Reaction & Review | Dead & Breakfast

 

Welcome, one and all, to the final Reaction & Review of 2021. Holy shit, guys, this year has already gone by and I'm still doing this series. That is amazing. And I've decided to end the year by covering a horror comedy from 2004. That movie is "Dead & Breakfast".

Now, I don't really know very much about this movie. Beyond the fact that I know it's a horror comedy, I also know that this movie has something to do with zombies. Now, even though zombies have long since worn out their welcome in the world of media, I'm not gonna hold it against this movie. Because this was long before mainstream movies, TV shows, and video games, decided to jump on the zombie fad and shoehorn them in someway, even when it's not called for.

Now, as for other things that I know about this movie, I know that the setting takes place at a bed and breakfast. Where, I'm going to assume, the other people that are presiding at this bed and breakfast have banded together to take on the zombies that are raiding the place. At least, that's what I'm going to assume. I have no idea if that is fully accurate until I start watching this movie. Speaking of which, one of the other reasons why I wanted to cover this movie was because some people have claimed it as one of the best zombie comedies ever made. Which might sound like a bold claim, however, I haven't really seen a whole lot of movies that are centered around zombies. The only ones that I can remember seeing were "Night of the Living Dead", which was a really good movie. Another one I can think of was "Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies", which I covered this series, and it wound up being a decent film. And the other zombie film that I can think of that I did see was "Zombies vs. Strippers", which was a film that I also covered very early on in this series. And...well, less said about that movie, the better.

I am hoping for "Dead & Breakfast" to end up being really good. I don't know if it's going to be, but the only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Dead & Breakfast".

2 minutes later

Well, guys, even though the film is still in it's opening credits, I can say that the song that's playing here is actually kinda catchy. I know you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but I'm really digging this opening song. I'm hoping that this is a good sign of things to come.

12 minutes later

All right, guys, two things I need to bring up. One, I'm hoping that David is the first one who dies. He has already been on screen for a short time, and I want him dead. Two, the guy that works at this bed and breakfast, what accent is he suppose to have? I can't tell if it's either Russian, or French, or maybe a little bit of Italian. I can't tell what it is, but it's starting to bug me just a little bit.

14 minutes later

...Well, despite being the Maid of Honor, Kate and Kelly REALLY don't like each other. Which makes me question as to why Kelly even chose her to be the Maid of Honor to begin with? I'm kinda curious about that now.

14 minutes later

Guys, I already mentioned this earlier, but the music in this movie is REALLY good. Granted, it might be because I'm kind of a fan of country music anyways, but this is some really solid stuff here. I'm really digging this soundtrack, guys.

1 minute later

So...if you rip off the hair of someone, they can be turned into a zombie. Well, mind controlled zombie, anyway. That...is actually really interesting. I would've never thought of something like that, but I gotta say, it's a really clever idea.

14 minutes later

You know, guys, even though these custom-made shotguns look rather impractical, they actually do quite a bit of damage. Well, as long as you hit the target in the right spot, anyways. I just have to ask though, is there any way I can get one of those? I don't care if it's hard to handle, I actually kinda want one of those just for the fuck of it. It would be a really nice weapon to have.

5 minutes later

Is this an actual musical number? Not only that, but it's a combination of two different styles of music that actually kinda works. I didn't think anyone could mix rap and country together, and actually make it work. But this movie is actually doing that. Holy shit...!

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Dead & Breakfast". Let's shut that off...OK. Wow, um...what to even say about this movie? Well...I guess I should say that, going into it, this movie had a lot to live up to. Because often, people have claimed this to be one of the best zombie comedies ever made. And I will say that, even though my viewings of zombie comedies are rather limited, this movie definitely lived up to that claim. It is easily the best zombie comedy ever made. Is it the best horror comedy ever made? Eh...not quite. I mean, it would be very difficult to knock off "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" from that pedestal for me, but this sure as shit comes very, very close.

Before I get into the movie proper, I want to talk about my stance on zombie movies. Now earlier, I brought up that around the early 2010's, zombies were quickly becoming the latest fad that the media were jumping on. It came in through movies, television, video games, etc. Basically, it hit the mainstream market really quickly. And throughout the years from when zombies became a fad, a lot of people, myself included, got really sick of it really quick. Now again, I haven't seen a lot of zombie movies in my lifetime, but even I know that a lot of them are just the same, tired plot that we've seen time and time again. The biggest example I'm gonna use is "The Walking Dead". Granted, it is a television series, but this is gonna tie into why I have a huge gripe against this genre. You see, most of these plots that I've seen where it involves a post-apocalyptic zombie world, always goes for the same, tired, cliche tropes that we've seen involving zombies. Where the characters have to find civilization, fight off zombies, meet other survivors, and try to stay alive as they journey towards that civilization. And my biggest gripe with this sort of storytelling is that people have used the argument of "Well, it's not really the destination that's important, but more so the journey". Well, allow me to make a counter-argument. If the journey is so important, then why are there certain characters that have to be killed off? Especially if they have tons of development? Is it because you care about them once they die off? If so, then why should I care about the journey, if they end up getting killed off? You see, the only way this argument of "The journey is more important than the destination" would work is if it's set in a fantasy world. Something like, say, "The Lord of the Rings". Those movies, and the books, were made for the journey, as you follow those set of characters towards their destination. The difference between "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Walking Dead" is that "The Lord of the Rings" actually has a destination. It knows where it wants to end. "The Walking Dead", as far as I know, has no end goal. If I'm gonna care about the journey rather than the destination, then why am I going to care about the characters, if they are just going to get killed off, anyways? Because then, it makes the destination pointless. If you're dead set on killing these characters off before they get to the destination, then why the hell should I care about their struggles to get to that destination? It just doesn't really make any sense to me.

So, with all this in mind, where does "Dead & Breakfast" come into play here? Well, you see, this movie has the advantage of being a comedy. And a very well written comedy, as well. Because it's not trying to be the same old dramatic bullshit that most zombie related films and TV shows go for. And it actually does things differently that doesn't fall into the tired tropes and cliches that most zombie stories go for. Now, that isn't to say that this movie doesn't have cliches. It totally does. We have the standard tropes such our characters trying to fight off zombies by decapitating their heads in some way, such as shooting them off, or cutting them off with a chainsaw in order to kill them. That part still stands. And while the ending is left on a possible sequel hook, it doesn't bother me too much, because the movie knows what it wants to be. And being that this is a comedy, you don't want to overstay your welcome. This movie clocks in at about 88 minutes, and I'm gonna tell you guys, this movie speeds on by. At no time will this movie drag on scenes for too long, or if they have to overplay jokes for the sake of humor. Speaking of which, as I made mention a moment ago, this movie has some sharply written humor. It is funny as hell, and it will keep you entertained, because it knows what points on when to make you laugh, and it doesn't let up. Our characters are mostly written well. I say 'mostly', because there is one character in this movie who I could not stand, which was David, who is one of the six main characters for this movie. And a bit of a spoiler, he dies well into the second half of the movie. And a pretty violent death, too. I won't go into details as to HOW he dies, you're just gonna have to watch the movie for yourself. But I was so happy to see him gone, because he was just that fucking worthless. But aside from him, almost every other character in this movie is written incredibly well. Just about all of them are likable. Even the sorta zombies are written very well, too. Almost every character, whether it's anybody from this town of Texas, or most of our main characters, or even the sorta zombies. All of them are written very well. Now granted, not all of the background characters are super developed, but they didn't really need to be, anyways. You're probably gonna find a favorite character in this movie. Whether it's the sheriff, the drifter, the woman who is protecting the Hall of Records, or any of our main characters. Almost all of them are very well written. Well, except for David, but that's just more of a personal beef I had against the character.

