Zombie Christ (part 1)

      When I first started writing this blog I had no idea the depths of terror I would be subjecting myself to. I started with an eight movie pack called the Midnight Horror Collection (Volume 3) and thought that would be as far down the ladder of terrible as it went. I was so very, very wrong. This latest movie might quite possibly be the worst movie ever made (although there's a strong contender to the throne called “Demon Seduction” that I'm not sure I could bring myself to watch again even for this blog). For that reason I am bringing in re-enforcements. As well as my regular co-writer vodka, this mess will also be brought to you by tequila. What, aside from some serious personal issues, could cause the need for even more alcohol? The one, the (God I hope) only, Zombie Christ. May God have mercy on my liver.
      We start off with a warning not to show the movie to anyone under 18 as the movie contains material that “may be distressing to people who are easily offended, or to people who are brainwashed.” Great, I mean, it's been a while since someone talked down to me using “sheeple” rhetoric so this is a fine way to start. Oh, also in the warning: the phrase “this movie is art”. Quick pro tip: if you have to say something is art to try and get people not to call you on your bullshit, you're doing art wrong. I know that's not supposed to be something you can do wrong, but trust me, they are.
      The first scene of actual movie is a pair of tits. Then another, different pair of tits. Then a third distinct pair of tits, this one with full frontal nudity to go with it. Just starting the credits and we already have three fully naked girls in the forest. It never ceases to surprise me how many really good looking girls are more than willing to get naked in piece of crap movies like this. The girls are supposed to be praying and there's chanting and very “artistic” sounding music going in the background, but really, this is just a bunch of cuts between close-ups of tits, close-ups of pussies, and slightly less close shots of the full girls just so you can attach faces to the nudity. I debate starting the tequila early. Then who I assume is supposed to be Jesus shows up (did I mention the title graphic said this was in Kashmir, India even though all of the girls are white?) wearing what is obviously some metal band's T-shirt underneath his robe and that settles it. I pour a double shot. I immediately regret this as I realize too late that I don't have any lemons to go with the tequila and decide only single shots from now on. Wouldn't want to puke in front of the naked girls who have obviously made worse life choices than me, that would be unseemly.
      The naked girls now start dancing like hippies. This would have been an interesting day to be out hiking in the woods. Seriously, could you imagine? Just on a pleasant walk, minding your own business when all of a sudden you come across Metal Jesus and a bunch of naked hippy chicks dancing around while some guy films them. Could your brain even process what you were seeing? To borrow Joe Thornton's greatest hockey quote of all time: “I'd take my cock out. I'd take my cock out and stroke it.” If I came across this in real life, I mean. 'cause seriously, there's four really good looking naked girls just waving their arms around and in real life you don't really see that too often (although if you do, I would like to be your friend and go on everyday adventures with you), but unlike with the opening scene from “Bloody Mary 3D” you can't really jerk off to this scene since A: they're not doing anything porn-like, they're just out there being naked (and seriously, who doesn't like being naked? Fuck clothes. Now to quote the great poet Homer: “don't you hate pants?”) and B: already you're kinda starting to feel sorry for these girls as there is no way their nudity has even the slightest relation to... whatever the hell is going on in the movie (we're only five minutes in at this point).
      Metal Jesus now starts to say something in what I assume is supposed to be Aramaic but sounds a lot more like Swedish. Although I suppose that makes sense since, if he's Metal Jesus (and the piercings, T-shirt, and goatee style lead me to believe that was the point), he would probably give a shout out to Scandinavian death metal. Even though he's supposed to be hanging out with the only white girls in a suspiciously North American looking forest in India.
      Oh yeah, by the way: everybody is pierced and tattooed up. It doesn't make much difference considering how lacking in context any of this is, but if they're going for that hippy, “all natural” (this point is also negated since all but one of the girls are pretty cleanly shaven) look, it kinda takes away from any of that.
      Seven minutes and forty six seconds later, that scene ends, we see the title, and then cut to the inside of some good looking blonde girl's house. Again, totally no context for that scene, just straight up random group nudity and Swedish Metal Jesus.
      Naturally the first thing this new hot girl does after getting home is strip down totally naked and get in the shower because there hasn't been enough gratuitous nudity in this movie yet. This girl is differentiated from the hippy girls from the start because she's got blond dreadlocks and looks like she could be on the Suicide Girls B team. Having seen this movie before, I can tell you that's going to be a running theme (the Suicide Girls B team thing, not the dreadlocks).
      We don't actually see her shower (because that'd just be crude), we just see her strip, turn the water on, and then come out of the bathroom toweling off. Not covering anything up, of course, but fuck it, it's her house, she can wander around naked all she wants. Fuck clothes. I should mention, though, the most hilariously out of place shot that interrupted her stripping and her turning the water on was a shot of a bunch of stuffed animals. For literally no reason they cut from a scene of a naked girl (which is obviously the entire point of this movie) to a shot of some stuffed animals, and then back to the naked girl. That made me laugh. Anyway, she wanders around her place naked for a while, then goes to the kitchen and grabs a knife. She then starts looking around like she thinks there's something in her place. I'm no expert, but if you thought there was something or someone in your house, wouldn't you grab some clothes or something to cover yourself up? I'll give her points for getting a knife (although again, there's no reason given for why she thinks somebody's there and why she'd need it), but wouldn't the next thing be to go get some clothes on?
      Not important, I guess, as she ends up seeing... what looks like BBQ sauce covered chicken bones lying on the floor by her bed. Curious, she slowly walks over to investigate. The bones rise up and we see... ZOMBIE CHRIST! I take back what I said about only single shots as this requires another double to deal with it. I'll explain. You know those crappy Halloween skeleton decorations that you can buy and hang around your house? Imagine one of those... covered in BBQ sauce. This prop is not like that, it is that. How and why did so many attractive women get talked into being fully naked for a movie where the title character is a Halloween decoration covered in a condiment? I'd say this was impossible but we live in a world where Nickelback, Justin Bieber, and Twitter are things so all sorts of injustices are allowed to exist without question.
