Showing posts with label Score1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Score1. Show all posts

12.03.2012

#249 -- 13 Days of Creepmas Day 3: Christmas Season Massacre (2001)

Rating: 1 / 5
Director: Jeremy Wallace

Everyone who knows me knows that I love a good bad horror movie. But even I have to draw the line somewhere. The third day of Creepmas brings us this Christmas themed horror movie that is just plain bad. What drew me to it was the title. I thought it might be some good, silly fun. But I was wrong. The story is okay, but the movie is just downright terrible in almost every way imaginable.

It's about a guy named Tommy "Oneshoe" McGroo. Let me tell you a little something about Tommy's past, and this is the part that I think is actually good. In high school, Tommy was extremely unpopular. He was a poor kid who dressed badly and smelled funny. So all the other kids picked on him. One day, Tommy was kicked in the balls, and he had one of his shoes stolen. Since he was so poor, he wasn't able to get another shoe. Hence the nickname, "Oneshoe." Christmas wasn't far away, so he started writing letters to Santa, begging for another shoe. But, Santa's not real, of course. His parents knew he was a fan of pirates, so instead of getting a new shoe for Christmas, he got an eye patch with a bedazzled Christmas tree on it. So outraged by this terrible present, Tommy began killing people. Every Christmas after that, he celebrated by killing the classmates that humiliated him.

And that's where it stops being good. Tommy is not even the least bit frightening. He wears cut-off jeans, a wife-beater, a bandana, his eye patch, and of course, only one shoe. The movie followed a group of Tommy's classmates. They decided to hang out where they thought Tommy took his victims, wait for him, and take him out before he could kill anyone else. But the problem was that they were even stupider than Tommy. So, the Christmas massacre began.

The Good: Let's take a look at what was actually good about the movie. As I already said, I liked Tommy's back-story. It was sad, and everyone knows I love a sympathetic killer. I felt bad for the guy. Until I saw him, that is. I will also say that the gore effects were pretty damn good. Not in the "they were good for such a shitty movie," kind of way. I was genuinely impressed by them.

The Bad: Yes, those are the only good things about the movie. Now let's get to the bad. We've already established that the killer looked stupid and wasn't scary at all. The victims were a bunch of brainless idiots. They were grown ass people who acted like children, and one still even dressed like a ten year-old. There was absolutely no way to care about any of them, and I found myself wishing they'd all just die so the movie would be over with. The actors were horrible, the dialogue was awful and uninteresting. The characters' actions made no sense--like someone who can't hear a running chainsaw coming up behind them, but they can hear a twig snapping loud enough to shit their pants. Stupid. The setting of the movie also made no sense. It's supposed to be a Christmas movie, right? Well, it does take place on Christmas Even, but it's in a place called Christmastown, California. Ugh. So the sun was shining bright, the victims were hanging out at a freaking lake, riding on boats and swimming, so there was no Christmas feel to it at all. The only thing that can remotely remind you of Christmas is the jingle bells sound effect whenever Tommy struck. That's it. SPOILERS AHEAD! The ending was stupid, and it also made no sense. Everyone died, and Tommy ended up with a wife and a kid, even though he had a spike sticking out of his forehead and shouldn't have been alive at all. Sure, if he was a super-human killer like Jason or Michael, but that was never even hinted at. He was just a freak who wandered off into the woods and was never seen again. A spike to the brain should have definitely killed him. But no, he just left it in there while he was hanging out around his own Christmas tree with his new family. And why the hell would she marry a bloody man with a freaking spike in his face? Especially after he murdered her husband, and raped her to make their son...Makes no sense.

So Christmas Season Massacre is a shitty movie that makes absolutely no sense. It has very little to do with Christmas at all, and you should all steer clear of it. Day three of Creepmas turned out pretty badly for me. I hope all the rest of you are having better luck.

I'm a CREEP for The 13 Days of CREEPMAS


8.17.2012

#153 -- Pot Zombies (2005)

Director: Justin Powers
Rating: 1.5/5

Imagine this: a couple of guys stumble upon some strange marijuana in the woods. The smoke it, and then they become zombies. They infect the entire town, causing a pot-fueled zombie apocalypse. A group of friends become trapped somewhere, hunted down by stoned zombies, and have to figure out a way to overcome this obstacle. They track down a soldier and learn all the secrets behind the strange drug that was created by the government/military/whatever. The soldier helps them and they eventually are able to get rid of the zombie infestation. Sounds pretty promising, right? Could be a pretty great addition to the Troma film roster? Yeah, well, no; because that's not what happened here.

I freakin' love Troma. I cannot stress that enough. They create the most amazing b-movies, and they are very high up on the horror-comedy food chain, if you ask me. I've said many times that I believe Lloyd Kaufman is a complete genius, and I will stand firm by that belief until the day I die. Thankfully, Uncle Lloyd didn't create this shitfest himself, though he did have a short cameo. This could have been really amazing had the right person got his hands on it, and I think that Mr. Kaufman should do a re-make and let it live up to its full potential. But until then, we're stuck with this crap. It did start off with a couple of guys finding some weird pot in the woods, and I think it actually was created by the military. They did smoke it, and they did become zombies. The pot did infect the entire town, but there was no group of friends who we're able to root for; there was no soldier or anyone of the sort. There was no resolution, no hero coming to save the day and rid the town of their infestation. The problem with this one was that it completely lacked a story of any kind. We saw a bunch of different people getting infected by the tainted marijuana, but we didn't know why. We never found out where it came from (or if we did, I don't remember), why it was there, or if there was a way to get rid of it. There was nothing except a bunch of unrelated people getting infected. They never connected to each other in any way. After they filled up the time with pointless zombie infections, the movie ended. That was it. To make it even worse, the zombies were horrible. They had gray skin and green glowing eyes. Yeah, their eyes glowed. But it wasn't even cool looking, because the glowing thing was animated in. It looked stupid. The whole movie was incredibly stupid. It did have scenes with little cartoon joints dancing around and acting silly. That was the best part. It had me laughing my ass off, though that might have been because it was really late at night and lack of sleep clouded my judgement. I'm not sure. But it's pretty sad when the only slightly redeeming quality was a bunch of dancing joints.

Like I said, I love Troma. And I love bad zombie movies. But this one was too bad even for me. I do like a little bit of story to go along with my zombies, and there was absolutely none here. And I mean zilch, nada, nein. It was completely pointless, and afterwards I found myself wondering why in the hell I wasted my time and tortured myself with this shit. I was truly disappointed because when I saw the Troma logo stamped on this movie, I had high hopes. My hopes were crushed, though, and this movie was not worthy of that logo. Oh, Troma, why have you betrayed me so? Don't watch this movie. If you want to lose some brain cells, just go smoke some pot. Whatever you see in the marijuana haze will be more interesting than this crap.