Movies So Bad They Make You Say "What In The Blazes Did I Just Watch?"





Forget Me Not (2009)

Oh believe me, how I WISH I could forget I saw this movie. I know it was naive and silly to want another good movie to follow The Road which actually had some thought and inventive ideas... but no, I got this. A whole 103 minutes of massive duh teenage movie. The catch line 'Some Friendships Never Die' was extremely stupid and did not fit the movie in the slightest. Sigh. AND this movie contains one of the WORST stunts I've ever seen - there were so many errors and breaks in continuity my husband and I actually spent some time with it, just to find (kind of like looking for Waldo except a lot easier) all the different goofs, stupid omissions and obvious hardware showing... I'll explain that in a bit.

Note: I checked this movie again 6/10/14, since obviously my memory is failing me and for a few moments I DID forget I'd already seen this horrid thing... apparently, people personally attached to the film attacked the Netflix website (where it is currently streaming) and filled it with all sorts of unmitigated crap, calling it lofty names, saying it had a great twist and a crafty story with terrific acting and... I'm starting to feel nauseous hold on a second (puts head between legs)...

This. Was. Tripe. It was soooo slow and obvious and horribly acted and the ending was soooo predictable roughly 10 minutes or so in that the whole experience was, well, horrible times two. Like I thought it would get better this time or something. Bleh.

So we first have the obligatory rich as hell teenagers, none under the age of 25 who are celebrating their graduation from high school at one of those parties that NEVER HAPPEN ANYWHERE, except in movies of course. Among our group du jour is a brother and sister, the brother so smart that he skipped a grade and still was valedictorian of the class, yet so dumb he appears in this movie. After they are completely bombed, naturally they decide to go to the graveyard to play a game they played in childhood. <Sound of buzzer> Wrong, thank you for playing: Graveyards border churches - this is inexplicably by a convent/orphanage. Close but no cigar - that makes it a cemetery.

The game is a dumbed down version of hide and seek. I say dumbed down 'cause they have to repeat this moronic rhyme before they can start. Just as they begin a girl appears out of nowhere whom no one knows and wants to play. After playing this massively duh game the unknown girl is the 'winner'. When Sandy, our main blonde in the film tells her she's won she's asked 'Do you remember me?' When Sandy admits she has no idea the girl says 'You will', then jumps off a convenient high cliff by the cemetery by the convent. Oh brother... despite the police thoroughly searching the area, of course they find nothing and the now-sober (yeah sure) teenagers all go home.

Gee have we figured out what this movie is about and how it's going to end yet? If you haven't, you haven't been paying enough attention to lame teenage horror or my reviews. Again I took my paper, laid out the premise and just waited to write in what order these idiots were going to die in.

First up: A girl is swimming and thinks she sees someone drowning. Can't find her. After almost making it to the shore she looks down and the girl is in a few inches of water. She is grabbed and held under water until - well until the bubbles stop. And now no one but Sandy even remembers her. 

I wouldn't remember her either but that's me... Next is a guy in a machine shop. He's checking safety equipment on these three machines... as he checks the third here's our phantom girl, starting to look a bit nasty and now accompanied by a weird costumed dead Layla, the first victim. The phantom girl looked perfectly fine in the beginning but there's definite ick happening to her after each kid dies. 

Anywho, the guy gets dragged into a table saw - first his hand, then head. Splat. And then no one remembers him either. And his whole existence is erased, just as the first. The rest of the doomed idiots are going to the beach for spring break. Sandy is mad at her friends for 'teasing' her by claiming they have no idea who the two missing are. 

They stop at a convenience store and, since they are underage one girl distracts the clerk while the others rip off the entire store. Nice. Rich kids and they're flash mobbing a convenience store. What a statement for the future of the country since all these kids are supposed to be the smart ones with the great futures...


We then have one of the most horrid, stupid, mistake filled scenes in special effects history. This scene deserved a special reward for just how dumb special effects crews think audiences are - we are not supposed to notice even the most obvious of mistakes apparently.

We start with the next victim, Chad, who is driving a '71 Pontiac Lemans that they try to make look like a muscle car with taped on stripes on the hood and trunk so crooked they looked like Mr. Magoo installed 'em (I have to thank the hubby for the help with this - he hates these movies so getting his assessment was quite the honor). 

Okay what was supposed to happen (and you are supposed to accept) is that while zooming on this highway with a cliff on one side and a steep drop off on the other he is attacked by the phantom girl and crashes, rolling his car which bursts into flames with him inside. Just a few small problems however. His car spins out of control and starts rolling, not off the steep drop, but a conveniently placed dirt area beside the road. The car flips a total of five times with things flinging off the car from everywhere: the trunk opens and all this stuff he had crammed in there flies all over. Trim comes off, the back window, broken glass, crap is just everywhere. 

The car comes to a rest next to a pile of dirt (probably put there to keep it from going further). We then cut away to the guy in the car screaming for help and the phantom girl strangling him, although while the car was flipping it was quite obvious there was no one in the car whatsoever. We cut away again to the Lemans, which is now in THE MIDDLE of the dirt area which now explodes - from the engine. Okay, more dramatic than the realistic gas tank type explosion which is more likely but there are soooo many things wrong. 

