Historically Inaccurate Movie Day – The Legend of the Wrath of the Gods of Exodus

We had four films lined up on our Historically Inaccurate Movie smörgåsbord. The following reviews were aided by live tweets, snappy one-liners and heaps of sugar. This is a bit of a long read, my apologies in advance!

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The first order of business was Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to the 2010 mythological disappointment Clash of the Titans. Basically, Perseus is charged with rescuing his father, Zeus, from Hades and Ares. Hades is killing his brothers to channel their divine power into resurrecting the Titan Kronos. Perseus must travel to the Underworld, aided by Andromeda, Hephaestus and some extremely stupid Greek soldiers.

Running time: 99 minutes

Director: Jonathan Liebesman

Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Rosamund Pike

Inaccuracies vs. The Mythology

• Tartarus is seemingly in the middle of the Underworld vs. “as far below the house of Hades as the earth is below the heavens”
• The house of Hades is made of lava vs. a cold, desolate world surrounded by water (Styx and Oceanus)
• Hades, Poseidon and Zeus are estranged brothers due to Zeus forcing Hades to rule the Underworld vs. Zeus freeing his brothers from Kronos and the brothers drawing lots to determine the realm they will rule
• The gods were able to enter the Underworld vs. nothing still living shall enter the Underworld
• Chimeras had dragon wings vs. lion with the head of a goat, with a tail (possibly ending with a snake head), and breathes fire
• Andromeda was a warrior woman vs. rescued by Perseus, marries him and lives with him at Mycenae
• Perseus was married to Io and had a son named Helios (what the serious fuck?) vs. Perseus marrying Andromeda and having 7 sons and 2 daughters together, while also founding and ruling Mycenae
• Cyclopes were used as guards on Hephaestus’ private island vs. being craftsman and herders
  

  The Labyrinth

• The origin of the Labyrinth being created by Hephaestus as a gate to the Underworld vs. the Labyrinth built by Daedalus as a prison for the Minotaur at Knossos
• Hephaestus knows the route to the Underworld vs. Hermes being the only god, other than Hades and Persephone, who know the route as he is the one who channels the dead there
• The Minotaur guarding the route to the Underworld vs. Cerberus guarding the gates of the Underworld
• Using Aspis shields for phalanx formation vs. larger, longer shields appropriate for the period
• The Spear of Trium (made of Zeus’s Lightning Bolt, Poseidon’s Trident and Hades’ weird Pitch Fork) being the only weapon that can kill Kronos vs. the gods cannot be killed; there is no such thing as “The Spear of Trium”; the word “Trium” would be Latin, not Greek; Zeus had a Thunderbolt, Poseidon had a Trident and Hades has a Helmet of Invisibility (all used to defeat the Titans)
• Ares’ weapon of choice is a mace vs. a sword, a spear, a shield or even a flaming torch (pick one)
• Four-armed Hekatonkheires vs. one hundred-armed and fifty-headed Hekatonkheires
• Roman and Norse weapons, armour and formations vs. this should not have to be explained

 

A Winged Chimera

 

 

Thoughts

Aside from this film being riddled with historical and mythological inaccuracies, it was also dull. At least they decided to move away from the monochromatic colour scheme of Clash but it was still just another action movie. The CGI already looks dated and the sound balancing made it almost impossible to hear some of the dialogue. Once again, this had close to nothing to do with the actual mythological Titans. Kronos was on screen for all of 15 minutes, maybe.

My rating: 2½/5

Buy or rent Wrath of the Titans on Amazon.

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The Legend of Hercules was by far the funniest of the films. Unintentionally so. We found ourselves in hysterics largely due to our inability to hear the dialogue. Unlike, Wrath of the Titans, we were unable to hear anything due to a number of very strong accents among the cast. As a result we decided to fill in our own dialogue.

As the title says, this is the alleged genesis story of the demi-god Hercules.

Running time: 99 minutes

Director: Renny Harlin

Starring: Kellan Lutz, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins

Inaccuracies vs. The Mythology

• Amphitryon purposefully killing the King of Tiryns vs. accidentally killing Aclmene‘s father and seeking purification
• Amphitryon’s rejection of Hercules and the murder of Alcmene vs. raising Hercules with the best tutors (many of which were gods) and having a wife that honoured him like no other
• Alcmene turning to the goddess Hera for help vs. Hera hating Zeus’  countless affairs and punishing Hercules by trying to kill him
• Iphicles’ (Hercules’ half-brother) jealousy vs. the brother who died in battle and whose own son became Hercules’ charioteer
• The killing of the Nimean Lion as a chance encounter vs. The Twelve Labours of Hercules as an amends for killing his wife (Megara) and children from a temporary madness caused by Hera
• The source of Hercules’ strength is that he is the son of Zeus vs. Hera’s being tricked into nursing the infant Hercules and her divine milk giving him his power
  

  Are you not entertained?

• Hercules being outcast by his father and sold into slavery by his brother (for gladiatorial games) vs. being raised lovingly be Amphitryon and eventually sold into slavery (not gladiatorial games) by Apollo for the murder of Iphitus at Tiryns

• Hercules’ lover Hebe betrothed to his brother vs. Hebe being Hercules’ sister and no arrangement of her marriage to Iphicles exists
• Alcmene calling Hercules Alcides to hide his true name from Amphitryon vs. his parents dropping the epithet Alcides from his name, to unsuccessfully appease Hera
• Being the origin story of a Greek hero named Hercules vs. his Greek name Herakles
• Roman and Egyptian weapons, armour and formations vs. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is incorrect
• Hercules chained in the Agora vs. this was actually Samson from the bible
• Hercules’ lightning whip vs. his usual club, bow and arrows

 

Anubis in Greece

 

 

Thoughts

Everything about this movie was bad. The lack of clear dialogue, the special effects and terrible acting. The mythology was changed for no tangible betterment of the film. If we had not been half delirious from our sugar rush, I’m not sure we would have been able to finish this monstrosity. I have no idea why Hercules was made into a gladiatorial fighter, other than the filmmakers wanting to show off their 3D filming techniques. The only thing that was correct for the time period was the statues of Hera.

My rating: 1/5

Buy or rent The Legend of Hercules on Amazon.

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Truly, the dark horse of the day, Gods of Egypt far surpassed our expectations and was the least offensive when it came to historical and mythological inaccuracies.

Set has essentially stolen the throne of upper and lower Egypt from Horus by killing Osiris. After years of blindness and isolation, Horus accepts the help from a mere mortal in overthrowing his uncle.

Running time: 127 minutes

Director: Alex Proyas

Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler

Inaccuracies vs. The Mythology

• Demons in the afterlife vs. that’s not really a thing in Egyptian mythology
• Hathor being seduced by darkness into her role at the usher of the dead vs. being the “mistress of the west” was a great duty revered by mortals
• Hathor being the Egyptian version of Aphrodite vs. Hathor being the goddess of female (motherly, sisterly) love and companionship (Though she was likened to Aphrodite by the Greeks, the Egyptian did not incorporate this into their beliefs)
• Hathor’s bracelet shielding her from being taken back into the Underworld vs. no such item every existed
• Thoth being sassy (though great as comic relief) vs. Thoth being very factual and precise
• Hathor’s ability to control any living creature with her eyes vs. not present in any versions of her mythology
• Isis dying with Osiris, and not once turning into a throne vs. only Osiris’s death is mythologically correct
• A largely white cast of Egyptian gods vs. this should be obvious

The Sphinx

Thoughts

 

This was an interesting stylistic version of Egypt and its mythology. The list of inaccuracies is substantially smaller the previous movies because the filmmakers made it very clear that this is meant to be an almost alternate history. Having said that, the individual gods mythologies and their purposes were largely adhered to, except Hathor, which is the problem with her characterisation. I understand her narrative changing for purposes of the plot but it was unnecessary on the whole. James and I absolutely loved the characterisation and styling of Anubis, and that he was not depicted as an evil or negative god/deity. Similarly, the idea of the rich being granted everlasting life was a fantastic inclusion as at one point in Egyptian history this was thought to be the case. Ra and his celestial battle with Apep was stunningly represented, as well as the world disc. One of my favourite entities was the Sphinx.

