WHAT THE HELL? I'VE SEEN A MOVIE JUST LIKE THIS NOT TOO LONG AGO (EXCEPT IT WAS BETTER THAN THIS GARBAGE) LET'S JUST LOOK THIS PUPPY UP NOW... DAMMIT!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MOVIES ARE ALMOST EXACTLY LIKE WHAT I'VE JUST SEEN... FOR THE SECOND TIME?

The Tortured (2010)

Not too terribly long ago I saw a strange movie - horror with a small bit of humor. It was about a very pedestrian couple with a teenage girl. The girl is kidnapped but returned to her family. The couple wanted the ultimate justice for the crime and the courts didn't deliver. They then found out where the bastard lived, went there, and spent the movie torturing him in every way they could think of (for being total amateurs). The movie ends when the kidnapper dies and they leave... after a short period of time the guy's brother comes home and freaks - see, HE was the kidnapper. The couple had just tortured and killed an innocent man.

Hell, they don't even bother changing
the titles on these things...

So I'm watching this flick and thinking 'Okay, this is familar.' Same tune, different dance. This time the mother is working and the father is in charge of watching their six-year-old boy. He goes inside for under a minute to get him some sunscreen. He didn't know that the boy had been scoped and targeted by a deranged maniac, who rushes in and swoops the boy up. The father doesn't even have time to get in his car - he runs helplessly down the road as the psycho gets away.




Loooong story very VERY short, the psycho is found, the boy has died, and the nastiness will now begin. After finding out that a deal was cut so the killer will only get 25 to life, the grieved parents hijack the prison van and crash it in movie-duh style.

The rest of the movie? You can pretty much guess - they torture him, he finally dies, it's revealed at the end that they had the wrong guy - they killed a tax evader while the killer went free. DUH on such a massive scale it wasn't even interesting.

So I thought okay, I've wasted my time, better get a review out of it. I'll take the two and contrast and compare.

TWO?

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY 'THEY TOOK MY (FILL IN THE BLANK HERE) SO THEY ARE GONNA PAY' MOVIES ARE OUT THERE? 

We're talking only a few years, not the history of film making. Needless to say, I can't find it. Even if (especially if) I look under 'revenge movies'. Yikes.


So if you're watching this type of movie and you're kinda pissed at me for giving away the plot and the ending - I really didn't. This scenario apparently has played itself out in a bunch of movies.

Hollywood, you truly are a worn-out bitch with no ideas, no integrity, and no good movies.



                        

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.




                        

MAJOR BEEFCAKE, SWOONING WOMEN AND REVENGE SERVED VIOLENTLY

The Boondock Saints (1999)

In 1974 a particularly violent film (for its time) shocked audiences with the idea that one man could so callously kill in the name of revenge. It was called Death Wish and starred one of the major actors of the time, Charles Bronson. The story was of a home invasion by three would-be thieves who are enraged when they find little money. In retaliation they beat and rape the mother and daughter of Bronson's character. The mother dies, the daughter, forever traumatized. The whole theme was controversial - is it right or wrong to go out for your own justice or depend on the police? The theme caught like wildfire - there were five Death Wish movies in all.

I Spit On Your Grave (1978), another type of vigilante movie, was about a beaten and raped woman who systematically stalks and kills each of her attackers. Again the question being - was she in the right?

So we fast forward to 1999. Twin brothers Connor and Murphy McManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) are good Irish Catholics who work in a meat packing plant. On St. Patrick's day they celebrate in their favorite pub, and are told by the tearful bartender that the pub is closing because it has been taken over by the Russian Mafia. In fact, some heavies from the Mafia come in to close the place early. There's a scuffle and the twins are marked by the very large Mafia dudes (guess they were doubly heavy) for death. 

The next day the bodies of the Mafia men are discovered in an alley. The local police postulate several theories, none of them even remotely logical as to how the two died. In comes special FBI Agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe), brought in since the dead men were recognized as Russian mob guys. He not only recognized immediately that the local police aren't trying very hard to solve the case but that something very interesting had happened in this alley. He was right.

The scene plays out - Conner and Murphy are attacked, one handcuffed to a toilet, the other taken into the alley to be shot. Conner (the one with the toilet) rips it from the wall and from the roof drops it on the man about to kill his brother. He then jumps down and both dispatch the men. They are now considered vigilantes and are targets of criminals and authorities. And thus the movie continues in this vein.

I don't think I have to really detail what happens in this movie - you know that they decide that fighting bad guys and cleaning up their neighborhood is their 'calling' and the FBI Agent who at first is determined to bring them to justice eventually decides that they ARE the justice doing what he really wants to do but can't.

