Dracula 2000

Watched January 14, 2018

2000
Starring: Jonny Lee Miller, Gerard Butler, Christopher Plummer, Justine Waddell

Abraham Van Helsing (Christopher Plummer) operates an antique art dealership in London. Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) and Selena (Jennifer Esposito) work for him. Simon hits on Selena but is rebuffed. That night, after Simon leaves the building, Marcus (Omar Epps), Nightshade (Danny Masterson) and a couple other dead meats break into Van Helsing's super secure vault. Using both hacking and straight up breaking and entering they manage to get it open. Selena is in on it, and she's dating Marcus. She doesn't know what is in the vault but is convinced it must be very valuable because of the security measures. Inside they find a bunch of skulls with vampire teeth. They continue deeper into the crypt and in the main room find a metal coffin that they can't open. They push the coffin off its pedestal and that activates further security measures that impale two of the thieves, and traps the rest of the group in the room. They came prepared though, and they blast through the wall. Old Van Helsing had been in his office injecting the blood of leeches into his body. He goes to investigate but the thieves managed to steal the coffin and escape.

Simon comes back the next day and the security guards are all gone. He talks to Van Helsing, trying to figure out what happening. Van Helsing doesn't want the police involved, Simon doesn't know what was in the vault either, or that this was the Van Helsing from Dracula lore. Van Helsing tells Simon he's leaving to deal with the stolen item, Simon decides to secretly follow him.

Meanwhile, Mary (Justine Waddell) is in New Orleans. She works at the Virgin Megastore. She keeps having weird visions of a strange man, like waking nightmares.

The thieves took the coffin and are in flight on a cargo plane. Nightshade is trying to get the coffin open. Each time that blood is spilled near the coffin, it's sucked into the coffin but no one seems to notice. Nightshade cuts his hand trying to pry the coffin open, and the blood makes the coffin open. Inside is some smoke and a corpse with a full face helmet and a bunch of leeches. A leech somehow gets into Nightshade's eye. Dracula, the corpse, then comes to life. Another thief hears the commotion and comes to investigate what is happening in the cargo hold. He is attacked by Dracula. Everyone on the plane is bitten.

The plane crashes outside of New Orleans, in a "swamp of death." The coffin and bodies are taken to an old city hall in the little town. Jeri Ryan is the local news reporter, she is attacked and turned into a vampire while reporting on the crash.

Van Helsing shows up in New Orleans, somehow he know this is where the thieves/Dracula would be headed. Van Helsing goes to the little town hall where all the bodies are being kept and manages to kill a couple of the thief vampires. Simon shows up demanding an explanation. Van Helsing explains how he initially captured Dracula but then felt obligated to forever watch over him to make sure he didn't come back to "life" and kill again. So he has a bunch of leeches that suck the corpse of Dracula's blood, then he takes the leech blood and injects himself. This gives him a touch of immortality. The cops show up, arrest the vampire Selena.

Van Helsing explains about his daughter Mary having a touch of Dracula blood in her and she's the reason that Dracula came to New Orleans. Simon goes to find Mary and tries to  explain what her dad was doing with the vampire blood and why she's been having visions of Dracula, but she didn't want anything to do with him. Vampire Marcus shows up and attacks Simon in the shipping dock of the Virgin store. Simon decapitates Marcus. Simon shares Van Helsing's diary with Mary to try to further explain the weird blood connection.

Mary goes to confessional to talk to Nathan Fillion, a priest about her visions. They also happen to be old friends. Dracula (Gerard Butler) finds Lucy (Colleen Fitzpatrick), Mary's roommate and coworker at the Virgin megastore. He hypnotizes her and she takes him back to their house. They have crazy ceiling sex and Lucy is turned into a vampire. Van Helsing comes to the house but Dracula kills him. Mary comes back to the house, finds Lucy's room torn apart and Van Helsing, her dad, dead and stuffed under the bed. Lucy is now a vampire and along with Selena and Jeri Ryan they kind of attack Mary but they know that Dracula wants her. Dracula shows up, Mary runs outside into Simon who shoots wolf form Dracula into a bunch of bats.

Simon is captured by the three lady vampires. Dracula bites Mary and gives her a vision to explain that he is Judas Iscariot. After he was hung for being a traitor to Jesus he somehow managed to survive by drinking the blood of Jesus's children. That's why Dracula hates Christianity. After the vision Dracula invites Mary to feed on Simon. Mary pretends to bite him but then decapitates Lucy and stabs Dracula. Simon beheads Selena with some garden shears. Mary hangs Dracula from a giant cross with a light up Jesus image on it. But it falls off the building and she is only held from falling by Dracula. She falls to the ground, but is kind of a vampire so she survives. As the sun rises to kill Dracula, he releases her from the vampire curse.

Back to being a human, Mary decides to follow in her Father's footsteps and become a supernatural hunter/vampire killer. With Simon as her companian, they'll make sure Dracula doesn't come back.

