seven deadly sklogs – Bad Movie Twins

One Missed Call (2008) Recap

Jamie

Welcome to the Calendar where only the best of the worst of the worst reside. And there are very few films more poorly reviewed than One Missed Call. Let’s get into it.

What?! A cursed cell phone message is killing nubile college students. Each time someone is killed a call from the future previews the next victim’s imminent death. When Beth becomes the latest player in this deadly game of phone tag she teams up with a local cop to stop the madness. Can she uncover the mystery before it’s too late? Find out in… One Missed Call.

How?! There is a very basic premise that one needs to know to get 90% of this film: People die, when they die their phone calls someone in their contacts list (from the future… bum bum bum!), that person receives a message (from the future…bum bum bum!) that contains a recording of the last moments of their life (from the future… bum bum bum!), and a few days later that person is killed (as predicted) and the cycle begins anew. The entirety of the first part of this film takes place watching as random characters in the film are killed in increasingly silly and decidedly PG-13 ways as a result of these phone calls. When our main character, Beth, finally receives the phone call she’s got enough grit and last-girl-itude to try to solve the mystery (especially after the good people at Boost Mobile are no help at all… gah! Why must their mobile plans provide so many affordable minutes?!). She teams up with Ed Burns, a cop whose sister was also killed by the phone call, to figure it out. They trace it back to a woman who died in a hospital fire after her child died of an asthma attack. They go to the hospital and find the mother’s body, finally bringing her peace and thinking they’ve stopped the madness (phew!). But alas [SPOILER ALERT] it turns out that it was actually the evil daughter who was responsible for all the death and mayhem! In a “climactic” scene Beth is saved from the evil girl ghost by the mom ghost, but Ed Burns is killed. His phone dials a spooky posthumous call and the cycle starts anew. In case you’re confused: none of this actually makes sense.

Why?! Alright, let’s try to explain why this is all happening. The ghost mom had two children. The younger girl kept on getting sick and so everyone thought the mom had Munchausen By Proxy and was doing it on purpose. When the mom discovers that her elder daughter was actually responsible she locks her in her room where she dies of an asthma attack (daannnggg, coooold Bloooddeedd). With her dying breath the daughter dials her mother’s cellphone. This begins the curse as shortly thereafter her mother is killed in the hospital fire. So you see, the motivation for the whole film is a psychotic ghost child who uses her powers of evil to kill at random as a form of revenge for her unsettled spirit. Everyone else just doesn’t want to die.

Who?! Definitely have to give a shout out to one of the kid actors in the film. The evil daughter, Ellie, is played in the flashbacks by none other than Ariel Winter of Modern Family fame. Not the first Ariel Winter film in BMT. She also appeared in Killers. I barely remember the film let alone her role in it.

Where?! Not since The Tuxedo have we seen such a concerted effort to conceal the location of a film. There are fake license plates, fake drivers licenses, and concealed addresses. That is until the very end where Beth receives a letter that claims she lives in Minniwauka, NJ 60209. While that is a mindbogglingly bad fake location and the zip points to Evanston, IL you have to give default to the state listed. This is an NJ film. Makes sense too because I’ve heard that Ed Burns can’t exist outside the tri-state area. Exact but hardly mentioned. B-.

When?! This is clear from the get go. The film opens with a call from the spooky ghost on June 9th. So we got exact details without even trying. An easy slam dunk B+. Not an A because the time of year has little relevance, but it is mentioned over and over.

If you anyone wants to watch a horror film but wants something rididididididiculously not scary then this is the ticket for you. It is laughable for much of the film and I felt like it was right on the cusp of being a really good, funny BMT film. But my opinion doesn’t matter, I’m just the details man. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! One Missed Call? More like No Script At All! Amirite. What once was old is new again was the motto of mid-2000s horror, and for a brief period they were looking for anything that sounded vaguely like The Ring. Well this one sounds exactly like The Ring except with sweet Boost flip phones. Let’s get into it!

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – Woof. Not much was good in this film. Dare I say nothing at all? Even Ray Wise couldn’t save it from itself. This movie was crazy bad … so let’s do a remake! A remake of a remake? That’s right. This time the evil spirit is inhabiting a smart phone, and with access to all that technology it can reach beyond the confines of its sweet but limited flip phone capabilities! Spooky. Throw out your phone? It calls you on skype! Get rid of skype, it is in your email with hangouts! No escape, as it leaps from technology to technology. And this time you actually do make a statement about the pervasive and toxic nature of our connected world, because it turns out just reshooting a mediocre J-Horror film didn’t really cut it. Slash the budget, get inventive, One Missed Call: Unlimited Data Plan (ooooof, what a terrible title).

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sins) – As I said, this movie was crazy super-bad. At a svelte 90 minutes flat the film still felt like it was 20 minutes too long. The acting was top-to-bottom an atrocity. The movie, as I said, is a shot-for-shot remake of an already-not-scary J-Horror. Its existence is questionable, its production is sloppy, and, the biggest sin, it is not even a little bit scary. They couldn’t even do jump-scares properly (I was straight laughing at times). Good-bad horror is funny, and this gets mighty close to that area. Indeed, it would have been legendary if it didn’t feel a little too long. The sin is sloth: copying The Ring, copying the original Japanese film, barely even managing to muster a single scare in the entire film. Weak.

The BMT: Legacy – I think this will go down as one of the worst actual horror films we’ve ever seen. It is worse than The Gallows … The Gallows! The only thing that comes close is something like The Devil Inside, but found horror is a whole different garbage-y animal. As far as actual horror goes, this is a decent example of a film I would trot out if someone asked to watch the worst horror film I’ve seen (competing closely with The Fog). I disliked something like Friday the 13th Part 5 more, but there is something pure and kind of fun about how much this stands alone and proclaims: I am terrible. I’ll mention a small StreetCreditReport.com here because I love it. Sadly, despite being one of the worst films ever reviewed, I can’t find much play in the worst of lists. Possibly because 2008 was incredible (The Happening, Max Payne, Mamma Mia, What Happens In Vegas, etc.), but also because people hate horror films (at least critics seem to). I certainly gets high up on my personal list. Its cred comes from the reviews though, 0% on Rotten Tomatoes is always special.

And finally word about a little BMT Homework where I watched the original One Missed Call. This was the first J-Horror I’ve ever seen. I watched The Ring, but never Ringu. This … was not a good introduction. Too long, not very spooky or scary, a silly concept, and feels like a rip-off of The Ring. Better than the remake, but still, below-average. It did get me interested in watching more though. A very different feel from the slasher genre I’ve grown to love over the past few months. I’m thinking Ringu will be on the docket when we inevitably watch Rings this Fall, and from there, who knows? Maybe I’ll fall in love with that sub-genre as well.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Whole Ten Yards Recap

Jamie

As we crawl desperately through the wasteland that is <10% RT films, the scorching sun of The Whole Ten Yards beats down on us. I think fondly of Here on Earth for a moment and wonder what films may be beyond the horizon. The oasis of our next cycle is so close, and yet one long (oh, so long) recap of The Whole Ten Yards still stands in our way. Can we make it? Or will BMT die in this desert of dog poo? Let’s find out.

What?! Jimmy ‘The Tulip’ is back, Jack! After years in hiding, Jimmy seems to have lost his edge. But when his ex-wife, Cynthia, is kidnapped by vengeful mobsters he joins up with his erstwhile friend Oz to get her back. Can he stop the bad guys, save the girl, and perhaps pull one last big job before it’s too late? Find out in… The Whole Ten Yards.