The World Disc

It was a fun movie to watch, and it clearly had an enormous budget. The CGI was great and I especially like the gods’ “true forms”, even though everything was gold. The casting was great, as the actor are all good actors, except Elodie Yung. She was just annoying. It annoyed me that the only black actor was automatically the sassy, black character. It was cliched and tired. I would have liked to see more people of colour in this movie but that’s an issue for another day. All-in-all though, this was a fun watch, from an historical, mythological and film perspective.

My rating: 4/5

Buy or rent Gods of Egypt on Amazon.

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In keeping with the Egyptian theme, we decided to round our day off with Exodus: Gods and Kings. What a complete crock of shit.

Let me also just get this bit of controversy out of the way before I start: there is no record (other than the bible) or archaeological evidence that 2 million Jews (based on the figure of 600 000 males) left Egypt during that time depicted in the bible. For this reason, I am referring to the story as mythology. It still holds important cultural and religious meaning, just as any other peoples’ mythologies do.

Running time: 150 minutes

Director: Ridley Scott

Starring: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Ben Kingsley

Inaccuracies vs. The Mythology

• White buildings and statues in Egypt vs. Walls and statuary being colourfully painted
• Miriam and Jochebed living with Moses in the palace, as his servants vs. Moses raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter

The Blue Burning Bush

• Moses hitting his head on a rock and then talking to a child and a burning bush vs. Moses’ tending a flock and hearing a voice call to him, finding the burning bush and speaking with the angel
• The God of Abraham represent by Malak in the form of a child beside the bush vs. an angel of the Lord appearing inside the burning bush to speak to Moses
• The cause, number and order of the plagues (no lice and no raining fire) vs. ten plagues in order caused by the Lord, who was making Pharaoh refuse to let the Israelites go
• No negotiation with Pharaoh vs. Moses asking Pharaoh to let his people go each day
• No snake vs. Aaron taking instruction from the Lord and casting his staff onto the ground in front of Pharaoh and his men, and it turning into a snake
• The Red Sea moving aside for the wayward travelers, while Moses slept vs. Moses parting the Red Sea with the help of the Lord

A Wall of Red Sea

 

 

Thoughts

This was a boring movie to watch. Epic in scale and as shiny as Gods of Egypt the movie felt empty, slow and lacklustre. The changes to the biblical account of the Exodus worked against the film. In fact, Ridley Scott made it seem like the entire Exodus was the result of a Traumatic Brain Injury or severe hallucinations. I also couldn’t understand why this weird blue filter was used for the entire film. When everything wasn’t blue, it was gold. Fundamental elements of the story was changed for the film, like the absence of Aaron (Moses’ brother) in  negotiations with Pharaoh and Moses’ sister and mother living in the palace with him. Further, I haven’t a clue as to why it was sub-titled “Gods and Kings”. The “Kings” I get but the “Gods” not so much. I saw one angry child, who alternated between representing the Lord and the angel Malak, while the Egyptian gods were nowhere to be seen. I will say that Isaac Andrews gave a spectacular performance. That kid is going places. Other than that, there is no real reason to watch this movie.

My rating: 2/5

Buy Exodus: Gods and Kings on Amazon.

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And that was our Historically Inaccurate Movie day. Many people will argue that mythologies cannot be incorrect as they are just made up stories anyway. What many people do not realise is that to the civilisations to whom those mythologies belong, they were considered historical accounts of the foundations of their civilisation and empire (Rome – Romulus and Remus), they were biographies of, then considered, historical figures (Herakles and Achilles), they were often the basis for religious practice (The Elusinian Mysteries), and the creation stories of their time (Gaia and Oceanus – Greek, and Nun and Chaos – Egypt), meaning that they can only be altered within reason.

For more movie reviews by TropicalMary, click here.

Twilight: The Ultimate Movie Marathon

Alright, I’ll be the first to say it: this was a dumbass idea team!  And I can’t even blame the team for this; this was entirely my own idea. Against my own better judgement, the combined better judgement of Tropical Mary, Stygian Mole and the Occult Specialist, and against any common sense whatsoever I insisted that we watch these movies as part of an Ultimate Movie Marathon. The thought behind it was that if we could make it through them all (even if it meant Debbie Gibsoning the hell out of ourselves), we would be some of the most hardcore movie watchers out there. It wasn’t a good thought. These movies stole my smart, they stole my will to live, and my friends want to burn me as a witch for what I did to them.

It started out like any other UMM day, with all the snacks and coke and cigarettes at the ready, but we knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. We also knew that, since this ‘saga’ is aimed at teenagers, we wouldn’t be able to do our regular breast-to-death ratio since there would be minimal death and nary a breast in sight. Instead, we decided to go with something more practical: stares (sorry Stygian Mole!) to men’s nipples (OK, watching the Occult Specialist handle this was kinda fun). Now, since most people are well aware of what these stupid movies entail, I’m gonna give you a brief summary of each one before plowing into the stream of consciousness to show you what we went through, all in the name of b-horror blogging.

TWILIGHT

You can either be vampires, or you can be the Pussycat Dolls, but you can’t be both.

Year of Release: 2008
Genre: Drama / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 5.2 / 10
Level of Awful: High

You know what, I’m not going to be entirely unfair and start this off on a bad note. Yes, this movie was absolutely rubbish and is most likely partly responsible for how stupid some kids are becoming these days, but so far as the Twilight Saga has to offer, this is about as good as it gets. It teaches young girls the importance of going to ludicrous extremes to date MUCH older men and then to cling on desperately no matter what the consequences. I’m really trying to find nice things to say about this movie but they really aren’t coming, so I’ll have a look at what we were thinking as we watched:

• Fuck you Summit Entertainment!
• Who needs dialogue when you have a crappy soundtrack?
• Mouth-breathing really abounds in this little town.
• There’s nothing more important than having a good work lamp.
• It’s hard to look good in a wheelchair.
• When he changes into a werewolf do you think it’s like those dogs who have no back legs and have to go around on wheels?
• Who needs to look at their timetable in slow mo?
• Why is everyone laughing?
• What the hell’s an Olympic sized penis?
• Inability to pour ketchup. Just wow.
• And angsty Enya plays on…
• No normal human being needs to breathe as much as Bella does.
• That stare will destroy the universe.
• If Edward kills her now we might just get out of this…
• Edward suffers from severe bipolar disorder.
• Apple Cheese. That is all.
• Let the useless dialogue never abate!
• Hair prosthetics for the win!
• How come Edward did all the running but Bella’s out of breath?
• Bella = battered woman’s syndrome + Stockholm syndrome.
• Behold the lesser spotted squatting vampire.
• Meanwhile, at IKEA headquarters…
• Sleep isn’t that fascinating. Really.
• Quickly, back to the travelator!
• She just got thrown against a pillar AND STILL Bella’s face will not move.
• Throw in one last squint stare for good measure and… The End.

Dear God no, looking at one of them is bad enough.

TWILIGHT: NEW MOON

Year of Release: 2009
Genre: Drama / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 4.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

If Twilight taught us the importance of going to outlandish extremes to keep our man, then New Moon teaches us the fundamental importance of self-destructive behaviour when that relationship burns itself out spectacularly. This was also the movie that introduced werewolves into the ‘storyline’.

