying him. Nova acts like she’s sad, but really nobody cares or mentions him again throughout the film. Are you really surprised?

So really the movie is just sharks eating people for a while – dammit, Sharknado, with a title like that I was expecting nothing less than pure cinematic drama genius! How DARE you fail to deliver?! They make it to Fin’s family’s house and find his wife Tara Reid telling them to leave. Yeah, in the middle of a hurricane. Is this lady serious? He goes inside and sees his daughter, and oh come on:

Did he have kids at age 15 or something? He doesn’t look older than 30 or 35, and she has to be about 16!

Anyway, she bitches at him too, then we see the most metrosexual character this movie could conjure up, who is supposed to be Tara Reid’s new boyfriend or whatever. Apparently he was just hanging out in the daughter’s room. Uh, might want to check into that, guys. Usually it’s not a good thing when a grown man hangs out in his stepdaughter’s room…

But I digress. The boyfriend or stepdad or whoever he is, bitches about how Fin can’t just come and see his family when there’s a big storm outside because – gasp! – it’s not the time of month he’s allowed to see his daughter! God forbid he cares about his family in a crisis! Man this is the pits; who would ever find this enjoyable? What human being would EVER act this way?

"I'm the world's biggest douchebag. How do you do?"

Oh, wait, I forgot again: it’s supposed to be bad! So that nullifies any and all criticisms against the film. Silly me. It's also mind numbingly retarded when Tara Reid tells the boyfriend to leave Fin alone, because a second ago she was bitching at him and telling him to leave, so it makes perfect sense that she'd have a change of heart that fast! Ugh...how much longer is this? 50 minutes? Christ, if you cut out all of these god-awful "dramatic" scenes, the film would have been about 20 minutes. Next time try that.

I love this one part, where Nova says there are sharks all around the city and then looks out the window to see one right there.

How is that even flooded? Didn't they just drive up two minutes ago and it was completely fine?

That’s some funny shit. Even better is when the metrosexual boyfriend/husband asshole says she’s crazy and opens the window just in time for the shark to jump through it and kill him.

Ha ha ha…okay, I forgive the movie now. That death was completely justified! Sure it was pretty stupid how the house randomly flooded as soon as he opened the curtains, but eh, I'll give it a pass this time.

Unfortunately the movie decides it’s not time for more silly shark deaths, but instead for more bullshit exposition. We find out Fin also has a son around the same age as his daughter…Jesus, did he first get Tara Reid pregnant when he was in junior high school? Apparently they shipped the son off to space camp or something without telling Fin, which he gets mad about. Honestly, who cares? This movie is so reliant on having “camp” with the shark attacks and everything, but come on; so much of this crap is just people bitching at one another and arguing about trivial shit. Like many poorly made films it relies on arguing as the only mode of creating dialogue, which isn’t funny or interesting, it’s just crap to the nth degree. If I really wanted arguing and whining, I’d just read the comment section on any political-themed article on CNN. And all this in the middle of an intense hurricane no less! Some focus on the important stuff might be necessary, guys!

So now the mission is to go find Fin’s son. Tara Reid bitches about how Fin cares more about helping random strangers than his own family. Uh, I’m sorry, WHO is taking you in his car to safety right now, bitch? Jesus. Fin has a godlike level of tolerance for this…if it were me, I’d just be like “I’m feeding you to the sharks, you whore!” And then I’d push her out of the car. Seriously, what kind of person would act this way? It’s one thing to have conflict, but at least make it justified…if you want your characters to fight and argue, show us why both sides have their points. You can’t just have Tara Reid and her equally annoying daughter keep saying that Fin is an ass, because we don’t see any proof of it! So it mostly just makes me want to drill into my brain with an electric chainsaw.

Next they save a school bus full of children from sharks by climbing up a bungee cord onto a high bridge which isn’t flooded yet. Then the Hollywood sign starts trying to kill them, which I think is some kind of subtle metaphor for the movie as a whole.

Hell, the one guy is like “My mother always said Hollywood would kill me,” and then the ‘H’ drops on him and flattens him instantly. Probably as punishment for making such a terrible joke.

He could still be OK. You never know.

In the spirit of not wasting time, they stop by a liquor store next and talk to the cashier about the cause of the hurricanes. He says it’s stupid to think it’s the apocalypse. But then he goes and says it’s actually the government in charge of it all! Yes, he actually thinks it’s a weather machine the government is using to kill everyone. There’s a reason he’s a liquor store clerk and not anything else. Frankly I’m almost positive this liquor store only gave them permission to film there because the writers were such regular customers at the store. That’s the only thing that makes sense.

Then we see the only reason to watch this movie at all:

A naturally occurring weather phenomenon...

