Resident Evil: Apocalypse!

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Resident Evil: Apocalypse ~ 2004, Alexander Witt (written by Paul W.S. Anderson- Boo!)

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What happens when you take a step down from terrible? Sometimes it seems like it would just be easier to make a good movie. Have we not yet hit rock bottom? Is it even possible to make a worse movie than we are already used to?! Today; the race to be the biggest idiot possible is a dangerous, fast paced, highly competitive arena. Trend setters in every avenue of the human experience anxiously push the limits of how stupid they can be, and no other field of human accomplishment shows as much innovation, or as much tireless zest.

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In film, this competition is especially fierce. Titans of incompetence like James Nguyen, Tommy Wiseau, and Michael Bay loom formidably in the distance, unreachable points on the horizon. Yet, even now, courageous idiots dauntlessly strive to reach new levels of ineptitude. Take Alexander Witt, director of Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Just as Paul W.S. Anderson had established himself as a rampaging juggernaut of utter tripe, Witt steps up to the plate and boldly agrees to follow in Anderson’s footsteps with a sequel to Resident Evil. In so doing, he somehow manages to craft a film which is stupid in striking, unexpected new ways. Now, Witt joins with Paul W.S. Anderson and company, themselves the NASA of stupid bullshit, on a quest to dumb down the human race to the utmost of their abilities. Nobody else can suck as reliably, and with such fevered enthusiasm as these guys can. They are truly pioneers on the very boundary of what we as humans dream we can achieve.

THE PLOT~ Following the events of Resident Evil, zombies have infested Racoon City. A number of adults of bellow average intelligence fight to escape, including:

1. Alice- Milla Jovovich’s character. She’s horrible. Who cares? She ends up being a mutant.
2. Some mercenaries- Whatever.
3. A super racist portrayal of a black man – “Please, mutha fucka, my shit is custom!” (When we meet this guy he is literally handcuffed to a zombified prostitute.)
4. Another LESS cartoonish black man, so this way we can say “See, not all black people in this movie are criminals, this black guy is a cop! This movie isn’t racist!” But it totally is still super racist.
5. Other assholes
6. A little girl with an English accent

This turkey does ONE thing right where the first movie couldn’t- we have a lot more zombies this time around. That having been said, they aren’t particularly interesting or well done, and Witt keeps filming them in a blurry, low frame rate smear, which I guess is supposed to be cool? Or scary? Really sucks. Looks cheap, it’s a terrible technique. Otherwise, the production is fine, but the acting isn’t anything to write home about. Scut Farkus is especially bad.

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Yes, you get to watch the bully from A Christmas Story die, so I guess that’s a plus.

The biggest problem here is that all of the characters are idiots. They make decisions that only a child could believe a capable adult would make. For instance:

Quick; you’re a cop, there’s an outbreak of a deadly virus in your city, what do you do?!?

If you answered “Charge into a crowded police station and open fire on suspects in custody while numerous innocent civilians and police stand in your line of fire without any explanation, and refuse to even warn people with a “Heads up,” and then act like a total dick when they react to your behavior,” then you are a moron, and you’re probably going to get your face shot off your fucking head. That’s the bad news. The good news is, you might like Resident Evil: Apocalypse, because that’s just the sort of thing that our characters do in this movie. Jill, one of our characters, does this exact thing, in fact. When asked what the hell she is doing, she responds curtly “They’re infected.” …Okay. Well, that’s your opinion… Totally uncool for you to just shoot people like that. Also, you could have easily killed someone who WASN’T “infected.” We’re cops and you don’t get to just shoot people because you think you know what’s going on. You’re a shitty character, and you’re stupid.

That’s not the only ridiculous, imbecilic action committed by a character in this movie, pretty much anything anyone does is stupid, Alice’s antics in the church sequence jump to mind, but that’s what we get when our writer, and likely our director, aren’t very smart, and aren’t any good at what they do. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is really, really shitty.

One thing that happens in Resident Evil: Whichever one this is called which I think is especially depressing; at one point, Alice realizes she is being watched through a video surveillance camera, and she uses her crazy mental powers to actually sense the person watching her, where ever that person might be in the world, and then kill that person, Michael Ironside style. The implications here are nothing to sneeze at, either her weird, biological powers allow her to somehow “hack in” to electronic circuits and trace the outgoing signal to whichever monitor it is routed to, and then somehow read the viewer, and somehow kill that person, making her powers both biological and technological, OR she is basically a god at this point. And that’s a far cry from the bumbling, remedial Jedi you’ll see her present herself as in the next movie. The reason for this is simple; the people who make these movies are idiots. They want the end of every movie to be epic, but then they regret how little room they’ve left for themselves to grow when the next sequel begins, so they try to retcon a decent chunk of what they’ve just finished doing every time the next installment kicks off. Watch, they do this over and over.

Also, the next one is even worse.

THE GUYVER!

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

The Guyver ~ 1991, Screaming Mad George, Steve Wang, USA, Japan

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The Guyver is a real roller coaster. When you first hear about it, you like “An America adaptation of a Japanese Ultraman style superhero? That sounds like it’s going to suck really, really aggressively.” But then you find out it has Jeffery Combs in it, and you’re like “Oh… Okay. That’s kinda cool.” Next, at five minutes into the film, you’re thinking “Whoa, this is awesome! How is this movie not huge?” But then, as the credits roll, you think “Oh. That’s why.” After that, you’re just really sad.

As you’ve no doubt guessed, The Guyver starts strong- really strong. Right away the movie does its best to win you over by putting its very best attribute front and center- that being film’s numerous and remarkable creature effects. Suitomation, animatronics, makeup effects, holy smokes, you guys, The Guyver does all of this, and it does it WELL. Rad monsters abound, and these are the sort of practical effects that Hollywood realy doesn’t want you to know are even possible. Too bad, Hollywood, The Guyver spilled the beans. We now know that not every movie has to be Mark Wahlberg standing in front of a green screen for three hours, you’re more than capable of making physical effects that actually look awesome, you just don’t want to, and I’m sick of your bullshit. Go to hell, and take your lowsy CG with you.

But I digress.

Although The Guyver goes off with a bang, it has absolutely no stamina, like a long distance runner that hauls ass at top speed for four minutes, topples over sideways, and never even comes within eyeshot of the finish line. One gets the feeling that directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang (Wait, really?) knew things weren’t quite panning out, and so from early on we see them attempting to compensate… With humor. The Guyver becomes progressively zanier as it lags on, but its exhaustingly short on legitimate comedy, and shitty jokes are a real ineffective consolation prize when you’re watching a film that should, by any and all logic, be epic as hell. And The Guyver is NOT epic. Films like this needs a big third act, something that would take place on a space ship, or hopping across rooftops trying to repel an alien invasion, Avengers style- what we get instead is a made-for-TV budgeted costume drama where the bulk of the action takes place in one of two abandoned warehouses, or in a secret, underground laboratory which looks very similar to an abandoned warehouse with a few computers scattered around. Your eyes will try to call in sick twenty minutes into this virtual snoozestraveganza of bland locations and disinteresting bullshit, and you won’t hold it against them. The Guyver gives us everything it has in the first ten minutes, and after that, it flounders about wildly.

