Shrunken Heads

Long time no see, huh?

Well, before we get to this week's (Month's? Year's????) SAW entry, let me bend your ear for a minute...

Back in February, "something" happened to me. Don't exactly know, and I may never know, but it was bad enough to nearly kill me. I was found on the floor in my apartment by my sister, and I apparently stopped breathing for awhile. My kidneys were shutting down, my tongue swelled up like a balloon, it wasn't looking good. Scary-ass shit, certainly scarier than any slasher flick. I was in an induced coma in the ICU while machines breathed for me.

I'll be honest, it's been pretty bizarre. I just arrived back home today, and I still can't quite convince myself that I'm really back....or my cat, who refuses to leave my side, lol. Anyway, I'm getting back into my routine here, and mostly just because I love watching these dumb thing and mocking them. Frankly, I need to laugh. We good here? Good, because I'd  like to get this one started up! I wrote this one up while in the hospital, but couldn't post it until tonight, so just read this while picturing me watching craptacular movies in a hospital bed, on a cold March afternoon....




Well, after browsing the internet, I nearly threw in the proverbial towel this week. Lucky for me, I found another YouTube movie to view, something called Shrunken Heads. It's a Full Moon production, so I expect it to be gory, silly, and probably shorter than most feature-length movies. SPOILERS below...

The first character we meet is Tommy, a kid who works part-time at a local grocery store. While he's busy sweeping the floor, his best friend, "Filter"(at least, that's what it sounded like....) saunters in. They convince the boss to let Tommy go home early, because Filter wants to have some fun.

As they leave, they spot another kid, Freddie, being bullied by some older teens. They attempt to interfere, and that just makes the bullies even angrier. A large man threatens them, but they ignore his threats.

After all 3 boys get away, they introduce themselves formally to the new kid. Then they bring Freddie to their favorite newsstand, where they get him interested in comic books. They find a quiet spot to read, but then the bullies return. Vinnie, the leader of the gang steals one of their books, then lifts Tommy off his feet.

The older Haitian man who runs the newsstand threatens the bullies, and they soon disband. After Tommy and his pals thank him, they chat about his past. He tells them that, in Haiti, he would have called upon someone to deliver swift, brutal justice to kids like that. Cool story, bro!

Sara, Vinnie's cute girlfriend returns to the store to apologize to Tommy about the bullying. Vinnie sees her leave, and offers her a ride, but she ignores his advances. Vinnie then leans out of his window to talk to her, nearly hitting some pedestrians.

The Haitian opens a jar filled with sand or dust, pours some of it onto his hand, then blows on it. That causes Vinnie to lose control of the car, which crashes into a street lamp.

That night, after his friends go home, Tommy is visited by Sara. She tells him that she broke up with Vinnie, because she likes someone else. Tommy, who is not too sharp, asks her who the lucky guy is, and she kisses him.

Filter and Fred witness Vinnie's gang preparing to strip a car, so they contact Tommy via walkie-talkie. He grabs a camera, then ditches the hot girl who was just kissing him. When he gets to the right location, he hides behind some trash, and films the crime.

Tommy's movie gets the hoods arrested, plus he scores major points with Sara by being such a good kid. Zzzz...Hey, has anyone seen a horror movie anywhere in this vicinity? This would bore me to tears, if I could work up the energy to shed any.

Vinnie pays a visit to a guy who looks like a cross between Joe Pesci and Elvis. Pelvis springs his gang from jail. Maybe NOW something can happen? Yeah, probably not.

Tommy, Filter and Fred get abducted by the criminals. After they're tied up and left alone, they immediately get loose again. Fred almost gets grabbed during the escape, but somehow the 3 nimrods get away. Vinnie's gang are given guns, and are ordered to kill the kids as quickly as possible.

Vinnie and his goons corner the trio, and blow them away. There are a couple of folks who hear the execution, including Sara. The crime is covered up, and a triple-casket funeral is held for the boys. After the bodies are alone again, a portly man limps into the room, and prepares to saw the heads off of the bodies. That's right, kiddies! When you die, some random guy saws your head off! Sleep tight!

We see Haitian Guy mumbling in a secret lair, then we have to watch as Sara and Vinnie whine about their "relationship", which has nothing to do with voodoo, beheadings, or killing sprees, in any way, shape, or form. The witch doctor finally gets back to his apartment, where the 3 severed heads are seen floating in a cauldron. He mixes a dead cat into the stew. "And the cat's in the cauldron, with the boy-head stew..."

Then we get a voodoo montage. Feel free to sing I'm Walking On Sunshine during this part. Isn't that song a requirement in all 1980's montage sequences? A chant is recited, then we finally see the severed heads of 3 children come alive. Fun for the entire family.

The heads complain about being dead, have no bodies, blah blah blah. Voodoo guy tosses them around, revealing to the boys that they can now fly. The witch doctor advises them to roam around the city, and find a constructive way to use their new powers.

The heads interrupt an attempted rape. They cut the throat of one of the attackers, then bite the second scumbag in the throat. They fly away again, as the victim of the rapists runs away screaming.

They decide to split up for a break, and Fred flies to check on his family. Tommy spies on Sara, who now sleeps with his photo near her for comfort. I wonder if they make a greeting card for a moment like that? "Sorry Your Friend Was Made A Shrunken Head/Better Keep His Portrait Next to Your Bed!"

As the boys report back to their new boss, the pair of attackers they killed reanimate as zombies, because "stuff". Then we see that a year has passed, and that the criminals are all afraid to commit any crimes, lest they become zombies as well. Wait...a WHOLE YEAR has gone by? Were the shrunken heads too busy backpacking through Europe to finish getting revenge?

Sara, siting around and looking bored, gets a call from Vinnie. He tells her that he wants to swing by after his night class, but he's actually just hanging out with the rest of the hoodlums, smoking and playing poker. I wish they were watching a more interesting movie than the one I'm stuck with tonight.

Voodoo Guy gets threatened by a pair of thugs at his magazine stand, and they demand a bribe to "protect" his business. He laughs, then reveals red, glowing eyes to one of the thugs. He and his buddy run away, as Voodoo Guy continues his manic laughing fit.

When they get to their seedy apartment, the smaller, nervous guy decides to have a shower, while his portly pal just wants to watch some television. The shrunken heads slit the throat of the shower guy, and he keels over. Outside, Vinnie and Sara have another argument, and break up yet again. She gets out of his car, and starts to walk back to her neighborhood.

More wacky zombie fun with the thugs. The big one gets off of his ass to see what happened to his friend, and he finds the body in the shower. As he tries to leave, one of the shrunken heads revives shower guy to assault him. Why didn't they do any of this a year ago?

Vinnie later finds his former partners picking up trash, then realizes that they've become zombies. He escapes, mostly because the movie still has a half hour of story left to tell. The zombies resume the trash removal.

Then we get either a dream sequence, a memory, or an event that takes place the following morning. Sara visits the graveyard to pay her respects to Tommy, and his head floats over to speak with her. She's frightened, until Tommy "zaps" the memory of his death into her brain, along with most of the movie.

Sara understands now why Tommy and the others returned, and expresses her sympathy to him. He ends the visit by sailing down her blouse, then quickly flying away. Okay, so now he's a murderer AND a sexual predator. Pleasant.

Sara knocks on Voodoo Guy's door, and demands to see Tommy. When she spies the large container where the heads are preserved, Sara realizes that everything Tommy told her at the graveyard was true. Then Voodoo Guy informs Sara that Tommy and his friends only care about revenge, nothing else. Tommy contradicts that notion by swooping down Sara's shirt for another motorboat session.

Back to Vinnie. He's back in his apartment, and crouched on the floor. He decides to get drunk, and he passes out after a brief period. When he wakes up, Vanny is grabbed by his zombified henchmen, perhaps as a snack.

Vinnie screams, then throws himself through the nearest window. He survives the fall, and is chased through the streets by the zombies. He makes his way to the warehouse that Pelvis uses as a base, and tells him about the shrunken heads. Then Voodoo Guy bursts in, shoots one of the gangsters, and laughs like a loon while the zombies go after the remaining gangsters.

During the chaos, Sara walks in, surrounded by a weird halo. The aura turns out to be the heads, and they join the fight. As the gangsters try to leave, they shoot at Voodoo Guy, and take Sara as a hostage.

There's a car chase, but it gets delayed by the arrival of a busload of evangelists. The criminals seem to get away, but then the shrunken heads pop the car tires. The gangsters are defeated. They take them back to the neighborhood,where Voodoo Guy turns them into mummies. Then he gives Sara the spell that controls the shrunken heads, and she summons them. THE END...?

Yup, it's over. No sequels, spinoffs, or anything else. What a waste of a potentially good idea. Plus, with all of the undead stuff, there was no slasher element to it, so...yeah. Kind of a pointless movie for a slasher-themed blog. 1 out of 5, for at least being short and silly.

And what did Shrunken Heads teach me?

-Zombies are perverts, but they care about the environment.

-Bullets don't harm folks who perform voodoo,

-Gangsters always look like they stepped out of a Liberace tribute band.

Next up is probably the slasher version of Phantom of the Opera. The one with Robert Englund.  We'll see...and, again, it's good to be back!

Sorority House Massacre

This week, I'm still not home yet, and my laptop was acting funny, so I apologize for the delay. With that in mind, I present a pretty random one, the bizarre Sorority House Massacre, starring absolutely no one I've ever heard of in my entire horror-movie-watching life. Great...I'll do You're Next as soon as I can get back to my apartment again to see it, I swear! Oh, and SPOILERS ahead...

So, we see, in the first scene, a young woman named Beth, sitting up in a hospital bed. Beth is visited by an older woman, presumably a neighbor, and she asks Beth "what happened". That, of course, leads into an extended flashback of the movie...

Beth is now walking along a sidewalk, and carrying an overnight bag. She heads toward a large white sorority house, then we see a figure sprawled out on a tiny bed. The house is entered, and the camera gives us a tour of spacious, empty rooms.

The figure in the bed begins to have convulsions, then we get to visit the second floor. As we see Beth arrive at the front door and open it, the stranger in the bed begins to punch their own arm. Kooky.

Beth is greeted by one of the sorority sisters, and then we finally see that the person in the bed is an unshaven man. He opens his eyes and stares into the camera, and there's a scream that brings a pair of interns running. Beth, meanwhile, is shown to room 5, which she'll be sharing with 3 other girls. She's not a member, but she was apparently invited to take a tour for the weekend.