Pretty whatever movie, it takes place during Mardi Gras, for no particular reason.  Mary wears a tank top, sweater, cropped loose pants and thick black slides. It was cool at the time but quickly became middle aged mom attire. The time capsule of a Virgin megastore is neat. The special effects are actually pretty good, they hold up as a nice practical with digital combo.Nothing really stands out as either super great or super terrible. Gerard Butler has a weird mouth. Mary is unremarkable. The leech thing is pretty weird.

The Adventures of Young Van Helsing

Watched June 15, 2017

2004
Starring: Keith Jordan, Ned Narang, Joe Zaso

1905: The real Van Helsing (Ken Mitzkovitz) and his errand boy Aki (Freddie Sabaugh) are looking for relics together. Up pops Simon Magus (Joe Zaso), an arch-angel. He tries to kill Van Helsing but the Aki throws Van Helsing a magical scepter. Van Helsing uses the magical scepter to stab Simon Magus, seemingly destroying him.

Jump to a present day High School. Ordinary teen Michael Harris (Keith Jordan) is in chemistry class messing around with the equipment. He's bullied by Karl, who is dating the girl that Michael has a crush on. Karl punches Michael a bunch in the hall until one of the teachers stops it and tells Michael he's looking forward to hearing his band play the dance at the end of the week.

Meanwhile Professor Arad (Ned Narang) is at a dig site where they have found the remains of Simon Magus. One of the interns touches the remains, this lets the leftovers bits of Simon Magus suck the power from the intern and it brings Simon Magus back into being. Simon then kills everyone at the site, except for Prof. Arad and his dull personal assistant. After this terrible occurrence, the Professor  and his assistant go back to London to look for something in the warehouse that stores the ark of the covenant. They are looking for the scepter that Van Helsing used to destroy Simon Magus before, but it's missing from it's assigned spot in storage. It turns out it was sent a long time ago to Michael's dad. But it turns out that Michael's friend found it when he was a kid and was illegally opening mail at the post office where his dad worked. Michael's friend as a kid stole the scepter and buried it in the woods.

Crazy Prof. Arad comes to Michael's house where he lives with his Aunt Molly. The Professor is there to explain to Michael about his Van Helsing heritage.

 Earlier that day, two of Michael's schoolmates where driving to school when they ran into Simon Magus. Simon killed the driver and looked into the girls mind to try to find info about the scepter. This leaves her in a coma. She's the best friend of the the girl who Michael has a crush on. Michael drives past the same road where the two teens were attacked by Simon and he drives over a weird leftover bit of Simon. He picks up a piece of it and it has a weird property of being ever burning. Michael takes this weird bit to the chemistry lab where his crush helps him try to figure out what it is.

Michael's crush comes over to his house to explain what she found out about the mystery substance, then Simon show up and tries to kill them all. Michael is there with the Professor and a couple of his friends then manage to make it to Michael's car and take off, but Simon is close behind. They run into Karl, which forces their car off the road and it explodes. It seems that Simon may be burned in the car explosion, but he had brain sucked the friend of Michael's to discover where the scepter is buried. The group manages to find the buried part of the scepter and stab Simon.

Michael and his friends now have a name for their band, the Van Helsings. They play the school dance. Karl and his girlfriend rock out together, Michael never had a chance. The Van Helsings play a Creed style rock, and an entire song is played completely.

 The very end is the crazy Prof. Arad storing the scepter only to find a werewolf has escaped from the storage warehouse, hinting at another young Van Helsing adventure to come. I'm not surprised that this didn't kick off an entire series of young Van Helsing adventures as this one is terrible. It's very slow with terrible acting and it doesn't seem like Michael has any of the Van Helsing spirit in him at all. He just wants to play with his awful band. At the beginning, the assistant to the real Van Helsing is a white boy in brown face, which is a terrible choice for a movie made in the early 2000's. I'm sure this movie was made on the cheap, but who funded it anyway. Not fun in a bad movie way, just a bummer.

Blade II

Watched June 8, 2016

2003
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela

Unlike the vague memories I had of Blade, I had never seen this one before. And I didn't realize that Guillermo Del Toro was the director until the end credits, but that makes sense why it was a better movie than I expected.

Blade (Wesley Snipes) is still killing vampires. Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) was captured, tortured, not killed and put in a blood tank for years by the vampires. In the meantime, Blade hired Scud (Norman Reedus) as his vampire hunting helper. They eventually find Whistler but the two vampires break into Blade's compound. It turns out they want to work with Blade to fight a new breed of super vampires that feeds on both humans and vampires. Then it turns both into super vampires or "suck heads." Blade is always on board for killing vampires of any kind, even though he is wary of working with vampires so he takes a lot of extra weapons as a precaution.

The vampires have targeted the super vampires and assembled their own posse of fighters.
Reinhardt (Ron Perlman) is somewhat of the leader of the vampire fighters and he doesn't like the idea of working with Blade. The vampire posse all have silly nicknames: Chupa, Snowman, Verlaine, the Priest, etc.

