Movie Review - The other Troll 3

    Wait; there are two Troll 3's? By the same director released 3 years apart? How is that fricken possible?

    Before I get into the movie itself, I have to talk about the title situation. Lots of low-budget cash-in shock movies have alternate titles. My personal guess is that the movie makers often changed titles to avoid word-of-mouth. I've reviewed a movie with alternate titles before - namely the first Troll 3. That movie had other titles such as Contamination.7, Creepers, The Crawlers, and Troll 3: Contamination Point 7. My copy is called The Crawlers.

    With this Troll 3 however, the title situation is a little out of control. It's also known as Ator 4. Yes, this is a sequel to two different franchises. What is Ator you might ask? The first two movies were cash-ins to the Conan movies in the 80's. I might touch on them in the future, but for now I'll just focus on Ator 4...or is it 3? Yeah, Troll 3 is simultaneously known as Ator 3 and Ator 4. How confusing can it get?

    The series’ creator, Joe D'Amato, likes to ignore Ator 3: The Iron Warrior, which was created by a different director. He then Created Ator 4 and called it Ator 3 in some regions. So to sum that up, the king of the cash-in accused Iron Warrior of being a cash-in. Wrap your head around that one.

    Other titles for Ator 4/Troll 3/Ator 3 include: The Hobgoblin, Quest for the Mighty Sword, Ator 4: The Hobgoblin, Ator 3: The Hobgoblin, and even Ator I'Invinsible - the same title as the original. Yeah, apparently this is also a re-make of the original. I've touched this series many times before. Heck, I even reviewed the Blu Ray for Troll 2. It's about time I touched on this one.

    This intro has gone on long enough; let’s see whether the title or the movie is the bigger mess.

Movie Review - The Giant Claw

    Today I'm watching, dun dun dun, The Giant Claw! This B-monster movie released in 1957, and even then it was ridiculed for its special effects. According to Wikipedia, the lead actor first saw the movie in his hometown. He left the theatre early because he was afraid that people would recognize him...that's pretty bad. Heh, I'm looking forward to this already.

    I knew virtually nothing about this movie going in. Heck, I still know little about this movie after researching it. All I knew is that it's on numerous lists of movies that are so bad their good. Being the fan of bad movies that I am, I had to check it out, and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest.

Movie Review - Bloodrayne: The Third Reich

    Ah, Uwe Bowl. Do I really need to say anything else? This German director really needs no introduction - he's one of the worst directors of all time. Today I'm reviewing his newest release, Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, his third Bloodrayne movie. While the first two movies had nothing to do with the videogames they were based off of, Bloodrayne 3 has a very strong similarity to the first game - it's about a vampire killing Nazis.

    A year ago I reviewed Bloodrayne 1 and 2, and talked briefly about the video games. It's only appropriate that I review Bloodrayne 3 now that the DVD is finally available. To sum up the first two, Bloodrayne 1 is funny bad at times as it fails on every level of movie making. Bloodrayne 2, while better, is incredibly boring and slow. Which one will Bloodrayne 3 be more like? Let's find out.

Movie Review - Hobgoblins

    Ah, Hobgoblins. I've been planning a while to review this one. It's supposedly similar to Troll 2 as it's a hilariously bad horror movie that isn't even close to scary. Originally released in 1988, the movie stars a bunch of no-name actors that have hardly shown up in anything since. Yup, sounds like Troll 2 to me, but is it as good/bad?

    The movie starts with a grainy outdoors shot of an old security guard walking beside his workplace. He heads toward a teenaged security guard sitting at the building's gate and listening to music. The older guard starts telling the teen off for listening to music when he should be working. The phone suddenly rings, but when the old man picks it up, he gets nothing.

    "Didn't you hear the phone ringing?" the older guard asks

    "No I didn't," the younger guard replies. Of course you didn't, it wasn't even ringing. Great way to start the movie off, by showing us how poor the sound editing is.

