TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN' SLIPPIN' SLIPPIN'... INTO THE FUTURE...

The Evil Within/Mine Games (2013)

Currently streaming on Netflix, it will tell you the movie is called Mine Games but when you start to watch, the OTHER title they liked better (but didn't stick with I guess) comes up, The Evil Within. Which is also the title to a popular video game, a 1970 movie, and an episode of Blade: The Series. And they made up their own genre to keep your interest (it fails) - a 'time travel thriller'.

Not. Even. Close.

When it's really obvious drek I have to come up with a decent reason why I would want to subject myself to it. Then I look at the title of my blog (sigh). Plus the movie was shot in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state, and some scenes were shot in the Ape Caves, and since I used to live near there and have actually been in the caves, it was enough.

Hmm, who appears in this movie... uh oh. I recognize a name. My fibro brain can't remember to take pills on time, when my doctor appointments are, or what I ate the day before, but I can remember names clear back to when I was <mumbles>. In this case, it's Briana Evigan.

Teen Beat had a strict no-shirt policy...

Nah, she wasn't from way back when, but her dad was. Anybody ever hear of Tiger Beat? Way back when it was the magazine that told us young'uns which guys we should be screaming over (it was pointed to girls - don't know what the boys were looking at, except maybe their dad's Playboys). It is still in print, as well as having a digital version. Woof. That's... dumb.

But I guess magazines that tell us what to think and who's good and who's not are still around, even for adults. When Spin (a music magazine) decided to stop printing in 2012, the smarties at the subscription service figured what I'd most like instead ('cause I wasn't getting my money back) was Esquire. Do you know what Esquire is? Clothes I cannot ever afford and cologne I would never allow in my house. That magazine reeks so badly I can tell when the hubby picks up a new issue in the mail. I'd like to stop those freaking things but... sigh. Oh, and it tells me what is sexy, like I don't know. Short answer: Everything and everyone except me. There. Whoops, one more thing. It's pretty much for men.

Oh yeah, Tiger Beat. Way back when I was <mumbles> I did have my crushes. One was for the actor of the stupidest program on television (and this was in competition with Dukes Of Hazzard and Hee Haw) called BJ And The Bear, with Greg Evigan. If you're a bit younger, you might recognize him from My Two Dads, a show in an age where having two dads married to each other was unacceptable but it was perfectly all right to co-parent a kid whose (dead) mom slept with both guys close enough together (I mean days together, not in the same bed - sheesh) that she doesn't know which one was the kid's dad. And there was no CSI or Maury Povich to cut that series short with a DNA test.

Uh, where was I? Ah. Briana Evigan. When BJ And The Bear started on TV, Greg Evigan was 25. Briana is now 27. Where's my shawl and cane? And why am I stalling with this movie? Because it was absolutely, totally, completely awful. I would recommend watching the first ten minutes or so 'cause they're driving through to the north side of the Gifford Pinchot forest and you'll see some wonderful scenery and Mt. Rainier as they go by. As soon as they hit the gas station, stop. You've seen enough.

I want to meet the sicko who thought this up...

Sigh, but that's not what I do. Seven people who aren't even remotely likable are vacationing in the kind of place that no one can afford ever. It is gorgeous. For 'texture' sort of like having corn in your poo-poo (the Playdoh kind) they decided to mix Australian and American actors for I-really-don't-give-a-damn reasons. And conveniently, within a short walking distance, is an abandoned mine (they don't call it a cave, that's too boring). Nobody's there although a friend was supposed to be there to meet them.

In the first shot we get a few scenes inside the cave. Uh, no. Have you ever been in a cave, I mean a REAL cave? For a freak-out, the guide there at the Ape Caves had us all turn off our flashlights. The darkness is so total you could swear you were seeing things move - and you weren't. 

Here we see dimly lit parts of this non-mine with a voice that repeats two sentences you're going to come to hate - 'This Is The First Time' and 'I Can Break The Cycle'. Oh and an irritating sound sort of like a rattlesnake but not. If you want to skip this movie, go into a dark room, say that about a hundred times, have a loved one come in and grab you aaaaand you're done.

