Big Foot looks scarier in this poster than he does in the movie

The “giant creature” subgenre of horror b-movies has never really been my favorite. The stories and plot development are usually pretty standard – the unaware soon-to-be victims + giant creatures + bloody death = The end.  I was mildly surprised however, in that “Abominable” was a pretty decent b-horror movie, full of drama and suspense. It was hampered by only a few of the usual b-movie faux-pas, and its good points eventually balanced out the negative ones successfully.

The main storyline of the movie follows actor Matt McCoy, as Preston Rogers, an author who’s wife was killed 6 months earlier in a climbing accident which also resulted in his own legs being paralyzed. Preston was traumatized psychologically by the accident and upon his doctor’s advice, he returns to the cabin where the accident occurred, in an attempt to speed up his emotional healing.

Otis, not giving Big Foot a dental exam

Accompanying Preston, is a miscast male nurse, Otis (Christien Tinsley), who reminded me of an older version of Danny Masterson’s  character on “That 70’s Show”. Strangely enough, he comes across not so much as a nurse, but as an unwilling companion, genuinely annoyed by Preston and his insecurities. Otis even goes so far as to spike his own milk with alcohol and chill out on the couch. Not something I would expect a home health nurse to be doing much of. I’m not really sure what his purpose actually was in the movie. Besides being generally apathetic toward Preston, he’s pretty much absent for a large portion of the film because he’s out looking for a store in the backwoods podunk town that carries Preston’s soy milk, which he forgot to pack.

One of the hot chicks next door, post-Big Foot

While Otis is out, a bunch of hot young girls show up to spend the weekend in the cabin next door, and Preston, being stuck in a wheelchair, has nothing to do besides spy on them with a pair of binoculars while feeling sorry for himself. During his spying, he sees one of the girls get kidnapped by Big Foot as she’s talking outside on her cell phone. Drama quickly ensues as Preston tries to get messages to the other girls, the police and Otis, but to no avail, as they all believe he’s some psychologically messed up, delusional “peeping Tom”.

Preston Rogers looking nervously intense

The character of Preston was generally likeable throughout the movie.  He had an innate nervous creepiness about him which I attributed to a vague resemblance to Anthony Perkins  as Norman Bates  in “Psycho”. This seemed to make it harder to determine if he was really a good guy or not, especially with his spying habit. However, his character seemed rather clueless for an author, and it seemed like he whispered his lines throughout the whole movie ( I guess to avoid being heard by Big Foot?). His lack of energy and overall monotone voice made the extended scenes involving him alone in the cabin even longer than they were.

*sigh* Lance rules the horror genre

About 45 minutes into the movie, we get a break from Preston with a separate subplot involving movie icon Lance Henriksen, as one of 3 local men camping in the woods, hoping to find and kill the alleged “Big Foot” creature. This scene, although excellently acted, did not quite mesh with the rest of the movie and seemed to run a bit long, almost to the point where it feels like you’re watching a different movie altogether. We see about 5 minutes of sarcastic macho banter between the woodsy men, that is actually amusing, before Lance’s character, Ziegler Dane, hears a noise and goes running off in the direction of where he thinks Big Foot might be. The scene is almost satirical in that the men are obviously not the “sharpest tools in the shed” and yet they are joking about people that died doing stupid things, a la the “Darwin Awards.” Soon after, we subsequently see Ziegler go running off after Big Foot by himself, into the creature’s cave no less, and becoming the first of the three to earn their own “Darwin Awards” at the hands of Big Foot.

Oooooh...scary lighting on white skin. Big Foot likes this.

The lighting and effects throughout the entire movie, especially the scenes involving Preston, were successful in helping create a “spooky” atmosphere. At one point, Big Foot knocks down power lines so a lot of the scenes inside Preston’s cabin are eerily lit, with a foggy glow highlighting Preston’s face, much like the spooky flashlight effect often used when people are portrayed telling ghost stories. The scenes toward the end where Preston and the last surviving girl, Amanda (Haley Joel) are trying to escape to the car are especially enhanced by rapid flashes of light in the dark which seem to add to the panicked effect on screen.

"Why the hell am I up this early?"

Separated at birth?

Overall, “Abominable” was a smartly directed, tension-filled b-horror movie with fairly good acting. In fact, I was able to take the movie fairly seriously until a point near the end where the viewer is shown a close-up of “Big Foot’s” face. The face on the Big Foot creature was such a ridiculous caricature, that in the most intense escape scene at the end, I couldn’t help but bust out loud laughing because Big Foot looks like Fozzie Bear’s  maniac cousin gone wrong. I mean, it seems like a decent effort was put into the rest of the movie but someone didn’t quite understand the meaning behind making a “realistically frightening” creature. In fact, it seemed like they tried to create a brown version of the “Abominable snowman” from the stop-motion animation movie “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” from 1964. On my personal cheese wedge rating scale however, the Big Foot creature added many points to the movie’s cheesiness so it ends up with a total of 3.5 cheese wedges, for pretty good quality and average cheesiness.

Tara Reid looking confused after reading the movie script

I decided to review “Incubus” because invariably, every time I’ve sat down to watch TV in the past month, it’s been showing on Chiller, so I’ve unwittingly been subjected to portions of it enough times to equal watching the whole movie at least twice. Despite the repeated viewings, this movie is so poorly written that it took reading plot summaries on the internet (some of them even conflicting) to realize what the movie was really about. Bad writing, combined with disjointed scenes and my brain automatically tuning out Tara Reid’s monotonous drivel when she explained certain key plot moments at length, added up to one horribly frustrating disaster of a movie.

The premise of the movie is the overused, “friends on a road trip, car breaks down because of accident and they are forced to find shelter in a mysterious building” theme that makes you wonder why so many people seem to forget to use common sense when driving with a car full of people in deserted forest areas. Once the inevitable breakdown happens, Tara Reid’s character Jay, and her friends (except for one who decides to stay with the car for no known reason other than proving she is the smartest of the bunch) discover a deserted building/laboratory/abandoned zombie movie set, fall in through a roof and subsequently get trapped inside.

