Reaction & Review | The Avengers

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a spy film from 1998. That movie is "The Avengers".

And in case you clicked on this review thinking that I was gonna review Marvel's "The Avengers", I'm gonna tell you right now that it's not going to happen. The main reason being that I've already seen that movie, so it's ineligible for review. I will say that I did enjoy it. Not as much as a few other Marvel films I've covered and seen on my own time, but it is still an enjoyable film on it's own standards.

Now let's get on back topic for tonight's movie. And in case you're wondering about this version of "The Avengers", it actually started back as a British TV series that ran all the way through the 1960's. And in 1998, Warner Bros. decided to do a film adaptation for this movie, which is what I'm gonna be reviewing tonight. Now, I know this film stars Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, along with Sean Connery. I don't know anything about the nature of their characters, but I hope to find out when I start watching this movie.

Now I'm also aware that this film didn't really do all that well in theaters, and also, people kinda hated this movie, whether they were fans of the show or not. Which would normally spell doom for this movie, however, I also am someone who ended up enjoying movies such as "Super Mario Bros." from 1993, and the "Street Fighter" film with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and neither of those movies were exactly loyal to their source material.

Now admittedly, since I have never seen the TV series this movie is supposed to be based on, I have no idea if this thing is gonna be loyal to it's TV counterpart at all. But whether it's loyal or not doesn't really matter to me here. Because as I've done with countless other adaptations of films based on novels, video games, etc., I really only care if the film is entertaining. And if it is, then this film has already accomplished that feat. However, I won't know for sure it is actually entertaining, or good at all, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Avengers".

17 minutes later

Well, guys, so far, I really don't have a whole lot to say right now because this movie hasn't given me much to work with. I will say, however, that Steed's car looks really cool. I would love to have a model version of that for myself that I can put on display. Other than that, though, this movie's off to a little bit of a slow start. I'm hoping it'll pick up it's pacing soon.

10 minutes later

O...K, I'm gonna ask the obvious here. Why is everyone in this room, including Sean Connery, wearing a bear costume? I guess the reasoning is that they don't want each other to know their secret identities, but still, why the fuck are they all bears? Is there, like, a birthday party or something that they all have to attend to at some point, or is there a bear convention that I'm not aware of? I have so many questions about this scene, guys, and I have a strong feeling that this movie's not going to address any of that.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, I'm just gonna say this right now. I'm hoping that the TV series from the 60's was nowhere near as dull as this movie is. But then again, considering it ran for the entirety of the 60's, it has to at least be partially more interesting than what's shown in this movie. Because this movie is starting to become incredibly dull. I'm hoping maybe the next half of the film will actually be more interesting. But as of this moment, I'm not having much faith in that.

12 minutes later

All right, I have a rather dumb question to ask here. Is there any reason why Colonel Jones is invisible? I mean, okay, sure, the effects involving him are really cool, but I still would like to know how exactly he ended up being invisible. I would like to know this, however, considering we almost have a half an hour left to go, I have a strong feeling that I'm not gonna get an answer to that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Avengers". Let me shut the movie off here...good god. Well, I think it's easy to say that, for me, this movie really kinda sucked. Mind you, it's not truly horrible or anything. But my god, this movie is just so dull, even on the standards of it being a spy film. Which I didn't think was actually possible, but this movie found a way to be as boring as hell.

Let's just start off with the writing here. And as I said earlier, I have never seen the 60's TV show that this movie is supposed to be based on. So I can't really judge this thing on how loyal it is to it's source material. But then again, as I also stated, I don't really care about loyalty to the source material as long as the film is both entertaining and how much it can stand on it's own standards. And unfortunately, this movie doesn't really excel at either one here. This movie isn't very entertaining, and on it's own standards, it's more or less just a knockoff of the 007 series. And not really a good one at that either. Also, even though I haven't seen any of the series from the 60's, I can wager a guess here and say that it holds far better than this movie, which is funny, considering how that series lasted nearly a decade, while this movie underperformed at the box office and didn't get any sequels afterwards. Funny how that works sometimes.

