The first little pig built his House of the Dead

"They missed the boat to the rave. If only they'd decided to stay back in Seattle..."

HOUSE OF THE DEAD (Brightlight Pictures, 2003)

Uwe Boll is a notoriously bad director...or is he? He somehow manages to land medium-sized franchises, like a video game property, that has name recognition and popularity. At the end of a predetermined amount of time he turns in a finished product, usually under budget, that draws crowds and makes the investors their money back. So why is he so universally despised? I guess we'd better go find out.

While nearly EVERY movie Uwe Boll (pronounced Oo-wee Bowel) has made will end up in the Antipreservation Archive at some point, I thought I'd give myself a treat for the holidays and view one I hadn't seen before: House of the Dead, based on the 1996 arcade game of the same name. Really? It took them seven years to put this out? The game has no discernible plot - you point a lightgun at the screen and shoot zombies. That's it. What, was the script just not capturing the essence of that? Anyway, with no story to follow, I'm curious what they'll come up with.








Oh.

One of the big things that people laugh at about this movie is when it inexplicably switches to footage of the game itself - mid 90's polygonal graphics that could never, EVER be mistaken for real actors - right in the middle of a scene. Sometimes it's used as a transition, and sometimes it's used to "enhance" the "action." Either way, it's terribly jarring, hokey, and blatant...but also kinda ballsy. Uwe Boll (pronounced Ooh-Vee Bawl) is kinda saying "I wasn't gonna finish that shot. Look at this for 1.32 seconds instead." We're first treated to the CG shenanigans 40 seconds into the film, after a 20 second voiceover uses the word "death" three times in a single sentence. A rave sequence acts as the background to the opening credits, which contain a surprising number of names I'm familiar with - Jurgen Prochnow, Clint Howard (AWESOME), Tyrone Leitso, and...Production Design by Tink? Tink? Perhaps if we clap our hands, this movie won't suck.

We open with a quick breakdown of the main characters by the voiceover, which utilizes freeze-frames and swishing sounds while explaining the quirky love triangles between them, or whatever the hell it's talking about. All of these people are going to die, I really don't care if Cynthia loves Greg, or Simon only has eyes for Alicia. Moving on.

Our horny and vapid leads are trying to get to a rave they found advertised on one of those postcards you used to find on the bulletin board at the coffee house, only instead of in an empty warehouse, this one's on an island. And it's apparently sponsored by Sega, judging from the signs everywhere. Way to kill off your customers by putting them on an island filled with the undead, Sega! No wonder you don't make consoles anymore. Our "young and sexy" fodder (they're all kinds of different ages) missed the boat to the shindig, so they need to charter one. This leads to the introduction of my two favorite characters in the whole fiasco, Captain Kirk and his First Mate Salish, played by Jurgen Prochnow and Clint Howard, respectively. These two really had fun with their roles, as they ham it up for the entire duration. Prochnow even has some passable action scenes, if you can believe it. The guy described by Mysterious Voiceover Dude as "not having much between the ears" offers the intrepid fisherman (actually smugglers) $1000 to take them to a party that probably would have cost $30 at the door...which is still a rip. Unless they're giving out free Dreamcasts?

(Watch the scene here)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TvAEADzFJQ

Immediately following is one of my favorite sequences in the movie: the first topless scene, which is a recreation of the opening scene from Jaws...as directed by Uwe Boll (pronounced Ah-vy Bael). Oh, but there's a twist! It's not the girl in the water that gets it, it's the guy on the beach! You didn't see that coming, did you? Fifteen minutes in is the first "official" splice of the video game graphics, but they're just going to keep coming, people. Our zombies finally appear briefly, which is fortunate as they sort of resemble the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal. Did I mention this movie is ranked #53 on IMDB's Bottom 100 list? Awesome.

The teens/20somethings/whatevers make the island while a lady cop pursues the Captain, but they manage to hide all their plundered booty before the fuzz arrives. Get it? They're pirates! And Ron Howard's brother is wearing a slicker like the killer from I Know What You Did Last Summer (Oh, we'll get to you)! The group wanders through the "Bog of Eternal Stench" from Labyrinth, finally making it to the "Sonic the Hedgehog" themed rave, which is comprised of a bunch of trashed circus tents. Because that's what a rave is like. So, we have a bunch of kids piecing together a mystery, some pirates, a cop, an isolated island, monsters, people in rain slickers, boats, woods, a cemetery...Oh my God, Uwe Boll has made a long, bad episode of Scooby Doo!

