Mega Shark VS Mecha Shark (2014) Review

SPOILER ALERT: A MEGA SHARK AND A MECHA SHARK JUST KINDA SWIM AROUND IN THIS MOVIE AND THAT'S ABOUT ALL THAT HAPPENS. NO, REALLY.

So you guys know how much I love giant monster films. Especially giant monster films that feature one giant monster fighting another giant monster. They're usually harmless, "so bad it's good" movies that are perfect for getting a bunch of friends together for a good laugh. However, Mega Shark Vs Mecha Shark is not like the other movies in this category in the fact that instead of being "so bad it's good", it's just plain bad. 

When will my reflection show who I am inside?

I watched this movie with friends expecting a ridiculously absurd crapfest, but in a good way. What I got was an hour and ten minutes of boredom. Nothing happens at all in this film. It's obviously about a giant shark and a giant robot shark built to kill the aforementioned giant shark. However, until the last 15 minutes of the film, the two almost never come into contact with each other, except for the one time when they both jump out of the water and collide in midair in front of an airplane for the trailer shot. 

Exhilarating....

For a movie called Mega Shark Vs Mecha Shark, the mega shark and mecha shark don't do a lot of fighting. More like Mecha Shark VS My Attention Span, amirite? Anyway, the gist of the plot is that the mecha shark has an AI inside of it and the AI eventually goes haywire and completely ignores the mega shark it was created to destroy and goes on a rampage through the town. And here's where the only redeeming quality of this movie comes in: 

THE MECHA SHARK TRANSFORMS INTO A TANK

Complete with missiles, a set of metal teeth, and a desire to kill everything, the mecha shark tank makes its way through the town before one of the main characters an heros himself by jumping inside of the mecha shark's mouth to shut it down from the inside. Also, this little girl named Tracy always seems to get in the way of everything while this is going on and almost dies like fifty times because she's dumb and stands in front of a giant mecha shark tank as it's rolling right towards her. 

Freaking Tracy........

Anyhow, all in all, this movie is a huge disappointment. Being a "VS" movie and all, you expect some exciting fights between two giant monsters, but no, instead we get an interracial couple researching sharks and talking about how they're probably gonna have a kid after this is all over or something like that, I don't know, I was so bored watching this. Being an Asylum movie, you can expect the shots to be kinda decent, but everything else crappy. And it is. Oh boy, it all is. If you're like me and want to watch a fun "so bad it's good" monster movie, just take the safe bet and go with something from the Maneater Series instead of this drek. Mega Shark VS Mecha Shark gets 3 giant mecha shark tanks out of 10. I was gonna give it a 1, but that shark tank is too awesome to warrant that kind of score. Best avoid this one like the plague. 

The Babadook (2014) Review

Man, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've been out of commission for some time and that's not good. I felt like writing a review today, so let's get into it with one of the most confusing movies of 2014 (at least for me), The Babadook.

MANY SPOILERS AWAIT. TURN BACK NOW.

I was really excited for this movie when I heard about it. It was praised by critics and I had heard that it was a breath of fresh air to the modern horror genre; no cheap jump scares, no awfully written characters, and a real plot. I was stoked! 

For the most part, this movie is exactly what most critics say it is: a near perfect horror film. The first two thirds of this movie are incredible and I was terrified of it. It's hard to make a movie that actually scares me; like really scares me. I had trouble sleeping after watching this movie. It was scary enough to revert me back to a child-like state of hiding and whimpering under the covers. And then the last third of the movie comes and screws it all up. How? Well, I'll explain that a little later. Let's start with the plot.

A single mother is having a hard time keeping her rowdy 6-year-old son under control. No matter what she does, he always seems to get himself into trouble and he refuses to obey her at all. He's constantly making dangerous makeshift weaponry to fight against pretend monsters. It's especially hard for the mother because her husband and father of the son was killed in a car crash while he was on the way to the hospital when she was giving birth. So this single mother has to live her life constantly juggling the responsibility of caring for her out of control son and the grief of losing her husband. 

Those Aussies sure know how to bring the feels.

Anyway, one day, the mother finds a strange childrens book on her porch. The book is called The Babadook (bonus points for proper MLA format, underlining a book title, suck it English professor) and she decides that instead of throwing this strange item that she's never seen before away like any reasonable person would do, she's gonna take the book inside and read it to her son. At first it seems pretty normal, talking about an invisible friend called The Babadook that is friendly towards kids and plays with them, making his presence known by making three knocks. Then, it gets a little more serious, saying that if you find The Babadook, it'll kill you and make you never sleep again. 