Our story here really doesn't make too much sense, at least until the very end, you learn from our villain, August, that he has developed some kind of weather machine that can basically control the world's weather and that he will control the world now that he has decided to play God with this device, and it's up to our to spy heroes, John Steed and Emma Peel, to stop him and save the world. And I have to ask because, and this is just something that I noticed, why is this the third or fourth movie that I've watched that has some crazed villain controlling the weather? I've seen this done with Mr. Freeze in "Batman & Robin" and I also saw it in that "Recess" movie where the villain in that one wanted to get rid of summer vacation in the most retarded ways possible. And in this one, August is going to control the weather and unless the governments of the world don't surrender to him, he will obliterate their entire continent. So yeah, again, he's basically just trying to play God in this movie, but I still have to ask, what was with writers obsessions in having villains controlling the weather? I'm really sorta curious about that, because it almost seems like a common occurrence to me for some reason.

Now that part isn't really a negative, per se, it's just more so something that I noticed is all. But what *is* a negative here is our characters. The characters in this movie are just boring as shit. Now I can sorta give August a past here since he's basically just a stereotypical mad scientist villain, and he's also played by Sean Connery, however, I'll talk about him later when I cover acting. But as for our two main agents, these are probably some of the most boring agents to appear on screen. We have John Steed who, I swear to god, has to talk in sarcasm most of the time because he really doesn't have any sort of character to him beyond that. I'd say he's almost a discount dollar store version of James Bond, however, that would be a horrible insult to Bond because Bond actually has something resembling a character. Well, depending on the movies, anyways. I haven't read any of the novels from Ian Flemming and less said about the Daniel Craig movies, the better.

So yeah, Steed doesn't really have a character to him, and the same can also be said for Uma Thurman's character Emma Peel. She really has nothing going for her. You find out in the beginning of the movie that she has a doppelganger twin who's working for August. And also, when you do see the two on screen together for the first time, they have different eye colors. Emma has blue eyes, and her twin has brown eyes. I don't know why that is. I guess maybe they wanted to differentiate the two characters in some way. However, there's not really much of a difference beyond that, outside of having different costumes, because neither of them have any sort of character to them. And I don't really recall a point where Emma's twin is a robot or just some kind of super clone that August made on his spare time because he has an obsession with her. I don't know why, maybe he just saw something in her that I didn't. Other than that, though, there's nothing else to either Emma or her twin.

As for other characters, well...what about them? There's nothing there in terms of characters that you're going to care about because they're either not in it for very long, or they're just there as part of August's line of villains. If we're talking about any other protagonists, well, there's Steed's mother, who tries to help get Emma back after she got captured by August. But you don't see much of her again after she gets knocked in the back of the head and Emma gets herself free. And then there's also Colonel James, who's completely invisible. Why is he invisible? I don't fucking know. Maybe Sue Storm had a relative at some point that I didn't know about, which would make more sense than him not having any sort of establishing character at all. And it also doesn't help the fact that he's only in it for about two scenes, and all of it happens in the last half hour of the movie. Which is a shame because I would've loved to known more about him.

In fact, that would be more interesting than what he actually got for this movie because the writing here is boring as shit. It doesn't really make much sense, even when you learn about August's evil plan. OK sure, he has the whole controlling the weather gimmick, but even before that, everything else is either just filler or just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And I may as well just add one more thing to the pile in terms of overall pacing. It's pretty bad. It takes a while for it to get going, and while it's not as awful as some other movies I've seen for this series that had awful pacing, it's still pretty bad despite it being a little over 90 minutes long. So, pacing here is a little bit of an issue. And the writing is, again, dull as hell, and doesn't really have very much going for it.

Now as for the acting, well, I will say that at least the acting here is halfway decent. Special mention will have to go to Sean Connery, because the man was known to be one of the gods of hammy acting for his time. And while this is certainly nowhere near one of his best roles, he still did pretty decently for what was given to him. Then again, this was pretty late into his career, so maybe by this point he just didn't really care as much and just wanted the paycheck that badly. Which, I can't really blame him for, if that's really the case. The acting from the other cast members is okay, except for our main two cast members, who seemed to have just phoned it in. Like I said earlier, John Steed's entire character is just him talking as if he's sarcastic, and that's all he talks in, which is probably the reason why Ralph Fiennes phoned it in as he did here. And as for Uma Thurman, she's pretty much in the same boat as well, Not only is her British accent questionable at best, but also, she and Ralph Fiennes have no chemistry together at all. Neither of them seemed like they wanted to be there and the only reason why they were there is because they needed that paycheck so badly. Which, much like with Sean Connery, I can't necessarily blame them because they could only do so much with a bad script that was given to them. And outside of Sean Connery, no one else here actually tried. So yeah, that's acting for you in a nutshell.

