MOVIES WHERE YOU WANT TO CHOKE THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF THE MOVIE MAKER FOR WASTING 90+ MINUTES OF YOUR TIME ON A MIND SCREW

The Evil Inside aka Dead Inside (2011)

Before we get this review about a truly ghastly movie started... thank you all so much for letting me see 50,000 readers when I started this review this afternoon! I'd hoped to get there maybe by the end of the year just to find that it is here and passed... in fact, and I hope I'm not being too greedy here, it is possible that we'll see 52,000 by the end of the year. That is oh so sweet guys - this blog has been therapeutic as well as a lot of fun and having you guys support it means so much to me. Okay, enough mush.

As you know I've been enjoying myself with a MST3K marathon chock full of movies so awful you wonder if the writer was just slapping stuff together and never expected it to sell, or if the ones making the movie just figured people would watch anything so why not make a buck or two? Trouble is, those were movies from the 50's to the 80's - and apparently that opinion of the average movie goer hasn't risen that much from what I'm seeing in way too many of these newer movies.

First, this is not to be confused with THE Dead Inside made the same year. That one might be good (I doubt that) so I'll check it out. But meanwhile we're stuck with this. We start with a young girl being taunted by her classmates. She's on the ground being kicked while they chant horrible things at her. It startles her awake - apparently it's a frequent nightmare. She is now a 20-something disturbed woman, but still living with her parents in a new place and a new town - apparently where she lived as a child. The mother gets a phone call and in obvious distress she and her husband arrange to fly out of town.

Now apparently because it happens everywhere never, the mother had arranged for a sleepover (okay, my BS meter is off the charts already). Sarah's childhood friend (Which one? The one kicking her or the one calling her names?) Lucy decides to invite along several others to make a party out of it. Uh huh. So we have a bunch of unlikable, racially diverse, picture perfect (hint, hint) 20 somethings in this big house with Lucy, who is NOT pleased to see any of them.

So we have our six together - 3 are in some kind of romantic tangle, the others aren't exactly great friends either, and none of them except for Lucy know Sarah at all. They're about to and they aren't going to like it. The party starts as all do nowhere ever with six people drinking and talking trash about each other in this huge house.

The first thing Sarah does is start creeping them out and it doesn't take much. She points to each one of them, and tells them they're going to die tonight and how. Oh, that IS a party pleaser. They should have just pulled out a Ouija board if that kind of garbage is going down. After they basically tell her she's a nutburger, she starts hearing voices and seeing ghostly apparitions. And my duh meter as well as my BS meter now need new batteries.

So now everybody hates Sarah but strangely no one leaves the party. Massive duh and an incredible scale. I was expecting oh-so-much more from the guy who directed Necromentia (which was one of the weirdest movies I've seen and I still don't completely understand what went on even though I've watched it three times - I'll try it again and attempt to explain it) but here Pearry Teo (the first Singaporean movie director to make a Hollywood film) is just phoning in yet another teenage slasher film while trying to incorporate that paranormal aspect that everyone is sick to death of.

Sarah is not likable nor did I feel sorry for her in the least. She should never have had anyone over in the first place, nor allowed a party in the second place, but all that becomes quite a moot point in the end which was the most infuriating of all. Let me break it down:

She points to each person and tells them how they are going to die. That's always a party pleaser. In the course of the movie, each character dies just how Sarah predicts - but not because of a supernatural force. They die because they are privileged, rotten 20 somethings who don't even like each other much less Sarah. Oh and the house won't let them out. Let me say that again. The. house. doors. won't. open. Apparently no one thinks to try a window or just bust out or something.

Let's cut to the end of this shall we? If you want to watch this movie, this would be the place to stop reading. After everyone is dead, Sarah walks through the house only to find that although the blood and weapons (don't ask) are still there, the bodies are gone. And she has blood on her hands. Just when you're about to say 'Okay, she's a psycho so....' they do the most horrible, typical horror movie trick on you. They wake her up.

Yup, it's been a dream and you've been punk'd (I believe the expression goes). Sarah is in a hospital. The nurses surrounding her are the pictures and the shadowy figures she'd seen throughout the movie. She's also strapped to the bed. For some reason her parents are waiting in the hall - apparently so they can say their lines because there's no other earthly reason for them to be there. 

