Tormented

Hi strangers! Bet ya thought I was dead, huh? Me too! Had a pretty serious wound infection back in April, followed by a near-shutdown of my kidneys. But just like Jason and Freddy, I keep coming back! So, let's get revved up to watch a movie called Tormented...and if I start lookin' pale, CALL 911!!! ;P

Aw gee, this DVD has, like a kajillion ads before the movie. This is some kind of karmic payback for being gone so long. Human Centipede is one of the trailers: Is that considered a slasher flick? If so, maybe I should add it to my list...Cool menu screen. The characters are all sitting at the bottom of the screen as if they're dead. Kinda funny, in a sick way. Man, I'm rambling waaaaay more than I used to! Oh, and SPOILERS!

Anyway, let's watch this sucker. Okay, so a young, attractive female is marched out of her school by cops(it's a British film, so maybe I should refer to them as "coppers"?), while reporters and a crowd of gawkers stand around. So I guess we know how it ends.

Then, very abruptly, the story flashes back to a funeral 3 weeks earlier. The same young woman is eulogizing a fellow student with the improbable name "Darren Mullet". She talks about him in pretty generic terms("Fine student...Loved by his family...Friend to all..." blah blah blah nonsense), causing another student to begin shouting at her, claiming that Darren was bullied and hated by his peers. Oh, and this angry kid looks like a Harry Potter reject.

So, the nerdy kid is dragged out of the church by a gym teacher, and he tells them all to rot in Hell. At the grave site for poor Mullet, the nerdy kid shows up again, and the cute girl nervously glances over at him. Then the opening credits roll, as graffiti messages like "Mullet Sucks!" are seen in the background. Heck, we're not even 5 minutes in, and I'm already entertained by this thing! That's a good sign.

Then the credits end(Oh, and don't watch them too closely--they spoil most of the kills in the movie!), and there's a scene in front of the school. 3 different groups of students are discussing the suicide, and someone mentions a party, being hosted by someone else named Bradley. "Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who..."

A goofy-looking guy named Lexy tells his friends that he's going to ask a girl named Justine to go to the party as his date. Ah, Justine was the girl giving the eulogy. And Darren Mullet's friend with the short fuse is named Jason. And there's a butterface named Sophie who tells her little group that she thinks that Justine is nice, which apparently is not what the others think. And apparently Sophie likes her smell. Uhhhhh, let's move on....

A mousy-looking girl named Helena interrupts the fun, reminding Justine that they were going to rent and watch Atonement together. Ugh. What's Atonement? That prospect is the motivation that Justine needed. She accepts the date.

Then we get transported to the party, which is in full swing. Justine arrives late, and everything comes to an abrupt halt. The deejay refers to her as the "head girl", which I'm guessing probably has a very different meaning than the image I just imagined, and implies that she's the school narc. As Justine quickly leaves the party, Lexy and his pals puts the Eminem-wannabe in his place and Lexy runs after her.

Lexy apologizes to Justine for the deejay's teasing, and asks her if she wants to head over to Helena's house to watch Atonement instead. Okay, what is up with Atonement? Is it Britain's version of the Lord of The Rings trilogy, in terms of popularity? I may have to see it just to satisfy my curiosity.

Meanwhile, Bradley and another jock(who shouts "Suck...on...my...TITTIES!) confront the kid who humiliated Justine, and kick him into the pool. He storms off, after yelling, "Fuck Darren Mullet!" Wow, what a nice kid. He climbs over a hedge to leave, just as the young couple return to the party.

Oh, and we get a brief, funny scene with Helena and her equally nerdy sidekick. They finish watching Atonement, and Helena suggests watching it again, this time with the commentary off. The expression of sheer horror on the friend's face is priceless. This movie is worth the wait, at least so far...hysterical.

At the party, Justine suggests that she and Lexy find a "quieter" room, and he's happy to oblige. Ah-bow-chicka-bow-wow! They retreat into Bradley's bedroom, which is literally covered in wall-to-wall porn. I'm serious, the walls are cvered with pictures from skin mags. The guy has more porn than Larry Flynt!

Hey, let's pause this and come *giggle* up with porn movie spoofs...The Porn Identity. Porn Yesterday. The Un-Porn. The Porning After. Children of The Porn. Porn Curtain. (Yes, I AM easily amused, why do you ask?) Last one, I promise: Porn-mented.

Lexy, whose name is actually Alex, tells Justine that this is not how he imagined their first date, and they both share a laugh. The party by now has died down, and the main group is gathered around the TV to watch Bradley play video games. Party animals!

The game is disrupted by a text message, supposedly from Darren Mullet himself. Everyone else gets a message then, and Bradley answers his phone, telling "Jason"(they assume the sender is him) that he's dead the next time they see him in school. There's no response, only heavy breathing. And he's watching the party from outside. Wrong number?

Then Alex gets a message as well: it's a smiley that gets a bullet to the forehead, with the message, "I'm going to kill you." Naturally, Alex and Justine go back to their heavy petting. Death takes a back seat to adolescent hormones.

As things start to get steamy, a psycho bursts into the bedroom. He's wearing a demented clown mask and waving a chainsaw, and the young couple freak out. The killer clown laughs like a maniac and removes the mask, revealing that it's just Bradley. The a-holes were pulling a prank on the couple. As everyone leaves the bedroom, the zombie/ghost/whatever of Darren Mullet watches them from the shadows. Then he takes a huff on an asthma inhaler.

Wait...the undead can still suffer from asthma? Are you kidding?

The deejay who was forced to leave the party early is staggering around in a graveyard, looking for Darren's grave. While he starts yelling and searching the headstones, the party group is busy toasting to Darren's memory. We then learn that Justine, who spoke at the service, didn't even remember who he was. Nice.

The drunk deejay pisses on Darren's grave, laughing and babbling the entire time. Darren takes the opportunity to sneak up on him, grabbing a sharply-pointed cross along the way. He rams it into his victim's back, forcing the pointy end to emerge through his chest. Hey, maybe Darren's a vampire slayer! Tell Buffy and Faith that they can take a day off!

At school the next day, Justine is seen wearing her "Head Girl" pin on her school uniform. This is juxtaposed with the image of Jason wearing a pin on his lapel that says "Geek". Awww, don't worry Harry, you'll beat them all in the Quidditch Tournament.

Both Justine and Jason are called to the principal's office, where Jason is ordered to apologize for his outburst at the funeral. He only complies when he's told that his parents will be called in. Oh, and the principal asks his secretary about a certain missing student, named Jeremy, aka The Deejay. His body is seen in a dumpster, as an unwitting groundskeeper covers him with grass clippings.

As Jason prepares to trudge to class, Justine stops him. She tries to make amends for not remembering who Darren was, then Jason drops a bombshell on her: Darren had been in love with her. Before he stomps away, he gives Justine Darren's suicide note. It reveals that she had teased him too, driving him to kill himself.

As Justine collides with a teacher, another confrontation takes place between Bradley and Nas, the resident punk-rocker. Bradley is mad about a website Nas created to show all of the ways Darren was bullied, and he intimidates Nas into taking it down. Remember the good ol' days, when kids just whaled on each other, and moved on?

Justine's Atonement-obsessed friends beg her to stop by that night, but she rejects them as politely as she can. Oh, and someone left a "gift" in Justine's locker--a teddy bear wearing a shirt that says "Forget Me Not". Could it be...Darren?

 As they all head to class, Bradley sees a crude drawing of a penis on a blackboard. Underneath the drawing, a message claims that "Bradley is a knob-gobbler". Bradley questions the various nerds in class, but no one admits to leaving the message. Then Bradley receives a text, showing a smiley face performing oral sex.

Alex meets up with Justine at the school library, where she's been reading and re-reading the suicide letter(inside a copy of Crime and Punishment, no less... Irony?) Alex distracts her with his goofy sense of humor, and she succumbs to his charms. She shows him the bear, assuming that it was from him, but Mullet's spirit is watching the encounter...

In their next class, Justine snubs Helena to sit with the popular girls. During a discussion of "Macbeth", Justine sees Darren watching her from a window in the next building, but she still has no idea who he is/was. Y'know, I want to like her, but she's pretty shallow.

The punk rock guy,  "Nas",  is in a soundproof booth, listening to music. At one point he removes his headphones to pretend to stand up to Bradley, as Darren watches him from Ghost World. Maybe they could team up! Fatsky and Hutch?

At the same time, the principal is giving a tour of the school, and emphasizing a new anti-bullying campaign. Ironically, Bradley and his cronies are hoping to locate and terrorize Jason. They coerce a scrawny little runt to lure Jason out of class, while they wait outside. The elderly art teacher also warns the students that a paper-slicing "guillotine" is loose, and that it could be dangerous if misused. Hmmm, foreshadowing again? Jason gets outside, sees his tormentors, and a chase ensues.

Back to Nas. He somehow managed to get tied to the chair by his own studded bracelets, and he freaks out when he sees Darren Mullet off-screen. As he screams for help, Darren cranks his music waaaay past a safe decibel level. The tour group see him writhing in his chair, and assume that he's enjoying his music. We can see that blood is trickling out of his ears.

Bradley and his fellow goon chase Jason into the gym, where Jason hides behind a small wooden wall. The bullies quickly find him, give him a wedgie, toss him around, hit him, and tell him to stop sending them the menacing text messages. Right away, Jason insists that the messages weren't from him,  and Bradley gets another text from Darren. Whoops! The coach wanders in, and tells the bullies to return to class. He then gives Jason detention, and insults him for being so weak. So much for the anti-bullying initiative. Is there anyone in this movie we can root for?

Eh, moving on...Nas is finally found, and taken away by paramedics. Before he leaves though, he screams out that Mullet is back. Then Alex gets another text from Darren, and tells Justine about the various threats he and the others have been getting since the funeral.

Jason gets to the art classroom after school, where a pervy-looking old man is telling the kooky teacher than the guillotine is missing a screw. At about the same time, Alex is trying to persuade Justine to blow off some "governor's meeting" to hang out with the popular kids, She reluctantly declines.

Before going to her meeting, Justine decides to head into the restroom. There, written in what looks like blood, is a message proclaiming that Darren will always love her. As she attempts to wipe the mirror clean, Darren appears behind her, then vanishes when she turns around. She STILL doesn't recognize him!

The next day in school, Justine is surrounded by her new best buddies. She completely ignores her former friends, who are probably still discussing Atonement. As they enter the school, they all see a message left for Bradley's girlfriend: NATASHA CUMMINGS TAKES IT UP THE ARSE.