One the car has moved. Two, every bit of debris, broken glass, spilled objects are nowhere to be found - the area is perfectly clean around the car. There isn't even a single skid mark. Three, a cable that is probably for the pneumatic gizmo they use to lift things like the hood and the roof can clearly be seen running from the now-closed trunk of the car. No joke. If you can see this movie for free (I'd never pay for it) look just for this scene - you'll get more than a few giggles from this horridly cheap, badly done special effect.

Back to the stupid movie: As with the other two, the group (except for Sandy) now do not know that Chad even existed. And reality is also starting to change around her. Instead of the beach, they are now going to the mountains. Oooooh, scary. Which brings up another point: They are supposed to be graduates. How is it that they are NOW going on spring break? Which brings us another little giggle. 

After driving a short distance they pass a junkyard (awful small one). Sandy demands they stop because she sees, on blocks, what is supposed to be Chad's car. Okay, supposed to be a chiller moment - except <snicker> the car she's looking at, while it is red with the white stripes like Chad's car, is clearly a '70 Pontiac Tempest. Just look at both - a Lemans grill has four parts, a Tempest has two.... massive duh all around... She then makes them drive to the other dead boy's house which is abandoned and apparently a crime scene for some reason. 

For whatever reason, Sandy now remembers the stupid game they played as kids, how she had learned it first from an orphan from the convent/orphanage. Her reverie is interrupted when the next girl is killed when, seeing the phantom she runs and falls into a pit that is clearly made of plaster - hands break through as the phantom and the other dead friends grab her and hold her down in the plaster while sand fills the hole up. The others can't understand why Sandy is getting so hysterical - they now don't remember this chick either.

Convincing her friends to go to the police station although they now think she's totally off her nut, she discovers that the girl she played with as a kid is Angela Smith who lived at the convent. She convinces the others to go but they insist on waiting for morning and all four stay in a motel. 

That's where they lose the next one - she is surrounded by the phantom and growing number of dead teenagers (GO PHANTOM!), forced into a closet with high voltage equipment, and electrocuted. Now there are three - her boyfriend is with her and thinks she's nuts, her brother is now at home and telling her he can't cover for her being a basket case any more. 

But to placate nutty Sandy they go to visit Angela only to find that she's been in a coma for six years. Ooooh I'm so... very very bored. But good news, the annoying boyfriend is the next to go, killed by this Thriller reject group in the convent's own chapel. So much for the protection of the church.


Now it's bro and sis and bro knows Sandy's a whack job. But he takes her as seriously as possible, especially when she reminds him of the game they played as kids, which she now knows the nuns taught the orphans (how nice, give the kids massive scars why don't you) which he remembers only she and he playing together. The rhyme, just to get it out there and end this goes as follows:

1, 2 Freddy's coming for you
3, 4 Better shut the door

Oops, sorry, that's a much better movie - wrong rhyme. This stinker actually is:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Release the one ignored by heaven (they figure this is Angela - way to go nuns)
8, 9, 10 Now run and hide or join her at the devil's side (the funny part is the nun says this avoids nightmares - whoa what a load)
11 Comes the clock will chime forgotten souls erased by time (the brother is now convinced that he had friends but they were erased by this stupid game)
Midnight comes it's not too late so kill the ghost or seal your fate (oh wonderful, a murder game)

Wow, what a cluster - how lucky these orphaned children are...

When they get to the hospital whoops, bro wasn't so helpful after all - the parents and a bunch of police and hospital personnel are there to sedate Sandy since she's obviously a massive whacko. As she's sedated and her brother is left out in the empty hallway... well duh, you know the phantom and all the other horribly dressed deadheads get him too... 

When Sandy asks about her brother her parents are puzzled because Sandy is an only child and she has no friends... Sandy now finally 'remembers' what she did - she and her wonderful friends decided to scare the snot out of the poor lonely orphan. 

They dress as dead kids, she invites Angela to play with just her but as they start that damn rhyme all the children rise up and pretend to attack Sandy (they're actually painting her up too) and she rises and chases Angela back to the convent. Angela, sickly anyway and not too bright, runs into the front door, causing her to seize and go into the coma she's been in for six years. 

So Sandy is basically responsible for everything but she blames Angela, sneaking into her room and shutting off her respirator. That'll teach her - uh, except it's now after midnight. Sandy hears the flatline start beeping again and sees Angela sitting up in bed - she knows what's next and runs but the phantom and all her former friends herd her to the roof - where the child Angela is waiting for her. Despite her apologizing, Angela causes her to fall off the roof. Now things are quite different - Angela is now awake and ready for the rest of her life and Sandy is in the life-long coma. Sounds fair to me.

Now the wiki version of this film takes it a step further and says it's not clear that Sandy's friends ever existed in the first place - this whole movie was Sandy's dream. Ah hell no you don't! This piece of garbage happened and you filmmakers have to take responsibility for it dammit... yuck!

Honestly Good Foreign Films




The яoad (2011) Phillipines

Not to be confused with the 2009 post-apocalyptic movie The Road, this movie (yes, I know the backward 'R' is annoying) is a Filipino import psychological thriller that would have been just fine as an intriguing mystery but of course the paranormal boogeyman BS sells right now so they had to incorporate that into the film to sell it to a larger audience. However, it is still a very watchable film, so if you want to see if first before finding out what I think please do - if not, it goes something like this:

You know how Hispanics often speak a combination of Spanish and English, a sort of Spanglish? Well the same is done here - disconcerting at first, but interesting. Half Filipino, half English, you still will need the subtitles provided to get the entire gist of the film. It's worth it though. This is one of those films that provides parts of the story like a recipe - they prepare one part, set it aside, prepare another part... in the end you have a story that is truly creepy (supernatural stuff aside) with a satisfying conclusion. It is beautifully filmed, great soundtrack and really good special effects. Now, totally unrelated question - how come it's the Phillipines but they speak Filipino? Why not Philipino? Just wondering...

