Dodgy Film Club: Season of the Witch

A meeting of two actors who seem to have trouble turning down work! Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman are Crusade knights, who are tasked with escorting a ***SPOILER ALERT*** witch demon to a trial by monks. Oh and the witch demon is possibly responsible for the plague.



This was added to our watchlist as it featured on How Did This Get Made? and I may have a bone to pick with the good podcasting folks. Admittedly, they saw it upon its release, but this film doesn't even work as a bad horror movie. Don't get me wrong, it is bad. Highlights include

• Fluctuating accents 
• Historical and cultural inaccuracies
• Ron Perlman playing himself!
• Nic Cage in a glorious wig
• Phrases like 'let's get the hell out of here' and 'shit'..in Crusade times..
• Bad CGI
• Wolves werewolves vampire wolves? with an apparent death wish

Some good old fashioned Crusade-era banter. And hair.

So basically the Church sent these guys to kill all the non believers. Nic Cage is fine with this until he kills some woman and he is suddenly hit with righteous remorse. Nic and Ron leave the army, only to be eventually captured and held in a cell. They then agree to transport the 'girl' (witch/demon) to her trial by monks. There's a demon (satan?) involved, who looks like something out of Doom and sounds like a pantomime villain. In the end religion wins and the plague goes away. Yeah...

On the plus side, Claire Foy, who plays the oddly attractive Adorabelle Dearheart in Going Postal, is 'the girl' and by gods there is just something about her in this too.

Dodgy Film Club: #SHARKNADO @riotheatre

So the (social media) world has finally caught up with dodgy horror films. Does this make me a dodgy horror film hipster? I hope not, as I am not in the least bit put out that #SHARKNADO happened, I hope it means more ridiculous films are made!

A classic case of 'if you're not sold by the poster, there's no hope for you'

Even though I have had access to #SHARKNADO for almost a month, I held out and saw it in a theatrical release in my favourite indy cinema, The Rio Theatre, in Vancouver. Against my better judgement I didn't buy my ticket in advance but was lucky enough to snap up one of the few remaining tickets at the door, before a full sell out was announced and dozens were turned away.

Inside it is clear of the reach this low budget film has attained. To my right, two STANDARD METAL/FILM NERDS discuss the surge in attendence to such showings and sneer derisively at the trivia questions on the screen. ("Uh, Zombieland? Who couldn't know that's a scene from Shaun of the Dead?"). To my left, two middle aged women, looking more like they're fans of mash potatoes than Sharknados settle in for a Girls Nite Out!!! 

As for the film itself.. It's actually pretty standard fair for The Asylum, who have made such instant classics as Sharktopus and Two Headed Shark Attack. That is to say, there is some awkward 'character development', bad acting, lots of good looking girls and some vaguely interesting camera work to get through before we hit the real action and see some goooore!

This is a real still from the film, not a photoshop

When it does (eventually) move up a gear it is still a slow burning build up, with some brilliantly bad pun-heavy one liners and some pretty cool effects including a ferris wheel massacre. The sharks are of course terribly rendered but that doesn't stop everyone in the theatre raucously cheering each time one meets its demise via bar stools, pool sticks and gunshots from our surprisingly sharp shooting heroes.

 
Once it gets to the 'all or nothing, this ends NOW' last twenty minutes, sh!t gets REAL and the lolfactory explodes with amazing gore and ridiculous action sequences. I won't spoil the best part, or the ending, but the trailer does give away part of what goes down; 'We're going to throw bombs into the tornados!'

Afterwards the director did a skype interview live to the Rio and denied that drugs had been used in the dreaming up of the monstrosity. Sharknado 2: Sharkferno is a possibility, he says.

Dodgy Film Club: Drive Angry

The plot of Drive Angry is pretty simple; Nicolas Cage has escaped from Hell to hunt down and kill the leader of a Satanic cult, who has kidnapped his granddaughter. Like most films in Dodgy Film Club, if you are not instantly filled with a desire to watch this work of art immediately, then nothing I can say will change your mind, or add anything to your boring, pointless life.

If you thought a) that sounds awesome! Or b) well, I guess I might watch that, then congratulations! This is the site, and possibly movie, for you!

Drive Angry doesn’t really go in for that sissy, time consuming ‘outlining the plot’ or ‘explaining why things happen’ rubbish that other, less amazing films do, oh no! After opening with a car chase (naturally), there is a violent amputation before the 2.30 mark. If that doesn’t sent the tone for the next hour and 45 minutes, then the first explosion, that clocks in less than two minutes later does.

Nicolas Cage isn’t the most revered of acting talents, however this is the type of ‘fists do my talking tough mofo’ characters that Hollywood mass produces, so really it’s not too much of an issue. How much of a badass is he? Well…

• He gets shot (at least twice)
• He takes out half a dozen armed men while he is drinking whisky and having sex
• He is a proficient stunt driver and alarmingly handy with a variety of firearms, often combining these two skillsets
• He escaped from Hell, people!

Such a badass!

I’m not sure if there is a real message behind all of the madness, besides a fear of cults/sense of justice. It does drag a little towards the end (1 hour 30 would have been sufficient) but there is plenty of lol etc to keep the watcher occupied including

• A naked woman being punched in the face
• Some fairly gruesome deaths
• Gratuitous boob shots
• An ‘American Pshycho’esque character, ‘The accountant’ who is setting the affairs of Hell back in order
• The classic good looking female sidekick who has one of those bendable personalities that makes her feisty, submissive, vulnerable, athletic..basically anything you need her to be! Such a varied character to portray, and yet, overlooked at the Oscars.
• A controlling cult leader who has convinced dozens he is a messiah, yet he travels in a crappy camper van

So feisty!

