Reaction & Review | Monster In The Closet

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

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

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

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

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

6 minutes later

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

10 minutes later

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

12 minutes later

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

1 minute later

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

20 minutes later

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

13 minutes later

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

The Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reaction & Review | They Came From Beyond Space

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

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

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

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

13 minutes later

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

8 minutes later

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

9 minutes later

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

1 minute later

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

19 minutes later

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

16 minutes later

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

The Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reaction & Review | Sky High

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

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

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

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

6 minutes later

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

11 minutes later

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

18 minutes later

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

15 minutes later

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

7 minutes later

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

10 minutes later

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

14 minutes later

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

1 minute later

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

20 minutes later

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

The Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reaction & Review | In The Year 2889

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a made-for-television movie from 1969. That movie is "In The Year 2889".

Now this movie, from what little information I looked up, is technically a remake of a movie from legendary b-movie director Roger Corman. And I haven't really covered a whole lot of remakes for this series. The only one I can recall right at the top of my head is the remake for "Rollerball". That movie, of course, really sucked, though that's besides the point. Point is, I can't really recall any other instance in which I covered a remake of another movie. I *could* be mistaken there, but I'm still sticking by that until I eventually check back my older reviews to see if I was right or not.

But anyway, setting that aside, the only thing I know about this movie is that it's set after some post-apocalyptic world after it was destroyed and only a few people are surviving at a house that's faraway on an island. And then, shit apparently goes wrong afterward. What kind of shit, I don't know of, at least at this time anyway. Now admittedly, while this doesn't sound like a new premise, I've always had a bit of an interest in checking it out for some time. I remember seeing it on YouTube that I was originally gonna check out, however, I ended up scrapping that idea when I found this movie as a DVD combo pack that features one other movie that I'll get to a little bit later on.

Now, I'm hoping this movie is gonna be worth the wait, but I won't know for sure unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "In The Year 2889".

7 minutes later

OK, I have a question here, and it's probably a stupid one, but I want to ask it anyway. So, this clearly fucked up looking guy, the one with the peeling on his face. He was scanned just a moment ago by this "grigon counter", or whatever the fuck it's called, from the old guy to show that he's obviously been contaminated by radiation. And just a moment later, the brother of the contaminated guy walks in, but he's *not* been checked for contamination! Why...? Why the hell would you not scan the other guy to see if he's been contaminated or not? That makes zero sense, guys.

8 minutes later

All right, I have another question here, and it's something that's been on my mind for a bit now. So, the old guy has been preparing this event for 10 years, in which he's been explaining about how the radiation is not affecting the few remaining survivors right now. But earlier, he said that he only has provisions which will *only* last a few months. So, my obvious question here is what are they gonna do once they're out of food? Do you just go hunt for food somewhere within the area that's not been affected by radiation? Or do you just go with what you have until you die? I'm really curious about this, guys, and I'm hoping maybe that the movie will explain that at some point.

14 minutes later

Well, guys, even though it was off-screen, thankfully, I just heard the sound of a rabbit being eaten by, well...a contaminated monster of sorts. All I can really say is that I feel really sorry for that poor rabbit.

18 minutes later

All right, this is starting to bother me ever since Joanna's Dad brought this idea up. So, his idea is that he wants his daughter to marry Steve so that they can produce children, so that it can help preserve the future of humanity. Well, what happens if any of these children end up randomly catching the radiation from the outside world? Furthermore, as I mentioned before, there's still very little provisions that our current survivors are still going through currently. What are these babies gonna do for food once they grow up to be children themselves, let alone even get to that point in their lives? I understand that I'm probably putting a little too much thought into this, however, I have something resembling a functioning brain and the people who wrote this kinda didn't.

13 minutes later

So wait, Joanna's Dad says to Steve to *not* tell her that he went through the fog to go after Tim, thus potentially putting everyone in danger of him being contaminated. Good god, this movie is just becoming stupider with each passing moment! And there's still 20 minutes left to go. I'm hoping that something interesting will happen soon, guys, but I'm not totally sure if that's gonna happen at this point or not.

