Your stuff SUCKS.

Uh... no, thank you.

2012-05-26T01:40:00.001-07:00

I just want to make a quick public note...

I've gotten some email complimenting my sites and asking if I could please also gleefully "rip to shreds" here on this one a particular movie series (everybody with an "I think these movies stink" page gets requests like that, I suppose). Specifically, could/would I create something delightfully detailed with sarcasm for something in particular, like another House of Wax-style running commentary bit?

I appreciate the interest, but I have to let it publicly be known that, due to the films in question, the answer is a definite no (those individuals will easily guess what's being discussed by the end of this post).

And what is the requested series all these emails are writing about, others may ask? Well, it's for a particular and fairly new horror "franchise" that started back in 2009 which as of this writing only consists of two films with a projected third apparently soon to be added, of which said franchise's name shall deliberately go completely unmentioned here because frankly, if there's one thing that particular franchise does not need, it's more publicity.

Fear and loathe this movie like the PLAGUE.

2012-04-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Directed by Terry Gilliam (!!!)

Starring Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro

Based on the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Rated R (for Pervasive Extreme Drug Use And Related Bizarre Behaviour, Strong Language, Briefy Nudity, Concussive Force That Could Possibly Enduce Severe Brain Damage To The Viewer)
Running time: A murderously torturous 128 minutes???!?!?!! RUN!!!

It's common knowledge among those who know me that I have a huge fascination for wildly surreal, druggy movies and books even though I have personally never once taken drugs in my life. They fascinate me. I love the surrealism, and when present I enjoy the humour as well. I just totally trip out on this stuff, it's a lot of fun, and usually I think the crazier the better. I have yet to see a psychedelic film that was so trippy and drugged out that I simply couldn't take it. Or so I used to say.

And then I saw this film. Biggest mistake I ever made.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is easily the most vile, annoying, loud, irritating, stupid tripout movie I have ever seen in my life. Not since Cool World have I seen such a concussive endurance test that gave me such a splitting headache. This is the most unwatchable tripe I have ever encountered among drug films. I sat there with the worst headache you can possibly imagine trying to watch this thing, and I finally had to walk out after about forty-five minutes. I just couldn't take it anymore, and most of the rest of the audience had agreed; they had all split while the getting was good.

This is based on a famous book which I have heard about but never read. I have absolutely no desire to do so after watching this thing, either. I'm really not concerned about how it matches up to the book or anything like that; that's for someone else to decide. All I'm concerned with here is whether it's a viewable experience, and as that it fails spectacularly. No wonder it was such a failure when released.

Johnny Depp plays Raoul Duke, a character meant to be the author, a nerd who dresses annoyingly like Gilligan, pretentiously always has a persistant cigarette holder in his mouth as though he were someone important, and narrarates the film in one of those ultrafast monotonous monotones that always get on my nerves. His attorney, Dr. Gonzo, is played by Benicio Del Toro, who is always personally "advising" him "as his attorney" on his personal drug intake. The two have just about every type of substance (including ether!) known to man stashed away in the trunk, and the movie starts the second the drugs take effect. Literally.

Duke is a journalist who is supposed to be driving out to Vegas in order to cover an innocent bike race for Sports Illustrated, and why he uses such an excursion as an obvious excuse for drugginess is beyond me. Watching someone stoned/high/whatever on film is one thing whether it's in a comedy, drama or documentary, but this is just flat out irritating. These two are so zonked out of their gourds throughout the whole film (that I endured, at least) that they can barely stand up. They move, scream and make constant hand motions as though autistic, all but completely crawl around on all fours, and are barely intelligible. I would be frightened out of my mind if I ever encountered people like this, and that's exactly what happens at one early point in the film when they pick up an innocent Californian hitch hiker, and scare the poor kid witless: I instantly felt sorry for him. Oh well, if nothing else, at least it can be said accurately by some moralist out there that this film illustrates perfectly why one shouldn't hitch rides, if nothing else.

The thing drones on and on and on endlessly, and it continues in the exact same loud, in-your-face, relentlessly wearying speed it started with. It's got quite a few cameos, but who cares? By the time I got to the point when they were thrashing about in a bathtub or some such thing and vomiting all over the landscape, that's when I called it quits. I couldn't take it anymore and just had to get out; how could Terry Gilliam of all people sink to such a low? I've always had such fond memories of his movies Time Bandits, Brazil and Baron Munchausen, and then after a hiatus he comes back with the depressing 12 Monkeys, and now this...? Why, Terry, why?

One of my best friends who also adores trippy movies, the moment I mentioned this title to him, instantly exclaimed, "Oh my GOD, wasn't it AWFUL? My friends all kept going, 'You gotta see this movie! You gotta see this movie!' And I HATED it!" We both agreed that the only thing cool about it was the soundtrack, or what we could hear of it anyway. Another one of those timeless cases when a lousy movie gets a fantastic soundtrack; I may buy the album, but I'd sooner stick my head in a vat of wet cement than suffer through this torture chamber again.

Oh, and I just want to mention: about my above comment regarding this film's "relentlessly wearying speed": No pun intended. There, see? I didn't even feel like editing that little comment up there with the rest of it where it belongs. You see how much this disgusts me? I can't even continue editing this review properly because even writing about it brings the headache back.

You don't want to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I don't care how much you love druggy, trippy movies, I don't care if you love druggy, trippy movies simply because they ARE druggy, trippy movies, trust me, you do NOT want to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

And if you do, if you genuinely and honestly do, then you scare me. Please leave my pages and never, ever come back.

HEAD FOR THE HILLS!!! IT'S "THE OLD FARTS IN THE NURSING HOME"!!! AAAAA

2012-04-22T18:01:00.001-07:00

The Block
The New Kids??? on The Block

Is mankind spiritually prepared for The Second Coming? Have we all come to the point where the apocalypse is truly inevitable? Will fire and brimstone wreck havoc upon those innocent little mortals out there who once worshipped from atop Mt. Olympus while sacrificing offerings to Them within their Almighty Temple Of Babydoll Defication and weeping tears of joy as the holy light shone down upon them from above as they were seen worthy and favoured by The Highest Gods Reining known throughout The Golden Age Of Man as Jonathan, Jordan, Joey, Donnie and Danny? Have The New Kids On The Block returned to punish society for listening to death metal disco Marilyn Manson or NIN? Or to punish the admirably stubborn Prince, Madonna, George Michael or even Lionel Richie for daring to desecrate their reign by being worshipped from within the same decade and far beyond it while their own Earthly Kingdom has crumbled away into ruin, myth and legend? Or perhaps even the determined upstarts Britney Spears and her gal pal Paris Hilton as well, for having a longer run than they have themselves? Although their Immaculately Heaven-Sent False Prophet On Earth, Maurice Starr, is not a part of this evil manifestation, nothing has really changed. Somehow, The New Kids On The Block have been Hangin' Tough all this time. Somebody thought that we would both ignore the clash of their name with their current ages and also that we had supposedly all forgotten the bloodcurdling chaos these twerps caused Back In The Day as they lead their armied hordes of screaming teenybopped freaks all across the country. Somebody made a big mistake. Who can DARE walk into a music store and buy a copy of this album without wearing a bag over their head? True, the cover might fool your grandmother into thinking it's The Backstreet Boys' Black & Blue album or the 'N Sync album, which she was certain that one of your family wanted for Christmas, although she can't be certain as to when that was or which of her grandchildren had asked for it in the first place; she's getting on in years, but hey, she's trying, right? But inside, the guest stars and songwriting won't even fool old Grandma. She knows teenybop rehash when she hears it. There's no way these dudes are going to scam her in buying this worthlessly pathetic, eunich-howling, post-prepubescent dogmeat. She's going back for her money and a copy of either Black & Blue or 'N Sync. And that could be her second biggest mistake.

A quick note/update.

2012-03-01T09:44:00.002-08:00

I want to go ahead and make a quick comment here as an addition to my apparently outraging previous entry on here regarding "furries" and FurryMUCK. The entry that all the "furries" out there still using my name to push their group want to bury someplace and forget.

In response to the avalanche of email (how the heck DO you "furries" keep getting my most private email addresses, anyway?!) regarding it: first off, I meant every word that I said, and I still do. Despite any claims any of you "furries" made and continue to make, I have not, never have been, and never will be a "furry" and/or in your group. Since I myself am the one writing about the matter, I would think you'd all be inclined to believe it. But frankly, I've lost track of how many times I've had the subject brought up and my having to answer each and every single time that the answer is NO. You "furries" who insist on saying and believing otherwise need to seriously go have a long, long talk with a mental health professional. My message also clearly states that I never once "sought you all out" and in fact never even knew you people had existed; you dragged me in, again contrary to what you "furries" say.

Another thing that I wish to comment on: while using a search engine to check on my pages' "search" status, I accidentally saw that my name had been used yet again in connection with the whole "furry" bit. The post itself is over here and was written by someone calling themselves "m_estrugo". The mention says in its entirety (so I don't get accused of deliberately chopping anything out):

"Back in 1995, furry art was much more different than it is now. Cartoony stuff, like the one I draw, was much more appreciated than it is now and people didn't take furry art so seriously. Of course, there was porn and the stuff by then already, but in a much smaller proportion. And there was a bigger proportion of talented artists, like Bob Guthrie, Taral Wayne, Craig Carrington, Daphne Lage, and many others were active and on the heyday of their popularity within furry fandom. Furry fandom was a much more attractive place to be."

Where to begin... okay, sir or madame, whichever the case may be, please keep in mind that I'm trying to be polite in my response to the above here and not being in any way attacking or sarcastic. And I certainly don't mean to knock you or your obviously well-intentioned compliment on my work. But I must ask you, honestly: since when had I ever been active within "furry fandom"? I release two sections of a story in a book series for professional publication, and was pestered by some magazine or other to share a couple of pages of something, and that was it. I have never been a "furry", much less ever been to any of those "furry" things. So I'm asking in all seriousness, when was I ever "active" in it? I have not, was not, and never was. You can see my point, I'm sure. Or maybe I'm misreading your comment and maybe what you really meant to say was "many cartoon artists like these people were active during that time, and the furries happened to really like them", as I see your message can be taken that way as well. I personally would prefer to assume it's the latter. And believe you me, I never once had a "heyday" of my "popularity" within "furry fandom"; not unless you count my persistently being attacked and harassed during that awful decade from weirdos who made it clear they didn't care for what I myself was doing, but for what they wanted to get me to do for them. I am certainly not aware of any "heyday of popularity". As far as I know, my "heyday" of popularity was back during the eighties in my teenage years home in the Bay Area, and that was with local friends with whom I have an appreciative audience. No offense meant in my reply to you, I just wanted to point that out.

This seems like a good enough time to briefly bring up the "furries"' "you're a furry now" syndrome. I was shocked when I eventually found out that back in the nineties the second I got my work first published at all, I, as well as three other friends of mine (nothing will induce me to tell you who they are), had all been insta-assigned "furry" status. We were all suddenly being called "furries" and our work "furry art", and none of us have ever wanted to be connected with or be associated with the group anyway. I don't know what delusions the "furries" have here, but they seem to make anyone whom they consider good an automatic "furry" whether or not they want to be one.

THIS IS SPINAL TAP: ...but MUST it be???

2012-01-18T21:52:00.000-08:00

This is Spinal Tap
Directed by Rob Reiner
Starring Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer
Written by Guest, McKean, Shearer and Reiner
82 minutes
Rated R

AaaaarrrgggGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. I get so sick of seeing this thing being proclaimed "the funniest rock movie ever made" when it is anything but. But what was really the last straw for me was when around 2005 a popular rock magazine, I forget which one, actually had the nerve to rate this as the Number One rock movie EVER made as opposed to the vastly superior Beatle classic A Hard Day's Night!

Easily one of the most overrated bits of trash I've ever seen, This is Spinal Tap is a mockumentary documenting a fake band called Spinal Tap, and that's pretty much the entire plot. And after hearing for years how great this movie supposedly was, I decided to check it out around 1999 or so, and I have no desire to ever do so again.

You've heard all the gushiness over this movie. It's SO real-looking, the press claims. It's SO convincing. It's SO remarkable that you'll be sitting there trying to figure out whether it's real or not. The actors' accents sound SO realistic. It's SO hilarious. And, they even say, the big irony is that the terrible music in this movie that's performed is nowhere near as terrible as it's supposed to be, so much so that it's been a popular soundtrack for years now.

Lies. All lies.

I hated this movie horribly when I saw it, and actually asked for my money back when I took it back to the rental store. I hated it, I hated it terribly, horribly, immensely, hideously. Hated it. Hated every single dumb, stupid, lousy, unfunny, boring, pretentious, overrated moment of it. Hated the press for lavishing so much undeserved praise upon it. Hated the fact that it's still in print. If I could, I would blow it to smithereens and blast the smithereens in a rock off into the farthest reaches of space. Seriously, as I write this I am also simultaneously preparing a running commentary of Spice World, and it's unbelieveable that I'm actually have a lot more fun watching and reviewing that little bit of pop trash than I could ever enjoy this... THING.

How could anyone ever praise this thing? How? I ask you, how? It's, it's just... so... worthlessly... oh forget it. Let me just say, this is one of those many examples when you realize after seeing it that just because the press proclaims something is great doesn't necessarily mean that it is (Pixar, anyone?). Even this amount of a review on it is far more than this stupid thing deserves.

I can't even talk about it anymore, it's too depressing.

SPICE WORLD: a running commentary

2012-01-16T23:53:00.001-08:00

Spice World
Columbia Pictures
Starring... who the heck ELSE??!
Co-starring Richard E. Grant, Claire Rushbrook, Alan Cumming, Roger More... yes, that Roger Moore (!????!??!), George Wendt, Meat Loaf??? Oh, and Elton John is supposed to be in here somewhere...
Directed by some brave soul named Bob Spiers
Written by a woman desperate for a paycheck named Kim Fuller
93 minutes
Rated PG (For some vulgarity, brief nudity and language, nothing too, erm, spicy though)
HOOOOOO boy! What have I gotten myself into THIS time? Am I in over my head???

Dunno. All I know is that while finishing up that notoriously atrocious walkthrough for the equally atrocious recent version of House of Wax, I really needed to do this stunt again with something much, much lighter in terms of content. Yes, that flick was as stupid as all get out and deserved all the mocking anyone out there can lash at it, but it's not exactly the most cheery subject matter in the world, if you know what I mean. I mean, like I said at the beginning of that one, slasher flicks aren't my thing at all.

So as I approached the end of struggling through that chore -- and a chore it indeed was -- I figured that in order to properly scrub the dreariness of a slasher flick out of my skull, the best way to do it would be to doing a running commentary on something truly light, frothy and bubbly. Not to mention thoroughly ridiculous. And what better fits that description than something like Spice World? Hey, why not?

What's my personal "experience" regarding the Spice Girls? Actually, none at all. I wasn't listening to the Top Ten during the 90s, preferring instead underground styles of experimental music, classics, anything Beatles related, and various favourites still releasing wild new experiments that still made it into the charts regardless due to who they were (i.e. Madonna). Come to think of it, I ought to write a running commentary on Truth or Dare, which I've seen several times, while I'm at it.

Anyway, I had heard of them by around 1996 or so, but knew nothing about them apart from the fact that they were popular at the time. Then around 2004 I found two used cassettes of their first two albums, Spice and Spice World, at a local thrift store and decided to pick them up and give 'em a spin since they were only 50 cents each. To my surprise, they were genuinely entertaining. The albums were a lot of fun and I thought, "Sometime when I get the proper ideas I'm going to put lyrics to these." I haven't yet, but I will.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I know. Oh, and something about how each girl had a moniker. And, of course, that they had a movie.

I heard this movie was predictably trashed by critics but went on to become a hit nevertheless. Yeah, sounds about right. I certainly have nothing against the Spice Girls, whoever they are, so let's check this flick out and see how silly it is, shall we?

There's the famous Columbia Pictures logo, and I'm half expecting the Torch Chick to start dancing or something the way she did at the beginning of Thank God It's Friday! But no, she does no such thing, and the movie begins.

Hmm. A multicoloured bar gently appears across the black screen as a song I recognize from the tapes starts playing in the background. Soon the screen reads "A Spice Girls/Fragile Films Production". Hey, it's all psychedelic! Far out. And we first see "Mel B.", then "Emma", then "Mel C."... geez, so far this trippy opening is reminding me of the beginnings of James bond flicks, you know?... "Geri"... wow, she has a bit of an attitude, I guess, and her hair looks forty years old... and "Victoria". Hey, wait a sec, I thought they all had monikers? Oh well, guess I'll find that out soon enough.

And now we see the colours swirling prettily as the title grows past the camera lens, and we now see the girls performing said song, which also happens to be one I like a lot. All five are very attractive, lovely girls, although the one chick Geri serious needs to switch hair stylists. No, wait, I think I take it back... I just saw a shot of her behind the mike and her hair looked far more normal there. Anyway, they're performing this pretty song on stage before an adoring audience, and I'm thinking that this film is starting out much nicer than expected and nowhere near as over-the-top as I was expecting its opening to be.

Say what you will about the Spice Girls, their songs are a lot of fun. ;)

By the way, each one of them appears to be wearing a slightly different white outfit, I guess the style of each outfit is supposed to represent their different monikers or something, of which said monikers haven't been mentioned yet. You'll have to excuse my overall lack of knowledge regarding Spice Etiquette, but I never did learn those monikers like I'm sure the rest of the world did. The only one I tend to remember is "Ginger Spice", and that's because the Ginger Spice in question recorded a solo cover of Cameo's "Work Out" for the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack, which I happen to own. I'm assuming that Ginger Spice is the cute black chick due to her pretty complexion, though of course I could be wrong.

The credits are still rolling while the girls are still lip-synching to this song, and for a split second we see that they're also being monitored on cameras, so I guess it's also supposed to be a broadcast of some sort. And now we see there's a couple of dudes in the audience who are apparently part of the crew, one of them must be some kind of director... wait a sec, did that one guy just make the "cuckoo" sign with his ear while talking to the other guy as in "This movie is NUTS" or is he attempting to direct him on the sound. Yeah, I think he's trying to direct the sound. Yeah, the other one turns out to be wearing headphones, so that's exactly what they're doing.

The audience is all grooving to all of this, of course, and we see a flash of the screens the girls are on again. I like the fact that they have violinists in the background and everything. And now the audience is applauding even though the song technically isn't even over yet and has been cut short for the movie. See? I do know this material. ;) The wonders of Goodwill!

And now we see them backstage, and this guy behind them says, "Well done, girls, excellent performance." I don't think it's the same guy who was making motions in the audience, maybe it is, I don't know, but I suppose we'll eventually find out without rewinding.

"What are you talking about? You were't even watching, Clifford," remarks the one whom I'm still assuming is Ginger Spice.

"Yes, I was," he insists. Somehow his voice just lacks conviction as far as I'm concerned.

"Don't lie! No you weren't!" shoots back another.

Clifford goes on and on about how supposedly he was at full rapt attention, and the girls remark, "He just doesn't love us anymore," to which he of course responds, "Yes, I do!" with all the attitude of a small boy wrongfully accused of not liking the latest flavour of Pepsi.

This continues on for another couple of seconds or so until we abruply cut to extremely grainy footage of what looks like a Blair Witch style documentary. Is it Clifford? I think so, I'm a bit too confused right now to tell, especially since on this screen both shots of Clifford (if that was indeed him in the audience, which I'm assuming it was for now) were so far off that I just couldn't make out much facial detail. Anyway, this person... no, wait, I think he said his first name was Pierce, so he's not Clifford, and he is currently on screen apparently attempting to make some sort of documentary on the girls, he says he'll be spending five days with them.

Suddenly, the shot changes again, and... WHOA! Hey check it out who it is! It's Elton John! They quickly exchange greetings, and after the girls all leave Elt lets out a big heave as though the mere excitement of seeing them was just too breathless to endure all at once, lol.

Ok, now it's flashed back to the Blair Witch style doc footage as the Pierce guy adds, "Any second now the Spice Girls will be stampeding down this corridor in a frenzy of chaos and energy, which of course has become their..." uh no, actually he's wrong, they just march right past behind him in the most casual way like "whatever" without even looking at the doc people once. Pierce couldn't even get them to stop, let alone say one word to him: he's now frantically trying to arrange another shot since that one clearly didn't work.

