Movie Appraisal: The Innkeepers (2011)

Every once in a while a movie comes along that I absolutely cannot stand on any level. The Innkeepers is that movie for this October. While I'm unsure of exactly what I was expecting from this movie, it certainly wasn't whatever I just saw. Almost nothing about this movie is good. The pacing is terrible. The acting is nearly atrocious in all given cases. The characters are unlikable at best and unfathomable at worst. None of the decisions made by the characters, particularly towards the end of the film, make any sense whatsoever, and there are long periods of time when nothing at all happens.

I happen to love atmospheric horror, but this is  atmospheric horror without atmosphere. It's a ghost story without a purpose. It's a character study without character. This movie is inept. It doesn't work, wither as a movie or as a horror movie. It's boring, predictable, and somewhat pathetic. Ti West, a director I've heard a great deal of very good things about, is about the only reason this movie is even watchable. His direction is passable, even good at times, particularly when the old man shows up dead. Besides that though, none of the actors even seem to be trying. Well, that's not true, Sarah Paxton, who plays Claire, is trying way too hard. She needs to tone her acting down a notch. All I received from her character is that she was twitchy, impulsive, and really dumb. I'm sure many people are like that, but this just felt like overacting to the extreme.  Pat Healy, playing Luke, does a better job, but there are times, particularly when he is scared in the basement of the inn, where it is painfully obvious what's going on in his acting. I like subtlety in movies of this nature, but this movie looked at the word "subtle," didn't understand it, probably never even heard of it, and moved on.

The plot largely centers around the last weekend of the Yankee Pedlar Inn (incidentally in my home state of Connecticut). I have seen the inn before in Torrington, and I guess it could be creepy. Honestly, anything set in this godforsaken state could be creepy, but for the most part this movie was decidedly not creepy at all. Anyway, this last weekend, involves a bunch of shenanigans, ranging from Claire freaking out constantly, to an actress who happens to be psychic, to ghosts and spooks jumping out from all angles. Luke and Claire have attempted to try to find ghosts in the hotel before, and Luke is even in the process of making a spooky late 1990s internet page about the ghosts in the hotel despite it being 2010/2011 when the movie takes place. Ugh. The inn is supposedly haunted, but they've caught very little in the way of evidence, and near the end of the movie you find that Luke doesn't even believe in the ghosts. He's more than likely doing all of this stuff to appeal to Claire, whom he has a thing for. Claire, on the other hand, is a ball full of twitch. The girl can't stand still. She can't stop touching things and moving and twitching and screaming, and it distracted the absolute hell out of me. I didn't connect with her character at all. I didn't like her at all. I had no emotional connection with her, and that was an absolute shame.

I don't think this movie had a promising premise in any case, with or without great characters. Some ghost stories work, but one that seems based on lack of creepy visuals, lack of atmosphere, and lack of actual subtle scares is absolutely doomed to fail. Now, I generally don't like ghost movies anyway, but I had this movie recommended to me by a source I generally trust for compelling spooks and creepy stories. Not this time, it seems. This movie is so devoid of character, scares, or investment that I found myself frequently getting bored, and wishing the movie would just end already. I never do that. Hell, even The Reaping and Marronnier were compelling enough to watch the whole way through. This movie just had nothing for me. It could have been okay. I do like a well handled ghost story... and I happen to watch Ghost Hunters too, so I should love a movie like this if it is well done. But this one was not.

I don't even have more of a plot analysis than that. I have no idea if the ghosts Claire saw were real or not. That seemed to be something the movie was trying to put a question mark on. But the end of the movie completely invalidated any question of the validity of the ghost sightings... or at least of the psychic sights. And that just took away any interest I was clinging too. I figured, "Oh, it might all be in her head. She might be cracking a little. She might be making it all up." But no. Just ghosts scaring her to death because she didn't have her inhaler (since she has asthma). Another thing I have to mention is that my girlfriend had mild asthma. I see her using her inhaler every once in a while. And although Claire uses her inhaler correctly in a few scenes, there are quite a few others when she doesn't use it effectively at all. That bothered me like mad.

There is also forced humor throughout this movie that completely undermines the horror elements. Sometimes humor can be used well with horror, see The Cabin in the Woods or Hausu, but more often than not, humor is not encouraged for movies like this, particularly if it isn't well acted in the first place. I was incredibly disappointed with this piece of garbage movie even though I wasn't expecting anything but some ghosts. The tension was never there; the horror was never there. I would rather watch almost any other horror movie than this one. Avoid it. Don't see it. Don't watch it. Don't encourage it.

