I’m With Lucy (2002)

I’m With Lucy stars Monica Potter, Gael Garcia Bernal, David Boreanaz, John Hannah, Anthony LaPaglia and Henry Thomas. So with a cast like that, I had hopes that it would be a good film.

It is so sad to see such a talented cast deliver such awful dialogue. Lucy (Monica Potter) is standing outside Gabriel’s door, fixing her makeup. From the other side, Gabriel (Gael Garcia Bernal) says, “Your makeup looks fine,” and then opens the door. Lucy is upset, accusing Gabriel of spying on her. She says, “What if I spied on you when you were going to the bathroom?” That makes no sense. If someone is at your door, it’s natural to look through the peep hole to see who it is, as Gabriel did. Plus, this is his place, not hers, so how can he be spying on her? Terrible. But what’s worse is Gabriel’s response: “You would be rewarded. I look good when I pee.” Yes, this movie forces Gael Garcia Bernal to say, “I look good when I pee.”

That is only seven minutes into the film. But the movie had gone wrong approximately six and a half minutes earlier, when Monica Potter delivers an incredibly stupid speech to a girl at a makeup counter about how her boyfriend is perfect but that she has problems. “He has no flaws. Me, I have tons of flaws. I have mood swings, allergies, low self-esteem, I’m quite compulsive. Most of the guys I ever dated thought I was a weirdo.” It’s so contrived, so completely unbelievable, and not at all funny. She ends her stupid speech by saying, “I just know that we’re going to be in love forever.” Predictably, in the next scene Lucy’s boyfriend, Peter (Craig Bierko), breaks up with her. In a crowded elevator. Come on. He says: “Sexually, I’m unsatisfied. It’s not that I find you undesirable. It’s just your technique is pedestrian.” And he goes on from there, causing one of the other people on the elevator to comment, “Whoa.” Just completely fucking awful. And this is the opening of the film.

Anyway, Lucy then goes on a series of blind dates over the course of the next year, and we see bits of each one. And all of this is in flashbacks. In the present, Monica and her sister are setting up their friend Melissa on a blind date. And this blind date happens to be at Monica’s wedding. That’s fucking ridiculous. But they’re still talking about Lucy’s five dates, and her sister says, “Melissa, in one hour, Lucy is marrying one of those dates.” How’s that for an awkward and contrived line? But that line is supposed to grab our interest. We’re supposed to be curious as to which of these five men she’s going to marry.

The problem with that is that everyone in the movie, with the exception of John Hannah’s character (John Hannah somehow always manages to come off all right), is immediately despicable. This is a group of people that you want to put into a large blender and then dump the resulting mess into the New York sewer. I don’t care who Lucy marries, because in her first line of dialogue she comes across as an insane, self-involved monster. So what do I care who she ends up with, as long as it isn’t John Hannah, as he deserves better.

I’m a big fan of John Hannah’s work, particularly in Four Weddings And A Funeral and Sliding Doors. Anyway, back to their date, he is being pleasant, expressing an interest in Lucy’s jazz records. She, in turn, is a drunk bitch to him, saying, “I notice a small mole with two black hairs sticking out of it on the back of your neck.” She’s lying on her couch, not being much of a host, and so he glances at her bookshelves (something I myself always do), and she angrily asks, “Why in the hell are you looking at my books?”

Anthony LaPaglia plays Bobby, an ex-baseball player who played for the Mets, but was injured in September of 1986 and so didn’t play in the World Series. He has to deliver this line: “Can you imagine what it’s like to miss a World Series because you hurt your groin?” Again, awful dialogue. Just awful.

Then poor Lucy has to prove to Barry (Henry Thomas) that she’s bonkers by ranting to a store clerk about nasal decongestants. This movie is just relentless in making its actors deliver terrible dialogue. It honestly feels mean. Like deliberately mean to the actors.