First the blood buddies and Blade go to a vampire rave where the super vampires are suspected to be. It turns into a big fight, the super vampires can't be killed by silver but sunlight or UV light works. Blade finds the main super vampire and they fight on a catwalk until the blackout curtains covering the windows start to show some sunlight. Verlaine's boyfriend is bit by a super vampire but hides it. One of the other vampire fighter is killed and they blame the deaths on Blade. The group does find the entrance to the super vampire lair and a vamp is stuck in the door but he is dying. The super vampires have to eat so frequently if they don't their bodies start to eat themselves.

They do an autopsy on the now dead super vampire and find out it has a bone heart, which may be a secret in trying to kill them. The group makes some UV bombs and head to the lair to kill the super vampires. The bitten vampire in the posse tries to eat his girlfriend, Verlaine so she burns them both in the sun. Reinhardt manages to separate himself and the Nyssa (Leonor Varela) from the group, intending for the super vampires to kill Blade. Blade manages to get all the UV bombs to go off killing all the super vampires that were attacking them but almost killing Reinhardt and Nyssa at the same time.

Blade lets Nyssa drink from him so she can survive but then the vampire cops show up and basically arrest them. Scud is a familiar so he betrays Blade, but Blade knew not to trust him all along so he blows up Scud. Reinhardt beats up Whistler. Nyssa learns that her mega old vampire dad is the one who created the super vampires in the first place. They see the experiment lab with a bunch of vampire fetuses.

The first super vampire is his son, Nyssa's brother.  Blade is captured by the vampires and tied to a table, but Whistler manages to free himself then free Blade. Blade is weak but he jumps into a blood pool and comes out fighting. Blade cuts Reinhardt in half. Nyssa's super vampire brother finds his dad, bites him and kills him, then he bites Nyssa. Blade stabs the super vampire and uses an UV light to kill him. Nyssa doesn't want to die, but know she is about to turn into a super vampire. She asks Blade to take her into the sunrise to die. Blade and Whistler live to fight another day.

There are some crazy fun special effects in this one. When the super vampire die they burn up in an insane way. The super vampires also have crazy mouths that open down the the throat.  Pretty solid sequel, but then again Guillermo Del Toro knows how to do horror. With the Nyssa character they try again trying for a slight romantic subplot with Blade, but he is a robot so that's pointless.

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.

Spiders II: Breeding Ground

Watched September 8, 2015

2001
Starring: Stephanie Niznik, Greg Cromer, Daniel Quinn, Richard Moll

On the high seas, a group of people are hanging out on a boat playing cards. They kill a large spider on the wall, foreshadowing the menace to come. Unexpectedly, some pirates board their boat, then knock out and kidnap several of the people.  As the pirates leave they throw a grenade on the boat to blow it up.

Next we see a married couple who is headed to Hawaii on a little sail boat. They encounter the boat from the beginning and it was only partially blown up. They board the burned out boat and see two dead bodies, the remains of the group. A storm comes out of nowhere, so the couple Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) and Jason (Greg Cromer) get back on their boat and call in an SOS. They are quickly thrown off their boat and are stranded in the ocean.

Luckily, a large cargo ship shows up and takes them aboard. The cargo ship doesn't say where they are headed, as they have a minimal crew and a crazy doctor onboard. Jason had cut his neck during the boat wreck, so he is given shots by the Doctor (Richard Moll). Alexandra is hit on by the captain, but she doesn't take it too seriously. Jason has a weird dream that he is being touched by a giant spider. Once he wakes up he snoops around and finds a cold storage room full of dead bodies. When he gets Alexandra to show her, the dead bodies are gone and it's just cow carcasses. She thinks he has a fever and is being crazy. They have a fight at the mess hall and the crew drags Jason away. 

The crazy doctor takes Jason to his lab where he is implanted with a spider egg by the queen spider. It wasn't a dream, this ship is full of spiders.  Alexandra has dinner with the Captain and he tries to make out with her. She pushes him away and goes to find Jason who is no longer in the recovery room. She tries to get to the lab where Jason is, but it's being heavily guarded. She turns off the power which releases all the spiders from their cages. Instantly the freed spiders start attacking the crew.

Alexandra finds Jason and tries gets him out to the deck, but he is weak from being a spider womb. They are attacked by spiders all along the way, but still manage to get to the deck of the ship. Jason  needs the antidote to the spider egg inside him, or he won't make it. The doctor still wants Jason so he can continue his experiment  with the spider that is inside him. A spider sneaks up on the doctor and kills him. 

Alexandra heads back to the lab to get the antidote. She fends off a spider then opens up a ton of barrels of flammable liquid. She escapes to the deck, gets Jason and herself onto the lifeboat, but the winch stops so they have to jump into the ocean. Then the cargo ship explodes. There is a spider that is almost the size of the ship, which is nuts. The coast guard helicopter finds them and starts to pull them up when one last spider pops out of a box and grabs Alexandra. It's dragging her down until the coast guard throws her a grenade. She pulls the pin to blow up the spider and they manage to escape onto the helicopter.

