Movie Scum

Written by: PBF As I walked around the office today telling people that I had seen Piranha 3D…well, let’s be honest, bragging that I had seen it, every single person said the same thing to me: “Oh, that movie looks terrible.” Well, yes. Yes it is. It’s fucking Piranha. As if the plot mattered, this incarnation of Piranha starts with Richard Dreyfuss playing Matt Boyd drinking an Amity beer. If you see this and don’t immediately understand that the following film will be nothing but a tongue in cheek, referenced ladened gore fest, then leave the theater immediately and go see Dinner for Schmucks. You obviously need your humor unfunny, and force fed to you. An underwater earthquake occurs and releases a swarm of a particular species of piranha that has not been seen in millions of years. Meanwhile, above the water at Lake Victoria, thousands flock for Spring Break, providing the obligatory hedonism required before a masked killer or hungry fish lay waste to the area. Loud mu

Back in February after the release of Cop Out was bombarded with negative reviews from many different critics, director Kevin Smith took to Twitter to explain how reviewers were out of touch with the general movie going populace. His main point (and this is from memory because I am damn sure not going back through all of Smith’s tweets to refresh) was that reviewers did not appreciate the movie for what it was intended to be: a light buddy-cop comedy with throwbacks to its 80s brethen. Less than twenty-four hours after watching a movie that did successfully replicate a lost 80s movie (that would be Piranha, review here ), I can safely say that may have been the intention here but a bad movie got in the way. Taking the old buddy-cop formula, Cop Out does absolutely nothing else with it. Here we have two partners who are loose cannons, destroy things in downtown New York City, get reprimanded and suspended by their captain, and yet continue to investigate a theft and a drug-smuggl

Written by: PBF As bad as this movie was, I kept telling myself, “At least it’s better than Flesh Freaks .” That was until the lesbian, laser toting vampires showed up. Before raping my eyes, Meat Market sounded like a decent Zombie picture. There are bizarre attacks on humans that are thought to be animal attacks. Two former employees of a security agency figure out that they are not animal attacks, but zombies, and as it turns out, the company they used to work for is responsible. Not half bad, right? Well, I am angry at all who were involved with this. Now, in this movie’s defense, there were some positives. The zombie make up was actually pretty decent for a film this low budget. If you can watch it long enough, you can find some fairly nice shots and scene transitions. In what I thought was a very clever touch (and I must have misunderstood this), I thought that this was going to be a sort of “A Modest Proposal” scenario, which would have explained the title of the film.

Written by: PBF ***THIS REVIEW MOST ASSUREDLY CONTAINS SPOILERS*** This is the second film where I have seen a zombie involved in a sex act. The first time I saw it was in Dead Alive . I will tell you this: it was far less comical this time. Deadgirl starts during a fire drill at a  high school. J.T.  and Rickie are entertaining themselves with bad jokes and daydreams about girls. When it’s time to go back to class, J.T. and Rickie decide to ditch school and drink some beer. They go to “the asylum” which is an abandoned insane asylum. After being chased by a dog, they end up in a room with a door that is rusted shut. They force the door open and discover a nude woman wrapped in plastic, and strapped to a gurney. Naturally they assume she is dead, but they notice that she is breathing. Rickie freaks out a bit and wants to leave. J.T. however, has other plans. He wants to to have sex with her. He sends Rickie home and stays behind to have relations with a woman that has been locked

Here we are at one hundred reviews on Movie Scum and I thought it fitting for the honor to go to a Christopher Nolan film. Don’t like Christopher Nolan? Go away now. Anyway, we may actually be over that number due to dual reviews and other posts that may have been mislabeled but it is the thought that counts. And what a film to be at such a milestone as just like every other Nolan film I have watched, The Prestige is expertly put together and a thought provoking tale that demand multiple viewings to get a sense of the care taken in creating the story. As it stands currently on IMDB’s Top 250 at #72, The Prestige is a movie far better than I would have expected the story to allow. Based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Priest, the script is adapted by Christopher and his frequent collaborator, brother Jonathan Nolan and features many traits common to other Nolan films, most notably the lack of linear storytelling. I have found that normally filmmakers use an abnorma