Forcing yet two more actors to deliver shitty dialogue, the movie includes Harold Ramis and Julie Christie as Lucy’s parents, who meet Lucy while she’s on one of her dates and then invite them back to their place for dinner. While all four then watch home movies of Lucy as a child, Julie Christie says, “Honey, wasn’t that the day you got your first menstrual cramp?” Really? Why would Julie Christie agree to do that? What dirt did the director have on her?

The film is meanest to Monica Potter, who has to act drunk on her date with Doug (John Hannah). Why are they even continuing their date anyway? Why didn’t Doug politely make an excuse and leave? Well, John Hannah has to say, “Let’s drink to the happiness that awaits us and embrace the great cosmic process that placed us here together tonight.” What he should say is, “Sober up, you heartless tart.”

Gabriel says, “I can sense your energy around the room.” Lucy responds, “You’re a much more advanced creature than I am.” Someone wrote that. Someone named Eric Pomerance. And then the director, Jon Sherman, forced these two talented actors to say these lines. Perhaps at gunpoint?

Here are a few more lines from this piece of shit:

Bobby: “I have a humongous sex life. Humongous.”

Lucy (to Gabriel): “I can sense the energy from your ear lobe.”

Barry: “Greatness is floating around me like a big blimp.”

Okay, I’ve got it. This film is the result of some bet. Director Jon Sherman boasted to writer Eric Pomerance that he could get actors to say absolutely anything. Eric didn’t believe him, so Jon said, “Eric, write me the worst fucking script ever, and I bet I can get people like Julie Christie, John Hannah, Harold Ramis, Gael Garcia Bernal and Monica Potter to do it.” Eric was certainly up to the challenge and handed Jon one of the worst scripts in film history, thinking Jon wouldn’t even be able to get Carrot Top and Kathy Griffin to touch it. But somehow, possibly through blackmail, Jon was able to put together his dream cast.

Now there are a couple of slightly amusing moments, like when Doug tells Lucy that she could slip into a coma, and when Barry remarks (upon seeing a poster in Lucy’s childhood room): “Hey, George Michael. You guys were really in love.” But that’s it.

I thought the movie would be over at the end of the five first dates, but no. We see her on further dates with two of the guys. What happened to the others? They managed to escape somehow. Well, one of them (Bobby, the baseball player) ends up as Melissa’s blind date at Lucy’s wedding. But John Hannah and Gael Garcia Bernal apparently had had enough, and took off. Good for them. The others didn’t get off quite so easily. Poor David Boreanaz is directed to write “I like U” in the sand with his finger. Geez. He’s not twelve years old.

At one point in the film it says, “Six weeks later” on screen, which prompted me to wonder, “Six weeks later than what?” The film has been bouncing around to different times from the start. So is it six weeks later than the most recent point, meaning she’s been married for six weeks? Nope.

Near the end, as apparently the film hasn’t done enough damage, we have to suffer through a karaoke scene. I detest karaoke. I loathe it. And that leads to the wedding scene. But again, who cares? And even when the movie is over, it continues to suck by attacking us with a shitty pop song during the closing credits.

This is the kind of movie I wish I could cause physical harm to. I want to hurt this movie. I want to punch this movie repeatedly in the face.

Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)

Some folks think Halloween is the holiday that is filled with horror and frights. But the rest of us know the scariest holiday of all is Christmas. I shake with terror at just the thought of hearing “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” or trying to find a parking space at the mall in December. And Christmas is the holiday with mutant killer snowmen. So there.

In Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman, scientists try to bring Jack Frost back to life. Why? Who knows? They have trouble with their task, and it takes a clumsy janitor to knock the right ingredient into the tank. The janitor is rewarded with death, as the tank explodes. Apparently, Jack Frost escapes in liquid form down the drain.

By the way, the opening scene of this film is great, with Sam telling his psychiatrist about Jack Frost, while several people listen in from the other room and laugh, causing the psychiatrist to laugh as well.  I imagine that sort of thing happens all the time. If I worked as psychiatrist or psychologist, I’d want to share my patients’ hilarious madness with others.

