Creature (2011)

Hi Everybody,

Today is hot and humid, which reminds me of Louisiana, not that I've ever been there but I just assume, and that is the perfect segue to today's movie.

MOVIE

Creature has a B movie all start cast, so that means you will recognize a bunch of faces but not quite be able to put a name to them, unless you are like me and enjoy watching terrible movies.  Creature is somewhat original in that unlike the current trend of taking a regular animal and super sizing it, or combining it with another creature, I'm looking at you Sharktopus, it just has a guy turn into a half man half "gator" as the locals in this movie would say, through purely no scientific means.  For that reason alone, and seeing so many familiar faces I liked it.

SUMMARY

So take every cheesy horror movie where a group of collage students take off for a cross country trip and that takes up the first 30 minutes of the movie.  Then throw in a bit of not quite right southerner stereotypes, read inbred, with a bit of a spooky swamp legend.  The legend at the very least sounds original and very stereotypical southern.  Brother and sister are the last of the Grimly family, they have to keep the family going by, yeah you can use your imagination for that part because I'm trying not to, but before they do a big old white alligator comes and drags sister to its lair.  Brother follows and there kills the alligator.  Driven mad by grief brother begins eating everything in site, the gator, left over animals, and what is left of his bride.  Through some means never explained in the movie he transforms into the Creature, a giant (well at least seven foot tall) man covered in alligator skin.  Skip to present day, and the goofy college guy wants to check out the old Grimly place.  Cue tense moments during the day time that don't really do much.  Then the locals, at least the ones we've met so far, start disappearing one by one.  Looks like the Creature prefers the blood of kin to strangers.  Night falls and again cue college group either going off for causal sex, or experimenting with the same sex (not that it is my thing, but I have yet to see two guys make out in one of these things, might be a good twist to the movie).  You can guess the rest, Grimly kills more locals, who are in on the killing in the first place, and then starts killing a college kid or two.  There was a good twist in the movie (SPOILER ALERT) but the goofy guy who wanted to go in the first place is actually 'kin' to the southern stereotypes.  Unfortunately that is the only good twist.  The rest of the story is filled with a few more deaths, an attempted mating with the creature, thankfully not shown in detail, and a last ditch effort to escape.  I won't spoil the ending, but it is the usually kind with a ray of hope and a twist.

ACTING!!!

More than the movie itself I enjoyed seeing the actors.  You might recognize Sid Haig as the leader of the southern stereotypes from quite a few other movies, most notably Rob Zombie's House of a 1000 Corpses.  Emily, (SPOILER ALERT) a survivor in this movie, whose name is Serinda Swan, had a bit part in Tron, and that is as close as any of these people will get to Kevin Bacon.  She didn't do bad in the movie, and has the makings of a pretty good scream queen.  Then there was a good scene by David Jensen as the epitome of the Southern stereotypical inbred that managed to make me forget what a low budget movie this, but any good actor in this film is killed off pretty damn quickly and he is no exception.  Finally, the creature, or before the creature comes out the Grimly brother who becomes the creature is played by Daniel Bernhardt, a Swiss actor, and something like a B movie version of Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Action fans will recognize him from a variety of roles that Van Damme decided not to follow up on, like Bloodsport II.  I liked him the most in the TV series Mortal Kombat.  Yes there was a TV series, and it is a little better than you think it is.  Still the high moment of the movie for me was seeing him.  He emotes quite well, even if he doesn't act all that great.  I look forward to seeing him in the the Expendables 2.  The rest of the characters are sadly forgettable.

RATING

As much as I love the somewhat original plot and the use of old school prosthetic monster suits as opposed to CGI, this was not that great a movie.  Plenty of nudity to spice things up, but gore was kept to a minimum.  The story was also pretty predictable.  Still I watched it all the way through so there must have been something good about it, but for the life of me I can't think of what.  Probably just memories of what used to be before CGI came into existence.  For that alone I'll give it a four out of ten.

Tasteful, well as tasteful as it could be.

Bloody, very Bloody

Made me not want to go to the South

Hurray for old school special affects.

Creature
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1686018/

Dark House (2009)

MOVIE

Today's post is for a decent movie with a terrible name, Dark House.  Touted by Fangoria, or at least their name is on the cover, it is your usual haunted house movie cast with overtones of madness.  This is definetly a CG fest, but in a good way as it plays into the story.  I was happy to see Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame in a starring role as he plays a good person to dislike.  Minor nudity, and decent writing (I am so happy they didn't go the way I thought they were) makes this one to see, if not remember.

