Well, I've been saying it since I started this blog, and now I have the proof: Slasher movies are destroying my brain! The movie that I was planning to watch this week, He Knows You're Alone, was one I had done already. Luckily, in a weird twist of fate, I was accidentally also sent Smiley, that movie that I never got around to watching last spring, when I was hospitalized. What comes around, goes around. So, back by no demand whatsoever, we get to finally watch Smiley this week. Settle in for SPOILERS...
So, this one begins with a fairly standard slasher premise: A young teen babysitter named Stacy is texting someone while on the job. A scary face suddenly appears in front of Stacy, but it's just the little girl she's watching, trying to scare her. Stacy puts down her phone to talk to the girl.
She discovers that the young girl is pretty Internet-savvy(What kid isn't these days?), as the kid shows her a Chat Roulette-type of website. Then the girl explains the legend of Smiley, the killer we're waiting for...Good, let's get in gear!
The legend is a basic rip-off of Candyman...You get onto any sort of online video chat. At any point during the chat, you type the phrase "I did it for the lulz", 3 times in a row. After the third time, a figure wearing a Smiley-face mask made out of flesh appears, then he kills you. Or the other person in the chat. Or something.
Believing the story to be nonsense, Stacy laughs it off. Then she gets jumped again! Oh, this time it's the little girl's father. He apologizes for being so late, then offers to write the babysitter a check. The entire time, he's also drooling over poor Stacy. Perv.
When she gets home, Stacy boots up her laptop. She signs on to one of those online chats, then browses through some of the possibilities. An angry-looking guy in thick glasses pops up, and his screen name is "Stranger", which seems kind of ominous. After a short introduction, Stacy tells Stranger that she likes his glasses. He replies that he's going to murder her.
A noise causes her to look over her shoulder, but the bedroom is still empty behind her. Stacy wanders down the hallway, finding a glass door slightly ajar. She creeps back to her room, still afraid that she might not be alone in the house.
She sits down to resume her chat with Stranger, then impulsively types "I did it for the lulz" 3 times. The bedroom door swings open, then Smiley grabs Stacy, stabbing her through the back. Stranger sees the murder, turns to a friend in the room, and starts to laugh. Then the opening credits roll.
Next, we meet Ashley, a cute young coed about to move into a house near her college. Her dad is nervous about her living off-campus, but she assures him that everything will be fine. After a quick hug, they part ways.
Inside the house, Ashley meets a girl with the unlikely name of Proxy. Proxy??? Not "Roxy", which would actually be a name, but PROXY? Really, movie, you want to irk me this early? What are the other characters called, Fallomba, Snik-snik, and Fartknockers? (By the way, if anyone who reads this wants to make a slasher flick with a character named "Fartknockers", I guarantee you at least ONE 5-star review.)
Anyway, Proxy sees Ashley as the stereotypical "innocent young woman trying too hard to fit in", and tries to ditch her by making plans to go to a party that evening. Ashley somehow misses the subtlety of her cold shoulder, and begs to go the party with her. Proxy gives in, and off they go!
They walk around the grounds of the campus, and Proxy reveals that she hasn't ever actually met most of the people at the party that they're going to. She knows them online, through the 4chan website. Ashley starts to get nervous about the party, so she and Proxy get a little bit buzzed on a joint along the way.
The party is pretty huge, and they soon meet a friendly guy by the name of Zane. He flirts with Ashley quite a bit, bragging that he's a bit of an expert on "The strange and retarded," whatever that means. Proxy says that it sounds like the title of a crappy soap opera.
Zane elaborates, explaining that he's fascinated by people who believe in myths that have no basis in reality, like Bigfoot or the Chupacabra. Then he makes a quick joke or two, and disappears to go get wasted, leaving the girls laughing over how strange he is. Or re...nah, too easy.
Proxy encourages Ashley to talk to another guy across the room, so she heads in that direction. His name is Binder, but Zane interrupts the conversation and dubs him "Pedobear". 2 other guys start to bully Binder, and one of them was the guy who laughed when Stacy was killed by Smiley in that online chat.
Speaking of that scene...it plays again, except now we realize that we're seeing it from his side of the chat. After Stacy is killed by Smiley, Ashley screams, and the group at the party just laugh. Proxy assures her that it's just a trick, and then repeats the legend of Smiley, and how to summon him.
The party gets wild and crazy, and so does Ashley. She gets plastered, and soon they're all just laughing and behaving like loons. At one point, she even starts to write stuff on a sleeping guy's face. I hope she doesn't have class the next day...
Ashley sleeps until past noon, and rushes to class. Heh. She gets to her first class just as the professor is giving his introduction, and she gets to the nearest seat. The class is called Intro to Reason and Ethics, and the instructor, Prof. Clayton, asks them why they think the class is a required course. Ashley gives him an answer that he likes, earning her some brown-nosing points. They talk after class, and he assures her that he won't hold her tardiness against her.
That night, Ashley and Proxy compare how their days went. Proxy teases her a little bit about how much she drank at the party. Then they see a video of the guy whose face Ashley drew on in that video chat site, and he viciously get attacked by Smiley. Ashley insists that they should bring the video to the police, but Proxy points out how silly the story would sound.
Ashley tries to laugh it off as well, but she still seems worried. Proxy offers to set her mind at ease by typing "I did it for the lulz" 3 times, just to prove that nothing would happen. They scroll through a bunch of random chats, before settling on some shirtless dweeb. Proxy then advises Ashley to envision Smiley in her mind before typing.
She tells the shirtless guy that he's going to die, and then types "I did it for the lulz" 3 times in a row. Nothing happens at first, so they relax. Then Smiley rises up and stabs the nerdy guy, and they scream.
Ashley declares that they need to go right to the police, but Proxy has a different take on the issue. She argues that going to the cops will bring them unwanted attention, and the killer could then learn who they are. The discussion is disrupted by a call from Ashley's father.
He can tell that she sounds tense, but she explains that she's just nervous about being away from home, and that she misses him. He buys it, then Proxy pops up, prompting Ashley to end the call. She goes back inside, and the matter of the video is dropped for the night.
In class the next day, Clayton gets the class into a discussion about how to prove a hypothesis. With her mind still on Smiley, Ashley asks the professor what you'd do if your hypothesis turned out to be so incorrect, that something seemingly impossible seemed to be the result. Clayton introduces her to the concept of ideology, the idea that you have complete confidence in something you THINK that you know. He lists guys like Hitler and Bin Laden as examples of people who followed their ideologies to extremes.
After class, Ashley decides to do some research at the campus library. While looking at various book titles, Ashley literally runs into Binder. They get friendly, and Ashley asks him if he believes in Smiley. Binder's theory is that some legends grow in strength as more people believe in them, and that Smiley is one such entity.
When Ashley asks him if that means that Smiley is real, he responds that, even if Smiley isn't real, the videos of him are. She likes that explanation, and they exchange phone numbers. Then she heads back to the house, just in time to be invited to another party hosted by Zane.
More crowds, more music, and more drinking. Proxy leaves Ashley to go find the bathroom, and Ashley overhears 2 girls talking about the latest video of Smiley. She spots Zane across the room, and decides to see what he knows about the urban legend.
Zane and his buddies laugh at her questions, but then Zane gets serious after his obnoxious friends leave. He asks Ashley what she knows about the murder of his friend, and accuses her of invoking the presence of Smiley. He admits that he even conjured up the killer, but assumed that it was all just a prank. Then he accuses Ashley of knowing more about what happened to his friend than what she's told him.
She staggers away, but not before Zane demands to know what she's going to do if Smiley comes after them next. She walks back to the house in a drunken stupor, then stop;s in the middle of the campus quad when she thinks that she spots Smiley. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, and the killer looms right in front of her, so a chase begins.
Ashley runs the rest of the way to the house, but Smiley follows her. The killer lurks at the front door, so Ashley goes from room to room, desperate to find a good place to hide. Smiley finds a way to enter the house, and ambushes the frightened teen, so she screams for help.
The whole thing turns out to have been a dream. Proxy finds her in the bedroom, screaming in her sleep, and doesn't believe that the chase was anything more than a nightmare. Ashley shows her a part of her blouse that Smiley ripped, but Proxy still doesn't see how that proves anything. After all, if Smiley had been there, then why would he have left her alive? Proxy asks Ashley if she takes any medications for mental disorders, and that gives Ashley a reason to awkwardly pause. Uh oh...
Yeah, she takes anti-psychotic pills. Or, she DID take them, at one point. Ashley weaned herself off of the pills gradually, as she reveals to the school shrink, but perhaps she might want to get her prescription updated. Oh, and the school shrink resembles Maura Tierney a little bit, so, you know, "hubba".
She doesn't tell the shrink about Smiley, so the advice she gets is pretty iffy, at best. She merely admits that she's been on edge and frightened with some frequency, and the shrink thinks it might be because she's far from home, and probably missing her deceased mother. Ashley gets a prescription for something that will calm her nerves, then is sent home.
As Ashley is leaving, Proxy collides with her. Apparently, Zane has informed her of another murder that was posted online. They quickly make their way over to his place to figure out the reason behind the killings.
Zane is over the edge. He's got a gun, and he's ranting and raving about security. It turns out that he's not really a student, but an elite computer hacker; the sort of guy who just hacks into national banks when he needs money, and delves in the personal history of anyone he might want to use and abuse.
He points his gun at Ashley, and demands to know what connection she has to Smiley. Then he admits that his hacking might have brought him to the attention of any number of government superpowers, but that wouldn't explain the presence of Smiley. Ashley proposes that the killer is somehow weirder and more powerful than any of those things, and Zane admits that anything might be possible. He sends them away, then returns to hiding out with his gun.
Ashley has another nightmare, then she endures another class. The discussion in class this time concerns the very existence of life itself, and whether or not we exist because something else exists on a level above us, allowing us to have self-awareness. Or something like that. I don't know, maybe this would have been better if I had watched it while high. Certainly wouldn't have hurt.
After class, Ashley decides to do some research about Smiley on the school computers. She searches for more of his murder videos, as well as information about 4chan, and other hacker knowledge. Unbeknownst to her, a dark figure is approaching the computer, and he has a knife in one hand.
It's Binder. She jumps at the sight of him, and he shows her an employee ID card, revealing that he's in charge of the campus computer network. She tells him about her research into Smiley, and he remains skeptical, until she says that she caused a student to die by summoning the killer.
Binder's reaction is...odd. He claims that when he tried to summon Smiley, nothing happened. Ashley explains that you have to strongly desire the harm to inflict it, and that only seems to get Binder more excited. Ashley gets upset, and decides to return to the house.
She returns to the video chat from her bedroom PC, and scrolls through a handful of different subscribers. Then she sees Smiley himself in the last one, waiting for her. She asks him what he is exactly, and he threatens to pay her another visit. She asks him where he is, and he responds, "right behind you", which is freaky. To make matters worse, his screen has gone black all of a sudden, with no indication of where he might be.
Ashley turns around, and finds Proxy standing there, demanding to know what she's up to. They have a fight, and Proxy storms out of the house. Ashley decides to call her father, but something at the window scares her, and she drops her phone on the sidewalk below, smashing the phone to pieces. Proxy is standing there, and she assumes that Ashley was throwing the phone at her.
Ashley decides to pay another visit to the school shrink. She tearfully admits that she's having some kind of breakdown, and the shrink decides that they should meet on a daily basis...starting tomorrow. For now, she just wants Ashley to get some sleep. She prescribes a stronger pill, then sends the poor girl back home.
On her way across the quad, she texts a quick apology for her abrupt exit at the library to Binder. He lets her know that he's been upset about the recent events as well, and that seems to ease some of her tension. She decides to pay a visit to Professor Clayton's office, and he's there to greet her.
They discuss whether or not the human race is doomed to kill itself off, and Clayton offers her a stiff drink. She declines, but he pours himself one. Then he launches into a diatribe about how our instinct to survive at any cost, and to use up every planetary resource to further our own progress makes us all parasites.
Oh, and he starts to close all of the blinds in his office, in the most menacing way possible. Clayton then hovers over her, whispering all of his crazy, menacing crap about death, all while slowly getting drunk. Ashley finally decides that she's had enough, gets up, and leaves his office.
She returns to the library to work on a school assignment, but gets the unnerving sensation that she's being watched. A glance around reveals nothing, but then Smiley appears on her computer monitor. He waves at her in a mocking manner, and she overreacts, smashing the computer, and yelling and screaming. She collapses onto the floor in tears, then becomes aware that other students are watching and even filming her.
Ashley returns to the house, where she has a brief hallucination of Smiley. She takes a couple of the new pills that she was prescribed, looks at them, then decides not to ingest them. She cries, and heads to her bedroom.
Another nightmare or hallucination occurs. In this one, several versions of Smiley appear in the bedroom, and one of them starts to strangle her. Ashley screams, and a shadowy figure darts past her bed. It appears to be her deceased mother at first, but then it transforms into Smiley.
Ashley screams and wakes up yet again, only to find Proxy at her bedside, holding her hand over her own face. Apparently, she came into the room to check on Ashley, and was punched in the face for her efforts. Ashley apologizes to her, then places a call to the police, to tell them everything she knows.
She meets a weary detective named Diamond, and gives him her statement about the killing spree. After making her recount every detail, he informs her that they've never found a single shred of evidence that a crime was ever committed. No bodies, no crime scenes, no murder weapons, just a big, fat pile of nothing. Oh, but they do have one thing: a video of Ashley, showing her destroying a school laptop.
The cops tell Ashley to stop wasting their time, and just go home. Detective Diamond also suggests that perhaps Ashley should get help from a psychiatrist, to which she sobs that she already is. That doesn't go over too well.
After a brief chat with Proxy, Ashley keeps her next appointment with her doctor. She admits that her sense of reality might be a bit off, and is told that she's making progress toward recovery. The positive feedback gives Ashley a reason to smile.
She calls Binder, and he visits her to give her some advice on how to keep her computer information encrypted. He even goes a step further, giving Ashley an old laptop of his, complete with the latest security updates. She thanks him, and they share a few impulsive kisses. Proxy breaks up the intimacy, and we discover that she's going away for the weekend.
That night, Ashley assures her dad during a call, that she's doing much better. She gets a message from Proxy, and the roommate is in a tizzy because her boyfriend isn't returning her calls. Ashley offers to go check on him, and she takes her phone with her.
At the boyfriend's place, no one appears to be home. Ashley finds the front door open, but no Zane in sight. A room-by-room search reveals that Zane has been added to the list of Smiley victims. Ashley calls Diamond to report the crime, but he hangs up on her.
She returns to the house, but Proxy urges her to place another call to the police. Ashley has a different plan in motion. She locks herself into the house, then tells Proxy to type "I did it for the lulz" 3 times, to lure Smiley to the bait.
It's a terrible plan. Not only does he now have her trapped inside, but now he can be anywhere he wants to be, and just take her right out of existence. As if to prove their point, all of the Smileys come at her at the same time.
Ashley backs away from the many killers, then dives out of the nearest window. She dies. and the killers watch her from the window. Then they congratulate one another for the way they all pulled it off. Binder, Zane, Stacy, all of them. The rest leave, and only Proxy and Zane remain behind to chat. They grin into their webcams, then Smiley attacks Proxy, mauling her in front of Zane. During the credits, we get one final scene, showing that Ashley isn't quite dead yet, but that she is ready to get back at them. the end...?
Let's hope so! I hate watching a slasher flick where there aren't any victims. And they wasted what could have been an interesting concept on such a dull film. I can't imagine what I would have thought back in April, when I was felling sick and confused. Yuk. 1 out of 5, for at least the concept of Smiley. Now just place him in a better story.
And what did I learn from watching this?
-Never assume that your "clever twist" is actually that clever, because it probably isn't.
-Colleges are filled with insane people.
-Friends don't let old friends murder new friends, especially if it's just for "lulz", or whatever.
Up next, a heartwarming tale about killer kids, and the families that have to murder them to survive. Fun, lighthearted stuff!
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Pinata: Survival Island
At this point, there have been waaaay too many movies about inanimate objects killing people. Killer cars, killer dolls, killer laundry machines...you can pretty much just take any noun, add the word "killer" to the front of it, and you have a ready-made movie. But...a killer PINATA?
Yup. A pinata goes on a killing spree. That's the plot of today's SAW, Pinata: Survival Island. It's official: I'll watch pretty much anything. Grab a stick, put on a blindfold, and let's break open the SPOILERS!
The opening credits break through a clay shell before they appear. Yeesh. A narrator tells us that "many moons ago", a village in South America was facing a deadly drought. The "village" looks like it was built out of a Lego set. One of the village elders constructed a large clay pinata. He killed a wild pig, then placed the animal's heart in the pinata. Oh, and then he built a second pinata, for shits 'n' giggles.
He gathered the villagers for a ceremony, where he proceeded to use magic to tear out the evil in their souls, and place it into the first pinata. After the ritual was completed, he then let them break open the second pinata, while the evil-filled one was sent downstream on a nearby river. The evil pinata was then undiscovered for centuries, but a prophecy warned that if it was found and opened, the evil would pour out of it and devour more human souls. Pfft, like THAT would ever happen!
Moving on...The flashback ends, and we meet a large group of college kids out on speeding boats. They're laughing, drinking, mooning each other...Is it wrong for me to wish that they were already being slaughtered? Eh. An Asian guy named Paul and a cute brunette named Monica are waiting for them on the beach. A nearby sign tells us that the island will soon be the site of something called the Franklin Oceanography Research Lab.
The students from the 2 boats start to unpack their gear, and we get some introductions. There's a jive-talking dude named Doug; his best buddy(and former Buffy co-star) Kyle; Kyle's recent ex-girlfriend Tina; a party animal named Jake; and assorted others. I'm sure that there will be tons of memorable character development in a movie about a clay pinata going on a murderous rampage. Oh yeah.
Anyway, Monica and Paul advise them to set up camp, and they briefly go over some rules. This is apparently some sort of Cinco de Mayo college scavenger hunt, and it looks like anything goes. First up is a drinking session, then we learn the rules of the scavenger hunt. Pieces of underwear are hidden all over the island, and the students will be paired up into teams, as well as handcuffed to each other. They have until a certain time of night to collect as many pairs of underwear as they can find. The prize is $20,000 to the players, and the same amount donated to a charity in their name.
Before the race begins, they have a trivia contest about the origins of Cinco de Mayo. Being idiots, they don't get too many correct answers. The students are then paired up, and we finally get more names on these soon-to-be corpses. Jake, the bandana-wearing bro, is paired up with an attractive girl named Julie; a shaggy-looking pothead named Larry is teamed up with a cute bookworm named Connie; Doug and Carmen, the only pair of black people in the movie, are handcuffed together(I wonder if the movie will be generic enough to kill them off first?); a cute couple of generic teens named Bob and Lisa are paired off; and, finally, Tina and Kyle, the exes, are forced to team up.