Oh, and just to point this out, because I love feeling superior to movie critics who are precisely the worst kinds of people. This terrible movie? Yeah, it has almost an 80% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This movie that I hated because it was a poorly made, poorly acted, poorly executed horror movie? Yeah, give it an almost stunningly positive review number. But great movies like Silent Hill: Revelation, Ghost Ship, 1408, or even the near-classic Jacob's Ladder all have worst scores. Never trust critics. Seriously. If someone tells you a horror movie has a great score, just pretend it's a bad movie. Do the opposite for films that have terrible scores. Nobody seems to know how to precisely score horror movies, especially when most critics already hate them. Well, horror movies are awesome, and true horror movies need to be known. I will always call out the crap and praise the great ones. And this movie is absolute garbage.

Movie Appraisal: Marronnier (Marrionnier) (マロニエ) (Run Like Hell) (2004)

Well, this is a pretty bad movie. Actually... this may in fact be the worst movie I've ever seen. And you know what? People need to know about this one. Everyone needs to actually see how bad a movie can be before hitting the singularity of being some crazy man's home videos or something. Because this movie is a few props short of basically being that. I... I can't even believe a movie like this actually exists. (Okay, that's a blatant lie. Yes, there are bad movies out there, and this one isn't even the worst one I've ever seen- although again, it's pretty terrible.)

Junji Ito, what did you do? Why did you do this? Why, Junji Ito? WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYY!?

WHY?

As she stares blankly at me, the whys just keep piling up.

Oh boy, this is such an awful movie, but I loved every second of it. I also hated myself ever second I loved it. I mean seriously, I hate those movies that are called so bad they're good. I hate the phrase. I hate the sentiment. This movie is plainly bad. It's never good, never does anything that I could say is even in the same ballpark as good, but I still like it because I'm insane and quite probably demented. Call it a fault of mine. I like bad movies.

I... I have a problem. I have a large problem. People shouldn't like this movie. Marronnier is such a confusing mess of a movie. It shouldn't be a movie that anybody actively enjoys watching... and yet... and yet...

How could anybody say "No" to a face like that?

I was so confused... baffled really... by what was happening if anything was happening at all. I don't think I understood who the main characters were until about 3/4 of the way through the movie. And even then I didn't get it because it was incomprehensible. Honestly, this is the movie version of Cthulhu. That's the only plausible explanation. It felt too dreamlike and too unreal. Too many things made literally no sense. Too many scenes moved too quickly to actually figure out what was happening. Lines would begin and end before I could make sense of what was actually being said. The camera work is some of the worst I've ever seen, pushing aside the lowest of the low budget films. It was like the filter and effects over the actual film had a mind of their own and started putting sparkles and flares all over the movie... over every picture... over... over everything... EVERY THING. Do you understand? Can you even comprehend it?

I can't even believe what I just watched was even an actual movie. I'm baffled and amazed. My mind is absolutely and literally blown. That was such an awful movie, but... but maybe I can make it make sense. Maybe I can see it as something beautiful and perfect... porcelain even...

What.

So, I guess the movie is about a dude, Numai, who kills women and turns them into large marrionette dolls. Numai has a fixation on a woman who really has a thing for dolls that are called marronnier (which I think refer to marrionettes, but I could be mistaken). He stalks this woman, Marino, much to her own dismay. Anyway, a man named Iwata, Numai's teacher or master or something... it's impossible to really tell, but I think Numai is an apprentice or a friend of his or something... Anyway, Iwata kills his wife who he has never so much as touched, gives her a burial in a pond or mud or something... and somehow that burial in that specific place turns her body to wax, which he then carves into a sentient (slave?) doll who is alive for reasons.

Numai then brings Iwata more girls to turn into dolls, but Iwata rebels and is subsequently killed by Numai. There's a lot more, like a man who looks like he's gong to rape Marino at one point, but it murdered is a fairly gruesome fashion by Numai, I believe, only to be found by his stalker ex-lover, who cradles the would-be rapist and takes him home with her. What? I don't even know. The world of Marronnier is a strange and often baffling place. I would certainly be terrified to live there.

