This week's entry isn't so much a slasher flick, it's a little more porn-y than usual. It's a movie from 2001 called WatchUsDie.com, and it's a softcore, porntastic example of movie magic. Am I being serious? Well, let's get SPOILED, and find out...
The "story" begins with an opening credits sequence with graphics that makes the first Tron movie look edgy and current. Hell, they even throw in the old "modem noise" that you used to hear when logging into AOL back in the Paleolithic Period. Hoo boy, this is going to be grueling.
Then the actual movie starts. We meet 2 women who use sign language AND speak, with no explanation for the signing. That's pretty damned random! Oh, and both are fans of a website called WatchUsDorm, a place for voyeur fetishists, I guess.
At the "dorm", we meet our primary cast. But first up, there's a short intro to the house...the "dorm" is actually a house, rigged up with sound equipment and 45 cameras, and the houseguests are filmed 24 hours a day. Also, the house is in a secret location(to foil would-be stalkers), and there's a pretty tight security system in place.
Okay, so let's get to know the victims: First up is "Amber Coldbath", a 23-year-old exotic dancer, who resembles a young, healthy Anna Nicole Smith; Constance Mercado, 22, who dreams of being an actress; Francesca, the stereotypical French chambermaid; Anya and Zen, the token lesbian characters; Sara, the hot black girl with an unfortunately grating voice; Evan, a guy who does maintenance and repair when needed; Pia, a cute, young blond described as "Latino/American", despite looking Scandinavian; and Sonja, a self-defense expert.
The owner/operator of the site, Manny gives a reporter and her cameraman the grand tour. As he introduces them(and us) to the cast, we also see a handful of the folks logged into the website. Among them are the women from the opening scene, an elderly woman, and some horny teens.
Speaking of the opening scene characters, they make a return. One of them, Brenna, is a struggling journalist, and she's on a waiting list to possibly move into the house. She plans to get in, then write an undercover article about any possible controversy she can unearth. Good thing Manny doesn't do background checks!
During the night, some of the women are sitting at computers, chatting with subscribers and each other. Evan wanders in, mostly to flirt. Then we get an homage to The Waltons, in which the various ladies turn to the camera to say goodnight. One subscriber tunes in to see Anya and Zen writhe around in their bed, and gets excited by watching them in "night vision", despite the complete and utter lack of any sort of "night vision" visuals on the screen. I guess we're supposed to imagine the green filter in the scene. This is easily the dumbest movie I've watched for this blog thus far, people. Appreciate my pain.
When everyone falls asleep, a mystery person sneaks around the house, placing a pair of shoes on the stairs between the first and second floors. Gosh, it's a shame that this isn't on the Internet, for a subscriber to see...oh, wait a second...
Eventually, Pia comes striding down the hall with a laundry basket full of colored paper, as well as a Barbie doll. Sure, that's entirely logical! She stumbles on the shoes, toppling down the stairs and dying right away. The doll dies as well, in a sad, unexpectedly poignant twist.
Manny, sitting in an office filled with scary masks, gleefully hears that the "accident" has caused a large increase in revenue for the site. At the memorial for Pia, Sara admits to Constance that she has no feelings about the death at all. How nice. Most of the girls are discussing how much money the site is earning, while subscribers are crowing about the first person to die on a live internet feed.
Manny briefly tells Constance that the death means more profit for the rest, then he kisses her and leaves. After our favorite journalist is briefly seen gushing over being next on the list to enter the house, the web-girls decide to honor Pia's memory by changing into lingerie and doing seductive dances for the subscribers. Even the handyman joins in. Y'know, I can't quite decide if this is sleazy and stupid, or just stupid.
On the other hand, I did pick this one myself...
Anyway, after the performance, Manny pays the ladies. That night, Sara prays by her bedside, probably for a less-annoying voice and a better memory. Constance gathers the rest of the girls together, and tries to incite a revolution against Manny. She tells them that being exploited on the internet demeans them all...then they all play "Strip Clue".
I don't know about Colonel Mustard, but I seem to have discovered a lead pipe! *rim shot* Oddly enough, a guy who looks like Ogre from Revenge of The Nerds makes an eerily similar joke. Creepy. The movie can hear me!
Sara decides to have a quick soak in he hot tub before going to sleep. Wait, the malfunctioning hot tub? Maybe she'll meet John Cusack from 20 years ago. Or just die, either way.
3 of the girls leave the game for a few minutes, so there are a TON of possible kill-scenarios in our future! Oh, and Zen isn't playing Clue either...she's stripping in front of a computer for a guy who sounds like an adolescent Dr. Claw. Seriously, when he's not trying to murder Inspector Gadget, he's busy masturbating to images of Asian lesbians. Duh.
Sara hears a noise and uses her whiny, nasal screech to scare them off. Then Dr. Claw tells Zen that some folks in the house will die sooner than others, right before a power surge electrocutes Sara. Complete with cartoony, blue lightning.
The survivors have another meeting with Manny, who insists that both deaths were entirely accidental. He also demands that they resume their "work", if they want to continue getting paid. Oh, and he creates a stir when he announces that Brenna The Undercover Reporter will be moving in right away.
Manny has Zen show Brenna to Pia's room after Francesca refuses. Then he tells the rest that they can return to stripping, waitressing, and starring in porn flicks *cough cough*, if they really want to leave. Oh no, not WAITRESSING!!!!! And back up a second, Manny...how are any of those options somehow worse than being murdered? Logic, bro.
Amber steps away to take a shower, complete with cheesy porno sax music playing over the scene. Brenna's roommate's boyfriend('s cousin's best friend's uncle's grandfather's valet's...) is watching, even while she's in the room. The roommate looks in on Brenna and says "Hi!", forgetting that her friend can't see or hear her. Man, this movie is getting dumber by the second.
Amber hears a sound outside the shower, and gets the scare of her life when Evan appears, holding a plunger. Scary stuff. He then leaves, and no one dies. Bummer. I was sort of hoping this one might end early.
Brenna maps out the layout of the house, then gets scared by Evan in the hot tub room. He doesn't seem to like her very much. He even glares at her as she leaves the room. Hmmm... Francesca is then attacked by a maniac in a mask, who turns out to be Manny. Toilet plungers, silly masks...where are Shaggy and Scooby and the rest of the gang? Probably in a better film than this.
Most of the women get drunk, then go online to chat with subscribers. Oh, and they make a crappy conga line. Brenna just stands back and watches everyone else go to work. Uh, what makes her exempt from the house rules? Fire her, Manny!
Brenna dictates into her recorder that it's weird to live in a house where she's constantly being watched. Um, if that's true, then how come Manny hasn't figured out that she's spying on everyone else in the house? This movie sure doesn't like making sense, does it?
A bunch of nameless teens visit the site, because one kid stole his dad's credit card. According to him, the women will only be in the house for 28 more days. Another perv finds a glitch when he tries to watch Constance, because Manny disabled the cameras in her room so that they could have sex.
They reveal that not only have they been screwing, but most of her distaste for the site is a show for the public. Manny proclaims that he'll make Constance more famous than "Buffy, Britney, and Xena combined", which sounds kind of silly coming from a guy in the adult entertainment business. Not to mention kind of outdated. As soon as he leaves her room, he uses a remote to turn her cameras back on.
Brenna walks into the library, where she finds Amber doing an impromptu striptease. While the horny teen group watches, Amber tries to seduce the shy Brenna with some heavy petting. Even Brenna's real roommate seems to be intrigued...
The handyman tries to make a move on the maid, then drags her into a small room. It's apparently the only room in the house where there are no cameras or microphones of any kind. She fights him off, then reveals that she wants him as well. Whatever, just die already, so I can watch a better movie.
Constance finds Manny looking at a calendar featuring one of the other housemates, and she accuses him of making empty promises just to get her in bed. She's a swift one, that Connie! While that's happening, Anya chats online with Dr. Claw, who threatens her life. He ups the ante by sending her pictures of the women he's killed so far. Anya rushes out of the room, where a masked figure is waiting for her.
Ugh, it's Manny again. How many times are they going to pull that gag? She tells him about Dr. Claw, and he assures her that he'll check out the chat logs. Yeah, right after he chainsaws her to death.
The women decide to do a tarot card reading together. While Francesca lays out the cards, some of the women discuss the possibility that the house was built over an ancient Indian burial ground. Great, now they're trying to drag a much better film down to their level!
Frannie gets them back on track, and starts to interpret the cards. She makes a dire prediction about "zee end...of PLEASURE!", and reveals that the final card is Death. They all get upset, and quickly leave the table. An exterior shot of the house reveals somebody in a hood running around.
Sonja visits Brenna's room, where she admits that she hopes to someday become an action movie hero. She then leaves, but not before promising to protect Brenna from danger. Okay is it just med,or are all of the other women in the house falling in love with Brenna?
Most of the women fall asleep, with the exception of Zen, who is still getting drunk. Heck, even the old woman who watches the girls has fallen asleep! Maybe they got a peek at the rest of the script.
When Zen finally passes out, the killer reveals that he/she was behind her chair the entire time. Oh, and they're wearing one of Manny's masks. With absolutely no suspense or buildup, they strangle Zen with a length of wire. One victim closer to the closing credits!
Over breakfast, the remaining housemates hear from Francesca that Zen has gone missing. Manny then enters the dining room, carrying a box containing a Zen garden. Wow-what-a-witty-thing-to-do. He also says that she left him a note explaining that she couldn't handle the pressure of living there anymore. Okay, so she was distraught enough to leave, but wanted to go out on a joke? Hey Manny, where'd you stuff the corpse?
The women look shocked by the news. Even the old lady weeps, wondering where Zen could have gone. Okay, seriously now? A handful of women have died, it's all on camera, and STILL no one has come forward with any information for the cops! What Bizarro Universe is this movie taking place in?
The women have another "private" meeting, where they all agree that Manny knows more about what's been happening than he lets on. Brenna calls her roommate ?, and asks her to do an online search for any info about Manny or the dead/missing women. Manny sees the phone call from his office computer, but can't listen in. So wait: they have internet that makes the "dial-up" noise, phones that somehow still work even when the prehistoric modems are in use, and microphones and cameras everywhere...but Manny can't hear anything from his PC? Every time this movie hits a new low, it manages to sink even deeper.
Francesca storms into his office to announce that she knows that he's involved with all of the recent craziness. Fake Ogre decides to watch Francesca while he's undressed, and imagines that she could get over her lover's disappearance if she seduced another housemate. Oh, and the killer is seen sneaking through the halls.
Francesca takes her last daily shower, and most of the subscribers we've met tune in to watch. While she soaps up, Francesca hears something fall and break. She exits the shower to go have a look, and gets bumped off when the maniac emerges from the shower when she returns. He/she bashes her head into the tiled wall several times, hard enough to crack the tiles.
Her dying screams wake up the rest of the house, and everyone rushes ouut to see what caused the commotion. Evan finds the corpse first, and Manny casually saunters in, all, "Good day, fair maidens, whatever seems to be the problem on this fine evening?"
Okay, I made that last part up. Manny finds out from Evan that Francesca is dead, and Manny tries to play it off as another random mishap. When they all gang up on him, Manny pushes the panic button on the security panel, effectively locking the doors and barring the windows. Now they're trapped with the killer!
The houseguests begin to lose their cool, and the elderly lady who watches them does likewise. She calls the cops to report the murders, and is outraged by the general lack of interest he seems to have. They argue a bit, and she angrily hangs up on him.
Faced with the possibility of death, they decide to split up to search for another way out. Evan and Sonja assault Manny, tying him to a chair. The site's subscribers freak out, with one even telling a friend that Anya and the others are definitely dead, "D-E-D, dead!"
As they all search for alternate escape routes, a thunderstorm rolls in. Francesca explores the basement with a flashlight, but even the few windows in there are barricaded. She finds one of the bodies and screams.
Sonja and Constance accuse Manny of harming her, but he's still tied to the chair. Then Francesca returns from the basement, tearfully informing the others that she found Zen's body. They confront Manny, trying to get him to confess to the murder. He insists on his innocence, claiming that he only found Zen and hid her body, nothing more.
Then he draws their attention to the fact that Evan now appears to be missing, and they stop roughing him up long enough to realize that he has a point. Then Brenna tries to send her roommate a message in sign language, but the boyfriend seduced her away from the computer before she could see it. Whoops!
Sonja has a goofy scene where she picks up a samurai sword, and we see the murderer running up some stairs. He/she approaches Manny, and the webcams temporarily lose their signal. The killer then calls Francesca, and the breathing sounds like that of a woman. When Francesca looks at the webpage, she sees that the killer has changed the name of the site to WatchUsDie. They should make a movie with that title.
The ditzy blond(Amber, I think...) is walking up a landing, then stops short when she sees a large shadow of something looming behind her. It's a male figure, with his back leaning against a wall. Amber cautiously approaches his back and nudges him, only to discover that it's Evan, who is now very dead. He had some blood running down his forehead, but it's not much. His body falls on top of her, and she pushes him off to escape.
Another woman, ?, makes a sign, which has the address on it and a plea for help. The killer pops up behind her, and manages to destroy both her and the sign before she can hold it up to the closest camera. Then they do one of those dorky scenes where the killer unmasks(out of range of the camera, of course), leading the dying girl to gasp, "It's...you!" right before she expires.
3 of the remaining girls are trying to escape together, when Constance reappears. She has a cut on her forehead, and she claims that the killer attacked her, but she managed to get away before he could finish her off. Um...then why didn't we see the attack? Keep an eye on her, kids, because my bullshitometer is going off.
The foursome get back to the ground floor, where they find Manny dead. As they all begin to accuse each other of murder, they hear sounds coming from the library. Then we see Amber scurry off by herself to hide. Oh, and Sonja pulls a gun on them, sending everyone in different directions.
Amber waits for a few minutes, afraid to leave the room she's hiding in. The first time she decides to try to get out, the killer nearly sees her, but she shuts the door again. The second time, the killer finds her, then simply slashes her throat.
Using sign language, Brenna uses one of the cameras to send out a message, even supplying the address. As she reluctantly steps back into the hallway, Sonja ambushes her, aiming the gun at her temple. As the web audience does the worst "panicked" reaction ever committed to film, Constance creeps up behind Sonja, then knocks her out with a vase.
Brenna and Constance hug, then make another address sign for the viewers to give the police. They rush into the non-camera room to wait for the cops, then Constance begins to laugh. She speculates about how quickly she'll rise to fame.
When Brenna mentions her book, Constance drops the "nice girl" act completely, revealing that she had the security code during the entire ordeal. Her nefarious plan was to kill everyone, frame someone else, then become famous. Uh, I hate to keep bringing this up, but...wouldn't all of the cameras tell investigators the full story?
She tries to stab Brenna twice, but misses both times. Brenna gets the knife away from Constance, who runs back into the hall, making it appear that Brenna's the killer. Brenna chases her to the throughout the house, unaware that the subscribers are actively rooting against her.
Near the front door, Constance pops up from behind some furniture, and shoots at Brenna. Lucky for Brenna, she trips over a body, so the bullet misses her. Brenna fires back, hitting Constance in the forehead. This elicits cheers from many of the subscribers.
