Chupacabra Terror (2005)

... aka: Chupacabra: Dark Sees

Directed by:
John Shepphird

Here's another by-the-numbers SyFy Channel "original" (mahaha!) movie. Dr. Pena (Giancarlo Esposito), a "crypto-zoologist" (fancy term for one of those self-deluded losers who likes to study extremely rare - read: nonexistent - animals) and his crew of hunters manage to trap a Chupacabra, a big, scaly, elusive fast-moving beast. To get it to the mainland, they smuggle it on a Grecian cruise ship and some idiots open up the crate containing it despite being told specifically not to. I guess the strange growling noises coming from inside weren't a good enough deterrent either. The monster then does the monster thang; running around biting chunks out of various passengers until the ship's captain (John Rhys-Davies), a square-jawed special agent pretending to be an insurance salesman for some reason (Dylan Neal), a squeaky-voiced blonde Tai Bo instructor (Chelan Simmons), a bunch of guys with machine guns and others try to stop it. The main victims (who I think are supposed to be the comic relief but it's hard to tell) are an old rich bitch (Paula Shaw) with a yippy terrier and a snobby effete gold-digger (David Millbern). Apparently the monster can be knocked out with a single tranquilizer dart, but can live through dozens of bullet hits. The Chupacabra design is acceptable though unoriginal, but the rest of the movie is devoid of suspense, surprise or interest.

I had originally written this review back in 2005 and had ended it with the following sentence: "The Sci-Fi Channel have made dozens of movies just like this with nearly interchangeable characters and plots, but with slight alterations on the creature. Enough already!" Apparently it wasn't even close to "enough already" for the channel as they've made at least 100 almost identical movies since then, and they've gotten even worse with the inclusion of self-aware humor about how stupid they are.

★1/2

Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned (2008)

Directed by:
Brian Thomson

Chuck's (Joseph Riker) about to get married to Michelle (Trina Analee) in a few days. His cousin Sammy (Gregg Aaron Greenberg) is put in charge of throwing the bachelor party and gets in contact with a former high school acquaintance - the uptight Gordon (Joe Testa) - who allows them, along with their pals Paulie (Sean Parker) and Fish (Gelu Dan Rusu), to use his uncle's bungalow in the Hampton's as long as they don't trash the place. Three mysterious, leather-clad strippers (Zoe Hunter, Monique Dupree and Kaitlyn Gutkes) show up for the evening's entertainment, drag three of the men into bedrooms and soon reveal themselves to be some kind of vampire-demon-succubi creatures who feast on human flesh. Two of the five men are quickly killed, Chuck is transformed into an undead vampire and Sammy must try to straighten things out before Michelle shows up to share some important news with her future husband.

A low-budget effort, for sure, but debuting director Brian Thomson (who also wrote, produced and edited) actually does a fairly good job working within his budget range (10 thousand dollars) and giving anyone apt to even rent a title like this in the first place exactly what they want to see. The film is well-paced and, though a bit too dark at times, decently shot for the digital medium. The running time of 77 minutes is about right. There's comedy (some amusing, some not so much), the dialogue isn't nearly as bad as one might expect, characters are drawn fairly well, the cast is appealing for the most part (Greenberg in particular shows real promise) and there's plenty of nudity provided by B-movie Scream Queens Hunter and Dupree. The ending (which utilizes some flashbacks) is also well done. The lynch pin here are some awful, laughable CGI effects, which take it down a notch or two.

Overall, it's a pretty fun way to spend an hour or so of your time, but only if you enjoy these low-budget B-movies. As long as your not expecting deep, life altering cinema (and who would, based on that title?) and can accept this on its own terms, you should have a pretty good time.

★★

Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp (2002)

... aka: Bloody Murder 2
... aka: Halloween Camp
... aka: Halloween Camp: Trevor vs. Jason

Directed by:
Rob Spera

Well, it's an improvement, I guess. Then again, saying this movie is better than the first is like saying Son-In-Law is a better Pauly Shore movie than Jury Duty. It's still pretty awful. Whiny blonde virgin Tracy (Katy Woodruff) takes a job as a camp counselor at Camp Placid Pines, where her brother Jason (Tyler Sedustine) had disappeared five years earlier. Smart move there, sister! Aside from being plagued by bad dreams and having to fend off the annoying sexual advances of her impatient horn dog boyfriend Mike (Kelly Gunning), she and the others end up being stalked and killed off one by one by someone disguised as famous local masked murderer Trevor Moorehouse. They should have listened to Juanita the cook, who lives in such fear of the local urban legend that she waits three days before the camp closes to high tail it outta there.