Scary androgynous skinny white boy

Of course, they proceed to alarmingly discover several dead bodies of scientists, plus one who’s still alive and insane, and a semi-naked unconscious bald guy locked in a glass cell with tubes protruding from all over his body, making him look like a skinny white boy version of Frankenstein. The remaining insane scientist kills Jay’s brother Josh while he looks for a generator. Soon after they all find a key to unlock the glass cell and so begins Jay’s obsessive attempt to solve the mystery of the freak in the cell, despite the fact that her brother just died a few moments before.

Jay, a medical student (what?) flips through a few folders and video tapes, and amazingly deduces that the freak in the cell is a convicted murderer who’s execution was faked so the government could use him as a test subject in “remote viewing” experiments. As a result, the “Sleeper” as he’s called, has the ability to invade people’s minds when they are sleeping and take control over their bodies, which explains the deaths of the scientists.

Tara Reid and friends, shockingly wandering the forest

The characters spend the rest of the movie alternately panicking about trying to find a way out of the compound, and trying to analyze the “Sleeper”. This somehow leads to them each falling asleep (like that would happen when you’re in a scary scientific compound full of dead people), being possessed by the freak, and killing each other to the point where the only ones left are Jay (Tara Reid, of course) and the Sleeper. I oversimplified this part, but what I wrote actually makes more sense when you leave out all the unnecessary specifics.

We are so excited to be filming this movie.

I won’t go into greater detail because this movie has so many incongruities it took me several days just to paste together this extremely basic summary. The bland hospital-like colors of the compound they spend the whole movie in, and the hazy, dim lighting further added to my inability to pay attention to the movie for longer than 30 seconds at a time. The only thing that occasionally startled me out of my zombie-like daze was Tara’s hysterical “hiccup sobbing” that occurred at random inappropriate moments throughout the movie.

Tara Reid's "Oscar moment"

It was not surprising that Tara Reid’s character was the one to survive since so much of the movie’s camera shots are devoted to her and her boobs. It’s clear that Tara was meant to stand out in her bright aqua low cut shirt, with gratuitous bend-over shots and repetitive bouncy jogs through the halls that had no direct correlation to the movie. At some point in my life and I can’t remember why, I actually thought Tara Reid was a good actress. I don’t know if it’s because of the excessive weight of her over-sized breast implants, but throughout this movie, it seemed the extent of her dramatic talent was having a constant look on her face that seemed to express a chronic state of painful constipation.

Doesn't this pink lighting make me look scary...

The “Sleeper” character was the only part of the movie that was mildly creepy. Whoever did his make-up job succeeded in creating the unnervingly androgynous android/zombie that I didn’t know I feared until seeing this movie. Even more disturbing was the fact that he could sing creepy sing-song warnings to Jay (“Jay Jay, I’m coming to get you girl, I want to be inside you…[um, what?]) despite the fact that we learn earlier that he bit off his own tongue when he was a child. And although we think Jay kills him in the end, we get a flicker of an attempted movie twist when Jay is rescued (and arrested?) and her eyes glow at the camera as a “sign” that the “Sleeper” did in fact, get his wish of “being inside her”.

Tara Reid...or is it?

It was finally at this point that I was able to make the connection of why the title of the movie is “Incubus” – a lascivious male demon who possesses women while they sleep, impregnating them, or in this case, impregnating themselves into the woman’s brain. It might have helped if the title connection was a bit more obvious earlier in the movie to at least give the viewer some direction of its overall point.

A poster that actually makes the movie seem scary

Basically, this movie was horrid. I can’t believe Chiller played it so many times, forcing me to endure it’s horribleness repeatedly. I forgot to mention that this movie was created with the purpose of being the first “direct-to-download” film, sold exclusively through DVD. This was not a good movie to use to set an example for a new method of movie distribution. I think it doomed the assumed “quality” of all future “direct-to-download” releases.

Plus, I never realized how hard it was to construct a review of a movie that had a horribly disjointed plot. I wasted way too much time on trying to figure this movie out because I don’t really think it was ever supposed to make sense. The target audience of this movie was young males who would be hypnotized by the bouncing of Tara Reid’s giant botched boob-job breasts, thus rendering the need for a discernible plot pointless. Overall, “Incubus” gets one-half of a cheese wedge out of five for just being crap – no quality and not even any real cheesiness to enjoy. Just crap.

Wrong Turn 2 : Dead End DVD cover

I’ve been a long time fan of Henry Rollins, so when I saw that he was starring in the horror sequel “Wrong Turn 2” I knew that no matter how bad the movie might possibly be, there was at least one thing I would like about it. I just hoped it wouldn’t be so disastrous as to damage Henry’s credibility, because after all, he spends a lot of time criticizing others for making stupid decisions. After watching the movie, I’m happy to say that I still have complete faith in Henry’s judgement and his assumed authority to ridicule the general population’s lack of intelligence remains unquestionably intact.

The original “Wrong Turn” was a moderate box-office success  that paved the way for possible attempts to recreate that success in the form of sequels. This situation is usually a crap shoot as a majority of said sequels end up as direct-to-DVD releases with less than stellar reviews. This fact may be a handicap that the sequel “Wrong Turn 2” had been saddled with from the get-go, because it didn’t receive much respect when it was being produced. As a result, and I believe no reflection on the actual movie itself, it skipped the box office and went straight to DVD and b-movie purgatory, the Syfy channel.

Henry Rollins, Aleksa Palladino and Erica Leerhsen standing by an "apocalyptic" helicopter prop

“Wrong Turn 2” was definitely not your typical half-assed b-movie sequel. This was immediately evident in the fact that director Joel Lynch made the decision to not take the subject matter of the movie too seriously. The plot of the movie revolves around six “Survivor”-type reality show contestants who, while trying to survive in the wilderness of West Virginia, accidentally cross paths with a large family of inbred, deformed, superhuman cannibal mutants. Added to this group is Henry Rollins who plays the host of the reality show, Retired Marine Colonel Dale Murphy, a character who could give R. Lee Ermey’s Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann a run for his money.

Daniella Alonso and Crystal Lowe looking bored in the WV wilderness

The first half of the movie mainly centers around getting to know the intentionally stereotypical contestants so that you actually care about whether they die or not, and in my opinion, this is the best part of the movie. The character’s personalities are displayed to the viewer in a rapid-fire manner with plenty of inside jokes and innuendos that keep the movie rolling at an entertaining pace that would engross even the most ADD-challenged viewer.