A couple of morons on the island get knocked off while Captain Kirk kicks some swimming zombie ass on his boat...wait, while I was typing that she said it! She actually said Scooby Doo, holy crap! It just must be on purpose, because nothing else explains this. Though really, as the main group finds an abandoned mansion, this movie becomes more like Resident Evil than that Milla Jovovich movie did - it's ridiculous, badly scripted and acted, and filled with zombies. The difference is, the first Resident Evil game did it on purpose. There are Romero references made, almost like the movie is saying "Give me credit, I'm hip!" Terrible. One of the new characters (some survivors from the rave) is a girl named Liberty - and, I shit you not, she is wearing a leotard patterned after the American flag. She knows martial arts and shit, because she's Asian. Another newbie is a guy found in an overturned Port-A-Potty. Shit jokes ensue. The Lady Cop finally shows up to save the day by shooting first and asking questions later, and the action, um, proceeds. One of the monsters spits acid on a dude's face, like Giger's Alien. That's a new one. The Zed Word (aka Zombie) is finally uttered, before we're treated to a flashback shot in monochrome about some pirates that explains that...wait, what? All these zombies on the island are PIRATE ZOMBIES. This is freaking great, I can't wait for the ninjas to show up!

Uwe Boll (pronounced Ew-Wee Boah) rips off all kinds of movies for his action sequences, but they all turn out looking like the production team from Xena: Princess Warrior trying to ape The Matrix. Something utilized WAY too often is that weird 360 degree "turntable" camera effect that spins around the actors frozen in an "action pose." Apparently, this was the last movie to use the device that made that effect possible without digitization, as the machinery involved was deemed a hazard to the actors. Good thing he only used it, like, 53 times! The now-legendary cemetery battle, clocking in at 10 + minutes, has some fine moments in cinematic history, mostly because of the generic rap/techno song, gratuitous violence, video-game footage inserts, Liberty's best Charlie's Angels impression, and the way they OH MY GOD THERE'S THE NINJA! It's like this movie can read my mind; one of the zombies is a martial-artist. He does flips and throws a hatchet and stuff. Most agile dead person ever.

Lady cop (with a name like Casper, she's bound to become a ghost, right?) gets her legs chopped off surprisingly fast (and almost surgically precise) in the effort to get into the old house, and some other people buy it, too. I don't even care anymore. The guy that was revealed as Mysterious Voiceover Dude, and therefore is our hero, lets a BUNCH of women die through his inaction - and usually badly. He's really not so great. Unfortunately, we know he's going to live, because he and the other white chick were given an extra 20 seconds of quipping together, in a cozy little two-shot. They're gonna live, because they're 20 seconds funnier than everyone else.

More bad dialog takes place, some awkward kisses ensue...wait, is this a topless movie, or a romantic comedy, or a horror flick? Make up your mind, movie! Eh, whatever it is, it has my favorite zombie since Bub (of Day of the Dead) in it - Clint Howard returns as Salish: The Whistling Zombie! I'm not kidding! Jurgen Prochnow puts him down swiftly, just before sacrificing himself with some dynamite and one of his signature "sea captain" cigars. Oh, but wait, they aren't all zombie pirates, because there's a lab that has some blood in it or something, according to a self-appointed "scientist" character, as well as a stock of gunpowder, which comes into play later when another character sacrifices himself by shooting it and blowing up the entryway...even though it's in a wooden barrel, and a nine-millimeter round wouldn't...nevermind.

We're pared down to the typical last three, but you know damn well the black chick is gonna die. And she does, as she's groped to death in a tunnel by moss covered tree people from a Middle-Earth convention. But fear not, because our surviving white people are rescued by a guy in a cape with a sword, who looks like he just got back from a long weekend LARPing with his guild buddies. But he turns out to be a piecemeal freak wearing a dead persons face (who would kinda serve as the final boss in a videogame, if this were one). He has a bunch of bad dialog about being immortal, there are more bad flashbacks (where it turns out that he was involved the whole time), and some more stuff happens. The last woman bites it in a sword fight that looks like a Matrix Meets The Three Musketeers mess, bringing our hero Rudy's death count to three women, and at least two men. But she comes back to save his bacon in one last heroic act, of course. So, the slime lives. Oh, then she does too, somehow. Nevermind, Rudy, you're off the hook.

A chopper lands (of course) and the characters from the first game emerge. It's all over...or is it? I guess not, as there were at least two sequels to this garbage, and the games somehow managed to survive the bad name of Uwe Boll (pronounced Ew-we, ew-we baby, ew-we, ew-we baby, ew-we, ew-we baby, won'tyouletmetakeyouonaseacruise), with a House of the Dead game coming out on the Wii this very year.

I bet Sega is proud of this one.



