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 As she circles around them, she notices that the silverware has been replaced by hunting knives.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?
Showing posts with label massacre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label massacre. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Thursday, December 26, 2013
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!!!!
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!!!!
Friday, September 20, 2013
Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan
If I had ten bucks for every time my Netflix movies were delayed, I'd be a bilionaire by now. Luckily, there are so many ridiculously obscure horror flicks on the internet, I always have a back-up plan. This week's "back-up plan" is also a nod to the folks who've asked me to do one of these for a SyFy(I feel dumber just typin g it that way....) "original". So, get ready to sit there in stunned silence as we watch Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan. If a SPOILER falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Anyway, the story starts out with a small group of hunters returning to a farm. A helpful subtitle lets us know that we're seeing Minnesota, circa 1894. Oh, these guys aren't hunters, they're lumberjacks. Well yeah, Paul Bunyan, lumberjacks...it makes sense. I guess the axes they've got hoisted over their shoulders was a big hint as well. Hey, cut me a break! Been a long week.
Where were we? Oh yeah, lumberjacks returning home. One of the younger ones suggests that it might be wise to slow down, to give the trees time to replenish. His boss, played by Dan Haggerty himself(Grizzly!!), tells him that the house-building industry is booming, and that they need to cut down 20 acres the next day, just to meet the demand.
Grizzly asks the cook when dinner will be ready, and he proudly displays a huge animal that he's been roasting for them. The boss tastes it, seems pleased, then runs off to take a dump in the woods. The cook has the young guy gather the other lumberjacks for dinner.
The boss returns, and finds all of his people slaughtered. Heads removed, limbs torn off, bodies of the men and their wives strewn about...Needless to say, he's shocked by the sight. Then a mutated guy dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt steps into view, and he looks pretty mad.
The boss runs away from the massacre, and manages to get to the saw mill. Sadly, so does the killer. Despite the lumberjack holding up his arms to surrender, the mutant pushes him into the gigantic buzzsaw, first destroying his arm, then splitting him right down the middle. Then the big, red, cartoony titles come up.
Grizzly Adams and a member of the Estevez family are the only recognizable names in this one, and one of them is already out of the film.. Beyond them, I have no idea who any of the other actors are. Yeah, THIS won't be torture to watch! They couldn't even get anyone from Stargate or Eureka for this one. Not a good sign...
Beyond those names, we just see trees. Lots and lots of trees. Man, I can never seem to escape the curse of the "tree movie", can I? Got a hanker for a hunk o' trees? Well, get your fill while it lasts, movie viewers. Wow, it took 3 guys to write the screenplay. Is that sad, or is it REALLY REALLY sad?
Phew, the credits are finally over. We see a man named Hoke tearing a bulletin about a redneck militia group off of the sign where he works. It's some kind of forest camp for troubled teens, like an Outward Bound-type of scenario. Great, bring on the stereotypes! Hey, didn't the Sleepaway Camp franchise cover this idea? It took 3 dudes to rip off another franchise?
Anyways, Hoke meets a shrink named Sammi, and they get along about as well as the Tea Party and Reality do. Then they both meet the small group of teens they'll be taking out to the woods. There are only 4 seen so far, so this might be mercifully short.
There's Marty, a black kid with an arrest for robbery; a brunette female named Trish, who assaulted a cop; a drug trafficker named Zach, who is a tall, lean white kid; and an Hispanic girl, Rosa, who was charged with contempt of court, and sentenced to the program as punishment. A car pulls up, and a man named Ray drops off his daughter Claire as well. She was found guilty of drunk driving.
Ray notices that Hoke is wearing a firearm, and questions the necessity of it, but "Sarge" Hoke brushes his concerns aside. While Ray and Sammi look on, Hoke makes the teens stand at formation, yells at them, then marches them onto a small bus. Ray looks pretty troubled, but Sammi assures him that she'll make sure that Claire is safe.
During the drive into the mountains, Hoke calls Sammi a "cube rat", then interrogates her about her experience outdoors. Despite her relaxed demeanor and smile, Hoke refuses to be polite, and he talks like a robot, clipping every word as if the conversation pains him. What a douche. If Paul Bunyan kills him early on, I'm awarding an automatic point this week.
The kids are also getting to know each other. They asks Marty what he stole, considering that he looks like Steve Urkel when he wears his glasses. They were right to peg him as a geek, because he hacked into a government computer system, then stole around 11 million dollars.
As they talk more, Hoke calls them "stumps", and robotically orders them to face forward. When Sammi asks him what a "stump" is, he replies that it stands for "Stupid Teenagers Under My Protection". Then he further pisses everyone off, when he presents and lights up a cigar. Please, movie, kill him soon.
They cross a bridge, then come to a stop at a gate. While Hoke unlatches the gate, a strange old man watches from a hiding place in the trees. He looks like the MadTV version of Kenny Rogers. If you've never seen that character, look it up on Youtube, it's hilarious. I'll wait.
*tune for Jeopardy plays*
Ready? It was funny, right? Good, then let's continue.
They finally get to a sprawling, one level house, and Hoke uses a stick to draw a line on the ground. He makes them stand at the line again, then tells them that his camp is their last option before going to jail. He promises to transform them from STUMPS into trees, then Sammi encourages them to enjoy camping out.
After ordering the kids to pitch tents in the designated area, Hoke pulls the doctor off to the side. She tells him that she won't be sharing a tent with him, and he responds that he'll be sleeping in his cabin, while she sleeps outside with the teenagers. You know, I'll bet that they keep this guy alive out of sheer spite.
A deer is seen grazing, and a brown bear wants it for dinner. As the bear prepares to make a move, Paul Bunyan sneaks in, then yanks the bear up by the neck. He snaps the creature's collar bone, then finishes it off with a large hunting knife. Bambi watches the encounter, then scampers away to play with Thumper.
Back outside the cabin(in the woods...Ha! The joke lives on!), the campers get a small fire going. Sitting around the fire, they discuss the various incidents that brought them together. Rosa gets the ball rolling, sharing that she was a witness to a shooting, but defied the court by refusing to testify in court. She has a young daughter, and was worried about retaliation.
Zack goes next, after insulting Rosa with lame pick-up lines. He admits that he was very skilled at acquiring and selling drugs, and seems more disturbed by his current loss of profits than anything else. Trish then tells the group that she was in a bar fight, and lashed out at a police officer afterwards, because she felt sexually harassed.
Claire goes next, with some encouragement from Sammi. She was arrested because she was in a collision with another drunk driver. It was the other driver's third offense, but her lawyer had advised her to plead guilty. The other teens express outrage over what happened to Claire, though Sammi reminds them that she still drove while drunk.
The crazy coot who witnessed the bear attack then pops up, ranting about trees. Sarge Hoke comes outside to investigate the ruckus, and identifies the old man as "Meeks", the local kooky hermit. Meeks rambles on some more, makes the kids jump, then runs back into the woods. Hoke announces that he's getting them up at 5, then orders them to bed.
True to his word, Hokes wake up the group early the next morning. Before he does though, Trish wakes up Zack for some topless socializing. Sammi finds them, and lets them know that if it happens again, they'll both be forced to head back to court for a stiffer sentence. Heh, "stiffer".
Hoke shows up soon after, shouting everyone out of their slumber. He promises them a grueling off-road hike, then heads back into his home. Sammi follows him in, admires the furnishings, and requests that he leave the gun behind. Somebody might want to remind her what movie she's in, because Paul Bunyan doesn't look like a prime candidate for a counseling session.
The Sarge lines everyone up, then gets them to march in place. He berates everyone except for Rosa, and tells her that her attitude might be a benefit. Then he starts them up with a drill song, and off they go!
The march soon turns into a run, and it's mostly uphill. They navigate over rocks and around tree trunks, with Hoke yelling most of the way. He even threatens to abandon any stragglers. Hey, wasn't there a killer Paul Bunyan monster somewhere in this movie? Did he go home?
Meeks did. He's seen hiking around the rough terrain, giggling and gibbering all the way to his house. Yup, gibbering. The closed captions even agreed with me, so nyah nyah nyah! Oh, and apparently Meeks plays with himself, as we see him hovering over aq chessboard on his front porch. Wait, what did you think I meant?
After crossing a "river"(really just a stream, by the look of it), Hoke finally lets them all take a break for lunch. While he eats his sandwich with Sammi, the teens moan and gripe about the exercise. Zack decides that he's going to attempt to walk back to civilization, and urges the others to go along. After he leaves, Marty follows to try to coax him back.
Zack gets to a clearing, then quickly realizes how big the mountain is, when he sees the hillside covered in trees. Marty catches up, and they both discover a pile of large bones. It's the site where those loggers cooked and ate Babe, Paul Bunyan's big blue ox. Zack finds the skull of the beast, and he impulsively decides to remove and take one of the horns as a souvenir.
Zack hoists the horn over his shoulders and they return to the group, unaware that Paul Bunyan had put a cross at the site, in tribute to his pet's death. Gee, I sure hope he doesn't mind a little grave desecration...I'm sure it'll be fine. Gigantic mutant lumberjacks with a taste for blood don't tend to hold grudges.
Zack shows off his find, and the girls all suggest that he leave it behind. Then Hoke sees it, and tells him that he can't keep it. As Hoke leaves them to clean up their lunch mess, Zack hides the horn in his backpack, and it doesn't fit, but he takes it anyway. Yes, because no one could possibly notice a large, sharp horn poking out of the top of your backpack.
At a place called Mel's Lumberjack Saloon, Ray stops in to visit the bartender, an old man named Budd. Budd tries to sell him a drink, but Budd's daughter shuts him up. Ray asks her about Hoke, because her daughter went through his program, and Budd tells them that Hoke killed a teen the previous year. Say WHAAAAT?
Not intentionally, of course: a teen had an unreported heart condition, and died because Hoke pushed him too hard. The waitress sends her father to wait on some customers, then clarifies that the teen only got heatstroke, and also survived. She flirts with Ray as he leaves, but he's clueless. Her reaction to his putdown is cringeworthy. Oscar-caliber acting? Nowhere in sight.
Back to the hapless hikers. Sammi runs past Hoke, mockingly suggesting that she might abandon him if he can't keep up. Ha! Hoke waits for the entire group to pass him, and brings up the rear.
Uh-oh. Paul Bunyan is at the site where he buried his pet ox, Babe. He stomps around the bones for a bit, then comes to the spot where the skull was dropped. When he sees that one of the horns was torn off, he bellows out several angry roars.
Our intrepid hikers hear the roar and guess that it's a mountain lion, but Hoke doesn't care one way or the other. Meeks hears the sound too, and hurries out of his shack with his trusty shotgun. He looks around his property, but Paul Bunyan's not around.
During the hike, Marty grabs the massive horn out of Zack's bag, then runs ahead of him. Zack chases him, but none of the others even seem to notice. Hell, they don't even bother showing Hoke getting pissed off that someone defied him.
