Wolf Creek

They say, don't believe everything you read, but most of the time you can. It's when you can't that things can get really ugly! That's the experience I had with Wolf Creek. This movie has been hyped as the "scariest movie of the year", and of all the movies that have been released this year, this is...one of them.

First of all, I'm pretty sure that this is a made for Australian TV movie, which means that it really wouldn't be as graphic as a theatrical release would be, so we're starting from a point somewhere south of 'scariest movie' territory to start with. Second, there's really not a bunch of story here. Three kids head into the outback, they get stranded, get help from someone they think they can trust who turns out to be a psycho and end up on the wrong end of a bunch of torture. The problem I had was that in a horror movie, we're used to the camera showing us the horror. It's the fact that we're forced to look, unflinchingly, at the thing that we don't want to see that makes it horror to start with, in this, all the bad things are done off-screen! The young man is bound and nailed to a cross, but we don't even know what's happened to him until near the end of the movie. It's implied that the first female vicitm has been raped and had all sorts of sadistic horror done to her, but none of it is ever seen, and barely talked about!!! I enjoy my horror a bit more horrible, and for the 'scariest movie of the year' this is sorely lacking in scares or horror.

And as for creating the "next Jason or Freddy" as the ads say, don't get your hopes up! Mick Taylor is an interesting character, but there's no back story and no real fleshing out of the character that makes you interested in him at all. Jason was drowned and was out for revenge. Freddy was a child molestor who was killed and still sought victims. Mick Taylor is just a dude with a truck, we're never allowed to get to know him well enough to either like him or be afraid of him, and because we're never that attached to him, when he turns from kind to cruel, there's really no feelings of terror or betrayal that should have been there. And, while the kids are sympathetic characters, since all the 'evil' is done off-screen, we don't really have the feeling of triumph when they try to get away.

This movie has a TV movie feel that just doesn't play well in the theatre today. A movie that's less violent that the original Friday The 13th, just doesn't have the right elements to be the 'scariest movie of the year'. Sorry, I really wanted to like this movie, and I felt so horribly betrayed that the only shocks I got from the movie was from the fact that there were no shocks!

So, let the Bad Movie Guy pass down his pronouncement on Wolf Creek. Yea, I sayeth unto you, to be-est the scariest movie, thou should have actual scares. And to be-eth a horror movie, please be horrible. And, finally I sayeth unto you movie-goers, pass-eth on Wolf Creek, that you become not bored and fall-eth asleep in the theatre, so as not to drool onto your shirt! The Bad Movie Guy give-eth Wolf Creek a lonely stubbed out half a cigar, because the people in the theatre with me were scarier than the movie! So, until the next time we meet, when I'll pass down my ten commandments of horror, remember the best movies are bad movies.

House Of Wax

In the world of the remake there are two different animals. There's the 're-imagining' which roughly translates into english as 'we're stealing your story'. Then there's the 're-invention' which translates into 'we're taking your title to make people think our movie is as good as yours, but our movie is gonna suck...HARD'. House Of Wax is of the 're-invention' mold!!!

This movie is so bad that it took me three sittings to get through it! And I'm the BAD Movie Guy for God's Sake!!! This movie is one of the worst things I've seen since I sat through Cabin Fever. The basic story here isn't that complex. Teenagers on the way to a college football game, take a shortcut through rural America, end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, become stalked by weird rural psychos, most die, some survive for a sequel! We've seen this about a thousand and one times, and most of those are better than this one!

House Of Wax's claim to fame is Paris Hilton. I heard all last summer when this was out, 'Paris Hilton gets killed', 'You gotta see it, it's the best death ever'. Well, I'm no fan of Paris Hilton, but neither do I hate her so much that seeing a dummy that looks like her getting murdered is a huge thrill. Was it the best death ever? Not really, it was really something that I'd seen in several incarnations of Friday The 13th movies.

Here's your story, such as it is. When a group of teenagers get lost on the way to a football game, they decide to camp out for the night in the woods. Unfortunately for them, they're close to a small rural town that's the home of two brothers who are slightly disturbed. So slightly, in fact, that they've killed everyone in town and made them into wax figures of themselves and put them back in their homes, in the church, in the movie theatre, basically populated the town with wax dummies. Well, when there's car trouble, two of the teens hitch a ride with the local road kill cleaner (and you guessed it, he's a weirdo!) to the nearest town...the town of wax! Once there, things get weirder and weirder until they start dying.

If you don't see the twists and turns coming in this movie then you, like me, must've been fast asleep from the sheer boredom of this movie. The killings are very imaginative, but it takes more than that to make a good horror movie. One of the brothers is even a monster who wears a wax mask to cover is 'freakish' face, but even that is revealed too late in the movie and it's not that big a shock when we get to see it! Then, there's the tacked on set up for a sequel that's so contrived that I'm sure the on-set conversation went a little something like this:

Director: 'Hey, if this crap is successful, what do we do for a sequel?'
Writer: 'Uh, we could have someone in town be a relative to the evil brothers, but
that's never mentioned in the script, so it might seem a little forced'
Director: 'I couldn't care less! Nothing else in this horrible movie makes sense
why does that have to?'