The werewolves, and particularly Bella and Jacob’s relationship, did get me thinking though. Maybe things are different in small town America, or maybe it’s just cynicism that comes with being in my mid-20s, but if a girl came up to me and told me that she had met this amazing guy with long, luscious hair and a ripped body who liked to run around the woods shirtless and in short shorts with a bunch of other guys in similar attire, I would caution her against such a relationship. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but just because that kind of relationship doesn’t tend to go very far. But anyways…

• Fuck you Summit Entertainment!
• No one suspects the Inquisition!
• Here, have a shitty onion ring weaver bird nest dream catcher.
• I found it while I was rummaging through your private stuff.
• Damned – like in Hell.
• Come on, let’s go for YET ANOTHER walk.
• If this is about my soul, then you can just bloody well take the damn thing.
• It’s not the best colour on her, but desperation is the only colour Bella owns.
• The Return of Angsty Enya.
• By the sounds of things, someone’s murdering swine.
• Self-destructive lunacy is the best kind of lunacy.
• Hallucinations can be problematic.
• Bitch, have you seen these guns?
• Twilight: New Moon presents: RuPaul’s Drag Wolves.
• What the hell is she screaming about now?
• It’s not gay if it’s in a 3-way.
• Jorts for Jesus!
• Mouth-breathing in the rain.
• I will kill you fastly!
• They transformed into guinea pig wolves.
• The wolf’s out of the bag, so to speak.
• Don’t fill up on bread!
• He has the capacity to brutally kill me – I must have him.
• Even MORE life-threatening behaviour.
• He’s like his own sun, in that it hurts to look at him.
• Come over here while I firmly friend zone you.
• Oh, it’s a beautiful day for some recreational suicide.
• The most uneventful reunion EVER.
• It’s like watching a gay vampiric version of X-Men.
• Have twitchy dreams and crazy eyes!
• Let me just friend zone you one more time and… The End.

TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE

DO IT!!!

Year of Release: 2010
Genre: Drama / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 4.8 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

Now, here’s the other thing that pisses me off about the Twilight movies: they’re brilliant at taking good, solid concepts of vampiric lore and turning them into absolute crap. I present, for your consideration, Eclipse‘s rogue vampire, Victoria, starting a whole new brood of vampires that she will lead as an army. Sounds pretty cool, right?

Well, it isn’t. Victoria’s raising said army to go after Bella because her boyfriend and Edward got into a little scrap back in the first movie and her boyfriend ended up as a pile of dust. Pretty lame, right? Well, add this to it: according to these movies, vampires are at their very strongest just after they have turned, and vampires effectively become weaker as they age. Then what the hell’s the point? And then there’s all the usual self-destructive behaviour and the banal love triangle of Bella, Jacob and Edward to enjoy for two hours. Joy.

• Fuck you Summit Entertainment!
• The flowers are blossoming like her womanhood.
• Getting tired of these pseudo-visions.
• Behold the world’s most epic quilt!
• Cue a pseudo-Metallica quote.
• Bella’s kind of like Switzerland but without the fun.
• Dull history lesson is exceptionally dull.
• Pretending to act.
• Those mountains have definitely been green screened.
• You can still see the green screen around her hair.
• Lamest movie yet.
• Misdirected youth for the win!
• EVEN MORE STARES!
• Them Sireens did this to me!
• She pulled the strings and he danced.
• Bring on the awkward sex scene!
• No sex scene.
• He’s 109 years old and needs her father’s permission. Because he’s old school like that.
• I’ll secure the area! But not tonight…
• Edward suffers from chronic constipation.
• I have no body heat – I feel so inadequate.
• Are those polystyrene rocks?
• Fangs? Fangs now? Fangs never…
• A three-movie long vendetta? LAME!
• Heat apparently burns morphine.
• Bella literally stumbles through her life.
• She wants to do it right.
• She gets given a costume jewellery ring.
• Fuck you Stefenie Meyer!
• The End.

You know you need a tan when you’re more see through than water.

TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 1

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Drama / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 4.8 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

You know, these movies make very little sense at the best of times, but this one really did take the biscuit. You’re young, you’re in love, and you’ve been saving yourself for just the right guy before you decide that he’s the one who’s going to make you a woman – I can totally respect that. But of all the reasons in the world to wait until you’re wedding day, you hold off because he just might fuck you to death? If someone could ACTUALLY do that, I’d be all over them like it was no one’s business.

That aside, this is when the movies start getting ‘serious’ – Bella EVENTUALLY marries Edward, they screw like awkward bunnies and break several beds, she can somehow still walk, and then she falls pregnant with a child that slowly consumes her. Had this been any other movie this plot might actually have stood a chance of being interesting, but it’s Twilight so it really wasn’t.

• Fuck you Summit Entertainment!
• Yet more terrible green screen.
• Dat angst is back with an almighty vengeance.
• Surely movie 4 is a bit late to do full disclosure?
• Every one keeps telling Bella she’s beautiful. STOP LYING TO THE GIRL! She needs to face reality.
• It’s a slut-back wedding dress.
• Jacob calls no take backsies!
• Shittest. Speeches. Ever.
• Yet another Volvo rolls onto the scene.
• The Volvo just out acted the entire cast.
• Rio – a city built on whoredom.
• Even sex has to be angsty.
• “I promise I’ll try” – try what?
• Chess is so much more fun when you play it on honeymoon.
• Mmm… delicious, uncooked chicken.
• Angsty Enya’s still hanging in there.
• There’s nothing more romantic than delicate stomach caresses.
• A phone doesn’t need a dial tone to make a call.
• Suddenly, a very pregnant Bella appears.
• The love triangle is only justified if she lives.
• Talking wolves = cheese.
• Welcome to IKEA Headquarters Remastered.
• I feel an unepic showdown on the horizon.
• Bella’s not really close to death, she just doesn’t have makeup on.
• Everything’s fun when you soft science with a bendy straw.
• His ‘venom’? Sure, if that’s what you wanna call it…
• Bella as a corpse is better acting than Bella alive.
• Werewolves – foiled by tree climbing.
• Werewolf laws are very convenient.
• Epic montage is unepic!
• Fuck you Bill Condon!
• The End.

TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 2

Amazonian vampires? Should’ve been cool. Wasn’t.

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Drama / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 5.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

Now, after just over 8 hours of pain, we arrived at the final chapter of the Twilight ‘saga’. While all of the movies raised a few questions, this one just baffled me. So, Bella gives birth. Question: Edward’s 110-years-old, has no blood, no pulse, he doesn’t breathe, and he doesn’t blink, but somehow he has viable sperm. Really? Secondly, Jacob finally learns why he hasn’t been able to imprint on anyone (i.e. pick his mate) – he was waiting for Bella and Edward’s baby, Renesmee (which, to be honest, is a shit name for a child) so that he could imprint on her. Now, where I come from, that kinda thing is illegal and may well get you lynched.

The saddest thing about this movie, though, is that it was about as close to being epic as this series was ever going to get. It had one whelming battle scene that turned out to be nothing more than a pseudo-vision, and a variety of vampires that should have been awesome but really weren’t. In short, this franchise closes on a decidedly ugh note.