While Paul Bunyan scans the forest for his prey, the hikers stop for another quick rest. Trish whips out a cell phone, and sees that her friends have left her several messages. The electronic noises draw the attention of Paul Bunyan, and they hear the sound of him stomping in their direction.
All of the hikers turn to stare at Trish, who's unaware that Paul Bunyan is now standing directly behind her. He raises his mighty weapon, cleaving Trish in half, right down the middle. The others spread out into the forest, while he examines the amount of blood on his axe.
The campers split up into 2 main groups, and Paul Bunyan goes after Rosa first, knocking her to the ground with a flying tree branch that he hit with his axe. She's still alive though, so don't worry. Paul Bunyan would rather chase the others through the forest, than go after easy prey.
Zack and Marty circle back around, then lift the heavy branch off of Rosa. She's slightly injured, so they each grab an arm, and resume running away. The rest have been making their way back to Hoke's cabin, with him yelling at them the whole way. Paul Bunyan blocks the path, and separates Hoke's top and bottom halves in front of the others. Yippee!
Paul Bunyan gets his blade jammed into a tree, and that buys the group some time. Hoke is somehow still alive, and he urges Sammi to get the kids to his cabin. As they rush off, he distracts the monster by yelling insults at him, and Paul Bunyan proceeds to flatten him with a massive foot-stomping.
Both groups of escapees meet up, and they finally arrive at the cabin and tents. Hoke had locked the door, but they manage to break in. Rosa has a large gash on one side, so they set her down on a couch as gently as possible, then scurry through the house, trying to come up with a plan of some sort.
Sammi tries to take charge, but it's actually Claire that has an idea first: she spots the van that they all arrived in, and realizes that they could drive to the nearest town, or at least a main road, to get assistance. There's only a slight glitch...Hoke has the keys.
Marty claims that he can hotwire the vehicle, so the plan suddenly seems viable again. Sammi has Claire look for weapons, then remembers where she saw Hoke put his gun. She grabs it, then leads Marty outside, taking care to be as quiet as possible. Oh, and Marty's weapon is a rake. Great choice.
Marty gets in the van, but has trouble distinguishing one wire from another underneath the steering column. They hear twigs and branches snapping nearby, so they probably don't have much time before Paul Bunyan reappears.
Marty finally gets his act together, and the engine almost roars to life. Sadly, so does Paul Bunyan. He steps out of the woods, and Sammi urges Marty to move faster. She finally drags him back out of the vehicle, and they rush back to the house.
Once everyone is safely together again, they watch Paul Bunyan lift the van and drag it away. So much for a quick escape. Paul Bunyan heads back to his cave, and examines the amount of blood on his axe again. He wipes some off with a finger, then gives it a taste. Mmmm mmmm, good, that sure is some tasty blood! Then he finds a rag to clean off the blade.
Claire sees Zack closing a fist around the blade of a knife, and looks at the self-inflicted wound. She wraps a piece of cloth around it, and they share a nice moment together. Awwww...
Paul Bunyan apparently forgot what he was doing, because now he's after Meeks. He knocks at the door where the other survivors decide to allow him in. He accuses them of riling up Paul Bunyan in some way, and they show him the horn that they took.
As night falls, Sammi asks Meeks to explain the real story of Paul Bunyan. He dismisses the popular folktales as nonsense, then tells them the truth: a man named Larch Bunyan was a local land baron in the late 1800's. Larch met and married a woman named Helga, and she gave birth to Paul. A doctor told the couple that Paul had a rare hormonal disease, one that made him grow 2-3 times as large as a normal man, and he would age slower, living 3 times longer than a normal person.
There was a drawback, though: Paul was developmentally disabled. He was big enough to hold an axe by the age of 5, so he worked with the loggers in the area. It motivated them to increase their output, and soon both the trees and the forest animals grew scarce.
That brings us to events in the opening scene. Bill, the lumberjack foreman gathered a group of his employees to hunt down a wounded animal that had left tracks in the snow. The animal had been Babe, Paul Bunyan's pet, and it had injured itself stepping into a bear trap.
Bill decided that they should kill the ox and eat it, then try to conceal the truth from Paul Bunyan. He shot Babe right between the eyes, and they all dragged the carcass back to their camp. Paul Bunyan goes in search of his pet, and you know the rest of the story.
After he killed the lumberjacks, Paul Bunyan tried to hide in the forest, but an angry mob found him. They chained him up, then dragged him back to town, where even more people were waiting to heckle him. His breaking point came when a local women he had a crush on, Maybelle, turned her back on him. The townsfolk eventually decided to drag him into an abandoned mineshaft, where they used dynamite to seal him in.
Of course, since he was a mutant with incredible physical strength, Paul Bunyan was able to get himself. He took what was left of his pet, then lived by himself high up in the mountains, content to avoid anyone else until our teens came along and desecrated Babe and the gravesite.
Meeks urges them to bring the horn back to where they found it. Zack picks it up, then runs outside. He begs Paul Bunyan to take back the horn, then flings it into the trees. For a second or two, nothing happens.
Then as Zack turns to head back inside, the horn flies through the air, impaling him. Then the monster shows up, grabs the dying teen by the leg, and drags him into the woods. Sammi shoots at Paul Bunyan, but the bullets seem to have little or no effect.
They all rush back inside, where Meeks is raiding the fridge and cooking himself a meal. He advises Sammi to wait until morning, then attempt another escape. Their hope is that, since he has the horn again, maybe Paul Bunyan will leave them alone again.
They spend most of the night panicking, and Rosa asks the others to make sure that her daughter is okay if she doesn't survive. Then Claire gives gun safety tips, and tells Sammi that she regrets not treating her father better. At his cave, Paul Bunyan's been polishing his axe(not a metaphor), and making it razor-sharp. Guess he hasn't calmed down.
Morning comes, and Ray decides to drive up to the camp. At Hoke's cabin, Meeks and Claire are the first ones to wake up. Meeks tells her that she's identical to Maybelle, the woman who broke Paul Bunyan's heart. Oh, and Maybelle just happens to be Meeks' great-aunt....So, wait, would that mean that he and Claire are somehow related? He also seems to think that Claire might be a reincarnated version of Maybelle, but who knows? Seriously now, what...the...fuck???
Meeks leaves to find the truck, and he urges the others to remain at the house. He claims that being alone will actually make him safer. Before he leaves, he gives Claire a photo of Maybelle, and she marvels at their similarities.
We're checking back in with Ray, for some reason. Armed with a high-powered rifle, he finds the big red splotch that used to be Hoke, along with a comically oversized footprint. He attempts to use his radio to calll for reinforcements, but all he gets is static.
Ray arrives at a fire tower and climbs it, and the radio signal improves somewhat. His message is received at the saloon, but Budd doesn't hear it. The people in this movie are having a whopping streak of bad luck!
Back at the cabin, things get quiet. Too quiet.(Heh, I always wanted to say something dramatic like that. My bucket list is shrinking!) Then Paul Bunyan's axe crashes through the ceiling. Is it just me, or does his size seem to change in every scene?
Everyone gets knocked to the floor, so he raises the axe to try and finish them off. But this time he avoids the roof, opting to smash the windows instead. Followed by more roof damage, and the same footage, over and over again, of Paul Bunyan growling and raising his weapon. This is so Stucking Fupid!
Paul Bunyan reaches into the house to snatch up Claire, but Marty stabs at his hand with the rake. Paul Bunyan howls in pain, knocks Marty over, then picks up Rosa and holds her by one leg to get a good look. Her screams make him decide that she's not worth the trouble, so he kills her by hurling her at a tree.
Sammi then fires a bullet into his eye, which sends him reeling. While he's distracted by the pain, Sammi and Claire run outside. Marty grabs a large tree branch and goes after Paul Bunyan, out of his mind with grief over Rosa's death. He flings the large stick at the monster, attracting his attention.
Sammi puts herself between Paul Bunyan and the teens, prepared to die in order to protect them. Luckily, Ray shows up at that point, and shoots the giant 3 more times. Paul Bunyan stumbles backwards, then lands on top of what's left of the house.
Oh, those weren't actual bullets, they were tranquilizer darts. Ray tells the others that fun fact, then urges everyone to keep moving before he wakes up again. As they head back to a m,ore populated area, Meeks blocks their way with his shotgun.
He starts to ramble on about how Paul Bunyan is just an innocent boy, and that he can't let them leave. Marty tries to grab his weapon, so Meeks shoots him in the gut. Marty dies in less than a minute, and Meeks tries to force the last few survivors to go with him at gunpoint.
That's when Paul Bunyan wakes up. He sees that "Maybelle" is in danger, and tosses his axe in a bid to save her. He's got good aim...his axe decapitates Meeks. The final 3 survivors run away, and the chase resumes.
They arrive at Roy's truck, and he grabs more ammunition. Then he hands the keys to his daughter, and asks her to drive, while he climbs into the truckbed to get a better aim at Paul Bunyan. The truck races down the road as Roy loads his gun, then Paul Bunyan is seen racing after them. Roys fires several shots at the giant, but he never goes down. Claire swerves to avoid Paul Bunyan's axe, and Roy loses the gun.
As Roy struggles not to fall out of the truck, Paul seems to vanish. Nope, he inexplicably managed to get in front of the truck, without them ever noticing what he was doing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. He nearly decapitates Roy, but only manages to remove the police lights on the roof.
The impact causes the truck to go careening into a tree, and Roy flies out of the back, where he rolls several feet. Sammi and Claire run over to help him, and he seems just fine. They decide to continue on foot.
The trio get to the bridge, and no one else is in sight. Then Paul Bunyan finds them, and corners the group on the bridge. There's a door at the other end, but it's locked, and the giant is still approaching. Roy fires several shots at the door, but it won't give.
Several vehicles drive up to the bridge, and an armada of rednecks spill out of them. Paul Bunyan finally notices them, and gnashes his teeth as they all take aim at him. After being hit by numerous rounds, Paul Bunyan drops his axe.
The rednecks stop firing, and Paul Bunyan turns to look at Claire/Maybelle one last time. He says the name "Maybelle", begins to cry, then falls off of the bridge. The crowd watch him as he sinks into the water below, then the rednecks begin to cheer and holler. When Ray asks how they knew what was happening, it's revealed that Budd did hear the police scanner,and called his daughter to round up an angry mob. Yee-haw!
The rednecks argue over what they just killed, and Budd convinces the group to carry the massive axe back to the bar. Our 3 heroes stare into the water, then join the others. THE END
Well, there you go. A SyFy movie and a slasher flick, all in one. At least there was plenty of the red stuff. On the other hand, the movie. But it was slightly better than 2-Headed Shark Attack or Mansquito, so....yeah. Hooray? 3 out of 5, with that full point included for making sure that Hoke died.
And what did I learn from Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan?
-Lumberjacks are dangerous psychopaths, and much more so when you eat their pets.
-Some guys can't even generate sympathy when you see them cut in half.
-Giants just want to get laid, like we all do.
Next week, I'll do either The Wraith or Miner's Massacre, depending on which one arrives first. Have a fun week!
