The Deadliest Prey [2013]

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

Back in September 2012 when we first started Bad Movie Night, we were doing something that was by all accounts, not particularly innovative. Ignoring the popularity of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" which had started long before, the late 2000s and early 2010s were a special time for bad movies because they were starting to become popular among the masses and not just those nerds who knew about MST3K. With this new popularity, a lot of movies were being brought out into the open and suddenly everyone had heard of "The Room," "Birdemic," and "Troll 2." This popularity reached its peak with the movie "Sharknado," a movie deliberately made to be a bad movie. However, like all movies made with the intention of becoming bad movies, "Sharknado" is really not much compared to the bad movie classics because they were trying to be funny. This is something a lot of people seemed to miss, including directors of bad movie classics who saw the opportunity to make a buck by creating sequels to their famous bad movies. And we are going to torture ourselves by watching some of them to see if they are actually worth the time. They probably won't be.

"The Deadliest Prey" is obviously a sequel to "Deadly Prey," a well loved movie by our crew. "Deadly Prey" was an early watch in our history from the post-Facebook group, pre-blog days and as such I managed to actually bother to write two separate reviews on it (one of the short Facebook ones and one longer one). "The Deadliest Prey" is . . . the exact same movie. Well, almost. Colonel Hogan has been in an insane asylum for the last 25 or 27 years (the characters keep changing the amount) and has just been released to capture Jack Hanton and make him go through the hunting game all over again in the same location but with new Soldier A hunters for him to kill. Hogan even kidnaps Hanton's wife again, although obviously it is a new wife since he killed the last one, the brother of a guy Jack killed last time comes back for revenge and dies in what I am pretty sure was the same way, and at some point Jack manages to leave the park fairly easily, thus proving there isn't really anything keeping him there. They also use the same memorable synth score. 

So what did they bother to change? The game is now broadcast online and found by a trio of bored gamers who explain about Jack Hanton's legendary status and decide to help him out by giving him a ride from the game to his house. One of them is named Candy Girl and is the best part of the movie, always ending conversations with hip phrases like, "True that," "True business," and "I heard that!" Hanton's wife doesn't die, Hogan does die, and the day is kind of saved by Hanton's nine-year-old son with a pistol. Over the final shot of father and son hoisting guns in the air, the words "The Beginning" appeared in the bottom half of the screen. It seems possible that in ten years we might get an "Even More Deadly Prey" with the son as the main but I really hope not.

This movie is really not worth the watch. Just watch "Deadly Prey" again and imagine them all 25 or 27 years older.

Quote:

"I've killed more people than cancer."

Spoon Rating: tentative 4

Grandma's Review: "It was a 5."

Future Cops [1993]

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

This movie, "Future Cops," is often described as the Hong Kong "Street Fighter." Honestly though, this movie actually somehow has less to do with the video game than the more well known, western "Street Fighter" movie that came out a year later. This movie has more in common with "The Terminator" or heck, "The Three Stooges." It's basically "Terminator" if you added in tons of gags and slapstick. There's so much nonsense in this movie, we lost track of the actual plot for a while because it mostly follows this random awkward kid trying to live his horrible life until the plot picks up again in the last half hour. The craziness is pretty funny though.

In the year 2043, there is a war going on between the evil General and his minions (the future rascals, as described by the subtitles) and the three future cops who are trying to do good. The General has been arrested and the rascals plan is to go back in time to 1993 when the judge who would grow up to pass judgment on the General was a kid who they could brainwash. The cops learn this and after a very silly fight where they call out their fight moves beforehand, the movie then turns to the life of some random kid in 1993 who is not the judge. He is picked on in class, he fails everything, and he's somehow a 28 year old still in high school. He lives with his heart-breaker sister and neurotic mom who is driven crazy when her boyfriend speaks to her in English (clear "A Fish Called Wanda" reference). The future cops show up and promise to improve his life if he helps them find the judge. One acts as the kid's bodyguard, fighting off bullies and giving him athletic abilities, one becomes a teacher at the school and has the popular girl fall for him, and the third falls for the kid's sister and charms her by using his future magic to put them inside "Super Mario Bros." Random stuff happens for a while until the rascals show up and then the General himself. Everyone finds out that, unsurprisingly, the kid is the judge, and the future cops turn everyone into "Street Fighter" character knockoffs so they can have a final battle. Justice wins.

In addition to the slapstick, the version we watched had some pretty terrible subtitles which really added to the comedy of the experience. This movie is worth a watch once but not a second time.

Quote: "I want shitting now!"

Spoon Rating: 5

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was good."

REWATCH: Fateful Findings [2013]

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

There is no way I could possible say more about this wonderful movie. If this movie doesn't eventually get as famous as "The Room," there is no justice in this world. 

Go watch it. Experience the wonder that is Neil Breen.

To see my original review of this movie click here.