The pair of schlubby interns exit the room again, and they reveal that they used tape to subdue the patient. They argue over whether to call a doctor named Lindsey, but decide that it can wait until morning. The patient is then seen struggling to free himself from confinement.

That night, Beth has yet another dream. In it, she's walking slowly toward the house again, but she watches a trio of little girls digging in the dirt and playing. They ask her where she's going, and she indicates the house. They warn her to be careful, and watch her enter again.

Beth makes a beeline for the dining room, where she finds a group of life-sized dolls seated at the table. As she circles around them, she notices that the silverware has been replaced by hunting knives. A drop of blood then hits the white tablecloth, and several more follow. Beth realizes that the blood is leaking through the ceiling, onto a chandelier, and the stain appears to be massive,

Beth goes upstairs to investigate, and finds the bedroom where the blood originated from. A glass container filled with marbles crashes to the floor in another room, so Beth wanders over for a look. She finds what sounds like a child in bed, covered entirely up by blankets, but pulling them back reveals more blood in the bed. Beth backs up, gasps as something behind her scares her, and the dream ends.

A girl named Sara bursts into the room, and they introduce themselves to each other. After trying to mooch a sweater from the houseguest, Sara makes a hasty retreat. This sorority house is like the Twilight Zone.

As various house sisters go on with their morning routine, we see Sara ask a girl named Cindy for a jacket, but she grumpily refuses. Another girl, Linda, tosses her a matching jacket for her blouse. Exciting stuff.

In the bathroom, Beth is just staring at herself in the mirror while other girls shower. Then we see a glimpse of our favorite mental patient, struggling to free his arms. He breaks free, tears the tape off of his mouth, then sits up. Finally! We're 11 minutes in, and I was starting to think that I had the wrong movie!

A girl named Tracy complains to some of the others that she finds Beth to be "glum". The other girls chastise her for being catty, then they all gossip anyway. Fortunately, they shut up seconds before Beth enters the room. As they head outside, they talk about having some kind of big party.

Beth realizes that she grabbed the wrong book, so she goes back into the house. In the bedroom, Beth looks into a mirror, but sees a guy glaring back at her instead of her own reflection. He raises a knife and plunges it through the mirror, where it gets trapped halfway into the glass, and drips with blood. One of the sorority sisters walks in, and Beth realizes that none of it was real.

The patient, now standing up, is busy throwing himself into the walls. A young female doctor asks an intern about how the patient acted the previous night, and they appear to be heading to his room. As soon as the flunky unlocks his door, the psycho attacks him, so the doctor swiftly shuts the cell door, then watches the scuffle through the door's tiny window.

After our sorority girls tell Beth a really corny story about a pet pig, we see that the killer has been sedated again. The doctor has a machine brought into his room, probably for something like electroshock therapy. BZZT! Do I smell toast?

We see a couple of the girls struggle in their classes, then Beth has another vision. This time, the killer is leering at her from the window. She disrupts the lecture, so she decides to leave.

A creepy nerd named Andy tells Sara about an experiment that involved killing kittens to see if the mother cat could sense the loss through telepathy. That discussion leads back to the killer. The machine is being used to see how his brainwaves react to the things she says to him.

Beth has a conversation with a woman who is apparently the house mother, Mrs. Lawrence. She's going away for the weekend, so she gives Beth some instructions to tell the other girls. Then she walks out of the movie, presumably forever. Is anyone else starting to think that this has way too much plot for a supposed slasher flick?

Back in the hospital, the doctor begins to ask the patient some questions about his sudden outbursts. After each question, she consults the machine, to see if his brain activity gets stirred up by anything. Oh, and before that, we find out that the killer has a rare condition, one that allows him to be both awake and dreaming at the same time.

Her questions get more specific, and she discovers that the killer had one of his waking dreams just before he went apeshit. She asks him what the dream was about, and he says the name "Laura". Who the heck is Laura?

The line on the graph starts to jump around like a kangaroo on crack, and the intern tells the doctor that he's amazed to hear the patient speak. Then we see Beth back at the sorority, nervously looking through each room for more scary images. As she sees flashes of her dead parents, the mental patient appears to be able to see her from his cell. Even worse, she sees him.

The patient has another outburst, so they pump him full of sedatives. They leave the room, but we see that he somehow managed to remain fully alert. Then Beth has a jump-scare while backing out of the house(Why do these nimrods always back into people?), and meets up with the group of girls from the previous sequence.

They all celebrate having the house unsupervised, and get ready to party. The wild night includes eating another girl's ice cream, and trying on some of Cindy's clothing. What a fun group. Girls Gone Mild. We even get a generic "look at us in different outfits!" montage.

At the end of the scene, they realize that Beth is upset. As she starts to discuss her dreams, we travel back to the psych ward, where the patient is about to get served his lunch. The guy delivering the tray has headphones on, and never hears the killer sneak up on him. The patient bashes his head into the wall, killing him. Then he boldly marches out into the world.

Beth wraps up talking about the dream, and they all decide to consult a book about dream interpretation. Then the killer literally jogs out of the hospital, and jumps a security fence. Yay! At this rate, he should get to the house by the third movie.

The girls start reading and drinking, while the killer strides into a sporting goods store. He smashes a display case, grabs the largest hunting knife he can find, then stabs the elderly clerk in the gut. Keep the change! Oh, and the old man does some Shatner-level emoting as he dies. Funniest scene in the film, so far at least.

Okay, so now the girls are looking up the images in Beth's nightmare about the dolls, and trying to sort through all of the possible symbolism. None of it goes anywhere, which is beginning to be a pattern with this movie, A car horn honks, and they abandon the book to see who it might be.

The killer steals a station wagon. Meanwhile, Tracy reveals that she had a bunch of stuff dumped onto the front yard, to decorate for the party. And then we see the killer reading highway signs. Would it kill this movie to actually be scary? I mean, I like plot and suspense, but this thing has no clue about where it's going.

A car arrives at the sorority, but it's just a collection of nerdy guys. Literally. Despite being the oddest misfits in the universe, the girls start to make out with them. The nerds see all of the random junk on the lawn, and offer to help with the decorations.

A bored-looking hospital worker discovers that the mental patient escaped, then we have to watch the sorority house being set up for the pow wow. This movie is an endurance challenge. A tent is put up, but falls over because one couple is inside smooching. I hope all of these people die in the most painful way possible.

The hospital worker announces the escape over the P.A. system, and we FINALLY learn that the patient is named Robert Henkel. At this point, I'm going to consider that to be progress. The only massacre has been the killing of time...

The girls are in the dark, literally speaking. The power has gone out. They build a fire, then accuse their nerdy dates of playing with the fusebox. The guys deny it, but then the nerdiest one scares the girls as a prank.

The hospital worker calls the cops, and one detective straight out of central casting arrives to interview him. Seriously, this guy is such a Danny Glover clone, I almost expect Mel Gibson to be right behind him. He gets a description of Bob, then starts looking.

The college kids sit around in a group, then try to scare each other. They talk about psychic energy, ghosts, and even refer back to the kitten-torture story. Then one of the guys claims that the house has a violent past. Of course, that's right where the scene ends.

More footage of Bob driving. Then one of the nerds, John, claims that a maniac killed his own parents in the house, and we see it in some flashbacks. The weapon was an axe. As we see the killer pick up a hunting knife and leave the house, the girls beg the storyteller, John, to stop.

After one girl leaves to rest, John continues with the tale. He describes the killer going after his 2 younger sisters, which we also see in a brief clip. Then the group disbands, spreading out around the house.

Beth finds herself alone, and tries a light switch. She bumps into John, and he offers to keep her company. Beth declines, claiming that she just needs some sleep. The others haven't paired off and ended the party, though...they're all watching Halloween. On television. In a house with no electricity. Think about that.

Dr. Lindsey is called. The intern leaves her a message, then the cop asks if she has a beeper. He gets laughed at, not really sure why.

Beth falls asleep, and then has a nightmare that the killer has entered the room. He comes toward her, but stabs at the bunk bed above hers. She gets blood all over her face and screams, and the rest of the group rush in. They wake her up, and the bed is now a regular one. Beth apologizes for being so much trouble, and they convince her not to be alone that night.

One girl decides to look at the fuses. As she opens the panel, her boyfriend Craig jumps at her, just to frighten her. He talks her into setting up the teepee for some sexy fun.

Bob arrives, parking at the house next door. As he looks at his childhood home, he starts to shuffle slowly towards it. Run, Bob, run! Get going on this massacre.

John asks for information about Beth's nightmare, and the girls give him an earful. Then Beth claims that she felt unafraid of the killer at first, as if she knew him...

Okay, I'm calling it. Beth is one of the killer's sisters. She somehow forgot about her family getting slaughtered by her brother, then also managed to pledge a sorority in the same house. It's stupid as heck, but I'm pretty sure that I'm correct. Just you watch.

Heh heh heh. She must have heard me, because now Beth "knows" that the killer hid one of his weapons in the fireplace. Intrigued, they all decide to have a closer look. Oh, and Bob is STILL just walking up to the house. How slow does he walk?

They put out the fire, and Beth points to a specific brick at the base of the fireplace. Sure enough, they find Bob's original knife.Of course, since a roaring fire was just there, the knife is incredibly hot to the touch. Andy ? fumbles it, and it get imbedded in a wooden surface in front of them.

They see dark stains all over it, and realize that it's blood. Sara picks up the knife, places it on the mantle, then declares that it's "neat". Another girl tosses it right back into the fireplace.

After Dr. Lindsey checks her phone messages,we see Craig pound in the last stake for the tent, using a brick as a makeshift hammer. He then tosses the brick a few feet away, and the camera clues us in to what the next weapon will be. Boy, that was subtle.

Doc Lindsey calls the intern back, and has him find Bob's file. They go over the details of the case, even telling us that one sister survived (See?), and manage to get the address for the house as well. The intern promises to give the address to the detective as soon as he hangs up.

Back in the house, Beth is encouraged to try to unlock memories through hypnosis. Andy then realizes how late it is, and leaves the party. As soon as he's alone, he runs into Bob. The killer stabs him, then heads for the house again.