The competition begins, and all of the teams race away into the jungle, except for Kyle and Tina. They stand there in stunned silence, then Kyle knocks them both to the ground as he struggles to pry off his shackle. After a quick spat, they choose to just sit in the dirt and do nothing.
The rest of the teams keep busy running themselves ragged. Jake and Julie seem to have an early lead, mostly because Jake is running his ass off and snatching up every pair of underwear he sees. Poor Julie looks like she might get her shoulder dislocated by the big lummox.
The generic couple, Bob and Lisa, find a clearing where they seem to be alone. Bob reveals that he has a key to the handcuffs, then he and Lisa smoke a joint together. They get the giggles, then run offscreen. Now working in different areas, they temporarily lose track of each other. Uh oh...
As Lisa gathers up piles of underwear to horde, she stumbles across the clay pinata. It's not even hidden, it's pretty much just sitting out in the open, waiting to be found. Sheesh. She abandons the scavenger hunt to go examine it.
She stumbles while dragging the heavy clay pinata, and stops to make the sand equivalent of a "snow angel", which is as goofy-looking as it sounds. Then she calls over her partner. While they look it over, they decide to see what's inside.
Easier said than done. Using heavy tree branches, they don't even dent it. Then Lisa suggests that they use a large rock, so Bob gets the biggest one that he can carry. After several attempts, Bob makes a crack in the shell, and weird howling sounds seem to surround the drunk couple. The wind becomes fierce, then the eyes of the demonic pinata glow, and it grabs the large branch that Bob dropped next to it.
The pinata moves away from the spot where it was dragged, then it swoops in to bash Bob with the stick. After he's dead, the pinata snarls at Lisa, who runs away. A brief glimpse at Bob shows his soul being wrenched out of his body.
At the camp, Kyle proposes that he and Tina call a temporary truce. She refuses, but he stands up, forcing her to go along. As they try to play nice, we check in on Larry and Connie. She seems bored, but he's getting into the groove with the scavenger hunt. Then he hears a noise, and convinces Connie to hide behind a tree with him.
They wait a few seconds, then Lisa scares them by rushing to their hiding spot. She rambles on about Bob being killed, and then mentions that the killer was a pinata. They laugh at her, even after realizing that the blood on her is authentic. Lisa runs away again, and the couple decide to resume the scavenger hunt. Then we see the pinata wandering in their general direction.
As Larry and Connie mock Lisa, the killer pinata tracks them. It manages to hide in some bushes, and watches as they pass right by. Then they find one of the normal pinatas, and share the alcohol that was stored inside.
Lisa finds the tent where Paul and Monica are keeping an eye on the players. She tells them about the killer pinata's sudden attack, and neither of them laugh. They take it very seriously, probably because she's covered in blood.
Larry and Connie come across a shovel and some instructions, and follow the instructions to a specific area. After digging a small hole, they uncover a treasure trove of underwear. As they celebrate, the pinata looms behind them, using the shovel to bludgeon them both to death. This may be silly, but the kills are at least impressive.
Monica and Paul head to their ATV's. They debate over how much of Lisa's story might be true, but agree that the fact that she was covered in blood is not a good sign. They fervently hope that they will find Bob alive. Nope. Not gonna happen!
Kyle and Tina are working better as a team, with her straddling his shoulders to reach some panties up in a tree. As Tina tries to convince Kyle that she never cheated on him while they were dating(the apparent cause of the breakup), they meet up with Paul and Monica. The leaders only tell them in very general terms that a player was injured, and that the scavenger hunt is at an end. When Kyle offers to help them, he is politely told that his assistance won't be necessary. Instead, Kyle is instructed to return to the base camp, fire off a pistol to let the other teams know to come back, then wait.
As Paul and Monica ride around the island, they keep calling out Bob's name. Yeah, good idea while something is hunting down humans... They hear noises in the vicinity, but can't pinpoint where they're coming from. As they trudge through the jungle on foot for a minute, they stumble upon poor Bob--or his top half, at least. He's half the man he used to be.
Meanwhile, Jake and Julie have abandoned the contest, choosing to explore each other instead. The evil pinata sees them and gets royally pissed off. They stop smooching to gather up their stockpile of undies, and then spot the demonic pinata dangling from a tree. As soon as they get close to it, the pinata castrates Jake with one massive hand, then it attacks Julie with a machete.
Back at the camp, Lisa, Kyle and Tina are packing up the gear, while also searching for the pistol. Lisa starts having a flood of traumatic flashbacks, and tries to calm herself down by drinking some water. Kyle sees that she's having problems, then he apologizes to Tina for the bad way they broke up. They kiss, and are now un-broken-up-ish. I guess. *exasperated sigh*
Paul checks in on Kyle with his walkie-talkie, and urges him to take the women to the boat area. He describes the discovery of Bob's mangled corpse, and suggests that they'll gather the rest of the players, and get them off the island in the second boat. After the brief chat, Kyle asks Lisa for more details about the deadly attack on Bob.
Doug and Carmen are up next, but their scene is brief. It more or less shows that they've managed to get lost in the jungle. I don't know, I never thought a movie about a killer pinata would actually start to bore me. I'm sort of hoping that it will eventually hit somebody hard enough to make candy pour out of them. That'd be fun to see!
At the beach, oversized footprints reveal that the pinata has sabotaged the boats ahead of them. The sun begins to set, and we see Monica and Paul still riding around in the jungle. The pinata leaps up suddenly behind them, and a chase begins. As the pinata starts to charge at them faster and faster, the earth begins to shake.
An overturned tree bars Monica's vehicle, and she gets thrown into a clearing. The vehicle explodes, and Paul stops to run into the clearing to rescue Monica. On foot, the pinata easily catches up to them, and Paul gets his leg dislocated with a brutal yank. Then the monster finishes him off by bashing his head in with a stick. No candy, though.
Monica shrieks, and the pinata decides to shut her up. She briefly loses him as she rounds a bend, but she stumbles, and falls into a ditch. The pinata fails to see her as she crawls away, and it snarls out of sheer frustration.
Kyle, Lisa and Tina make a campfire, then wait on the beach for other survivors, or maybe even a boat, to discover them. Tina expresses disbelief in the concept of a killer pinata rampaging around on the island(You're preaching to the choir...), despite the story that Lisa told them. Then Kyle tells them both a legend about a possessed pinata, summarizing what we saw in the opening scenes of the movie.
Lisa believes that the pinata that she and Bob broke open must have been the same one from the legend, but Tina remains a skeptic. The pinata is seen thrashing through the jungle, then the trio hear noises coming from the trees. As they prepare to fight off a possible pinata attack, the noises turn out to be a visibly relieved Doug and Carmen. Doug asks them where the other teams are, and we see a montage of various body parts strung up in the trees by the pinata.
Early the next morning, they start to realize that they might be the only survivors of the pinata massacre. Man, I felt stupid just typing that out! Lisa is afraid of another encounter with the monster, so she suggests that they swim to the mainland. Kyle explains that another island search would be better, as the nearest land is 15 miles away from the beach.
A debate follows, and both sides of the argument have good and bad points. In the end, the vote is to remain on the island, as either the other survivors might show up, or a rescue boat might be sent to search for them. Lisa isn't thrilled, but the others are swayed by Kyle. They head back into the jungle to do some more investigating.
The pinata senses them, and decides to resume the hunt. The group makes a stop at another clearing, and they all detect a rather unpleasant smell in the area. It turns out to be an animal carcass, something that the pinata killed, then gutted for them to find. Lisa once again suggests that they return to the beach, but they continue deeper into the jungle instead.
Doug stops to tie his shoe, insisting that the others can continue on without him for a second. Predictably, the pinata decides to swoop in just as the others leave Doug behind. But then Kyle has a sudden outbreak of logic, and they decide to return to him.
Back on the hunt, they start to call out the names of the missing students. The pinata, hiding in a tree, pulls poor Doug up into the branches to kill him. Wait, is that irony, or just really bad luck? Either way, Carmen is the first member of the party to notice that Doug is gone. They wearily re-trace their steps.
They come to the spot where he was snatched up, unaware that the pinata is dangling him over their heads. Lisa's fear starts to work on Carmen, and now the group is split on whether to resume the search, or head back to the open beach. In the end, Carmen and Lisa turn back, and Kyle and Tina go their own way. Oh, and poor Doug gets his soul wrenched out of his body.
Kyle and Tina find more pinata tracks, suddenly realizing that the monster pinata is steadily tracking the other pair. Sure enough, the pinata is on the trail of the girls, and they are having some setbacks. Not only is their progress to the beach slow, but now Lisa is whining because she needs to pee. They stop, and Lisa ducks behind another fallen tree trunk.
While Lisa is squatting, Carmen stands guard. They both clearly hear the approach of the pinata, but can't see him just yet. He rushes up behind Carmen, and decapitates her while Lisa screams. Kyle and Tina are still trying to come to the rescue, but it doesn't look like they'll make it in time to save Lisa.
Huh. Guess I was wrong. They find Lisa before the monster does, and save the day. While Tina works on calming her nerves, Kyle decides to hunt for the pinata himself. A brilliant plan, worthy of a 4-star general. He doesn't find the pinata(Yet!), but he does discover more bloody remains.
Left alone, Lisa decides to abandon Tina, in the hopes that the pinata kills her first. Tina chases her, but not before leaving a clue for Kyle to follow them. He's still tracking the pinata, trying to be as discreet as possible. He sneaks up behind what he thinks is the monster, only to find a distraught Monica, dirty but very much alive.
Now at a full sprint, Tina is determined to reach Lisa. Lisa's back at the base camp, and sweat is rolling down her face in buckets. Some rustling motions from the nearby tent get her attention, and the pinata drags her inside by an ankle when she moves in for a closer look.
Tina detects a presence in the tent, but assumes that it must be Lisa. The pinata sticks its massive head out to roar at her, and ANOTHER chase begins. For a second or two, the pinata seems to transform into The Smoke Monster from Lost. Man, I would trade the worst episode of Lost for ANY 5 minutes of this movie any day of the week. If I ever see a movie dumber than this one, I might actually just give up.
Anyway, right in the middle of the action, we catch up with Kyle and Monica. Who are on a casual stroll. Terrific. When they return to the spot where he left the girls, he realizes that they've left. I think they took most of the film's energy with them. Oh, but they found the makeshift arrow that Tina left on the ground!
They all reunite, and duck behind a tree to hide from the pinata. It growls and spins around quite a bit, but the pinata can't seem to find the last of the students. When night comes, Kyle decides that he needs to figure out a way to distract the pinata, so that they can get to a better location. He picks up some stones, throwing them as far as he can, in order to make the pinata curious enough to check the noise out.
That somehow works, and the trio head the opposite way. Paul has another plan in the works, but he needs to calm Monica down in order for it to work. He asks her to try to remember where she and Paul crashed the vehicles, and they all take off into the jungle.
They find the one that didn't explode, and Kyle works on removing the fuel. He siphons as much as he can, but they hear the pinata rapidly approaching their position. As they get closer to the beach again, Monica asks them to stop for a moment, so that she can catch her breath.
A body suddenly falls out of a tree, and Monica's scream is heard by the pinata. The creature swoops in, and they reluctantly leave the body hanging where they found it. For a second, it looked like Monica was just going to stay there and let the pinata kill her.
The next sequence is right out of MacGyver: As a group, they start to rig up a booby-trap to kill the pinata. Wires are buried in sand, sticks are tied together, fuel is doused around the camp, fake walls are erected...it's silly, but I kind of get a kick out of how serious the tone is in this scene. Even the music is ridiculously melodramatic.
Some time later, the pinata arrives at the beach. We see Kyle sitting in front of a campfire, and one of the women is talking VERY LOUDLY, just saying random crap. The pinata, which has gradually gone from a big clay figure with large feet, to a worm-like flying monstrosity with a long tail, approaches the fire very, very slowly, growling the entire way.
As the pinata reaches Kyle, it suddenly decides that it doesn't want to be ignored. It reaches out with a massive claw, obliterating his head...which turns out to be a decoy head, a melon. As chunks of it go flying off in a million different directions, the real Kyle hoists on a rope, trapping the pinata in a net. As the trapped creature is lifted off of the ground, Lisa and Monica set the trap on fire with torches. They watch as the blaze consumes the pinata.
Then it shakes loose from the trap, knocking Monica to the ground, possibly killing her. The angry pinata goes for Tina next, but Kyle saves her by swinging by on the rope, kicking the killer pinata to the ground. While he fights it off with a torch, Tina goes into the tent for more gas.
While she prepares a hasty Molotov cocktail, Kyle gets his ass kicked around the beach. Literally. Tina emerges from the tent just as the killer pinata gains the upper hand, and she shoves the explosive into a crevice in the back of the pinata. She, Kyle and Monica(She lives!) run to a safe distance, and the pinata explodes. The freed souls all fly away, no longer trapped in the pinata.
The next day, several rescue boats arrive, filled with people wearing shirts that say CAMPUS POLICE. A couple of cops question them, then the pinata pops up for one final jump-scare. THE END
Well, that was either the best killer pinata movie ever made, or it was the worst. Since it's probably the only one, take your pick. At least it had several good actors in it, from shows like Buffy and My Name Is Earl, among others. But...a killer pinata? If they ever decide to do another one, I kind of want to see a big, bright generic-looking pinata go on a killing spree. That would be funny as Hell. 3 out of 5 killer trees, not the worst...but not nearly as fun as the concept sounded.
And what did I learn from my experience with Pinata: Survival Island?
-"Death by pinata" would be a dumb way to go.
-Nicholas Brendon somehow makes even dumb stuff kind of awesomely watchable. All hail Xander Harris!
-When the odds are against you, you can suddenly turn into a trap-building genius.
Next up is either something called Taboo, or the classic slasher He Knows You're Alone.
Yup. A pinata goes on a killing spree. That's the plot of today's SAW, Pinata: Survival Island. It's official: I'll watch pretty much anything. Grab a stick, put on a blindfold, and let's break open the SPOILERS!
The opening credits break through a clay shell before they appear. Yeesh. A narrator tells us that "many moons ago", a village in South America was facing a deadly drought. The "village" looks like it was built out of a Lego set. One of the village elders constructed a large clay pinata. He killed a wild pig, then placed the animal's heart in the pinata. Oh, and then he built a second pinata, for shits 'n' giggles.
He gathered the villagers for a ceremony, where he proceeded to use magic to tear out the evil in their souls, and place it into the first pinata. After the ritual was completed, he then let them break open the second pinata, while the evil-filled one was sent downstream on a nearby river. The evil pinata was then undiscovered for centuries, but a prophecy warned that if it was found and opened, the evil would pour out of it and devour more human souls. Pfft, like THAT would ever happen!
Moving on...The flashback ends, and we meet a large group of college kids out on speeding boats. They're laughing, drinking, mooning each other...Is it wrong for me to wish that they were already being slaughtered? Eh. An Asian guy named Paul and a cute brunette named Monica are waiting for them on the beach. A nearby sign tells us that the island will soon be the site of something called the Franklin Oceanography Research Lab.
The students from the 2 boats start to unpack their gear, and we get some introductions. There's a jive-talking dude named Doug; his best buddy(and former Buffy co-star) Kyle; Kyle's recent ex-girlfriend Tina; a party animal named Jake; and assorted others. I'm sure that there will be tons of memorable character development in a movie about a clay pinata going on a murderous rampage. Oh yeah.
Anyway, Monica and Paul advise them to set up camp, and they briefly go over some rules. This is apparently some sort of Cinco de Mayo college scavenger hunt, and it looks like anything goes. First up is a drinking session, then we learn the rules of the scavenger hunt. Pieces of underwear are hidden all over the island, and the students will be paired up into teams, as well as handcuffed to each other. They have until a certain time of night to collect as many pairs of underwear as they can find. The prize is $20,000 to the players, and the same amount donated to a charity in their name.
Before the race begins, they have a trivia contest about the origins of Cinco de Mayo. Being idiots, they don't get too many correct answers. The students are then paired up, and we finally get more names on these soon-to-be corpses. Jake, the bandana-wearing bro, is paired up with an attractive girl named Julie; a shaggy-looking pothead named Larry is teamed up with a cute bookworm named Connie; Doug and Carmen, the only pair of black people in the movie, are handcuffed together(I wonder if the movie will be generic enough to kill them off first?); a cute couple of generic teens named Bob and Lisa are paired off; and, finally, Tina and Kyle, the exes, are forced to team up.
The competition begins, and all of the teams race away into the jungle, except for Kyle and Tina. They stand there in stunned silence, then Kyle knocks them both to the ground as he struggles to pry off his shackle. After a quick spat, they choose to just sit in the dirt and do nothing.
The rest of the teams keep busy running themselves ragged. Jake and Julie seem to have an early lead, mostly because Jake is running his ass off and snatching up every pair of underwear he sees. Poor Julie looks like she might get her shoulder dislocated by the big lummox.
The generic couple, Bob and Lisa, find a clearing where they seem to be alone. Bob reveals that he has a key to the handcuffs, then he and Lisa smoke a joint together. They get the giggles, then run offscreen. Now working in different areas, they temporarily lose track of each other. Uh oh...
As Lisa gathers up piles of underwear to horde, she stumbles across the clay pinata. It's not even hidden, it's pretty much just sitting out in the open, waiting to be found. Sheesh. She abandons the scavenger hunt to go examine it.
She stumbles while dragging the heavy clay pinata, and stops to make the sand equivalent of a "snow angel", which is as goofy-looking as it sounds. Then she calls over her partner. While they look it over, they decide to see what's inside.
Easier said than done. Using heavy tree branches, they don't even dent it. Then Lisa suggests that they use a large rock, so Bob gets the biggest one that he can carry. After several attempts, Bob makes a crack in the shell, and weird howling sounds seem to surround the drunk couple. The wind becomes fierce, then the eyes of the demonic pinata glow, and it grabs the large branch that Bob dropped next to it.
The pinata moves away from the spot where it was dragged, then it swoops in to bash Bob with the stick. After he's dead, the pinata snarls at Lisa, who runs away. A brief glimpse at Bob shows his soul being wrenched out of his body.
At the camp, Kyle proposes that he and Tina call a temporary truce. She refuses, but he stands up, forcing her to go along. As they try to play nice, we check in on Larry and Connie. She seems bored, but he's getting into the groove with the scavenger hunt. Then he hears a noise, and convinces Connie to hide behind a tree with him.
They wait a few seconds, then Lisa scares them by rushing to their hiding spot. She rambles on about Bob being killed, and then mentions that the killer was a pinata. They laugh at her, even after realizing that the blood on her is authentic. Lisa runs away again, and the couple decide to resume the scavenger hunt. Then we see the pinata wandering in their general direction.
As Larry and Connie mock Lisa, the killer pinata tracks them. It manages to hide in some bushes, and watches as they pass right by. Then they find one of the normal pinatas, and share the alcohol that was stored inside.
Lisa finds the tent where Paul and Monica are keeping an eye on the players. She tells them about the killer pinata's sudden attack, and neither of them laugh. They take it very seriously, probably because she's covered in blood.
