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ConservativeCat
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Zombiegeddon (2003)
Life as we know it is over
IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ SPOILERS, DO NOT READ ON. THANK YOU.
I'll be honest with you. I went into the video store looking for something mildly bad, but funny enough to keep myself entertained. The DVD starts off hilariously, with a rapidly-moving movie about zombie chickens, making me laugh in hilarity. This went on for so long, I was happily munching on my hot pocket... until it said it was a preview. This was followed by another long one, which, thanks to the genius programmers, I couldn't skip passed, so I had to FastForward. Then I finally got to the menu, which surprised me, to be frank. For the price I got it at, I wasn't expecting that much. The movie started with Lloyd Kaufman, an eccentric Jewish man who is the father of a few cult films, which made me excited. Generally, anything with Troma on it will elicit a "what?" response, which is what keeps me going. After Kaufman speaks with a few cute girls at some horror expo, the movie begins. Well, not quite. After play, some guys talk about how big a, I quote exactly, a "POS" this movie was. This goes on for awhile until I skip ahead.
First thing I can't help but notice is that the camera and lighting work is about as good as your typical soap opera, and sometimes won't even sit still.
The movie starts off jarringly, but no one cares. Two cops kill a guy, and put in some framing guns, though later they just shoot people for fun. Not even five minutes in, a woman disrobes, meaning someone is about to die. Naked chicks are always a signal something big is about to go down. They're in the gym of a community college, and one of them, I'll say, isn't particularly bad to look at. any arousal is quickly doused by the biker-chick esquire woman who supposedly gets hit on a lot. All of this is just filler, until the cuter woman goes in the shower, disappears when a hand grabs her, and some juice is tossed at the shower wall. I should mention, the sound is appalling in this scene. It's not award winning in any others, but the gym is inexcusable. Kaufman also plays an overacting janitor, supposedly has the biggest case of homophobia on earth because he thinks, I'm not kidding, that a man being eaten by another man is totally normal, homosexual behavior.
These zombies are not really zombies at all. They can choose to reveal themselves, they are sentient, intelligent, and well skilled in combat. Hell, they're demons, I have no idea where they got zombies from. We learn this when a guy who hates late fees kills the clerk by cheaply ripping his heart out, and eating it when charged.
We return to the cops, who may as well be named Good Cop and Bad Cop, since it doesn't matter. I actually had to take notes throughout this whole thing, and to run through them all would fill up the amount of characters I have available. so, I'll lay out a few of the more glaring memories: There's a pointless scene where the bad cop humps to orgasm a car driven by a group of four college kids after belittling them. There's also a lengthy conversation about testicles and the eating of said organs. There's also a running comment that no one should be in the college "at these hours," often through a truly pointless subplot about some jerk-turned-good guy who saves a girl he likes, who works inventory at a book store. despite the implication that it is pretty late at night, it's always broad daylight outside. Most of the killing early on is done by the Bad cop, who is in fact a good guy. The zombies are also major wusses, who can be defeated by a few punches. There's a half decent fight scene between Sensei Zombie (a kung fu master undead) and the good cop after they rescue three useless girls. After this, they go into a safe house occupied by God. Despite being a safe house, every one inside it eventually dies. There's a few other things, I could mention, but I'd like to skip to the ultimate fight of good v. evil: Good cop is supposedly a warrior of God, because of his blood line. He fights the head zombie, which consists of him getting his punch caught, and then ripping the head zombie's heart out. Think they could've made this scene, the climax, a bit more interesting? I don't know. The movie ends with the guy getting gunned down, and zombies swarming the world.
Wow. This is one of the first movies they ever made me stare at the screen speechless, before bursting out into laughter. "What the hell is this?"
What is this? This is a major piece of crap. If you're a fan of that, well, perhaps you should look into it. But, the main stream movie-goer will probably want to commit suicide after watching this, so by all means avoid.
Main stream: 1/10
Masochistic Movie-Geek: 10/10
Savage Planet (2007)
How sad.
The first night it played, I remember, I wasn't really paying attention to it. All I really remember is looking by on the TV screen to see some 2D bear cheaply pasted on a 3D landscape, with some humans acting stupid. The bear seemed to be walking, but never got any closer. Boom, it switches to a view of the bear from the front, which reminded me of the Colbert Report. After I criticized my parents for watching something a four year old with a .gif and paint could do, I did the impossible: I watched it. The plot didn't make a whole lot of sense... Basically, some people are sent off to find a new planet for the humans to inhabit (and ruin.) Like any Sci-Fi movie, there are plenty of Red shirt characters. For those of you who don't know, a red shirt is a character who is made to die. This was created (or popularized, I'm not sure) by Star Trek. Basically, characters in a red uniform would be beamed down to a hostile planet to bed killed. And, much like Sci-Fi, there is a seemingly endless number of these idiots.