      She ends up stabbing at the thing (poorly) and cuts off... an arm maybe? That doesn't even make sense from a physics standpoint as there's no way her terrible stab cut anything off. She then looks directly at the camera with a look that I can honestly describe as being completely dead inside with her brain totally shut off (she very well might be in the depths of a heroin hit, that's how completely soulless she looks) and it's suddenly not funny to make fun of her anymore. I honestly almost want to just hold her and comfort her and tell her things are going to get better. Way to go, Zombie Christ, you've ruined hot naked chicks for me.
      Anyway, the... whatever she cut off turns into... half of a Twinkie? More tequila. There's some flashing red over top of her dropping the knife and lying down on her bed so I'm assuming that's supposed to mean mind control (because why not at this point?), then she looks over at the camera again and I am 100% convinced she's fucked out of her mind on smack and doing this to pay for her next hit. She does some convulsions (where she never moves her legs, that just seems weird to me), there's some blue lightning and smoke effects, and I'm guessing Zombie Christ ate her soul or something.
      Now a girl in a zebra print bikini (again: looks like a Suicide Girls reject but still really hot. From now on, unless I say otherwise, just assume that's the case for every new girl that shows up) sitting on a zebra print blanket in the middle of a lawn. Her acting ability makes me understand why no one except Swedish Metal Jesus has been allowed to say any lines so far. She's on the phone with some bald guy who is sitting in a car that, from the background, looks to be about five feet away from where Zebra Print is sitting. Oh, most surprising of all, Zebra Print is apparently a detective. I know even cops have days off and can go out sun tanning in ridiculous swimsuits, but this just seems weird beyond weird for some reason. Also, we're in New Jersey. Or at least Zebra Print and Heroin Blonde are/were. Baldy is somewhere else and he “needs to fly out [there]” at the flatly delivered line of Detective Zebra Print. Baldy isn't even in the country, I guess. He points that out while his car is sitting with the same forest background as Detective Zebra Print's sun bathing adventure (“Detective Zebra Print's Sun Bathing Adventure”; I'm not sure what that's a great name for, but it's totally the greatest name for something... probably a softcore porn). She's having none of his shenanigans and tells him he'll get the same death penalty as whoever actually committed the murder if he conspired to commit it (there's some stuff as to why he might be a conspirator but it's not important).
      They keep cutting back and forth between close ups of the two of them now, and it turns out, once you get beyond her really great zebra print covered rack, Detective Zebra Print isn't actually that good looking and baldy is an even worse actor than she is. I'll take this time to point out that yes, I know how incredibly sexist this review is sounding/is, but I don't know how else I can approach a movie with this much pointless nudity and objectification of women. Seriously, the only non-nude female is in a bikini even though she's supposed to be a police detective and is in the process of doing her job. The two guys that have shown up so far are fully clothed, but all the women are being shown off for their looks as pieces of meat. I'm all for hot girls being naked and/or in bikinis, but this (and the fact that the one girl was almost certainly selling herself for smack) is starting to make me feel dirty for even watching it. Huh... I guess their claim to “art” wasn't as far fetched as common sense would have you believe since art is supposed to make you think and question yourself. Who would have guessed?
      Baldy is a scholar. He says these exact words so that you know. He also brings up some group called “The Guardians” (I am less impressed by this Reboot reference than I was at the ones in “Room 33”) and we cut to... oh God, I remember this. There's not enough booze in the world for this next scene. I do two double shots of tequila to try and brace myself. Briefly consider puking and calling this review off, then continue on despite all logic.
      I'll try and set the scene. An East Indian guy with a terrible soul patch and less acting ability than the girl that was high on heroin is confronting a guy that looks like he's about sixty (who is referred to as a “protector”, NOT a “guardian”, by the way) and can act worse than he can. East Indian is a “Warrior”, I guess, and “the warrior's code” demands that he fight the old guy (protector/guardian/whatever) even though they're standing on a soccer field (a “pitch” if you want to be technical; yeah, I played) and the old guy has the most hilarious gut since Randy from Trailer Park Boys. What follows is, without any question, the worst fight scene in movie history and not just for the reasons you'd expect.
      Every video camera since the era of bob Sagat hosting America's Funniest home Videos has had the ability to do slow motion. So has any editing software ever created. Despite these facts, the people behind this movie decided the correct way of making this fight “epic” would be for the actors to strain their already limited ability by moving in slow motion while speed metal plays over top of it thereby accentuating how ridiculous this fight scene is. And East Indian guy always looks like he's constipated and trying to push out a piece of shit. That's... strangely appropriate. Anyway, all of a sudden a couple extra big, burly “Warriors” show up out of nowhere and East Indian Warrior jizzes in his pants. Old Guy clotheslines one of them and the other guy gets thrown (in slow motion) into the first one before they both get up and... holy fuck this is so bad. They even switched songs halfway through the fight because the first one was over. How do you fuck up the timing of your own fight scene? Choose a longer song if you're going to force us to watch this crap for so long. Oh, AND there's a random person in the background at one point while they do an “epic” 360 shot where they sweep around the four fighters. That cracks me up. Some ridiculous “old guy vs three guys” fight is going on at the local soccer pitch and the guy out for his morning walk is just like “yeah, that happens around here, I'm not even going to be on my phone to tell people about it”. I had a woman walking her dog through the background of one of my shots for my movie and I went back and re-shot it all (there was a huge chunk of dialogue that went with that scene so the guy was a little pissed about having to do it again, too) and my movie was crap. This... this was actually put out there for people to see. With the random background guy. On purpose (maybe). Old Guy continues to slow motion fight for a while before... oh my God. There's blood splatter. That is done... wrong. And a flail. Which is done... wrong. And acting... which, if you'll notice a theme, is done wrong. East Indian Warrior finally pulls a sword out of his ass (it might actually have been there, there's no other explanation for where he found it) and stabs Old Guy in the back and we're mercifully taken away from this scene.
      Unfortunately, we're still in this movie, so we cut to a girl (surprisingly clothed) on the phone complaining that she “doesn't care what [whoever she's on the phone with] thinks, [she] can go to church wearing whatever [she] wants”. What the hell kind of argument is that? I don't even... what? Oh hey, BBQ Christ is knocking at her door. And it turns out she's not dressed at all, it was all an illusion of only showing her face before the scene cut. Clever clever, makers of this movie. You had me fooled into thinking you'd allow a random girl to wear clothes for once. I'll not make that mistake again.
