I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)

I worked as an extra on a film called I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, the first sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer.  When I got my paperwork that morning and saw the title I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, I assumed it was a joke, a fake title used in production, and that a real title would be attached to the project before the film was released. In fact, I thought it was a pretty good joke and I told Jennifer Love Hewitt so on the set. She's such a nice, kind person that she didn't correct me. But of course that was the actual title of the film.  A title which doesn't make sense, as by that point it was two summers ago. But whatever.

That day on set I came up with several ideas for titles for further sequels. Stuff like I'm Starting To Forget What You Did Last Summer and What Are Your Plans For The Fall.  The filmmakers didn't use either of those. What they came up with was I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.  One of the opening credits is "An Original Film Production."  Really?

The movie opens with a group of teenage friends on a Ferris wheel. One of them, Amber, says, "So you've all heard the story, right? About what happens on July 4th?" So apparently the plot of the first two films has become a legend. And we learn that every fourth of July The Fisherman "gets out his hat and slicker, he sharpens up his hook" and goes after teenagers.  And of course it's July 4th.  (And hey, wouldn't a fisherman need to put on his slicker other days of the year - like when it's raining?)

This film takes place in Colorado in a town that doesn't seem to be near any body of water. So is a fisherman story all that frightening here?  Anyway, there's a lot of inane dialogue with the teenagers, none of whom we care the least bit about. There is plenty of forced laughter and picture-taking.

And then there is a stunt where one of them pretends to be the fisherman, and another does a skateboarding trick, but something goes wrong, and the skateboarder dies (someone moved the safety mattresses).  The other teenagers decide to keep their involvement a secret. Yes, it is a much more stupid set-up than that of the original film. It's much weaker. After all, it's not like they killed him.

Amber is reluctant, but eventually says, "The secret dies with us."  Then we just wait for them and the secret to die.

A year later Amber lays flowers at the skateboarder's grave, which is apparently in the woods, and so overgrown it seems many years have passed.

Amber gets a text message on her phone: "I know what you did last summer."  Geez, this guy couldn't even be bothered to write a note.  Nobody takes the time to write letters anymore. A note is much more personal.  Actually, the guy sent her fifty text mesages, but they all say the same thing.  So, how does that work? Does she have to pay for all of those? Do text messages count toward weekend minutes?

Anyway, Roger now fixes ski lifts. Colby is working as a lifeguard. And Zoe is in the world's worst rock band. So it's not like their lives are going well anyway. Well, Amber and Zoe are catching up, and suddenly the sheriff - who is also the father of the dead skateboarding would-be stunt man - shows up. He says he's making his rounds of the school, and that "it's strange without all the kids." What the hell - have they never had summer in this town before?

On a chair lift, Amber's camera decides to take a picture of the killer on its own. Apparently the killer was riding on top of the gondola, and then simply reaches down and smashes the window with his hook. And then?  Does he get up and fly away? He'd still have to ride down the rest of the way, so she'd see him at the bottom.  But the film jumps to her having already printed the photo. See, it's a shark. Look - teeth, jaws, gills.  This is nothing. Seaweed, mud, something in the lens.

Finally, forty-three minutes in, one of the teenagers is killed. Not that it matters at all.  The film leads to the big talent show, where Zoe's shitty band is going to play a song. That's more important than surviving, as going to the talent show trumped leaving town in order to live.

The look of this film is all wrong for horror. It's just not scary. At all. Lots of weird angles and camera moves, as well as quick cuts that keep us from being involved in the story. And the geography makes no sense. For example, at one point three of the characters are running together in a building, and then suddenly they're separated, and are so distant that two can't hear the shouts of the third. How did that happen? We don't know. It's impossible to tell even where they are. The only one who can follow them is the killer. So good for him. He deserves his victims. Also, the building is backstage of the talent show, and yet suddenly there is no one around.

When the killer's identity is revealed, the movie becomes laughable. I'm just going to tell you. It will save you the time of watching this piece of shit.  Because in this one the killer is like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. He is stabbed, shot several times and run over with a car, but keeps getting up. And then Amber says, "It's the guy from ten years ago who killed all those kids. It's the legend. It's become true."

Apparently he shows up whenever teenagers keep a secret.  Well, a year after they keep a secret. What right-wing conservative parents group wrote this trash? But guess what? He is vulnerable to one thing - hooks. I'm not kidding.

Jason Voorhees never sent someone a text message. And you know why? Because the audience would have laughed and left.  By the way, we never do learn who moved those mattresses, which resulted in that kid's death.  Oh well.

Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is one of the stupidest, most pointless horror films ever made.  In my review of Part VII: The New Blood , I mentioned the problems with the timeline of this series.  With Part VIII, the timeline gets even more ridiculous. And clearly the filmmakers weren't paying any attention to what had come before.  Anyway, the bulk of Part VII takes place in 2013 (for an explanation, just take a look at my review of that film).  At the end of that film, the house at the edge of the lake explodes for no particular reason, and Jason is pulled back into the lake by the re-animated corpse of the father of a telekinetic chick. 