In the cafeteria, Justine decides to sit with Jason. She asks him if the suicide note is authentic, and he gives her an earful about how difficult school can be when you're not popular. Speaking of earfuls, Bradley is making his friends laugh by using a bottle of ketchup to mock Nas and his ruptured eardrums. Man, I sincerely hope Darren Mullet rips him to shreds. Frickin' bullies, I tell ya...

Justine gets Alex alone, and shows him the suicide note. As he reads it, Bradley and the others show up, and read the note for themselves. Butterface even starts to tease Justine over Darren's confession of love. When Justine tries to get the note back, they blackmail her, then burn it. Uhhh...that's pretty ineffective blackmail, guys. Stay in school.

Darren sends more insulting messages, and they begin to suspect that the sender is Helena instead of Jason. Dumbasses. The girls decide to confront Helena, but Justine refuses to join them. Undaunted, the catty girls follow Helena into the restroom.

She tries to run, but they block her path. Then Helena swiftly scurries into one of the stalls and locks it, but that only lasts about a minute. When she emerges again, they push her around, threaten her, and smash her phone. Gosh, who will they suspect next, the art teacher?

In the swimming pool, Butterface simply tells Justine that they "talked" to Helena. Then, as Darren watches, Butterface re-enacts the day that Darren had his inhaler taken away by the bullies, and begged Justine ignored his pleas for help. She  has not a single memory of him! How is that humanly possible? It would be like having a conjoined twin, and asking,"Have we met?"

In the locker room, Butterface admits that she assumed that Justine was a lesbian. Then she suggests that Justine should have sex with Alex, probably on their next date. Yeesh! Does she want to smell her afterwards too?

Anyway, Butterface realizes that she left something at the pool. She leaves the locker room, and actually sees Darren Mullet hiding. He leaps out at her, and pushes her into the pool. As she struggles to swim, Darren leaps into the pool--CANNONBALLLLLL-- still in his suit and tie(and now wearing swim goggles, lol) and sits on Butterface at the bottom of the pool until she drowns. Funny as Hell.

On Alex and Justine's date, Alex tries to convince her that his involvement in pranks is never really voluntary. Nervous at the mention of pranks, Justine decides to check the locks on the doors and windows. Alex looks like every guy in the universe who ever got cock-blocked. Awwww...

In the kitchen she sees a message spelled out in fridge magnets: JUSTINE U R HOT. Amused, she returns to Alex and he tells her that Bradley posts all of the pranks that he pulls on a website, and that there was an entire section devoted to Darren Mullet. This somehow makes Justine trust him even more, so they screw their brains out. Darren watches from the next room, looking shocked. And still dead. He angrily rips her badge off of her school uniform. Yeah! That'll show her!

After Alex leaves, Justine finds the wilted flowers Darren had, along with another message left on the fridge: JUSTINE U R A SLUT JUST LIKE THE REST. Oh, and the big rip on her jacket, where the badge used to be. At school, she asks Alex if someone else came into the house, pranking her. Alex confronts Bradley, and it turns into a full-blown fight, until Bradley's buddy, Marcus, pulls him away.

In art class, the punks make cards to give to Nas. Then Justine is teased by Natasha about losing her virginity to Alex, and Butterface is found in the pool by several students. Wow, it's a busy day at this school, isn't it?

During practice, Marcus spies Darren in a window and gets hysterical, nearly knocking the coach over in his attempt to get away. The coach angrily sends him to the showers. As he washes up, Darren silently takes his towel, then texts him.

Marcus and Darren have a confrontation, and Darren towel-whips the jock several times. His last strike gets Marcus in the eye, dislodging the eye from the socket. Marcus covers his eye with one hand, and grabs a pole with the other, beating Darren until he falls and stops moving.

Then there's a nifty sequence showing Marcus popping his eye back into place. Behind him, Darren gets up again, and Marcus runs away, wearing his underwear halfway down his ass. He nearly collides with Helena and Mousy, who think he's trying to sexually assault them. He runs outside to the school's iron gate, where Darren lifts him into the air and shoves his chin through one of the spikes at the top of the gate.

With all of the bodies quickly piling up, Bradley and the last few friends are in a panic. Natasha and Justine get into a catfight, and Justine ends up in a swimming pool. She leaves with Alex, and Bradley decides to dig up Darren's grave.

Justine forces Alex to show her the website, and sees that he's narrating every video. She sees that she treated Mullet horribly, and feels awful about herself. She asks Alex to leave her alone. Forever!

Bradley and Natasha find the grave, and Bradley starts digging it up. He makes very little progress, and Natasha lures him back to the car, where he cries over the loss of his best friend. Natasha calms him down by seducing him. Hey, what could possibly happen to them while they screw in a car, in a graveyard, in the middle of the night?

Oh right, slasher flick. Darren shows up and drags Bradley out of the car, and gives him an instant sex-change. Natasha, in the meantime, has hurriedly put her clothes back on, then hidden in Darren's open grave. She tries to talk him out of killing her, by saying that she secretly had feelings for him, but was too shy to tell him. He reacts by decapitating her with Bradley's shovel. Her head lands in the grass next to Justine's "Head Girl" badge.

The cops find the badge(and the condom,( filled with Bradley's "Little Brad"...), while Justine seeks out Darren's friend Jason for more answers. Oh, and there's a creepy little scene showing students hurrying to get to class, unaware that the spirit of Darren Mullet is standing in the middle of the corridor.

Jason admits that he was the one who told Bradley that Darren loved Justine, just to get the bullies to focus their torture on Darren instead of him. See? Even he wasn't a nice guy! Told you so...I'll bet even Helena and Mousy turn out to be drug dealers or something just as bad, like lawyers. Anyway, Justine leaves the art class to go tell the authorities everything she now knows. As soon as she exits, Jason realizes that Darren is behind him. Well, so much for any of his future plans!

Justine meets Helena on the way, and apologizes for snubbing her. Oh, and her sidekick is "Emily"...damn, I liked the name Mousy. Khalilah brushes past them, claiming that Natasha is texting that she's in trouble in the art class, and she runs off to get killed soon. Then Helena and Emily abandon Justine, showing her what it feels like.

Back to the art classroom. Jason has 2 pencils shoved up his nostrils, and he begs Darren not to kill him. Darren pushes his head against the table, killing him slowly. Awww...have a heart, dude! He was bullied too! Not too many folks left, are there? Oh, and Justine's badge teleports to the art class. Magic!

The cops arrive to question Justine, and Khalilah gets to the art room. Darren suffocates her in a plastic sheet until she passes out, then the scene switches to Justine again, who finds Alex hiding from the killer. Man, I wish the movie was "going back to Khali, to Khali, to Khali..." (Sorry LL Cool J. Couldn't resist making that joke!)

Anyway, Alex is in hysterics. He has a screwdriver as a weapon, and he tells Justine that Bradley and Natasha were found mutilated. When she informs him that Khali supposedly had a text from Natasha, Alex decides to head to the art room as well. Justine follows close on his heels.

Khali's still alive! Darren tied her wrists down to the guillotine, so I think we can guess where this is heading...Yup! A cell phone in front of her shows a video of her slapping Darren around, as several students egg them on. She gets her hands chopped off, and tries to dial the phone with her nose. Freakin' riot.

Justine and Alex find her, then Darren finds them. They try to get somebody's attention at the window, but the only person there is Nas, reading a book called Signing For Dummies. That was a nice touch, but why does he get to live, while Jason deserves death?

Alex stabs Darren with the screwdriver, and he and Justine run away. They get to a lounge area, and bar the door, then hide. Alex tearfully confesses that he really does love Justine, and they kiss. Awww, see? I knew the guy had a conscience somewhere in there!

Then they spot Darren, who was watching. Alex rushes forward to protect Justine, but Darren knocks him to the ground and pins his hand to the floor with the screwdriver. Ow. Then he starts to strangle Justine, but has to pause to use his inhaler. Let's rewind this, and take a drink every time we see the inhaler or a reference to the movie Atonement.

Justine manages to grab the inhaler and throw it across the room, and Alex somehow pries the screwdriver out of his hand. He steps on the inhaler, and punches Darren across the room...where he lands next to both the inhaler AND the screwdriver. What were the odds? Wait...were there 2 inhalers? If not, then they needed to rethink this scene...

Alex begs Justine to save herself, and Darren begins to choke him. He then slams Alex into the floor, and raises the screwdriver for the killing blow, but Justine steps in. She begs Darren to spare Alex, because it was her fault that he killed himself. Darren looks up at her, then stabs Alex in the neck.

Justine pulls the screwdriver out then tries to stop the gusher of blood, but it's too late. She screams at Darren that he does look like Shrek, then the cops break down the door and find her. Darren is finally gone. Justine is arrested in front of the entire school, and they all just stare at her in shocked silence. Then Justine looks back at the building, and Darren is watching through one of the windows. Justine goes bonkers.

The credits start to roll, but there's one more scene to go: The coach is tormenting the team, and sends them out to run laps. He finds Darren at the back of the room, sitting down on the floor, and starts to yell at him as well. Then Darren hands him a note, excusing him from running laps because he's dead. Darren stands up, and the coach realizes that he's screwed. THE END

Man, this one was worth the wait! Great comedy-horror, and a lot of variety as well. Only half a point off for having no one to root for. Still, a 4.5 killer trees out of 5 is still a terrific movie. Maybe I should almost die more often...

And what did I learn?

-Asthma will haunt you even after you die.

-Porn makes interesting wallpaper.

- Atonement. Atonement. Atonement. That is all.

-Bonus one: You can tell what a person's disposition is just by sniffing them.

It really is nice to be back. If my silly crap makes even 1 person laugh, then it's worth it. I better go before I get sappy. Take care, guys...see you next week! Oh, and the next movie is either Home Sick or the most recent Texas Chainsaw film. I had to move Smiley back a bit, but I'll see it someday.

The Hunters

Ever watch a movie that was described as one thing, only to discover that it was actually something else? Well, if it annoys you as much as it does me, then skip watching The Hunters altogether. It's not  the movie described on the envelope, that's for sure. Anyway, enjoy the following SPOILERS...

The opening scene shows some dude sneaking around near a rock wall. He seems pretty afraid of whatever he's avoiding. After a few seconds, we can hear why: He can hear frightened screams coming from all around him. Creepy.

Then we switch over to a father and son out hunting. The title comes up, and another hunter arrives. It turns out that the dad is Oliver, and he's stressed out by both his marriage and work-related stuff. The other guy hears something, and it turns out to be Oliver's son, Ronny, and another man named Bernard.