So, I should probably explain the sorta zombies in this movie. So, our story involves our six main characters, who are trying to get to a wedding, because the bride that's about to be married is one of our main character's cousins. And they end up getting lost, so they have no choice but to say overnight at this inn, which is this bed and breakfast. Which apparently has had some bad shit happen in the past. Although our characters don't get told this until after something bad happens when they try to rest there. And what happens is two of the people that own this inn end up dying. I'm talking about Mr. Wise, which is David Carradine's character in this movie, and the chef, who's accent I still can't pin down. One of them gets violently killed, while Mr. Wise dies of a heart attack. Well, before that happens, Mr. Wise has this box that he had with him while meditating. This box, apparently, holds a demonic spirit that ends up possessing Johnny, after he accidentally opens the box. And this is where I have to explain about the sorta zombies in this movie. You see, rather than taking the cliche approach of if you get bit by a zombie, you end turning into a zombie, this movie does it in a very different way. You see, when Johnny is possessed, he kills a couple of people such as the mute and deaf gardener from early on in the movie, and ends up ripping some hair from one of the cops. Now, what does he do with the cop's hair? Well, the wooden box is kinda like a storage of sorts. If you end up taking blood from whoever you kill, or if you have small body parts such as hair, fingers, or whatever you can put in this box, then they actually end up turning into possessed zombies...sort of. Our drifter in this movie, who knows about all of this, says that they're not zombies. And he's kinda right. Because most zombies would end up walking very slowly or make weird sounds when they're zombies. But in this movie, the drifter explains that the possessed are living between the world of the living and the dead. Which I totally understand doesn't sound like it makes sense, but you just have to kind of roll with it. And that's the thing about this movie. You kinda have to go along with the weird shit involving our possessed zombies. Because if you try to think too hard about how our zombies are not really zombies, then you're not going to enjoy this movie. In fact, the possessed zombies end up talking, and walking, like normal people. So really, like I said, you just have to roll with it, what with this movie being a comedy and all. And if that's, like, the weakest thing that I can say about writing, then this movie has nothing but sheer positives throughout the entire movie. And I loved every moment of it.

So the writing here is great. Again, as long as you're willing to roll with the sheer ridiculousness of how the possessed zombies function. What about the acting? Well, seeing as how we have a fantastic script, we also have acting that is just stellar from the entire cast. Everybody turns in a marvelous showing. And even though I didn't care for the character of David, he ends up turning in a really good showing, as well. David Carradine also does a really good job, for like the few minutes that he's in the movie. Seriously, he only has a short role at the beginning of the film, and his character ends up being dead of a heart attack very shortly afterwards. So even with his short performance aside, everybody else turns in a great showing. I couldn't really think of anybody in particular that might've phoned it in or just acted like they didn't care. Everybody turns in a fantastic showing. But then again, considering how good this script is, you would really have to go out of your way to suck hard. And thankfully, we don't have anybody that does that here. Everybody gave it their all in this movie, and the results paid off beautifully.

Now let's get to the special effects. I'm just gonna say this now, guys, the special effects in this movie are fantastic. For a low budget film, this movie has some of the best special effects when it comes to blood and gore effects. This movie has a LOT of blood, and it doesn't shy away from how nasty this movie wanted to be with it's blood. Now admittedly, some of the blood in a couple of close-up shots might've looked like it came from either pancake syrup or barbecue sauce. But it's good enough to where it looks like actual blood, and I'm perfectly fine with that. But anyway, the blood and gore in this movie is fantastic. Not since "Audition" have I seen some awesome looking practical effects. There is only one bit of digital blood that I noticed early on in the movie, and I believe that it involved Johnny, as he ends up killing one of our victims. And the way that the digital blood was used in this movie ends up splashing onto the front of the camera, as the killing was done off-screen. And it looked a bit cheap, but that's, like, the only instance of a rather poor blood effect in this movie. Everything else in terms of blood effects and the gore is great.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is done rather well. Sound-mix is mixed very well. The music in this movie is great, specifically the soundtrack. A lot of the songs from this movie come from the actor who played our country singer known as Randall Keith Randall. Which makes sense, because the actor who played him goes by the name of Zach Selwyn. Zach did most of the music in this movie, and it is really fucking good. A lot of it is mostly country music, and there are also bits of rock and rap in this movie. In fact, the rap song comes in very late in the film, where we have our one and only musical number. I'm gonna stress this again. I didn't think ANYBODY could pull off rap and country music together, but, holy shit, Zach Selwyn did an amazing job with the music. Him, and Brain Vander Ark. He also had a hand for the music in this movie, and it is amazing. So, I have to give HUGE, huge props to both guys. You two made the music awesome in this movie. In fact, I kinda want to see if the soundtrack is on YouTube, because I might need to listen to some of those songs again after I'm done putting this review together. But overall, the music for both the score and soundtrack was amazing.

So, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Dead & Breakfast"? You bet your ass I can recommend it. This movie stands, at least to me, as the best zombie I have ever seen. Now, mind you, that's not saying a whole lot coming from me, because I've only seen a handful of zombie films. But this easily stands as the best zombie comedy I have ever seen, not just for this series, but in general as well. The only thing I have to remind you is that you kinda have to accept how the possessed zombies function in this movie. Otherwise, you're probably not going to enjoy this movie. But for everyone else, if you are a fan of horror comedies, and you want a zombie comedy that doesn't follow most of the same, tired cliches that most zombie films and TV shows go for, then this is gonna be a perfect film for you. It is funny, well written, and it has an awesome soundtrack. I kinda went into this movie with low expectations, considering my stance on the zombie genre, but, holy shit, did this movie skyrocket my low expectations. This movie was amazing! I loved this movie. Now, I kinda want to go and find a couple of the songs from this movie on YouTube and give them another listen. And this movie is going to have a prominent spot on my DVD shelf.

And with that, guys, we come to close of the final Reaction & Review for 2021. Like I said, this year went by fast for me, and I'm definitely looking forward to next year with this series. Anyway, guys, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Bad Santa

 

Welcome, one and all, to the "Reaction & Review Christmas Special". Yes, guys, it's that time of year again where I cover another Christmas movie for this series. And for this year's Christmas Special, I have found a movie that I've been very curious about for a long time. It is a comedy from 2003. That movie is "Bad Santa".

Now, I do remember watching the ads for this movie way back in 2003, and I thought they were really funny. Sadly though, for one reason or another, I never got a chance to watch it. But thanks to this series, I finally get an opportunity to watch this movie, after shying away from it for so long.

I don't know a whole lot about this movie, outside of the fact that it's a comedy. I know, at least, three people that star in this movie. Those three being Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, and John Ritter. And I know that all three of them are genuinely funny, so I'm hoping that they'll be able to carry this movie forward. I don't know what the plot is to this thing, because I wanted to go into this movie as blind as possible. I also know that this movie has a sequel that came out in 2016. However, I cannot guarantee that I will cover the sequel. I gotta see if I can get through this first movie.

I'm genuinely hoping that this movie is going to be really good. However, I'm also prepared for this movie to really suck. I certainly hope that it doesn't suck, but I won't know if it's good or not until I start watching this thing. So, really, the only thing for me to do at this point, 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 "Bad Santa".

7 minutes later

Wait a second...that tune...is that "Once Upon A Dream" from "Sleeping Beauty" playing in the background? Holy shit, it sounds very much like it! I know you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this tune sounds almost exactly like that song from "Sleeping Beauty". I never thought I would hear that rendition in a movie like this. That's just totally unexpected.

2 minutes later

Wow. OK, that was probably one of the more extreme reactions I have seen someone give out when Christmas music is playing. And, you know, I would expect a lot of people to have that similar reaction, seeing as how a lot of people that I know don't like Christmas music. I don't know if they would throw their alarm clock at the wall, much like Willie did, but still, I could totally expect a similar reaction towards Christmas music.

7 minutes later

You know, guys, I am really liking how Willie sounds like he just doesn't give a fuck every time a kid asks him what they want for Christmas. I understand that it's not the most professional thing to do, but there's something about it that's just really charming. I just thought I should mention that.

11 minutes later

That was probably the easiest fucking steal in this entire movie. So, Willie brought this kid that was stalking him home. He asks if his Dad has a safe, and lets him take everything in it. And he even takes his Dad's car. Well...if anything, maybe the thieves in "Home Alone" should take a note from Willie. That's probably the easiest thing they could fucking do. But hey, maybe that's just me.

11 minutes later

Guys, I am loving Willie more and more with each scene. There's just something about a guy who does not give a fuck about anyone, even though his job is that he's suppose to be Santa Claus. It is just some of the funniest shit, and I'm almost loving every moment of it.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm gonna talk more about this later on in the review, but the cursing in this movie is rather excessive. I kinda expected that, being that this is an R rated movie, but it is REALLY noticeable. Mind you, the movie's been really funny so far, but it is something that is worth mentioning.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Bad Santa". Let me shut me the movie off...OK. Well...what to say about this? I kinda expected to like this movie, and yeah, I really did like this thing. However, I should probably get into the review proper.

