Perkins' 14

This week's movie(...well okay, LAST week's movie), Perkins' 14, was a part of one of the After Dark movie collections. That means it's either a great scary movie, or total crap. The AD films don't tend to be middle-of-the-road experiences, you either wind up loving an AD movie or hating it. I hope this one ends up being one of the good ones....Get ready, it's SPOILER time....

As the film begins, someone is driving through the countryside. The scenic journey is interrupted every so often by quick flashes of grainy footage, showing a dreary looking building, in which a large group of children are being kept in cages. The images from this place start out looking washed out and dark, then gradually color starts to get into the images. A bald man is dreaming these pictures, and they show him having a picnic with his family. Then he wakes up, and gets ready to head to work.

Before he leaves the house entirely, though, he stops at an empty bedroom, belonging to a child. There's a chess board set up on a small table, and our guy has a flashback to having played chess with his son. Then he stops by another bedroom, belonging to his daughter, who is having a gossip-fest with her best friend. He nearly enters the room to say goodbye before heading to work, but changes his mind.

Instead, he enters the kitchen to have a quick breakfast...which turns out to be leftover pasta. Sheesh. The girls come downstairs, and we at least learn their names: the daughter is Daisy, the friend is Sammy. When Sammy leaves, Baldy asks his daughter about some test she took at school, then informs her that he arrested the boy she likes because he was carrying drugs. Ah, so Baldy is a cop. And a fun dad!

As he gives his daughter the third degree, his wife Janine walks in on the chat. Baldy finally gets a name, Dwayne Hopper....I liked him better as Baldy. Oh well. It turns out that it's not morning, it's actually evening at the Hopper household. Dwayne works the graveyard shift.

He inadvertently eats Daisy's dinner, then has an awkward discussion with his wife over using the family car. Janine also brings up a business venture that she wants to begin, and Dwayne insults her by calling her career plans a hobby. Wow, Dwayne's not just a great father, he's also a terrific husband.

He leaves for work finally, and asks a fellow officer about the few people in the jail that evening. One's a local hooker named Felicity, the other's a guy who attempted to run away during a traffic stop. The other cop checks out for the night, and Dwayne begins cracking open beer cans as soon as he's alone. Great, let's add "Cop of the Year" to Dwayne's growing list of accomplishments.

While getting his beer buzz on, Dwayne falls asleep at his desk. He has a dream about his family, and the day his young son vanished. Apparently, there were 13 other children who also went missing...Hey, where have I recently seen an ominous-looking 14?

Anyway, Dwayne wakes up, and goes through a series of keys, doors and files that make the door sequence on Get Smart! look like a walk in the park. After passing through Middle-Earth, Area 51, and, quite possibly, The Forbidden Zone, it turns out that Dwayne just wanted to visit the holding cell area. No wonder he has no hair, the poor guy probably tore it out whenever he got lost in that maze.

The drunk chick is sleeping it off,but the guy who tried to evade being questioned at a traffic stop is wide awake. He leans forward in his shadowy cell, until only the lower portion of his face is revealed, then reveals a smile only Gary Busey would love. The mysterious Mr. Perkins then speaks to Dwayne, who didn't realize that he was being observed.

After Dwayne has a minor heart attack brought on by simply being spoken to, Perkins asks him if he can make a phone call. It seems that he has several kids at home, and needs to have someone look in on them. Gosh, wasn't there something that happened about a decade earlier that involved "several children" suddenly disappearing? I'll bet the 2 items are completely unrelated.

Dwayne refuses politely, telling Perkins that he'll need to wait until morning to make his call. Perkins gets upset, then asks Dwayne for his name(which is on display right on his uniform, but whatever....), and they officially introduce themselves. Then the drunk chick asks them both to shut up, so she can sleep.

As the 2 men discuss their children, Dwayne sees that Perkins is missing a couple of fingers on one hand. He asks about the injury, and Perkins says that he lost the fingers while trying to fix a lawnmower. Dwayne expresses sympathy, but again tells the man that he can't bend the rules for him. He says goodnight to Perkins and Felicity(who gives him the finger...but probably not one belonging to Perkins), then returns to his desk on the other side of the maze. They should at least give him a piece of cheese when he has to make that journey!

