December to Dismember: DEADLY LITTLE CHRISTMAS (2009)

I often wonder what the world would be like if Christianity hadn't conquered the world by brute force. Sure, there would be less fear, shame, guilt, fanaticism and ludicrous excuses for mass murder, but would we still have a highly commercial holiday that whips the American public into a frenzy of venomous consumership that brings out more petty nastiness than a Republican at Taco Bell? More importantly, would I have to review mind-numbingly dull amateur productions like DEADLY LITTLE CHRISTMAS every damn year? I like to think not.

Yep, once again, we suffer for their (lack of) art, thinking that at some point, like a homeless alcoholic dreaming of tripping over an unopened bottle, we will find a low-rent Yuletide horror outing that will knock our collective stockings off. Yeah, there's death, taxes, and those stockings aren't going anywhere. The only thing deadly in this movie is the movie itself.

Opening with a flashback to Christmas Eve, 15 years prior to the present time which we have not even seen yet, kids Devin, Taylor and Noel are frolicking under the Christmas tree in their middle-class home, while mom, Mary (Felissa Rose), tells her Swedish domestic (?!), Inga (Noa Geller), that she should relax on her day off. Apparently there was some sort of communication barrier, or cultural faux pas, as Inga decides what she should do is to hop into bed with Santa (Douglas Meyers) who is fine with giving her the ol' Christmas cracker, while his wife and kids are hanging out in the living room. Someone who doesn't have, or has had too much of, the Christmas spirit, stabs them both to death with a knife. And when I say "knife", what I mean is one of those plastic, retractable daggers that used to be sold in the toy aisle of grocery stores. At first I thought this was going to be a gag, since it's obvious that the dull, silver-painted blade is going into the handle, but nope. Not only is this an actual murder weapon, but it is the murder weapon that will be used for the few other kills in the movie. In the bloody aftermath of the coitus interruptus, 10 year old Devin (Shane Carther Thomas) somnambulistically walks out of the front door of the house with knife in hand, covered in blood. Not at all like HALLOWEEN (1978). Totally different holiday.

Flash forward 15 years and the kids have grown. Toddler Noel (Leah Grimsson) is now a catty, fresh out of high-school drama queen, who now produces drama with her sister Taylor (Monique La Barr) at the local Community Playhouse... which is an industrial lot space with a roll up door. While the not-particularly traumatized sisters are enjoying their quiet lives of desperation, brother Devin (Samuel Nathan Hoffmire) has been a guest of the State bughouse and apparently has been emotionless and has not said one word since "the incident". But he is eeeeeeeeeeeevil! We know this because the three women of the family (including Mom, who hasn't aged a day) say so. Apparently the writers didn't want to draw comparison to the John Carpenter movie, so they decided to forgo a speech from his doctor declaring this fact.

Mary (still Rose) goes to visit Devin every Christmas to try to connect with him on the date of his infantile, homicidal outburst. This makes sense when you realize that Christians throw a massive celebration at the (alleged) anniversary of the Romans murdering a nice guy by nailing him to a couple of planks. While visiting, Mary goes all Niagra Falls, Frankie, and begs for him to speak, sobbing "I was hoping for a Christmas miracle!" So was I, Angela, so was I. Oddly, seemingly as punishment for their crimes, mental patients are forced to sleep on beds from a Herve Villechaize estate sale.

Devin finally busts out of the nuthouse, or rather casually ambles out, but not before we get what this movie lives for. Pointless, long-winded scenes of dialogue that are about nothing. NOTHING. Case in point the scene in which Mom drops by the Playhouse to invite Taylor to go out and get some tea and after discussing it to freaking death, Taylor has to turn her down because she is too busy. Sure the actual running time of this scene is only about 68 seconds, but goddamn, those are some long fucking seconds. The scene where Taylor and Noel have a discussion about how they are dealing with the Elephant in the Room (aside from pointing it out every chance they get), is particularly grueling.
Taylor: "Sis, whay won't Mom let us see Devin?"
Noel:    "He's a frickin' psycho, I don't even remember him. Mom doesn't want us to. Why do you think she hid all those pictures?"
Taylor: "They're in a box."
Noel:    "What are?"
Taylor: "The pictures. They're hidden in a box."
Noel:    "What?"
Taylor: "Yeah, they're in the basement, hidden in a box."
Noel:    "Ok, how do you know this and why haven't you mentioned it to me before?"
Taylor: "Ok, a couple of months ago, Mom was doing laundry and I heard her crying, so I went down to see what was wrong and I saw her kneeling down over a box of pictures."
This back and forth actually goes on for much longer, but I'll save you the tedium. The discussion is finally (temporarily) brought to a close when Noel's boyfriend, Steve (Anthony Campanello), stumbles into the scene saying "Hey Hon, it's a bit nippy outside, think I can get the car keys?" Yep, just call him Macho McStudd. Waitin' in the car. With the heater on.