How?! When we last saw our friends from The Whole Nine Yards, Jimmy had fallen for Jill, Oz had fallen for Cynthia, and they both had come into a bucketful of cash. Flash forward four years and Oz is a successful dentist in LA and he and Cynthia are living it up. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Jill are driving each other crazy hiding out in Mexico. Draaaaammmmaaaa (may as well be an alternate title for this film). Just when Oz learns that Cynthia is pregnant, the head of the Chicago mob, Lazlo, comes to LA to get revenge for Oz’s part in the events of the first film. Oz manages to escape to Mexico but Cynthia is kidnapped and there is only one person he can turn to for help, Jimmy. Oz and Jimmy team up once again and travel back to LA. There they kidnap Lazlo’s son, drink a whole mess of delicious Carlsberg beers, and deal with enough family drama to fill a soap opera (Jimmy and Jill want a baby, Jimmy is experiencing decreased libido, Jill is concerned that Jimmy’s still in love with Cynthia, Jill is concerned she’s not a good enough hitman etc. etc. etc). Using Lazlo’s son as leverage they coerce their way into the mobster’s hideout and [SUPER TWIST ALERT!] reveal that Jimmy and Cynthia has orchestrated the whole thing! Jimmy is actually Lazlo’s son and knows the secret to his fortune! They manage to subdue Lazlo, send him back to jail, and get the money. Hooray! Oh and Jill is suddenly pregnant. Double hooray!

Why?! Jimmy and Cynthia are in it for the sweet, sweet cash monies. Knowing that Lazlo will come after them once he’s out of jail they manufacture an unnecessarily complex scheme to trick everyone they love into risking their lives for the cash. Oz, of course, falls for it because he’s a sweet man who loves Cynthia. The mobsters just want blood and never really suspect that they’re getting played. The motivations are actually simple… it’s just the plot that ends up super convoluted.

Who?! Got to give a little shout out to Bruce Willis’ daughter Tallulah who shows up as a girl scout selling cookies in one of the opening scenes. Not to disparage a child but she’s not good. Like Marten Weiner in Mad Men not good (deep cut nepotism reference). The line reading just doesn’t make sense. She stresses random syllables like she’s reading the lines phonetically. I guess this is our one and only lesson: nepotism doesn’t always work. Who would have thought.

Where?! The Whole Nine Yards had the amazing and super rare setting of Montreal. Even shot on location. The second one also really wanted you to know where you were at all time. We split time between Mexico and LA with a slight edge to LA in the end. Solid without being necessary. B.

When?! Two different newspapers were shown up close. The first gave us a date of November 2003 for the film. The second seemed like it could yield an exact day, but I would need to see a higher quality version of the film to confirm anything. Almost a B. C+ instead.

Our lips are parched and yet there is no respite. Just dog poo everywhere. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone? The Whole Ten Yards? More like … Time to Discard? I can’t even think of a good NY Post headline … Zero out of Ten? Nine Yards Short? I tried looking up some etymology but … turns out it is a riddle! Seems to maybe come from a similar origin as “dressed to the nines” which itself is not really known. Anywho, is this movie dog poo in my face? Close at least. It is quite the mess. Let’s get into it, work through this riddle together!

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – Hmmmm. The cloud that represents the plot of this film is somehow quite simple to follow, which is nice. It also got me to watch The Whole Nine Yards, which held up far better than I expected it to. Linear, but still entertaining with two charming leads. Has anyone ever remade a sequel before!? Remake: Totally ignore that the other sequel exists, go back to Montreal, and, and this would be controversial, dump Matthew Perry. Instead, you see Tudeski trying to save Jill who, still moonlighting as an assassin, has landed herself in hot water. Jimmy teams up with a taxi driver who, ultimately, becomes a kind of getaway driver (similar to how Oz’s dental skills were the perfect skill Jimmy needed to resolve his troubles in the previous film). And yes … Kevin Hart is the taxi driver. The Whole Nine Yards 2: License to Drive. Amazingly terrible title.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – Uh, those charming characters from the first film are now lost to Flanderization, including Jimmy who they managed to invent a trait to Flanderize him towards (cooking / cleaning / being a house husband). The storyline makes no sense. Kevin Pollack is just weird playing the father of the character he played in the first film (interesting if misguided idea). The twist is telegraphed, the motivations are ludicrous, and it comes across as a carbon copy of the original. I still don’t quite know if this is dog poo in my face … this is a bit closer to where something like Old Dogs is, which is thoroughly perplexing to a degree where you are just sitting there thinking “why is any of this happening?”. It has a fantastic gay panic scene too. Like The Medallion level gay panic. Dog poo in my face is a punch in the gut, like Strange Wilderness. It is like someone shoving dog poo in my face. It feels different. Oh … the sin is greed obviously. They wanted to cash in on that sweet franchise money yo.

The BMT: Legacy – I do think this gets pretty close to a rare spot for a comedy, which is a good-bad comedy. A tad bit boring and slow, but enough of the movie is ridiculously melodramatic,and the plot line is so perplexing, and Pollack’s performance is so over-the-top, that, for me, it gets to a place where I could watch it again and think it is just as funny-bad. It helps that the original Whole Nine Yards is a solid early-2000s comedy. Gives a little extra help there since this is probably a quintessential example of taking characters to extremes and reusing old jokes. I think it has decent legs ultimately when we reflect on 2017.

And finally the StreetCreditReport.com. Not surprisingly this actually does quite well in the amazingly crowded 2004 bad movie lists. The Movie Blog ranked it an impressive number 4! And Ebert had it as his 9th worst film of the year. Previously we watched Godsend as another 2004 film and it got no play, but this film is a genuinely perplexing catastrophe, so I think the praise is well deserved.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Mummy (2017) Recap

Jamie

Second BMT Live! of the year and we got a good jump on the new Dark Universe franchise. Not as sexy, embarrassing, or unintentionally hilarious as Fifty Shades Darker, but still got some things to say. Let’s go!

What?! Nick Morton is a thief, liar, and total badass. He’s treasure hunting in war-torn Iraq (natch) when he accidentally uncovers an Egyptian mummy, Ahmanet. Instantly cursed to be Set’s human vessel in Ahmanet’s dastardly plan, Morton must join forces with Dr. Jekyll and his monster hunters to stop her. Can she be stopped before it’s too late? Find out in… The Mummy!

How?! Alright, so like a million years ago Ahmanet was all set to rule Egypt as the one and only heir to the throne. That is until her daddio knocks up one of his servants and a son is born. Infuriated, Ahmanet make a deal with the devil (Set), kills her whole family, and attempts to bring death and despair to the world. Fortunately she is stopped and buried alive far from Egypt. Millenia later our hero Nick Morton inadvertently uncovers her tomb while treasure hunting/defending America in Iraq. When a sexy archaeologist (with whom Morton has has had prior relations, natch) attempts to bring the sarcophagus back to London for study, the mummy’s curse brings the plane down. Miraculously, Nick awakens unscathed from the crash revealing that he has been cursed to be Set’s human vessel in Ahmanet’s plan (and can’t die… yet). From there a bunch of origin story bullshit happens with Dr. Jekyll, Ahmanet is captured and then not captured, and Nick Morton drops some sweet one-liners. This culminates in Ahmanet’s plan almost working only to have Nick embrace the mummy’s curse to defeat her. Now part good and part evil he is left to roam the world fighting monsters trying to find a cure for his curse. Phew.

Why?! Uh… good question. Ahmanet is fueled by rage (obvs. She’s a monster). Nick Morton is mostly out to get money (and slay the ladies), but once he becomes Ahmanet’s chosen one he kind of loses any motivation for his actions. In fact this is a device used in the film, where Nick will suddenly stare into space, flashback to Ancient Egypt, and then awaken in a new place without explanation (other than that the plot needed him to be there). Only at the end do they allow that he may have grander, more virtuous motivations in stopping Ahmanet.