I'm gonna start with writing. And I want to start with something that will, most likely, turn off a lot of viewers, which would be the swearing. This movie is not shy about using swear words. And in most cases, I would say that would be kind of a detriment to a lot of movies. Because when a movie does use a lot of swear words, it would usually sound like they're trying too hard make their movie sound edgy and cool. And I know a lot of people don't like swearing for one reason or another. So, I do have to warn you ahead of time that this movie is probably not going to be for those who don't like tons of swearing in their movies. That being said, I do believe that this was intentional. Not just the fact that this movie was rated R, but I do remember seeing the ads for this movie way back in 2003, and there was quite a bit of swearing from the time that I use to watch those ads. Mind you, it has been a long time since I've seen those ads, but I do vaguely remember them. And most of the swearing in this movie comes from our two main characters, which would be Willie and Marcus. These two swear a lot. Most of the time, they will either say 'fuck' or 'shit', and, like I said, they're not shy about using them in any context. Now, is some of this swearing forced? Sometimes, yes. However, I don't think it's as bad as I thought it would be. If the writing were complete shit, then I would totally say that it would bring this movie down. Because then, it would be trying way too hard to sound funny. However, the writing, and the humor, is really funny in a lot of areas. And I am happy to say that the ads for this movie that I watched way back when definitely lives up to that. But then again, like I mentioned way back in my review of "Santa with Muscles", I usually try to avoid a lot of the family types of Christmas movies, because a lot of them are just the same kinds of cookie-cutter Christmas movies that really don't try anything new or different. And while I will say that this movie could be considered nothing special, it's something that I can overlook, because the humor is just fucking funny as shit.

That being said, I will admit that the story is incredibly paper-thin, and rather non-existent. Basically, our main characters, Willie and Marcus, are taking on jobs at malls as Santa and the elf. The elf, of course, being Marcus. And the reason why that they take on these jobs is because they are really just thieves who take anything valuable from the malls that they work at, such as money, and anything else valuable. And in the particular mall that they work at, the mall manager, who is played by John Ritter, suspects that they are suspicious, so he gets his mall detective, which is Bernie Mac's characters, to try and dig up some dirt on them so that he can fire them. What I find strange about this is that he doesn't fire them when, at one point, Willie is fucking a woman in the changing room. And the fact that he overheard Willie say that "You're not going to shit properly for a month". Which, again, is rather strange, so I'm curious as to WHY he didn't fire him then and there, but oh well. And later on, when the mall detective does find out about Willie and Marcus's heist history, he decides that he wants a taste of it for himself. And by that, I mean that he wants half of whatever they steal at the mall that they are currently working at. I won't go any further on those particular details, on the off chance that you want to go and see this movie for yourself. But, in real honesty, the story in this movie takes a back seat to the humor. Because that's where this movie really shines. Again, most people are going to be turned off by the excessive amount of swearing in this movie. However, this movie also provides a lot of sexual and physical humor, and it's still really funny. And if you, yourself, are into this sort of humor, then you're really gonna love this movie, because it provides quite a bit of it. Now, since I mentioned that this movie's story takes a back seat to the humor, if you're someone who's expecting a lot of plot and development, this movie's not really going to do that. This movie knows what it wants to be, and it stays like that for the 88 minute runtime.

What helps this movie's humor is the characters. I'm gonna start with Willie, which is Billy Bob Thornton's character in this film. He is not likable in almost any sense. And normally, when I say that a character is not likable, that would mean, almost, death to a movie. Because if you don't have likable characters, or if your characters are not developed properly, then your movie is headed for a disaster. However, I really do think that it was intentional, and it really makes his character that much more charming. Willie drinks a lot, swears a lot, does not like children, and fucks a lot of women. Hell, going back to the kids, he will swear in front of these children while he's doing his job as a mall Santa, and it is nothing but gold when he does this, because he really sounds like he doesn't give a fuck about them, and it's some of the funniest bits in this entire movie. Now, part of the reason why that works, at least for me, is that I'm not a fan of children either, so that may help as to why I like Willie a lot in this movie. Speaking of children, I do want to touch upon the only real problem that I do have with this movie, and it has to do with this one kid that Willie interacts with. First of all, he doesn't get named until well over an hour into the movie. And his name is Thurman Merman. I'm not totally sure WHY it took over an hour for the movie to name this kid, but whatever. So, we first get introduced to Thurman, when he gets off the bus and goes to straight to the mall. And, somehow, someway, he thinks that Willie is the real Santa. And because of that, he asks a ton of questions. Such as "Where are your reindeer?, "Where do they rest at night?", etc, etc. He will ask a TON of questions, especially trivial questions, which drives Willie insane. And you could totally see why, because nobody would be thinking about that kind of shit. Well, unless if you're some aficionado of Santa for some weird reason, but I'm getting off track here. My question is why did this kid choose THIS guy out of everyone to think that he is the real Santa? I don't understand that, because the guy obviously doesn't look anything like him, so why did he choose Willie? Now, you could write it off as the kid is stupid as shit, and he totally is. However, there is kind of a reason for why he chose him. And I'm going to give a little bit of a spoiler. When Willie does tell him that he's not the real Santa, the kid does know this, and after showing him his report card, he was hoping that he would be a good kid this year so that he could get a gift from him, and that they could be friends. Which, OK, I guess that kinda, sorta, makes sense. But I'm still curious as to why Thurman chose him of all people to get a gift for him. I don't know, but it does come off as a little strange to me. Beyond that, though, the writing is still really good, and the humor is what's really going to sell you on this movie.

Now, let's get into the acting. The acting is really good, and I'm even going to include the kid that played Thurman. Which is stellar, because I've often talked about child actors being the worst actors by default when being asked to act. However, this kid does a really decent job here. And I'm kinda shocked that they were able to find a decent child actor that was able to make his dialogue work. But the one who really steals the show in this movie is Billy Bob Thornton. I can tell you without even trying that he was having a blast in his role. The way he gives out his dialogue, especially when he has to do his job as a mall Santa, is fucking brilliant. Which makes me curious as to what he does in the sequel that came out years and years later. And yes, by the way, this movie made me interested in checking out the sequel. I'm not sure if I'll even cover it next year, but we'll just have to wait and see. I also know that this was John Ritter's last film, because at the start of the closing credits, it starts with a text saying "In Loving Memory of John Ritter". And he does a pretty good job here, too, for the short time that he's in the movie, anyway. I don't know if it was because they didn't give him much to work with, or if he had unfortunately passed away during production. I don't know, and I'm not going to go too much into that. But setting that aside, the acting is really strong from the entire cast, so I can say that everyone was able to make their roles work well.

The only real special effect that I could find from this movie is a shade of blood on Thurman's present towards the very end of the film. And it's just there, really. So I don't have really much to say involving special effects.

Camerawork is really good. Lighting is lit well. Sound-mix is mixed properly. I do want to touch upon music. There is one piece of it that I caught early on in the movie. And it's a song that is very reminiscent to, or it might've been, "Once Upon A Dream" from "Sleeping Beauty". I'm pretty sure that this was a public domain version of the song, and not the version from the Disney animated film from 1959. I will say that the song was pretty good. But then again, I also really liked the song, and the music, from that movie, anyways. So, it's no real shocker that I would also like this version of the song in this movie. While I'm on the subject of music, there is also quite a bit of Christmas music in this movie. Some of you may happen to recall, back when I reviewed "Santa with Muscles", I commented in my review of that film that there was a surprisingly lack of Christmas music in that movie, despite the fact that it was a Christmas film. I'm not totally sure why that is, but it was definitely noticeable. This movie, on the other hand, definitely has a lot of Christmas music. And a couple of these songs are from Frank Sinatra, which is perfectly fine, because I happen to really like his music. So, it's definitely a step-up from the previous Christmas film that I covered way back in July. So really, the Christmas music here is perfectly fine. At least, to me, it is.

So, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Bad Santa"? Oh, certainly. I definitely had a lot of fun watching this movie. Now again, I have to stress that because there is a lot of swearing in this film, it's going to turn off a lot of viewers. So I obviously need to make a mention of that here. Also, this movie is definitely not going to appeal to family friendly audiences. So, if you're someone who prefers watching the safe, clean, family Christmas films, there is no way in hell I'm going to recommend this to you. However, if you're someone who is looking for a Christmas film that is different, and doesn't really cater itself to the family friendly status of Christmas movies, then I can totally recommend this movie. It is a fun Christmas movie. It is funny as hell, and this thing is definitely going to be added to the list of Christmas movies that I will watch every year. It is just that great. Now...as for me, I think I'm gonna go and watch another Christmas film. I'm gonna see if they're running "The Santa Clause" on TV. While it is a family Christmas film, it is one of the very few that I really do enjoy. So, I'm gonna go do that, and this movie is gonna have a happy spot on my DVD shelf.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and have a very Merry Christmas. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Psychic School Wars

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentleman, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2012. That movie is "Psychic School Wars".