So we see Clifford leading the girls downstairs and saying not to worry, there won't be any fans outside the door he's leading them to, and the moment he throws it open there is of course a huge crowd of screaming freaks and paparazzi. You know the deal, they pass by greeting everyone and we get to see lots of footage of the crowd enthusiastically greeting them back. The Spice Girls are making their way into a double decker bus decorated like the Union Jack, as of course it should be since they're a UK act and all, and I'm suddenly realizing that this movie is obviously meant to be a nod to both A Hard Day's Night and Magical Mystery Tour. Say what you will about the Spice Girls, they have excellent taste in who they choose to (attempt to, anyway) pay tribute to.

I'm also suddenly getting the feeling that this movie will also feature a number of cameos by top British talent that I may not recognize at all since (a) I've never been one to "go Hollywood" and know only a few names at all (even with my enthusiasm for British cinema and television... oh, the sheer irony of that previous "go Hollywood" remark! Kind of embarrassing), and (b) they'll probably be names mostly unfamilar to most American audiences anyway. At least that's what I've read recently somewhere. Oh well, my loss. I very much enjoy British humour, and I have the feeling I'll probably get to see lots of it here.

One thing I do want to note here, and I'm not saying this to be nasty or mean, I'm just stating it: even when I wasn't terribly familiar with the Spice Girls back during the 90s, the couple of times I saw photographs of them I thought their outfits were hilarious. I kept thinking, "who picked out these clothes, were they blind??" Not to mention the kooky hairstyles. Those shoes. Those horns. I mean the hairstyles sometimes twirled up to look like horns. I mean, what else could you call 'em? So just looking at these ladies tends to be enough to give me a giggle as it is. I'm sure that must have been their intention to at least some small degree somewhere along the way.

Hey, that's pretty cool. The inside of the bus is far, far larger than the outside and basically looks like a tripped out romp room. There goes the bus and... wait a sec, was that Meat Loaf driving??!

And the bus appears to be starting over a bridge, love the cinematography here. Yup, it's definitely going over a bridge. And inside, hey, that's pretty cool, it's all day-glo solid pastels and there's even a swing. Hey, even cooler: that blonde chick doesn't just have a swing, she's got an entire toy area and toy shelf! Now that's something I can relate to. Meanwhile, the one in orange is going slightly nuts trying to find something, her boots she says, and now I see another one of them has exercize equipment all over the place, I get it now, they each have their own section marked off to their own personal taste. Now I can see Big Ben off in the distance, and hey, the bus's got a big white/silver peace sign painted on the back of it! And we see more such exchanges inside the bus as it travels along through the ever-popular London area.

Soon we hear that there's "a press conference coming up: that means a lot of smiling at the cameras, and answering dumb questions. That is all." Well, that's one way of putting it.

The press conference is to announce that they'll be performing at the Abert Hall, from what I can make out. Oh, and in a closeup I just noticed that the blonde chick's wearing a necklace that reads BABY. Okay, so obviously she's definitely Baby Spice, that explains the toys. No comments regarding me and my earlier comments on how I could relate to her, please! Anyway, at least we now definitely have at least one moniker truly identified.

Meanwhile, we see some fat overweight gross guy in PJs and slippers watching all this on his telly. Oh, and there's some other guy at a laptop on what appears to be a balcony outside, or a porch, or something else of that sort.

The fat guy mutters something completely unintelligable, and after a moment the other guy comes in with something on paper and tries to show it to Fat Guy while saying something equally unintelligable, and Fat Guy interrupts, "Will you just shut up and watch this?" Charming.

He then adds, "These are the Spice Girls," in such a way that I want to ask him, "Ver-y good. Can you say your alphabet, too? I know you can."

Laptop guy likes the blonde one. "No no no," says Fat Guy. "Sporty." Uh, suddenly this movie has turned pretty gross. Those girls are WAY out of your age range, creep!

Laptop apparently agrees, and Fat Guy explains, "This is what our movie should be about." Oh, they're producers? Okay, that makes a little more sense, then. They start to have a discussion about how perfect the girls are for a movie, and never mind if they can't act, etc. Let's make a movie! Apparently they're going to try to pitch it that very afternoon.

After seeing that the bus is once again on its way, we flash over to that Clifford guy again, looking strained as he sits at what appears to be a Tron fanboy desk. Again, no comment regarding myself, please! ;) Anyway, Cliff must be their manager from what I can tell, even though the movie is being fuzzy on all specifics so far. He gets a call and goes, "Yes, Chief?" and starts having a converstion with someone obviously in charge of the whole Spice Girls phenom, I guess.

It turns out said "boss" is, ahem, Roger Moore (???) sitting at some fancy office laced with gold records somewhere while petting a kitty James Bond Villain style. So now all you Spice Girls haters know who to blame.

"Remember that now is a dangerous time," he, er, warns. At least, I think that's what he's supposed to be doing. "They've had a lot of success very quickly. So get ready for the backlash. When the speeding melon hits the ball, it's Christmas for the crows." Huh??!

Uh, excuse me, did I just hear what I think I just heard???

Moore's gone nuts. That's all I can say as he hangs up and switches to speakerphone style. Clifford asks if he should go after the paparazzi, and Moore remarks, "There's no need for any stirring." They go on about this, Clifford is obviously agitated I guess, and Moore actually says, "Remember, the drummer who is without sticks has no backbeat." DOUBLE huh??!

"Absolutely," agrees Clifford even though this exchange makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and I have the feeling this whole movie is going to be just as cuckoo. What am I saying, shouldn't that be a given?

After Clifford hangs up, the woman assisting him immediately asks, "What did he say?" and I immediately thought, "Something totally nonunderstandable."

Clifford actually then responds to her with, "I haven't a clue." Oh good. So I'm not the only one left in the dark here. Makes me feel so much better, dont'cha know. ;) "But I know that he's right," Clifford adds. Oh, never mind, lol. He then starts muttering to himself, "Drama. Drama." He's twitching his thumb weirdly for reasons unasked. And then makes some weird clacking noise before we see a shot of the bus still on its way. I don't know, you explain it to me!

So now the girls are rehearsing, or recording, or whatever it is. And way upstairs, Pierce is talking to his doc crew. "Now remember, the camera is the window to the soul," he instructs. The crew obediently repeats that phrase after him. Hw continues, "What I want to do, I want to take my audience on a 'Journey Through The Mind's Eye' of the Spice Girls." Sounds hazardous to everyone's collective health, be prepare for massive lawsuits, man. He then states something that for the life of me I can't make out, only that it has something to do with the "subconscious".

Meanwhile downstairs, the rehearsal gets stalled somehow, and then the girls rush over to greet a friend who just happened to drop by. Did I mention that there's multiple colours on the walls?

Oh, their friend is pregnant. I like the furniture they sit on, all day-glos and zebra stripes. While they're all visiting, the doc makers come up from behind to try and get it all on film, including the sound guy holding a microphone directly over the gaggle, but one of the girls gets annoyed and turns with, "Excuse me, would you mind NOT filming? PLEASE?" The sound guy goes, "Cut," dispiritedly and pulls his microphone back again. Obviously this whole doc thing isn't working out too well so far.

Upstairs Pierce tries to discuss what he wants to do doc-wise with Clifford, and Clifford basically says that's fine, whatever, as long as he doesn't get in anyone's way, you know the drill.

The girls continue visiting with their friend, who finally says hey, just wait until you guys start having kids, and suddenly the screen swirls into this fantasy imagining the Spice Girls as pregnant mothers, and at first I'm thinking, "What the heck, what's THIS scene in here for?" until it briefly starts playing their song "Mama" and I realize the whole scene was shoehorned in so they could have an excuse to put that track in the background.

Then it goes back to the real movie, and as Clifford stands there talking to them, we see that even the girls' microphones have individually hued pastel seats behind them. He says something about a gig on Saturday. "Alright, we're coming," is the annoyed answer. The visit is over, and we see the same room darkened as the girls perform another song. Of course! And it appears this movie may have been made up as it was filmed. I still say the redhead has aged hair, though. The doc crew upstairs is trying to rush and film them again.

The song continues, and I keep expecting the girls to look up and tell the doc crew to knock it off again, poor guys.

Go on.

I'm waiting.

I'm just waiting for you girls to do it.

Any second now.

Come on, drop the other one...

Well, what do you know? They DIDN'T! And the crew FINALLY got some footage! YAY! :D

And we see a newspaper headline reading SPICE GIRLS SET TO CONQUER THE GLOBE.

The newspaper in question is The Daily Event, and we flash over to said paper's headquarters...

Okay, wait, hold up here, folks. Time out. I'm suddenly realizing that this film apparently isn't going to give us any sort of official moniker identification after all. So I'm pausing it, and I'm currently looking up a movie review as I type this in hopes of getting to the bottom of this little mystery before we go any further so I can at least properly identify all of them by Official Moniker Name (TM) as opposed to this "one of them says" stuff and do this properly.

Ah, here we go. According to James Berardinelli's own 2-star review of the movie (which said review annoys me by also trashing ABBA in the same breath, BTW), the girls are as follows:

Baby Spice (Emma Bunton)
Ginger Spice (Geri Halliwell)
Scary (?????) Spice (er um, Melanie Brown)
Sporty (??!?!?!!??!!!!!!!!!) (Melanie Chisholm)
Posh (!) Spice (Victoria Adams)

Uhhhhhh, okeh. Yeah, sure, whatever! LOL.

So anyway, going back to the opening credits and pairing them up, that means the black chick is NOT Ginger Spice as I'd originally thought, she's... um, Scary Spice? And just what's so scary about her? Ugh, whatev. Where's a pen?

Anyway, she's Scary Spice; the blonde one, as we had already figured out, is Baby Spice (and BTW, I just noticed she bears a striking resemblance to Cyndi Lauper facewise in the opening credits; I always found Cyndi a cute chick, so that's a compliment BTW); the chick with dark brown hair and heavy black eye makeup ringed around her eyes and pierced left nostril is Sporty Spice (uh, yeah, whatever); the redhead with aged gray in her hair is Ginger Spice (ok, that sort of makes sense due to the red hair); and finally, the chick with ultrastraight brown hair is Posh Spice. And I've gotten it written down now to keep track. I was almost tempted to make up my own nicknames for them as I went along just for convenience's sake, but why bother when they already have perfectly good ones to begin with? So we're scrubbed of Spice Ignorance now and all set.

You know, it suddenly dawns on me that this overall concept is strikingly similar to that of the Village People. I once read ages ago in an old Rolling Stone Magazine review for VP's very first album (or was it "Cruisin' "? I forget) that despite their status as a "gay music act" only one or two of them was in fact gay, and that apparently it was the songwriter who brought them together who was really the gay one, so I had gotten the idea at the time that the whole costume/moniker bit was in fact some sort of personal fetish thing for the guy who's idea the group was in the first place. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, I dunno, don't really care either way. In any case, the whole "Spice Moniker" bit is pretty much the same thing. So that probably makes the Spice Girls pretty much like the Village People of the 90s. Right? Right??

Okay, back to the movie at hand. Uh oh, looks like that newspaper I mentioned earlier is just as sick of the girls as pretty much everybody else I knew back then! I won't go into the whole dumb conversation these guys at the paper are having, I'll just say that they are plotting to destroy the group with gossip/bad headlines/making-them-have-a-falling-out/whatever and make the Spice Girls history. Must have worked in the long run, they were disappearing only what, around three years later or something? And I didn't know that it could rain and thunderstorm in an office building, I didn't think the weather could be that wet in England.

Anyway, back to the bus, which is still on its little magical mystery tour. The girls are killing time by simply hanging out on the bus (Scary and Ginger are playing chess) and I still say that bus is pretty cool. I would have decorated it up more personally, myself. ;D Meanwhile, the film producers are making their pitch with Clifford. Look at the SIZE of those CELL PHONES! They're total BRICKS! Geez, suddenly makes my iPhone 4S feel all futuristic, lol. As if I didn't love it enough as it is! AN-Y-WAAAY, the idea they're pitching has something to do with the Spice Girls being five sisters, their parents has disappeared or some such, something seriously dramatic or some such. Clifford thinks it stinks. Fat Guy retaliates, "Of COURSE it stinks! But it's a START!" Uh, yeah.

They apparently try something else for a movie idea, and we flash back to the bus continuing on its merry way. And we get a flash of Baby Spice's toy area, which remains my favourite part of the bus, LOL! And after her name comes up on the radio, Baby Spice comments on the fact that she's always going to be known as Baby Spice, the sweet and innocent one, even when she's 30! Posh remarks, "You love it, REAL-ly Emma, and you play UP to it, ALLLL the time." "No, I don't!" Baby Spice comments as she takes her lolly out of her mouth. "Yes, you do, you're doing it now." "I'm NOT!" And we see Scary's having the EXACT SAME RESPONSE I AM RIGHT NOW, giggling at...

Okay okay OK-AY, people, I have GOT to PAUSE THIS THING FOR A SECOND! GEEZ, I'm LAUGHING so much at this ridiculous thing, I need to STOP a second!

Oh geez, I SWEAR, I just stood here and laughed for about at least ten straight minutes, this is just oh geez how do I BEGIN to describe this??? I mean, I shouldn't be allowed to REVIEW this stuff!

Okay, I think I can continue now, geez, this is RIDICULOUS! Anyway, now Sporty's going on about "You see, the thing about YOU, Em, is you've got this there CUTE little smile, so you can get away with ANYthing!" And we flash over to Baby Spice just standi

GADS THERE I GO AGAIN! I actually had to STAND UP and WALK AWAY FROM MY LAPTOP I'm laughing all over again! This is just... okay okay, I think I'm calm now. Anyway, we then see a fantasy segment of a game of Clue where Baby Spice is proclaimed innocent even though she's all aimed with enough ammo to take down Rambo with one shot. And I'm thinking that I have no idea how the heck I'm going to survive reviewing the remaining hour of this flick at this rate!

Okay, now the movie's flashed back to what it calls reality, and Posh is going on about how she's fed up with people thinking she's obsessed with clothes, and we find out in the process of this exchange that the bus has a fish tank in it as well, and that Scary has a huge brick of a phone of her own. GADS, cell phones used to be huge! And they were even HUGER back in the 80s!

Okay, so anyway, their bus apparently arrives at yet another destination, it's some kind of photo shoot, and so far this crazy movie isn't making the slightest bit of sense, nor do I expect it to. And at the photo shoot they al

OH GEEZ! Here I go again! Okay, I'm NEVER going to survive this thing, I keep laughing at it too much to type. Let's just make it easy on me at this point that I can't describe this whole photo shoot scene properly, you people will just have to experience it for yourselves. Come ON, if I can do it YOU can do it!

(About 35 minutes later after calming down with a snack in the kitchen)

Okay, people, after sitting here with MUCH pondering, I've decided that I've been CONQUERED by this movie. I can't do it, not an entire friggin' Running Commentary, for pete's sake, it's just not possible. Let's just say that this thing is just too nutty and crazy and is getting sillier and siller (not to mention faster and faster) by the minute. I quit! At least, the Running Commentary part of it, that is. Let me finish watching this thing normally and then finish this all off with a normal-sounding review part and we'll call it a day. Okay?

(one hour later)

Well, film's done, and here's my remaining thoughts.

Okay okay, people, I admit it. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I admit it. I ended up enjoying this movie a heck of a lot more than I thought I would. I have no idea why, it's just so dingy (as in "DING! DING!") and so stupid and so all-over-the-place, it's a pretty harmless movie I suppose, you could show this to kids with some minor editing (I'm speaking of a scene involving male backup dancers here when I say that), but anyway, I've seen MUCH, MUCH worse than this. It's actually nowhere NEAR the worst of the stinkpile of lousy movies out there, as far as I'm concerned. It's utterly horrible, but it does have entertainment value simply because it keeps giving me nonstop snickers, eyerolling, and a nonstop urge to hurl wisecracks at it!

Do I recommend it? If you're in the mood for something loopy. And hey, you gotta admit, the girls sure looked like they had a blast making this mess. Come on, Bad Movie Lovers everywhere, be brave, pop this one in. I dare you.

2005's HOUSE OF WAX: a running commentary

2011-10-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

House of Wax
Dark Castle
Warner Brothers presents a film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Written by Chad Hayes and Carey Hayes
Based on the story by Charles Belden (I suppose)
Starring Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Jared Padalecki, Jon Abrahams, Robert Ri'chard, Damon Herriman and, last but certainly by all means not least, The Chick You Love To Hate
113 minutes
Rated R (for horror violence, some sexual content and language)

I know exactly what you're thinking.

Why would Craig, of all people, want to see House of Wax? What anonymous phone call threat, letter bomb, or hostage taken has convinced me to watch House of Wax? Could it be...?

Okay, I now know exactly what you're now thinking. ;)

LOL, no it isn't because of her. I am not seeing it just to watch her bite the big one. I've read all about it in the papers, of course, of paid critics cheerfully reporting on just how thrilled the audiences were upon opening weekend as they watched Paris Hilton get bumped off; you know, all the reports of audiences shouting, "KILL HER!" and whooping it up once she was toasted in an obvious visual gag mocking a certain internet video incident. I'm no fan of hers, but I don't hate her the way so many seem to. As a matter of fact, I giggle when I think about her because I think she's just so ridiculous and get amused by people's general overall reaction to her. So no, that's not the reason.

And no, I don't like slasher movies at all. Not at all my thing, not in my nature. So that's obviously not the reason why either.

So if you've already seen this movie, think carefully as you think about my work and my personality: why do YOU think I've decided to see it?

That's right, I want to see the famous "melting House of Wax" sequence at the end of it. I've heard all about that scene and thought that it actually sounded kind of cool and interesting, so I've decided to check out the movie just specifically for that reason. And since I'm home sick today, feeling a bit better but still too dizzy to do anything other than lie down or sit down (for reasonable periods of time) or maybe stumble over to the store across the street for food and medicine, I thought I'd do what some other pages I've seen do and actually create a running commentary for you people while I watch the crazy thing. I've never done this before and am not sure in the least how long it will take, but I'll be taking pauses as I take breaks from this nonsense to rest up and the like, okay? Hang on to your seats, away we GO!

And so the stupidit--er, the adventure... no wait, that's not quite the right word, and besides I don't want to insult Diamond David Lee Roth's famous use of that phrase for this crap, so uh--the thing begins...

So after that famous WB logo, the Village Roadshow Pictures (???) logo and an incredibly overdramatic Dark Castle Entertainment logo which I'm sure will be far more effective than the thing that follows, the screen shows us.. wax. Well, hey what did you expect? That is the title of this thing, after all. Turns out it's wax dripping off a stove, while Spielberg/Elfman-like music's swooning in the background. Gee, sounds more like a Tim Burton fairy tale thing than a horror opening so far.

And now it says it's the year 1974... gad I miss the seventies... and I'm sure this film will do the precious decade and my memories of it no favors... some lady is stirring wax stuff for a mask while some kid in a high chair has made a mess of his Cheerios, and man everything is all in the browns... I mean it, this whole movie is so far all washed-out browns, geez, I thought this was supposed to be 1974 as opposed to the turn of the century or wild west...? You can't see anyone's faces, probably because they're all too embarrassed to reveal themselves as being the ones stupid enough to be in this dumb movie. Mommy is complimenting the one baby in the high chair, now Daddy rushes in with a twin who's throwing an obnoxious tantrum and has to be strapped and taped into his own chair, looks like the struggling is causing some wrist-bleeding too, boy this music reminds me of a Tom & Jerry score. And when one little hand scratches Mommy's, she immediately wax... er, whacks him across the face as the screen goes black.

And we finally see the waxy House of Wax logo appear on screen, it's all brownish-yellow and dripping dark brown wax, oh geez, it's all so brownish-yellow so far I'd swear they accidentally left the print out in the sun too long or something. Geez, we're only at the title screen and already I'm rolling my eyes.

Anyway, so now we flash over to a bird's eye shot of a freeway somewhere, and it says it's now the present. Or at least if you were watching this back when it was first released, now fashions and stuff will all look dated and... oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyways, there's this ultracool song playing in the background that reminds me of The Smashing Pumpkins, you know, loud yet melodic... I don't care if it does sound sorta like a cheap knockoff, I still dig it. At least so far I can say the tunes are cool. We're zooming in on a diner...

