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Raw Deal
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You'd imagine from that that Arnie is going to be shooting government employees but he isn't so the tagline should have been "The government gave him a raw deal, but he'll do a favour for them anyway" Plot: Arnie got a Raw Deal while working for the FBI and ended up taking a crappy job as a Sheriff for a small town but luckily there's a traitor working in the FBI who gets a load of agents killed including the son of Arnies old boss. Arnie goes undercover and joins the bad guys gang so he can get revenge and win back his old job. What I thought: I first watched Raw Deal when I was a kid after I'd seen most of Schwarzeneggers other films that were out at the time and were a lot bigger budget and more spectacular. Predator, Commando, Running Man and Total Recall are all much better and on first watch Raw Deal was a major disappointment, after watching it again the other night without any high expectations my opinion has changed as its actually pretty good and funnier than I remembered. Arnie just constantly comes out with smart-ass comments whether its appropriate or not because he knows if anyone doesn't like it he can easily knock them out with one punch or throw them through a wall. Towards the end it almost turns into a Terminator film when he puts on his leather jackets loads up on guns and takes out a whole room full of armed criminals, he gets shot a few times but it doesn't seem to bother him, he just keeps on walking around the room blowing everyone away. Strangely the thing I remembered most about this film before I saw it again was the guy having to learn to walk again after being shot. Best Bit: The whole conversation with his drunk wife which ends in her throwing a cake at him and him saying "You should not drink and bake", that's just awesome. Things we learn:
Rating: 6/10 - Its an okay deal for us
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The Terminators
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We don't see anyone program them to destroy, they just seem to start destroying on their own. The poster shows an army of robot looking terminators, not an army of muscle men to trick you into thinking it will be good Plot: There are robots who are supposed to work for humans but they decide they'd rather kill humans, so they do. The humans decide they need to flick the switch that turns off all of the robots, which seems like a sensible thing to do. What I thought: For the first few minutes this film seems like its The Aliens and not The Terminators as its on a space station and seems very alienesque but pretty soon we see a big muscle guy with no emotion so it clearly is a Terminator ripoff. The Terminators are called TR's in this film, it must stand for Terminator Ripoff, no other word combination would make sense. I didn't notice a reason for the TR's to go haywire and start killing people, they just do. Luckily there's a big on/off switch on the space station that will turn them all off but the guy that trys to flick it gets killed. We next meet some space marine types who do nothing and will be forgotten about by everyone including you until 5 minutes before the end of the film. That's where they reappear and get immediately killed. Oh well. Most of the action happens on Earth with a small group of annoying teens, a Sheriff who reminds me of Kurt Russell, who I'll call Burt Russell, and a chubby Jeremy London from Party of Five and Mallrats. The chubbiness of his face distracted me every time he was on screen. Its established early on with lots of shouting that normal bullets just bounce off the TR's, in fact they don't leave any marks or even damage the TR's identical vests and combat trousers, it doesn't stop people from continually trying to shoot them though. Someone thought it would be cool to make the sound all echoey whenever someone makes a grunt, crys or fights, it isn't, its annoying. The surviving teens, Burt Russell and Jeremy London manage to steal a space ship, fly to the space station and turn off the TR's but not before a TR that actually looks robotic kills a few people, before that you might have thought you were watching Attack of the Muscle Men as there's no real evidence that any of them are robotic killing machines. Jeremy London dies, Burt Russell turns out to be a robot but still sacrifices himself by flushing himself and the big robot into space to prove that he still feels like a human even if his leg is made of tinfoil when you cut the skin open. The effects were pretty good, the film was average. Best Bit: Jeremy London has a big gun that stops the TR's when shot, its well known to be the only weapon that works against the unstoppable killing machines but at one point, on the space station, when Jeremy, teen girl and teen boy are cornered by a TR, Jeremy just stands there while teen girl unloads all of her bullets into it and then teen boy trys to tackle him to the ground and gets thrown into a wall, only then does he decide to fire his proven to be successful mega laser at it. Things we learn:
Rating: 4/10 - It should be terminated
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Half Past Dead 2
