Killing American Style [1988]

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

One of the things we are doing in order to find new movies to watch is looking into the works of directors who have managed to get a movie into our upper rankings before. "Killing American Style" is a film that is written, directed, and produced by Amir Shervan, the director of "Samurai Cop," although it is not as good as the film that succeeds it. Like Neil Breen, Shervan probably needed to evolve to the true heights of bad-moviedom that "Samurai Cop" encompasses but this earlier film is an okay effort. It definitely made us keen to watch another film by Shervan in the future (probably "American Cop" because why not more cop films). Also, this movie has Robert Z'dar, who was clearly a principle actor for this director during his relatively short American career.

The film opens on some kind of audition where girls get mostly naked and dance but we weren't totally sure what the audition was for. The auditioner is interrupted by Z'dar to carry out some kind of money stealing endeavour. They get caught by the cops after stashing the money but come up with an elaborate plan to thwart their transport to jail that involves Z'dar's brother in drag. Brother gets shot and the escaped gang decides to infiltrate the first ritzy house they find to make their safe haven. The house they find is on a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere where they haul up with the family: the terribly dressed father (and you should know that everyone is terribly dressed; he's merely the winner), the mother who gets raped (why), their son, and the mother's sister who is conveniently a nurse. They end up calling in a doctor to try to treat the gunshot wound and the friendly Hispanic-stereotype ranch hand gets offed. Eventually the dad is blackmailed to do a money exchange with Z'dar's stepmom (?) at a motel but he hides the money outside his house and claims she ran off with it. A final showdown happens when the family tries to take control of their home, we get a totally misplaced title drop, and the bad guys are done for. In the end, the dad gives the hidden money to the ranch hand's grieving widow who goes straight from "how will I feed our children" to "what husband."

Overall, this movie was not a terrible watch. Every fight scene went on too long to keep our attention and it didn't have as many "what" moments as "Samurai Cop" to keep us entertained fully but there were some good things. We had a couple solid quotes, some reaction shots that didn't make sense, and, most of all, the terrible, terrible wardrobe. The main protagonist and antagonist in this movie at minimum were wearing shirts that had a deep V down to their navel. The bad sidekick wore a shirt that said "100% cotton prewashed" on the front which was just confusing. The dad in the movie at one point seems to be wearing a pink sweatsuit only to take off his jacket to reveal pink overalls with a huge opening right at the stomach. We all asked Keith if this is how people actually dressed in the 80s and he said, "In California, yeah." The hair was also a tragedy I can't even fully get into but it was heavily variations on a mullet. This movie is a good argument for killing American style.

Oh, and then there was this confusing still of the motel:

I think there's something wrong with your color balance.

Quotes:

"I killed five police officers on the way here and if they come looking for me . . ."

[while holding a gun up to a woman in a bath]
"You make one sound and I'll turn this into a blood bath."

"You've got guns but you still don't have a chance."

Spoon Rating: 4

REWATCH: Undefeatable [1994]

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

This week we did a rewatch of the classic Cynthia Rothrock movie, "Undefeatable." Keith and Grandma hadn't been around the week we watched it, something we had all forgotten, so for them it was actually a first watch. They had both been exposed to Rothrock in "China O'Brien" but this movie is superior in every way except the sound effects.

I missed very little in my first review of the film, which you can read by clicking the link, but we didn't have spoon ratings at the time that we first watched it so here you go.

Spoon Rating: 8

Repligator [1996]

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

Upon trying to find the cover for this week's movie, "Repligator," I discovered something interesting: there's no Wikipedia page for this movie. That is never a good sign. We probably should have looked first before watching but I don't think it would have mattered. We were all so horrified and intrigued by the movie cover that there wasn't any way we weren't going to watch this, which is sad because it was a rough ride. It was mercifully not boring, but it was definitely written by a man who is actually an eleven-year-old boy who just discovered how awesome breasts are and wanted to combine them with his other favorite things: sci-fi, the military, and alligators. And this eleven-year-old boy-man also cast himself in the role where he gets to make out with all the women who find him irresistible in spite of him being the least appealing person in the entire movie. This is why some people make movies (N.B. It's definitely why Neil Breen and Tommy Wiseau make movies).

