Today was a strange day, which somewhat explains why I'm posting at 4:00 in the morning. It's also fitting that today was a strange day, because Werewolf is a strange movie. Quite frankly, Werewolf was 31 flavors of awful, featuring a plot that made little sense, a director with no clue, and actors as wooden as Hacksaw Jim Duggan's 2 x 4. All of this does make this movie very easy to mock, and the gang at Mystery Science Theater sure did a thorough job of mocking this schlock. Now, a few notes from the movie, Werewolf:
- This movie was made in 1996, making this the most recent film ever spoofed on MST3K. If you saw this film, you would think it was made in 1976, not '96.
- The director of this movie is a man by the name of Tony Zarindast. He directs with the touch of a man that has no idea what he is doing, as there are a lot of poor shots in this film. In one scene, the camera pans over a mural in a bar for what seems like a minute, for no good reason at all. Another shot is a still shot of a building, for 25 seconds. The building ended up being the setting for two minor scenes in the film, so why Mr. Zarindast spent so much time fixated on it is a mystery. Whoever mixed the sound in this movie did a poor job, as there are many parts where you can't hear the actors' lines over the music and there were a couple of times where all you could hear was mumbling, during what were supposed to be big scenes. Also, the score of this movie is just awful.
- The biggest star in the movie, if you can call him that, is Joe Estavez, better known as Martin Sheen's brother. He plays one of the archeologists. He's in the movie for about 5 minutes, shoots a werewolf, and is never heard from again.
- The movie has an interesting beginning, as three archeologists are digging, their boss Yuri comes over and yells at them to work harder. They don't really listen, but find something in the dirt. Yuri comes over, somebody trips over the thing, and all of a sudden a fight breaks out, as Yuri kicks everybody's ass. I don't know why everybody started fighting, but it did turn out to be one of the few decent scenes in the movie, so there's that.
- Yuri's the main villian in this movie, a power hungry archeologist who will stop at nothing to become famous for his work. He also has about eight different hair styles throughout the movie, changing color and form throughout the movie, which seems to take place in the timespan of four days. Every scene Yuri is in, his hair changes, and nobody knows why.
- Yuri's not the only problem, as the lead character is a writer named Paul, who the MST3K crew referred to as a "Rent-a-Center" Andy Garcia. That would be fine, except Paul shows no real emotion in the film unless he transforms into a werewolf. Paul became a werewolf after Yuri hit him with the skull of an ancient werewolf, because, as everyone knows, if someone hits you with the skull of an animal, you will become that animal when the moon is full.
- The worst actor in the movie is a woman by the name of Adrianna Miles, who plays an archeological assistant named Natalie. I am 600% sure that she slept with someone to get in this movie, because she has all of the acting talent of a can of beets. She can't pronounce werewolf correctly, which is a minor problem in a movie about werewolves. She also has a heavy European accent that goes in an out throughout the film, and usually reacts to events with a dumb look on her face and one word answers. The girl acts as if she "hardly knows what a hat is", yet she's supposed to be this super smart archeologist who's also a kick-ass pool player. The only thing I can complement her on is her big pair of, well, you know.
- For some reason, there's a character named Sam the Keeper, who watches over the house Paul rented. What he's a keeper of, I have no clue, but he carries a shotgun, has a Santa Claus beard, and acts as if he's been huffing paint for 10 years straight. In the movie, we find out that Sam just found out that Dracula's a f*g**t, and that we don't have to believe him but "that's the facts". How Sam came across this information is never mentioned, and is probably best left ignored. Naturally, when confronted by the werewolf, Sam is without his gun, and instead of calling the cops, he decides to pray for the police to show up. While I'm not questioning his religious beliefs, I do wonder why he didn't use the phone there.
- It's hard to pick a worst scene in this movie, but two of them really stand out. The first one is where Paul the werewolf is chasing after one young woman, and for some reason we hear three different women screaming. The second one takes place after Yuri injects a 60 year old security guard with werewolf blood for some reason. The guard transforms into a werewolf while driving. He seems to be driving ok, even though he passed the same gas station three times, when all of a sudden he randomly hits barrels of oil in a shot which was clearly out of sequence with the rest of the film, killing him instantly. While that's bad, it's still not worse than having three women screaming for one.
In conclusion, this movie is so bad that's its good. From the wooden acting to the poor directing to the bizarre soundtrack, this movie is just awful, but at least it's funny, if by accident. The MST3K crew come up with a lot of quality lines, which wasn't too hard for a movie that offered so much material. As a movie, I'd give it a one out of 10, but as an MST3K episode, I'll give it a 7.64 out of 10, as chances are that you will laugh a lot during this episode. Well, thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know of any ideas for future posts here at The Canon Review. Hopefully, you find this review absolutely fasicnating, like Natalie did.