Anyway, the story starts out with a small group of hunters returning to a farm. A helpful subtitle lets us know that we're seeing Minnesota, circa 1894. Oh, these guys aren't hunters, they're lumberjacks. Well yeah, Paul Bunyan, lumberjacks...it makes sense. I guess the axes they've got hoisted over their shoulders was a big hint as well. Hey, cut me a break! Been a long week.
Where were we? Oh yeah, lumberjacks returning home. One of the younger ones suggests that it might be wise to slow down, to give the trees time to replenish. His boss, played by Dan Haggerty himself(Grizzly!!), tells him that the house-building industry is booming, and that they need to cut down 20 acres the next day, just to meet the demand.
Grizzly asks the cook when dinner will be ready, and he proudly displays a huge animal that he's been roasting for them. The boss tastes it, seems pleased, then runs off to take a dump in the woods. The cook has the young guy gather the other lumberjacks for dinner.
The boss returns, and finds all of his people slaughtered. Heads removed, limbs torn off, bodies of the men and their wives strewn about...Needless to say, he's shocked by the sight. Then a mutated guy dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt steps into view, and he looks pretty mad.
The boss runs away from the massacre, and manages to get to the saw mill. Sadly, so does the killer. Despite the lumberjack holding up his arms to surrender, the mutant pushes him into the gigantic buzzsaw, first destroying his arm, then splitting him right down the middle. Then the big, red, cartoony titles come up.
Grizzly Adams and a member of the Estevez family are the only recognizable names in this one, and one of them is already out of the film.. Beyond them, I have no idea who any of the other actors are. Yeah, THIS won't be torture to watch! They couldn't even get anyone from Stargate or Eureka for this one. Not a good sign...
Beyond those names, we just see trees. Lots and lots of trees. Man, I can never seem to escape the curse of the "tree movie", can I? Got a hanker for a hunk o' trees? Well, get your fill while it lasts, movie viewers. Wow, it took 3 guys to write the screenplay. Is that sad, or is it REALLY REALLY sad?
Phew, the credits are finally over. We see a man named Hoke tearing a bulletin about a redneck militia group off of the sign where he works. It's some kind of forest camp for troubled teens, like an Outward Bound-type of scenario. Great, bring on the stereotypes! Hey, didn't the Sleepaway Camp franchise cover this idea? It took 3 dudes to rip off another franchise?
Anyways, Hoke meets a shrink named Sammi, and they get along about as well as the Tea Party and Reality do. Then they both meet the small group of teens they'll be taking out to the woods. There are only 4 seen so far, so this might be mercifully short.
There's Marty, a black kid with an arrest for robbery; a brunette female named Trish, who assaulted a cop; a drug trafficker named Zach, who is a tall, lean white kid; and an Hispanic girl, Rosa, who was charged with contempt of court, and sentenced to the program as punishment. A car pulls up, and a man named Ray drops off his daughter Claire as well. She was found guilty of drunk driving.
Ray notices that Hoke is wearing a firearm, and questions the necessity of it, but "Sarge" Hoke brushes his concerns aside. While Ray and Sammi look on, Hoke makes the teens stand at formation, yells at them, then marches them onto a small bus. Ray looks pretty troubled, but Sammi assures him that she'll make sure that Claire is safe.
During the drive into the mountains, Hoke calls Sammi a "cube rat", then interrogates her about her experience outdoors. Despite her relaxed demeanor and smile, Hoke refuses to be polite, and he talks like a robot, clipping every word as if the conversation pains him. What a douche. If Paul Bunyan kills him early on, I'm awarding an automatic point this week.
The kids are also getting to know each other. They asks Marty what he stole, considering that he looks like Steve Urkel when he wears his glasses. They were right to peg him as a geek, because he hacked into a government computer system, then stole around 11 million dollars.
As they talk more, Hoke calls them "stumps", and robotically orders them to face forward. When Sammi asks him what a "stump" is, he replies that it stands for "Stupid Teenagers Under My Protection". Then he further pisses everyone off, when he presents and lights up a cigar. Please, movie, kill him soon.
They cross a bridge, then come to a stop at a gate. While Hoke unlatches the gate, a strange old man watches from a hiding place in the trees. He looks like the MadTV version of Kenny Rogers. If you've never seen that character, look it up on Youtube, it's hilarious. I'll wait.
*tune for Jeopardy plays*
Ready? It was funny, right? Good, then let's continue.
They finally get to a sprawling, one level house, and Hoke uses a stick to draw a line on the ground. He makes them stand at the line again, then tells them that his camp is their last option before going to jail. He promises to transform them from STUMPS into trees, then Sammi encourages them to enjoy camping out.
After ordering the kids to pitch tents in the designated area, Hoke pulls the doctor off to the side. She tells him that she won't be sharing a tent with him, and he responds that he'll be sleeping in his cabin, while she sleeps outside with the teenagers. You know, I'll bet that they keep this guy alive out of sheer spite.
A deer is seen grazing, and a brown bear wants it for dinner. As the bear prepares to make a move, Paul Bunyan sneaks in, then yanks the bear up by the neck. He snaps the creature's collar bone, then finishes it off with a large hunting knife. Bambi watches the encounter, then scampers away to play with Thumper.
Back outside the cabin(in the woods...Ha! The joke lives on!), the campers get a small fire going. Sitting around the fire, they discuss the various incidents that brought them together. Rosa gets the ball rolling, sharing that she was a witness to a shooting, but defied the court by refusing to testify in court. She has a young daughter, and was worried about retaliation.
Zack goes next, after insulting Rosa with lame pick-up lines. He admits that he was very skilled at acquiring and selling drugs, and seems more disturbed by his current loss of profits than anything else. Trish then tells the group that she was in a bar fight, and lashed out at a police officer afterwards, because she felt sexually harassed.
Claire goes next, with some encouragement from Sammi. She was arrested because she was in a collision with another drunk driver. It was the other driver's third offense, but her lawyer had advised her to plead guilty. The other teens express outrage over what happened to Claire, though Sammi reminds them that she still drove while drunk.
The crazy coot who witnessed the bear attack then pops up, ranting about trees. Sarge Hoke comes outside to investigate the ruckus, and identifies the old man as "Meeks", the local kooky hermit. Meeks rambles on some more, makes the kids jump, then runs back into the woods. Hoke announces that he's getting them up at 5, then orders them to bed.
True to his word, Hokes wake up the group early the next morning. Before he does though, Trish wakes up Zack for some topless socializing. Sammi finds them, and lets them know that if it happens again, they'll both be forced to head back to court for a stiffer sentence. Heh, "stiffer".
Hoke shows up soon after, shouting everyone out of their slumber. He promises them a grueling off-road hike, then heads back into his home. Sammi follows him in, admires the furnishings, and requests that he leave the gun behind. Somebody might want to remind her what movie she's in, because Paul Bunyan doesn't look like a prime candidate for a counseling session.
The Sarge lines everyone up, then gets them to march in place. He berates everyone except for Rosa, and tells her that her attitude might be a benefit. Then he starts them up with a drill song, and off they go!
The march soon turns into a run, and it's mostly uphill. They navigate over rocks and around tree trunks, with Hoke yelling most of the way. He even threatens to abandon any stragglers. Hey, wasn't there a killer Paul Bunyan monster somewhere in this movie? Did he go home?
Meeks did. He's seen hiking around the rough terrain, giggling and gibbering all the way to his house. Yup, gibbering. The closed captions even agreed with me, so nyah nyah nyah! Oh, and apparently Meeks plays with himself, as we see him hovering over aq chessboard on his front porch. Wait, what did you think I meant?
After crossing a "river"(really just a stream, by the look of it), Hoke finally lets them all take a break for lunch. While he eats his sandwich with Sammi, the teens moan and gripe about the exercise. Zack decides that he's going to attempt to walk back to civilization, and urges the others to go along. After he leaves, Marty follows to try to coax him back.
Zack gets to a clearing, then quickly realizes how big the mountain is, when he sees the hillside covered in trees. Marty catches up, and they both discover a pile of large bones. It's the site where those loggers cooked and ate Babe, Paul Bunyan's big blue ox. Zack finds the skull of the beast, and he impulsively decides to remove and take one of the horns as a souvenir.
Zack hoists the horn over his shoulders and they return to the group, unaware that Paul Bunyan had put a cross at the site, in tribute to his pet's death. Gee, I sure hope he doesn't mind a little grave desecration...I'm sure it'll be fine. Gigantic mutant lumberjacks with a taste for blood don't tend to hold grudges.
Zack shows off his find, and the girls all suggest that he leave it behind. Then Hoke sees it, and tells him that he can't keep it. As Hoke leaves them to clean up their lunch mess, Zack hides the horn in his backpack, and it doesn't fit, but he takes it anyway. Yes, because no one could possibly notice a large, sharp horn poking out of the top of your backpack.
At a place called Mel's Lumberjack Saloon, Ray stops in to visit the bartender, an old man named Budd. Budd tries to sell him a drink, but Budd's daughter shuts him up. Ray asks her about Hoke, because her daughter went through his program, and Budd tells them that Hoke killed a teen the previous year. Say WHAAAAT?
Not intentionally, of course: a teen had an unreported heart condition, and died because Hoke pushed him too hard. The waitress sends her father to wait on some customers, then clarifies that the teen only got heatstroke, and also survived. She flirts with Ray as he leaves, but he's clueless. Her reaction to his putdown is cringeworthy. Oscar-caliber acting? Nowhere in sight.
Back to the hapless hikers. Sammi runs past Hoke, mockingly suggesting that she might abandon him if he can't keep up. Ha! Hoke waits for the entire group to pass him, and brings up the rear.
Uh-oh. Paul Bunyan is at the site where he buried his pet ox, Babe. He stomps around the bones for a bit, then comes to the spot where the skull was dropped. When he sees that one of the horns was torn off, he bellows out several angry roars.
Our intrepid hikers hear the roar and guess that it's a mountain lion, but Hoke doesn't care one way or the other. Meeks hears the sound too, and hurries out of his shack with his trusty shotgun. He looks around his property, but Paul Bunyan's not around.
During the hike, Marty grabs the massive horn out of Zack's bag, then runs ahead of him. Zack chases him, but none of the others even seem to notice. Hell, they don't even bother showing Hoke getting pissed off that someone defied him.
While Paul Bunyan scans the forest for his prey, the hikers stop for another quick rest. Trish whips out a cell phone, and sees that her friends have left her several messages. The electronic noises draw the attention of Paul Bunyan, and they hear the sound of him stomping in their direction.
All of the hikers turn to stare at Trish, who's unaware that Paul Bunyan is now standing directly behind her. He raises his mighty weapon, cleaving Trish in half, right down the middle. The others spread out into the forest, while he examines the amount of blood on his axe.
The campers split up into 2 main groups, and Paul Bunyan goes after Rosa first, knocking her to the ground with a flying tree branch that he hit with his axe. She's still alive though, so don't worry. Paul Bunyan would rather chase the others through the forest, than go after easy prey.
