With the Halloween season in full swing, I figured it’s time to really get into the horror genre.  My first episode in this particular series, The Best of October: Slasher Movies, focused on a particular sub-genre of the horror film genre.  However, I won’t be just focusing on horror in movies.  I will also be discussing the genre in different mediums like books.  For this post, I’m going to be focusing on horror in one of my favorite mediums: Video games.  It’s one thing to get freaked out or terrified by something that you see or don’t see on the big screen, but one of the problems with movies, is that they are fairly static.  Once you’ve seen a film, you know exactly how it will play out.  With video games, it’s different.  Instead of just passively witnessing the action on screen, you are actively participating in said action, and in some cases, that can be for more intense than the movies that you just….watch.  So…with that in mind, let’s dive in to some of my favorite horror video games.

Alien: Isolation

When Ridley Scott’s Alien hit theaters back in 1979, it shook audiences to their core.  What has been since described as Texas Chainsaw Massacre In Space has become one of the most iconic and revered science fiction/horror movies of all time.  Over the past 20 years, video game companies have tried to capitalize on the success of the Alien franchise to varying degrees of success, with some being decent to others being flat-out terrible(I’m looking at you Aliens: Colonial Marines).  There was one game, however, that really knocked it out of the park.  Creative Assembly, a company known for creating real-time strategy games delivered one of the best horror-survival games of the past decade: Alien: Isolation.  I was skeptical at first, as were so many others, but when I turned the game on, I was greeted with a 70’s-style 20th Century Fox logo.  Even better, was when I actually started the game.  The game starts with Ellen Ripley’s final report of the Nostromo, which the original film took place on.  We are then introduced to Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, as she’s trying to find answers for her mother’s disappearance.  The game takes place about 15 years after the events of the original film, but it has the look and feel of a movie that came out of that time period.  The attention to detail is amazing.  Right down to the retro-future computers, we are immediately immersed in Ripley’s world.  As soon as they land on Sevastopol Station, that is where the game truly begins.  I started playing this again last night, and the atmosphere still feels claustrophobic.  The sound design is extraordinary and the tension that immediately starts building is crazy, and that’s before you even see the creature, but you know it’s there.  This game is absolutely phenomenal in almost every aspect.  I say almost, because there are times when it does get frustrating.  The AI is almost unforgiving, as any sound you make will bring the monster to you, and kills you instantly.  So, yeah, your anxiety levels skyrocket.  It’s a very linear game, but it’s incredibly immersive.  I’ve seen people play this game using virtual reality, and I don’t think I’m ready for that.  I don’t scare easily, but this game had my heart racing from beginning to end.  If you’re a gamer and you love the Alien movies, this game is a no-brainer.  You even get access to DLC that allows you to play certain story elements from the original movie.  How awesome is that?  Oh, yeah, and a number of cast members from the original Alien reprise their roles in certain audio logs.  Even Sigourney Weaver herself lent her own voice to the game.

Until Dawn

It’s not very often that you get to play an interactive horror movie, but that’s exactly what Until Dawn is.  It kind of starts off as this somewhat slasher-esque kind of game, but it evolves to be a lot more than that.  A PlayStation 4 exclusive, Until Dawn shakes up the horror survival genre by giving you direct and indirect control over who lives and dies in the game.  The game utilizes a really unique “Butterfly Effect” system that really does affect the final outcome of the game.  There are certain decisions and moves that you can make that can directly change how certain situations play out, and you won’t know until you get to that point.  This is a game where you can either manage to get everybody out alive or get everybody killed, based on the decisions you make.  Some of them are common sense, while others are not so cut-and-dry.  While the story plays out in a fairly linear fashion, it’s how you get to the end that makes this game truly special.  As a result, the replayability of the game is pretty extensive.  Graphically, this is a gorgeous game, with some really outstanding performances from the actors, especially Peter Stormare who appears as a psychologist between chapters.  If you’ve got a PS4, then this game comes highly recommended.

