Reaction & Review | Knucklebones

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2016. That movie is "Knucklebones".

Now, this movie caught my interest, mainly for it's premise alone. And the premise is that some college students play some sort of dice game, which unleashes a monster known, appropriately, as Knucklesbones. And they have to finish the game before Knucklebones kills them all off. Basically, guys, the premise is what would happen if you took the concept of "Jumanji" and you turned into a horror movie. That sounds really fucking awesome, and this movie could certainly live up to it's amazing premise.

However...I have seen enough movies in this series to know that just because you have an amazing premise doesn't necessarily mean that your movie's gonna be any good. And this movie could certainly fall into that trap like many others have beforehand. That said, I *really* want this movie to be awesome. But I really won't know for sure, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Knucklebones".

16 minutes later

Well, guys, I believe can confirm two things, so far. First off, the acting here is *horrible*. Like, this is genuinely some of the worst acting I've heard in a horror movie in a *long* time. Also doesn't help that the dialogue sounds incredibly unnatural on top of it. And secondly, I know you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons...well, it finally stopped now, but the music that was just playing a moment ago that posed as "rock music" is complete shit. Um...I'm hoping that maybe this will turn itself around at some point and get interesting. But as of right now, we're off to a really bad start here.

9 minutes later

All right, I'm just gonna throw this out here right now, guys. We've been introduced to all of our main cast of characters, and I despise every single one of them! I hope and pray that Knucklebones just kills these sacks of shits off in the most gruesome ways possible, because that is how much I am beginning to detest them!

9 minutes later

O...K...well, that's certainly rather unique. I never though I'd see a summoning of Knucklebones happen by just having this bitch's bones literally coming apart while Knucklebones himself just comes out of her like a pregnancy gone horribly wrong. I'm gonna say, that was actually sorta cool, and I'm also happy to say that it couldn't have happened to a more unlikable person in the group. So, I'm glad to see her dead. Hoping to see the rest of the characters meet a similar fate sooner rather than later.

6 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a dumb question here, but something just came to my mind. So earlier, one of our characters called 911 shortly after they summoned Knucklebones, and she tells them where they are and that he just killed one of their friends. The sheriff just called Neesa's mother and says that he got a lead from somebody else and says that they headed somewhere where, according to him, there's nothing out there except for 50 miles of cow dung. Now, assuming that the 911 call did go through, how has he not received the 911 call yet?! Isn't it a job by a 911 operator that you're suppose to relay the message to any nearby police officers in the area that they got a tip-off from someone that a killing has taken place so that they can go check it out? I'm only asking this, because this has got to be one of the worst police officers I have ever seen in any kind of movie that portrays them as being incompetent! Guys, I'm really starting to lose my patience with this horrendous writing and I have a strong suspicion that it's not going to get any better within the next 38 minutes or so.

14 minutes later

So one of the only survivors who survived Knucklebones massacre from the 70's now finally dies by his hands. I would love to tell you guys that I feel sorry for his death, but...no, I really don't. His character, just like everyone else's in this movie, completely sucks. I'm even going to include Knucklebones in there as well, but I'll talk more about that once this movie is done.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Knucklesbones". And, good lord, that ending was retarded as shit. I'm just gonna shut this garbage movie off now...OK. Wow, just...what the fuck happened here? How the fuck did this movie take a premise that would've been really cool, and turn it into... this sort of turd? Good god, um...well, I guess that sorta gives it away. I wanted this insane premise of a movie to be awesome and...I'm proven, once more, that these kinds of ideas don't make for good movies. And this one is most certainly no exception.

So, I guess I might as well get into this thing now and try to dissect what went wrong with this movie. I may as well just start with the writing. The writing here is complete dogshit. Now earlier, I stated that this movie was essentially what happens when you take the basic premise "Jumanji" and you implement it as a horror film. And it really could've been cool, but instead, it just ends up as another bland, generic slasher film that ends up becoming stupider the more that the film goes on. Not only that, but the comment I just made in regards to the premise being similar to "Jumanji" unfortunately is explained in a rather stupid and convoluted way. Basically, the way that our main characters have to summon Knucklebones is through some old documents that explain how you to have to summon him in a specific way where you have to roll the dice bones in a ritual star to where all of the bones have to land on a specific part of the star on each side. And once that happens, Knucklebones is released and he starts going on his killing rampage. And the way that you have to stop him is through the exact same methods. So, it's not really a "game" per se, it's just more of rules on how you have to stop him in order to destroy him. Which then, unfortunately, turns out to be, like I said, a really generic, been there done that slasher film that we've seen many times beforehand. And the saddest part about all this is that it's not even a well-written slasher film either. It's just really fucking bad.

