Reaction & Review | Lock Up

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a movie from 1989. That movie is "Lock Up".

Now, I honestly don't know a whole lot about this movie. The only things I know about it is that it stars Sylvester Stallone, and from what I skimmed over on the back of the DVD case, he plays a prison inmate who's trying to survive his remaining time there, but he has to contend with some evil warden who wants to ruin it for him for some reason. I don't know why exactly, but I do know that the warden is played by the late Donald Sutherland. So that's kinda interesting to know.

But aside from that, guys, I don't exactly know what to expect from this movie. I do know the film's a little under 2 hours long, so it shouldn't drag out too long, hopefully. I'm hoping that it's really good, but the only way I'm gonna know for sure is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Lock Up".

13 minutes later

OK, I have a question that I know will probably be answered later on, but I want to ask it anyway. So, from before Stallone's character was being suddenly transferred over to prison, what was he doing there, originally, to begin with? So far, we haven't been given any real details about that, and I feel like we're kinda rushing things slightly. Mind you, none of it has been bad so far, I'm just curious to know why Stallone's character was even thrust into this situation in the first place?

20 minutes later

Sorry, guys, for not saying very much right now. It's just that this movie hasn't given me a whole lot to work with for the last while. Mind you now, the movie's been OK so far, I just don't have a lot to say about it right now.

9 minutes later

So, the reason why Frank Leone was put in prison originally was because some punks beat up his old man, and no one did anything about it. So, Leone took matters into his own hands, beat up the punks himself, and thus got into prison for 18 months due to aggravated assault. Well, at *least* they explained that much. It's kinda strange to know that the police didn't do *anything* about it to begin with, but I'll just chalk that up to corruption and leave it at that.

2 minutes later

You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this song here that's playing right now is pretty good, actually. I'm gonna have to look it up later on what this song is, but I'm really kinda digging it.

10 minutes later

You know, guys, for a scene that has a car being smashed up to pieces, this sappy piano music that's playing right now is rather inappropriate. I would've assumed they would've gone for something a little more dramatic, but the fact that this sappy piano music is playing over the carnage seems really inappropriate to me. Just saying.

13 minutes later

OK, that's something new. I've never seen betting on cockroach racing before. And that's also something I never thought I'd get to say when I started doing this series, too. Go figure.

15 minutes later

You know, I'm a little surprised as to why Frank is even asking one of the guards, who's obviously evil, to let him use the phone to talk to his girlfriend, because she's in danger of getting killed. If he really thought that the guard was going to let him use the phone, then it kinda makes Frank a little bit on the dumb side, you know what I mean?

8 minutes later

You know, guys, for all the shit that Frank has had to go through throughout this entire movie, it's *really* satisfying to see him finally getting his revenge on one of these asshole guards by beating the shit out of him. It makes me curious to see if the warden will get his shit caved in too. I'm actually really curious to see if it will happen.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Lock Up". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin with this one? Well, I am gonna say, first and foremost, that the movie is OK. It's certainly not one of Stallone's best films, but I can't say it's the weakest either. At least, in terms of his filmography that I've seen. So far, I would say the weakest film of his would probably be "Judge Dredd". Mind you, I really do enjoy that movie, however, in terms of his more serious films, this one is a step above that film. At least, for me it is.

So, why don't we go ahead and start this review off proper by first discussing the writing here. Writing here, for the most part, is a pretty standard film where Stallone's character, Frank Leone, is trying to survive being in prison for the next six months after a sudden transfer where he's being watched by an obviously evil warden played by Donald Sutherland. And throughout the movie, the warden is trying every other way to break Leone's mental capacity. Essentially, he wants Leone to mess up and cause enough trouble to where he gets an extended sentence. But with Leone, he has more of a calm and collected manner to where he's just trying to serve the rest of his time out. And it's also where he's making friends with some of the prisoners there. Now, of course, he also has to contend with some of the inmates who are in the warden's pockets, while also dealing with these asshole corrupt guards, who also work for the warden. So, Frank obviously has a lot to deal with in this movie.

Before I get into the problems that this movie does have, one thing I will say about it is that it feels very humane. And what I mean by that is that it feels very down to Earth with it's characters. Most of everyone that Frank befriends with in this movie feels like they're people that you can have a drink with and just talk about stuff for hours upon end. And that's the biggest strength that this movie has when it comes to it's supporting cast, is that they feel real to you. They may not have the greatest character depth in the world, but they still feel like friends that you can rely on. The best example of this is during the montage where we see them fixing a Mustang. Admittedly, it is a little bit on the cheesy side, but it still mostly works, as the friendship between Frank and the other inmates is very good here.

That said, there is something that I do want to talk about, which is gonna lead into one of the biggest problems that this movie has. And that problem is it's uneven tone. See, going into this movie, I kinda figured that, with a premise like this where it takes place in a prison, this was going to be a drama. And it mostly is. However, the movie does try to balance it out by injecting some humor. Now, I don't really have a problem with that in of itself. What bothers me a little about it is that it sorta comes in at the wrong time. One big example I can think of is right after that montage I mentioned a little while back. Shortly after they fix the car, one of the characters asks Frank if they could turn on the engine because they've never driven in their life and they want to hear it just once. Frank gives in, but only if it's for 10 seconds.

So the other guy who's in the car ends up driving the Mustang out of the garage and ends up driving the car around the area where all of the inmates are hanging out. This goes on for a while until he finally stops driving the car while Frank pulls him out. And from there, the warden decides to make Frank go in the box for 6 weeks, even though he didn't physically do it. But anyway, my point in all this is that before Frank is taken away, he gets to witness the car being battered and destroyed by the prison inmates. Now, aside from the inappropriate music that plays during this scene, it also feels like a tonal whiplash. Because, we had just gotten finished with a light-hearted montage of him fixing a car with friends, to one of them driving it recklessly out of the garage, to then it finally getting destroyed. Which, by itself, is already swinging from light to already dark within a few minutes.

But then comes the next sequence, where Frank is spending the next six weeks in solitary, which is probably the darkest scene of the entire movie. Because each time Frank is suppose to repeat his name and number tag, he slowly starts to get weaker, physically and mentally. And while I do think the scene went on a little bit too long here, it does get the point across where it shows that the warden will do *anything* to get Frank to his breaking point. Now while that's all well and good, it also, again, feels something like a tonal whiplash, because it had only been about, maybe, 10 minutes ago where we got to see Frank hanging out with his friends to him getting put into solitary for the next 6 weeks and him going through torture as well. Now perhaps, maybe, if this had been spaced out a little bit, I probably would've not minded it much, but it just seems like we rushed into it all pretty quickly, tonally speaking.

And speaking of which, that kinda brings me into the other problem with this movie, which would have to be it's villain, Warden Drumgoole. Yeah, I honestly didn't mention his name until now because he's honestly that forgetful of a villain. And the reason why he exists in this movie is because, prior to being the warden of this prison, he was also the warden of a different prison where Frank was also at. And it's there where we find out that Drumgoole wouldn't let Frank talk to his mentor, who was dying at the time. Which caused Frank to break out of that prison and tell the press about the mistreatment of the warden's prisoners back then, which is the only reason why Drumgoole is out for revenge. And while that's fine and everything, the character himself is not really all that interesting. He's hardly in the movie at all, and his personality is also very boring, too. And it's not just him either, the guards who work for him are obviously evil assholes, along with the inmates who are in his pockets, whom are also in the same boat. Basically, all of the villains in this movie are incredibly weak, personality wise. Which is a stark contrast, when you compare it to Frank's friends in this movie, when they're the most likable characters next to Frank.

So yeah, the characters in this movie are somewhat of a mixed bag here. That being said, despite all that, the acting here is what makes up for all of that. The acting in this movie is mostly fantastic. The only bit that kinda bothered me slightly is during the beginning where we first get to see Warden Drumgoole, I couldn't tell if Donald Sutherland was trying to give this guy an accent, because it almost sounded like he was trying to sound Russian. I don't know if that the was the case or if Sutherland was trying to improvise with his character some, but either way, it just sounded a little off to me. Now thankfully, he does drop the accent later on as he sounds a little more like himself. And as for Stallone, well, he definitely does sound rather natural here. But then again, I also feel like the supporting cast is what helps enhance his performance here. He looks and sounds very comfortable on camera, and I would say it's one of his better performances I've seen in a while. So yeah, the acting here is really solid for the most part.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is lit well. The sound-mixing is fine. The music here is great. Again, not counting the sappy piano music that plays over what's suppose to be a dramatic scene. And I mentioned earlier about that song that plays during the montage of Frank and his friends fixing the Mustang. Well, I *did* look it up as promised, and the song is called "The Ides Of March". And it's a really good song, too. In fact, the score here is also really good as well. But then again, this is from the same guy who did the scores for both the "Rocky" and "Karate Kid" films. So I kinda sorta expected this. But regardless, the music here is really good for both score and soundtrack.

And with that all said, guys, am I able to recommend "Lock Up"? Yes, I certainly can. It's not a great film, mind you, as I've seen far better from Stallone, both before and after this, but it's still a pretty good movie overall. If you're a fan of Stallone's films, then it's possible that you've already seen this one and probably already own it on VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray. If not, then go ahead and find a copy of it somewhere. Or find it on streaming, if you can't find a physical copy of it. Whatever the case, go ahead and check it out. It is certainly worth your time. And for myself, well, I'm obviously gonna hold on to it to rewatch it again at some point. And speaking of which, I'm probably just gonna go watch one of the "Rambo" movies I already own, because I'm kinda in the mood now to watch something more with Stallone in it. So, that's what I'm gonna go do next once I get done with this review.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Heavy Metal 2000

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Canadian adult animated film from 2000. That movie is "Heavy Metal 2000".

