| Well,
here we are again. To those familiar with Crappah Moovah Fridah
(a.k.a. Crappy Movie Friday a.k.a. CMF), welcome back. It's
been a little while since Andrew or I actually chomped at
the bit and wrote a review, and we hope you're still game.
If you're new to this whole business, well, I'm sure it's
explained elsewhere.
Still
feeling left out? Fine. Here's the short version. Every Friday
we can, Andrew and I rent and watch bad movies for several
reasons, after which we (usually) review them. Some other
people we know join us, and we down a few cokes and have a
few laughs. It's all good.
At
any rate, this week's installment was the third in a series
of free movies we've more or less had thrown at us by our
good friend (and resident afroboy!), Matt. A big local department
store has been trying to sell these movies for months with
no luck, because despite their great prices they're really,
incredibly bad. Interesting side-note - legendary Crappy Movie
"Ninja in Action" was acquired from that very rack!
Evidently,
however, the movies have become a bit too much of an eyesore
lately and - get this - the store tried to toss 'em!
Throw them right out! However, Our Man Matt somehow managed
to get his hands on them instead and he's passed the savings
on to us. Over the last few weeks we've been going through
the pile, and we've already taken in "To Live And Die
In Hong Kong" and "Invasion from the Inner Earth",
extraordinarily bad movies in their own little way. This week,
as you can see, it was -
fig.
1 - terror, you say? count me in!
It
features not one, not two, but three eerie stories
of the macabre. All of the stories, in an odd twist, star
Karen Black playing various roles. Her tour-de-force performance
here elevated her to true celebrity status, and she went on
to be in such classics as "Children of the Corn IV",
"The Legend of the Rollerblade 7", and my personal
favorite, "Zapped Again!".
Story
one is called Julie. It features Karen Black as an allegedly
sexy schoolteacher who ends up getting blackmailed by some
40-year-old guy who is also a student at said school. Why
he is still attending school is far, far beyond me - to have
been kept back that long without some form of mental
retardation makes little sense. Oh well. Probably he just
goes there in his spare time. Only, in a 'twist' to the story,
the teacher turns out to be the mastermind, and the student
gets murdered! Oooooo!
It
is not enough to merely say that we could have seen that twist
a mile away. Instead, here is a graphical version!
fig.
2 - the twist is played by TV's Freddy Prinze!
Story
two is called Millicent & Therese, I think. I wasn't paying
much attention by now. Nobody really was. It seemed to be
about two ladies, again played by Karen Black. One is a prim,
proper lady who is convinced the other is of the devil. The
other is of the devil. There's lots of talking and some attempts
at seduction here and there. Eventually, the 'proper' one
gets it into her head to turn the that other chick's devilry
against her, and she constructs a voodoo doll to kill her.
Only, when the coroner arrives, we discover yet another
twist - she had multiple personalities! It was all the same
person! And now she's dead! Oooooo!!
Instead
of attempting to explain the absolute boredom and confusion
I experienced, I shall demonstrate with yet another infographic.
fig. 3 - this graphic is meaningless.
Then...ahh,
then was story three: Amelia. This story was awesome, and
very nearly made up for the major boring crap that was the
rest of the film. It starts off terribly slowly. Karen Black
(yes, again!) plays Amelia, and through some of the most annoyingly
obvious exposition I've heard in some time, we learn that
she's bought a warrior doll for her archaeologist-or-something
boyfriend. The doll is that pleasant-looking fellow that's
on the cover. The catch is that there's supposedly an actual
warrior's soul within the doll, and if the little gold chain
he's wearing comes off, he'll come to life.
Guess
what! Not twenty seconds after she's done explaining all this,
it comes off, and hilarity ensues. The vicious little bastard
chases her all over her apartment with a kitchen knife he
borrows. There's all sorts of mayhem and screaming and it's
all so very entertaining that we nearly forgot the rest of
it. Of course, she makes classic horror movie mistakes while
trying to escape from this thing, including (but not limited
to!)
- Not
even trying to hold the door closed while the little guy
is opening it,
- Believing
that he could somehow have 'fallen' from the coffee table
and ended up beneath the couch (I mean, think a little.
It's not exactly like he'd roll when he hit the ground)
- Trying
to grab his knife while he cuts his way out of a suitcase.
Yes,
you read that last one right. Wow, huh? Anyway, ends up losing,
more or less, and we're treated to the last scene of the film,
which, I'll admit, was actually fairly creepy. Infographic!!
fig. 4 - this one's just for Matt! hee hee
GOOD
STUFF IN THE MOVIE: The last 15 minutes or so; making
fun of that 40-somethingish guy in the beginning who's probably
supposed to be 18.
BAD
STUFF IN THE MOVIE: Absolutely everything not mentioned
above.
THE
BOTTOM FREAKIN' LINE: Just fast-forward until the Amelia
story and laugh your ass off.
FRANK
ZAGARINO HEADS (out of five)
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