Zack and Marty circle back around, then lift the heavy branch off of Rosa. She's slightly injured, so they each grab an arm, and resume running away. The rest have been making their way back to Hoke's cabin, with him yelling at them the whole way. Paul Bunyan blocks the path, and separates Hoke's top and bottom halves in front of the others. Yippee!
Paul Bunyan gets his blade jammed into a tree, and that buys the group some time. Hoke is somehow still alive, and he urges Sammi to get the kids to his cabin. As they rush off, he distracts the monster by yelling insults at him, and Paul Bunyan proceeds to flatten him with a massive foot-stomping.
Both groups of escapees meet up, and they finally arrive at the cabin and tents. Hoke had locked the door, but they manage to break in. Rosa has a large gash on one side, so they set her down on a couch as gently as possible, then scurry through the house, trying to come up with a plan of some sort.
Sammi tries to take charge, but it's actually Claire that has an idea first: she spots the van that they all arrived in, and realizes that they could drive to the nearest town, or at least a main road, to get assistance. There's only a slight glitch...Hoke has the keys.
Marty claims that he can hotwire the vehicle, so the plan suddenly seems viable again. Sammi has Claire look for weapons, then remembers where she saw Hoke put his gun. She grabs it, then leads Marty outside, taking care to be as quiet as possible. Oh, and Marty's weapon is a rake. Great choice.
Marty gets in the van, but has trouble distinguishing one wire from another underneath the steering column. They hear twigs and branches snapping nearby, so they probably don't have much time before Paul Bunyan reappears.
Marty finally gets his act together, and the engine almost roars to life. Sadly, so does Paul Bunyan. He steps out of the woods, and Sammi urges Marty to move faster. She finally drags him back out of the vehicle, and they rush back to the house.
Once everyone is safely together again, they watch Paul Bunyan lift the van and drag it away. So much for a quick escape. Paul Bunyan heads back to his cave, and examines the amount of blood on his axe again. He wipes some off with a finger, then gives it a taste. Mmmm mmmm, good, that sure is some tasty blood! Then he finds a rag to clean off the blade.
Claire sees Zack closing a fist around the blade of a knife, and looks at the self-inflicted wound. She wraps a piece of cloth around it, and they share a nice moment together. Awwww...
Paul Bunyan apparently forgot what he was doing, because now he's after Meeks. He knocks at the door where the other survivors decide to allow him in. He accuses them of riling up Paul Bunyan in some way, and they show him the horn that they took.
As night falls, Sammi asks Meeks to explain the real story of Paul Bunyan. He dismisses the popular folktales as nonsense, then tells them the truth: a man named Larch Bunyan was a local land baron in the late 1800's. Larch met and married a woman named Helga, and she gave birth to Paul. A doctor told the couple that Paul had a rare hormonal disease, one that made him grow 2-3 times as large as a normal man, and he would age slower, living 3 times longer than a normal person.
There was a drawback, though: Paul was developmentally disabled. He was big enough to hold an axe by the age of 5, so he worked with the loggers in the area. It motivated them to increase their output, and soon both the trees and the forest animals grew scarce.
That brings us to events in the opening scene. Bill, the lumberjack foreman gathered a group of his employees to hunt down a wounded animal that had left tracks in the snow. The animal had been Babe, Paul Bunyan's pet, and it had injured itself stepping into a bear trap.
Bill decided that they should kill the ox and eat it, then try to conceal the truth from Paul Bunyan. He shot Babe right between the eyes, and they all dragged the carcass back to their camp. Paul Bunyan goes in search of his pet, and you know the rest of the story.
After he killed the lumberjacks, Paul Bunyan tried to hide in the forest, but an angry mob found him. They chained him up, then dragged him back to town, where even more people were waiting to heckle him. His breaking point came when a local women he had a crush on, Maybelle, turned her back on him. The townsfolk eventually decided to drag him into an abandoned mineshaft, where they used dynamite to seal him in.
Of course, since he was a mutant with incredible physical strength, Paul Bunyan was able to get himself. He took what was left of his pet, then lived by himself high up in the mountains, content to avoid anyone else until our teens came along and desecrated Babe and the gravesite.
Meeks urges them to bring the horn back to where they found it. Zack picks it up, then runs outside. He begs Paul Bunyan to take back the horn, then flings it into the trees. For a second or two, nothing happens.
Then as Zack turns to head back inside, the horn flies through the air, impaling him. Then the monster shows up, grabs the dying teen by the leg, and drags him into the woods. Sammi shoots at Paul Bunyan, but the bullets seem to have little or no effect.
They all rush back inside, where Meeks is raiding the fridge and cooking himself a meal. He advises Sammi to wait until morning, then attempt another escape. Their hope is that, since he has the horn again, maybe Paul Bunyan will leave them alone again.
They spend most of the night panicking, and Rosa asks the others to make sure that her daughter is okay if she doesn't survive. Then Claire gives gun safety tips, and tells Sammi that she regrets not treating her father better. At his cave, Paul Bunyan's been polishing his axe(not a metaphor), and making it razor-sharp. Guess he hasn't calmed down.
Morning comes, and Ray decides to drive up to the camp. At Hoke's cabin, Meeks and Claire are the first ones to wake up. Meeks tells her that she's identical to Maybelle, the woman who broke Paul Bunyan's heart. Oh, and Maybelle just happens to be Meeks' great-aunt....So, wait, would that mean that he and Claire are somehow related? He also seems to think that Claire might be a reincarnated version of Maybelle, but who knows? Seriously now, what...the...fuck???
Meeks leaves to find the truck, and he urges the others to remain at the house. He claims that being alone will actually make him safer. Before he leaves, he gives Claire a photo of Maybelle, and she marvels at their similarities.
We're checking back in with Ray, for some reason. Armed with a high-powered rifle, he finds the big red splotch that used to be Hoke, along with a comically oversized footprint. He attempts to use his radio to calll for reinforcements, but all he gets is static.
Ray arrives at a fire tower and climbs it, and the radio signal improves somewhat. His message is received at the saloon, but Budd doesn't hear it. The people in this movie are having a whopping streak of bad luck!
Back at the cabin, things get quiet. Too quiet.(Heh, I always wanted to say something dramatic like that. My bucket list is shrinking!) Then Paul Bunyan's axe crashes through the ceiling. Is it just me, or does his size seem to change in every scene?
Everyone gets knocked to the floor, so he raises the axe to try and finish them off. But this time he avoids the roof, opting to smash the windows instead. Followed by more roof damage, and the same footage, over and over again, of Paul Bunyan growling and raising his weapon. This is so Stucking Fupid!
Paul Bunyan reaches into the house to snatch up Claire, but Marty stabs at his hand with the rake. Paul Bunyan howls in pain, knocks Marty over, then picks up Rosa and holds her by one leg to get a good look. Her screams make him decide that she's not worth the trouble, so he kills her by hurling her at a tree.
Sammi then fires a bullet into his eye, which sends him reeling. While he's distracted by the pain, Sammi and Claire run outside. Marty grabs a large tree branch and goes after Paul Bunyan, out of his mind with grief over Rosa's death. He flings the large stick at the monster, attracting his attention.
Sammi puts herself between Paul Bunyan and the teens, prepared to die in order to protect them. Luckily, Ray shows up at that point, and shoots the giant 3 more times. Paul Bunyan stumbles backwards, then lands on top of what's left of the house.
Oh, those weren't actual bullets, they were tranquilizer darts. Ray tells the others that fun fact, then urges everyone to keep moving before he wakes up again. As they head back to a m,ore populated area, Meeks blocks their way with his shotgun.
He starts to ramble on about how Paul Bunyan is just an innocent boy, and that he can't let them leave. Marty tries to grab his weapon, so Meeks shoots him in the gut. Marty dies in less than a minute, and Meeks tries to force the last few survivors to go with him at gunpoint.
That's when Paul Bunyan wakes up. He sees that "Maybelle" is in danger, and tosses his axe in a bid to save her. He's got good aim...his axe decapitates Meeks. The final 3 survivors run away, and the chase resumes.
They arrive at Roy's truck, and he grabs more ammunition. Then he hands the keys to his daughter, and asks her to drive, while he climbs into the truckbed to get a better aim at Paul Bunyan. The truck races down the road as Roy loads his gun, then Paul Bunyan is seen racing after them. Roys fires several shots at the giant, but he never goes down. Claire swerves to avoid Paul Bunyan's axe, and Roy loses the gun.
As Roy struggles not to fall out of the truck, Paul seems to vanish. Nope, he inexplicably managed to get in front of the truck, without them ever noticing what he was doing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. He nearly decapitates Roy, but only manages to remove the police lights on the roof.
The impact causes the truck to go careening into a tree, and Roy flies out of the back, where he rolls several feet. Sammi and Claire run over to help him, and he seems just fine. They decide to continue on foot.
The trio get to the bridge, and no one else is in sight. Then Paul Bunyan finds them, and corners the group on the bridge. There's a door at the other end, but it's locked, and the giant is still approaching. Roy fires several shots at the door, but it won't give.
Several vehicles drive up to the bridge, and an armada of rednecks spill out of them. Paul Bunyan finally notices them, and gnashes his teeth as they all take aim at him. After being hit by numerous rounds, Paul Bunyan drops his axe.
The rednecks stop firing, and Paul Bunyan turns to look at Claire/Maybelle one last time. He says the name "Maybelle", begins to cry, then falls off of the bridge. The crowd watch him as he sinks into the water below, then the rednecks begin to cheer and holler. When Ray asks how they knew what was happening, it's revealed that Budd did hear the police scanner,and called his daughter to round up an angry mob. Yee-haw!
The rednecks argue over what they just killed, and Budd convinces the group to carry the massive axe back to the bar. Our 3 heroes stare into the water, then join the others. THE END
Well, there you go. A SyFy movie and a slasher flick, all in one. At least there was plenty of the red stuff. On the other hand, the movie. But it was slightly better than 2-Headed Shark Attack or Mansquito, so....yeah. Hooray? 3 out of 5, with that full point included for making sure that Hoke died.
And what did I learn from Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan?
-Lumberjacks are dangerous psychopaths, and much more so when you eat their pets.
-Some guys can't even generate sympathy when you see them cut in half.
-Giants just want to get laid, like we all do.
Next week, I'll do either The Wraith or Miner's Massacre, depending on which one arrives first. Have a fun week!
Friday, August 23, 2013
Home Si--Uh, I mean "Fear Island"
Well, here we are again! Unfortunately, as I said in my update earlier this week, the copy of Home Sick that NetFlix sent me was pretty shoddy, so hopefully they can send me a better one. Not holding my breath, though..I'm still waiting for my second attempt to watch Smiley, post-convalescence.
Anyway, I found a quick replacement, called Fear Island. It looks generic, but it's also playable, so I'm up for it. Yes, my standards are delightfully low at this point. SPOILERS on the horizon!
The story begins on a confusing note, showing us a young woman being pursued through a forest. She runs and jumps quite a bit, and there are a dozen or so views of the same shot of her eyes in an extreme closeup. Oh yeah, this is going to be a quality film!