Special effects are actually okay here. For the standards of late 90's CG, this stuff is actually halfway decent. Most of the stuff you'll see involves all the weather towards the latter half of the movie, while other times, you see it being utilized during the chase scene involving our main agents and these killer robot bugs. Some of them are CG, but there a few that were practically made, which is really cool to see. The stunt-work here is also pretty decent. I mean, it's nothing ultimately special, but at least it's halfway decent, which is more than what I could say about the writing, but I'm not gonna harp on that anymore than I already did. Costuming here is also decent, even though the idea of that one scene where some of the cast members, including Connery, were all wearing bear costumes. And I should stress that they were giant teddy bears as well. At the very least, I can say there all a different color. So, I guess that's something.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit fine. The sound-mixing here is good. And the music is just there, really. There's nothing ultimately nothing special about it, so I'll just mark it off as it existing, and that's pretty much it.

So ultimately, guys, when it comes down to it, can I recommend "The Avengers"? Um, no. I seriously can't recommend this movie because, one, it's boring as hell, two, there are other better spy films you could watch, such as a majority of the James Bond movies, and three, regardless of whether or not this movie was in any way loyal to the source material, it's still a bad movie overall. And not an enjoyable bad movie that you could watch with friends on a bad movie night. No, this one is just bad on a really boring level. If you were one of those people who were a fan of 60's series, then you can just skip this movie altogether as it provides nothing of value to that series. And of course, this has no value for me, personally speaking, so I will happily trade it in the moment that I get that chance. In the meantime, however, I'm gonna go and watch one of my many James Bond movies I have on DVD. I think I'll just go and watch something such as "For Your Eyes Only". Why not? I haven't seen that one in a long time, so I'll go and do that next as soon as I get done typing this review up.

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 | Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Japanese horror film from 2009. That movie is "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl".

Now, I do know a couple of things about this movie. The first being that it's very similar to other Japanese gore films that I've seen such as "Tokyo Gore Police", for example. Speaking of which, I also know that one of the people who directed this movie also wrote the screenplay for it as well. The person who I'm referring to is Yoshihiro Nishimura. The same man who also directed other films such as "Tokyo Gore Police" and Mutant Girls Squad". Both movies I really enjoyed, and I'm hoping this one will also be of the exact same quality as those two movies. Also, and this is something I just found out recently, Nishimura unfortunately just passed away earlier this year. Which definitely came as a surprise to me, because I didn't even know about it until I did my small amount of research on this film.

So, while it's unfortunate that the man is no longer with us, I'm still going to go into this one hoping that it will be really good. But I won't know if it's actually any good unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl".

4 minutes later

You know, guys, it's been quite a long time since I last watched a Japanese splatter film, and this opening sequence here where blood's just gushing everywhere, especially from creative aspects like skulls from zombie girls, is definitely not shy in showing all of that early. This is certainly awesome. And also, this opening song here isn't too bad either. It's actually sorta catchy.

6 minutes later

You know, guys, in the time I've been to school, I've never experienced a "wrist cutting rally" before. And no, I'm not joking about that either, that's actually a thing in this movie, and my god, it is funny as hell.

5 minutes later

Oh my god...okay, I wasn't gonna comment on this until later, but there's a club known as "Super Dark Girls Club", and there's literally a group of 4 people dressed in blackface and also are wearing outfits that you'd probably imagine what black girls wear, including their hairstyles. I know it's offensive as hell, but shit, this is fucking hilarious, man! I love it.

10 minutes later

You know, guys, it's not often I see a kabuki scientist and a sexy nurse working together to reanimate corpses ala Frankenstein. And the way they're doing it is, well, interesting to say the least. It's very flashy, very odd, but then again, I probably wouldn't expect less from a Japanese film that usually tends to be wacky and creative. And it's definitely both here, I'll say that much.

1 minute later

OK, um...well, it's certainly a fine work of art. Nowhere near what I thought they were making, but at least it's unique-looking.

8 minutes later

So that tiny splotch of blood from that vampire girl's lip earlier apparently has a mind of it's own. Don't ask me how that works, I'm just telling you guys what I'm seeing right now.

