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THE GREAT YOKAI WAR!

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The Great Yokai War– 2005, Takashi Miike, Japan

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And so it came to this…

In 2005, Daiei’s phenomenal Yokai franchise from the 1960’s enjoyed a brief, regrettable resurgence when famed director Takashi Miike decided to bless the Earth with The Great Yokai War. This unfortunate semi-sequel really only checks off on about half of the things that SHOULD be on the checklist for any Yokai film, and instead injects it with more Miike-isms than were desirable, or appropriate. I’m pretty hot and cold on Miike as a director to begin with, but in the case of The Great Yokai War, I’m straight up irritated.

Worth mentioning; this shit is a kid’s movie, but Miike isn’t the sort of bro you let babysit. The Great Yokai War is way, way scarier than your average children’s film, and periodically, it’s more sexually suggestive, as well. For the adults in the audience, I guess this is SORT OF a win, but it doesn’t really go far enough with the spooks or the sex to satisfy the shameful smut-hounds inside all of us, and I’m damn sure not going to let my kids watch this thing; so in the end we have a movie which lingers pointlessly between two polar opposite demographics. Honestly, that’s Miike to a T.

THE PLOT~ When an evil, ancient sorcerer type dude who dresses really nice decides that he wants revenge against both humans, AND the yokai, he does some stupid bullshit that’s super uninteresting and lame. Then, later on, some little kid finds himself wrapped up in a grand, cookie-cutter fantasy adventure, which forces him to battle alongside the Yokai and save the world. Holy shit, man it’s JUST that boring and generic.

UGH.

So… What, if anything, is GOOD in The Great Yokai War…?

Well, it’s does have a ton of monsters in it, which is definitely a non-negotiable requirement for this franchise. Not providing this most bare-bones of requirements would be nothing less than inexcusable, and while Miike is ordinarily quick to disappoint/and/or blatantly defy expectations, I am happy to report that in this case, he does indeed bring the thunder, monster style. Thank heavens.

The monsters also LOOK pretty darn good… Well, the Yokai do, at least. They’re mostly live action, and that’s a straight up blessing. The film also has “bad-guy” monsters in it, which are all CG… They fucking suck so bad, but we’ll cover them in greater detail later.

The Great Yokai War also succeeds pretty admirably at replicating the fun vibe seen in Spook Warfare, we get a real feel of urgency, and the human and yokai worlds are intermixed in a way that feels very similar to what the earlier Daiei films did so well. I’d say Miike passes with flying colors in this arena (imagine that!). He also nails the characterization of most of the central cast (with the exception of the bad guys- again, more to come on this), who feel like real, fully developed personalities, full of flaws and peculiar traits which make them feel relatable. Some of the jokes are even funny, the Yokai are all pokey and selfish, unmotivated to do anything even when oblivion is starring them in the face, and the only way to successfully get them to march off to battle is by misleading them into thinking they’ve been invited to a party. It’s weird, but I almost want to throw Miike a thumbs up in regards to how well this is done… But then I remember Ichi The Killer, and I get pissed off again.

Possibly the best thing the movie does, though, is that it actually has a fairly intelectual thesis statement, which is most unexpected in a shabby-ass kid’s fantasy adventure film. At the heart of it, The Great Yokai War is all about the transition from youth to adulthood, the moment when abandon our naïve, youthful perspective, and instead adopt of a more complex understanding of morality, and our roles in society. This is illustrated adequately in the personal journey of our central character, some Japanese Kid, and also mirrored more casually in the journey society has undertaken as it slowly forgets about the traditions of yesteryear, and becomes more preoccupied with the Internet and getting to work on time. As much as this movie full-on pisses me off, The Great Yokai War is ABOUT something, and credit where credit is due, that’s worth pointing out in any fair critique.

Not that that’s out of the way…

What DOESN’T work….?

The first (and worst) mistake Miike makes is that he takes the film out of the period setting seen in the old Daiei movies, and plops it down shittily into modern times. Damn, that sucks. This change allows Miike to flood our screen with his desired bad guys, who, again, are exempt from every single compliment I’ve paid to this film thus far, and it also sets up the comparison between the evolution of Japanese culture, and the journey to adulthood seen in our central character (some Japanese Kid), but it sucks like nobody’s business and isn’t worth it. It’s lame, lame as hell, this film would immediately jump up a full letter grade AT LEAST if it were set in Japan’s feudal era. It’s just so much more interesting.

Second inexcusable flaw: The CG. ALL of the CG in this film is fucking horrible. It’s just appaling, and really, this is a very common complaint for most any Japanese film in this day and age. It’s actually impossible to look at these characters and not feel a profound distatisfaction with how freaking shitty they all look. It would be enough to ruin the film, if there was even a decent film to ruin, and so I propose a new rule; If you can’t accocmplish your end goal with digital effects that are at least passable, then tough cookies, dude, change your goals. Do NOT launch a project that you can’t realistically pull off and then chuck the dog shit results out into the cinematic community, expecting a pardon. The CG in The Great Yokai War is a hole that would sink any boat; Miike, may God have mercy on your soul, you should have done anything other than this.

THIRD INEXCUSABLE FLAW: The Bad Guys. All of the bad guys in this movie are completely terrible. Firstly, the evil sorcerer dude: his plan is to capture all of the yokai, round them up, and toss them into this miasmic flame he’s got in a furnace (this is actually a yokai as well, oddly enough. It looks like slimy, pink fire.). After that, he tosses garbage in with them, and let’s it all mix together, thereby transforming the yokai into stupid looking steampunk robots that carry out his evil bidding. Re-read that, basically, this guy’s evil scheme is exactly the same thing Dr. Robotnik did back in the Sonic The Hedgehog video games, Sega Genesis era. To be clear, I think that shit was more believable when it was 16 Bit. Also, it had better graphics.

Shitty robots aside, the bad guys are also saddled with those familiar and all too unwelcome anime tropes, which have slowly wormed their way into Japanese live action cinema, and which really are just the worst things ever. His main henchman is easily the most aggravatingly lame character in the entire film, she’s some turncoat Yokai, played by the often obnoxious Chiaki Kuriyama. Sorry, Chiaki, if I hated you in Kill Bill, I’ll probably hate you forever.

If you were wondering who the second lamest character in the film is, it’s probably Sunekosuri, a little fury creature who forms a special friendship with our lead kid early on. Sunekosuri is basically just a B-squad Mogwai that pees a lot. It sucks.

FORTH INEXCUSABLE FLAW: HOLY SHIT, THIS MOVIE IS GENERIC: It doesn’t help that Miike took these neat little movies that were essentially brilliant live action interpetations of Japan’s rich folk lore, and then made a sequel which mashed them into the most generic fantasy storyline ever. The Great Yokai War really feels like it’s less concerned with exploring folklore, and more concerned with being the Japanese Neverending Story. Really, It’s more like The Neverending Story part 5. Probably. I never saw Part 5, but if it exists, I’m sure it sucks, just like The Great Yokai War does.