Anyway, it seems that Numai mostly wants to have Marino as either his lover or a doll or both, although that's never made entirely clear. He seems to at first just be stalking her and wanting to give her presents and shower her with affection and such... and then he suddenly wants to make her a doll by any means necessary. His motivations are all over the place and make no sense whatsoever, but his character is a self-contradiction anyway. The dude won't die and randomly teleports more times than I can count just to be slightly more intimidating. Or maybe that's his magical power in this.. can I even call this place a world? Or should I just call it like I see it and say that it's some kind of broken realm of humanity that has the most disturbing people populating it.

See, the problem here though is that Numai is not intimidating in the slightest; he's simply creepy. I mean, seriously, the dude is the creepiest man I have ever seen in my entirely life. LOOK AT THAT MAN'S FACE UP THERE AND TELL ME HE ISN'T! Just looking at his smile kind of makes my skin crawl ever so slightly.  Anyway, the entire time that Marino is stalked, she is looked after by her best friend, Mitsuba... who may also be in love with her? I don't even know. Japan is a weird and terrifying place for love. There's at least one longing look from Mitsuba to Marino. That's all I know. Hell, maybe they're even lovers. I don't even know. In my headcanon they are totally lovers and Mitsuba is awesome. Then again I have no way to prove or disprove my assertion there. I just want to write raunchy fanfictions about this terrible movie that nobody even knows about. For kicks and giggles.

The main point of the movie seems to be the sentient dolls. They're supposed to be the talking point about the film and the scary part, I think. And I'll tell you, at 1AM, they are pretty creepy. I'm currently in a room that probably has... oh... let's say ten dolls or so in it, all of various sizes and looks about them. I have never been the biggest fan of dolls, sometimes I can feel their cold, dead eyes staring at me. It's creepy is the point I'm making here, and I'm kind of creeping myself out here too... whoops... I thought that many of the bits with the dolls in the movie were actually creepy and kind of effective as a horror type of thing. I certainly didn't hate them. I felt that they were some of the strongest bits of the movie. They could even be the reason I find the movie watchable.

The confusion of the movie run through the roof though. I mean, most of the time I had no idea what was going on or who was on camera or what the plot was. The beginning introduced and subsequently killed off characters so quickly that I had no idea who I was even supposed to be identifying with. And the ending was a jumble of thoughts and images put into a camera. It was more a dream sequence than a story by that point. Now, I don't mind a dream sequence, but the whole movie felt like an extended fevered dream and a doll fetish dream to boot.

The gore effects were pretty good all around despite everything else. They were obviously fake, but that made it easier to watch for me. I hate tons of realistic gore in movies. Lots of gore makes me feel uncomfortable. Instead it looks like they had a fun time with fake body parts and buckets of blood. And I enjoyed the ride of blood myself. You could call me a fan of riding the blood train.

I think I've lost my mind.

Hideyuki Kobayashi directed this film and he sure made one ugly and strangely beautiful film. It's certainly not good, like I said, but it has a feel to it that I kind of like despite the terrible quality and nonsense that could be only called a plot by those who are deranged mental patients. Junji Ito is usually good at writing, and maybe the plot itself would have been fine, if a bit simplistic, but there were so many sequences of unreality and confusing times (and what was even going on?) that Junji Ito's best quality of writing really suffered. The plot came off as hacked together. The dialogue was so simple as to be inane, and the characters, besides Numai and Mitsuba, came off as clunky one-dimensional pieces of fluff, not fit for any movie. Numai was there as the creepy dude and he did what he was paid to do, and Mitsuba, strangely, did a great job as the hero part, hacking limbs off and genuinely looking like she was having a good time throughout the movie. I enjoyed her performance the most.

Junji Ito's cameo though was the absolute best part of the entire movie, and probably the best acting performance of the entire movie as well... sadly. I wish the movie could have just been him driving Marino around. It would have been a better movie all around... and everybody would have been happy.

The movie should have been simplistic. It's House of Wax but Japanese. Simple. There. But it turns out to be an overlong and incredibly complex, almost psychological and symbolic, look at a confusing and baffling premise. I'd like to think that the film has more to it than what it showed, but I don't think I'd believe it myself. It could be an allegory on stalking, and sometimes that would make sense... but other times it just comes off as a not great movie without any deeper meanings. I like the allegory of stalking idea, it would make some scenes actually make sense rather than being some of the worst scenes I have ever seen in movies.