Then we meet a guy named LeSaint, a French-Canadian cop. He meets his new boss, Bernard, who we just met with his hunting buddies a few days ago. Le Saint would like to pursue a lead he thinks he has on several missing persons cases, but Bernard orders him to meet with a mob informant instead.

That night, LeSaint has a flashback to an incident back when he was a soldier in Iraq, when an explosive nearly killed him. That somehow turns into a sex dream, then into a nightmare where he's limping down a hall, under a red light. I hope that wasn't important because it flew over my head!

We see Oliver again, hard at work installing software for a busy office building. Oh, and then he and his hunting buddies discuss going out again that weekend. This movie makes watching paint dry seem compelling.

LeSaint goes jogging, and chats with Alice, a cute female who goes jogging along the same route. They flirt, then she tells her friends about him at dinner. Oh, and Oliver is at the same restaurant. He and the group with Alice all get "fortune scrolls" from a grinning homeless man, and all are drawings of a skeleton.

LeSaint goes to work, and tells his boss that the mayor has given him permission to investigate the disappearances. Bernard goes nuts and screams at him. LeSaint meets his cute jogging body, and she gives him something that she baked. He eats it, then tells her that it sucked. Oh, and she tells him that her name is Alice. See that? Insult her cooking, and she's putty in your hands.

Everyone in the precinct is hurrying out on a bust when LeSaint returns from his run, and he gets a call from his informant when he's alone. They make plans to meet at an old historical site, Fort Goben.

Lesaint has more nightmares, then heads to his meeting at Fort Goben. He sees one guy lingering, but the stranger keeps moving. Another man speeds by on a dirt bike, and a few stragglers just stare at the cop.

LeSaint hears screams and voices inside, and it turns out to be Ronny and Oliver. Oliver spots LeSaint, and he warns him that the property is private. When the cop mentions the screams he heard, the others get nervous, and warn him away again.

LeSant starts to go, and meets his informant having his lunch on a bench. They decide to leave together, but the exit is chained shut. Behind them, at the entrance to the fort grounds, the hunters are waiting for them. The armed foursome split up, with 2 running to the left of the doorway, and the other 2 heading right.

Francois(the informant) shoots down the chains on the door, but there's a drawbridge still preventing them from escaping. Francois tries to flank some of the hunters, but a single shot literally tears his leg off. Then another weapon sets him on fire.

Alone now with the hunters, LeSaint tries to get away, and is hit in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. He wakes up next to a fire. and sees the hunters doing weird shit, before he passes out again. When he wakes up again, he grabs a torch and decides to explore the nearest tunnel.

He hears somebody screaming, and witnesses a guy getting beaten to a pulp, then beheaded. The killer takes the head to a "trophy room", and adds it to the collection. Then the killer leaves, giggling and ranting.

LeSaint explores the room after he goes, and realizes that he was right about the disappearances. Then he finds himself facing the killer, who is doing a drugged-out sort of dance, before playing with another severed head. The guy laughs and runs around the room, making LeSaint dizzy.

Then the killer vanishes, and reemerges dressed in black and wearing a ski mask. They fight hand-to-hand, and the killer grabs an ax. It gets caught up in a chain, and LeSaint manages to plunge the killer's new weapon into his chest, leaving the deranged lunatic to die a painful death.

LeSaint calls Bernard, unaware that his boss is one of the hunters. He tells his boss everything he knows, and Bernard assures him that help is on the way. Oh, and he tells Bernard(and the other hunters) that he will dress in the clothes of the hunter that he just killed. After the call, the hunters freak out, one of them(Ronny) cries like a baby, and Bernard tries to get them all back on track. To sum it up...they're all bonkers.

LeSaint reverts back to his army training, and uncovers some booby traps. In an ionic twist, Bernard also sees the new traps, and realizes that his team has been spending extra time at the fort without him. Anyway, LeSaint dresses as William, and begins looking for the others. Oliver and Stephen "pretend" to recognize "William", but it's obvious that LeSaint is a dead duck. He takes off, and they chase him.

LeSaint leaps down a small incline, then skids down a steeper one, removing the ski mask along the way. He has a shoot out with Oliver, then hits Stephen with a stray bullet. That pisses off Oliver, who exposes himself to open fire, and gets hit in the shoulder. That causes his next bullet to go astray, killing his son. As he fires wildly at LeSaint out of grief, Oliver is killed by the cop.

Bernard watches Ronny have a nervous breakdown, and just follows and watches. Then we meet a young couple, David and Alice. Whoops, we already met Alice. LeSaint finds them, and freaks out. He urges them to leave, and pulls out his weapon.

As the pair exit the fort, loony Ronny pulls his rifle out, and aims it at several areas of the guy's body. He knocks Alice to the ground, then shoots the boyfriend in the chest. Ronny corners Alice, but LeSaint gets him with about 7 rounds or so at point blank. Then the cop gets Alice to leave, so he can handle the aftermath.

But first, Bernard needs to be finished off. He does it to himself, by stepping on a pressurized landmine. BOOM! Several clips of the hunters are shown, and they seem to be having a grand time in the past. Maybe a magical film strip can bring them back as goofballs.

Months later, LeSaint is sitting in a coffee shop, staring off into space. Then Alice strolls in, and they sit together. She asks him again to reveal his name to her. THE END

This thing was pretty generic, to the point where it almost seemed to be a TV-movie. It probably was, for some Canadian network. Not the worst, but not even close to the best. I'm giving this one 2.5 trees, ya hoser!

And what did I learn from The Hunters?

-Well, apparently 1 movie can have about 6,000 different plot descriptions, and none of them can get it right!

-Everyone needs a trophy room filled with human heads.

-If you need to have a confidential rendezvous, DON'T go to an old fort!

Coming up next is either a very promising-looking movie called Smiley, or an equally creepy-looking one called Tormented. Which will it be?

Phantom of The Mall: Eric's Revenge

Okay, so this week, I'm a little bit discombobulated. I'm moving to a new apartment this week, and things here are half-packed, and pretty crazy. Anyway, while I have a moment to relax, here's this week's movie...Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge! Get ready for massive SPOILERS...

The opening scene leaves us in the dark, literally speaking. There's a figure removing items from a mannequin and stealing a crossbow, until a security guard discovers him. The mysterious intruder kills the guard, and then the opening credits roll. This movie is like the slasher-movie version of The Love Boat: among the supporting cast, we have Rob Estes, Ken Foree, Morgan Fairchild, and even Pauly Shore!

After the credits(which are shown in front of flames...Did a screensaver kick in?), there's a generic ground-breaking ceremony on the day the mall opens. Yay. An enthusiastic crowd is at the ceremony, and they're all acting like the President is there as well.

At a restaurant called Sleuth's(?), a teen named Melody is busy interviewing for a waitress position. Then we head back to the ceremony, as Mayor Karen(Morgan Fairchild) unveils a replica of the mall, and reveals plans to build many more features on to it.

Then Melody finds her best friend Suzie, and they decide to celebrate Melody's successful interview. As the Mayor wraps up her speech, a young photojournalist (A young...er version of Rob Estes) sees the 2 girls, and decides that a grown man getting candid shots of teenagers isn't creepy in the least. He's the Woody Allen of journalism!

Eric the Phantom is watching the whole thing from an air duct. He crawls away to his secret lair, and circles July 4th on his calendar, the date of another mall-related publicity stunt. I hope nothing else big is happening on that date. Then he cuts apart a mannequin head's face, to make himself a mask. So, just to make this clear...He can steal a calendar and enough stuff to build a comfy little room, but he can't just steal one simple mask? Huh???

The girls head to a yogurt shop run by their friend Buzz, played by a young, normal-sounding Pauly Shore. He prepares a dessert order, then he unintentionally contaminates it with something pinkish that looks like either stretched-out gum or a retainer. Either way, I'll never go to a frozen yogurt stand after today!

Mayor Karen just happens to be wandering by with a crowd of journalists(Okay, seriously, this is more media coverage than we saw at Pope Benedict's retirement party! WHY???), and Photographer Pete gets to take another picture of his next date-rape victim. He's much creepier than our Phantom, man!

Eric moves through his "tunnel", while Pete flirts with Melody. He mentions that he was the journalist who took her photo during the aftermath of the fire that claimed her boyfriend, and he reminds her that she saw someone suspicious at the scene. The memory upsets her, and Pete apologizes for bringing it up. They both agree that there may have been a conspiracy to cover up the crime.

As Melody opens her employee locker, she finds a bouquet of pink orchids, the same flowers that Eric used to surprise her with. Eh, probably just a coincidence. Oh, and there's a brief flashback to a time when Melody's boyfriend wasn't a scarred-up, psychotic stalker, but just a nice guy buying his nice girlfriend some nice flowers. Nice.

Suzie and Buzz swoop in awkwardly, and Buzz suggests that he and Pete speak privately, while Suzie and Melody do the same. Buzz then advises Pete to find another girl to date, because of Melody's troubled past. Hey Buzz, how 'bout you "you" off...

A tightwad named Harv, who has a lot riding on the financial success of the mall, tries to tell his headbanger son to exit the premises, because the kid wrecked his car. They have a quiet spat, and the son leaves. Fascinating plot development.

Buzz tells Pete about the night Eric "died", and the headbanger rudely brushes past them. Then Pete asks Buzz if the fire at Eric's house was arson. Like Buzz would know! He can't even keep his frozen yogurt from getting crap in it!

Up in the air ducts, Eric sees a maintenance worker crawling around ahead of him. He sneaks up on the worker, then forces his face through some fast-moving fan blades. Harv, who just happens to be standing underneath the very section where the murder is occurring, hears some of the assault, but isn't quite sure of what he's hearing. Sharp guy, that Harv.

In a clothing store's changing room, Suzie, Melody, and a few others are getting gratuitously nude, as a security guard watches on a security cam.  His co-worker warns him that Harv is coming in, so the screen gets switched off. A second later, Harv arrives, asking them to check the ventilation ducts for "knocking noises". As soon as he leaves, they switch the monitor back on...right before the perv is told to leave and investigate the air vent noises.

Pervy, being true to his nature, decides to crawl right on over the vent to the changing room. He giggles and makes dumb jokes, then goes to a restricted area of the mall to investigate. He emerges from the tunnel into a high voltage area, where the knocking seems to be louder. From out of the shadows, Eric pushes a cart into the poor guy, pinning him to an electrical panel. One of Pervy's eyes explodes out of his head, and lands in a container of frozen yogurt. I wonder if the writer of Clint Howard's Ice Cream Man  drew inspiration from this scene?

There's also a short, pointless scene where we see Melody and Suzie leave the clothing store. They pass by a piano player, who wishes them a good evening. Wasn't that worthy of wasting 1 minute of screen time? Any random shoppers want a line or two?