Doom(1993)

I had to talk about this one eventually.  Doom is a first-person shooter that has you in the role of a space marine taking on the forces of Hell.  I’m not talking about the 2016 reboot, which is a fantastic game in its own right, but rather the original game which set the genre on fire.  This is one of the games that I really did grow up playing.  Yeah, there’s not much of a story.  It’s just a reason for you to go in guns blazing and take down demon after demon.  While the game is definitely more action-oriented than horror, it has more than enough horror elements to qualify it for this list.  The sound design for some of the creatures can be down-right disturbing.  In fact, during one of the levels, I heard the roar of one of the big “Pinky” demons, and it had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.  Even though your character is armed to the teeth, you kinda didn’t want to see what was around the next corner.  While the game has garnered a lot of controversy over the years, especially during the late 90s, Doom has become one of the most important video games of all time.  I still play it every once in a while.  It holds up very well.

Dead Space

When Alien was released, it inspired a lot of sequels and clones.  The film’s inspiration continues to this day.  That’s one of the reasons why I want to bring attention to a little game called Dead Space.  The best horror movie and games really heavily on atmosphere and sound design to put the audience on edge.  Dead Space does this almost perfectly.  Taking place in the far future, the game has you playing an engineer, Isaac Clarke, as he and a group of rescue specialists make their way to a mining vessel which has gone silent.  After docking, it’s quickly revealed that something is really, really wrong.  Apparently the ship was mining a nearby planet and discovered a mysterious alien “marker” which began transforming the crew into hideous “necromorphs.”  There are very few games and movies that can give me the creeps.  Dead Space is one of them.  The sound design here is one of the best I’ve ever heard, especially if you have surround sound.  Holy shit.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much this game spooked me.  The creatures designs are absolutely horrific in the best possible way.  There is even a level where you have to outrun a necromorph, because you can’t kill it.  The other ones, you have to target the limbs instead of the main body.  It’s pretty inventive in how to dispatch enemies.  While the following games weren’t as terrifying, the original Dead Space is high on my list of games that drips atmosphere and dread.  I loved every single minute of it.

Resident Evil 7

If there ever was a video-game equivalent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Resident Evil 7 would be it.  I’ll be honest:  I’ve never been a big fan of the Resident Evil games.  I was not a big fan of the way they controlled and the whole “evil corporation designing bio-weapons” got pretty old really quick.  The last two main entries into the franchise felt like overblown Michael Bay-style action movies.  Resident Evil 7, goes back to the original and focuses more on the atmosphere and tension.  The game has you taking the role of a guy who finds out that his wife is still alive after disappearing 3 years before.  Tracking her to a run-down mansion in Lousiana, you run afoul of a completely psychotic family.  It definitely feels like you are playing a game set in the world of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only it’s not.  The game takes place from a first-person perspective, which is a first for the franchise, and it really nails the dark and gritty aspect of the game.  Graphically, it’s beautifully disturbing and disgusting.  The level of detail in the main house is mind-boggling.  Do I recommend this game?  Hell, yes, I do.

Castlevania

Outside of Doom, most of the games above were fairly recent, being released in the last 6-8 years.  So, let’s take another look a blast from the past:  The classic NES game, Castlevania.  Released in 1987, Castlevania was a side-scrolling adventure game where you play Simon Belmont, a member of a legendary clan of vampire-hunters dedicated to destroying the evil of Dracula.  The game borrows heavily from a lot of the old-school horror films of the 30s, as well as the Hammer Horror flicks of the 60s.  You can absolutely tell.  You’ve got Dracula, mummies, and all sorts of other-worldly creatures.  Castlevania is notorious for being extremely hard, even back in 1987.  That’s how most of the Castlevania games have always been, and for a lot of folks, it’s a challenge they love.  Myself, I suck at video games, so I die a lot, but the game is still incredibly fun to play 30 years later.  It doesn’t look like much now, but it’s still better than a lot of crap that’s been coming out lately.

In case you haven’t noticed, I love horror.  I love horror in my movies and I love it in my video games.  When it’s done correctly, a horror-based video game can be one of the most immersive and spine-tingling experience you will ever have, although, I’m rather hesitant to play some of these games in virtual reality.  I don’t think I’m that brave.  That being said, these are some of the best horror games that I’ve played, and I can’t recommend them enough.  October and the Halloween season are now in full swing.  There will be more to come, so stay tuned.

*All YouTube and video game clips belong to their respective copyright owners.

