I want to write about beauty. I want to write about that which draws us together, a celebration of our lives, the intersection of our hopes and desires, the transcendence that might be within each of our souls…

… but, if it’s Monday, then I’m telling you about the Syfy Channel movie on Saturday night, “Dinoshark.”

We had a special “behind the scenes” copy of the film letting us view the story development process. It followed a very difficult route:

1. Open a dictionary.

2. Find two nouns.

3. Mesh them together.

3A. Be sure to pick something that justifies us being in Mexico.

Try it yourself:

“CheeseRadar.” “Pillowamoeba.” “Assbandit.” If you can find a way to make your two words kill people, then call Syfy up, you may be on to something. (Although, if you came up with the last one, there’s a lot more production companies you can call. A lot of them are in the valley.)

I really don’t even want to make fun of this movie. I kinda don’t see the point. It’s like… find a ceramic dog. Now, pet the dog. Then, throw a stick. Now, yell at the fake dog for not going to get the stick. Yelling at this movie for sucking is like yelling at that fake dog for not getting this stick… because it’s all your significant other’s fault for buying the dog in the first place.

No, I’m kidding.

I’m single.

…. And then, the alcohol kicked in.

(For me, not the movie. Maybe the movie, that would explain the scene where the Mexican cop is going to arrest our lead for not having his immigration papers, and pays him off with an “Aphrodisiac Necklace,” which looks like something a homeless guy would find too embarrassingly cheap-looking to sell.

“You mean, for women?” the Mexican cop says, apparently having heard of the magnificent creatures but never having seen one in the wild. Our hero nods balefully, hoping to lead his Mexican cop friend down the road of paying off your significant others in trinkets.)

On IMDb, a hardy soul says it’s “an homage to Jaws,” which is true, in the same way a film that consisted entirely of you jumping around your bedroom waving a dowel rod yelling: “FHWOOM!” would be an homage to Star Wars.

But, there’s too much hate in the world. Instead of ripping on the movie, we’re going to help it. We’re going to give good advice. We’re going to make personal ads for some of the characters in the film. A personal ad, as if they were looking for love. And not fictional. And in some cases, not inanimate objects.

“Dinoshark”

Hello, ladies! I’m Dinoshark!

– I’m an enormous, fake , fake looking shark that kills people in Mexico, largely by them thrashing about while some poor PA throws red coloring into the water.

LIKES:

Global Warming.

Tadpoles fall out of a glacier that melted at the beginning, “melted” being a kind phrase for the animation, as it seems more like the glacier was defecating.)

DISLIKES:

People.

(Unless they come raw and uncooked.)

FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT ME

I’m cheap. There are two Cormans on the production, which means the film had a smaller budget than the shower I took this morning, and I didn’t even remember to shower.

(NOTE: REALLY REMEMBER TO SHOWER.)

EMMETT NOTE: Please.

I really have to stop letting you guys edit these.

ONE THING I COULD IMPROVE ON –

Uh, does “everything” count as one thing?

“Trace”

“You may remember me as ‘The Guy Chloe Glared At For a Season on ‘24.’”

LIKES: Boats or something.

DISLIKES: Dinoshark.

ALSO ABOUT ME:

Uh, is a man. Additionally: hair.

(NOTE: In a Syfy movie, this is a “3-D Dimensional Protagonist.”)

“Carol Brubaker”

- Possibly the world’s best marine biologist/girls’ water polo coach… (seriously, that’s what the movie says she is) but we doubt it.

LIKES: (Hmm, we made notes, but all we could find is a crude drawing of boobs.)

DISLIKES: Presumably the shark, but the boobs we drew crossed over into “dislike” category as well, so I guess that’s a “dislike.”

ALSO ABOUT ME:

It’s a Syfy movie, so, any moment where a woman isn’t killing something, kissing/having sex or giving clumsy exposition, they really aren’t doing much of anything. We were going to write “boobs” again here to complete the hat trick, but that would be sexist.

So, we’re going to put “very thin” instead.

JOHN NOTE: Yes, three boobs is sexist. And also impossible.

EMMETT NOTE: Not on Mars!

“Calderon”

I think this guy was the cop. If I’m wrong, and someone could show up on the internet to shout at me and call me Hitler, that’d be super.

LIKES: Being wrong.

The Mexican police depicted in this make Benicio Del Toro’s crew from “Traffic” look like “Dragnet.” When they aren’t sending the entire group after Eric Balfour, they’re sending a helicopter after Dinoshark… which somehow fails. The shark bites the helicopter and makes it explode, which is a failure that physics finds too awesome to stop.

“Like a Poprock made of metal.”

It’s like if you set out to run over a homeless man with a car, and moments later, he bit your car till it exploded, and somehow you’d run over your own foot.

The cop is what would happen if Aziz Ansari had a child with “All of John Leguizamo’s Worst Performances.” You seriously expect the Mexican police to show up in full uniform, with him rocking John’s “Luigi” outfit.

“Mexico”

Hello! I offer beautiful Puerta Vallarta! And everything’s great here! (cough, except dysentery, crime, poverty etc.)

That was a long cough. I’m getting over a cold.

RATINGS:

7/10 Syfys.

Instead of looking at a bleak soundstage with cheap props, it was beautiful Mexico. Like many things in life, it was all fantastic… until people started talking.

SNAKES:

We’re going to count the Dinoshark itself as a snake, because they’re almost as prevalent in this kind of movie. Okay, as half a snake.

MOMENTARY BLIP OF AWESOME:

I saw a shark eat a helicopter. That’s not something I thought I’d be able to say when I woke up this morning.

COULD YOU MAKE THIS MOVIE WITH YOUR FRIENDS FOR 50 BUCKS?

If you live in Mexico. Then again, if you have $50, you sure don’t live in Puerta Vallarta.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

– Everyone needs to be loved, even people who aren’t people.

– You gotta make us feel. Either makes us really want to see people die, or not.  If we, the viewers at home, could vote, like a reality show, that’d be tremendous. “American Idol,” meh. “American Someone You Don’t Like Could Be Devoured By a Shark,” well, that’s going right on the TIVO.

LAST THOUGHTS:

JFK once said:

“Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”

… he probably didn’t say that while watching a Corman movie on the Syfy Channel on Saturday night, though.

After a year trying to raise the money to continue to exist (and then, after we couldn’t get it, bravely going ahead anyway) Bumps in the Night is back!

Which means… (drumroll, or spitballs please) the Most Dangerous Movie Reviews on the Internet are back… even if that promotion is dead. Which we weren’t sure, because we’ve gained the superpower of “fast-forwarding through commercials” now, which is rendered powerless upon the kryptonite of: “fast-forwarding through the actual horrible movie.”

As always, now and forever, rest assured: you have our solemn vow to always watch the Most Dangerous Movies in the Most Dangerous Way Possible: drunk, with the windows open.

But, in the beginning here, for the first few, we’re going to experiment with making the reviews a little bit shorter. We’re doing this because we’re know you’re busy, and have to get on with your life… and totally not because this is what we were doing with our Valentine’s Day night. Right.

Oh, and since these are so impossibly long, we’re doing them if you request them. So, if there’s a horrible movie you’d like us to tell the world about… I’m sorry, for whatever choices you made in your life that lead you to that point.

But we’d love to hear from you! bitntv@gmail.com

THE STORY SO FAR… SO FAR.

Tonight’s movie (Saturday’s movie? Once you’ve watched enough SyFy enough, calendars/days cease to exist, and everything becomes: “I Have to Do Something Better With My Life-Day.”) is:

“TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN.”

The movie, of course, is a rip off.

Created by men who spent years as big Hollywood execs, it’s a rip off of something more popular that dumb people are going to confuse for the better thing.

(Of course, this movie is ripping off “Transformers,” where everything I just said could be applied to that movie, in regards to the cartoon.) Robots, turn into things, turn back out of things, there’s explosions, maybe there’s a lot of shouting, you know the drill.

Michael Bay’s “Transformers” took years off of our lives, the sequel could positively kill us. As bad as I thought the first one might be, we never thought the biggest criticism of it would be: “It Has Too Many Masturbation Jokes.”

John had exclusive information (read: he actually paid attention to a commercial) that Transmorphers: Fall of Man was a prequel to a prior Transmorphers, proving that cynicism, like foolish people, breeds often. Questions abound:

1. Can we survive this movie?

2. Will this be the worst movie with a “Trans” in a title since “Jon Lovitz’s Trans-Am Explosion,” a 1987 movie where he and John Lithgow played an easy-listening guitar duo on the rocks, raising money for a rainforest run by a monkey with a drug problem.

3. Most importantly: will we have enough booze to last the entire night?

(Answers at the end, if we remember the questions, and don’t have to scroll back to the beginning of this to see them.)

PLOT RECAP:

“Transmorphers: Fall of Man” starts the way many men have fallen: with a crazy chick yelling on a cell phone. She drives through the anonymous LA mountains listening to an anonymous rock song, shouting at a boyfriend who has the audacity to be a plot device.

She’s eventually pulled over by… a living symbol that you shouldn’t trust the future’s going to be all that great. Not your uncle who put his retirement fund in that infomercial where you can flip houses, but Bruce Boxleitner.

Yes, the man who once battled the Master Control Program, and the Evil Guy Who Didn’t Age a Day Between “Tron” And “Titanic”… is now the lead in “Transmorphers.” The only way this would be sadder is if the movie were about kids in neon green outfits locked in a computer game, called “Tran.”

Bruce wheezes through some lines with the intensity of a man idly wondering if he cleaned his attic. He asks her why she’s speeding, she flutters her eyes bit because an acting coach/desperate-to-get-laid boyfriend told her it was “acting,” then he meanders back to his car, without asking her for license and registration.  (Bakersfield apparently takes “The Honor System” pretty seriously.)

She goes back to the phone, presumably to tell her boyfriend: “Oh my God, I know I hate you and I’ve been screaming at you and whatever, but I saw the guy from ‘Tron’… no, not Jeff Bridges! THIS is why I’m dumping you!”

… but a funny thing happens on the way to nothing funny happening:

She’s on the phone, she’s yelling, and we’re staring longingly at our vodka, beginning to voice doubts: “Vodka, you’re pretty great, but I don’t know if you can do it tonight…”

… when something amazing happens.

Her phone decides it’s had enough of listening to her yell to her boyfriend, WHEN IT TURNS INTO A ROBOT SPIDER AND ATTACKS HER NOSE!

Just savor that image in your head for a moment.

Go ahead, we’ll wait. Seriously, we’re doing shots.

She screams, and is kind enough to hold the cell phone spider on her face while she spins the car around. She remembers from her driving manual how you must always maintain at least one hand on the wheel when your phone turns into a spider robot & attacks, lest you accidentally, you know, rip it off, and ruin the film’s prop budget.

Eventually, the spider robot tires of that game, and jumps on the wheel, perhaps to take us to “Awesomeville,” although it feels like we’re almost there. The cell phone then does what your I-Phone has wanted to do to you for years, and shoots a lazer into the center of her forehead. She instantly dies, but the wound doesn’t look so much like: “The Laser Destroyed Her Instantly” but rather “Ash Wednesday Came Early This Year.”

“Maybe… the phone was her boyfriend all along,” Emmett says, staring at the shot glass as intently as… well, guys who watch a lot of bad Syfy movies stare at shot glasses. Greg and John nod at this. Somehow, the phrase “vibrate function” is never mentioned during this.

Yes, in the last year, we somehow got classy.

Greg then does a shot… and it dribbles down his chin. He lifts his shirt to his lips and tries to suck it out of the shirt, thus assuring… well, that we’d be writing this alone on Valentine’s Day.

But, despite all this high-octane drinking drama, the movie continues…. Atop what looks like the water treatment plant. A man in a suit and a woman with… what’s probably a British accent shout exposition at each other like people who are paid only in food to do so.  It’s the kind of dialogue you get in sci-fi movies, that’s meant to be high context, and grab your attention, like:

“We got a ping back on the wavelength!”

