nikmaack Reviews

Nine Lives (2002 Video)

Not Bad Enough to be Enjoyable

[1/10 · 30 July 2008]

It's bad. But it takes itself very seriously, and it's not bad enough to be enjoyably bad. When will someone let Paris Hilton completely loose, so she can make a truly abominable film? I'm talking something of "Glen or Glenda" caliber. That's why I rented the flick -- I was hoping for a true abortion of cinema. Instead, this film is merely born brain damaged,

Things get close to deliciously terrible when one of the characters begins to piece together parts of the puzzle. Without spoiling the plot, it goes a little like this:

"Wait a minute! Maybe the Titanic didn't sink! Maybe it was a ship from outer space! That would mean the iceberg is still out there, trying to get revenge!"

"It's crazy! But it's the only thing that makes sense!"

And then it turns out that this really is the plot of the movie.

You get that here, only the premise of the film is so incredibly bland, you couldn't care less. People wandering around in a mansion, being chased. Whoopee. If only they would die faster.

Guinea Pig 5: Mermaid in the Manhole (1988 Video)

Disturbing, Creepy

[8/10 · 6 March 2006]

A painter finds a mermaid in a sewer. Then she starts to get sick. "Paint me," she insists.

There's gore and disturbing scenes, but the story itself seems to have a depth to it. Even if there really isn't much of a story at all. I blame my love for the movie on my psychology degree, and my own dreams. The sewer is the unconscious. He takes the mermaid from the sewer to save her, to make art out of her -- only she's infected. But if she came out of his unconscious, then really, isn't he the one that's infected?

There is definitely a sort of Cronenburg, Kafka, "Picture of Dorian Gray" feel to the movie. Repulsive, and yet I couldn't stop watching, even as I squirmed in my seat.

Definitely not for everyone, but what's there is powerful -- even though the acting and special effects sometimes make the movie feel more like camp than true horror.

Bread and Circus (2003 Video)

Made No Sense At All

[3/10 · 4 March 2006]

Some movies you watch and you say, "Well, that made no sense." And you don't really mean it. You're just saying things were overly complicated or slightly nonsensical.

"Bread And Circus" makes no sense at all. And I mean it. And that's not because it's surreal. From the start, it's pretty clear it's a feeble excuse to do splatter special effects. There's no script. There's no plot. There's no story of any kind. One event does not lead to the next -- that's how fundamental the bad writing is here.

So what? I mean, there are TONS of movies out there that fall into that category. They want to show you gore, they give you gore. Why even talk about it?

Because, in this case, "Bread and Circus" gave me hope. Okay, there are some surreal elements. Vaginas, in the ground -- people crawling out of them. The earth, in space, two legs on either side. These sorts of images are wonderful, fun, odd, crazy. But the movie doesn't do anything with them.

Stuff happens, the movie ends, and it's all very unsatisfying. I suspect the script was made up on the fly. Too bad. If there had been a story of ANY kind at all, it would have made for a much more entertaining film.

The film is very much like the beautiful car you would love to own. Then you lift up the hood and there's no engine. Just a small man peddling a bicycle.

GRR!

Death Game (1977)

Yeah, it's bad -- but it's also great!

[7/10 · 10 February 2006]

It's a bad movie from the 70s about killer lesbian hippies taking on the establishment. Sort of like a "Thelma & Louise" without any feminism. Both painful and compelling, the film had tense and giddy, while also wishing it would just end.

And then the end came and I was utterly baffled and amused. The final 10 seconds of the movie over, I blurted over and over, "What the hell was that?" I backed up, watched it again.

Then I forced my girlfriend (who had not seen the movie) to watch it.

"That is pretty weird," she said.

Pretty weird? It makes no sense at all! Wow! If you enjoy odd, bad film, I think you'll love this movie. Even when it's at its worst, it's fun. There's the 1970's moustache "wakka-chikka" aspect. Then there's the campy screaming semi-naked young women. And then there's the goofy, straight-faced, comical horror movie aspect.

Given the ending, I assume the people making this film knew they were joking. They had to know. Or else they thought the ending was deep. I don't know. But I am forced to admit that I really, really enjoyed this film a lot.

The Good Time Girls (1960)

Fascinating and Creepy

[8/10 · 24 November 2005]

"This is where we're going," the film says, over and over again. It whispers it. "We're going over here."

