I SALUTE YOUR SOLUTION (BUT NOT YOUR LANGUAGE), AND YES I KNOW THIS MAKES NO SENSE, JUST KEEP READING...

The DUFF (2015)

I can imagine the horrified looks on your faces as you realize I'm about to review a PG-13 teenage romcom about 20-something high school kids and how they can be cruel to each other. No, really. Teenagers are mean, they really are - 'cause movies say so. Oh and by the way, since I forgot to mention it when I posted this, DUFF stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Nice.

So what the hell man? Why am I attempting to review something that I usually would pay money to NOT have to see? Well, there's a story here that will probably be longer than the review but stay with me, it's pretty funny. At least I thought so, and it made for one fun weekend.

Salute Your Solution

By Jack White and the Raconteurs

I think I gave a lot of problems my consideration...
...But not for me they always seem to be for someone else
I find myself just looking worthy of my best intentions
Ignoring any kinda pause I might receive at all
All others seem to find a road that's tough to satisfaction
I find a ridicule that isn't cool for me at all

And I got what I got all despite you
And I get what I get just to spite you

Now to start, being a 'movie critic' is not for those who want to be popular. Just the two words put together can get you the most horrible looks, not to mention comments. But I'm just one tiny fish in a large ocean, so nasty comments are very few. Usually if someone happens to read a review of mine of something they were involved in, they take the good, they take the bad, they take them both and there you have the facts of life... sorry 'bout that. My brain has been on massive duh mode for a long time now.

I've screwed up before, and will admit it publicly. I remember one film from the UK that I liked because it had a different kind of feel, and cool camera work (which I usually don't comment on) but I TOTALLY got the name of the actress wrong. Like, I wasn't even close. Someone from the film actually read the review and told me - so immediately I wrote of my mistake and corrected it, thanking the person on my blog for letting me know. I was actually kind of tickled that they read it.

Old horror movies are usually no problem - either because people don't have strong opinions about them one way or another or (sorry) the principle people involved are all dead. But newer horror films? Do the ones involved with those read my reviews? Nope. Um, wait, I mean not usually. Now this is MY freaking blog, so if someone takes umbrage with my opinion, too damn bad. My opinion is MINE and I'm keeping it, popular or not. 

Mr. Wylde says shut up... whoops, sorry, that's
Torgo. (True bad horror fans know him very well.)

So... the weekend was not kind to me. Instead of finishing the movie I have to clean up and publish, plus the stack of really REALLY bad horror movies that I was going to do in a kind of Crapathon, I was laid out and feeling pretty dead. Sometimes I wonder if instead of Fibromyalgia I've actually got Narcolepsy or I-Don't-Give-A-Damn disease. But I try, even if it's just for a little while, to check things out at night before taking my evening pills and crawling back into bed. I had a message from someone I didn't know that said... umm... let's just say it was three words, and invited me to perform a sexual act on myself.

Chris Wylde

Totally perplexed (and giggling a little) I learned who this message was from and what movie it was referring to. Turns out it was actor Chris Wylde, who starred in the movie The Revenant (2009) that I had reviewed in December of 2013. I can't remember movies I reviewed last MONTH. So I read the review again and my giggling got a bit louder. Safe to say that Mr. Wylde was pissed for a pretty good reason - in the review I stated I wished his character dead instantly. Somehow actors don't like that. 

If you want to read the whole thing, look up the review. He said I wasn't a "real" critic, and that the "real" critics on Rotten Tomatoes liked it. Well, 50% anyway. Does that mean that only half of their critics are real? (rim shot)

To be fair, Chris Wylde is liked by a lot of people. And, again to be fair (this time), the movie I ripped to pieces so brilliantly DID receive accolades and he himself won an award for his performance. But I personally didn't like the movie and I stand by that. However I also didn't want to "fight" with anybody, and hoped to bring this situation to a, shall we say, more civil conclusion? 

I'm not sure if I succeeded or not. I really wish it had been one of the "up" weekends where my brain works and I'm able to do things for more than a few minutes at a time. I did have a freaking good time exchanging barbs with him - I really hope he realized that during our tête–à–tête (yes I know that means private conversation but I like the word) I was figuratively beating him with a sponge, not a rock. But I'm extending an olive branch here and decided to check out his newest movie The DUFF, but I do not promise to give a good review just because a cute and famous guy verbally jousted with me. And here we go:

The DUFF (2015): So as with all teenage stories, no one in this movie appears to be under 21, so what, are you going to kiss this Wylde guy's ass now just because he swore at you AND you're going to call him cute?