“No, not the wavelength… we’ll have to tell them!”

– but, it really doesn’t seem “mysterious” so much as that these two are so inconsequential, none of the people they work with bothered to tell them their real names, so they can only speak about their jobs in pronouns and vague terms. (NOTE: this is a great way to deal with incompetent underlings.)

Once they wrap up this conversation, (with no one saying the two most unspoken questions: 1. “Why aren’t we making out?” and 2: “Why did we have to talk on top of this facility?”) The film rockets forward with the momentum of a drunk snail considering a nap.

Boxleitner is called into an autopsy with a guy who may be an attorney, but he may just also be the only friend Boxleitner has. A pretty doctor does an autopsy on the girl who died by Spider Cell Phone Laser shot (at any level of sobriety that’s pretty satisfying to type) and has no idea what’s going on. Boxleitner agrees, and this scene instantly becomes the honest, intellectual core of the film. The doctor’s accent is British when she’s doing the autopsy, but not when they leave the room, when it becomes American… suggesting the autopsy was more harmful than she let on.

Two seemingly completely different movies away (a child playing with a remote control helicopter that somehow doesn’t kill him and a beautiful young woman dealing with her Mom’s TV not coming on, respectively) … a man lies on a couch, hungover. Pizza boxes & empties are everywhere. We look around uncomfortably, just to make sure that the camera isn’t in our house.

But no… this is the hero of our story. Jake.

Jake gets a call to go “fix a satellite dish,” which we are surprised to hear isn’t some kind of metaphor, dirty, alien, or otherwise.

He shows up at the house of the beautiful young woman, who’s named “Madison.” It turns out she dated Jake once, which seems slightly more unbelievable than the whole “objects turning into deadly robots” thing. It’s obvious they still have feelings for each other, but it’s equally obvious this is only because it says so in the script.

But, as Shakespeare said: “the course of true love never did run smooth.” And, like Shakespeare also said, “As Jake works on the satellite dish, it turns into a wildly goofy looking robot monster.” (check the end of “Timon of Athens.” It’s there.)

He then fulfills the dreams of every repairman, and jumps on his client/ex Madison, knocking her to the ground. He reaches into his “satellite repairman bag,” and pulls out a handgun, making us re-think ever calling a repairman again, (or, alternately, “calling a repairman every day.”)

“Get down… call the cops.” Apparently, Jake has seen “Tron,” and knows that if there’s goofy-looking machinery about, there’s literally no one on Earth more qualified than Boxleitner.

But, after more uncomfortable protecting/laying on Madison, he decides that maybe leaving a robot monster in the middle of a residential neighborhood is not a great idea, and goes out to look for the monster… but by that time, the robot’s on break or something, and is gone.

– Then, the movie decides to test your limits of embarrassment, and cuts to… what we suppose is some kind of Delinquent/Wild Youth guy, seeing as he’s driving an SUV too fast and listening to non-descript metal. He smokes what’s either a joint or a large piece of taffy. As his GPS gives him directions, he yells: “Yeah, sexy voice!” at it, which is unexpectedly funny.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately) the GPS does not appreciate such forward comments, and zaps him in the forehead, killing him. (Which is what your GPS would like to do to you after too many wrong turns. This whole movie’s actually about wish-fulfillment.)

– Moments later, Boxleitner shows up, and a small child whose performance is heavily influenced by either Droopy Dog, tranquilizers, or both, tells him: “The car killed him and threw him out.” Boxleitner, having spent many years in Bakersfield, buys this pretty easily.

Boxleitner springs into action, like a slinky that can’t quite make it down the stairs. It turns out that Boxleitner has been acting as Madison’s father, which is the first and last time the word “acting” should be used around this movie.

He and Jake have an uncomfortable moment where Jake gives Boxleitner his gun, perhaps uncomfortable because it just dawned on them that they’re the only two guys that can stop these monsters. So… they do what any three people would do in Bakersfield on an afternoon, drive around town aimlessly looking for a robot monster that can turn into a satellite dish. No calling of friends, no announcements over the radio, no: “Oh my God, Aunt Bessie, you have to get the hell out of town!” They search for a robot/nuclear/cyborg that can destroy the world with all the intensity of searching for a basketball that bounced out of your driveway.

– A few scenes genuinely too stupid to be mentioned later (Boxleitner hits on the “I’m British When I’m Inside a Building, Merely American When Outdoors” Lady, then Jake says: “I know all about robot drones” without drawing so much as a raised eyebrow from anyone else. Apparently, DIRECTV has a lot of secrets they’re hiding.

–A bit more aimless driving around, and they find the demon SUV/GPS that killed the delinquent kid. Or rather, it finds them. Wildly excited to see them, it wants to play bumper cars, or possibly hump Boxleitner’s SUV. It’s supposed to be a thrilling chase, but it only captures the tension of one SUV unable to reveal it’s true feelings about another.

After playing coy with a few hits and ramblings, the demon SUV can’t hold it in anymore… and it stands tall, erect… and becomes the world’s saddest rip-off of a Transformer. It’s Optimus Past-His-Prime. It’s like someone took your 1^st grade drawings of what your favorite Transformer would be, and only made it to the exact specifications of your 1^st grade art ability after your dog chewed and/or sat on it. We looked at the several-story-tall robot on screen, half expecting to see: “MADE IN TAIWAN” under one of the guns.

But, perhaps embarrassed to be caught with it’ robot hanging out, it attacks. By firing guns in random directions… before the camera cuts back to our characters ducking.

After our heroes discover the Transmorpher (God, it hurts my fingers just to type that “word”) is impervious to them “sitting still” and “arguing with each other about what to do,” a helicopter shows up out of nowhere and shoots the Trans…mphher with a missile, making it explode.

Bakersfield is a hell of a town.

In New York, that would at least make page 5 of the Post, opposite a gossip piece about one of the stars of the “Twilight” movies possibly being at a restaurant.

Then, to heighten the… well, not tension, but it certainly our impatience, our favorite workers form the NSA’s Factory (???) show up to provide a lack of anything. They shout exposition, which only begs more questions.

The boss (hereto referred to as “Goldenrod Shirt,” because, uh… the shirt didn’t look too “Maize”) has apparently been Facebook-stalking our star for some time. “YOU KNOW ALL ABOUT PREDATOR DRONES FROM YOUR DAYS IN THE WAR!” he shouts at our Jake, the way your parents would when you were a teen if they thought some quasi-embarrassing thing you were good at would impress a member of the opposite sex within earshot. You almost expect him to then say: “YOU REALLY PLAY THE ACCORDIAN WELL AT FAMILY GATHERINGS, JAKE. KISS HIM, MADISON. HE’S A KEEPER.”

The British woman is NSA, who somehow must’ve gotten the person interviewing her for the job to drop the “A.” A doctor woman shows up who may have been in earlier scenes in the film, she’s quite literally too boring to remember. “They’re Transmorphers,” she says, only hinting at the number of takes it must’ve required for her not to say “formers.”

Much more exposition oozes out of your television like somebody bombed the dam at Exposition Reservoir. “Roswell” is mentioned multiple times, each more stupefying than the last. Eventually, the Trans…miffers are rousted from their trailer and make their way to the army base out of contractual obligation.

Our intrepid heroes seem unsure on whether the right plan of attack is “Do Nothing” or “Shout Clichés At Each Other While Doing Nothing.”

“We have to leave!” “We can’t leave!” “But this is all we’ve got!” “We’re not going down!”  A “Trans…mippier” walks through the base, killing soldiers willy nilly, suggesting the producers believe the US Military is about as tough as a Boy Scout Troop After Spending an Hour at Dairy Queen. Either that, or Bakersfield is ready to be invaded at any time.

After even the Transminifphers realize that the same shot repeated over and over again of him firing at soldiers is losing cache as even a kitsch thing, the heroes shout buzz words at each other that they’ve seen in other, better movies: “Jam the signal! Get to the tower! Wait for the signal!”

It’s like word salad from other movies. You almost expect Boxleitner to yell: “Yes! Then we’ll go to the Death Star Pandora and attack it with the Implant a Virus in the Mothership Gate!”

One of the scientist ladies runs with a computer the size of our feeling of shame for watching this movie. Apparently, the only technology the NSA gets is from Texas Instruments. Boxleitner gets into a helicopter, possibly to see if he can fly off the set, and use the helicopter as collateral to keep whatever money he made for this movie.

Atop the tower!  Our heroes battle the Transmuripher. It advances on them… then, as it’s about to kill them, it realizes that this is all of what became of its Hollywood dreams, and stops, hanging its head in shame.

(Okay, the movie said something about: “We jammed the signal!” But we know what actually happened.)

— and then Boxleitner crashes the copter into the not-moving creature! Killing them both! It’s so wildly unnecessary, we’re waiting for Jake to say: “Um, why… why did he do that? Can we do a take where he doesn’t kill himself?” But, the machines are defeated… and the movie ends!

Greg and John breath heavy sighs of relief! “We survived!” John yells, almost in tears.

“But… um… err…” Emmett’s voice is heavy and cold as a rock, “We’re… we’re only sixty-five minutes in. We’re… halfway.”

Decorum prevents repeating what happened next in the apartment, but… let it be said… you never want to hear another human being say: “I… I’m sorry, but… I thought there was vodka in the carpet. I didn’t mean… for you to see that. Or be hurt by it.”

Ahem.

– -the movie seem just as incredulous as us that it hasn’t ended, and cuts into the… near future. Jake tells us that “every machine with a complex microchip was shut down.” He actually says that. Thing is, he says this… while getting out of an SUV, which of course, is run by solar power, wind, and positive thoughts.

He slow dances with Madison at a bar… she looks into his eyes, and asks him about the guys that died under his command in Iraq. He tells her about how his bad decisions got them all killed. They’re both in luck, because apparently “Gross, Fatal Incompetence” is her biggest turn on, and she kisses him. Hard.

They go back to his apartment, with the kind of passion that can only be expressed by neither participant looks at another’s genitals or move the sheets.

As they wake up the next day… (underneath a shoe rack, seriously. There’s a scary moment where you think they’re making love near the balls at Chuck E. Cheese) the Transminifpheirers heard that she was finally putting out, and begin “the invasion’ which means someone on the staff used the “copy and paste” function to make two robots.

Jake & Madison flee, and meet up with the rest of the remaining heroes from the first half of the movie, (the British woman who almost got with Boxleitner, and her attorney friend). They haven’t found anything better to do with their time in the interim, even though any semblance of a survival instinct would say: “Get the Hell Out of Bakersfield.”

They go to a field, where “other survivors” live now that “all the towns have been destroyed.” Again, we don’t see any of this. The “honor system” in Bakersfield is the most powerful thing in the world. As they arrive, their SUV, finally seeing a chance to make a run for it, either explodes, or kicks them out of the car. The movie doesn’t seem to want to be clear. Regardless, they’re on the ground, and the SUV is speeding away, no doubt calling its agent and begging for a commercial, anything.

At this point, the movie decides to take a nap, and introduce us to more people who don’t have lines, but probably had a friend/friend with benefits/friend who better have been providing benefits better than being in this movie on staff.

How slow is this next part? It involves one of the great trippy monologues of all time, from an NSA scientist (we know this, because she worked at the NSA Plant) saying this about the robots fighting:

“An extraterrestrial attacks like a friend, there’s a moment in the conflict, where you question how am I going to overpower it, up over around or whatever, this alien, it attacked like an enemy, and there was nothing for me to figure out.”

… you really do think the next line out of someone’s mouth will be: “No more drugs for that woman.”

In a way, that’s kind of like the big reveal of “Transmorphers: Fall of Man” – everyone is doing this sober.