Still, not the worst childrens horror book I've ever seen

Obviously, this scares the everloving piss out of the kid and the mother proceeds to throw the book out. Over the course of the next week or so, the child constantly talks about The Babadook and how it's gonna get him. This is accompanied by creepy knocking noises in the house, hallucinations, and a general fear of what's gonna happen next by the mother. The mother always tells the son that it's just a book and nothing's gonna happen, but then afterwards, something happens like her seeing the monster from the book or seeing a hallucination of her dead husband and becoming happy again, only to get scared again when that hallucination turns into the monster. Spooky stuff. By the way, through the whole movie, we're told of The Babadook, this incredibly scary creature that comes into your house and kills you. So what does this terrifying monster look like? 

The little kid from The Grudge all grown up in a top hat with Wolverine claws....

Anyway, the mother then proceeds to burn the book, which she thinks will stop all this madness. It doesn't. The book rematerializes itself and adds another page, which says that it's angry now and it's gonna get revenge for the mother trying to get rid of it. Here's where the movie, which was near perfect up to this point, takes a turn for the absolute worst. Let's take a little quiz: which type of horror movie do I hate the most? If your answer was generic demon possession movie, the congratulations, a winner is you! That's right folks, the last third of this movie is a generic demon possession movie! The Babadook makes its way into the mother's body and possesses her, making her do awful things like trying to kill her son and actually killing their pet dog :'(

This climax is just the son running away from the possessed mother until the Babadook decides to let her go and take it's true form: some giant dragon thing maybe? You can't tell because it's just a silhouette, but it's definitely big and kind of looks like a dragon. The mother and son cower in the corner as the dragon shadow moves towards them, making stock dragon roaring sound effects in the process. Then the mother screams at it to get away from them and......it does. That's it. That's the dramatic confrontation. The dragon shadow retreats to the basement and the mother locks it up down there. The epilogue shows that instead of trying to kill it, the mother is keeping the shadow dragon locked up in the basement for some reason. It's kinda dumb.

We sure showed him! ....I guess

That's the movie. The Babadook is overall, a terrific horror film. Well shot, well acted, great plot, great atmosphere, and then it all goes to crap once the mother gets possessed. I have never in my life seen a film go from good to bad so quickly. That being said, the last third of the film isn't worst thing I've ever seen, it's just incredibly disappointing. I know it's supposed to be some deep symbolism about how the monster is an embodiment of the mother's grief for her dead husband and the guilt of not being able to control her child and her keeping it in the basement is symbolic of her finally learning to live with those emotions and blah blah blah artsy fartsy crap. It's just a bad way to end your film that was amazing from the start. 

The Babadook is an Australian made film and as such, all the actors have Australian accents. However, that isn't a bother because of how incredibly well-acted this movie is. Seriously, the main actress gives an Oscar-worthy performance here. It's really a sight to behold. Plus, the child actor, while annoying sometimes, is one of the best child actors I've ever seen. He really knows how to bring a scene together. On top of the amazing acting, the direction of this movie is off the charts. The scary scenes stick with you because they're executed so well with the lighting and the music and it's all so good. Even the scenes that aren't supposed to be scary are well-shot. 

All in all, The Babadook was a really good horror flick that breathed new life into the modern horror genre for me. It's just a shame that the climax was as disappointing as it was. That being said, the climax doesn't ruin the entire movie; it's just a major hiccup in an otherwise spectacular film. Don't let me telling you that it was disappointing keep you from checking this movie out, because it's definitely a good movie and I highly recommend it. I give The Babadook 9 spooky shadow dragons out of 10. Definitely check it out if you haven't already! 

By the way, I'm trying to get back into the swing of reviewing. It's gonna happen slowly, but rest assured, it will happen. I might not crank out reviews at the rate I was like 5 months ago, but I'll still be trying my best to write more reviews. Thanks for all of your support! 

Blood Lake: Attack Of The Killer Lampreys (2014) Review

Let me preface this review by saying that as I was watching this movie, the director himself tweeted at me to personally thank me for watching his movie. Don't believe me?

THAT IS TOTALLY AWESOME! Now onto the real review!

Let me first say that this might be the only movie in existence where you can see Christopher Lloyd gets killed by a giant lamprey slithering up his butthole while he's on the toilet. That scene actually happened and it was stupendous. 

Probably hurt worse than when he saw how much money Foodfight made.