Who?! We have to talk about Jake Johnson, our resident comic relief and as close as we’ve gotten to a Planchet in a while. He was… not good. Weirdly miscast and misused. He only rarely had anything to say and even more rarely was actually funny. I’m not sure what happened exactly but perhaps through rewriting the script his character was lost a little and became more of a plot device than an actually person. Otherwise we’d just have to chalk it up to a bad script. Here’s to hoping he gets a better showing next time around.

Where?! Nice settings game here. The opening flashback takes place mostly in Egypt. Then we flash forward to Iraq, where the mummy is unearthed and loaded on a cargo plane back to London. From there we get a wonderful array of London establishing shots, English bobbies, and pubs. Almost an A, but I’ll leave it at a B+. Not quite indispensable.

When?! I swear to god there is a scene at the very beginning of the film where a full date is flashed on the screen as part of a video recorder perspective shot. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of a BMT Live is my inability to go ask the projectionist to quickly rewind the film so I could see it better. I’ll give this an Incomplete as a grade. Likely a B- at best. Probably a C. Could be an F if I was mistaken.

There is no way for me to make the argument that this film is actually good. It is not. It’s like if you took just the very beginning or very end of Iron Man and stretched it to feature length. Just not a lot there but origin story and franchise building (and that’s pretty lame). But it definitely was more horror than I thought it would (which was a pleasant surprise) and it’s probably better than a Transformers film… definitely shorter. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Mummy?! More like Just Crummy?! Ayyyyyyyyooooooooooooo. Take that The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, about time someone took you down a peg. So you want to make a movie universe to print Marvel like money, here’s a little checklist: (1) Get a movie star (check, Tom Cruise, killing it), (2) find some sweet IP that you own and serves a lucrative niche audience (nostalgia for Universal’s monster universe, the general boom of monster films, sounds good to me, check), (3) literally just make a Marvel movie … uh let’s get into it.

The Good (BMT Dream Journal) – I dug the bits that came across as spooky scary. The mummy sucking the life out of bobbies in jolly ole England creating a creepy zombie army? Digging it. I even could kind of get into the Dr. Jekyll as the head honcho of the Monster killers thing. Everything was there to set up a universe I cared about. I can’t really do any of these guys because, well … there is going to be a sequel, and this is a remake. So how about a little BMT Dream Journal of what I hope for this franchise moving forward: stop making these action films. They worked perfectly fine as a kind of pop-horror franchise and served a kind of cool idea: Big budget films which take the horror formula to general audience appeal. I dig it.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – Yikes. This film is hacked to pieces. It is written by like twenty people and it shows. Jake Johnson feels so out of place (I love him, but whenever he pops up it is like I’m in a different movie). It is 95% exposition and flashback. And you often feel like they kind of get bored with what they are doing so they trigger a Tom-Cruise-Is-In-A-Dream sequence and throw you in a totally new place without explanation. It is not a good movie. The sin is Greed. They wanted the Dark Universe so badly they couldn’t step back and make sure things were done right when the directors started dropping out. The result is a mess, but …

The BMT: Legacy – Here I’ll mention that I don’t think this film was irrecoverably bad. People are discussing it as if this is somehow a death knell for the Dark Universe. It is the second attempt at a start after Dracula Untold (which immediately became non-canon after it bombed), and while I haven’t seen that one, this was a promising enough start I don’t think it is an issue it bombed. It is like the DC Cinematic Universe, it takes a bit to start a universe out of nothing it seems. It isn’t a death knell, but it does put the universe on red alert. It needs to find its Wonder Woman soon, figure out the tone it will use throughout the attached films, and move into a place where a film a year is possible. We’ll see. I have hope. And I hope the legacy of The Mummy in BMT is that it was a weird footnote in a decent pop-Horror franchise, but I now like horror films, and the idea of pop-horror is cool to me.

Close with a little BMT Homework Assignment. I watched the original 1932 Mummy film with Boris Karloff. The film itself is brilliant, with a very cool story involving Imhotep being resurrected and then attempting to resurrect his lover Ankh-es-en-amon with a backdrop of British colonialism / archeology in 1930s Egypt. I would have said this story would have made much more sense for 2017’s The Mummy … but apparently that is the plot of 1999s The Mummy with Brendan Fraser … so yeah can’t really do that again. Cheerios and back to you Jamie.

Godsend Recap

Jamie

Godsend! Part of the technothriller triumvirate with Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace and Ghost in the Machine. Get it? God, Man, and the (Holy) Ghost. Thank you, thank you. Let’s get this going.

What?! Paul and Jessie have the perfect life until their son Adam is tragically killed in an accident. Approached with the possibility of cloning him, they take the chance, only to have the clone turn evil around the age that Adam was killed. Can they stop this evil Adam clone monster that they’ve unleashed on the world before it’s too late? Find out in… Godsend!

How?! The storyline starts as more of a family drama than a science fiction horror. We spend a good half hour watching a loving family get torn apart by the tragedy of a life cut short too soon. Even worse, when Robert De Niro’s creepy baby clone doctor, Dr. Wells, enters the picture (all too eager to “help” a family in mourning), you only feel sorrow. In almost any situation you would presume Dr. Wells was there to scam them with expensive false promises of cloning their lost child. But of course in this case his promises aren’t false and a new Adam is born. They live a wonderful eight years together until he begins to act super weird and have crazy violent nightmares. It would seem that he has some psychic connection to an evil, murderous child named Zachary. But who is Zachary? Twist Alert! Paul investigates and figures out that Zachary is in fact the long dead son of Dr. Wells himself! He’s a mad scientist who used Adam as a vessel to bring parts of Zachary back to life! Uh oh! When Paul confronts Dr. Wells about this things turn violent and Dr. Wells escapes. Paul recovers just in time to stop Adam/Zachary from killing Jessie. Realizing that they have a child possessed by pure evil they do what any parent would do: move away and pretend like everything’s fine… nothing to see here.

Why?! The motivations of Paul and Jessie are perfectly consistent: they mourn the loss of their child and will do anything to get him back. After they do get him back they will do anything to keep him. As for Dr. Wells, he uses a tenuous connection to Jessie to pretend that he just wants to help her with his scientific gift. Of course, after the twist is revealed it becomes clear that he shares the same motivations as Paul and Jessie for his own dead son, but chooses the evil, twisted route of incorporating his genes into Adam’s DNA without their knowledge. Finally, Adam’s motivation always was and always will be to get those sweet Reebok Pump Verticals. Pump up and air out, Adam/Zachary.

Who?! There is a nary a speck of humor in this film, so no possibility of a Planchet. No animals, no cameos, and no Presidents. The only Who?! I can think of is the fact that this was the first feature film that Mark Cuban’s production company produced. What a stain on our future President’s legacy.

Where?! Great settings film. When Adam is killed in the beginning of the film you see several cars with Massachusetts license plates in a big city. You can presume they lived in Boston. After they move to pursue the cloning, the family’s car changes from MA plates to Vermont plates. This is confirmed once Dr. Wells escapes as local newspapers list the location of the cloning center as Riverton, VT. Of course back when we were filling up the Mapl.d.map we had no way of knowing this and watched god damn A Change of Seasons for that state. What a waste. C+.

When?! No clues are given other than suggestions that the first part of the film takes place in the mid-90’s. There is a tagline from a poster for the film that says “Adam Duncan. Born: December 11, 1987. Died: December 12, 1995. Born September 23, 1996.” So if we take that at its word we have a perfect exact date as the films takes place after his second 8th birthday: September 23, 2004. All fits within the film’s context, but not clear from the film itself. D-.