      Clever CLEVERER makers of this movie. Turns out she actually WAS wearing clothes. It was just one of those dresses that apparently stays on top of her boobs without straps and by pure hope and magic so it only LOOKED like she was topless when she answered the door.
      Oh God, BBQ Christ is talking. That is as ridiculous as it sounds. First Girl To Wear Clothes is, for some reason, not freaked out by this and... okay, to sum it up since this is already getting too long, Zombie Christ has been wounded (the knife incident) and needs to extract the... he wants to eat her shit because she went to church and had the Communion wafer. That is honestly what is going on in this movie right now. Oh, and she decides to get topless before taking off her underwear, then shake her tits before she turns around so he can... extract... what he needs from her. And THEN it turns into a terrible porn. Seriously. Only then. “Turn thyself around and face me but maintain that position” is a line of dialogue. I. Don't. Even. FUCK. Tequila.
      I am quickly running out of tequila for this movie and I'm still drinking vodka in between shots.
      Okay, so I've never been a fan of anal sex. That seems like a weird confession to make in the middle of this, but stick with me. I've never been a fan of anal sex mainly because I know I wouldn't like anything shoved in my ass AND, I may be going out on a limb here, vaginal sex is pretty damn awesome. That's always been my opinion and my experience has backed it up (no pun intended). The dudes that you hear about always wanting to go for the ass because “it's so much tighter” or variations on that... that always seemed to me to be more a reflection on them and their... “endowment” than on a lack of “tightness” in other places they might be lucky enough to stick themselves. That being said: this girl in the movie has either been porn-star fucked in the ass or (more likely) is terrible at acting because BBQ Christ (I absolutely LOVE that name that I just made up) is sticking several of his fingers into her ass to grab a Communion turd out of her and she only shows mild discomfort. I died several times inside writing that last sentence, and I had no soul to begin with.
      Now a random chick walking through the forest... without pants on. She's wearing underwear and a shirt and everything, though, so I guess she just forgot pants while she was out for a stroll. She happens upon a dead body (skeletal remains) and says, without irony or ability “holy shit. This is a crime scene.” Notice how none of that was exclaimed? That's because she is bad at acting. But hey, now she's got pants on for reasons only whoever was in charge of continuity can be sure of, so at least she's got that going for her. She also does the correct thing buy taking out her phone to call in finding a long dead body in the woods, so I guess props to her for that. No signal. And she thinks the bones are a “rape victim”. And she continues to say words in a manner that makes me wish she had been given Heroin Blonde's non-speaking role. Oh, obviously, the bones are BBQ Christ just chilling. In this movie, that should go without saying. Now she finds a coin in the skeleton's mouth and we're treated to a flashback.
      Holy shit! Swedish Metal Jesus has been replaced by Swedish Metal Jesus' Dad (and not in the god sense). It is TOTALLY a different person since he doesn't have any of the piercings and is like thirty years older and going bald. Also, in the long shot, “Mary” (I assume it's supposed to be Mary Magdaline since Not Metal Jesus is talking to her and all women associated with Jesus are named Mary) literally has a towel wrapped around her head while in the close shots it's some silk thing. And the font for the subtitles is different from the one from the opening scene. That annoys me to no end. And now they're speaking French... or German or something that isn't Swedish or even slightly Aramaic. I am now entirely outside the “suspend disbelief” area of movie logic. I mean, come on, at least have your crazy Jesus stand-ins be the same guy or speak the same language. Have the guy from the first scene do this flashback first and then get rewarded with the scene where naked girls are dancing around him. That's film making 101. Also: props to the Mary girl since she is the only female cast member not to get naked (for those saying the latest girl in the forest hasn't, well...)
      BBQ Jesus has grabbed a hold of the girl and she is terrible at acting and limps (BBQ Jesus having wrecked her Achilles tendon... I guess) away as more metal plays and BBQ Jesus gets up and follows her to a river. I know what's coming, so more tequila.
      There is no rational way to explain this except to lay out the facts. 1: death metal is playing. 2: Suicide Girl reject/B team girl number... whatever is running away from BBQ Christ even though he didn't come to life till after she left. 3: Life's Poor Choices Girl is now standing in front of a river that looks, at best, waist deep (remember, for some reason all of this is happening in New Jersey so I assume “nature” is what happens wherever hairspray ends and this river is as shallow as the people). 4: she decides the best way to cross the river to escape her zombie stalker that didn't start to come after her till after she was already away from the “crime scene” is to take off all of her clothes and swim across the river while leaving all her clothes behind on the riverbank. I can't stress enough how much time it takes her to get all her clothes off (especially the bra... which always confuses me; I can unhook a bra in a couple seconds (bragging, I know, sorry) given the opportunity, but girls can never seem to do it quickly despite having a lot more practice than I have).
      Anyway, she naturally even takes her thong off because fuck it, if you're going to go all out, why not go all out? Then she wades halfway across the river that she needed to disrobe before going into and it's barely up to her ankles. It DOES get up to her mid-thigh while she's looking back and nonchalantly walking and-
      I'm done.
      Zombie Christ is “walking on water” and it's the most pathetic puppet on a green screen ever. You can LITERALLY see the floor of the green screen they tried to animate this on underneath the Halloween decoration's feet. I cannot even begin to describe how terrible that is. The worst part of this scene is that the girl is doing a backstroke across the river that she was wading across while naked. She walked halfway across the river, after stripping and leaving her clothes behind, just to backstroke rather than regularly swim because it showed off her tits and bush better than if she were to actually try and swim away from the Halloween decoration that wasn't chasing her until after she'd already left the “crime scene”. FYI: she's not a natural redhead which you'd already have guessed since she's got the dyed red hair of the girl from the Wendy's commercial. Not Wendy, the daughter of Dave Thomas who, cute face aside, shows what happens to a body that grows up on fast food burgers, the hot one that has never eaten a burger in her life and is selling sex appeal for a fast food chain.
      BBQ Jesus is now lying on the beach and she's naked and flaunting her hot body while pretending to look around for... someone to explain to her why she's doing this? I honestly have no idea why any of this is continuing on. And she now “explodes” which is not a metaphor, she literally bursts into flame (digitally... horribly) for no reason.