You guys know how much I love cheaply made monster movies that don't take themselves too seriously and this is one of the best! The plot is super simple: Lampreys in Lake Michigan are overpopulating and eating all the fish in the lake to extinction. This leads to them not having any more food, so they start attacking humans in order to survive. Then, a mishap at a local dam leads to the lampreys being able to make their way onto land through the local town's main water lines and the main characters are in a rush against time to wipe out the lamprey infestation before it wipes them out!

Now obviously based on the title and the fact that Christopher Lloyd dies the way he does, you can tell that this movie is definitely not intended to be taken seriously. The actors are all hammy, but not to the point where it's annoying. The only one I had a problem with was the child actor, who was ridiculously bad. Like, really really bad guys. Other than that, the actors all felt like they were enjoying themselves and having the time of their lives while filming. 

Moooom! It's raining lampreys again!

This movie feels a lot like Razortooth, another one of my favorite "intentionally bad" monster movies. And that's a really good thing, because I loved Razortooth to death. There weren't that many kills by the lampreys in this movie, but the ones that did happen were incredible. You can tell that the director was having a blast with this movie. The CGI is out of control. There's so much CGI at so many unnecessary times and I think that's hilarious. Like, why break a real window with a real brick when you can just CGI a brick through a CGI window? Windows are expensive, guys! Instead of investing in a water-proof camera, let's just CGI all the water in the underwater scenes! How about instead of putting something that vibrates in the water pipes to simulate lampreys swimming through it, we just CGI the entire water pipe? I loved it all!

There's so many stereotypical characters in this movie and I love every one. You've got the main guy who's a workaholic, his tough guy partner, the wife who is always doubting his actions, the rebellious teenage daughter, the annoying son whose only friend is a dog, the dog (which surprisingly doesn't die), the mayor of the town who just wants more power and money, the black man who is the first to die at the start of the movie, and the hot chick who tries to intrude on main guy's marriage and gets her comeuppance later on. 

I've never seen this hentai before!

Fun is the best word I'd use to describe this movie. I had a blast watching it because I knew that it wasn't trying to be taken seriously. The thing I hate the most in horror movies is a really bad movie that wants you to take it seriously instead of just taking it's stupid plot premise and having fun with it. That's why movies like Blood Lake or Razortooth are so enjoyable for me, I'm having such a good time watching it, I don't even care about how bad the plot is or how cheap the direction is. There's even a little homage to Gremlins 2 in the climax! That's awesome!

Anyway, Blood Lake: Attack Of The Killer Lampreys is a very enjoyable film for anyone who wants to just put a movie on and let their mind go for an hour and a half. I had a blast watching it and I would definitely recommend it! I give Blood Lake 7 lampreys slithering up Christopher Lloyd's butthole out of 10. Definitely check it out! 

Thir13en Ghosts (2001) Review

HUZZAH! IT'S ALMOST HALLOWEEN!

You'd think that being a horror movie reviewer, I'd be all over the place with reviews this fine October, yeah sorry about that (see previous blog post). Halloween is my favorite holiday (obviously) and nothing gets me in the Halloween spirit better than watching crappy horror movies! Now, you'd think that to honor this amazing night I'd be reviewing a Halloween themed movie such as.......Halloween. But NO! Instead of being cliche, I'm gonna review one of the first horror movies I ever saw and surprise surprise, I saw it around Halloween when I was a little kid and it scared the piss out of me. That movie is Thir13en (screw that name, I'm just using 13 for the rest of this) Ghosts!

Let's take a trip back in time to the year 2001. Little Synester is 6 years old and is no stranger to horror. I mean, we're talking about the kid who threw the biggest temper tantrum of his life because his mom wouldn't let him stay up late and watch a late-night showing of Scream on TV. Scooby Doo was my favorite show and I was obsessed with anything supernatural and spooky. Naturally, when I saw a commercial for this movie one day, I was stoked. I begged my mother to take me to go see it, even though it was rated R and I was but a measly 6 year old. Eventually, my mom gave in and we went to see it on opening night, October 26th, her birthday by the way. She tells me that she only took me with because she wanted to see the movie just as badly, though I doubt that her hype levels were even half of mine that night. How did my mom get a 6 year old into an R rated movie, you ask? That's simple: we snuck in. She bought us two tickets for a showing of the first Harry Potter movie (which I had already seen like 5 times) and then we slinked into the 13 Ghosts theater instead. So we sit down in an almost empty theater (we lived in a very small town, nobody had the time or patience to go see a crappy horror movie) and by the end of the movie, I'm shaking in my seat. This movie terrified me. How could it not? I was only 6 and this movie had scares in it meant purely for adults. But the real question is, did it hold up? Did it still haunt me for years afterwards like Gremlins did? Nope. I rewatched it multiple times since that day and each time I saw it, it only got less and less scary. I chalk that up to it being a total piece of cow dookie. That ends story time, let's get into the plot.