Hold on. Is that blood already? Geez, how anxious is this film? Oh, wait... no, there goes a french fry into it, turns out it was just ketchup. And said french fry belongs to... HER! Yes, it's HER, ladies and gentlemen, The One You All Love To Hate So Friggin' Much! Brace yourselves as I prepare to say her name... oh wait, I've got an idea, how about every time I say her name I pause to give you all time to shout your boos and hisses at her? Hmm, well wait, I don't think that will work out so well, after all I don't want any more pauses to this thing than there already are, so tell you what, I'll just add a copyright after her name (since she's a walking copyright anyway, HA! I kill me.) whenever I mention her like this@ so you'll know that that's your allowed cue to boo, scream, shout obscenities, laugh, mock or whatever the heck else you want to do to her, okay? Okay? So let's try a practice run. Take a deep breath:

PARIS HILTON!@

There! That work out okay? Cool, let's continue. ;)

Anyway, we now see her perfectly manicured rich finger perfectly moving along perfectly rich (?) newspaper ads, and she's probably wondering if all this perfectly moving her perfectly rich finger will perfectly cause (gasp!) perfectly icky ink to perfectly smudge on to her perfectly picky fingertip. Okay okay, I'll stop now. Turns out she's sitting at this diner going over the Housing/Rentals section with a friend who kinda reminds me of a young Sheryl Crow with her hair tied back. They're discussing where Paris's@ pal is gonna stay while going off to New York to pursue some fashion career or something, it's a magazine internship something-or-other, and Paris@ is delivering all this with all the convincing believability of your average mannequin; come to think of it, that's all too appropriate for this movie, and I'm sure lots of audiences were probably thinking the same thing, all fantasizing about how much more delightful she'd be dipped in wax and shut up for eternity, something like that. I giggle just thinking about the possible wisecracks that must have filled the theaters. Oh, and the color scheme has switched to blue. I guess that means brown/yellow=evil and blue/white=goodliness, saintness and light. Ok yeah, got it.

Paris@ asks, "Or would you rather stay at The Waffle House as a waitress forever?" If I were Sheryl Crow, I would've replied, "Better idea; how about you give me the cash for all this, what with your being Paris Hilton@ and all, then I go there to pursue my dreams while you take my place at The Waffle House as a waitress forever?" Sounds cool to me. Geez, three and a half minutes into this thing and already I have a better idea than the main characters. This is gonna be so easy I could start a Rocky Horror-style "reply" script to it. Although not as "easy" as you-know-who is though, if you get my drift. I have some scruples, man.

So anyway, while they're gabbing about all this some Wannabehip Kid with sideburns sneaks up behind Sheryl Crow with "Hey babe" or "Hey baby"--I ain't rewinding to find out--in her ear just to instantly get the point across that they're dating. Hmm. Something about this brat smells. No, not that brat, the other brat, and not in that way, you perv. Get Hilton@ outta your brains for a sec, I know how much you all hate her, okay, let me rephrase that, I know how much you all LOATHE her, but she'll get hers in due time I'm sure, and just let me get back to my point and explain: I mean, something about that boy kid who just walked up just seems so very know-it-all and intrusive. Something tells me he's gonna end up being one of those "I don't care if it's stupid, I'm gonna poke my nose around all over the place and do stupid stuff just to get the plot moving" types. I don't know, just something about him. Maybe it's that pretentious-looking "snob" mustache, he just immediately gives the impression of someone who spends all his time bragging and boasting about stuff he really doesn't know anything about. You know the type, the Wannabe Brain. Case in point: Paris@ points out her opinion that, "There's no rednecks in New York", to which he immediately says while clearing his throat, "No, there's not *ahem*." As in, "There, see? If I say it or agree with it, it must be so." Theory proven.

Okay, so there's three in our happy little gaggle. So far anyway. Who's next?

Paris@ then gets this evil little smirk, then delivers a line that sounds at least halfway unintelligible from what's coming out of my brand new speakers. "You know I'm gonna sit on Blake's tonight. He seems like that car more than we notice," is the closest I can make out. Whatever, Paris@. You've got your idea of entertainment and we've got ours, to each his own, you know?

So she gets up and leaves, much to the apparent relief of Sheryl Crow. Wannabe watches her leave for a second, probably making sure she's gone for good or something, then asks Sheryl Crow why on earth her brother had to come along too, since after all, he's The One Who Knows Everything and he's soooo sure that her brother will Spoil Everything. Turns out bro's just gotten out of jail. Wannabe thinks her parents bailed him out, she says no, the previously-mentioned Blake did and invited him for whatever reason.

So then, to put a face, er, hand to the name, we cut to the inside of a car in the parking lot waiting for them as we watch Blake's hand playing with a Toy while bopping out to rap music. That's what a pal of mine calls those GPS things, "Toys" with a capital T, because they're supposed to help guide you to a specific destination yet only work only about 50% or so of the time, or so have said all my friends who own them. So it's a Toy. ;) So, is the Blake-in-question waiting for them to come out, was he supposed to pick some of them up or what? Or did he just opt to spend all that time in the parking lot because he'd rather be there since he's so obviously easily amused? Whatever, dude.

Uh oh, here comes Paris@. She keeps trying to keep his attention but he doesn't even acknowledge her presence even though she's standing right next to him at the driver's window (which is rolled down) and he's behind the wheel, and I can't say I blame him. Finally, after she goes, "Fine," and starts to walk away, he then finally talks to her because he apparently just realized that now he has to before she walks off the set because it's in the script and he's being paid for this and he'll be one of the many out of a job in this rotten economy if he doesn't shape up and play along. He calls after her like she's his girlfriend since the script says they're a couple and looks like merely saying the words, let alone pretending they are, is gonna make him hurl at any given moment. Bleah!

They kiss in such a way that he looks like he just wants to get it over with and she's looking up and around to her side like she's trying to think of something else. Double bleah!

Okay, here come two more guys outside. One near-bald kid with one of those wannabe military haircuts and another in a red cap walking obediently behind him while videotaping everything the first guy does on his camcorder. He passes some guy on the ground with a cup hoping for handouts and--gasp!--actually kicks the guy's cup out of his hand. Hm, must be Sean Penn. No wait, I take it back: Sean would be busy beating up the guy behind him with the camcorder, but he's definitely acting like more than quite a few stuck up celebrities I've encountered in my time. "Ah, me public! How they love me! Come on, Flunky, make sure you get my best side," and the guy recording all, "Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes SIR!" Or hey! Wait! Maybe this is how this particular actor really is and he doesn't realize he's just walked on to the set yet! Oh well, whatever, either way, here they come.

Wannabe says as the two walk up to him and Sheryl Crow, "That's nice. Yeah." I guess he's giving his personal know-it-all approval to all that, too. Who knows?

Baldy sits down with him without saying hello, while Camera laughs as he captures it all. Geez, he must have just gotten that thing, he's so... easily amused by it. You know, kind of how Blake is busy being with his new "Toy" out in the parking lot. No, for cryin' out loud, not PARIS!@ His OTHER new Toy! Geez, how many times do I have to straighten you guys out? But anyway, these two laugh like a Beavis & Butthead bit.

Sheryl Crow smirks at Baldy for a sec, then Wannabe asks the other two about "the biggest game of the year" they're all heading off to. They're still going all B&B on them. Nope, no chance of intelligent conversation with these two. Camera's still trying to video, and Sheryl Crow's telling him to cut it out, and after Baldy gets him to cooperate there's some banter between Baldy and Sheryl Crow. Oh, so Baldy's the jailbird they were talking about, huh? Judging by this, he must have loved the security system's security cameras. I can just see him posing endlessly for them, kinda like the guys thinking they were acting like models for a calendar in Tank Girl.

Camera leaves, Sheryl Crow glancing over her shoulder watching him do so just to make sure he's gone. Good, she's clearly thinking, now maybe both he and Paris@ will stay out in the parking lot where they belong. You wish, chick.

Camera walks with that stupid camcorder right out to the parking pot over to Blake's car so he can video Blake and Paris@ making out in an extremely obvious parody of her previous, uh, video release. Incidentally, those two are "kissing" verrrry hesitantly and barely at all, it is just SO obvious that neither of them want to do it at all and are anxious for the shooting of this particular scene to be over and done with, I kid you not. Oh, and never have I seen anyone say, "Put down that damn camera," in such a stiff, disinterested voice.

The scene changes to the group's two cars zooming up the highway off on their way to the all-important "big game". Cool music is again blaring out of the soundtrack, geez, I wanna get this disc. We cut to the inside of one of the two cars where the kids are all trading flat dialogue, something to do with He-Man's haircut on Wannabe, snooore. Then suddenly they see their other car in front of them forced to take a detour to the right; the road has been blocked off for construction or something, and Wannabe remarks, "So much for his nice little shortcut." Oh broth-ER, so Blake decided to try ignoring his stupid little Toy to try a "shortcut", easily one of the stupidest things anyone following one of those things could do. I mean, never, NE-VER attempt a "shortcut" when trying to follow them; it can be bad enough just trying to follow their normal route as it is! I'm speaking from personal experience, here! Geez...

And to top it all off, is this little moron paying attention to where he's driving? Nope, he's busy allowing Paris@ to get busy, and the others drive up beside them laughing, honking, videotaping, etc. Actually, Paris@ claims via cell phone that she had dropped her lip balm. Blake wants to keep driving, but wouldn't you know Paris@ has the brilliant idea for all of them to just stop on the side of the road and camp out in the middle of nowhere just so she can catch her perfectly rich petite beauty sleep??? And the rest all AGREE with her...?!?!?!!!!

Anyway, it's all too obvious that this bunch isn't the slightest bit concerned about where they might be or what might happen, not to mention the fact that they're not exactly the brightest bulbs on the tree. Ah, the stupidity of stoned, sex-crazed students...

And OH MY GOD we FINALLY get to see some kind of HINT that we're in a HORROR FLICK!

They notice a sign they pass which reads "Come visit TRUDY'S World Famous HOUSE OF WAX" along with some info on its address and the like which is obscured exccept for the ending words "children free". And the very first notes of the DA-DUM scary music are finally heard in this movie! Geez, can't they take a hint???

Completely unimpressed and unconcerned, they moronically drive out in the middle of nowhere while playing cheerful semi-surf rock music on their stereo (what, both cars are playing it at the same time or something? Same station tuned in, I guess...) and set up camp. Beer, cigarettes, music all around. Playing catch with a football. You know the drill. Whoo-bee doo-bee, we have fun.

The only other thing that happens during all this is a bunch of mild banter between the characters in a limp attempt at tension building and character development. Everybody repeat after me: Yay.

So finally after all this boring stuff they all of a sudden notice the SECOND HINT that they're in a horror movie: the SMELL. Followed with that same ominous music that greeted them back with the sign. Funny how they missed it before, and they're all concerned... so what do they do? Why, they simply ignore it after that simple lapse of sanity and get back to partying! GEEZ! How many MORE hints will this group NEED, for pete's sake! Please, God, PLEASE tell me that there aren't real people out there in the world who are this stupid.

So both the music and videocamera are both back on, football's still being tossed around, soon there's a campfire, more of this type of stupid stuff going on, blah blah blah, boy for such a gross smell they sure are ignoring it well, and would you believe Camera gets a friggin' MAKEOVER from Paris@??? Geez, why am I not surprised? He emerges also wearing these ridiculous exaggerated women's-style glasses and is immediately told that he looks like Elton John "only more gay". Hey, watch the wisecracks, I always did like Elton.

...and then, THEN we get HINT NUMBER THREE: the OMINOUS TRUCK. And yes, it's accompanied by that music again. It pulls up, headlights blinding everything of course, everyone's trying to figure out who it is and why, Blake's all, "Hey, turn your lights off!" and Wannabe tells him "Hey, it's cool, man." No it's not, Wannabe. Can't you get that into your thick skulls, any of you? The audience can see all this universes away and you're all so clueless. And then, just to make matters worse, Baldy throws a beer bottle at one of the truck's headlights, which busts it.

"Nick!" protests Sheryl Crow after watching what just happened. Hmph. So NOW her brother has a name? All this way into the movie, and just now he gets a name, huh? Well, I don't feel like calling him "Nick" after all this time of calling him something else, okay? So he's Baldy. Plain and simple. Serves him right for being such a stupid jerk and a louse.

They all walk up to the lights and do their best to give it a collective glare of disapproval, which only makes them look even younger than they already are, and oh I almost forgot to mention; the mysterious driver's arm has (gasp!) marks on its wrist, and OH WOW, the EXACT SAME da-DUM OMINOUS MUSIC in the background, meaning that oh GOSH, oh GEE WHIZ, why, HE must be THE WILD CHILD from the very beginning opening prologue! Wow, how could we have ever guessed that??? ;) and Camera simply raises his yellow-jacketed (no pun intended) arms and shouts, "WHAT!" and the truck backs up. "YEAH!" shouts Camera as it drives away. Yeah, I'd probably get scared away too if I found myself shining my brights at a neon yellow Elton John fanatic.

Okay, so that's Three Ominous Warning Hints so far, who's up for Four? Someone? Anyone? You just know they're gonna keep piling up... geez, these stupid kids are so dense.

So they STILL keep camping out there!??!?!?!?!! This is just... beyond beyond, people. You see what I mean, now? Anyone else would have torn out of here long ago, at least if this was real life. But these characters totally defy logic and realism, not to mention brains, even more so than the usual Stupid Kids Who Make Dumb Decisions In A Clunky Horror Flick type.

Ho hum, now they're all a-sleeping in their tents... oooh, someone's sneaking up on Blake and Paris's@ tent, now said person's sneaking up on everyone else, how scary... geez, I have the feeling it's Camera, it's all shaking and moving around like he's videotaping again. Oh well, wait, maybe not. Oh WOW, we just heard a bit of noise from what sounds like a car being tampered with. Oh look, there's Camera sound asleep. So whoever it is most definitely is not in their group. In any case, Sheryl Crow wakes up, is unnerved and decides to go look outside but doesn't see anyone... and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Wannabe causes a stupidly predictable false alarm to end this whole scenario. Geez, it's about time somebody started acting concerned here even if it is only because Wannabe's such a know-it-all I-wanna-be-in-charge-of-everything kinda twit.

Suddenly it's morning and everyone's getting up. Well, that was harmless, now get the living daylights OUT of there while you can! Oh wait, they can't. Oh... seems Camera's camera is missing. And suddenly, there's that SMELL again... the girls notice it while doing their personal business... isn't it just the oddest thing how they keep noticing it and tuning it out at will? I think they, uh... oh never mind. I've given up trying to explain that phenomenon in any way whatsoever, logically or otherwise.

"Let's go follow the smell!" announces Sherly Crow. SNAAARLLL..... I've lost count of how many dumb decisions these airheads have made so far, I swear to God. Now if it was Paris@ singlehandedly making all the dumb decisions, that would have been a heck of a lot more believable, but...

No wait, actually Paris@ makes one genuinely intelligent response here. As Sheryl Crow pipes energetically, "I want to see what it is!", Paris@ gives Sheryl Crow a look like S.C.'s lost her marbles and questions suspiciously, "Why?" as if Sheryl Crow had just announced she wants to dye her own hair purple with pink polka-dots. Frankly, I would have reacted the exact same way. Geez, the first genuinely intelligent question posed here by this bunch so far, who'd have thought that Paris@ would be the one to ask it?

Meanwhile, the guys discover that Wannabe's brand new car belt has "broken" Uh huh, geeeee, could it be that Sheryl Crow was correct when she said she heaaaard something? Naah, couldn't have had anything to do with the car noise at all, now could it? Pure coincidence, I'm sure. That's what Paris@ would say...

Well actually no, it turns out Paris@ does not say that. Turns out she ends up saying the SECOND genuinely intelligent thing anyone here has said so far in their situation! "I canNOT believe you're making me do this." Well, whaddya know? Wow, keep it up Paris@, you're actually starting to impress me here--at least in comparison with the others.

Hey, look, check it out! She just said THREE! Following Sheryl Crow, she remarks in follow-up to her previously stated intelligent phrase, "Only you." As in, only you, Sheryl Crow, would make anyone pull such a stunt. WHOA! She's on a ROLL here, folks! Isn't this amazing! Keep it up Paris@, you gonna go for four?

Hey, YEAH! She DID it! For making Paris@ follow her, Paris@ remarks to Sheryl Crow, "Oh my God, I hate you." You and me BOTH, Paris@!

THIS IS AMAZING, FOLKS! I can't believe I'm saying this, but... wow, she's said four smart things in a row, and... this is really frightening, probably the most frightening thing about this movie I'll encounter I'm sure... I'm AGREEING with them????!?!?!?!!!!! WHOA! STOP THE MOVIE! This horror movie just succeeded in TRULY SCARING ME! BEST SCARY MOVIE I'VE SEEN IN AGES!

No wait, I gotta finish this... so let's continue...

So anyways, Sheryl Crow ends up falling smack dab into a roadkill pit. Ew. She's screaming and everything, can't say I blame her, I mean like ewww, there's also what appears to be a human hand in it... no wait, it looks too plastic-ish to be real, I think it's a mannequin... still gross though, blood and everything. Ick. Everyone else rushes over and pulls her out.

So now a different truck pulls up right on cue (no busted headlight), and it's got all these sharp tools rattling away in the back of it and is filled with roadkill. Ick. And I'll bet it also smells something fierce. Geez, this movie just gets more and more delightful, doesn't it? And yet these doofuses still refuse to take the hint. Whatever...

...and out steps Your Average Backwoods Weirdo Creep, who immediately opens the back of his pickup and starts tossing all the roadkill into the pit. Now wait, Reality Check here, folks... what are the chances of this kind of timing? That's right, barely at all. I can just imagine the producers screaming at us, "We keep telling you, suspension of disbelief! Don't you guys have any imagination?"

Now at this point, anyone else would have just taken off... heck, anyone else would have been miles away hours ago at this point. But no; Wannabe immediately calls out to the weirdo, "Hey!"

So let me see if I've got this straight: stuff like being late for the game and busted fan belts cause annoyance and even concern, while this stuff stuff doesn't? Hel-LOOOooooo...?!

Anyway, wouldn't you know that it would be Wannabe who first gets the weirdo's attention. I guess everyone else just lets Wannabe pull all this crap because hey, he knows everything, or so he'd love to have the world believe.

And Sheryl Crow immediately and stupidly asks Weirdo, "Don't you see that?" as she points at the mannequin hand. "What is that?" Stupid, stupid, stupid... frankly, I'm amazed that she's the one so far saying and doing all these stupid stunts and Paris@ isn't. Not so far, anyway.

Weirdo stares at them for a moment with a look on his face indicating that he immediately sees that these kids aren't exactly brain surgeons, finishes his little chore, then pulls the hand right off ("No way," remarks Wannabe, "What are you doing, man?" as if to emphasize their obvious collective stupidity). Yup, I was right, it's only a mannequin. See? Now if I could tell, and theoretically they were, ahem, right there, wouldn't you think they'd be able to see that as well?

Weirdo immediately asks the most obvious quip in the world: "Anyone need a hand?" Uh, yeah. Whatever. Can these kids all just go now? Hell, just get in the other car and take off... actually, they're all beginning to remind me of an old Yogi Bear cartoon with Little Red Riding Hood in it, and she's a-skipping through the forest going, "Duddle-de-dum-de-DUM, duddle-de-dum-de-DUM"... yeah, you might know which one I'm talking about... Yeah, that pret-ty much sums up the collective I.Q. at work here in a heartbeat. I swear, these are the exact kinds of kids out there gathered in Wall Street right now as I write this... which, frankly, I'd rather even be watching them on the news right now as opposed to this tripe... But man... my mind's wandering again, this thing is so lame and these people are so stupid... yawwwn... back to the commentary...

Anyway, I'll give Weirdo one thing: as he's standing demonstrating how fake the hand is, he's also sure demonstrating brilliantly that whatever intelligence he has is vastly superior to our little group of doofuses. Wannabe stupidly answers Weirdo's question of what they're doing, blah blah blah, camping out, blah blah blah, fan belt, blah blah blah Weirdo of course knows of a gas station where "Bo" may have one, blah blah blah... and of course, Wannabe refuses to abandon his oh-so-precious car... uh dude, you are NOT INVINCIBLE, and you're obviously DIMMER THAN THE AVERAGE DOORSTOP, stop trying to do all the thinking already and GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! Geez, somebody take a lasso to this kid and DRAG HIM back to where they started already before he gets them all killed... no, wait, that might give Weirdo over there ideas... but whatever, just SMACK the kid, he's just so... GRRRRR...