Larry and Connie come across a shovel and some instructions, and follow the instructions to a specific area. After digging a small hole, they uncover a treasure trove of underwear. As they celebrate, the pinata looms behind them, using the shovel to bludgeon them both to death. This may be silly, but the kills are at least impressive.
Monica and Paul head to their ATV's. They debate over how much of Lisa's story might be true, but agree that the fact that she was covered in blood is not a good sign. They fervently hope that they will find Bob alive. Nope. Not gonna happen!
Kyle and Tina are working better as a team, with her straddling his shoulders to reach some panties up in a tree. As Tina tries to convince Kyle that she never cheated on him while they were dating(the apparent cause of the breakup), they meet up with Paul and Monica. The leaders only tell them in very general terms that a player was injured, and that the scavenger hunt is at an end. When Kyle offers to help them, he is politely told that his assistance won't be necessary. Instead, Kyle is instructed to return to the base camp, fire off a pistol to let the other teams know to come back, then wait.
As Paul and Monica ride around the island, they keep calling out Bob's name. Yeah, good idea while something is hunting down humans... They hear noises in the vicinity, but can't pinpoint where they're coming from. As they trudge through the jungle on foot for a minute, they stumble upon poor Bob--or his top half, at least. He's half the man he used to be.
Meanwhile, Jake and Julie have abandoned the contest, choosing to explore each other instead. The evil pinata sees them and gets royally pissed off. They stop smooching to gather up their stockpile of undies, and then spot the demonic pinata dangling from a tree. As soon as they get close to it, the pinata castrates Jake with one massive hand, then it attacks Julie with a machete.
Back at the camp, Lisa, Kyle and Tina are packing up the gear, while also searching for the pistol. Lisa starts having a flood of traumatic flashbacks, and tries to calm herself down by drinking some water. Kyle sees that she's having problems, then he apologizes to Tina for the bad way they broke up. They kiss, and are now un-broken-up-ish. I guess. *exasperated sigh*
Paul checks in on Kyle with his walkie-talkie, and urges him to take the women to the boat area. He describes the discovery of Bob's mangled corpse, and suggests that they'll gather the rest of the players, and get them off the island in the second boat. After the brief chat, Kyle asks Lisa for more details about the deadly attack on Bob.
Doug and Carmen are up next, but their scene is brief. It more or less shows that they've managed to get lost in the jungle. I don't know, I never thought a movie about a killer pinata would actually start to bore me. I'm sort of hoping that it will eventually hit somebody hard enough to make candy pour out of them. That'd be fun to see!
At the beach, oversized footprints reveal that the pinata has sabotaged the boats ahead of them. The sun begins to set, and we see Monica and Paul still riding around in the jungle. The pinata leaps up suddenly behind them, and a chase begins. As the pinata starts to charge at them faster and faster, the earth begins to shake.
An overturned tree bars Monica's vehicle, and she gets thrown into a clearing. The vehicle explodes, and Paul stops to run into the clearing to rescue Monica. On foot, the pinata easily catches up to them, and Paul gets his leg dislocated with a brutal yank. Then the monster finishes him off by bashing his head in with a stick. No candy, though.
Monica shrieks, and the pinata decides to shut her up. She briefly loses him as she rounds a bend, but she stumbles, and falls into a ditch. The pinata fails to see her as she crawls away, and it snarls out of sheer frustration.
Kyle, Lisa and Tina make a campfire, then wait on the beach for other survivors, or maybe even a boat, to discover them. Tina expresses disbelief in the concept of a killer pinata rampaging around on the island(You're preaching to the choir...), despite the story that Lisa told them. Then Kyle tells them both a legend about a possessed pinata, summarizing what we saw in the opening scenes of the movie.
Lisa believes that the pinata that she and Bob broke open must have been the same one from the legend, but Tina remains a skeptic. The pinata is seen thrashing through the jungle, then the trio hear noises coming from the trees. As they prepare to fight off a possible pinata attack, the noises turn out to be a visibly relieved Doug and Carmen. Doug asks them where the other teams are, and we see a montage of various body parts strung up in the trees by the pinata.
Early the next morning, they start to realize that they might be the only survivors of the pinata massacre. Man, I felt stupid just typing that out! Lisa is afraid of another encounter with the monster, so she suggests that they swim to the mainland. Kyle explains that another island search would be better, as the nearest land is 15 miles away from the beach.
A debate follows, and both sides of the argument have good and bad points. In the end, the vote is to remain on the island, as either the other survivors might show up, or a rescue boat might be sent to search for them. Lisa isn't thrilled, but the others are swayed by Kyle. They head back into the jungle to do some more investigating.
The pinata senses them, and decides to resume the hunt. The group makes a stop at another clearing, and they all detect a rather unpleasant smell in the area. It turns out to be an animal carcass, something that the pinata killed, then gutted for them to find. Lisa once again suggests that they return to the beach, but they continue deeper into the jungle instead.
Doug stops to tie his shoe, insisting that the others can continue on without him for a second. Predictably, the pinata decides to swoop in just as the others leave Doug behind. But then Kyle has a sudden outbreak of logic, and they decide to return to him.
Back on the hunt, they start to call out the names of the missing students. The pinata, hiding in a tree, pulls poor Doug up into the branches to kill him. Wait, is that irony, or just really bad luck? Either way, Carmen is the first member of the party to notice that Doug is gone. They wearily re-trace their steps.
They come to the spot where he was snatched up, unaware that the pinata is dangling him over their heads. Lisa's fear starts to work on Carmen, and now the group is split on whether to resume the search, or head back to the open beach. In the end, Carmen and Lisa turn back, and Kyle and Tina go their own way. Oh, and poor Doug gets his soul wrenched out of his body.
Kyle and Tina find more pinata tracks, suddenly realizing that the monster pinata is steadily tracking the other pair. Sure enough, the pinata is on the trail of the girls, and they are having some setbacks. Not only is their progress to the beach slow, but now Lisa is whining because she needs to pee. They stop, and Lisa ducks behind another fallen tree trunk.
While Lisa is squatting, Carmen stands guard. They both clearly hear the approach of the pinata, but can't see him just yet. He rushes up behind Carmen, and decapitates her while Lisa screams. Kyle and Tina are still trying to come to the rescue, but it doesn't look like they'll make it in time to save Lisa.
Huh. Guess I was wrong. They find Lisa before the monster does, and save the day. While Tina works on calming her nerves, Kyle decides to hunt for the pinata himself. A brilliant plan, worthy of a 4-star general. He doesn't find the pinata(Yet!), but he does discover more bloody remains.
Left alone, Lisa decides to abandon Tina, in the hopes that the pinata kills her first. Tina chases her, but not before leaving a clue for Kyle to follow them. He's still tracking the pinata, trying to be as discreet as possible. He sneaks up behind what he thinks is the monster, only to find a distraught Monica, dirty but very much alive.
Now at a full sprint, Tina is determined to reach Lisa. Lisa's back at the base camp, and sweat is rolling down her face in buckets. Some rustling motions from the nearby tent get her attention, and the pinata drags her inside by an ankle when she moves in for a closer look.
Tina detects a presence in the tent, but assumes that it must be Lisa. The pinata sticks its massive head out to roar at her, and ANOTHER chase begins. For a second or two, the pinata seems to transform into The Smoke Monster from Lost. Man, I would trade the worst episode of Lost for ANY 5 minutes of this movie any day of the week. If I ever see a movie dumber than this one, I might actually just give up.
Anyway, right in the middle of the action, we catch up with Kyle and Monica. Who are on a casual stroll. Terrific. When they return to the spot where he left the girls, he realizes that they've left. I think they took most of the film's energy with them. Oh, but they found the makeshift arrow that Tina left on the ground!
They all reunite, and duck behind a tree to hide from the pinata. It growls and spins around quite a bit, but the pinata can't seem to find the last of the students. When night comes, Kyle decides that he needs to figure out a way to distract the pinata, so that they can get to a better location. He picks up some stones, throwing them as far as he can, in order to make the pinata curious enough to check the noise out.
That somehow works, and the trio head the opposite way. Paul has another plan in the works, but he needs to calm Monica down in order for it to work. He asks her to try to remember where she and Paul crashed the vehicles, and they all take off into the jungle.
They find the one that didn't explode, and Kyle works on removing the fuel. He siphons as much as he can, but they hear the pinata rapidly approaching their position. As they get closer to the beach again, Monica asks them to stop for a moment, so that she can catch her breath.
A body suddenly falls out of a tree, and Monica's scream is heard by the pinata. The creature swoops in, and they reluctantly leave the body hanging where they found it. For a second, it looked like Monica was just going to stay there and let the pinata kill her.
The next sequence is right out of MacGyver: As a group, they start to rig up a booby-trap to kill the pinata. Wires are buried in sand, sticks are tied together, fuel is doused around the camp, fake walls are erected...it's silly, but I kind of get a kick out of how serious the tone is in this scene. Even the music is ridiculously melodramatic.
Some time later, the pinata arrives at the beach. We see Kyle sitting in front of a campfire, and one of the women is talking VERY LOUDLY, just saying random crap. The pinata, which has gradually gone from a big clay figure with large feet, to a worm-like flying monstrosity with a long tail, approaches the fire very, very slowly, growling the entire way.
As the pinata reaches Kyle, it suddenly decides that it doesn't want to be ignored. It reaches out with a massive claw, obliterating his head...which turns out to be a decoy head, a melon. As chunks of it go flying off in a million different directions, the real Kyle hoists on a rope, trapping the pinata in a net. As the trapped creature is lifted off of the ground, Lisa and Monica set the trap on fire with torches. They watch as the blaze consumes the pinata.
Then it shakes loose from the trap, knocking Monica to the ground, possibly killing her. The angry pinata goes for Tina next, but Kyle saves her by swinging by on the rope, kicking the killer pinata to the ground. While he fights it off with a torch, Tina goes into the tent for more gas.
While she prepares a hasty Molotov cocktail, Kyle gets his ass kicked around the beach. Literally. Tina emerges from the tent just as the killer pinata gains the upper hand, and she shoves the explosive into a crevice in the back of the pinata. She, Kyle and Monica(She lives!) run to a safe distance, and the pinata explodes. The freed souls all fly away, no longer trapped in the pinata.
The next day, several rescue boats arrive, filled with people wearing shirts that say CAMPUS POLICE. A couple of cops question them, then the pinata pops up for one final jump-scare. THE END
Well, that was either the best killer pinata movie ever made, or it was the worst. Since it's probably the only one, take your pick. At least it had several good actors in it, from shows like Buffy and My Name Is Earl, among others. But...a killer pinata? If they ever decide to do another one, I kind of want to see a big, bright generic-looking pinata go on a killing spree. That would be funny as Hell. 3 out of 5 killer trees, not the worst...but not nearly as fun as the concept sounded.
And what did I learn from my experience with Pinata: Survival Island?
-"Death by pinata" would be a dumb way to go.
-Nicholas Brendon somehow makes even dumb stuff kind of awesomely watchable. All hail Xander Harris!
-When the odds are against you, you can suddenly turn into a trap-building genius.
Next up is either something called Taboo, or the classic slasher He Knows You're Alone.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Dark Floors
Well, now that we've all survived Thanksgiving(barely...I feel like I might burst at any second!), let's finish the week with some leftover turkey. But which one? If you recall, Netflix sent me 2 scary movies, one about a group of people in a haunted hospital(Dark Floors), and the other about some partying kids being killed by a pinata(Pinata: Survival Island).
Well, after flipping a coin and getting my meenie's eenied, I went with Dark Floors. I figured I needed some distance between Doll Graveyard and my next "inanimate object kills people" movie(heh, next week...), so that left a clear winner in the battle for my attention. So, put down your utensils, skip the last piece of pumpkin pie, and let's get this turkey SPOILED!
Okay, opening credits: somebody's drawing all over my screen, with a red crayon. Apparently, some kind of hard-rockin' band named Lordi made this film. And I think they're Swedish or something, because the names of the film's crew all look like they're hard to pronounce.
Anyway, the first scene is of a young girl in an MRI machine. She looks scared, and she's mumbling "not again" over and over. From an observation room, we see the girl's father, a nurse and a doctor watching her brain activity on some monitors. Her father asks if the test is hurting her, but the doctor assures him that the machine doesn't inflict pain.
The girl seems to fall asleep, then she regains consciousness with a sudden jolt. As she starts to scream and demand a red crayon, the MRI has a power surge. The lights flicker, then the machine starts to smoke. Boy, this would be fun to watch if you had surgery the next day, huh?
So now we finally learn a few names. The young girl is Sarah, and her father is Ben. The nurse is Emily, and the doctor doesn't get a name. That either means he's the first to die, or he gets to live. Eh.
Ben rescues Sarah from the equipment before she gets burned, then plops her into a wheelchair. He gives her the red crayon, then threatens to take his daughter to a different hospital. Maybe one where crap doesn't explode at random intervals? Doctor Anonymous and Emily try to calm him down, and we find out that Sarah is autistic. They've been studying her case for quite some time, but have never come to any definitive conclusions.
As Ben tucks Sarah back into her hospital bed, a storm rages outside. Sarah still seems agitated, and ske keeps saying, "not again", even after her father backs away. At some point during the night, Ben wakes her up, after deciding to take his daughter to a different hospital.
They get as far as the elevator, then Sarah starts to ramble about her crayons again. The noise gets the attention of the staff, and Nurse Emily asks Ben to reconsider moving his daughter. As Ben backs the wheelchair into the elevator, Sarah grabs the wall.
Emily gets on the elevator with them, as well as a businessman on a phone, a security guard, and an elderly man who looks homeless. The elevator descends toward the lobby, then grinds to a halt after the seventh floor. As the lights go out again, one of the characters mutters, "Not 6, not 7. Not Hell, and not Heaven." Oooh, symbolism!
The homeless man, Tobias, looks like he passed out, so the security guy tries to revive him. When that doesn't work, Emily steps in to assess his condition. She advises them to call for further assistance, but no one has a working phone anymore.
The security guy, Rick, tries the emergency call button in the elevator. No response from that, either. Eventually it works, but all he hears is his own voice. While that's going on, Emily tries to save Tobias with CPR. When he finally starts to breath again, the power also seems to come back on. Tobias stands up, then demands to know why they didn't let him die.
The elevator doors finally open up, but the corridor is empty. No nurses, no janitorial staff, the place is like a museum. Even the patients have deserted the area. Rick suggests that there might have been a fire drill or something, so they wander off to find the nearest stairwell. As the walk away, Sarah eyes a suspicious shadow lurking behind an office door. Hmmm...
At an intersection in the hallway, Ben stops the group to listen to something. It's a machine, and it's in a room right next to them. Rick opens the door, and they discover that a copy machine was left on. Emily examines a few of the images that came through, revealing a screaming mouth.
Emily tells Ben that it's almost time to give his daughter a dose of some new medication they've been testing. It helps control seizures, but is still very experimental. Then they all hear another mysterious sound.
It's a woman in a wheelchair, and she's stuck in a corner. The sound was caused by her repeatedly whacking the chair into the wall. Rick offers to help her, but a closer inspection reveals that she's dead. Oh, and it looks like her eyes were torn out of their sockets.
Tobias starts to flip out, so they cover the corpse's face. Then Rick tries a nearby intercom, but hears only his own message coming back to him. Technology and this hospital don't seem to get along...Oh, and as they continue the search for a way out, we see that Sarah was drawing the face of the eyeless woman. Nice touch.
They manage to find the emergency stairs, but that whole area seems to be covered in mold and fungus. They begin their descent to the ground floor, with Ben carrying his daughter, and Rick lugging around the wheelchair. Great, I guess I have time to grow a beard...
A noise from one of the levels beneath them brings the procession, and the movie to a grinding halt. As they glance over the railing, a gun goes off. No one is killed, but Rick gets nicked around his jawline. It's just my luck to pick a movie with no body count.
They all scurry out of the stairwell at the fifth floor, and hide in the nearest open room. After making sure that the door can't be opened by their attacker, Rick has his small wound examined by Emily. As they all make an effort to calm down, heavy thudding sounds are heard moving toward their location. Everybody stares at the blocked door, with the exception of Sarah. She's glancing nervously at a pair of double-doors at the far end of the room.
As they all debate whether or not they should try the stairs again, Tobias watches Sarah wheel herself quietly over to the other exit. They all decide to follow her. Sure, why not?
They come to a security station, where Rick turns on a series of monitors. They realize, as each monitor powers up, that the entire hospital is empty, as if the building has been abandoned. The phones are still dead, yet the lights and intercom system work just fine.
Speaking of the intercom, Jon(the irritable businessman) decides to use it. He call for help from anyone who can hear the message, then gives out their location. Yeah, someone just tried to shoot you, so you should tell them exactly where you are. Jon's a brilliant strategist.
The other pretty much tell him the same thing, and Sarah looks over at another set of doors. Then the nurse sees something on one of the screens: a couple walking around on the third floor. When they walk offscreen, the monitor fritzes out. Actually, they all do.
Sarah wheels herself to a point directly in front of the doorway she was watching, and the doors seem to open under the power of her gaze. The others discuss their next move, and seem to disagree about just what that should be. Emily thinks that the priority should be to figure out where everyone else went, while Rick just wants to keep heading to the exit. Uh, why can't y'all do both?
They notice that Sarah's gone again, and conduct a search. C'mon, she's an autistic child confined to a wheelchair....tie a freakin' bell to her, if you have this much trouble! Before they leave the security station, Ben grabs a pair of walkie-talkies to bring along. Tobias wordlessly points him to the door she passed through.
Sarah's chair is in the middle of the hallway, and she looks like she might be sleeping. As Ben moves closer, he sees a ghastly female phantom reflected in the window of another door, but she swiftly vanishes again. He rescues Sarah, then rejoins the group.
Emily knows that Ben was spooked by something, but he won't talk about the apparition. Then a television and a portable radio both turn on at the same time, and 2 messages are heard: "There's no time like the present" and "...and it's gonna get colder and colder". As they ponder what it all means, Jon's phone rings.
He answers it, but it's just a recorded "out of service" message. The same thing happens to Emily and Ben when their phones go off. Sarah stops drawing to cover her ears, and Tobias decides to follow suit. As nutty as he is, he seems to be the smartest adult in the film.
There's a high-pitched whistle, and the glass in the television begins to crack, as do some of the windows. That female ghost appears again, and she's got the forehead of a Klingon. Rick fires a gun at her, shattering the glass, but leaving the spirit unaffected.
She grins, then emits a sonic shriek, which breaks even more glass around them. They flee down the hall, seeking refuge in the stairwell again. As they relax, the spirit finds them again, leading to a silly, slo-mo chase back into the hall. How is it possible that so many of these things devolve into ridiculous Scooby-Doo episodes?
The banshee swoops closer, raising her hands like talons, and someone accidentally backs into a control panel. An X-ray turns on, and the radiation it emits causes the spirit to disappear. See? Something in that hospital DID work!