The CGI is terrible, it's like cut and paste spiders all over the place. They do use several animatronic spiders that look a lot better. In once scene, Alexandra takes the toothpick out of one of the shipmates mouth and stabs him in the cheek with it, later he puts it back in his mouth. It's not great, Alexandra and Jason are supposed to be in love but they fly into rages at each other pretty quickly. It's an intense acting style. Unless you're really into giant spiders, don't waste your time with this one.

The director also directed Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Soulkeeper

Watched April 6, 2015

2001
Starring: Rodney Rowland, Kevin Patrick Walls, Brad Dourif, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister.

Yet another movie with a lenticular VHS box cover that has been passed over for months. I finally got it back on the list and somehow it was picked. I had low expectations and unexpectedly they paid off.

A mysterious group wearing dark robes in engaged in a secret ceremony. They are trying to transfer a soul into a specific body. A member of the group is randomly chosen and is pushed onto the altar where a special stone is placed on his chest. The stone is carved with a symbol that beings to move and change. The soul power descends into the sacrifice but it kills him and all the participants of the ritual.

Corey (Rodney Rowland) and Terrence (Kevin Patrick Walls) are two small time thieves. They are at a museum of the civil war during a battle reenactment. They are both dressed as Abraham Lincoln, Corey is reciting a speech to distract the tour group while Terrence tries to break into a case. They botch the job and are chased out of the museum with the guard hot on their trail. 

At their local watering hole, they are bemoaning their loss and how terrible they are at their job. Two attractive ladies are staring them down, so they go over to try to hit on them. The women are very robotic and strange, but the guys don't care and they follow the ladies to a strange house. The women disappear as Corey and Terrence enter the house. Inside they find Pascal (Brad Dourif) who wants them to do a job for him. He tells them to go to a graveyard and find a specific coffin. They take the job as it pays pretty well, but the specifics of their task are unclear.

In the spooky cemetery they find the right grave and open the tomb of FF. Inside is a skeleton but there is a strange metal canister in its neck. They open the canister to find a bunch of newspaper clippings. They take these clippings to Chad (Tommy 'Tiny' Lister) who has a perfect penis (!?) and a bunch of computers to try to figure out what the clippings mean.

The next stop is a sex club. Everyone in the club looks very uncomfortable, they are all rubbing each other and eating different fruits that turns to blood. Corey finds a lady he likes and they go have sex in a private room. Terrence ends up with a curly haired brunette who turns into Deborah Gibson while going down on him, then into his mother. He freaks out, finds Corey and they run away. They run into the soul sucking monster called Magus but manage to escape.

Continuing their search for who knows what exactly, they enter a cave and find that FF has been soul incarnated as a 12-year-old boy surrounded by hot chicks. The boy tries to explain the cult, the demon and how souls figure into it, but it's still unclear. The boy gives them some groovy clothes, as they had to walk through a sewer to find the cave. He leads them out of the cave.

 Now they have on cool '70s bell bottoms, but they still don't know what they're looking for, or I just never knew. They run into another mysterious guys who explains what needs to happen next. He lets them know about the soul stone and the demon that is trying to possess it. He tells them that the Magus monster is attracted to sin, so they have to go to church to confess all their sins and boy do they have a lot. After they are cleaned from their sins they can sneak up on the monster. They suit up in some crazy gear and head to the castle where a new group of cult members is trying to resurrect the stone's power. They make it to the castle but Corey's use the lord's name in vain, so the monster comes after them. The cult member's use Corey's body in the soul ceremony, but it doesn't work because he channeled his soul power himself. They fight with the cult guys and get out of the castle to fight the monster one on one. Terrence jumps on the monster and uses his bomb to blow them both up, only Corey escapes alive.

During the movie Corey described his dream woman: red hair, glasses, big boobs, smart but really into cars. At a gas station where his bus stops Corey is buying something when his dream woman walks in. Her wigs is really fake, but through some happenstance she offers him a ride in her sports car, so off they ride to fall in love.

I enjoyed it! The comedy bits worked, which is rare in a horror comedy. A lot of stuff didn't make sense but it was still silly and fun.

Python 2

Watched January 12, 2015

2002
Starring: William Zabka, Dana Ashbrook, Simmone Jade McKibbon

Even though Anaconda (1997) was only a relative success it spawned several sequels and enough interest to inspire the made for TV movie Python (2000).  To further capitalize on interest in giant snakes, the direct to video Python 2 was made. I can't say I'm above any of it since I bought Python 2 at a thrift store. You never know if a giant snake movie might be a hilarious gem.

