Showing posts with label Teens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teens. Show all posts
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Grizzly Park
Today's movie, Grizzly Park, s like a hybrid love-child mix of Final Destination-style death scenes with one of those "animal attack" movies that pop up on SyFy every so often. It features a serial killer, a rogue grizzly bear, and a group of inner-city teens trapped in a national park. It'll either be brilliantly insane, or just the usual stupid insane. SPOILERS ahead, campers...
Okay, so we start out with a credit sequence that references a Bible story about a bear that was summoned to eat a large group of children. Um, sure. The little pseudo-animated storyboard is pretty funny, at least. That's followed by a scene depicting an elderly park ranger watching the morning news in his office. There's a story about a blazing forest fire, followed by a report about Butch Latham, a convicted murderer who managed to escape from prison. Foreshadowing?
A-yup. In the very next scene, we see Butch murder a county officer who had to change a flat tire. Before he meets his demise, the poor guy tells Butch that he's on his way to pick up some troubled teens for a camping trip to the park. They don't show his face, but I have a feeling that Butch will be the hulking dude with blood all over his clothes. Yeah, I'm psychic that way.
Then we see the old man again. His name is Howard(which is probably an in-joke, as he's an older actor by the name of Rance Howard), and he greets a younger employee named Michael. After they have a quick chat, we see the killer try to remove the massive amount of blood from the uniform he stole off of his victim. Then he finds a knife in the van, along with the list of teens he's going to pick up, and a detailed map.
Then we see the various teens arriving for their big adventure, and the film gives us this awesomely goofy song about an encounter with a bear. The song alone earns this movie a tree. As the song winds down, we see Howard and Michael going over some paperwork, while the overhead television replays the report about the manhunt.
The song resumes, and the teens are loaded into the van. Their mugshots are shown onscreen, but not their names. Gee, thanks. Why are these movies always designed to be this obtuse? Would it kill the writers to let us get to know the characters in one of these movies?
Anyway, they arrive at the spot where they'll begin the hike, and meet up with a couple of late arrivals, as well as the leader of their expedition, Ranger Bob. A serious-looking preppie named Ryan tries to shake hands with a teen Neo-Nazi type, and they end up awkwardly holding hands instead. Pretty funny.
Ranger Michael takes a role-call, and we finally meet the rest of the characters. We've already met uptight Ryan; then there's Ty, the lonely black guy; Lola, the token Latina female; Candy, a spoiled rich girl; Kiki, the token Asian girl; Bebe, a cute willowy girl who seems like a complete ditz; Scab, the aforementioned racist; and Trickster, a hacker with a major attitude.
After the initial introductions, Ranger Bob comes out to address the troops, and explain the rules of camping. First rule of camping, don't talk about fight cl--uhhhh, I mean, no swearing. Second rule: Pack appropriate clothing and gear.
During his lecture, Ranger Bob suddenly notices that the driver has a shirt covered in a mysterious red stain. He explains that his shirt got dirty while he was changing a tire, and no one thinks to mention that tires don't usually bleed out. Ranger Bob just frowns and suggests that he should change his shirt. Oh, and the killer changes his name to Jerry, which is a foolproof way to fool everyone.
While Ranger Michael is helping crazy Jerry change his shirt, Ranger Bob starts to give a lesson on the various animals they could encounter during the trip. Bears, wolves, coyotes, skunks, and moose are just some of the wild animals waiting to eat them alive. Ranger Bob promises them that, in the event that a person is left behind by the group, he will not search for them.
Finally, the hike begins! Ranger Bob confuses Bebe right off the bat, because Bob is his last name, and his explanation is pretty complex for her to follow. During the name thing, she forgets what her original question was. Oh well.
Howard leaves the park early, and that gives Jerry an opportunity to be alone with Michael. He gets some information about the park from the young man, then stabs him in the gut. As blood starts to trickle out of Michael's mouth, Jerry kicks him onto the ground.
The hikers come to a narrow bridge, and stop to admire the view. Then we see the killer hide Michael's body in a shed, stopping only to wipe the blood from his knife on the already-messy shirt. Why is he so attached to that one shirt? Just change it!
Ranger Bob has the group take another break in a picnic area. This gives our killer some time to catch up, and we see him in a vehicle, rushing to meet up with his next targets. Oh, and the teen boys in the camping group make a bet over whether or not Bebe's ample bosoms are real or fake. Real or fake, I'd say tit's up for debate...*rim shot*
Bebe needs to go off to do some "female business", so Ranger Bob advises her on how to dispose of a tampon in the woods, without attracting animals to the scent of blood. Trickster starts to follow her, but the park ranger stops him. Then we get a cute scene with Ty and Kiki. They're both listening to music on different devices, and they exchange ear buds with each other. Like I said, it's cute.
After doing her thing, Bebe sees a little woodland creature, and decides to feed and pet it. Despite my begging and pleading, the unseen creature doesn't gnaw her hand off at the wrist. Dammit! When are they going to design a movie that lets the audience decide how to torment the cast?
Candy is admonished when Ranger Bob sees that she brought a phone with her, then Ty shows him, via a GPS device, a route to the camping area that would take less time to travel. Ranger Bob disagrees, citing the shortcut as a place where wolves tend to migrate. Then, as we see the killer's vehicle racing through the woods, the campers encounter a skunk. It turns out that the skunk was the creature that Bebe met, mistaking it for some kind of "forest cat", in spite of the big, skunky white stripe.
Kiki screams, the skunk panics, and the entire group is sprayed by the skunk. Then Ranger Bob calls Jerry, who has just arrived at the eventual campsite. He assures the ranger that the camping gear has been dropped off, then he starts to drive away.
And now, at long last, we have The Most Important Scene in the entire movie, the scene where all of the teens strip down to their underwear, then stand around in some water, splashing and frolicking. While Ranger Bob prepares a warm fire in a nearby cabin, Bebe steps inside to see if he needs any assistance.
Meanwhile, our serial killer has been driving around the park. He also stops at a cabin, where he hides out to plan his next move. By the time he's ready again, it's nightfall, and we see that a presence is watching him from the forest.
Jerry senses the stalker watching him, and decides to ignore him/it. He unloads the jeep, then hurries inside. I don't know why, but I love it in horror movies when the main threat is also threatened. It's fun to watch villains squirm.
The teens all warm up around the fire and enjoy themselves, until Ranger Bob announces that they'll have to wear their stinky clothes again when they're dry. Scab, uncomfortable about having to sit between a Latino and a black guy, announces that he needs to "drain the dragon", leading Bebe to exclaim that she can't believe that he has a dragon.
A fake spider is used to try to scare Ranger Bob, but he just calmly observes that it's about the same size as the ones that lurk up in the trees outside. Then he sends the campers off to the tents, which are divided by gender. Ranger Bob tries to radio Jerry again, but Jerry's getting pretty loopy now. He smashes the radio into pieces, then stomps around in a tirade.
The killer gets back out of the cabin, and decides that it would be best to just leave. A bear stops him, though, so Jerry decides to whip out his trusty knife, and take the beast out. The bear, completely unfazed by the weapon, retaliates by chomping Jerry's face right off of his skull. Sweet!
Early the next morning, Ranger Bob has the campers collecting bags of litter. Candy spies Ty talking on his own phone, and manipulates it out of his hands. Ty, ever the resourceful dude, plans to show off by using his GPS route to beat the others to their destination. He shows the path to Kiki, and they head in that direction together.
No one even seems to notice that they're gone. Ty and Kiki use the time to get to know one another, and we learn what they did that landed them in trouble with the law. Kiki poisoned her mother, while Ty stole anything he could get his hands on, while working with the elderly. They both brag about how stupid other people are compared to them, and agree that they should scam old folks together. Oh, and Ty's GPS sucks ass, because they don't end up beating the group to the campsite.
When Ranger Bob steps into the cabin where he was supposed to meet Jerry, he finds the wrecked radio equipment. That's when he also finally realizes that he's misplaced a pair of teenagers. Maybe Ranger Bob should start looking for another job...
When they realize that the GPS was wrong, Ty and Kiki start to get nervous. Things go from bad to worse, when Ty steps into a snare, which pulls him up off the ground and injures both of his ankles. Kiki rushes over to the spot where he dropped his stuff, and searches the ground for the phone. She picks up the GPS device instead(Remember, Candy stole his phone earlier, by never returning it...), and it screams at her to GO BACK...GO BACK...GO BACK...
They yell and scream for help, then we return to the main group again. Candy is talking to Ryan, and the conversation mostly consists of them mocking others in the group. They both share a good laugh, until they hear Lola doing the same thing to them. Chagrined, they move off in different directions.
Ranger Bob heads into the boys' cabin, where he hands them a sheet of paper. It contains a list of items that he needs to confiscate, under the pretense that they would attract bears. The items on the list include things like deodorant and cologne, and none of the teens will admit to having any of the items on the list. Ranger Bob gets annoyed with them, and warns them that if a bear attacks, it will be their own fault.
Kiki sees blood, and realizes that Ty may be very badly injured by the snare. She and Ty spot a wolf nearby, and Kiki worries that the scent of the blood might put them in danger. She decides to run away, and an animal attacks her off-screen, as Ty swings around helplessly, wondering what finally got her.
Ranger Bob makes a campfire that night, and suggests that it might be a good idea to discuss their court cases as a group. Candy goes first, revealing that she was making money as a high-priced prostitute. Then Ryan steps up to the plate, revealing that he was caught having sex with a minor, and that they were both involved in an asphyxiation act. That act directly caused the girl to lapse into a coma, and Ryan's family paid her family off to keep quiet about the crime.
Disgusted, Ranger Bob calls the powwow session to an abrupt end. Then we see a hungry wolf as it discovers Ty hanging in the air. He tries to scare it away by being loud, but it doesn't seem scared by him. Then, when the wolf does run off, Ty realizes it was due to the sudden presence of the massive grizzly bear. Buh-bye, Ty!
The girls talk about the boys as they prepare to go to bed, and the boys do pretty much the same. Then, Trickster reveals that he brought a bear costume along on the hike, which he's going to use to scare the girls and/or Ranger Bob. Oh, and I think we might have broken Scab, as he's been developing confused feelings for Lola. The guy's so inept, he can't even do racism right!
Ranger Bob works all night on fixing the radio, but can't get anyone to reply to him on it. Then he wakes up the campers at sunrise, except for Scab and Bebe, who sleep despite the annoying sound of his whistle. After breakfast, he announces that he wants the group to remain together, while he hikes around in an attempt to locate Ty and Kiki.
While the park ranger is finding a sort-of trail of human remains to follow, Scab is busy huffing gasoline fumes to get high. Lola finds him, and they end up kissing. After a second kiss, Lola leaves him alone again. Is this movie allergic to sex?
Ranger Bob finds the trail that the missing teens explored, and begins to retrace their steps. When he doesn't return that night, the rest of the group make another fire, and go through Ranger Bob's cabin for food, alcohol and supplies.
Another encounter session around the fire reveals that Scab has a very bad addiction to inhalants, and that one of his closest friends died from inhaling cooking spray. Bebe also reveals that she was falsely accused of shoplifting, although she claims that it was a friend who had secretly shoved something intro her purse, and that she was framed.
Trickster tries to lighten the mood by making another reference to draining his dragon, but Bebe proudly declares that she knows that there is no actual dragon. You go, girl! As Trickster heads into the cabin, he hears something moving around in the woods near him, but can't tell what it might be.
Ranger Bob finds part of Kiki's face on the ground, and knows that he's on the right trail. As he picks up the pace, Trickster emerges from the cabin in his bear costume. Then Ranger Bob finds what's left of Ty, and spots the wolf sitting nearby, snacking on another piece of Ty. That's the thing...Eating Ty food always makes you crave MORE Ty food! *rim shot*
Scab has found a place where he can huff gas fumes alone. He remains blissfully unaware of another presence until it's right in front of him, and the fumes have made him incredibly loopy. He mistakenly believes that the killer grizzly bear is just Trickster in a costume, and tries to pet him. Too late, he realizes his mistake.
Speaking of Trickster, he's heading toward the campers in his costume, and he tries to scare them with a roar. They all laugh, which just makes Trickster angry. He roars again, and sees them express actual fear. Too late to react, he realizes that the real bear is right behind him. With one massive paw, the grizzly decapitates Trickster.
The others scream, then take off and hide in one of the storage cabins. Bebe, Candy and Ryan get away, but Lola is dragged to her doom by the angry bear. We briefly see her trying to crawl to safety after that, but the lower half of her body is now obliterated.
Bebe starts to cry, and the bear starts to sniff at the walls of the structure. When the noises stop, Ryan grabs a heavy shovel, and opens a board in the wall to have a look. He announces that the bear is gone, turns back for a second look, and the grizzly then drags Ryan through the gap in the wood to devour him.
Ryan, badly mangled and with part of his scalp falling off, drags himself back through the opening for one last attempt at survival. He manages to give one of Bebe's boobs a squeeze, a bell dings, then he gets dragged away to get mauled again, with such force that his arms are severed from the rest of him. He'll take the secret of the breasts to his grave.
While they huddle together in the dark, Bebe and Candy begin to wonder how much time has passed. Candy picks up Ryan's arm, then steals his gold watch. The bear then smashes more wood out of the opening that Ryan had made, and attempts to snatch up both females at once. Bebe opens the door of the shack to escape, then locks Candy inside for the bear to have. As Candy screams, the scene fades to black...
The next morning, Ranger Bob returns to the campsite. He finds Bebe hiding under a table and gives her a hug. After she calms down and packs her bag, she asks the ranger if she can use his bathroom one more time before they leave. He agrees, then waits for her on the porch.
As soon as Ranger Bob leaves, Bebe drops the whole "nice girl" act. She goes through Candy's bag, stealing most of her stuff, then grabs the cell phone. Calling a friend, Bebe brags about being the only survivor, and even manipulating the ranger. When she talks about killing Ranger Bob with the gun she found, he overhears her. She walks outside, where the bear greets her with a swipe of the paw, and we see a bloody lump of silicone come flying out of her chest, and smack into a tree. The debate is over!
A news story tells us that the killings were blamed on the escaped convict, because Ranger Bob placed the bear costume in a place where it would look like he had worn it. In the final scene, Ranger Bob and the bear appear, promising to return in a year. THE END...?
Yeah, probably, since this was made back in 2007. Still, I have to give this movie credit where credit's due...the effects were impressive, there were 3 killers(4, if you include the wolf!), and the script kept me laughing. On purpose, even! I actually wouldn't mind seeing another movie with Ranger Bob as the antagonist. Including the extra point for the song, I'm giving Grizzly Park 4 killer trees outta 5! Ha!
And what did I learn after watching the movie?
-Love conquers all, even racism...but not huffing.
-National Parks are deadly places.
-Bears and wolves work well together!
Next up is either Asylum of the Damned, or Deepstar Six. And I promise to post it this week...I would have posted this yesterday, but I fell asleep during the Pats game(I've been getting up at around 4 in the morning the last several weeks...it caught up to me!). Sorry!!
Okay, so we start out with a credit sequence that references a Bible story about a bear that was summoned to eat a large group of children. Um, sure. The little pseudo-animated storyboard is pretty funny, at least. That's followed by a scene depicting an elderly park ranger watching the morning news in his office. There's a story about a blazing forest fire, followed by a report about Butch Latham, a convicted murderer who managed to escape from prison. Foreshadowing?
A-yup. In the very next scene, we see Butch murder a county officer who had to change a flat tire. Before he meets his demise, the poor guy tells Butch that he's on his way to pick up some troubled teens for a camping trip to the park. They don't show his face, but I have a feeling that Butch will be the hulking dude with blood all over his clothes. Yeah, I'm psychic that way.
Then we see the old man again. His name is Howard(which is probably an in-joke, as he's an older actor by the name of Rance Howard), and he greets a younger employee named Michael. After they have a quick chat, we see the killer try to remove the massive amount of blood from the uniform he stole off of his victim. Then he finds a knife in the van, along with the list of teens he's going to pick up, and a detailed map.
Then we see the various teens arriving for their big adventure, and the film gives us this awesomely goofy song about an encounter with a bear. The song alone earns this movie a tree. As the song winds down, we see Howard and Michael going over some paperwork, while the overhead television replays the report about the manhunt.
The song resumes, and the teens are loaded into the van. Their mugshots are shown onscreen, but not their names. Gee, thanks. Why are these movies always designed to be this obtuse? Would it kill the writers to let us get to know the characters in one of these movies?
Anyway, they arrive at the spot where they'll begin the hike, and meet up with a couple of late arrivals, as well as the leader of their expedition, Ranger Bob. A serious-looking preppie named Ryan tries to shake hands with a teen Neo-Nazi type, and they end up awkwardly holding hands instead. Pretty funny.
Ranger Michael takes a role-call, and we finally meet the rest of the characters. We've already met uptight Ryan; then there's Ty, the lonely black guy; Lola, the token Latina female; Candy, a spoiled rich girl; Kiki, the token Asian girl; Bebe, a cute willowy girl who seems like a complete ditz; Scab, the aforementioned racist; and Trickster, a hacker with a major attitude.
After the initial introductions, Ranger Bob comes out to address the troops, and explain the rules of camping. First rule of camping, don't talk about fight cl--uhhhh, I mean, no swearing. Second rule: Pack appropriate clothing and gear.
During his lecture, Ranger Bob suddenly notices that the driver has a shirt covered in a mysterious red stain. He explains that his shirt got dirty while he was changing a tire, and no one thinks to mention that tires don't usually bleed out. Ranger Bob just frowns and suggests that he should change his shirt. Oh, and the killer changes his name to Jerry, which is a foolproof way to fool everyone.
While Ranger Michael is helping crazy Jerry change his shirt, Ranger Bob starts to give a lesson on the various animals they could encounter during the trip. Bears, wolves, coyotes, skunks, and moose are just some of the wild animals waiting to eat them alive. Ranger Bob promises them that, in the event that a person is left behind by the group, he will not search for them.
Finally, the hike begins! Ranger Bob confuses Bebe right off the bat, because Bob is his last name, and his explanation is pretty complex for her to follow. During the name thing, she forgets what her original question was. Oh well.
Howard leaves the park early, and that gives Jerry an opportunity to be alone with Michael. He gets some information about the park from the young man, then stabs him in the gut. As blood starts to trickle out of Michael's mouth, Jerry kicks him onto the ground.
The hikers come to a narrow bridge, and stop to admire the view. Then we see the killer hide Michael's body in a shed, stopping only to wipe the blood from his knife on the already-messy shirt. Why is he so attached to that one shirt? Just change it!
Ranger Bob has the group take another break in a picnic area. This gives our killer some time to catch up, and we see him in a vehicle, rushing to meet up with his next targets. Oh, and the teen boys in the camping group make a bet over whether or not Bebe's ample bosoms are real or fake. Real or fake, I'd say tit's up for debate...*rim shot*
Bebe needs to go off to do some "female business", so Ranger Bob advises her on how to dispose of a tampon in the woods, without attracting animals to the scent of blood. Trickster starts to follow her, but the park ranger stops him. Then we get a cute scene with Ty and Kiki. They're both listening to music on different devices, and they exchange ear buds with each other. Like I said, it's cute.
After doing her thing, Bebe sees a little woodland creature, and decides to feed and pet it. Despite my begging and pleading, the unseen creature doesn't gnaw her hand off at the wrist. Dammit! When are they going to design a movie that lets the audience decide how to torment the cast?
Candy is admonished when Ranger Bob sees that she brought a phone with her, then Ty shows him, via a GPS device, a route to the camping area that would take less time to travel. Ranger Bob disagrees, citing the shortcut as a place where wolves tend to migrate. Then, as we see the killer's vehicle racing through the woods, the campers encounter a skunk. It turns out that the skunk was the creature that Bebe met, mistaking it for some kind of "forest cat", in spite of the big, skunky white stripe.
Kiki screams, the skunk panics, and the entire group is sprayed by the skunk. Then Ranger Bob calls Jerry, who has just arrived at the eventual campsite. He assures the ranger that the camping gear has been dropped off, then he starts to drive away.
And now, at long last, we have The Most Important Scene in the entire movie, the scene where all of the teens strip down to their underwear, then stand around in some water, splashing and frolicking. While Ranger Bob prepares a warm fire in a nearby cabin, Bebe steps inside to see if he needs any assistance.
Meanwhile, our serial killer has been driving around the park. He also stops at a cabin, where he hides out to plan his next move. By the time he's ready again, it's nightfall, and we see that a presence is watching him from the forest.
Jerry senses the stalker watching him, and decides to ignore him/it. He unloads the jeep, then hurries inside. I don't know why, but I love it in horror movies when the main threat is also threatened. It's fun to watch villains squirm.
The teens all warm up around the fire and enjoy themselves, until Ranger Bob announces that they'll have to wear their stinky clothes again when they're dry. Scab, uncomfortable about having to sit between a Latino and a black guy, announces that he needs to "drain the dragon", leading Bebe to exclaim that she can't believe that he has a dragon.
A fake spider is used to try to scare Ranger Bob, but he just calmly observes that it's about the same size as the ones that lurk up in the trees outside. Then he sends the campers off to the tents, which are divided by gender. Ranger Bob tries to radio Jerry again, but Jerry's getting pretty loopy now. He smashes the radio into pieces, then stomps around in a tirade.
The killer gets back out of the cabin, and decides that it would be best to just leave. A bear stops him, though, so Jerry decides to whip out his trusty knife, and take the beast out. The bear, completely unfazed by the weapon, retaliates by chomping Jerry's face right off of his skull. Sweet!
