Random Movie: Stan Helsing (2009)

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 dedicating so much space for two dipshits that would not know funny from a hole in the ground and who are not even related to the production of this film? For one, their “style” of parody was assuredly largely responsible for the creation of this movie. For two, there is little else to say about Stan Helsing.

Stan Helsing is one of those movies that makes you angry to watch. This is not a movie like Platoon of the Dead that was made by some guy with a camcorder with no money and no talent. Stan Helsing was actually released in theaters! And people apparently paid money to see it! If I had not watched this via the Jesusflix, I would have protested, rioted, and set some shit on fire for enduring this movie. In retrospect, I really should have expected as much based on the rating from Netflix, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, or any other movie site around but I was stupid enough to watch this movie for the purposes of writing an increasingly angry review of it.

Instead of anything pretending to be a plot, we have a slacker who works in a video store whose name is similar to the vampire hunter from Bram Stoker’s imagination who is lost with his dumbass friends in some fucked up community that is haunted by poor caricatures of famous movie villains. Here we see the famous baddies like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, or Leatherface but in poor fashion as they each have just different enough qualities to make them … funny? So Pinhead now has darts and syringes protruding from his head? What an idea! Freddy is not only sporting golden encrusted teeth but also a corkscrew and a lipstick applicator from his glove? What comedic genius came up with this shit? Oh, that would be Bo Zenga, one of the producers of Scary Movie. Have I made my point?

Normally, I attempt to look for some positives in a film. Even for a low-budget production, if the movie fails abysmally, I can admire the director and producer for their steadfastness. In this film, I cannot imagine anyone hear the pitch or even read the script and thought, “This is going to be a fine movie.” It angers me even more that Leslie Nielson is so willing to take a paycheck that he cannot be discriminating about the detritus that he appears in. With the exception of the attractiveness of the two female leads and the sometime chuckle-worthy delivery from Kenan Thompson, there is not a single damn thing about this movie that is worthy about mentioning in blogpost, in person, or even in a fleeting moment in your mind.

This may seem like an unconventional review and I will admit that I do not relish having to endure such an unrelenting awful fucking movie. I now have watched this movie in its entirety. It is too late for me. Save yourself.