Now, I didn't know that this movie even existed right up until about a month ago. And I discovered this movie when I was looking up information on another movie that I had some interest in covering. So I decided to find out what this movie was even about. From what little information I could find, it started off as a sci-fi novel from 1973 in Japan. It was then later adapted into four television dramas within the span of 20 years. It also had 2 live-action movies. One in 1981, and another in 1997. And then we also got this anime film, which is the one I'm gonna be watching tonight, that came out almost a decade ago. What's funny about all this is that the information I found on this movie, all of it came from this movie's Wikipedia. If you try to search this movie on Wikipedia, the only thing that it's going to give you is the character's names and their personalities. Which, I didn't bother to read the latter, because I wanted to go into this movie as blind as possible. But, at the very least, if I don't remember their names by the time I finished this thing, at least I'll have it there in case I need to talk about something when I eventually review this thing.

So, as you can tell, I have almost no idea what I'm getting myself into. I say 'almost', because there is one thing about this movie that kinda peeked my interest, and it's a tagline that I found on IMDB. The tagline says "He came back from the future to take over the school...". I am not kidding. That's all it says on there. So, at least I know that much going in. I have no idea who they are referring to, and I don't know why this guy decided to come back from the future to take over a school, but it does leave me kinda curious. I'm certainly hoping that this film is going to be decent. And the only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Psychic School Wars".

12 minutes later

Guys, I wish this move would knock this "open zipper" joke off right about now. Because this is like the fourth or fifth time that Natsuki has called our main character "Mr. Open Zipper", and it's getting rather tiresome. Which is funny, considering that just a moment ago, Kenji made a remark about that joke getting old. It's kind of a bad sign already when a movie is doing a critic's job, and that usually isn't a good thing.

14 minutes later

Wait, what the hell is Kenji even firing? I'm going to assume those are, like, fake rubber bullets, so-OK, and he just shot Natsuki down. Great job on getting her attention, dude. But seriously, why the hell would you even have something like that? Is that, like, something he uses to get her attention in case calling her wasn't going to work? It just seems kinda stupid to me. Just saying.

8 minutes later

OK, guys, this has bugging me for a while now, but I feel like, now, I need to bring this up. The lighting in this movie is so fucking pretentious. It is trying to so hard to be stylistic and interesting, but it's kinda ruining this movie because there is so much of it. I'm kinda hoping, maybe, that the movie will tone it down with the lighting, but I'm not totally sure if it's going to.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, this movie has become rather dull. Our story really hasn't made a ton of sense, the characters are kinda shallow, and the way that the lighting is being utilized in this movie is still shit. I am struggling to find anything worth of interest. And, so far, I haven't gotten that as of yet. I'm genuinely hoping that the movie's gonna get better within the next 50 minutes or so. But, as of right now, I kinda have my doubts.

19 minutes later

So...let me see if I understand this plot of Ryoichi's. He came back from the future so that he can find people with hidden psychic abilities and awaken their powers so that the Earth will become inhabitable. And if he doesn't succeed, then he's going to take those he finds with psychic abilities, and bring them back to his own time.........what?! Guys, this story is making less and less sense with each passing moment, and I'm just left with mountains of questions that are never going to get answered.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Psychic School Wars". I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Dear lord, that ending. What the fuck do I even say about that god damn ending?! I guess, without going too much into spoilers, the last 6 minutes or so is a giant mind-fuck that makes almost no sense. Then again, this story doesn't really make much sense anyways, but I'll get into that when I talk about the writing.

I'm gonna start with something different. And it's something I almost never talk about in regards to animation, but I want to start with the lighting. Yes, guys, I actually have to talk about lighting in an animated movie. Specifically, I want to talk about the fucking lens flare. Because there is an excessive amount of it in this movie. If you guys have ever seen J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" film, then this movie almost makes that film blush in jealousy because of it's over-usage in this film. There will be many shots where the sun will get in the way of almost anything. There are many, many shots where you will see the sun's rays popping up in a lot of scenes. Hell, the movie will even focus on shots of the sun, for, like, 10 seconds, because the movie needed to either pad itself out to an hour and 46 minutes, or it needed to remind the viewer that it was trying to be all stylistic and cool. But it fails at being that, because it ended up being incredibly annoying, and it didn't really stop until the movie finished. This is one of the most painful-looking films to watch, if just solely for the fucking lighting. And it's not just an issue involving the lens flare, there are also quite a few flashbacks or dream sequences where the lighting will just be up it's own ass by becoming bright as possible. Guys, there's being stylistic with how you want your movie to look, and then there's also learning to tone it the fuck down, so that way the viewers who are watching your movie won't experience a seizure. In fact, even though I'm jumping the gun when it comes to recommendations, I cannot recommend this movie to anybody who has this sort of disability. Because of it's over-obnoxiousness involving the lighting, it's going to take you out of the movie entirely. And I don't want anyone who has that kind of disability to run that risk of getting a seizure when watching this thing. It is just an overly lit movie, that it's going to make you want to avoid this thing. And that is something I never thought I would say about a fucking movie, but, holy shit, is this one making a case for that. To anyone else who doesn't have that disability, they're just gonna find the lighting in this movie to be incredibly annoying, because it spends so much time showing you how much it loves to be up it's own ass with anything involving the lens flare, or just the lighting in general in this movie.

Now, setting aside that issue, let's finally get into the writing itself. Our story almost makes no fucking sense. So, I brought up that tagline earlier from IMDB about how some guy comes back from the future to take over the school. I had no idea why before watching this thing. But after sitting through it myself, it still doesn't make any sense. So, we have this guy named Ryoichi, who comes in this school as a transfer student. And this one girl named Kahori is fascinated by him, even though she's only met him for one day. And it turns out that this guy has psychic powers, and he comes back from the future to basically find anyone with these hidden abilities so that he can save the Earth from being uninhabitable. I want to touch upon that plan, because it still makes no fucking sense. So, it started off when he saves this one girl from committing suicide. And through this magical item or whatever, he's able to show her something, and is somehow able to change her mind so that he can use her to fulfill his agenda. This agenda, I guess, was to ban all cell phones from school, because people have been using them too much, seeing as how they don't use real communication. By the way, this movie beats you over the head with this fucking message that cell phones are awful and that different communication is far more useful in the way that we look at the world by just talking to each other. Look, I get that. Cell phones, well current ones way, can be distracting. We use them almost every single day in our lives, that, without a perfect balance of how we use them, it can take up much of our time. But this movie blatantly comes out and says "Cell phones are bad and you should feel bad for using them because they can cause harm with communication". This movie is fucking enamored with it's blatant message that it almost hurts to watch. But going to back to this plan of Ryoichi's. So, his big plan is to help people unlock their hidden ability to use psychic powers so that people won't have to use their cell phones anymore to communicate, which will somehow end up saving the Earth from becoming uninhabitable. Why does he do this? Well, at one point, he explains to Kahori that the people of Earth had to leave the planet because our way of enduring life became uninhabitable. So much so that they had to move everyone to the moon, and the Earth wouldn't become inhabitable for 1000 years because they don't have the technology or the resources to go back there. And then in a moment of fuck you that's why, teenagers started to develop psychic abilities on the moon. And he figures that it would be the only hope his people have, so he could come back to the past and help try to unlock the people's abilities at this school, so that they can unlock their psychic powers. None of this shit makes any sense. And the reason why it makes no sense is because he dumps us with this mountain of exposition, and nothing else. This movie falls into the trap of "Tell. Don't show". Show us HOW the Earth became uninhabitable. Show us HOW the people got use to life on the moon after they had to leave Earth. Show us HOW cell phones are ruining people's lives that they caused all this bad shit to happen. Show us something, anything! But no. This movie only wants to tell you this shit, and not show anything in return. Because the people who wrote this were too fucking lazy to put in that amount of effort.