Dwayne goes over the conversation in his head, and apparently Perkins gave him the heebie-jeebies. Dwayne scours through the arrest report and decides to see what other information he can dig up on the guy. This somehow leads to another flashback or dream sequence, where Dwayne and his kids are woken up one night by an intruder. Yeah, because why would we want to get the story going forward, when we can go backward instead?

Anyway, he gets his kids back into the bedroom, then decides to try to sneak downstairs. There's the usual "creaky stairs" moment, and he freezes to see if the intruder heard him coming. Dwayne finishes his trip downstairs, and sees a curtain billowing, implying that either a window or sliding glass door was left open. He looks to his right and left then goes to shut the window.

A slight noise alerts him that the intruder was already upstairs, just waiting for him to leave. He runs back, but by the time he gets there, the wife and daughter are clinging to each other, and the son is missing. Wait, how does that work? Weren't the kids together when he left them? And if the mother was there, how did she manage not to keep track of her son? This doesn't make sense! And why didn't the kidnapper just take the daughter too?Ugh, this movie gives me a headache! But at least the flashback is finally done.

Dwayne returns to the holding area, perhaps slaying a Minotaur or 2 along the way. He holds up the printout that details Perkins' personal history, and angrily points out that the paper says nothing about Perkins having any children. Felicity, the hooker with a heart of syphilis, gets upset about the outburst, but Dwayne tells her to shove it.

When Perkins expresses surprise that his file was opened, Dwayne reminds him that he was trying to help him out. Perkins says that he's been a resident of Stone Cove for his entire life, but Dwayne finds it suspicious that they had never met before that evening. Really? Really??? I've lived, more or less, in the same city for my entire life, and I sure as heck don't know every person here. You don't see me accusing every stranger on the street of a crime spree, though.

Then Perkins makes some reference to Dwayne's daughter, and Dwayne claims that he never told him that he had a daughter. Now, I know they talked about their kids, but I don't recall if anything specific was said. Also, I don't give a crap. We have an hour left to endure, and the whole movie thus far is about as compelling as Amish porn.

Dwayne goes back to his desk and has a hissy fit. Oh, and he drinks some more. A LOT more. Then he fixates on Perkins' big ol' teeth. That pushes the cop over the edge, so he does a drunk'n'dial. He calls the cop who finished his shift earlier, and tells him that he thinks that Perkins is a killer. He makes numerous connections between Perkins and the child abduction("He's missing fingers! He wears glasses! He's a killer!"), and comes across like a wing-nut.

When the other cop asks Dwayne if he's been drinking, Dwayne ends the call. He drinks some more, then places a call to a medical center, looking for any medical records pertaining to "Ronald Perkins". While he waits for them to call back, he examines the clothing and items Perkins had on himself when he was arrested. The hospital calls back, and reports that Perkins has absolutely no medical history in the community.

Dwayne hangs up the phone, then decides to go through the car that Perkins was driving at the time of his arrest. He finds a few large storage containers in the back of the vehicle, and starts opening them up. He finally comes across a sealed plastic bag, filled with pill bottles. By the way, this is only 20-30 minutes into this movie. Anyone else feel like we've been watfching this thing for a month?

Dwayne receives a fax, and places another call. He presents all of his "evidence" to a judge...or tries to, but the judge won't listen.He's either a friends of Perkins', or he owes him a huge favor, because the guy orders Dwayne to stop making trouble for the guy. When Dwayne mentions the evidence from the car, and the possible connection to his son, the judge is shocked that Dwayne conducted a search without having a warrant. Wow, at least SOMEBODY in this film knows the law! That's impressive. The scene ends with the judge ordering that Perkins be released, and that Dwayne should report to the judge on Monday. Ooh, someone's getting fiiiiiiiiired....

Hey, have you been itching to know what Daisy Hopper's been up to, while her dad's been screwing around with a perp? Yeah, me neither. But the movie decides to switch over to her anyway, so I guess we should pay attention. On the bright side, it can't be any more dull than watching her dad at work making phone calls.