Anyway, Sam and his wife go to an island for Christmas to attend a friend’s wedding. Jack Frost knows about this, and travels across the ocean, stopping at a raft to kill a couple of guys who have a carrot. One of those guys is played by Doug Jones, by the way. A very cool cameo appearance.

The carrot then washes ashore and talks about the party it sees. When folks at the party start singing “Jingle Bells,” I want them to die and to die quickly. But instead the carrot goes and kills a few girls on the beach.

Yes, this is a very silly movie, and it is played for comedy as much as horror. Those who work at the resort decide the girls’ deaths are the result of a shark attack so as not to alarm anyone (sort of the opposite of the way things are handled in shark movies). Jack Frost then takes the form of several ice cubes. And when a model rubs one of the ice cubes on her tits to make them hard, the ice cube says, “God, I must have been a good boy this year.”

Jack Frost soon brings winter to the island, so all the guests have a snowball fight. Jack Frost gets in on the fun, but his snowballs kill people, leading Sam to comment, “It’s another holly jolly Christmas.” Indeed.

This is one of those horror films where the killer has more personality than any (or indeed, all) of the other characters. I love it when Jack Frost says, “Let me explain to you the inherent dangers of unregulated genetic experimentation.”

Later in the film a snowball hatches, and we get a little baby killer snowman, which is just fucking great. And then suddenly there are lots of them, having a grand time (think Gremlins, or perhaps Critters). And during the closing credits there’s a good joke on all those dubbed Japanese monster movies.

Ice Cream Man (1995)

I just wrote a review of Swamp Shark, which features a performance by Wade Boggs. Oddly, Ice Cream Man also features a performance by a baseball player – this time by Steve Garvey.

Ice Cream Man is an odd little film, starring Clint Howard as Gregory Tudor, a very creepy and demented ice cream man. The film opens with a scene from Gregory’s childhood, when a professional hit is carried out on the neighborhood ice cream man. Young Gregory witnesses this murder and is clearly traumatized, asking, “Who’s going to bring the ice cream, Mommy?” An important question for any child.

Then we settle into the present, with Gregory all grown up and having answered his own question by becoming an ice cream man himself. He acts very creepy, demanding that children say “Please” when ordering ice cream, and keeping mice, bugs and eyeballs in the ice cream. But hey, he’s not the only creepy adult. There’s a guy in the park picking up trash who seems a bit unsavory, as four children eat their ice cream and talk about the pied piper. The children’s parents are a little odd too. In fact, basically all the adults in this film are a bit odd.

One thing that makes this one definitely worth watching is the cast. It’s kind of amazing (and a bit sad). David Warner (from Time Bandits, the 1968 version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and lots of other great films) plays Reverend Langley, a father to one of the children. David Naughton (from An American Werewolf In London and Hot Dog…The Movie) plays Martin Cassera, the father to one of the other children. Olivia Hussey (who played Juliet in Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo And Juliet) plays Nurse Wharton. E.E. Bell (whom Irish music fans in Los Angeles know as the front man of The Whooligans) plays Happy Doctor.

It’s a weird horror movie, because in a way it’s really a children’s film. We mostly follow the children, who think that the ice cream man killed one of their friends. None of the adults believe them, of course. So they have to do the detective work themselves. They follow him to the cemetery, where Gregory has brought treats for the old ice cream man killed in the opening scene.

There are some great lines. Gregory says to a detective: “I chop up policemen and use them as fertilizer. They make great fertilizer.” Later a detective asks the children, “Do you guys want to end up on a milk carton?” And the ice cream man’s police puppet show for the kids near the end is absolutely wonderful.

This is by no means a great film. But it is certainly an enjoyable one.

Swamp Shark (2011)

I love baseball and I love shark movies. So a shark movie with Wade Boggs in a supporting role couldn’t possibly be all that bad. And it’s not. Swamp Shark also stars Kristy Swanson, whom you might recall from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag. It’s an enjoyable (though ridiculous) film about some previously unknown type of shark that can survive in the deepest parts of the ocean and also in the shallows of the Louisiana swamps. It’s also fond of leaping out of the water. There is a bit of the showman in this shark, but who can blame him? After all, he finally has an audience.