Basically the plot of this movie is that the military spent a bunch of money to make a "replicator," which is really a transporter, to be used in war but it has a weird glitch that turns everyone who uses it female. Another scientist combines the replicator with mind control software which basically results in a bunch of half naked, horny women. When they orgasm their DNA goes bananas and they turn into gator ladies who turn people into zombies when they bite you. The scientists solve the problem they created. That's it.

Here's a top ten list of the worst things about this movie:
1. When the military guys get turned into women, they suddenly embody all female stereotypes i.e. "let's go shopping!" etc.
2. And inexplicably change their sexualities so they are all into the male characters.

3. Some of the military people are unaware of the sex change after it happens??? Or how to pee as a woman????

4. Female nudity for no reason every two seconds.

5. Gay stereotype zombie.

6. Nagging wife joke that goes on for a painfully long time.

7. Already hot scientist lady who suddenly becomes hot when she takes off her glasses.

8. God, this movie was so sexist.

9. They had an opening scene and later they used the entire scene a second time as a flashback.

10. Did I mention how the writer cast himself as the guy all the girls want to bang? Yes? I needed to again.

Three good things about this movie:

1. The terrible paper mache gator heads.

2. Awkward falling.

3. An actual trans character who is relatively well presented especially considering that this movie was made in the 90s when trans people were still the punchline of horrible jokes. She even gets a happy ending with the guy she's in love with who is initally freaked out by the situation. The writer probably didn't even mean to be this inclusive since everything does end up completely hetero but still!

Regardless, no.

Quote: "If you have a sexual experience, you will turn into a walking alligator."

Spoon Rating: 1

International Guerrillas [1990]

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

Here's a Bad Movie Night first: our first Pakistani movie. Like with Bollywood movies, this film was almost three hours long so we needed to watch it in two nights but unlike the Bollywood movies we have watched so far, it should have been much, much shorter. That's some real cultural exchange for you, I guess. In America there seems to be this unwritten rule that a movie needs to be at least an hour and a half to be considered the right movie length so a lot of films will be padded out to reach that timestamp. This movie would have been padded to reach an hour and a half but was instead padded to two hours and 45 minutes. Yikes. It took 50 minutes of movie before we even got a title card. Towards the end, everything was so repetitive and boring, Keith actually set a timer on his watch for the last 12 minutes. I say all of this because my description of the movie will not make it sound as long as it is and you need to be warned that this movie is a real undertaking.

The plot of "International Guerilla's" is simple but insane. The antagonist is British-Indian author Salman Rushdie who is some kind of evil mastermind who has many clones of himself and an Israeli army and is trying to destroy Islam. If the idea of a real author being the evil villain seems strange, here's a little history lesson: in real life Rushdie wrote a book called "The Satanic Verses" that pissed off a lot of Muslim leaders and lead to a lot of people wanting his head on a platter (He's fine, by the way. At the time this movie came out he even made a statement about this movie and how he supports free speech even when he is made into basically a comic book villain). The protagonists are three dudes and a chick who are styled as defenders of Islam. Most of the plot involves battles between the two sides occasionally interspersed with songs from this girl who sings about how she's so beautiful while doing very violent dances in various outfits. In a footnote it is also mentioned that she is Jewish and in love with one of the guerrillas but they can't be together because, fight. At one point two dudes from Dubai who smoke giant cigars come in, possibly as comic relief. At the end, the guerrillas are captured by the Israeli army and strung up on crosses and they all have a big "Life Of Brian" style music number about how Allah is great, complete with text appearing in the sky and a veil literally coming down from the heavens to convert the Jewish girl. I guess this means the guerrillas won.

From a production standpoint, the absolute best thing about this movie is that the director is obsessed with zooms. This movie tries to make it seem like everything that happens is dramatic and important but the only way this is done is through the use of zooms on someone's face which happens probably over 100 times during the film. Also, the dancing is nuts. We just wrote this off as a product of 1990 which was still suffering from the 80s. And it's really anti-Semitic but this time it's Muslims discriminating instead of Christians. We're really diversifying our repetoire of movies with terrible messages.

Quotes:
"I am a proprietor of salt, no potato chip."(we're assuming this is a bad translation but who knows)

Spoon Rating: 3.5

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.