[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
For our first Lifetime movie, we have a meeting of two worlds: a shark movie and a stalker movie. This film, "Stalker's Prey," came into our lives on the recommendation of a chorus of Kay's students who have all seen the film. Why has a whole room of high school seniors seen a specific Lifetime movie? It was filmed in their part of the woods, or I should say the sea. The police station is a local community college, a featured restaurant is a place she has actually heard of, and the school's distinct facade is shown with an obvious CGI name change. Although the town is supposed to be Hunter's Grove, they don't even try to change the sign on the back of one person's EMT jacket that says "Niantic." Putting aside our connection to the film, let's get into the plot. The mumbliest teen in southeastern New England, Laura, gets rescued from a shark attack that left her boyfriend dead in the water. The guy who rescued her is none other than a politician's son who everyone in town immediately reveres. He checks up on Laura a lot and gives her gifts and while nothing seems amiss to Laura's family, the doom music warns the audience that his intentions are not the purest. Although the film seems to try to put forth this idea that he's a catch (fame, looks, volunteering with kids with cancer; also no pun intended), every action he takes seems a little off. He invites Laura to the marina (red flag) to be his date for a campaign fundraiser and suspiciously gives her a dress to wear (how did he know her size?). There's a blackout moment that may imply drunkenness or roofies. He lingers a bit too long with every interaction. After that Laura is weary of him but he keeps showing up everywhere: babysitting her sister, subbing at her school, and using the spare key her mom gave him to come inside and watch her sleep. He also starts attacking her friends who she fights with, beating one with a bat and hitting the other with his car. Laura finally decides to investigate his ex and discovers that although he said he talks to her all the time, she's been dead for years. Note: he wasn't lying but Norman Bates-ing it. Laura tries to get him to implicate himself for hitting her friend with his car and he responds by kidnapping her and taking her out on his boat to feed her to the shark he saved her from. They fight. She wins. Aside from the amusing genre mixture and the ominous music, this movie has some great acting. The actress playing Laura is mostly unintelligible compared to everyone else while the guy playing the stalker is full of the drama. His freak-outs and crazed mutterings stand out as the highlight of the film. More unintentional comedy comes from the bad CGI shark, the car accident scene effect, and other miscellaneous odd choices. Give it a try, chum. Quote: "The TV movie writes itself!" [Thanks for the lampshading.] Spoon Rating: 5.5
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
For our first ABC Family movie, we decided on "Cyberbully." We have watched a Hallmark film and many Disney originals so it was about time for ABC Family to show us what they have to offer. Next week we are going to shoot for a Lifetime movie, of which Kay has actually seen a lot. The title tells you most of what you need to know. A teen girl named Taylor gets an account on Cliquesters, which is totally not Facebook or Instagram or whatever was most popular with kids in 2011, and initially only has light bullying from the mean girls who bully her in school anyway. She starts flirting online with Scott, this guy in her classes who she likes, and soon gets a message from James, a guy from a nearby school who really liked a poem she had posted. It was shortly after this that Kay claimed that Taylor's best friend with the strong crush vibes towards Taylor, Samantha, is actually James. Taylor's brother hacks her account and writes some inappropriate stuff, which causes an uptick in Taylor's online bullying but everything really escalates after Scott asks her to the dance. Right after James claims online that he slept with Taylor and she gave him the clap, which prompts everyone in the school to turn on her including her friends, and she starts to be ostracized. Keith claimed she was going to try to kill herself and he was right too. The suicide attempt ended up being the funniest part of the movie because after some somber wallowing to Sia's "Breathe Me" Samantha finds Taylor in the bathroom complaining and struggling to open a pill bottle cap. The scene is super reminiscent of the scene in "Heathers" where Heather McNamara attempts suicide in the school bathroom while muttering, "Stupid child safety caps" or whatever the line is. We couldn't stop laughing. Note to screenwriters: if you ever want to write a serious moment, make sure you are not mimicking a scene from a comedy. This was actually only the end of act two even though it felt like a climax. Taylor stays home for a week after going to the hospital and seeing a psychiatrist. She starts attending support meetings for other kids with internet-based depression. Then of course Samantha reveals that she's James while Taylor is home after the suicide thing, which is ridiculous timing. The rest of the movie just has Taylor's mom trying to get a law passed and eventually Taylor and Sam getting interviewed for the local paper about their story. The whole thing ends on a triumphant "telling off the mean girl" scene with Taylor and friends. Taylor and Samantha did not end up together in spite of the gay vibes; instead Scott kind of comes back to Taylor and eats lunch with them. Aside from the hilarity of the pill scene, this movie did have a fair amount of laughs. The plot was predictable and had nice melodrama and a clear lack of understanding of teens and bullying both online and in person. It's definitely worth one watch. Quotes: [random filler dialogue without context] ". . . the seedy underbelly of the Underworld." Spoon Rating: 6