We start with a lone figure in a car - a man. A gun is seen, a shot rings out - he's killed himself.

Now jump to a ceremony for a Filipino police officer. Luis is awarded a medal of valor for his investigation skills. After his award ceremony, a woman appears, asking all the officers if there is any new information. Apparently 12 years ago her two daughters went missing and nothing was ever found as to why or where they went. Luis asks the names -  Joy and Lara Luna. Despite the admonitions of his fellow officers he asks for their files, beginning his own investigation. We are then propelled to:

Story One, Year 2008: Three young people sneak out to practice driving at night. Avoiding a patrol car, they travel down a dark road that had been blocked by a flimsy wooden gate. Soon they realize that although the road is straight, they are lost as they keep seeing the same scenery go by time and time again (Maybe it's Hanna-Barbera Road. I suppose you are all too young to get that.). Panicking they turn around but the story is the same. Worse yet (here comes the supernatural) another car is following them and even shows up in front of them, each time passing them by. There is no driver. After one pass, one of the young girls notices someone in the backseat - bloody with a plastic sheet on her head. Finally, the harassing car crashes and since the young people's car has also stalled they get out to take a look. Horrified they see the car now appears to have been there for years, covered in rust and plant life. The back door comes off and they see the skeleton of someone in the back seat. One girl manages to call her dad for help (wow, a cell phone that works) but loses the connection. All are separated as other ghostly figures show up and as they finally get back together they're horrified to see that the old crashed car has burst into flames. In a panic, the boy runs off, the two girls attempt to drive away but as the car swings around, a girl named Ella falls out and the other girl runs into a tree and hits her head on the steering wheel. Ella screams as one of the bloody ghosts comes for her.

Somehow the police discover the road the young people drove down. They find the boy dead without a mark on him, and apparently the girl who hit her head on the steering wheel has also died. Ella has disappeared. They then find the crashed car and the skeleton, bearing a heart-shaped locket. They also find a dilapidated house which one officer searches but maintains nothing and no one is in it. At the morgue, the mother from the movie's beginning recognizes the locket as belonging to her missing daughter Lara. Our first ingredients are done.

Story Two, Year 1998: Having this in ten year increments is a little bit of a convenient device, but stick with me, it is worth it. Teenagers Lara and Joy are driving on the same dirt road. They are giggling, enjoying their drive when they pass a teenage boy walking down the road. Conveniently (sorry, it's good but not perfect) the car picks that moment to overheat. They ask the boy where they can find water and he leads them to his house. He goes inside without inviting them in. Sensing something wrong, Lara is prepared to run when he reappears, knocking them both out.

Lara finds herself chained to a bed. She hears her younger sister screaming but can do nothing. For whatever reason the boy (pretty strong little creep) drags Joy down to the basement and beats the ever living snot out of her, then wraps her head in a veil of some type. Lara speaks to Joy who seems to be in the next room, apologizing for not being able to protect her. When the little creep comes for her, she puts up one good fight - kicking, scratching, punching she manages to get him to leave her alone for the moment. The scuffle knocked the keys out of his pocket so she frees herself, going to get her sister but she's not there. We see Joy standing right next to her but Lara can't see her. Joy then starts to vomit dirt... 

Lara runs out to get to the car but cannot start it. The boy comes out and she runs and falls into a hole filled with corpses - one of them her sister. The supernatural aspect, remember? She'd been talking to an already-dead sister all that time. She runs down the road but the boy gets the car started and runs her over. He then puts a plastic bag over her head and ties it but as he drives down the road she sits up, startling him and making him crash into a tree. He gets out and the car catches fire, slowly burning the still-alive Lara inside.

We jump back to the present as Luis is searching for Ella. As he and another officer check the dilapidated house again, they find an old photo of who they assume are the old owners of the house. Luis finds Ella who keeps yelling at him 'let us go home' and passes out. He carries her out to a waiting ambulance and as her father tries to find out what happened she tells Lara's story as if she lived her tortures since she describes a teenage boy taking her 'and her sister' (she has no sister). And now for our final ingredients:

Story Three, Year 1988: If you think twisted dysfunctional families only exist in America, here's a bit of an education. A small boy lives in a house isolated deep in the woods. His mother has forbidden him to ever leave the house. The slightest infraction means hours in a small closet. His father is a preacher, but a pretty ineffective father or husband. His wife is carrying on an affair right in front of him, even greeting her lover right in front of her husband. At the same time, she insists that her son never speak to any girls because they are 'all dirty'. One day a young girl shows up to do the family's laundry. After going outside for just a moment he is caught by his mother and punished. When the girl tries to stop her the mother shoves her against the wall, cracking open her skull and killing her. She then makes her son clean up the mess, puts a veil around the girl's head and stuffs her in his closet of punishment.