11 minutes later

So not only do we have a half human-half mecha sumo wrestler that has a mini turret on it's head, but also, Monami's mother can also produce bloodied-blade skates on her feet. I'm telling you, guys, this movie is extremely creatively with itself and it's something that I probably would never come up with if I were attempting to make this sort of film. It's really quite fascinating.

10 minutes later

I'll say this right now, guys, the level of dark humor the movie is going through is mind-blowing. Mind you, it's really funny, but I didn't think they would be going this far with it. It's really something else, and I'm loving it.

5 minutes later

Holy Shit! All right, well, I can certainly say that I wasn't quite expecting for a head to explode like that. But shit, that was awesome!

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Wow, just...where the hell do I even begin with this one? Well, first off, I am gonna say up front that I really enjoyed this movie. In terms of these splatter films, it lives up to those other Japanese splatter movies I've seen beforehand such as "Mutant Girls Squad", "Tokyo Gore Police", and I'll even include "The Machine Girl" because it's also technically a splatterfest as well. Now do I think it's as good as those movies were, in terms of writing? No, not really, and I'll get to why in a second. But still, what I did get here is still really enjoyable.

Let's get into this proper here and first talk about the writing. The writing in this movie is honestly one of the only weak points that it has against it. And it's not necessarily that it's a bad story, it's just that it's not really gonna be the main focus here. But to give you guys a summary version of it: It's essentially a just a teen romance story centered around a guy named Jugon, who ends up falling for a girl by the name of Monami, who just so happens to also be a vampire, and she gives him some chocolate to profess her love to him, which the latter is actually a custom in Japan. But anyway, you have another girl by the name of Keiko, who later ends up turning into a Frankenstein thanks to her Dad, who is the principal of the high school she attends and is also a kabuki scientist. Don't ask why he's a kabuki scientist, it really doesn't matter. And so, it's a battle between Monami and Keiko to see who can win the love of Jugon.

Now as I may have mentioned a couple of times beforehand, I despise teen romance stories. I hated it in "Whisper of the Heart" and I hated it in "Psychic School Wars". And in any other movie, I would've disregarded this movie entirely because of it's premise alone. However, I'm not going to do that here. Why? Because even though it's centered around a premise that I'm not a fan of, what helps elevate it is that the movie is a horror comedy. And not just a regular horror comedy, but also very unapologetic as well. Because this movie delves into the kind of dark comedy that I really do enjoy. The movie has racial stereotypes, Japanese girls in blackface, to even jokes about suicide and wrist cutting. And in terms of the first one, they literally have a Chinese guy with a *ridiculously* long mustache. Which is fucking hilarious as hell, though if they *really* wanted to play up the offensive stereotype, they could've added some buck teeth as well. Just my own personal opinion, really. And I know some people aren't into the overly offensive type of dark humor, but I will say that Mr. Nishimura definitely had a sense of humor that I don't see from many filmmakers anymore. Well, at least the ones in the U.S. anyway.

But setting that part aside, if I had to give any kind of critique about the humor in this film, I would say that it kinda overloads you with all this wacky, goofy, madness that, if you're watching this on your first go, you may not be able to grasp everything at once. Because, like I just said, this movie is a horror comedy, and it sticks with that for the entirety of it's runtime. It rarely ever takes itself seriously as it mostly just focuses on being a full-blown horror comedy. The only "serious" bit that I could find in this movie is when you get to see Monami's backstory about her mother being killed by a vampire hunter, who also happens to be Francis Xavier. Which...sure, let's just roll with it. Although before that, her mother was able to produce blade-looking skates on her feet as she takes on a half-human/half-mecha sumo wrestler. Which, if you couldn't tell by this point, the movie doesn't take itself too seriously. Which, for a movie like this, is a good thing. Because had it played itself with a straight face the entire time, it would've destroyed this movie because it didn't try to have fun with itself.

So, just to give you guys a summarization, the writing in this movie is the weakest point in this film, at least in terms of it's plot. But for everything else such as humor and the special effects more than makes up for all of that. And I'm also going to include the acting. Now, upon starting this film, I was greeted to the Japanese version with English subtitles. And I should note that there is an option for an English dub here, however, I didn't watch it this time because, as I just said, upon pushing play, I got the Japanese audio with English subtitles. And I'm gonna say, guys, that the acting here is laughable. Now when I say it's laughable, I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean that most of the actors in this film ham it up a lot here. And it's actually really funny because it seemed like nobody was taking it too seriously. Which, if this were any other film that attempted this, I would've had a different opinion about it. But for this film, it totally works here because everyone in the cast, whether it's the main cast, or the supporting cast, everyone turns in a pretty decent showing, at least for what they had to work with here. So yes, guys, the acting here is hammy and a little bit over the top, but it still totally works for this kind of movie.