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Tagline: It ain't over 'til he's done Really? It's probably a good job, the film would be worse if it ended before he was done, not sure which character they are talking about or what he has to do though but I guess he did get it done or I'd still be watching it. Plot: One of the characters from the first film remembers something from the plot of the first film that everyone who watched it probably forgot about and decides to transfer to the toughest prison ever so he can escape and find the missing gold What I thought: I couldn't remember much about the first film other than it having Steven Seagal in it, a prison riot and being fairly watchable which meant that for the first hour of the sequel I didn't realise who the main character was or where the plot of the film was going, then they showed a flashback to the first film which helped us understand that the main guy was in the first film and there was some gold hidden somewhere, it also reminded us how much better the first film was compared to the sequel. Anyway, Twitch is the main character, he's in an island prison and can't swim so he doesn't try to escape, when the warden threatens to send the next person who starts a fight to the toughest prison ever Twitch sees his chance and starts a fight. His plan is to escape from the prison that isn't surrounded by water and find the gold. A riot breaks out after a guard sells a gun to a prisoner and he shoots the leader of one of the gangs, this leads to the prison being locked down trapping a couple of visiting ladies inside! Twitch teams up with the big guy that everyone is scared of as coincidentally its Twitch's girlfriend and big guys daughter that are captured by the main bad guy with the gun. Lots of fights happen with the same people, guards chase prisoners with clubs, some people die and eventually the women are saved, twitch gets his parole and finds the gold, the big guy doesn't get parole or anything, he's still stuck in jail despite being the only person in prison that is actually innocent. Best Bit: The big guy keeps trying to rip the gates open with his bare hands when trying to get to his daughter, he's been in prison 5 years you'd think he would have realised by now that the gates are made to withstand prisoners shaking them. Things we learn:
Rating: 5/10 - Makes you feel three quarters past dead
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The Haunting of Winchester House
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Tagline: There doesn't seem to be one but it does say on the poster that its a true story which is pretty preposterous and I don't believe it Plot: Everyone killed by a Winchester gun haunts Winchester house, Winchester house looks odd because a medium said you can't get rid of the ghosts you can only keep building extra rooms onto the house to escape from them, although that turns out to be a lie. A family moves in to look after the house and is attacked by ghosts, but they win in the end, although they find out that they are ghosts too so they don't really win because they are dead. What I thought: I thought it was going to be bad, the really awful CGI house didn't give me much hope, it's possibly the worst CGI I've ever seen, and its just a house, how did they get a house to look so fake? It ended up being good though, bad acting and dialogue sure, but it did manage to creep me out in places and the twist ending was cool. Once the ghosts start appearing, and they come from every direction thick and fast, its great. The paranormal investigator who happens to live next door is hilarious, warding off ghosts with his pendulum, and after claiming to have the power to speak to ghosts, swinging it round to smack one in the head and destroy it, spouting some of the worst lines ever, all totally seriously. "The power of the poltergeist is beyond physical power" is one such beauty. Best Bit: Two best bits in this one, the ghost that had no face, presumably because it had blown it off with a Winchester, he couldn't see so was trying to find the woman and girl that were hiding in the cupboard by sound, he's searching around and comes close to finding them but then walks away, everyone breathes a sigh of relief but then it pops its head round the corner again, just to double check, brill. The second best bit was when the paranormal investigator was trying to help to and all hell is breaking loose, poltergeist activity off the scale, objects flying about all over. The investigator is asking the spirit what it wants over and over and ends up grabbing a pan from out of the air and screaming at it "What do you want!". Awesome Things we learn:
Rating: 6/10 - Rubbish, but good
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Dream Warrior
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Tagline: After the apocalypse...humanity will rise again The tagline sounds a bit too positive, humanity rising again after the apocalypse is surely a good thing, to grab your interest it should mention the x-men ripoff mutants and living in squalor After the apocalypse.....humanity will live on building sites and hunt mutant scum Plot: Stock footage shows us that there have been some fires and riots which have nearly ended the world, some people have survived though but mutations are occurring which give people special powers. Lance Henrikson hates the mutant freaks and hunts and kills them. Unfortunately some of the mutants fight back and win. What I thought: The guy on the poster isn't in the film, you don't see the statue of liberty, some people have dreams and there are some warriors but nobody fights inside the dreams so the title is rubbish and misleading. Its kind of a rip off of x-men, there are mutants that can read your mind, give electric shocks and see visions