If watching Inside can be expressly cautioned for pregnant women and generally squeamish people, Grace is the natural extension of that film putting to film the notion that I am sure all new mothers wonder: “What if my baby is really a bloodsucking demon/zombie child?” Directed by Paul Solet , Grace is a feature length version of his short of the same name and concept starring Brian Austin Green and Liza Weil as soon-to-be new parents Jimmy and Madeline. Sadly Jimmy (well, Michael in the full-length) dies in a car accident which also leaves Madeline badly hurt and the baby dead as well. Some either miraculous or creepy event happens after Madeline carries the deceased child to term but it comes back to life as she attempts to breastfeed it. She then shuts herself in with no one but her midwife Patricia to turn to when Grace starts taking a liking to Mommy’s blood rather than the breastmilk. Even though I had not seen the short film (but who wouldn’t with BAG in it??) or read too

Written by: PBF Way back on Episode #2 (look how young we are!), Puck mentions a movie called Inside (À l’intérieur). At the time of the filming of that episode, I had not seen the movie. In this episode he claims that the movie is gory. Yes. Yes it is. Sarah, who is pregnant, and her husband Matthieu are involved in a car accident. Matthieu does not survive. Four months later, on Christmas Eve, an extremely depressed Sarah is at her doctor’s office for an appointment. The doctor tells her to come back the next day and they may induce her. He sends her home, telling her to “enjoy your last night of peace and quiet.” This is quite the opposite of what happens. While alone in her house, there is a knock on Sarah’s door. A woman needs to use the phone. Sarah, not wanting to be bothered, and perhaps just not wanting to let anyone in due to riots going on, tells the woman that her husband is sleeping and does not wish to wake him. The woman then calls Sarah by her name and tells her

Written by: PBF I guess I can excuse the fact that this installment took place in space, since that’s were Critters began. That’s more believable than going from Crystal Lake to space. Critters 4 opens with an inaccurately re-shot scene from the end of part 3 where Charlie has been advised to wait for a pod sent from the Intergalactic Council. There is a space law that says you cannot kill the last of any species, and a holographic Ug tells Charlie not to destroy the last 2 Krite eggs. As Charlie is loading the eggs in the pod, he gets trapped in it and is taken to space. 53 years later, in the year 2045, the pod is discovered floating around by the crew of a salvage ship, and they take it. They are unable to determine what is in it, but they find the logo of Terracrop. They speak to Ug, who is now Counselor Tetra of Terracorp. He explains that he will meet the crew at a space station not far from them. While waiting, a jerk crew member opens the pod with a space laser gun and o

Written by: PBF ***THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. NOT FOR CRITTERS 3, BUT FOR FEAST III.*** Have you seen Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest film, Inception? If not, what the hell are you waiting for, but if so, I invite you to check out his first film (if you have not already), Critters 3 . Not because it is good, but so you can suffer the same pain I have. The only thing Critters 3 has to do with the first two films, is that there are Critters, and a bit of back story given by Charlie, who was made Sheriff of Grover’s Bend in Critters 2 . This film does not take place in Grover’s Bend, however. Clifford, his son Johnny and teen daughter Annie are travelling home when they get a flat tire and pull into a rest stop. Johnny is chasing his Frisbee when he runs in to an older kid named Josh (DiCaprio). While in the woods, Charlie jumps out and gives the aforementioned back story to remind us all that we are in a Critters sequel. He in fact, is hunting the remaining Critters. As formul

Written by: PBF Fuck you, Feast III: The Happy Finish . Oh, and that is flagrant false advertising. There is nothing happy about the ending. There is nothing happy about the rest of it either, so I guess it’s consistent. During the course of this series of films, I have been subjected to a cat rape, a baby being tossed in to the air and in to the claws of demons and a man getting raped by a demon through a pipe, only to be impregnated, then blow up as his demon child is born. And that’s not even the half of it. What started out as a fairly clever, modern tongue in cheek horror-comedy has ended as a demon shit stained pointless gore fest. In this third installment, I actually believe that each new character was introduced purely so that they would be killed 6 minutes later, in a needlessly gruesome, sure to only be entertaining to the filmmakers’ fashion. They even threw in some “infected,” which I bet everyone thought would be brilliant, when it actually served no purpose, with t