As for our characters, honestly, most of them are rather shallow and bland. Our main character, Kenji, is rather dense to the fact that Natsuki has a crush on him, and that his pants are not always zipped up. This is one of the most stereotypical, cliche tropes I have seen in anime, where there's this really cute girl, and the guy has no idea as to what romance is like. It is dull, and very cliche. And it's no different here. Natsuki is, basically, this girl who, as I stated, has a crush on Kenji, who happens to have a crush on Kahori. Despite the fact that she's been friends with him since childhood, and is also her next door neighbor, he happens to like another girl. This girl, Kahori, also happens to have a crush for Ryoichi, even though she's only met him for one day. So, you can kinda guess where this is going. It's one of these love triangle stories that showcases nothing new, or different. And I, personally, hate these kinds of stories. Mainly because, I don't like teen romance in general. But going back to the characters, I couldn't tell you a single memorable thing about Kahori, outside of the fact that she likes Ryoichi. Oh, and she also seems to like Kenji's dog, which is named Shiro. Beyond that, she really has no personality to speak of. And then we have Ryoichi. I've already touched upon his plan, which still makes no fucking sense, so there's no need for me to go over it again here. One other thing about him that I want to touch upon is his dialogue. Most of Ryoichi's dialogue in this movie is shit. Part of the reason why is because most of his dialogue sounds incredibly cryptic. Now, I don't know if that was, in part, due to the English voice direction, or if that's how the novel this thing was based on was written, and they were trying to match that as close as possible. In fact, I don't even know if this movie was even true to the source material. But if it was, then I'm probably going to avoid the novel, if that's how this novel's dialogue was written. And even if it wasn't, then I still wouldn't care, because this story is boring as shit. Like I said, it makes no sense, and I feel like there should've been more to this story. But since the filmmakers were too lazy to add in any kind of background or depth, it just comes across as rather rushed, and I feel like they just took certain elements from the novel and shoehorned it into this movie in hopes that it would make some level of sense. Which it obviously doesn't.

So, our writing is mostly terrible. What about the acting? Well, seeing as how I watched this movie on YouTube, the only version that was available to me was the English dub. So, I'm gonna be judging the acting from the dub's standard. And the dub here is kind of a mixed bag. I actually recognize a few of the voice actors in this movie, because a few of them were voice actors that worked over at 4Kids in New York. And some of them do a decent job here. The only one who of that particular cast that phoned it in was Scottie Ray. For those who don't know, Scottie Ray was mostly known for voicing the Shredder from the 2003 Ninja Turtles cartoon. And he also voiced Zane Truesdale from "Yu-Gi-Oh! GX". And for those roles, he was able to make them work. Except when he has to voice this creature for this movie. I want to say that it looks like a ferret, but I'm not totally sure if it is one. And for the few scenes that he was in, it sounded like Scottie was just reading off the script without giving any kind of emotion to his voice. Which I'm not going to entirely blame Scottie's performance on, because you can only do so much with a script that's kinda written like shit. The other voice actor I want to make mention of is the guy who voiced Ryoichi. He goes by the name of Daniel J. Edwards. I looked up his filmography, and the only other thing that I recognized him from was when he voiced Aigami from "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions", which was a movie that I covered way back during my 50th episode. And I remembered his performance in that thing being pretty good. This thing, however, it sounded like he was trying desperately to make his terrible dialogue work. But it just ended up failing, because his character was just really poorly written. While I'm on the subject of this movie's dub, it also looked like that some of the characters dialogue didn't necessarily match up with the mouth movements of the characters. Now, I don't know if that was just the version of it I watched on YouTube, or it might've been a technical issue on my end. I don't know. Either way, it is rather noticeable in certain areas. Overall, guys, the dub in this movie is kinda weak.

Animation in this movie is pretty good. The character designs are beautifully done, the color palettes are fine, the art style is great, and it's animated very well. Backgrounds also look amazing, too. This movie utilizes quite a bit of CG, which, for the most part, looks pretty good. The only exception to this is when we focus in on a few shots of a train passing by, and the CG on those models looks kinda like shit. And, unlike the CG train models I watched in "Mirai", the CG for the trains in this movie doesn't really look that great. However, it's only for a few shots that you see these particular trains, so it's not a huge deal, overall. And as much as I'd like to say that this is a beautiful film to look at, unfortunately, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of the really good animation in this movie is boggled down by the awful fucking lens flare, and the other noticeable lighting issues in this movie. And for a majority of the film, most people aren't going to notice the really good animation, because they'll be too busy getting their eyes shined in from the fucking sun in this movie. I swear, guys, if there's one thing that you're going to get sick of looking at in this movie, it's the fucking sun. This movie, without that sun, would've looked amazing. However, seeing as how it's noticeably there, it takes a great looking film, and it just makes it look subpar at best.

Sound-mix here is decent. However, I did notice several moments where the music will drown out some of the character's dialogue. But it's only for about several scenes, so it's not too much of an issue. The music here is fine. A lot of it is just piano music, which I'm not against. It's nothing ultra special, but it is fine to listen to.

Overall, guys, am I able to recommend "Psychic School Wars"? Honestly, no. I can't recommend it, unless if you are, maybe, a fan of those really god awful teen drama's such as "One Tree Hill" and "Dawson's Creek". If you are a fan of either one of those shows, you MIGHT end up enjoying this movie. However, seeing as how I'm not into that kind of shit, this movie doesn't really do anything for me. I also can't recommend this movie to anyone who are really prone to light seizures. Because this movie, obviously, has an over-abundance of that, mostly thanks to the lens flare. But even with that, this story make no sense whatsoever, our characters are all shallow and boring as shit, and we have a dub that's kind of weak. This movie is just not that interesting, in the end. I'm gonna tell you, guys, part of the reason why I wanted to cover this movie was because of that title. It sounded kinda interesting. However, I have been proven, once more, that cool titles don't make for a good movie. Or, at least, an interesting one for that matter. But if you seriously have to watch this movie, it is on YouTube, at least by the time that I've written this Reaction & Review. So, you can go ahead and check it out if you're really curious. But as for me, well...I'm gonna go watch something better. And I think I'm gonna go watch a Christmas movie. I'm gonna re-watch my copy of "The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas". Because it's almost been a full year since I last watched it, and I had more of a fun time watching that, then watching this thing.

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 in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | The Item

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 1999. That movie is "The Item".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. I know that the plot has something to do involving a box that 4 felons are trying to keep guarded for 24 hours. And this box, apparently, has some sort of an evil creature inside of it. So these felons open it out of sheer curiosity, and all hell breaks loose. How exactly, I don't know at this time. So overall, this plot sounds a little bit stupid to me.

But that's not what really peeked my interest about this movie. What peeked my interest was the reception it got. A lot of people who have seen this movie often regard it as one of the worst movies ever made. And I take these claims with a grain of salt. You see, over the years, I have seen people give out this same, tired claim for many different movies for many different reasons. A few good examples of that would be "The Room". Some people claim that movie to be hilariously awful. Personally, I thought it was just stupid in general, and the people who kept quoting that stupid thing made it a little bit worse. Another example would be "Foodfight!", in which most people trashed that thing for it's terrible animation and the way it looked, especially for a movie that had a $60 million dollar budget. Even though most people don't even bother to go into detail as to WHY it looked like that. Basically, it was a movie that was remade twice because of tech issues and hacked computers, thus was the reason for the expanded budget. But most people don't bother to mention that, because they wanted to throw that lazy title of "worst movie ever" towards that thing. Speaking of which, one more example I want to give out was the 2019 movie "Cats". From what I heard, the only reason why it was given the title of "worst movie ever" was because there was nothing else that was considered bad that came out that year, and they decided to throw that stupid title onto "Cats" because it was considered an easy target for them. Which further proved my point that most retards are lazy whenever they decide to jump on the "worst movie ever" bandwagon.

So, all of those examples I gave out had some reason or another to be considered the "worst movie ever" made. But the difference between those movies, and the one I'm covering tonight, is that most people don't really go into a lot of detail as to why this particular movie is bad. I've heard various things such as terrible acting, and the story being complete shit. But aside from that, not much else. Which, honestly, makes me even more curious about it. So, I'm not expecting this thing to be any good. I just want to see how bad this stupid thing really is, and see if those claims are as valid as some people have made it out to be. And who knows? Maybe the film will end up being watchable. Not good. Just watchable. I don't know if it will be, but the only way I'm gonna find out how bad this movie really is, 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 "The Item".

