Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.

It took them seven movies to realize that Jason killing people in the woods was totally stale.  So they brought in writer-director Rob Hedden, who had written a few episodes of “MacGyver” and afterwards went on to direct some episodes of “The Commish”.  So yeah.  The film starts off in the complete opposite direction of any of the other films, with some dude narrating about New York City, claustrophobia, and all to the swinging sounds of really shitty music from the late eighties.  This is gonna be one nutty ride.  Kane Hodder reprises his role as Jason, which is TEH AWESOME.

[...]

[Teenage couple gets naked on a yacht in Crystal Lake.]

Starkwell: Umm… how would they get that yacht get on Crystal Lake?

Lovelock: I’m still trying to figure out which of those two kids is the girl and which is the boy.

Starkwell: It was a different time.

Lovelock: I was pretty sure I had it figured out, but they just showed his bottom half and I swear he’s wearing granny panties.

[...]

Anyways, Jason climbs on board and kills them, so discussing the androgynous nature of teenage boys’ style in the late eighties has become somewhat pointless.  Now the film cuts to a big boat that is apparently New York City bound, and full of high school kids.  I’m guessing it’s like a field trip.

[...]

[Cruise ship sets sail for NYC.]

Starkwell: The geography of this film is insane.

[Jason climbs on board.]

Starkwell: Wait… how… ???

Lovelock: Don’t ask questions if you know there aren’t any answers.

[...]

Jason killed this super lame “rocker” chick with her pink flying V guitar and it blew Lovelock’s mind.

[...]

Starkwell: I thought Jason was supposed to take Manhattan… not SHITTY BOOZE CRUISE FULL OF TEENAGERS.

[...]

Then the Prom Queen pushes the main character girl off of the ship “for fun”.  And Starkwell lost his mind.  He was even further confused by the main character’s hallucinations.  In any case, both agreed that Prom Queen couldn’t get dead soon enough.

[...]

[Prom Queen gets dead.]

Lovelock: Hooray!

Starkwell: These movies tend not to keep anyone around for very long.

Lovelock: Sounds about right.

Starkwell: These movies tend not to keep my interest around for very long.

Lovelock: Sounds about right.

[...]

Jason racks up the kills.  In a matter of minutes, the body count is climbing high.  Still, somehow, the pair look bored.  We’re halfway into this thing, and we are no closer to Manhattan, which makes the film’s intro even more out of place than it already was.  Like the previous film, Starkwell feels that introducing characters for five minutes with the sole purpose of having them die is a little bit excessive.  Lovelock responded with a jump kick exclaiming “EIGHTIES EXCESS TO THE MAX!!!”

[...]

[Film Nerd is thrown onto some kind of control thing and he explodes.]

Lovelock: Guitar Kill is number one, but that’s a close number two.

Starkwell: This movie is DEFINITELY one big number two.

[...]

Anyways, about twenty kills and three or four nonsense hallucinations later, the surviving members of the field trip end up on a row boat, in a storm and row themselves to Ellis Island.  Really.

[...]

Starkwell: Of course the dog survives.

Lovelock: Oh snap, time for Jason to take Manhattan.

[Then the gang gets mugged and Jason kills the two thugs right before they manage to rape Main Character.]

Starkwell: Jason’s a hero!

Lovelock: He’s just a misunderstood vigilante.  Like Batman.

Starkwell: Yeah, he’s just like Batman.

[...]

Then Lovelock and Starkwell laughed for ten minutes at a rooftop fist fight between Jason and one of the teenagers.  Then Jason punched the kid’s head clean off and it flew off the roof and Lovelock laughed so hard he passed out.  Starkwell shot green tea out of his nose.  Then the rest of the gang got in a cop car and main girl drove it into a wall and exploded her teacher.  Eventually Jason drowns the Uncle guy in a garbage can full of green slime and the movie just gets even more dumb as Jason follows the two survivors across the city.  Both Starkwell and Lovelock agreed that Jason definitely did not take Manhattan, nor was this film any good.

[...]

Starkwell: I love the idea that in New York City, no one even gives a second look to a huge slimy decomposing dude walking around wearing a jump suit and a hockey mask.

Lovelock: Also, why would Jason even be chasing them?  Look around dude, there are so many more people you could be killing!

[...]

In the end, Jason is melted in a sewer which is, for some reason, flushed with toxic waste every night. And then lightning strikes the Statue of Liberty.  And then Jason turns back into a little kid.  And then the dog finds them.  Fuck you, film.

Remains.

This movie appears to be as cookie cutter as can be.  Survivors of a zombie apocalypse hunker down in a CASINO!  One thing it has going for it is cast member Miko Hughes, who years ago, played a creepy ass zombie kid, as well as the kid in Arnold Schwartzinneggergegrge’s Kindergarten class that talks about boys having a penis, and girls, subsequently, having a vagina.  A fine moment in anyone’s career I’m sure.  Alright, here we go again.

[...]

[A lengthy introduction of Reno and a bunch of characters.]

Starkwell: Wait… is Miko a magician?

Lovelock: Lame.

[...]