I feel that for some reason, Below has been under the radar (cute, right?) for many years since its theatrical release. I seem to recall seeing the DVD turning up at any one of my DVD acquisition attempts at Best Buy but the vagueness of the poster, the boringness of the title, and somewhat lack of A-list stars have painted the picture as just another of Dimension’s direct-to-DVD abominations, even though with co-writer Darren Aronofsky on board it has a much grander pedigree than those films that suffer similar fates. As we meet the crew of the USS Tiger Shark, a submarine in the Atlantic during World War II, they are given orders to rescue three members of a British hospital ship even though this will take them off course. From the start, we can sense things are a bit off with the men on board, especially moreso after the introduction of a woman, Claire Page, one of the survivors they rescued. The first portion of the film plays out like any other WWII submarine movie I have see

Written by PBF The other day, Puck reminded me that I have only reviewed one of the Critters films and that I needed to finish the series out. Damn you, Puck. At the end of the first installment of Critters , we see a batch of Krite eggs, leaving a gaping opening for a sequel. 2 years later, we have Critters 2: The Main Course . At the beginning of the film, the 2 bounty hunters from the first, Ug and Lee, are in space with Charlie, the town drunk from Grover’s Bend, the town where the Krite attack occurred. They are killing some space creature, when another space creature calls them on their space video phone and tells them that there are still Krites on Earth and they must return. Charlie is somewhat hesitant about this, as he was a nobody and a drunk while he lived on Earth. Ug reassures him that he is one of them now, and this seems to calm Charlie’s nerves. Back in Grover’s Bend, the Krite eggs are discovered by some young punk, and he immediately trades them for beer to a g

Written by: PBF If you think Inception is a film likely to start many a discussion after viewing, you should check out Zeitgeist . Then share your opinion of it with someone. Especially if you are of the opinion that the film is accurate, and that Jesus may have never existed. That discussion is sure to go beyond a mere critique of the film and perhaps even incite violence. Zeitgeist is a documentary conspiracy theory film. That being said, it does not ask your opinion, it tells you what’s what, as perceived by the filmmaker Peter Joseph . It is sectioned in 3 parts: The Greatest Story Ever Told, All the World’s a Stage, and Don’t Mind the Men Behind the Curtain. Part I deals with Christianity and claims that it is ultimately not “real,” but rather comprised of things that come from other religions, astrology, astronomy. It demonstrates this by comparing certain events (Jesus’s resurrection, the fact that he was born of a virgin, etc) to events in other theologies that have sim

If you read this site or have watched any of our episodes, you will know the level of respect and … love we have for Chris Nolan. Yes, PBF may have a sick fascination with Weekend at Bernie’s but even he does not particularly laud Robert Klane because WAB does not equal Dark Knight , Batman Begins , Memento , and now Inception  on any level. Here we have a rare movie from a gifted filmmaker that is able to transcend multiple genres and their corresponding cliches and deliver one of the most intellectual films to overshadow anything else this year and probably many years’ films to come. Even after watching the damn thing, the plot of Inception is rather dense but it boils down fairly simply even though it strips out the very nature of the film. Cobb is a theif trained in the art of extracting thoughts and ideas from a person’s head while they dream. However, he is tasked with a job that even many on his team describe as impossible: implanting an idea into one’s head that is concei

Written by: PBF If you have ever seen the films of Kevin Smith , you will notice that he usually works with a lot of the same people in each one. Most, if not all of them are his friends, and it is quite apparent that they all have a passion for film. Smith's production company View Askew , has given us a few films that were made by some of these friends, and A Better Place , written and directed by Vincent Pereira , is one of them. Barret ( Robert DiPatri ) is a new student and is pushed around quite a bit. While he doesn't really fight back, he does somewhat defend himself verbally, and pretty much all of his altercations are stopped somehow before they progress. A teacher may come in to a classroom, or in one case because Ryan ( Eion Bailey ), steps in. Another student, Todd, is pushing Barret around, and Ryan expresses his concern that Todd never picks on someone his own size, and challenges him to a fight. Ryan ends up breaking Todd's nose, whereas he only gets

