The Gingerdead Man (2005)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Full Moon Entertainment

RUNTIME: 70 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: An evil gingerbread man comes to life with the soul of a convicted killer, and this real-ife cookie monster wreaks havoc on the girl who originally sent him to the electric chair.

REVIEW: Full Moon is one of the more well-known low-budget production companies by horror movie fans, if for nothing more then their sheer lasting-power. They've been around since the 80's, and they're still around now. Granted, what they put out now doesn't even come close to the amazing stuff they put out back in the 80's and 90's (Puppet Master, Trancers, Subspecies, Prehysteria, Robot Wars to name just a small portion), but there's still a few gems that pop up from time to time, and it's because of the thrill of potentially coming across one of those occasional gems that I find myself checking out their titles as soon as a new one comes out, even if I'm left disappointed more often then not these days (Stay away from The Killer Eye and Killjoy - seriously).

One of those recent titles of theirs was 2005's The Gingerdead Man, a movie very much like a classic Chucky movie, but instead of a wise-cracking killer doll it's a wise-cracking killer cookie. Yes, you read that right: A wise-cracking killer cookie. And to top it off, this deadly pastry is voiced by none other then genuine crazy-man himself Gary Busey! Talk about perfect casting! I mean, just those two bits of information right there is enough to grab my interest and shoot the cheese-scale so high it breaks the meter! The sweet cherry on top of this sure-to-be cheese-fest is the main actress, Robin Sydney. Pretty much a no-name to most people, but B-Movie fans should recognize her as the hot-but-crazy girlfriend of one of the main characters from the Evil Bong trilogy (which is also from Full Moon). Luckily she has a much bigger role in this movie then she did throughout that entire series. And what a role-reversal as well: In the Evil Bong trilogy, she plays a self-centered slutty crazy chick, where-as here she plays the sweet and innocent, down-to-earth shy girl. She plays both parts so well, that when you watch one and then go watch the other it's hard to believe it's even the same actress. It's amazing that with her range, she's not in much else other then Full Moon flicks.

Also in a similar vein to the first Child's Play movie, The Gingerdead Man starts off with Gary Busey's psychotic character, Millard Findlemeyer, on the run from the cops (in this case after robbing a restaurant and murdering some people in there), which ultimately results in his capture and eventual execution. After the overly-long opening credits that Full Moon is known for at this point, we cut ahead some undisclosed amount of time and our sweet and lovable main female lead Sarah, as played by Robin Sydney, is the girl we saw briefly in the intro who had her brother and father murdered right in front of her by Millard Findlemeyer, and she is the one that testified against him in court, leading to his electric chair execution (in which his dying words were 'I'll get you for this'). She's now working as the Manager, Co-Owner, and Head Baker in a little independent family-operated bakery that was previously owned by her father before he was murdered, and she's still quite haunted by the death of her father and brother, and by the killer's final threatening words.

Working alongside her is a wrestling-loving dorky guy that's a fellow baker and seems to have feelings for her, a hot girl who works at the counter and likes to wear low-cut tank top shirts, and her barely-there alcoholic mother. The rest of this small cast consists of an asshole business tycoon that is moving a large bakery chain in across the street and wants her small family-owned independent bakery gone and will go to any lengths to get it gone (which mostly means dirty sleazy underhanded tricks). With him, is his spoiled brat of a daughter and her bad-boy-but-good-hearted boyfriend, who is overall kind of a nice guy and starts to fall for Sarah throughout the movie, drifting away from the spoiled brat of a bitch he currently has as a girlfriend and widening the rift between those two girls. That's pretty much it - not a large cast at all, and apart from Busey and Sydney none of these other actors are really worth talking about as they're pretty much nobodies and like most nobodies in these kinds of movies, their acting leaves a bit to be desired most of the time (but also leaves a nice thick trail of cheese in their wake!).

Shortly after the opening credits finish and we get introduced to our main cast, a mysterious tub of gingerbread seasoning shows up on the back steps of the little bakery, dropped off by a mysterious old lady that is never explained but we can only assume it's the mother of Gary Busey's Millard Findlemeyer. Since Sarah was actually in desperate need of some gingerbread seasoning, and assuming that it was her daily order that had just arrived, she brings it in to start making gingerbread cookies with. While mixing it all together, one of the other characters ends up cutting himself, and while Sarah looks the cut over, blood is dripping down into the cookie mixture. Now, instead of throwing out that batch like a normal and sanitary person would, she continues mixing it. And she's supposed to know better, being the Head Baker and all! Even if that wasn't some voodoo-tampered cursed seasoning, that would still not even be close to right or sanitary. But of course this isn't the Cooking Channel and that's not what people are watching for, so thanks to some voodoo by crazy mysterious old lady, the fact that she put the ashes of her son in with the mixture, plus the added bonus of some spilled blood, when the main big cookie gets baked, it comes to life, occupied by the soul of Millard Findlemeyer!

From there, the rest of the movie deals with all the above-mentioned people being stuck inside this little small bakery, with a one-liner-spewing wise-ass killer cookie offing them one by one until they inevitably find a way to defeat him once and for all (though not really, since there's two more of these movies). Although oddly enough, they're not really 'stuck' per sey as they just choose not to leave. There's even a scene where one of the characters goes out to his car to get his cell phone and brings it back inside so they can call for help. Um...what? Why not just all of them leave with him, and then drive off in the car? Even when the power goes out and they are literally a foot away from the door, and they know that there's a killer gingerbread man after them, instead of leaving through that door they turn and head deeper into the building in order to try to turn the power back on...WTF? There's quite a few glaring and laughable plot holes like that scattered throughout the movie.

Unfortunately, that's not the only problem with this movie. Due to the small cast, and the fact that more people survived then I expected, there's not really a large body count in this one. Even the few that do get killed are very generic un-inventive deaths that consist of mostly just regular stabbings, so to be honest there's not a whole lot to look forward to in the kills department.

The characters are decently-written though, with some pretty funny dialog between all of them, and you genuinely start to care for them so you enjoy spending time with them as the movie goes through its motions. Plus there are tons of cheesy lines that spew forth in Gary Busey's voice from the killer cookie, so despite the movie kind of dropping the ball with the death scenes, there's still plenty of other good stuff to keep you paying attention. And if it helps at all, when you remove the ending credits the movie is only 58 minutes long (even shorter then that when you remove the overly-long opening credits as well), so it's extremely short and it just zooms by thanks to the aforementioned cheesy dialog, plus the added bonus of quite a few humorous visual treats such as seeing a group of fully-grown humans running away from a tiny cookie instead of just turning around and stepping on it, an awesome cat-fight that leads into a hilarious food fight in the back of the bakery (think of a similar scene from Mega Python vs Gatoroid), a scene that includes a perfect laugh-out-loud delivery of 'Got Milk?', and the Gingerdead Man doing up a body to look like a giant cake, just to list a few gem scenes that this movie holds within.

