The Lock-In [2014]

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

We're back with more Christian nonsense! We've watched Christian horror movies before but the ones we've seen have been more based on the idea that hell is the horror that you are trying to avoid. This film is instead a pretty blatant rip-off of "Paranormal Activity" but set during a church lock-in (basically a sleepover for religious kids) and using a porno mag found in a dumpster as the instigator of the demonic activity. Even that cover looks like a horror bootleg.

The film starts with an introduction from a pastor who says that a weird thing happened at a church lock-in and that they have pieced together footage from one kid's camera and the survelliance cameras. We get a warning that the following material is only meant to be seen by church elders. The story is told from the perspective of three 25-year-old high school seniors: Cameraman, Everyman, and Fratman. We see Fratman going to Everyman's house so excited about the lock-in because he thinks it will be the opportunity for Everyman to kiss his crush, Jessica. Everyman's parents overhear and give him an uncomfortable, long speech about not having sex. Then, on the way over to the church, the trio stops for some dumpster driving and find a pornographic magazine that they decide to bring with them. At the lock-in itself, the magazine ends up slipped into Jessica's bag and the pastor goes with the kids outside to burn the magazine. Soon after the magazine is destroyed, it appears again and the boys try to bury it at the bottom of a trashcan only to have the trashcan go flying across the room. Around here we get a random scene of a man confessing to the pastor that he has a porn addition before we return to our regularly scheduled haunting. From there, everyone disappears except our four mains who wander around the vacant church and lament their stupidity as doors are mysteriously unable to opened and there are random growls and light flickers and such. Jessica cries about how porn "ruined her family," Eventually everyone is lost except Cameraman who has a "power of Christ compels you" breakdown before he enters the main chapel to see everyone from the lock-in sitting there the next morning with no memory of the night before. Our last scene features Cameraman throwing away a ton of porn mags he had hiding in his closet.. 

The film was only okay. The concept was pretty funny and we did get some nice laughs at the melodrama stirred up by porn, but overall it was only about as much fun as "Paranormal Activity 2."

Spoon Rating : 3

Christian Mingle [2014]

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

Two things about this movie right away: 1.) This is some of the most blatant marketing ever but this movie also came out at a time when people were sinking money into movies based off board games and 2.) It's always nice to see Lacey Chabet getting work. Technically she doesn't need work as she has been working steadily her whole career and has 131 actor credits on IMDb, but it always feels like she's not getting work since no one can really name a movie she's been in since "Mean Girls." Mostly she does a lot of television movies about Christmas, and apparently doing a little Christian romantic comedy was a nice break from this in some ways. And I can't think of a bigger name actress who is young and seems like a rom com protagonist who would be willing to do this movie so, score for "Christian Mingle."

The film is about Gwenyth, a successful career lady who just can't find the right guy. As all movies know, you are an utter faliure as a woman unless you have a career, husband, and kids, and she is determined to do whatever it takes. So she signs up for Christian Mingle after being taken in by their good advertising (she's an ad executive, by the way, which makes this embarassing), but there's one problem: she's not a Christian! Well, not really. She was baptized and has heard about God, but to the Jesus fandom, she's a noob. She goes out with a guy who we all thought would be the inital date before the romantic lead comes in, but it turned out Sad Khakis was our leading man. He calls his dad "Papa" and can't eat tuna sushi and Gwenyth is clearly the most adventurous girl he's ever met, let alone dated. Gwenyth is besotted for some reason and picks up "Christianity for Dummies" and a Bible at the bookstore to keep up her facade. Thus ensues many silly mistakes on her part like forgetting to say "Amen" at the end of grace. Then Sad Khakis up and leaves for a charity trip to Mexico with his parents and the girl they want him to be with. Gwenyth up and leaves for Mexico too, totally unprepared for doing labor, and her lies are reveled to Khakis when someone finds her "Christianity for Dummies" book in her bag (why did she even bring it). They break up right before the third act and she actually turns to God for real after a series of cry sessions and the discovery of a hipper church that is more her style than Catholic suffering. She goes to Sad Khakis' church to try to convince him that she's changed and finds that he's now with the girl his parents want him to be with. She tears him a new one for listening to his parents and not making his own choices, which is actually completely fair, and then decides to quit her job and move to the town in Mexico that they had helped to become a teacher. Sad Khakis realizes his mistake in letting her go, finds a slightly better sense of style, and goes to Mexico so they can get back together. And, presumably because God said so, they live happily ever after.

