Movie Scum

The late nineties was a good period for the not-quite-seventeen Puck as the underpaid teenage theater workers of the world cared more about discussing the merits or Chumbawamba or Alicia Silverstone and less about keeping young impressionable minds like mine away from gore and violence in R-rated movies. Thus, Digger and I were able to attend a showing at a long since defunct theater to see Event Horizon , our enthusiasm based only off of the plot synopsis and images I had seen online. To Digger’s recollection, we were almost literally blown away by the oppressively loud speakers in the theater but I was more taken into the relative beauty of the film. Now, don’t get me wrong, you cannot call Event Horizon groundbreaking or award-winning by any stretch but it has a special charm that still warms a place in the cold, dank chambers of my heart. One of my favorite aspects in just about any movie is a small, self-contained cast of characters. With the main crew eight strong, there is

Written by: Digger Before I get to the review proper, I need to point out that we are now living in a day and age where any random person can be driving down the road, look up, and see the words KICK-ASS plastered on a movie theater marquee.Much like Pluto being booted from its planetary status, it seems the word “ass” no longer counts as profanity. Unlike other comic book movies, the film Kick-Ass and the limited Marvel Comic series of the same name were developed simultaneously. Even so, there are some significant differences between the comic series and the film, which I will touch on as they arise. The story begins with New York high-school student David Lizewski ( Aaron Johnson ) asking himself, and the audience, why no one has ever tried to be a comic book-style superhero. In spite of the fact that he has no special powers or tragic past, and has to purchase a superhero costume on the internet, Dave genuinely wants to help those in need and make a difference in his commun

Written by: Digger Duncan Jones ’ Moon is a science fiction story in the purest sense of the term. It concerns the plight of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) working alone on the moon running a facility that mines Helium-3 for an energy company back on Earth. Inside of the first scene the audience is crushed by the sense of isolation shown to us as Sam has only GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) the station Artificial Intelligence with whom to communicate. Through the simple premise of a man alone on the moon, this film explores speculative technology that leads Sam and the viewer on an emotional and introspective journey of what it really means to be human.

Written by: PBF I love it when I find a movie I have never heard of, and it turns out to be good. Video X: The Dwayne and Darla-Jean Story would have you believe that you are watching actual events from a video shot by a couple from Kentucky. You aren’t, but the film does a damn good job making you think you are. Dwayne and Darla-Jean are starting a new life and heading to Little River, and are video taping the escapade.  While at a campground, they are robbed and all of their money is stolen. They are nowhere near their destination, and Dwayne refuses to go back home, and be ridiculed for failing on day 1 of their journey. They resort to stealing from a convenience store, and the plan goes horribly awry, and their vacation becomes a completely different kind of road trip. I will summarize no further, so as not to ruin the pleasant progression that occurs. I have yet to see a film shot in this hand held video style, ala Blair Witch Project , that successfully has me believe th

Written by: PBF I had never actually seen the entirety of Team America: World Police until today. From the creators of South Park is an absolutely hilarious, offensive, politically themed action movie parody, complete with their song “Montage” in which the lyrics describe what a montage is during a montage. Also included is “America, Fuck Yeah!” and quotable lines like “Derka derka derka.” Also, the film includes perhaps one of the most disturbing sex scenes, ever. Did I mention that there are only voice actors, because everyone is a puppet? Completely over the top, but not without a valid message.

Written by: PBF Dave Parker, the writer/director of The Dead Hate the Living! said that he wanted to make the most un-Full Moon movie that he could. Full Moon Entertainment has brought us such delights as Puppet Master , Killjoy and was a distributor of Gingerbread Man 2: Passion of the Crust. What Parker meant was, he wanted to make a film without small creatures and make a film that felt as much like a real movie as he could make it. I assume he meant “real” literally, as he also said he purposely made the film referential of the low budget genre. Believe me, the film is full of references. We have a group of young filmmakers shooting a zombie picture. Through some forced exposition we learn that this is the director, David Poe’s first movie. His best friend Paul is the effects guy, and his two sisters are actresses (although Nina Poe’s part was secretly given to Shelly Poe, because everyone hates Nina). The film location is an abandoned hospital, which, again through an awkw

Written by: PBF This movie is shocking! Yes, the fairly intriguing  premise and lackluster delivery is shocking to say the least. Feed introduces us to Phillip Jackson, an Australian detective as he is on a case in Hamburg. We watch as he discovers a man feeding another man his own penis. We then watch as he and his partner Nigel, move on to another project. They comb the internet in a sloppily paced and sort of confusing 10 minutes or so looking for a cyber crime worth mouthing off to the Captain and putting their badges on the line for. They find a site that has a live web cam of a man feeding a 600 lb woman. Phillip (luckily for the audience) explains to Nigel how this fetish works, and what feeders and gainers are. As Phillip explores and tries to gain access to the site’s restricted areas, he figures out what is really going on. This man is force feeding woman and taking bets on how long they will live and how much weight they will gain. Hooray, a cyber crime to solve! In s

Written by: PBF In my attempt to escape the horror pattern I have been entrenched in, I selected Just One of the Guys as my next review. As it turns out, the director, Lisa Gottlieb , also directed an episode of Freddy's Nightmares (the Nightmare on Elm Street television series). The film's star, Joyce Hyser , appeared in that same episode. Terry Griffith (Hyser) is a high school student who has almost everything she wants. Her parents are rich, she has a car, she's beautiful, she goes out with a college dreamboat that is also rich. She dreams of becoming a journalist and the local paper is running a contest where students can submit articles for a chance to be published. The winning "reporter" will also get an awesome summer job at the paper. The article she submits does not get selected, and two male students' work does. This coupled with a comment from her journalism teacher convinces her that she was not selected because she is a hot girl that no

Written by: PBF Despicable Me is brought to us by Universal and Illumination Entertainment. Illumination has some seriously questionable projects going on. Like Where’s Waldo? and The Addams family directed by Tim Burton. Can we stop giving Burton films that can be easily transformed into a Bauhaus fan’s newest favorite picture? Gru ( Steve Carell ) is a villain. He hopes to be the worst, and thereby the best villain in the world. An unknown villain steals a pyramid in Egypt and the crime makes national news. Determined not to be outdone, Gru attempts to get a loan from the Bank of Evil. The loan is to fund the construction of a rocket. He plans to steal a shrink ray from a lab, take the rocket in to space, then shrink and steal the moon. The bank denies the loan, however, informs Gru that if he gets the ray, they will give him the money. They explain that he is old and that there are many younger, more capable villains that they would rather loan money to. One of these young

Written by: PBF Nothing telegraphs an explosion better than the line, “Are those fuel tanks?” Meat Market 2 takes place some time after the events of the first film. We see Argenta kill Shahrokh after he turns into a zombie. She, one of the vampires, and a random one eyed Asian wander around foraging for food and supplies. They find another survivor and at her suggestion follow her. She tells them that she heard a radio broadcast about a place to go for food and shower, etc. and was on the way there herself. Naturally, they ignore all sense of skepticism and follow her only to be tricked. The survivor is really a Lieutenant for a military concentration camp or cult or some such nonsense, and surprise; the three of them are the newest addition to the camp. The camp is run by the Reconstruction Commerce Association of North America. Their goal is to rebuild society. They execute undesirables, perform experiments on some prisoners if acceptable for that sort of thing, and the healt

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