In Part VIII, once we've gone past the awful New York opening credit sequence (which, by the way is unlike the opening credit sequence for all of the other films in the series), we are in the exact spot where Jason was submerged.  The remnants of the house are gone, and there are new buildings there.  So this film takes place at least three or four years after Part VII. So, let's say it's 2016.  (Though, really, it needs to be much later, considering no one seems to remember the series of murders there from 2013.)  Two high school seniors are on a houseboat.  The boy, Jim, says they're right around the summer camp where all the murders took place.  The girl asks, what murders? Of course, the camp hasn't been there for more than two decades. But do they not know about all the murders from Part VII?  Jim tells her that Jason drowned thirty years ago. But obviously his math is way off.  Jason drowned in 1957. So he should have said that Jason drowned sixty years ago. (Though, actually, in Part 2 it is established that he didn't drown at all, and had been living in a makeshift shack in the woods all this time.)  Anyway, Jim tells the story of the first couple of films (for anyone in the audience who hadn't seen them).

Meanwhile the boat's anchor hits come cable on the bottom of the lake, which sends an electrical charge to Jason, reviving him (as lightning did in Part VI: Jason Lives). This time he's able to break the chains holding him down there (so I guess he's stronger than he was in Part VI). No sign of Tina's dead dad from the end of Part VII (see my review of Part VII).  Did they finally give him a proper burial?  Well, Jason comes aboard and kills the two teenagers.  There is the sound of his name being whispered, which is retarded.  And we definitely miss Harry Manfredini's music (this is the only film in the series that doesn't feature his score).

And then - and here is where the film completely gives up on making any sense whatsoever (and only thirteen minutes in) - the boat that the two kids were on - you know, the one on the lake - drifts into the ocean and ends up in a harbor where the graduating class is getting onto a larger boat to travel to New York City.  The fact that Jason stayed on that boat, rather than getting off after killing those two kids, is retarded.  But what's offensively retarded is the idea that somehow the boat could get from the Crystal Lake to the ocean.  How did it do that? Magic, maybe. Lazy screenwriting, more likely.

So then we're introduced to a bunch of teenagers on a boat.  The main girl, Rennie, is cute. But her legal guardian, Uncle Charles, doesn't want her on the boat.  One of the kids, Sean, is the son of the boat's captain.  No one else matters really.  Jason climbs aboard and no one notices.

And though it's 2016 or later, everyone is wearing late 1980s fashions. One girl is trying to make an '80s retro music video. Anyway, inexplicably these kids like to be alone on the boat, which is convenient for Jason, who kills them off one by one. How big is this boat, that each of them can go off alone? Or maybe it's a really small graduating class. Some boat crew member says, "He's come back and you're all gonna die." It would have been more appropriate if he'd said, "He's come back and for some reason has left Crystal Lake to take a cruise with the high school graduating class to New York, and as a result you're all gonna die."

And then, because this series is always striving for originality and the unexpected, there is an electrical storm.  Guess which other film in this series has an electrical storm? If you guessed Part1, you're right.  I also would have accepted Part 2, Part 4, Part V, Part VI and Part VII as correct responses.  What's wrong, Part 3?  Heavy winds don't count.

Anyway, teenagers scream when they're killed, but no one hears them.  Look, filmmakers, this isn't a giant ocean liner.  A boat full of high school seniors, and each kid goes off alone far enough from the others that his or her screams aren't heard?  Come on!  The captain of the boat is the most human and believable character in the movie, so he's killed off fairly early.  Sean then finds his father's corpse and uses the intercom to call everyone to the bridge. He also calls the Coast Guard, but Jason pulls the plug before he can get out his message.  There is then a fire.

Five survivors get in the life boat and row to New York.  They row for a full day. It's night when they start, then day, then night again, which is when they see the Statue of Liberty. So rather than just row to shore, they rowed the rest of the way to their destination.  Once they've docked, Jason climbs out of the water.  I guess he swam for a day.  This is when the movie becomes even more retarded.  The survivors are mugged by two cliches.  The muggers also decide to steal Rennie in addition to their wallets.  So the other four split up to try find the police.

The muggers shoot Rennie up with some drug, and one is about to rape her but Jason kills him (thus inadvertently rescuing a girl he's traveled a long way to kill). By the way, Rennie was already hallucinating long before being drugged.  She keeps seeing some kid with Down Syndrome drowning.  Rennie finds Sean and tells him that Jason is in New York. They regroup with the others (except for the black guy, who is now dead), and find a cop.  The cop is then immediately killed by Jason, who in this film sometimes seems capable of teleportation.

There is a flashback to Rennie as young girl in a rowboat on the lake. Uncle Charles tosses her into the water in order for her to learn how to swim. She is pulled under by a boy. Supposedly it's Jason, which makes no sense unless Rennie is now like sixty-five years old.

I don't know if you've ever been to New York City, but there are a lot of people there.  A lot.  Yet these characters can't manage to find anyone. Rennie sits on a discarded couch and tells Sean that her parents died in a car accident.  This is supposed to make us feel for her, and it gives Jason a chance to catch up with them. The chase continues. Finally they get on the subway, where there are lots of other people.  But apparently Jason is really determined to kill these two people specifically. He chases them from car to car, passing all sorts of potential victims.

The train stops and they get out. Jason touches the third rail, and the electricity hurts him, knocking him out. Make up your mind, movie.  Didn't electricity revive him?  Twice?  Anyway, Rennie and Sean leave the subway and walk the streets of New York, with lots of people around. But Jason follows them. He's really set on getting these two. Jason kicks an old dual-cassette boom box out of the way, but doesn't kill the four punks who threaten him for smashing their radio. Instead, he scares them by briefly lifting his hockey mask.