Tobias is confronted by Ben, who wants to know how he predicted that the sound would happen before it did. Tobias turns the accusation back on him, wondering if stuff like this has happened in their family before that day. Jon, always the helpful one, thinks that it's just kind of hallucination, possibly brought on by a gas leak.
As the others scoff at him, Jon decides that he's better off on his own. He leaves the group to find his own escape route, and Emily says that they should do the same. The Amazing Race: Hallway Edition begins!
Jon tries to find a signal on his phone, then strolls down a corridor. He comes to an elevator and finds, to his amazement, that it sounds like it might be operational. He senses a presence behind him, but no one seems to be there.
The elevator arrives, and he steps inside. At the very last second, he sees that his watch has stopped, and senses that he's walked into a trap. He manages to stop the doors a second before they shut, and he screams for help.
The rest of the group hear him, and rush over to see what they can do. As they all work together to try and force the doors to slide apart, something appears to be lunging at Jon from underneath the elevator. Jon gets knocked off of his feet, then a pair of large claws tear through the elevator floor.
Rick grabs a fire extinguisher, intending to batter the doors until they open wider, but he manages to knock out Jon instead. Awesome. A demon clad in armor starts to climb up into the elevator, and Rick bashes it in the head until it lowers itself back into the shaft.
Tobias, who has remained back in the previous area with Emily and Sarah, somehow stole Rick's gun when he wasn't looking. He plans to kill himself with it, and Emily can't seem to talk him down. Suddenly Sarah speaks, promising Tobias that he will get to sleep when the ordeal ends, and he allows Emily to take the weapon from him. He rambles about how cold he's getting, and Emily just stands between the both of them,looking perplexed. Join the club, babe!
Rick and Ben pull Jon's slumped-over body out of the elevator, but then the scaly monster comes back. It clenches Jon's ankle in its enormous mouth, and the struggle to free him causes some of the elevator cables to snap. They pull Jon to safety as the creature plummets down the elevator shaft.
Emily bandages the wound when they all reunite, then Ben notices that Sarah's latest drawing looks like the monster they just encountered. He attempt to ask her about it, but she gets fixated on wanting the red crayon again.
Jon antagonizes Ben, and they nearly have a brawl right there. Noise from the intercom interrupts the altercation, and everybody gets excited. Help might be on the way! They go out to the corridor to hear it better, then Emily attempts to make contact with the intercom.
A woman replies, and they hear her say that she's on the third floor. Then the voice warns them that "it" is coming, and the transmission cuts off. They figure that they had better make their way down to that person's location.
They get to the next floor, but find a wall where the door should be. They bash the wall until a large hole is made, but it's been bricked over on the other side. Well, so much for the third floor rescue attempt!
They arrive at the third floor, where Emily finds the body of a doctor named Walter. He's clutching a tape recorder in one hand, and they play a message that advises them to surrender Sarah to the creatures. Ben refuses, so the journey continues.
They find a corridor filled with corpses, and the armored beast comes lunging at them through a doorway. They try to escape, but it chases them. Rick fires his gun at the monster, telling the others to escape. He runs out of bullets, and the others hear him getting killed. Then, everything goes eerily calm again.
Jon pisses off Ben when he asks him to sacrifice Sarah to save the rest of them, and another near-fight begins. Then they see the world outside of the closest window. everything appears to be frozen in time, as is evidenced by a flash of lightning that is just hanging out of the sky. Even the rain is stuck in mid-air. That seems...odd...
The intercom distracts them yet again, so Emily answers it. A voice asks her what floor she's on, and they all realize that it's the very same conversation they had earlier, only from the other end. Emily was answering herself, and never realized it.
As a group, they try to come up with a reasonable explanation for everything that has happened so far. The top ideas are either that timed has stopped, or they've somehow slipped into another dimension. Neither of those concepts explain anything, however. Good job!
Emily and Ben return to the brick wall with a sledgehammer, to see if they can make an exit. Oh, and they find a gun on a body covered in sand. They leave Sarah with Jon, and warn him not to harm Sarah. Yeah, he's really good at following orders. Anyone remember how well he did when he took orders in the movie Aliens? (I checked...he was in that one, and he was pretty inept.)
Ben gets to work on that wall, and Emily reveals that she's also a single parent. Then they have a trippy moment, when they nearly come face-to-face with themselves at the stairwell. It turns out that Ben was the one who shot at Jon earlier. Weird, man.
Jon breaks his promise, of course, and prepares to surrender the autistic girl to the demons. Then Ben breaks through that brick wall, and he and Emily explore the new corridor. A noise leads to the discovery of some more corpses.
Jon loudly announces that he's brought Sarah to be sacrificed, and tries to draw them out into the open. Someone plunges a knife through his back, and we see that it's Tobias, attempting to rescue Sarah. Ben and Emily hear some of it on their end of the transmission, then we see Jon giving Tobias the thrashing of his life.
Sarah draws another image, one that predicts Jon's death. The lights flicker, then Jon is bombarded by a hurricane-like wind, and a large mass of sand and dirt. When it stops, a mummy-like skeleton grabs Jon under his chin with one hand, using the other to rip out his still-beating heart.
Ben thrusts a stretcher at the monster, and it crashes into a wall. He checks to see that Sarah's okay, then he and Emily examine Tobias. Not only has he died, but he's well into a state of decay, appearing to have been dead for a few weeks. Not only that, but they find another mound of bodies on their way down to the second floor.
Ben asks Sarah to draw the exit for him, but she doesn't seem able to do that. As they stop to look for Sarah's medication, Emily remembers that there's a shortcut to the exit in the morgue. They celebrate, but then realize that Sarah is missing for the umpteenth time.
They split up to look for her, and Emily is forced to hide when one of the creatures arrives at her location. Unfortunately, Ben tries to make contact with Emily via the walkie, and the monster hears it. When the creature seems distracted by something else, Emily risks standing up, and attempts to escape.
No, wait a sec, she has another idea first...picking up a pair of defibrillator paddles, Emily sneaks up behind the monster. When it(he?) turns around, Emily places the paddles on each side of the creature's head, electrocuting it. Not wanting to stick around to see if she killed it, Emily runs out of the room.
Ben comes looking for her, and rushes through another pair of swinging doors. There's a flash of white light, and he discovers himself back in a very normal-looking area of the hospital again. It's filled with people and light, but no one seems to be able to see or hear him as he asks for help.
When he tries to tap a woman in a lab coat on the shoulder, his hand passes right through her. Is he a ghost, or is she? He leaves to look through a different corridor, and Emily contacts him. Neither none of them has found Sarah yet.
Ben stops outside of door 235, and Emily claims to be standing in front of the very same door. But where his location is brightly illuminated, hers is dark and abandoned. Emily references a poster of a teddy bear to clarify that it's the same door, and Ben sees it too...but it's very ragged and faded in her reality, while Ben sees it while it's clean and new.
Ben walks through another set of doors, and finds himself back in the decrepit hallway again. A fluorescent light flickers, and Ben sees his daughter at the opposite end of the hall. Then the very meager light goes completely out, and a tall demon shows up, something that resembles a typical zombie.
The monster growls like a tiger, and decides to beat the living crap out of Ben. While he's being tossed like a salad, Tobias suddenly pops up again. He sneaks up behind the zombie for a quick attack, but it anticipates his move, spinning around to gut him. As Ben turns to get his daughter, Tobias whispers that he's going the wrong way.
Sarah's trying to get away again, and she tells her father that she's trying to stop what's happening. Before he can clarify what she means, Emily returns. Oh, and the biggest demon so far also shows up, looming over all of them. Emily and Ben carefully back Sarah's chair away from this new monster, and they enter the elevator. The demon strides toward them, soon breaking into a full run. Just as he reaches the elevator, the door slam shut.
They watch the various floors light up, and the light on "1" flickers as they reach the first floor. When the doors refuse to open, Ben tries to jam his finger several times on the button. The elevator starts to move yet again, stopping at a floor designated as "-1". It appears to be the hospital basement.
Sarah covers her ears again, and the ghostly woman pops up again. She screams at Emily, who now also has her ears covered. Then she and Sarah look at each other, and the ghost dissolves.
They proceed down the dark and shadowy hallway, and dead bodies chase them into another area, where the parking garage is located. As they look for a better escape route, Emily is cut off from Ben and Sarah by a door that slams shut between them. They try to get the door open, but then something on Emily's side grabs her.
Sarah warns her father that something is coming, so he gets her into an ambulance. They drive away, but there appears to be no exit. Ben crashes the ambulance into a row of cars, and has trouble getting it re-started. Then the largest demon shows up, complete with big, leathery wings and a bushy beard. They get away, but just barely in the nick of time.
Sarah starts to mutter "what happens will happen", while Ben drives around looking for any kind of exit. Ben decides to pull over, and he gently puts Sarah on the ground with a blanket. He promises that somebody will co,me along to rescue her, then he drives off to face the winged demon.
They see each other, and Ben slams his foot down on the gas pedal. Seconds before he strikes the demon, a white light flashes in front of him. He shields his eyes, then stops the ambulance.
It's Sarah. He walks over to her, and then realizes that he was being lured out of the safety of the vehicle. A black, writhing ooze crawls up his body, and he disintegrates. Then Sarah faces down the winged demon, and demands to go home. He snarls at her, and they seem to engage in a weird sort of debate. Sarah tells him that light can't live in darkness, then she closes her eyes.
We see the lobby of the hospital, as well as the elevator shaft, and several corridors. All are still empty. Then, after another flash of brilliant white light, Sarah finds herself back in the MRI machine. She screams and struggles, and Ben carries her out of the room.
Back in her chair, she lets her father hand her a blue crayon. Then they make their way to the lobby, where Sarah sees Tobias again. He leans over, smiles, then tells Sarah that he's not cold anymore. She drops the blue crayon, and it breaks, so Ben and Emily lean over to help her. THE END...?
Man, I don't know WHAT I just watched. It ultimately wasn't a slasher, even though there were many, many dead bodies. But I'm still not even sure what happened. Were they all dead? Was the hospital even real? Who were the piles of corpses, and why did the demons get overpowered by Sarah? Weird. 3.5 out of 5, because it was pretty great as a visual experience, if nothing else.
And what did I learn after seeing Dark Floors?
-MRI machines are deadly.
-Ghosts are powerless against X-rays.
-Hospitals leaves their dead patients in piles, for anybody to just come across.
Next up: the less grim-sounding Pinata: Survival Island. Happy late Thanksgiving!
Well, after flipping a coin and getting my meenie's eenied, I went with Dark Floors. I figured I needed some distance between Doll Graveyard and my next "inanimate object kills people" movie(heh, next week...), so that left a clear winner in the battle for my attention. So, put down your utensils, skip the last piece of pumpkin pie, and let's get this turkey SPOILED!
Okay, opening credits: somebody's drawing all over my screen, with a red crayon. Apparently, some kind of hard-rockin' band named Lordi made this film. And I think they're Swedish or something, because the names of the film's crew all look like they're hard to pronounce.
Anyway, the first scene is of a young girl in an MRI machine. She looks scared, and she's mumbling "not again" over and over. From an observation room, we see the girl's father, a nurse and a doctor watching her brain activity on some monitors. Her father asks if the test is hurting her, but the doctor assures him that the machine doesn't inflict pain.
The girl seems to fall asleep, then she regains consciousness with a sudden jolt. As she starts to scream and demand a red crayon, the MRI has a power surge. The lights flicker, then the machine starts to smoke. Boy, this would be fun to watch if you had surgery the next day, huh?
So now we finally learn a few names. The young girl is Sarah, and her father is Ben. The nurse is Emily, and the doctor doesn't get a name. That either means he's the first to die, or he gets to live. Eh.
Ben rescues Sarah from the equipment before she gets burned, then plops her into a wheelchair. He gives her the red crayon, then threatens to take his daughter to a different hospital. Maybe one where crap doesn't explode at random intervals? Doctor Anonymous and Emily try to calm him down, and we find out that Sarah is autistic. They've been studying her case for quite some time, but have never come to any definitive conclusions.
As Ben tucks Sarah back into her hospital bed, a storm rages outside. Sarah still seems agitated, and ske keeps saying, "not again", even after her father backs away. At some point during the night, Ben wakes her up, after deciding to take his daughter to a different hospital.
They get as far as the elevator, then Sarah starts to ramble about her crayons again. The noise gets the attention of the staff, and Nurse Emily asks Ben to reconsider moving his daughter. As Ben backs the wheelchair into the elevator, Sarah grabs the wall.
Emily gets on the elevator with them, as well as a businessman on a phone, a security guard, and an elderly man who looks homeless. The elevator descends toward the lobby, then grinds to a halt after the seventh floor. As the lights go out again, one of the characters mutters, "Not 6, not 7. Not Hell, and not Heaven." Oooh, symbolism!
The homeless man, Tobias, looks like he passed out, so the security guy tries to revive him. When that doesn't work, Emily steps in to assess his condition. She advises them to call for further assistance, but no one has a working phone anymore.
The security guy, Rick, tries the emergency call button in the elevator. No response from that, either. Eventually it works, but all he hears is his own voice. While that's going on, Emily tries to save Tobias with CPR. When he finally starts to breath again, the power also seems to come back on. Tobias stands up, then demands to know why they didn't let him die.
The elevator doors finally open up, but the corridor is empty. No nurses, no janitorial staff, the place is like a museum. Even the patients have deserted the area. Rick suggests that there might have been a fire drill or something, so they wander off to find the nearest stairwell. As the walk away, Sarah eyes a suspicious shadow lurking behind an office door. Hmmm...
At an intersection in the hallway, Ben stops the group to listen to something. It's a machine, and it's in a room right next to them. Rick opens the door, and they discover that a copy machine was left on. Emily examines a few of the images that came through, revealing a screaming mouth.
Emily tells Ben that it's almost time to give his daughter a dose of some new medication they've been testing. It helps control seizures, but is still very experimental. Then they all hear another mysterious sound.
It's a woman in a wheelchair, and she's stuck in a corner. The sound was caused by her repeatedly whacking the chair into the wall. Rick offers to help her, but a closer inspection reveals that she's dead. Oh, and it looks like her eyes were torn out of their sockets.
Tobias starts to flip out, so they cover the corpse's face. Then Rick tries a nearby intercom, but hears only his own message coming back to him. Technology and this hospital don't seem to get along...Oh, and as they continue the search for a way out, we see that Sarah was drawing the face of the eyeless woman. Nice touch.
They manage to find the emergency stairs, but that whole area seems to be covered in mold and fungus. They begin their descent to the ground floor, with Ben carrying his daughter, and Rick lugging around the wheelchair. Great, I guess I have time to grow a beard...
A noise from one of the levels beneath them brings the procession, and the movie to a grinding halt. As they glance over the railing, a gun goes off. No one is killed, but Rick gets nicked around his jawline. It's just my luck to pick a movie with no body count.
They all scurry out of the stairwell at the fifth floor, and hide in the nearest open room. After making sure that the door can't be opened by their attacker, Rick has his small wound examined by Emily. As they all make an effort to calm down, heavy thudding sounds are heard moving toward their location. Everybody stares at the blocked door, with the exception of Sarah. She's glancing nervously at a pair of double-doors at the far end of the room.
As they all debate whether or not they should try the stairs again, Tobias watches Sarah wheel herself quietly over to the other exit. They all decide to follow her. Sure, why not?
They come to a security station, where Rick turns on a series of monitors. They realize, as each monitor powers up, that the entire hospital is empty, as if the building has been abandoned. The phones are still dead, yet the lights and intercom system work just fine.
Speaking of the intercom, Jon(the irritable businessman) decides to use it. He call for help from anyone who can hear the message, then gives out their location. Yeah, someone just tried to shoot you, so you should tell them exactly where you are. Jon's a brilliant strategist.
The other pretty much tell him the same thing, and Sarah looks over at another set of doors. Then the nurse sees something on one of the screens: a couple walking around on the third floor. When they walk offscreen, the monitor fritzes out. Actually, they all do.
Sarah wheels herself to a point directly in front of the doorway she was watching, and the doors seem to open under the power of her gaze. The others discuss their next move, and seem to disagree about just what that should be. Emily thinks that the priority should be to figure out where everyone else went, while Rick just wants to keep heading to the exit. Uh, why can't y'all do both?
They notice that Sarah's gone again, and conduct a search. C'mon, she's an autistic child confined to a wheelchair....tie a freakin' bell to her, if you have this much trouble! Before they leave the security station, Ben grabs a pair of walkie-talkies to bring along. Tobias wordlessly points him to the door she passed through.
Sarah's chair is in the middle of the hallway, and she looks like she might be sleeping. As Ben moves closer, he sees a ghastly female phantom reflected in the window of another door, but she swiftly vanishes again. He rescues Sarah, then rejoins the group.
Emily knows that Ben was spooked by something, but he won't talk about the apparition. Then a television and a portable radio both turn on at the same time, and 2 messages are heard: "There's no time like the present" and "...and it's gonna get colder and colder". As they ponder what it all means, Jon's phone rings.
He answers it, but it's just a recorded "out of service" message. The same thing happens to Emily and Ben when their phones go off. Sarah stops drawing to cover her ears, and Tobias decides to follow suit. As nutty as he is, he seems to be the smartest adult in the film.
There's a high-pitched whistle, and the glass in the television begins to crack, as do some of the windows. That female ghost appears again, and she's got the forehead of a Klingon. Rick fires a gun at her, shattering the glass, but leaving the spirit unaffected.
She grins, then emits a sonic shriek, which breaks even more glass around them. They flee down the hall, seeking refuge in the stairwell again. As they relax, the spirit finds them again, leading to a silly, slo-mo chase back into the hall. How is it possible that so many of these things devolve into ridiculous Scooby-Doo episodes?
The banshee swoops closer, raising her hands like talons, and someone accidentally backs into a control panel. An X-ray turns on, and the radiation it emits causes the spirit to disappear. See? Something in that hospital DID work!
Tobias is confronted by Ben, who wants to know how he predicted that the sound would happen before it did. Tobias turns the accusation back on him, wondering if stuff like this has happened in their family before that day. Jon, always the helpful one, thinks that it's just kind of hallucination, possibly brought on by a gas leak.
As the others scoff at him, Jon decides that he's better off on his own. He leaves the group to find his own escape route, and Emily says that they should do the same. The Amazing Race: Hallway Edition begins!
Jon tries to find a signal on his phone, then strolls down a corridor. He comes to an elevator and finds, to his amazement, that it sounds like it might be operational. He senses a presence behind him, but no one seems to be there.
The elevator arrives, and he steps inside. At the very last second, he sees that his watch has stopped, and senses that he's walked into a trap. He manages to stop the doors a second before they shut, and he screams for help.
The rest of the group hear him, and rush over to see what they can do. As they all work together to try and force the doors to slide apart, something appears to be lunging at Jon from underneath the elevator. Jon gets knocked off of his feet, then a pair of large claws tear through the elevator floor.
