Ghosts of Goldfield

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.4 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0/5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

As a fun little fact before I dive into the review, this movie was originally meant to be a part of the Urban Legend franchise. Under the working title Urban Legends: Goldfield Murders, this was meant to follow on from Urban Legends: Bloody Mary  before Sony bought back the rights to the franchise. It’s just as well really; while Bloody Mary at least tried to cling in there, amateur doesn’t begin to describe this movie. Maybe it’s because the guys behind it chose to go with a less universally known urban legend (I’d never heard of Goldfield or its supposed ghosts until I watched this movie. Some useful information can be found by clicking here), but all this movie really boils down to is 88 minutes of every clichéd ghost trick in the b-movie book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a laugh a minute to watch, but when Kellan Lutz is your biggest draw card you really aren’t giving the audience much to work with.

Hi, we’re here to throw ourselves in Satan’s path and then whine about it later on.

After some thumping techno beats from the production companies responsible for this little cheese fest we’re thrown into a car full of horribly clichéd college students. Julie’s your typical ghost-hunting psychology major who’s deadly serious and in touch with the voices from the spirit realm. To balance out her intense blandness she chose Mike to be her jackass boyfriend. Mike’s just your standard scuzball college character who keeps pulling pranks and flirting with other females. In this case said female is Keri, the whiny spoiled girl bedecked in pink and who can’t understand why this ghost hunt can’t be a kick-ass party. She’s here with Dean, who there really isn’t much to say about since he just kinda hovers in the background and grunts disapprovingly when she flirts back with Mike. The group’s fifth wheel is Chad, the intelligent, sensitive beef cake who tries to look out for Julie and protect her from Mike’s general douchebaggery.

Verily, my milkshake is better than thine.

Julie and co. land up staying in the haunted hotel when it turns out that the motel she booked them into doesn’t exist. How this happened is never explained, so we just plow on with the story. Julie’s trying to make contact with Elizabeth, a prostitute who lived in the Goldfield hotel during the town’s gold rush. Elizabeth was supposedly murdered by the hotel’s owner and her 2-week-old child dumped down a mine shaft under the building. Julie wants to confirm the specter’s existence to see why she’s trapped and unable to move on to the other side. I never knew that ghost psychology was such a big subject in American universities, but you learn something new every day. How the group struggles for nearly an hour of the movie’s runtime to find Elizabeth is baffling since you can hear her whining ‘where’s my baby?’ in the background every five minutes, but who am I to question the director’s vision?

Celine Dion: the crack whore years.

Suddenly, without apparent cause and only 20 minutes of movie left to go, Elizabeth decides to go balls to the wall and haunt the crap out of these kids. It starts out with some innocent possession to give Julie some flashbacks of what happened to her, but not long after the possessions lead to Mike and Keri making the beast with two backs on a dusty couch. Not content with a supernatural orgasm, Elizabeth decides that the next step is to kill all of the kids as quickly and brutally as possible, all supposedly in the name of finding her baby. How this ties in with the baby is another of the movie’s great unanswered questions, but I didn’t feel like dwelling on it. Julie has some mysterious connection to the old hotel and to Elizabeth’s ghost, and she’s the only one that can end the bygone hooker’s reign of transcendental terror. The question, however, is whether or not Elizabeth is the only ghost in the hotel and whether putting her to rest will really solve all of Julie’s problems.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Girl-on-girl action is cheaper than trying to get a man involved.
• The sound of the car engine exploding doesn’t usually herald good news.
• Bartenders in ghost towns don’t serve up fancy cocktails.
• It’s rude to speak ill of the slutty dead.
• One woman’s brutal torture and murder is another woman’s cheesy, torch-lit ghost story.
• A man must be very well endowed if he can have sex with you through his jeans and yours.
• It’s very inconvenient when your boyfriend’s penis accidentally slips inside your best friend.
• Some guys won’t screw dead chicks; even douchebags have standards.

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Kinky Killers

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Crime / Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.6 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 4 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

The combination of a title like Kinky Killers and this movie’s DVD cover lulled me into a false sense of security so far as the levels of promised b-grade fun were concerned. It suffers from numerous problems in its execution, not least of which is the fact that the killer is neither the primary focus of the film, nor does he do anything particularly kinky. Other issues include the director’s ‘all over the place’ approach to making the movie, entire scenes where nothing makes sense and entirely different scenes that add nothing to the plot. This is not one of those movies that I would recommend to the truly hardened b-movie fan only; I wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone. It’s not fun at all, just 85 minutes of non-stop randomness and the occasional display of oddly shaped breasts.

I don’t think I like this game anymore…

How to even try and explain this movie…  Well, the general idea is that a number of blonde victims are turning up around the city with various body parts missing. Along with the affirmatively borrowed body parts each victim also has a mysterious tattoo inked into their skin. Two policemen are assigned to the case, but owing to their general approach of screaming at witnesses and breaking down random doors they don’t really get anything useful out of the people they interview. Throw in several psychologists, a few strippers, many useless bible quotes and the use of big words where it’s painfully clear that nobody understands what the hell they’re saying and you’ve basically got the premise of this movie. I wish I could say more about it, but the plot is just too hopelessly convoluted to do anything useful with it.