• Fuck you Summit Entertainment!
• Selective sparkling is selective.
• Bella’s back, and she’s in the mood for some violent PG 13 fondling.
• Oh little deer, you are fucked.
• Cougars just became slightly more endangered.
• Barely inferred nipples.
• Bella’s an even bigger bitch now that she’s dead.
• What an impish looking child.
• Suddenly, maternal instincts.
• Loch Ness Monster = bad nickname.
• He fell in love with a single ovum.
• Here, we built and decorated a home in a single day for you.
• I love our generic house from the Home Whore collection.
• Breaking (nipple) Dawn.
• Oh right, I still have a family.
• Shirts for dresses = easy, whorish access.
• Amazonian Vampires, now available with Naomi Campbell hair.
• Amazonian Vampires, now available with LSD powers.
• Tropical Mary’s elbow is a more amazing woman than anyone in this group.
• Smell and taste can never be taken away from you!
• Mentally, Bella has no mental.
• Essentially Edward’s just telling her that she’s a shitty stripper.
• Book burnings save the lives of vampires.
• If it has a hydrangea on the table, you know it’s a classy restaurant.
• Parental angst kicking in!
• Bella just got out acted by a child.
• The Gregorian Masters of Chant are invading!
• We pitched a battle, and then didn’t have a battle.
• This isn’t even remotely close to Sparta.
• MOTHER FUCKING COP OUT!!
• Just wasted 30 minutes of this movie’s runtime for an outcome of nothing.
• Screw your future predictions.
• FUCK ALL THESE FUCKING MOVIES!!
• The End.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So, after over 10 hours of movie, many threats against my life, the Occult Specialist in visible pain and Tropical Mary eating her hair, we finally arrived at the end of the 5 Twilight movies. Now, I’m going to be fair – on a technical, academic level, I can totally see why this franchise is so popular amongst teenagers, especially quite young ones. The movies are just naughty enough without ever really exposing the viewer to anything that may be considered risqué.

Then there’s the angry side of me that sat through all these movies that has an entirely different perspective. But even putting anger and 10 wasted hours aside, these movies are just weak. Nothing in them is an inherently bad (or, to be honest, new) concept, but the execution is abysmal. None of the three primary characters are particularly strong actors, the romance is both strained and very unhealthy, the epic scenes are entirely unepic, vampire lore has been thrown out the window in favour of a glitter gun and the idea that the older a vampire gets, the more useless it becomes. Oh, and for the purposes of these movies, vampires don’t have fangs. I honestly cannot find a single redeeming feature about this franchise at all, and Lord knows I’ve really tried. As an  advocate for reading, I couldn’t even commend the series for getting kids to read again. Illiteracy would be a better option.

But enough of my complaining. Ultimate Movie Marathons are about two things: the prestige of saying that we watched an entire franchise in a single sitting, and some very scientific calculations about the content of the franchise. As I said earlier, breast and death counts would have been pointless in these movies, so we instead went for stares and men’s nipples. In total, over 5 movies with an approximate run time of 10 hours, different characters stared at one another 1517 times. That equates to roughly 2.5 stares for every minute of film. Equally, over the same amount of time, you will be exposed to 161 shots of nipples. That gives us a final stare-to-nipple ratio of 9.4:1.

In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to once again offer my sincerest apologies to my team. I am an educated man, and I should have known better than to think that this was a good idea. Nevertheless, a very big thanks to all of them for sticking by me through this little experiment, and I absolutely promise that I will have no say in the movies for the next UMM.

Another very big thank you to everyone who kept us going through the live tweeting madness, and to all of you who just read everything I wrote. It is much appreciated. Until next time! 🙂

HONEST TRAILER: TWILIGHT

HONEST TRAILER: NEW MOON

HONEST TRAILER: ECLIPSE

HONEST TRAILER: BREAKING DAWN

BUY THE TWILIGHT SAGA AT AMAZON.COM

Antfarm Dickhole Ft. Tropical Mary

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 1.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy
Breast-O-Meter: 4 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

You know, in all the years I’ve known Tropical Mary, we’ve banded together for some ridiculous adventures. We’ve completed degrees together, we share a faux Italian garden with one another, we started Historically Inaccurate Movie Night together, and a whole bunch of other stuff that wouldn’t have made sense even if you were there to see it. THIS, however, takes the cake. On the advice of Mistylane from CinemaSchminema (seriously, go check out her stuff, it’s amazing) I got my greasy little mitts on this movie and assembled my elite squad of movie watchers (Tropical Mary, Stygian Mole and the Occult Specialist) and got ready to watch Antfarm Dickhole. Long story short, I’m not sure if the guys will ever speak to me again, and it took me and Tropical Mary both rapidly live tweeting to cover all the crap that was going on.

I know it isn’t an Historically Inaccurate Movie, but since the word ‘plot’ isn’t one I’d associate with this movie, I’m gonna present the highly troubled stream of consciousness that happened during our little screening, with names to indicate just who was traumatised at what point.

Far from being the oddest thing in this movie.

Tropical Mary: Thank you Michael Nastri and Bill Zebub for what we are about to watch.

James: Jerking off is about the ride, not the destination. Oh god, right out the gate…

James: The science of being a 40-year-old bully.

Tropical Mary: Confessions of a 40-year-old wedgie.

James: Pockets are not good cupcake holders.

James: There’s no way this is a woman. This is a 17-year-old boy with an epic nipple stand, and the highly visible vag does nothing to convince me otherwise.

Tropical Mary: Ooh, she has a piercing…

James: We now go live to our state-of-the-art ass crack cam.

Tropical Mary: Behold! 3D Internet strippers! With an artistic boob shot thrown in for good measure.

James: The only way this is happening is if it’s holographic porn.

James: We really need a Vag-O-Meter for this movie…

James: Ants = food = Mexican water = Moctezuma’s revenge. Did I get that right?

Tropical Mary: Suddenly, busting some moves in the park.

Tropical Mary: For all that’s going on, why are the adults referring to a penis as a ‘pee pee’?

James: Boondock bikini frolicking – the new Olympic sport.

James: Morning class, welcome to How To Get Raped In The Woods 101.

James: So, army ants migrating north are a sign of a weak US-Mexican border?

James: Evolution psychology VS creationist psychology, neither of which is a real thing.

James: OK, so if an ant burrows into me, technically I own it?

James: That’s just the great hemisphere of life I guess…

James: Who knew you could make a dildo out of playdough?

James: Who talks to the ant colony in their penis?

James: Oh my. I’ve never seen someone have sex with a car before…

James: This one’s serving up some cellulite realness for us now. Oh wait, she’s a neon pink bikini-bedecked scientist.

James: The face of evil is the face of an ant, apparently.

James: This movie really is all about equal opportunity body types.

James: The car wasn’t enough, now he’s having sex with some window blinds.

Tropical Mary: Sex with a car is healthy for the soul and so is sex with a window blind.

James: Trees are sacred to bio-terrorists? Who knew?

James: Human bones usually belong to a dead human. Some class A police work on that one.

James: Up penis scope!

James: Either that banana was meant to be carried by ants, or it was demonically possessed. Either way, that’s gotta hurt.

Tropical Mary: Insecticide is WRONG!!!

James: There really is no joy in watching an OCD stripper take her clothes off.

James: This chick’s right – we really should just photosynthesise our own food.

Tropical Mary: Human photosynthesis = Vitamin D production. Thank God for the diffusion filter ge-filter fish.

James: She’s in the forest with wedge-heeled clogs…

Tropical Mary: …and her boobs look like the face of a newt.

James: Antfarm Dickhole proudly brings you the body types of Chernobyl.

James: I feel like we’re crossing the line into hardcore porn at this point…

Tropical Mary: It’s not porn just yet…

James: How do you squeeze an entire ecosystem into a penis?

James: Time to pull one last anteater out of the bag…

James: Sexual chemistry = ant colony in penis, apparently.

James: Is that Warcraft II music playing in the background?

Tropical Mary: I must get this soundtrack.

James: She died doing jazz hands.

James: Have anteater, will travel.

Tropical Mary: It’s the Saturday Aardvark!

James: Foreskins provide natural lotion. What kind of lotion?

Tropical Mary: Everything’s fun when you soft science!

Tropical Mary: The Delusion? Maybe. God? Definitely not.

James: Good friends flush the toilet for one another.

James: This minor plot can only be true if he’s shitting out liquid metal.

Tropical Mary: Maybe he’s gonna weld something.

James: Alcohol makes a drinking problem that much worse.

Tropical Mary: I have an army in my pants (are they all 5 year olds?!)