Geez, just listening to this whole scene with Wannabe's blathering is making me irritated. Here's hoping he gets it first, if for no other reason than just to shut him up.

Blake says that if Wannabe stays with his car then he'll miss the game. And then... then... get this, Wannabe says it's fine and then, after eyeing Sheryl over there, admits that that's not the reason why he came. Oh, so he's not only an annoying wannabe brain, but a LETCH too? Ugh... now he's an even worse character than before... no wait, it just struck me... "wannabe brain"... maybe that "brain" should be capitalized, kinda of "wannabe Brainy". You know, the smurf. The one whom you couldn't get to shut up and was always being thrown out on his head, and deservedly so... GEEZ how I wish that would happen to this pr--er, uh, I'm trying to force myself to be polite here, uh... this... person. In fact, he's not Wannabe anymore, from now on he's Brainy. He's just reminding me too much of Brainy for his own good, not to mention mine... how I suffer... geez, the things I do for people...

So now anyways, Brainy's got the brilliant idea that he's go gonna go with this goon to this gas station to get a fan belt while all the others go to the game? DOUBLE GRRRRR... this clown's just full of intelligence. And Sheryl says she's going with him... of course... well, if nothing else, it sure looks like Brainy will be snuffed out of the plot pret-ty soon...

"Carly, no," Paris@ protests lamely at Sherly Crow. I don't care if her name's Carly, my nickname stands. But she insists. "Yes, we'll be fine." MOO-ha-ha-ha.

So Baldy then strips off his top just so the girls in the audience can have something to drool over for a moment and gives it to Sheryl to replace her now messed up top. It's obviously far too big for her, and yet a scene change later it's a perfect fit and is so obviously not the same one that was just handed to her a second ago, but nevertheless makes her look more like Sheryl Crow than ever. I repeat: my nickname stands.

So Brainy has decided to go with Weirdo, who has literally been standing there picking his nose through all this -- ew. Some more stupidly pointless talk is exchanged, and the scene finally ends. Thank God.

And now Brainy and Sheryl Crow are riding with Weirdo in his pickup, which is all adorably decorated with all sorts of dead relics and charms straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I was once forced to endue at someone's birthday party around 1988 or so. Stupid, stupid, stupid... well, no I wasn't referring to that movie being played at the birthday party and my being forced to endure it (which was indeed stupid nevertheless), but to these two kids actually riding with this looney. Of their own free will. Out in the middle of nowhere. How dense can you get?

Ick, and now Weirdo is leering at Sheryl Crow.

So what do they do? Why, they both simply relax and Sheryl Crow politely asks Brainy, "Could you roll the window down, please?" Dumb de dumb dumb...

Well, whaddya know? The window won't work! Why are we not surprised? The only ones who seem to be surprised are Brainy and Sheryl Crow, who both appear by this point to have a collective I.Q. of about -10. Brainy politely asks if Weirdo can roll down his window instead. To his credit, Weirdo does, apologizing and explaining that after a while he sort of got used to the smell. Charming.

This road they're driving on is practically nonexistant, it's all mud and water. And Weirdo is explaining that if the roadkill he finds is fresh enough he'll just take it home: "Why waste the meat?" Double charming.

And yeesh, even THIS doesn't appear to alarm our Clueless Twosome. Sheryl Crow merely asks, "Are we almost there, yet?" And as Weirdo is explaining that yes, they're almost to Ambrose (the town in question) and as he's explaining how it used to be a nice town, Sheryl Crow then notices the huge bowie knife on Weirdo's belt. And... and...

And OH MY GOD she FINALLY starts to look truly UNCOMFORTABLE! It's ABOUT TIME! Apparently the actual sight of the knife was the last straw so desperately needed to make a huge mental fist shove itself up into her skull and connected with the single particle of braincell that was her brain that had no doubt been asleep in there all this time.

Weirdo sees her noticing. "You like knives?" "No, not really." "Goes with the trade! You want to see it?" he asks, pulling it out of its sheath before they can respond properly, although she manages to gasp out, "It's okay" after he does so. "It's a good knife; can cut through anything," he remarks, immediately thrusting it into the dashboard.

And that's when the truck skids to a stop at a small river of water.

The two doofuses ask what's going on, Weirdo explains that the town is just around the bend. I won't go into the whole conversation that follows, I'll just say that Weirdo gets out of the car, he's getting annoyed that they obviously don't feel at ease around him anymore, Brainy says thank you but they'll walk the rest of the way, they want out of the car. Weirdo is obviously irritated by this, goes around to open their side, but hey, turns out the nasty knife (just like Zork I!) is sheathed, he lets them go all insulted that they aren't accepting his hospitality.

The two doofuses cross the water, which is really just a small creek, and they're walking slowly but quickly away from Weirdo, who's staring back at them an unhappy camper. When they finally are enough of a business away, the truck drives away. All through this scene, they're finally exhibiting a little intelligent caution.

Well, there's the town, and just as explained, it really was just right there.

Meanwhile, we now see that the rest of our band of heroes are stuck in the middle of traffic out on some wild snarl of freeway somewhere. "Dude, it's over," gripes Baldy. "It'll move," insists Blake. After a split second, Paris@ observes, "It's not moving." Ah Paris@, what a gift for stating the obvious. Darn, I knew that all those flashes of intelligence couldn't last... Blake wants to keep moving, the others all argue and make him turn around... famous last words...

Back to Brainy and Sheryl Crow. Seems like a quaint albeit quiet little town. Now they're in a much lighter mood. Hey, they've discovered a pet store... and there's puppies in the window...

Now wait a minute here. Are they real? And if this town is deserted (as I've read about in reviews of this thing), then how can there be puppies in the window? Are they fakes? Who feeds them? Who takes care of them? Is it a continuity error or stupid writing or are they fake? I've slowed the film down to study them and I honestly cannot tell. As I love animals, I sure hope this film isn't trying to suggest that they were killed and waxed or whatever it was the reviews were describing (now please don't get after me for writing a "spoiler", I mean, the whole world already knew about that part of the plot when this film came out, so please, no complaints, okay? Thanks. ;) ). But if they weren't, then how did they get there? And why? Nothing about this shot seems to really make any sense...

...or do I really want to know?

So here's the gas station. It's both old and deserted, although there's rock music playing in it. And then Sheryl Crow's cell starts ringing. She answers it, and... it's PARIS@! Now THAT'S a horror movie, I mean, what if you were just walking along and you suddenly got called by Paris Hilton@? No no, just kidding... silly joke, I know... anyway, Paris@ explains they're heading back, and they make arrangements for the rest of them to meet them back at their makeshift campsite. Meanwhile, we see someone looks out the window, specifically a closeup of an old woman's hand, and the hand is real. I mean it. Watch it carefully. It is real. I kid you not.

So now they're just discovered the House of Wax, and right behind them is a theater playing Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? At least somebody making this thing had some taste, lol. Since there was no one at the gas station, they decide to ask at the town church, which is close by. They go in and accidentally interrupt a funeral, so they immediately step back out. Some ultraslick greasy hair guy is praying at the coffin, and there's a priest there. Well, I saw the priest move twice, so clearly he isn't a wax dummy either. So what is this, only some of the people are and some aren't? I'm confused. Guess that's what I get for reading movie reviews before seeing the actual movie.

Outside, the two are obviously embarrassed, and while they briefly decide what to do next, Greasy suddenly comes out. They attempt to apologize and explain that they're looking for "Bo", the gas station guy. Turns out it's Greasy. Geez, how much grease does he use in that gas station anyway?

Greasy's all peeved that they interrupted the funeral for a fan belt, and he says he'll be right back out. The two still attempt to apologize. Greasy then comes out, and he apologizes, saying that someone special to him personally passed away and that he didn't mean to take it out on them. He then adds that things will wrap up soon and that he'll meet them at the station in about half an hour, or something like that. I don't feel like rewinding to find out. Anyway, Sheryl Crow says that would be great, and Greasy heads back into the church. Brainy's all annoyed because Greasy gave her the Eye. They decide to kill time by checking out the House of Wax.

So then we cut to the inside of some studio-like place where operatic music is playing and... oh my GOD, ROTFL!

Sorry folks, you'll have to excuse me for a second: you see, just now a friend sent me a link to a review of this movie over on Badmovies.org, and as it describes the plot it says, and I quote: "Their arrival signals a man with beautiful girl hair who is sculpting a woman's bosom." OMG, that is HILARIOUS! I love it! Anyway, that's exactly what's happening. Oh, and we quickly see a glimpse of one of his candles having extra long nails stuck through it. Why, I have no idea. We see lots of closeups of this guy scultping the wax woman's breasts, probably to titillate (no pun intended... no, really) the teenage/college boys in the audience.

And as they approach the House of Wax, Sheryl Crow asks, "What do you expect to see in here?" and I expected Brainy to reply, "WAX!" What else?

"It is wax. Like, literally." he says instead as he actually peels a small portion off of the side. And this, of course, brings up all sorts of nonsensical questions, such as how in the heck did this place manage to stay in one reasonable piece during the summertime, especially during those hot, muggy southern-type summers. In case you haven't noticed yet, this is one movie which has chosen to simply throw all logic into the toilet and give a mighty flush. I suppose the producers figured the audience was just as stupid as the heroes in the movie. They guessed wrong. Which suggests, of course, that maybe the producers were! An explanation which would make a ton of sense by this point.

So anyway, all Sheryl Crow says in response to this is, "Oh." Or maybe it's "ho," or "huh". Either way, it's obvious that she's just taking this all in stride and seeing absolutely nothing ridiculous or nonsensical about any of this whatsoever, you know, just like the producers of this movie were.

Brainy grins at her like the idiot he really is, and then tries the front door, which of course just HAWPens to be unlocked, and stupidly strolls right in.

"You're not gonna go in there, are you?" remarks Sheryl Crow with a just-a-touch-of-boredom sort of tone to her voice which suggests that she's really hoping Brainy's going to finally get totally brained so he'll finally be shut up and she won't have to put up with him for the rest of the movie. Brain then gives her another one of his idiotic looks/grins as he goes, "Yawh" in the stupidest tone/whisper you've ever heard in your life. Okay, as if we didn't need any more proof right off the bat that Brainy isn't exactly the brightest bulb on the tree as it is. Not even bothering to cautiously peer in first, he simply barges right in, leaving Sheryl Crow to watch all this with a total, "You have, like, got to be kidding me, are you a fruitcake or for real?" look in his direction. Nevertheless, she -- and with far more unease than he displayed, might I add -- follows after. But then she does something nearly as stupid; she actually closes the door behind her. Wow, do these people have a death wish or what? It doesn't even strike her even for a moment that they may need to make a speedy getaway? Oh whatever, I give up, I keep forgetting these dorks don't know they're in a cheesy horror flick.

We cut to Previously Mentioned Man With Beautiful Girl Hair down in his studio suddenly pausing as he realizes that somebody has just arrived for a soothing waxdown upstairs. He can hear them talking loudly right through the ceiling/floor and everything.

"What if someone's here?" asks Sheryl Crow as we then see our first glimpse of inside the House of Wax, lots of furniture and waxed-up figures all set in various poses all over the place. "Hul-LO? ANNY-one IN here?" Brainy immediately calls out loudly, then says quietly, "See? We're fine." Geez, how long have these two known each other anyway? Must not have been for long, I mean if it was for too long you would have thought she'd have long since figured out that if you follow this twerp that you end up in a blind alley. "Wow! How cool is this?" Brainy continues. "Everything in here is wax, the floor..." he babbles on and on, as if he were making a brilliant deduction but is in reality just demonstrating his amazingly stupid gift for stating the obvious. Ugh, puh-LEEZ let this loudmouth get bumped off first, he's driving me NUTS!

"Yeah, cool, awesome," she replies, looking far smarter and more uneasy than he is. And Brainy just can't keep his hands to himself, I SWEAR! Meanwhile, Sheryl Crow's checking out newspaper clippings and stuff on the walls nearby, and the two start going on about New York, and he says he still hasn't made up his mind about going there or some such nonsense, and she actually says that she'd really like him there with her...??? Wow, wait, back up, did I HEAR that CORRECTLY???!?!?!?!!! Ok, these two must have known each other for what, two days or something? I mean... oh, whatever...

Now Brainy's joking around about holding fire up to the wax stuff, ugh, I once knew someone like this back during my teens, drove me nuts. Ugh! He needs a gag and handcuffs, I swear. And the very moment she stops him, NOW he immediately heads over to a dog figure on the floor. He just can't KEEP HIS HANDS TO HIMSELF, for God's sake. How I'd hate to be his mother.

Okay, now this part's really hokey. Turns out the dog's not really a statue and starts barking at him, but a second ago the filmmakers put a fake statue lookalike in the dog's place to try and convince us he was standing peeerfectly still until that moment. Uh huh, real convincing there, guys.

Sheryl Crow laughs as the dog makes Brainy fall over and then runs out of the room, although I'm not sure if she's laughing at how the dog tricked Brainy, or the stupidity of how the filmmakers attempted that whole scene, or both. Probably both.

Brainy immediately starts fooling around with the piano (Do I lie? I said he can't keep his hands off things...!!!) while she notices that figurines are signed "Vincent", an obvious nod to Vincent Price in the earlier version. I can't recall which of the two earlier classic versions he was in right off the bat, but then again the whole point was to convince us that these filmmakers knew what they were doing and have class. Uh huh. Sure...

Okay, I think you've all gotten my point about this whole scene, he's acting amazed and fascinated, and she just thinks it's all weird and is appropriately uneasy, no need to go on with the rest of this scene's dialogue by this point I'm sure. Besides, I'm bored.

Sheryl Crow finally looks in a mirror and sees a reflection of, as pointed out in that above Badmovies.org link I included, A Man With Beautiful Girl Hair staring in the window (snicker). She whirls around, and of course Girly Boy isn't there anymore, blah blah blah. Geez, I'm getting anxious for something interesting to happen here.

Now of course, you just know this means that Brainy's gonna go outside and check it out, not because he's trying to be cautious or anything like that, but simply because he's nosy.

"Wait! Don't leave me here!" she says, and watching that he's going outside anyway, she decides to stay indoors and shut the door???!?!?! Stupid, stupid, STUPID...

So now she's all alone in the place and is getting all spooked and freaked out by all the wax things and starts making her way back over to the piano, where she sees Brainy outside where Girly Boy was, and Brainy motions to her that he doesn't see anything. Of course not, Brainy. You really think someone suspicious is gonna STAY there for you to discov... oh, never mind. You're hopeless, Brainy.

Sheryl Crow keeps looking around indoors while Brainy outside nosily tries to open the outside door that leads down to the cellar, being the stupid nosy so-and-so that he is. Sheryl Crow continues to look around alone inside the place and discovers the kitchen. She then hears a tapping noise, turns around to see a wax lady figure with a disfigured face, freaks, and accidentally knocks the thing over as she shrieks and runs out. Funny how she didn't notice it before until, quite literally, the camera did -- even though she was facing it when enterting the room. Turns out it was Brainy tapping on the window who made the noise, of course.

So THEN she runs out of the place and up over to Brainy. Okay, like any of that scene made sense at all in the first place, right? She's freaking out, and they both go somewhere else.

And we FINALLY cut to another scene!

And it's... ew, that wasn't a sight I needed to see before dinner time. Baldy and Camera urinating against a tree. Blake interrupts them them by asking if they're gonna have sex? There goes lunch.

Anyway, to cut an annoying scene short, the others have all decided to just take off and get going, leaving Brainy and Sheryl Crow to fend for themselves. Or at least I think they have, I've lost track. That second part aside, this is what they all should have been doing in the first place... what do you guys wanna bet that they'll for whatever reason change their collective minds and head back?

Meanwhile, Brainy and Sheryl Crow are now inside the gas station while Brainy's just helping himself to a new belt without permission. No surprise there. And to make it even dumber, Brainy then starts to go on about how it's all everyone else's fault, as if none of his nosiness and stupidity had anything to do with it. No, why of course not, not him...

Sheryl Crow goes on about the so-called importance of there being two sets of twins in this movie while Brainy notes that the gas station has every belt size but the 15-incher he needs. He notes that he'll just have to use a 16-inch instead, characteristically helping himself. Of course, that's when Greasy makes his appearance, and Brainy has to explain himself, albeit arrogantly so. Sheryl Crow gives Greasy the same explanation much more convincingly. Greasy says the right size is back at the house, hey, why don't we all go over there and get it?

While walking outside, Brainy asks if he can use the bathroom, and of course Greasy says the gas station's is out or order, why, he'll just have to use the one in his own house. They both agree and go along with him, like stupid people. All the while, they gab on and on about stuff that's supposed to deepen the film. Meanwhile, it's obvious Greasy's got Sheryl Crow in his sights.

When they get there, Greasy immediately opens his truck's door and suggests they both get in and wait while he gets the belt and then he'll personally give them a ride back to their car. Sheryl Crow says no, actually they've got some friends coming along to pick them up soon. Speaking of which, why hasn't she tried using her cell phone during all this? I don't recall her losing it, and I'm not rewinding this junk to find out and refresh my memory. If I were her, I would have kept my phone handy at all times, constantly trying it every couple of minutes or so. Come to think of it, the others should have called HER to tell HER they were going to go ahead and take off! Gads, not a braincell in sight here.

So Sheryl Crow gets into the truck after all, and before Brainy gets in Greasy reminds him that he could go ahead and use his personal restroom. GEEZ! How much more OBVIOUS can this setup GET?? Brainy, you DUNCE, he's gonna SNUFF you! But hooray for us when he does, for we won't have to put up with his annoyance any longer... Greasy also asks Sheryl Crow if she also needs to "use the can" (so polite) but she says no, so they both leave her waiting in the car.

They go in, Greasy tells him when the bathroom is and says he's gonna go "get out of this jacket and tie" and get the fan belt as he heads upstairs. So of course, again, once he's alone Brainy AGAIN insists on poking his nose everywhere it doesn't belong. Kill! Kill!

We cut to a car driving through the night. Why it's Baldy and Camera, and they're babbling on about how they're using Blake's truck or some such, and they then notice that wherever-they-are is not on the GPS. "That's weird," remarks Camera.

We then see that Brainy took time out from being nosey long enough to use the bathroom but then picks up again right where he left off. Oooh, wow, even MORE stuff to snoop around in! He touches EVERYTHING, no matter how weird or gross it is, even making stupid noises as he does so. I'm just eagerly waiting for this kid to bite the big one. In fact, you guys can all have You-Know-Who killed for your personal entertainment, I personally want THIS idiot to go!

Meanwhile out in the truck, Sheryl Crow is trying all the stations on the radio; turns out Greasy left his keys in the ignition. She can't get anything, so she waits in frustration. What is taking so long, she clearly wonders.

What's taking so long is that Brainy's taking his dear sweet time in getting killed, and it's amazing that he hasn't been caught by now since by this point I wouldn't have been surprised if he was trying on old clothes he found as well. He's just going ALL OVER the place and looking at EVERYTHING, and no matter how sinister and weird everything looks, including surgeon gear he finds, he STILL doesn't get the hint and leave ASAP even though the whole joint has you are about to get KILLED, you fool, you fool written all over it.

Outside, Sheryl Crow gets out of the truck and starts to go up to the front door when she suddenly recognizes the broken headlight on the front of the truck.

Brainy is actually tugging on the straps of a surgeon's table just for kicks. GRRR.

Sheryl Crow has rushed to the truck's driver's side and is honking the horn, and at LAST Brainy begins to take some notice of something else other than his own nosiness. But he actually starts to look back down at what he was doing, apparently about to ignore the very very OBVIOUS danger signal, when suddenly the lights go out. Eek.