Written by: PBF ***THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*** Let’s do some math. View Askew + clown = funny,  right? Not really. Vulgar is the story of Will ( Brian O’Halloran ), who is having a rough time of it in life. He lives in a crappy house, has a crappy car. His neighbors throw bottles at him. He is a clown for hire named Flappy, that makes birthday party appearances. While this is not paying very well (or sometimes at all) he loves it. His mother also lives in a rest home, which is yet another bill that he has to foot. Needing money badly, he comes up with an idea. In addition to being Flappy, the birthday party clown, he will become Vulgar, the bachelor party clown. An idea that would have immediately come to anyone’s mind, he will dress up as a clown, but wear lingerie. As a gag, he will come in to a bachelor party, tricking the groom-to-be in to thinking a gay clown stripper was hired instead of a whorish woman stripper. Obviously hilarity would ensue as all of the party

I am sure you have heard of a show called Hogan’s Heroes . Maybe even found it funny? No? Yes? Well after that show was cancelled, a little film called Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS was filmed on the set of that program. You also might find this movie funny, you sick son of a bitch. It actually is kind of amusing, but only because it is completely exploitative. Ilsa is a commandant of a Nazi medical/prison camp. She is conducting various experiments on women to prove her theory that woman can withstand pain far better than men. She also really likes sex, and will select a male prisoner to have sex with at random. She however is left unfulfilled when they achieve orgasm, so they are then castrated. That is until she selects an American (named Wolfe, oddly enough) who has the ability to go all night long and never climax. The film basically alternates scenes of sex and torture for 90 minutes. There are a few things you must know prior to watching this. Almost every female is nude at some

When did parody movies become synonymous with sexist, juvenile, pieces of fucking shit movies? I blame Scary Movie . At its time, Scary Movie was a decent spoof of Scream , I Know What You Did Last Summer , and the other dozens of teen-based horror movies of the late nineties. While it has been several years since I have last seen it, Scary Movie had some legitimately funny sequences in their own right and also as a parody of the referenced movies. So, why is Scary Movie the devil? Because of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In fact, we could go as far back as Spy Hard to blame the decline of the spoof but no one saw that movie anyways. Apparently after the relative success of Scary Movie , Friedberg and Seltzer decided to take any meager accomplishments they might have had being two of six writers of that film and create a legacy of cinema that represents the very reason that people who read books, plant gardens, or raise hamsters think that movies are crap. Why am I dedicat

The Graves is the first movie from any of the After Dark series that I have seen. I cannot say I am in a hurry to visit the rest of them. In fairness, I cannot say I was expecting much from this film. Other than the brief synopsis provided by Redbox, I knew very little of it but I decided against a rational choice to complete last year's Oscar nominees for this instead. The Graves focuses on two sisters, Meg and Abby Graves (natch), who like comic books, Hot Topic, and heavy metal as they spend their last few days together before Meg breaks up the duo to go to school halfway across the country. In a pretty lame final hurrah, they set out in search of the world's largest thermometer and end up in a haunted ghost town somewhere in the middle of Arizona. There they run across a crazy-ass blacksmith, a crazy-ass realtor-looking guy, and a crazy-ass preacher. The story is very flimsy but I figured how hard can it be to screw up a run-of-the-mill horror plot which also feature

Taking place in the small Canadian town of Pontypool, we meet Grant Massey, former big-time radio host who has been unceremoniously dumped into this small market to his chagrin. What starts as a typically uneventful morning, school closings and obituaries are soon replaced with sporadic reports of violent mobs popping up over the town. The movie follows Grant, his producer Sydney Briar, and associate Laurel-Ann as they attempt to corroborate the strange events. Director Bruce McDonald stages the events remarkably well for a story that takes place within the same building, mostly the same room even, for its duration. Normally, one would expect there to be cutaway scenes showing some of the action or carnage unfolding outside but here there is none. We have three people, effectively trapped in a church basement, with only scattered reports from callers and their weather man to relay what is happening. This approach works quite well as not only do we get to experience the dynamic int