Speaking of the tiny potty-mouthed killer cookie, I must say that I was quite impressed with the puppetry used to bring the Gingerdead Man to life. Sure, there were occasional shots where it looked like nothing more then decked-out hand puppet, but more often then not it actually looked pretty impressive, especially with the close-ups of it's face when it talked. Granted, it's not like it was jumping around and doing acrobatics, so it couldn't have been hard to make it look good, but I still appreciate it all the same. Even more-so when take into consideration other recent Full Moon movies have opted to take the lazy way out quite often, and be much less-impressive with their effects (I must direct you to the Evil Bong trilogy, where while they are fun cheesy movies that I enjoy, the mouth on the Evil Bongs in each movie don't even move when they talk).

I tend to see quite a lot of people complain online that the entire plan concocted by the mysterious old lady, of bringing her psycho son back to life as a killer cookie, was hinged on the fact that somehow the old lady knew that someone would cut themselves, bleed all over the gingerbread seasoning mix (which already had the ashes of Millard Findlemeyer mixed in), and then continue to use that batch to make cookies. However, the way I like to look at it is this – later on in the movie, one of the characters eats the Gingerdead Man in order to (hopefully) defeat him. However, when the little guy was eaten, the evil soul of Gary Busey's character transferred into the person's body and he possessed him. Much like with Charles Lee Ray in Child's Play, this guy just wants a normal human body again, and so the way I look at it is that the old lady planned on someone eating the cursed cookie (probably Sarah herself was the intended target) and so Gary Busey's character would be able to possess the person and return to life that way. But when someone bled on the cookie mix, it brought him back in that form instead, and thus he was never supposed to be a homicidal baked good. It's not so much an example of an outrageous plan going perfectly, like haters online like to point out, but rather of the plan totally failing miserably. Though as hinted at in the final scene, this may actually have worked out better for Millard Findlemeyer then returning to a human form could ever have been for him. But for more on that, you must seek out Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust and Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver!

When all is said and done with this first movie in the series, was this a perfect B-movie? Definitely not, seeing as how some things were never fully-explained, some other things leave gaping plot holes, and there's an annoyingly-noticeable lack of kills and an even bigger lack of inventive kills. But whatever shortcomings this movie has, it more then makes up for in pure unforgiving cheese, a quickly-paced immensely-short runtime, and the very unique idea of having a killer cookie.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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The Eden Formula (2006)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Fantastical Cinema

RUNTIME: 92 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: Terrorists infiltrate a research facility with the intent of stealing the top-secret Eden Formula, only to accidentally let loose a fully-grown cloned Tyrannosaurus Rex.

REVIEW: Anyone who knows me, or have been following my reviews here on this blog, should already understand that my all-time favorite low budget movie series is the Carnosaur trilogy. In 2001 there was a new movie made titled Raptor, which starred Eric Roberts and was almost entirely made up of stock footage from the three Carnosaur flicks (and badly, I might add), and thus it's often regarded as an unofficial Carnosaur 4 (there are actually some European countries that have it officially, although mistakenly, titled as Carnosaur 4). But for the longest time, I always thought that was it for the world of Carnosaur, and I've constantly been lobbying for a new Carnosaur flick, even if it's done for the SyFy Channel or some other such company.

So you can imagine my amazement when it was brought to my attention that there actually was another Carnosaur movie made in 2006 that completely escaped me! Well to be honest, it's not a real Carnosaur sequel, but much like 2001's Raptor, it was made up of mostly stock footage from the Carnosaur flicks and thus should be regarded as an unofficial sequel as much as Raptor is. So of course I wasted no time at all in tracking down a copy of The Eden Formula to munch down on and review. If Raptor is an unofficial Carnosaur 4, then in my eyes The Eden Formula should be considered an unofficial Carnosaur 5.

Since these kinds of movies are pretty much just made up of footage from other movies, they need to have some selling point to attract interested parties, and that's where the stunt casting comes in; Where Raptor had Eric Roberts, this one improves on that by including Tony Todd (Candyman, Final Destination), Dee Wallace (The Howling, E.T.), and Jeff Fahey (Manticore, Lost), and oddly enough the only one out of that trio who really came across as really all that bad, was Dee Wallace. Jeff Fahey didn't really have to show much emotion to show so that was fine, and Tony Todd just had fun with it all and hammed up his role like crazy (which isn't a bad thing since this is a B-Movie after all, so that just makes it more cheesy and thus more entertaining). He totally stole the show as the too-cool-for-school terrorist leader, while Jeff Fahey and Dee Wallace play the two people in charge of the research facility that's created this Eden formula. The rest of the supporting characters though are pretty brutal in the acting department, which consist mostly of a female cop, an overweight security guard, and then the other members of Tony Todd's terrorist group, whom launches an attack on that research facility with the intent of stealing the scientific breakthrough formula and, of course, inadvertently cause a fully-grown cloned Tyrannosaurus Rex to escape and start causing havoc around Los Angeles, in the gory buckets-of-blood way that only a Carnosaur T. Rex can.

What this movie also improved on from Raptor, other then the stunt casting, are the special effects – sure, it used almost as much stock footage from the Carnosaur trilogy as Raptor did, but it integrated that footage a bit more smoothly, and also managed to create new effects shots as well! Granted, the new practical Rex model doesn't really look like the Carnosaur Rex stock footage much (same basic design, but more thin and seems to be far more cheaply-made, and some shots make it look more like a 2-legged crocodile then it does the Carnosaur T. Rex), and the new CGI version that they use a few times does somewhat resemble the original design as well, but ultimately the body comes across as very disproportionate; the head is fine, but the rest is far too small for that head. In addition, some of the things they do with the CGI model isn't realistic and its just not faithful to the physics of what has been portrayed with the physical models previously (seriously, there is one scene where the CGI Rex is jumping and hoping around like a basketball-playing bunny rabbit), and the worst part about it all is that these new models aren’t even the same color as one another! The Rex footage from the Carnosaur movies have it as a dark brown color while the new, cheaper-looking, Rex model changes from all-green to green with some white, and the CGI model is all-white! It's like the dinosaur version of those old gimmicky Micro Machine car toys where they completely changed colors when you held them up in sunlight or submerged them in water. They do get props from me though for at least putting in the effort to have something more then just stock footage like Raptor did, even if the execution didn't turn out all that great. The thought and effort was clearly there, and that counts for something in my books.

The final aspect that I felt The Eden Formula did better then Raptor is the story. Raptor was pretty much just a re-telling of the first Carnosaur movie, where-as this one actually had a unique plot not yet done previously in the series, with some genuinely surprising twists thrown in here and there. In-part, it's the plot I mentioned in my Carnosaur 3 review as having thought and hoped that Carnosaur 3 was going to do (and it ended up not). Granted, it didn't do it to the degree I would have liked, but at least it's a really nice step in that direction. If you remember from that review, I initially expected Carnosaur 3 to have the dinosaurs rampaging through the city but instead we just got them stalking a warehouse and then trapped on a transport boat out in the ocean. Well this movie does indeed have a dinosaur rampaging through a city for a large portion of the movie, though it only has the one dinosaur instead of a group of dinosaurs like Carnosaur 3 had.