After about a minute of this, the gunmen find her hiding spot. They surround her, and seem to be a SWAT team or some kind of police task force. Then the title screen comes up. Okay, I'm mildly intrigued...or, as intrigued as I can ever get by these things.
The young woman is under arrest, and throngs of reporters are waiting for her at the police headquarters. During her interrogation, we find out that she has amnesia. D'oh! The detective questioning her doesn't buy into the amnesia story and starts yelling at the girl, but a psychiatrist named Dr. Chalice interrupts them.
The cop and the doc go into the hallway, where we find out that the cop has a questionable incident in his file that makes him unreliable. Oh, and it turns out that there were about 6 dead bodies found on the island where the young woman was captured. I guess that's a bad thing.
Dr. Chalice finds out that the mystery woman wasn't even read her rights, and goes ballistic. She informs the cop that she's putting the young woman in the hospital under her supervision, at least until they can locate the girl's family. Young Dirty Harry doesn't like it, but has no choice in the matter, given the condition the girl is in.
The mystery woman dreams about the dead people, hearing their voices, and wakes up screaming and writhing around in her hospital bed. Dr. Chalice, accompanied by a couple of uniformed police guards, enters the room and sedates her with an injection. When the cops leave the 2 women alone together, Chalice sits with the girl and watches her sleep.
The girl dreams about the incident on the island. The trip was some sort of getaway, because she and her friends were all going off to college soon, and this was supposed to be a final bash before they left. There are four of them, 2 boys and 2 girls, but another young man has arrived late, getting to the dock seconds after the small boat has launched.
As he watches the boat slowly drift further away, the latecomer makes the decision to leap for the boat. Oh, and he's the first character since Dr. Chalice to get a name: Mark. Hey, that's me!
Mark's running leap succeeds, and he manages to cling to a railing. They pull him aboard, and there are cheers and high 5's all around. Oh, and the young man who was told to pull away from the shore is named Keith. Wow, 2 names in one scene!
Our Jane Doe gets a name as well. She's Jenna, and she just got accepted into a performing arts school, as a dancer. They all make a celebratory toast, then Mark flirts with the other girl, causing Jenna to stand up and walk away. She apparently used to date Mark, and there's still some tension between 'em. She decides to hang out with Keith for a little while.
They approach the island, which is privately owned. There's the usual disclaimer about there being no phones or wireless signals, merely put in there for guys like me, so that we can't nitpick about the many ways they could get help. Eh, I still think it's just weak writing.
They tie up the boat, and head straight for the house. There's a hot tub(time machine?) with a lid over it, and they waste no time in getting it ready for use. Also, Jenna spots a strange wind-up toy, a monkey on a bike, spinning around on the back porch. Scrawled on the monkey's back is the word REVENGE.
Oops, end of flashback. The angry cop puts the toy in front of Jenna, claiming that it was found next to one of the dead bodies. The cop asks Jenna a simple question: If she didn't kill her friends, then who did? That leads into another flashback.
Mark still has a torch for Jenna, but is advised to back off. They apparently broke up 3 years ago, which is either sad or creepy on his part. Maybe both. This girl sure does have a lot of flashbacks to stuff she technically never heard or saw!
Oh, and she FINALLY remembers her own name! Sheesh, we knew it before she did. How does that work? While the cop asks another officer to verify the name, Jenna begins to cry. Then the cop reveals some new information: Witnesses saw 6 of them get on the boat. So how are there 6 dead bodies?
Jenna just now remembers that there was a stowaway on the boat. Uh huh, sure there was. Keith finds a cute young brunette on the boat while he's moving boxes. The new girl, Megan, just smiles a lot and bats her pretty eyelashes. Hey, I'm convinced she's harmless!
Then we FINALLY learn all of their names...Tyler is the leader of the group; his brother is some surfer dude-looking guy named Kyle; Jenna's friend is Ashley(oh, and I forgot this earlier, but she has a dog that she keeps in her bag, like Paris Hilton...); and we've already met Keith, Jenna, and Mark. Got all of that straight? There's a quiz later.
Anyway, Ashley and Jenna whisk Megan away to find her a bedroom. Back in the present, the cop asks Jenna to identify a head shot of Megan. Wait...if none of them were identified yet by the cops, how do they have portraits of them from when they were alive? Is this supposed to make sense?
Jenna claims that Megan was a threat, because of her sex appeal, but then contradicts herself by saying that Megan was "special" in some way. The cop responds by telling her that Megan was stabbed in the throat. So much for being special.
Back in the past, everyone makes fun of Mark, who has found a pair of tacky, bright shorts to wear. He asks Ashley where Jenna is, and ducks out to meet up with her at the dock. As he heads back upstairs to change his ugly shorts, Megan comes downstairs. Tyler grabs her by the hand, insisting that he should fix her a drink before they join the rest of the group.
As sick of the flashbacks as I am, Dr. Chalice gives Jenna a sedative to shut her up. Yay! As Chalice leaves the hospital room, she encounters the angry cop in the hallway. She tells him that Jenna isn't the killer, at least in her expert opinion. That probably means that Jenna's the killer...I'm going to laugh myself silly if I'm right.
Anyway, Angry Cop tells her that he looked into her background. It seems that she's not a very experienced shrink, and that she spends most of her time on the witness stand. As the cop vows to uncover the truth, we get more flashbackstory.('cause it's a flashback, and fills in the backstory...oh, never mind)
Ashley and her boy-toy are in the hot tub. At the same time, Megan and Kyle are doing shots, while Jenna is on the dock "doing ballet". The flashback is interrupted by the cop, who tells Jenna that he thinks she's been faking her amnesia.
Back to Megan and Kyle. Ashley's dog arrives, and drinks from one of the shot glasses. That somehow makes Kyle and Megan horny, so they decide to suck face. Someone seems to be watching them from outside. Ashley and Tyler are doing kinky things with an ice cube in the hot tub. Oh, and thanks to the subtitles, I finally discovered that the dog's name is Pierre.
Kyle sends Pierre outside, then resumes making out with Megan. As Jenna keeps trying to dance, Mark arrives to distract her with his general moping around. Mark asks her to "call a truce" for the weekend, but she seems to think that he's obsessive and creepy.
Megan lets Kyle carry her to a bed, but confesses that she's a virgin. In fact, she admits that she's only 15. Rut roh! To his credit, Kyle does the gentlemanly thing, and chooses to walk away. See, chivalry still exists! Some time after that, an unseen person finds and takes Pierre.
At the hot tub, blood somehow gets mixed in with the ice bucket water. Ashley has blood on one side of her face, and Tyler does a double-take when she turns to face him. Kyle comes outside to see what happened, and they all begin blaming each other for putting blood in the bucket.
As they're all shouting back and forth, Ashley finds out that Kyle let her tiny dog run loose in the woods. Kyle stomps away to find the dog, at which point Angry Cop asks the very same question that I had earlier: How can Jenna recall events that she never witnessed? She claims that the others told her things after they had occurred. Sure they did.
Dr. Chalice calms them both down, then asks Jenna to resume telling the story "her way", which she does. Kyle returns, without poor Pierre, and it's dark out. He guesses that Keith is holding the dog somewhere, as a prank. Kyle and Mark knock at his door, but he seems genuinely confused when they ask him to return the dog. When they leave, he reveals that the dog is hidden in a kitchen cabinet, whimpering and frightened. Man, what an asshole.
Okay, maybe not...he reveals that he did it to protect the dog, because he saw it drinking from the glass of alcohol. Ah, so he was the one watching from the window! Wait, I'm confused here...are we rooting for him because he protected the dog? Or is he creepy again, because now we know he's a peeper?
Keith sees the reflection of a figure trying to sneak up on him, and the scene ends with no resolution. When Mark and Kyle return to the main house, they report that Pierre is still missing. Kyle tells them that if Keith continues to try to intimidate them, he'll hurt him with a knife he carries for protection. When he shows them the weapon, it's already smeared in dry blood.
Jenna defends Kyle, suggesting that another intruder may be on the island. Tyler tells her that it's not possible, and that the island is surrounded on 3 sides by cliffs. They would hear another boat. When Ashley worries that it was Pierre's blood in the ice bucket, Mark assures her that the dog will be found alive and intact.
Back in the present, Dr. Chalice tells the detective that Jenna's parents were located. It turns out that they were away on a trip to Cambodia, but are returning right away to see their daughter. Reading my mind, the cop asks the shrink who would go to vacation all the way over in Cambodia? "Rich people" is apparently the answer. She leaves a file about Jenna with the detective, but tells him that her history is trouble-free.
Back in the interrogation area, Jenna suddenly cries out that it was Keith. Time for more flashbacks...Jenna makes coffee for everyone, but Ashley is a no-show. She woke up earlier, and immediately resumed the search for her dog. While she's out in the woods, Mark finds a jar of jelly filled with thumbtacks. Mmmmm, who doesn't love an old-fashioned peanut butter 'n' blood sandwich?
Ashley can be heard screaming, and the others run outside to find her. She comes sprinting toward the house, and the 3 guys decide to have a look at whatever caused her to scream. They don't find the dog, but they DO find Keith, who has been hung up by his ankles, with the word EVIL carved into his torso.
The cop and the shrink point out that she just contradicted her own story, because earlier she was yelling about the killer being Keith. Oh, and the cop is apparently named 'Armory'. Okay, so we have a doctor named Chalice, a cop named Armory...wanna bet that there's a chef named Ladle? I have a feeling that this script was written in crayon.
When Armory demands to know why they didn't all just get in the boat and leave, the shrink tells him not to personalize the case, and that the victims were not like his son. I think this movie hates me. Or maybe the movie became self-aware, and it literally hates itself.
It turns out that the boat vanished. They manage to call the cops from the house, but they won't arrive until the following day. At least that explains how they knew to look for Jenna in the opening scene. Some of this is starting to make sense...Did I just say that?
They all head outside, where they can hear that toy monkey spinning around in the vicinity. But who wound it up? Mark heads to the trees to find it, but hears an evil laugh, and hesitates. There might also be a voice, but the words can't be heard.
The guys decide to cut down Keith's body, and they tell Megan and Jenna to remain at the house. As soon as they leave, Ashley announces that she's going into the woods to continue her search for Pierre. Being such caring, compassionate women, they offer to search instead...and leave her alone in the house. These folks are geniuses.
Tyler tells Mark that the reason that Keith was around so much was because he was Tyler and Kyle's half-brother. When they arrive at the right tree, the body is gone. The blood, too. So the killer is still on the island.
Detective Armory shows Jenna a file, and it indicates that Keith's death was different than what Jenna described. Rather than telling us what actually happened, the script glosses over the details. Ridiculous.
Ashley wakes up from a nap, and she hears Pierre barking. She leaves the house, and approaches the hot tub. She finds a studded dog collar in front of it, and throws open the cover. As she gets in to search for her dog, the killer slams the lid down, ties it down, then raises the water temperature. Anyone hungry for boiled ham?