While we continue to meet the characters, the TVs in the background talk about some kind of scientific breakthrough that will bring peace to the world.  It’s some kind of “nuke oven” that will destroy all nuclear weapons somehow?  All I know is that it looks like two huge tits.  Obviously something goes wrong and creates zombies.   Some of the characters were doing the sex in the safe, or the freezer, or whatever, so they did not get infected.

[...]

Starkwell: TERRIBLE zombie acting.

Lovelock: Not to mention that that ‘old lady’ is clearly a dude in his thirties wearing an old lady wig.

Starkwell: Bad acting, lame characters, running zombies AND a fairly unoriginal story?  Wow.  It really has it all.

[...]

Starkwell is having a lot of trouble with this one already.  For starters, the characters don’t even seem all that shocked by what is going on.  There is no explanation as to why some people turned and others did not, some zombies run and act rabid, others shuffle around slowly, some have ‘white’ eyes, others just look normal, some are decomposed, others not… yuck.  Anyways, the small group of characters split up and work on securing the casino.

[...]

[Apparently a lot of time is going by.  But they're all dressed the same.]

Starkwell: Do they ever change, or shower or…?

Lovelock: Where are they finding all the hair gel for Miko’s hair?  It looks painted on.

Starkwell: Why does the girl have to smoke?  So fucking ugly.

Lovelock: Also, she must have an endless supply of makeup stashed somewhere in the casino.

Starkwell: Some people store cans in a bomb shelter.  I guess maybe they would do hair mousse and foundation. 

[...]

For a while, Starkwell and Lovelock were quiet.  It’s not an unbearable film, but it also doesn’t really do anything new or anything at all really...  Starkwell and Lovelock actually played a game of Scrabble while ‘watching’.  Not exactly a glowing review.  They did make many jokes about how inconsistent the zombies’ behaviour is.  Eventually some military types show up and complicate things with guns and shit.  But then they all end up back in the casino anyways.  Then they go around ‘cleaning’ the place up.  Again.  But this time with guns.  Eventually most of them die, and apparently the girl is some kind of smart super zombie that knows how to use a gun.  The end.  BARRRRRrrrrrFFF...

Cape Canaveral Monsters.

There ain’t a whole lot out there about this movie.  What I have read about it, leads me to believe that I shouldn’t expect much.

[...]

[Couple hangs out on the beach, lights flash on a rock.]

Lovelock: Were those lights supposed to be something?

Starkwell: The music leads me to believe that 'yes'…

[Two lights flash in front of their windshield as they drive away, they crash… into… nothing?]

Starkwell: How did the guy’s arm end up in the back seat?

Lovelock: I’m still trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

[The music is completely insane and loud.  Credits play.]

Lovelock: So… were they possessed by those lights?

Starkwell: I guess.  Holy Hell, this music needs to stop.  My head already hurts so much.

[...]

We see laboratory shots, rockets flying, plenty of Cape Canaveral stock footage, and shots of people looking surprised.  Then the rocket blows up.

[...]

Lovelock: I love that they put huge glasses on an actress and assumed that would be enough to make her look like a scientist.

Starkwell: She looks more like a scientist than that old guy.  He looks like a homeless man.

[...]

This movie is incredibly hard to follow, partly because it is incoherent and makes no sense, and partly because the director chooses to occasionally use camera angles that I assume are supposed to be “FIRST PERSON VIEW”, but really do little more than give the audience motion sickness.  Lovelock imagined what this would have looked like in a movie theater, and then he puked.  Starkwell wondered if this camera trick was ahead of its time.  Then he puked for inadvertently complimenting the film.   

[...]

[We see the possessed zombie alien people, being chased by dogs, and they pull his arm (back) off.]

Starkwell: If they have the technology to travel across the universe, and inhabit the bodies of other lifeforces… you’d think they’d be able to do a better job sewing an arm back on.

[The aliens decide they need a new arm, so they need to find a living arm to replace his stump with.]

Starkwell: Why wouldn’t he just possess a new body entirely?  Why would keep the broken torn apart one?

[Lovelock had nothing to say, because after he vomited, he fell asleep.]

[...]

Apparently the aliens are there to prevent humans from figuring out how to space travel.  At one point the alien woman said “PERFECTLY CLEAR” and looked directly at the camera.  Starkwell laughed out loud so hard it woke Lovelock up from his slumber.  The missile explosions are actually pretty impressive, considering how shitty balls the rest of the film is.

[...]

Lovelock: Seriously, why did they bother have him lose an arm?  It would be one thing if the actor only HAD one arm, so they wrote it into the story, but instead, we get a lame ass dude with an arm tucked into his pants.

[...]

Rather than focus on their mission, or how they will prevent man from traveling through space, the aliens spend the bulk of their time finding healthy specimens to farm body parts from.  It’s all much lamer and more boring than it sounds.  I think the aliens teleport two humans to their planet, for their hometeam scientists to examine.  Did I mention that there’s a bad actor playing a hillbilly who waves around a shotgun wearing full body onezee pyjamas?

[...]

Lovelock: Detectives ALWAYS have mustaches in these old movies.