Faux "Ultimate Survivor: Apocalypse" set

The stereotypes represented here are the cold-hearted “gothy” tough girl, the shy but logical “good girl” producer turned unwilling contestant, the lesbian hard-ass Marine, the all-American jock good guy, the slut trying to make it big in Hollywood using her ‘assets’, and the only seriously annoying character – the ‘stuck on himself’, thinks-he’s-funny-but-he’s-not wanna-be skater boy. The verbal interplay between these characters is genius. It pokes fun at the stereotypes, as well as reality show contestants in general. In fact, the first 10 minutes or so of the movie centers on a character played by Kimberly Caldwell, a contestant on the 2nd season of American Idol, that actually pokes fun at herself and other reality show wanna-be Hollywood ‘stars’. I was actually impressed by her acting in her brief, but memorable opening sequence and her ability to poke fun at herself increased my respect for her tremendously.

Inbred Cannibalistic Redneck Mutant

As far as the inbred mutants go, their main purpose is to provide the massive amounts of gore that this movie throws at the audience. If you have a weak stomach, no matter how cheesy the special effects are, the loud squishing sounds with gallons of fake blood and guts may still be too much for you to handle. Creatively impossible mutilations abound as the rednecks delight at finding new ways to torture their victims before cooking them for the family dinner. The redneck mutants themselves are hideous, but not in a realistically terrifying way. In fact, they came across more like ‘Muppets gone wrong’ to me…their deformed features looking a little too plastic and synthetic to be truly terrifying.

Mutant with a "fresh" hairpiece about to filet Henry Rollins

The second half of the movie pretty much shows the reality show contestants realizing what is actually going on, and trying to escape the clutches of the Muppet rednecks. This part was a little tedious as the smart-ass interactions between the contestants in the first half, was replaced with close-ups of the rednecks chomping, chewing andcutting away at the human flesh they were dining on for basically the whole second half of the movie. The movie could have been equally entertaining throughout if they had meshed the first and secondhalves together a little bit better. The second half needed more of the humorous one-liners to prevent it from slipping into the typical b-movie hacker/slasher formula that gets a bit tedious when dragged out too long. It was a mish-mosh of continuous killing and maiming that eventually got confusing, focusing too much on the interactions of the mutants which didn’t actually make much sense to those of us who are not mentally challenged by exposure to toxic waste.

Henry about to cap some mutant ass

Of course, the best part of the whole movie was the performance by the highly esteemed badass Henry Rollins. Personally, I know that if I was lost in a wilderness full of inbred cannibal mutants, I’d want Henry there to protect my ass. Immediately at the beginning of the movie when Henry’s character narrates the opening to the reality show “Ultimate Survivor: Apocalypse”, you know he’s delivering his part with the same intensity as he would one of his “Spoken Word” performances.

Henry Rollins, "The man, the myth, the legend"

Henry has the best lines, and the most awesome fight scenes that I’ve seen in any horror b-movie. When Henry goes fist-to-cleft-lip with the inbred cannibals, it’s almost a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ homage to a virtual “redneck Matrix”.  And nothing can beat Henry getting shot with 2 arrows and then barking at the Old Man Mutant “Is that all you got, Bitch?” Unfortunately at that point, Henry gets killed by a razor-wire chain that one of the mutants throws around his throat. Henry doesn’t have the unfair advantage of superhuman regeneration powers from drinking toxic waste that the mutants do and he ultimately must succumb in the end.

Kimberly Caldwell's chance to show off her pearly whites

Two of the contestants escape with their lives, the bitchy tough girl and the empathetic jock, thinking they’ve killed all the mutants, but of course at the end there’s foreshadowing about a baby mutant and a caretaker that survived, leading up to the fact that there is a “Wrong Turn 3” being released on Oct. 20th. Personally, I think it would have been more satisfying to have Henry Rollin’s character as the lone survivor and then he could continue the franchise, giving it a much higher chance future success. Overall, “Wrong Turn 2” was a huge surprise and it was a shame that it was straight-to-DVD when much more ridiculous horror sequels have made it to the box office. I give it 4.5 out of 5 cheese wedges for being consistently entertaining and providing an intelligent level of cheesiness by knowingly poking fun at itself…sort of a constant wink in the direction of the viewer while simultaneously satisfying our horror fix with plenty of gore and cannibal mutants.

Children of the Corn 2009 on Syfy

I spent the whole week eagerly awaiting the chance to watch Syfy’s new “Children of the Corn” remake.  After all, the advertising proclaimed that the movie would finally be produced “the way it was meant to be written”. Hmmm…I wasn’t aware that the first one didn’t live up to certain expectations…presumably those of Stephen King’s,or the fans, or anyone else for that matter. After all, it is considered a classic.  A “cheesy” classic at that, but nevertheless, a classic horror movie based on a classic King short story. Isaac and Malachai, and the rest of the children who worshipped “He who walks behind the rows” will forever be burned into that “creepy” portion of our brains brings out the goose bumps. I wasn’t sure how that creepiness could be improved upon, if at all for that matter, but I would soon find out.

First off, I have to be completely honest. Prior to the airing of “Children of the Corn (CotC) 2009″, Syfy aired a day-long marathon that consisted of the CotC sequels 4 through 7. I thought this was a cool idea at first, but looking back now, I’m not so sure. I had seen most of each of those movies before, or at least parts of them, and I thought it would be an awesome build-up to the new CotC remake. Well,  I can’t quite put my finger on whether it was a result of watching 8 or so hours of mediocre b-horror movies consecutively, or that the 2009 CotC remake really sucked, but I fell fast asleep approximately 30 minutes into the feature movie I had waited all day to watch.

Kandyse McClure as "Vicky" and David Anders as "Burt"

I was disappointed that I missed out on the remake, but the first 30 minutes were extremely grueling to suffer through. As in the original, we are presented with a lengthy interaction between Burt and Vicky as they are driving cross-country. They proceed to accidentally hit the already “near death” kid that stumbles out of the cornfield, and consequently freak out over what to do next. This leads them to discover the freaky little town of Gatlin, NE.