She's hanging out with her stoner buddies, in a place that looks like a graveyard designed by Salvador Dali. The particular guy she's into looks about twice her age, and is a terrible singer. After a few pointless arguments, Daisy and FrankenGoth decide to wander away for some good ol' fashioned statutory rape. Isn't being a teenager magical?

Dwayne calls his off-duty pal Hal again, and lays out all of his theories and evidence. He begs the off-duty officer to run by Perkins' house and check it out. Hal reluctantly agrees, but tells Dwayne that he's losing his mind, and probably his job. Yeah, we know.

Dwayne goes downstairs to handcuff Perkins, then takes him back to his desk to question him about the abductions. As they play a verbal tennis match, Hal radios in from the house. That finally rattles Perkins, and he and Dwayne listen as Hal explores the property. He hears a noise coming from the basement, and tells Dwayne that he's going in to take a look. Perkins, begs Dwayne to call him off.

Hal breaks a chain over the bulkhead with some bolt cutters, and descends into the basement. Perkins just keeps saying, "He can't do that, he can't do that...", before begging Dwayne to get Hal out of the house again. Dwayne continues to ignore him.

The basement looks like a museum. Seriously, I've never seen such a clean basement before, right down to all of the weapons--uh, I mean, "tools"--hanging on the walls. Who the heck hangs a shovel up like it's a trophy? I mean, besides the superhero The Shoveler.

Behind a shelf of old nails and screws, Hal finds a false wall. He moves the shelf and, sure enough, the wall behind it opens into another room. We've gone from Hannibal Lecter to The Hardy Boys in about 30 seconds of investigation. That makes logical sense, right?

Hal finds himself in the same area we saw during the opening credits. He sees a gigantic lever on one wall and flips it, expecting it to turn on the lights. Come on, man! It's the same kind of lever Frankenstein would pull before bringing the dead back to life! You honestly think it does something as simple as switching on a lamp or 2?

Of course it doesn't. It controls the doors of all the cages we saw during the opening credits. As the doors all slide up, the fake shelf slides back into place. Hal, being completely clueless, keeps on exploring, right up until a feral monster-child leaps on him and decides to eat his face off.

When Hal no longer responds on his walkie-talkie, Perkins pulls an I-told-you-so out of his ass. Yeah, that's helpful. Then Perkins sheds some light on the situation. See, when he was a younger man, his parents were murdered. He put the blame squarely on the police officers and authority figures who failed to catch the killer, plus he lived in fear of something terrible happening to him. So he kidnapped the children of those he felt were responsible, gave them constant, regular doses of PCP, and kept 'em caged up like undomesticated Kardashians.

Okay, my brain is officially trying to ooze out of my ears after that. This is, for now, The Stupidest Horror Movie Ever...until I see something even dumber, that is. Probably in about a week.

Anyway, Perkins reveals that his mother was stabbed 14 times, and his father was shot. He talks about how he was expected to "move on" with his life, and there are scenes depicting how Dwayne can't move on after his son's disappearance. But eventually, Dwayne gets tired of hearing the smug lunatic talk, and tells him that they're going to his house. He even shows Perkins the paperwork the judge faxed over for his release, which was issued several hours ago.

Again, right in the middle of something happening, the scene changes. Daisy and her misshapen boyfriend, Eric, are in Eric's cozy, romantic Rape Dungeon. Ain't Young Love just grand? Daisy sees past most of his bullshit persona, but still lets him seduce her.

Luckily for her(and us), the scene ends right there. Dwayne and Perkins are doing the "good cop, sociopath citizen" routine, and have arrived at the Perkins home. Be it ever so humble! Dwayne leaves Perkins in the back of the vehicle, grinning like The Cheshire Cat. Dwayne, not nearly as jovial, begins to look for poor Hal.

He finds him soon enough, hanging upside down from the basement ceiling. He examines the bloody body, then manages to look away long enough to explore the rest of the basement. He follows a blood trail into the secret holding area, and finds the empty cages where the children were kept...well, mostly empty: one cage holds a corpse that looks older than Moses. Maybe the film should have been called Perkins' 13 instead. Dwayne also finds shelves of drugs that were used on the children, as well as numerous videotapes. Dwayne snatches up one of the videos to see what Perkins was recording.

