HULU SNOOZE PART HUIT




Psycho Ward (2007) Canada

This cheap, inaccurate (as far as movie rules go), piece of garbage barely deserves a mention. So why am I mentioning it? 'Cause I wasted 90 minutes on this Canadian piece of garbage, that's why. It's cheap, there's virtually no story line, the gore is a big yawn and the.. ugh, let's just get this over with, shall we?

A group of idiots say they want to explore an abandoned mental hospital. Well, there's plenty of those in Canada - Grave Encounters 1 and 2 used a Canadian asylum, why not? Umm, they got kind of confused (or didn't have the money, the whole thing was shot for 50,000 - that's Canadian dollars) because what they're actually in is a PRISON - in fact many times they refer to the place as a prison - whoops. That's not the only whoops:

• One of the girls' panties changes colors scene to scene from pink to black
• The adult in the group discovers the bodies have been put one to a cell (See? Prison.) and he's got to get the keys from one body. I guess he took too long because the 'body' had to take a real big breath as he takes the keys out
• We have a Gallagher moment as the killer uses a sledgehammer on one girl's head - but when her body is found, her head is intact

Yes folks, this is not a paranormal psych ward experience - this is a cheap CHEAP ripoff of Leatherface, a big fat guy who uses carpentry tools (apparently he does some work on the side) to kill off the students. But by the time you realize that this is all there is, you're just cheering each death as meaning you're almost done with this boring non-story.

HULU SNOOZE PART SEPT




The Darkroom (2006)

After watching Room 6 I started this movie with a distinct feeling of déjà vu and that's not 'cause I've been counting these stinkers in French. I guess it's 'cause there's a hundred movies with this name, and at the beginning of this one, there's a young boy with blood all over his hands wandering the streets and he's almost hit by a car. They next show him as having spent the next, what, 15 years in Room 7.... OMG he's in the same hospital! Run! They'll bore you to death!

Oh, this is different year, different movie - promise? Okay. Well, this boy can talk and all that good stuff but can't remember a lick of who he is or even his name. He uses names of different 70's game show hosts. KAPOW!!! Oh sorry, that's the way this film seems to give you 'hints' - by clocking you full force in the face like you wouldn't notice otherwise - see, he escapes but he can't get anyone to talk to him or respond to him so is he real? KAPOW!!! No, wait, the nurses talked to him, didn't they? KAPOW!!! But other people on the street walk right by him and KAPOW!!! okay that is getting reeeeeal annoying so I'll just cut that out.

But that's how this movie goes - the premise is so thin, the 'hints' so broad and the pacing so erratic that you kind of wish someone WOULD punch you in the face, just as an excuse not to watch and go eat some aspirin instead.

The man befriends a boy, the only human that will talk to him. This boy has massive issues. Not only is he bully fodder, but his stepfather is what Hollywood stepfathers and stepmothers are supposed to be - right? Mean, abusive, twisted, and we know in most, murderous. The extended family is always a house of pain in Hollywood. Never mind that in America right now approximately 65% of families have extended qualities, whether it is a step-parent or other relatives meshing with the 'core' family. Catch up Hollywood. Let's see a movie where the step-parent is the hero (or heroine) for a change, okay?

Anywho, long story short (too late) the step has a dark room that he doesn't allow anyone to go into. He also goes out at night with his camera. Uh huh. The boy finds out that he's also been out of work for months, and hides out during the day. Why he bothers since he's a controlling jerk I dunno.

The boy and his grown pal (boy that sounds wrong just typing it) eventually follow daddy around, find that he peeps in women's windows, taking pictures and as a bonus, keeps women hostage in the shed, torturing them and eventually killing them when he's done. Oh joy.

So the two will become heroes and justice will be done, right? Right? Well, no and frankly it pisses you off that you're wasting time with a movie that's not going to get any better. Because....

Where's Gabrielle?

Casper the friendly adult is not really there. Really. He IS the kid - remembering his childhood which, because he's an adult and only remembering, can't do a damned thing except watch as his mom gets abused (an OMG appearance by Lucy Lawless and even me telling you isn't going to help you recognize her), his dad tortures and kills his girlfriend, he tries to kill the bastard and fails, and ends up on the road with his hands covered in blood and almost gets hit by a car. Let's pray that this time they romp on the gas.

HULU SNOOZE PART SIX





From Beyond (1986)

Once again an H.P. Lovecraft story... wait a second. Six in French is six? Really? No sh... kidding? Okay. Once again an H.P. Lovecraft story is desperately tried to be squished into a movie. I say try because H.P. wrote practically a whole mythology all by his lonesome, which is why so many efforts to make them into mundane movies kind of go splat. And nobody splats better in an H.P. story than Jeffrey Combs.

I'm not knocking Combs - he's one of my favorite character actors, and I hadn't seen this one yet so I was actually pleased because I know he's a great fan of H.P. - he's appeared in eight movies of H.P. stories (I don't know if they count the Re-Animator series as three or as just one) so seeing him in an older one was a treat. I wish I could say the same about the movie.

