13/13/13 ("lousy Smarch weather")

      We're going to call my missing February an “Olympic Break” (even though I only watched a total of like four hockey games and enough of the closing ceremony to see a giant crying bear and that was it for my Olympic experience) rather than just say I got lazy and skipped over it. Also, even though it's March and I should probably do something St. Patrick's Day related like Leprechaun (or one of its sequels) or move into reviewing terrible movies people have heard of (like The Core) or something like I'm thinking about doing, all of you can shut up because we're doing “13/13/13” this time. Why? Because there's a Simpsons quote about something like that (Marge: “It all started on the thirteenth hour of the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month. We were there to discuss the faulty calendars the school had purchased. Homer: “Lousy Smarch weather. Do not touch Willy. Good advice!”) and I haven't stopped giggling about the coincidence since I found out this movie was a thing in January and the description of it makes it sound like something even present day Simpsons writers gave up on for being too dumb. Namely: “For millennia, calendars have added an extra day every four years. In doing so, they violated the ancient Mayan calendar. Now we are in the 13th month of the 13th year of the new millennium, and the few who survive will battle a world of demons.” Lousy Smarch demons invading our world somehow.
      We start with a guy turning into his driveway and walking into his house from the car. This is only notable since, for some reason, as the camera is tracking along beside the car as it slowly rolls up the driveway. It cuts... to the exact same shot of the car slowing rolling up the driveway from the exact same angle. There's a little break that's hard to notice and I probably wouldn't have if I'd been drinking more already, but I kinda want to know why that happened. Did somebody working the camera trip over a tree branch or something and they figured rather than using a whole new take, they'd just start it over from roughly the same spot?
      Enough of that, though, back to the movie. The guy walks through the house and finds a little girl wearing a Leatherface mask. Except I don't think it's a mask as she's standing beside the bed while a different girl sits playing with dolls and a bunch of “blood” all over her face so I think it's supposed to be her skin that's been cut off and used to make the mask the first girl is wearing. The second girl wants the dad to “come play doll house” with them, and then the first girl jumps at him and we cut to... I think it's the same guy (I didn't get much of a look at him in the car) waking up in a tent while three other dudes sit around a campfire in lawn chairs drinking beers and laughing like idiots. So a pretty good representation of camping, I guess. He gets out of the tent and they start to pressure him into drinking even though it's morning while one of the other dudes is telling a story that turns out to be bullshit. I'm more and more impressed with how the people behind this movie were able to do such a good job capturing the reality of dudes going camping.
      The first guy's looking at his watch (it says “13:13” for the the time! ...although they didn't use the seconds to make it 13:13:13 because subtlety I guess) and he asks who was messing with his watch 'cause he doesn't use military time. Nobody was messing with it, of course, so he just tries to set it back. It doesn't seem to go and now we get 13:13:13 on the watch. That's probably a well developed set-up by this movie's standards.
      They pack up and we find out the first guy's name is “Jack” and that he and at least one of the other guys used to be cops. His other buddy calls him “Killer” so I'm guessing Jack shot somebody while on the force. Oh, and it turns out that first part was just a nightmare. These guys are old friends and Jack is in the middle of a divorce so they're all going on a camping trip to get his mind off it or something. And the car radio clock says 13:13 now, too. Before leaving (although if they haven't left yet, why were they out in the woods in tents around a campfire already?) they stop at Jack's old house to see his kids and soon-to-be-ex wife. It's probably worth noting at this point that there doesn't seem like a lot of reason these guys should be friends. Jack's pretty soft spoken and “nice” or whatever so far, his other cop buddy has been acting like a douche bag, the fat guy has been trying to act like a Douche Cop but comes off as a complete fucking idiot (I'm going to call him “Fat Idiot” until I find out his name... and probably after that, too), and the fourth guy hadn't said much but after Jack mentioned making a stop to see his kids (the oldest daughter is supposed to be 12... I'm guessing she has a birthday coming up) he starts talking and giving off this creepy pedophile vibe that only gets worse when they get to the house and she's playing outside. Douche Cop and Fat Idiot just say hi to her and follow Jack inside after he talked to his daughter, but Probably Pedo says hi and then kinda lingers around for a couple seconds looking at her all creepily before going inside with the rest of them. The daughter then crushes and eats a spider she had in her hand.
      Jack then walks into the kitchen and starts raiding the fridge for beer for his friends. The wife (Marcy) is washing her hands in the kitchen sink because something “won't come off. It just won't come off.” I'm guessing maybe they were actually coming back from the trip rather than just about to go? I might have misheard what they were saying in the car, but now Jack is inviting the rest of the guys (Douche Cop is named Quinton, Fat Idiot is named Joe, and Probably Pedo still doesn't have a name yet) out to dinner since he's taking his daughter Kendra out. It's at this point we see that Marcy has been trying to wash off blood or something as she's ripped open the inside of her left forearm so looks like dinner is canceled and we get a trip to the Poorly Acted Hospital instead.
      Everyone, from other patients, to relatives, to orderlies, to the doctors have their acting turned up to -11 and are complaining about being busy and generally being snappy with everyone. Marcy is, of course, in room 13. As Jack is going back to see her he passes a doctor who says “that's like the thirteenth guy I've lost today” then snaps at him.