I laugh. The film is joking. It must be. Yes, yes, I understand. Very funny.

The film is not joking. It's taking us exactly where it promises to take us. And when we get there, it's not so much surprising that we've arrived there, as that I refused to believe the film. And yet, here we are, as promised.

*** And here's where I spoil the movie for people who haven't seen it. ***

Did anyone else get the impression that the women in this film aren't naive at all? They're not oblivious to the dangers of men. Quite the opposite -- they're drawn to it. The reason the murder at the end is so shocking is that it's not shocking in the slightest. From the very beginning, you know Jacqueline is going to die. You know Albert is going to kill her. The movie tells you this, over and over again. An assortment of scenes point at this fact.

The music tells you. Various scenes discussing danger then we cut to Mr Motorcycle and his maniacal face. The scene with the lion. Throughout the entire picture, we know.

And what's stranger still -- Jacqueline knows she's going to die. At least, that's the impression I am left with. Louise, the older woman with the bloody handkerchief, soaked with the blood of a man who killed many women. When she was a girl, she found that killer attractive. She rushed forward to the guillotine, soaked her hanky in the killer's gore, and keeps it as a "fetish", in her purse, forever.

Only Louise and Jacqueline are portrayed as romantics. They're serious. They're smarter than the other women. They know more about desire. But the film implies all women are like this -- just some of them recognize it.

The scene that is most disturbing is the woman dancing at the end, staring straight into the camera. Her expression says, "I know exactly what I'm doing. I know exactly what men are. I am no victim. I would gladly die for love."

At least that's what I saw in this film -- an uncomfortable, creepy, disturbing concept that true love only happens when one person totally consumes (or kills) another.

April Is My Religion (2001)

Endearing, But Poorly Executed

[4/10 · 27 June 2005]

In university, I had to write a paper for a class, but halfway through I forgot what I was writing about. So I tacked on a conclusion that didn't make any sense, handed in the paper, and prayed. That's exactly what this movie is like.

Jack is an innocent young Christian who always does what his parents tell him to do. So when he finally escapes their clutches by going to university is it any wonder he goes a little wild? When he falls into a "bad crowd," he tries booze, pot, and acid, and loves them all. And he also loves April -- a free spirited young woman who wears large, ugly, red plastic glasses that are so obviously fake and don't suit her character in the slightest.

(She wears them cause she's smart. What a non-brilliant bit of prop use that was. It doesn't work in bad porn films, and it doesn't work here.)

As with many movies written and directed by a young man, the female lead doesn't make any sense. Everyone loves April because she's wild and carefree. She doesn't love anyone back. This is never explained. Is she just a tease? Is she insane? Does she have no sexual needs of her own? Is she saving it for marriage? What is the deal with April?

Or is the writer guilty of that typical sin so many young male writers make -- he thinks of her character as more of a thing a man desperately wants, and so forgets to give her a personality? In any case, you would think a title line character -- she's a religion, for pete's sakes! -- would have a little more depth.

This movie is incredibly low budget, so it should come as no surprise that it's poorly done. Three examples:

1. The acting is often embarrassingly bad -- especially our hero Jack. His googly eyed innocence is very muppet like.

2. The writing is often goofy beyond belief. Jack pulls out a bottle in several scenes, as if from out of nowhere. This is how we know he's becoming a troubled young man. The repetition of it -- not to mention the SIZE of the bottles -- made me laugh out loud.

3. The camera work is often annoying. In one scene, a character delivers a line. Cut. Another character delivers a line. Cut. A third character delivers a line. Cut again. Very grating.

And yet, despite all of its flaws, the film is VERY watchable. I was never bored. I was always curious where the movie was going. And some scenes did remind me of my own university life -- although for me there was more sex and less drugs. Which is probably healthier.

This film is definitely a mixed bag. I'd have to say it's a good start for Bill Boll. Hopefully he matures with time. I would be interested in seeing other works by him, in any case.

Satanik (1968)

Trashy, Silly, Low Budget, Nudie Flick

[3/10 · 18 June 2005]

They call this film "euro trash horror".

Well, it's not horror. The film takes place in Europe, so yes, it's "euro". Trash? Ah yes, it's trash all right.