Released: 2012

Director: Steve Latshaw

Not Rated

Run Time: 84 Minutes

Genre: Horror/Comedy

Cast:
James Best: Thorne Sherman
John Schneider: Johnny Reno
Bruce Davison: Jerry Farrell
Jennifer Lyons: Mickey
Sean Flynn: Derek
Jason-Shane Scott: Sam

You want to know something?  I love movies from the 50s, especially the science fiction, horror, and creature features.  There is something inherently charming about those old movies that makes me want to watch them over and over.  Movies like The Day The Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them!, Tarantula, and It Came From Beneath The Sea are just some of my absolute favorites.  Even the bad ones like The Giant Claw, The Manster, and The Wasp Woman were very entertaining in a “so-bad-it’s-good” kind of way.  There was another movie that was released in 1959 called The Killer Shrews.  It was a movie that many considered to be a pretty bad movie, even by 1950s standards.  So, when I heard that a sequel to The Killer Shrews was made, my brain exploded.  The Killer Shrews, a film well over 50 years old, gets a sequel made in 2012?  I imagine you’re probably saying to yourself, “Well, that can’t possibly work.”  Well……it didn’t, and I think it was on purpose.

Return of the Killer Shrews stars James Best, returning to his role of Thorne Sherman, as he and his first mate are escorting a film crew to an island somewhere in the middle of nowhere to film a reality show of sorts.  After getting to the island, Thorne is beginning to have second thoughts, until he’s reminded that he’s getting paid for this.  After reaching shore, they are taken to the camp where some of the film-makers have already set up shop along with the show’s star, Johnny Reno.  Before long, people start going missing, and the entire film crew is set upon by these big and ugly rat-like creatures.  That’s pretty much the plot in a nutshell.  Not much there is it.  There really wasn’t much to the original film, either, apparently.  The only real purpose the “story” serves is to go from one group of people getting eaten to another.  That’s it.  From what I understand, the original film was definitely a product of its time.  What we’ve got here is a film that should have been made and released back in 1960.  I’m not entirely sure how to articulate what it is that I just saw.  There are varying degrees of cheese.  Return of the Killer Shrews is what I would call Swiss Cheese, because it’s full of…you know, holes.  Honestly, there is no way you could accidentally make a movie this bad.  It had to have been done on purpose.  To be fair, you’re taking a movie from 1959 that was bad to begin with and you’re trying to make a sequel.  How could you possibly make a good movie out of that?  You can’t.

Since this IS a creature feature, let’s discuss the creature designs and the effects.  I understand that this was an extremely low-budget movie, but holy crap.  The effects are AWFUL.  I’ve seen some pretty low-grade CGI in movies before, but this takes it to a whole new level.  I’m talking bottom-of-the-barrel CGI.  I’ve seen animals from a 1999 video game cut-scene look better than these things.  Okay, so they’re deliberately making these creatures obviously low-budget, and you know what?  I can go with that.  It’s kind of hilarious to see these things attack people.  There are some puppets and some practical effects in this film, and I definitely appreciate that, but the one thing I absolutely HATE in a creature feature or horror movie is CGI blood.  I may be a stickler for that small detail, but it does add SOME authenticity to what’s going on.  Use a few ketchup packets if you need to.  There are also a couple of sequences where you see a close up of the beasts’ teeth, and the exact same little bit happens every time there’s an attack.  Once again, I feel that the effects were not just a result of a lack of money, but rather a design choice.

I would say that we should talk about performances next, but aside from two major players, there’s nothing here really worth discussing, in my opinion.  James Best plays Thorne Sherman, the main character from The Killer Shrews, and Best is pretty entertaining I have to say.  He really does put a lot of effort into his role, and actually the character a reasonable amount of substance, and some fairly emotional weight.  That surprised me, actually.  Bruce Davison plays Jerry Farrell, also a character from the original film.  I absolutely have to give Bruce credit here.  He’s clearly having a really good time in this movie.  I’ve always enjoyed Bruce Davison as an actor.  He’s quite versatile, and to see him in a movie like this goes to show that he doesn’t always take himself seriously, and that makes for a pretty decent performance.  One of the best parts of the film, is when he’s acting opposite James Best, and that leads to some of the best parts of the film.  The way those two play off each other is really good.  The other guy that I should mention is John Schneider, who is essentially playing a send-up of himself.  Again, it’s really odd to someone like him in a movie like this, but it’s not the first time he’s done a low-budget sci-fi flick, so he’s no stranger to these kinds of movies.  Here, he’s playing a self-absorbed actor who thinks he’s all that.  Schneider doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy that’s actually like that, so it’s pretty goofy to see him play an egotistical actor.  Everybody else?  Shrew-fodder.  There’s nobody else that’s particularly likable, so I don’t feel bad when they get eaten.