      29:16 (minutes and seconds, respectively) into this movie and I'm calling time. This is too much. We're going to make this a two (possibly three... or four) parter. Fuck everything, I hate my life.

The Fear Chamber

      Clearly pressing the definition of “borderline alcoholic”, I'm back once again for another review. This time going back to our old unfinished Midnight Horror Collection Volume 8 to bring “The Fear Chamber” to the light of day. As they used to say on Chappelle's Show: let's start the show.
      Right off the bat we're greeted with a woman crying for help as we pan around a room (no doubt the “fear chamber” the title referred to) full of surgical instruments and the grimy looking assorted other tools to make you realize this isn't an Obamacare approved facility... although maybe it is from a Republican point of view. The point is, I'm Canadian so the whole debate about socialized medicine seems silly to me. Hey look, tits! The chick is strapped down to an operating table with a sheet over top of her with a hole specifically cut in order to show off her boobs. That's not gratuitous at all... although I shouldn't really say anything given the last review on this blog was Bloody Mary 3D.
      Anyway, the “doctor” says something crazy to her as she's begging for her life and we cut to a quick shot of Action Cop busting through a door with his gun drawn ready to leap in and save the day. Seeing as there's about 80 minutes left, I don't think he's going to make it. He does not. We are treated to a bunch of scenes of the Doctor cutting into the one chick while Action Cop prowls around the building and finds a different girl tied up. He leaves her tied up because why wouldn't he? After that the Doctor is seen taking some pictures with an old Polaroid of the girl he just killed. Come on man, get with the times. Film is dead, convert to digital if you ever want to be taken seriously.
      Action Cop busts in, the Doctor gets away to the roof, Action Cop follows him, there's a struggle, and Action Cop gets stabbed with a scalpel just before the opening credits. This is followed by Action Cop waking up in the hospital because, if there's one thing we know about serial killers, it's that they always leave behind the cop that's almost caught them so he can come back... with a vengeance!
      A cute blonde nurse comes in and tells Action to not put stress on his heart which immediately leads to a flashback/dream of the Doctor abducting some other blonde girl. I was almost expecting the “stress on his heart” to come from the nurse... but then I remembered this was a different kind of movie and seems to at least be trying not to suck.
      A guy that looks like the thin version of every black captain in any cop movie you could think of comes to visit and starts asking questions about what Action Cop (real name “Nick”) saw. He then goes on to put stress on Nick's heart by saying how the Doctor is going to “set up shop and start killing again” and the standard “we need you back on the force” type stuff. Then we see the Doctor abducting someone and Nick now at home listening to the radio about the Iraq war (so I guess the Obamacare joke was out of place) and hearing that this new girl has been kidnapped. He goes to bed and wakes up to the sounds of somebody in the shower. This is confusing as he lives alone and becomes even more perplexing when he goes in to investigate and finds severed arms and legs floating in a bath (you'll note that the shower was running rather than the bath but whatever). A jump scare later, he wakes up. Another jump scare later, he really wakes up. Some pills and a creepy phone call and he's out the door and off to work as a police officer where carries a gun despite his hallucinations and heart problems. Sounds like a good start to the day.
      That good start gets better when he tells his captain that he's having visions of the girls the Doctor is abducting (even describing the latest one before looking at the file). In real life I'd hope that something like this would lead to Nick being taken off duty again pending some sort of psych test, but in this case it just leads to the captain saying “okay, you're pulling my dick, right? 'cause this makes no sense”. That line makes me laugh and I'm going to nominate it for line of the movie. Also, he doesn't take Nick off the case and instead over rules Nick's own objections in order to keep him working on it.
      Nick goes out to a bar that night (always good to mix pills, stress, and booze) and meets up with a guy I assume is his partner or at least a friend or something. Whoever he is, he can't act worth shit. So far the movie hasn't been terrible in that regard (not great, but nowhere near as bad as most others on this blog), but this guy is fucking awful. He thankfully leaves and some chick immediately comes up and takes the bar stool next to Nick. I wish it were that easy in real life. She seems cool to Nick at first, but she's in a bar with a bunch of newspaper clippings about the killings and then starts talking about how Nick can see the girls before they're killed so I think it's safe to say she's interested. Oh good, Catherine (the girl), is a psychic. This is promising in a totally going to be able to get a conviction based on it kind of way. Some mumbo-jumbo about Nick using his gift to help solve the case and I can't pay attention to what she's saying because I've just noticed how absurdly long her neck looks when the camera is on her. Seriously, it seems like it's twice the length of her head.
      The next day, Nick calls in saying he wants in on the investigation (I thought he already was?) and the captain now acts like he doesn't want him (didn't the exact opposite of this just happen yesterday?). The captain gets another semi-badass line, but it's not as good or as funny as his last one so it's not important and he decides to let Nick in on the case.
      Nick goes to see the coroner who gives him some low-rent CSI-style description of his findings, and then Nick finds something the coroner missed: bone saw marks on the remains which I guess means the Doctor (I'm going to start calling him “the Killer” from now on) is harvesting organs. That's enough work for one day, Nick goes home, falls asleep with a drink in his hand on the couch (we've all been there), and has another jump scare vision. All in a days work.
      The next day Nick is at a psychiatrist's office and he seems rather confrontational about it. Also, I guess Nick's wife was killed. He talks about this for a second, then goes on about the visions he's seeing. Oddly enough, the psychiatrist seems to think it's a bad idea to combine drinking and the pills he's on and thinks that might have something to do with why he's seeing things. Nick, respectfully (not really respectfully), disagrees with her diagnosis and walks out. He proceeds to drink, mix pills, and see things.
      After a quick confrontation with his captain, Nick and Catherine the psychic go to some warehouse/garage to snoop around. Psychic visions must have led them there since Nick doesn't know what they're looking for, but he ends up finding a dead body so I guess go psychic visions! Then there's a confrontation with Catherine about how she knew about the body and she says something about being connected to the case just like Nick and then starts talking about Nick's dead wife but I'm not really paying attention this time because I'm focusing on how this time around her neck looks perfectly normal but her face looks all plastic. I think this girl might be some sort of alien shape-shifter who always has to leave one weird facial feature not not quite right when she tries to take human form and I'm only about 80% sure that theory is the booze talking.