Oh it was much better than most, believe me. Just having a machine that makes your pineal gland grow and open you to another dimension that already exists overlapping our own is a great attempt at an H.P. idea. Using a huge room to house the 'computer' needed to run it was funny, considering that today it would probably be smaller than the one I'm typing on now.

Oh and they made it in Italy 'cause they love that stuff number one and number two it was much, much cheaper. Like instead of fifteen million they did it for two and a half. Of course that's 1986 dollars.

The gore is gory, the sticky bits are sticky, the silly stuff is silly and it just goes from good effort to c'mon end this already - especially the scene where.. uh, never mind. It would take H.P. to sort this one out so let's just say if you're a fan this is one of the better efforts and if not, pass.

HULU SNOOZE PART CINQ





Room 6 (2006)

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I love Jerry O'Connell despite his seeming lack of good roles to play (but hey, I could watch Sliders for days - or Crossing Jordan). And Christine Taylor - one could forgive her 'Marsha Marsha Marsha!' days if you could forget she married Ben Stiller. I personally don't know why Shane Brolly gets top billing here since his screen time is under 10 minutes - oh well. And what the hell is Room 6? You're not going to know - just a warning. But the story was a bit different.

The premise basically is that Amy and Nick, being movie stupid, get in a wreck with a pickup truck. Her boyfriend and the sister of the truck's driver are taken in separate ambulances which then disappear off the face of the earth. They have been taken to a hospital that no longer exists. A paranormal kind of movie, right? I wish. Yeah, the paranormal was kind of there I guess, but this snorefest droned on and on about guilt, sin, payment for said sins while not telling us what the hell anybody DID, and on and on....

To save you 94 minutes of your life - nothing of what you see after the accident happens. Period. Apparently Marsha-Marsha-Marsha (Okay, okay, Amy) pulled the plug on dear ole' dad when she was little 'cause he asked her to. Uh, okay. And she's racked with guilt. Uh, okay. So this car crash is a perfect test to her... uh... her... uh. Huh. What the hell is the test for?

There are endless scenes where she and the other driver (Jerry O'Connell) search and finally discover that their loved ones have been taken to the hospital of the damned and she has to rescue her boyfriend. If it never happened that would be why there wasn't a hosp.... uh.... why Jerry's character, uh... ya know what? Skip it. It sucked but made a very simple drinking game. As with all my drinking games, please use soda so that you will merely become bloated and not die of alcohol poisoning.

Take a big drink if:

• Amy screams
• Anyone says a sentence with the words 'you're one of us' in it

Oh and just in case you want to make a horror film sometime in the future here's a tip: If something isn't scary the first time, it's not going to be scary if you show it 2, 4, 20, 1000 times. Stop it with the damn flashbacks. Just move on, would you please?

HULU SNOOZE PART QUATRE





Diary Of A Serial Killer aka Rough Draft (1998) / Freeway Killer (2010)


I have a rather extensive library on true crime. Forensics and the methodology of criminal science has always fascinated me. Not the violence or the sickness of the criminals, but the way they are eventually always (with very VERY few exceptions) are caught. And trust me, no matter how much CSI you watch or how smart you THINK you are, try to make your mark by committing acts against your fellow humans and you will get caught. 


And with perseverance and just plain hard work you will likely be caught a lot faster than in the past, all thanks to increased technology and the increased understanding on how the sick, twisted human mind can work. So why am I putting these two movies together? Well the first is a Hollywood version of how slick and smart serial killers are, and the second is the real life story of William Bonin, who definitely was not.




In the first you get a transvestite bar where a suspiciously familiar deep voiced blonde is fixing 'her' makeup in the mirror as others come in and out. 'She' notices several and is taping the conversations of all of them. When 'she' gets home we learn that it is.... <pfft> Gary Busey. And this is when people still thought he was sane. He plays an investigative reporter who really gets into his work. Unfortunately, he happens upon a murder. This murderer thinks he's pure evil and perfect and from what this movie portrays, he might as well be. He catches Busey and with some quick thinking, Busey's character convinces him to let Busey write his life story like he's a real hot shot. Really?

In the second, it is the story of William Bonin who was dubbed the 'Freeway Killer' (there were actually probably several that were responsible for those murders but for the movie, they just show him) and don't let the movie poster throw you off - he's a sorry, pansy ass sucker. Not the actor, the real Bonin. For this movie he's recounting his life of crime to the mother of one of his victims. That most likely didn't happen - at least I couldn't find a reference to it. 


They also 'tidied' up his story quite a bit - in this movie he just likes to recruit 'helpers' to get him young boys and strangle them - he seemed to like an audience and did have at different times three different guys helping him (they testified so they wouldn't get the death penalty) but the real story is gritty, ugly and well, not printable on my blog 'cause he doesn't deserve anything more said. The only thing I'll say about the movie is it was sanitized for your protection, tells you nothing about WHY he would do such terrible things, did let you know he died by lethal injection, and the movie starred our good friend Merle (Michael Rooker) from The Walking Dead as Detective St. John. That's about it.