Rick grabs a fire extinguisher, intending to batter the doors until they open wider, but he manages to knock out Jon instead. Awesome. A demon clad in armor starts to climb up into the elevator, and Rick bashes it in the head until it lowers itself back into the shaft.
Tobias, who has remained back in the previous area with Emily and Sarah, somehow stole Rick's gun when he wasn't looking. He plans to kill himself with it, and Emily can't seem to talk him down. Suddenly Sarah speaks, promising Tobias that he will get to sleep when the ordeal ends, and he allows Emily to take the weapon from him. He rambles about how cold he's getting, and Emily just stands between the both of them,looking perplexed. Join the club, babe!
Rick and Ben pull Jon's slumped-over body out of the elevator, but then the scaly monster comes back. It clenches Jon's ankle in its enormous mouth, and the struggle to free him causes some of the elevator cables to snap. They pull Jon to safety as the creature plummets down the elevator shaft.
Emily bandages the wound when they all reunite, then Ben notices that Sarah's latest drawing looks like the monster they just encountered. He attempt to ask her about it, but she gets fixated on wanting the red crayon again.
Jon antagonizes Ben, and they nearly have a brawl right there. Noise from the intercom interrupts the altercation, and everybody gets excited. Help might be on the way! They go out to the corridor to hear it better, then Emily attempts to make contact with the intercom.
A woman replies, and they hear her say that she's on the third floor. Then the voice warns them that "it" is coming, and the transmission cuts off. They figure that they had better make their way down to that person's location.
They get to the next floor, but find a wall where the door should be. They bash the wall until a large hole is made, but it's been bricked over on the other side. Well, so much for the third floor rescue attempt!
They arrive at the third floor, where Emily finds the body of a doctor named Walter. He's clutching a tape recorder in one hand, and they play a message that advises them to surrender Sarah to the creatures. Ben refuses, so the journey continues.
They find a corridor filled with corpses, and the armored beast comes lunging at them through a doorway. They try to escape, but it chases them. Rick fires his gun at the monster, telling the others to escape. He runs out of bullets, and the others hear him getting killed. Then, everything goes eerily calm again.
Jon pisses off Ben when he asks him to sacrifice Sarah to save the rest of them, and another near-fight begins. Then they see the world outside of the closest window. everything appears to be frozen in time, as is evidenced by a flash of lightning that is just hanging out of the sky. Even the rain is stuck in mid-air. That seems...odd...
The intercom distracts them yet again, so Emily answers it. A voice asks her what floor she's on, and they all realize that it's the very same conversation they had earlier, only from the other end. Emily was answering herself, and never realized it.
As a group, they try to come up with a reasonable explanation for everything that has happened so far. The top ideas are either that timed has stopped, or they've somehow slipped into another dimension. Neither of those concepts explain anything, however. Good job!
Emily and Ben return to the brick wall with a sledgehammer, to see if they can make an exit. Oh, and they find a gun on a body covered in sand. They leave Sarah with Jon, and warn him not to harm Sarah. Yeah, he's really good at following orders. Anyone remember how well he did when he took orders in the movie Aliens? (I checked...he was in that one, and he was pretty inept.)
Ben gets to work on that wall, and Emily reveals that she's also a single parent. Then they have a trippy moment, when they nearly come face-to-face with themselves at the stairwell. It turns out that Ben was the one who shot at Jon earlier. Weird, man.
Jon breaks his promise, of course, and prepares to surrender the autistic girl to the demons. Then Ben breaks through that brick wall, and he and Emily explore the new corridor. A noise leads to the discovery of some more corpses.
Jon loudly announces that he's brought Sarah to be sacrificed, and tries to draw them out into the open. Someone plunges a knife through his back, and we see that it's Tobias, attempting to rescue Sarah. Ben and Emily hear some of it on their end of the transmission, then we see Jon giving Tobias the thrashing of his life.
Sarah draws another image, one that predicts Jon's death. The lights flicker, then Jon is bombarded by a hurricane-like wind, and a large mass of sand and dirt. When it stops, a mummy-like skeleton grabs Jon under his chin with one hand, using the other to rip out his still-beating heart.
Ben thrusts a stretcher at the monster, and it crashes into a wall. He checks to see that Sarah's okay, then he and Emily examine Tobias. Not only has he died, but he's well into a state of decay, appearing to have been dead for a few weeks. Not only that, but they find another mound of bodies on their way down to the second floor.
Ben asks Sarah to draw the exit for him, but she doesn't seem able to do that. As they stop to look for Sarah's medication, Emily remembers that there's a shortcut to the exit in the morgue. They celebrate, but then realize that Sarah is missing for the umpteenth time.
They split up to look for her, and Emily is forced to hide when one of the creatures arrives at her location. Unfortunately, Ben tries to make contact with Emily via the walkie, and the monster hears it. When the creature seems distracted by something else, Emily risks standing up, and attempts to escape.
No, wait a sec, she has another idea first...picking up a pair of defibrillator paddles, Emily sneaks up behind the monster. When it(he?) turns around, Emily places the paddles on each side of the creature's head, electrocuting it. Not wanting to stick around to see if she killed it, Emily runs out of the room.
Ben comes looking for her, and rushes through another pair of swinging doors. There's a flash of white light, and he discovers himself back in a very normal-looking area of the hospital again. It's filled with people and light, but no one seems to be able to see or hear him as he asks for help.
When he tries to tap a woman in a lab coat on the shoulder, his hand passes right through her. Is he a ghost, or is she? He leaves to look through a different corridor, and Emily contacts him. Neither none of them has found Sarah yet.
Ben stops outside of door 235, and Emily claims to be standing in front of the very same door. But where his location is brightly illuminated, hers is dark and abandoned. Emily references a poster of a teddy bear to clarify that it's the same door, and Ben sees it too...but it's very ragged and faded in her reality, while Ben sees it while it's clean and new.
Ben walks through another set of doors, and finds himself back in the decrepit hallway again. A fluorescent light flickers, and Ben sees his daughter at the opposite end of the hall. Then the very meager light goes completely out, and a tall demon shows up, something that resembles a typical zombie.
The monster growls like a tiger, and decides to beat the living crap out of Ben. While he's being tossed like a salad, Tobias suddenly pops up again. He sneaks up behind the zombie for a quick attack, but it anticipates his move, spinning around to gut him. As Ben turns to get his daughter, Tobias whispers that he's going the wrong way.
Sarah's trying to get away again, and she tells her father that she's trying to stop what's happening. Before he can clarify what she means, Emily returns. Oh, and the biggest demon so far also shows up, looming over all of them. Emily and Ben carefully back Sarah's chair away from this new monster, and they enter the elevator. The demon strides toward them, soon breaking into a full run. Just as he reaches the elevator, the door slam shut.
They watch the various floors light up, and the light on "1" flickers as they reach the first floor. When the doors refuse to open, Ben tries to jam his finger several times on the button. The elevator starts to move yet again, stopping at a floor designated as "-1". It appears to be the hospital basement.
Sarah covers her ears again, and the ghostly woman pops up again. She screams at Emily, who now also has her ears covered. Then she and Sarah look at each other, and the ghost dissolves.
They proceed down the dark and shadowy hallway, and dead bodies chase them into another area, where the parking garage is located. As they look for a better escape route, Emily is cut off from Ben and Sarah by a door that slams shut between them. They try to get the door open, but then something on Emily's side grabs her.
Sarah warns her father that something is coming, so he gets her into an ambulance. They drive away, but there appears to be no exit. Ben crashes the ambulance into a row of cars, and has trouble getting it re-started. Then the largest demon shows up, complete with big, leathery wings and a bushy beard. They get away, but just barely in the nick of time.
Sarah starts to mutter "what happens will happen", while Ben drives around looking for any kind of exit. Ben decides to pull over, and he gently puts Sarah on the ground with a blanket. He promises that somebody will co,me along to rescue her, then he drives off to face the winged demon.
They see each other, and Ben slams his foot down on the gas pedal. Seconds before he strikes the demon, a white light flashes in front of him. He shields his eyes, then stops the ambulance.
It's Sarah. He walks over to her, and then realizes that he was being lured out of the safety of the vehicle. A black, writhing ooze crawls up his body, and he disintegrates. Then Sarah faces down the winged demon, and demands to go home. He snarls at her, and they seem to engage in a weird sort of debate. Sarah tells him that light can't live in darkness, then she closes her eyes.
We see the lobby of the hospital, as well as the elevator shaft, and several corridors. All are still empty. Then, after another flash of brilliant white light, Sarah finds herself back in the MRI machine. She screams and struggles, and Ben carries her out of the room.
Back in her chair, she lets her father hand her a blue crayon. Then they make their way to the lobby, where Sarah sees Tobias again. He leans over, smiles, then tells Sarah that he's not cold anymore. She drops the blue crayon, and it breaks, so Ben and Emily lean over to help her. THE END...?
Man, I don't know WHAT I just watched. It ultimately wasn't a slasher, even though there were many, many dead bodies. But I'm still not even sure what happened. Were they all dead? Was the hospital even real? Who were the piles of corpses, and why did the demons get overpowered by Sarah? Weird. 3.5 out of 5, because it was pretty great as a visual experience, if nothing else.
And what did I learn after seeing Dark Floors?
-MRI machines are deadly.
-Ghosts are powerless against X-rays.
-Hospitals leaves their dead patients in piles, for anybody to just come across.
Next up: the less grim-sounding Pinata: Survival Island. Happy late Thanksgiving!
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Doll Graveyard
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, there was this production studio called Full Moon. Their movies were almost always cheesy, often terrible, but also quite fun. The vast majority of the movies tended to feature dolls and toys that were evil, such as the Puppet Master films, or Demonic Toys. Today's entry, Doll Graveyard is one of the newer efforts, having been released in 2005. Is it any good? Let's prepare to be SPOILED, and find out...
The opening scene takes place in 1911 in Los Angeles, where we see a young, lonely child named Sophia. She playing with a group of dolls that represent various ethnic stereotypes, including a savage named Ooga Booga, and an Asian warrior named Samurai. Nice. Piss off most of the audience with offensive crap right at the top of your movie.
So, cute little white supremacist Sophia is so preoccupied with pretending to commit genocide, that she fails to realize how close she is to other objects in the room. She bumps into an end table, sending a vase crashing to the floor. That gets Sophia pretty worked up. Relax...it's not like your dad's going to see the mess, force you to bury your dolls in a mass grave, then add you to the pile, because you have an accident that snaps your neck! What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?
Oh. Um...oops?
Yup, Daddy comes downstairs, and starts out by calling his daughter names, then threatening to whip her. As Sophia tearfully apologizes, he forces her to gather up the dolls, then follow him into the yard. They dig a deep grave, then Sophia says a special farewell to each doll. All while her father chews the scenery and berates her for having feelings.
As she starts to climb out of the ditch, her feet slip, and she falls into the hole, dying on impact. Dear ol' Dad quickly decides to cover up the grave, then go find someone else's life to ruin. Best part of this whole scene, is how he doesn't hesitate for even a second to bury her like that. I hope the screenwriter never had kids.
Ah well...after that nonsense and the opening credits that look like something you'd see on a silly late-night horror show, the main story kicks in. Now it's 2005, and the place is being occupied by a single dad and his two teens. The father's Lester, the older sibling is DeeDee, and our protagonist is Guy. After Guy irritates DeeDee, she asks for permission to go out with some friends. Lester(who looks an awful lot like Sophia's father...) needs her to babysit Guy, because Lester's got a date. Yay.
Aha! Lester IS a direct descendant, because he also has the pocket watch that Sophia's father carried. See? Me AM has brains! And gud speler, tu! The scene ends with Lester staring off into space, possibly trying to figure out a way to get both of his kids to dig a pair of ditches in the yard, then throw themselves in.
The next scene has this distracting song that sounds like the intro to Sympathy For The Devil...but it isn't. Mick Jagger should sue. Guy leaves the house, walks about 40 miles, then finds a pile of tree branches blocking his path. We get to have the honor of watching him move the branches and do yard work.
While raking, he stumbles upon a bunch of items that once belonged to Cyril, Sophie's father. He puts aside a liquor bottle and a letter opener, then he uncovers the DOLL GRAVEYARD!!!!!!!! Which really should have been named Doll Hole, seeing as there's only a single grave, but whatever. Maybe there was already a porno with that title.
Using a paintbrush with fine bristles, Guy meticulously cleans up the various dolls when he gets them to his room. DeeDee bursts through the door, nearly having a bird when she spots the grotesque dolls. She tries to terrorize her brother with blackmail to get him to do all of the chores in the house, but he calmly blackmails her as well. Isn't it great when families show how much they love one another?
Lester seems mesmerized by his antique watch, until his daughter snaps him out of it. As soon as he leaves to go on his date, DeeDee whips out her phone, and gleefully tells her best friend to gather up some guys and head over to her house for an impromptu party. She figures that Guy will most likely just stay in his room, giving her and her friends a wide berth.
Guy finishes cleaning up Samurai, then puts the doll on a special shelf in his room. When Guy turns his back, we see Samurai blink, and his doll eyes become human eyes. Guy's not very observant, is he?
DeeDee answers the front door, and greets 2 friends, Terri and Olivia. They have food and drinks with them, but no guys. This could get kinky! *leans forward*
Guy walks into the kitchen, reminding DeeDee that their father never gave her permission to have friends over. When Olivia insults him, Guy asks her if she know what the difference is between her and the Eiffel Tower. The answer? Guy doesn't know any guys who've been on top of the Eiffel Tower. Heh, score one for the geek!
As they exit the kitchen, Terri lingers behind to speak to Guy for a moment. It turns out that she's a bit of a geek too, and she flirts with him, before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He promises her that he'll keep their visit a secret from Lester.
Back in DeeDee's room, the girls light candles and get drunk. Guy just sits on his bed, pawing through an old porn mag. Then he picks up Samurai again, telling the doll that he thinks Terri is hot. He hears a voice whispering out in the hallway, and decides to see who it might be.
It's Rich and Tom, a pair of jocks that DeeDee invited over for her little shindig. They assault Guy, carrying him into his room, where they threaten him with bodily harm, break some of his action figures, then tie him up. After they leave, Guy hears another voice whispering something, and he can see that the dolls are no longer on their shelf.
As a typical thunderstorm kicks in, Ooga Booga, a Nazi-looking soldier, and a deformed Baby Doll are all summoned forth by Samurai. Inside, the partying teens get drunk and stoned, although Terri abstains. She also doesn't feel very comfortable once the jocks enter the room. Olivia tries to hook up with Tom after Terri rejects him, but he makes a joke similar to Guy's earlier remark, so I guess she's going home alone tonight. Unless Rich wants her, but he's busy grabbing beer in the kitchen at the moment.
Guy hears the voice a little clearer, and it is Sophie. She promises that the dolls are there to "help" him, and he sees that they are now lined up and ready to begin their attack on the party. Anyone else think that this one is moving a bit fast? I mean, we barely know all of their names, so now they're going to die?
The party itself is in full swing, which means that it's boring as Hell. Olivia gets jealous after seeing DeeDee and Tom going at it, and she suggests a possible 3-way with Rich and Terri. Terri wants no part of that action! Then DeeDee and Tom get up, prepared to get more intimate in a private setting.
Rich scares Terri in the kitchen, and quickly apologizes. He offers to help her clean up the kitchen. Hey, maybe he's actually a nicer guy than his buddy. But I doubt it...
Olivia changes the music that's on, then light a joint. Meanwhile, DeeDee and Tom are getting ready to screw like bunnies, but not before DeeDee cuffs his hands behind his back. She steps over to her closet, then orders him to close his eyes.
True to his word, Rich helps Terri to clean up the kitchen. Then he ruins the image by moving in for a kiss. She pushes him away, then exits the kitchen.
DeeDee promises Tom a surprise, then the kaiser doll pops up on the bed. It engages Tom in a staring contest for a few seconds, then uses the sharp point on its helmet to destroy his crotch. DeeDee knocks the doll off of the bed, then sees that Tom is drenched in blood.
Then we head back to Olivia. Um, okay. We were right in the MIDDLE of a scene, but let's jump around at random. That makes sense. So, screw DeeDee...what's up, Olivia?
Turns out that the answer is "not much". She's dancing to the music by herself. Oh, and one of the dolls sneaks in to have a peek. But we don't even get to see which one it is. Lame...
DeeDee watches Tom die from blood loss, then backs away from the bed. Still not content to let a scene finish at a logical place, the movie shows us Rich getting drunk by himself. Olivia struts into the room, sitting on his lap. Gee, I wonder what message she's trying to convey with her subtle signals?
Removing her shirt, Olivia asks Rich why he's not with Terri. When he reveals that she rejected him, Olivia rejects him as well, then leaves him drunk and confused. I get the impression that many, many things leave this guy in a constant state of confusion.
Olivia puts her shirt back on, then shuts off the music. Shouting for her friends, she gets worried when no one responds. Then she just meanders back to the hallway. This movie has all the energy of a coma victim.
DeeDee sees the kaiser doll watching her, so she screams for assistance. Olivia rushes in, sees Tom's body, then spots the killer doll. The tiny Nazi raises a teeny-weeny gun and tries to shoot at the girls, who flee out of the room.
They hurry downstairs, where Olivia grabs her purse. While she looks through it for her phone, DeeDee discovers Rich passed out on the kitchen table. She manages to revive him, then she goes off in search of Guy and Terri.
Terri finds Guy, who has been in and out of consciousness, and she gets him untied in a jiffy.Guy finds out that she wasn't enjoying her time with the others, but she seems kind of interested in him. Like, "To Catch A Predator"-level of interest. Weird, man.
When Terri sees what Rich did to the collectible action figure, Guy suddenly notices that Samurai is missing. He tells her how he found it in the yard, then he blacks out again as Sophia whispers in his head. Terri eventually snaps him out of it, but they're both frightened by the incident.
DeeDee and Olivia tear apart the living room looking for the cell phone, then it starts to ring. They locate it across the room in a chair...being held by the Baby doll. Baby turns to stare at them, then bites Olivia on the hand as she reaches over to take her phone back.
DeeDee screams at the caller to come rescue them, and Terri hears all of the commotion from Guy's room. When she suggests that they go see what happened, she finds Guy in a trance again, speaking as Sophia. Terri shakes him out of it again, then she nearly gets ambushed by Samurai. Guy picks him up to examine the doll closer, and he and Terri both conclude that the dolls must be alive, possessed by some kind of evil entity that can speak to Guy as well. The doll keeps his opinion to himself.
Rich, determined to be useless, is still drinking. He briefly considers screwing a melon with a hole in it, but changes his mind. Thank God. He bends down to pick of some litter, then comes face-to-face with Ooga Booga when he sits up again. When he leans closer to talk to the native doll and offer it a beer and some snacks, Ooga Booga plucks out one of his eyes with the tiny spear it wields. then it slashes his throat and watches him die.
