HALLOWEEN MARATHON 2011 - FINAL WORDS

Well, I know now what I gotta do for next year: review less movies and pace myself better. Maybe make up for the lesser titles with longer reviews. I said I would do full length reviews for each of the flicks, and I am pretty sure I am a huge liar for having said it.

I have had a little rest now, so I can think better, and part of me wants to go back and touch up some of these reviews, but I think my descent into stupidity and reliance on jokes and pop-culture references needs to be pristine. I did allow myself one caveat - adding in the paragraph in the Death Bed review that I kind of deleted and didn't notice. So, I am not completely unprofessional.

Also I will say a little bit more about Aswang: there has never been a less photogenic cast assembled than what was thrown out in front of the lights for it. It actually makes you question just how shallow you actually are, because you find yourself put off by all the uggos. It would help if they were in a movie with competence, but, Aswang has no time for such paltry things. It is all about being as silly as possible. Then again, I always did find the Aswang to be a rather silly monster to begin with.

All in all, I am proud of my handiwork with this marathon. Now I can go back to updating this thing whenever I feel like it and take hiatuses left and right with little to no warning.

HALLOWEEN MARATHON 2011 PART III

No introduction this time, suckers.

Wait.

Shit.

You might think that Class of 1984 is not a horror movie. You'd be wrong, though, because nothing is more terrifying than teenagers with attitude. Only now, in my late twenties, do I realize that the real hero of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was indeed Rita Repulsa. Teenagers are vile things that need to be destroyed, and these teenage murder rapists, though not foiling any missions of mercy or hanging out in juice bars, are instead getting busy harassing poor Cornelius.

Man, Roddy McDowall is making the rounds in this marathon, and I promise it was not planned that way. You should know by now, any marathon will have some appearances by either Roddy or Malcolm. Even though they are not brothers and spell their names completely differently, they both had something in common: taking any role offered to them. This ends up with them being cornucopias of charming treasure for Camp Counseling.

This movie also features a chubby young Michael J. Fox as a big ol snitch who indeed finds himself needing to be stitched. But, really, the star of the show is the head punk. He is a stone cold sociopath with a penchant for writing sonatas and raping his teacher's wives. Oh and murdering animals and hanging them up on walls. Oh, and beating himself up and blaming the teachers. Oh and out-Zabkaing Zabka. Really, Stegman is what would really happen if they let those quasi-homicidal 80's teen movie bullies cut loose. It's refreshing and disturbing in that way.

Even though Stegman is pure evil and consistently brings the craziness, there is one scene that stands above all. I am too burned out to write about it so, watch it:

This is a movie where Robocop corrupts Balthazar Getty (who looks like chubby Charlie Sheen) and I am pretty sure he is supposed to be the Devil and his pregnant wife is supposed to be an angel and aww, who cares, it has a scene where Peter Weller gets really into hanging out in sex dungeons and spouting off bullshit philosophy only to try and make Chubby Sheen bet on some Russian roulette.

The movie is about Balthazar Getty being a recovering alcoholic and totally being cool with a rich writer buying him clothes and booze and whores and drugs and making him follow him everywhere at odd hours of the night. I have no idea how this could possibly backfire, nor could this be construed as something totally not on the up and up. His wife is not so cool with it, because maybe she has some common sense, but who cares about that? He is getting fat stacks of to watch a live action Faces of Death. Plus, she is obscenely pregnant, so hormones along with being a female makes her judgment more than questionable.

What I love about this movie is that it is all about Peter Weller talking a whole lot and getting darker and darker and darker and darker almost to the point where you can't take it anymore and then, instead of a bitter climax that really shows any sort of catharsis, Chubby Sheen just says "fuck this noise" and crawls away. Sure, he can deal with opium whores and underground fight clubs, but people risking death for money is far too much. That is his breaking point.

There is also a ridiculous sideplot about a murder investigation that really does nothing but add up to the fact that, now here's the shocker, Peter Weller is also a mur-diddly-urderer, and it is so there for padding because we can understand, very easily that he is the villain. He doesn't need to be the guy murdering left and right to give that cop purpose.

Oh hey, did I mention that is kind of his metaphorical shtick? Peter Weller is there to make people go through horrible, terrible, no good things so they can emerge better people. So I guess he is not the devil. Maybe he is the angel and Chubby Sheen's wife is the devil,  because she doesn't want her husband to get saved. If so, Chubby done fucked up by staying with her in the end.

Also, wouldn't Chubby Sheen getting clean and sober and being in AA and having a steady job after being an abusive alcoholic in the past be enough? Why does he have to suffer again, for no good reason, to be a better person? Did he not learn enough of a lesson?

Why am I thinking about this movie? It is hilarious, either way, especially because this is a movie for the Donnie Darko sect. They will think it is incredibly deep, when really it is incredibly stupid, so you can spend your time laughing at it for trying to be so serious.

Indeed this movie is nasty, Joe Bob Briggs. Indeed it is.

Aswang is about an evil vampire that eats fetuses and the creepy family that feeds women to it. The titular aswang is played by an old woman, and she is hella naked in the movie and you can see some wrinkly bits. Also it is dang near impossible to find anything about it on youtube other than a poor quality trailer.

...

You know what, I got nothing left in the tank.

Here is the trailer

HALLOWEEN MARATHON 2011 PART II

Okay, so I lied about this entry being right after the old one. Do not ask me how I managed to fumble that ball, but after this entry, I promise the next and final entry should be up pretty dang soon afterwards. Mostly because right now, as I am writing this one, I am getting sleepy and also because it'll be about nine movies in total and that is enough content for people to not read. I do nothing else if not disappoint tremendously at every given opportunity. 

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a movie that get a lot of murmurs because of its title, and not enough because of how bizarre it is. A movie about an evil bed that eats people should be crazy enough in its own right, but damn does this movie not go above and beyond the call of duty.

I actually tracked this movie down well before Patton Oswalt did his little bit on it. I feel as though I should mention this, as it gives my blog street cred, and, as you know, in the world of internet blogging, if you ain't got street cred you gon' get capped.

I also mentioned it because Patton calls the movie Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People, but as you can see that is not the case. It is just a bed that eats, and boy does it ever eat. It is the goat of demonic beds. It eats people, fried chicken, apples, wine, pepto bismol, you name it. Actually, that is not so much goatlike and more gluttony. This bed needs to get payed a visit by Kevin Spacey, if you catch my drift.

Another thing that Patton gets wrong is that the bed is possessed by a demon. Not true. The bed is a demon. You know this because the narrator, a man trapped behind a painting which is actually the bed's gastrointestinal tract, tells you this. Well it's a GI tract/portal in between dimensions. I kinda wish I had that going on in my body. Just think of the time you'd save with that kind of anatomy.

In between eating everything, the movie tends to be your run-of-the-mill psychedelic 70's drug-fueled chicanery, with a lot of plot points that you aren't quite sure connect to form any sort of picture, but sure do take up time. Then the bed is on fire outside and you have no idea how anything happened to lead up to this, but you are okay with it.

However, let me tell you about the one scene that makes you need to see this movie:

Some dudes are locked in the room with the demon tempurpedic, and it is hungry again. Like it always is. Refer to my previous remarks on gluttony. Anyway, one dude has the misfortune to be dragged to the bed and have his hands sucked in. He pulls them out to find himself left with nothing but bone. He screams in agony for a bit, but then is totally fine. He walks around for a while completely okay even though he has skeleton hands. No pain. No nothing. They, naturally, crumble and fall off, but this does not phase him in the slightest. Throughout the whole ordeal, everyone around him is mortified by this fact, but he is perfectly cool with it. It is actually stunning to behold because you can tell that, even though this script is diabolically wacky, that totally was not called for. He is supposed to be inconvenienced by this, but the actor playing him was having none of it. 

