Reaction & Review | Christie's Revenge

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a made for television movie from 2007. That movie is "Christie's Revenge".

Now, I'm gonna say, guys, I find this movie both intriguing and stupid at the same time. Allow me to explain. See, the plot to this film involves our main character getting revenge against her uncle, who she believes to be responsible for her parents getting divorced and her father committing suicide. And she does this by moving in with his family so that she can execute her revenge against him. Which, honestly, that sounds like a rather cool premise. Because I like revenge movies, which is mostly the reason why I wanted to cover this movie to begin with.

But then as I read the plot synopsis on the back of it's DVD case, I noticed a couple of things. First of all, I have to sorta question *why* she would even think her uncle is responsible for her parents downwards spiral to begin with? I know that they might explain that in the movie, but that plot synopsis leads me to believe that there may be a plot twist of sorts that goes against that. Now I could be wrong there, but part of me is now thinking that. Also, something else I find rather odd has to do with Christie's last name. See, on the back of the DVD case, her last name is suppose to be Coleman. But when I started doing the small amount of research online, I get a different result. Her last name, according to Google, is Colton. Now I know that you can't always trust everything you read on the internet, but at the very least, I don't think they would lie about the cast's name. So either Google's wrong here, or someone made a miss-typo when they were doing the write up on the back of the DVD case. Either way, I'll find out in just a moment once I start up the movie myself.

Which is what I'm gonna do now. And I hope that this film still be pretty good because, again, I really enjoy revenge movies and I'm hoping this one will also be pretty decent. But I won't know for sure until 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 "Christie's Revenge".

8 minutes later

So, guys, allow me to sum up everything that's happened thus far in this film. Christie made a fake ID and backstory from some blonde chick for reasons that haven't been explained yet. And as she was going through her photo albums, we get a flashback during Christmas with her and her Dad, as he gets her a bracelet as a present, to which, coincidentally, they were *also* going to get her the exact same gift, and then it cuts back to the present where she says that "someone has to set things right". Uh...set what right? There was *nothing* in that flashback that leads me to believe that it was her uncle's fault. Unless this movie has a better explanation, that is probably the stupidest motivation to want to get revenge for because there was nothing there at all! Guys, we've barely just started this movie, and already, it's becoming stupid as all hell. And it's not for the better obviously.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, I have a question that I'd like to ask right now. Is anything interesting gonna happen in this movie?! So far, Christie's revenge has her going through her Uncle Ray's documents, and she's given his fucking credit card number to the blonde chick I mentioned earlier. But other than that, this movie is becoming boring as shit. I'm still waiting for an actual good reason as to why she wants revenge against her Uncle Ray specifically. I'm also waiting for the acting to get better too, because this acting here really fucking sucks.

13 minutes later

OK, I have a big question here that's really been kinda bugging me for a while now. Well, aside from the reasoning for Christie's actual revenge, which, if this movie's flashbacks are anything to go by, are really fucking stupid and petty. I'll get to all that later once I start covering this film, but another big question that's been on my mind is exactly who the hell is the blonde chick that's been helping Christie? I know she's going under a fake name known as "Jennifer Jones", but I want to know why the fuck she's so interested in helping Christie at all in this retarded scheme of hers? I really want an actual good reason. And I'm hoping that it isn't because she simply got paid by Christie to help her. That, to me, is basically just an excuse of fuck you, that is why. Why is she helping Christie getting revenge against her Uncle Ray? I would love for this movie to attempt to explain that.

17 minutes later

OK, so the blonde chick actually had a real name. It's Selene. And she's dead, too, thanks to Christie. So, I can safely add murder to the list of crimes Christie has already committed in this movie. So, good job, movie, you've given me one less reason to not like our main character. That's just class, guys. And, oh, I still got another 35 minutes of this shit to go. Yay! Something to look forward to! God, I'm really hating this fucking movie, guys. You have no idea how bad this movie really is.

18 minutes later

So hold on a fucking minute here! So after Miranda, who is Ray's wife, heard everything about why Christie has a hatred against her husband, she immediately goes to call him about something important. But when he tells her that he's busy she decides that it's OK and that she'll call back later! Lady, if you have something urgent to tell him, tell him now while you still have the chance that he may still be alive! Oh my fucking god...I hate this fucking movie, guys. Every minute that it continues on, it gets worse with each passing second. Thankfully there's only about 17 minutes left to go, and I seriously can't wait for it to fucking end.

The Review

Well, guy, that was "Christie's Revenge". God, shut up! Dear sweet heavenly fuck. So, guys, um...I guess I really don't have to tell you that this movie is horrible. I mean, it's not like my reactions gave it away or anything. No, I was totally subtle about it the whole time. Jesus Christ...yeah, guys, I'm just gonna cut the bullshit out now. This movie is completely fucking retarded on levels that I haven't seen done in a long time when watching a movie. And that's actually saying a lot because I have seen quite a bit of movies that reached retarded levels beforehand, and in one particular case, completely surpasses it. However, this kind of movie surpasses those levels of retardation that makes this completely fucking unwatchable for reasons that I'll get to later.

So, why don't we start this off with how I usually do these reviews. Let's start with writing. Oh dear god, the writing...now, you would think that, with this movie's title and all, that a revenge movie would be something that would catch your interest. And one of the key ingredients of a good revenge movie is the motivation for your revenge. If you want some good examples, I would recommend something like "Stitches", a horror comedy in which a birthday party clown gets revenge against a bunch of teenagers for a prank that they caused which got him killed when they were kids. Perfectly justifiable. Now if you want something that's a little more heavy-handed, I would probably recommend something such as "I Spit On Your Grave" from 1978. A movie that has our female protagonist getting revenge against the bastard men who raped her by killing them off one by one with completely satisfying results. It's not exactly a film for everyone, but for me, it was a movie that perfectly encapsulates what makes a satisfying revenge movie.

This film, however, has a motivation that is completely petty and is more on the victim than the actual person committing the revenge. And I'm going to spoil this because there's really not much to spoil here anyways and, again, the reasoning behind it is completely fucking retarded anyways once I tell you it. So on the off chance that you *really* want to see this movie for whatever baffling reason, I'm going to put a spoiler warning below allowing you to skip the next couple of paragraphs so that you won't be spoiled. And once you see the big spoiler end tags down below, then you can continue reading this review at your leisure. So if you don't want to be spoiled, skip the next couple of paragraphs until you see the words "SPOILER END" because I'm not holding anything back here. For those who don't care, well, read at your own risk, I guess. But again, there really isn't much to spoil here. Still, I'll do it just because I'm a decent enough person to do so.

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SPOILER WARNING

So, you remember those flashbacks I mentioned earlier that I said were really stupid and petty? Well, those were just red herrings, because Christie's Dad has been trying to pay for her intuition and he needed Ray's help for it. I should also mention that Ray is Christie's father's brother. And because Ray is a doctor and he makes quite a lot of money for his job, he asked for his help. However, near the end, it was revealed that there was more to Christie's Dad suicide that I pretty much called that point earlier. And you want to know the real reason why Christie's Dad never got the money to support her? It's simple, really: He had a gambling problem. Ta-da. That's your big plot twist. And it's not even a good one at that because it's really all his fault to begin with when he gambled away all of the money that Ray let him borrow. Now Ray says that he would pay for Christie's intuition and to support her, but not his brother, because he does not trust him whatsoever. And he's completely right, too. Because if I lent someone money that they never gave back and pissed it away on gambling, I would be fucking livid and never trust them with my money at all.

But that's not good enough for our brave sweetheart Christie, because she thinks her uncle's lying and believes that it was his fault for not giving her Dad the money to try and support his daughter, even though it's, again, all on her Dad, and she claims that her Dad got fired from her job and he can't find another one and *still* blames it on her uncle after her Dad committed suicide. Well, guess what, princess? That's a personal issue that your Dad either refused to work on, thanks to his gambling addiction, or he tried to but he couldn't because that's how life works sometimes. Oh, but guess what? It gets better! She still attempts to kill her Uncle Ray by poisoning him with a latte that she gave him, and then towards the end, she attempts to kill her niece, who tries to call her husband, only to find out he was poisoned. And after a boring chase scene, Miranda locks the door to where her husband is, Christie tries to open it, and Miranda is trying to call for help. And the moment that she gets help, Christie starts bawling and whining and eventually slits her wrist and dies. Oh, and also, there's a forced happy ending where Haley and her parents are celebrating Christmas together, as if they wanted to be a Hallmark Channel Original Movie, which I fucking despise anyway. By the way, this movie was put out by Lionsgate, which they should honestly be ashamed of themselves for putting out dreck like this to begin with. And yeah, that's your whole reasoning for the affair, and it's fucking retarded as hell.

SPOILER END

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So now that I've gotten what little spoilers this movie has, I'm gonna tell you the condensed version of it all. Basically, it boils down to petty, retarded reasoning's that our main character refuses to acknowledge, and she has no one to blame but herself on. That's best way I can summarize it for you guys, and again, it's nothing much to spoil on, because I pretty much called exactly how this movie was going to create a second layer to itself on it having more than just Christie's retarded revenge. And yes, I still stand by that, because nothing she does in this movie makes any kind of sense whatsoever.