Why don't we start with the biggest problem that this movie suffers from the most; which is our characters. I don't care how many times I have to repeat this kind shit before it gets to these filmmakers heads. When you're writing a horror movie like this, it would help if you have well-written characters that we could care about. I'm not asking for them to have ultra-deep backstories or anything like that, just give me a reason to care about *any* of them. Give me a reason why we should care about these characters that are going through these horrible situations against Knucklebones. And this movie fails to deliver on that aspect. All of our characters here are unlikable and devoid of personality. It also doesn't help that when you're first introduced to them, they're all written as rather douchey and their dialogue is even worse. I'll get to that in a second. Now, the worst of these characters has to go to our main character, Neesa. The only bit of backstory you learn about her is that she and her boyfriend broke up because of vague and stupid reasons, which ultimately leads her into going emo by almost killing herself in the bathtub, before she gets transferred over to a hospital. Which then suddenly leads her into having a dream where she ends up finding the box which features the dice bones of how to summon Knucklebones, and she ends up hearing voices in her head afterwards. Because, I guess, if you try to kill yourself, you'll be connected to Knucklebones in some way. I don't know, it doesn't make any sense at all as to how it all works, and me even trying to explain that bit kinda hurt my head a bit.

Speaking of hurting, that brings me to the dialogue. The dialogue in this movie is fucking horrible. Mostly because, a lot of these characters don't talk like normal people. In fact, I don't think the writer, and director, for this movie, who goes by the name of Mitch Wilson, has ever heard a natural conversation before in his life. Which is why in the beginning, when all of our main characters get together, most of their dialogue consists of them talking about sex, masturbation, or something related to that subject in some way. And like I said, none of this dialogue sounds natural, and they all come off as incredibly unlikable partially because of those reasons. Another example of horrible dialogue comes when a group of other characters shows up in the second half of the movie, who serve no real purpose other than being killing fodder for Knucklebones. One of the girls of the group decides to part ways with them for a moment to look around for some copper. And when the guy with the beard asks if she wanted him to accompany her, she tells him that she would rather be "horribly murdered". I bring this up, because within two or three minutes after making that comment, she ends up getting killed by Knucklebones. And that's really more of a case horrible telegraphing, because this movie has all of the tension and suspense of a dead cat. Knucklesbones himself is no better, because he himself also suffers from horribly forced and cringe-worthy dialogue that would make Freddy Krueger frown upon in disappointment.

So yeah, guys, the writing here is just awful on every aspect. There is not a single thing here I could comment on as a positive when it comes to this movie's writing. And naturally, when you have writing that is this bad, and dialogue that is completely unnatural, you would follow it up with horrible acting. And, lull and behold, nobody here puts in any level of effort that is even partially good. Now, in most cases, I would say that when you have a script that is just horribly written, you shouldn't expect your actors to make any of their dialogue work. However, I honestly can't use that excuse here because I am convinced that most of, if not the entirety of the cast, doesn't know how to act. I believe that none of these actors have ever taken acting lessons in their lives, and it shows. None of them show any real emotion on their faces, and when they try to put on some level of emotion, like acting scared or trying to cry, it's so horribly done that it makes me kinda hope that these people *never* set foot in front of a film set ever again until they've taken proper acting lessons. Now I'm not saying that they have to reach Oscar-worthy levels of acting, it just has to be something that's at least competent. And, well, competent is something that these actors severely lack. So yeah, the acting here sucks from top to bottom.

Special effects in this thing aren't really that good, at least in terms of using CG. The CG here is all cheap and horribly done. Both of which include the fire effects and one other effect that happens during the ending of the prologue where the explosions looked like it came out of a Playstation 1 cutscene. It really is that bad. Practical effects are OK, with the best being the first time you see Knucklebones being summoned. It really does look cool, and it is honestly the only real effect here that I could consider partially decent. It's not great, mind you, but it's certainly the only good moment that I could remember from this movie. The costuming on Knucklebones is also decent, too, though it's honestly nothing special.