Now, for those of you who don't know, this movie is a sequel to a cult animated movie from the early 80's called "Heavy Metal". And I did watch it a long time ago back before I started doing this series. And...I thought it was OK. It was weird as hell, and I didn't really understand any of it, but I still sorta liked it. Mind you, again, it was a long time ago when I saw that movie, so my memory of it is a little hazy at best. What originally drew me to it was when I first saw that one "South Park" episode where Kenny was trying to get high off of cat piss and somehow ended in up in a different world with a different animation style, which was mostly inspired from "Heavy Metal". It was a weird episode, even for "South Park", but the episode was still pretty good overall.

Now since I did end up watching the first "Heavy Metal" movie, I sadly can't cover it for this series. As per rule for this series, I can't review movies I've seen before on my own time, unless there's some sort of exception to it all. But that's where things get interesting, because tonight's movie, like I said before, is a sequel to "Heavy Metal". And unlike the first one, where it's heralded as a cult classic, this one I haven't heard many positive things about. I'm not sure why, exactly, other than it's not as good as the first movie. Which doesn't really give me a whole lot of info to go on, but that makes things better for me because I like to go into a lot of these movies blind anyways.

So, I'm gonna see if this movie has any kind of redeeming qualities to it. I'm certainly hoping for it to be good, but I won't know for sure unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Heavy Metal 2000".

8 minutes later

You know, guys, when I heard from the beginning that anyone who touches the key will drive anyone insane...yeah, they meant it. Because Tyler has already killed most of his crew, leaving one to do the navigation duties. And considering he's voiced by Michael Ironside, you probably couldn't have asked for perfect casting, because he is nailing his role so far.

18 minutes later

Guys, I'm gonna comment on this later in the review, but so far, the music here...really hasn't been all that great. It's not completely awful or anything, but none of it has been all that memorable either. It's just kinda weak, really. I'm hoping maybe it'll get better within the next hour or so, but I'm not totally sure if it will.

4 minutes later

Well, guys, I just learned something new today. Sex robots, at least the one I'm seeing right now anyway, has bigger boobs and also has a vocabulary of over 200 dirty words. I'm not sure if that's something I needed to know, but at least it's something, I guess.

12 minutes later

I just saw two lizards humping each other. No, guys, I'm not joking about that, that it is a thing that *literally* happened. It's...different, I'll give it that much. But it's something that I definitely didn't need to see either. Just...what the fuck, man?

15 minutes later

OK, I have a question here, and I know it's a stupid one, but I want to ask it anyway. How does Tyler not recognize who F.A.K.K.2 is? I mean, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter to him, considering he's incredibly horny most of the time, but I'm still rather curious as to how he doesn't recognize her, considering she was the one who shot him "dead" way early on in the movie. Just something to consider is all.

4 minutes later

So this crazy doctor apparently has the robot aesthetics of the T-1000. Never would've guessed that, honestly.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Heavy Metal 2000". And we're closing out with an actual halfway decent song. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this song here doesn't sound too bad. Well, as much as I'd like to listen to more of it, I still have to review this thing. So I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK.

Before I get into the review, I need to give you guys a little bit of a history lesson in regards to the first "Heavy Metal" movie. And don't worry, this will be prevalent later on when I actually get to talking about its sequel. Now, as I stated at the beginning of this thing, "Heavy Metal" was a cult hit and was very successful, financially speaking. The thing is, despite it being a big hit, it was never really released on home video for the longest time. Now that's not to say that the movie was never shown again after it was released in theaters, it did mostly air throughout the 80's and early 90's on HBO. So if you were someone who grew up during that time, you probably had a better chance to watch it back then, as it was considered more of a special event. Mainly because it never did get a home release for a really long time.

Now, the main reason as to why it never got a home video release was mainly because of all the licensed music that was featured in that movie. And to give you guys some clarification, "Heavy Metal" was released in theaters in 1981. The official home release of this movie didn't come out until 1996, when Kevin Eastman, one of the co-creators of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", bought the rights to Heavy Metal magazine a few years prior and was actually able to release the movie with all of the music intact. And if you're not familiar with Heavy Metal's soundtrack, it is a *big* cast of music, mainly rock music, from artists like "Journey", "Black Sabbath" and Sammy Hagar, to list a few examples, it was an all-star soundtrack. And if you guys have never heard any of the songs from the first "Heavy Metal" film, go ahead and give them a listen to at some point. It's definitely worth your time, especially if you're a fan of classic rock music like I am.

So what exactly is this leading into, you might be wondering? Well, this is a good time to perfectly segue-way into this by talking about the biggest major flaw with this movie, which is the soundtrack. Because, one of the big things about the first "Heavy Metal" that a lot of people know about it is what I already mentioned, the soundtrack. The soundtrack for the first movie was really awesome. Even for someone like myself who had lukewarm thoughts about the first movie, I could at least say that it did have a great soundtrack to it. Most of the songs there were amazing, and it's one of the things that has aged really well about that movie. Including the animation, but that's besides the point. Point is, the movie had an amazing soundtrack.

This movie, however, doesn't really have anything resembling a memorable soundtrack. If anything, it's probably the most forgettable thing about this movie. I was hoping for it to get better the moment that I first mentioned the music not being all that great, but sadly, that's the not the case here. Mind you now, it does have a *lot* of songs from various artists, but none of them are memorable, aside from the ending credits song that I sorta listened to before shutting the movie off. In fact, looking up the soundtrack for this movie, I only recognized two artists in particular. One of them is Billy Idol, who also voices one of the characters in this movie. The other group is a somewhat infamous rap group known as the "Insane Clown Posse". Now, I haven't listened to a whole lot of their music, but from what little I did listen to from them, "mixed-bag" is probably the best way I can describe their music. That's *really* the best way I can summarize their music in a nutshell. How you interpret their music is up to you, of course. But yeah, even with those two names, they don't really do anything to help enhance this movie. Everyone else I honestly don't really recognize. Which if that's any indication, it just further proves that their music in this film is just so fucking forgettable that it almost hurts.

Now, I could go on and on about the music, but to give you guys the short version, the soundtrack is, by far, the weakest thing about this movie. Which is gonna be seen as a huge detriment, especially to fans of the first movie, who really adored the first movie's soundtrack. Now, another big change from the first movie to this one is how the writing is approached here. Now, before I go into more detail about this movie's writing, one of the other things that most people remember about the first "Heavy Metal" movie was that it was an anthology film. And if you're somehow not familiar with the term, an anthology film is basically where you take a bunch of shorter films that normally wouldn't reach the runtime of a feature length film, and you stitch them together to form an anthology movie of sorts. And that's what "Heavy Metal" was. It was a rock anthology that pretty much sold itself on it's own concept.

Which then leads me into this movie, because this movie ditches the anthology aspect and goes for a more traditional, straight-forward story. And to be honest, I'm perfectly OK with this because, again, I thought the first "Heavy Metal" movie was just OK at the time that I watched it. So I'm totally cool with this movie going for something a little more traditional with it's storytelling. And I'm gonna be honest with you guys when I say this, the writing in this movie is halfway decent. I can actually say that the story here, despite a couple of issues, is honestly sorta engaging. It's basically just a revenge story where our main character, Julie AKA F.A.K.K.2, is set out for revenge on our villain, Tyler, who ends up becoming a possessed, insane madman who wants the power of immortality. And Julie is out for revenge, not because of those reasons, but mainly because Tyler and his army destroyed most of her planet's people and kidnapped her sister. And she is joined by another character named Odin, who is the character that is voiced by Billy Idol that I mentioned a while ago.

And I guess this will also segue-way into the characters. Characters in this movie are mostly a mixed bag at best. There are 3 of them that are even worth mentioning. The first one is Julie. Julie is the one character here who has the most depth, as you know why she's out for revenge. I mean, she lost most of her family and friends, and with her sister being kidnapped, that's mostly enough for someone to set out for revenge. So, on that end, it works fine. And while her character is somewhat one-noted in terms of personality, she can also be sexy and badass at the same time, so it kinda balances itself out there. Odin is definitely the weakest character here, because he mostly ranges on being foil to comic relief. He was formerly a part of Tyler's army and got ditched by Tyler after Odin tried to help Julie's sister out of some rubble. But aside from that, he really doesn't have any redeeming qualities to him that makes him memorable.

Which then leads me into talking about the movie's main villain Tyler. Tyler, by himself, is admittedly somewhat of a bland villain as his only conquest is to become immortal after touching a crystal, which is also the key, that leads him into wanting to become immortal. And he's also incredibly horny, too. Which, for some people, might see this as a bit of a turn off, but I honestly think that kinda makes his character a little more charming to watch. But what helps it the most is the acting, which I'm gonna perfectly segue-way into, because if there's one thing that this movie does very well on is the acting. The best one, by far, has to go to Michael Ironside. The man is awesome at just about everything that he's in. No matter the role, he can make it into gold. And while his performance as Darkseid is gonna be the best voice acting role I've heard him from, his performance here in this movie is still really good. As is everyone else, of course. All of them really turned into amazing showings for their performances. So I can't really fault anybody here in terms of their voice work, as they all did an awesome job here.

Now onto the animation. And I'm gonna divide the animation into two bits, because while this movie is mostly hand drawn animation, it also does utilize CG, which I'll get to in a moment. As for the 2D style, the animation here is pretty good. Now, while it isn't as impressive-looking as how "Heavy Metal" looked with it's animation and art-style, what is here still works fine, as it tries it's best to be as weird and provocative as how the first "Heavy Metal" was. So essentially, you'll have a lot of shots where girls are nude, and they have their tits and ass showing. Which, again, I know might turn some people off, especially if you never saw "Heavy Metal" to begin with, as they also did the same thing there. But as with the art-style here, it's not too bad. It's not great, and while it doesn't completely replicate Heavy Metal's original art-style and animation, it's still decent enough on it's own standards, both in art-style and it's animation.