So I may as well just talk about the characters in this movie because almost none of these characters have any depth or personality to them at all. You have our main character, Christie, trying to get revenge against her Uncle Ray and blaming him for something that was completely out of his control. And the shit she does in this movie doesn't paint her in a positive light, such as when she de-pressurizes the air from Ray's car tire at a restaurant, while the blonde chick named "Jennifer" distracts Ray. or when she steals his credit card information and messages to it to "Jennifer"-oh, fuck it, her actual name is Selene. So anyway, Selene, gets his credit card information from Christie and uses it buy flowers online, and also attempts to manipulate and blackmail him inside his office about how he wanted to have sex with her so that she can get the job as his receptionist. And in regards to blackmail, she basically tells him that he has one week to pay her money or she will air his "dirty laundry" in public, thus financially and socially, ruin him. By the way, aside from her real name being Selene, you never learn the reasoning as to why she actually helps Christie at all to start with. So in other words, it boils down to the usual "fuck you, that is why" argument.

But getting back to Christie for a moment, I can list the number of crimes she's committed in this movie. She's guilty of murder, attempted murder on two multiple occasions, theft, property damage, bribery, and having an accomplice to her crimes. I could also add lying to the list, but damn near everyone lies at one point or another, so I'm not gonna bother with that one. But aside from that, guys, Christie is responsible for a multitude of crimes against her, and she's suppose to be our main character that we have to follow! And guess what? She's completely unlikable! And if the goal was to make the character unlikable from the start, well, good job, movie. You made a completely unlikable main character. I hope you're fucking proud of yourselves for that one.

And as for other characters, well, you have Ray, who, normally, would be someone you can sympathize with because of all the shit he's been going through. However, he's really kind of boring all things considered, and really doesn't have much of a character to him, other than being a successful doctor and a brother to Christie's Dad. But his wife, on the other hand, is a different story. And that mainly has to do with the fact that she didn't *immediately* tell her husband that something was up with Christie even though he was sorta busy with his own work, which makes her completely fucking brain-dead from the get go because she is responsible for what happens near the end of the movie. Again, if you really want to know, just read the spoilers in case you're really curious. And as for Haley, well, she's honestly the only relatable character in the film, because she's the teenage child who feels neglected by her parents. And if it was more focused on her, the movie probably would've been better. Yeah, you'd still have to fit in Christie's revenge scheme, but they still could have made something work. Instead, everything just sorta gets resolved at the very end, which felt like something the Hallmark Channel would've ended on with one of their Christmas movies. It's really forced and really fucking stupid.

So yeah, guys, I think it goes without saying that the writing in this movie is fucking horrible. And no, I'm not gonna use the excuse of it being a made for TV movie, because those can still be kinda decent. I mean, I loved "The Munsters Scary Little Christmas", which was also a made for TV movie, so this one could've also worked. But it didn't. It *really* didn't work. The writing makes no sense, and it's completely fucking retarded the more that I continued watching it. And to add to that, the acting is also completely terrible as well. Just about everyone in this movie is phoning it in for that quick paycheck. Which, I probably can't blame them too much on because you can only do so much with a script that given to them. And they didn't even try here. So while I can't blame for them for the reasons of phoning it in, I also can't say that they actually deserved it either. So, make of that what you will. But the bottom line here is that the acting is fucking terrible from the entire cast in this film.

Special effects, well, there's really only one instance of blood that I remember from near the end of the movie, which I already talked about in my spoiler warning. So if you want to know, go read it for yourself if you haven't already. Aside from that, however, there's nothing much else to say about special effects here. Camerawork here is fine for television movie standards. Same goes for lighting, sound-mix, and score. They're ultimately nothing special, but they at least sorta get the job done on it looking professional enough for TV movie standards.

So ultimately, guys, I believe you already know what I'm about to say here. Can I recommend "Christie's Revenge"? Well, to put it simply, fuck no! This movie is a piece of shit from start to fucking finish! The writing is horrible, the acting is horrible, and the sub-standard technical work is not gonna save this thing by a long mile. This is, without question, the *worst* revenge movie I have ever seen. Not just for Reaction & Review, just generally speaking. For all of the crappy revenge films I watched for this series, I can at least give some of those their fair due. Not this one, though. This film doesn't deserve any kind of fairness from me. I've said just about everything I wanted to say about it. And the sooner that I trade this unwatchable piece of shit in, the better! I'm done talking about this movie. In fact, I'm gonna go watch a better revenge flick. And obviously, I'm going to pick "I Spit On Your Grave", because I need to fill in the gap of what I just watched for the last hour and a half, and I kinda need to do it as soon I get done with this review.

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 | Creepozoids

Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a sci-fi horror movie from 1987. That movie is "Creepozoids".

Now, I do know a few things about this movie. First of all, it's another movie from Full Moon. And as I've been doing for this year, I wanted to cover more films from Full Moon Features. And so far, the results have been a little bit of a mixed bag. There's "Skull Heads", which I actually wound up enjoying. Then there was "The Day Time Ended", which really kinda sucked. And then there was "Assault of the Killer Bimbos", which wasn't good, but I still enjoyed in a so bad it's good kind of way. If you want to know more about my thoughts on it, then you can look it up somewhere on my blogspot.

The next thing I know about this movie has to do with who stars in it. The person who stars in this movie is Linnea Quigley. And she has had a rather interesting history with this series because she's been in movies that I've covered that either really sucked, such as "Panther Squad" and "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama", or stuff that I actually enjoyed like "Malibu Express", which was the first film in Andy Sidaris's "Triple B" series. So regardless of the quality of films she's been in, she's always had some sort of presence with this series. And also, I didn't even know about this until I looked at the front cover of this movie. it also says that she was in "A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Masters", which was a movie that I covered not too long ago. And yeah, she actually was in that movie, which I didn't mention at the time because her appearance was very brief from what I remembered. But yes, she's been in a lot of movies that I've covered for this series, and she's also the star in this one. Now whether that's a good thing or not, I'll just have to find out for myself.

A couple of other minors things that I know is that David DeCoteau is directing this movie, as he is somewhat of an infamous B movie director that makes hit or miss movies. Really, guys, his track record for me is straight in the middle here. I'm hoping that this one will at least lean towards the positive rather than the negative. And the last minor thing I know about this film is that it's really short. It's only 72 minutes long, so even if this movie is terrible, my pain will be short and sweet. Though I have regretted those words in a couple of movies I've seen beforehand and they turned out to be incredibly painful despite being short.

I'm hoping that this movie isn't going to suck. In fact, I want it to be decent. But considering who's directing it, it can really go either way. And the only way I'm gonna find out where this film will lean with me 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 "Creepozoids".

6 minutes later

Oh my god...guys, I know this is still early in the film, but the acting in this thing is horrible! Mind you, I was sort of expecting terrible acting. I didn't think it was gonna be this fucking bad, though. But who knows? Maybe this will be a situation where the horrible acting might actually become funny. I don't know yet, but I'm hoping that it's not just gonna be completely horrible throughout the entire movie. Though now that I just said that, I fear that it might actually just be me putting way too much faith in this movie. Still, I could be proven wrong. I'll just have to wait and see where this film goes.

8 minutes later

So the guy in glasses just discovered a severed head, and upon screaming, the rest of the gang go and check it out. But instead of asking questions as to why that head exists, the leader, I'm guessing, just kicks the head away and says that it's not gonna hurt you, before he, and everyone else left that was with him, left. It might just be me, guys, but if I was the leader of this group of survivors, and I saw a head like that, I would begin to ask questions and then tell my group to stay armed on the off chance that there might be something here that was responsible for this kill. I'm just saying, guys, a little common sense wouldn't hurt.

14 minutes later

O...K...so, two things, guys. One, Jesse's dead. That's the guy who was wearing the glasses. And the way he died was actually really kinda fucked up. And it probably would've been more tragic if not for the way that a couple of the team members reacted which ended up being fucking hilarious as shit. Again, I want to emphasize that the acting in this film is fucking terrible. But that scene just now made that entire thing hilarious as shit. Just wow...

11 minutes later

Oh, now we have a giant rat taking a bite out of Butch's arm. And it looks like an oversized hand-puppet, too. God damn, guys, this movie's getting stupider with each passing moment, yet I'm sorta kind of enjoying it so far. Oh wait, it's *not* a puppet it's looks more like a giant doll rat. Well, still, it looks stupid as hell. But again, I'm actually kind of enjoying it. It's surprising me a little bit.

4 minutes later

So, guys, I'm now getting my first actual look at this monster in all it's form and...it kinda looks like a, uh, Xenomorph hybrid of sorts. It has hands, so it knows how to throw people...really, guys, it's sort of hard for me to describe what I'm seeing here. Oh, it can also produce acid rain, I think. Not sure how it's able to actually do that, but at least it's sort of unique. So that counts for something.