The music is all tense as we slowly focus on Brainy trying to make his way through the darkened room. He finds the door and discovers it's locked, then starts calling through it while behind him a conveniently-placed trapdoor begins rising up from the floor (don't you just hate it when that happens?) and Girly Boy reaches out with a pair of large scissors and snips the tendons in the back of one of Brainy's feet, causing him to collapse. Actually this scene is nowhere near as gory as it sounds. What you can see even in this quick shot is that in reality the fake leg had a baggie of fake blood tucked up inside its pantleg and the scissors snipped it. Low budget cheapie movie. Hey, I'm terribly squeamish and even I didn't flinch, it was so obviously fake.

Brainy backs away while making, "Uh! Uh! Uh!" sounds right into the surgical area. Still convinced that he can always take care of himself, he grabs some object off the surgical table and weilds it... no, wait, that's not quite the right word, this loon clearly doesn't know how to "weild" anything, he just holds it out in front of him instead. Even though there's no one right in front of him and he can apparently see that, he starts lashing wildly out in front of him at thin air like that's gonna do him any good? Uh, listen Brainy, you're supposed to have a TARGET in front of you before you start trying to defend yourself. And, of course, doing so only makes him trip and fall over on to the floor. Idiot. And then The Man With His Beautiful Girl Hair flying suddenly appears from out of nowhere, makes some sort of slashing motion that I can't determine, and then the scene switches.

Outside, Sheryl Crow is getting more and more anxious as she keeps honking the horn and no one is answering.

We cut back to Brainy lying on the floor squirming around, and we then see Girly Boy, with a dramatic flash of his trademark (TM) Beautiful Girl Hair, kick Brainy's lights out! YAAAAAAAAY!

Ah, so NOW Sheryl Crow decides to try her cell phone? She had it on her all this time and hasn't been trying it? And why not call 911? Geez, where's a brain when you need one... anyway, instead she's calling Paris's@ cell, and Paris@ gets out of her tent to answer it, only Blake then grabs her "romantically" and carries her off back into the tent so the phone doesn't get answered? GEEZ! These people just get stupider and stupider! So Sheryl Crow starts leaving a message, but then Greasy of course picks that verrry moment to come outside, and Sheryl instantly holds her phone where he can't see it. Greasy has changed into more casual clothing and is holding a bunch of stuff.

"Where's Wayne?" she asks. "Oh, he's not out yet?" She shakes her head. "Guess he's still in the bathroom, then. I've got the fan belt. You're not in a hurry are you, cause..." but while he's going on like this, she jumps into the truck and locks the door. He wants to know what she's doing. "Waiting for Wayne," she informs him. She then quickly locks the passenger side door as well. First reasonably smart thing she's done.

"Open the damn door! This IS my truck!" he demands. Of course, she doesn't. Then he starts getting violent, and somehow manages to bust the entire driver's side window with his bare arm (??!!!). He grabs her, she drops her cell phone at the bottom of the truck, then while he's saying he wants the keys she reaches over and turns the engine on, then pushes down on the pedal with her hand while he keeps saying he's gonna supposedly call the cops. The whole truck goes into reverse with him hanging on on the outside, and I swear, at one point I heard him shout to her, "Get IN here!" when he's in fact trying to get her out. I don't know, you explain it to me, I'm only watching this stuff.

Anyway, the truck skids to a stop in such a way that Greasy is thrown off, she then jumps into the driver's seat properly and attempts to peel out of there, only instead merely ends up getting the truck stuck instead. Smooth move.

She reaches for her phone, doesn't pick it up, looks around, doesn't see anyone, switches on the lights, and EEK, there he is in front of the car, so now she crawls out of the truck's back window and jumps to the ground even though technically he should have come all the way around the truck to get her by that point, and runs off as quickly as her Crow legs can carry her.

Meanwhile, Baldy and Camera are still calmly driving through the night. They both astound me by saying they like Wayne (Brainy).

So now we see Girly Man dragging Brainy off through some place underground I guess, somewhere where it's all wood and whatever, and with all the grace of handling a sack of potatoes.

While the music desperately tries to make things tense enough for us to care, Sheryl Crow rests gasping against some building of some kind.

We then cut back to what appears to be Girly Pie's underground lair. Geez, he's got a real racket here going on, apparently. Girly's got Brainy on a table, and the very first thing he's doing is using his scissors to snip off all of Brainy's clothes! Let's get KINKY! LOL, ah-h-HEM, okay so anyways, his trademark (TM) Beautiful Girl Hair flashes about his masked face as Brainy mumbles, maybe he's enjoying this nonsense of being stripped by this guy, I don't know and I don't think I want to know either. So then Girly gives Brainy some kind of injection and Brainy moans louder, geez it still sounds like Brainy's kind of getting a kick out of all this, euuu, sure doesn't sound much like pain. Now Girly's snipped off his pants. And I don't hear Brainy complaining one bit. Now THAT'S the scary stuff.

Girly uses water to wash the big nasty cut he caused on Brainy's left arm/chest area, then shows what a caring nurse he is by gently washing off Brainy's forehead with a sponge. Aw, that's right, get him nice and relaxed, wax is supposed to do wonders for the skin, isn't it? Girly's so nice he's even going to give Brainy a nice relaxing waxjob, just like beauty mud only it packs much nicer, don't you agree? That oughta clean out those pores!

Girly then shows what a caring professional he is by crudely sewing up that big nasty cut all by himself! Aw, isn't Girly just so attentive? Okay, now to take care of poor Brainy's face. Girly gently and caringly gives Brainy a nice relaxing mudpack, then places a nice soothing cloth over his face, gently and tenderly rubbing it on to Brainy's face, and after it sets he then quickly pulls it back off, revealing the clunky makeup job that the filmmakers gave Brainy in an attempt to cover his real eyebrows and make it look as though his just had his facial hair pulled off. Just how many box tops did they save up to make this thing, anyway?

We then cut to Sheryl Crow rushing around mindlessly through the dark, apparently all around the town area without having the brains to realize that she should be running out of town as opposed to in circles within it. Suddenly the whole town lights up all by itself, and she stands there staring at it, instead of running away like she should be doing.

Next, we see that Girly has Brainy sitting in a sort of chair while wearing this funky thing on his head that makes him look like he's straight out of that one movie I once saw advertised at the front of the Heavy Metal movie videotape I rented back in the mid-90s that quoted Terry Gilliam as enjoying it so much, but for the life of me I can't recall what it was called... something to do with absorbing dreams from children or something, can't remember, but anyway, on its cover it had a brownish picture of some old guy with a similar contraption on his head, and it all looked remarkably similar to this scene right here, brown hues and all... but I'm wandering off track... okay whatever, back to the film at hand. Okay, so the hot wax is all nice and hot and boiling, all ready! Girly turns on his contraption, and Brainy relaxes as he gets a nice soothing wax shower.

Sheryl Crow is stupidly standing in place mindlessly goggling over the town lights instead of running as she should be doing, and despite being right next to the area where she came in, she sees the church and decides to head that way instead. She runs into the church yelling for help, until she looks around and sees that all the people there are also wax figures, including the priest. But you know something, in that earlier shot I'm pretty positive I saw that priest breathing, just as I saw that real old woman's hand moving. So I'm pretty sure that it's an attempt at a "trick photography" switcheroo, you know, like the dog bit in the House of Wax. I'm not rewinding to find out, though.

One of the arms falls off of one of the figures, and it's bloody, so obviously it used to be a real person, so Sheryl Crow screams. Yeah, we're dealing with a pair of real fruitcakes here. Nutty as fruitcakes to be sure, but not scary.

So that's when she discovers that the "funeral" was for Trudy, the twins' mother of course, and we see a wax figure of their mom lying in the casket. Meanwhile, here comes Greasy up the front walk. He enters, and wow, no trace of her. Of Sheryl, I mean, not the mom. He discovers the one statue's dislocated arm, then apologizes to his mother in the casket (???). Sheryl's clearly hiding, although where hasn't been revealed yet. Finally he finds her, of course, and she's... hiding under the priest's robes??? Geez, what do you wanna be he'll be pissed at her for that too, saying how sacreligeous she's being at the "funeral"? What, is he going to start calling her a "whore", too? I certainly wouldn't put it past this dumb script.

She gets away and runs out of the chapel, and we get a pretty cool bird's eye shot of her running down the street with him after her before he finally tackles her to the ground. He keeps trying to tell her to be quiet for whatever stupid reason he thinks is going through his peabrained head, and she sees the old woman pulling back the curtains in that one upstairs window again so she tries screaming for help. The old woman moves the curtain back into place. Meanwhile Greasy keeps going "shhh" like the stupid idiot that he is, and she demands to know what he's going to do to her.

We then see Baldy and Camera stopping the truck they're driving and getting out somewhere. It's at the creek that was seen at the very beginning, so of course they cross it. Hmm, and here I thought they were headed somewhere else. My bad. Oh well, just goes to show how little this movie is succeeding in holding my attention. Bleah.

Baldy carries Sheryl Crow by force into the gas station, pausing long enough to put on the radio for no apparent reason other than the filmmakers needed an excuse to shoehorn in a song to sell their soundtrack, and drags her downstairs.

I hereby quote Samantha from Night of The Comet: "So you get a lot of dates this way?"

Greasy then straps her down into some metal thing which I haven't the energy to figure out whatever the heck it is right now, nor do I really care, and he uses masking tape to tape her down to it. What the heck does this creep thing he's doing, anyway? He tapes her legs together (she's still fully clothed), she struggles and shrieks in terror doing her best to make this all look real, the whatever-it-is music is blaring and I'm reaching for the Advil. The things I do for my readers. Meanwhile upstairs, Baldy and Camera have shown up at the gas station looking for people outside. As they entering the station itself calling, Greasy hears them and immediately covers Sheryl Crow's mouth before she can call for help, then grabs some sharp tool of some kind and holds it up to her throat to threaten her into silence. One conclusion I can share with you people right now; this guy playing Greasy is one lousy actor.

Baldy and Camera are all perplexed by why there's music playing (that makes three of us!) but that no one's there. They then decide that the place is deserted as Baldy calmly decides to go to the grocery store to get something to drink. He and Camera split up, and Baldy goes to a grocery store. Finding it locked, he knocks on the door calling out that he's a paying customer who'd like to come in and buy something, and then the camera shows us an old tipped-over jar that once had something edible in it that's now filled with bugs just to demonstrate how long it has been since anyone has been inside there. And all I can think of is, hey, how much longer before this stupid movie is over anyway?

Camera is walking along alone and he sees the House of Wax off in the distance.

Greasy is now, of all things, using Krazy Glue to glue Sheryl Crow's lips together. When she starts to go, "No, you can't do--" he interrupts with, "Shh, it's okay," and does it anyway. Uh, what is it about all of this that makes this "okay"? For that matter, what is it about ANY of this movie that makes it "okay"? Nothing? It's weird and stupid and ridiculous! I've seen better acting and writing in a school play. Anyway, after doing so, he leans in like he's going to kiss her but ends up just blowing on the glue to try to get it to dry faster. Weird, weird, weird. Then he kisses her forehead (??!?!?!!!) and leaves her there, shutting the door behind her. None of this is making any sense whatsoever. I gotta hand it to that actress though, she's sure trying to make this look real, maybe with a little luck she'll finally get to be in some other movie where she can get to do something else other than this slop.

Greasy walks outside the gas station and locks it, and up behind him comes Baldy. "Hey! I'm looking for my sister, and her boyfriend." As he tries to question Greasy, we see down below that Sheryl Crow hears him and is frantically trying to get his attention somehow. Greasy's denying everything, of course. Wow, she's almost complete loose! Way to go! She actually reaches up and sticks her finger through a grating, trying to signal him. "What was that?" asks Baldy. "Nothing, that was just my dog," replies Greasy, as he looks down and sees what Sheryl Crow's doing. While he distracts Baldy, he actual reaches down and prepares to snip her finger off??!?!?!?!!!!!!!?!!!!!!!!!!!

(!!!)

Okay folks, you'll all please excuse me if I don't watch that part, I don't care how fake that may look, I have no desire to find out right now.

Okay, that part's over, and Baldy's been acting suspicious the whole while and so far has been acting like he has more brains than all the rest of them put together. Sheryl Crow manages to open her mouth and scream for help, and the minute she does, Baldy starts a fight with Greasy, 'cause remember, he's The Tough Guy (TM), remember? He manages to get into the gas station and lock Greasy out, then rushes over to the car door and keeps it down before Greasy can get in that way, locking it as well.

"Nick!" "Carly!" "I'm downstairs!" Being The Tough Guy (TM) that he is, Baldy kicks in the door. He quickly lets her out and gets all the tape and junk off of her as she answers his questions while bandaging her hand.

We then cut to more ominous music as we see a close up of the House of Wax words over said building's main entrance, and it turns out Camera has gone into it to investigate. "Hello? Hello, anyone here?" He sees all the wax stuff, of course, but is far more interested in trying to find Brainy and Sheryl Crow, and... hey, I just noticed something! For a split second off in the distance you can see inside the kitchen just beyond Camera, and the statue Sheryl Crow knocked over is standing up again and in one piece! !CONTINUITY ERROR ALERT! Anyways, he keeps looking around... and guess who he finds!

It's BRAINY! Sitting at the piano just like before, albeit quiet for once and not getting into stuff, so right off the bat you just know that means somethings wrong with him, heh heh. And that's when he sees that Brainy has been one hundred percent IMPROVED by having been turning into a wax figure, and the eyes move, which is supposed to mean he's still alive, only the eyes are clearly fake and either mechanical or puppetlike as they move back into place! So yeah, this whole bit is just as fake and hokey as the whole baggie-of-fake-blood-inside-the-pantleg bit, in fact it's so obviously phoney and cheap-looking that I'm actually tempted to go back and take a look at that finger snipping back there after all just to see if it looks just as ridiculous... nah, on second though, no. I mean hey, what if I'm wrong? After all, you can't UNSEE what you've already seen, right?

So Camera says don't worry, he's gonna get him out, and starts to peel off the "skin" of what is obvious a fake dummy of the actor, and it's supposed to be all bloody underneath it, but it's obviously all plastic, fake blood and, yes, wax. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he keeps saying as he keeps trying to pull the wax off while continuing to make it worse. What a fool! Would you let this puffhead rescue you? And besides, why would he want to? This is the best we've seen Brainy act and behave in the whole dumb movie! Thank GOD he's not jabbering and nosing around like he was ALL THROUGH THE WHOLE FIRST HALF OF THE FILM! What a relief!

Now for a split second, we see Brainy's real eyes with fake tears coming out (an extreme closeup) when Girly-Girly suddenly appears to make a slashing motion, but when he (?) makes his (?) appearance (we see him from behind), I swear to God that for a second I thought it was a woman! Geez, Girly, you're just all girly-girly-girly all over arentcha? So anyway, Girly looks more girly than ever and in the process we immediately see the dummy's "face" get partially chopped off, and the eyes are all wooden again. I'm surprised this thing isn't merely PG-13 considering how fake this production looks.

Okay ladies and gentlemen, curiosity finally got the better of me. After typing that last paragraph, I actually got the courage to go look at the finger snipping bit again and yes, it too looks absolutely fake with an obvious plaster finger that was hollow and filled with fake blood. It didn't even twitch, geez! Well, I'm glad it looked fake too for my sake, lol! Okay, it's official, this movie is flat out cheap almost to the point of a film like She (1985).

Girly chases Camera into the kitchen, where he starts wildly flinging random objects at Girly in self defense. Is that plastic kitchenware he's hurling at Girly? Sure looks like it, or maybe it's wooden. Anyway, he then dashes down some sort of passage leading down, and you can see wax faces in the wall, etc. etc., yaaaawn, whatevER you stupid movie, you're seriously boring the living daylights out of me. Candles all over the place, which again raises the question of why this place doesn't melt to the ground... Girly knocks Camera down the stairs, and of course Girly is taking his Girly time coming sloooowly down the steps after him just to give the camera an excuse to give an "intensifying" shot and also to give Camera enough time to look terrified and try to lamely back up a bit... Girly then decapitates Camera, I guess, with what appears to be a pair of shears with handles designed to look like a dragon (???!??!?!?!?!!!!!!). Where the heck did he supposedly get that? The handle's clearly plastic, so he didn't make it... anyway, we don't see the actual decapitating, it's offscreen. I repeat: whatever. So anyway, wait, now Girly pulls the body away without the head, and we see left behind a very obviously robotic replica of Camera's head blinking for the camera.

Cut to Baldy trying to bandage up Sheryl Crow's hand the best he can. They then get all alert as they hear a noise up about ground. "He's leaving," Baldy remarks unnecessarily as we then see a yellow pickup up on the street pull away. So then they both head upstairs, and I'm wondering if it's worth bothering to get up to get some water or something, no, doing so means I'll have to pause this thing even if only for a few seconds, and that means it'll delay its finishing up no matter how small a diff it makes... because I'm getting more and more anxious for this thing to be OVER with... anyway, the coast seems to be clear as Baldy ges a large wrench for a weapon I guess, and the two are all going on about how everyone's wax and all that, and now they're investigating the old woman seen earlier, only this time it's a wax dummy moving the curtain even though earlier in the film it was clearly a real person. Just like the attempt with the dog. Yawn, I'm like sooooo impressed, can I finish up this stupid movie now?

We then jump over to the campsite where we hear they're still playing music there, and the cell phone is still outside where the radio is while Blake and Paris@ are in the tent. Personally, I tend to keep my phone close to me at all times, but never mind. Inside, they're still making disinterested attempts at kissing before Paris@ leans back with this total expression that smirks, "Are we DONE now?" So Paris@ now sits up and makes a big thing out of removing her jogging suit, and yeesh is she ever scrawny. Not to be mean, but really, she is raw-ther scrawny. Not to mention her facial expressions are really boring. Blake looks like he's wincing with "Euuuuu..." as she continues. She's now in her underwear while Blake tries really hard to make it look like he likes what he sees as he says "Come here, sexy" in the most stilted voice I've ever heard in all my life. Paris then lies down next to him and very quickly kisses him while still making it all too clear that she's only doing it because the director wants her to, and that's when the music stops right on cue, so of course Blake gets all annoyed and goes out to investigate while she's all going, "Goddamn it, Blake, I need to talk to you for a minute! Blake!" and I'm sure she's going to say, "We can't continue doing this, it's embarrassing and you kiss like a fish, so if they make us do this one more time I say we WALK."

But before she can, Blake sees that the radio was merely just turned off by someone (oh, the terror!), then finally discovers the messages on his phone. See, that's the whole reason why I always keep my phone with me at all times, Blake. Fool. He then hears Sheryl Crow's earlier attempt at message-leaving, and meanwhile Paris@ turns off the light in the tent and lies down to sleep. And then just as quickly notices that (like, DUH!) it's quiet outside and that Blake isn't back yet or making any noise! Gee, what's a Paris@ to do?

Why, go back to sleep, of course! Haha, betcha thought she was going to go investigate, right? Not our Paris@! She'll sleep through it all, thank you very much, after all, she's so above dealing with stressful situations like this. Uh oh. Here comes somebody into the tent anyway, "Blake?" No, it's GIRLY! Paris SCREAMS with all her might, "NO! UGH! THAT'S THE LAST STRAW, MR. DIRECTOR! I WON'T DO IT, I AM NOT A LESBIAN!"

Well, no, she doesn't scream that, but okay, she does scream, and she scrambles to get out of the tent, trips, falls over, and discovers a robotic Blake dead on the ground with a knife in his neck. She gets up and runs off into the night.

And then we see Girly's boot step on the knife in robotic Blake's neck. Charming.

And this whole situation is of course the signal that the audience is finally going to get to see what they paid for! Except for me, of course. lol.

Paris@ is running through the dark, and the music is trying really hard to add to the tension, but the funny thing is that she doesn't look the least bit terrified, she just looks like she's running, like the director's shouting, "Run over there! Look over there!" That sort of thing. And I have the feeling that's exactly what's happening. Paris@ clearly can't emote, lol. She runs up to a building and looks disinterestedly around for a quick second before entering.

This is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing about her to suggest she's frightened in the least; only stilted, somewhat bored trotting through the building with a bored look on her face. What an actress, lol. She collapses near some sort of dead end in a limp sort of way, and we see a light on her face, and she's got fake tears that are supposedly to make her look scared and crying but I've honestly seen better acting in college classes. The lights all go on. Ooh. Aah.