etc, mad max style hunters chase them around, luckily old knackered cars survived the apocalypse even if none of the nice cars, buildings, governments etc did. At first I thought the stupid looking big metal plate on the back of the cars was to make it look more futuristic or armour plated but later its revealed that they are solar panels. The main character is called Rage, you've got to expect your kids to act out when you give them a name like that, he's escaped from Lance Henrikson who likes to capture, torture and kill mutants. Rage crashes his car during a hunter chase and is believed to be dead but luckily is found by some mutants who use mutant powers to heal him. A prophet arrives with the worst prophecy ever, "A child shall rise to lead them", since any leader of the mutants will have been a child at some point it doesn't really help in knowing who the great leader will be, I'll give you a clue though, it's Rage. The other mutants dream a village by the river from the prophecy so they all decide to go there and also kill Lance Henrikson on the way. It turns out Rage is Lance Henrikson's son, Lance is a secret mutant too and the surviving four mutants start up their village by the river. I'm not sure that an old prophet, a man, a woman and a teenage girl constitute a village but I suppose with enough sex anything is possible Best Bit: The bit when Rage and some of the hunters have been captured by a tribe that wears lots of makeup and they have to fight other prisoners Things we learn:
Rating: 4/10 - Dull and boring, I'd rather be hunted and killed for being a mutant
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Beach Babes From Beyond
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Tagline: Hot. Tan. Alien. Plot: A few teenage alien girls take their fathers spaceship out for a joyride, run out of petrol and land on Earth, luckily one of the guys who lives on the beach is a scientist, makes them some more fuel and they get to go home, but not before winning a bikini designer competition to help out another guy who lives on the beach. What I thought: Swayze, Travolta, Stallone, Estevez, how could it be bad? Oh its Don, Joey, Jackie and Joe that's how. As a man I feel like I should have enjoyed this more, the amount of women in bikinis and topless women is quite high and bare flesh fills the screen for the entire film and yet its somehow boring and I wished they had a plot. Once the alien girls crash on the beach and the main male characters arrive we get a scene of a whole crowd of people having fun on the beach, mainly by dancing in bikinis, we get to hear an entire (bad) song while watching people dance, a few lines of dialogue and then the same song plays and we get to watch people dance for a bit more, its not a good start. Joe Estevez lives on the beach, that may be true in real life too, I don't know, but I could believe it. In the film he's down on his luck and due to be evicted, he needn't worry though as there is a bikini designer competition with a prize of $30,000. Yes a $30,000 prize for designing the best bikini in a competition held on a beach that only the locals appear to be interested in. Fortunately one of the aliens is an awesome clothes designer and agrees to enter the competition and give the winnings to Joe as Earth money isn't any use to them back home. Joe's ex-girlfriend gets jealous though and kidnaps the alien and her bikinis so she can win the competition instead. The alien is rescued extremely easily and they sabotage the ex's bikinis. The competition appears to just be more women dancing in their bikinis, I don't see any major design innovations in the bikinis, they just look like regular bikinis but the film was made in 1993 so maybe bikinis previous to 1993 looked more ugly and were worse in some way and Beach Babes From Beyond is showing us cutting edge bikini designs that we take for granted in the future of 2010, I don't know. The competition goes on for so long we have to hear another bad beach themed song all the way through, twice in a row. The men in the crowd are going crazy, hollering at the women in bikinis like they've never seen anything like it but we already know that they spend their days surrounded by bikini clad women dancing on the beach so it seems a bit fake. It looks like the aliens might lose as joe's ex-girlfriends bikinis dance but its now that we find out how they were sabotaged, the alien girl put acid on them so that they come undone and fall off. Yes, she put acid on innocent womens bikinis, on purpose. The aliens win and go home, Joe gets back together with his ex and everyone is happy except us. Best Bit: The dancing girls in the bikinis, but only because that's the ENTIRE film Things we learn:
Rating: 2/10 - Unless you enjoy watching girls dance in bikinis, then I guess its a 9/10
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Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus
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Tagline: Winner....Eats.....All! Plot: A mega shark and a giant octopus that were frozen mid-fight get loose and destroy whatever is near them. Humans have no effect but luckily the giant beasts kill each other. What I thought: I watched an edited version of this on TV, I know it was edited as they blanked out swear words, I don't know if any scenes of sex and violence were cut but I assume they all must have been as there wasn't any. at all. A couple of the more stupid scenes were good, like the shark eating the plane and the shark eating the bridge but I'd already seen that in the trailer so my advice is watch the trailer, don't watch the film. Best Bit: The shark leaping 30,000ft into the sky to eat a plane! Things we learn:
Rating: 2/10 - one point for the plane scene and one for the bridge scene. Mega crap vs giant pile of crap
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Meridian
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Tagline: Seduced by something less than human. In love with something more Not sure if you can call being drugged and raped by a beastman seduction, most women I know would prefer flowers and a romantic meal. Plot: A traveling carnival comes to town, they drug and rape two girls, one because its part of the ongoing cycle of an ancient curse, the other just for fun. Luckily the girl falls in love with the carnival freak that turns into a beastman during the course of a weekend, she later causes the curse to be lifted and the carnival freaks all go back into the spooky cavern from whence they came. What I thought: I don't know why its called Meridian, the word isn't mentioned at all during the whole film, I can't find a dictionary definition that works either, I guess its just a spooky word. The film starts with an old painting being given to the church, we later find out its been given to them by an old woman who is actually a ghost, to provide a clue as to what is going to happen later, as under the paint is an even older painting showing the plot of the film. From what I could gather the painting is given to the main character's (Sherilyn Fenn) best friend to restore on friday and she has until monday to complete the restoration which means the whole film takes place over two days which makes the plot even more ridiculous that it first seems. The painting restorer who only has a first name (Charlie) according to the films credits, decides she will visit her friend as planned on friday night then come back and work the rest of the weekend on the painting, she also meets the old woman who turns out to be a ghost so she is clearly a very convincing ghost, in fact she still does all of her usual household duties and works with other staff members who neglect to tell Sherilyn that she died 6 months ago. The girls see a carnival arrive and decide to go and watch, its not a great carnival and despite the fact that we see the main bad guy counting a big stack of cash after the show the girls don't seem to get charged to watch. Apart from the main bad guy magician, the amazing freaks on show are a midget, a belly dancer, a fire eater, a man who holds snakes and bites them in half, a juggler, a strongman who doesn't look muscular at all and displays his strength by picking up the midget, and a masked man in a cloak who is a master with the crossbow and proves it by successfully hitting a target 2 steps away from where he's stood. Its all very unimpressive but the girls go backstage and invite them all to tea. The freaks get drunk and make a mess, Sherilyn isn't pleased and can't wait for them to leave but the midget drops a drug in their drinks and Sherilyn is carried away to the bedroom by the magician while Charlie is left drugged and half naked with the rest of them. After stripping her the magician leaves and swaps with the man in the mask, who turns out to be the magicians twin brother! He proceeds to rape her, although the drugs make her enjoy it, and turns into a beastman in what must be one of the weirdest sex scenes I've seen. While this is going on the evil magician has his way with Charlie. In the morning the freaks are gone and the girls feel pretty foolish though not as upset as you'd imagine. Charlie goes back to work and starts to restore the painting while Sherilyn starts seeing things and being tormented by the evil magician. The beastman saves her from being raped again and runs away, at some point during the two encounters with the beastman she falls in love with him which is lucky as thats precisely what he needs to lift the curse. He turns into a beast whenever he loves, its a rubbish curse. Anyway, Sherilyn has to kill the beast to lift the curse but manages to find the secret way to lift it that nobody mentioned before where she can make the beast kill the evil magician instead. He does, he turns back into a human and everything is ok. During the final showdown Charlie has restored enough of the painting to realise something weird is going on and arrives on the scene just in time to pass the crossbow back to the beast, thats all she does, the beast has already won the struggle with the midget he was having and was about to pick it up anyway but the painting had to help at some point I suppose. Best Bit: The freaky sex scene, sorry, seduction scene Things we learn:
Rating: 3/10 - Sherilyn Fenn saves it from being boring by being hot, women might like it if they fantasize about sex with beastmen
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Demolition University
