Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012)
REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long
COMPANY: The Asylum
RUNTIME: 90 mins
FORMAT: Netflix
PLOT: A group of researchers in Antarctica are abducted by a platoon of masked soldiers and dragged to a hidden continent in the center of the Earth. There, they discover that surviving Nazi soldiers are plotting an invasion of Earth to revive the Third Reich.
REVIEW: I honestly wasn't originally planning on doing a review for Nazis at the Center of the Earth, simply because I can't review every B-Movie I watch, I just watch way too many of them, and where I recently put out two reviews, one for Grimm's Snow White and one for Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, with another one for Camel Spiders being prepped for the near-future, I was planning on just sitting back and enjoying Nazis at the Center of the Earth without having to worry about taking notes and doing up a review after. But by the time the credits started rolling I knew I just had to do a review of this one to help get the word out to fellow B-Movie lovers about just how good I found Asylum's latest offering to be.
Our main characters are all scientists at a remote facility in Antarctica, where they happen upon an entrance that leads down through the ice to another 'world' at the center of the earth, in which remnants of Nazi Germany are residing, led by the real-life Nazi war criminal made famous by his horrifying human experimentation, Dr. Josef Mengele, as they seek immortality by abducting people and using their flesh and body organs to replace their own when theirs expire.
To start, this movie already had me pretty much won over by mentioning and touching upon some of my more favorite conspiracy theories (yes, admittedly I'm a conspiracy theory nut), such as Nazis having top secret underground bases in Antarctica where they currently may still reside in secret to this day, Nazis working on UFO and futuristic technologies at said secret bases, that Hitler actually survived WWII, and that there was a secret battle between the U.S. Air Force and a UFO in the skies over Antarctica a few years back. Do I honestly believe these conspiracy theories? Well no, of course not (Though I am willing to be open to the idea of Hitler having survived WWII), but they're fun to think about and still among my favorites regardless, and it was great to see them all utilized here in one form or another. It's the attention to these little details that sometimes go a long way with me, and Asylum is normally pretty good at including those little details in their projects.
The acting from most everyone was surprisingly good. Yes, there were a few of the more minor characters who were about as good as to be expected from an Asylum movie (which is to say not very), but all the main cast, especially the lead scientist with questionable methods, as played by Starship Troopers' Jake Busey, were in top form, with their true acting chops coming out when they had to play their characters as being terrified; when these characters were screaming or being horrified, you believe them, and you feel the fear right along with them. Another shout-out has to go to actor Christopher Karl Johnson (Angels & Demons, Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes) who played the evil Dr. Josef Mengel to perfection. Every time he was on-screen, there was great tension as you just knew he was in the scene for a reason, and normally those reasons don't bode well for our captured good guys.
Which brings me to what I believe is the strongest aspects of this movie, and it's kind of a broad topic but it all interconnects. Nazis at the Center of the Earth is nothing if not atmospheric and genuinely creepy. Nazis alone is enough to make the movie a bit creepy, but this movie goes above and beyond what it has to, to paint them as a real genuine threat to the characters. Not once did I think 'well sure, they're the villains because the movie says they are, but they're so cartoony and laughable that I just don't see them as a threat'. Instead, I was on the edge of my seat whenever they were on-screen, knuckles white from clenching them in fear and ready to jump a mile high at the slightest unexpected noise in my darkened apartment. I'm not going to go into the details of individual scenes regarding them and some of the things they do, because to be spoiled on them would remove much of the tension, but what I will say is that this movie is certainly not for the feint of heart. There is plenty of blood, gore, disturbing imagery, and uncomfortable scenes that made me extremely anxious - there are quite a few scenes that even I found difficult to watch that made me squirm in my seat uncomfortably. Of course, it takes more then just horrifying subject matter to accomplish that. Sure, that's a large part of it but it could easily come across as hokey and eye-rollingly lame without excellent make-up and practical effects. From the look of the skinless and zombie-esqe Nazis to the various experimentation and operations done on the captured scientists, it all looked amazing and never once did it seem terribly fake or obvious (A first for Asylum, I believe).
But for those that are squeamish or easily creeped out, you'll be able to relax after a bit as the movie takes a surprising and sudden 180 degree turn midway through from being deadly atmospheric and disturbing to a full-on campy cheesefest filled with hilarious one-liners. How can a movie where zombie Nazis that rip people's skin off and group-rape women in a dimly-lit underground base turn into a hilarious cheesefest, you ask? Two words:
Robo-Hitler.
Yes, if you just saw the words 'Robo-Hitler' then you did indeed just read that correctly. In a sudden twist that I can honestly say I did not see coming, Hitler is revived as a giant CGI cyborg with a wide range of arsenal that includes a long-ass blade, machine gun arms, and green energy blasts that shoot from his chest. I am being 100% serious right now when I tell you that I shit you not on this.
And I loved it.