Olivia and DeeDee are afraid to leave the room, fearing that it will open them up to another doll attack. DeeDee then finds Rich, and Olivia gets injured in another quick skirmish. Believe it or not, but the running time for this one is less than 90 minutes. How did they manage to make it feel endless?
As Guy and Terri try to leave his room, Guy falls down against the stairs. As Sophia, he tells Terri that the dolls are seeking vengeance for her demise. Then Samurai slashes at Terri's ankle, until Guy snaps out of his possession and orders the doll to stop.
As DeeDee and Olivia decide to call 911, Nazi doll reappears. He fires his gun at them, and they duck behind a sofa, screaming like ninnies. DeeDee waits for him to pause between shots, then knocks him over with a pillow. As they try to back away, Terri and Guy run into the room. They briefly discuss what's happened so far, and start to make a run for the door.
Olivia insists that she needs her purse, and runs back to retrieve it. She reaches for her phone on the floor, and the Baby removes another chunk out of her face with those crazy teeth. Luckily, DeeDee comes to the rescue, but now they're trapped by Baby.
DeeDee prepares herself to attack the doll, but Guy, possessed again by Sophia, stops her. After a brief struggle, they realize that Ooga Booga has entered the room as well. Terri asks Guy to call off the dolls, but Sophia's in control of him now, and she sees the teens as a threat to her precious toys.
After Guy stomps away, the Nazi doll also suddenly pops up. Surrounded by all of the killer dolls, the girls realize that they might never leave. Terri gets away to check on Guy, who collapses again. Then Lester returns from his date.
Except that he's no longer Lester. He's now also possessed by Cyril, and they have a bitter reunion right then and there. As Lester/Cyril threatens to whip Guy/Sophia to death, Samurai stabs Dad in the ankle. A second hit makes him fall to the floor, and the killer dolls all move in to kill Lester/Cyril.
Terri tries to appeal to Guy for mercy, but Sophia won't let him go yet. When Lester manages to fight his own possession though, it causes Sophia to momentarily lose her focus. Guy orders the dolls to cease their attack, and he and the others re-bury them in the yard. As Guy backs away from the grave, a flash of lightning reveals that he has now become Sophia entirely. THE END...?
Ugh. I can remember back when these Full Moon movies were fun and creative, but this was horrible. I swear, this guy just recycles the same concepts and designs over and over again, and honestly thinks that the audience won't notice. And 80 minutes? Really? I sit through this crappy movie, and it's barely even a movie at all! 1 out of 5 killer trees. And here comes the hard part...
And what did I learn from Doll Graveyard?
-Possession can run in the family.
-Kids love racist toys!
-Nice girls like to rob the cradle.
My next SAW entry should be either Dark Floors or Pinata: Survival Island. We'll see what comes in first. As long as neither one features killer dolls, I think we're good. Yeesh.
The opening scene takes place in 1911 in Los Angeles, where we see a young, lonely child named Sophia. She playing with a group of dolls that represent various ethnic stereotypes, including a savage named Ooga Booga, and an Asian warrior named Samurai. Nice. Piss off most of the audience with offensive crap right at the top of your movie.
So, cute little white supremacist Sophia is so preoccupied with pretending to commit genocide, that she fails to realize how close she is to other objects in the room. She bumps into an end table, sending a vase crashing to the floor. That gets Sophia pretty worked up. Relax...it's not like your dad's going to see the mess, force you to bury your dolls in a mass grave, then add you to the pile, because you have an accident that snaps your neck! What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?
Oh. Um...oops?
Yup, Daddy comes downstairs, and starts out by calling his daughter names, then threatening to whip her. As Sophia tearfully apologizes, he forces her to gather up the dolls, then follow him into the yard. They dig a deep grave, then Sophia says a special farewell to each doll. All while her father chews the scenery and berates her for having feelings.
As she starts to climb out of the ditch, her feet slip, and she falls into the hole, dying on impact. Dear ol' Dad quickly decides to cover up the grave, then go find someone else's life to ruin. Best part of this whole scene, is how he doesn't hesitate for even a second to bury her like that. I hope the screenwriter never had kids.
Ah well...after that nonsense and the opening credits that look like something you'd see on a silly late-night horror show, the main story kicks in. Now it's 2005, and the place is being occupied by a single dad and his two teens. The father's Lester, the older sibling is DeeDee, and our protagonist is Guy. After Guy irritates DeeDee, she asks for permission to go out with some friends. Lester(who looks an awful lot like Sophia's father...) needs her to babysit Guy, because Lester's got a date. Yay.
Aha! Lester IS a direct descendant, because he also has the pocket watch that Sophia's father carried. See? Me AM has brains! And gud speler, tu! The scene ends with Lester staring off into space, possibly trying to figure out a way to get both of his kids to dig a pair of ditches in the yard, then throw themselves in.
The next scene has this distracting song that sounds like the intro to Sympathy For The Devil...but it isn't. Mick Jagger should sue. Guy leaves the house, walks about 40 miles, then finds a pile of tree branches blocking his path. We get to have the honor of watching him move the branches and do yard work.
While raking, he stumbles upon a bunch of items that once belonged to Cyril, Sophie's father. He puts aside a liquor bottle and a letter opener, then he uncovers the DOLL GRAVEYARD!!!!!!!! Which really should have been named Doll Hole, seeing as there's only a single grave, but whatever. Maybe there was already a porno with that title.
Using a paintbrush with fine bristles, Guy meticulously cleans up the various dolls when he gets them to his room. DeeDee bursts through the door, nearly having a bird when she spots the grotesque dolls. She tries to terrorize her brother with blackmail to get him to do all of the chores in the house, but he calmly blackmails her as well. Isn't it great when families show how much they love one another?
Lester seems mesmerized by his antique watch, until his daughter snaps him out of it. As soon as he leaves to go on his date, DeeDee whips out her phone, and gleefully tells her best friend to gather up some guys and head over to her house for an impromptu party. She figures that Guy will most likely just stay in his room, giving her and her friends a wide berth.
Guy finishes cleaning up Samurai, then puts the doll on a special shelf in his room. When Guy turns his back, we see Samurai blink, and his doll eyes become human eyes. Guy's not very observant, is he?
DeeDee answers the front door, and greets 2 friends, Terri and Olivia. They have food and drinks with them, but no guys. This could get kinky! *leans forward*
Guy walks into the kitchen, reminding DeeDee that their father never gave her permission to have friends over. When Olivia insults him, Guy asks her if she know what the difference is between her and the Eiffel Tower. The answer? Guy doesn't know any guys who've been on top of the Eiffel Tower. Heh, score one for the geek!
As they exit the kitchen, Terri lingers behind to speak to Guy for a moment. It turns out that she's a bit of a geek too, and she flirts with him, before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He promises her that he'll keep their visit a secret from Lester.
Back in DeeDee's room, the girls light candles and get drunk. Guy just sits on his bed, pawing through an old porn mag. Then he picks up Samurai again, telling the doll that he thinks Terri is hot. He hears a voice whispering out in the hallway, and decides to see who it might be.
It's Rich and Tom, a pair of jocks that DeeDee invited over for her little shindig. They assault Guy, carrying him into his room, where they threaten him with bodily harm, break some of his action figures, then tie him up. After they leave, Guy hears another voice whispering something, and he can see that the dolls are no longer on their shelf.
As a typical thunderstorm kicks in, Ooga Booga, a Nazi-looking soldier, and a deformed Baby Doll are all summoned forth by Samurai. Inside, the partying teens get drunk and stoned, although Terri abstains. She also doesn't feel very comfortable once the jocks enter the room. Olivia tries to hook up with Tom after Terri rejects him, but he makes a joke similar to Guy's earlier remark, so I guess she's going home alone tonight. Unless Rich wants her, but he's busy grabbing beer in the kitchen at the moment.
Guy hears the voice a little clearer, and it is Sophie. She promises that the dolls are there to "help" him, and he sees that they are now lined up and ready to begin their attack on the party. Anyone else think that this one is moving a bit fast? I mean, we barely know all of their names, so now they're going to die?
The party itself is in full swing, which means that it's boring as Hell. Olivia gets jealous after seeing DeeDee and Tom going at it, and she suggests a possible 3-way with Rich and Terri. Terri wants no part of that action! Then DeeDee and Tom get up, prepared to get more intimate in a private setting.
Rich scares Terri in the kitchen, and quickly apologizes. He offers to help her clean up the kitchen. Hey, maybe he's actually a nicer guy than his buddy. But I doubt it...
Olivia changes the music that's on, then light a joint. Meanwhile, DeeDee and Tom are getting ready to screw like bunnies, but not before DeeDee cuffs his hands behind his back. She steps over to her closet, then orders him to close his eyes.
True to his word, Rich helps Terri to clean up the kitchen. Then he ruins the image by moving in for a kiss. She pushes him away, then exits the kitchen.
DeeDee promises Tom a surprise, then the kaiser doll pops up on the bed. It engages Tom in a staring contest for a few seconds, then uses the sharp point on its helmet to destroy his crotch. DeeDee knocks the doll off of the bed, then sees that Tom is drenched in blood.
Then we head back to Olivia. Um, okay. We were right in the MIDDLE of a scene, but let's jump around at random. That makes sense. So, screw DeeDee...what's up, Olivia?
Turns out that the answer is "not much". She's dancing to the music by herself. Oh, and one of the dolls sneaks in to have a peek. But we don't even get to see which one it is. Lame...
DeeDee watches Tom die from blood loss, then backs away from the bed. Still not content to let a scene finish at a logical place, the movie shows us Rich getting drunk by himself. Olivia struts into the room, sitting on his lap. Gee, I wonder what message she's trying to convey with her subtle signals?
Removing her shirt, Olivia asks Rich why he's not with Terri. When he reveals that she rejected him, Olivia rejects him as well, then leaves him drunk and confused. I get the impression that many, many things leave this guy in a constant state of confusion.
Olivia puts her shirt back on, then shuts off the music. Shouting for her friends, she gets worried when no one responds. Then she just meanders back to the hallway. This movie has all the energy of a coma victim.
DeeDee sees the kaiser doll watching her, so she screams for assistance. Olivia rushes in, sees Tom's body, then spots the killer doll. The tiny Nazi raises a teeny-weeny gun and tries to shoot at the girls, who flee out of the room.
They hurry downstairs, where Olivia grabs her purse. While she looks through it for her phone, DeeDee discovers Rich passed out on the kitchen table. She manages to revive him, then she goes off in search of Guy and Terri.
Terri finds Guy, who has been in and out of consciousness, and she gets him untied in a jiffy.Guy finds out that she wasn't enjoying her time with the others, but she seems kind of interested in him. Like, "To Catch A Predator"-level of interest. Weird, man.
When Terri sees what Rich did to the collectible action figure, Guy suddenly notices that Samurai is missing. He tells her how he found it in the yard, then he blacks out again as Sophia whispers in his head. Terri eventually snaps him out of it, but they're both frightened by the incident.
DeeDee and Olivia tear apart the living room looking for the cell phone, then it starts to ring. They locate it across the room in a chair...being held by the Baby doll. Baby turns to stare at them, then bites Olivia on the hand as she reaches over to take her phone back.
DeeDee screams at the caller to come rescue them, and Terri hears all of the commotion from Guy's room. When she suggests that they go see what happened, she finds Guy in a trance again, speaking as Sophia. Terri shakes him out of it again, then she nearly gets ambushed by Samurai. Guy picks him up to examine the doll closer, and he and Terri both conclude that the dolls must be alive, possessed by some kind of evil entity that can speak to Guy as well. The doll keeps his opinion to himself.
Rich, determined to be useless, is still drinking. He briefly considers screwing a melon with a hole in it, but changes his mind. Thank God. He bends down to pick of some litter, then comes face-to-face with Ooga Booga when he sits up again. When he leans closer to talk to the native doll and offer it a beer and some snacks, Ooga Booga plucks out one of his eyes with the tiny spear it wields. then it slashes his throat and watches him die.
Olivia and DeeDee are afraid to leave the room, fearing that it will open them up to another doll attack. DeeDee then finds Rich, and Olivia gets injured in another quick skirmish. Believe it or not, but the running time for this one is less than 90 minutes. How did they manage to make it feel endless?
As Guy and Terri try to leave his room, Guy falls down against the stairs. As Sophia, he tells Terri that the dolls are seeking vengeance for her demise. Then Samurai slashes at Terri's ankle, until Guy snaps out of his possession and orders the doll to stop.
As DeeDee and Olivia decide to call 911, Nazi doll reappears. He fires his gun at them, and they duck behind a sofa, screaming like ninnies. DeeDee waits for him to pause between shots, then knocks him over with a pillow. As they try to back away, Terri and Guy run into the room. They briefly discuss what's happened so far, and start to make a run for the door.
Olivia insists that she needs her purse, and runs back to retrieve it. She reaches for her phone on the floor, and the Baby removes another chunk out of her face with those crazy teeth. Luckily, DeeDee comes to the rescue, but now they're trapped by Baby.
DeeDee prepares herself to attack the doll, but Guy, possessed again by Sophia, stops her. After a brief struggle, they realize that Ooga Booga has entered the room as well. Terri asks Guy to call off the dolls, but Sophia's in control of him now, and she sees the teens as a threat to her precious toys.
After Guy stomps away, the Nazi doll also suddenly pops up. Surrounded by all of the killer dolls, the girls realize that they might never leave. Terri gets away to check on Guy, who collapses again. Then Lester returns from his date.
Except that he's no longer Lester. He's now also possessed by Cyril, and they have a bitter reunion right then and there. As Lester/Cyril threatens to whip Guy/Sophia to death, Samurai stabs Dad in the ankle. A second hit makes him fall to the floor, and the killer dolls all move in to kill Lester/Cyril.
Terri tries to appeal to Guy for mercy, but Sophia won't let him go yet. When Lester manages to fight his own possession though, it causes Sophia to momentarily lose her focus. Guy orders the dolls to cease their attack, and he and the others re-bury them in the yard. As Guy backs away from the grave, a flash of lightning reveals that he has now become Sophia entirely. THE END...?
Ugh. I can remember back when these Full Moon movies were fun and creative, but this was horrible. I swear, this guy just recycles the same concepts and designs over and over again, and honestly thinks that the audience won't notice. And 80 minutes? Really? I sit through this crappy movie, and it's barely even a movie at all! 1 out of 5 killer trees. And here comes the hard part...
And what did I learn from Doll Graveyard?
-Possession can run in the family.
-Kids love racist toys!
-Nice girls like to rob the cradle.
My next SAW entry should be either Dark Floors or Pinata: Survival Island. We'll see what comes in first. As long as neither one features killer dolls, I think we're good. Yeesh.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Jack the Reaper
Man, I must have the world's worst karma....I had a billing issue with Netflix, almost ended up canceling the account, couldn't find a good(bad?) slasher on ComCast, tried YouTube for a few hours...and I'm back at Netflix. Crazy, right?
Anyway, I was hoping to watch a free movie on cable, but the one I wanted cost 4 bucks. On a channel I already subscribe to! Luckily, after I re-jiggered Netflix a bit, the very same film turned out to be available as a streaming movie, so I win either way. Which is my circuitous way of saying that today's SAW is Jack the Reaper. Yup, it's "Reaper", as opposed to "Ripper". I can already tell it's going to suck like a straw....it's taken me more effort to set it up than it probably took to MAKE the damned film. Fun, not-exasperated-at-all SPOILERS up ahead!
Yeesh, the opening credits for the production logo are already making me regret this choice. It's "A MAD CRAPPER PRODUCTION", complete with a crudely drawn jogger taking, yes, a crap. Seriously, why do I torture myself like this? Why couldn't I have been a raving fan of 4-star period dramas, or intricate political thrillers? Mad Crapper. They're gonna put that on my tombstone.
Anyway, 3 paragraphs in, and I haven't made it past the first production credit. A woman begins a speech, explaining that she and others like her are "harvesters", and that they control time and fate over humanity. Then she tells us that her name is Violet, and that the other harvesters call her "the great mother". Sure, whatever, just do something interesting!
Now we see a car accident. A guy climbs out of the car(which is tipped sideways), crawls away, and starts to shout over to his passenger, named Emma. A man steps into view, and the sailor asks him to see if his wife is okay. The anonymous stranger flips the wife's body over with a large pickaxe, pulls her upright by her hair, then drags the corpse away. The sailor, dumbfounded, screams at him. Then the stranger returns, flips the sailor over onto his back, and stabs him with the weapon.
Then we see a title card, and a caption telling us that we're in the "present day" of the film. We're probably seeing a world in which a Mad Crapper makes logical sense. A bus for Charon High School nearly hits the camera. Ooooh, Charon...that movie is so deep and meaningful with the symbolism.
A guy with a clipboard approaches The Bus of The Living Damned, then we meet our pile of future dead bodies. There's Sommer, a ditzy, boy-crazy girl who's hung up on a jock named Steven; Maya, her hearing-impaired cousin; Steven, the aforementioned jock with the usual smug attitude; Harold, a chubby outsider with a domineering grandmother; an albino slacker named Brian; Andre, Steven's best friend; Jesse, a sullen girl with a creepy father; Trudy, an Asian girl who'd rather lounge in bed all day; Tyler, a scruffy-looking punk with a sense of humor; and Shawn, Steven's supposed-to-be-a-twin brother(who just found out that his girlfriend's pregnant...). That's quite a hefty cast, and there's still the bus driver and Mr. Smith, the teacher.
The journey finally begins! Mr. Smith begins by telling us that the reason they're all together is due to a class assignment that none of them turned in, something about the industrial revolution. As punishment, they have to waste a Saturday morning by visiting a railway museum, then writing a report about the experience.
Steven starts out on the wrong foot almost immediately, by coming on strong to Maya. Maya clearly insults his, um, "size", but Sommer leaves that part out when doing the translation. Still, Steven seems pretty thick, to not get that by watching what she was doing with her hands. I don't speak sign language, but it was incredibly obvious to me!
Shawn pulls a guitar out, and starts to just strum it at random. Then he spots a crudely made sign by the road that says DEATH'S DOOR. Wow, more symbolism. Groovy. And way subtle. Steven tries to ask his brother what's wrong, but he doesn't get much of a response.
At a railroad crossing(ooooooh!!!!), Jesse spots the guy with the pickaxe. Further up the road, she sees him again. Tyler also peers out the window, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. Jesse takes another look, but the killer has vanished.
The bus arrives at the museum, then Violet the Harvester decides to start yammering again. She confesses that she and her kind crave human souls, and what's a better place to eat someone's soul than a railway museum? Violet the Harvester explains that she is able to find the right souls with the help of an Ambassador, a human host who can identify the victims for her. Then I assume she kills her victims with deadly boring narration...
...and that's when Candyman shows up. Yeah, Tony Todd arrives on the scene, playing a museum curator named Mr. Steele. He grabs Harold by the head, then begins by telling the kids as many death-related railroad facts as he can recall. So really, he's just Bludworth from the Final Destination films, except in a train museum. Heck, why didn't they just call this Final Destination: The Little Engine That Killed? (Okay, seriously, somebody write that one down.)