Camerawork here is OK, but I do have to comment on something that seemed like a really missed opportunity. See, a lot of the kills in this movie are done off camera. And there were a couple of missed opportunities that this movie could've capitalized on, had they wanted to showcase how Knucklebones kills his victims. One example I could think of is during the latter half of the movie, in which Knucklebones ends up killing someone with a blowtorch. And it would've been really cool to see this on camera, but sadly, the camera is shot in a way in which you only see the front of Knucklebones killing his victim without actually seeing the blowtorch scorching the guy's face off. Also, and this has nothing to do with the kills but something else that I kinda noticed. Now it may just be me that noticed this, but I have to ask: Does this director have a foot fetish or something? I ask this, because Mitch Wilson, at times, really likes to focus on the shot of women's bare feet. Now I don't know if that was something intentional, or he really just likes seeing women's bare feet, but it was something that I did notice and felt like it was worth mentioning. Who knows? Perhaps maybe he's Quentin Tarantino's sperg of a cousin that is never brought up in the family for various reasons. Either way, those shots just seemed kinda off to me.

Now, beyond the awkwardness of those shots, and the missed opportunity of seeing some cool-looking kills, the camerawork here is decent for low budget standards. Lighting here is OK. The sound-mix here is also mixed well. The score and soundtrack, though, kinda suck. The score is just a typical, generic horror movie score that's been done many times beforehand in other horror movies, and the soundtrack, what all of 1 or 2 songs in this movie, completely suck balls. I could remember nothing about the music in this movie, beyond that terrible rock music that they played near the beginning of the movie. So yeah, the music here kinda suck.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Knucklebones"? No. Hell no! In no way, am I *ever* going to recommend this film to anyone! Even if you are a fan of slasher films, there are a dozen other horror flicks that are far more worth your time than this shit is. It had a great premise that was ultimately ruined by terrible execution. That, coupled with the fact that we had acting that is beyond terrible, along with the dialogue sounding like complete garbage, there is just no way I can recommend this film to anyone, even if you might have some sort of morbid curiosity. And before anyone might ask, yes, this film is available on YouTube for free. However, I assure you, guys, this film is not worth even that much time! Like I said, there are far better horror flicks that you could be spending time watching over this thing. And speaking of which, I'm gonna go and watch one of those right now. I think I'll go and watch my copy of "Stitches", because that certainly is a much better horror flick than the garbage I just sat through for almost 80 minutes.

Good lord, was that movie horrible...well, 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 | Picasso Trigger

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an action flick from 1988. That movie is "Picasso Trigger".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie, outside of a couple of things. First of all, it's the third movie in the "Triple-B" series by Andy Sidaris. Secondly, the two actresses who played our main characters from the previous movie, which was "Hard Ticket To Hawaii", are reprising their roles for this film. So, that kinda leaves me with a bit of dread, mostly because their acting in that movie was fucking terrible. However, I do understand the method as to why Mr. Sidaris casted these women, seeing as how they had some connection to Playboy and Penthouse Playmates. So I'm not about to complain about that. I just don't have much hopes for their acting to improve at all from "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" into this one.

But who knows? I have been surprised by a lot of things in this series, so perhaps maybe their acting will improve here in someway. It's doubtful, but they could still prove me wrong. I'm hoping that the rest of the movie is gonna live up to the cheesiness factor of what these movies were trying to accomplish. But the only way I'm gonna know the answer to all of that is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Picasso Trigger".

8 minutes later

OK, guys, I know it's early for me to be commenting on this, but I have to ask it. So we're being introduced to Travis, who's now taking over the Malibu Express. So...what exactly happened to Rowdy, the previous Abilene from "Hard Ticket To Hawaii"? Did he also just retire to become an actor like Cody did? I'm hoping the movie will explain that at some point, because the fact that they just keep changing Abilene's is sorta bugging me a little bit.

6 minutes later

So, upon spotting a chopper following these guys, one of them aiming a bazooka at them from the side, the blonde guy decides to tell the fat guy to pull over to the side of the road, just so he can shoot the chopper with his tiny ass pistol of all things, and the car immediately blows up thanks to the fired-bazooka. On what grounds was it a good idea to stop the car?! At the very least, they could've gained some ground before the guy with the bazooka fired on them. Yeah sure, they probably still would've died anyways, but at least it would've made a little bit more sense than stopping like a deadass retard who's asking to be blown be up! The logic behind that move made no sense at all.