Early the next morning, Ranger Bob has the campers collecting bags of litter. Candy spies Ty talking on his own phone, and manipulates it out of his hands. Ty, ever the resourceful dude, plans to show off by using his GPS route to beat the others to their destination. He shows the path to Kiki, and they head in that direction together.
No one even seems to notice that they're gone. Ty and Kiki use the time to get to know one another, and we learn what they did that landed them in trouble with the law. Kiki poisoned her mother, while Ty stole anything he could get his hands on, while working with the elderly. They both brag about how stupid other people are compared to them, and agree that they should scam old folks together. Oh, and Ty's GPS sucks ass, because they don't end up beating the group to the campsite.
When Ranger Bob steps into the cabin where he was supposed to meet Jerry, he finds the wrecked radio equipment. That's when he also finally realizes that he's misplaced a pair of teenagers. Maybe Ranger Bob should start looking for another job...
When they realize that the GPS was wrong, Ty and Kiki start to get nervous. Things go from bad to worse, when Ty steps into a snare, which pulls him up off the ground and injures both of his ankles. Kiki rushes over to the spot where he dropped his stuff, and searches the ground for the phone. She picks up the GPS device instead(Remember, Candy stole his phone earlier, by never returning it...), and it screams at her to GO BACK...GO BACK...GO BACK...
They yell and scream for help, then we return to the main group again. Candy is talking to Ryan, and the conversation mostly consists of them mocking others in the group. They both share a good laugh, until they hear Lola doing the same thing to them. Chagrined, they move off in different directions.
Ranger Bob heads into the boys' cabin, where he hands them a sheet of paper. It contains a list of items that he needs to confiscate, under the pretense that they would attract bears. The items on the list include things like deodorant and cologne, and none of the teens will admit to having any of the items on the list. Ranger Bob gets annoyed with them, and warns them that if a bear attacks, it will be their own fault.
Kiki sees blood, and realizes that Ty may be very badly injured by the snare. She and Ty spot a wolf nearby, and Kiki worries that the scent of the blood might put them in danger. She decides to run away, and an animal attacks her off-screen, as Ty swings around helplessly, wondering what finally got her.
Ranger Bob makes a campfire that night, and suggests that it might be a good idea to discuss their court cases as a group. Candy goes first, revealing that she was making money as a high-priced prostitute. Then Ryan steps up to the plate, revealing that he was caught having sex with a minor, and that they were both involved in an asphyxiation act. That act directly caused the girl to lapse into a coma, and Ryan's family paid her family off to keep quiet about the crime.
Disgusted, Ranger Bob calls the powwow session to an abrupt end. Then we see a hungry wolf as it discovers Ty hanging in the air. He tries to scare it away by being loud, but it doesn't seem scared by him. Then, when the wolf does run off, Ty realizes it was due to the sudden presence of the massive grizzly bear. Buh-bye, Ty!
The girls talk about the boys as they prepare to go to bed, and the boys do pretty much the same. Then, Trickster reveals that he brought a bear costume along on the hike, which he's going to use to scare the girls and/or Ranger Bob. Oh, and I think we might have broken Scab, as he's been developing confused feelings for Lola. The guy's so inept, he can't even do racism right!
Ranger Bob works all night on fixing the radio, but can't get anyone to reply to him on it. Then he wakes up the campers at sunrise, except for Scab and Bebe, who sleep despite the annoying sound of his whistle. After breakfast, he announces that he wants the group to remain together, while he hikes around in an attempt to locate Ty and Kiki.
While the park ranger is finding a sort-of trail of human remains to follow, Scab is busy huffing gasoline fumes to get high. Lola finds him, and they end up kissing. After a second kiss, Lola leaves him alone again. Is this movie allergic to sex?
Ranger Bob finds the trail that the missing teens explored, and begins to retrace their steps. When he doesn't return that night, the rest of the group make another fire, and go through Ranger Bob's cabin for food, alcohol and supplies.
Another encounter session around the fire reveals that Scab has a very bad addiction to inhalants, and that one of his closest friends died from inhaling cooking spray. Bebe also reveals that she was falsely accused of shoplifting, although she claims that it was a friend who had secretly shoved something intro her purse, and that she was framed.
Trickster tries to lighten the mood by making another reference to draining his dragon, but Bebe proudly declares that she knows that there is no actual dragon. You go, girl! As Trickster heads into the cabin, he hears something moving around in the woods near him, but can't tell what it might be.
Ranger Bob finds part of Kiki's face on the ground, and knows that he's on the right trail. As he picks up the pace, Trickster emerges from the cabin in his bear costume. Then Ranger Bob finds what's left of Ty, and spots the wolf sitting nearby, snacking on another piece of Ty. That's the thing...Eating Ty food always makes you crave MORE Ty food! *rim shot*
Scab has found a place where he can huff gas fumes alone. He remains blissfully unaware of another presence until it's right in front of him, and the fumes have made him incredibly loopy. He mistakenly believes that the killer grizzly bear is just Trickster in a costume, and tries to pet him. Too late, he realizes his mistake.
Speaking of Trickster, he's heading toward the campers in his costume, and he tries to scare them with a roar. They all laugh, which just makes Trickster angry. He roars again, and sees them express actual fear. Too late to react, he realizes that the real bear is right behind him. With one massive paw, the grizzly decapitates Trickster.
The others scream, then take off and hide in one of the storage cabins. Bebe, Candy and Ryan get away, but Lola is dragged to her doom by the angry bear. We briefly see her trying to crawl to safety after that, but the lower half of her body is now obliterated.
Bebe starts to cry, and the bear starts to sniff at the walls of the structure. When the noises stop, Ryan grabs a heavy shovel, and opens a board in the wall to have a look. He announces that the bear is gone, turns back for a second look, and the grizzly then drags Ryan through the gap in the wood to devour him.
Ryan, badly mangled and with part of his scalp falling off, drags himself back through the opening for one last attempt at survival. He manages to give one of Bebe's boobs a squeeze, a bell dings, then he gets dragged away to get mauled again, with such force that his arms are severed from the rest of him. He'll take the secret of the breasts to his grave.
While they huddle together in the dark, Bebe and Candy begin to wonder how much time has passed. Candy picks up Ryan's arm, then steals his gold watch. The bear then smashes more wood out of the opening that Ryan had made, and attempts to snatch up both females at once. Bebe opens the door of the shack to escape, then locks Candy inside for the bear to have. As Candy screams, the scene fades to black...
The next morning, Ranger Bob returns to the campsite. He finds Bebe hiding under a table and gives her a hug. After she calms down and packs her bag, she asks the ranger if she can use his bathroom one more time before they leave. He agrees, then waits for her on the porch.
As soon as Ranger Bob leaves, Bebe drops the whole "nice girl" act. She goes through Candy's bag, stealing most of her stuff, then grabs the cell phone. Calling a friend, Bebe brags about being the only survivor, and even manipulating the ranger. When she talks about killing Ranger Bob with the gun she found, he overhears her. She walks outside, where the bear greets her with a swipe of the paw, and we see a bloody lump of silicone come flying out of her chest, and smack into a tree. The debate is over!
A news story tells us that the killings were blamed on the escaped convict, because Ranger Bob placed the bear costume in a place where it would look like he had worn it. In the final scene, Ranger Bob and the bear appear, promising to return in a year. THE END...?
Yeah, probably, since this was made back in 2007. Still, I have to give this movie credit where credit's due...the effects were impressive, there were 3 killers(4, if you include the wolf!), and the script kept me laughing. On purpose, even! I actually wouldn't mind seeing another movie with Ranger Bob as the antagonist. Including the extra point for the song, I'm giving Grizzly Park 4 killer trees outta 5! Ha!
And what did I learn after watching the movie?
-Love conquers all, even racism...but not huffing.
-National Parks are deadly places.
-Bears and wolves work well together!
Next up is either Asylum of the Damned, or Deepstar Six. And I promise to post it this week...I would have posted this yesterday, but I fell asleep during the Pats game(I've been getting up at around 4 in the morning the last several weeks...it caught up to me!). Sorry!!
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Dead Above Ground
Happy New Year! My New Year's Resolution is to watch a shit-ton of lousy slasher flicks, mixed in with a small sampling of somewhat entertaining slasher flicks. I'm willing to bet that I can keep that resolution...
First up for 2014: a movie co-starring and created by TV prodcucer Stephen J. Cannell, starring a group of actors mostly known for being on television. Wow, what a shocking development. Oh, and I'll be watching it on my new Playstation 4! SPOILERS and fun times ahead!
Right, so the movie starts out with some frickin' funny credits. We get some dude in a hood, and he's brandishing a large scythe. Whenever he gets tired of seeing credits, he comes back out to slash them off the screen. In between these strange moments, we also see a crowd gathered at the Academy Awards. Ironic, eh?
After about the 100th or so appearance of The Credits Killer, the movie finally begins. A couple are celebrating, because they are now the proud owners of an Oscar. They drunkenly manage to get themselves home in one piece, only to discover that someone has painted some satanic-looking imagery on the front door of their modest mansion, along with the phrase DEAD ABOVE GROUND. Hey, that should be a movie title!
Anyway, the husband, Mark, still gripping his award, urges his wife to run back to the car, in case the intruder is still inside. Apparently, there's also a handgun in the car. Then he enters his home. Oh, and he turns the award over, to use it like a club.
After searching the main hallway, Mark enters some kind of gameroom. He picks up a sword, gives it a few swings, then decides to continue exploring the house. The killer, in an undisclosed location, prepares to meet him, by picking up a massive bear trap.
Mark sneaks about halfway down the hall, then finds himself under attack by ravens. After flailing around, he discovers that they've flown away again. Feeling sort of stupid, Mark enters the kitchen, yelling that he has a weapon. Wow. I'm guessing that "feeling stupid" is probably something that he's grown accustomed to.
He sees someone at the other end of the kitchen sitting in a rockingchair, and asks them who they are. The figure says nothing, just continues to rock back and forth. Overcome with anger, Mark swings the sword, and decapitates the stranger. It turns out to be a stunt dummy from a movie, and Mark feels even dumber than he already did.
Suddenly realizing that the dummy was used as a diversionary tactic, Mark runs back to the front door, only to find it locked. A hooded figure appears, and Mark runs to another door, which is also locked tight. Mark quickly heads into the nearest room, locks the door, then leans against it.
The killer starts to break down the door. Mark begs him to stop, then tries to offer him money, a part in his next movie, or even his car, if the killer just stops his attack. The killer stops trying to smash the door open, instead setting up the big trap we saw him pick up earlier.
After hearing some thumping sounds on the door, Mark places the blade of his sword up against one of the cracks in the wood, then attempts to stab his attacker. He hears a grunt and a gasp, and assumes that he wounded the intruder. Drawing back the blade shows that there is, indeed, some blood on it.
Mark opens the door, only to find that he actually killed his wife by accident, as she was left there by the killer with duct tape over her mouth. Marks runs down the hall, sees the killer standing at the top of a staircase, then walks right onto the bear trap. As he howls with pain, the killer uses his scythe to hack Mark to pieces.
Then we get a scene on a beach, nearly 6 months later. Before we get used to having any fun, the scene transitions to a California high school, where we meet our main cast. There's Jason, a football player; Monster, some kind of a combination of a computer geek and a white rapper; Kari, a cute blonde cheerleader; Jeff, an outcast Goth, who also happens to be into demonology; Zara, Jeff's girlfriend, who doesn't even know how to pronounce Samhain correctly; Carl Hadden, a principal who also who teaches a class for budding film directors; Dillon, another football player; and many others that I'll identify as we go along.
Anyway, Hadden realizes that he left his lecture notes in his office, and he sends Dillon to fetch his stuff. After he jokes that he'd forget his head if it wasn't attached, they all clearly hear a voice threatening to do harm to the instructor, but no one seems to know who said it. In an attempt to regain his composure, Hadden announces that they're all going to start screening some student films that they worked on, a project that involved making documentaries.
Reaching into the pile at random, Hadden pulls out Jeff's movie first. It doesn't have a title, and Jeff defiantly announces that, instead of doing the assignment, he just did what he wanted to do. They watch his video, which is a short slasher piece that stars Kari as the girl being stalked. Jeff is the killer, and his character in the piece transforms into a killer clown, then decapitates Kari's character. When that happens, the entire class erupts into cheers, jeers, and raucous laughter.
Angry that his work isn't being taken seriously, Jeff threatens to kill the entire class. He even uses that phrase again, "dead above ground", just to remind us what movie we're watching. Hadden tries to calm Jeff down, but that just pisses him off even more. Jason is ordered to fetch the football coach, in case Jeff needs to be subdued.
Oh, he does! Monster starts to mock him again, so Jeff shouts his rants even louder. Then Jason returns with the coach, and Jeff is dragged out of class to face disciplinary action. The only person who seems to care is Zara.
At the end of the school day, Hadden describes how scary Jeff was to Brenda, the school counselor that Hadden secretly admires from afar. They encounter Tom, the coach that took Jeff out of class, and he flirts with Brenda. This has gone from Prom Night to Melrose Place in one scene!
Brenda heads in to try to counsel Jeff, despite Hadden's misgivings about leaving her alone with such a troubled teen. She finds Jeff waving a trophy around like a club, yelling and shouting magical spells and incantations. Brenda gets the trophy away from him, but he barely seems to comprehend that she's even there.
Outside, Hadden is trying to ignore Coach Bradley, who is telling him that a kid like Jeff should just be thrown into a psych ward. Hadden's response is that he's the one who ultimately decides what to do with unruly students. Then their talk turns to an end-of-the-year pool party that Hadden throws for the students in his communication class, and Coach Bradley brags that he's going as Brenda's date. He teases Hadden, then strolls away.
Brenda asks Jeff about his home life. She's concerned, because the phone number appears to be out of service, but Jeff just sputters some nonsense about how Celtics have no families. Yeah, I think that we can assume that Jeffy-boy killed his folks.
The day of the pool party arrives. Jeff and Zara are there, and they somehow spawned a third Goth kid to follow them around. Dillon is there with his girlfriend Darcy, but he's whining that he thinks her parents don't approve of him. Hadden's busy at the grill, and Brenda's telling him that she thinks that Jeff is schizophrenic. Then the coach starts to taunt Hadden about his taste in music.
Something happens between Dillon and Jeff, and Jeff ends up punching Darcy right into the pool. Coach Bradley breaks up the altercation, but then Jeff makes things worse, by hitting Dillon's car as he drives away. Dillon grabs his keys, and a chase begins.
The cars end up on a winding cliffside road, and Jeff has totally gone off the deep end. Dillon swerves into the other lane, and the cars engage in a game of chicken. As Jeff accelerates, he turns away from the road to laugh at Dillon. Then he plunges right over the cliff, and his car explodes in a ridiculously massive fireball.
And now it's a year later. No aftermath, no reactions, no investigation scenes. One minute, a car explodes. The next, a year passes. Great.
Principal Hadden pulls into the faculty parking lot, where he finds Coach Bradley sitting in a van and getting drunk. Apparently, the coach was fired because the football team had their worst season ever. Oh, and his firing lead the coach to begin threatening Hadden, often enough that Hadden now owns a small handgun.
Hadden gets his gun, tucks it into his shirt, then approaches the drunk ex-teacher. After ordering Bradley off of school property, Hadden shows him the gun. Bradley punches him out, then crawls back into his van to resume getting drunk.
Then we see Dillon arrive, soon followed by Darcy and her best friend Latrisha, who discuss the fact that Darcy is no longer allowed to see Dillon, because many people still believe that he forced Jeff off the road. And last, but not least, we meet Chip Palmer, a new student. The girls find him dreamy.
Chip has a chat with Zara about Jeff, and she learns that Chip has seen him. In his dreams, several times. He has Zara point out Dillon to him, then walks over to introduce himself. Dillon tries to ignore him, but Chip's demeanor unsettles him.
That night, Coach Bradley is attacked in his van. A knock at the door of the van is followed by a growling voice saying, "Welcome wagon...", followed by more ravens. Then Bradley is assaulted by the hooded figure, who drives his scythe into the drunk man's chest.
In school the following day, Brenda is questioned by Sarge Dan DeSousa, the detective sent to investigate the murder. His main suspect is Carl Hadden, because the killer left a picture of him at the crime scene. With no other leads, and with Brenda helpfully telling him about the trouble between Hadden and Bradley, DeSousa decides to arrest Hadden.
DeSousa, accompanied by a cute partner named Burrows, interrogates Hadden. The detectives mention the history of problems that Hadden and Bradley shared, but Hadden tries to claim that he never let it get in the way of his job or his relationships. When they bring up the gun, he tells them about the threats he was getting at home, phone calls where the caller was whispering "Dead above ground" to him. Hmmm, now why does that sound so familiar?
Back at the school, Zara is trying to put together a group for a seance. She wants to contact Jeff. Surprisingly, people are actually planning to go to this thing. Why? Except for Zara, they all despised Jeff. Then Hadden arrives back at the school, where Dillon makes the observation that it's no fun when people falsely accuse you of murder.
That evening, Zara has everyone sit on the floor in a circle, except for Chip, who is placed in the center of the circle. After a few false starts, Jeff arrives, and promptly possesses poor Chip. Chip's eyes glow, some ravens fly into the room, then Chip seems to foretell that the principal will be the next to die.
They all hurry over to Hadden's house, to try and warn him about his impending doom. They find a red symbol on his door, then Darcy trips over Hadden's dead body. Hey, as flawed as this movie is, you can't argue that the body count is too low!
DeSousa questions Dillon first, and bluntly tells him that he thinks that Dillon murdered Jeff. Then he also tells him that he looked into his family history. It turns out that Dillon's dad was a convicted murderer. Hey, an actual plot twist!
Also, according to the detective, each victim had a picture of the next victim left on them by the killer. Hadden was found with a photo of Kelly, the cheerleader who played Jeff's victim in his student film. Dillon is allowed to return to school, but even his closest friends aren't quite convinced of his innocence.
Zara believes him. She tells the group of friends that Jeff's spirit is restless, and that he's the person doing all of these killings. In spite of what they all witnessed at the seance, they still don't buy it. Zara concludes that Jeff won't stop until they're all dead, unless they can find a way to banish his spirit forever.
Then Zara hatches a plan that brings the movie down to a new low: She wants to perform another seance, but not just any seance. No, she thinks that it would be worthwhile to try to strike a bargain with dead Jeffster. Go ahead, ask me what kind of deal....Zara wants to find a way to get Jeff's horror film script made into a big-budget horror flick. See? Told you it was dumb!
Kelly goes home and changes into a skimpy bathing suit, then calls Brenda. She tells the counselor about Zara's screwball plan, and Brenda is concerned, probably because she can't fathom how gullible and stupid movie teens are. Before hanging up, Brenda orders Kelly not to attend the next seance.
As night falls, Brenda meets up with DeSousa, and they discuss the case while taking a long walk on the beach. Brenda tells the detective about the weird stuff Jeff did in her office, and they both realize that Jeff probably left his fingerprints on her bowling trophy. Intrigued, they decide to head down to her office. Outside, a violent thunderstorm erupts.
The second seance is performed. No Jeff this time, possibly because he knows that they have an ulterior motive, but more likely because Kelly stayed at home. Chip offers to go get her, and promises to be back within the hour.
Kelly is getting freaked out by the storm's intensity, unaware that the hooded killer has come straight to her house. She gets grabbed as she tries to drive away, because he was waiting in the back seat. Kelly puts up a struggle, but the killer's strength outmatches her own.
Tired of waiting for Chip and Kelly, the other teens head over to Kelly's house. There they find Chip, bound and gagged, and suspended upside down. They untie him, and then go searching for Kelly.
It doesn't take long to discover her body in her car. They call the cops, and DeSousa asks Dillon more questions. Then Zara offers to tell the detectives what she knows. She explains that ravens and crows are harbingers of death and doom, then DeSousa has her take a polygraph test.
DeSousa takes Brenda out on a date. They have one of those generic "tell me about your job" conversations, then end up kissing. After moving the date into the bedroom, they have the giggliest sex scene in cinematic history. Seriously, they keep grinning and laughing during the entire montage, it's probably the least-sexy scene ever filmed.
After the autopsy on Kelly, DeSousa is told that a photo of Darcy was found in her stomach. Darcy and her family are told about the threat, and they decide to hire some private security guards. After DeSousa drives away, we see that Dillon has been hiding and waiting for the killer to show up, so he can stop the attack personally.
Dillon changes into a swimsuit, then swims around the beach to approach Darcy's home from the rocks. They meet in private, and Dillon swears that he will protect Darcy from the killer, or die trying. Then Darcy's dad shows up, and threatens to call the cops. Dillon and Darcy have a fast kiss, then Dillon escapes again.
Zara heads to the library, where Dillon confronts her. He wants to know more about what Jeff believed, and if any of that knowledge might save their lives. Zara starts to have an emotional meltdown, and Dillon offers his friendship to her. Then they both head to the police station.
DeSousa agrees to speak to them, and Zara asks Dillon if he can speak to the detectives alone first. While Dillon waits in the hallway, Zara confesses to murder. She says that she was an accomplice in all of the killings, and that the seances and rituals were faked to make the victims trust her. When asked who the killer is, Zara says that it was Dillon.
After Dillon is formally charged, Chip calls Darcy. He has a different theory, that Zara arranged to frame Dillon with Jeff, because Jeff had always been afraid of his tormentor. With him tucked away in jail, Jeff's vengeful spirit is now able to finish up his killing spree.
But hey, guess what? Chip has a plan! A stupid plan, yes, but it's still a plan. He believes that they should do what Zara proposed earlier, and make Jeff's horror movie! Uh, but wasn't Zara also admitting a couple of scenes ago that the seances were all faked? Why would some ghost want to make a movie?