It does have a virtual Sega Dreamcast of beloved genre actors, however, which helps. In addition to the aforementioned Jeffrey “Herbert West” Combs, here playing a scientist called “Dr. East” (cute), we also have Mark Hamill (who is NOT the lead), Michael Berryman, David Gale, and, most importantly, Jimmy Walker, of Good Times fame. Walker plays a character called Striker, who is, more or less, the comic relief, which means that he a shit load of screen time. At one point, in an example of truly desperate and shameless pandering, Striker busts out Walker’s classic sitcom catch phrase, “Dyno-mite,” which is really sad. It’s worth mentioning that the Striker character periodically raps (horribly), and also transforms into a monster which looks something like what you’d get if you fed Jar Jar after midnight.

jar jar Yeah… That’s him on the right… I’m not proud of myself for gathering this screen shot, by the way.

Other than the effects, and the wealth of familiar faces, absolutely nothing in The Guyver shines. The music is obnoxious, the characters are lame, and the actual lead actor is one of the blandest humans I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. In addition, the editing is actually kind of obnoxious, this is the first film in recorded history which has somehow engineered a transition effect even more objectionable than the oft reviled Star Wipe. I’d say the film is worth watching for that alone, and you’ll know it when you see it. Afterwards, however, slide this puppy back in the Netflix envelope from whence it came and part ways with it forever, as this is a classic cinematic wasted opportunity that you don’t need to sit through.

D+

QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC!!!!!

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Queen of Black Magic (AKA Black Magic Terror, apparently.) ~ 1983, Liliek Sudjio

Black Magic Terror US Twilight Video VHS

In the 1970’s and 80’s, Asia kicked it up a notch and hit us, the people of Planet Earth, with nigh countless bad ass genre films in a variety of enjoyable and distinct subgenres. One such subgenre was the magic/superstition/horror movie, which produced a number of rock solid genre classics, like Black Magic, Seeing of a Ghost, and Eternal Evil of Asia. Queen of Black Magic is an Indonesian contribution to this rich horror lexicon, and while it’s clearly a less technically sophisticated production than many of it’s Chinese predecessors, damn if it’s not impressive and entertaining all the same. Queen of Black Magic in particular has earned a reputation over the decades for it’s special effects, which are both gruesome, and impressive, given the film’s low budget, and scant resources.

Honestly, all of these movies are at least a little bit entertaining, because they draw on such a rich and fascinating folk tradition, which most Westerners are totally unfamiliar with. And there are hundreds of them! Probably most American horror fans have never even dipped their toe in the Asian Magic Horror Film well, and that well is deeper than you could ever imagine. Time to dive in.

THE PLOT~ Times are tough for Murni. Some time ago, Kohar, local lady-killer extraordinaire, charmed his way into her Jungle Pants, and she was powerless to resist his advances, because he is Kohar. Actually, let’s get to know this guy a little bit before we proceed.

GETTING TO KNOW KOHAR: UNDISPUTED STUD-MUFFIN OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

No woman can resist Kohar. Here are some of his finer points.

eyes back dagger kilt stache These qualities speak for themselves, Kohar is manhood incarnate, and a force to be reckoned with. The sad truth, though, is that he’s also a total dick. Having successfully executed Operation: “Bang Murni,” Kohar decides to temporarily pacify his deeply upset female conquest with the promise that everything was totally okay, because he was for sure gonna mary her real soon, Scount’s honor. Well, looks like the only Merit-Badges Kohar ever earned were in seducing ladies, Dope-Ass Back-Daggers, and being a fucking liar, because here we are, present day, and he’s marrying some other girl, while Murni is stuck sitting around like chopped liver. Totally uncool!

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I can’t tell if she’s crying because she’s sad, or if it’s because of that giant onion she’s caressing.

She’s pretty broken up about it, obviously, but Murni needn’t be too jealous for very long. You see, unbeknownst to anyone in the village, this here wedding is about to get kyboshed super hard, black magic style, because some unknown third party has decided to place a gnarly curse on Kohar’s blushing bride to be, thereby disrupting these nuptials but good. Enraged, Kohar decides he wants to bring justice to whoever the hell just ruined his big day; but, sadly, he has no idea who that person could be. “I’ll just blame Murni,” he thinks. “I probably haven’t ruined enough of her life yet, anyway.” Using his raw animal charisma and remarkable gift for public speaking, Kohar convinces a good chunk of his fellow villagers that there is at least a 15% chance that Murni totally did this, and is definitley a witch. Instantly, a mob is formed, and Kohar leads his fellow villagers through the balmy jungles of Indonesia on a quest to brutally murder an innocent girl who he had personally de-virginized only weeks prior. Long story short, neither Murni, or her mother, whom she lives with, end up having a very nice evening. Murni is drug out, beaten, and tossed off a cliff. When her mother pleads with the group to have mercy on Murni, Kohar slaps her unconscious and burns her house down. He’s a friggin’ dick.

kohar douche So, Murni tumbles down the cliff, shattering every bone in her body on the countless branches and stone outcroppings that she strikes on the way down, but thank goodness, some weird jungle hermit somehow catches her and takes her back to his secluded hell-cave, which just so happens to be littered with spooky black magic paraphernalia. No big deal! This Satanic Samaritan kindly nurses Murni back to health, before he hits her with some hardline, Darth Sidious style manipulation. “Listen, yo,” he says. “Them fools tried to kill you. You gotta get your revenge- black magic style! And I’ll train you in the ways of the dark side, so you can totally do it. You have to kill all of those people, or else.” Murni isn’t exactly elated with this proposal, but manipulative douche bags seem to have a way with her, and she agrees. Soon, Murni returns to the village to get her vengeance, which, and I can’t stress this enough, is really awesome. Highlights include a man who grows giant, disgusting blood blisters all over his face and arms, and of course, the demise of Kohar, who is actually forced to yank his own head off.

blister die gnarly drowned kohar no head 1 Kohar no head 2 Just… Just so, so awesome.

But the movie isn’t over. Next, a pious stranger from the city arrives in town, eager to pray at the local mosque, which the superstitious locals have long since abandoned. When he learns of the many black magic related issues the village has been dealing with in days of late, this wandering holy man decides that all they really need to turn it all around is some good ol’ fashioned churchin’ up. He takes it upon himself to lead this wayward flock back into the light, which actually kinda works, and that just pisses off Murni’s reclusive jungle mentor like you can’t believe. It’s clear that this town ain’t big enough for the two of them. Can these two opposing forces embrace one another and learn to coexist, or will the bad guy literally explode at the end of the movie?!?

Spoiler alert

Spoiler alert?

So, Queen of Black Magic is a story about redemption, but it’s also about resisting temptation. Murni’s problems all stem from how easily swayed she is, first by Kohar, and next by her black magic mentor man… Which, admittedly, murdering people with the powers of hell is a lot worse than banging some skeezeball, but it’s the same basic principles. In the end, the moral also stresses the importance of owning up to the wrongs you have committed, and accepting the punishments associated with them. Also, Murni almost marries her brother, but incest doesn’t really seem like a problem in this film’s self contained universe. Listen, just go watch this movie, it’s awesome.

As I mentioned above, the special effects in Queen of Black Magic really stand out as being pretty excellent for a low budget film of this caliber. They’re bloody, imaginative, and fantastically well executed, meaning that amateur films being made today have absolutely no excuse for shitty CG effects. You’re all lazy, do better.

Highly recommended.

B+

RAMPAGE!!!!

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Rampage ~ 2009, Uwe Boll, USA/Germany

Rampage-2009 Before we even get into the movie, let’s talk about this poster really fast. Firstly, I have no idea who that female character is, and I just watched this flick. It kinda looks like Elvira, without her makeup… Yeah, Elvira’s not in this movie. Secondly, I love the glowing praise from “Cool Awesome Movies,” who gives this film a whopping 8 stars!!! Apparently, four stars just wasn’t enough, they really liked Rampage. Who am I to argue?