First of all, Part II is better than the first film and three-fourths of the entertainment value is contributed by then-up-and-coming Scream Queen Tiffany Shepis, who easily gives the best acting performance and provides all of the film's nudity (in the shower, in a car, in the woods…). Unlike the original BLOODY MURDER (2000), this one actually delivers some gore. We get legs cut off, a head smashed with a rock, a chainsaw through a stomach, an arrow through a neck, a head split open with a machete and more. But Tiffany and the gore cannot make one overlook the awful acting and horrid script, which includes some stupid SCREAM-inspired dialog (the black character talking about how he'll get killed first) and tries to put blame on obvious sources (the camp owner, the horny boyfriend, etc.) before pulling the identity of the mystery killer out of thin air at the end. Ugh. Talk about a cheat.

★1/2

Abducted II: The Reunion (1994)

... aka: Abducted 2

Directed by:
Boon Collins

Abducted II just happened to roll its way into my VCR at the right time. It has quite a few impossible-to-believe and/or silly sequences, but after sitting through too-numerous-to-mention lame 'erotic horror' efforts from the 1990s, this low-budget thriller ended up being surprisingly fun and entertaining; an all-around breath of fresh air. Basically, it was nice to see a contemporary 'B' picture that cuts out the tiresome ten-minute slow-mo sex scenes in favor of action, story, scenery and character. This one delivers pretty much what exploitation fans want to see (possibly more), and much in restraint to genre demands; meaning there's violence, but not too much; T&A, but not too much, etc. Nothing really crowds out or takes too much time away from the story, which is rare in one of these films. And the story is actually very workable, fast-paced, action packed and energetic. It's a follow-up to ABDUCTED, a pretty obscure and seldom-discussed 1986 film from the same director, which featured Lawrence King-Phillips as Vern; a grizzled, bearded backwoods madman in animal skins who kidnaps a jogger and plots to make his new captive his wife. At the end of that film, Vern was killed by his own estranged father (Dan Haggerty). Or so he thought.

This sequel (set many years after the first) finds three former college chums; busty, pouty Italian babe Maria (Raquel Bianca), reserved red-head divorcée Sharon (Debbie Rochon) and tough blonde Ingrid (Donna Jason), reuniting for a nature trip in a secluded Canadian national park. After a quick stop at a general store for a quick chat with the owner (Jan-Michael Vincent), the girls hike to a lake, camp out for the night, share stories and drink, but their fun (and a strong hint that Maria and Ingrid are really lesbian lovers, a side-plot that incidentally goes nowhere and is curiously dropped altogether) is short-lived and in come the horror film trappings. Vern (King-Phillips again) comes crawling out of the woods in a horned animal mask, kills a voyeuristic male camper staying nearby, assaults the ladies, ties them to a tree and then informs them he's still actively searching for a wife. After doing some animalistic mating dance and looking the three lovely ladies over, he can't quite decide and figures, what the hell, he'll just take all three of them fillies back to his cave home.

The girls are tied together in a chain and are yanked through the woods when Vern decides to stop so the ladies can strip and show him what they got. However, Vern doesn't know that Ingrid is a black-belt, so she turns the tables on him, karate kicks him, does some back flips and escapes. Vern just shrugs and continues on with the other two. Then we get a hilarious She-Rambo sequence where Ingrid (dressed in spandex pants and a sports bra) ties a wet bandanna around her head, camouflages herself with mud and tree limbs, carves a home-made spear out of a branch and then heads out to save her pals. She ends up catching up to them on a rope bridge and nails Vern with a spear. He and Maria tumble into the rapids and wash far down the shore. Wimpy Sharon (whom Vern deemed "damaged goods" for having been previously married) wants to go get help, but Ingrid insists they don't have the time and have to save Maria on their own. Vern and Maria end up making it back to the cave, where she tries to keep him from raping her by becoming his friend and assuring him women like it "tender and gentle." He makes her take off her "city clothes" and wear an animal rag. She relates an out-of-place, but brief, sex flashback. Ingrid and Sharon continue to trample through the woods. Meanwhile, Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty (as the same character from the first film), reluctantly guides brutish Vincent (whose pastime is big game hunting) around in a helicopter so he can hunt down a white ram for his trophy room. Everyone converges to lock horns at a finale where all the guys end up seriously injured or dead as the ladies resort to their primitive animal instincts to survive.

