Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
There are cameos and homages. Kari Wuhrer, Vivica A. Fox and Tara Reid star. Why does the Naked Cowboy wear underpants? Matt Lauer has a cameo as does Kurt Angle and various others. Tara Reid gets her hand chewed off by a shark. This was boring and was I watching an edited version? All shark attacks seem to have been cut out.
~
Victor Crowley (2017)
This is the 4th ‘Hatchet’ film. I’ve never seen ‘3’ and I don’t plan to. People return to his swamp because they are morons. Parry Shen and Kane Hodder star in this cheap-o film that’s rather short. This opens in 1964 for some reason. There is no grim satisfaction. Idiots are responsible for their fates. People speak ill of Victor Crowley. Blood squirts as Crowley stirs havoc.
Why are all these traumatic events ignored? There is no undercurrent of fear or mournful coldness. Andrew (Shen) has written a book about his adventures, oddly his dead twin brother isn’t mentioned. People suspect Andrew is the real Bayou Butcher. Why? There is a dick joke. Meanwhile boring new characters run around. Chloe and her ‘friends’ are making a movie about Victor Crowley. There is Victor Crowley merchandise. Kathleen (Felissa Rose) does drugs.
Andrew goes back to the site of the massacre. Creator Adam Green works out his real life divorce by killing off a pregnant woman (Tiffany Shepis) and Andrew’s bitchy shrill harpy ex-wife Sabrina (Krystal Joy Brown) in sexist fashion. There is a plane crash, cheapness, a very well-lit night and illogic. Crowley looks like he’s wearing a Halloween mask. There is a sequel set up via an unwanted Marybeth cameo. This was mediocre.
Best Lines:
“I think I just got gonorrhoea from the shower.”
“I’m telling everybody on the Facebook.”
“The OJ Simpson of Honey Island Swamp.”
“Like you chopped up forty or something people in the swamp and you blamed it on a make believe ghost?”
“I’m scared of what’s in that swamp.”
“Morbid sickos.”
“You really are a psychopath like they say.”
“Discount Oprah.”
“USE WORDS!”
~
Fire Serpent (2007)
Nicholas Brendon (‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’), Sandrine Holt and Robert Beltran of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ and ‘Night Of The Comet’) slum in this. A woman tries to put out a fire with an axe and dies. A fireman (Brendon, who can’t act) reacts as unprecedented fires break out. There is really bad VFX and Feds (Beltran and Holt) lurk. There is mumbling.
A fire serpent has an unswerving drive to cause fires. An old dude suffers reputational damage. The fire serpent from the sun instigates fires. The prevailing narrative is a master class in vagueness. Beltran has silent hostility; he’s on a moral mission. What is the IFA? The old dude is eagerly sought by social conservatives. Annoying reporters for whom rumour has a way of becoming fact get got. This was curiously entertaining at first. There is conflated suspicion and whilst this starts out in interesting fashion the 2nd half lacks serious purpose. This was a misjudgement.
Best Lines:
“Trying to find a rational explanation here.”
“Good luck.”
“No good explanation for how it began.”
“Lives essentially as a transient.”
“Accidentally threw a grenade in his truck.”
“Implications are pretty frightening.”
“Fire doesn’t think.”
“The takedown.”
“Sanitation assets.”
~
Outpost (2007)
This boring British zombie movie somehow spawned 2 sequels. Mercenaries led by the hulking Ray Stevenson find a Nazi bunker in Eastern Europe (that looks a lot like Scotland). They stumble across Nazi science where playing with the unified field theory created Nazi zombies. There is gunfire and creepy, strange and wrong things happen. Zombie Nazis have silent deliberation. This was not darkly gratifying. There are no women bar a single stripper in this film. The mercenaries face an insurmountable enemy that is a deeply pernicious destabilising influence. The mercenaries are calamitously doomed. Everybody dies. Sadly this was dull.
Best Lines:
“Being stalked by dead Nazis.”
“You don’t say much of anything useful.”
“You’re not serious.”
“They were.”
“You really can’t do that.”
“Families forgive.”
~
The Unfolding (2015)
A UK horror that sees a couple go to a creepy house. There is talk of nuclear war. This made no sense and bored. The ending makes no sense.