I’m Chris Ochs, that’s who. Review time.

The single best thing that German director Uwe Boll ever did for his public image was to slowly disappear completely. Let’s talk about that.

In the earlier half of the last decade, openly hating on Uwe Boll was very fashionable, especially in film-centric social circles. By any and all reckoning, here was a man who rightfully deserved to wear the title of “Single worst film maker of all time,” and who was also a belligerent, incompentent dick head, whom nobody could tolerate even on the most basic, human level. According to popular belief, Boll had managed to exploit an obscure German tax loop hole, which allowed him to secure generous financing for a string of woefully ill-advised video game-to film-adaptations, each with relatively high budgets, and occasionally, recognizable actors. They were all unwatchably terrible, and earned consistently poor reviews, which Boll often felt a need to rebut. Inarticulate retaliatory statements from Uwe began to feel pretty commonplace, and the situation slowly began to snowball more and more, until Mr. Boll finally became universally seen as the most despised social pariah of the entire psychotronic film community.

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Which is weird, because he’s so charming.

But this was more or less temporary, simply because everyone kinda forgot about him. Once the video game thing had ran its course, Boll’s output became more obscure, and he lost even the faintest chance of ever again knowing the joy that is an American mainstream theatrical release. With his movies no longer rubbed mercilessly in our faces, the world soon found itself with better things to do, and even Boll’s widley accepted status as Humanity’s shittiest director came into question when Tommy Wisseau and James Nguyen hit the scene, jeopardizing Boll’s only accolade ever! Finally, at long last, Uwe Boll, Germany’s greatest living shame, became little more than a horrible, horrible memory for us all.

But he didn’t go away completely. Uwe Boll had just become easier to ignore. It seems that, unbeknownst to many, Boll’s directorial output didn’t actually slow down all that much, if at all. Year after year he somehow continued to churn out terrible movies, and in fact, he remains quite prolific, even to this day. Which is disappointing and terrifying.

In 2009, Uwe Boll directed Rampage, an exercise in shock value violence that has somehow proven to be one of his best received directorial efforts ever. The general consensus across the web is that this film isn’t horrid, putrid dog shit, and that’s a lofty goal which earlier Boll films, like Bloodrayne or Alone In The Dark, would never dare aspire to. Unfortunately, humans are often wrong, and this is one of those times. Rampage is horrible.

The film is best described as being kinda like Joel Shumacher’s Falling Down, as interpreted by some mentally ill teenage boy who needs to be sent to counseling immediately. I absolutely mean it, this movie is fucked up, and without reason, or purpose. It’s not even entertaining, and there’s no merit whatsoever to justify the considerable lapse in human decency required to watch or otherwise engage Rampage. This is not a joke, I mean it, If you find a copy of this movie in the possession of an adolescent, it’s right off to counseling with that one. That is a plain-as-day red flag.

THE PLOT~ Some sheltered, over privileged Millennial who has never known hardship decides that the world is over populated, and that he has the authority to make any sort of decision regarding the future of the human race, even though he’s just some shit head who isn’t qualified to do anything. This fucking tool, who knows absolutely nothing except for what he read on Facebook this morning, then concludes that it is his right to walk around town indiscriminately murdering dozens upon dozens of people, while wearing a bullet proof costume that he bought on the internet, even though the amount of humans who would need to die in order for literally any sort of impact on the Earth to be felt would be in the billions, meaning that he achieves absolutely nothing. So, this kid dresses up in his stupid little suit, marches out, and murders a whole bunch of people, which is really, really easy for him to do. Then, he frames the whole thing on his best friend, and retires home to the comfort of his parents house, where he can continue to not pay rent or get a job, i.e., exist as a non-contributing drain on resources, what a hypocrite.

And that’s the movie.

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“It’s my masterpiece!”

The violence in this movie is basically inexcusable, but heed my words, fellow movie nerds; do not take my scathing criticism for Rampage’s violent content as some sort of backhanded endorsement, I beg of you. this is not some psychotronic milestone that you need to check off your bucket list by any means, in fact, if you even have a psychotronic bucket list, then you’ve already spent a lot of time on films that are much, much more extreme than Rampage, and most likely every single one was a much better movie anyway. For instance, I’ve seen, AND loved many, many films which were much more violent, graphic, obscene, depraved- you name it. Films with similar themes, like Falling Down, Death Wish, Taxi Driver, Ms. 45, Dead Man’s Shoes, The Devil’s Rejects, I Spit On Your Grave, and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, all of these are films which I have seen, and appreciate. Why, then, are those movies a-okay, while Rampage is not? Really, there are two reasons.

1. Rampage isn’t good enough: Simple as that. You can be offensive, or you can suck ass, but if you do both, people are a lot less likely to tolerate your bullshit. A genius has some clout to work with, and can buy their way out of controversies. If you’re a doofus, you better pray that your movie at least brings in enough money to cover your ass, because if it doesn’t, then we’ll just run you out of town.

2. The director is an idiot: This does matter. It’s the difference between seeing violent content in a painting done by Leonardo Da Vinci, or seeing violent crayon scribblings perpetrated by some creeper with a learning disability. Boll has no thesis, his film has no subtext, it’s nothing more of what it appears to be at its most superficial layer, because that superficial layer is in fact Rampage’s ONLY layer. This film is so shallow that it’s emotionally alienating, and comes across as a joyless, empty exercise in bottom-of-the-barrel shock value for shock value’s sake- and that’s Boll at his worst. (See: Postal.) Rampage is, in essence, inexcusable, and socially irresponsible.

That being said, as far as I know, this is his best movie. I want to clarify that there are plenty of Uwe Boll films which I have never seen (thank freaking goodness,) but Rampage certainly beats all of his video game films by miles. It’s almost a real movie! The dialogue, and the acting especially is suspiciously decent and naturalistic. Kinda makes a guy wonder… Boll supposedly wrote this one, but I stand here before you and call bullshit on that, at least so far as the dialogue is concerned; Boll’s English isn’t good enough, literally any footage of him actually speaking is adequate proof of this. What had to have happened is that either Boll brought in a native English speaker to fine tune each and every line, or the actors themselves were given full license to re-work and/or improvise their dialogue as needed. The suggestion that these lines are word for word Boll cannot be entertained, it’s simply not true.

But that short list of positive things I can muster up on Rampage’s behalf has now exhausted me, and we’re back to facing the harsh, uncompromising truths associated with Uwe’s cinematic output. Rampage blows. It’s not smart enough to be as offensive as it is, and the end result feels uncomfortably empty, stupid, and lame. Really, the only thing we, as humans, can do is to band together and hope that if life exists elsewhere in the universe, that we can keep Uwe Boll’s body of work hidden from them forever, because we’re probably on thin ice as it is, and that’s just the thing to crack it.

The X From Outer Space!!!

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

The X From Outer Space ~ 1967, Kazui Nihonmatsu, Japan

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In the 1960’s, the assorted motion picture studios of Japan had all come to see Toho’s Godzilla as a big, green, lumbering money factory, just ripe for exploitation, and they all knew that if they wanted a slice of that kaiju pie, they needed to rip him off, pronto, before the heat died down. Suddenly, everybody in town had some giant, crappy monster they just had to cram down people’s throats, and the race to hop on Godzilla’s coattails had begun. First, there was Daiei, and their substantially less popular yet still kinda popular turtle monster Gamera. Then, there was Nikkatsu, who gave us Gappa, just one of the modern cinema’s many creatures who found themselves overshadowed by their own rad theme song. Then, in 1967, Shochiku, gave the world Guilala, star of the Science Fiction/monster outing The X From Outer Space. Wanna make a Kaiju film? Come up with a funny name beginning with the letter ‘G.’ You are now 80% of the way there.