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Friday, April 2, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Canon Movie Review: I Know Who Killed Me
It's Oscar Weekend, and you know what that means? It's also Razzie Weekend. The Razzies are held the day before the Oscars, "honoring" the worst in film for the year. So, in honor of the Razzies, I decided I would choose a previous winner of worst picture at random and watch that movie. I was hoping for Mommie Dearest, or anything besides The Love Guru, really, but I ended up with the Lindsay Lohan classic, I Know Who Killed Me. I don't really like thriller movies or horror movies or whatever you call this crap, but dang it, I watched the movie anyway. After further review, it should have been called I Know What Killed My Career. I'm sure at least 500 people have already made that joke, but I don't care. A few thoughts about this movie:
-Like that show with Christian Slater, Lohan is two people, or rather two personas One is Audrey, an honor student who plays piano and writers short-stories, but quits playing the piano. She has a boyfriend, but is more focused on her future than anything else. Lately, she's been writing stories about another girl named Dakota, who is an underage stripper whose mom died of a drug overdose.
- One night after a football game, Audrey gets abducted by a serial killer, who proceeds to cut off one of her arms and one of her legs. She's found on the side of the road by a passenger and is taken to the hospital. But when she wakes up, Audrey claims to be Dakota. Oh NO!
- It was pretty obvious the director was trying to show off his artistic skills. Unfortunately, that didn't really help the plot at all, and got tiresome pretty quickly. Like I'm supposed to be impressed that they can stop a scene and change the color into a blue tint, and then quickly a red tint. Whoop-de-damn-doo.
- Another thing that the director did is beat the viewer over the head with the theme of color. Audrey is associated with blue and Dakota is associated with red. Therefore, whenever there's an Audrey scene, she's wearing blue, the walls are usually blue and so is the lighting, while as Dakota, she's wearing red, the lighting's red, etc, etc. The significance of this is never really properly explained. Guess it's one of those things above my head or something.
- I would call the FBI agents in this movie dumb, but that's an insult to dumb FBI Agents. These agents are also lazy, unmotivated, and clueless. The only detective work they do is yelling at Dakota for a minute and trying to blame her for any further punishment the killer might inflict. They don't really ask about who she was seen with or who could possibly have motive. The only thing they are good for is badgering victims and sucking at acting.
- Julia Ormond and Neal McDounagh play Aubrey's parents. They played there roles with the enthusiasm of someone who has already been paid up front. They looked bored, more than anything else.
- Aubrey's boyfriend comes to visit after the incident. Despite the fact that the girl has lost an arm and a leg in a traumatic manner, and has taken on a totally different persona, he has no problem doing the deed, if you know what I mean. Personally, I might have taken a step or two back, but to each their own. To make things almost comedic, the mother hears all the sounds coming from the horizontal gymastics display upstairs, and so she does the only thing she can, taking a sponge and vigorously scrubbing the sides of the sink. She probably could have gone into a room not directly below the bedroom, but I guess that would take too much effort.
- Lohan plays a stripper, and has a long sex scene, but never gets naked. Which is ok by me, but from what I read about the movie, that really cheesed a lot of people off. To each their own, I suppose.
- There was a scene early in the movie where Audrey interacts with the gardener at her house. In what appears to be an attempt at flirting, he takes off his shirt, picks up a tree branch, and simulates masturbation with it. Even with all of the blood and the limb removal scenes, that is the most disturbing scene in the movie.
- Crabman from My Name is Earl makes an appearance. He plays the Prosthetic Technician, helping Audrey/Dakota adjusts to her new limbs. That includes a battery powered leg, which apparently runs out of juice in about 10 minutes, since there were multiple occasions where it was out.
- All of this I could forgive, except for the fact that the movie came completely off the rails in the last 20 minutes or so. We at least know who the killer is, but really I had no idea if this was real or just another one of Audrey's crazy stories. The ending is quite ambiguous (and to be honest somewhat ridiculous), and I was hoping for at least some clarity.