So so much. Only Asylum can turn such a genuinely disturbing and nightmare-inducing torture-porn movie into a laugh riot camp-ground and actually have it work. Adding to the amazingness that is Robo-Hitler is the fact that he also commands a gigantic Nazi UFO Doomsday Machine that breaks up through the ground of the Earth and rests in the skies above Antarctica, heading out to declare war on the rest of the world by pre-empting a biological attack by way of releasing flesh-eating bacteria above the major cities. This of course leads into the previously-mentioned battle between the U.S. Air Force and a UFO over Antarctica, but as to be expected, the fighter jets are no match for this Doomsday Machine and it's up to our escaped heroes to take it down from the inside. This part of the movie actually felt very similar, visually, to another Asylum movie titled Battle of Los Angeles, and upon doing some research discovered that the director of this, Joseph J. Lawson, had been the visual effects supervisor on that one, which would explain the similar visual style from the reveal of the Nazi UFO onwards.
I know this kind of movie isn't everyone's cup of tea, even among B-Movie fans, but I have to say that I personally really loved Nazis at the Center of the Earth. To me, it's near-perfect. There's really only two very minor stumbling blocks, the first of which is the fact that despite being out in the cold in the middle of Antarctica, there's no visible breath coming from any of the characters, not even crappy fake CGI breath and that kind of takes the viewer out of the movie for those scenes (though there is a scene where two of the characters end up outside in just their regular everyday clothes and they rush to grab warm jackets and gloves to put on, so props to the director for that little bit). The other minor detractor is that, putting Robo-Hitler and his UFO Doomsday Machine aside, most of the twists and character motivations in this movie are very predictable and easy to guess pretty early-on, leaving very little to be surprised by during the movie. But as I said, these are only minor issues that are easy to overlook when up against all the other excellent things in this movie.
Production value-wise, this is probably one of Asylum's best and most professional movies to date. Entertainment wise, while it may not be the best (Seriously, 2-Headed Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus, and Mega Python vs Gatoroid has that market pretty much covered), it's still really, really good and far better then I was expecting.
Also, be sure to stay through the End Credits for a short little stinger scene at the very end.
10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
COMPANY: The Asylum
RUNTIME: 90 mins
FORMAT: Netflix
PLOT: A group of researchers in Antarctica are abducted by a platoon of masked soldiers and dragged to a hidden continent in the center of the Earth. There, they discover that surviving Nazi soldiers are plotting an invasion of Earth to revive the Third Reich.
REVIEW: I honestly wasn't originally planning on doing a review for Nazis at the Center of the Earth, simply because I can't review every B-Movie I watch, I just watch way too many of them, and where I recently put out two reviews, one for Grimm's Snow White and one for Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, with another one for Camel Spiders being prepped for the near-future, I was planning on just sitting back and enjoying Nazis at the Center of the Earth without having to worry about taking notes and doing up a review after. But by the time the credits started rolling I knew I just had to do a review of this one to help get the word out to fellow B-Movie lovers about just how good I found Asylum's latest offering to be.
Our main characters are all scientists at a remote facility in Antarctica, where they happen upon an entrance that leads down through the ice to another 'world' at the center of the earth, in which remnants of Nazi Germany are residing, led by the real-life Nazi war criminal made famous by his horrifying human experimentation, Dr. Josef Mengele, as they seek immortality by abducting people and using their flesh and body organs to replace their own when theirs expire.
To start, this movie already had me pretty much won over by mentioning and touching upon some of my more favorite conspiracy theories (yes, admittedly I'm a conspiracy theory nut), such as Nazis having top secret underground bases in Antarctica where they currently may still reside in secret to this day, Nazis working on UFO and futuristic technologies at said secret bases, that Hitler actually survived WWII, and that there was a secret battle between the U.S. Air Force and a UFO in the skies over Antarctica a few years back. Do I honestly believe these conspiracy theories? Well no, of course not (Though I am willing to be open to the idea of Hitler having survived WWII), but they're fun to think about and still among my favorites regardless, and it was great to see them all utilized here in one form or another. It's the attention to these little details that sometimes go a long way with me, and Asylum is normally pretty good at including those little details in their projects.
The acting from most everyone was surprisingly good. Yes, there were a few of the more minor characters who were about as good as to be expected from an Asylum movie (which is to say not very), but all the main cast, especially the lead scientist with questionable methods, as played by Starship Troopers' Jake Busey, were in top form, with their true acting chops coming out when they had to play their characters as being terrified; when these characters were screaming or being horrified, you believe them, and you feel the fear right along with them. Another shout-out has to go to actor Christopher Karl Johnson (Angels & Demons, Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes) who played the evil Dr. Josef Mengel to perfection. Every time he was on-screen, there was great tension as you just knew he was in the scene for a reason, and normally those reasons don't bode well for our captured good guys.
Which brings me to what I believe is the strongest aspects of this movie, and it's kind of a broad topic but it all interconnects. Nazis at the Center of the Earth is nothing if not atmospheric and genuinely creepy. Nazis alone is enough to make the movie a bit creepy, but this movie goes above and beyond what it has to, to paint them as a real genuine threat to the characters. Not once did I think 'well sure, they're the villains because the movie says they are, but they're so cartoony and laughable that I just don't see them as a threat'. Instead, I was on the edge of my seat whenever they were on-screen, knuckles white from clenching them in fear and ready to jump a mile high at the slightest unexpected noise in my darkened apartment. I'm not going to go into the details of individual scenes regarding them and some of the things they do, because to be spoiled on them would remove much of the tension, but what I will say is that this movie is certainly not for the feint of heart. There is plenty of blood, gore, disturbing imagery, and uncomfortable scenes that made me extremely anxious - there are quite a few scenes that even I found difficult to watch that made me squirm in my seat uncomfortably. Of course, it takes more then just horrifying subject matter to accomplish that. Sure, that's a large part of it but it could easily come across as hokey and eye-rollingly lame without excellent make-up and practical effects. From the look of the skinless and zombie-esqe Nazis to the various experimentation and operations done on the captured scientists, it all looked amazing and never once did it seem terribly fake or obvious (A first for Asylum, I believe).
