The Phantom [1996]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

The people of Bad Movie Night can't be the only ones in the world feeling superhero fatigue right now. There are just so many hero movies out and so many more coming and some of us have given up. Adam is boycotting going to the theater until he can see a movie in the theater that isn't "loud" (it's hard being an 80-year-old trapped in a 26-year-old's body) and Kay only cares about "Suicide Squad" ("If they mess up Harley Quinn I swear to God . . ."). Sarah and Grandma haven't expressed explicit feelings but neither seem particularly into anything going on right now with the genre. Only Keith seems to be keeping up at all, having recently gone to see "Ant Man." Funny how the promise of Billy Zane in a ridiculous purple unitard can change so many minds and hearts.

In a blink-and-you-missed-it backstory that we kept making Sarah explain to us over and over and which I fully understand now after using Wikipedia, the Phantom was a boy who watched his parents get murdered by a pirate brotherhood when he was little and then grew up on an island where tribesmen essentially made him fight for justice. The title of the Phantom and his sweet skull cave was then passed down from generation to generation until we find ourselves in 1938 with Phantom #21 Kit Walker. Other than the pirate crew who still lives on to this day hating the Phantom, the big bad is a New York businessman named Xander Drax (probably not his birth name) who wants to find three special ancient skulls to get power, ultimate power, which he gets through, essentially, piracy. The love interest is Diana Palmer who is an explorer trying to discover the motives of the big bad, the daughter of another New York businessman, and Kit Walker's college ex. Ultimately all three, plus Catherine Zeta-Jones who was a minion of Drax but switched sides out of nowhere possibly she was hot for either The Phantom or Diana but we're not quite sure, end up in the lair of the pirate brotherhood and fight for the last skull. The bad guy is sufficiently punched by the good guy and the Phantom and Diana ride a horse on the beach for the second time in the movie before she admits that she knew who he was all along, kisses him, and leaves him for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Presumably if there had been a sequel she would have returned to the island to help create Phantom #22.

This movie is campy as hell and full of superhero and action movie cliches which made it a delightful watch. Treat Williams as Drax is delicious, delicious ham, Billy Zane is mostly awkwardness with an occasion pose, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is a horny Bond villain. The best part of this film? Glorious 1930s costumes and art deco decor. The actual best part of the film? When the Phantom and Diana exit a biplane onto the Phantom's horse who had been summoned by the Phantom's pet wolf.

Here are some photos to emphasize my points:

Not an Indian Jones ripoff at all.

Awkward posing in place of words.

Enough said.

Quotes:

"Gosh, you're pretty in those woodsy flannels."

"Your dog is a wolf."

"I know!" *poses*
 

"He won't die. I know. I killed him once."
 

"What's your name and why do you want that skull so badly?"

"Kit Walker."

"And who's Kit Walker?"

"I am!"

 

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I liked it."

The Black Gestapo [1975]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

This Monday was an exciting night for us because of the triumphant return of Adam's Grandma! Grandma hadn't been doing too well lately but she was feeling well enough to come join us in torturing ourselves for amusement tonight so we also have the return of her concise reviews. 

With a title like "Black Gestapo" and the fact that we are sincerely lacking in blaxploitation movies ("Disco Godfather" is all we have since "Black Ninja" is more like neo-blaxploitation) there was no way we could resist this one. In Watts, LA, all the shops run by black people are terrorized by white gangs so the black people formed their own people's army to try to clean up the streets. The well-meaning general of the army is asked by one of the colonels if he could start a small team to actively protect the city and he offers his tentative approval, warning them to not go too overboard. How will they protect the city, you ask? Murdering all the mod members and becoming the new drug pushers, pimps, and extortioners of the businesses enabling the people to be comforted by the fact that life is equally as terrible as before but now it's not because of racism. The team create new black uniforms, adopt swahili names (even though swahili is mostly spoken in a specific part of southeastern Africa and they probably aren't all descended from swahili speaking lands), and curiously proudly wear the mantle of the black gestapo, forgetting entirely that the gestapo hated black people. The movie wants this parallel to be even clearer with superimposed images of the Nazis marching and "Sieg Heil" sound bites. Meanwhile, the message finally gets back to the general that everyone hates the people's army because they think they are all gestapo members and he realizes that the only way to end the suffering is to murder the gestapo . . . like they had done to the white mobs. The general does this while camouflaged in a black gestapo uniform and it makes one wonder if the circle of oppressive reign really has ended.

I guess you could say this movie was trying to make a political statement about oppression or how being a jerk is not restricted by race or, as Adam put it, "Malcolm X was wrong" but most of the movie was an excuse to show naked chicks in beds and lots of violence. The camerawork and editing were bad even for the 70s and we could barely hear parts of the dialogue because the sound was so poor. We did get one really solid stunt with a car rolling down a hill so we know where the half of the budget that didn't go into costuming went. Whatever happens after the end of the movie is a question some might want answered but here's what I want to know: what did they do with all those black SS uniforms after the movie was done? Think on that.