And that, my friends, is what it means to make choices when you are a thespian.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking.

It's downright blasphemy.

How dare I talk about a well-known movie?

Oh, and also the part where all ya'll's completely wrong in disliking Season of the Witch. 

I know plenty of other people have defended Halloween III, and I know I can't add something completely new to the mix and I know the fact I am reviewing it reeks of copping out, but I needed a palate cleanser in the middle of this marathon. Not that I can't watch these movies endlessly, I just needed a familiar face that I have seen about a billion times to kind of pick me up and get me going again.

So yeah: Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

It's about evil masks that murder children.

Watch it. 

You know, just looking at that poster: a nigh two hour long slasher movie with only six deaths, on paper, sounds like a real chore to slog through. The fact that 85% of the movie is completely unneeded (a fact that many people I have made watch this agree on), does not really make a compelling case for this movie, either. The fact is, because this movie relies on its ridiculous characters and insipid plot, it becomes something you need to see.

Basically, the gist is, all the popular kids are getting killed, and also there's a girl with a tragic background who is also popular but whoops also the killer and whoops I guess that should be a surprise to like, the one person who has ever watched it and not seen the DVD box-art or just closed their eyes about half-way into the movie, where one of the many mysteries of this flick up and gets solved before the credits roll. I will give them credit for not having any loose ends. I will not give them credit for not taking the opportunity to make the killer be all mopey and whiny that no one is going to show up for her birthday. I wanted her to be that petulant.

Another thing that makes this movie so watchable is that it actually revels in all the stereotypes we are given. Again, there are only six victims, so we get to seem them stereotype it up to the hilt. The creepy red herring loner, alone, is fantastic. He spends his free time playing with a pet rat and making life-sized replicas of his friends' heads. Speaking of that, since when is the creepy loner in a horror movie allowed to be pals with the popular kids? Furthermore, since when do creepy loners get to have pals? Did I miss a memo? Am...am I allowed to have...pals? 

But, I digress with that brief journey into my crushing loneliness.

The flashbacks in this movie are fantastic. They are maudlin and creepy and so bursting at the seams with inordinate amounts of melodrama, you might think you are watching a made-for-television special about class warfare and the dangers of alcoholism. The woman they got to play the killer's mother in those scenes wants so badly to be Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, but she is not very good. She does, however, make every single gesture a spectacle in and of itself, and you almost wish the movie was about the adventures of an alcoholic mother and her mangled daughter.

I also have to give props on the twist in this movie being the biggest pile of bullshit I ever did see, hilariously so. It actually makes perfect sense, and follows the plot of the movie pretty darn well. It is even believable to a certain. That's what makes it so hilarious. All these things in the movie could've ended up with us caring about the killer and sympathizing with her. But no, they did a completely different thing and though again, it is consistent with the logic of the flick, it just...it's part of the 85%. But the very last scene after the reveal is still fantastic.

HALLOWEEN MARATHON 2011 PART I

Okay so, I am going to watch movies in batches and post responses to them here. This one was pre-written, so it will be followed by another entry immediately after. The reason for this being I woke up late and forgot to post this before running some errands. Some beer related errands.

I figure 3 movies per post, and I should be solid. Oh, and I am kind of cheating here. I can't possibly watch and review a respectable amount of movies for this, as that is about 3-4 hours per flick, and that is time I just ain't got because goddamn I wanna sleep. Therefore, this first entry will be movies I watched this weekend. Some were at the absolutely stellar Exhumed films 24 Hour Horrorthon, and others were last night when my circadian rhythm was gonzo and I was up all night.

But enough blabbing, let's get to them movies shall we?

This movie probably had a plot at some point. I am convinced it must have. This is not a case of a film where you can see glimmers of a plot through the wackiness. No light gleams through the words being spoken, nor the actions being done on screen. It is a smörgåsbord of scenes that somehow defy any and all attempts to possibly make sense.

Needless to say, I love it.

The whole movie is wonderfully 70's British, to the point where even a widowed fortune teller can have a butler and a mansion and the tough guy biker gang names are Abby and Chopped Meat and their jackets look like something a teenage girl with a bedazzler and a hot glue gun would make to show that she and her friends were best friends forever. 

But what really makes it magical is their hard sell on frogs being some mystical, mysterious, mystical thing. It is all a bit miffing, to be honest, as the mundane frog does not commit to his role. Seriously, frogs just naturally look confused, so it doesn't work. And trying to pass off a giant frog on a necklace as some ancient symbol of protection against I don't even know what as that would require the movie to explain, which it has no plans on ever doing.

Everything about this movie is hilarious, from the terrible dialogue, sandwich eating reaction shots, and super low-speed motorcycling, it is just aces in that it fails to do anything even remotely well. Well, except for, and I swear this is on purpose, change the protagonist every twenty minutes or so. You have no idea who to root for, and you really don't care because zombie bikers are murdering folks.

Oh, and before I forget. The entire premise of the movie is that you can come back from the dead if you really believe you can. No magic. You just gotta believe and really want to die. And, just like the frog, they try to hard sell this too, to hilarious results.

Speaking of not knowing who your protagonist is, I bring you The Video Dead. In this film, our hero is a menopausal teenage girl who doesn't actually do anything until everyone else has died trying to be proactive. She doesn't discover the threat. She doesn't believe the threat. She doesn't try to stop the threat. She sends her brother and a Texan out to die, understanding the threat. Then, she saves the day.

Okay so the monsters in this movie technically aren't zombies but technically are at the same time. They are, indeed, the titular Video Dead. But sometimes they aren't zombies, but instead are foxy ladies that give you blue balls then laugh at'chu. They all come from an evil television, that only has two channels: one that plays a zombie movie and one that plays softcore porn. Also trapped in there is a dude called the garbage man trapped in the television who gives sage advice and murders the foxy lady. Don't ask why he didn't kill all the zombies  

You know what, I am not even going to talk about the plot in this movie. I am going to talk about the ridiculous logic it employed. Elements of the plot will show up, but dang this movie just did not have any sense of consistent logic. Wait, no it did, but the things they chose to be consistent with are stone cold idiotic.

So, in this movie, the video dead are terrified of their own reflection in the mirror and truly think they are alive for some reason. So, if you shoot them in the heart or whatnot, they will totally think they are dying and will lay down for a bit until one of them is smart enough to figure out that, nope, not dying. Nothing exemplifies this more than the scene where a zombie gets an iron through the skull and just walks it off.

Furthermore, the video dead can be killed by locking them in a tiny room. If you put them in a tiny room they go nanners and start eating each other. Because, well, nobody puts baby in the corner. 

These hindrances aside, the zombies are actually smarter than the cast. They can use weapons and knock down mirrors with tree branches and orchestrate carefully calculated assault. They just can't open locked doors. Or knock them down. This is not explained in one of the thirteen billion exposition speeches, but I figure that makes more sense than jingle bells ringing like mad when zombies are near. And yes, that is an actual plot point.

Their other weakness, however, is Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, because apparently, if you aren't afraid of them they won't hurt you. All you need to do is cook them a nice meal and play some Scrabble or Connect Four with them, and they are harmless pussy cats.

There's about a billion other things I could bring up, but I am going to let The Video Dead rest for now.