That one particular tape shows that Perkins was stalking the Hopper family, and presumably all of the families of the missing kids. He somehow managed to get close enough to film them having a private picnic, without any of the Hopper clan spotting him. Dwayne goes completely bonkers at that point, in an epic montage of reaction shots that would make William Shatner envious. Throughout the sequence, he looks constipated.

He hurries back to his vehicle, and punches his smug captive into La-La Land. When Perkins wakes up, he reveals that Dwayne's son was the one who bit his finger off. Yum! He also says that he wanted the parents to feel as helpless as he did, and that he made the videos for Dwayne to find someday. When he continues to taunt the cop with awful stories, Dwayne shoots him at point blank range, blowing his head apart. So much for the buddy cop routine. Then there's more "emoting", and Dwayne proceeds to hit the corpse several times, just to tenderize the meat, I guess.

Dwayne heads back to the car, and calls in the murder as "an officer down". The dispatcher asks if the "officer" is dead, and when Dwayne says that he is, he's told that the call will have to wait. As Dwayne listens, he realizes that the town is in complete chaos, and that he won't be getting any further help from his fellow cops. He gets back on the radio, and announces that he's going to rescue his daughter.

Yup, that means that we return to the stoners again. Lucky us. One of the Perkins' escapees approaches the group, even as Dwayne races to get there in time. One of the male teens(not Eric) approaches the maniac, and the drug-fueled rage monster(ummmm....the one who escaped from the cellar, not the pothead) cuts the innocent boy's head off with a machete. Where the heck did Perkins' zombie-kids get weapons from? Aren't they all supposed to be mindless drones?

Oh, I recognize the blade...he got it from the basement wall. Okay. He raises it again, and there's a close-up of Daisy's friend Sammy . It looks like she's almost grinning. Man, this is dumb. Can I get a refund on something I watched for free? No?

After a murder and the sound of the police vehicle pulling up, Daisy asks Eric if he heard something. *sigh* I miss the days when slasher movies didn't make me wish for a swift lobotomy. The noise level must have been acceptable, because Daisy and Eric have gone back to fooling around.

Dwayne finds the dead kid with the slashed throat, but no one else is around. He shouts his daughter's name, but gets no response. So....Daisy has bat-like hearing, but can switch it on and off as the script demands it? Nice logic and consistency there, movie. Oh, and as Dwayne continues to scream and shout, there's someone with a certain blade lurking around in his vicinity...

Daisy finally hears the noise, and she and Eric go outside to see what the commotion is all about. While Daisy and her father are distracted by each other, the Perkins kid emerges, and slices several fingers off of one of Eric's hands. This movie has a serious severed-finger fetish! As the killer kid goes after Daisy next, Dwayne shoots him 4 times.

In a scene that's probably not meant to be hilarious, Dwayne hugs his daughter and asks about her condition, all while Eric is howling in the background and holding up his now-stumpy fingers. As Daisy remembers her boyfriend and rushes over to his side, Dwayne momentarily points his gun at the guy. Seriously, am I the only one who finds this to suddenly be funny as Hell?

While Daisy and Eric start to make their way to the police vehicle, Dwayne points his gun at Perkins' 2.(I'm considering the poor kid who died in captivity to be Perkins' 1...I'm numbering them as we see them, so that it'll be less confusing.) As they all pile in and Dwayne starts the engine, Perkins' 3 shows up, also armed. As he raises his weapon overhead, Dwayne slams into him, and rams the guy into a display that looks like paper-mache fangs, or maybe icicles. Bizarre.

They drive away, so I guess if the other kids survived, they are just shit out of luck. Nice. Dwayne looks at his daughter and Eric in his rear view mirror, with one of his patented glares. Over the police band on the radio, they all hear various reports of chaos and violence happening throughout the town of Bay Cove.

As they round a corner, a utility pole is blocking their path, and throwing out a shower of sparks., right in front of a wrecked car. Being a dumbass in a horror film, Dwayne exits his car to check out the scene. He approaches the car, and shines his trusty flashlight in the windows, to check for survivors. Then, not content to survive that quick search, he decides to climb into the backseat.