Now that Devin is on the loose, it's time for shit to go down, right? I mean, we are at the 30 minute mark and we have had nothing but trivial conversations, so now shit's gotta get real! Eeh, sort of. The sisters are producing a Nativity play and have sagely procured the help of a couple of pot-smoking douchebags who engage in juvenile trash-talk while smoking a joint. Well, one guy smokes a joint and will only let the other guy have one hit. Is this what the youth of today has come to? Selfish bastards who bogart joints? Man, these assholes deserve to die. And fortunately for the viewer, they do. Unfortunately it's a quick throat-slashing with that damn toy knife by someone in some sort of red and white mask and a hoodie. Uhhh... ok, I guess that is supposed to be Devin. We don't even get a shot of a hand stealing a mask from a Halloween sho... oh yeah, I forgot, totally different holiday.

And we're back to more conversations. The sisters have been digging through The Box and having the same flashbacks to the same flashbacks of opening presents on Christmas. This leads to Mom catching them in the act and flipping out and screaming "how could you do this to me?!" while calling them horrible children who don't appreciate her and that they have now ruined Christmas. I'd like to thank the filmmakers for making me feel right at home with this true-to-life scene. Wait, I don't think "thank" is the word I was looking for.

While the girls chat over coffee (kill me now), Mom is down at the hospital reading the riot act to the staff and police detectives who have been assigned to the case. Since he only escaped a mere 12 hours ago, it makes sense that they should get some plainclothes detectives on the case to look for him there inside the hospital building. "It's a big building" they say. Mom continues to yell, they continue to tell her everything is fine and this seemingly never, ever ends. You could easily get off the sofa, grab a beer, take a piss, make a sandwich, check your email, sit back down and not miss a damn thing. Not that I did any of that. I take this job very seriously. I'm sure the screenwriters (yes there are three of them), Jeremiah Campbell, Novin Shakiba, and David S. Sterling, thought they were very clever when they have Mom give them the detectives the burning line "you better pray that he's still in this building, because horror awaits us all, if he's not." Did you get goosebumps, too? Ugh.

At nearly the hour mark, we get to witness the Christmas play we've heard so much (so much) about, as our smarmy detective Huges (Eric Fischer) is given orders by Mom, who aparently out-ranks the Police Chief, to go to the play to keep an eye on her daughters, presumably even though they are terrible kids and have ruined Christmas. The playhouse, not even packed to the 12 person capacity, has plenty of room for Huges, who sits and watches the play, in which no-one seems to notice that the douchebag stoner leads are absent without leave. Finally the play ends and we are in the home stretch. "Wait," I hear you say, "where's the horror in this horror movie?" Well, uhhhh, after the play, Steve decides to clean up by himself so he can let the sisters go home and celebrate Christmas. Steve's lack of testicular ornaments under his Christmas tree is pretty horrifying, I guess. Presumably, the intended horror is our masked killer stabbing Steve in the head (with that damn toy knife) before he manages to get the place cleaned up. Oh gosh, what will the girls think of him? Yeah, I'm fucking riveted to my seat.

Things finally draw to a close (spoiler alert for anyone who is desperate for a nap on the sofa and plans on watching this mess) when Mom has the girls and the detective meet her at the playhouse because... uh, reasons. Of course the stage is set up with the corpses of the victims set up like The Last Supper, but really only reminds viewers of many far better movies, and we get... more conversations. And then we find out that, surprise!, the twist we could see coming from the beginning of the movie (just over 60 minutes ago), is that Mom is actually the killer and she has been blaming the murder on Devin since day one and Devin gets to have a big, emotional, surprisingly articulate speech for someone who has been in a mental institution and hasn't spoken a word in fifteen years! Seriously, if you are going to advertise, and actually star, everyone's favorite homicidal chick-with-a-dick (spoiler?) slasher star Fellisa Rose, how is nobody going to see this coming? Uhhh... no pun intended.

While nobody is turning in any sort of noteworthy performance, at least Rose appears to be giving it her all. While famous, or infamous, for her role in SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983), Rose wasn't in a feature (and I use the term loosely) again until 2003's Andreas Schnaas helmed disappointment NIKOS THE IMPALER. Since then she has been a mainstay in no-budget, shot-on-video outings in which she easily outshines her co-stars. Maybe that's what she likes about it, or maybe it's just a way to pay the bills. Currently, according to the IMDb, Rose has no less than 25 work-in-progress budget-starved efforts that are looming on the horizon. It's a dirty job, but...