Brenna enters the door code that Constance told her, and the bars and locks all disengage. Many, many cops are waiting for her, and one nervously shoots her when she tries to give them her tape recorder. They surround her, and hear Constance's confession on the tape.
3 months go by, and Brenna has written a book about the experience. A fan hands her a copy of the book to sign, and Brenna comes face-to-face with a smug-looking Constance. THE END(Maybe...?)
Wow, this was cheesy. Many of the actresses were extremely cute, but 'generic' doesn't even begin to describe the movie. Plus, most of the plot just didn't work, given that the audience would have seen SOMETHING to clue them in to the killer's identity before the final, silly reveal.. No impressive effects, lousy acting, and even the slight nudity was dull. Just bad. 1 tree out of 5.
And (ugh) What did I learn from WatchUsDie.com?
-Well, I guess now I know how NOT to make a slasher flick...
-Porn addicts make for a very gullible audience.
-...and that's it. I got nothing to work with here.
Next up is something called Don't Let Him In. Should be better than this tripe. No way that it could be worse! See you next week.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
Home Si--Uh, I mean "Fear Island"
Well, here we are again! Unfortunately, as I said in my update earlier this week, the copy of Home Sick that NetFlix sent me was pretty shoddy, so hopefully they can send me a better one. Not holding my breath, though..I'm still waiting for my second attempt to watch Smiley, post-convalescence.
Anyway, I found a quick replacement, called Fear Island. It looks generic, but it's also playable, so I'm up for it. Yes, my standards are delightfully low at this point. SPOILERS on the horizon!
The story begins on a confusing note, showing us a young woman being pursued through a forest. She runs and jumps quite a bit, and there are a dozen or so views of the same shot of her eyes in an extreme closeup. Oh yeah, this is going to be a quality film!
After about a minute of this, the gunmen find her hiding spot. They surround her, and seem to be a SWAT team or some kind of police task force. Then the title screen comes up. Okay, I'm mildly intrigued...or, as intrigued as I can ever get by these things.
The young woman is under arrest, and throngs of reporters are waiting for her at the police headquarters. During her interrogation, we find out that she has amnesia. D'oh! The detective questioning her doesn't buy into the amnesia story and starts yelling at the girl, but a psychiatrist named Dr. Chalice interrupts them.
The cop and the doc go into the hallway, where we find out that the cop has a questionable incident in his file that makes him unreliable. Oh, and it turns out that there were about 6 dead bodies found on the island where the young woman was captured. I guess that's a bad thing.
Dr. Chalice finds out that the mystery woman wasn't even read her rights, and goes ballistic. She informs the cop that she's putting the young woman in the hospital under her supervision, at least until they can locate the girl's family. Young Dirty Harry doesn't like it, but has no choice in the matter, given the condition the girl is in.
The mystery woman dreams about the dead people, hearing their voices, and wakes up screaming and writhing around in her hospital bed. Dr. Chalice, accompanied by a couple of uniformed police guards, enters the room and sedates her with an injection. When the cops leave the 2 women alone together, Chalice sits with the girl and watches her sleep.
The girl dreams about the incident on the island. The trip was some sort of getaway, because she and her friends were all going off to college soon, and this was supposed to be a final bash before they left. There are four of them, 2 boys and 2 girls, but another young man has arrived late, getting to the dock seconds after the small boat has launched.
As he watches the boat slowly drift further away, the latecomer makes the decision to leap for the boat. Oh, and he's the first character since Dr. Chalice to get a name: Mark. Hey, that's me!
Mark's running leap succeeds, and he manages to cling to a railing. They pull him aboard, and there are cheers and high 5's all around. Oh, and the young man who was told to pull away from the shore is named Keith. Wow, 2 names in one scene!
Our Jane Doe gets a name as well. She's Jenna, and she just got accepted into a performing arts school, as a dancer. They all make a celebratory toast, then Mark flirts with the other girl, causing Jenna to stand up and walk away. She apparently used to date Mark, and there's still some tension between 'em. She decides to hang out with Keith for a little while.
They approach the island, which is privately owned. There's the usual disclaimer about there being no phones or wireless signals, merely put in there for guys like me, so that we can't nitpick about the many ways they could get help. Eh, I still think it's just weak writing.
They tie up the boat, and head straight for the house. There's a hot tub(time machine?) with a lid over it, and they waste no time in getting it ready for use. Also, Jenna spots a strange wind-up toy, a monkey on a bike, spinning around on the back porch. Scrawled on the monkey's back is the word REVENGE.
Oops, end of flashback. The angry cop puts the toy in front of Jenna, claiming that it was found next to one of the dead bodies. The cop asks Jenna a simple question: If she didn't kill her friends, then who did? That leads into another flashback.
Mark still has a torch for Jenna, but is advised to back off. They apparently broke up 3 years ago, which is either sad or creepy on his part. Maybe both. This girl sure does have a lot of flashbacks to stuff she technically never heard or saw!
Oh, and she FINALLY remembers her own name! Sheesh, we knew it before she did. How does that work? While the cop asks another officer to verify the name, Jenna begins to cry. Then the cop reveals some new information: Witnesses saw 6 of them get on the boat. So how are there 6 dead bodies?
Jenna just now remembers that there was a stowaway on the boat. Uh huh, sure there was. Keith finds a cute young brunette on the boat while he's moving boxes. The new girl, Megan, just smiles a lot and bats her pretty eyelashes. Hey, I'm convinced she's harmless!
Then we FINALLY learn all of their names...Tyler is the leader of the group; his brother is some surfer dude-looking guy named Kyle; Jenna's friend is Ashley(oh, and I forgot this earlier, but she has a dog that she keeps in her bag, like Paris Hilton...); and we've already met Keith, Jenna, and Mark. Got all of that straight? There's a quiz later.
Anyway, Ashley and Jenna whisk Megan away to find her a bedroom. Back in the present, the cop asks Jenna to identify a head shot of Megan. Wait...if none of them were identified yet by the cops, how do they have portraits of them from when they were alive? Is this supposed to make sense?
Jenna claims that Megan was a threat, because of her sex appeal, but then contradicts herself by saying that Megan was "special" in some way. The cop responds by telling her that Megan was stabbed in the throat. So much for being special.
Back in the past, everyone makes fun of Mark, who has found a pair of tacky, bright shorts to wear. He asks Ashley where Jenna is, and ducks out to meet up with her at the dock. As he heads back upstairs to change his ugly shorts, Megan comes downstairs. Tyler grabs her by the hand, insisting that he should fix her a drink before they join the rest of the group.
As sick of the flashbacks as I am, Dr. Chalice gives Jenna a sedative to shut her up. Yay! As Chalice leaves the hospital room, she encounters the angry cop in the hallway. She tells him that Jenna isn't the killer, at least in her expert opinion. That probably means that Jenna's the killer...I'm going to laugh myself silly if I'm right.
Anyway, Angry Cop tells her that he looked into her background. It seems that she's not a very experienced shrink, and that she spends most of her time on the witness stand. As the cop vows to uncover the truth, we get more flashbackstory.('cause it's a flashback, and fills in the backstory...oh, never mind)
Ashley and her boy-toy are in the hot tub. At the same time, Megan and Kyle are doing shots, while Jenna is on the dock "doing ballet". The flashback is interrupted by the cop, who tells Jenna that he thinks she's been faking her amnesia.
Back to Megan and Kyle. Ashley's dog arrives, and drinks from one of the shot glasses. That somehow makes Kyle and Megan horny, so they decide to suck face. Someone seems to be watching them from outside. Ashley and Tyler are doing kinky things with an ice cube in the hot tub. Oh, and thanks to the subtitles, I finally discovered that the dog's name is Pierre.
Kyle sends Pierre outside, then resumes making out with Megan. As Jenna keeps trying to dance, Mark arrives to distract her with his general moping around. Mark asks her to "call a truce" for the weekend, but she seems to think that he's obsessive and creepy.
Megan lets Kyle carry her to a bed, but confesses that she's a virgin. In fact, she admits that she's only 15. Rut roh! To his credit, Kyle does the gentlemanly thing, and chooses to walk away. See, chivalry still exists! Some time after that, an unseen person finds and takes Pierre.
At the hot tub, blood somehow gets mixed in with the ice bucket water. Ashley has blood on one side of her face, and Tyler does a double-take when she turns to face him. Kyle comes outside to see what happened, and they all begin blaming each other for putting blood in the bucket.
As they're all shouting back and forth, Ashley finds out that Kyle let her tiny dog run loose in the woods. Kyle stomps away to find the dog, at which point Angry Cop asks the very same question that I had earlier: How can Jenna recall events that she never witnessed? She claims that the others told her things after they had occurred. Sure they did.
Dr. Chalice calms them both down, then asks Jenna to resume telling the story "her way", which she does. Kyle returns, without poor Pierre, and it's dark out. He guesses that Keith is holding the dog somewhere, as a prank. Kyle and Mark knock at his door, but he seems genuinely confused when they ask him to return the dog. When they leave, he reveals that the dog is hidden in a kitchen cabinet, whimpering and frightened. Man, what an asshole.
Okay, maybe not...he reveals that he did it to protect the dog, because he saw it drinking from the glass of alcohol. Ah, so he was the one watching from the window! Wait, I'm confused here...are we rooting for him because he protected the dog? Or is he creepy again, because now we know he's a peeper?
Keith sees the reflection of a figure trying to sneak up on him, and the scene ends with no resolution. When Mark and Kyle return to the main house, they report that Pierre is still missing. Kyle tells them that if Keith continues to try to intimidate them, he'll hurt him with a knife he carries for protection. When he shows them the weapon, it's already smeared in dry blood.
Jenna defends Kyle, suggesting that another intruder may be on the island. Tyler tells her that it's not possible, and that the island is surrounded on 3 sides by cliffs. They would hear another boat. When Ashley worries that it was Pierre's blood in the ice bucket, Mark assures her that the dog will be found alive and intact.
Back in the present, Dr. Chalice tells the detective that Jenna's parents were located. It turns out that they were away on a trip to Cambodia, but are returning right away to see their daughter. Reading my mind, the cop asks the shrink who would go to vacation all the way over in Cambodia? "Rich people" is apparently the answer. She leaves a file about Jenna with the detective, but tells him that her history is trouble-free.
Back in the interrogation area, Jenna suddenly cries out that it was Keith. Time for more flashbacks...Jenna makes coffee for everyone, but Ashley is a no-show. She woke up earlier, and immediately resumed the search for her dog. While she's out in the woods, Mark finds a jar of jelly filled with thumbtacks. Mmmmm, who doesn't love an old-fashioned peanut butter 'n' blood sandwich?
Ashley can be heard screaming, and the others run outside to find her. She comes sprinting toward the house, and the 3 guys decide to have a look at whatever caused her to scream. They don't find the dog, but they DO find Keith, who has been hung up by his ankles, with the word EVIL carved into his torso.
The cop and the shrink point out that she just contradicted her own story, because earlier she was yelling about the killer being Keith. Oh, and the cop is apparently named 'Armory'. Okay, so we have a doctor named Chalice, a cop named Armory...wanna bet that there's a chef named Ladle? I have a feeling that this script was written in crayon.
When Armory demands to know why they didn't all just get in the boat and leave, the shrink tells him not to personalize the case, and that the victims were not like his son. I think this movie hates me. Or maybe the movie became self-aware, and it literally hates itself.
It turns out that the boat vanished. They manage to call the cops from the house, but they won't arrive until the following day. At least that explains how they knew to look for Jenna in the opening scene. Some of this is starting to make sense...Did I just say that?
They all head outside, where they can hear that toy monkey spinning around in the vicinity. But who wound it up? Mark heads to the trees to find it, but hears an evil laugh, and hesitates. There might also be a voice, but the words can't be heard.
The guys decide to cut down Keith's body, and they tell Megan and Jenna to remain at the house. As soon as they leave, Ashley announces that she's going into the woods to continue her search for Pierre. Being such caring, compassionate women, they offer to search instead...and leave her alone in the house. These folks are geniuses.
Tyler tells Mark that the reason that Keith was around so much was because he was Tyler and Kyle's half-brother. When they arrive at the right tree, the body is gone. The blood, too. So the killer is still on the island.
Detective Armory shows Jenna a file, and it indicates that Keith's death was different than what Jenna described. Rather than telling us what actually happened, the script glosses over the details. Ridiculous.
Ashley wakes up from a nap, and she hears Pierre barking. She leaves the house, and approaches the hot tub. She finds a studded dog collar in front of it, and throws open the cover. As she gets in to search for her dog, the killer slams the lid down, ties it down, then raises the water temperature. Anyone hungry for boiled ham?
Kyle and Mark return from the hike, and find the house empty. They split up to get Tyler and the girls. Oh, and Ashley drowns. TTFN, Ash!
Mark finds Megan, but she's not with Jenna. They find her soon enough, but panic again when they realize that Ashley has disappeared. At the house, everyone meets up agin, and Megan spots the spiked collar in front of the hot tub. Painted on the lid is the word GUILTY. They pull her out of the hot tub, and her corpse is covered in blisters and burns. Jenna stops telling the story, and remembers how close she and Ashley used to be. Then she asks them if she can speak with her friend, as has to be reminded that Ashley is dead. Creepy.
On the island, they wrap Ashley in a sheet. Mark speculates that the killer might just be some random nutcase, and it's pointed out that, random or not, they're all still in danger. The conversation turns into a shouting match, with everyone accusing everyone else of being a potential killer. To make it worse, they realize that, even in groups, there were periods of time when each person was alone.
They bring the corpse to a freezer, then make a plan to remain in a group. In the storage shed they come across a pair of walkie-talkies. As they return to the house, they spot the toy monkey rolling around on the patio. Maybe the monkey killed them all!
Jenna is the first one to spot another word painted on the glass door leading into the house: INNOCENT. When Dr. Chalice points out that none of them were "innocent", Jenna again tells her that Megan was "special" in some way. When asked to elaborate, Jenna explains that Megan wasn't even supposed to be there, so the killer couldn't have planned on her arrival. So???
On their way back to the house, Kyle hears a noise. It's the sound of someone crying. He urges the rest of the group to go inside, while he investigates the sound. They give him a baseball bat for protection. Before they even have time to miss him, he steps on a bear trap. They work to free Kyle, then everybody heads inside, where they lock the doors and windows.
In her hospital room Jenna is reading a bible. She tells Dr. Chalice that it gives her comfort. Then she asks the shrink about Detective Armory's son, and is told that he died during some type of hazing incident. He drowned during a "water torture" gag.Detective Armory nearly killed one of the kids at the scene.
Dr. Chalice then gives Jenna her nightly sedative. After the shrink leaves, Jenna spits the pill out. It turns out that she made a secret compartment in the bible, where she's been hiding the sleeping pills. What a zany gal!
In the past, Kyle gets drunk to dull the pain from his wounded foot, while Tyler arms himself with a nail gun. Someone appears to be watching the house. Then the brainiacs decide that they should somehow move Kyle upstairs. As they all get him there, Jenna thinks that she sees the killer outside. She gets Mark and Tyler, and they go outside to have a look. Nope, nobody's out there!