You know you're in for a great movie when, right at the beginning, the DVD gives you text on the screen apologizing for the quality of the print you're about to watch. Expect crackles, odd jarring cuts, and for the movie not to fit the screen. Plus there's the sound -- at first I thought I was watching a dubbed film. Then, watching the lips carefully, I realized that, no, it's that the sound quality is embarrassingly bad and out of synch.

The plot itself is fairly goofy -- an old, disfigured woman named Dr Bannister kills a scientist for his youth formula. I'm not giving much away because when you see the "old woman" it's pretty obvious she's under a layer of thick, badly applied make-up. Anyone with a lick of sense, seeing the fake old age, knows what's coming next.

Yes, the "old crone" is miraculously transformed into a beautiful young woman -- complete with face make-up and a long wig of hair! Zounds!

When I say the old woman is disfigured, I mean she has cornflakes glued to her face. The film makes no attempt to explain how the cornflakes got there. For that matter, there is no attempt to explain anything at all relating to any of the characters. They're never developed beyond the level of finger puppets.

The two policemen pursuing our anti-heroine just wander about, apparently baffled by the simplest clues. The murdered scientist was working on a youth serum, the old woman has disappeared, and we keep running into a young woman -- how do these pieces fit together?! What does it all mean?! One of the cops sweats a lot and pats his face with a cloth. The other smokes a pipe. That's pretty much all we get, character-wise.

Dr Bannister (the crone, now a beauty) goes around wearing odd costumes and then taking them off so we can see her flesh. She has affairs with men. She gets in a catfight with a young woman in a nightgown. She goes to Geneva so we can see the lake there. She water- skis a bit, then takes off her wet suit to reveal a strange bead-curtain bikini. She takes off her clothes again in a strange ninja costume striptease.

The ending? Well, without giving anything away, it's just a bizarre, tacked on conclusion that makes about as little sense as the rest of the picture. It's the sort of thing a writer comes up with when the director wakes him up at 4 AM and says, "Quick! We need an ending for our movie! What happens next?"

The writer mumbles something half awake, and the director runs with it.

What's good about this movie? Some of the music is campy and fun. That classic 60s organ music that's so corny it's enough to make you laugh out loud. There are some odd seduction scenes, bizarre dialogue, goofy moments.

It's very close to being so bad it's good. I did manage to watch it from start to finish without gouging out my eyes or sobbing. I guess that's praise, of sorts.'

Facing Windows (2003)

Competent, But Vaguely Unsatisfying

[6/10 · 4 June 2005]

It's a well filmed, interesting, mysterious romance, but there were moments when the sentiment felt slapped on with a trowel.

She's in an unhappy marriage. Her husband is an irresponsible schmuck. They meet a befuddled, lost old man on the street and the husband insists on taking him home. The woman starts to get involved with the man across the street, whose windows face her apartment. The old man's situation seems to encourage the affair. All very interesting.

And it plays out well. It's moving, it's compelling, it made me laugh out loud, it made me feel sympathy pangs for the characters.

But something about it felt weak, easy, and sort of bland. I found myself paying attention to the subtitles, trying to pick out individual Italian words, wondering if I could use foreign films to learn foreign languages. In other words, there were times when I was bored.

A led to B led to C, and sometimes the dot to dot was so obvious I wanted them to cut to the end of the alphabet, or shake things up a bit. Things do get resolved in the film -- there is "growth" -- but it sort of feels like we only grew just a little bit.

It's worth seeing. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. It's a competent, romantic film that left me vaguely unsatisfied.

Screaming Dead (2003 Video)

Cheesier Than A Cheese Pizza With Extra Cheese

[4/10 · 30 May 2005]

If you like bad, low budget, unintentionally funny films, seek no more. This is the movie for you.

It has nudity, some horror, and really bad acting. The special effects are embarrassing. For example, a nude woman receives a series of "cuts", and it looks like someone just squirted red paint on to her body. There is no cut of any kind. She's just being basted in tobasco sauce.

Yes, it's shlock. Shlocky shlock. Super shlocky shlock.

At best, you'll laugh. There were some scenes where I laughed out loud. Not because the film was funny, but because the film was so very bad.

At worst, you'll become bored and shut off the movie. There were a few times I was tempted to do so, but I waited out my boredom, and was rewarded with more terrible dialogue, needless nudity, ridiculous special effects, and filming mistakes. Hooray!