So rather than get a taxi to put some distance between themselves and Jason, Rennie and Sean go down into the sewers. An odd choice, right?  A sewer worker tells them that every night at midnight toxic waste rushes through the sewer. Is that true? It makes sense to me, because I think of New York City as a big cesspool full of toxic waste. Well, they have ten minutes to get out. Rennie finds a pail of toxic waste and tosses it at Jason.  This harms him, and he stumbles around for a while. Then the rush of toxic waste gets Jason, and turns him back into a young human boy. That makes as much sense as everything else in this piece of shit.

You'd think this movie would be bad enough to kill the series.  But no, the filmmakers decided to make yet another pile of feces, titled Jason Goes To Hell. Then, after he goes to hell, Jason goes into space in Jason X.

Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

There is a problem with the timeline of the Friday The 13th series.  The first movie, which came out in 1980, takes place in 1979. We know this because of Mrs. Voorhees' tombstone, which is we see in the fourth movie (which is optimistically titled The Final Chapter).  Part 2 takes place five years later, in 1984. Parts 3 and 4 take place right afterward, so still in 1984.  In Part 4, Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) is twelve years old.  In Part V: A New Beginning, he is at least seventeen. So it's 1989 or 1990. (And yes, starting with the fifth film, they switched to Roman numerals.)  In Part VI: Jason Lives, Tommy is a few years older. So it's probably 1993 or thereabouts.  Part VI ends with Tommy chaining Jason to a large rock in the lake just in front of the camp.

With Part VII: The New Blood, the timeline becomes truly problematic.  Part VII opens in the same spot, with Jason chained up at the bottom of the lake. But the camp is gone. In place of the cabins, there is a house, and it seems to have been there for quite a while. So it's at least a decade later. So, say, 2003. In the opening scene, a young girl who is maybe seven or eight years old, accidentally kills her father using telekinesis. He falls into the lake, just at the edge, as the short pier he is on collapses.  And then the rest of the film takes place when Tina is seventeen or eighteen. So, yes, another decade later, making this film take place in 2013.  But the film came out in 1988, so no one in it has cell phones or anything.  The film doesn't address the fact that it takes place in the future.  Everyone is dressed in late 1980s fashions. And they have an old television from the '80s too. And a VCR. And old telephones and cars.

So the movie is fighting an uphill battle. And then there is the telekinesis aspect.  Tina has returned to the house to deal with her feelings, aided by a doctor who is really out to exploit her talents. But after moving a matchbook with her mind, she goes outside and somehow breaks the chains that keep Jason in the lake.  She senses someone out there, and for some reason thinks it's her father.  Though, really, wouldn't they have lifted her father's body from the shallow water to give it a funeral and proper burial?  The answer, it turns out later, is no.  So anyway, she inadvertently frees Jason.  By the way, how was that chain keeping Jason there in the first place? In Part VI, Jason is strong enough to crush skulls and punch through someone's chest and whatnot, but this chain for some reason is too much for him.

Also, in Part VI it was established that the name of the town was changed from Crystal Lake to Forest Green (or something like that) so that the town could put all the killing behind it. Yet, for some reason in the intervening decades, someone decided to change it back, because the old sign is back up.

Twenty years hanging out in a lake hasn't diminished Jason's killing power. And he goes about killing a bunch of people in this film. The film introduces characters only to have them slaughtered in the same scene. So of course we care about none of them. They're there just to give Jason something to do for an hour or so before he goes after the two or three characters who have been established.  And then there are some awful characters, who are established only enough for us to hate them, and they too are slaughtered.

You know, things started to go wrong with Part 3. Because in the first two, all of the characters are basically likeable, so you don't want them to be killed. But starting with the third film, the filmmakers introduced characters you hate, characters you want to have die. And that's screwed up, because then Jason becomes the hero, at least for the moment. Like in Part VII, you want the stuck-up blonde to be brutally butchered. Same goes for the doctor. (The doctor actually uses Tina's mother as a shield to protect himself from Jason, thus getting her killed - one of the few believable moments in the movie.)  But when you start cheering for the killer, the film ceases to be scary, and instead makes you feel like a shithead.

Part VII has a random cat jump out of a closet, where apparently it's been for a long time. Part 2 has a random cat jump through an open window.  And another one (I can't remember which) has a random cat jump off a shelf in a diner.

Well, once Jason starts killing off the characters in Part VII he apparently finds a wild assortment of weapons in the woods.  Every time we see him, he has something new. Where did he get all this stuff?  And why does he bother going for a variety of weapons?  Is he bored?  I am.  Anyway, Tina uses telekinesis to hurl couches and potted plants at Jason, which confuses him. At the end, the house explodes for some reason.

And then this is the part that is really stupid. Tina uses telekinesis to bring her father back from the dead. Apparently they just left his body at the edge of the lake ten years ago, which is ridiculous.  Also ridiculous is that his body didn't decompose.  So he comes back and grabs Jason and pulls him into the lake.  Seriously.  The end.

As awful as this film is, the next two in the series are much, much worse.