Filmed on picturesque Vancouver Island, Canada, this has the occasional badly-matched stock shot of a wild animal lurking about, but the cinematography is pretty good and the location work (around forests of mossy trees, waterfalls, rock cliff, etc.) is great. There's always something to look at it. A decapitated sheep head rolling down a hill is a pretty memorably odd sight, anyway. The acting isn't Oscar caliber (not that this film requires it), but it's surprisingly good nonetheless. No one walks through their role. King Phillips is effective as the ranting madman and makes a grand entrance, Jason (a real-life martial arts champ) is great, Haggerty and Bianca are both fine and hell, even Vincent (looking a little less haggard than usual for this time) is watchable. After you get over the initial shock of seeing Rochon as a weak-whiny character here, you'll see she can also be believable as a more conservative member of society... Conservative that is until she gets desperate for help and rips her top off to try to get the attention of a helicopter. And conservative until she gets fired-up at the very end and... Well, I won't ruin the end but to say Debbie gets the single best line in the film and it's well worth waiting for.

Despite some minor debits, the cast, director (who co-scripted with Lindsay Bourne with a fun feminist slant) and production people respect their audience and get higher marks for good will, meaning I'm cutting this some slack in the grading department. The DVD release - just a transfer from the video version - was from Front Row Entertainment.

★★1/2

Zankoku hanten (2008)

... aka: Cruel Restaurant

Directed by:
Kôji Kawano

Seemingly inspired by Fruit Chan's DUMPLINGS (most commonly seen in a shortened version in the anthology THREE... EXTREMES), this low-budget time waster basically takes the silly route, with mild gore scenes mixed with comedy that starts out goofy but becomes increasingly more tasteless as the film goes along. Young Ms. Lin (Mihiro), naive and oblivious to where head chef/butcher Mr. Chin (Sakae Yamazaki) is actually acquiring his cuts of meat, owns a very popular restaurant that specializes in unique tasting fried dumplings. Meanwhile, people from the same vicinity are disappearing without a trace. Put two and two together and it's pretty obvious what the secret ingredient is they're using in their prized dumplings. Many side characters seem to be onto the unorthodox practices of the establishment right from the beginning, including a female reporter (Miho Funatsu) who watches a fisherman reel in a severed hand, a food columnist whose sister had disappeared and was last seen at the restaurant and a couple of police detectives (Katsuya Naruse and Yûsuke Iwata). Also thrown into the mix are an unhinged wanna-be cook determined to become Chin's apprentice and a perverted dumpling "master" shown in flashbacks teaching Ms. Lin the way to make the best dumplings.

There's quite a bit of blood in this one with gory scenes of the chefs hacking up lumps of bloody meat, people getting chopped up with a meat cleaver, a decapitation, dismemberments, a chopstick stuck in an eyeball, a chicken beheading, a silly rubber frog getting chopped in two and more. There's also a strange rape scene where the rapist covers his victim in oil, eggs and ketchup before getting his head lopped off. I'm sure the multiple nude scenes from the beautiful lead actress will also be appreciated by many viewers. Unfortunately, this never seems to find the right note of lunacy and the uncertain fluctuation in tone throughout makes it less enjoyable than it could have been (nevermind the fact that the humor isn't always that effective to begin with). The "surprise" ending (a play on the old ping pong ball trick *wink*) doesn't really seem to fit in with the rest of the film, either.