Steele makes a threat that the class might not get home in one piece, then Tony Todd leaves the movie to go class up another movie with his presence. It's as if you can hear the film deflating as he exits. Then we see Shawn staring at a creepy guy in an old photograph portraying various railroad workers. A little girl points at the man, telling Shawn that she saw him standing by the road, just like Jesse reported earlier.
Steele spooks Shawn, then informs him that the guy in the picture is named Railroad Jack. Wait, didn't he leave? Seeing Railroad Jack is a bad omen, and Jack has somehow appeared to various people over the decades. Before Shawn gets away, Steele tries to warn him that there are some places where Jack can't go, but he doesn't elaborate in any sort of, you know, USEFUL way.
The students return to the bus(Oh, come ON! There's a guy who haunts railroads, you're at a railroad museum, but no one is getting killed there??? WTF?), and get ready to head back to the school, I guess. Steele, talking to himself, says that Jack will see them very soon.
As the sun sets, everyone on the bus looks like they're falling asleep. When are they supposed to write this mythical essay? And how are a gazillion kids going to write different essays, based on a scene that took less than 5 minutes to play out? How much weed was the writer smoking when he threw this together? And the most important question of all: Why, oh WHY are they all still alive at this point?
Jesse glances outside, and sees Railroad Jack yet again, still in the same pose. Maybe someone is just putting Railroad Jack statues out by the highway to mess with her head. Actually, that would be pretty hilarious. As Jesse tells Mr. Smith about the spooky figure, the killer shows up in the middle of the road. The bus swerves, crashes, then the screen turns red.
Some time later, Violet can be heard, asking the teens to come out and play. The kids all gradually wake up, and the bus is a mess, with seat cushions and various debris everywhere. No adults, but lost and lots of wrecked stuff. While the others start to fight amongst themselves and recover, Andre makes it a point to take a head-count and make sure that no one has been seriously hurt. That's also when they realize that the adults are missing.
Harold makes matters worse, by suggesting that the bus could explode. Andre orders him to calm down, so Harold starts to cry like a baby. I was going to say "blubber like a baby", but that's like shooting fish in a barrel. Great, now Harold's comparing their situation to The Hills Have Eyes. Ha, he wishes!
Then we see the bus from outside, as Railroad Jack surveys the situation. When they see him, do you think they'll say "Hi, Jack"? I hope so. Friendliness makes all the difference.
There seems to be some disagreement over whether or not they should exit the bus. Andre spots a brightly-lit carnival in the distance, and most of the others agree that it sounds like a good place to ask for assistance. Jesse begs them to stay, but only Shawn and Brian remain with her. Railroad Jack watches the larger group jump off the bus, and move in his general direction.
Shawn tells Jesse and Brian that they should join the others. Why? Because he intends to leave as well, but head down the road to watch for any other motorists. Where the heck is the killer, and why is he waiting so long? Hell, I'll kill some of these folks right now! Just ask me.
Everyone in the larger group is excited about the carnival, except for Trudy. She's whining because she wore flimsy sandals, and now she can't keep up. Making it even worse, she can sense Railroad Jack somewhere in the dark, and now she's scared that the others will abandon her.
The presence isn't the killer, it's Shawn. Wait, so he ditched the others to go have fun? What a douchebag. Hey, remember when Tony Todd was in the movie? Man, that was really terrific. I miss him.
Anyway, Trudy gets Andre to carry her the rest of the way. Then Harold gets winded, but no one offers to carry him to the carnival. Which looks deserted, by the way, as none of the rides are actually running. Gosh, it's almost like a....carnival of....SOULS! Symbol-freaking-ism!!!
The ticket window is being manned by a mannequin, so the teens just figure they get in for free. The carnival itself is also deserted. While the lights are all on, the rides themselves are as still as statues. No customers, no carnies, no one at all.
Trudy, Sommer and Maya approach a fancy carousel. While Trudy and Sommer sit down on the ride, Maya looks at the control panel, then turns the thing on. They all seem to be having a blast, even Maya, who's just watching.
The guys are trying out one of the carnival games, the strength-tester. You know, where you hit a platform with a hammer, and try to ring the bell at the top of the scale? Shawn reminds them that they need to find help, so they all move further into the carnival to resume the search. Well, minus Harold, who lingers behind to stare at the scale.
Back at the bus, both Jesse and Brian are wavering between bored and worried. The others have been gone for about an hour, though it's hard to say for sure, because Brian's watch has stopped. Sym. Bo. Lism. Jesse still thinks that the creepy guy in the road is lurking outside, so Brian suggests a search for weapons or supplies.
The quick search around the bus turns up an extra flashlight, and a road flare. Brian takes the flare, tells Jesse to honk the horn if she has any trouble, then he also heads to the carnival. Jesse watches him walk away, then she closes the bus door for protection. Oh, and we're now roughly at the mid-point of the movie, and STILL, nothing has happened. I've had more excitement during my last colonoscopy. Jack the Reaper might be the cure for severe cases of insomnia.
Maya, while watching the carousel, suddenly realizes that Trudy has disappeared, leaving only her coat behind. Maya turns the ride off, and explains to her cousin that Trudy is now gone. As they discuss whether or not to look for her, the guys arrive on the scene. My money's on "Trudy left the movie to be in a better movie", but I'm probably wrong.
Maya and Sommer argue about what to do next, and Sommer eventually convinces her cousin to go with her to rejoin the group. Then Harold gets the Tilt-A-Whirl ride up and running, momentarily becoming one of the popular kids. Good for him, NOW can we kill someone?
Shawn suddenly begs Harold to stop the ride, because he senses that something just ain't right. Then Brian wanders closer to the carnival, and the killer keeps tabs on the various characters, regardless of their various locations. As he watches the group standing in front of the ride, we see Brian arrive safely at the entrance to the carnival, where he extinguishes the flare. Yes, it's always a terrific idea to waste something that could save your life in an emergency.
The larger group run to a Whack-A-Mole game next, then one of those games where you throw a basketball up a ramp, and there's a net under the inclined section. Yeah, that game. Then some sort of racing game. Steven grabs a toy prize from the game, then gives it to Sommer.
Sommer, Steven, Andre and Harold go to the bumper cars next, and Sommer asks Steven if they can share a car. ^wink wink^ Steven calls her a bitch, then informs her that he only gave her the stuffed animal to be nice, but that he doesn't want to take it any further than that. Sommer stomps away in a huff, and Harold follows her.
In an attempt to woo Sommer, Harold offers to start up another ride, just for her to use, one of those monster-themed tunnel rides. Brian arrives just in time to see them ride into the tunnel together. There's a brief shot of Jesse staring sullenly at the carnival from a window on the bus, then we see Brian decide that he wants to ride the tunnel amusement as well.
He changes his mind, choosing to wait for the couple at the door. Unfortunately, the ride stops on the tracks, stranding them. Sommer suggests walking out, but Harold advises against it, worried that they might get electrocuted if it suddenly came back on while they were standing on the tracks.
Then Harold gets bold, putting his arm around Sommer. As he attempts to move in for a kiss, Sommer says "Ew,", and firmly rejects him. When he tries again, she tells him point-blank that she has no attraction to him whatsoever. Harold accuses her of being a slut, then he leaves her sitting there to find the exit himself.
Maya wanders around aimlessly, then returns to the carousel, getting a little disoriented in the process. Nothing cures dizziness better than more dizziness, so she tries to turn the carousel back on, then hops aboard. Something spooks her, and she stares up in awe at the massive ferris wheel. Yikes!
Oh okay, now I know why Maya was getting freaked out by the height of the structure: Tyler's up at the very tip-top of either the funhouse or the ferris wheel, and he's standing up to take a piss over the side of some kind of balcony. These characters are all incredibly smart aren't they? And yet, we're nearly at the one-hour mark, and they're all still alive and well. I guess maybe it's the killer who's the dumbass.
Harold is still waddling through the tunnel, cursing out the other teens, and carefully watching where he puts his feet. A bunch of fake cobwebs(What exactly is a cob, by the way? And why is it always covered in webs?) make him jumpy, and he gets somewhat confused about where he was heading. He nervously turns in various directions, then chooses one, and resumes walking. When he stops to brush at more webs in his face and hair, Jack the Reaper plants his weapon into Harold's back, and lifts him up toward the ceiling. FINALLY!
Then the ferris wheel begins to spin, even though none of the teens turned it on. While they're shouting and waving at Tyler from the ground, he's stumbling around, just trying not to plummet to his death. As the teens try frantically to turn the ride off, we get some really crappy film editing: Tyler can be seen falling toward some sharp-looking branches, yet he lands on a bare piece of pavement, with nary a tree or bush in sight. Man, it's like this movie was thrown together by some sort of a...a... mad crapper! Just imagine.
Anyway, they surround poor Tyler, and turn him over onto his back. Steven angrily decides that what happened was Brian's fault, even though Shawn points out that he wasn't near the control panel when the ride turned itself back on. Then Andre says that he saw Brian when they were all at the bumper cars. Yeah, that's really helpful.
Tyler suddenly has a spasm, coughing up a small amount of blood. They tell him to try to hang on while they get help, then Shawn and Steven argue over who will stay with him, and who will run for help. Andre gets fed up with the sibling rivalry, telling them both to go, while he watches over Tyler.
There's a brief segue back to the funhouse, where Brian wanders randomly into the chamber where Sommer has been waiting. A weapon is raised, then one of them is killed. But which one?
As Andre tries to keep Tyler alive, a blurry figure sprints past them. Andre sees the figure and decides to see who it was, but he promises to return to Tyler as soon as he can. As soon as he leaves, Jack approaches Tyler, finishing him off in seconds.
Back in the bus, Jesse jumps when she hears a sudden banging noise, coming from someplace just outside the vehicle. She sees someone moving around, and backs away from the windows. Then we see Brian bursting out of the tunnel ride at high speed. He tries to figure out what to do next, then sees Sommer's new stuffed animal ride by in the cart, covered in blood.
Before he can react, Steven jumps him. Shawn pulls his brother off of Brian, and it devolves into a shouting match, with everybody accusing everybody else of committing murder. Brian denies doing anything to Tyler, then relates to the twins the story about how Sommer was killed.
As the trio move to find the rest of the teens, Maya collides with poor Andre, who is now upset because he managed to lose track of Tyler. Maya tries to convey a message to him, but he has no idea what she's trying to say. Then Brian and the twins discover them, and we get more shouting and frantic explanations.
Brian shares his idea that the killer is somehow controlling the rides. Maya stares at him and backs away, then the others follow suit. Railroad Jack, looming directly behind the albino, lunges at him. Thrown to the ground by the impact, Brian loses his tinted sunglasses. He looks up at the killer, seeing that Railroad Jack has dark, empty eye sockets. As the others run away, Railroad Jack viciously stabs the teen several times.
Taking out the emergency flashlight, Jesse ventures out of the bus. Yeah, not too smart. She calls out to the darkness a few times, telling whoever is there to stop scaring her. After a few more nervous glances at the terrain, she wisely chooses to head back into the bus, slamming the emergency door shut again. So far, I'm rooting for her and Maya to live through this. They're the only really likable characters. (Well, yeah, Brian was a cool guy as well, but he's deader than disco at this point...)
Shawn grabs Maya's hand, and they retreat into a snack shack to hide from the killer. They hide, then watch as Steven and Andre scoot by to find refuge in a building covered in windows. Uhhh, something tells me that a WINDOW might not be the most effective hiding place when eluding a murdering psycho.
Anyway, Railroad Jack stops by, and quickly spots the pair of lunkheads. To their credit, both Andre and Steven do at least attempt to get through the glass maze, and Andre succeeds. Steven...eh, not so much. He more or less just stands there, and it's not too surprising when the others seem him get a blade through his head moments later.
Jesse, still crouched on the floor of the bus, has been crying. She jumps when she hears a thumping sound, followed by heavy breathing. Railroad Jack is literally over her head, walking along the roof. Then he leaps to the ground, hissing at her through the window. As he circles the vehicle and terrorizes her, Jesse tries to convince herself that it's all just a dream. Just as suddenly as the attack began, it stops.
Wait, how is Railroad Jack able to be at the bus AND the carnival at the same time?
Speaking of the carnival...Andre, Shawn and Maya are once again running away from the eyeless killer. They should try walking on their tiptoes. I mean, how hard can it be to hide from a guy with no eyes? Somehow, not only do they all manage to run around in a circle, but Andre also gets separated from the others.
Andre gets inside the snack stand, where he crouches down and tries to unlock the power of prayer. Maya lets Shawn drag her to a shooting gallery game, where they conceal themselves and grab one of the guns for protection. Jesse then has another run-in with Railroad Jack, and he leers at her through the window.
While hiding, Shawn confesses to Maya that he got his girlfriend pregnant. Being hunted has given him some perspective, and he makes a vow to be a good husband and father. If he lives, that is. He then admits that it's easier to say that sort of stuff to her, because she can't understand him. Maya lets him know, through pantomime, that she can, indeed, read lips. D'oh!
Andre then realizes that the killer knows where he is. They make eye(well, sort of...) contact, and Railroad Jack quickly corners the teen. Andre promises to hurt him, then promptly gets himself killed.
While huddled together in the shooting gallery, Shawn and Maya catch a glimpse of Railroad Jack wandering nearby. They swiftly duck back down, ans he seems to disappear when they dare to take another look. Shawn gets himself and Maya out of the booth, then turns back for the rifle. In that short amount of time, Railroad Jack teleports himself directly behind Maya.
He tries to get her, but Shawn intervenes, smacking him with the gun. As the maniac tries to turn his attention back to Maya, Shawn continues to bash him from behind. Then Railroad Jack tosses the boy aside, turns to Maya, and, grinning, says something to her in sign language.
Shawn tries to tell Maya to run toward something, but she doesn't get it. The momentary distraction allows the killer to surprise the deaf teen, and he drives his weapon through the side of her head, into her ear. Death by irony. And this movie's on my hit list, for killing the hottest girl in the story. Dagnabbit.
Shawn escapes, and comes to a halt in front of the carousel. He finds a very grim spectacle on display: The bodies of his friends, including the just-slaughtered Maya, have been propped up on the various carousel animals. He takes it all in, then realizes that the entrance is a few feet away. Finding a sudden rush of energy, he races to the ticket booth to escape.
He runs toward the bus, screaming for help. The killer is also running, and he appears to be catching up. Jesse sees them, and tells Shawn to run. She's very helpful. Shawn glances over his shoulder, then stops.
He sees a team of paramedics and rescue workers between him and the bus. Then there's a montage, replaying some of the death scenes, as well as Steele's cryptic hints about Railroad Jack. At the end of the flashback, Steele can be seen reading the obituaries of the various teens.
Okay, so I hate to keep harping on this one bit, but...WHY isn't this a movie in the Final Destination franchise? I mean, you have the large group dynamic, the car crash as the opening disaster, Tony Todd, the elaborately staged carnival-related deaths...Hell, just make the characters more interesting, tie in their deaths to the carnival itself, and you've got a ready-made sequel. Heck, they can even keep in the silly symbolic death hints to tease the audience a bit. It just seems like a wasted opportunity.
Anyway, let's see how it ends. There can't be much more to it, right? Okay, so Railroad Jack catches up to Shawn. He grabs him by the hair, then drags him, kicking and screaming, back toward the carnival.
Jesse gets upset, then slowly backs away from the rear window again. She hears a horse whinnying, and sees Railroad Jack ride up on a horse. Or maybe this is Horseback Jack, his brother, because his outfit is now a striped suit. Violet the Narrator starts talking again, and Jesse now realizes that there are several Jacks out there, probably waiting for her to give up.
Then we see a paramedic giving Shawn CPR. His partner advises him to stop, and they pronounce Shawn dead. Mr. Smith, the teacher, is being interviewed by an investigator, and he's busy blaming himself for the tragedy. As he wonders how he can possibly tell their loved ones what happened, another person announces that there was a survivor found in the bus: Jesse.
They extract her on a stretcher, assuring her that she's going to be fine. Violet disagrees, and the paramedics load the stretcher onto an ambulance. Jesse sits straight up, then screams. THE END
Well. That was fairly uneven. A good idea, some decent actors, but a horrible pace and a painfully obvious conclusion. And many obvious problems with the script, such as: Who the hell was Violet, and what was she doing as the narrator? Why did the actual mayhem have to take so long to be seen? And why was it so similar to Final Destination? 2.5 mad crapper killer trees out of 5.
And what did I learn from Jack the Reaper?
-Deaf girls are kinda hot.
-Carnivals are merely an excuse to lose your soul.
-Glass mazes are the worst hiding places ever.
Next up, one of those killer-toy movies from Charles Band. It's Doll Graveyard, which I'm not familiar with. Eh, maybe it'll surprise me by actually being decent. See you soon!
Anyway, I was hoping to watch a free movie on cable, but the one I wanted cost 4 bucks. On a channel I already subscribe to! Luckily, after I re-jiggered Netflix a bit, the very same film turned out to be available as a streaming movie, so I win either way. Which is my circuitous way of saying that today's SAW is Jack the Reaper. Yup, it's "Reaper", as opposed to "Ripper". I can already tell it's going to suck like a straw....it's taken me more effort to set it up than it probably took to MAKE the damned film. Fun, not-exasperated-at-all SPOILERS up ahead!
Yeesh, the opening credits for the production logo are already making me regret this choice. It's "A MAD CRAPPER PRODUCTION", complete with a crudely drawn jogger taking, yes, a crap. Seriously, why do I torture myself like this? Why couldn't I have been a raving fan of 4-star period dramas, or intricate political thrillers? Mad Crapper. They're gonna put that on my tombstone.
Anyway, 3 paragraphs in, and I haven't made it past the first production credit. A woman begins a speech, explaining that she and others like her are "harvesters", and that they control time and fate over humanity. Then she tells us that her name is Violet, and that the other harvesters call her "the great mother". Sure, whatever, just do something interesting!
Now we see a car accident. A guy climbs out of the car(which is tipped sideways), crawls away, and starts to shout over to his passenger, named Emma. A man steps into view, and the sailor asks him to see if his wife is okay. The anonymous stranger flips the wife's body over with a large pickaxe, pulls her upright by her hair, then drags the corpse away. The sailor, dumbfounded, screams at him. Then the stranger returns, flips the sailor over onto his back, and stabs him with the weapon.
Then we see a title card, and a caption telling us that we're in the "present day" of the film. We're probably seeing a world in which a Mad Crapper makes logical sense. A bus for Charon High School nearly hits the camera. Ooooh, Charon...that movie is so deep and meaningful with the symbolism.