Rounding out this entry is a movie that will probably be my claim to fame. If you do enough digging on the internet, you may see that I have talked about this movie numerous times before. I am convinced I am the only person alive who has talked more about this movie than anyone involved with its creation.

Yet, every time I watch it, I find some new absurdity. I peel back another layer of the inept insanity, and fall in love all over again. This movie really has it all. Abysmal child acting, ladies orgasming over an evil mirror, the teacher Rodney Dangerfield banged in Back to School being in cahoots with Peter Vincent to ruin an orphan's life, blind nuns, and early 90's CGI. Poor early 90's CGI.

Oh and an early appearance by The Hulk himself, Mark Ruffalo. In fact, the cast is actually insanely good for such a ludicrous and unnecessary film. Well, except for that damn kid.

What makes Raven Dance so hilarious works in two states of mind. The first is having no idea what will happen in the movie. The totally ridiculous chain of events needs to go unspoiled. The bare bones list of things you will see in this movie I gave you is all you should know if you are a virgin to Mirror, Mirror II. Believe me, it never stops topping itself.

The second way is if you have seen it before. The anticipation for the craziness is just as much fun as seeing it unfold for the first time. Bonus points if you are watching it with someone who hasn't seen the flick before. Plus, when you know about the surface absurdities, you can really pay attention to the little things. Like the fact there isn't a raven in the movie until about forty minutes in and it doesn't, in fact, dance. Or you can spend your time trying to figure out what the hell that cat's name is. Best guess I have is "pilerocket," but that is not a name at all.

Seriously, readers. Watch this movie multiple times. Make everyone you know see it. Mirror, Mirror II: Raven Dance needs to become a huge underground hit only 17 years after its release. I want Mark Ruffalo to confront his association with this franchise.

You guys may have noticed that there have been no entries the past week or two.

That is because I was hoarding for tomorow, where I am going to do a mini camp counseling marathon.

I am going to review as many movies as I can before passing out.

I do not know how long the entries will be, but they will be full length reviews and they should help you soothe your halloween weekend hangovers.

THE DEVIL WITHIN HER aka SHARON'S BABY aka I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN

Sheesh this movie has gone by a lot of names. I Don't Want to Be Born should be the clear winner with that radical poster, but since it is streaming on Netflix right now as  The Devil Within Her, I guess that is the title I should use for this review.

I am an absolute sucker for any movie about killer babies. The inherent silliness of the concept tickles me pink, and the fact that there are so many of them is the funniest thing in the world to me. I don't know why anyone ever thinks it is a good idea, and I don't know how they end up managing to have the exact same plot only with different actors and pretend it is a coincidence. I just know that any time a baby is on a murder rampage, I am front and center, frothing at the mouth for the carnage to commence.

With that in mind, I still am going to have trouble to convince all of you to watch this movie. It is a 70's British  Horror movie will all the foibles that come along with it.  It is dreadfully slow and gets incredibly boring at times when the baby isn't murdering, and the accents are all over the dang place. Yet, somehow, and you really need to go with me here, that gives it all its charm. The movie has no idea what to do to pass the time between baby murders, and that is okay by me. There is a lot of comedy gold gleamed from it.

There is also the fact that this film takes a murdering baby with super strength incredibly seriously. There is not even an iota of acknowledgment that this idea is plain dumb, nor even a whiff of irony in the air. How dare you even suggest a baby that can wreck up his room and break dudes' noses with his fists be preposterous? Are you suggesting there is no such thing as a baby so evil it murders mice and puts them in coffee cups? He is, after all, possessed!

Oh, did I forget to mention this pint-sized slasher was also possessed by the devil? Because it is totally possessed by the devil. See, a normal baby probably couldn't drown his babysitter. A devil baby totally could though. Plus, any excuse to bring in the clergy in a 70's British Horror movie was always a boon. They loved them some Gothic crosses.

Now, I am not going to give you a summary of the plot. Like I said, a lot of it is tedious and boring, and spoiling the absolutely hilarious ways the baby kills people would be unkind of me. I have hinted (and straight up blurted out) some of the victims of the baby's rampage, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I will however, give you the premise of the movie. These are things that really happen and are really why the baby is a murderer.

So, our heroine, Joan Collins used to be a stripper. She wasn't particularly good at it, judging from the performance on screen, and misses the whole stripping point of being a stripper. To make up for her lack of knowledge and abundance of clothing, she has a partner in her dance. He is an ugly hunchbacked dwarf that totally wants to spelunk in her cavern, if you get my meaning. Anyway, after a rather lackluster performance, Joan Collins gets accosted by the dwarf. Since he totally didn't read the "you must be this tall to ride" sign outside of her lady bits, Joanie stone cold refuses his advances, and instead immediately bangs her boss. Joan Collins clearly knows where priority lies, and saunters out, disheveled only to have the dwarf curse her unborn child. A child that has not been conceived yet, mind you. Just at some point she will have a devil baby.

Now, I have heard of gypsy's curses and mummy's curses, but I did not know that a dwarf with severe scoliosis could also doom you. But apparently they can. They can also mix paganism and Christianity and have the devil be the one that possesses your child. Them dwarves be crafty.  


I can actually stop right there. One: because I am having a hard time focusing on things right now as I got some problems to deal with, and two: because that premise all you need to know.


 Well, that and there is a scene where the evil baby decapitates Donald Pleasance with a shovel.

Those are the two things that should make you want to see this movie.






 

BLACK ROSES

It's time for another heavy metal horror movie. I will not lie; I cannot get enough of them, and I will probably review every single one ever made before this blog dies with a whimper. I am okay with that though, because the soundtracks are killer and also no one reads this damn thing in the first place.

Black Roses  is another movie by John Fasano, a man who will also grace this blog again and again and again. For those who have forgotten, Mr. Fasano was the brains behind Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, and as such his street cred in Camp Counseling is through the roof. He truly is a man who keeps on giving, and I want to shake his hand one day.

I just hope he doesn't crush me with his gigantic muscles for calling him completely and utterly inept. Seriously, Fasano is, or at least was, ripped. How else did he convince Lou Ferrigno's wife to be in this movie? I bet he arm-wrestled the Hulk into allowing his woman to be a completely superfluous character in a movie where the town from Big Top Pee Wee gets overwhelmed with homicidal teenagers.

But, yeah, Black Roses. I guess I should talk about the movie I am planning to review at some point in time, shouldn't I?

Black Roses is about three movies all happening at once, with each of them making less sense than the first in some sort of bizarre collage of preposterousness that tickles all the right fancies and funny bones. Also, there is nudity to touch all kinds of other bones. Yeah, that's right. I just dropped a boner joke. Never gonna apologize for appealing for the lowest common denominator. Coming soon: fart jokes made at the expense of Rosemary's Baby. 

The flick opens with a rocking concert. This time I am not being facetious, as I usually am when describing these movies?

Don't believe me?

Fine.

There it is. Is it not rocking?

Also don't get used to that demon makeup. It never shows up again in the span of the movie. Nor does anything remotely interesting for about thirty minutes.

Now, just because nothing interesting happens, it doesn't mean nothing hilarious happens. For some reason, they spend way too much time setting up the  town and characters as pretty much being idyllic and idiotic. It feels like a cheesy teenage slice-of-life picture from the 80's.

I cannot stress just how 80's this movie is. Not just in fashion sense and musical choices, but in the little flourishes. Thirtysomethings playing teenagers. Backwards towns that just won't get with the times, man. The fact that Canada will never not look like the 80's.

