You know how when you experience something that wasn’t good, you oftentimes declare it the worst? This happens a lot, oftentimes in a poor impersonation of Comic Book Guy, referencing a no longer funny Simpsons joke, the “worst (insert subject here) ever”. Fully aware of this tendency for people to easily call something the worst, I am establishing my line in the sand: The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of the worst things I have ever seen, and is likely one of the worst things that has ever existed.
I say “one of the worst” because while it is likely that it is actually the worst, I will leave room for future contenders. However, it is by far (and by “by far” I mean the amount of distance necessary to find a belt to hang myself with in order to no longer have to watch it) one of the worst things my eyes, ears, and occasionally mind have had to endure.
I had such high expectations going into seeing this. Normally when I hear something described as “awful”, “a train wreck”, or, ideally, “cringe-inducing”, I am the first one there to enjoy it. It took about two minutes of watching this for it to sink in that I would not be enjoying it.
Seemingly, the biggest plus for this special is that it got most of the stars to participate. As we will soon see, this doesn’t make this special better for the reasons you would think.
It starts off by showing the Millennium Falcon escaping Imperial Troops. Han Solo is trying to take Chewbacca home for his celebration of “Life Day”. I feel bad for Harrison Ford, seeing him in this. At least he got a pay check.
The introductory narrative begins listing the cast, then after listing the usual suspects such as Mark Hammel, Ford, Carrie Fisher, etc, it takes a sharp turn. The narrator then goes on to introduce Chewbacca’s wife, BEA ARTHUR, Jefferson Starship, among other super stars.
For the next ten minutes, we are treated to Chewbacca’s family screaming at each other in Wookie. That is correct; there is no English dialogue or plot for ten minutes. At the START of a program.
What we see next is one of the absolute highlights of the special. Drag Queen Luke Skywalker. Apparently, Mark Hammil had gotten into a car accident shortly before filming began. To work around his facial injuries, they had him wear about three pounds of makeup and a wig. And, as you can see, it is hardly noticeable.
Some stuff happens.
Then Chewbacca’s mom watches a cooking show featuring Harvey Korman as a cross dressing, four armed chef. Which, of course, they show in nearly its entirety. Then there is a Diane Carroll music video. Of course. Imperial troops then raid Chewbacca’s house, and proceed to watch a Jefferson Starship video.
I’m ready to stop, how about you?
Actually, what follows next is probably the only legitimately enjoyable part. It’s an animated short, which includes the first ever appearance of Boba Fett. That alone redeems the entire Holiday Special, but just barely.
Some more stuff happens. Bea Arthur is a space bartender. The bar sings and dances.
In case you were wondering, Chewbacca makes it home for Life Day. YAY!
The special ends with the whole cast on stage telling everyone “Happy Life Day”. Then, a TOTALLY COKED UP Carrie Fisher sings a song.
So there you have it.
I quite like the idea of Life Day being a major holiday. It paves the way for more unnecessary holidays based on positive generalities. I am declaring January 16th to be Cool Day. I hope everyone can make it home to be with their families so we can celebrate together.
I do my best to remain blissfully unaware of R. Kelly’s day to day business. If it doesn’t involve him urinating on someone under the watchful eye of the camcorder, I really don’t want to hear about it. So, the idea of him recording a multi part dramatic opus and then proceeding to act it out came as a very out of the blue revelation to me.
I was introduced to Trapped in the Closet by my friend Jeff. He is a fellow Neil Hamburger aficionado, and despite the fact that our musical tastes differ on a regular basis, we share an appreciation for entertainment that comes from accidentally or not-so-accidentally awful things.
He described Trapped in the Closet as “having no reason to exist,” or something like that. Granted, many things don’t actually need to exist. However, it was implicit that not only does it not need to exist, it also shouldn’t. I take that back; that’s too harsh. It needs to exist. Because it is amazing.
From the rough description, I knew that R. Kelly was acting out some songs from his latest album. What I didn’t realize was that every single lyric was going to be acted out, as literally as could be. If this weren’t in the R&B genre, it could almost be taken as campy, or purposely awful. But since R&B as a whole displays less humor than copies of math textbooks or Maus, this can not be so.
And without further ado, let us all get trapped… in the closet!
After this pulp intro, we enter the bedroom, where R. Kelly (or R, as he is referred to from now on,) is just waking up. According to R, the bed doesn’t belong to him, so it seems he just had a sleepover with a friend of his. However, in comes a woman in some revealing undergarments. A women who is not R’s girlfriend, which becomes dramatic plot point number one. When he tries to leave, we learn that she also has a significant other, and he is coming up the stairs to the apartment. That is dramatic plot point number two, but I’ve decided that I won’t be able to keep up with the tally; there’s just too much drama.
Since this is apparently one of those rare apartments without a fire escape, she tells him to get in the closet. Didn’t he see the giant words outside the apartment window? I don’t know how it could be any more obvious he would be trapped in there. R needs to hire Admiral Ackbar to run around screaming every time he was headed into a trap.
Ignoring the size 1,700 font words that were outside his window just moments ago, R gets in the closet. When the husband gets home, she informs him that she “cooked and ran his bath water.” What the hell is the point of that? Is he going to eat in the bath? By the time he finishes his food, the bath will be cold, and vice versa. A cheating woman who doesn’t understand simple domestic things, this guy sure picked a winner.
He carries her into bed (you fool! Now your food and your bath will be cold!) and they commence with the normal R&B in-bed activities. That is, until R’s cell phone rings. What a dickhead. R rushes to try to turn the ringer on “VIIIIIIIIIBRAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!” but it is too late. Besides, why vibrate, why not silent? You’d still hear the bzzz bzzzz of the phone on vibrate, so that wouldn’t help much either.
Instead of asking whose phone is ringing, or something similar, the boyfriend decides to say “There’s a mystery going on, and I’m going to solve it.” Which, really, is the most appropriate and realistic thing to write for that particular scenario.
What occurs next is most likely my favorite line in the whole song. After describing all the places the boyfriend is looking, R sings: “Checks under the bed, then under the dresser / He looks at the closet, I pull out my Beretta.” Brilliant! What makes this verse even better is the fact that he says “closet” five times in eleven seconds.
This ends Part One of the saga.
We will pause for intermission.
So the boyfriend’s day is going about as poorly as any day can go. Not only does a strange man show up, in his house, he’s pointing a gun at him. R claims that he is trying to get the boyfriend to calm down, meanwhile the boyfriend is probably demonstrating the most calm that any person could in any situation, let alone one like this. The wildest he is getting is through his enthusiastic hand gestures; although I suspect he is only doing them to fit in with the other two.
After lots of talking and gun pointing, the boyfriend says he’s a pastor, and R is relieved. Now they can handle things “Christian like,” and talk about all of the gun carrying, premarital sex, and infidelity that needs to be discussed. The pastor then makes a cell phone call, and informs everyone that they are in store for a big surprise.
He likens himself to R, saying that they are both coming out of the closet. This is known as foreshadowing.
And, not too shockingly, the pastor’s “girlfriend” turns out to be… a man.
Second Intermission.
The next few minutes are taken up by R and the pastor arguing back and forth about the pastor being gay. R is acting like he has known this guy for years, and can’t believe the shocking truth. If I just met some guy and found out he was gay, beard girlfriend or not, I’d be like “alright.” No gun waving, no talking in awkward rhyme, no inappropriately singing sentences with uncalled for amounts of emotion. Just, “Alright. Later.”
Then the pastor and the wife (apparently they’re married) argue back and forth which is worse, having a straight cheating relationship or a gay cheating relationship. R gets annoyed, and shoots his gun in the air. In the middle of an apartment complex. With the door open.
Tired of the gay vs. straight argument, he calls his house, and he gets a surprise… a man answered the phone!
The third act sucked.
R then races home, sitting in a car against a backdrop that looks like it came from a Saturday Night Live set. He gets pulled over, and “can’t believe it.” Hm, you’re a young black male, in a Cadillac, doing 85. Surprising.
He then rhymes “cigarette” with “ticket,” by pronouncing it “cigaritte.”
After scaring the crap out his wife by throwing the shower open, he starts hollering at her. She explains that her brother came home, and R feels like an ass. Like all couples in this movie, they immediately move to the bed. The mood is set; that is, until he sees a condom in the bed.
Fourth Intermission.
Going back into his previous argument tactics of waving a gun, R threatens to murder his wife. He then rhymes “bed” with “cigarette” but again mispronounces cigarette, which makes me wonder if maybe he just doesn’t know how to spell the word.
After a lot of emotional back and forth (by emotional, I mean holding out notes when not really needed), the wife reveals that the man she was sleeping with was the policeman that pulled R over. Whoa.
That is all for the filmed part of Trapped in the Closet. He also performed act six at the most recent VMAs and it made for a MUCH more awkward performance. This is because he was alone on stage, and taking it very, very seriously.
I don’t know who the guy introducing him is, but he is both weird looking and too excited about seeing the “newest chapter of the saga.” No one seems to care about the fact that R isn’t even trying to make it look like he’s actually singing; but it is MTV after all. What this reminds me of is a thirteen year old boy lip synching to a CD in his room. Hand and body gestures all over the place, exaggerated facial expressions, and not a full grasp of what the actual lyrics are. Very long story short: Rufus (the husband) chooses Cathy over Chuck (the husband’s boyfriend.) Personally, I would have gone with Chuck. Knowing my wife had slept with R. Kelly would be too nauseating of a fact to live with.
And there you have it: a twenty plus minute song with no chorus, melody, or sense. A story that dares you to give a damn about any of the characters, which of course you don’t, won’t, and couldn’t fathom doing. It’s hard to give this a rating of 1-10. But I will voice my opinion on it by saying that his video with all of the underage peeing seemed like a better artistic decision.
Public Service Announcements (which, from here on in, will be referred to as PSAs) are, for the most part, always entertaining. PSAs from decades into the past are even more entertaining. Finally, PSAs from decades into the past dealing with “controversial” issues with dated information are the most entertaining of all.
Most people have seen “Reefer Madness,” the hilariously awful film warning the public of the dangers of marijuana. The script is terrible, the acting is terrible, and the research into what the drug actually does seems to have been made up on the spot. The drug’s effect on the people in Reefer Madness is comparable to some sort of speedball cocktail of methamphetamines, LSD, and Dexatrim.
The film editing is another wonderful aspect; people jump across the room in what could best be looked at as giving the viewer an idea of what it’s like to be hopped up on goofballs. Although it is more likely due to frames going missing and the budget was too low to re-shoot the scenes.