Daisy watches this, dumbfounded, and orders him to get back to his own car. He ignores his daughter, and sees 2 people on the other side of the crashed car, on the ground. One is either attacking or eating the other. He sees Dwayne and leaps into the car, and Dwayne just barely has time to slam the door on his side shut.

But wait, it gets worse. He recognizes Perkins' 4, because it's his son! Oooooooh! The deranged young man breaks through the sunroof to attack his father, and another police officer arrives on the scene. When the other cop draws his gun on Perkins' 4, Dwayne yells at the guy not to shoot his son. That gives Perkins' 4 the distraction he needs to attack the other cop, and drag his body off into the night. So, yeah, cannibalism. Fun.

Nope. The son just decides to bash the other officer into a pulp with his own flashlight. Much better, right? Dwayne finally decides to listen to his daughter, and they take off again. Back the way they came, I'm guessing, given the mess that blocked their way.

Oh hey, Janine's back in the movie now! Remember her? No? Well, I don't blame you--other than quick flashback scenes, we haven't seen Dwayne's wife since the start of the movie. She's at some seedy motel, getting her brains screwed out by a guy who actually looks shadier than his surroundings. He hands her a bottle of champagne, and proudly declares that it has "a cork and everything!" Sheesh. His brains were screwed out 7 movies ago, it would seem.

Janine comments on the fact that the bottle is warm, and Dumbass reveals that it's been sitting in his truck for quite some time. Boy, I'll bet she can't wait to drink THAT! To get away from the dolt, she grabs the ice bucket and offers to get enough ice to let the champagne get chilly again. As she leaves the motel room, she catches the attention of what I assume is the evening desk clerk. Or maybe he's just the world's nosiest night owl.

The music gets scary, and a figure lunges at her from out of the darkness. Oh, it's just the numbskull lover again, proving how inept he is at even walking up to her. There's a quick glimpse of one of the Perkins' killers(complete with, for some reason, glowing eyes), then we get returned to Dwayne with his lights and siren going full blast. Yeah, because why would you want to try to be stealthy and subtle in a town overrun by killer teenagers who attack anything that moves?

They talk about where to go, and somehow the conversation turns to dear ol' mom. Daisy confesses that Janine is having an affair, and that she's currently at a motel. Wow, add in a mud pit and a few more psychotic killers, and this could be hosted by Jerry Springer!

Janine returns to the room, and shoves the champagne into the ice bucket. She and her himbo decide to have another round of sexy playtime, and he pulls her shirt up over her eyes while fondling and kissing her. Then Perkins' 6 somehow gets into the room unseen, and kills him with the champagne bottle. Yay!

Janine realizes that something went wrong, and pulls her shirt back down to have a look. She manages to slide off the bed, just seconds before the maniac jumps on her lover, and bash his skull apart with the bottle. Literally, this one doesn't stop, until his face is gone. Perkins' 6 sees her horrified reaction, and slams the bottle down even harder, just to watch her expressions. This one should see Dwayne's face if she likes reactions....that guy is the king of ham.

Being a genius, Janine just watches her lover getting demolished. No running, no reactions, like crying or screaming, she just sits there and watches him get destroyed. When Janine finally reacts to the danger she's in, she gets chased into the tiny bathroom. Perkins' 6 pushes her weight against the door to get to Janine, and Janine finds a shard of porcelain on the floor. She grabs it, and shoves it through her attacker's eye.

Janine slams the door on her, and crawls to the opposite side of the room. Perkins' 6 scratches at the door until her nails literally start to snap off. Ouch! Whatever she leaves on the pillow, I'm betting it won't be a mint.

Dwayne sees flames up ahead, and a guy who looks like an aging hippie flags him down. They let the dude into the back seat with Eric, and he starts to freak out when he realizes that they're going to pick up Dwayne's wife before escaping Bay Cove. The hippie attempts to take Eric hostage with a knife to force the issue, but Dwayne threatens to drive back the way they came if he doesn't calm down.