The last two things I have to say:

1) One of these yokai looks like what you’d get if Mickey Rourke got wasted in a Hawaiin Punch bottling plant and lept into one of the vats.

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2) This kid’s shirt says something about midget racing, I shit you not. What in the hell is going on in Japan!??!

midget racing

 

C-

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YOKAI MONSTERS: ALONG WITH GHOSTS!

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Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts (AKA Journey With Ghost Along Yokaido Road) ~ 1969, Yoshiyuki Kuroda, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Japan

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The third entry in Daiei’s fantastically groovy Yokai trilogy rests on the far end of the spectrum from Spook Warfare; this time around we are given practically no insight into the yokai as individual personalities at all, and our narrative remains grounded solidly in the human realm, with our monsters popping in far less frequently than in the previous two films. Oddly enough, that means that we have the best story and the most engrossing characters of the entire trilogy, yet somehow, the movie still hits the finish line dead last insofar as entertainment value is concerned, because, really, Yokai is all about monsters per capita. Seems hardly fair, but thems the breaks, baby.

THE PLOT~ When some shady, gangster samurai intercept the delivery of some incriminating evidence, murder style, they also manage to inadvertently choose sacred ground as their primo ambush spot, thereby agitating the local yokai. The hoary old shrine keeper pleads with them to take the bloodshed elsewhere, but, predictably, he is ignored/murdered. Everything looks good for our samurai douchebags, until, that is, the yokai intervene, and place the evidence in the hands of the shrine keepers adorable grand-daughter. With Granddad dead and gangsters on her tail, our little heroine departs on a life and death quest to reach a nearby town where her deadbeat dad has been hiding out since her friggin’ birth, all the while deftly evading her murderous pursuers. But she is not alone; early in her quest, she meets a kindly young samurai who takes it upon himself to defend her, but of course , that’s easier said than done. Before the shows over, we have a few remarkably spooky altercations with the titular Yokai, as they deliver their traditional apparition-administered vigilante justice all up in the bad guy’s grills. It’s freaking rad, is what I’m saying.

Like all the Yokai films (100 Ghosts especially,) as well as Daiei’s also rad Daimajin, Along With Ghosts is, in fact, a samurai film with a strong paranormal element, but in this particular entry, the dial is cranked much further in the samurai direction than ever before. The spooky bits spice up the picture significantly, but they’re almost an afterthought, with minimal rewrites the movie could be told as a straight samurai flick without any ghost business at all. It also does a lot less filming on sound stages, instead many of our exterior shots have been moved to actual villages, open, sweeping fields, and other natural landscapes. There’s lot more moving camera now, due to our newfound wide-open space, and the end result is a more visually dynamic film. Additionally, the ghosts are no longer the least bit wacky, we don’t see a trace of our jive talkin’ Kappa or goofy Umbrella Ghost, and their replacements are pretty friggin’ terrifying. These hideous spooks are designed and implemented for horror, and horror alone. I do think the film could have benefitted from more time with them, but they’re sure effective as fuck when the picture does roll them out.

As I said before, despite the fact that from an academic perspective this film is actually much better than it’s predecessors, it’s still the least likable entry in the Yokai series, because the strength of these films lie almost exclusively in it’s many diverse monsters. In the case of Yokai, sacrificing a well executed narrative for a couple more ghosts is actually the way to go, as counter-intuitive as that may look on paper. Still, it’s no crisis, being the worst entry in the yokai trilogy remains nothing to sneeze at. All of these movies are rock solid. Along With Ghosts just happens to be the weakest in the bunch.

Or, at least, it was… Until 2005…

A-

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The X From Outer Space!!!

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The X From Outer Space ~ 1967, Kazui Nihonmatsu, Japan

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In the 1960’s, the assorted motion picture studios of Japan had all come to see Toho’s Godzilla as a big, green, lumbering money factory, just ripe for exploitation, and they all knew that if they wanted a slice of that kaiju pie, they needed to rip him off, pronto, before the heat died down. Suddenly, everybody in town had some giant, crappy monster they just had to cram down people’s throats, and the race to hop on Godzilla’s coattails had begun. First, there was Daiei, and their substantially less popular yet still kinda popular turtle monster Gamera. Then, there was Nikkatsu, who gave us Gappa, just one of the modern cinema’s many creatures who found themselves overshadowed by their own rad theme song. Then, in 1967, Shochiku, gave the world Guilala, star of the Science Fiction/monster outing The X From Outer Space. Wanna make a Kaiju film? Come up with a funny name beginning with the letter ‘G.’ You are now 80% of the way there.

THE PLOT~ We Earthlings just can’t figure out why all of our astronauts keep dying on the way to Mars. Let’s look at what we DO know; we KNOW that they all report the same peculiar glitches in their onboard computer systems… We know that they all get straight up menaced by a mysterious UFO as they approach the Red Planet, and we also know that right after that, they die… But how?!? Huh! It’s a real head-scratcher… Oh well, no matter, because even if we can’t put two and two together, we damn sure can put together special mission AAB-Gamma; just another collection of doomed astronauts who we have decided to condemn to death in the cold, dark recesses of space. We’re geniuses!

doomedYou’re all gonna die, you idiots!!!

From the get go, AAB-Gamma is plagued with ill omens and terrifying space disasters, they face everything from failing equipment, high levels of radiation, asteroid showers, punctures in the spacecrafts hull, mysterious illnesses, and, of course, that damn UFO I mentioned before. They eventually have to throw in the towel and admit defeat when this malicious alien spacecraft sprays the Astro-Boat down with some sort of weird, Martian spores, rendering the vessel totally immobile for some reason. They’re saved, shockingly enough, when they’re able to send out a distress signal, but not before collecting a sample of the alien spores from the outer hull of the ship, which they bring back to Earth for study. Guess what? Monster egg; that thing hatches overnight and right around the halfway mark, Guilala makes his big entrance. Within minutes of hatching, our boy Guilala grows to a standard Japanese monster height of 300 feet, and begins his stomping/smashing career. Naturally, all of our defenses fail to repel this abomination from space, and the crew of AAB-Gamma discovers that the only hope mankind has left is in it’s ability to synthesize a compound which can subdue Guilala, and this process can only be done in the absolute vacuum of space. So back they go, into space, to make some anti-monster goop.

Anyway.

It’s pretty middle of the road. By this point, essentially every Godzilla film featured aliens prominently, so in that way, The X From Outer Space effectively hops right into the swing of things with commendable ease, and our human characters are much more interesting than the interchangeable cyphers which populated Toho’s Godzilla-verse. There’s even a love triangle in this film! It’s poorly written, but it’s there! And that’s all good! It’s more than you usually get from Toho or Daiei’s human characters. Additionally, as I’ve said before, Guilala doesn’t even turn up until right around the halfway mark, and he’s really not in the film that much, when you step back and look at it. Believe it or not, that works out in the our favor, because what we end up with for the lion’s share of the run time is a delightfully adequate 1960’s space adventure, and honestly, that’s a lot more entertaining than all this giant monster business. We run into significant trouble when this movie expects us to give a shit about Guilala, or what he’s up to, and while these sequences are fairly well done from a technical perspective, they’re noticeably more boring than the work Toho and Daiei were doing at that time.