Now let's talk about the CG, and I am gonna say, for the standards of 2000's CG, it looks really solid for the most part. Now, of course, if I were to compare this to today's standards, I would say that it looks dated and really kinda shit. However, you would have to be a complete retard to compare the CG from the year 2000 to today's standards. Which I know may seem somewhat debatable nowadays to some people, but you get my meaning at least. So yeah, the CG for the ships and the layout mostly looks really solid...except for one thing. Now, I can't really go into too much detail on this one due to spoilers, however, I will say that the model for this and the way that it's rendered looks absolutely *horrible*! This is, by far, one of the ugliest-looking things I've ever seen rendered in CG. Which is saying a lot, considering I just talked about this sort of thing a couple of weeks ago in my review for "Recess: School's Out". And to be honest with you guys, the CG in that thing looks a hell of a lot better when compared to the one bit of CG that I witnessed in this movie. It looks like fucking shit! So much so that it would've looked terrible by 1990's standards rather than 2000's. It really is *that* bad. If you want to know what I'm talking about, well, go watch the movie for yourself if you're really that curious about it.

But aside from that one awful moment, the CG here is pretty solid, again, at least for 2000's standards. The sound-mix here is mixed fine, and I've already went into great detail about the film's soundtrack, so I'll just leave it as is.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Heavy Metal 2000"? It's a tough film for me to recommend. Because there's certainly a lot to like here for certain, but there are things that somewhat stops me from recommending it entirely. For starters, as a sequel to the first "Heavy Metal" film, soundtrack wise, it's definitely not as good as that film's music was. So don't really expect an awesome soundtrack from this movie if you plan on watching it. And also, if you have seen the first "Heavy Metal" movie and you loved it, chances are you're probably not gonna enjoy this movie, as it takes a completely different approach from it formerly being an anthology flick to a standard revenge story. That said, if you're somehow able to go into this movie and you're not comparing it to the first movie, you might possibly find some enjoyment here. I can't entirely assure that, but it is still possible. The writing here, even though it's completely different from the first "Heavy Metal" film, is still decent on it's own standards. And as for myself, well, I still enjoyed it, despite it's flaws. I don't know if it will be enough to watch on multiple viewings, but I might get another viewing out of this and see if it's worth holding onto or not. But until then, I think I'm gonna go watch something else. And seeing as how I've been talking about how this film took a departure from it being an anthology film, I think I'm gonna go watch an anthology film right now. I'm weighing my options between "Robot Carnival" and "Memories", so I'll pick one of those two and go watch them, because they're both really solid movies.

So anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Chinese Speaking Vampires

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a film from 2021. That movie is "Chinese Speaking Vampires".

I'm gonna tell you guys, I know almost nothing about this movie. In fact, I didn't even know this thing even came out in 2021. I really thought it came out somewhere in the late 2000's or something. But no, it actually just came out a few years ago. So, go figure, I guess.

Now beyond the fact that it came out in 2021, I don't really know much else about the movie. I know it has something to do involving vampires, and I know that they speak Chinese in this movie as well...for some reason. I don't know what the context is beyond that. And yes, I could look at the back of the DVD case I own to read about the plot to this thing, however, as I've done with a lot of movies in the past, I want to try and go into them as blind as possible. And this film is gonna be no different.

So, I'm gonna hope for this thing to be at least decent. Or perhaps it could wind up surprising me and be really good. I don't know. The only way I'm gonna find out if it is any good at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Chinese Speaking Vampires".

1 minute later

OK, guys, two things I need to bring up here, in regards to this opening narration. One, there existed a group of "Kung-Fu Vampires" who have the power of super speed, strength, and immortality. I'll get to that last one in a moment. And it's said that their greatest weapon of all was making their victims speak fluent in Mandarin. I don't know how that's suppose to victimize someone, but I'm really curious about that regardless. And two, in 1937 the Japanese army captured them and tried to make them fight for their side in the war, to no avail. And it's said that the Japanese army slaughtered them all in response...even though we were just a told a second ago, that these vampires were apparently "immortal". So...what exactly was their weakness, then? Did the Japanese army just use their weapons on them constantly until they died? Or did they have some sort of kryptonite to use against these vampires? I'm really curious about this now, guys, and it's really gonna start bugging me now the more that this movie goes on. I'm hoping that it gets answered at some point during the film, but for now, it's just really gonna bug the shit out of me.

8 minutes later

All right, I have kind of stupid a question here that I want to ask. So our main character, Tony, is given one month to speak Mandarin by taking a class that will help him speak the language within a month just so he can re-audition for the movie role that he was trying to go for earlier. Now, as someone who's never spoken another language before, don't you think that speaking another language would roughly take about a couple of years at best? I don't know, perhaps *maybe* it's possible to fluently learn a new language within a month, but I just don't see it, guys. I think it would take a lot longer than a month, if you ask me.

16 minutes later

So, one of the vampires gets skewered with, predictably, a wooden stake and dies. Never expected they would turn into dust, but whatever. At least that kinda answers one of my questions from earlier. Still doesn't really explain why they make their victims speak Mandarin, but still, at least they were kind enough to answer that much so far.

17 minutes later

OK, I have another question that I'm really curious about here. So, this teacher has been biting the necks of some of these female students, so now they can speak only Mandarin and are now vampires. If that's the case, then where the hell are their bite marks? Because the teacher was biting the right side of their necks, and there are no signs of bite marks *anywhere* on the right side of their necks. Either these vampires can hide their bite marks after getting bitten, or the person in charge of the make-up effects were too lazy to make decent-looking bite marks to show that they've been bitten. Well, considering how boring this movie has been so far, I think I'm gonna go for the latter in this case.

20 minutes later

Guys, I'm just gonna come out and say this right now, I'm actually really happy that the movie's almost over. The movie has about 18 minutes left to go, and I cannot wait until it's finished, because I have been struggling to stay the fuck awake. That's how boring this fucking movie is! I seriously cannot wait for it to end.

The Review

Thank you god, it's over. Well, guys that was "Chinese Speaking Vampires", and I'm gonna shut this piece of shit off here...OK. So...where the fuck do I start here? I'm trying to figure out where I even start with this thing, because this movie is just shit from top to bottom in just about *every* aspect.

Well, I guess, when in doubt, start with the writing. And to begin with, this movie has a bit of an identity crisis. See, this movie claims to be a horror comedy, along with it being an action movie. But the problem with that is that this movie is neither scary nor funny in the slightest. Every attempt this movie tries to go for as a joke falls flat on it's face, so none of it will make you laugh. It even tries to go for some racial humor. And I would be totally cool with that, if this movie were written in a way that's actually funny. But it's not. It's just casually racist, at best. The movie, like I also mentioned, is not scary in the slightest. But then again, you're reading this from someone who's kinda numb to these types of movies, so make of that what you will. And the action here does exist, but it's done incredibly poorly. However, I'll get into all that later when I talk about the fight choreography. But yeah, this movie is catered to *nobody*. It fails as a horror movie, it fails as a comedy, and as someone who prefers horror comedies over straight up horror movies, that's really disappointing to say.

Now, as for the actual writing...well, what fucking writing? There is no story here that is compelling, or that it will make you care about what's going on. What little story we did have at the beginning revolves around our main character, Tony, who's trying to audition for a movie role which requires him to speak in fluent Mandarin. Except, he's not really good at it, so he's later given a month to go to a Mandarin speaking school where he can learn the language within a month so that he'll be prepared enough to audition for the role again, and hopefully land it. Unfortunately, that subplot gets dropped, until the very end of the movie, where he's seen taking the classes, while also kinda getting accidentally involved in the whole vampire plot that happens later on. See, the girl that he likes, Susie, finds out that one of her friends ends up getting a "private lesson" from the teacher, Mr. Ma, who ends up turning her into a vampire, so that she can speak full-fluent Mandarin. And, in case you really give a shit about Susie, she also ends up becoming a vampire thanks to her best friend.

In fact, why don't we just get the characters out of the way here, shall we? There are no characters here that are worth caring about. Tony has probably one of the most thinnest personalities I've seen in a movie in a *long* time. There is not a shred of depth or personality that makes him interesting whatsoever. The most you get out of him is that, again, he's an actor trying to audition for a Mandarin speaking role, but aside from that, there's nothing about Tony that's gonna make you care about him, or his efforts in trying to get hitched with Susie. And on the latter part, there's a montage in the middle of the movie where it shows him texting with Susie while taking his classes, and it all plays off as some cringy romantic comedy that, much like I said earlier, isn't funny in the slightest. Then again, I despise a lot of romantic comedies in general, so it's just more of a reason for me to hate this movie as much as I do already. There's also these redneck priests that have these shirts that reads "America First! Chinese Vampire Slayers!". I don't know if that was suppose to be a dig at one of President Trump's slogans or not, but either way, it also wasn't funny either.

So yeah, guys, the characters in this movie are all shallow and pigshit. And the story here really is kinda stupid and plotless at best. There is nothing about the writing here that I can comment on further that could be considered a positive. So, why don't we go ahead and move onto the acting here. The acting here is mostly terrible from the entire cast. Now, I can't really comment on when the actors are suppose to be speaking Mandarin, because I'm not very familiar with that language. So, I have no idea if the actors in this movie who were speaking Mandarin were fluent at all, or if they were just making it up as they were going along. I don't know, so I'm just going to assume it's a little bit of both. Either way, the acting here is still terrible. Most of it is very flat and phoned in. Almost nobody here actually tried to act like they gave a shit about their performances. The only actor I'm giving a slight pass to is the actor playing our villain Mr. Ma, since his accent gives me the impression that he doesn't speak English very well. So, I'm not gonna hold that against him. Everyone else, no. All of the acting from them is shit from across the board.

Now let's talk about the special effects. And, oh boy, the special effects here are complete shit. Now, I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that this movie was filmed on an ultra low budget. And you can *totally* tell that the people who made this movie went for the ultra cheap here when it came to it's effects. The most noticeable one is the lack of make-up effects on any of the actors turned into vampires. Because when you see a vampire biting on someone's neck, there is no bite mark on their neck. The closest you'll get to that is the girl you see with Mr. Ma in his office, but even then, it's just a slight mark that you'll barely notice and doesn't really look all that good on her anyway. Which tells me the people in charge of the make-up effects didn't bother to even try to add anything resembling bite marks on their necks. It's cheap as shit, much like every other special effect in this movie. Stuff like when vampires turn into dust or the blood effects all looking cheap, and looking like shit. So yeah, special effects in this movie are complete shit.