Beth, now in a trance, is told to go back to her dream, then back to wherever the dream originated from. As I predicted, Beth is Bob's sister. She survived his killing spree by hiding in the basement. Oh, and she's also the mysterious "Laura" we heard about earlier in the film.

A flashback shows Bob finding Beth, and her friends see that she's in distress. After several attempts, they manage to break her trance. As ridiculous as this sounds, not one of them ever realizes that the event was something from Beth's actual past. This is just soul-crushingly stupid.

Tracy and Craig head back to the tent, and Bob watches from a hiding spot. As Beth and her date watch the rest of Halloween with the volume cranked up, he murders the couple. Some of the girls upstairs hear the screams, and assume that it's all from the television.

Craig gets away while Tracy is being killed, and shouts a warning to the rest of the household. He runs into the nearest bedroom, completely naked, and finds the phone dead, Then they remember that Cindy has a second phone line, so they rush to check it out. Just as they dial 911, Bob cuts that line as well.

He enters the house, walks straight over to the fireplace, and fetches his old knife. Then Beth, who somehow managed to fall asleep with John before the mayhem, has another nightmare about her brother. She finally wakes up, just as Bob prepares to stab her, and he ends up killing John instead.

Beth runs upstairs, with her brother close on her heels. She reaches the others just in the nick of time, and they try to figure out what to do as Bob pounds on the door. The pounding abruptly stops, but they can still hear breathing from the hallway.

They attempt to get help by yelling out the window, then breaking some glass, but the neighbors don't respond. Then one girl remembers that there's a fire ladder, which they hang out the window. Craig goes first, bracing the ladder for the others.

As Linda starts down, Bob rushes up behind Craig, covering his mouth and stabbing him under his ribs. Linda sees Bob waiting for her, and furiously scrambles to reach the window again. He grabs her by the ankle a few times, but Linda manages to get back inside, with help from the other 2 girls.

They unhook the ladder from the windowsill, but Bob manages to reach the window before they do it. They slam the window down on his hands, and Bob screams. Then they mace him, and Bob plummets to the ground below.

They decide to escape before he revives, in case the fall didn't injure or kill him. Bob wakes up, just as they reach the front door. They open the door, and Andy's corpse is discovered leaning against the door. After locking it again, they run back to the bedroom.

Beth remembers the crashing jar of marbles, and Bob crashes through the window and loses HIS marbles. They look into each others' eyes, and then the race to flee continues. They find another victim, then arrive outside. Unfortunately for them, he also reaches the yard.


He shambles in their direction, in a visual "homage" to Michael Myers. They get scared and back away, because running would make too much sense. Linda and Beth get away, but the third girl(Tracy? Sara?) is a goner.

They hide in the basement, and Beth tries to convince Linda that they can survive the rampage, Then Beth recalls that there is a spare key to the door. They run upstairs again, alternating between hiding and searching for the key.

They hear sirens. Linda tries to be optimistic, but Beth doesn't see how the police could know about their predicament. Beth finally realizes that she's related to the killer, and she dumbs it down for her new friend. She even explains that Beth is her middle name, and her real name is Laura.

And the dreams? And Bob tracking her down? Beth thinks they have a psychic link, like the mother cat from that story. How can a movie with psychic siblings, college babes, a high body count, and silly montages be so boring? This should be crazy-fun!

Bob gets into the basement, so they try to be even stealthier. Linda spots the spare key and grabs it, and Bob attacks them both as they hurry back up the stairs. As they lock him in the basement, Bob attempts to stab his way through the door. Beth uses her telepathy to time his next impact, and they run to the fireplace to grab the other knife.

Bob reaches them as they try to open the front door, and he corners Beth. She tries to hit him with a shovel from the fireplace, but it's small and ineffective. Linda helps by slamming him from behind with an actual shovel, but Bob barely reacts.

As he raises his arm to stab Beth with a fatal blow, Linda's shovel slams into the back of his head. She pummels him a few more times to be sure, then decide that he must be dead. As they limp away, Bob manages one final kill, planting his knife in Linda's back.

She takes a few more steps, then falls against a doorway and dies. Bob is trying to crawl after Beth like a snake, but she sees him coming. They attack at the same time, and Beth succeeds in thrusting her knife up through his chin, and out of his skull.

The cops find the house at last, and a pair of them help Linda. As she recovers in the hospital, she asks a nurse how bad the wounds are, and the nurse assures her that they'll be fine. After the nurse pulls her curtain shut, Bob pulls it back again. Beth screams, revealing that it was another nightmare. THE END

Wow, what a terrible experience this one was! There were only 2 silver linings: One was that the women were quite attractive and charming. The other was that we got to at least see some of Halloween. 1.5 killer trees out of 5 for this travesty.

And what did I learn from Sorority House Massacre?

-When the best friend is the character you'd rather see alive, you have a terrible main character.

-It takes all night to walk across a single lawn.

-It's possible to forget your entire past, despite seeing it every day in your head. Oh, and to also not remember where you lived, then move back in to the SAME DAMN HOUSE.

I'll have to pick my next one more carefully, to avoid getting a movie-related brain tumor. Any suggestions for a good slasher online that I haven't done yet?

Deepstar Six

So, I was in a discussion not long ago, about how, in the late '80s/early '90s, there were a crapload of Alien knockoffs...and most of them took place underwater. Deepstar Six was one of 2 of these things that I paid to see in a theatre(the other was nLeviathan), and it's today's SAW. Big, drippy, slippery SPOILERS follow...

According to the opening credits, this movie involved the producers of Total Recall, and the guy who created the Friday the 13th franchise. Weird. Oh, and the cast is mostly made up of actors from television and bad movies, like Nia Peeples, Greg "My Two Dads" Evigan and Matt "That Guy Who WASN'T Steve Guttenberg in later Police Academy Sequels" McCoy. Neat-o.

After the saddest credits ever, we follow a shark to Deepstar Six, which is a military project located on the ocean floor. There, we meet McBride and Laidlaw, a happy couple who are just waking up to begin their work shift. McBride is commitment-shy, and he artfully evades Laidlaw when she starts to ask him why he's never settled down. Trouble in Paradise?

They join the rest of their team for the change in shift, and we find out that their "shift" is in the last week of a 6-month stint on the ocean floor. The team consists of McBride(a submarine pilot) and Joyce Collins; a marine biologist named Dr. Scarpelli; a physician named Diane Norris; 2 hotshot submarine pilots, named Osborne and Hodges; a Russian-sounding scientist named Burciaga; Dr. Van Gelder, who is the man in charge of the scientific experiments being conducted underwater; and Captain Laidlaw, the commander of the underwater station.

Burciaga and Collins are studying an area where the military is trying to place a missile site, and they discover that the cavern underneath that spot is pretty deep. They contact Van Gelder to report that they should probably look for another place to build the missile site, but he orders them to use whatever tools are necessary to blow up the cavern, then put the missiles on top of the wreckage. Collins and Burciaga want to explore the area first, but Van Gelder overrides the decision.

Snyder tells the rest of the group about the cave discovery, and Scarpelli seeks out Van Gelder to try to talk him into letting her explore the cavern first. Despite citing several important scientific discoveries made in similar caverns, he refuses to delay the demolition of the cave. She stomps away, then we get a brief scene of Snyder begging Norris to give him a medical reason to return to land.

After that random bit goes nowhere, Scarpelli talks to the captain about the preservation of the cavern. He points out that the military project is on a tight schedule, but she counter-argues that the study of the cavern would be a valuable tool in her research. The captain chooses to side with Van Gelder, and Scarpelli takes out her frustration on some exercise equipment.

After her workout, Scarpelli jumps into the shower, but abruptly loses water pressure. Richardson pops in to ogle her, and she pulls him into the shower to join her...fully clothed. Heh, bet they both die of exposure before the credits roll.

Osborne and Hodges use a robot to place the explosives, and the resulting charge causes the sea floor around the site to begin to collapse. They activate a remote camera to explore the newly-created fissure, while they watch from their module at a safe distance. What follows is a friggin' enchanted wonderland, filled with glowing seaweed and underwater lava-rocks. Tra-la-la!

They decide to record the experience, as well as taking some photographs(the nudity will be artful, I'm sure), and that's when the probe suddenly loses the transmission. Osborne and Hodges decide to pilot their vehicle into the fissure to retrieve the probe. While waiting for the camera to work again, Burciaga tells Collins that the images from the cavern could be ocean life that has existed for millions of years, undetected by humans until now.

More Disney underwater fantasy stuff, accompanied by even more wondrous music. Man, it's like Seaquest and The Little Mermaid had a love-child! They spot the probe, then something spots THEM. The object chases their vehicle, and the other sub that Burciaga and Collins are observing them from abruptly loses all contact with Osborne and Hodges. Even their mini-sub vanishes from the radar screen.

Burciaga and Collins decide to call Deepstar Six to report the incident to the captain, and Snyder leaves his post to find him. While they wait, the sub is attacked by the large creature that destroyed the first sub. As the small vehicle begins to flood, Burciaga is flung under a pile of flying equipment, and Collins is temporarily knocked out.

Snyder and the captain try to contact them, but get only silence. They ready another vehicle to go after them, then we see hat Collins has finally regained her senses. She soon discovers that the creature that attacked the tiny ship pushed it close to the edge of a ravine, where it's extremely unstable. She manages to revive Burciaga, but he's pinned under a ton of stuff, and his leg is in rough shape. He's toast.

McBride and Laidlaw move in closer to where Burciaga and Collins were transmitting, and the creature nearly collides with them as well. They avoid it, then dock with the other mini-sub. After getting the hatch between the vehicles to open up, Burciaga dies from the trauma of his injuries. Collins crawls through the hatch, as does McBride, but then the portal slams down on Captain Laidlaw's midsection, nearly cutting him in half.

Pinned in place, the captain orders the pair to save themselves, then he floods the chamber to drown himself. They try to pry him loose first, fail, then swim back into the other sub. After a short ride back to the research station, they get escorted to sick bay.

While changing into a dry outfit, McBride and Richardson talk about losing the captain. Richardson gives McBride an old photo of him and Laidlaw during a happy occasion, and McBride is thankful for the good memory. He hugs Richardson, then finishes getting dressed.