I don’t do drugs (marijuana seems too lowbrow and cocaine is too expensive,) but seeing this PSA didn’t really do much to reaffirm my decision to not do them. The film made doing “reefer” seem like an intense experience; some sort of Yellow Submarine / Grand Theft Auto amalgamation. Which begs the question, do PSAs actually work?
I’m not actually answering that question. It was just some drawn out, fairly irrelevant introduction which I will try to segue into the actual subject at hand.
Boys Beware is a PSA from the 1950’s. I don’t even know if that’s true, there’s no date on it. But it’s too old fashioned for the 60’s, and I don’t even know if they had TV in the 40’s. I’ll be damned if I’m going to look that up. It comes courtesy of the Inglewood Police Department and the Inglewood Unified School District. That, I did look up; Inglewood is in California.
It appears that Inglewood has been having some problems. With homosexuality. So much so that they created this PSA to warn the little Toms and Dicks (ha ha) of southern California of this epidemic. I don’t know where this PSA was shown; I guess in schools, but if it was on TV, I would have watched it.. Although it’s only ten minutes long, so it wouldn’t fill up a full thirty minute time slot, even if it did have commercials. And who would advertise during this? I guess they could just loop the PSA a few times, like they do with Ronco or Appliance Direct commercials.
It starts off with a narration by a police officer, who is on his way to a school to talk to some kids. On the way, he sees a group of teenage boys hitchhiking. He focuses on one boy in particular, Jimmy Barnes. Since Jimmy had been playing baseball all day, he didn’t feel like walking home. He “thumbs a ride” (detective lingo) home with “A Stranger.” They don’t actually give him a name.
After dropping Jimmy off, The Stranger tells him that he will see him soon, since The Stranger likes to drive by the park often. Gross. And the next day, there he is, waiting for Jimmy, to give him a ride home. On the way home, The Stranger buys Jimmy a Coke, and tells several “off color” jokes.
That weekend they go fishing, and The Stranger is given a name: Clint Howard. I mean “Ralph.”
They say that Ralph is sick, with a sickness that “isn’t visible like smallpox.” I guess that comment puts a slight dent in the modern relevancy of this film. You see, the sickness that Ralph has is that he has a mustache.
Oh wait, the narrator said “isn’t visible.” In that case, he is referring to Ralph being a homosexual. This announcement segues into the two of them going into what looks like a motel, although nothing is actually mentioned about it. However, in the next scene, it is revealed that Jimmy is now on probation and Ralph is in jail. At least now Ralph can get help for his sickness. 50’s help. So it’s safe to assume that Ralph got lots of shock therapy and the occasional lobotomy in order to help treat his infectious, invisible disease.
According to the detective, little Jimmy got off easy. No pun intended. Jimmy was lucky because not all homosexuals are passive, some resort to violence. We are then introduced to Mike, who is playing basketball with his friends in the park. Watching them from a nearby bench is a man dressed in a suit. If there is one common theme among homosexuals from the 50’s to the 00’s (is that what we’re calling this decade?) it is their keen fashion sense.
Oh wait; he’s wearing a bow tie. That should have tipped Mike off to the fact that treachery was afoot. Ignoring that telltale sign, Mike shoots some hoops with the stranger after his friends leave. One interesting thing is that the stranger kicks Mike’s ass at basketball. Mike is absolutely terrible; meanwhile the stranger is heating up. Wait, now he’s on fire.
Look at this kid shoot a basketball. Whether or not a stranger tried to seduce him, this kid was definitely predestined for limp wrested territory. Nice necklace.
Since their basketball game ran late, the stranger offered to give Mike a ride home. Mike accepts and is promptly murdered.
“He traded his life for a newspaper headline.” How poetic. And what a great transition into the next scene where we see two boys… folding newspapers. Brilliant!
Denny and Jerry are setting up newspapers for Jerry’s paper route, when two bicycles race by them. There were people on the bicycles though; the bikes didn’t actually race by the kids on their own. Right after the bikes, a car pulls up and the driver asks the boys if they could recognize the bikes if they saw them again. The driver tells Denny to get in, because the bikes were stolen.
Wait a minute! That guy is wearing a suit with a bow tie! But it’s a different car. So the homosexuals tend to follow the same uniform guidelines, but don’t have to drive in the same type of car. Although both cars did have fins. Hmmm…
Apparently, Jerry had been told many times that if a friend gets in a car, to write down the car’s license plate number. Seems like a good idea, although I prefer the method of saying the number repeatedly, then eventually feeling unsure as to whether or not the number I’m repeating is correct, getting frustrated, and giving up.
When Jerry delivers the paper to Denny’s house, he discusses the bicycle story with Denny’s hideous mother. She knows nothing of this story, but seems concerned when the topic of bow ties comes up. Jerry gives her the paper with the license number on it, in a sleazy attempt to cockblock Denny.
Policemen pull the car over, and the driver gets out and puts his hands on the hood. However, no one gets out of the passenger side. Which means Denny is either in a shallow grave with Mike, or wearing a loincloth and using a skimmer to remove leaves from the stranger’s pool.
Finally, we discuss one of the more exciting areas of everyday life: public restrooms. Bobby doesn’t want to take the long way home with his friends, so he leaves the group to take the shortcut under the pier. “Under the pier” sounds like it could be used as some sort of slang term for a gay person.
“Bobby is so dreamy, how come I never see him about town with any gal pals?”
“Oh, that’s because he’s, you know, under the pier.”
Anyway, when Bobby is about to go under the pier (wink) he notices a man following him, a man he had seen in the bathroom earlier. He then wimps out on taking the cool kid shortcut, and goes to meet up with his loser friends taking the long way home. The music that plays when the man is following him is great, it sounds like The Imperial March.
The detective concludes that you should beware of anyone that acts overly friendly, or tries to win your confidence too soon. This will result in filtering out a wide variety of groups including the homosexuals, door to door salesmen, Jehovah’s Witnesses, telemarketers, Girl Scouts, and other undesirables.
Now if you will excuse me, I need to stop by the dry cleaners to pick up my bow tie.
I, like most people, love bad movies. Love them. Actually, I guess I can’t say that “most people” like them, as I recently witnessed first hand. A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I held our annual Bad Movie Night (annual meaning that we did it once, and decided to do it again.)
We had a few movies lined up, but the piece of resistance was a movie I had been looking forward to seeing since about 1994. Growing up reading Wizard, a magazine about comics (my current life isn’t much better,) I was well informed about a movie that was in production. When it was finally finished, the public was shocked to discover that the movie was not going to be released. This was due to the fact that the movie had a smaller budget than the average infomercial.
This may sound somewhat surprising, since comic movies have been largely successful in recent years. The 90’s were a completely different story when it came to comic book related movies… at least as far as I remember. Successful movies like The Crow were the exception to the rule. Instead, we got movies like Captain America. All that needs to be said about this movie was that the ears on his mask were rubber, and that they took the evil Nazi villain Red Skull and made him Italian.
On our Bad Movie Night, we have survived some true atrocities: Gigli, Glitter, You Got Served, and Speedway Junky. We thought we could handle bad movies. However nothing, I repeat nothing, could have prepared us for the Fantastic Four. This movie goes down in Bad Movie Night history as the first movie that was ever turned off midway through. It was that bad.
I must state in my defense that the turning off of the movie wasn’t my idea at all. The majority of the people I was with seemed to miss the boat on why the night was called Bad Movie Night. However, I was outnumbered in the vote, and it wasn’t even my TV, so I had to concede defeat.
I refused to let that be the end of that. I was going to watch the rest. Since we hadn’t paid much attention to the beginning, I started it over. And, having watched it in its entirety, I can say this with confidence:
This movie is terrible.
I debated whether or not I should do a review of this, for a couple of reasons. First, I just gave an incredibly accurate one sentence review. Second, I tend to blather on endlessly when reviewing a movie, boring both myself and the reader. So I decided that when reviewing this movie, I would try to be much more concise than usual. Although that never really seems to work out, so we’ll see what happens.
It starts off with a less than promising introduction and credits, somewhere between the level of PBS cartoon and high school film class project.
We begin in what appears to be a college classroom, filled with students in their mid thirties. Or maybe they just look that way. We learn the main character, Reed Richards, is a nerd, his friend Ben is an oaf, and his lab partner Victor is an overacting nutcase. Although I don’t want to classify Victor as overacting, because then that word might get overused when I apply it to nearly every single character in the movie.
Much of the beginning of the movie is made up of the professor talking about some star event, called Colossus, and Reed and Victor arguing over something that involves phrases like “calculations,” “velocity vectors,” and “quadrant.”
We then meet out other soon to be main characters, Susan and Johnny Storm. Despite the fact that Susan Storm appears to be about eleven years old, and Reed appears to be almost forty, they eventually get married in the movie.
That night, during Colossus, whatever that actually is, Reed and Victor are furiously typing away on their lab computers, in front of a very scientific looking device. Despite the fact that the device starts shooting out lightning and exploding, neither of them stop typing. Reed keeps yelling for Victor to leave, while Victor attempts to become the movie’s tragic hero by repeatedly shouting, “I WILL NOT FAIL!”
But he does. The experiment blows up, he is electrocuted in a manner usually reserved for Wile E. Coyote, where it goes body / skeleton / body / skeleton, and he dies. Reed cries.
Don’t worry, he’s not actually dead. Some European guy steals his body and “saves him before it is too late.” Whatever that means.
It is now ten years later, which you can tell because Reed looks exactly the same, except now has baby powder rubbed into the hair next to his ears. Apparently Reed finally finished the experiment he was working on (ten years later? some genius…) so he convinces his friend Ben Grimm (the dumb guy from the opening scene) to be his pilot to outer space.
I never actually caught what the experiment was actually about, but now they’re flying into space, so I assume it has to do with that.
Then, one of the best scenes in motion picture history happens. Ben and Reed go to the house where little Susan and Johnny live. Ben asks their mom, “Hi Mrs. Storm, can Johnny and Susan go to outer space with us?” in a voice that I would never have expected from a man of his dimensions, while he and Mrs. Storm share 7th Heaven expressions while laughing like utter buffoons. Even Reed is uncomfortable by their level of Americana, judging by his expression.
We then learn that Johnny has grown up into a cackling twit, and Susan has grown into an attractive thirty year old. Somehow, she managed to age about twenty years in the ten years that has passed, but I assume that is just to catch up with Reed’s appearance, which hasn’t changed a bit in the last decade.