THE PLOT~ We Earthlings just can’t figure out why all of our astronauts keep dying on the way to Mars. Let’s look at what we DO know; we KNOW that they all report the same peculiar glitches in their onboard computer systems… We know that they all get straight up menaced by a mysterious UFO as they approach the Red Planet, and we also know that right after that, they die… But how?!? Huh! It’s a real head-scratcher… Oh well, no matter, because even if we can’t put two and two together, we damn sure can put together special mission AAB-Gamma; just another collection of doomed astronauts who we have decided to condemn to death in the cold, dark recesses of space. We’re geniuses!

doomed You’re all gonna die, you idiots!!!

From the get go, AAB-Gamma is plagued with ill omens and terrifying space disasters, they face everything from failing equipment, high levels of radiation, asteroid showers, punctures in the spacecrafts hull, mysterious illnesses, and, of course, that damn UFO I mentioned before. They eventually have to throw in the towel and admit defeat when this malicious alien spacecraft sprays the Astro-Boat down with some sort of weird, Martian spores, rendering the vessel totally immobile for some reason. They’re saved, shockingly enough, when they’re able to send out a distress signal, but not before collecting a sample of the alien spores from the outer hull of the ship, which they bring back to Earth for study. Guess what? Monster egg; that thing hatches overnight and right around the halfway mark, Guilala makes his big entrance. Within minutes of hatching, our boy Guilala grows to a standard Japanese monster height of 300 feet, and begins his stomping/smashing career. Naturally, all of our defenses fail to repel this abomination from space, and the crew of AAB-Gamma discovers that the only hope mankind has left is in it’s ability to synthesize a compound which can subdue Guilala, and this process can only be done in the absolute vacuum of space. So back they go, into space, to make some anti-monster goop.

Anyway.

It’s pretty middle of the road. By this point, essentially every Godzilla film featured aliens prominently, so in that way, The X From Outer Space effectively hops right into the swing of things with commendable ease, and our human characters are much more interesting than the interchangeable cyphers which populated Toho’s Godzilla-verse. There’s even a love triangle in this film! It’s poorly written, but it’s there! And that’s all good! It’s more than you usually get from Toho or Daiei’s human characters. Additionally, as I’ve said before, Guilala doesn’t even turn up until right around the halfway mark, and he’s really not in the film that much, when you step back and look at it. Believe it or not, that works out in the our favor, because what we end up with for the lion’s share of the run time is a delightfully adequate 1960’s space adventure, and honestly, that’s a lot more entertaining than all this giant monster business. We run into significant trouble when this movie expects us to give a shit about Guilala, or what he’s up to, and while these sequences are fairly well done from a technical perspective, they’re noticeably more boring than the work Toho and Daiei were doing at that time.

Guilala kind of sucks, too. He might have been fine as a secondary character, maybe teaming up with Gigan or something, but on his own, out in the spotlight, it’s pretty clear that he’s just not star material. First of all, he sort of looks like Big Bird.

x big bird com Image: Sesame Street's Big Bird It’s like I’m seein’ double!

This particular look works just fine on the mean streets of Sesame, but it’s hard to take a Kaiju seriously when you keep thinking “Hey, is that that dude who taught me to count?” Not good. Secondly, Guilala’s limbs are all swollen, puffy, and frilled, giving him the appearance of an alien Big Bird wearing Jerry’s pirate shirt from Seinfeld.

x pirate shirt com puffy_shirt_2964582k “I don’t wanna be a pirate!” – Guilala

That’s what you’re going to remember about this friggin’ monster, he looks like Big Bird, his name is way too difficult to pronounce, and Jerry Seinfeld’s freaking pirate shirt. I’m sorry, Guilala, but by the natural law of Survival of the Fittest, you must go, for you are not fit. Go and die.

And he did, pretty much. Guilala failed to win over the Japanese theater going public, and the next time anybody saw him was decades later in Monster X Strikes Back: Attack The G8 Summit, which was a damn comedy. The X From Outer Space isn’t terrible, it’s probably a decent way to spend your time if you’re a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth kaijuphile, but truthfuly, it’s a lukewarm experience, and certainly not a highlight of the genre.

KILLER ELEPHANTS!!!!!

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Killer Elephants ~ 1976, Kom Akkadej, Thailand

I just finished watching Killer Elephants not five minutes before my fingers hit the keys to type up this review, and I have no idea what I’m going to say about this film. I literally just watched it, and I have no idea what in the hell happened in this movie.

THE PLOT~ Umm…. Elephants? And there’s like, different people… who dislike one another… And… I don’t know, dude!

Frankly, this flick is pretty difficult to follow. Some of this can be attributed to what feels like a needlessly convoluted story (I think?), but the rest of the blame lies on how damned hard it is to even pay attention to Killer Elephants. I tried to give a shit, but I’m only one man. This thing is peaks and valleys, the peaks rule, but the valleys? You’re going to tune out and find yourself checking your phone for long periods of time.

The entire first half of the film is quite boring. I was never really able to figure out who the bad guys were, or even if there were bad guys, strictly speaking. Much of the time it felt like the police were the baddies, but then there are also these gangsters, who may or may not have been in league with the police. Then we have the elephants guys, who lived in the jungle, and who seemed like the good guys, even though circumstances placed them opposite our main character, who was, I’m fairly certain, a cop. Or maybe not. If you put my hand on a Bible and placed me under oath, I couldn’t really say a hell of a lot about this movie without fear of perjuring the shit out of myself, but I’ll tell you one thing; if you get the option to watch this with the English dub, take it, the hilarity of how bad the voice overs are will add a layer of entertainment value that I was quite thankful for during the film’s many otherwise unremarkable segments… Translation; the dub sucks and that’s funny.

Additionally, there is some solid elephant related carnage that goes down in the second half of the film, making it noticeably more enjoyable. I’d say that in total, 50% of this movie is just people arguing. You’re not going to know who they are, or why they can’t get along, but you will see them bicker in a number of exotic locales.I’d estimate that about 40% is mostly people shooting each other, often in the jungle… And that’s actually a little bit awesome. The final 10% is elephants f’ing stuff up, which totally and completely rules. At one point, we get to see elephants playing soccer, and that’s delightful. We also get to see them flip over cars, and smash straw huts. Wonderful! At one point, in what is unquestionably the single greatest moment of Killer Elephants, a man is knocked unconscious when he stumbles over and is hit in the head by a swinging elephant penis. For real. The print of Killer Elephants that I had access to was a truly terrible DVD release, and the image was grubby, and badly compressed, but I’m quite sure that that IS what I saw; Man falls over, elephant penis hits him in the head, he’s down for the count. How many times have you seen that in a movie? Not enough, that’s how many. This freaking thing is DAMN entertaining once it get’s going, it’s too bad it isn’t more coherent, and can’t keep the entertainment spread out more evenly.