Yep, tornadoes with sharks inside them…I gotta hand it to the movie, anyone that can somehow make a plot that gets a bunch of sharks inside tornadoes is at least trying. Even if it's effort put into the wrong things.

They finally find the son, who is totally accepting about the whole thing and has no questions whatsoever. He’s so complacent and calm that it’s almost like he was just guessing this would happen soon. Also he is by far the worst actor in the movie, which is saying a lot when you have the two main guys. Half of the people in this thing look like they’re hungover anyway, but this kid is easily the worst of them. I have half a mind to say he was just directed like this on purpose…remember, it’s supposed to be bad!

Their plan is to go drop a bomb in the middle of the tornado. Yes, really. While they’re getting ready to do that, we find out Nova’s backstory: apparently when she was a kid, she got lost at sea and bitten by a shark, which is why she has that scar on her leg…so glad a shark was able to leave a scar this small:

Then apparently her grandfather tried to save her and got eaten by a shark. So now she hates sharks. And lives in California on the coast. I can practically hear the marbles rolling around inside the writers’ hollow heads. I also love this scene where the daughter tells Fin that she feels neglected by him and like he doesn't do enough for her - gee, maybe it's because you're an ungrateful brat who tells him to go away whenever he shows up uninvited. Maybe that has something to do with why he doesn't love you as much.

Ugh, this is too stupid; can we just see more scenes of sharks attacking helicopters now? The plan to bomb the tornado goes off without a hitch:

Oh, did I say without a hitch? I meant to say that it does nothing and the sharks keep coming anyway. I guess they ate the explosion. Nova apparently dies after getting eaten, and then on the ground we see that sharks can bounce when they hit the ground at the right angle!

Make that shit into a McDonalds toy. The bouncing shark! Also, this is probably the greatest shot in the movie, simply because you will never see it ever again:

Fin goes and grabs a chainsaw, which proves useful when he has to jump straight into the mouth of an oncoming shark. It looks pretty hopeless, but fortunately this movie is educational: if you get eaten by a shark, just make sure to have a chainsaw with you. You can just carve yourself right out if and you’ll be fine, even if the outcome does look like a commercial for an abortion clinic for fish.

So then the sun comes out and everything is cool, which means that by killing that one shark, everything went back to normal. Even Nova somehow survived despite being eaten alive by a shark in midair. It's just a happy ending. Maybe the shark Fin killed was a super villain shark who masterminded the whole thing. Of course!

This whole thing is just silly, and it’s supposed to be. The shark scenes are fun and the action is generally okay for schlocky nonsense, but mostly this movie is just kind of a waste of time. If you’re looking for something ridiculous to watch, I’d recommend Shark Night 3D, Lake Placid 3 or especially the 2000s Piranha remake over this; all of them are more entertaining and have sillier moments. So even as a “campy” film this isn’t that amazing. There are better options. Piranha is at least twice as funny as this, and has better writing and more exciting stuff going on – a lot of this movie I was just annoyed at the characters or bored at the amount of nothing going on. Seriously, whose idea was it to put Tara Reid in this? What was up with the constant overbearing whining in this thing? Did we really need a bunch of scenes of people surfing or just driving around talking about how bad the storm is?

Mostly the problem is that movies like this don’t really want to try anymore. These movies should be hilarious, but instead it seems like the new normal for horror-comedies is to just not give a shit about anything. If you have a stupid idea for a story, what else do you need, right? You can just make a shitty-ass movie with Z-grade acting and no entertaining parts outside of the kill scenes and then complain that IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE BAD whenever someone tries to criticize, right? No. That’s not true at all, and if you think that, you need to go re-watch pretty much any 80s horror flick and learn how to do it right.

A lack of quality in and of itself isn’t a substitute for humor and good jokes, people. Just making your movie as shitty as possible doesn’t constitute a schlocky, campy horror-comedy. If you want to make something ridiculous, the answer isn’t annoying characters screaming at each other and actors who are about as credible as late-night TV insurance scams. You have to actually go all the way with it and exaggerate everything, make it funny and over the top. You have to really keep the pace fast and the jokes funny, or else it just becomes worthless crap. This movie has a few funny scenes. Most of it is just annoying or dull, like I said.

And I REALLY want to emphasize this one more time – if your defense of movies like this, or other SyFy films, is that they’re supposed to be bad, well I just don’t think that’s a good argument. Even the goofiest movies still have to try at the basic tenets of filmmaking, to be generally entertaining. Sharknado is mostly just a waste, and although I’ve seen worse movies, I can’t recommend this one. Some people might gripe that I’m taking things too seriously and wasting my time even reviewing this at all, but hey, watching Sharknado in and of itself is a waste of time.

The images in this review are copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.