Bounty Huntress: Undercover (2001)

Let me just tell you straight away that the photo on the box has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual movie. Also, the title is a bit misleading, in that there is no bounty huntress (or hunter, for that matter) in the film.

The movie starts with Rebecca Carter (Chloe Nicholle) walking around her home in sexy red lingerie to cheesy music.  She herself is a sexy redhead, and in a movie that's full of nude women, she is the one that is truly attractive. Anyway, a dorky guy in a suit suddenly appears. She kisses him, prompting him to say, "Oh, it appears you missed me." And they start to make love as the awful music continues.

Meanwhile a blonde named Amanda comes up the stairs to get Rebecca because the police are downstairs. The question is, Which is the worse actor - the guy or the blonde? My vote is for the blonde, but the election could go either way.  Anyway, it turns out that Rebecca is a whore, and the guy is a client.  The cop takes her the station, and on her way there, we get this bit of voice over: "You think you have it all under control. You have it all figured out. You're winning the game. Then the cards change just like that."  Yes, because when you're a prostitute clearly everything has worked out just as you planned.

The movie then quickly cuts to another blonde fucking a guy to music that is bad, but not as bad as the stuff that came before.  They get a phone call, and we see a montage of the two of them getting dressed.  Very exciting stuff, and the point of it is that it leads to them putting on their badges. Oooh, they're cops!  Cops have sex!  With each other!

The male cop, Steve, arrives at the station to tell Rebecca that she's in trouble. He says stuff like, "Cat got your tongue or are you just shy?"  Get it? Because a whore isn't generally shy.  He's making a joke there.  Steve mentions Victor Davis, so we have a flashback to Rebecca dressed in black kissing Victor. In two seconds Rebecca is naked, making it impossible to hate this movie.  Then back in the present, Steve tells her they've been chasing Victor for years, and is surprised she doesn't know about Victor's drug smuggling operation. Steve convinces her to allow them to set up surveillance in her brothel (yes, he calls it a brothel).

Steve then has to remind Samantha (the female cop) that whores "are people, Sam, just like you and me." She disagrees.  Oooh, conflict.  He tells her this is a case of a lifetime.  Really?  Apparently there is a shortage of whores and drugs in the world of this film.

By the way, the woman playing Samantha (Nicole Hilbig) makes the guy and the blonde from the first scene look like amazing actors by comparison. Also, she is seriously unattractive. Certainly her shitty acting doesn't help in that regard. She is constantly pouting and sighing. I kind of want to punch her in the face.

By the way, the surveillance doesn't make sense. Steve doesn't tell Rebecca to try to get Victor to talk about drug smuggling or anything. The surveillance photos we see are 8x10 headshot-type photos of the girls. Then Rebecca takes a bath. The film keeps cutting back to Steve's face, because Rebecca is fantasizing about him apparently. Also, she has lit like a dozen candles. It is my understanding that all prostitutes do that before taking a bath.  The movie, to be fair, then takes us to Steve, who is dreaming of Rebecca.  True love is beautiful.

The next day the two cops arrive to set up the surveillance equipment. Wait a minute, if they haven't set up yet, where did those photos come from? Well, no matter. They decide to put audio recording devices in all the rooms, and video in only two rooms. Then for some reason we get a montage of them unpacking and setting up the equipment. This is only a 71-minute movie, and yet there is all sorts of unnecessary horseshit in it. And check out the dance beats during the montage. Ouch.  This is when I really began wondering why the film is called Bounty Huntress.

Steve tells Rebecca that Samantha is a little conservative.  That's fine, except that we were introduced to her character in a sex scene. Is that any way to introduce someone who is uptight and conservative?  Well, not if the movie's writer has any idea of character development. Sorry, Steve Martel, screenwriter.

Samantha then watches two people having sex on the monitor (neither of whom is Victor - so why is she watching?). Anyway, she repeatedly looks at her own breasts and then makes a disgusted face. I'm not at all sure just what this poor actor is trying to convey. At first I thought she was upset that her breasts are too small, but that doesn't seem to be it.  Two other whores arrive and model lingerie for each other.  And then Samantha masturbates while watching another couple fuck. Rebecca catches her.

Even though they set up video cameras in only two rooms, Samantha is able to watch Rebecca leaving by the front door on her monitor.  The longer the film goes on, the more I despise the actor playing Samantha.  She can't deliver a single line properly. Every time she speaks I am filled with rage. Who hired this silly bitch?  It would be one thing if she were sexy. But she's not.  Not at all.  Steve wises up and fucks Rebecca rather than his partner.  And then his partner joins one of the whores for a threesome.  For some reason, we don't get to see the sex scene, just the moment before it and the moment after it.  In the moment after it, Samantha tells the whore, "I had no idea that what you do is so much fun."  Sshh, don't say that out loud, or soon every woman will turn pro.  And where will that leave broke guys like me?

Anyway, Rebecca finally warns Victor about the cops, but it doesn't matter.  They arrest him (and Rebecca too).  And sadly, Steve stays with Samantha, who has decided to become a part-time prostitute when not working as a police officer.  And that's how the film ends.

Bounty Huntress: Undercover stars Chloe Nicholle, Nicole Hilbig, John Donavan, Burke Morgan and Nikki Steele.  It was directed by Eric Gibson.