But for those that are squeamish or easily creeped out, you'll be able to relax after a bit as the movie takes a surprising and sudden 180 degree turn midway through from being deadly atmospheric and disturbing to a full-on campy cheesefest filled with hilarious one-liners. How can a movie where zombie Nazis that rip people's skin off and group-rape women in a dimly-lit underground base turn into a hilarious cheesefest, you ask? Two words:
Robo-Hitler.
Yes, if you just saw the words 'Robo-Hitler' then you did indeed just read that correctly. In a sudden twist that I can honestly say I did not see coming, Hitler is revived as a giant CGI cyborg with a wide range of arsenal that includes a long-ass blade, machine gun arms, and green energy blasts that shoot from his chest. I am being 100% serious right now when I tell you that I shit you not on this.
And I loved it.
So so much. Only Asylum can turn such a genuinely disturbing and nightmare-inducing torture-porn movie into a laugh riot camp-ground and actually have it work. Adding to the amazingness that is Robo-Hitler is the fact that he also commands a gigantic Nazi UFO Doomsday Machine that breaks up through the ground of the Earth and rests in the skies above Antarctica, heading out to declare war on the rest of the world by pre-empting a biological attack by way of releasing flesh-eating bacteria above the major cities. This of course leads into the previously-mentioned battle between the U.S. Air Force and a UFO over Antarctica, but as to be expected, the fighter jets are no match for this Doomsday Machine and it's up to our escaped heroes to take it down from the inside. This part of the movie actually felt very similar, visually, to another Asylum movie titled Battle of Los Angeles, and upon doing some research discovered that the director of this, Joseph J. Lawson, had been the visual effects supervisor on that one, which would explain the similar visual style from the reveal of the Nazi UFO onwards.
I know this kind of movie isn't everyone's cup of tea, even among B-Movie fans, but I have to say that I personally really loved Nazis at the Center of the Earth. To me, it's near-perfect. There's really only two very minor stumbling blocks, the first of which is the fact that despite being out in the cold in the middle of Antarctica, there's no visible breath coming from any of the characters, not even crappy fake CGI breath and that kind of takes the viewer out of the movie for those scenes (though there is a scene where two of the characters end up outside in just their regular everyday clothes and they rush to grab warm jackets and gloves to put on, so props to the director for that little bit). The other minor detractor is that, putting Robo-Hitler and his UFO Doomsday Machine aside, most of the twists and character motivations in this movie are very predictable and easy to guess pretty early-on, leaving very little to be surprised by during the movie. But as I said, these are only minor issues that are easy to overlook when up against all the other excellent things in this movie.
Production value-wise, this is probably one of Asylum's best and most professional movies to date. Entertainment wise, while it may not be the best (Seriously, 2-Headed Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus, and Mega Python vs Gatoroid has that market pretty much covered), it's still really, really good and far better then I was expecting.
Also, be sure to stay through the End Credits for a short little stinger scene at the very end.
10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
Tactical Force (2011)
REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long
COMPANY: Caliber Media
RUNTIME: 91 mins
FORMAT: DVD
PLOT: A training exercise for the LAPD SWAT Team goes terribly wrong when they find themselves pitted against two rival gangs while trapped in an abandoned Hangar, armed with nothing but blanks.
REVIEW: Despite finding nothing but negative review after negative review, for me personally I really enjoyed Tactical Force and was a bit surprised that it turned out to be a pretty entertaining ride, filled with really fun and extensive action sequences, plenty of enjoyable characters, and hilarious one-liners making up the bulk of the movie.
While Steve Austin visually suits the role he plays in this quite well, it's no secret that he's not exactly a good actor by any stretch of the imagination, but luckily he's backed up by plenty of decent to good actors like Michael Jai White and quite a few recognizable TV actors such as Canadian hottie Lexa Doig and her real-life husband Michael Shanks, all of whom pick up the slack left by Steve Austin's acting void.
I have two huge issues though - Lexa Doig is the only female character on the SWAT team and apart from one scene where she gets her ass kicked pretty badly she doesn't really have anything to do, and certainly doesn't have any good moments to truly shine. For the most part she's regulated pretty much to 'Background Extra' status most of the time, which is a really big shame because I'm a fan of hers and would have loved to see her with more to work with and more action to participate in.
My other issue is with the twist that comes during the final 2 minutes of the movie; It makes no sense at all and does not fit with everything that happened in the movie up to that point, and to be completely honest, it almost ruins the entire movie due to the fact that it makes entirely no sense whatsoever.
Other then those two issues though, and Steve Austin's lack of charisma and acting abilities, this is a pretty fun direct-to-video action flick that's a slight cut above the norm for this kind of thing. However, I strongly recommend just turning the movie off once they wrap up the main climax, and just count that as the proper end, so you can save yourself from a potential-movie wrecking plot twist.