13 minutes later

Well, guys, I believe can confirm one thing that hasn't changed from "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" to "Picasso Trigger". The acting from our two leading ladies is just as bad as it was in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". Mind you, I kinda predicted this would happen, but still, my hopes about their acting getting better here is dashing away pretty fast already.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I find it sorta funny that the movie is actually now trying to dump us with all this plot exposition. And what I find sorta hilarious about all this is that, up until this point, there has been hardly *any* plot to speak of. And what's even more funny about all this is that, even with this plot exposition, I'm still having a bit of hard time following it because there's just too much exposition here. I want to care about it more, but I'm just not finding much of reason to do so here.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, for an action film, there is *barely* any action going on...unless, of course, you want to count any scene involving women having sex with guys or showing off their breasts at almost any given point. And honestly, I'm having mixed feelings about this. I'll talk about that later, when I get to eventually review this movie, but I just wanted to let you guys know now that there has hardly been any action scenes at all happening in this movie up till this point.

3 minutes later

OK, well...that was sorta interesting. This guy just eye-poked this large dude's eyes to death ala 3 Stooges style. Certainly kinda messed up, but at least it is something interesting.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Picasso Trigger". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, where to start here? Well, first off, I am gonna say that this film almost has the exact same problems as "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" did. And I'll get more into that in a second here, but I gotta admit, even though the problems with this film are noticeable, it honestly didn't bother me as much as it did in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". So, bear that in mind as I review this movie, because I know it may not sound like it makes any sense to you guys when I say that some of the same problems that happened in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" aren't as prevalent as they were in this movie.

So anyway, let's actually get into the movie itself here, and I want to start with the writing. The writing here is honestly the weakest point of the entire film. Now I understand that since this is an action film, writing is not something most people look for when watching an action movie. However, I feel like, when compared to the previous two films, this one seemed like it was trying to take itself somewhat more seriously with it's plot. The problem with that, though, is that it tries way too hard at it. Because, up until around the 40 minute mark of the film, the movie really didn't have much of any plot at all. The only thing you really knew is that an agent named Salazar, better code-named as Picasso Trigger, ends up getting killed in Paris, and our two female stars, along with Travis Abilene, are being sent out to find his killer and everyone associated with him. Which, OK, it's pretty simple to follow at first, but then, after around the 40 minute mark or so, they dump you with this mountain of exposition about all of these shady villains and how they're all connected in some way. And it doesn't work, because since there's so much information to grasp, you're gonna have a very hard time following it all. Especially if you're trying to view this thing as a serious action flick. It just doesn't work in this situation.

Now, setting that part aside, I want to touch upon the characters next. First of all, Donna and Taryn are just about as a bland as they were in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". Though if there is any consolation, Taryn doesn't reference anything related to James Bond here, like how she did in the previous film. It's not much of a positive, but at least it's something, I guess. And then, there's Travis Abilene. First off, they don't explain why he replaces Rowdy Abilene in the previous movie. He just does, really, simply because fuck you, that is why. But leaving that aside, the movie actually tries to give Travis some kind of character depth, as there's another character in this movie named Pantera that he shares some sort of questionable relationship with. Now I won't spoil how it all turns out in the end, if you're really curious about that sort of thing. However, the problem with all this is that Travis's personality is about as interesting as dried-up paint. There's nothing about his personality that's in any way interesting. Which is saying a lot, considering how boring of a character Rowdy was. And yet, somehow, they made Travis even more of a boring Abilene than Rowdy. And part of the reason why I believe this to be the case is the actor playing him. However, I'll get more into that once I cover the acting.

One other thing that I want to comment on, in terms of the writing, is the overall pacing of the film. This movie's pacing, similar to "Hard Ticket To Hawaii", is kinda bad. There are scenes and subplots in this movie that go pretty much nowhere. And also, the action scenes feel far more spaced-out than they were in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". Which admittedly, can be seen as a more of an issue of the bunch, because most people who care about the action aren't really going to find a whole lot of it here until the 3rd act of the movie. Now I could also mention that are far too many scenes in this movie where the women will either be topless or have sex with another guy in some way, however, I'm not gonna be able to do that here. Because, again, these kinds of trashy movies were Andy Sidaris's bread and butter, and if you didn't know about that, then I'm letting you know now, because that's the kind of movies he made which were very successful, regardless of the quality of the movies itself. And I am gonna say that, even though this movie isn't great by any stretch, I will say that it's quite possibly the most perfect kind of fanservice movie out there. And if you're into that kind of thing, then you are absolutely going to love this as the actresses in this thing are, admittedly, sexy as hell. And if anything else, at least this movie definitely lives up to that standard.