★★1/2

All Souls Day: Dia de los muertos (2005)

... aka: All Souls Day
... aka: Dia de los muertos
... aka: West of the Dead

Directed by:
Jeremy Kasten

In the 19th Century, Vargas Diaz (Danny Trejo, the bartender in all three FROM DUSK TILL DAWN movies) discovers the "tomb of the goddess of death" in a small Mexican village. He hires townspeople to help retrieve the treasure, promising to split the profits with them. Instead, he lures every citizen of the village into the mine where the valuables were located and blows it up. After doing in eight of his faithful men with poisoned win to ensure a 100% profit margin, he gets involved in a gunfight and accidentally shoots his own young son. Around a hundred years later (in 1952), Thomas White (Jeffrey Combs) and his family; wife (Ellie Cornell, from HALLOWEEN 4 and 5), 19-year-old blonde daughter and young son in arm braces (from polio), take a pit stop in the same small town on their way to the beach. They go to a hotel and notice the people there are acting incredibly strange (and no one has signed the guest book for almost a decade), but decide to stay anyway. Son Ricky ends up being possessed by an evil spirit. Daughter Lilly (who's nice enough to treat viewers to a topless bathtub scene first) is attacked by an elderly woman downstairs, only to stumble outside and be devoured by zombies (i.e. the resurrected people killed in the mine). And the parents, well we learn later that they were just hacked to pieces with a hatchet.

Fifty-three years later, newly-engaged college students Alicia (Marisa Ramirez) and Joss (Travis Webster) are traveling through Mexico in route to visiting her parents. They wreck their car in the same small town where all this bad s--t is taking place during (gasp!) Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead to us Yanks), when all the dead are rumored to walk the Earth. Immediately, the duo discover a distraught young woman named Esmeralda who has had her tongue removed. Thankfully, a friendly American sheriff (David Keith) is in town and ready to take control of the situation. Unfortunately, he's also the same possessed little boy from 1952, all grown up and committing his own human sacrifice rituals. He kills Esmeralda for giving him too much trouble and then plots to sacrifice Alicia, because apparently only a beautiful young Mexican woman will work in the ceremonies.

Alicia and Joss check into a local hotel decorated with altars, crosses and skulls, where Former Miss USA Laura Harring (also in David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DR.) and some old psychic woman mope around, acts strange and offer up drugged wine and bread to sedate their guests. Joss, who is arrogant, obnoxious and pretty irritating all around, phones his black pre-med friend Tyler and Tyler's blonde "vacuous cheerleader" girlfriend Erica (Nichole Hiltz) to come down and pick them up. He and Alicia promptly screw (I guess finding mutilated people in the road really turns them on), more weird stuff happens, Tyler and Erica arrive, the four make small talk (lame "trendy" SCREAM-like dialogue with horror movie references; ugh) and then the zombies finally show up to try to eat everyone. You go zombies. Eat 'em all up. Please. In an all-too-familiar NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD situation, they board up the doors and windows while the mini zombie army try to get inside. Oh yeah, and wouldn't ya know it... Vargas is still alive and well at 150 years old and living in a secret room in the hotel (he is who the ghouls are really trying to get at). Alicia put it best when she solemnly intones, "This place is fucked up! These people are crazy!"

The whole thing is pretty mindless and fails to generate any atmosphere despite the setting and some good make-up fx. It also comes complete with one of the dumbest horror movie character actions in recent memory. Hell, it almost tops the girl-who-jumps-into-a-fiery-inferno-to-be-with-her-dead-boyfriend scene in CHILDREN OF THE CORN 5. After Tyler is attacked by a few dozen flesh-munching ghouls, Erica drives away to a safe distance and can clearly see her boyfriend is history. So instead of just driving off like any normal person would do, she puts the car in reverse, goes right back into the middle of the pack of zombies, opens the passenger side door and tries to yank his dead body back into the car with her!! Thankfully, she quickly gets her throat ripped out for being such a stupid bitch.

Well, in any case, All Souls Day is not a very good later-day showcase for horror icon Jeffrey Combs, who had appeared in the director's previous effort THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS (2001). His performance is fine (and it's always nice to see him in anything), but he doesn't get to do or say anything noteworthy during his short time on screen. Hell, even his death is off-screen and he isn't even seen as a zombie. Newcomer Ramirez shows some potential (and has no problems with nudity). It debuted on the Sci-Fi Channel.