Anyway, before we get a chance to think too much, we see Brenda at the grocery store. As she passes through the aisle with the milk, we can see that the killer is hiding in the freezer case, watching her every move. Heh, I wonder how long he had to stand there before she showed up? Would've been funnier to see him in there first, then have a scene where she decides to go shopping tomorrow, followed by Jeff freezing his undead ass off.
Anyway, Jeff cuts the power, kills the store clerk, then attacks Brenda. The detectives tell Dillon that Brenda's gone missing. Then DeSousa reveals yet another kooky twist: "Jeff" was actually a mental patient named Ricky. He had escaped from a hospital, then assumed the Jeff persona instead.
Suddenly very afraid for Darcy's safety, Dillon begs the detectives to release him from jail. Because it's already evening, no judge will sign the release papers until morning, so Dillon wastes his one phone call to contact Monster, he who hacks computers and raps like Ice Cube, yo. Monster agrees to hack into the police network, and fake the orders to get Dillon released from jail.
Chip gets Darcy to go with him back to where they had the seances. She sees that Brenda has been tied to a chair, and realizes that it was a trap. Then DeSousa also finds the house, and spots several ravens nesting outside. Yup, it's the right house!
Chip starts to ramble on about death just like Jeff used to, and the women both beg him to stop. Yeah Jeff, please stop. Then he pulls off his face, revealing that it was just a mask. You ready for this explanation? Get ready to make yourself dizzy as your eyes roll...
Rick is the son of the couple who were murdered at the start of this thing. Yeah, the award winners. And the ashes found at the car crash were his mother's, to make his fake death look even more convincing. This is even dumber than the idea of making a horror movie to appease a restless spirit...Can we do that plot instead, please?
*sigh*
Jeff/Rick/Chip picks up his weapon to slaughter them, but DeSousa stops him. As they engage in a pretty boring duel to the death, Dillon arrives to save the day. He ambushes the killer from behind, then gets thrown around like a doll. DeSousa uses the momentary distraction to get up off the floor.
DeSousa gets the blade away from the killer, then rips off one of his squishy-looking ears. The maniac retrieves his weapon yet again, and the men duke it out on the roof. A lucky punch sends DeSousa sailing into an antenna, and he quickly picks up a piece of it as Jeff/Rick prepares to finish him off.
Jeff/Rick/Chip is impaled, then falls off of the roof, where he gets even MORE impaled by the spikes on the fence that surrounds the property. DeSousa then releases all of the hostages.
Dillon and Darcy kiss, and Dillon reminds her that he promised to always protect her. Then Zara is brought to the crime scene, where she insists on seeing the body of the killer. She stares down at his body on the rocks, and vows to be around when he comes back. Both DeSousa and Brenda tell her that the only place he's going is the morgue, but then they see that his body has vanished. THE END...? I hope so.
Bad, bad, bad. I take back what I said earlier about the amount of kills being impressive, because I don't want this movie getting even faint praise. A pox on you, movie! A pox on you and any sequels you spawn! 1 out of 5 killer trees, just for being at least mildly coherent...but even that feels generous. Man, 2014's gonna blow.
And what *shuddering* did I learn after watching Dead Above Ground?
-When TV Producer/Director Stephen J. Cannell is the best actor in a movie, that movie's in serious trouble.
-Burn victims can wear multiple fake faces, get body parts ripped off, get impaled, and still survive.
-Sex can make you giggly.
My next DVD should be either Asylum of the Damned or Grizzly Park. Both sound like real classics. See ya on the flipside!
First up for 2014: a movie co-starring and created by TV prodcucer Stephen J. Cannell, starring a group of actors mostly known for being on television. Wow, what a shocking development. Oh, and I'll be watching it on my new Playstation 4! SPOILERS and fun times ahead!
Right, so the movie starts out with some frickin' funny credits. We get some dude in a hood, and he's brandishing a large scythe. Whenever he gets tired of seeing credits, he comes back out to slash them off the screen. In between these strange moments, we also see a crowd gathered at the Academy Awards. Ironic, eh?
After about the 100th or so appearance of The Credits Killer, the movie finally begins. A couple are celebrating, because they are now the proud owners of an Oscar. They drunkenly manage to get themselves home in one piece, only to discover that someone has painted some satanic-looking imagery on the front door of their modest mansion, along with the phrase DEAD ABOVE GROUND. Hey, that should be a movie title!
Anyway, the husband, Mark, still gripping his award, urges his wife to run back to the car, in case the intruder is still inside. Apparently, there's also a handgun in the car. Then he enters his home. Oh, and he turns the award over, to use it like a club.
After searching the main hallway, Mark enters some kind of gameroom. He picks up a sword, gives it a few swings, then decides to continue exploring the house. The killer, in an undisclosed location, prepares to meet him, by picking up a massive bear trap.
Mark sneaks about halfway down the hall, then finds himself under attack by ravens. After flailing around, he discovers that they've flown away again. Feeling sort of stupid, Mark enters the kitchen, yelling that he has a weapon. Wow. I'm guessing that "feeling stupid" is probably something that he's grown accustomed to.
He sees someone at the other end of the kitchen sitting in a rockingchair, and asks them who they are. The figure says nothing, just continues to rock back and forth. Overcome with anger, Mark swings the sword, and decapitates the stranger. It turns out to be a stunt dummy from a movie, and Mark feels even dumber than he already did.
Suddenly realizing that the dummy was used as a diversionary tactic, Mark runs back to the front door, only to find it locked. A hooded figure appears, and Mark runs to another door, which is also locked tight. Mark quickly heads into the nearest room, locks the door, then leans against it.
The killer starts to break down the door. Mark begs him to stop, then tries to offer him money, a part in his next movie, or even his car, if the killer just stops his attack. The killer stops trying to smash the door open, instead setting up the big trap we saw him pick up earlier.
After hearing some thumping sounds on the door, Mark places the blade of his sword up against one of the cracks in the wood, then attempts to stab his attacker. He hears a grunt and a gasp, and assumes that he wounded the intruder. Drawing back the blade shows that there is, indeed, some blood on it.
Mark opens the door, only to find that he actually killed his wife by accident, as she was left there by the killer with duct tape over her mouth. Marks runs down the hall, sees the killer standing at the top of a staircase, then walks right onto the bear trap. As he howls with pain, the killer uses his scythe to hack Mark to pieces.
Then we get a scene on a beach, nearly 6 months later. Before we get used to having any fun, the scene transitions to a California high school, where we meet our main cast. There's Jason, a football player; Monster, some kind of a combination of a computer geek and a white rapper; Kari, a cute blonde cheerleader; Jeff, an outcast Goth, who also happens to be into demonology; Zara, Jeff's girlfriend, who doesn't even know how to pronounce Samhain correctly; Carl Hadden, a principal who also who teaches a class for budding film directors; Dillon, another football player; and many others that I'll identify as we go along.
Anyway, Hadden realizes that he left his lecture notes in his office, and he sends Dillon to fetch his stuff. After he jokes that he'd forget his head if it wasn't attached, they all clearly hear a voice threatening to do harm to the instructor, but no one seems to know who said it. In an attempt to regain his composure, Hadden announces that they're all going to start screening some student films that they worked on, a project that involved making documentaries.
Reaching into the pile at random, Hadden pulls out Jeff's movie first. It doesn't have a title, and Jeff defiantly announces that, instead of doing the assignment, he just did what he wanted to do. They watch his video, which is a short slasher piece that stars Kari as the girl being stalked. Jeff is the killer, and his character in the piece transforms into a killer clown, then decapitates Kari's character. When that happens, the entire class erupts into cheers, jeers, and raucous laughter.
Angry that his work isn't being taken seriously, Jeff threatens to kill the entire class. He even uses that phrase again, "dead above ground", just to remind us what movie we're watching. Hadden tries to calm Jeff down, but that just pisses him off even more. Jason is ordered to fetch the football coach, in case Jeff needs to be subdued.
Oh, he does! Monster starts to mock him again, so Jeff shouts his rants even louder. Then Jason returns with the coach, and Jeff is dragged out of class to face disciplinary action. The only person who seems to care is Zara.
At the end of the school day, Hadden describes how scary Jeff was to Brenda, the school counselor that Hadden secretly admires from afar. They encounter Tom, the coach that took Jeff out of class, and he flirts with Brenda. This has gone from Prom Night to Melrose Place in one scene!
Brenda heads in to try to counsel Jeff, despite Hadden's misgivings about leaving her alone with such a troubled teen. She finds Jeff waving a trophy around like a club, yelling and shouting magical spells and incantations. Brenda gets the trophy away from him, but he barely seems to comprehend that she's even there.
Outside, Hadden is trying to ignore Coach Bradley, who is telling him that a kid like Jeff should just be thrown into a psych ward. Hadden's response is that he's the one who ultimately decides what to do with unruly students. Then their talk turns to an end-of-the-year pool party that Hadden throws for the students in his communication class, and Coach Bradley brags that he's going as Brenda's date. He teases Hadden, then strolls away.
Brenda asks Jeff about his home life. She's concerned, because the phone number appears to be out of service, but Jeff just sputters some nonsense about how Celtics have no families. Yeah, I think that we can assume that Jeffy-boy killed his folks.
The day of the pool party arrives. Jeff and Zara are there, and they somehow spawned a third Goth kid to follow them around. Dillon is there with his girlfriend Darcy, but he's whining that he thinks her parents don't approve of him. Hadden's busy at the grill, and Brenda's telling him that she thinks that Jeff is schizophrenic. Then the coach starts to taunt Hadden about his taste in music.
Something happens between Dillon and Jeff, and Jeff ends up punching Darcy right into the pool. Coach Bradley breaks up the altercation, but then Jeff makes things worse, by hitting Dillon's car as he drives away. Dillon grabs his keys, and a chase begins.
The cars end up on a winding cliffside road, and Jeff has totally gone off the deep end. Dillon swerves into the other lane, and the cars engage in a game of chicken. As Jeff accelerates, he turns away from the road to laugh at Dillon. Then he plunges right over the cliff, and his car explodes in a ridiculously massive fireball.
And now it's a year later. No aftermath, no reactions, no investigation scenes. One minute, a car explodes. The next, a year passes. Great.
Principal Hadden pulls into the faculty parking lot, where he finds Coach Bradley sitting in a van and getting drunk. Apparently, the coach was fired because the football team had their worst season ever. Oh, and his firing lead the coach to begin threatening Hadden, often enough that Hadden now owns a small handgun.
Hadden gets his gun, tucks it into his shirt, then approaches the drunk ex-teacher. After ordering Bradley off of school property, Hadden shows him the gun. Bradley punches him out, then crawls back into his van to resume getting drunk.
Then we see Dillon arrive, soon followed by Darcy and her best friend Latrisha, who discuss the fact that Darcy is no longer allowed to see Dillon, because many people still believe that he forced Jeff off the road. And last, but not least, we meet Chip Palmer, a new student. The girls find him dreamy.
Chip has a chat with Zara about Jeff, and she learns that Chip has seen him. In his dreams, several times. He has Zara point out Dillon to him, then walks over to introduce himself. Dillon tries to ignore him, but Chip's demeanor unsettles him.
That night, Coach Bradley is attacked in his van. A knock at the door of the van is followed by a growling voice saying, "Welcome wagon...", followed by more ravens. Then Bradley is assaulted by the hooded figure, who drives his scythe into the drunk man's chest.
In school the following day, Brenda is questioned by Sarge Dan DeSousa, the detective sent to investigate the murder. His main suspect is Carl Hadden, because the killer left a picture of him at the crime scene. With no other leads, and with Brenda helpfully telling him about the trouble between Hadden and Bradley, DeSousa decides to arrest Hadden.
DeSousa, accompanied by a cute partner named Burrows, interrogates Hadden. The detectives mention the history of problems that Hadden and Bradley shared, but Hadden tries to claim that he never let it get in the way of his job or his relationships. When they bring up the gun, he tells them about the threats he was getting at home, phone calls where the caller was whispering "Dead above ground" to him. Hmmm, now why does that sound so familiar?
Back at the school, Zara is trying to put together a group for a seance. She wants to contact Jeff. Surprisingly, people are actually planning to go to this thing. Why? Except for Zara, they all despised Jeff. Then Hadden arrives back at the school, where Dillon makes the observation that it's no fun when people falsely accuse you of murder.
That evening, Zara has everyone sit on the floor in a circle, except for Chip, who is placed in the center of the circle. After a few false starts, Jeff arrives, and promptly possesses poor Chip. Chip's eyes glow, some ravens fly into the room, then Chip seems to foretell that the principal will be the next to die.
They all hurry over to Hadden's house, to try and warn him about his impending doom. They find a red symbol on his door, then Darcy trips over Hadden's dead body. Hey, as flawed as this movie is, you can't argue that the body count is too low!
DeSousa questions Dillon first, and bluntly tells him that he thinks that Dillon murdered Jeff. Then he also tells him that he looked into his family history. It turns out that Dillon's dad was a convicted murderer. Hey, an actual plot twist!
Also, according to the detective, each victim had a picture of the next victim left on them by the killer. Hadden was found with a photo of Kelly, the cheerleader who played Jeff's victim in his student film. Dillon is allowed to return to school, but even his closest friends aren't quite convinced of his innocence.
Zara believes him. She tells the group of friends that Jeff's spirit is restless, and that he's the person doing all of these killings. In spite of what they all witnessed at the seance, they still don't buy it. Zara concludes that Jeff won't stop until they're all dead, unless they can find a way to banish his spirit forever.
Then Zara hatches a plan that brings the movie down to a new low: She wants to perform another seance, but not just any seance. No, she thinks that it would be worthwhile to try to strike a bargain with dead Jeffster. Go ahead, ask me what kind of deal....Zara wants to find a way to get Jeff's horror film script made into a big-budget horror flick. See? Told you it was dumb!
Kelly goes home and changes into a skimpy bathing suit, then calls Brenda. She tells the counselor about Zara's screwball plan, and Brenda is concerned, probably because she can't fathom how gullible and stupid movie teens are. Before hanging up, Brenda orders Kelly not to attend the next seance.
As night falls, Brenda meets up with DeSousa, and they discuss the case while taking a long walk on the beach. Brenda tells the detective about the weird stuff Jeff did in her office, and they both realize that Jeff probably left his fingerprints on her bowling trophy. Intrigued, they decide to head down to her office. Outside, a violent thunderstorm erupts.
The second seance is performed. No Jeff this time, possibly because he knows that they have an ulterior motive, but more likely because Kelly stayed at home. Chip offers to go get her, and promises to be back within the hour.
Kelly is getting freaked out by the storm's intensity, unaware that the hooded killer has come straight to her house. She gets grabbed as she tries to drive away, because he was waiting in the back seat. Kelly puts up a struggle, but the killer's strength outmatches her own.
Tired of waiting for Chip and Kelly, the other teens head over to Kelly's house. There they find Chip, bound and gagged, and suspended upside down. They untie him, and then go searching for Kelly.
It doesn't take long to discover her body in her car. They call the cops, and DeSousa asks Dillon more questions. Then Zara offers to tell the detectives what she knows. She explains that ravens and crows are harbingers of death and doom, then DeSousa has her take a polygraph test.
DeSousa takes Brenda out on a date. They have one of those generic "tell me about your job" conversations, then end up kissing. After moving the date into the bedroom, they have the giggliest sex scene in cinematic history. Seriously, they keep grinning and laughing during the entire montage, it's probably the least-sexy scene ever filmed.
After the autopsy on Kelly, DeSousa is told that a photo of Darcy was found in her stomach. Darcy and her family are told about the threat, and they decide to hire some private security guards. After DeSousa drives away, we see that Dillon has been hiding and waiting for the killer to show up, so he can stop the attack personally.
Dillon changes into a swimsuit, then swims around the beach to approach Darcy's home from the rocks. They meet in private, and Dillon swears that he will protect Darcy from the killer, or die trying. Then Darcy's dad shows up, and threatens to call the cops. Dillon and Darcy have a fast kiss, then Dillon escapes again.
Zara heads to the library, where Dillon confronts her. He wants to know more about what Jeff believed, and if any of that knowledge might save their lives. Zara starts to have an emotional meltdown, and Dillon offers his friendship to her. Then they both head to the police station.
DeSousa agrees to speak to them, and Zara asks Dillon if he can speak to the detectives alone first. While Dillon waits in the hallway, Zara confesses to murder. She says that she was an accomplice in all of the killings, and that the seances and rituals were faked to make the victims trust her. When asked who the killer is, Zara says that it was Dillon.
After Dillon is formally charged, Chip calls Darcy. He has a different theory, that Zara arranged to frame Dillon with Jeff, because Jeff had always been afraid of his tormentor. With him tucked away in jail, Jeff's vengeful spirit is now able to finish up his killing spree.
But hey, guess what? Chip has a plan! A stupid plan, yes, but it's still a plan. He believes that they should do what Zara proposed earlier, and make Jeff's horror movie! Uh, but wasn't Zara also admitting a couple of scenes ago that the seances were all faked? Why would some ghost want to make a movie?
Anyway, before we get a chance to think too much, we see Brenda at the grocery store. As she passes through the aisle with the milk, we can see that the killer is hiding in the freezer case, watching her every move. Heh, I wonder how long he had to stand there before she showed up? Would've been funnier to see him in there first, then have a scene where she decides to go shopping tomorrow, followed by Jeff freezing his undead ass off.
Anyway, Jeff cuts the power, kills the store clerk, then attacks Brenda. The detectives tell Dillon that Brenda's gone missing. Then DeSousa reveals yet another kooky twist: "Jeff" was actually a mental patient named Ricky. He had escaped from a hospital, then assumed the Jeff persona instead.
Suddenly very afraid for Darcy's safety, Dillon begs the detectives to release him from jail. Because it's already evening, no judge will sign the release papers until morning, so Dillon wastes his one phone call to contact Monster, he who hacks computers and raps like Ice Cube, yo. Monster agrees to hack into the police network, and fake the orders to get Dillon released from jail.
Chip gets Darcy to go with him back to where they had the seances. She sees that Brenda has been tied to a chair, and realizes that it was a trap. Then DeSousa also finds the house, and spots several ravens nesting outside. Yup, it's the right house!
Chip starts to ramble on about death just like Jeff used to, and the women both beg him to stop. Yeah Jeff, please stop. Then he pulls off his face, revealing that it was just a mask. You ready for this explanation? Get ready to make yourself dizzy as your eyes roll...
Rick is the son of the couple who were murdered at the start of this thing. Yeah, the award winners. And the ashes found at the car crash were his mother's, to make his fake death look even more convincing. This is even dumber than the idea of making a horror movie to appease a restless spirit...Can we do that plot instead, please?
*sigh*
Jeff/Rick/Chip picks up his weapon to slaughter them, but DeSousa stops him. As they engage in a pretty boring duel to the death, Dillon arrives to save the day. He ambushes the killer from behind, then gets thrown around like a doll. DeSousa uses the momentary distraction to get up off the floor.
DeSousa gets the blade away from the killer, then rips off one of his squishy-looking ears. The maniac retrieves his weapon yet again, and the men duke it out on the roof. A lucky punch sends DeSousa sailing into an antenna, and he quickly picks up a piece of it as Jeff/Rick prepares to finish him off.
Jeff/Rick/Chip is impaled, then falls off of the roof, where he gets even MORE impaled by the spikes on the fence that surrounds the property. DeSousa then releases all of the hostages.
Dillon and Darcy kiss, and Dillon reminds her that he promised to always protect her. Then Zara is brought to the crime scene, where she insists on seeing the body of the killer. She stares down at his body on the rocks, and vows to be around when he comes back. Both DeSousa and Brenda tell her that the only place he's going is the morgue, but then they see that his body has vanished. THE END...? I hope so.
Bad, bad, bad. I take back what I said earlier about the amount of kills being impressive, because I don't want this movie getting even faint praise. A pox on you, movie! A pox on you and any sequels you spawn! 1 out of 5 killer trees, just for being at least mildly coherent...but even that feels generous. Man, 2014's gonna blow.
And what *shuddering* did I learn after watching Dead Above Ground?
-When TV Producer/Director Stephen J. Cannell is the best actor in a movie, that movie's in serious trouble.
-Burn victims can wear multiple fake faces, get body parts ripped off, get impaled, and still survive.
-Sex can make you giggly.
My next DVD should be either Asylum of the Damned or Grizzly Park. Both sound like real classics. See ya on the flipside!
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Doll Graveyard
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, there was this production studio called Full Moon. Their movies were almost always cheesy, often terrible, but also quite fun. The vast majority of the movies tended to feature dolls and toys that were evil, such as the Puppet Master films, or Demonic Toys. Today's entry, Doll Graveyard is one of the newer efforts, having been released in 2005. Is it any good? Let's prepare to be SPOILED, and find out...
The opening scene takes place in 1911 in Los Angeles, where we see a young, lonely child named Sophia. She playing with a group of dolls that represent various ethnic stereotypes, including a savage named Ooga Booga, and an Asian warrior named Samurai. Nice. Piss off most of the audience with offensive crap right at the top of your movie.
So, cute little white supremacist Sophia is so preoccupied with pretending to commit genocide, that she fails to realize how close she is to other objects in the room. She bumps into an end table, sending a vase crashing to the floor. That gets Sophia pretty worked up. Relax...it's not like your dad's going to see the mess, force you to bury your dolls in a mass grave, then add you to the pile, because you have an accident that snaps your neck! What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?
Oh. Um...oops?