3 minutes later

OK, guys, two things I need to bring up here. One, it took about half a minute for this bitch to actually do something and help get this giant rat off Linnea Quigley. And while I'm on that subject, are they gonna explain where the hell this rat came from? My only guess is that it came from sort of experimental lab somewhere in this building. But even so...oh, it's now biting the neck out of the stupid bitch that finally decided to help Quigley out. Well, needless to say, I don't feel sorry for her. So...two down, three to go, I guess.

16 minutes later

So, that thing can actually produce a baby hybrid monster of sorts. Gotta say...it looks a little disgusting. Wasn't entirely expecting it, but still. Definitely not something I would've called.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Creepozoids". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, um...where to even start here? I guess I should let you guys know that for all of this movie's faults, it is actually rather enjoyable. At least, most of it anyways. The last 15-20 minutes or so kinda drag out, and the way it ends is also a little bit disappointing. I'll get to all that later when I get talking about the film itself, but still, I did enjoy for this movie for the most part.

So now, let's dive right into this one here by first talking about the writing. Now, honestly, the writing here is actually pretty easy to follow. At least, when it comes to some of the basics anyway. We have our group of five survivors, who are actually former soldiers that are deserted, and are taking shelter inside some kind of complex laboratory building where something else is lurking there and it's hunting down our survivors one by one, and they have to kill it before it kills them. Now yes, it's a story that you've heard plenty of times in other sci-fi horror movies of it's kind. In fact, while watching this movie, you can totally tell that the writers were inspired by other films like "Alien" and John Carpenter's "The Thing", in which you have some kind of unknown creature that the characters have no idea what they're up against, and there's also a sense of paranoia going on as well as the movie continues onwards. And to an extent, it actually does sort of work. Now again, it's not gonna be on the level of what those two movies were able to accomplish, but I still think the set-up here is actually pretty good for what it was trying to do here. So I can definitely give the film that much for at least trying to make it work as much as possible.

That being said, however, this movie is also incredibly stupid. I mean, you have characters in this movie who are stupid as shit, and I would say they almost border on what you would find in other traditional horror movies where the characters are completely stupid and they get killed off for their troubles. This movie is no exception, of course, as all those tropes are well in effect here. We have our main character, Jake, who is essentially the leader of our survivors. And at one point, he's very hypocritical about his methods. Because when a couple of his comrades mention that there may be something lurking here, he kinda just throws that idea off because the place is completely abandoned. And then later, he then decides that they're going to do some scouting around the place just in case. And it's not because he was trying to heed their suspicions, it's just because he wants to do so. Well, dude, if you weren't suspicious about it then, then why hell are you even bothering with doing some scouting now? OK, yes, he's at least doing something sensible, but for him to say that kinda shit earlier where there's nothing at this building just seems really stupid for him to even say.

As for our other survivors, we have Butch, who mostly acts whiny sometime after Jesse gets killed. Speaking of, Jesse is really just the nerd of the group, and he has no real character besides that, especially since he's the first one to eat the dust in this film. And as for our two female characters, we have Kate, who is the brown haired bitch who took her time to think about helping Linnea Quigley out in getting the giant rat off of her. By the way, you never learn where this giant rat came from at all. My guess is that it came from some laboratory where it's keeping other animals as experiments. And as for Linnea Quigley, well, her character in this movie is named Blanca. And, much like with every character in this film, she really doesn't have much of a character to speak of other than having huge tits. But I guess that's sort of a trait for Linnea Quigley. But yeah, characters in this movie are completely one dimensional and don't have any real depth or personality to their characters.

Now to continue talking about the writing's flaws, Jake, at one point, mentions that this creature that's hiding around the base is supposedly smart and is not actually trying to kill them. Even though it ends up killing 3 of our characters, and one of them, Kate, ends up getting bitten by a rat, who then later turns into a zombie of sorts. I don't know *why* she gets turned into a zombie, but she apparently did for some weird reason. And it's obviously never explained. I'm guessing, what with everything that I saw involving this creature, I guess it can impregnate itself and have a demonic looking baby, which is what I'm guessing is suppose be this big experiment that was going on at this laboratory to begin with. In other words, scientists wanted to play God and that's what it spawned. Mind you, I'm only guessing this kind of shit, because the movie never really expands on this idea beyond what little it actually does here.

One other problem this movie does have is it's ending. Well, to be more specific, the last 15-20 minutes really kinda drags itself out for too long. It's essentially just Jake trying to fight off both the giant black alien creature, and then fighting the demonic alien baby of sorts. Again, don't ask me how that all works, I'm not a scientist in any way to make sense of that shit. But yeah, the last third of the movie really drags itself out, especially with the alien baby fight because it really could've been resolved in about 3 minutes and then the movie would end. But it ends up dragging itself out to almost 10 minutes, and, a bit of a spoiler here, the alien baby ends up surviving, which causes the movie to end with a still frame of this thing before it fades to black and credits start rolling. So yeah, the whole ending sequence was probably the most disappointing thing about this movie.

But that aside, the writing here, while stupid as hell at times, is actually kind of entertaining in a rather hilarious way. Is it good? Fuck no! This movie is in no way "good". But again, it does have that charm to it where it's so bad, it's funny. So, on that end, the writing succeeds in that area. And the acting? Oh, it is beyond terrible. The worst actor, by far, would have to be Jake's actor. Because the man sounds very wooden, especially when he's giving out the most confusing delivery of when he see's Jesse's body convulsing. And the way he calls out to his name is so fucking funny that it actually saves his performance a bit just because it's so stupidly hilarious. Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see this movie, watch it for yourself and you're almost guaranteed to get a laugh out of it. Everyone else is just as bad as Jake's actor was, and that includes Linnea Quigley. She really doesn't have much going for her here. Even though she takes second in having the most screen time, she's still really terrible here because she didn't have much to work with for her character. Now mind you, at this point, I really don't mind her being in these sorts of movies, as she is known to be the queen of B movies by some people, but here, I believe she could've had a little more material to work with. But then again, her character also dies in this movie, so I guess maybe it was better she had whatever was given to her and just gave the bare minimum until that part. But that's just my own theory, really.

Long story short, the acting here is terrible, but it's terrible in a so bad it's good kind of way. Now I will give this movie one big positive, which is the special effects. They're actually pretty decent, at least in terms of it being a low budget movie from Full Moon at the time. The costuming on this Alien hybrid bug of sorts actually looks really cool. And the effects for when you see somebody die and convulse horribly looks really good. It's better that you either look it up yourself or if you ever watch this movie, because me trying to describe it wouldn't really do it any sort of justice. It's nasty as hell, but it's still a really cool effect, and easily the best one in the entire film. The only effect that looked really cheap was the giant rat I mentioned earlier. As it's a mixture of being either an over-sized puppet or just a stupid looking doll. Either way, it looked kinda like shit. But honestly, I'm willing to give that one a pass because it's so fucking stupid that it's kinda hilarious.

Other effects like laser guns are kinda standard when it comes to visual effects, which is far more than what I could give from last week's movie "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe", where they couldn't even do that much with their guns. And mind you, that movie came out at least 4 years prior to this film, and that movie was made on the ultra cheap compared to this one. So yeah, the special effects here are pretty good. Our sets here are okay, even though there's not really a whole lot to begin with, since you see the same sets many times throughout this movie, especially anytime a character is either walking or running down a specific hallway. Seriously, that shit got kinda old after a while. But other that, guys, the special effects here are definitely the biggest I can give this movie.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is also decently lit, even though there are quite a lot of darkly lit scenes, they still managed to make it work, surprisingly enough. Sound-mixing here is good. The music, well, there's not really much here I can say about this film's score. A lot of it is just techno music from I picked up on. Other than that, though, the score is nothing to write home about.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said done, can I recommend "Creepozoids"? Only if you're a fan of B movies. If you're not into it, then there's obviously no way in hell I can actually recommend this thing to you guys. If you are into it, however, then I would say it's worth viewing at least once. I'm not sure about sitting through it multiple times over, but if you like the campy B movie stuff like I do, then I think there's a chance that you'll really enjoy it. It's not the best from Full Moon, obviously, and I've seen better from David DeCoteau, but this is still pretty decent for what it tried to do here. And that's good enough for me to hold onto. At least, for now, anyway. Like I said, I'm not totally sure how much better this thing will get on repeat viewings, but I'll just have to wait and see the next time I get around to watching it. In the meantime, however, I'm going to watch another Full Moon movie. And the first one I'm thinking of is actually "Skull Heads". I still enjoyed it quite a bit and I kinda want to see how well it holds up on a second viewing. So I'm gonna go do that next after I get this review written and uploaded.

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 | Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a sci-fi movie from 1991. That movie is "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe".