Demon Hunting (2007)

Demon Hunting is a Japanese film, dubbed in English and shot on video, so we're off to a great start. See if you can makes sense of this one, because I certainly couldn't. Some chick is on a roof and in voice over tells us, "I'm depressed with the world these days." She then litters from the rooftop. Then she washes blood down a bathroom sink before returning to the roof. There she looks vacant, and tells us in more voice over, "The future is so far away." Then she's at the school gym, holding a basketball.  In voice over she says, "I hope this thing goes in." She takes a shot, but misses.  She and some other stupid girl talk about the end of the world and how cool it would be. This thing is so poorly dubbed that for a little while I'm convinced the whole thing is intended to be expressed through telepathy. The girls' mouths aren't moving, but inane dialogue keeps coming.

The other girl says, "I noticed your rival didn't come to school today... If she doesn't come to school, she can't flatter the teacher, can she?"  It's an intriguing question, or it would be if I had any idea whom she was talking about.  Apparently the girl likes some boy, but another girl likes him too. So the main girl goes to the bathroom and says, "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest lady in the world?" Doesn't quite have the same appeal as the original line, but whatever. Besides, there are no fair asian women. Asian women are all dark-haired.  Well, she then finds a dead girl in one of the stalls.

Some awkward boy in a lab coat tells the main girl that life has its ups and downs. He gives her a cassette and tells her, "Just smile, okay?"  Then there is some nonsense about a chain letter, "The demon is coming." If you don't pass it along, you die (a slight variation on every other lame contemporary Japanese horror film).  The main girl is being interviewed by some guy, and that's how this information comes out.  Maybe something is lost in the translation, but every single line of dialogue in this film is incredibly stupid.  Also, all the girls wear the same school uniform, so it's nearly impossible to tell them apart (if that sounds racist, tough).  Are we in a flashback? Is that the dead girl? I have no idea.

The main girl tells the interviewer that her heart is broken. He says, "I'm very sorry. It's only shortly after the incident." He promises to pursue whoever is behind the chain letter.  Some other guy, while looking at his phone, says, "Here's the demon's chain letter." And that's that. I don't think we ever see him again, but I can't be sure.  The girl is on another roof. Or is this the same shot from the beginning? Oh, she's on the roof, but thinking about another time she was on the roof.  Then suddenly a group of people look up at her and tell her she's the demon.  They keep saying, "The demon."  They say it like thirty or perhaps forty times. It goes on and on. She blocks her ears and in voice over says, "I still pretend to believe in various things."  And that's the end of that scene. Then she's on a bus.

By the way, whoever made the DVD forgot to provide translations of any words we see on the screen, like the film's title and the various messages on cell phones.

Anyway, she goes home and her mom attacks her, but we only see it after the fact, when she tells a cop what happened. She grabs the cop's gun and aims it at him for some reason, then runs away. I think this film proves that asian people are completely insane.  A news report in voice over says that phones and the internet are not working, then says the police are investigating the email message. How could they?  Apparently, there was another murder at the high school, this one in a pool on a roof. A pool on the roof of a high school? That doesn't sound dangerous, or just plain stupid. Not at all.

The girl starts talking to the mirror again and cutting herself. I pour myself another glass of wine. Randomly the interviewer asks some person if he remembers "New York's 9/11." The guy answers yes, so the interviewer follows up with, "What can you say about that?"  Well, I could say that it's completely irrelevant.  The interviewer is a professor that all the girls like, apparently.  Certainly not for his intelligent, probing questions.

Well, the cop finds the girl, and chases her through the school's halls, saying they can be friends. Some other girl takes a Polaroid photo of her, then says she got an email from the demon.  A cell phone magically appears in her hand. She then talks about... Well, I can't follow it.  The main girl shoots the camera girl in the shoulder.  Camera girl says, "You did reveal your true personality" and then runs off. That's just what I would say if someone shot me.  The main girl then finds the interviewer/professor and tells him she shot the girl and then asks, "Am I a demon already?"

Some chick tries to call Bruce Willis, but remembers the phones don't work, so she starts laughing because broken things are funny.  They run outside and see a car pass, so they yell to it for some reason. It doesn't stop. Why would it? The mayor shows up at the school, but the cop sends him away. The girl decides the cop must be a demon. You can tell a demon from a person because all demons have just eaten cherry popsicles, and prove it by sticking out their tongues.

A giant red CG moon hangs like two feet above the building. Maybe near the pool.

For some reason, they don't leave the school, and the interviewer/professor is on the phone. So maybe the phones work now. The mayor on television sticks out his tongue, and the interviewer/professor becomes angry and says, "There goes my exclusive news." Then he talks about a voodoo child. Time for another glass of wine.

Meanwhile the other girl is trying to remember the name of a John Travolta movie. Finally she remembers; it's Mad City. Glad we got that cleared up. This makes me think the United States should drop another atomic bomb to stop the Japanese from making more films. 

Things get even more retarded when the girl goes back to the gym and there's some other guy there dancing with a knife and talking about song lyrics. Then she has to play basketball. The guy wins and shouts, "Yes." And the word "Yes" actually flashes across the screen. In English. She lost the game, but then shoots the guy. So is anyone a winner? The other girls says this is just like The Truman Show.  Interesting. I hadn't made that connection, but then again I'm not a Japanese girl.