Yup, Daddy comes downstairs, and starts out by calling his daughter names, then threatening to whip her. As Sophia tearfully apologizes, he forces her to gather up the dolls, then follow him into the yard. They dig a deep grave, then Sophia says a special farewell to each doll. All while her father chews the scenery and berates her for having feelings.
As she starts to climb out of the ditch, her feet slip, and she falls into the hole, dying on impact. Dear ol' Dad quickly decides to cover up the grave, then go find someone else's life to ruin. Best part of this whole scene, is how he doesn't hesitate for even a second to bury her like that. I hope the screenwriter never had kids.
Ah well...after that nonsense and the opening credits that look like something you'd see on a silly late-night horror show, the main story kicks in. Now it's 2005, and the place is being occupied by a single dad and his two teens. The father's Lester, the older sibling is DeeDee, and our protagonist is Guy. After Guy irritates DeeDee, she asks for permission to go out with some friends. Lester(who looks an awful lot like Sophia's father...) needs her to babysit Guy, because Lester's got a date. Yay.
Aha! Lester IS a direct descendant, because he also has the pocket watch that Sophia's father carried. See? Me AM has brains! And gud speler, tu! The scene ends with Lester staring off into space, possibly trying to figure out a way to get both of his kids to dig a pair of ditches in the yard, then throw themselves in.
The next scene has this distracting song that sounds like the intro to Sympathy For The Devil...but it isn't. Mick Jagger should sue. Guy leaves the house, walks about 40 miles, then finds a pile of tree branches blocking his path. We get to have the honor of watching him move the branches and do yard work.
While raking, he stumbles upon a bunch of items that once belonged to Cyril, Sophie's father. He puts aside a liquor bottle and a letter opener, then he uncovers the DOLL GRAVEYARD!!!!!!!! Which really should have been named Doll Hole, seeing as there's only a single grave, but whatever. Maybe there was already a porno with that title.
Using a paintbrush with fine bristles, Guy meticulously cleans up the various dolls when he gets them to his room. DeeDee bursts through the door, nearly having a bird when she spots the grotesque dolls. She tries to terrorize her brother with blackmail to get him to do all of the chores in the house, but he calmly blackmails her as well. Isn't it great when families show how much they love one another?
Lester seems mesmerized by his antique watch, until his daughter snaps him out of it. As soon as he leaves to go on his date, DeeDee whips out her phone, and gleefully tells her best friend to gather up some guys and head over to her house for an impromptu party. She figures that Guy will most likely just stay in his room, giving her and her friends a wide berth.
Guy finishes cleaning up Samurai, then puts the doll on a special shelf in his room. When Guy turns his back, we see Samurai blink, and his doll eyes become human eyes. Guy's not very observant, is he?
DeeDee answers the front door, and greets 2 friends, Terri and Olivia. They have food and drinks with them, but no guys. This could get kinky! *leans forward*
Guy walks into the kitchen, reminding DeeDee that their father never gave her permission to have friends over. When Olivia insults him, Guy asks her if she know what the difference is between her and the Eiffel Tower. The answer? Guy doesn't know any guys who've been on top of the Eiffel Tower. Heh, score one for the geek!
As they exit the kitchen, Terri lingers behind to speak to Guy for a moment. It turns out that she's a bit of a geek too, and she flirts with him, before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He promises her that he'll keep their visit a secret from Lester.
Back in DeeDee's room, the girls light candles and get drunk. Guy just sits on his bed, pawing through an old porn mag. Then he picks up Samurai again, telling the doll that he thinks Terri is hot. He hears a voice whispering out in the hallway, and decides to see who it might be.
It's Rich and Tom, a pair of jocks that DeeDee invited over for her little shindig. They assault Guy, carrying him into his room, where they threaten him with bodily harm, break some of his action figures, then tie him up. After they leave, Guy hears another voice whispering something, and he can see that the dolls are no longer on their shelf.
As a typical thunderstorm kicks in, Ooga Booga, a Nazi-looking soldier, and a deformed Baby Doll are all summoned forth by Samurai. Inside, the partying teens get drunk and stoned, although Terri abstains. She also doesn't feel very comfortable once the jocks enter the room. Olivia tries to hook up with Tom after Terri rejects him, but he makes a joke similar to Guy's earlier remark, so I guess she's going home alone tonight. Unless Rich wants her, but he's busy grabbing beer in the kitchen at the moment.
Guy hears the voice a little clearer, and it is Sophie. She promises that the dolls are there to "help" him, and he sees that they are now lined up and ready to begin their attack on the party. Anyone else think that this one is moving a bit fast? I mean, we barely know all of their names, so now they're going to die?
The party itself is in full swing, which means that it's boring as Hell. Olivia gets jealous after seeing DeeDee and Tom going at it, and she suggests a possible 3-way with Rich and Terri. Terri wants no part of that action! Then DeeDee and Tom get up, prepared to get more intimate in a private setting.
Rich scares Terri in the kitchen, and quickly apologizes. He offers to help her clean up the kitchen. Hey, maybe he's actually a nicer guy than his buddy. But I doubt it...
Olivia changes the music that's on, then light a joint. Meanwhile, DeeDee and Tom are getting ready to screw like bunnies, but not before DeeDee cuffs his hands behind his back. She steps over to her closet, then orders him to close his eyes.
True to his word, Rich helps Terri to clean up the kitchen. Then he ruins the image by moving in for a kiss. She pushes him away, then exits the kitchen.
DeeDee promises Tom a surprise, then the kaiser doll pops up on the bed. It engages Tom in a staring contest for a few seconds, then uses the sharp point on its helmet to destroy his crotch. DeeDee knocks the doll off of the bed, then sees that Tom is drenched in blood.
Then we head back to Olivia. Um, okay. We were right in the MIDDLE of a scene, but let's jump around at random. That makes sense. So, screw DeeDee...what's up, Olivia?
Turns out that the answer is "not much". She's dancing to the music by herself. Oh, and one of the dolls sneaks in to have a peek. But we don't even get to see which one it is. Lame...
DeeDee watches Tom die from blood loss, then backs away from the bed. Still not content to let a scene finish at a logical place, the movie shows us Rich getting drunk by himself. Olivia struts into the room, sitting on his lap. Gee, I wonder what message she's trying to convey with her subtle signals?
Removing her shirt, Olivia asks Rich why he's not with Terri. When he reveals that she rejected him, Olivia rejects him as well, then leaves him drunk and confused. I get the impression that many, many things leave this guy in a constant state of confusion.
Olivia puts her shirt back on, then shuts off the music. Shouting for her friends, she gets worried when no one responds. Then she just meanders back to the hallway. This movie has all the energy of a coma victim.
DeeDee sees the kaiser doll watching her, so she screams for assistance. Olivia rushes in, sees Tom's body, then spots the killer doll. The tiny Nazi raises a teeny-weeny gun and tries to shoot at the girls, who flee out of the room.
They hurry downstairs, where Olivia grabs her purse. While she looks through it for her phone, DeeDee discovers Rich passed out on the kitchen table. She manages to revive him, then she goes off in search of Guy and Terri.
Terri finds Guy, who has been in and out of consciousness, and she gets him untied in a jiffy.Guy finds out that she wasn't enjoying her time with the others, but she seems kind of interested in him. Like, "To Catch A Predator"-level of interest. Weird, man.
When Terri sees what Rich did to the collectible action figure, Guy suddenly notices that Samurai is missing. He tells her how he found it in the yard, then he blacks out again as Sophia whispers in his head. Terri eventually snaps him out of it, but they're both frightened by the incident.
DeeDee and Olivia tear apart the living room looking for the cell phone, then it starts to ring. They locate it across the room in a chair...being held by the Baby doll. Baby turns to stare at them, then bites Olivia on the hand as she reaches over to take her phone back.
DeeDee screams at the caller to come rescue them, and Terri hears all of the commotion from Guy's room. When she suggests that they go see what happened, she finds Guy in a trance again, speaking as Sophia. Terri shakes him out of it again, then she nearly gets ambushed by Samurai. Guy picks him up to examine the doll closer, and he and Terri both conclude that the dolls must be alive, possessed by some kind of evil entity that can speak to Guy as well. The doll keeps his opinion to himself.
Rich, determined to be useless, is still drinking. He briefly considers screwing a melon with a hole in it, but changes his mind. Thank God. He bends down to pick of some litter, then comes face-to-face with Ooga Booga when he sits up again. When he leans closer to talk to the native doll and offer it a beer and some snacks, Ooga Booga plucks out one of his eyes with the tiny spear it wields. then it slashes his throat and watches him die.
Olivia and DeeDee are afraid to leave the room, fearing that it will open them up to another doll attack. DeeDee then finds Rich, and Olivia gets injured in another quick skirmish. Believe it or not, but the running time for this one is less than 90 minutes. How did they manage to make it feel endless?
As Guy and Terri try to leave his room, Guy falls down against the stairs. As Sophia, he tells Terri that the dolls are seeking vengeance for her demise. Then Samurai slashes at Terri's ankle, until Guy snaps out of his possession and orders the doll to stop.
As DeeDee and Olivia decide to call 911, Nazi doll reappears. He fires his gun at them, and they duck behind a sofa, screaming like ninnies. DeeDee waits for him to pause between shots, then knocks him over with a pillow. As they try to back away, Terri and Guy run into the room. They briefly discuss what's happened so far, and start to make a run for the door.
Olivia insists that she needs her purse, and runs back to retrieve it. She reaches for her phone on the floor, and the Baby removes another chunk out of her face with those crazy teeth. Luckily, DeeDee comes to the rescue, but now they're trapped by Baby.
DeeDee prepares herself to attack the doll, but Guy, possessed again by Sophia, stops her. After a brief struggle, they realize that Ooga Booga has entered the room as well. Terri asks Guy to call off the dolls, but Sophia's in control of him now, and she sees the teens as a threat to her precious toys.
After Guy stomps away, the Nazi doll also suddenly pops up. Surrounded by all of the killer dolls, the girls realize that they might never leave. Terri gets away to check on Guy, who collapses again. Then Lester returns from his date.
Except that he's no longer Lester. He's now also possessed by Cyril, and they have a bitter reunion right then and there. As Lester/Cyril threatens to whip Guy/Sophia to death, Samurai stabs Dad in the ankle. A second hit makes him fall to the floor, and the killer dolls all move in to kill Lester/Cyril.
Terri tries to appeal to Guy for mercy, but Sophia won't let him go yet. When Lester manages to fight his own possession though, it causes Sophia to momentarily lose her focus. Guy orders the dolls to cease their attack, and he and the others re-bury them in the yard. As Guy backs away from the grave, a flash of lightning reveals that he has now become Sophia entirely. THE END...?
Ugh. I can remember back when these Full Moon movies were fun and creative, but this was horrible. I swear, this guy just recycles the same concepts and designs over and over again, and honestly thinks that the audience won't notice. And 80 minutes? Really? I sit through this crappy movie, and it's barely even a movie at all! 1 out of 5 killer trees. And here comes the hard part...
And what did I learn from Doll Graveyard?
-Possession can run in the family.
-Kids love racist toys!
-Nice girls like to rob the cradle.
My next SAW entry should be either Dark Floors or Pinata: Survival Island. We'll see what comes in first. As long as neither one features killer dolls, I think we're good. Yeesh.
The opening scene takes place in 1911 in Los Angeles, where we see a young, lonely child named Sophia. She playing with a group of dolls that represent various ethnic stereotypes, including a savage named Ooga Booga, and an Asian warrior named Samurai. Nice. Piss off most of the audience with offensive crap right at the top of your movie.
So, cute little white supremacist Sophia is so preoccupied with pretending to commit genocide, that she fails to realize how close she is to other objects in the room. She bumps into an end table, sending a vase crashing to the floor. That gets Sophia pretty worked up. Relax...it's not like your dad's going to see the mess, force you to bury your dolls in a mass grave, then add you to the pile, because you have an accident that snaps your neck! What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?
Oh. Um...oops?
Yup, Daddy comes downstairs, and starts out by calling his daughter names, then threatening to whip her. As Sophia tearfully apologizes, he forces her to gather up the dolls, then follow him into the yard. They dig a deep grave, then Sophia says a special farewell to each doll. All while her father chews the scenery and berates her for having feelings.
As she starts to climb out of the ditch, her feet slip, and she falls into the hole, dying on impact. Dear ol' Dad quickly decides to cover up the grave, then go find someone else's life to ruin. Best part of this whole scene, is how he doesn't hesitate for even a second to bury her like that. I hope the screenwriter never had kids.
Ah well...after that nonsense and the opening credits that look like something you'd see on a silly late-night horror show, the main story kicks in. Now it's 2005, and the place is being occupied by a single dad and his two teens. The father's Lester, the older sibling is DeeDee, and our protagonist is Guy. After Guy irritates DeeDee, she asks for permission to go out with some friends. Lester(who looks an awful lot like Sophia's father...) needs her to babysit Guy, because Lester's got a date. Yay.
Aha! Lester IS a direct descendant, because he also has the pocket watch that Sophia's father carried. See? Me AM has brains! And gud speler, tu! The scene ends with Lester staring off into space, possibly trying to figure out a way to get both of his kids to dig a pair of ditches in the yard, then throw themselves in.
The next scene has this distracting song that sounds like the intro to Sympathy For The Devil...but it isn't. Mick Jagger should sue. Guy leaves the house, walks about 40 miles, then finds a pile of tree branches blocking his path. We get to have the honor of watching him move the branches and do yard work.
While raking, he stumbles upon a bunch of items that once belonged to Cyril, Sophie's father. He puts aside a liquor bottle and a letter opener, then he uncovers the DOLL GRAVEYARD!!!!!!!! Which really should have been named Doll Hole, seeing as there's only a single grave, but whatever. Maybe there was already a porno with that title.
Using a paintbrush with fine bristles, Guy meticulously cleans up the various dolls when he gets them to his room. DeeDee bursts through the door, nearly having a bird when she spots the grotesque dolls. She tries to terrorize her brother with blackmail to get him to do all of the chores in the house, but he calmly blackmails her as well. Isn't it great when families show how much they love one another?
Lester seems mesmerized by his antique watch, until his daughter snaps him out of it. As soon as he leaves to go on his date, DeeDee whips out her phone, and gleefully tells her best friend to gather up some guys and head over to her house for an impromptu party. She figures that Guy will most likely just stay in his room, giving her and her friends a wide berth.
Guy finishes cleaning up Samurai, then puts the doll on a special shelf in his room. When Guy turns his back, we see Samurai blink, and his doll eyes become human eyes. Guy's not very observant, is he?
DeeDee answers the front door, and greets 2 friends, Terri and Olivia. They have food and drinks with them, but no guys. This could get kinky! *leans forward*
Guy walks into the kitchen, reminding DeeDee that their father never gave her permission to have friends over. When Olivia insults him, Guy asks her if she know what the difference is between her and the Eiffel Tower. The answer? Guy doesn't know any guys who've been on top of the Eiffel Tower. Heh, score one for the geek!
As they exit the kitchen, Terri lingers behind to speak to Guy for a moment. It turns out that she's a bit of a geek too, and she flirts with him, before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He promises her that he'll keep their visit a secret from Lester.
Back in DeeDee's room, the girls light candles and get drunk. Guy just sits on his bed, pawing through an old porn mag. Then he picks up Samurai again, telling the doll that he thinks Terri is hot. He hears a voice whispering out in the hallway, and decides to see who it might be.
It's Rich and Tom, a pair of jocks that DeeDee invited over for her little shindig. They assault Guy, carrying him into his room, where they threaten him with bodily harm, break some of his action figures, then tie him up. After they leave, Guy hears another voice whispering something, and he can see that the dolls are no longer on their shelf.
As a typical thunderstorm kicks in, Ooga Booga, a Nazi-looking soldier, and a deformed Baby Doll are all summoned forth by Samurai. Inside, the partying teens get drunk and stoned, although Terri abstains. She also doesn't feel very comfortable once the jocks enter the room. Olivia tries to hook up with Tom after Terri rejects him, but he makes a joke similar to Guy's earlier remark, so I guess she's going home alone tonight. Unless Rich wants her, but he's busy grabbing beer in the kitchen at the moment.
Guy hears the voice a little clearer, and it is Sophie. She promises that the dolls are there to "help" him, and he sees that they are now lined up and ready to begin their attack on the party. Anyone else think that this one is moving a bit fast? I mean, we barely know all of their names, so now they're going to die?
The party itself is in full swing, which means that it's boring as Hell. Olivia gets jealous after seeing DeeDee and Tom going at it, and she suggests a possible 3-way with Rich and Terri. Terri wants no part of that action! Then DeeDee and Tom get up, prepared to get more intimate in a private setting.
Rich scares Terri in the kitchen, and quickly apologizes. He offers to help her clean up the kitchen. Hey, maybe he's actually a nicer guy than his buddy. But I doubt it...
Olivia changes the music that's on, then light a joint. Meanwhile, DeeDee and Tom are getting ready to screw like bunnies, but not before DeeDee cuffs his hands behind his back. She steps over to her closet, then orders him to close his eyes.
True to his word, Rich helps Terri to clean up the kitchen. Then he ruins the image by moving in for a kiss. She pushes him away, then exits the kitchen.
DeeDee promises Tom a surprise, then the kaiser doll pops up on the bed. It engages Tom in a staring contest for a few seconds, then uses the sharp point on its helmet to destroy his crotch. DeeDee knocks the doll off of the bed, then sees that Tom is drenched in blood.
Then we head back to Olivia. Um, okay. We were right in the MIDDLE of a scene, but let's jump around at random. That makes sense. So, screw DeeDee...what's up, Olivia?
Turns out that the answer is "not much". She's dancing to the music by herself. Oh, and one of the dolls sneaks in to have a peek. But we don't even get to see which one it is. Lame...
DeeDee watches Tom die from blood loss, then backs away from the bed. Still not content to let a scene finish at a logical place, the movie shows us Rich getting drunk by himself. Olivia struts into the room, sitting on his lap. Gee, I wonder what message she's trying to convey with her subtle signals?
Removing her shirt, Olivia asks Rich why he's not with Terri. When he reveals that she rejected him, Olivia rejects him as well, then leaves him drunk and confused. I get the impression that many, many things leave this guy in a constant state of confusion.
Olivia puts her shirt back on, then shuts off the music. Shouting for her friends, she gets worried when no one responds. Then she just meanders back to the hallway. This movie has all the energy of a coma victim.
DeeDee sees the kaiser doll watching her, so she screams for assistance. Olivia rushes in, sees Tom's body, then spots the killer doll. The tiny Nazi raises a teeny-weeny gun and tries to shoot at the girls, who flee out of the room.
They hurry downstairs, where Olivia grabs her purse. While she looks through it for her phone, DeeDee discovers Rich passed out on the kitchen table. She manages to revive him, then she goes off in search of Guy and Terri.
Terri finds Guy, who has been in and out of consciousness, and she gets him untied in a jiffy.Guy finds out that she wasn't enjoying her time with the others, but she seems kind of interested in him. Like, "To Catch A Predator"-level of interest. Weird, man.
When Terri sees what Rich did to the collectible action figure, Guy suddenly notices that Samurai is missing. He tells her how he found it in the yard, then he blacks out again as Sophia whispers in his head. Terri eventually snaps him out of it, but they're both frightened by the incident.
DeeDee and Olivia tear apart the living room looking for the cell phone, then it starts to ring. They locate it across the room in a chair...being held by the Baby doll. Baby turns to stare at them, then bites Olivia on the hand as she reaches over to take her phone back.
DeeDee screams at the caller to come rescue them, and Terri hears all of the commotion from Guy's room. When she suggests that they go see what happened, she finds Guy in a trance again, speaking as Sophia. Terri shakes him out of it again, then she nearly gets ambushed by Samurai. Guy picks him up to examine the doll closer, and he and Terri both conclude that the dolls must be alive, possessed by some kind of evil entity that can speak to Guy as well. The doll keeps his opinion to himself.
Rich, determined to be useless, is still drinking. He briefly considers screwing a melon with a hole in it, but changes his mind. Thank God. He bends down to pick of some litter, then comes face-to-face with Ooga Booga when he sits up again. When he leans closer to talk to the native doll and offer it a beer and some snacks, Ooga Booga plucks out one of his eyes with the tiny spear it wields. then it slashes his throat and watches him die.
Olivia and DeeDee are afraid to leave the room, fearing that it will open them up to another doll attack. DeeDee then finds Rich, and Olivia gets injured in another quick skirmish. Believe it or not, but the running time for this one is less than 90 minutes. How did they manage to make it feel endless?
As Guy and Terri try to leave his room, Guy falls down against the stairs. As Sophia, he tells Terri that the dolls are seeking vengeance for her demise. Then Samurai slashes at Terri's ankle, until Guy snaps out of his possession and orders the doll to stop.
As DeeDee and Olivia decide to call 911, Nazi doll reappears. He fires his gun at them, and they duck behind a sofa, screaming like ninnies. DeeDee waits for him to pause between shots, then knocks him over with a pillow. As they try to back away, Terri and Guy run into the room. They briefly discuss what's happened so far, and start to make a run for the door.
Olivia insists that she needs her purse, and runs back to retrieve it. She reaches for her phone on the floor, and the Baby removes another chunk out of her face with those crazy teeth. Luckily, DeeDee comes to the rescue, but now they're trapped by Baby.
DeeDee prepares herself to attack the doll, but Guy, possessed again by Sophia, stops her. After a brief struggle, they realize that Ooga Booga has entered the room as well. Terri asks Guy to call off the dolls, but Sophia's in control of him now, and she sees the teens as a threat to her precious toys.
After Guy stomps away, the Nazi doll also suddenly pops up. Surrounded by all of the killer dolls, the girls realize that they might never leave. Terri gets away to check on Guy, who collapses again. Then Lester returns from his date.