She is sick of poverty and the fact that her husband refuses to take money from his congregation to help pay the bills. She announces that she's leaving him. Despite his protests, she says she is going. The next morning she wakes up her son. She's covered in mud. He goes downstairs to help with breakfast. His father shows up, also covered in mud. He tells his son his mother is gone. His son sees her sitting at the table. When the father shows him her corpse in a hole in the ground outside he freaks, running to the closet as he 'hears' her yelling at him and tells his father she's mad at him. The father finds him there, along with the corpse of the girl his wife killed. He freaks. The next morning when the boy comes out of the closet he finds his father has hanged himseslf in the living room. One little boy permanently messed up for life. Who somehow stays in the house without ever leaving until he's a teenager, when he killed Lara and Joy. And now it's time to bake our little creation...

Luis goes back to the house with another officer who says he's found a new padlock on a door. He kicks it in. It's a neat, orderly bedroom obviously lived in. As the officer looks around, he sees on the nightstand a policeman's dress hat and a medal of valor. Oops. He looks at Luis, who has a plastic bag. Luis strangles the officer using it and his belt. He then goes outside and Ella, still 'possessed' by Lara, points at Luis, identifying him as the boy who killed her. Luis draws his gun and shoots his boss twice in the chest. Now there are a billion officers standing around, why didn't he go down in a hail of bullets?  Oh well - he jumps in his car and zooms off, to get away from... everything I guess. Yes, our hero police officer Luis is the little boy turned massive psycho. As he zooms down the road, ghosts of his victims begin showing up in the car. Finally the car stalls and stops. He then sees the ghosts but cannot get out of the car. He draws his gun but that was a mistake... we see one of the ghosts take his hand and force him to shoot himself in the head. What seems like hours later, the other officers finally show up and find him dead in the car. The film ends with Luis as a young boy, finally able to go outside of his house and be free from his mother.

Pretty neat who-done-it kind of movie but you know I have to nit pick just a little. Like why are all the dead females ghosts but his father and the boy killed in 2008 are not? Why did the ghosts of the victims make more victims of the two kids in 2008? What the hell did they do? And why does the little boy turned massive psychopath killer get the happy ending of enjoying the outdoors and being free of his mother? Just little stuff I know but hey, even good movies have their duh moments.

Movies You Watch Because Of Who's In Them
- But Can't Finish 'Em Anyway



Night Of The Demons (2009)

A definite swing and a miss. I admit I need brainless today, but not this brainless. Even with the very sad looking Edward Furlong, I just couldn't get through this thing. If even half of the sick, twisted youth that apparently make up New Orleans on Halloween night get killed in this movie, count it as a good end. Yikes. I couldn't find a single thing that made me want to finish this movie. The biggest horror is that this is a remake of a 1988 movie that had two sequels.... dear Lord why?

Supposedly (this time, the original was ten friends in a funeral parlor) taking place in a mansion called the Broussard, in 1925 it was supposed to be the site of something unspeakable, leaving it empty. Until an enterprising (and having no morals whatsoever) young woman decides to throw the party of the year there. And Edward? He's playing a character named Colin, a drug dealer looking for a big score. He's got dark circles under his eyes, seems half-asleep, has yellow teeth from constant smoking, and good grief I really like the boy but his downfall has become so apparent it just makes you flinch to look at him. Oh and the movie was really starting to suck too... I really don't care if there are real demons in this film or not, I just know I'm saving my eyes, what little brain power I've got and my poor Max's ears (the soundtrack was dreadful and at full volume) for something that might not be smarter, but will definitely be a bit more watchable. Maybe the original of this thing - if it had two sequels it couldn't be that bad, could it? Pffft, I already know the answer to that one...

Cashing In On The Same, Tired (And Fake) Story



The Amityville Haunting (2011)

Let's see... what do we do when we have no imagination, want to cash in on the 'found footage' crap movies and slaughter another fictional family while claiming it to be true... oh yeah, we make what is the tenth installment of movies and books written about the infamous house in Amityville. Did anything happen? Oh yes, there was a guy who went nuts and murdered his family in the 70's. Is this a demonic occurrence? Well, let's see... just recently we had a mass shooting in a movie theater, a man shot his wife and planted a knife in her hand to claim self defense, three men beat another man to death in a Wal Mart parking lot for stealing 2 DVD players, a drunk addiction counselor hit a man with her car so hard his shoes flew off and he was actually lodged IN her windshield, yet she drove another two miles, stopping for a traffic light and being apprehended by other motorists who surrounded her and took her keys. 

Thanks for the house, feel free to die now...

Point being, people do the most horrific things to each other - it's called lack of love and consideration for your fellow man. If you want to blame that on demons or ghosts, go right ahead. As for the follow-up versions of the story pfft. They've already admitted that it was so blown up that not much reality could be found in any of it. And if this piece of... real estate was so dangerous wouldn't they have torn it down years ago? No way, how else is Amityville gonna get all those tourists to come and take their pictures and spend their money? Besides, it has been documented that families who have lived in the house since have reported absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

I'm young, smarter than the rest of the family
but nobody listens to me... sounds about right.

Why not keep writing stupid stuff about this particular cash cow? Quick scripts, bad effects, not even bothering to show the actual house once during the entire movie, almost frame for frame duplicate storylines from other movies.... it's a cinch. They might as well make more Twilight movies too while they're at it.... WAIT I DIDN'T MEAN THAT PLEASE DON'T.... oh dammit I hear glitter cans being opened as I type.