But, since this is this kind of movie, a pacemaker turns into a spider, (Yes, it’s the Dick Cheney model pacemaker) and attacks the crowd. One of the extras, seeing a chance to work out some dark, misogynist issues, shoots at the pacemaker, misses hits the woman who had the pacemaker five times, and then finally hits the spider pacemaker. (I guess, use the opportunities you have? I dunno—)

They decide to destroy… a base? A plant? The mall where the Transminiphiersrers hang out? Regardless, there’s somewhere for us to attack to find a way to end the movie. After hiking through… pretty much all of California (we know this because someone says: “We’ve been hiking forever!”)

They run into the winner of a “Gerard Mcraney in ‘Major Dad’” competition, who manages to kill one of the Transmophi…fers through nothing but the magic of a ridiculous mustache. He tells them a lot of exposition from other, better movies, about the water being changed and the robots had plants in each country, (“we already took them down in China, Russia, and Bulgaria,” which lets you know the Tranmophphphers had an extra plant lying around, threw a dart at a board and said: “Hmm… sure, we’ll take… Belgium. Oh, it’s Bulgaria? Whatever. So long as we put one in Bakersfield. That’s where the action is.”)

A lot of shooting, running, and reaction-shotting later, Jake sets a bomb to blow up the plant, and save the world, etc. “We only have ten seconds!” he yells at Madison, clearly not the first time he’s had to tell her that something wasn’t going to last as long as they’d hope.

He sets the bomb…

… and John counts out… “nine… ten…!” He claps. We cheer, eagerly awaiting Jake blowing up.

“You have to go!” Jake yells at Madison.

“And ten!” John yells. Greg joins him.

Madison holds Jake again: “But I love you!”

“Ten!” we shout.

“You have to go!” Jake yells again, profoundly incapable of saying anything else.

“TEN!”

Jake sets the bomb down on the ground.

“TEN!”

He turns and looks at the robots.

… but he doesn’t explode for (and John kinda timed this, as much as a person can read numbers after this much drinking) another 1:45 seconds. This scene sums up the movie more than any other one… because no one, not the Transmophphphphperifiers, or Jake, or robots, can count to ten.

The plant explodes. The robots… aren’t there anymore, we’re led to believe they’ve exploded. The women run in slow motion from the plant… just as we all should’ve done from this movie. Jake survives, just to slip in one last disappointment.

… as for the three of us, we survived. Eventually. Maybe someday we’ll sober up. Next year, the monster for Valentine’s Day night…  dates.

RATINGS:

7/10 SYFYs: Large robots killing people, while non-descript actors tell each other about it in various degrees of overacting? Still, this could’ve used at least one guy that was working for the monsters, or just so insane he hurt other human beings. Those guys are always fun.

SNAKES: Still at zero, but I’m giving an honorary snake to that guy’s mustache. It was pretty fantastic. You got the feeling that if, like another cell phone turned into a spider, his mustache would’ve leapt into action.

MOMENTARY BLIP OF AWESOME: If there was an app that turned my phone into a spider that attacked other people, we’d never need another app. We would need some new friends.

COULD YOU MAKE THIS MOVIE WITH YOUR FRIENDS FOR 50 BUCKS?

Do you have Bruce Boxleitner?

Do you have a lot of friends with nothing better to do over a weekend or two?

Then…. Yeah.  Actually.  Also: Windows 2007 actually has “Boxleitner” in its spellcheck. Classy movie, MCP. Classy move.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

— We could watch people’s cell phones turn into spiders and attack them all day long. All night, too.

– Remember, if there’s a movie you’d like to see us do, drop us a line at bitntv@gmail.com

If not, we’ll assume you didn’t make it to the end this long, and we’ll do nothing but post nude pics of ourselves on this thing. Your move, internet.



For whatever reason (excessive baldness?) he can’t get anyone to fund his juice (maybe he was bootlegging it?) so he is supposed to get a few million from eccentric billionaire Liverspot McYouKnowHe’sMessedUpBecauseHe’sInaWheelchair and his shadowy, shadowy agents: “Woody Harrellson’s More Responsible Looking Cousin” and “Female Operative Apparently Too Evil to Brush Her Hair” respectively.

Liverspot will give our intrepid half-smart scientist enough money to pay for his wife’s Leukemia, provided the invincible blue goop works. (One would argue that if a scientist were able to create a “Restore Everything” juice, he could help a little bit with his own wife’s Leukemia. Isn’t that sort of like a veterinarian with an old Basset who’s like: “I made this awesome juice for healing every problem with Beagles! If only someone could give me enough money to help my Basset…” But we digress.)

Liverspot has a dastardly and less-than-genius idea: have his agents shoot/beatup/laugh at the scientist, then lock him underneath an abandoned hospital. Oh, and shoot him up with his own blue goop to see if it works. (Strapping the scientist to a table and blue-gooping him up would probably be too much work. Besides: there’d be no shooting him in the legs!)

SPECIAL NOTE: this idea came in 2^nd place at the 2009 North American Bad Ideas Convention, narrowly losing on the 3^rd ballot to the shoulder-mounted-shower-toaster.

Our scientist gets out a couple: “NO!”’s as he’s locked in, having realized that in his rush to create “death-defying” technology, he forgot about “locked-door-opening” technology.

– And then, the movie cuts to Tom Sizemore doing community service work with his niece.

No, really.

That’s what it seems like.

Anyone who tells us this was scripted, or not real, that’s non-sense. Maybe the rest of the movie was made up, but many of Mr. Sizemore’s scenes appear to have been filmed around his own life: community service, nervous family members, menial work, underground tunnels, and running from monsters. That’s a solid Sizemore Saturday night.

Tom Sizemore’s crack team is:

Knowledgeable (and Potential-to-Die-At-Any-Moment) Black Friend.

Virginal, yet ‘tudinally inclined niece.

And a teen guy who’s hair is so emo you can only see it on your TV if you’re wearing a lot of eyeliner.

Tom Sizemore hatches his own brilliant idea, he knows of an abandoned hospital nearby where “there may be some medical supplies we can take, after we clean it up.” Seduced by the fast, easy money of the tongue depressors and cotton balls game, they rush to the hospital.

In case you find that scene/what’s become of Tom Sizemore’s life too depressing, the film intercuts the scene with the scientist eating a rat.

He begins to yell and presumably mutate, possibly into a rat. We are, however, a hundred percent sure he will not be mutating into a better actor. Although, not even Olivier in his prime could’ve pulled off the line: “My wife! I failed you!” while eating a rat. Although, granted, that would’ve helped Henry V tremendously.

At the hospital, Tom Sizemore takes his charges into the tunnels, while the Bad Patrol arrives concurrently. The Not-Quite-Ready-For-The-Matrix Agents are sent in by Sir Liverspot to “find the scientist, or his body,” but the only firm thing they can track down is their own failure. Unbelievably, this air-tight plan took on a little water.

Maximum Liverspotus’s make-up is so bad, you’re waiting for one of the other characters to reference it. Like, Female Death Woman-Bitch Monster Agent is going to say: “He’s faking! I think he already ate the blue goop, and then wolfed down some liver and Saran wrap, hence his face!” (And while you may think that’s comedic exaggeration, she really does look like the kind of person who would say “hence” in conversation.)

This make-up is poorer than the age make-up at the end of one of the scariest horror films of the past decade, “A Beautiful Mind,” in that scene by the end when Zombie Russell Crowe$ terrorizes Princeton, and the other professors stop him the only way they can, by hitting him with his one weakness: magical pencils placed in front of him.

In the tunnels, Tom Sizemore and Friends give us an example of a staple of cheap horror: “Creepy-Walking.” You save some money in horror by having your characters walk slowly through a dangerous place. The audience thinks something might happen, despite the fact you’re much too poor for anything to. Sizemore and Co. give a master class in this, even going so far as to intersperse it with some “banter.” (If there was an “Inside the Actors’ Studio” for bad horror movies, this is how they’d talk. Also: someone get on that idea.)

But, just when the walking crosses that thin but tangible line from “sorta creepy” to “seriously, someone die,” sunlight breaks through the gloom as “My Hair is Too Dramatic For Your Love, But Worships Your Pity” Boy is attacked.

But, alas! Not by the most overeducated rat monster (insert a “your least favorite university here” joke.) But instead, a Jamaican homeless man.

He’s Jamaican. Jamaican. He makes Dee Jay look like M. Bison at a Garth Brooks concert. He’s so Jamaican, his accent suggests he entered the tunnels smoking a joint, while sitting on a larger joint, on top of a sled from “Cool Runnings,” that has an engine shaped like a joint that’s powered by marijuana, Bob Marley, and The Willingness to Actually Grow Dreadlocks.

He makes queasy racial stereotypes queasily embarrassed. Robin Williams’ friends from “Club Paradise” or whatever would be like: “Hmmm… this guy’s a bit much.”

— The scientist is officially a “rat man” now, if the large red foot stepping into a puddle is any indication. A lot you can tell about an actor by the acting choices he makes for a monster. Freddy Krueger (as played by the great Robert Englund) is a perpetual threatening sneer. Jason Vorhees is the stoic, inevitable force of death. The zombies in 28 Days Later would’ve been great on special teams.

Rat Scientist skips.

He hops through the underworld. He has a twinkle in his step. It’d be adorable if he weren’t a rat-man killing machine; and yet it’s far more adorable than anything you might think a rat-man killing machine could do. It’d be like if the devil gave you a teddy bear, and took you out for a sundae, before ripping out your spine like a wobbly staple.

– Before too long, the Rat Man, despite being the villain, tries to get the audience to like him by slashing “My Hair of a Vortex of the Depths of My Soul, Did I Tell You I Dyed It?” Boy to a merciful, gentler than we all thought was coming death. Upon finding the body, Tom Sizemore is enraged, and his facial expression suggests he may steal the Rat Man’s cell phone until one of them is dead.

Tom and co. are now… locked in the tunnel, (we think the agents did it…?) and the agents come upon them, while searching for the monster. And they make the tough moral call upon finding Tom Sizemore than that’s actually a worse monster out there…

… it’s at this moment that we should mention that “Drunk-Blogging” is an inexact science, hence the words “Drunk” and “Blogging.” There come times when your memory, your recollection, and possibly even your alcohol conspire against you remembering every damn detail. All we know is, by the time we looked back up, Woody Harrellson’s missing relative was dead, and we were reasonably sure that the three of us watching at home didn’t do it. Our livenotes at the time were no help:

“B LUE LIGHTS IN THE IVS AND A GLOWSTICK/RURANIUM/SOMETHING OF OTHER (she’s starring at his nick)”

… which doesn’t exactly provide context.

Perhaps the mystery is to be savored?

So, much like they probably said during this movie when they realized what it was they were making: “The show must go on…”

Realizing that there are only a few here in the tunnel and one of them is a killer rat scientist monster, Tom Sizemore realizes “Not Being That Stupid” is the better part of morality, and works with Agent If-The-Worst-Nun-Ever-Worked-For-MI-5 to get to the surface. But, while Smart Black Friend and Saint Teen of Arc are excited to be in the company of someone who actually owns a suit, Tom Sizemore rubs together the two remaining brain cells he has (or, he just takes the one brain cell and folds it on itself) and realizes that Agent Doom Mother will kill them herself before she lets them out. (Yes, you have our permission to call your band “Agent Doom Mother.” But only if you call the 2^nd album: “Down With the Doom Brood.”)

She tells them that she’s here from the government, ready to take rock-tastic blue goop to the government to make the always-good-for-giving-your-shadowy-characters-a-reason-to-do-malicious-science-nonsense: “Super Soldiers.”

“Imagine! Fighting the war on terror with real human beings thousands of miles away! No American troops would have to die ever again!” NOTE: All quotations of dialogue should be taken with a big container of salt. Remembering dialogue from one of these movies while you’re drinking is like playing telephone, only the person on the other end is vomiting into your ear.