      The captain and Nick have a minor confrontation about Nick's methods of finding the last body and how the hell the press found out about it so quickly and all that standard cop movie stuff. You know what's not standard, though? The keyboard the captain has sitting on his desk. Not a computer keyboard, mind you, I mean a musical instrument keyboard. Just sitting there. Taking up a quarter of the desk. Not even addressed by the characters as if this is just a regular thing. This captain is the best. Also, I guess trying to match the bone saw based on the marks on the bones was a dead end but whatever, random keyboard wins the scene.
      More dreams/visions from Nick At Home (sounds like a do-it-yourself building show, doesn't it?), and this time we're treated to his dead wife naked in the shower. First just naked and hot, then naked but with a bunch of blood all over half her face from some head wound so you kinda feel dirty for staring at her tits. Catherine the psychic gets a voice-over saying something about how souls that die before their time are trapped on Earth until their business is settled or something. Then, over the phone for real this time, she tells Nick that girls in her visions have called the Killer “Teddy” so he goes to his friend from the bar scene (who is a cop but not his partner, I guess) to look up doctors named “Ted” or “Teddy” with malpractice suits against them. Some genuine police work follows as Nick goes investigating... and follows that with some genuine police brutality as he assaults one of the suspects trying to figure out if he's the guy. He's not and I guess the guy just lets being pinned against the wall and threatened by a cop slide as Nick is next seen hours later investigating (re: breaking in through the garage) the house of somebody else on his list.
      No one seems to be home so Nick wanders about and finds some creepy shit. Then the Killer reveals himself and attacks Nick. Nick has a clear shot at him, but heart trouble prevent him from taking the shot and the Killer opens an oxygen canister so that any shot would ignite the room or whatever, then taunts Nick about his wife's death (the details of which are apparently public knowledge to everyone which seems a bit odd even if it was ten years ago), and finally just walks out the door. Nick follows, but too late to catch him even though it was literally two seconds later. Also, Nick doesn't bother chasing him since the law in L.A. states that once someone leaves the room and are out of your line of sight, they've escaped and you're not allowed to follow them. This, by the way, may not be the actual law.
      The captain is getting heat from the chief about this now and he's got “twins about to go away to college and two other mouths to feed” so he'll be damned if he gets fucked because of this. Now we get a recap of how Nick is a bit of a loose cannon dating back to after his wife's death and how the captain has gone to bat for him time and again, but no more, dammit! He literally tells him he's taking him off the case and asks for his badge and gun since he's been ordered to suspend Nick. I'm not sure if this is awesome or terrible storytelling, but the clichés are flying and the stakes have never been higher!
      Nick At Home in the shower hears a noise in the kitchen and comes out to find all the cupboard doors open and the water running. Also, Catherine the psychic is there to “surprise him”. Wait, why does she have a key to his place? Your guess is as good as mine at this point. Turns out the door was open but, you know, still... seems like a bad idea to just walk into the house of a cop who's mixing pills and booze and was unstable before he started having “visions” and was suspended from the force.
      She tells him he can't quit on the case or the voices in his head will never leave him alone. This time it's her eyes that seem a bit off for some reason.
      The coroner is now bringing Nick briefcase full of evidence off the record because why not? This leads to the revelation that the Killer has at least 20 victims and has been doing this for years. He then fucks off and we get a vision of the Killer and some random extra-ditzy blonde having drinks on a bed and her getting wrapped up abduction-style. Nick wakes up from this, turns off the TV, has a drink, and unplugs the TV 'cause (wouldn't you know it?) the damn thing turned back on. The booze and hallucinations continue as he hears noises and figures the best way to answer that is to go around waving Dirty Harry's gun at the outside world as he checks out every window. This does not help him when he gets to the kitchen and the Killer cold-cocks him while wearing clown make-up and medical scrubs. He's like the psycho Patch Adams... I assume since I never actually saw Patch Adams. Oh, and I guess it's not “clown make-up” so much as it is kabuki make-up. My apologies, I didn't see it clearly the first time.
      After Nick gets knocked out, we skip ahead to another surgical room with Nick tied up in a chair and a random girl strapped to a gurney (this time with her tits covered because she's going to be on screen for more than ten seconds unlike that first girl) about to be sliced up by Doctor Kabuki Killer.
      Side Note: you see this a lot in movies or TV shows like this where the bad guy just magically transports the knocked out hero to their evil lair but have you ever tried to carry a body anywhere? Even if it were just from Nick's kitchen out to a van on the street that'd be a long ass heavy carry for one guy. Not to mention the neighbors seeing you dragging the body out with you. Plus getting him inside the lair and all tied up and positioned and everything... I don't know, the point I'm getting at is there's a serious flaw in all these movies in that it'd take a hell of a lot of time to get all of this set up and you'd be exposing yourself to a hell of a lot of potential witnesses while you were doing it. Back to the movie, though.
      Doctor Kabuki Killer does a bit of crazy monologueing and then goes to work taking the teeth out of the blonde who, for some reason, goes completely quiet after he takes the first tooth out. Some more crazy and then he goes back to slicing open the girl while justifying it in that he's harvesting organs and giving them to away to a bunch of people so he's taking a few lives to save a bunch more. Eat that logic Spock and/or Kirk depending on whether you watched the 1982 or 2013 version of Star Trek 2 (seriously, the newest one: basically just Star Trek 2 and Star Trek 3 combined with the Kirk and Spock roles reversed).
      Now Cop Who Can't Act and The Captain are getting concerned about Nick not answering. It's brushed aside along the way of the other cop “having a lead” on a guy that supposedly knew the Killer back in med school. Obviously that was just the Killer trying to bring him into the trap as well and he tells Nick as much before duct taping Nick's mouth shut and going off to dispose of the body of the girl. I guess he only wanted two teeth and a bit of liver rather than, you know, using all the available organs to save as many people as possible. This guy is not very good at following his own philosophy.
      Cop Who Can't Act finds Nick and tries to untie him but Killer stabs him with a meat hook. His death scene is tragic for all the wrong reasons.