Anyway, nothing eventful really happens. We meet the characters, promptly forget why we are supposed to care about them, and all is well.

Then, Big Pussy gets eaten by a speaker monster.

I've always said I can pinpoint exactly when a film has gone completely off the rails, and most of the time I am bullshitting. But, my friends, in this movie, it is clear. The second that Vincent Pastore is attacked and eaten by a speaker, this film has derailed with insanity as its final destination.

The middle of the movie then plays almost entirely like a montage. I am going to try and piece them together for you, but it is denser than centuries old-fruitcake with nuttiness, and even though I literally just finished watching the movie, things are not coming back in the order they may or may not have happened.

So, Black Roses (which is the name of the band in the movie. Shoulda mentioned that sooner.) has totally corrupted the youth of the peaceful Candian town they are playing in, and shit gets real. Our hero, a teacher named Matt with a John Holmes mustache and no swagger to match is the first victim of this rebellion of thirtysomethings tired of playing teenagers all the time.

He finds the window to his car smashed and goes on an anger drive wherein he witnesses shenanigans. We see a montage of teenagers loitering and making out and beating each other up, and our hero is just plain sickened by it. He gets even more sickened when he goes back to school and finds that his students no longer want to learn about transcendentalism but instead want to rock out all the time.

One by one, we watch the teenagers do even more evil things. They start smoking and skipping class and, by golly, fighting in the school parking lot over records. Seriously, that scene ends with a dude being gorilla press slammed down because he tried to buy the last vinyl copy of the latest Black Roses album from the back of a truck. I am postulating they do not have stores in this town, as one is never, ever seen.

The mayhem only escalates from here:

- Big Pussy's son runs over trash cans and when his mother totally starts hassling him about coming home late, he runs her down, too. The fact he looks like a low rent Jerry Only kind of adds to the charm of this scene. He is probably picturing this woman as Glenn Danzig.

- One of the broads in the film plays strip gin with the father of her best friend in order to give him a heart attack in a scene that couldn't be creepier even if the girl playing his daughter played along too. This film has a love affair with creepy father/daughter relationships.

- The lead teenage dude totally smokes inside only to find the bass player from Black Roses appear nude in his bedroom and have sex with him. Naturally, this leads him to go into the kitchen and get the gun from the fridge to murder his father.

I am gonna pause a bit. I now know three things about Canada:

- Milk comes in bags
- Hockey is important
- Guns are stored in the fridge

I feel as though I could seamlessly blend into the Canuck lifestyle with these three factoids.

After this first bloodbath, our teacher Matt is stuck in a conundrum as the teacher's pet, Julie, is totally skanked up and hitting on him, his students just plum don't wanna do their work, and well, he is really pretty bad at confrontation. He runs off to tell the mayor and we finally meet his girlfriend that had only been mentioned twice before. They have an inexplicable fight for no good reason that serves no purpose other than to show a cold bitch being told. And to hint that maybe Matt is a recovering alcoholic.

Then we see another montage which is pretty much exactly the same as the first only with more murder and the inexplicable "blood city" line I refuse to spoil for you. You just gotta see it to believe it.  While all this goes on, Matt makes the leap of faith that this clearly must be the work of witchcraft. You know this because he goes to the library and researches the occult. Teacher's pet shows up and tries to hop on his schlong, but Matt turns him down. So, Julie (well, actually, a breast double) touches herself in the mirror for a couple minutes and murders her step-dad.

This of course leads to not only the murder of Matt's girlfriend in her second scene in the whole movie, but the hilarious scene where Matt is seduced by a demon pretending to be Julie with a totally new body double. I don't even think they were the same ethnicity. Compound this with the absurdity of the fight and that at one point in time you can see the puppeteers, and this scene is a delight on so many levels.

Deciding enough is enough, Matt ditches his teacher clothes, dresses like a lumberjack and decides to take the law in his own hands. This leads to the ending. Which, like Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, is just so absurd I cannot in good faith spoil it here. It's not nearly as out-of-left field as Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, but it is definitely more insane than most of the endings I have posted here.

I would tear asunder all the technical and acting flaws of this film, but you can just copy and paste everything I said about Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare and put them here. It is as if John Fasano refuses to learn any lessons when making a movie, he just wants to put some rockin' tunes to people getting murdered. And for that, I commend him. Because I am okay with this.

Oh, and as an added bonus, here is the same song from the opening of the film set to scenes from First Blood.

It is all my loves colliding into a singularity. You should feel the same way.  

FIVE FILMS THAT DON'T WARRANT FULL REVIEWS

I must admit, I hit a bit of a rut and with Halloween season officially upon us, all I have been doing is absorbing campy horror movie after campy horror movie with little thought as to whether or not I would share them with you. Most of them I had seen already. Some of them are already on this blog. So, I was stuck.

I tried, though. I plowed through a lot of movies for last week and the week prior, and for the life of me nothing popped up and screamed for immortality on a blog no one reads. Then, I thought I could redeem myself and post a lengthy mirth-filled entry for Thursday, but still came up short. Then another Sunday came and went. I try not to review things I have already seen unless it is a last resort, consistent content be damned. Thus, the lack of updates for far too long.

However, in my pursuit of camp, I came across a bunch of flicks that, while not packed to the gills with details for me tear asunder for your merriment, a lot of the movie had flickers of genius that needed to be exalted. Not from on high, mind you, but enough above the ground for a few chuckleheads to dig into.

Some of these movies I screened with a group of tight-knit amigos ready for danger and fun. A lot of them were in the same crew that reviewed Uncle Sam. Their personal hang-ups and chicanery will not play a part in the reviews of those flicks, though as I wrote them I heard all the comments swirling in the back of my head.

The rest of the flicks I either found buried in a box of ex-rental screeners from the mid-90's or TiVo found for me at three in the morning when masturbation'd lost its touch.

These reviews will be short and may only focus on key moments, but they should pique an interest in flicks that had moments of fantastic camp, but kind of crumpled under the weight of trying to be too serious.

EVOLVER

This movie is just plain ludicrous, and is the freshest on my mind, as the logical inconsistencies are a downright delight. Let me get this straight. In order to replicate the experience of playing a wicked rad early 90's 3-D video game, you win a robot that plays laser tag in order to replicate this feeling. Instead of feeling like a baller, a robot that cannot understand stars shoots Nerf at you and yells out imaginary hit points.

Oh, and it also goes berserk and murders everyone it comes across with. Then again, if I were a robot voiced by William H Macy playing second fiddle to Ethan Embry of all people, I'd feel a little homicidal too.

Evolver does evolve throughout the movie, becoming more menacing and learning such things as dramatic irony and being a dick. Also, being incredibly needy.

Evolver is like a co-dependent girlfriend that wants to play games all the time and then goes homicidal when he loses the game he totally wanted to play like three seconds ago and how dare you look at another girl when I am telling a boring story about Alcatraz because seriously who gives a fuck about Alcatraz anymore?  

Evolver is like my ex-girlfriend. 
  

INCUBUS

This is a movie where everyone speaks Esperanto and pretends it's a real language. And it stars William Shatner.

I will say nothing more other than the fact it has the most hilariously unconvincing blind acting I have ever seen in my entire life, and I've seen Daredevil. 

K-9000 

This movie takes far too long to get to the only part that counts: a talking straight man cyborg cop dog. But, man, when that dog starts talking it is amazing. The dog is nothing but a know-it-all jerk, and he makes Hank from Twin Peaks look like a blundering oaf at any given opportunity. Also he's a cell phone and does not understand the meaning of fetch.