Anyway, we switch back to Harv. Mayor Karen walks into his office to congratulate him on a successful opening day, and offers him a seat on the city council. Fun Fact: the actor playing Harv is also the Dos Equis guy...Stay thirsty, my friends!

After the mayor makes her exit, the mutilated corpse of the security guy falls through the ceiling, landing on Harv's desk. Then we watch Suzie and Melody leave the mall and part ways. Melody's car won't start, When she gets out to look under the hood, a figure in black assaults her! Eric?

Nope. The Phantom is watching from a distance. As Melody tries to push her attacker away, Eric uses a crossbow to fire an arrow into the stranger's shoulder. The mayor drives up, and the would-be rapist escapes.

We see the body on Harv's desk up close, and there's a note on his uniform: AN EYE FOR AN EYE. Harv makes a phone call, and tells the person on the other end that he may need to hire him/her "again", which sounds rather ominous. Maybe it's a Stripper-gram. Or not.

Melody tells the mayor everything she can remember about her attacker, and includes the bit about the arrow. The mayor offers to drive her home, while she contacts the police herself. Do I smell a cover-up? Maybe...or just a stinky script.

Pete does some research, and finds an article about the fire. Then he has a flashback(pretty nifty, considering he wasn't there) where we see a scuzzy dude starting the fire at Eric's place. That segues into a scene where Eric and Melody are making love, which is treated like soap opera sex.

The music takes on a sinister tone, and Melody realizes that she saw who the arsonist was. And now he's screwing her in her dream. It all has to do with some earring, believe it or not. Then she wakes up.

Buzz and Pete meet up at the mall again, and they each need to do something important. Meanwhile, Eric is in his hideout, practicing some kickboxing moves. Someone wake me up when something interesting happens. I'm assuming no one will be waking me in the near future.

Harv tells the security chief that he fired Pervy last night, to keep the murder a secret. Then he hears that a third guard also went missing, which throws him...well, off-guard. He quickly tries to cover that up as well. This would have made a great Oliver Stone script!

Harv's son, meanwhile, is humping a pinball machine in the arcade. Remember the days when pinball was played in an arcade, instead of in a video game? The kid waits for the proprietor to leave his position at the front counter, then breaks into the machine to steal quarters. Bet he dies soon. Harv sees him in the mall, and flips out. He walks over to yell at his son, only to get a face full of soda spraying from a can. The son strolls away, laughing, while Harv tries to clean himself up.

Eric does more fight moves, while playing his and Melody's "song". Oh, and he watches a video of her, made up of stalker footage. How, um...romantic? Yeah, not so much.

Buzz takes Pete to the security area, and plays him some Hawaiian-sounding muzak. As Pete prepares to walk out, Buzz reveals that there are subliminal messages beneath the tune, urging customers to spend large amounts of money. Pete admits that the tape is creepy, but not illegal.

He starts to leave again, then sees a shifty character wearing a security uniform. It's the guy from Melody's nightmare, which, again, I must point out Pete wasn't a witness to. Pete runs out of the room, and tracks down the guy. He takes a photo of him, then the creepy guard decides to chase him.

They run around in different areas of the mall, like a food court and some escalators, until Pete narrowly escapes into a glass elevator. As he relaxes, the guard hangs upside-down on the top of the elevator, and even makes a comical snarling sound. I hate to admit this, but this movie's entertaining in a really dumb way.

Off of the elevator, the chase resumes. The shady pursuer collides with a guy hauling boxes, and stops chasing Pete long enough to get into a fistfight. Pete thinks he gave the guy the slip. He didn't, but he did find the mayor, and the creepy guy slips away.

Buzz flirts with a cute customer, and gives her a free yogurt. As she leaves, she finds the eyeball from earlier, and assumes that Buzz was pulling a prank. Only in a movie, would someone be this dumb. Wait a sec, someone did pull a stunt like this once, except that it involved a severed finger and some chili. So, even in reality, people are that dumb.

Melody starts up a jukebox, and it begins playing her "song". Then Pete arrives, and informs her that he may have a picture of her attacker. They talk about all of the strange things that have been happening to her, but neither can provide a logical answer to any of it. If they did, we could end this early...

Anyway, Mayor Karen and the head of mall security walk by the food court, and are discussing the mysterious attacker from the night before. The weird piano player overhears them, and decides to go on a coffee break. Oh, and Phantom Eric is watching. Maybe he's hoping for a piano rendition of his signature song.

The piano man(with apologies to Billy Joel...) enters an employees-only restroom, while Eric fiddles with the pipes nearby. It turns out that our meek musician is also Melody's would-be rapist! Crazy, huh? But yeah, he has the bloody shoulder wound to prove it.

He looks at his bloody shirt, sighs, then steps into a stall. When he sits on the toilet, a snake(maybe a cobra?) rears up between his legs, and gives the guy a fatal bite. What a classy way to die. I was kind of hoping that maybe, just maybe, he die in a toilet-geyser, or something like that.

Pete and Melody discuss how to discover the mystery stalker's identity, and sparks fly between them. There's nothing more romantic than a murderous lunatic watching your every move. The Phantom gets jealous, and smashes his mirror. Jealousy may be ugly, but Phantom Eric is uglier.

Harv's son returns to the mall, and spots Melody at work. He watches her for a little bit, then tries to pick her up. Eric sees the encounter and gets pissed, but Harv arrives to force his son off the premises.b As Justin(Harv's son...I decided to browse the Web until I could find his name) makes his way to the exit, he sees a skateboard, just sitting out in the open, waiting for someone to snatch it up. The Phantom moves through his dark passages, as Justin tries out some "rad" and "extreme" moves on his skateboard. I'm hip to the kids and their jive, man.

Eric stands at the top of an escalator, and whips a makeshift lasso around overhead, then loops it around Justin's neck. As the teen struggles to free himself, Phantom Eric gets the other end of the rope caught in the escalator belt, so that it pulls Justin upstairs to his doom. See? THIS is how the toilet murder should have gone down!

Justin tries to get some slack on the cord, but it won't give. His choking noises sound like the snarling rasps the victims made in Motel Hell...Boy, we've seen a shitload of these things together, huh? As Justin reaches the top, he coughs up some blood, then dies. Damn...was anybody else hoping for a decapitation? Oh well, it was still pretty nifty.

Melody and Pete talk some more about the investigation, as Eric drags Justin through his tunnels. Pete urges Melody to do everything she can to remember more details about the night of the fire, no matter how traumatizing the memories might be.

She remembers getting orchids, playing that insipid song, making out...then BOOM, Eric is suddenly a crispy critter. He helped her to escape through a window, even as he was burning, and then Melody fell to the ground, and got knocked out.

There is one extra detail, though: Before she passed out completely, Melody saw the arsonist standing in front of her. He planned to finish her off, but approaching sirens made the firebug skittish. Anyone smell burning steak? I think Eric is well done by now.

Pete suggests that Harv hired the arsonist. Then Melody suggests that maybe Eric survived the fire. Before they can plan a next step, the arsonist finds them and holds them hostage. In an awesome twist, the arsonist is played by the same actor who plays Mac's dad on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It'd be funny if they turned out to be the same character!

Somehow, Pete manages to drive away, but the arsonist is in hot pursuit. The cars both speed through the mall's parking garage, and eventually Phantom Eric leaps onto the killer's car to help Pete and Melody get away. The crazy arsonist crashes his car, but also escapes as it burns up.

Pete and Melody dig up Eric's grave, and find it empty. They run to the mayor for help, while the arsonist reports his failed mission to Harv. Then Melody has another dream about knockin' boots with Eric, and he turns into Pete. Then Pete turns into the hired thug, and Melody wakes up. Is anyone else wondering if this thing will ever end? It seems like we've seen every scene 2-3 times now, with no resolution in sight.

Eric returns to the boiler room area, and it looks like he's setting up a bomb. Melody spots the thug, but he captures her before she can finish warning Pete. He drags her away, but Eric arrives to stop him. The 2 killers spar, and Eric nearly gets decapitated by a trash compactor door, but he finds a reserve of super-human strength, and forces the door back up again.

Eric then puts the other man in the same spot, but finishes the job. Oddly enough, it's the most bloodless kill so far. Eric realizes that Melody has escaped, and races off to locate her.

Buzz runs into Pete at the mall party, and rambles on about some "great idea", but Pete just wants to find Melody. Then Harv discovers the severed head of his hired goon, just after the security chief leaves. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Buzz finds Suzie, and drags her away to search for Melody. Then there are several shots of Eric's tunnels, and we finally see Melody, out cold, in his hideout. She wakes up as Eric's prisoner, and sees that he's been watching and recording her every move.

She hears the noise of his exercise equipment, and manages to find him by following the sound. The former lovers finally reunite, and Eric removes his mask, so that Melody can see the extent of the damage to his face. Eric vows to always protect her, and she touches his face. Awwww...

At the dinner Party, Pete asks around about Melody, but no one has seen her. Meanwhile Buzz and Suzie gain access to the security room, when Buzz distracts the guard by mooning him on a nearby camera. After all of the horrifying things I've seen in slasher films, this is the one that that I find the most disturbing.

When the guard leaves his post, they sneak in. Within minutes, they locate Melody's keys, and rush off to that particular hallway to pick up the trail. Yeesh, this is turning into Nancy Drew.

Eric tries to woo Melody, but she admits that she has feelings for Pete now. Eric runs away, probably to do something with his bomb. Meanwhile, Pete, Buzz, and Suzie are all closing in. Eric sets the bomb to explode in 30 minutes, Buzz and Suzie crawl around in the tunnels, unaware that Eric is now up there as well. Oh, and Pete spies rats feeding on a body, and decides to move faster.

Eric promises Melody that when the bomb goes off they can be together forever. Pete faces a snake on his way to rescue her, but he gets away unbitten. He finally finds the lair, and Melody watches her 2 boyfriends roll and and brawl. Melody stuns Eric by confessing that she loves Pete, and Pete uses the momentary distraction to knock him out.

They get back into the tunnels, but Eric wakes up. Buzz and Suzie reunite with Pete and Melody, and they work together to get back into the mall. Pete and Melody find and warn the mayor about the bomb, and she pulls out a gun....Huh?

Buzz and Suzie, in the meantime steal some kind of ATV, and go careening through the mall. As the mayor prepares to shoot her captives, Eric grabs her, and throws her through a window. Heh. Pete uses an intercom to evacuate the building, as Eric chases Melody up into the rafters.