And that brings me to the main thing this movie lacks IMO - the dinosaurs. Sure, we get lots of really good stuff with the Rex, but with this being the first Carnosaur-esque movie to have only the one dinosaur, you kind of feel a void left behind by not including a pack of vicious intelligent Raptors alongside the Rex. Especially with the 'Loose in the city' plot, it would have been awesome to see a pack of Raptors darting about the streets with one or two scenes of them possibly getting into a house or apartment complex or something. Just seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity, especially considering that half of the movie takes place inside of the research facility as Dee Wallace and Jeff Fahey try to escape from Tony Todd and his terrorists. That could have been the perfect opportunity to use some stock footage from Carnosaur 2 and 3 of the Raptors, having those things chase both groups of people through the facility. It at least would have made the scenes taking place in that facility more interesting while the Rex is away munching on people throughout the city.

Another aspect that bugged me a bit, which is something I also had a problem with in the similar-themed movie 100 Million B.C., and that is that despite a fully-grown giant Tyrannosaurus Rex rampaging through the middle of Los freakin' Angeles, nobody at all seems to even notice except the occasional random person that gets eaten; these streets in this movie are more lonely and deserted then those of Silent Hill. So much for Los Angeles having a bustling night life. Hell, not even the main characters themselves seem to be too concerned about the escaped Rex for the majority of the movie.

To top it all off, for the first time in the Carnosaur series (both official and unofficial entries included), the dinosaur does not make the same kinds of noises that it did in every previous movie. One of the things I loved about Carnosaur 1-3 and even Raptor, is that the dinosaurs had some really awesome-sounding vocal noises, but for this one they go with an entirely new soundboard, which isn't nearly as effective or memorable as the dinosaur sounds they used for all the other movies.

The movie on a whole really is not very good, and I probably would never recommend it to anyone. However, for someone who was starving for a new Carnosaur outing, this wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been (i.e. It isn't Raptor). Sure, the final 'polished' product is a pretty uneven mess that can get a bit boring when the dinosaur isn't on-screen, but there was at least some genuine effort attempted with it (even if it did fall a bit short), and there's always Tony Todd's cheesefest performance and some great gooey gore at the hands...err, jaws...of the escaped Rex to keep you riveted to the screen, plus there are some laugh-out loud lines of dialog to entertain you along the way (“I think we're gonna need a bigger bucket.”, “Ok, so in hindsight maybe creating a giant T. Rex wasn't the best of ideas.”).

If it was just Carnosaur 1-3 and then this, I probably wouldn't be nearly so kind to it. However, since its following on the heels of Raptor while trying to accomplish the same thing, I'm just happy that it's at least much more enjoyable then that one was. Until the next movie comes along that decides to use stock footage from the Carnosaur movies, this one will tide me over quite well for now.

5/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Airline Disaster (2010)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long
 

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 100 mins

FORMAT: BluRay

PLOT: Terrorists hijack a new state-of-the-art passenger airliner and hold the pilot's family hostage in order to make him cooperate and go along with their plans, while the U.S. Government works on bringing the terrorists to justice.

REVIEW: Despite owning Airline Disaster for about a year now, it's taken me forever to get around to watching it because, quite frankly, I just prefer my B-Movies to come in either the Monster/Creature or the Global Disaster variety and just regular action or suspense ones don't normally capture my interest as much. However, once the credits for this surprisingly fun little flick started rolling, I began giving serious thought to changing my tune.

This is one of Asylum's longer movies (1 hour and 40 minutes), but despite that it never feels long. Right from the opening minutes straight to the end, there's quite a lot that's going on as it's primarily made up of two separate, but related, main plots that themselves are split up into several smaller sub-plots, which means no time at all to waste on slow or boring stretches. The first of the two main plots reminded me quite a lot of the first season of Fox's hit TV series 24, in that it dealt with a mother and her daughter (and in the case of this movie, also her son) being kidnapped in order to make the husband/father of their family cooperate with the terrorists. They even get held at this house out in the middle of nowhere to be used as hostages and bargaining chips, with their kidnappers driving a white van. Their half of the story involves them trying to escape several times but always getting caught, and the mother trying to come up with ways to convince their captors not to kill them and to leave her kids alone. There were even a couple scenes in this part of the story that felt to me almost directly lifted from 24 (which for the record I'm perfectly fine with, since that's what this company is known for). One of the subplots for this part of the story even involves a government agent that's working on trying to rescue them, which involves some twists of it's own but still results in him leading an assault on the house to rescue the family, followed by a car chase with the white van (which if I remember correctly, is how the similar plot in Season 1 of 24 ended as well).

The other main story that shares the screen time is the part of the story that the title of the movie references. Just like how the previous plot reminded me of 24, this one reminded me just as much about Con Air. The husband/father of the kidnapped family (played by Scott Valentine who has taken on quite a few more pounds since his days filming Carnosaur 3) is the pilot of this new state-of-the-art passenger airline that gets hijacked by a group of people that are in charge of the temperamental hillbillies that kidnapped the family (who by the way are a gang of modern-day Nazis – cause, you know, everything that they're doing isn't bad enough as it is, so let's also make them Nazis for the hell of it since everyone hates Nazis). It's pretty clear that these people are the more calm, collective, thinkers of this gang of Nazis and the kidnappers are kind of the lower-class members. This part of the plot had many scenes that seemed lifted right out of Con Air other then just having the plane hijacked by hardened criminals – there was a scene where fighter jets were sent to shoot the plane down but our hero (in this case, the pilot) has to pull some daring tricks to get them to back off in order save the hostages on-board, but thus also the villains. There were even a couple of scenes that involved the plane crash landing into the middle of a city (or coming really close to it in one instance) but they go even a step further in this then Con Air did, and in true B-Movie fashion they added in the thrill of having parts of the plane breaking off as it plummeted through the sky, raining destructive debris down upon the city below and the people in the streets.

Con Air wasn't the only movie that led to inspiration for this part of the movie though. Fans of Die Hard will find a few little nuggets borrowed from their movie as well. There's also an off-duty Secret Service agent on the plane (Played by the very beautiful Asylum-regular Lindsey McKeon who should also be known to fans of Supernatural as Tessa the Reaper) and she plays a very Die Hard-esque role of sneaking around the tight spaces of the giant, multi-floored plane in the hopes of screwing up the terrorists' plan in any way she can while relaying information back to the authorities on the ground whenever she finds something out. She even has the whole “Right person in the wrong place at the wrong time” attitude about her. The only thing missing that was stopping her from being a true John McClane protégée was that she never got into the habit of mumbling to herself under her breath or of mocking the terrorists. And speaking of those terrorists, they also seemed to take a page out of Die Hard in that their demands that they gave to the authorities (and also to the viewers) turned out to just be a distraction from their real plan, which of course involved money. Lots of money.