7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
COMPANY: Caliber Media
RUNTIME: 91 mins
FORMAT: DVD
PLOT: A training exercise for the LAPD SWAT Team goes terribly wrong when they find themselves pitted against two rival gangs while trapped in an abandoned Hangar, armed with nothing but blanks.
REVIEW: Despite finding nothing but negative review after negative review, for me personally I really enjoyed Tactical Force and was a bit surprised that it turned out to be a pretty entertaining ride, filled with really fun and extensive action sequences, plenty of enjoyable characters, and hilarious one-liners making up the bulk of the movie.
While Steve Austin visually suits the role he plays in this quite well, it's no secret that he's not exactly a good actor by any stretch of the imagination, but luckily he's backed up by plenty of decent to good actors like Michael Jai White and quite a few recognizable TV actors such as Canadian hottie Lexa Doig and her real-life husband Michael Shanks, all of whom pick up the slack left by Steve Austin's acting void.
I have two huge issues though - Lexa Doig is the only female character on the SWAT team and apart from one scene where she gets her ass kicked pretty badly she doesn't really have anything to do, and certainly doesn't have any good moments to truly shine. For the most part she's regulated pretty much to 'Background Extra' status most of the time, which is a really big shame because I'm a fan of hers and would have loved to see her with more to work with and more action to participate in.
My other issue is with the twist that comes during the final 2 minutes of the movie; It makes no sense at all and does not fit with everything that happened in the movie up to that point, and to be completely honest, it almost ruins the entire movie due to the fact that it makes entirely no sense whatsoever.
Other then those two issues though, and Steve Austin's lack of charisma and acting abilities, this is a pretty fun direct-to-video action flick that's a slight cut above the norm for this kind of thing. However, I strongly recommend just turning the movie off once they wrap up the main climax, and just count that as the proper end, so you can save yourself from a potential-movie wrecking plot twist.
7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011)
REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long
COMPANY: Full Moon Entertainment
RUNTIME: 70 mins
FORMAT: DVD
PLOT: The Gingerdead Man breaks out of Pastry Prison and travels back in time to 1976 to carry out an epic disco killing spree.
REVIEW: I loved the first movie in this series despite a few issues I had with it, but I really didn't care much for Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust. So when Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver one was announced, I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. In the end though, I landed on 'excitement' because after all - it's about A KILLER COOKIE, and that alone will be enough to get my money – Every. Single. Time. Unfortunately Full Moon and Charles Band know that, and no longer bother to put much more effort into these then that basic premise. Much like with the second movie, all the right ingredients were present to make this a B-Movie Legend, but it was all mixed together incorrectly and what we ended up getting was just a sloppy mess of a movie and the weakest in the series thus far.
This one starts off interesting enough: We don't really get a backstory on this deadly cookie, but we can assume that much like his previous two 'brothers', he probably went on a rampage somewhere and got caught, because as the movie begins we get to see a hilarious Silence of the Lambs parody scene that reveals this Gingerdead Man is already locked away in a prison. But not just any prison – a prison for re-animated objects! Golden idea right there! Other 'criminals' in his cell block include a fowl-mouthed French baguette, a promiscuous raspberry pie, a stoned batch of Jamaican brownies, and a dirty-minded cream puff. So far so good, if you ask me.
Unfortunately, just like with the second movie and its Tiny Terrors characters, these new murderous baked goods are only in the movie for not even two minutes. Upon seeing them, I was really hoping that the creators learned from the second movie and would give these guys a decent-sized role – perhaps having them escape with the Gingerdead Man and make him be the ringleader of a gang of killer food – but nope. Once again, they have no impact on the movie whatsoever and are only on the screen for a minute or two, leading to another wasted opportunity. It's made even all the worse by the fact that those new characters actually looked really good design-wise, so it's clear they spent a good portion of the budget on them, and you would think that if they did that then they would have made it actually worth it and keep the characters around longer.
Because of that total misuse of the budget, the Gingerdead Man himself gets the short end of the budget stick and looks absolutely horrid. By far the worst that the puppet has looked in the entire series. Sure, the one in the second movie was a step down from the one in the first, but this one is like an entire ladder down from both of those. And not just in terms of how well it looks as it moves around and does its thing (made even worse still by the overuse of horrible CGI), but also in the basic design as well. At least the one in the second movie still resembled the design of the first, but this one doesn't even come close to looking like the other two. I know, I know my logic behind the different design that I used in my review for Gingerdead Man 2 could still be applied here – It is a different cookie after all, and thus, as a cookie, it was designed differently. But still, is it really that hard to duplicate the puppet prop used in the first movie? Or better yet – just use the exact same prop! To add insult to injury, they also used yet another voice actor for the character (this time the director of the movie lent his voice 'talents' for the character), and just like with the prop itself, he's the worst Gingerdead Man voice in the entire series, not even trying to sound like how the character sounded or talked in the previous two movies. As big of a step down as everything regarding the character of the Gingerdead Man was in the second movie from the first movie, this one is the same step down but from the second movie. Just pure unnecessary laziness led to the atrocity that is this movie's Gingerdead Man character.