At about 4 in the morning, Mark and Jenna nearly share a kiss, but then the power goes out. Megan goes upstairs to check on Kyle, but she can't seem to find him. Then a tree outside goes up in a blaze, and someone outside begins to fire a gun at the house.
Tyler is hit, and they all work together to drag him to a safe spot behind the couch. Then we end up back in the hospital. Jenna wakes up, and finds someone new in the room. A young girl, who is also a ghost I guess. Jenna calls her Regina.
Kyle can be heard pleading for his life, and the others find a walkie-talkie. Using the device, they try to figure out where Kyle has been taken. Jenna thinks that the words left at every crime scene might have a clue, so she writes them down: REVENGE, EVIL, GREED, INNOCENT, NAIVE, and ATONEMENT. When put together, the first letter in each word spells out REGINA. Friggin' Atonement, man. Did these guys watch Tormented?
Uhhhh, back up a sec...who's Regina?
She was a student who had disappeared the previous year. She had gone to one of their parties, and got herself pretty smashed by the end of the night. As Regina partied, they filmed the whole thing. And by "they", I'm referring to Tyler and Kyle. Megan hears the story and proclaims that she's safe, since she had nothing to do with whatever happened to Regina.
Jenna takes one of the walkie-talkies, and insists that Megan should have it. Megan accepts it, then leaves the others to their fate. But first, she promises Jenna that she'll keep in touch with them, as frequently as possible.
As Jenna recalls not being confident about trusting either Mark or Tyler, Megan gets back to the main house. She comes across Kyle's knife(which is clean again), then the others return as well. She's no longer around, but they find a mound of dirt and a little plastic shovel. The killer wants them to build a playground? Or does the killer want some beach toys? On an unrelated note, life can sometimes be a beach.
The sight of the dirt leads to another flashback-within-the-flashback: Apparently, something bad happened to Regina. After being raped and filmed, Regina tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, but Tyler grabs her wrist. A struggle ensues and Regina stumbles, dying when she receives a blow to the head on a piece of furniture.
He and Kyle buried the corpse in the woods. As Jenna insists on being shown where the body is buried, the flashback ends. Then Jenna discovers that her folks will be back home sometime the next day. That means the movie's almost over! Orgy at my place! Bring champagne!
Anyway...The characters seem to be having a weird role-reversal, with Armory believing Jenna now, and Chalice poking holes in her story. Yeesh, whatever. Just unmask the killer so I can head out and see You're Next.
A report from the coroner arrives, revealing that Jenna was either mistaken, or lied, about Keith being the first victim. Rather than explaining this, the movie decides to resume the flashback by showing Megan, back when she returned to the house. She backs out of the main room, and finds Keith looming behind her. Whoa...Keith's the killer?!?
The others arrive at the burial site, where it appears that somebody already did some digging. Tyler begins to dig, and they soon find not Regina, but Kyle, in the hole! D'oh!
...and that's when Regina uses her walkie-talkie. She sounds panicky, and tells them that Keith is alive. They hear her beg for her life, then the transmission ends on an abrupt note. Double d'oh!
They hurry back to the house, and Tyler vows to kill Keith for what he's done. He gets to the house first, and grabs a knife from the kitchen. Then he calls out to Megan, while searching the house. He hears a sound coming from one of the kitchen cabinets, and gets a chestful of venom when a snake emerges from said cabinet.
Tyler yanks the snake out of his chest and screams for help. Jenna and Mark can only stand by, while he dies right before their eyes. Jenna tearfully tells Mark that she feels responsible for everything that happened. She apparently witnessed the drunken 3-way at the party that night. It looks like Ashley also saw some of it.
At the police station, ?Jenna tells Armory that when she "heard what happened", she wanted to "kill them all". Uhhhh...didn't you witness it? Her story changes so often, they should write it as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
Mark tells Jenna that they need to find a way to get back to the mainland, then they both hear a noise upstairs. Mark suddenly kisses her, then they head up the stairs. Nice time for romance, dude.
There's a large shape on one of the beds, but it's covered up with sheets. Mark draws a sheet back, expecting to see either a dead Megan or Keith, but it's the bony remains of Regina. Keith radioes them, telling them that Regina was an innocent victim. When they ask about Megan, he only says that she's been taken care of by him.
They return to the hallway, where Keith ambushes them. He claims that they need to suffer they way they lived. H?e also says that he cared about Regina, and that his feelings compelled him to seek revenge on all of them. Except Megan. She's special. Yeah man, we've heard.
Jenna bites Keith in the arm, forcing him to release his grip on her. Then Mark goes at him with the baseball bat, and both men fall to the first floor during the struggle. Jenna leans over the railing to have a look, and neither man is moving. She examines Mark, who appears to be dead, but Keith springs back to life and tries to grab her. Jenna then gets agitated when Armory and Chalice interrupt the story.
Keith pursues Jenna through the forest, but he trips. She nearly gets captured while climbing a hill, but a well-timed kick buys her some time. Unfortunately for her, she then gets snatched up by a rope trap, and is helplessly swinging by her ankles.
Keith soon arrives, and can't help laughing at her predicament. He compares what he's going to do to her to skinning a rabbit, then moves in for the kill. Fortunately, Regina pops up and attacks him with a shovel before he can hurt Jenna. Then she takes the knife, and uses it to cut the rope holding Jenna.
They limp to the dock, where the boat has somehow returned from oblivion. They climb aboard, even as Chalice and Armory ask why Megan didn't survive. While Jenna looks for boat keys, Megan speculates on what it must feel like to lose a loved one. And she edges away from Jenna. Uh oh...
Yup, there's another killer. Regina was Megan's older sister, and she wants her own revenge for what happened a year ago. Frankly, I'm just shocked that she hasn't said, "I know what you did last summer..." They've used every other cliche, more or less.
Megan takes out the knife, and Jenna claims that Megan and Keith were in cahoots. Chalice reads a file, and verifies that Megan and Regina were sisters. Armory just rests his head on the table, lol. I think I know how he feels.
Back to the boat: As Megan closes in on Jenna, Jenna "remembers" that she killed Megan in self-defense. While Dr. Chalice protests that Megan was stabbed waaaay more than a few times, Det. Armory argues that Jenna can go home until a decision is made by the district attorney, regarding filing any charges. Jenna just sits back and smiles.
In the hospital room, Jenna fixes 2 cups of water, then offers one to the doctor. Chalice takes a sip, then sits down. She tells the girl that there are many holes in her story, like the thing about her and Ashley being in first grade together. Or seeing a vision of Regina in her room, despite never having seen her before.
Remember the hoarded sleeping pills that were hidden in the book? Well, Jenna sure did! She put them in the cup that she handed to Chalice, and the doc collapses to the floor. It turns out that Regina was like a sister to Jenna...in fact, she WAS her sister!
Jenna's parents arrive, and they ask about her condition. Armory reports that she's been through an ordeal, but should be fine. Then her mother sees the photo board, and asks why her daughter's picture has the name "Megan" underneath it...rut roh!
Okay, so go back, re-watch this entire thing, then switch Megan with Jenna...and it still doesn't quite work! Armory races to the hospital room, where he discovers that Dr. Chalice is...alive. Wow. So far, that's the best twist. Oh, and yes, I'm laughing, because I predicted this whole thing earlier.
The final sequence shows Megan on the road, having apparently stolen Chalice's car keys and business attire. The car breaks down, and she entices a motorist to give her a lift. Oh, and she calls herself Megan. THE END
Oh, where to begin? The ridiculous plot aside, the acting was terrible, the sets were monotonous(The interrogation area and the hospital were in the same building? HUH?), and it was very, very bland in the acting department. 1-and-a-half stars, and I'm already blocking this one out of my memory.
What did I learn from watching Fear Island?
-People should always have names that describe what they do for a living. On that note, I am now Sarcasmo the Mighty.
-If you get a young girl drunk, rape her, then kill her, make sure that she's an only child! Or just, I don't know, just a crazy thought, RESPECT WOMEN. Dagnabbit.
Stop trying to make Canada look like America. Or just make better slasher movies, Canada! Just because you guys made My Bloody Valentine, it doesn't give you a free pass to make crap like this later on.
I screwed up my NetFlix queue, so I didn't get a slasher in the mail this week. I'll peruse the Instant options, and hopefully find something worth watching. Have a great week!
Anyway, I found a quick replacement, called Fear Island. It looks generic, but it's also playable, so I'm up for it. Yes, my standards are delightfully low at this point. SPOILERS on the horizon!
The story begins on a confusing note, showing us a young woman being pursued through a forest. She runs and jumps quite a bit, and there are a dozen or so views of the same shot of her eyes in an extreme closeup. Oh yeah, this is going to be a quality film!
After about a minute of this, the gunmen find her hiding spot. They surround her, and seem to be a SWAT team or some kind of police task force. Then the title screen comes up. Okay, I'm mildly intrigued...or, as intrigued as I can ever get by these things.
The young woman is under arrest, and throngs of reporters are waiting for her at the police headquarters. During her interrogation, we find out that she has amnesia. D'oh! The detective questioning her doesn't buy into the amnesia story and starts yelling at the girl, but a psychiatrist named Dr. Chalice interrupts them.
The cop and the doc go into the hallway, where we find out that the cop has a questionable incident in his file that makes him unreliable. Oh, and it turns out that there were about 6 dead bodies found on the island where the young woman was captured. I guess that's a bad thing.
Dr. Chalice finds out that the mystery woman wasn't even read her rights, and goes ballistic. She informs the cop that she's putting the young woman in the hospital under her supervision, at least until they can locate the girl's family. Young Dirty Harry doesn't like it, but has no choice in the matter, given the condition the girl is in.
The mystery woman dreams about the dead people, hearing their voices, and wakes up screaming and writhing around in her hospital bed. Dr. Chalice, accompanied by a couple of uniformed police guards, enters the room and sedates her with an injection. When the cops leave the 2 women alone together, Chalice sits with the girl and watches her sleep.
The girl dreams about the incident on the island. The trip was some sort of getaway, because she and her friends were all going off to college soon, and this was supposed to be a final bash before they left. There are four of them, 2 boys and 2 girls, but another young man has arrived late, getting to the dock seconds after the small boat has launched.
As he watches the boat slowly drift further away, the latecomer makes the decision to leap for the boat. Oh, and he's the first character since Dr. Chalice to get a name: Mark. Hey, that's me!
Mark's running leap succeeds, and he manages to cling to a railing. They pull him aboard, and there are cheers and high 5's all around. Oh, and the young man who was told to pull away from the shore is named Keith. Wow, 2 names in one scene!
Our Jane Doe gets a name as well. She's Jenna, and she just got accepted into a performing arts school, as a dancer. They all make a celebratory toast, then Mark flirts with the other girl, causing Jenna to stand up and walk away. She apparently used to date Mark, and there's still some tension between 'em. She decides to hang out with Keith for a little while.
They approach the island, which is privately owned. There's the usual disclaimer about there being no phones or wireless signals, merely put in there for guys like me, so that we can't nitpick about the many ways they could get help. Eh, I still think it's just weak writing.
They tie up the boat, and head straight for the house. There's a hot tub(time machine?) with a lid over it, and they waste no time in getting it ready for use. Also, Jenna spots a strange wind-up toy, a monkey on a bike, spinning around on the back porch. Scrawled on the monkey's back is the word REVENGE.
Oops, end of flashback. The angry cop puts the toy in front of Jenna, claiming that it was found next to one of the dead bodies. The cop asks Jenna a simple question: If she didn't kill her friends, then who did? That leads into another flashback.
Mark still has a torch for Jenna, but is advised to back off. They apparently broke up 3 years ago, which is either sad or creepy on his part. Maybe both. This girl sure does have a lot of flashbacks to stuff she technically never heard or saw!
Oh, and she FINALLY remembers her own name! Sheesh, we knew it before she did. How does that work? While the cop asks another officer to verify the name, Jenna begins to cry. Then the cop reveals some new information: Witnesses saw 6 of them get on the boat. So how are there 6 dead bodies?
Jenna just now remembers that there was a stowaway on the boat. Uh huh, sure there was. Keith finds a cute young brunette on the boat while he's moving boxes. The new girl, Megan, just smiles a lot and bats her pretty eyelashes. Hey, I'm convinced she's harmless!
Then we FINALLY learn all of their names...Tyler is the leader of the group; his brother is some surfer dude-looking guy named Kyle; Jenna's friend is Ashley(oh, and I forgot this earlier, but she has a dog that she keeps in her bag, like Paris Hilton...); and we've already met Keith, Jenna, and Mark. Got all of that straight? There's a quiz later.
Anyway, Ashley and Jenna whisk Megan away to find her a bedroom. Back in the present, the cop asks Jenna to identify a head shot of Megan. Wait...if none of them were identified yet by the cops, how do they have portraits of them from when they were alive? Is this supposed to make sense?
Jenna claims that Megan was a threat, because of her sex appeal, but then contradicts herself by saying that Megan was "special" in some way. The cop responds by telling her that Megan was stabbed in the throat. So much for being special.
Back in the past, everyone makes fun of Mark, who has found a pair of tacky, bright shorts to wear. He asks Ashley where Jenna is, and ducks out to meet up with her at the dock. As he heads back upstairs to change his ugly shorts, Megan comes downstairs. Tyler grabs her by the hand, insisting that he should fix her a drink before they join the rest of the group.
As sick of the flashbacks as I am, Dr. Chalice gives Jenna a sedative to shut her up. Yay! As Chalice leaves the hospital room, she encounters the angry cop in the hallway. She tells him that Jenna isn't the killer, at least in her expert opinion. That probably means that Jenna's the killer...I'm going to laugh myself silly if I'm right.
Anyway, Angry Cop tells her that he looked into her background. It seems that she's not a very experienced shrink, and that she spends most of her time on the witness stand. As the cop vows to uncover the truth, we get more flashbackstory.('cause it's a flashback, and fills in the backstory...oh, never mind)
Ashley and her boy-toy are in the hot tub. At the same time, Megan and Kyle are doing shots, while Jenna is on the dock "doing ballet". The flashback is interrupted by the cop, who tells Jenna that he thinks she's been faking her amnesia.
Back to Megan and Kyle. Ashley's dog arrives, and drinks from one of the shot glasses. That somehow makes Kyle and Megan horny, so they decide to suck face. Someone seems to be watching them from outside. Ashley and Tyler are doing kinky things with an ice cube in the hot tub. Oh, and thanks to the subtitles, I finally discovered that the dog's name is Pierre.
Kyle sends Pierre outside, then resumes making out with Megan. As Jenna keeps trying to dance, Mark arrives to distract her with his general moping around. Mark asks her to "call a truce" for the weekend, but she seems to think that he's obsessive and creepy.
Megan lets Kyle carry her to a bed, but confesses that she's a virgin. In fact, she admits that she's only 15. Rut roh! To his credit, Kyle does the gentlemanly thing, and chooses to walk away. See, chivalry still exists! Some time after that, an unseen person finds and takes Pierre.
At the hot tub, blood somehow gets mixed in with the ice bucket water. Ashley has blood on one side of her face, and Tyler does a double-take when she turns to face him. Kyle comes outside to see what happened, and they all begin blaming each other for putting blood in the bucket.