Kyle and Mark return from the hike, and find the house empty. They split up to get Tyler and the girls. Oh, and Ashley drowns. TTFN, Ash!
Mark finds Megan, but she's not with Jenna. They find her soon enough, but panic again when they realize that Ashley has disappeared. At the house, everyone meets up agin, and Megan spots the spiked collar in front of the hot tub. Painted on the lid is the word GUILTY. They pull her out of the hot tub, and her corpse is covered in blisters and burns. Jenna stops telling the story, and remembers how close she and Ashley used to be. Then she asks them if she can speak with her friend, as has to be reminded that Ashley is dead. Creepy.
On the island, they wrap Ashley in a sheet. Mark speculates that the killer might just be some random nutcase, and it's pointed out that, random or not, they're all still in danger. The conversation turns into a shouting match, with everyone accusing everyone else of being a potential killer. To make it worse, they realize that, even in groups, there were periods of time when each person was alone.
They bring the corpse to a freezer, then make a plan to remain in a group. In the storage shed they come across a pair of walkie-talkies. As they return to the house, they spot the toy monkey rolling around on the patio. Maybe the monkey killed them all!
Jenna is the first one to spot another word painted on the glass door leading into the house: INNOCENT. When Dr. Chalice points out that none of them were "innocent", Jenna again tells her that Megan was "special" in some way. When asked to elaborate, Jenna explains that Megan wasn't even supposed to be there, so the killer couldn't have planned on her arrival. So???
On their way back to the house, Kyle hears a noise. It's the sound of someone crying. He urges the rest of the group to go inside, while he investigates the sound. They give him a baseball bat for protection. Before they even have time to miss him, he steps on a bear trap. They work to free Kyle, then everybody heads inside, where they lock the doors and windows.
In her hospital room Jenna is reading a bible. She tells Dr. Chalice that it gives her comfort. Then she asks the shrink about Detective Armory's son, and is told that he died during some type of hazing incident. He drowned during a "water torture" gag.Detective Armory nearly killed one of the kids at the scene.
Dr. Chalice then gives Jenna her nightly sedative. After the shrink leaves, Jenna spits the pill out. It turns out that she made a secret compartment in the bible, where she's been hiding the sleeping pills. What a zany gal!
In the past, Kyle gets drunk to dull the pain from his wounded foot, while Tyler arms himself with a nail gun. Someone appears to be watching the house. Then the brainiacs decide that they should somehow move Kyle upstairs. As they all get him there, Jenna thinks that she sees the killer outside. She gets Mark and Tyler, and they go outside to have a look. Nope, nobody's out there!
At about 4 in the morning, Mark and Jenna nearly share a kiss, but then the power goes out. Megan goes upstairs to check on Kyle, but she can't seem to find him. Then a tree outside goes up in a blaze, and someone outside begins to fire a gun at the house.
Tyler is hit, and they all work together to drag him to a safe spot behind the couch. Then we end up back in the hospital. Jenna wakes up, and finds someone new in the room. A young girl, who is also a ghost I guess. Jenna calls her Regina.
Kyle can be heard pleading for his life, and the others find a walkie-talkie. Using the device, they try to figure out where Kyle has been taken. Jenna thinks that the words left at every crime scene might have a clue, so she writes them down: REVENGE, EVIL, GREED, INNOCENT, NAIVE, and ATONEMENT. When put together, the first letter in each word spells out REGINA. Friggin' Atonement, man. Did these guys watch Tormented?
Uhhhh, back up a sec...who's Regina?
She was a student who had disappeared the previous year. She had gone to one of their parties, and got herself pretty smashed by the end of the night. As Regina partied, they filmed the whole thing. And by "they", I'm referring to Tyler and Kyle. Megan hears the story and proclaims that she's safe, since she had nothing to do with whatever happened to Regina.
Jenna takes one of the walkie-talkies, and insists that Megan should have it. Megan accepts it, then leaves the others to their fate. But first, she promises Jenna that she'll keep in touch with them, as frequently as possible.
As Jenna recalls not being confident about trusting either Mark or Tyler, Megan gets back to the main house. She comes across Kyle's knife(which is clean again), then the others return as well. She's no longer around, but they find a mound of dirt and a little plastic shovel. The killer wants them to build a playground? Or does the killer want some beach toys? On an unrelated note, life can sometimes be a beach.
The sight of the dirt leads to another flashback-within-the-flashback: Apparently, something bad happened to Regina. After being raped and filmed, Regina tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, but Tyler grabs her wrist. A struggle ensues and Regina stumbles, dying when she receives a blow to the head on a piece of furniture.
He and Kyle buried the corpse in the woods. As Jenna insists on being shown where the body is buried, the flashback ends. Then Jenna discovers that her folks will be back home sometime the next day. That means the movie's almost over! Orgy at my place! Bring champagne!
Anyway...The characters seem to be having a weird role-reversal, with Armory believing Jenna now, and Chalice poking holes in her story. Yeesh, whatever. Just unmask the killer so I can head out and see You're Next.
A report from the coroner arrives, revealing that Jenna was either mistaken, or lied, about Keith being the first victim. Rather than explaining this, the movie decides to resume the flashback by showing Megan, back when she returned to the house. She backs out of the main room, and finds Keith looming behind her. Whoa...Keith's the killer?!?
The others arrive at the burial site, where it appears that somebody already did some digging. Tyler begins to dig, and they soon find not Regina, but Kyle, in the hole! D'oh!
...and that's when Regina uses her walkie-talkie. She sounds panicky, and tells them that Keith is alive. They hear her beg for her life, then the transmission ends on an abrupt note. Double d'oh!
They hurry back to the house, and Tyler vows to kill Keith for what he's done. He gets to the house first, and grabs a knife from the kitchen. Then he calls out to Megan, while searching the house. He hears a sound coming from one of the kitchen cabinets, and gets a chestful of venom when a snake emerges from said cabinet.
Tyler yanks the snake out of his chest and screams for help. Jenna and Mark can only stand by, while he dies right before their eyes. Jenna tearfully tells Mark that she feels responsible for everything that happened. She apparently witnessed the drunken 3-way at the party that night. It looks like Ashley also saw some of it.
At the police station, ?Jenna tells Armory that when she "heard what happened", she wanted to "kill them all". Uhhhh...didn't you witness it? Her story changes so often, they should write it as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
Mark tells Jenna that they need to find a way to get back to the mainland, then they both hear a noise upstairs. Mark suddenly kisses her, then they head up the stairs. Nice time for romance, dude.
There's a large shape on one of the beds, but it's covered up with sheets. Mark draws a sheet back, expecting to see either a dead Megan or Keith, but it's the bony remains of Regina. Keith radioes them, telling them that Regina was an innocent victim. When they ask about Megan, he only says that she's been taken care of by him.
They return to the hallway, where Keith ambushes them. He claims that they need to suffer they way they lived. H?e also says that he cared about Regina, and that his feelings compelled him to seek revenge on all of them. Except Megan. She's special. Yeah man, we've heard.
Jenna bites Keith in the arm, forcing him to release his grip on her. Then Mark goes at him with the baseball bat, and both men fall to the first floor during the struggle. Jenna leans over the railing to have a look, and neither man is moving. She examines Mark, who appears to be dead, but Keith springs back to life and tries to grab her. Jenna then gets agitated when Armory and Chalice interrupt the story.
Keith pursues Jenna through the forest, but he trips. She nearly gets captured while climbing a hill, but a well-timed kick buys her some time. Unfortunately for her, she then gets snatched up by a rope trap, and is helplessly swinging by her ankles.
Keith soon arrives, and can't help laughing at her predicament. He compares what he's going to do to her to skinning a rabbit, then moves in for the kill. Fortunately, Regina pops up and attacks him with a shovel before he can hurt Jenna. Then she takes the knife, and uses it to cut the rope holding Jenna.
They limp to the dock, where the boat has somehow returned from oblivion. They climb aboard, even as Chalice and Armory ask why Megan didn't survive. While Jenna looks for boat keys, Megan speculates on what it must feel like to lose a loved one. And she edges away from Jenna. Uh oh...
Yup, there's another killer. Regina was Megan's older sister, and she wants her own revenge for what happened a year ago. Frankly, I'm just shocked that she hasn't said, "I know what you did last summer..." They've used every other cliche, more or less.
Megan takes out the knife, and Jenna claims that Megan and Keith were in cahoots. Chalice reads a file, and verifies that Megan and Regina were sisters. Armory just rests his head on the table, lol. I think I know how he feels.
Back to the boat: As Megan closes in on Jenna, Jenna "remembers" that she killed Megan in self-defense. While Dr. Chalice protests that Megan was stabbed waaaay more than a few times, Det. Armory argues that Jenna can go home until a decision is made by the district attorney, regarding filing any charges. Jenna just sits back and smiles.
In the hospital room, Jenna fixes 2 cups of water, then offers one to the doctor. Chalice takes a sip, then sits down. She tells the girl that there are many holes in her story, like the thing about her and Ashley being in first grade together. Or seeing a vision of Regina in her room, despite never having seen her before.
Remember the hoarded sleeping pills that were hidden in the book? Well, Jenna sure did! She put them in the cup that she handed to Chalice, and the doc collapses to the floor. It turns out that Regina was like a sister to Jenna...in fact, she WAS her sister!
Jenna's parents arrive, and they ask about her condition. Armory reports that she's been through an ordeal, but should be fine. Then her mother sees the photo board, and asks why her daughter's picture has the name "Megan" underneath it...rut roh!
Okay, so go back, re-watch this entire thing, then switch Megan with Jenna...and it still doesn't quite work! Armory races to the hospital room, where he discovers that Dr. Chalice is...alive. Wow. So far, that's the best twist. Oh, and yes, I'm laughing, because I predicted this whole thing earlier.
The final sequence shows Megan on the road, having apparently stolen Chalice's car keys and business attire. The car breaks down, and she entices a motorist to give her a lift. Oh, and she calls herself Megan. THE END
Oh, where to begin? The ridiculous plot aside, the acting was terrible, the sets were monotonous(The interrogation area and the hospital were in the same building? HUH?), and it was very, very bland in the acting department. 1-and-a-half stars, and I'm already blocking this one out of my memory.
What did I learn from watching Fear Island?
-People should always have names that describe what they do for a living. On that note, I am now Sarcasmo the Mighty.
-If you get a young girl drunk, rape her, then kill her, make sure that she's an only child! Or just, I don't know, just a crazy thought, RESPECT WOMEN. Dagnabbit.
Stop trying to make Canada look like America. Or just make better slasher movies, Canada! Just because you guys made My Bloody Valentine, it doesn't give you a free pass to make crap like this later on.
I screwed up my NetFlix queue, so I didn't get a slasher in the mail this week. I'll peruse the Instant options, and hopefully find something worth watching. Have a great week!
Anyway, I found a quick replacement, called Fear Island. It looks generic, but it's also playable, so I'm up for it. Yes, my standards are delightfully low at this point. SPOILERS on the horizon!