Some of the violence is pretty cool, and the elephant stuff is great when it finally gets started, but it’s too little too late. I’d like to see this get remade, actually, because again, I have no idea what in the hell I just saw, but it’s insane just how much the Killer Elephants experience is salvaged by the film’s scant highlights. They compensate an impressive amount, and in the end, the film does feel pretty fun, even if roughly half of it is a complete snooze-fest. One way or the other, it’s certainly crazy enough to warrant more of a reputation in the psychotronic community, and if you like weird cinema, I’d say that Killer Elephants is probably worth an hour and a half of relative confusion.

C+

THE IMPOSSIBLE KID!!

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

The Impossible Kid (AKA The Impossible Kid of Kung Fu) ~ 1982, Eddie Nicart, The Philippines

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For most folks, there’s no question as to just who is the ultimate action film super spy. For most of us, James Bond takes the cake, but in the Philippines, there is yet another debonair master of espionage who has won the heart of his people, another bold figure who’s name is synonymous with intrigue and excitement. In The Philippines, there is WENG WENG.

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Weng Weng is best known for playing the role of Agent 00 in a series of action packed Filipino spy films from the 1980’s. He was also less than three feet tall.

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The dude next to him probably isn’t all that tall, either.

It’s a little offensive, to say the least, but where else was Weng Weng going to get the opportunity to make this kind of scratch? He was NOT a good actor, people, and this role brought him considerable fame, as well as the adoration of fans across the Philippines. The truth is that playing Agent OO was probably a pretty good career move for good ol’ Weng, and he happily did it over and over again. In the end, it’s all a wash anyway, these movies happened, and Weng Weng is dead now. Like it or not, there is, as I write this, a series of Fillipino Spy films starring a midget, and they’re completely insane. The Impossible Kid is one of them.

We should NOT look at Weng Weng with pity in our hearts, anyway, Weng Weng is not to be pitied, he is to be idolized, and respected; for truly, he is our tiniest bad ass. Weng Weng’s stature is never treated as a handicap, either, on the contrary, he always used his physical characteristics to his advantage, and as such, was perhaps even more capable in the field than a spy of average height and build. Let’s discuss some of the special things that Weng Weng had goin’ on:

weng-weng-machine gun 1. Stealth: Because what’s more inconspicuous than a gnome in a khaki leisure suit? Weng Weng can hide ANYWHERE, dude. Telephone pole? He’s behind it. Bush? He’s in there, somewhere, and you’d never find him in a million years. Really any physical space offers countless potential hiding spots for Agent OO, I mean, hell, at one point Weng Weng even hides inside a suitcase that the bad guys think is full of their ill gotten pesos, and by the time the learn the truth, it’s too late. Theoretically, he could be in your pocket right now. Sure, there are downsides, like when he gets captured by the enemy and they hold him captive by tossing him into a birdcage that they had laying around, but Weng Weng is more than capable of getting himself out of that jam, even when they chuck that birdcage into the damn ocean.

impossible_kid 2. The Martial Arts: That’s right, bozo, drop to your knees and pray for mercy, because this is one black belt who had his neat little karate outfit special ordered from the fucking Baby Gap, and he’s taking you down. Weng Weng even uses his short stature to his advantage in the realm of hand-to-hand combat, because it puts him at ground zero for the ultimate killshot- I speak, of course, of Weng Weng’s pulverizing punch straight to the gonads. That’s his specialty, it’s his Step One in any fight, and he almost never needs to take it to Step Two. Right out the gate, Weng Weng just lets you have it right there in the family jewels, and after that, you’re done, son. A Drinking game where everyone gets together to watch a Weng Weng film and then take shots each time Agent OO lets loose with a scrote-curdling blast to the balls would result in alchohol poisoning four minutes in for all parties involved.

Weng Weng’s fighting style also involves a lot of sliding around. I’m not sure if it’s something to do with his specially designed espionage leisure suits, or if his body secrets some sort of oil, but he frequently just flings himself across the ground and slides around like a hockey puck. It’s interesting.

tumblr_mjnbydqiYu1qiw1nno1_400 3. The Babes: The ladies cannot get enough of Weng Weng, and who can blame them? With his frail, child like frame, expressionless face and seductive bowl-cut hair style, all women are moved to a state of frenzied, sex crazed madness at the very sight of Agent OO, and naturally, they’re more than willing to forgive him for being such a creepy little pervert. Seriously, he is, he totally peeps on naked people every chance he gets in all of his movies. He does it more than once in this film alone. He is utterly without shame.

for_your_height_only61 “Don’t hate the player, hate the game!” – Weng Weng

THE PLOT~ Some shady terrorist group has been kidnapping wealthy industrialists across the Phillipines and holding them ransom, much to Interpol’s frustrated dismay. Now these mysterious criminals claim that if they don’t start seein’ mad pesos pronto, they’ll start killing these Fillipino one percenters at a rate of one per week! Naturally, Interpol can’t tolerate this crap, so they bring in the one man who can get the job done; AGENT OO!

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The only secret agent I know who rides a motorcycle he bought from a Toys R Us.

The Impossible Kid is not Weng Weng’s best film- that honor more than likely goes to For Your Height Only, this film’s immediate prequel. The Impossible Kid is, oddly enough, more restrained, possibly due to budgetary limitations, and it features less Bond-esque gadgetry, as well as fewer stunts. Many of the stunts we do see are actually just lamer versions of stunts from the first film, and they reuse many of For Your Height Only’s locations, as well. It’s strange, considering that For Your Height Only is thought to have been fairly successful, because The Impossible Kid doesn’t feel like it has any sort of momentum behind it at all, this thing is sort of just coasting into town on empty.

Actually, while we’re on the topic; it’s pretty much gotta be Weng Weng doing his own stunt work here, right? I mean, what stunt double could possibly stand in for a man who is two feet, nine inches tall? An actual child? It’s either Weng Weng, or a large doll. That’s kinda cool, I think. He’s just like Jackie Chan!

The Impossible Kid also has some pretty weak production value, but no more so than Weng Weng’s other films, all of which are pretty sloppy and primitive. Even as far back as the 1960’s, we saw more sophisticated films coming out of The Philippines, (Brides of Blood, for example), but typically, this isn’t much of an issue, because Agent OO can compensate for crummy production through a heaping portion of crazy, which is always entertaining. The problem is, though, that The Impossible Kid isn’t very crazy. It’s a huge step down from the wackiness of For Your Height Only, precisely when they needed to up the ante. As a result, this is a mostly forgettable effort in the catalog of one of Psychotronic Cinema’s most lovable icons. It’s a shame, because Weng Weng didn’t make enough movies for us to toss one out without it feeling like a real missed opportunity.

That being said, Weng Weng is never TOTALLY unwatchable, and it’s really easy to root for him, no matter how bad his pictures are, so this movie can still supply you with enough entertainment to sustain an hour and a half of your evening if it’s already in your DVD player just ready to go. Under ordinary circumstances, however, I wouldn’t put much effort into seeking out a copy of The Impossible Kid, unless you’re a Weng Weng completest, which I certainly am. My recommendation for the rest of you would be to focus your energies on For Your Height Only instead, which could probably be called the Citizen Kane of Filipino midget spy movies, and which was released on home video by Mondo Macabro a few years back, making it the most readily available Weng Weng film in the United States by a long shot. Low quality DVD releases of The Impossible Kid are obtainable however, if you do a little hunting around, but in my mind that’s too much work for not enough pay off.

C-

THE GIANT CLAW!!!!