[...]

Eventually, and thankfully, the film ends.

[...]

Lovelock: They were just trying to get home.  Like E.T.

Starkwell: No.  No they weren’t.

Lovelock: Weren’t they?  Geez… maybe they weren’t.  What the heck was this movie?

Starkwell: Bad.

[...]

After all is said and done, the humans blow up the cave where the aliens had their lab, the cops drive away and then you hear screaming and a crash and we see the lights again.  Do I smell a sequel?  No.  Not ever.  Thankfully.

[REC]3.

The third part of the series of "[REC]" films has been met with a great deal of hostility.  It was given a fair amount of thumbs downs from critics and fans alike.  It's more straightforward, and even drops the handheld first person view at some point.  I know from what I’ve read that it tries for a more “comedy” direction.  As the film starts, this is apparent, since it plays as if we have just put in a wedding video.

[...]

[‘View Photos’ is selected on the Wedding Video menu, and we are treated to a slideshow.]

Starkwell: Kinda funny I guess.

Lovelock: This is why wedding videos are dumb.

[...]

After a few minutes it cuts and switches to someone filming first person view outside the church, before the wedding.  Anyways, the first one started similarly and did not take long to get going.  Since this is apparently happening simultaneously with the first film, I imagine it’s going to explode in action soon, especially given the film’s wimpy 80 minute runtime.  It is kind of a smart idea to have a found footage film set at a wedding, given most weddings have videographers.

[...]

[Wedding Ceremony.]

Lovelock: BORING.

Starkwell: They’re establishing characters, dude.

Lovelock: If I wanted to watch a boring ceremony, I’d have watched the Royal Wedding.

Starkwell: If you’re going to make cultural references, try and be a bit more current.

Lovelock: BORING.

Starkwell: Last year called, it wants its pop culture reference back.

[...]

[Closeup on an old man with a mysterious bandaged wound on his hand.]

Lovelock: Ok.  Alright. Here we go.  This is good.

Starkwell: I told you it wouldn’t take long.

Lovelock: BORING.

[...]

We start seeing the wedding reception and it is GIGANTIC.  I imagine shooting this film must have been fun, since so far it just looks like they candidly shot a bunch of actors having a party.  They keep hinting at the fact that the bride is pregnant.  But she hasn’t had a chance to tell the groom yet.  We’re almost a quarter of the way through the run time, and all we’ve really seen so far is wedding footage.

[...]

[Hand Wound Guy vomits outside.  Camera man sees dudes in HASMAT gear.]

Starkwell: Why isn’t anyone concerned that there are about seven or eight dudes outside who look like they’re hunting E.T.?

Lovelock: Alcohol?

[...]

[Uncle Hand Wound jumps off of the balcony down to the dance floor and starts eating his wife.  Zombies start jumping out from everywhere and eating people.]

Starkwell: Well, you wanted it to get going…

Lovelock: Even I feel that’s a bit much.

[TITLE SHOT … CREEPY MUSIC … IT IS NO LONGER 1^ST PERSON VIEW]

Starkwell: Wait, if this is the movie what was all of that before?

Lovelock: A wedding video.  Idiot.

[...]

The movies presses forward at a fast pace. It’s pretty cookie cutter stuff at this point… which is too bad since the series had started off with such a nice and fresh take on the whole zombie thing (I mean, the first film was looked at as a new achievement in ZOMBIE). Now it kind of feels like one of its own mockbusters.  We’ve already seen a topless zombie and a fat person zombie.  They’re really hitting all of the clichés.

[...]

Starkwell: Mostly predictable, but competently done, well written, and well acted, at least.

Lovelock: Plus I’m having fun!

[...]

It’s picking up again in the story department.  A chunk of characters (including Groom) are now bunkered down in the church.  The zombies seem to be afraid of the church, which makes sense, since we know from the second film that they are all demonically possessed.  At least they haven’t gone and changed everything.

[...]

[The bride, who is hauled up somewhere else with the priest gets a speech about how this is GENESIS.]

Lovelock: Yeah, Mr. Priest, this is a prog rock band from the 70s… pfff…

Starkwell: I don’t think that’s what he meant.

Lovelock: Sega?

Starkwell: GROAN.

[...]

Starkwell: The bride’s makeup still looks perfect.  What the fuck?

[...]

There was one crazy shot where multiple zombies stood in front of a mirror and their reflection showed what they were… NAKED OLD decrepit DEMON things!  Starkwell and Lovelock both gasped and I’m pretty sure Lovelock farted nervously.  Lots of shit is happening, and at some point, some of the characters started fighting with armour and ancient weapons they picked up around the old church.

[...]

[Groom kills zombie with a huge fucking mace.]

Lovelock: Might be the most metal zombie kill we’ve ever seen.

Starkwell: That’s a pretty big category man.  Hard to remember them all.

Lovelock: I’ll certainly remember that one.

[...]

Lovelock: AT least they got good weather…

[It starts pouring.]

Lovelock: THAT’S IT.  The day is ruined.

Starkwell: Yeah, the rain did it.

Lovelock: I feel like I should have been found a way to squeeze a Billy Idol reference in here somewhere.