So hmmm... found footage, claims to be true, you know all the people in it are gonna die. Why did I watch it then? Oh, I'm here with my sick (but cuddly) puddy feeling not so wonderful myself and this is something I could watch without paying a whole lot of attention because basically I had the review written before the movie started.

We start with teenagers breaking in to party in the infamous house. They die quickly. Three and a half minutes into the movie... a good start. Then we have the realtor selling the house to a family of five (doom, doom, DOOM) who's patriarch inexplicably wants the house before they even cross the threshold. And not a drop of blood in the place. I love considerate evil spirits. Anywho, he convinces his soon-to-be-dead family and they take it. The realtor leaves and promptly dies in their parking lot. Cool! Only 8 minutes in and we've already got more stuff than half of a PA movie. Then they move in with professional movers bringing in the boxes, one makes a smart remark and boom... another body. Fifteen minutes, at least six dead. Not bad.

I may... or may not... have something
to do with this movie, I ain't telling...

So of course right away there's the bumping noises, the doors opening by themselves and the typical shadows. We get the joy of a combination of movie, hand-held footage by the 14 year old boy (nice little touch, making the camera not work quite right - hides boring footage and makes people try to pay attention for when the picture comes back) and of course the obligatory security cameras. This was already a messed up family, having moved five times in just over a year - blaming it on their troubled 16 year old daughter. In fact, the first couple of times the doors were left open, she had done it, to let in a boy and sneak out. Hence the installation of the security cameras. But we get to see (The family seems clueless - if they're not going to watch the camera recordings, why bother?) at first shadows, moving up to see-through figures, then the real deal (which I imagine saved on special effects) as 'real' ghosts of different people are seen throughout the house. Duh. The younger daughter has an imaginary friend who is not so imaginary. The father has his friend install the obligatory cameras - he's electrocuted as soon as he's done. Why not before? Oops, there's that damn brain cell trying to fire up... sorry.

French fried mommy...

Okay the culmination happens after only a few days and all are killed in the middle of the night. They show autopsy reports (having the coroner misspell 'extreme' as 'extream' was not inventive, just dumb) of each family member (except the youngest girl, she has 'joined' the wonderful world of Amityvillle ghosties) - the father was stabbed in the heart by his own youngest daughter, the mother was 'baked' inside her own skin, the son was torn apart but no blood was found in his body (again, very considerate of those evil spirits), and the oldest daughter was bent backward and found without her vital organs or her bones. Yummy! Of course, you don't get to 'see' any of that (well, a glimpse of the mom) 'cause that would take too much in special effects money so they figure reading it on an autopsy is good enough. Ugh. I'll try to make a better pick, but I really don't have much concentration right now, and this was a good movie to get the whole thing without even having to pay any attention.

I found this while getting some images to put on this review and it made me laugh so...

Bonus Drinking Game

Take a Drink: every time they tell the kid to turn off the camera.

Take a Drink: for the death-count; drink as the bodies roll.

Drink a Shot: when you see the ghost, or rather, when you see the guy standing in the background.

I recommend doing this with soda, or else you're gonna get hammered...

You Too Can Make Money On The Paranormal - Right?

Paranormal Studies

After watching myriads of movies where privileged young snots get themselves killed (and usually all their friends too) in the midst of writing thesis papers on the Paranormal for their high schools or colleges I thought hey, what kind of money could be made in this and where ARE all these schools that are teaching so many young people this total BS (and no doubt at the same time pointing them in the direction of a relative-owned shop where they can purchase all that EMF and BFD and whatever else they use for ghost hunting). So I went to my good friend Google. At first, there was nothing - unless you wanted to learn online. That sounded lame so I kept going...

If you've had the same experiences I've had, going to Yahoo answers is kind of like hitting your thumb with a hammer in front of a very stupid crowd. You know you've hit your thumb, but 100 people will tell you hey you hit your thumb, instead of telling you how to treat it. In other words, it stinks. The best I could find (and the answer I was expecting anyway) was from one person who actually took the question (I didn't ask it, are you nuts?) seriously: "They don't teach paranormal stuff as majors in colleges; the best you could do is major in science or philosophy and take related classes, but even those aren't offered at many colleges. You probably already know to avoid the 'metaphysical' colleges if you want a real education."

So... all these movies showing classes about the paranormal are a bunch of crap, but then you already knew that. You could try comparative religions or the classes mentioned above, but you still are not going to get a lot of answers on how to assemble your own Scooby team. The best you can hope for is something that is slightly related that you can somehow parry into your own little money making scheme: "There are no accredited colleges or universities offering paranormal studies courses or degrees. One can study parapsychology. However, most scientists engaged in psi research hold degrees (usually doctorates) in conventional sciences such as medicine, engineering, physics, psychology, etc."

In other words, prepare for about 25 years or more worth of college. Think your parents can swing that? Or you? Are you young enough that if you finally get done with all of that the first supposed ghosty you see doesn't make you drop dead of a heart attack?

Am I being a bit sarcastic? Ehhh, yup. When I was in high school (no college for me) there was no such thing as anything even remotely interesting as making your own movies, studying EMFs and other phenomena, or any of that bullcrap. I was lucky my high school taught math. Not well, 'cause I couldn't do algebra to save my life, but it had it. Reading, writing, math. And gym. Stupid, worthless gym.