The security chief shoots Eric several times, but he lands safely in front of Harv. He shows Harv his scarred visage, then kills the rich asshole with a blowtorch. Hey, maybe Harv survives, and ends up stalking Eric! Then we'd have Phantom of The Phantom of The Mall: Harv's Wrath!

Buzz and Suzie rescue Pete and Melody, and they speed out of the mall, just seconds before it blows to smithereens. The media goes nuts, and Melody and Pete celebrate being alive. In the wreckage, Eric looks dead, but his eye appears to open. THE END

Well....not unbearable, but not entirely successful either. Some of it was cheesy fun. The kills were varied enough, and Pauly Shore was mostly watchable for once, which was a surprise. 3.75 killer trees out of 5.

And what did Phantom of the Mall teach me about the slasher genre this time around?

-Even the Dos Equis guy had to start at the bottom.

-Pop music from the '80's sucked ass.

-If you survive a house fire, go live at the mall.

Next up is something called The Hunters. I'll post it when I can, but all of the hassle of this move is killing me. I'll post it soon, I promise.

Detenti...nope, The Nun!

Wow...been quite a while since the last SAW, huh? Sorry about that! I've been in the process of moving from one apartment to another, and everything "extracurricular" has had to be put on hold for a little bit. Also, the last movie I selected, Detention, turned out to be narrative-proof.

Seriously! Among the many random elements the movie had, it featured(in no particular order): a stuffed grizzly bear statue that was revived and abducted by aliens; a student who was slowly turning into a fly; a slasher flick within a slasher flick within ANOTHER slasher flick; a cheesy 1980's body-switching comedy; another student who was in detention for 19 years; and time travel. There's a shitload more, but it would take years to dissect every element of the film.

So...instead, I popped in a nice, simple, non-brain-tumor-causing movie called The Nun. It's slashery, it's simple, and it can be described. Thank the Gods! Oh, and it's time for some real SPOILERS...

Our movie begins with the credits alternating between a murky body of water, and some yellow pages from an old book. Then we meet our cast of victims, female students at a parochial school. There's Joanna, Zoe, Eulalia(I shit you not, that's her name), Susan, and Mary. As the film begins, the girls are all smoking together in a classroom(except for Eulalia, a disabled girl who is standing guard at the door), until their teacher, Sister Ursula, nearly catches them in the act.

She lectures the girls about their lack of discipline, then moves to front blackboard, and writes "SIN", in letters big enough to be seen on the surface of Mars. One of the girls tries to hide a love letter in one of her books, but Sister Ursula hears her, finds the romantic note, and rips it to shreds. Yeah! Take THAT, human emotions!

You'd think that would be the end of the incident...Nope! the enraged nun grabs the frightened girl by her neck, and lifts her out of her seat like the Nuninator. She then uses her Hulk-like rage to slam the girl into a wall, and growls at her in a demonic voice.

Alas, this highly entertaing chaotic scene is just a nightmare sequence. The girl, now an adult, sits straight up in her bed. Damn, I was loving the idea of a demon-possessed nun terrorizing high school girls.

Then we get jolted away to a  loud, obnoxious prom or formal school dance. There, we meet Julia, a short-haired brunette; Eve, an attractive blond; Joel, who is making a prom night video; Artie, a wide-eyed doofus-y guy...and a few more whose name I haven't caught yet.

Joel listens to his friends yammer on and on about a trip to Spain, then takes his camera in search of the ever-elusive girl that Artie wants but can't have. He sneaks up on her make-out session, then watches as a water pipe bursts, drenching the horny couple in toilet water. Fun.

Eve's mother turns out to be Mary, the sleeping woman in the previous scene. She's restless, and decides to rummage through some of her old stuff from high school. Scattered in the pile is a newspaper article about a woman in London, who apparently died in a fire. Hmmm...could this have been the work of a certain Nun?

Mary hears a noise, and assumes that Eve has come back from the dance. Finding the house empty, Mary steps into the bathroom, where the faucet is dripping. As she calls out to her daughter, she discovers that a plant has fallen off of a countertop, spilling water in the living room. Idon't think this movie has enough water in every scene.

She then enters the kitchen, where the sink is overflowing with water. As Mary tries to use a plunger in the sink and clean up the mess, the water in the sink begins to flow up toward the ceiling. Mary sees her daughter pull into the driveway, then Sister Ursula bursts out of the water to lunge at her. Eve walks into the house just in time to see The Nun slit her mother's throat, before crashing out of the nearest window.

The cops arrive, and Eve describes the apparition that killed her mom, even suggesting that it resembled a nun. The lead detective assumes that Eve was drinking at the dance, takes a statement from her friend Julia, and we learn that Eve doesn't know the identity of her father. Julia tells him that Mary probably  committed suicide, because she had previously tried to kill herself, back when Eve was only about 5 years old.

There's an extremely brief flashback showing Eve glancing through that book we saw in the credits, then the movie picks up the story again in Barcelona. We catch up with the adult version of Eulalia, who lives in Spain, She gets a call from Zoe, who fills her in on the current body count.

At her mother's grave, Eve is encouraged by Julia to go along with her friends to Spain. Then the adult version of Christy shows up at the graveyard. She warns Eve that there have been other deaths, and that she and Mary were supposed to attend a reunion of sorts, with their best friends from Catholic school. Christy then hands her a business card, and they part ways.

Eve finds the school memorabilia that her mother was poring over on the evening of her death, and decides to look through the pile. There, tucked away among the old pictures and papers, she finds a love letter, a possible clue to the identity of her father. The author of the short letter is somebody by the name of Miguel.

Christy wraps up a phone call with Eulalia, promising to see her in Barcelona. When she hangs up the phone, we see a small puddle of water starting to take form on the bed. Uh oh...guess who won't be going to Spain?

She steps into the bathroom, and gets splashed when her hotel room's toilet sprays water into her face. This movie has a toilet fetish...and it's not as much kinky fun as you might think! I may get more grossed out by these scenes, as opposed to the actual killings.

Christy calls the front desk, and we can see The Nun morphing out of more levitating water in the bathroom mirror's reflection. Pretty cool effect, actually. Of course, Christy doesn't see a thing...the characters never do.

She slips on her bathrobe, and decides to leave the hotel room. Once she's in the hallway, she actually sees The Nun floating down a corridor, and gets understandably upset. She backs away until she gets to the elevator, and hurries inside.

While this is happening, Eve arrives in the hotel lobby. The elevator starts to fill up with water, and now Christy is really scared. The elevator stops between floors, and as Christy tries to pull herself up to the floor level, the door chops her arms off! Pretty nifty effects, too. The elevator then opens up at the lobby, where Eve gets a bird's-eye view of the stumpy corpse. As a really nutty way to end the scene, the elevator door closes again, which probably means that some random hotel guest is about to get a really memorable souvenir of their visit! 2 guests, actually...after all, we can't forget and the arms!

On the plane to Spain, there is mainly rain. Eve sees The Nun outside the tiny window, but it's another nightmare scene. Oh, and during the flight, there is a massive storm going on. Oddly enough, Spain appears to be the sunniest place in the world, when the plane finally lands. I guess the rain over Spain mainly hit the plane.

Eve decides to begin her investigation into The Nun right away, getting a ton of reference material from, in another ironic twist, a nun. Eve looks up her mother's old classmates in an old yearbook, and begins to match the old pictures with more current ones, as well as numerous articles about their deaths.

As Eve decides to make photocopies of some of the articles, a young man named Gabriel offers to translate them for her. He happens to also be studying to join the priesthood, so the information about the school(which has since been closed), is right up his alley.

Gabriel meets Eve and her friends a local nightclub, where he provides her with the translations that he promised. Her friends discover that Gabe is joining the priesthood, and crack jokes about it until he leaves. Oh, and the nightclub is filled with tanks of water, so expect a massive slaughter soon...

Eve catches up with Gabriel, and he confesses that he's joining the priesthood because of a traumatic driving accident. Meanwhile, Eulalia is feeding her dog, clipping her toenails, and drawing herself a bath. Of course, the water goes haywire, but eventually Eulalia gets it under control-ish. It feels like the camera crew just filmed everything that ever happened, then left the compelling footage on the floor of the cutting room.

She finds her dog dead, though. Except that it's just messing around with her head, gets up, and strolls away... Eulalia limps back into the bathroom, and finds the faucet in the tub running again. She switches it off yet again, and sits wearily on the bathroom floor, completely oblivious to the fact that The Nun has popped out of the tub behind her.

Seriously, The Nun just stays the like that, waiting patiently for Eulalia to turn around and see her. I kinda wished that she had said "Boo!" and made a silly face to cap it off. This movie is the best kind of "WTF?" there is. It's like The Blair With is pulling a move out of The Matrix. How long can she stay stuck like that?

Eve, of course, decides to visit Eulalia at that very moment, just because. She finds the disabled woman's corpse, crucified. She and Gabriel rush out of there as fast as they can. In the car, Gabriel, Eve and her friends Joel and Julia debate whether or not to tell the police what they know, and whether or not to warn the few survivors who are left. Then they run the car off the road to avoid a crash, and the car won't restart.

They walk home in the rain(!!!), only to panic when they can't find Susan or Zoe. There's a power outage, so they briefly switch on the video camera for night vision...and we get a cheap scare involving a flock of birds. Those mutha-flockin' birds, on that mutha-flockin' plane, man.

Eve finds Susan and Zoe wandering around, and she tries to warn them about The Nun. The adult pair then confess that The Nun can't be the killer...because they and their friends killed her back when they were students at the school. In a flashback, we see all of the girls doing something wild and crazy: drinking milk in the school's kitchen late at night. Those wacky rebels. They soon realize that Mary is missing from the group, and then they hear noises in the distance.

They find Mary being attacked by The Nun, and force her off of the frightened girl. In the scuffle, The Nun slips, hits her head, and falls into a tub full of water. The teenagers are stunned, then even more shocked when she opens her eyes. As The Nun attempts to sit up again, the girls decide, as a group, to drown her once and for all.

They take the body outside, and make it look like she slipped on a bridge and drowned in a local pond or lake. Then the flashback ends, and they wonder what their next move should be. One character even describes the predicament as I Know What You Did 18 Summers Ago. Heh. They wish.

Eve and Gabriel decide to poke around in the living quarters that The Nun and the students used to occupy. Eve tells him that part of her past is a mystery, because she has repressed memories. Meanwhile, Joel and Julia work on getting the power restored.

Gabriel and Eve decide to explore each other instead of the bedrooms. Nice way to prioritize, you dumbasses! Luckily, the lights come back on, and they decide to stop goofing around. Oh, and Susan and Zoe just stand around chatting. "So...what have you been up to since we murdered a nun as teenagers?"

