I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! BUT I WON'T...

Skeleton Man (2004) SyFy Original Movie

Oy vey this was a massive stinker - both times! All through the movie I was saying (out loud which is usually why I watch movies alone) 'Geez I know I've seen this before' but I swore I'd seen it on TV and this movie had Michael Rooker and sounded... meh, and I didn't check it out first. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.


Turns out that this is a SyFy stinker of a movie that they added ONE 'F' bomb to and released on a DVD. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

Let's make this short (pffft). Supposedly in the Pacific Northwest (also known as Bulgaria apparently) this dude is working on an archeological dig for Iroquois artifacts. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

Huh. Iroquois warriors wore gloves. New one on me.

One, he's doing it in the middle of the woods, in a big, comfy home. Two, the Iroquois were nowhere near the Pacific Northwest OR Bulgaria. Three, just down the road is a power plant. Or a chemical plant. Or both. Or a nudie bar. It depends on who you read and talk to I guess. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

Then we have Cotton Eyed Joe...

Whoops, sorry - it was Cotton MOUTH Joe. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

Iroquois warriors also apparently
wore riding boots and used stirrups...

Cottonmouths (or Water Moccasins, or Pit Vipers, etc.) are found in the lower eastern parts of the United States - nowhere NEAR the Pacific Northwest. And show me ONE RECORD of an ancestral Iroquois warrior named JOE. Can't, can ya? In fact, this movie was originally CALLED Cotton Mouth Joe, but people wouldn't stop laughing so they had to change it.

Geez, he's whiter than I am...

Cotton Mouth Joe is basically a cheap skeleton in a cheaper black cape that was supposed to be riding a black stallion. He's been cursed (according to ONE blind old Indian sitting in the middle of the forest by himself in front of a campfire that isn't even burning for some reason) and now just goes around cutting off heads. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

Is... is he riding sidesaddle here?

An ancient Iroquois warrior with a long black cape? Was that from Spooks-R-Us? The bargain bin? And the 'black stallion' was clearly a brown mare. Several in fact, in colors ranging from dark to red, and the white marks on the horses' faces differ from scene to scene. And I'm not even going to go into all the hatchets he used which he clearly bought from a Bulgarian Home Depot.

After a bunch of soldiers go missing (because the Pacific Northwest has a wormhole that goes straight to Bulgaria), a 'Delta' team is sent in to find out what happened. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

This 'Delta' team included specialists that had skills that would serve them very well in the forest (she said with poisoned sarcasm) - such as the chick who was an underwater demolitions expert. Uh huh.


They get killed off one by one, some by arrow, others by ax, the rest by spear. We get a few comical scenes of actors rolling down hills and very obviously having to push themselves to keep going down the hill. In fact, one scene has Michael Rooker rolling (sort of) down a looong hill. He started with a hat, rolls without a hat, ends up at the bottom with the hat. Hey, a magic hat!


Let's cut this down 'cause despite the sad attempts of Michael Rooker trying his best to save this damned movie, there's just not anything to save. Even the stupidity of the plot and the lack of continuity wasn't good enough to make this even remotely enjoyable. This is where their money went:

1. Michael Rooker
2. Casper Van Dien 
3. A helicopter to pick them up (even though it was clearly a four person helicopter at the most) and a toy to blow up against a grass hill. You heard me.
4. A tanker truck carrying something flammable to jackknife and blow to Kingdom Come (or maybe open the wormhole back to the Pacific Northwest, you never know).
5. Lots of models of the whatever-the-hell-plant-it-was to blow up at the end.

The supposed rescue helicopter blows up because 'Joe' shoots a WOODEN arrow and destroys the back rotor. NOW I COULD GIVE YOU A WHOLE PAGE OF WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT! But I won't.

The cab is sideways, he is on the ground, and then...

One soldier finds a road (with lots of traffic and lights of some town plainly visible not too far from it) and a truck whose driver has gone off to take the piss of death - I guess 'cause he never comes back. The soldier inexplicably steals it and makes it 1/4 mile at most, passing a sign that simply says 'North', sees 'Joe' and jackknifes the truck. The cab breaks away and the rest goes up in a ball of flame and then...

Whoops - too hot, gotta get it out further...

Uh, wait a minute. Back the hell up. Apparently, they only had that stretch of road to do stuff on because as the truck begins its little trick, the 'North' sign is still in the same place, but the truck is now facing the other way. 

Okay, that's better - go back
sideways in the road and lay down, 'kay?

And although they could afford the tanker explosion, they couldn't afford to damage the cab. The cab is at first sideways on the now-deserted road but when the camera cuts away, it is driving AWAY from the flames. The camera cuts away again, and the cab is once more sideways in the road. DUUUUUUUUH!!!!

So Rooker's character supposedly tricks the non-Iriquois Indian from Bulgaria into going into the chemical/power/I-have-no-freaking-idea plant before blowing it up. The end. Not. They show the cheap ripoff from the Scream movies riding his black... brown... red... whatever the hell horse it was... off into the woods for another, uh, skip it.

CURSE YOU, SYFY CHANNEL!!!