Except that he's no longer Lester. He's now also possessed by Cyril, and they have a bitter reunion right then and there. As Lester/Cyril threatens to whip Guy/Sophia to death, Samurai stabs Dad in the ankle. A second hit makes him fall to the floor, and the killer dolls all move in to kill Lester/Cyril.
Terri tries to appeal to Guy for mercy, but Sophia won't let him go yet. When Lester manages to fight his own possession though, it causes Sophia to momentarily lose her focus. Guy orders the dolls to cease their attack, and he and the others re-bury them in the yard. As Guy backs away from the grave, a flash of lightning reveals that he has now become Sophia entirely. THE END...?
Ugh. I can remember back when these Full Moon movies were fun and creative, but this was horrible. I swear, this guy just recycles the same concepts and designs over and over again, and honestly thinks that the audience won't notice. And 80 minutes? Really? I sit through this crappy movie, and it's barely even a movie at all! 1 out of 5 killer trees. And here comes the hard part...
And what did I learn from Doll Graveyard?
-Possession can run in the family.
-Kids love racist toys!
-Nice girls like to rob the cradle.
My next SAW entry should be either Dark Floors or Pinata: Survival Island. We'll see what comes in first. As long as neither one features killer dolls, I think we're good. Yeesh.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Jack the Reaper
Man, I must have the world's worst karma....I had a billing issue with Netflix, almost ended up canceling the account, couldn't find a good(bad?) slasher on ComCast, tried YouTube for a few hours...and I'm back at Netflix. Crazy, right?
Anyway, I was hoping to watch a free movie on cable, but the one I wanted cost 4 bucks. On a channel I already subscribe to! Luckily, after I re-jiggered Netflix a bit, the very same film turned out to be available as a streaming movie, so I win either way. Which is my circuitous way of saying that today's SAW is Jack the Reaper. Yup, it's "Reaper", as opposed to "Ripper". I can already tell it's going to suck like a straw....it's taken me more effort to set it up than it probably took to MAKE the damned film. Fun, not-exasperated-at-all SPOILERS up ahead!
Yeesh, the opening credits for the production logo are already making me regret this choice. It's "A MAD CRAPPER PRODUCTION", complete with a crudely drawn jogger taking, yes, a crap. Seriously, why do I torture myself like this? Why couldn't I have been a raving fan of 4-star period dramas, or intricate political thrillers? Mad Crapper. They're gonna put that on my tombstone.
Anyway, 3 paragraphs in, and I haven't made it past the first production credit. A woman begins a speech, explaining that she and others like her are "harvesters", and that they control time and fate over humanity. Then she tells us that her name is Violet, and that the other harvesters call her "the great mother". Sure, whatever, just do something interesting!
Now we see a car accident. A guy climbs out of the car(which is tipped sideways), crawls away, and starts to shout over to his passenger, named Emma. A man steps into view, and the sailor asks him to see if his wife is okay. The anonymous stranger flips the wife's body over with a large pickaxe, pulls her upright by her hair, then drags the corpse away. The sailor, dumbfounded, screams at him. Then the stranger returns, flips the sailor over onto his back, and stabs him with the weapon.
Then we see a title card, and a caption telling us that we're in the "present day" of the film. We're probably seeing a world in which a Mad Crapper makes logical sense. A bus for Charon High School nearly hits the camera. Ooooh, Charon...that movie is so deep and meaningful with the symbolism.
A guy with a clipboard approaches The Bus of The Living Damned, then we meet our pile of future dead bodies. There's Sommer, a ditzy, boy-crazy girl who's hung up on a jock named Steven; Maya, her hearing-impaired cousin; Steven, the aforementioned jock with the usual smug attitude; Harold, a chubby outsider with a domineering grandmother; an albino slacker named Brian; Andre, Steven's best friend; Jesse, a sullen girl with a creepy father; Trudy, an Asian girl who'd rather lounge in bed all day; Tyler, a scruffy-looking punk with a sense of humor; and Shawn, Steven's supposed-to-be-a-twin brother(who just found out that his girlfriend's pregnant...). That's quite a hefty cast, and there's still the bus driver and Mr. Smith, the teacher.
The journey finally begins! Mr. Smith begins by telling us that the reason they're all together is due to a class assignment that none of them turned in, something about the industrial revolution. As punishment, they have to waste a Saturday morning by visiting a railway museum, then writing a report about the experience.
Steven starts out on the wrong foot almost immediately, by coming on strong to Maya. Maya clearly insults his, um, "size", but Sommer leaves that part out when doing the translation. Still, Steven seems pretty thick, to not get that by watching what she was doing with her hands. I don't speak sign language, but it was incredibly obvious to me!
Shawn pulls a guitar out, and starts to just strum it at random. Then he spots a crudely made sign by the road that says DEATH'S DOOR. Wow, more symbolism. Groovy. And way subtle. Steven tries to ask his brother what's wrong, but he doesn't get much of a response.
At a railroad crossing(ooooooh!!!!), Jesse spots the guy with the pickaxe. Further up the road, she sees him again. Tyler also peers out the window, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. Jesse takes another look, but the killer has vanished.
The bus arrives at the museum, then Violet the Harvester decides to start yammering again. She confesses that she and her kind crave human souls, and what's a better place to eat someone's soul than a railway museum? Violet the Harvester explains that she is able to find the right souls with the help of an Ambassador, a human host who can identify the victims for her. Then I assume she kills her victims with deadly boring narration...
...and that's when Candyman shows up. Yeah, Tony Todd arrives on the scene, playing a museum curator named Mr. Steele. He grabs Harold by the head, then begins by telling the kids as many death-related railroad facts as he can recall. So really, he's just Bludworth from the Final Destination films, except in a train museum. Heck, why didn't they just call this Final Destination: The Little Engine That Killed? (Okay, seriously, somebody write that one down.)
Steele makes a threat that the class might not get home in one piece, then Tony Todd leaves the movie to go class up another movie with his presence. It's as if you can hear the film deflating as he exits. Then we see Shawn staring at a creepy guy in an old photograph portraying various railroad workers. A little girl points at the man, telling Shawn that she saw him standing by the road, just like Jesse reported earlier.
Steele spooks Shawn, then informs him that the guy in the picture is named Railroad Jack. Wait, didn't he leave? Seeing Railroad Jack is a bad omen, and Jack has somehow appeared to various people over the decades. Before Shawn gets away, Steele tries to warn him that there are some places where Jack can't go, but he doesn't elaborate in any sort of, you know, USEFUL way.
The students return to the bus(Oh, come ON! There's a guy who haunts railroads, you're at a railroad museum, but no one is getting killed there??? WTF?), and get ready to head back to the school, I guess. Steele, talking to himself, says that Jack will see them very soon.
As the sun sets, everyone on the bus looks like they're falling asleep. When are they supposed to write this mythical essay? And how are a gazillion kids going to write different essays, based on a scene that took less than 5 minutes to play out? How much weed was the writer smoking when he threw this together? And the most important question of all: Why, oh WHY are they all still alive at this point?
Jesse glances outside, and sees Railroad Jack yet again, still in the same pose. Maybe someone is just putting Railroad Jack statues out by the highway to mess with her head. Actually, that would be pretty hilarious. As Jesse tells Mr. Smith about the spooky figure, the killer shows up in the middle of the road. The bus swerves, crashes, then the screen turns red.
Some time later, Violet can be heard, asking the teens to come out and play. The kids all gradually wake up, and the bus is a mess, with seat cushions and various debris everywhere. No adults, but lost and lots of wrecked stuff. While the others start to fight amongst themselves and recover, Andre makes it a point to take a head-count and make sure that no one has been seriously hurt. That's also when they realize that the adults are missing.
Harold makes matters worse, by suggesting that the bus could explode. Andre orders him to calm down, so Harold starts to cry like a baby. I was going to say "blubber like a baby", but that's like shooting fish in a barrel. Great, now Harold's comparing their situation to The Hills Have Eyes. Ha, he wishes!
Then we see the bus from outside, as Railroad Jack surveys the situation. When they see him, do you think they'll say "Hi, Jack"? I hope so. Friendliness makes all the difference.
There seems to be some disagreement over whether or not they should exit the bus. Andre spots a brightly-lit carnival in the distance, and most of the others agree that it sounds like a good place to ask for assistance. Jesse begs them to stay, but only Shawn and Brian remain with her. Railroad Jack watches the larger group jump off the bus, and move in his general direction.
Shawn tells Jesse and Brian that they should join the others. Why? Because he intends to leave as well, but head down the road to watch for any other motorists. Where the heck is the killer, and why is he waiting so long? Hell, I'll kill some of these folks right now! Just ask me.
Everyone in the larger group is excited about the carnival, except for Trudy. She's whining because she wore flimsy sandals, and now she can't keep up. Making it even worse, she can sense Railroad Jack somewhere in the dark, and now she's scared that the others will abandon her.
The presence isn't the killer, it's Shawn. Wait, so he ditched the others to go have fun? What a douchebag. Hey, remember when Tony Todd was in the movie? Man, that was really terrific. I miss him.
Anyway, Trudy gets Andre to carry her the rest of the way. Then Harold gets winded, but no one offers to carry him to the carnival. Which looks deserted, by the way, as none of the rides are actually running. Gosh, it's almost like a....carnival of....SOULS! Symbol-freaking-ism!!!
The ticket window is being manned by a mannequin, so the teens just figure they get in for free. The carnival itself is also deserted. While the lights are all on, the rides themselves are as still as statues. No customers, no carnies, no one at all.
Trudy, Sommer and Maya approach a fancy carousel. While Trudy and Sommer sit down on the ride, Maya looks at the control panel, then turns the thing on. They all seem to be having a blast, even Maya, who's just watching.
The guys are trying out one of the carnival games, the strength-tester. You know, where you hit a platform with a hammer, and try to ring the bell at the top of the scale? Shawn reminds them that they need to find help, so they all move further into the carnival to resume the search. Well, minus Harold, who lingers behind to stare at the scale.
Back at the bus, both Jesse and Brian are wavering between bored and worried. The others have been gone for about an hour, though it's hard to say for sure, because Brian's watch has stopped. Sym. Bo. Lism. Jesse still thinks that the creepy guy in the road is lurking outside, so Brian suggests a search for weapons or supplies.
The quick search around the bus turns up an extra flashlight, and a road flare. Brian takes the flare, tells Jesse to honk the horn if she has any trouble, then he also heads to the carnival. Jesse watches him walk away, then she closes the bus door for protection. Oh, and we're now roughly at the mid-point of the movie, and STILL, nothing has happened. I've had more excitement during my last colonoscopy. Jack the Reaper might be the cure for severe cases of insomnia.
Maya, while watching the carousel, suddenly realizes that Trudy has disappeared, leaving only her coat behind. Maya turns the ride off, and explains to her cousin that Trudy is now gone. As they discuss whether or not to look for her, the guys arrive on the scene. My money's on "Trudy left the movie to be in a better movie", but I'm probably wrong.
Maya and Sommer argue about what to do next, and Sommer eventually convinces her cousin to go with her to rejoin the group. Then Harold gets the Tilt-A-Whirl ride up and running, momentarily becoming one of the popular kids. Good for him, NOW can we kill someone?
Shawn suddenly begs Harold to stop the ride, because he senses that something just ain't right. Then Brian wanders closer to the carnival, and the killer keeps tabs on the various characters, regardless of their various locations. As he watches the group standing in front of the ride, we see Brian arrive safely at the entrance to the carnival, where he extinguishes the flare. Yes, it's always a terrific idea to waste something that could save your life in an emergency.
The larger group run to a Whack-A-Mole game next, then one of those games where you throw a basketball up a ramp, and there's a net under the inclined section. Yeah, that game. Then some sort of racing game. Steven grabs a toy prize from the game, then gives it to Sommer.
Sommer, Steven, Andre and Harold go to the bumper cars next, and Sommer asks Steven if they can share a car. ^wink wink^ Steven calls her a bitch, then informs her that he only gave her the stuffed animal to be nice, but that he doesn't want to take it any further than that. Sommer stomps away in a huff, and Harold follows her.
In an attempt to woo Sommer, Harold offers to start up another ride, just for her to use, one of those monster-themed tunnel rides. Brian arrives just in time to see them ride into the tunnel together. There's a brief shot of Jesse staring sullenly at the carnival from a window on the bus, then we see Brian decide that he wants to ride the tunnel amusement as well.
He changes his mind, choosing to wait for the couple at the door. Unfortunately, the ride stops on the tracks, stranding them. Sommer suggests walking out, but Harold advises against it, worried that they might get electrocuted if it suddenly came back on while they were standing on the tracks.
Then Harold gets bold, putting his arm around Sommer. As he attempts to move in for a kiss, Sommer says "Ew,", and firmly rejects him. When he tries again, she tells him point-blank that she has no attraction to him whatsoever. Harold accuses her of being a slut, then he leaves her sitting there to find the exit himself.
Maya wanders around aimlessly, then returns to the carousel, getting a little disoriented in the process. Nothing cures dizziness better than more dizziness, so she tries to turn the carousel back on, then hops aboard. Something spooks her, and she stares up in awe at the massive ferris wheel. Yikes!
Oh okay, now I know why Maya was getting freaked out by the height of the structure: Tyler's up at the very tip-top of either the funhouse or the ferris wheel, and he's standing up to take a piss over the side of some kind of balcony. These characters are all incredibly smart aren't they? And yet, we're nearly at the one-hour mark, and they're all still alive and well. I guess maybe it's the killer who's the dumbass.
Harold is still waddling through the tunnel, cursing out the other teens, and carefully watching where he puts his feet. A bunch of fake cobwebs(What exactly is a cob, by the way? And why is it always covered in webs?) make him jumpy, and he gets somewhat confused about where he was heading. He nervously turns in various directions, then chooses one, and resumes walking. When he stops to brush at more webs in his face and hair, Jack the Reaper plants his weapon into Harold's back, and lifts him up toward the ceiling. FINALLY!
Then the ferris wheel begins to spin, even though none of the teens turned it on. While they're shouting and waving at Tyler from the ground, he's stumbling around, just trying not to plummet to his death. As the teens try frantically to turn the ride off, we get some really crappy film editing: Tyler can be seen falling toward some sharp-looking branches, yet he lands on a bare piece of pavement, with nary a tree or bush in sight. Man, it's like this movie was thrown together by some sort of a...a... mad crapper! Just imagine.
Anyway, they surround poor Tyler, and turn him over onto his back. Steven angrily decides that what happened was Brian's fault, even though Shawn points out that he wasn't near the control panel when the ride turned itself back on. Then Andre says that he saw Brian when they were all at the bumper cars. Yeah, that's really helpful.
Tyler suddenly has a spasm, coughing up a small amount of blood. They tell him to try to hang on while they get help, then Shawn and Steven argue over who will stay with him, and who will run for help. Andre gets fed up with the sibling rivalry, telling them both to go, while he watches over Tyler.
There's a brief segue back to the funhouse, where Brian wanders randomly into the chamber where Sommer has been waiting. A weapon is raised, then one of them is killed. But which one?
As Andre tries to keep Tyler alive, a blurry figure sprints past them. Andre sees the figure and decides to see who it was, but he promises to return to Tyler as soon as he can. As soon as he leaves, Jack approaches Tyler, finishing him off in seconds.
Back in the bus, Jesse jumps when she hears a sudden banging noise, coming from someplace just outside the vehicle. She sees someone moving around, and backs away from the windows. Then we see Brian bursting out of the tunnel ride at high speed. He tries to figure out what to do next, then sees Sommer's new stuffed animal ride by in the cart, covered in blood.
Before he can react, Steven jumps him. Shawn pulls his brother off of Brian, and it devolves into a shouting match, with everybody accusing everybody else of committing murder. Brian denies doing anything to Tyler, then relates to the twins the story about how Sommer was killed.
As the trio move to find the rest of the teens, Maya collides with poor Andre, who is now upset because he managed to lose track of Tyler. Maya tries to convey a message to him, but he has no idea what she's trying to say. Then Brian and the twins discover them, and we get more shouting and frantic explanations.
Brian shares his idea that the killer is somehow controlling the rides. Maya stares at him and backs away, then the others follow suit. Railroad Jack, looming directly behind the albino, lunges at him. Thrown to the ground by the impact, Brian loses his tinted sunglasses. He looks up at the killer, seeing that Railroad Jack has dark, empty eye sockets. As the others run away, Railroad Jack viciously stabs the teen several times.
Taking out the emergency flashlight, Jesse ventures out of the bus. Yeah, not too smart. She calls out to the darkness a few times, telling whoever is there to stop scaring her. After a few more nervous glances at the terrain, she wisely chooses to head back into the bus, slamming the emergency door shut again. So far, I'm rooting for her and Maya to live through this. They're the only really likable characters. (Well, yeah, Brian was a cool guy as well, but he's deader than disco at this point...)
Shawn grabs Maya's hand, and they retreat into a snack shack to hide from the killer. They hide, then watch as Steven and Andre scoot by to find refuge in a building covered in windows. Uhhh, something tells me that a WINDOW might not be the most effective hiding place when eluding a murdering psycho.
Anyway, Railroad Jack stops by, and quickly spots the pair of lunkheads. To their credit, both Andre and Steven do at least attempt to get through the glass maze, and Andre succeeds. Steven...eh, not so much. He more or less just stands there, and it's not too surprising when the others seem him get a blade through his head moments later.
Jesse, still crouched on the floor of the bus, has been crying. She jumps when she hears a thumping sound, followed by heavy breathing. Railroad Jack is literally over her head, walking along the roof. Then he leaps to the ground, hissing at her through the window. As he circles the vehicle and terrorizes her, Jesse tries to convince herself that it's all just a dream. Just as suddenly as the attack began, it stops.
Wait, how is Railroad Jack able to be at the bus AND the carnival at the same time?
Speaking of the carnival...Andre, Shawn and Maya are once again running away from the eyeless killer. They should try walking on their tiptoes. I mean, how hard can it be to hide from a guy with no eyes? Somehow, not only do they all manage to run around in a circle, but Andre also gets separated from the others.
Andre gets inside the snack stand, where he crouches down and tries to unlock the power of prayer. Maya lets Shawn drag her to a shooting gallery game, where they conceal themselves and grab one of the guns for protection. Jesse then has another run-in with Railroad Jack, and he leers at her through the window.
While hiding, Shawn confesses to Maya that he got his girlfriend pregnant. Being hunted has given him some perspective, and he makes a vow to be a good husband and father. If he lives, that is. He then admits that it's easier to say that sort of stuff to her, because she can't understand him. Maya lets him know, through pantomime, that she can, indeed, read lips. D'oh!
Andre then realizes that the killer knows where he is. They make eye(well, sort of...) contact, and Railroad Jack quickly corners the teen. Andre promises to hurt him, then promptly gets himself killed.
While huddled together in the shooting gallery, Shawn and Maya catch a glimpse of Railroad Jack wandering nearby. They swiftly duck back down, ans he seems to disappear when they dare to take another look. Shawn gets himself and Maya out of the booth, then turns back for the rifle. In that short amount of time, Railroad Jack teleports himself directly behind Maya.
He tries to get her, but Shawn intervenes, smacking him with the gun. As the maniac tries to turn his attention back to Maya, Shawn continues to bash him from behind. Then Railroad Jack tosses the boy aside, turns to Maya, and, grinning, says something to her in sign language.
Shawn tries to tell Maya to run toward something, but she doesn't get it. The momentary distraction allows the killer to surprise the deaf teen, and he drives his weapon through the side of her head, into her ear. Death by irony. And this movie's on my hit list, for killing the hottest girl in the story. Dagnabbit.
Shawn escapes, and comes to a halt in front of the carousel. He finds a very grim spectacle on display: The bodies of his friends, including the just-slaughtered Maya, have been propped up on the various carousel animals. He takes it all in, then realizes that the entrance is a few feet away. Finding a sudden rush of energy, he races to the ticket booth to escape.
He runs toward the bus, screaming for help. The killer is also running, and he appears to be catching up. Jesse sees them, and tells Shawn to run. She's very helpful. Shawn glances over his shoulder, then stops.
He sees a team of paramedics and rescue workers between him and the bus. Then there's a montage, replaying some of the death scenes, as well as Steele's cryptic hints about Railroad Jack. At the end of the flashback, Steele can be seen reading the obituaries of the various teens.
Okay, so I hate to keep harping on this one bit, but...WHY isn't this a movie in the Final Destination franchise? I mean, you have the large group dynamic, the car crash as the opening disaster, Tony Todd, the elaborately staged carnival-related deaths...Hell, just make the characters more interesting, tie in their deaths to the carnival itself, and you've got a ready-made sequel. Heck, they can even keep in the silly symbolic death hints to tease the audience a bit. It just seems like a wasted opportunity.
Anyway, let's see how it ends. There can't be much more to it, right? Okay, so Railroad Jack catches up to Shawn. He grabs him by the hair, then drags him, kicking and screaming, back toward the carnival.
Jesse gets upset, then slowly backs away from the rear window again. She hears a horse whinnying, and sees Railroad Jack ride up on a horse. Or maybe this is Horseback Jack, his brother, because his outfit is now a striped suit. Violet the Narrator starts talking again, and Jesse now realizes that there are several Jacks out there, probably waiting for her to give up.
Then we see a paramedic giving Shawn CPR. His partner advises him to stop, and they pronounce Shawn dead. Mr. Smith, the teacher, is being interviewed by an investigator, and he's busy blaming himself for the tragedy. As he wonders how he can possibly tell their loved ones what happened, another person announces that there was a survivor found in the bus: Jesse.