As they're all shouting back and forth, Ashley finds out that Kyle let her tiny dog run loose in the woods. Kyle stomps away to find the dog, at which point Angry Cop asks the very same question that I had earlier: How can Jenna recall events that she never witnessed? She claims that the others told her things after they had occurred. Sure they did.
Dr. Chalice calms them both down, then asks Jenna to resume telling the story "her way", which she does. Kyle returns, without poor Pierre, and it's dark out. He guesses that Keith is holding the dog somewhere, as a prank. Kyle and Mark knock at his door, but he seems genuinely confused when they ask him to return the dog. When they leave, he reveals that the dog is hidden in a kitchen cabinet, whimpering and frightened. Man, what an asshole.
Okay, maybe not...he reveals that he did it to protect the dog, because he saw it drinking from the glass of alcohol. Ah, so he was the one watching from the window! Wait, I'm confused here...are we rooting for him because he protected the dog? Or is he creepy again, because now we know he's a peeper?
Keith sees the reflection of a figure trying to sneak up on him, and the scene ends with no resolution. When Mark and Kyle return to the main house, they report that Pierre is still missing. Kyle tells them that if Keith continues to try to intimidate them, he'll hurt him with a knife he carries for protection. When he shows them the weapon, it's already smeared in dry blood.
Jenna defends Kyle, suggesting that another intruder may be on the island. Tyler tells her that it's not possible, and that the island is surrounded on 3 sides by cliffs. They would hear another boat. When Ashley worries that it was Pierre's blood in the ice bucket, Mark assures her that the dog will be found alive and intact.
Back in the present, Dr. Chalice tells the detective that Jenna's parents were located. It turns out that they were away on a trip to Cambodia, but are returning right away to see their daughter. Reading my mind, the cop asks the shrink who would go to vacation all the way over in Cambodia? "Rich people" is apparently the answer. She leaves a file about Jenna with the detective, but tells him that her history is trouble-free.
Back in the interrogation area, Jenna suddenly cries out that it was Keith. Time for more flashbacks...Jenna makes coffee for everyone, but Ashley is a no-show. She woke up earlier, and immediately resumed the search for her dog. While she's out in the woods, Mark finds a jar of jelly filled with thumbtacks. Mmmmm, who doesn't love an old-fashioned peanut butter 'n' blood sandwich?
Ashley can be heard screaming, and the others run outside to find her. She comes sprinting toward the house, and the 3 guys decide to have a look at whatever caused her to scream. They don't find the dog, but they DO find Keith, who has been hung up by his ankles, with the word EVIL carved into his torso.
The cop and the shrink point out that she just contradicted her own story, because earlier she was yelling about the killer being Keith. Oh, and the cop is apparently named 'Armory'. Okay, so we have a doctor named Chalice, a cop named Armory...wanna bet that there's a chef named Ladle? I have a feeling that this script was written in crayon.
When Armory demands to know why they didn't all just get in the boat and leave, the shrink tells him not to personalize the case, and that the victims were not like his son. I think this movie hates me. Or maybe the movie became self-aware, and it literally hates itself.
It turns out that the boat vanished. They manage to call the cops from the house, but they won't arrive until the following day. At least that explains how they knew to look for Jenna in the opening scene. Some of this is starting to make sense...Did I just say that?
They all head outside, where they can hear that toy monkey spinning around in the vicinity. But who wound it up? Mark heads to the trees to find it, but hears an evil laugh, and hesitates. There might also be a voice, but the words can't be heard.
The guys decide to cut down Keith's body, and they tell Megan and Jenna to remain at the house. As soon as they leave, Ashley announces that she's going into the woods to continue her search for Pierre. Being such caring, compassionate women, they offer to search instead...and leave her alone in the house. These folks are geniuses.
Tyler tells Mark that the reason that Keith was around so much was because he was Tyler and Kyle's half-brother. When they arrive at the right tree, the body is gone. The blood, too. So the killer is still on the island.
Detective Armory shows Jenna a file, and it indicates that Keith's death was different than what Jenna described. Rather than telling us what actually happened, the script glosses over the details. Ridiculous.
Ashley wakes up from a nap, and she hears Pierre barking. She leaves the house, and approaches the hot tub. She finds a studded dog collar in front of it, and throws open the cover. As she gets in to search for her dog, the killer slams the lid down, ties it down, then raises the water temperature. Anyone hungry for boiled ham?
Kyle and Mark return from the hike, and find the house empty. They split up to get Tyler and the girls. Oh, and Ashley drowns. TTFN, Ash!
Mark finds Megan, but she's not with Jenna. They find her soon enough, but panic again when they realize that Ashley has disappeared. At the house, everyone meets up agin, and Megan spots the spiked collar in front of the hot tub. Painted on the lid is the word GUILTY. They pull her out of the hot tub, and her corpse is covered in blisters and burns. Jenna stops telling the story, and remembers how close she and Ashley used to be. Then she asks them if she can speak with her friend, as has to be reminded that Ashley is dead. Creepy.
On the island, they wrap Ashley in a sheet. Mark speculates that the killer might just be some random nutcase, and it's pointed out that, random or not, they're all still in danger. The conversation turns into a shouting match, with everyone accusing everyone else of being a potential killer. To make it worse, they realize that, even in groups, there were periods of time when each person was alone.
They bring the corpse to a freezer, then make a plan to remain in a group. In the storage shed they come across a pair of walkie-talkies. As they return to the house, they spot the toy monkey rolling around on the patio. Maybe the monkey killed them all!
Jenna is the first one to spot another word painted on the glass door leading into the house: INNOCENT. When Dr. Chalice points out that none of them were "innocent", Jenna again tells her that Megan was "special" in some way. When asked to elaborate, Jenna explains that Megan wasn't even supposed to be there, so the killer couldn't have planned on her arrival. So???
On their way back to the house, Kyle hears a noise. It's the sound of someone crying. He urges the rest of the group to go inside, while he investigates the sound. They give him a baseball bat for protection. Before they even have time to miss him, he steps on a bear trap. They work to free Kyle, then everybody heads inside, where they lock the doors and windows.
In her hospital room Jenna is reading a bible. She tells Dr. Chalice that it gives her comfort. Then she asks the shrink about Detective Armory's son, and is told that he died during some type of hazing incident. He drowned during a "water torture" gag.Detective Armory nearly killed one of the kids at the scene.
Dr. Chalice then gives Jenna her nightly sedative. After the shrink leaves, Jenna spits the pill out. It turns out that she made a secret compartment in the bible, where she's been hiding the sleeping pills. What a zany gal!
In the past, Kyle gets drunk to dull the pain from his wounded foot, while Tyler arms himself with a nail gun. Someone appears to be watching the house. Then the brainiacs decide that they should somehow move Kyle upstairs. As they all get him there, Jenna thinks that she sees the killer outside. She gets Mark and Tyler, and they go outside to have a look. Nope, nobody's out there!
At about 4 in the morning, Mark and Jenna nearly share a kiss, but then the power goes out. Megan goes upstairs to check on Kyle, but she can't seem to find him. Then a tree outside goes up in a blaze, and someone outside begins to fire a gun at the house.
Tyler is hit, and they all work together to drag him to a safe spot behind the couch. Then we end up back in the hospital. Jenna wakes up, and finds someone new in the room. A young girl, who is also a ghost I guess. Jenna calls her Regina.
Kyle can be heard pleading for his life, and the others find a walkie-talkie. Using the device, they try to figure out where Kyle has been taken. Jenna thinks that the words left at every crime scene might have a clue, so she writes them down: REVENGE, EVIL, GREED, INNOCENT, NAIVE, and ATONEMENT. When put together, the first letter in each word spells out REGINA. Friggin' Atonement, man. Did these guys watch Tormented?
Uhhhh, back up a sec...who's Regina?
She was a student who had disappeared the previous year. She had gone to one of their parties, and got herself pretty smashed by the end of the night. As Regina partied, they filmed the whole thing. And by "they", I'm referring to Tyler and Kyle. Megan hears the story and proclaims that she's safe, since she had nothing to do with whatever happened to Regina.
Jenna takes one of the walkie-talkies, and insists that Megan should have it. Megan accepts it, then leaves the others to their fate. But first, she promises Jenna that she'll keep in touch with them, as frequently as possible.
As Jenna recalls not being confident about trusting either Mark or Tyler, Megan gets back to the main house. She comes across Kyle's knife(which is clean again), then the others return as well. She's no longer around, but they find a mound of dirt and a little plastic shovel. The killer wants them to build a playground? Or does the killer want some beach toys? On an unrelated note, life can sometimes be a beach.
The sight of the dirt leads to another flashback-within-the-flashback: Apparently, something bad happened to Regina. After being raped and filmed, Regina tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, but Tyler grabs her wrist. A struggle ensues and Regina stumbles, dying when she receives a blow to the head on a piece of furniture.
He and Kyle buried the corpse in the woods. As Jenna insists on being shown where the body is buried, the flashback ends. Then Jenna discovers that her folks will be back home sometime the next day. That means the movie's almost over! Orgy at my place! Bring champagne!
Anyway...The characters seem to be having a weird role-reversal, with Armory believing Jenna now, and Chalice poking holes in her story. Yeesh, whatever. Just unmask the killer so I can head out and see You're Next.
A report from the coroner arrives, revealing that Jenna was either mistaken, or lied, about Keith being the first victim. Rather than explaining this, the movie decides to resume the flashback by showing Megan, back when she returned to the house. She backs out of the main room, and finds Keith looming behind her. Whoa...Keith's the killer?!?
The others arrive at the burial site, where it appears that somebody already did some digging. Tyler begins to dig, and they soon find not Regina, but Kyle, in the hole! D'oh!
...and that's when Regina uses her walkie-talkie. She sounds panicky, and tells them that Keith is alive. They hear her beg for her life, then the transmission ends on an abrupt note. Double d'oh!
They hurry back to the house, and Tyler vows to kill Keith for what he's done. He gets to the house first, and grabs a knife from the kitchen. Then he calls out to Megan, while searching the house. He hears a sound coming from one of the kitchen cabinets, and gets a chestful of venom when a snake emerges from said cabinet.
Tyler yanks the snake out of his chest and screams for help. Jenna and Mark can only stand by, while he dies right before their eyes. Jenna tearfully tells Mark that she feels responsible for everything that happened. She apparently witnessed the drunken 3-way at the party that night. It looks like Ashley also saw some of it.
At the police station, ?Jenna tells Armory that when she "heard what happened", she wanted to "kill them all". Uhhhh...didn't you witness it? Her story changes so often, they should write it as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
Mark tells Jenna that they need to find a way to get back to the mainland, then they both hear a noise upstairs. Mark suddenly kisses her, then they head up the stairs. Nice time for romance, dude.
There's a large shape on one of the beds, but it's covered up with sheets. Mark draws a sheet back, expecting to see either a dead Megan or Keith, but it's the bony remains of Regina. Keith radioes them, telling them that Regina was an innocent victim. When they ask about Megan, he only says that she's been taken care of by him.
They return to the hallway, where Keith ambushes them. He claims that they need to suffer they way they lived. H?e also says that he cared about Regina, and that his feelings compelled him to seek revenge on all of them. Except Megan. She's special. Yeah man, we've heard.
Jenna bites Keith in the arm, forcing him to release his grip on her. Then Mark goes at him with the baseball bat, and both men fall to the first floor during the struggle. Jenna leans over the railing to have a look, and neither man is moving. She examines Mark, who appears to be dead, but Keith springs back to life and tries to grab her. Jenna then gets agitated when Armory and Chalice interrupt the story.
Keith pursues Jenna through the forest, but he trips. She nearly gets captured while climbing a hill, but a well-timed kick buys her some time. Unfortunately for her, she then gets snatched up by a rope trap, and is helplessly swinging by her ankles.
Keith soon arrives, and can't help laughing at her predicament. He compares what he's going to do to her to skinning a rabbit, then moves in for the kill. Fortunately, Regina pops up and attacks him with a shovel before he can hurt Jenna. Then she takes the knife, and uses it to cut the rope holding Jenna.
They limp to the dock, where the boat has somehow returned from oblivion. They climb aboard, even as Chalice and Armory ask why Megan didn't survive. While Jenna looks for boat keys, Megan speculates on what it must feel like to lose a loved one. And she edges away from Jenna. Uh oh...
Yup, there's another killer. Regina was Megan's older sister, and she wants her own revenge for what happened a year ago. Frankly, I'm just shocked that she hasn't said, "I know what you did last summer..." They've used every other cliche, more or less.
Megan takes out the knife, and Jenna claims that Megan and Keith were in cahoots. Chalice reads a file, and verifies that Megan and Regina were sisters. Armory just rests his head on the table, lol. I think I know how he feels.
Back to the boat: As Megan closes in on Jenna, Jenna "remembers" that she killed Megan in self-defense. While Dr. Chalice protests that Megan was stabbed waaaay more than a few times, Det. Armory argues that Jenna can go home until a decision is made by the district attorney, regarding filing any charges. Jenna just sits back and smiles.
In the hospital room, Jenna fixes 2 cups of water, then offers one to the doctor. Chalice takes a sip, then sits down. She tells the girl that there are many holes in her story, like the thing about her and Ashley being in first grade together. Or seeing a vision of Regina in her room, despite never having seen her before.
Remember the hoarded sleeping pills that were hidden in the book? Well, Jenna sure did! She put them in the cup that she handed to Chalice, and the doc collapses to the floor. It turns out that Regina was like a sister to Jenna...in fact, she WAS her sister!
Jenna's parents arrive, and they ask about her condition. Armory reports that she's been through an ordeal, but should be fine. Then her mother sees the photo board, and asks why her daughter's picture has the name "Megan" underneath it...rut roh!
Okay, so go back, re-watch this entire thing, then switch Megan with Jenna...and it still doesn't quite work! Armory races to the hospital room, where he discovers that Dr. Chalice is...alive. Wow. So far, that's the best twist. Oh, and yes, I'm laughing, because I predicted this whole thing earlier.
The final sequence shows Megan on the road, having apparently stolen Chalice's car keys and business attire. The car breaks down, and she entices a motorist to give her a lift. Oh, and she calls herself Megan. THE END
Oh, where to begin? The ridiculous plot aside, the acting was terrible, the sets were monotonous(The interrogation area and the hospital were in the same building? HUH?), and it was very, very bland in the acting department. 1-and-a-half stars, and I'm already blocking this one out of my memory.
What did I learn from watching Fear Island?
-People should always have names that describe what they do for a living. On that note, I am now Sarcasmo the Mighty.
-If you get a young girl drunk, rape her, then kill her, make sure that she's an only child! Or just, I don't know, just a crazy thought, RESPECT WOMEN. Dagnabbit.
Stop trying to make Canada look like America. Or just make better slasher movies, Canada! Just because you guys made My Bloody Valentine, it doesn't give you a free pass to make crap like this later on.
I screwed up my NetFlix queue, so I didn't get a slasher in the mail this week. I'll peruse the Instant options, and hopefully find something worth watching. Have a great week!
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
A short delay
The DVD of this week's SAW glitched up, so this week's movie will be Fear Island, which is available on Netflix Instant. Cross your fingers that it's good...