14 minutes later

My god, guys...this has got to be one of the worst paced death scenes I've seen in a long time. This fucking blonde bimbo has received more than enough gunshots to her body. And yet, despite that, she's still running, has blood all over her body, and...well, finally, she's fucking dead. Took her long enough to fall down and die. Holy shit, that took way too long. Guys, this movie's just started, and already, nothing has made any sense. So far, we're off to a rather bad start.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, I was expecting many things from this movie. I was expecting terrible acting, the story being complete shit, the dialogue sounding horrible, and a terrible composite shot of a gun flipping in the air in circles. Well, guess what? I'm getting all of that. Do you know what I wasn't expecting? This movie being catastrophically boring as shit. I swear, guys, the more that this movie continues to not make any sense, the more I'm just getting bored by it. Because this thing, so far, has not tried to not tell any kind of story that would sound interesting in any way. I'm kinda hoping maybe that this move will start to get interesting soon, but I have this strange feeling that it's not going to happen.

8 minutes later

So this is it, huh? This is the horrible creature that was inside that box? Guys...this movie is shit. I understand that there's about an hour of movie left, but I have no faith in this thing getting any better. I just want it to end soon, and I know it's not going to.

16 minutes later

Guys, if I ever meet Dan Clark, the person who wrote and directed this fucking thing, in person, I want to ask him what the hell made him think that this movie was going to be any good? Did he actually put any real thought into this movie? Because I am losing brain cells with each passing minute, and I got another...40 minutes of this shit to go! This is really gonna suck, guys.

20 minutes later

Why isn't this fucking thing finished yet? Seriously, guys, you have no idea how badly I want to shut this movie off. I have not struggled to get through a movie this inane and stupid in a long time. The good news is that there's only a little over 20 minutes left, and I cannot wait for it to end.

The Review

Oh, thank God, it's over...well, guys, that was "The Item". I'm gonna shut this movie off...OK. Holy shit, was that ever torturous to get through. You guys have no idea how happy I am to see a movie's closing credits pop up. Now I actually have to talk about this fucking thing.

I want to address something first. Because, I have this feeling that there's gonna be somebody out there who's going to say something like this. I do not want to hear that this movie was made to be 'intentionally bad' for the sake of being funny. Or that this movie was aiming to be 'so bad, it's good'. Because that is death to a movie. No filmmaker should EVER aim for that kind of status. Unless you are making a homage to bad movies, then you should not be intentionally going out of your way to make your movie a piece of shit. Because then, that kills the entire premise. If any filmmaker's intent was to make a movie that was intentionally bad, then guess what? You have made a piece of shit. Now, I am not saying that you can't have bad movies. You can. You can have bad movies that range from a different wide of spectrum's. You can have movies that are just plainly bad. You can some really god-awful movies. In fact, I've seen plenty of shitty movies for this series. Some of those are definitely going to make it to the Bottom 5 this year. You can even have movies that are just laughably bad, that they end up being fun to watch. But the thing about that is that those kinds of movies have to be naturally bad. They have to have a natural feeling to them. Whether it's something involving bad writing, a problem with the acting, or if it has shitty special effects. You know, it has to have some kind of element where the problems are natural to be found. Or, as I mentioned earlier, if you're paying homage to bad movies, then don't force it to look bad on purpose. This movie, on the other hand, has a different kind of problem to it. This movie is not bad. This movie is not terrible. This movie is not even retarded. This movie is 100% brain dead. This thing has almost no reason to exist. It is, by far, the worst horror movie I have ever had the displeasure to sit through. I understand that I'm showing my hand a little bit early here, but I guess I should try and get into the writing proper.

So, what's there to say about the writing? I would love to say that this story sounded kinda stupid, when I first heard about this movie's plot. However, 'stupid' would be the least offensive thing I have to say about this movie. You will literally lose brain cells if you try to attempt to figure out this movie's writing. It is so inept, that it actually made me feel a little bit more stupid after sitting through this film. Nothing about this story makes any sense. It drags on for way too fucking long, because we have scenes that go absolutely nowhere, such as when our main characters are trying to kill these drag queens. And the only reason why I can assume this is happening is when the drag queens first discover the opened trunk in which our characters open to find out what's inside. And it follows up with this long, drawn out, chase scene, where our main characters try to kill these drag queens in these dark alleys. There was no reason for that scene to drag out the way that it did. Speaking of which, our characters are all completely unlikable, and part of that has to do with the dialogue. The dialogue in this movie is fucking terrible. Nobody talks like a regular human being. In fact, I don't think Dan Clark even knows how normal people talk. Which is mind-boggling, because not only did he write and direct this fucking thing, he's also the lead star in this film! And even he sucked balls, but I'm gonna get more into that when I talk about the acting. But anyway, the dialogue is absolute rubbish. Speaking of which, I'm going to give you guys a challenge. If you ever decide to watch this movie, don't know why you would even want to, but let's just say you want to watch "The Item". I'm going to give you guys a challenge, in the form of a drinking game. I want you to take a drink every single time any character in this movie decides to utter the word 'monkey'. When that happens, take a drink. I guarantee you that by the time that this movie has concluded, you will have passed out, or possibly even die of alcohol poisoning, depending on how well you can handle alcohol. I personally wouldn't recommend this kind of challenge, but it's there in case you ever decide to take up this challenge. Actually, there's another word of dialogue from this movie I want to add to that challenge. And that's whenever someone utters the word 'fat' or 'fatty' in some context, because one of our characters is fat, and our other characters always have to insult his weight. Our characters are not only unlikable, but they have no depth to them whatsoever. There's only two of them I can recall. One of them is our fat character, who has a wife and children that are afraid of him because he fears that he might eat them. Get it? Because he's fat. Ha-ha-ha..........ha. If Dan Clark was trying make this a horror comedy, then he failed at it miserably. But then again, I don't think he was actually trying for anything when he penned this script. But anyway, that's all the depth the fat character had. The other I want to quickly make mention of is another male character who admits that he has brain cancer. He also mentioned something else before that, but I couldn't tell you what that was because his dialogue was incredibly quiet. There's also Alex's girlfriend named Rita, who is an artist. And that's all the character that she has. So overall, all of these characters are fucking shallow and lifeless.

Now, let's get to the one thing that our characters are suppose to be guarding, which is this thing called "The Item". So, you may have noticed during the reaction portion of the movie that I commented on the reveal of what this Item looks like. So, what is it, exactly? What does this horrible monstrosity look like? Well...I'm not going to spoil that part. If you really want to know what this retarded thing looks like, you're going to have to watch this movie for yourself. I will say one thing about it, though. You guys may notice on the front cover for this movie that there is a creature in the middle of it all. And it looks though it has a reptilian eye and scales surrounding it. So naturally, you might be thinking that our characters are going to contend against a reptilian creature of sorts. Uh...no. There is no creature in this movie that looks like that. So basically, this movie's cover is a fucking lie. And whoever made that promotional art for this movie should be fucking ashamed of themselves for lying to the viewers that are dumb enough to watch this thing. As for what this creature does, I guess it has the ability to warp our characters as they spiral into madness, such as when the fat character ends up shooting his assault rifle while screaming "Turn off the lights!". Or when the character that has brain cancer ends up getting mind-fucked in someway, while experiencing his, I guess, son as he sees him lose his mind. And I probably would care more about these characters, if Dan Clark actually took the time to develop them properly. However, since he doesn't know how to write characters, or an interesting story, it falls flat on it's face. Also, this "Item" creature talks. I am not kidding about that. It actually talks in this movie. And it makes no fucking sense as to WHY this thing talks, but it looks like shit when it's talking. Part of that has to go to the puppeteering. Because again, without going into spoilers as to what this thing looks like, the puppetering on this creature looks like absolute shit. Which makes this movie even worse to look at. And I totally understand that this thing, most likely, was filmed on a low budget, but they could've done much better involving the puppeteering of this creature.

Guys, the writing in this movie is absolutely atrocious from top to bottom. It doesn't make any sense. And, as I stated earlier, you're going to lose so many brain cells if you even try to attempt to figure out this story. What also doesn't help this movie is the acting. The acting is fucking terrible. Which shouldn't sound surprising, seeing as how this was one of the very few things people would bring up when they watched this movie. And yeah, the acting totally sucks. And in most cases, I would say that you can only do so much with a god-awful script, because the actors aren't going to give a shit if the script that they're given totally sucks. However, I have a feeling that this cast has never acted a day in their lives. Because these actors totally phone it in, and they have no idea on what the hell they're doing. And I'm going to include Dan Clark, because he plays the film's star, which is Alex. Even though he's the one who wrote, directed, and starred in this thing, he quite possibly turns in the WORST showing in the entire film. And that's a feat, in and of itself, when a person is involved in all of this, and even his acting is fucking terrible. Mind you, the entire cast was fucking shit, but when your main star turns in the worst showing, even though he had a hand in all of the major stuff such as writing, directing, and acting, you have fucked up somewhere. Not just in film making, but you have fucked up in life, somewhere. And that is nothing short of pathetic. So yeah, the acting is an absolute train wreck from across the board.