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

The Giant Claw – 1957, Fred F. Sears

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Science fiction and horror are two genres which play together very well. The sci-fi-horror subgenre presents scenarios which combine the inherent excitement of scientific discovery, with scares that could theoretically happen for reals. Possibly real scares are more potent than for-sure-not-real scares, you see. The Giant Claw is one such film, and it presents us with a terrifying scenario that all scientists agree is just waiting to happen; What would humanity do if we suddenly found the planet Earth invaded by a gigantic, cackling space vulture from the farthest reaches of the gallaxy? Probably we would shoot rockets at it until it freaking died, that’s what.

UNLESS, of course, it was an anti-matter-shield space vulture, in which case our Earth weapons would be powerless against it. Oh, shit! That’s right, you guys; Anti-matter space-vulture. What now?

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And it looks just like Iggy Pop.

THE PLOT~ When capable pilot and respected radar expert Mitch MacCafee spots a strange, hulking object zooming through the skies during a routine flight exercise, he is chastised by army brass for making a stink over nothing, since they somehow didn’t notice the friggin’ enormous space-vulture we already know I’m referring to, and don’t believe his far fetched stories. Soon, however, both military and passenger planes begin to go missing under mysterious circumstances, and Mitch, along with Sally Caldwell (I think she’s a mathematician? Not sure) uncover the truth, big surprise, it’s a giant ass anti-matter space-vulture, just screaming it’s head off and tearin’ up our shit. Damn. Mitch and Sally work to find a way to defeat this horrible creature once and for all, and of course, they are successful. In this movie, since our monster is spawned of utter nonsense, so too is our solution, using some sort of science I’m sure is staggeringly inaccurate, they manage to kill this freaking thing, and soon the Earth is one giant monster corpse richer. Hooray! Pretty boiler plate.

As I’ve said, this is a straightforward, black and white monster movie from an era where straightforward, black and white monster movies were a dime a dozen. These films were more or less disposable, like the cinematic equivalent of chewing gum, sat through for lack of a better way to kill a Saturday night, and then quickly forgotten. While The Giant Claw is not as well known today as say, The Day The Earth Stood Still, people still seem to remember it more than they do other, comparable films of that era, and that’s mostly because it’s thought of as being particularly terrible. I would argue that this reputation is undeserved, frankly, I kind of like The Giant Claw. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s not hard to find a 1950’s science fiction flick that sucks harder than this.

Really, it’s gotta be the monster. This freaking space buzzard is indeed a ridiculous looking frump of a beast, and unlike other films which would have left their monster mostly off-camera to conceal how laughably shabby it looked, our big dumb hell-bird is all over the screen in this flick. If the car from The Beverly HIllbillies was a monster, it would be this thing. It’s just a gigantic, cackling, gangly bastard of the skies, and I have no idea how in the hell it manages to go unnoticed for most of the film because it’s the very definition of an areal eye-sore, and it’s freaking gigantic. Also noisy as hell.

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Anti-Matter Space Vulture: A Master of Stealth.

I’ve seen worse monsters, though, and anyway, for better or for worse, this giant, screaming bag of garbage is why we remember The Giant Claw today. Without this menacing sky-doofus, it’s doubtful that the film would have incurred enough cinematic wrath to stay in the game a whopping half a century later. Thanks, Space Vulture, you friggin’ idiot, we’ll never forget the good times you’ve brought us.

So, with our ridiculous monster out of the way, there is one last topic we need to cover before we wrap up; The Giant Claw’s ACTUAL worst quality; how badly it rubs that old fashioned 1950’s gender inequality in your damn face. The courtship of Mitch and Sally is pretty cringe-worthy, it involves what must have been a common pre-1978 American Courting Ritual, which goes like this;

“If you meet a fetching woman, take every opportunity to disrespect her for three calendar days. On the fourth day, kiss her on the mouth while she is sleeping. She is now your property by U.S. law.” – The U.S. Constitution

Here’s the thing, though, you can’t really let this surprise you. Have you ever seen a movie before? Believe it or not, Western culture has come a long way, and there was a time when people of both genders could and did watch films like this without even flinching. Today, it’s impossible not to notice how male-centric a film like The Giant Claw really is. You can take whatever lesson out of that you wish, but the fact of the matter is; if you’d like to avoid any fun reminders of what life was like with significantly fewer victories for the Civil Rights Movement, then there are just several decades worth of movies out there that are NOT for you. Actually, psychotronic film in general is something you should probably just steer clear of altogether, unless you’re damn near impossible to offend.

Despite, or perhaps BECAUSE OF its many flaws, I do like The Giant Claw. Its crappiness is charming, and if you like goofy 50’s/60’s B-movies, this is going to prove adequately entertaining.

C+

MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE!!!

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Manos: The Hands of Fate~ 1966, Harold P. Warren

Manosposter It’s a commonly held belief that Manos: Hands of Fate was made as part of a wager. Certainly, even relatively credible sites, such as IMDB, attest that director Harold P. Warren made the film on a bet, and human culture is happy to accept this explanation, because Manos: The Hands of Fate NEEDS and explanation; it’s so horrible that many sources feel comfortable with calling this the single worst movie of all time. So, how did this happen? And why? True or not, we have our answer; it was all an elaborate wager between industry outsider Harold P. Warren, and an unknown second party, who had been working inside of the American independent film community in the 1960’s. Warren did win this wager, of course, by virtue of the fact that Manos: Hands of Fate exists, but I really don’t feel comfortable suggesting that Manos: Hands of Fate is in any way, shape, or form a success. Having made this film makes Harold P. Warren a director in the same way that a summer job at Taco Bell makes one a chef.

But I digress; like many near-fatal pieces of soul poison that have been lazily splattered into the filthy slop-trough of American pop culture, Manos came and went in 1966 like a fart in the wind, garnering no acclaim, and soon fading into complete and utter obscurity, where it rightfully belonged. Shockingly, this would not be the end. In 1993, cult television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured Manos: Hands of Fate in what would go on to become one of it’s more popular episodes, thereby hoisting it back up, into the spotlight, and giving Manos an unexpected second lease on life; one which would prove much more generous than it’s first trip around the block thirty years prior. Today, Manos: Hands of Fate has an actual cult following, which is nothing less than unthinkable. Manos: The Hands of Fate has a fan base.

THE PLOT~ After driving aimlessly for like, a million years (which we are generously allowed to watch) a family of three winds up stranded at a strange secluded house out in the middle of the desert. It is here that America first meets Torgo, and don’t you worry, we’ll come back to him.

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Here’s Torgo. Does he somehow have two sets of eyebrows simultaneously?!

Apparently Torgo serves The Master, who owns this house. The Master is a very religious man, but his religion is some bizarre hand-obsessed branch of Demon worship, focused on a deity called Manos; it involves polygamy, large bonfires, human sacrifice, and constant bullshit. This house is like, Manos central, complete with scary demon trinkets adorning every wall, mysterious creatures baying mournfully somewhere out in the darkness, and a damn sacrificial altar in the backyard. “Whatever,” our family says. “Let us stay here, Torgo, we’re tired of driving.” Torgo really tries to hammer home that this is a bad idea, but they ignore his opinion and pretty much demand a place to crash for the night. Should have listened to Torgo, folks.

The movie drags on for the rest of your natural life. The pace is agonizingly slow, and it’s filled with sequences that serve no purpose, and where pretty much nothing happens. When it finally does end, it does so with a deliberately open ended conclusion, you know, just in case it was a hit and Warren wanted to do a sequel. Honestly, I don’t know how there isn’t a Kickstarter for Manos 3D: Retribution, starring Sean William Scott right now.

