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"It's a Bad Bad Bad Bad Movie" 2003-07-16 - 4:55 a.m. older - previous - next - profile - host - my band - my lj my friends, I have just seen a movie so bad that I absolutely need to share it with you it defies logic OK, it was on Full Moon Fright Night and it was obviously after the show started to suck so let's go, shall we? it was called "Prison of the Dead" the opening credits start off over little moving frames of a surface that were obviously inspired by the CD casing of The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails later on they have skulls with eyes and other such nasty things but rather than put in some NIN-sounding music, they put in this awful techno/elevator music that sounds terrible it doesn't mesh at all and right there, I should've known, and stopped watching but William Shatner said it was a zombie movie, and you know how I am with those so the movie proper starts with these friends in a limo they're on their way to a funeral home for a private viewing of a friend of theirs who's died they're a bunch of spoiled semi-goth rich kids into "the paranormal" think preppies who wear all-black it's bizarre but regardless, we can tell that the leader, Cristoph, is a real asshole he's an absolute jerk it made me wonder why they would even be friends with him so the friends arrive at the "funeral home" but instead of a building in the city it's a decaying old castle OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE this is the first in a long series of things that'll make you feel like you've been punched in the brain because they're so stupid no mention is ever made that this is out of the ordinary, or odd in any way meaning that the people who made the movie expected you, the viewer, to think that this was common(or later: sensical) which is why it feels like you've been punched in the brain so the friends go to the room with the coffin, say a few words and when one of the friends puts their hand on the "decased"'s shoulder, he reveals he's very much alive, and it was all a prank pulled by him and Cristoph Cristoph's dad owns a super-market tabloid or some such thing, and he bought the place as a promotion see, it actually was a funeral home back in The Day but it was built on top of some real-bastard-puritan prison that tortured suspected heretics and there's a door there that supposedly contains all the evil of the place or something, I don't know, it was hard to follow the "logic" of the movie but apparently one of the executioners who worked there when it was still a prison was buried with the key, and Cristoph's dad's promotion is that he's going to bring tourist out there to try and dig up the body of the executioner so that they can find the key the person who finds it gets a million dollars anyway, Cristoph borrowed it for a prank and here we are now, the five friends have been followed here by a group of three friends, lead by another asshole prick who wants to scare Cristoph because Cristoph slept with his girlfriend now, Cristoph and the other leader guy are such colossal assholes that I was surprised they weren't friends OK, so next Cristoph pulls out a Ouji board ...because he's a prick, I don't know like I said, the "logic"(if there was any stronger form of quotation marks I'd be using them) in this movie is hard to follow at best and as he does, we see a statue start to bleed(and that thing gushes) out in the courtyard the blood goes down underground, and lands on the face of one of the worst "zombie" costumes I've ever seen so as the cannon-fodder, err... friends, plays Ouji; three "corpses" with $3 Halloween costumes come out of the ground apparently they were the executioners, because they were buried with giant scythes !! oh yeah, and they have "glowing red eyes" that were obviously super-imposed later because the glowing doesn't actually sync-up with their eyes anyway, the Sensitive Girl(there's always one) freaks out and starts chanting in tongues during the Ouji(game? session?) for some reason this causes Cristoph and the "corpse" from earlier to leave to the other room where they argue over something, and they come very close to kissing several times I was surprised and almost impressed that they didn't and "surprise"!, the "corpse" is a dick too! while those two are off arguing, the other guy and girl who are supposed to be watching the still-in-a-trance Sensitive Girl reveal that they're actually pricks too the Other Girl snorts some coke and the Other Guy starts hitting on her now, when I say "hitting on her" I mean absolutely beating her senseless(I'm talking about flirting, but I needed a metaphor to show how insanely strong he's coming on) and of course, she's not interested so Other Guy forces a kiss on her and that changes her mind, so they ditch their duties of watching Sensitive Girl('cause they're pricks, remember?) and go off to fuck now, remember those three other victims, err... characters that were going to try and scare Cristoph? well, first I should mention that the group of five look like they're out of college and in the career field the group of three look like they're in high school(although, admittedly seniors) but the leader of the g.o.t. mentions that they're all in college anyway; the g.o.t. decide it's time to split, and the leader sends the guy off to get the truck I was flipping to MTV because All Things Rock was on, but it's quite obvious he never made it to the truck after more meaningless shenanigans, we go back to the g.o.t.(now group of two) and the girl's face distorts for a second(the signal for possession) and she does the little chant-o'-the-possessed so the leader brow-beats her a little, and then just leaves her there(cause he's a prick, remember?) seconds later an executioner comes up and slits her throat there's a few more shenanigans, and then two executioners descend on Sensitive Girl, who's still sitting all tranced in the one hallway, and proceed to murder her now honestly, this came close to surprising me, as I had her pegged for the heroine (9 times out of 10 the Sensitive Girl is; especially if she's the only sympathetic character. Which this one was) now we go to Other Guy and Other Girl, they were fooling around but not fucking yet, and Other Guy is hogging all of Other Girl's coke so Other Girl gets pissed off and goes to the bathroom once there her face gets distorts for a second and she does the Chant-O'-the-Possessed, and then she comes back and gets to fuckin' apparently Other Guy realizes something's wrong, because he says the absolutely wonderful line: "I've never fucked a zombie before, is this going to hurt?" but that doesn't stop him from proceeding maybe you're supposed to think it was the cocaine; but personally I chalk it up to absolute-shit writing I want to stop for a second