Guilala kind of sucks, too. He might have been fine as a secondary character, maybe teaming up with Gigan or something, but on his own, out in the spotlight, it’s pretty clear that he’s just not star material. First of all, he sort of looks like Big Bird.

x big bird comImage: Sesame Street's Big BirdIt’s like I’m seein’ double!

This particular look works just fine on the mean streets of Sesame, but it’s hard to take a Kaiju seriously when you keep thinking “Hey, is that that dude who taught me to count?” Not good.  Secondly, Guilala’s limbs are all swollen, puffy, and frilled, giving him the appearance of an alien Big Bird wearing Jerry’s pirate shirt from Seinfeld.

x pirate shirt compuffy_shirt_2964582k“I don’t wanna be a pirate!” – Guilala

That’s what you’re going to remember about this friggin’ monster, he looks like Big Bird, his name is way too difficult to pronounce, and Jerry Seinfeld’s freaking pirate shirt. I’m sorry, Guilala, but by the natural law of Survival of the Fittest, you must go, for you are not fit. Go and die.

And he did, pretty much. Guilala failed to win over the Japanese theater going public, and the next time anybody saw him was decades later in Monster X Strikes Back: Attack The G8 Summit, which was a damn comedy. The X From Outer Space isn’t terrible, it’s probably a decent way to spend your time if you’re a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth kaijuphile, but truthfuly, it’s a lukewarm experience, and certainly not a highlight of the genre.

C

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KILLER ELEPHANTS!!!!!

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Killer Elephants ~ 1976, Kom Akkadej, Thailand

4ee0e7e2-676c-40bc-9bbc-7ced462079bbI just finished watching Killer Elephants not five minutes before my fingers hit the keys to type up this review, and I have no idea what I’m going to say about this film. I literally just watched it, and I have no idea what in the hell happened in this movie.

THE PLOT~ Umm…. Elephants? And there’s like, different people… who dislike one another… And… I don’t know, dude!

Frankly, this flick is pretty difficult to follow. Some of this can be attributed to what feels like a needlessly convoluted story (I think?), but the rest of the blame lies on how damned hard it is to even pay attention to Killer Elephants. I tried to give a shit, but I’m only one man. This thing is peaks and valleys, the peaks rule, but the valleys? You’re going to tune out and find yourself checking your phone for long periods of time.

The entire first half of the film is quite boring. I was never really able to figure out who the bad guys were, or even if there were bad guys, strictly speaking. Much of the time it felt like the police were the baddies, but then there are also these gangsters, who may or may not have been in league with the police. Then we have the elephants guys, who lived in the jungle, and who seemed like the good guys, even though circumstances placed them opposite our main character, who was, I’m fairly certain, a cop. Or maybe not. If you put my hand on a Bible and placed me under oath, I couldn’t really say a hell of a lot about this movie without fear of perjuring the shit out of myself, but I’ll tell you one thing; if you get the option to watch this with the English dub, take it, the hilarity of how bad the voice overs are will add a layer of entertainment value that I was quite thankful for during the film’s many otherwise unremarkable segments… Translation; the dub sucks and that’s funny.

Additionally, there is some solid elephant related carnage that goes down in the second half of the film, making it noticeably more enjoyable. I’d say that in total, 50% of this movie is just people arguing. You’re not going to know who they are, or why they can’t get along, but you will see them bicker in a number of exotic locales.I’d estimate that about 40% is mostly people shooting each other, often in the jungle… And that’s actually a little bit awesome. The final 10% is elephants f’ing stuff up, which totally and completely rules. At one point, we get to see elephants playing soccer, and that’s delightful. We also get to see them flip over cars, and smash straw huts. Wonderful! At one point, in what is unquestionably the single greatest moment of Killer Elephants, a man is knocked unconscious when he stumbles over and is hit in the head by a swinging elephant penis. For real. The print of Killer Elephants that I had access to was a truly terrible DVD release, and the image was grubby, and badly compressed, but I’m quite sure that that IS what I saw; Man falls over, elephant penis hits him in the head, he’s down for the count. How many times have you seen that in a movie? Not enough, that’s how many. This freaking thing is DAMN entertaining once it get’s going, it’s too bad it isn’t more coherent, and can’t keep the entertainment spread out more evenly.

Some of the violence is pretty cool, and the elephant stuff is great when it finally gets started, but it’s too little too late. I’d like to see this get remade, actually, because again, I have no idea what in the hell I just saw, but it’s insane just how much the Killer Elephants experience is salvaged by the film’s scant highlights. They compensate an impressive amount, and in the end, the film does feel pretty fun, even if roughly half of it is a complete snooze-fest. One way or the other, it’s certainly crazy enough to warrant more of a reputation in the psychotronic community, and if you like weird cinema, I’d say that Killer Elephants is probably worth an hour and a half of relative confusion.

C+

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THE IMPOSSIBLE KID!!

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The Impossible Kid (AKA The Impossible Kid of Kung Fu) ~ 1982, Eddie Nicart, The Philippines

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For most folks, there’s no question as to just who is the ultimate action film super spy. For most of us, James Bond takes the cake, but in the Philippines, there is yet another debonair master of espionage who has won the heart of his people, another bold figure who’s name is synonymous with intrigue and excitement. In The Philippines, there is WENG WENG.

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Weng Weng is best known for playing the role of Agent 00 in a series of action packed Filipino spy films from the 1980’s. He was also less than three feet tall.

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The dude next to him probably isn’t all that tall, either.

It’s a little offensive, to say the least, but where else was Weng Weng going to get the opportunity to make this kind of scratch? He was NOT a good actor, people, and this role brought him considerable fame, as well as the adoration of fans across the Philippines. The truth is that playing Agent OO was probably a pretty good career move for good ol’ Weng, and he happily did it over and over again. In the end, it’s all a wash anyway, these movies happened, and Weng Weng is dead now. Like it or not, there is, as I write this, a series of Fillipino Spy films starring a midget, and they’re completely insane. The Impossible Kid is one of them.