SUMMARY

We start off in a scene with scary dolls and blood.  The dolls alone would have freaked me out.  A little girl goes into a house, not her house, and one known to have a crazy old woman inside, so I didn't expect the little girl to live that long.  Thankfully the woman has already massacred all the other kids inside, which should have given the kid a hint that she should get the hell out of there.  Thankfully the crazy evil old lady had already jammed her hand into the garbage disposal, because, well that's what you do after killing a bunch of kids, and is on death's door.  Flash forward to the heroine, Claire, having, surprise, nightmares about what happened that night 14 years ago.  We find out that she sees a shrink and wants to be an actress, because, of course acting is a very stable career and will help Claire work though any issues she has of that horrible night.  The doc tells her to go back, she tries but can't do it as we see she breaks down every time she tries to enter the front door.  Enter Dues Ex Machina in the form of Mr. Walson, who just happens to make spooky old places into attractions for the public, and guess where he had decided to do it next, that's right where Claire was nearly killed.  Walson needs actors to help with the attraction so he hires the actors at the local junior college to give it a go.  Claire, nutbug that she is, asks everyone to do it, despite their wish not do something productive with their acting skill, which I don't get.  I guess the rest of the class didn't really want to act or make money for some reason.

Cut to the good stuff.  The whole house is CG'd up to give a good scare, and we are talking near perfect CG.  The other actors are ready to get the scare on, and Claire, who probably isn't that good an actor due to her being mental and all, is the tour guide.  After a scary moment that might very well all be in her head, we move on to the computer programmer in charge of all the CG being knocked off so the spirit of the crazy old lady from the beginning of the movie can take over the special effects.  Now, why a ghost needs to take over a computer in order to kill people is beyond me.  Perhaps this is something the writer should have explained to the audience (hint,hint), suffice it to say it happens and the killing begins.

The killing is not all that inventive, except that it shouldn't be possible.  Acid thrown in a reporters face is not explained away as special affect, but as "impossible".  Then the other reporter falls down the stairs, which just goes to show that she was clumsy, not that the house was haunted.  Then things get interesting.  People are killed right and left, usually by some "hologram" that somehow has the ability to interact with reality.  Head smashed in, axe in the back, the most interesting is a guy thrown into a iron maiden, not to be confused with the band, and even that isn't that ghastly.  Of course everyone thinks its the computer programmer, except Claire who I wouldn't believe it even if she was totally sane.  Pull the power and a few minutes later the back up kicks in, this place is better run than Disneyland.  Eventually everybody dies except Claire who finally remembers what happened as a kid.

The audience is treated to a not so pleasant old fashioned Bible reading/whipping followed by a show of defiance started by Claire, yeah I'd be toasting the good book in the fireplace too if somebody smacked me every time I read a chapter.  This leads to the showdown between Claire and the crazy old lady, and then fade to black.  Police show up and everybody but Claire is dead, and she has totally lost it.  Sitting on the floor we, the audience, are forced to believe that she just lost her mind and did all the killings herself.  At this point I gave up hope this was all a dastardly plan by her psychiatrist but that is the writer in me I guess.  I don't know about anybody else but I believe Claire did all this for about five seconds, until I see the only other "real" actor I recognize int the move (Don Stark from That's 70's Show) say, "We'll see..."

Thankfully the writer didn't leave it at that, or I would have flat out hated this movie.  We are taken back to the house to see the little girl that discovered the dead bodies 14 years ago enter the house with her boyfriend, and what is that, a shadow in the corner.  Well, that is just too bad, because all the doors close and... fade to black/screaming.  Or I should say fade to credits with heavy metal band singing the lyrics to "Dark House", trying to be Iron Maiden, yes the band this time, but coming out more like Gun's and Roses.

ACTING!!!

Who do I start with first?  Okay Claire played by Meghan Ory did a pretty good job of acting insane and just a bit off all the time.  I could totally see her losing it.  Of course I can't not mention Jeffry Combs who did a great job as the strait man continuing to not believe a ghost was responsible for all the killings until he got himself killed.  Unfortunately he didn't do that great a job of convining me he was a selfish jerk of a businessman, just a bit too nice.  Then there was Diane Salinger as Mrs. Darode, the crazy old lady turned psycho killer and ghost.  She was a pretty convincing evil ghost up until she had to wig out, then she fell back on the ol' unhining jaw and moaning trick.  Still, that wasn't bad, though they should have done a little more CG with her at that point.  The rest of the cast... meh.