The interesting parts of the movie are the scenes where the brothers are revealed to be quite intelligent - they are not thugs - in fact they know at least six if not more languages and are very religious. The agent can find nothing to fault them at the time - they did act in self defense - and lets them go.

They subsequently decide to clean up other bad guys - using techniques they've observed in movies. With incredible luck, even though massive screwups take place they win each time and many in several Mafia 'families' die. The FBI agent acts out each scenario as it takes place in slow motion behind him, making the scene look like a violent type of Tai Chi - very strange. It's also strange that they felt the need to point out that the agent was a homosexual - that seemed superfluous to the plot and had nothing to do with his abilities or character.

Impossible and overdone..

One Mafia boss decides to end the brothers once and for all by getting released from prison a real monster. His name is Il Duce and apparently he makes Hannibal Lector look like a boy scout. Shackled from head to toe and kept in a cage he is somehow paroled and instructed to take the brothers out. But as he's about to do that as they are ready to dispatch yet another bad guy, he hears them recite their family prayer - it's a ritual they use before every, um, murder. Instead of killing them, he puts his hands on their shoulders and finishes the prayer with them. Il Duce is their father.

The last Mafia boss, Papa Joe, is about to be acquitted for about the umpteenth time in court. The brothers, together with their 'da' walk into the courthouse and in front of the whole room dispatch Papa Joe. They walk out, free men and heroes to most of the spectators.

Okay people didn't like this movie at first but it's become kind of a cult movie, with a sequel following. I had several problems with it though (and I'm sure the female population will hate me for this). Two brothers, good Irish Catholic boys decide that murder is no big deal? And there were some goofs. One, everyone who's a fan of Norman Reedus knows he has his first name tattooed on his chest, yet in the movie his name is Murphy. Which is why the first rule of tattooing is never NEVER have a name tattooed on yourself, even if it's your own.

The scene where Connor throws the toilet from the roof also has some goofs - we see him haul it up and get ready to hurl it. The top of the tank comes off and falls first. We see that the toilet has no seat or seat cover. Yet when the toilet hits the mobster, it has both a seat and seat cover.

Again I have a problem as to why they made Dafoe's character a homosexual - not because of the sexual orientation, but because it has nothing to do with the plot or his character. Toward the end of the movie he shows up as a prostitute in drag to sneak into a mobster's house but that still doesn't explain why they made a point of showing him to be gay. Is it to show that intelligent FBI agents can be gay? We already know that. It was an unnecessary plot point is all.

Having Billy Connolly as the violent 'da' of the boys was also confusing and unnecessary, as the first time he finds the boys they have a shootout where each are injured - what was the point of that?

The language was also rough and unnecessary. These are supposed to be very intelligent and religious men. But this movie is far from the top when it comes to language - on a list of movies with multiple 'F' bombs, this movie has more than The Devil's Rejects, less than Pulp Fiction, more than Platoon (another Dafoe movie), and less than Goodfellas.

I guess I'm just not crushing on the brothers McManus.

https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies

BETTER THAN YOUR AVERAGE REVENGE MOVIE



Isolation (2011)

The field of medicine is not fun. If you're looking at big money, you're also looking at doubling your school years, being in debt up to your eyeballs, giving up years of sleep, not seeing your family and friends, and watching people die in front of you despite of everything you do.



I've seen it from the inside and the outside - I worked for a rural ambulance service for years and served months in the hospital going for my Paramedic certification. When you work in rural areas, the mortality rate is considerably higher - not because the EMT/Paramedics are not as well trained, but because of the response and transport times. There is what is called the 'golden hour', the best time for a patient to receive help. That hour really doesn't exist in rural areas. 

Where I lived, it was five minutes to reach the ambulance (all were volunteers like in many rural areas and so responded from home), and depending where the patient lived, up to a half hour to reach them. From there it was treat and package as fast as possible because, unless you could get a helicopter to take them to a trauma hospital in 40 minutes (20 minutes for them to arrive and 20 minutes back) the patient sometimes had an ambulance ride of up to 2 hours. That's... not good.

I've been long winded again but my point is that even when you have everything going right (you think), mistakes can be made. Or, because of the response time, chances were much higher you were going to see your patient die anyway. Heart attack? Futile. Car accident? Nasty. Everything else? A grab bag. Responding to one already dead actually wasn't as bad as having one that you knew you couldn't help. I'm not going into gory details, but burns, injuries, embolisms and heart attacks made our hearts leap into our mouths because, with family members and others gathered all around, we were looked to with hope to keep that person alive and it just wasn't possible most of the time.