The Moral Majority Movie Guide is my film bible

The Moral Majority, for the unenlightened, are a Christian, right wing, conservative group who are very concerned about family values and morals.

In their bid to rid the world of EVIL these do-gooders have created a site (www.movieguide.org) dedicated to promoting nice little films that are clean and happy and safe for kids! They also detail the sordid elements of movies and rating them, from a ‘concerned parent’ type of view.

Now, anyone who has read this blog knows my taste in films, and might be wondering what could possibly interest me here. Do I really want to see films such as The Nativity Story or The Ten Commandments? Hell no!

But not only does Movieguide rate good-intentioned, family-friendly films, it also give minus stars for the most SHOCKING, BLASHPEMOUS and IMMORAL movies! It just so happens that some of us like these despicable creations.

Machete

First off, I can't believe I haven't written about this for Dodgy Film Club, something I will rectify asap. The moral majority have listed the following adjectives in relation to the film all about the mustachioed Mexican: 

“Evil, rotten, disgusting, humanist, nihilistic, Communist”

Not only that, but it also contains “68 obscenities and 17 profanities.” This, I remind you, is all before a summary of the film itself is actually touched upon. These are merely red flags of disgust, to spark the beginnings of a righteous, moral fire. Red Flags of Awesomeness more like!

I’ve just realised that I’m assuming everyone knows what Machete is about, or at least can have a stab at the gist of it from the poster. Apologies, let me have the good people at MovieGuide.org explain: 

“MACHETE is an ultra violent, extremely lewd and bloody exploitation movie about a Mexican immigrant who, working with left-wing revolutionaries, violently stops a conspiracy involving a corrupt white businessman secretly in cahoots with a Mexican drug lord who’s manipulating white vigilantes killing illegal immigrants. MACHETE is one of the worst movies ever – an ultra violent, bloody mess with extremely lewd content and a hateful, offensive, racist, Anti-American worldview.”

 I don't know what they could possibly find offensive about this.

Sounds amazing, right?! I think so. But perhaps it’s not for you. I mean, exploitation films are kind of a niche.

How about a film that is a true celebration of being alive? A film in which a man, who suffered terrible punishment and died, came back to life! That sounds like something Christians could get on board with!

Crank High Voltage

 

“CRANK HIGH VOLTAGE is a repulsive action movie about a former hitman who must find the Asian gang leader who replaced his heart with a mechanical one that needs constant electrical stimulation to keep working.”

Okay, they don’t like it, but it can’t be the worst action film they’ve ever seen?

“CRANK HIGH VOLTAGE may be the worst, most abhorrent and evil action movie ever made.”

 Ah. Moving on then…

Tell me there's nothing angelic about this scene!

Piranha 3DD

Next up is GDAC Dodgy Film Club favourite, Piranha 3DD! A tale about man struggling to find his place in the ecosystem. Initial signs are good with this review, as the MovieGuide tag line says ‘This movie really bites’. That’s right folks, that’s a pun! A real, live pun!

I’m not sure they’re thinking this reviewing craic through, because if the lines: “more than 120 obscenities and profanities; extreme bloody, gruesome violence includes piranha comes out of woman’s body and attaches to man’s private parts" makes me want to (re)watch this as a 26 year old, think of what impact it would have on teenage boys.

There’s also a very odd segue, when the reviewer talks about 'anti-smoking Nazis’. Are we SURE this isn’t a parody site? Does the reviewer really detest films with swear words and nudity because they harm children, yet he is pro-smoking? Lololol.
 
(I don't want to spoil any of this by adding gifs. Plus, I can't find any vaguely religious themed gif.)

I’m sure the list contains any number of entertaining/evil films I have yet to see. MovieGuide.org has gained a new fan, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Dodgy Film Club: Piranha 3DD (Xtra D 4 Disapoint)

Movies where the poster is the plot!

Piranha was the original Dodgy Film Club outing and one that set the gory ball rolling over a year ago. The Club has been on hiatus for the most part but when the chance came to watch just one film it made sense to get back into the water with Piranha DD (or 3DD, whatevs).

If you liked the first film (I thought it was okay tbh, even in terms of watching it for the dodgy elements) then you will probably think this one is, well, pretty good I suppose. It has many key elements of the first including:

1. Piranhas, lots of them.
2. Water, lots of it.
3. Women/poor models/pornstars with Barbie-doll figures, lots of them.
4. A strange amount of relatively famous actors who really should know better.

So you basically take ingredient 1 and 2 and add 3, repeat. The action takes place in a water park this time and there's some vague storyline about the daughter wanting to stay true to the ideals of a real park, and the dad (stepdad?) basically flooding the place with attractive, scantily-clad ladies. But really, who gives a shit?

We're here to watch the lolgore (of which there is very little) -

But end up drowning in average (not truly lolworthy bad) acting and boobs (of which there are plenty) -

That's not to say that it's void of lolgore shenanigans! The highlights are actually pretty good and there's some solid gimmicks and wtf moments. It's just that you could enjoy these gifs/images and not have to sit through the other hour and 25 minutes or whatever it runs to. Gimmicks include -

GUNLEG - see also Planet Terror

DAVID HASSLEHOFF  -

THIS UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT -

All in all this was maybe a 6/10 at best though if sandwiched between 2 better dodgy films and a lot of alcohol it could be enjoyable with a group of depraved individuals.