Junkyard Dog (2010)I had mixed feelings about this movie. One it's not horror, it's suspense. Two it's yet another cannibal movie (yawn) set in Tennessee. Three it's one of those 'inspired by actual events' messes. It's described as a gritty psychological thriller that delves the demented mind of a cannibalistic serial rapist who kidnaps his tenth victim in as many months on Halloween night (Bad goof: When the killer flips the calendar from October to November, the calendar has 31 days for the month of November). Now I paid pretty good attention to the movie but nowhere did I see or hear this information.
BUT it has Brad Dourif who I will watch in anything (a great character actor to me, the voice of Chucky to you) and Vivica A. Fox, a kickass girl I will also watch, even if the movie is... umm... this one. A pleasant surprise: The movie was not full of typical yeah-we-know-that-one type characters, things don't turn out as expected, and there are no morons in this movie (some do stupid things, but they do show some smarts). In other words, not terrible. Just not great.
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| Yeah I killed my folks they named me Jyd dammit! |
We open with a Halloween party at a rich kid's house complete with tons of booze and a live band (you know, those parties that happen... NOWHERE). An OMG type of teen runs out of gas and calls for a tow. But someone else is listening in. And this totally normal looking guy gets there first. She realizes her peril when Jyd (I shit you not, that's his name, his real name is Innis Casey which really isn't that much better) passes the gas station, then it's too late - he punches
Audra's (Galadriel Stineman... stop laughing I am NOT making this shit up!) lights out and he's got a victim. She's put in an underground room with bed, table and shower. And cameras. Gotta watch ya know. I didn't see a toilet though - eww.
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| Well, this is bigger than my room at home. |
His basic MO: He kidnaps a girl, rapes and kills her, gets another one, then for one month feeds her the previous victim while raping her and at the end of the month... okay we get it. He's a sick son of a bitch. Duh. He keeps his parents in the freezer (in a sitting position) and drags them to the dinner table so he can scream at them before stuffing them back in the freezer. The only bit of (sick) humor you're going to find. The local sheriff (a pony-tailed Dourif) checks him out but is a little slow - not stupid, but not realizing the important things to look for until... let's continue.
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| Three parking tickets? You're gonna die sucker! |
Now FBI Agent Deatherage (What did I tell you about that damn laughing?) played by the no-nonsense Fox has just come off a violent case where she killed the two perps. Her boss wants her to take time off - nope. She wants another case. She gets the missing teenager in Tennessee, mainly because I guess there has been - what did the description say - nine other disappearances unsolved around there.
She's immediately in the small townpeople's faces, takes no crap off of anyone, even meets Jyd who asks her to dance (nope). After a night in the local motel, her car won't start. Jeez, here's Jyd who says in his salvage yard (It's called Junkyard Dog but he's not a dog and insists it is NOT a junkyard so the title is just.... duh) he can find a part for her car and she's on her way. Dumb move on her part: she goes with him. Dumb move on his part: he picks her up in daylight and is seen by the motel owner who tells the sheriff who tells the FBI.
On the way she notices on the floor a large earring and instantly knows somehow that means she's got her psycho. After getting to the... whatever the hell it is, they tussle and she's knocked out (after being attacked by his German Shepherd who he regularly feeds human flesh). She wakes up with Audra, who helps her bind her arm. Okay duh number two - to stop the bleeding she has Audra make a tourniquet. Now I've been out of the emergency medicine biz for a few years but I still know that a tourniquet is only good for telling the doctor where to cut off the limb.
(Note: I have been told that the dog was not a German Shepherd but a whozawhatiz and that Deatherage was not knocked out after she saw the earring (before?) and that I am a major dumbass because I did not know dog breeds or the minute in the movie where Deatherage was knocked out. Umm, okay - I have promised to take advanced dog training lessons at Petsmart and enroll with the local FBI so that my little movie reviews are more precise. End.)
She's immediately in the small townpeople's faces, takes no crap off of anyone, even meets Jyd who asks her to dance (nope). After a night in the local motel, her car won't start. Jeez, here's Jyd who says in his salvage yard (It's called Junkyard Dog but he's not a dog and insists it is NOT a junkyard so the title is just.... duh) he can find a part for her car and she's on her way. Dumb move on her part: she goes with him. Dumb move on his part: he picks her up in daylight and is seen by the motel owner who tells the sheriff who tells the FBI.
On the way she notices on the floor a large earring and instantly knows somehow that means she's got her psycho. After getting to the... whatever the hell it is, they tussle and she's knocked out (after being attacked by his German Shepherd who he regularly feeds human flesh). She wakes up with Audra, who helps her bind her arm. Okay duh number two - to stop the bleeding she has Audra make a tourniquet. Now I've been out of the emergency medicine biz for a few years but I still know that a tourniquet is only good for telling the doctor where to cut off the limb.
(Note: I have been told that the dog was not a German Shepherd but a whozawhatiz and that Deatherage was not knocked out after she saw the earring (before?) and that I am a major dumbass because I did not know dog breeds or the minute in the movie where Deatherage was knocked out. Umm, okay - I have promised to take advanced dog training lessons at Petsmart and enroll with the local FBI so that my little movie reviews are more precise. End.)
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| But... but I was saving myself for Prom! |
There are false hopes and tries at escaping. She has to witness Audra being raped, he tries to feed her human flesh (Audra, being vegetarian, gagged too much so he gives her beans) and keeps her handcuffed to the bed. But Audra is not totally stupid. After one rape, she manages to get the key to the cuffs (don't ask, don't tell). Deatherage gets free and becomes MacGyver - she basically boobytraps the place which kind of works but not. He grabs Audra for an early slaughter, and Deatherage completes her MacGyver transformation and finds a way out of the room and frees Audra while Jyd is distracted.
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| I'll get the answers, I'm waiting for the end of the movie. |
There's running, fighting, getting caught, getting away, and we're getting tired. But Deatherage isn't done with him yet. Finally getting her gun back for the umpteenth time, she looks around the yard, sees a fleeting image of him behind a car and makes the impossible shot of blowing the gas tank, setting him and eventually most of the yard on fire. She and Audra run for the fence - forgetting about the dog. Just as the dog starts to pounce, it's shot and killed - by the local sheriff, having pieced things together at the last possible moment and saving their butts. The end.
And a special little FBI behavioral tidbit for some reason: Of all the world's serial killers, 85% of them live in the USA (just like 85% of all the whackos I've deleted off my Facebook account have Dirty Dancing listed as one of their favorite movies). Just for info I guess. How inspiring.
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