Dammit hubby, I told you not to touch my stuff while I'm in the bathroom. And enough with The Simpsons jokes. Besides, how bad can it be? Okay, okay I'll watch a couple of trailersohmygod somebody shoot me now PLEASE! 


Maybe I can pop a couple of tabs of acid and re-watch The Remaining or The Reverend, or whatever the hell that movie was called and do an all-out sweet review. No, unfortunately the combination of my great powers of prose that works only intermittently and my diminishing brain power are not strong enough for either street drugs or fake reviews. Dammit. 

I've revised this twice now, once 'cause the hubby wanted a Simpsons Duff picture and I picked the wrong one (of course), then again when I found the right one, I thought what he was trying to say was no matter how we look on the outside we all come from the same place. Nope, wrong again (and you're not surprised). What he MEANT was that all these teen movies, although they have different titles, are all the same crap. Actually both analyses are pretty damned accurate.

Y'all know my horror movie worksheet (patent pending), right? This ain't officially a horror movie but it scared the shit out of me - AND my worksheet was completed just by watching the incredibly awful trailers. 

Here's the movie in one sentence (without watching the film and no peeking at the wiki - I promise): 

A movie-ugly girl asks a popular boy to make her movie-gorgeous and she'll help him pass a class, there's all kinds of dumb jokes and tearful moments about girls and what bitches they are in high school, but in the end, the MU girl is now MG and the popular boy now wants to be her boyfriend and everyone learns an important lesson - no, wait, they don't. 

Every high school is the same. It was the same when I went, it was the same when my husband went and it will be the same when somebody else's kids and grandkids (we have neither) go.


So let's see the movie and find if my guesses were true or false (search your feelings, you know it to be true). We've got cute as hell Bianca (Mae Whitman) but uh-oh, trouble. She doesn't have her hair up or wear glasses but she does wear OVERALLS and REGULAR CLOTHES and the kind of makeup they use in movies that makes it look like you don't WEAR makeup. Eek, and she's shorter than her friends so she's got to be the MU girl. True? DING!!!

A friend of Bianca (I saw the term "man-whore" a lot when looking around afterward, WTH?) when they were small but friend no more because of his popular status, Wes (Robbie Amell) is the football star who's in danger of being cut because he's flunking science (her best class). He agrees to help her dress better and get more popular if she helps him pass the class. Though they hate each other, in the end, they fall in love each other. True? DING!!!

And the rest... are of course the popular bitches. They wear expensive clothes and makeup and carry their iPhones around like they're glued to their hands. Oh, and they're all taller (or at least wear high heeled shoes). You can't be MG unless you meet a minimum height. True? DING!!!

After some more conflict, we get down to the payoff which has to be very public so the whole school can watch. Let's guess, oh, a dance. Bianca shows up at the dance so incredibly MG that Wes dumps his popular girlfriend Madison (Bella Thorne) and he and Bianca dance happily into the credits. True? DING!!!


Huh. Looks like I'm gonna get cussed out some more. I thought geez, the woman who wrote this was supposed to tell a visceral account of a teenager's angst? It's just another formulaic version of many other teen angst movies that have cluttered up the movie screen for years. Sort of. This was not entirely author Kody Keplinger's fault. Apparently the book she wrote is waaaay different from the movie. Duh.

In the book there's sex. Lots of it. A frenemies with benefits kind of thing. That doesn't really translate to either comedy or a PG-13 rating. They also took great liberties with the plot, adding characters, taking away characters, and adding numerous social media references to the script (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) since the book was written in 2010 and this is 2015. 

If there is anything genuine and realistic about this book, it's the fact that the author actually wrote it when she was a senior in high school, at the age of 17. And while she is beautiful, I bet she was NOT considered the MG girl in her class.

Now THAT is freaking genuine - But I wonder if she really was as happy about the changes they made to her true-to-life account of the woes of a misfit teenager as she appears?