Gabriel decides to leave Eve alone in the bedroom, and she sees water in the bed. Then a shape forms, and Eve has her lost memory restored. Gabriel returns, and he calms her down. Everyone else then joins them, and the pair reveal that they have discovered paintings depicting saints. Each of the murder victims was named after a saint, and the murders were all recreations of how each saint died.

Zoe then pulls a "Jennifer Love Hewitt", taunting the ghostly killer to finish what she started. She takes off down the hallway, and the others rush after her. Man, this thing is getting kookier by the second! Susan is left alone with Eve, and tells the teen that she and her friends are somehow responsible for The Nun coming back. She locks herself in a section of the old building to distance herself from the rest of the group, then freaks out as she realizes how utterly stupid that idea was. Susan Einstein, Resident Genius.

Susan's "alone time" doesn't last very long. As she races around the room, potential exits mysteriously begin to shut and lock on her. Meanwhile, the others catch up to Zoe, who is testing out random objects as potential weapons. Then she and the other couple finally realize that they abandoned Susan and Eve. Oops!

And speaking of Susan...the floor around her is suddenly getting very watery. She tries to use the Power of Prayer, but The Nun lunges at her, and passes through her body, Thinking that the prayer kept her safe, Susan doesn't realize that the spirit is behind her. The Nun grabs Susan, pushes her forward, and breaks a glass door, decapitating her victim in the process.

Then here's another flashback, showing The Nun abusing Mary with a shower head. Then, back to the plot. The surviors decide to shut off the water supply, and keep the pipes empty. An accident with one of the pipes reveals Gabriel to Joel. He looks like he was impaled on a pipe.

The water starts to flow again, and The Nun attacks Zoe. Then Eve devise the dumbest plan eve heard in he history of planning...Eve is going to explore, while Julia sits underwate, trying to lure The Nun into killing her. These folks are dead from the neck up.

Joel finds Julia and rescues her, then tells her that the killer is actually Eve. She seems to believe that The Nun is inside her, because she learned when she was a little girl that her mother had killed The Nun. In flashbacks, we see the murders, with Eve present at every scene somehow. Yeah, so this teenager went to London, New York, Barcelona, and wherever else, and managed to kill around 10 people without anyone ever getting suspicious. And believe  it or not, that's where the movie just grinds to a halt. THE END...Oh, and Eve ends up killing herself. Yay.

Geez, this one had a great concept and killer, but a terrible plot. And way, waaaaaay too many characters to keep track of as well. The Nun should have had more scenes, and not been a figment in a person's head. A near miss. 2 out of 5.

And what did I learn from The Nun?

-Ghost nuns look damn creepy!

-Guys training to become priests still want to "get some".

-Teens with mental disorders can teleport whenever the need arises.

Next movie on my queue is Phantom of the Mall, which sounds pretty odd. Cross your fingers!

7 Below

I have a confession to make....ever since his career has been in a steep decline, I've really had a kick watching Val Kilmer's newer films. This is especially the case with his horror and thriller efforts, as his kooky, pudgy self is a hoot to watch, instead of scary. I say we do a Kickstarter campaign to more or less keep them rolling off the assembly line. But let's start a second campaign to force Wesley Snipes to stop making movies. He makes my soul weep.

Anyway, lets watch 7 Below, It's about a bunch of people trapped in a house during a storm. Will it be scary? Will Val Kilmer have to buy his wardrobe at Big & Tall? Will I warn you about SPOILERS below? Let's find out!

Okay, so the movie starts by showing us an endless parade of corporate logos. When they finish, the movie will probably be 10 minutes long. On a somewhat odd note, more than one logo centers around fish. Weird.  Yay! I think the movie's starting to kick in! And my horse tranquilizers!

Somebody starts to play " By the Light of The Silvery Moon" on a very old-looking record player, then we watch as a couple are having sex. There's a brief glimpse of a newspaper, and the top story concerns a Germany-funded trip to Antarctica. Finally, we see a small group of sepia-toned family pictures.

As the lovers continue to go at it, a woman interrupts the action. She demands that they stop, then orders the nude woman out of the house. The male slaps the intruder, tells her that he makes the house rules, then also tells his lover to hit the road.

So...this weird couple are married I guess, but they have individual bedrooms. After she leaves her husband's room, the wife visits her mother's room, mostly to seek out a shoulder to cry on. Before she exits back to the hallway, the wife suggests leaving the house.

Next on her indoor parade route is a visit with her young daughters. She tells them to get to bed, but a storm outside scares the girls. Not helping matters, her lip starts to bleed from where her husband smacked her. She tells them that it's fine, and leaves that room too.

In the hallway, the husband seems to be waiting for her. We finally learn that his name is Sean. Whoops, no...this is a tall boy, presumably her son. He spins around to face her, then stabs her with a large kitchen knife. The husband hears some of the attack, and heads down to investigate.

He finds a figure in a chair, and he calls out to her, thinking the the old woman wandered out of her room. Her name is Aunt May, so we now know 2 things about her:

-She's an aunt, not a mother-in-law.
-Her nephew, Peter Parker is about to be bitten by a radioactive spider.

Anyway, he spins her chair around, only to discover that she's dead. Was anyone actually surprised by that? If you were, then go back into the blog archives, and watch every single movie I've mocked since I began this thing. And take a drink every single time you spot a cliche. If you're still alive by next week....you scare me, man. (On the other hand, if you're a female and you survive...Marry me. Tonight, my queen. I must have you here, next to me, where we shall rule over our horror-movie kingdom...)

As the young girls are heard screaming, the credits begin. Generic "spooky" credits, no less. Great.

The movie resumes, and there's either a light-colored van or bus driving down an otherwise empty highway. Inside the vehicle are Kilmer's character, plus a handful of folks I've never seen before. 2 guys sitting together discuss reincarnation, then one of them sees an eerie woman in a white dress, just standing by the side of the road. His reincarnation-obsessed buddy doesn't seem to notice her.

When the driver starts chatting with the group, one mentions that he's a doctor. Ghost-seeing guy pipes up, saying that he's in med school. The man next to ghost-guy is his brother. Anybody want to ask me if any of these passengers have names yet? Don't.

Kilmer and the attractive woman seated next to him are apparently a married couple, heading somewhere to work on their relationship. They don't look too happy. Wait, doesn't that make them a perfectly normal married couple?

They pull into a gas station, and the driver suggests that they get some food or use the bathroom or whatever, since this is the last stop before they reach their destination. Kilmer's wife asks him to buy her a coffee, and he and the brothers enter the convenience store. Sadly, this is the closest thing we've had to an action scene so far.

A weather report heard in the small store announces that high winds moving throughout the area are tearing property apart, tossing around trees, etc. The 2 brothers buy some snacks and drinks, and both try(and fail) to flirt with the woman at the register, Courtney. Better luck next time.

Kilmer's character gets impatient with these guys, and asks them to hurry with their purchases, lest the bus leave without them. His character tries flirting with Courtney as well, even giving her his business card(he's a corporate lawyer from Chicago), and planting a sloppy kiss on her hand. Oh, and his name is Bill! We finally know the name of a single passenger on the damned bus!

Bill leaves, and his wife demands her coffee. Bill lies, telling her that they didn't sell hot coffee. Of course, she saw him flirting with Courtney, so she pretty much knows what happened. Hard to believe that this is the same guy who played Jim Morrison in The Doors...

There's some dude fiddling with a camera. He glances up at the sky. Then the scene ends. Fascinating stuff.

Just like the weather report predicted, things start to get a bit rough back on the road. The cloud start to turn dark, The driver decides that it would be smart to accelerate, and he also sees the woman in white as he rounds a corner. He swerves to avoid her, and sends the vehicle crashing into a tree.

Some unspecified time later, a second vehicle pulls up to the crash site. A person wearing a long coat steps out, but we don't get to see who they are. Well, that was a waste of movie time!

Even MORE time passes, and everyone is now out of the bus. It turns out that the stranger from the previous scene rescued them. His name is Jack, and he dresses like a cowboy. The group came out alive, except for the driver, who face-planted into the windshield. That the good(ish) news.

The not-so-good news? There are several injuries throughout the group, including a massive gash in Bill's head. They're hesitant to try moving him, even when he  jokingly suggests that alcohol will make him a lot better. They get him standing, and help him to board Jack's pickup truck. The bus driver is left sprawled out on the ground, but Jack promises to call the authorities to get him later.

Jack's home is pretty nice, but it's also out in the middle of nowhere. Must be a real bitch of a journey to deliver the mail every day. As everybody files in, the young doctor asks for a number of medical supplies.

Bill follows his spouse into a quaintly-decorated bedroom, where they pick on each other. Jack watches the verbal exchange from the doorway. Then he gets upset when Bill finds an old knife, as well as several other "family heirlooms".

He and Bill get on each others' nerves, and Jack tries to distract everyone by generously offering them the use of his liquor cabinet. The first 2 takers are those annoying siblings, who just start drinking right from the bottle.

In Bill's room, his condition is getting worse. He's delirious, and he can hear women screaming in other rooms. He also thinks that Jack wants to kill them.

Bill's wife is given a dry shirt to wear(offered by one of the goofy brothers), and Jack leads her to an empty room where she can change her shirt. Meanwhile, the clouds get even darker, and thunder rolls in.

Bill seems to have calmed down, but then more sounds make him cry. In the living room, Jack tells the others that he only has venison to eat. When they suggest trying to head back to the gas station, Jack claims that the roads are closed. After a debate, Jack agrees to let one of the guests use his truck.

The younger of the brothers heads out. Along the way, he sees Courtney by the side of the road, looking under her vehicle's hood. He pulls over, and gets out to help.

She guesses that she ran out of gas, and the young man introduces himself as Adam. Then he talks about how unwary drivers are often taken advantage of by people faking engine trouble, right before pointing out that an empty gas tank isn't solved by popping the hood.

Courtney insults him, but Adam still wants to help her. She eventually accepts his offer of a ride, and they both climb into Jack's truck. Truckin' A!

Back at the house, Bill's wife chats up Adam's brother. She discovers that they're traveling together because their mother recently died, so they took a road trip to try to reconnect as siblings. Awwwwww...

After the story, we see Adam and Courtney discover that the road back to the gas station has, indeed, been closed down. With no other choice, they return to Jack's house. Everybody is surprised to see the new guest, especially Adam's brother.

Jack welcomes the new person, then escorts her upstairs to find some dry clothes. He opens a wardrobe, and Courtney is shown a flowing white dress. Gee, where have we seen a white dress before?

