Bad Reputation (2005)

Angelique Hennessy is the naïve, virginal Michelle whose attempts to socialise end with her being drugged, raped, and humiliated by her school’s beautiful people. At school the next day, the same people start a campaign to destroy Michelle’s reputation. Michelle is upset, then decides it is smarter to play along and kill those that have wronged her.

I Spit On Your Grave meets Massacre At Central High, but with less ideas, less budget (hard to believe), and less talent than either of those two films. The only good thing about this movie is the eye-catching picture on the DVD case.

Triloquist (2007)

Angeline (Paydin LoPachin) and Norbert (Rocky Marquette) are young children when they are orphaned after the death of their drug addicted, ventriloquist mother. They are not completely alone though, as their mother’s dummy, called Dummy (Bruce Weitz) is with them when they are moved in to the dubious care of an abusive uncle. Murder and incarceration follow before the (now) late teenage children head off on the road in Bonnie and Clyde and Dummy style terror. Norbert never speaks, Angeline is the most deranged, trashy blonde on film for some time, and Dummy likes to kill.

Writer and director Mark Jones has a thing for small, evil people (with Leprechaun and Rumpelstiltskin already to his credit) and he puts together an enjoyable and amusing piece of puppet violence here.

But is it the puppet, or is it Norbert or Angeline that is responsible?

Ghost Town (2008)

Ricky Gervais can see dead people and, when the dead realise that, they pester him to help them move on to the afterlife. Gervais’ character is a self-obsessed, unlikeable dentist, and he is reluctant to help anyone, let alone the dead. Greg Kinnear is the most persistent of the deceased, and he is not happy his widow is moving on.

There are ghosts, but Ghost Town is not a horror story. There is romance, but this is not a romance. There is Gervais, but this is not a comedy. Gervais plays an Americanised version of the character he always plays and, if you like that, you might like Ghost Town, otherwise the movie is a pointless struggle.

Screamers The Hunting (2009)

The marvellous (?) thing about science fiction and horror movies is, no matter how poorly a film does, or how bad it is, you can always find someone willing to make a sequel to it. In this case it has been 14 years since Screamers was released to little praise and little success (I liked it anyway). Despite that response, Screamers has an advantage over most films because its source is the genius of Philip K Dick. Dick's stories were also the basis for Blade Runner, Total Recall, Imposter, Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, and Next. Sadly the movies are rarely as challenging and thought provoking as the original stories.

In Screamers The Hunting, a rescue team is sent to Sirius 6B after an SOS is received. The humans of the planet were all presumed killed when fighting between two warring factions went out of control with the invention of Screamers. The Autonomous Mobile Swords were machines that tracked down and exterminated humans. The machines were self replicating and made improvements to themselves, with the latest models resembling humans. The original film finished on a cliffhanger involving Peter Weller’s character. That situation is resolved with the presence of Weller’s character’s daughter who uncovers the truth about her father’s fate.

The soldiers head across the planet looking for the survivors. What they find are a bunch of humans hiding in a cave, hordes of Screamers still tracking and killing humans, and Lance Henriksen who is always good value. A by the numbers action film as the soldiers try to make it back to their ship before the planet is destroyed. I wish something new would have happened, but the sequel is little more than an uninspired rehash of the first film.

Knowing (2009)

Nicolas Cage becomes obsessed with a cryptic, numeric letter that his son receives at school in a time capsule from 50 years ago. MIT professor Cage believes the numbers indicate the details of major disasters for the last 50 years, and the near future. Cage then becomes obsessed with understanding the remaining figures and what to do about it if he is correct. And what to do with the strange men that keep appearing to his son.

Director Alex Proyas (Crow, Dark City, I Robot) would have done better to cut the 2 hour running time, removed Cage’s depression over his dead wife and of his estrangement with his father, and come up with an ending that was less Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Knowing can’t be taken seriously despite its ominous tone.

Aztec Rex (aka Tyrannosaurus Azteca) (2008)

It is a little known fact that before the Spaniard Hernando/Fernando Cortés started his successful colonization/slaughter of Mexico in 1521, he led another (apparently undocumented) expedition to Latin America. Captain Cortes, with an army of 6 men, arrives in a village of Aztecs and helps them defeat a thunder lizard (aka a Tyrannosaurus Rex).

There is even time for a little romance between one of Cortes’ troops (Rios) and the chieftain’s daughter.

The film is so historically inaccurate, I wondered if Mel Gibson had made it. But it has a sense of humour and treated Aztec culture with a little respect, so I knew he hadn’t. Ian Ziering (Beverly Hills 90210) is Cortes and he slips in and out of a Spanish accent while disrespecting the locals. The acting in general is fairly woeful, with apologies to Marco Sanchez as Rios who was quite good. Incidentally, Hawaii does not pass for Mexico, but probably made for a pleasant holiday.

I like that the movie portrays the Catholics in a less than positive light, as an impartial review of the church’s history would support. And I like the movie’s cheapness. I have seen a lot of cheap movies but Aztec Rex beats almost all of them. I did learn some important details of Aztec culture...