Now, I really don't know very much about this movie, other than what little information I found when I picked up a copy of this movie at one of my local video stores. And really, the only thing I know about this movie is that it stars Jesse "The Body" Ventura, who use to do commentary back in the 80's during the WWF days with Vince McMahon. I'm not sure if he will be able to carry this movie at all, but I'll find out eventually once I start watching this movie.

Other than that, guys, aside from that, and from this being a sci-fi film, I really don't know much else about it. I *could* read what's on the back of the DVD case for the plot synopsis, but I really don't want to do that here because I want to go into it as blind as possible. I'm hoping for it to at least be decent. I don't know if it's actually going to be any good, but it could somehow surprise me in a pleasant way. And the only way I'm gonna know that 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 "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe".

3 minutes later

So, guys, we barely just started this movie, and I call tell you two things right off the bat. One, the sound quality in this movie is dogshit. I could barely hear the opening dialogue from Jesse Ventura, and what little I did hear made absolutely no sense at all. Which brings me to the second point: The acting from Jesse Ventura is fucking terrible. This movie is off to a really bad start, and I have a feeling that I'm gonna be in for an hour and half of this shit. Yay...

8 minutes later

Oh, guess what, guys? Not only is the acting from Jesse Ventura completely robotic, but this other actor playing Secundus is just as bad, if not worse than Mr. Ventura. Great, so my theory, so far, is coming true, in which I have to deal with this shit acting for the rest of the movie. I may have bit off more than what I could chew, guys.

18 minutes later

I didn't think this was possible, guys. We're almost a half an hour in and I want to shut it off. This movie is so fucking boring that I can't bring myself to care about anything as to what's going on. Especially this fucking chase sequence between Abraxas and Secundus. It has been dragging on for what seems like an hour because the movie's pacing is so fucking bad! I want to hope that the next hour will change my tune about this movie, but I seriously don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

4 minutes later

So, I just saw Secundus blow up this guy with his bare hands. And that probably would've looked really cool if the effects for it weren't cheap as hell. Seriously, guys, this movie was made on the ultra cheap. Which, for someone who normally enjoys B movies, that wouldn't have been a problem. But for this movie, I can't make an exception here. That kill looked horrible.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, I'm beginning to lose my patience with this movie, what with the horrible sound quality, the lifeless acting, and the story just not making any sense at all. If this movie doesn't do something interesting soon, I'm going to be very pissed on a level that I haven't been pissed in a long time. And that's saying a lot, considering all of the terrible movies I've seen this year, because at least some of those didn't piss me off unlike this movie currently is. Just, for the love of god, do something interesting, movie! Give me one thing that I can consider to be interesting. Is that too much to ask for?! I fear it may be, guys.

13 minutes later

So when Secundus got his bill, he eats the paper and says it's delicious. That's probably the closest thing that this movie has done in being funny. And yet, it still wasn't really that funny to begin with. It was just kind of stupid and pointless, really.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe", and thank fucking god it's over. I'm gonna shut this turd of a film off here...OK. Dear sweet heavenly Christ, where the fuck do I even begin here?! Well, I think it's easy to guess that this movie is fucking horrible. And it's not horrible on a so bad, it's good level. No, that would be an insult to movies I've seen this year that were so bad, it's good. This movie has so much wrong with it that I don't even know where to begin with this one.

You know what? Let's just start with one of the big problems that this movie has right off the bad. The sound quality in this movie is pure dogshit. From the very beginning of this film, we're being told a narration by Jesse Ventura, and you can barely hear what's going on because his dialogue is so damn quiet that it makes it to hard to hear what he's saying half the time. And in some rare cases, whenever he's finishing a line of dialogue, it almost sounds fucking muted, to a point where I'm not even sure if I can blame it on his soulless acting or the retarded monkey of a sound editor who couldn't even be bothered to try and fix the sound properly. I'm gonna lean on both sides of this because, one, Jesse Ventura isn't even trying in this movie, though I'll get to that later when I cover acting. And as for the sound quality itself, it's horrible from beginning to end, which makes this movie almost borderline unwatchable from that aspect alone.

Now if that doesn't make you interested in not watching this movie, I'm gonna tell you the next big problem this movie has, which is it's god awful pacing. To which I ask, what fucking pacing? This movie is slow as shit and doesn't even improve as it goes on. You're basically watching a movie that's supposedly an hour and a half long, but it really feels like it goes on for well over 2 hours. I'm not even kidding about that either. This movie is so fucking slow that, at some points, I was busy looking up stuff on my phone because there was nothing of interest happening in the movie. Which is a *really* bad sign because I've seen a lot of bad movies for this series and, regardless of whether I enjoyed them or not, I still at least make an effort to watch the whole thing before I start to do something else. Mainly write the reviews afterwards. But this movie made me so disinterested in which I just didn't want to continue watching it. And I can't shut it off because, as per the rules of Reaction & Review. I have to let the whole movie play itself out until I see credits rolling. I was so tempted to just shut it off early, because of how ungodly boring this film really is, but I still stuck it out, and I kinda regret it now because it's 90 fucking minutes that I'm never getting back from this awful film.

In fact, do you want to know how bad the pacing really is in this movie? Well, I'll tell you. See, apart from this film being really fucking boring, there are a multitude of scenes in this movie where it breaks the flow of whatever's supposed to be happening so that it can cut itself to something else that also isn't interesting. One example I can think of is when Abraxas is talking to Tommy about his relationship with Secundus, and almost in the middle of it, it cuts to something else completely random and nothing of value was actually gained from that next scene. It was just meant as filler so that this movie could pad itself out to it's 90 runtime. And yeah, so there's so much filler in this movie that you could cut out a good portion of it's fat and wouldn't be missing a thing. This film has some of the worst pacing I have seen in a long fucking time, and that's saying a lot, considering I've seen other films like "Spaced Invaders", which had horrible fucking pacing. And yet, somehow, "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe" was able to make "Spaced Invaders" pacing look like fucking Shakespeare in comparison, which I didn't even think was fucking possible. But this movie found a way to make that actually possible! Which is beyond terrifying, guys.

So now that I've gotten all that out of the way for it's big problems, what about the writing? Well, to put it simply, guys, there is no writing here. At least, not one that's interesting to follow anyways. The best I could pick up on is that our main character, Abraxas, is tasked to terminate a child-oh, my bad "comator", because Secundus, who Abraxas is also after, impregnated a human woman, which in turn gave birth to a child that has the power of the Anti-Life Equation, which is what Secundus is after. And if you're a DC Comics, the term "Anti-Life Equation" might sound very familiar to you because that's the very same thing that was lifted from a DC Comics villain known as Darkseid, who's whole purpose is to look for that very same thing. And if you're thinking that I'm stupid enough to compare a shitty villain like Secundus to fucking Darkseid, you have another thing coming, because I refuse to compare him to Darkseid. No, at worst, he's basically just a pathetic knock-off of the Terminator. And mind you, I'm one of the few people who doesn't give a shit about "The Terminator" series. So to have your villain be a fourth rate knock off of a character that I never cared about to begin with doesn't make your character appealing whatsoever.

And as for our other characters, well, really, guys, there's nothing much I can say about them. Why? Because none of these characters have any real development or personality that you can care about. You're not gonna care about Abraxas, because he's about as lifeless as main characters go. You're not gonna care about Sonia, because she's pretty much in the same boat as Abraxas. Not even Tommy, the kid who supposedly has the power to destroy the universe, is somebody that you're also not gonna really care about. Part of the reason is because he's mute throughout the entire movie. And the reason why that is because Abraxas feels that the kid doesn't know the potential power he has within him that could cause his power to be released. Which is honestly kind of a retarded reasoning because throughout the entire movie you *never* see him attempting to speak. If he had spoken once throughout the entire movie, and something actually happened, I could maybe buy this sort of argument. But no. He doesn't speak at all. Which is both a good and bad thing, the good being that this kid is spared from having any dialogue to work with in this awful movie. The bad, well, obviously, has to do with whatever potential power he has you that don't get to see much of. The closest is when a bully gets near him in the bathroom and he uses his powers to force him back a ways. That's it. Oh, and he also uses it to make another bully (or the same one, don't really care which) piss his pants. Oh, how *hilarious* that was suppose to be.

But yeah, guys, the long story short version is that there is no interesting writing here at all. It doesn't make any sense, but then again, considering how the entire movie is boring as shit, it probably doesn't help the writing anyways when they couldn't even try to make a portion of it make sense to begin with. Now let's talk about the acting. Oh dear god, the acting...well, I would say that the acting is wooden from damn near the entire cast. The only exception I'm gonna give a pass to is the kid playing Tommy, mainly because he doesn't have any dialogue to work with. Jesse Ventura is probably the worst of the bunch because his performance is so robotic and lifeless. And I don't want to hear that his character is suppose to be robotic, because that, to me, is just an excuse to hide the fact that Jesse Ventura is not a good actor. At least, in this movie he's not. I'm sure he probably has other film credits in other movies that are hopefully better than whatever he did in this movie. Same goes for the actor playing Secundus, only with him, he's basically just a fourth rate knock-off of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In other words, he doesn't have any of the goofy charm that Arnold usually has whenever he's asked to act in a movie. I don't know if this is how he naturally acts or if he was just told to put on a Schwarzenegger accent because he was easy to make fun of and parody, but either way, it's terrible. And I sorta hope to never come across another movie where he's in something. Chances are pretty high on that, but we'll see regardless.