This is the second "feature" movie from director and co-writer Novin Shakiba and his last to date. He has several producer credits for other no-budget, shot on video VOD fodder, such as DAHMER VS. GACY (2010) which also features Rose in a supporting role. He shows neither aptitude nor interest in any facet of the video production, except maybe an ambition to work in daytime television as he is desperately trying wring every drop of emotion he can out of the plethora of vacuous dialogue scenes in this movie. While he seems to clearly enjoy shooting scenes of people talking about their feelings, the scenes are laughable at best, or at least they would be, if they weren't so boring. Probably the best scene that sums up the movie is when the sisters were having yet another heart-to-heart talk and one says "you have to dispel the anguish from your heart!" At which point we cut to a slow-motion flashback of the kids opening Christmas presents. Anguish, I tell ya! The only anguish here is suffering through all of the banal padding in this Christmas turkey.

Read More

December to Dismember: BIKINI BLOODBATH CHRISTMAS (2009)

Oh come all ye faithful! Greetings and welcome to our annual “December to Dismember” event, where we chronicle the good, the bad, and the ugly of holiday horrors. Hard to believe it but this is our 7th year doing these and, as expected, things are getting pretty bleak. How bleak? No one has released a KRAMPUS film this year for Tom to devour! And Uncork’d didn’t put out a new THE ELF sequel. Yes, filmmakers got so tired of us ripping apart their dreadful opuses (dopsuses?) that they stopped making them! Initially we thought we wouldn’t have enough movies to fill out the month, but we soon found the further we went into the mine that there was still some cinematic coal to be unearthed. Up first is the deliciously titled BIKINI BLOODBATH CHRISTMAS. Damn, this coal mine canary is feeling faint already.

Right off the bat I was put into a compromising position as I didn’t realize this film was the third and final part of a series. Rather that cinemasochistically extend myself, I opted to read a couple reviews and watch the trailers of the earlier BIKINI BLOODBATH (2006) and BIKINI BLOODBATH CAR WASH (2008) to bring me up to speed. Thankfully, CHRISTMAS also has lead character Jenny (Rachael Robbins) give a brief sum up with flashback footage to her friends. Seems in the first one lesbian high school gym teacher Miss Johnson (Debbie Rochon) invited Jenny and her friends to a party and a catering chef went nuts and started slaughtering folks. The sequel had the girls in college and working at a bikini car wash. Trouble rears its head again when they have a slumber party and resurrect Chef Death during a seance. Hey, Tom, you doing hazard pay on this research stuff?

Onto part three, which opens with Miss Johnson comatose in the hospital. Damn, you know something is wrong with your film when Rochon opts to sit this one out (more on that later). Bummed by a comatose coach, Jenny and her friends, Sapphire and Sharon, head to the local cemetery (amusingly, the directors put the text “Cemetery” on the screen when they arrive) to deal with a rival female gang led by William Dafoe (Margaret Rose Champagne). They dare Jenny to touch Chef Death’s grave and, sure enough, he is resurrected and looking for more females to flambé. Of course, resurrecting your long-dead tormentor takes a back seat to the world’s greatest horror - work! So the next day we see Jenny and her friends working in a bong shop for Mrs. Johnson (Dick Boland), the older sister of Miss Johnson. In one of the film’s more what-the-fuckness moments, the filmmakers also introduce two characters, Prince Colwyn (co-director Thomas Edward Seymour) and Rell the Cyclops (Philip Guerette), from KRULL (1983) who are trying to sell a glaive. Man, talk about a cult movie deep cut.

Anyway, it appears the shop has a rivalry with the local deli owned by Gina Davis (Phil Hall), who showcases his animosity by bringing them literal shit sandwiches. “You actually took the time to collect shit and make sandwiches,” Mrs. Johnson asks. “Mostly on weekends,” Davis replies.  The feud centers on both having rival Santas, who wrestle in a kiddie pool for the right for Xmas lap-turf. Damn, wasn’t there a slasher around? Oh yeah, Chef Death shows up and kills one of the girls in the bathroom. Poor actress Monique Dupree doesn’t even get her character introduced or a name before her death. The deli’s Santa then gets strangled with some Christmas lights in the bathroom. We quickly get our third death back at the hospital when the hospital administrator (Lloyd Kaufman) gets set on fire and blown out the window (more on that later as well). The busy Chef o’ Death then kills the bong shop Santa in his home with a hammer. Zombie Chef then steals the Santa suit, making him now Zombie Santa Chef Death. Naturally, all things lead to a party as Jenny and her friends go to a Christmas party held by Mrs. Johnson, whose idea of fun is bathing “her” feet in some eggnog. Things get tense when William Dafoe, Gina Davis and their underlings crash the party hoping to score with the nubile girls (“Nog and laid, my friends. Nog and laid!”). Also crashing the party is Chef Death, who at this point might be the most likeable character, and he starts offing people in various ways.