I would describe the film as a slightly better version of Bless the Child until you hit the twist. From there it makes no sense with the rest of the film and leads to an stunningly bad ending (that might still have been the best of the several endings shot for the film). Woof. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Godsend? More like God, Send it Back! Amirite!? A couple’s child dies and Robert De Niro crashes their mourning period to reveal a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: play God, abandon the life as you know it, and lie to your child for the rest of your life and you can get him back! I mean, what is the downside?! Let’s get into it:

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – For the most part the first two thirds of this film are at least okay. Not really “thrilling” maybe, but the acting is solid, a few jump scares here and there, and the premise is interesting enough to sustain the film for a good hour at least. Sounds like it is time for a sequel. Fifteen years later and Dr. Richard Wells is still missing, and his “son” Zachary has been quelled and is controlled within Adam, now a New York City detective. When episodes involving Zachary become more frequent, and disturbing stories of a mad doctor start to float around the precinct, Adam has a sinking feeling Wells is back to his genetic research games. Following leads through back alley clinics and mafia doctors Adam discovers with horror that Wells has perfected a procedure to transfer consciousnesses from one man to another. How does one catch a man who can change faces at will? Godsend: Face / Off. The New York Times calls it “a piss-poor sequel built entirely upon the premise that Robert De Niro refused to return to the series”.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – Mainly the issue with the film is that the ending is garbage. Not only that, all four alternative endings they wrote are also garbage. The writing gets seriously shaky in the third act, although it includes the gloriously evil-scientist line “Tell me something, if I’m not supposed to do this Paul, how is it that I can?” from Dr. Wells. If I had a nickel for every time I screamed that while doing my PhD work I would be a rich man. I’m not sure the sin (Lust, gluttony, greed? Probably greed), but I think all of the issues stem from the producers accidentally landing Robert De Niro and then rushing to expand his part (allegedly all shot within a very short time span). I would guess by expanding Wells into the main antagonist role they painted themselves into a corner with the ending. That’s my take anyways.

The BMT: Legacy – I do think Wells gets up there in the pantheon of evil bad movie scientists, along with Dr. Alexander McCabe from Bats. Along with that it also joins movies like The Call in which the first two thirds are pretty good and then the last act (often just the ending) ruins the entire film. Interesting, but this movie won’t be in any bad movie marathons, I don’t think. For the most part the film is too good in its first two acts to be anything that sticks around.

And wrap with StreetCreditReport.com as is usual these days. Godsend, not surprisingly, got no love at the time despite being the third lowest rated films on Rotten Tomatoes of the year. Ebert neglects it in his recap, and I found nary a list that mentioned it. But 2004 was an amazing year (Catwoman, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, New York Minute, White Chicks, The Whole Ten Yards!!) and Godsend is amazingly forgettable. Street cred? More like No Cred. For shame.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hot to Trot Recap

Jamie

Who would have thought that watching an entire cycle of films that received the rare <10% RT score would result in us getting dog poo shoved ever so slowly into our faces over and over again? That’s our BMT life. Let’s go!

What?! After the death of his mother, Fred Chaney needs to prove to his asshole stepdad that he can handle the family biz. Fortunately his mother has bequeathed him a talking horse with a nose for stock trading. Can he amass a fortune, get the lady, and shove it in his stepdad’s face before it’s too late? Find out in… Hot to Trot.

How?! Comedy business storyline alert! As is the case with most 80’s comedies, this film concerns our main characters lust for success and money in the world of finance. Fred’s mother dies, leaving him with half an investment company and one talking horse named Don. He’s a deadbeat loser, so naturally his asshole of a stepdad wants to buy him out of his stake in the company, but Fred hates his stupid face so decides to stay on out of spite. By sheer luck, Don overhears some important business tips around the stables and Fred is soon raking in the dough and living it up (with Don) in a penthouse apartment. His luck soon runs out, though, when one of Don’s tips comes up a dud and he loses everything. With only Don to his name (weird that he still “owns” Don even though he’s basically his friend and talks with him all day), he stakes it all on a big horse race. Riding Don to victory as the unlikeliest of jockey’s, Fred finally gives his stepdad the comeuppance he deserves. As for Don, his storyline is a sad affair concerned mostly with loneliness and wanderlust. As for our storyline while watching this film, it was also a sad affair concerned only with sadness and dog poo in our faces.

Why?! Technically Fred’s goals are two-fold. He primarily wants to prove that he’s not the black sheep bozo that his stepdad assumes he is (and he certainly is in actuality). There is a secondary romantic goal of getting with Allison, a coworker at the office, but that is a pretty weak romantic storyline. As for Don, he’s just looking for three simple things: a friend, a nice filly to make baby talking horses with, and all the TaB he can guzzle. The final race provides an answer to all these goals. If they win they get rich (to buy TaB, probably), Fred gets the girl, and Fred wins all of his stepdad’s horses, including the filly of Don’s dreams. How convenient! I guess that’s why they made a documentary about it since it was such a crazy convenient storyline.

Who?! We’ve been on a roll with uncredited appearances (and in a major slump on Planchets) and this film is no different. Appearing unbilled as the voice of Don’s dad is Mickey himself, Burgess Meredith. Pretty big role to go unbilled (three major scenes), but just a voice so maybe didn’t think a terrible talking horse film was worth the billing in the end. I like to imagine he was really good friends with Bobcat Goldthwait and did him a solid.

Where?! California setting. Lots of license plates and California living. Most notably though is the climactic horse race, the El Segundo Stakes, set outside LA. Pushes it from a C+ to a B-.

When?! There is no clear temporal setting for this film. There were a couple glimpses of newspapers and computer screen, but all were prop constructions. No dates to be seen. The only conjecture we can make is on the date of the El Segundo Stakes. There is a race by that name that seems to run in the third week of May, but it is so small that I can’t tell if it even existed in the 80’s or is always run in May. So that’s pretty weak. D+.

Let’s see what Patrick thought of this dog poo. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Hot to Trot? More like Dog Poo In My Face! Or Should I say Horse Poo In My Face!? Amirite? John Candy voices a stock-tip giving, best-bud of a party animal in this hilarious comedy showcasing the one of a kind talents of Bobcat Goldthwait! What could possibly go wrong! Oh yeah, I already told you, it was like dog poo being pushed slow motion into my face, let’s get into it:

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – Some of the performances, like Virginia Madsen, were okay which is only more confusing as to how they got them in this movie in the first place. Besides that literally nothing. But we obviously are going to go Sequel! Here we see mega-billionaire Fred Chaney who, with the help of Don the talking horse, has skyrocketed to the top of the financial world. But Don is concerned after finding some discrepancies in the company’s books … could Fred be stealing from his clients and friends? Paranoid, and afraid, Don seeks out Allison Rowe to help unravel the mystery of Fred Chaney. Is he the man they thought he was, or could he be a crook … even a killer? Hot to Trot 2: Money Never Sleeps. “A tense thriller … although the talking horse deflates it a bit” says the New York Times.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – Where to start? Everything about the talking horse and the lore surrounding it is cheesy and awful and not funny. The direction is bonkers, there are parts which legit look like they filled out the film with stock footage. The writing is awful, bouncing between a kind of weird talking horse financial comedy and a surreal odd couple situation (with a talking horse). It is aimless, and at times boring, aggravating, annoying, and predictable all wrapped up in one. It is legitimately one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. The sin is Greed. And that is only because stupidity isn’t a sin. Why they thought they could just make easy money with this bit of schlock is beyond me.

The BMT: Legacy – Boy oh boy, this film is awe inspiring in how bad it is, a rarity even. This could go down as one of the worst earnest 80s films we’ll ever watch. We’ve probably seen worse actual films (Can’t Stop the Music comes to mind), and I’ve certainly seen other terrible films quality-wise, but this is somehow indicative of the legacy of the 80s. Like Maximum Overdrive it is cocaine distilled, a heady hubris-driven idea of doing whatever you want and expecting it to come up heads every time. It is special, and deserves to be in any conversation about terrible 80s films, especially in a BMT context. It is nearly beyond words … so naturally I wasted a ton of them trying to explain it. This movie is like smoke, ungraspable and ephemeral. Enjoy it while you can.