Now, we get to special effects. I've already touched upon the puppeteering involving the creature, so there's no need to go into that again. But I do want to talk about blood effects. You see, one of things I noticed about this movie is that when people use guns, they shoot a shit ton of bullets in this movie. Again, if this movie was trying to play itself up for laughs because someone didn't die after getting a ton of bullets pierced into their body, along with blood smeared all over them, then it fails miserably, because the only thing that it really succeeded at was dragging out a death scene for far too long. But again, considering that Dan Clark doesn't know how to write comedy, I guess I shouldn't expect too much from him. But my point is that, in most cases, when you do have blood that's just pouring out of your body, you should expect to die really quickly. But even when people are shot afterwards, they don't know how to fucking die. One example I can give, and I'm going to try and not spoil one particular character's death, is when one of them ends up getting their body shot through the middle, and there's so much blood that has splattered on the wall behind him. Naturally, you would think that the character would barely move after that. Instead, he's actually strong enough to try and light a cigarette! Because, you know, that's what most people do after they end up getting shot at. And not only that, he's able to get up from where he's sitting at and walk straight to his bed, with NO problems whatsoever, where he finally ends up dying. First of all, that was the only real positive in the entire movie was when this sack of shit character dies. And secondly, as I just stated, nobody in this movie knows how to die properly. If you are shot at, and your blood sprays out of you, then it would make more sense for you to fall over to the ground, rather than get up with no problems and go straight to bed. It doesn't work that way, and it never will. I will say that, even though there is so much blood in this movie, the blood effects are OK. None of it is great, but it's the only halfway decent effect in this movie. There is one sequence involving a composite shot of a gun flipping in the air, and it looked like shit. Guys, special effects in this thing are a very mixed bag. More so leaning towards shit.

Camerawork here is decent. Lighting here is OK, even though there is a LOT of darkness in this movie. And I am not kidding about that either. Sound-mix, for the most part, is decent, save for one scene where the actor who was talking about how he had brain cancer. The dialogue he had before that, I couldn't hear it because the music was too loud. Speaking of which, the score in this movie is fucking shit. And the big reason why is because it doesn't feel like it fits into this style of a movie. Especially one part of the score, where it plays this one track that feels like you would hear it out of a family film. It doesn't fit within the context of this movie, and it's gonna take you out of the film. Well, then again, almost everything else in this movie is gonna take you out of the film, what with it's atrocious writing and shitty acting. But yeah, the music here is fucking terrible from just about the entire film.

So, when all is said and done, can I recommend "The Item"? Take a fucking guess! No, I cannot recommend this movie to anyone, unless you absolutely hate yourself so much. Or if you have a morbid curiosity like I did. But I'm gonna warn you again, you will lose a lot of brain cells trying to get through this movie. And that is not something that happens a lot with me when watching a movie. This movie fucking did just that. This film is a guide on what not to do when making a movie. And that's the only reason I can think of as to why this movie even exists. And out of curiosity, I checked to see what else Dan Clark has made, and the only thing he has made is mostly stuff for children. Which makes it easier for me, because I am not wasting anymore time on what this fucker has made. He has shown, to me, that he cannot write. He doesn't know how to write a horror movie, he doesn't know how to write characters, and quite frankly, I am done with his filmography as far as I am concerned. This movie had a reputation of being one of the worst movies ever made, and it totally lives up to that. And now, I need to watch a better movie. I don't care what at this point. I just need to find something better, so I can forget about this abomination of a movie.

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 in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Short Circuit 2

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a movie from 1988. That movie is "Short Circuit 2". Which is the second film off this DVD 2-pack that also features the first movie.

Now, earlier this month, I did review the first "Short Circuit" movie, and...I thought it was OK. It certainly wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either. Really, what kinda held that movie back for me were the side characters. Most of them were shallow and flat, and I really didn't care about the relationship between our two main characters. The only character that was worth watching from the first movie was it's star, that being Johnny Five.

Speaking of which, this also leads into tonight's movie. I have no idea what the plot is to this movie. I do know that it's gonna focus on Johnny Five again and that it's set in New York City. I'm not totally sure WHY it's taking place New York City, but I am going to find out soon enough. Now, from what I've heard, this movie has almost no connection with the first movie, outside of Johnny Five making a return. So, I'm not totally sure if the continuity from the first film is going to carry over to this second one.

But really, I'm just hoping for this thing to be better than the first one. Again, the first movie wasn't awful, it just wasn't all that memorable. I'm hoping that the sequel will be better. I'm not totally sure if it will be, but the only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Short Circuit 2".

19 minutes later

OK, I have a question, and it's probably a stupid one. So Johnny Five was delivered to Ben from Newton and Stephanie, so that Johnny Five can help him make the toy robots. How the hell did they even know WHERE to deliver him to? Because, last time I checked, New York City is a huge fucking place. Ben had to have been really specific to Stephanie and Newton on where he was building these toy robots at. I understand it's a completely trivial matter in the long run, but it is something that is sorta bothering me a little bit.

16 minutes later

OK, that was a really cool way to just toss their asses out. And Johnny Five did that without inflicting physical damage. Well...kinda, sort of. Still though, it was certainly really cool.

6 minutes later

All right, well, you know what? That was probably one of the more creative ways I've seen someone defend their home. It almost makes Kevin McCallister's attempt at it look fucking amateurish at best. Then again, maybe Kevin should've taken lessons from Johnny Five on how to defend your home without going the extra mile. Just a thought.

19 minutes later

You know, guys, every time that I think I've seen Johnny Five do some creative things in this movie, it almost seems to top itself with each passing moment that Johnny Five is doing something creative. That time, he was able to use one of those city billboards to tell this guy running a popcorn vendor to get out of the way. It's not anything amazing, but it's certainly really creative, and I gotta give the filmmakers props there.

18 minutes later

OK, you know what? I can probably ignore the stupid Morse code trick that Ben and Fred came up with earlier, but how the hell are they still alive? Shouldn't they be dead from hypothermia by this point? You would think maybe after being trapped in a frozen room for almost the entire day, their bodies would be frozen solid. Then again, I may be ignorant on this subject, because I'm not totally sure how long it would take for a human body to die from hypothermia. So perhaps I should probably drop this subject, you know?

9 minutes later

You know, guys, I didn't think that I would see Johnny Five writing the word 'dying' with a piece of chalk. But the way it was handled is...actually a bit tragic. I was not expecting that.

The Review

OK, that's a rather cheesy way to end the film. But anyway, guys, that was "Short Circuit 2". Let me the shut the movie off...OK. Well, I can start by saying this much. When compared to the first movie, this film stands head and shoulders above it. This really is a good sequel. I understand that it shows my hand early, but why don't we talk about the movie itself?

Let's start with writing. I'm gonna start with something that I brought up earlier. And that was how much of the continuity was brought over from the first film. Earlier, I brought up about how this film had almost no connection to the first movie. And for the most part, it keeps the references and callbacks from the first movie to a minimum. The only real callback that we get is when Johnny Five is delivered to Ben's warehouse. He comes with a letter from Stephanie, in which she says that they, that being Stephanie and Newton, sent Johnny Five out to Ben to help him build the toy robots that he's been working on. And mind you, Stephanie is the only one from the first film who gets any dialogue from this movie. And I would rather hear her voice then fucking Guttenberg's acting again. But aside from that, that's all of the references to the first movie. And to be really honest, I'm perfectly okay with this. Because, if you haven't read my review of the first "Short Circuit" movie, one of the issues I had with it were the supporting characters being incredibly bland and shallow. There really was nobody in the supporting cast that I gave a shit about from the first movie. In fact, if it weren't for Johnny Five, I would've almost written that movie off as complete shit. Thankfully, this movie actually improves on this. First of all, the only character who makes a comeback in this movie, barring Johnny Five, is Ben. He was the Indian stereotype that was Newton's friend. In this movie, he ends up moving to New York City to start up his own business where he can build small robot toys that are modeled after Johnny Five. He gets help from Fred, who's basically this smart ass dick that starts out as a con artist who was trying to sell gold watches. He even tries to sell Johnny Five at one point, after hearing that Johnny Five was worth $11 million dollars. But he actually ends up being the second best character in the entire movie, not counting Johnny Five. Because, much like the first movie, Johnny Five is definitely worth watching in this one. We also have Sandy, who is a toy buyer that wants to order 1,000 of Ben's robot toys after she sees one of them herself. And Ben ends up having a crush on her. Now admittedly, Sandy's probably the least developed of the entire supporting cast, but she's actually a little more tolerable here, unlike Stephanie from the first movie. The biggest problem I had with Stephanie was that she got riddled into a forced relationship with Steve Guttenberg's character and she had really cheesy dialogue in certain areas. Well, to be fair, it was more so her acting that ended up giving out dialogue that sounded rather cheesy. And unlike the forced relationship between Newton and Stephanie, the relationship between Ben and Sandy actually feels more natural here. Our characters our really well developed. And even though I said that Sandy's character was the least developed, it's still better than what was present in the first movie.