      Back at the house, Probably Pedo is looking out the window and creepily watching Kendra play in the driveway while Quinton and Joe sit on the couch drinking beer. Quinton starts “acting” by snapping about wanting a beer. Probably Pedo now goes out to talk to Kendra and yeah, he's definitely a pedophile that Jack's apparently warned his kids about already. This raises the question of why a former cop would even be friends with a pedophile let alone bring him around to his ex-wife's house where his two daughters live and then especially raises the question of why he'd leave the daughters there with the pedophile when he went with his wife to the hospital. Turns out the guy's name is Trevor but that doesn't matter as Kendra ends up violently beating the shit out of him and smashing the back of his head against the driveway while Quinton and Joe sit inside on the couch debating who's getting up to get the next beer. There are many odd things and questionable choices going on so far but no demons and nothing really “bad movie” bad except the acting.
      When Joe and Quinton finally go outside (for no real reason it seems) they find Kendra sitting on Trevor's dead body and then she attacks them and Quinton naturally figures the best response is to attempt to run her over. I know I've mentioned the bad acting a couple times already, but the way the guy playing Quinton goes after it just reminds me of Nicholas Cage for some reason. Just over the edge over the top crazy at all times. Also, other people are starting to randomly attack people as one guy is crawling along the sidewalk and gets his eyes gouged out by some random chick. Quinton Cage (I'm just going to assume that's his last name) knows how to handle this! Full reverse! Ram over top of two people and instantly kill them! Claim it's worth “ten points” and you're “going for a high score” while your dim-witted buddy who can't even hold down a 12 year old girl so you can run her over nods along! Exclamation points after everything because you're intense! Stand around looking at each other not saying anything for way too long! Go back in the house as if nothing's wrong!
      Back to the hospital where Marcy is waking up and it looks like the doctors could only be bothered to bandage up a third of her arm as most of it is still uncovered and all raw from her scratching at it. They really take the whole “your medicare only covers THIS MUCH” thing seriously in the States, huh? Jack explains that the doctors don't know what happened with her but think she may have had a stroke or something which kinda makes me think he might have been talking to a janitor rather than a doctor. The one doctor he was talking to before did throw his doctor's jacket at Jack so maybe he threw it at some other random guy who actually kept it. Jack decides to call Quinton to check up on things at home and Quinton answers and is able to put Kendra on the phone to talk to Jack? This seems odd considering as well as all the murdering people that was going on in the last scene, Kendra also ran off so she shouldn't be home at all. Also, Jack keeps talking like there's only one girl so maybe there isn't another daughter and there absolutely being another daughter in the nightmare scene should just be forgotten. Anyway, Marcy decides now is the time to take the IV drip out of her and attack Jack by jumping on his back while he's on the phone. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm betting Jack's got a good shot at retaining custody of the kid(s) when all this is said and done. Funniest scene in the movie so far: after getting Marcy off his back and restraining her, she ends up biting Jack's arm and he pushes her away causing her to fall over onto the hospital bed which causes him to suddenly forget everything that's happening and start apologizing (“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push you that hard”). Unless there was some previous history of domestic abuse that I'm not aware of, that just seems like the most hilariously wrong reaction to a situation since the guy at the start of Bloody Mary stabbed his wife to death because she was naked in bed with another hot girl. And now, Marcy jumps out the third floor window and kills herself for no reason. Suddenly that little “scuffle” is going to lead to some major questions for Jack.
      Quinton and Joe are inside the house again (noticeably absent: Kendra who was just on the phone when Jack called Quinton) and are sitting on the couch about to start drinking beer again. Quinton uses a knife to open his beer can, then decides it'd be funnier to stab Joe in the stomach with it. Joe, after initially crying for a couple seconds, agrees that it's more funny than sad (the exact opposite response people watching this have to this movie) and starts to laugh along with him and they decide to start finger painting the walls with Joe's blood because drinking and as-yet-unmentioned Mayan calendar demons turn you into a violent, artistically-inclined four yet old (also known as “a four year old”).
      The people at the hospital seem to have had the same reaction as Jack leaves the room to find the rest of the hospital looking like the aftermath coma patients in other movies wake up in to discover their in a zombie/Resident Evil movie. This is impressive because in those cases it's taken months or at least 28 days for everything to fall apart like that, but in this case Mayan super-efficiency has made it happen in a matter of minutes. Jack is pulled into a different room which was bound to happen since there's still almost an hour in the movie and all, but the fact that she just randomly opened the door and pulled him in at the exact time he was standing in front of it with his back turned even though there isn't a window in the door for her to see that he was looking away (or, better yet, to see that he was “normal”) makes for some suspiciously good timing. Jack wants to go back and save Kendra, but the girl says Kendra's “as good as dead” out there. This lady seriously underestimates the daughter of a former cop. If she can take on one pedophile who had already started to slap her in the face, I think she's got a good shot at taking on the rest of this crazy, messed-up world. The woman ends up telling Jack her theory that people born on leap years aren't effected because both her and Jack were born on leap years and they're the only two who haven't gone crazy. I'd like to point out that this sort of goes entirely against what the plot says of the movie since, by that logic, February 29^th is just another day without any special meaning to it. I'm not sure anyone involved bothered to read over this a second time (or even a first, most likely), though, so we'll chalk that up as another “but weren't there two daughters?” moments.