This movie was a pretty enjoyable watch. The acting is sincere and the budget is far higher than we thought Christian Mingle could afford for what was basically an hour and 40 minute advert. Most of the laughs came from the premise and specifically the fact that it's actually kind of a servicable but horrendously predictable rom com that has been sprinkled with Jesus. But how does it work as an advert? Honestly, not so great. Sad Khakis isn't really anyone's idea of a dream man, Christian or not, and his transformation comes too late in the game to really change anyone's mind. It's actually more effective as a film if you say that it's about deciding things for yourself. Ultimately, finding God on her own, choosing to quit her job, and Khakis choosing to stop letting his parents decide things for him are what make everyone happy in the end. The relationship angle is just to keep the plot moving. Overall, it's not a waste of time to mingle with "Christian Mingle," but we wouldn't mingle again.

Quote: "We are running out of men. Our husbands are running out of men."

Spoon Rating: 5

What Is Real? [1989], Y2K Family Survival Guide [1999], Satanic Cults And Ritual Crime [1990]

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

Oh man, it's all about the wild vintage video tonight. We have recently discovered the YouTube channel Occult Demon Cassette, which is full of rips of video cassettes about things like various Christian-themed life advice videos, the terror of Satanism, instructional guides to strange products, cult recruitment, and Y2K scares, among many other oddities. We decided to do a taster platter of what the channel has to offer with three videos of varying lengths and enjoyment value.

What Is Real?

To be perfectly honest, we ended up watching this one because of false advertising. The video was explained as "Father Daughter Mormon Bondage." Apparently the last word should have been "bonding" and even then I'm not totally sure that's an accurate explanation for what we watched. It's a half hour video that's really meta ("This is a stage! What is real?") and about a youngish couple who has just had their first daughter. This causes the dad to spiral into an existential crisis about making sure that he has the answers to life, death, and everything before his daughter is old enough to do drugs and commit suicide. He and his wife, who frankly should have dumped him when he told her he was dropping out of college and wanted to marry her (basically asking her to support him), decide to shop for a church to do the heavy lifting for them and settle quickly on Mormonism because this is a propaganda video. It was pretty unremarkable aside from the opportunities to burst into "Book of Mormon" songs.

Y2K Family Survival Guide

This was an instructional video about Y2K narrated by Leonard Nimoy. We started from the beginning but the first twenty minutes of this hour long video are actually pretty boring. Basically they just talk about why Y2K could be a disastrous event and the explanation behind why it may cause all the computers to fail. We all lived through Y2K and were old enough to remember the panic so we didn't pay much attention. We skipped ahead to the Doomsday prepper part of the film which was a bit more interesting. They had a professional prepper, who was probably excited that his moment had finally come, explain how much water and food to store, what to do about cleaning and bathroom needs, and what to do about lighting and heat sources. They also talked about what to do with money and then had all the people interviewed rate how much of the disaster Y2K will be on a scale of 1-5. Most said 3 or 4 and then immediately regretted that on January 1st, 2000 at 1AM. Overall, this video is a fascinating piece of history but it wasn't very amusing. I bet there are better films out there that are more Doomsday prepper focused.

Satanic Cults And Ritual Crime

This video was only twenty minutes long but was probably the best of the three out of sheer ridiculousness. The film starts by claiming that ritual crime is on the rise and then claims that theorists think that 50% of all missing children cases are directly tied to Satanism. The video also says that Satanists have kids and sacrifice them and that this is all done in secret so there is no data on it but it's definitely happening. Right. Some other amazing facts from the video include:
* Fantasy role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are gateway drugs to Satanism.
* Heavy metal music too, obviously. You know how dangerous Motley Crue is.
* Search your child's room for dark robes, black candles, and a book of shadows (which is totally a Wicca thing, not a Satanism thing but the video conflates the two constantly; it should be noted that Adam and Kay have both read "The Satanic Bible" and books on Wiccan practices and therefore were able to point out every time this mistake was made).
* Satanism leads to deviant sexual behavior like homosexuality and bisexuality. It also mentioned bestiality and necrophilia because yeah, all four of those things are equivalent.