Anyway, at the beginning of the film, the sheriff orders some kids out of an area near the water, and then instructs a tanker truck to come in. The tanker is carrying an exotic animal, and somehow the tank comes loose from the truck, and rolls down the hill into the water. And the shark escapes, thus becoming Swamp Shark. The sheriff says, “What a lousy way to start the summer.” But you can’t help but wonder what the plan had been. Why had the truck pulled up to that specific spot in the first place? Later we learn that the sheriff is the middle man in some scheme to sell rare and endangered animals. But what specifically was supposed to occur at that spot by the water? Was the buyer going to take a look into the tank and then tell the driver to continue on? Well, let’s not worry about it.

Kristy Swanson plays Rachel, a woman who runs a restaurant called Gator Shed, where the main action is letting children watch her brother feed alligators out back. It’s a family place, as not only Rachel and her brother Jason work there, but also their younger sister Crystal.

Early on, we get that tired scene of the drunk stumbling around the pier and becoming food for the shark. But in this version, Rachel is woken by the noise and runs out onto the pier with a gun, seeing the shark. So this film doesn’t waste a lot of time with people in the dark about what’s happening.

Apparently the drunk guy didn’t provide enough sustenance for Swamp Shark, because the shark also ate all of the alligators in the restaurant’s pen. The sheriff doesn’t believe Rachel’s story about the shark, though he’s of course partially to blame for the trouble. The sheriff then wants to shut the restaurant down for some reason.

So Rachel leads her employees on a hunt for the shark in order to save the restaurant. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s okay. Also, I’ve worked at a few restaurants, and I had no trouble walking away from those jobs. But this is mainly a family thing, so it’s a little more understandable – though Rachel and her brother (who used to be a professional football player) don’t want Crystal tagging along. That’s because they want to keep her safe, but what it really does is give her the opportunity to put herself into more danger by accepting an invitation to go on a houseboat with some college kids.

Oh, did I mention that it’s Gator Fest? Yup, just like the fourth of July in the original Jaws, Gator Fest supplies the opportunity for lots of people to be put in danger. Well, it should have been lots of people. Unfortunately, this film seemed to be able to afford only a dozen or so extras. So Gator Fest comes across as a very lame celebration. Really, Gator Fest would provide little more than a light snack for Swamp Shark.

Anyway, the shark hunt begins, and twice people remark surprise that the shark didn’t flinch when they shot at it. It’s a seriously stupid thing to say, and it’s said twice. The shark didn’t even flinch. Ah, no matter, because what you’re probably wondering is, Where the fuck is Wade Boggs? Well, he plays Deputy Stanley. Jason (the ex-football player brother) is arrested, and Wade Boggs is in charge of watching him there at the station. Wade says to him, “I played a little ball myself.” Awesome. That right there makes Swamp Shark better than most of the other shark movies.

And of course Wade Boggs has the perfect name for a film set in a swamp. By the way, this film has some great locations. And it has the deliciously retarded shot of the shark leaping onto land at one point.

Swamp Shark was directed by G. E. Furst.

Jason Goes To Hell – The Final Friday (1993)

Jason Goes To Hell – The Final Friday is the ninth movie in the Friday The 13th series. If the title seems to promise an end, just keep in mind that the fourth movie was called The Final Chapter. Anyway, when we last saw Jason Voorhees, he had taken a nice trip to New York City with some teenagers, and ended up in that city’s sewer, where some magic toxic waste miraculously turned him into a little boy again. Oh, it also killed him. (Read my review of Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.)

When the ninth film opens, we are back at Crystal Lake. A woman arrives at a two-story cabin which must have been built while Jason was busy fucking around in the Big Apple. She has a New York cap on, so it seems we’re supposed to believe Jason saw her in the city and then somehow followed her back to camp (after coming back to life and turning back into an adult).