Quotes:

(on television)

"I was hoping to get a celebrity to tell you about kidney disease."

"I don't want you to think that I don't like you . . . I just think you're a stupid fuck."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Bad movie. Bad bad bad."

Cremains [2001]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Here's a secret that is now out in the open: during our viewing of "Howard The Duck" we took a break and when Adam and Sarah were out of the room, Kay, with full approval from Keith and Adam's grandma, changed the speed of the video from 1 to 1.1 in order to end the movie slightly faster. They didn't notice. This is worth mentioning because this is a movie that is so slow, it can be watched easily at 1.5 speed or even faster without anything being effected. And it was even 15 minutes over the assumed hour and a half requirement for the length of movies.

"Cremains" works off of what could be a good concept: it has a framing narrative structure with one main horror story and four mini horror stories. Too bad it was filmed in someone's basement using cameras from the early 90s, there was apparently no script writer, and the actors where probably gathered from the random Mississippi town it was filmed in. The main plot is about the interrogation of a crematory operator (or funeral director; the movie didn't seem to know the difference) who is being accused of burning the body of a serial killer at the same time as the body of a child. In between questions about this case, he is asked to tell stories about random crimes for some reason. The movie opens on the first of the mini-stories: a women in S&M gear who doesn't want to be tied up gets stabbed in the eye by her kidnapper. From there you have a town where every year one is chosen to die by snake bite, a murderer who finds his victims by running a suicide helpline (their word, not mine) for teens, and a lesbian vampire story that is less "Carmilla" and more "we needed an excuse to show a naked girl on top of another girl." The main plot is given focus at the end when the mother of the small child calls on a stereotype witch to resurrect her dead child from its ashes and a horrible being called the Cremainder is created instead. More murder occurs.

In spite of the fact that Adam literally tried to bail on this movie, it wasn't the absolute worst we've ever sat through. In terms of production, it was probably only slightly better than "Crazy Fat Ethel 2" which may very well have been the worst but the plot was more tolerable than plenty of things we've seen. The pacing though was only slightly better than "Gerry" and at the very least that movie was pretty to look at. Some caffeine would have been welcome. Amusingly enough, inside the DVD case of this movie was an advert for movies made by a company called Seduction Cinema which offered such classics as "Dinosaur Valley Girls", "G-String Vampire", and "Satan's School For Lust." Perhaps instead of this movie you'd prefer horror porn?

BMN Quotes:

(on the witch's super Halloween-y house)

Kay: It's so tacky!

Sarah: You want it, don't you?

Kay: . . . I want like, half of it.

Killer Buzz [2001]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

As far as we could tell from the case it came in and the main menu screen this movie was called "Killer Buzz." However, while trying to find it on the internet, websites couldn't identify a movie by that name but there is a movie called "Flying Virus" that has the same cover, plot description, and cast so I guess that's the real name. Or the original name. Adam suggested, before I even tried to find this movie online, that "Killer Buzz" was a name they adopted for the film after they realized how bad it was and decided to market it as a comedy. Whatever it's called it's a B-movie bee movie that very well may have influenced "Snakes On A Plane."

A journalist in a failing marriage is attacked by bees in the Brazilian jungle and told she is lucky to be alive since the bees are genetically modified to kill (and weirdly, they all die after a week of life to tie up loose ends). While she wanders around the jungle with her cameraman, trying to figure out who's responsible, an evil rapey doctor takes the bees on a flight to New York that her husband happens to be on. The movie follows these two plots: the journalist's husband trying to contain the bees and land the plane and the journalist running from some evil guy who takes pride in being viewed as an asshole in an effort to find the natives who have the cure for the bee's poison. Of course, the boss of the evil guy is the giant-chinned love interest of the journalist who takes dinner very seriously and all three bad guys (chin man, asshole, and doctor) die from bee-related deaths. The plane is crash landed near the native tribe, the antidote is distributed, and the journalist's marriage is saved with some sex in the woods. Only what questions remains: What exactly was the motivation of the bad guys to make and transport these bees? Who cares? Maybe Sarah knows but no one even bothered to ask her.

This movie, like others of it's type, is just lazy. It uses the same reaction shots, stock footage, and explosion scenes over and over, including a scene where the bad guys inexplicably try to blow up a waterfall. This is just a forgettable movie that tried very hard to be serious and realized it's folly too late in the game to make it campy.

I posted the picture of the cover of the DVD as we know it at the top of this article but I also found an alternative cover in my searching the does in fact convey a different feeling and you can see it on the right there. Almost looks like a real horror film, huh?