Tropical Mary: He will NOT remark that with dignity. Sans dignity. No dignity was had that day.

James: There’s no 12 step plan for this movie. There wasn’t even a plan at its inception.

James: They have a lot of lurking law enforcers in these parts.

James: With friends like Freud who needs animus? This is what happens when 7 random Wikipedia articles are strung together to form a script.

James: Who labels a moonshine container?

James: Eggs don’t need to be fertilised in order for a baby to develop.

James: When all is said and done, this fool has a remarkably robust penis.

Tropical Mary: I see a winky cutting in his future.

James: 3rd nipple for the win!

James: Telekimasturbating is a real art.

Tropical Mary: It can always get worse – more porn!

James: I feel like only an OB/GYN should see this girl like I’m seeing her now.

James: Spider rape – it can happen to you.

Tropical Mary: At least the spider’s whispering sweet nothings in French to her.

James: Bullies function with a hive mentality.

James: Manspider? REALLY?!?

THE END

So yeah, if you can make any sense out of all of that I take my hat off to you. In the wise words of Mistylane, “It’s like a bunch of 12 year olds, high on pixie sticks, got together to make an adult film.” That sums it up really well. There is no understanding of the insect world, film making, adult situations, sex, decent boobs, what a penis looks like or the difference between being attacked by an anteater and getting a so-so blowjob to be found anywhere in this movie. Truly, this is only for the most hardened z-movie goer, and preferably only if you feel you have nothing to lose.

ANTFARM DICKHOLE TRAILER

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1313: Cougar Cult Ft. Tropical Mary

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 1.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy
Breast-O-Meter: 0/5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

There are some movies out there that make you want to offer your soul to the devil if it meant getting a slight reprieve from it. There are other movies, however, that the devil himself wouldn’t have, and 1313: Cougar Cult just happens to be one of those. The reasons behind choosing to watch it were numerous – I wanted to watch it because I love Linnea Quigley, I wanted Tropical Mary to watch it to see if even her gay sensibilities could withstand it, but most of all I wanted to watch it without warning the Occult Specialist what it was about and see his facial reactions. While those were funny as hell, it still wasn’t enough to make watching this movie a worthwhile endeavour. Tropical Mary summed it up best: either give us more movie or give us more porn, but don’t leave us in this purgatory where we’re neither entertained nor turned on.

This one looks like he’s missing a chromosome.

Three sisters, affectionately dubbed Overbite Edwina, Flashpoints Victoria and Forever-Lost-Thong Clara, own a gorgeous mansion in some or other unspecified opulent neighbourhood. As three older sisters living together are prone to doing these cougars are on the lookout for young, buff men to help… um… service their needs. By that I of course mean cleaning the pool and cooking them the occasional meal. If a naked, oiled up massage happens then so be it, but it’s hardly a prerequisite for the job. But these aren’t your regular run-of-the-mill MILFy cougars, oh no. These gals are a coven of blood-thirsty witch cougars. They need their young man to feed on / become their mates / offer as sacrifices to their omnipotent feline goddess Calabast. I’m assuming Calabast is the Egyptian Bastet‘s Californian cousin, but I could be entirely wrong.

A 70s disco party is about the break out…

After eating their last pool boy the cougars need to bring in a little fresh meat. Enter Coopersmith, Darwin and Rufus. Each one delectable in their own unique way, they’re only here because they want to earn some money doing a summer job. This will involve undignified levels of shirtlessness, obscenely long shower scenes and unparalleled scenes of the boys sleep-fondling themselves. Occasionally the cougars will be thrown in for good measure, but they seem rather secondary to the tighty whitey-ness of the rest of the movie. There’s some glitter, a candle and questionable cougar effects thrown into the mixture, but all this movie really is is an excuse to watch somewhere between three and six men rubbing themselves along a bed for more than half of it.

So the $1 million budget didn’t go into the special effects?

According to my research the movie was shot in only three days. Believe me, it shows! When you’re not watching young men gyrating in ways that would make Madonna uncomfortable, you’re watching scenes of the Scream Queens that have already happened at least 3 times before. Words cannot actually describe the awfulness of this movie, but if you’re in the mood to see JUST HOW BAD z-cinema can be, then this is the perfect movie to watch. If nothing else, watch it to see the terror in the guys’ eyes, the acne on their faces and their various oddly placed nipples.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nipples make jets of water go plume.
• Straight guys regularly exchange massaging tips by massaging each other whilst being virtually naked.
• You don’t need soap to have an intensive, all-body wash down.
• This movie proves that some actors don’t have breakout roles, they have come out roles.
• You can only feel a person’s aura if you stand behind them while they’re showering.
• You only need one candle to summon a demon hell goddess.
• Fairy dust works perfectly well as an agent for possessing a person’s soul.

1313: COUGAR CULT TRAILER

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Hellraiser: The Ultimate Movie Marathon

Another epic evening, another entire franchise of horror movies covered. The entire team (myself, Tropical Mary, Stygian Mole and The Occult Specialist) gathered for this one. With 9 movies ahead of us, it lay quite comfortably between the perhaps-overly long Friday the 13th marathon and the rather short Nightmare on Elm Street one. Plus, if I’m honest, the four of us are more than a little depraved and the prospect of spending the next 15 hours watching Pinhead-style torture was more than a little exciting. Couple that with the fact that we’d all taken a 3-day weekend and we were good to go 🙂

The day began as so many Ultimate Movie Marathon days do. We landed at Tropical Mary’s house at 10 hundred hours with a planned commencement time of 11 hundred hours. The fridge was stocked with many a litre of Coke, the snacks were in bowls and several of Tropical Mary’s amazing blankets were at hand to ward off the ravages of a Cape Town winter. With a few libatory coffees in us, we sat down and began the great trek through 24 years of Pinhead madness, blood spillage and what I think is one of the best horror franchises out there.

HELLRAISER

Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 7 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

And so we begin with Pinhead’s first adventure, and from the very get-go the movie was incredibly gooey. In the beginning (or the 80s), there was The Cube, and Frank Cotton wanted it. Not content with mundane regular sex and pleasure, Frank wanted to explore the absolute extremes of pleasure and sensation. Little did Frank know, however, that such delights really only equated to having inter-dimensional chains fly out, bore into his skin and rip him to shreds before being dragged back into the other dimension by a pin-headed man with a serious leather fetish. Perhaps not the auto-erotic evening he had in mind, but it does set the tone for the movie delightfully.

Later on we meet the other Cottons: Frank’s brother Larry, Larry’s wife Julia, and Larry’s daughter Kirsty. Larry and Julia are moving into the old family home where, unbeknownst to them, Frank was torn to shreds and drained into the floor. During the moving process Larry cuts his hand on a razor-sharp nail head and bleeds all over the new / old floors. This somehow revives a somewhat juicy Frank and, when Julia discovers him dripping all over the attic, it brings back memories of their passionate affair and epic chin snogging. The usually ice queenish Julia is now filled with blood rage and brings Frank a never-ending stream of victims that he can use to rebuild himself.

Kirsty, being super intelligent by virtue of the powers vested in her by her epic hair and mom jeans, knows that something really bad is going on but struggles to come to terms with her gooey uncle running around the house. A problem arises when Pinhead and the other Cenobites (affectionately dubbed Lips McCoy, Tracheotomy Girl and Phat Morpheus) realise that Frank has managed to escape them, and they’re prepared to take him back by any means necessary. Butterfingers Kirsty will have to watch herself or be strung up in yet another of the Cenobites’ sadomasochistic experiments.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• In the 80s the phrase ‘the higher the hair, the closer to God’ was taken to scary and ridiculous extremes.
• The circle of life now includes an extra resurrection cycle.
• Clive Barker doesn’t believe in spending money on extra lighting.
• Nothing says class like a set of ninja star earrings.
• Tears are a waste of good suffering.
• If Jesus weeps your house will bleed.
• You know Cenobites are coming when Daft Punk lighting appears in your walls.

