Mongolian Death Worm (2010)

Bad boy Daniel is a treasure hunter who is seriously lacking in treasure and charm.  Alicia is a doctor delivering medicine to an isolated village where there is some sort of outbreak. And they're on a collision course with wackiness and large Cgi worms in this Syfy styled Tremors rip off.

Meanwhile at a nearby oil refinery, workers are disappearing and the legend of the Mongolian Death Worm sits on the lips of superstitious villagers.  But you can't shut down the oil refinery. It's big business and no one messes with the business of money.

When Alicia's car breaks down, she and wimpy fellow doctor Phillip are stranded until the Sheriff happens along. But he's busy and when Daniel drives up, the Sheriff asks Daniel to give them a ride, which he does for all the cash they have.

While transporting them, Daniels car breaks down.  Daniel warns Alicia that the road isn't safe due to the drug traffickers that use it at night.  No one shall ask why they make a fire that can be seen for miles about twenty feet from the road.  Needless to say, the night does not go well, especially since Alicia can't keep her big mouth shut, even when she's being threatened by guys with guns.

Chaos ensues and here come the death worms, but if you've seen Tremors, this is a pale imitation without the humor, charm, or fun.  In one scene, the Sheriff says to Daniel, "You look like you could use some meal."  I'm not sure what's worse - that the line was written like that, they didn't notice he said it, or they did notice but didn't bother to shoot another take.

Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

A group of college students accompany their archaeology professor and his wife on a trip to the Everglades, where they plan to do some research. Upon arrival, they find the campsite of the man they are supposed to meet, but he is nowhere to be seen.

While their professor tries to translate a stone tablet, the kids run off to the edge of the swamp to make out, listen to the radio, and dance very badly.  What they don't realize is that they are partying on Tartu's burial ground, and that he is not amused.

Native American legend states that Tartu left a curse that if anyone desecrates his sacred burial site, he will return from the dead in the form of an animal to exact his revenge.  So look out kids, you're about to be killed by creatures that live in the swamp... and a shark.

This is a ridiculous movie and might be enjoyable if it ever really got going. But it's a slow paced and not much happens.   The deaths occur in the daytime and the viewer can see the threat to the kids far sooner than the kids do - even though there's a giant alligator right ahead in the clearing. The damn thing isn't even stealthy.

If a director asks you to jump into the Everglades to frolic in the water, you'd have to be nuts to comply.  There are real alligators in there!  The water must have been really cold because the male actor is involuntarily shivering like crazy and gritting his teeth while trying to pretend he's having a great time. Yippee!

Of note, director William Grete also directed Sting of Death and the Shatner vehicle Impulse, which is an amazing bad movie from Shatners lean mid 70s acting era.

There's an issue with corpse continuity

Surprisingly, this is a dance move, not a reaction of horror 

Dorky dancing in the swamp

Come on in, the waters freezing

Tartu knows when you're dancing on his grave

Tartu threw them the old switcheroo and hit them with a shark

What's he doing back there?

Welcome to my tomb, I'll be your living nightmare

Tartu - the only ancient Native American who wears flesh
colored tights and has visible pantylines

Logan's Run (1976)

In 2274, humans live in a city in a bubble where they are free to pursue whatever pleasures they desire, and live a life of luxury.  But when they turn 30, the gem implanted in their palm changes color, signaling they must go to Carousel. There they spin and rise in the air until they ascend to a rebirth.

But those who choose not to comes to Carousel when called are known as runners.  Those who doesn't come when called, are tracked and eliminated by the Sandmen, employees of the government who maintain order and ensure everyone obeys the law.

Logan 5 is a Sandman.  He and his fellow Sandmen don't understand why someone would choose to be terminated rather than reborn in Carousel.  But the runners believe that Carousel is not what it seems, and resent that the government controls their lives.  The runners wish is to get to Sanctuary, where they will supposedly be safe and begin a new life.

When Logan is assigned to infiltrate the Runners, in an undercover operation to lead the Sandmen to the Runner underground, he balks.  But the government does not take no for an answer. They activate Logans gem which indicates he is to report to Carousel.  When he doesn't show at Carousel, they brand him a runner and send the Sandmen after him.  Logan goes to a suspected ally of the runners, and asks for help, but since he was formerly a Sandman, they are suspect of his intent.

I like the plot, and love the feel of the movie, even though the effects are dated. It's a bit slow at times though.

Last Shift (2014)

Rookie cop Jessica is assigned to work security at the old police station on the last shift before it closes. The building is already locked up and the phones forwarded, but they need someone there to let in the hazmat team.  There's no explanation as to why the hazmat team can't schedule a time to show up, rather than randomly coming by in the middle of the night.