The woman changes a light bulb and then gets undressed. And sure enough, Jason is there, back to his adult self, and he soon chases the woman through the woods. The woman, by the way, has a towel wrapped around her, and manages to keep it on while running. The towel is the first magical item in this ridiculous film. But it is far from the last.

She leads Jason to a clearing, where suddenly several large lights are turned on and aimed at Jason. A SWAT team is there to destroy the unstoppable killer, and the woman was just bait, leading him from New York back to the woods of Crystal Lake. Anyway, the team blows Jason up, his head landing near his heart, which still beats. Some guy hiding in the woods says, “I don’t think so,” which hints that perhaps the movie is not over.

Jason’s body is taken to the federal morgue in Youngstown, Ohio, and an autopsy is performed. The heart begins beating again, which surprises the coroner. It would be impossible for him to explain this, so he does the only logical thing – he eats the heart. Then fireflies or pixies enter his body and he begins acting strangely. For example, he kills his co-workers.

The film then switches to one of those investigative crime television programs. The show’s star, Robert Campbell, says, “For over twenty years, the mere mention of the name Jason Voorhees has been enough to send a shudder of fear through the hearts of an entire nation.” He then recounts a bit of Jason’s history, mentioning that he was born in 1946 and believed to have drowned. “Sadly, he did not.” Right, as established in Part 2.

This is probably a good time to mention the timeline (which I detailed in my review of Part VII). When Jason’s mother killed all those counselors, it was 1979. When Jason went to Manhattan, it was – at the earliest – 2016. There’s no way of knowing exactly how much time has passed since the sewer adventure. Maybe only a few weeks. Who knows? So it could still be 2016 in Jason Goes To Hell. Now if what Robert Campbell said is true – that the name Jason has been scaring folks for two decades – that means that people became aware of Jason around the time of the events in Part VI. That actually makes a bit of sense, as that’s when Jason really rose from the dead with the help of some lightning. It also means that Jason is at least seventy years old in the eighth and ninth parts.

Anyway, on the television show, Robert interviews Creighton Duke, a bounty hunter who goes after serial killers. And hey, he was the guy hiding in the woods when Jason’s body exploded. Duke informs us that Jason “wears other people’s bodies like folks wear a suit.” He’ll kill Jason for $500,000. And with a nod at Jaws, he says, “And for that, you’ll get the mask, the machete, the whole damn thing.”

Duke can’t do it alone, however. He needs the help of a waitress named Diana. He tells her that Jason is coming to get her and her daughter, Jessica. Jessica, by the way, has a daughter of her own, and that baby’s father is Steven.  Steven picks up a few hitchhikers who are going to Camp Crystal Lake. He tells them that the cabins were torn down a couple of years ago. However, the cabins have been gone for at least two decades. So were other cabins built on the site, just to then be torn down? Or is Steven retarded when it comes to math? Either way, the hitchhikers are soon killed by the coroner.

The coroner then captures a cop named Josh and shaves his face. He then leans over him to transfer the Jason bit inside him to this new body. Sure, in previous movies Jason had been a mindless killer. But now he’s into some sort of weird voodoo. Why he hadn’t switched bodies before is anybody’s guess. Anyway, Josh shows up at Diana’s house to kill her. For a moment, Diana is fooled, but she then sees Josh in a magic mirror, which shows his true Jason self. So she shoots him.

But guess what? He’s not dead. He gets on top of her, and some sort of worm thing comes out of his mouth. It looks like he’s trying to take another body, one that he doesn’t have to shave first. Unfortunately for him, Steven arrives right then, interrupting him. But Josh manages to kill Diana. Before she dies, she tells Steven to save Jessica. However, Steven is arrested for Diana’s murder.