A team of military men including Russian and American soldiers join together to capture a giant snake for the reward of $500 million. They track it down to a giant cave, but it's such a massive beast that it kills several of the soldier before it's stunned. Somehow they manage to get it aboard their plane in a custom built snake box. While flying back to their base they are shot down by some Russian rebels. The snake escapes its holding box killing more of the soldiers before the plane crashes.

Greg Larson (William Zabka) is next in the chain of command to capture the snake. Greg subcontracts the shipping to Dwight (Dana Ashbrook) because he has shipping business and a large truck. Dwight is an American while his wife Nadia (Simmone Jade McKibbon) is a Russian who cannot leave the country. Dwight has some slight back story about being a professional baseball player but having some sort of meltdown or fight that forced him out. She also can't leave the country and the solution is a bunch of money that they'll get from this job. Greg only tells them that he has a large cargo that he needs to driven from Russia to a port where he can ship it out. Dwight and Nadia don't know that it's a giant snake. 

Greg has a team that tracks down the snake to a military bunker. Somehow they know that the snake survived the plane crash. At first Nadia and Dwight just wait by the the truck for the cargo to arrive. Dwight is suspicious of the the situation and it confirmed when one of the soldiers comes out almost dead, they head into the bunker to find out what has happened. The snake has been found but has killed several of the Greg's men. Greg is given orders to at least capture the DNA of the snake if it's too dangerous to capture it alive. Dwight, Nadia, Greg and the remaining soldiers get trapped in the underground bunker. A snake shoots venom out of his mouth and it blinds Nadia but she is the only one who can fit through the ducts to get back to the minivan for the C4 explosives. She crawls out the bunker and brings back the C4. Little does she realize that Greg has been given orders to kill everyone. Dwight and Nadia manage to fight off Greg and snakes and make it out of the bunker before it explodes killing Greg and the snakes. Oh yeah, there were two snakes this time.

The plot is very simple, but still somehow confusing and the action scenes don't add much to the enjoyment. I mostly found it boring which sounds crazy in a movie about a giant killer snake. The CGI is very poor so the snake doesn't look remotely real. There is a very strange credit sequence. We first see the opening titles, then the movie starts with the soldier going to the cave to find the snake. Once that is over another opening title sequence that includes clips of parts of the movie that we have yet to see. It seems like they had to pad the movie to get the run time they needed. It made me think it was a TV movie with some strange commercial break placement, but IMDB says it was straight to video.

The actual locations don't make a ton of sense, I'm not totally sure it takes place in Russia or somewhere else. It seems like the snakes are impossible to kill, they are shot multiple times with no damage.

The visuals of the movie were nothing to paint a picture about so I went with a break dancing snake to tie in my favorite sequel subtitle electric boogaloo. Unfortunately the snake didn't breakdance in Python 2.

S. Darko

Watched November 3, 2014

2009
Starring: Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, James Lafferty, Ed Westwick

I know we all were waiting for cult hit Donnie Darko to have a sequel. Especially since Donnie dies at the end of the movie, but time travel is involved so that open up for a lot of new stories. I'm always looking for more contemporary bad movies so I was excited to hear about S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale. We now get a story of Donnie's younger sister Samantha, who charmed us as a member of Sparkle Motion in the first film.

Sam (Daveigh Chase, reprising her role) is now 16 and her family was torn apart by Donnie's mysterious death. She and her friend Corey (Briana Evigan) run away and hit the road heading to California. Their car breaks down in Arizona, where they meet Randy (Ed Westwick) the local mechanic. It's a couple days before the 4th of July, 1995. Randy lets them know it will be a couple days to get the part that he needs to fix their car. The girls scrape together some money to stay at the local motel in the small town of Conejo Springs. 

Sam, like her deceased brother, is plagued by sleepwalking. She often wakes up in unpredictable locations like park benches or the middle of the road. As soon as the girls got into town, the local vet Iraq Jack was saved from being hit my a meteorite. He says that a vision told him to move from the windmill where he was sitting. There is also a child kidnapped stalking the area, as Randy's younger brother was taken only days ago. A local church burns down mysteriously, and Iraq Jack is blamed. Sam gets to know the young minister who had served some jail time but is now repentent and married to Trudy (Elizabeth Berkeley). Corey parties with the locals but Sam isn't into it, she wants to get out of town as soon as possible. 

While riding around with Randy, Corey gets in to a fight with Sam when they see her walking on the side of the road. Sam walks off as Randy's car is hit. Somehow Sam is killed but Randy and Corey are okay. Corey is devastated but she gets a chance to go back in time so that she dies instead of Sam. Now Sam is sad that Corey is dead and wants to go back, but she keeps moving forward to some extent. Iraq Jack is given the same vision of the Frank bunny mask that Donnie saw, but now Jack remakes it in metal. Sam is wooed by the local nerd Jeremy (Jackson Rathbone) who has developed a strange rash from the meteorite that almost killed Iraq Jack. While sleepwalking Sam is led to an abandoned mine which is locked up. She randomly finds the key and inside finds the dead bodies of the children that had disappeared in town. The clues lead back that is was Trudy but again Iraq Jack is blamed. Sam knows the truth but no one listens to her. That night is the 4th of July and Jeremy takes Sam up to hill for a fireworks picnic. Jeremy tries to kiss Sam, but she resists and falls down where she is impaled by a piece of the new Frank bunny mask. With Sam now dead, this kicks off a crazy meteor shower and times travels back again. We start completely over with Iraq Jack getting hit by the meteorite that he was mysteriously saved by. Corey and Sam end up Conejo Springs again but instead of any of them dying, Sam decides to take the bus home.