I love Tracheotomy Girl so much!

HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II

Year of Release: 1988
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 6.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

After a quick recap of the first movie Butterfingers Kirsty wakes up in a psychiatric hospital. The doctors want to help her and the police want to know what happened that caused her house to destroy itself so Kirsty, like a genius, tells them what actually happened. Shockingly the doctors are more inclined to believe that Kirsty is a nut job rather than that her dead uncle came back as a gooey corpse and was aided in rebuilding himself by her evil stepmother while the two were being hunted by sadomasochistic demons from another realm. She is handed over as a loon to Dr Channard without any ceremony to be kept under watch until she regains her senses.

At least that’s the story she’s been given. Channard actually knows all about the Cenobites and has been dying to find a way to get in touch with them. Before he does that, however, he steals the mattress that Julia died on in the first movie and uses one of his more deranged patients as a blood bank to resurrect her. Like Frank before her, Julia is very gooey, and the good doctor takes her back to his white, white house and puts her in a white, white outfit to take some time and recover. A few choice victims later Julia is decidedly less juicy and ready to help Channard come into contact with the Cenobites.

To do this they will need an expert puzzle solver, and as luck would have it they have Tiffany, a catatonic puzzle solving prodigy just sitting around the hospital. She quickly figures out how the puzzle box works and summons Pinhead, Lips, Phat Morpheus and Tracheotomy Girl. Channard and Julia enter The Labyrinth, home of the Cenobites, while Kirsty and Tiffany go in to try and find Kirsty’s dad and bring him back. When the good doctor does become a Cenobite and attempt to usurp Pinhead’s position, Hell’s in for a big showdown and the Cenobites are forced to remember the only thing that can defeat them: their own humanity. I’d like to say that it’s up to Kirsty to save the day, but since she’s frequently outwitted by rusty pieces of cutlery, it’d be more safe to place your bets on Tiffany.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Music boxes to hell entice people like an ice cream man entices children.
• The best kind of policeman belongs to the ‘shoot everything to hell’ school of thought.
• The particularly mental wing of an asylum doubles up nicely as a giant maintenance cupboard.
• You’re quite the stud if you can get to 2nd base with a juicy walking corpse.
• Beware the pimp slap of justice.
• Everyone should have an orgasmic tunnel installed in their basement.
• Incest is best – IN HELL!
• In hellbound relationships it’s usually the woman that wears the skin.

Do you need a Kleenex for that?

HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH

Year of Release: 1992
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 5.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Things haven’t been going so well for Pinhead lately. When hell imploded on itself at the end of the last movie he and a Lament Configuration (the puzzle box) became trapped in a beautifully crafted, if somewhat disturbing, pillar. Completely drained of power he’s been unable to move. His luck turns around, however, when the pillar is bought by J.P. Monroe, owner of the greatest hole-in-the-wall nightclub, The Boiler Room. As people are prone to doing around Pinhead, J.P. bleeds on the statue, somewhat reviving him and setting us up for another round of gruesome torture.

This movie has no actual continuity with the first two, so we have to meet a whole new range of characters. Joey’s an ambitious young television reporter looking to find that one big story that will define her career. She thinks she may have found it one night when she sees a young man being ripped to shreds by hooked chains apparently acting of their own accord. If she were to have spoken with Butterfingers Kirsty she’d know that this was Pinhead’s general MO, but dear Joey’s gonna have to figure it out herself with the help of Terri, J.P.’s slutty (and seemingly underage) ex-girlfriend.

At this point in the long strand of time that we call eternity Pinhead’s decided that he’s sick of playing by the rules. Lips, Tracheotomy Girl and Phat Morpheus are dead, he’s been a statue for 4 years and Hell’s in need of some serious rebuilding, so screw the rules of the game. Lying and deceiving people to get what he wants, Pinhead plans on taking over the entire world and wreaking pain and havoc as he sees fit. Unfortunately, as is often the case, our worst enemy is often ourselves, and Pinhead’s human form is now alive and well, albeit in limbo. The revelation that he was once human in movie 2 has split Pinhead in half, and the human version is intent on bringing the Cenobite half down.

This movie has a death count that’s virtually off the charts and enough blasphemy to make your dear grandmother cry, which is why I think I liked it so much. Also, Joey’s far more intelligent than Butterfingers Kirsty and does battle beautifully with a DJ Cenobite. I’ll agree that it’s not as great as the first two, but it’s definitely still a great addition to the franchise.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nothing says hardcore like a guy in a self-bedazzled leather jacket.
• True love means walking into madness for someone.
• Pinhead’s a modern killer and fully embraces the use of new technology.
• Pinhead strongly disapproves of stained glass windows.
• There’s nothing quite as relaxing as a mind trip to the luscious grasslands of Vietnam.

Blasphemy, blas for you, blas for everyone!

HELLRAISER IV: BLOODLINE

Year of Release: 1996
Genre: Horror / Sci-fi
IMDB Rating: 4.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

Sadly, this was the last movie in the Hellraiser franchise that Clive Barker wanted anything to do with. As the other reviews will show, his input is really what made this franchise work. Bloodline was the first dip in the series. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s very clear that by this point they were starting to run out of ideas. The movie’s perfectly watchable, but it never really grabs you in the same way the first 3 do and its ending was more than just a little anticlimactic. As a general rule, if you need to take it into space, consider calling it a day with the franchise.

The year is 2127 and Paul Merchant is trying to rid the world(s) of Pinhead and the Cenobites once and far all. Why ‘don’t open the damn box’ never seemed like a plausible solution is a mystery to me, but anyway. In the process of trying to destroy the Lament Configuration Merchant is taken captive by a group of soldiers who storm the space station he’s on, demanding to know what he’s up to. Held captive by an Hispanic Hilary Swank in space, he is forced to tell us the Cenobites’ story from the very beginning.

Over 400 years ago Paul’s ancestor was a poor toy maker commissioned to make a box for a wealthy French magician. The man has no idea that what he’s built is the very first Lament Configuration. The magician uses the Configuration to summon a Cenobite slave, Angelique. Through a process very similar to how we make chicken McNuggets today Angelique is poured into the skin of a woman the magician and his apprentice, Jacques, killed. Before Jacques and Angelique kill the magician he is warned that a demon must only obey its master until you stand in hell’s way. Not heeding this warning will come back to bite Jacques in the ass later. The two later kill the toy maker as well, discovering that he was trying to build the Elysium Configuration, a device that would keep the Cenobites trapped forever.

200 years after the first Lament Configuration was built John Merchant, another of Paul’s ancestors (the original toy maker’s wife was pregnant when he died), is essentially building an Elysium Configuration without knowing it. Angelique learns of this and comes to America to stop him before her and her kind are banished from the human realm. Pinhead’s none too pleased about any of this either and joins in the fight, bringing with him Cenobite Rottweilers and creating The Siamese Twins, the second coolest Cenobite lackey after Tracheotomy girl. They manage to kill John but are sent back into the Lament Configuration by his wife. All while John’s son is watching.

Back in the future Paul has EVENTUALLY figured out how to make the Elysium Configuration work. Either it was a very tricky design or this family just really isn’t all that great when it comes to higher brain functions. Having made a robot open the Lament Configuration to let Pinhead and the others loose it’s now just a matter of keeping Pinhead busy long enough to activate the Elysium Configuration (wow, never thought I’d use the word ‘configuration’ so often in one paragraph) and trap the Cenobites once and for all.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• The future is astonishingly lacking in its use of technology.
• Despite being a vacuum, it’s really noisy in space.
• French people communicate with one another through slutty moaning.
• It’s not necrophilia if the body’s still warm.
• Many female demons are pillar-sexual.
• Security guards double up as expert door identifiers.