During her time with the doctor, Collins reports on the creature that seems to be attacking all of the research vessels. Scarpelli shares the theory that perhaps the creature was disturbed by a combination of both the detonation of the cavern, and the sudden influx of light provided by all of the subs and probes. Also, during the medical examination, Dr. Norris discovers that Collins is pregnant. McBride just happens to walk in as the announcement is made. As George Takei might say, "Oh myyyyy..."

Anyway, while Collins and McBride hash out their relationship issues, Dr. Norris prepares to evacuate the station early. She leaves Snyder in charge of shutting down the computers, while the others all leave to pack up equipment. When the computer asks Snyder to input the reason for the shutdown, he tries to narrow down the attacks as an aggressive threat to the base by a natural force. That starts a missile detonation sequence. Gosh, what could possibly go wrong?

While the others talk about what they plan to do back on land, Snyder fires the missiles. The impact sends a shockwave through the base, and that shockwave also pisses off the creature outside. As the structure of the base starts to buckle, everyone scurries around to make repairs to the many, many leaks that are now happening.

They've fixed things on a short-term basis, but now they're boned on several other levels...For starters, the decompression chamber is being flooded, which is dangerous for them at such a low depth in the ocean. Also, the supplies are flooded, greatly reducing their chances of survival even if they do make it back to the surface; oh, and the reactor that they're running everything off of has become unstable, so they'll die in a matter of hours in a nuclear explosion long before the air runs out.

Snyder suggests trying to get into an escape pod without going through decompression, but he's told that anyone attempting to do that would explode from pressure. They examine the layout of the base, and find a possible route to a place where they might be able to repair the decompression chamber, so they work as a team to set up a new plan of action.

Richardson gets into a diving suit, grabs a welding tool, then heads outside to begin the repairs, while they try to guide him along from a computer screen. The welding tool is bright enough to attract the monster, and we see something slowly advance upon Richardson's position. A moment later, the others hear him screaming over the microphone.

They try to pull Richardson back into the base, but the creature follows him through the airlock. Only Richardson's top half makes it, followed quickly by a wormlike behemoth. The worm-monster ducks back down into the hatch with Richardson's yummy legs to chew on, as the crew work to both shut the airlock, and escape the room.

As the room gets flooded, the worm decides to swim back in. It snatches Scarpelli, and the rest barely manage to get away and seal the hatch. While Snyder and McBride argue over whose fault this is, the others realize that the creature has suddenly gone quiet. Snyder once again proposes using an escape pod without decompressing, and is told that it would be lethal.

The doctor and Van Gelder talk about the nature of the creature, and she tries to pick his brain about ways to kill it. He doesn't know enough about it to offer anything useful, but Snyder, McBride and Collins find harpoon-like guns that fire projectiles that can cause the target to inflate like a balloon, then explode. That sounds like a fun way to die. Snyder doubts the effectiveness of the weapon, until Collins demonstrates on the cushion that Snyder is sitting on.

Armed with their kooky new weapons, they decide to sneak back through the flooded part of the base to get to the decompression chamber. While wading through chest-high water, McBride dives under to see if he can clear enough debris away to finish repairing the decompression chamber, and clear an exit for them. After a couple of dives, he reports that he believes that he achieved his goal.

Then the giant worm pops up, and everyone goes  crazy. During the frenzy, Snyder accidentally shoots Van Gelder with one of the Air-rows(heh, couldn't resist that one...), and we see his heart explode out of his chest. After the creature leaves again, Snyder has a mental breakdown, so Norris injects him with a sedative.

Snyder starts to cry and act like a wounded puppy, so McBride and Collins leave him with the physician, so that they can begin the task of readying the decompression chamber, and setting up an escape pod. Snyder is left alone for a minute, while the doctor tries to gather some medical supplies. While alone, he has a vision of the recently-exploded Van Gelder, and the ghost "attacks" him with another explosive harpoon.

Norris hears his screams, and discovers Snyder climbing up into an escape pod. She tries to drag him away from the ladder, but he gets away from her, then slams the pod door shut and initiates the launch sequence. Snyder's pod launches, sending a rush of water into the room through the now-open hatch, and McBride and Collins barely manages to rescue the doctor in time from a watery demise. When McBride declares that he's going to kill Snyder for what he did, the doctor says that Snyder has already killed himself.

Then we get to watch Snyder die. It's slow, it's painful, it's bloody, and it's explosive. Fun times. It's also the best special effect in the entire danged movie. Sadly, it doesn't last very long. When I first saw it in my teens, I thought it felt like forever, heh. Things seemed much gorier in my younger days...

Back in the base, our last three survivors are waiting for the decompression chamber to finish cycling up, so that they can make their escape. McBride decides that he's going to make his way over to another computer, hijack one of the mini-subs, then pilot it remotely over to the decompression chamber so that they can use it for their escape. Oh, and he asks Collins to marry him. Awwwww!!!! I hope they don't go on a cruise for their honeymoon...

McBride swims through several flooded compartments, while Collins tries to use the power of prayer to bribe God to let her beloved live. McBride gets inside one of the mini-subs, and begins to pilot it back to the other survivors. Then, the monster knocks at the hatch, so the doctor lets it in. Seriously, that actually happens. I really wish I were joking, but we get a scene where the monster politely knocks.

The creature eats the physician while Collins works on getting herself inside the decompression chamber. As it attempts to finish the doctor off though, she grabs up a pair of defbrillator paddles, and electrocutes the beast. It eats her anyway, while Collins gets rescued by McBride. The decompression finally finishes, and they get into their escape sub.

The mini-sub surfaces, but so does the stupid worm. As our couple tries to get onto a life raft, the worm attacks, so McBride causes a fire and  an explosion, using leaking fuel. The creature gets blown up, then McBride reveals that he swam a safe distance away, and Collins pulls him into the raft. THE END

Well, we had a giant sea worm, a couple of exploding victims, a sexy girl in a shower, and a relatively high body count: so why do I feel so bored by this one? It just felt slow to me, and the kills early on were incredibly dull. Plus, we didn't really get to see much of the creature design, so even those few glimpses felt like they botched it. Still, Nia Peeples had a good shower scene, and the female lead  reached Sandra Bullock-levels of cuteness,  so it sort of evened out. 3 out of 5 killer trees, for some good 'splosions.

And what did I learn after watching Deepstar Six?
-It wasn't very deep, and there were no stars. Discuss.

-Giant worms hate light.

-Humans make messy balloons.

Next up, a real treat. All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, starring Amber Heard. Can't wait! See you then...

Drive-In Massacre

Well, if you're watching today's movie while reading along(which is how this blog is designed), then I just want to apologize for the torture and mental cruelty you've endured. It's kind of a glass half/half empty situation: On one hand, you'll have to endure something that can never be unseen again. On the other, there's always the dim hope that it can only get better from here...

Yeah, I don't quite believe that one, either. Okay, SPOILERS blah blah blah, and let's get this one over with. Oh, and the sound quality of the copy that was mailed to me sucks more ass than the tail end of a human centipede, so I might have to do what I did when I watched The Forest, and just guess what's happening in the story. What fun!

Okay, so the basic gist of the film is summed up nicely in a little blurb on the screen. It informs us that, on the 10th of August, the infamous massacre began in a California drive-in. In a semi-clever touch, the film's title appears on a theatre marquee. As I mentioned before, the DVD sound quality is pretty horrible, but at least it spares us from getting the full effect of the lame 1970's theme song. This song is a great example of why disco died.

Anyway, we see a  guy with a flashlight, directing customers to parking spots, and also collecting the admission price. The manager, dressed in a cheap suit and wearing a permanent scowl on his face, says something to the guy with the flashlight, but it's pretty hard to make out any actual words. He gets pissed off at pretty much every customer, over little things like paying with a 20 dollar bill.

We see a white car find a spot, and the couple in the car say something that ends with the word "bed". Seriously, I'm not even kidding about how poor the audio is. It's easier to understand the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon than it is to hear the crap these folks are saying. "Wonk wonk wonk wonk wonk" would actually be an improvement to this thing.

Anyway, we see the guy with the flashlight wandering around in a playground near the refreshment stand, then we see the manager quietly entering another building. And we meet the couple in the white car, Alan and "Alan's Date", which is how she's credited. Nice. Alan and AD want to make out, but Alan also wants to see the opening of the film they're at, which he's seen multiple times already. AD protests, but Alan ignores her needs, because she doesn't even merit enough importance to be given an actual name.

Alan leans out of his window to reach the clunky speaker for the film, but he's parked too far way. Not deterred in the least, Alan leans the entire upper half of his body through the car window to grab the speaker. A samurai blade flashes, and Alan is now The Headless Car Man.

AD screams when she sees the bloody neck-stump, and then we see that the samurai sword of the killer has the magical ability to pass through glass with breaking it. See, AD's window is closed, and Alan's window is blocked by his large corpse, but she somehow gets the sword right through her throat...ergo, the sword must be imbued with some kind of magic. Movie logic is fun!

After AD's body falls out of the car, someone finds her and the cops are called. 2 beefy detectives, Ham and Cheese, answer the call. Just kidding, their names are Leary and Koch, but they look like a pair of Weebles that somehow were granted souls, then became homicide detectives. In all honesty, I'd love to see a gritty detective show about a pair of gruff Weebles.

They huff and puff their way to the drive-in, then question Austin Johnson, the guy who was getting pissed off at the customers earlier. One of the Weebles describes Austin as "the perfect asshole", which sounds kind of weirdly intimate, when you think about how exactly he might know how perfect it is. Then we see Austin angrily stacking buckets of popcorn, while Germy, his sidekick with the flashlight, is cleaning the parking area and taking out trash.

The pair of portly cops waddle in, and ask Austin for details about the crime scene, and the business itself. We learn that, although Austin manages the place, the actual owner lives in Hawaii, and rarely even makes an appearance. The drive-in was actually the second business venture that the owner tried out, as he had once started out an unsuccessful carnival on the same plot of land.

Then the detectives see Germy, and Austin calls him inside to answer their questions. Germy's not his real name, but even he insists that they call him by that moniker. his prior job was a being a carnival geek, where he would bite the heads off of snakes and chickens. Then he does a strange dance, and proclaims himself the greatest sword-swallower in the world. Uhhh...yeah, maybe we should all just quietly back out of the room now...

After Austin leaves, the cops ask Germy for more information. He says that he only found the bodies because their car was still sitting there long after everyone else had gone home. When asked if he had ever seen the couple before, he replies that he probably had, but that they were just a couple of the many young people who made the drive-in a regular spot for dates.