I loved Donnie Darko when it came out. I was living in New York and they had regular midnight showings that I would go to often. It's been a couple years since I saw it but it flows together even if all the time travel stuff isn't perfectly clear. It also has a sense of humor.  This one is just terrible, Samantha Darko doesn't have any motivation and her visions are just confusing. Plus she isn't necessarily the main character. I'm a Richard Kelly fan, I love Southland Tales so think about that. He had nothing to do with this project.

The 1995 styles are totally wrong. Sam mostly just walks around in wispy white camisoles and tiny shorts. At the beginning, Sam and Corey both look like they're headed for Coachella not Lollapalooza where they should have been going. It runs too long without a clear focus and it's already a confusing story since it involves time travel and visions of the future past. I would have preferred a feature length movie about Sparkle Motion. This movie is more art house weirdness than fun cult movie, nothing great happens, but there is magical feather if you're into that sort of thing.

Dungeons and Dragons

Watched September 29, 2014

2000
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Justin Whalin, Marlon Wayans, Zoe McLlelan

This was my second viewing of this movie as I wanted to give it a chance in a group setting even though my memory of it is terrible. We didn't plan ahead very well so it was a trial getting the movie on the fly, but once we did get it streaming it was still very bad. I have never played Dungeons and Dragons, but I'm aware of how it plays and I enjoy fantasy so when I originally saw it I thought it could be fun, but I was wrong.

The kingdom is ruled by Empress Savina (Thora Birch) who realizes that the caste system of mages and everyone else is unfair, so she wants to bring equality to her empire. Profion (Jeremy Irons) is a powerful mage who wants to rule the kingdom and believes he can do if he can control the powerful red dragons. The empress has a scepter that controls the gold dragons and that's how she maintains power over the land. 

Ridley (Justin Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans) are bumbling thieves who break into the mage school to find some good things to sell. While they are there the head librarian Mage (Tomas Havrlik) is being threatened by Damodar (Bruce Payne) who is the muscle for Profion. The Mage's student Marina (Zoe McLellan) investigates what the thieves are doing and binds them just as the Mage is killed by Damodar. Luckily the scroll that Damodar was looking for was whisked into Marina's hands. Marina escapes with the thieves. The fall on a piles of rags that turns out the be a dwarf, Azmath (Robert Miano) who tags along on their quest. 

On the scroll are the instructions on how to find the special red dragon scepter. Somewhere here Marina explains what needs to happen to Ridley and Snails and they join the quest. They have many obstacles to face on their way. Ridley has to go through a dungeon of traps to retrieve the dragon's eye and special gem. All the while they are being chases by Damodar. The empress in the meantime is appealing to the imperial senate about her wishes to do away with the caste system. Profion is enraged at this and tries to turn them to his side.

At a castle ruin, there is a showdown with Damodar and Snails is killed. Ridley is also stabbed but is saved by some spells. There is also an elf lady that joins the group for awhile. Ultimately the red dragon scepter is found but it ends up in Profion hands. The Empress still had her gold dragon scepter but it's not enough. Luckily Marina and Ridley show up and help the empress get the red dragon scepter and Profion is destroyed.

I pretty much hated everyone. My favorite part of the movie was this cool accordion lantern that Ridley used to explore a cave. They use CGI for everything and it looks terrible. This was rough time in CGI when they figured it looked great so let's use it all the time, well it doesn't hold up and everything looks fake and it takes you out of the movie. I can't believe they killed Snails, who I enjoyed looking at compared to Ridley's horrible smirk in every scene. Jeremy Irons is taking it to the max but that still doesn't save it. I love Thora Birch and her outfits are cool and weird but that's not enough to save this.  It's just such a mess that even to make fun of it is painful and sad.

The Horrible Dr. Bones

Watched February 21, 2014

2000
Starring: Darrow Igus, Larry Bates, Sarah Scott Davis, Danny Wooten

We are introduced to Dr. Bones (Darrow Igus) a record producer, when his assistant brings a singer to audition for him. When Dr. Bones plays his intended backing track, the guy's head explodes. Dr. Bones discovers that to fulfill his intended plan he need to find a really great live group. He holds open auditions where he meets Urban Protectors, a hot R&B band with a really sexy lead singer Lisa (Sarah Scott Davis). Urban Protectors have their own sound guy, Jamal (Larry Bates) who Dr. Bones and his assistant instantly dislike. Dr. Bones loves the Urban Protectors unique sound so he signs them right away. Jamal is a little wary but still supportive of his group. 

