Watched November 17, 2015
1999
Starring: Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Vincent D'Onofrio
This was on a couple lists of movies about the internet or visualization of virtual reality technology so when I found a copy at a thrift store I figured it was time to check it out. The cover really looks they were trying to capitalize on the success of The Matrix, even though I think this movie was released first, but with the VHS release they added the green scrolling numbers to hint at a similar story. There are some slight similarities in creating a virtual world, but The Thirteenth Floor is by no means The Matrix.
Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko) works in tech with Jason (Vincent D'Onofrio) and they are making some sort of virtual reality world game. Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller Stahl) who had also been working on the game is found murdered and it seems like Douglas is a main suspect. Hannon has been going into the virtual world, even though it wasn't ready to be tested. The game takes them to a very realistic virtual world of 1937. Before Hannon was murdered he left clues for Douglas to find in the virtual world. A mysterious lady, Jane (Gretchen Mol) who claims to be Hannon's daughter, shows up and wants to shut down the company, as per her father's last wishes. Douglas is being pursued by the cops so he goes into the virtual world game to try to figure out what really happened to Hannon so he can clear his name. To enter the virtual world you end up taking over the body of an existing character, which makes the transition very difficult as you character has a life and story before you start the game and you have to pick up the pieces.
Douglas begins to get some clues about the virtual world they have built that lead him back to questions what is going on his world. He finds another version of Jane in his reality that makes him questions what is connecting the virtual world to the world he believes to be real. Jane ends up explaining that Douglas's world is also virtual, it is one of many virtual worlds built by her husband David, who happens to be the model for Douglas.
David comes to kill Jane for falling in love with Douglas who is only a simulation. Through multiple virtual worlds this is stopped. David is killed and Jane brings Douglas back to her world, the world that built all the virtual reality worlds. It's super confusing.
It's weird that Hannon, Douglas and Jason who created the 1937 virtual world can't manipulate it, but I guess in hindsight that may have something to do with it being a virtual world within a virtual world. I bet the short story that is based on is really great, but as a movie it's mostly confusing and kind of dull. The best part is when Douglas tries to drive to the limit of the world, which happened to be the desert of Arizona. When he gets there it's just wireframes, which looks pretty neat. I wish more of the movie looked like that.
Watched April 21, 2013
1983
Starring: Leif Green, Jim Greenleaf, Scott McGinnis, Jon Gries, Corinne Bohrer.
Nerdy Eugene (Leif Green) has just gotten a job at the arcade working the snack counter. All the teens in town love hanging out in the arcade, partially because of all the great games and partially because it's managed by young, hot Jefferson (Scott McGinnis). Patsy (Corinne Bohrer) is a perfect young valley girl who loves the arcade, but her dad Mr. Rutter (Joe Don Baker) thinks it's a den of filth and sex. Mr. Rutter is trying to shut down the arcade with the help of his two nitwit assistants. It comes down to a city council meeting to figure out if they can shut down the arcade. So many of the teens really love it and they don't have any other place to hang out. The city council doesn't really do anything but Jefferson challenges Mr. Rutter to a video game. If Mr. Rutter wins, Jefferson will shut down the arcade but if Jefferson wins they'll keep it open. Mr. Rutter can have anyone play for him and he chooses King Vidiot. King Vidiot (Jon Gries) is an awesome punk who's obsessed with the arcade. He doesn't want it shut down, but Mr. Rutter promises him and his female posse mini-motorbikes and he just can't say no.
Jefferson hasn't been able to play any video games since he lost his virginity with his girlfriend and her dad walked in on them. His girlfriend was forced to move away and he whenever he looks at a video screen he sees the dad's angry face. McDorfus (Jim Greenleaf) is a fat slob who is always at the arcade and is the best player around. He is chosen by Jefferson to take his place during the challenge. Mr. Rutter's henchmen learn this and kidnap McDorfus so Jefferson is forced to play during the big showdown. Jefferson rises to the challenge and starts out strong but towards the end King Vidiot is winning. At the last minute, McDorfus frees himself and shows up to win the big battle of Super Pac Man. The arcade is saved and all the teens rejoice.