The film stars Misty Mundae. Having never heard of her before, I laughed when I saw her name in the credits. The moniker has "soft core porn star" written all over it. The bonus material to the DVD assures me she is a famous horror movie actress who has been in many magazine articles -- Fangoria, for example. And she has, they assure me, "star quality".

Well, no. She doesn't. Not really. But she is willing to take off all her clothes. She is sort of cute, I guess, if scrawny and small.

Rob Monkiewicz plays the male hero, Sam Rogan, and he's amazingly bad. He delivers is lines like he's delivering a pizza -- each sentence comes coated in Luke warm cheese, served in a cardboard box. More than once, his hamfisted lines made me giggle. He's supposed to play a muscle bound romantic, but comes across as a bouncer who occasionally "acts".

Now you know what you're in for -- bad, bad, bad, bad film. But so bad it can be entertaining. Get your friends together, get drunk, and maybe you'll enjoy the film. Watch for the scene where a crew member is accidentally filmed by the doorway. Laugh as the mike once again swings into the scene. Boggle at computer special effects that you would be embarrassed to use as a screen saver.

This, my friends, is a great, bad film.

Teknolust (2002)

Baffling and Cheesy

[3/10 · 22 January 2005]

Why do the female computer programs have to inject themselves with sperm? And how do you get sperm inside of a computer program, anyway? These kinds of questions needs answering. It's not the sort of thing you can gloss over.

This film is weird and silly and stupid. It's watchable -- I sat through the entire thing -- but it's utterly baffling. Things happen for no reason, problems are resolved effortlessly, no real tension to speak of, the science is glossed over and meaningless, the dialogue is goofy, there are holes in the plot that can swallow suns, and it's all very strange.

Some of the sets are interesting, some of the acting is just plain bizarre. John Kornbluth -- the fat, bald man from "Haiku Tunnel" -- is particularly out of place. The picture's well filmed, and overall it's a very unusual movie -- but not unusual enough to be good. But not so bad that it's painfully bad.

I have this odd feeling that there was some sort of metaphor at work here. Is it all about feminism? Technology? Lust? Finding yourself? What the hell is it about? I don't know -- and neither will you, if you can bring yourself to watch this film.

Warning: It's cheesier than a mouse convention.

Equus (1977)

Unique, impressive, dark, intelligent.

[10/10 · 18 January 2005]

I loved this movie so much, I found a copy of the play online, bought it, and read it with glee. It's a beautiful, complicated film -- definitely a must see. What I especially liked was the way the movie handled religion and insanity. Is curing someone of their mental illness taking away their religion? Is psychiatry a "cult of the normal"?

Richard Burton delivers hypnotic sermons, staring straight into the camera, as we slowly zoom in on his face. He confesses that he's jealous of his patient. The boy is in pain, but passion is pain. The boy is worshiping a pagan god -- something Burton wishes he could do as well. Instead, he settles for flipping through books, looking at photographs of old artifacts. The therapist wonders if he's taking the boy's god away by curing him.

If you like Carl Jung, you'll love this film! Equus, archetypal God, we love you!

Some complain that the psychology in this film is "campy" at best. Others say the film can't possibly compare to the stage play. Well, fine. Maybe it shouldn't be used as a model for treating patients, and maybe plays are different than movies. But the film as a piece of art, on its own, is powerful, moving, and fascinating.

Black Demons (1991)

Typical low budget horror, with no surprises.

[2/10 · 18 January 2005]

A bad movie almost bad enough to be good, but not quite bad enough to be worth recommending.

Sonia is missing. Her boyfriend Jose thinks that maybe she went to town, but when she doesn't come back, he's pretty sure something bad happened.

But then Jose finds... one of Sonia's shoes! Now he knows something has happened to her.

"Maybe she changed her shoes," suggests Kevin, a cooler head.

They go to her room, and find another pair of her shoes.

"You see!" Jose exclaims. "These are the only other shoes she had! Are you convinced now?"

"Yeah," Kevin says. "She wouldn't have gone to the village barefooted."

These utterly ridiculous, idiotic scenes are meant to be taken seriously. That's the sort of movie you're in for -- accidental comedy. If you can appreciate a film on that level, this is the film for you.