As the kids make a pit stop for gas and munchies we find out that Lyla (Briana Evigan) has a boyfriend Michael WHO'S ON ANTI-PSYCHOTIC MEDICATION OH MY GOD EVERYBODY RUN!!!! Thanks a lot Hollywood for making mental illness even more of a stigma than regular people already do. Besides, if he can have a treated illness and graduate college, I think he can survive a weekend in the country, right? At least in real life. Here... meh.

We see a sign for today's newspaper blaring that PEOPLE WERE FOUND MURDERED IN AN RV!!! All I could think was it must be a real bitch having to paint a sign every day for the newspaper headline that no one reads 'cause everybody just reads their freaking iPads anyway. Oh and just for the final piss off - that's not what it says according to the wiki, so how many versions of a bad movie CAN you make anyway?

Or they would read their iPads if they weren't in the 1% of the nation where there is no cell reception much less wifi. This is actually legit - I know someone who lives in the Gifford Pinchot and no, there's no cell phone reception in many spots. Maybe that's why these college graduates have absolutely no incentive as to call someone when a person tries to flag them down and the swerving makes their van quit working (I guess) so they have to walk the rest of the way to their billion dollar all-hardwood cabin/resort. Do I sound a little resentful to you? Oh well.

OH MY GOD MICHAEL LEFT HIS MEDS IN THE CAR AND WON'T GET THEM UNTIL MORNING - THEY MIGHT AS WELL SLIT THEIR WRISTS NOW!!! Sigh. I really hate that they have a movie about a guy who managed to get through years of college without killing anybody but can't go on vacation without having a babysitter every second.

Oh, and if it seems I've giving you more scenic shots than shots of the 'action' that's 'cause there wasn't much 'action' and believe me, you'll thank me for not having to look at them freaking out about... stuff.

Walking along the street they see the Northern Lights (the movie kind of implies that this plus Michael being a psycho killer in sheep's clothing being the cause of what is coming) and one of them says the Northern Lights shouldn't be seen that far south. Ahem.

Crown Point (aka Vista House) in the beautiful Columbia 
River Gorge in Oregon (Gary Randall Photography)

The Northern Lights are called that because they're in the Northern hemisphere, not on top of the world idiot. We've seen them here in Oregon, and other states have as well. <rolls eyes> How long did you guys go to college again?

Umm, yeah...

After Michael is left outside to feed gas into the generator (no electricity), he comes in with a very strange expression that everyone ignores. He has blood on his face but says he tripped over a gas can. Yeah, gas cans bleed, didn't you know? Anywho, he goes to bed early (because us mentally ill people do NOT like to party) and we have the obligatory get-blitzed-on-every-kind-of-alcohol-we-can-find-without-puking-all-over-the-cabin scene. Michael has nightmares. Yaaaaawn...

Hmm? I haven't even started the movie yet? Okay here we go:

The next morning - they go in the mine they 'just' discovered. It has old dynamite in it. Umm, no. It also is dusky but easy to see everything with small lamps. Umm, no. Rose (who conveniently is a medium) feels someone grab her leg. It causes a wound only she can see. Forever after during the movie she sees her friends as dead and rotting. What a fun girl.

In the cave they find a picture of The Ouroboros, an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. It often symbolizes something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things such as the phoenix which operate in cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also mean the thin premise of a never-ending movie to eat up time and money and suck the hard earned cash out of your pockets. <rim shot>

Two guys find three guys dead, two of them are themselves. Confused? Too bad, it doesn't get better. That's why I was babbling about other stuff. All through the movie we hear this strange rattling like snakes but don't know what it is.

The friends who invited them never show up - they are the couple found dead in the RV according to the convenient sign at the gas station. Problem with that - they weren't dead yet, they were killed later... you know what? Skip it.

Michael is trapped by his 'friends' for fun and sees on the wall 'This is the first time'. Repeat that about a hundred times.

Let's break it down, shall we? For unknown reasons ('cause it's cheaper that way) there's repeating sequences of the same dumb college graduates coming every day and starting this movie. Each group is oblivious of the other. So somehow the cycle has to be broken. Pleaaaaase.

The bodies are piling up, mainly because it's the same people and Michael is the instigator but we don't get to know why all we know is HE HAS SCHIZOPHRENIA AND SO MUST DIE!!! That's what people think about mental illness, right? You got somebody with one among you, you back away.