One of the movie's few saving graces is its amazingly campy plot. I mentioned a Silence of the Lambs parody scene up above, and that comes into play when an FBI agent by the name of Clarissa Darling visits this Hannibal Lector-esque version of the Gingerdead Man, complete with an excellent Hannibal/Clarice dialog exchange. However, the Gingerdead Man ends up breaking free of his confines during a prison riot and gets lost, ending up in a science laboratory that's currently experimenting with time travel. Of course he ends up setting the machine off and getting sent back in time to 1976, right in the middle of a disco-on-rollerskates competition (“Of all the shithead decades to get stranded in!” he so hilariously notes).
The rest of the movie is made up of two main stories, just like the second movie was – On the one side, we have the Gingerdead Man going around and killing all sorts of sex-crazed drugged-out, disco-loving teens while uttering hilarious one-liners, and luckily this time he had a bit more of an impact on the overall movie then he did in the second movie (where it was largely unimportant to anything else going on). On the other side, we have the human story which thankfully is more interesting then the one from Gingerdead Man 2 as well. We have the owner of the arena trying to raise money in multiple different ways to keep the roller disco arena from getting shut down. Some of these ways include a bake sale, a beauty pageant, the previously-mentioned roller disco competition, as well as a car wash by young hot girls in tight bikinis (which is something all B-Movies should strive to find a way to include). She's not the main focus though; the main character of this movie is her shy socially-awkward teenage niece by the name of Cherry Wright, whom seems to be the only person in the building that even notices that there's a killer cookie running around (and of course nobody believes her). Silence of the Lambs isn't the only movie this one spoofs, seeing as how, just like in Stephen King's Carrie, after Cherry gets a make-over so that she can try to win the title of Roller Boogie Queen, the social teenage Bitch Queen devises a plan with the end result of – yes, you guessed it – dropping a bucket of pig's blood all over Cherry. And JUST LIKE in Carrie, it turns out Cherry also has strong telekinetic powers when she shows displays of strong emotion, which comes into play quite a few times – the best of which is during an entertaining show-down between her and the Gingerdead Man, which results in a mass electrocution death of almost everyone in the building.
This movie takes everything that the first two movies did, and then multiplies it all by about 10. You loved the cheesy one-liners? This movie has one being spurted out almost every 30-60 seconds. You like to embrace the campiness of the other movies? Well then, hold onto your hat because you haven’t seen anything yet. This one openly showers in the cheese like never before, which is made quite obvious with all the blatant movie spoofs throughout (I noticed Silence of the Lambs, Carrie, Candyman, Psycho, Hellraiser, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Porky's). While this worked to a degree, it did reach a point where it was just too much and too over the top. I never thought I'd ever think of the first Gingerdead Man movie as being subdued and low-key with the cheese, but after seeing this one that's the only way to think back on the first. Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver takes everything you love about the series and cranks it all up even higher, which works both for and against it, depending on the scene. I kid you not, this movie involves a scene where two little kids return from time-traveling throughout history to bring Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, Lizzy Borden, and Charles Manson to 1976 to team up with the heroes and fight the Gingerdead Man, and then have them dance and celebrate their victory with the heroes – WTF!? That ending doesn't even make any sense, nor does it even try to make sense other then to throw in yet another random and unnecessary movie spoof. Sadly, this entry felt quite like one of those horrid 'Insert Genre Title here' Movie spoof movies more often then not, and that's never a good thing seeing as how those are some of the worst movies to ever grace the entire history of our planet.
Even ignoring the maximum overload of camp and spoofing, the fun cheese and hilarious one-liners can't make up for all the other aspects that they just totally did wrong or botched. Alongside the previously-mentioned horrible Gingerdead Man prop and effects, and the lack of good use of the new pastry characters, this entry also has pretty bad acting. Not like the first movie had excellent actors, but the acting chops on display in both the previous entry and this one makes the first movie look like The Godfather in comparison. There's bad acting, and then there's distractingly bad acting.
Another distractingly-bad step down for this entry is the special effects. Not only is the Gingerdead Man himself of far lesser quality this time around, but so are the kills. This movie is overloaded with unneeded CGI, both in making the Gingerdead Man move around but also with almost every single kill. The previous two movies needed no CGI at all to get the job done, and they were better off for it. Here, it just ruins what would otherwise be some excellent kill scenes. There is some great stuff like a group of bikini-clad beauties being sprayed with acid and having their skin and bones melt into a pile of goo, a nailgun used like a tommy gun on three people in the middle of having a threesome, a head cleaved in two, plenty of headshots, and the previously-mentioned mass electrocution scene. But almost all of the awesome kills are completely ruined by the 25-cent paycheck that the computer animator must have received for his work on this.
The final nail in the coffin for me however, is the total misuse of Robin Sydney. Ever since the first movie, I've been hoping to see the original lead character, as played by Robin Sydney, make a return. The second movie never touched on her, but when I saw her name in the opening credits of this one, I got excited – especially when we find out about those kids traveling through time to collect people to fight the homicidal cookie, I figured 'Hey now, that's an excellent way to bring Robin Sydney back!' but unfortunately, that's not how she returns. Actually while the actress returns, her character does not. As it turns out, she only has a cameo that lasts just a few seconds, playing another completely different character – again, WTF!? Those two kids even go to the future to grab someone who has dealt with this pastry before...but not her; They get Clarissa Darling from the opening scene of this movie instead! Talk about yet another missed opportunity! They even had the actress on-set so I can't even fathom why they didn't use her as her previous character in that scene instead of the Clarissa Darling character! That payoff alone would have almost saved the movie for me.