The expressions in this movie are priceless. I have to point that out. Boy oh boy do the characters make some absolutely perfect expression. There is also a banging soundtrack, it's another fun part of the film. This movie though, despite my saying I enjoyed it kind of is really best to be watched with others and to make fun of it. Numai is creepy and believable as a villain and the movie is so weird that it actually starts becoming quite creepy itself, but it never reached that pinnacle of actually being scary. It's easier to make fun of than it ever could be to be scared of.  Case in point: Marino catches a goddamn high heel in her mouth. WHAAAAAAT? Then there's Mitsuba and her buster battle axe which she uses to cut off limbs. Piles and piles of limbs. Somehow Marino gets a sledgehammer out of nowhere. I assume she took it out of her nonexistent pockets. Then there's Numai at the end of the film, suddenly teleporting bandages to wrap around his disfigured face out of nowhere. I mean, unless he was expecting a terrible injury and came prepared with a bunch of bandages. I would have loved to have heard his thoughts there. "Oh dude, I should bring some bandages just in case these two women somehow injure me. I mean, they won't kill me obviously, but there's always that chance that I might get some scrapes and stuff and I really would rather not get those suckers infected. That would just hella suck." Also how the hell did Numai get Marino again after being in a bear trap? Did she help him? Did he somehow get out himself after being in a bear trap? Why wasn't that scene shown? Why did he teleport out of the bear trap? Why wasn't he limping after being in a bear trap? Why wouldn't he die? Why were the dolls alive? Why was Iwata so weird? Hell, why was half the cast so weird? Why didn't Marino do anything effective?  Why didn't she just stab him to death? Why was she thinking that stuff at the end? Why would she keep a doll of her doll brother and his doll girlfriend/wife with her in the same apartment? Did she actually get away or did Numai win? What the hell was with the whole scene where she's in white and he's under some covers? What about that whole bath scene earlier in the movie? What was going on there?

A lot of those questions seriously have led me to believe that the whole film is an allegory on stalking and what it does to one's psyche. Marino is plagued by terrible thoughts and bad dreams because of Numai, her stalker. He wants her to be a puppet on strings for him, but she refuses even if she isn't the stronger girl around. She fights him with the help of her friends, who eventually leave her to play their own parts. Her brother leaves her to be with his beloved. And her loyal friend Mitsuba stays with her until the bitter end, until eventually she too becomes victim to the terrible pain of dealing with a stalker. Marino is all alone at the end. Maybe she actually kills her stalker or maybe it's simply that she finally makes him go away, finally tells him off for good. She feels that she is free finally, but even as we see her "normal" life we see that she sees others as dolls and... yes, she herself is a doll too, her strings being pulled by her own stalker. She is controlled by him every bit as much as she feels that she controls her own actions. He dictates how she reacts, what she does, and  how embittered she is. Dead or not he still is in her mind, still controlling her, still causing her to fear even despite not being there.

And right there, if that's actually what the movie is about, I'd like it quite a bit more. I think I've put more thought into it though than the filmmakers ever did, but maybe I'd be surprised.

Anywho, I cannot in any way recommend this movie. It's not easy to find. It's not easy to watch. It's not really a fun experience. If you are a die-hard fan of Junji Ito's writing or really crappy movies about puppets, I guess I can't tell you to stay away from this movie, but do realize that it's not good even if I personally did kind of get a kick out of it. Watch other movies. So many other movies are better. It's a travesty that you aren't watching them. It's a travesty that I'm not watching them. Instead I'm a puppet on a string, subjecting myself to terrible movies so often that... that I must be losing my very mind. Heh heh...

(Also, as some housekeeping, this movie is incredibly hard to find information for. Some of the other reviews I looked at had multiple different names for the director of the movie, either with the name being Akira Kobayashi or Hideyuki Kobayashi, which I've gone with. Also, this is a very low budget film, so I don't want to be really mean about the whole thing. I did kind of enjoy it, but you can really tell the extreme low budget of the movie. Hell, I made a student film a few years ago on a lower budget than this and it looked better. The visuals here are legitimately painful to watch. The pacing is terrible, with the movie moving too quickly through many scenes and an eighty minute or so running time feeling like so much longer. The editing is painful... hell, most of the movie is simply painful. I may like some parts of it, I may like the idea of it... I may even think that the movie isn't the worst movie I've ever seen... but that's me being generous. It's a terrible, painful movie that nobody should be subjected to at all. Many of the reviewers I've read have an intense dislike of the movie. It's certainly a bad movie, but I can't say that I hate it. I just simply can't muster up the emotion to hate it. Another note is that I can't find exactly when the movie came out. I've seen most dates be 2004, but Wikipedia (a reliable source if there ever was one OBVIOUSLY) lists the movie as coming out in 2002. And at least one reviewer lists the release date as 2005. So, I'm playing it safe and going with the majority. I've found so little on the movie that I think it's best to play it safe.