We should NOT look at Weng Weng with pity in our hearts, anyway, Weng Weng is not to be pitied, he is to be idolized, and respected; for truly, he is our tiniest bad ass. Weng Weng’s stature is never treated as a handicap, either, on the contrary, he always used his physical characteristics to his advantage, and as such, was perhaps even more capable in the field than a spy of average height and build. Let’s discuss some of the special things that Weng Weng had goin’ on:

weng-weng-machine gun1. Stealth: Because what’s more inconspicuous than a gnome in a khaki leisure suit? Weng Weng can hide ANYWHERE, dude. Telephone pole? He’s behind it. Bush? He’s in there, somewhere, and you’d never find him in a million years. Really any physical space offers countless potential hiding spots for Agent OO, I mean, hell, at one point Weng Weng even hides inside a suitcase that the bad guys think is full of their ill gotten pesos, and by the time the learn the truth, it’s too late. Theoretically, he could be in your pocket right now. Sure, there are downsides, like when he gets captured by the enemy and they hold him captive by tossing him into a birdcage that they had laying around, but Weng Weng is more than capable of getting himself out of that jam, even when they chuck that birdcage into the damn ocean.

impossible_kid2. The Martial Arts: That’s right, bozo, drop to your knees and pray for mercy, because this is one black belt who had his neat little karate outfit special ordered from the fucking Baby Gap, and he’s taking you down. Weng Weng even uses his short stature to his advantage in the realm of hand-to-hand combat, because it puts him at ground zero for the ultimate killshot- I speak, of course, of Weng Weng’s pulverizing punch straight to the gonads. That’s his specialty, it’s his Step One in any fight, and he almost never needs to take it to Step Two. Right out the gate, Weng Weng just lets you have it right there in the family jewels, and after that, you’re done, son. A Drinking game where everyone gets together to watch a Weng Weng film and then take shots each time Agent OO lets loose with a scrote-curdling blast to the balls would result in alchohol poisoning four minutes in for all parties involved.

Weng Weng’s fighting style also involves a lot of sliding around. I’m not sure if it’s something to do with his specially designed espionage leisure suits, or if his body secrets some sort of oil, but he frequently just flings himself across the ground and slides around like a hockey puck. It’s interesting.

tumblr_mjnbydqiYu1qiw1nno1_4003. The Babes: The ladies cannot get enough of Weng Weng, and who can blame them? With his frail, child like frame, expressionless face and seductive bowl-cut hair style, all women are moved to a state of frenzied, sex crazed madness at the very sight of Agent OO, and naturally, they’re more than willing to forgive him for being such a creepy little pervert. Seriously, he is, he totally peeps on naked people every chance he gets in all of his movies. He does it more than once in this film alone. He is utterly without shame.

for_your_height_only61“Don’t hate the player, hate the game!” – Weng Weng

THE PLOT~ Some shady terrorist group has been kidnapping wealthy industrialists across the Phillipines and holding them ransom, much to Interpol’s frustrated dismay. Now these mysterious criminals claim that if they don’t start seein’ mad pesos pronto, they’ll start killing these Fillipino one percenters at a rate of one per week! Naturally, Interpol can’t tolerate this crap, so they bring in the one man who can get the job done; AGENT OO!

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The only secret agent I know who rides a motorcycle he bought from a Toys R Us.

The Impossible Kid is not Weng Weng’s best film- that honor more than likely goes to For Your Height Only, this film’s immediate prequel. The Impossible Kid is, oddly enough, more restrained, possibly due to budgetary limitations, and it features less Bond-esque gadgetry, as well as fewer stunts. Many of the stunts we do see are actually just lamer versions of stunts from the first film, and they reuse many of For Your Height Only’s locations, as well. It’s strange, considering that For Your Height Only is thought to have been fairly successful, because The Impossible Kid doesn’t feel like it has any sort of momentum behind it at all, this thing is sort of just coasting into town on empty.

Actually, while we’re on the topic; it’s pretty much gotta be Weng Weng doing his own stunt work here, right? I mean, what stunt double could possibly stand in for a man who is two feet, nine inches tall? An actual child? It’s either Weng Weng, or a large doll. That’s kinda cool, I think. He’s just like Jackie Chan!

The Impossible Kid also has some pretty weak production value, but no more so than Weng Weng’s other films, all of which are pretty sloppy and primitive. Even as far back as the 1960’s, we saw more sophisticated films coming out of The Philippines, (Brides of Blood, for example), but typically, this isn’t much of an issue, because Agent OO can compensate for crummy production through a heaping portion of crazy, which is always entertaining. The problem is, though, that The Impossible Kid isn’t very crazy. It’s a huge step down from the wackiness of For Your Height Only, precisely when they needed to up the ante. As a result, this is a mostly forgettable effort in the catalog of one of Psychotronic Cinema’s most lovable icons. It’s a shame, because Weng Weng didn’t make enough movies for us to toss one out without it feeling like a real missed opportunity.

That being said, Weng Weng is never TOTALLY unwatchable, and it’s really easy to root for him, no matter how bad his pictures are, so this movie can still supply you with enough entertainment to sustain an hour and a half of your evening if it’s already in your DVD player just ready to go. Under ordinary circumstances, however, I wouldn’t put much effort into seeking out a copy of The Impossible Kid, unless you’re a Weng Weng completest, which I certainly am. My recommendation for the rest of you would be to focus your energies on For Your Height Only instead, which could probably be called the Citizen Kane of Filipino midget spy movies, and which was released on home video by Mondo Macabro a few years back, making it the most readily available Weng Weng film in the United States by a long shot. Low quality DVD releases of The Impossible Kid are obtainable however, if you do a little hunting around, but in my mind that’s too much work for not enough pay off.

C-

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THE GIANT CLAW!!!!

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The Giant Claw – 1957, Fred F. Sears

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Science fiction and horror are two genres which play together very well. The sci-fi-horror subgenre presents scenarios which combine the inherent excitement of scientific discovery, with scares that could theoretically happen for reals. Possibly real scares are more potent than for-sure-not-real scares, you see. The Giant Claw is one such film, and it presents us with a terrifying scenario that all scientists agree is just waiting to happen; What would humanity do if we suddenly found the planet Earth invaded by a gigantic, cackling space vulture from the farthest reaches of the gallaxy? Probably we would shoot rockets at it until it freaking died, that’s what.

UNLESS, of course, it was an anti-matter-shield space vulture, in which case our Earth weapons would be powerless against it. Oh, shit! That’s right, you guys; Anti-matter space-vulture. What now?

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And it looks just like Iggy Pop.

THE PLOT~ When capable pilot and respected radar expert Mitch MacCafee spots a strange, hulking object zooming through the skies during a routine flight exercise, he is chastised by army brass for making a stink over nothing, since they somehow didn’t notice the friggin’ enormous space-vulture we already know I’m referring to, and don’t believe his far fetched stories. Soon, however, both military and passenger planes begin to go missing under mysterious circumstances, and Mitch, along with Sally Caldwell (I think she’s a mathematician? Not sure) uncover the truth, big surprise, it’s a giant ass anti-matter space-vulture, just screaming it’s head off and tearin’ up our shit. Damn. Mitch and Sally work to find a way to defeat this horrible creature once and for all, and of course, they are successful. In this movie, since our monster is spawned of utter nonsense, so too is our solution, using some sort of science I’m sure is staggeringly inaccurate, they manage to kill this freaking thing, and soon the Earth is one giant monster corpse richer. Hooray! Pretty boiler plate.