      Joe and Quinton now have Jack's guns and are loading them up to go “hunt some dinner”. Quinton also flat out tells Joe to “stop laughing like an idiot” which I find funny 'cause Quinton's spent the whole movie laughing like that, and Joe's spent the whole movie being an idiot.
      Candace, the girl who can see through hospital doors, is explaining that “it seems to effect people differently. Some go in and out of craziness, some seem to have multiple personalities or PTSD, but one thing they have in common is they're all incredibly violent towards one another. Over this we get shots of various people covered in blood and wandering through the hospital hallways but also a CGI shot of a glowing blue skeleton holding it's head as it's bright pink brain radiates waves of, I assume, craziness because how else are you going to illustrate that concept? Also, there's “news footage” from riots in Berlin in order to show it's everywhere. I guess if it's happening in L.A. and Germany, then it's gotta be everywhere, right? Two places is enough evidence to conclude that it's a worldwide thing. Jack and Candace now decide it's time to “if I told you, you'd think I was crazy” duel each other. Jack leads off with “everywhere I go today I keep running into 13/13/13” after seeing three 13s on the thermostat (he also calls seeing “13 13 13” on the thermostat “using Celsius” as in “we don't even use Celsius in America” because having the number thirteen on a temperature display three times is clearly Celsius and that's part of the metric system and the metric system is the tool of the devil!). Candace counters with “That's what I've been trying to tell you! Today is 13/13/13!” and goes on with how leap years were invented by adding a day at the end of February and how after 120 years it was “supposed to add up to a whole other month” and how “mathematically speaking” so “today is 13/13/13” (her words, by the way. All stupid, plot-driving, craziness of it). I'm not going to bother with the math or to look up the history of leap years, but I can already say that's fucking duuuuuuummmmmmmb. Also, in this theory, they aren't suicidal so Jack figures that's the point that proves her wrong since Marcy jumped out a window by herself. In case you're keeping score at home: there's still been no mentions of the Mayans.
      It's decided that Jack and Candace are going to fight their way out through the hospital to go find Kendra. Candace says that's a crazy idea 'cause “they can't even see through the door” which seems odd since that's exactly how she met him in the first place. Loss of super powers aside, they arm themselves with scalpels that are just lying around, and open the door. At first it seems clear bet then some guy comes in and there's a struggle before Jack ends up killing him by squishing his head with the door. Of note from this (aside from a relatively little-used horror movie weapon in “door”) is that the new guy somehow knew about and mentioned Jack's daughter while they were wrestling. Damn crazy people and their super powers of reading minds.
      At the house, Joe and Quinton are busy being crazy and apparently forgetting that it was Quinton that stabbed Joe because they just argue about that for a while before going back to shooting the “crazy people outside”. And their finger painting masterpiece was just a couple (I'm guessing there's really three and I've only seen two) 13s on the walls. They decide to board up the windows using a two by four that was just lying around somewhere in the house. Probably a sound tactic, except that they forget the nails and Joe ends up just trying to hammer the board into the wall using the butt of the gun. I'm not sure if these guys are supposed to be the comic relief or what but it's not working.
      Arming themselves with a fire ax and the knife a crazy lady who'd already made one face mask and was trying for a second dropped, Jack and Candace go through the hospital on foot (so they don't get out of the elevator on the ground floor only to be surrounded) looking for the keys out of dead doctor's pockets so they can use on of their cars to escape to Jack's house since they'd both arrived via ambulance. That's actually pretty smart thinking, even if it's just convenient-to-plot so they can get chased down the stairway by a group of crazies.
      Before going on, though, a quick note about that. Why the fuck was that stairway group working in a pack? If all these people have gone crazy and are turning super-violent against each other, wouldn't this bunch (not to mention Quinton and Joe) have ripped each other apart before going after other people? Me and a friend had come up with a theory how regular zombies (think Walking Dead and Romero's Dawn Of The Dead and that style) don't kill each other off 'cause they only attack live prey so, when they see another zombie walking around, they're drawn to it thinking it's possible food but end up finding out it's not alive so they start wandering off together and that's how packs of them form, but in this case that doesn't apply 'cause these aren't “zombies” like that, they're just going crazy and killing each other. What's the logic behind them working together? Shoddy film making, no doubt. Anyway, Jack sprays the first stairway crazy in line with mace that he picked up... somewhere, and he and Candace escape because that first guy fell down and the ones behind him decided to stop running after that. I should really be drinking more as we're pretty much two thirds through the movie and I'm not feeling any buzz yet and it's starting to annoy me that I've been watching this sober for so long.