    Eventually, they start their rounds. They walk through what seems to be an abandoned building and into the vault area. The old man starts telling the teen about how the building used to be a great studio of some kind. He also tells the teen not to wander into the vault. The old man leaves to talk with their boss, and guess what the teen does...he goes straight for the vault. So utterly predictable.

    The boss seems like the stereotypical dick boss taken to the extreme, berating the older security guard for taking a while to get to his office, despite it only taking 20 seconds of movie time. He then complains that nobody answered the phone earlier. OK you douche-bag, if both of you had a 2-way radio, why bother with the phone if the guards can't always be at the gate?

    Cut back to the teen, who's now opening the vault and walking in, complete with sinister music. He hears some sort of non-human growling and asks,

    "Is somebody there?"

    Cut back to the other two in the office. The older guard hears static on his radio and barges out, looking mildly concerned. The acting is more wooden than an 30-year-old skid.

Movie Review - Bride of the Monster

    Hey kids, you know what time it is? It's Ed Wood time!

    Ed Wood is the world's most well known bad movie director. I'm just going to dive straight into this movie - if you want an introduction to Ed Wood, read my Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda reviews.

    Bela Lugosi stars as the mad scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff - the main bad guy. Bride of the Monster is also the first Ed Wood movie with Tor Johnson in it. Tor Johnson is the wrestler that played the giant zombie in Plan 9 from Outer Space, and primarily attacked people by slapping them in the shoulders. His role here is pretty similar here as Bela Lagosi's lab slave named Lobo. You'd think a wrestler would know other ways to take people down without hurting them, but whatever.

Movie Review - Santa Clause Conquers the Martians

    What better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to watch a sci-fi movie about Santa Clause killing aliens? Well, this movie has nothing to do with that. Santa Clause Conquers the Martians was released in 1964 making it the second oldest movie I've reviewed on this blog (the oldest being Plan 9 from Outer Space.) It's about Santa being kidnapped by Martians to bring joy to their joyless children.

(If I had to wear an outfit like that, I'd be joyless too)

    The movie's pretty silly, but if you're in the right mood it can be entertaining. It's both intentionally and unintentionally funny, which is a first for this blog. There are several unintentionally disturbing scenes, but they aren't that bad and pass by quickly. For me it was a nice break from some of the painful movies I've been watching lately, but it's hard to recommend. Still, it could be worth checking out for general audiences since it still contains the charm that many Christmas classics share. With that, lets get started.

Movie Review - The Core

     This review will be a bit different than usual. Why? Because the movie I'm watching is just OK. It's not a good or a bad film. So why am I reviewing "The Core", a mediocre film from 2003 on a blog where I usually make fun of terrible ones? Because the science is hilariously stupid. No seriously, this movie is more scientifically inaccurate than Plan 9 From Outer Space's atmospheric conditions in space. But before I get into that, let's talk about the plot.

    Basically the core of the earth has stopped spinning and a team of scientists are trying to jump start the core with nuclear bombs by drilling into the core before it's too late. Yup, that's the plot. Sounds implausible? That's because it is. As a movie though, it's really just a big disaster movie. There's nothing special about it, no hilariously bad acting, cliche characters and scenes, and no real dramatic weight. The soundtrack tries to sound epic, but it only serves to distract from what's going on and remind you that this is just one big dumb action movie.

Movie Review - Plan 9 from Outer Space

    This is the greatest movie ever made - by far. It's absolutely perfect in its execution, its plot, it's well developed characters, its...its...it's just perfect. Plan 9 from Outer Space may even be the greatest movie title ever. Why? Because the of reasons! I reviewed this movie a long time ago on Facebook, but I never re-posted it here. Rather than just copy-pasting it though, I'm going to re-write the whole thing. Let's get started.

    Plan 9 originally released in 1958 in black and white. It was directed by critically acclaimed director Ed Wood Jr. It's been colourized, turned into a Canadian stage production, turned into a musical, and there's even a official Plan 9 From Outer Space video-game for DOS.