      Now Nick is on the table about to be cut up. All of a sudden, though, crazy shit starts happening. Lights flicker, things in jars start to bubble, noises are heard, wind happens, all sorts of supernatural shit is going down. Nick frees himself and shoots Killer with the gun from his last Nick At Home scene that just happened to be lying around. He then calls up The Captain and calls in back-up saying he's got Killer. Everything seems to be wrapped up nicely (as long as you excuse the “random supernatural shit happens and the good guy wins!” ending), but there's still 12 minutes left and that seems a bit long for credits so I'm betting twist ending.
      Oh hey, twist ending. I guess this is as good a time as any to point out that Nick had a heart transplant after his first encounter with Killer. That's why everyone was telling him not to put stress on his heart and all that. Not sure if I said it or just implied it, but either way that was the case. And it turns out Killer had meticulously kept records for the organs he harvested, even going up to who they went to after he sold them. Guess whose heart Nick ended up with? If you guessed Catherine the psychic you would be right and you would be as ready to call bullshit on this whole twist ending as I am. Fuck this noise.
      On the total, though, this wasn't too bad of a movie until the ending. It's good quality film-wise and, aside from the one guy, well enough acted, plus the story isn't terrible (again, aside from the ending), and The Captain is a pretty awesome character. I'm actually willing to give this one a pass considering some of the crap I've reviewed on here (Zombie Christ is coming, I swear to God). This probably punts The Legend Of Sorrow Creek down to second for best movie on this 8-pack collection but only just barely after that ending.
      Seriously, fuck that noise.

Bloody Mary "3D"

      Okay, back once more to review another terrible movie you've probably never heard of, have no interest in ever seeing, and that likely no one will ever read about. This whole concept was flawed from the beginning is kinda what I'm getting at. Anyway, up on the block tonight is “Bloody Mary”. Upon closer inspection, this was originally supposed to be “Bloody Mary 3D” but Netflix (and my TV) don't take kindly to 3D so there'll be none of that. Still, I'm betting there'll be a bunch of stuff shot unnecessarally like it's supposed to be in 3D that's just going to look silly now. Bring on the liquor!
      We start off in 1904 L.A. and after a quick shot of a house that loos suspiciously like it's a lot newer than that, we cut to... two chicks stripping and getting into bed together. Holy crap, when I said “bring on the liquor” I didn't expect that to be taken literally (it's a pun; get it?). Seriously, this is starting to look more like a porn than a real movie. I'm also kinda regretting not having 3D for this part since this has literally become a softcore lesbian porn scene with the blonde going down on the red head (my money on the red head being Bloody Mary). An odd thing to bring up, and I'm definitely not complaining, but even though my knowledge of pubic hair styles from the early 20^th century is a bit lacking, I'm guessing the girls probably shouldn't be so completely and smoothly shaven. But that's a minor detail, carry on ladies, this cinematic masterpiece is barely three minutes in.
      The music (which was pornerific enough for the bedroom) suddenly changes and we see some guy coming up to the house and taking a bottle of booze out of the mailbox. Shit is likely about to get several kinds of real, but more importantly: they delivered booze through the mail back then? Between that and the doctor prescribed cocaine, how are we any better off a hundred years later?
      Back to the girls hooking up but now the music stays ominous and the scene gets inter-cut with the guy in the kitchen making a sandwich. Take that sexism! He hears the two of them having sex and ends up slicing the blonde up with a carving knife which he'd been using to put mustard on his sandwich. A couple things about this: first and most obviously, that seems like the completely wrong reaction to coming home to find two hot girls naked in your bed. Married to the red head (she is Mary, by the way) or not, if you're going to be sticking something into them, my vote would not be for the knife. Secondly, that seems like a pretty impractical knife to be making a sandwich with in the first place. I know it's “1904” but smaller knife technology had to have been invented by now.
      I take back the porn comment; this acting is way the hell worse. Also, you'd think since she was supposed to be stabbed, they could have at least put some stab wound make-up on Mary's body while she was supposed to be lying there dying of terminal inability to emote. Now that she's cursed the guy and his family, we get some opening credits and guess what? Ron Jeremy's in this! This was made a good dozen years after Boondock Saints so I'm sure he's grown as an actor in that time and this is in no way an indication that I actually am accidentally watching pron and writing about it.
      A smog filled skyline and a tag saying we're in the present day and still in L.A. follow the credits and we see two girls walking up to what looks like an abandoned building. They are also built like porn stars but don't have the looks to match the girls from the first scene. Which I guess was maybe the point (?) since, through some convenient plot dialogue, it turns out their just wannabe groupies for Matt Elias (the family name of the guy that went all stabby in the first scene) and are sneaking into this place to try and force their way into his video. There seems to be a bit of flawed logic there, but whatever, I don't pretend to understand how the groupie mind works.
      They do some fawning over the guitars and then scare themselves looking into a mirror. One of them starts talking about the curse of Mary Worth and we get to watch the entire first scene over again... although only starting at the stabbing part because why would anyone want to watch a gratuitous lesbian scene over again when they can watch a poorly acted murder scene over again? Anyway, now the two girls decide to test the whole “Bloody Mary in front of a mirror” bit. Seeing as they scared themselves a few seconds ago just seeing their own reflections in a mirror, this seems like it'd result in some screaming even if they weren't in a horror movie. Sorry, a 3D horror movie. The 3D part was supposed to come in when Mary shows up and reaches out of the mirror towards the camera and drags one of the girls into her, comically ripping off her head before coming after the other one. She's still totally naked and covered in blood so they've got the continuity going. Although physics seems to be less of a strong point as the second girl is killed and then hung from a coat rack. Much like the movie decides to, let's just move on and forget about how stupid that is.
      Some more random shots of L.A. so they have time for some DJ to talk about this Matt Elias guy for a while. And now they're playing the douche's entire song with him “dancing” (?) around with some crappy video effects thrown in. This song sucks. And it just keeps going. The movie isn't even a full hour and a half long and they've spent the first 20+ minutes with a lesbian porn scene and some a douchey auto-tuned music video with like a five minute horror break in between. Another thing: why were there even guitars on the stage? There wasn't anything even approaching a musical instrument in that entire song. It'd be like having Justin Bieber or Justin Timberlake or some other crappy pop star trying to pretend their real musicians by having a guitar around. Wait, has that actually happened? I honestly don't know. Maybe somebody really has tried to do this and the movie is trying to make fun of them for it? I'm grasping at straws here trying to justify it since the movie started out so promising.