Boom, and shine that off with a little StreetCreditReport.com! Interestingly Hot to Trot doesn’t get a lot of love as a bad movie. It is the 3rd worst talking animal film ever though, but then gets 23rd on a list concerning all of the 80s. That guy is a random guy from Tampa Bay, but we have seen 5 of his top 10 (Cobra, Rhinestone, Ishtar, Over the Top, and Gymkata) … I’m sticking to my guns, this easily gets into my top 10. Anyways, I think why this doesn’t get more notice is because no one remembers. This list seems to suggest that is plausible. That is what Bad Movie Twins give you though, the unpopular opinions. You heard it here first … Hot to Trot is a bad movie.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

License to Wed Recap

Jamie

Ahhh. Nothing like the relaxing week of a single, simple 80 minute film with bloopies at the end. Really trying to stretch that lack of a story to feature length. Gives us something light to snack on before getting back to the g-g-g-g-garbage. Let’s go!

What?! Sadie and Ben are getting married! But before they can have their dream wedding at Sadie’s childhood church they must go through pre-wedding counseling with Reverend Frank. Can they pass the course and walk the aisle before… uh… it’s too late!? Find out in… License to Wed!

How?! The story focuses around Ben and Sadie who met and fell in love while ordering a delicious coffee from Starbucks. Ben proceeds to pop the question and Sadie says yes. Hooray! They find out that the church that Sadie wants to get married in is booked solid except for a date only three weeks away. Uh oh! Artificial plot constraint alert! This means that they have to plan the wedding and pass a pre-wedding counseling course all in a matter of days. When it turns out that the head of the church, Reverend Frank, is a monster that uses illegal surveillance and mind games to manipulate his victims into incredibly high stress situations, Bed and Sadie’s love are no match and they call off the wedding. Once separated, they both realize that Reverend Frank was right… or something… and that they belong together. Ben jets off to join Sadie at the beautiful and luxurious Sandals resort in Jamaica where they are married by the monster who almost ruined their lives. Gah!… He illegally surveilled you and almost destroyed your relationship! Everyone acts like he’s totally normal and not a crazy person! It’s infuriating.

Why?! Also infuriating. Ben and Sadie simply want to get married and literally nothing stands in their way. There isn’t some other person who wants to get married on the same day. There isn’t some crazy family drama throwing a monkey wrench in the celebration. There isn’t an unexpected ex or second thoughts giving someone cold feet. In fact they breeze through planning a wedding in three weeks as if it’s nothing. The only conflict is the garbageman himself, Frank. He is the conflict. Why? Because he is so dismayed by the divorce rate in the United States that he insists that everyone experience the ultimate levels of stress to see if their relationship can survive it. If they can then they deserve to be married, if they can’t then they don’t. What?! You are bonkers insane, Frank.

Who?! We got double decker uncredited action on this one. Both Bob Balaban and Wanda Sykes make cameo appearances as people who appear normal but, I assure you, they are crazy. It’s impossible to know why they ended up appearing uncredited. Maybe they were doing a favor to the director or a producer. Or maybe they didn’t think it was worth the credit. I certainly wouldn’t have if I appeared in the same scene as Balaban did.

Where?! Chicago, Chicago, Chicago. Everywhere you look there is a Cubs hat or a Northwestern shirt or an establishing shot of the Chicago River. It’s pretty prominent, but not ridiculously so. B.

When?! What’s that sounds? That’s right! An exact date alert! When Ben and Sadie are ordering their wedding rings we get a brief glimpse of the paperwork. Right at the top shines a beautiful “5/17” for the date. Since the proposal and wedding all take place within three weeks we know that May 17th is approximately correct for the entire film. Magnifique. B as it’s exact but not vital to the plot and hard to determine.

If you couldn’t tell I really didn’t like this film. I found it infinitely frustrating. But perhaps it just cut to my core. Perhaps the situations were just too real. I’ll have to ask an objective observer about this. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! License to Wed? More like License Revoked! A true blue NY Post headline! I’ve been informed that my rhyme game has become a little more like a half-rhyme game recently and is wizzzzzeak as shit (his words not mine). I’ll do better though, I promise. Perhaps … I just need to be put under intense pressure and stress for weeks on end until I go crazy, punch Jamie in the face, quit BMT, and am left a wreck picking up the pieces of my shattered life … but what’s that? I learn that BMT is what I need, it is what I love, and from me blossoms the most beautiful full rhymes the world has ever seen! To achieve these dizzying heights I needed to know me and BMT could go through anything together!!! Or maybe that’s bonkers and so are the writers of this movie, let’s go!

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – How can I recover when we’ve already revealed that one of the protagonists of the movie is a raging psychopath? Well if there was one thing that kind of redeems the film it is that if you squint enough you can kind of see the point: If you can make it through the toughest time together you’ll make it through anything. Let’s extend that harsh truth into a “hilarious” sequel. This time following Reverend Frank’s young protege played by Josh Flitter. Now in seminary school the young man, billed curiously as simply Choir Boy in the original (he was like … the fifth biggest character), has started to doubt his path to God. Did Reverend Frank teach him good or evil? If his place in the world is not to commune with the Lord, what is it? A movie that explores a lost soul sinking unyieldingly into a deep spiritual depression. The New York Times called it “a huge downer. Why they would call it License to Wed: Legacy is beyond the entire editorial staff”. Sorry, harsh truths and all, if he can’t get through the toughest times how is he to know his relationship with the Lord is going to last? Gross.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – The acting by the television crew of the Office was spotty at best. This is a one laugh movie, and is otherwise just frustrating. The evil that is Reverend Frank in this film must have come about in a very complex fashion because very early on he plants a bug in Ben and Sadie’s house and from there it is hard to imagine the character recovering. Yeah, they’re going to find it. So how does everyone not immediately see Frank exposed for the garbage monster that he is? Well, a solid 20 minutes of this 80 minute long film relies on Frank’s surveillance of Ben and Sadie so you can’t write it out, so naturally they make Ben break into Frank’s house and make him look like a crazy person as well. This is a trend in this film: it exists in a world where up is down, black is white, and people act like lunacy is normal. It is the only way this film operates, and is rather common in poorly written comedies, and basically comes from sloth, too lazy to actually write normal human beings until the film is a frustrating mess. Weirdly common.

The BMT: Legacy – What I wrote in the previous paragraph is interesting: that MO, the storyline that can’t be extracted as it is somehow (and inexplicably) woven throughout the messy tapestry of a movie, is indeed quite common in bad comedies. This could ultimately be a singular example of such a storyline. That I think could be this film’s legacy for BMT. Otherwise it is bad, but it also isn’t even the worst wedding based film we’ve seen in the last couple of months so ….

And finally a quick StreetCreditReport.com: This film came out in 2007, but doesn’t get a lot of love on the worst of lists. It was number three on the MTV worst of list, and top three on CNN’s list, but otherwise doesn’t even make the top 15 on the AV Club, and is general trounced by Norbit. I think this is ultimately lost to time as it’s not even the third worst comedy of 2007, let alone anything special from an impressive decade light the 00s.

I’ll leave it there. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan Recap

Jamie

Nearing the end of our Friday the 13th journey. Officially past the halfway point and quickly approaching Freddy vs. Jason. We’ll have to confront the philosophical question of why we watched through all of Friday the 13th before that entry, but have made no indication that we will do the same for the Nightmare films. Truly a conundrum. Until then let’s just get into some details.

What?! Jason’s back, Jack! After spending some more time chilling at the bottom of Crystal Lake, Jason is inadvertently resurrected… again. He then promptly boards a cruise ship filled with teenagers headed to the Big Apple. Can they take down Jason before he brings a new problem to New York City? Find out in… Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan!