You know, it’s funny.  After watching this movie, I was expecting myself to completely shred this movie to pieces.  It probably deserves it.  But the more I think about it, and the more I type, the more drawn I am to the whole damn thing.  I love me a good bad movie, but I was surprised to find myself not hating on this movie as much as I was expecting.  The more I typed, the more I came to realize that this movie WAS deliberately made to be bad.  From what I saw, the film was meant to be not just an homage to the original Killer Shrews, but also a kind of spoof-type sequel.  It’s really a celebration of the kind of bad movie that The Killer Shrews was.  If you really enjoy cheesy, z-grade bad movies, this is definitely one to watch. I mean, when one of the characters blurts out, “I’m the director.  Obey me!,” you kind of start figuring out what kind of movie you’re getting yourself into.

My Final Recommendation: “I’m the director! Obey me!” 6.5/10

It’s that time of year again.  It’s time for the leaves to change colors, the weather to start cooling down from the summer heat, and people going shopping for the best costumes that they can afford for the big holiday of the month:  Halloween.  While I’m not necessarily a big fan of dressing up for the holiday(haven’t done that in years), it’s actually really cool to see people actually put forth some effort into their costumes to get into the spirit of the holiday.  For movie buffs, October is the month in which we dedicate a lot of time towards horror movies.  Outside of science fiction, fantasy and action, horror is my favorite film genre.  It is incredibly versatile with various sub-genres that include comedy, action, drama, and science fiction.  For the month of October, I will be focusing more on films that are horror or fall more in line with All Hallow’s Eve.  I will be doing episodes of The Best with specific sub-genres such as slasher films(which I’m doing in this post), but I will also be reviewing more horror movies.

For this post, I will be discussing my favorite slasher films.  What is a slasher film?  A slasher film is a movie in which multiple people are murdered in brutal fashion by a complete psychopath.  Now, most slashers have a tendency to follow a certain pattern.  Certain kinds of people die in a specific order: Boyfriend dies first, then the promiscuous girl, the pothead, and so on and so forth.  Most people go to these films to see how people die.  It might seem kind of morbid, but people having been enjoying stuff like this for thousands of years.  The Roman Colosseum or the Grand Guignol, anybody?  It’s human nature to enjoy stuff like this, even if you refuse to admit it.  So…with that mind, let’s get into some of my favorite slasher films, or as the late Roger Ebert used to call them: Dead Teenager Movies.

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon takes the idea of the slasher film and flips it on its head by focusing more on its villain instead of the victims.  It’s a very unique approach to what has, up to that point, been a stagnant genre.  This is achieved by the character of Leslie Vernon hiring a journalist to document his method of slaughtering his victims.  From selecting specific targets, up to and including what is generally known as The Final Girl, the film takes us through each step of his plan, including the execution(yes, pun was intended).  The actual slasher aspect of the film doesn’t really happen until the final act, everything else is a build-up.  The film also has a sense of humor, especially when it comes to cardio and being able to keep up with people that running away from him.  It’s an incredibly smart film that shakes up the genre in the best way.  Definitely check this one out if you can find it.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

A slasher film will often live or die by how strong the main villain is.  Thankfully, for A Nightmare On Elm Street, we got one of the most iconic movie villains of all time, Freddy Krueger.  In the film, Freddy Krueger was a child killer that was murdered by the parents of the victims.  The terror didn’t end there, Freddy ended up being able to kill people in their dreams.  What makes Freddy Krueger such an intimidating villain, IS his ability to kill people in their dreams, but he doesn’t just stab them.  Oh, no.  He gets creative in his kills, especially as the series goes on.  But for the original film, the kills are extremely spectacular.  Johnny Depp, in his first big-screen film, dies by getting pulled into his bed and turned into a fountain of blood.  It’s gruesome, yet awesome at the same time.  The film also features some pretty decent performances by Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon.  The real star of the film, however, is Robert Englund as Freddy.  This is the film that really put him on the map.  His performance was absolutely electric and scared the hell out of people back in 1984.  He’s done other stuff, but it’s Freddy that he will always be known for.