Then Germy gives them a tip. It seems that one customer in particular always came to the movies and took up 2 parking spaces in his car. The detectives ask Germy to write down his license plate if he comes back, and he promises to do so. Oh, and he also blurts out that the owner of the business, Mr. Van Houten, also has an impressive collection of knives and swords from around the world. Hmmm...

When asked about the weapon collection, Germy can only guess that it goes wherever the mysterious business owner goes. Then he gets sidetracked again, offering to tell them about another suspicious customer, a guy who never parks in the same space twice, and disguises himself to look younger than he really is. Boy, that Germy sure is helpful!

Austin orders Germy back to work, and he walks the cops out to the parking lot. They drive away, then Germy picks up some trash. That night, there's a smaller crowd at the movie, including a couple who are discussing an unplanned pregnancy. As they debate whether or not to keep the baby, or even if they should stay together, they kiss and make up.

A dirty old man in the next car starts to notice their intimacy, and he chooses to stop watching the movie. That's an unfortunate decision, because he leaves his car to get right up to their window. Why is that unfortunate? Because he gets a front row seat to their murder, as the swordsman impales the couple, leaving the sword at the crime scene.

The cops bring in Germy for another interview. They show him the sword, but he doesn't recognize it at all. Then he claims that Austin took over his sword-swallowing act after Germy retired. The detectives point out the unlikely odds that 2 sword-swallowers would just happen to work at a business where multiple victims would be eliminated by a sword-wielding maniac, but Germy sticks to his story. Then he "remembers" that one of the customers he snitched on earlier was parked next to the latest victims. Boy, can you believe the balls on this guy? I can't decide if he's an idiot or a genius, to keep going with these stories.

Germy then gives them his license plate number, so they decide to check it out. They track it to a guy name Orville, and find him at home. They follow him into his living room, where he has one wall devoted to porn. Guys, I think you caught your killer.

They get him to admit that he's been going to the drive-in quite a bit, and he stammers that he just really likes a particular movie that's been playing there. He admits that he's heard about the killings, yet denies that he even saw anything. When the cops tell him that he was seen sneaking around near the murder site, they also show him a rap sheet, revealing that our friend Orville has had a history of arrests. Then, while Detective Tweedle Dee sits with him, Detective Tweedle Dum searches for evidence.

Orville is asked about his porn collection, and he starts to get antsy. The search of the house turns up nothing, so they escort him outside to look at his car. He pretends that they're old friends paying him a visit(in case any of his neighbors are watching), then he loudly offers to let them open up the trunk. Ignoring his act, the cops look in the back seat, where they discover a pile of blood-soaked rags.

Orville runs down the sidewalk, and they chase him, with one of them going back for their car. They catch him, and he insists that the bloody rags were from a dog that he ran into the other night. The crime lab confirms that it is actually dog blood, and they reluctantly let Orville go back home. Dang, I was hoping it was going to end early!

Later that evening, a sting is set up at the theatre. The detectives see Orville there, despite his assurance earlier that he would stay away. Hilariously, one of the fat cops is in drag, to make them look like a couple. A guy named Jim is frustrated when his date wants to watch the movie instead of making out, so he eventually leaves her alone in the car.

Our meathead heroes watch Orville like a hawk, then the one in drag worries that they were spotted. He grabs his partner to pretend that they're making out, and the partner tells him to stay on his side of the car. Then we see Jim's girlfriend buttoning up her shirt. Further complicating the situation, Germy sees the cops and stops to chat, then Austin comes over to yell at him to get back to work. This is turning into a bad episode of Three's Company!

While all of these distracting bits of nonsense are happening, the killer strikes again. He takes advantage of the various distractions, then beheads Jim's date before he returns to the car. The cops immediately suspect that Orville did it, but then find him dead as well, with a bloody gash in his throat.

More interrogations, this time with both Germy and Austin brought into the precinct. Austin's only concern is for his profits, and he tries to intimidate the cops into letting him get back to the drive-in. When the cops threaten to get a court order to close it down, Austin tells them that he could care less how many victims the killer claims, as long as the drive-in keeps getting customers. The detectives eventually just tell him to leave, and Austin fires Germy on the way out the door.

Germy is also allowed to leave, and he finds a carnival that's open. As he wanders through the crowd, he flashes back to everything that's been said about him throughout the film, and he stares at the colorful rides with a sad expression. Could Germy be the killer, motivated by years of mental illness and abuse? Or could it  be Austin, angry that the drive-in is slowly going bankrupt? Or maybe the anonymous owner of the drive-in, gone mad after so many failed businesses? Really, does anyone really give a crap at this point?

Someone calls the cops to report that there was a man with a machete caught in a warehouse, and our investigators drag themselves over there to check it out. There is a madman in the warehouse, and he's holding a young girl hostage, gibbering nonsense at her and laughing. As he drags the captive through the warehouse, she manages to fight back, and then she runs away through the maze of tall shelves.

The maniac stalks her, trying to get the woman to reveal her location, and she continues to attempt to sneak toward an exit. He eventually sits on the floor and begins to stroke his weapon like a baby, finally shouting and screaming at his intended victim to come back. Her silence pisses him off, and he decides to resume the chase.

As they both sneak around the warehouse, the maniac finds himself in the aisle next to hers. He reaches out to grab her, but the arrival of police cars frighten him into letting her go. The detectives come into the warehouse with weapons drawn, and try to locate the guy using his ranting and raving to guide them. It ends in a brief shootout, and they kill him.

In the aftermath of the shootout, the young woman angrily demands to know why the cops shot him to death. When they tell her that they suspect that he was the Drive-In Killer, she scoffs at the idea, and they discover that she was the man's daughter. He was an escaped mental patient, but his escape took place earlier that day, meaning that he couldn't be their killer. D'oh!

While the cops commiserate over killing an innocent man, they both suddenly realize that either Germy or Austin could have easily killed any of the victims, during the reel change of the movies at the projection booth. Great, but how does that help them? It still means that they haven't narrowed out either man, and it doesn't help them if the killer is a perfect stranger. Wait, am I overthinking this, or are they underthinking it? This movie hurts my brain.

Anyway, now we see Germy at the theatre, probably to hug his boss and promise to keep in touch for years to come. Uh huh, that would make the most sense. Well, a young woman runs after Germy, trying to intercept him. She blocks his path, doing her best to convince Germy not to enter Austin's office. Germy keeps walking, and he reveals that Austin has actually been in possession of the oft-mentioned sword collection the entire time, but that now Germy wants it for himself.

Germy's desire to be paid and to take the blades home overrides his common sense. He enters nthe main building, and the woman just stands by and looks sad. Then she sees the cops come screeching into the parking lot. They pull their clunker into a space, just in time to see someone get murdered in silhouette form on the big screen, in front of the projector.

They ask the young woman, who is now crying who is in the office, then they hurry in to try to stop any more mayhem from happening. The projection room appears to contain Austin's dead body, so they start the search for Germy. They nearly stumble across the body of Germy as well in their search, the cause of death appearing to be a long fall down some kind of stairwell or shaft.

The movie then ends with a written blurb, explaining that the killer was never found, and that more drive-ins have been attacked by an assailant with a knife or sword. This is followed by a voice announcing that the killer has been seen entering this theatre, and to please try not to panic. THE END

Okay, first, a quick medical update: My uncle is slowly recovering after being given a blood transfusion, and it appears to be helping him regain  much of his strength again. He's still quite tired, but he sounds much better than he did.

All right, so back to the movie. It was pretty....ehhhh....1 or 2 good murders, surrounded by thick walls of bland, lifeless crapola. And the poor audio and video quality  made it seem much more terrible than it had to be. 1.5 out of 5 killer trees this week.

What did I learn from the Drive-In Massacre?

-Never hire a guy named Germy.
-When you investigate murders, you should rule out suspects, not let them pile up.
-Beware of carnival folk...they miss their swords.

And what did Santa bring me to watch next week? Well, it'll either be Dead Above Ground, or perhaps Asylum of the Damned. We'll see what happens. If I don't get that in by then, let me wish all of you a very happy new year. And if I get my hands on a Playstation 4, you may never see me again, as I plan to play the shit out of that thing!! Part-ayyyyy!!!!

Smiley

Well, I've been saying it since I started this blog, and now I have the proof: Slasher movies are destroying my brain! The movie that I was planning to watch this week, He Knows You're Alone, was one I had done already. Luckily, in a weird twist of fate, I was accidentally also sent Smiley, that movie that I never got around to watching last spring, when I was hospitalized. What comes around, goes around. So, back by no demand whatsoever, we get to finally watch Smiley this week. Settle in for SPOILERS...

So, this one begins with a fairly standard slasher premise: A young teen babysitter named Stacy is texting someone while on the job. A scary face suddenly appears in front of Stacy, but it's just the little girl she's watching, trying to scare her. Stacy puts down her phone to talk to the girl.

She discovers that the young girl is pretty Internet-savvy(What kid isn't these days?), as the kid shows her a Chat Roulette-type of website. Then the girl explains the legend of Smiley, the killer we're waiting for...Good, let's get in gear!

The legend is a basic rip-off of Candyman...You get onto any sort of online video chat. At any point during the chat, you type the phrase "I did it for the lulz", 3 times in a row. After the third time, a figure wearing a Smiley-face mask made out of flesh appears, then he kills you. Or the other person in the chat. Or something.

Believing the story to be nonsense, Stacy laughs it off. Then she gets jumped again! Oh, this time it's the little girl's father. He apologizes for being so late, then offers to write the babysitter a check. The entire time, he's also drooling over poor Stacy. Perv.

When she gets home, Stacy boots up her laptop. She signs on to one of those online chats, then browses through some of the possibilities. An angry-looking guy in thick glasses pops up, and his screen name is "Stranger", which seems kind of ominous. After a short introduction, Stacy tells Stranger that she likes his glasses. He replies that he's going to murder her.

A noise causes her to look over her shoulder, but the bedroom is still empty behind her. Stacy wanders down the hallway, finding a glass door slightly ajar. She creeps back to her room, still afraid that she might not be alone in the house.