They tell her every time she wakes up they have to explain this over and over. She's been a mess her whole life and because kids are cruel (hence the opening scene of her being kicked by a bunch of 'em) they moved back to their hometown for a fresh start. So up to them moving and having to leave town in a rush (her aunt had just tried to commit suicide so this was not the ideal family) everything is as seen. But Lucy was not her friend. She was more of a babysitter. The parents said they have no idea what happened but now Sarah does.

After being nice to Sarah and taking pictures of her with her phone (Look how pretty you are!) Sarah finds out that Lucy not only is raiding the drug cabinet, she's been sending out pictures of Sarah to all her friends, basically making fun of the nutcase. Sarah goes nuts (Isn't that an oxymoron?). She pushes Lucy down the stairs, killing her.

The parents continue explaining that they never really left - they found out her aunt had died and so had just gone home. There they found Lucy dead. And (this part I REALLY didn't understand - she had had visions of it during the movie) Sarah had buried herself in the mud. How does one do that exactly? I mean really, I want to know.

That was five years ago. And the others? They don't exist. The parents explain that they have to tell her that every time she wakes up (and apparently they always know exactly when that is - duh). At this point Sarah (Hannah Ward was apparently going for an Oscar here) begins to scream and thrash about - the parents leave, saying they just can't go through this anymore.

So who were all the others? Pictures of models in a magazine that Lucy had brought. Duh duh duh DUH!!!!

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WELL THAT MOVIE SUCKED... WHAT? IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A CEREBRAL HORROR FILM AND ALL THE CRITICS LIKED IT? BUT I JUST WATCHED IT AND... WHAT? GOT A HIGH RATING ON ROTTEN TOMATOES? BUT IT S.U.C.K.E.D! OKAY MAYBE I WASN'T PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION... WHAT? IT'S SUBTLE HORROR, NO JUMP OUT SCARES? YOU HAVE TO WATCH FOR CLUES? SIGH. I'LL WATCH IT AGAIN... NOPE, IT STILL SUCKED...

Resolution (2012)

The last thing on Earth I ever want to see is yet another 'theory' on the Lizzie Borden story, especially the film called Lizzie (2012). What does that have to do with this movie? Well if you want to see a movie of choppy images, slapped together with no real conclusion, you can watch either movie. In the first, the characters drink wine like it's water. In the second the addict smokes crack like it's... I don't know. It's just that one is in your face, the other is 'subtle'. In other words, If you don't pay close attention to either movie you're not going to 'get it'. Well folks, even paying attention might not save you here. And don't worry about it - despite what the 'experts' say, you're not missing much.

STILL a better love story than Twilight...

Okay I'll admit the first time I watched it I basically got 'family man tries to save crack addicted friend and they both argue and curse a lot and there's no ending'. Oh and a reference to an American Indian reservation (I'm Cherokee and I still say what the hell is wrong with just saying 'Indian'? It's not like it's a dirty word or anything), crack dealers coming after him, one friend wandering around finding a bunch of junk, and some reference to Croatians and people from all over disappearing (or being buried) there. Nothing interesting. A little different, but hardly nail biting stuff. The only clever (sort of) gimmick they used was that every once in a while the movie skips as if it is old film catching in a projector to which they invariably say 'What was that?'

Our ship should be landing any time now...

But experts should know, right? And viewers - well, I guess they picked up on the word 'cerebral', looked it up, and decided that if they didn't like this movie and praise it profusely it would make them look like idiots. After all, if a film is described over and over as being 'engrossing' multi-layered', 'mind-bending', 'genre-bending' and having a 'meta-narrative' (A WHAT?), it must be above all of us low life horror junkies, right?

Well lovelies, don't believe things just because you read them. Make up your own mind. You just MAY find this movie extremely well done and spooky as hell. Or you might keep several steps ahead of the characters like I did and wait for the ending... that never comes. Just remember that if you see that Rotten Tomatoes gives it 100% on it's 'meter' that's from EIGHT people's reviews. 