Now before I talk the special effects, I want to mention something that I almost never talk about when it comes to me covering movies for this series, which is the previews. And for this particular film, they only show one preview for another Japanese film that is similar to this called "RoboGeisha". Now I covered "RoboGeisha" a long time ago back in the early days of me writing this series, and I do remember the film actually kinda sucking a bit. And when they showed the previews for that movie here, I got another glimpse of the awful special effects that went on in that movie. I mean, the CG was terrible, the blood effects were all digitally done, it was just a really bad movie with really cheap special effects.

Which I can now segue-way into talking about the special effects for this movie because it shows you how much better they pull off the effects here. There is tons and tons of blood splatter, and while there is CG in this movie, it is nowhere *near* as awful as they were in "RoboGeisha". You do have scenes which they show digital blood here, and the effects for it, while very noticeably CG, it's still good enough to where you can view it as it being more believable. At least believable about a movie involving a vampire high school girl and a Frankenstein-esque girl. But still, the effects here are awesome, and some of it is very creative, too. Such as when you see the Frankenstein girl using part of someone's bare feet as a helicopter to fly. And no, I'm joking about that either. That happens in the third act of the film. But anyway, the costuming is also really good, too, as is the makeup effects. Whether it's the kabuki scientist, or custodian janitor being, uh, well, a vampire or zombie of sorts. I don't remember which one, but still, the makeup effects involving him are also pretty good, too.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is also lit very well. Sound-mixing is also good. And the music is also really good, too. There are a couple of songs here that are actually really catchy. I unfortunately don't know the title of these songs, but believe me when I say that they're very catchy and is worth giving a listen to, if at least just once. But yeah, guys, the score here and the soundtrack is really good.

And when all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl"? Oh absolutely, guys, this movie is great. Well, I do have to stress that if you're not into these sorts of films where there's just a ton of blood splatter everywhere, then I don't think you should be watching this movie. But if you're looking for a good horror comedy, then I can totally recommend this film to you guys. Again, as long as you can overlook the excessive amounts of blood splatter here. And if you can do that, well, then you have a really good movie. And I'm actually happy myself knowing that I can actually add this one to my DVD collection. I was sorta fearing that it would disappoint me in someway, but I'm thankful that's not the case here. This movie is great, and I'll definitely find a spot for it for my ever growing DVD collection. Speaking of, I'm gonna go and watch "Tokyo Gore Police" right now because this film totally inspired me to go back and rewatch that one again. So I know what I'll be doing as soon 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.

Reaction & Review | And Now The Screaming Starts!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a British horror movie from 1973. That movie is called "And Now The Screaming Starts!".

I hate this title, guys. And it's not because it's too long or it has a very generic name to it, no, it's more so of how it's grammatically titled. I've seen plenty of movie titles that either sound really cool or stupid, but I have *never* seen a title start with the word "and" at it's beginning. I'm trying to think of at least one movie I have either seen or saw it beforehand starting with "and", but I really can't think of a single movie title that does this sort of thing. And that's why I had a bit of a difficult time in trying to type out how I usually do with every movie I cover because it just sounded incredibly weird. So I added "called" just to make it sound a little more proper, I guess. Either way, I still hate that title for that reason alone.

But setting aside the awkwardly named title, I don't really know very much about this movie. The only thing I do know is that it is a British horror movie and, strangely enough, I don't cover a whole lot of those that aren't from the U.S. So at least it'll be something slightly different. Other than that, I don't know anything about the plot to this thing, which is good, because I want to go into it as blind as possible. And I hope it's pretty good. I don't know if it will be, but there's only one way for me to find out. And that's for me to shut up so I can push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "And Now The Screaming Starts!".

7 minutes later

So there's a severed hand just crawling from near the portrait of Sir Henry. Now is this hand real? Or was this just another figment of this woman's imagination from earlier? I'm a little curious right now, because the camera really seems to want you to focus on Sir Henry's portrait this early a lot. Either way, I'm still really curious.