Worse than the dialogue is the pacing. The movie is as slow as the stumbling zombies of the film -- and these zombies have chains around their ankles. Everything is very predictable, and we're left waiting around for the next moment of gore to show up.

The actors are constantly flubbing their lines -- but not in a particularly interesting way. Just stuttering slightly as they deliver ridiculous, stilted dialogue.

For a horror movie, there isn't much blood. Or fear. Or tension. Or horror. Or movie.

Little Shots of Happiness (1997)

Disappointing, Disjointed, Dull

[2/10 · 15 January 2005]

It's a shallow movie pretending to be deep. And it looks like it was filmed with a toy movie camera held by an epileptic, featuring a non-stop soundtrack of repetitive sound mixed with broken bits of punk songs. The dialogue was recorded underwater, that's the only thing that can explain how bad the sound is. The film is stuffed with bad acting and improvised scenes that go on endlessly.

All of this could possibly be forgiven -- it's a low budget picture -- but this film is awful. There's just nothing there of any interest. Well, that's not entirely true. There are glimmers of promise, and a weak storyline of interest, but it all flops around aimlessly, like the movie has been stabbed in the legs.

The film features dialogue like the following:

"Can I have a cigarette?" "How'd you know I was a smoker?" "I had a feeling." "Smoking's bad for you." "So what?" Snarky, surprised, "So what?!"

And the characters spar and fuss and half-play, without ever actually saying anything. I believe the example I've provided is supposed to be strangers flirting. That should give you an idea of what you're in for.

I suspect it was all done to feel realistic -- the jerky camera, the bad dialogue, the improvised scenes, the bad sound. It's all so jarring that the movie is almost unwatchable. (And I normally don't mind "cinema verite" camera work.) Worst of all, nothing really happens. Characters come and go. The plot spins its wheels and just peters out into nothing.

The ending (which I will not mention) sums up the cold, callous, disinterested feeling of the entire film. It's flat, almost utterly emotionless. I suspect the end is supposed to be funny in that "ironic" way. It isn't. It's just the dull little cherry on top of the dull little sundae.

Watch for the paintings on the wall in a few scenes -- I suspect the director had a painter friend he wanted to promote. The paintings are sort of interesting, but unfortunately the camera doesn't stay still long enough to get a good look at them.

This movie has won awards, supposedly. That baffles me.

Immortal (2004)

Fast paced adolescent comic book garbage.

[4/10 · 13 December 2004]

Well, I watched it. Although there were some interesting ideas in it, over all the film is a failure, painful and bad, like a comic book you're forced to read quickly while sky-diving. So shiny, so polished, the film is nearly invisible. The characters are worse than cardboard, and even Horus comes across as boring. When gods are boring, you know something is wrong.

This film could have been interesting if it wasn't an action movie. Unfortunately, it is an action movie. Pow, pow, jump off a cliff! Excitement, excitement, excitement, and sex! It's an orchestra where 80% of the musicians sit still in their seats without playing. All drums and cymbals.

When Jill asks Nikopol, "Did you enjoy it when he raped me?" in an excited voice... Bah. That pretty much summed it up -- that fake, over the top, dirty girl quality. It's like bad porn. Shiny, shiny, shiny, with intense special effects and little else. 15 year old boys will love this film. It caters to that level.

"Look, breasts -- and she's blue! And, oh, cool! A demon fish, and his arm is blue from her tears, and oh wow, those cars that fly on rails and explosions and..."

Bah. Someone already made Blade Runner, and they didn't do a very good job of it, either. At least it strived to have soul. Immortal? Utterly soulless, and proud of it.

Rules (2001)

Was this a class project?

[27 November 2004]

Bad dialogue, bad sound, bad acting, and bad filming made me stop watching this movie before it was over. And it takes a lot for me to quit watching a film before the end. Typically, I love low budget, independent films. I love different voices. Anything unusual is good.

This film? Listening to the dialogue is like listening to the director reading a rough draft of the script in his bathroom while the shower is running. Exposition, exposition, exposition -- all nearly drowned out by the sound of rushing water. The flick might appeal to young people who don't know any better, as that seems to be the people who made the film.

Being an extremely grainy black and white movie with bad acting, the movie is begging to be compared with "Clerks". But "Clerks", despite its flaws, had some promising writing and interesting ideas. This film? Ugh.

Avoid it.