As I’ve said, this is a straightforward, black and white monster movie from an era where straightforward, black and white monster movies were a dime a dozen. These films were more or less disposable, like the cinematic equivalent of chewing gum, sat through for lack of a better way to kill a Saturday night, and then quickly forgotten. While The Giant Claw is not as well known today as say, The Day The Earth Stood Still, people still seem to remember it more than they do other, comparable films of that era, and that’s mostly because it’s thought of as being particularly terrible. I would argue that this reputation is undeserved, frankly, I kind of like The Giant Claw. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s not hard to find a 1950’s science fiction flick that sucks harder than this.

Really, it’s gotta be the monster. This freaking space buzzard is indeed a ridiculous looking frump of a beast, and unlike other films which would have left their monster mostly off-camera to conceal how laughably shabby it looked, our big dumb hell-bird is all over the screen in this flick. If the car from The Beverly HIllbillies was a monster, it would be this thing. It’s just a gigantic, cackling, gangly bastard of the skies, and I have no idea how in the hell it manages to go unnoticed for most of the film because it’s the very definition of an areal eye-sore, and it’s freaking gigantic. Also noisy as hell.

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Anti-Matter Space Vulture: A Master of Stealth.

I’ve seen worse monsters, though, and anyway, for better or for worse, this giant, screaming bag of garbage is why we remember The Giant Claw today. Without this menacing sky-doofus, it’s doubtful that the film would have incurred enough cinematic wrath to stay in the game a whopping half a century later. Thanks, Space Vulture, you friggin’ idiot, we’ll never forget the good times you’ve brought us.

So, with our ridiculous monster out of the way, there is one last topic we need to cover before we wrap up; The Giant Claw’s ACTUAL worst quality; how badly it rubs that old fashioned 1950’s gender inequality in your damn face.  The courtship of Mitch and Sally is pretty cringe-worthy, it involves what must have been a common pre-1978 American Courting Ritual, which goes like this;

“If you meet a fetching woman, take every opportunity to disrespect her for three calendar days. On the fourth day, kiss her on the mouth while she is sleeping. She is now your property by U.S. law.” – The U.S. Constitution

Here’s the thing, though, you can’t really let this surprise you. Have you ever seen a movie before? Believe it or not, Western culture has come a long way, and there was a time when people of both genders could and did watch films like this without even flinching. Today, it’s impossible not to notice how male-centric a film like The Giant Claw really is. You can take whatever lesson out of that you wish, but the fact of the matter is; if you’d like to avoid any fun reminders of what life was like with significantly fewer victories for the Civil Rights Movement, then there are just several decades worth of movies out there that are NOT for you. Actually, psychotronic film in general is something you should probably just steer clear of altogether, unless you’re damn near impossible to offend.

Despite, or perhaps BECAUSE OF its many flaws, I do like The Giant Claw. Its crappiness is charming, and if you like goofy 50’s/60’s B-movies, this is going to prove adequately entertaining.

C+

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MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE!!!

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Manos: The Hands of Fate~ 1966, Harold P. Warren

ManosposterIt’s a commonly held belief that Manos: Hands of Fate was made as part of a wager. Certainly, even relatively credible sites, such as IMDB, attest that director Harold P. Warren made the film on a bet, and human culture is happy to accept this explanation, because Manos: The Hands of Fate NEEDS and explanation; it’s so horrible that many sources feel comfortable with calling this the single worst movie of all time. So, how did this happen? And why? True or not, we have our answer; it was all an elaborate wager between industry outsider Harold P. Warren, and an unknown second party, who had been working inside of the American independent film community in the 1960’s. Warren did win this wager, of course, by virtue of the fact that Manos: Hands of Fate exists, but I really don’t feel comfortable suggesting that Manos: Hands of Fate is in any way, shape, or form a success. Having made this film makes Harold P. Warren a director in the same way that a summer job at Taco Bell makes one a chef.

But I digress; like many near-fatal pieces of soul poison that have been lazily splattered into the filthy slop-trough of American pop culture, Manos came and went in 1966 like a fart in the wind, garnering no acclaim, and soon fading into complete and utter obscurity, where it rightfully belonged. Shockingly, this would not be the end. In 1993, cult television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured Manos: Hands of Fate in what would go on to become one of it’s more popular episodes, thereby hoisting it back up, into the spotlight, and giving Manos an unexpected second lease on life; one which would prove much more generous than it’s first trip around the block thirty years prior. Today, Manos: Hands of Fate has an actual cult following, which is nothing less than unthinkable. Manos: The Hands of Fate has a fan base.

THE PLOT~ After driving aimlessly for like, a million years (which we are generously allowed to watch) a family of three winds up stranded at a strange secluded house out in the middle of the desert. It is here that America first meets Torgo, and don’t you worry, we’ll come back to him.

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Here’s Torgo. Does he somehow have two sets of eyebrows simultaneously?!

Apparently Torgo serves The Master, who owns this house. The Master is a very religious man, but his religion is some bizarre hand-obsessed branch of Demon worship, focused on a deity called Manos; it involves polygamy, large bonfires, human sacrifice, and constant bullshit. This house is like, Manos central, complete with scary demon trinkets adorning every wall, mysterious creatures baying mournfully somewhere out in the darkness, and a damn sacrificial altar in the backyard. “Whatever,” our family says. “Let us stay here, Torgo, we’re tired of driving.” Torgo really tries to hammer home that this is a bad idea, but they ignore his opinion and pretty much demand a place to crash for the night. Should have listened to Torgo, folks.

The movie drags on for the rest of your natural life. The pace is agonizingly slow, and it’s filled with sequences that serve no purpose, and where pretty much nothing happens. When it finally does end, it does so with a deliberately open ended conclusion, you know, just in case it was a hit and Warren wanted to do a sequel. Honestly, I don’t know how there isn’t a Kickstarter for Manos 3D: Retribution, starring Sean William Scott right now.

As I mentioned before, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a staple of “Worst ever” lists you might see bouncing around the internet, but the truth is, there are hundreds of low budget genre films from the 1960’s which are all just as bad. Manos gets to wear this glorious crown of trash because we KNOW Manos, but if MST3K hadn’t come into the picture and elevated it to the level it now enjoys, there would be some other movie popping up on all those lists, and this one would have remained forgotten, possibly forever. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a horrible movie, and it deserves the infamy it has earned, but Manos is also a product of a very different environment; Small, crude productions helmed by inexperienced first timers were actually very common back in the American 60’s, and the lion’s share of these flicks are just as unwatchable, and in some cases, even more so. I would wager there are still many films out there, waiting to be rediscovered, which could blow this one out of the water. Is Manos; The Hands of Fate the single worst movie of all time? No, but it does belong SOMEWHERE on that list… Maybe just a little further down than most might place it.

ON TORGO:

In the three-ring turd-circus that is Manos: The Hands of Fate, Torgo is, for sure, the star attraction. This is a character absolutely riddled with peculiarities, none of which are ever addressed in the film, and very few of which make any sort of sense at all. Firstly, his damn knees: torgo2

Never mind why!