Anyway, that's my housekeeping notes. Avoid this movie at all costs. If you have watched it, I'm so sorry that you probably had no fun at all watching it. At least I kind of thought it was amusing and okay... but I can find a lot to like in a movie that's hated. Most people can't. And I don't blame them at all for that.)

Movie Appraisal: A Return to Salem's Lot (1987)

This may in fact be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It certainly is an insult to 'Salem's Lot and every adaptation of that wonderful Stephen King book. I could say a ton about how much this movie gets wrong. I could say just how much this insults me as a fan of the original story and the original miniseries, both of which I really enjoyed. I could say a lot of things, and I will, don't you worry, but I'll also say that as bad as this movie is, it does have some decent parts... but none of them have anything to do with the original story or characters. Hell, this movie doesn't even deserve to have "Salem's Lot" in it's title. Besides this movie taking place in the town, it has very little (read: nothing) to do with "Salem's Lot" to the point where I have no idea how this movie even comes to pass as a sequel to the events from the 1979 miniseries.

For a year or more now I've been waiting to watch and review this movie. I knew it would probably be bad, but what I didn't expect was just how bad it would be. It's not that I personally dislike it because it's not the perfect sequel to Salem's Lot that I wanted. It's terrible because almost every aspect of this film is a total and complete failure. The editing is terrible and choppy. The film somehow looks worse than its black-and-white predecessor from eight years prior. The acting is at times astoundingly bad. The direction is awful, just awful. The scenery is cheap and looks terrible. And the plot makes no sense and doesn't work in any sense of that word. And that's not even scratching the surface as to how wholly abominable this movie actually is.

For one, that tagline up on that poster: "Based on characters created by Stephen King." makes absolutely no sense. There are no characters based on Stephen King's stories. There is a town that is wholly different than what King wrote. There are vampires that are totally different than what King wrote. There is a non-burned down 'Salem's Lot, which makes no sense since 'Salem's Lot always burns down when Ben and Mark light the town on fire at the end of any version of 'Salem's Lot. So, why is this town intact? Why no burn marks? Why is it burnt down all over again at this end of this film?

See, the problem here is that this movie is no sequel to 'Salem's Lot or Salem's Lot. It is instead a completely different canon. It simultaneously a remake of the miniseries with different characters and its own story entirely. And that's where I found myself confused. Why didn't they just call this movie something completely different? It has nothing to do with Salem's Lot as a town or a book or a movie. The vampires are wholly different, no longer the shambling zombies they are in the book- they instead are humans with fangs and a hatred of light. The only vampire in 'Salem's Lot who was intelligent and coherent was Barlow, but here that whole aspect is thrown away in favor of talking vampires for some reason. This cuts away all of the horror while also taking away the point of 'Salem's Lot, the message of a charismatic and powerful person taking away the will to think of an entire populace.

I can keep going on about how the plot is ridiculous and the acting is pretty awful. I can keep saying how this movie seems pointless and kind of insulting. I can keep ripping apart every aspect of the film, from the pointless and antipathetic characters to TWO ridiculous "romance" plots... and all the way to some terrible fight sequences... terrible cinematography... terrible editing... terrible direction of almost every sequence. I just found this entire movie disheartening and incredibly insulting. I didn't like it and would never recommend it... but... but there were some okay things in the movie, and although I find the flick wholly reprehensible, I'd like to focus on the more positive aspects of the movie (the few that there are) because I find that there is no point in tearing the terrible and forgotten movie apart. It's already out of the public's memory. I think that speaks volumes about how terrible this movie actually is.

The opening of the movie is actually kind of fun, with a kicking opening tune and a psychedelic LSD vision. I enjoy a good strange opening and this one worked for me, getting me pumped up for a much better film than this one turned out to be. The music in general for this movie is pretty good actually, being one of the few redeeming features to an otherwise completely unremarkable film. The scene with the natives and Michael Moriarty's character, Joe, filming a ritual of one of the native's getting his heart pulled out is pretty good. I had no idea what was going on, but the effects were pretty decent. It had me believing this movie might actually look kind of interesting. In my mind, Cannibal Holocaust kept running through my head... and I guess I must have thought maybe I would get a movie more in line with that kind of film. It would have been a whole hell of a lot better than what there is.