The interviewer/professor thinks about policemen, and the main girl thinks about the interviewer/professor. In voice over she says, "I just wanted the professor to hold me. But how can I think of such a thing at this awful time? Maybe that's the reason why I am called the demon."  Sure, why not?  She then tosses away the professor's stone from New York and kisses him. The big red moon is still in the exact spot it was hours ago.  Odd. Then the girl watches the tape in the guy's video camera, and learns that the interviewer/professor is the killer since he conveniently filmed everything, including (somehow) himself walking away from the scene of the crime.  The moon is big and in the same spot, but now it's white.

She runs from the interviewer/professor/demon. But he catches her and asks her if she's afraid.  Another great question from this brilliant freelance journalist.  She runs to the roof and then says, "Of all places on Earth, why did I come here?"  Exactly, especially when she could have taken that staircase to Cairo or Paris or Toronto.  The interviewer/professor follows her to the roof and says he did kill the girl in the bathroom but is not a demon.  The girls says, "But that's wrong, you know?" And he replies, "But it's not wrong, okay?"

He then says, "It's the end of the line for you because you have to die. Is there something wrong, my dear?" Then he suggests they kiss again. And she shoots him. Then it turns out another girl has been filming this, but it's not like the movie Biohazard (I have to take her word on that, as I haven't seen that film).

We see the opening bit again on the roof with that awful voice over.  And then it's all explained, sort of. A contract, an erased memory, some blood on a mirror, and ninety minutes of my life wasted.

By the way, there is only one minute of music recorded for the film, but it's played throughout the ninety minutes, which really adds to the pleasure of watching this horrid pile of feces.

One more thing: the photo on the DVD box has absolutely nothing to do with the film (in case you were wondering).

Blood Orgy Of The She-Devils (1972)

Because of the title Blood Orgy Of The She-Devils, I expected this movie to have a blood orgy of the she-devils. Silly me.

The film opens with a dance and a sacrifice. I'm already confused, because the dancing girls are fully clothed.  Mara (Lila Zaborin) leads a group of witches. She says "So mote it be" a lot, so clearly writer/director Ted V. Mikels researched witchcraft a bit and then decided to use the one thing he learned over and over.  Actually, in the DVD commentary, Mikels talks about how he did a lot of research for this film (I'm not kidding). He went to several seances, and then locked himself away for a week to write the screenplay. If only he'd locked himself away for another week and refrained from shooting the film. But no luck there.

Anyway, the fully clothed witches stab a guy with some spears. And the movie is on its way. Lila Zaborin says every line the same way - slowly, seriously and angrily - even when she asks for wine. Two guys want her to use her black magic to kill a man, and they hand her a photograph of their intended victim.

Meanwhile Lorraine (Leslie McRae) shows up at the castle to look into a crystal ball.  She (or is it some other brunette? it's pretty dark in there) sees herself strangled by some guy.  Apparently, it's her death from a prior lifetime.  So it is not at all important or related to anything happening now.  The next day Lorraine and her boyfriend Mark are having a picnic. She is wearing a ridiculously sexy outfit and talking about a seance at the castle.  So they decide to go (but for some reason don't sit next to each other). At the seance, Mara calls upon her Indian guide, Tacowanna (wanna taco? no thanks), and then moans a whole lot.  Apparently it's not fun for her. It's not fun for us either. However, a couple of the girls there are hot, particularly the one the Indian spirit calls "squaw." Yes, Mara does a really bad, stereotypical American Indian voice, and tells the hot girl to go inside a teepee, then "You burn 'em hair in fire."  She then tells the next girl, "No take big shiny bird cross big waters." This goes on for a while, and then Mara takes on a different spirit, Jessica, and gives more advice from the beyond.  But who gives a shit? Take off your clothes. Get to the orgy already.  There is then a ghost, but it does nothing. Its brief appearance is the big finale of the seance. Time to go.

Later Mara takes the photo that the men gave her and yells, while putting her hands inside a big wine glass. At that same moment, at a very dull gathering somewhere, a guy dies.  The two men see that the witch's black magic worked, and so they decide they'd better kill her because she's dangerous. Meanwhile Mara tells a redhead to meditate using the fire and "the powers of karma."  Yes, the powers of karma.  The guys show up and kill Mara, the redhead, plus some other guy. His death is amusing. But where is the orgy?

Mara vanishes. Then a cat appears. The cat goes over to the dead guy, so he gets up. Then she's back to her human form. So everything is back to normal, which means none of what just happened matters. Mara makes a voodoo doll of the guy that shot her. Okay, who cares? It makes him itchy, so he jumps out a window. Then she makes a doll of the other guy.  I mean, seriously, we don't care about any of this. So then the film cuts to a flashback to something completely unrelated (perhaps as a ploy to make us care more about the other crap we just saw, which by comparison now seems somewhat worthwhile). The flashback is to a witch being tortured, and then a boy being whipped while his witch mother watches.  This has no bearing on the story whatsoever, but on its own is actually more interesting than anything in the actual story.

The biggest horror in this film is the pool-side furniture.  Yikes!  Mark and Lorraine have a series of conversations with a professor who likes to ramble on about black magic. They first talk in their home after a game of chess, then next to a pool, then in a restaurant.  It's all very exciting.  Where will they talk next?  But seriously, take a look at that pool furniture.  Frightening.