When the hippie calls the attackers "monsters", Dwayne tells his passengers what Perkins did to make them that way. Needless to say, the 3 listeners are shocked by the details of the captivity and brainwashing. Even the hippy shuts up, which is nice.

Dwayne stops the car and gets out, followed closely by his daughter. After hearing the hippie whine some more, Eric also asks to be let out. Heh, it looks like we all now have a unified front against the new most-annoying character in the movie. Groovy.

They cautiously approach the motel, and Dwayne orders the young couple to wait outside. Daisy can't resist looking into the room anyway, and sees her mother's boy-toy on the bed, minus his face. She cries and leans against Eric for comfort. Uh, how about comforting him? How many fingers did Daisy lose so far, huh?

Dwayne sneaks over to the bathroom, and hears his wife inside. He finds her cowering on the floor, and he gently gets her standing. She hugs him, then he carefully helps her put her shirt back on, taking care not to further injure the hand she wounded when she picked up that jagged piece of porcelain. Boy, I'd love to sit in on their next couples' therapy session!

Dwayne hugs her again, and covers her face as they exit the motel room. As the foursome start their way back to the car, they see that one of the drones(probably Perkins' 6, although we only get a brief glimpse) has somehow found a way into the police vehicle, and has killed the hippie. Yay!

Dwayne sees someone approaching from behind them on foot, and realizes that they may be trapped between 2 maniacs. He tells them to leave, while he creates a distraction, then he has a confrontation with the maniac wandering around. It's his son again, and he chases Dwayne while the others sneak away.

The trio get back to the Stone Cove/Bay Cove/whatever police department building, but the front entrance is locked. As Daisy realizes that several of the escaped killers are in the area, she loudly begs whoever locked the entrance to let them in. Genius. It's not exactly a shock when her shouts get the attention of the nearby killers.

A cop inside hears them, but he's a bit of a chickenshit, so he hesitates to do the right thing. By the time he finally grows a pair, the psychopaths are nearly at the door themselves. He quickly ushers the group into the building, then slams and locks the entrance doors again. The killers outside don't seem too happy about it.

They get settled in, and Janine starts trying to dress Eric's wounded hand. While that's going on, the deputy who let them in is pacing the room, ranting like a wild man. Then Janine tries to use the phones in the office, but the lines are all dead. They always are, right?

Daisy asks her mother about Kyle, her abducted sibling, and the resemblance he had to Perkins' 4. Janine tells her that she's wrong, and that Kyle is probably long-dead by now. Nuh uhhhhhhh...

Of course, that's more or less when the power goes out, and one of the brainwashed monster-kids manages to get inside. The group decides to make a break for it, and they head for the exact area that the Perkinsbot came in through. Awesome.

As they make their way down the corridor, Eric is dragged away by the brainwashed kid. Eric clings to a wall to keep from getting dragged away, and the others either watch him screaming, or just stand around looking uncomfortable. Nice group you guys have...I hope you all get eaten alive.

The deputy finally works up enough courage to take a peek around the corner, and sees Eric getting his entrails pulled out. And eaten. See? I knew they were cannibals! It's like this movie had a cliche checklist, and just keeps checking them off as we go. I'll be genuinely shocked if a cat doesn't jump out of the shadows at some point.

The deputy is attacked next, possibly by Kyle. I say "possibly", because the lights are strobing in an annoying way, and it's hard to tell what's happening, with all of the MTV-style quick-edits. But yeah, the deputy is definitely attacked next.

Suddenly, a shot rings out! *cue dramatic music* Dwayne's back! He blows away the mindless killer, so I guess it's not Kyle. What does that make this one, Perkins' 7? 6 maybe? A number should flash up on the screen every time one of the drones is picked off. Or maybe Perkins should have bought them sports jerseys, with little numbers on them. That would have been pretty funny to see.

While Dwayne and his wife try to console their daughter about her dead boyfriend(It would have been great if one of them had said something like, "It's okay, there will be other boys..."), that other deputy(wait, didn't he get attacked? Why did he get to live, dammit?!?) claims that he can hear someone. Sure enough, when they all listen, they hear what sounds like a female voice calling out in distress.