Sooo... what have we learned here today class? One, Miss Murder is not a bedtime story lady, she is a cranky critic whose whole intent of starting a blog was to cut apart and make fun of horror films, bad or (supposedly) good, not watch romcoms that are incredibly unrealistic.

Two, Miss Murder, while not liking to be cussed and 'yelled' at, will not change her blog. Now Facebook says I'm not real. I shit you not. I've told you guys how I was kicked off for being Native American and since two groups were targeted (the other was the LGBT community) I, of course, belong to the one that doesn't garner a whole lot of media attention. I lost that one - and the account I had for over five years.

NOW apparently I'm not a 'real' critic. Okay, if there's a club or a guild or something that you have to sign up for, then I'm not 'official' but I AM real. My birth certificate says so, at least. And I'm going back to bed.

Oh and Mr. Wylde? Thanks for trying to tell me how awful and imperfect I am but honey, I already knew that.






                      

HEY YOU MOVIE MAKING GUYS! HERE'S A TIP AND PLEASE KNOW THAT I WILL COME AFTER YOU WITH THE BILL IF I HAVE TO BUY NEW SPEAKERS: LOUD NOISES DO NOT EQUAL SCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARES!!!






Alien Abduction aka The Morris Family Abduction (2014)

Yes my lovelies, we have a lame movie that not only is a found footage hand held piece of crap, but it's about an alien abduction. In fact, we get to see the end of the movie AT the beginning. AND if I was smart (and I'm not) I would have said 'good' and passed on this horrible, obvious, THEY'RE COMING TO GET US! type of alien bull spit and found something better. Somewhere. Somehow. But for now this ripoff of every found footage movie since the beginning of time can be found streaming on Netflix. BUT my children I MUST give this movie snaps for not pasting 'Based On Actual Events' on their movie poster, given that the phenomenon of strange lights being seen on Brown Mountain is real.


And to make this movie even more special for the audience, they make sure and let you know that the footage is taken by a boy with autism (played by Riley Polanski). What the hell does that have to do with anything? I'll tell you what though, he's a better cameraman than most idiots using hand held cameras in these types of movies. And all the actors real first names are used as their movie names. Isn't that clever?

I'm gonna be short with the movie part anyway 'cause there just ain't a whole lot going on in this movie that couldn't have been told in ten minutes or less. A family goes camping. They fight, complain, spend a night on Brown Mountain in North Carolina, and they all get abducted.

Since the movie is such a nothing movie, here's your small bit of education for today.


Brown Mountain DOES exist in North Carolina. In fact, lights that cannot be explained have been seen in the sky there for over a hundred years. Now the movie 'interviews' so-called experts as well as witnesses but here's the real thing:



The Brown Mountain Lights are a series of ghost lights reported near Brown Mountain in North Carolina. The lights can be seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway and from the Brown Mountain Overlook, Table Rock, and Wisemans View. There are other vantage points also that can be seen in North Carolina. And yes, they do want visitors - the best time to see them is reportedly September through early November.

Of course, the 'ghost lights' have their detractors. One interesting (and extremely stupid in my opinion) supposed 'reason' people are seeing these lights is called Nature Deficit Disorder. This disease flavor-of-the-month refers to a hypothesis by Richard Louv that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors resulting in a wide range of behavioral problems. 

So that would mean the boy taking the footage has autism because he's never outdoors although he's outdoors taking footage despite his autism being caused by his never being outdoors which he is in now with a camera despite his autism... ick, now I'm dizzy.

Louv claims that causes for the phenomenon include parental fears, restricted access to natural areas, and the lure of the screen. Recent research has drawn a further contrast between the declining number of National Park visits in the United States and increasing consumption of electronic media by children.

Oh really? So over a hundred years ago kids that were into their electronic games started seeing weird... oh, wait a minute - there wasn't even TELEVISION over a hundred years ago. So telling us we're stupid enough to see strange lights because we're imbeciles who were raised on electronic gadgets doesn't quite cut it.

Okay, movie. Family camps. Autistic boy with camera gets footage of three lights in the sky moving strangely. The next day, following the GPS instead of a good ole' map, the family gets lost (the movie suggests the GPS was guided by something other than a satellite, if you know what I mean and I think you do - sorry Joe Bob).