Their mom tells Reed, “Don’t let anything happen to my babies.” Well, maybe if you don’t want anything to happen to your babies, you shouldn’t let them go on an experimental rocket ship ride into space. But that’s just me. She then exclaims, “Look at you, the Fantastic Four!” Remember? That’s the name of the movie! Oh, it’s all falling into place perfectly.
In the next two scenes, two new characters are introduced. The first is a brief scene that introduces Dr. Doom, which is Victor in a suit of armor and a green cloak. I assume they’re going to turn that into a dramatic scene later in the movie, but I didn’t feel like having to dance around that fact.
The other character introduced is The Jeweler, a rodent looking man who crawls through tunnels stealing jewels. Yup, this is the level of villainy that the Fantastic Four face. Since they obviously didn’t have the budget for Galactus, once Dr. Doom is used, the caliber of evil drops off rather sharply.
I actually thought the Jeweler was a different Fantastic Four villain, The Moleman, who is another villain who runs around underground. Fantastic.
I’m probably going to do that a lot, ending paragraphs with just that word. It serves two purposes: adding a proper amount of sarcasm, and keeping the movie theme going. Which is, as you probably already guessed, “Fantastic”.
Next, comes a scene that is impossible to not laugh at, but after laughing, it is impossible to ignore the fact that you are going directly to hell for laughing. Ben is walking upstairs, and manages to lay a full on hip check into a blind woman, who drops a statue she made, smashing it into pieces. He then picks her up over his head while apologizing, then they share a look straight from the covers of Genovese romantic novels. Well, I guess they don’t share a look, but you get the point.
Reed then starts talking about scientific stuff, while whining about Victor’s death, and explaining why they’re using a diamond the size of a human head to power the experiment. Meanwhile, the Jeweler watches the blind woman sculpting a bust, which is presumably of Ben, since she felt up his face. After this, he goes and steals the giant diamond, and replaces it with a replica. Dr. Doom is watching all of this for some reason, and is incredibly pleased.
The next day, the four launch into space, discover the diamond is fake, and freak out. Bright lights flash, and they all make pained faces while Gregorian chant music plays.
Somehow, they have landed on Earth (what the hell?) through what I guess were escape pods, although it just showed the ship exploding, with nothing coming out. Reed discovers that something is amiss when the ship has exploded, yet all of them are unharmed. Johnny sneezes and lights a bush on fire, Susan starts speaking while invisible, then fades in with some of the best blue screen effects I have ever seen. It looks like the set from Teletubbies.
This is the start of the amazing special effects budget kicking in. Reed stretches to catch a falling Susan, while his outstretching arm looks like one of those boxing glove on a stick things that would shoot out and hit people.
We also now see that Dr. Doom lives in a giant castle, and has people working for him. How this came about, I have no idea. Also, the Jeweler kidnaps the blind woman.
The army finally locates the four, and comes to rescue them. We then learn that, shockingly, Ben Grimm has transformed into Ron Perlman. His voice has changed completely, which seemed stupid at first, but I guess it sort of makes sense. Maybe his vocal chords and such turned to stone as well. The greatest part about him turning into the Thing is that every time he talks, it looks exactly like the Ninja Turtles in the first movie crossed with Terrence and Philip.
The four are then interviewed by this creepy looking doctor. You can tell he’s a doctor because he’s wearing one of those things on his head. This scene is the birth of the Human Torch’s incredibly stupid tagline, “Flame on.” It turns out that it makes sense that the doctor was so creepy, since he is working for Dr. Doom.
I must admit, for how bad everything in this movie looks, Doom’s costume is quite good. The one awkward thing is that his mouth parts don’t move, but I don’t know why they would. In the comic, the mouth moved once in a while, to convey some sort of emotion (98% of the time being anger,) but that was always one of those “suspensions of belief” things, like when Spider Man would squint.
The group dresses up like a pack of condoms and escapes from the hospital room (oh yeah, they weren’t allowed to leave the hospital,) and finally meet up with Dr. Doom. Nothing interesting happens, except another catchphrase is introduced, the Thing’s “It’s clobbering time.” There is a big fight scene, but like I said, nothing interesting happens. With the Human Torch’s power, it seems they have moved from using terrible CG to outright cartoon animation.
Next, we learn why each member got their specific powers, when the Invisible Woman makes an off the cuff remark about her always being shy. Reed then jumps into monologue mode, saying that she turns invisible because she is shy, the Human Torch is a hot head, Reed stretches himself too thin, and that Ben is the Thing because he has always had a habit of being ugly.
Susan designs costumes for the group, and I don’t know if they look so terrible because they are home made, or because the costume budget was so small. She claims Johnny’s suit is flame retardant, although flame retardant and flame proof are two very different things. She also doesn’t explain how Reed’s costume is able to stretch along with him. Also, I have been calling him Reed instead of Mr. Fantastic, because Reed has a lot less letters.
Ben runs away, hangs out with the Jeweler, and Reed realizes that Victor is alive. Meanwhile, Dr. Doom breaks into the Jeweler’s place to steal the diamond. During this scene, a genuinely funny dialogue takes place:
Jeweler (gesturing with gun to the blind woman): “Touch me and she dies.”
Dr. Doom: “So?”
The Thing tries to save the blind woman, who tells him that she loves him, despite the fact that besides that time when they met, they have never spoken. Hearing this, the Thing reverts into plain old Ben Grimm, so he has to run away, but then turns right back into the Thing. Although later in the movie, when he and the blind woman are together again, this never happens again. So I don’t know what Ben’s reverting to human form was supposed to show.
Dr. Doom tells the group that he has built the laser from the Death Star, although not in so many words. On the topic of Doom, he has this really annoying habit of talking with his hands; every single sentence involves dramatic gesture after gesture.
The group then gets into their flying car (huh?) and goes to Doom’s castle. He captures them, then attempts to steal their powers. Reed uses his magic foot stretching to kick Doom’s laser away and escape, and another fight scene begins. This time, both the Human Torch and the Thing use their catch phrases, so it is doubly annoying.
Reed fights Doom, punches him repeatedly, which hurts Doom, despite the fact that Reed is punching a suit of armor. Reed also does that stupid movie hero thing where he is punching someone and saying, “This is for (insert person’s name here), this is for (insert other name), and this is for (etc.)” Like Sgt. Slaughter in the GI Joe Movie.
Reed then punches Doom over the side of his castle, Doom clings to a brick, makes fun of Reed, and then jumps to his death. Johnny, who somehow has learned to fly, defeats Doom’s Death Star laser (this scene includes some amazing special effects, as you can see from the screen cap, which surprisingly wasn’t taken from a “Super Friends” episode.) So everything is good, it seems. Then Reed and Susan get married. In their Fantastic Four costumes.
When you have the phrase, “Do you trust me?” in your movie, or in the preview for your movie, people will inevitably notice that your movie is terrible, and that Aladdin was much better.
There have been so many movies I have considered talking about, due to how amazingly bad they are. However, it really isn’t interesting to read only about how bad something is. This is why I only talk about the best kind of movies, movies that are the perfect blend of total awfulness and total awesomeness.
This brings us to the topic at hand: “Street Fighter” the movie. I have always loved this movie, but was never quite sure of a few things. Is the movie supposed to be like this on purpose, or was it simply a wonderful accident that it turned out so terribly? Do the majority of the people who like this movie enjoy it because they think it is a legitimately good movie, or because it is an astoundingly entertaining bad movie? And, somewhat tastelessly, but it must be addressed, is Raul Julia buried in the M. Bison uniform? These are questions that need to be answered. And since most people can’t be bothered to devote the free time needed to answer these questions, I guess I will be the one to do it.
As far as the story behind the movie, it’s based on the video game Street Fighter 2. It was a fun game with good graphics for the time, where the basic premise is two opponents beat the hell out of each other. It was strange that the name of the movie itself wasn’t Street Fighter 2, since the original game Street Fighter was awful and no one liked it. I guess if the movie was given the out of nowhere “2” suffix, it would have seemed like a blatant rip off of Leonard Part 6; except, of course, for the fact that Leonard Part 6 is missing one important factor that Street Fighter has. That factor being, of course, the previously mentioned total awesomeness.
I really don’t want to give any more of an introduction, because I want to jump right into action.
The story starts out in the made up country of Shadaloo. It is in the middle of a civil war, with General M. Bison on one side, and something else on the other side.
As you can tell from the art based on the video game, the casting of Raul Julia as Bison is nothing short of genius.
A reporter named Chun Li is talking about the battle between Bison and the Allied Nations army, which I assume is like the European Union for poor people. Bison has taken sixty people hostage, both civilians and from the army. His demand for their release is twenty billion dollars. What? If you’re asking for something like that for only sixty people, you might as well load the executing guns right away, because there is no way in hell any government is going to pay $20 billion for sixty people. They might spend $20 billion to kill sixty people, but definitely not to save them.
The leader of the Allied Nations (AN) army, Colonel (pronounced “kernel,” not “colon-al” as I originally thought it was,) Guile arrives on the scene Chun Li is reporting from. Guile refuses to comment about the war, but decides to address Bison instead. Keep in mind, this part actuallyhappens; it was scripted, filmed, released to the public, and everything. Facing the camera, Guile says, “I know you like to look at yourself on television, you sick son of a bitch, so take a look at THIS, HI YAH!” Then he makes a karate chop arm muscle pose. ON INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION.
Also, since Guile is played by everyone’s favorite All American, Jean Claude Van Damme, none of his lines are spoken clearly. “Son of a bitch” becomes “sunuffbeach.” And so on.
Guile also decides to totally screw up his friend Carlos Blanka’s life by yelling that they were “coming to save Charlie.” So, of course, Bison figures out who Charlie is and decides to make him the subject of a genetic experiment. Good grief.
We then go on to meet the next of the main characters, Ryu and Ken. They arrive in a giant warehouse type building, where some hardcore street fighting is going on. Except it’s indoors, not in the street. Also, it’s in a cage. We then go on to meet the next of the main characters, Ryu and Ken. They arrive in a giant warehouse type building, where some hardcore cage fighting is going on.
They are going to meet Sagat, who is in charge of a local gun running organization. They are doing this, because they are selling guns to Sagat, which makes sense. That is a good reason for someone to meet with a gun runner. See, this movie has a great plot. Ryu and Ken were trying to screw over Sagat; however Sagat pulled the ol’ switcheroo and screwed them over. The ol’ switcheroo meaning Ken and Ryu get jumped by a gang. They are able to beat up the gang, and seem ready to make their escape. However, they are surprised when the gang subdues them with some guns that the gun runner Sagat had lying around.