"Vicky" being bitchy

Well, I have a few comments regarding this period of the movie. About the only good thing was the impressive cinematography. A 1970’s atmosphere was successfully recreated, from the giant boat-sized Thunderbird to the hazy, faded color of the film. However, this was all overshadowed by the fact that the character of Vicky, played by Kandyse McClure, is presented in this version as the biggest hatred-inspiring bitch on the face of the planet. I swear, the whole initial 30 minutes of the movie revolve around the constant harpy whiny insults that she hurls at poor Burt, played by David Anders, who’s just chilling, wondering why she’s having a constant bitch-fest. Oh my God, I have never wanted to see a main character killed off so fast as I wanted to see Vicky bite it. And from what I gathered (and sadly missed), her fulfilling demise did happen not too long after I passed out. I know in the original short story, the characters of Burt and Vicky were much more dysfunctional than they were presented in the original movie, but this rendering was just plain ridiculous, almost so over the top it was comical. If I were Burt, I would have left her in the middle of the road after getting out of the car and checking out the kid’s body.

Preston Bailey as the cute "Isaac"

During my brief viewing of the movie, I also have to say that I was disappointed in the “normalcy” of the “corn kids” that were expected to be a major creep factor. In the original, the kids were ‘creepy’ in the glaring, dirty, zombie kid kind of way. In this version, they just looked like a bunch of Amish kids hanging out doing farmwork. The only thing scary about Isaac was the ridiculously huge hat they made him wear which made him look like a giant thumbtack. The kids just looked bored and definitely not mesmerized by the power of “he that walks behind the rows”. Preston Bailey, who played Isaac, was just plain cute, not freakishly sinister like the Isaac, played by the naturally creepy John Franklin, in the original movie.

John Franklin as the original creepy "Isaac"

Since I missed pretty much the whole movie, I checked out other websites and people’s reviews of “Children of the Corn 2009″ and realized that the rest of the movie pretty much left the same impression with other people as the first 30 minutes did with me. It is puzzling to me as to why there has always been so much interest in creating multiple “Children of the Corn” movies out of what was originally a 27 page short story. It seems obvious, that unless you can hire an excellent author to expand on those original 27 pages, you end up with an hour and a half movie full of filler and stretched storylines which really tests the limits of your attention span.

A "scary" version of the movie or just more "corn"?

To top this all off, I learned through various sites that Dimension Films is currently working on creating yet another remake of the original, this time with more emphasis on the religious overtones present in the story. I don’t know, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. “Children of the Corn” has been beaten to death, literally it seems, and filmmakers need to move on and find writers that can come up with some new, original horror stories with which to try to scare us, rather than continuing to create b-movie sequels that come off as more whimsical than scary. The original “Children of the Corn” was a classic. Let’s leave it that way.

"Open Graves" poster

The only thing that narrowly saved “Open Graves” from being a complete disaster was the fact that is was filmed in Spain by a foreign director. It’s long been a mystery to me as to why even “bad” foreign horror movies can still be scary, while the “bad” American horror movies end up just being stupid, almost farcical. I think one of the reasons for this is due to differing approaches to the use of cinematography. In foreign horror films, we often see the grainy auras, the fast blur-like movements, the feeling that what we’re watching is somewhat hazy, like a bad nightmare, giving the movie that element of “spookiness” even when the storyline is badly written. “Open Graves” starring Eliza Dushku  certainly imparts that “spooky” aura but it’s still not quite enough to make you forget that the plot that’s evolving throughout is pretty darn ridiculous.

Eliza Dushku as "Erica" and Mike Vogel as "Jason"

Eliza Dushku is an adequate actress but I don’t think that her “American surfer girl” persona really fit in with this movie. Besides her love interest Jason, played by Mike Vogel, the rest of the cast are either Spanish or European actors that are not recognizable in the US. The fact that these actors are from the area from where the mythical game board originates, adds some validity to the eerie-ness of the movie. Erica (Eliza Dushku ) and Jason however, stand out like sore thumbs…two “white bread” American surf kids surrounded by a group of passionate, mysterious Latin friends who were raised within the culture that created the legend of the cursed game.

Eliza Dushku (in a bikini) as "Erica" and Jose Casasús as "Novio"

It seems comical that Jason would be the one responsible for unleashing the curse of “Mamba” and that he and Erica would be the ones that take initiative to try and thwart the curse when they wouldn’t even be familiar with the creatures referenced in the game.  It would have been somewhat more believable if one of their Latin friends wised up rather than being presented as mindless partygoers only interested in alcohol and sex 24/7. Wouldn’t one of them have heard of the legend of the “Mamba” game at some point in their lives, growing up in Spain, and been able to take the reins of controlling the quickly spreading effects of its curse? Of course not, that would make too much sense. We need the aimless American surfer kids to be the smart ones regarding an ancient cursed board game especially since they’re in a foreign country where everyone routinely speaks English. (Huh?)

Eliza Dushku (again, in a bikini) during "Baywatch musical interlude"

“Open Graves” was oddly interspersed with bizarre “musical interludes” that made me think someone was paying homage to Europe’s strange obsession with “Baywatch” . There were these seemingly random moments where the camera focused on Eliza Dushku getting ready to surf with the sun shining through her hair and some cheesy rock ballad playing in the background. There scenes were definitely not needed and definitely distracted from the minimal “spooky” aura that the movie was attempting to achieve unsuccessfully.

"Mamba" game board

The concept of a “cursed” board game has potential as a focus for a good horror movie, and it has been done before, but it seems like common sense that the associated “game board” should be suitably scary in and of itself. In “Open Graves”, the “ancient” game board was supposed to have been fabricated centuries ago, out of the skin and bones of an executed witch. However, the game in the movie looked immaculate enough where it could have been just produced by Parker Brothers. The writing on the cards and “board” were very intricate, and as we learn later, were supposed to have been written with the blood of the executed witch. Considering that Erica and Jason learned how to play the game pretty quick without having an ancient voodoo priestess or the like, explain it to them, I guess there also must have been some “blood-written” instruction booklet included with the game that we never saw on screen. Those 17^th century religious fanatics were definitely ahead of their time!