The story begins on a confusing note, showing us a young woman being pursued through a forest. She runs and jumps quite a bit, and there are a dozen or so views of the same shot of her eyes in an extreme closeup. Oh yeah, this is going to be a quality film!
After about a minute of this, the gunmen find her hiding spot. They surround her, and seem to be a SWAT team or some kind of police task force. Then the title screen comes up. Okay, I'm mildly intrigued...or, as intrigued as I can ever get by these things.
The young woman is under arrest, and throngs of reporters are waiting for her at the police headquarters. During her interrogation, we find out that she has amnesia. D'oh! The detective questioning her doesn't buy into the amnesia story and starts yelling at the girl, but a psychiatrist named Dr. Chalice interrupts them.
The cop and the doc go into the hallway, where we find out that the cop has a questionable incident in his file that makes him unreliable. Oh, and it turns out that there were about 6 dead bodies found on the island where the young woman was captured. I guess that's a bad thing.
Dr. Chalice finds out that the mystery woman wasn't even read her rights, and goes ballistic. She informs the cop that she's putting the young woman in the hospital under her supervision, at least until they can locate the girl's family. Young Dirty Harry doesn't like it, but has no choice in the matter, given the condition the girl is in.
The mystery woman dreams about the dead people, hearing their voices, and wakes up screaming and writhing around in her hospital bed. Dr. Chalice, accompanied by a couple of uniformed police guards, enters the room and sedates her with an injection. When the cops leave the 2 women alone together, Chalice sits with the girl and watches her sleep.
The girl dreams about the incident on the island. The trip was some sort of getaway, because she and her friends were all going off to college soon, and this was supposed to be a final bash before they left. There are four of them, 2 boys and 2 girls, but another young man has arrived late, getting to the dock seconds after the small boat has launched.
As he watches the boat slowly drift further away, the latecomer makes the decision to leap for the boat. Oh, and he's the first character since Dr. Chalice to get a name: Mark. Hey, that's me!
Mark's running leap succeeds, and he manages to cling to a railing. They pull him aboard, and there are cheers and high 5's all around. Oh, and the young man who was told to pull away from the shore is named Keith. Wow, 2 names in one scene!
Our Jane Doe gets a name as well. She's Jenna, and she just got accepted into a performing arts school, as a dancer. They all make a celebratory toast, then Mark flirts with the other girl, causing Jenna to stand up and walk away. She apparently used to date Mark, and there's still some tension between 'em. She decides to hang out with Keith for a little while.
They approach the island, which is privately owned. There's the usual disclaimer about there being no phones or wireless signals, merely put in there for guys like me, so that we can't nitpick about the many ways they could get help. Eh, I still think it's just weak writing.
They tie up the boat, and head straight for the house. There's a hot tub(time machine?) with a lid over it, and they waste no time in getting it ready for use. Also, Jenna spots a strange wind-up toy, a monkey on a bike, spinning around on the back porch. Scrawled on the monkey's back is the word REVENGE.
Oops, end of flashback. The angry cop puts the toy in front of Jenna, claiming that it was found next to one of the dead bodies. The cop asks Jenna a simple question: If she didn't kill her friends, then who did? That leads into another flashback.
Mark still has a torch for Jenna, but is advised to back off. They apparently broke up 3 years ago, which is either sad or creepy on his part. Maybe both. This girl sure does have a lot of flashbacks to stuff she technically never heard or saw!
Oh, and she FINALLY remembers her own name! Sheesh, we knew it before she did. How does that work? While the cop asks another officer to verify the name, Jenna begins to cry. Then the cop reveals some new information: Witnesses saw 6 of them get on the boat. So how are there 6 dead bodies?
Jenna just now remembers that there was a stowaway on the boat. Uh huh, sure there was. Keith finds a cute young brunette on the boat while he's moving boxes. The new girl, Megan, just smiles a lot and bats her pretty eyelashes. Hey, I'm convinced she's harmless!
Then we FINALLY learn all of their names...Tyler is the leader of the group; his brother is some surfer dude-looking guy named Kyle; Jenna's friend is Ashley(oh, and I forgot this earlier, but she has a dog that she keeps in her bag, like Paris Hilton...); and we've already met Keith, Jenna, and Mark. Got all of that straight? There's a quiz later.
Anyway, Ashley and Jenna whisk Megan away to find her a bedroom. Back in the present, the cop asks Jenna to identify a head shot of Megan. Wait...if none of them were identified yet by the cops, how do they have portraits of them from when they were alive? Is this supposed to make sense?
Jenna claims that Megan was a threat, because of her sex appeal, but then contradicts herself by saying that Megan was "special" in some way. The cop responds by telling her that Megan was stabbed in the throat. So much for being special.
Back in the past, everyone makes fun of Mark, who has found a pair of tacky, bright shorts to wear. He asks Ashley where Jenna is, and ducks out to meet up with her at the dock. As he heads back upstairs to change his ugly shorts, Megan comes downstairs. Tyler grabs her by the hand, insisting that he should fix her a drink before they join the rest of the group.
As sick of the flashbacks as I am, Dr. Chalice gives Jenna a sedative to shut her up. Yay! As Chalice leaves the hospital room, she encounters the angry cop in the hallway. She tells him that Jenna isn't the killer, at least in her expert opinion. That probably means that Jenna's the killer...I'm going to laugh myself silly if I'm right.
Anyway, Angry Cop tells her that he looked into her background. It seems that she's not a very experienced shrink, and that she spends most of her time on the witness stand. As the cop vows to uncover the truth, we get more flashbackstory.('cause it's a flashback, and fills in the backstory...oh, never mind)
Ashley and her boy-toy are in the hot tub. At the same time, Megan and Kyle are doing shots, while Jenna is on the dock "doing ballet". The flashback is interrupted by the cop, who tells Jenna that he thinks she's been faking her amnesia.
Back to Megan and Kyle. Ashley's dog arrives, and drinks from one of the shot glasses. That somehow makes Kyle and Megan horny, so they decide to suck face. Someone seems to be watching them from outside. Ashley and Tyler are doing kinky things with an ice cube in the hot tub. Oh, and thanks to the subtitles, I finally discovered that the dog's name is Pierre.
Kyle sends Pierre outside, then resumes making out with Megan. As Jenna keeps trying to dance, Mark arrives to distract her with his general moping around. Mark asks her to "call a truce" for the weekend, but she seems to think that he's obsessive and creepy.
Megan lets Kyle carry her to a bed, but confesses that she's a virgin. In fact, she admits that she's only 15. Rut roh! To his credit, Kyle does the gentlemanly thing, and chooses to walk away. See, chivalry still exists! Some time after that, an unseen person finds and takes Pierre.
At the hot tub, blood somehow gets mixed in with the ice bucket water. Ashley has blood on one side of her face, and Tyler does a double-take when she turns to face him. Kyle comes outside to see what happened, and they all begin blaming each other for putting blood in the bucket.
As they're all shouting back and forth, Ashley finds out that Kyle let her tiny dog run loose in the woods. Kyle stomps away to find the dog, at which point Angry Cop asks the very same question that I had earlier: How can Jenna recall events that she never witnessed? She claims that the others told her things after they had occurred. Sure they did.
Dr. Chalice calms them both down, then asks Jenna to resume telling the story "her way", which she does. Kyle returns, without poor Pierre, and it's dark out. He guesses that Keith is holding the dog somewhere, as a prank. Kyle and Mark knock at his door, but he seems genuinely confused when they ask him to return the dog. When they leave, he reveals that the dog is hidden in a kitchen cabinet, whimpering and frightened. Man, what an asshole.
Okay, maybe not...he reveals that he did it to protect the dog, because he saw it drinking from the glass of alcohol. Ah, so he was the one watching from the window! Wait, I'm confused here...are we rooting for him because he protected the dog? Or is he creepy again, because now we know he's a peeper?
Keith sees the reflection of a figure trying to sneak up on him, and the scene ends with no resolution. When Mark and Kyle return to the main house, they report that Pierre is still missing. Kyle tells them that if Keith continues to try to intimidate them, he'll hurt him with a knife he carries for protection. When he shows them the weapon, it's already smeared in dry blood.
Jenna defends Kyle, suggesting that another intruder may be on the island. Tyler tells her that it's not possible, and that the island is surrounded on 3 sides by cliffs. They would hear another boat. When Ashley worries that it was Pierre's blood in the ice bucket, Mark assures her that the dog will be found alive and intact.
Back in the present, Dr. Chalice tells the detective that Jenna's parents were located. It turns out that they were away on a trip to Cambodia, but are returning right away to see their daughter. Reading my mind, the cop asks the shrink who would go to vacation all the way over in Cambodia? "Rich people" is apparently the answer. She leaves a file about Jenna with the detective, but tells him that her history is trouble-free.
Back in the interrogation area, Jenna suddenly cries out that it was Keith. Time for more flashbacks...Jenna makes coffee for everyone, but Ashley is a no-show. She woke up earlier, and immediately resumed the search for her dog. While she's out in the woods, Mark finds a jar of jelly filled with thumbtacks. Mmmmm, who doesn't love an old-fashioned peanut butter 'n' blood sandwich?
Ashley can be heard screaming, and the others run outside to find her. She comes sprinting toward the house, and the 3 guys decide to have a look at whatever caused her to scream. They don't find the dog, but they DO find Keith, who has been hung up by his ankles, with the word EVIL carved into his torso.
The cop and the shrink point out that she just contradicted her own story, because earlier she was yelling about the killer being Keith. Oh, and the cop is apparently named 'Armory'. Okay, so we have a doctor named Chalice, a cop named Armory...wanna bet that there's a chef named Ladle? I have a feeling that this script was written in crayon.
When Armory demands to know why they didn't all just get in the boat and leave, the shrink tells him not to personalize the case, and that the victims were not like his son. I think this movie hates me. Or maybe the movie became self-aware, and it literally hates itself.
It turns out that the boat vanished. They manage to call the cops from the house, but they won't arrive until the following day. At least that explains how they knew to look for Jenna in the opening scene. Some of this is starting to make sense...Did I just say that?
They all head outside, where they can hear that toy monkey spinning around in the vicinity. But who wound it up? Mark heads to the trees to find it, but hears an evil laugh, and hesitates. There might also be a voice, but the words can't be heard.
The guys decide to cut down Keith's body, and they tell Megan and Jenna to remain at the house. As soon as they leave, Ashley announces that she's going into the woods to continue her search for Pierre. Being such caring, compassionate women, they offer to search instead...and leave her alone in the house. These folks are geniuses.
Tyler tells Mark that the reason that Keith was around so much was because he was Tyler and Kyle's half-brother. When they arrive at the right tree, the body is gone. The blood, too. So the killer is still on the island.
Detective Armory shows Jenna a file, and it indicates that Keith's death was different than what Jenna described. Rather than telling us what actually happened, the script glosses over the details. Ridiculous.