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Curse of El Charro
Well, my luck has finally run out. After a run of mostly-decent slasher flicks, we come to this week's effort: The Curse of El Charro. If you were expecting a gorefest starring frequent Love Boat guest Charo, prepare to be disappointed, my friends! Ay-yi-yi, beyond this line will be SPOILERS! Kootchie-kootchie!
The very first attempt I made to sit through this, I lasted a whopping 5 minutes. Yes, it was THAT bad! The movie opens with a silent-movie sequence: There are lit candles everywhere, and enough religious imagery to make Damien Thorn's head explode. There's a somewhat attractive woman, and she has big, white, feathery wings sprouting from her shoulders. Is Charlie missing an angel? Does Victoria have a secret?
Angel-Girl is either deep in prayer or she fell asleep, because a guy dressed like a cowboy sneaks up on her. He starts caressing her hair, then he somehow removes her wings. Then, just to be a dick, he kills her. A young Hispanic woman sits up in her bed, tears streaming down her face. Dream sequence. Yay. Then the title comes up, and the screen turns black for several seconds. It's over! The world's shortest slash--
Oh. Nope, she's back. She's telling a priest about her nightmare, and he's pretty useless in the "helping others" department. Oh, and her name is Maria. She aspires to be a nun, and her own sister killed herself. She also has plans to go on a trip with her friends, and the priest encourages her to have some fun.
As Maria runs to meet up with her friends, the old priest calls his Monsignor for advice. It's revealed that her sister had similar dreams and visions leading up to her demise. Yikes! The priest is advised to keep an eye on her, which might have been good to know about 30 seconds ago...
We meet 3 girls, and only one of them considers Maria a friend. Chris is the friend; Tanya is the sassy black girl; and Rose is some kind of Goth girl, I guess. Why would ANY of them be friends with each other? It's as if the writer wanted to appeal to as many demographic stereotypes as possible, to get more suckers to watch.
Anyway, Chris tells Maria that she's going to have fun, even if it kills her. Heh. After a few minutes of witless banter, they get in the car. As they drive around aimlessly, they all start headbanging. Another demographic to cross off the list!
Maria somehow manages to fall asleep again(Has she been reading the script?), and dreams about a naked woman. Oh, she's flashing back to finding her dead sister. She jiggles the dead woman's breasts to revive her, then jolts herself awake. Rose whips out a bong, and passes it to Tanya. Tanya starts to choke, then the car veers around wildly, catching the attention of a cop.
The cop, who looks like he could be Ron Perlman's grandpa, asks to see Tanya's license and registration. She tries--and fails-- to seduce him, he gets impatient, and escorts her back to his vehicle. As the others girls watch in the rear view mirror, they see what looks like Tanya giving Officer Geezer oral sex. I may need to disinfect my eyeballs if I want to finish this one.
An indefinite amount of time passes, and the cop finally walks Tanya back to her car. He seems much more chipper, and offers to escort their car into town. After he returns to his own car, Rose confronts Tanya with what they saw, but she pleads innocence. Uhhh, how stupid does she think we are? You went down on Father Time LaFawnduh...own up to it!
So, where were we? Oh yeah, they drive into the nearest town and pull into a gas station. There, they all get out of the car to stretch their legs, and leave Maria behind to refuel, while they head into the local bar/nightclub/whatever. The place is darker than Paris Hilton's soul, and the volume level is suddenly cranked up to 11. Great, I get to go deaf, and this P.O.S. has no subtitles. Oh, and Maria pointlessly watches a little boy poking a dead bird with a stick.
I hate you, El Charro.
However, as they all order drinks(from a crazy-looking bald bartender of course) and Maria heads into the restroom, we get the best scene in the film so far. The already-dim lights go out, and a young blind man is helped onto a stage by a female assistant, who seats him in a comfy wheelchair in front of a microphone. She kisses him, then the magic happens...
Basically, the singer tosses his sunglasses aside, then launches into an apeshit-crazy-fantastic thrash metal song. One old guy is REALLY into it in the scene. I won't describe the entire scene here, because it's too funny and bizarre to do it justice, but you can watch it by typing "Scott Greenall performance from The Curse of El Charro" on YouTube. Great scene, and completely comes out of left field. Besides, aren't you supposed to be watching the movie as you read along?
Maria has a vision while she's in the bathroom, and a ghostly woman warns her that El Charro is coming. She rushes back to the bar and tries to convince Chris that they need to leave town, but the bartender tells them that they can't, then Tanya tells off Maria. Oh, and the song comes to an abrupt halt.
When they exit the bar, it's dark outside. They drive around in the dark, and Maria has yet another dream. In this one, a man in a long black coat or robe warns her that "the dark one" is looking for her, and that he likes it when she's asleep. Then he has ANOTHER DREAM where she's back in the car, and there are more warnings, plus a bloody throat-slitting.
Maria comes to, and asks Tanya to pull over to the side of the road, so that she can hurl. While Chris is assisting her, Tanya and Rose freak when they see a maniac in a poncho marching straight for the car. They urge the others to get back in, and the guy disappears, then pops up at Maria's window. They speed away. Bye, El Charro!
They decide to keep driving until they reach their destination, and get there pretty darned fast. The house they're staying in is luxurious, and they all start to relax. Even Maria. As Maria and Chris unpack in one room, Rose and Tanya decide to tour the premises.
The first room they explore seems to be a mini-church, filled with a buttload of iconic religious objects. Apparently, the homeowner collects religious objects and artifacts. Oh, and Chris tries to cheer up Maria with a pep-talk. Maria, on the other hand, makes Debbie Downer seem like friggin' Pollyanna by comparison.
Chris gives Maria a glam makeover, and Tanya insults the effort repeatedly when she sees the new look. Bitchy much? Rose(actually "Rosemary") then emerges, wearing a sexy black outfit. And they're off!
They drive around until they find a club called "Seraph". Can we please knock it off with all of the symbolism here? It's not exactly subtle, seeing as how it's being shoved down our throats.
They dance around in a blurry, obnoxious mess of a sequence, then head to the bar for more drinks. This is more like one of those "World's Wildest College Girls" videos, as opposed to an actual movie, slasher or otherwise. As you might expect, 2 guys swoop up Chris, Rosemary and Tanya, leaving Maria behind to practice her Dramatic Pouting.
Despite her entire persona, Maria meets a guy at the bar. While they chat, a scruffy-looking guy stares at Maria from across the room. This new guy whispers something to an attractive woman in a cocktail gown, and she approaches Maria now. Wow, gloomy girls are shockingly popular! The guy trying to be nice to Maria is named James, by the way. As he continues to flirt with her, the mystery woman leans over to whisper something in Maria's ear. It sound like Latin, but I have no idea what she says. Anyone out there know what she's saying?
Maria, disturbed by what just happened, gets up and walks away from the bar, leaving James talking to himself. When he realizes that she left, he seems pretty disappointed. Oh well...that's why God gave us hands and lotion, man. (I know, that was gross, but I'm reallllllllllly bored by this one...)
Maria leaves the club to get some fresh air, and is approached by a blind woman. She has her one millionth vision, which I believe means that she wins a free toaster oven. In this vision, Maria sees El Charro, and learns his backstory:
El Charro was an evil land baron, and he fell in love. He wanted to marry this woman, but her religious faith led her to reject him, so he killed her family and friends out of sheer spite. The townspeople of Saguro wanted revenge on him for all of his past misdeeds, so they executed El Charro before he could kill this woman. Right before he died, he placed a curse on her and any future members of her bloodline, and Maria is his next target for revenge. Okey-dokey.
As Maria snaps out of the vision, James meets the other girls, and we discover that the other dudes who picked them up are his buddies. The 6 of them decide to leave the club without Maria, and 2 "little people" at the bar have a brief chat. Swear to God, that's how the scene ended.
Maria meets the group by the car, and refuses to speak. As they all start to drive away in different vehicles, a girl named Brittany arrives to create a scene, yelling at a friend of James' named King. As King tries to convince Britt that he hasn't seen her boyfriend all night, one of the little people walks up to King, telling him that James forgot his credit card. Whoops, I guess Britt knows the truth now!
As they drive away, King reveals that Britt is actually no longer dating James, she's just psychotic. What a relief, huh? She, of course, is following them to find her ex. Is this thing ever going to get to the slasher stuff? I've seen more horror in Saturday morning cartoons!
Back at the estate, everybody shares a bong, minus the pure, innocent Maria. She needs to chill. As she gets up to go inside, Britt encounters the "cock-sucking motherfucker" in the poncho on the road, and leaves the relative safety of her car.. Her words, by the way, not mine. He slices off the middle finger she shows him, then he cuts her head off as well. Yay!
Chris and King pick up another couple, Odie and Elvira, then continue to the house. Did this movie really need more characters? As they drive away, we get to look at El Charro's damn feet.
Tanya and her date leave the others to get acquainted, and she leaves him at the pool, so he decides to strip for a midnight swim. El Charro is still wearily trudging to the party, while Maria has more visions and a crying fit. Compelling stuff.
King's truck finally reaches the destination, and Chris leaves to check up on Maria. She finds her friend babbling, rocking back and forth, and in tears. Obviously, the very first thing she asks is, "Maria, are you okay?" (I had to pause at this point to laugh for about 3 straight minutes.)
Maria tries to tell Chris about the visions of her sister and El Charro, but Chris just thinks it's hysteria. Then there's an out-of-nowhere lesbian sequence, between Rosemary and (I think) Elvira, probably added in to wake us up. Just as it starts to get steamy, El Charro hacks them both up in the shower. Great, now I'm somehow excited AND bored. How does that work???
Maria meets up with James again, and has more visions. Shocking, I know. King and Chris start to make out on the hood of his truck, and El Charro swiftly kills them both, in a pretty unexciting and mostly bloodless sequence. Considering how much endurance it took to get to this point, you'd think that they could at least deliver decent kills.
Maria and James walk outside, where El Charro ambushes them. They make it to a car, but El Charro pulls James outside, and begins to slice him like a deli ham. Maria screams, then runs away, while El Charro's voice gets inside her head.
Maria gets to the shrine room, and starts to pray her ass off. El Charro looms large over her shoulder, still trying to seduce her with his whispers. He raises his blade, but before he can kill her, the bearded dude from the nightclub grabs his arm. Ah, the bearded guy has angel wings. El Charro is defeated by a combination of angel magic, prayer, and the magical power of a lousy script. Hooray.
The angel gives Maria a hug, and she finds herself alone in the shrine, cvovered in blood and holding a cross. She gets checked into a mental hospital, where she spends the rest of her days babbling nonstop. THE END...Wait, what? Weren't there other characters? Did Odie live?
Man, what a downer. A rushed ending, a sluggish opening act, and one epic song later, and I still can't believe how pointless it all seemed! And short! It's getting 2 killer trees out of 5, with both points going to that one song in the movie. Next up is Home Sick, which can't be half as dull as this one was.
Oh, and what did I get out of watching Curse of El Charro?
-People who have visions are no fun to be around.
-Old men are the best head-bangers.
-Ghosts have to walk everywhere.
Have a good week!
The very first attempt I made to sit through this, I lasted a whopping 5 minutes. Yes, it was THAT bad! The movie opens with a silent-movie sequence: There are lit candles everywhere, and enough religious imagery to make Damien Thorn's head explode. There's a somewhat attractive woman, and she has big, white, feathery wings sprouting from her shoulders. Is Charlie missing an angel? Does Victoria have a secret?
Angel-Girl is either deep in prayer or she fell asleep, because a guy dressed like a cowboy sneaks up on her. He starts caressing her hair, then he somehow removes her wings. Then, just to be a dick, he kills her. A young Hispanic woman sits up in her bed, tears streaming down her face. Dream sequence. Yay. Then the title comes up, and the screen turns black for several seconds. It's over! The world's shortest slash--
Oh. Nope, she's back. She's telling a priest about her nightmare, and he's pretty useless in the "helping others" department. Oh, and her name is Maria. She aspires to be a nun, and her own sister killed herself. She also has plans to go on a trip with her friends, and the priest encourages her to have some fun.
As Maria runs to meet up with her friends, the old priest calls his Monsignor for advice. It's revealed that her sister had similar dreams and visions leading up to her demise. Yikes! The priest is advised to keep an eye on her, which might have been good to know about 30 seconds ago...
We meet 3 girls, and only one of them considers Maria a friend. Chris is the friend; Tanya is the sassy black girl; and Rose is some kind of Goth girl, I guess. Why would ANY of them be friends with each other? It's as if the writer wanted to appeal to as many demographic stereotypes as possible, to get more suckers to watch.
Anyway, Chris tells Maria that she's going to have fun, even if it kills her. Heh. After a few minutes of witless banter, they get in the car. As they drive around aimlessly, they all start headbanging. Another demographic to cross off the list!
Maria somehow manages to fall asleep again(Has she been reading the script?), and dreams about a naked woman. Oh, she's flashing back to finding her dead sister. She jiggles the dead woman's breasts to revive her, then jolts herself awake. Rose whips out a bong, and passes it to Tanya. Tanya starts to choke, then the car veers around wildly, catching the attention of a cop.
The cop, who looks like he could be Ron Perlman's grandpa, asks to see Tanya's license and registration. She tries--and fails-- to seduce him, he gets impatient, and escorts her back to his vehicle. As the others girls watch in the rear view mirror, they see what looks like Tanya giving Officer Geezer oral sex. I may need to disinfect my eyeballs if I want to finish this one.
An indefinite amount of time passes, and the cop finally walks Tanya back to her car. He seems much more chipper, and offers to escort their car into town. After he returns to his own car, Rose confronts Tanya with what they saw, but she pleads innocence. Uhhh, how stupid does she think we are? You went down on Father Time LaFawnduh...own up to it!
So, where were we? Oh yeah, they drive into the nearest town and pull into a gas station. There, they all get out of the car to stretch their legs, and leave Maria behind to refuel, while they head into the local bar/nightclub/whatever. The place is darker than Paris Hilton's soul, and the volume level is suddenly cranked up to 11. Great, I get to go deaf, and this P.O.S. has no subtitles. Oh, and Maria pointlessly watches a little boy poking a dead bird with a stick.
I hate you, El Charro.
However, as they all order drinks(from a crazy-looking bald bartender of course) and Maria heads into the restroom, we get the best scene in the film so far. The already-dim lights go out, and a young blind man is helped onto a stage by a female assistant, who seats him in a comfy wheelchair in front of a microphone. She kisses him, then the magic happens...
Basically, the singer tosses his sunglasses aside, then launches into an apeshit-crazy-fantastic thrash metal song. One old guy is REALLY into it in the scene. I won't describe the entire scene here, because it's too funny and bizarre to do it justice, but you can watch it by typing "Scott Greenall performance from The Curse of El Charro" on YouTube. Great scene, and completely comes out of left field. Besides, aren't you supposed to be watching the movie as you read along?
Maria has a vision while she's in the bathroom, and a ghostly woman warns her that El Charro is coming. She rushes back to the bar and tries to convince Chris that they need to leave town, but the bartender tells them that they can't, then Tanya tells off Maria. Oh, and the song comes to an abrupt halt.