A guy with a clipboard approaches The Bus of The Living Damned, then we meet our pile of future dead bodies. There's Sommer, a ditzy, boy-crazy girl who's hung up on a jock named Steven; Maya, her hearing-impaired cousin; Steven, the aforementioned jock with the usual smug attitude; Harold, a chubby outsider with a domineering grandmother; an albino slacker named Brian; Andre, Steven's best friend; Jesse, a sullen girl with a creepy father; Trudy, an Asian girl who'd rather lounge in bed all day; Tyler, a scruffy-looking punk with a sense of humor; and Shawn, Steven's supposed-to-be-a-twin brother(who just found out that his girlfriend's pregnant...). That's quite a hefty cast, and there's still the bus driver and Mr. Smith, the teacher.
The journey finally begins! Mr. Smith begins by telling us that the reason they're all together is due to a class assignment that none of them turned in, something about the industrial revolution. As punishment, they have to waste a Saturday morning by visiting a railway museum, then writing a report about the experience.
Steven starts out on the wrong foot almost immediately, by coming on strong to Maya. Maya clearly insults his, um, "size", but Sommer leaves that part out when doing the translation. Still, Steven seems pretty thick, to not get that by watching what she was doing with her hands. I don't speak sign language, but it was incredibly obvious to me!
Shawn pulls a guitar out, and starts to just strum it at random. Then he spots a crudely made sign by the road that says DEATH'S DOOR. Wow, more symbolism. Groovy. And way subtle. Steven tries to ask his brother what's wrong, but he doesn't get much of a response.
At a railroad crossing(ooooooh!!!!), Jesse spots the guy with the pickaxe. Further up the road, she sees him again. Tyler also peers out the window, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. Jesse takes another look, but the killer has vanished.
The bus arrives at the museum, then Violet the Harvester decides to start yammering again. She confesses that she and her kind crave human souls, and what's a better place to eat someone's soul than a railway museum? Violet the Harvester explains that she is able to find the right souls with the help of an Ambassador, a human host who can identify the victims for her. Then I assume she kills her victims with deadly boring narration...
...and that's when Candyman shows up. Yeah, Tony Todd arrives on the scene, playing a museum curator named Mr. Steele. He grabs Harold by the head, then begins by telling the kids as many death-related railroad facts as he can recall. So really, he's just Bludworth from the Final Destination films, except in a train museum. Heck, why didn't they just call this Final Destination: The Little Engine That Killed? (Okay, seriously, somebody write that one down.)
Steele makes a threat that the class might not get home in one piece, then Tony Todd leaves the movie to go class up another movie with his presence. It's as if you can hear the film deflating as he exits. Then we see Shawn staring at a creepy guy in an old photograph portraying various railroad workers. A little girl points at the man, telling Shawn that she saw him standing by the road, just like Jesse reported earlier.
Steele spooks Shawn, then informs him that the guy in the picture is named Railroad Jack. Wait, didn't he leave? Seeing Railroad Jack is a bad omen, and Jack has somehow appeared to various people over the decades. Before Shawn gets away, Steele tries to warn him that there are some places where Jack can't go, but he doesn't elaborate in any sort of, you know, USEFUL way.
The students return to the bus(Oh, come ON! There's a guy who haunts railroads, you're at a railroad museum, but no one is getting killed there??? WTF?), and get ready to head back to the school, I guess. Steele, talking to himself, says that Jack will see them very soon.
As the sun sets, everyone on the bus looks like they're falling asleep. When are they supposed to write this mythical essay? And how are a gazillion kids going to write different essays, based on a scene that took less than 5 minutes to play out? How much weed was the writer smoking when he threw this together? And the most important question of all: Why, oh WHY are they all still alive at this point?
Jesse glances outside, and sees Railroad Jack yet again, still in the same pose. Maybe someone is just putting Railroad Jack statues out by the highway to mess with her head. Actually, that would be pretty hilarious. As Jesse tells Mr. Smith about the spooky figure, the killer shows up in the middle of the road. The bus swerves, crashes, then the screen turns red.
Some time later, Violet can be heard, asking the teens to come out and play. The kids all gradually wake up, and the bus is a mess, with seat cushions and various debris everywhere. No adults, but lost and lots of wrecked stuff. While the others start to fight amongst themselves and recover, Andre makes it a point to take a head-count and make sure that no one has been seriously hurt. That's also when they realize that the adults are missing.
Harold makes matters worse, by suggesting that the bus could explode. Andre orders him to calm down, so Harold starts to cry like a baby. I was going to say "blubber like a baby", but that's like shooting fish in a barrel. Great, now Harold's comparing their situation to The Hills Have Eyes. Ha, he wishes!
Then we see the bus from outside, as Railroad Jack surveys the situation. When they see him, do you think they'll say "Hi, Jack"? I hope so. Friendliness makes all the difference.
There seems to be some disagreement over whether or not they should exit the bus. Andre spots a brightly-lit carnival in the distance, and most of the others agree that it sounds like a good place to ask for assistance. Jesse begs them to stay, but only Shawn and Brian remain with her. Railroad Jack watches the larger group jump off the bus, and move in his general direction.
Shawn tells Jesse and Brian that they should join the others. Why? Because he intends to leave as well, but head down the road to watch for any other motorists. Where the heck is the killer, and why is he waiting so long? Hell, I'll kill some of these folks right now! Just ask me.
Everyone in the larger group is excited about the carnival, except for Trudy. She's whining because she wore flimsy sandals, and now she can't keep up. Making it even worse, she can sense Railroad Jack somewhere in the dark, and now she's scared that the others will abandon her.
The presence isn't the killer, it's Shawn. Wait, so he ditched the others to go have fun? What a douchebag. Hey, remember when Tony Todd was in the movie? Man, that was really terrific. I miss him.
Anyway, Trudy gets Andre to carry her the rest of the way. Then Harold gets winded, but no one offers to carry him to the carnival. Which looks deserted, by the way, as none of the rides are actually running. Gosh, it's almost like a....carnival of....SOULS! Symbol-freaking-ism!!!
The ticket window is being manned by a mannequin, so the teens just figure they get in for free. The carnival itself is also deserted. While the lights are all on, the rides themselves are as still as statues. No customers, no carnies, no one at all.
Trudy, Sommer and Maya approach a fancy carousel. While Trudy and Sommer sit down on the ride, Maya looks at the control panel, then turns the thing on. They all seem to be having a blast, even Maya, who's just watching.
The guys are trying out one of the carnival games, the strength-tester. You know, where you hit a platform with a hammer, and try to ring the bell at the top of the scale? Shawn reminds them that they need to find help, so they all move further into the carnival to resume the search. Well, minus Harold, who lingers behind to stare at the scale.
Back at the bus, both Jesse and Brian are wavering between bored and worried. The others have been gone for about an hour, though it's hard to say for sure, because Brian's watch has stopped. Sym. Bo. Lism. Jesse still thinks that the creepy guy in the road is lurking outside, so Brian suggests a search for weapons or supplies.
The quick search around the bus turns up an extra flashlight, and a road flare. Brian takes the flare, tells Jesse to honk the horn if she has any trouble, then he also heads to the carnival. Jesse watches him walk away, then she closes the bus door for protection. Oh, and we're now roughly at the mid-point of the movie, and STILL, nothing has happened. I've had more excitement during my last colonoscopy. Jack the Reaper might be the cure for severe cases of insomnia.
Maya, while watching the carousel, suddenly realizes that Trudy has disappeared, leaving only her coat behind. Maya turns the ride off, and explains to her cousin that Trudy is now gone. As they discuss whether or not to look for her, the guys arrive on the scene. My money's on "Trudy left the movie to be in a better movie", but I'm probably wrong.
Maya and Sommer argue about what to do next, and Sommer eventually convinces her cousin to go with her to rejoin the group. Then Harold gets the Tilt-A-Whirl ride up and running, momentarily becoming one of the popular kids. Good for him, NOW can we kill someone?
Shawn suddenly begs Harold to stop the ride, because he senses that something just ain't right. Then Brian wanders closer to the carnival, and the killer keeps tabs on the various characters, regardless of their various locations. As he watches the group standing in front of the ride, we see Brian arrive safely at the entrance to the carnival, where he extinguishes the flare. Yes, it's always a terrific idea to waste something that could save your life in an emergency.
The larger group run to a Whack-A-Mole game next, then one of those games where you throw a basketball up a ramp, and there's a net under the inclined section. Yeah, that game. Then some sort of racing game. Steven grabs a toy prize from the game, then gives it to Sommer.
Sommer, Steven, Andre and Harold go to the bumper cars next, and Sommer asks Steven if they can share a car. ^wink wink^ Steven calls her a bitch, then informs her that he only gave her the stuffed animal to be nice, but that he doesn't want to take it any further than that. Sommer stomps away in a huff, and Harold follows her.
In an attempt to woo Sommer, Harold offers to start up another ride, just for her to use, one of those monster-themed tunnel rides. Brian arrives just in time to see them ride into the tunnel together. There's a brief shot of Jesse staring sullenly at the carnival from a window on the bus, then we see Brian decide that he wants to ride the tunnel amusement as well.
He changes his mind, choosing to wait for the couple at the door. Unfortunately, the ride stops on the tracks, stranding them. Sommer suggests walking out, but Harold advises against it, worried that they might get electrocuted if it suddenly came back on while they were standing on the tracks.
Then Harold gets bold, putting his arm around Sommer. As he attempts to move in for a kiss, Sommer says "Ew,", and firmly rejects him. When he tries again, she tells him point-blank that she has no attraction to him whatsoever. Harold accuses her of being a slut, then he leaves her sitting there to find the exit himself.
Maya wanders around aimlessly, then returns to the carousel, getting a little disoriented in the process. Nothing cures dizziness better than more dizziness, so she tries to turn the carousel back on, then hops aboard. Something spooks her, and she stares up in awe at the massive ferris wheel. Yikes!
Oh okay, now I know why Maya was getting freaked out by the height of the structure: Tyler's up at the very tip-top of either the funhouse or the ferris wheel, and he's standing up to take a piss over the side of some kind of balcony. These characters are all incredibly smart aren't they? And yet, we're nearly at the one-hour mark, and they're all still alive and well. I guess maybe it's the killer who's the dumbass.
Harold is still waddling through the tunnel, cursing out the other teens, and carefully watching where he puts his feet. A bunch of fake cobwebs(What exactly is a cob, by the way? And why is it always covered in webs?) make him jumpy, and he gets somewhat confused about where he was heading. He nervously turns in various directions, then chooses one, and resumes walking. When he stops to brush at more webs in his face and hair, Jack the Reaper plants his weapon into Harold's back, and lifts him up toward the ceiling. FINALLY!
Then the ferris wheel begins to spin, even though none of the teens turned it on. While they're shouting and waving at Tyler from the ground, he's stumbling around, just trying not to plummet to his death. As the teens try frantically to turn the ride off, we get some really crappy film editing: Tyler can be seen falling toward some sharp-looking branches, yet he lands on a bare piece of pavement, with nary a tree or bush in sight. Man, it's like this movie was thrown together by some sort of a...a... mad crapper! Just imagine.
Anyway, they surround poor Tyler, and turn him over onto his back. Steven angrily decides that what happened was Brian's fault, even though Shawn points out that he wasn't near the control panel when the ride turned itself back on. Then Andre says that he saw Brian when they were all at the bumper cars. Yeah, that's really helpful.
Tyler suddenly has a spasm, coughing up a small amount of blood. They tell him to try to hang on while they get help, then Shawn and Steven argue over who will stay with him, and who will run for help. Andre gets fed up with the sibling rivalry, telling them both to go, while he watches over Tyler.
There's a brief segue back to the funhouse, where Brian wanders randomly into the chamber where Sommer has been waiting. A weapon is raised, then one of them is killed. But which one?
As Andre tries to keep Tyler alive, a blurry figure sprints past them. Andre sees the figure and decides to see who it was, but he promises to return to Tyler as soon as he can. As soon as he leaves, Jack approaches Tyler, finishing him off in seconds.
Back in the bus, Jesse jumps when she hears a sudden banging noise, coming from someplace just outside the vehicle. She sees someone moving around, and backs away from the windows. Then we see Brian bursting out of the tunnel ride at high speed. He tries to figure out what to do next, then sees Sommer's new stuffed animal ride by in the cart, covered in blood.
Before he can react, Steven jumps him. Shawn pulls his brother off of Brian, and it devolves into a shouting match, with everybody accusing everybody else of committing murder. Brian denies doing anything to Tyler, then relates to the twins the story about how Sommer was killed.
As the trio move to find the rest of the teens, Maya collides with poor Andre, who is now upset because he managed to lose track of Tyler. Maya tries to convey a message to him, but he has no idea what she's trying to say. Then Brian and the twins discover them, and we get more shouting and frantic explanations.
Brian shares his idea that the killer is somehow controlling the rides. Maya stares at him and backs away, then the others follow suit. Railroad Jack, looming directly behind the albino, lunges at him. Thrown to the ground by the impact, Brian loses his tinted sunglasses. He looks up at the killer, seeing that Railroad Jack has dark, empty eye sockets. As the others run away, Railroad Jack viciously stabs the teen several times.
Taking out the emergency flashlight, Jesse ventures out of the bus. Yeah, not too smart. She calls out to the darkness a few times, telling whoever is there to stop scaring her. After a few more nervous glances at the terrain, she wisely chooses to head back into the bus, slamming the emergency door shut again. So far, I'm rooting for her and Maya to live through this. They're the only really likable characters. (Well, yeah, Brian was a cool guy as well, but he's deader than disco at this point...)
Shawn grabs Maya's hand, and they retreat into a snack shack to hide from the killer. They hide, then watch as Steven and Andre scoot by to find refuge in a building covered in windows. Uhhh, something tells me that a WINDOW might not be the most effective hiding place when eluding a murdering psycho.
Anyway, Railroad Jack stops by, and quickly spots the pair of lunkheads. To their credit, both Andre and Steven do at least attempt to get through the glass maze, and Andre succeeds. Steven...eh, not so much. He more or less just stands there, and it's not too surprising when the others seem him get a blade through his head moments later.
Jesse, still crouched on the floor of the bus, has been crying. She jumps when she hears a thumping sound, followed by heavy breathing. Railroad Jack is literally over her head, walking along the roof. Then he leaps to the ground, hissing at her through the window. As he circles the vehicle and terrorizes her, Jesse tries to convince herself that it's all just a dream. Just as suddenly as the attack began, it stops.
Wait, how is Railroad Jack able to be at the bus AND the carnival at the same time?
Speaking of the carnival...Andre, Shawn and Maya are once again running away from the eyeless killer. They should try walking on their tiptoes. I mean, how hard can it be to hide from a guy with no eyes? Somehow, not only do they all manage to run around in a circle, but Andre also gets separated from the others.
Andre gets inside the snack stand, where he crouches down and tries to unlock the power of prayer. Maya lets Shawn drag her to a shooting gallery game, where they conceal themselves and grab one of the guns for protection. Jesse then has another run-in with Railroad Jack, and he leers at her through the window.
While hiding, Shawn confesses to Maya that he got his girlfriend pregnant. Being hunted has given him some perspective, and he makes a vow to be a good husband and father. If he lives, that is. He then admits that it's easier to say that sort of stuff to her, because she can't understand him. Maya lets him know, through pantomime, that she can, indeed, read lips. D'oh!
Andre then realizes that the killer knows where he is. They make eye(well, sort of...) contact, and Railroad Jack quickly corners the teen. Andre promises to hurt him, then promptly gets himself killed.
While huddled together in the shooting gallery, Shawn and Maya catch a glimpse of Railroad Jack wandering nearby. They swiftly duck back down, ans he seems to disappear when they dare to take another look. Shawn gets himself and Maya out of the booth, then turns back for the rifle. In that short amount of time, Railroad Jack teleports himself directly behind Maya.
He tries to get her, but Shawn intervenes, smacking him with the gun. As the maniac tries to turn his attention back to Maya, Shawn continues to bash him from behind. Then Railroad Jack tosses the boy aside, turns to Maya, and, grinning, says something to her in sign language.
Shawn tries to tell Maya to run toward something, but she doesn't get it. The momentary distraction allows the killer to surprise the deaf teen, and he drives his weapon through the side of her head, into her ear. Death by irony. And this movie's on my hit list, for killing the hottest girl in the story. Dagnabbit.
Shawn escapes, and comes to a halt in front of the carousel. He finds a very grim spectacle on display: The bodies of his friends, including the just-slaughtered Maya, have been propped up on the various carousel animals. He takes it all in, then realizes that the entrance is a few feet away. Finding a sudden rush of energy, he races to the ticket booth to escape.
He runs toward the bus, screaming for help. The killer is also running, and he appears to be catching up. Jesse sees them, and tells Shawn to run. She's very helpful. Shawn glances over his shoulder, then stops.
He sees a team of paramedics and rescue workers between him and the bus. Then there's a montage, replaying some of the death scenes, as well as Steele's cryptic hints about Railroad Jack. At the end of the flashback, Steele can be seen reading the obituaries of the various teens.
Okay, so I hate to keep harping on this one bit, but...WHY isn't this a movie in the Final Destination franchise? I mean, you have the large group dynamic, the car crash as the opening disaster, Tony Todd, the elaborately staged carnival-related deaths...Hell, just make the characters more interesting, tie in their deaths to the carnival itself, and you've got a ready-made sequel. Heck, they can even keep in the silly symbolic death hints to tease the audience a bit. It just seems like a wasted opportunity.
Anyway, let's see how it ends. There can't be much more to it, right? Okay, so Railroad Jack catches up to Shawn. He grabs him by the hair, then drags him, kicking and screaming, back toward the carnival.
Jesse gets upset, then slowly backs away from the rear window again. She hears a horse whinnying, and sees Railroad Jack ride up on a horse. Or maybe this is Horseback Jack, his brother, because his outfit is now a striped suit. Violet the Narrator starts talking again, and Jesse now realizes that there are several Jacks out there, probably waiting for her to give up.
Then we see a paramedic giving Shawn CPR. His partner advises him to stop, and they pronounce Shawn dead. Mr. Smith, the teacher, is being interviewed by an investigator, and he's busy blaming himself for the tragedy. As he wonders how he can possibly tell their loved ones what happened, another person announces that there was a survivor found in the bus: Jesse.
They extract her on a stretcher, assuring her that she's going to be fine. Violet disagrees, and the paramedics load the stretcher onto an ambulance. Jesse sits straight up, then screams. THE END
Well. That was fairly uneven. A good idea, some decent actors, but a horrible pace and a painfully obvious conclusion. And many obvious problems with the script, such as: Who the hell was Violet, and what was she doing as the narrator? Why did the actual mayhem have to take so long to be seen? And why was it so similar to Final Destination? 2.5 mad crapper killer trees out of 5.
And what did I learn from Jack the Reaper?
-Deaf girls are kinda hot.
-Carnivals are merely an excuse to lose your soul.
-Glass mazes are the worst hiding places ever.
Next up, one of those killer-toy movies from Charles Band. It's Doll Graveyard, which I'm not familiar with. Eh, maybe it'll surprise me by actually being decent. See you soon!
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