Eliza Dushku pouting in cemetery

The premise of the game was that as the players moved around the spaces on the board, they could land on a space that instructed them to pick a card, and that card  would reveal if they were to live (play on) or die (be out of the game). The cards of “death” were inscribed with complex quatrains interspersed with Latin that described how the person was to die. As the player read these poems out loud, I had no idea what they were talking about. Subsequently I did not feel any “impending doom” awaiting their death because I really had no clue as to what their “warning” was. I felt the tension increase among the characters as they read their fate on the card, but I had no idea what it was predicting until after they died and someone explained exactly how the card “foresaw” the specific method of death they had succumbed to.

Eliza Dushku trying to look European

In general, the special effects were acceptable. They weren’t near as cheesy as your typical American-made Syfy movie fare. The explosions looked real, which leads me to believe that the laws regarding creating random explosions in public in Europe are a bit more lax than they are here. Also some good creepy make-up jobs, ranging from a guy who had his eyes clawed out by some crabs to a girl who ages to her death virtually overnight and explodes in a fountain of blood when docs try to do CPR on her. Even the “Mamba” game itself (a reference to the “Black Mamba” snake, which was one of the few extremely cheesy looking effects in the movie) was crafted superbly, looking like an artisan piece with some great calligraphy and miniature sculptures, despite the fact that it looked like it was made in this decade and not during the Spanish Inquisition.

Don't put these in your mouth

This brings me to another point that greatly disturbed me – Did anyone else not notice how often the characters placed the game pieces and cards up to their mouths or noses while they were playing the game? Seriously, even if they didn’t know it was supposedly made out of a witch’s skin and blood, they did get it from some creepy no-legged dude who ran a run-down, dark, dirty voodoo shop. I don’t know if I’d have even been touching those game pieces without wearing rubber gloves

"Open Graves" Spanish ad

The concept for “Open Graves” had potential, but unfortunately the movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be about an ancient foreign curse or a musical tribute to Eliza Dushku’s bikini bod.  If it had stuck to being a movie about a centuries-old, cursed board game discovered by Europeans familiar with its legend, the storyline could have been developed much more effectively. Instead, the unfolding of the story was very disjointed, almost as if the storyline was continually interrupted to explain the presence of the American surf-kids, most notably Eliza Dushku in a bikini. The only thing really scary about this movie was basically the special effects, so I’m giving “Open Graves” 2 cheese wedges for taking itself too seriously to be entertainingly cheesy while at the same time, not taking its storyline seriously enough.

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"Lightning Strikes" starring Kevin Sorbo

Ok, well maybe he can’t control actual lightning, but there’s a good chance he  could make you believe that he could since he played Hercules on TV for about 7 seasons. I’ve been a fan of Kevin Sorbo ever since “Hercules”and the science-fiction show “Andromeda” were on the air, so I was looking forward to seeing him in the new SyFy movie entitled, “Lightning Strikes”.  The movie trailers were a little “sketchy”, describing a “demon in the lightning” that was attacking people in a rural town where Kevin Sorbo plays the sheriff. I was interested to see if this far-fetched storyline could be kept in the “somewhat believable” realm with Kevin Sorbo at the reins.

Lightning Strike

Immediately in one of the opening scenes we are presented with a scene so unbelievable, that if it were done badly, would have definitely made me give up on the rest of the movie and change the channel.  We see a mother and her son driving down a highway, eventually being “chased” by a bolt of the “super lightning”. They try to outrun it, but when they can’t (lightning is very fast you know), their car is cut cleanly in two as the monstrous bolt of lightning slices right through it.  Being that this was a “b-movie” of sorts, this scene could have easily been extremely cheesy. But, instead of groaning at a lame attempt to make this scene appear believable, I was pleasantly surprised by my friend shouting, “Dude, that was awesome!”

Mom and son running in "Lightning Strikes"

In fact, I was pleasantly surprised throughout the movie in general.  I felt the special effects surpassed my expectations for a typical movie on the Syfy channel. The lightning was fairly realistic, meaning it didn’t look like shots of lightning from another movie that were spliced in. The scenes where the actors interacted with the lightning weren’t horribly fake-looking either. The only complaint I would have is the appearance of the demon/alien inside the lightning. It looked more like an actor in an alien costume that filmed the scene alone in front of a blue screen and as a result, its movements didn’t exactly correlate with whatever it was supposed to be interacting with in the movie.

Kevin Sorbo and SyFy

The acting was definitely “above par”. I was quickly reminded that no matter how bad or “cheesy” a movie is, an actor with veteran acting abilities, such as Kevin Sorbo, can automatically kick it up a notch. It was evident that Kevin was not simply reading his lines, as we see actors doing in a lot of SyFy b-movies. Instead he delivered his lines with a purpose, actually creating a Sheriff that the viewer can identify with and care about, no matter how unbelievable the situation and characters around him were.

Kevin did an excellent job of “grounding” the movie when he was in scenes with “over-the-top” characters, most notably, Todd Jensen as Mayor Fordice, who was portrayed as a highly annoying cross between Max Headroom and Matthew Lesko. I know this dude was meant to be annoying, but he was a one-dimensional caricature and extremely hard to take seriously. It was equally hard to believe that a guy wearing melon and salmon colored business clothes with bleached blonde hair, could ever be elected mayor in a small blue-collar town such as the one portrayed in the movie. The guy was more likely to get his butt kicked outside the bar at closing time and run out of town permanently.

David Schofield plays "Donovan"

The main storyline was simple and a bit dragged out, but overall, it kept my interest, which is not an easy thing to do over the course of 2 hours. The plot centered around the demon that lived in a very intense lightning storm, which actually contained an alternate plane of existence. People could only see and interact with the demon/alien if they were being struck by the lightning, and thus inside of it.  The “lightning demon” had a knack for taking the lives of children, but letting their parents live, leaving the parents immune to further lightning strikes. This sets up the two characters that are out to seek revenge, the  “preacher/adventurer/father” Donovan (David Schofield), and the mom that was driving the car in the beginning of the movie, Nancy (Annabel Wright),  who awakens from a coma to find out that her son was killed after their car was split in two by the super bolt of lightning.

Annabel Wright plays "Nancy"

Thrown into the whole mix is a group of University “storm chasers”, a professor and 2 students, who serve as the scientific “foil” to Donovan’s proclamations of the mythological history of the “lightning demon”. I found the play of these opposing viewpoints very interesting and actually educational, as I learned some interesting true facts about lightning, as well as the mythological stories that illustrated how ancient cultures explained its existence. Other than that though, the “storm chasers” didn’t really have a pivotal role in the plot of the movie.

