Tag Archives: I want to die

Lonely Days, Boring Nights

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lonelyjoeLONELY JOE

1 Stars  2009/97m

“Stay off the tracks.”

Director/Writer: Michael Coonce / Cast: Erica Leerhsen, Peter Speach, David Fine, Matthew S. Harrison, Jaclyn Walsh, Robert Krigbaum.

Body Count: 7

Dire-logue: “Why don’t you bring someone in?” / “Who – fuckin’ Ghostbusters?”

When a cheap film begins with a stoic declaration that it’s based on true events, my heart dies a little – post-Chainsaw, has there ever been one that was any good? Maybe Lonely Joe will break the curse…

It didn’t.

Erica Leerhsen, ironically from the Chainsaw remake, plays Michele Connelly, a New York journalist who is tormented by flashback dreams of her brother’s murder years earlier at the hands of a psychotic farmer who slaughtered countless locals. Now, disappearances are still occurring and Michele grabs a week in her hometown of Solvay, New York, to look for answers.

To be honest, I was ill when I watched it and so found myself losing interest quickly and had no patience for endless dialogue that didn’t lead to anything and under-lit scenes of people traipsing around in the dark. The low budget was off-putting rather than endearing and, Leerhsen aside, the cast provided nothing remotely entertaining and what scant murders there were took ages to begin and were either void of action or off-camera completely and the killer hardly appeared in it.

Things turn out to be more of detective/ghost story than a slasher flick and by the time the twist is unveiled so little had happened and 97 minutes had tick-tocked by so slowly that it felt like I had been there all week with Michele. Painfully slow and boring.

Blurbs-of-interest: As well as the TCM remake re-imagining, Leerhsen was also in Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and later Mischief Night; David Fine was in Sweet Insanity.

Ungraded…the only thing worse than a fail

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final-examFINAL EXAMINATION

1 Stars  2002/94m

“You fail. You die.”

Director: Fred Olen Ray [as Ed Raymond] / Writers: Sean O’Bannon & Kimberly A. Ray / Cast: Kari Wuhrer, Brent Huff, Debbie Rochon, Amy Lindsay, Richard Gabai, Robert Donovan, Jason Schnuit, Belinda Gavin, Winton Nicholson, Kalau Iwaoka, Kim Maddox.

Body Count: 7

Dire-logue: “Just spell my name right, it’s Shane with a C…” what!?

A girl drives off the end of an unfinished bridge. Five years later, a cop busts a drug dealer and is then reassigned to Hawaii as a reward. In Hawaii, the sorority sisters from Big Island University have gathered for a reunion sponsored by a glamour magazine, which they are being photographed for by a wasted Rochon. Someone tries to murder them – failing, more often than not – reassigned dick and Kari Wuhrer (remembered by me as the “not J-Lo” female in Anaconda) investigate.

That’s Final Examination for you. It has nothing remotely to do with exams at all, bar the staggering two sorority victims found with test papers marked ‘Failed’ floating nearby. Instead, Fred Olen Ray’s (shoulda known!) dismal little flick is a thinly disguised softcore skin flick. The only examination present is the one the camera oversees while various starlets take showers or just walk around topless…

The cast look ridiculously bored and the police procedural plot (far outweighing any horror) is like a really boring episode of NCIS. There’s an equally insipid backstory unfurled to do with co-ed pregnancy, dirty tricks and cover ups that relate back to the dead chick and bitchy sorority alumnus Kristen – who doesn’t even die!

Ray overcompensates boredom with too many twists, none of which even flirt with being exciting. Turns out there are but three killers, all siblings of the dead girl and between them they manage to off a massive four people. Pathetic.

Chuck in a lieutenant named Hugh Janus and a scene where Kristen brandishes a gun several minutes before the killer busts through a door and attacks her friend. Does she shoot him? No. She hits him with the damn thing. The film finally ends with the dialogue “uh…yeah,” which appears to accurately sum up the opinion all involved likely have when asked about the film.

To spell it out for you in case you, like me, are hell bent on seeing ’em all: Final Examination is not a good bad film, it’s really, really, REALLY boring, which is a far worse sin than simply being shit.

Blurbs-of-shame: Belinda Gavin was in Scarecrow. Ray also directed Scalps. Debbie Rochon has been in American Nightmare, Bleed, Blood Relic and Head Cheerleader, Dead Cheerleader.

The First Cut is the Crappest

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bcultBLOOD CULT

1.5 Stars  1985/90m

“You just might get blood on you.”

Director: Christopher Lewis / Writers: Stuart Rosenthal & James Vance / Cast: Julie Andelman, Charles Ellis, James Vance, Bennie Lee McGowan, Josef Hardt, Fred Graves.

Body Count: 7

Dire-logue: “We do not need serial murderers on this campus.”