The Review

OK, that was a *really* abrupt ending there. Well, whatever, the movie's finally over. So I can go ahead and shut this thing off here...OK. Well, guys, that was "In The Year 2889", and um...yeah, that kinda sucked. Mind you now, it's not truly awful or anything, as I've seen far worse movies than this thing. But it's definitely not a good movie either. It kinda ranges on being rather boring to watch.

I'll get more into that in just a second here, but first, I may as well start this review off, as I normally do, by first discussing the writing. Now again, as I've stated way early on, this movie is supposedly a remake of a Roger Corman film called "The Day The World Ended". I've never seen it, obviously, so I couldn't tell you if this thing fared better or worse than that movie did. But I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that "The Day The World Ended" fairs far better than this thing did. As I said a moment ago, the movie ranges on being really boring. And anything resembling tension or suspense is tossed away to the wayside, because nothing much really happens in this movie to begin with. Even with our cast of characters that we are suppose to care about, even they don't carry this movie very well because all of them are about as interesting as toxic waste. Which is sorta ironic, considering this movie is taking place in a post-apocalyptic world and all. But I'll get more into the characters later once I eventually talk about them.

I do want to talk about something that bothered me as I was watching the movie. I kinda already mentioned it beforehand, but I want to go a little more in depth on it because it did not make *any* sense to me. So, John, who is Joanna's Dad in this movie and one of the main characters, came up with this strategy for 10 years just in case the world fell into Armageddon, in which he would provide enough food and fresh water for him and his daughter. And all of that, as he stated near the beginning of the movie, would only last about a few months at best. And the area itself where the house is at is protected by some stupid science in which the radiation wouldn't be affected by the river, that also somehow flows it away. It doesn't really make any sense, but honestly, I can kinda roll with that, because that's the least of this movie's problems.

What *is* the biggest problem though, for me anyway, is that, again, he prepared this event for 10 years, but was only able to provide enough provisions that would only last about a few months. So, putting aside the other survivors for a moment, what happens when those provisions run out? I would've suggested that they go hunt for some game, except the radiation is most likely affecting the animals that are trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic world as well. But then, a little later on, we get introduced to a character named Tim, who owns a ranch at the top of a cliffside. So why couldn't he just get whatever food that he had and brought it over to John's house so that they would have more provisions to stock up on? I could maybe understand not being able to produce milk or eggs from his farm animals, considering that they would obviously be affected by the radiation. But I would at least think that he bring whatever food that he did have over to John's home. Instead though, he's too busy making whiskey from the river that he shares with Jada, one of the only 2 female characters in this movie.

I guess, since I just sorta stumbled in this topic, I may as well talk about the characters in this movie. And like I said before, none of the characters in this movie are interesting or relatable in any way. They're all flat and lifeless. Which is kinda sad, because since this movie is taking place in a post-apocalyptic world, you would think maybe the movie would at least provide some decent characters in which you could care about, but no. That is not the case here. John is basically the guy in charge of providing rations to all of the survivors that reside at his house, and sets the rules and everything. His daughter, Joanna, has no personality to her whatsoever. And her love interest, Steve, is also really boring, too. Which, combined together, they're about as interesting as dried up paint. Jada is supposed to be a dancer, and her manager is Mickey, AKA her supposed love interest. And they were both on their way to LA before the nuclear bombings happened, which forced them to take shelter at John's home. Beyond that though, there's nothing interesting about them, aside from Mickey being a sick creep who has the hots for Joanna. Tim is more busy being drunk off his own whiskey, and I *think* there was suppose to be something resembling a relationship between the two, but nothing really happens with them together beyond that.