      Some new random girl is on the phone talking to her mom who seems displeased that her daughter is “still doing that” for work (all that's been said is she “has a shoot” this afternoon). Are we back to the porn angle again? Probably just the new music video for Elias, but with the random jumps between scenes so far in this movie, you never know.
      She ends the phone all and we switch over to a couple other people (some random white dude and a black chick) showing up to the same building as before and talking about getting set up for the video shoot. Then some bald guy acting like an asshole shows up with another porn-looking girl to bitch about the setting for the video even though apparently he's the one that put up the money for it and this is all they could afford. The stoner director of the video shows up (named Weed, imagine that) and the bunch of them go inside to get set up. The blonde from the phone call is nowhere to be seen.
      Some fat security guard tries to give guff about baldy's pornstar girlfriend not being on the list, but she gets let in anyway. Next a guy with drumsticks shows up so maybe there is a band involved with Elias? Probably just ghost fodder. After that the man, the myth, the douche himself shows up and he's having an argument with his girlfriend about him cheating on her the night before (his excuse being “so what? You weren't there” and “I didn't cheat on you, it was just a blowjob”).
      Hey look everybody, it's Ron Jeremy! He's the building manager, I guess, and he's showing the crew around. Seems a bit odd he didn't see the two dead girls if he was showing people around and all. It's kinda sad but Ron Jeremy really is the best actor so far. Good for him. Oh, the blonde finally shows up so I guess she wasn't just an extra scene with no relation to the rest of the movie. Good for her too... I guess.
      Elias is in his dressing room now and imagine who you see in the mirror? Only this time Mary's wearing a dress and not so interested in killing so much as just talking to the guy, focusing on one of the necklaces he's wearing (the same one the first guy ripped off her at the start), and the disappearing into thin air as soon as he looks away from her. Look at all that suspense being built. Just look at it.
      Weed's gone off to get high in some back room. Obviously, there's a mirror in it and Mary shows up again. Again she's wearing a dress so I'm guessing that means there'll be more talking and less killing for the second time. And I'm right. Now she's trying to get Weed to let her be in the video by seducing him. Doesn't take much 'cause she is pretty hot, I'll give her that much.
      Now Mary's naked again. In the back of a mirror that Elias is looking into. He turns around and she disappears again, though. This time while he's looking at her. That seems... less plausible then the last time, but I guess big time rock star there is going to just shrug it off as an effect of whatever drugs he's supposed to be on. Still, no killing. You think they could at least keep it consistent with the “nudity = death, no nudity = no death” thing but that's obviously asking too much.
      Ron Jeremy's back! He's acting like a sympathetic bartender (even bringing her a beer) to Elias' girlfriend. Then the drummer makes a joke about how everybody knows Ron Jeremy's character “being a pretty big dick” to the black girl (she's running the shoot or at least trying to organize it, I guess) when she comes looking for him. It's funny 'cause he's Ron Jeremy and it's sad 'cause this is as funny as this movie gets. And that's it for that scene. No follow up, no reason for it at all, just that's it and back to Elias “dancing” (?) around and his crappy auto-tuned, non-band aided song playing.
      Now they're finally about to start filming the video, but the power goes out. There's some more arguing and Elias decides he and his girlfriend are going to go off to get something to eat since it'll take “10 to 15 minutes” to get the lights back on. So they split off, and Ron Jeremy splits off to go try to fix things with baldy and the black girl going off on their own as well. Finally we're getting into classic horror movie shit.
      Oh hey, that “10 to 15 minutes” took exactly as long as it took Ron Jeremy to waddle down some stairs and flip a switch. And nobody got killed during. This thing really isn't doing horror movies right at all. Mary is wandering down the hall with ominous music playing now, though, so maybe something will happen? It's hard to gauge since the “nudity = death” bit was ruined. Also, for no particular reason, she's now got underwear on but is still topless. What weird kind of naked ghost rules is she following? Obviously she can choose when she wants to show up fully naked and covered in blood and when she wants to show up without blood and fully dressed, so why the sudden halfway of no blood and underwear? I don't understand vengeful lesbian spirits at all.
      Ron Jeremy is now playing an electric guitar without it being plugged in. He breaks a string on it, decides the hell with that, pulls out a harmonica, and decides he'll be a rock star by way of playing that. I'll say it again: Ron Jeremy is the most talented person associated with this movie. Mary's lying on a bunk or shelf or something right above him while he's doing this (fully clothed again so that just makes the topless hallway walk even more confusing), and comes down to talk to him. She also decides to take the broken guitar string and strangle him with it. That's not cool, his harmonica playing was better music than the music video they're supposed to be trying to make. Anyway, he's dead now and the “nudity = death” thing is straight out the window since she did it fully dressed. This movie is suffering from thematic problems.
      Elias and his girlfriend are sitting in his car eating and arguing. He makes some more douche-tastic arguments about how it's not his fault he was cheating on her and tells her she's “got no one to blame but herself” for him getting blown by somebody else. I really don't think there's anyone in the world who could say that and actually have it work for them. Unsurprisingly, she storms off.
      Baldy's pornstar girlfriend is now off on her own fixing her make-up. The camera work in this scene is hilarious. All it is is shots of her hips, ass, and boobs inter-cut every once in a while with a quick shot of her face. It's like they were trying to show off her porn bits but forgot she was still wearing a dress. The fat security guard busts in because he “thought the door was stuck” and then stands there learing at her for a while. And that's it for this scene. I'm starting to think that if they cut all the scenes that had nothing to do with anything they'd end up with only like 20 minutes worth of movie.
      Now some more tension as it turns out Elias is dropping baldy as a producer for his next album. Baldy does the whole “I made you! Before you met me you were nothing!” speech, and Elias tells him that he's now “the next big thing” and that his second album is going to be “the most anticipated album of the decade”. Also, the girlfriend has apparently decided that yeah, it was her fault Elias was going to groupies for blowjobs the night before because she's back with him and is actually the one that first shoots baldy down with his plans for the future. I guess the hell with continuity at this point as well as plot and “believability”.