This film proudly states that it was the very first film made exclusively for home video. In real terms, it was the first time someone brandished a camcorder and squirted some ketchup at a wall while a wannabe starlet screamed in the background. All for less than $27,000!

As it is, Blood Cult is just another lame cash-in, that poses as a drama-documentary about a series of co-ed murders plaguing an Oklahoma college campus where the cleaver-toting killer steals random body parts and leaves behind small gold trinkets.

Aged local sheriff Ellis must try and figure out who’s behind it before the all-important elections. With the help of his librarian-slash-housemother daughter, Tina, and her repellent know-all boyfriend, our octogenarian hero discovers that evidence points in the direction of a cult made up of select locals who worship a DOG called Kaninus!

For the bad sound, sucky plotline, crappy acting and misogyny, there’s some cheesy recompense: the killer uses the decapitated head of one victim to beat her roommate with; severed fingers are found in a salad, and they had the audacity to call the sorority house where the first murder occurs Chi Omega!

The identity of the killer is also a surprise, although after the literal unmasking, the film ends without providing any further reference to the cult, its members or any what-happened-next material. The credits just roll. If you’re desperate enough to find out what happens, try the sequel, Revenge, for answers.

Obviously they had nothing better to do with another $27K. Give it to me! I could’ve left the camera on filming my lounge wall and provided a better 90 minutes’ entertainment.

Summary: the first shot on video film about a cult that worships dogs and some dodgy ketchup murders. You have been warned!

Blurb-of-interest: Julie Andelman was in Silent Scream.

March Match: Half-Star City

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There are only seven slasher flicks I’d give five out of five stars to and conversely only nine that are so bereft of merit that I only afforded them a dismal half-a-star, some of which necessitate some more extensive explanations (Ax ‘Em, for instance) but for March’s face-off, here are four such horrors (in the other sense) that there’s really little to say about besides whatever the opposite to superlatives is…

bagmanTHE BAGMAN

0.5 Stars  2002/15/81m

“Your past will ALWAYS come back to haunt you.”

Director: Rae Fitzgerald / Writer: Beverly Beaton / Cast: Stephanie Beaton, Paul Zanone, Wil Matthew, Katrina McCullough, Alonzo F. Jones, Mikul Robins, Lorelei Shannon.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “You can’t intimidate me by yelling!”

A group of friends are tormented by a sack-headed loon who was ‘drowned’ by one of them when they were kids. Dreadful shot-on-video production quality and largely inaudible dialogue – despite most of it being shouted by the cast of sub-amateurs. Horror regular Beaton is the only one who stands a chance but the ridiculous suicide ending does nothing for her career options. Harrowingly atrocious.

carnageroadCARNAGE ROAD

0.5 Stars  2000/15/70m

“The legend of Quiltface!”

Director: Massimiliano Cerchi / Writers: Massimiliano Cerchi & John Polinia / Cast: Dean Paul, Molinee Dawn, Sean Wing, Melissa Brown, Mike Paulie, Mack Hail.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “My mom says I’m toothily challenged. She says when I get my braces I could be a model.”

If Carnage Road were a physical experience, it would surely be a wisdom tooth extraction with simultaneous rectal surgery. With no anaesthetic. And blind surgeons. For this is truly painful viewing at its most antagonistically awful.

What scraps of story there are concern a quartet of photography students who need some extra credit, which shouldn’t be a surprise as, between them, they have only one camera, which looks like it was issued in the 50s. They drive out to the desert but end up just taking commemorative shots of one another stood in front of bits of junk and sand. A+

The driver of their minivan warns them of a local maniac known as Quiltface – Eiderdownhead was already taken – and they all laugh at him, but not before a phenomenal shot where said killer is stood approximately ten feet away from the group in broad daylight with nothing in between them and they still fail to notice… When they finally do realise he’s stalking them, they jog away at snail’s pace until one girl falls over and sits there until he can catch up and struggle with her! Another one dies from an inch-deep cut to the hip.

The only trace of originality in Carnage Road is that elects a final boy, one who miraculously survived a machete blow to the head earlier in a film where a small cut to your hip can be fatal. He spends the final twenty minutes squealing in a high-pitched voice before the predictable closing. Worse than The Bagman? Mmm…could be!

Blurb-of-shame: Mack Hail directed and starred in Mr Ice Cream Man and Switch Killer.

catcherTHE CATCHER

0.5 Stars  1998/18/77m

“Three strikes you’re dead!”

Directors / Writers: Yvette Hoffman & Guy Crawford / Cast: David Heavener, Monique Parent, Joe Estevez, Sean Dillingham, Lesslie Garrett, Paul Moncrief, James Patterson, Harley Harkins, Jeff Sorenson, Mike Kepple.

Body Count: 9

A baseball slasher flick sounds interesting, right? Fool! Think again. A young boy beats his nasty dad to death with a baseball bat and, X years later after the last game of the season, a catcher-masked psycho starts to off the members of the losing team.