The only other character that I sorta neglected to mention is Granger, who is Steve's brother that I briefly mentioned earlier, though I didn't know his name at the time. He's the guy who was infected early on, and I'm surprised that they didn't kill this guy sooner, considering later on in the film, we find out that the only kind of food that he has any interest in is raw meat. Which most people can't normally consume anyways, however, seeing as how he's infected, he's always craving it. So he sometimes leaves the house on his own to go search for raw meat. The only time that he came close to it is when he almost eats a rabbit. But beyond that, we never really see much of him after that, aside from one scene in which he runs into some mysterious fog. And a bit of a spoiler here, he dies. Which again, I'm surprised that he wasn't killed off earlier because if the guy had some sort of obsession with raw meat and nothing else, that kinda gives me the idea that they should've killed him off a long time ago rather than let him go almost batshit crazy.

But yeah, guys, beyond that, the writing in this movie is just really stupid and poorly thought out, too. It almost makes no logical sense if you stop and think about all of the details that this movie tries to provide you. And all of the characters are flat and uninteresting, which makes for a really boring movie to boot. And as for the acting, well, honestly, most of it isn't really that good either. The only one who stood out to me the most was Neil Fletcher as John. He's the only one who sorta turned in a halfway decent showing. Which isn't really saying much, but at least he tried to work with the script that he was given. Everyone else really kinda sucked. All of their performances ranged on being mostly wooden and a little bit on the hammy side. And in some cases, I can normally enjoy both sides of those kinds of acting. But I can't do that here, because the acting in this thing is just too bland for me to even enjoy listening too. So, to sum up, the acting here mostly kinda sucks, with the exception of Neil Fletcher's halfway decent acting.

Special effects in this movie are cheap as shit. Now, to be fair, this movie was filmed on a rather low budget, And considering that this was a made-for-TV movie, you shouldn't really expect much to begin with. So, it's gonna be a little bit harder for me to criticize this part because of the low expectations I have of it being a made-for-TV film. So with all that said, the only thing I can actually comment on is the costuming on our monster that you see in this film. It's essentially just a cheap-looking mask that's made of rubber. And the claws on it's hand are also really cheap-looking, too. The design on the mask looks OK at least, so I can grant it that much. But aside from that, the costuming on this monster is really cheap, however, I'm willing to give it a slight pass, seeing as how, again, it is a made-for-TV movie that was made on a really low budget.

Camerawork here is OK at best, but the picture quality in this movie has aged like expired milk. And I'm not kidding about that either. There's a few shots in this movie where the filtering on the camera will turn red for some strange reasoning. It's really similar to what I experienced in "Moonlight Sword And Jade Lion", where the same thing happened in that movie. Now I don't know if it's because it was made-for-TV, or if that's how some movies were like when they were filmed back in the day, but it still really bothers me whenever I see this happen. Granted, it's not too big of an issue to overlook, since it only happens a few times, but it's still very noticeable. The quality on the film itself definitely could've used some cleaning up when they remastered this movie on DVD. But as far as I know, the only version of this movie that exists on DVD is the combo pack which features the other movie that I'll cover in a couple of weeks. So unfortunately, if you're expecting a Blu-ray or 4K remaster of this thing, you're probably not gonna see that happen anytime soon. Not that the movie is any good, mind you, but still, it wouldn't have hurt to have this movie clean up some of it's graininess a little bit.

Lighting here is OK for made-for-TV standards. The sound-mix here is decent. The score here is really, incredibly forgetful. I couldn't remember a single piece of music here that was in any memorable. Not even the music that played when Jada was dancing to it at one point in the movie. It's really forgetful, much like the rest of this movie's score.

So with all that said, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "In The Year 2889"? Not really, no. There's almost nothing about this movie that's even worth watching for, unless if you want riff on it with some friends on a bad movie night. But otherwise, guys, this movie is incredibly forgetful. I'm not gonna remember anything about this movie beyond the fact that it's really boring. And to think that I actually had some level of interest in it when I first heard about it last year. Well, it shows me that sometimes, curiosity can be a real bitch. I'm hoping the other movie on this 2-pack will be worth the purchase. But I won't know for sure until I cover it. In the meantime, I'm gonna go and watch something better. And earlier today, I noticed a video that was put out by the Cinema Snob where he covered an awesome cult movie that I reviewed myself a long time ago, which was "Chopping Mall". I'm gonna go and watch that next because I need to be reminded of something better than this 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 later. Peace.