Starkwell: It’s probably for the best.

[...]

[The Bride, armed with a chainsaw and a recently ‘made-more-sexy-with-a-slit-down-the-side’ wedding dress, goes in to find her Groom, with the Best Man at her side.]

Starkwell: In case you’re bored, have some eye candy!

Lovelock: I’m not.  But thanks. 

[...]

There are some good kills, and enough gore to go around.  And it all looks pretty good.  Eventually they are reunited and make it out alive, thanks to the priest who performs some sort of mass exorcism over the speakers.  Hooray! 

[...]

[Somewhere out on the grass, Bride is bitten, Groom chops off her arm to attempt to stop the possession.]

Lovelock: “Hey I wonder, would that work?”

Starkwell: “Get Shorty”?

Lovelock: Bingo.

[She still turns.]

Lovelock: Guess not.

[Groom picks up Bride and carries her out, and they get blown to smithereens by HASMAT SWAT Team.]

Lovelock: If they had done that to Elliot and E.T. in "E.T.", it might have been a better film.

Starkwell: You’re an idiot.

[...]

Other than complaining for a little while about how she managed to stay conscious, upright and walking after having her arm chopped off with a dull sword, Starkwell and Lovelock seemed pleased.  Is it as good as the first two?  Resounding no.  Is it better than a million percent of the shit coming out in this, the most saturated of sub-genres?  Absolutely it is.  That’s maybe not a glowing review, but it’s still mighty positive, if you’re a glass half full kind of a dude.  In any case, Starkwell and Lovelock are screaming for the fourth and final film.

The Land of College Prophets.

If you’ve never heard of this movie, don’t be surprised, neither had I, and then I saw it staring at me for ninety-nine cents at a local used bookstore.  And I HAD TO HAVE IT!  I don’t know what to expect, and certainly don’t know what to tell Lovelock and Starkwell.  I put the DVD in, and the film starts right away.  The narrator says some gibberish and a couple of dudes drop dead in a forest.  Then, music that would feel at home in a dramatic porno plays, as each of the characters are introduced… on screen… like it’s a video game.  Their names are things like “Bells”, “Sunshine Sal”, “Professor Holiday”, “Midas”… I wish I was making this up.  They all have costumes.  It seriously looks like a bad video game intro, except, live action.  Apparently they’re called the “College Prophets”.

[...]

Starkwell: …

Lovelock: …

[...]

Alright.  I can’t describe what’s going on.  No, I really can’t.  The narrator is talking non stop and they introduce like a hundred characters, and reference old stories as if we, the audience, should know what in the fuck they are talking about.  And all of these costumed characters go to Community College together and take the same classes.  The director randomly flashes poetry and ‘quotes’ on the screen, and shows flashback sequences to Sunshine Sal’s epic battles (?).  If ever there was a film that you could say perfectly embodies the notion of the trainwreck (don’t want to watch, but can’t look away) then “The Land of College Prophets” is it.  Starkwell and Lovelock were silently horrified for the next hour and a half.  It felt like an eternity.

[...]

Lovelock: If you took all the directors of local mattress store commercials, and all of the writers behind used car dealership commercial jingles, and trapped them in a room with blockbuster movies from the mid-nineties and a nerdy teenage boy who watches a lot of Pro Wrestling, and told them all to write a script in a day, I think you’d end up with this script.

Starkwell: To end up with this movie, you’d have to then give that script to a local porn production company and tell them to them make it with all of their usual actors, but tell them NO SEX.

[...]

The movie involves the “Well That Eats Children” that makes people go crazy and kill people… I think.  In a way, the film makers should be very proud of this.  In another more accurate way, they shouldn’t.  The end.  There were pink ninjas in a fake newscast, at one point!

Night of the Seagulls.

At last, I will present the final film in the “Blind Dead” series… Considering that they seem to have gotten progressively worse since the first film, Lovelock and Starkwell have lowered their expectations considerably.  This might help De Ossorio in turning this bitch around, in their eyes.

[...]

[A man and woman in a carriage, lost on the road, stop to check out a spooky house.]

Starkwell:  Why would you wear a veil and long sleeves if the chest area on the dress is so low that it shows nip?

Lovelock: Easier access for the Blind Dead Templars?

[Templars show up, kill the dude, bring the girl back to sacrifice her, but first they rip her dress open and expose her boobs.]

Starkwell: How did you know that was coming?

Lovelock: Have you not been watching the other three of these with me?

[Templars tear out her heart and eat her.]

Starkwell: I never understand why the flesh eaters in these movies always start with the breasts.

Lovelock: Because Eurotrash.

Starkwell: I guess.

Lovelock: Because the breasts are the most tenderest.

[...]

So it cuts back to present day, and essentially a doctor and his wife are moving to the town where the titty eating went on way back in them Dark Ages.  The locals don’t seem to like Doctor and Wife very much.  Doctor and Wife don’t seem to care much for the locals either.  Anyways, at this point, Lovelock and Starkwell are just waiting for things to go all ancient evil, and the Blind Templars to come back FOR BLOOD!