Hardly an adequate representation of the typical viewer. And the reviewers who like to use big words to describe this movie - that does not make them smarter than you. If you think this movie sucks too - hey, you're just as smart. Maybe smarter because you recognize tired references disguised as a 'clever horror mystery' and that you just spent 93 minutes getting confused for nothing.

The movie is about Mike and Chris. Mike is a normal guy who gets a strange email with a video attachment. It's a video of his friend Chris, fried out of his mind on crack and shooting at birds while screaming about noise. The email contains a map where he can be found. That Mike thinks this is coming from Chris himself is the first major DUH in this movie and there's a lot of them - I don't care how 'cerebral' and 'spine-chilling' some describe it - it's been done. Many times.

He finds him in a dilapidated one room building. Chris denies sending Mike anything - he doesn't even have a computer (What. A. Shock.) and after a minute or two of bland conversation Mike attacks Chris and handcuffs him to some kind of pipe, telling him that he's gonna be drying out for seven days, and then if he still wants to kill himself with drugs, Mike will just let him go. Chris is understandably pissed - and scared. He's realized that while being high he's lost a shipment of drugs he was supposed to deliver, plus he owes his drug connection money anyway for 'borrowing' some of the product from them when his check (from where is not said) didn't come.

Now I'm no expert on crack and what it can do to you but I've got a pretty good idea that going cold turkey is going to be... messy. Chris is going to be a puking, gross mess who can't sleep and will scream for hours, right? Not in this movie. While it's obvious that he is a loser (and he accepts that), and that intervention will just delay the inevitable, they make him 'likable'. I'm quoting another source here. I thought they were both self-serving and bloody annoying.

So while Chris is detoxing in a very unrealistically clean manner, Mike gets bored and starts to roam around the nothing that this house is in the middle of. He starts finding weird items - pictures, slides, journals - in other words, all kinds of media upon and in which are horrifying images and stories of betrayal, murder and always death. The people seem to come from all over. Mike tells Chris (who, in the throes of withdrawal could care less) that they all seem to be 'stories' about people (like it's all fiction). I guess we're supposed to be horrified and terrified when we learn that this stuff actually happened. Nope. I had that on my notepad as soon as Mike watched the impossible email in the beginning.

Funny, you don't look like a native...

We get a couple of people making brief appearances to break up this snore fest including three wearing-aluminum-hats type UFO seekers (kidding - no hats), and several American Indians show up at the house. Mike learns that Chris is actually squatting - the building is on the edge of the Reservation and no one is allowed to be there without the approval of the Tribal Council. Mike bribes him for just a couple of days to get his friend clean enough to take him to rehab. He delivers the guy's money at his job at the local casino (oh no, this isn't racist or anything <inserting heavy sarcasm>) and the guy repeatedly tells him that they need to get out of there. Mike thinks he means because they're squatting (DUH) but we know he's warning him because before he had told him there were a lot of drug addicts buried around the reservation. Uh huh. 

Pretty pretty pretty little mirror...

Mike then meets a Frenchman (briefly but pleasantly played by Bill Oberst Jr.) who tells him he was there with two students who were studying local 'tales' but soon the two were fighting and screaming about stolen ideas, research, etc. - until finally they disappeared. Thirty years ago. He stayed because he hates mankind in general, and spends his days smoking an exotic type of marijuana he got in South America. Uh huh.

Wow, I'm glad we got those two killed instead of us...

Let me fast forward this for you - everything Mike finds, from film to slides to stories to pictures never show anything good happening to the people in them and he still refers to them as 'stories'. Until he finds the video tape. On it is about two seconds worth - of him and Chris when he first arrived. Shaken Mike begins to suspect this has a supernatural cause while Chris just thinks the government must be spying on them. But then the slide projector kicks on, showing both men dead - which Mike takes as a threat that that's what will happen to them if they try to leave.

Chris is still calling BS (so am I) until Mike's computer kicks on and shows the two in real time right that second. It then gets ahead of them by a couple of seconds. Then it fast forwards and shows their demise at the hands of the pissed off drug dealers. He lets Chris loose and they get out of there. Mike now figures that whatever is leaving all this stuff around is trying to help them. Massive DUH. Everyone he found in the different media died soon after - and they're going to live?