Sigh, so what DOES one do when one is determined to become a ghostbuster? Is there any hope at all for a future at staring at shadows constantly repeating 'What was that?'

One person puts the whole 'What countries offers parapsychology majors in the world?' answer pretty simply: "None of them. A few in Europe used to, but they don’t anymore. That’s because parapsychologists never found anything to study. As soon as you apply the scientific method to the paranormal, it disappears – it was never there to begin with. Nothing paranormal has ever been shown to exist. Trust me, if it ever is, scientists will be all over it and you’ll be able to get a degree studying it. There are so many scientists you can’t pick anything in the world to study that no one else has already written books on. If there were a whole new field of science out there, no one would be ignoring it."

So next time you see someone with a hand-held camera and an EMF wandering around repeating endlessly 'Is there anyone there?' do me a favor and knock that stuff out of their hands and beat some sense into them, okay? (Just kidding, but pointing and laughing is almost as good).

Should People Like These Wear Signs To Warn Us?




Lovely Molly (2011)

I can think of a dozen other titles for this movie - Loony Molly, Psycho Molly, Not In The Least Pitiful Molly, Please Die Quickly Molly... just to name a few. No I did not like this movie although I suppose some thought it was a study on the effects of abuse on adult survivors. I call BS on this one. They were going to call it The Possession but do you know how many other movies have that title or close to it? Besides, it doesn't fit. The premise is that newlywed Molly moves into her deceased father's house in the countryside, where painful memories soon begin to haunt her. And, of course, since it sells right now, put some kind of supernatural kink in it and also some nauseating hand-held footage and BAM, a movie like every other damn horror movie being made this decade. 

Still clean and clothed Molly

My favorite line about this kind of movie still comes from one that was horrible but gave up this gem: #1 "Why is the footage all shaky like that?" #2 "It's hand-held footage, it's supposed to, it brings energy." #1 "Oh is that what you filmmakers call it? The rest of us call it headache." What makes it oh so much worse is its assertion that it was made by those who did The Blair Witch Project AND The Lord Of The Rings. AH HELL NO!

For starters Molly was obviously sexually abused by her father after her mother's death, despite the efforts of her older sister to keep him away from her. She then abused drugs, suffered some kind of breakdown and was committed (implied, not said), straightened her life out and decided to marry. Then she makes the incredibly stupid move of living in the house she grew up in. As a fellow adult survivor, the very LAST thing you want is anything that reminds you of your hell of a childhood. But through the whole movie Molly proves that her brain waves never make it to shore.

I'm a nice guy, honest... I only cheat a little...

The past is in movie form, which jumps from that to the present, which she is videotaping. So you only get half a headache. Since her new husband is a truck driver he's gone a lot which means she not only has her hellhole of a house to live in, she has to be in it alone. The 'noises' and 'stomping' that always accompany these damn movies start occurring immediately, and she starts videotaping, hoping to get 'proof' that it's not all in her head. Conversely, she also starts abusing drugs again, which knocks her credibility back down to naught. Somehow she has her father juxtaposed with some sort of animal, like a horse. This clip clopping plus her assertions that 'he's not dead' aren't assuring to anyone she talks to, especially her sister.

NO. MORE. TALKING.

The whole point of the movie seems to be... what the hell exactly is it? Is this supposed to be about mental problems? Actual demons? Ghosts? There are absolutely no answers from beginning to end. We do find in the course of the movie that the people who are supposed to be Molly's support system end up completely failing her (her sister didn't protect her, her husband cheats on her, her pastor has sex with her) and so whatever the hell is going on, she is not going to find a wall anywhere to lean on. And it's hard to feel sorry for her, because she brings a lot of it on herself. No, she was in no way responsible for being a victim when she was a child (hello, fellow adult survivor talking) but she is an adult now, and if there are problems for her for the past, get the hell some help, don't resort to drugs and... whatever else the hell point the movie is trying to make.

Still wanna see me naked?

Because, in the end, Lovely Molly is anything but. She's a drug abuser, certified psycho (she hides a rotting deer carcass in the basement, stabbing it repeatedly with a screwdriver) and murderess (her cheating husband, the randy pastor and inexplicably the child of the woman her husband was seeing). Lovely Molly is naked, massively whack job Molly. At the end, she goes outside to embrace what is vaguely seen as a man figure with a horse's head. I say vaguely and I saw this on a pretty big screen and still couldn't really tell.

I sure hope my horse pictures are okay...

In the... second conclusion I guess her sister is selling the house (burn that sucka down dummy) and finds it of course vacant except for a book of photographs... in every one, her sister has replaced her father's head with a horse's head. Ummm, clip clop noises explained uh, I guess? She hears something in the closet - opening the door she reaches out to.... what? This is exactly what Molly had done at the beginning of the movie. So why? You'll grow old trying to figure it out or care why.

Movies So Awful They Have To Name Them Twice



Evil Remains aka Trespassing (2004)

I think I've got the multi-named movie figured out and I think they deserve to be in a genre by themselves. Now I'm not talking about foreign films that are renamed for the American audience, that's usually because (usually) their title doesn't really translate well and American distributors thought that a different name would sell more.

... and make that check out to 'cash' please...