Back in Bison’s fortress, we learn that Charlie is currently undergoing some mind warping, courtesy of some Clockwork Orange-esque video watching. They are trying to turn him into the perfect soldier, first by showing him looped clips of random violence. I guess that is supposed to screw up his mind, to make him want to kill. I’ve never tried it, so I don’t know if that actually works. They are then going to mutate him, using some Kool Aid looking liquids, which are actually DNA Mutagens and Anabolic Plasma. Don’t ask me how I know what they are, it’s a secret.
Back at the fighting warehouse, Sagat is making Ryu fight the local champion, Vega.
Vega would be a pretty badass fighter, since he wears a mask, has long metal claws on one of his hands, and has a giant snake tattoo. The badass factor is somewhat dimmed by the fact that Vega appears to be either a flaming homosexual, an extremely effeminate straight man, or a buff woman. Vega, incidentally, was always my favorite character in the video game. This might have been the first in a long line of effeminate people that I am interested in, including Davey Havok and Morrissey.
The fight is interrupted by Guile driving a tank into the warehouse. This also serves as a good analogy of the subtleness of Van Damme’s acting ability. He arrests everyone in the warehouse, which results, as arrests sometimes do, with everyone in jail.
Sagat has wasted no time taking charge of the prison. And judging by the way they are standing together, he also has wasted no time making Vega his prison boyfriend. Ken and Ryu get jumped again, this time by literally every single prisoner, except Sagat. They also manage to beat up every single prisoner, except Sagat.
Guile gets the idea to infiltrate Sagat’s organization, in order to follow Sagat to Bison. He solicits Ken and Ryu to help him out, but they don’t want anything to do with it. Ryu asks to leave, and Guile replies with a big grin that the only way they are leaving is over his dead body. Ryu and Ken then give each other one of those confused sitcom “Whaaaa?” stares, and the scene awkwardly ends.
The next day, while being transported, Ryu and Ken initiate a prison break by hijacking the prison truck. Sagat and Vega come along for the ride, along with some of the movie’s extras. Guile attempts to stop the prison break, but Ken shoots him. Chun Li, who is allowed to be on the scene for some reason, plants a homing device on the getaway truck, in hopes of catching it later. She then reports the tragic news that Guile has died. Bison sees this, and gets all emotional about it, saying how he wanted to meet Guile on the battlefield. He also bugs his eyes out a lot, and sticks his ears out as well. Although the ears are more of a biological thing than acting; I can’t tell about the eyes.
After noticing that the getaway truck has two homing devices planted on it, Chun Li, E. Honda and Balrog, get suspicious. So Chun Li does what anyone would do in her situation, she breaks into the AN headquarters.
After sneaking inside, she makes her way to the morgue, and tries to cop a feel off of Guile’s corpse. Guile sits up, makes an awful joke, and reveals to Chun Li what had happened. He had recruited Ken and Ryu, and staged the whole getaway and shooting, with the help of some prop blood packs to simulate his bullet wounds.
Guile then attempts to arrest Chun Li, but she escapes and goes with her team to find Bison. They arrive at Bison’s camp, somehow learn how to put on a magic show, somehow introduce themselves to Bison, and then put on said magic show. Chun Li’s plans go awry when she sees Ken and Ryu, and realize that she can’t blow up the camp with them inside it. Oh yeah, Chun Li plans to blow up the camp.
While Chun Li is off trying to get Ken and Ryu out of there, Bison and Sagat talk business. When Sagat opens the briefcase that contains his payment, he is less than pleased. That is because he is being paid in Bison dollars, which is something of a more liquid form of Disney Dollars. Sagat starts arguing with Bison, which leads to the crowd being split into two sides, Bison’s and Sagat’s, ready to fight. They stand there, ready to go at each other, until they hear noise coming from a closet. This noise is a prerecorded video of Chun Li explaining to Bison that his weapons are about to get blown up. Because when you are destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise belonging to someone who could have you and anyone that looks like you murdered, you want to give him a video of yourself declaring that you did it. And if you are going to do that, you might want to, you know, leave first.
During this part, another legitimately funny line is given by Bison’s Russian henchman Zangief. When they are watching the video of the explosive truck coming towards their camp, Zangief yells, “Quick, change the channel!” At least the writer of the movie knew one recipe for guaranteed laughs: stupid foreign people.
So, Chun Li and her team are taken prisoner, thanks partly to the fact that Ken ratted them out. They all leave the camp, and go to Bison’s fortress. Apparently Bison and Sagat have kissed and made up, possibly literally, which would explain why Vega appears to be in such a bad mood.
From there, we move to the AN headquarters, where the army is planning an attack on the fortress. The plan is to drive a single boat “with the latest in stealth technology” to sneak in. This scene is extra awesome because the only two people who have dialogue in it are Guile and someone named Charlie, neither of who can speak any sort of clear English. Guile of course has the Van Damme effect going, where what he speaks sounds like the English language going through the Ronco Food Dehydrator, then soaked in bourbon, then being spit out. Charlie, on the other hand, has no problematic accent, he just really seems to not be able to remember his lines.
When the army is about to leave, Guile is told by a government agent that the attack is off. The government is planning on paying off Bison. Huh. I guess I was wrong about that. Anyway, Guile doesn’t seem too happy about giving up on the attack, and letting Bison get away with it. He then steps up to the podium, which is always a recipe for excellence with Van Damme, and goes on to deliver the most emotionally charged, inspirational speech ever. It’s true.
So, the attack is back on.
Back in Bison’s fortress, Ken and Ryu are given their trademark red and white outfits by Zangief. We then learn why Chun Li hates Bison so much. She gives a ten minute story about how when Bison was just a petty drug dealer, he and his gang were driven out of Chun Li’s town by her father and a bunch of farmers. On the way out of town, Bison shot Chun Li’s father.
After this dramatic speech, Bison begins one of the more excellent bits of dialogue in the movie:
Chun Li: (long, emotional story)
Bison: “I’m sorry, I don’t remember any of it.”
Chun Li: (very shocked) “You don’t remember?”
Bison: “For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me… it was Tuesday.”
Nice.
E. Honda and Balrog are able to escape from their cell, and jump Ken and Ryu. This doesn’t bother them too much, since they’ve been getting jumped the whole movie. But I guess that is to be expected when you appear in a movie with the word “fighter” in it. However, they reconcile pretty quickly, and decide it’s time to start the climax of the movie.
Bison and Chun Li keep talking, until Chun Li breaks out of her handcuffs and then begins beating the crap out of Bison. She gets distracted when the four guys come running in, and Bison is able to escape to some secret chamber. He then gasses the five of them, and bugs his eyes out extra far in celebration.
By now, the experiments done to Charlie have made him unrecognizable. He is now huge, with green skin and a giant mane of orange hair. This is the version of Blanka that is familiar to those that have played the game, except for the fact that in the game he looked cool, but looks ridiculously stupid in the movie. The head doctor working on Blanka, whose name is Dhalism, finally decides to man up and halt the experiment. Then, instead of feeding him images of violence and war, he switches the feed to show Blanka images of weddings, dolphins, and babies. Apparently Dhalsim is trying to turn Blanka into the strongest unwed thirty five year old woman ever.
We then go to the river, where Guile is knocking out the radars, so the rest of the boats can attack. That is, until Bison starts releasing mines into the water, thanks to the help of his Street Fighter II arcade joystick. Guile realizes the situation isn’t looking too good, so he decides they should abandon ship. No one in Bison’s fortress notices this, so when the boat blows up, they all think they died. This results in a vulgar lack of subtlety by Bison, who shouts “Game over!”
One of Bison’s henchmen discovers what Dhalsim is up to, and attacks him. This results in one of my favorite movie linesever. The goon says to Dhalsim, “So you think you’re smart, eh? Let’s see how smart you are when you’renot breathing!” Dhalsim gets knocked around, and winds up getting the mutagens spilled on him. Blanka then escapes, and tosses the henchman around.
After breaking in, Guile gets attacked by Blanka. Guile somehow recognizes him, and convinces him that he is his friend. Blanka asks Guile to help him, and Guile says he will. So, naturally, Guile picks up his gun and is about to shoot Blanka in the head. Gee, thanks for the help, jackass. Guile doesn’t get to finish “helping” Blanka, because Dhalsim interrupts him.
Since Bison never received his $20 billion, he is going to execute his hostages. However, instead of executing them normally, he is going to have “his creation” Blanka do it. But when Blanka’s chamber is raised, it isn’t Blanka who comes out of it, it is Guile. Actually, let me be more specific. It is Guile, who comes out doing flying karate kicks at Bison.
As soon as this happens, the Street Fighter really hits the fan. Bison’s guards, who look like the love children of the Imperial Guards from Star Wars and HISS Drivers from GI Joe, start firing everywhere. Bison commands them to shoot the hostages, but they are thwarted by Guile’s closing of the hostages’ prison door.
All of the important prisoners, the ones who have already had speaking lines in the movie, escape, and start to fight the HISS Guards. Everyone either punches or kicks at other people, or they shoot at other people. That sentence covers about twenty minutes of screen time.
Eventually, the two sides come to a standstill, and their respective leaders begin trash talking each other. I discovered that the trash talk lines that are used in the video game sound cool only when used within the context of a video game. When the lines are spoken by human beings, they sound ridiculous.
Another poor video game to movie translations is the characters’ special moves. Guile starts doing flash kicks, which are essentially kicks in a back flip, Ryu is throwing fireballs, and Bison is doing a horizontal flying attack. In the game, all of these moves are impressive and deadly. In real life, they look kind of odd. Ryu’s fireball, besides being completely random in the context of the movie, looks more like he’s taking a flash picture with his hands than shooting anything out. When attempting to take a screen cap of his fireball, I discovered that the special effects were even more special than I had thought. Instead of using ANY type of computer animation for the fireball, all that happens is the entire screen goes white. That’s it. This is his fireball, frame by frame:
Bison’s flying attack in the game moves quickly, which makes it a good attack. In the movie, he sort of hovers towards Guile; the speed at which Bison flies would give Guile enough time to go online to a video game web site and read up on how to win the fight. And Guile’s flash kick is, well actually it’s pretty cool. So we’ll leave that one alone.
Meanwhile, Ken and Ryu proceed to kick Vega and Sagat’s asses mercilessly.