★1/2

Night of the Dribbler (1990)

Directed by:
Jack Bravman

At all North American border crossings, firm rules have been established about what Canadians cannot bring into the U.S. and vice versa. It's too bad "copy of Night of the Dribbler" never made the American list. Not since IMPS* has so many painfully unfunny jokes been crammed into just one film. Dribbler, an AIRPLANE-style kitchen sink "comedy" which includes a serial killer, is so unbelievably bad that it was allowed to rest peacefully in someone's garage for around two decades as not to humiliate anyone involved. Code Red eventually had to ruin everything by finally putting this thing out on DVD; marketing it as a recently-unearthed slasher flick. Director Jack Bravman has previously directed several other low budget genre films: JANIE (1970), about a murderous Lethal Lolita with severe daddy issues (which was made with help from NYC erotica pioneers Michael and Roberta Findlay), and ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE (1986), a voodoo / zombie revenge tale starring Canuck hair rocker Jon-Mikl Thor. The latter managed to pick up a small cult following (thanks primarily to being featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000), but there's zero hope for Dribbler doing the same. It should have never seen the light of day.

At Watergate High School, their basketball team "The Plumbers" are in the middle of a 6-year-losing streak thanks to untalented players and thoroughly incompetent leadership from Coach Cherry (Fred Travalena). A psycho wearing a smiling basketball mask and with a constant irritating giggle - begins trimming off all the players one team captain at a time. Things are centered around Stan Bates (Gregory Calpakis), a "lower on the evolutionary scale than a slug" benchwarmer who's stuck as the team's equipment manager and ball boy. Whoever's doing the killings seems to be trying to get Stan on the court. Stan's overbearing father (Bill Saddler), who pressured him to join the team in the first place, constantly smacks him in the head and even hits him with his car, is one suspect. And so is a supportive goth girl named Becky (Flavia Carrozzi), who appears to be stalking Stan and speaks in annoying Afterschool Special cliches ("Confidence is something that comes from inside you!"). Dean Marks (Cynthia Mantel) really wants her team to win or else she's going to have to ride the rival team's parade float nekkid and get an unflattering tattoo. There's a weird science teacher who's always at the wrong place at the wrong time and Stan himself could also be the culprit. So desperate to make the team, he listens to self help tapes and tries to hypnotise the basket but ends up hypnotizing himself instead.

As I've already stated, the comedy aspects are completely and painfully unfunny. None of the jokes or "witty" lines really work. Maurice Thevenet's script has got to be one of the worst ever produced, combining consistently terrible dialogue, lousy and childish sight gags and a thoroughly predictable mystery. To make matters even more insufferable, there's also a sappy "message" thrown in that's sure to have you throwing up a little in your mouth. The acting is very amateurish and the film also looks incredibly cheap; the majority of it was filmed in a high school gymanseum. Cast as not only the coach but also an obnoxious announcer and an inept police detective, Travalena seems to have some talent as a comedian but he's completely unrestrained and damn near unbearable to watch here. He sings, screams, cackles, contorts his face, rolls his eyes, talks a mile a minute and never shuts up. He also does all kind of celebrity impersonations, including Bela Lugosi, Michael Jackson, Zelda Rubinstein and Jack Nicholson. I'll give him an A for effort when it comes to enthusiam, but making any of the atrocious dialogue he's handed amusing is an impossible task.

Coach

"Last time I saw faces like yours... was on the court fifteen seconds ago."

Player

"Coach, can I have a word with you."

Coach

"How about semi-conductor?

Coach

"I'm the coach, which is the next best thing to being your father, which is the next best thing to being your mother, which is the next best thing to being your cousin, which is the next best thing to being a total stranger."

Ouch mommy, it hurts!

So the film fails on laughs big time. It also refuses to throw us a bone by at least being tasteless or trashy. There's no sex or nudity and next to no violence. There isn't even any foul language. You can see tape on one of the actresses breasts even when she's doing an above-the-shoulders shower scene and there's no gore unless you count a few rubber body parts being tossed around. One guy is decapitated (the killer throws the head through the hoop), there's an electrocution in the hot tub, someone gets scalded by hot water in the shower and another is blown up. The one and only clever moment is when the killer lines a hoop with a razor and it ends up cutting a guy's hands off when he tries to dunk a ball.

NO STARS!