She sits down to resume her chat with Stranger, then impulsively types "I did it for the lulz" 3 times. The bedroom door swings open, then Smiley grabs Stacy, stabbing her through the back. Stranger sees the murder, turns to a friend in the room, and starts to laugh. Then the opening credits roll.

Next, we meet Ashley, a cute young coed about to move into a house near her college. Her dad is nervous about her living off-campus, but she assures him that everything will be fine. After a quick hug, they part ways.

Inside the house, Ashley meets a girl with the unlikely name of Proxy. Proxy??? Not "Roxy", which would actually be a name, but PROXY? Really, movie, you want to irk me this early? What are the other characters called, Fallomba, Snik-snik, and Fartknockers? (By the way, if anyone who reads this wants to make a slasher flick with a character named "Fartknockers", I guarantee you at least ONE 5-star review.)

Anyway, Proxy sees Ashley as the stereotypical "innocent young woman trying too hard to fit in", and tries to ditch her by making plans to go to a party that evening. Ashley somehow misses the subtlety of her cold shoulder, and begs to go the party with her. Proxy gives in, and off they go!

They walk around the grounds of the campus, and Proxy reveals that she hasn't ever actually met most of the people at the party that they're going to. She knows them online, through the 4chan website. Ashley starts to get nervous about the party, so she and Proxy get a little bit buzzed on a joint along the way.

The party is pretty huge, and they soon meet a friendly guy by the name of Zane. He flirts with Ashley quite a bit, bragging that he's a bit of an expert on "The strange and retarded," whatever that means. Proxy says that it sounds like the title of a crappy soap opera.

Zane elaborates, explaining that he's fascinated by people who believe in myths that have no basis in reality, like Bigfoot or the Chupacabra. Then he makes a quick joke or two, and disappears to go get wasted, leaving the girls laughing over how strange he is. Or re...nah, too easy.

Proxy encourages Ashley to talk to another guy across the room, so she heads in that direction. His name is Binder, but Zane interrupts the conversation and dubs him "Pedobear". 2 other guys start to bully Binder, and one of them was the guy who laughed when Stacy was killed by Smiley in that online chat.

Speaking of that scene...it plays again, except now we realize that we're seeing it from his side of the chat. After Stacy is killed by Smiley, Ashley screams, and the group at the party just laugh. Proxy assures her that it's just a trick, and then repeats the legend of Smiley, and how to summon him.

The party gets wild and crazy, and so does Ashley. She gets plastered, and soon they're all just laughing and behaving like loons. At one point, she even starts to write stuff on a sleeping guy's face. I hope she doesn't have class the next day...

Ashley sleeps until past noon, and rushes to class. Heh. She gets to her first class just as the professor is giving his introduction, and she gets to the nearest seat. The class is called Intro to Reason and Ethics, and the instructor, Prof. Clayton, asks them why they think the class is a required course. Ashley gives him an answer that he likes, earning her some brown-nosing points. They talk after class, and he assures her that he won't hold her tardiness against her.

That night, Ashley and Proxy compare how their days went. Proxy teases her a little bit about how much she drank at the party. Then they see a video of the guy whose face Ashley drew on in that video chat site, and he viciously get attacked by Smiley. Ashley insists that they should bring the video to the police, but Proxy points out how silly the story would sound.

Ashley tries to laugh it off as well, but she still seems worried. Proxy offers to set her mind at ease by typing "I did it for the lulz" 3 times, just to prove that nothing would happen. They scroll through a bunch of random chats, before settling on some shirtless dweeb. Proxy then advises Ashley to envision Smiley in her mind before typing.

She tells the shirtless guy that he's going to die, and then types "I did it for the lulz" 3 times in a row. Nothing happens at first, so they relax. Then Smiley rises up and stabs the nerdy guy, and they scream.

Ashley declares that they need to go right to the police, but Proxy has a different take on the issue. She argues that going to the cops will bring them unwanted attention, and the killer could then learn who they are. The discussion is disrupted by a call from Ashley's father.

He can tell that she sounds tense, but she explains that she's just nervous about being away from home, and that she misses him. He buys it, then Proxy pops up, prompting Ashley to end the call. She goes back inside, and the matter of the video is dropped for the night.

In class the next day, Clayton gets the class into a discussion about how to prove a hypothesis. With her mind still on Smiley, Ashley asks the professor what you'd do if your hypothesis turned out to be so incorrect, that something seemingly impossible seemed to be the result. Clayton introduces her to the concept of ideology, the idea that you have complete confidence in something you THINK that you know. He lists guys like Hitler and Bin Laden as examples of people who followed their ideologies to extremes.

After class, Ashley decides to do some research at the campus library. While looking at various book titles, Ashley literally runs into Binder. They get friendly, and Ashley asks him if he believes in Smiley. Binder's theory is that some legends grow in strength as more people believe in them, and that Smiley is one such entity.

When Ashley asks him if that means that Smiley is real, he responds that, even if Smiley isn't real, the videos of him are. She likes that explanation, and they exchange phone numbers. Then she heads back to the house, just in time to be invited to another party hosted by Zane.

More crowds, more music, and more drinking. Proxy leaves Ashley to go find the bathroom, and Ashley overhears 2 girls talking about the latest video of Smiley. She spots Zane across the room, and decides to see what he knows about the urban legend.

Zane and his buddies laugh at her questions, but then Zane gets serious after his obnoxious friends leave. He asks Ashley what she knows about the murder of his friend, and accuses her of invoking the presence of Smiley. He admits that he even conjured up the killer, but assumed that it was all just a prank. Then he accuses Ashley of knowing more about what happened to his friend than what she's told him.

She staggers away, but not before Zane demands to know what she's going to do if Smiley comes after them next. She walks back to the house in a drunken stupor, then stop;s in the middle of the campus quad when she thinks that she spots Smiley. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, and the killer looms right in front of her, so a chase begins.

Ashley runs the rest of the way to the house, but Smiley follows her. The killer lurks at the front door, so Ashley goes from room to room, desperate to find a good place to hide. Smiley finds a way to enter the house, and ambushes the frightened teen, so she screams for help.

The whole thing turns out to have been a dream. Proxy finds her in the bedroom, screaming in her sleep, and doesn't believe that the chase was anything more than a nightmare. Ashley shows her a part of her blouse that Smiley ripped, but Proxy still doesn't see how that proves anything. After all, if Smiley had been there, then why would he have left her alive? Proxy asks Ashley if she takes any medications for mental disorders, and that gives Ashley a reason to awkwardly pause. Uh oh...

Yeah, she takes anti-psychotic pills. Or, she DID take them, at one point. Ashley weaned herself off of the pills gradually, as she reveals to the school shrink, but perhaps she might want to get her prescription updated. Oh, and the school shrink resembles Maura Tierney a little bit, so, you know, "hubba".

She doesn't tell the shrink about Smiley, so the advice she gets is pretty iffy, at best. She merely admits that she's been on edge and frightened with some frequency, and the shrink thinks it might be because she's far from home, and probably missing her deceased mother. Ashley gets a prescription for something that will calm her nerves, then is sent home.

As Ashley is leaving, Proxy collides with her. Apparently, Zane has informed her of another murder that was posted online. They quickly make their way over to his place to figure out the reason behind the killings.

Zane is over the edge. He's got a gun, and he's ranting and raving about security. It turns out that he's not really a student, but an elite computer hacker; the sort of guy who just hacks into national banks when he needs money, and delves in the personal history of anyone he might want to use and abuse.

He points his gun at Ashley, and demands to know what connection she has to Smiley. Then he admits that his hacking might have brought him to the attention of any number of government superpowers, but that wouldn't explain the presence of Smiley. Ashley proposes that the killer is somehow weirder and more powerful than any of those things, and Zane admits that anything might be possible. He sends them away, then returns to hiding out with his gun.

Ashley has another nightmare, then she endures another class. The discussion in class this time concerns the very existence of life itself, and whether or not we exist because something else exists on a level above us, allowing us to have self-awareness. Or something like that. I don't know, maybe this would have been better if I had watched it while high. Certainly wouldn't have hurt.

After class, Ashley decides to do some research about Smiley on the school computers. She searches for more of his murder videos, as well as information about 4chan, and other hacker knowledge. Unbeknownst to her, a dark figure is approaching the computer, and he has a knife in one hand.

It's Binder. She jumps at the sight of him, and he shows her an employee ID card, revealing that he's in charge of the campus computer network. She tells him about her research into Smiley, and he remains skeptical, until she says that she caused a student to die by summoning the killer.

Binder's reaction is...odd. He claims that when he tried to summon Smiley, nothing happened. Ashley explains that you have to strongly desire the harm to inflict it, and that only seems to get Binder more excited. Ashley gets upset, and decides to return to the house.

She returns to the video chat from her bedroom PC, and scrolls through a handful of different subscribers. Then she sees Smiley himself in the last one, waiting for her. She asks him what he is exactly, and he threatens to pay her another visit. She asks him where he is, and he responds, "right behind you", which is freaky. To make matters worse, his screen has gone black all of a sudden, with no indication of where he might be.

Ashley turns around, and finds Proxy standing there, demanding to know what she's up to. They have a fight, and Proxy storms out of the house. Ashley decides to call her father, but something at the window scares her, and she drops her phone on the sidewalk below, smashing the phone to pieces. Proxy is standing there, and she assumes that Ashley was throwing the phone at her.

Ashley decides to pay another visit to the school shrink. She tearfully admits that she's having some kind of breakdown, and the shrink decides that they should meet on a daily basis...starting tomorrow. For now, she just wants Ashley to get some sleep. She prescribes a stronger pill, then sends the poor girl back home.

On her way across the quad, she texts a quick apology for her abrupt exit at the library to Binder. He lets her know that he's been upset about the recent events as well, and that seems to ease some of her tension. She decides to pay a visit to Professor Clayton's office, and he's there to greet her.

They discuss whether or not the human race is doomed to kill itself off, and Clayton offers her a stiff drink. She declines, but he pours himself one. Then he launches into a diatribe about how our instinct to survive at any cost, and to use up every planetary resource to further our own progress makes us all parasites.

Oh, and he starts to close all of the blinds in his office, in the most menacing way possible. Clayton then hovers over her, whispering all of his crazy, menacing crap about death, all while slowly getting drunk. Ashley finally decides that she's had enough, gets up, and leaves his office.