During Guile and Bison’s battle, Bison starts doing all kind of random things. He starts flying everywhere, with his glowing boots. He also shoots lightning out of his hand, in either a nod to the Emperor from Star Wars or a complete rip off of it. When Bison does another one of his “flying at the speed of public transportation” attacks at Guile, he winds up getting spin kicked in the face. This results in Bison flying into a group of TV screens and blowing up. Guile, of course is ready with another Van Damme gem, “Bison, you’re off the air.”
By the way, Honda and Zangief have been fighting. Honda stops fighting to help get the hostages out, which leaves Zangief to talk to another one of Bison’s goons, the Jamaican Dee Jay. Zangief yells at Dee Jay for running away, to which Dee Jay explains that Bison is actually a complete jerk. Dee Jay tries to explain that Bison had been paying him a ton of money to stick around, but now that Bison was gone, so was he. To this, Zangief replies, “You got… paid?” I told you, he’s awesome.
While this is going on, the army is trying to help the hostages escape before the building blows up. Oh yeah, when Bison blew up, it screwed something up which means everything is going to blow up soon. Anyway, the emergency exit gate is rapidly closing, and it becomes apparent that the army and the hostages aren’t going to make it out on time. That is, until Zangief comes and saves the day, by holding the door open for them.
Guile tries to rescue Blanka and Dhalsim, but they aren’t going anywhere. Blanka doesn’t want to go back to society looking like a freak, which is understandable. Dhalsim is going to stay with Blanka, as some sort of self-inflicted punishment upon himself. Guile questions this, since Dhalsim said he didn’t do anything to hurt Blanka, and that it was Bison’s forces that did it. To this, Dhalsim replies “If good men do nothing, that is evil enough.” Awwwww. That’s one Oscar Wilde – type refrigerator magnet quote right there
Outside the fortress, everyone has gathered to escape the explosion. Everyone, that is, except for Guile. When the fortress explodes, everyone gets concerned, since Guile is their ride home.
Sagat and Dee Jay have made their way outside, carting a giant crate full of money. However, when they open the crate, they discover it is full of Bison dollars. That’ll teach you to think crime pays. Sagat can’t even sell them on eBay to collectors of memorabilia from the movie, since there are probably only three of them.
Then, back at the army’s gathering point, Guile has returned! YAY! He gets mad props from all his main men and women, and delivers a few more jokes that are more painful than crotch punches.
Then suddenly, the fortress explodes, which prompts all of the characters to jump up and do their victory pose from the video game. I know I’ve mentioned other examples of this, and I KNOW I shouldn’t have to point it out in this instance, but this is just another tragic example of the video game translating poorly to live action.
So, there you have it: Street Fighter the movie. That wasn’t so bad, was it? No, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was great. Despite the fact that everything associated with it is awful, the movie stands strong. I have already discussed the intricacies of the game based on the movie, way over there.
When I was looking online for merchandise based on the movie besides the game and the action figures, I found some eBay auctions for the video game. I knew the game came out in the arcade, but I forgot which consoles it came out for. Apparently, it came out for the Sega Saturn. This has to be something of a tough sell. First of all, I can’t imagine the demand for the game itself to be too great, even with all of the kitsch demand. More importantly, who the hell owns a Saturn? It sold about a hundred units when it was first introduced, and I would assume the majority of those have stopped working by now.
There were also GI Joe figures made based on the movie. There were also ones made that were based on the game, and not the movie, so I don’t really know what’s going on with that. The only other cool merchandise I found was a trading card set, with a full ninety cards. It was $10 on eBay, and normally that would be a slam dunk purchase for me, but something told me not to buy it. I feel that if I bought it, and made someone else lose, that I would be acting very selfish. I know that if I bought it, I wouldn’t use it to wallpaper my room, and that would be wrong. So, hopefully someone more deserving will win that auction.
My advice to everyone is to go to their local Best Buy and pick this up on DVD for $5.99. Or you can also go on Amazon and buy it for $10, which is what I recommend doing. If you pay four dollars and one cent more for it, it means you will get that much more out of the movie. Of course, I’d probably also recommend dying your skin green and your hair orange, so take what you will from my advice.
I was going to make the opening sentence to this, “I hate KISS.” But then it got me wondering if I really do. I mean, obviously the music is terrible; that goes without saying. However, KISS does wind up being associated with some great things, like Beavis and Butthead video clips. Actually, I think that is the only good thing they are associated with.
Ahem.
I hate KISS.
Actually, is it “KISS” or just “Kiss”? The big neon signs at their concerts always spell it with capital letters, but nothing else seems to spell it that way. Normally, I would think that anything giant and glowing would have to be correct, but given the fact that holding down the shift key for four letters is annoying, I am going to go with Kiss.
Kiss always seemed cool when I was a kid. There were the costumes, which looked cool to a child. So basically, they were these evil warrior guys playing heavy metal. Kiss also had a bad ass reputation, because when I was younger, my parents were big into how music was evil. They read up on back masking, and all of that stuff. One thing that caused a big controversy was that Kiss supposedly stood for “Knights in Satin’s Service.” You have to understand, this was a time when it was not acceptable for men to display effeminate traits, so dressing in women’s fabrics was viewed as being evil.
I remember the first time I heard a Kiss song. It was during Beavis and Butthead, the one where Butthead goes, “Whoa, that dude’s got a comb in his back pocket.” The video was for that I love it loud song. Needless to say, any preconceived opinions I had of the band went out the window. They went from being metal warriors to soldiers in the army of fruit rock.
My fascination with Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park goes back a while. I was watching TV with my goth friend Dersh, when something came on VH1 about the movie. I don’t know why we were watching VH1, maybe this was back when Pop Up Video was still on. Anyway, I don’t remember anything about the show, except when they showed a certain clip from the movie. Gene Simmons yells, “STAR CHILD,” which is followed up by Paul Stanley shooting an orange star beam from his eye.
Since that fateful night, there has been something of a void inside me. My inability to fully understand what was going on in that scene left me feeling empty. Are Kiss (or is it “Is Kiss”?) supposed to have magic powers in real life, or was this something that was made up for the movie with no explanation? Or, even worse, were their magic powers EXPLAINED in the movie, and I am left out of the loop?
My fascination with the scene faded in time, save for the occasional outburst of “STAR CHILD!” at random points. Then, while perusing a site that lists multimedia files that, theoretically, are available for download, I came across the movie. My reaction to seeing it listed was similar to the reaction you would get if you saw a dinosaur on your front lawn. At first you see it, and might just think, huh, a dinosaur. Then the double take occurs, where you realize just what you are seeing, then the mixed reactions of excitement and fear.
Yes, fear. I was worried, what if the movie wasn’t totally awesome? What if “STAR CHILD!” was taken completely out of context, and it was part of a lame dream sequence? What if, for some horrible reason, “STAR CHILD!” wasn’t even in the movie at all?????
So while I waited for the movie to download, I pondered these possibilities. I also wondered about the really important question: would the movie be just bad, or would it be bad in the best possible way?
So here it is. No more introductions, no more beating around the bush: Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
The movie starts off with a montage of amusement park rides and Kiss playing their instruments. They are playing the only Kiss song that I know about half of the words to, “I Want to Rock And Roll All Night And Party Every Day.” I don’t know when the song title ends.
This is also the first time I can remember hearing the studio version of this song in a long time, and it serves as a reminder that Kiss is not good at making music. Gene Simmons (bass/vocals/”The Demon”) doesn’t have a bad ass voice to go with his image. Paul Stanley (guitar/vocals/”Star Child”ß-YES!) at least looks like a fruit, so his womanly singing isn’t such a strange juxtaposition. But Gene should have a voice like the guy from Pantera, so it’s something of a letdown to hear him sing.
Also, my spell check suggested that Pantera should be spelled Pant era, which would have made a much more awesome name for the band.
After the intro, it cuts to a parade of some sort, and we learn that Kiss will be playing concerts at this amusement park, which happens to be Magic Mountain, for three nights in a row. The management is talking with security, about concerns over safety. Some are worried that their will be a riot, while the others assure them that the kids are only there to see their heroes. When I say, “which happens to be Magic Mountain,” it makes it seem like that is of some importance. It’s actually not.
The next five minutes consist solely of watching a couple on a roller coaster.
We then discover that this couple will probably be central characters, since they are given speaking lines, and more screen time in the opening ten minutes than Kiss. The guy works at the park, and the girl is his girlfriend. Or they just have a very cool friendship, going by their opened mouth kiss.
Then, the real stars of the movie are introduced; the denim clad, white trash biker comedy relief. They decide that the line for a ride is too long, so they just walk right to the front of it, and cut the line. They are forced out, so they console themselves by taking a beverage right from someone’s hand, and drinking it. Awesome.
Next, we see a group of teenagers making a human pyramid in the park, for no apparent reason. I have about a hundred things in my head that I could say about this, but I can’t narrow it down to just one. So I will just say that right after they get the pyramid set up, the previously mentioned denim trio walks over, and kicks the arm out of the lowest pyramid guy, causing the entire thing to collapse. I don’t know how wise it was of Kiss to have this trio in their movie, since they have already shown themselves to be infinitely more entertaining than the band itself.
The trio is then scolded by a creepy man. When they ask who he is, the owner of the park comes up and explains that the creepy man built the entire park. And if they can’t behave themselves, he threatens “You’ll be out of this park before you get in.” Despite the fact that they’re standing… in the middle of the park. Oh well, chalk that up to minor editing glitch.
In the meantime, the boyfriend from before, whose name is probably Tom, wanders onto what appears to be the set of the movie The Black Hole, a movie I’m never actually sure existed or not. He bumbles around, and eventually falls through a trap door. Followed by an amazing segue featuring a log flume.
Creepy Guy and the owner of the park then walk around discussing budgets for the park. Creepy Guy complains he needs more money for research and development of his rides, while the owner says he doesn’t have enough money to give him. This goes on for a few minutes, but I’m actually surprised this scene didn’t go on for longer. Because if there is one thing the average Kiss fan can’t get enough of, it’s budget discussions.
Creepy Guy keeps referring to “his work,” and old guy continues to call Kiss “the biggest band in the world.” These two phrases are repeated about three hundred times in the movie. From this conversation, we learn that the rides that Creepy Guy has recently developed have been malfunctioning. Creepy Guy refutes this, whining that you should never argue science with a book keeper. Apparently you should also never argue against tourists’ deaths with a ride designer.
Denim trio continue to cause havoc in the park. This time the main denim man, Chopper, is dry humping an animatronic gorilla, and then proceeds to punch the gorilla in the stomach. And for anyone that knows me more personally, it now becomes evident where I learn all my love techniques from.