(He so does not want to make fetch happen.)

However, I cannot stress enough how boring and uneventful the movie is until the cyborg dog hatches from a cocoon and steals the show, but man he's got some zingers that make this movie hilarious for about forty minutes.

And the ending is just divine. It involves a dog, on a beach, in sunglasses, sipping drinks from a straw and making dogs playing poker jokes. What's not to love? 

DRACULA 3000

Okay, so this movie is Dracula in space and that has to be a selling point for a lot of people. I happen to be an ardent supporter of any franchise doing a space sequel, with Jason X being the pinnacle of the whole idea. In this movie, however, you have Casper Van Dien and Coolio fighting Dracula in the future.

What makes this movie hilarious is the fact that Dracula is straight up in a Toys R Us Lugosi-esque Dracula costume and running around with people in future clothes. They didn't even bother to try and update the Dracula image whatsoever, and that makes it brilliant.

Also vampire Coolio. Seriously, you need to see vampire Coolio. It is a goddamn delight.

9 1/2 NINJAS

I am not sure I can verbalize just why you need to see 9 1/2 Ninjas. It was the world's first erotic martial arts action comedy, and also the world's last erotic martial arts action comedy.

The jokes were there. The skinemax elements were there. The fights could probably be classified as martial arts. The bangin' and fightin' sure do fall under the category of action. There was even a ninja in a wonderbread costume!  But, christ this movie is a crazy hodge-podge of things.


Just. Just watch this trailer: Even in another language, you get the gist.

Yeah, I know I went full out list-mode on ya'll, but I wanted to show you that I did actually try to come up with something. But, it's October, so the camp will flow strong through me as the days go by.

Starting next week, I will be straight up in Halloween mode, scouring the crusted, black bottom of the cauldron for horror to really send shivers down your funny bone.

SUDDEN DEATH

I had a different movie locked and loaded for today. It was a movie I goaded a fine chap into purchasing for me just for today's entry. I was all pumped up, psyched to write about it. It was billed as "the world's first erotic martial arts action comedy.' I couldn't wait to unwrap it and get dueling action and boobie erections and somehow transfer that into words.

Then I watched Jean Claude Van Damme brutally pummel a lady in a giant Penguin mascot costume. I knew that fate (and insomnia) had intervened, and I just had to share this glory with you. Don't worry though, poorly made ninja erotica will be next week. But for today, let's watch The Muscles from Brussels roundhouse kick some guys in the face.

Before we begin, I can't really say I can comment too much on the technical side of things. This movie actually has some passable acting, even if the one-liners are lacking. JCVD was never one for pithy bon mots anyway. Plus this was during the era where Stallone and Schwarzenegger kinda backed off a little bit, so it was up to JCVD and Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren to keep 80's action alive amidst a sea of mid-90's wuss heroes.  Alive and straight-to-video.

The only real problem, if you can call it that, with this flick is that once the action starts rolling, it never stops, and it's going lightning quick. I can't remember exactly when each set piece took place. I can vaguely put them on a time line but goddamn so much happens so quickly it is like they are apologizing for the couple "bonding with children" scenes this flick has.

Also, the special effects weren't too bad. I was actually kind of shocked by how neat and clean everything was pulled off. What makes this movie special isn't any of the incompetence of the things behind the camera. No, it is just the sheer insanity of what is on the screen.

Let's begin, shall we?

Sudden Death opens with fireman JCVD trapped under burning rubble as a child burns to death. Apparently doing the splits did not prepare him greatly for tackling a burning building. The makers of this movie felt this was literally all we needed to see of his firefighting career. After this little bit of business, we immediately cut to two years later.

It made me wonder. Was JCVD even a good fireman? Had he successfully rescued people before? Where were all the other firefighters as he lay pinned under way too much rubble? Was he trying to play hero? And was playing hero that which got him burned?

Did I write the above paragraph just to end in a pun? Are these rhetorical questions annoying?

Anyway, being a bad firefighter lead to JCVD getting divorced and also becoming a security guard. As a security guard, he can now take his two kids to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup for free. You know, I think that is actually a pretty sweet deal. All you gotta do is deal with some drunken roustabouts every now and again and no children can be burned to death in front of you to make you question everything. Plus, free hockey. And as a Belgian action star pretending to be a Canadian security guard living in Pittsburgh, that is a big deal.

Oh and the Vice President of the United States is going to be at this game too. That is kind of a big deal, as well! I guess the president was too busy watching Friends or something to care about hockey.

While JCVD is busy being the best weekend dad ever, evil terrorists are slowly setting up the stupidest plan of all time. Apparently it begins with hassling an old woman. Seriously, these terrorists are dicks. All hasslin' her, makin' her feed them and call people left and right.

We will fast forward through a lot of set-up and get straight to what the plan is:

The evil terrorist has kidnapped the Vice President and all the people that were with him in a sky box. He shoots a couple to get his point across and have some corpse smell to really highlight the predicament they are in. He has planted bombs all over the arena. He wants billions of dollars, but knows that, in order to facilitate the plot, the VP can't give him all this cash money at once. So,  if he doesn't have a certain amount of money before the end of each period of play, he is going to murder everyone and blow up the stadium.

It's a pretty ridiculous plan, but I wonder if the title will come into play in his evil machinations? I can't imagine it will.

We kind of dawdle around a bit as the terrorist talks tough and JCVD talks with his kids and exciting hockey action happens(this movie is at least 40% just watching a hockey game).Then, finally the shit gets real. JCVD's daughter has to go potty, and her no-good brother wants nothing to do with escorting her to the facilities. He's kind of a dick and idolizes lowly hockey players instead of a true American hero like his father (who played a little hockey in Canada). The son smack talks dad a little bit, so the daughter walks off in a huff. A urine-infused huff.  Little girl wanders into the ladies room and sees that the lady who played the mascot penguin has been murdered and replaced with a terrorist. 

The daughter tries to get away clean after being traumatized for life but gets abducted after the terrorist kills a bunch of people and runs out of bullets to shoot her. Terrorists do not believe in extra ammunition, it would seem. I guess they have learned that in the right hands, a gun only runs out of bullets when everyone you want killed is dead. In an action movie, at least. Clearly this gun was in the wrong hands. No terrorist is All-State Insurance.

JCVD returns to his son after doing, well, I have no idea what he was doing, but it had to be more important than spending time with his kids. He questions his son, who totally just dismisses it because hockey is going on. JCVD then goes on a frantic search to find her.

You'll notice that, right now, the only kill under JCVD's belt is one due to negligence. How can this be an amazing action movie without some kills right? Well, see, Sudden Death wants to lull you in a sense of false confidence. You are certain that this may just be a bloodless coup. Maybe JCVD will sneak his way up to the penthouse box, rescue everyone, and take out the bad guys without using lethal force. Maybe JCVD is going to tap into his inner Batman.

Nope. Wrong. Not even remotely close to what happens in this movie.

See, JCVD does a little searching for his missing daughter. He runs into the kitchen area of the stadium, and, well, this happens:

Yes. That is correct. The first actiony thing JCVD does is murder a woman dressed in a mascot costume. And that, my friends, is right when this movie veers off the standard path straight into the absurdity gorge. It also foreshadows that this is no ordinary kitchen, it is a murder kitchen. You will find out why later.