      On the ground floor, Jack and Candace take some of the “we should REALLY be quiet right now” time while they're searching dead bodies for car keys in a hospital full of murderous psychos to start loudly talking to each other. Jack mentions that he used to be a cop but left the force four months ago and Candace asks about it. Rather than answer Jack says “don't you think it'd be better if we didn't know that much about each other? You know, just in case...” No, Jack, no we do not think that as there is no “just in case” that I can think of you might be alluding to that could be harmed by knowing something about the person you're trying to escape Monster Hospital with (can't call it “Zombie Hospital” since they're not zombies and can't call it Crazy Hospital 'cause those are called “Mental Institutions” now). Confronted by this logic, Jack admits that he was kicked off due to excessive force and goes into great detail telling the story about how he beat a guy to death who was attempting to rape a 17 year old girl. This also somehow, led to Marcy leaving him (kicked off the force? Maybe; wife leaving you because you killed a rapist attacking a teenage girl? Questionable) but the main thing to take away from this scene is that they're in a hospital surrounded by people who want to butcher them and they take the time to stop what they're doing (looking for keys so they can drive out of there and get to Jack's little girl) to talk to each other in non-whispered voices from ten feet away for a few minutes. As you might guess, this attracts the attention of those people that are trying to butcher them so now they have to run again.
      They get into the parking garage and hid behind a couple cars while the group of three crazies stalk them. The leader of the bunch tries to talk Jack into coming out and fighting him face to face while one of the others keeps looking and finds Candace, dragging her back to where his friends are standing. The competition for which of the two sidekick crazies is dumber heats up as even though the one that found Candace failed to look directly across from her to where Jack was crouching beside a car (making no real effort to hide himself other than “don't poke your head up”), the other guy keeps standing beside the leader as the leader makes a speech about “making it a fair fight” while brandishing a knife. So yeah, the second sidekick gets killed. Oh, completely random: looking at the IMDB page of the movie and the lead crazy 'cause I thought he looked familiar (turns out I've never heard of him which I should've guessed considering how there was likely a total of zero dollars in the casting budget for this movie), it turns out he's Ian Roberts who was the first openly gay professional athlete in a team sport (rugby in Australia). So there's a trivia fact for you. After shouting some more, lead crazy walks ten feet with his remaining sidekick (they leave Candace on her own behind them so she can go pick up the fire ax she'd dropped), finds Jack, then starts stabbing the sidekick leaving Jack enough time to walk up and slit the leader's throat while he was busy stabbing his friend. What in all kinds of fuck? They were building this up like it was going to be some sort of major fight scene between Jack and this crazy guy, and it just turns into nothing and is over in less time than it took you to read about it. Did they leave this scene to be shot last and ended up spending all their money before they could do it so just had to cut what so far is looking like the Boss Fight (obviously a fight with Quinton and Joe is still coming up and then probably one where Jack has to kill his daughter) of the movie? Fucking tease.
      Despite a lack of nails (although a close up shows that they've found some... but still no hammers as Joe's still using the gun), Quinton and Joe have sealed up the windows of Jack's house during the night. A night that it totally wasn't in any of the scenes involving the hospital and totally isn't anymore when they should a shot of other crazies outside the house, but that's not important since the shot from outside shows those crazies all gathered around clearly un-boarded up windows. Was there literally no one watching for continuity on this movie? Besides that, Quinton is in the middle of giving a speech how Jack's house is “our home turf. Nobody's taking our home turf. Like fucking D-Day”. I'll let that sink in for a second. … Good enough? Okay, now for the slow students, I'll point out that D-day was the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied France in World War II. An invasion that the Allies won, thereby taking away the “home turf” of the Nazis. I'm betting this was intentional because God help us as a species if it wasn't. I'm secure in “fully intentional” on that line as Quinton goes on to say something about George Washington and other war-like symbolism. Also, there's some more footage from around the world including a soccer stadium, various cities with “foreign-looking” (re: not white) people in them, and also a shot of a dude waving a hockey stick around from outside of the back window of a car. That is now the single greatest “violence in the streets of a world gone mad” shot in the history of zombie/zombie-like movies. It might be Canadian-bias, but just hear me out: the “emergency broadcast network” is going on about martial law being declared in a voice over, you have shots of riots and things burning from places “all over the world” and then... guy swatting a hockey stick around from the backseat of a family car. There isn't even any death or destruction going on in that shot. Just the car driving on the road and a dude with a hockey stick out the back window. I think they just found that on YouTube or something and realized they'd been given a gift to glorious NOT to use as stock disaster footage. I'm going to have to watch that again. It kills me.
     On second viewing: it definitely IS just footage they found on YouTube (or somewhere like it) because there ISN'T any destruction going on in the streets, but there are people walking and one of them is wearing a Montreal Canadiens jersey so that's gotta be just random footage somebody took outside the rink before an NHL game (it couldn't have been from after a playoff game, 'cause if it was Montreal would have lost and there really would've been cars overturned and on fire for them to film! Go Leafs). Even given that everything else in this montage is just random stock footage of riots from around the world, that still seems like the weirdest thing to put in there. Anyway, back to the movie.