Singham Returns [2014]

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

It is over! And by "it" I mean graduate school for Sarah and Kay. For now at least. They have graduated and now we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming of bad movies every Monday night. In fact, we have a new plan for the next couple of months until we get bored with this plan: two weeks of the month will be new movies, one week will be a rewatch, and the other week will be a Bollywood film. Our drive into Bollywood with "Singham" really opened our eyes to a whole world of fun, high budget movies that we could be watching outside of the low budget crap produced mostly in America (although we have seen a fair amount of UK, Canada, and Italian productions in particular). Of course, we also need to specify that bad is subjective. We thought "Singham" was straight up awesome but there were a lot of things that made us laugh when we we're totally sure if we were supposed to be laughing, crazy camera movement, and over the top acting. Are these things characteristic of a bad movie? Of course. Does this make "Singham" a bad movie? Doesn't matter. We loved it.

"Singham Returns" was mostly more of the same delightfulness we got from "Singham" but where it falls apart for us as a bad movie crew was the more frequent dips into serious commentary. Like the first one, there is a plot involving a cop who dies under circumstances that seem to indicate that he was involved in corrupt activities and Singham wants to prove otherwise. Like the first one, there is a side romance with some wacky hijinks and a music number (although Adam distinctly doesn't trust the new love interest for reasons he can't quite articulate). Like the first one, there is some big conspiracy going on but this time it's even bigger. 

Singham is now a cop in Mumbai and the attempts by bad guys to get him to abandon his principles have increased exponentially. This leads to the new catchphrase "Singham gives; he doesn't take" i.e. Singham will give you pain, not take your bribes. Singham also says, "Now I've lost it" a bunch, usually before punching people (and during the credits there was a new song based on this phrase). The large overarching plot is about an upcoming election where the progressive and good candidate is murdered by his corrupt opposition comprising of a financial guy and a dude passing himself off as the religious leader of a cult. Stuff gets messy when you mix religion and politics and there's even a prominent newsachor figure who brings in the media component. 

The most memorable part of the movie is also the least funny and most real moment. Singham is punishing some kids for accepting bribes to vote for the corrupt politicians and then one of their moms steps in to give a long, heartfelt speech about how they need the bribe money to eat and how they don't care about which government is elected because their concern is just existing from day to day. Singham is shook. He has a very somber music segment where he has a crisis of faith. We are shook. We don't even know what to do with this hardcore truth dropped into our silly action movie. 

Regardless of the sharp turn to the didactic, we still love Singham and really hope there's a third one. 

Spoon Rating: 7

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Good."

Rapsittie Kids Believe In Santa [2002]

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

We've got a new Christmas tradition: "Rapsittie Kids Believe In Santa."

This movie, if you could call it that as it's only 45 minutes long, is atrocious in the best possible way. The plot is pretty simple: kid gives teddy bear his dead mom gave him to his crush for Christmas. Girl is a jerk and throws it away. Girl realizes that was an awful thing to do and retrieves it. Girl gives kid her best present on Christmas day. The moral is the same moral as every Christmas story (except "Saving Christmas"). What makes this movie so special is that it is some of the worst animation in existence. Yes, worst than "Foodfight." Characters laugh and look like they're vomiting. A girl's arms pass through her body so it looks like she's cutting off her neck. Everyone looks like they're moonwalking or levitating because their feet aren't animated to move on ground. The eyes are so dead. SO DEAD. And did I mention it's a musical too? And the bad dialogue? 

This is a masterpiece.

Quote:
"I'm gonna get you, Smitty. I'm gonna take your sandwich."

Spoon Rating: 8

The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy [1958]

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

So grad school continues to have a direct effect on the ability of half of the bad movie night to actually engage in the films. There are only two more weeks so hold on. Instead of watch what is sure to be a favorite, "Singham 2," we decided to do a double feature of things that are only about an hour. Our first movie, "Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy," is a dubbed Mexican horror film that pretty much followed a lot of the plot of the unmemorable "Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy."

The plot of this movie is about 75% flashback. We are told of some kind of magical breastplate that a doctor and his collegues went to find but . . . mummy. There's also some plot about a girl being telepathically controlled. So much of this movie is flashback, we spent most of the movie waiting for the movie to start. Particularly when the title is "Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy," there's gotta be some robot eventually, right? Not until the last 15 minutes of the film, but oh, those fifteen minutes. When the mad scientist, who has made a robot using human parts for some odd reason, finally reveals his robot that he has been hyping up, it looks like something made by a fourth grader for Halloween. Then we got 20 seconds of solid gold when the robot and the mummy fight and the mummy basically tears the robot to pieces. It's in the last two minutes of the film and it's the only thing worth watching.

Quote:
"You'll go up to your room and you'll go to sleep, and when you awaken you will act quite normally."

Spoon Rating: 2

REWATCH: No Retreat, No Surrender [1986]

As graduate school winds down for Sarah and Kay, the need to mostly do rewatches increases until finals are over. It had been quite a long time since "No Retreat, No Surrender," a movie that acted like Van Damme was the lead even though he maybe had 15 minutes of screentime while some Bruce Lee-obsessed teen was actually running the show. He did karate, worshipped Bruce Lee's grave, made a token black friend, had a very long montage with the ghost of Bruce Lee (played by a man who neither looked nor sounded like Bruce Lee), and eventually triumped in the end. And did a lot of retreating and surrendering. Ironically.