RATING

I'm going to give this one 7 starts, simply because the writer managed to throw me for about five seconds, and the story was not inane.  The special effects and make up were pretty good too, but what else to you expect from a movie recommended by Fangoria.  I'd watch it again, just not any time soon.

Just the Right Amount

Managed to throw me for five seconds, must be good

Dark House
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1260567/

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012), & The Beginning

Washington has never looked so clean

Cheesy but interesting story.

No Nudity, but revealing outfits on the women.

Hi Everybody,

I'll be honest, it gets exhausting eating delicous food, and then running for miles on end to burn the calories off (see other average guy blogs).  Sometimes I like to watch movies, and my taste tend to lean towards the, how do I put this gently, incredibly bad ones.  The movies that are mostly CG (not in the good way), have little plot (but at least their honest about it), and gratuitous nudity/revealing outfits (you know, to make up the lack of plot).  I'll admit they aren't all like that, some have a decent plot, but an incredibly low budget, others have a high budget but are written by over the hill writers who don't care anymore, a few even star A List actors, most of who have fallen on hard times, or are paying for a third story to their house, or who are just starting out.

So I started this blog because whenever anyone mentioned the name of a bad move, or a particular description of something from the 70's/80's that wasn't that great, like "Remember that movie with the cyborg, and the ninja, and I think there was time travel in it as well..." I say, "Yes."  Then I go on to remind them that the ninja was not part of the time travel but actually the son of one of the scientist that was brought aboard the island to build the cyborg."  Then I get the stares, followed by silence, followed by shaking of heads and sighs.  Yeah, I'm that guy.

MOVIE

Today's post is Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, which is of course an answer to the highly overrated blockbuster Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer (take my word for it the book is so much better that if you've read it you will most likely hate the movie, I know I did).  It is produced by Asylum Pictures, one of the better "small" time picture companies.  This move falls into the category of medium budget, lots of CG, no nudity, and good writing.  The last came as a surprise to me, as I was expecting something truly terrible upon seeing the tittle.

SUMMARY

The story is basically Lincoln as child sees mom kill dad and then beheads her because she is a zombie, a term you don't hear until halfway through the move.  After growing up and becoming the president he visits a soldier in the care of a physician with the same affliction as his mother.  After the zombie breaks free (the only time a zombie has super human strength in the movie), and kills the man who was originally going to lead the mission to see what the heck is happening with the flesh eating confederate soldiers, Lincoln recognizing the horror of what actually going on, takes a hand picked crew of eight guys and goes himself (yeah like they'd ever let the president go and kick zombie butt with just eight guys).  The small group heads over to a Confederate base where they are assaulted by, (Surprise!) Zombies and Confederates.  Lincoln starts blasting away and even shoots one of his men in the head when he is bitten by a zombie.  The rest of the men are shocked.  Hey, here's an idea, when going up against zombies Mr. President why don't you tell everyone else how to kill them as well, and what happens if they are bitten.  Okay this summery is taking too long.  I'll just skip to the good stuff.  There is an inordinate amount of name dropping in this film to the point it becomes a running joke.  The Confederate captain of the fort is Stonewall Jackson, they come across a young child by the name of Teddy Roosevelt, and a man in the president's group is an actor who happens to be a confederate sympathizer.  If you can't guess who it is by that alone then you need to pick up an American History books.  Various plans to escape, and then kill zombies, allowing many great one liners, fail until they just decide to blow everything up, zombies and all.

ACTING!!!

My favorite, and the best acted role was by Baby Norman, a model of all people, who played Mary Owens, Lincoln's previous love who turned to prostitution to pay the bills, or as one character put it, "Lincoln's Whore!"  Lincoln was played by Bill Oberst Jr., and though I hate to say it did a slightly better job than the unknown who played Abraham Lincoln in the more popular Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, by simply by being the Lincoln we all know and love, and not being a cooler, hipper version of Lincoln, though that is just my opinion colored by the fact I did not enjoy the blockbuster movie all that much.

RATING

Overall I would recommend this movie to fans of American History and badly done horror.  I give it a 7 out of ten on the Average Guy Rating scale.  Mainly for the story, or attempt at one.

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2246549/