I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

MOVIES WITH THAT EXTRAS SUCKINESS THAT MAKES IT OH SO HARD TO WATCH TO THE END...







Dead Above Ground (2002)

My first comment goes to Stephen J. Cannell: Stay out of your own movies you egomaniac. Stephen King can do it and get away with it because he's fun to watch. You were... just awful. Which fits perfectly because so was your movie you prejudiced creep.

This movie was maddening and not just because it was horrible and made no sense and there was no explanation to 'tie' everything together. It's because it portrays goth kids the way they are still regarded today: Weird kids that should be shunned 'cause hey, they're all devil worshippers, right? WRONG Mr. Cannell and do you have any idea how many teen suicides are caused by kids being bullied because they are different? 

Apparently thinks all kids should be labeled.

Whether it's what they wear, like goth kids, or who they are, like the whole LGBT community, you have NO RIGHT to further dangerous stereotypes that can be deadly. I'm not over-exaggerating you pompous creep. On my right wrist I keep a rubber bracelet in respect to a young girl who killed herself over this exact same thing - she was constantly picked on, even beaten because of how she dressed. I wear it with pride - all proceeds going to a foundation to help teens and prevent suicides.

Don't worry honey, we die right away...

All right I'm off my soapbox and ready to deal with this <expletive deleted> movie. In the beginning we have Corbin Bernsen (top billed because sadly he's the 'name' for this movie) who has just won an award (yeah, that's going to happen - you just keep collecting those snow globes buddy) and is celebrating with his trophy wife - until at his mansion on his door he sees in red the typical satanic type crap with the words Dead Above Ground underneath. Since he's movie stupid, instead of calling the police and getting the hell out of there he skulks around until both he and his wife are murdered. And we skip ahead...

No, Goth kids are not psychopaths. I just happen to
be a psychopath who dresses like a Goth kid.

It's your typical high school, you know, where the rich kids are extra rich, those that are 'poor' have to settle for driving used Camaros (Dammit, I would have killed to have ANYTHING with four wheels.) and of course it all categorizes by jocks, brains, cheerleaders - I think Cannell represented all stupid brands for this movie - including kids who are goth. Enter Jeff Lucas, goth to the max and shown as a psychopath who keeps reciting Celtic stuff and makes a gory film for his school project (Hey, at least he's IN school, right?). When the film is rebuffed, he goes nuts because hey, he's goth, right? 

But later at a party at Cannell's house (He played the principal. Yeah, all high school principals let underage kids party at their houses.) he's inexplicably there also and of course gets into a fight. He drives off, hitting the cherry red Camaro belonging to the poor kid (oh boo hoo) so of course that kid has to drive and chase him - right off a cliff and since this is a movie the car explodes upon impact, the police apparently not checking anything until much later 'cause all they find is some ashes. The kid with the Camaro is suspected of doing it on purpose but they can't prove it.

Skip ahead once again to a year later. A new blonde kid shows up and of course he now lives in the house Jeff Lucas had claimed was his family's. And then we get the horrid 'it's been a year so Jeff will come back from the dead' and people begin to die, usually axed or knifed by a figure in a black cape for crying out loud and a mask. 

And this killer is no "spirit", that's apparent at the start - they show him strangling then breaking the neck of one girl and he's panting. Spirits pant? That pretty much helped me write the rest of my review without even watching the rest of this sick cinema. Just kidding, I did watch it, and all my suspicions were right on - Cannell you have the imagination of a potato.

I have to hurry my hair needs to take a leak...

Enter Sgt. Dan DeSousa (Antonio Sabato, Jr.) which made me ask one very serious question: What pissed-off long haired animal did you kill and stick on top of your head? It was a combination of fake and douche. Anyway, he of course suspects the kid who everybody thinks killed Jeff because police are stupid in movies and lazy too. He manages to bang the school counselor (sorry, but romance was NOT part of this movie) but clues? Solving cases? Pfft, that's for the teenagers to do.

The Scooby gang decide that the remaining goth girl (there were others but they disappeared since, I guess, Cannell didn't think they were needed anymore) Zara is in league with the 'spirit' of Jeff and is helping him commit the murders. Oh but we've got it better than that and right on schedule according to my pre-written review.

Burned skulls always look like brains... duh...

See, as happens in movies, Jeff Lucas survived having his car go off a cliff and explode. Without any medical care, he's been living his life as a cheap version of Freddy Kruger. Wearing a mask he was posing as the new student. Oh, in the fiery crash only his face was burned? How convenient. It is then revealed that Jeff isn't even his real name - it's Rick Mallory, a schizophrenic (See? He was mentally ill, not a typical goth kid.) who killed his father and step-mother (Corbin's big beginning scene) and has been on the run ever since. And since all movie high school kids are played by actors well into their 20's, he fit right in.

We have the big fight scene blah blah blah and Jeff/Rick goes over the cliff AGAIN, this time landing on some very conveniently place spikes on a rock (Spikes on a rock? Will you PLEASE stop being this stupid?). But ooooh, for the hopes of a sequel (nope) the body once again disappears. 

And we get no explanations. What is Dead Above Ground? Why did he pick these kids and in that order - wouldn't he first have killed the kid that he raced when he went off the cliff? Oh sorry, that would imply intelligence and this movie had none. He just disappears. And so did the careers of everyone in this movie. Oh sorry, somehow Corbin still gets work. Don't ask me how.