I love valley girls so Patsy was great for me, every word out of her mouth was fantastic. This
movie falls firmly into the T&A teen sex comedies of the 1980's but
with the added bonus of video games. You get to see boobs right away and continually throughout the movie. No one actually has sex, but there is a working
hot tub inside a van. The soundtrack is alright but I wish they would have used some of the Bruckner and Garcia video game songs, they wrote Pac Man Fever and many others. The DVD that I watched was still pretty poor quality with the lighting being really dark most of the time. I did enjoy it but I think if I had seen it when I was a teen I would have loved it.
Watched April 7, 2013
1994
Starring: Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, T. Ryder Smith, Amy Hargreaves.
I like to pair similarly themed movies together and after watching Arcade it reminded me of Brainscan, which I hadn't seen since it originally came out. Both these movies came out around the same time but Brainscan had a much bigger budget and the star power of Edward Furlong coming off Terminator 2.
Michael (Edward Furlong) is a teen haunted by the car accident that killed his mother and left him with a gimpy leg. His father is constantly away on business, so Michael spends his time reading Fangoria magazine and playing video games. He has a sweet set up of a computer that answers his phone calls for him in his attic room that is teen boy heaven. He regularly spies on his neighbor Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves) filming her as she undresses in front of the window. On a tip from his friend Kyle (James Marsh), Michael orders a new game called Brainscan. This game is supposed to the craziest new gaming experience like nothing you've played before. Even though Michael is a jaded teen he's ready to try anything. He orders the game off the 1-800 number and the first disc arrives the next day. The first round of the game has him murdering a man within an hour time limit. Michael completes this and exits the game to find the severed foot of the man in his fridge. Is he still in the game or is he committing these crimes in real life? That's the basic plot. It seems like the game has become real and taken over Michael's life. He has to complete all four discs of the game to get out of the game. This requires him to bury the foot, kill his bed friend all while trying to stay away from the detective (Frank Langella) who is investigating the case. The last thing he has to do the win the game is kill Kimberly, but he can't, even when the Trickster merges with him. Michael kills the Trickster and the game is completed. Michael comes back to the true reality where he has murdered no one. There is a weird part at the end where we see a dog with the severed foot in his mouth to hint that maybe it was real after all, except we know that Kyle is still alive.
This is a fine horror movie, but nothing really crazy popped out to make it extra special. The Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) is the game character that tells Michael what he needs to do next, and pops out of the game into Michael's reality. His makeup is pretty great and he is disgusting. The special effects hold up well as they did a lot of prosthetic work along with the CGI effects.
Edward Furlong has my favorite hairstyle from the early 1990's and that's enough to keep me engaged, but you're better off just watching Terminator 2 again. The Igor image/animation that answers the phone on Michael's computer was the best.
Watched March 31, 2013
1993
Starring: Megan Ward, John de Lancie, Peter Billingsley, Seth Green, and A.J. Langer
Since we've watched several super stinkers in a row, we were looking forward to something a little better. This is a Full Moon release, which if you seen other movies by them you'll know they produce straight to video horror and fantasy movies. I enjoyed this movie because I like other things that all the people have been in. It stars Q from Star Trek: Next Gen, Rayanne from My So-Called Life, the crush from Encino Man, the kid from A Christmas Story and Willow's werewolf boyfriend, what more could you ask for.
Alex (Megan Ward) is a teen girl dealing with the recent suicide of her mother, with no help from her dad who is drowning his sorrow in cookies. She does have a great support system of her boyfriend Greg (Bryan Dattilo) and friends, Nick (Peter Billingsley), Stilts (Seth Green) and Laurie (A.J. Langer). After school they head to Dante's Inferno, a local arcade. Difford (John de Lancie) is there, a representative of a video game company who is trying to get the kids to test out a new game called Arcade. The game is a virtual reality game which fully immerses you in the digital world. It's some terrible early 3D that is mostly very low vector shapes. I guess it was cutting edge at the time. Nick is the first to play because he's a real pro gamer. The first level makes you skateboard through a dungeon maze of spikes, but then a "screamer" gets him and he hits the escape button to quit the game. Greg goes next, but while he's playing everyone leaves the room and then the game sucks him in because he loses. The game is collecting souls! Everyone at the arcade is given a home version of the game to try out. Alex is concerned because she doesn't know where Greg has gone but she just takes his car and drives herself home.