She goes on to say that they were “Just watching” Old Man Liverspot, perhaps just wanting to see what the government could learn from the “Shoot the Scientist Who Made the Secret of Life in the Legs and Lock Him In the Tunnel” line of thought. Tom Sizemore drums up what talent remains and puts out that he was: “tortured in ‘Nam for two years.”

(God, how much better would this movie have been if it: “Senator John McCain fights a rat monster underneath an abandoned hospital”?)

Mr. Sizemore points out that: “the government better hope that it and we all die down here, because even this administration couldn’t spin this away.” We weren’t exactly sure what to make of this. Was this another cheap, lazy shot at President Bush’s “Let’s Make Rat People Out of Tax Cuts” program, or, does “Change You Can Believe In” really mean “Change (Into Human-Rat Monsters) You Can Believe In”? See, a great movie keeps it’s political views hidden.

Upstairs, Liverspot’s mostly forgotten bodyguard, Asian Ryan Reynolds, has a knife fight with the rat monster that’s so embarrassing the knives have been forced to apologize to utensils everywhere.

Liverspot calls Our Girl Megabitch only to have the unwelcome surprise of having Tom Sizemore sweatily wheeze into the phone. For a scene that’s supposed to be funny and yet, elicits more horror than the rest of the film so far, Mr. Sizemore tries to get fifty million dollars from Liverspot to come up stairs and save Liverspot’s life from the monster. Liverspot tries to negotiate down as he watches the rat monster confuse his body guard with the actual Ryan Reynolds, and casually rip the well-built Asian man’s head off.

Tom Sizemore is about to close his biggest deal since that one episode of “Southland” for 35 million dollars when the Saintly, Good, Virginal Teen shouts out: “GO FOR 40 MILLION!”

It’s an empowering moment, as it shows that little girls can become callous and greedy in the course of just one day, (and, granted, prolonged exposure to Tom Sizemore.)

But Rat Man is not a fan of feminism, and kills Liverspot before anyone can call their attorneys. Our crew takes a deep breath, and tries to remember their lines as they come upstairs.

Tom Sizemore stumbles in the direction of the monster, and this provides enough of a distraction for Hey, Remember the Black Guy in This Movie? And Formerly-Saint-Teen-Now-Georgina-Gekko to escape/run outside. Malificient-The-Middle-Aged-Woman-of-Vengeance celebrates by getting enough C-4 out of Liverspot’s limo to blow up half of the solar system.

She and Big Time Tom Sizemore run back downstairs to “The One Tunnel Set We Have.” The monster chases them, skipping in inhuman rage. But, in another not-so-great moment for feminism, Special Agent Woman Code Name: “Denata” (who has killed people, and exhibited nothing but icy composure, a rarity here) is ready fight the monster….

… when she slips on her dead partner’s blood, and breaks her leg.

This would be like if Jason Voorhees were chasing a kid on a dock, tripped on a paddle, hit his head, and drowned in Crystal Lake while the counselors mooned him. Or if Luke Skywalker stubbed his foot on the Millennium Falcon’s stairs, and died of The Dark Side of Turf Toe.

But, she has enough wherewithal to realize anywhere this ugly really should be blown up, and helps Tom set up bombs. In a truly touching moment, Agent “Evil is Sexy, Right?” realizes what the world would be without Tom Sizemore, and then does the truly evil thing, and lets him go without killing him.

Tom waddles away as the monster hops his way to Rue McClanahan of Death. Perhaps fearing a monologue from her, he rips off her jaw.

In a race that makes one miss the quiet dignity of a sack race, Tom tries to lurch and stumble away from the hopping/skipping/almost prancing hellbeast.

— But he cannot. Just when it looks like it’s curtains for “The Bad Guy From Paparazzi: The Movie,” Black Dude of Wit and Super Niece show up with a chainsaw.

The Rat Monster is kind enough to let her get her “I Chainsawed a Bi-ped to Death” brownie badge.

Tom and her bask in the after glow absolutely covered in monster blood. (It’s touching. And vomitable.)

But, as the moon must break the day, Tom Sizemore sees the only thing that could break up a family bonding moment… the C-4 he set only moments ago.

STRIKE THROUGH THIS NEXT SENTENCE:

He quickly grabs his niece and they run outside—

No.

They stare at the timer as it ticks… down… 5…4…3…2…1….

He grabs the time, rips it off the wall, and cuts the red, no! The blue cord! Stopping it at half a second!

He jumps on his niece, giving her cover, and they dive out of the tunnel in time -

– Nah. The just blow up.

It’s AWESOME. With a capital “Me” and “Aw!”

— Tom Sizemore wakes up in a hospital bed, possibly trying to remember the name of the one not-crappy public defender. But, alas, Dr. Twist Ending arrives to tell him that he and his niece were covered in so much monster blood that they’re now infected, are on an army base, and will be super soldiers. Or, at least, two people you don’t want to be locked in a tunnel with when they’re shot in the legs and the rats come by to say hi.

The movie ends as many of Sizemore’s nights do: him screaming “NO!” as a foreign substance is pumped through his veins by an IV.

RATINGS:

9/10 SYFYS: Goofy monster? Check. Rich evil Guy? Oh yes. Ridiculous plot to justify the one set we have? You betcha. Government operatives known as that by them wearing suits? Of course! It’s only missing…

SNAKES/C. THOMAS HOWELL: But… a rat is eaten. That’s gotta count for like, half a snake.

MOMENTARY BLIP OF AWESOME: Tom Sizemore and his niece blowing up. We really did, no-lies, applaud. 1^st time we’ve done that here since Annettet showed up.

COULD YOU MAKE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS FOR 50 BUCKS? In all likelihood. If you had a tunnel, some pals, and Tom Sizemore. And really, you don’t need him. Anyone from Gary Busey to Jason Hawes could play that part. In fact, make that movie. Please.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

Even if you have a horrible, fatal, science-created hunger, it’s never a good idea to eat a rat.

Women can be anything! The Teen girl shows all the things a woman can be: she’s innocent and smart, and then, she’s a greedy, blood-thirsty/chainsaw-equipped killer, and finally, she’s an invincible, possibly-cannibalistic super soldier. Ladies, never settle for second best.

It’s a real “coming-of-age” story, and would’ve been a great addition to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Boredom:

JOAN OF ARCADIA: Why did you chainsaw Ugly Betty to death?

LORELEI: Give me forty million! I know Dr. Jacobi has it!

Speaking of “women-doing-well-and-no-bad-things-happening-to-them” movies, “The Descent” is this week’s Sci-Fi channel movie, which means they’ll be no reviews as that is an exceptional horror movie that is absolutely worth your time. (Like, seriously. We might watch it sober, if only it weren’t so damn scary.)

In fact, there might be a couple weeks without another one of these as we take the format into the shop to tinker with it. If you have a suggestion of a movie you’d like to see/read us watch in our horrible fashion, please send it.

It’s good to know, on a morning you wake up face first in something and hope it’s soup, that there’s a world out there. Goodnight!

BE AMAZED… by our… value system…? What…?

“CARNY”

It’s hard to develop a code of conduct. It’s difficult to make a system of laws that everyone should live by. Moses had to wander for 40 years up a mountain, and even then, he only got it because God gave it to him in handy, easy-to-carry granite tablet form. The Athenians had to deal with an entire Persian army populated with creatures from the Axis chemical plant to develop their fledgling constitution. Hell, we wouldn’t even have our constitution here in America if not for the brave efforts of our Founding Fathers to continue writing the constitution even while their secret lair within the Liberty Bell were under attack by the Fire-Breathing Dixie Vampire-Zombies made of tobacco and slavery.

Luckily, here in America today, we don’t have to worry about. Because we have an exact system of morals to live by, that’s both infallible, and moral. It’s called “Carny” and it stars Lou Diamond Phillip’s inevitable creeping “silver fox” of grey hair.

We watched this movie as we do every week, drunk with the windows open. But this week, we tried to do with it a screen up, because nasty bugs get nastier when you get drunk. Trust us.

John Note: On further reflection, and not having had nearly enough to drink, I’m not sure this movie ACTUALLY takes place in Jersey (even with the Jersey Devil playing the role of the monster, yeah, WTF, I know), but Jersey really is an awful enough place that I don’t mind leaving the erroneous references.

—-

OUR FILM OPENS WITH… two old men at a carnival, arguing over the price of “a monster.” (We know it’s a monster, because there’s lots of left over dinosaur sounds from Jurassic Park lying around.) The Carnivale owner, (who resembled Rowdy Roddy Piper, if the Rowdy One had locked himself into a room after “They Live” and done nothing but eat Lady Fingers all day every day for eight hours day, 2nd Sunday of every month off) haggles with some dude over price.

His assistant, “Christopher Lloyd’s Strung Out Younger Brother” pay the man selling the monster something like 5,000 dollars, apparently in all tens, from what the camera shows us of the roll. How do people like this get a monster to sell? What’s the going rate on such a thing? Before we can get any nuts-and-bolts info on being a professional crazy person, Rowdy stabs/fists the seller in the back, and takes the monster and his own money back.

MORAL: IF YOU’RE SELLING A MONSTER, MAKE SURE YOU DON’T SELL IT TO AN EVEN BIGGER MONSTER. (Literally. If this guy had been in 80’s-90’s wrestling, they’d’ve had to give him a nickname like: “Canyon,” “Global Avalanche,” “How Green Was the Spandex Leotard That Was the Size of a Valley,” etc.

But, Christopher Lloyd’s Strung Out Younger Brother (CLSOYB… instead, let’s just call him “Lil’ Chris”) gets his eye ripped out by the monster, but manages to get a chain around it/himself long enough for the Rowdy one to pant heavily as we go to the title.

CARNY

Lou Diamond Phillips struts around a town that could only be called “Sadville” with the gait of a man who has starred in a real movie at some point in his life. He’s the Sheriff, the cop, the “One Figure Of Authority That Seems to Have Any Idea What’s Going On.” He checks in with his subordinate cop, Office Mustache McWhiny, who seems confused as to how a telephone from the 80’s works.

The LDP then takes a jaunt through the “freak show” itself that’s rolled into town, with a look on his face that very clearly says: “I Thought These Kinds of Things Stopped Going Through the Northeast Before I Was in La Bamba. By the Way, Did You Know I Was in La Bamba? Screw Esai Morales.”

Through point of view shots, we are introduced to the members of the freak show. Each carries a stronger “Yeah, Yeah, Get the Necessary Shots of Us So That We Can Go Back to Being in a Freak Show” look than the last.

A few kids whipping around fire barbs with spectacularly 80’s hair. (in fact, they’re doing it so non-chalantly, we began to wonder if their real “Freak Show” appeal was that he had Flock-of-Seagulls-esque hair going.)

Someone disturbing looking like Tom Green puts snakes/octopuses on leaf-less trees. (His freak show ability is “Artistic Littering”?)

Some bored people throw fire sticks around. A really-awesome looking dwarf with really-awesome punk hair works on a tent. (Can you imagine anything more “punk” than a really kick-ass dwarf band? The only thing more punk than that would’ve been if Sex Pistols played while tied up in the trunk of a ’79 Buick as it crashed into The Disney Store.)

The LDP gives this all the same bemused smile one would a bunch of middle-school boys that were mooning him: “Sure, You’re All Doing Something Crazy, But I’m Not Going to Dignify Your Shenani-freaks With Anything Less Than the Most Condescending Grin Imaginable.” Seriously. If condescension were energy, we could power a Midwestern town with Lou Diamond.

But then, he makes a fatal mistake so many of us do, and asks a nearby dwarf “Can I find the owner?” Of course, the dwarf has a conjoined twin attached/coming out of/hanging out on the other side of his face, and many awkward facial expressions (real and created) ensue.