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.] Because Sarah had to work and it's been a while since we did a rewatch, we decided to watch "Battlefield Earth." As before we got to enjoy all the curtain wipes, hammy acting, Dutch angles that give you neck pain (this post is in italics to mimic that suffering), the absolute dumbest imperialists ever, and a second half of the film that was just way too boring to compete with the ridiculous first half. Just know that you are a crap-lousy man animal who likes raw rats and is constantly upsetting the gods. I tried writing down some quotes below but it's impossible to convey John Travolta's specific inflection through the medium of text. You can read my original review here. Quotes: "While you were learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained to conquer galaxies." "DO YOU WANT LUNCH?!" "YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BARTENDER." "I'm going to make you as happy as a baby psychlo on a straight diet of kerbango!" Spoon Rating: 7
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
Approximately twice every year Adam has made a reference to "Face/Off." Obviously, it is always in the context of "Face/Off" being a bad movie but it is usually to reference something ridiculous about it. Weirdly enough, both Keith and Sarah had seen it before but neither of them could remember it so even if it wasn't a new viewing experience for everyone in the room, it felt like it was for most. And this movie is nuts. The very premise is weird enough as it is, and not necessarily the worst sci-fi concept ever but when you add in the combined efforts of Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, you get something special. The movie is about an FBI agent (Travolta) who had an assassination attempt made on his life by sociopath terrorist (Cage) which ended in the death of his son. Travolta basically devotes his life to finding Cage and succeeds. The problem is, Cage planted a bomb and they need to find out where it is so they have been keeping Cage alive. Chance of resurrection is unlikely so another plan is made: Travolta is going to literally take Cage's face and go into prison as him. If this sounds ridiculous, trust me when I say the "science" behind it makes it even worse. Of course, Cage wakes up and makes the doctors give him Travolta's face before he kills them all and starts living his life. Cage kills the FBI director and Travolta's doctor wife finds out what is going on. There's a huge, half hour long fight scene at the funeral which ends in Cage's death. Travolta then adopts Cage's orphaned son because he reminds him of his own son who Cage killed, which is really messed up the more you think about it. Words cannot convey how weird this movie is. The acting is the hammiest ham you will ever see, mostly reserved for whoever is playing Cage's character, but so overwhelming throughout that you kind of forget that everyone else is acting mostly normal. The movie is directed by John Woo, which means a lot of incongruous slow-mo, never ending fight scenes that get stranger and stranger, and doves. The movie also had music playing in the background throughout almost the entire thing and it was constantly undermining how you were supposed to feel. Script wise, the movie was just so full of references to faces and saving faces and identity that it kind of felt like someone just learned what a theme was and needed to ensure that everyone else will know that they know. Watch it once for the madness, but not again because it's almost two and a half hours. Quote: "It's like looking into a mirror but . . NOT." Spoon Rating: 5
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.] Although Adam mentions it approximately three times a year and has been doing so since 2006, we had to postpone "Face Off" for this week because we have a major holiday coming up. There's definitely a shortage of Thanksgiving movies but we did manage to find a Hallmark movie called "Love At The Thanksgiving Day Parade." Although we have never watched a Hallmark movie before, this movie had almost the exact same vibe as "Christian Mingle" and was just about the same in terms of bad movie quality. The film is about a woman named Emily who dresses like Jackie O and is part of the planning committee for Chicago's Thanksgiving parade. It's basically her life. She's also super upbeat all the time and is dating a marine biologist who she hasn't seen in months even though she is afraid of boats. We all immediately started predicting what way he was going to screw her over. She meets Henry, an operations management guy brought in to analyze the spending and profitability of the parade, and he's attractive but a rich jerk. They clash but spend ridiculous amounts of time together, basically going on dates that are supposed to be about him learning about the parade. It's one of those enemies-to-lovers stories, and their pettiness is painful to watch. Then the boyfriend shows up with a big question which Emily thinks is marriage but is actually a proposal that she travel with him on his next mission. She gets drunk (off ONE glass of champagne) with Henry and sings "Heart Of Glass" at a swanky karaoke bar. Later they get kiss-camed at a high school basketball game and it makes things awkward. At this point they are literally both single and it makes no sense why they are fighting this. The idea that they are somehow opposed because of their jobs is a flimsy excuse at best and as time goes on it gets more and more unreasonable. There's a brief misunderstanding where Emily thinks Henry has a girlfriend already and then her ex proposes to make up for the mistake before and she says yes. At the parade, she realizes she made a mistake when she finds out that Henry is an orphan and runs a charity and oh my god he's an even better guy than I thought! And he dresses up as Santa in the parade after the previous Santa bailed. And they make out. While he's dressed like Santa. It's creepy. Like "Christian Mingle" there are a lot of odd moments and some strange acting. The boyfriend in particular is like a caricature of a selfish nerd guy and it's delightful to watch. We got a decent amount of laughs and more than a few groans at the plot contrivances, which were pretty fun to predict in advance. The biggest complaint here really is that it has basically nothing to do with Thanksgiving. "Thankskilling", while horrible, at least featured the holiday. Quote: "I have known you for five years and I have loved you for . . . a lot of that time." Spoon Rating: 6