Next day family fights over running out of gas. Trying to get to town, they find a tunnel full of cars that must have the best batteries in the world because all of their lights are still on, in some the engines are still running, but everybody is gone. All the seatbelts have been ripped out of the cars.

And then the noise begins in earnest. You know what? Having soft dialogue and then SCREEEECHING a super-loud supposedly alien noise at top volume is not a substitution for scares. It's annoying, it woke up my husband in the other room, AND it's bad for my speakers. The father of the family is taken, the rest run for it and drive off without him.

Suddenly, it starts raining fake birds (don't worry - the guy who wrote the movie loved Hitchcock - he didn't hurt any birds). After it stops, so does their van and they have to travel on foot.

They remember that there was ONE mailbox on the road and they race toward it hoping to find someone with a phone because since they are in a horror movie (say it with me people) there is no signal on any of their phones. They can blame that on aliens if they want, but it's also a horror movie rule on my horror movie worksheet (patent pending) so you choose the reason.

The guy they run into at a small cabin, whom the movie portrays as one step above a caveman, tries to scare them off with a rifle, but when the aliens show up he lets them all inside. He's been waiting for his brother who went out and never came back. The movie screeches to a slow halt as nothing much was happening anyway, but now... nada. For a loooooong time. Instead of a picture, just imagine three people spending an hour in the basement. If you're still awake, keep reading...

The older brother is taken, the backwoods guy drives off presumably for help, and we get more non-action as the three remaining family members run through the dark woods for no good reason, for a long time. They find a barn and hide in it. For a long time. I'm now rooting for the screeching idiot aliens to show up quickly. They finally do. The mother gets bent backwards and off she goes. So does the backwoods guy, who had come back after finding his brother's empty truck. They scream as they're taken. Uh, no. Break someone like that, they're not going to be making ANY noise much less still be alive.

The sister and Riley spend an interminable time (again) running through dark woods. Let me say that again. INTERMINABLE. 


They make it back to the road the next day, meeting a cop who conveniently chose that exact moment to drive up. Unfortunately, he's about as handy as tits on a boar as he's immediately sucked up, then the sister, then the autistic boy is grabbed, then sucked up into... something. 

'Leaked footage' from the Air Force shows that his camera took blurry images of... stuff (Inside the spacecraft?), we hear screams, then the camera is flung from what appears to be an alien garbage shute and it makes its way back to Earth. 

It falls from outer space to Earth WITHOUT exploding into flame and spins and falls clear to the ground, again WITHOUT exploding into a billion pieces with exquisite precision onto Brown Mountain. AND it still works, as we see an Air Force dude in a hazmat suit pick it up and turn it on. 

Then we see credits, which is a cheat 'cause they have more. One year later (according to the movie) the father is found after walking out of the woods, naked and out of his mind. Roll the rest of the credits folks because I am done.

                        

WHY I HATE HOME INVASION MOVIES SO, SO MUCH... BUT I KIND OF LIKED THIS ONE. GO FIGURE.



You're A Dumbass - What, That's Not It? Okay, Okay, Don't Get Testy...

You're Next (2011)

In a word? Stupid. I hate home invasion movies because they're stupid. The setup is stupid, the family is usually stupid, and you have to endure 90 some minutes of stupid people trying to kill more stupid people for stupid reasons. Stupid. Notice I didn't say DUH? That's 'cause home invasion movies are a special kind of stupid that insults the DUH formula. Stupid.

Okay, so maybe I was a little hasty...

Oh, and you film maker people who think you're sooooo clever to use loud and annoying brass sections to promote tension? I HATE TUBAS!!! I don't know anybody who would sit and listen to a concert mostly featuring tubas (or any other large brass instrument for that matter). KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF! That's called irritation, not tension.

C'mon, this is a bed and breakfast, not a house, right?

Buuuuut.... this one had parts that were almost good, gory, and (dare I say it), funny? So I'll be telling you about it but if you want to watch it first, better do it 'cause, you know, spoilers. It is currently streaming on Netflix (who advertised it like it was handed directly down to them from God or something...).

Adam Wingard does a decent job of taking this movie and making it into something a bit different. You've got some good gore, even a bit of comedy with an ending both predictable and yet satisfying. Watch it knowing you're not just going to be seeing a copy of 'The Strangers' or 'The Purge'.