BUT NEVER FEAR: There’s someone hot around! A girl, or woman, age is difficult, because the woman is given grey hair that’s probably not hers! She’s a fortune teller of some sort, as we’re to assume from her touching LDP’s arm and seeing various, shocking images of him covered in blood. (Maybe LDP is wearing “Axe?”)

One of the few things we’re sure about when you interact with women is that you don’t want them to associate you with a massacre/bloodbath/chaos, but some girls like the “bad boy.”

The Rowdy One paws at him for a moment, and breathes huskily in his direction. It’s supposed to be menacing, but it only sounds like he’s trying to come on to LDP after too much time on the treadmill. Mercifully, the scene ends before catching anymore shots of bored freaks.

——————–

In seemingly another movie, a preacher tells his son (????) to take down some posters of the Freak Show. The son is a disturbing hybrid of Mark Wahlberg and the “Ovaltine!” guy from Seinfeld, while we believe the preacher is listed in the credits as: “Brian Cox Wouldn’t Return Our Calls.”

They have a small contest: Can The Father Say More Disturbing Religious Fanatic Things Than His Son Can Give Smartass Smiles? It’s neck and neck, and the preacher declares it a draw by belching: “The town’s soul hangs in the balance,” before wandering off to pester someone else. His son does the only sane thing, and meets his Unimaginably Boring Friend to drink at a barn.

The pastor sets up a podium across the street from the Carnivale and looks like he’s about to start a game of Extreme Outdoor Winter Bingo, but then goes right into a speech that could be lifted from The Fire and Brimstone-o-matic app for your iPhone. Adding to the horror/awesomeness of this scene is the crowd of 30 thoroughly confused extras, who presumably (like the rest of us) are wondering why in our modern day 30 Jerseyites really care enough about the Freak Show coming through town to dress up and listen to someone’s granddad slur words at them.

The producers seem to be cognizant of this, as each of the preacher’s lines is only reacted to be one unfortunate black woman in the front row.

PREACHER (IN FRONT OF CROWD) – “Carnivale is bad, etc.!”

WOMAN: NOOOOO!

CROWD: (kind of around her, looking for craft services, possibly: bingo)

— It’s like the producers had shot the rest of the movie, and realized the closest they got to a person of color was the one white guy with a lot of tattoos.

PRODUCER 1: We need some minorities. Quick, call Dave’s mom. We’ll put her in the close-up in the crazy preacher scene.

PRODUCER 2: Um, sir, isn’t that a little bit racist to have one black character in the whole movie, and it’s someone that thinks we should murder a bunch of freaks?

PRODUCER 1: (leaves to go put even more time into Punk Dwarf’s hair.)

MORAL: IF YOU HAVE A GUY COVERED IN TATTOOS, SOME DUDE THAT’S 7 FEET TALL, AND A PUNK DWARF, YOU CAN PROBABLY FIND SOMEONE OF COLOR TO PUT IN YOUR MOVIE.

————————–

Also: don’t make the mistake we did. At this point, we through the movie was going to be about LDP and the Punk Dwarf coming together to fight the Rowdy One, the Jersey Devil, and evil everywhere. The only thing the Punk Dwarf did was disappear from our lives, leaving an incredibly-oddly shaped hole where he used to be.

MORAL: IF SOMETHING’S AWESOME, IT WILL NOT GET SCREEN TIME OVER SOMEONE THAT WAS IN A REAL MOVIE AT ONE POINT, INCLUDING THAT ONE WITH DENZEL AND MEG RYAN AND MATT DAMON’S TWO LINES AND TANKS.

————————–

MORAL: MONSTERS, YOU, AND DRINKING: MAYBE NOT SUCH A HOT IDEA AFTER ALL.

—it’s finally time to unveil the monster!

The entire town packs into a tent that must reek, whether from the monster or the town is unclear. The pastor’s son and his profoundly boring friend drink in line to go in, only to have their booze confiscated by LDP.

MORAL: LDP WILL RUIN YOUR PARTY, EVEN IF HE COMES DRESSED AS A COP.

“This is something so evil…” the Rowdy One gasps, waving his fingers in the general direction of the creature, underneath a tarp. The pastor’s son has apparently memorized the part of the Bible where you really piss the devil off by throwing popcorn at him, because he proceeds to do it multiple times even after being told not to by LDP.

(This sets him up for a wonderful: “I AM THE LAW” moment that never materializes. )

FINALLY, the devil has had enough of this tent, these people, the popcorn and ever Jersey, as he breaks through the invincible security force around him: a rusty cage, a metal spike, Rowdy One and Lil’ Chris. He reacts the way you’d expect, by jumping on a guy’s back, and dry humping a Ferris Wheel (seriously.) Several towns-people’s reaction shots later, (ranging from “ABJECT MORTAL TERROR” to “What IS That Thing Doing to the Ferris Wheel?”) the creature flies away, perhaps to do more unspeakable acts to private property.

————————–

The Pastor’s Son and His Boring Friend run back to the barn to hide and drink. (It’s unclear why they feel they have to do this: everyone else in town is either: part of the carnival; in a rally to shut down the Carnival, or working for Lou Diamond Phillips. Everyone in town must be a falling down DRUNK.)

– But, just as they start to get their load on, (and, perhaps, reveal some unspeakable feelings that must be spoken) the monster saves them the most awkward conversation of their lives by eating the Pastor’s Son underneath a bridge. His Boring Friends stumbles away as slowly as possible, as if hurt that the monster won’t eat him. He must be so boring as to be unappetizing, like unsalted Saltines.

MORAL: IF YOU HAVE FEELINGS FOR SOMEONE, TELL THEM. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN ONE OF YOU MAY GET EATEN BY A MONSTER WHILE TRYING TO GET DRUNK.

(NOTE: This one hit so close to home, we closed the windows.)

————————–

UH OH: Lou Diamond Phillips finds a Rotisserie Chicken leg in the river, as well as red Kool-Aid someone dumped, which can mean only one thing:

It’s time for him to Put His Police Voice On and Say Things Like: “He’s Been Eaten!”

Officer Mustache stops by to stare at a notepad instead of acting with LDP. Just when it looks like one of them will have to carry what remains of the story, Preacher shows up to shout clichés in everyone’s face. “IF YOU LISTENED TO ME, AND HEEDED MY WORDS! I TOLD YOU THEY’D BRING THE DEVIL AND THEY WILL PAY!” (Ironically, we said the same thing to our local rental movie place when Blockbuster came to town, but we weren’t wearing priest suits at the time.)

MORAL: RELIGIOUS FANATICS ARE OKAY, REGULAR PEOPLE! AND IF YOU LISTEN TO THEIR DRACONIAN DRACONIANESS, YOU’D HAVE A MUCH NICER CITY, SHERIFF LA BAMBA. *

*only applies if said religious fanatics are white.

——————————————–

The oddly brittle mother of Boring Friend drives him through what’s presumably the Pine Barrens. She says over and over how much she loves him, but he’s still got blood stains on his face. (We think that’s actually the Golden Rule of Motherhood: “You Must Wipe Blood Off Of Your Child’s Face.”)

But, before she can tell him again how much she doesn’t like his friends – (giving him the chance to respond with the excellent: “Mom, he’s just been eaten! Lay off!”) the Jersey Devil rips through their windshield, and drags him out!

She screams as the Creature… presumably rips him apart off screen, then drops him on their car. Mercifully, (for us, as her voice blew out our syllables and almost lifted us from our blessed drunken stupor) the monster carried her away, too – almost as a “Thanks, Folks, For Watching the Film!”

(Maybe, the creature looked around the rest of town, realized the other people were even more boring, and decided to eat that dude, too.)

MORAL: DON’T EVER LOVE ANYONE, EVER. YOU DON’T KNOW WHEN THEY’LL BE EATEN BY A MONSTER. IT COULD EVEN BE AT A TRAFFIC LIGHT.

———————

LDP rounds up the militia in his office!

Thirty extras with as much flannel as shotguns cheer at the thought of running around their town with extra-legal authority. Also: Rottweilers.

DOUBLE MORAL:

1. THE MILITIA CAN HELP YOU IF YOU HAVE TO KILL SOMETHING, BUT YOU HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THEIR DOG CRAPPING IN YOUR OFFICE. FIGURATIVELY, AND LITERALLY.

2. IF YOU SEE A BUNCH OF GUYS WITH FLANNELS, AND SHOTGUNS, EVEN IF YOU AREN’T A MONSTER, JUST TO BE SAFE: RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

————————–

The Preacher shouts at his army of Righteous Geriatrics to “Join the battle between Good and Evil!’ The One-Black-Person-In-The-World cheers lustily.

The militia guys storm into the pine barrens! LDP and guns and white anger in tow. However, Militia Dude With More Than One Line wonders if his pooch can kill an entire mythological beast, and shortens the leash a little bit.

Meanwhile, Rowdy One and Lil’Chris stumble through the pine barrens, guns in hand. We’re rooting for a “Reservoir Dogs-like” ending where everyone’s got guns pointed at everyone else.

LDP, (perhaps realizing that “Not Being Around Crazy Militia Dudes With Guns” is the better part of valor) goes off alone with Officer Mustache. BUT, just when they think they’re safe, he’s hit by a stray shot from Lil’ Chris!

LDP is a different kind of cop, the kind of cop you can go up to and say: “I didn’t mean to shoot your partner, I thought he was a monster,” and it’s totally cool.

MORAL: IF YOU HAVE A MUSTACHE, YOU’RE FAIR GAME TO BE SHOT AT.

LDP sees the Ferris Wheel in the distance, and buys a load of crap from the Rowdy One about: “You have to go save the people at the place we just were from the monster that isn’t even here yet.” LDP’s a REALLY different kind of cop, and leaves Officer Mustache with the guys who just shot him.

Even Rowdy One and Lil Chris are stunned by this. (Even though, presumably, they read/there was a script for this movie, they are shocked.)

Seeing LDP’s stupidity, and wanting to raise him, the Rowdy One stabs Officer Mustache in the back with a tranquilizer.

Not once, but the FDA recommended number of times you stab a cop in the back with a tranquilizer: at least thirty times.

MORAL: IF YOU’RE GOING TO KILL SOMEONE THAT WILL GET YOU INTO ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE, JUST KEEP STABBING THE HELL OUT OF THEM. I MEAN, WHY NOT? IT’S LIKE STRETCHING BEFORE WORKING OUT.

The two cop-killers/carnies dive behind a log, to see if the monster will arrive and enjoy the cop offering they left him. But, he must have an allergy to mustache (or, a female monster/coy Ferris wheel dumped him at a mustache buffet, leaving mustache stew a bitter dish indeed) because he doesn’t show.

LDP DOES, though, and shows how different a cop he is. He comes into the scene, and sees:

His partner, dead.

The only people in the area are the ones who shot him only minutes ago.

So what does LDP do?

What any cop would do:

When The Rowdy One says: “He was like this when we found him, five minutes ago.”

LDP nods and believes it.

(Maybe this entire town is governed by the Honor System?)

LDP looks back up at the Ferris Wheel, and realizes that he said he’d do something a few minutes ago. He runs with Rowdy One and Lil’ Chris (well, he runs. The others jog until he isn’t looking, then they walk) back to the carnival.

WHERE HELL HAS MORE OR LESS BROKEN LOOSE, A LITTLE.

The Jersey Devil is back, showing the Ferris Wheel that he’s changed and not going to take “No” or “We Can’t Be Together Because I’m a Prop and You’re a Bad Special Effect” as an answer, babe. Lots of smoke and embarrassing reaction shots to things the Devil presumably did later, LDP looks around for who got hurt, and doesn’t stop until he finds someone with a good body, like the Leopard Girl.

“WHAT ABOUT THE PUNK DWARF?” we scream, but, like the siren call of young love, it goes unanswered.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” LDP exclaims, letting us know once and for all where he is on the whole “furry” thing. Psychic girl is rousted from whatever bar she’s been at to give a half-hearted: ‘What Have You Done?” (perhaps someone told her: “You Know, LDP Is Actually the Monster Here. No, Really. Here’s Five Bucks.”)