Ashley wakes up from a nap, and she hears Pierre barking. She leaves the house, and approaches the hot tub. She finds a studded dog collar in front of it, and throws open the cover. As she gets in to search for her dog, the killer slams the lid down, ties it down, then raises the water temperature. Anyone hungry for boiled ham?
Kyle and Mark return from the hike, and find the house empty. They split up to get Tyler and the girls. Oh, and Ashley drowns. TTFN, Ash!
Mark finds Megan, but she's not with Jenna. They find her soon enough, but panic again when they realize that Ashley has disappeared. At the house, everyone meets up agin, and Megan spots the spiked collar in front of the hot tub. Painted on the lid is the word GUILTY. They pull her out of the hot tub, and her corpse is covered in blisters and burns. Jenna stops telling the story, and remembers how close she and Ashley used to be. Then she asks them if she can speak with her friend, as has to be reminded that Ashley is dead. Creepy.
On the island, they wrap Ashley in a sheet. Mark speculates that the killer might just be some random nutcase, and it's pointed out that, random or not, they're all still in danger. The conversation turns into a shouting match, with everyone accusing everyone else of being a potential killer. To make it worse, they realize that, even in groups, there were periods of time when each person was alone.
They bring the corpse to a freezer, then make a plan to remain in a group. In the storage shed they come across a pair of walkie-talkies. As they return to the house, they spot the toy monkey rolling around on the patio. Maybe the monkey killed them all!
Jenna is the first one to spot another word painted on the glass door leading into the house: INNOCENT. When Dr. Chalice points out that none of them were "innocent", Jenna again tells her that Megan was "special" in some way. When asked to elaborate, Jenna explains that Megan wasn't even supposed to be there, so the killer couldn't have planned on her arrival. So???
On their way back to the house, Kyle hears a noise. It's the sound of someone crying. He urges the rest of the group to go inside, while he investigates the sound. They give him a baseball bat for protection. Before they even have time to miss him, he steps on a bear trap. They work to free Kyle, then everybody heads inside, where they lock the doors and windows.
In her hospital room Jenna is reading a bible. She tells Dr. Chalice that it gives her comfort. Then she asks the shrink about Detective Armory's son, and is told that he died during some type of hazing incident. He drowned during a "water torture" gag.Detective Armory nearly killed one of the kids at the scene.
Dr. Chalice then gives Jenna her nightly sedative. After the shrink leaves, Jenna spits the pill out. It turns out that she made a secret compartment in the bible, where she's been hiding the sleeping pills. What a zany gal!
In the past, Kyle gets drunk to dull the pain from his wounded foot, while Tyler arms himself with a nail gun. Someone appears to be watching the house. Then the brainiacs decide that they should somehow move Kyle upstairs. As they all get him there, Jenna thinks that she sees the killer outside. She gets Mark and Tyler, and they go outside to have a look. Nope, nobody's out there!
At about 4 in the morning, Mark and Jenna nearly share a kiss, but then the power goes out. Megan goes upstairs to check on Kyle, but she can't seem to find him. Then a tree outside goes up in a blaze, and someone outside begins to fire a gun at the house.
Tyler is hit, and they all work together to drag him to a safe spot behind the couch. Then we end up back in the hospital. Jenna wakes up, and finds someone new in the room. A young girl, who is also a ghost I guess. Jenna calls her Regina.
Kyle can be heard pleading for his life, and the others find a walkie-talkie. Using the device, they try to figure out where Kyle has been taken. Jenna thinks that the words left at every crime scene might have a clue, so she writes them down: REVENGE, EVIL, GREED, INNOCENT, NAIVE, and ATONEMENT. When put together, the first letter in each word spells out REGINA. Friggin' Atonement, man. Did these guys watch Tormented?
Uhhhh, back up a sec...who's Regina?
She was a student who had disappeared the previous year. She had gone to one of their parties, and got herself pretty smashed by the end of the night. As Regina partied, they filmed the whole thing. And by "they", I'm referring to Tyler and Kyle. Megan hears the story and proclaims that she's safe, since she had nothing to do with whatever happened to Regina.
Jenna takes one of the walkie-talkies, and insists that Megan should have it. Megan accepts it, then leaves the others to their fate. But first, she promises Jenna that she'll keep in touch with them, as frequently as possible.
As Jenna recalls not being confident about trusting either Mark or Tyler, Megan gets back to the main house. She comes across Kyle's knife(which is clean again), then the others return as well. She's no longer around, but they find a mound of dirt and a little plastic shovel. The killer wants them to build a playground? Or does the killer want some beach toys? On an unrelated note, life can sometimes be a beach.
The sight of the dirt leads to another flashback-within-the-flashback: Apparently, something bad happened to Regina. After being raped and filmed, Regina tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, but Tyler grabs her wrist. A struggle ensues and Regina stumbles, dying when she receives a blow to the head on a piece of furniture.
He and Kyle buried the corpse in the woods. As Jenna insists on being shown where the body is buried, the flashback ends. Then Jenna discovers that her folks will be back home sometime the next day. That means the movie's almost over! Orgy at my place! Bring champagne!
Anyway...The characters seem to be having a weird role-reversal, with Armory believing Jenna now, and Chalice poking holes in her story. Yeesh, whatever. Just unmask the killer so I can head out and see You're Next.
A report from the coroner arrives, revealing that Jenna was either mistaken, or lied, about Keith being the first victim. Rather than explaining this, the movie decides to resume the flashback by showing Megan, back when she returned to the house. She backs out of the main room, and finds Keith looming behind her. Whoa...Keith's the killer?!?
The others arrive at the burial site, where it appears that somebody already did some digging. Tyler begins to dig, and they soon find not Regina, but Kyle, in the hole! D'oh!
...and that's when Regina uses her walkie-talkie. She sounds panicky, and tells them that Keith is alive. They hear her beg for her life, then the transmission ends on an abrupt note. Double d'oh!
They hurry back to the house, and Tyler vows to kill Keith for what he's done. He gets to the house first, and grabs a knife from the kitchen. Then he calls out to Megan, while searching the house. He hears a sound coming from one of the kitchen cabinets, and gets a chestful of venom when a snake emerges from said cabinet.
Tyler yanks the snake out of his chest and screams for help. Jenna and Mark can only stand by, while he dies right before their eyes. Jenna tearfully tells Mark that she feels responsible for everything that happened. She apparently witnessed the drunken 3-way at the party that night. It looks like Ashley also saw some of it.
At the police station, ?Jenna tells Armory that when she "heard what happened", she wanted to "kill them all". Uhhhh...didn't you witness it? Her story changes so often, they should write it as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
Mark tells Jenna that they need to find a way to get back to the mainland, then they both hear a noise upstairs. Mark suddenly kisses her, then they head up the stairs. Nice time for romance, dude.
There's a large shape on one of the beds, but it's covered up with sheets. Mark draws a sheet back, expecting to see either a dead Megan or Keith, but it's the bony remains of Regina. Keith radioes them, telling them that Regina was an innocent victim. When they ask about Megan, he only says that she's been taken care of by him.
They return to the hallway, where Keith ambushes them. He claims that they need to suffer they way they lived. H?e also says that he cared about Regina, and that his feelings compelled him to seek revenge on all of them. Except Megan. She's special. Yeah man, we've heard.
Jenna bites Keith in the arm, forcing him to release his grip on her. Then Mark goes at him with the baseball bat, and both men fall to the first floor during the struggle. Jenna leans over the railing to have a look, and neither man is moving. She examines Mark, who appears to be dead, but Keith springs back to life and tries to grab her. Jenna then gets agitated when Armory and Chalice interrupt the story.
Keith pursues Jenna through the forest, but he trips. She nearly gets captured while climbing a hill, but a well-timed kick buys her some time. Unfortunately for her, she then gets snatched up by a rope trap, and is helplessly swinging by her ankles.
Keith soon arrives, and can't help laughing at her predicament. He compares what he's going to do to her to skinning a rabbit, then moves in for the kill. Fortunately, Regina pops up and attacks him with a shovel before he can hurt Jenna. Then she takes the knife, and uses it to cut the rope holding Jenna.
They limp to the dock, where the boat has somehow returned from oblivion. They climb aboard, even as Chalice and Armory ask why Megan didn't survive. While Jenna looks for boat keys, Megan speculates on what it must feel like to lose a loved one. And she edges away from Jenna. Uh oh...
Yup, there's another killer. Regina was Megan's older sister, and she wants her own revenge for what happened a year ago. Frankly, I'm just shocked that she hasn't said, "I know what you did last summer..." They've used every other cliche, more or less.
Megan takes out the knife, and Jenna claims that Megan and Keith were in cahoots. Chalice reads a file, and verifies that Megan and Regina were sisters. Armory just rests his head on the table, lol. I think I know how he feels.
Back to the boat: As Megan closes in on Jenna, Jenna "remembers" that she killed Megan in self-defense. While Dr. Chalice protests that Megan was stabbed waaaay more than a few times, Det. Armory argues that Jenna can go home until a decision is made by the district attorney, regarding filing any charges. Jenna just sits back and smiles.
In the hospital room, Jenna fixes 2 cups of water, then offers one to the doctor. Chalice takes a sip, then sits down. She tells the girl that there are many holes in her story, like the thing about her and Ashley being in first grade together. Or seeing a vision of Regina in her room, despite never having seen her before.
Remember the hoarded sleeping pills that were hidden in the book? Well, Jenna sure did! She put them in the cup that she handed to Chalice, and the doc collapses to the floor. It turns out that Regina was like a sister to Jenna...in fact, she WAS her sister!
Jenna's parents arrive, and they ask about her condition. Armory reports that she's been through an ordeal, but should be fine. Then her mother sees the photo board, and asks why her daughter's picture has the name "Megan" underneath it...rut roh!
Okay, so go back, re-watch this entire thing, then switch Megan with Jenna...and it still doesn't quite work! Armory races to the hospital room, where he discovers that Dr. Chalice is...alive. Wow. So far, that's the best twist. Oh, and yes, I'm laughing, because I predicted this whole thing earlier.
The final sequence shows Megan on the road, having apparently stolen Chalice's car keys and business attire. The car breaks down, and she entices a motorist to give her a lift. Oh, and she calls herself Megan. THE END
Oh, where to begin? The ridiculous plot aside, the acting was terrible, the sets were monotonous(The interrogation area and the hospital were in the same building? HUH?), and it was very, very bland in the acting department. 1-and-a-half stars, and I'm already blocking this one out of my memory.
What did I learn from watching Fear Island?
-People should always have names that describe what they do for a living. On that note, I am now Sarcasmo the Mighty.
-If you get a young girl drunk, rape her, then kill her, make sure that she's an only child! Or just, I don't know, just a crazy thought, RESPECT WOMEN. Dagnabbit.
Stop trying to make Canada look like America. Or just make better slasher movies, Canada! Just because you guys made My Bloody Valentine, it doesn't give you a free pass to make crap like this later on.
I screwed up my NetFlix queue, so I didn't get a slasher in the mail this week. I'll peruse the Instant options, and hopefully find something worth watching. Have a great week!
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