Now let's all hold hands before
we start killing each other...

This is about a family I wanted dead when they first sat down to dinner, and I wanted them dead FAST. And why not? This is a story where the family shows up at a huuuuge house nobody normal owns anywhere ever for their parent's anniversary. The front door is actually open when the parents first show up, although the house has not been used in quite a while. But the movie has to start so the father shrugs and goes in anyway. THEY. WILL. DIE.

I feel like I'm being watched... good
 thing we live in the middle of nowhere...

It's covered in dust and sheets and yet one woman working by herself manages not only to clean this monstrosity, she has a ten-course dinner ready to eat although there are no maids, cooks or other help - and these people are NOT the self-sufficient kind so, yeah, STUPID. They don't even know that the only neighbor they have for miles is dead because... uh... they just don't care I guess.

Okay, we have to wait out here HOW long?

So it was obvious that I wasn't going to get deaths fast - this movie is 94 irritating minutes long. One of the family members has a girlfriend who has an Australian accent. That instantly told me that she's gonna be important in that 'I'm not a stupid American so I'm gonna survive' kind of way. 

Yes folks, we have a winner...

Aaaaand my horror movie worksheet (patent pending) was pretty much finished before 20 minutes of the movie had gone by. All I needed was the order of deaths, and maybe where the gore got good (not great, but there were some good shots). And some humor believe it or not.


This was another one of those movies that seemed to polarize people's opinions. Critics either thought it was the wittiest, neatest, twistiest home invasion movie around - or they thought it was the dumbest, most predictable, biggest waste of time around. Guess which direction I was leaning? 

Although I got a chuckle or two from some Stooges-worthy funny bits (violent, but funny) and Home Alone material they ripped off, mostly I was heaving sighs at the impossibility yet predictability of the whole thing. Okay first - Mousketeer Roll Call!

Okay, okay, that's enough child labor violations and potential child molesters...

'YOU'RE NEXT' ROLL CALL!!! Here's our list: Erin, the gal with the accent and the surety of living through this movie (Sharni Vinson), her milquetoast boyfriend (look it up) Crispian (A. J. Bowen), his parents Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) and Paul (Rob Moran), his brother, Drake (Joe Swanberg), Drake's wife, Kelly (Margaret Laney), his other brother, Felix (Nicholas Tucci), Felix's girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn), and his younger sister Aimee (Amy Seimetz) and her boyfriend, Tariq-don't-get-too-attached-to-him-wink-wink (Ti West).

Would you guys WAIT - I'm getting to you!

This huuuuge house is dad's 'retirement project' since he retired from a defense contractor with an 'insane severance package' and is ridiculously wealthy, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with the house - it's perfect. STUPID.

Rice Crispies... err, I mean Crispian and his girlfriend Erin show up the first night, the rest show up the next day for their parent's 35 year anniversary. Now this is supposed to be the first time they've gathered together in a long time, but on the mantel is a picture that was obviously taken within the past week. STUPID. All sit down for the big dinner that nobody could have made in time and it takes them a good, oh, two or three minutes to start fighting...

What? Do I have something in my teeth?

What a surprise. This family hates each other. THEY. WILL. DIE.

Our first victim: While the others bicker, Tariq inexplicably looks out the window and thinks he sees something (Even though the light inside would make it impossible to see through the darkness outside - try it. Just see your own room, don't cha?) so he walks up to it. He did see something (says the script). A crossbow apparently, because as he turns around, a wooden arrow is penetrating his skull. Hmm, they must have borrowed arrows from Cotton Mouth Joe. "Who?", you ask? Don't. That's in another review.

And let's not dwell on the fact that NOBODY heard the glass break - AND the fact that the window would have shattered, not have a small piece tinkle to the floor from the arrow, or we'll be here forever.

Yeah, let's send the girl out with the killers, good idea!

Another arrow comes through the window and gets Drake in the back - but he lives. Now all are scrambling to get away from the table, because obviously the food pisses somebody off so... yeah. 

All check their cell phones and we get a small change in the normal horror movie rule book - instead of no signal because they're in a horror movie, they guess that somebody has a jammer - illegal but available on the internet (thanks for that information guys).