because I don't think I'm communicating just how bad this movie is I don't have a specific example because I want to get on with the "review"; but I just wanted to remind you that this movie would make Ed Wood cringe anyway, there's more hijinx as "the corpse" from earlier goes looking for Sensitive Girl, and he finds the room with the coffins from earlier he goes to open them, but sadly, none of them contain actual corpses before he can open one that does an executioner comes up from behind him and takes care of him now we go back to the Other Couple Other Guy finishes and goes to the bathroom, while an executioner does in Other Girl Other Guy comes back and has just enough time to see the body "hidden" against the opposite wall before he's gone too now we go back to Cristoph, who has been bitching at the limo driver on his cell phone all this time the leader of the other group comes in and starts to threaten to beat the shit out of him so Cristoph hangs up the cell phone and then congratulates the guy on his "performance" THEY ACTUALLY WERE FRIENDS! [Ow! My intelligence] they talk for a bit, and although they never kiss, the movie does finally reveal that yes, Cristoph is gay anwyay, the two go look for the others so they can leave they go back to the coffin room and find "the corpse" back in the coffin, now actually a corpse Cristoph does the usual "OK, joke's over" routine; and then they just move on and say they'll come back to get him once they find the others apparently they aren't too comitted to finding the others, because they promptly go back to the room Cristoph was in for most of the movie they talk a bit more, and then the lights go out Other Leader's face distorts, and then once possessed he finally explains what the fuck has been going on apparently the spirits possessing our Walking Spam are the ghosts of the people who were tortured and killed in the place back when it was still a prison. Cristoph woke them up with his Ouji-jiggery pokery [yes! I finally got to use that word! Score!] and now they're trying to escape the executioners woke up to stop them plus the executioners want Cristoph dead because he woke up the ghosts this doesn't explain why the ghosts just stand around and wait to be executed again once they possess a victim, but none of this movie has made sense, why start now? anyway, an executioner has stepped in, and promptly ices Possessed Other Leader Cristoph flees the room, and winds up back in the coffin room here he finds Corpse Boy, who is up and walking again he does the usual "'come on, let's get ouf of here' and then gets attacked" routine now, at this point I'm thinking: "Cristoph's the only one left, but there's no way he can be the hero; he's an asshole!" now, to be fair, everyone in this movie was an asshole except for Sensitive Girl and she got possessed early on, so it's hard to say if she would've turned into an asshole too but, they do hint that Cristoph has taken a lot of shit from his father, and is the only one who has convictions meaning that of the assholes, he's the only one with any sympathetic qualities but that's not to say he deserves to be the hero in any way now, back to the story Cristoph and Corpse Boy get in a fight, and to be fair it's actually decent of course it could just be that the rest of the movie was so bad that this scene looked good by comparison; but whatever anyway, after getting the shit beat out of him, Cristoph eventually knocks Corpse Boy back into the coffin; he then proceeds to pick up a stick(with a blunt end) and drive it into Corpse Boy's chest this causes Corpse Boy to spew up a mouthfull of black liquid, so Cristoph does it again and again and again ...and again he seriously does it far too many times, especially considering that the executioners are theoretically still chasing him just then another coffin opens, revealing The Girl from the other group, so Cristophs takes care of her with just one stab then more coffins open, so Cristoph drops the only weapon he has and runs off to be fair, the corpses coming out of the coffins and shambling after him is the only thing that looks zombie-like about the movie and it does that well but it only lasts about five seconds anway, Cristoph locks himself in that hallway from earlier and there's a vain attempt at a nice sequence as the possessed zombies impersonate his friends from the other side of the door saying that it was all a joke, and he kind've hurt Corpse Boy by impaling him all those times, and that he should open the door so they can call 911 on his cell phone [to be fair, the scene is actually better than I just described it, but not by much] Cristoph over-acts being all conflicted, despite the fact that no one in their right mind could possibly think his friends were still alive after what he saw and when he turns them down, they break through the door and the executioners come up from behind him Cristoph runs through the executioners, dodging their scythes then he grabs the key off the last one [remember that?] then he runs back through them to one side of the hall that has a door and he puts the key in !!! now, if this door supposedly contained all this evil, would you really be trying to open it, especially if you had just run past all your attackers and could've gotten out? so, in-keeping with the lack of sense of the movie, once the door is opened it sucks all the zombies and the executioners inside, and then closes Cristoph stumbles outside to the gate where the limo driver is waiting then the limo driver asks him: "That joke you were telling me you were going to play on your friends? How did that work out?" The End This movie was horrible at first I was forgiving, trying to give it a chance then I hated it, then it grew on me until by the end I was enjoying it so much that I think that may be one of the best(worst) closing lines ever you have to be a real Crap Afficionado to enjoy this one, though it was horrible I'm really tired, so I didn't do justice to just how bad this movie was, an interesting thought, though is that as you watch it, you get the feeling that the idea that started this all was: "Hey, what if we could mix Evil Dead with Cruel Intentions?" now, while that idea has potential(as all ideas do) send it through Full Moon pictures and you get "Prison of the Dead" this movie was so far beyond bad I find myself comparing it to an Ed Wood movie Ed Wood movies are like the pinnacle of bad-ness it's like a quote from the old X-Men cartoon show on Fox to paraphrase: "Ed Wood Movies are as far beyond Bad Movies, as they are beyond Real Movies" I'm sure the comparison(to this film) has Ed Wood rolling over in his grave ...actually, if there's any justice in the world; Ed Wood has dug himself out of his grave and is going to devour the people at Full Moon who made this movie Sweet Dreams � � |