Courtney slips off her wet clothes, then puts on the gown. She puts on some lip gloss in the bathroom, and leans over the sink. A ghost child appears behind her, and Courtney spots him in the bathroom mirror. Of course, he vanishes when she turns around.

Bill seems to be having visions of ghosts now, and they frighten him. Courtney hears him and tries to help, but his rants about being in danger make her nervous. She promises to come back, then escapes the room.

Some time later, Bill's wife is heard screaming.

Everyone comes running, and find her and the foreign doctor trying to revive Bill. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot: Bill died. And marks on his neck imply that it was MURDER!!!! *cue dramatic music*

They all gather downstairs, and try to figure out who was the last person to see Bill alive. Courtney admits to speaking with him 10 minutes earlier, but denies killing him. Then his wife is accused of murdering him. Pretty much everyone's a suspect. Personally, I think it was Professor Plum in The Study with a Gun.

Anyway, Adam says that he thinks the neck bruises were new, then he and his brother announce that they intend to leave. Yeah, right after someone was murdered? As they get outside, Adam asks his brother(now identified as Isaac, by the way) to let Courtney go with them. Isaac okays the idea, but only gives her 1 minute to join them.

Isaac climbs in the truck to start the engine, but it won't even stutter. Adam pops the hood, only to discover that somebody sabotaged the motor. So much for the escape plan! They run back to the house, on a hunch that Jack is behind everything.

He's in a parlor room, calmly reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar. The siblings immediately start to accuse him of messing with the engine, and he responds that they probably did it, since they've both had so much recent access to the truck. Then the lights go out.

They ask Jack if he has a flashlight, and he tells them to find it on their own. Isaac tries to do just that, and scrapes his stomach on a nail. The young doctor runs off to get supplies to treat the wound with, while Isaac, Courtney and Adam examine the wound.

How the heck do you scrape your torso with a loose nail? I mean, stubbing your toe, sure, but higher up on the body? Yeesh.

Adam and the doctor talk privately about the way that Bill died. The doctor is still hesitant to say when he first saw the neck scratches. Then he confesses to Adam that he once had his medical license taken away because of an addiction to painkillers, and he's been trying to keep a low profile since getting it back.

Bill's corpse is moved out of the house, so as not to upset the rest of the group. Then Jack is asked how long he's owned the house. He says that it feels like forever.

Brook, Bill's widow seems afraid to fall asleep. As the storm rages on, she gets the uneasy feeling that she's not alone in the bedroom. Brook leans waaaay over the side of the bed, and takes a peek. Nope, nothing's hiding under the bed.

Brook sits back up, and a ghost girl behind her sets her Freak-O-Meter off the charts. Then a pair of ghostly hands clutch her ankles, and start to drag her beneath the bed. Brook manages to stand up, then just leaves the room. Lame!

A storm warning on the radio stretches to several counties in the local region. because of the storm, they decide to try to get some sleep, and deal with everything in the morning. Sweet dreams!

They go to bed, but no one feels much like sleeping. Each one seems to have their own theory about what 's going on. Isaac encounters Jack out in the barn, and he finds out that Jack has always been "sensitive" in a "garden-variety psychic" sort of way.

In his bedroom, Adam is getting restless. He hears laughter, then footsteps, and decides to check it out. He sees the ghost of the young boy from the opening sequence, and witnesses one of the murders being acted out in front of him. Adam runs away.

He finds, Isaac, Courtney and Brooklyn(I shit you not, that's her full first name!) drinking together. Adam describes what he just saw, and Isaac fetches one of the antique pictures from the other room. After Adam identifies the little boy in the photo, the woman admit to seeing him as well. Adam and Isaac agree that it's time to try to contact their father again, and the women leave with them.

They stupidly split up into pairs, and Adam takes Courtney with him to investigate Jack's room. She agrees to stand guard as he searches the room, then she abandons her post to check out a noise upstairs. Nice guarding, she's really effective in her job.

Isaac and Brook are just wandering down random hallways. Meanwhile, Adam finds very old newspapers, filled with details about the murder spree. And then Brook pukes into a toilet for no reason. Welcome to "Random Scene Theater"!

Courtney watches as another ghostly murder is reenacted. The ghost of the boy seems to look at her, and she gets upset. At the same time, Adam finds old-timey pictures of Jack! Then Jack finds him!

Brook washes up at the sink, and thinks she hears something nearby. She calls out to Isaac, but he doesn't reply. Brook finishes washing her face and hands, then Isaac pops up and makes her jump. They exit the bathroom on their never-ending quest to rescue the princess from...um, I meant: They continue to search for Jack.

Oh look, there he is! Adam shows Jack the pictures, and demands an explanation. Jack tells him that 100 years ago, a tragedy struck the house. Just as we're about to get an explanation, the movie decides to show us the young doctor sleeping. Dammit, movie! Pay attention to yourself!

Anyway, the doctor hears a noise, and decides to go have a look in the hallway. He sees movement, and follows it. He eventually discovers a woman with a large throat wound.

Okay. Finally. The plot. Jack shows Adam a picture of a man named William, and is told that William was the young killer's adoptive father. After the boy killed him and the other family members, he supposedly couldn't remember committing the crimes. Oh, and there was a storm that night that was as bad as the current one.

Adam asks Jack why he stays in the house, and Jack says that it's his sanctuary. Adam insists that the others should know, and Jack laughs. Then he walks away.

The others are collected, and Jack tells the same story twice, adding that people who stay in the house claim to see ghosts. Jack insists that they're safer in the house because of the storm, then tells them to go back to bed. Then he yells, "BOO!", and leaves the room.

In bed, Adam apologizes to Courtney for bringing her to the haunted house. She then relates to him that she thinks a curse has followed her for her entire life. When she was a child, Courtney's parents were killed. She spent her childhood in foster homes, where she had been abused and mistreated. When she was old enough, Courtney moved out on her home, eventually settling in this tiny, isolated community to get away from the world.

There's a quick scene showing that both Isaac and Brook are unable to sleep, then the clocks start running backwards. A series of images of the various murders occur, and Adam is jolted awake. He tells Courtney of the various murders he just dreamt of, and then he shows her the very old picture of Jack.

They talk about what the picture might mean, but neither one can figure out a logical way to explain the image. Then they spot a hole above the headboard. Isaac takes a closer look at the wall, and realizes that somebody is spying on them! Adam rushes out of the bedroom to catch the voyeur, and the scene screeches to a halt before it gets interesting.

Now, we're catching up with Isaac and Brook. Is this a horror film, or a reality dating show? Is there actually a difference? Hmmm...I must ponder these questions later.

Anyway, Brook is torn between being exhausted, and being terrified. Isaac suggests that she sleep, and he'll watch over her. They wander away together.

Adam again. He finds out that the room next to the one they were in is some kind of storage area, with a ton of furniture, covered in white sheets. He wanders through a furniture maze, until he finds the wall with the peephole in it. He checks on Courtney, then moves on to explore further.

A figure draped in one of the sheets grabs Adam from behind, then rushes out of the room. As this happens, Isaac and Brook arrive at one of the bedrooms. Brook complains that the floor is wet, and it turns out to be blood. It's revealed that the doctor is dead.

Then, all 4 of our intrepid "heroes" reunite. They decide, again, that they should leave. Wait, didn't this happen twice already? This is the cinematic equivalent of a Moebius Strip, I swear.

Outside, the storm has come to a screeching halt. Just like the movie! They grab flashlights and tools/weapons from the garage/storage shed, and head into the woods to begin their hike to any sort of road or town.

As is the rule of pretty much every horror film if the last 15 years, the cell phones don't work. Then Courtney trips, and injures her ankle. I swear to Chthulhu, if a cat jumps out of a tree to surprise them, I'm turning this off.

Adam tells the other couple to continue on their hike, while he remains with his beloved. As Isaac and Brook abandon their friends, Brook sees another ghost up close, and she and Isaac get split up in spooky ghost fog. That makes sense...

Adam gets Courtney standing up, which pretty much invalidates the entire "go on without us" scene. I hope they get eaten by a bear. Or Jack...same diff, right? Yeah it is. You know I'm right...

In any event, they also walk into the ghostly fog, and share a "special" moment. The moment gets ruined a few seconds later, when they bump into Isaac, who is looking for Brook. Isaac then moves deeper into the fog to continue exploring, while Adam makes the dumbest decision ever. He decides that he and Courtney should also split up, to cover more ground.

Was the script written in crayon???

So yeah, now everyone is lost in the fog and alone. Brook is briefly shown, but she sees something that forces her to make the goofiest "scared" face ever. Then she seems to sink out of camera range at 100 miles an hour.

Somehow, the other 3 find each other again, and spot a house nearby. They see a light on inside, and decide to seek help. Once inside, they see the ghost family having dinner, and Jack is standing in a corner and grinning. He welcomes them back.

Isaac tells him that they're leaving, but Jack insists that they can't leave. He even offers them drinks, but they make a hasty retreat. As they leave, Bill appears in the room, also holding a glass of alcohol.

As they all get outside again, Brook staggers toward them, clutching a gory abdomen wound. She falls to her knees, gasping. Adam and Courtney run to her, but Isaac runs off into the fog.

Bill and Jack drink, and Jack starts to sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" while Brook is dying on the ground. The ghostly woman in white then vanishes. Adam continues to look for the others, and the sun starts coming up.

Isaac sees another ghost, then Courtney shows up. He asks her if she saw the ghost, but there's no response. As Adam calls out to his brother, he stumbles into a graveyard. No surprise, the names on the graves are not only the murdered family, but also the people on the bus.

Courtney shows up, and then both of them notice an open grave. Jack shows up swinging a gold watch on a chain. Adam accuses him of murder, but then Courtney is seen clutching a blood-drenched knife.

Okay, so let me try to make sense of this....the bus passengers were all pawns in a crazy reincarnation plot. Everyone was reborn, just so they could be killed again. Jack makes it sound like Adam was the killer, but flashbacks show Courtney murdering all of the bus passengers during the night.

Then Jack claims to be "Destiny", or whatever. Courtney lifts the knife, even as Adam begs her to resist the impulse. As he attempts to talk her down, she gets stabbed instead of him. Black, wispy smoke leaves her body....Hey! We have a new Pope!

Courtney collapses, and has just enough time to confess her love to Adam, before she passes away. Then Jack performs some kooky chant, and starts to laugh like a hyena. Adam also sees the ghost of the little boy in the distance.

The ghost creeps up behind Jack, and ghost-stabs him in his ghost-back. They disappear in a cloud of black smoke, then Courtney starts to breathe again. Huh???