Damn, you know what, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Then again, my opinion was heavily (I mean heaaaavily) influenced by the fact this only runs 56 minutes with the end credits starting around the 48 minute mark. (Note: There is a longer version as the DVD and IMDb list a 71 minute running time; I found it streaming online and it looks like TubiTV omitted like the first ten minutes, maybe due to a Jesus blowjob gag.) The film is the work of writer-directors Jonathan Gorman and Thomas Edward Seymour, who are obviously heavily influenced by the work of Troma. This is evidenced by the roles by Kaufman and Rochon, as well as a scattering of scatologial humor. Yes, we get lots of poop and fart bits. And I’m talking graphic poop bits. If that works for you, have at it. It didn’t for me. What did work were some of the other comedy bits. And, heavens me, they were intentional comedy bits. Yes, there are actually funny lines, like when Jenny does her flashback talk and says, “It all started when I was a senior in high school. Before I was blonde and fully developed.” to explain why a different actress is playing the character. I also laughed a recurring joke about everyone calling the slim Sharon fat. Of course, with such zany material, you have to have a cast goofy enough to pull it all off. Amazingly, all of the thespians get the tone right. My personal faves were Margaret Rose Champagne doing hilarious over-the-top French accent as William Dafoe, Sarah Dauber as the airhead Sapphire, and Dick Boland as the bitchy Mrs. Johnson.

Of course, it isn’t smooth sailing as the thing is a mess in terms of unfolding the story. For example, in the end it is revealed that the killer Zombie Santa Chef is actually -- HUGE SPOILER SO STOP READING IF YOU ARE CRAZY ENOUGH TO WANT TO SEE THIS FILM -- Debbie Rochon’s Miss Johnson character. Yes, she showed up for a second scene! It is an ingenious twist that I’m sure fans of the series loved. But it also creates a mess. You see, Kaufman’s hospital character is the third person killed, presumably during Johnson’s hospital escape. Yet we’ve already been shown the Chef being resurrected in the graveyard and having killed several people. It don’t make no damn sense, but then again neither does searching for continuity in a movie called BIKINI BLOODBATH CHRISTMAS.

As far as the Christmas element goes, Gorman and Seymour (sounds like a law firm) could have done better. If you’re going to do a Xmas themed horror film, we need you to work in some Xmas themed deaths and a bit of that ol’ Christmas spirit. Instead we get some Santa hats, plus some tinsel and decorations here and there. Hell, we don’t even get a Christmas tree. And heaven forbid we get some Christmas themed death scenes. You telling me you guys never thought of impaling someone with a giant candy cane? You know they thought of doing it to someone’s ass. You know you did! And in perhaps the most shocking omission, only one character in the new footage gets topless. That is rather sinful, especially given the porn looking DVD cover. That is where the film is lacking. Regardless, I wasn’t bored. Again, I must stress my enjoyment came because of the short running time and some of the odd humor. As a bad movie watching professional, I can say that this kind of film should only be tackled when you’ve spent four decades wasting your life like I hav...uh, like some people have. Anyway, I'll save you time and give you an early Xmas present with the film's best moment.

Read More

Halloween Havoc: WISHMASTER: THE PROPHECY FULFILLED (2002)

A.k.a. Djinn Blanding Builds His Dream House.

After the insufferably dull and clumsy BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL (in which no gates, hells or beyonds are featured), where could director editor turned director Chris Angel and his producers of piffle, Gary Howsam and Gilles Paquin, possibly go? How do you one up a movie in which there is no charisma, effects that aren't special, a title that lies and a plot that sort of just meanders to an end credit roll? Answer: You don't. The path of least resistance is down.

Young couple Sam (Jason Thompson) and Lisa (Tara Spencer-Nairn) videotape themselves (Y2K bitches!) arriving at their newly purchased house on a motorcycle. Obviously we are supposed to think they are cool because if the video camera and motorcycle weren't enough, Sam wears a leather jacket and enthusiastically knocks down the "sold" sign on the front lawn. He's a rebel man, he ain't taking no shit from no damn sign! This, in what has become a hallmark for the series, is accompanied by yet another wretched Y2K  pop song. Imagine Smash Mouth meets Love & Rockets. Kill me now.