But in these cases where it's just plainly a bad movie with a bad title, no amount of renaming it is gonna help. I mean c'mon, a barely literate film about some maniac in New Orleans killing his parents in 1982 because of some vague curse that is never explained, the story set in the present that never made sense, and the only person worth watching in the whole thing was a puzzling appearance by Kurtwood Smith (better known as 'Red' on That 70's Show) who played a psych with absolutely NO accent who just spouted a couple of what was meant to be ominous sentences for about five minutes of the movie. Because the obligatory five young people in this thing... oooh I wanted them dead soooo fast... Oh and you notice how on the poster there are two very cute blondes on the cover? Reality check fellas - these two are together number one, and number two - the chick on the left actually had brunette dreads... Oh, and thank you ever so much close captioning, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the movie near as much if you hadn't printed 'slasher music' at the appropriate times...

We're not joined at the hip you know bro...

I paid attention the best I could, honestly. Okay a kid goes nuts, kills his dog, wears its head and slaughters his parents and his whereabouts are... never explained. A smart assed college kid (aren't they always anymore) decides his thesis is going to be about dispelling myths (another worthless BA here we come) and wants to do this particular one which is why he's talking to Red, err, I mean Dr. Rosen (Kurtwood Smith) about the psycho kid, Carl Bryce. The good doc keeps calling it a tragedy, not a myth, and maintains that, in a long winded speech that supposedly is to carry us through the movie without complaining or questioning anything, the whole area down by where he lived is a 'cursed' land due to some plantation owner who was doing awful things, including killing, her slaves (Didn't they all?). They try to skirt around the 'voodoo' aspect and other obvious things about the Deep South, but the whole point he asserts is that before you go there, you have to be sure WHY you are going there. Huh? He's dead serious and I'm sure this is supposed to help them keep a level head or something but... huh?

Maybe you SHOULD dye your hair blonde too...

So these five massively irritating college kids (Why do the idiots writing these kind of papers always think they have to bring the whole Scooby gang with them?) pile into a van, break their way onto this stretch of property, and promptly get lost. Of course. Eventually they find a house, assuming it is the Bryce house. The three guys, two brothers and a massive douche of a guy whose main goal in the movie seems to be to remind us every ten seconds that the two women are... umm... in a relationship together, go inside the house while the two women decide to explore (Do we even need to ask about cell phones?).

Things quickly go wrong. Actually, not as quickly as I wanted - we're over 40 minutes into the movie and no one is dead yet. Especially the massive douche, who I wanted dead soooo bad... I thought I recognized him too, and when I looked him up later I got a laugh that almost (okay not near but still) made up for the movie. I'll let you know why in a bit. First we've got five young 'uns to kill.

Lets get one thing straight right now. NO ONE ACTUALLY SEES ANYTHING OR ANYONE CLEARLY DURING THIS WHOLE MOVIE. So whether we're dealing with an actual still-alive psycho killer or these kids are butchering each other is never clear. NEVER. Beginning, middle, end, you have no real idea of what the hell is actually going on. A curse? A bad script, more like.

Nothing is behind me... nothing is behind me...

Finally the Hardy boys... uh the two brothers go into the attic where they find the massive douche dead, upside down and slaughtered. YES YES YES!!! Oops, I'm sorry about that - it's just he was sooo annoying if you were in the movie you'd have ripped him to pieces too. For some reason, the two brothers now suspect each other of having murdered the guy, and panic when the trap door to the attic slams shut. They get really panicked when they can't open it. Okay fellas, this door opens UP, not DOWN. How the hell does one 'block' an upward opening door shut? Meanwhile the girls outside keep running into rusty animal traps and inexplicably think they have to travel the whole damn property setting these things off. What??? Oh, but that way we get tons of meaningless dialogue about their 'relationship' that means absolutely nothing to the movie, the plot, us...

After 88 minutes of sheer torture (for us) only the smart girl is left alive (always one in every movie) except since she's the only one alive and NO ONE ACTUALLY SAW ANYTHING it is concluded she went nuts, slaughtered her friends and is institutionalized. We are left with our friendly Dr. Rosen talking to yet another college student working on yet another thesis, this time centered on the last survivor, being told, again, 'before you go out there you have to be sure WHY you are going there'. Dear Lord, just end this damn thing, will you?

The funny (and non-douche)
Jeff Bryan Davis

Oh, and why the massive douche thing was so funny... I thought I recognized him from somewhere but couldn't place him - there's a harmless throw-away movie that Robert Englund wrote called Killer Pad. In that movie the boys in this 'house of hell' have a friend who's a champion partyer. When he shows up, he's applied for the priesthood. He ends up 'saving' the place by playing holy rock and roll to shove the demons back to hell - Kiss' song Rock And Roll All Nite which he actually sang - or tried to. He's also the voice of Dr. Frankenstein in the hilarious 'Frankenhole', something I've been watching since it started. This 'douche' is very funny guy Jeff Bryan Davis, who's done some really good stuff (including playing incredible douchebags).

Freaking Rich Young Dude... 




The Shrine (2010)

Trevor Matthews. Canadian. Son of a billionaire. Pretty smart dude who started and is CEO of his own film production company. Stars in his own stuff too. Only 30 freaking years old. He's got some learning to do but I think I'm gonna like him...

Just not in this one. The Shrine's main problem is lack of exposition. Probably because it is about a curse in Poland, nobody speaks English except the young children, no translation is given about what the hell the people are talking about, the three Americans are so annoying you don't mind if they die or not, and, at the end, the only explanation you're going to get about the whole damn movie is: It's a curse. It cannot be undone. That's it. Period. Two American girls died (and one guy in the beginning) and we cannot care or be moved because we have no idea what the hell for.