How?! We open on an eerie night on Crystal Lake where a couple teens are looking to get it on. They drop anchor, hit an underwater electric cable, and Jason is electrocuted back to life (as always… or at least per the last few movies). He kills the teens and commandeers the boat. Inexplicably, He is then able to take this boat out of the lake to the Atlantic Ocean where he boards a NYC cruise populated by the recent graduates of a local high school. Most of the characters in the film are teens looking to party, but our protagonists aren’t really into that scene. Rennie is a girl with a troubled past. She had an encounter with Jason as a kid and has been left traumatized. Sean is the son of the captain of the ship. He’s expected to take over the family business of sea captaining, but he’s just not sure he’s up to it/wants to do it. Oh, and they’re also kinda in love or something. Anyway, everything goes to shit. Everyone dies except Rennie, Sean, and other less important people. They escape via rowboat and make it to NYC only to find that Jason has followed them. Uh oh! A chase ensues, ending in the sewers of NYC where Jason is dissolved in a wave of toxic waste… can’t wait to see how he lived through that!

Why?! We keep having to go over this. Jason kills! It’s his job. He punches in, kills some sex-crazed teens, and punches out. Despite the monotony, he loves it. Perfectly satisfied in his workaday position and not looking for a promotion to upper management. While he would appreciate the raise, he doesn’t want to get too far from the day-to-day killing, you know? For the most part this film is without much motivation for the teens, other than to celebrate their graduation in style. Eventually their motivation is to not be killed. Pretty standard for F13.

Who?! The actor who played Sean has made a bit of a career in country music, but he’s more of an actor-turned-musician than the other way around. I’ll instead highlight our animal friend in this film. Rennie’s dog Toby was portrayed by a dog actor named Ace. Ace doesn’t have a huge number of credits, but he was the dog actor in a Canadian TV Show called The Odyssey which featured Ryan Reynolds (Canadian child actor extraordinaire). Show looks weird. Someday we’ll have an animal actor cycle. The credits are fun.

Where?! A+ setting alert! Obviously a good chunk of this film takes place in Manhattan. Most of it takes place off the coast of New Jersey in the Atlantic Ocean. Either way we are pretty clear on where we are the entire time. A+.

When?! Well at least this time we have an idea of when this takes place. I’ve stated a number of times that the timeline for the series is fucked. There are numerous websites claiming that the year Part VIII takes place is anywhere from 1994 to 2004. Since this deals with a high school graduation we can at least be pretty certain this film takes place at the end of May/beginning of June. C+.

There really isn’t anything like the Friday series. We’ve truly gone through a journey with these films. I daresay 2017 will be remembered in BMT lore as The Year of Jason. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan? More like Friday the 13th Part VIII: Barely In Manhattan, amirite?! A director had a vision: take Jason from quaint Crystal Lake and drop him in the most exciting city in the world! And the producers said “great, but we already built this boat set sooooooooo ….” Let’s get into it!

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – A short rundown of the good in the film. Taking Jason out of his element was a solid idea on paper. Kane Hodder continued to impress as by far the most lively and interesting Jason in the franchise. Decent practical effects here and there. Felt a little bit more like a classic Friday the 13th than the fifth, sixth, or seventh (although that is not necessarily a good thing). As usual I would just kind of remake it as a part of remaking the whole series. I would keep the boat and do all the killing on that instead of ever getting to Manhattan. The close quarters, trapped at sea, nowhere to run. Could very well lead to some tense moments. In the end, a crippled heap of a boat floats into New York harbor, a ghost ship without a trace of Jason to be found. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Cruise Control.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – What didn’t work: The last bit in Manhattan didn’t work at all. There was a whole storyline about a girl being haunted by Jason due to an interaction she had with him as a child that was mainly stupid. Most of the characters are forgettable, so much so that at one point a teacher remarks “hey shouldn’t we go get the others from the restaurant?” to which another character says “there is no restaurant left” … okay, not sure how he knew that, but that is how the unceremoniously dumped a handful of ripe-for-the-killing teens out of this movie. Anywho, the real issue two-fold: the director/writer overreaching and the studio unwilling to yield on costs. The director has a solid idea on paper, but either didn’t have the resources or the ability to translate it to screen. What resulted was what I would consider the second worst Friday film in the first 8 released, which is pretty bad. I think the main culprit here was sloth. The produced-on-a-dime horror film would fall into a slumber, waiting to be awoken years later by Jason Blum.

The BMT: Legacy – I think the legacy of this film, again, is mainly tied to us having watched the entire franchise in a year. I thought it was slightly better than the Rotten Tomatoes score would suggest, so it probably won’t have the legs, but then again, if we were holding, say, a Friday the 13th Bad Movie marathon, it would be pretty easy to pick out 3, 5 and 8 as the worst three of the franchise. Nice distribution there actually, basically get one or two good ones between all of the flops. So it’s got that going for it.

Time for a StreetCreditReport.com! My new favorite game, so fun I think it might actually end up as a permanent member of my recaps. People love to rank the Friday the 13ths (including us!), and this is typically second to last (this guy has #5 as fifth best though so …), or worst, or worst again, and finally number 9. This random blog ranks movies from specific years, and Manhattan gets number 3 for 1989! Two interesting things. One, it is quite common not to rank Freddy vs. Jason because it is apparently much more of a Nightmare on Elm Street film. We just had this debate ourselves and will likely watch Freddy vs. Jason as a part of this mini-challenge. Two, people really really don’t like number seven (The New Blood)! Which is interesting, because we both dug it and have it quite high in our own personal rankings. We’ll probably go through the Friday the 13th rankings again at the end of the run, but until then …

Cheerios,

the Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason is back, Jack! We last saw Undead Jason trapped underwater in Crystal Lake. Lucky for us (not so much for his victims) he is freed from his watery grave by a telekinetic teenager, Tina. Can our Carrie ripoff stop Jason’s reign of terror before it’s too late? Find out in… Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood!

How?! As always we open on a young teen making her way to Crystal lake. This time, though, Tina’s not there to experiment with drugs and risky sexual liaisons. She’s there to confront her darkest secret: as a child she killed her father by inadvertently using her hidden telekinetic powers. These powers only come out in fits of rage and as a result she’s been cloistered up in a psychiatric ward. Now back at the lake, her nerves are frayed and she accidentally raises Jason from the depths of the lake. Oh no! Meanwhile, a bunch of teenagers are partying it up at a cabin celebrating the birthday of one of their friends. Long story short, loads of teens get laid, loads of teens get high, loads of teens drink refreshing ice cold Pepsi, and loads of teens get killed. Classic. Once pretty much everyone is dead, Tina ends up going mano a mano with Jason. She hangs him, blows him up, and ultimately raises her father from the dead (?!) to pull him to the depths of Crystal Lake once more. Phew. It’s probably over and Jason has definitely died for sure and we won’t ever see him again. The end.

Why?! How many times do I have to tell you? Jason kills! It what he does. He escaped death for the sole purpose of taking out a cabin full of teenagers and I love him for it. As for our Carrie doppelganger, she’s gone to Crystal Lake to confront her feelings of guilt over her father’s death. Many years before, he was killed by Tina in a fit of telekinetic rage over his alcohol-fueled abuse. Tina’s psychiatrist pretends to believe this confrontation will help her, but really he wants to get her telekinetic abilities caught on camera. He seems to think being near the lake will enhance them. Everyone else is just there to die… oh, and to get paid and laid, obviously.

Who?! No comic relief or Planchet (which is odd for a Friday the 13th film). Instead I’ll highlight an interesting cameo by Walt Gorney, who voiced the narrator at the beginning of the film. He’s actually the actor who played the “You’re all gonna die!” old man in the first two films (he was killed in Part II). Strange uncredited cameo. Skipped four films.