Dr. Bones wants the Urban Protectors to play a live show to show off their talents, or so they think. It turns out that Dr. Bones has a crazy spell that he wants to cast to take over the world. He can hide the spell in music but when he tried recorded sound that guy's head exploded. They play the show and the spell works, it gives Dr. Bones control over everyone. Jamal knows something is up so he heads to the basement where he finds Dr. Bones working his spell. He also finds a aquarium that is empty except for a bunch of hearts on stands. Jamal grabs one of the hearts, squeezing it and he watches one of Dr. Bones minions fall down dead. Jamal manages to shake the band out of their stupor and convince them Dr. Bones is bad news. All the hearts are destroyed and Dr. Bones is pushed into a power convertor and destroyed...or so we think!

The effects are pretty terrible, there are a lot of rubber 3D hearts being tossed around. It's a short movie at about 73 minutes but it feels much longer which isn't a good sign.
This is a Full Moon production, so I knew I was in for some direct to video, low budget storytelling. Before the movie even began we got to see a trailer for Ragdoll, an advertisement for the Ragdoll doll,  and an for the soundtrack to Ragdoll. Then we got to see an ad for the soundtrack to The Horrible Dr. Bones, all before the movie started. I don't want any of those products but it did make me check out the Full Moon site and you can subscribe to their streaming service and watch all their terrible movies, I'm genuinely tempted.

Octopus 2: River of Fear

Watched July 7, 2013

2001
Starring: Michael Reilly Burke, Meredith Morton, Fredric Lehne, John Thaddeus.

This movie taught me that there's an exciting new career waiting in New York City; being a scuba cop! You get to regularly jump into a gross, dirty river and try to find drugs smugglers, but sometimes you stumble onto crazier things. Nick (Michael Reilly Burke) is young scuba cop who's been assigned to work with Walter (Fredric Lehne) who's about to retire from the scuba cop game. Together they think they've finally nabbed a drug smuggler, but it turns out it's the most powerful judge in town out for some night fishing. This makes the news so Nick and Walter are chastised by the chief of police, but they know that something's going on. Meanwhile there have been random dead bodies showing up on the docks. 

 This whole story takes place a few days before the 4th of July and the Mayor has a big fireworks spectacle planned, this is New York City after all. We know that it's New York by the tons of stock footage used in the movie. The Mayor sends his aid, Rachel (Meredith Morton) to check out why these scuba cops are making the waterfront seem dangerous, just when he wants lots of people to come out and celebrate independence day. Rachel finds Nick, interviews him and is drawn to his swimmer's body, or something, she just starts tagging along for no reason.

Nick is really stuck on the drug smuggler thing, so along with Walter they keep swimming around the river trying to find drugs. Instead of drugs they find a giant, killer octopus! Nick escapes from the octopus tentacles but Walter is killed. No one back at the police station believes that there is a giant octopus in the river, so Nick looks like a fool.

Meanwhile, Rachel is randomly assigned to take a group of young kids to an event in Brooklyn or Jersey, on their way back everything gets crazy. The Octopus somehow damages the tunnel that they're driving through and it begins to fill with water. Nick finds them and helps get them out of the bus they're on but it takes so long to move these kids. This is supposed to be the big tense finale, which is weird because it doesn't really have much to do with the Octopus. All the kids get out safe, then the Octopus is blown up as they watch the fireworks.

I went in with low expectations, therefore had fun watching this movie. The CGI of the octopus is done mostly in the dark of night, so it looks somewhat real. They just use a fake tentacle for the scenes with people and that stands up as well. Rachel has this extreme widow's peak that is hard to look away from. Walt and Nick look to be about 5 years apart in age, which makes it weird to think that Walter is supposed to retire really soon. In the end they catch the drug smugglers, it was the judge after all.

Blood Moon aka Wolf Girl

Watched January 26, 2013

2001 (TV movie)

Starring: Victoria Sanchez, Tim Curry, Grace Jones and Leslie Ann Warren

As I was looking this movie up on IMDB, I found out the super nerdy kid in this played by Dov Tiefenbach has a role in The FP. He plays the chump that JTRO battles while on meth to get his street cred back. Man, I love the FP. This movie is not The FP.

I had expectations for some horror and gore going into this, which I think is the wrong way to approach this movie. It's a drama that just happens to have some quirky aspects to it. The main girl isn't a werewolf she just has a condition where she has a lot of hair all over her body (Hypertrichosis). The VHS has an awesome lenticular cover that is also a ruse, because it shows a werewolf baring its fangs aggressively, a scene that doesn't happen in the move. There are some surprising elements that reveal that this movie wasn't rated R for the horror aspects.