And then, in the greatest reaction shot in the history of human reactions, the Rowdy One and Lil’ Chris stare disappointingly at LDP.

Just to clarify, the men that just stabbed a cop to death are judging LDP.

MORAL: MORALITY IS APPARENTLY FOR OTHER PEOPLE.

————————-

Before you can say: Is The Fat Guy Making Moonshine, Monster-Killing Juice, or Both? The Rowdy One and Lil’ Chris go back into the woods, pursuing the strategy of trying to find the monster by going to the one place they haven’t encountered him.

But, all good friendships go south occasionally, and brothers fight – which is shown by the Rowdy One stabbing Lil’ Chris in the chest, and tying him to a tree.

Then, the Rowdy One lies in wait for the monster… which is directly behind him. It lands, it growls, it does a little dance… short of singing “My Heart Will Go On” in Monsterese or farting melodiously, there’s no way the Rowdy One couldn’t hear him.

MEANWHILE: LDP examines Officer Mustache’s body at the morgue, and after a hilarious five minute scene, involving scales, scalpels, X-rays and concerned chin-rubbing, he determines that the Jersey Devil wouldn’t have stabbed him thirty times in the back with a tranquilizer gun! It’s a scene almost makes you wish he’d put on sunglasses as the Who plays loudly.

BUT, the Rowdy One is still on a stump, as the mythological beast that’s eaten several people today is directly behind him.

MORAL: IF YOU BECOME TOO EVIL, YOU APPARENTLY LOSE YOUR SENSE OF SMELL.

Luckily, LDP arrives to punch a pint of blood out of his face before the monster can eat him.

AT THE JAIL CELL: LDP moralizes to the Rowdy One as he shoves him into a holding cell that looks like it’s made out of a mean kind of balsa wood. But, in a “Dueling Banjos” of lame moralizing, the Preacher shows up to live many a child’s dream: he hits LDP in the face, and throws him into another, equally Barbie’s Dream House-looking jail cell.

Then, LDP gets a well-deserved nap as the Preacher and The Rowdy One argue/wheeze morality for a while.

MORAL: MOVIES ARE RARELY ABOUT WHAT MAKES THEM GOOD. “CARNY” IS APPARENTLY ABOUT TWO WHITE MEN ARGUING. (We call this “The Matrix Reloaded Rule.”)

But, before you can complain too loudly, the Preacher quotes a part of the bible we’re all a little unfamiliar with, and cuts the Rowdy One’s tongue out. No, really. It pops out of his mouth like an over-filled water balloon. While he screams and we cringe, the Preacher is either going to shoot him with a shotgun or rig up a Jigsaw-like device: “The Devil Has Sent You to Hell—!”

And finally hitting his cue, the Jersey Devil BLOWS IN through the windows, knocking everyone back, including the three of us on our couch. (But not LDP. He’s still out, presumably dreaming of that 2nd season of Wolf Lake that never came.)

The Jersey Devil remembers the low price the Rowdy One got for him, and goes to discuss it with him in his cell. The conversation is short-lived: the Rowdy One has no tongue, so the Jersey Devil eats him. The Preacher, showing a hitherto unseen survival instinct, locks the monster in the jail cell and shoots the hell out of it.

Did we say “Shoots the hell out of it”? We meant: “He grabs some stupid bows and stabs it… in the face or hip or something.” But, the Jersey Devil didn’t anticipate a stupid attack, and obligingly dies.

MORAL: IF YOU DON’T LIKE SOMEONE, WAIT TILL THEY GO TO JAIL. THEN, SHOW UP, KNOCK OUT A COP, AND RIP OUT THE PERSON’S TONGUE. YOU CAN THEN SAVE THE DAY! WOOOOT!

Then, he goes out on the porch to rally the militia, which apparently had nowhere else to go. (Maybe the monster attacked the Wal-Mart earlier?) They’re here to look concerned and confused, which they succeed at admirably. But, they must have a brain cell or two to rub together (perhaps they found one lying around today in the carnage and slid it in) because even they don’t believe the old man when he says “I have slain the monster.” But, after checking the corpse in the jail and realizing that “I have slain the monster” is not slang for an unspeakably dirty sexual act, they celebrate by shooting guns in the air and smiling at each other and their dogs.

The Preacher wants to make this a crazy-crazy party up in here, and says we gotta go kill the carnival freaks. The Flannel Army is nodding at the awesomeness of this full-proof plan, realizing that anyone who hasn’t thought to wipe monster blood off of their face is a Dude That Knows What’s Going On. While this profound jackassery occurs, a couple of guys in hats larger than their chests carry the monster out in a tarp.

PREACHER: “Burn the heathens (in the freak show) boys! Let’s have a barbecue!”

MORAL: EVEN IF IT DOESN’T INVOLVE THE MAFIA, DON’T GO TO JERSEY. *

*Unless you’re at a house party in Philly and run out of liquor.

The men pose for pictures with the monster in the tarp.

MORAL: POSING FOR PICTURES IS A SURE WAY TO DIE. (God, what a tragedy senior photo day was.)

The monster’s tired of being in this movie, and has to get to the club later, so he pops out of the truck and kills whoever’s nearby, which consist of our Preacher dude. The Preacher lets out a meek: “I… I Sent You to Hell…?” before holding his hands out to the sky. He’s either calling on God, or trying to “hug-it-out” with the monster.

But the monster is tired of Hollywood interaction, “Entourage” jokes in general, and maybe even Jeremy Piven as it eats the Preacher.

Finally, enough people have died to wake up LDP, who finds he’s been locked in… the gun closet. He shoots the jail cell with a shotgun and it opens easily.

MORAL: PLEASE DON’T ACTUALLY TRY THAT.

He runs through unconvincing puddles of friends, and lots of hurt, wounded and scared people. BUT, LDP knows what matters. He yells for the hottie Psychic TWICE, before throwing out: “Everybody!” (as in: “Maybe Some Others Of You Ugly People Got Hot Enough to Save While I Was Unconscious.”)

He grabs a gun that was on fire, and burns his hand. Then, he grabs a chair that was on fire, and burns his head. (Maybe the Jersey Devil is controlled by Sideshow Mel?) And then, through circumstances too embarrassing to be recounted, he pins the monster with his truck against the monster’s one true love… the Ferris Wheel.

Finding this not enough, LDP hits the monster AGAIN with the truck, to which it reacts badly.

But, it’s not dead, so LDP yells: “DIE!” and floors it again… causing the Ferris Wheel to fall… towards LDP and the devil, in a: “You Don’t Mean Anything to Me, Physics!” moment.

One half-assed explosion later, the hot Psychic finds… Lou Diamond Phillips… impaled on Ferris Wheel next to the truck. Since none of that makes any sense, we speculated:

The Ferris Wheel finally realized it’s feelings for the Devil. So, it impaled LDP, and dragged him out of the truck. (That sure makes more sense than anything the movie gave us.)

Just when you think the hot psychic’s going to drag him away, LDP blurts a: “I Did What I Had To,” and dies, perhaps responding to whatever fans he has left out there.

The movie ends with a profoundly bitter taste in our mouths, that can’t be all Miller Lite Chill (but probably is, mostly.)

RATINGS:

SCI-FI CHANNELNESS: 4/10 While obviously made for the network, some of the shots were well-lit. So, no.

SNAKES/C. THOMAS HOWELL: Yes to the former: there was one snake in the freak show. Even he had the class to stay away from the rest of the movie.

MOMENTARY BLIP OF AWESOME: Ahem. PUNK GODDAMN DWARF

COULD YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS MAKE THIS FOR FIFTY BUCKS: If you had friends that had a freak show, you could get shockingly close. You probably couldn’t do all the tom-assery with the “Ferris Wheel” and the “Cutting out of tongues” and “killing our hero by the truck for some damn reason” but, geez… why would you?

WHAT WE LEARNED:

Religious Fanatics

Boo: Regular People

How the hell was a movie called “Carny” not about… you know, an evil Carny that kills people?

The next time your mother gets on you about your friends, say: “But Mom, he was just eaten!” to see how she reacts.

Ferris Wheels are fickle lovers.

(At this point, Emmett whispers to Greg. The words “Battlefield Earth,” “retarded” and “you” are heard prominently.)

Which brings us to the 2^nd in our series of reviews of Sci-Fi Channel’s Most Dangerous Night of Television: War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave. Which as always, we will watch in the most dangerous way possible: drunk, with the windows open.

And we tried to do another liveblog.

But we hated it. We hated the liveblog, we hated this movie, we hated writing about this movie.

And not because it was terrible.

But because it wasn’t terrible enough.

When we watch a crappy Saturday night sci-fi movie, we want crap. We want every goofy idea someone can think of with a few thousand bucks they got from an: “We’ll Keep This on the ‘New Releases’ shelf at Blockbuster For the Next Four Years” deal.  Giant unconvincing snakes making Steven Baldwin feral/their human king? Of course. Aliens turning into snakes and fighting people at an abandoned mind/ghost town/apartment/car/jungle/school? The more the better, and put them in a sorority house on the moon.

But don’t give us something that doesn’t suck, but sure as hell isn’t good. Jesus, if we wanted that, we’d go to Lifetime, and do shots every time someone either sexually harassed someone else or had a heart-to-heart over ice cream with their ancient (but sassy!) mother.

Which brings us to do today’s movie, again.

We drank.

We watched the movie.

We kept drinking (somehow.)

We kept watching the movie (somehow.)

We kept up a liveblog… that was killed by either: a beer, a shot, stray vomit, perils of being a coaster, or angry urine. Not sure.

The point was, it was dispatched with extreme prejudice. Extreme “Why Are We Doing This?” Prejudice.

We didn’t want to write about this movie. We didn’t want to think about this movie…

So we decided to do both of those the only way we could…

As a revenge on the dude that made it.

C. Thomas Howell is someone you’ve seen in plenty of movies. He usually plays that guy you describe as: “Oh, Hey, Who’s That Guy I Don’t Know… No, Not That Guy, the One With the Sorta Beard?”

He’s not quite a heartthrob of the sci-fi movie set, and not quite an auteur, but he’s around. He’s a hearthrobauteur. (Awesome, awesome t-shirt. Someone do that.)

He directed and starred in War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, and sadly, with that title, did not make it a movie about alien tripods intent on destroying Earth that can only be stopped by a group of plucky hot teens beating the aliens in The Big Surfing Tournament at the end of the summer.

We really, really don’t want to write a review of this movie (perhaps we’ve mentioned that?)

So instead, here are some questions about the movie. You can print them out, and then, the next time you see C. Thomas Howell (perhaps at the “Grizzled Voiceover Store”) you can ask him these questions until one of you has to call security.

They vaguely follow the arc of the movie, so much as lines that squiggled, blurry, and stinky can be followed:

When your art direction was making the evil alien tripods, how did you get H.R. Giger to design them out of dog vomit? Did you pay extra, or was he simply up for the challenge?

Which of these derogatory names for the tripods is most appropriate:  “Turd Stilts,” “The Roaming Poop,” “Fish Thingies With Legs,” “Deadly CGI Hat” and “Mommy’s Worst Outfit.”(NOTE: the last one is booze, shouting loudly to make it’s presence known, while falling off the table, pants at it’s ankles.)

When you bought/paid/made/farted-together the “evaporate” effect of the tripod lasers on human beings, did you intend to make it laugh-out-loud funny? As a commentary on people’s natural fears (especially in these challenging times) of being evaporated while running through Los Angeles? If not, why not?

How did you get the money to make this thing?

You obviously meant for your character to care about his son, after having him say: “Where’s my son” at least a million times in 90 minutes of screen time. So… was having him power an entire goddamn house of appliances and a radio through riding a station bike a clever condemnation of the west’s restrictive child labor laws? An endorsement of exercise? Or did you really hate the child actor, like the rest of us?