At home Alex tries out the game and quickly realizes it's more than just a video game. She tries to shut it off but can't. She still hasn't heard from Greg, but sees him trapped in the game. She goes to Nick's house to try to convince him that the game is evil. They decide that they have to go to the game company to tell them what's happening. Nick thinks that the story of the game sucking someone in sounds crazy so instead of telling Difford that story, he says they just really love the game and want to learn some tricks from the designer. The designer gives them a map of the game, and explains that they used brain cells from a dead kid to create the core of the game. The designer is even scared of what he created and doesn't have a way to shut it down. Alex and Nick go to find Stilts and Laurie but they've both been sucked into the game. They go back to Dante's Inferno to go into the game to save their friends. Nick, the supposed pro gamer is taken out almost immediately when he's distracted by a floating, rainbow colored gyroscope. It's up to our non-gamer Alex to keep going and save everyone. She finds Greg is a pool of strawberry lava blood but can't save him. The game is represented by a terrible boxy face that looks like a bad transformer head and it taunts her as she moved through the levels. Alex makes it through all the levels but it electrocuted as she confronts the game. Luckily she picked up an extra life by saving a little boy on the river styx level. The little boy turns out to the be the soul and braincells of the game. Alex comes back into the game and throw her extra life mechanical heart at the game and destroys it. All the friends are saved and they all high five at the end, well not really, but it ends like they would.
Not a great movie by any means, but it takes you back to time when it was thought that virtual reality was going to be a big deal and the future of video games. If anything I liked it because it reminded me of being in the early '90's. Not a horror movie, I think it only got an R rating because they let the kids throw out some F-bombs.
The best thing about Full Moon movies is that they always include a mini video about the making of the movie called Videozone. All the teen actors looked like the were having the best time on the set of this movie. They also showed the original character designs for a lot of the game and they were so much better than what ended up onscreen. The embodied game was a cool skull not just a boxy head dude, but for some reason they had to change it.
Watched July 31, 2012
2011
Starring: Jason Trost, Lee Valmassy, Art Hsu and Caitlyn Folley
This movie is totally awesome!
It takes place in the not too distant future. There are two gangs in the FP (Frazier Park) and they battle for street cred by having Beat Beat Revelation competitions. JTRO (Jason Trost) and his brother BTRO (Brandon Barrera) are in one gang competing against L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy). In the final battle of Beat Beat, the game pad is connecting to electricity so it can kill you if you don't do well. BTRO is 187'd by L Dubba E and JTRO is devastated by the death of his brother.
One year later JTRO is working at a lumberjack having given up on the gang. His old friend KCDC (Art Hsu) comes to get him, telling him that the whole FP has been taken over by L Dubba E and he controls the one liquor store in town. Apparently if people can't get their liquor they turn to hard drugs. Plus all the ducks have left which is a really big deal. JTRO reluctantly comes back to the FP to avenge his brother. He's really out of shape so there are multiple training montages to get him back into proper Beat Beat Revolution shape. While he back in town he runs into his crush Stacy (Caitlyn Folley), she is pretty much the worst, but JTRO likes her anyway. There is a spectacularly amazing scene that makes no sense at all. JTRO has a bad day training so KCDC hands him a tampon since he's so bad he must be a women. Later that day JTRO is hanging out with Stacy in a playground. She is digging in the sand and JTRO is confused to why she is doing that. She says she's digging around to find a rag, because this is a good spot to look. WHAT!? Luckily JTRO has a tampon so he gives it to her. We had to rewatch this scene because it was so crazy. It does show that Stacy is the trashiest, so all the slutty things she does aren't surprising.
Finally JTRO gets good enough to challenge L Dubba E to a major Beat Beat Battle. JTRO wins the Beat Beat Revolution battle, but doesn't kill L Dubba E. This leads to a crazy gunfight. In the end JTRO and his gang win over the town and the ducks come back. I won't spoil the last scene by the lake but it's unexpected and true to character. I couldn't think of a better way to end the movie.
I have to believe that everyone on this movie had a blast making it. I love ridiculous battles, especially life and death video game battles. L Dubba E has some of the greatest jumpsuits ever made. The imagery of this movies rules, and the slang is extra ridiculous. I highly recommend this movie, it's fun, silly and ridiculous.