Torgo possess massive, swollen, fantastically giant knees, which impede his movements, and the movie never addresses or explains this. They kinda just ignore it, Torgo’s knees are a serious Elephant in the room, so to speak. There is a very popular myth on the internet that Torgo is actually supposed to be a Satyr, which would explain the knees quite nicely; he doesn’t have giant knees at all, he’s goat legs! We just don’t see them, because he’s wearing than Khaki colored Parisian Nightsuit all the time. This is, sadly, wishful thinking, and there is no truth to the satyr explanation. The reality behind Torgo’s suspicious getaway sticks is much less logical; according to IMDB, Harold P. Warren has stated in the past that Torgo was first meant to be a hunchback, but that felt particular deformity seemed too cliché, so instead, they gave him enormous, illogically swollen knees, thinking that this was an untapped cinematic goldmine, and Torgo would be first in line to cash in. “Knees, that’s where it’s at!” Thought Warren. Yeah. As a result, Torgo is barely even able to walk, but the first few times that you see him hobble around, an odd little piece of music plays as he meanders feebley about his bleak surroundings. This music stops when he stops, and resumes when he starts to walk again. There’s even a point at which the music picks up before we see Torgo, and then he wanders into frame, as if the tune is heralding his clumsy arrival. This gives us the impression that this is in fact Torgo’s walking music, and that’s hilarious. He can barely walk, but he has special music that plays whenever he does. I’m a big fan of that, actually.

Torgo also squirms uncomfortably at all times and repeats nearly everything he ever says. He’s easily the most memorable thing about the movie, and googling Torgo will show that I’m not the only person who feels that way; Torgo cosplay is a very real phenomena in 2015, something no one could have foreseen when this thing premiered back in the 60’s. And that’s not the only unexpected way that Manos: The Hands Of Fate’s influence is felt in the post-modern, media-saturated world we live in today, this movie has been the subject of a great deal of fan generated media. There’s fan art, there have been stage adaptations, and Manos was even remade with puppets in Rachel Jackson’s awesome MANOS: THE HANDS OF FELT.

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If you’re mind isn’t blown yet, nip on over to your smartphone app store and pick up a copy of the Manos: The Hands of Fate video game. I did. It cost two bucks.

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It’s absolutely bizarre that this film has managed to gain such traction decades after it’s disastrous unveiling, and it’s all thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000. I definitely recommend the Manos episode, without question, if you insist on watching this film, that’s the best way to do it. If, however, you want to see Manos the way nature intended, then be forewarned; Without Joel and the Bots putting this thing on blast, Manos: The Hands of Fate is no walk in the park. You might be laughing for the first twenty minutes, but then it’s a steep downward slide into the deepest circle of hell. Tread lightly.

F

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RED SUN!!!!!

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Red Sun ~ 1971, Terence Young

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When a botched train robbery leaves a rascally gunfighter betrayed by his gang, he is forced to join forces with a mysterious Asian warrior on a secret mission in the American west. Though they are initially unable to see eye to eye, these two slowly form a mutual respect for one anther, and embark on a grand adventure set against the rugged backdrop of the American frontier, which climaxes in a dramatic, bullet riddled standoff in an old, Spanish style mission. Sound familiar? It damn should, because Shanghai Noon grossed over $99,000,000 worldwide, and that’s an exact description of that movie’s plot. The things is, though, I’m actually talking about Red Sun, the movie Shanghai Noon ripped off, and guess what? The plot is exactly the same in both films.

Some folks I’ve spoken to have claimed that Shanghai Noon was, in fact, an admitted remake of Red Sun, but after some research I have turned up no official acknowledged of the debt Shanghai Noon owes to this film, and therefore I think we can safely say this was probably not an official remake. If I’m correct, then a more accurate description of this phenomena would be ‘blatant plagiarism.’ Any argument that the concept isn’t identical is, frankly, silly, and even worse, the script for Red Sun must have served as a rough framework for Shanghai Noon, because the structure is completely identical in both films, aside from a few added subplots. There are even some gags and emotional beats from the 1971 original that you see repeated in the 2000 rip off, and it’s rare that any remake stays this close to it’s source material, even in the world of actual, and official remakes. You could convince me that my own mother was a sock puppet operated by sasquatch before you even had me considering the notion that the person who wrote Shanghai Noon had never seen Red Sun. No other claim could possibly be more unrealistic, without question, this was a calculated attempt to repackage something great, and distribute it as something original; Shanghai Noon is not homage, it’s theft.

Now, I’m not saying that I hate Shanghai Noon, far from it, in fact. Jackie Chan, who is basically the Mickey Mouse of martial arts, is a global treasure, and his cross demographic appeal doesn’t need to be defended. Similarly, that movie has Owen Wilson Owen Wilsoning harder than he ever has before or since, and all of our lives are richer for it. What I DO mean to say, however, is that if you liked Shanghai Noon the first time, then maybe you’d also like it the REAL first time; and Red Sun IS the REAL first time.

So, having established a little bit that these films are remarkably similar to one another, let’s quickly talk about the few things that make them different. First things first, Red Sun doesn’t have Jackie Chan, it has Toshiro Mifune.

red-sun-1971-001-toshino-mifune-medium-shot-looking-down_0Awesome.

Mifune was actually born in China, but to Japanese parents, and is most readily identified as a Japanese actor, so in this version, our Asian delegates come not from China, but from Japan. This changes some superficial aspects of the movie, and gives us more swords, and less kung fu, but that it in no way hinders Red Sun’s ability to kick ass and be awesome. Jackie Chan and his hand-to-hand hijinks are fantastic, yes, but Mifune is a bad ass the likes of which we only see a few times per generation, and in this movie he brings the unreasonably cool art of samurai sword fighting to the American wild west with many a guttural bark and angular scowl, which is every bit as awesome in execution as it sounds on paper. Comparing Mifune to Chan is a real apples to oranges type situation, but I’d say the two are equally cool, regardless of how fundamentally different they are.

Similarly, where Shanghai Noon had Owen Wilson, here we have Charles Bronson, the impossibly easy-to-like  murder enthusiast from the blood splattered Death Wish franchise.

RHSyHtXCharles Bronson’s natural habitat is pretty much anywhere, provided he’s pointing a gun at someone.

In Red Sun, Bronson totally kills it, literally, and figuratively. as an actor, Bronson always managed to balance sardonic, wry charm with gritty, violent menace in a way that made him equally intimidating and likable, and off the charts on both counts. He does that here as well as he ever has, making his character incalculably more bad ass than Wilson’s inept, gun-slinging charmer, but this feels entirely appropriate since Red Sun is a much rougher ride.