This is the probably the only movie you'll ever see with both Tony Shaloub (of Monk fame) and Shannon Elizabeth (of too many horror movies to count) in leading roles. The plot goes as follows: Tony Shaloub inherits a spooky mansion from his relative, which is already a huge red flag, but Monk is nearly broke, so he has no choice but to take the house, which is made entirely of glass. 

Wait a minute...

Monk's wife died in a fire a long time ago and his family needs a new house to live in, so they accept the inheritance. The person who gives them a tour of the house is a ghost hunter named Dennis, who tells them that the house is home to 12 angry ghosts locked up in the basement and the glass walls are actually magic sealing spells that hold the ghosts inside. Now, any sane person would be like, screw that I'm outta here, but this is a horror movie full of white people and we all know that white people have no common sense in these types of scenarios. Think the movie is stupid so far? Well, it's about to go off the deep end. Dennis gives the family these special glasses that let you see the ghosts while you're wearing them and for the rest of the movie, all of the actors are walking around with these retarded white goggles on their head. 

Hurrrrrr

Then the rest of the movie happens and I kid you not, literally 75% of this movie is just people splitting up and exploring the house by themselves like idiots and running into the ghosts. That's it. Now, that would be fine if any of that was scary, but no, it's all cheap jump scares and suspense-less hall wandering. The last part of the movie is when Monk finds out that the house is actually a machine built by a dead (but not really dead) ghost hunter that would let him see into the future when completed and the best part? It doesn't run on AAA batteries or solar power, but instead? Ghosts. 13 of them to be exact, and Monk is supposed to be the last one. The only problem is that Monk's heart is pure and good and the machine needs a black heart full of hatred and bad stuff to be complete. No wait, it gets better. If Monk kills himself inside of the machine, his goodie two shoes heart will destroy the machine and free all of the ghosts. I'll leave it up to you to decide what happens in the end if you haven't already seen this movie. Spoiler alert, Monk dies. 

He's not alive anymore, so he can't be OCD about how his blood splatters aren't symmetrical.

I can't believe I was ever scared of this movie. It's just a giant mess. That's what happens when you try to remake a 60's classic horror movie by William Castle and attempt to put a modern spin on it. The same thing happened with House On Haunted Hill (which I'll get to eventually, I promise, I've got plenty to say about that atrocity). The plot is utterly ridiculous, especially with those stupid glasses. I mean, what's stopping someone from just taking a giant rock and breaking one of the glass magic sealing walls and freeing all of the ghosts? The spooky mansion setting has been done a million times and making the walls glass doesn't help at all. 

The acting is alright, I guess. Tony Shaloub does okay, same with Shannon Elizabeth. The others are pretty forgettable and contribute almost nothing to the plot besides being ghost bait. 

The one good thing I have to say about this movie is that the ghosts look fantastic. They're all really creepy-looking, and since they all have distinct characteristics, it's easy to tell them apart, which is good because a lot of generic spooky ghost movies will just cram in a bunch of ghosts that all look similar. The scariest is of course, The Jackal. The makeup is on point here and it reminds me a lot of Regan from The Exorcist. 

All we need now is a crucifix and a bucket for me to puke into.

But to me, the creepiest ghost is without a doubt The Torso. You only see it once in the entire movie and all it is is just a bloody torso wrapped in plastic that slowly walks on its arms. It's extremely unnerving and I just love it. 

Looks like he won't be getting a-HEAD in life, huh?

Overall, this movie had some potential to be decent, but in the end it's just a disaster. They could have done so much more with the different ghosts, only about 6 of the 12 ghosts actually do something. The others just sit in their cells in the basement, looking menacing. It's just such a waste. I think this movie would have been much better off as maybe a web series or a tv show, just a regular length season of 13 episodes, with each episode telling a detailed story about the origins and lives of each of the ghosts. Instead, we got all of them mashed up together, fighting with each other for screen time in an hour and a half long film that nobody liked. This movie is still somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me because of the history I have with it and since I like the ghosts' designs so much, but I'm probably the only person in existence that could find anything enjoyable from this garbage. I give Thir13en (ugh) Ghosts 2 glass houses out of a possible 10. It's worth at least one viewing, at least to see those awesome ghosts, but just keep in mind that the ghosts are the only decent thing about this film.