Before I get into the character of Johnny Five again, I want to talk about something that this movie actually does. You see, I briefly talked about this in a couple of my past reviews where certain movies try to inject a message into their films. Now again, I am not against movies that want to do this sort of thing. However, you have to be kinda subtle with how you handle your message. If you want a bad example, I would easily point towards "Drive Thru". Which was a horror comedy, and I'm gonna use the term "comedy" in the loosest way possible because there was no comedy to be found in that movie, that bludgeoned an anti-Republican message to it's viewers, and it got really annoying, really quick. This movie also has a political message of sorts, where it brings up equal rights. You see, Johnny Five is learning about city life for the first time, because he spent the entirety of the first movie in the middle of nowhere Oregon. Yeah, I don't remember where exactly the first movie took place in Oregon, and I don't really care. But anyway, after it gets sent over to New York City to help out Ben, he discovers the culture shock of what it's like being in a big city, rather than the countryside of bumsville Oregon. And because he is rather naive, he's being tricked to help steal stuff such as car batteries for this city gang, or when he's being tricked to help out Oscar, who's after a certain set of jewels, which was a big plot point in the movie. And in certain moments, Johnny Five realizes that he's not being treated like he's a person. And this is where the part about equal rights comes in, because, at one point in the movie, Johnny Five discovers a church and he ends up in a confessional booth with a priest. And Johnny Five has been trying to find answers about how he should be treated by society, to which the priest says that how he should live his life is based on his character, so to speak, and despite what Johnny Five has done, he is deserving to be equal just like other humans. Now I will say that, while the message is perfectly fine, personally, I'm really sick and tired of hearing this kind of message. Especially within the last few years, where people wouldn't shut the fuck up about equal rights not existing, specifically for women. Which is bullshit, because equal rights has always been around for a very long time for just about anyone. I understand that I'm delving into my politics a little bit, so I'm gonna try and move past that, because I could be here all night typing my grievances about that subject. But anyway, that's where most of the message comes in from that scene. Now, I will say that, unlike "Drive Thru", this movie doesn't preach to you it's political message for too long. While it is one of the themes for this movie, it's not something that they'll hammer into your mind. Maybe right towards the very end of the film, but it's not something that I'm going to harp on this movie too much for. I will say, however, that the movie can be a little over-dramatic at points. And part of that can be attributed to the score for this movie. However, I am going to hold off on talking about music until I get to that point. But overall, I can say that the writing is certainly an improvement over the first movie.

What also is an improvement over the first film is the acting. In the first movie, I commented about Stephanie's acting sounding very cheesy, and how Steve Guttenberg had terrible dialogue that did not sound natural in the slightest. And thankfully, we don't have to worry about him in this movie, because he makes no appearance in this movie, other than getting name dropped once or twice. As for the acting in this movie, it's certainly really good. Every actor was able to turn some really good showings. One actor, in particular, I need to make mention of is the actor who played Fred, which was Michael McKean. Perhaps it's just the voice, but his performance in this movie reminds me a lot of Phil Hartman. Where he acts and sounds a lot like a smarmy, smart ass, dickhead. And I love that. Granted, McKean is never gonna be as great as Phil Hartman was, but it's still good enough to where I can look past that. One other thing I need to make mention of in terms of acting is whenever the actor voicing Johnny Five has to do certain celebrity impressions towards the end of the film. And by impressions, I'm talking about impressions of Robin Williams, Clint Eastwood, and John Wayne. And the impressions were kinda shit. But then again, it was more so the delivery of the lines rather than the impressions that sorta got to me. Other than that, the acting is really good from just about the entire cast.

Special effects are once more really good. But then again, a lot of it was just the same puppeteering as what was shown in the first movie involving the character of Johnny Five. So, I can't really talk about much involving special effects. But I can talk about something that I have never talked about before in this series, which is the involvement of product placement. For those who don't know what product placement is, it usually is something involving a product of sorts, where it is featured in movies and television to market whatever product they want to advertise. Three of them in particular come to mind for this movie. Two of them are very minor, such as Coca-Cola, in which we see Ben and Fred having lunch, and Ben's drink has the Coca-Cola name plastered onto it. The other minor one is Nike, in which Johnny Five blatantly name drops that shoe company once, including it's logo. But the biggest example of product placement in this movie goes to RadioShack. Many people today probably don't even know what a RadioShack is. And to make a long story short, they were an electronics company that mostly dealt with cell phones, television, and computers. They were basically one of the biggest electronics company from back in the day. You probably wouldn't know about it nowadays, because RadioShack is no longer a thing. At least, as far as I know. Basically, they went out of business like Kmart and Blockbuster did. And if you don't know what those two companies are, then I feel really sorry for you. But I'm getting way off track here. So, I'm going to assume RadioShack had some level of involvement in this movie, because their name was advertised quite a few times in this movie. Such as the beginning, where as Johnny Five is first making the toy robots, he's watching TV in which some guy was desperately trying to up-sell his products at RadioShack, because he owned that particular store. And it also get's brought up again towards the latter half of the movie, during an important part where Johnny Five and Ben are there for certain reasons. I'm not going to tell you what those reasons are, you're going to have to watch the movie for yourself. But anyway, RadioShack got the biggest plug from this movie. I don't know how much of a success it was in the aftermath of this movie, but I'm not going to go into that here. Point is, the product placement in this movie is definitely noticeable, so it's something that you have to take for what it's worth. Me personally, I don't mind it, as long as it's not your only selling point for whatever movie or TV show it's in.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is lit very well. Sound-mix here is fine. Music is also another thing that this movie improves on. You'll recall in my review of the first movie that while the music was mostly decent, the one thing that brought the soundtrack down was the usage of disco music. And I complained that by the mid-80's, disco was already dead and that we should've moved past all that. Thankfully, as far I could hear, there was no disco music in this movie. Most of the score was pretty good. Granted, there were several moments where the movie will play itself dramatically with some rather corny piano music. However, those few scenes are pretty few and far between, so it's not going to ruin the film for you. Soundtrack, however, is great. There are two pieces of music that I could recall. One of them was "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler, which is a really good song by itself. And the other one is when this movie, at one point, plays the theme song to "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood". Which, having seen quite a bit of that show when I was kid, hearing it in this movie kinda made me smile. Overall, guys, the music in this thing is great, and it certainly beats the shitty disco music from the first movie.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Short Circuit 2"? Oh yes, certainly. In fact, I could almost say that you can skip the first movie and go straight into this one, without having to worry about what wasn't carried over from the first film. Like I said, the first film is barely referenced here. Which is a good thing, even though the first movie was kinda average. But if you really must check out both "Short Circuit" movies, then I would recommend getting this 2-pack that I have on DVD. It's certainly worth it, mostly for the 2nd movie. However, even though I did say that the first movie was kinda average, I would still say that there are things there that kinda worked. Mostly it's just Johnny Five, but he is what saved the first movie. So yeah, I can recommend both movies. Especially, like before, if you're into studying robotics, then I would instantly recommend both movies. I, personally, am happy that I have both these movies together, because Johnny Five is what made these two movies fun to watch. And I'm certainly happy that I got to cover both of them for this series. And now, I'm gonna go watch another movie that has robots involved. And the first thing that comes to mind is "Transformers: The Movie". I'm gonna go watch that, and this 2-pack is certainly going to have a nice spot on my DVD shelf.

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 in the near future. Peace.