Yeah, next time make it GOOD...

So they hide, the two dealers looking for their stuff show up and trash the place - then two MORE people show up (no I still don't know who they were), shoot the two and set the place on fire. After those two leave, our, uh, friends walk up to the house and look at the mess. Mike says 'At least we gave it a happy ending.' Soon... the film wavers, we hear weird spooky noises and the camera angle goes up as if something large is appearing in front of them. Mike says 'Can we try it another way?' aaaaaand the screen goes blank and we're done. Yeah, that was real original. YAWN.

This means abso-freaking-lutely nothing...

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MOVIES SO IRRITATING YOU JUST WANT TO SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF THE ACTORS



Brain Dead aka Paranoia (1990)

Wait a minute (I can hear you say from all over the world) - Braindead was an excellent film (also known as Dead Alive) that was one of the bloodiest, goriest zombie fests there ever was... plus it was from New Zealand which really isn't known for gory or funny. Well, that was the 1992 bad bad monkey film created by Peter Jackson and almost ruined his career - that is until he did Lord Of The Rings - so now it is a cult classic about zombies. THIS is an American movie that is about... stuff.

This SHOULD have been good - after all, it is written by the brilliant but short lived Charles Beaumont who wrote so many classic horror and monster tales. It is one of Roger Corman's babies and is considered to be mind-bending horror/science fiction. I considered it to be 85 minutes of pure torture.

Which Bill is which? Do we really care?

Here's a quiz for you: What is even more horrible than having a movie star one irritating actor named Bill? TWO annoying actors named Bill. Yes, this spin-you-in-circles-'cause-nothing-else-is-happening yarn stars both Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman. Yeah, they've both done some good stuff but admit it. They. Are. Annoying. As. Hell.

Now the story is a truly wonderful piece of work. Charles Beaumont wrote some really mind-bending stuff (you can see some on the original Twilight Zone episodes) but what they did to this one is just criminal. You know how irritating it is in movies that everyone wakes up with a gasp, covered in sweat and sitting straight up in bed? 

'Cause everyone knows this is the most sterile method of brain surgery...

Okay I once asked if that ever really happened to anyone. I got ONE response for yes. So no, the general population do NOT wake up that way. In this movie, Bill Pullman's character Rex does this at least once every 10 minutes. That does NOT make for suspense, horror or drama. It. Is. Irritating.

Umm... what?

Plus the question that repeats itself endlessly until the credits run - is Rex really Rex or is he someone else? Every time he wakes up in sweat, he's someone else somewhere else and the whole world around him changes. That's not facinating - it's irritating and they don't explain anything so it gets boring. And we get to watch 85 minutes of this.

What it boils down to is this: Dr. Rex, whoever he really is, needs to get from the brain of a psychotic patient secrets only he knows to further the corporation while Jim (Bill Paxton) eggs him on to get it done and get it done NOW. 

What everyone needs - a screw top...

But as Rex performs his experiments on Halsey, he loses his own identity (I guess) and it appears that Halsey and Rex become either the same person or there really WAS no Rex to begin with... in either case the movie finally ends without answering any of your questions. Now are YOU irritated?

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WASCALLY WABBITS






Tormented aka Rabitto Hora (The Rabbit Horror) 3D (2011) Japan

Silly movie reviewer, don't you know that foreign horror is for those who can concentrate and get the 'hidden' meaning of a movie? Tsk, tsk. And you can barely keep it together for a dumb slasher film. This Japanese film is one of those 'nesting dolls' types of film - it's this then the layer is taken off then it's another then another layer is... well, you get the idea. This is one of the few films I wish I could have seen in 3D - there was a spiral staircase scene that Hitchcock would have sold his soul for and to see the scene coming at me would have been sweet. 