When they exit the bar, it's dark outside. They drive around in the dark, and Maria has yet another dream. In this one, a man in a long black coat or robe warns her that "the dark one" is looking for her, and that he likes it when she's asleep. Then he has ANOTHER DREAM where she's back in the car, and there are more warnings, plus a bloody throat-slitting.
Maria comes to, and asks Tanya to pull over to the side of the road, so that she can hurl. While Chris is assisting her, Tanya and Rose freak when they see a maniac in a poncho marching straight for the car. They urge the others to get back in, and the guy disappears, then pops up at Maria's window. They speed away. Bye, El Charro!
They decide to keep driving until they reach their destination, and get there pretty darned fast. The house they're staying in is luxurious, and they all start to relax. Even Maria. As Maria and Chris unpack in one room, Rose and Tanya decide to tour the premises.
The first room they explore seems to be a mini-church, filled with a buttload of iconic religious objects. Apparently, the homeowner collects religious objects and artifacts. Oh, and Chris tries to cheer up Maria with a pep-talk. Maria, on the other hand, makes Debbie Downer seem like friggin' Pollyanna by comparison.
Chris gives Maria a glam makeover, and Tanya insults the effort repeatedly when she sees the new look. Bitchy much? Rose(actually "Rosemary") then emerges, wearing a sexy black outfit. And they're off!
They drive around until they find a club called "Seraph". Can we please knock it off with all of the symbolism here? It's not exactly subtle, seeing as how it's being shoved down our throats.
They dance around in a blurry, obnoxious mess of a sequence, then head to the bar for more drinks. This is more like one of those "World's Wildest College Girls" videos, as opposed to an actual movie, slasher or otherwise. As you might expect, 2 guys swoop up Chris, Rosemary and Tanya, leaving Maria behind to practice her Dramatic Pouting.
Despite her entire persona, Maria meets a guy at the bar. While they chat, a scruffy-looking guy stares at Maria from across the room. This new guy whispers something to an attractive woman in a cocktail gown, and she approaches Maria now. Wow, gloomy girls are shockingly popular! The guy trying to be nice to Maria is named James, by the way. As he continues to flirt with her, the mystery woman leans over to whisper something in Maria's ear. It sound like Latin, but I have no idea what she says. Anyone out there know what she's saying?
Maria, disturbed by what just happened, gets up and walks away from the bar, leaving James talking to himself. When he realizes that she left, he seems pretty disappointed. Oh well...that's why God gave us hands and lotion, man. (I know, that was gross, but I'm reallllllllllly bored by this one...)
Maria leaves the club to get some fresh air, and is approached by a blind woman. She has her one millionth vision, which I believe means that she wins a free toaster oven. In this vision, Maria sees El Charro, and learns his backstory:
El Charro was an evil land baron, and he fell in love. He wanted to marry this woman, but her religious faith led her to reject him, so he killed her family and friends out of sheer spite. The townspeople of Saguro wanted revenge on him for all of his past misdeeds, so they executed El Charro before he could kill this woman. Right before he died, he placed a curse on her and any future members of her bloodline, and Maria is his next target for revenge. Okey-dokey.
As Maria snaps out of the vision, James meets the other girls, and we discover that the other dudes who picked them up are his buddies. The 6 of them decide to leave the club without Maria, and 2 "little people" at the bar have a brief chat. Swear to God, that's how the scene ended.
Maria meets the group by the car, and refuses to speak. As they all start to drive away in different vehicles, a girl named Brittany arrives to create a scene, yelling at a friend of James' named King. As King tries to convince Britt that he hasn't seen her boyfriend all night, one of the little people walks up to King, telling him that James forgot his credit card. Whoops, I guess Britt knows the truth now!
As they drive away, King reveals that Britt is actually no longer dating James, she's just psychotic. What a relief, huh? She, of course, is following them to find her ex. Is this thing ever going to get to the slasher stuff? I've seen more horror in Saturday morning cartoons!
Back at the estate, everybody shares a bong, minus the pure, innocent Maria. She needs to chill. As she gets up to go inside, Britt encounters the "cock-sucking motherfucker" in the poncho on the road, and leaves the relative safety of her car.. Her words, by the way, not mine. He slices off the middle finger she shows him, then he cuts her head off as well. Yay!
Chris and King pick up another couple, Odie and Elvira, then continue to the house. Did this movie really need more characters? As they drive away, we get to look at El Charro's damn feet.
Tanya and her date leave the others to get acquainted, and she leaves him at the pool, so he decides to strip for a midnight swim. El Charro is still wearily trudging to the party, while Maria has more visions and a crying fit. Compelling stuff.
King's truck finally reaches the destination, and Chris leaves to check up on Maria. She finds her friend babbling, rocking back and forth, and in tears. Obviously, the very first thing she asks is, "Maria, are you okay?" (I had to pause at this point to laugh for about 3 straight minutes.)
Maria tries to tell Chris about the visions of her sister and El Charro, but Chris just thinks it's hysteria. Then there's an out-of-nowhere lesbian sequence, between Rosemary and (I think) Elvira, probably added in to wake us up. Just as it starts to get steamy, El Charro hacks them both up in the shower. Great, now I'm somehow excited AND bored. How does that work???
Maria meets up with James again, and has more visions. Shocking, I know. King and Chris start to make out on the hood of his truck, and El Charro swiftly kills them both, in a pretty unexciting and mostly bloodless sequence. Considering how much endurance it took to get to this point, you'd think that they could at least deliver decent kills.
Maria and James walk outside, where El Charro ambushes them. They make it to a car, but El Charro pulls James outside, and begins to slice him like a deli ham. Maria screams, then runs away, while El Charro's voice gets inside her head.
Maria gets to the shrine room, and starts to pray her ass off. El Charro looms large over her shoulder, still trying to seduce her with his whispers. He raises his blade, but before he can kill her, the bearded dude from the nightclub grabs his arm. Ah, the bearded guy has angel wings. El Charro is defeated by a combination of angel magic, prayer, and the magical power of a lousy script. Hooray.
The angel gives Maria a hug, and she finds herself alone in the shrine, cvovered in blood and holding a cross. She gets checked into a mental hospital, where she spends the rest of her days babbling nonstop. THE END...Wait, what? Weren't there other characters? Did Odie live?
Man, what a downer. A rushed ending, a sluggish opening act, and one epic song later, and I still can't believe how pointless it all seemed! And short! It's getting 2 killer trees out of 5, with both points going to that one song in the movie. Next up is Home Sick, which can't be half as dull as this one was.
Oh, and what did I get out of watching Curse of El Charro?
-People who have visions are no fun to be around.
-Old men are the best head-bangers.
-Ghosts have to walk everywhere.
Have a good week!
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Texas Chainsaw 2-D
Now this is probably going to be a lot less impressive than Tormented was last week...in other words, we're back in business with the badness. This one is Texas Chainsaw 2-D(no massacre in the title, and no third dimension to "enjoy"...), so I'm not expecting greatness here, considering that the last one of these I loved was the wacky, bloody Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2...the one with Stretch and Chop-Top, as opposed to the sequel to the remake with Jordana Brewster. That one was just depressing. Which one had the Speak'n'Spell, where he just kept spelling pronouns as "food"? Part 3? That scene alone made it watchable.
Anyway, enough with my distracted rambling...this movie ain't watching itself! SPOILERS ahead...and probably many, many severed body parts. I hope.
Okay, so this is rather promising: the story opens with a brief recap of the 1974 version. It's like a highlight reel of that movie's kills...There's Kirk getting conked on the head; the scantily-clad girl, Pam, getting snatched up and impaled on the big hook; nerdy Jerry's hammer to the head; Franklin, the one in the wheelchair, being killed head-on by Leatherface; and Sally's torture and eventual escape. Great way to start the film!
Then it flows into the new storyline: Sheriff Hooper(heh, nice reference there) is speeding down a dusty dirt road to arrest Leatherface AKA Jed Sawyer for the murders. Moments before he arrived, another car pulled in, and a young couple rushed into the house. The wife is pregnant. Hooper orders Leatherface's father, Drayton, to send his son outside.
In the house, there are numerous family members, and most are armed with shotguns. Oh, and there are a couple of nice cameos from familiar faces in the previous movies: Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, and Bill Moseley, who played Chop-Top. Pretty cool, at least so far. I hope I didn't just jinx myself!
Anyway, the psychotic rednecks get into a shouting match with Sheriff Hooper, and he threatens to call for reinforcements. Drayton agrees to end things peacefully, and marches into the basement to confront Jed, who is in his classic suit-and-tie outfit. Oh, and he's mutilating a body. Must be nice to have hobbies...
Sheriff Hooper waits for Jed to emerge from the house, then the shit hits the fan. A group of disgruntled townsfolk, led by a guy named Vern drive up, and demand that the lawman allow them to storm the house. One of them hurls a Molotov cocktail through one of the windows of the house, and a crazy gun battle evolves from the situation.
Several of the family members get riddled with bullets, and another explosive bottle is thrown, quickly turning the house into an inferno. The sheriff has men demolish it to keep the fire from spreading, then has them walk through the rubble looking for bodies. One of the searchers finds a charred chainsaw in the wreckage.
Another person, Gavin, searches the woods nearby for evidence, and encounters the pregnant woman, who has since had her baby. She's also dying from a stray bullet wound, and asks Gavin for assistance. He gently picks up her baby, then kicks the wounded woman hard enough to send her head roughly into the frame of the car she was leaning against, killing her. Wow, I hope he's not the redneck version of a paramedic!
Gavin carries the baby away from the crime scene, taking great pains not to be seen. When he arrives at his truck, he hands the infant to hos wife, claiming that he "found" her a baby. Apparently she was having trouble getting pregnant herself, so this is like Christmas for her. Yay. Then we get a montage of crime scene pictures, followed by the title credits.
The movie resumes the story roughly 20 years later, where we meet Heather, the baby that the young couple took all those years ago. She's now working at a grocery store, in the butcher shop of the meat department. Her best friend visits her at work...oh, and her best friend, Nikki, also happens to be the same actress who played Alex Rousseau on the show Lost. And, wow, she is smokin'!
Anyway, Nikki thanks Heather for having her boyfriend Ryan set her up with his friend Kenny. I'm going to make a wild prediction here, that by the time this film ends, I'll be making a "They killed Kenny!" joke. Let's see if I'm right.
Heather goes home to Ryan, who reminds me of another actor I've seen in a slasher film before, either Bumper Robinson or Texas Battle maybe. Ryan's boxing, and Heather interrupts his workout for some quick face-sucking. A knock at the door cuts the intimacy short: Heather gets a letter from Texas, explaining that her grandmother recently died. One problem: As far as she knew, both of her grandmothers were already dead. Whoops!
Heather brings the letter to her "parents", and demands some answers. The answers are short and not-so-sweet: your real parents were trash, your entire bloodline was psychotic, and you should thank us for kidnapping you. Heather takes what few possessions she has, and announces her intention to travel to Texas, and find out who she's supposed to be. To her credit, Arlene comes outside to try to convince Heather not to go. Perhaps she's not as bad as the pregant woman-kicking husband she married.
Heather and her buddies take off, and make a stop at a gas station for snacks, fuel, and directions to Newt, Texas. As they pull out of the parking lot, they hit a guy with their van, and end up offering him a ride. Good thing, too...it's raining hard enough to start building a massive ark.
The stranger is named Darryl, and he quickly charms them all. Heather explains to him that they're going to Texas to hear her grandmother's will, and he makes a comment about the bond of family blood. Why are the hitchhikers in this franchise always so bizarre and creepy?
In Newt, Nikki starts to strip down, and the others look for the house the old woman lived in. It's a mansion, and the family lawyer, Farnsworth is there to greet the weary travelers. He hands Heather a hefty ring of keys, and a letter that Granny Verna wrote to her. He urges her to read the letter soon, as it explains a lot of things to her. Then he leaves, just as quickly as he had arrived.
The estate grounds are beautiful, as is the interior of the house. They wander from room to room, and soon discover a game room with a pool table and liquor. While everyone else congregates in there, Heather walks around the outside of the house, and finds a private cemetery. It's divided into 2 sections, Sawyers and Carsons.
When she returns to the house, it's decided that some groceries are needed. Everyone goes into town except for Darryl, who opts to stay behind to clean the place up a bit. He watches them drive away, then drops the whole "nice guy" act.
He starts by stealing silverware, while the others arrive back in town. They walk into a store, where Nikki sexually harasses Ryan in a jokey fashion. He takes offense, because something happened once between them, one night when he was drunk. I'm guessing it's something that Heather knows nothing about?
Darryl grabs more valuables in the kitchen, before finding the secret door in the kitchen. He pokes his head in, and decides that it's worth a look. He then gets to the area where Leatherface is kept locked up, and uses the massive key to open the door. He breaks the lock on Leatherface's bedroom door, and Leatherface jumps out of the darkness, bashing him many times in the head.
Heather meets a young cop named Carl Hartman, and then his dad, Burt Hartman. Burt's the mayor, and he makes an offer to buy the mansion and the land. Heather refuses, and Burt doesn't react very well.
Back at the mansion, they discover that Darryl ransacked the place. Heather finds a photo showing that all of the Sawyer woman wear a necklace with a pendant in the shape of an 'S' on it. Then Kenny finds the secret passage, and decides to take a look. Kenny's a genius.
In his defense, Kenny does shout over to the others that he thinks he discovered a butler pantry, but no one hears him. The closest person is Ryan, and he's making a ruckus playing pool and cranking music. But at least Kenny tried.
He finds some blood, as well as Darryl's stuff, but no Darryl. Like a lunkhead in a slasher movie?(...), Kenny decides to make it easier for Leatherface to find him, by shouting Darryl's name several times in a row. Then he comes to a hallway that is too dark to explore, and Leatherface rushes at him from the darkness. Kenny manages to haul ass back to the stairs, but Leatherface grabs his legs and drags him back to his lair. "Oh my God, he's killing Kenny! You bastards!"
Ah, that felt good to get out of my system.
Oops...were we still watching a movie? Oh well. After the demise of Kenny, Nikki stumbles in on Ryan, who is now playing pool alone. She begs him to come see something, and pulls him outside. Did she discover a body?
Yeah, but only her own. It turns out that she just wants to have sex with Ryan in a barn. She strips down to her sexy undies and, uh...ummm...sorry, just rewinding and watching this scene. For, uh, a scientific study. Yeah, let's go with that.
Heather picks up a perfume bottle, revealing that she has the hands of an eighty-year-old man. Yikes. As she's ransacking Verna's closet, she finds Verna's corpse behind her, propped up in a chair. Scared, she runs away to find Ryan.
No sign of her friends, but she does run into Leatherface, who is busily bleeding a severed hand into the kitchen sink. Heather tries to escape, but he knocks her out. Then a series of gory images flash onto the screen.
Heather wakes up just in time to see Leatherface impale the not-quite-dead Kenny on a meathook. She manages to get to her feet, and escapes the house. Leatherface follows, but has a fairly pronounced limp slowing him down. Heather stumbles, but manages to hide behind a tombstone before he sees her. She then spots Verna's open coffin, and leaps in.