Our transvestite-in-disguise movie shows what little Hollywood knows about real crime - geez, Busey practically puts this guy in the police's hands and they drop the ball, so to speak. In other words, they make this impotent killer of women (as well as transvestites) seem like Hannibal Lector - in other words, smarter than everyone and don't you tell him different. Even when it seems he's finally done the last scene shows Busey, busy signing books about his brush with death and one asks to have his book signed - and how the hell are we supposed to believe that Busey doesn't recognize the guy as the killer? Because it's Hollywood, that's why.

Which movie should you watch? Pffft, watch Oprah, you'll learn more and it'll be more real. That was a joke by the way. Is she still even on TV?

HULU SNOOZE PART TROIS



Premonition aka Convergence (2000) Canada Made For TV

I thought oh cool, a horror flick with Christopher Lloyd (Yay!), Adrian Paul (Okay!) and Cynthia Preston (Cool - uh wait, who?) set in my second favorite city, Seattle Washington. Of course that's usually code for 'we wanted to save money so we shot this in Canada'. Very few Pacific Northwest films are actually filmed in America. A couple of outdoor shots maybe, but that's it. Hell, Grey's Anatomy is supposed to be about a Seattle hospital but except for the outdoor shots with actual Seattle landmarks in them (like the Space Needle), the rest is shot in California. These people should have stuck with the Convergence title though... look up Premonition and you'll have a ton of bad movies instead of just this one. Bad movie I mean.

In 1984 a plane crashes two miles from the airport supposedly smack dab in in the middle of Seattle. It's a horrific scene with the dead and dying from both the crash and those unlucky to be in the way on the ground. A girl wanders around the carnage and is scooped up by a man and whisked away.

Current day: Reporter Ali and her partner Morley (Christopher Lloyd) work for a tabloid-type newspaper trying to get info on a series of seemingly supernatural killings. They know scams when they see them and are sure this is more of the same. But after seeing things like a mental patient suddenly able to predict the exact time and date of people's death, persons with stigmata, you know the usual dumb stuff they're not so sure.

Aaand here's where I lost interest because I knew what happened and how they were going to try to work this thing around... what I didn't know was how long they were going to take to get there (93 minutes although it felt twice as long). It's sooo boring! Of course Ali is the 'girl' taken from the wreck and of course Morley is the 'guy' who whisked her away and by the God of movie coincidences are now working together as adults without knowing each other (yeah, right) and slooowwwwwllllly Adrian Paul somehow becomes mixed in the mess (I didn't like him much in the Highlander TV series - wait, I didn't WATCH the TV series, sorry) and you think okay, she really died but didn't know it, and how come nobody is noticing those strange streaks that have been going across the sky since the movie started - I mean it's cloudy in Seattle but not THAT cloudy.

Big surprise (and big duh) - Ali was supposed to have died in that crash (on the ground, not on the plane) and because Morley took her away it upset the 'natural balance'. Uh, over 15 years later? Oh yeah, they explain, it takes a little while for things to... I dunno, get stupider? Why couldn't it just be that Morley was a hero and saved a little girl? Because we wouldn't have this blah of a movie that gets you with names and a supposed premise that sounds interesting but turns out to be the most boring movie you've ever seen.

HULU SNOOZE PART DEUX




Paranormal Xperience 3D (2012) Spain

Bless their European little hearts - the Spanish decided to throw their hat into the ring so to speak into two different attempts - the paranormal movie stuff and the 3D stuff. Oh and some CGI stuff to make this a triple-stuff movie. Other than that... uh sorry kids, no. This is not a paranormal movie, this is your typical slasher flick - in 3D.



We have our typical group of college students in psychiatry. Angela is a total non-believer in all things paranormal which is not allowed in her psychiatry class. Which is typical. In no school. EVER. But for the movie the professor is determined to teach all his students a lesson (apparently the word LAWSUIT is not translatable into Spanish - oh wait, yes it is, PLEITO) by dragging them out to a deserted mining town named Susurro (Sussudio?) - that's Whisper in English, not that it really manners. It's also where many people died. Hey, that's right where I'd go. NOT. EVER. But this movie has to move so here we go...

The town is Susurro (whisper in Spanish) and supposedly this is going to scare the pants off the audience. Uh, no. We've already been ruined and not much scares us - well some of us anyway. So wanting to one-up the typical stupid slasher or paranormal movie that usually starts with kids doing something dumb like conjuring up demons or whatever using Tarot cards or a Ouija board, they use a COMPUTER PROGRAM to induce one of their number, conveniently the sister of Angela and sort of psychic anyway, into a trance and 'open' the... whatever is going to get this movie off the ground.

That's not to say there aren't good gore moments in this movie but that's the trouble - they're only moments and it takes a long time to get there and beyond. The tag lines 'Believe the legend, enter the darkness, experience the fear' only makes you expect that surely there's going to be something more. But no.

See young Spanish film makers, this is NOT a Paranormal film. This is a slasher film. SLASHER. Oh, sorry. Uh, slasher doesn't translate so... Esta es una película donde los niños maten por medios poco espectaculares. You savvy?

Nice try, a solid B+ for gore, sorry, not much above a C- for story and acting... well, see me after class.