The time period on this movie was a mystery to me, it appears to be present day until the Sideshow comes to town on horse-drawn carriages. Tara (Victoria Sanchez) is one of the stars of the show as the wolf girl. She does have excessive hair all over her body so it seems like a natural fit. A gang of teenage jerks are hanging out in the woods when the tents begin to be set up, they see her and decide that they'll try to either hit her with a slingshot or kill her, I'm not sure. Cryin' Ryan (Dov Tiefenback) is another teen who is regularly bullied by the roving teen gang. He meets Tara and takes her to his basement where his scientist mom tests on animals. He tells her that they are developing a new back hair removal treatment if she would like to try it. She's game because she has a hard time dealing with being a freak. It takes a while to work but as it does it gives her a thirst for blood and fills her with rage. Tim Curry is the ringmaster of the sideshow and is upset by her now erratic behavior. She doesn't tell anyone that she's trying to get rid of her body hair. The teen gang is lead by Beau (Shawn Ashmore) who during one of the wolf girl shows throws dog poop on Tara. They continue to terrorize her for no good reason. Later on Tara is walking by Beau's house and he has just gotten out of the shower. He is flexing in the mirror with a towel on, the towel drops to reveal his very tiny penis. 

After that we see a sideshow routine of Grace Jones as the half man half woman. As she sings, behind her two women are stripping but at the end their dicks are revealed and they're transvestites! A whole lot more dicks were revealed in this movie considering I expected none.

It ends with Tara going nuts, killing Beau and leaving him dead with his pants down revealing his genitals. She also bites the tongue off of the girl gang member. Now hairless, Tara is left behind as the sideshow leaves for the next stop.  She is last seen looking into a pool of water then disappearing.

Not a horror movie, more a drama with some life lessons about accepting who you are...maybe. I'm not sure if Beau's tiny dick is why he had to act like such an asshole to everyone.  There is a shower scene where you see Tara's hair covered naked body. This was a strange one for sure, don't expect any werewolves though.

Night of the Demons

Watched October 29, 2012

2009
Starring: Shannon Elizabeth, Monica Keena, Edward Furlong, Diora Baird, and Bobbi Sue Luther.

I have seen the original 1988 version and I recall a few memorable scenes, but I don't remember loving the whole movie. This remake updates it with terrible editing, more gore, boobs and special effects but not much else. There is a brief scene with Linnea Quigley reprising her role and costume from the original.

Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) has rented a supposedly haunted house to throw the biggest and best Halloween party ever. We meet the main characters as they are getting ready for the party. Maddie (Monica Keena) is recognized as the heroine because she is dressed only kinda sexy as some sort of zombie. Her two friends Lily (Diora Baird) and Suzanne (Bobbi Sue Luther) are both dressed up in the same sexy cat costume. Suzanne has the gigantic boobs that are just about to pop out of her bustier at any moment, it's totally nuts.  Colin (Edward Furlong) is Maddie's ex-boyfriend and a drug dealer, he's going to the party to sell lots of drugs to pay off his debts to the bigger dealer in town.

They get to the party and you would think it would look like a really fun Halloween party but the movie uses these terrible speed cuts to make things look edgier, but it just looks terrible. The first hint of spookiness to come is when Maddie is in the bathroom reapplying lipstick a hand pops out of the mirror and tries to choke her.  Not that long after the party starts it's shut down by the cops because Angela forgot to get a permit. Everyone leaves except for the main characters.

When the cops arrived Colin threw his drug stash down a heat vent, so he make everyone go down to the basement so he can retrieve it. In the basement they find seven skeletons. Angela tries to steal a gold tooth from one and it bites her. The demon curse begins here. Angela explains the history of the house, how in the 1920's a lady got into the occult and held a seance. The seance had seven people that all got taken over by demons except for the main lady who figured it out and killed herself before the demons could fully take over.  Now there are seven people in the house again and the seven demons are going to try to get them. 

Angela begins spreading the demons over everyone. Some highlights are when she tries to seduce Suzanne and rips her face off and one of her boobs. Once Lily is a demon she repeats the main scene I remember from the original by sticking a tube of lipstick into her nipple.  Everyone is taken over by the demons except for Maddie, Colin and Jason (John F. Beach) just another dude. They take refuge in a room that has walls covered in spells so the demons can't get in. The demons trick them into thinking it's dawn and they can come out, but then they kill everyone except Maddie. Maddie realizes the only way to stop the full demon takeover is to kill herself just like the original lady. As soon as Maddie hangs herself the demons admit defeat and head back to their basement graves to hope for another bunch of idiot whose bodies they can inhabit.

Oh but wait, Maddie tricked those stupid demons by making a harness out of the noose, so she gets out of there alive. There is a lot of gore and tons of boobs but the build up to the big scares doesn't really pay off. I was much more just grossed out by some of the ridiculous things I saw on screen. The original is more fun, which isn't saying much but at least it doesn't have the terrible speed edits.