Well, there is another scene from a past life - some blonde being stoned to death. It's all fun until a guy drops a large rock on her, ruining it for the rest of the players. As you might have guessed, this has nothing to do with anything, and functions solely to make this film the respectable length of 79 minutes.

And then there is another seance. The girls start to dance, and for some reason it's the guys that are shirtless. For Lorraine, it's all about the dancing. She clearly hears a different song from the rest of the girls. And she doesn't care that Mark is tied down (though neither do we). At the end of a long day of listening to some idiot talk, she likes to unwind with a seance and a dance.  But where is the orgy? The professor and three doctors gather outside and become religious weirdos. They really have no idea what's going on inside, but they decide it's not good, and so call on the power of Jesus to stop it (yes, that's right, they carry on their own crazy ritual). The girls inside panic and kill each other.  Then the doctors go inside to see what Jesus did.  And that's the film.  Yup.

Blood Orgy Of The She-Devils stars Lila Zaborin, Victor Izay, Tom Pace, Leslie McRae and William Bagdad. (Leslie McRae and Tom Pace also starred in Ted V. Mikels' Girl In Gold Boots.)

Corpse Grinders II (2000)

Where do I begin with this one?  Well, let's start with how this film came to be. Here is the conversation between writer/producer/director Ted V. Mikels and some office intern that led directly to the making of this film (this is from the original transcript):

"I wanted to make a sequel to The Corpse Grinders, but I have no new ideas. Well, one, but it doesn't make any sense. It's dog aliens fighting cat aliens. So instead of a sequel, I've decided to just remake the original Corpse Grinders, but make it much, much worse."
"Sir, is that possible? Your original film is just awful."
"Yes, I'm certain I can do it. I have a plan.  First, I'm not going to hire a sound man. Or a lighting person.  Also, we'll shoot the whole thing on video, and use people without any acting ability whatsoever. Whenever possible, we'll have them read their lines directly off the script just out of frame. Heck, I'll even stick myself in the film in a pointless role. And we'll shoot the entire thing here in my office, without moving anything out or bringing in any set decoration."
"That still sounds basically like the original.  I don't know if it will be any worse."
"Really? Do you have any ideas?"
"Why don't you add in your dog alien, cat alien thing?  That sounds incredibly stupid, and will be sure to make the film a completely senseless pile of garbage."
"Okay! Good thinking. And I just had another idea of how to make it worse. We'll remove the one element that made the original film interesting. We'll take out the cats attacking and eating their owners."
"Yes, that will make it worse, Sir, especially as that was really the driving point of the film."
"By the way, we have a budget of fifteen dollars, but ten of that has to be saved for the wrap party. So I'll be using spaceship footage from another film."

And they were on their way.  This is one movie where you never worry about a boom shadow in the shot. Why? No boom.  Half the time you can't make out the dialogue, and that might be to the viewer's benefit.

The movie begins with a Star Wars-like crawl, which informs us, "In a galaxy many light years away there is a planet called Ceta. Its inhabitants emulate their ancestors, the cat-worshipers of Egypt and Atlantis. There is a shortage of food and water on Ceta and the cat-people struggle for survival against the elements. The dog-people of the neighboring planet Traxis wage war against Ceta and have plans to invade." And there are ridiculously cheap shots of cat aliens and dog aliens fighting, and then the cat aliens discussing their dilemma in someone's living room. There is some talk about going to Earth in order to survive.  Right away, you might be wondering, What is the goofiest element?  The costumes? The set dressing, or lack thereof? The script?  The acting? The children with black cat T-shirts saying "meow"?  You pick.  Whatever you choose is correct.

Meanwhile, in a cheap office set a guy sets a chair upright and puts some magazines away.  Yes, the film is riveting right from the start.  Two nephews of the people who owned the cat food company from the original film have now inherited the place (a few decades later?), and have decided to make the same mistakes their uncles did. Good plan. That is, for those not familiar with the original movie, to use human corpses as ingredients in the cat food. They hire homeless winos and other assorted incompetent people to assist them.  By the way, the corpse grinding machine switch says, "Hitachi Camera Power Unit." Do movies come any cheaper?  However, this is the only film I know of with beef-flavored embalming fluid. 

The alien ship lands, and some old guy sees it, but two government men immediately show up and order him to go with them. Not to silence him, or anything. Just to take him to an office for a few minutes and then let him go.

Meanwhile two people who work in a hospital are kissing.  The girl, Angie, has a cat who apparently won't eat any food (but yet is still alive).  This seems familiar.  Wasn't this in the first film?  Yes.  Angie would be really pretty if she were lit better.  That is to say, if she were lit.  (Often the sound of the cats seems to be someone saying "ow" in a baby voice.)

What else? Oh yes, Gandalf The Grey has fallen on hard times and supports himself and his gorgeous wife by digging graves. (Yes, this was also in the original.)  The nephews want him to supply them with corpses.  I spent a few moments trying to make sense out of this line: "No advance without the merchandise." Then I gave up.

Meanwhile the alien woman is now disguised as a human woman, and is blending into society by sniffing meat in a grocery store. (She might be more at home in a John Waters film. And actually, there is a John Waters actor in this film - Liz Renay, who plays Cleo, the gravedigger's wife.)

