Rage of the Mummy (2018)

The tomb of Prince Horus-kan has a curse. If you steal antiquities from the tomb, the mummy of the Prince will come to life, track you down, cut off your head and bring the items back to his resting place.  Yet people keep stealing from him, which is pretty easy to do since everything is neatly displayed on a shelf near the sarcophagus.

When the secret occult society called the Pharaohs of Darkness have an auction for items they don’t yet have in their possession, they  hire two simpletons to rob the tomb. Surprisingly this glorious treasure fits in two backpacks.

The introduction to the society is annoying.  There’s a room full of people who each state their name and tell what they won. They all say, “I won the bid on the [item].”  A couple times would have been enough.  We don’t need to meet everyone or know what they won. Not only did the repetition drive me nuts, but it’s such an awkward phrase.  Why not just say, “I won this.” 

After the tomb is robbed and antiquities are distributed, decapitated bodies with some sort of wrapping start showing up in town.  The forensics guy says he believes the linen is over 2000 years old, which is oddly specific for someone who is not an archaeologist or historian.

Detective Blake is on the case which is unfortunate since he’s not that great at his job. He’s assigned to work with Detective Crawford, who he doesn’t respect. But Crawford is the one who puts together everyone has a connection to the occult. Blake scoffs and has no interest in pursuing this avenue, or going to the psychic convention, which just seems to be a few people in a new age store.  This also leads to many other bodies piling up before Blake is willing to consider it.

This is a hard one to get through. Some of the acting is noticeable. There’s a lot of repetition, first with stating the bids, then with the kills.  The things I liked best were the victim point of view shot of the mummy as he’s wrapping bandages around the victims head and the comic book scene transitions.

It’s not clear how the mummy knows how to use a garage door opener.  At one point, Crawford appears to be eating a piece of plain white bread while sitting with Blake in his car.  And how much time has passed since the first murder?  The murders are stacking up, but the head of the society says he knows nothing of the deaths.  Does this town regularly have decapitations, or is he just not up to date on the news? Also why does the secret society have a business card? And does no one notice a mummy walking through town?

Ridiculous dialogue

Detective: Was she seeing anyone?

Neighbor: I don’t think so. Carol was content with her dogs and her telekinesis.

Detective Crawford: Look at the [book] titles. They’re all on psychic subject matter, and what, we’ve got three victims, all involved in parapsychology?

Detective Blake: I still don’t see how this has any relationship to the murders.

My daughter interpreted them. Shes an archaeological student.

This is what happens when you steal from a mummy

Is he eating a slice of bread?

The sarcophagus that is perfectly safe in the abandoned building

They’re all going to introduce themselves and what they won

The secret society is skimping on decor

Either he’s wearing boots or he’s got club feet

The comic book transitions between scenes

No one notices the mummy with the sword in the alley

 

Contracted: Phase 2 (2015)

After a one night stand with Sam, Riley goes to see his doctor brother-in-law James to get tested for STD’s.  While waiting for the nurse, Riley realizes he has deep cuts on his back and pulls Sam’s fingernails out of one of them. Inexplicably he hides this from both the nurse and James. 

Meanwhile the police are looking for BJ, who they suspect of being involved in the spread of the STD that is killing people.  They believe he’s the carrier, and want to figure out why he’s not affected by it, when those who catch it die within days. They call Riley into the stations and show him a photo of BJ. Riley lies and says he’s never even him, even though he saw him in the back seat of a car with Sam.

Later on James tells Riley his STD tests came back negative. Riley is relieved until James violates HIPPA regulations and mentions Sam had a necrotic STD. As Riley starts showing symptoms, he searches for BJ in the hope he can get treatment so he won’t die.

Riley may be concerned for his own health, but he has no concern for keeping others safe. He visits his grandmother, makes a date with her nurse, and goes to Alice’s memorial which his pregnant sister is hosting.  There’s a lot of people in a small house.  No one notices when his nose bleeds in the dip, not even his date or James, who are standing right next to him. Riley leaves the party and the dip without cleaning up.  And we already know the worst person to ingest infected blood is a pregnant woman. So we know where this is headed.

The movie picks up right where Contracted left off. The only problem was I couldn’t remember what happened in Contracted. So I had no idea who Sam was.  But I don’t think you really need to since she’s dies in the opening and the story follows Riley

Where did the police get the 8x10 glossy candid? 

It looks like Riley is wearing a tall hat but
it’s the head of his date behind him

How do you not notice the blood in the dip?
It does not look like food.

All Must Die (2019)

Gina’s friends are throwing her a bachelorette party, but they don’t tell her it starts with a bag over her head and a parking lot abduction. She gets over being thrown in a van pretty quickly, which is surprising since that’s a jerk move.

Her friends have rented a house for the weekend and invited all Gina’s exes to join them for the night.  Who would ever want their exes at their bachelorette party? Gina isn’t thrilled but the others assure her it’s all in good fun and the guys will leave at the end of the night.

When they arrival at the rental, the exes aren’t there yet but the house in unlocked.  After waiting and being unable to get hold of the guys, they start the party without them.  

When Gina finds a threatening note resembling a ransom note in the bathroom, the others tell her it’s probably nothing. They start the games and Gina, in her shiny,, red one piece, short outfit and high heels starts walking around the woods and buildings. But something seems off. She reminds herself it’s just a game, but there’s someone with an ax coming after her and she swears she found her friend dead in the basement. 

There many possibilities floated as to who may be the problem  Is it Stine, who is jealous of Gina and had a breakdown? Is it Gina’s ex Lars, who is now dating Stine who he met in the asylum?  Is it the guy who rented them the cabin, who gave Gina a really odd look? Or could it be her fiancé, who is upset about her exes coming to the party since his past partners have cheated on him?

But the biggest mystery of all is why is the bathroom with no plumbing on the second story of the barn? It’s an outhouse so you’d think the only place for it would be the first floor.

The creepy paper mask of her face

I’ve never seen a nice banister in a basement

Hellmaster (1992)

Twenty years after conducting experiments on students, Professor Jones is back to continue his testing. He’s got some weirdos with him and if they don’t kill you, you’ll get a lovely forehead brand.

The movie seemed to go on and on. It was so boring it took multiple days to get through most of it. Then I couldn’t take it anymore and bailed with twenty minutes left.

The whole thing is disjointed. I don’t know if they never explained exactly what was going on, or the explanation was so boring I zoned out. There’s telekinesis and super ugly mutants. I hate looking at them.

Ridiculous dialogue

When do you have time for the cripple?

Damn it, I’m fucking crippled.

You can thank your god for that. 

How can she not tell it isn’t her brother?

I like this shot

A coffin on wheels chasing someone down the hall

The bus that blocks the entry to the campus

Professor Jones just shows up, back from the dead

80s hair

Dr. Jones and the upsetting triple syringe

Ben and Arthur (2002)

Glancing at the cover, it might seem like an odd choice, but this movie is often mentioned in the same breath as Birdemic and The Room. So get ready for some questionable acting and script choices.

When same sex marriage becomes legal in Hawaii, Arthur and Ben buy plane tickets and start packing. But there are two problems. A judge puts a stay on the ruling and Ben is still married to his wife Tammy.

Arthur is mad their home state doesn’t allow men to marry, and Ben says he’ll contact his lawyer. Does he think lawyers can bypass laws? Ben refers to the lawyer as him, but when they visit the law office, his lawyer is a woman.  Arthur is indignant their marriage won’t be recognized, while ignoring if they get married Ben is a bigamist.

It’s not clear if Ben has ever asked Tammy for a divorce. She’s confused when he brings it up and says she’s not interested. She suggests getting remarried to strengthen their relationship. It’s an odd choice considering Ben lives with Arthur, who he’s been dating three years. Where did she think he was? She pulls a gun and as they wrestle for control, it goes off multiple times. Surprisingly, nothing comes from this. No one is hurt, and no one in the high rise notices the gunfire.

Ben has a nursing degree but washes dishes for a living which he enjoys. Arthur works at the same place but hates it.  It looks a sandwich shop where you order at the counter, but Ben’s washing dishes and  Arthur wanders around with a coffee pot asking if anyone wants refills. When he gets in an argument with a regular customer, he quits on the spot. This leads to him going to job interviews in the winning combination of shorts and sandals.

When Arthur decides to go back to school, he shows up on the doorstep of his brother Victor, who he hasn’t spoken to in seven years.  Victor has no idea who he is. How different does Arthur look? Victor says he’ll give him the money if he respects Jesus and brings Ben over to meet him. Things don’t go well and Victor becomes obsessed with saving Arthur, even though he hasn’t cared about that in seven years. He wants to know what Arthur will do next so he hires a private investigator. The PI says he’s an intern, charges $800 per day and it will take two days to complete this mission.  

The movie just keeps getting crazier and goes right off the rails. Arthur locks himself in his room and sulks like a spoiled teen.  Victor tapes holy water to their door to try to turn them straight.  Victor kills Ben’s lawyer and later asks his priest for the name of a hit man. So the church kicks Victor out for having a gay brother, but has no problem with him planning to murder Ben, or providing him with the name of someone to do it?  

After Ben is shot, Arthur chloroforms the priest and douses the church in gasoline to set it ablaze.  In the most conspicuous and noisy escape ever, he runs away with his sandals going slap slap slap on the pavement.  Victor forces Arthur to get baptized, which apparently requires him to be naked and can be done in an apartment bathtub.   

This is like The Room in that it’s a sincere attempt gone horribly wrong.  Of the 14 credits at the beginning of the movie, two are for co-stars and the other 12 are all the same name.  Some of the credits are: cinematography; editing; producer; executive producer; screenplay; director; music editing; and casting. 

The soundtrack sounds like it was done on a Casio keyboard. The acting is what you would see at a local theater.  The character of Arthur, who is supposed to be sympathetic, is entitled and rude. You’ll wonder why Ben would date him since Arthur seems draining to be around. Ben seems pretty easy to get along with, while Arthur is high strung and high maintenance.

Cringeworthy dialogue

Dear diary, I can’t believe Ben. He’s married to some bitch named Tammy.

Victors friend: Arthur, do you plan to have kids?

Victor:  Oh I’m sure as soon as Arthur gets a beautiful wife and children. That’s when he’ll have a nice family.

You care more about some man named Jesus that you’ve never met than you do your own family.

I’ve got news for you buddy. Leaving me for another man isn’t what I call doing it the right way, especially when we’ve been married almost five years.

Ben: You’re not making sense.

Tammy:  Hey, I don’t make sense. You don’t make sense. I make sense. That’s who makes sense.

Ben:  That was Margaret.

Arthur: Who’s Margaret?

Ben:  Our attorneys secretary. Someone killed her.

Arthur: Did you get those divorce papers signed?

Ben: That’s another story. My crazy wife. I’m going to have my attorney give her a call.

Arthur: Do you want more?

Mildred: Yes.

Arthur:  So how you doing today, Mildred?

Mildred: Hey, I want more.

Arthur:What? I just filled it.

I’m the intern private investigator.

Victor, your brother is a demon.

My heart, my stomach, I mean my liver, everything. It just fell right onto the floor.

Detective: We’re looking for, uh if you know anything about a Mr. Ben Sheets. Any info on Mr. Ben Sheets.

Victor: Oh yeah, he’s dead. What else you want to know?

Arthur runs to his room and writes in his diary

The tempera paint stained glass, art class Jesus portrait,
card table are like the set of a high school play

Are they eating graham crackers?

Taping holy water to the door

Arthurs outfit for job interviews complete
with sandals and white socks

Looks like they forgot to move their tripod from the shot

Refilling coffee at the sandwich shop,
the counter is behind them

The cardboard cross in the church

Lord of the Shadows (1989)

Robert and his kid brother Kurt go out in the middle of the night to ride their bikes around town. When they stop to talk, they see a man across the street attacked by someone in a cloak.  When Robert goes over to see if he’s okay, he discovers the man is dead with two marks on his neck. When the cloak wearer jumps out at them, Robert and Kurt pedal off with the killer chasing behind them. 