But overall, guys, the writing in this movie is definitely the weakest out of all the films I've seen from Sidaris up till this point. As a serious plot-driven story, it fails miserably. But as, like, a mindless action film, there is definitely more enjoyment to be had here than "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". Which I know is probably a bold claim, considering how well liked that movie is. But like I said, I wasn't able to get into that movie as much, because the problems became a little too much even for me. This film, however, while it does suffer some of the same problems that movie did, it doesn't really bother me as much here because I was honestly still entertained enough to where I was able to overlook most of the problems that normally would bother me with plotless action films like this. So, it's kind of a give or take situation here. The writing is definitely not good, but there is still quite a bit of enjoyment to be had here with this movie, what with the action scenes in the 3rd act being wild and over the top and, of course, the mountain of fanservice that is present in this film.

Now, with that all said, there are still a couple of more problems with this movie that I do want to make mention of. One of them is, naturally, the acting. The acting in this movie is just about as bad as it was in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". The two leading actresses who play Donna and Taryn sound just as terrible as they did in the previous film. So if you're expecting their acting to get any better here, you're gonna be shit out of luck, because the acting from them is just as terrible here as it was in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". I'm also gonna include Travis Abilene's actor, who goes by the name of Steve Bond. I mentioned, earlier, about his personality being about as interesting as dried-up paint. Well, the reason why I made that comment was because his acting in this thing is *incredibly* wooden. The dude has no range in his voice and he makes no effort in breaking that wooden acting of his. In fact, his acting is so wooden, that he almost out-wooden's Chuck Norris's horrendous acting! That is a fucking feat to nearly accomplish, but Steve Bond almost nails that in the worst possible way imagined. So, make of that what you will. The rest of the acting, like I said, is pretty bad. Though honestly, from the rest of the entire cast, it could've been a lot worse, too.

Special effects in this thing are just about as on par as they were in previous two films in the "Triple-B" series. You have the standard squib-work for the guns, blood effects that are kinda few and far between but are still passable, and you also have the pyrotechnic stuff, which is pretty good. Speaking of which, though, I do have to comment on one thing in regards to the explosions. See, there are a couple of scenes in this movie where you get to see the explosions up-close, and on a couple of those occasions, you can see the obvious dummies that go flying from the explosions. Which, honestly, is the only kind of bad effect that you see in this movie. However, it's only if you're really looking for it. I happened to notice it on those couple of occasions and felt like they were noticeable enough to make mention of. So really, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth there. Otherwise, guys, the special effects here are, more or less, the same kind of thing that was in the previous two films.

Camerawork here is pretty good, and I will also say that the shitty editing that was present in "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" is thankfully not present here. So, that is definitely one big positive I can give this movie. Lighting here is really good. But then again, a lot of this was shot during the day on different locations, so that's kind of a given. Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The score here, I will also say is a vast improvement over "Hard Ticket To Hawaii". While the 80's synth music is still present here, they also bring back some of the country music that was present in "Malibu Express". And while it's certainly not memorable, it's definitely an improvement over the shitty score that "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" had. Where with that thing, it mostly had that 80's synth music which sounded shitty and terrible, and also brought out the worst from 80's music. At least here, the synth music is a lot more tolerable and felt more in place than how the previous movie sounded. So if anything else, the score is definitely an improvement in this movie.

Overall, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Picasso Trigger"? Only if you liked the previous two films from Andy Sidaris. This movie is filled to the brim with that 80's cheesfest action that is present, even if it admittedly is mostly present in the 3rd act. It also has a lot of fanservice in the movie that I know will definitely satisfy those who like seeing sexy women showing off their boobs and such. The story is, again, the weakest part of the film. And as such, if you go into it with the mindset of looking for a serious action-filled story, then you're not gonna be able to enjoy this film. But if you go into it with the mindset of it being a plotless action flick that has that Sidaris charm to it, then you are going to love this thing. And as for myself, while I didn't quite enjoy "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" like a lot of other people who saw that film did, I most certainly found a lot more enjoyment here than with the previous movie. So, I'm definitely going to be watching it again at some point. I'm just hoping that the other one I'm gonna cover in this run of Sidaris's films is gonna be just as fun as it was here. Now...with that said, I think I'm gonna pop in another action film from my DVD collection somewhere. Who knows? I might just end up watching another 007 movie. Which one? I don't know, but I'll find something there to watch again just as soon as I can figure out which one I haven't seen in a while.

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.