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Tagline: Doesn't appear to have one Plot: Terrorists plan to steal an explosive liquid and contaminate the water supply, unlucky for them that Corey Haim has joined a university field trip and has no qualms about killing terrorists in a variety of ways. What I thought: The film starts with the terrorists stealing the explosive liquid, I was confused during this bit as all of the elderly guards protecting the building looked like the same person. After hearing war breaking out outside, the head of security very calmly says that the perimeter has been breached, he doesn't appear worried in the slightest but he should be. The terrorists have a man on the inside and manage to get into the safe containing the liquid. We learn that you need to be very careful when handling the liquid but the terrorists foolishly let a bumbling idiot carry one of the bottles and he immediately drops it, killing himself in the process. You have to wonder why liquids this dangerous aren't stored in a container that doesn't break so easily but scientists obviously don't worry about such things as they all have sticky fingers and steady hands. Meanwhile at university, Corey Haim is getting into a fight with the jocks and ends up hiding on a bus. Luckily for everyone the bus is about to leave on a field trip to the water plant that the terrorists have just taken over. As Corey isn't supposed to be on the trip the teacher makes him stay on the bus while she takes the class to be captured by the terrorists. Corey sees some suspicious things and decides to investigate, he discovers the whole dastardly plot and teams up with the girl he fancies as she managed to avoid capture. They get chased around a lot and Corey kills people without hesitation, he sees it as if he doesn't kill them, they'll kill him, which is fair enough but you'd still expect a teenager to be slightly troubled by kicking people off walkways to their death and impaling people on spikes but Corey enjoys it. The police eventually find out what's happening and spray a lot of bullets at nothing from a mile away. Its up to Corey and his girlfriend to stop the bomb that will release the liquid into the water supply. We found out at the start of the film that Corey's girlfriend can run quite fast so luckily she just manages to run to the bomb in time to stop it. Corey then takes the liquid out of the safe cushioned box it was in and runs around with it balanced precariously in his hands while mayhem still erupts around him. Everything works out in the end and Corey wins the heart of the girl he was after and gets counseling for all the death he caused, probably more deaths than the terrorists actually caused. Best Bit: The bit set at the university (which doesn't get demolished) where its more like a teen comedy than an action film Things we learn:
Rating: 5/10 - A decent Corey Haim film which is quite a refreshing change
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Salute of the Jugger
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Tagline: The official tagline appears to be "The time will come when winning is everything" but I like this poster that has "2200AD...and games with death have no rules..." I understand the words and what they are saying but still there's a part of my brain that screams "NONSENSE!!" when I read it. Plot: Its the future, most people are poor and just live in the desert but everyone loves the brutal sport of Juggering. I don't know if the sport even has a name but if the players are called juggers then Juggering seems a logical name even if it does sound a bit rude. What I thought: What did you imagine the film might be about when you see that its called Salute of the Jugger, about a heroic jug maker who goes to war? Maybe you thought its a typing error and its actually called Salute of the Juggler, about a heroic juggler who goes to war. During the first 5 minutes of the film we hear the word jugger around 30 times but we still don't know anything about what a jugger is, just that they are worthy of running and shouting to tell everyone of their arrival. We soon realise that juggers are the players in a future sport that involves fighting over a dog's skull and trying to place it on a spike, in the future balls are obviously extinct, a dogs skull is the only reasonable replacement. If you imagine a quidittch match from Harry Potter but instead of flying around on broomsticks everyone is running on the floor and instead of seekers chasing a golden snitch there are "quicks" chasing a dog's skull and instead of throwing a ball through a hole you've got to place the dogs skull on a spike, you should have an idea what the sport is like. While the "quicks" are trying to get the skull on the spike the rest of the team just batter each other with sticks. The game lasts until the skull is on the spike or until 100 stones have been thrown against a crappy gong. That's how they time things in the future, there are no watches or clocks so somebody has to throw a stone against a gong for each second. They don't even get to watch the game while they do it either, they stand with their back to the game, its crazy. The film is about a wandering team, led by Rutger Hauer who go from town to town playing other teams, they pick up a new young lady "quick" and decide to get attention from the big leagues by challenging, everybody always loses after 10 seconds but our heroes team manages to win against the odds. The film ends with a close up of Rutger Hauer and you really want him to salute but he doesn't. I have to assume that the arm banging together handshake thing pictured on the poster is the salute of the jugger as they do that after the games in the film but a more appropriate title for the film would then be Cool Handshake of the Jugger. Best Bit: The violent last match Things we learn:
Rating: 5/10 - Salute of the Juggler would be better, imagine Rutger Hauer, deep in enemy territory, juggling grenades, he loses an arm when one of them explodes but can still salute with his remaining arm when he receives his hero medal.