We'll be looking at Mr. Boll again in the future, but is he the worst director ever born? No, but he comes close, simply by strapping steadicams on running zombies. That's just...weird.

She's Too Young...for made for television movies

She's Too Young (Lifetime Original, 2004)




Oh, dear. Where to start? Tom McLoughlin, who helmed one of the better "Friday" movies, takes on an even scarier subject than Jason Vorhees - the modern teenager! Or rather, the idea of teenagers, as penned by an amazingly out-of-touch middle-aged white guy: Richard Kletter, who teaches at the USC School of Cinematic arts. What does he teach? SCREENWRITING! Yes, you too can learn how to shove dialogue into your characters' mouths that's so unwieldy, they'll choke on it! Immortal lines like "Hey guess what guys I have Syphilis." Don't worry, we'll get to that shortly.

Our little journey into TV movie Hell begins by explaining that everything we are about to witness is fictional and bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever. Well, at least they can admit it. We're treated to a montage of tweens looking in mirrors, making themselves "pretty," which is inter cut with shots of magazine models and "sexy" imagery, all set to an annoyingly sugary pop song. We meet our cliched "permissive mom," who says things like "Hey girlfriend!" to her 14 year old daughter. Archetypes are quickly established - there's our sweet girl, our slut, their bumbling parental units, and the scuzzy older boy I like to refer to as...wait a minute, MARK SNOW? Mark Snow, the composer from The X-Files? He did the music for this? THAT'S AWESOME! I bet it'll be good.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. "Patient Zero," AKA Nick. He's the guy that every girl wants to be with...and he's been with them all. Not five minutes into this crap, the following exchange takes place.

Becca: "Where's the glove?"
Nick: "Uh, damn, I forgot. I could go out and get one and you could do like, English homework while I'm gone."
Becca: *Takes off pants*

I love these characters! Marcia Gay Harden plays the good girl's mom. We're supposed to view her as overbearing, overprotective, and intrusive, when in fact she only behaves as any reasonable parent in this situation would. It's the situation itself that is unbelievable, as we move from an early '90s after-school special straight into a horror film. All of a sudden, we're in the middle of freaking "Outbreak," as Nick spreads Syphilis to damn near every girl in the school. This begins to come clear when Hannah, our cello playing shy girl, starts to date Nick, and her friend Becca makes a trip to the school nurse. Will Becca warn Hannah about her cankers? The suspense is killing me.

Time and time again this movie beats its points into us like a sledgehammer. If you speak to your daughter, she'll rebel. If you ignore your daughter, she'll rebel. If you have unprotected sex, Nick will give you the Syph. Ah, make up your mind! Nick finally bullies our sweet Hannah into going down on him, as we all know that oral sex isn't real sex, right? Oh, but it is, and the parents in this movie are going to inform you of it at least 27 times. I may have head trauma from the sheer blunt force of the message.

So, Becca finally comes clean to her friends during a joint-babysitting session ("Hey guess what guys, I have Syphilis!"), but it's too little too late. Our heroine realizes what a skag Nick is when he tries to pressure her into a three-way with one of his (fully fleshed out, complicated and realistic) friends. She mopes around for awhile, and we're treated to some more of Marcia Gay Harden's suspicious glances.

The school begins a treatment plan for the infected kids, though most are too embarrassed to come forward (You slept with Nick? Eeeeeeeew). Of course, none of the boys take any notice, and continue to spread disease amongst the population...this is seriously on par with "The Hot Zone," or any number of contagion-based films. There's even a map with pins in it, showing how it could become an epidemic. Awesome! Family drama ensues amongst the principal players when the school sends home "a letter," and parents begin to put two and two together.

Then, we finally get a sequence I approve of - Hannah looks up Syphilis on America Online, and we're treated to a brief montage of diseased bodies set to the music of Bach. Throw away the rest of this movie, and show kids two hours of THAT footage. Shit, according to the movie, everything is gonna be okay, as soon as you get the vaccine (I'm pretty sure syphilis is bacterial? Wuh?)! In fact, there are never any consequences for any of your actions, because all you have to do is get a shot! Don't worry about pregnancy (there's a shot for that) or AIDS (there's a shot for that) or any other consequence unprotected sex could bring (because there's a shot for that). Did they forget we've just been bashed about the head for two hours with the DON'T HAVE SEX message? Because, seriously, it's almost like at the end, they turn around and say "Oh, that stuff? That stuff we were telling you? Nevermind...there's a shot for that."