Final Destination

While my inclusion of Final Destination on this list might strike you as odd, let me explain.  Final Destination is still a slasher film in every sense of the term.  The difference here, is that there is no physical villain.  Each of the Final Destination films follows a specific pattern:  A person has a vision of people dying in a massive incident, only for the person to wake up and freak out.  But afterwards, each person that was supposed to die in a specific order, dies in that order in some pretty violent ways.  Final Destination is actually a pretty clever take on the whole slasher genre, in which it’s more supernatural, but it’s never explained as such.  While a couple of entries in the series are hit and miss, the original film was incredibly unique and stands up even nearly 20 years later.  Definitely see it.

Hatchet

Hatchet is definitely what I would call a throwback to the old slasher films of the 80s.  The character of Victor Crowley, played with gusto by genre veteran Kane Hodder, is an intimidating presence that just can’t die.  Out of the hundreds of slasher movies that have been released, Hatchet is interesting not just because it’s one of the goriest films in the genre, but also because it’s managed to inject a great deal of humor into the whole affair.  People who go to see movies like this know what they’re getting into, so the film really wastes no time in getting to the red stuff.  While some of the writing is a little suspect in my opinion, the practical effects in the film are astounding.  Not once do you see an ounce of CGI blood anywhere.  Puppets and prosthetics are used to great effect, and the kills are brutal, yet will have you laughing at the same time because of how outrageous they are.  It’s definitely worth a look.

Halloween

We can’t have a list of slasher movies during the month of Halloween without discussing John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween.  I will fully admit that I’m more of a fan of Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween, but I can’t deny that John Carpenter’s film pretty much established the rules and patterns for which all other slasher movies follow.  The character of Michael Myers, in the words of Donald Pleasance’s characeter, is simply evil.  There’s no reason or any explanation for why Michael does what he does.  He’s a force of nature.  While Rob Zombie’s film attempts to try and explore the psychology behind Michael Myers, the original film doesn’t bother.  It also establishes Jamie Lee Curtis as one of the genre’s defining scream queens.  Curtis has since become one of the best actresses of her generation.  With a brand new Halloween film due to be released later this month starring Jamie Lee Curtis, I thought it was fitting to revisit the film that really kick-started the whole slasher genre.

Friday the 13th, Part II

When it comes to classic slasher villains, you really can’t leave Jason Voorhees off the list.  He’s also the reason why I don’t include the original Friday the 13th on this film.  The killer in that film was Jason’s mother.  It wasn’t a bad film, but Jason Voorhees is who this entire series is known for and most people forget that Jason didn’t really show up in the original film until the last 5 minutes.  To me, the real start of the Friday the 13th series is Part II.  This is when Jason begins his killing spree.  Most people don’t know this, but Kane Hodder didn’t start playing the character until Part VII.  The character didn’t get his iconic hockey mask until Part III.  Regardless, Part II is where the franchise really took off.  Not only were there more kills, but they were definitely more brutal and a bit more creative.  If you want to start watching Friday the 13th, Part II is really the one to start with.

High Tension(Haute Tension)

While America kind of held the monopoly on slasher films, it wasn’t until the French slasher flick Haute Tension came along that other countries got into the action.  Director Alexandre Aja would take the horror genre by storm with his gritty and brutal take on the genre.  This movie is absolutely brutal and is one of the most intense experiences that I’ve had in a horror movie at the time.  I have to hand it to the French, they really know how to make a horror movie.  Following the success of High Tension, Aja would take on movies like the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes, Piranha, and Mirror.  While High Tension has an ending that had most people scratching their heads, nobody can dispute that the film had left its mark on the genre.

House of Wax

House of Wax is a film that’s related to the Vincent Price film by name only.  This is a slasher film through and through.  It has a pretty strong cast including Jared Padalecki, Elisha Cuthbert, and Brian Van Holt.  This is actually a pretty creepy movie.  Original?  Not particularly.  It follows the standard tropes of the slasher genre to a tee, and doesn’t deviate.  What the film does have going for it, are some really creative set pieces centered around two brothers, who kill random people and pose them in a wax museum.  The two brothers are actually played by the same actor, Brian Van Holt, who is absolutely nuts.  This movie got a lot of buzz because it had Paris Hilton in it.  She’s not an actor, but her death scene was pretty awesome.  Overall, the film is well-made and pretty intense.  It was actually the horror movie that got me re-interested in the genre back in 2005.  It’s definitely a lot of fun.