Has anyone ever said the word “Beefaroni” as emotionally as you?

What’s the best way to describe the sheer grizzled-ness of your voiceover? Does: “more grizzled than a grizzly bear that lost all his money and his woman in an Atlantic City bar” work? ‘Cause that was the best we had.

When your character goes to the “military base” to meet all the military guys/woman in lab coat-presumably scientist what was the commentary of the “Admiral” character having a military coat with cut-off sleeves? Did global warming finally happen? Were the admirals’ sleeves working for the aliens in the original War of the Worlds? Were you unable to get Larry the Cable Guy, and simply said: “Screw it. If I can’t get him, I’ll just create a future where the entire military hierarchy will be based upon his fashion choices. Eat my ass, Larry.” (Which, depending on your point of view, is either: how the aliens kicked so much human ass, OR, why there are any humans left over whatsoever.)

When your son is evaporated, (after you have a scene where you, Kim Thayll’s stunt double, and some men who wear too much flannel to be trusted argue over gas, coupons, and inappropriate laughter), when your son is evaporated… why does your character feel compelled to cry and talk to his Dodge Truck?  Because, he cries, on the wheel, while making sure not to cover the Dodge logo. Then, he yells at the truck, as he drives away in it, but we don’t get any dialogue.  Is your character having an affair with the truck? That’s the obvious guess, since he’s living in a hole with his son and yet the truck has a factory polish. Did you want that relationship (male-truck-ism) to be so overt? And what does that say about the role of aliens/machines/kids/sex/trucks/you in society?

Okay, the above paragraph is sarcasm: please tell us you got money from Dodge for this. Speaking of which: how did you get the money for this?

Further along in your film, (after events too goofy to be conveyed in mixed, or any, company) your character encounters a “Lieutenant” from the military, very obviously played by “Kid” of Kid ‘n Play, who presumably goes by “Middle-Aged-Man’n Play” or something by now. This opens a whole slew of questions:

1. How did you find him?

2. What was he sleeping under?

3. What substance did you pay him in? (Is there any left for us?)

4. How hard to resist was the temptation to have him say: “This is whack”? And did you think you assuaged it with the line: “Tripods gakked their engine!”

How does it make you feel when someone watches your movie (like, say, Greg) and, after only twenty minutes of hard drinking and watching your movie, is compelled to say: “I really don’t think doing a shot out of your shoe would be SO bad.”

And how did you get the money for this?

ENDING:

We turned it off. After the ending. We might’ve seen the ending. You’ll never know.

RATING:

SCI-FI CHANNELNESS: 9/10. Some of the effects were too good, and I’ve actually heard of C. Thomas Howell and Kid.

NUMBER OF SHOTS NECESSARY TO ENJOY THIS: Fatal.

SNAKES: Go away. There were none. We have this whole joke “Snakes” rating and through two goddamn movies, we have none. This joke sucks. Luckily, Carny is up this Saturday, so we’ve got a shot.

MOMENTARY BLIP OF “AWESOME”: Greg’s line about doing shots out of shoes. Word to the wise – you have to do it quickly, before the booze sinks into the shoe. Also: clothespins on the nose. Wait, awesome on the movie? See: “We turned it off.”

COULD YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS MAKE THIS FOR FIFTY BUCKS: No. It was too good to be shitty enough for this. Play, maybe if you’re reading this, you could make it for fifty bucks.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

Oy.

Dodge Trucks.

Aliens = Bad.

If you want respect, tear off your shirt-sleeves.

And finally… it may seem like we’ve been a little harsh on this movie. But really, that’s because it escaped our clutches. It wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t epic it was merely bad. And that’s… a compliment.

Wow.

1.    Will this make money?
2.    What fear does this prey upon?

Horror movies throughout time have always been a reflection of the fears of the day, from “Cat People” (probably representing teens in the 50’s) to the torture porn of today representing terrorism/your neighbors. The Sci-Fi Channel original “Legion of the Dead” preys upon three very specific, very American fears:

1. Middle Easterners.
2. Mummies.
3. Sex.

Since this is, (per Sci-Fi Channel’s marketing campaign) “The Most Dangerous Night on Television,’ we here at Bumps in the Night decided to watch it in the most dangerous way possible:  drunk, with the windows open.

The three of us kept an improbably misspelled and incoherent liveblog, that we’ll refer to occasionally as we try to put the events of the prior evening back together, and occasionally even the movie, “Legion of the Dead.”

If you like this, we’ll keep doing it. We always watch these damn movies.

If you’d like to watch the movie, and follow along with this review, that’s fine. Be forewarned, however: you’ll be watching “Legion of the Dead.” Just so we’re all clear on that.

Our cinematic experience opens with a pair of motorcyclists doing death-defying tricks across a treacherous desert landscape. Well, that’s what the rocking “We Listened to A LOT of Stone Temple Pilots Growing Up” song wants you to think, as two guys race their bikes through bushes, a kinda desert-looking arid area, and some more bushes. Occasionally, the go into a kind of slow-motion/fade sort of effect, suggesting that even the camera wasn’t sure why they were on screen. Eventually, the rockin’ tune ends as one of them crashes into a giant hole inexplicably in a very family-looking park. Even though all of his legs are probably broke, the biker gives a big thumbs up, letting the audience know that these men are on heavy, heavy drugs.

Which is good, because the Sci-Fi channel does not want you to know this. Both bikers are down in the hole, and learn a shocking secret: there’s a hidden Egyptian tomb down here! In America! Granted, they probably aren’t as shocked as any of us would’ve been, (“If I had found a warp zone from Kentucky to Egypt, I’d run screaming through both countries,” Emmett nodded sagely, sipping a 151 Pina Colada.) They celebrate this the only way a thinking person would: smoking weed, and commenting on the boobs of the hieroglyphs. At least, we think they were smoking weed.
Sci-Fi showed smoke above the man’s head, and a big blurry area over his mouth.

“Is he…” John searched for the right words, next to me on the couch. “Smoking… a dildo?”

“I didn’t know those gave off smoke,” Emmett finished his drink. “Silicon doesn’t burn like that.”

“If he were giving us the middle finger, his finger wouldn’t be smoking, right? Even if he were really giving it to us?” Greg offered, also unsure of what else to say, and wary of this “silicon” conversation.

But no, it was marijuana, and we all sighed audibly, in relief. We were all even more relieved when one of them grabbed the door with the giant skull on it, only to have a spike come up out of the ground and impale his chin. (He must’ve leaned into it.)  His buddy tried to escape, but, alas, was hit in the face by a piece of acid that leapt off a ledge, and then the ceiling fell down to kill him on his face, too.

BRINGING US TO OUR MOVIE.

(Which, sadly, is a little less interesting.)

There are probably very beautiful people that are into archaeology. I’m sure they exist, somewhere. (Maybe there’s like a “Hot Archaeologists” calendar we don’t know exists on the wall at a Fire Station somewhere) – but, “Legion of the Dead” presents us with several of them, each more uninteresting than the last.

Our lead girl, MOLLY, wears the glasses that say “I’m Smart and Can Handle Any Situation, Particularly Science-y Exposition” and booty shorts that simply say “Booty.” We know little about archaeology, but we assume you didn’t dress for it like you were trying out at Hooters – then again, if an Egyptian tomb appears somewhere in the Midwest, maybe this is the right way to dress.

She comes to the hole in the ground, to find a tent has grown around it. A fantastic douche-bazzle maybe a few months older than her is revealed to be: a tenured, respected professor in this profession for many years and an ex-lover of her’s. She responds to his sad advances the only way one can to such a thing: “It was a mistake. I was drunk.”

That may be what we end up titling this whole blog post.

Bruce Boxleitner shows up as a Sheriff, apparently K-Mart has a cheap Boss Hogg Halloween costume. He lectures the kids on something, we don’t remember what – hopefully, it involved Jeff Bridges, and Disney. (Yes, that’s a “Tron” joke.)

The rest of the “archaeology students” are filled out, and simply looking at them is to root for them to die. A few frat-looking dudes, a couple girls that realized the booty shorts were wholly inappropriate for a tomb, and the epitome of professionalism is a tube top. The One Black Guy wears a shirt that simply says: “KARL” on the front.

“I hope his name’s Doug, and that’s just the name of his favorite band,” John and Greg do a shot.

“Maybe he’s undercover,” Emmett nods. The others nod with him. Emmett’s so wise.

The exposition rolls off of everyone’s tongue like sandpaper wrapped in glass basted with gasoline: there’s some hieroglyphs, a bunch of mummies, and one that’s really important because it’s in the middle of the room and the camera keeps shaking when someone references it. Also: there’s another professor, more respected –and-more-foreign. He introduces himself to Molly in a series of words that reveal him to be from the “Christopher Lambert/Jon Voight in Anaconda Accent School.”

After some more mummy/camera shaking (and some gassing off by those smart enough to remember their lines about: “the evil queen Aneh-tet will rise and kill everybody”) Molly goes back to her hotel with “Proto-Mark Wahlberg,” who apparently she also dated last summer, and he also gets the “I Was Drunk” defense.  (You don’t get the feeling the writer was working through something here, do you…?)

NOTE:  That will probably be the last time we write “Aneh-tet” correctly.

Back at the Hole-To-Egypt, the mummy in the ground is finally stirring… it rips off the rags… revealing…

– the three of us in Bumps in the Night GASP–

A STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL PERSIAN WOMAN!

“No! What’s wrong with her chest?” Greg yells… recoiling in horror from the blurry mass that seems ensconced between her navel and her neck. “Is that… cancer?” he whispers.

But then, John whispers in his ear, and the world is back on track with a knowing sigh.

This woman is, as the audience knows immediately, Annettette, the evil monster in tonight’s movie. She’s beautiful, (played by Tehran-born actress “Claudia Lynx.” You almost get the feeling she might’ve changed her name somewhere along the way) and a monster.

As she comes back to life, THUNDER CLOUDS AND LIGHTING BOLTS STRIKE!… somewhere. She’s still in the hole, and outside, it’s the regular night. Not sure where these clouds come from. Maybe a subtle comment: “When Persian Women Come Back to Life, They Make Golden Clouds Appear In Your Mind.” Good to know.

She teleports out of the hole in all her not-boobed-yet-nude glory, and appears in the big tent of Professor “I’m Totally 25 And Banging My Students When They’re Drunk.” Annettette flashes and growls at him, but before he can show the proper appreciation, she waves her hand in front of his face… which promptly causes lightning to shoot from her mouth and melt this man’s face. Like, melt it. Melt-melt. It’s like someone de-thawed a bowl of sloppy joe. Lightning Breath. It’s… pretty awesome, actually.

Also: MIDDLE EASTERNS WILL BREATH LIGHTNING ON YOU.

The next morning, the Hot Archaeology Gang drive back to the hole to do some big-time archaeology, but the tube-top girl (wearing a sweater today?) discovers their face-melted-teacher, and has enough common sense to scream incoherently.

Meanwhile, in the basement, Foreign Prof grumbles “WHERE IS MY MUMMY?” in an accent that cannot be found on any map that doesn’t include countries from Final Fantasy, or perhaps laryngitis.
Back at the hotel, Molly is hanging out with her younger, high school sister whom we have not mentioned because she’s spectacularly lame.  They’re having a heart to heart about Proto-Mark Wahlberg, when someone yells outside: “What is this naked woman doing in our pool?”

Apparently, Annettette wandering through the Kentucky woods in face melt/blood and nude-hotness, only to be spotted by no one. She alleviates this, by jumping into the pool to clean herself off.  We half-expected her to begin licking the blood off of herself.

So the Molly and her sister help the nude Egyptian goddess of evil out of the pool, and into a towel. While the Molly steps out for a moment, the young sister tries talking to Annettette, only to have Annetteett stare at the 17 year old’s crotch, and reach for it.