So they are circling around themselves trying to figure out how not to die and failing. Over and over. The only one to see past, present and future seems to be Rose, so she's poisoned by... someone (most likely Michael). And dies.

How did it start? Don't ask. The first Michael tells the next Michael to take his meds in the blister pack and throw it on a campfire. That's what the hissing/rattling noise through the whole movie. How? Don't ask. Why did the others hear the rattling when they were nowhere near the fire? Don't ask. Where did the FIRST Michael come from? Don't ask. 

A wounded Lyla limps all night long down the road. How? Don't ask. She manages to get to the gas station JUST as another Lyla is waking up and talking to Michael. The wounded Lyla slams on the van window. Is there going to be a sequel? DON'T ASK.

                        

MOVIES THAT DON'T SUCK... NO, REALLY!

Madhouse (2004)

This movie looked like a big load of garbage at first sight, another one of those 'haunted institutions' type movies that are made by the dozens. But it has Lance Henriksen and even though he's been in some, uh, really duh type movies I'll still watch anything with him in it. After all, everyone can do bad movies - Tom Savini, George Romero, Jeffrey Combs... those who make movies and those who act in movies don't always get the best parts. This was a very pleasant surprise, although Lance plays a minor role in it, he's probably there so the film would have a big name in it. I would say this is worth a look so be warned the following describes the movie plot.

First, speaking of Lance Henriksen I'm going to give him some props for writing a pretty damn good comic series (a short one) called To Hell You Ride. The premise: A deadly curse plagues a small town, melting the flesh from its victims - the violent revenge four warriors set in motion when their sacred burial grounds were disturbed for the sake of gold miners' greed! Pretty cool stuff... check it out.

As for this movie, it was not the typical stuff - after the beginning. First we get the ghostly icky stuff, the rapid movement of giggling specters, the duh stuff every spooky movie likes to use. But then we actually get a story. Cunningham Hall is a mental facility (of course) that's run down and kind of a dumping place for the undesirables, including the violent and nasty ones. A young boy escapes this wretched place and runs through the woods to a road. A car comes towards him and purposely runs him down, knocking him down a ravine..

Flash ahead to a guy fresh from graduating, doing his internship at Cunningham. His name is Clark (Joshua Leonard) and he is told right away by the administrator Dr. Franks (Lance Henricksen) that this place is really not for advancing mental health techniques, but rather just keeping the loonies in check basically. Clark doesn't like that but since he is only an intern he can't do anything about the patients or the deplorable conditions. 

At night, he sees a young boy roaming the halls although no one can tell him who he is, only that there is no boy at the facility. One young nurse, Betty, helps show him the ropes and lets him know how things work in this place. Clark is bothered that some patients claim that they shouldn't be there and some claim they aren't allowed out even if they're 'cured'. Clark also notices that Dr. Franks has several books that suggest that paranormal activity could explain some patient's conditions, and that conversely some paranormal activity people claim to have seen could be explained by mental illnesses.

Clark continues doing everything he can in his position for the patients, even those considered the worst in the basement called the 'Madhouse' but his abilities are limited. And the boy keeps coming, looking a little more sinister each time. He develops a sort of dialogue with a patient in the basement named Ben who won't let him see his face - he talks kind of in riddles, and tells Clark that the answer is right in front of him, and that the obvious answer is usually the right one (that's Occam's Razor by the way).

Meanwhile people start to die. The head nurse (reminded me of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest) is stunned and strapped to a chair where a cloaked figure plays music while he tortures her and eventually kills her by electrocution. Meanwhile Clark asks what kind of meds the patients are given and finds that everyone receives the same thing - no matter what their illness. He takes a sample and sends it away to see what's in it. He also finds out that young Betty also was diagnosed with mild schizophrenia, which she controls with medication - the same given to all the other patients. But her pills are red - the patients receive blue pills. 

They then find a patient hanged in the rec room, which is called a suicide but Clark is suspicious. Then another doctor is killed by having his head chopped off with an ax (pretty good gore and special effect too). Clark then finds out that the reason why no one ever gets better or goes home is that everyone is given placebos, there is no treatments, and Dr. Franks has just been keeping all the money. The same cloaked figure soon does away with him too.