There are more slasher movies out there than I can count.  A lot of them are also from around the world.  America no longer holds a monopoly on the sub-genre, even if it is where it started.  There are some movies that could have been on this list, but I chose to leave off, because I feel that they really don’t belong in the genre or aren’t good enough to be on this list.  It doesn’t mean that they’re bad movies, it’s just I have a particular idea of what a slasher movie needs to qualify it as such.  Well, that’s going to cover it for slasher movies.  The month of October has just begun, and I have a lot more coming your way.  Stay tuned and good night.

There is something inherently hypnotic about a train that gets wrecked.  I’m talking literally, not just metaphorically.  We’ve all seen the YouTube videos about seeing a train take out a big rig or a smaller vehicle in spectacular fashion, preferably with nobody being hurt in the process.  But every once in a while, we get to witness something truly spectacular when a train really takes flight.  I’m not talking about the engine, but rather the entire train itself, caboose and all.  Sometimes, it’s horrific, and other times, it’s totally epic.  And horrible at the same time.  This is why we refer to movies of certain…..qualities as train-wrecks.  It’s because the film fails in nearly every single way.  While some of these films start out on the track well enough, it doesn’t take long for the whole thing to become completely derailed.  There are multiple reasons for why a film crashes and burns.  It could be because of studio interference, the film wasn’t fully conceptualized during the screen-writing process, or the cast and crew don’t know what the hell they’re doing.  Sometimes, a film can fail so badly, it can derail a particular franchise to the point it will never recover.  When I bring up these films, keep in mind, that I’m not necessarily going to hate them all.  Hell, some of them I absolutely love because of their faults.  With that in mind, let’s get into the films that I feel are total train-wrecks.

Suicide Squad

The trailers and marketing material lead everybody to believe that this was going to be a bad-ass anti-superhero film.  So what happened?  Batman V. Superman is what happened.  People’s overreaction to that particular film’s extremely dark and serious tone forced Warner Bros and the film-makers to try and lighten the mood with Suicide Squad.  To do that, they had to do some pretty extensive re-shoots that added more humor to the film.  The ugly truth of the matter is, is that the film was doomed from the beginning.  The concept of Suicide Squad is fantastic, but the execution was just awful.  You take a group of some of Batman’s notorious rogue gallery and you throw them together in a film with supernatural elements to try and save the world.  They took a fantastic concept and threw these characters into one of the most generic and cliche-ridden films in the DCEU.  Don’t believe me?  Watch the film, it includes every cliche up to and including the whole “portal in the sky” concept which has been done to death.  I enjoyed certain aspects of it, including Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn and Will Smith as Deadshot.  Everything else is a hot mess.

Jaws: The Revenge

The original Jaws is one of the greatest thrillers ever made.  It was the film that put Steven Spielberg on the map and became the world’s first summer blockbuster.  Despite the technical issues with the shark, the film actually benefited from those issues, and scared people out of the water.  It had interesting characters and a pace that was totally white-knuckle.  The quality of the sequels would get worse with each entry until we get to Jaws: The Revenge.  This was the film that killed the franchise completely.  Jaws 3 had some serious issues, but it was still a lot of fun for being a B-movie.  Jaws: The Revenge is a complete disaster in every single sense of the word.  First, we have a shark that somehow follows the Brody family to the Bahamas because of some kind of personal vendetta?  Oh, it gets worse:  Apparently, Ellen Brody has developed some kind of psychic connection to the shark.  A “shark-sense” if you will, that alerts her to whenever the shark is attacking something or someone.  Sounds ridiculous?  I’m not done yet.  During the final “confrontation” Mike Brody and his friend Jake use electronic devices to zap the shark, and when they do, it roars.  The shark…..roars.  The whole thing was riddled with continuity errors, logical fallacies, and glacial pacing.  This movie was boring.  Why the hell did I love it as a kid?  I don’t think I’ll ever know.