Since the place is already closed, Jessica will be the only one on duty.  When she arrives, the surly officer on the previous shift is antagonistic and tells her not to leave the building.  It's not a good start, but its uneventful compared to the rest of the night.  She hears noises, a homeless guy breaks into the building, and furniture is moved around.

When arresting the homeless dude, she gets locked in a cell for awhile before the door opens as mysteriously as it closed behind her.  She gets repeated phone calls from a girl that needs help.  She sees people but can never find them, and all the furniture in one room gets stacked up in a pile.

At first she thinks she's begin hazed because she's a rookie. But when she calls the new station, she's told that the building she's in is rumored to be haunted by the Payman family, a cult-like group similar to the Manson family, who died in the cells.

I can understand why a rookie wouldn't want to call for help when she feels she's being hazed.  But a bum broke into the building, so why not ask someone to bring him to the new station to book him.  And when she finds out people think the building is haunted, and they moved to a new building due to the incidents, you'd think she'd be smarter.

Deathgasm (2015)

When his mom is sent to jail, metalhead teen Brodie goes to live with his Christian aunt and uncle.  On the first day of school he discovers his jock cousin is a bully, and saves a geeky kid from being beaten up. Later he meets Zakk, another teenager who loves metal, at a local record store.

Brodie and Zakk decide to start a band and enlist the geeks that Brodie helped on this first day of school.  Obsessed with a rare metal album, they break into a residence which is rumored to have been used by the band.

After getting into a confrontation, they grab some sheet music while running out.  The tune turns out to be an unreleased song , and they decide it would be perfect for their band.  What they don't know is that the song summons a demon, and people in town will become possessed and turn into psychotic zombies / monsters.

I'd heard good things and thought the trailer was great.  I had really high expectations and while I liked it, I wasn't crazy about it.  So I may have expected too much.  On the other hand, both the friends who saw it with me loved it.

As a side note, I'm not sure why they had to make Zakk such as ass.  He was a horrible friend, and it seems like they could have had him be an okay guy without interfering with the plot.

Death metal and ice cream cones

Day of the Mummy (2014)

Jack Wells, a bargain basement Indiana Jones, is hired to find the tomb of the cursed king Neferu.  His employer Carl wants him to locate the diamond known as the codex stone.  Carl is played by Danny Glover who phones it in over a video link while seated in a comfy looking library in what appears to be a luxurious home.

Middle aged womanizer Jack teams up with a high maintenance professor, a female security person, and two twenty something guys with a background in archaeology.  The woman has no business working in security since she can't even slap effectively, has no knowledge of diplomacy, and is overcome by Jack's charms on the first night.

Carl oversees Jack's adventures in mummy seeking by requiring him to wear glasses with a camera in them that allows Carl to view a live feed. Jack also wears an earpiece so Carl can give directions to him.  Go google glasses, go!  Jack may look like a dork in his black horn rims, but he still pulls the girls without even trying.

Actually I'm assuming Jack looks like a dork. Since he's behind the glasses we just see his point of view and it's nauseating. If you're prone to motion sickness, you'll feel nauseous through some of this film. You'll also get more shots than you'd ever want of Jack's feet.

This was a tough one to watch. Not only because of the motion of the camerawork, but because it was tedious.  We fast forwarding through part of the movie until we hit a mummy.  Although a previous explorer working with Carl was set upon by the mummy shortly after entering the tomb, Jack and his buddies stumble around in there for hours without running into trouble.

The whole video glasses schtick looks like something out of a 1990s video game.  So that's kind of amusing.  Danny Glover occasionally pops up in a little square in the lower left side of the screen when he wants to interact with Jack.

At one point, the group walks for two days to get to the area that they believe the undiscovered tomb is located. Because how would I know it happened unless it's shown to me?  They mention that there is no way to drive to the area, but later they are attacked near the tomb by men with guns who drive off in a jeep. Sooooo.... I guess they should have parked a little closer.

Half of me loves that Jack doesn't fit the stereotype of buff
young stud. The other half is thinking he shouldn't be shirtless.

It's like being in a haunted attraction.

Be prepared to see Danny Glover in the lower left hand
corner of the screen and nowhere else.

Oh great, like we need to see Jacks feet again.

Turbo Kid (2105)

If you like BMX bikes,  80s post apocalyptic movies, cheesy soundtracks, and movie cliches galore, you'll really enjoy Turbo Kid.  It's an 80s style scifi and is kind of like Max Max if the lead was a teenager on a BMX.

In the post apocalyptic world of 1997, water is a scarce commodity.  Villain Zeus, who you can tell is evil due to his eyepatch, controls the land and those he doesn't like end up fighting to the death in an in ground swimming pool.

The Kid is an orphan who spends his days riding his BMX and scavenging for items to trade for water.   He has an underground hideout which he fills with a collection of old toys and comic books.

One day while hanging out at an old playground, he meets Apple, an impossibly cheery girl who immediately attaches herself to him.  He is not amused.  While at first Apple is incredibly annoying, her hopeless optimism eventually becomes endearing, as is her joy when the Kid gives her a gnome stick.

With Zeus making people's lives miserable - even more miserable than living in a post apocalyptic wasteland - the Kid ends up in a position to join the fight against him.  Get read to see BMX bike chases, a robot graveyard (which is more a robot pile than anything else), and some cartoonish or Pythonesque humor in dark moments.  Be on the lookout for the 1/2 a body which flies yup in the air and lands on the head of another person as they're staggering around. Trust me, it's really funny, and something I've never seen before.

Turbo Kid is an enjoyable throwback. My friends loved it, but I wouldn't go that far. At times I found myself getting slightly bored, but then something else would happen and I would get sucked back into it again.  Overall, it's a fun film.

Death From Beyond 2: Eternal Damnation (2008)

Okay the description for this film says, "Nefratis, the demon princess of Egypt, has reincarnated in the 21st century as Marcia; a young archaeologist.  When a film crew decides to film in Marcia's apartment, they must control their own lustful urges before they become the next victims of the demon princess that murdered her way into our century from a fiery grave in ancient Egypt."  Uh, what?

I don't think that was the movie I just watched. I don't remember a film crew or a young archaeologist. All I remember is tons of primitive CGI, generic music, numerous things that make no sense, and long scenes with no dialogue.  Oh and Nazi's, strange half skeletons that flit around while holding swords, and a hero that resembles George Constanza.

Based on the credits, one man is to answer for this. James Panetta is listed in the credits as: lead actor; director, producer; executive producer; costume designer; editor; casting director; cinematographer; and special effects editor.  Sure, when you do indie movies, you have to take on more roles in production. But there is also a correlation to the number of times a name appears in the credits, and how bad the movie turns out.

Some of the things to watch for (if you can make it through this overly long movie):

• walls painted to look like stone
• backgrounds made of fabric
• tons of horrendous CGI
• in the hospital hallway, a man in a suit and tie is asking a nurse questions about a patient and seems to have no knowledge of his condition. I thought he was a reporter until suddenly he tells the nurse to, "get in there and check his IV."  
• blood pouring from a woman's mouth as she is held aloft by her neck, but no blood on the floor beneath her
• a woman who finds her door open at night and looks around for who did it - yet the viewer can see someone run across the front lawn, from right to left
• characters who don't move when something deadly is flying at their head
• Berlin 1945 - it may seem like a viable option to use CGI background for this... but it's not
• a musical interlude which rips off Floyd the Barber by Nirvana
• people spending a lot of time shrugging, smiling, looking confused, sneering, looking evil, all while generic music plays
• tons of scenes with no dialogue (and bad CGI just can't support the lack of dialogue)
• awkward squats with a sword, while trying to take a threatening fighting stance

Cringe worthy dialogue:

"So I take it Charlies Not So Angels are no longer with us?"

Think anyone will notice the blanket walls,
or the nails and plywood painted like stone pillars? 

Get ready for a lot of this

Copyrighted material has been blurred for your protection

This is how she tried to escape the CGI screwdriver

Blanket walls should never be in your movie unless you're 10

Neon swastikas for the Nazis

George Costanza is ready for action

Your sister preparing for the local Rennaisance Festival

Someone needs to pay more attention to lighting

They've ramped up the CGI

Your heroes?  No, it's your neighbors LARPing in the barn.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Creepshow 3 (2006)

Wait, there's a Creepshow 3?  Why have I never heard of this?  Oh, probably because George Romero and Stephen King have nothing to do with this, and it's crap. Basically two chumps got the rights to the name and tried to make a buck.

The anthology starts with Alice, the story of a pain in the ass teenage girl who ends up in a different dimension every time her father tries to use his new remote control for the tv.  It's pretty gruesome since she gets horrible boils all over her body, but it's pretty stupid also.

Next up is The Radio, about a mild mannered security guard who lives in a dive where pimps and prostitutes dwell.  He buys a radio from a weirdo on the street, and the radio starts telling him what to do to improve his life.  No idea why he goes along with this since it has him climbing into abandoned buildings and stealing cardboard boxes filled with cash, but there you go. Just do what the sexy voiced radio says.

Third we get the Call Girl, who is also a serial killer.  She gets a call from a young man who turns out to be something other than he appears.

The Professors Wife is about an old professor visited by two former students, who he's invited to his upcoming wedding.  When they meet his fiancé, who is more than half his age, they aren't sure what to think.  But based on his work in robotics, and his penchant for pranks, they decide she must be a robot and set out to dismantle her.

Lastly, we have the Haunted Dog, which is the story of an arrogant, callous doctor who is doing community service at a free clinic.  On the way there, he gives a homeless man a hotdog that was dropped in the dirt. The man chokes on it, as the doctor ignores cries from passersby for a doctor. Soon the doc is seeing visions of the dead man offering him a hotdog.  Ooooo, isn't that scary boys and girls?

Well, it's obvious why this isn't well known. The characters are jerks and the stories aren't very good. They manage to have each tale intertwine by throwing characters into the background of other stories, making them overlap. But other than that sort of interesting schtick, it's a dud.

Alien 3000 (2004)

aka Unseen Evil 2

Alien 3000 sounds like a product that would be promoted on a late night infomercial, but alas, no such luck.  As I was watching the film, it seemed a bit familiar.  Then there was a flashback to a another movie and I realized I had inadvertently rented a sequel to the crappy movie, Unseen Evil. Notice it is being promoted under a complete different name....  Bah, I probably would have watched it at some point anyway but they definitely tricked me by using a different name.

Some twenty something friends find a treasure of gold, and are quickly killed by a creature that inhabits the cave - although not before getting a good laugh when a bat flies into the girls hair... because it's funny that your friends freak out over bats in their hair.  The viewer can enjoy that the bat appears to be on a string as it repeatedly bonks her on the head.

Next thing you know Kate is screaming and lying in hospital bed. Who is Kate? We're told she is the only survivor from a previous creature attack, which is confusing if you've seen the first film since she isn't played by the same actress. Heck, it's also confusing if you haven't seen the first film, since there are assumptions made that you'll know what the hell is going on.

Everyone believes Kate killed her friends, but the Paranormal Government Research Agency (PGRA) interviews her and asks her to bring them to the location where her friends were killed.  They have a military escort that is apparently made up of losers and rejects, who also happen to be incredibly unlikeable. As the movie goes on, it becomes obvious that no one on the trip believes Kates story. Seriously?  How bad off do you have to be when people who believe in paranormal activity won't believe you?

Why does the alien care when someone touches the Spanish gold in the cave?  How can two men survive a helicopter explosion without injury when they jump from the copter, then tuck and roll when they hit the ground? Why use flashbacks from the first film when the only character that's in both is played by a different actress?

Sometimes this type of film an be funny, or make you appreciate indie films that lack a budget but are well done.  Unfortunately this one does neither and is just crappy.  It's important to note that the alien on the cover bears no resemblance to the alien in the movie, which alternates between CGI and a guy in a monster suit.

If you look at the IMDB message boards for this film, you'll find postings by numerous people who claim to be investors in the film and that the production company ripped them off. Interesting. And when someone complained about the quality of the film, another person responded with,  "Dude, it has [Lorenzo] Lamas in it. You never buy a ticket... or pay to rent a movie with him in it."  Word.

If only their names were Danger and High Voltage

Is using a pencil to poke a creature a good scientific method?

No... no it's not

It's only a model.

Invisible Alien

Alien on an acid trip

Sometimes it's a guy in a monster suit....

...and sometimes it's CGI 

Helicopter blows up and crashes? Don't worry.
Just tuck and roll and you'll be fine.

Alien ship or pricker burr?

Yes, this is the door opening on an alien spaceship

More aliens? Yay!

Thor the Conquerer (1983)

When Thor's parents are murdered, he is raised by a mystic weirdo who can change into an owl.  Things seem to go okay until Thor is an adult, at which point he sees his first woman and is informed that women are things to play with that must obey you.  So basically, a weird guy with a costume out of Duran Duran's Wild Boys teaches our oiled up lunkhead that it's okay to rape women.  And old creepy is always watching when Thor brings women back to the cave. Ewwww...

After his first female conquest is killed, Thor decides to do some rambling and conquers another woman that he makes his plaything. Yeah, he sure is a swell guy.  Oddly enough when attacked by cannibals, his prisoner rescues him instead of running away, which earns Thors respect - or as much respect as any barbarian can have for a possession.

Thor is not a likable guy. He's kind of stupid, and believes the hype that he's going to rule the land, and it's okay to kill, steal and rape. He also has a terrible wig, or if that's his hair, he's in desperate need of conditioner.  There isn't much of a plot. So Thor wanders around getting in fights or looking at things. Then the weirdo owl mystic shows up, amazingly he doesn't smack his massive shoulder pads into the cave walls, and creepily watches Thor.