And speaking of which, let's talk about the fight choreography. First of all, if you look up the DVD cover for this movie, you might happen to notice some of the vampires in this movie holding weapons that they never use. For instance, there's a girl vampire in the middle holding both a wooden stake and a gun. Wooden stakes are used in the movie, but only to kill the Chinese speaking vampires, obviously. There's also a katana that Tony is wielding, along with another vampire girl holding a shotgun. And again, none of these weapons are ever present or used in the movie. Instead, most of the fighting is taking place in the third act, and the fight choreography here is definitely a joke. None of it has any natural flow to it, and it's all clunky and half-assed. I would almost say it's on par with the awful fight choreography I saw in movies like "Panther Squad" and "The Russian Ninja". Which is saying a lot, because I can't think of any other movies I've seen that have had awful, terrible fight choreography than those two movies.

What makes the fights even more annoying is the editing and camerawork. I normally don't mix these two in very much, but for this movie, I have to make exception here. You see, most of the fight scenes are done in the third act, and most of it is just one gigantic brawl between the vampires, both the villains and heroes. And the camerawork during all this is jerky, it's shaky, and for whatever fucking reasoning, at times, they will even do these odd zoom-ins whenever someone gets hit or inflicted with damage. It's stupid, annoying, and it ruins the flow of all the fight sequences here. If you want fight scenes that are done right, or at least better than this crap, go watch movies like "Bloodsport", where the fight sequences there are done one at a time in a tournament fashion. It gives everyone who was in that tournament a chance to show off their skills, and the camerawork there doesn't ruin the flow of the fights either. This shit, on the other hand, doesn't know how to showcase fight sequences properly here. Like I said, it's all poorly done, and none of it feels natural in the slightest.

Now what about the editing? Well, similar to what I just talked about, not only are the fight sequences poorly done, but they're also poorly edited, too. Because most of the fights in this movie are done with jump cuts, and there are so many of them here that it almost made my head hurt. In fact, thinking about it, there was one other movie that I reviewed a *long* time ago that did almost the exact same shit, and that was a movie called "Valentine: The Dark Avenger". A movie that I honestly had forgotten about until just now when I was talking about the fight scenes and how poorly done they were. This movie is no different with it's jump cuts. The worst bit of editing comes from the final fight between Tony and Mr. Ma. Because the fight between them is either shot during the day...or at night. Yeah, so what happens here is the two will fight, but in some cuts, it will show the sun coming up, and in another cut, it will show them fighting during night...and then during sunrise...and then nighttime again. It's all very inconsistent, which makes this fight quite possibly the worst fight scene in the entire movie! That's how bad it really was.

So yeah, camerawork and editing here are complete shit as well. The lighting here is...OK...I guess. The sound-mixing here is passable. And music here is shit, too. There's some rock music, along with night club music, which takes place in the first half hour of the movie. It sucks completely. But then again, club music in general sucks, so I guess that's to be expected. But yeah, the score here is shit, as is the soundtrack, too.

So...when all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Chinese Speaking Vampires"? What the hell do you think? No, I am not gonna recommend this movie to *anybody*. It sucks as a horror comedy, the action sequences are dogshit, combined with the horrible editing and piss-poor camerawork, it all just leads into a fucking disaster of a movie. If you see this thing anywhere on DVD or online, do not waste your time in buying this or giving it a single viewing. It's 80 minutes of movie that you'll never get back, and it's definitely one of the worst horror comedies I've ever had the displeasure of watching. It sucks from top to bottom, and it kinda makes me yearn for a better horror comedy, because I haven't really run into one of those in a while. So, until I find another decent one, I'm just gonna go find one of the ones I already have on DVD. Perhaps I'll watch something like "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" and if I'm for up it later, I'll watch "Dead & Breakfast" afterwards. So yeah, I'm gonna go do that next, so I can feel a little happier for myself.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Recess: School's Out

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2001. That movie is "Recess: School's Out".

Now, I know I stated way back in my review of "Treasure Planet" that I would not be covering any more of Disney's animated movies. And I still by that statement, because when it comes to their main line-up of animated films, there is not a single one that I haven't seen yet that I have any interest in. And the less said about any of their live-action remakes of said animated movies, the better.

Now with that said, that doesn't mean I'm excluding any films outside of that, and that includes this film. And the reason why I wanted to cover this movie was because I did watch "Recess" back in the day when it was still airing on TV. And I do remember enjoying it very much. However...this is one of those occasions where, while I did watch it, I don't remember much of *anything* about the show, outside of it mostly centering around our band of students, AKA our main characters, at their elementary school. And unfortunately, on top of all that, I don't really remember most of the names, outside of T.J, the kid in the red cap, and Gus, who I *think* was the fat kid...or might've been the kid with glasses. I don't remember, honestly. Seriously, it really has been *that* long since I last watched it.

Which then brings me to this movie, which I do remember the ads for this thing airing on TV back in the day. However, unlike the show, I never wound up watching the movie. And if I did, it might've been, like, once, and I never saw it again. So yeah, my memory of this show is incredibly hazy at best. But still, I am really curious to see if the movie did the show any sort of justice. I don't know if it will or not, but the only way I'm gonna find out for sure is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Recess: School's Out".

3 minutes later

Oh my god...OK, guys, I know this is still early in the movie, but we just got through with the opening prologue, and what I am seeing right now is a panning shot of, what I'm going to assume is Third Street, and the CG that's rendered here looks *horrible*! Like, this is some of the worst-looking CG I've seen in a long time, especially for something that came out in 2001. I'm hoping that we get to see less shots of it as the movie goes on. But I just wanted to let you guys know now that the CG I've seen so far looks like complete shit.

16 minutes later

So...Principal Prickly just got zapped into nothingness, I guess, and the only thing that remains of him are his shoes. Well, that was certainly interesting. Kinda morbid, but still, I wasn't exactly expecting that.

14 minutes later

OK, I have a legitimate question here, and I know it's probably not gonna be answered, but I want to ask it anyway. How long has Randall, the guy's who's always reporting misdeeds to Miss Finster, been hiding in Detweiler's trash can? Was it during the moment T.J. brought his friends back home from camp? Or has he always been hiding there simply because he likes being the ass kisser of Miss Finster? I really want to know this, and again, I have this strange feeling that this movie's not gonna answer that whatsoever.

14 minutes later

So, Benedict's principal office from back in the day essentially just had a bunch of hippie decor, along with the office looking wildly colorful for it's time. I gotta say, that's actually sorta cool. Granted, it looks a little bit gaudy for my tastes, but at least it does look a little bit cool.

8 minutes later

So...let me see if I understand this retarded plan of Benedict's. The way he's gonna get rid of summer vacation is to control the moon's orbit in a specific way so that summer will be a thing of the past, as will summer vacation. And just based on what he said a moment ago towards the end, he's essentially trying to mimic what Mr. Freeze tried to do in "Batman & Robin" in his own stupid way by freezing the Earth to death. I'm...almost speechless, guys, I really am. That is just retarded on levels that I didn't think were even possible to begin with.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Recess: School's Out". And we're closing out with...a rather odd psychedelic song that's also sung by the "Recess" cast...interesting. Well, I think now is a good time to shut the movie off here...OK. So...where do I even begin with this movie?

Well, I suppose I can start by saying this. As someone who hasn't seen the show in over 2 decades, I gotta say that this movie is, and I don't use this term very often, a time capsule movie. This is a kind of movie that shows it's age. And I don't really mean that as a knock at the movie, I mean that as a compliment. It's one of those movies where you could watch it and be brought back to a point where the internet and phones weren't really a thing very much. They existed, sure, but they weren't as relevant as they are today. This is one of those movies that very much fits into the time capsule genre. Now, of course, I know that there are plenty of movies from way back when that could be considered examples as time capsule films as well, though more on a nostalgic level. But for me, this is one of those movies that, at least to me, fits well into that genre. Especially for someone like myself, who did end up watching the show as a child, even if I didn't have much of a memory for it back then. So, on that end, this movie was able to accomplish that sort of feat.

Now with that said, that doesn't mean that the movie is either great, or anything spectacular. This film is most certainly flawed, but I'll get into all that in a moment. For now, though, I'm just gonna start the review off proper by getting into the writing. And the first thing that I need to mention is something that I've kinda mentioned already a couple of times, which is me having very little memories about watching "Recess". So, going into this movie, I didn't really know most of the character's names, nor was I really familiar with most of the storylines that was going on in the show at the time. The latter, in which, still holds mostly true, because aside from maybe, like, a couple of episodes here and there, I didn't really remember most of any of the episodes in general. Though to be fair, I don't really think the show had anything like that at the time. It was just there to be a silly, goofy cartoon set around kids getting into mischief and having fun together. At least, that's what I remembered from it.

Which then brings me into the next thing that I'm going to say about this movie. The writing here feels like it was intended as a finale to the show. Because you have the characters, aside from T.J., mentioning that they're going to summer camp so that they can fulfill their own dreams of what they want to become when they're adults. Although admittedly, this part I have to question a little bit, because, I could maybe understand that if this series were set during middle school and they would be going into high school, then I could see them maybe having this conversation with each other. But I find it a little bit hard to believe that these kids, who haven't even reached middle school yet, are having these conversations about wanting to become what they want to be when they grow up with each other. T.J. is the only exception to this because he wants to go do stuff with his friends during the summer that kids would normally do. Like fishing, or go play baseball. Stuff that kids his age *should* be doing. Thinking about what you want to do with your future *is* something to consider, but not when you're still a kid. At least, that's how I saw it, coming from personal experience of never having these kinds of conversations during my days at school.

But setting aside that little questionable detail, most of the characters here are obviously carried over from the show. And this is where one of the biggest flaws with the writing comes in. Not just because the characters feel a little bit flat here, but it also ties into something that I'll mention later when I get to recommendations. But basically, guys, the depth that these characters had in the show doesn't really carry over here. So if you're hoping to know about these characters, you're not gonna find that here. This movie doesn't really do very much with them, character wise, outside of them mentioning that they're going to summer camp to become what they want to be when they grow up. For example, Vincent, the black kid, wants to become a baseball player, Penelope wants to be a pro wrestler, and Gus wants to become a drill army sergeant. None of this is ever really important, until the very last act of the movie where they go up against the villain of the movie Benedict.