Soon, a Scrambler type ride begins to spin out of control. The ride is going about eighty miles per hour, as you can tell from the sped up film. This malfunction is due to, you guessed it, Creepy Guy trying out experimental engines in the rides.
The girlfriend mentioned earlier eventually arrives at Creepy Guy’s office, looking for her boyfriend, who has gone missing. He allows her to enter his totally scientific office by activating the “elevator mechanism” which is an, uh, elevator. Creepy Guy then shows her around his lab / office / movie set. He introduces her to the androids he has created, which are clearly humans standing as still as they can. There is then an inexplicable barbershop quartet song.
Finally, Creepy Guy makes her leave, because he notices that the denim trio is making their way into the fun house that he designed. He then announces that the denim trio has arrived, to his army of people standing very still. He also announces this to the missing boyfriend, who is under the control of Creepy Guy, thanks to a conspicuously bleeping and flashing device attached to his neck.
Chopper is wandering around the fun house, smoking a cigarette. A family is unhappy with this, and tells him that he isn’t allowed to smoke in there. To which Chopper replies with the most amazing comeback ever: “I’ll smoke you!” Then, one by one, the gang is captured by Creepy Guy, and they are sent through a tube while a “blooooooodododooop“ sound effect plays.
At this point, since we all have seen how well balanced Creepy Guy is, the worst possible thing to happen to the park would be if they upset him. And, of course, Creepy Guy is fired ten minutes later. Despite his protests of “What about my work?” mentioning his “creations” about eleven times, the owner of the park remains steadfast in his decision. Bye bye, Creepy Guy. Luckily, they are able to part on good terms. “You will regret this day,” Creepy Guy says on his way out.
By this point, it has become rather obvious that Creepy Guy is the titular Phantom, so from now on, he will be referred to as the Phantom, since it requires less typing. So, we have been introduced to the Phantom, now where the hell is Kiss?
Oh, what’s that coming over the park’s PA system? MEAN GUITAR LICKS! That can only mean one thing… Kiss is getting ready. According to the announcement, all the generators are running, and the stage is at full power. Because pumping the music of Kiss at anything short of full power would be unacceptable.
And, just in case you were wondering what the Phantom was up to, he is back in his lab. Apparently being fired doesn’t mean having to go home right away. I remember the last time I got fired from a job, they wouldn’t even let me punch in that day. Granted, on a job satisfaction survey that was sent to the top management, I said that I hated customers, but come on. At least I didn’t sit in the security booth, watching the customers on the monitors, yelling “I will destroy you, all of you!”
Finally, after a full half hour into the movie, Kiss decides to make an appearance. They are playing a concert at the amusement park. They open with some song that I have never heard before. I would write down some of the lyrics, but I can’t remember any of them. I was too entranced by Paul Stanley’s chest hair.
Actually, I think I have heard this song before. It’s that “Shout it out loud” song. I’d probably recognize a good amount of Kiss’s songs by their choruses. During the verses, however, I have no idea. I also wish Gene Simmons didn’t have giant holes cut out of the thighs of his pants.
As Kiss is leaving the stage, towards a huge crowd, the Phantom sends the kidnapped boyfriend, whose name turned out to be Sam (I was close) to take pictures of Kiss. The security is holding back the crowd, insisting that only press people are allowed in. I guess “press” means “holding a camera,” since Sam has no problem getting up close to the band.
Sam’s girlfriend, who I think is named Melissa, although IMDB is very cryptic about it, spots Sam taking pictures, and tries to run over to him. Since she doesn’t appear to be holding a camera, security rushes to stop her. She protests, saying she needs to talk to him. Kiss notices her distress, and Gene Simmons utters the aforementioned line, which is sure to go down in history as one of the most awesome movie lines ever… “STAR CHILD!”
Paul Stanley then blasts eye lasers at the girl, projecting a giant star onto her. In just the last five seconds, the movie has already gotten a hundred times more amazing. She then walks over to the band, and is told by Gene, “Your mind speaks to us.” Meanwhile, Paul’s eye continues to glow. So apparently the band has both physical and mental super powers. Huh. Later that night, some security guards are attacked by Gene Simmons. He breaks through a brick wall, breathes cartoon fire, and proceeds to throw all of them around.
The next day, security finds Kiss sitting in lifeguard’s chairs around the pool, inexplicably wearing cloaks. Security questions them, while Ace Frehley (Space Ace) and Peter Criss (Cat Man) crack wise. Apparently, Peter Criss was so drugged out of his mind while making the movie, they had to dub over his voice with a studio actor reading his lines. The voice of Peter Criss was done by the same guy who did the voice of Aquaman on Super Friends. This makes sense, since both characters are the lamest one in the group. The dubbing of the voice is somewhat surprising though, since Peter looks fairly normal, or at least as normal as one can look while wearing cat face paint. Ace is the one who I would assume was stoned the whole time, every line he says is squeaked out in a ridiculous falsetto.
Kiss also refers to each other by their stage persona names while talking to each other, even when no one else is around. In regards to the security questioning, the following dialogue actually occurs:
Peter: “I wonder who could have done it.”
Paul: “Good question, Cat Man. What do you compute, Space Ace?”
Ace: “Insufficient data at the moment Star Child.”
Peter: “We better look into it.”
Gene: growl
Gene growls a lot in the movie, because he is “The Demon,” and demons are apparently known for growling. Also, every time he speaks, his words are accompanied by more blooping noises, which makes it almost impossible to understand what he is saying half the time.
The band then takes Melissa to their swinging pad, to show her their talismans. These are objects that give the band their powers, otherwise they would just be “ordinary human beings.” To which Gene replies, “Not quite ordinary,” Uh, alright. At least he went one scene without growling.
Kiss then has their nightly concert, only this time I definitely have never heard this song before. After the concert, the band sits around a fountain, serenading Melissa with a performance of “Beth,” which is a Kiss song I actually have heard before. I remember this mostly because it is one of the worst songs I have ever heard. It is an acoustic song, sung by Peter. It really sounds like one of those songs you would hear being recorded at Six Flags, in the booth where you can make your own music video. The song is so bad, even Melissa gets up and leaves. The band finishes the song, because I guess they still like performing it even after playing it at the past hundred or so concerts. I’m sure Peter is just glad he has the opportunity to sing in public, given his lack of “being born with a good voice.”
While Kiss is singing around the fountain, Sam is rummaging through Kiss’s room, looking for the talismans. He tries to take them, but gets shocked when he tries to pick one up. Kiss returns and discovers than someone has been trying to take the talismans, so they leave in search of the culprit.
The band then proceeds to get into a terribly uninteresting fight with a bunch of animatronic animal people. Paul Stanley makes a lot of faces like these:
Then, after this fight, they get into a fight with animatronic karate fighters. These two scenes make up two of the least interesting fight scenes ever. The biggest downside to the action is that there is less of the awesome dialogue.
We then cut to the Phantom ordering Sam to return to get the talisman (talismans?) He gives Sam a hair dryer-resembling ray gun to use “in case,” and demonstrates its awesome power by using it to blow up an object on a desk. Sam then goes back to Kiss’s room, and uses the ray gun to neutralize the protective force field. Huh? Why didn’t the gun blow up the talisman like it did to the desk? Bah.
Kiss, meanwhile, take a breather while sitting on a carousel. Suddenly, the carousel starts, which freaks out the band, because who would ever expect a carousel to start spinning around? They get off the carousel, and head to the Chamber of Horrors. And that, hopefully, is the ideal location for the CLIMAX.
The band gets jumped by a bunch of movie monsters, which leads to more growling and cartoon fire breathing from Gene. UNTIL, that is, the Phantom uses his ray gun to destroy the talisman, and stop the animation of Gene’s fire from working. Kiss then proceeds to get their collective asses handed to them, which leads Gene to shout threatening remarks to the Phantom. Which, in return, leads the Phantom to say this. We all win when things like this happen.
The movie continues, which leads me to believe that the last scene wasn’t the climax. The next day, the crowd is on the verge of rioting, since there has been no appearance from the band so far. Oh, this is why: they’re locked in a cell made of, you guessed it, animated laser bars.
The reason the Phantom had Sam take all of those pictures of the band before was so that he could make animatronic versions of Kiss. The fake band members then take the stage for the evening’s concert. The band comes out and sings a song, typical Kiss music. Something, however, is wrong. The crowd is booing, and appears very unhappy with the performance. It’s either because of how it’s being performed, or lyrics being changed, or something. The odd thing is, until the crowd’s reaction, I had no idea this bad performance was out of the ordinary for Kiss. I figured this is how they normally sounded.
Anyway, the Phantom had the fake Kiss change the lyrics to one of their songs to try to make the crowd tear the park apart. And, since Kiss suggested it, the crowd begins to do just that. “Let’s tear this place down,” one crowd member declares.
Meanwhile, Kiss apparently still has magic powers, as they are able to levitate the box containing their talisman into the cage with them. I guess the ray gun didn’t destroy them. Hm.
Outside, the crowd is going insane, threatening to destroy the entire park. That is, until the REAL Kiss flies out of the sky to attack the fake Kiss. The crowd doesn’t seem confused in the least by this, and just cheers the fight on.
The fight, like all of the other fights in the movie, sucks. For some reason, fake Kiss explodes, which leaves just the real Kiss on stage. And, after all that fighting, there is still one important task left: ROCKING OUT.
“Are you ready for the real Kiss,” Paul asks.
Hell yes.
Kiss then plays the Rock and Roll All Night song. After the show, Kiss, Melissa, and the park owner go to the Phantom’s lab, to try to turn Sam back to normal. Paul uses his magic talisman powers to spot the flashing metal object on Sam’s neck, and uses his magic talisman powers to realize that this isn’t something that is normally on one’s neck. After it is taken off, Sam wakes up and there is much happiness.
The Phantom’s fate is then revealed: he has frozen himself into one of his own robot creations. Although this effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that he is clearly blinking. “He created Kiss to destroy Kiss, and he lost,” the park owner declares.
If there is one lesson to take away from this movie, that is it. Do not try to create Kiss. Do not try to destroy Kiss. And, most important of all, never try to create Kiss in order to destroy Kiss… because you will lose.
If this had come out a couple of weeks ago, I could have started this by saying, “A new article, it’s a Christmas miracle!” Instead, I just sort of reappear awkwardly. Ah well, why break tradition, I suppose. Well, the holidays are over, to the delight of many a parent, shopper, employee, or pretty much anyone. Maybe if the Christmas decorations in my mall didn’t go up mid-October, the season wouldn’t seem to last so damned long. Instead, we get to experience a nearly three month test of monetary endurance and emotional integrity. The holiday season claims many a victim.
I feel somewhat sorry for Jewish people during this season. They have to put up with the Christmas madness, and they don’t see any shred of a reward from it; aside from suing businesses that say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays,” but that’s beside the point. Actually wait, it wasn’t, it was quite related to the point. There just wasn’t much of a reason to say that, except the hope of rumor spreading that I run a hate site, thereby increasing the traffic here. Jeez, that probably isn’t the best method to go about bringing in visitors.
Anyway, the holiday season has come to an end, so I figured this would be the best time for you to read an article… about Christmas! Yay!
I’m not writing about Christmas exactly, rather a movie inspired by the Christmas season, which really seems to be quite an untapped market. You know, businesses really should start making some Christmas related products and events; I really think they’re missing out on a potential gold mine.
This movie will make you feel infinitely better about your life, and your holidays; if only for the reason that you were not involved with the making of this movie. Unless you actually were involved, in which case I guess there would be a much different reaction. That reaction would most likely be immense pride in the fact that you contributed to a movie that completely obliterates the line between a movie that is just bad, and a movie that is so amazingly bad it rises to an entirely new level of cinematic greatness.
By now, I’m sure there really is no question as to what movie I am referring to… there can be no other. This movie is Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.
Sequels surpassing the original movies are very rare. Many of them were mentioned in “Scream2” (which wasn’t one of the previously mentioned kinds of sequel.) “Terminator2” and “Aliens” both rise about their predecessors, as does “Godfather 2.” Actually, I don’t know if it does; I haven’t seen any of the “Godfather” series. I just say I have to avoid the typical movie fan, “What?! You haven’t seen it? Oh my God you have to see it, you don’t know what you’re missing!” reaction.
The original “Silent Night, Deadly Night” actually has quite a strong cult following. It was unrated, due to extreme quantities of violence and nudity. Much of the said violence was committed by a man dressed as Santa Claus, so there are some valid reasons for the movie’s audience. Part 2 (or SNDN2, as it will be referred to from now on) also has a strong cult following, mainly consisting of a group of friends and myself. Our love for the movie is based on completely different reasons, however, most of them revolving around how flat out awful every aspect of the movie truly is.
One of the hardest parts of making a sequel is trying to give background information from the first movie, in order to accommodate viewers who never saw the original. The director of SNDN2 was smart, and knew that there were likely to be many people who never saw the original, since it wasn’t very widely released. He therefore was kind enough to include solid background, in the form of flashbacks, but we’ll get to that soon.
The story starts off in… wait, hold on, it hasn’t started yet. The camera is still panning up someone’s body; the entire panning process takes approximately ten minutes. And who is revealed? Why it’s Ricky Caldwell, our story’s main character! Ok now the story seems to start, taking place in a mental institution, where Ricky sits smoking a cigarette, and mugging to the camera. In comes an orderly, in a nifty white jumpsuit, complete with male panty lines. The scene goes on without any dialogue which, as the movie will later show, is the best thing that can happen to the viewer.
The orderly isn’t given a name, but it seems like he should have one, so we’ll go with a completely random name. Samuel L. Jackson sounds good.
Ricky and Sam seem to have quite a chemistry together, as they continue to give each other knowing, almost flirtatious looks. Samuel is jumpy, and becomes startled when Ricky flicks his lighter. Although I suppose that’s quite an understandable feeling when you are alone in a room with a shaved ape that is locked in an asylum.
Samuel finishes setting up what appears to be a tape recorder, although its size is greater than most DJ’s turntable setups.
Soon a doctor comes in, who proceeds to treat Sam like dirt, and makes him leave. Dr. Bloom, he introduces himself as. He seems a lot calmer than Samuel was, and doesn’t take any crap from Ricky, even when he starts yelling and threatening the doctor. This yelling brings Sam back in, for fear that Doc Bloom is being hurt. Instead of being thankful for the concern, the doctor merely yells at Sam and tells him to get out. What a prick.
Before leaving, Sam warns Ricky with a finger wave, although instead of wagging his finger like a normal person, he just moves his arm side to side. Jeez, it really isn’t a good indication of a cast’s acting ability when they aren’t even able to do normal human functions correctly.
Doc goes back to questioning Ricky. From the first few questions, we learn that Ricky’s parents were murdered. The strange revelation is that they were murdered by Santa Claus.
This cues a “flashback” scene, which in this movie means recycled footage from the first movie. Ricky (who is quite the ugly baby) and his family are driving along a country road, on Christmas Eve. Ricky’s parents, who are apparently the stunt doubles of the parents from “Vacation,” pull over because a man dressed as Santa was flagging them down. The father asks Santa if he needs a ride, to which Santa replies by pulling out a gun and shooting the father dead. He then assaults and kills the mother, all of which Ricky’s older brother Billy sees.
The doctor calls Ricky’s bluff, asking how he could remember all this if he was just a baby. Ricky proceeds to get all pissed off, and continues to pronounce Doc as “dawk.” Doctor Bloom asks Ricky what life was like in the orphanage, which leads us into another flashback.
We discover that his parents’ murder was very damaging to Billy. He has grown into a very ugly young boy. He displays his lack of appreciation for Santa’s evil deeds by drawing, and hanging up, classroom pictures of Santa shot by arrows and a decapitated reindeer.
This leads to Billy being called to the principal’s office, or rather the office of Mother Superior. Mother Superior is basically the amalgamation of every bad stereotype of nuns, principals, and prison wardens. She is greatly angered by Billy’s drawing, but whether that is because of the content or how awful the quality of the drawing is, can’t be determined.
Mother Superior has an incredibly odd way of speaking, a very surprising manner for an elderly woman to use. She sounds like one of the Nazi scientists from “Schindler’s List,” pronouncing until as “unteel,” and speaking with an alarmingly strange combination of calmness and sternness.
Billy gets sent to his room, but is later released by a nicer, more sensible nun. On the way to going outside to play, Billy hears noises coming from one of the rooms on his floor. The noises turn out to be a couple having sex, apparently quite loudly.
There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, who are these people? They look to be almost thirty, so why are they in an orphanage? I doubt they work there, since it seems to be run by a church. They’re too old to live there, and they’re not visiting. Hmmm. Also, what kind of sick, depraved person do you have to be to have sex in an orphanage, and at that volume? If you can’t control yourself until you leave, at least be a little quieter. Especially when the woman running the orphanage is an insane old hag who seems to display no emotions.
Billy, the perverted voyeur, decides to camp out in front of the room and stare through the keyhole. Apparently the couple was so loud that Mother Superior heard them going at it from across the building, so she comes to investigate. She throws Billy away from the door, busts in, and proceeds to beat them with a belt.
She later comes up to Billy to talk about what he saw. It is now that we learn Mother Superior’s two favorite terms, “naughty” and “punish,” which she uses over and over. After explaining to Billy why what the couple was doing was naughty, and why they needed to be punished, she then beats Billy with a belt for some reason.
We are now back with Ricky and Doc, who clearly is ashamed to be part of this movie. At first it seems his reactions to Ricky are due to the character’s role as a doctor, and that he knows to use a more logical line of thought. As the movie progresses, he seems to simply develop a great disgust for Eric Freeman the actor, and the fact that he has to appear in this movie, even as a distinguished doctor.
Ricky continues to spout of more nonsensical lines, while standing by a window with the fakest scenery outside I have ever seen.
About three minutes of new footage goes by, which means we are way overdue for some more flashbacks.
Ricky tells of one Christmas at the orphanage, when Santa came to visit. Mother Superior forces Billy to sit on Santa’s lap, but Billy struggles because he’s scared of him. When confronted by Santa, Billy cold cocks him and knocks him flat on his ass, which is really just one of the most amazing sites to behold. Billy then runs away, and is chased after by Mother Superior. The scene cuts off, showing a frightened (and ugly) Billy’s face, as Mother Superior enters the room. Given her tendency to overreact in the past, I can only imagine his punishment this time. Certainly something involving branding irons or cordless drills or something.
We are now at a transition between the tale of young and old Billy. Since there is a stoppage in recycled footage, we get to watch in awe of Eric Freeman’s (Ricky, in case you forgot) acting ability. He simply has no control over his emotional range. Any call for a slight raise in emotions means he simply blows his top and chews his lines and scenes up like a maniac. His eyebrows rise and fall like the chart of the heart beat of a man going into a cardiac arrest. His energetic approach to acting is made even more ridiculous by his size. In any given scene, he is simply a giant man yelling and bounding about, as his eyebrows display thousands of random emotions at once.
Now that that is taken care of, it’s back to the excitement. Billy has turned eighteen, and therefore is able to leave the orphanage. Billy now vaguely resembles a young Phil Anselmo from Pantera. He is set up with a job at the local toy store. Either the management of this store was given no background to Billy, or they are simply jackasses. They decide the best task to give him is to dress up like Santa Claus for their customers. Billy goes on to tell children that he doesn’t bring toys to naughty girls; rather he punishes them…severely. I’m a firm believer that negative reinforcement can be effective, but perhaps that’s not the best time to go for it.
After the customers leave, it’s time for the big Christmas party. God, this group of employees is a bunch of losers. Their party consists of standing around, while the managers get blitzed out of their minds. And for some reason, Billy is still wearing the Santa costume. Two of the employees break off from the group, and go into the back room. Billy decides to follow them, since apparently his perverted habits haven’t dissipated since the last time he was caught spying on people.
It seems the guy in the tight bootleg Lacoste shirt wasn’t quite the chick magnet he thought he was. In the back room, the girl resists his advances, but he proceeds anyway. This scene gives Billy a flashback (a flashback within a flashback… simply fantastic) to when his mother was being assaulted by Santa. This makes him snap, and Billy goes ahead and strangles the guy. The girl is less than thankful to Billy, so he decides to kill her as well.
Drunky the manager bumbles into the back to see what the commotion is all about, and winds up with a hammer to the skull for his troubles. The other stupid manager eventually winds up walking to the back herself, only to discover what happened. She tries to escape, and Billy chases her around the store. It’s strange to see a murderous chase amidst old boxes of Mousetrap and Kermit dolls. Her attempts to flee are all for naught, as Billy drops her with an arrow to the back. You know, the typical bow and arrows that carry the force to penetrate human flesh and bone, the ones you see in toy stores all the time.
Ricky insists it wasn’t Billy’s fault, rather it was Mother Superior’s fault for raising him so poorly. At this point, the doctor takes out a friggin’ pipe, to attempt to become the epitome of stereotypical father figures in film.