“Did I miss anything?” lead girl asks, wandering back in.

“Um, her name’s Annette. And she’s gay!” the 17 year old sister yells. But then Annetette and Molly bond over speaking ancient Egyptian. Apparently, it’s not much of a conversation, because moments later, Annettettet teleports back into her tomb, to melt some more faces. Prof. Unidentifiable Accent (Prof. UA) does the only sensible thing, and falls to his knees to worship her. Bumps in the Night agrees that this is not a bad idea, on multiple levels.
He tells her that he can take the souls from his students that she needs for the ceremony (???) she says: “Men will try to stop me—“

“No, they won’t.” All three members of Bumps in the Night say in unison.

Back at the hotel, there’s a party, and an opportunity for people who probably drink often in real life to look unconvincingly drunk on camera. The Black Guy, (“Karl” Maybe) passes out at the edge of his bed with two feet on the ground.

“Been there,” the three men of Bumps in the Night mumble.

After a Boxleitner scene that’s too embarrassing and sad to be conveyed in mere words, “Karl” is out in the woods, being lured there by the naked Annaettette. After some slapping of beer out of his hands, she throws him to the ground and straddles him. (The message being, of course: “If You See a Beautiful Nude Middle Eastern Woman You Don’t Know Luring You into the Woods For Easy Sex, It Might Not Be the Best Idea.”) Then, she covers his mouth with her hand, more lightning shoots out of it, and then, blood from his mouth, and…

STORM CLOUDS! GOLDEN CLOUDS AND LIGHTNING AGAIN!

Emmett thinks: “Dear God, someday, let me have sex awesome enough to make it rain!”

And now, after several people have died, Molly has decided to read the hieroglyphs in the tomb. They mention a lot of gobbled-boobledy-gook about: “World Domination,” “Evil Beautiful Goddess,” etc. Annettette and Prof. UA watch this with expressions that range from “Evil” to “Bored.” As Molly read the hieroglyphs explaining everything we already know multiple times over, Annettette shouts to Professor UA:

“She knows too much! She has power! Take care of her, or I will!” and then Annettette storms off. So, to recap: she burns off the faces of multiple men, but lets one “dangerous woman” live. That’s an awfully kind gesture for an invincible mummy goddess monster. Could she be a feminist invincible mummy goddess monster?

Like we said earlier: fear.

Molly crawls out to apologize to Proto-Mark Wahlberg for hooking up with Professor “I Gots My Face Melteds Awff.” If you hook up with someone, and their face gets burned off, aren’t you absolved of all blame for hooking up with them? Seriously.

A possible-lesbian-make-out-scene-between-a-17-year-old-and-Annettette-turned-jump-scare later, and Annettette chases another guy through the woods – he stabs her in the gut, only to get an Adams-Apple full of face melting for his troubles. Each time a boy has their face melted off, someone lights Christmas lights underneath a mummy. Or, at least, that’s what the movie would have us believe.

Prof. UA loses his eligibility for “Teacher of the Year” by cutting off his hair and pick-axing one of his students to death. Tenure’s a hell of a thing.

Proto-Mark-Wahlberg apparently gets the stupid signal, telling him that it’s time for him to be stupid, and he goes to the Big Tent. Annettette shows him her patented male-face-melt move, only to have Proto-Mark-Wahlberg hit her in the face with that most American of weapons, coffee. While this causes lightning to shoot off of her face in pain (seriously) it does not kill or hurt her. Proving something that our government has long since taught us: the Persian Menace cannot be stopped. Especially while nude.

Molly almost hits Proto-Mark Wahlberg with her car, and he regales her with the whole sad tale and the face melting and the whatnot. She proclaims how stupid she is, and that Annettette needs six male souls to resurrect her mummies.

“She needs their Ka,” Molly says.

“Ka,” John mutters, pointing at Emmette and Greg. “we’re going to say she said ‘ka,” and we’re sticking to that.”

Boxleitner gets the DNA report back on the first face-melt, only to learn they found DNA is 4,000 years old. (Thankfully, Annettette’s blood was on record from her juvie days, four millennia ago.)

Down in the tomb, Annetette got a Big Ankh that looks like it came from Spencer’s Gifts, on sale. She pulls a knife out of the top, and baptizes the mummies with it. Prof. UA is disturbingly wearing fewer clothes in every scene. She brings each mummy to life, while saying: “Bring me the offering. Kill all the rest.” She goes down the line, apparently bringing back the Legion of the Dead one by one. With this crowd, we guess it makes sense to hedge your bets.

Back at the hotel, Molly figures out how to stop Annettette, which apparently involves a lot of exposition Greg was not sober enough to write down. “this one is still hit witht e fly thing – ahs a scrfice a versio – STORM CLOUDS!@!!!!”  which probably sums up the scene better than the scene did.

Molly steps out of the hotel room with her boyfriend…

… and onto Awesome Train, a Train Made For and From Awesome.

Because the hotel is under attack… from Mummies.

Not Arnold Vosloo, and the best special effects 1998 can buy. No, guys in mummy outfits, running around a hotel. The director very clearly said: “Run Like a Mummy Would Run!” Which the actors took to mean: “Run Like You Tried to Do the Thriller Dance After Huffing Paint For the First Time!” The mummies stumble, lurch, lean and practically skip around the hotel, murdering people – (they rip out a girl’s spine!) in their wake.

“A couple lines different from Annettette and this is Encino Man with hot chicks,” Emmett finishes his drink: “Everyone, write that down.”

What is it about crap that inspires?

The mummies have no time for such reflection, they’re here to par-tay! And by that, they mean: “Kill People In as Goofy a Manner as Possible.” One knocks on a hotel room door, a woman answers, and he instantly reaches in and pulls the heart out of her chest. He then gets a close-up, where each member of Bumps in the Night expected him to sing that Bryan Adams song we don’t totally don’t listen to where he sings about “the heart of the matter.”

But Molly and Proto-Mark Wahlberg are here to kick ass and get away, and since the car’s somewhere outside of the shot,  they’re all out of “get away!” She decapitates one with a fire extinguisher (???) while Proto-Mark-Wahlberg apparently has been researching mummies, since he knows their one true weakness: pool cleaning nets. Seriously.

He holds three of them off with one, and then throws it, Braveheart-style, through a mummy, impaling him on a concrete wall. It’s such a magnificent refutation of physics that Emmett breaks into applause.

Back at the tomb, Annetettet is finally in the “Cleopatra” outfit that sold this movie, (well, at least, before they knew she was going to spend much of it topless.) But she proves that Persians are just as dangerous with a minimal amount of clothing on as they are nude when she yells out that “the offering is here!” Four mummies hold down Molly’s sister (who… none of the three members of Bumps in the Night would’ve put five bucks on her being a virgin.)

Prof. UA is great – he’s like a soccer hooligan helping a naked chick bring on the end of the world. The Mummies struggle to hold the 17 year old down — hopefully, none of them had to mention to Annetette that embarrassing scene with the invincible pool cleaning net that still imprisons one of their countrymen.

Back at the hotel, Boxleitner investigates… and finds that girl’s severed spine in the parking lot. This warrants a phone call, hopefully to the FBI. It seems like that spine should be bagged. Admittedly, this scene would’ve helped the 3rd act of “No Country For Old Men” tremendously.

In the tomb, the 17 year old kicks a mummy in the head — -his friends try to tear her apart, but Annetette holds them off with a stern hand gesture while shouting: “VIRGIN BLOOD WILL BRING US ETERNAL LIFE!” Many of you remember when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that on Meet the Press about the Persian Menace, it was more shocking then.

MOLLY IS NOW IN THE TOMB!

And she brought dynamite! In her purse!

“I’ve been on this date,” John says, and laughs. Emmett doesn’t.

MOLLY and ANNETTETTE engage in some arguing that rivals the best back-and-forth of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe” –

M: “Let my sister go or I’ll kill us all!”

A: We cannot die. (Persians.)

M: I can destroy the ankh. Let her go –

A: An offering must be made –

M: Then offer me –

A: You aren’t a virgin.

(Just so we’re clear… Annaettette has been dead for 4,000 years, and she still knows that Molly’s business is ALL OVER THE STREET. That’s a sign you know you’ve been sleeping around too much, when even the dead know you’re easy.)

M: (undaunted by this assault upon her honor) “Let her go!”

A: Your mind is strong.

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve proven so far,” John nods.

But, Annetteette hasn’t bartered in 4000 years, and she cowers in the face of this intellectual assault. The mummies untie the 17 year old virgin (which Greg finds insanely funny, for some reason) Prof. UA throws a knife at Proto-Mark-Wahlberg —

AND HE TOTALLY “KURT RUSSELL TO DAVID LO-PAN AT THE CLIMAX OF BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA’S” THE HELL OUT OF IT! (he catches the knife and hits the Prof. UA in the head, killing him, and losing the secret of the origin of his accent forever.)

17 year old and Molly have a conversation where they tell each other they love each other, presumably as the mummies are chasing after them. Perhaps the girls are locked in a “Who Can Die First?” race.
Claudia Lynx (as Annettette) is extremely beautiful, but has only two facial expression: Evil, and Bored. This can’t be stressed enough. She’s a gorgeous bored, but even she seems confused by the goings on around her, like the rest of us.

Exclamation Points Can Only Convey What Happens Next!!

A mummy knocks the dynamite out of Molly’s purse!

Annaettette shoots lighting around like Monster Zero!

She knocks out lead girl, messing up her glasses!

(There goes the “feminist invincible goddess invincible mummy” tag.)

Then, the greatest moment in movie history happens:

She grabs Proto-Mark-Wahlberg’s crotch, and yells: “VIRGIN!”

The mummies grab him and put him on the table to sacrifice him.

This exact scenario is the official nightmare of the states of: Missouri, Mississippi, Alaska, Texas, Florida, and the rotary club of Troy, Idaho.

Annette chokes the Molly – a mummy chews on a dude in a suit –

BOXLEITNER HAS A GUN! WHERE THE HELL DID HE COME FROM???

But, he dies. At least, that’s what we got from Greg’s Drunk Blog:

“NO, IONE GGOT BOXLIETNERIFROM THEIND!!! BEHIND! TERROR!!”

Annetteet grabs Molly – she yells: “FATHER!” to the demon voice in the background, which must belong to whatever Egyptian deity sings that “Oh Yeah” song from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Molly grabs the ankh-knife… and stabs Annettette in the chest, KILLING HER.

She turns ugly, screams, explodes, and dies. (Which, as we all know, is how Persians usually die.) All of the mummies turn into a bunch of rags an intern throws on the sister.

Proto-Mark Wahlberg is alive, disappointing us all.

RATING:
SCI-FI CHANNELNESS: 10 SyFys out of 10. This would only be more Sci-Fi Channel if it worked in Jason, Grant, ECW, and snakes.
NUMBER OF SHOTS NECESSARY TO ENJOY THIS: 2… 3 to be safe.
SNAKES: (a rating of how many snakes were in this movie. No Sci-Fi movie is complete without snakes.) A very disappointing “zero,” but you can argue that the acid that shoots out of the wall to hit the guy’s face in the very beginning acts like a snake.
MOMENTARY BLIP OF “AWESOME” If you’re ever looking for a guaranteed “Liven the Party Up” moment, grab a stranger’s crotch and yell: “VIRGIN!”
COULD YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS MAKE THIS MOVIE FOR FIFTY BUCKS? Doubtful. If you know someone as hot as Claudia Lynx, you probably don’t spend a lot of time on the internet.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

1. Persians are invincible, uncaring monsters that will kill all of us, and live where we least suspect it.
2. Hot women are invincible, uncaring monsters that will kill all of us, and live where we least suspect it.
3. The two of them, combined, can only be killed by the efforts of white people. And virginity.