There is a third, albeit very minor, plot that kind of bridges the two main plots (you know, apart from the fact that the family kidnapped is that of the plane's pilot), and that is the White House part of the story. The female President is played by Family Ties star Meredith Baxter as she spends the entire movie in her War Room with her military advisers. Their job in the movie is to dabble in all the various plots and sub-plots. They communicate with the terrorists in control of the plane while also secretly trying to figure out a way to put a stop to their plans, they're the ones that the Secret Service Agent hiding on board the plane relays information to, and their also the ones that the Government Agent communicates with as he tries to track down and rescue the kidnapped family. Oh, and in an extremely pointless and has-nothing-to-do-with-anything sub-plot of this part of the story, it's revealed that this President is also the sister of the pilot and thus the aunt of the kidnapped kids (cause you know, she really needed yet another completely random connection to everything going on in the movie). I don't really understand why they felt the need to make her related to the other main characters since it was quite out of the blue and random and they really did nothing at all with it in the movie anyway, but oh well. Despite this minor connecting plot and the fact that other then adding more screen time the whole President part of the story could have easily been removed, I found in a movie of pretty decent actors that Meredith Baxter completely stole the show. May have been a useless part of the movie, but she was always entertaining to watch – especially when her character was frantic and shouting at everyone.

 

Alongside the better-then-average acting for this sort of flick, are the better-then-average special effects as well. Granted, there wasn't much in the ways of special effects needed for this one, other then a plane flying in the air, but the shots of it almost crashing (and then later actually crashing) were pretty good. And you wouldn't think a plane flying over a city could be so deadly, but they found some pretty inventive ways to have the plane reign destruction down upon the cities it passes over, giving the plane almost a life of it's own and pretty much making it just as much an actual character in the movie as any of the humans.

In the end this one pretty much had it all. A really good story with mostly-all-good interconnecting plots filled with non-stop action, which came to life thanks to some great acting and decent special effects. As far as entertainment value goes, this is pretty close to as good as they can get in the B-Movie realm, without including a monster or creature in there.

9/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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The 10 Best B-Movies of 2011

 

Now that we're at the end of the year, every Site seems to be doing a 'Top 10 Movies of 2011' list and it made me want to do my own - but not some generic list that you can find on any site, that would include mostly all the same films as each other - no, I wanted to do one such list that fits my personal tastes - a list of the 10 Best B-Movies of 2011! Now to be honest, this entire list is pretty much being done on the spot, with no research behind it other then my own memory of what I've seen so far this year and which ones still stick out as having been really good in my memory after all this time, so forgive me if I ended up forgetting some by accident. Also, there is still plenty of movies from this year that I haven't yet seen, so it's possible I've potentially skipped over a few diamonds in the rough due to that as well, since this list is based off what I've actually watched myself.

The following list won't be in any specific order, as I clearly love all of them for them to even be on the list, so putting them in any kind of ranking order is a bit moot.


- Asylum puts out one or two movies about every single month, at least. Some are honestly not that good, at all, but most are a blast of low budget cheesy fun, and out of those ones this mockbuster of the more well-known Battle: Los Angeles has got to be one of my all-time favorites. You can read my full, previously-released, review of Battle of Los Angeles here.






- With the amount of movies Asylum releases, it's no surprise that more then one would make their way onto this list. This is the movie that Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus promised to be, but stumbled to deliver. Mega Python vs Gatoroid is filled with non-stop cheese and laughs from beginning to end, with 80's pop sensations Tiffany and Debbie Gibson stealing the show from the title creatures on more then one occasion. This is how you make a fun low budget monster movie.




- This one originally aired on TV in 2010, but was released on DVD and BluRay this year, so I'm counting it as a 2011 movie. Roger Corman is famous for a ton of well-known B movies from the 60's onwards and he returns this decade with Sharktopus - a movie that you can pretty much accurately guess what you'll be in store for based off just the title and cover art. Pure cheesy goodness all the way through with never a dull moment. This is one that one day I hope to see a sequel to.




- Hostel: Part III may not be as good as the first, but way better then the horrid second movie, and quite faithful to the tone of the series despite that it's not made by Eli Roth. Some really nice kills and unexpected twists throughout. Should have ended 5 minutes earlier then it did though, as the actual ending wasn't nearly as good or leave as much of an impact as the 'first ending'.






- Honestly, there's not really any plot to speak of with this movie, just seemingly random scene after random scene. But it's entertaining random scene after entertaining random scene, filled with really inventive and gory zombie kills by way of a whole slew of unique weapons, within some great post-apocalyptic set pieces, making it really feel like a fast-paced FPS video game adaptation. Plus it has Zombie Tigers.




- I'm never one to turn down a made-for-TV creature feature, but it's always an added bonus when it actually turns out good. Swamp Shark stars the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer as she battles a really old, really vicious shark that has made it's way into the swamp lands of her small town. Both the CGI shots, and the quick practical shots of the shark were surprisingly detailed and well-done, and the movie itself had a better-then-average plot, filled with better-then-average actors for this kind of flick. This one was a blast and a half.




- I love the Spanish horror flick [Rec]. I'm also one of the few that love the American remake of it, Quarantine. And as much as I enjoyed [Rec] 2, I'm glad this direct-to-video sequel decided to go its own path, because to my surprise, I ended up liking Quarantine 2: Terminal even more then I did the first Quarantine. Well-worth checking out for fans of the first, because this one is not only better, but also builds upon it in ways I never expected. It's more then one of my favorite B-Movies of the year - it's also one of my favorite horror movies of the year.




- While this is a sequel-in-name-only, when it comes to going direct-to-video that's almost a better route to take sometimes. This however felt like it could have easily gone to theaters. It was highly entertaining with a competently-written script, filled with very well-acted characters, excellent use of genuine tension, some really fun and explosive action scenes, and a creepy villain that you just love to hate. What more can you ask for in an Action B-Movie?




- Asylum's modern-day mockbuster of this classic story is pure adrenaline-fueled entertainment from beginning to end, with fun quirky characters that I never got tired of following, and well choreographed action scenes. Even has a couple of sword fights thrown in for good measure, which is quickly becoming a staple of Asylum action flicks. I wouldn't mind at all seeing further adventures of this group of Mission: Impossible wannabes.




- Sure, the actors may not be the greatest, the dialog is atrocious, and parts of the script are incredibly messy - but it's still the best of the Howling sequels, and overall a pretty damn fun little popcorn werewolf movie, with a gothic castle-like school as it's main setting. They also stick to mostly old-school practical man-in-suit effects for the werewolves which I can very much appreciate, keeping the design pretty close to the design of the werewolves from the original movie (which is something none of the other sequels ever bothered to do). As a werewolf fan, despite it's shortcomings, I can't help but see the genuine effort that went into this one and enjoy it based on that alone. The gory kills and fun werewolf-on-werewolf fights help as well though.

Honorable Mention

- I have a few too many issues with this one to count it as among 'The Best' of the year, but despite those issues it's still a really entertaining movie if you're a fan of the series thus far, and it's extremely short runtime (about an hour if you don't count the opening and closing credits) helps you to overlook a lot of it's problems because the movie moves at such a fast pace that it's over before you have much time to think. If you're not a fan of the previous two movies though, then there's no need for you to attempt this one because nothing in this will make you like it above the others.

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Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (1995)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Tsuburaya Eizo

RUNTIME: 82 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: A mysterious new transfer student shows up at a high school where people have recently started dying. That night, when 13 students are staying late in the school, they get trapped in their school with unseen magical forces killing them off one-by-one, and it's up to Misa Kuroi, the mysterious new girl, to protect them and put a stop to the supernatural events.

REVIEW: Let me start this by saying that Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness is a Japanese movie, and not one with an English Dub available for it, so if you're not the kind of person that likes to read subtitles while watching a movie then I'm telling you up front - this movie isn't for you. But if having to read subtitles doesn't faze you, then by all means, continue on.

I wasn't too sure what to expect when I first popped this movie in. I love all horror movies, no matter what country they're originally from, and some of the more well-known Asian horror movies, I've really enjoyed, such as Ringu (The Ring), Ju-On (The Grudge), Kairo (Pulse), and Chakushin Ari (One Missed Call) to name some. However this was a movie I had heard zip on before being told about it, and upon looking online I saw that it was a rather nearly-unheard of low budget affair and thus I didn't really know what to expect from it (though I did notice that it seems to have a small cult following).

It starts off with a scene of robed figures in some dim candle-lit room, chanting while doing bad things to a voodoo doll, inter-cut with a woman running and screaming through the streets at night, complete with overly-dramatic and cheesy 'intense' music. In pure Omen-fashion, an 'accident' occurs that results in a thick steel girder falling on her and crushing her head just as one of the robed figures slams a knife down onto the head of the voodoo doll. It's later revealed in the movie that this was the 5th person to mysteriously die in the last several nights, and one of the students pieces together with a map that if you join the areas where they died, it forms a giant pentagram and smack dab in the middle is their high school. These students instantly start casting suspicion on the mysterious new student, Misa Kuroi who seems to know a thing or two about magic. As the movie goes on, they discover a plot to resurrect Lucifer, in which after the pentagram of sacrifices is complete, thirteen more sacrifices are needed within the giant pentagram in order to complete the spell. It’s not long before twelve of the students are magically trapped in the school for the night with Misa, and things go from already-bad to terrifying. Not including the deaths (I'll get to those later), they're pursued by a handful of other creepy supernatural situations that includes, but is not limited to, an invisible barrier surrounding the school that prevents them from leaving, doors slamming open and shut on their own, a student getting possessed, geysers of water shooting up out of the toilet and bathroom sinks, and a number written on the chalkboard that seems to count down on its own as each person dies.

Of the roster of the 'main' 12 or so students, a few of them get decent characterization that lifts them up a bit from the others, but most are virtually ignored and regulated to forgettable background characters that get just one or two lines, if even that, and are then offed and due to that, it's very easy to get all the various characters confused and mixed up, but it's also a bit understandable considering that the movie is barely 80 minutes, so there's far too little time to waste on giving so many people decent characterization. Of the few that do get characterization, only one or two of those actually have you care about what happens to them and the other couple you almost want to see get killed due to their level of annoyance or unlikable personalities. Even Misa herself, the title character, seems to only have minimum characterization, but I'm willing to forgive that seeing as how much of the movie is shown to us through the point-of-view of the students thrust into a situation they can't comprehend, and so we mostly see Misa through their eyes and she purposely stays distant from them as this is 'just another job' for her and she doesn't want to get attached to anyone (something that despite her attempt, she fails at), because people who get close to her end up dying. But don't get me wrong, when the character does show emotion and freaks out a little, it really shows that the actress has some good acting chops and really can do a range of emotions, so when the character is being a bit monotone or distant, it's not due to the fault of the actress but the way the character was purposely-written.

One of the other female students that gets a bit of characterization as it turns out, is in 'a relationship' with a female teacher, but nothing whatsoever is done with this in the movie other then to have a really pointless, out-of-nowhere 5 minute-long lesbian sex scene, and then that 'sub plot', if it can be called that, is dropped again shortly after. Now I like my lesbian sex scenes as much as the next straight guy (The one in Bitch Slap is the stuff of legends), but I also like a coherent story. If I want pointless lesbian sex scenes that has nothing to do with the story or the characters, I'd rent a porno (I hear Lord of the Thongs is available). It wouldn't even be that bad if they continued injecting that aspect of the plot throughout the rest of the movie so it wouldn't have been so pointless, but they don't – it gets mentioned by a couple characters near the beginning as a rumor, it gets confirmed to us by way of the random sex scene, there's one line about it a scene or two later, and then nothing else is ever said or shown on the matter for the rest of the movie. And it goes on way too long. I think at least 5 minutes is the runtime on that scene, and it got a bit tedious and was probably the first and only time I've wanted to out and out skip a sex scene in a movie.

Another annoying aspect is that after getting trapped in the school, despite seeing with their own eyes that when someone goes off alone they get killed, several times in the movie various students still keep wanting to go off on their own or separate from the group because they think that Misa, after they find out she's a witch and people have died at all her old schools, is the one doing the black magic spells (despite the fact that she's been there with them the entire time and thus they saw with their own eyes that it can't be her). They end up leaving to go out on their own in a huff, and it makes no sense at all considering everything that's happened and continues to happen in the movie. And this doesn't happen just once, nor even twice. Oh no, it happens three times. Though one of those times, Misa isn't the one being accused and instead it's one of the other students but still, it's the exact same plot device used three separate times, and all three times it makes no sense other then to serve the script when it reaches a point where it's been several minutes without a gory death and the movie needs another, so it has to separate one or two people from the pack.

Adding to the whole 'random things happen for no reason other then to serve the script' argument, near the beginning of the movie, it's established that a bunch of other people in the school seem to dabble in real magic and treats it as if it's a normal regular occurrence that everyone dabbles in it. It made no sense, especially since once again it's pretty much completely dropped after the first few scenes of it, and it served no purpose other then to make just about everyone a suspect when the shit hits the fan.

The movie also tries too hard to make the viewer think early-on that Misa may be the one responsible, when she obviously isn't since she's portrayed as the hero of the movie in all the advertisements, previews, and even on the front cover. She IS a witch, yes, but she's a good witch that uses black magic to hunt evil witches and put a stop to their dastardly plans. Although that's pretty much void for 95% of the movie as due to a curse caused by the hidden evil witches, she's drained of all her powers for the majority of the flick, making me wonder why they even bothered to add the interesting-but-hardly-used subplot of her having magical powers.

And speaking of the evil witches – the beginning scene showed an entire group of evil hooded witches, yet come the end there's far less then that (to reveal how many would reveal how many of the main characters are in fact evil, but for the purpose of the rest of this review I'll refer to the killer(s) as a single entity), and there's no explanation given as to what happened to all the rest – one can assume they're all still out there somewhere, free to continue their evil witch ways; after that initial first scene, they're never seen nor heard-tell of again, so they seem to be a loose plot thread completely dropped from the movie after the first three minutes. Just one more in a long list of plot threads introduced in the movie only to be dropped and forgotten about.

Now up to this point I've been mostly harsh on the movie, and you may think I didn't like it, and while it's true that it's a far cry from perfect and it has quite a lot of glaring faults – overall I really did enjoy it. While most of the movie is done with oldskool practical effects, with the result being some nice and creepy visuals, there is two or three CGI shots present, and while one of the major ones looked pretty goofy and cheesy as a character starts disintegrating like sand and gets blown away, the other - a giant CGI Lucifer - actually looked pretty good.

The death scenes as well, despite some looking very cheesy in a low budget 90's kind of way, were really intense and were well-done with the practical effects, and thankfully it didn't hold back on the drippy red stuff. There are plenty of awesome and inventive death scenes to be found in this movie, with my personal favorite being this one scene were five students are all offed at once while trapped in a classroom and we witness the entire thing from outside the room, hearing their screams and panicked cries as the lights inside the room flicker on and off rapidly and large amounts of blood occasionally splash and smear against the foggy windows, leaving it entirely up to our imaginations as to exactly how they were being mutilated. Luckily we do see most of the movie's deaths on-screen, but when there's even just one horrifying scene like that where it happens off-screen and it's up to our own imaginations as to what happened, well that's more terrifying then anything that could have been shown.

Which leads into one of my favorite aspects of the movie and the thing it does the best – the director of this flick understands and knows how to do really good creepy atmosphere. Right from the opening seconds of the movie to when the credits role at the end, there's an uneasy feeling about everything that just eats away inside of you, just below the surface, and it crescendos during the thick of the movie as people are being offed left, right, and center, but even after the baddie of the day is defeated and Lucifer is back in Hell, that uneasy feeling still lingers. A lot of different aspects contribute to that, the first being the entire idea of black magic; It means someone can kill you and do nasty things to you from a far distance, while in the safety and comfort of pretty much anywhere, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. They can strike whenever, and do whatever to you and you're 100% helpless to stop it; it's just a matter of waiting until it happens. Another contributing factor is the setting; I always enjoy it when horror movies take place inside a dark and creepy school. It's one of my personal favorite horror movie settings and works even better in those huge Japanese academy kind of schools.

At first I had the identity of the killer written under negative things due to how horribly predictable and lame it was, but then the movie pulled a fast one over on me and completely changed it's tune with one last twist that I admit, I did not see coming but I did really love and made me enjoy the reveal of the killer way more then before. This is also probably one of the times I've seen villains come the closest to winning, before having victory snatched from their grasp. The movie genuinely had me thinking that the bad guy was actually going to win in this one because I just didn't see any possible way for Misa to get out of her...um...predicament (if it can be called that). Suffice to say, she does, but even after seeing the movie multiple times I'm still a bit confused on exactly what happened in that scene and how Misa got herself out of it.

To hammer in the point that this isn't some feel-good happy-ending kind of movie, and the final contribution to the never-ending uneasiness you feel while watching (and this constitutes MAJOR SPOILER territory so you may want to skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie yet but you plan to, and you're against that sort of thing): No one survives except Misa. Not one single person. It was a nice and unexpected change of pace from how movies like this normally end, where at least one or two others are saved and walk off together into the sunset, having a good 'ol laugh. Even in the end, after Misa regains her powers, stops the bad guy, and saves the day - even after her tough exterior is finally broken away and she starts to become genuine friends with some of these people during their night of terror together – she is the sole survivor, after just having had to watch those she didn't want to get close to but did, die in front of her eyes, further re-instating just exactly why she shouldn't allow herself to become close to anyone. Even in the face of victory, there's a depressing, lonely, and even cold atmosphere surrounding it and the movie ends with Misa walking away down the road towards her next assignment, leaving as mysteriously as she appeared...once again alone.

Those final moments show us, more then anything else in the movie, exactly just the kind of life Misa has to live and why she has to be so cold and distant and not get close to anyone. And if anyone is still unsatisfied with the level of characterization for her in this movie and they want more, well fear not as you can just move on to the second movie, Eko Eko Azarak 2: Birth of the Wizard, since it's a prequel about Misa's discovery of her powers and the events that began her journey down this path, and the Misa in that movie is very much a different version of the character, from before her life was tipped upside down and what she thought she knew of the world was shattered - back when she was just another innocent teenager with no worries in the world.

The musical score is mostly really good as well. There are a couple times it's way overly-dramatic to the point of laugh-out-loud cheese, but most of the time it's somber and dreary, and very fitting for the tone of the movie. The haunting main theme especially drives that point home, and is a perfect match for the character of Misa, portraying in music everything that makes that character who she is.

Even though this film was fairly low budget and a bit on the cheesy side at times, and aspects of the script really annoyed me, it’s still overall a pretty enjoyable B-movie from Japan, that has a great gloomy atmosphere about it, with awesome gory death scenes, and some really well-executed scenes of supernatural-happenings to satisfy any lover of the genre. Even most of the negative aspects seem to bother me less and less upon repeat viewings and the movie just gets better each time I watch it. If I had to quickly describe this movie in one sentence to a possible interested-party, it would probably be this: Picture a feature-length, R-Rated, episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that centers around Willow instead of Buffy, mixed with a really dark adult version of Harry Potter.

7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward


Now, I want to take a minute to talk about the Special Features found on this DVD, just because I was incredibly impressed by them. For a movie that you'd find in the $4.99 bin at Wal-Mart, if you can even find it at all, they certainly put some good effort into the features. Alongside the theatrical trailer we have Making Of, which while I normally skip those these days since they're all pretty much the same, I really dug this one because you get a good look at the difference in cultures between America and Japan, and the things Japan does differently when making a movie compared to America (In one shot in particular, we see everyone doing a quick religious ceremony before they start filming for the day), but not everything is different as we also get to see plenty of footage of the cast goofing around and having just plain ol' fun while making the movie, and of course we're privy to how they pulled off some of the more elaborate special effects and death scenes.

After that we have footage from the World Film Premier with all the main cast and crew in attendance and answering press and fan questions alike, and again it seemed like everyone was really enjoying being there – both those who made the movie and those that were there to view it. It seemed like even before the movie came out there was a large and eager fanbase for it in Japan. Finally we have a decent-length retrospective Sit-Down Interview with the female director and the main actress who played Misa Kuroi as they remember back on the entire experience and give lots of insightful information and plenty of funny behind-the-scenes stories, during which we learn that the the annoying barely-there lesbian 'sub plot' and the out-of-nowhere pointless lesbian sex scene was only put in because the Company Suits forced the director to include that and she almost walked away from the movie in defiance, but ultimately didn't. Also included are stories of some pretty creepy mysterious going-ons that seemed to plague the filming, especially around the times that the lead actress had to cite the main Eko Eko Azarak chant (which, like all the magical incantations present in the movie, is a real Pagan chant). Over all, I'd say this retrospective interview was better and more informative then most Commentary tracks tend to be.

All in all, this DVD has a full set of really interesting features, all of which are subtitled, that I had a blast going through, and felt deserved its own little section here to be mentioned in.

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100 Million BC (2008)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 85 mins

FORMAT: Netflix

PLOT: When the U.S. Military re-opens the Philadelphia Experiment, a group of scientists get sent through time and trapped back in the prehistoric age, so a team of soldiers is sent to retrieve them but, as to be expected, not all survive. And to make matters worse, when they're able to get back to the Present, something prehistoric returns with them.

REVIEW: Ever since I can remember, I've loved dinosaurs – pretty much my favorite thing, ever. So whenever a movie comes out with dinosaurs in it, no matter how good or bad, I have to check it out. But when one of those movies is made by none other then my favorite low budget production company The Asylum...well...I get pretty excited to check the thing out, especially since the only other dinosaur flick by them that I've seen, I really enjoyed (The Land That Time Forgot – never did a review of that one, but I may next time I do a re-watch of it). So when I heard that they had another dinosaur movie out there titled 100 Million BC, and starred none other then Tremors famer Michael Gross, I knew I had to check it out for review.

This movie starts off with a couple of mountain climbers finding a previously-undiscovered cave where there are cave paintings of humans interacting with dinosaurs, along with messages written on the wall alongside them. We then cut to a team of military soldiers arriving at some building in Los Angeles. We can tell right away that pretty much all of these characters are only in the movie to raise the body count up because none of them save for maybe one or two have anything even resembling characterization given to them during the course of the movie and most only have two or three lines. The two that do get just a smidgen of characterization – the team leader and one other one – are among the first two to be killed off when they travel back in time, leaving us stuck with the far-less interesting bland cardboard-cutout soldier characters.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. They get introduced to a military scientist played to perfection by Michael Gross of Tremors fame. Having played the character of Burt Gummer on Tremors and not really much else that I'm familiar with, I was really excited to hear he was in this movie, and he didn't disappoint. He played the role exactly as you would expect him to, and the character is one of the few fleshed-out characters in the movie. The only crappy thing about his role is that he wasn't given much to do other then stand around and talk. Even when they get to the past he mostly just stands there behind everyone while the other characters get in on the dinosaur action. Anyway, he briefs the soldiers on the situation: In the 1950's, they re-opened the top secret and legendary Philadelphia Experiment. Now on top of this being a dinosaur movie starring the actor of my favorite B-movie character, now they throw the Philadelphia Experiment into the blender as well! I'm a huge fan of the Philadelphia Experiment conspiracy and read up on anything that deals with it. This movie seems to be made up of all the things I love, so at this point I'm really digging it.

Burt Gummer...errr, sorry...Michael Gross's character goes on to explain that once again the experiment was a failure and resulted in the team of scientists working on it to disappear right before their eyes. They were never seen nor heard from again, so the project was once again shut down. That is, until the recent cave discovery shown in the intro, of which the messages written and paintings depicted on the wall were done by the scientists that went missing and was a message made by them. So now the military has re-opened the project once more in order to send a rescue team back into prehistoric times to find those missing people and bring them back home.

Upon arriving in prehistoric times via what seems like early unfinished Stargate effects, the military team (accompanied by Michael Gross) discover that - much like when the original Philadelphia Experiment happened and soldiers were fused to the bulkhead of the ship – one of their soldiers had been fused with a nearby tree. From there, things just go from bad to worse as they seem to run into danger almost right away and it hardly gives them more then two minutes at any given time to breathe. It actually got a bit annoying because I kind of wanted a few minutes for the characters to just relax a bit and get some characterization, but it was just one thing after another - deadly plants, a prehistoric crocodile, a pack of vicious raptors, killer pteranodons, and their biggest and most recurring problem: a Tyrannosaurus Rex, named Big Red due to his size and the dark blood-like color of his skin. If they're not being actively pursued by something, they're accidentally stumbling upon something else and each danger they come across shortens the size of their group more and more.

The biggest problem with all that, which bugged me even more then the consistency of the attacks, are the uneven effects. I don't mind bad CGI, and I don't mind bad puppetry, but for the love of God, just pick one and stick with it! As if it wasn't bad enough that the CGI was some of the worst I've ever seen (and disappointingly far below that of what I was expecting from The Asylum after seeing their low-budget version of The Land That Time Forgot), but they also used some of the worst dinosaur puppetry that I've ever seen (and that coming from a fan of the Carnosaur movies), and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to which effect was used at which time. Some shots were CGI, some were of puppets, and it went back forth at random. At least with the bad CGI shots, you can see the full animal; with the puppetry you only get to see super close-ups of part of its body, and only for about a split second before it cut away to the reactions of people around it – you don't even get a good look. They should have just picked one or the other instead of distractingly using both, and as much as I normally love practical effects over CGI, if this is how they're gonna be used then just give me the crappy CGI because at least it focuses on the creature for more then a second and we get a good view of the entire creature instead of just a close-up on its mouth or eye.

The few characters that are still alive by this point of the movie (among them of course is Michael Gross), get saved from the Mr. Dressup-reject pack of raptors by a ragtag group of cave-dwelling humans which, not surprisingly, turn out to be the survivors of the scientists stuck in the past – while it had been 50 years in our time, it's only been a few years for them. But a few years in a land as dangerous as this is far too long and it means there's only a few of them still alive. Among them is a scientist that turns out to be the older (but now much-younger) brother of Michael Gross' character, another scientist who likes to paint in his spare time (hence the cave drawings), and two girls that consist of a medic and a cook. After using spears and a make-shift bow-and-arrow set, they kill most of the raptors and drive away the rest, and bring the survivors of the rescue team back to their cave-home for the night, to rest up, eat, drink, and be merry.

Other then Michael Gross, I haven’t really cared about the other characters much since they're badly-written, badly-acted, and are around pretty much solely to be cannon fodder. Thankfully that changed with the introduction of these four new characters in almost every way – they're written really well, portrayed really well by the actors playing them, and each one gets a decent amount of proper characterization. There's even an oddly-emotional scene where Michael Gross is talking with the other scientist/painter guy under a star-filled prehistoric sky about how things 'back home' have changed and when the guy questions him on his family, Michael Gross has to break the news to him that things never really got good for them – his wife lived her life depressed at his mysterious disappearance and died a few years back from cancer, and his son grew up without any fatherly-guidance and thus was always into trouble with the law and grew up a delinquent. Quite heavy stuff for an Asylum film and it's stuff like that, that proves the scriptwriter had the chops to do excellent character-building scenes, so it's a mystery to me why only Michael Gross and these new four ended up getting any of that.

Anyway, the next morning everyone packs up and they all head back out to return to the portal entrance and get back home. What baffles me about this whole part of the movie, and doesn't make any sense that I can figure out, is that the trip back to the portal entrance took way longer. When they arrived it seemed to only take an hour at the most for them to get from there to the cave, but the trip back seems to be many hours, if not a couple of days worth of trekking. Not to mention the landscape looked completely different, almost as if they took a different route. But why take a different, much-longer route when you're in a hurry to get back and the other one would have you back in an hour, tops? It was another one of those script problems I didn't much care for and hampered my enjoyment a bit. Where it does match up with the first trek though, is that it's filled with non-stop danger with them running into one thing trying to kill them after another with nothing more then about 20 seconds of breathing space between. By the time they reach the portal entrance again, they've lost everyone who initially came with the rescue mission except one nameless soldier with zero personality (and sadly, that also includes Michael Gross' character, who sacrifices himself in order for the others to get back) so it's only the four people who had been stuck there to begin with that makes it back, and one other minor guy (who completely drops out of the movie shortly after returning to the Present Day). But of course they don't come alone, as the recurring Big Red chases them through the portal, and back into present-day Los Angeles, which leads into the final act of the movie.

This is a section of the movie that I both really love, and really dislike, but for different reasons. Much like in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and unlike everyone else in the world it seems, I really enjoy seeing dinosaurs rampaging through a city. There's just something fun to me about seeing a prehistoric animal from millions of years ago wrecking havoc in present day, and in that regard this portion of the movie doesn't disappoint. It's a nice contrast to see the Rex causing destruction in an environment of metal and glass, in comparison to seeing it reigning over a green jungle like we saw previous, and there are some really tense chase scenes in this part of the movie.

What I don't like about it though, is that it goes on way too long. Taking up an entire half of the movie at 45 minutes. This should have just been a quick 15-20 minute climax and not an entire half of the movie. Especially since the whole 45 minutes is made up of them either chasing after the Rex or being chased by the Rex. Almost all on-foot. That's right, right in the middle of Los Angeles (though a very empty Los Angeles by the looks of it) and they need to either get to the Rex quickly or get away from it quickly, and instead of using vehicles they feel using their own legs is the best method of quick transportation. I actually started feeling really bored by the time the final few minutes came around because everything was just so damn repetitive by that point.

This one had all the ingredients within it to be an instant Asylum Classic – a really good basic story, lots of dinosaurs, the Philadelphia Experiment, Michael Gross, and plenty of good shots of a tough hot chick in a tight tank top. How could they possibly mess something up that consists of all those awesome things? Well, a lot of really bad acting, too many characters that you just don't care about, the worst and most inconsistent effects I've ever laid eyes on (even when going by The Asylum's low standards), a climax that overstays its welcome, and some glaring problems on a script level all contributed to lowering my enjoyment of it, which is a shame because it could easily have been so much better with just a little tinkering here and there.

4/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Imperial Entertainment

RUNTIME: 87 mins

FORMAT: VHS

PLOT: 76 years after the first movie, cyborgs have taken over the world and enslaved the human race. The human freedom fighters' scientists create a genetically-engineered superhuman as a secret weapon against the cyborgs, but during an ambush they must instead send her back in time to hide her, but she's soon followed by a cyborg bounty hunter.

REVIEW: I know everyone warned me to stay away from Nemesis 2: Nebula and the other Nemesis sequels, but I wanted to check them out for myself anyway. 1, Bad movies are my forte' so if you tell me to stay way from something because it's a bad movie – that just sparks my interest even more. 2, the original director/writer did all four Nemesis movies so that has me interested. 3, I'm a completest. When I sit down to watch a movie, no matter how bad the others are, if there are more in the series I have to watch them.

And to be honest? I didn't find this nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Sure, when compared to the first movie, it's not very good, but as a stand alone movie I found it quite entertaining and really, it has next to nothing to do with the first movie anyway beyond using is as a bit of background information on the state of the future, so it really has no need to be compared with it.

Following the events of the first movie, a full-on war started between cyborgs and humans in which the humans lost. After decades of slavery, scientists working with the human freedom fighters finally manage to create a superhuman – a female baby that will grow up to be stronger and faster then the average human, and have quick reflexes to fight back against the cyborgs with. However, shortly after being born, the labs are ambushed by a cyborg strike team and one human manages to escape with the baby (the baby is named Alex in memory of the 'human hero' from the start of the war; a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the main character of the first movie). To escape, she steals a cyborg time traveling vehicle and ends up in East Africa in the 1980's - right in the middle of a civil war. When the female adult is killed by a group of rebels, the baby is taken in by a local tribe of Natives and is raised as one of their own. Cut forward to her early 20's and the cyborgs from the future finally managed to track her location in time and sends back a bounty hunter named Nebula, which heavily resembles a Predator rip-off, to track her down in the East African desert and kill her.

The Alex in this movie is played by a rather tough-looking and quite large female bodybuilder...which actually makes sense. After all, mankind's great weapon against the machines – a genetically-engineered superhuman - isn't going to exactly be small, thin as a stick, and meek. This isn't the sleek-and-sexy-looking Resident Evil or Underworld franchises, this is the low-budget dark and gritty Nemesis franchise. And since they hired her based off her size and stature...well, her acting (or lack there-of. Seriously, she hardly has any lines in the entire movie) leaves a bit to be desired. But she wasn't hired for her acting ability and her character wasn't genetically-engineered for a good conversation, so it makes sense. Both her and her character are in the movie for purely one reason: to kick cyborg ass. And in that regard, she does it perfectly.

Other then her, the only other main character really is the silent-but-deadly Bounty Hunter creature. Despite being called a cyborg, it comes across much more as some kind of flesh-and-blood creature or alien then it does a mechanical robot, and it talks even less then Alex does. That is to say, apart from some growls, snarls, and roars, there are only two scenes in the entire movie where it actually speaks – and oddly enough to great comedic effect (whether on-purpose or not). When it does speak, it's with a fluent British accent, totally going against the animalistic beast-like nature it was portrayed with during the entire movie. It also seemed to shop at the same Army Surplus store as the Predators from the Predator movies; it can bend light to make itself look near-invisible or distort your vision when you look at it or something like that (never really made clear what that effect was all about), it can record and playback video and audio, it can change the style of view it has, and it has a shoulder cannon that fires blue energy blasts. With it being a bounty hunter, it's also an expert hunter and tracker. But in it's very short defense, at least it's design was a bit original and it didn't really look much like a Predator. Although we hardly get to see it beyond a quick-moving blue blur for most of the movie, until a few good shots of it at the very end during the climatic fight.

Where-in the first movie we got many different kinds of scenery; post-apocalyptic wasteland, extensive city, small town, Japanese jungle – This one, except the first five minutes which takes place in a post-apocalyptic Cyborg-controlled city (and is made up almost entirely of re-used stock footage from the first movie), is all set pretty much in one location – the East African desert. It makes the movie feel a lot more small-scale then it's predecessor. Still, I actually liked the desert landscape, if for nothing more then it didn't give Alex many places to run and hide, thus leading to more kick-ass action scenes. The movie didn't have much of a plot other then Alex trying to escape the bounty hunter, coming across a group of people (depending on the group, some try to help her while others try to capture her for their own reasons), said group of people get killed, Alex tries to escape the Bounty Hunter again, repeat. When a movie is like that, the action scenes are really all it has going for it and thankfully there are plenty, though none of them reach the level of awesome that the action scenes from the first movie were at, but they're still pretty good in their own low-budget right.

There are some aspects that make no sense at all though – like if the Cyborgs have time travel devices, and they finally managed to track down the point in time that Alex was sent back to, then why send the Nebula bounty hunter to 20 years later, instead of to the point where the baby initially arrived and thus was still a baby instead of a superhuman cyborg-killing adult? But in movies such as these, you're not really supposed to think too much about the gaping plotholes, I guess.

My one real big issue however, apart from the above-mentioned inconsistencies when it comes to the Nebula bounty hunter, is that the movie ends without any real ending. Alex kills the bounty hunter and then drives off in a jeep. The End. She's still stuck in the past while her present/our future burns under the control of the cyborg menace, and they will no doubt continue to send cyborg troops back in time to kill her when this one fails to return. I hear that Nemesis 3: Time Lapse is made entirely of scrapped footage from this movie – they had filmed way too much and had to cut much of it (including many characters and entire plots) in order to get this one down to a reasonable runtime and so they used all that cut footage to make another movie. I'm not sure how well that will play out on-screen, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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