Paris@ looks stiffy around and discovers a box filled with cell phones, and of coure you just know she can't resist cell phones! "Britney! Like, HI! Guess what? I'm in this really stupid movie and it's getting kind of dumb and grody and fake looking, and I'm like SO bored running through this stupid empty building and I forgot my purse and everything! Let's go CLUBBING!"

Well, actually that's the first thought I had going through my mind watching her go through this box of phones, really. That, and "OmiGAWD, it's a PHONE SALE! Ya got pink?" Well (ahem), so she stands up, obviously none of the phone were to her liking, and awkwardly plods up a staircase. You'd think she's walking through mud the way she's stepping around here. She goes up to a part of an old metal pipelike railing and just pulls a part of it off to use as a weapon to defend herself? Uh, geez Paris@, that somehow just fails to ring true for me. I personally doubt you could have done that that easily. Tug and pull and maybe pry it out, yes. But not just walk up to it and give a slight tug.

She's carefully searching around trying to see if she can spot her pursuer, and for a moment she's on a safe solid floor. Then she stupidly walks across a grating area of it, and a knife shoots up through the grating area at her heel. She screams, and actually it happens so fast I can't quite tell how it happened, I just now went back for a second look and it's so fast I still can't tell, only that it really didn't slice her heel. It's trying to do it again and again, oh wait, now I see, it wasn't solid floor after all, the whole landing she's standing on's like that. Makes more sense. She goes back down the staircase but is curiously taking her time while doing so, I would have moved a heck of a lot quicker than that. She goes to an old car, lamely tries its door but it's locked I guess. She trots to another one, this one opens, so she gets into it, closes but does NOT lock it, then lays low in the front seat... and no, guys, please don't start making dirty wisecracks about that, okay? I mean, didn't we already have enough of that sort of thing back at the beginning of all this?

So anyway, there's Paris@ laying low in the front seat of the car, and she's trying to keep an eye out, but doesn't see anyone yet. Okay, now she's lying down and panting and sweating in such a way that I'm seriously starting to wonder if she's trying to attract Girly after all (or any of the guys in the audience, for that matter). Well, I'm sure lots of you can make all sorts of jokes about how panting, sweating and lying down waiting are her chief acting assets, but not moi.

Ok, THERE he is. Finally. She sees him just out the opposite side of the windshield. And reflected in the rearview mirror. He's just a-passing by. And I'm wondering if people in the audience would take this scene and substitute its soundtrack for something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon score.

Suddenly, he bursts through the driver's door and she lamely tries to poke him back with that stick... uh nope, keeping my mouth shut here about that situation being totally backwards... so she gets out of the car and runs off while he goes around to the opposite side and takes out the stick himself because she was too stupid to take it with her... and she hides behind a car. He's still stomping around. She looks under the car but can't see his boots, then as carefully as she can attempts to peer up and through the car window she's under (she's at the driver's side), and suddenly in one throw Girly throws the stick like a javelin right THROUGH BOTH CAR WINDOWS THROUGH HER SKULL..??!?!

Now, wait a minute here.

Just let's back up the Reality Train here a bit. Who IS this guy, a trainee for the Olympics or something? That's so impossible it's not even funny, even if the car windows were old. I mean, that's just a complete stretch any way you look at it! But hey, oh well, I suppose they had to do it some flashy way or another I guess, since after all this is the movie's BIG moment and all... and, as I mentioned before at the beginning, as I understand it paid critics all claimed that when this scene happened the audiences they were all attending the screenings with broke out into loud enthusiastic applause. And as Girly approaches her shishkebobbed body, as I heard it explained to me, the death pose here and this whole scene is meant to be a deliberate pun on some pose or action she was doing in that online porn clip she's so notorious for, or some such thing... I don't know... but anyway hey, you all got what you wanted, can we all go home now?

Ugh, I suppose not, otherwise this commentary will only be two-thirds or so of the way complete... snooore...

Okay, back on the main street to finish this up. Baldy and Sheryl Crow are all sneaking around now, geez, why don't they just leave? Oh, turns out Baldy's pissed, he's getting weapons, a crossbow, whatever, I can't bring myself to care or think about it anymore, I suppose he thinks he's gonna rescue everyone, I don't know, who cares. So now Greasy's appeared out of nowhere to shoot at them again, and they go run into the theater to hide. Of course, it's filled with wax figures too. And remember, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? was what's playing there, so we see Betty Davis up there on the screen and all. Greasy goes in after them. You know, the more this thing goes on, the less and less it makes any sort of logical sense.

You won't be surprised in the least I'm sure when I say that Baldy and Sheryl Crow are both pretending to be statues sitting in the theater. When Greasy finally locates Sheryl Crow, he shoots at her, but she ducks. then from elsewhere Baldy shoots an arrow straight into Greasy, so Greasy's all in pain on the ground while they rush out. Greasy fires after them, but hits the statue of the usher instead, and bugs come out. Ew. Greasy follows them through the exit.

Out comes Greasy, ZING goes Baldy's crossbow, FWIT goes another arrow into Greasy, who falls over on to his back. Now they're looking Greasy over. Baldy takes Greasy's rifle and empties it. Sheryl Crow checks Greasy's pockets, doesn't appear to find anything. I hate to say this, but personally, I think Baldy should have used the rifle to blow Greasy to kingdom come and really make sure he was dead. But he doesn't. Which of course means Greasy is gonna pop up again at least one more time, that's how this sort of scriptwriting works, you know.

Okay, I think I'm in the home stretch now, let's see the House melt and call it a day!

Hurry UP, movie! >:(

They leave the theater, and now they're heading towards Greasy's house, and they're going on about whatever or some such, blah blah blah, Baldy's all determined, Sheryl insists she's coming with him, they check the truck, Baldy's heading towards the house again, oh whatEVER people, just melt the dumb House of Wax down and be DONE with it, for God's sake! I'm getting impatient here!

Now they're in the kitchen, they're all sneaking around in the dark, they try a telephone, I guess it doesn't work, no one seems to be there of course, now they're trying to bust through something or other, she grabs a baseball bat, they discover some old newspaper clippings about how the bad guys were once siamese twins but were separated in a "controversial procedure" and we see a photo of what's supposed to be them as infants still joined but it is SO obviously photoshopped. Geez, I can't recall by now whether I've already asked this question or not, but I'll say it anyway; just HOW many box tops did they save up to make this stupid movie anyway?!

The front door bursts open. They both hide. See, what did I tell you? It's Greasy, stumbling in even though he's still got arrows in him. Point proven, I stand corrected. Sheryl Crow crawls under what appears to be a pool table as Greasy stumbles into the kitchen. He's at the sink getting the arrows out of himself and screaming, and crudely bandaging the wounds. Meanwhile, Baldy has secretly discovered a trap door. Sheryl's still hiding. Yup, it's a pool table.

Meanwhile, Girly shows up in the yellow pickup truck (???) and we see the dead bodies of everybody else in the back of it. So does Sheryl, who's understandably horrified. She keeps the baseball bat close to her while hiding under the table as Greasy lumbers into the room and sees out the window that Girly's home.

Greasy opens a door and shouts out to him that he's not supposed to leave anywhere without him, how stupid Girly is, and Girly goes into the kitchen, Greasy treats him lousy as Girly lights a candle, takes out a spoon, and proceeds to do his Girly Boy Makeup (TM). Greasy's starts going on about how pur-ty Girly looks with his Girly Boy Makeup (TM) job, ugh, that really wasn't a scene I needed to see or hear before dinnertime. Next thing you know Girly's gonna put on a dress and sing "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman".

Greasy goes over near the pool table and discovers the babies photograph on the floor, so even he obviously realizes that means that someone's there. He looks around, searches under the pool table, but luckily Sheryl Crow's not there anymore, instead she's sneaking up a staircase towards a door, baseball bat firmly in tow, armed and ready. She is suddenly grabbed from behind, but it's only Baldy. "GEEZ, Baldy, don't DO that!"

Now they're going into the next room and down again through the trap door Badly discovered, must be the same one that opened up behind Brainy way back there all that time ago... now they're downstairs, and because they can't see anything according to Baldy, they start stupidly playing with the fuse switches. This causes all the lights and power throughout the entire town to go berzerk. We briefly see some sort of mechanical thing turn on over in the pet shop where the puppies are, by the way, and a tail starts wagging, so I suppose that's meant to say they're fake or whatever, obviously they're not wax due to the way they're moving, but I don't care by this point about any of this stuff in this stupid town anymore, and I still say this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in ages.

Naturally, all this brohuhaha means that the brothers upstairs see it and know someone's down there, and meantime Baldy and Sheryl Crow discover Camera coated with wax in the same chair Brainy was in. Baldy walks up and tries to get him out, but of course the whole head comes off since Camera was decapitated earlier, which of course means Girly went back for the head and had planned to properly include it with the rest of Camera's body for display. How thoughtful.

Here comes Girly down the hall brandishing various sharp objects, and right after I typed that sentence Sheryl shows, "That's Vincent!" as if to correct me. Jeez, everybody's a critic.

Both of them are fighting Vincent, and a fire gets started in the process. A bad one. "Nick! Let's get out of here! Hurry!" Yeah, that's right, better hurry out, because this must be the one scene I was waiting for, to see the whole surrealistic sight of that House of Wax building start melting down! About time, too. Heaven knows nothing else of any interest is going on here.

Sheryl and Baldy run upstairs, through the kitchen, see Brainy still sitting there and she gasps, "No!", apparently just as amazed as I am at just how much nicer and quieter (not to mention calmer) he now is. But now they're fighting Greasy as Baldy shouts obscene insults at him, and she actually jumps in after a moment's hesitation to start duking it out with Greasy herself, much to her credit. Interestingly, she started doing so only after I had muttered aloud to myself, "Geez, you just gonna stand there?" while I watched. Clearly she's grown to strongly respect my advice by this point.

Meanwhile, downstairs Girly uses a mattress to help himself cross the fire there, and now we see the fire from that area below is beginning t0 melt the main floor. They're all still fighting, by the way. The fire's spreading in the meantime, and everything, and I mean everything, is starting to seriously melt all around them. I'm not going to go on about details of the fight, it's just your basic fight, although I must admit Sheryl does a great job pounding away at Greasy with the baseball bat, since she's obviously now following my advice again and making sure he's dead this time. Which he is.

Girly comes up, discovers Greasy's a stiff, and moans in rage (?). He starts chasing Sheryl Crow up the stairs, Baldy can't follow them up because he got his leg injured some way or other I can't recall, so he keeps calling out to Girly, who ignores him and marches up the steps towards Sheryl anyway. Oh, now I see. Baldy's got a knife in his leg and is doing his best to remove it. Meanwhile, the melting commences.

Sheryl Crow rushes into a bedroom, still with her baseball bat. She closes the door behind her and leans against it, suddenly realizing she's in a room with a wax bed and a cradle with two wax replicas of the babies as siamese twins in it. Seems to me a certain couple of people have been a little obsessed.

Baldy is managing up the stairs while we see Greasy's body is going to opposite direction (oooh, SYMBOLISM!), namely, through the floor. The steps are melting under his feet now.

Sheryl Crow pushes the crib up against the bedroom door (the floor it skids across is melting as well) trying to keep Girly out. But Girly dramatically cuts his way through the door, symbolically cutting through the two siamese twin figures in the process while some Tim Burton-like music starts playing again in the background. OH, how very clever. (Insert rolling eyes here.)

Sheryl gets her baseball bat ready for a grand slam as Girly peels his way in. And then she does something which really doesn't surprise me; she actually tries to reason with him in a frantic rush. At one point she dodges him by climbing over the wax bed, but it's melting under her too, and frankly, I'm surprised she doesn't get stuck in it. The wax is melting everywhere now, and we can see the wax melting off the "statue"'s actual corpses. Baldy's trying really hard to get up to his sister. It's not surprising that her trying to frantically reason with Girly didn't work, but frankly I don't blame her in the least, I have the feeling I would have tried to same thing in her position.

Baldy's here now, and now he and Girly are fighting, and in the process Girly's mask gets ripped off and we see how naturally deformed his face is. Sheryl manages to get the knife out of Baldy's leg, Girly swings at her, and Sheryl Crow uses the knife to kill Girly while he was attempting to kill Baldy. Girly's finally dead, gets pushed away through the floor, falls down below, to join his brother's body, landing on him in such a way that they're going to die in the exact same position they were born in. Again, more SYMBOLISM. At the same time, both Sheryl and Baldy had fallen below to the top of the stairs as well.

The whole places is freaking out now, everything is melting everywhere at a rapid rate, it's actually pretty fascinating to watch, now we're seeing outside shots of the building itself melting, which is pretty cool, the two are literally digging their way through the wax wall to escape and making a hole right between the A and the X of the building's outdoor sign, now they're climbing out right as the whole place is melting uncontrollably, and suddenly this film has visually become much more interesting. Really interesting is how the sign part they're in ends up melting in such a way that it acts like an elevator and gently lowers them to the ground. How convenient, LOL! Ah, Hollywood.

Once on the ground, they get to a safe distance, and frankly I'm surprised they're not getting burned all over the place what with how much wax they've going through that's just gotten finished melting on to the ground. They watch the place dramatically finish self-destructing, and they we cut to the next day when there are police cars everywhere and an ambulance there. Geez, where were all you guys earlier?

Baldy and Sheryl Crow are in the back of the ambulance, and they notice that one of the cops has Camera's camera. "Hey, that's my friends camera!" Baldy protests. The cop explains that it's evidence now, and asks if they're okay, assuring that they'll get to the hospital. Sheryl Crow asks the cop how they could not have known about "all of this". The cop explains that the town is "hard as hell to get to", that it's been abandoned for ten years, blah blah blah, and Sheryl's got this totally annoyed look on her face like yeah yeah, whatever, I couldn't care less, shut up you old goat, you should have been here yesterday, otherwise I'd still have my finger, etc. etc. etc. Anyway the cop concludes that they wouldn't even had known if it weren't for all the smoke and the fire, and Sheryl Crow just looks sooooo unimpressed by this explanation.

The ambulance pulls away, and it turns out Baldy snuck Camera's camera back from the cop,he says it felt wrong leaving it behind. Sheryl asks him if he's okay. He says yeah, then we flash over to the cop getting a report over his walkie-talkie that the parents of the siamese twins had actually had three kids, not just the two brothers. Oh GOD, NO, don't tell me we're gonna get that old ambulance-driver-is-the-third-kid-and-is-gonna-drive-them-off-to-their-doom bit again???

Oh good. Turns out they're not going to do that after all, the film shows us that the "third kid" was that nosepicking Weirdo who first gave them that one ride in the first place, and he's got the dog with him waving goodbye as they drive off to the hospital, so they're safe in the end after all. Wow, I forgot all about him. That means the filmmakers tried to leave the door open for a sequel which (thankfully) never materialized. And that also means that the puppies in the window were real after all (equally thankfully).

And now FINALLY, THANK GOD I AM SO RELIEVED, THIS STUPID MOVIE is FINALLY OVER!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay everybody, as you can clearly see, I was both annoyed and bored by this thing. I really can't recommend it, and the cool music of course can be bought separately. I'm not sure if "pretentious" is the proper term to apply here, but it sure was stupid. What should we classify it as? Clearly it's not a proper "remake", nor is it really much of an "imagining". So what's say we simply call it "stupid" and call it a day? Yeah, that sounds about right.

And now if you'll all excuse me, I gotta go get rid of this thing. For my next running commentary, I've decided I'm going to tackle Spice World, which if anything has the potential of being far more terrifying than this dirtwad could ever hope of being, if you know what I mean! LOL! Do I DARE take this approach with Spice World? Will I even SURVIVE such an onslaught? We shall see...

See you then! ;-D

1991's THE RAPTURE: Anything but.

2011-10-01T21:12:00.001-07:00

The Rapture
New Line Cinema
Starring: Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny
Directed by Michael Tolkin
1991, 1 hr 40 mins
Rated: R (For sexual situations, older audience appropriate (notice I did not say "mature") situations, intense horror caused by unbelievably lousy box-top special effects, psychological torture from hearing an annoying child actor persistently squealing "Say, you, love, God!" in an irritating fingernails-on-blackboard voice throughout most of the film)

Somewhere within this great land of ours, the following conversation may very well be taking place:

FRIEND #1: Hey DUDE! Check this out! You GOTTA see this!

FRIEND #2: Why, what's up?

FRIEND #1: I just got the COOLEST MOVIE EVER! I mean this is the just the coolest, I kidja not; it's thought provoking, challenging, well-acted and just WHOA, so TOTALLY put together!

FRIEND #2: What, a sequel to Dance With Wolves or something?

FRIEND #1: I'm SERIOUS, dude! You GOTTA see this! (hands movie to Friend #2)

FRIEND #2 (studying the box): "The Rapture", huh?

FRIEND #1: YEAH! You just gotta see this. I've never seen anything so MINDBLOWING! Even ROGER EBERT says so, dude!

FRIEND #2: If you say so, man... just go ahead and put it on and I'll check it out.

FRIEND #1 (grinning): THAT'S the spirit, dude! (puts movie on)

FRIEND #2: Hey, that's Mimi Rogers...

FRIEND #1 (interrupting): YEAH! Ain't she HOT?

FRIEND #2: Hot, shmot, just give me a good movie. Yeah, she's cute, but even cute chicks can't save a stinkbomb.

FRIEND #1: Oh, don't be such a wuss! This movie is awesome, you'll love it! Check out this setup, dude! See, she's working in L.A. as an information operator...

FRIEND #2 (sighing): Thrilling. Just the sort of role to catch my interest.

FRIEND #1: No no, SERIOUSLY! See, she's bored out of her skull from workin' this total lame-o job...

FRIEND #2: You mean like I am right now?

FRIEND #1: ...so she goes out at night with her totally weird friend for quick sex kinks with other couples! Cool setup, huh?

FRIEND #2: Oh, NO. Not another one of THOSE. So her "rapture" is gonna end up meeting the ultimate...

FRIEND #1 (hastily interrupting): "NononononoNO! Nothing like THAT, dude! This ain't no skin flick!

FRIEND #2: Oh really? Good, you had me rolling my eyes for a minute there...

FRIEND #1: See, now she's even bored with that, because it ain't gettin' her any more fulfillment than her dumb job is! But then one day she hears people at work talkin' about the big rapture event, you know, like it says in The Bible in The Revelation and all that, and she's SO all goin' "far out!" and impressed that she's BORN AGAIN!

FRIEND #2: Hmm. Interesting idea for a film these days, you gotta admit.

FRIEND #1: Oh, you haven't seen ANYTHING yet, dude! Just watch! Look, check it out... now it's six years later, now she's married to this totally cool insurance man, named Randy...

FRIEND #2: Played by David Duchovny? Er, uhh... yeah, whatever...

FRIEND #1: ...and she's got this totally adorable little daughter named Mary.

FRIEND #2: Oh geez. I would hardly call her "adorable". Geez, when is Hollywood ever gonna spare us these totally preprogrammed cutesy-cutesy kid stereotypes that never exist in real life? This kid as played by Kimberley Cullum is so script-formula that she's annoying... geez, that voice sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.

FRIEND #1: Aw, don't be that way, dude! It's just a movie, who says she needs to be well-acted and written? We can't all be Shirley Temple, you know.

FRIEND #2: Oh really? And I thought you said this film was well-acted?

FRIEND #1: Oh come ON, dude, you gonna loosen up anytime soon?

FRIEND #2: Let it pass. Let's see... er, what the heck kind of a church is this supposed to be, anyway?

FRIEND #1: Ain't it obvious? It's Christian, dude!

FRIEND #2: Are you kidding me? This particular spiritual sect isn't named in the film, and they sure as hell don't act like any Christians I know or hear about. Overall, I'd say about 98% of this film is just pure Hollywood hooey with the remaining 2% stolen from tiny particles of Biblical scripture. That's not exactly a realistic depicition of a good church to join, if you get my drift.

FRIEND #1 (exasperated): Aw, there you go again! Geez, it doesn't HAVE to be anyone or anything specific! What's important is that they're portraying all the annoying and stupid stereotypes!

FRIEND #2: Now I AM rolling my eyes. You make it sound like that's a good thing.

FRIEND #1: Of COURSE it is! This is a movie that totally STICKS it to the church crowd, dude!