As I mentioned before, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a staple of “Worst ever” lists you might see bouncing around the internet, but the truth is, there are hundreds of low budget genre films from the 1960’s which are all just as bad. Manos gets to wear this glorious crown of trash because we KNOW Manos, but if MST3K hadn’t come into the picture and elevated it to the level it now enjoys, there would be some other movie popping up on all those lists, and this one would have remained forgotten, possibly forever. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a horrible movie, and it deserves the infamy it has earned, but Manos is also a product of a very different environment; Small, crude productions helmed by inexperienced first timers were actually very common back in the American 60’s, and the lion’s share of these flicks are just as unwatchable, and in some cases, even more so. I would wager there are still many films out there, waiting to be rediscovered, which could blow this one out of the water. Is Manos; The Hands of Fate the single worst movie of all time? No, but it does belong SOMEWHERE on that list… Maybe just a little further down than most might place it.

ON TORGO:

In the three-ring turd-circus that is Manos: The Hands of Fate, Torgo is, for sure, the star attraction. This is a character absolutely riddled with peculiarities, none of which are ever addressed in the film, and very few of which make any sort of sense at all. Firstly, his damn knees: torgo2

Never mind why!

Torgo possess massive, swollen, fantastically giant knees, which impede his movements, and the movie never addresses or explains this. They kinda just ignore it, Torgo’s knees are a serious Elephant in the room, so to speak. There is a very popular myth on the internet that Torgo is actually supposed to be a Satyr, which would explain the knees quite nicely; he doesn’t have giant knees at all, he’s goat legs! We just don’t see them, because he’s wearing than Khaki colored Parisian Nightsuit all the time. This is, sadly, wishful thinking, and there is no truth to the satyr explanation. The reality behind Torgo’s suspicious getaway sticks is much less logical; according to IMDB, Harold P. Warren has stated in the past that Torgo was first meant to be a hunchback, but that felt particular deformity seemed too cliché, so instead, they gave him enormous, illogically swollen knees, thinking that this was an untapped cinematic goldmine, and Torgo would be first in line to cash in. “Knees, that’s where it’s at!” Thought Warren. Yeah. As a result, Torgo is barely even able to walk, but the first few times that you see him hobble around, an odd little piece of music plays as he meanders feebley about his bleak surroundings. This music stops when he stops, and resumes when he starts to walk again. There’s even a point at which the music picks up before we see Torgo, and then he wanders into frame, as if the tune is heralding his clumsy arrival. This gives us the impression that this is in fact Torgo’s walking music, and that’s hilarious. He can barely walk, but he has special music that plays whenever he does. I’m a big fan of that, actually.

Torgo also squirms uncomfortably at all times and repeats nearly everything he ever says. He’s easily the most memorable thing about the movie, and googling Torgo will show that I’m not the only person who feels that way; Torgo cosplay is a very real phenomena in 2015, something no one could have foreseen when this thing premiered back in the 60’s. And that’s not the only unexpected way that Manos: The Hands Of Fate’s influence is felt in the post-modern, media-saturated world we live in today, this movie has been the subject of a great deal of fan generated media. There’s fan art, there have been stage adaptations, and Manos was even remade with puppets in Rachel Jackson’s awesome MANOS: THE HANDS OF FELT.

If you’re mind isn’t blown yet, nip on over to your smartphone app store and pick up a copy of the Manos: The Hands of Fate video game. I did. It cost two bucks.

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It’s absolutely bizarre that this film has managed to gain such traction decades after it’s disastrous unveiling, and it’s all thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000. I definitely recommend the Manos episode, without question, if you insist on watching this film, that’s the best way to do it. If, however, you want to see Manos the way nature intended, then be forewarned; Without Joel and the Bots putting this thing on blast, Manos: The Hands of Fate is no walk in the park. You might be laughing for the first twenty minutes, but then it’s a steep downward slide into the deepest circle of hell. Tread lightly.

Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (AKA THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD AKA TURKISH STAR WARS!!!!!)

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (A.K.A. The Man Who Saved The World, AKA TURKISH STAR WARS!) ~ 1982, Çetin Inanç, Turkey

For decades, poor old Ed Wood (Rest in peace) has frequently been labeled the single worst director of all time. Really? If you really think that the man who brought us Glen or Glenda? lives at the absolute bottom of the cinematic barrel, then buddy, my suggestion would be that you clear your calendar, get your hands on some Turkish Pop Cinema, and prepare to have your damn mind blown, because you have no idea how far down that barrel actually goes. During the industry’s golden age (the devil-may-care European 1980’s), Turkey produced some of the most bat-shit insane movies ever known to mankind, and by comparison, Mr. Wood’s body of work would have appeared mature, reserved, and relatively well made. Here we are, thirty years later, and even deliberate attempts to match that magical 1980’s Turkish crazy don’t even come close. That’s probably for the best, take my word for it.

Possibly the most famous movie to come out of these truly bizarre artistic circumstances is Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam, which, translated to English, apparently means The Man Who Saved the World, but to most psychotronic film fans around the world, it’s better known by it’s unofficial title; TURKISH STAR WARS.

I don’t know if Turkey even had copy write laws at this stage in the game, but Turkish film makers were evidently free to pilfer other people’s intellectual properties with impunity back in 1982. What you would get is this, Turkish folks would just go out and snatch up movies from The States (or wherever) and then Turkify the hell out of them, thereby crafting weird, Z-Grade, home grown imitations for the domestic market. Turkish Star Wars is, obviously, Turkey’s imitation of the Star Wars films, and while it doesn’t follow the plot of the Star Wars movies (it would have been a lot better off if it had) the movies DOES in fact use a good deal of stolen footage and music including numerous shots from Star Wars: A New Hope, as well as music from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and also Flash Gordon.

THE PLOT~ In the future, Mankind is finally at peace, or something, I think… Except that we got alien problems like you wouldn’t believe, so actually, we are very much at war. Yeah… Also, uh, the human brain is like, really amazing, or something… but aliens don’t have brains… so… That’s part of the story, I guess… Ummmm… Earth has, in what I would call a completely incoherent perversion of logic, been broken into several different pieces over the years, and these pieces have all drifted off into space, becoming independent planets… but really, that’s not ever adequately addressed… Nor is the fact that Earth is somehow protected by a huge shield, which was created by the united consciousness of the entire human race. Basically, that’s kinda like this movie’s answer to The Force, so you might call that THE TURKISH FORCE.

I’m sorry, I know that none of this makes sense, and frankly, it’s not going to get any better. Here we go!

So, we Earthlings launch all of our fighters off into space, and no surprise, the mightiest of all these warriors just happen to be two old, grizzled Turkish dudes, named Murat, and Ali. Turkish Star Wars generously provides us with a Turkish Darth Vader (called The Wizard), a Turkish Obi Wan Kenobi (an old Muslim holy man), and a Turkish Princess Leia (some trashy Def Leppard groupie who doesn’t even have any lines until the third act of the film), but they’ve got NO Turkish Luke Skywalker for us. Poor show! Instead, we get two lumpy Turkish Han Solos, in the form of Murat (played by somewhat legendary Turkish actor/psychopath Cüneyt Arkin) and Ali (played by Aytekin Akkaya, who looks like someone The Fonz would but pot from.) While “flying” their damn X-Wings (more on this later) into combat, Ali and Murat are apparently shot down, or magically transported, or SOMETHING to a floating chunk of Earth that was once…. Egypt? Maybe? I don’t know, you guys, but they wind up on a planet that has several important holy sites from Earth on it, and they have no space ships when they regain consciousness. They just wake up partially buried in dirt on an alien planet with no knowledge of how they got there, and the first thing they do after dusting themselves off is to try and formulate a plan to get laid by whatever alien chicks might be lurking around nearby. These guys!

From here it only gets worse. Turns out the evil Wizard (aforementioned Turkish Darth Vader, he looks like ass) wants to capture our heroes and study their brains so that he can learn the secret of destroying Earth’s force field. Eventually, paths cross, but 85% of this movie is Cüneyt Arkin punching things like a damn lunatic. Seriously, this is worth taking time to discuss; Cüneyt Arkin is fucking ridiculous.

If you see this man, haul ass in the opposite direction, but it’s probably too late.

This film is just fight scene after fight scene, and Arkin appears to have formulated his own branch of martial arts without any previous knowledge of hand to hand combat, or just being a rational human being in general. For Arkin, it’s about hitting more, and most importantly, as hard as possible, every single time. Where a normal man would punch once, Arkin punches 11 times, and every single blow is 100% of Arkin’s mental and physical energy, his face contorted into a red mask of irrational Turkish fury, and the sound effects his blows create are bassy, over-driven explosions that could never occur in the natural world. He looks like a sixty year old man with the mind of a child, who just smoked a bunch of meth while watching Bloodsport and then decided to crash a Furry convention and beat everyone to within an inch of their life. (Oh yeah, the aliens in this movie looks completely terrible, most of them are just an unintelligible mass of synthetic fur with bike handlebar streamers attached to their fingertips. Really.)

So, there’s these guys, we see A LOT of whatever the hell they are.

And this fucking thing. Who okayed these costumes!??!

Late in the film, Murat is treated to some long, drawn-out exposition pertaining to Islam, and Jesus, who for some reason lives underground now, apparently, and when that’s finally over, Turkish Obi Wan is like, “look, bro, you gotta go get this ancient, magical sword, plus also there’s a human brain made of gold over there, too. Go get it, you can’t let the wizard get that shit, cuz then he’ll destroy Earth I think!” This brilliant plan totally backfires because everyone in this film is an idiot, but that’s besides the point. What I wanted to highlight about this sequence is that the sword he recovers basically amounts to our TURKISH LIGHTSABER, and damn is it stupid. It’s enormous, and the dumbest looking thing I’ve ever seen in a movie. Here it is:

“Just holdin’ my sword. This movie is every bit as good as Star Wars. Why you laughin’, bro?”

Murat does kill a bunch of monsters with the sword, but he quickly realizes that a life where he doesn’t constantly punch things just isn’t worth living. Having firmly made up his mind, Murat takes this priceless, centuries old relic of human culture, and melts it down into a liquid, thereby destroying it forever. That’s step one. Step two is that he takes his friggin’ hands and deliberately dunks them into his newly formed super-heated pool of molten metal. Yep! Step three SHOULD be him screaming his ass off on a gurney while being hustled into the E.R., but this is Turkish Star Wars, so rather than melting his hands off into cauterized stumps like we all know would really happen, Murat is instead endowed with giant, golden gauntlets, thus finally granting him the ability to punch again, only this time with all the added might of a Turkish Lightsaber. Now in glove form! I think he also does the same thing to his feet, I don’t remember the little gold sneakers before… But anyway, this is the extreme to which Murat’s need to punch drives him, and he spends the remainder of the film violently punching monsters into furry, disembodied corpses. The twist ending is that he doesn’t actually punch the wizard to death, but shockingly, goes for a karate chop, which actually slices his astro-nemesis in half, lengthwise. Don’t get too excited, the effect is garbage.

The last thing a Furry sees before it dies.

More than anything else, Turkish Star Wars is a romance about one man’s undying love for punching things. In this film, there is no Turkish Death Star. We do briefly see the American Death Star at the beginning of the film, but it disappears without explanation and is never mentioned again throughout the rest of the movie. I think the implication is clear; Murat just punched the Death Star into dust over the course of a few afternoons and that was that; no photon torpedo’s required.

Everything here is bad, bad, bad. The only parts of Turksih Star Wars that aren’t unforgivably shitty are the parts that they just stole from somebody else, and they don’t even do that right. The sequence I mentioned before, which has Murat and Ali flying off to engage in their outer space dogfight, is pretty frustrating. In essence, it’s a collection of close ups of either actor wearing a motorcycle helmet and sitting in front of a screen which is playing clips from A New Hope. They reuse the same shots over and over, and often, the shot playing on screen behind them will cut to a new shot while our foreground footage does not, and vice versa. Additionally, the footage behind them regularly informs us that our pilots, who are facing directly into the camera, are frequently flying backwards, and sometimes, backwards while at a 45 degree angle. Come on, they couldn’t do better than this?! It’s just terrible.

Good work, Cüneyt. You’re totally in space right now.

There’s another famous sequence in the film that basically amounts to Ali and Murat’s Turkish Jedi training, where Murat fastens enormous boulders to his ankles and jumps all over the place.

Plus, look at that physique!

People seem to remember this scene as the centerpiece of the entire film, but I’m not sure why. I’ll agree, it looks completely silly, but no more so than any other sequence. At one point in film, Turkish Darth Vader drinks human blood through a crazy straw. That’s pretty silly. Later on, the bad guys capture Ali and Murat, and devise the ultimate, most unbearable, most inescapable form of torture ever, being buried alive! The movie really hypes this whole deal up, they really want you to think that this is just the most grim fate imaginable, and that no one could possibly be mighty enough to overcome so gruesome an ordeal… Then, when they actually do it, they just sort of toss a few scoops of dirt on our heroes and call it a day. Ali and Murat don’t look the least bit pained, they just sort of sit up, and the aliens flip out. The movie flips out, too, this incredible feat (sitting up) is really glorified as being an unparalleled display of strength and fortitude, and honestly, they had very, very little dirt on them when it happened. You also could have sat up and survived this alien torture, were it you in their shoes. It’s absurd, but the film doesn’t appear to realize this, and the truth is, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam is full of ridiculous shit exactly like that. All Turkish pop cinema is! Where Turkish Star Wars strays from the pack, however, is that it’s both wacky as fuck, and somehow, boring as hell. Most of you wouldn’t survive this film in a single sitting, and that’s the sad truth. In order to reach Turkish Star Wars, you must first travel through numerous lesser nonsense films, or else it’s going to feel like the longest 90 minutes of your life.

That’s Turish Darth Vader, by the way.

Yeah… It’s not that great. Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam ‘s notoriety is 100% due to it’s unlicensed connection to Star Wars, rather than any distinction it may have earned in it’s own right, positive or negative. Clearly, this is a complete piece of shit, but it’s not the shittiest of its ilk, nor is it even the craziest. So far as that goes, Turkish Star Wars is actually pretty middle of the road. People who like these movies tend to do so because of their high spirited enthusiasm, and wild, reckless abandon, but if you don’t come into Turkish cinema with a positive attitude and some hardcore rose-tinted glasses, it’s going to give you ample reason to hate on it with every fiber of your being. Whatever your take on Turkish cinema as a whole, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam is an experience to be had.

“FFFFUUUUUCCCCKKKK YYYYYOOOOUUUUUU, FFFURRRYYY MMMMAAANNNN!!!!!” – Murat. (P.S. This would make such an awesome poster.)

D+

Fantastic Crap Comics

by Christopher Ochs