They extract her on a stretcher, assuring her that she's going to be fine. Violet disagrees, and the paramedics load the stretcher onto an ambulance. Jesse sits straight up, then screams. THE END
Well. That was fairly uneven. A good idea, some decent actors, but a horrible pace and a painfully obvious conclusion. And many obvious problems with the script, such as: Who the hell was Violet, and what was she doing as the narrator? Why did the actual mayhem have to take so long to be seen? And why was it so similar to Final Destination? 2.5 mad crapper killer trees out of 5.
And what did I learn from Jack the Reaper?
-Deaf girls are kinda hot.
-Carnivals are merely an excuse to lose your soul.
-Glass mazes are the worst hiding places ever.
Next up, one of those killer-toy movies from Charles Band. It's Doll Graveyard, which I'm not familiar with. Eh, maybe it'll surprise me by actually being decent. See you soon!
Anyway, I was hoping to watch a free movie on cable, but the one I wanted cost 4 bucks. On a channel I already subscribe to! Luckily, after I re-jiggered Netflix a bit, the very same film turned out to be available as a streaming movie, so I win either way. Which is my circuitous way of saying that today's SAW is Jack the Reaper. Yup, it's "Reaper", as opposed to "Ripper". I can already tell it's going to suck like a straw....it's taken me more effort to set it up than it probably took to MAKE the damned film. Fun, not-exasperated-at-all SPOILERS up ahead!
Yeesh, the opening credits for the production logo are already making me regret this choice. It's "A MAD CRAPPER PRODUCTION", complete with a crudely drawn jogger taking, yes, a crap. Seriously, why do I torture myself like this? Why couldn't I have been a raving fan of 4-star period dramas, or intricate political thrillers? Mad Crapper. They're gonna put that on my tombstone.
Anyway, 3 paragraphs in, and I haven't made it past the first production credit. A woman begins a speech, explaining that she and others like her are "harvesters", and that they control time and fate over humanity. Then she tells us that her name is Violet, and that the other harvesters call her "the great mother". Sure, whatever, just do something interesting!
Now we see a car accident. A guy climbs out of the car(which is tipped sideways), crawls away, and starts to shout over to his passenger, named Emma. A man steps into view, and the sailor asks him to see if his wife is okay. The anonymous stranger flips the wife's body over with a large pickaxe, pulls her upright by her hair, then drags the corpse away. The sailor, dumbfounded, screams at him. Then the stranger returns, flips the sailor over onto his back, and stabs him with the weapon.
Then we see a title card, and a caption telling us that we're in the "present day" of the film. We're probably seeing a world in which a Mad Crapper makes logical sense. A bus for Charon High School nearly hits the camera. Ooooh, Charon...that movie is so deep and meaningful with the symbolism.
A guy with a clipboard approaches The Bus of The Living Damned, then we meet our pile of future dead bodies. There's Sommer, a ditzy, boy-crazy girl who's hung up on a jock named Steven; Maya, her hearing-impaired cousin; Steven, the aforementioned jock with the usual smug attitude; Harold, a chubby outsider with a domineering grandmother; an albino slacker named Brian; Andre, Steven's best friend; Jesse, a sullen girl with a creepy father; Trudy, an Asian girl who'd rather lounge in bed all day; Tyler, a scruffy-looking punk with a sense of humor; and Shawn, Steven's supposed-to-be-a-twin brother(who just found out that his girlfriend's pregnant...). That's quite a hefty cast, and there's still the bus driver and Mr. Smith, the teacher.
The journey finally begins! Mr. Smith begins by telling us that the reason they're all together is due to a class assignment that none of them turned in, something about the industrial revolution. As punishment, they have to waste a Saturday morning by visiting a railway museum, then writing a report about the experience.
Steven starts out on the wrong foot almost immediately, by coming on strong to Maya. Maya clearly insults his, um, "size", but Sommer leaves that part out when doing the translation. Still, Steven seems pretty thick, to not get that by watching what she was doing with her hands. I don't speak sign language, but it was incredibly obvious to me!
Shawn pulls a guitar out, and starts to just strum it at random. Then he spots a crudely made sign by the road that says DEATH'S DOOR. Wow, more symbolism. Groovy. And way subtle. Steven tries to ask his brother what's wrong, but he doesn't get much of a response.
At a railroad crossing(ooooooh!!!!), Jesse spots the guy with the pickaxe. Further up the road, she sees him again. Tyler also peers out the window, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. Jesse takes another look, but the killer has vanished.
The bus arrives at the museum, then Violet the Harvester decides to start yammering again. She confesses that she and her kind crave human souls, and what's a better place to eat someone's soul than a railway museum? Violet the Harvester explains that she is able to find the right souls with the help of an Ambassador, a human host who can identify the victims for her. Then I assume she kills her victims with deadly boring narration...
...and that's when Candyman shows up. Yeah, Tony Todd arrives on the scene, playing a museum curator named Mr. Steele. He grabs Harold by the head, then begins by telling the kids as many death-related railroad facts as he can recall. So really, he's just Bludworth from the Final Destination films, except in a train museum. Heck, why didn't they just call this Final Destination: The Little Engine That Killed? (Okay, seriously, somebody write that one down.)
Steele makes a threat that the class might not get home in one piece, then Tony Todd leaves the movie to go class up another movie with his presence. It's as if you can hear the film deflating as he exits. Then we see Shawn staring at a creepy guy in an old photograph portraying various railroad workers. A little girl points at the man, telling Shawn that she saw him standing by the road, just like Jesse reported earlier.
Steele spooks Shawn, then informs him that the guy in the picture is named Railroad Jack. Wait, didn't he leave? Seeing Railroad Jack is a bad omen, and Jack has somehow appeared to various people over the decades. Before Shawn gets away, Steele tries to warn him that there are some places where Jack can't go, but he doesn't elaborate in any sort of, you know, USEFUL way.
The students return to the bus(Oh, come ON! There's a guy who haunts railroads, you're at a railroad museum, but no one is getting killed there??? WTF?), and get ready to head back to the school, I guess. Steele, talking to himself, says that Jack will see them very soon.
As the sun sets, everyone on the bus looks like they're falling asleep. When are they supposed to write this mythical essay? And how are a gazillion kids going to write different essays, based on a scene that took less than 5 minutes to play out? How much weed was the writer smoking when he threw this together? And the most important question of all: Why, oh WHY are they all still alive at this point?
Jesse glances outside, and sees Railroad Jack yet again, still in the same pose. Maybe someone is just putting Railroad Jack statues out by the highway to mess with her head. Actually, that would be pretty hilarious. As Jesse tells Mr. Smith about the spooky figure, the killer shows up in the middle of the road. The bus swerves, crashes, then the screen turns red.
Some time later, Violet can be heard, asking the teens to come out and play. The kids all gradually wake up, and the bus is a mess, with seat cushions and various debris everywhere. No adults, but lost and lots of wrecked stuff. While the others start to fight amongst themselves and recover, Andre makes it a point to take a head-count and make sure that no one has been seriously hurt. That's also when they realize that the adults are missing.
Harold makes matters worse, by suggesting that the bus could explode. Andre orders him to calm down, so Harold starts to cry like a baby. I was going to say "blubber like a baby", but that's like shooting fish in a barrel. Great, now Harold's comparing their situation to The Hills Have Eyes. Ha, he wishes!
Then we see the bus from outside, as Railroad Jack surveys the situation. When they see him, do you think they'll say "Hi, Jack"? I hope so. Friendliness makes all the difference.
There seems to be some disagreement over whether or not they should exit the bus. Andre spots a brightly-lit carnival in the distance, and most of the others agree that it sounds like a good place to ask for assistance. Jesse begs them to stay, but only Shawn and Brian remain with her. Railroad Jack watches the larger group jump off the bus, and move in his general direction.
Shawn tells Jesse and Brian that they should join the others. Why? Because he intends to leave as well, but head down the road to watch for any other motorists. Where the heck is the killer, and why is he waiting so long? Hell, I'll kill some of these folks right now! Just ask me.
Everyone in the larger group is excited about the carnival, except for Trudy. She's whining because she wore flimsy sandals, and now she can't keep up. Making it even worse, she can sense Railroad Jack somewhere in the dark, and now she's scared that the others will abandon her.
The presence isn't the killer, it's Shawn. Wait, so he ditched the others to go have fun? What a douchebag. Hey, remember when Tony Todd was in the movie? Man, that was really terrific. I miss him.
Anyway, Trudy gets Andre to carry her the rest of the way. Then Harold gets winded, but no one offers to carry him to the carnival. Which looks deserted, by the way, as none of the rides are actually running. Gosh, it's almost like a....carnival of....SOULS! Symbol-freaking-ism!!!
The ticket window is being manned by a mannequin, so the teens just figure they get in for free. The carnival itself is also deserted. While the lights are all on, the rides themselves are as still as statues. No customers, no carnies, no one at all.
Trudy, Sommer and Maya approach a fancy carousel. While Trudy and Sommer sit down on the ride, Maya looks at the control panel, then turns the thing on. They all seem to be having a blast, even Maya, who's just watching.
The guys are trying out one of the carnival games, the strength-tester. You know, where you hit a platform with a hammer, and try to ring the bell at the top of the scale? Shawn reminds them that they need to find help, so they all move further into the carnival to resume the search. Well, minus Harold, who lingers behind to stare at the scale.
Back at the bus, both Jesse and Brian are wavering between bored and worried. The others have been gone for about an hour, though it's hard to say for sure, because Brian's watch has stopped. Sym. Bo. Lism. Jesse still thinks that the creepy guy in the road is lurking outside, so Brian suggests a search for weapons or supplies.
The quick search around the bus turns up an extra flashlight, and a road flare. Brian takes the flare, tells Jesse to honk the horn if she has any trouble, then he also heads to the carnival. Jesse watches him walk away, then she closes the bus door for protection. Oh, and we're now roughly at the mid-point of the movie, and STILL, nothing has happened. I've had more excitement during my last colonoscopy. Jack the Reaper might be the cure for severe cases of insomnia.
Maya, while watching the carousel, suddenly realizes that Trudy has disappeared, leaving only her coat behind. Maya turns the ride off, and explains to her cousin that Trudy is now gone. As they discuss whether or not to look for her, the guys arrive on the scene. My money's on "Trudy left the movie to be in a better movie", but I'm probably wrong.
Maya and Sommer argue about what to do next, and Sommer eventually convinces her cousin to go with her to rejoin the group. Then Harold gets the Tilt-A-Whirl ride up and running, momentarily becoming one of the popular kids. Good for him, NOW can we kill someone?
Shawn suddenly begs Harold to stop the ride, because he senses that something just ain't right. Then Brian wanders closer to the carnival, and the killer keeps tabs on the various characters, regardless of their various locations. As he watches the group standing in front of the ride, we see Brian arrive safely at the entrance to the carnival, where he extinguishes the flare. Yes, it's always a terrific idea to waste something that could save your life in an emergency.
The larger group run to a Whack-A-Mole game next, then one of those games where you throw a basketball up a ramp, and there's a net under the inclined section. Yeah, that game. Then some sort of racing game. Steven grabs a toy prize from the game, then gives it to Sommer.
Sommer, Steven, Andre and Harold go to the bumper cars next, and Sommer asks Steven if they can share a car. ^wink wink^ Steven calls her a bitch, then informs her that he only gave her the stuffed animal to be nice, but that he doesn't want to take it any further than that. Sommer stomps away in a huff, and Harold follows her.
In an attempt to woo Sommer, Harold offers to start up another ride, just for her to use, one of those monster-themed tunnel rides. Brian arrives just in time to see them ride into the tunnel together. There's a brief shot of Jesse staring sullenly at the carnival from a window on the bus, then we see Brian decide that he wants to ride the tunnel amusement as well.
He changes his mind, choosing to wait for the couple at the door. Unfortunately, the ride stops on the tracks, stranding them. Sommer suggests walking out, but Harold advises against it, worried that they might get electrocuted if it suddenly came back on while they were standing on the tracks.
Then Harold gets bold, putting his arm around Sommer. As he attempts to move in for a kiss, Sommer says "Ew,", and firmly rejects him. When he tries again, she tells him point-blank that she has no attraction to him whatsoever. Harold accuses her of being a slut, then he leaves her sitting there to find the exit himself.
Maya wanders around aimlessly, then returns to the carousel, getting a little disoriented in the process. Nothing cures dizziness better than more dizziness, so she tries to turn the carousel back on, then hops aboard. Something spooks her, and she stares up in awe at the massive ferris wheel. Yikes!
Oh okay, now I know why Maya was getting freaked out by the height of the structure: Tyler's up at the very tip-top of either the funhouse or the ferris wheel, and he's standing up to take a piss over the side of some kind of balcony. These characters are all incredibly smart aren't they? And yet, we're nearly at the one-hour mark, and they're all still alive and well. I guess maybe it's the killer who's the dumbass.
Harold is still waddling through the tunnel, cursing out the other teens, and carefully watching where he puts his feet. A bunch of fake cobwebs(What exactly is a cob, by the way? And why is it always covered in webs?) make him jumpy, and he gets somewhat confused about where he was heading. He nervously turns in various directions, then chooses one, and resumes walking. When he stops to brush at more webs in his face and hair, Jack the Reaper plants his weapon into Harold's back, and lifts him up toward the ceiling. FINALLY!
Then the ferris wheel begins to spin, even though none of the teens turned it on. While they're shouting and waving at Tyler from the ground, he's stumbling around, just trying not to plummet to his death. As the teens try frantically to turn the ride off, we get some really crappy film editing: Tyler can be seen falling toward some sharp-looking branches, yet he lands on a bare piece of pavement, with nary a tree or bush in sight. Man, it's like this movie was thrown together by some sort of a...a... mad crapper! Just imagine.
Anyway, they surround poor Tyler, and turn him over onto his back. Steven angrily decides that what happened was Brian's fault, even though Shawn points out that he wasn't near the control panel when the ride turned itself back on. Then Andre says that he saw Brian when they were all at the bumper cars. Yeah, that's really helpful.
Tyler suddenly has a spasm, coughing up a small amount of blood. They tell him to try to hang on while they get help, then Shawn and Steven argue over who will stay with him, and who will run for help. Andre gets fed up with the sibling rivalry, telling them both to go, while he watches over Tyler.
There's a brief segue back to the funhouse, where Brian wanders randomly into the chamber where Sommer has been waiting. A weapon is raised, then one of them is killed. But which one?
As Andre tries to keep Tyler alive, a blurry figure sprints past them. Andre sees the figure and decides to see who it was, but he promises to return to Tyler as soon as he can. As soon as he leaves, Jack approaches Tyler, finishing him off in seconds.
Back in the bus, Jesse jumps when she hears a sudden banging noise, coming from someplace just outside the vehicle. She sees someone moving around, and backs away from the windows. Then we see Brian bursting out of the tunnel ride at high speed. He tries to figure out what to do next, then sees Sommer's new stuffed animal ride by in the cart, covered in blood.
Before he can react, Steven jumps him. Shawn pulls his brother off of Brian, and it devolves into a shouting match, with everybody accusing everybody else of committing murder. Brian denies doing anything to Tyler, then relates to the twins the story about how Sommer was killed.
As the trio move to find the rest of the teens, Maya collides with poor Andre, who is now upset because he managed to lose track of Tyler. Maya tries to convey a message to him, but he has no idea what she's trying to say. Then Brian and the twins discover them, and we get more shouting and frantic explanations.
Brian shares his idea that the killer is somehow controlling the rides. Maya stares at him and backs away, then the others follow suit. Railroad Jack, looming directly behind the albino, lunges at him. Thrown to the ground by the impact, Brian loses his tinted sunglasses. He looks up at the killer, seeing that Railroad Jack has dark, empty eye sockets. As the others run away, Railroad Jack viciously stabs the teen several times.
Taking out the emergency flashlight, Jesse ventures out of the bus. Yeah, not too smart. She calls out to the darkness a few times, telling whoever is there to stop scaring her. After a few more nervous glances at the terrain, she wisely chooses to head back into the bus, slamming the emergency door shut again. So far, I'm rooting for her and Maya to live through this. They're the only really likable characters. (Well, yeah, Brian was a cool guy as well, but he's deader than disco at this point...)
Shawn grabs Maya's hand, and they retreat into a snack shack to hide from the killer. They hide, then watch as Steven and Andre scoot by to find refuge in a building covered in windows. Uhhh, something tells me that a WINDOW might not be the most effective hiding place when eluding a murdering psycho.
Anyway, Railroad Jack stops by, and quickly spots the pair of lunkheads. To their credit, both Andre and Steven do at least attempt to get through the glass maze, and Andre succeeds. Steven...eh, not so much. He more or less just stands there, and it's not too surprising when the others seem him get a blade through his head moments later.
Jesse, still crouched on the floor of the bus, has been crying. She jumps when she hears a thumping sound, followed by heavy breathing. Railroad Jack is literally over her head, walking along the roof. Then he leaps to the ground, hissing at her through the window. As he circles the vehicle and terrorizes her, Jesse tries to convince herself that it's all just a dream. Just as suddenly as the attack began, it stops.
Wait, how is Railroad Jack able to be at the bus AND the carnival at the same time?
Speaking of the carnival...Andre, Shawn and Maya are once again running away from the eyeless killer. They should try walking on their tiptoes. I mean, how hard can it be to hide from a guy with no eyes? Somehow, not only do they all manage to run around in a circle, but Andre also gets separated from the others.
Andre gets inside the snack stand, where he crouches down and tries to unlock the power of prayer. Maya lets Shawn drag her to a shooting gallery game, where they conceal themselves and grab one of the guns for protection. Jesse then has another run-in with Railroad Jack, and he leers at her through the window.
While hiding, Shawn confesses to Maya that he got his girlfriend pregnant. Being hunted has given him some perspective, and he makes a vow to be a good husband and father. If he lives, that is. He then admits that it's easier to say that sort of stuff to her, because she can't understand him. Maya lets him know, through pantomime, that she can, indeed, read lips. D'oh!
Andre then realizes that the killer knows where he is. They make eye(well, sort of...) contact, and Railroad Jack quickly corners the teen. Andre promises to hurt him, then promptly gets himself killed.
While huddled together in the shooting gallery, Shawn and Maya catch a glimpse of Railroad Jack wandering nearby. They swiftly duck back down, ans he seems to disappear when they dare to take another look. Shawn gets himself and Maya out of the booth, then turns back for the rifle. In that short amount of time, Railroad Jack teleports himself directly behind Maya.
He tries to get her, but Shawn intervenes, smacking him with the gun. As the maniac tries to turn his attention back to Maya, Shawn continues to bash him from behind. Then Railroad Jack tosses the boy aside, turns to Maya, and, grinning, says something to her in sign language.
Shawn tries to tell Maya to run toward something, but she doesn't get it. The momentary distraction allows the killer to surprise the deaf teen, and he drives his weapon through the side of her head, into her ear. Death by irony. And this movie's on my hit list, for killing the hottest girl in the story. Dagnabbit.
Shawn escapes, and comes to a halt in front of the carousel. He finds a very grim spectacle on display: The bodies of his friends, including the just-slaughtered Maya, have been propped up on the various carousel animals. He takes it all in, then realizes that the entrance is a few feet away. Finding a sudden rush of energy, he races to the ticket booth to escape.
He runs toward the bus, screaming for help. The killer is also running, and he appears to be catching up. Jesse sees them, and tells Shawn to run. She's very helpful. Shawn glances over his shoulder, then stops.
He sees a team of paramedics and rescue workers between him and the bus. Then there's a montage, replaying some of the death scenes, as well as Steele's cryptic hints about Railroad Jack. At the end of the flashback, Steele can be seen reading the obituaries of the various teens.
Okay, so I hate to keep harping on this one bit, but...WHY isn't this a movie in the Final Destination franchise? I mean, you have the large group dynamic, the car crash as the opening disaster, Tony Todd, the elaborately staged carnival-related deaths...Hell, just make the characters more interesting, tie in their deaths to the carnival itself, and you've got a ready-made sequel. Heck, they can even keep in the silly symbolic death hints to tease the audience a bit. It just seems like a wasted opportunity.
Anyway, let's see how it ends. There can't be much more to it, right? Okay, so Railroad Jack catches up to Shawn. He grabs him by the hair, then drags him, kicking and screaming, back toward the carnival.
Jesse gets upset, then slowly backs away from the rear window again. She hears a horse whinnying, and sees Railroad Jack ride up on a horse. Or maybe this is Horseback Jack, his brother, because his outfit is now a striped suit. Violet the Narrator starts talking again, and Jesse now realizes that there are several Jacks out there, probably waiting for her to give up.
Then we see a paramedic giving Shawn CPR. His partner advises him to stop, and they pronounce Shawn dead. Mr. Smith, the teacher, is being interviewed by an investigator, and he's busy blaming himself for the tragedy. As he wonders how he can possibly tell their loved ones what happened, another person announces that there was a survivor found in the bus: Jesse.
They extract her on a stretcher, assuring her that she's going to be fine. Violet disagrees, and the paramedics load the stretcher onto an ambulance. Jesse sits straight up, then screams. THE END
Well. That was fairly uneven. A good idea, some decent actors, but a horrible pace and a painfully obvious conclusion. And many obvious problems with the script, such as: Who the hell was Violet, and what was she doing as the narrator? Why did the actual mayhem have to take so long to be seen? And why was it so similar to Final Destination? 2.5 mad crapper killer trees out of 5.
And what did I learn from Jack the Reaper?
-Deaf girls are kinda hot.
-Carnivals are merely an excuse to lose your soul.
-Glass mazes are the worst hiding places ever.