She returns to the library to work on a school assignment, but gets the unnerving sensation that she's being watched. A glance around reveals nothing, but then Smiley appears on her computer monitor. He waves at her in a mocking manner, and she overreacts, smashing the computer, and yelling and screaming. She collapses onto the floor in tears, then becomes aware that other students are watching and even filming her.

Ashley returns to the house, where she has a brief hallucination of Smiley. She takes a couple of the new pills that she was prescribed, looks at them, then decides not to ingest them. She cries, and heads to her bedroom.

Another nightmare or hallucination occurs. In this one, several versions of Smiley appear in the bedroom, and one of them starts to strangle her. Ashley screams, and a shadowy figure darts past her bed. It appears to be her deceased mother at first, but then it transforms into Smiley.

Ashley screams and wakes up yet again, only to find Proxy at her bedside, holding her hand over her own face. Apparently, she came into the room to check on Ashley, and was punched in the face for her efforts. Ashley apologizes to her, then places a call to the police, to tell them everything she knows.

She meets a weary detective named Diamond, and gives him her statement about the killing spree. After making her recount every detail, he informs her that they've never found a single shred of evidence that a crime was ever committed. No bodies, no crime scenes, no murder weapons, just a big, fat pile of nothing. Oh, but they do have one thing: a video of Ashley, showing her destroying a school laptop.

The cops tell Ashley to stop wasting their time, and just go home. Detective Diamond also suggests that perhaps Ashley should get help from a psychiatrist, to which she sobs that she already is. That doesn't go over too well.

After a brief chat with Proxy, Ashley keeps her next appointment with her doctor. She admits that her sense of reality might be a bit off, and is told that she's making progress toward recovery. The positive feedback gives Ashley a reason to smile.

She calls Binder, and he visits her to give her some advice on how to keep her computer information encrypted. He even goes a step further, giving Ashley an old laptop of his, complete with the latest security updates. She thanks him, and they share a few impulsive kisses. Proxy breaks up the intimacy, and we discover that she's going away for the weekend.

That night, Ashley assures her dad during a call, that she's doing much better. She gets a message from Proxy, and the roommate is in a tizzy because her boyfriend isn't returning her calls. Ashley offers to go check on him, and she takes her phone with her.

At the boyfriend's place, no one appears to be home. Ashley finds the front door open, but no Zane in sight. A room-by-room search reveals that Zane has been added to the list of Smiley victims. Ashley calls Diamond to report the crime, but he hangs up on her.

She returns to the house, but Proxy urges her to place another call to the police. Ashley has a different plan in motion. She locks herself into the house, then tells Proxy to type "I  did it for the lulz" 3 times, to lure Smiley to the bait.

It's a terrible plan. Not only does he now have her trapped inside, but now he can be anywhere he wants to be, and just take her right out of existence. As if to prove their point, all of the Smileys come at her at the same time.

Ashley backs away from the many killers, then dives out of the nearest window. She dies. and the killers watch her from the window. Then they congratulate one another for the way they all pulled it off. Binder, Zane, Stacy, all of them. The rest leave, and only Proxy and Zane remain behind to chat. They grin into their webcams, then Smiley attacks Proxy, mauling her in front of  Zane. During the credits, we get one final scene, showing that Ashley isn't quite dead yet, but that she is ready to get back at them. the end...?

Let's hope so! I hate watching a slasher flick where there aren't any victims. And they wasted what could have been an interesting concept on such a dull film. I can't imagine what I would have thought back in April, when I was felling sick and confused. Yuk. 1 out of 5, for at least the concept of Smiley. Now just place him in a better story.

And what did I learn from watching this?

-Never assume that your "clever twist" is actually that clever, because it probably isn't.

-Colleges are filled with insane people.

-Friends don't let old friends murder new friends, especially if it's just for "lulz", or whatever.

Up next, a heartwarming tale about killer kids, and the families that have to murder them to survive. Fun, lighthearted stuff!

Pinata: Survival Island

At this point, there have been waaaay too many movies about inanimate objects killing people. Killer cars, killer dolls, killer laundry machines...you can pretty much just take any noun, add the word "killer" to the front of it, and you have a ready-made movie. But...a killer PINATA?

Yup. A pinata goes on a killing spree. That's the plot of today's SAW, Pinata: Survival Island. It's official: I'll watch pretty much anything. Grab a stick, put on a blindfold, and let's break open the SPOILERS!

The opening credits break through a clay shell before they appear. Yeesh. A narrator tells us that "many moons ago", a village in South America was facing a deadly drought. The "village" looks like it was built out of a Lego set. One of the village elders constructed a large clay pinata.  He killed a wild pig, then placed the animal's heart in the pinata. Oh, and then he built a second pinata, for shits 'n' giggles.

He gathered the villagers for a ceremony, where he proceeded to use magic to tear out the evil in their souls, and place it into the first pinata. After the ritual was completed, he then let them break open the second pinata, while the evil-filled one was sent downstream on a nearby river. The evil pinata was then undiscovered for centuries, but a prophecy warned that if it was found and opened, the evil would pour out of it and devour more human souls. Pfft, like THAT would ever happen!

Moving on...The flashback ends, and we meet a large group of college kids out on speeding boats. They're laughing, drinking, mooning each other...Is it wrong for me to wish that they were already being slaughtered? Eh. An Asian guy named Paul and a cute brunette named Monica are waiting for them on the beach. A nearby sign tells us that the island will soon be the site of something called the Franklin Oceanography Research Lab.

The students from the 2 boats start to unpack their gear, and we get some introductions. There's a jive-talking dude named Doug; his best buddy(and former Buffy co-star) Kyle; Kyle's recent ex-girlfriend Tina; a party animal named Jake; and assorted others. I'm sure that there will be tons of memorable character development in a movie about a clay pinata going on a murderous rampage. Oh yeah.

Anyway, Monica and Paul advise them to set up camp, and they briefly go over some rules. This is apparently some sort of Cinco de Mayo college scavenger hunt, and it looks like anything goes. First up is a drinking session, then we learn the rules of the scavenger hunt. Pieces of underwear are hidden all over the island, and the students will be paired up into teams, as well as handcuffed to each other. They have until a certain time of night to collect as many pairs of underwear as they can find. The prize is $20,000 to the players, and the same amount donated to a charity in their name.

Before the race begins, they have a trivia contest about the origins of Cinco de Mayo. Being idiots, they don't get too many correct answers. The students are then paired up, and we finally get more names on these soon-to-be corpses. Jake, the bandana-wearing bro, is paired up with an attractive girl named Julie; a shaggy-looking pothead named Larry is teamed up with a cute bookworm named Connie; Doug and Carmen, the only pair of black people in the movie, are handcuffed together(I wonder if the movie will be generic enough to kill them off first?); a cute couple of generic teens named Bob and Lisa are paired off; and, finally, Tina and Kyle, the exes, are forced to team up.

The competition begins, and all of the teams race away into the jungle, except for Kyle and Tina. They stand there in stunned silence, then Kyle knocks them both to the ground as he struggles to pry off his shackle. After a quick spat, they choose to just sit in the dirt and do nothing.

The rest of the teams keep busy running themselves ragged. Jake and Julie seem to have an early lead, mostly because Jake is running his ass off and snatching up every pair of underwear he sees. Poor Julie looks like she might get her shoulder dislocated by the big lummox.

The generic couple, Bob and Lisa, find a clearing where they seem to be alone. Bob reveals that he has a key to the handcuffs, then he and Lisa smoke a joint together. They get the giggles, then run offscreen. Now working in different areas, they temporarily lose track of each other. Uh oh...

As Lisa gathers up piles of underwear to horde, she stumbles across the clay pinata. It's not even hidden, it's pretty much just sitting out in the open, waiting to be found. Sheesh. She abandons the scavenger hunt to go examine it.

She stumbles while dragging the heavy clay pinata, and stops to make the sand equivalent of a "snow angel", which is as goofy-looking as it sounds. Then she calls over her partner. While they look it over, they decide to see what's inside.

Easier said than done. Using heavy tree branches, they don't even dent it. Then Lisa suggests that they use a large rock, so Bob gets the biggest one that he can carry. After several attempts, Bob makes a crack in the shell, and weird howling sounds seem to surround the drunk couple. The wind becomes fierce, then the eyes of the demonic pinata glow, and it grabs the large branch that Bob dropped next to it.

The pinata moves away from the spot where it was dragged, then it swoops in to bash Bob with the stick. After he's dead, the pinata snarls at Lisa, who runs away. A brief glimpse at Bob shows his soul being wrenched out of his body.

At the camp, Kyle proposes that he and Tina call a temporary truce. She refuses, but he stands up, forcing her to go along. As they try to play nice, we check in on Larry and Connie. She seems bored, but he's getting into the groove with the scavenger hunt. Then he hears a noise, and convinces Connie to hide behind a tree with him.

They wait a few seconds, then Lisa scares them by rushing to their hiding spot. She rambles on about Bob being killed, and then mentions that the killer was a pinata. They laugh at her, even after realizing that the blood on her is authentic. Lisa runs away again, and the couple decide to resume the scavenger hunt. Then we see the pinata wandering in their general direction.

As Larry and Connie mock Lisa, the killer pinata tracks them. It manages to hide in some bushes, and watches as they pass right by. Then they find one of the normal pinatas, and share the alcohol that was stored inside.

Lisa finds the tent where Paul and Monica are keeping an eye on the players. She tells them about the killer pinata's sudden attack, and neither of them laugh. They take it very seriously, probably because she's covered in blood.

Larry and Connie come across a shovel and some instructions, and follow the instructions to a specific area. After digging a small hole, they uncover a treasure trove of underwear. As they celebrate, the pinata looms behind them, using the shovel to bludgeon them both to death. This may be silly, but the kills are at least impressive.

Monica and Paul head to their ATV's. They debate over how much of Lisa's story might be true, but agree that the fact that she was covered in blood is not a good sign. They fervently hope that they will find Bob alive. Nope. Not gonna happen!

Kyle and Tina are working better as a team, with her straddling his shoulders to reach some panties up in a tree. As Tina tries to convince Kyle that she never cheated on him while they were dating(the apparent cause of the breakup), they meet up with Paul and Monica. The leaders only tell them in very general terms that a player was injured, and that the scavenger hunt is at an end. When Kyle offers to help them, he is politely told that his assistance won't be necessary. Instead, Kyle is instructed to return to the base camp, fire off a pistol to let the other teams know to come back, then wait.