Meanwhile, in the penthouse box, the evil terrorist is taunting a secret service guy named Hallmark. Hallmark is the Allen to JCVD's John McClane. Eventually they even have the radio back and forth relationship until Hallmark says enough is enough and decides to help out, immediately getting killed for trying to steal the Time Cop's thunder. That happens later.

Right now, however, the terrorist sees that helicopters are trying to land cops on the roof of the stadium. He is not happy with this, so he has one of his minions shoot the people out of the sky with a rocket launcher. Not the copter mind you. That would be too easy. Nah, he's just going to blow up cops to prove his point.  I find this to be a much more evil way to say "don't fuck with me."

Then we kinda get a pseudo-montage of JCVD defusing bombs, but not before he stabs a terrorist in the throat with a chicken bone. I have no idea why he back-tracked to the kitchen. I guess it was because he did not use all of the weapons at his disposal the first time.

Come to think of it, I don't quite remember how he figured out there were bombs everywhere, but the fact the lead terrorist blew up cars in the parking lot for no reason may have tipped him off.  This dude does not do anything half-assed. He will blow up everything. Including random buildings across the street for no discernible reason. There is, no lie, a scene where the dude with a rocket launcher on the roof just starts blasting away at buildings.

Things get tenser, and the lead terrorist kills some more hostages. Hallmark comes in and gets killed. JCVD gets a hold of one of the dead terrorist's walkie talkies and talks to his little girl and then the lead terrorist and grills him out for a bit. This leads to the boss terrorist to send underlings after JCVD.

Naturally this leads to JCVD , in the middle of game 7 of the Stanley Cup, to go undercover as the Pittsburgh Penguins' goalie.  The movie then, for a brief period of time, plays just like a Mighty Ducks flick. Can JCVD roundhouse kick his way out of a breakaway? 

The answer is yes. He stops one shot and then starts beating up the rival team for, well, no real reason. I guess to cause a ruckus? Or get himself ejected? If so, why the hell did he choose this disguise anyway?

After this we get the climactic finale. I will not spoil anything but these are some things that happen:

- JCVD scales the arena and throws terrorists off the roof.
- Helicopters explode
- Scoreboards explode
- The Penguins win the Stanley Cup
- JCVD wins the love of his children that I didn't realize he had lost
- The Vice President is rescued
- The Penguins win the Stanley Cup

I may or may not have listed that twice to convince some of my Pittsburghian friends to watch the movie.

Perhaps with a case or two of Iron City?

At my place?

What I'm saying, readers, is bring me beer.

Oh, and watch this movie. 

UNCLE SAM

Today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and I am going to do something special here at Camp Counseling. This blog is supposed to be light and fun, and I am not going to comment on the atrocities that happened seemingly yesterday. The last thing anyone needs is a bummer.

Instead, I am going to talk about a movie that features a fighter pilot rising from the grave to kill people who hate America. Maybe it's a little bit of wish fulfillment, but I don't care. I love this movie.

Uncle Sam entered my life when I was a kid or young teenager. Somewhere in the late 90's. I grew up a few blocks from a video store that went through countess different name changes. My personal favorite was Moovies, but that's because a cow shilling straight-to-video slasher flicks from the 90's is a mental image I can never not love. I would go there damn near daily during the summer because the crap movies could be rented for 69 cents a pop. That is how I saw every single Godzilla movie up to that time in the span of a week and discovered my love of Charles Bronson.

Now, I am not going to lie, when it comes to campy movies, sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, and man the art for Uncle Sam just told me I had to see it. The only time I ever got burned by this method was with a movie titled Plankton, which I thought would be perfect but it did not, in fact, feature killer plankton. Boy was I cross with that.

The point I am trying to make, in my round-about way, that this movie is special to me. It may not be the best example of what makes Camp Counseling what it is, but I know you all will dig on it. And to prove this, I am not reviewing this movie. Instead, I will have a group of people watch it with me and I will post their reactions/mini-reviews. I always say that this blog is not so much about telling you if a movie is good or bad, but more telling you why you need to see a movie. I am putting my money where my mouth is here with this.

N. Krabtree writes:

"I used to think I knew what it meant to be an American. But a boy named Jody Baker changed that, today. No longer am I an American. I am a fucking terrorist who deserves to die at the hands of our greatest American icon, Uncle Sam. Well, not the Uncle Sam, really, just a Sam who happens to be an uncle. Not much else makes me want to devote my life to this great country than the constant threat of some child’s undead uncle killing me for dropping an American flag on the ground. Or for not recycling. Drinking imported beer...

Uncle Sam was not entertainment. It was a life changing experience. God Bless America."

Jimmy-Dean C. writes:

"The 1996 super-natural thriller Uncle Sam certainly is a film that burns a fire deep under the heart of any true American. As opposed to films like We Were Soldiers or Saving Private Ryan, Uncle Sam is the only super-natural film that can make you sympathize with a rapist-turned-zombie as he hunts down flag burners, hippies and corrupt politicians. But while this burn-victim bully paves a path of terror the real monster in this film, and really the main source of joy, is the ten-year old nephew Jodie. Jodie has some issues, one of them being him probably being a dyed in the wool sociopath. Ever served in the army? Nope? YOU’RE DEAD!!! And truly the real spirit of the film isn’t found in Uncle Sam’s slayings but in Jodie being an absolute dick to everyone. This is served on a double dish of absolutely amazing dresses, Isaac Hayes firing anything he can get his hands on and a mystical, blind fireworks victim who is going to truly make you “Deal with it.” In the end Uncle Sam is a film that launches a cannon ball full of nationalistic-fueled passion into any red, white and blue soul." 

 A. Corder writes:

"This movie.

This. Movie.

This.

Movie.

It's not a movie I'd watch on my own, that's for sure. But having a group of people to point things out and laugh at is the most essential component of any bad not boring movie watching, and that's exactly what we had. There were lots of little things that made it great, like the mom rubbing some cream on Jodie's foot as it bled like crazy, then telling him to fuck off and go to sleep, or the way the blind kid was always so blunt and confident about everything he said when he had no way to even tell what the hell was going on, and so on. But I've gotta say, my favorite part was when I called out Uncle Sam as a zombie, and then BOOM HE WAS A GODDAMN ZOMBIE.

Also the dicktalk throughout, because boy howdy do I looooove me some dicks mm mmm."

Janet G. writes:

"Holy shit. Just Holy Shit. Let me preface this by saying: Holy shit this movie a special kind of crazy.

 This movie starts off on a strong foot, maybe the best scene even, where a guy with the voice of a man who smokes 80 packs a day and kinda looks like Charles Bronson if he were 90. The movie stars what has got to be the most psychotic kid I've ever seen, he's the next Audy Murphy the way I'm looking at it, what with his obsession for going into the military and kicking non-American ass. His uncle sam dies in Kuwait, which was shown in the scene with Smokey McBronson, and the kid (whose name is Jody haha, sucks for that kid) thought he was the best thing since Apple Pie and American flags.

But skipping all the boring reasons why his uncle COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD TO KILL PEOPLE WHO JODY PERCEIVES AS NOT UPHOLDING AMERICAN MILITARY VALUES.

Kid's a psycho, and god bless him for this hour and a half of crazy.

The kills are pretty darn good in this movie so I'll refrain from spoiling any of them for any who've not been blessed by William Lustig's magnum opus, watch it on netflix streaming asap.

Uhh, did I forget anything? There's some other characters too, I guess, like a blind kid who can see the future(?) and a black guy with a great voice and acts like he has a prosthetic leg, also some pretty great dresses (this is sarcasm).