Since we are clearly on the path of hitting all the cliches, as soon as Sam carries Lisa over the threshold (though they are not married - they are too hip for that square stuff!), they run upstairs and we get a rather long soft-core sex scene followed by Sam showing his sensitive artistic side by sketching Lisa in the nude with charcoal. Well, actually Lisa is primly covered by a sheet, but Sam, like all straight guys, sketches her naked anyway.

Flash forward three years and we get a bizarrely complicated set-up which is told in multiple flashbacks that don't actually tell the audience anything. At first I thought it was the screenwriter trying to be clever and letting the plot unfold as the audience discovers the story, then I realized that theory was complete bullshit and the production is simply a mess. The simple explanation of the exposition is that Sam was in a terrible motorcycle accident that has left him paralyzed from the waist down and extremely bitter. As you would expect, he hates Lisa for sticking by him though these rough times and spends his days drinking straight from the bottle (though always clear-eyed and articulate), looking at pictures of chick's butts on that "internets" thing and complaining about his non-existent sex life. So he's a lot of fun.

Lisa when not being ridiculously sympathetic and caring, is driving around in her Bronco II trying to get a lawsuit against a motorcycle parts manufacturer squared away with her fratboy lawyer Steve (Michael Trucco). Steve, because he is a conscientious professional, is less interested in the settlement than he is putting the moves on the fragile, under-sexed Lisa. To this end, he shows her his affection by presenting her with what appears to be an antique silver box that he found on-line (Y2K bitches!). Doubling down on his lack of skill with the ladies, Steve uses this as an opening to go in for a kiss. The box hits the floor, breaks open and inside is the all-too familiar opal of doom. Rejecting his advances, and the box, after getting a flash vision of the Djinn, Lisa splits and Steve tosses the stone into his safe. Which burns through the bottom, for no apparent reason.

Now that the stone has burned through the bottom of the safe, the Djinn is free to hide in Steve's closet and offer him a wish. Seriously. Uhhh, yeah, maybe it is a metaphor, but I have no idea either. Steve, being the complete dumbass that he is, has a full conversation with the weird dude that is hiding in his closet and wishes that the guy would stop talking in riddles. This wish is granted, and for the sake of those that did not know that there were three other films in the series, the Djinn explains who he is and what he does. He then *ahem* comes out of the closet, steals Steve's face, gets another nice black suit, and sets off to find Lisa to get her to make three wishes so that we can finally see what lies Beyond the Gates of Hell. Oh, we should be so lucky.

At this point you might think "hey, this film is fiiiiiinally going to go somewhere" and you are half right. It does go somewhere, but it's not up and it's in no hurry. Steve the Djinn grants Lisa's first wish to win the lawsuit and does so by having the opposing lawyer pull out his tongue, cut off his nose and shoot himself in the head after signing the paperwork. Because this clearly does not paint the Djinn as a villain in broad enough strokes, he is then shown going over to Lisa and Sam's house, taking a bite out of an apple and then casually tossing it back in the fruitbowl! Eeeeeevil, I tells ya!

Steve and Lisa have dinner at a nice restaurant and Steve manages to get another wish out of her. She wishes that Sam could walk. Done! At the same time, a couple at another table are passionately kissing, so naturally the pretty waitress says "I wish someone would kiss me like that!" to which Steve says "Oh, they will!" Cue a bunch of random customers who swarm all over her with full tongue kisses. If you thought Steve was a crappy lawyer before, this clinches it. Any ambulance chaser worth his salt would have at least handed her a card after witnessing literally a dozen sexual harassment cases.

Finally we get the third wish which brings us that much closer to the end credits and another terrible Y2K pop song. As Steve is again trying to put the moves in Lisa, she says "I wish I could just love you for who you are." Brother if I had a nickel for every time I got that old line, I could hire someone to watch this dreck for me. This bizarre wish confuses the Djinn (and the audience). In order to clear this up, he has a conference call with his fellow Djinnobites who appear in flames and loudly complain. When they ask him why he hasn't granted the wish, he says "human love must be given freely, or it isn't love, it's a trap." Oh for fuck sake. First of all, this is just dumb, second of all, that is what djinns do! They lead people into traps with their wishes! This idiotic turn of events leads Steve on a quest to find out how to make Lisa fall in love with him. Man, even Lifetime would hesitate to go with something this lamely saccharine. His best advice is from Lisa's astrologist friend who simply says "wine, roses and killer sex" before wishing for "killer sex" for herself and ending up apparently dying of an orgasm while sliding up a wall. His other bit of advice is at a strip club, and is "a fat wallet and a fat dick". So, while desperately trying to be a romantic love-story (including some painfully ham-fisted "beauty and beast" dialogue), screenwriter John Benjamin Martin does a nice job of reducing a complicated human emotion to just material goods and primal urges. Love lifts us up, indeed.