[...]

[Bells toll, Blind Dead rise.]

Lovelock: IT  TOLLS FOR THEE, BITCHES!

Starkwell: Alright, settle down.

Lovelock: They’re here!  They’re here!

[...]

Lovelock proceeded to dance for the next ten or so minutes, excited that the Blind Dead have returned.  They look as creepy as always.  Then the Doctor and Wife see the townsfolk gathering near the beach all dressed in black robes, chanting and bringing a girl all dressed in white… I assume for sacrifice.  I mean, they even tie her up to a rock.  It's all very metal.   The music too.

[...]

Starkwell: So… The good doctor sees that and just thinks “don’t worry honey, it must be some kind of local custom… villages are weird”?

[Templars show up on horses, murder the girl.]

Lovelock: Hooray!  Sacrifices, blind dead and DAY-FOR-NIGHT shots!  All is well in Lovelockland!

[...]

Then some girl shows up at the house, screaming, saying that she doesn’t want to go!  People THEN show up to pick her up and, the doctor gives her a sedative and lets her go with them.  She gets tied up at the beach.

[...]

Starkwell: “Here take this shot and feel better and now… yup, just go with the creepy people dressed in black robes… I’m sure they know what’s best for you.”

[Templars untie the girl.]

Lovelock: Wait… why are they untying her?  Are they letting her go?

[The Blind Dead bring her back to their layer, immediately tear open her dress and expose her breasts.]

Lovelock: Makes sense now.

Starkwell: I’m starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, the director is going out of his way to show some'a 'dem boobies.

[...]

Why in the Hell is this called “Night of the Seagulls”?

[...]

[Village Idiot helps the Doctor and Wife get to the bottom of this whole ‘beach ritual’ thing.]

Lovelock: No dude!  First rule of Fight Club!

Starkwell: The first rule of “Night of the Seagulls” is apparently to be boring as balls.

[Villagers throw Village Idiot on a pile of rocks, leave him for dead.]

Lovelock: He done broke the rules.

Starkwell: “Night of the Seagulls” is fully following the first rule of “Night of the Seagulls”.

[...]

It appears that right before the Blind Dead appear to grab their offering from the beach, a flock of seagulls is always seen.

[...]

Lovelock: This movie makes me want to run.  Run so far away.

Starkwell: I'll allow it.

[...]

Starkwell: Why do they bother clothing the Sacrifice Girls?  You’d think they would know all about the Blind Dead’s breast obsession by now.

Lovelock: "Come with us young lady. Leave your clothes.  You won't need them where you're going."

[...]

Village Idiot tells them that the seagulls are the damned spirits of the dead sacrificed girls.  The Doctor decides he wants to help tonight’s intended sacrifice.  He runs out onto the beach, frees the girl and they run away with the Blind Dead hot on their heels.  Well… maybe not hot.  More like tepid.  They actually lose them super easily.

[...]

[Blind Dead EVENTUALLY show up at their house and start bashing down the door… they start barricading the door.]

Starkwell: Why did they wait until the Templars showed up to start barricading the door?

[...]

True to form, the Blind Dead are the slowest killers in the history of film.  They actually seem even slower than usual in this one.  Maybe it’s just the film's boring nature that is making it seem slower.

[...]

Lovelock: The good news is, the Blind Dead still look great, and the music still rules.  The bad news is, EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS MOVIE BLOWS.

[...]

As if the film doesn’t move slow enough, a lot of this is shown in slow motion.  Anyways, the Doctor and Wife and Girl try to escape, they eventually destroy some kind of monkey idol in the Blind Dead’s castle and they all start falling down and shooting blood from their eye sockets, which is kind of an anti-climactic and lame way to end such a wonderful group of characters.  This film proved that the fourth film was indeed the third film in the series that quite honestly should not have been made.

Black Swarm.

A ‘made-for-tv’ movie starring Robert Englund?  What could go wrong?  Answer: a lot.  The director’s last name is ‘Winning’, which is ironic since I feel that Starkwell and Lovelock will be losing an hour and a half that they won’t ever get back.  The good news is, it was filmed in and around Lovelock and Starkwell’s hometown.  The bad news is, the last movie they watched that was filmed there was “Zombie Nightmare”… so… yeah… sentimental geography ALONE can’t hold up a movie.

[...]

[Exterminator guy sets fire to a wasps’ nest with his blow torch and it blows up.]

Lovelock: Why is he so afraid of computer generated wasps?

Starkwell: Were we supposed to be able to read what that newspaper headline said?

Lovelock: Did the Exterminator die?

[...]

So we are introduced to some woman named Jane who is moving with her daughter from the Big City to rural Black Stone, where she grew up.  I guess Jane and Exterminator have a history together.  The story unfolds relatively quickly, and we see people acting zombie-ish, and they all seem to have big sting marks on their heads.

[...]

[Robert Englund has a conversation with Jane’s daughter, turns out he’s the town bee-keeper.]

Starkwell: A couple of things here.  Number one, the town doesn’t look very rural.  If it’s not a rural town, then, well actually, regardless… number two, what the fuck town has a bee keeper?  Number three, what does the bee keeper have to do with magic wasps? 