Where?! Oh you know where. That’s right! Back in Crystal Lake. Glad that starting with Part VI they seem to realize that sticking with what works (Crystal Lake, Jason kills people in weird and wild ways, breasts, etc.) might be the way to go. New Jersey straight up. B.

When?! The movie starts with a flashback to when Tina killed her father and we are treated to a wonderful close-up of a calendar telling us it’s October 13th. Unfortunately the main thrust of the film has no such luck. I couldn’t find a date and no one online seems to know either. Interestingly, most people seem to agree, given evidence from previous entries and the director’s statements, that this film likely takes place somewhere between 1999-2002… which is hilarious. D+.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood?! More like Friday the 13th Part VII: Hey You Blow! Ayyyyyoooooooooo. Jason has gone from a child, to a man in a bag, to an unstoppable maniac, to a zombie. Stick with unstoppable maniac zombie? Maniac zombie it is! Let’s go!

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – The good in this film was that once they made the transition to full blown supernatural (provided the audience is game) they finally allow for a hero to match up with Jason by virtue of her psychic powers. The quality also progressed enough that I was genuinely digging some of the kills and what they did with Jason. If I had my druthers we’d someday see a good v. bad supernatural 80s mega-franchise movie be made. Freddy, Jason, and Michael for sure on the bad team. And I think Tina Shepard is the first Friday the 13th protagonist able to stand against Jason for reals. Do I personally like supernatural slasher films? Not really, but it is hard to stand against Jason who, unlike Freddy or Michael Myers, is built like a tank. Giving a little supernatural edge to the protagonist ended up being kind of fun once they painted themselves in a corner in making Jason a hulking man-beast.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – Hmm. Let me walk through what I thought was bad here. The main supernatural conceit is cheap and the movie kind of has to hop-skip into it with a weird voiceover (and it still doesn’t really make sense … like, did Jason float over to this lady’s childhood cabin over time or what?). Most of the kills are just kind of dumb, reminiscent of the second and third in the franchise. They still have too many characters, at one point I counted up eleven living characters and realized at least nine more people had to die. It is too much. Not very funny, almost bizarrely sincere in its supernatural turn. Modest complaints honestly. … Maybe envy of the success other horror franchises had had with the supernatural up to that point? This came on the heels of Halloween’s own supernatural turn in 1988 and Nightmare on Elm Street had always been rooted in that. Otherwise maybe just gluttony, more kills, more boobs, more drugs, more sex, more 80’s, more bonkers, to the point where it is hard to even figure out why half of the stuff is in the film in the first place! Yeah, I think it is more gluttony there.

The BMT: Legacy – As we roll through this horror franchise I can only think the legacy of this film is merely that it represents a turn in horror that lead it down to sad path to things like Leprechaun (no offense, I just mean self-awareness to the detriment of the spooky tense slashers of the late-70s and early-80s). But Halloween 4, 5 and 6 will eventually provide BMT with that as well (and in a far worse manner, spoiler alert). This represents something for BMT in general in that this endeavor to watch the entire franchise in a year will definitely lead to more such “mini-challenges” as we’ve dubbed them. And that will eventually control the cycles we choose within a year a lot more closely and will affect at least some of the analyses we do concerning our bad films in general. It is exciting, but the actual legacy of the film I think will be minor.

Huh, I think once I wrote everything down I’ve come to the conclusion this film is better than the critics give it credit for, even if I do think it is a let down from the sixth installment which is surprisingly solid. At least I personally think so. The StreetCreditReport.com is pretty minor. I’ve only ever heard of this installment as the more supernatural one (which could be good or bad). Looking online it gets a mention as having one of the best and one of the worst (the sleeping bag kill, which is also rather famous) kills of the franchise. Otherwise the only major thing I could find was about how they changed the ending to please queasy audience members. For the record I too think the father should have been a rotting corpse at the end.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Redline Recap

Jamie

I realized recently that I was touching on a lot of our obsessions with the 6W’s (MacGuffins, plot twists, settings, cameos, and Planchets), but I had missed one: product placement. Should probably have ended up as the What?! but instead I think I’ll just sprinkle the product placements throughout the email wherever appropriate. Seems like the right thing to do.

What?! Natasha and Carlo find themselves inadvertently embroiled in the dangerous world of underground street racing. When Carlo’s brother is killed and Natasha captured by one of these racing hot shots, Carlo is out for revenge. Can he take the syndicate down, quench his thirst with some sweet Dasani Water, and rescue Natasha before it’s too late? Find out in… Redline!

Why?! Natasha just wants to further her music career. Carlo is just there to watch out for his little brother. However, all this goes out the window when Carlo’s brother succumbs to the overwhelming pressure to win and is killed attempting a risky racing maneuver. The story immediately turns to vengeance as Carlo goes after those responsible. Unlike the other racing bosses (who are fueled only by crippling gambling addictions), our main antagonist is fueled by a combination of lust for Natasha, fear that he’ll be killed over his gambling debts, and his own psychotic tendencies.

How?! Carlo has a simple backstory as he has just returned from the army as a war hero to find his younger brother is racing for an evil gangster. The backstory for Natasha, however, is much denser. She is the daughter of a famous racecar driver killed in a tragic accident. While she herself possesses great talent in the sport, she can’t race as a result of the trauma of that loss. Instead she aspires to be a singer. When an underground racing fat cat sees her talent he tricks and bribes her into racing for him, only to turn around and bet her as stakes in the race against his evil rival. The stories converge when Carlo’s brother and Natasha race each other, Carlo’s brother is killed, and Natasha is taken captive. Carlo wants to kill the evil gangster, but ends up rescuing Natasha instead. When Natasha is subsequently blackmailed into racing they put together a dastardly plan to throw the race and get the gangster killed. Everyone lives happily ever after with huge record contracts, dope sportscars, and all the Dasani they can drink. Hooray!

Who?! Claims abound online that Wyclef Jean scored the film and appeared in a cameo. I don’t remember him showing up but it is credited (or more accurately uncredited) on IMDb. No music credit, though, just a “Thanks.” I did notice that the scumbag of a producer cameoed as a poker player who immediately loses all his money. A little foreshadowing.

Where?! Right off the bat we are treated to a rad street race from LA to Las Vegas, highlighting the two major settings for this film. I would give the main setting title to LA, but Vegas is not far behind. B

When?! I scoured the film twice over trying to find an exact date. There were two potential leads (a close-up of a loan contract and an issue of variety) but the quality of the video and focus of the shot wasn’t good enough to make it out. Maybe someday I’ll figure it out… maybe someday [Jamie says wistfully. A tear trickles down his cheek and tumbles playfully to his well-oiled six-pack abs]. F

Woooooo. Getting those details is like a rad racecar race at 200mph. Exhilarating. My overall impression of the film is that it’s similar to what Patrick and I might end up creating if we were ever tasked with creating a bad film. Everything is horrible, only entertaining from the viewpoint of its horribleness, and a product of extreme hubris. Most people would think it’s just boring and bad… exactly how we meant it to be. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Redline? More like Bad Sign! Amirite? So a predatory lender loves fast cars. But like … in a I-like-to-show-off-my-fast-cars-I-bought-with-my-gross-predatory-lending-profits kind of way. He also likes to show off his girlfriend, a former soap opera star trying to make it big in the industry. Presto! Making a movie is like saying your ABC’s: Action, Boobs, and Cars. What could go wrong!

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – Cars (maybe, I’m not exactly sure what people who like cars like exactly since I don’t really like cars), but that is about it. I’ll leave all of the things that did go wrong for the next section, but an interesting aspect of this film was how much of a history they managed to give everyone. Right at the end a random guy who we had not seen before pops up and the main character is like “he’s the man who killed my father” WHAT?! So obviously we are doing a prequel called Redline: Warzone. The film finds Carlo and Jason working with their father running a successful race team in NSCRA alongside and against Natasha’s father. Ultimately the movie tells the story of Michael, who is running an illegal gambling syndicate surrounding the sport, fixing the race in which Natasha’s father dies. When Jason’s father threatens to expose Michael, Michael has him killed, but staged to look like a suicide. This is all set alongside the run up to the Iraq war, and Carlo leaves for Baghdad, but not before telling Michael to stay away from Jason. Oh … if only Michael would have listened. We finally get the backstory we were all dying for!