Double lightning strike

Overall, “Lightning Strikes” exceeded my expectations. It has pretty decent special effects and the quality of the movie was carried mostly by Kevin Sorbo’s acting talent. The storyline was simple and drawn out, but not overly predictable. It was cheesy, but not “groan-worthy”, so I’m giving it 4 cheese wedges for “high cheesiness” combined with “high quality”, which ends up equaling a pretty decent Syfy movie.

Wolf Lake Promo Poster

I had never heard of the supernatural television series “Wolf Lake” until a couple of months ago when Chiller was running a day long marathon of its solitary season. When I first saw the commercials, I thought it was actually a movie because it has some relatively big name stars in it such as Lou Diamond Phillips, Tim Matheson and Sharon Lawrence. Subsequently, I also automatically assumed that since I had never heard of it, and the fact that it was on “Chiller” and not on network TV, meant it was probably a pretty crappy movie. However, when I started watching, I realized I could not have been more wrong.

"John Kanin" and "Ruby"

“Wolf Lake” is a combination mystery/suspense/angst-y love story/werewolf thriller set in a mysterious town in the Pacific Northwest, where a large number of the inhabitants (if not all of them) are human/wolf shape-shifters. It premiered on Sept. 19,2001 and ran for a total of 9 episodes, 5 on CBS and the last 4 on UPN. Lou Diamond Phillips played John Kanin, a Seattle police officer whose girlfriend Ruby is kidnapped on the night he proposes to her. His efforts to find her lead him to the town of Wolf Lake, where he’s immediately suspicious of the town’s strange inhabitants. He begins investigating how Ruby is tied to this town and he never quite has the whole picture revealed to him. In the meantime, the wolf families that control the town have their own underlying drama going on in regards to leadership, power, sex, and the ethics involved with living as humans who possess the power to become werewolves.

Mysterious "Wolf Lake"

While this description may sound like it has all the makings of a supernatural soap opera, “Wolf Lake” was much more than that. For anyone interested in wolves and werewolf mythology, “Wolf Lake” will engage you in a fascinating depiction of the struggle between the instinctual wolf pack mentality and the individual desires of the human being. It’s entirely possible that I’m reading too much into the show, but I found it ironic that when wolves are known to be intensely loyal to the pack and mate for life, the human-wolves in “Wolf Lake” are preoccupied with various degrees of gaining power using sex, murder and deception, to manipulate their fellow wolves. Adding to the mystery, we never really know exactly, whether or not everyone in the town is a werewolf, including John Kanin, who would actually be learning that fact along with the viewers if it were true.

The worst part is, that we NEVER truly find out the all answers because the show was cancelled after only 9 episodes! As usual, it seems that the major networks don’t give the more obscure “supernatural” shows a chance…if they aren’t in the lead right out of the gate, they get axed, which doesn’t seem fair, considering it usually takes a couple of episodes before a viewer can decide if they are really into a show or not. This show underwent a huge transformation from the original pilot in order to make it more dramatic and interesting to a wider audience. The original pilot was actually scrapped and the focus re-written, a move that was questioned, but then welcomed by the actors and creators behind the show, so you would think that it would have had more of a chance to make it past the initial season “chopping block”.

The cast of "Wolf Lake"

I believe the show’s lack of popularity was due to a couple of unfortunate factors, neither of which have anything to do with the quality of the show. First, the title, “Wolf Lake” comes off as a bit too general and “soap-opera-ish” which could immediately turn some people off who may have gotten the wrong impression of what the show was about (think “Melrose Place” or “The Hills”). I think if the title was more focused on some aspect of the werewolf persona, like “Cunning Instinct” or simply “Alpha Male” it could have been more easily identified as a supernatural series. Second, maybe it was simply an awesome show that was “before its time”. The public’s current obsession with vampire mythology has begun to spread into the realm of the werewolf. Teens who favor Jacob in the “Twilight” series would have become loyal viewers of “Wolf Lake” because there is an active teen-werewolf-angst subplot that would satisfy their craving for “werewolf romance”. I’ve also noticed that there are several werewolf movies and TV shows currently in the works to satisfy those who have become bored with the surplus of vampire shows that have flooded the entertainment industry. This seems like it would have been the absolute most perfect timing for a show like “Wolf Lake” to become a runaway hit. Unfortunately, werewolves were not a trending entertainment fad 8 years ago when it was released on network television.

Lou Diamond Phillips and Graham Greene

With a high caliber of talent in acting and writing, “Wolf Lake” proved itself to critics and also to the viewers that took a chance and tuned in, that it was a captivating series. With outstanding acting especially from the lead, Lou Diamond Phillips, and an engrossing storyline, there was no reason that this series should have failed. I haven’t heard any talk of possibly bringing it back but wouldn’t it be nice for the fans to have at least a TV movie to tie the MANY loose ends together, especially now that the series has been running sporadically on Chiller? While searching the internet I did find a currently active petition to bring the show back at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/Bring-Back-WOLFLAKE that has over 500 signatures and still growing. If you haven’t had a chance yet to check out “Wolf Lake” the next marathon showing will be this coming Sunday, Sept 13th on Chiller. Regardless of whether or not anything happens with “Wolf Lake” in the future, make sure you tune in and check in out. It definitely will not disappoint fans of the supernatural genre and the actors and writers of this show deserve a little more widespread awareness of the amazing quality of this show.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

As I sat down to watch “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”, I was extremely stoked to be watching yet another “so bad it’s good” SyFy Channel movie. To be clear, I was fully aware, that I was not sitting down to watch a movie of the same caliber as “Jaws”, or even “Jaws 2”, for that matter.

I consider SyFy movies to be in a sort of “pseudo-movie” genre, that is, a movie so cheesy, that even the actors seem to play along  by overacting or revealing a telltale smirk now and then, and that is what makes these movies so enjoyable. That being said, it’s also entirely possible for the movie makers to miss the mark and take the cheesiness a little too far.  This results in a truly horrible movie that is neither entertaining, nor tolerable for longer than 5 minutes of viewing. “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus” ended up walking a very thin line, slightly teetering into the “unwatchable” category while also keeping me entertained enough that I didn’t feel a need to summon up the energy to change the channel.