The special effects sure are "special," especially when none of them seem to look good until the very end of the movie. Even then- they don't look good... it's probably more that I actually saw something that didn't make my eyes bleed which was better than this movie had been doing to me. And even though there are scary monster faces sometimes, the movie is mostly boring. There is no horror here, no tension. The vampires show up quickly and do nothing else. Yes, people are bitten with some terrible blood effects, but mostly the vampires stand and talk... and then stand and talk some more. Every once in a while they- wait for it- SIT and talk. WOW. Wow. Oscar calibre performances, people. There is overacting galore, although the kid, Ricky Addison Reed, and Michael Moriarity to a pretty good job at keeping cool. If "keeping cool" is swearing constantly and at the weirdest and most inappropriate times. I can't blame the actors for the odd lines though. The script seemed to be the real culprit here.

So, this is Tara Reid'd first role... if that interests you at all. Doesn't really mean much to me, I have to say. Knowing what movies that girl would be in- well, I'm not surprised this is where she started. Kind of fitting in a way. And kind of sad too. She is easily the worst actor here... and that's saying a ton. I seriously wanted her to stop talking every time she opened here mouth. Her "death?" scene was also painful to watch. I can't believe that that was the take they decided to go with. Did they even know what a good performance was? The sad thing is, they really must have because one actor really shines and rises this movie above absolute garbage. Oh, he's not really even introduced until two-thirds of the way through the movie or so... after you go catatonic because it's that bad... but once Samuel Fuller enters the flick as Van Meer, the Nazi Killer, the movie takes a turn to getting a lot more interesting. Samuel Fuller is wonderful here and seems to be having a great time. The man takes the performance and sells it for all its worth. He easily outshines everybody else. He is the only likable character as well as the only one worth cheering for. He chews the scenery up at times, but he is such a joy to watch that he alone makes the movie a little bearable. For the twenty or thirty minutes he decides to grace the screen with his kooky hair and bad dude stance, he is the greatest thing around. Hell, I would love more stories based on his character alone. Again, he's the only good character here in this movie.

So, the biggest thing that bothers me is the departure from the established lore of the freaking franchise that this movie is a sequel to. How do these vampires know their own history with both Straker and Barlow dead? Didn't Straker and Barlow come from Austria and England (basically Europe) too? Why are these vampires American and like 300 years old? Why are they here when all the vampires here were supposedly made by Barlow? Did they take over the town after Mark Petrie and Ben Mears from 'Salem's Lot burned the whole town down? Did they rebuild it? Or were they always there, these vampires, as Barlow made the whole town under his thrall? Because that would have been stupid. This is one of the big reasons this movie has to be its ow separate canon. It would make no sense otherwise. Why does Axel say that he's 300 years old? What is the point of that? Is it supposed to make him scarier? Or is it some kind of convenient way of saying, "Dude, this vampire's hardcore!" Well, it doesn't work. The line is awful; it doesn't make him more intimidating, it makes him seem like a petty bastard. Barlow was the first vampire there, but he's totally forgotten... well, except for the art of him on the box and poster. Yeah, that's definitely Barlow from the Salem's Lot miniseries. So, these seem to be in canon with one another... which would only really be possible if nothing made any sense any more. They would have to be implying that this town already had vampires in it. Or that they came later? I mean, is this movie saying that it takes place in the far-flung future of 2287? What? What? WHAT? What? I keep saying "what" so often it doesn't even sound like a word anymore...

The vampires were mindless like zombies in the movie, the book, and the canon, not like this... except for Barlow. It was scarier that way and so much more effective. This is just stupid. And then somehow the town name keeps changing between Jerusalem's Lot and 'Salem's Lot... when it's been established that the town name was officially changed to 'Salem's Lot. It's in the book. What am I even saying? They didn't read the book. Why would I give them the credit of reading the book? I must be insane. EVEN THINKING that these numbskulls would have considered reading the book... or (HA HA) watching the movie that this movie was a sequel too. Because they didn't watch that movie either. They didn't care about stupid things like consistency... or canon... or anything established. Hell, how is this even based off of anything Stephen King did? I mean, sure some of the plot is ripped off wholesome from the book... but calling this a sequel is like calling me a sane and smiling person. It's just not true and nobody should ever say things that they can't take back like that.