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Black Jack
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Tagline: Trained to protect...Now he must survive A better tagline would have been to quote Dolph's psychiatrist in the film "Sunglasses are the only protection you have from all the white out there!" Plot: Dolph Lundgren plays Jack, sometimes he wears black, he used to help his dad clean out casinos and uses razor sharp playing cards as weapons as well as doing card tricks. He also has a phobia about the colour white, all these are reasons for the witty title Black Jack. Dolph is a bodyguard who has to protect a model from her psycho ex-husband. Its kind of like The Bodyguard, but good. What I thought: The film is directed by John Woo, I've been disappointed with John Woo films since he moved from Hong Kong to Hollywood, could a made for TV movie starring Dolph Lundgren change my opinion? If it involves plenty of milk action then it just might! The film starts off in a casino just to remind you that its called Black Jack, some characters that don't matter have a problem that only Jack can help with, and help he does using razor sharp playing cards to slice up the tough sounding Harry and Eyeball. Jack is then tasked with looking after his friend's daughter incase the mob follow through on their threat to kill her. At the girls house Jack mysteriously heads upstairs out of the way as soon as the girl mentions milk, this is a clear hint at Jack's hidden fear of milk that becomes apparent later in the film. While upstairs he notices a trampoline outside and clearly logs it in his mind as something that might come in handy should a shootout start. Then a gang of thugs enter the house and all hell breaks loose, Jack kills most of them but one of them grabs the girl, Jack noticing that she still has her milk, tells her to use it. She uses it in a more bizarre way than I would have in the same situation. She doesn't throw the milk in the bad guys face as you'd expect, she pours it over his arm and her face so that she can slide her head out from his grip. It's stupid but it works and the bad guy dies. From being shot, not from the milk. A random grenade then blinds Jack momentarily, triggering his future fear of the colour white, leading to the girl jumping on his back and guiding him around the house and shooting the rest of the bad guys. His eyesight returns just in time to use the trampoline in the finale of the shootout. Jack is then visiting his psychiatrist, he tells her he's managed to stop taking pills all the time but now he starts passing out when he sees white stuff and has to wear sunglasses all the time. It sounds stupid but the psychiatrist tells him and us that colour phobias are common so it must be true and the films major plot point isn't as stupid as it sounds. Oh yeah, he finds out his friends have died in an accident and they left their daughter to him in their will. It doesn't really matter as the main plot is that a new super model is receiving death threats and must be protected to avoid the 6 million dollar deal falling through! The super model is hooked on pain killers, just like Jack used to be and after a near miss from a sniper decides getting high on pills and jumping off her balcony is a good idea. Luckily Jack gets there just in time to make her do a sexy dance and get the drugs out of her system. It seems like he's taking advantage of a woman who clearly doesn't know what she's doing, but he's really helping her. He helps her again later by feeling her up to get rid of her back pain. The person trying to kill the model is her psycho ex-husband, he has a butterfly in a jar which serves no purpose other than showing us that he is crazy. He tracks the model down and another shootout starts, this time with jumping motorbikes and exploding cars, unfortunately for Jack the bad guy runs away into a dairy and randomly starts shooting the pipes, unleashing a torrent of evil milk onto Jack, he writhes around in agony as though the milk is acid, the bad guy realises that Jack is scared of the colour white, its an easy assumption to make as its common to have a colour phobia, he then beats Jack up and pours a bucket of milk over his head! Luckily Jac'ks friends turn up before he can be attacked with any more milk. Jack tracks the bad guy down but is thwarted again, this time by a big white sheet. He's kicked off the security team looking after the model but sneaks in anyway with a rifle, the security that the model is paying thousands of dollars for is so good they let Jack in with a rifle and the bad guy with a gun. The bad guy grabs the girl, Jack follows but finds himself surrounded by more of the big white sheets. He has his sunglasses on though so he's ok, but he chooses this moment, when its a matter of life or death, facing the main villain, to take off his sunglasses and crush them and face his fears. Needless to say he gets his face kicked in by the bad guy while he staggers around blinded by whiteness. The bad guy decides to take a break though, giving Jack enough time to work through the deep psychological problems he's had since he was eight. Once he's ok again he shoots the bad guy and we have a happy ending. Best Bit: Rolling around in a room full of milk like its melting his skin. Things we learn:
Rating: 7/10 - Good action scenes, good milk scenes, its pretty good
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Dark Night of the Scarecrow
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Tagline: It's a TV movie so no tagline unfortunately, it could probably have had the tagline "It's not just crows that will be scared!" if it did get released in cinemas though Plot: Not to be confused with the dark knight vs the scarecrow AKA Batman Begins, this is about a retarded man who is murdered by an evil postman and his cronies for being retarded so he comes back as a revenge spirit and kills his murderers. What I thought: The film starts with Bubba, who is retarded playing with a young girl in a field, we immediately know that Bubba is retarded as he is dressed in the standard Hollywood simpleton outfit of brightly coloured cap and dungarees. Bubba is basically like a young child in a big mans body. For some reason the Postman hates him, there's hints that Bubba may have done something bad in the past but we don't find out any details about it and can't be sure if its just the Postman making stuff up as it turns out he leaps to some wild conclusions about things throughout the film. The girl that Bubba is playing with decides she wants to sneak into someone's garden to play with the assorted garden gnomes she's spotted through the fence, unfortunately there's an evil attack dog in the garden too and it attacks the girl, Bubba saves her while the gnomes look menacing for no reason, its a bizarre scene that seems to imply that the gnomes have somehow caused the attack but this isn't Dark Night of the Gnomes so we don't need to be scared yet. Somehow the whole town hears that the girl is dead and Bubba is the one that killed her. It seems like overkill but the Sheriff calls for volunteers to track down and catch Bubba, you'd think the Sheriff might be able to handle it on his own since they are basically going after a big kid. The Postman prefers to form up his own gang for tracking Bubba though and apparently already has trained sniffer dogs that already know Bubba's scent. One of the Postman's men seems surprised and excited when the dogs seem to have found Bubba's scent while they are outside Bubba's house and says "They're onto something here!", well yeah, Bubba's scent would be all over that area, he lives there! Bubba has been hidden by his mum in the worst hiding place you can imagine, tied to a cross in a field with a sack over his head pretending to be a scarecrow. If the sack had a face drawn on it the disguise might have worked but his mum instead cut out big eye holes that mean Bubba's frightened eyes are clearly visible to his pursuers and he can't run away as he's tied to a cross. Thanks Mom! The four men, led by the Postman open fire and pump over 20 bullets into Bubba before they hear the real story over the CB radio that Bubba actually saved the girl from a dog. In a genius move that completely fools the Sheriff the postman props a pitchfork against the dead Bubba scarecrow to make it look like they were defending themselves. After being cleared by the court and strangely being cheered by the entire town for ridding them of the guy that saved a girl from a vicious dog the four killers start getting picked off one by one. The first guy sees the scarecrow in his field which freaks him out, later he hears someone in his barn and investigates, just when you think he might get attacked by a scarecrow he stumbles and falls into his thresher and dies, at this point I'm a little disappointed, I was expecting a Jason Voorhees style character, wandering the town killing people with a pitchfork not a ghost that turns on machinery and makes people lose their balance. The postman assumes it must be Bubba's mother getting revenge and after she accuses him of being a paedophile he accidentally kills her by putting his hand over her mouth for a bit, she may have a heart attack because she's scared but it's not clear, she just dies unexpectedly. Next to die is the fat farmer, he also hears noises and at first investigates but then thinks better of it and trys to run but his car won't start so he hides in his grain silo like an idiot and gets drowned in grain The postman and skeeter are really freaking out now and decide to dig up Bubba to see if he's back form the dead but he's in his grave where he should be so they decide it must be a ghost. The postman kills skeeter with a shovel to the head because he's becoming a liability and gets drunk and drives home. On the way he sees the little girl though and chases her into the fields only to get chased by a tractor right into the scarecrows waiting pitchfork which I thought was a nice way to end it. The film ends with the scarecrow handing a flower to the little girl. The films message appears to be that the real monster is the Postman, ghost scarecrows are nice and not to be feared. I think I'll still steer clear of ghost scarecrows though. Best Bit: The postman getting killed by a scarecrow with a pitchfork after convincing the whole town that scarecrows with pitchforks are extremely dangerous and should be shot on sight, repeatedly. Things we learn:
Rating: 6/10 - Not a bad film but I was disappointed that it wasn't a stalk and slash film and that batman wasn't in it.
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