 As far as the movie’s plot, the title is pretty much self-explanatory. A prehistoric “mega shark” and “giant octopus” are accidentally unfrozen from a giant ice block near Alaska and they start terrorizing the world (as most giant prehistoric creatures do). Now, this sounds like it has all the makings of a great “monster battle” movie, along the lines of Godzilla vs Mothra. Ironically though, the scenes where we see these monsters actually trying to destroy something (or each other), are extremely scarce, and unfortunately they are also some of the worst quality scenes in the movie as far as special effects go.

Helicopter exploding on impact with giant tentacle

The destruction scenes involving the shark and octopus had great potential but look like they were slapped together in an hour on an outdated version of Photoshop. Seriously, if orchestrated correctly, a giant shark  leaping out of the water to grab a 747 out of the sky could be pure genius! With a little more time and talent spent on CGI, this outrageous scene could have crossed the line from completely ridiculous to freaking awesome! Unfortunately, that scene ended up looking like a blurry photo of a shark superimposed on stock footage of a plane that was flipped back and forth to simulate movement along with some random flames dropped in via computer. Explosions in the movie were just as bad…every vehicle was “hyper-explosive” as seen when one swipe of a Giant Octopus tentacle  makes a helicopter explode instantly in a fiery ball like it was full of rigged dynamite. Evidently there was a special on fireworks that ended up fitting the budget better than a few talented CGI artists.

Debbie, aka "Deborah", Gibson

The movie spends extremely too much time focused on dragged out discussions between Deborah Gibson, as the oceanologist  Emma MacNeal, and the same few characters, namely her ex-professor, an Asian scientist and Lorenzo Lamas cast as a “random head of some unnamed government department”. I know, you’re thinking what I was when I first saw ads for the movie…Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas? Seriously? They’re not even “SyFy” movie regulars!…and Debbie Gibson is a singer for God’s sake! When I sat down to watch the movie however, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Ms. Gibson actually has real acting talent. She was so relaxed and natural in her role that I could have sworn she’d been in at least 10 other “Made for SyFy” movies before this one. I would even go so far as to say she was the best actor in this whole movie.  Seriously, someone needs to get her a role on “Eureka” or something.

Lorenzo Lamas stuck in the early 90's

Lorenzo Lamas, on the other hand – completely nauseating. Dude STILL has his hair greased back and in a pony tail and is STILL wearing a tight black shirt and black pants, making him look like a sleazy guy stuck in the early 90’s hanging at the club to hit on 21-year-olds. His acting in this movie was so lifeless, even some attempt at overacting would have been more tolerable. It was like he was there to recite random lines off a script with the sole purpose of attempting to seduce Debbie Gibson with his cheesy cologne-reeking smile.

Pic of "Bobby Sixkiller" from the early 90's with Lorenzo who has the same cheesy hairstyle as in the movie!

I don’t know if I watched too many episodes of “Renegade” in the early 90’s but I seriously think Lorenzo Lamas just can’t appear tough without “Bobby SixKiller” (Branscombe Richmond) at his side. It’s like he’s half a man without his trusty Indian sidekick. They could have easily added a whole new dimension to the movie by writing in his character with some “Native American Mega Shark legend” subplot that explained the mystical background of the creatures. That would have been the greatest “Renegade” reunion ever! Sadly however,  the biggest contribution Lorenzo Lamas made to this movie was his referral to the giant shark as “Sharkzilla”…which is actually a truly classic moment in the film.

Mega Shark "biting" the apparently tasty Golden Gate Bridge

Overall, “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus” merits 3 out of  5 wedges on the “cheese scale”. To attain a more respectable level of “cheese-dom” there should have been an attempt to make the “unreal” special effects appear more real, no matter how ridiculous they were. We know a giant prehistoric shark is not going to bite the Golden Gate bridge in half, but wouldn’t it be cool to see what it would look like (realistically) if it did? And they could have really recast Lorenzo Lamas with more of a SyFy movie stand-by like Lou Diamond Phillips. He actually seems to care more about his role than whether or not his ponytail has enough gel in it. Debbie Gibson is what carried the movie. She showed that she has real acting talent, even in a cheesy SyFy movie, which even for the most seasoned actors is not a feat to easily accomplish.

Lance Henriksen as “Frank Black”

One of the plus sides of being addicted to SyFy and the Chiller channels is that I’m exposed to old TV shows of the supernatural/horror genre that I didn’t catch the first time around. One such show is Millennium, starring Lance Henriksen as Frank Black.

I am completely obsessed with this mesmerizing show! The show’s focus is based on the “end-of-the-Millennium apocalyptic conspiracies” that ran rampant some 10 years ago as we approached the beginning of the 21st century. So, the topic’s not exactly current, and it’s rarely shown in chronological order, making it extremely hard to figure out what’s going on, so why is it that every day at 4pm, I am glued to the TV to watch and re-watch every episode of this hypnotic series?

Why does this show mesmerize me so? Is it the writing? Somewhat. Is it the “conspiracy theory” topics? Likely. But seriously, the one thing this show has that makes me keep coming back for more, again and again, is the star of the show, Lance Henriksen. This guy is the smart man’s “Dirty Harry”! In most of his roles (even beyond “Millennium”), Lance rarely shows signs of emotion, except for a trademark penetrating glare that he directs at any wrongdoer to force them to crack and confess all of their evil deeds.

He doesn’t ever need to express any other emotion because his intense “Don’t mess with me” glare would make any serial killer freeze dead in his tracks. Lance Henriksen has the innate ability to achieve an expression on his face that I would give ANYTHING to be able to flash to customers in the pharmacy when they tell me that they don’t know why it takes me 15 minutes to put pills in a bottle!

On top of his intimidating demeanor, the character Frank Black is incredibly smart. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to most of my pop culture heroes, “smart” and “badass” usually aren’t seen together in the same character…AND, Frank Black has psychic powers! But he does not have the normal psychic powers that you see on your average “supernatural” show. HIS psychic powers are the ability to see what a serial killer sees when he’s killing people! How “badass” is that! It’s off the chart! As Frank Black says, “It’s my gift, it’s my curse.”