Erin decides to send a 911 text (You can do that?) and when it doesn't go through, she sets her phone to keep trying (don't ask me if that actually works, I've got a dumb phone).

So they send out Aimee 'cause, you know, anyone named Aimee deserves to die. Just kidding, look at my name - I'm the last to throw any stones. But her efforts are for naught and so is her throat when she hits the wire strung tight across the doorway. That's three.

Erin springs into action to the puzzlement of the others - she seems to know just what to do. I wouldn't mind having her around during the big ZA. While she does that, the grieving mother goes upstairs to take a nap. Bad idea. A waiting intruder in a mask (there's a tiger, a lamb and a fox) is there to stab her with a huge machete. Kind of overkill for an older lady... meh. And he leaves it there. How many did they bring with them anyway?

Home Depot must sell these by the dozen...

Kelly discovers her, panics and runs next door to the (dead) neighbor's house. A killer has followed her however, so she's shoved through the glass door then gets an ax to the head. These guys have really good arm strength - axes and knives in skulls? That's hard to do. Mind you, I'm not speaking from experience...

Crispian discovers their cars are disabled and flees the property on foot to seek help (wink-wink). Erin is attacked but kicks the attacker in the balls (remember ladies, it's balls and eyes - always) and makes sure to kill him A LOT with a meat tenderizer. I guess he's ready to cook. Paul finds that the intruders have been in the house for a while. There are pee bottles (ewww, c'mon, the place had a billion bathrooms, massive DUH), food, sleeping bags... but alas, his time is done.

Which 'cut' do you want.... what? Why are you groaning?

In front of his son Felix and girlfriend Zee, his throat is cut. Felix is pissed. Because he loves his dad? Nah, because the masked whosawhatsiz killed his dad in front of him and he got blood on his face. See, they wanted the family money now instead of waiting for an inheritance and so maneuvered this little shindig. Massive DUH.

Erin and Drake are attacked by another of the masked whosawhatsiz but Erin stabs him in the shoulder and he jumps out the window. Erin and Zee (pretending to help) set up some traps they learned from watching Home Alone. Just kidding. Erin confides to Zee that her father raised her in the Outback in Australia in a survivalist camp, her mom moving her to the US when she was 15. 

Yeah, just die already!

Felix and Drake go to the basement where Felix stabs Drake to death with many screwdrivers. This was definitely my favorite line in the movie: Felix has stabbed Drake a billion times but Drake just stands there and looks at him so Felix finally says, "Would you just die already? This is hard enough for me." I think I peed a little from laughing.

Erin goes upstairs to find Paul, but discovers his dead body and is attacked by a masked whosawhatsiz. She escapes by jumping out of the window, impaling her leg on glass. She runs anyway, is attacked again, but manages to get back into the house for some reason. I guess she thinks she can save the rest. She finds a place to hide and thus hears the whole movie plot in a convenient sentence or two.

Her hiding place is found out, however, when the text she sent to 911 has now gone through, the return message saying they're on their way making enough noise for the others to hear.

...Wouldn't that guy stink by now?...

She is attacked and kills another masked whosawhatsiz with a screwdriver to the head. Now we have a quick trap-set-up-montage for the other three... or is it four...

Felix and Zee take off with the crossbow - the one masked whosawhatsiz left alive goes into house to get her... he has a machete, in the dark. She has a camera to 'flash' in order to see... but the flash was on 'auto' to draw him to it, so he walks by her and she clobbers him with a log and bashes his head in. She's really good at bashing heads.

Just wait, this isn't the good part...

She's hurt, covered in blood, and Felix gets her with the crossbow - doesn't slow her down a bit. Probably because the idiot missed. Getting back to the kitchen, she grabs Zee who's trying to use the last arrow on her when Felix comes in - she throws a pan of liquid on the stove at him but it wasn't hot - didn't prevent him from slipping though - are we supposed to laugh?

...this is...

Well I did at the next part which wins my 'Most original kill in a dumbass home invasion film' award: She's attacked by Felix yet again and so she grabs the blender and breaks it on his head, plugs it in and turns it upside down...

Pfffft... ahem. Sorry, almost peed a little again. I've got to see a doctor about that. Anywho, with the boyfriend getting scrambled brains, the girlfriend gets yet another of Erin's knives to the top of her head. Then Erin hears Felix' telephone ringing. She answers without speaking...