And speaking of which, this is where I'm gonna transition it over into the acting. The acting here is really good, especially since that everyone that was a part of the "Recess" TV show reprises their roles here, it would make sense as to why the acting here remains really solid. And to add onto that, we also have our villain, Benedict, being voiced by James Woods. He makes this character worth watching, considering the man has a lot of range within his voice. He could be smarmy and cool at one moment, and then being hammy and over-the-top the next. He really is that good at what he does. But then again, James Woods is the kind of man who could take any kind of script and turn it into gold. So, it's not that surprising to me, but it is still cool to see here. 

Now let's move onto the animation. The art-style here is very reminiscent, if not the exact same kind of animation that was from the animated series. The only difference here is that this one feels like it has a slightly bigger budget to work with. And on that note, I need to talk about the usage of CG here. Now thankfully, there's not very much CG here at all. It's only present at the beginning and at the end of the movie. And if the way I've been talking about it is any indication, the CG in this movie is dogshit. It is quite possibly some of the ugliest usage I have ever seen. It's mainly just used for panning shots of the entire town of Third Street, which is the town where "Recess" takes place, and it just doesn't look good at *all*. The houses, buildings, and the school all looks terribly rendered here. And what's really strange about all this is that the "Recess" animated series was mainly hand-drawn. So the idea that they tried to implement CG into something that really didn't need it to begin with feels incredibly out of place here. And yes, I totally understand that they wanted to be all *cinematic* and stuff. Which I would'be been fine with, if the CG was halfway decent, but like I said, it wasn't. Now again, the CG doesn't appear very much here, so it's not gonna be a huge problem in the long run. Just at the beginning and near the end.

But aside from the ugly-looking CG, the animation here is perfectly fine. The art-style is pretty much the same kind of animation that was from the show, and the color palettes are used very well too. So, overall, the animation is very good here. Sound-mix is mixed fine. And the soundtrack is also pretty good, too. There is a decent variety of songs from popular 60's artists and songs from Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, and Martha and the Vandellas, as a few examples. All the songs here are mostly classic songs and they're pretty good. Personally speaking, they're not exactly favorite songs of mine, but they're by no means terrible either. So yeah, again, the soundtrack here for this movie is pretty good.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Recess: School's Out"? Only if you were a fan of the show. If you never watched it, or have never even heard about it until now, then you can probably just skip this one. This movie is mainly for fans of "Recess". And as for someone like myself, who didn't have much of a memory of it myself despite watching it, this actually did unlock some memories of my time watching the show. And despite some of the flaws that this movie does have, I still quite enjoyed this thing. Like I said earlier, it is a really decent time capsule kind of movie, and I do plan on watching it again at some point. In fact, as soon as I'm done with this review, I'm probably gonna try to look up some episodes of "Recess" on YouTube and see if they're available to watch somewhere. I'm curious to see if any of the episodes have held up all these years later for me. And who knows? I may end up enjoying the show a lot more than how I did when I originally watched it.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Monster In The Closet

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a horror comedy from 1986. That movie is "Monster In the Closet".

Now, I know two things about this movie. The first thing I know about it is that it was put out by Troma. And for the most part, they've had a really good track record for this series. And I've noticed that, last year, it was the 50th anniversary of Troma Studios. Which is an amazing achievement, and I have been possibly considering doing a marathon of sorts dedicated to Troma. Now I don't know if it will be a standard marathon or not, but it has been something that I have been thinking about doing later this year, hopefully. I'll let you guys know later when I come up with something.

But anyway, let's get into tonight's movie. Now the other thing I know about this particular film has to do with a couple members of the cast, who are making their debut in this movie. The first actress goes by the name of Stacy Ferguson. Some of you will probably know her better as 'Fergie' AKA a former member of the Black Eyed Peas. This one, admittedly, I'm not totally sure of, considering that I've never seen her in anything, outside of her musical performances with the Black Eyed Peas. But then again, I am watching her debut in a film. I don't know if she's just playing an extra or is somehow playing a bigger part of the movie. But I will find out soon enough.

Now the other cast member is someone most people will recognize by name. That actor goes by the name of Paul Walker. Most people recognize him from the "Fast & Furious" movies, and who also tragically passed away in 2013. Now, personally speaking, I know nothing about the guy, nor have I ever seen anything that he was in before his passing. And yes, I am also including the "Fast & Furious" movies because I have zero interest in ever watching those movies. However, I'm not gonna muddy things up further by talking about that series. Point is, like I said, I've never seen anything beforehand with Mr. Walker, and since he's also making his film debut here, this will give me a chance to see what he could pull off in his early years.

So now, with all that said, I'm really curious to see what this movie is all about. I'm hoping for it to be good, or at least interesting, but this could also possibly be another stinker by Troma, since they are not prone to making terrible movies. If you want a couple of examples, go read my reviews of "Vegas In Space" and "Graduation Day". But before that, you should at least give this review a read first before you do so. And on that note, I may as well just shut up and push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Monster In The Closet".

6 minutes later

OK, so I have a question, now that the opening credits are playing, that I wanted to ask. So far, our last 3 victims have been, well...I guess "eaten" by the monster that's in peoples closets. I'm using the term "eaten" rather loosely since all we see are clothes flying out of the closet and nothing else. But that's not really what's on my mind. What I'm curious about is how does this monster travel about to different closets? Does it have, like, some magical door that lets him go to peoples closets? Or is it something like "Monsters Inc." where there's a monster world that our monster can just go to and fro from doors whenever? I realize it's sorta the same the question I'm asking here, but I'm still really curious about this, you know what I mean?

10 minutes later

All right, I know this probably doesn't happen very often, if ever, but it's rare for me to find some guy opening the shower curtain to see his wife showering and just having a quick, normal conversation without getting slapped in the face. Seems kinda weird to me, but then again, perhaps maybe this happens often between the two like this, so who am I to judge?

12 minutes later

So, guys, I'm now getting my first look at this monster here...and it looks pretty cool. Admittedly, I'm kinda surprised we get to see it *this* early, but I guess sooner is better than later, am I right?

1 minute later

Oh, and...apparently, it also has a second mouth inside it's mouth. So...the monster is essentially a goofy-looking version of a Xenomorph. That's good to know, I suppose.

20 minutes later

OK, I know this is probably pointless to bring up, but I just want to make it known that the monster is dragging the professor away to the closet, all the while Richard is clinging onto him to let the monster go. And as all this is happening, the rest of the people, including members of the U.S. army or whatever, are *not* shooting at the fucking monster! And again, I understand this is pointless to bring up seeing as how bullets don't affect this creature whatsoever. And if that's the case, then I'm wondering how you can even damage this monster to begin with? I'm really sorta curious here.

13 minutes later

Wait, so the answer as to how they should destroy the monster is to destroy it's "energy"? What the fuck does that even mean!? Do they mean, like, drain all of it's willpower or something? Or do you mean destroy it's energy source? I really want to know now on what the hell they mean by destroying the monster's energy. I'm really curious about this.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Monster In The Closet". Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. So...where exactly do I begin with this one...? Well...it's gonna be a little bit harder for me to criticize this one. And I'll get to why later, but I should let you guys know right now that my first impressions of this movie are...kinda average. And that's the best way I can summarize this movie, it's just...OK. It's certainly not the worst Troma flick I've seen, but it's definitely not one of their best either. It's just a somewhat average movie at best.

So, why don't we start things off, as I normally do with a lot of these reviews, with the film's writing. And the first thing that I need to do here is to address a question that I had while I was watching the movie. What exactly does Diane mean when her son discovers the monster's weak source, in which they must destroy it's energy? Well, the answer is kinda stupid, really. So, the answer as to how to destroy the monster's energy is to destroy all closets around the world so that it can't rejuvenate itself, therefore it will die very slowly. And no, I'm not kidding about any of that. That is literally the answer this movie gives out. So you see everyone from all countries in the world destroying their closets so that the monster can't reappear in there, nor will it find a place to hide in to return to. And also, even though the movie doesn't say it outright, I can assume that the monster doesn't have an actual home, outside of going into closets where it can eat people if they go into them. So, if you were expecting some kind of deeper lore from where the monster came from, you're not gonna find that here.

Now since I got my answer on how this monster is suppose to be killed, that does raise a couple of plotholes. First off, even assuming for a moment that this whole idea that the monsters energy does come from destroying all closets around the world, before that all happened, the movie gives out montages of the monster walking towards San Francisco from Chestnut Hills, California, while carrying Richard throughout the whole thing. And before this stupid idea was revealed, it didn't look like the monster was affected at all from walking all the way to San Francisco, which was roughly about 40 miles from where it walked from Chestnut Hills. Which also raises a question on how long exactly did it take for Diane to make this announcement public on television to tell people to destroy all closets, while the monster was out on it's long walk? It's logic that like which could make you question this movie's plotholes.

But it's here where I have to address something, in which it's gonna make those problems seem trivial here. You see, this movie was clearly not meant to be taken too seriously. In which, I mean that it wasn't trying to be this complex, serious monster movie where it's trying to make you think. That's not what this movie was trying to go for. This movie's real goal is to be a spoof of 50's B movie monster and horror films of the like. And on that front, it does a really good job of that. As the presentation of the film is trying to be a homage to all of those films from decades past. And that's the movie's biggest strength, in which it knows what it wants to be. And for those who may not have any knowledge of those particular movies from that time period, there's a chance that you're probably gonna hate this thing, especially if you didn't know it was trying to spoof off those films from way back when.

