Bad movies of the week
Oct. 17th, 2005 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiI made the mistake, either late Friday or Saturday night, of watching Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis and Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave on the Sci-Fi channel. It was on Sci-Fi because, as far as I can tell, there's no actually distribution planned for the movie, either in theatres or on DVD. And that's a good thing.
You know how bad Sci-Fi channel movies usually are? With things like Mansquito, Man-Thing, Man-O-La-Mancha, etc?
These were ten times worse.
They were, in theory, horror-comedies. In practice, they were so ungodly bad, that they managed to be that rarest of species -- movies that don't take themselves seriously at all that could still be completely given the MST3K treatment, simply because they do such a terrible job even given Troma-level silliness.
The plot? In the first one, teenagers fight zombies. In the second, college students fight zombies. We get the worst acting ever seen on film. We get bad sight gags, the peak of which involves a group of zombies chasing a man across campus, then seeing a group of cheerleaders in a pyramid, and getting distracted and biting their asses (in spite of the fact that the one nod to the first three films in this series is that the zombie keep yelling for and supposedly craving brains). And yes, that's the highlight. The lowlights include plot holes bigger than the grand canyon (the most unrealistic college ever on film, to start with, as well as lab practices that would make any scientist walk out of the room in disgust if they made the mistake of watching it), the worst acting I've seen in any Sci-Fi channel original film, silly character ranging from new-agers to pizza delivery guys to stoners (none of whom act any different than in every other silly campus or horror movie ever), and Peter Coyote in a part that he must have been blackmailed into taking. The über-cliched climax to Rave involves a Halloween party in which everyone is in costume, so no one has any clue at first that bad things are happening. How original.
What's really sad is that these films were directed by Ellory Elkayem, who gave us the surprisingly fun Eight Legged Freaks. Of course, Elkayem wrote ELF's script himself, and had actors who could actually act in the movie (yeah, I know that David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer will never win Oscars, but they're both vets who at least know what they're doing, and the supporting cast included Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, and current Gilmore Girls star Matt Czuchry). Rent that if you want something fun. Avoid these two like the zombie plague. Of the hundred+ of zombie films I've seen in my lifetime, these are the two worst ever. Even for free on the Sci-Fi channel, they're not worth the time spent on them.
You know how bad Sci-Fi channel movies usually are? With things like Mansquito, Man-Thing, Man-O-La-Mancha, etc?
These were ten times worse.
They were, in theory, horror-comedies. In practice, they were so ungodly bad, that they managed to be that rarest of species -- movies that don't take themselves seriously at all that could still be completely given the MST3K treatment, simply because they do such a terrible job even given Troma-level silliness.
The plot? In the first one, teenagers fight zombies. In the second, college students fight zombies. We get the worst acting ever seen on film. We get bad sight gags, the peak of which involves a group of zombies chasing a man across campus, then seeing a group of cheerleaders in a pyramid, and getting distracted and biting their asses (in spite of the fact that the one nod to the first three films in this series is that the zombie keep yelling for and supposedly craving brains). And yes, that's the highlight. The lowlights include plot holes bigger than the grand canyon (the most unrealistic college ever on film, to start with, as well as lab practices that would make any scientist walk out of the room in disgust if they made the mistake of watching it), the worst acting I've seen in any Sci-Fi channel original film, silly character ranging from new-agers to pizza delivery guys to stoners (none of whom act any different than in every other silly campus or horror movie ever), and Peter Coyote in a part that he must have been blackmailed into taking. The über-cliched climax to Rave involves a Halloween party in which everyone is in costume, so no one has any clue at first that bad things are happening. How original.
What's really sad is that these films were directed by Ellory Elkayem, who gave us the surprisingly fun Eight Legged Freaks. Of course, Elkayem wrote ELF's script himself, and had actors who could actually act in the movie (yeah, I know that David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer will never win Oscars, but they're both vets who at least know what they're doing, and the supporting cast included Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, and current Gilmore Girls star Matt Czuchry). Rent that if you want something fun. Avoid these two like the zombie plague. Of the hundred+ of zombie films I've seen in my lifetime, these are the two worst ever. Even for free on the Sci-Fi channel, they're not worth the time spent on them.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 02:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 05:38 pm (UTC)Kind of sounds like "Saved By the Bell: The Zombie Years."
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 05:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 05:55 pm (UTC)And while we claw our eyes our, we shall whimper 'If only we'd listened to
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 10:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-18 01:29 pm (UTC)I enjoyed the third one, but it felt out of place with the other two.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-17 11:02 pm (UTC)According to UHM (upcominghorrormovies.com), both sequels will be distriubted by a company called Freestyle, which also released "Riding the Bullet."
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-18 12:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-18 04:12 pm (UTC)