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sklogs) – Well this is easy: Pride. On the part of the producer who was clearly a lunatic. Now that that is out of the way: The acting in this film is an atrocity, it is so bad you can only kind of notice that the crazy producer put himself in the movie and gave himself like seven lines (I only noticed it because he doesn’t at all look like an actor). The writing is ridiculous. At one point the rap producer Infamous lands his plane on a highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas … the FAA would like to have a word with you, and the phrase “prison time” was mentioned emphatically. This is the first film in a while where I can call the direction bonkers. A lot of weird transition choices, weird CGI, the cars all look like they are travelling half speed in most shots. So yeah … Basically this is borderline barely-a-movie and it is ridiculous that it exists.

The BMT: Legacy – The legacy of this film is it is somehow quintessentially The Golden Age of Bad Movies. The Golden Age s roughly the Noughties (2000-2010), and I now think this has to do with two factors. First, CGI had made the transition to being very cheap and easy to get. Productions which might have been too expensive to make previously could now safely be greenlit with a manageable special effects budget, meaning more options (in more genres) available to producers. And second, there was a ton of money floating around due to the artificially inflated economy. This isn’t even mentioning the writer’s strike in 2007/2008! Anyways, this movie perfectly encapsulates this era: a producer with a ton of fake money to throw at terrible CGI ultimately making a vanity project that is just trash. Great stuff. That is it’s BMT legacy.

Now as for its StreetCreditReport.com? It … is borderline. It makes its way onto MTV’s worst of list of 2007 (barely), but other than that it typically get nary a whisper from things like the AV Club list I linked to for Epic Movie. From there it just kind of ends up as either first or second on blogs concerning car movies in particular. No Razzie cred … it is kind of a forgotten film. But I think a big part of its cred is in that car racing genre in particular. On occasion a film like 200 M.P.H. which was Direct-to-Video and made by the Asylum sneaks in above it, but this is basically a unanimous worst car racing film ever. That counts for something!

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Epic Movie Recap

Jamie

What?! Four down-on-their-luck orphans are taken in by a horrifying Willy Wonka-like monster and escape into the magical world of Gnarnia. There they find a world ruled by the evil White Bitch. Can they take her down and restore freedom to Gnarnia? Find out in… Epic Movie.

Why?! In the beginning the motivation is to escape the evil Willy who wants to maim and disfigure them for the benefit of his delicious candy (true story). Once they escape to Gnarnia through a wardrobe it becomes a direct parody of the Narnia story. So the motivations are pretty much the same as in that film: take down the White Bitch because of destiny or whatever. The White Bitch is just a power-hungry… well… bitch, I guess. Their words, not mine.

How?! I entered this film presuming that we would have a disjointed mess. Instead once the orphans enter Gnarnia the plot just marches through the plot of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe with nary a laugh. Just as in that film, Edward is the only orphan to waiver in the quest to destroy the White Bitch. Instead he mostly wants to bone her and drink the sweet, sweet malt liquor that she can make appear by magic. He ends up imprisoned by her, while the rest of the orphans set off with Harry Beaver (actual name of a character) to the camp of Aslo, a half-man/half-lion warrior. He helps them free Edward, only to be killed in the process, leaving the orphans in charge to do battle with the White Bitch. They then decide to throw a big pre-battle rager where Susan pukes all over everyone for like five minutes. This disgusts their fellow warriors to the point where no one shows up the next day to fight the White Bitch. Obviously on the verge of a major defeat Peter fortunately finds a magic remote control (a la Click) and pauses time, allowing the orphans to kill everyone. They rule over Gnarnia for years, only to stumble on the wardrobe in their old age. Returning to Willy’s house of terror they seem quite happy to be young again, only to be randomly crushed by a giant wheel. The end. Yeesh.

Who?! No Planchet and all the cameos are fake. Kevin Hart has a significant role as an albino monk but decided to go uncredited. Obviously this was so he didn’t sully his good name with this garbage. The only other note is that the band that plays at the pre-battle rager is The Eagles of Death Metal.

Where?! Gnarnia for the most part. Weirdly during the MTV Cribs spoof the location of Mr. Tumnus’s house is given as Gnarnia Hills, California… taking this at face value we can say this is set primarily in California. It doesn’t make me feel good though. C+

When?! Time is irrelevant in this film. In fact all things are irrelevant. Nothing matters. God is dead. F

I found this film to both be better and worse than I expected. As I told Patrick it’s like aliens came to Earth and created a film. They showed it to us and asked, “Good? Laugh?” We were both amazed that they made something that felt like an actual movie at times, but also found the movie terribly sad in how awful it was. How did the poor aliens think this was what we wanted? Where did humanity go so wrong to give them that perception?… sigh… Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Epic Movie? More like Epically Bad! Amirite. That’s a New York Post headline! There was once a time where we indicated we would never watch Friedberg and Seltzer garbage. But when their movies are just about 3 of the top 5 worst movies by BMeTric it starts to become unavoidable. And what an opportunity to earn some well deserved street cred! Let’s go!

The Good (Prequel, Sequel, Remake) – The only bright spot in the film was the cast. There are cameos from some serious comedy heavy hitters (Crispin Glover, Darrell Hammond, Fred Willard to name a few). On top of that the sets and effects are, on occasion, rather impressive. And that’s the rub. I would say Sequel is the guy, Epic Movie 2 could pretty much just play as a spoof of the Marvel/DC cinematic universes, but … the budget just wouldn’t be there. Something like Fifty Shades of Black made $10 million … that ain’t cutting it.

The Bad (Seven Deadly Sins) – This is a zero laugh movie. It might as well have been called Curse-words-and-reaction-shots, because half of the jokes are people cursing and other people looking shocked. On occasion the effects are pretty good … mostly the effects are bad. And the acting is horrible, but what did I expect? The sin isn’t Sloth, a lot of effort was put into this film even if the soundtrack is just a best of the early 2000s track and they default to musical montage at the drop of a hat. Perhaps Envy? Looking wistfully back to the heyday of spoofs lead our intrepid filmmakers to ruin I think. Maybe a bit of that, but ultimately it is their misguided belief that they had the ability to continue a genre that can only be very very good or very very bad. Pride.

The BMT: Legacy – This is the number one BMeTric film of all time. It is dire to watch. It becomes almost confusing as to how such a movie was ever popular. We haven’t seen Date Movie or Disaster Movie but I think Epic movie will ultimately be the one I would be most likely to kick off a BMT Movie Marathon with because the cast is by far the most impressive in this one. There is a legacy, but a legacy with regard to the BMeTric. This movie is #46 as far as IMDb rating is concerned. It isn’t even on the 0% on Rotten Tomatoes list because it is at 2%. But combining popularity and poorly rated creates a mixture that suggests this is the worst film ever (in some hazy way), and ultimately that is what it represents, the BMT formula.

Quick check in from StreetCreditReport.com where we ponder the larger bad movie landscape … and yeah this is a doozy. Friedberg and Seltzer went from being involved with an incredibly popular spoof franchise of the 2000s and beyond (Scary Movie) to overnight being described in such glowing terms as: “Friedberg and Seltzer…are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization’s decline…” from Josh Levine of Slate. It was number 2 (behind BMT HoF Norbit) worst film of the year according to the A.V. Club. It is too bad it can’t really claim Worst of the Year honors, Norbit pretty much swept that wherever I looked. But it has the cred.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs