Guardians (2006)

A group of guardians tries to protect the earth from an evil doctor and the monsters he is unleashing.  A small town is the focal point of the fight, where survivors hole up in a school while the guardians try to help them survive.

You would think monsters attacking a town would be exciting, but you'd be dead wrong.  The film is incredibly slow paced and the creatures look completely fake.  There is a little kid that looks like a cancer patient who starts twitching whenever the monsters come near.  The film is so boring I couldn't even finish watching it to find out what happened.

April Fool's Day (2008)

At a party celebrating the debutant ball of teenage Torrance,  nasty rich girl Desiree drugs poor Milan.  Also drugged is Desiree's brother Blaine who takes advantage of Milan while Desiree films the entire thing in a plot to humiliate Milan and ruin her reputation.   Desiree has a reaction to the drugs, falls off the bedroom balcony, and dies promptly ruining Torrance's party.

A year later, everyone receives a message to meet at Milan's grave where a letter is delivered stating that they will all die within 24 hours unless the guilty person admits to causing Milan's death.

While this is supposedly a remake of the 1986 film of the same name, it doesn't have the same plot and has none of the charm.  The double twist ending is predictable and there is nothing appealing about any of the characters.  Also I'm not sure why all these people are friends as they have a wide range of ages. I would be concerned if I had a teenaged daughter who was hanging out with people ten or twenty years older than her.

Blood Hook (1986)

A killer is loose on the lake and the sheriff wants to keep things quiet because it's the week of the big fishing tournament.  

Peter and his friends head up to the lake house where his grandfather died.  Soon after people start getting killed, which causes Peter to have flashbacks as he was with his grandfather when he died.

The killer uses a fishing lure to snare his unsuspecting victims.  Even when he has to cast several times to hook them, they don't notice the splash of the hook or sound of the line flying through the air.

The biggest question after the discovery of the killer is how he could have gotten away with it for so long.  The guy strung the corpses together on fishing line and had them bobbing in their life vests under his dock.  Really, no one ever saw or smelled this?

The films claim to fame is that it was made with the involvement of two future MST3K members, Jim Mallon and Kevin Murphy.

Plasterhead (2006)

Four college students head towards Florida for spring break, but stop in a small town in an attempt to return a purse they found in a field.

The town has a legend about a truck driver who was brutally beaten in a local bar and took refuge in an abandoned house at the edge of town, killing anyone who crosses his path.

After trying to find the address found in the purse, the group ends up at the "abandoned" farmhouse, whose floors are polished to a sheen, has modern furniture, and looks lived in as well as clean. The kids try to sell that it is abandoned by pretending to wipe dust off furniture and constantly talking about how bad the place looks and how no one has lived there in ages.

Even the outside of the house looks well maintained, which makes it all the more ridiculous that the kids just walk into the place and start poking around. There are clean sheets in the bedrooms, a shower curtain and towels in the bathroom, and clean running water. Oooo, isn't this house so scary and empty?!

Everything these kids do is moronic. They are almost out of gas, so they pull up at a gas station in town and start honking the horn obnoxiously, while bitching about the attendant who doesn't immediately jump up to serve them. After more obnoxious behavior, insults to the attendant and horn honking, a far shot reveals that their van is about ten feet from the only gas pump?!? Who's the idiot now, ya morons!

This is one stupid movie, but has some entertainment value from it's sheer ridiculousness.

Graveyard of Horror (1971)

aka Necrophagus

A man goes back to a family castle after his wife dies.  Then he disappears.  A monster stalks a partly destroyed castle in the area, but we do not see the monster.  There is a narrative that is hard to follow and jumps back and forth in time. There is a mad scientist who uses himself as a subject - why don't they understand this never works?  Confusing and often slow moving, the pay off is the face on the box.  Yup, it's scarier in theory than in reality.

The Invincible Barbarian (1982)

aka Gunan il Guerriero

Oh Barbarians, what ever will we do with you? When an evil ruler hears that an invincible barbarian is about to be born in a small village, he decides to kill everyone . Unbeknownst to him, twins were born and put into the river ala Moses in the bullrushes.

When the twins grow up, they compete to see who is the true invincible barbarian. The evil ruler is still trying to find them, even though he only thinks there is one child. The barbarians are supposed to be young men - do they look like young men? No. No they don't. I'm not sure how old they are supposed to be, but these guys are closing in on fifty and the dark haired twin looks much older than the other twin.

This ridiculous film is filled with bad wigs, slo-mo barbarian twin competitions, a nubile young thing who falls for our old young barbarian, footage shown repeatedly, and tons of padding when we get an intro about the evolution of the planet. Only for barbarian enthusiasts who have seen all other barbarians movies.