Dwayne goes off to check it out, and finds Felicity in her holding cell, right where he left her. Felicity, the foul-mouthed, drunk hooker with a heart of coal! Yay! Dwayne rescues her from the cell, then brings her back to the rest of the group for a meet'n'greet.

Oh, and apparently she's not an intoxicated hooker...no, Felicity is some kind of granola environmentalist, with a specialty in vandalizing construction equipment. Nice. Would have been better to stick with a drunken hooker, though. There aren't enough of those in horror films these days.

Felicity sees one of the prescription bottles of PCP on Dwayne's desk, and suddenly she's the resident PCP expert in the group. She tells them that it makes the user stronger than any normal human, supposedly able to withstand even a large vehicle hitting them. Oh yeah? Tell that to the one who was rammed by Dwayne's car earlier.

The lights in the hallway flicker some more, and we see one of the killers running around looking for more folks to munch on. We see Janine approach her husband like he's some new species of wildlife, and he tells her that their son is out there, still alive. Then he blames himself for not looking for Kyle more, for giving him up for dead too quickly.

Daisy asks him to stop talking about it, but Dwayne's on a roll now. He claims that Kyle's condition is revenge for the way they moved on without him, and that his rage stems from being forgotten. Janine hilariously decides that this would be the best opportunity to discuss the fact that she was found in a motel room with a guy whose face was removed. Like I said earlier, this is going to be the best marriage counseling session ever. Hell, even Felicity's ears perk up!

But Dwayne doesn't want to discuss it. He's too busy brooding. Realizing that there aren't going to be any fireworks, Felicity announces that she's going to go to the bathroom, and she leaves the happy group. She finds a toilet stall that's monster-free, does her business, then writes on the bathroom wall "I was here". Yeah, but not for much longer...

She hears a noise on her way out, and decides to go back in to check it out. That kooky deputy starts a loud argument with Dwayne and his wife just to be an ass, and the noise is pretty much there just to distract them from what happens next. What happens next? Felicity is pulled up into the ceiling by one of the crazed killers, and she's mauled to death. That's what happens next!

The others finally hear the attack, but not in time to do anything useful. Dwayne and the other deputy go check it out, and find Felicity hanging from the ceiling, with only her blood-soaked legs showing. As the other deputy leads the charge, he's attacked as well. Dwayne readies his shotgun, and blows a hole in the attacker that nearly cuts him in half at the waist. The guy still tries crawling after the deputies, though, and his top and bottom halves split apart. Awesome effect.

Another one is seen shambling down the hall, and it turns out to be Kyle. Dwayne begs him not to attack, but Kyle starts sprinting at his father with mucho gusto. Dwayne just barely manages to get back into the room with the others, and lock the door in time. The other deputy insists that they need to kill every one of the escapees, including Kyle. Dwayne, being a reasonable human being, shoots him.

After his wife and daughter stop screaming and crying and realizing what a creep he is, Dwayne tells them that he has a plan. Does it involves sacrificing them to Kyle and getting away by himself? Somewhat to my surprise, no, it doesn't.

Dwayne points out Perkins' car on the security monitors, and mentions that it was impounded when Perkins was arrested. Since the area is inside. it could be relatively secure for them to escape to, as long as they're careful. The problem? The keys are in the evidence room, which involves going back into the hallway and avoiding Kyle to get there and grab the keys. Yeah, great plan, Kojak!

Dwayne decides that he'll be the one to go, but his wife insists that she'll be the next human sacrifice. Well, at least now we know who dies next! Her voice was kind of getting on my nerves anyway, so it feels right for her to be next.

Dwayne escorts Janine to a set of stairs, and she makes him promise to take care of their daughter when she's gone. They hug, then she goes off to die in some improbable, absurd manner. At least, that's my guess. Janine goes up the set of stairs, as her daughter watches her on the monitors, and Dwayne just stands there, being useless. Why doesn't he go with her? He has a gun, at least!

Ahhh, I give up trying to make this movie sound like it makes sense. Janine rounds the corner, and finds a ladder. She uses it to climb up to the ceiling, so she can open up an air duct and crawl to the evidence room from up there. While she does that, you see someone in blurry shadows walking the halls toward her location. Kyle? Dwayne? Another killer drone? Cujo?