In regards to some aspects, this one improved somewhat over the previous movie but unfortunately it does far more things wrong then it does right, resulting in a very frustratingly uneven movie that should have been, and could have been, the best in the trilogy. After two disappointing sequels, I really just want to throw in the towel and say that if they continue on with this series, then I'm done with it...
...Sadly, as it turns out I'm very easy to entertain, and the very idea of a killer cookie is all it takes to keep me coming back time after time, no matter how disappointing each continuing entry turns out, and so because of that, if Gingerdead Man 4 ever gets made then I'll be the first (and probably only) person at the video store that day to buy my copy.
3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
COMPANY: Full Moon Entertainment
RUNTIME: 70 mins
FORMAT: DVD
PLOT: The Gingerdead Man breaks out of Pastry Prison and travels back in time to 1976 to carry out an epic disco killing spree.
REVIEW: I loved the first movie in this series despite a few issues I had with it, but I really didn't care much for Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust. So when Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver one was announced, I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. In the end though, I landed on 'excitement' because after all - it's about A KILLER COOKIE, and that alone will be enough to get my money – Every. Single. Time. Unfortunately Full Moon and Charles Band know that, and no longer bother to put much more effort into these then that basic premise. Much like with the second movie, all the right ingredients were present to make this a B-Movie Legend, but it was all mixed together incorrectly and what we ended up getting was just a sloppy mess of a movie and the weakest in the series thus far.
This one starts off interesting enough: We don't really get a backstory on this deadly cookie, but we can assume that much like his previous two 'brothers', he probably went on a rampage somewhere and got caught, because as the movie begins we get to see a hilarious Silence of the Lambs parody scene that reveals this Gingerdead Man is already locked away in a prison. But not just any prison – a prison for re-animated objects! Golden idea right there! Other 'criminals' in his cell block include a fowl-mouthed French baguette, a promiscuous raspberry pie, a stoned batch of Jamaican brownies, and a dirty-minded cream puff. So far so good, if you ask me.
Unfortunately, just like with the second movie and its Tiny Terrors characters, these new murderous baked goods are only in the movie for not even two minutes. Upon seeing them, I was really hoping that the creators learned from the second movie and would give these guys a decent-sized role – perhaps having them escape with the Gingerdead Man and make him be the ringleader of a gang of killer food – but nope. Once again, they have no impact on the movie whatsoever and are only on the screen for a minute or two, leading to another wasted opportunity. It's made even all the worse by the fact that those new characters actually looked really good design-wise, so it's clear they spent a good portion of the budget on them, and you would think that if they did that then they would have made it actually worth it and keep the characters around longer.
Because of that total misuse of the budget, the Gingerdead Man himself gets the short end of the budget stick and looks absolutely horrid. By far the worst that the puppet has looked in the entire series. Sure, the one in the second movie was a step down from the one in the first, but this one is like an entire ladder down from both of those. And not just in terms of how well it looks as it moves around and does its thing (made even worse still by the overuse of horrible CGI), but also in the basic design as well. At least the one in the second movie still resembled the design of the first, but this one doesn't even come close to looking like the other two. I know, I know my logic behind the different design that I used in my review for Gingerdead Man 2 could still be applied here – It is a different cookie after all, and thus, as a cookie, it was designed differently. But still, is it really that hard to duplicate the puppet prop used in the first movie? Or better yet – just use the exact same prop! To add insult to injury, they also used yet another voice actor for the character (this time the director of the movie lent his voice 'talents' for the character), and just like with the prop itself, he's the worst Gingerdead Man voice in the entire series, not even trying to sound like how the character sounded or talked in the previous two movies. As big of a step down as everything regarding the character of the Gingerdead Man was in the second movie from the first movie, this one is the same step down but from the second movie. Just pure unnecessary laziness led to the atrocity that is this movie's Gingerdead Man character.
One of the movie's few saving graces is its amazingly campy plot. I mentioned a Silence of the Lambs parody scene up above, and that comes into play when an FBI agent by the name of Clarissa Darling visits this Hannibal Lector-esque version of the Gingerdead Man, complete with an excellent Hannibal/Clarice dialog exchange. However, the Gingerdead Man ends up breaking free of his confines during a prison riot and gets lost, ending up in a science laboratory that's currently experimenting with time travel. Of course he ends up setting the machine off and getting sent back in time to 1976, right in the middle of a disco-on-rollerskates competition (“Of all the shithead decades to get stranded in!” he so hilariously notes).