I should also mention the movie's humor real quick. Since I mentioned at the start of this that this movie was advertised as a horror comedy, I was curious to see how much this movie was gonna aim for the comedy. And aside from the spoofing of 50's monster movies, the comedy, at least for me, didn't get a whole lot of laughs out of. Mind you now, that's not to say that the movie isn't funny. There a couple of moments here where I did get a chuckle out of this movie, but aside from that, the comedy here didn't exactly land with me. Now, of course, I totally understand that humor is completely subjective, so someone could find this movie more funnier than I did. But being that this is a Troma film, I was honestly expecting more from it's humor, but unfortunately, it didn't entirely stick the landing here.

There's really not much I can say about the characters. You have, Richard, who's essentially just Clark Kent. And no, I'm not joking about that either. He's literally a reporter at a news agency who ends up trying to get the story on the mysterious closet murders going on at Chestnut Hills. And he also wears glasses and has black hair, much like Clark Kent does. And also, for some reason, whenever his glasses are off, Diane has these mesmerized, googly eyes and just stares at him like an idiot until he puts his glasses back on. That apparently is, somehow, a plot point in which I won't try to spoil here. But yeah, other than that, there's not much to say about the characters here. Most of them are pretty forgetful, even for a movie that was suppose to be an homage to 50's monster movies. But then again, considering what I just said, character depth is another thing that this movie really doesn't try to aim for either.

So overall, guys, the writing in this movie, for all its intents and purposes, gets the job done as it being a spoof of old monster movies from the past. And as long as you go into it with that mind set, then you're most likely gonna have a blast with this movie. In fact, it'll probably make the movie a whole lot funnier that way, too. But, if you're someone who's looking for a more, how I should say..."serious" monster movie, then this is not the film for you. That said, the writing is still fine for what it is, even if it's not exactly one of Troma's funnier movies. What is surprisingly solid, though, is the acting. The acting from everybody is actually pretty good for the most part. Everybody seemed like they were having a blast while making this movie. And that's really cool to see. I'm even going to include the two debuting actors I mentioned earlier, both Fergie and Paul Walker. Fergie, I'm going to assume, was the little girl at the beginning of the movie, who's only in it for about a minute or two before she gets eaten by the closet monster. While with Paul Walker, he certainly turned in a decent showing, given the material he had to work with as a child actor at the time. It's not exactly perfect, but I wasn't exactly expecting perfection from a first-time child actor either. But anyway, like I said, the acting here is pretty good from most of the entire cast here.

Special effects in this movie are great. And on the terms of it being low budget, as is the case with a lot of Troma films, the effects here definitely hold up. The one thing that's gonna be noticeable right off the bat is the closet monster. The costuming on this monster looks amazing! It seriously does. Now, I kinda have to make a correction on myself. See, I completely forgot that they do kinda spoil what the monster looks like, as there is an image of it on the back of the DVD case. So, this is kinda my second time seeing this monster. Still though, seeing it in motion looks great. There are other bits of early CG electricity and pyrotechnics here as well, but the monster is what definitely steals the show here. Which, it should, seeing as how it's a part of the title of the movie and all.

Before I move onto camerawork, I need to talk about editing for a moment. Or should I say, lack thereof. Now, I'm not saying that any of the content that is provided in this movie needed to be cut out or anything, but there are several odd moments where a scene will transition to black, and it will stay like that for a good amount of time. Now, I didn't catch how long it was the first time that they did this, but the second time around I caught it. It was about 14 second long after they cut to black and then before it transitions to the next scene. And the third, and final, time was about 12 seconds long. I don't know *what* the hell was going when they did this and I have no idea as to *why* they're even in here. My guess is that this might've been a fuck-up on the editor's point, because these kinds of pauses should *not* exist, especially when they were being transferred over to DVD. Now I could maybe forgive this if this thing were originally a made-for-TV film, but being that this was made by Troma, that's not the case. And I kinda expected somebody to fix this kind of shit before they put the movie out on DVD. But unfortunately, it does exist, so get use to seeing about a grand total of around 30-35 seconds of blackness whenever those transitions happen.

Now, despite all that, the camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting is lit rather well. The score here is OK. The sound-mixing, however, is a little bit on the shit side. Now, it's not completely un-listenable, but it feels like the sound quality in general could've been better. I had the volume up on my TV at max, because anything lower than that, and the movie's very quiet. And also, some of the sound-mixing isn't exactly up to par either, as there are a couple of scenes towards the latter half where the sound-mixing could've been better. Now again, I'm going to assume that this was the result of a somewhat poor transfer to DVD. As with the editing issues, and the sound-mixing being more of an issue here than anything else, it kinda makes this DVD look a little bit amateurish and poor. Again, it's not completely awful or anything, as it is still very much listenable, but it's not exactly great either. So, just to warn anyone ahead of time who might be interested in watching this movie, the sound-mixing is a little bit on the poor side here.

And with that said, when it comes down to it, can I recommend "Monster In The Closet"? Kinda sort of, yes. Again, as long as you go into the movie, knowing that it's a homage to 50's B movie monster films and not a serious film, then you're good to go here. If you're looking for something that's campy and fun, then this is certainly worth watching, if at least just once. Granted, it's not really something that I plan on watching a second time, but it's not completely worth by-passing over either, unless if you're not into B movies. Ultimately, guys, the film is just OK. It's worth watching once, if you have a certain curiosity in mind. But for me, personally, it's not worth rewatching again. So I unfortunately won't be adding it to my other collection of ever-growing Troma movies I already have on DVD. And speaking of which, I'm probably gonna go and watch one of them right now. I'll probably start with something like "The Toxic Avenger" and see where it goes from there.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | They Came From Beyond Space

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a British sci-fi movie from 1967. That movie is "They Came From Beyond Space". Which is the second movie that came off the combo pack that also featured "In The Year 2889".

Now, for those of you who are new here, a couple of weeks ago, I did end up reviewing "In The Year 2889". And long story short, the movie really kinda sucked. Which is a shame, because that movie was the sole reason why I wanted to buy the combo pack in the first place. But alas, it didn't really do any favors for me. However, since this other movie was tied into the combo pack, I may as well check it out anyways rather than leave it out to dry.

Now, I don't really know much about this movie. I know that it's a British sci-fi movie, and as far as I can think of, the only British sci-fi movies I've ever seen are a good majority of the 007 films. So, this might end up being interesting. Now, I have seen at least *one* still image of this movie, and it features some guy who is wearing these over-sized goggles over his eyes. And it's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen. Now mind you, I'm not saying that as a shot at the movie. I mean, for all I know, there might be a reason as to why he is wearing those goggles in the first place. But still, those goggles look completely ridiculous to me.

So anyway, I may as well just quit stalling and see if this movie is any good. Part of me feels like it's not going to be, but I have been proven wrong before. So there is a chance that this movie could possibly be really interesting. But the only way I'm gonna find out if it is interesting, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "They Came From Beyond Space".

13 minutes later

Well, guys, I've learned something new today. If you attempt to chip off a piece of unknown meteor that came from the moon, you will be mind-controlled by aliens. I never would've known that. I always thought, you know, you have the aliens come down themselves and do it personally. But not these aliens. They have to wait until someone inspects their meteor fragments up close and personal. At the very least, I've learned something new about them, so I guess that's all that matters.

8 minutes later

So, Dr. Temple here just threatened one of the security guards on site that he'll switch his car into full gear and crash it into the electrified fence, thus electrocuting the guards and possibly killing them. Even though one of them already had a gun in his hand, and he could've easily shot the doctor on site! Yeah, I know the doctor was hiding on the side of his car so that it would be harder to shoot him in case things go wrong, but still, him crashing his car into the fence would've left him without a plan of escape, if he had to go through with ramming his car into the electrified fence! Methinks the doctor should've had a backup plan just in case, but that's probably just me.

9 minutes later

OK...so, apparently, whatever the fuck happened to Stilwell and the old guy just a moment ago, they ended up getting something resembling chicken pox, hence why their skin ended up getting red dots all over their hands and face...interesting. And apparently, it's also affecting this crowd of people surrounding them as well. Not totally sure if that's some kind of power these aliens have or not, but still, at least it's something a little bit different.

1 minute later

Wait, so those dots on their bodies are actually traces of blood?! Uh...OK, I'm not a doctor, and I don't claim to ever be one, but last I checked, it wasn't blood. Now admittedly, we haven't seen the aftereffects on these victims, so there is a chance that it *could* be blood, but it's still a bit early to come to that conclusion, you know what I mean?

19 minutes later

Sorry, guys, for not saying a whole lot right now, it's just that this movie hasn't really given me much to react to within the last while now. I'm hoping, maybe, the movie will pick up soon, because this movie only has about 35 minutes left to go. So, I'm hoping for something interesting to happen soon. Otherwise, I'm gonna be a bit disappointed.

16 minutes later

You guys happen to remember when I talked about those over-sized goggles way early on, and it's reason as to why it exists? Well, I know now the context behind it. And yet, even so, it still looks *really* fucking stupid. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "They Came From Beyond Space". And um...yeah, let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, in case that wasn't an indicator to you guys, this movie was incredibly disappointing. I can't really say it's terrible or anything, but similar to "In The Year 2889" the movie's also rather boring at times, too. I'll get into all this eventually, but I should point out something first. You guys happened to noticed the poster of the movie, where it features the supposed aliens that are wearing black and have these sorta cool looking guns on them? Yeah, there are no aliens that look like that at all. The goggles are mostly accurate, but the aliens never wear them, it's just our main character and a friend of his who wear them for about a few minutes tops and that's it. So, just a heads up, you're not gonna find any aliens that look like they do in the movie poster.

And on that note, I want to start off by talking about the ending. Now, if you somehow really care about spoilers for a nearly 60 year old movie, then you may want to stop reading here or skip the next paragraph or two, because I have to talk about spoilers for the ending here. So, I had a lot of the questions in this movie that were mostly not explained. For starters, this "crimson plague" that gets mentioned by the aliens was basically the thing I talked about earlier where the people started getting infected with this chicken pox-like disease, one in which gets infected throughout most of the country. And I was wondering why they were even infected to begin with? Well, it was explained by the head alien that they spread the disease which to collect human bodies so that they can help them with their project.