Next up, one of those killer-toy movies from Charles Band. It's Doll Graveyard, which I'm not familiar with. Eh, maybe it'll surprise me by actually being decent. See you soon!
Monday, September 23, 2013
Hey all...
So, I was browsing the 'net today, just sort of feeling lazy, when I saw something interesting on the io9 website...Apparently, there's a young teen named Emily Deprimio, and she's a horror movie buff. The interesting part? Well, she and her father are attempting to crowdfund their own feature-length, 80's-style slasher movie! Anyway, you can look at the details over on KickStarter, but I just thought I'd pass it along. Let's hope it gets made!
Friday, September 20, 2013
Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan
If I had ten bucks for every time my Netflix movies were delayed, I'd be a bilionaire by now. Luckily, there are so many ridiculously obscure horror flicks on the internet, I always have a back-up plan. This week's "back-up plan" is also a nod to the folks who've asked me to do one of these for a SyFy(I feel dumber just typin g it that way....) "original". So, get ready to sit there in stunned silence as we watch Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan. If a SPOILER falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Anyway, the story starts out with a small group of hunters returning to a farm. A helpful subtitle lets us know that we're seeing Minnesota, circa 1894. Oh, these guys aren't hunters, they're lumberjacks. Well yeah, Paul Bunyan, lumberjacks...it makes sense. I guess the axes they've got hoisted over their shoulders was a big hint as well. Hey, cut me a break! Been a long week.
Where were we? Oh yeah, lumberjacks returning home. One of the younger ones suggests that it might be wise to slow down, to give the trees time to replenish. His boss, played by Dan Haggerty himself(Grizzly!!), tells him that the house-building industry is booming, and that they need to cut down 20 acres the next day, just to meet the demand.
Grizzly asks the cook when dinner will be ready, and he proudly displays a huge animal that he's been roasting for them. The boss tastes it, seems pleased, then runs off to take a dump in the woods. The cook has the young guy gather the other lumberjacks for dinner.
The boss returns, and finds all of his people slaughtered. Heads removed, limbs torn off, bodies of the men and their wives strewn about...Needless to say, he's shocked by the sight. Then a mutated guy dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt steps into view, and he looks pretty mad.
The boss runs away from the massacre, and manages to get to the saw mill. Sadly, so does the killer. Despite the lumberjack holding up his arms to surrender, the mutant pushes him into the gigantic buzzsaw, first destroying his arm, then splitting him right down the middle. Then the big, red, cartoony titles come up.
Grizzly Adams and a member of the Estevez family are the only recognizable names in this one, and one of them is already out of the film.. Beyond them, I have no idea who any of the other actors are. Yeah, THIS won't be torture to watch! They couldn't even get anyone from Stargate or Eureka for this one. Not a good sign...
Beyond those names, we just see trees. Lots and lots of trees. Man, I can never seem to escape the curse of the "tree movie", can I? Got a hanker for a hunk o' trees? Well, get your fill while it lasts, movie viewers. Wow, it took 3 guys to write the screenplay. Is that sad, or is it REALLY REALLY sad?
Phew, the credits are finally over. We see a man named Hoke tearing a bulletin about a redneck militia group off of the sign where he works. It's some kind of forest camp for troubled teens, like an Outward Bound-type of scenario. Great, bring on the stereotypes! Hey, didn't the Sleepaway Camp franchise cover this idea? It took 3 dudes to rip off another franchise?
Anyways, Hoke meets a shrink named Sammi, and they get along about as well as the Tea Party and Reality do. Then they both meet the small group of teens they'll be taking out to the woods. There are only 4 seen so far, so this might be mercifully short.
There's Marty, a black kid with an arrest for robbery; a brunette female named Trish, who assaulted a cop; a drug trafficker named Zach, who is a tall, lean white kid; and an Hispanic girl, Rosa, who was charged with contempt of court, and sentenced to the program as punishment. A car pulls up, and a man named Ray drops off his daughter Claire as well. She was found guilty of drunk driving.
Ray notices that Hoke is wearing a firearm, and questions the necessity of it, but "Sarge" Hoke brushes his concerns aside. While Ray and Sammi look on, Hoke makes the teens stand at formation, yells at them, then marches them onto a small bus. Ray looks pretty troubled, but Sammi assures him that she'll make sure that Claire is safe.
During the drive into the mountains, Hoke calls Sammi a "cube rat", then interrogates her about her experience outdoors. Despite her relaxed demeanor and smile, Hoke refuses to be polite, and he talks like a robot, clipping every word as if the conversation pains him. What a douche. If Paul Bunyan kills him early on, I'm awarding an automatic point this week.
The kids are also getting to know each other. They asks Marty what he stole, considering that he looks like Steve Urkel when he wears his glasses. They were right to peg him as a geek, because he hacked into a government computer system, then stole around 11 million dollars.
As they talk more, Hoke calls them "stumps", and robotically orders them to face forward. When Sammi asks him what a "stump" is, he replies that it stands for "Stupid Teenagers Under My Protection". Then he further pisses everyone off, when he presents and lights up a cigar. Please, movie, kill him soon.
They cross a bridge, then come to a stop at a gate. While Hoke unlatches the gate, a strange old man watches from a hiding place in the trees. He looks like the MadTV version of Kenny Rogers. If you've never seen that character, look it up on Youtube, it's hilarious. I'll wait.
*tune for Jeopardy plays*
Ready? It was funny, right? Good, then let's continue.
They finally get to a sprawling, one level house, and Hoke uses a stick to draw a line on the ground. He makes them stand at the line again, then tells them that his camp is their last option before going to jail. He promises to transform them from STUMPS into trees, then Sammi encourages them to enjoy camping out.
After ordering the kids to pitch tents in the designated area, Hoke pulls the doctor off to the side. She tells him that she won't be sharing a tent with him, and he responds that he'll be sleeping in his cabin, while she sleeps outside with the teenagers. You know, I'll bet that they keep this guy alive out of sheer spite.
A deer is seen grazing, and a brown bear wants it for dinner. As the bear prepares to make a move, Paul Bunyan sneaks in, then yanks the bear up by the neck. He snaps the creature's collar bone, then finishes it off with a large hunting knife. Bambi watches the encounter, then scampers away to play with Thumper.
Back outside the cabin(in the woods...Ha! The joke lives on!), the campers get a small fire going. Sitting around the fire, they discuss the various incidents that brought them together. Rosa gets the ball rolling, sharing that she was a witness to a shooting, but defied the court by refusing to testify in court. She has a young daughter, and was worried about retaliation.
Zack goes next, after insulting Rosa with lame pick-up lines. He admits that he was very skilled at acquiring and selling drugs, and seems more disturbed by his current loss of profits than anything else. Trish then tells the group that she was in a bar fight, and lashed out at a police officer afterwards, because she felt sexually harassed.
Claire goes next, with some encouragement from Sammi. She was arrested because she was in a collision with another drunk driver. It was the other driver's third offense, but her lawyer had advised her to plead guilty. The other teens express outrage over what happened to Claire, though Sammi reminds them that she still drove while drunk.
The crazy coot who witnessed the bear attack then pops up, ranting about trees. Sarge Hoke comes outside to investigate the ruckus, and identifies the old man as "Meeks", the local kooky hermit. Meeks rambles on some more, makes the kids jump, then runs back into the woods. Hoke announces that he's getting them up at 5, then orders them to bed.
True to his word, Hokes wake up the group early the next morning. Before he does though, Trish wakes up Zack for some topless socializing. Sammi finds them, and lets them know that if it happens again, they'll both be forced to head back to court for a stiffer sentence. Heh, "stiffer".
Hoke shows up soon after, shouting everyone out of their slumber. He promises them a grueling off-road hike, then heads back into his home. Sammi follows him in, admires the furnishings, and requests that he leave the gun behind. Somebody might want to remind her what movie she's in, because Paul Bunyan doesn't look like a prime candidate for a counseling session.
The Sarge lines everyone up, then gets them to march in place. He berates everyone except for Rosa, and tells her that her attitude might be a benefit. Then he starts them up with a drill song, and off they go!
The march soon turns into a run, and it's mostly uphill. They navigate over rocks and around tree trunks, with Hoke yelling most of the way. He even threatens to abandon any stragglers. Hey, wasn't there a killer Paul Bunyan monster somewhere in this movie? Did he go home?
Meeks did. He's seen hiking around the rough terrain, giggling and gibbering all the way to his house. Yup, gibbering. The closed captions even agreed with me, so nyah nyah nyah! Oh, and apparently Meeks plays with himself, as we see him hovering over aq chessboard on his front porch. Wait, what did you think I meant?
After crossing a "river"(really just a stream, by the look of it), Hoke finally lets them all take a break for lunch. While he eats his sandwich with Sammi, the teens moan and gripe about the exercise. Zack decides that he's going to attempt to walk back to civilization, and urges the others to go along. After he leaves, Marty follows to try to coax him back.
Zack gets to a clearing, then quickly realizes how big the mountain is, when he sees the hillside covered in trees. Marty catches up, and they both discover a pile of large bones. It's the site where those loggers cooked and ate Babe, Paul Bunyan's big blue ox. Zack finds the skull of the beast, and he impulsively decides to remove and take one of the horns as a souvenir.
Zack hoists the horn over his shoulders and they return to the group, unaware that Paul Bunyan had put a cross at the site, in tribute to his pet's death. Gee, I sure hope he doesn't mind a little grave desecration...I'm sure it'll be fine. Gigantic mutant lumberjacks with a taste for blood don't tend to hold grudges.
Zack shows off his find, and the girls all suggest that he leave it behind. Then Hoke sees it, and tells him that he can't keep it. As Hoke leaves them to clean up their lunch mess, Zack hides the horn in his backpack, and it doesn't fit, but he takes it anyway. Yes, because no one could possibly notice a large, sharp horn poking out of the top of your backpack.
At a place called Mel's Lumberjack Saloon, Ray stops in to visit the bartender, an old man named Budd. Budd tries to sell him a drink, but Budd's daughter shuts him up. Ray asks her about Hoke, because her daughter went through his program, and Budd tells them that Hoke killed a teen the previous year. Say WHAAAAT?
Not intentionally, of course: a teen had an unreported heart condition, and died because Hoke pushed him too hard. The waitress sends her father to wait on some customers, then clarifies that the teen only got heatstroke, and also survived. She flirts with Ray as he leaves, but he's clueless. Her reaction to his putdown is cringeworthy. Oscar-caliber acting? Nowhere in sight.
Back to the hapless hikers. Sammi runs past Hoke, mockingly suggesting that she might abandon him if he can't keep up. Ha! Hoke waits for the entire group to pass him, and brings up the rear.
Uh-oh. Paul Bunyan is at the site where he buried his pet ox, Babe. He stomps around the bones for a bit, then comes to the spot where the skull was dropped. When he sees that one of the horns was torn off, he bellows out several angry roars.
Our intrepid hikers hear the roar and guess that it's a mountain lion, but Hoke doesn't care one way or the other. Meeks hears the sound too, and hurries out of his shack with his trusty shotgun. He looks around his property, but Paul Bunyan's not around.
During the hike, Marty grabs the massive horn out of Zack's bag, then runs ahead of him. Zack chases him, but none of the others even seem to notice. Hell, they don't even bother showing Hoke getting pissed off that someone defied him.
While Paul Bunyan scans the forest for his prey, the hikers stop for another quick rest. Trish whips out a cell phone, and sees that her friends have left her several messages. The electronic noises draw the attention of Paul Bunyan, and they hear the sound of him stomping in their direction.
All of the hikers turn to stare at Trish, who's unaware that Paul Bunyan is now standing directly behind her. He raises his mighty weapon, cleaving Trish in half, right down the middle. The others spread out into the forest, while he examines the amount of blood on his axe.
The campers split up into 2 main groups, and Paul Bunyan goes after Rosa first, knocking her to the ground with a flying tree branch that he hit with his axe. She's still alive though, so don't worry. Paul Bunyan would rather chase the others through the forest, than go after easy prey.
Zack and Marty circle back around, then lift the heavy branch off of Rosa. She's slightly injured, so they each grab an arm, and resume running away. The rest have been making their way back to Hoke's cabin, with him yelling at them the whole way. Paul Bunyan blocks the path, and separates Hoke's top and bottom halves in front of the others. Yippee!
Paul Bunyan gets his blade jammed into a tree, and that buys the group some time. Hoke is somehow still alive, and he urges Sammi to get the kids to his cabin. As they rush off, he distracts the monster by yelling insults at him, and Paul Bunyan proceeds to flatten him with a massive foot-stomping.
Both groups of escapees meet up, and they finally arrive at the cabin and tents. Hoke had locked the door, but they manage to break in. Rosa has a large gash on one side, so they set her down on a couch as gently as possible, then scurry through the house, trying to come up with a plan of some sort.
Sammi tries to take charge, but it's actually Claire that has an idea first: she spots the van that they all arrived in, and realizes that they could drive to the nearest town, or at least a main road, to get assistance. There's only a slight glitch...Hoke has the keys.
Marty claims that he can hotwire the vehicle, so the plan suddenly seems viable again. Sammi has Claire look for weapons, then remembers where she saw Hoke put his gun. She grabs it, then leads Marty outside, taking care to be as quiet as possible. Oh, and Marty's weapon is a rake. Great choice.
Marty gets in the van, but has trouble distinguishing one wire from another underneath the steering column. They hear twigs and branches snapping nearby, so they probably don't have much time before Paul Bunyan reappears.
Marty finally gets his act together, and the engine almost roars to life. Sadly, so does Paul Bunyan. He steps out of the woods, and Sammi urges Marty to move faster. She finally drags him back out of the vehicle, and they rush back to the house.
Once everyone is safely together again, they watch Paul Bunyan lift the van and drag it away. So much for a quick escape. Paul Bunyan heads back to his cave, and examines the amount of blood on his axe again. He wipes some off with a finger, then gives it a taste. Mmmm mmmm, good, that sure is some tasty blood! Then he finds a rag to clean off the blade.
Claire sees Zack closing a fist around the blade of a knife, and looks at the self-inflicted wound. She wraps a piece of cloth around it, and they share a nice moment together. Awwww...
Paul Bunyan apparently forgot what he was doing, because now he's after Meeks. He knocks at the door where the other survivors decide to allow him in. He accuses them of riling up Paul Bunyan in some way, and they show him the horn that they took.
As night falls, Sammi asks Meeks to explain the real story of Paul Bunyan. He dismisses the popular folktales as nonsense, then tells them the truth: a man named Larch Bunyan was a local land baron in the late 1800's. Larch met and married a woman named Helga, and she gave birth to Paul. A doctor told the couple that Paul had a rare hormonal disease, one that made him grow 2-3 times as large as a normal man, and he would age slower, living 3 times longer than a normal person.
There was a drawback, though: Paul was developmentally disabled. He was big enough to hold an axe by the age of 5, so he worked with the loggers in the area. It motivated them to increase their output, and soon both the trees and the forest animals grew scarce.
That brings us to events in the opening scene. Bill, the lumberjack foreman gathered a group of his employees to hunt down a wounded animal that had left tracks in the snow. The animal had been Babe, Paul Bunyan's pet, and it had injured itself stepping into a bear trap.
Bill decided that they should kill the ox and eat it, then try to conceal the truth from Paul Bunyan. He shot Babe right between the eyes, and they all dragged the carcass back to their camp. Paul Bunyan goes in search of his pet, and you know the rest of the story.
After he killed the lumberjacks, Paul Bunyan tried to hide in the forest, but an angry mob found him. They chained him up, then dragged him back to town, where even more people were waiting to heckle him. His breaking point came when a local women he had a crush on, Maybelle, turned her back on him. The townsfolk eventually decided to drag him into an abandoned mineshaft, where they used dynamite to seal him in.
Of course, since he was a mutant with incredible physical strength, Paul Bunyan was able to get himself. He took what was left of his pet, then lived by himself high up in the mountains, content to avoid anyone else until our teens came along and desecrated Babe and the gravesite.
Meeks urges them to bring the horn back to where they found it. Zack picks it up, then runs outside. He begs Paul Bunyan to take back the horn, then flings it into the trees. For a second or two, nothing happens.
Then as Zack turns to head back inside, the horn flies through the air, impaling him. Then the monster shows up, grabs the dying teen by the leg, and drags him into the woods. Sammi shoots at Paul Bunyan, but the bullets seem to have little or no effect.
They all rush back inside, where Meeks is raiding the fridge and cooking himself a meal. He advises Sammi to wait until morning, then attempt another escape. Their hope is that, since he has the horn again, maybe Paul Bunyan will leave them alone again.
They spend most of the night panicking, and Rosa asks the others to make sure that her daughter is okay if she doesn't survive. Then Claire gives gun safety tips, and tells Sammi that she regrets not treating her father better. At his cave, Paul Bunyan's been polishing his axe(not a metaphor), and making it razor-sharp. Guess he hasn't calmed down.
Morning comes, and Ray decides to drive up to the camp. At Hoke's cabin, Meeks and Claire are the first ones to wake up. Meeks tells her that she's identical to Maybelle, the woman who broke Paul Bunyan's heart. Oh, and Maybelle just happens to be Meeks' great-aunt....So, wait, would that mean that he and Claire are somehow related? He also seems to think that Claire might be a reincarnated version of Maybelle, but who knows? Seriously now, what...the...fuck???
Meeks leaves to find the truck, and he urges the others to remain at the house. He claims that being alone will actually make him safer. Before he leaves, he gives Claire a photo of Maybelle, and she marvels at their similarities.
We're checking back in with Ray, for some reason. Armed with a high-powered rifle, he finds the big red splotch that used to be Hoke, along with a comically oversized footprint. He attempts to use his radio to calll for reinforcements, but all he gets is static.
Ray arrives at a fire tower and climbs it, and the radio signal improves somewhat. His message is received at the saloon, but Budd doesn't hear it. The people in this movie are having a whopping streak of bad luck!
Back at the cabin, things get quiet. Too quiet.(Heh, I always wanted to say something dramatic like that. My bucket list is shrinking!) Then Paul Bunyan's axe crashes through the ceiling. Is it just me, or does his size seem to change in every scene?
Everyone gets knocked to the floor, so he raises the axe to try and finish them off. But this time he avoids the roof, opting to smash the windows instead. Followed by more roof damage, and the same footage, over and over again, of Paul Bunyan growling and raising his weapon. This is so Stucking Fupid!
Paul Bunyan reaches into the house to snatch up Claire, but Marty stabs at his hand with the rake. Paul Bunyan howls in pain, knocks Marty over, then picks up Rosa and holds her by one leg to get a good look. Her screams make him decide that she's not worth the trouble, so he kills her by hurling her at a tree.
Sammi then fires a bullet into his eye, which sends him reeling. While he's distracted by the pain, Sammi and Claire run outside. Marty grabs a large tree branch and goes after Paul Bunyan, out of his mind with grief over Rosa's death. He flings the large stick at the monster, attracting his attention.
Sammi puts herself between Paul Bunyan and the teens, prepared to die in order to protect them. Luckily, Ray shows up at that point, and shoots the giant 3 more times. Paul Bunyan stumbles backwards, then lands on top of what's left of the house.
Oh, those weren't actual bullets, they were tranquilizer darts. Ray tells the others that fun fact, then urges everyone to keep moving before he wakes up again. As they head back to a m,ore populated area, Meeks blocks their way with his shotgun.
He starts to ramble on about how Paul Bunyan is just an innocent boy, and that he can't let them leave. Marty tries to grab his weapon, so Meeks shoots him in the gut. Marty dies in less than a minute, and Meeks tries to force the last few survivors to go with him at gunpoint.
That's when Paul Bunyan wakes up. He sees that "Maybelle" is in danger, and tosses his axe in a bid to save her. He's got good aim...his axe decapitates Meeks. The final 3 survivors run away, and the chase resumes.
They arrive at Roy's truck, and he grabs more ammunition. Then he hands the keys to his daughter, and asks her to drive, while he climbs into the truckbed to get a better aim at Paul Bunyan. The truck races down the road as Roy loads his gun, then Paul Bunyan is seen racing after them. Roys fires several shots at the giant, but he never goes down. Claire swerves to avoid Paul Bunyan's axe, and Roy loses the gun.
As Roy struggles not to fall out of the truck, Paul seems to vanish. Nope, he inexplicably managed to get in front of the truck, without them ever noticing what he was doing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. He nearly decapitates Roy, but only manages to remove the police lights on the roof.
The impact causes the truck to go careening into a tree, and Roy flies out of the back, where he rolls several feet. Sammi and Claire run over to help him, and he seems just fine. They decide to continue on foot.
The trio get to the bridge, and no one else is in sight. Then Paul Bunyan finds them, and corners the group on the bridge. There's a door at the other end, but it's locked, and the giant is still approaching. Roy fires several shots at the door, but it won't give.
Several vehicles drive up to the bridge, and an armada of rednecks spill out of them. Paul Bunyan finally notices them, and gnashes his teeth as they all take aim at him. After being hit by numerous rounds, Paul Bunyan drops his axe.
The rednecks stop firing, and Paul Bunyan turns to look at Claire/Maybelle one last time. He says the name "Maybelle", begins to cry, then falls off of the bridge. The crowd watch him as he sinks into the water below, then the rednecks begin to cheer and holler. When Ray asks how they knew what was happening, it's revealed that Budd did hear the police scanner,and called his daughter to round up an angry mob. Yee-haw!
The rednecks argue over what they just killed, and Budd convinces the group to carry the massive axe back to the bar. Our 3 heroes stare into the water, then join the others. THE END
Well, there you go. A SyFy movie and a slasher flick, all in one. At least there was plenty of the red stuff. On the other hand, the movie. But it was slightly better than 2-Headed Shark Attack or Mansquito, so....yeah. Hooray? 3 out of 5, with that full point included for making sure that Hoke died.