The rest of the movie is made up of two main stories, just like the second movie was – On the one side, we have the Gingerdead Man going around and killing all sorts of sex-crazed drugged-out, disco-loving teens while uttering hilarious one-liners, and luckily this time he had a bit more of an impact on the overall movie then he did in the second movie (where it was largely unimportant to anything else going on). On the other side, we have the human story which thankfully is more interesting then the one from Gingerdead Man 2 as well. We have the owner of the arena trying to raise money in multiple different ways to keep the roller disco arena from getting shut down. Some of these ways include a bake sale, a beauty pageant, the previously-mentioned roller disco competition, as well as a car wash by young hot girls in tight bikinis (which is something all B-Movies should strive to find a way to include). She's not the main focus though; the main character of this movie is her shy socially-awkward teenage niece by the name of Cherry Wright, whom seems to be the only person in the building that even notices that there's a killer cookie running around (and of course nobody believes her). Silence of the Lambs isn't the only movie this one spoofs, seeing as how, just like in Stephen King's Carrie, after Cherry gets a make-over so that she can try to win the title of Roller Boogie Queen, the social teenage Bitch Queen devises a plan with the end result of – yes, you guessed it – dropping a bucket of pig's blood all over Cherry. And JUST LIKE in Carrie, it turns out Cherry also has strong telekinetic powers when she shows displays of strong emotion, which comes into play quite a few times – the best of which is during an entertaining show-down between her and the Gingerdead Man, which results in a mass electrocution death of almost everyone in the building.
This movie takes everything that the first two movies did, and then multiplies it all by about 10. You loved the cheesy one-liners? This movie has one being spurted out almost every 30-60 seconds. You like to embrace the campiness of the other movies? Well then, hold onto your hat because you haven’t seen anything yet. This one openly showers in the cheese like never before, which is made quite obvious with all the blatant movie spoofs throughout (I noticed Silence of the Lambs, Carrie, Candyman, Psycho, Hellraiser, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Porky's). While this worked to a degree, it did reach a point where it was just too much and too over the top. I never thought I'd ever think of the first Gingerdead Man movie as being subdued and low-key with the cheese, but after seeing this one that's the only way to think back on the first. Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver takes everything you love about the series and cranks it all up even higher, which works both for and against it, depending on the scene. I kid you not, this movie involves a scene where two little kids return from time-traveling throughout history to bring Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, Lizzy Borden, and Charles Manson to 1976 to team up with the heroes and fight the Gingerdead Man, and then have them dance and celebrate their victory with the heroes – WTF!? That ending doesn't even make any sense, nor does it even try to make sense other then to throw in yet another random and unnecessary movie spoof. Sadly, this entry felt quite like one of those horrid 'Insert Genre Title here' Movie spoof movies more often then not, and that's never a good thing seeing as how those are some of the worst movies to ever grace the entire history of our planet.
Even ignoring the maximum overload of camp and spoofing, the fun cheese and hilarious one-liners can't make up for all the other aspects that they just totally did wrong or botched. Alongside the previously-mentioned horrible Gingerdead Man prop and effects, and the lack of good use of the new pastry characters, this entry also has pretty bad acting. Not like the first movie had excellent actors, but the acting chops on display in both the previous entry and this one makes the first movie look like The Godfather in comparison. There's bad acting, and then there's distractingly bad acting.
Another distractingly-bad step down for this entry is the special effects. Not only is the Gingerdead Man himself of far lesser quality this time around, but so are the kills. This movie is overloaded with unneeded CGI, both in making the Gingerdead Man move around but also with almost every single kill. The previous two movies needed no CGI at all to get the job done, and they were better off for it. Here, it just ruins what would otherwise be some excellent kill scenes. There is some great stuff like a group of bikini-clad beauties being sprayed with acid and having their skin and bones melt into a pile of goo, a nailgun used like a tommy gun on three people in the middle of having a threesome, a head cleaved in two, plenty of headshots, and the previously-mentioned mass electrocution scene. But almost all of the awesome kills are completely ruined by the 25-cent paycheck that the computer animator must have received for his work on this.
The final nail in the coffin for me however, is the total misuse of Robin Sydney. Ever since the first movie, I've been hoping to see the original lead character, as played by Robin Sydney, make a return. The second movie never touched on her, but when I saw her name in the opening credits of this one, I got excited – especially when we find out about those kids traveling through time to collect people to fight the homicidal cookie, I figured 'Hey now, that's an excellent way to bring Robin Sydney back!' but unfortunately, that's not how she returns. Actually while the actress returns, her character does not. As it turns out, she only has a cameo that lasts just a few seconds, playing another completely different character – again, WTF!? Those two kids even go to the future to grab someone who has dealt with this pastry before...but not her; They get Clarissa Darling from the opening scene of this movie instead! Talk about yet another missed opportunity! They even had the actress on-set so I can't even fathom why they didn't use her as her previous character in that scene instead of the Clarissa Darling character! That payoff alone would have almost saved the movie for me.
In regards to some aspects, this one improved somewhat over the previous movie but unfortunately it does far more things wrong then it does right, resulting in a very frustratingly uneven movie that should have been, and could have been, the best in the trilogy. After two disappointing sequels, I really just want to throw in the towel and say that if they continue on with this series, then I'm done with it...
...Sadly, as it turns out I'm very easy to entertain, and the very idea of a killer cookie is all it takes to keep me coming back time after time, no matter how disappointing each continuing entry turns out, and so because of that, if Gingerdead Man 4 ever gets made then I'll be the first (and probably only) person at the video store that day to buy my copy.