Yup, it's snap, crackle, and pop. Umm, I mean it's Crispian, asking if all the icky parts are over so he can come back inside. See, he's a pacifist (apparently that means I won't kill you but I'll pay someone else to do it) and can't stand the sight of blood. He wonders why Felix doesn't answer, and sees a very bloody Erin as he comes inside. 

He stammers an excuse about how she was supposed to be totally unharmed, the only witness alive with a 'clean record' (?!?) to tell the police about the 'unknown' intruders killing everybody. He then finishes his explanation with my second most favorite line in the movie:

"How were we supposed to know that you were really good at killing people?"

She responds calmly and properly... by stabbing him in the throat. And gets shot for her troubles - the boys in blue have finally come. 

Right between his beady little eyes...

Uh, scratch that. ONE police officer showed up, looked in a broken window and immediately assumed this was all Erin's fault and shot her - in the shoulder, natch. He then calls for backup (?!?) and starts to come in the front door. Erin yells for him to stop, having booby-trapped it but...

I'm sure John Hughes is revolcarse en la tumba. Whaddya mean who the hell is John Hughes? You're obviously up waaay past your bedtime. Get going and don't forget to BRUSH YOUR TEETH!

                        

GIMME AN 'F', GIMME AN 'R', GIMME A 'Q', GIMME A, UMM A, UMMM, WHAT WERE WE TRYING TO SPELL ANYWAY? OH YEAH, REVENGE! REVENGE! REVENGE! WIKKA WITCH BULLSHIT! ZOMBIES! YAY!!!

All Cheerleaders Die (2013)

Heeeey bitches! Time for another bedtime story - and I don't wanna hear any static out of you hoes and hosers 'cause you've heard this all before from a dozen other movies 'cause I gots me the floor right now and Ima gonna speak my piece so shut up and listen up! You don't like my title? Hey, you don't have to know how to spell to be a cheerleader you know. Now listen up kiddies 'cause this is one story that has so much duh, copying of other movies, plot contrivances, and just 'WTH is this stuff?' that it actually becomes fun to watch.


This is one of those few movies where the entertainment overcomes the DUH of the plot. And the actors. And the situations. And the fact that this movie has doomed itself immediately by telling you it's gonna have a sequel. Never NEVER do that. Just ask... oh, never mind. This was written and directed by Lucky McKee/Chris Sivertson based on their original film 'All Cheerleaders Die'. What they meant by that (besides it being totally stupid) is that they remade their OWN movie that came out in 2001. This is how it plays out:

Maddy (Caitlin Stasey) is making a cheerleading movie with her friend Alexis ('Why do you call the cheerleaders bitches?' 'Cause - the players are the Bloodhounds so we're the bitches, a'ight? It's gangsta!'). Alexis tries to show off and ends up breaking her neck. Three months pass, and we see Maddy determined to 'ruin' Alexis' boyfriend Terry (Tom Williamson) for... several things he's done.

The cliche's and stereotypes fly fast and heavy throughout this whole thing: Cheerleaders are super skinny (they're not - it takes muscles to do those moves), football players are demi-gods always looking to score sex and drugs and alcohol, (they're not, although many of them might like to think so) kids who are different are outcasts, losers, or 'emo'. 

So this is a 'I'm gonna get you sucka' kind of movie where we only have to wait for the rest of the cheerleaders and football players to die right? Well... not quite. But this film also has a bit of a messy plot line and what it's going to shape into is not quite made clear until you're twenty minutes or so into the movie. And I had given up on it at first. Buuut, I try to finish every movie I start no matter what, so I waited a day and tried again.

Okay, Alexis goes boom and three months later for the new high school year, Maddy decides to infiltrate the cheerleading squad to get her revenge. For Alexis? Kinda sorta. She's got other reasons of her own too. She makes the squad because, you know, if she didn't the movie would be over. Everybody's happy except her ex-lover Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee; how's THAT for a name?), who is into 'Wikka witch bullshit' (that's the movie talking, not me) and foresees that Maddy is in deep shit.

We have the obligatory pool party full of cheerleaders. And a party in the cemetery (two cliche's in one). There's a small side story that Leena, playing with her magic stones, tells the younger sister of a cheerleader that if she wants it badly enough, she could have her sister's boyfriend - if she accepts the consequences. That comes later.