(colorized version)

    It's also being remade as "Plan 9", which will feature a number of internet celebrities including James Rolfe of AVGN fame. The movie was originally going to be called "Grave Robbers from Outer Space" but the production company, a church, wasn't too keen on such a sin being named in the title. Wait, this was produced by a church? That's not always a bad sign though, since a church also produced Fireproof and Facing the Giants. In any case, a movie produced by a church must be good to gain this kind of fame, right?

Movie Review - Troll 2 (Blu-Ray)

    Yup, you read that right. I'm reviewing the Troll 2 Blu-ray. Back when I first reviewed this work of pure genius, I was new to reviewing movies. In fact, while it wasn't the first review I posted on this blog, it was the first movie review I ever wrote. As such, I'd like to re-visit this masterpiece one more time, and acquiring the blu-ray is the perfect opportunity to do that. So let's re-review Troll 2!

Game review - Jurassic: The Hunted

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed an entertainingly bad movie, so here’s an entertainingly bad game instead. So what do we have here today? Jurassic: The Hunted? What the foxtrot?

Jurassic: The Hunted has a simple premise – three people, Armando, Sabrina and Craig (playable character) are searching for Sabrina’s father, James, in the Bermuda triangle. They are sucked into some temporal vortex and into the past and have to get out. On the way, you hear quotes like “What the foxtrot,” and "Hey Spike! Come here you big overgrown...uh." Sounds like a B-movie, right? Well yeah, this is what you could call a B-game, or budget title.

Movie Review - Cool as Ice

     Well now, what can I say about this one? Well, um...it stars Vanilla Ice. The whole point of this movie is to try to make Vanilla Ice look cool...it fails. I have no idea how I could make this movie look good, so I'm not going to try.

     For those of you who don't know who Vanilla Ice is, well, he's a rapper. He was most popular in the early 90's, and is most known for his song "Ice Ice Baby". While most people consider him a joke now, he really helped bring the general hip-hop genre into mainstream popularity. When it comes to his style, at least back then, it doesn't get much whiter.

     I suppose the best way to introduce him is to show you "Ice Ice Baby", so here's a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE

     Yeah...that was popular in the 90's. And now for the movie.

     I'm still at a lack of words to properly describe this mess. It's more half-music video and half-commercial than anything else. The majority of the movie is either Ice rapping, or riding a bike and posing while music's playing in the background. Is it cool? No. Is it entertaining, well...not intentionally. I kept thinking of different things they could be advertising: anti-depressants, cologne, some allergy drug...some lame dating service.

     When the movie is neither commercial or music video though, it's just silly. One of the funniest, but nonsensical moments, was a blatant Top Gun rip-off, where Ice rides a motorcycle beside some girl riding a horse.

     Even though there's no evidence of a ramp, Ice jumps his motorcycle over the fence. This scares the horse which knocks the girl down. She insults him, they argue a bit, and somehow Ice comes to the conclusion that she likes him. I had no idea that scaring a horse with a motorcycle then blaming the rider could be so attractive. Maybe I should try that. [tries it and get's punched in the face] Oh, maybe not.

Movie Review - Killer Clowns from Outer Space

    Doesn't this movie's title just sound awesome? I mean, Killer Clowns From Outer Space. It just screams of instant classic. How could a movie possibly live up to it's title? Don't worry, this one definitely does. Originally released in 1988, Killer Clowns is one of the best horror movies of all time. It stars clowns, already one of the creepiest entities on earth, and turns them into horror villains from space. If that's not absolute genius, then I have no idea what is. At the same time, the movie perfectly captures the nature of the clown, and makes them genuinely funny. One must wonder why their rock-remix of the famous circus music didn't get any Oscars.

