Bad Movie Thursday

Viewing Date: 11/18/21

Starring: No one. Seriously- IMDB lists all actors in alphabetical order, so no one really gets top billing.

Plot: A family of cannibalistic pilgrims attacks a restaurant that stays open for Thanksgiving.

Rules

• Thanksgiving tropes
• “Thanksgiving”
• WTF moments (plenty of them, so use this at your discretion)
• Lisa Marie acting bitchy

Quotes

• “Everyone called my Sharty Metabernackle!”
• “See food… Get it?!”
• “The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” “You’re not black.” “Is that what that means?”
• “All I’m good at is being a nasty bitch.”

What We Learned

• If your sandwich needs more flavor, cut yourself and add blood
• Adams family values is the best Thanksgiving movie
• Nothing is more American than cannibalism

Final Take

Tis the season for holiday themed movies, and there aren’t many Thanksgiving horror movies, so we need to dig deep (already watched all the Thankskillings, etc). Premise is straight forward- a family of cannibals searches for people that aren’t respecting (?) Thanksgiving values each year and murders and eats them. I’m not sure how much they actually abide by this- so if the employees at the restaurant actually want to be with their families to celebrate, would they let them go? I realize I’m overthinking this- its just a thin premise to explain the cannibalistic behavior. Some funny, cringy moments, but otherwise exactly what you’d expect.

Date Watched: 10/21/2021

Starring: Adriana Barazza, Richard Brake

Plot: In the Barrio of Oak Springs live a strong and stubborn group of elderly friends who refuse to be gentrified. Their leader, Lupita, keeps them together as a community, a family. But little did they know, their beloved Bingo hall is about to be sold to a much more powerful force than money itself.

Rules

• Bingoisms
• “Oak Springs”
• The Goop

Quotes

• “And for your information, I prefer store-bought to this liquid cat shit.”
• “Welcome to Oak Springs, motherfucker!”

Viewer Quotes

• “Is this a horror movie or is this an old woman’s barber shop?”

Things We Learned

• The devil operates through bingo halls.
• The devil is filled with green goop.
• You don’t fuck with Oak Springs
• You can kill the devil by burning money.

Final Take: This movie was a slow burn. It was a long buildup to a few ultra-violent scenes. It did not make bingo look any classier. There was a bit of a message about consumerism and gambling that didn’t quite lend itself to light-hearted drinking and laughing, but overall it was memorable. And the rules worked out pretty well.

Viewing Date: Sep 30, 2021

Starring: Dolph Lundgren (who also wrote and directed), Kateri Walker, Chelsea Ricketts, Matthew Tompkins

Plot

A lone biker rides into town in the aftermath of the death of his good friend J.J. Once there Ryder discovers that his friend didn’t die but was murdered by a local businessman who would let nothing stand in the way of his plans to build a state of the art casino on Indian reservation land. On a mission of justice Ryder confronts and defeats Reno and his men in a tour de force show down where the one (Ryder) vanquishes the many. (via IMDB)

Rules

• Native American references
• Bible (reference, Dolph reading it, etc)
• “Boss”
• Sheriff drinks from flask
• “Reno”

Quotes

• “They drowned someone in the river- if you know what I mean.”
• “She was meant to call me Jeff but she was so drunk with a busted jaw… that it came out Jarfe. She died moments later.”

“They drowned someone in the river- if you know what I mean.”

Viewer Quotes

• “She wants to get Dolphed”
• “That looks fun. I’d like to throw some incendiary grenades in a boat.”

What We Learned

• Dolph drinks a tequila with no lime and no salt.
• The ancestors told of a man from the North who would save them- and that man was Dolph Lundgren
• Dolph is the savior

Final Take

An enjoyable Dolph Lundren written and directed piece which is a retelling of Pale Rider- or maybe Ghost Rider from the comics (avenging spirit who rides a motorcycle). Some good action, cartoonish bad guys who run the town (think Road House), and a lot of killing. Jarfe was a good character, but should have known better to get into the war with Dolph based on his initial interaction with the clownish crime boss, John Reno. Look for it on amazon Prime!

Date Watched: 9/2/2021

Starring: The Nic Cage

Plot: Three strangers’ lives are inevitably entangled in a conflict none of them are prepared for.

Rules

• Rice Cookers, or rice related references
• Scope Vision (advanced)
• Dead Assassins
• Cage saying “cage”

Quotes

• “I fall into you knowing full well there’s going to be a hard landing.”

Viewer Quotes

• This is not a quotable movie at all.
• This is the kind of movie I’ll wake up with no memory of the next morning.
• “What kind of music is this?” – “This is like two bums happening upon instruments in a dark alley.”