The weirdest element of this cheapo film is that it sets itself up to be a mystery and then bows out with ‘and the legends were TRUE, Johnny MacIntosh did come back for revenge!’ Estevez is the dead-dad who appears only to him to spur on his killing.

A godawful cast and some of the worst editing going contribute additional nails to the coffin of this film, which also features a bizarre butt-fuck metaphor with a guy taped to a table while the killer literally shoves a bat up his arse! The characters are so dumb they surrender their weapons to try and reason with the zombie-like killer and considering their profession, can anyone run slower than these folks and why is their blood black!?

Blurb-of-shame: Joe Estevez was also in Sigma Die!, Scar and Axe Giant.

funnymanFUNNY MAN

0.5 Stars  1994/18/89m

“A cut above the rest.”

Director / Writer: Simon Sprackling / Cast: Tim James, Benny Young, Christopher Lee, Matthew Devitt, Pauline Black, Ingrid Lacey, Rhona Cameron, Chris Walker, George Morton.

Body Count: 8

Christopher Lee – what the fuck is he doing here? – loses his eerie mansion to a selfish record company producer in a poker game. He moves his family in and they manage to summon up a jester-demon who toys with and tears them apart before a group of freaky hitchhikers stop by.

Less a slasher film than a pastiche of gory vignettes centring on the doomed weirdos – amongst whom there is a Jamaican ‘Psychic Commando’ and a Velma-from-Scooby Doo a-like – and the wisecracking jester with his variety of regional English accents and to-camera asides, which kill off any suspense and much is stolen from the more comedic Elm Street entries but without an ounce of the subtlety, just misguided attempts at making the text so unbelievably surreal its funny, all of which fail miserably, rendering it one of the worst horror films in existence.

Blurbs-of-shame: Lee was also in Mask of Murder and Sleepy Hollow.

Worst of the lot? Oh God, it’s so hard to choose, they’re all so awful but I think Funny Man barely fit together a coherent plot so it can be burnt at the stake this time. At least the other films were considerate enough to be really quite short.

The Day the Laughter Failed to Live, Let Alone Die. Miserably.

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stanhelsingSTAN HELSING: A PARODY

1 Stars  2009/18/87m

“The most feared monsters in cinematic history have met their match…”

Director/Writer: Bo Zenga / Cast: Steve Howey, Diora Baird, Kenan Thompson, Desi Lydic, Ben Cotton, Ken Kirzinger, Leslie Nielsen.

Body Count: 1

Dire-logue: “I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.”

When it came out in 2000, Total Film magazine gave Scary Movie four stars! AND they said a sequel would be great. Thanks, TF, look whatcha did!

Stan Helsing is ‘from the brother-in-law’s former roommate’s dog’s previous owner of the executive producer’ of Scary Movie; that alone should be enough to secure an indictment. It stars Howey as your standard issue movie slacker-cum-stoner, Stan, who works in the videostore Schlockbuster. Are you laughing yet? On Halloween, Stan is charged with delivering some “videos” (which are, in fact, DVDs) to his boss’s mother’s house before he can party with his bud Teddy, ex-girlfriend Nadine and Teddy’s dim-witted date Mia (see Dire-logue). After they get lost, get shot at by gas station hippies and pick up a psychotic hitcher, the gang end up at Stormy Night Estates, where a fire raged ten years back, as explained by Leslie Nielsen’s waitress. Waitress. Yes, he’s in drag.

Stormy Night Estates is tormented by ‘monsters’, who are in fact crap parody renderings of famous movie villains, such as Needlehead, Fweddy, Lucky the doll, Pleatherface, Mason, and Michael Crier. Fuck. Off. Several onlookers think Stan is a descendant of Van Helsing and he and his friends spend 80 minutes running from shit joke to shit joke until they’re forced into a karaoke contest against the monsters, who perform a stupid version of YMCA.

OK, questions: why is Michael Jewish? Why is Fweddy done up like some late-80s rapper? Why is there but one murder of a non-important extra? Who green-lit this movie? It really is a train wreck of a film, made only worse when I learned that ‘Mason’ (Jesus wept…) was played by Ken Kirzinger, who played Jason – yes, Jason – in Freddy vs. Jason. Nothing in this film even flirts with being funny. Hell, it doesn’t enter the club where funny is out having a good time. It’s refused entry, kicked in the ass by security and told never to darken their doors again!

Enough with these shitty parodies, Airplane! was 30 years ago.

Blurbs-of-shame: Diora Baird was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning; Ben Cotton was in Harper’s Island and Scar 3D, and The Tooth Fairy; Leslie Nielsen was, of course, Principal Hammond in Prom Night; Kirzinger was also in Wrong Turn 2. As well as being part to blame for Scary Movie, Zenga was also an exec producer on Turistas.

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