But as it was this was a great idea executed with some style but, as with a lot of movies, it 'ends' a half hour before the credits actually roll. It's like they have a script, shoot it, then say 'Damn, I've got 24 minutes left before I have a full length movie. Umm... go back to the cutting floor, we've gotta have something to plaster into this movie'. That makes for a freaky and hard to understand WTH are you looking at kind of movie. The movie was shot in 3D by an Australian cinematographer who usually works on Chinese films (he grew up in Taipei so yeah, he's Chinese too) and has never done 3D before. As I didn't see it in 3D I can't tell you if he did a good job or not, but even in 2D it looked pretty damn good.

To make the story as clear as I can, this is about Kiriko, a mute girl who takes care of her baby half-brother while their father works on children's pop up books. It's The Little Mermaid, the REAL story, not the sugary Disney version. In the original version, the mermaid was to kill the prince in order to regain her voice but was unable and so dissolved in the sea. What does that have to do with the movie? Well, they try to incorporate a lot of the ideas into the story, not always successfully.

We start with the very disgusting and horrific image of a white rabbit that is horribly injured (they don't say why or how) in a pen with other rabbits. Kiriko's brother Daigo decides to put the rabbit out of its misery with a brick (nice splatter on him and his sister). Ick. Anyway, her brother Daigo's birthday is coming up and again her father has forgotten but she hasn't. She's given him a gift of pressed flowers every birthday - this will be his 10th. 

She takes him to a 3D movie (very very clever - we get to see the typical woman-with-a-grudge-and-long-slimy-black-hair and teenagers you hope die quick in a haunted hospital movie within this thing) and while they're watching, a stuffed white rabbit floats very slowly out from the movie screen. Diego catches it and before anyone notices, stuffs it in his school bag.

From there I don't know if the movie makers were trying for a Hitchcockian theme, an Asian try at Donny Darko, or another type of mind screw because the story goes all over the place. I guess it's supposed to, in keeping with the nightmare type theme of, uh, well, a WTH story (watch this and you'll repeat that a LOT). Since I'm both cynical and getting used to these horror outings quite well I had most of the story guessed not too far in. But I was still surprised by some of the plot - and the fact that when the movie 'ended', it wasn't over.

So we go into this nightmare of back and forth between fantasy and reality and we have to put up with it in order to find out the real story - after Daigo finds a full size rabbit in his closet, the rabbit drags him to a fairground. When Kiriko follows, the whole group ends up at an (Oh c'mon, WTH?) abandoned hospital. Sigh. We then see scenes of a screaming bloody woman being rushed through the hospital by attendants that look like marionettes (that actually was pretty neat). And we're still going WTH? 'Cause next we're on the merry-go-round where Kiriko is now little and her 'new' mommy sitting on the horse beside her screams and bleeds and we see Daigo born. Maybe. Little by little we get the, uh, real story I guess.

Kiriko's mother died when she was young (in the East and children's stories, it never pays to be a mother) and so one day her father brings pregnant Kyoko home. Kiriko, being young and selfish, hates that she has a new mother and does everything a kid will do to make her feel unwelcome. And then we get the merry-go-round scene again. And the marionette hospital scene. Sheesh. And what the hell is up with long black hair? Put simply ('cause I'm not smart enough to make it difficult), in Kabuki and Noh Theater, the specter of a long black haired woman is a common theme especially when it comes to grudges, revenge, domestic violence, and just plain ghost scares. 'Kay.

So FINALLY after a lot of nightmarish imagery with stuffed rabbits (I will NEVER bring one in the house) we get to the REAL REAL REAL story: Kiriko did have a new pregnant mommy, but she hemorrhaged while on the.. ah skip it. Point being she died and there never WAS a little brother. That caused Kiriko to go into her own little world, where the toy rabbit Kyoko gave her became her brother and she lost her voice. She apparently was hospitalized for it and was supposed to be better but ten years later, still no voice and now this. Her father has no choice but to have her hospitalized again. The end.

AHA got you! We've still got a half hour to go suckers! Okay, what can they make up to go in here.... Okay, it's a month later, right? Kiriko pretty much has her mind back (just no voice) and now it's dad who's losing it (he didn't look like he had it together to begin with). He wanders off and now it's Kiriko's turn to be the sane one. Um, nope.