Things We Learned

• Nobody steals a stripped car
• What Nic Cage does best is set up kill chains.

Final Take: This movie was trying to be too smart for its own good. It was convoluted and overly complicated, which is not a great recipe for a bad movie thursday hit. There were some good “Nic Cage” moments, on the crazy/bad end of the spectrum, but definitely the most watchable moments of the whole thing. As was quoted above, I probably won’t remember too much of this movie in the morning. Pretty forgettable.

Viewing Date: Aug 12, 2021

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Dave Bautista, Jin Zhang, Harry Shum Jr, Devon Sava, 50 Cent

Plot: The daughter of a Hong Kong tech executive goes missing in what appears to be a routine ransom job. As Breslin and his crew delve deeper, they discover the culprit is the deranged son of one of their former foes, who also kidnapped Breslin’s love and is holding her inside the massive prison known as Devil’s Station. (via IMDB)

Rules

• Product Placements
• “Zhang”
• “Wong” (also applies to bad puns from the viewers)
• “Chine”
• Stallone goes full Rambo

Viewer Quotes

• “You messed with the Wong guy.” (and about 10 more like this)

What We Learned

• Body guards don’t need to be armed, only Ray Breslen
• 80 year old Sly Stallone is still jacked and can kill people with his bare hands.
• Not to watch a 4th ‘Escape Plan’, if they decide to make one.

Final Take: This was just a bad movie, but not in a good way. Not much to write about because it was another formulaic, thin plotted action movie where Sly and friends took a pay day for a movie targeting the China market. I think 50 Cent was in one scene, although had one of the top billings of the cast (in the US at least). Dave Bautista was reliably entertaining as the one man wrecking crew, and Sly did have a decent final fight scene. Beyond that… terrible. I did see that this movie may have set a record for having so much of the film as production information (90 seconds of production company logos and nearly 9 mins of credits), so 11.7% of the run time of the film. That’s got to be something- right?

Date Watched: 6/17/2021

Starring: Dad from Home Alone, and one of the Wet Bandits

Plot: Homeless people that live in the sewers are disappearing, and something terrifying might be killing them. CHUDs!

Rules

• References to the “underground”.
• Homeless people
• CHUD attack
• References to radiation

Quotes

• “It’s buck dancers choice, my friend.”
• “We don’t have to listen to the lunatic ravings of this paranoid hippie.”

Viewer Quotes

• “This guy’s wearing a full Canadian tuxedo.” – “What is that, scrubs?”

Things We Learned

• In the 80’s, when a woman gets a call from the doctor, she’s pregnant.
• You can intimidate people by eating their payphone change.
• In the 80’s, going to the papers was the biggest threat of all. These days it means nothing.
• New York apartments have access panels to the sewers.

Final Take: This was a decent Thursday movie. Definitely kept my attention, and the rules worked to keep a steady flow of beer going. There was a surprisingly strong cast involved in this one, and a plot involving corrupt politicians that still seems relevant. Not too shabby.

Date Watched: 6/3/2021

Starring: Tim Curry, Bruce Campbell, Laura Linney

Plot: When an expedition to the African Congo ends in disaster, a new team is assembled to find out what went wrong.

Rules

• “Amy” (advanced rule)
• The eye symbol
• Amy smokes or drinks

Quotes

• “I don’t have a price. I’m not a pound of sugar. I’m a primatologist.”
• “Who are those guys?” – “Fuck if I know, and it don’t pay to ask. We’re on our third government in 2 years.”
• “Solomon must have gotten his diamonds from Cartier, just like the rest of us.”

Viewer Quotes

• “Wow, that’s quite an accent.”
• “Does anyone care if a snake is harmed in the filming of a movie?” – “I don’t know… Jake the snake Roberts?”
• “She’s presenting! Smell… my… anus…”

Things We Learned

• Apes are allowed one martini to calm them down.
• You can use flares to trigger heat-seeking missiles.
• Monkeys all mate under a full moon.
• Hippos will attack boats indiscriminately at night.

Final Take:

It was fine.

Date Watched: 5/6/2021

Starring: Don “The Dragon” Wilson

Plot: Scientist brings virtual reality characters to life. Two are women from the cybersex game site. The third is a warrior who wants to unleash the rest of the bad guys from the virtual reality underworld. A border cop must defeat the virtual reality warrior while learning to relate to one of the cybersex babes.

Rules

• Computer Voice
• Computer lingo that doesn’t make sense
• Using the stupid flip phone.
• Dante kills someone

Quotes

• “I’m in training for the tight-ass olympics.”