Creighton Duke is in the cell next to his, and he breaks Steven’s fingers for some reason. Or, more likely, for no reason at all. Then Creighton tells him that the only way to kill Jason is to destroy his heart. And the only one who can do that is Jessica now that Diana is dead. Why? Well, Jason had a sister, Diana, and only another Voorhees can kill him. Wait, aren’t we in Halloween territory at this point? And why add all this information in the ninth film? Halloween only waited until the second film to give us this stupid plot point.

Let’s go back to the timeline for a moment. Jason was born in 1946. He’s at least seventy years old. Diana is his sister. She appears to be approximately forty years old. So she was born in 1976, long after the incident in which Jason supposedly drowned. And only three years before their mother would be killed. So where was Diana while her mom was off slaughtering teenagers in 1979? Mrs. Voorhees left a three-year-old alone while avenging the believed death of her son? Or did she hire a babysitter? Also, in 1976 Mrs. Voorhees was not a young woman. Diana’s birth likely had complications, given Mrs. Voorhees’ age. It’s amazing she was able to conceive and carry Diana to term at all. It certainly couldn’t have been an easy birth, so it’s surprising that she’d then neglect her daughter at so young an age.

Anyway, Duke also tells Steven that through a Voorhees, Jason could also be reborn. He needs to be reborn because the bodies he’s using are weak. He then tells Steven to go to the Voorhees house. The Voorhees house? Again, we’re in Halloween land. There’s never been any mention of a Voorhees house. But Steven breaks out of jail and goes there. Apparently the house has been left untouched since 1979, although someone has been paying the electric bill, because the lights work. Inside the house, Steven finds the book from Evil Dead. Seriously. The same prop. Why is it there? Its presence is not explained, and no reference is made to it again in the film.

Robert arrives and tells someone on his phone that he stole Diana’s body and hid it in the closet. But before he can boost his show’s ratings with this hidden body trick, Josh comes out and trades that body for Robert’s (without shaving him). Josh’s body then melts. Why? Why not.

Robert goes to kill Jessica, who is taking a shower (after leaving her infant at a diner that morning and not bothering to pick her up). Steven rescues her, but she steals his car. Soon they’re together again. Steven is able to get the handcuffs off between scenes, and Jessica finally decides to retrieve her baby. But for some reason the diner owner won’t give up the infant. However, it doesn’t matter, because somehow Duke got out of jail (by the way, what was he arrested for in the first place?), got to the diner before them, stole the baby, and left a note for Jessica to come to the Voorhees house.

Remember, earlier Duke said that Jason has to keep switching bodies because the bodies are weak. But Robert is run over with a car and shot dozens of times and seems fine. Anyway, Jessica goes to the Voorhees house and Duke tells her the story. He tosses her a dagger, and when she catches it, it magically lights up. The screenwriters had long since given up on anything approaching believability. They had probably given up mere seconds after signing onto the project.

Duke tells her she has to kill Jason with the magic dagger, warning her that Jason won’t stop coming after her until he gets her. Or until he decides to take another vacation to New York, or perhaps Detroit this time. When did Jason learn about his sister, and why was he uninterested in her for so many movies? I mean, we’re talking about decades of indifference.

When Steven hacks at Jason’s newest body, some demonic creature crawls out of its neck. What the hell is this creature supposed to be? Anyway, whatever it is, it enters Diana’s dead body because only through a Voorhees can Jason be reborn. And then he is reborn, as Jason again, in his old, screwed up body with the mask and everything. No, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Not much of a rebirth. I mean, even the New York sewage did a better job. And why does only Jason have the ability to come back to life? Why can’t his sister Diana?

Jessica uses the magic dagger, and the lights or pixies or whatever fly out of Jason’s body and into the sky. And then several hands reach out of the ground and grab Jason. They also grab Steven too, for good measure or because demonic hands aren’t all that picky. After a slight hesitation, Jessica saves him. And Jason disappears into the ground.

Apparently, as the title suggests, he goes to hell. And later he goes to space (in Jason X). At the very end of the film, Freddy Kruger’s arm comes out of the dirt and grabs Jason’s mask (later they’d fight in Freddy Vs. Jason, another awful film).