Monday 2 December 2013

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.