She pulls herself up into the tunnel, just as the figure passes by, and then does her best imitation of John McClane from Die Hard. Janine crawls through the narrow tunnel like a snail, to try to avoid making too much noise. She passes over another room at one point, and sees a couple of the drones ransacking the place. One of them has those glowing eyes, which still doesn't make any damned sense.

The creature senses Janine, but doesn't spot her hiding place. As Dwayne and his daughter watch the monitors, Janine tries to resume her journey to the evidence room, but she makes a noise that alerts the predator she just saw. Janine keeps going, unaware that one of the drones has climbed up the ladder to follow her.

Janine gets to the evidence room, then lowers herself in. She waves at the security camera like a loon, then finally sets about on her mission to find the keys to the car. She finds the keys relatively quickly, then wastes time waving them at the camera. What, does she think they want to play charades? Is she trying to amuse a housecat?

As expected, the noise and her inability to get her ass in gear are the main causes of Janine's death. A couple of the Perkins' subjects come running in, and they disembowel her. Daisy yells and screams, probably because she realizes that half of her DNA came from an utter nincompoop, while the other half came from a self-loathing psycho. I'll let you decide which parent is which in that sentence...

Daisy runs into the hallway, in some misguided attempt to save her already-dead mother. Dwayne chases after her, and Daisy ends up standing between him and her demented brother Kyle. Dwayne manages to slam a door on Kyle before he reaches them, but Daisy doesn't think they have a chance at surviving the ordeal. To help her prove her point, Kyle punches a hole in the door, next to her head.

Dwayne and Daisy run to the holding cells, and Dwayne locks her into one. He gives her the rifle, and promises to come back. I think we know how that'll work out. Plus, if he doesn't return, how the heck is she supposed to survive with no food or water? Dwayne sucks at coming up with brilliant plans.

He hugs and kisses her for what is almost assuredly the last time, then goes back to face his doom. He and Kyle stare at each other from opposite ends of a hall, with a barred door between them. Dwayne keeps repeating to Kyle that he isn't going to hurt him, and slowly removes all of his weapons from his uniform. Kyle just stands there, staring at his father.

As there are brief glimpses of flashbacks shown, Dwayne shows Kyle his keyring, and unlocks the door between them. More flashbacks are shown, mostly of Kyle as a cute, curly-haired little boy, as opposed to the thing he is now. Dwayne continues to speak to him in a calm voice, as he tries to get his son to remember who he used to be. Yeah, good luck with that, Einstein.

He hugs his son, and Kyle hugs him back. Awwwww....no, wait, Kyle just snapped his dad's neck. Well, so much for the "Hallmark moment" of the movie. Kyle takes the keyring from his father's corpse, then swaggers down the hall toward his sister's location. This ought to go well.

Kyle unlocks her cell, touches her cheek, then takes the rifle out of her hands. She is seen crying, then a shot is heard. THE END Wait, what? Kyle suddenly knows how keys work(not to mention, which key to use to open the cell!), and how to pump the rifle to make it work? Or did he kill himself? Or did Daisy somehow shoot him, by getting the weapon back???  I call shenanigans!

Eh, it's not worth quibbling about. While the effects were terrific, the script was lousy. They should have shown the town of Bay Cove getting invaded by the crazed teens, and they should have had more scenes with Dwayne and Perkins driving around and talking. And less of the whiny supporting characters. 2.5 out of 5 killer trees, because the negatives tipped the scales on this one.

And what did I learn from Perkins' 14?

-Well, it was more like Perkins' 8 or So....but that would be an awful title for a movie.

-Eyes that get gouged out, or fingers that get chewed off, can grow back!

-PCP turns you into a rage-zombie, and makes your eyes glow...

Next up on my list is either The Ruins or Jack Frost...I thought I had done both already, but I can't find 'em in the archives, so my brain must be deteriorating from watching so many slashers. Also, I'll try to watch and post one in the next day or so, to make up for the weeks I was kicked off of AOL(apparently, somebody hacked my account and changed my password and some of my settings....grrr). See you soon!