As Charles Bishop Weyland in AVP

Amazed by his portrayal of the character of Frank Black, I researched a bit into Lance Henriksen’s career and discovered that he has literally been in hundreds of TV shows and movies, most of which get regular play on the SyFy and Chiller channels. What’s crazy is that I’ve actually seen most of these shows, but never realized who Lance was, because he does such a good job of playing the “creepy old guy who could be a serial killer”, or the “possibly shady law enforcement guy” that he literally becomes a part of the movie.

Did you know Lance Henriksen is the guy responsible for the summoning of “Pumpkinhead”? He also was the creepy slimeball of a movie producer in “Scream 3”, the elder leader of the nocturnal undead family in “Near Dark”, and of course, the self-aware android, Bishop in the “Aliens” movies. Digging deeper, I also learned that James Cameron even originally wrote the character of the “Terminator” with Lance in mind, imagining a machine that could “blend into a crowd”, but he ended up re-casting Lance as Det. Vukovich when they decided to take the “Terminator” character more in the direction of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Like, seriously! How have I never been aware of Lance Henriksen before?! On top of his impressive acting resume, the man himself is even more amazing, in a “normal guy blending into the crowd” sort of way. He is by no means your typical “actor-type”. Lance is originally a painter and currently a ceramicist by trade and hobby and is very philosophical about the spiritual aspects of his art. As a child, his dad was a merchant seaman and his parents divorced when he was 2. Lance dropped out of school at the age of 12, hitchhiked across the US picking up random jobs such as shoe-shining and fruit-picking, and was actually illiterate until the age of 30. As a result of this, he has an extremely serious work ethic which he applies to his acting. It’s also the reason why he accepts most roles and takes them all very seriously. His dedication to acting makes you forget that you’re actually watching a low-budget Sci-Fi B-movie as he mesmerizes you with his intense performance.

Lance has described his dedication in this quote:

“You know something, if you’re not acting, you’re not an actor – you’ve gotta work. No way around it. I remember Andy Garcia – we had done Jennifer Eight (1992) together. And Andy, I think, was probably making a couple of million for that movie, and he looked at me one day and he goes, “Hey Lan, you work too much, you shouldn’t work so much”. And I said, “Alright Andy, if I was making a couple million a movie, I wouldn’t work too much. I wouldn’t need to work ‘too much’!” Everybody has their own life to live, and I love doing the work, so what I am I gonna do? He hasn’t done the same kind of roles I have. But it’s lucky for me, because I’m really having a good time”.

Frank Black action figure

This is just a brief glimpse into the man that is Lance Henriksen. The more I read about him, the more I had trouble limiting the info that I was putting into this “blog post tribute” to him. He is not just the iconic Sci-Fi B-movie/TV actor that I originally saw him as, he’s also your regular “guy next door” who worked his way up through the ranks to become a star and still remains as humble as he was when he used to sell his own handmade pottery out of the back of a truck. He truly enjoys himself when he is acting and it shows in his work. What I consider his greatest role, that of Frank Black in “Millennium” deeply affected me in the intensity of his portrayal, no doubt a direct reflection of his deep love and commitment to each of his acting roles. I hope to meet Lance Henriksen someday and have him sign my “Frank Black” action figure that currently glares at me from a shelf in my closet, so I can tell him just how much I admire him not just as an actor, but also as the “down to earth, blend-into-the-crowd” kind of regular guy that he is.

To learn more about Lance Henrisksen as “Frank Black” and the fan campaign to bring back “Millennium” in TV or movie form, please visit the excellent site, BacktoFrankBlack.com and join the movement!

Why? Why do I feel compelled to deprive my brain of fulfilling, quality entertainment? Could it be that the “SciFi” channel has found a way (being true to its name) to broadcast endorphin-releasing waves during its movies, thus keeping us from changing the channel and making us compulsively return for more? Even more puzzling is the huge number of relatively “big-name” actors who take parts in these “low-budget” theatrical travesties…Can it be that the SciFi channel is indeed controlled by some endorphin-releasing alien overlord (much like a past Doctor Who episode) who seeks to enslave mankind and make us look ridiculous at the same time because of our taste in movies?
Personally, I have another possible theory, which places the root cause of our obsession with crappy SciFi movies in the fact that “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ is no longer on the air. As described on Wikipedia, “The series features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a satellite in space by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, especially (but not initially limited to) science fiction B-movies. To keep sane, the man and his robots provide a running commentary on each film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking (or “riffing”) their way through each reel in the style of a movie-theater peanut gallery.” I believe that since we can no longer be made to feel superior to bad movie makers through the MST3K character’s wisecracks, we might feel the need to do it ourselves in a society where we have constant entertainment available at our fingertips.

It’s almost an oxymoron of a personality flaw. We crave infinite varieties of entertainment of some sort, be it video games, movies, music, etc. and in order to avoid feeling the resultant powerlessness that comes with being so “needy”, we become addicted to shows that we in turn can ridicule WHILE we are being entertained…a sort of pseudo-control that we create in our minds saying to ourselves, “Yes, I am watching a really bad SciFi movie and I should be mowing the lawn, but it feels so awesome to know that I am so much smarter than someone that actually gets paid to make a movie! I will point out all the flaws, misspellings and bad acting and thus prove myself superior to the people who created this “entertainment” that is consuming 2 hours of my life, thus validating my need to actually watch it instead of doing something more productive!” It’s really a never-ending circle, like the snake eating its own tail. We love “junk food” entertainment and love it even more when we can find some way to validate our wasting our time on it.

Whether the curious appeal of crappy SciFi movies is due to an alien overlord seeking to control us through our need for “junk food” entertainment or due to our own need to be able to ridicule the moviemakers that we secretly admire because they get to create such entertainment, I have to admit I am addicted and have no desire to be cured of this addiction. So, in my own effort to attempt to validate my own addiction within myself, I plan to offer occasional blog posts on here, and possibly jewelry or art, dedicated to specific SciFi/Chiller movies that make me feel especially superior (i.e., ones where the acting/plot/graphics/etc are so bad they deserve a particular mention). After all, everyone’s a critic right? I’m just fulfilling my role in society, paying homage to Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot and the rest of the MST3K crew, and trying to hold off the alien overlord invasion by not resisting their attempts to keep us glued to our TV’s watching bad SciFi movies.