We have an obligatory sex scene between Clark and Betty after which Betty cannot remember who she is, where she is... Clark realizes that Betty's schizophrenia is worse than she said and that she must be responsible for the murders. Before he can do anything, she drugs him.

When he wakes up, he goes back to talk to his friend in the madhouse. He asks to see the guy's face. The man comes into the light taking off a mask - it's the little boy. As he watches, horrified the boy which we now recognize as the kid in the beginning of the film grows up in front of him and becomes him. Now if this were another twin bit.... but no. Clark IS Ben. Ben had been in the facility as a child with severe split personality disorder until he escaped. Dr. Franks hadn't wanted people to find out he wasn't really being treated and had run him down with his car to get rid of him.

Clark is now totally Ben and with an ax he's going to get rid of everybody who did him wrong. Betty tries to reason with him, but he goes after her too. She works to gain his trust and manages to get the ax away from him and wound him - but he overpowers her and despite her pleadings, well, chop chop.

Our last scene is Ben, back to being Clark, starting a new job at a new mental hospital. Chop chop.



                              

YOU'VE BEEN PUNK'D!!!






The Devil Inside (2012)

Here comes the woman 

With the look in her eye 

Raised on leather 

With flesh on her mind 

Words as weapons sharper than knives 

Makes you wonder how the other half die

...oops, sorry wrong media...

  Somewhere in Hollywood, some filmmaker must have looked at his calendar and said out loud (because they do that in movie land) 'Hey! It's been three months and we haven't had a new exorcism movie! Damn, I've got to go get some cheap special effects together! And bad actors! And a scriptwriter who can churn out a movie that's nearly just like every other possession movie made! And we've got to get it to theaters in five days!'

Hi, I'm Isabella and I'll be boring you for 83 minutes...

Sarcasm is useless with Hollywood, that's why I'm using it here. If you're expecting a 'fresh' take on the plight of the poor Catholics (no I am NOT picking on them, the movie is) who are possessed by demons, look elsewhere, it's not gonna be here. 

Oh sure at first the movie promises some interesting things, like comparing the supposed 'symptoms' of a possession with mental illness, but apparently that was too interesting and they wanted a lot of chicks bending impossibly backwards so here we go and just remember that despite all the disclaimers and the website they publish at the end of the movie THIS IS FICTION. Just wanted to throw that out there:

I thought it'd be cooler than a tramp stamp...

In 1989 Maria Rossi killed three people. Nastily. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity but for some reason, she's shipped off to Italy. Hmm, I said wonderingly (actually I didn't give a rip). Anyway, her daughter Isabella, now grown, is wondering if her mom was possessed like some people told her or if she is mentally ill. It's a legitimate question, since some mental illnesses are hereditary. But making a whole freaking documentary on the process just glues you to the fact that this is just a movie. And not a very good one at that. She gets two rogue priests who perform exorcisms without consent to help her. It is Batman and Robin. 

They're both Boy Wonders wishing they were Batman...

Just kidding about that, but could you imagine? Tight body armor, ready to fight off them demon critters? Sorry again but this film is just plain... plain. Their 'method' of helping her involves exposing her to the world of underground exorcisms and it's just pathetic. All the demons know her name (duh), all know her past (duh again), and it's obvious these two priests couldn't help anyone get out of a paper bag, much less a demon out of their bodies. If in fact they have one.

Right now you've seen me longer than I'm in this movie...

I remember the previews to this thing - remember her passing the blind nun (oooh, blind, scary) in the previews? That nun has nothing to do with anything. In the movie that's what she does - gets passed by. Takes about two seconds.

She's not possessed, she's the Regional Twister champion...

So to sum up: scream scream scream... nothing nothing nothing... nothing nothing nothing... quick effect that's been done to death ooh isn't this scary... nothing nothing nothing... one priest can't take it, tries to drown a baby while baptizing it and then kills himself... nothing nothing nothing... oh, now Isabella's possessed, wow they helped her a lot... nothing nothing nothing.... CAR CRASH. Fin.

The website? It exists if you haven't had your fill of being punk'd. It's www.therossifiles.com . Duh.