In addition to the non-stop and tedious romantic overtures, there are a couple of throwaway wish grantings. The most shockingly dull of which is when Steve is at a strip club and the bartender says that he would sell his soul to be a pimple on the ass of an allegedly hot stripper. You would think that this groan-inducing set-up would pay off with a Freddy-esque shot of the bartender's face made up as a pimple on the stripper's ass, with him screaming "noooooo!" or whatever. Yeah, that doesn't happen. He simply vanishes from behind the bar and we get Steve quipping "enjoy the view... brotha" and a shot of the shocked cocktail waitress wondering where he went. I can only assume that there was supposed to be an effects shot insert there that the producers couldn't or wouldn't pay for and no one could be bothered enough to cut the scene from the movie.

As if this inanity wasn't enough, late in the game Martin decides to throw in a dime-store Adrian Paul HIGHLANDER (1992-1998) type (Victor Webster), as the "Hunter". A black trench-coat wearing, sword-wielding prettyboy who must kill the "Wisher" (Lisa) in order to prevent the title from actually having to be shown (again). Sure, he has a sword that is the only thing that can actually kill the Djinn, but that's like hard and stuff. It's much easier just to kill some girl, I guess. Oh, and why not kill her employee who works in her boutique clothing store too? Yeah, I don't know why, the Hunter just seemed to be annoyed by her and chops off her head. Hooray for the good guy? The final show-down in which Steve and the Hunter face off on a roadside with a sword and tree branch (I'm not making that up) does finally explain why Lisa was driving a Bronco II, though. It's because the producers didn't want to pay for a decent car to unspectacularly wreck. Instead of some incendiary airborne SUV mayhem, the car catches some air over a hill and then just sort of flips for no reason and stops. Do you hear that sound? It is Spiro Razatos weeping.

I guess having two reasonably entertaining movies out of four is a pretty impressive ratio for us, but damn, I don't think I have ever seen a series drop off so sharply before. Even the HELLRAISER series had a reasonably consistent downward gradient. Interestingly (or not), the HELLRAISER movies evolved into simply re branding existing screenplays with some HELLRAISER imagery. Here it seems like someone wrote a HELLRAISER script that was re-branded as a WISHMASTER sequel. In addition to the Cenobite-esque Djinns that occasionally pop up like a Greek chorus, we have numerous lines where someone says "oh my god" and the Djinn replies with stuff like "God was not invited!" We also have another box, but unlike part 3, the production couldn't be bothered to make it a puzzle box this time. "Fuckit, it's just a box". Additionally, like HELLRAISER (1987) the story centers around a girl who is trying to avoid the advances of a creature disguised as a human, in a house that is demolishing itself at the end of the film. You can practically see the producers pointing at a HELLRAISER video box and saying "we want one of those!" and then cutting the screenwriter a check for $20.

I can't figure out whether this is better or worse than the last entry. Both are miserably unfun, but this is essentially a bad romantic drama with absurd amounts of padding that make the 90 minute running time feel like an eternity of damnation. Admittedly TV bit actor Michael Trucco is not nearly as bland as Jason Connery, but that's not really saying much as Connery played the part as if his father's disappointment was literally hanging over his head. As dull as the characters are, they at least aren't as annoying as the college kids in part 3. Also, Tara Spencer-Nairn's topless scenes certainly help add a little entertainment value. Hey, there's nothing wrong with cheap titillation when you're slogging through something that is slightly more fun than an ER waiting room.

Chris Angel has had a pretty solid career editing supplemental material for DVDs, but that experience does not a director make. There are a lot of close up shots that are edited back and forth, in much the same way you would have an interview with talking heads. Even during the dreary fight sequence between the Djinn and the Hunter, Angel shoots one participant at a time with the other cropped off the screen and simply edits back and forth between the two. The soft-core sex scenes that he enjoys so much are in no way exciting and there are so many scenes of disembodied heads speaking quasi-romantic lines to someone off camera that it often feels like a daytime soap opera. There are a couple of decent gore scenes, but the Djinn looks ridiculous and there is what is unquestionably the worst illusion of someone getting thrown across an alley, but is clearly being slowly carried around on wires. The worst part is that after watching this, I wished to see something different and ended up watching a movie that I have meant to get around to for decades, THE DEATHHEAD VIRGIN (1974). It's loaded with filler, has a lame demonic villain, barely any effects and the most memorable part was a couple shots of nudity. Nearly 40 years apart and I got the same damn thing! Man, that djinn is a dick.