Ricky tells the tale of Billy’s murder spree, of course in flashback form. Billy only punished “naughty” people, for which he didn’t have to look very far. One of the first victims was the doppelganger of the bad guy from the first “Karate Kid” movie, which Billy proceeds to pummel all over his house and tosses out a window.
The next set of victims was rather interesting. The scene starts with two kids sledding at night. The kids are then bullied into giving up their sleds by two men who appear to be in their late thirties. Billy, come on. If two middle aged men’s lives consist of jumping kids so they can go sledding, leave them be. Their lives are as empty as can be already.
Of course, how Ricky knows that all of this happened is unknown. He knows every detail of Billy’s murders, despite being nowhere near any of them, and not being told about them.
We wind up back at the orphanage, where we see a Santa walking towards the children in the front yard. A police man speeds to the orphanage, fearing Billy has come back to harm someone. He then proceeds to shoot Santa dead, right in front of the kids. It turns out this Santa wasn’t Billy, rather the orphanage’s deaf janitor dressed up to surprise the kids. The cop searches the scene for Billy, and finds him. He also finds an axe buried in his chest.
Billy is let into the orphanage by an absolutely idiotic kid, despite being told specifically not to. If you just saw Santa shot by a policeman, it might be a wise idea to steer clear of the next one you see, especially if he appears ten minutes later. Despite this, the kid lets Billy in, and Billy attempts to murder Mother Superior. He fails in his attempt, since he gets shot by a detective who just showed up. This makes the second Santa that was shot in full view of the children. They are going to grow up so messed up in the head.
Unfortunately for the director, Billy’s death means he has run out of footage from the first movie to use, and must now actually start using his own ideas. This movie runs about 88 minutes, 40 of them being clips from the first movie. The fact that they got away with this is truly impressive.
Understandably, the orphanage was closed after all the murders. They were able to find a family for Ricky… the Rosenbergs. Ah ha, quite the witty idea. A child is scarred by Santa, so have him live with a Jewish family, no problems there.
His years growing up are shown to be pretty normal. However, one day on the street with his mother, he starts spazzing out when he sees two nuns walking in slow motion, “Reservoir Dogs” style towards him. He loses it, showing that he’s still messed up from his childhood.
After his father dies, Ricky seems to go into a downward spiral at age seventeen. While walking through a field, inexplicably carrying a stick like he was Tom Sawyer or something, he stumbles upon a couple having a picnic. Apparently inheriting his brother’s voyeuristic tendencies, he watches them. The male gets aggressive with the woman, then backs off to get a beer from his Jeep.
Ricky takes this opportunity to get in the man’s Jeep, and run him over. About a dozen times. When leaving the scene, Ricky is thanked by the woman, who apparently sees nothing wrong with what just happened.
My my, what an interesting growth spurt we had between ages seventeen and eighteen. Ricky seems to have grown about a foot, added fifty pounds of muscle, and had his facial structure completely changed.
He tells about when he was working at a restaurant, and ran into a loan shark outside, beating up a client. Ricky, of course, only sees one logical solution to this situation. He lifts the man up against a wall, and impales him with an umbrella.
These two murders come as a shock to the doctor, since neither of them were on Ricky’s record. They do indicate how at first, Ricky was like his brother and only punished people who he felt were naughty.
We soon discover that there used to be a love in Ricky’s life, a girlfriend named Jennifer. The doctor gives Ricky what appears to be an autographed publicity shot of her. It is signed “Ricky, all the best, Jennifer,” which seems like quite an odd way to sign a picture of yourself to your boyfriend. He’s not asking you for an autograph, sister, you put some damned heart into that message.
We enter another flashback, however this time, it’s not to the first movie, but actual new footage. He is sitting on a motorcycle, seemingly trying to live the life of Jesse Katsopolis. While loitering on his bike, he becomes involved in the world’s most avoidable accident. Instead of apologizing for her vehicular faux pas, Jennifer gets out of her car and basically laughs at him for getting knocked to the ground.
Now normally with Ricky, this would result in you having a foreign object impaled into you or something similar to that effect. However, since he can’t stop leering at her legs, he gets distracted and forgets to murder her. We are then treated to a montage of their relationship, which basically consists of riding on the motorcycle and having sex.
Next we see them on a date at the movies. This movie, sadly enough, is made up of clips from the first movie. In a way, that’s kind of funny and self aware, but at the same time, it’s just more recycled footage. Bleh. While Ricky stares slack jawed at the screen, two lowlifes in the back row won’t shut up. Eventually, they start teasing Ricky and Jennifer, which really is not a smart idea. Even if the man you’re teasing isn’t an insane murderer, you usually want to avoid picking fights with people literally three times your size.
Inspired by the onscreen violence, Ricky decides to go to the back of the theatre to beat up the guys that were bothering them. While he is off doing this, Jennifer’s old boyfriend Chip shows up. Chip represents everything that was truly excellent about the 80’s. Ridiculous hair, clothes, and a smirk that just says, “Punch me.” The two of them discuss their old relationship, and Chip unsuccessfully tries to get back together with her.
While this is going on, Ricky finds his way to the back of the theatre, where the two guys who were bothering them are sitting. Here’s another pair of winners, one of them with the best mustache I have ever seen. Ricky proceeds to either beat up or kill the two off screen, with comical sound effects and popcorn flying thrown in for good measure.
The next day, Ricky and Jennifer are walking down the street. Watching Ricky spout out romantic lines is uncomfortable, like staring at a car accident. I honestly feel ashamed for him at certain points.
The two of them run into Chip, who is working on his car. Chip, who seems to have gotten his hair re-bleached since yesterday, starts bothering them, and gloats to Ricky about their past relationship. Obviously, what needs to be done in this situation is to put jumper cables in Chip’s mouth, and proceed to pump electricity into him until his eye sockets explode. Fortunately, Ricky is wise enough to know this, and goes ahead and does just that.
For some reason, this surprises Jennifer. She starts yelling at him, and telling him how much she hates him for doing that. “That”, you’ll recall, being violently murdering her ex-boyfriend in cold blood right in front of her. Of course, this causes Ricky to snap, and strangle Jennifer with a car antenna. All of this taking place in broad daylight, in the middle of the suburbs.
A police officer comes after Ricky, with gun drawn (and hat off center.) He threatens to shoot Ricky if Ricky doesn’t come along quietly. Instead of complying, Ricky takes the cop’s gun and shoots him in the head.
What follows this scene will go down in motion picture history. The upcoming events are, without a doubt, the greatest sequences ever captured on film. These next scenes are so important, that the proud crew who were filming this made sure to capture themselves, in order to be part of it:
Ricky takes the gun he stole from the police officer, and goes off on an absolutely unnecessary killing spree. He walks around the suburbs, shooting people at random. The first kill is a man running out of the house with beer in hand, to see what all the noise is outside.
What happens next is simply the best thing ever recorded, and it pains me that the full extent of its amazingness can’t be understood until it is actually seen.
We see a man taking out his garbage, the garbage can blocking the viewer from seeing Ricky. Apparently the man can’t see him either, due to the director’s complete lack of understanding of angles and perspective. Ricky simply shouts out, with no shortness of glee, “Garbage day!!!” The surprised man looks up, and is shot. This leads to Ricky giggling and laughing like a madman. Well I guess he actually is a madman, so it makes sense that he is laughing like one. This murder is the epitome of randomness, and the idea of it seems to have been made up on the spot.
What makes this situation odd is that the garbage gets picked up early; so if you were taking your garbage out that would mean it was very early in the morning. If so, why were Ricky and Jennifer on a date at approximately 7 AM? And why was the first victim drinking beer this early? Wow, white trash deluxe.
Ricky continues to walk around the neighborhood, laughing all the way. He spies a car driving down the road towards him, and starts firing at the car. The car spins out, and hits a ramp that is inexplicably placed at the side of the road. Ricky goes back to wandering around the neighborhood, alternating between striking a tough face, and grinning like a child. He also keeps looking at his gun and laughing, which I suppose is supposed to show he’s crazy with its power or something, but really just looks retarded.
Eventually he is stopped by a roadblock of cops (why the cops are set up in road block formation, when they’re chasing a man on foot is beyond me.) Ricky tries to kill himself, in order to avoid jail, but he has no more bullets in his gun.
The murder flashback ends, and we are now back in the institution, where Ricky is finishing telling the story of the Garbage Day. What we now see is that he strangled the doctor (who now looks exactly like Woody Allen) with recording tape. The doctor is quite pale by this point, which would indicate that he’s been dead for at least a little bit. Yet for some reason, Ricky is still in the room, rambling on. I guess once you start talking about Garbage Day, it really is quite hard to stop yourself.
Ricky then walks out the room, and apparently murders every single guard in the place, since he is able to escape. He later kills a Salvation Army Santa, and steals the costume. Where is he going, dressed up like this? Why, Mother Superior’s house! Mother Superior now has some sort of unexplained facial scarring, and is also played by a different actress than the Mother Superior of the first movie. Strangely enough, the actress who played the second Mother Superior was murdered in real life. No word on whether Eric Freeman was ever brought in as a suspect.
Ricky breaks into the house, and chases Mother Superior around. He takes quite a long time catching her, considering she is wheelchair bound, and he is a giant monster. He eventually corners her, and proceeds to chop her head off with an axe. Another example of the director’s scientific genius is that Ricky takes a fully downward swing with the axe, yet the head is severed sideways.
Since the detectives knew he was going after Mother Superior, they finally wind up at her house, along with one of the nuns from the old orphanage. They discover Mother Superior sitting in her chair, perfectly still. The nun goes over her to see if she’s alright, only to knock the previously removed head off her shoulders. Apparently Mother Superior had zero blood flowing through her, since absolutely no blood is ever spilled from her, despite the great damage done.
Ricky then attempts to kill the nun, but is shot by the detective. In the last shot of the movie, we see a grinning Ricky Caldwell breathe his last breath.
I’m somewhat ashamed of my inability to explain in words just how amazing this movie really is. The only way to truly know is to find out for yourself. Luckily, it can be yours for only a few dollars on eBay. That truly is the best value for your dollar you will ever get in your life.
Unfortunately, Eric Freeman’s acting career never took off. He appeared on an episode of “Just the Ten of Us” as well as “The Hogan Family.” For some reason, his role in SNDN2 was not enough to guarantee him superstardom in Hollywood.
There is no justice in this world, when a crime like that goes unpunished.
Diet Coke-Babies 