    The movie takes place in a small town called Crescent Cove. We start off with a group of teenagers hanging out in the forest with their cars. Two of them, Mike and Debbie, are talking in the back of one of the cars. These two are dating, and are the first two main characters we are introduced to. An ice-cream truck shows up with it's two hilariously obnoxious dudes driving it. "I'm Jo-Jo the ice cream clown, we'll give you a stick, you'll give it a lick. And it'll tickle you all the way down. Ice cream, ice cream, we brought our goodies here to you! A tasty treat for while you screw! Let's take a break! Cool off those hot lips with our frozen fruity bars! Icy-wicy, fudgy-wudgy bars. And everyone's frozen delight, the lick a stick!" Mike tells Debbie that the ice cream dudes are his best friends. The ice-cream truck leaves shortly. As Mike and Debbie look into the sky, they see a bright yellow light fly across. A drunk hillbilly sitting on his porch with his dog, Pooh, sees it also. "Did you see that little ole sky doggie zip down there Pooh?" The hillbilly brings his shovel along as he heads to the yellow light. The two main teenagers decide to follow it too.

    The hillbilly arrives at a brightly-lit circus tent. "What in the blue blazes is the circus doing here in these parts?" It's tied down with some rather technologically advanced ropes. "I don't know Pooh, you know there's something kinda peculiar around here." As he wanders around, a strange shadow follows him. His dog is captured by a net. He starts shouting stereotypical phrases and repeats "What in tarnation is going on here!" over and over. He punches the tent, only to hurt his hand. "Well I'll be hornswaggled!" He then tries to tear the advanced rope, only to get shocked. "Well I'll be greased and fried!" A creepy alien clown shows up and shoots him with...I'm not sure, but it killed him. Yup, that's why this movie is so incredible, you get such engaging dialogue like that.

Movie Review - The Room

    Normally when I do a bad movie review, I sarcastically try to say it's good. This time however, I have no idea how to try to make this movie look good. Quality wise, it is easily the worst movie I have ever seen. Yes, it is funny bad, but not as much as it is mind-numbingly bad. I heard about this movie on the news and that people were still watching it in theaters because of how bad it was, so I had to watch it.

    The plot is that this guy, Johnny, loves this girl, Lisa , but she doesn't like him anymore and falls in love with his best friend, Mark. Lisa and Mark have an affair, Johnny finds out, and then shoots himself. Somehow, the movie needs 90 minutes to explain that. The whole movie is a mess; we start off with three sex scenes in the first 20 minutes (which almost caused me to quit right there thinking it was porn flick,) and then one more...a full hour later. Apart from that, the whole thing just seems out of order, and no scene - and I repeat - no scene lasts more than 90 seconds. You get the girl talking to her mother about the exact same time at least four times in the movie, and if that's not enough, she also talks to her friends about THE SAME THING. The whole movie also takes place in three settings: a living room, a bedroom in the same house, and a roof (I'll assume it's also the same house.) The only other locations are either stock footage of city streets, or the most useless scenes I've ever heard of - a bunch of guys just throwing around a football with no dialogue whatsoever. Yeah, this paragraph pretty much sums up all I can say.

    This movie is so bad, it's just un-reviewable. It's interesting to say the least, maybe even entertaining, but it's still unbelievably bad. There is no way I can properly give this movie justice with words alone. Considering how un-reviewable this movie is, I am just going to have a "Big Bad Ben's Top 10 Worst Quotes" list:

Movie Review - Troll 2

    My first Movie review on this website was for Troll 3. Sadly, nobody really knows about Troll 3. Troll 2 on the other hand is a well known classic. It's a cinematic masterpiece, and it's a privilege to watch this work of pure genius.

    How is Troll 2 a cinematic masterpiece? For starters, there are no trolls in the movie - there are goblins instead. Nothing like a cleverly misleading title to heighten up the suspense. Secondly, it has nothing to do with the first troll movie (which is simply forgettable.) Another thing is that the acting is top notch. Nothing like a bunch of professional dentists and a bunch of people hired from the local gym to perform in a movie. You've also never heard more upbeat music in a horror movie before.

     It starts off with Joshua Waits (the central character) being read a story about goblins by his grandfather. The story is about a guy who is fed green goop by some goblin disguised as a "cute" chick. The goop turns the guy slime, and then goblins eat him. That would give me nightmares...goblins that seduce you into eating strange looking food that turns you into slime if you eat it. That has to be the scariest concept ever. Then Joshua's grandfather tells him that these goblins still exist.