      Jack and Candace get to Jack's house and there's crazy things going on outside and people attacking each other all over the lawn and driveway. That's going to effect the re-sale value considerably towards the negative side. Gaining access to the backyard after opening an unlocked gate that no one else bothered with, Jack finds the spare key and he and Candace head inside. Joe's dying inside and Quinton's trying to talk him through it by saying “he's been hurt much worse than this!” like back when they were in the Korean War together! ...fighting for North Korea. This makes the Nazi thing from earlier more obviously on purpose (although it raises a question about why he was talking about Washington wanting them to fight for their homes if he's channeling the “bad guys” in American wars), and also leads to the best stand alone line of the movie where Joe says “...I'm Asian?” and Quinton responds “we're ALL a little bit Asian!” Nick Cage would be proud. Jack tries to talk some sense into the both of them by reminding them that they're not Asian and haven't been in any war, but Quinton isn't having any of it and continues on pretending they're in a war zone while telling Jack that Kendra ran off after “smashing poor Private Trevor's head in”. Jack takes Quinton's gun, in response Quinton takes Joe's gun. They point them at each other but decide to point it at the outsides as the crazies outside pick this moment to break in. They end up both out of bullets but get the door closed and blocked off anyway (even with Dawn Of The Dead remake style sound effects from the “I swear to Go they're not zombies” zombies). Quinton kills Joe and... what? The two of them are brothers? The fuck? They look nothing alike and no one's mentioned it before (although I guess that clears up why Jack was hanging out with the other three: Quinton was his partner as a cop, Joe is Quinton's brother, and Pedo Trevor was, likely, Joe's friend rather than a friend of the two cops). Whatever, at this point Kendra walks in through the back door (despite Jack saying he locked it behind himself) and Quinton uses the gun he said was out of bullets to shoot her in the head because fuck logic at this point.
      Guess there was only the one extra bullet left since when Quinton turn the gun on Jack it just clicks empty for him, but he still manages to over power Jack, take the knife, and stab him with it while quoting Deliverance (again: Crazy Quinton Cage has to be the best written least self-aware character in B-movie history since the original context of “squeal like a pig, boy!” involves a whole different type of stabbing). Candace tries to attack Quinton with a fire ax but is somehow unable to do so effectively even when he's busy on top of Jack so she gets over powered and Quinton throws her to the ground and starts punching her in the face and tearing her clothes. This is obviously meant to be a parallel to the story Jack told about the rapist he killed to get kicked off the police force because exactly that happens again and Jack punches Quinton to death.
      Jack wants to stay and “die with his family” but Candace insists on trying to help him limp along (he was stabbed in the gut so the limp seems out of place). He tells her to grab the ax and knife but she has to let him go to do it... causing him to fall over. That was actually pretty damn funny, I'll give it that. They do end up walking out and getting from the backyard out to the car again while the crazies stay occupied with the house for no reason. Then they drive off. And we find it's night again and the streets are full of cars being driven by people because fuck logic. There's a bunch of wrap up dialogue and Jack ends up dying from his wounds. Candace is left crying over a guy she just met earlier that day (despite there being a whole other night in between, this is all supposed to have been one day), and then the credits roll.
      So to recap: no Mayans or any mention thereof. Two daughters in a nightmare suddenly become one daughter in real life and it's never mentioned again. Leap years were added every four years “just because” and February 29^th which, in this “just because” logic shouldn't have any special meaning at all, should flat out just not exist which is why people born then are fine. What are supposed to be major plot points based on their build up (the parking garage fight, finding Kendra) are in fact nothing. Actually writing an ending is hard, better to just leave it with the hero dying and the girl crying. Oh, and people who look nothing alike, sound totally different, and are never mentioned as being related before can be revealed to be brothers in the end of the movie because fuck all of your continuity and story telling conventions.
      To close out, I'd like to point out that, from what Netflix has shown me, this is something of a series. There was an 11/11/11 (two, actually; although one looked like it was actually made by a studio with money), a 12/12/12, and now this. If/when 14/14/14 shows up... well... you know where to find this blog.

Zombie Christ (part 2)

      Because I obviously hate myself and have some serious personal issues I really should deal with, we're back with part two of Zombie Christ. Just to add a bit extra to this review, on top of the tequila and vodka, I'm also sick. But hey, it's not like combining booze and cold medicine ever hurt anyone before, right? I'd recap the first part of the review except I'm lazy so fuck that. If you want to know what happened before this so you can follow the “plot” better, go read the first part on your own time.

      So with the typical level of completely no transition, we go from the beach scene to some girl taking her clothes off in front of some random guy lying on a bed. He is not impressed even though the girl is really good looking and he's just some fat dick. I guess they've been dating for a while or something since after she strips they get in a fight about who was supposed to go down on the other first. People really fight about that? That's a pretty big warning sign that the relationship may have run its course, to my mind. Neither of them end up doing anything and the girl wanders out of the bedroom down the hall because now is the perfect time to go check the closet for skeletons. As you may have guessed, Zombie Christ is in the closet. This somehow leads to another fight about whether the girl is funny or not. She lies on the ground, does some even weirder convulsions than Heroin Blonde did, and Zombie Christ sucks out her soul. At this point the guy walks in and says, in the calmest voice ever, that he “can't believe what he just saw”. Some poor effects later, he's now blind. End scene.