But Trevor Matthews (who plays Henryk in this movie) is a kid with a lot going on. I watched his 2007 Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer and found a lot to like about it, silly as it was. This - I couldn't even really find anything interesting to put in my notes, save that at the beginning when the two girls (would-be reporters) visit the mother of the missing (and very dead) guy from the beginning they are sitting around a tea set. When one excuses herself to look at the young man's things, the mother offers to make tea. Oops. Other than that, there's some interesting gore towards the very end, nice use of intestinal shredding, heads get "Gallaghered" several times, but other than that, meh.

But again this is a young man with a long way to travel and he'll get it, I'm sure... he has the instincts and the money.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

247°F (247 Degrees Fahrenheit) (2011)

It's not totally unusual for me to review a movie a friend recommends or dares me to watch. This movie was a little of both but I was glad to do it because it is TOTALLY different than the movies I've been watching lately. I mean, a movie about a group of young people who get in a completely ridiculous situation due to their own stupidity and then take and hour and a half to resolve it? Haven't seen anything like THAT. Not in a long time. In this movie Necrosis.... uh wait, I mean in this movie Frozen.... dammit wait again it's Thirst, right? No? Okay, okay in Wrecked... no that was Adrien Brody and I wouldn't watch him even if I was paid to.... oh yeah, 247°F! Yeah this one! In this movie in a totally OMG I never expected THAT move the movie begins by saying it's based on actual events. Clear out of left field that was.

We start with a whiny girl getting in a wreck with her fiancee' who dies and obviously had clout 'cause he only had to be in this movie for less than five minutes. Three years later, her friend and two guys do what every upper middle class group of young people do - they go to an island to enjoy a vacation alone in a cabin. Cell phone service? You know, I really couldn't tell you - I never saw one. Huh. Lots of alcohol though, and the promise of an exclusive party to last all night for the most important holiday in American history - May Day. You heard me. It gets worse. Much, much, worse. A certain reader of mine better not come within swatting distance of me or he's not going to be able to sit for a month...

Now Jenna's on 'my boyfriend's dead so I got these' medication but I guess they kill the buzz so she doesn't take them. Before they go to this exclusive party, they drink heavily and then, logically, decide to use the cabin's sauna. Just what alcohol soaked people need to do - nay MUST do. They invite pneumonia along with their wicked hangovers by alternating between the sauna and the lake, drinking in between. Finally Michael, Jenna's friend's stupid boyfriend gets so wasted he can't make it back into the sauna and passes out on the couch. The other three in the sauna are tired of him and decide to go to the party - they try to open the door. Guess what? No, guess. I'll wait. I've got lots of time. My DVR needs reprogramming and all my shows are lost so... go ahead. No?

At first they think ha ha funny joke. They push harder - nothing. Now Ian, Jenna and her friend Renee start getting nervous. Actually Jenna is getting outright hysterical, being sans dead boyfriend pills and not comfortable anymore with small spaces. There is shouting, arguing, crying, drinking water indiscriminately, and more shouting. A LOT more shouting. Ian gets the bright idea (and burnt hands) of grabbing the hot rocks and wrapping them in a towel to break the window in the door. He finally manages it, along with losing most of the skin on his hand. Now they have a little fresh air and that is good. But the fresh air tells the thermostat that the room is too cold and fires up the gas heater and that is bad. I don't know how they picked 247 degrees as the thing was set for, I dunno, a hundred and forty something so what's with the 247? Is that what you cook a turkey at? No really, is it 'cause I don't know...

The smartest one in the movie is the cabin owner's dog (duh) who 'senses' the three in trouble and tries to alert his master but the 'Timmy fell into the well again' tricks don't work in movies anymore and his owner ignores him. We then get movie filler as they get weaker, it gets hotter and personal revelations are shared, as often happen when the writers can't think of anything else to fill the space. Ian is supposed to be showing signs of heat exhaustion but instead he's showing signs of 'I'm bored by this role so I'm going to ham it up' syndrome, making him go nuts and break the gas heater in the middle of the sauna, miraculously blasting the door open and Jenna outside. She runs to the fridge, grabs a cold one and gulps it down and goes to her room. Nice. As she's sitting on her bed looking at her 'I'm a miserable ex-girlfriend' pills she hears her friend Renee's voice calling weakly to her. She snaps back to reality - ah hell no, she's still in the damn sauna!

Ian is of course very dead (shaked AND baked) and since Jenna conked Renee on the head with a rock she's not in great shape either. And now the room is filling with gas. She somehow props Renee's face next to the broken window, blocks the gas pipe and slumps down to accept that yes, she took money to be in this film and it's on her resume' forever...

Michael, unaware of his friends trapped in the sauna, gets back to the cabin where flashbacks shows us what a real dumbass he was and why he should be facing criminal charges about now. Drunk, hot and cold and stoned, he stumbled around and knocked stuff down, including a small ladder which he propped against the door (MASSIVE DUH). The cabin owner discovers the two girls, alive (based on real events my butt), in the sauna. The paramedics arrive and take Jenna and Renee in a stretcher as they hold hands.

And that was $3.99 I'm never going to see again. And 88 minutes of my life. What a job...