♫ ‘Cause you got me, and baby I got you. Babe. I got you babe. ♫

HELLRAISER: INFERNO

Year of Release: 2000
Genre: Crime / Horror
IMDB Rating: 5.5 / 10
Level of Awful: High

Wow, talk about a terrible downward spiral! After 3 awesome movies and one so-so one, we were suddenly lurched into this piece of crap. In itself this isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not a Hellraiser movie. After suffering through about 30 minutes of it I was pretty convinced in my mind that this was originally a spec. script and Dimension had simply shoved Pinhead in somewhere where he really didn’t belong. Turned out I was spot on. It has a good concept and an absolutely brilliant ending, but it isn’t worth suffering through to find out what it is.

The movie follows Joseph Thorne, a rather shady and incredibly corrupt policeman, as he goes about his days being a general asshole and philanderer. Out on a routine investigation to look into a gruesome shredding of what might have once been a human body, Thorne discovers a Lament Configuration that’s been turned into a candlestick holder. As any other corrupt police official would do, after stealing $300 from the dead man’s wallet, Thorne steals the aesthetically pleasing Configuration and decides to play with it a little after banging a prostitute.

As one might expect tinkering with the Lament Configuration opens up a direct portal to hell. First the hooker’s dead, then Thorne’s ice-cream man / cocaine dealer / paedophile informant is killed, then he’s being chased by the Wire Twins and half a Lips. All of this seems to be tied to a man called The Engineer, and Thorne makes it his personal mission in life to try and stop this man. Not for selfish reasons, of course, but rather to avoid getting his own flesh ripped apart or licked off with an acidic tongue.

At one point Tropical Mary was actually considering killing me and the rest of the gang to try and liven things up while this movie was on. It has every miserable stereotype in the book, the characters are loathefully unlikeable, it takes forever to get anywhere with its storyline and you barely see Pinhead at all. It also wanted to redefine the Cenobites in that, rather than simply being other-worldly beings who took their love of whips and chains to strange and gruesome extremes, they are now actually demons out on some moral crusade. Maybe that works for some people, but it just left me cold.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Spines make really juicy noises when you rip them open.
• Some movies are as exciting as eating tofu on a rice cracker.
• Walker Idaho Rangers are nowhere near as cool as their Texan counterparts.
• It’s possible to make a movie with only internal monologues and sighs.
• Nothing says badass-criminal like a pair of ‘coon chaps.
• There are few people you want to hit more than a coked-up, smarmy, asshole, magician policeman.

Well, here’s the problem: you have two Cenobites embedded in your chest!

HELLRAISER: HELLSEEKER

Year of Release: 2002
Genre: Horror / Thriller / Mystery
IMDB Rating: 4.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

And we’re on the up again, which was a very pleasant surprise after the last one. I don’t know if any of us could have taken two Infernos back-to-back with one another. Pay attention Dimension Films: if you must shove Pinhead into a script that wasn’t meant for him in the first place, this is the way that you should continue to do it.

Kirsty’s back! Having taken some time off to relax and improve her mental capacities so that she can at least match wits with the rusty cutlery, her and her husband Trevor are out for a little drive to rekindle their love. It’s all sweet and lovely until one particularly passionate session of neck nomming distracts Trevor long enough to put their car in the path of an oncoming truck. Trevor’s quick reflexes allow him to manoeuvre the car out of the path of the truck and throw it off a bridge into an icy-looking river instead. Trevor manages to haul himself out the car, but sadly for Kirsty and her recently improved mental capacities, Pinhead never cut her a pair of gills and she drowns when she can’t get her door or window open. Maybe the rusty cutlery would still win after all.

When Trevor wakes up in the hospital he’s pretty much fine except for some minor amnesia and the inability to tell fantasy apart from reality. This will result in some difficult times for him, like when he coughs up a live eel. Meanwhile Kirsty’s body has disappeared from the car and a search has yet to find where she drifted off to. This results in Trevor becoming the prime suspect in Kirsty’s suspected murder, an investigation headed up by the most condescending policeman to ever grace the small screen. With strange things happening all around him, the people he knows turning up gruesomely murdered and Cenobites at every turn, Trevor will quickly need to figure out what’s real and what isn’t before Pinhead gets to him.

This movie was everything that Inferno wanted to be. It has a tremendous ending that will make you rethink everything you’ve just watched, but at the same time the rest of the movie manages to convince you that what you’re watching is really happening.

By this point in the evening this movie spawned one of the best comments of the whole marathon. Wondering why Trevor was such an absolute slut magnet, I voiced this statement: “His amnesia brings all the sluts to the yard.” Stygian Mole, who doesn’t say a lot but is tremendously useful for his quick one-liners, promptly responded: “And he’s like, ‘what the fuck are all of you doing in my yard?'” Perhaps you had to be there to truly appreciate it, but we laughed ourselves silly for about 20 minutes at that.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Only in ridiculous movies does a man wear white shoes.
• Pinhead doubles up as an apartment-cleaning magician in his spare time, and is well versed in the Dead Hooker Be Gone spell.
• Very few people actually understand what amnesia does to a person.
• No matter how hard the sex against the vending machine is, that thing’s never gonna give up a free pack of Lays.
• Morgues should be stored at the centre of the Earth so that the soul has less distance to travel when it goes to Hell.
• Technological advances mean that Lament Configurations can now be more rounded in shape. This also makes them more child-friendly.

Acupuncture for the guilty soul.

HELLRAISER: DEADER

Year of Release: 2005
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

And we’re on a dip again, although not too bad a one. Deader isn’t necessarily a bad movie, it’s just one of those films where you could always see what it was trying to do but it never quite got there. Based on yet another spec. script (how many of those damn things does Dimension own?), it again puts Pinhead in a story that he doesn’t really blend in with completely, although it’s still a far better attempt than Inferno was.

By this point in the franchise Hell has become a prime location for the hip and trendy, with everyone wanting a piece of the pie. Enter the Deaders, a little cult in Bucharest led by a man who can hold back death and grant his followers eternal life, albeit with giant chunks of themselves missing. See, in order to become immortal you have to die first, at which point the cult’s leader, Winter, will bring you back. Everyone chooses to kill themselves in the most gruesome manners. Why no one thought a bottle of pills with a nice glass of wine in a bathtub wouldn’t be a better choice the Lord only knows, but this is what’s apparently happening in Eastern Europe when we’re not keeping an eye on them. Investigative journalist Amy Klein is on the job and tracking the story.

Now, Pinhead’s not loving this little cult one bit. He’s the only one that should be allowed to come and go from Hell as he pleases, and it ultimately all boils down to these people choosing Winter as their master over Pinhead. Amy, being the smart girl that she is, manages to find a Lament Configuration in a run down crack house. Literally prying the thing out of some poor, dead crack whore’s hand, she takes the thing home and solves the puzzle. Along with many, many chains, Pinhead appears in the middle of Amy’s lounge, but this time he’s in a far better and more helpful mood than usual. He warns Amy about what’s happening, and tells her to be careful and that he’ll be watching.

In order to push the story forward, as well as force some kind of continuity between this movie and the rest of the franchise, we are told by Winter that he is a descendant of the Toymaker who created the original Lament Configuration. Despite having the skills to bring people back from the dead he has been unable to solve the Configuration’s puzzle (it really doesn’t look that complicated: feel it, run fingers in a circle, click down and voila!), and his back-from-the-dead followers have all been an experiment to try and find someone to open the box so that he can travel to Hell and take command of the Cenobites. Like Pinhead’s gonna let that happen…

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nobody really needs the other half of their brain.
• In the crack whore version of Bridget Jones’ life, she lives in Romania and only gets eaten by one Alsatian.
• Nothing says class like a plastic bottle of gin.
• Romanian trains are a more hedonistic form of transportation.
• ‘Romania’ is a suitable answer to any confusing moment you may have while watching this movie.