Devil's Den (2006)

While heading back to the US border with a briefcase full of spanish fly, two friends stop at a strip club that turns out to be filled with stripper ghouls - and by ghouls I mean vampires.  This leads to our three main stars banding together to fight their way free from the marauding ghouls, before deciding that instead of running away they need to destroy them.

The ghouls are silly looking, with the head ghoul having a prosthetic that looked like a wrinkle-y bald cap.  It was really distracting, reminding me of the comic book ads for masks and bad caps.  One of the leads had a fear of squirrels which was never explained, but sometimes amusing.

Stupid Teenagers Must Die (2006)

A group of teenagers decides to have a party at an abandoned house where Murder McGee killed his entire family.  They hold a seance to bring back McGee's spirit, which takes possession of the party goers and starts a-killing and a-chopping.

The movie is supposed to take place in the 1980s but doesn't have period clothing, makeup or hairstyles - except for the guy in the Michael Jackson jacket.  It is supposed to be a hommage to the genre, but gets too close and becomes what it spoofing.

Some scenes appear to be lit by the lamps in the scene and car dome lights, which means you can't really see what is going on.  Plus it appears adr was not done as some scenes the dialogue is unintelligible.   

The high point was Corey Assink who was very funny as one of the geeks who show up uninvited at the party.  Not a bad movie, just not as good as the title would lead you to believe.

Decampitated (1998)

This movie veers from hysterically funny to hammy over the top jokes.  Distributed by Troma, the plot follows a group of friends who get lost in the woods while heading to a cabin they've rented, only to find there is a killer dressed as a beekeeper stalking them.

The scene with the girl running through the woods who keeps getting caught in bear traps got me laughing so hard, as well as the music that followed the beekeeper killer as he happily skipped through the woods after his victims.

Sometimes the campiness gets annoying and at times the movie bogged down.  But overall it was fun.

Zombie Campout (2002)

This is one of those movies where you're over half of the way through it and you think, "is this supposed to be a comedy?"  Also at times the sound was so bad you couldn't understand what the characters were saying, which I guess in the context of the overall quality of the writing isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The plot centers around two couples who go on a weekend camping trip next to a cemetery that is hit by a meteor which brings the dead back to life.  Yup, that about says it all.

Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970)

Wow, just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder, here comes another thing thrown into the mix that just confounds the mind.  The movie has vampires from outer space, cavement, space ships, vampire cavemen, human sized bats, dinosaurs, chromatic radiation, and some sort of strange spage age sex done using electrodes to stimulate the brain.  Watch as two characters get semi-naked, hook up the electrodes, and then say sometimes they miss the old way of getting busy.  Hello?  There doesn't seem to be any reason you can't do it the old way.  Sadly, they are too dense to figure this out.

The movie is confusing and a total mess.  At times it was boring, but other times I was shaking my head in disbelief at the next strange thing thrown into the mix.  It makes no sense and I enjoyed it.

Midnight Skater (2002)

If you're prepared to watch a no budge movie made by a group of friends using a video camera that can't handle filming at night - and it's the Midnight Skater a lot of it is at night - then you could watch this.  Or not since the rest of the movie is just bad as the night video footage. 

A group of friends is absolutely enraged that someone has spray painted "Midnight Skater" on the wall of their college. The group decides to walk the streets late at night in order to track down this fiend.  Oddly enough they are more concerned about this guy than the serial killer who is picking off college students.  Or the drug dealers who hang around the college and whose drugs are turning people into zombies.  

The acting is nonexistent.  The script is horrible.  The zombie make up is ridiculous. Since this is truly a no budget production, I give them credit for actually getting the movie made and released. But oh boy, is it bad.  The most enjoyable part was Ezra Haidet as ultra nerd Alvin.  He was completely over the top and the funniest part of the film. 

Strange Behavior (1981)

Atmospheric thriller about the local college doing mind control experiments on the local teens which turns them into killers. Based on story rather than effects to propel the plot, the film also includes a lengthy party dance sequence and a needle in the eye - yuck!

The Patriot (1998)

Steven Seagal was the number one immunologist in the world, but he didn't cotton to how the government ran things.  So now he's taken up shop as a small town M.D. treating the locals who often pay for his services in pies and cabinetry. 

A crackpot militia has decided to wage biological terrorism against the US.  Unfortunately they're based in the one town in the entire country where the worlds most amazing immunologist resides.  What are the odds.

Typical Seagal movie in which he bonds with a small child and kills everyone.