But don't worry...there's more! After the hoopla at school, the girls get together to discuss sex ("I'm a 14 year old sexpert!") and get blitzed off a single wine cooler. The "permissive mom" catches them, and Hannah is berated by her father in a scene where he finally does something besides sit in the background and look dumb. Marcia Gay Harden, having had enough, begins an information campaign (more like a crusade) to get all the parents on the same page. This portion is actually watchable, as we come up against all the cliched grown-ups that want to enforce abstinence and turn a blind eye to their children's' realities. Most Lifetime Original productions feature these types of characters, but they've always lacked a Marcia Gay Harden shrieking in their faces. The town's population is so upset with her meddling that, I shit you not, there is actually a scene where a bunch of teens try to run Hannah and her mom off the road! I love this movie.

While our hero-mom is finally getting through to some of the sheep-like adults, the various kids make their way to a party. A party where all the boys sit around watching porn (wait...what?!?) Hannah is visiting her gay friend (did I not mention him? Oh, yeah, he likes her for her, or something. Except that he's gay), and she tries to get in his pants. That's what boys want, right? He spurns her advances, being gay and all, and she runs off in shame...to the party. Why? Why not just go home? Your mom is out looking for you, she's not there. Every time you leave your room your life becomes a giant clusterfuck. GO HOME! Ugh.

So, there's this typical teenage party, right? The one with a bunch of people watching a live sex show in the living room? One of Nick's friends tries to rape Hannah, Nick looks shocked but does nothing, and the gay friend shows up just in time to save her...with his cell phone. Attempted rape of a 14 year old? I love this movie! Becca (or is it Dawn? I can't tell them apart) starts to reconnect with her immature mother, while upstairs her little sister goes through her slutty clothes and inspects herself in the mirror, echoing the opening sequence. Set-up for a sequel? Hannah gets tucked into bed by her mother, because everything is okay now.

The End.

Did Tom McLoughlin have a stroke before filming this? The first ten minutes has enough swish pans, quick cuts, and blurry MTV-style editing to make a jet pilot nauseous. The music is a terrible mash of pop and rap songs with lyrics that spell out exactly what is happening on screen, while the one piece of original music sounds like one of those preset demos on a Casio keyboard (way to go, Mark Snow). The acting is so overwrought I want to force Valium on half the cast, and the words coming out of their mouths are so unrealistic that we've lapped "laughable" and gone all the way around to "terrifying." What is the message we're supposed to take away from this? Sex is bad? But there's a shot for that? And after you're cured, Brad will rape you? What the hell was I supposed to learn from this hot mess?

I'll let Patient Zero have the last word. On Nick and Hannah's first date, he takes her home to watch a movie.

Nick (watching from the couch): "This is really bad."

Yes, Nick. It really, really is.

Hell Comes to Frogtown - Ribbit!

If you had asked me if I would be able to sit through a movie about a man whose penis was the property of the government, I would have said "hell no!" so quickly your head would spin. 

I made it through though, and I feel as if i deserve a badge, or a medal or something, for not turning it off before it was finished.

Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) is a movie about post nuclear war america.  The plot goes something like this...  In the ten years post nuke, most of the population is sterile, and a large percentage of the men on earth were killed in the war itself.  This makes fertile men REALLY important to the new, female run, government.  In addition to all the death and sterilization, there are radiation created mutants... frog mutants... who live on reservations and drink green beer.

 Into the mix they throw wrestling legend "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, sans the "Rowdy", as Sam Hell (yeah... really.), one of the last fertile men on the planet.  They strap this contraption, kind of a government issued chastity belt, on over his junk, and charge him with spreading his seed far and wide, to help repopulate the country.

 

The catch is that his handler, Spangler, has control over his contraption, and can shock him or arm the plastique explosive that is in the belt, blowing his bits to...erm... bits at any time.

ouch!

Their first stop ends up being a mutant reservation called Frogtown, where a group of mutants, led by a dude named Toaty who has captured a group of fertile females.

It all goes downhill from there.

Now I can't really harp too much on production values, as the special effects, such as they are, are pretty well done.  I mean, as silly of an idea as mutant frogs may be, the prosthetics are really good.  They talk, blink their froggy eyes, and generally go around being entertaining.

 She is HOT!

 

He looks backed up, honestly.

If I can't pick on them, then I have to turn to another aspect of the movie that makes it so horrible.

Oh! The plot!

Ignoring the fact that nuclear war would most likely result in total ahnihilation, it is effective as a prod for a story.  And I might have been inclined to believe that it would cause mutations, even of the frog variety, but I have a hard time swallowing the fact that people were just turned into these frog monsters.  And that the aformentioned frog mutants would congregate in what looks like an old smelting factory.  And that the previously alluded to frog creatures would develop an old west style society, with a dash of eastern mistique thrown in (the harem of fertile women) for flavor.

