I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

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).