Where Am I?

Good Question.

I just moved to a new apartment at the beginning of a school year that seems destined to end my streak of fun and happiness.

Or, more accurately, my senior year of college.

I'm taking a small break so I can get a handle on my classes, and then I will be back.

To keep you all happy, here are some mini-reviews.

I Need Bug Spray: Insecticidal



Imagine if a horny teenager got ahold of Final Draft and, whilst watching a Discovery Channel investigation of the insect world, fell asleep on his laptop.

That's basically how you would get the script for "Insecticidal."

This movie was worse than any B-Insect movie I've ever seen. I can't go into too much detail (what about "mini-review" don't you get) but I'll the main points.

The "hot" mean girl was actually a rather ugly (sorry if I seem shallow, but eye candy is an integral part of B-movie villainesses) whore of a woman.

The cliches were so intense I actually was blinded by the obvious.

The effects cost $14.95, to include the labor of designing and animating the bugs, the program to create said animations, and the computer to run them. Yes, this movie's special effects were created by a generation one Gameboy.

The plot notwithstanding, this was the dumbest storyline I've seen in quite some time.

The characters (not the actors, but the F students they portray) were actually unaware of their environment to the degree they didn't notice a SIX FOOT SCORPION banging around their house, or a trail of slime so thick is painted the walls green.

The characters are cliched, which was the only good thing about the movie. I said the lines before they came out of the actors' mouths.

Finally, and this is just awful, there is a scene where, for a good two minutes, you watch a guy pee.

Seriously.

This movie sucked like a giant mosquito, only without the merciful death that accompanies.

Just Shut Up: Dead Silence



You knew this was going to be a bad movie when you saw the previews.

Why?

There was a nursery rhyme attached.

"Beware the stare of Mary Shaw
She had no children, only dolls
and if you see her, do not scream
or she'll rip your tongue out, at the seam"

Drink that one in, because you'll hear it five times before the end of the film.

Not since the glory days of Freddy Krueger has anyone been bold enough to try the ol' nursery rhyme trick. You know why? BECAUSE IT NEVER WORKS!

Seriously, Freddy got lucky with that one.

So let's start with a young man finding his wife murdered, her tongue ripped out (at the seam?) He goes off on a quest to learn more, all while being the prime suspect in the slaying.

The lead detective (Donnie Wahlberg, who should know better) is the only good character in the movie. He makes jokes, shaves (though always has a 6 o'clock shadow) and talks to the dead (not in a John Edwards sense, more of a creepy cop sense).

So along the way you learn that our lead man (Ryan Kwanted from nothing ever again) is descended from a line of folk who have been killed by the ghost of Mary Shaw, a famous ventriliquist who, by the way, was INSANE.

She killed a boy and tried to make him a puppet, so the townsfolk (rightfully) cut out her tongue and killed her.

So now she haunts the town to take revenge for...the revenge they took.

In most monster movies, the ghost was wrongfully killed and now haunts to get revenge. In this movie, the ghost is a whore who lost fair and square and is now being even meaner.

So how does she kill you?

Well, unless you scream, she doesn't.

I'm serious. If you see her, she smiles and slowly floats toward you. And then, inevitably, you scream.

Then she smiles even wider (she was made to look like a dummy herself) and flies into your mouth. She rips out your tongue and adds it on to her own ever growing stamp licker.

And that's the crux of the story.

I can't explain how disappointed I was with this piece of trash. It had no potential and lived up to that sense of lacking.

If you have a choice between "Dead Silence" and biting into a burning coal, you may need to really think about the consequences of either action.

I'm off to watch more bad films.

Watch carefully.