      Baldy wanders off and does some sort of evil villain monologue to no one in particular, and then Mary shows up dressed as a naughty schoolgirl. I think they did this to try and distract people from how unbearably bad the dialogue is in this scene where she tries to seduce baldy into helping her get the necklace back... but it still makes no sense and let's be honest, no one watching this movie cares about how retarded the dialogue is by this point. Just to exemplify how shitty the writing is, for like the fifth time since she was introduced to all of the characters by her name, Mary has to tell one of them individually that her name is Mary (she even says “Bloody Mary” at this point). At this point I'm hoping she kills them all just based on how stupid they are.
      After a couple more useless scenes, Elias is in an argument with Weed about Elias taking off his Mr. T level of necklaces for a shot in the video. Elias is against it because, and I quote: “this is part of my whole look. Like my clothes, my hair, and my music.” Notice how the music is at the end of the list? With all settings at maximum douche, Elias storms off (snapping his fingers for his girlfriend to follow) and bitches some more about how it seems like the universe isn't revolving around him as much as he'd like. The girlfriend seems to have totally forgiven him at this point since she decides to start blowing him in the dressing room. The power of being a “rock” star, huh? Unfortunately (or fortunately since there's only 26 minutes left) Mary decides to show up all naked and bloody while she's blowing him. Elias thinks nothing of it for a second... then freaks out when it looks like she's the one blowing him. No killing, though. And now baldy bursts in to convince Elias to go along with taking off the necklaces and he finally agrees. Oh, and Ron Jeremy is found dead by the cameraman and a fully clothed Mary stabs him for it. Seem like that was a quick jump between subjects in the middle of a paragraph? That's what watching the different scenes of this movie back to back is like.
      Baldy's holding onto the necklaces so Mary shows up and tells him to bring “big tits” (in this case she means his pornstar girlfriend instead of... well, basically any other girl in the movie) and meet her in the bathroom. They get there, he calls for Bloody Mary, and then Bloody Mary shows up and... runs her hands across the other girl's cleavage? Producing blood somehow? Seriously, that's what happens. No attempts at making it look like there are cuts nor any attempt to explain why grabbing someone's boobs from behind would produce blood in the first place, just random boob grabbing, some blood, some screaming, and then more blood than would be physically possible running down the other girl's legs as Mary stands behind her fondling the other girl's boobs. And I'm not joking about that, either. The rest of this “death” scene is Mary squeezing and playing with the other girl's boobs from behind while baldy stands there trying to act scared while watching one girl play with another's tits. This actually qualifies as good acting because, let's be honest, “scared” is not the emotion you're going to feel while watching something like that.
      The cameraman's absence is finally noticed... and brushed off. More arguing and finally the blonde (remember her? From that one scene where she was on the phone? Yeah, she's still around) decides to help out with the lights. While this is going on Mary goes to baldy to get her necklace back and, for no reason I can think of, it's revealed that she can't actually take the necklace, somebody has to give it to her. Baldy is also strangely calm talking to her considering he just saw her tit massage his girlfriend to death.
      More topless walking down the hallway for Mary, this time with a clever in her hand too. Then, for no reason, she's sitting on the back of a pick-up truck when Elias' girlfriend shows up muttering about something and decides to take off her shirt. She's just changing into a different one and is still wearing a bra, though, so with only 14 minutes left I guess they weren't planning on bookending the movie with another lesbian scene. They talk about something, but it's hard to say what since whatever budget they had must have been spent on paying Mary to be naked 'cause the sound is crap in this scene. So yeah, for no reason Elias' girlfriend suddenly changes her mind about Mary and goes from being a bitch towards her to being best friends... until she puts the pieces together that this is Bloody Mary, at which point Mary (in a very short skirt) pushes her back down into the bed of the truck and mounts her. Still no bookend scene, just some of that 3D magic I'm missing out on and a ridiculous shot of the girlfriend's boobs bouncing around as she pretends to either be stabbed or have her throat slit. It's hard to tell which since literally all you see is the front of her shirt and her elbows awkwardly flailing around. Oh, and then suddenly her head is cut off so I guess we're going with that's what happened rather than her being stabbed. The the fat security guard shows up and gets killed. Mary fondles her own boobs as he's dying just to mock him. Then she kills the drummer who was still in the movie even though no one has seen him in forever and he wasn't around when they were trying to shoot the music video.
      Suddenly other people are starting to put shit together about Mary and notice that there isn't really anybody left. Terrible acting ensues. Mary shows up in a bra, skirt, and corset because fuck it at this point. The black chick dies with a thrown cleaver to the back. Everyone that's left (Weed, Elias, blonde, and baldy) decide to run. Blonde gets a knife thrown into her back, but apparently doesn't die so easily and it turns out a closed door is enough to stop Bloody Mary from getting to them because fuck logic. The decision is made to pull the knife out of blonde's back (a bad idea, fyi), Elias decides to take off his shirt to “help” cover up the knife wound because why should Mary be the only one that gets partially naked, right ladies? Also, it turns out a closed door will not stop bloody Mary, as she appears in the mirror and kills baldy and stabs Elias. Who throws the necklace through the mirror (? Why not?) and Weed follows that up by kicking and breaking the mirror after Mary goes back through it to get the necklace. This is apparently the end as now we're treated to every scene of Mary killing somebody or being naked replayed while a voice over tells you (again) about the legend of Bloody Mary. Also, Elias who was perfectly fine (save for the knife in the gut) right before this, is now dead on the floor leaving only Weed and blondie surviving. And they just sort of walk out and call it a day.
      Then the DJ from before talks about “rising rocker” (I don't think they know what that word means) Matt Elias' death. Then they play the same crap-ass song of his again as the credits roll (the part I find funny in this is the blonde whose whole part was going down on Mary in the first scene gets the first credits with a picture to go along with it and it's just her smiling at the camera like she really enjoys her role in the movie (although, truth be told, I'd enjoy her role so I shouldn't judge). For some reason I find that funny). I really think they just made this as some sort of porn/music video hybrid and were assuming this crappy song would become a hit.
      Fun fact: the girl that played Bloody Mary (Veronica Ricci) actually was in porn where she did (according to her IMDB profile) “mostly girl-girl and bondage scenes” and has graduated from university with a degree in both psychology and business while also being a certified massage therapist. I really have no joke for that. I just honestly would like to hang out with this girl as there are very few people I know in my regular life who could possibly be as interesting to talk to as that.