And what did I learn from Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan?
-Lumberjacks are dangerous psychopaths, and much more so when you eat their pets.
-Some guys can't even generate sympathy when you see them cut in half.
-Giants just want to get laid, like we all do.
Next week, I'll do either The Wraith or Miner's Massacre, depending on which one arrives first. Have a fun week!
Anyway, the story starts out with a small group of hunters returning to a farm. A helpful subtitle lets us know that we're seeing Minnesota, circa 1894. Oh, these guys aren't hunters, they're lumberjacks. Well yeah, Paul Bunyan, lumberjacks...it makes sense. I guess the axes they've got hoisted over their shoulders was a big hint as well. Hey, cut me a break! Been a long week.
Where were we? Oh yeah, lumberjacks returning home. One of the younger ones suggests that it might be wise to slow down, to give the trees time to replenish. His boss, played by Dan Haggerty himself(Grizzly!!), tells him that the house-building industry is booming, and that they need to cut down 20 acres the next day, just to meet the demand.
Grizzly asks the cook when dinner will be ready, and he proudly displays a huge animal that he's been roasting for them. The boss tastes it, seems pleased, then runs off to take a dump in the woods. The cook has the young guy gather the other lumberjacks for dinner.
The boss returns, and finds all of his people slaughtered. Heads removed, limbs torn off, bodies of the men and their wives strewn about...Needless to say, he's shocked by the sight. Then a mutated guy dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt steps into view, and he looks pretty mad.
The boss runs away from the massacre, and manages to get to the saw mill. Sadly, so does the killer. Despite the lumberjack holding up his arms to surrender, the mutant pushes him into the gigantic buzzsaw, first destroying his arm, then splitting him right down the middle. Then the big, red, cartoony titles come up.
Grizzly Adams and a member of the Estevez family are the only recognizable names in this one, and one of them is already out of the film.. Beyond them, I have no idea who any of the other actors are. Yeah, THIS won't be torture to watch! They couldn't even get anyone from Stargate or Eureka for this one. Not a good sign...
Beyond those names, we just see trees. Lots and lots of trees. Man, I can never seem to escape the curse of the "tree movie", can I? Got a hanker for a hunk o' trees? Well, get your fill while it lasts, movie viewers. Wow, it took 3 guys to write the screenplay. Is that sad, or is it REALLY REALLY sad?
Phew, the credits are finally over. We see a man named Hoke tearing a bulletin about a redneck militia group off of the sign where he works. It's some kind of forest camp for troubled teens, like an Outward Bound-type of scenario. Great, bring on the stereotypes! Hey, didn't the Sleepaway Camp franchise cover this idea? It took 3 dudes to rip off another franchise?
Anyways, Hoke meets a shrink named Sammi, and they get along about as well as the Tea Party and Reality do. Then they both meet the small group of teens they'll be taking out to the woods. There are only 4 seen so far, so this might be mercifully short.
There's Marty, a black kid with an arrest for robbery; a brunette female named Trish, who assaulted a cop; a drug trafficker named Zach, who is a tall, lean white kid; and an Hispanic girl, Rosa, who was charged with contempt of court, and sentenced to the program as punishment. A car pulls up, and a man named Ray drops off his daughter Claire as well. She was found guilty of drunk driving.
Ray notices that Hoke is wearing a firearm, and questions the necessity of it, but "Sarge" Hoke brushes his concerns aside. While Ray and Sammi look on, Hoke makes the teens stand at formation, yells at them, then marches them onto a small bus. Ray looks pretty troubled, but Sammi assures him that she'll make sure that Claire is safe.
During the drive into the mountains, Hoke calls Sammi a "cube rat", then interrogates her about her experience outdoors. Despite her relaxed demeanor and smile, Hoke refuses to be polite, and he talks like a robot, clipping every word as if the conversation pains him. What a douche. If Paul Bunyan kills him early on, I'm awarding an automatic point this week.
The kids are also getting to know each other. They asks Marty what he stole, considering that he looks like Steve Urkel when he wears his glasses. They were right to peg him as a geek, because he hacked into a government computer system, then stole around 11 million dollars.
As they talk more, Hoke calls them "stumps", and robotically orders them to face forward. When Sammi asks him what a "stump" is, he replies that it stands for "Stupid Teenagers Under My Protection". Then he further pisses everyone off, when he presents and lights up a cigar. Please, movie, kill him soon.
They cross a bridge, then come to a stop at a gate. While Hoke unlatches the gate, a strange old man watches from a hiding place in the trees. He looks like the MadTV version of Kenny Rogers. If you've never seen that character, look it up on Youtube, it's hilarious. I'll wait.
*tune for Jeopardy plays*
Ready? It was funny, right? Good, then let's continue.
They finally get to a sprawling, one level house, and Hoke uses a stick to draw a line on the ground. He makes them stand at the line again, then tells them that his camp is their last option before going to jail. He promises to transform them from STUMPS into trees, then Sammi encourages them to enjoy camping out.
After ordering the kids to pitch tents in the designated area, Hoke pulls the doctor off to the side. She tells him that she won't be sharing a tent with him, and he responds that he'll be sleeping in his cabin, while she sleeps outside with the teenagers. You know, I'll bet that they keep this guy alive out of sheer spite.
A deer is seen grazing, and a brown bear wants it for dinner. As the bear prepares to make a move, Paul Bunyan sneaks in, then yanks the bear up by the neck. He snaps the creature's collar bone, then finishes it off with a large hunting knife. Bambi watches the encounter, then scampers away to play with Thumper.
Back outside the cabin(in the woods...Ha! The joke lives on!), the campers get a small fire going. Sitting around the fire, they discuss the various incidents that brought them together. Rosa gets the ball rolling, sharing that she was a witness to a shooting, but defied the court by refusing to testify in court. She has a young daughter, and was worried about retaliation.
Zack goes next, after insulting Rosa with lame pick-up lines. He admits that he was very skilled at acquiring and selling drugs, and seems more disturbed by his current loss of profits than anything else. Trish then tells the group that she was in a bar fight, and lashed out at a police officer afterwards, because she felt sexually harassed.
Claire goes next, with some encouragement from Sammi. She was arrested because she was in a collision with another drunk driver. It was the other driver's third offense, but her lawyer had advised her to plead guilty. The other teens express outrage over what happened to Claire, though Sammi reminds them that she still drove while drunk.
The crazy coot who witnessed the bear attack then pops up, ranting about trees. Sarge Hoke comes outside to investigate the ruckus, and identifies the old man as "Meeks", the local kooky hermit. Meeks rambles on some more, makes the kids jump, then runs back into the woods. Hoke announces that he's getting them up at 5, then orders them to bed.
True to his word, Hokes wake up the group early the next morning. Before he does though, Trish wakes up Zack for some topless socializing. Sammi finds them, and lets them know that if it happens again, they'll both be forced to head back to court for a stiffer sentence. Heh, "stiffer".
Hoke shows up soon after, shouting everyone out of their slumber. He promises them a grueling off-road hike, then heads back into his home. Sammi follows him in, admires the furnishings, and requests that he leave the gun behind. Somebody might want to remind her what movie she's in, because Paul Bunyan doesn't look like a prime candidate for a counseling session.
The Sarge lines everyone up, then gets them to march in place. He berates everyone except for Rosa, and tells her that her attitude might be a benefit. Then he starts them up with a drill song, and off they go!
The march soon turns into a run, and it's mostly uphill. They navigate over rocks and around tree trunks, with Hoke yelling most of the way. He even threatens to abandon any stragglers. Hey, wasn't there a killer Paul Bunyan monster somewhere in this movie? Did he go home?
Meeks did. He's seen hiking around the rough terrain, giggling and gibbering all the way to his house. Yup, gibbering. The closed captions even agreed with me, so nyah nyah nyah! Oh, and apparently Meeks plays with himself, as we see him hovering over aq chessboard on his front porch. Wait, what did you think I meant?
After crossing a "river"(really just a stream, by the look of it), Hoke finally lets them all take a break for lunch. While he eats his sandwich with Sammi, the teens moan and gripe about the exercise. Zack decides that he's going to attempt to walk back to civilization, and urges the others to go along. After he leaves, Marty follows to try to coax him back.
Zack gets to a clearing, then quickly realizes how big the mountain is, when he sees the hillside covered in trees. Marty catches up, and they both discover a pile of large bones. It's the site where those loggers cooked and ate Babe, Paul Bunyan's big blue ox. Zack finds the skull of the beast, and he impulsively decides to remove and take one of the horns as a souvenir.
Zack hoists the horn over his shoulders and they return to the group, unaware that Paul Bunyan had put a cross at the site, in tribute to his pet's death. Gee, I sure hope he doesn't mind a little grave desecration...I'm sure it'll be fine. Gigantic mutant lumberjacks with a taste for blood don't tend to hold grudges.
Zack shows off his find, and the girls all suggest that he leave it behind. Then Hoke sees it, and tells him that he can't keep it. As Hoke leaves them to clean up their lunch mess, Zack hides the horn in his backpack, and it doesn't fit, but he takes it anyway. Yes, because no one could possibly notice a large, sharp horn poking out of the top of your backpack.
At a place called Mel's Lumberjack Saloon, Ray stops in to visit the bartender, an old man named Budd. Budd tries to sell him a drink, but Budd's daughter shuts him up. Ray asks her about Hoke, because her daughter went through his program, and Budd tells them that Hoke killed a teen the previous year. Say WHAAAAT?
Not intentionally, of course: a teen had an unreported heart condition, and died because Hoke pushed him too hard. The waitress sends her father to wait on some customers, then clarifies that the teen only got heatstroke, and also survived. She flirts with Ray as he leaves, but he's clueless. Her reaction to his putdown is cringeworthy. Oscar-caliber acting? Nowhere in sight.
Back to the hapless hikers. Sammi runs past Hoke, mockingly suggesting that she might abandon him if he can't keep up. Ha! Hoke waits for the entire group to pass him, and brings up the rear.
Uh-oh. Paul Bunyan is at the site where he buried his pet ox, Babe. He stomps around the bones for a bit, then comes to the spot where the skull was dropped. When he sees that one of the horns was torn off, he bellows out several angry roars.
Our intrepid hikers hear the roar and guess that it's a mountain lion, but Hoke doesn't care one way or the other. Meeks hears the sound too, and hurries out of his shack with his trusty shotgun. He looks around his property, but Paul Bunyan's not around.
During the hike, Marty grabs the massive horn out of Zack's bag, then runs ahead of him. Zack chases him, but none of the others even seem to notice. Hell, they don't even bother showing Hoke getting pissed off that someone defied him.
While Paul Bunyan scans the forest for his prey, the hikers stop for another quick rest. Trish whips out a cell phone, and sees that her friends have left her several messages. The electronic noises draw the attention of Paul Bunyan, and they hear the sound of him stomping in their direction.
All of the hikers turn to stare at Trish, who's unaware that Paul Bunyan is now standing directly behind her. He raises his mighty weapon, cleaving Trish in half, right down the middle. The others spread out into the forest, while he examines the amount of blood on his axe.
The campers split up into 2 main groups, and Paul Bunyan goes after Rosa first, knocking her to the ground with a flying tree branch that he hit with his axe. She's still alive though, so don't worry. Paul Bunyan would rather chase the others through the forest, than go after easy prey.
Zack and Marty circle back around, then lift the heavy branch off of Rosa. She's slightly injured, so they each grab an arm, and resume running away. The rest have been making their way back to Hoke's cabin, with him yelling at them the whole way. Paul Bunyan blocks the path, and separates Hoke's top and bottom halves in front of the others. Yippee!
Paul Bunyan gets his blade jammed into a tree, and that buys the group some time. Hoke is somehow still alive, and he urges Sammi to get the kids to his cabin. As they rush off, he distracts the monster by yelling insults at him, and Paul Bunyan proceeds to flatten him with a massive foot-stomping.
Both groups of escapees meet up, and they finally arrive at the cabin and tents. Hoke had locked the door, but they manage to break in. Rosa has a large gash on one side, so they set her down on a couch as gently as possible, then scurry through the house, trying to come up with a plan of some sort.
Sammi tries to take charge, but it's actually Claire that has an idea first: she spots the van that they all arrived in, and realizes that they could drive to the nearest town, or at least a main road, to get assistance. There's only a slight glitch...Hoke has the keys.
Marty claims that he can hotwire the vehicle, so the plan suddenly seems viable again. Sammi has Claire look for weapons, then remembers where she saw Hoke put his gun. She grabs it, then leads Marty outside, taking care to be as quiet as possible. Oh, and Marty's weapon is a rake. Great choice.
Marty gets in the van, but has trouble distinguishing one wire from another underneath the steering column. They hear twigs and branches snapping nearby, so they probably don't have much time before Paul Bunyan reappears.
Marty finally gets his act together, and the engine almost roars to life. Sadly, so does Paul Bunyan. He steps out of the woods, and Sammi urges Marty to move faster. She finally drags him back out of the vehicle, and they rush back to the house.
Once everyone is safely together again, they watch Paul Bunyan lift the van and drag it away. So much for a quick escape. Paul Bunyan heads back to his cave, and examines the amount of blood on his axe again. He wipes some off with a finger, then gives it a taste. Mmmm mmmm, good, that sure is some tasty blood! Then he finds a rag to clean off the blade.
Claire sees Zack closing a fist around the blade of a knife, and looks at the self-inflicted wound. She wraps a piece of cloth around it, and they share a nice moment together. Awwww...
Paul Bunyan apparently forgot what he was doing, because now he's after Meeks. He knocks at the door where the other survivors decide to allow him in. He accuses them of riling up Paul Bunyan in some way, and they show him the horn that they took.
As night falls, Sammi asks Meeks to explain the real story of Paul Bunyan. He dismisses the popular folktales as nonsense, then tells them the truth: a man named Larch Bunyan was a local land baron in the late 1800's. Larch met and married a woman named Helga, and she gave birth to Paul. A doctor told the couple that Paul had a rare hormonal disease, one that made him grow 2-3 times as large as a normal man, and he would age slower, living 3 times longer than a normal person.
There was a drawback, though: Paul was developmentally disabled. He was big enough to hold an axe by the age of 5, so he worked with the loggers in the area. It motivated them to increase their output, and soon both the trees and the forest animals grew scarce.
That brings us to events in the opening scene. Bill, the lumberjack foreman gathered a group of his employees to hunt down a wounded animal that had left tracks in the snow. The animal had been Babe, Paul Bunyan's pet, and it had injured itself stepping into a bear trap.
Bill decided that they should kill the ox and eat it, then try to conceal the truth from Paul Bunyan. He shot Babe right between the eyes, and they all dragged the carcass back to their camp. Paul Bunyan goes in search of his pet, and you know the rest of the story.
After he killed the lumberjacks, Paul Bunyan tried to hide in the forest, but an angry mob found him. They chained him up, then dragged him back to town, where even more people were waiting to heckle him. His breaking point came when a local women he had a crush on, Maybelle, turned her back on him. The townsfolk eventually decided to drag him into an abandoned mineshaft, where they used dynamite to seal him in.
Of course, since he was a mutant with incredible physical strength, Paul Bunyan was able to get himself. He took what was left of his pet, then lived by himself high up in the mountains, content to avoid anyone else until our teens came along and desecrated Babe and the gravesite.
Meeks urges them to bring the horn back to where they found it. Zack picks it up, then runs outside. He begs Paul Bunyan to take back the horn, then flings it into the trees. For a second or two, nothing happens.
Then as Zack turns to head back inside, the horn flies through the air, impaling him. Then the monster shows up, grabs the dying teen by the leg, and drags him into the woods. Sammi shoots at Paul Bunyan, but the bullets seem to have little or no effect.
They all rush back inside, where Meeks is raiding the fridge and cooking himself a meal. He advises Sammi to wait until morning, then attempt another escape. Their hope is that, since he has the horn again, maybe Paul Bunyan will leave them alone again.
They spend most of the night panicking, and Rosa asks the others to make sure that her daughter is okay if she doesn't survive. Then Claire gives gun safety tips, and tells Sammi that she regrets not treating her father better. At his cave, Paul Bunyan's been polishing his axe(not a metaphor), and making it razor-sharp. Guess he hasn't calmed down.
Morning comes, and Ray decides to drive up to the camp. At Hoke's cabin, Meeks and Claire are the first ones to wake up. Meeks tells her that she's identical to Maybelle, the woman who broke Paul Bunyan's heart. Oh, and Maybelle just happens to be Meeks' great-aunt....So, wait, would that mean that he and Claire are somehow related? He also seems to think that Claire might be a reincarnated version of Maybelle, but who knows? Seriously now, what...the...fuck???
Meeks leaves to find the truck, and he urges the others to remain at the house. He claims that being alone will actually make him safer. Before he leaves, he gives Claire a photo of Maybelle, and she marvels at their similarities.
We're checking back in with Ray, for some reason. Armed with a high-powered rifle, he finds the big red splotch that used to be Hoke, along with a comically oversized footprint. He attempts to use his radio to calll for reinforcements, but all he gets is static.
Ray arrives at a fire tower and climbs it, and the radio signal improves somewhat. His message is received at the saloon, but Budd doesn't hear it. The people in this movie are having a whopping streak of bad luck!
Back at the cabin, things get quiet. Too quiet.(Heh, I always wanted to say something dramatic like that. My bucket list is shrinking!) Then Paul Bunyan's axe crashes through the ceiling. Is it just me, or does his size seem to change in every scene?
Everyone gets knocked to the floor, so he raises the axe to try and finish them off. But this time he avoids the roof, opting to smash the windows instead. Followed by more roof damage, and the same footage, over and over again, of Paul Bunyan growling and raising his weapon. This is so Stucking Fupid!
Paul Bunyan reaches into the house to snatch up Claire, but Marty stabs at his hand with the rake. Paul Bunyan howls in pain, knocks Marty over, then picks up Rosa and holds her by one leg to get a good look. Her screams make him decide that she's not worth the trouble, so he kills her by hurling her at a tree.
Sammi then fires a bullet into his eye, which sends him reeling. While he's distracted by the pain, Sammi and Claire run outside. Marty grabs a large tree branch and goes after Paul Bunyan, out of his mind with grief over Rosa's death. He flings the large stick at the monster, attracting his attention.
Sammi puts herself between Paul Bunyan and the teens, prepared to die in order to protect them. Luckily, Ray shows up at that point, and shoots the giant 3 more times. Paul Bunyan stumbles backwards, then lands on top of what's left of the house.
Oh, those weren't actual bullets, they were tranquilizer darts. Ray tells the others that fun fact, then urges everyone to keep moving before he wakes up again. As they head back to a m,ore populated area, Meeks blocks their way with his shotgun.
He starts to ramble on about how Paul Bunyan is just an innocent boy, and that he can't let them leave. Marty tries to grab his weapon, so Meeks shoots him in the gut. Marty dies in less than a minute, and Meeks tries to force the last few survivors to go with him at gunpoint.
That's when Paul Bunyan wakes up. He sees that "Maybelle" is in danger, and tosses his axe in a bid to save her. He's got good aim...his axe decapitates Meeks. The final 3 survivors run away, and the chase resumes.
They arrive at Roy's truck, and he grabs more ammunition. Then he hands the keys to his daughter, and asks her to drive, while he climbs into the truckbed to get a better aim at Paul Bunyan. The truck races down the road as Roy loads his gun, then Paul Bunyan is seen racing after them. Roys fires several shots at the giant, but he never goes down. Claire swerves to avoid Paul Bunyan's axe, and Roy loses the gun.
As Roy struggles not to fall out of the truck, Paul seems to vanish. Nope, he inexplicably managed to get in front of the truck, without them ever noticing what he was doing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. He nearly decapitates Roy, but only manages to remove the police lights on the roof.
The impact causes the truck to go careening into a tree, and Roy flies out of the back, where he rolls several feet. Sammi and Claire run over to help him, and he seems just fine. They decide to continue on foot.
The trio get to the bridge, and no one else is in sight. Then Paul Bunyan finds them, and corners the group on the bridge. There's a door at the other end, but it's locked, and the giant is still approaching. Roy fires several shots at the door, but it won't give.
Several vehicles drive up to the bridge, and an armada of rednecks spill out of them. Paul Bunyan finally notices them, and gnashes his teeth as they all take aim at him. After being hit by numerous rounds, Paul Bunyan drops his axe.
The rednecks stop firing, and Paul Bunyan turns to look at Claire/Maybelle one last time. He says the name "Maybelle", begins to cry, then falls off of the bridge. The crowd watch him as he sinks into the water below, then the rednecks begin to cheer and holler. When Ray asks how they knew what was happening, it's revealed that Budd did hear the police scanner,and called his daughter to round up an angry mob. Yee-haw!
The rednecks argue over what they just killed, and Budd convinces the group to carry the massive axe back to the bar. Our 3 heroes stare into the water, then join the others. THE END
Well, there you go. A SyFy movie and a slasher flick, all in one. At least there was plenty of the red stuff. On the other hand, the movie. But it was slightly better than 2-Headed Shark Attack or Mansquito, so....yeah. Hooray? 3 out of 5, with that full point included for making sure that Hoke died.
And what did I learn from Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan?
-Lumberjacks are dangerous psychopaths, and much more so when you eat their pets.
-Some guys can't even generate sympathy when you see them cut in half.
-Giants just want to get laid, like we all do.
Next week, I'll do either The Wraith or Miner's Massacre, depending on which one arrives first. Have a fun week!
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