* There was also a section about identifying Satanic symbols that was a real adventure. A few of the symbols pointed out were correct but some particularly bad examples were the tri-spiral (a Neolithic Celtic symbol that Kay actually has on a shawl she got in Ireland), a swastika (it just means Nazis, guys), a "hexagram" (it was the freaking Star of David), FFF (because F is the sixth letter of the alphabet, I guess), AC/DC (which the video claimed means "Anti Christ Devil's Child" but which actually means either "an Australian rock band," "bisexual," or "alternating current, direct current"), and finally, our new favorite symbol, the cross of confusion (on the right).
This video was definitely the best of the three.

Halloweentown [1998]

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

In honor of Halloween time, we decided to watch "Halloweentown," a nostalgic movie for Sarah and Kay that we were pretty sure wasn't particularly good. Overall, it's what you expect from a Disney Channel original movie in the days before "High School Musical." It's cute, simple, has a whiny pre-teen/teen for the audience to relate to, and it's very predictable. Bad is a strong word but I wouldn't go so far as to call it good. It's our childhood.

The film centers around the Cromwell family where a single mother abhors Halloween and keeps her three kids (Marnie, the whiny teen, Dylan, the excessively practical one, and Sophia, the little quiet one) from experiencing anything relating to it for reasons unknown. Her rules are rocked slightly when quirky grandma who loves Halloween shows up for the day and helps to make their evening fun with costumes and stories. Marnie awakens in the night to overhear her mother and grandma talking about how they are witches but how her mother wants her kids to grow up normal and powerless. Marnie is not having that so she and her siblings follow grandma and hop the bus to Halloweentown, where she lives. It is a town full of all the monsters and demons you expect living peacefully together with the exception of a weird plague thing that's turning them evil. Grandma tries to make a spell to help save the town but it doesn't work out and just as they go out to start working on a new one, mom shows up to ruin the fun, and then mom and grandma get frozen in a movie theater. It makes a bit more sense in context. The kids take it upon themselves to complete the spell and destroy the bad guy who happens to be their mom's ex. They succeed and mom has a change of heart about the whole "witch" thing and invities grandma to come and live with them to teach them the ways of magic.

This film is pretty harmless. It's actually a solid kids movie albeit, it's 90s as all get out and has some weird makeup and bad green screen as a result of a low budget. Overall, it holds up in that respect. In order to make sure the night was actually ruined, Adam reminded us of the short-lived 90s Nickelodeon show "Weinerville" which is an actual nightmare that we had repressed. 

So yeah, "Halloweentown" is fun and not bad. If you want suffering, watch "Weinerville."

Blackenstein [1973]

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

It's been a while since we watched a blaxplotation film so here you go: "Blackenstein" or "Black Frankenstein." It was between this and "Blacula," which I'm sure we will watch in the future. This movie was a pretty weak effort all around but it is worth noting that the picture I used for this post is of the DVD cover and not the original poster for the film because the original poster is just a picture of the woman on top of the title with her breasts on display as she shrieks. Classy marketing.

The film centers around Dr. Stein (a white dude) who is doing experiments on various people, which include finding ways to regrow limbs and stop the aging process. He is joined at his mansion by a Dr. Winifred Walker, an old student of his who requests his help for her boyfriend who lost his limbs in Vietnam. Too bad Dr. Stein's assistant Malcomb has the hots for Walker and decides to intentionally infect her boyfriend so he becomes, well, Blackenstein. He kills people and eats them. Walker tries to cure him, partially with the help of a brown bottle with a handwritten "DNA" label. Malcomb tries to rape her. Blackenboyfriend saves her. He gets eaten by police dogs. Weirdly enough, the Wikipedia summary of this movie is five paragraphs long.

In spite of this movie being overall not good in any way, the director clearly spent a lot of time playing with shots and utilizing the hour they had with the exterior of the mansion through long lingering images of it. The director also decided to keep the monster kind of obscured until the end where we get to see it in all it's poorly madeup glory. Most annoying to me is not how unexciting this movie was but the title. Frankenstein was the name of the doctor, not the monster. In this movie, the main doctor is a white guy named Dr. Stein and his Igor is the one who messes up the experiment. At no point does anyone think to call the boyfriend or the assistant Blackenstein and "Black Frankenstein" is obviously in no way accurate. 