I'd give it 4 uhhh's out of 5." 

M. Niihara writes:

 "ALL RIGHT SO

UNCLE SAM.

This movie was quite amazing. Not the movie itself of course. Oh no. It blew. But the discussion was fun! Those dresses were fantastic, and by fantastic I mean 'hideous.' I think my favorite parts of the movie were when everyone was reacting to an Uncle Sam kill. "Why did he do that?" we would ask. "That wasn't fair! That wasn't just!" We were expecting the zombie Uncle Sam who was also a rapist to be rational and just in his murders. That is a silly thing to expect! But I expected it as well! I am apparently quite irrational! And that fucking KID. Choadie. He was a psychopath, and that was enjoyable. All playing with his G.I. Joes after declaring he was in mourning. And the blind kid who somehow could tactically assess a combat situation! What was that, I ask you. WHAT WAS THAT?" 

Okay, so not everyone took this seriously, and that is exactly what I wanted. I had a few other people watch this and not give me their thoughts. Bully on them, but I can't change that. Some people don't like homework after watching a masterpiece like this.

I hope others' enthusiasm will make you want to track down this or any of the other movies I review. I sincerely love everything about this blog and every movie I watch. I don't call myself a reviewer or a critic or anything remotely similar. I appreciate these movies. Movies that were made to entertain and nothing else. There is a place for them in this world, and I honestly feel that if every flick released had to have a serious message or try to jerk those tears right up out of you, the world would be much worse. Sometimes you need a simple, ineptly told story about insane jingoism to pass the time.

Next week I promise not to be all emotional. But for now, for today, why not let a little heart shine through?

BLACK PANTHER: EPISODES ELEVEN AND TWELVE

This is, uh, kind of embarrassing but I actually completely fell asleep in the middle of typing up last night's entry. Like straight up drooling, snoring sleep. It was a horrific sight.

I shoulda taken pictures. To make up for it, I promise to not post the Black Panther theme in this entry.

Let's get this party started, shall we?

So, Black Panther starts this episode straight up telling Klaw to kill his mother because he stone cold don't give a fuck, as he's gonna murderize Klaw anyway. T'Challa can be a royal prick sometimes. I will not apologize for that pun.

The credits role and Batroc makes jokes about kissing women and Klaw shoots lasers out of his hand, while T'Shawn and a flight attendant talk about banging Duder in his lady body. They don't know he is Duder, obviously. Or not so obviously. I would not put it past the creators of this show to make it likewise.

Meanwhile, Black Panther's mother beats up Klaw, the foxy bodyguards beat up Batroc, and Black Panther's Uncle gets his leg shot off by Klaw's magic laser hand. The show, at this point, has given up on story and goes straight for action. Poorly paced, poorly animated action.

Then we see Deathloks, Storm showing how boss she is, Nigandan soldiers get shot up, dogs and cats live together, and it may just be the apocalypse. I don't know how this can get better.

Oh wait, Klaw enters the internet. That's right, it turns into Hackers.

While Klaw is hacking the gibson, Shuri discovers the Ebony Blade of the Black Knight and is immediately better than him with it. Well, it's the Ebony Blade and well, Black Knight was a white guy, so I am failing to see the symbolism here. I do, however, really want to eat a black and white cookie.

Oh, and I was remiss, in previous entries to post about the theme made especially for the Black Panther's Flying Motorcycle. I will not post a clip of it here, it is something you really really need to hear. It is the catchiest song I think I have heard. That does not, however, make it good. It does, however, make it hilarious. We get to hear this theme again as Black Panther jacks into the internet and Storm destroys all the Deathloks.

I wish words could justify the insanity of the Black Panther/Klaw internet fight. You just, you just need to see it. I can however describe Shuri straight cutting Radioactive Man in half and his slo-mo fall into oblivion. It is straight absurdity. It leads to Duder stealing T'Shawn's body and more of the internet fight.

Anyway, Black Panther kills Klaw, Batroc the Leaper surrenders like a little bitch, and the remaining Deathloks totally pretend they were not there to take over but to help. Those crafty zombie soldiers!

We see Wakanda supervillain prison, there's lot of hugging, and the Black President talks street with T'Challa.

The End.

Oh, and SYKE

BLACK PANTHER: EPISODE TEN

 

It's all out pandemonium.

Everything in this episode is a set-up for the action to happen in the next episode. 

There really isn't much to dissect. 

It is pretty much a montage of an episode.

Oh and Klaw tries to force T'Challa to kill himself.

That is a thing that happens.

But, if this truly is a montage, I wonder what music it should be set to?

Yeah, that's the ticket.

UNDEFEATABLE

There are numerous reasons I am reviewing this movie, but first and foremost is because of a certain video on the internet that spoils the final fight of this movie. Now, I am not saying that said fight is not one of the most absurd and hilarious things ever filmed, but it doesn't really capture the essence of what Undefeatable is. It is only one, tiny component of the sheer lunacy that boiled over and spilled out this flick. And, god help me I hate saying this, that one clip doesn't have enough backstory (a dreaded word in Camp Counseling), to have you laugh as completely as you should.

Undefeatable, much like Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, is also one of the reasons I started this blog. I can't count the number of times I have seen at least part of this movie, nor has it ever been anything but an unadulterated delight every time I have. Even though I can recite every stilted, head-scratching one-liner, I still grin like my veins are pumped full of nitrous oxide every time one of the characters flatly delivers it. It is a joyous work of complete and utter ineptitude that it's a siren's call to me every time I find it playing on television or see it peeking at me on my DVD rack. I may not watch it every single time, but I know it will always be there to thoroughly entertain me.

Also it helps that Cynthia Rothrock is the cutest of the 80's Action ladies. While the competition was anything but fierce, having the queen of 80's Action be a looker in the same way that, say, Molly Ringwald was a looker, is an advantage. I am also not ashamed  to admit that, even to this day, I have kind of a crush on Mrs. Rothrock.  It is impossible not to get a crush on her during this movie because she will use any excuse to do a split and show off her cleavage. Not even Gymkata has more people doing splits than Cynthia Rothrock does in Undefeatable.  I take this as a boon because while Kurt Thomas is a real life Gumbercules, he's very much a butterface.

What am I even doing in this entry? This is a lot of set-up for a review about a movie where the main character doesn't even fight in the climactic finale that involves a dude flexing his shirt off.

As for the plot of the movie, I refuse to spoil it for you. I could make a myriad of jokes about every single scene, but I am not going to do it. Not only would this entry would be about seventeen pages long, but I wouldn't even begin to scratch the surface of this gem.  I'll still summarize it in a paragraph or two, but I can't do a scene by scene deconstruction, as there is way too much to deconstruct. Not a single scene goes by where something completely ridiculous doesn't happen. Not a single frame is wasted on competence and compelling story-telling. Not a single millisecond isn't the funniest thing you have ever seen. In terms of the criteria I use to judge a movie as good, this movie is downright perfect.  Alas, though, I must soldier on.