And it really is, Red Sun is darker, and much more violent than the good natured and outwardly comedic Shanghai Noon. Charles Bronson does tell a few jokes here and there, but his wisecracking never manages to outpace his body count, and Mifune only has two modes; scowl, and kill… Which is so, so awesome. Also, there’s some nudity in Red Sun, and the Lucy Liu/Princess Pei Pei character is absent  entirely. Instead, our female lead is a prostitute played by Ursula Andress, who Charles Bronson kidnaps in order to piss off the bad guy. So, yeah. Murder and hookers. Maybe not a film to watch with the youngsters around, unless you want to train them to be awesome or something.

While Red Sun’s legacy is felt in every single moment of Shanghai Noon, the two films actually have differing thesis statements. Red Sun is basically a redemption story, with Charles Bronson playing the real central character, and Mifune teetering over into sidekick territory. In that film, Bronson and Mifune’s characters are roughly equal in their status as capable warriors, but Bronson has no moral compass and no sense of honor whatsoever. Through his meeting with Mifune, he witnesses firsthand the sturdy foreigner’s unwavering dedication to the samurai code, and Bronson slowly comes to understand the error in living life as a murderous, wise-cracking shit head. Thus, he decides to turn over a new leaf, a new, blood drenched, bullet riddled leaf, and maybe pay attention to morality every once-in-a-while. Shanghai Noon, on the other hand is more about Jackie Chan’s character, who, through his adventures with Owen Wilson, realizes that his centuries old beliefs and customs about honor and dedication to the Chinese Emperor are totally silly, and that instead he should just do whatever he wants, because China is really far away. Seriously, that’s the moral to that movie, go back and watch it. There are multiple scenes in the film where Chan says something about his oath to protect the princess, or what have you, and Wilson mocks him dismissively, saying that he’s in America now, the sun may rise in the east, but it sets in the West, so he shouldn’t feel shackled to the honor code he’s lived by for his entire life. This is basically an existential version of the “if they’re in a different area code, it’s not cheating” defense commonly used by douche bags and adulterers to justify the antics of  their wayward genitals, and it’s also the exact opposite of the thesis statement seen in Red Sun. All things considered, I’m not wild about Shanghai Noon’s small minded and culturally reckless thesis statement. ‘Merca.

Anyway. This review has mostly been about how Shanghai Noon ripped off Red Sun, instead of actually reviewing Red Sun, so I guess did kind of a shitty job. Oh well. Sorry, folks! Let me quickly say this; Red Sun is awesome, and criminally under-appreciated. The Wilson/Chan dynamic you loved in 2000 actually worked even better in 1971 with Mifune and Bronson, and honest, the talent on screen here isn’t a step down from what you’ve already seen, it’s a step up. Plus, crazily enough, Red Sun is actually made MORE entertaining if you come into it having already seen Shanghai Noon like, a hundred times. It sort of makes the experience seem almost surreal, like you somehow found the “real” Shanghai Noon. It feels like some sort of secret movie that the world forgot, and that Wilson and Chan tried to bury. All in all, it’s a pretty great find, and oddly enough, I think that Red Sun is equally recommendable if you loved Shanghai Noon, OR if you hated it.

Well worth checking out.

A

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BLOOD FREAK!!

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Blood Freak – 1972, Steve Sipek and Brad F. Grinter, USA

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Blood Freak is a seriously confused creature. Part pious minded morality play on the folly of living an unchristian life, part smutty ass gore film about drugs, sex and mutants, this thing is a two headed monster hauling ass in opposite directions. Needless to say, it doesn’t make it very far.

THE PLOT~ When Herschel, a lumbering, middle aged lummox cruises into town on his motorcycle, he encounters Angel, a nice, old-fashioned Christian girl, with whom he quickly hits it off. Immediately, Angel abandons Herschel at a drug party where he is skeezed upon by numerous ladies, including Angel’s noticeably more attractive sister Anne. Herschel isn’t into drugs or casual sex, so he turns Anne down when she makes a pass at him, and she does not like that shit, not one damn bit. Not about to let her sister’s new friend reject her hard-partyin’ life style in favor of morality or church, Anne kicks the peer pressure up a notch and soon gets her way. Within days, she’s sleeping with a newly drug-addicted Herschel, who will now never again live a normal life and can barely even function in society. Win?

In the meantime, Hershel also takes a job working at a poultry farm, where he is coerced into acting as a guinea pig by two scientists who are testing out some sort of weird, turkey chemicals. Hershel is apparently a serious push over. Anyway, he eats some genetically modified turkey, and shortly thereafter mutates into a horrible, turkey headed monster who is addicted to drugs and must drink the blood of other drug addicts to survive, as do so many of our young people today. Thus begins Turkey-Hershel’s gore laden rampage across central Florida, which claims many lives and is hilarious. In the end, he wakes up, no longer a monster, and we learn that this whole thing was a horrible dream brought on by the side effects of turkey chemicals and the drugs already in Hershel’s system. Apparently, Hershel was in ‘Nam, and since the war, he has self medicated a fair amount. So…. hastily tacked on anti-war message? Hard to say.

As I stated earlier, the most pronounced peculiarity here is just how divided this movie is at it’s very core. It really is fairly churchy, but it’s the “do as I say, not as I do” style churchiness you might see in outspoken community activists from the deep South, the type of person who attends church every Sunday without fail, but who also owns a lot of bondage gear and has a secret torture chamber in their basement. Blood Freak’s message is simple; “Woe to thee who strays from the righteous path of the lord, for he is our shepherd, and only through him can we know the divine kingdom of heaven, but also if you don’t  a damn turkey monster will mutilate you and drink your blood, so now let’s watch some people smoke crack and fuck.” It’s a mixed message, for sure.

One also get the impression that this movie really wanted to present itself as some sort of shocking expose into the wild world America’s drug savvy youth culture, which was just tearing it up in the early 1970’s, but on this front Blood Freak is a clear failure, because it doesn’t look like they were able to get anyone under the age of 40 to even be in the movie. I guess Anne and Angel looked like they could be in their late twenties, but everyone else is firmly plopped into middle age. Herschel especially looks like he must have been cast in a pinch, this man is just old as hell. If someone had handed me a copy of the Blood Freak script in 1971, I imagine the only reason I would have not to throw it in the garbage was out of concern that it may end up being evidence in a murder trial in the very near future, but if I had read it and somehow managed to ignore how insane it was, I feel like I would have envisioned the lead role to be played by more of a James Dean type guy. Herschel looks more like a background extra who bumbled off the set of Hee Haw and into our movie. To make matters worse, Herschel is the worst biker name I have ever heard.

Fun fact; there is like, ONE sound effect for a woman’s scream in this entire movie; they use it over and over again, and it’s super, super recognizable. In one sequence, a woman screams like, thirty times, and it’s the same sound effect, used over and over again. It’s insane. Then in the next scene, a completely different woman screams a couple dozen times, and it’s that same effect again. Damn, Blood Freak. You crazy.