FRIEND #2: Look, it's totally unrealistic so far, how am I supposed to believe that this movie is so challenging when it doesn't even bother to get beyond going "nyaa nyaa" at annoying stereotypes? It's childish.

FRIEND #1: Childish?! Look, you don't call THIS challenging? Check it out; her husband just got murdered, and now she's miserable, and she thinks he's calling to her in her dreams.

FRIEND #2 (shrugging): So what's unusual about that? True, it's sad, but lots of people go through stuff like that after losing a loved one.

FRIEND #1: Well because her church thinks the big Rapture event is gonna happen soon, so they tell her to take her daughter and go live off in the desert and wait, because Jesus is gonna come back any time now!

FRIEND #2: Oh brother. Wait a sec. Let me see if I've got this straight: she goes off and does that because her CHURCH tells her to?

FRIEND #1: YEAH! Heavy, huh?

FRIEND #2: And she doesn't even bother to QUESTION this nonsense?

FRIEND #1: Of COURSE she does, dude! But they don't bother giving her an answer! Creepy, huh?

FRIEND #2: And I stand corrected: this is completely ridiculous. If this really is a church following anything approaching The Bible, aren't they aware of the fact that it specifically says NOT to pull such a stunt and that you're supposedly to just go about your business and not worry about it because NOBODY KNOWS exactly when it's gonna happen? I repeat: what the HELL kind of a church IS this??

FRIEND #1: Well, GEEZ, don't get so pissy, I mean, it, doesn't it sound just exactly like the sort of thing any church would say?

FRIEND #2 (annoyed): No, it doesn't. And it's also very, very stupid of her to just blindly follow it without at least checking scripture first to see if they're correct. This is both miserable and pathetic at the same time, it's... now they've got her stealing from a fast food joint's drive-thru because they don't have any money or anything to eat, and even though a sheriff's trying to talk some sense into them to stop this nonsense and go home, they're STILL stupidly doing all this? Geez, now you've even got her shooting her OWN kid to put little Mary out of her misery so she won't suffer from starving to death, now she's all blaming God and shooting at the sky because she's all mad at Him for "making" her do all these things?! Geez, the one she should REALLY be mad at her is HERSELF for being STUPID enough to follow all this crap! No, wait... actually, now that I think about it, that kid's voice is getting more and more annoying by the minute. If I was making a movie like this, and if she kept going, "Say, you, love, God!" in that annoying little voice all the time like she is here, I might be tempted to knock her off the script too.

FRIEND #1: But WAIT! You're missing the WHOLE POINT, dude! See? Now the rapture is actually happening...

FRIEND #2 (sarcastically twirling his finger): Whoopee. Cheapest apocalypse I've seen in years...

FRIEND #1: ...and she's... this is the deep part... she's questioning God's judgement, and when someone near her says, "God will forgive you!" she shoots back with, "Who forgives God?"

FRIEND #2: Oh, geez... (throws his hands up) I give up.

FRIEND #1: And see? Now she's all The Big Crossover Place, where she can enter heaven, kinda like Limbo, and she sees both her husband and daughter...

FRIEND #2: What? Are you gonna tell me that she's now getting to be with both her dead husband and daughter again, and she's not even HAPPY about it? Me, I'd be OVERJOYED! And yet all she's got on her mind is how pissed off she is? What kind of woman IS this???

FRIEND #1: ...and her daughter keeps going, "Say you love God!" trying to get her to still say it, but instead she says no, she's gonna stay in Limbo forever because she hates God.

FRIEND #2: Wrong move, little Mary. You picked the wrooong phrase to try talking Mommy into it. I'd say the real reason she stayed behind because she couldn't bear hearing Mary squeal that annoying phrase in that awful little voice of hers over and over again through all eternity.

FRIEND #1 (looking exasperatedly at #2): Oh, COME ON, dude, don't you get ANY of it??! It's DEEP, dude! It's TOTALLY spitting convention in the eye! It's THOUGHT PROVOKING, dude, GET WITH IT!

FRIEND #2: Thought provoking? You call this nonsense THOUGHT PROVOKING? In what sense, exactly? Was it thought provoking for you to sit there and wonder how this thing ever got greenlighted with such a weak script? Was it thought provoking for you to wonder how such an obviously cheap production that can barely even come up to television movie quality ever managed to get played in theaters? THOUGHT PROVOKING? You've GOT to be KIDDING me! This is... hey, WAIT A MINUTE... (looking suspiciously at box) ...was this a Direct-To-Video release?

FRIEND #1 (upset): Of COURSE not, dude! It was in theaters like TOTALLY! Only it left its run before anyone got a chance to see it.

FRIEND #2 (rolling eyes again as he puts box back down and sits down at his computer): I can see why.

FRIEND #1: Oh come ON, dude, don't you get ANY of it? Like I said, even ROGER EBERT raved over it, dude!

FRIEND #2 (web surfing): Yeah, well, that doesn't necessary mean anything, either. From what I see here, he's probably about the only one. Rolling Stone Magazine called it "misery", for instance. And they've got a point when they point out that the movie is best when it's challenging such a seemingly fanatical belief and mocking those who choose to laugh at it. Now that should tell you something. (looks hard at #1) Look, If you're going to make a movie talking about the existance of God, whether this is a real "planned event" and all that, you've got to have good characters you can really feel for, beliefs which are at least grounded in something really believed in instead of just a bunch of shallow Hollywood-style stereotypes, and an intelligent script which actually attempts to make some sort of mature point as opposed to some childish kiddie temper tantrum. This movie doesn't impress me at all on any of those levels.

FRIEND #1: What are you talking about? It's PERFECT just the way it IS, dude! It's SHARP, dude! THAT'S what it is; SHARP!

FRIEND #2: It's a dumb, shallow script filled with dumb, shallow characters. And a very, very dumb, shallow, stupid movie.

FRIEND #1 (annoyingly picking up movie): Oh YEAH? Well, just you WAIT, dude! ALL true classics stand the test of time! Just you WAIT, and HEY, you KNOW I'm right about all this stuff, I'm mean, I'M the one of the two of us whose "with it", I'M the one who's all knowledgeable about the latest technology, all the latest trends, all the latest movies destined to be cool and classic! So just you wait, there's gonna release a Director's Cut ANY DAY NOW! (heads toward door to leave) And when they DO, I'll bring it RIGHT BACK HERE and show you, THEN we'll see if you DO get it or not once you FINALLY see the TRUE vision of this ULTRAcool movie!

FRIEND #2 (dryly; with sarcastic wave of his hand): Yeah sure, whatever. Drop on by and pop it in as soon as The Director's Cut is out on Blu-Ray and I promise I'll watch it again. See ya then.

FRIEND #1 (taking #2 seriously): Okay, COOL! Oh, uhhh-- (pauses in doorway) --uh by the way dude, what's a Blu-Ray?

2011's INSIDIOUS: Prepare to SHRIEK! From either uncontrollable laughter or outrage at buying a ticket!

2011-05-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Insidious
Film District
2011, 103 minutes
Rated: PG-13 for intensity, violence, and the terrifying possibility of making the audience laugh to death

Are you ready for a few good laughs? Then Insidious is right up your alley.

But SCARES?

Nope, sorry man. No way, not in this neighborhood. I've seen more scares in a videogame.

Insidious is either the biggest movieplex practical joke of the year since Paul Blart: Mall Cop or the biggest moviegoing scam setup. Its title is all too appropriate: Insidious is absolutely insidious in how it promises within its opening credits to thoroughly chill us and then simply give us a series of recycled situations that only grow more and more progressively sillier as the flick goes on.

You know the drill. Innocent family moves into big old house, complete with attic, in which the whole thing has been constructed from dark wood panel decor. Said family begins to experience supposedly scary and unnerving situations and soon realize that their innocent little boy Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is now lost to them beyond communication. Patriarch schoolteacher dad Josh (Patrick Wilson) and ultraconcerned aspiring songwriter mom Renai (Rose Byrne) call in a team of wannabe ghostbusters to determine what's going on and a know-it-all medium Elise Rainier -- (WOW! What a NAME! Rainier. She certainly is portrayed by Lin Shaye like a bassett hound forced to sit out in the rain at the back door waiting to be let in) informs them that their son is in fact trapped in another dimension and that Daddy has to enter it himself to rescue the little tyke. Sound familiar?

Will Josh succeed in freeing Dalton? What do you think? More to the point, the only true suspense to be gained from this movie is in guessing this: will you react to it all by laughing hysterically at what may be the silliest comedy of the year, or will you be outraged that you were actually duped into paying good, hard-earned cash into watching this stupid thing? All depends on your personality, I guess. It's pret-ty hard to take a movie seriously when it has a section in the credits that says, of all things, "Insidious Entities" and has the following character listings under said entry: "Lipstick-Face Demon", "Old Woman", "Long Haired Fiend", "Doll Girl #1" and "Doll Girl #2".

Still not convinced that this film is ridiculous? How about if I mention Darth Maul as a special guest star? Or the scene where Josh suddenly pulls a Sean Penn on Elise, making her even "rainier" than usual? Trust me, I'm not kidding here! I would never dream of making this stuff up.

At the end of the movie when the boy finally stirs and is alright, and of course you know perfectly well that saying that really isn't giving anything away, my head immediately imagined him saying, "Oh, oh yes, I'm free, free, I'm finally free, oh good, oh good!" and at the reaction shot of his parents I then automatically imagined them saying,"Oh crap! Now we'll have to put up with a sequel!"

Discover at your own risk. FurryMUCK.

2011-04-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

FurryMUCK
(location deliberately left unsaid)

Rule number one: do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, attempt to have any contact or dealings whatsoever with FurryMUCK unless (a) you have never been sickened, frightened or nauseated by anything in your life, or (b) you are very, very drunk.

Rule number two: even if the above criteria are met, you may still very seriously wish to consider dealing in any way, shape or form whatsoever with FurryMUCK.

I'm no expert on internet trash, but I am fairly certain that this is quite simply the most horrifying, disgusting, all out creepy online activity ever devised. And that makes it even more horrific: talented, gifted artists have actually participated in and helped breathe life into this appalling travesty. What on earth were these people thinking? Surely they, as I once was, must have been lured on to this thing under some kind of false pretenses. Were they as innocent as I was when they were pulled onto it? Did they know what they were getting themselves into? Did they understand beforehand what this actually was? I've heard that at least a few of these said talented individuals still defend their time on this thing to this day, but I have the feeling that they are really in just a powerful state of denial.

I have given this a listing here on my "Your Stuff SUCKS" page, but for your personal health and safety, I am in no way, shape or form recommending it. Vile acts are commited by these people both online and in real life which surpass the imaginations of even the most jaded trashmongers. If for some reasons of your own devising you should choose against my warnings to fortify both your courage and your stomach and get within close vicinity of this, I hereby guarantee you that you will never forget the experience.

It was the very first online activity of its kind ever devised, and is the main home base of that bizarre cult known as the "furries", who I am now convinced after being forced to deal with them for several years against my will are quite simply the most sick, twisted, perverted, and most severely disturbed group of individuals ever to congregate.

So how do I begin to describe something like this, and how did I end up getting accidentally connected with it?

How indeed. I was at the San Diego ComiCon back in 1992 with my portfolio talking to various individuals from various studios hoping to find work, when this one particular individual from England happened to be looking over my shoulder at my samples. He asked if he could have one of my business cards because he said he liked the design I had created for it. I had innocently handed it over to him, never guessing that I would regret that simple act to my dying days or how much misery this one said individual would end up causing me as a result of meeting me.

He proceeded to introduce me to a group of individuals at the table I was at, and all of them acted as though they all wanted to instantly love me. Then they announced that, in order to celebrate this "important find", they were going to take me out to dinner. I had someplace modest in mind, but they insisted on this wildly expensive Japanese restaurant, in the ritziest area of town you could possibly imagine, picking out a big table long enough to seat everybody at and insisting on seating me at its head. Of course, the tab was picked up. It didn't take very long for me to realize that something unusual was going on, that this was actually recruitment. Right away, I thought to myself, something was wrong. This was not what normally happens with a group of art fans. I excused myself. But my troubles were far from over.

When I got home, I was suddenly finding myself bombarded by mail, bizarre packages, and various weirdos all writing me and calling my number out of the blue, including this guy. Suddenly, my peaceful little existance of quietly creating cartoons and pursuing my career was blown sky high.

Meanwhile, the individual responsible for dragging me into the middle of all this nonsense was going absolutely berzerk buying me cartloads of presents. Several times I actually attempted to return the things so he could get his money back, but he had deliberately destroyed the receipts so I couldn't do so. All the while it was becoming more and more obvious to me that it was very, very painfully important to said individual that I like this, that I join. Which told me that there were to be brownie points of some kind or other to be had by my joining. Again, a very bad sign.

My family had actually allowed him to come out for a period of time to visit them because my mother was charmed by his written letters, but they instantly regretted it forever afterwards. In the words of my mother, "That was a very selfish young man who came out here."

And he kept pestering me to join some program without explaining to me what it was, simply because he said it was the most "convenient" way to stay in touch. Because my family thought it was important for me to be a good witness to this guy, I tried signing up at the time just to give him one more chance, not to mention to shut him up. That program turned out to be, you guessed it, a little number called FurryMUCK, which I didn't even know the name of until after I had followed his instructions. And after I saw what it was and how blatantly I had been lured on to it, I was horrified and wanted nothing to do with it.

It was only after all of that I learned that this guy was in fact one of the programmers behind this thing, and was something called a "furry". It was only at this point that I finally had some kind of name to tag all these weirdos with, as I had been thinking for years, "What on earth, who ARE all these people, and why won't they go away and leave me alone?"

It took forever to get them away, and how I wish I could go back in time to stop myself from giving that guy my business card, because then I would have been spared all of the hell I had to put up with in his wake which so severly damaged my lifelong faith and belief in human nature, including his asking me for a few samples of my work back in 1992 which I had given him copies of under the condition that he not copy or give them out -- only to learn afterward that he had posted them all over something called the internet (which I knew nothing about) with my full name, address and phone number on them, thus the reason for my suddenly being flooded with hundreds of creepy "furries", not to mention unauthorized samples of my work being passed around all over the place, including a concept I had created in '89 which I would much later discovered to my horror had been stolen for an "original" Pixar movie called Up.

In other words, I was suddenly being besieged by hundreds of "furries", and I didn't know what hit me.

FurryMUCK is filled with wall-to-wall weirdos, perverts and nutjobs of every walk and persuasion, and that is the overall major appeal of it, to those who find it appealing. What seems to happen here really is meant to be happening, and often really is. These people aren't just going through the motions of everything you see here. They really do want and desire to do, and in many cases in the real world very often do do, everything and more that they are doing. That is the thing's overall redeeming quality, you might say. If the events on FurryMUCK were only simulated as some kind of sick joke, it would be merely depraved and disgusting.

And yet, because it genuinely and accurately reflects the real honest-to-God actions and behaviour of real people, the thing as a whole takes on a sick, twisted kind of documentary status. There is a powerful temptation, however vague, to praise FurryMUCK just for demonstrating to you personally whether or not you have the stomach to take it. It is a temptation I can personally resist, thank you very much.

The "furries" love to claim themselves to the media as being a charming people, innocent and kind, who do not mean the slightest bit of harm to anyone, and are perfectly normal and healthy. Nevertheless, their public relation stunts and overall public behaviour, despite these claims, have the tendency to deliberately use shock as a means to draw attention to themselves. They have basically done everything they can to jumpstart their consciousness within the public's overall genuine awareness, and that can be regarded in their case as being understandable. After all, when you're a brand new lifestylist cult and you want to make your presence known in the world, hey, you do what you gotta go. The "furries"' personal ambitions and claims have grown, but the technology of FurryMUCK itself has apparently not, and its overall features and mechanics resemble that of a traditional text adventure game, right down to the compass directions and inventory commands.

I kept asking myself during the proceedings of what I was forced to deal with during that long period of hell whether there was anything that these people wouldn't do. Over and over again. And each time I asked, I got a loud, resounding "no" for an answer. There were certain things I got in the mail from them and certain things they began to say and do that had me thinking, "No. They're not really going to do that. No human being in their right mind would even think about doing that. They wouldn't possibly go that far." And then, they did it, right before me. I refuse to go into any sort of detail because I do not want to cause my readers to vomit, but you can't begin to imagine what goes on with these people. I've spent a decade now desperately attempting to forget what I was forced to witness.

I'm giving it points for amusement, however, because I couldn't help but laugh at the incredible lengths these people go through to ignore having to deal with reality. They treated their furryMUCK program just like the real world, and if they kiss you, slap you, or throw you against the walls in one of those cutesy little online actions of theirs, you are expected to react and behave accordingly: and they freeze, seemingly genuinely confused and bewildered, not knowing what to do next, when you do not. The actions and behaviour of these people are completely ridiculous, and the things they say include such exclamations as, "Could you kindly tell me what gender I currently am? I forgot who I was last having sex with." The effect of watching all of these completely pathetic online losers dsperately going out of their way to avoid getting a life is absolutely hilarious, and in that aspect, this is a carnival-style freak sideshow of the highest order.

And then there were the things they did which made me laugh, and I mean I really laughed, because I just couldn't believe how far they were going.

And then there were the moments when they went even further, and I stopped laughing. Oh my God, that's not at all funny. That's just flat out inappropriate. That is just completely and totally inhuman. I swear, I squinted in horror as I saw those moments, just denying what I was witnessing.

Let me put it to you this way: if I had managed to get through all those years of being forced to deal with all of that without a single, solitary objection to any of it, I would have been every bit as sick, twisted and perverted as the "furries" themselves.

Thank God I'm healthy.

Since I was thoroughly repulsed and horrified by FurryMUCK and everything connected with it, but found it genuinely and uniquely funny at the same time, the only two choices I could see was to either give it its own entry here on this site or to completely ignore it altogether and leave it unmentioned simply because I know that the very fact that I have gone on and on reporting what an insult to humanity this activity is would automatically make certain people believe that it can't possible be that bad -- well-meaning people who would very understandably and desperately want to believe that no group of modern individuals could be this vile.

My reasoning for choosing the former goes like this: the only good thing I can see about the whole godawful nightmare is that it now puts me in an excellent position to warn people about it, especially parents with impressionable children. And the reason I call the "furries" a "cult" is because they fit the definition of one: a group of individuals who do not allow for nor encourage individual thought and is difficult for its members to leave.

So consider this a public service. You have been warned.

A child with a toy (in this case, a camera) is still a child.

2011-01-23T03:17:00.005-08:00

The Doom Generation (1995)
Independantly made (of course)
Starring James Duval, Rose McGowan, Johnathon Schaech (who's looks have the tendency to remind me of Jim Morrison only even more demented)
Written and directed by Gregg Araki
Rated NC-17 (For graphic sex, (supposedly) adult-intended violence, wildly exaggerated frat-themed mayhem, general annoyance/irritation factor, going to childish lengths at attempts to shock and offend audience)
Length: 82 minutes

"Craig! No, no, no. No no! OMG! Just saw Quickie Mart on utube (Doom generation). No more.. Lol!"

That was an actual text message sent my way by a good friend of mine on January 22, 2011 at 9:14 PM after he had apparently discovered for the very first time a notorious scene from Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation on Youtube, and obviously he was so stunned at what he saw that his message carried uncharacteristic (for him) typos. See, he had expressed interest in seeing the film because he had heard that Skinny Puppy have a cameo in it, and I immediately warned him strongly against seeing it, citing The Mutant Reviewers From Hell's own bludgeoned observations after subjecting themselves to this thing. I myself had only recently gotten around to seeing it: after reading said comments from said Mutant Reviewers years ago, I had sworn to myself that I would avoid this movie like the plague.

Well, I finally gave in to curiosity simply because I wanted to discover for myself what all the wretching was about, an act I normally don't do in situations like this, and am happy to report that I actually survived this movie with my brain completely intact. Yes, I know that the violence is intended to be incredibly gruesome. Yes, I know that the language is horrendous, that the movie is offensive, grotesque, etc. But there are reasons I was able to survive this film so well, and I'll get to those in a minute.