What is this project you might be wondering? Well basically, they forced the humans to build a rocket ship back to their home planet because years of travel for them caused them to grow old, so they want to go back to their planet and die there. So while it's not exactly trying to paint itself as another cliche alien invasion story where they want to take over or destroy our planet, it's still sorta is on an accidental level. However, since they still brainwash the humans after one of them attempts to pick off a fragment of their meteorites, I'm still gonna count it as one because it basically has most of the same tropes as a lot of other alien invasion flicks do anyways.

Now, what does this have to do with the ending? Well, after they were forced to stop from extracting the silver plate that was in Dr. Temple's head (I'll talk about that later), the head alien honcho says that they failed and that they'll have no choice but to die on our planet. And it's here where Dr. Temple says that this whole thing could've been avoided if all the aliens did was just *ask* them, and that the humans would've helped. To which, the head alien frees the human's mind that he was controlling, and they make peace by shaking hands. The end. And no, I'm not kidding about any of this either. That is *literally* how the movie ends.

Now what makes this ending infuriating is the fact by admitting this, in which all the aliens had to do was apparently ask for the humans help, you are basically saying that there was no reason for *any* of this to happen at all! You could've not released a plague to contaminate the humans in order for them to help you rebuild your spaceship. You could've not frozen the other humans bodies for stupid reasons. You could've not done *any* of this and avoided all this crap to begin with! But instead, this admittance from this head alien honcho essentially turns this story into an idiot plot. One in which, again, could've easily been avoided had they not one any of the inane, stupid bullshit they pulled off in this movie. But no, instead we had to have this idiot plot happen in order for us to get a movie out of it. And that's the only reason why this idiot plot exists.

So, in case you skipped my spoiler paragraphs, I'll sum up the ending this way. It's completely stupid and asinine, and it honestly makes the movie feel a little bit more worse now that I've talked about it. But, I am gonna put that aside and talk about the rest of the movie. When it comes to the rest of the writing, barring that nonsensical, stupid ending, it honestly did have a lot of promise. It really did. I really think that, had this movie had gotten a tighter script, it really could've been a better movie. It could've fixed most of the problems that I mentioned in regards to the ending, plus also help develop our characters a bit more.

Well correction, I should say our main character, since he's the only one who we follow throughout the entire movie. Personality wise, he's boring as shit, and doesn't have much of a character to begin with. He also apparently can't be controlled by the aliens because of something I mentioned earlier. See, even though this movie doesn't entirely flat out say it, it's brought up earlier that our main character, Dr. Curtis Temple, was told by his doctor that he had gotten into a car accident early on, and it caused him to get a silver plating implanted into his head, which conveniently also acts as some sort of armor against the aliens mind control abilities. Which I guess if this movie is able to teach you anything, in the possibility that aliens do plan an invasion of Earth and if they try to control your minds, just make sure you either get into an accident where your head gets implanted with silver plating, or just wear something silver on your head in case you don't want to risk the former. Either way, at least this movie is able to teach something useful, I guess.

But in all seriousness, since the movie is only following one character throughout most of the movie, we get treated with scenes where he's trying to infiltrate the base where they got the humans who are forced to build the rocket for them. And this is where the movie starts to get boring, because throughout the second half of the movie, it spends most of the time with Temple, as he's busy spying on their activities while also getting ready to go infiltrate the base himself. And it's boring to watch, and by that point, I was almost starting to fall asleep myself because it's not interesting at all. Even when he eventually does free his love interest, Lee, who's also bland as hell, and also recruits a friend of his named Farage, who only shows up in the last 30 minutes or so of the movie, it's still boring as hell. I was waiting for something interesting to happen for me to care about what's going on, but it never came. And you're not gonna care about what's gonna happen in this movie because it doesn't give you much of a reason to care about it's characters, or it's idiotic story.

And on that note, I should sum up by stating that the writing in this movie is terrible. At first, I was gonna say that the movie wasn't that bad, if just very flawed. But thanks to that ending, it made the movie worse than what it already is. And that's just downright disappointing to say. Now as for the acting...well, it's OK, I guess. I mean, it's not really that good, but it's certainly not the worst acting either. I've heard far worse acting from other B movies such as this. But it's nothing really to write home about either. It's just below average acting at best, and there's really nothing more I can add to it other than that.

I will give the movie this, when it comes to the special effects, the sets inside the alien rocket ship look pretty cool. I mean, sure, it's nothing amazing, but for a movie that was filmed on a low budget, the sets here don't look too bad at all. I'm actually sorta impressed by them. That said, for everything else involving special effects, it's pretty cheap stuff. I mean, it does work for the budget that they were working with, but again, it's nothing really special. So, you just have to take it for what it's worth.

I want to touch upon the picture quality here for a moment. Because, similar to what I covered "In The Year 2889", the picture quality in this movie is ridiculously grainy. Now granted, I shouldn't be really expecting much, since this is technically a low budget film that came out in 1967. However, what disappoints me about this the most is the release of it. See, this DVD was put out by a company known as "Quality Special Products", and they're mostly known for putting out old products on older technology, such as Cassettes, Vinyls, CDs, DVDs, etc. Now on one hand, I appreciate that kind of effort, however, if they actually lived up to their name, they could've put in an effort by cleaning up the graininess when they put this combo pack out on DVD. It could've looked a whole lot better than what was presented here. Now I am aware that this particular movie is out on Blu-ray, so hopefully, whatever company that put this movie out on that format was able to fix this issue. However, with this DVD, they couldn't be asked to do that much. And as is, we got an ugly-looking movie released on DVD the way it is because "Quality Special Products" were too fucking lazy to get off their asses and clean the picture a bit on their films!

So anyway, setting aside the terrible picture quality, the camerawork here is OK. The lighting could've definitely used fine-tuning in some scenes, especially the early scenes where they were filming in the dark. It doesn't necessarily harm the overall picture quality, but it's still an issue by itself. The sound-mixing here is decent, I suppose. And the score here leans on being forgettable to kinda shit. A good majority of the early portions of the movie doesn't have much music, but what is here isn't really that good, or memorable for that matter. So, I'm just gonna toss the music here as a negative, since I wasn't really that big on it to begin with.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "They Came From Beyond Space"? No. I really cannot recommend this thing, unless if you want to riff on it with some friends on a bad movie night. That's the only way I'm gonna be able to recommend this thing to you guys. Otherwise, no. The writing in this movie is shit, the characters are all bland and lifeless, and the picture quality really takes a hit here with it's graininess. In fact, even though it's kind of an obvious giveaway, I'm not gonna be able to recommend this combo pack to you guys, because neither movie is good enough to hold on to. And considering that I only bought this combo pack for the other movie that I already covered, and ended up disliking anyways, it doesn't make this combo pack any better. So yeah, I'm definitely gonna be trading this thing in the sooner, the better. And on that note, I'm gonna go and watch something better. And I'm thinking of something like "Redneck Zombies". Because that's a movie that was filmed on an ultra low budget, and it has better quality than either turd that I watched for the past couple of weeks. So, I'm gonna go and do that, because I need to feel a little bit more happier than what had to watch here.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Sky High

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a thriller from 2003. That movie is "Sky High".

Now, I know two things about this movie. First off, I know the plot to this movie is about a Detective, who is trying to find his wife's killer after she gets mysterious murdered. Speaking of which, that brings me into why I wanted to cover this movie. You see, on the back of the DVD case for this film, it presents 3 different possibilities for our deceased character. Accept death and wait for reincarnation, stay as a ghost for all eternity, or seek vengeance upon her killer...but lose her soul forever. I bring these choices up, because this movie could pull off what "Clue: The Movie" did and present 3 different alternate endings. I don't know if it will or not, but I am very intrigued by this nonetheless.

Now the second thing I know about this movie has to do with its director Ryuhei Kitamura. I bring this guy's name up because he directed one other movie that I covered for this series late last year. The movie I'm referring to is "Azumi". And for those of you who never read my review for that movie, I did wind up enjoying it, despite it's flaws.

So, I'm hoping for something else good from this particular director. And I'm hoping, of course, for this movie to be that something else. I don't know if it will be though. The only way I'm gonna really find out is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Sky High".

6 minutes later

All right, I have a question right off the bat here. So, Kanzaki's soon to be wife has somehow been inflicted with a nasty blood wound that's on her stomach. That part, surprisingly, is not what's bothering me. What *is* making me raise an eyebrow is how the hell is she still walking the down the aisle with that damaging wound? The fact that she's still bleeding badly despite walking is somehow very odd to me. Just wanted to share that with you guys.

11 minutes later

OK, so Mina was stabbed first by some woman, followed by her heart getting taken out of her body by some guy. And apparently, her heart glows for some reason. All right, well that raises even more questions as to how the hell she was still walking after getting heart taken out of her. But you know what, I'm not gonna continue to question that, because I'd be here all day trying to figure that part out.

18 minutes later

OK, you know what? As much as this movie's slowed down a little bit, I will say that this image here where the reporter was interviewing Kudo is a little bit creepy. It's not really all that scary, mind you, but at least the imagery behind her is a little bit creepy. So, at least there is that.

15 minutes later

All right, this is starting to bother me a little bit. So, this is the second time that Mina can be seen, despite the fact that she's a ghost. The first person who saw her was Tatsuya Kudo, the head of guy of his Genetics company. The second person who's seeing her is this photographer, who I guess has some kind of interest in the paranormal world or something like that. I don't know, it doesn't make any sense, and it makes me wonder how many people in the living world can see Mina, even if it's supposedly vaguely? It really is not making any sense, and I'm hoping that this movie will attempt to make some sense of itself sooner rather than later.

7 minutes later

Well...I gotta say, it's certainly not everyday you get to see a hanging corpse coming down from the ceiling at a concert. At least, not the classier ones anyway. But still, at least it's something different.

10 minutes later

Wait, hold up, I just thought of something. So, Izuko, the girl who was the spiritual guardian of the gate, has died. Don't ask, it doesn't entirely make any sense. But anyway, she's dead. But before she died, she gave her own powers to Mina, who's now the new guardian of the gate. So, does that mean then that the 3 choices she was given earlier is completely null and void now that she's the new guardian of the gate? I'm really curious about this now, because this movie just continues to make less and less sense with each passing minute. And I'm beginning to lose my patience here with this movie, guys.

14 minutes later

Hold up, is Kanzaki and this photographer actually going to try and stop Kudo and her with guns? Even though earlier on, we were told that guns are useless against them seeing as how they have supernatural powers and all. God damn it all to hell...I swear, guys, this movie is becoming more stupid with each passing minute, and I truly believe that this movie is not going to get any better! This movie sucks!

1 minute later

And what do you know? Bullets don't work on Kudo. Did I *not* just say that guns don't fucking work against him? Good lord, this movie is slowly bordering on being retarded, guys.

20 minutes later

So, guys, we're now up to our final showdown between Mina and Kudo. And as much as I'd like to tell you guys that I'm looking forward to this battle, I can't. I can't, because this movie has become so stupid even for me to enjoy. And mind you, this is coming from someone who usually enjoys stupid movies. And yet this movie has found a way to make itself too stupid for me to even like. That is almost an accomplishment that I didn't think would even be possible, guys, but this movie found a way to accomplish that goal. That is just purely depressing, guys.

The Review

Oh, sweet merciful god, this movie's finally done. Well, guys, that was "Sky High". I can finally shut this stupid movie off here...OK. Good lord almighty, I'm just...speechless. I'm speechless because I really thought I was in for a really good movie. Shit, I really had high hopes for this thing to surpass my expectations. And, well...it did surpass my expectations, but in the completely wrong direction. This movie is just beyond stupid for so many different reasons.

But before I get into why this movie sucked this badly, I first want to start by telling you guys something important. At least, it's important to me because it will help set a precedence for when I eventually talk about the movie itself. So, a lot of people like to think that stupid movies are automatically bad by default. And that's not really true. Because, you can enjoy *any* kind of movie, whether it be good, bad, or even just plain stupid. As long as the entertainment value is there, you're guaranteed to enjoy it no matter what. And that's what I mainly try to look for whenever I watch movies. If I find them entertaining, then it doesn't matter what pointless score from Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB says, because I've realized over the years that ratings ultimately don't determine a film's quality. It's mainly from the viewers perspective on what kind of quality exists for them when it comes to the movies that they watch.

Which then brings me more into why I enjoy stupid movies. Now, without making this list too long, the kinds of stupid movies that I enjoy usually come from B movies. Movies such as the live-action "Street Fighter" movie from 94, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie", The "Super Mario Bros." movie from 93, "Suburban Commando", to even films such as the first 4 "Triple-B" movies from Andy Sidaris. All those movies I enjoy for various reasons, and they're all incredibly stupid. But do you want to know why I enjoy those films so much? For as stupid all those movies are, the one thing that they all have in common is that the stupidity in those movies happen naturally. In other words, when it's done *unintentionally*. And when those kinds of things happen, it makes those movies so much more fun to watch. Because, you can laugh at how stupid those movies are and still enjoy them immensely. Now, I'm not saying that you *have* to like those movies in order to enjoy them, but I'm just giving you an example of what happens when movies that have those kinds of stupid quality to them in which it happens unintentionally.

Which then finally brings me to this movie. Because this film has the kind of stupid that has no redeeming qualities to it's badness. The writing in this movie is so nonsensical and stupid that even I couldn't fathom it, even on a so bad it's good kind of level. And the worst part about it is that it's not even trying to aim for that sort of standard. It really wants to take itself seriously, and it even expects the viewer watching it to take itself seriously as well. I mean it has themes in regards to life and death, and whether or not revenge is worth going for, especially knowing that you'll be going to hell if you kill someone. It's the kind of film that makes you want to think. And that would've been fine if this thing were written better. But again, with how bad the writing is in this movie, all of those themes and serious topics mean nothing when all is said and done.

So on that note, I may as well try and talk about the writing for this movie. First of all, I need to correct myself on one thing. At the start of this thing, I talked about the 3 possibilities that our deceased main character has, in regards to whether not she could accept death and await reincarnation, stay as a ghost, or get revenge on the killer but go to hell in the process. And I also mentioned there being a possibility this movie could have alternate endings just based on those choices. Well...there isn't any alternate endings. It's just one ending and that's it. Also, even though this movie didn't flat out answer it, it did confirm one of the many questions I had about it, in which Mina becomes the new guardian of the gate after the previous one gets killed, so she doesn't have to make any of those choices that this movie proposes. So yeah, a bit of a spoiler there, but she remains as the guardian of the gate. Which is really kinda misleading, given what this movie was trying to advertise on the back of it's DVD case.

And as for the rest of the writing, I could be here for a whole day trying to explain all of the illogical bullshit that this movie tries to make sense of itself, but I'm gonna give you guys an abridged version of our villains plan here. Tatsuya Kudo is trying to resurrect his wife back to life. And in order to do this, he has this book called the "Book of Death". And with this book, he can bring back his wife in exchange for resurrecting the great demon. They never specify if it's Satan or not, but it doesn't really matter. So anyway, in order for him to do this, he must kill 6 women who were once reincarnated as guardians of the gate at one point in their time in the exact ways that they were once slain. And he also needs their hearts in order for this to work because that's what the "Book of Death" says to do in order to resurrect the great demon. It's never really explained how Kudo was able to gain his supernatural powers, or when why someone can still kinda move even after their hearts have been removed from their bodies, but that's honestly the least of this movie's problems.

One of the biggest problems this film does have, however, is the pacing. This movie clocks in at just over two hours long. Which is roughly the same amount of runtime that "Azumi" had as well. But the difference between that movie and this one is that where "Azumi" might've had at least one pacing issue or two where it could've been trimmed down a little bit, this movie needed a *lot* of trimming down. There is no reason for this movie to be over 2 hours long. You could've cut down at least 15-20 minutes worth of padding and the film could've been much better paced. But unfortunately, because the movie is over 2 hours long, the pacing becomes a real issue here. So much so where the movie ends up becoming boring as shit most of the time. I had yawned at least a few times in this movie because the movie is honestly really that boring. Which is rather disappointing, because you had a premise that sounded really awesome on paper, but when it comes to execution, it ends up being completely fucking terrible as a final product.

So not only do we have terrible pacing here, but the characters are also uninteresting as well. There is not a single character here that I could care about whatsoever. I mean, you would think that a movie, which has a detective going out for revenge for his slain wife would be worth caring for. But no, Detective Kanzaki's personality is completely flat and boring. Nothing about his character makes him stand out and you really don't have much of a reason to care for him whatsoever. Mina is also pretty flat and lifeless, which is ironic, given that she's supposed to be dead in this movie. Everyone else I could just write off as also completely flat and lifeless. I could not remember a single thing about them other than that Kyoko has a fascination with life and death and the photographer has an interest in the paranormal. And the latter's not just a coincidence either, because it ties into a plane crash that had some sort of spiritual being killing over 400 passengers, which is why he's had that interest carry out for him since. But even then, it's not like his character is interesting either, especially since I couldn't even remember the character's name at all. I think Kanzaki might've mentioned it twice towards the end of the movie, but I still can't remember it because that's just how forgetful he was.

So yeah, guys, the writing in this film is completely stupid and terrible. Almost nothing about it makes sense, and it's not even so stupid to where it could be considered laughably bad. It's just terribly written, horribly paced, and it has no characters that are even worth caring about. It's really *that* horrible. Now believe it or not, the acting here is actually decent. I did end up watching the English dub, and the dub here is OK for what it is. Mind you, it's not great, but it's certainly not the worse kinda dub I've heard either. And while this has nothing to do with the film's dub, there is one actress I actually recognized here, who goes by the name of Eihi Shiina, who plays Izuko, AKA the guardian of the gate. And the reason why I recognize her is because she was in two other films that she starred in. "Audition", which I reviewed for this series, and "Tokyo Gore Police". Both movies are great, and she did a really good job here with the material she was given. But it's not just her, the entire cast did a really good job, even though the scripts that they were given really kinda sucked. They really did try to polish those turds as best as they could, so I have to give them all props for trying the best that they could do here.

Special effects, for the most, are really good. And when I say for the most part, I'm mostly referring to the practical effects such as the blood effects. The blood effects in this movie are great. The CG, on the other other hand, looks...kinda cheap here. Now granted, I don't know what the budget is for this movie, so I can only speculate that it was pretty low. So we're not really aiming for the Star Wars prequels here in terms of budget. That being said, whether this movie was running on a low budget or not, the CG here is cheap and a little bit shit. What kinda makes up for it, though, are the fight sequences. The fight choreography in this movie is pretty good. So, I can at least give the movie that much. It's not much, granted, but at least it is something.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit rather well. The sound-mix here is mixed fine. The score here is OK too. Granted, it's not really what I would call "memorable", but at least it's tolerable, which is better than nothing at the very least.

So ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Sky High"? No. Hell no, guys! This movie is fucking terrible. Nothing about it makes sense. It's riddled to the wall with stupidity and logic issues. And it's not even on a so bad it's good kind of movie, it's just dreadfully bad all around. It's not even good enough to be made fun of on a bad movie night, because there's not much to riff on here. It's also incredibly boring too, which also adds onto the pacing issues that this film has. I really wish I could find some way to recommend it to you guys, but I seriously can't here. It's just a terribly written film that's too stupid, for me anyway, to even enjoy. Which is really a shame because I *wanted* to like this movie. I really did. I really thought that, when I bought this movie back a couple of years ago, I was really going to like it. But I didn't. It really let me down. And that's the biggest disappointment of them all. So, with that in mind, I'm gonna go find something better to watch. And seeing as how this movie was trying to work in the spiritual aspect of things, I'm gonna go and watch my copy of "Wings of Desire". Which is a movie that I reviewed several years ago and I wound up loving it. I haven't watched it since my review of it, so I'm gonna go watch that next once I get done with this review. And hopefully, it'll ease my pain of having to ever relive this movie ever again.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.