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
Usually we have a tendency to dip into Sarah's past for bad movies since she apparently had horrible taste as a child. This week, Kay had a vague memory of an 80s fever dream to share, only recalling fully that she had watched it a few times on the Disney channel in the last 90s and that it was full of plot holes and rapping white kids. Oh, it proved to be so much more than that. "Teen Witch" was probably made in the wake of "Teen Wolf" but with roughly half the effort put into it. The story follows Louise Miller, a high school girl with seemingly substantial wealth but sub-par popularity because of her tendency to dress like a sister wife and her unsubtle crush on the school's dreamboat named Brad. After the worst day ever, she gets stuck in the rain with a flat bike tire and ends up at the home of Serena, a tiny witch lady who tells Louise that she in one of them and will receive her witch powers on her sixteenth birthday. It's a rough start at first with things happening basically because she wishes for them including for her creepy dance date to go away and an instant where wordplay turns her really unnerving brother into a dog. She gets a necklace from her drama teacher that is apparently the source of her powers and uses it to give her drama teacher a sweet life. She also gives her best friend rapping abilities so she can rap battle the weird boy she likes in probably the most bizarre scene in the whole movie which Adam watched in a state of sheer amazement (see below). Serena starts lowkey using Louise since her powers are drained or something and gives her a magic book to learn spells from. This movie has absolutely no consistency with how magic works. At one point water makes it disappear. Sometimes you need to say something, sometimes you need to wish for something, sometimes you just need to think it - there's no logic. Either way, Louise considers using magic to make Brad love her but decides not to. She does however, decide to do a massive spell to make her the most popular girl in school. Brad starts to like her anyway and takes her to his creepy murder shack to . . . apparently just kiss. Weird that it wasn't more than that but hey, it wasn't murder. There isn't really a climax so much as Serena gives Louise words of advice ranging from "no one's happy" to the more positive "be yourself" and Louise decides to ditch her magic necklace at the dance, presumably ending the popularity spell as she and Brad dance, although it isn't clear that the spell is broken at all. Maybe she just decides she has all she needs. There's no answer. This movie is a ride. In a way it can be summed up by a moment in the beginning of the movie where the cheerleaders in the locker room all start dancing around in a choreographed number called "I! Like! Boys!" and Adam turned to Kay and said, "So this is a musical?" and Kay answered, "No." This movie has no idea what it is or what it wants to be. The magic concept, as I said above, is completely unfleshed out. The plot has holes all over the place especially as it relates to character (Why didn't the teacher get fired for stripping? Why didn't Louise ever make up with her best friend? Why is Louise's brother acting like he's the harbinger in a horror movie at all times?). And in addition to the one musical number and the inexplicable rapping trio moments, the entire intro of the movie is basically an 80s music video that goes on way too long until you realize it was just Louise's dream. This movie also reeks of 80s from the clothes to the music to the utter nonsense. When the film was over we actually had a discussion about it to try to make sense of every dropped element. This is art. Top that! Spoon Rating: 8
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.] This movie is an old one for us: old enough that it's on the original picture of the first few movies we watched when we had just started Bad Movie Night in 2012, old enough that Sarah hasn't seen it. Because it had been long before the Facebook group or the spoon rating system, and since we often just shout out, "gymkata" as an explanation of a specific kind of movement, we figured we should watch it again and properly review and rate it. "Gymkata" tells the story of "Enter The Dragon" but with gymnastics. We have some opening shots of the lead, actual gymnast Kurt Thomas, doing his thing while somewhere else a man is running from some guys on horseback who kill him. We are given the plot at breakneck speeds: Thomas has to enter some vague competition called The Game in the country of Parmistan and win so he can request that a US satellite be built there. Weirdly enough, the odds of dying in The Game are high and yet, Thomas agrees anyway. For a satellite. Also, his father died in The Game. This is a great plan. Thomas trains for The Game with some experts and the Parmistan princess and they have a thing even though (or perhaps because) she doesn't talk. In Parmistan, the princess is taken and brought back to her father where she is expected to marry his right hand man who also runs The Game and is planning a coup against the king. Thomas enters The Game where the right hand man is basically doing whatever he can to kill him and bumps into his father along the way who is quickly killed. Thomas defeats the right hand man and saves the entire government of Parmistan so quickly that when we got a final freeze frame we kept looking at each other and saying, "Wait, is that it? Is it over?" So let's get the obvious out of the way: gymkata, the fighting style of Thomas' character, is very silly. It's fighting gymnastics. Also Thomas runs like he's going to vault and without a pole in his hand, he looks bizarre. Other than that, the premise is derivative, the plotting is expected, the acting is bad, and the flag-holding ninjas look bored -hang in there, guys- but I list all of these as examples of why it's worth a watch and we got a few solid laughs. Spoon Rating: 6.5
