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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies go to college

Watched May 18, 2016

1991
Starring: Evan MacKenzie, Kevin McCarthy, Eva LaRue, Patrick Labyorteaux

Ghoulies AKA Comic Book Toilet Demons

This falls into the comedy horror camp, except this one is more just T&A as there are supposed deaths but very little blood. So anyone who was killed could in theory still be alive. There are some awesomely terrible puns which I enjoyed such as a young party goer has a deer head fall onto her head and someone says "What is this a Stag party?" Oh yeah, of course she's topless too.

I haven't seen any of the other Ghoulies movies, but boy have I looked at the poster/cover of a bunch of toilet demons many times. This movie takes place 21 years after the first (and second?) At a college where two frats are taking part in Prank Week. They pull pranks on each other all week long until one emerges victorious and gets to wear the official prank hat. Yes, college is dumb.

In the bathroom of the slob frat, Mookey (Patrick Labyorteaux) finds a comic book in the wall. This bathroom is incredibly disgusting, even for frat standards. He starts to read the comic out loud and it begins to summon the ghoulies, but he doesn't finish the incantation, so the Ghoulies remain trapped in the toilet. Mookey takes the comic to his Mythology class, where Professor Ragnar (Kevin McCarthy) finds and confiscates it. Professor Ragnar hate the prank week as he is often the victim. Looking at the comic book, the images remind him of some mythological demons. He finishes reading the comic book aloud and the Ghoulies are summoned. They now only do the bidding of Prof. Ragnar, and he wants the Ghoulies to stop the frats. The Ghoulies: Rat, Cat, and Frog with abs make it to the Slob frat just after they have all left. The Ghoulies fall into a pile of clothes, so now they look just like college students, except they are a tiny Cat, Rat and Frog demons. They get super drunk. Then they really escalate the prank war. They blow up the campus security guard's little truck with him inside.

The side story adding to the frat war is the slob frat member Skip (Evan MacKenzie) used to date Erin (Eva LaRue) but now she is somewhat interested in the Snob frat member Jeremy (John R. Johnston). Erin eventually figures out she wants to be with Skip, but then the Ghoulies kidnap her. Prof. Ragnar goes totally nuts with the Ghoulies power, but Skip saves Erin and banishes the Professor to the toilet. Prof. Ragnar comes back for one last battle with a face on his stomach, he is  now the super ghoulie depicted in the comic. But Skip throws the comic into the toilet and that destroys the demon Professor.

Lots of boobs, some weird goofy deaths like a lady taking a plunger to the face. It's not great, but I've seen far worse. Still pretty enjoyable considering I haven't seen any of the previous toilet demon movies.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Snake Island

Watched April 22, 2016

2002
Starring: William Katt, Wayne Crawford, Kate Connor, Dawn Matthews

As the opening credits roll it's clear that this movie is a Crawford joint for sure, as Wayne Crawford is the writer, director and star of Snake Island. Another animal attack movie from the early 2000s (see Octopus 2), while this one isn't great it's a whole lot better than Python 2. I've said it many times before but even the worst practical effects hold up better than CGI to the test of time.

In South Africa, a group of tourists are on a riverboat cruise of sorts. I'm not sure where they are headed as it's a ragtag group. The party consists of a couple on their honeymoon, a single white lady, a black lady that is a local, a PH:Professional Hunter, the captain of the boat, a waitress for the boat and another guide. And a writer who specifically wants to stop at Snake Island because he is writing a book about it. The boat stops at Snake Island to drop off the writer, but the Captain also has some supplies to drop off for their friends. Half the group goes gets off on Snake Island, while the other half stays on the boat. The island is suspiciously empty. Back at the boat, a single snake gets onto the boat, they all freak out and in trying to kill it, a hole is created in the boat's gas tank. This means everyone has to get off at Snake Island until they can fix the boat. Snake Island at one point was a resort destination, there are multiple rooms for all the people to stay in. It's still unknown what happened to the people who where supposed to be on the island but it seems like they may have been breeding snakes.

The whole gang gathers that night around the campfire, and luckily one of the ladies brought some cool cd's and they all have a dance party. Some of the ladies even get topless for no reason at all. Even a snake joins in the dancing! A couple sneaks off to the pool and has sex, when they come back everyone has gone to bed. This is when the snakes start to kill. 

The honeymoon couple gets killed, then the single black lady gets snake strangled right outside the shower. But the shower curtain has a great Snake Island Resort logo printed on it.There is a point when one of the snakes calls a lady a bitch, which is nuts. Everyone gets killed by snakes except for the writer and the white lady. They manage to escape across the island on a riding lawnmower. They make back to the boat or another boat...the plot points didn't totally stick with me and I'm writing this several months after I watched it.

It's not great but the choice of live snakes, snake puppets and CGI does work for the most part. It doesn't make any sense why these snakes hate humans but just go with it. They do have a sense of humor about the movie since they added a snake dancing and a snake calling a lady a bitch, which is nuts. It still isn't bad enough or good enough to recommend though.