I hate that spot on my back! You can never quite reach the damn thing!

HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD

Year of Release: 2005
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 4.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

The end is in sight people! Finally, three movies later, we happen upon an entry in the franchise that isn’t based on a spec. script. Granted, the short story it’s based on wasn’t written by Clive Barker either, but beggars can’t be choosers. Although I’d seen most of the Hellraiser movies over the years this one, for whatever reason, was the one I remembered the most vividly, so it was kinda cool to watch it again. Definitely not an all-time classic, but fairly decent watching nonetheless.

If you’ve watched all the Hellraiser movies back-to-back in one caffeine-fueled evening the one thing that you will probably notice is that Pinhead isn’t afraid to move with the times, and it really shouldn’t be surprising that at some point he’d embrace the use of the Internet in tracking down today’s more tech-savvy victims. Welcome to Hellworld, an online MMORPG based on Pinhead’s adventures that have, over the years, been granted the status of urban legends. Some people who become a little too engrossed in it may land up apparently committing suicide, but you really can’t put a price on a good game.

Let’s meet Chelsea, Derrick, Mike & Allison. These guys are the best of friends and LOVE playing Hellworld. Their friend Adam doused himself in petrol and set himself alight two years ago because of playing it, but that hasn’t stopped them. A true fan is a true fan. For the purposes of this movie, the four plan on attending a special Hellworld party held in a remote mansion by a strange billionaire recluse. Not that this is at all dodgy or possibly dangerous or anything. They’re joined by their estranged friend Jake, who never quite got over Adam’s death.

And the party’s underway! Oh, what an evening of debauchery and hedonism this will be! Anonymous sex with strangers (anonymity ensured because everyone’s wearing a mask and has a special cellphone provided by the man hosting the party), excessive drinking, possible drug abuse, minor orgies breaking out all over the place… Mmm, the air is rife with slut, and these kids like it. Well, Chelsea doesn’t, but that’s because she’s been pegged to be the heroine from the very beginning, but that’s fine, because she and her skin-tight latex pants (even the Cenobites’ leather outfits aren’t that tight) are locked in a bathroom.

Naturally, with all this pleasure going on and so many people having opened digital Lament Configurations, this is the perfect opportunity for Pinhead to reap a soul or two, which he does very effectively. All in all this is a good movie, although the ending may leave you a little cold. For a truly gratifying experience turn it off about 10 minutes before the credits roll and you’ll be left thoroughly satisfied. If you don’t that’s also fine, but you may be left thinking “Well, that was great and all, but why make it a Hellraiser movie?”

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• In this modern age, if Jesus weeps he will be deemed a sissy.
• Never let people into your house – they just want to touch all your stuff.
• Every rich billionaire has a secret Pickled Babies R Us store in his basement.
• There’s nothing quite as scary as seeing a dead man denoming [to denom, verb: the act of wearing an all-denim outfit].
• True friends help no one while getting a blowjob.
• Latex pants will really slow down a decent escape.
• Private Number is an asshole.

And Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ video concept was born.

HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 2.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

And then there was this crock of shit. Even if me and my team hadn’t been high on caffeine, nicotine, sugar and saturated fats, even if we hadn’t been watching movies for over 13 hours, and even if we had been in the mood to watch a movie that would make us rather have Pinhead do what he felt like to us rather than be forced to watch it, EVEN THEN we would not have been prepared for Revelations. Dimension made this so that they wouldn’t lose the rights to the franchise you say? IF THEY MADE THIS THEY DON’T DESERVE THE FRANCHISE!! Right, that’s my little rant over 🙂 But seriously, don’t watch this, it’s crap.

So Steve and Nico are best friends who, like many other spoiled American teenagers, just feel that mommy and daddy don’t really understand them and that they need to get away from it all for a bit. They decide to road trip down to Mexico for a bit of fun, a few drinks and one or two prostitutes here and there. It’s all harmless fun really, at least until the two go missing one day.

A year passes by and still no one’s heard from the boys. Back home their respective parents are worried sick, and Steven’s sister Emma makes Kirsty seem like a Nobel Prize laureate. You know those mouth breathers who drag out the last syllable of every word? Yeah, she’s one of those. Emma, sadly, looks to be the brains of this little outfit and, whilst rummaging through her brother’s room and finding his video camera, learns that her boyfriend (Nico) casually murdered a hooker while banging her in a bathroom. What ever is a distraught and mournful girl to do? Seduce Nico’s dad in front of his mother, that’s what!

But she’s not gonna do any of that before she plays with the Lament Configuration in her brother’s bag, which shoots a blood-covered Steven back into our dimension. Following this secrets are revealed, the movie will try and shock us with things like incest, shotguns and couches covered in a horrendous floral print, there’s a showdown of some sort, Pinhead (who apparently has really let himself go in recent years) will pace back and forth in someone’s garage while stringing together incomprehensible sentences, families will be drawn into the garage / Hell and, if you’re fortunate enough to make it through all of that, the movie will end. You will never be the same and will be sorely tempted to throw heavy objects at the TV, but it will all be over and you can go on with your life.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Tijuana is now pronounced ‘Teechwaaana’ (with the ‘ch’ making the sound it does in German).
• Tijauna / Teechwaaana is located somewhere in Mexicamerica.
• Pinhead now has a five-head.
• Pinhead does an amazing duck face.
• It’s only ever a bad lie if it’s a filthy, filthy, lice-infested hobo lie.
• It’s rare to see a plot that thickens with whore juice.

And they really thought no one would notice the difference?

FINAL THOUGHTS

We were doing so well up until Revelations, which really just pushed us completely over the edge. 5 more minutes and there would have been a Lord of the Flies situation on our hands. That aside, this marathon rocked. On the whole the franchise is really strong if you consider that (in our collective opinion at least) only 2 out of the 9 movies were actually bad, and only 1 out of those 2 was abysmal. Compared to many other franchises, which tend to start out strong and then slowly go down hill, this really is quite something.

And then there’s Pinhead. I’ve never really been that invested in the Hellraiser movies so I didn’t know that much about the franchise’s main antagonist until this marathon, but he truly is a god amongst movie killers. What I liked so much about him is that he’s intelligent; unlike many other killers from movies that came out around the same time as the original Hellraiser, Pinhead isn’t some brute out on a rampage. He’s an articulate, highly intelligent creature that operates within very well-marked boundaries. If you open the Lament Configuration you’ve made a deal, and that’s all there is to it. At the risk of sounding like a highly deranged individual, the methods of killing his victims are also just plain awesome. Yes, Jason has the machete and yes, Freddy has the knife glove, but the chains and sheer calm brutality that Pinhead uses are what really make him a terrifying figure. And that’s just one (albeit the most important) Cenobite. Looking at his lackies and seeing what has been done to them makes the viewer wonder which is worse: suffering an agonising death at the hands of the Cenobites, or suffering an agonising eternity by becoming one of them.

And now, for the part we’ve all been waiting for, the death and breast counts. In total, the 9 movies gave us roughly (Stygian Mole did his best, but sometimes the deaths were just coming too hard and too fast to keep track) 579 kills. Whilst this is truly impressive, they’re spread very unevenly, and around 400 of those took place in the 3rd movie alone. When it comes to breasts we didn’t do so well (much to The Occult Specialist’s disappointment, since I had made him the official Breast Counter for the evening) with a total of 22 across the whole franchise, most of them coming in the later movies. This gives us a final death-to-breast ratio of 26.3:1

I loved this franchise, and I now rank some of these films as my best of all time. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming, but I must give a huge shout out to my team, without whom these marathons would not be possible, and an equally big shout out to all the people who tweeted us and helped keep us sane throughout the process. Follow us on Twitter to see what madness we’ll take on next! Until next time 🙂

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