The acting is unimpressive, first off. There are a few okay acting performances, but it's pretty horrible to begin with. With all the... well, problems in the script, there wasn't much they could do to keep the project afloat. The characters are one dimensional and stereotypical. Not only that, their concepts are as flimsy as their logic and actions. Example, in one scene (the one I described above) this old guy aims a gun, but doesn't fire, despite being egged on by his fellows. I think it was because he didn't want to shoot the girl, but I'm not sure. And besides, the bear was moving a pixel and hour, it's not much of a moving target. Come to think of it, it's kind of like the plot: a thin premise to have bears eat people.
The bears are comical in their own right. The 'actors' never actually share the screen with them. Oh, I take that back. There is one part where a cheap looking paw appears from the bottom of the screen, like a first person shooter and swipes at some guy, which causes guts and blood to be pasted over him, in another disgracefully cheap manner. The bears also all look the same, and act the same. From the front, it's the same. I would estimate there's about 5-10 bear clips used and reused for all the bear encounters, including one funny death picture of the bear laying on it's back, paws up. Oh, and these bears are super smart. All of this for some stupid goo that regenerates limbs. Once again, this looks ridiculous. This movie is so laughably bad, that any lover of poor quality 'films' will enjoy it. Thus, I give it an 8/10, with some major brownie points for cut'n'paste graphics that can only be described as 'MS Paint' quality. However, for the majority of movie watchers, this film is crap, and rightly deserves a 2/10.
It also has a sad ending, which insulted me. You know what made it sad?
******SPOILER******
The characters survive to procreate.
Boa vs. Python (2004)
This film made me the man I am today...
by making me truly appreciate the power of a horrible film. This was the first poor film I saw, but certainly wasn't the last.
"Say, Billy! I hear you want to make a movie. Well, sit back and I'll give you a few pointers about movie making: Your female protagonist should be sexy, and, if possible, loose her top at least once during the film. This will keep your bored audience at attention, waiting for another possible slip. Well, if they're male. Millionaires are idiots, all of them. Remember, they may have displayed some prowess making their fortunes by their late 20s and early 30s, but it was all luck. Leave a few questions unanswered, and try to stuff a sex scene in somewhere. Running out of money for your budget? Buy off a few minor folks to serve as actors. Models will serve. Beef up those graphics. Remember, the government is incompetent on how to deal with monsters."
Seriously, this film deserves a place in your hall of fame. I originally watched it on the Sci-Fi channel, and, despite the poor quality, kept watching it in hopes that the lovely Jaime Bergman would show more of herself. It starts out somewhat believable. This rich young man (trying to pose himself as a tough guy) and his sexy, masculine girlfriend are hanging out. Eventually, the girl pulls out a gun, and the two of them hop up to boink. These two morons have a bunch of equally stupid friends who are all ready and willing to hunt a huge reptile, which is brought in from outside the country. Their posse is a bunch of clichéd, flat characters with nothing deeper than their accent and costumes. Over the course of the film, they all die, Jaime and a stupid snake raiser release a big snake to slither off and slaughter the enemy snake, the Python. Well, it ends up with one guy with a flame thrower killing some folks for no reason, getting eaten, then the Python dying in a subway. The Boa just kind of disappears.
Ultimately, this film ends up being on a flimsy basis, with some crappy acting, poorly developed characters, and a more or less "by-the-book" storyline. By which, I mean, good guy gets the girl out of his league. This is all complete with the normal incompetence of FBI and government agents, since civilians are much more able to deal with a major crisis.
It's all just a reason to show two snakes fighting each other. Over all, there were four valuable things I took from the film, and carry with me.
1) A nice bikini shot, and some brief nudity.
2) Every Sci-Fi Channel movie follows the same basic plot, and are chocked full of red shirt characters.
3) A fun new game to play with my girl friend. ("Hey, how do you catch a 100 foot snake?" "Get a bigger snake!" (By the way, the Boa, who was supposed to capture the Python, was actually smaller... and the Python wasn't 100 feet.))
4) An appreciation for crappy works of 'art', such as poor video games and movies. And for people who enjoy poor movies for the comedy, this gains around a 7/10. However, for the mainstream, 2/10