She makes a noise, and Leatherface begins to saw through the lid of the coffin. Before he can kill her, Leatherface is distracted by the arrival of Ryan and Nikki. He abandons Heather, and chases them back to the barn instead. Rut roh!
As Leatherface closes in on the barn, they manage to shut the doors, then use a crossbar to seal it...but barely, man. As they scurry around to find weapons, Leatherface begins the arduous task of sawing the door apart. Nikki gets her hands on a shotgun, and proceeds to shoot at the killer through the door. They wait to see if the shot hit him, and a van crashes through the doors.
Phew, it's just Heather! They climb into the vehicle mere seconds before Leatherface shows up again, and attempts to saw them through the van door. Luckily, they get away. Who knew that a van was faster than a cannibal?
Oh wait, I forgot what genre this was, silly me. The dingleberries crash the van into the front gate, rather than waiting for it to open, and fret when it seems to be stuck. Leatherface jogs down the road toward the van, as they back it up to give the gate room to swing open. Then the engine stalls again.
Leatherface breaks the back window, just as the vehicle roars back to life. They speed away again, but not before Leatherface manages to slice one of the tires. Boy, that was an easy getaway!
Oops, I think I jinxed 'em. The van has flipped over, and Heather wakes up upside-down. She finds Nikki, banged up and bleeding, but still alive. Ryan didn't fare as well, sad to say. Then Leatherface pops up again, and begins to cut through the van.
That doesn't work, so he rocks the van until it tips over again. Heather scurries outside, just as Leatherface reaches into the van and cuts into Nikki. Ouch! Hands off my movie crush! Heather comes to her rescue by calling Leatherface a "country fuck", and leading him away from the crash site.
They race through the woods, until Heather arrives at a chain-link fence, where we can see a carnival on the other side. She desperately climbs the fence and jumps over to the other side, just moments before Leatherface reaches the fence and tries to cut through it, drawing a shower of sparks.
Do you think anybody at this carnival noticed any of this? Nope. Clearly, this movie was going for more realism. I wonder how many crayons were wasted on the script? Not enough, would be my guess.
Heather runs past a House of Horrors attraction, where several screaming patrons are being chased out of the building by Jigsaw. I shit you not: the guy is dressed in the robe and animal mask from that franchise, and he's also clutching a chainsaw. Yeesh! If the meowing kid from The Grudge shows up, I'm seriously going to shut this off and start watching Amish porn instead.
JigsaWannaBe sees Leatherface approaching, and runs clear into the next county. Then our killer spots Heather, and the chase resumes. She begs people to help her, but no one does anything even remotely useful. Then the smart-ass deputy from earlier arrives on the scene, and heads toward the source of the commotion.
Heather nearly gets trapped by Leatherface, but she manages to grab one of the seats on a moving ferris wheel, and gets lifted into the air. As she starts spinning back to him, the deputy fiiiinally gets to them, and draws his gun on Leatherface. Leatherface responds to the threat by throwing his chainsaw at him in ear-splitting, ground-shattering, hernia-operating 2-D!!!
Deputy Dawg ducks out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting the closest shave EVER. As Leatherface escapes, our hero checks on Heather. He decides to escort her back to the station, where she can be protected. Yeah, sure.
Sheriff Hooper walks into the building, and delivers the chainsaw to the evidence room for safekeeping. For some reason, this reminds me of the scene in Jason X, where the professor is cornered by Jason: "Hey guys, it's okay! He just wanted his machete back!" Heh, good times.
A deputy named Marvin arrives at the crash site, but Nikki is nowhere to be seen. However, a quick investigation leads Marvin to a trail of blood leading away from the van, into a dark area of the woods. So long Marvin.
Deputy Carl checks on Heather, and she asks if Nikki is still alive. Turns out that he was only bringing her a clean shirt to wear. Then he assures her that Leatherface will be stopped, before he gets called away. He comes back to walk her into Sheriff Hooper's office for further questioning.
When Heather tells Hooper who she is, he perks right up. He sends Carl away, then leaves Heather alone in the interrogation room with a big carton labelled EVIDENCE, while he deals with Carl's father, the creepy Mayor Burt.. The sheriff tells Mayor Burt that he thinks Jed Sawyer may have returned to the town. As proof, he shows Burt the chainsaw from the carnival attack.
Deputy Marvin calls in to report that he defied his orders, and is now right outside the gate to the Sawyer property. Sheriff Hooper tries to convince him to return to his car, but the Mayor tells Marvin to hunt for the killer and kill him. The dumbass agrees with that plan.
Back to Heather. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she decides to look at the evidence box. She reads a newspaper article about the vigilantes, along with a sidebar about the lone survivor. After scanning the articles for details, Heather looks at the date on the paper: August 19. Sound familiar?
Marvin follows a blood trail up to the house, and Sheriff Hooper again urges caution. Marvin enters the house, then uses his phone's camera to let them watch while he searches for the maniac. Come on...he wouldn't at least wait for backup? This is getting dumber by the second.
Heather reads more papers and legal documents, and discovers that Burt was the leader of the vigilantes. She reads the gory details, then there's a flashback to the aftermath. Heather looks annoyed, apparently because she forgot the part where Leatherface slaughtered her friends. Seriously man, this movie is dumber than Paris Hilton on meth. (Speaking of which, can you believe that Breaking Bad is ending this season? :( Me am sad.)
Deputy Marvin finds even more gore in the kitchen, and discovers the secret basement. He gets into a wine cellar, and finds himself in Leatherface's lair, where he sees a blood-filled sink. Heather, by the way, has used the crime report to figure out who her real mother was. D'oh! Our intrepid deputy finds a room filled with various body parts, masks, and clothing for both men and women.Marvin seems surprised by that last detail, but Leatherface was a transvestite in at least one of the other movies, the 4th one I think.
Anyway, Marvin moves into room with even more body parts, and spies an ominous cooler against the far wall. It pops open, and he shoots at the person inside...but it wasn't Leatherface. Nope, the stupid deputy just shot Nikki by mistake. Why can't I ever have nice things?
The sheriff and the mayor have a tiff over whether sending Marvin in alone was a good idea, while Marvin rushes back to the kitchen. Leatherface is there waiting for him, holding an axe. He plants it deep into the deputy's back.
Burt and Hooper keep fighting, until Burt decides to confront Heather himself. He pushes past Hooper into the interrogation room, but Heather has already left. He and Hooper see that she has written "MURDERERS" on one of the photographs of the lynch mob. Hey, I think she knows what they did!
Heather makes her way down a deserted sidewalk, and finds a payphone. She calls up Farnsworth, and tells him about the murders. When she also informs him that she now knows the significance of the security code number, Farnsworth suggests that they meet up at Johnny B. Reds, a local bar. That's followed by a quick but gruesome scene depicting Leatherface removing Marvin's face, then sewing the new "mask" over his own face, while Marvin is still somewhat alive. Harsh!
Heather demands some quick answers from her lawyer, and finds out that most of what she needs to know was contained in Verna's unread letter. D'oh! It turns out that "Jed" is Heather's cousin, and that Farnsworth only found out about him a few months before Verna passed away. Verna investigated everyone who had been involved with the arson, including Heather's "parents", and decided that Heather was safer with them than she would have been in Newt.
Then Farnsworth warns Heather that LeatherJed will continue going after her, only because he doesn't know who she is yet. Oh, and Burt will be looking for her as well, now that he knows that she read the file in the police station. Right on cue, Burt enters the bar, and a buddy of his points out Heather's table.
Heather snatches up a steak knife and heads for the back exit, while Farnsworth lets Burt throw him around the bar. One of Burt's cronies hits her with his car, but she waits for him to get close to her body, then uses her knife on his face. As she gets away, they resume the chase.
She flags down a car, but it's Burt's son Carl. How gullible is she??? As expected, Carl calls his dad, who tells him to bring Heather to an old slaughterhouse out in the middle of nowhere. Leatherface also gets the address from listening to Marvin's police radio. Oh, and Farnsworth saw Heather trapped in the back of Carl's car, so he goes right to Sheriff Hooper. Gosh, I hope no one gets hurt.
As they get close to the slaughterhouse, Heather tries to stab Carl with that handy steak knife. When he stops the car, he drags her out, then slams her face into the frame of the vehicle. She screams for help, but he ignores her cries. Then he rips her shirt open(strategically avoiding any nudity, of course...it's okay to kick pregnant women and cut people in half, but the world would collapse in on itself if they showed us boobies...), chains her hands overhead, and tapes her mouth shut.
Leatherface shows up, just as Carl meets up with Burt outside. Leatherface sneaks up behind Heatherface, then rests the dormant chainsaw blade on her shoulder. She tries to tell him who she is, but the tape makes it impossible to understand her. Yup, just like my last relationship...chains and gags ruin the mood, I guess.
As Leatherface moves in for the kill, he sees a birthmark on Heather that he recognizes. He removes her gag, and she quickly tells him that they're cousins. Yay! Family reunion time! As she continues to scream out her own name, Leatherface revs up his weapon once more, but only to cut her bindings. See? He's actually the hero!
Well, one binding came off. Before he could get the other arm free, Burt's group ambushed him. They use clubs, hammers, crowbars...everything but an actual kitchen sink. Oh, and they're leading him to a shark tank. No, not the show about inventors, but an actual shark tank!
Heather gets away, but decides to fight back. The rednecks wrap the badly-beaten Leatherface in chains, then show him the deadly fish tank. One of the goons turns on a panel that drags Leatherface toward a grinder, but Heather impales him as he leaves. The goon, not Leatherface.
Sheriff Hooper finally wanders in, and hears Heather confronting the attackers. She throws a heavy chainsaw, letting it slide over to her cousin,who takes it to fight Burt. They have a duel, but stop when Hooper is seen. Burt tells him to kill Leatherface, even as he is being cornered at the very same grinder that he was going to use on Leatherface just moments ago.
Burt gets into the machine, where he dangles over the deadly blades by holding onto the top edge. Leatherface saws off his hands, and Burt slides down to a messy death. Sheriff Hooper simply goes home, after ordering the cousins to clean up the crime scene.
They return to the mansion, and Heather uses a wet cloth to clean up Leatherface. Then he shambles off to bed. Heather reads the letter, and it explains that Leatherface is the family protector: as long as they feed and shelter him, he will help them. Heather goes down to the basement, and retrieves a plate of food, to prepare his next meal. THE END?
NOPE. There's a fast scene after the credits, showing Arlene and Sleazeball showing up unannounced on Heather's doorstep. They knock on her door, and are met by Leatherface, who threatens them with his chainsaw. Fade to Black.
Well, you take the good with the bad. While it was silly and slow, it DID get better during the final act. And seeing Leatherface as a hero was fun, as was noticing all of the references and cameos during the story. I'll give it a 3.5 out of 5.
Oh, and what did I learn?
-Always read letters.
-Cops can be complete dicks.
-Hiding in a freezer is a stupid way to die.
The next movie is called The Curse of El Charro. Honest truth, that's the title. Oh, and I'm taking an informal little survey here...If I were to start a second blog, just for movies that have been called SciFi/SyFy Channel Originals, do you guys think it would be fun? Let me know. Same format, just a different genre of films. Anyway, see you soon!
Anyway, enough with my distracted rambling...this movie ain't watching itself! SPOILERS ahead...and probably many, many severed body parts. I hope.
Okay, so this is rather promising: the story opens with a brief recap of the 1974 version. It's like a highlight reel of that movie's kills...There's Kirk getting conked on the head; the scantily-clad girl, Pam, getting snatched up and impaled on the big hook; nerdy Jerry's hammer to the head; Franklin, the one in the wheelchair, being killed head-on by Leatherface; and Sally's torture and eventual escape. Great way to start the film!
Then it flows into the new storyline: Sheriff Hooper(heh, nice reference there) is speeding down a dusty dirt road to arrest Leatherface AKA Jed Sawyer for the murders. Moments before he arrived, another car pulled in, and a young couple rushed into the house. The wife is pregnant. Hooper orders Leatherface's father, Drayton, to send his son outside.
In the house, there are numerous family members, and most are armed with shotguns. Oh, and there are a couple of nice cameos from familiar faces in the previous movies: Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, and Bill Moseley, who played Chop-Top. Pretty cool, at least so far. I hope I didn't just jinx myself!
Anyway, the psychotic rednecks get into a shouting match with Sheriff Hooper, and he threatens to call for reinforcements. Drayton agrees to end things peacefully, and marches into the basement to confront Jed, who is in his classic suit-and-tie outfit. Oh, and he's mutilating a body. Must be nice to have hobbies...
Sheriff Hooper waits for Jed to emerge from the house, then the shit hits the fan. A group of disgruntled townsfolk, led by a guy named Vern drive up, and demand that the lawman allow them to storm the house. One of them hurls a Molotov cocktail through one of the windows of the house, and a crazy gun battle evolves from the situation.
Several of the family members get riddled with bullets, and another explosive bottle is thrown, quickly turning the house into an inferno. The sheriff has men demolish it to keep the fire from spreading, then has them walk through the rubble looking for bodies. One of the searchers finds a charred chainsaw in the wreckage.
Another person, Gavin, searches the woods nearby for evidence, and encounters the pregnant woman, who has since had her baby. She's also dying from a stray bullet wound, and asks Gavin for assistance. He gently picks up her baby, then kicks the wounded woman hard enough to send her head roughly into the frame of the car she was leaning against, killing her. Wow, I hope he's not the redneck version of a paramedic!
Gavin carries the baby away from the crime scene, taking great pains not to be seen. When he arrives at his truck, he hands the infant to hos wife, claiming that he "found" her a baby. Apparently she was having trouble getting pregnant herself, so this is like Christmas for her. Yay. Then we get a montage of crime scene pictures, followed by the title credits.
The movie resumes the story roughly 20 years later, where we meet Heather, the baby that the young couple took all those years ago. She's now working at a grocery store, in the butcher shop of the meat department. Her best friend visits her at work...oh, and her best friend, Nikki, also happens to be the same actress who played Alex Rousseau on the show Lost. And, wow, she is smokin'!
Anyway, Nikki thanks Heather for having her boyfriend Ryan set her up with his friend Kenny. I'm going to make a wild prediction here, that by the time this film ends, I'll be making a "They killed Kenny!" joke. Let's see if I'm right.
Heather goes home to Ryan, who reminds me of another actor I've seen in a slasher film before, either Bumper Robinson or Texas Battle maybe. Ryan's boxing, and Heather interrupts his workout for some quick face-sucking. A knock at the door cuts the intimacy short: Heather gets a letter from Texas, explaining that her grandmother recently died. One problem: As far as she knew, both of her grandmothers were already dead. Whoops!
Heather brings the letter to her "parents", and demands some answers. The answers are short and not-so-sweet: your real parents were trash, your entire bloodline was psychotic, and you should thank us for kidnapping you. Heather takes what few possessions she has, and announces her intention to travel to Texas, and find out who she's supposed to be. To her credit, Arlene comes outside to try to convince Heather not to go. Perhaps she's not as bad as the pregant woman-kicking husband she married.