The 'boys' stop by and, as Maddy had planned by making out with cheerleader Tracy, she and Terry get into a fight and break up. Terry was Alexis' boyfriend and started dating Tracy right after the funeral. He gets mad enough to punch Tracy (and the Foley guy better not get any more work for making a simple punch sound like concrete hitting harder concrete). 

After that, he needs revenge AND to prevent any of the girls from calling the police and ruining his high school year. It escalates into a sort of drag race with a car full of 'bitches' and the other car full of 'bulldogs'. The girls crash into a river. The guys chicken out and leave. The girls are dead.

Emo girls practicing Wicca witch bullshit must have super strength because Leena was able to break into the car that is upside down in the river and drag all the girls to the edge. Of course, they're all dead but she IS a witch, right? She notices her stones rattling... sure enough a stone for each girl starts to glow and embeds itself into wherever they were injured. As for Leena, her part in this... uh... whatever they're trying to make it, is to have one purple stone glow, then embed itself into her throat. Oh goody. For whatever reason, that means she is now their leader. Why? <Sigh> How long do you want to be here?

Next morning, all girls 'wake up'. And, in Freaky Friday tradition, the two sisters are in the wrong bodies. Why? That comes later. But what they do discover (by watching Leena resurrect her cat for the third time - a little Re-Animator anybody?) is that they have no heartbeat, and they also have a thirst for human blood. But hey, there's school.

And time for another cliche'. The super slow hot-chicks-walking-down-the-hall-making-everybody-stop-and-look scene which includes a tarted up Leena, the leader of this group. Why? I dunno, she has the one ring... umm I mean the one stone? 

While at school, the younger sister (in her older sister's body) boffs the older sister's boyfriend (Remember the 'consequences' story? No? You've gotta pay more attention dude...). Another kills and drinks the CGI blood of one of the football players. When they feed, they heal up and feel better. When one has sex, the others all collapse to moan and wriggle on the ground to the entertainment of the other kids.

When Maddy collapses, Terry sees her back glowing (where the rock went in). Then Terry and a couple of the other football players find the body of their fellow player that got killed and Terry figures the glow has something to do with it.

He kills one of them, digging where he saw the glow. He gets it out and it fights like hell to get away from him but he swallows it. He now is... something else. He decides to kill them all, get all the stones.


Terry steals Leena's bag - now he's going after the rest of the stones. Leena and Maddy have to go get them - and since Leena is letting Maddy 'feed' on her blood, they're best bud... umm I mean they're girlfriends again.

We get the cheesiest 'love story' type of music as the two girls go after Terry on a motorcycle - taken from a guy who really liked Maddy so she really... killed him. Kind of like Romeo and Juliet - you don't know Romeo and Juliet? That's okay, they don't know you either.


So it all comes to a head at the grave of the munched cheerleader from the beginning. Why? Don't ask questions or you don't get dessert, you mouth breathers. Terry's got Leena and set traps for the other two surviving girls because he wants Leena's 'secrets' - he's already swallowed two or three stones so he's like... dumber than ever. We find out that the main reason Maddy's been after him is not just that he went for Tracy practically at Alexis' funeral, but he also raped Maddy the summer afterward. He thinks Maddy's dead but... Tracy fell on the traps Terry set, and Maddy landed on HER so she lived. Sooooo....

Maddy rescues Leena, Terry tries to kill Maddy, and Leena concentrates on her stones. They beep (do NOT ask questions) and circle in the air above Terry which scares him for some reason even though they're the size of quarters. Now everybody must get stoned... umm I mean unstoned as all stones come out of everybody to join the little dance.


Leena gets 'em and the purple one goes to Maddy, bringing her to life for the third time, but one goes underground... hmmm... says the movie critic with the Horror Movie Worksheet (patent pending) already filled out - I wonder what THAT will do??? DUH!!! Up through Terry's body (which was the coolest scene in the movie) comes Alexis and SHE. IS. PISSED. She screams for Leena...

And that's the end of Part One. And all the other parts, we hope. And just for ONE MORE IRRITATION, during the credits the music changes like somebody with ADD is listening to the radio and keeps changing stations. Thanks guys. I feel... horrible.