Anyway, the movie goes on for a long time with the nephews making business deals. Really interesting stuff. There are lots of shots of people on telephones.  Where are the aliens? And why is no one getting killed?  Isn't this a horror movie?

The nurse, Angie, buys a can of Lotus cat food, and the cat eats it. Hurrah!  Just like in the original film.  The cat scratches her boyfriend when he tries to move the cat away from the food. He then calls the CEO of the cat food company.  Interesting reaction. It's almost as if he'd seen the original film.  Speaking of which, some of the people in this movie are aware of what the original owners of the company did.  And yet, they're quite surprised and confused to learn that once again humans end up in the food.  They're not too bright.

Anyway, the aliens contact the government to get a supply of cat food to bring back to save their people.  I should add here that this film is not a comedy.

Finally, a government agent is killed while snooping around the factory. There is an excellent and completely believable sound effect as he gets hit in the head.  By the way, I love the shot of the agents watching the cat food company - they use binoculars, even though they're not more than ten feet from the door and are standing in plain sight in the factory's parking lot in the daytime. That reminds me of a funny moment in Police Squad (did you ever see that show?).

Then, for no reason whatsoever, an alien beams in from Star Trek to scare the gravedigger's wife, and then beams out, back to whatever movie it was supposed to be in.  This alien is a little grey stereotypical-looking alien, not the cat aliens or dog aliens that have been established (somewhat) in this film.  And no, we never see this alien again.  No matter.  The gravedigger then kills his wife.

So the old guy who saw the alien ship decides to try to get a grant to study cannibalism, and we have a scene of him soliciting the help of a colleague.  Why?  Who knows?  There are no cannibals in this film, and this character isn't really adding anything, or moving the plot forward.  There is also a scene where nearly every line of dialogue is a question.  It goes on for a long time, and involves four characters, and seems to be some sort of acting exercise that they decided to capture on video and edit into this movie.  (Here is a bit of it: How much? What's the right price? I don't know, what do you think?  I don't know. How about a grand a piece? A grand? You're kidding, right?)

Well, Angie (the nurse - remember her?) shows up again, now wearing a sweater and short skirt.  She looks seriously cute.  She talks on the phone to some character we haven't met, then writes a note that we don't see and leaves the office.  Then there's a board meeting of the stock holders of the cat company, deciding whether to sell their company to the alien woman.  This scene is nearly as exciting as the scene where the guy put the magazines away at the beginning.  We also learn that the aliens have mastered alchemy, but have no food.

Angie shows up at the cat food factory because the grocery stores are all out of that brand of cat food.  That happened in the original too.  But would that happen in real life?  If a store were out of a product, would you drive to the factory?  Well, the longer the movie goes on, the hotter Angie looks.  She is honestly the only enjoyable element of the entire movie. I have a weakness for women in sweaters and short skirts.  Meanwhile her boyfriend finds the note she left.  It's pretty important.  The note says that she went to buy cat food.  He seems distraught over this information, and laments aloud, "Why would she go without me?" They clearly have a strange relationship.

The old guy gets his grant approved.  (You were probably wondering about that.)  Also, he has an Eye Of The Storm in his home.  I had one of those in high school.  Very cool.  His is on, though it's daytime, and the effect is greatly diminished by sunlight.

Angie wanders around the factory by herself for some reason, then is grabbed by one of the nephews.  When she comes to, she is in the office and asks for a tour of the factory and for permission to buy two cases of cat food.  Apparently being knocked unconscious doesn't faze this chick one bit.  She gets her tour, and the cat food, and leaves.  And that's the end of her story.  Seriously. Someone forgot this is a horror movie.

The government wants to buy four hundred cases of cat food to give to the aliens.  They mention they're from A.S.T.A.P.P.  One of the nephews says, "What the hell is A.S.T.A.P.P.?"  The government agent says, and I am quoting here, "That's the government agency for Awareness Suppression To Avoid Public Panic."  Have you heard of them?  No? That's because they're suppressing awareness.

The movie then becomes truly suspenseful as the nephews begin making phone calls to order labels for the cat food cans and so on.  Will they be able to fill the government's order in time?  Actually, the government didn't give them a deadline, so there's no rush.  But whatever.  When enough food is produced, the agents beam in (like the random alien did earlier) to collect the food, and they call the technology a dimensional force field (which makes no sense).  They pay the nephews, handing them a leather bag that is clearly empty. Well, perhaps they wrote them a check and stuck it in a big leather bag.

The aliens get their food, and the old guy with the grant goes on the alien ship for some reason.  And that's the end of the film. 

So let's recap.  The nephews got away with using corpses in the food, and got rich off of it.  Angie managed to get two cases of cat food and went home.  The cat aliens got their food and also went home (presumably to then be killed by the dog aliens, whom we haven't seen since the very beginning of the movie). The gravedigger got away with murdering his wife (though there is some question about that - as she suddenly sat up as she was put into the grinder like three days later - so, yes, she was killed, but not by her husband, though he doesn't know that).  An old guy got a grant to study cannibalism and then went on a spaceship.  Any questions?

Corpse Grinders II stars... Wait, what does it matter? You don't care.  The only one that matters is Cara Jo Basso as Angie. Also, all of the cats in the movie got screen credits. I wonder if they also got a copy of the film.