3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
MBC3
Loading the player ...
Sniper 4: Reloaded (2011)
REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long
COMPANY: Stage 6 Films
RUNTIME: 91 mins
FORMAT: Netflix
PLOT: The son of a renowned sniper decides to track down the sniper who ambushed his squad when they were sent to rescue a white planter in the Congo.
REVIEW: Going into Sniper: Reloaded, I really wasn't expecting much. I loved the first two Sniper movies but hated the third, and knowing that this was a Tom Berenger-less sequel didn't really give me any hope for it. Surprisingly though, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Chad Michael Collins plays the estranged son of Tom Berenger's character from the three previous movies (and surprisingly actually looks like he could be related to Berenger), but he lacks Berenger's charm as he's a bit bland and it doesn't help that Collins is essentially the male version of Kristen Stewart when it comes to showing emotions. Luckily his slack is picked up by the supporting cast, as they're all mostly serviceable to outright great, with the love interest character certainly having the eye candy department covered (and then some).
The action scenes are also pretty tense, especially since in the majority of them the characters (and us, the viewers right along with them) have no idea which direction the bullets are flying at them from, or where the next shot could be coming from. The movie is filled with many suspenseful scenes that keep you pretty riveted to the screen, and not just in terms of action ones, but some good character moments that are filled with suspense as well. In addition to that, the locations they used to shoot this movie were all breathtakingly beautiful, and the movie itself almost felt like a mini-vacation during most of it.
It was also great having Billy Zane back for the first time since the original movie - he totally owned every scene he was in and it was fun seeing how his character has changed in the time since the first movie, while also paying homage to it. It also surprised me just how much Zane was in this. I was expecting a one or two scene cameo, but he was pretty much the second-main character. With that said, Sniper: Reloaded could have still benefited greatly from a Tom Berenger cameo though, since this was the only movie in the series that he wasn't in and it would have been totally geektastic to have both him and Billy Zane share one last scene together in the series.
If I had one main complaint though, other then the lead actor's lack of emotion, it would be that despite this being a Sniper movie, there's very little actual sniping going on - the main lead out and out refuses to snipe at all until the final showdown scene at the very end, so the movie could have been a bit better had they actually implemented more sniping in this Sniper movie. With that said however, the lack of him sniping actually made the build-up to when he finally does give in and agrees to snipe quite worth-it and the scene is easily one of my favorites in the entire movie because of that.
Overall, Sniper: Reloaded is not as good as the first two movies were, but leaps and bounds better then horrid Sniper 3, and it's also a great jumping-on point for those unfamiliar with the series as it acts as kind of a light reboot in a 'Sniper: The Next Generation' kind of way.
7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
COMPANY: Stage 6 Films
RUNTIME: 91 mins
FORMAT: Netflix
PLOT: The son of a renowned sniper decides to track down the sniper who ambushed his squad when they were sent to rescue a white planter in the Congo.
REVIEW: Going into Sniper: Reloaded, I really wasn't expecting much. I loved the first two Sniper movies but hated the third, and knowing that this was a Tom Berenger-less sequel didn't really give me any hope for it. Surprisingly though, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Chad Michael Collins plays the estranged son of Tom Berenger's character from the three previous movies (and surprisingly actually looks like he could be related to Berenger), but he lacks Berenger's charm as he's a bit bland and it doesn't help that Collins is essentially the male version of Kristen Stewart when it comes to showing emotions. Luckily his slack is picked up by the supporting cast, as they're all mostly serviceable to outright great, with the love interest character certainly having the eye candy department covered (and then some).
The action scenes are also pretty tense, especially since in the majority of them the characters (and us, the viewers right along with them) have no idea which direction the bullets are flying at them from, or where the next shot could be coming from. The movie is filled with many suspenseful scenes that keep you pretty riveted to the screen, and not just in terms of action ones, but some good character moments that are filled with suspense as well. In addition to that, the locations they used to shoot this movie were all breathtakingly beautiful, and the movie itself almost felt like a mini-vacation during most of it.
It was also great having Billy Zane back for the first time since the original movie - he totally owned every scene he was in and it was fun seeing how his character has changed in the time since the first movie, while also paying homage to it. It also surprised me just how much Zane was in this. I was expecting a one or two scene cameo, but he was pretty much the second-main character. With that said, Sniper: Reloaded could have still benefited greatly from a Tom Berenger cameo though, since this was the only movie in the series that he wasn't in and it would have been totally geektastic to have both him and Billy Zane share one last scene together in the series.
If I had one main complaint though, other then the lead actor's lack of emotion, it would be that despite this being a Sniper movie, there's very little actual sniping going on - the main lead out and out refuses to snipe at all until the final showdown scene at the very end, so the movie could have been a bit better had they actually implemented more sniping in this Sniper movie. With that said however, the lack of him sniping actually made the build-up to when he finally does give in and agrees to snipe quite worth-it and the scene is easily one of my favorites in the entire movie because of that.
Overall, Sniper: Reloaded is not as good as the first two movies were, but leaps and bounds better then horrid Sniper 3, and it's also a great jumping-on point for those unfamiliar with the series as it acts as kind of a light reboot in a 'Sniper: The Next Generation' kind of way.
7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