Moonraker

I’m a huge fan of the James Bond films.  I always have been.  The suave, smooth-talking British spy is one of the most memorable characters ever created.  I would say that I love all the James Bond movies, but that would be a lie.  There’s two or three that I’m really not a big fan of, but they’re still pretty decent.  The one film in the series that I can genuinely say that I hate was Moonraker.  Moonraker was released in 1979, two years after Star Wars and the same years as Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  The timing couldn’t have been worse, and putting James Bond in space with laser guns was one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever seen for a Bond picture.  To his credit, the late Roger Moore did the best he could with what he had, but the script was awful, the visual effects were laughable and the overall plot was completely derivative of better science fiction movies.  They even gave the character of Jaws a voice and a girlfriend which takes away any kind of menace that the character had.  The main villain is a complete joke and your typical businessman out to destroy the world for one reason or another.  I would say that “train-wreck” is the perfect adjective to describe this movie.

GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra

The Rise of Cobra.  There’s a dumpster fire if there ever was one.  Loosely based on the 80s cartoon and toys of the same name, GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra follows an elite squad of highly trained soldiers tasked with protecting the world from a mysterious organization that’s weaponized nano-technology.  Given how ridiculous the cartoon was, there really wasn’t much expectation that this movie was going to be any good.  Not only was the movie not very good, it completely misses the entire point of the cartoon.  It’s like Stephen Sommers didn’t even bother watching the cartoon or reading any of the comics.  Why was the team using these supersuits?  Not only that, you had this bizarre underwater base that really just looked like something out of the video game.  The characters were mostly done wrong.  We didn’t need an origin story for Cobra Commander.  He didn’t need one.  We also didn’t need to know how Duke and company got to be a part of GI Joe.  The only two characters that were compelling in any way were Snake-Eyes and Storm-Shadow.  Those two characters had more development than anybody else in the film.  Don’t even get me started on the horrendous CGI effects.  If you’re going to watch a GI JOE film, watch Retaliation instead.  It’s better.  Not by much, but at least it bears a resemblance to the cartoon…..somewhat.

Hellraiser: Revelations

If there was ever a way to be both a dumpster fire AND a train-wreck, Hellraiser: Revelations found it.  This movie, if you can even call it that, is basically nothing more than a cheap fan film.  It was clearly rushed and put out by Dimension Studios to retain the rights to the franchise.  The script was so awful that Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in the first 8 movies, refused to sign on.  I’m a huge fan of the series, even some of the direct-to-video entries, but this was too lame, even for me.  It was horrendously produced with lame costumes, lousy visual effects, and a Pinhead that isn’t even remotely threatening.  This movie damn near killed the franchise.  Hellraiser: Judgment, the follow-up, while flawed, is a much better film.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Oh, dear.  This is one that I knew was coming the moment I saw the first trailer.  Luc Besson is a fantastic writer and director, but when his ego takes over, you get train-wrecks like Valerian.  Billed as one of the most expensive indie films ever made, the film barely made back its budget, but it failed to ignite with audiences that weren’t familiar with the graphic novel, which is to say…..everyone that isn’t French.  Visually, this is a stunning movie.  Unfortunately, the casting was awful, the story was lame, and it just seemed to feed Besson’s ego.  There was no chemistry between Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne and most of the other actors basically sleep-walked through the whole thing.  It was boring, and a lot of it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Stick with The Fifth Element, that’s a much better sci-fi film.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

The Final Frontier could have been a phenomenal entry into the Star Trek series.  It has some really interesting ideas, and some scenes actually carry some serious emotional weight.  It’s just too bad that the film was bogged down by a film studio that wanted the film to be more comedic like Star Trek IV, while William Shatner wanted to do something more along the lines of the original film, something more philosophical.  While Shatner deserves some of the blame for how the film turned out, Paramount are the ones that neutered the whole thing.  The quality of the film also suffered because of a much lower budget than previous entries.  You can tell, because the visual effects are terrible.  Despite this film being a train-wreck, I actually like it a great deal, even if it’s only for the ideas that are presented.  Thankfully, it didn’t kill the franchise, as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country put the franchise back on track with an incredible film.

I could go all day and night talking about movies that have ended up as train-wrecks.  I didn’t bring up The Predator because it was very recent, and I’m curious to see if a director’s cut will fix some issues with the film.  Alien 3 was not really that big of a train-wreck in my opinion.  The version you have to see is the Assembly Cut, which presents a more cohesive narrative.  There are other movies out there, but these are some of the ones that really stick out as train-wrecks and dumpster fires.