Heather and her buddies take off, and make a stop at a gas station for snacks, fuel, and directions to Newt, Texas. As they pull out of the parking lot, they hit a guy with their van, and end up offering him a ride. Good thing, too...it's raining hard enough to start building a massive ark.
The stranger is named Darryl, and he quickly charms them all. Heather explains to him that they're going to Texas to hear her grandmother's will, and he makes a comment about the bond of family blood. Why are the hitchhikers in this franchise always so bizarre and creepy?
In Newt, Nikki starts to strip down, and the others look for the house the old woman lived in. It's a mansion, and the family lawyer, Farnsworth is there to greet the weary travelers. He hands Heather a hefty ring of keys, and a letter that Granny Verna wrote to her. He urges her to read the letter soon, as it explains a lot of things to her. Then he leaves, just as quickly as he had arrived.
The estate grounds are beautiful, as is the interior of the house. They wander from room to room, and soon discover a game room with a pool table and liquor. While everyone else congregates in there, Heather walks around the outside of the house, and finds a private cemetery. It's divided into 2 sections, Sawyers and Carsons.
When she returns to the house, it's decided that some groceries are needed. Everyone goes into town except for Darryl, who opts to stay behind to clean the place up a bit. He watches them drive away, then drops the whole "nice guy" act.
He starts by stealing silverware, while the others arrive back in town. They walk into a store, where Nikki sexually harasses Ryan in a jokey fashion. He takes offense, because something happened once between them, one night when he was drunk. I'm guessing it's something that Heather knows nothing about?
Darryl grabs more valuables in the kitchen, before finding the secret door in the kitchen. He pokes his head in, and decides that it's worth a look. He then gets to the area where Leatherface is kept locked up, and uses the massive key to open the door. He breaks the lock on Leatherface's bedroom door, and Leatherface jumps out of the darkness, bashing him many times in the head.
Heather meets a young cop named Carl Hartman, and then his dad, Burt Hartman. Burt's the mayor, and he makes an offer to buy the mansion and the land. Heather refuses, and Burt doesn't react very well.
Back at the mansion, they discover that Darryl ransacked the place. Heather finds a photo showing that all of the Sawyer woman wear a necklace with a pendant in the shape of an 'S' on it. Then Kenny finds the secret passage, and decides to take a look. Kenny's a genius.
In his defense, Kenny does shout over to the others that he thinks he discovered a butler pantry, but no one hears him. The closest person is Ryan, and he's making a ruckus playing pool and cranking music. But at least Kenny tried.
He finds some blood, as well as Darryl's stuff, but no Darryl. Like a lunkhead in a slasher movie?(...), Kenny decides to make it easier for Leatherface to find him, by shouting Darryl's name several times in a row. Then he comes to a hallway that is too dark to explore, and Leatherface rushes at him from the darkness. Kenny manages to haul ass back to the stairs, but Leatherface grabs his legs and drags him back to his lair. "Oh my God, he's killing Kenny! You bastards!"
Ah, that felt good to get out of my system.
Oops...were we still watching a movie? Oh well. After the demise of Kenny, Nikki stumbles in on Ryan, who is now playing pool alone. She begs him to come see something, and pulls him outside. Did she discover a body?
Yeah, but only her own. It turns out that she just wants to have sex with Ryan in a barn. She strips down to her sexy undies and, uh...ummm...sorry, just rewinding and watching this scene. For, uh, a scientific study. Yeah, let's go with that.
Heather picks up a perfume bottle, revealing that she has the hands of an eighty-year-old man. Yikes. As she's ransacking Verna's closet, she finds Verna's corpse behind her, propped up in a chair. Scared, she runs away to find Ryan.
No sign of her friends, but she does run into Leatherface, who is busily bleeding a severed hand into the kitchen sink. Heather tries to escape, but he knocks her out. Then a series of gory images flash onto the screen.
Heather wakes up just in time to see Leatherface impale the not-quite-dead Kenny on a meathook. She manages to get to her feet, and escapes the house. Leatherface follows, but has a fairly pronounced limp slowing him down. Heather stumbles, but manages to hide behind a tombstone before he sees her. She then spots Verna's open coffin, and leaps in.
She makes a noise, and Leatherface begins to saw through the lid of the coffin. Before he can kill her, Leatherface is distracted by the arrival of Ryan and Nikki. He abandons Heather, and chases them back to the barn instead. Rut roh!
As Leatherface closes in on the barn, they manage to shut the doors, then use a crossbar to seal it...but barely, man. As they scurry around to find weapons, Leatherface begins the arduous task of sawing the door apart. Nikki gets her hands on a shotgun, and proceeds to shoot at the killer through the door. They wait to see if the shot hit him, and a van crashes through the doors.
Phew, it's just Heather! They climb into the vehicle mere seconds before Leatherface shows up again, and attempts to saw them through the van door. Luckily, they get away. Who knew that a van was faster than a cannibal?
Oh wait, I forgot what genre this was, silly me. The dingleberries crash the van into the front gate, rather than waiting for it to open, and fret when it seems to be stuck. Leatherface jogs down the road toward the van, as they back it up to give the gate room to swing open. Then the engine stalls again.
Leatherface breaks the back window, just as the vehicle roars back to life. They speed away again, but not before Leatherface manages to slice one of the tires. Boy, that was an easy getaway!
Oops, I think I jinxed 'em. The van has flipped over, and Heather wakes up upside-down. She finds Nikki, banged up and bleeding, but still alive. Ryan didn't fare as well, sad to say. Then Leatherface pops up again, and begins to cut through the van.
That doesn't work, so he rocks the van until it tips over again. Heather scurries outside, just as Leatherface reaches into the van and cuts into Nikki. Ouch! Hands off my movie crush! Heather comes to her rescue by calling Leatherface a "country fuck", and leading him away from the crash site.
They race through the woods, until Heather arrives at a chain-link fence, where we can see a carnival on the other side. She desperately climbs the fence and jumps over to the other side, just moments before Leatherface reaches the fence and tries to cut through it, drawing a shower of sparks.
Do you think anybody at this carnival noticed any of this? Nope. Clearly, this movie was going for more realism. I wonder how many crayons were wasted on the script? Not enough, would be my guess.
Heather runs past a House of Horrors attraction, where several screaming patrons are being chased out of the building by Jigsaw. I shit you not: the guy is dressed in the robe and animal mask from that franchise, and he's also clutching a chainsaw. Yeesh! If the meowing kid from The Grudge shows up, I'm seriously going to shut this off and start watching Amish porn instead.
JigsaWannaBe sees Leatherface approaching, and runs clear into the next county. Then our killer spots Heather, and the chase resumes. She begs people to help her, but no one does anything even remotely useful. Then the smart-ass deputy from earlier arrives on the scene, and heads toward the source of the commotion.
Heather nearly gets trapped by Leatherface, but she manages to grab one of the seats on a moving ferris wheel, and gets lifted into the air. As she starts spinning back to him, the deputy fiiiinally gets to them, and draws his gun on Leatherface. Leatherface responds to the threat by throwing his chainsaw at him in ear-splitting, ground-shattering, hernia-operating 2-D!!!
Deputy Dawg ducks out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting the closest shave EVER. As Leatherface escapes, our hero checks on Heather. He decides to escort her back to the station, where she can be protected. Yeah, sure.
Sheriff Hooper walks into the building, and delivers the chainsaw to the evidence room for safekeeping. For some reason, this reminds me of the scene in Jason X, where the professor is cornered by Jason: "Hey guys, it's okay! He just wanted his machete back!" Heh, good times.
A deputy named Marvin arrives at the crash site, but Nikki is nowhere to be seen. However, a quick investigation leads Marvin to a trail of blood leading away from the van, into a dark area of the woods. So long Marvin.
Deputy Carl checks on Heather, and she asks if Nikki is still alive. Turns out that he was only bringing her a clean shirt to wear. Then he assures her that Leatherface will be stopped, before he gets called away. He comes back to walk her into Sheriff Hooper's office for further questioning.
When Heather tells Hooper who she is, he perks right up. He sends Carl away, then leaves Heather alone in the interrogation room with a big carton labelled EVIDENCE, while he deals with Carl's father, the creepy Mayor Burt.. The sheriff tells Mayor Burt that he thinks Jed Sawyer may have returned to the town. As proof, he shows Burt the chainsaw from the carnival attack.
Deputy Marvin calls in to report that he defied his orders, and is now right outside the gate to the Sawyer property. Sheriff Hooper tries to convince him to return to his car, but the Mayor tells Marvin to hunt for the killer and kill him. The dumbass agrees with that plan.
Back to Heather. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she decides to look at the evidence box. She reads a newspaper article about the vigilantes, along with a sidebar about the lone survivor. After scanning the articles for details, Heather looks at the date on the paper: August 19. Sound familiar?
Marvin follows a blood trail up to the house, and Sheriff Hooper again urges caution. Marvin enters the house, then uses his phone's camera to let them watch while he searches for the maniac. Come on...he wouldn't at least wait for backup? This is getting dumber by the second.
Heather reads more papers and legal documents, and discovers that Burt was the leader of the vigilantes. She reads the gory details, then there's a flashback to the aftermath. Heather looks annoyed, apparently because she forgot the part where Leatherface slaughtered her friends. Seriously man, this movie is dumber than Paris Hilton on meth. (Speaking of which, can you believe that Breaking Bad is ending this season? :( Me am sad.)
Deputy Marvin finds even more gore in the kitchen, and discovers the secret basement. He gets into a wine cellar, and finds himself in Leatherface's lair, where he sees a blood-filled sink. Heather, by the way, has used the crime report to figure out who her real mother was. D'oh! Our intrepid deputy finds a room filled with various body parts, masks, and clothing for both men and women.Marvin seems surprised by that last detail, but Leatherface was a transvestite in at least one of the other movies, the 4th one I think.
Anyway, Marvin moves into room with even more body parts, and spies an ominous cooler against the far wall. It pops open, and he shoots at the person inside...but it wasn't Leatherface. Nope, the stupid deputy just shot Nikki by mistake. Why can't I ever have nice things?
The sheriff and the mayor have a tiff over whether sending Marvin in alone was a good idea, while Marvin rushes back to the kitchen. Leatherface is there waiting for him, holding an axe. He plants it deep into the deputy's back.
Burt and Hooper keep fighting, until Burt decides to confront Heather himself. He pushes past Hooper into the interrogation room, but Heather has already left. He and Hooper see that she has written "MURDERERS" on one of the photographs of the lynch mob. Hey, I think she knows what they did!
Heather makes her way down a deserted sidewalk, and finds a payphone. She calls up Farnsworth, and tells him about the murders. When she also informs him that she now knows the significance of the security code number, Farnsworth suggests that they meet up at Johnny B. Reds, a local bar. That's followed by a quick but gruesome scene depicting Leatherface removing Marvin's face, then sewing the new "mask" over his own face, while Marvin is still somewhat alive. Harsh!
Heather demands some quick answers from her lawyer, and finds out that most of what she needs to know was contained in Verna's unread letter. D'oh! It turns out that "Jed" is Heather's cousin, and that Farnsworth only found out about him a few months before Verna passed away. Verna investigated everyone who had been involved with the arson, including Heather's "parents", and decided that Heather was safer with them than she would have been in Newt.
Then Farnsworth warns Heather that LeatherJed will continue going after her, only because he doesn't know who she is yet. Oh, and Burt will be looking for her as well, now that he knows that she read the file in the police station. Right on cue, Burt enters the bar, and a buddy of his points out Heather's table.
Heather snatches up a steak knife and heads for the back exit, while Farnsworth lets Burt throw him around the bar. One of Burt's cronies hits her with his car, but she waits for him to get close to her body, then uses her knife on his face. As she gets away, they resume the chase.
She flags down a car, but it's Burt's son Carl. How gullible is she??? As expected, Carl calls his dad, who tells him to bring Heather to an old slaughterhouse out in the middle of nowhere. Leatherface also gets the address from listening to Marvin's police radio. Oh, and Farnsworth saw Heather trapped in the back of Carl's car, so he goes right to Sheriff Hooper. Gosh, I hope no one gets hurt.
As they get close to the slaughterhouse, Heather tries to stab Carl with that handy steak knife. When he stops the car, he drags her out, then slams her face into the frame of the vehicle. She screams for help, but he ignores her cries. Then he rips her shirt open(strategically avoiding any nudity, of course...it's okay to kick pregnant women and cut people in half, but the world would collapse in on itself if they showed us boobies...), chains her hands overhead, and tapes her mouth shut.
Leatherface shows up, just as Carl meets up with Burt outside. Leatherface sneaks up behind Heatherface, then rests the dormant chainsaw blade on her shoulder. She tries to tell him who she is, but the tape makes it impossible to understand her. Yup, just like my last relationship...chains and gags ruin the mood, I guess.
As Leatherface moves in for the kill, he sees a birthmark on Heather that he recognizes. He removes her gag, and she quickly tells him that they're cousins. Yay! Family reunion time! As she continues to scream out her own name, Leatherface revs up his weapon once more, but only to cut her bindings. See? He's actually the hero!
Well, one binding came off. Before he could get the other arm free, Burt's group ambushed him. They use clubs, hammers, crowbars...everything but an actual kitchen sink. Oh, and they're leading him to a shark tank. No, not the show about inventors, but an actual shark tank!
Heather gets away, but decides to fight back. The rednecks wrap the badly-beaten Leatherface in chains, then show him the deadly fish tank. One of the goons turns on a panel that drags Leatherface toward a grinder, but Heather impales him as he leaves. The goon, not Leatherface.
Sheriff Hooper finally wanders in, and hears Heather confronting the attackers. She throws a heavy chainsaw, letting it slide over to her cousin,who takes it to fight Burt. They have a duel, but stop when Hooper is seen. Burt tells him to kill Leatherface, even as he is being cornered at the very same grinder that he was going to use on Leatherface just moments ago.
Burt gets into the machine, where he dangles over the deadly blades by holding onto the top edge. Leatherface saws off his hands, and Burt slides down to a messy death. Sheriff Hooper simply goes home, after ordering the cousins to clean up the crime scene.
They return to the mansion, and Heather uses a wet cloth to clean up Leatherface. Then he shambles off to bed. Heather reads the letter, and it explains that Leatherface is the family protector: as long as they feed and shelter him, he will help them. Heather goes down to the basement, and retrieves a plate of food, to prepare his next meal. THE END?
NOPE. There's a fast scene after the credits, showing Arlene and Sleazeball showing up unannounced on Heather's doorstep. They knock on her door, and are met by Leatherface, who threatens them with his chainsaw. Fade to Black.
Well, you take the good with the bad. While it was silly and slow, it DID get better during the final act. And seeing Leatherface as a hero was fun, as was noticing all of the references and cameos during the story. I'll give it a 3.5 out of 5.
Oh, and what did I learn?
-Always read letters.
-Cops can be complete dicks.
-Hiding in a freezer is a stupid way to die.
The next movie is called The Curse of El Charro. Honest truth, that's the title. Oh, and I'm taking an informal little survey here...If I were to start a second blog, just for movies that have been called SciFi/SyFy Channel Originals, do you guys think it would be fun? Let me know. Same format, just a different genre of films. Anyway, see you soon!
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