5 minutes later

Wait, so when Catherine's husband goes down the stairs and sees the maid, he tells her that it was in her imagination. The maid then asks "why that?". And for whatever reason, it just skips to a completely different scene. I felt like there should've been more to that previous scene, because the maid asked a question, and then...nothing. Just skip over to the next scene, I guess. Very odd.

14 minutes later

OK, so the guy who Charles was looking for is now dead. I kinda wish we would've seen his kill done on camera, but at least we got to see his bloodied face, so at least it's something.

9 minutes later

So...the maid dies after being force choked by the hand of what I'm going to assume is suppose to be Henry. And then she falls sorta awkwardly down the stairs, leading to her death. And I say sorta awkwardly, because I swear that it looked like a stunt double doing the falling down. I could be wrong on that, but I would still be surprised if it was an actual stunt double.

11 minutes later

All right, I have a question here. How long has the woodsman been there until he saved Catherine from that dog that attacked her? The guy seemed to be crouching until she started screaming for help, and I'm curious to know how long he was like that until he came in to rescue her? Again, I'm just really curious here.

15 minutes later

So, guys, we're finally getting to learn this "legend" that has been mentioned at least a few different times throughout the entire movie. But wouldn't that mean that Charles is about to face his death next? Because anyone who has either tried to tell or show Catherine the truth about what's been happening, they all die mysterious deaths. So I'm assuming Charles will be next, right? Unless if he somehow survives this during or after he tells the story to Dr. Pope, then I don't think Charles is gonna have a future with his wife or child. Just saying.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "And Now The Screaming Starts!". Let me shut the movie off here...OK. So, what to say about this film...? Well, I will say this much about the movie. It really isn't all that bad, but it's not all that great either. It's sort of in the middle of it being average. Mind you, it's still more than what I can say about a lot of other terrible horror movies I've seen before. Which might not be saying much, granted, but I can still say that the film is okay by it's own standards.

Let's just dive right into this one here and talk about it some more. Let's start with writing. Now, being that this is a horror movie from the 70's, I may as well answer this much: How "scary" is it really? Well, to call it scary or frightening would be an overstatement. This film is not really scary at all. In fact, I would say it's a little bit corny more than anything else. But then again, I'm also someone who doesn't really get scared very much by horror movies anyway, because I'd say about 93% of the horror films I've seen aren't very scary at all. Now who knows, if I were someone who grew up during that time when this film came out, I maybe would've had a different viewpoint on it's scare factor. However, since the 70's is far before my time, I can't exactly judge on how scary it might've actually been when it was released in theaters. I'm just viewing it as my own opinion on how it stands or falls by it's own standards. Which again, it's sort of a middle of the road approach.

Why don't I talk about that legend that none of the friends or family members of the Fengriffen's can't talk about. And seeing as how the film is well over 50 years old at this point, I don't think any limitation or fear of spoilers is going to affect you guys all that much. But if it does, well, sorry, I'm going to do it anyways. So, Charles father, Henry, ended up raping the woman of Sila's father. In case you're wondering who Silas is, that's the mysterious woodsman you see throughout the entire film. And his father tried to stop Henry before his men held him back while Henry did his sick thing. And afterwards, he punishes Sila's father by cutting his hand off with an ax, which is basically the reason why you see the severed hand throughout the entire movie. And it ends up with Sila's father basically proclaiming that when the next virgin bride enters the Fengriffen household, they would be tainted and raped, much how like his girl was, and that anyone who tried to warn her about it would be killed as well. Which is basically the reason why no one would tell Catherine about why she keeps seeing these visions that no one else can see. Now if you're gonna ask me how Sila's father has this sort of power to do all this, I'm not gonna have an answer for you. He can just proclaim it and gets his wish. It makes very little sense, but I'm not gonna harp on that issue too much.