Lovelock: ALl that matters is that, if there WERE a bee-keeper in most towns, you know they'd hang around a local convenience store blowing a dog whistle and handing out peaches to little girls.

Starkwell: Ugh.  It’s gonna be a long night.

[The dog whistle never plays a role of any kind.  I have no idea why it's there at all.]

[...]

Turns out that Exterminator had a twin brother who died.  That twin brother was Jane’s husband.  So there’s your history.  Also, I think that’s what those flashing headlines at the beginning were.  Oh also, there’s this old blind woman that knows them all.

[...]

[Squatter breaks into Blind Woman’s garage, looks into a hole in the wall, and then is stung to death by super wasps.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never look into holes in walls.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: ESPECIALLY when I’m breaking and entering.

Starkwell: What?

Lovelock: Plus I'd hate to end up in a "Porky's" type of situation.

[...]

[Dead Squatter comes back to life, strangles morgue guy.]

Lovelock: Ah yes… “STRANGLING!  When you don’t have the budget for cooler looking deaths!”

[...]

Exterminator works with some kind of Science Girl that they brought in to investigate.  I don’t know who “THEY” is, or why they knew to bring her in.  I should also mention that the film moves slow enough to have gotten at least two “BORING!”s out of Lovelock, and several yawns from Starkwell.  They seem more interested in trying to see if they recognize any locations than they are in following the story.

[...]

[Englund lives in a camper that is parked right next to Blind Lady’s house.  Apparently there is a trap door inside the camper that takes him into his secret BEE lab.]

Starkwell: He’s right there on a busy residential road… how would he have been able to… and without running into anyone else’s basement… or pipes… or wires… or… FUUuuuuUUUUCK you.

Lovelock: Not to mention, he’s a bee keeper, not a wasp keeper…

[...]

Anyways, shortly after Young Daughter sees Englund leave his camper, she decides to break into it, she immediately finds the secret lab, and then has fun (?) making funny faces at the killer wasps.  It’s actually even dumber than it sounds.  I think Lovelock said “man, I can’t wait for you to be dead”.  Then it cuts to a shot of a street sign that reads “Elm St.”  Robert Englund.  Elm Street.  Get it?  Starkwell told the movie to “fuck you” again and left.  Right after he left, there was a scene where a zombie priest shot killer wasps out of his mouth (somehow).  So yeah, you could say he left just in the nick of time.

[...]

Lovelock: How did they suddenly get into a corn field?  They were just in the Blind Woman’s suburban freakin’ house.  DUMB.

[...]

Lovelock: No one says out loud what they are typing as they type it.  It never happens.

[...]

Lovelock: Wait… she was married to a guy who died, and now she’s going after sexy complications with her dead husband’s twin brother?  Not cool.

Starkwell: Well, at least the daughter can just pretend that her dad is still alive.

Lovelock: You’re back?

Starkwell: Forgot my glasses.  Peace.

[…]

It turns out that Science Woman is working for the government, and this is like, a government plan to create a super wasp weapon, or like, super wasp soldiers.  Robert Englund is actually a good guy in this… which makes references to Elm Street even more stupid.  We fast forward through the remaining half hour of the film.  It doesn’t look like a whole lot happened.  Then there were some helicopters and a really shitty looking CGI ‘splosion, and Englund gets dead.  The wasps survive.  I think.  Starkwell said it best when he told this movie to "fuck you".

Zombie Honeymoon.

True love is often tested.  Rarely, if ever, has it been tested by having the dude become a zombie and start eating people.  Which brings us to this minor indie gem from the early two thousandies, wherein that is exactly what the young married couple are faced with.  The menu starts up and fittingly loops “Stand By Your Man”.  Lovelock and Starkwell are excited… I think.  As the credits play, we hear munching, chewing and slurping sounds.  I believe Lovelock shouted out “GROSS.”

[...]

[Young couple, Denise and Danny, leave their shotgun wedding, head to their uncle’s Jersey Shore house and bone lots.]

Lovelock: BORING.

Starkwell: Lately you are a whole lot less patient when it comes to these movies.

[Zombie walks out of the water, collapses onto Danny, pins him down, vomits black tar all over his face and in his mouth, then dies.  Danny seems, well… horrified and sick.]

Lovelock: OPPOSITE OF BORING.

Starkwell: See dude, if you just give it like five minutes, LITERALLY only five minutes.

[Danny dies in the hospital.]

Lovelock: That’s why I will NEVER go to the Jersey Shore.

Starkwell: Yeah… that’s why.

Lovleock: Well, that and Snookie and shit.

[Danny comes back to life.]

Lovelock: Danny is a zombie!  Also, he kind of looks like John Mayer.

Starkwell: Seriously?

Lovelock: It's a Jersey thing.

[...]

[Couple starts doing it, Danny gets a little aggressive…]

Starkwell: I’m, well… uncomfortable.

Lovelock: "Your body is a wonderlaaannnnd…"

Starkwell: You only get one.  And you just used it.

[...]