Alright, that's probably not how it really happened, but after watching this movie, you'll find that version believable! So, if you hate Paris Hilton with a white hot hatred, then you might enjoy about five minutes of this movie, but if you, like me, are completely indifferent to her, then you might also find yourself sleeping through most of this stinker, that's why I give this a half burning, mostlt stubbed out cigar, because no cigars isn't an option! So, until next we meet when I'll read to you from my own script for the sequel to House Of Wax...I'm calling it, House Of The Brazillian Wax, and I think it may get an R rating! Until then remember, the best movies are bad movies!

Reefer Madness

Now, I'm not particularly an advocate for or against drug use, I've always figured that if you're dumb enough to do that to yourself, then have at it! Just don't expect any pity from me, after all, you did do this to yourself! But, since the 70s, I've been aware of the drug culture, even if I wasn't particularly interested in participating in it, and it's been a great source of humor, both intended and unintended for me. So, when I saw a copy of the old 'cautionary tale' movie, Reefer Madness, I was just too curious to pass it by.

Reefer Madness is the tale of a small town guy who gets caught up in the drug scene, but this is the drug scene of the 50s, so the horror is being in the house of an adult, smoking pot and dancing some really old dance. The Horror!! But, in Reefer Madness, pot not only kills brain cells, it causes insanity, paranoia and all sorts of other problems...oh, and it seems to make the girls very easy...I almost forgot that.

Presented as a documentary type movie, Reefer Madness seems to be a very early exploitation movie, reeling people in to show them the 'true horrors' of the drug scene, and during the course of the movie, lives are ruined, people are killed, drugs are sold and many, many dances are done. Seen through today's eyes, this is mostly a comedy, and little more than a curiousity piece. Is it worth seeing? I think so, after all, it's one of those movies that you've heard about forever and, like me, probably never seen. But is it accurate, well, probably not, but then again, I'm no marijuana professor, either.

It's called Reefer Madness and I give it three burning cigars because after you've seen it you'll think twice about smoking pot, not out of fear of drugs, but out of fear of dancing! So, until next time, when I'll reveal that I am in fact addicted to those pepperoni sticks you can find at your local party store...you know the ones, they're not wrapped or anything, just sitting there in that jar...LOVE THOSE!!! And remember, the best movies are bad movies!

Fantastic ? Four

I'm about to out myself once again! Yes, I fully admit it, I'm an recovering comic book geek. Recovering, because being a comic book collector is like being an alcoholic, you're never clean, you just go one day at a time without buying a comic book! But, every once in a while, I'll allow myself to slip back into geek mode, knowing that my wife (something that will keep me from ever becoming a full on comic book geek again, no geek can have a wife!) will drag me back here to grown up land (or as close as I'll ever get to it).

One of those "geek moments" is the release of a cool comic book movie. Well, after the horror that was Hulk, I was a little gun shy of Fantastic Four, and waiting until the DVD release to see it, so as to save a little of my money, in case it sucked! Well, I have to report to you that it didn't suck as much as I thought it would. The Fantastic Four have never been my favorite characters, but they are the original comic book super hero team, so you've got to give them some respect for that. And this adaptation is pretty good, the problem I had, is the problem I have will most of these movies. The first one is the set up for those out there who don't know who these characters are! So that the comic book illiterate can enjoy it without feeling left out. But, for us fans out there, these are not unlike some bizarre endurance test.

The first Spider-man, while a cool movie, was tedious in the extreme to me. And Fantastic Four felt the same way, at times. I know this story backwards and forwards, the only interest here, for me, is the changes that are inevitably made for the big screen and seeing how the special effects are done. And, in those two things, I wasn't too disappointed. The story stayed about the same, with some slight changes for the Ben Grimm character and the Sue Storm character, which are only there to stream-line the story for the uninformed. The special effects were amazing and, while there weren't quite enough for my tastes, they were very well done! Making The Thing a make-up effect rather than a CGI effect (ala Hulk) was a very good idea! Michael Chiklis embodied this character in a way that made you believe that the make-up was real! And I'm going to be berated for this, but I was waiting for the scripted excuse for getting Jessica Alba into her underwear! I know Jessica is an attractive young lady, but come on! Does she have to be mostly nude in EVERY ROLE??? I know, it's just me!

Overall, Fantastic Four is a great rental, but I don't think I'd actually want to own it. I can't see myself wanting to revisit this movie, unless the inevitable sequel is stupendous! Which it very well could be! And, as for comic book adaptations, this one is right up there with X-Men for it's integrity, most of the time comic book material is treated with less respect than other material, and this didn't feel that way. I give Fantastic Four two and a half burning cigars because this has the potential to be the start of a really cool movie franchise! Let's hope that 20th Century Fox doesn't screw it up and go cheap for the sequels! So, until the next time when I'll have to decide which super power I'd like to have...I'm torn between super strength and super stench...Remember that the best movies are bad movies!