      A new girl is now walking around her house (with clothes on this time). That's when Baldy swoops in from just off screen (note: not from outside or anywhere, just off screen so he was obviously somewhere in the room with her) and grabs hold of her. With his hand over her mouth he says he's “just here to protect her”. He then proceeds to tie her up and put tape over her mouth. All seems like things a normal, sane person there to protect her from crazy, evil forces would do. Next up is a long-winded monologue where he mentions, once again, that he's a scholar and some other crazy sounding crap that's meant to give depth to the story. I didn't really listen and it's probably just as well since one of the lines I did hear was, right after saying he was a scholar but well after all the other crazy bullshit, he says that “that part of the story might sound crazy” so I make the executive decision to break out the tequila. And now he's saying this has something to do with the Druids and all these naked girls that are being killed are the descendants of Jesus and BBQ Christ won't rest until he's killed all of them. Please note that missing so far from this movie has been: A) any male descendents which, just by the law of averages, you'd think there would be at least a couple lying around; and B) Druids.
      The girl is at least not an idiot. She figures Baldy is a nutcase and talks to him in a calm, soothing voice, and tries to reason with him to untie her and call for professional help for himself. She's also still wearing clothes (although that might be more because she's tied up than anything else) which is different than any other chick in this movie (except Detective Zebra Print who we haven't seen again) so she's probably a bit of a main character from here on out. Odd as it may seem, the crazy scholar doesn't really respond to reasoning. Time for a cunning plan...
      She agrees to go with him and says she trusts him, causing him to untie her. Baldy's name is Michael (still going to call him Baldy) and for the THIRD TIME he mentions specifically that he's a scholar. This time he adds “renegade” to the title scholar. That made me laugh; just picturing a “renegade scholar” with a leather jacket and sunglasses smoking a cigarette while leaning against a motorcycle and leafing through pages of a history book or something. Anyway, as soon as he's untied her she kick him in the... air between his legs. That's not a joke about his masculinity, that's literally as far up as her leg gets when kicking at him. He falls to the ground like she kicked him in the nuts, though, so close enough.
      As she gets up to run off, BBQ Jesus is also suddenly in the room with them. Does this girl's house just not have a wall or something? All these people just randomly showing up there without going through a door or window or anything that might cause a noise for others to hear. Maybe it's some type of holographic projection of a wall? That's why nobody notices BBQ Jesus walking up to them since they can't see him until after he's walked through the projection. That would explain how Baldy got the drop on her inside her own house. Whatever, it's time for another shot. Whether it's cold medicine or tequila is the real question.
      Definitely tequila since they're now trying to establish that Zombie Christ thinks this girl looks like the Mary Magdalene from the flashback (so... good job making one scene have continuity with another scene, I guess?) even though, and I can't stress this enough, THEY LOOK NOTHING ALIKE. Baldy recovers enough to knock the Halloween decoration into the chair previously used to tie up the girl, and he and said girl run off out of the room down the hallway. Why they don't just use the hologram wall to escape I don't know. It must only work to let people into the house rather than out of it. Seems like a design flaw if you ask me. I mean, wouldn't you rather have the ability to leave your house through the wall rather than let intruders inside without seeing them? Someone must have installed it backwards. Lazy contractors.
      Uh oh, Sexy Nun Alert. It's a good thing too, this movie went a whole ten minutes or so without some random girl getting naked and that's what I assume is going to happen here. Judging by the fact that Zombie Christ shows up and her habit (that's what a nun's robes are called, look it up) suddenly lifts up to reveal butterfly underwear (seems a bit of an odd choice for a non-stripper nun), I think it's safe to say I'm right. And a close-up shot of the underwear coming down to reveal that she's fully shaved and waxed proves me right. On a side note, this seems odd. I mean, the butterfly underwear, the waxed off pubes, this is on the girl you cast as the nun? Granted I don't have any first hand experience in the intimate grooming habits of nuns, but it really seems like this is out of place. Why not have one of the girls from earlier in the movie who (for whatever terrible issues with their father they have) were just as willing to go full frontal but also had a bit of a bush going? As the scene progresses, you learn why none of the other girls were cast as the nun. She's first fingered by the skeleton (at this point her tits come out for no explicable reason and pretty much in defiance of how her robes are supposed to work) which is probably not nearly as bad as pretending to get shit dug out of your ass by a BBQ sauce covered Halloween decoration, but then we move onto her getting her tits “sucked” by the skeleton and her being fucked by... (place your bets...)
      A raw chicken wing. I couldn't even make that up if I tried. There was simply an open package of uncooked chicken wings lying around and, since Zombie Christ didn't have a penis, he grabbed on of those, somehow attached it to his hip bones, and proceeded to fuck the (is it safe to call her “slutty” at this point? Given how the scene builds up, I think it is) nun with the boney end of the raw chicken wing. There is no way she doesn't have salmonella C (like hepatitis but from raw meat) or bird flu or something now. Just to give you a look into how sad and strange my life is, that's not even close to the weirdest thing I've seen a girl put up herself on the internet. Don't judge me, it was other people looking that shit up, I just happened to be there to see it. ...I know some weird people.
      Zombie Christ eats her soul while she's lying there writhing around in the midst of an orgasm and the scene changes and we all move on and forget that I brought up girls being so desperate for money or so fucked up sexually that they inserted things weirder than raw chicken into their vaginas... and other places.