Oh, at least we get to see breasts... said Saquarry dryly. His face was likened to a rock. Breasts were not going to help this movie. They were just going to tell how bad a movie this was. Trying to distract with breasts was never going to work. There is so little of substance here and... this movie is entirely classless. And clueless. Why even include a scene like this? Are you establishing a romance? No, not really. Are you establishing how it might be difficult for Joe to hurt his beloved? No, not really. Oh, it's mentioned once, but never amounts to anything. The romance and the sex scenes are pointless. These are pointless breasts that make the entire movie worse because they have no point. I'm not saying that naked women are wonderful in movies, but they are usually meant to establish something (or for pure fanservice), and this movie doesn't seem to be doing either. These are breasts for the sake of breasts and there's just no point beyond that... and the shots aren't even good. They don't try to make the act of sex look vicious or terrible or sweet or sexy... the directing does NOTHING AT ALL. This is a terrible movie. This is such a terrible film. 

Wow, it turned daylight very very quickly towards the end of the movie. BAM. Night to day. There we go. That's how the sun comes up. No gradual rise. No tension. Nope. One second as dark as the dead of night and the next it is noontime. Wonderful. I get the feeling nobody associated with this movie has ever seen a sunrise...

Look, let me reason with you, the reader, here. Do not watch this movie. Do not seek it out. Do not think that you should watch this movie in any way. Despite a good performance by Samuel Fuller and a pretty good film score, this movie is a waste of time to watch. It has nothing to do with 'Salem's Lot as the town, the book, or the movie except in name. It has nothing to do with Stephen King either except for stealing some of his plot-points much worse than he ever wrote them. Some of the effects towards the end of the film also look okay, but no better than any other movie out there. Avoid this movie at all costs. This is The Reaping level of bad, and I'm not taking that back. So, I guess this October starts off wonderful... hopefully the next thirty nights go better than this one did or else I'm going to be a very unhappy fella.

Movie Appraisal: Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

"There is no way out of here. It will be dark soon. There is no way out of here."

You said it, Torgo. I don't think I'll ever be able to get this film out of my head. It's like a disease that won't let up... It's like I've watched the movie in The Ring except it's not some creepy little fifty pound girl who's going to come out of my television and get me, it's a brain aneurysm caused by anger and confusion over this film and just how bad it was.

I watched this film not knowing what to expect. I knew it was bad... Hell, I knew it was REALLY BAD, but I thought that maybe somebody got it all wrong... maybe they didn't know what they were talking about and this is really and fantastic and underrated gem of a movie. No... no... It's not. Don't watch this film. Don't even think about watching it. It's not fun, not enjoyable... it's like getting repeatedly stabbed in the chest with all the pain that entails, without dying, and also being completely bored and wishing you could just end it all right there and then.

Am I even making sense anymore? Okay, this film, nowhere near as bad as the abomination that is Space Thunder Kids, but it's bad. The film is amateurish, and is shot like a really bad high school student film. The acting, although bad, is actually usually palatable when the main female lead isn't on screen. The main female lead, I believe her name is Margaret or Maggie... possibly both... I don't know or care and I'm not going to use my brain to think about it... well, she happens to be my least favorite character is any film I have ever seen. I wanted her to suffer in a way I've never wanted any character to suffer. Useless doesn't describe her... I want a word that is more intense to describe her... rocklike... a big sack of nothing... DAMMIT, WOMAN! Why couldn't she do anything? Why did she get tired constantly? Did she have brittle bone disease? Some kind of horrible disease that make her weaker than a newborn kitten that also happens to have no legs, and may in fact be pond scum. THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!!! I hate that woman so much! She gives human beings a bad name. No, Maggie, when it seems like some creepy guy might try to take advantage of you, you do not just stand there staring at him awkwardly, not backing away or trying to get away at all... you don't do absolutely nothing... The only thing that saved you was that Torgo was a decent dude, who although a bit of a moron himself, was smarter than your stupid idiotic self. WHY THE HELL DID YOU KEEP CHANGING YOUR STUPID MIND ABOUT WHERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO!!?!? Why did you fall on the ground every five seconds? Were you that tired? How can any human be that tired and not be on a freaking respirator in some hospital somewhere looking for a lung transplant or dying of awful cancer or something. I'm not even saying this in jest. What the hell was that woman doing?