They wake up Peter ,who works for their dad, and tell him what they’ve seen. Robert has the dead guy’s bag which contains what is essentially a vampire kit - stake, hammer, holy water and a necklace.  They’re confused by this. So they know about vampires, but don’t know about stakes?

The next day they convince Peter to drive them to the location of the attack, but the body is gone. Probably because it’s daytime and in front of a business, but they don’t think of that. When they start looking around, they’re attacked by two knife wielding men.  They manage to escape and call the police, which leads to Robert and Kurt’s dad telling Peter to stay away from his sons.

Peter enlists the help of his girlfriend Diane and friend Jerry to figure out what is going on. He ends up having a run in with the vampire and his followers. The followers continually scream “aaaaahhhhh” as they are attacking, something which I’ve never heard vampires do. 

The necklace holds a paper which has a list of books and the name of a library. While doing research, they discover one text has a drawing of the man in the cloak. It says he’s an ancient Aztec god known as Lord of the Shadows aka Shadow Lord.  As they make plans for his downfall,  Peter realizes the only garlic he has is on some left over garlic bread, which he uses to fight off the vampire at one point.

This is a local production which probably had no budget. The actors aren’t professionals and the production values are low.  It appears to have been edited on a VCR since each shot ends with a blip and scrolling lines.  The vampires are wearing those plastic teeth everyone wore as kids.  It’s a story of good vs. evil, and the last part seems to get more religious. The roughest thing about the movie is it’s almost two hours long. It certainly doesn’t need to be. There is plenty of padding and it’s not engaging enough to keep your interest the whole time. Although to be fair, I do love low budget shot on video movies of the 80s. There is a charm to them, even if they can get boring at times.

If you want to watch this film, do a search for the name on YouTube.

Ridiculous dialogue

These books could probably tell us what we’re up against.

I guess that when the presence of evil is resisted,  even the very presence of it will flee.

The title card

A lot of the movie is shot at night

Robert and Kurt riding their bikes

The drawing which is supposed to be in the book

Every cut has a glitch like when you dub from VCR to VCR

Pete and his vampire hunting outfit. He also
has crosses tied to his legs

The not so scary vampires with their flannel and plastic teeth

This is the head vampire

Kurt starts out with his hair over half his ears…

…but he gets a haircut during the filming

Octogames (2022)

In an incredibly unoriginal concept, eight people compete at eight children’s games to win a huge amount of money. They are held captive by guards dressed in red with masked faces and instructed on which games to play by a masked leader on tv. Those who make a mistake are eliminated, and by that I mean murdered.

This low rent Squid Games differs in that there are only two guards and a lunatic in a fox costume to keep the contestants from running away. Yet none of the group thinks to try to over power them. 

The leader is an influencer named Jaxpro, who the contestants treat as a celebrity.  Jaxpro and his influencer girlfriend Luna are planning on giving his social media accounts with 1.5 million followers, plus his sponsors, to the winner.  The flaw in his logic is will the sponsors or his followers have any interest in the random hoser who wins the contest.

He’s invited people who have a promising social media presence. After the first game, the eight competitors are:

1. Carrie, a singer songwriter
2. Maxine, a comedian
3. Walt, an old dude
4. AJ, a live streamer
5. Ruth, a cooking host
6. Jess, a fitness trainer
7. Sunny, a content creator
8. Squish, a motivational speaker

They play children’s games with a twist. The games are : Simon Says; Hopscotch; Obstacle course; Hide and Seek; Tetherball; Hangman; and Capture the flag.  Nothing impressive with any of them. Hide and Seek is in a small house, and Obstacle course is a bounce house.

While Squid Games had tension and human drama, these games just have a motivational speaker who is a total dick and people bonding through superficial exchanges. One person even sacrifices their life for another, which makes no sense since they have no real connection and have only known each other a few days. 

If there was a drinking game for the number of times the name Jaxpro is said, you would die of alcohol poisoning.  Most of the characters are unlikeable and those who aren’t are incredibly bland. 

Low rent Squid Games

Don’t threaten me

Even though they outnumber the guards, they
never try to escape

Sigh

Jaxpro is ridiculous

Our contestants 

Why don’t these people try to escape