      Baldy and... I'm just going to call her “Mary” are out in the woods and Baldy is going on some “scholarly” lecture about random Biblical crap and gets irritated at Mary when she starts interjecting with questions and observations. He ends up re-writing the concept of the Last Supper as a political supper between- blah, more tequila because this is just getting silly and the smug look on Mary's face when she's “acting” and trying to justify there being two people in this scene rather than just Baldy ranting to himself like a lunatic is irritating. Oh, just to show off that he's really a scholar, Baldy has read the Dead Sea Scrolls. He said so himself. He's a scholar, by the way. I don't know if you know that or not, but he's totally a scholar. And a renegade one, too.
      Oh my god; they just had an argument about the semantics of language and phrases. I'm going to make a new sweeping declaration about this movie: the whole thing was made just because the writer/director (can't remember if I said it before, but he goes by the name Bill Zebub) has a personal beef against the phrase “quite a few” since “a few” is always a small number but the term “quite a few” has come to mean several. If this is actually the case, I'm going to change my description of this movie from “possibly the worst ever made” to “absolutely fucking genius”. This is like Tolkien writing Lord Of The Rings as an excuse to show off his made up elf language (seriously; he wrote those long-winded books everyone but me seems to think are the greatest thing ever just to show off the language he made up) and spawning all fantasy writing ever. Need to air your beef with one particular phrase in the English language that doesn't make sense when you break it down (of which there are... all of them)? Why not base a movie full of naked hot chicks around it to get your point across?
      Sadly, I really doubt this is the case since they just move on from it. Such a shame. What we do get is some more “everyone else is sheeple; I'm better and smarter because I say things like 'history isn't true' and tell people to question everything without actually having any real facts or anything behind my mindset” rhetoric. Oh, and we find out the chick's name really is Mary so I guess good on me for either subconsciously remembering that or just guessing it since every woman of any significance in a story about Jesus is named Mary.
      One more topless chick lying down on the floor and doing weird, overly sexualized convulsions while Zombie Jesus eats her soul mixed with a flashback of Mary Magdalene walking through the forest. We're only a bit more than halfway through this movie, by the way.
      Some new chick gets woken up off a futon by a greasy looking guy telling her not to be alarmed. For the sake of making this only a two part review rather than even more, I'll sum this scene up as: she gets up, takes off some clothes (no nudity), talks with this guy since he's a Guardian or Warrior or whatever. She ends up killing him since she's an Assassin who already killed whatever girl was there before the guy showed up. Also: she gives a speech about how women are bitches and not to be trusted. Mr. Zebub must have had a bad breakup or something while writing that scene.
      New girl getting her soul eaten. This one is in her underwear and in the kitchen. It honestly looks like it's somebody's grandma's kitchen. I can just picture the production crew (re: Bill Zebub with a camera and enough drugs to convince the girl to come along) sneaking into his grandma's house to film the scene of a girl in her underwear flailing (in a well controlled manner) around on the the kitchen floor and having grandma walk in with the groceries. “Grandma! I'm trying to make a movie here! Gosh!”
      Anyway, a little more of the Assassin talking about how she hates men (definitely a stand in for an ex-girlfriend) and we switch to a montage of Baldy and Mary walking through the forest. And walking through the forest. And making camp in the forest. And walking through the forest. And making camp and changing clothes in the forest. And walking through the forest. My Lord Of The Rings comparison might not have been so far off since all these fuckers ever do is walk just like in those movies.
      Zombie Christ shows up in the offices of a priest. We get a priest/pedophile joke, and Zombie Christ deep throats a rubber dildo (interesting that there's a chick getting violated with a chicken wing but they can't bring themselves to show a dick onscreen) for a while just because they want to be “controversial” or whatever, and then he bites it off... or does something else to kill the priest. It's hard to say given that the acting is so terrible and all we see is some CGI blood against the camera as the priest goes limp.
      Some time has passed... I guess. Stockholm Syndrome has set in and Mary and Baldy about trying to save other girls from her bloodline. Also, she has a water bottle. This isn't important except for the fact that where the fuck did she get a water bottle in the middle of the forest when they're trying to stay away from everyone and everything else? That pisses me off more than the rest of this nonsense for some reason.
      Zombie Christ shows up to say Mary is the last of her bloodline. Baldy... tries to defend her by... I don't even know anymore. There's some CGI fire. Hey! The girl that got the shit dug out of her is back! ...to get more shit dug out of her, I guess. All that happens is she opens a door and says “oh no! Not again!” and then we cut to some naked chicks tied up to crosses in the middle of the forest. And one girl has a shawl on. Not covering herself, just on her arms. I feel there's a Monty Python's Life Of Brian like explanation (the guy being crucified in the blanket in that movie did so because it was too fucking cold for him to be out there in just a loincloth). A bunch of shots of the various girls naked bits follow. One of them even tries to struggle against the ropes for a bit. It's cute and sad that she thinks actually acting with help her career in the future.
      This just keeps going. It's like the first scene of the movie where the naked chicks in the forest just kept going and there's nothing to contextualize it at all. Again: what would you do if you were just out in the wilds of New Jersey hiking and came across like four or five (I wasn't paying attention to how many) naked girls strung up on crosses? If nothing else, you get a free show since they're strung up and can't cover themselves unlike the girls from the start who could just try and duck down and hide if someone came along. The point I'm getting at is, there are a bunch of mind-boggling moments in this movie's production and not just for the reasons of how mind-bogglingly terrible the script is.
      Mary and Baldy are still out in the forest and now their drinking wine out of wine glasses and Stockholm Syndrome and they make out. Again: they're on the run from everyone and everything, and now they have wine and wine glasses. And Mary takes her shirt off so I guess no one should notice the wine glasses thing? Definitely not since she's taking her pants off, but Baldy's got the creepiest look on his face during this scene so it's difficult to take it as anything other than Stockholm Syndrome. Scholar. Just thought I'd say that word since I seem to be bringing up Stockholm Syndrome as much as Baldy keeps bringing up that he's a scholar. My bad.
      Zombie Christ shows up while Mary is still in her underwear so extra props to her for getting her contract to say “no nudity” in it.
      Now Mary “remembers” her life as Mary Magdalene and Baldy is holding a knife to Mary's throat and... so... much.. bullshit. Baldy stabs Mary because Zombie Christ is controlling his mind. Then he runs off as she collapses to the ground and Zombie Christ drags her off through the forest. I am SO nearly done with this movie again but there's only like half an hour left and I know for a fact the last 10-15 minutes of that is previews for other movies and there's credits before that so... Tequila!
      Baldy is wandering through the forest and “finding himself”. He obviously goes back to try and help Mary because fuck everything at this point. Let's all just ride out the rest of this movie without mentioning how he's “tracking” Zombie Jesus and Mary and how she's... I don't even know anymore. She wants to die to save Baldy; Baldy wants to die to save her; No one involved in this movie wants anything to do with life. That last one is just my extrapolation of OH MY GOD FIRE! Baldy got burned up and, much like the rest of this movie, the ending makes no fucking sense. Just a bunch of random shots set to music but this time with video effects.
      I swear to god, I know a lot of the death metal guys around town here, and can provide a video camera so if the girls from the scene are ever as dumb/desperate as these girls, we can make a movie similar in quality to this anytime. I won't even bother trying to write a coherent script since clearly that falls lower on the priority scale than “naked girls”, “death metal music”, “naked girls”, “having a camera to film things”, “naked girls”, “death metal for the soundtrack”, and “have we mentioned needing naked girls?”.
      Mary suddenly gets revived and starts making out with Jesus except he's the old guy version but with a better wig than he had on last time we saw him. She's still in her underwear, in case you were wondering. Oh, and she now has magical powers since she turned old Guy Jesus into Skeleton Jesus into Not There Because He's Banished Forever To Wherever Convenient Plot Devices Come From Jesus.
      And now she conjures up Baldy but not clothes for herself because fuck logic and everything else in this movie. They have sex (implied), she keeps her underwear on, and Baldy is the one wrapped in the blanket for the post-coital scene. A whole bunch of bullshit. Roll credits. Fuck everything.

The credits include:
Third listed: “Cunilingless Girlfriend”
Fourth listed: “Fisted Woman”
“Squeamish Boyfriend”
“Swimmer”
Various other roles followed by numbers.
Bill Zebub's name four times which accounts for every major production credit.
A link to a site where the crucifixion victims were found (that's pretty soul crushing, though not unexpected, by the way; there's a site where you can order up women to pretend to get crucified).
And then a list of the bands that provided music (and I'm going to go ahead and assume groupies) for the movie.

     Bill Zebub does provide a link to his own website and even an actual physical mailing address for himself if you want to get in touch with him, though. So... I guess props for not trying to hide. Most people wouldn't put their P.O. Box out there. I mean, sure you could try and hide behind some ridiculous made up name and the fact that anyone can register a website, but to give out your physical post office box address? You're hiding nothing. Good for you, sir. I would like to make your acquaintance and become part of the crew that field tests these actresses abilities.

Now onto the previews.

     Actually, no. No more of this, I'm done. The previews can be broken into two camps: biographical videos of metal bands, and exploitation movies that border on porn. The money from one probably funds the other... but which way the money flows is likely up for debate.

A list of the movies previewed:
Assmonster
Bad Acid
Breaking Her Will (this one is literally rape/BDSM porn)
...some un-named death metal documentary
Dirtbags: Evil Never Felt So Good
Into Thy Hands aka: Jesus Christ Serial Rapist (this is also BDSM porn but with anti-Christian... “overtones” is too subtle a word... “Bill Zebub has issues with Christianity and wants to shock his viewers” is too accurate... something in the middle of those.
Metalheads: the God, the Bad, & The EVIL (all capitalization theirs... despite the title, this is one of the semi-porn ones, not a documentary)
Pagan Metal: A Documentary
Night Of The Pumpkin
Ravage the Scream Queen
Metal Retardation (documentary)
...some lesbian BDSM that they don't provide a title for
The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made




      And that's the end. I really hope everyone died a little bit (re: a LOT) inside while reading these two parts of a review. I hate you all. This movie has ALMOST ruined hot naked girls for me since now I'm going to have to realize there are hot girls willing to get naked for no reason and yet I am still single. On the other hand... it puts hope out there since, hey: there are hot girls willing to get naked for no reason. And I'm still single! * thumbs up *

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.