As for the rest of the acting, well, none of it is any good. In fact, I'm willing to bet that none of these actors have actually acted a day in their lives. Most of them were probably pulled off the street and asked if they wanted to be in a movie for a quick paycheck, and that's probably what happened. I could be wrong on that, but I'm still willing to bet on my hypothesis that none of these actors have ever actually acted before prior to this. And I'm sticking with that hypothesis until proven otherwise.

Special effects...well, I mentioned earlier that this film was made on the ultra cheap, and I'm not kidding about that either. The special effects in this movie are horrible. Most of it consists of either pyrotechnics or visual effects. And when it comes to the latter, the only kind of visual effects you see is electricity, which mainly comes in anytime Secundus is gripping someone's head and is "overloading" their brain, which causes them to explode and die. Which, again, probably would've looked really cool if we had to gotten to see that instead of just seeing another pyrotechnic going off. And speaking of, during the beginning of the movie, we get to see Secundus being hunted down by Abraxas and his crew, and you see them holding some kind of gun in their hands. And every time that they're about to fire their weapon, the camera will cut to *another* pyrotechnic explosion, giving off the illusion that they just fired their gun. Which means that this movie was so cheap that they couldn't afford to do a simple laser gun effect. At least, that's what I'm going to assume what they were suppose to be anyway, because I refuse to believe otherwise. So yes, the special effects here are horrible, and the costuming is cheap as shit. There is nothing here that I could say that is even a remote positive when it comes to special effects.

Camerawork here is passable at best. And other times, like when I brought up the whole lack of laser gun reasoning, it's terrible at worst. Lighting here is a mixed bag, and part of that has to do with the picture quality in this film. This movie looks as if it was taken from a VHS or Laserdisc and was put on DVD without cleaning up any of the footage. So whenever a scene happens during nighttime, it's gonna be a little difficult to see what's even going on because of the dark lighting here. Other times, it's just okay for what it is. Sound-mixing is garbage. As I've already mentioned earlier, we have dialogue that is sometimes almost muted or really quiet, and it's really terrible throughout the entire movie because the sound editor was too lazy to get off their asses and try and fix some of this shit before putting it out on home video. Music is also garbage, too. But then again, I can't remember a single thing when it comes to this film's music. So basically, guys, we have technical work that is below average at best. Which, combined with every other problem this movie has, that's not a good thing at all.

So I guess it goes without saying, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe"? Take a fucking guess! Hell no! There is no fucking way I can actually recommend this film to anyone, unless you seriously want to riff on it with friends on a bad movie night. But then again, I could also just say go watch the Rifftrax commentary on YouTube. It's on there right now if you seriously want to watch it being riffed on by better riffers than me. But aside from that, you can avoid this movie at all costs. It seriously has nothing going for it by it's own standards. And even Jesse Ventura can't even save this movie because he fucking sucks at acting. I'm thankful that I didn't spend too much on this movie. I got it for less than $5 at one of my local video stores. But if I had paid more of it, I would've been seriously pissed off for wasting this much money on this movie. In fact, I'm still pissed that I wasted the few bucks on this film because I was actually rather curious about it. And well, curiosity remains a bitch. And I'll be thankful to never waste the time on this movie ever again. But now, I gotta watch something better. I think I'll just go watch my copy of "Tron". Because I need to watch a better sci-fi movie than the one I had to suffer through for about 90 minutes.

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 | Riding Bean

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an OVA from 1989. That OVA is "Riding Bean".

Now I heard about "Riding Bean" a few years ago, back when I was still looking up movies to cover for this series. And I was always curious about this one simply because it's another OVA that I've never heard of until I discovered it on YouTube right out of the blue. But for one reason or another, I just kept pushing it back simply because I had other movies eventually lined up on the schedule until I almost completely forgot about it, at least until last week when I was on vacation. And since I had just gotten back from my vacation not too long ago, I figured something short would be perfect for tonight. And in case you're wondering, this thing is only 45 minutes long, so I think I deserve a little bit of a break with this one.

Now outside of this being a rather short OVA, I don't really know much about the plot to this one. I think the main character is a detective of sorts and he's joined by his female detective friend. I don't really know if that's at all accurate, but I'll eventually find out once I start watching it. So I may as well just forgo all of the bullshit and just jump right into this one here and see if it's any good. And the only way I'm gonna know if it's any good or not 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 "Riding Bean".

1 minute later

OK, well, I can say this much, so far. This song here is pretty good. It sorta has that late 80's vibe to it that I kinda dig. So, at least that's one positive so far.

5 minutes later

All right, guys, um...I got two things I need to bring up here. One, the dub here is terrible. Which, I can normally handle that sort of thing...except, I'm also just noticing the dialogue isn't entirely matching with the mouth movements of the characters. Last time I had that kind of issue was when I watched "The Girl In The Shell". And that's not a good thing, considering how awful that dub was. This one I'm hoping is just a technical issue with the version I'm watching on YouTube. But still, I may end up having to deal with this sort of dub for the next half hour or so. This might end up sucking, guys.

4 minutes later

OK...well, the client who just met with Bean is now dead. So...I guess the job is off, maybe...? Then again, considering Bean and Rally are under fire at the moment with a little girl, I'm guessing that they might be forced to accept the job now whether they get paid or not. At least, that's what I'm going to assume, anyways.

2 minutes later

So, guys, looks like I was wrong. The guy who got "shot" earlier is not actually dead. And it's actually a woman, who we also saw earlier disguised as another dude. Are they gonna explain who the fuck this woman is? Because I've seen her twice already and her motivations, so far, aren't really making any sense. I'm hoping they will later on. But as of right now, I'm just kinda left with more questions than answers.

4 minutes later

You know, guys, I can see that there's suppose to be an act of abuse, followed by, uh...weird relationship that the short pink haired girl and woman share, that I'm suppose to take seriously, however, I can't, what with the dub being just laughably terrible. No seriously, guys, the acting in this dub has gotten worse...and yet, somehow, I'm actually kinda looking forward to seeing how much more stupid this dub can be. I'm actually sorta surprised by this one, guys. I wasn't really expecting that.

6 minutes later

Well, guys, this OVA teaches you a very valuable lesson: *Never* call Bean's car a piece of shit. Otherwise, he will run over you in a rather creative way. So yeah, that's a lesson well worth learning.

7 minutes later

Once more, guys, I must reiterate that the music in this OVA is seriously really good. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but I'm really digging the music in this OVA. It's really that good.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Riding Bean". And, uh...let me go ahead and shut this thing off here...my god. Where the fuck do I even start with this thing?! Well, I suppose I can give you my summarized thoughts. Is this thing good? Uh...no. I'm no way gonna say that this OVA is actually good. Now is this thing so bad it's good? Oh, most certainly guys. This is one of the most laughably bad OVA's I've seen in a long time. Which is saying a lot, considering all the shit I had to sit through for this series. But this is definitely on a level of being so bad it's good. In fact, I would say it's so bad, it's funny as hell. It's really sort of a unique kind of OVA I'm dealing with here, guys.

I may as well just start with the writing, which that's gonna be a challenge in of itself because the story here makes no sense at all. The best I could pick up from this mess is that our heroes, Bean Bandit and Rally, end up taking a job from some guy, who's disguised as our villain of the OVA and end up kidnapping some president's daughter for ransom. And somehow, they're able to frame Bean for the kidnapping, which causes the police, along with Inspector Percy to go after him for his arrest. I'll talk more about Percy in a moment, but as for the story itself, like I said, it really doesn't make any sense and you're bound to ask questions the more that it continues to not make any sense of itself. I really believe that this thing could be best viewed as a mindless popcorn flick. Where if you shut off your brain and you don't think about any of the potential issues this OVA has with it's writing, then you're bound to enjoy this thing immensely. Which, even then, it's still in the realms of it being a plotless action film anyways, and almost no one's going to care about the plot, so this will be perfect for anyone who's into that sort of thing.

Now let's talk about the characters. Almost every character in this OVA is bland as shit, with the one lone exception being our main character Bean Bandit. Essentially, guys, Bean is something of a private mercenary of sorts and he's the only one who has something of a personality that helps carries this whole thing. If that wasn't the case, then this entire OVA would've been unwatchable for it's entire 45 minute runtime. Because almost every other character is either bland as shit, or they're just completely over the top and goofy. In the former, it's mainly just Rally and Chelsea, the little girl that Bean and Rally are trying to escort back home. Rally is Bean's assistant and she has no actual personality to her character. Chelsea is also the same way, and also doesn't sound anything like an 11 year old girl would naturally sound like. However, I'll get into all that later when I cover the acting for this dub.