Moving on, I need to talk about some of the positives of this film to get the awful taste out of my mouth. I liked the music mostly, believe it or not. It was pretty decent and it set the mood pretty well. Torgo, the caretaker of... wherever they were... was pretty awesome. I would have watched a film of him just talking or doing stuff. Hell, a film of Torgo doing his taxes would have been more enjoyable than this. The Master's mustache was pretty awesome. I think that's it for positives.

Since most of this film is made out of negatives, it's really hard for me to precisely focus on what the worst things are, although I am damn well going to try.

The dubbing was awful. The cinematography (That is way too technical a word to call the crap that is this film.) is atrocious. I'm pretty certain every cut is awful... right before the editing cut the character might be running away and then it cuts and the character has stopped, turned around INSTANTANEOUSLY and looks very comfortable talking to another character.

I've never seen a movie make a cat fight (and by "cat fight" I mean women fighting each other for some reason only they seem to know) unappealing and frankly weird. It was awkward and uninteresting. I'm not the kind of dude who even cares about stuff like that because it's sexist or whatever... but I was bored to tears of the movie by this point, and I see that these chicks are going to start fighting and I start thinking, "Man, this might get at least a little fun to watch." No. It wasn't fun. It wasn't fun at all. It was like watching grass grow. Worse. It was worse than watching grass grow.

The movie was boring, made no sense, had little to no quality to it... had stupid women... stupid men... stupid everything... and I just... I want it to end! Stop playing those images in my head! Torgo, save me!

I can praise Torgo. He was really the sole saving grace of this film. (Okay, he didn't save it, but I enjoyed when the dude was on screen.) He really was the only decent thing to see here and I thought he was entertaining.

Okay, on to more negatives: "Well, sound does travel a long way at night." 

.....what.....? 

...what...? 

WHAT!? 

I don't think night has anything to do with the way sound travels, genius. I don't think darkness or light HAS ANYRHIGB TO DO WITHT HE WAY SOUND TRAVELS.  I know there are typos there in the previous sentence. I don't even care. I can't type without almost throwing my computer across the room I'm so angry at that STUPID line. So, that's the best I can do without breaking anything. I'm not ever reading that sentence again because I'll probably start spitting blood out of every orifice in my body hoping I can create a rage explosion rather than just plain flipping out and watching my brain rip itself out of my head and hunt down the actor who said that line, living or dead, and telling him about simple physics and sound waves... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'M GOING TO THROW MY TOASTER THROUGH DEATH ITSELF BECAUSE OF THIS MOVIE!!!

Okay... hey, Torgo... no, I'm fine. I'm fine. Thanks, buddy... No, I'm calm. Look, I'm very calm. Okay... yeah... Do I need to keep going, Torgo? Please, I want to stop. I don't want to remember anything else...

Okay... okay... you're right... I'm almost done. I'm almost done...

So, the noises in this "film" are atrocious. There's an EXPLOSION at the end that's supposed to be thunder and instead sounded like nuclear fusion. I seriously thought that the shack had been H-bombed out of existence... not even kidding. Oh, and earlier in the film some... uh... I'm going to say that they were supposed to be animal noises... were going on, and it sounded like a whole bunch of people were howling and vomiting off-screen. They must have been watching the finished version of this film because those were the exact EXACT sounds that I was making after I saw this film.

This movie is more of a comedy than... uh... whatever it was supposed to be. There were a few times I laughed, but I don't think I was supposed to laugh. I don't think I was meant to laugh. I don't think they wanted me to laugh... I don't want to laugh anymore... TORGO! TOrgo, I don't want to laugh anymore! Make them stop... I don't... no... no... The movie's not funny, Torgo... It's a bad film... full of bad people... bad everything... I want it all to stop. WHERE'S MY TOASTER!? I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU DOWN, MASTER!!!!

Give me a second.

Okay... okay... Torgo gave me a strange look and now I feel a little better. DO YOUR TAXES, TORGO! I'LL BE FINE HERE REVIEWING THIS MOVIE!!

So, a lot (and when I say "a lot" I simply mean, "more than there ever should have been") of the film has a couple making out in a car and drinking... at various different times... and the police come and tell them off... Why not, I guess? I guess it makes sense. (No, it doesn't. it has nothing to do with any of the main story of the film and is, in the end, completely useless and astoundingly stupid.)

Torgo, I think that's the end of my review. Are you proud of me for keeping my sanity?