Undefeatable is the story of...well, I have no fucking clue who the main character is supposed to be, but I guess Cynthia Rothrock because her name is the biggest in the credits. Anyway, Cynthia Rothrock is a waitress named Kristi who kung fu fights hooligans for fat stacks of cash on the side to help put her sister through medical school. Also starring in this movie is a detective named Nick DeMarco. He totally knows all the martial arts and beats up people who rob what appears to be a pizza shop. Meanwhile, there's this guy named Stingray who is jacked in the head and gets off on beating the living tar out of anything that moves. Kristi gets arrested after totally pulverizing one of many stereotypical black guys (don't worry, the Asians are even more stereotypical and also barely speak good English) into the ground and meets who will soon be her cop buddy, Nick DeMarco. Also, his stereotypically way too New York Italian partner is there. Anyway, Stingray's wife leaves him after seeing a shrink and he goes on a murder rampage because his mom ditched him to bang other dudes when he was a teenager. Somehow, as if by magic, all these stupid plots converge when Stingray kills Kristi's sister (like 45 minutes into the movie), and Kristi turns into the worst Batman. Oh, and Nick wants to bring Stingray down because the mayor has his stupid chief's balls in a vice.

Honestly, that paragraph was harder to write than I thought it would be, and it makes more sense than I thought it would. Undefeatable is, dare I say it, undescribable. 

Anytime I can work a pun into these entries, my ego is satiated. But, this is not the time for ego wanking. Let's get down to the brass tacks of what makes this movie so guldarn special, shall we?

The acting has to take front and center when you are talking about how hilarious this movie really is. Every single cast member has the complete and utter inability to emote. All the acting is flat. And when I say flat, I mean that not a single ounce of effort is put into anything said. It is beyond teleprompter reading. There is not a single iota of conviction behind any sound that comes out of any of the actor's mouth holes.The acting is so flat it makes TV's Frank look like Richard Burton. The acting is so flat that if you looked at it sideways, it would disappear. The acting is  flatter than Kitty pre-boob job -- surfboard acting at its finest. It is almost an odd delight as the actors try to move their hands around and put some sort of emphasis behind everything they say, but the just cannot emote. They are like robots, almost, but even Robbie the Robot had more range than this chuckleheads.

The plot, which, again, I won't really spoil, is another factor that makes this movie spectacular. It just does not care about making sense of having any sense of propriety or timing. Things just roll along and then maybe something bad will happen to change the course but it doesn't really effect things. It has this strange way of both plodding along and jumping violently ahead at the same time. The fact that the three characters' stories only tangentially interact with each other for the longest time does not make things better, but somehow makes things funner. It is just a bizarre sense of both not giving a fuck and really wanting to tell a story. Only not having the talent to do either.

When it comes to pacing/editing, I will  have to spoil one thing. There is a part, early in the movie, where Nick is investigating Stingray's first murder victim. From off-screen, presumably filmed somewhere else, a uniformed cop tells him that he has a call. Nick walks towards him and straight into the next scene. . He takes like three steps and bam, new scene in a new location with a whole new dead body.

There are a myriad of other little things I could harp on. I honestly am restraining myself because this, more than any movie I have ever reviewed, needs to be witnessed with as clean of a slate as possible. In fact, this doesn't even feel like a review, but more a plea to get you to watch this movie. You, readers, need to witness this. You need to see Cynthia Rothrock act her little heart out without raising her voice. You need to bear witness to the glory that is Bear. You need to bask in the glow of Stingray's childhood trauma. You need to see all of these things without knowing what you are in for other than fun.

I guess why I am so big on this movie is because of that clip, and because of things like Superdickery and all its ilk. I am tired of people seeing only a single clip or a comic book cover and assuming that is the zenith of zaniness. It isn't. Crack open that comic, flip on that flick, bury yourself in that book. I promise you that while you have only seen the tip, that crazy iceberg has so much more to offer you in its underwater core.

Undefeatable, more than any movie I have reviewed, proves exactly this.

BLACK PANTHER: EPISODE NINE

Black Panther's rage smolders much like the still broken television, but he claims to be happy because he can murder all his enemies in one place. I wonder if he is happy enough to have a dance party. And, if you are having a party, I cannot imagine not playing this little ditty:

You can't not sway to this funky beat. You know it to be true.

Anyway, The United States uses the goings on as an excuse to send their Deathloks over, then the credits roll.

After the credits, my single favorite scene in all of animation happens. Part of this is because of nerd knowledge and part of it is because it absolutely revels in making the X-Men look like the biggest bunch of chumps ever.

Okay, so Storm, who is not a telepath, is using the machine designed solely for telepaths to find the Juggernaut. Now, if you don't know, Juggernaut's stupid little helmet is actually designed to block any telepahtic attack. So, the machine that Storm shouldn't be able to use wouldn't be able to find him.

Storm remarks that Juggernaut straight up schooled the X-Men, because she wasn't there, and they are a bunch of punks. Now, he's in Wakanada, where the Black Panther resides. Cyclops tries to be a leader, but he is such a weenie that Storm tells him to slow his roll and stay behind. Wolverine suggests that Storm is going back to ride T'Challa's bony rollercoaster. Storm shuts him down, tells the X-Men they can't come, and just strolls out, leaving Cyclops a blubbering, babbling mess.

This exchange follows:

Wolverine: Way to lead to team, Scott.
Cyclops: Shut up Logan, you're just jealous.
Wolverine (eying Nightcrawler): Nah, he's jealous.
Nightcrawler: Vell, kind of, but you are too. 

Yeah, that's right. The X-Men have a childish exchange arguing about how jealous they are of Storm.  

Honestly, if I have to tell you more about the episode after that, you are dead to me, reader.

BLACK PANTHER: EPISODE EIGHT

This episode, man.

This episode. 

Riding on the high of poop jokes and evil dictators, the first thing we see is a somber, praying Black Knight. He is kneeling, head on his sword, the whole shebang. He clearly takes his praying seriously. However, he is in the hilariously named Niganda, so you kind of lose any and all power when the font that labels everything on Isla Nublar is used to promote a fictional African country named Niganda. 

I will never get over that name,

Anyway, Klaw saunters up and ruins this moment by asking the Black Knight to give a wicked rad speech to make his troops murder Wakandans but good. Black Knight then goes on a spiel about loving Jesus and asking if Klaw loves Jesus too and Klaw totally lies.

We then have the most ridiculous aping of the St. Crispin's Day speech of all time, complete with Juggernaut talking about murderin' for Jesus and Batroc being French and dismissive and snooty about the whole dealio. Batroc is the hipster of the group. I hate hipsters. Especially French assassin hipsters.

After the speech, we watch T'Challa hallucinate about being chewed up and spit out by a giant white panther. I am trying to find the symbolism here, but I just can't quite put my finger on it. In said dream, after being broken into pieces, his foxy bodyguards put him back together.

The same bodyguards that have not been seen outside of the opening.

This opening:

Fuckin' A right I was gonna get it in this entry. I bet you thought I would cop out and just tack it on the end, didn't you?

I ain't play that game.

So, after waking up from his totally not symbolic dream, T'Challa runs down to the war room where things are going nuts.

This leads to the ridiculous Juggernaut charging through Wakanda sequence. Now, I said before his animation was shit, but man when they are building him up as a force to be reckoned with yet his movements looks as if a man with no arms on a Jazzy could lap him, the disconnect is delightfully hilarious.

As Juggernaut slowly plows through buildings, the Black Knight takes to the skies and trash talks heathen Wakandans as he cuts their planes in half while riding on his flying horse. Dude just cannot stand no pagans who don't even have a milliliter of the Holy Spirit in 'em.

And while that is going on, the Radioactive Man shoots himself in a missile and lands in the vibranium mines. Shuri is there, and some dude says he's gonna protect her with his big wrench. Radioactive Man melts this dude's face off.

Since everything is going to hell, T'Challa calls the evil Unbutu, the dictator from the previous episode and threatens to decapitate him. Unbutu mentions Klaw.

The Black Panther punches a television.