Read More

Halloween Havoc: WISHMASTER 3: BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL (2001)

Damn, the Video Gods must have felt sorry for us as we’ve been getting off relatively easy with the WISHMASTER franchise. The first one is a perfectly acceptable time killer with enough FX gags and horror icon cameos to keep us interested. The second entry, while flawed, kept things entertaining enough with more latex slinging and some great unintentional comedy. Are we actually going to get through four films without experiencing any viewing pain? “Not so fast,” says WISHMASTER 3 & 4 director Chris Angel.

The third and fourth WISHMASTER films arrived during the direct-to-video horror flood of the early 2000s. A luxury born in the 1980s, the direct-to-video sequel programming exploded in the 1990s thanks to the efforts of guys like Charles Band (Full Moon Entertainment) and the Weinsteins (Dimension Films). It seemed like you couldn’t go a weekend with a new HELLRAISER or CHILDREN OF THE CORN popping up on the shelf. By the new millennium, things went into overdrive and seemingly any theatrical vehicle that had done decent on video got a makeshift sequel. From 2000 to 2005, viewers got (takes a deep breath) THE PROPHECY III (2000), THE PROPHECY: UPRISING (2005), THE PROPHECY: FORSAKEN (2005), LEPRECHAUN 5: IN THE HOOD (2000), LEPRECHAUN 6: BACK 2 THA HOOD (2003), MIMIC 2 (2001), MIMIC 3 (2003), DRACULA II (2003), DRACULA III (2005), THE CROW III (2005), VAMPIRES: LOS MUERTOS (2002), VAMPIREs: THE TURNING (2005),...(takes another deep breath)...SNIPER 2 (2002), SNIPER 3 (2004), TIMECOP 2 (2003), THE HITCHER II (2003), SLAP SHOT 2 (2002), TREMORS 3 (2001), TREMORS 4 (2005), THE SKULLS II (2002), and STARSHIP TROOPERS 2 (2004). Hell, we even got a sequel to 8MM (1999), which I’m still pissed they didn’t call 16MM. So, of course, we got two WISHMASTER sequels. How could we not?

Prophetically, WISHMASTER 3 opens with a car wreck. Troubled college student Diana Collins (A.J. Cook) is having nightmares about when her parents died in a car crash. She was the lone survivor and now blames herself. Damn, I wonder if one of her wishes will involve trying to ease this pain and bring her parents back? NOPE! I’m getting ahead of myself, but let’s just say this WISHMASTER doesn’t play by any rules. Back to the story, Diana is a history major at Baxter College and serious about her boyfriend Greg (Tobias Mehler). How serious? Early on we get this amazingly realistic dialogue when she sees him talking to mean girl Elinor (Emmanuelle Vaugier). This is literally the first things these characters say to each other.

Elinor: “You know, Diana, you should be careful. Boys who don’t get the attention they need tend to look elsewhere for it.”
Diana:  “I’m not too worried. When you’re this good they never wander.”

No joke, the filmmakers found this exchange so important that it is included in its entirety in the film’s trailer.

Part of her college duties involve helping Professor Barash (Jason “Yes, Sean’s my father” Connery), who is preparing for an upcoming Persian artifact exhibit. While looking over the inventory, Diana spots the Lament Configuration...er, a puzzle box that houses the fire opal the djinn is imprisoned in. Now how the gem arrived here after the events of part 2 is never touched upon. Like I said, there are no rules with this one and certainly no series plotline continuity. Damn, we didn’t know how good we had it with the first two. Naturally, Diana rubs the gem and the djinn (John Novak) magically appears. Just kidding. He shows up after she has left (is there a delay in genie summoning technology?) and confronts the professor. The professor makes his wish and asks to be given all of the world’s knowledge to make himself the smartest man on earth. Haha, just kidding, he asks for two beautiful women and they pop their tops before ripping him to pieces. The djinn steals his face and now we get evil Barash. How do we know he is evil? He wears a dark suit! To quote the Men’s Wearhouse founder, “You’re gonna like the way you look...EEEEVIL! I guarantee it!”

Per the law of the series, Diana sees flashes of this murder but she really has more important things going on in her life, like her relationship with Greg. Here is another totally realistic dialogue bit that we get complete with sad piano music playing.

Diana: “Do you love me?”
Greg: “Actually, that is what I came to ask you.”