We get this very weird scene of Kiriko running to the amusement park, and finding the abandoned hospital, recognizing it where they took her step-mother. She goes in and we get another cool scene with the spiral staircase, which she is running up to catch Daigo who has the rabbit. Why? I have NO FREAKING IDEA. And then we get more head scratching fun. Inside the bunny is a silver dagger and for her to get her 'voice' back she has to stab the 'prince' (her brother/stuffed rabbit). Of course she is stabbing herself and falls down down down that staircase, screaming (yay she has her voice - oh wait) SPLAT! And this was a good splat too - would've been a great 3D shot.

Our last scene is the dad wrapped in a blanket sitting on a bench outside the hospital (No I am NOT going to try to explain that one.). Daigo comes out and takes his hand and they walk off. The end. I'm not kidding this time.

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LESS THAN ZERO




The Hanged Man (2007)

I really REALLY hate movies that screw with you. This is self-described as a 'taut thriller with lots of twists'. That's movie code for you're gonna get screwed with. And the movie is worthless because... well, I'll explain. After I grab my whiskey bottle.

Do people even use chat rooms anymore? I mean for anything other than porn? Because that's what this movie bases its premise on. A chat room for losers who hate themselves and are looking for... commiseration? Guidance? A pat on the head and send them on their way? For seven people, they decide they've had it and want to die. But they don't want to be alone so they all agree to show up at this farm to kill themselves together. 

Already my stupid meter has pegged itself out and now it's in the shop. Thanks a lot Glen B. Hopper III (director and producer who will be receiving a bill for repairs).

One of the girls happens to own this farm, which holds terrible secrets for her. And of course, to keep the stupidity aspect in play, each person has their own horror story to explain why they just cannot be alive anymore and so must spend 84 minutes torturing us while they decide when to die. They refuse to use their real names, preferring the names they use in the chat room. 

They are waiting for the, uh, person who arranged this little soiree', an unknown named Dwarfstar, who has promised to bring this magic poison that only takes a couple of seconds and is painless. Uh, yeah. Instead of just offing themselves in the privacy of their homes (or out in the woods) they have to drive to this abandoned farm. And they all have sob stories that unfortunately we get to listen to. But before the party can really get started a Sheriff shows up.

Now this is where I called BS on the whole movie because this 'Sheriff' shows up in a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 (thanks to the hubby for helping me with the make and model) and as soon as I saw that car and how old it was (look at the neato red light on top) and the Sheriff with his ridiculous looking uniform like he was from The Andy Griffith Show, I knew this was going to be bad - an even worse movie I mean. In the events that follow, they attack him and tie him to a support pole in the barn.


Okay these guys want to die, right? Well, weird stuff starts happening and these idiots fight to stay alive. What??? The Sheriff, who was supposed to be bleeding from a head wound and tied up starts showing up everywhere and people start dying. Against their will. What??? They wanted to die but now they don't. And for some reason they keep showing tarot cards, especially of 'the hanged man'.

So they band together to fight this otherworldly menace ('cause every time they check the guy is still tied up and unconscious) that seems to pop in and out. They run and run and die and die and I'm checking my watch and keeping count 'cause when they're all dead, then we can leave, right?

One who has been the most miserable and should be in soap operas is named SoCo and he's been a real creep through the whole thing. And then... SoCo hangs himself. And the Sheriff, loose again becomes miraculously unharmed - until he draws his gun and blows his own brains out. Dawn comes and guess what? None of the others are dead - they all find themselves back at the front of the barn where SoCo is staring down at them - not from the noose, just standing there. The Sheriff's car is gone.

And here's the part that really pissed me off - the girl who owns the property 'suddenly' remembers a ghost story she was told that she thought was just to scare her. The people who owned the property way back before her family (Like the 60's? DUH.) had a son who was depressed and into the dark arts (Tarot cards I guess) and hung himself in the barn. His dad, the Sheriff found him and... WAIT FOR IT... SAY IT WITH ME... blew his brains out. 

The dumb suicidal survivors look at each other, pile into a van and take off. The last scene is Dwarfstar, who of course is SoCo, inviting new chat members who want to die out to his place to... well, let's just say the movie restarts itself. And I'm reaching for the whiskey bottle again.

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