Whatever. Feast your eyes on this:

Spoon Rating: 2

The Controller [2008]

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

This movie is basically what happens if you make "Saw" focused on one victim and base his wife's survival on a video game. The most notable thing about it has nothing to do with the movie itself and everything to do with our experience of watching it: Keith managed to predict the ending right at the beginning of the plot layout. And it was one of those predictions that made us all go, "That seems really likely but is the movie really going to just do that." It did. It was lame.

The film is centered around a billionaire owner of a video game company who constantly laments that he's tired of winning. Let us all play the world's smallest violin for him. He wakes up on the day of his wedding anniversary to find his wife missing and his old office turned into a gamer room. An ominous voice on the phone tells him he must play the game he owns and successfully defeat it without dying in order to save his wife. One problem: he has never played the game or seemingly any video game for that matter. He recruits a team of the top five players in the country: guy number one who has an interaction with a cop that has the dialogue and music of a porno, your typical Mountain Dew basement dweller, a guy who works for the company and gets distracted by his wife looking for sex, a stay at home dad who gets distracted by his kids, and a Duke University student. He offers them each a million dollars to help him. The movie from there has even less of the excitement of watching someone else play a video game because at least you could watch funny people play. Also, the graphics are only slightly better than "Foodfight." They win, of course, and it turns out the wife set the whole thing up because she wanted to give his life some "fun". He somehow isn't mad at her for this stunt and ends up becoming a player with the crew who helped him.

This movie is weak. The bland acting is sometimes funny but a lot of the attempts at humor are cringe-y, the plot is kind of stale, and there really wasn't enough "WHAT" to make it worth your time. 

Spoon Rating: 2

REWATCH: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation [1997]

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

"Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" was actually the 16th movie we watched at Bad Movie Night. Watching this movie predated this blog and predated the Facebook group that predated this blog so I have no original post to link back to. I think a lot of us forgot how bad this movie even was until we saw it a second time. The first time we watched it was almost FIVE years ago so I think forgetting about it is pretty forgivable. It's a good thing Adam somehow managed to remember it and offer it up for a rewatch. But make no mistake: this movie is bad and hilarious and even Sarah could barely follow the plot (although her falling asleep halfway through didn't help; she tried). The rewatch was worth it.

The movie starts abruptly with some loud noises and really bad CGI skies that look like a Windows screensaver from 1995. Adam was the only one who seemed to remember anything about the original "Mortal Kombat" movie but it turned out that knowledge of the original will only barely assist you in following this film. Some bad guys are trying to blend their world with our world and this is why the sky is so ridiculous. Also, the film seems to take place in Thailand, Jordan, and France simultenously based on the iconic structures in the film. The big bad is a guy named Shao Khan. His second in command is revealed to be Kitana's mom who is still alive when she was supposed to be dead (in the previous film, I guess). She has the power of high-pitched wailing and one of the best melodramatic line reads in the film ("Mother, you're alive!" "To bad YOU. WILL DIE."). Shao Khan quickly kills Johnny Cage, the Jean-Claude Van Damme expy, and then Sonja Blade, the Cynthia Rothrock expy, mentions it constantly for the rest of the film. The good guys divide up then since they have six days to find a solution to the bad guy problem. Sonja goes to find Jax, her partner with mecha arms. Raiden, a god, goes to chat with higher gods about the situation. Liu Kang, our kinda-protagonist and Bruce Lee expy, goes off with Kitana, loses some fights to random characters who needed to be thrown into the movie since they were in the video game, and Kitana gets kidnapped. 

Liu Kang is told he is not ready to go against Khan. First he must go to the desert to meet a guy named Nightwolf, drop some peyote, and go on a spirit journey. He meets a girl named Jade on the drug trip and there's no way she will not betray him eventually. The good guys all meet up again and find that Raiden has made himself younger looking for some reason. Liu Kang is still "not ready." More hammy lines. More nonsense plot. More fighting. 

Ultimately expressions about Liu Kang not being ready were used five times in the film. But since the good guys win I guess eventually he was ready. When the film was over we watched a play through of the original game. Keith described it as, "Kinda more engaging than the movie."

Spoon Rating: 8