Adam promises to get Courtney to someplace safe, then the scene fades out. We see a wall in the next scene, which includes a picture of Adam and Courtney on their wedding day. She's in their kitchen, chopping veggies for dinner in an ominous manner.

Adam enters the kitchen, kisses her neck, and she tenses up. She spins around, and hands her hubbie a glass of wine. Adam leaves the kitchen, and Courtney soon follows. She brings the knife along, while the ghost of the crazy boy watches from outside. THE END

These are getting worse. And so is Val Kilmer. Someone needs to put him on some isolated island. Then nuke the shit out of it. 1 out of 5, for being complete crap. Oh, and what lessons have I learned?

-Destiny has nothing better to do than mess with people.

-If someone dies in your house, dump the body outside.

-When you begin to realize that people are vanishing down the hall from you, just go back to bed.

The next movie on my list is something called Detention. I'm sorry for this entry's lateness, but I was mailed a damaged DVD, and it took a few extra days to get another movie in the mail. Hopefully, Detention will be okay...

Rabid Grannies

So, this one's a movie I originally saw years ago...thus, I barely remember it. It's a weird, gory comedy called Rabid Grannies, and the title more or less explains itself. So, sit back, enjoy, and get ready for messy SPOILERS!

The opening scene concerns a pale, nervous priest asking a superior for permission to attend a family gathering. The kooky title appears, then we meet the family as they arrive at a country estate for the gathering. Errr, well some of them get as far as a pub, I guess. Oh, and the grannies sniff a lot of cheese. And pray. Perhaps we should all pray that we survive this one...

Then we meet a nervous young servant named Alice/Ally. The immense, overbearing  head cook demands that Ally help her pluck some birds for the dinner. As she grills the helpless younger servant for gossip from town, feathers go flying every which way. Man, it sucks to be a bird in the countryside, huh?

Up next is an obese man and his lean wife. I assume that this is the Bizarro-world's version of Jack Sprat and his spouse. I haven't caught wind of their names yet, so he's now Jack Fatt, and his wife is now Virginia Slim. It's times like these, where I can't decide whether I love this crap or hate it.

Anyway, onto an even more anonymous family at a gas station. The bratty boy and girl in the back seat are fighting over a box of cookies, and their mother is quickly losing control of the situation. After their father finishes pumping the gas, he gets in the driver's seat, grabs the cookie package from his children, and shoves the rest of the cookies in his own mouth. Awesome. Okay kids, fight over a bottle of rat poison next!

There's a brief scene between an unidentified (*sighhhhh*) weapons manufacturer and his assistant Michael, then we see a spinster, dressed all in black, and riding a bike. Just as I'm about to blow my top over her not having a name either, a younger guy speeding down the road recognizes her as a relative named Bertha. Being an ass, he runs her bicycle off of the road.

We see Ally in a maid's outfit, trying to get the guest bedrooms ready for the family reunion. The larger servant just watches her do all of the work. Is it too early to start wanting to see some of these folks dead? Most of the characters we've seen thus far are major ass-hats.

Now we meet a pair of lesbians who work together at the same magazine. They agree to keep their relationship a secret from the Grannies, who are far more conservative than the rest of the clan. Then we're dropped back into the mansion, where a servant named Radu is assuring a matronly-looking woman that everything is ready for the guests.

Most of them arrive at the same time, and poor Radu is forced to lug around their bags from the ground floor to the bedrooms. Jack Fatt is close behind him, with both of his beefy paws shoved into his pockets while he acts pompous in front of Virginia Slim and the other relatives. His death better be a good one!

Radu then leads the rest to their rooms, and everyone unpacks and prepares for dinner. I'd describe the 2 brief scenes that occur between guests before the dinner, but what's the point? Until these generic stereotypical people are mentioned by name, it's all meaningless.

Anyway...the dinner scene. Alice and Radu serve each guest their own lobster, and the alcohol begins to  loosen some of the guests up as well. The old weapons dealer is named Harvey(...1 down...), and he doesn't take it well when he is criticized for what he does for a living. The woman doing the complaining is Heather(2 down! Yay!), and one of the not-yet-rabid title characters takes her side.

Then the twitchy priest, Percival(3 characters named in less than a minute!Let's party!!) is drawn into the debate. Then there's another guest at the front door, so Alice is ordered to see who it is. She afraid of the dark, but no one gives her a choice in the matter. She trudges outside, and begins the endless hike to the front gate, which looks like it involves changing time zones several times. Let's all chip in, and buy Alice a golf cart!

Alice trudges out into the cold, dark air, and finds a woman outside the front gate who looks exactly like Frau Blucher(*horses screaming*). She stares straight ahead like a zombie, and repeatedly demands that Alice needs to open the gate. She then somehow opens the gate herself, and gives Alice a mysterious package, making the young servant promise to give the gift to the elderly birthday girls as soon as possible. Alice quickly heads back to the estate, and tells her "boss" everything that happened.

In the dining room, Jack Fatt's wife reveals that their marriage is pretty much a sham, then one of the grannies distracts everyone with the strange gift that was just delivered. Mousy Bertha gets the old biddies excited for opening birthday presents, and Radu is sent out to gather the rest of the gifts. For some reason, they decide to save the gift that got them all worked up in the first place for last.

Then, they finally open the envelope that came with the package. It contains a letter from someone named Christopher, who apparently is the black sheep of the family. His letter promises that the gift he sent was heartfelt, and that it will be memorable.

Just the mention of his name causes a furious uproar among the party guests. The young playboy, Gilbert(I'm guessing his name, using the cast list from IMDB, and eliminating the names we definitely know thus far...), reveals that Christopher was shunned by the family for being a practicing Satanist. He even served prison time, for allegedly desecrating a graveyard for one of his mysterious rituals.

Anyway, the package is opened. It contains a creepy-looking carved box, but the birthday cake is brought to the table before we can see what the box contained. The candles are blown out, then a song is sung, and no one seems to notice a weird smoke floating out of the creepy box.

Harvey makes a toast, and it appears that the 2 old ladies drink up the mystery smoke, which collected in their glasses. At the same time, the servants are separated. As the dinner guests start up a playful chant, asking Radu to bring them a knife for the cake, no one seems to realize that the old women are slumped back in their chairs, undergoing some kind of transformation. Underneath the table, their hands are becoming razor-sharp claws, and their faces begin to tear apart and become monstrous.

One of the Rabid Grannies stretches an arm out like a tentacle, and impales the large guy's wife. Screaming, the rest of the party leap away from the table to escape, just as Alice comes in with a knife for the cake. One Rabid Granny sends her crashing through a window, where she slams into the hood of a car, and seemingly dies.

Percy tries to get upstairs by crawling, then finally figures out how to run. The last 2 servants are just sitting in the kitchen, calmly sipping at bowls of soup and scarfing down bread. One of the demons howls, and the old lady stops eating long enough to decide that it sounds like a bad case of indigestion.

Heather, Jack Fatt's wife(name!!), and one of the older men lock themselves in an upstairs room, just as Percy bangs on the door. He begs them to let him in, but none of them are certain it's even him out in the hall. It actually is him, and they let him in after a ridiculous amount of time has passed.

In another room, a weepy Bertha listens as Jack Fatt claims that the transformation and the resulting deaths were hallucinations. He leaves the room to prove it, and a scuffle is heard. When he comes back in, scratched up and shaken, he admits that the rabid grannies are authentic.

One of the rabid grannies then stalks What's-Her-Face and Gilbert. She leaps through a painting to scare them, then shows off her Freddy Krueger-looking fingernails. Off they go running! One, two...Grannie's after you...

They get down into a water-filled tunnel, and the rabid granny ambushes them a second time. This leads to an outdoor chase, and the couple trying to get away in a car that won't start. They get the engine to turn, but the evil granny breaks into the car, slaughters Gilbert, then kills his "girlfriend" by running her over right after she exits the vehicle.

The little girl is now named Susie. Her mother has just now realized that she excused herself to use the bathroom before the attack began. Uh, anyone want to volunteer to venture out and find her? Yeah, me neither.

As luck would have it, Susie just now returns, calling out for her Mommy. A disembodied voice lures her further down the corridor. Susie finds a rabid granny in a dusty, dark toyroom, and is gullible enough to sit on the lap of the monster.

Oh, and Susie's mother is Helen.

Helen and the others in the room leave to rescue the little girl, and Percy chickens out. They find Susie with the possessed grannies, and she appears to be the main course of a feast they're having. The rescue is abandoned, and the group returns to their room, where I discover that Gilbert was actually Susie's brother, not the road hog. He is now a demon too, and he bites his mother's fingers off of one hand.

Rachel and the real Gilbert(confused yet? I am!) lock themselves away, and the rest of the now-possessed family taunt and frighten them. Then Percy's faith is tested by John, the father of Susie and Gilbert.
John then runs out to join the larger group,who squabble over what to do next.

They venture out into the kitchen. The large servant is dead, and Radu is curled up in a corner, crying and unable to work up the courage to escape. Then Fatboy gets stuck in a tunnel, and is discovered by the rabid grannies. They eat him right there, and the one who tried to help him out, Harvey, returns to face down the crazed killers.

Harvey grabs a powerful shotgun, and hunts for the rabid grannies. After shooting several rounds at one of the grannies, Harvey uses the weapon to club her several times as well. One down, one to go...maybe?

If only the second monster went down so easily as the first! The other possessed woman marches in, wearing a suit of armor. The ammunition bounces off of the armor, and she attacks Harvey with a sharp blade, chopping pieces of him apart.

Radu tries to escape, and slips on some slippery entrails. The resulting fall cuts his face apart. Then Percy is cornered by the monster grannies. They yell at him until they convince him that suicide will save him from further torment. Uh, doesn't his religious training contradict that?

Bertha finds Percy, and screams at the possessed grannies. Then she convinces Helen and Gilbert to let her join them. I swear, these "Let me in!" scenes are 95% of the entire script. Then Bertha destroys the box that started the whole curse, and that seems to destroy the rabid grannies.

During the investigation and the aftermath of the attack, it's revealed that Bertha became possessed, and she kills a cab driver. THE END.

What a terrible waste of 90 minutes. Nothing more to say. 0 out of 5. Anything I see beyond this has got to be better than this film. See you next time.

What?

Oh, okay fine...and what did I "learn" from viewing Rabid Grannies?

-A good writer mentions who his characters are early in a story, especially when there are a billion to keep track of in that story.

-A massacre can actually be dull.

-"Rabid Grannies" are actually "Possessed Aunties"...get it right, movie!

Okay, I'm out! Later...