As Paul and Monica ride around the island, they keep calling out Bob's name. Yeah, good idea while something is hunting down humans... They hear noises in the vicinity, but can't pinpoint where they're coming from. As they trudge through the jungle on foot for a minute, they stumble upon poor Bob--or his top half, at least. He's half the man he used to be.

Meanwhile, Jake and Julie have abandoned the contest, choosing to explore each other instead. The evil pinata sees them and gets royally pissed off. They stop smooching to gather up their stockpile of undies, and then spot the demonic pinata dangling from a tree. As soon as they get close to it, the pinata castrates Jake with one massive hand, then it attacks Julie with a machete.

Back at the camp, Lisa, Kyle and Tina are packing up the gear, while also searching for the pistol. Lisa starts having a flood of traumatic flashbacks, and tries to calm herself down by drinking some water. Kyle sees that she's having problems, then he apologizes to Tina for the bad way they broke up. They kiss, and are now un-broken-up-ish. I guess. *exasperated sigh*

Paul checks in on Kyle with his walkie-talkie, and urges him to take the women to the boat area. He describes the discovery of Bob's mangled corpse, and suggests that they'll gather the rest of the players, and get them off the island in the second boat. After the brief chat, Kyle asks Lisa for more details about the deadly attack on Bob.

Doug and Carmen are up next, but their scene is brief. It more or less shows that they've managed to get lost in the jungle. I don't know, I never thought a movie about a killer pinata would actually start to bore me. I'm sort of hoping that it will eventually hit somebody hard enough to make candy pour out of them. That'd be fun to see!

At the beach, oversized footprints reveal that the pinata has sabotaged the boats ahead of them. The sun begins to set, and we see Monica and Paul still riding around in the jungle. The pinata leaps up suddenly behind them, and a chase begins. As the pinata starts to charge at them faster and faster, the earth begins to shake.

An overturned tree bars Monica's vehicle, and she gets thrown into a clearing. The vehicle explodes, and Paul stops to run into the clearing to rescue Monica. On foot, the pinata easily catches up to them, and Paul gets his leg dislocated with a brutal yank. Then the monster finishes him off by bashing his head in with a stick. No candy, though.

Monica shrieks, and the pinata decides to shut her up. She briefly loses him as she rounds a bend, but she stumbles, and falls into a ditch. The pinata fails to see her as she crawls away, and it snarls out of sheer frustration.

Kyle, Lisa and Tina make a campfire, then wait on the beach for other survivors, or maybe even a boat, to discover them. Tina expresses disbelief in the concept of a killer pinata rampaging around on the island(You're preaching to the choir...), despite the story that Lisa told them. Then Kyle tells them both a legend about a possessed pinata, summarizing what we saw in the opening scenes of the movie.

Lisa believes that the pinata that she and Bob broke open must have been the same one from the legend, but Tina remains a skeptic. The pinata is seen thrashing through the jungle, then the trio hear noises coming from the trees. As they prepare to fight off a possible pinata attack, the noises turn out to be a visibly relieved Doug and Carmen. Doug asks them where the other teams are, and we see a montage of various body parts strung up in the trees by the pinata.

Early the next morning, they start to realize that they might be the only survivors of the pinata massacre. Man, I felt stupid just typing that out! Lisa is afraid of another encounter with the monster, so she suggests that they swim to the mainland. Kyle explains that another island search would be better, as the nearest land is 15 miles away from the beach.

A debate follows, and both sides of the argument have good and bad points. In the end, the vote is to remain on the island, as either the other survivors might show up, or a rescue boat might be sent to search for them. Lisa isn't thrilled, but the others are swayed by Kyle. They head back into the jungle to do some more investigating.

The pinata senses them, and decides to resume the hunt. The group makes a stop at another clearing, and they all detect a rather unpleasant smell in the area. It turns out to be an animal carcass, something that the pinata killed, then gutted for them to find. Lisa once again suggests that they return to the beach, but they continue deeper into the jungle instead.

Doug stops to tie his shoe, insisting that the others can continue on without him for a second. Predictably, the pinata decides to swoop in just as the others leave Doug behind. But then Kyle has a sudden outbreak of logic, and they decide to return to him.

Back on the hunt, they start to call out the names of the missing students. The pinata, hiding in a tree, pulls poor Doug up into the branches to kill him. Wait, is that irony, or just really bad luck? Either way, Carmen is the first member of the party to notice that Doug is gone. They wearily re-trace their steps.

They come to the spot where he was snatched up, unaware that the pinata is dangling him over their heads. Lisa's fear starts to work on Carmen, and now the group is split on whether to resume the search, or head back to the open beach. In the end, Carmen and Lisa turn back, and Kyle and Tina go their own way. Oh, and poor Doug gets his soul wrenched out of his body.

Kyle and Tina find more pinata tracks, suddenly realizing that the monster pinata is steadily tracking the other pair. Sure enough, the pinata is on the trail of the girls, and they are having some setbacks. Not only is their progress to the beach slow, but now Lisa is whining because she needs to pee. They stop, and Lisa ducks behind another fallen tree trunk.

While Lisa is squatting, Carmen stands guard. They both clearly hear the approach of the pinata, but can't see him just yet. He rushes up behind Carmen, and decapitates her while Lisa screams. Kyle and Tina are still trying to come to the rescue, but it doesn't look like they'll make it in time to save Lisa.

Huh. Guess I was wrong. They find Lisa before the monster does, and save the day. While Tina works on calming her nerves, Kyle decides to hunt for the pinata himself. A brilliant plan, worthy of a 4-star general. He doesn't find the pinata(Yet!), but he does discover more bloody remains.

Left alone, Lisa decides to abandon Tina, in the hopes that the pinata kills her first. Tina chases her, but not before leaving a clue for Kyle to follow them. He's still tracking the pinata, trying to be as discreet as possible. He sneaks up behind what he thinks is the monster, only to find a distraught Monica, dirty but very much alive.

Now at a full sprint, Tina is determined to reach Lisa. Lisa's back at the base camp, and sweat is rolling down her face in buckets. Some rustling motions from the nearby tent get her attention, and the pinata drags her inside by an ankle when she moves in for a closer look.

Tina detects a presence in the tent, but assumes that it must be Lisa. The pinata sticks its massive head out to roar at her, and ANOTHER chase begins. For a second or two, the pinata seems to transform into The Smoke Monster from Lost. Man, I would trade the worst episode of Lost for ANY 5 minutes of this movie any day of the week. If I ever see a movie dumber than this one, I might actually just give up.

Anyway, right in the middle of the action, we catch up with Kyle and Monica. Who are on a casual stroll. Terrific. When they return to the spot where he left the girls, he realizes that they've left. I think they took most of the film's energy with them. Oh, but they found the makeshift arrow that Tina left on the ground!

They all reunite, and duck behind a tree to hide from the pinata. It growls and spins around quite a bit, but the pinata can't seem to find the last of the students. When night comes, Kyle decides that he needs to figure out a way to distract the pinata, so that they can get to a better location. He picks up some stones, throwing them as far as he can, in order to make the pinata curious enough to check the noise out.

That somehow works, and the trio head the opposite way. Paul has another plan in the works, but he needs to calm Monica down in order for it to work. He asks her to try to remember where she and Paul crashed the vehicles, and they all take off into the jungle.

They find the one that didn't explode, and Kyle works on removing the fuel. He siphons as much as he can, but they hear the pinata rapidly approaching their position. As they get closer to the beach again, Monica asks them to stop for a moment, so that she can catch her breath.

A body suddenly falls out of a tree, and Monica's scream is heard by the pinata. The creature swoops in, and they reluctantly leave the body hanging where they found it. For a second, it looked like Monica was just going to stay there and let the pinata kill her.

The next sequence is right out of MacGyver: As a group, they start to rig up a booby-trap to kill the pinata. Wires are buried in sand, sticks are tied together, fuel is doused around the camp, fake walls are erected...it's silly, but I kind of get a kick out of how serious the tone is in this scene. Even the music is ridiculously melodramatic.

Some time later, the pinata arrives at the beach. We see Kyle sitting in front of a campfire, and one of the women is talking VERY LOUDLY, just saying random crap. The pinata, which has gradually gone from a big clay figure with large feet, to a worm-like flying monstrosity with a long tail, approaches the fire very, very slowly, growling the entire way.

As the pinata reaches Kyle, it suddenly decides that it doesn't want to be ignored. It reaches out with a massive claw, obliterating his head...which turns out to be a decoy head, a melon. As chunks of it go flying off in a million different directions, the real Kyle hoists on a rope, trapping the pinata in a net. As the trapped creature is lifted off of the ground, Lisa and Monica set the trap on fire with torches. They watch as the blaze consumes the pinata.

Then it shakes loose from the trap, knocking Monica to the ground, possibly killing her. The angry pinata goes for Tina next, but Kyle saves her by swinging by on the rope, kicking the killer pinata to the ground. While he fights it off with a torch, Tina goes into the tent for more gas.

While she prepares a hasty Molotov cocktail, Kyle gets his ass kicked around the beach. Literally. Tina emerges from the tent just as the killer pinata gains the upper hand, and she shoves the explosive into a crevice in the back of the pinata. She, Kyle and Monica(She lives!) run to a safe distance, and the pinata explodes. The freed souls all fly away, no longer trapped in the pinata.

The next day, several rescue boats arrive, filled with people wearing shirts that say CAMPUS POLICE. A couple of cops question them, then the pinata pops up for one final jump-scare. THE END

Well, that was either the best killer pinata movie ever made, or it was the worst. Since it's probably the only one, take your pick. At least it had several good actors in it, from shows like Buffy and My Name Is Earl, among others. But...a killer pinata? If they ever decide to do another one, I kind of want to see a big, bright generic-looking pinata go on a killing spree. That would be funny as Hell. 3 out of 5 killer trees, not the worst...but not nearly as fun as the concept sounded.

And what did I learn from my experience with Pinata: Survival Island?

-"Death by pinata" would be a dumb way to go.

-Nicholas Brendon somehow makes even dumb stuff kind of awesomely watchable. All hail Xander Harris!

-When the odds are against you, you can suddenly turn into a trap-building genius.

Next up is either something called Taboo, or the classic slasher He Knows You're Alone.