Viewer Quotes

• “Let’s make a phone out of a travel battleship game!”
• “Is ‘back to life’ the right terminology? They’ve never been alive.”

Things We Learned

• The ground floor of Excalibur is a cybersex hub.
• “Software robbers” are totally ripped gangsters instead of just nerds living in their mom’s basements.
• In the future, a taser is actually a laser.
• You can create a physical copy of a program by copying it from MD-Rom to disc.
• You can’t beat a computer at a computer game.
• 500 PSI will kill a-lifers.

Final Take: A pretty poor copy of Virtuosity, and a shameless cash-in on the weird virtual reality craze of the time. This film has not aged very well, now that we’re living in the times they were projecting for us. The plot is hard to follow, the action is slow and poorly choreographed, and there’s probably not quite enough T & A to justify the rating. It’s entertaining as long as you’re drinking beers with friends, but will likely fade from memory as soon as the credits roll past.

Date Watched: 03/11/2021

Starring: Richard Norton, Robert Patrick

Plot: A ruthless vehicular gang rules the post-apocalyptic wasteland. That’s until a muscled hero named Slade builds the ultimate machine gun – Equalizer 2000, and declares a one man war on the gang’s “piece of garbage” leader.

Rules

• Sporting equipment used as armor
• Shooting more bullets than you have in your gun.
• Dropping references to things we haven’t heard of yet (“The Ownership”)
• “Sand Chopper”
• “The Ownership”
• Richard Norton running down a rock hill.
• Flamethrowers

Quotes

• I want Slade and I want him now. (there are almost no quotable lines in this movie)
• We can’t hold… we’re gonna have to pull out.
• You’ll get a procedural endorsement for this!

Viewer Quotes

• I don’t understand who’s fighting who.
• There’s no quotes in this movie at all. – There’s no dialogue in this movie at all.
• Any friend of Chuck Norris is a friend of mine!
• Loosely tied. Kind of like how I tie things to the roof of my car.
• Who is it that he hates, and why?
• Oh, no, it’s the Mountain People! – Let’s get ’em!

Things We Learned

• In the post-apocalyptic future, there is no shortage of bullets, but you can’t find food, water, or gas.
• Richard Norton is really good at running downhill on uneven terrain.
• Combining 6 guns together makes you completely unstoppable.

Final Take: A totally forgettable movie with an almost completely incomprehensible plot. They dropped you into the middle of this story with a grand battle between various warring factions, but no backstory to explain everything that’s going on. Bottom line, if you’re just interested in explosions and actions scenes, and don’t care about understanding the deeper plot, you might enjoy this.

Viewing Date: 2/25/21

Starring: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid and a long list of semi-celebs in cameos

Plot: With a bitter taste in the mouth, knowing that the Sharknado crisis is far from over yet, Fin and April travel to London after the events of Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016), as Nova Clarke’s fact-finding expedition accidentally triggers a wave of ferocious and bigger-than-ever Sharknadoes. As a result, with prehistoric Stonehenge as the epicentre of the unstoppable new menace, Fin’s young son, Gil, gets sucked into the heart of the brutal cyclone, with minimal chances of survival. Now, Fin Shepard, humankind’s dauntless chainsaw-wielding hero, and his intrepid bionic wife, April, must track down a complex and omnipotent vortex formation that rapidly transforms into something unimaginable: an ever-growing Sharknado of global proportions. This time, Fin and April have their work cut out for them, in a perilous mission across the four corners of the world. Who shall live and who shall die when the fifth awakens? (via IMDB)

Rules

• Cameos
• “Sharknado”
• Movie references / gags
• Riding sharks
• Impaling sharks or getting impaled by a shark

Quotes

• “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a human helicopter.” (turns out she was, in fact, a human helicopter
• “You clear your thoughts.” (to Tara Reid’s character)

What We Learned

• The Sydney Opera House is actually a transforming, shark killing machine, that somehow requires Tony Hawk for repairs
• Olivia Newton John’s daughter (Chloe Lattanzi) is one of the creepiest looking, saddest ‘plastic-surgery-gone-wrong’ victims in recent memory.
• The British Secret Service has developed a helmet with a shark fin to protect you in case you end up in Sharknado.
• Sharknados creation teleportation portals and time travel

Final Take

Are we getting Sharknado fatigue? There were times watching this movie where I asked myself if 5 films of complete absurdity and bad cameos could actually be getting tired and boring- and yes it is very close, but there is enough here with a $3M budget and one-upping the stupidity to keep it fun. The bar is set very low… Can I say I’m actually somewhat forward to the next one, as long as Dolph Lungren is more than just a cameo?