Anyways, there’s this whole side story where Denise and Danny decide to drop their life, quit their jobs, give up their apartments and just wander the world and move to Portugal.  While they start to plan this out… a cop comes by and tells them that Danny’s hospital roommate went missing, out of the blue.  Starkwell and Lovelock sat quietly waiting for shit to get crazy.  It didn’t take long.

[...]

[Denise comes home, finds Danny eating some stranger, Denise tries to run, Danny convinces her to stay, saying “I won’t eat you because I love you”.]

Lovelock: True love or not… NOTHING would make me stay at that point.

Starkwell: She might be the dumbest person ever.  This is WAY past the whole “in sickness and in health” nonsense.

[...]

There’s a pretty silly cleaning montage right before their two friends come over.  And then they just act like all is well.  “Denise and Danny are going to Portugal!”  What’s more, it turns out that Denise and Danny are vegetarians.

[...]

[Denise gets mad at Danny for wanting a steak at the restaurant.]

Starkwell: She should be happy he wants something OTHER than humans.

Lovelock: Seriously.  She seems more upset about the steak than about the rando guy he killed and ate… 

Starkwell: I guess the honeymoon’s over.

Lovelock: Damn hippies.

[...]

Danny gets worse and worse.  Now he just starts eating people right out of the blue, right in front of Denise.  Then he runs away and eats a dude outside a video store.  Lovelock and Starkwell are both having trouble buying that ANYONE would stand by their man in this particular case.  Denise and Danny hope to leave for Portugal in the morning.  The cops seem to be starting to suspect Danny, sort of… Even Denise is FINALLY starting to trust Danny a little less.

[...]

[Denise and Danny slow dance while they stare at each other, realizing they are basically fucked.]

Lovelock: You might even say that they are "slow dancing in a burning room".

Starkwell: Weak.

[...]

[Their friends come over, Danny is decomposing rapidly, Danny eats one of them.]

Lovelock: She could probably get a quicky annulment… I mean eating people MUST qualify her for that.

[...]

Denise still has her candle light dinner with Danny.  She gets all dressed up and everything.  Danny is starting to look disgusting.  The friend that Danny didn’t eat ends up bringing the cops to the house, cops that Danny ends up eating.  Then Danny eats the other friend.  Lovelock said something somewhat incomprehensible, but I think it was “awesome sauce”.  I couldn’t tell because he screamed it while doing a cartwheel.

[...]

[Danny goes full zombie and goes after Denise, pins her down and is about to vomit the black tar in her face/mouth, but at the last second, he turns away, does it on the wall.]

Lovelock: Dude! Weak!  You’re supposed to pay it forward.  I don’t believe in nothing anymore.

[...]

Denise throws Danny’s corpse in the pool, and I guess is gonna take off for Portugal.  Pregnant?  Hopefully with a zombie baby…  This was the director’s one and only film.  You could seriously do a whole lot worse.  Maybe he wanted to quit while he was ahead.

Hellgate.

There ain’t a whole lot out there about “Hellgate”, probably because it’s a bad movie.  But from a director who started his career with “Blackenstein”, what can you expect, really?  Starkwell and Lovelock don’t really know what to expect. 

[...]

[One dude and two girls sit around in a cabin telling scary stories, one starts to tell the story of the Hellgate Hitchhiker, and then it cuts immediately to the pansiest looking biker gang EVER biking along the highway to REALLY lame ‘50s music.]

Starkwell: Are the beards and denim vests supposed to make them look threatening?

Lovelock: It would work better if they had something on under the denim vests.  And weren’t so scrawny.  And that there weren’t two guys on one bike hugging each other so closely.

[...]

The quality of the picture and sound is atrocious.  The mixing is so bad that you can barely hear the dialogue over the shitty doo-wop music.  Not that you’re really missing out.  Anyways, the biker gang goes to a diner grabs one of the waitresses, rips her skirt off and pulls her out in her panties.  It cuts awkwardly back and forth from the “teens” telling the story and the actual story, being shown.

[...]

Starkwell: We already know that she is telling the story.  They don’t need to cut back to the cabin.

Lovelock: What?  And miss that great acting and dialogue?

[...]

Luckily for Starkwell, and the waitress, the bikers do little more to her than pick her up wrestle her a little, and chase her around in her underwear.  BUT THEN… The girl’s father shows up (luckily) and throws a hatchet at the gang leader’s head while simultaneously getting the gang leader’s chain wrapped around his arm.  It all happens in slow motion.  Lovelock and Starkwell both sat motionless and quiet, not sure whether to laugh, cry, or leave the room and shut off the NETFLIX MACHINE.  Oh, the daughter dies.

[...]

Lovelock: Can we just take a moment to talk about how amazing the father’s mustache is?

Starkwell: You just took a moment.  So why bother asking?

[...]

[The other girl starts telling another story (I stopped paying attention, so I don’t know what the relation to the first story is), and it involves a scene where some old guy swings at a toy bat (like a flap flap flying bat, not baseball bat) with a shovel.]

Lovelock: Watch out for that fake bat!  It’s alive!  It appears to be held up by a wire of some sort!