Love, however, is the least of her problems because Barash is now on the hunt for the person who released him so he can grant her three wishes. Being totally acquainted with 20th century collegiate life, he immediately heads to the admin building to look up her address in her student file. Unfortunately, standing in his way is a rather dutiful secretary who is filing away late at night. She gets burnt to a crisp after wishing all the files would just burn up. Wait...the djinn just ruined his chance of finding Diana. DOH! No worries, as he has her in his class the next day. But Diana misses the class because she has been researching djinn myths all night and overslept. She then tries to convince Greg and her two friends, Katie (Louisette Geiss) and Billy (Aaron Smolinski), that the djinn is real and hunting her down, although he isn’t very good at it. Finally at the 45 minute mark our villain decides to ask for her dorm room address.

Okay, so far, so bland. But things are about to pick up in the worst possible way. Chased by the djinn, Diana and Greg escape her dorm room and head for the campus church. Unfortunately, Barash is already there (yes, he couldn’t locate her before, but now can magically appear where she is). He displays his abracadabra powers by making one of Diana’s friends dehydrated because she wished to “lose a little weight.” Diana blows through her first wish by wishing for the girl’s pain to end. Realizing she has to up her wishful thinking, Diana quickly does her second wish by - wait for it - summoning the spirit of the archangel Michael to help fight the demon. Goddamn, you went from zero to a hundred real quick, girl! Sure enough, a blue light zaps through a stained glass window and starts to enter her body. However, Greg apparently is really possessive of his girlfriend as he pushes her out of the way and the spirit enters his body. Nobody is going to touch my girl, angelic spirit or not! Apparently angels are badasses who can make swords magically appear in their hand at will. The duo stop the djinn for a bit and split. With two wishes down, Greg/Michael informs her that he carries the Sword of Justice (isn’t that a Don “The Dragon” Wilson movie?), which she can use to defeat the djinn. The bad news is that the djinn is hellbent on unleashing his demonic family and starts torturing Diana’s friends to get her to comply.

Jeez, where to begin on WISHMASTER 3? I think I can speak for the entire world when discussing the first two films that no one uttered, “You know, these films are too exciting. They should cut down on the FX gags and include more fantasy elements while upping the romance factor.” Well, no one except the folks who produced this monstrosity. What the hell were they thinking? You have a new, semi-successful horror franchise with an actor fans seem to like. “Yeah, we’re scrapping all that,” say the producers. (Amusingly, previous djinn Andrew Divoff revealed in 2017 he had even done a treatment for part 3.) The only returning element from part 2 is the participation of SOTA FX and even they don’t get much to do. Instead we get what is a by-the-numbers college slasher with the djinn in the role of the killer. The injection of the fantasy element would be appreciated if they actually did something cool with it. Nope! We just Greg changing his eye color and being dubbed with a deeper voice (that makes Michael the angel sound like a dumb jock). It is like the filmmakers just binged a bunch of HIGHLANDER and THE PROPHECY movies one weekend and said, “Yeah, we got this.” And by “got this,” I mean to be presented as blandly as possible by director Chris Angel (not to be confused with magician Criss Angel, although I wish it was him because he might disappear).

Here is the craziest thing about this whole thing - imagination is free. No, seriously, you can imagine anything you want and the only thing limiting you might be time and money. So it is stunning that director Angel and screenwriter Alexander Wright didn’t sit down one night to brainstorm over some pizza and beer to come up with the wildest wishes they could think of. Nope, no creativity will be accepted here! When the djinn confronts Billy for his wish, he says, "Blow me." And then he blows Billy across the room so he is impaled on a mask. Damn, I bet Angel and Wright high fived after coming up with that one. Hell, they give up and don’t even have Diana use her third wish in the final showdown. Her plan to outsmart the djinn is to jump off the room and kill herself. I can relate. And the wishes barely make any sense. A perfect example of the worst wishes is when the djinn corners Katie hiding in a science lab. She wishes she has someplace to hide and he says her wish is granted. Then her head is stuck in a cage full of lab rats that gnaw off her eyes and lips. WHAT? That doesn’t even make any sense. She seriously needs to call the djinn customer service line because this dude ain’t delivering. Hell, even the title BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL doesn’t make a lick of sense. You have to wonder how the hell this kind of bland stuff gets greenlit. Well, you will find out if you watch the trailer:

Yep, it was part of the Canadian tax shelter movie credit that was so popular at the time. Just another product to get money out of the paws of unsuspected Blockbuster renters back in the day. Well, and dumbasses like me who decided to marathon this series. Please send your best wishes! Honestly, the only enjoyment I got from this sequel was a song played midway though. It is a wannabe Smash Mouth sounding song called “Shoe Box Blues” and is a stark reminder of how awful late ‘90s rock was at the time. Sample lyrics: “I was born in a shoebox, living in a shoe, by the time I was five I was moved outside…” Yeah, that's all I got. Damn...

Read More