Aztecs discovered concrete and used it for stairs on their sacrificial altars.

Aztec Chieftains liked to decorate themselves in the colours of the German flag.

It’s mad and bad. Filming ideas this ludicrous should be encouraged.

Hydra (2009)

The Sci Fi Channel releases a rather mixed up film. The Most Dangerous Game meets King Kong meets The Librarian. That doesn’t mean it is bad, or maybe it does.

A boat drops of a bunch of “criminals” on an island to be hunted by some wealthy clients. The island happens to be home to a multi-headed snake monster that can only be killed by the sword of Heracles (aka Hercules) that also happens to be on the island (if you can pass the test to find it).

It sounds bad, but it is quite funny and good lazy afternoon viewing.

Deadgirl (2008)

Two teenage boys find a girl chained to a table in the basement of an abandoned mental hospital. The girl seemingly cannot die, so the boys turn her in to their sex slave. A perverse and nasty movie that is intriguing and repulsive at the same time.

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

Hammer Horror style vampire films are given a Shaun Of The Dead makeover, which makes Lesbian Vampire Killers like an updated version of Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers. Overweight, loveless James Corden (Gavin & Stacey) goes on a holiday with his just dumped friend, Mathew Horne (Horne & Corden), to find they have become a “buffet for a bunch of hot dykes”. Paul McGann (Doctor Who) is the local priest who explains that Horne is the last of the McLaren line and is the only one who can stop the rise of Carmilla. Carmilla being the vampire who cursed the village causing all girls to turn in to lesbians when they turn 18.

Despite what the title might make you think, there is not a lot of nudity or lesbianism in the film. It’s free flowing, light hearted, and clever.

The Spirit (2008)

Nothing prepared me for how bad this adaption of Will Eisner’s comic is, even though it is directed by Frank Miller. It attempts to be cornball and humorous, and fails. But I did like the graffiti that appeared in my neighbourhood before the film’s release.

Star Trek (2009)

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

In the not too distant future, organ transplants are common place and anyone can have a transplant for a price but, if you should forfeit on payment, the Repo Man comes to reclaim what is no longer yours. This results in the borrower’s bloody death as the organs are ripped out of their body.

Paul Sorvino is the man in charge of GeneCo, the company that controls body transplants. He has three children, the surgery obsessed Ogre (from Skinny Puppy), the very angry Bill Moseley (from a number of good horror movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), and the spoiled rich girl and aspiring singer Paris Hilton (from a variety of amateur sex tapes), and they all want his fortune. On Sorvino’s payroll is Anthony Stewart Head (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), a doctor who is overprotective of his daughter Alexa Vega (Spy Kids). There are some other interesting characters including the eye transplanted Sarah Brightman (from many of Anthony Lloyd Webber’s productions) and graverobber and drug dealer Terrance Zdunich (who also happens to be one the movie’s writers).

Musicals are usually fairly dodgy and unchallenging, but Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has shown they have potential and cult appeal. Repo favours the darker side of life and music, with compositions that range from wailing goth opera to thrashy rock (with Joan Jett making an appearance on guitar during one of the songs). I should probably know more of the musicians listed than I do, but I did see David J (from Goth pioneers Bauhaus) and Melora Creager (Rasputina) in the credits. The sets looks nice, some of the lyrics are clever (while some are ridiculously simplistic), and it has enough style and substance to hold it together. Grab some absinthe and turn up the stereo.

Quarantine (2008)

A group of TV stars are in trapped in an apartment block where the virus from 28 Days Later has appeared. Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) is a reporter and is inside with her cameraman so we can see what is going on. The acting is solid, but the movie treads tired ground with its mix of terror and gore. You may have the feeling you have seen it all before, and done better, especially if you have seen the Spanish film REC that this movie is based on.

True Blood Season 1 (2008)

The world of True Blood is a world where vampires have gone public, in a storyline that mimics the equal rights issues of blacks (or any group seeking equal rights). The series is set in a small town in Louisiana, which allows redneck racism to be displayed. Vampires portray themselves as law abiding people who don’t kill humans because they can sustain themselves off a blood substitute. Some humans are sceptical, some are accepting, some even allow themselves be bitten, while others are “fang bangers” who allows themselves to be used in other ways.

The story centres on Sookie (Anna Paquin), a mind reading waitress at a bar who falls for Bill (Stephen Moyer), a vampire that moves in to the area. The interspecies affair is frowned upon and that is the focus of the series, in amongst murder, kidnapping, drug addiction (the drug being vampire blood), vampire lore, and a shape shifter. True Blood is a primetime soap opera, just with more killing and sex than most (even more than Melrose Place). It’s a raunchier, more aggressive version of Dark Shadows or Twilight. There are some good ideas in True Blood, but sometimes they are overshadowed by family melodrama. It’s good, but maybe not as good as the lower key British show with a vampire and a werewolf, Being Human.