Overall, I was expecting worse. After all, this movie won a record eight Razzie awards, and everything I had heard about this movie was that it was a big pile of suck. While it did suck, it wasn't a big pile of it. The main problems were that it was boring, and the characters, with the exception of Dakota, are one dimensional portrayals, and have little to no importance to the story. Also, the direction of this movie is too overhanded, and the plot, like I said, falls apart at the end. It's not one of those "so bad it's good" movies either, it's just flat and boring, more than anything else. Overall, I would give this movie about a 2.5 out of ten, as it did have the possibility to be a decent movie, but unfortunately, the movie fell into the wrong hands. I must say I have seen much worse movies, though.
Well, thanks for reading. If you have any ideas for future reviews or posts, than e-mail them to me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Until next time, here's the trailer for I Know Who Killed Me:
-Like that show with Christian Slater, Lohan is two people, or rather two personas One is Audrey, an honor student who plays piano and writers short-stories, but quits playing the piano. She has a boyfriend, but is more focused on her future than anything else. Lately, she's been writing stories about another girl named Dakota, who is an underage stripper whose mom died of a drug overdose.
- One night after a football game, Audrey gets abducted by a serial killer, who proceeds to cut off one of her arms and one of her legs. She's found on the side of the road by a passenger and is taken to the hospital. But when she wakes up, Audrey claims to be Dakota. Oh NO!
- It was pretty obvious the director was trying to show off his artistic skills. Unfortunately, that didn't really help the plot at all, and got tiresome pretty quickly. Like I'm supposed to be impressed that they can stop a scene and change the color into a blue tint, and then quickly a red tint. Whoop-de-damn-doo.
- Another thing that the director did is beat the viewer over the head with the theme of color. Audrey is associated with blue and Dakota is associated with red. Therefore, whenever there's an Audrey scene, she's wearing blue, the walls are usually blue and so is the lighting, while as Dakota, she's wearing red, the lighting's red, etc, etc. The significance of this is never really properly explained. Guess it's one of those things above my head or something.
- I would call the FBI agents in this movie dumb, but that's an insult to dumb FBI Agents. These agents are also lazy, unmotivated, and clueless. The only detective work they do is yelling at Dakota for a minute and trying to blame her for any further punishment the killer might inflict. They don't really ask about who she was seen with or who could possibly have motive. The only thing they are good for is badgering victims and sucking at acting.
- Julia Ormond and Neal McDounagh play Aubrey's parents. They played there roles with the enthusiasm of someone who has already been paid up front. They looked bored, more than anything else.
- Aubrey's boyfriend comes to visit after the incident. Despite the fact that the girl has lost an arm and a leg in a traumatic manner, and has taken on a totally different persona, he has no problem doing the deed, if you know what I mean. Personally, I might have taken a step or two back, but to each their own. To make things almost comedic, the mother hears all the sounds coming from the horizontal gymastics display upstairs, and so she does the only thing she can, taking a sponge and vigorously scrubbing the sides of the sink. She probably could have gone into a room not directly below the bedroom, but I guess that would take too much effort.
- Lohan plays a stripper, and has a long sex scene, but never gets naked. Which is ok by me, but from what I read about the movie, that really cheesed a lot of people off. To each their own, I suppose.
- There was a scene early in the movie where Audrey interacts with the gardener at her house. In what appears to be an attempt at flirting, he takes off his shirt, picks up a tree branch, and simulates masturbation with it. Even with all of the blood and the limb removal scenes, that is the most disturbing scene in the movie.
- Crabman from My Name is Earl makes an appearance. He plays the Prosthetic Technician, helping Audrey/Dakota adjusts to her new limbs. That includes a battery powered leg, which apparently runs out of juice in about 10 minutes, since there were multiple occasions where it was out.
- All of this I could forgive, except for the fact that the movie came completely off the rails in the last 20 minutes or so. We at least know who the killer is, but really I had no idea if this was real or just another one of Audrey's crazy stories. The ending is quite ambiguous (and to be honest somewhat ridiculous), and I was hoping for at least some clarity.
Overall, I was expecting worse. After all, this movie won a record eight Razzie awards, and everything I had heard about this movie was that it was a big pile of suck. While it did suck, it wasn't a big pile of it. The main problems were that it was boring, and the characters, with the exception of Dakota, are one dimensional portrayals, and have little to no importance to the story. Also, the direction of this movie is too overhanded, and the plot, like I said, falls apart at the end. It's not one of those "so bad it's good" movies either, it's just flat and boring, more than anything else. Overall, I would give this movie about a 2.5 out of ten, as it did have the possibility to be a decent movie, but unfortunately, the movie fell into the wrong hands. I must say I have seen much worse movies, though.
Well, thanks for reading. If you have any ideas for future reviews or posts, than e-mail them to me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Until next time, here's the trailer for I Know Who Killed Me:
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