And as for characters who are completely over the top, we have our villain, who's named Semmerling, and I asked earlier if they were gonna explain anything about who she was, and, well, outside of her name, she sounds almost cartoonishly evil and she somehow was able to survive a gunshot wound to the head thanks to her disguise, as if she's some third rate knock off of Lupin the 3rd. Speaking of which, Inspector Percy, the guy who's after Bean, is basically just Detective Zenigata if Zenigata shouted almost every one of his lines when he was on screen. I'm serious, guys, Percy in this OVA is just completely over the top and he's trying *way* too hard to be charismatic, except he's really just annoying for most of this OVA. Thankfully though, he's not in it all that much, so the pain of him being on screen is limited to an extent. So it's something that you just have to take for what it's worth.

But basically, guys, like I already said, the writing in this thing makes no sense. Perhaps maybe if I ever end up watching this thing again, maybe I'll make some sense out of it's confusing plot. But as for a first going, it doesn't make any sense and it's better to view it as a plotless action film more than anything else. Now as for the dub in this OVA...oh my god, where do I even start with this dub? Well, I did say earlier that this dub was terrible. And yeah, it totally is terrible. Either half of the cast is either just giving out the most wooden performances ever, or they're just overacting to try and sound as hamfisted as possible. In the case of the former, the highest "honor", if you will, goes to Bean, because he sounds like Johnny Bravo on down syndromes. I swear to god that's what he sounds like for the entire OVA. Which, despite that, is more than what I could say about Rally's voice, because it sounds like her voice actress was just reading off her script while putting no effort in at the same time. It sounds horrible...and yet, I actually do kinda like it in it's own stupid way. Because I don't think *any* of these actors have ever acted a day in their lives. I could be wrong on that, but considering that the English voice actors don't have anything in their wiki files, I'm willing to bet this was the only thing they ever did and, well, I guess this dub speaks for itself on how laughably bad it is.

So yeah, the dub in this OVA is far from good, but it's the kind of dub that I'm willing to say is worth watching, especially if you're in the mood for a good laugh, because this dub will provide all that on how laughably terrible it is. And I also should mention something I briefly talked about way early on, which is the mis-timing of the dialogue not matching the mouth movements of the characters. While that is a thing that happens in this OVA, it's not as overly noticeable as it was in "The Girl In The Shell". And the reason why I say that is because in that OVA, nearly the entire dub for that thing had that problem of the dialogue not even trying to match the mouth flaps of the characters whenever they're talking. And as for "Riding Bean", while it's still noticeable, it's not as terrible as it could be here, except for one moment near the end where Bean's voice actor is talking, and, despite him saying a lot of lines in one sentence, his mouth only moves about four times while he's talking and it looked *really* fucking terrible, almost as if no one even cared at that point to properly finish the dub after they recorded the lines. But I'm just speculating at this point. Long story short, the dub here is terrible, but terrible in a so bad, it's good kind of way. So, I'm gonna give the dub here a pass, even though I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

Now, setting aside the very questionable dub, I will say that the animation here is really good for the standards of 1989. In fact, I would even say that it still looks really good even today. Granted, some of the character designs could be seen as slightly questionable, such as Bean's massive chin, which definitely does look weird. But at the same time, at least it helps him stand out in his own way. Everyone else, in terms of character design, looks fine the way it is. The art-style is really good, and the color palettes are also utilized very well, too. So yeah, guys, for the most part, the animation and art-style here is very good.

Sound-mixing here is also good. The music here is fantastic. A lot of it resembles that late 80's rock music I love so much. Just about every track here is filled with that 80's cheese that oozes out a lot of charm to this OVA. And I should mention that they apparently did release a CD for this OVA, and I may be tempted to see if that CD is still available online somewhere for a good price. If not, then I'll probably have to look for it on YouTube, which is the more likely option. But still, if you guys get a chance, look up the soundtrack somewhere and give it a listen to. It really is that good.

So ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Riding Bean"? Honestly, yes, so long as you're someone who's into dubs that are just so laughably bad that they're fun to watch. If you go into it with that mentality, then you're bound to really enjoy it. And also, the OVA's really short, too. It's only 45 minutes long, so if you have that amount of time to spare, go look it up on YouTube. It should still be up there, at least at the time that I'm uploading this review anyways. And if you liked it enough, try and look for it on DVD or Blu-ray somewhere, as long as it's for cheap anyway. I'd say within the realm of below $10 or so. Anything higher than that I would probably not advise. But it is ultimately up to you. For myself, personally speaking, I really enjoyed this thing. I'm not totally sure if it's worth picking up a copy for myself, but if I find it somewhere for cheap, I'll definitely pick it up and add it to my DVD collection. Speaking of which, I'm gonna go and watch something else. Perhaps I'll just watch another action movie of some kind. Maybe something like "Independence Day". Why not? I'm gonna go and watch that next as soon as I get this review uploaded.

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 | A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm taking a look at the fourth entry in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series which came out in 1988. That movie is "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master".

Now, as has been the case with the previous films in this series, I really don't know a whole lot about it, aside from the fact that Robert Englund is still playing Freddy Krueger. I don't really know anything about the plot to this one, though I'm gonna take a guess here and say that Freddy is back doing his usual shtick. Now I'm not saying that as a bad thing, because I really have been enjoying these movies so far. And even though Nightmare 2 was definitely the weakest entry in the entire series so far, I still kinda enjoyed it for what it tried to do. Mind you, it didn't do it very well, but again, I still somewhat enjoyed that movie.

So now, I'm curious to see what this fourth movie is going to do here. I'm not sure if it's going to be any good, but I'm hoping for this one to be at least decent. Now I am also aware that when it comes to the 4th entry in a horror movie franchise, it's usually where the quality of the series will start to go downhill. But hey, you know what? If this one is at least better than "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", then this movie has already accomplished what it needs to do. Still though, I really want to see if this movie is any good at all. And the only way I'm gonna find that 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 "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master".

9 minutes later

OK, I have sort of a big question here. Well, two technically, but I'm gonna ask them anyway. Why was this guy hanging on top of the smaller roof to begin with? And also, how long was he waiting there? Was he there before dawn, or was it shortly after? I know it's a really trivial thing to be asking, but I really am curious as to how long that guy was hiding in wait there. It just seems really odd to me, you know what I mean?

8 minutes later

OK, you know, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, a dog pissing on the grave site where Freddy was buried, and is also opening to show the remains of his body, is not something I was quite expecting. Mind you, I have seen far weirder in this series, but that one is definitely new to me.

9 minutes later

All right, guys, I'm just gonna go ahead and say this right now. The acting from our two leading ladies here is fucking terrible. Mind you, Kristen was one of the main characters from the previous movie, but she's played by a completely different actress, and she sounds even worse here! I'll get a little more into that once I start covering this movie, but I'm just gonna let you guys know now that the acting from these two women really fucking suck.

14 minutes later

Well, guys, I believe I can say this much. Whether or not it was intentional, Kristen was right. Her mother is a fucking murderer. And I hope by the end of this movie that she dies a really painful death by Freddy Krueger. And if she somehow survives this, then I'm gonna be a little bit pissed. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

6 minutes later

OK, that was probably one of the more disturbing things I've seen from Krueger throughout these movies. Just kissing someone and sucking their air dry was, uh...definitely something, I'll say that much. But still, that was fucking disturbing as hell.

10 minutes later

All right, I have a big question here that's probably a bit late to be asking, but I'm still gonna ask it anyway. So, all of these kids from Kristen and her friends, to Alice's friend and brother, how the fuck has anyone not reported on any of this yet? You would think, by this point, that the media would've probably commented on these "mysterious deaths". My only reasoning as to why this hasn't happened yet is because the media is keeping silent about what happened during and after Freddy's trial. But even then, I still have to wonder why these deaths, which all have been occurring within probably the last few days, haven't been covered yet? Unless they have been reporting it off screen, then it's still kinda puzzling me as to why no one has been noticing all these recent deaths that have been going on at the high school that Alice has been attending. I don't know, *maybe* I'm just putting a little too much thought into this, but I'm still very curious about it.

14 minutes later

So, not only was the bad editing probably intentional, but also Deb apparently grew some bug arms after Freddy broke hers. I admit, I'm a little confused, but still, at least those new arms of her look sorta cool. Oh, and now we're looping the same scene of Alice coming around the diner and getting into Dan's truck. OK, so at least the obvious bad editing was intentional. Which, I gotta say, that's actually sorta creative to use bad editing like that. I'm actually kind of impressed.

1 minute later

Wait, so Alice and Dan finally realize that they're repeating the same events over and over again. But instead of coming up with a new plan of action, they're gonna do the exact same thing by getting in the car and driving to Deb's house! Oh my fucking god...you guys have no idea how stupid this movie is becoming. And yet, I still find it to be more interesting than Nightmare 2. Which I know will probably sound surprising, but I'm gonna get more into why later once I start reviewing this movie.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, as I said earlier on, this movie had become stupid as shit the moment that Alice and Dan started to do the same thing again in their dreams. And yes, I still stand by that this movie is incredibly stupid. But also, I still find it to be more interesting than "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", which I still stand as the weakest film in the entire series so far.