Starkwell: I think it’s SUPPOSED to be a real bat.

[...]

[Old Guy finds what looks like Kryptonite in the cave, which shoots a light beam at the dead bat and the bat comes back to life.  Turns out he works for the father, he brings him the magic rock and tells him about the bat.]

Starkwell: Yeah.  Cuz it worked out SO WELL in “Pet Sematary”.

Lovelock: Maybe they never saw it.

[Old Man zaps a dead goldfish, and then it turns into a huge slimy puppet, and then explodes.]

Starkwell: So he sees that happen and then decides, “LET’S TRY IT ON A TURTLE”?

Lovelock: Why isn’t the turtle exploding?

[Turtle explodes, old man has heart attack, the magic rock starts melting his face.]

Starkwell: WHAT IN THE FUCK.

Starkwell: So he sees all of this happen and then IMMEDIATELY decides, "Let's go to try this on my long since dead daughter.

Lovelock: Why is the daughter frozen in carbonite like Han Solo?

Starkwell: Why is it when the father imagines his daughter, he pictures her running in a field in a dress, and like, the straps of the dress are falling, and you almost see her boobs?

[...]

Anyways, the questions continued for a while.  We got to see zombie daughter for the first time.  Apparently she has super powers involving making her eyes glow and draining Matt’s car battery.  Matt is a guy on his way to the cabin to join the others.  At some point it just jumped from the old story back to the present day… I think.  Unless there is time travel involved.

[...]

[Matt picks up zombie girl Josie and brings her to Hellgate, which is apparently an amusement park full of dead people that the father has brought back.  Behind this amusement park, is her mansion.]

Starkwell: Why did the director use SO MUCH SMOKE?  Seriously, half the budget must have gone to smoke machines.

Lovelock: The other half went to the shitty doo-wop band that scored the film.

Starkwell: Why did they get rid of the father’s mustache?

Lovelock: Probably so we would know that it’s actually the present day.

[...]

This movie is really dumb.  This Matt guy is probably the dumbest of all the dumbs (or maybe just the most horny).  He brings Josie back to her mansion and follows her inside, where she (easily) seduces him.  The ridiculous operatic score is even more distracting than the doo-wop was earlier in the film.  The father walks in on a topless Josie having her breasts fondled by Matt.

[...]

[The father chases Matt out shooting laser beams out of his magic rock.]

Starkwell: Wait… now itr ’s a regulalaser, not just a resurrection laser?

[Matt makes it back to the cabin and his girlfriend asks where he’s been and says she wants to hear “all about it”]

Lovelock: You might want to leave out the part about the waitress you were hitting on and the whole Josie boob groping-kissing.

[Matt actually tells her about Josie, minus the boobplay, she gets momentarily upset, but then they bone… again.]

[...]

Starkwell: SOMETHING FUCKING HAPPEN.

Lovelock: Did you not see the flesh eating exploding turtle and the melting farmer?

Starkwell: That’s not what I mean.

[...]

Matt decides to tell everyone that he met the “Hellgate Hitchhiker” and says he wants to help Josie, that she might be in trouble.  Starkwell thinks he’s just under the spell of the boobies.  Anyways, the rest of the dialogue was hard to hear over the painfully annoying doo-wop music.  Eventually Matt and his girlfriend go exploring and come across a zombie member of the old biker gang.  There was a short fight.  It was made longer by the inclusion of (once again) tons of slow motion.  After the short fight, Matt and the zombie biker have a civilized conversation and Matt tells him he’s going to Hellgate again tonight.

[...]

Lovelock: So… who are the good guys?  And who are the bad guys?  I don’t get it.

Starkwell: I wish I could say this movie had some sort of message… but it doesn’t.

Lovelock: I think the people who made this film are the bad guys.

[...]

[Matt takes them deeper in Hellgate territory on a quest to find Josie.]

Starkwell: What’s his game plan?  What happens when they find her and Josie is like “remember when you kissed my boobies”?

Lovelock: I guess he ditches Pam and resumes the booby fondling activities.

[...]

Anyways, the father wakes up all the zombies and they start closing in on the Get Along Gang.  It’s pretty tame, but at least there’s a decent number of them.  The faces are REALLY blue, which is either insane, or a nod to “Dawn of the Dead”.  Either way, it kind of gives them a vintage look.  Starkwell approves.  Lovelock wants to see them eat people.  It doesn’t happen.  Eventually the non-Matt guy and his girl die and become zombies, and I think there’s like a cabaret show at one point in a zombie saloon that ends with slow motion dancing and a girl being choked out… I mostly fell asleep.  This is a real mess.  There is a pretty sweet stunt at the end though where a topless Josie is thrown out of a window (in slow motion of course) that made Lovelock applaud momentarily as well as a car crashing into a building and exploding and a flaming dude walking away from the wreckage.

[...]

Lovelock: So the blonde biker guy is the hero?

[The father tries to zap them in their car, but the beam hits the rear view mirror, and bounces back towards him and explodes a building.]

Starkwell: But they’re still alive… so?  Umm…

Lovelock: Of course more doo-wop.

[...]

The end?