From the archives: “Skinwalkers”

There is no reason for you to see Skinwalkers.

Seriously, I cannot emphasize that enough. No reason whatsoever. If your child has a rare and fatal disease that can only be cured by seeing Skinwalkers; you still have no reason to see Skinwalkers. If you are carjacked and commanded at gunpoint to see Skinwalkers; you still have no reason to see Skinwalkers. If you are kidnapped by members of Al Queda Iraq and told that the only way to avoid being dressed in an orange jumpsuit, forced to “confess” your crimes against the Muslim world on streaming internet video, and have you head sawed off is to see Skinwalkers; you still have no reason to see Skinwalkers. If God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Of All That is Seen and Unseen descends from Heaven in a swirl of clouds, flanked by seraphim, and promises you a life of happiness, joy, and fulfillment as long as you see Skinwalkers; you still have no reason to see Skinwalkers. If Tyra Banks calls you up for dinner and a movie and following that, an evening of athletic sex so debauched, so raunchy, so debased that you will remember it upon your deathbed as you prepare to shuck off your mortal coil and can’t even recall your loved ones or your own name–as long as that movie you see is Skinwalkers…I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought.

It’s Alive! Alive! “Frankenfish”

When you title your movie Frankenfish, the audience is going to have some natural expectations. I, for one, fully expected there to be a fish with little bolts in its fishy neck. And maybe he’ll be wearing little Doc Martins on some of his fins. There could even be a scene in which a mad fish-scientist—maybe bearing a resemblance to Jacques Cousteau—brings the fish to life in a blaze of electricity and cackles, “It swims! It swims!”  Maybe, if you want to ambitious, you even have a scene in which the fish bellows, “Fire bad!”  I don’t how you make the fish talk, since they mostly only make that popping noise with their mouths, but what the hell. It’s a Frankenfish. Alas, none of those things happen in Frankenfish. We do get China Chow, and she’s cute. Plus there’s another hot chick, too, so you could do a lot worse.

Awake me when it’s over: “Underworld: Awakening”

So, about two minutes into the first action sequence of Underworld: Awakening it hit me:  I have never liked these movies. Ever. None of them, and I have seen all of them. Most in the theater.  And yet none of them has been good.  I mean, vampires vs. werewolves should be cool. Not awesome. Not epic.  Not like, you know, Daniel Craig riding dinosaurs into battle against Imperial stormtroopers awesome, but it should be cool. So why do they blow so hard and long? You even have Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather and still, I can barely recall anything about any of these movies except the fact that they’re shot through a blue filter and I think Tony Blair was in one. So now we got Underworld: Awakening. And it is…um…well, I fell asleep during a shootout, so what does that tell you?

Pitching and catching: “Creature of Darkness”

So… Creature of Darkness …yeah …Creature of Darkness…this movie is basically a rip off of Predator, only without any of the things that made Predator awesome. So, instead of commandos, we get a bunch of dumbass twenty-somethings.  And instead of Arnie we get, um, Sanoe Lake. Remember her? She was the chick in Blue Crush that wasn’t Kate Bosworth or Michelle Rodriguez. Remember her now? Well, it’s not a big deal—you’re probably not going to see this movie (and there’s no reason you should). Ooo! But it does have an alien hunter! Aw yeah! Only instead of, like, a cloaking device or really cool alien weaponry it…uh, well, it dresses up like the Gordon’s Fisherman. (Sigh), okay let’s just get this over with.

Nyet! Nyet! “The Darkest Hour”

Oh swell, The Darkest Hour. The only reason I can think of that this movie exist is that Hollywood hates us all, and decided it would just be too difficult and time-consuming to punch us all in the face. That or some producer needs a way to launder some cash he’s been embezzling, and African conflict diamonds didn’t seem evil enough. Either way, certainly no one could have made this movie because they thought it’s good…I mean, here is a movie that asks us to plunk down what little of our hard-earned money the 1% didn’t steal out of our wallets in the middle of the night (that’s what they do, right?) to watch a couple douchetards being chased through Moscow by—(aw Jesus…)—wavy distortions. Seriously, that’s what happens in this movie. I’ve had more creative bowel movements after a bowl of tom yum goong than anything happens at any time ever in this flick.

Get a room! “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”

Okay, so when we last left venerable sleuth Sherlock Holmes, he was being portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC series which smartly and successfully transplanted the character to present-day. Ah, but we’re not talking about that show (which just returned for its second season), but instead Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the tepid sequel to the first Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. outing two years ago. I wish I could be as enthusiastic about this movie as I was about that one, but it’s sort of hard to get into a good Holmes mystery when the leads spend the whole movie looking like they’re on the verge of making out.

Down in the Bayou: “Alligator X”

I’m afraid I have to start 2012 on a note of slight disappointment with the film Alligator X (also known as Xtinction: Predator X). See when I saw that title I thought it was an alternate take on the life of Malcolm X, only using an alligator rather than a militant black man. So, I picked up the DVD imagining 85 minutes of an anthropomorphic alligator in a dashiki being all like, “By any means necessary, whitey-non-reptile!” Hopefully in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson (what? Like, he wouldn’t do it if you paid him enough). Tell me a militant negro alligator with Samuel L. Jackson’s voice wouldn’t be awesome. Yeah, probably unsurprisingly, the movie’s not about that. Instead we just get a bad cgi dinosaur eating people in Louisiana.

2011: A Year in Badness

Okay, so it’s time once again for a look back at the year in bad cinema that was. We could look at the good, but how much fun is that? Not really all that much. Plus, I’ve had, like, six cups of coffee this morning, so I don’t have much of an attention span. Anyway, I figured this year rather than do a list, I’d just lump a bunch of movies together in different categories. There was simply that much badness this year. Okay, so let’s get this party started:

REPOST: Christmas Movie Roundup!

So, recently Kassandra the Work-Wife told me “You need to review something new. I’m tired of the looking at the poster for Midnight Meat Train. It’s boring.” As I was in the multi-day process of returning home from Iraq, I told her it might take awhile. “Oh, stop being such a baby about things. All of a sudden you’re so self-centered: ‘Wah! I can’t review movies because I’m traveling for the next 72 hours! Wah! I can’t keep texting you internationally because my phone bill was $500 bucks this month! Wah! I can’t talk to you right now because we’re being rocketed and I have to run to a bunker!’ Jeez, find your balls, cowboy up and review a freakin’ movie will you?” Unfortunately, I’d have to get around to seeing one worth reviewing, and that hasn’t happened yet. Instead, I thought we’d do something a bit more seasonal. I mean, it’s Christmas and all, why have some horrible B-movie’s poster plastered on my site over Christmas? So, here’s a quick holiday movie roundup. Just a quick (and easy) way to celebrate the season. So, in no particular order:

Superman’s a perv: “Maneater”

Just so you don’t get confused, this is a totally different Maneater  than the movie I reviewed in 2008. That was your basic SyFy “monster-eats-people-for-85-minutes-until-washed-up-actor-kills-it” movie, only the monster was a common Bengal tiger, which, you know, is scary, but you gotta admit is no Sharktopus. No, this movie is much crazier. Not crazy in a good way, but crazy in a “God, I hope the writer/director of this flick gets a lot of therapy…and that I never somehow marry into his family.”  This Maneater is a straight-out monster movie with a very, very disturbing subtext. And that subtext is: women are all duplicitous, knob-craving, succubae that think only with their vaginas.  Oh, and did I say subtext?  Yeah, it’s subtext the way that the USS George Washington aircraft carrier is a submarine because some of it is underwater.