Now with that, let's talk about this movie some more and explain why that is. Let's start with the writing. Now, without repeating myself about what I said in my review of Nightmare 3 about why Nightmare 2 was a worse movie in comparison, the reason why I find this 4th entry to be more interesting than the second movie revolves around a couple of things. For one, the creativity of all the kills in this movie is far more interesting than was shown in Freddy's Revenge, which barely had much of anything, outside of maybe one or two interesting moments in creativity. But aside from that, there really isn't much else there that I could say about that movie that was creative with it's kills. At least here, we have more of that. However, I'll get more into that later when I cover special effects.

The other reason why I find this movie to be more interesting is that, in a way, the plot is very similar to Nightmare 2 in which Freddy is using someone to help get him to his next victims. In Nightmare 2, Freddy used Jesse's body to get into the real world to kill his victims, which made no fucking sense because if he was able to pull that kind of shit off, then why didn't he do any of that in the first movie? It's stuff like that which makes Nightmare 2's story even more convoluted and stupid the more you try to think about it. As for this movie, well, admittedly, it's not really all that better because shortly before Freddy kills Kristen, Alice was able to get into the dreamworld because she apparently has a fascination for dreams herself. And after Freddy killed Kristen, her spirit, somehow, was able to transfer into Alice's body, which is somehow giving more of an awareness of sorts in regards to Freddy being nearby or something. Trust me, the explanation makes absolutely no sense at all, but even so, I still think the made up explanation is more plausible than how Nightmare 2 did it, even if it may not be saying very much.

And as for our characters, well, in regards to Freddy Krueger, he's starting to spew out cheesy one-liners which makes him sound more comical than frightening. Which, I understand may sound like something of a downgrade to his character, but I thought it actually added a lot of charm to it because, unlike Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, he's not the silent killer type. He will say whatever's on his mind before or after he kills his victims, and I honestly would prefer that over just being a silent killer like Michael or Jason. But as for other characters, well, Kristen and her two friends from the previous movie carry on over here, though they're not in it for that long. Instead, we focus on Alice and her friends. While her friends are nothing to write home about, Alice is the one who gets the most focus on, and she actually has quite a bit of development in this movie. Granted, I wish her actress put in more effort, but I'll talk about her acting in a second. But anyway, Alice actually has some pretty good character development, especially when she starts to lose more of her friends to Freddy Krueger. It's pretty good stuff, and I'd say she stands out a little bit more than Kristen did in the previous movie. Not that Kristen wasn't likable or anything, I just feel like her character wasn't as strong as either Nancy or even Alice in this movie.

So yeah, Alice is actually pretty likable here, and also has some pretty good character development. The only other one I can think of that comes kinda close to it is her brother, Rick, because Rick was actually Kristen's girlfriend in this movie. And also, I didn't mention this beforehand, but Kristen and her friends were able to go to school again, so I'm going to guess that their therapy went well there. Not that it really matters in this movie for obvious reasons that I kinda already spoiled earlier. Whoops. Well, anyway, going back to Rick for a moment, as I was saying, he was Kristen's girlfriend, and he's sorta on the flipside on whether or not he believes Alice's story about how Freddy has actually come back and started killing everyone. And part of me thought that he was going to survive until the very end before he gets killed. Well, I was a bit off the mark there because, a bit of a spoiler here, he's one of the many victims Freddy gets in this movie. And they also sorta telegraphed it a little bit past the halfway mark of the film where he mentions to Dan that if he gets killed, then he better watch out next. So I guess I should've seen it coming sooner rather than later.

So, writing in this movie is definitely a step down from the third movie. Mind you, it's still leaps and bounds better than the 2nd film, though that's not saying very much considering there is a lot of stupidity in this movie. But still, the writing here is still decent for what it was trying to do. It's just, again, really fucking stupid at times. Now as for the acting, I am gonna say this much. The acting from most of this cast is still really good, the obvious being Robert Englund, especially now that he has more lines to work with than he did in the previous movies. However, that does bring me into talking about the two worst actresses in this film, both of which who play Alice and Kristen. I'm gonna start with Kristen's actress. To start with, as I mentioned a little while ago, she is played by a completely different actress in this movie, when in the last one, she was played by Patricia Arquette, who did a really good job playing Kristen there. In this one, however, she is played by, and I'm *not* kidding when I say this person's name, Tuesday Knight. I *wish* was kidding, guys, because that name sounds so fucking stupid that I almost laughed. And I could probably overlook all that if not for the fact that, again, her acting in this movie is completely terrible. She sounds very robotic and doesn't put in a whole lot of effort into emoting her lines.

The same can be said also for Alice's actress, who goes by the name of Lisa Wilcox, who does it much worse here because at least with Kristen, she wasn't in the movie for very long and you could kinda stomach it. You can't do that, however, with Lisa Wilcox, because you have to put up with her toneless robotic voice throughout the entire movie. It is *really* bad, and it's probably some of the worst acting I've heard from a lead actress, at least from a horror movie anyways. If I were to expand my horizons, I would say she's just as bad as Melanie Griffith was in "Cherry 2000". But in terms of just horror movies, this is easily one of the worst performances I have heard in quite a while. Mind you, physically, she can act. But in terms of her vocal work, it is fucking horrible. And if she's somehow in the next movie, I hope that she has at least improved on it. I mean, if Nancy Thompson's actress, and the actors from the third movie could make a return, then why not Alice as well? I don't know, but I'll find that out whenever I get to covering the fifth movie, which won't be anytime soon, mind you, but still, I'll hopefully be able to cover it at some point. But anyway, minus our two leading actresses, the rest of the acting here is fine enough.

Special effects in this movie are absolutely amazing for low budget standards. In fact, I will go on record and say that, for the most part, the special effects in these movies have been amazing. They have always been consistent with each film, and even though the kills in Freddy's Revenge weren't really that great, the effects in that movie were still top notch. So, even though the quality of the movie's writing may vary, the effects have, so far, been consistently great. The blood effects here are awesome, the makeup effects are also really good, too. The best effect happens during the final battle between Alice and Freddy, and at one point, you get to see all of the heads that are kinda sorta meshed together on Freddy's stomach. It's pretty nasty to look at, but effects wise, it's great. So yeah, I can definitely say all the special effects here are fantastic.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is lit very well. The sound-mixing here is good. The music in this movie is also really good, too. One thing I didn't notice until I just looked it up is that one of the songs of this movie, mainly the opening song, was sung by Kristen's actress Tuesday Knight. And it actually is really good. Which makes me wonder why someone thought she would make a good actress in this movie despite the fact that she can't act here. My only theory is that they couldn't get back Patricia Arquette to reprise her role and, conveniently enough, Tuesday Knight looked a lot like her to take over her spot. Mind you, I'm just theorizing there, but that's my only explanation that I have for it. Anyway, while she can't act in this movie, she's a pretty good singer and I think she should stick to what she actually knows. Though that's just my own personal advice. But setting aside all that, the music here is really good, both in score and soundtrack.

So ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master". Yes, I can mostly certainly recommend this one to you guys. While it's nowhere near as good as the first and third movie, it's still a pretty good film on it's own standards. While there are some stupid moments that happen in this movie, it's not something that's going to ultimately effect your viewing experience. It's still pretty good overall, and it's certainly much better than "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", which I know will sound like I'm beginning to hate that movie, which I still don't, but so far, I can definitely say that it's the weakest film in the entire series so far. I've heard the sequels after 4 go down in quality, but I'll find that out for myself the next time I end up covering the rest of these movies. Which probably won't be anytime soon, but I can at least say that if you can find these movies anywhere on DVD, preferably the 4 movie combo pack has the first 4 movies, or if there's another combo pack on Blu-ray that might hold the rest of the movies, then go ahead and pick them up somewhere, as long as it's for cheap. But yeah, I can say that I certainly enjoyed the first 4 movies, some to varying degree, but I won't dwell on that any further. For now, I'm gonna go and do something else. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I still have my copy of "Bye Sweet Carole" that I own on my Nintendo Switch. I'm gonna go back and play more of it because I've had a bit of a backlog in my gaming library that I haven't gotten back around to in a while, so I'm gonna go do that next and this 4 pack will definitely have a nice spot on my DVD shelf somewhere.

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 | Underworld: Awakening

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2012. That movie is "Underworld: Awakening".

Now before I actually talk about what I know about this movie, I'm first gonna let you guys know that I haven't really been all that impressed by this series. Mind you, I'm not saying that these movies have been bad per se, it's just that they all have been rather average at best. The first two movies didn't really make a whole lot of sense. The third movie actually lucked out by being pretty good despite being a prequel. So there is a chance that this movie could actually be really good. And if it's good enough, I may end up checking it's fifth entry at some point. I can't promise it'll be soon, because this movie is the last in the 4 movie combo pack that I bought, and I don't own a copy of the fifth movie yet. So I'm not even sure if I'll ever even pick up a copy unless it was dirt cheap, or if this movie will interest me enough to want to check out it's fifth entry.