The Doom Generation is intended both as a wild parody of teenage road movies and an excuse to attempt shocking the audience. There really isn't very much of a plot, if at all: the film starts off in a wild underground dance club where we first see everyone thrashing around to NIN as we then see the cut-out words "Welcome to Hell" in the wall with flames torching behind them. We first meet agitated Amy Blue (Rose McGowan) expressing her disgusted annoyance with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. We then are introduced to Jordan White (James Duval, who you may recall from Donnie Darko), who appears as a highly naive but basically good kid. The two have only been an item for about three months or so, and as Amy remarks on how she wants to get out of the place, Jordan suggests, "Want to go to heaven?"

We then cut to see them going at it in Amy's car while pondering the pros and cons of going all the way, when suddenly Xavier Red (Johnathon Schaech) invades the car after a violent brawl with a gang of goons portrayed by none other than Skinny Puppy in that cameo I mentioned previously. Off they go on an odyssey that has them "heading north" in random fashion, stopping for various variations of wildly exaggerated fast food along the way while Amy keeps getting persistently mistaken for somebody's ex who always vows to kill her, Xavier always ends up killing someone, and afterwards they end up staying in some hotel or other while Xavier always challenges their notions of sexuality, normality, freedom, morals, etc.

Okay, first, the two things I genuinely liked about this film: the hallucinogenic art design and soundtrack. Say what you will about The Doom Generation, it has cool set design even if it is obvious that the budget was scraped from the bottom of a local barrel and wasn't able to pay for what Araki really had in mind. Everything in this film is unbelievably over-the-top, from the pool hall (which is decked out entirely in tin foil) to the grotesque hot dogs they buy at the Quickie Mart. The whole thing suggests a tripped-out nightmare, as though the entire movie is being broadcast through Amy's (who is apparently on crystal the entire film according to what everybody says) drug-enduced point of view and not the genuine reality as seen and experienced by the others. How much of this is real and how much is imagined? (Or, as Jordan puts it at one point, "Ever feel like reality is more twisted than dreams?") I especially liked the black-and-white checkerboard motel room they check into at one point, complete with matching towels. Add to this the fact that The Doom Generation boasts a hot soundtrack, and even though only half of its tracks are available on its soundtrack album it is still worth getting; amazingly, while the movie itself is so determined to be wild, the the soundtrack album release tends to be startlingly beautiful. Check it out sometime if you ever have a few bucks to spare on a used Amazon copy and see if you don't agree.

Too bad the rest of this film is such an atrocious waste. This flick only goes to show that just because you may know how to direct a camera and visuals doesn't necessarily mean you're a good writer with accompanying vision. I found the visuals gross and repulsive, but I actually wasn't grossed out as Araki intended me to be. That's because of two reasons: one, the special effects look incredibly fake and unconvincing, almost to a Goth level, and two, I knew that being grossed out was precisely the reaction Araki wanted me to have. I didn't fall for it, plain and simple; while I'm sure that there are a lot of teens and college-age kids who will all undoubtedly squeal with delight over the notion of seeing so much "objectionable" material in a feature film, older and more mature viewers will see right through it.

They know that other directors -- like oh, say, Quentin Tarantino -- have attempted this approach before. The difference is that other such directors have counterbalanced such an approach with strong, fascinating characters, a good storyline, and dialogue that was at least reasonably intelligent. When watching The Doom Generation, the term "immature" came to mind.

Weirdly, the whole thing also comes across as a film student's project as opposed to a major motion picture; how did this thing manage to get backing and into major theater chains? If it was made for Youtube or was just an independant film showing in small art houses I could be a lot less perplexed by it, as it has all the look and feel of something made in a garage or on a college campus somewhere (obvious wigs and the like add to this impression immensely). But then again, this was made in the age before Youtube, and this was pretty much the only way you could get a movie out there, although I'm still perplexed as to how it happened.

As I say, the whole thing has a strangely surreal feel to it, like the trio have managed to slip into an alternate reality somewhere; as they keep musing to each other in colourful terms, they're just as perplexed as we are and we get the impression that things seemed fairly normally in their lives in terms of surroundings before this film started. I still say that the film may actually be being seen through the eyes of Amy Blue, who constantly reminds us of how she's speeding throughout the entire film and thus explains all the bizarre goings on. In short, the film needs a tad more explanation; while I admit it is fun to stare at and theorize over it a la The Blair Witch Project and try to decipher as to whether that is indeed the case, it feels incomplete both conceptually and physically. And somehow, that shot at the end when their car is seen driving forlornly off into the distance to a haunting little tune that has since become a face of mine has enough of a small hint of beauty to remind me that this film could have been so much more in more capable hands.

Bottom line: if you're feeling particularly adventurous for something unique, then maybe you might want to take a chance on this thing just for a change of pace... otherwise, I can't really recommend it.

EPIC MICKEY: Warren Spector's "Howard The Duck".

2010-12-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

Epic Mickey
Disney/Junction Point Studios
Nintendo Wii
Rated E for everybody (in other words, if your kids won't go to bed, try sicking this one on 'em)

If you're a Disney fan, you've most likely heard by now about the new videogame title Epic Mickey, an exclusive title for the Nintendo Wii released just this 30th of November in time for the holiday season.

Delighted with the results of their first successful major collaberation with an outside company with Kingdom Hearts, a title so massively huge in both scope and popularity that it has gone on to eclipse co-creator Square Enix's own virtually classic Final Fantasy series to become the most popular videogame franchise on the surface of the planet -- not to mention having (apparently) finally learned that merely licensing their creations to be slapped on to a game does not instantly guarantee a successful title -- Disney has once again decided to take the plunge with another collaberation, this time with the help of Junction Point and Warren Spector, the designer behind such classics as Thief, System Shock and Deux Ex, and is hoping lightning will strike twice.

Ignoring their usual "let's wait and see how well it's received first" tactics normally reserved for projects they consider risky and experimental, Disney has launched an enormous advertising campaign this time around, including making collectable editions of both the game (which comes with a making-of disc, console skins and statue) and its official hint book, and plastering the game's images all over Disneyland's shuttle fleet. They're even created a special collectible brush-shaped Wii controller just for the occasion.

I picked up my copy on its launch date and have successfully completed it.

So... is it worth the hype and your hard-earned cash? And is it as brilliant as word-of-mouth claims it to be?

Now before I start in on the details on this title, let me just go out on a limb right now and openly state that Epic Mickey is easily the most absolutely atrocious piece of crap I have personally had the displeasure of playing since the equally horrific King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, and like that other title easily goes down as one of the absolute worst games I have ever played in my entire life. As a matter of fact, it actually manages to beat out even that earlier title simply because it is far more ambitious and so obviously had a lot of huge hopes pinned to it. After selling strongly for its first week or so, the game instantly lost steam the second word got out that it was a burnt Christmas turkey as opposed to the delightful holiday stocking stuffer everyone was expecting. Warren Spector was suddenly in deep, deep trouble when word immediately got out regarding the visuals and camera being so dreadful that Epic Mickey's would-be audience could not even enjoy the natural act of simply looking at his game. But then Spector found himself in deeper trouble still; Epic Mickey has, of course, become a notorious title, a whopping embarrassment of a project that immediately flopped big time after players everywhere ran gagging from their Wiis.

I hear Spector is not taking criticism of this title well: he apparently lashed out wildly at just the camera criticisms alone on MTV, and stands fiercely beside his obvious labor of love. Well, all I have to say is that, as it's his game and he obviously haves his own free copy of it, he is more than welcome to it and to love it to death as much as he pleases, because he may very well be the one and only loyal fan to the horrific mess that is Epic Mickey. If you dare sit through this game, numerous questions will be guaranteed to race through your mind. Here's a sample of what I caught myself wondering as I fought my way through Epic Mickey before finally hawking it in disgust:

1. How did this game manage to get such fairly reasonable scores with critics? It scores something like a 76 on Metacritic alone, and yet it doesn't even score that high. Did Disney pay off critics to write positives on Epic Mickey? Or is it that the reviewers didn't even bother to play beyond the first couple of levels or so when they gave it their official verdict?

2. Were the game testers for Epic Mickey all a bunch of stoners on crack and having a pot party while trying this thing? I keep hearing stories from Disney folks that the title's testers were all supposedly enjoying it so much that they didn't want to give it back. What on earth possessed them to think that this game was actually fun? What were they on that was so strong that they were supposedly so convinced of this game's brilliance? Did Disney spike the refreshments they personally provided for them? Or was that all deliberately made-up hype?

3. Who was the one in charge of quality control here, and exactly what kind of weapon did Spector hold up to their noggin in order to convince them that this title was ready for commercial release? I honestly can't imagine any self respecting professional in their position actually greenlighting this thing as being properly completed. Gameplay as boring and monotonous as all get out, graphics so dark that you can barely see what's going on, terrible controls, awful framerate slowdowns and easily the worst camera in history, and yet they thought that the thing was genuinely FINISHED? What kind of inhuman monster of a slave driver is Specter to get them to let it go out in this condition? And it's not as if the troubles with this title are so slight that they could have missed something.

4. Exactly how many gobs of cash did Disney waste on this monstrosity? Apparently it's one of those "undisclosed sum" ordeals, which means that it was insanely expensive and that the company is understandably paranoid regarding revealing how much they spent to make it because they know that the world will be sadly shaking their collective head in disbelief. Like you do after struggling through this thing, which can only be described as a unique form of torture from which you've gotten more entertainment value from root canals. Geez, all that money for this, you keep muttering to yourself in disbelief. What I could have done with money like that.

For those of you who don't know, here's the basic setup: master wizard Yen Sid -- using a magic brush, paint and thinner -- created what appears at first to be a tabletop model of Disneyland, but is in reality a special world called Wasteland, a place where forgotten cartoon characters of the past can live and dwell in peace, unsure of how they came to be there, but knowing that everything would be alright. Retired Disneyland park attractions also appear there as well. Mickey Mouse, sneaking in undetected, observes all this with fascination. After the well-meaning old wizard retires for the evening, Mickey approaches the table because he just can't resist the temptation to play with the brush. At first, it appears that he has created a little figurine of himself, but then his delight turns to horror as the little blob he has painted suddenly becomes a nightmarish version of the famous Phantom Blot (The "Shadow" Blot). In his panic to get away, Mickey accidentally knocks over the thinner, which dissolves into the tabletop Wasteland and ruins it. Many years later after achieving fame and fortune, Mickey is suddenly dragged violently out of bed one night by The Blot down into Wasteland itself, and the adventure begins.

Does this all sound like The Sorceror's Apprentice Part II? Of course it does. Both Disney and their collaboration team have bent over backwards to make sure that nothing in this game clashes with nor interferes with established Disney lore, always a must. What's unique about this project is that it allows the designers to run amok with the Disney archives and pull an American McGee's ALICE on Disneyland.

Indeed, the ALICE influence is all too blatantly obvious at the start of this game, right down to the sinisterly twisted opening laboratory setting and the background music, which at this point borrows heavily from Chris Vrenna's now virtually famous score of that earlier title. It also explores the same maturely crafted psychoanalysis story that encourages the player to look thoughtfully deep inside his or her self, just as ALICE did. And at first I had "ripoff" sirens searing through my brain faster than your average California Screamin' ride. But once you get outside and get to experience Wasteland itself, you'll find that, while the game still wears its ALICE influence boldly on its sleeve, the game settles down and becomes a far friendlier terrain for all ages to explore. In fact, all of the hype, previews and trailers Disney has been throwing at us all year now make the game seem a lot darker and more terrifying than it really is.

There is far too much detail for me to go into here regarding why this game is so terrible, and for me to attempt to do so and explain all the reasons would require an entry of, uh... well, epic proportions; trust me, you have to actually see the game in action for yourself to understand why it's such a disaster. So instead, let me point you over to a Youtube link kicking off a series of videos by an individual who had far more time and (fairly reasonable) patience on his hands to dedicate to this appalling travesty. (IMPORTANT NOTE: the individual in question uses a lot of extreme profanity throughout these videos, so parents please take note.) The videos are like the game itself; they start off harmlessly enough and seem fairly promising, but by the time they've progressed to the point of reaching the end the game has shed all pretense and revealed itself for the trash it truly is.

Epic Mickey is a title so awful that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it ends up replacing the Atari 2600 failure E.T. as the most embarrassing moment in gaming history. It is a woebegone and dangerously overhyped dungheap that isn't worth the CD it's printed on, a misfit, a mistake that will be foreverafter known, not as Spector's beloved place in Disney history, but instead as his own personal Howard The Duck. This game is a tremendous artistic and financial risk tossed to the winds. It is the most worthless, ridiculous electronic waste I have ever seen, and remember, I have been playing videogames since the moment they first came out with Pong.

SILENT HILL - SHATTERED MEMORIES: "Shattered" Memories? Non-existant more like it

2010-10-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

SILENT HILL: SHATTERED MEMORIES
Konami (Sony PSP)

Reviews have generally been warm to this game, and after reading several of them I figured I'd go ahead and give it a try. I was in the mood for a really spooky game (a rarity these days, unfortunately), and it seemed as if the apparently impressive Silent Hill: Shattered Memories might strike the gong. And for the first twenty minutes or so, I had thought that I was going to get my money's worth. Unfortunately, the game begins to collapse all too quickly.

This feels like a really odd thing to say, but my experience in playing this title reminded me strongly of an article I once read by Roger Ebert reviewing The Village. Ebert, upon seeing the movie, had made several comments about it which nailed a lot of my own reactions to Shattered Memories right on the head, among them the statement that it was "based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn".

He had also gone on to add,"Critics were enjoined after the screening to avoid revealing the plot secrets. That is not because we would spoil the movie for you. It's because if you knew them, you wouldn't want to go. The whole enterprise is a shaggy dog story, and in a way, it is all secrets. I can hardly discuss it at all without being maddingly vague". You're not supposed to talk about the secrets in Shattered Memories. Magazines were even more vague about them than they normally would be, and you're not supposed to spoil any of it, especially that big secret ending that the Silent Hill series is apparently so well known for, for any of your friends or anybody else preparing to play it. And, like the makers of The Village, I'm sure that the game's creators all feel the same way: it's not because it would ruin the game for you, but because it will instantly guarantee your not being suckered into plunking down your hard earned cash for it. So I'm going to be a good sport and try not to give too much away, although to be frank that really isn't saying much since there really isn't that much to give away in the first place -- it only merely seems like it for the first hour or so.

In the beginning of the game we are shown old videotaped footage of a happy father, Harry Mason (aren't they imaginative?), and his equally happy daughter, Cheryl. Clearly their relationship and togetherness knows no bounds, supposedly. Then, late one snowy night, we see Harry's car crash somewhere within the always-spooky town known as Silent Hill. Luckily, he isn't hurt, but his daughter Cheryl is missing. Off he goes to search for her, as all good videogame daddies do, and the gameplay begins.

As Harry, you wander on and on alone through a remarkably detailed town containing disturbingly few inhabitants and lots of atmosphere, solving lots of puzzles along the way. And the further you go, the more Twilight Zone-ish both the story and the situation become. Is Harry crazy? Is he hallucinating? Why all the sudden shifts -- which do come across as incredibly creepy? And, most important of all, what really HAS happened to Cheryl?

At first, the title is a technical marvel. Loading times are ingeniously placed and next to nil, so aside from the occasional slight hiccup the game runs smoothly and without interruption so impressively that you hope other game designers will take their cues from it and adopt the same technique. The cell phone mechanic is ingenious and holds a lot of promise. You'll be even more impressed once you learn just how unchanged the game is from platform to platform; all of them are exactly the same aside from graphics quality. And, at first anyway, the character situations are genuinely intriguing and not a little unnerving as we see sudden... abrupt forks taken, and I'll just leave it at that.

And every once in a while at certain points, the game suddenly switches to a tense moment which have led many critics to praise the game, the moment that turns it into -- as one put it -- true terror. Everything will suddenly freeze up, and you suddenly discover the hard way that you're not alone after all; a horde of bizarre zombielike creatures are after your hide, and you are completely unarmed. Your only option is to run as quickly as you can, desperately rushing through doors and hallways, throwing obstacles down after you in an attempt to slow them down, your only defense being the occasional torch you may be lucky enough to stumble across along the way that will keep them at bay, but only for the short time it remains lit.

Does this all sound exciting? It is -- but only up to a point.

For the first couple of levels or so I was genuinely enthralled and thought the game was really good; after that though, the whole thing shed its mask and revealed itself for the truly shallow title it actually is. No amount of ultracool atmosphere can absorb the fact that you eventually realize that, unless you're being chased, you are absolutely safe. There are no threats whatsoever while you're exploring. No traps. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero. And when you are being chased, by around the third round the whole exercise of trying to evade the monsters becomes one big exercise in headache-inducing tedium, especially after you realize that there is no limit of lives you have: if you're caught, you simply try all over again until you can get it right. This completely neuters the situation of any feelings regarding real threat, as there really isn't anything at stake. Add to this the fact that you realize that you are in fact running through a giant maze that merely gets bigger and more annoying with each level, and the whole exercise quickly becomes a tremendous snore. You're simply wandering around trying to solve puzzles that hinder your progress safe in the knowledge that nothing is going to harass you in the least until that moment when everything ices over and you roll yours eyes thinking, "Oh for Pete's sake, not again" as you are thrust into yet another tedious chase sequence that's even longer and more boring and irritating than the one before it.

As if to add insult to injury, the "puzzles" in question are... how can I put this? Well, they're absolutely pre-school and an insult to your intelligence. The only way you'll get stumped on them at all is if it's because you're expecting the answer to be far more complicated than it really is. Here's an example: you know how a lot of games have put some variation of "Simon" into them as a form of minigame or puzzle? And how some of them have actually been cute and entertaining (Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep's ice cream machine) while some have been merely inept (the "drumming duo" bit in 9: The Last Resort)? Well, did you think that any game could actually SIMPLIFY the "Simon" concept any more than it actually is? Well, Shattered Memories accomplishes just that. It actually simplifies it! You'll know it when you actually encounter it, and when you do, you'll be thoroughly disgusted that the creators actually believed this posed some sort of challenge upon your person. When "solutions" are needed they aren't even discovered in other areas -- they're ALWAYS just RIGHT THERE in the same area as the puzzle! The only way the entire process could be made any easier was if Harry had been given a step-by-step solution book at the beginning of the game which automatically flashed the answer right on the screen before your eyes the moment you approached a puzzle. Or phone text messages perhaps (which, come to think of it, I seem to recall happening).

The whole thing drones on and on and on in this precise same fashion throughout a game that takes only about a couple of hours or so to complete in its entirety. Harry trudges through the snow. He moves objects. He flips switches. He runs with a torch. He checks his cell phone. He frets over Cheryl. He learns events. He grows confused. He encounters a cop who is just as confused about him (aren't they always?). He sees strange occurances that defy logic. A couple doesn't recognize him. A lady converses with him. Same lady asks him to follow her off to wherever. Doors need to be opened. A school has to be explored. A bridge has to be lowered. Instructions have to be discovered to lower it. Someone answers the phone when Harry calls to ask for them. Isn't it just so convenient that they're available to answer the phone and give them right then and there, in the dead of night at some ungodly hour, right when Harry needs them to.

So we have impressive game mechanics ruined by boring gameplay, unexciting chases, and puzzles that might as well not even exist. That leaves the story. And boy, does it ever do its best to zonk you out, even giving you a good start on occasion here and there. It seems to be getting pret-ty trippy for the longest time. Trippy, but not at all scary. But, again, I'm reminded of that exact same Roger Ebert review of The Village I mentioned earlier in which, without his giving anything away, he states his reaction to that movie's ending by saying.......

No, wait, I just can't quote that review again just in case you haven't read it. This game's too broad a target. I'll just say that his reaction was again exactly like my own to this game's ending, and that I realized what a waste of time this title really was, not to mention that much-ballyhooed secret ending. Seriously. All you see, all you learn and experience, it all comes to naught. It's a huge cop out, a scam, as far as I'm concerned. And speaking of "cops", I think that if that cop you ran into really wanted to help, she would have simply said, "Nothing to see here, please keep moving along, thank you."

Welcome to the page

2010-10-23T12:19:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the dubiously titled Your Stuff Sucks. As I'm sure you've guessed, it's a webpage dedicated to what I personally feel are the absolute worst that entertainment has to offer.

Multifaceted, Your Movie Sucks isn't just limited to movies. It will also be reviewing games, books, etc. that I also feel are equally wretched. Please feel free to dive in and enjoy.