That being said, I understand the human side of medicine. I also understand those in the profession who have chosen to deal with those particular issues by, well let's face it, not giving a damn. You've run into a doctor or two with that exact attitude I'm sure. A main problem is a doctor is paid to treat, not heal. The more treatment, the more money they can make. In fact a study has shown that it is in the doctor's best interest to make a lot of mistakes - they get paid a whole hell of a lot more. 

I understand that this is why there is a proposal to make a 'list' of a doctor's record - how good he is, how many complaints against him he has, etc. It reminds me of Angie's List. I don't know if this is a regional thing, but Angie's List is a service you can consult that has businesses you may need to hire along with reviews from others who have used that business. It's supposed to help you avoid those 'paid a fortune and they still didn't fix it' kind of situations. Sounds reasonable to me.

SHOY STOP TALKING AND TELL ME ABOUT THIS MOVIE OKAY???

Sorry. This was actually pretty solidly done, although it falls apart in the end. Amy, a medical student herself, wakes up in an isolation ward extremely ill, having no memory of how she got there. She tries to find out but she's so weak she can't even walk across the room much less get to someone to help her. Because although there is the usual button to summon someone for assistance, no one ever comes. Whenever she attempts to ask the doctor questions, he either ignores her or asks HER questions. Sound familiar?

The setup and premise were pretty easy for me to figure out from the beginning - this was going to be a revenge movie. I mean, she's a medical student and all of a sudden she's in isolation? Especially when she manages to make it to a window and sees in the next room another medical student she knows. Okay, something happened and they're going to pay for it - that I got. The why and how comes a bit slowly. Tension definitely builds, but the payoff finally gets there as you are told the whole backstory of how this all came to be. Which made sense. 

In short, Amy, her father and the other student were working in the ER and had a woman from an auto accident who died on their table - the woman was pregnant and they didn't read that on her chart and so missed a major hemorrhage and she died. A court absolved them of all responsibility when they lawyered up and all claimed they did everything they could. In other words, they lied. Big surprise. So all three of them have been guests in a makeshift 'hospital' in a building besides the grieving husband's house. Of the three, Amy survives.

But the ending - well, that kind of stunk. While Amy admits responsibility, it really isn't enough for the man who lost two loved ones - but of course she escapes. She accidentally kills the man's son while trying to get away. The father catches her and injects her with a paralytic. When she wakes up, she's been buried alive - with a video camera. Seems the father wants to see her final moments. Ick. The last scene is of him having breakfast in a cafe. He instructs the waitress to put his wife and son's favorite foods at the places they would be sitting if they were there. Umm... and it ends. Flat as the pancake on the table.

Oh well, overall it was a solid movie and worth watching once. And if you thought I rambled on too long, don't worry - you're not paying by the word, are you?

https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies

PLUNGED RIGHT IN BUT SHOULD HAVE CHECKED THE SUCK FACTOR FIRST




Deep Cove aka Fear Island (2009) Canada Made For TV

Trying to get back into the swing of things I decided to pick the very first movie on my waaay too long queue of movies to watch and it was this one. Usually when you watch a movie on Netflix, if there are several reviews that are really high (They rate 1 to 5 stars.) there are sometimes others that accuse those of leaving the high reviews of being people who either worked on or spent money on the film trying to boost views. 

I don't know why they'd bother but eh, who cares. I never had much concern about that one way or another but after this movie I kind of have to wonder. The first few reviews (the most 'helpful' according to Netflix) were solid 5's even though the more recent reviews were much lower. And then I watched this horrid thing.

I'm not even going to go into the whole 'who got killed when and how' list because this film is so not worth the bother. Suffice it to say that six college kids screw around in a cabin on an island accompanied by a 'stowaway' and only one gets out alive. This girl is in the hospital telling this horrid story to a sympathetic female doctor and a hardened male detective. As the girl drones on and her story starts to go sideways, the doctor hardens towards her while the detective for whatever reason starts to soften. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean and I don't care.

It's your typical revenge type scenario of rich kids getting their comeuppance for past wrongdoings with an assortment of creeps you can't wait to die. They've got money, privilege, and not a single one deserves anything they have. That alone is enough reason for them to die in any horror movie.

To say the ending is a surprise twist would be an insult to anyone but the most novice of horror movie watchers. If you've even seen a couple of these the ending will just make you roll your eyes and check how much of your life is now gone (95 minutes) but hey, at least it wasn't released in the US so chances are good you'll never know how close you came to a really stupid movie.

https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies