⭐️⭐️
Those sons of bitches did it… sons of bitches. Dr. Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts who seems to be enjoying himself while not putting that much effort into proceedings) puts his mad brain to work to create the next hyper-weapon for the United States Navy. Instead of going the normal route of munitions and mass destruction, he fiddles around with the DNA of a shark and an octopus. Combining the two into a nightmare weapon that easily escapes Uncle Sam’s clutches thanks to a malfunction in its controls and raises hell in the lovely waters of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. At least everyone got a nice little vacation. Locals and tourists fall to the teeth and tentacles of the beast and a ragtag group of idiots set out to catch the creature and return it to the U.S. government. That team includes a former mercenary with very few brain cells, Dr. Sand’s cute daughter and a seasoned pro with experience on the water but they best get on stopping this damn thing before it wipes out a seaside resort and causes more havoc than the U.S. of A can hush up. There’s also a journalist chasing a story (after a local sent her a picture of the monster) along with her cameraman played by Esqueleto from Nacho Libre, although I appreciate him more as Lonnie Donaho in Gentlemen Broncos. Sure it’s lazy as fuck but it’s a fucking sharktopus swimming around and murdering dopes… how can I be mad at that? I can’t. I’m just not wired that way. Roger Corman shows up to witness the poorly-rendered cgi monster snatch up a beach cutie, I’m seriously amazed I didn’t catch Mr. Roberts reading cue cards even once, for a film filled with poor performances only a few really stand out, the cgi is piss-poor (and I’m saying this as a fan of SyFy’s output), none of the characters are memorable and this may be the lowest-effort flick I’ve seen in a very long time. I can’t stress how lazy this fucking thing is but we’d get some much better sequels and it’s still a fucking sharktopus fucking up things for some beachgoers and other idiots.
⭐️⭐️
Those annoying twins that came to well-deserved ends in the first two installments once had a daddy and that papa worked security for a company that was closing down back in 1996. Why is your humble fabulous sharing this bit of family trivia about two sentient sacks of shit that call themselves siblings? Has he fallen and banged his head on a marble statue of the gummy Venus de Milo? No. Of course not, that statue is safely kept behind display glass in a sealed room where I will be entombed next to my ALF POGS and nude photos of Whoopi Goldberg. Nope, it’s the plot of the unwanted third entry in the Last Five Days trilogy because there is no God and we deserve every bad thing that happens to us. So, here we are in the third outing of a series built on the basis of cursed fruit… at least I think that’s what I remember. I’m not going back to double check. A narrator with a bad case of the sniffles and going by Wanda X lets us know she has been following the tragedy of the Sanders brothers and uploaded all the footage we’ve seen, she also lets us know that there’s a tape their father made during his last patrol and it has to do with the demonic fruit. Great. I was right and didn’t have to rewatch anything. We play a little catchup with the detective from the other movies and some footage of the brothers being dopes (a “greatest hits” of scenes that are neither “greatest” or “hits”) and then jump into the ‘96 footage featuring Jacob Sanders. On the last night of his current job, Jacob has decided to film things because he’s experienced paranormal activity during his years of service and figures since it can’t hurt anything, he might as well attempt to catch shit on tape. Jacob is way more likable than his kids (I imagine their mother is unbearable) so at least we’re not smashing our heads against the wall from the moment he begins speaking to the camera. I mean, he’s not winning any personality awards but he’s not immediately waving red flags while gyrating to Kid Rock. Jacob looks into the building’s history (no time like the last fucking minute) and discovers the original owner was working on a “super fruit” while workers were going missing and local authorities covered shit up for a long stretch of time. Low-tier spookiness along with camera interference and a forbidden room that our hero is (of course) going to explore are all on the cards. Said room contains an empty pool, a creepy doll, plenty of caution tape and some bad vibes. Big brain Jacob finds a music box in the room containing the cursed fruit and the term “familiarity breeds contempt” immediately comes to mind. I can full-heartedly admit it is the best outing of the series with the most likable protagonist and a setting that is at least passively atmospheric but please don’t take that as a recommendation. It’s still kinda boring but it does wrap things up and there hasn’t been another one to follow it so that’s something.
aka Dark Harvest
⭐️⭐️
Layne Vossimer (the always welcome A.J. Buckley) inherits his cousin Joe’s (the sometimes welcome Stephen Baldwin) farm following the obviously crazy coot’s accidental death (alcohol, shotguns, possible aliens and leaking fuel never mix). Layne brings along his girlfriend and a few friends to survey and clean up his new property. The small town sheriff (my hero and yours, Billy fuckin’ Zane) is old friends with Layne and also pretty bummed about Joe’s passing. But a more pressing matter is the strange crop circles that were popping up on Joe’s land before his untimely passing. What did they mean? And what foreboding future do they point to for the small group of friends who recently arrived in the usually quiet Oregon town? Before any answers arrive there is a ton of boredom as we get to know these uninteresting folks. If you survive dosing off in this stretch, weird shit starts happening which most of the group blame on bored locals and rats. Some tapes get found in the attic and upon watching, Layne realizes Joe firmly believed he was being visited by otherworldly entities who were using the crop circles as portals and an invasion is in the works. But it’s Stephen Baldwin, so it’s easy to see why anyone watching these tapes would just think this dude is insane. Things drag on and on, Billy Zane pops up every so often to cure the monotony, Bulgaria is a fine stand-in for Oregon (at least I think so, I’ve never been to either and I refuse to do any research) and with about thirty minutes left the silly cgi aliens actually make their presence known and start doing some nefarious shit. It’s not really worth the wait. The acting is competent so it has that going for it but it’s such a dull-ass film, it’s really hard to give a damn about. Luckily, Billy Zane is there and it does get nice and stupid as it comes to a close.
⭐️1/2
College students find themselves roaming the halls of the long abandoned Copper Queen Community Hospital over night after picking the spot as the focus of their documentary. The place, like all hospitals in this type of outing, was host to disappearances and illegal experiments before the death of the head doctor closed the doors for good. He had it coming. He probably would have carried on with his vile work if not for his bastard son and former patient Isaac getting himself revenge. Issac reportedly was gunned down and laid to rest in a shallow grave but his ghost is said to still wander the building and ain’t all that fond of intruders. Well, Isaac ain’t dead exactly and now the youthful Hispanic kid has somehow transformed into a blade-armed hillbilly madman. The blade-arm and madness are intentional, poor casting explains the whole Mexico to Alabama transformation. Ethnicity matters little anyways because the college dopes are gonna start dropping and that’s why we signed up for this. Our lead actress reads the definition of “ghost” from Webster’s but she cites it as such so at least she’s not gonna run into copyright problems. Our hero Maya has a sassy goth friend and a shitty ex who she talks to on the phone in the opening… she also has a nightmare about the place that is really annoying because it looks like someone’s hazy memory of a Filipino Jacob’s Ladder knockoff… that’s her development. Maya, Angel (sassy goth friend), Mekalia (she has to pee a lot… that’s her character… always stopping to pee… we get a montage, not of her peeing but of her running off to pee or returning from peeing), Lucas (“lovable” goofball) and then some guy who looks like what Jim Carrey would look like if he was taken out of the oven too soon head out to film inside the supposedly haunted hospital. Bad comedy and slightly worse audio set the bar pretty low as we wait for the gaggle of dips to come into contact with the lunatic but they have to stop for conversations with locals to fill themselves in on the history of the place and deliver some more comedy that isn’t funny. It’s nearly forty minutes into the eighty minute film when they finally make it to the location, they’re stopped by some local who warns them against going in… he’s ignored and salty about it. He also calls Temu Jim Carrey a “candy ass” before telling everyone they’ll be dead by morning. This curmudgeon is definitely my favorite character. There’s ghosts, Maya’s backstory about her breakdown, banter, more rough audio, found footage stylings and more than a couple prime chances to go get some chores around your house done. Maya’s ex shows up because he is not happy about being ignored and attacks Maya when she tells him to fuck off. He pulls a knife and delivers a completely non-threatening speech before getting dragged into a hole in the wall and murdered by the psycho with a blade attached to his arm. Finally, something has happened at 55 minutes! The group in expectedly freaked and discount Jim Carrey decides to run off on his own because he thinks that increases his odds of survival… yeah, he’s not bright. This causes Angel to slip from annoying sassy gal to unbearable shrieking ass. Maya is a wreck and Lucas and that girl with the problem bladder go off to find a way out. It’s easy pickings from that point on. There’s a bunch wrong with this film from every angle of filmmaking but the homeless-lookin’ murder-hillbilly is a hoot and a pure blast whenever he’s on screen… that’s just nowhere near enough to justify even a cursory glance.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Drunk socialite Nancy Archer (bonafide bombshell Allison Hayes) has a scumbag husband in Harry who can’t keep it in his pants. On top of marital strife with her no-good hubby, she’s also got some new problems. Harry and his tart Honey Parker have a murder (or insanity, whichever comes first) scheme in the works to get her money but that’s not even the weirdest thing. No one believes her when she encounters a UFO and its giant inhabitant on a desert backroad because of her penchant for alcohol consumption. That’s fine by Harry, as he uses it to tarnish her name and get everyone thinking she’s gone yumpy. She forces Harry to accompany her out to the desert to find the big-ass satellite and prove her sanity. When they find the ship, Harry hauls ass and leaves Nancy in the clutches of the giant whatever. He plans on escaping with his floozy but they get a better idea when a comatose Nancy is discovered by the cops. An overdose would tie up everything rather nicely but that’s quite difficult when the sexy dame begins to grow to an incredible size. Medical science is baffled by the ordeal and Harry is hoping that if he doesn’t give permission for any operating, she’ll just grow herself to death. Not bloody likely. Nancy wakes up, throws an earth-shaking shit-fit when nobody can get ahold of Harry (he’s slow dancing with his trollop) and makes her way to her scuzzball husband. Much rear-projection, model work and humongous hijinks follow. I’ve heard this make a lot of “guilty pleasures” lists but that’s some bullshit. Never feel guilty about what you like… unless you’re into the August Underground series… you keep that to yourself or the other high schoolers you watch “true gore” mixtapes with. Anyways, no guilty pleasure here. This flick is a fuckin’ delight anchored by the smokin’ Allison Hayes being a treat to watch stomping around on her quest of justified destruction. Also, props to William Hudson for playin’ one hell of a shithead just begging for that sweet comeuppance. It was beauty that were the beast.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Exceptional found footage flick is anchored by a creepy local legend and a genuine feeling of growing unease. Three ill-prepared filmmakers head out to Ojai, California to make a fake documentary about a local piece of folklore, the Ojai Vampire. The idea never seems to fully blossom but when the town historian tells them of another local boogeyman called the Char Man, they find the inspiration they have been lacking. Of course, the trio come to learn that there’s something to these tales and a malevolent force begins messing with them. Horrible odors, creepy masked kids and a suspiciously unhelpful community have the men fearing for their lives. The supernatural threat actually chills and it’s hard not to sympathize with the protagonists once they come to realize the depth of what’s going on around them and stop showboating for the cameras. If found footage flicks are your cup of tea, you can’t go wrong with this well-crafted nightmare.
⭐️⭐️1/2
On the heels of publishing a controversial book which has caused a bit of a stir in the French government, a young author returns to Paris after spending some time in the tropics. His return coincides with a series of slayings where the victims have been clawed to ribbons. Worse yet, the victims are all connected to the author, leading the police to suspect him of the murders. Following the death of his beautiful fiancée (right after she denies him his wish to end their engagement) the author seeks comfort from his oldest friend (and someone he has recently realized he has fallen in love with) and his loyal manager. His new love interest is out to prove his innocence and his manager is planning on smuggling him out of France as the detectives close in. Moderately fun Republic Pictures horror flick takes its premise and sets it in a wonderful world where only a few people scoff at the idea of a man transforming into a human-cat beast. Caterwauls haunt the night before the catman strikes and the makeup leaves a bit to be desired but when it comes to these stuffy cheap wonders you’re pretty lucky to get anything other than a man in a gorilla costume. It somehow has trouble filling up its slight runtime but it hits just the right notes when it comes to convenient idiocy.