This is a clumsy production, make no bones about it. Blood Freak is marred by many nagging technical shortcomings, it’s full of actors who aren’t very good, and bogged down with outdated tropes that betray the film’s attempt at delivering a more visceral, Euro-style horror gore fest, but as I mentioned before, the greatest folly of Blood Freak is how maddeningly confused it is in it’s very bones. It really seems to think that it’s preaching from the side of spiritual piety, like it’s somehow going to please a super-devout Christian audience, and yet the vin diagram overlap for “goes to church” and “would watch Blood Freak” has gotta be just the teensiest sliver you could ever imagine. This renders Blood Freak more or less unwatchable to it’s target demographic, and that’s a pretty serious problem. For non-churchy audiences, it’s not at all a deal-breaker, but it makes it a lot harder to take Blood Freak seriously, and honestly, a movie about a turkey headed oaf who drinks junkie blood didn’t need another reason for you to not take it seriously. Today, surprisingly, this is why we remember Blood Freak, this mortal wound is now the film’s single most important redeeming quality. After all, in the realm of psychotronic cinema, “insane,” and “great” are synonymous, and Blood Freak is totally bonkers.

For the right audience, this movie is a good time waiting to happen, but it’s a little further down the path than say, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, or Dead Alive. Blood Freak might suck a little too hard for you if you’re not pretty well acclimated to this sort of celluloid nonsense, so you really just need to take a hard look at yourself before you decide if this is a movie you need to see. If, after some reflection, you decide that this is just a little too rich for your blood, don’t fret, they’ll probably remake it sooner or later.

C

RESIDENT EVIL!!

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RESIDENT EVIL – 2002, Paul W.S. Anderson

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In the late 90’s, the Resident Evil video games were totally the cat’s pajamas. Critics and gamers alike couldn’t get enough of the impressive graphics, spooky atmosphere, and innovate “survival Horror” play style, and absolutely nobody ever companied about the game’s lack of Milla Jovovich doing karate. It seemed inevitable that a movie based on the series would soon enter production, and lo and behold; this prophecy was fulfilled.

Initially, the studio went after beloved horror director and zombie O.G. George Romero to direct an adaptation, which, at the time, seemed like a slam dunk, but after a long courtship, these negotiations fizzled out, leaving producers to apparently just throw up their arms in frustration and ask, “What about that smarmy ballsack who directed Mortal Kombat?” And that, boys and girls, is how Paul W.S. Anderson, who is to film franchises what Jack the Ripper is to 19th Century British Prostitutes, destroyed any possibility of there ever being a good Resident Evil movie, ever.

Here’s the thing, it should not be hard to make a good Resident Evil movie, you guys. For reals, this one should have been in the bag. The problem is, though, that Resident Evil was a game about surviving, not fighting. Paul W.S. Anderson doesn’t care about that. That’s boring, in Paul’s book, he really only makes one type of movie; it’s gotta be an action film, it has to be really, really stupid, and if at all possible, his girlfriend Milla Jovovich has to be in it, so she can pretend to be a bad ass. Though this is an unconfirmed suspicion, most experts agree that the only way Anderson can retain that Leeloo Dallas Multipass to her downstairs Ukrainian bang-situation is by constantly crafting full length motion pictures wherein Jovovich get’s to pretend to be a bad ass and beat people up. Do the math, she’s a model and he’s a squirmy little turd. I’ve seen guys do more elaborate things to seal the deal, but seriously, bro, this is extreme. Just find somebody who likes you for you.

THE PLOT~ Deep underground in a genetic research facility, there is an outbreak of a deadly, biologically engineered virus which turns people into zombies. Immediately, the job is put to Milla Jovovich to be a bad ass and do karate.

Resident Evil is glorified Sci Fi channel tripe, it’s a cheesy, predictable action film full of stupid characters doing stupid things, start to finish. There actually are a few decent scenes here and there, shockingly enough, but the story is boring, and the zombies are seriously downplayed. We do have some zombie dogs that turn up, which are briefly almost neat, but Jovovich just karate kicks them to death in a sequence totally and utterly divorced from the spirit of the source material, so that scene and everything in it is therefore reduced to suckary of the lowest order.

As mentioned before, Zombies do not factor into this “zombie movie” nearly enough. Our most memorable sequence in the whole film involves someone being killed not by the undead, but instead, by….. an elevator. Alright…. It’s a good scene, but I kinda wonder why you’re not doing any zombie stuff in your zombie movie, Paul… Moving right along… The second most memorable sequence in the film… also, zero zombies. Instead, we have a bunch of people who get laser beamed to death in some kind of futuristic, laser-hallway. Again, kinda neat, but one would think that, when sitting down to write and direct a zombie movie, zombies would be something you would want to make sure got in there somewhere. I feel like that would be the very first item on the checklist, so it seems really weird how minimal they are in the grand scheme of this movie. I mean, if any of you out there really have a thing for laser-death, please, step up, this movie has a scene that you should totally see, but given that this was supposed to be a zombie film, it for sure comes across as being far too light in the zombie department.

And that’s not the only thing this movie skimps on, either. It really feels like there must have been a conscious effort to avoid including anything that made the games effective, and the only qualities that made the jump from the game to the film are the qualities that don’t really matter. The crumbling atmosphere, the claustrophobic, tension laden camera angles,  the emphasis on survival over Matrix style karate shootouts like we ended up with, all of that is either minimized or just flat out missing altogether, and replaced with bland cinematography, slick action sequences, and childish, two dimensional characters who nobody ever asked for. This movie sucks, and it could have been really great.

Resident Evil is a massive failure in every way except for commercially, because when Paul W.S. Anderson is on board, you are guaranteed a fate worse than death. Not only do his movies totally suck, but they also make money, thereby guaranteeing a long, miserable line of sequels, each even suckier than the last. If you had any connection to the source material at all, your life just took a virtual belly flop into Hell’s lake of fire.

So, Devil’s advocate time: From a very zen, calm state of mind, one can look at Resident Evil and say, “okay… It’s not that terrible. It’s not the kind of movie we should have received, but as a cheesy, paper-thin sci-fi action flick, this certainly isn’t the worst movie out there.”

That’s true… but is that enough? I’m pretty tired of constantly trying to lessen the sting of how shitty everything is by telling myself that other things are even shittier. That’s a poor excuse, and if we keep on justifying things in this fashion, nothing is ever going to get better. We need to rethink that train of thought right here and right now, if you get stung by hornets, don’t just say “Hey, at least my entire family wasn’t murdered before my very eyes, because that would be worse than being stung by hornets.” That makes no sense, dude. I mean, I agree, the murder of your immediate family would be worse, but you’re allowed to be upset about getting stung by hornets. Too many people aren’t, though, and sadly, by this point we’ve tolerated and even rewarded shitty media for such a long time that now there’s almost nothing decent out there. Now we have people so desperate to actually enjoy something that they’re willing to convince themselves that being stung by hornets is just terrific. Its not!!! Hornet stings are freaking terrible!!! And so is this damn movie! Stop paying for hornet stings!!!

Followed by a spree of horrible sequels. In fact, there are now like, six of these things. Or maybe I’m dead and this is Hell, both seem probable.

D