Whatever

Poor Roddy Piper.  I wonder if he read the script before he signed up for the film.  I mean, who pitched this to him?

"Listen, Roddy, in one scene you get to have fake sex with a dirt smeared fertile woman who has been drugged into insensibility by your female superior, while the other chicks look on!  It looks nothing like date rape!"

"Later on Roddy, you convince a frog woman that you'll sleep with her if she would just put a bag over her head!  Just like you do with all your women now!"

I just can't imagine.  The movie HAS a plot, just a tasteless one.

Some high (or low) points:

• The pink vagina mobile.  Women now run the world, to hell with camoflague!  We want to drive around in loud pink trucks!

• Dialogue!
  "we're gonna get 'em out, and you're gonna get 'em pregnant."
  
  "maybe you oughta try makin love to a complete stranger in the middle of a hostile environment, see how you like it!"

• The silly dance sequence where Hell's handler is "performing" for the leader of the mutant reservation.  This is supposed to be erotic, but it just looks like some kind of interpretive dance depicting a dying goose!

• The final battle between Toaty and Hell is so reminiscent of the classic Shatner/Lizard Man fight from the original Star Trek you can't help but laugh.
  

I first ran into this movie (or rather... it ran into me) on USA's Up All Night.  I think I fell asleep then.  Now, Up All Night could definately produce an endless supply of blog fodder, with their consistent supply of bad B movies, but this one is near the bottom of the barrell.  Having actually watched the thing from beginning to end, I can say that this movie needs to die... but not before you watch the trailer, because everyone deserves a laugh.

Evil Toons - Don't drink the Boone's Farm!

The year is 1992, and a man, Fred Olen Ray, has a vision.  A vision of another great mixed media film.  A film to rival Who Framed Rodger Rabbit in the animation/live action genre.

Evil Toons is the result.

Though to be honest, Evil Toons should just be called Evil Toon, as there is only one animated character, and he is only present for, at best, three minutes.

The plot, such as it is, consists of an evil book, a bevy of bouncy chicks, and David Carradine.

The WTF starts early, during the opening credits.  What is this? Demon salad tossing? Keepin' it classy, that is for sure.

The opening scene is oddly prophetic, considering how Carradine met his end.  With a swell of dramatic music, he places a noose round his neck and hangs himself.  Ouch.

Once again we are greeted with stilted dialogue, delivered woodenly and over emoted to the point of hilarity.  There are several references to pretty girls meeting their end in horror movies.  "Why do things always have to start with the young, beautiful coeds going down into the basement?" "Why is it, when there are pretty girls in a big spooky house, it has to thunder and lightening?" "I'll get you in the sequel you bitch!"

When talking about the dialogue, it can't be ignored that at several times during the movie, dialogue is just added in, without regard to what is actually happening onscreen.  It is understandable considering the movie was made in eight days with the equipment and crew from another production.  Post  must have been a challenge, though one would have thought they would have went to some effort to match things up.  It almost ends up looking like a bad japanese overdub, with speech seemingly emanating from characters whose mouths are not even moving the teeniest bit.

They took a line from looney toons with the sound effects, with over the top crashes and beeps and bloops, with hilarious results.  Really, during a scene where a girl is doing a strip tease (for the other girls for no reason, mind you) she tosses her top to the side, and you hear glass breaking.  I know it was the early nineties, but undergarments weren't that heavy duty!  It just gets worse after that.

Leaving the plot (such as it is) and the dialogue (such as IT is) alone, we are left with what is basically a B movie boob fest, with the entire movie one big set up for the next scene where the girls can take their tops off.  Now I'm not one to complain about boobs, but even I have to draw the plausibility line somewhere.

A few high points make this movie watchable (barely).

• The character played by Dick Miller (who is the only good performer in the film, really) is watching A Bucket of Blood, in which Miller himself starred.  The comment "How come this guy never won an academy award?" is hilariously delivered, totally deadpan.

• Dick Miller once again, getting his junk bitten off in his death scene.  Bet that looked great on the old resume.

• The Scooby Doo wimpery sniveling!  I kept expecting someone to say "zoinks!", though it never happened.  

• Unnatural sleeping positions.  Who lays like this?  Did no one notice she is laid out like she is already on a slab?  Come on!

All of the horror aside, this movie goes above and beyond to be cheesy and over the top, and they almost make it work.  Almost.  The fact that the girls almost all ended up working in the adult entertainment industry is testament to the quality of the acting. (Your face would melt, looking at the places my research took me on the 'net, trying to find out where they are now.)  You can definately take this movie off your must watch list, though check out the trailer, because at least that is entertaining.