Now I did bring up the possibility that when Charles told this legend to Dr. Pope, Charles would be the next one to die. Well, surprisingly, he doesn't die. Instead, when he sees the baby for the first time after Catherine gave birth to it, he grabs his pistols and goes over to Sila's house near the woods and kills him. And I should mention that the face he makes when he dies is in the same way his father did. And then afterwards, Charles goes to the graveyard and tries to smash the coffin lid open to desecrate either the skeletal corpse of his father or Sila's father. It's not quite clear on who it was that Charles was after, but basically, Charles goes nuts at the end and you never see him again after that scene. By the way, just in case I didn't leave any sort of loose ends, the baby that Charles saw that made him go mad has the exact same birthmark as Silas and his father did. Yeah, it's not really a scar or anything, it's just a birthmark. Now I don't know how exactly one gets a birthmark like that, but then again, I'm not an expert on the field of genetics, I'm just going to assume that it naturally happens in some way.

So now that I've kinda gone over the ending to you guys, let's talk about the characters next. And I'm gonna say most of the characters here aren't that interesting. Most of them are just being secretive about what's going on at the Fengriffen estate, and because of which, most of them don't have any real development. As I've already mentioned with Charles, he's also very secretive about the whole thing and doesn't really believe in this legend to begin with. At least, until Dr. Pope enters the picture and kinda spills the beans afterwards. Speaking of, Dr. Pope is honestly one of the only interesting characters in this entire film. Even though he's a doctor, he kinda plays up more like a discount version of Sherlock Holmes. And I'm not saying that as a bad thing, mind you, he actually is a rather intelligent fellow as he tries to get any sort of information from anyone about what the hell's going on at this estate. And as for Catherine, well, it's about her descent into madness the more that she gets these visions of whoever is after her. And it's kind of a boring one at that because she doesn't have much of a character outside of being a troubled woman who's going through her own sanity. Which probably would've been fine if she had more to her character, but since that's all she has to go with, it's not gonna be much for you to care about.

So, writing in this movie is sorta flawed, but I still can't say it's all that bad either. As a drama, I do think it's pretty decent. And as a horror movie, well, even though I don't really think it's all that scary, I can say that some of the imagery is pretty decent, too. However, I'll get into all that later when I cover special effects. Now as for the acting, it's actually really good. Every single actor in this movie turns in a really awesome showing. Even for characters who don't have much going on other than being secretive, they also turn in really good showings. Which, you know what, that's great. Even though I think some of the story could've used a little more polish, I can't fault any of the actors here for turning a performance that, on any other given day, I could've pointed out at least a couple of actors who might've phoned it in, but not here. Because the actors turned in a great showing and I give my commends for all of them here.

Special effects are also pretty good, too. Now you have to understand that this film came out in 1973, so obviously, CG is not going to play a factor here at all. Which I'm all for anyways, because I prefer practical effects over CG anyways. And as for the practical effects here, they're all really good. The blood effects, while sorta minimal here, are very well done. The most notable ones you'll see involve the first victim and the ghost of Sila's father, who you see those soulless black eyes and blood surrounding his eyelids. Although now that I'm thinking about it, it's also possible that they just used a cheap-looking mask to make it look like that. I don't know if that's the case or not, but even, it is supposedly a really cool-looking mask. Costuming here is also really good, as this movie is suppose to take place around or near the 1800's, and I'd say the costuming is pretty accurate for the time period. So yeah, I can say the special effects are really solid.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is also lit very well, even in dark areas where there's just enough to light to see what's going on during some darkly lit scenes. Sound-mixing here is also good. The score is also pretty good, too. It's not amazing, mind you, but at least it gets the job done.

So when all is and done, guys, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "And Now The Screaming Starts!"? You know what? I'm gonna say yes, if just for a single viewing. Like I said earlier, I'm not exactly the biggest expert when it comes to 1970's horror flicks on how they approach the horror aspect, but I can say that if you're into those sort of horror films, go ahead and check it out somewhere. I don't know if there's a copy of it online somewhere, maybe on YouTube, I don't know. But I can say that if you can find a physical copy of it somewhere like I did, and as long as it's for cheap, go ahead and pick up a copy. Mine was about $8, which isn't too steep in my opinion. But if you can find it for cheaper than that, then go for it, you might actually end up enjoying it a lot more than I did. Now that isn't to say that I didn't enjoy this movie, or that I thought it sucked, far from it. I did enjoy watching this thing myself. But to watch it again however? I'm not sure if it's worth keeping around for my DVD collection. I'll probably end up trading it in at some point, but I still it's worth a single viewing at the very least. So now, I'm gonna go and watch another older horror film. And the first thing that I'm thinking of is "Tales of Terror". I love that film so I'm gonna go and do that 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.

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.