I've also noticed a pattern with each film that I go through. And that pattern is that each film in this series has gotten a shorter runtime. The first movie was roughly about 2 hours long, the second movie was about 15 minutes shorter, the third movie was just about an hour and a half long, and this film is 3 minutes shorter than that. I have no idea that's gonna be a good thing or not, however, I will say that at least this movie will be a breeze to get through. At least, theoretically, anyways.

But like I said, I'm hoping that this one will be good, or interest me enough to want to continue watching the rest of this series. I don't know if it actually will end up doing that, but there is only one way for me to find out. And that 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 "Underworld: Awakening".

12 minutes later

OK, that was actually really impressive. I liked how Selene was able to use a single knife to slice through all of the armed guards at once like that. That was actually pretty cool.

15 minutes later

O...K, so this girl that Selene and the other guy found is also a vampire. And she also ripped off a lycan's head in half. That was certainly impressive. Wasn't really expecting that, but still, it was rather impressive.

15 minutes later

All right, I have a question here that I'm not sure will get answered, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Now, I will say that while it's sweet to see Selene and this girl bonding, I have to ask; what happened to Michael? I know that this movie claims that he died 12 years ago after Selene went to get him from drowning, but the last time I made this assumption about Michael being dead was back during "Underworld: Evolution", and I was totally wrong about that. Now I'm not saying that it's impossible that Michael is actually dead, and unless he doesn't show up alive for the remainder of this movie, then I'm not gonna buy this idea that Michael is dead until proven otherwise.

6 minutes later

OK, so...we got a much bigger lycan than usual. Granted, I always thought they were kinda average in size, despite being werewolves. But this one is definitely much bigger than I anticipated. That's certainly something new, at least.

30 seconds later

Oh, and this one also has Wolverine's healing factor, too. Again, wasn't really expecting that. I might have a theory about this one, but I'll hold it off until later.

14 minutes later

So these guys are not just scientific assholes, but they're also Lycan scientific assholes. Well, I shouldn't be surprised by any of this, but then again, no matter if they were human or lycan, scientists are still evil. At least that's what this movie proved to me, anyway.

9 minutes later

Well, guys, I called it. I said that I wouldn't have solid proof that Michael is dead until I see it for myself. And well...he's not dead. Just frozen in cryogenic status. Still though, I did call that he's not technically dead. So, yay me.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Underworld: Awakening". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, I am gonna say this much, guys, I am a little bit surprised here. Part of me thought this movie was just gonna be another same as usual kind of story when it comes to the "Underworld" franchise, where it will be just another battle between the vampires and lycans. And while that, admittedly, was sort of true for this movie also, at least it does it. in a way. to where it me kept interested in what was happening. Which is more than what I can say about the first couple of movies in this series.

And on that note, let's just dive right into the writing here. And I first want to discuss why I wasn't a fan of the first two movies. And really, the biggest reason I can think of is simply because I didn't care for the war between the vampires and lycans. Especially with how it was being presented in the first movie where you don't know who you're suppose to care for and why they should matter. It really made both sides look terrible, and even though the third film did kinda establish Lucien's reasoning for wanting to fight back against the vampires, the film really only catered to one side. And in retrospect, you would think that it would make the lycans the good guys in all this, right? Well, a bit of a spoiler for this movie, no it doesn't. Because the film goes back to establishing that the lycans are the bad guys and the vampires the underdog good guys. And I kinda wish this series would make up it's own mind on it's species status because they really like to flip-flop between the two, which makes the whole thing really confusing, assuming you even attempt to think about any of that to begin with.

But I am gonna say that, while this movie is indeed flawed, the writing here is actually pretty good. And what makes it a little more interesting is that, unlike the first two movies, where it felt like it ended on a conclusion of sort, this one ends on a sequel hook, which, I'll be honest, I am somewhat looking forward to seeing it all continue. I don't want to say it ends, because there is a possibility that there could be another sequel, however, considering that the next film in the series was last released in 2016, I kinda doubt it. Although I could be wrong there. But that's just me theorizing, I should get back to talking about this movie. Anyway, setting aside the ending here, the movie actually picks up from 12 years later after Selene gets ambushed while trying to save Michael. And I should mention that the world itself changed to where lycans and vampires were being hunted down by the government and treating like it's some kind of epidemic. At least, that's what we're told on the surface. Obviously, when you involve scientists and vaccines into the mix, you know the kind of shit you're getting yourself into when it's obviously more to it than that. It's cliche, but at least it's still done partially well here.

As for our characters, well, Selene is back as our main character after taking a hiatus from the third movie, and she's back looking for Michael after she escapes her 12 year containment. And I honestly think she really hasn't changed much of her personality. And normally, I would say that this would make her character bland, but honestly, at this point, I don't think a change in her personality is really necessary anymore. That'd be like if I was asking for a change in D's character from "Vampire Hunter D". It's just not gonna happen. At this point, she is aware of how slowly the world has changed and she doesn't know who's in the right or wrong here, but she does have a goal in mind, which is to protect this girl that she and another vampire find after they fend off a bunch of wild lycans. I won't spoil much about this new girl, but I will say that it's not really that surprising once you figure out who she is, since the movie doesn't really telegraph this very well.

But anyway, as for Michael, well, as I called earlier, he wasn't actually dead this entire time, just frozen. Mind you, he's still out for a majority of this movie and, thanks to the sequel hook at the end, this probably isn't the last time that we actually see him. Which, honestly, I'm hoping that they do something interesting with him beyond just being a hybrid vampire/lycan. I say this, because in the first two movies, Michael was an incredibly boring character with nothing special about him. I gave him a pass in the first movie because he was dragged into it by accident. But by the second movie, I honestly had no reason to care for him. Even when I eventually learned more about this character, his personality is as stale as open bread. So hopefully, by the time I eventually end up covering the fifth movie, I'm hoping that Michael is more interesting there than how he was in his first two outings. As for other characters, well, a lot of them are really not that interesting. The most you're gonna focus on is Selene, which makes sense, given that she is the main character and all. The only one I can mention by name is Detective Sebastian, because he kinda has his own personal stake in all this. Again, I won't spoil what, so I'll leave it to the side for this review.

Ultimately, guys, the writing here, while still following the same status quo as the first two movies did, is still pretty good. And if you were a fan of the previous movies, then you're gonna probably adore this one also. It has everything that was in the previous films with little to no changes, and this film is no exception. As for the acting, well, Kate Beckinsale's back in the role of Selene, and she does a great job here. Even after a 6 year absence in-between the second film and this one, she hasn't lost a step here. Which is great to see. In fact, the acting from the entire cast here is really good. Even though some of them may not have much in terms of character development, they still turn in a rather good showing for what they had to work with. Which is definitely a plus I can give this movie.

Special effects, on the other hand, are, well...kind of a mixed bag. In terms of blood effects, it has the same problem as the other movies in which it incorporates CG blood, and it still looks fucking terrible here. That being said, however, I will say that the gore effects, when viewed up close on certain scenes, like when the girl I mentioned earlier splits open a lycan's head in half, that actually looked pretty decent. Speaking of lycan's, I will say that the CG on them looks okay...at least until you see humans morph into them, which looks awful. And it doesn't matter what scene it is, it's any scene where they do this sort of thing, and it's probably some of the worst-looking CG I have seen in these movies up to this point. In fact, I've kinda noticed that ever since "Underworld: Evolution", the CG has gotten steadily worse. I'm hoping that by the time I cover the fifth movie, they will have rectified that in some way. I somewhat doubt it, but there's always a chance that it could happen. So yeah, the special effects, at least when it comes to the CG is a huge mixed bag here.

Camerawork here is pretty good, lighting here is lit well enough, the sound-mixing here is good, and the score here is also just very average. I can't really say anything more than that when it comes to the film's technical work.

So, when all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Underworld: Awakening"? If you have seen the previous 3 movies in this series and you enjoyed them, then I have no doubt that you're gonna enjoy this one as well. It has pretty much all of the same tropes you've come to expect from the previous films with very little changes added to it. And as for myself, well, I will still say that I am pleasantly surprised on how this film was pretty good. It's not amazing, but then again, none of these movies have been amazing to me, so it's maybe just my own personal bias. Still though, I did enjoy this movie enough to consider covering the fifth movie, which is, I believe, called "Underworld: Blood Wars" at some point. It's not gonna be anytime soon, mind you, as there are other movies that peek my interest a lot more than that film does. But still, I'm curious to see what they can do with a fifth entry. Perhaps maybe it'll conclude the series on a positive note. I don't know. Until then, however, I'm gonna go and watch another vampire-esque movie in the form of "Vampire Hunter D", which is what I'm gonna go do next after I get done with this review.

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.