Even just recalling it fills me with a mild rage…

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Wives don’t usually want to hear about the gruesomely dismembered bodies their husbands recently saw.
• Part of police protocol dictates that everyone on the force be given enough hookers to have sex with.
• Females lawyers often double up as strippers.
• Police brutality gets cases solved.
• Police are fully within their right to break down a door and handcuff you when they need to ask a few questions.
• Suspects in murder trials have to promise the police that they won’t kill anymore bitches.
• Jesus was crucified in Sodom in Egypt.
• When divorce just won’t do, you need your marriage to be extremely terminated.
• Solving a mystery is easier if you do it while having sex.
• Psychologists can steal a person’s multiple personalities and give them to someone else.

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Sands of Oblivion Ft. Tropical Mary

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Fantasy / Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

It’s been a long time since Tropical Mary and I went along with the hero Odysseus to the Isle of Mists as part of our mini collection of historically inaccurate movies. This movie wasn’t even supposed to be like that; I just wanted a Syfy Original to accompany The Asylum’s Nazis at the Center of the Earth. If one studio can be so much fun, surely the two back to back can only be even more fun (infinitely funner, in fact)? Well, fun it was! Made when Syfy still spelt its name properly, Sands of Oblivion comes from the golden age of Syfy movies. It’s stupidly ridiculous with far too much attempted manship and far too little acting, the plot’s wafer thin and the Egyptian god Anubis is running around California. It’s a b-movie fan’s wet dream really…

Let my actors go!

So we want to tell a tale about a wrathful Egyptian god killing off young archaeologists in modern-day California. This was the concept that the makers of this little film wanted to run with, so somehow we need to get said wrathful Egyptian deity to the good old US of A. They accomplish this by taking us back to 1923 to the set of Cecil DeMille’s movie The Ten Commandments. I myself haven’t seen this silent beauty but I gather that they needed a lot of Egyptian props for it. In the deserts of California DeMille constructed a remarkable set on which to film his movie, with a number of the props looking remarkably authentic. On the set a young John Tevis buries a few of the movie’s trinkets in a time capsule, hoping that, 1000 years from now, some other young explorer may come across it.

They’ve discovered a 3000 year old Etch-A-Sketch.

Or something to that effect at the very least. Flash forward a few decades and we land up in the present day where Alice Carter and her team of student archaeologists are excavating the old movie set. John, now well into the Autumn of his life, and his suave and studly grandson Mark are also running around trying to find the old man’s time capsule. Now at first I was wondering why a team of archaeologists would be excavating an old movie set, but then we’re told that it’s because the tides are about to come in and flood the desert. I was still confused about the excavation, and now I was wondering where the hell the ocean was going to come in from. Anyways the old man finds the box but accidentally falls into one of the set’s rooms, breaking an ancient binding spell and unleashing a very angry (and corpsey) Anubis on the sands of California.

Bad doggy! BAD DOGGY!!

Now, prior to hitting play on this movie, I had already come to terms with the fact that the director and his team would not have the knowledge or will to check Wikipedia and understand that Anubis was neither a malevolent nor corpse-like divinity. Fact of the matter here is that he’s angry as hell and out to kill as many young archaeologists as he possibly can. In addition to pure brute force one of the main ways that he will do this is by unleashing the ten Biblical Egyptian plagues. Why an Egyptian deity would unleash Christian plagues is something that makes absolutely no sense, but I put this little pondering aside as well and continued to watch the movie. Alice and Mark will have to find a way of defeating Anubis in a way that seems to have been made up as the movie went along. It makes little to no sense, but again the sheer ridiculousness of it makes it an absolute must watch.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• The Egyptians were big fans of using decorative pentagrams.
• Blowing up an entire crate of phosphorous will only result in some mild charring of the immediate area.
• An ancient deity can be quite easily contained in a wooden shed.
• Ex husbands are easily tempted by the promises of malevolent Egyptian spirits.
• Archaeologists don’t want to hear about the boils on your ass.
• Drawing a Wadjet eye free hand won’t yield good results.

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Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Comedy / Horror
IMDB Rating: 4 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 1 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Here at the B-Horror Blog myself and the many voices in my head are dedicated to human rights and equality for all. Now, I’m sure many of you must be thinking, “but with a Breast-O-Meter, surely this site is dedicated more to objectifying women than it is men?” I myself thought that this may be a problem, but with such fine movies as Dead Boyz Don’t Scream, Bite Marks and Vampire Boys joining the illustrious ranks of The Crypt I feel that we are making great strides towards equality in objectification.

The job of ensuring equal objectification, however, is a monumental one and one that cannot fall to a single person. To this end I needed to find someone who is just as passionate about human rights as I am, and I knew just who to call. I hadn’t seen My Friend The Killer Clown Movie since we drank manly lattes and discussed Killjoy back in October. Thankfully my instincts paid off and he told me that he had starred in the perfect movie that would help in my goal of achieving objectification equality among the sexes. After convincing his wife that our relationship is purely platonic we agreed to meet at a romantic little bistro for a candlelit dinner and he would tell me about Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island.

This is what happens when you watch too many Days of Our Lives episodes.

After a nice glass of red wine, soaking up the atmospheric music and commenting on the enormous bread sticks at the table My Friend the Killer Clown Movie got down to business and told me about this film. He warned me that I would have to pay very careful attention or risk becoming a bit lost in amongst the many people talking to themselves, the gay Star Wars fans and the murder soundtrack that’s initially awesome but quickly becomes irritating. I agreed to try and keep up. So the story begins on a little island where a little stage quartet, who have an incredibly high opinion of themselves considering their shitty act and the fact that they’re performing in a dingy bar, are cursed by a gypsy woman for not allowing her grandchildren to be their understudies. They are now doomed to repeat this act for all eternity unless they can find four unsuspecting strangers to take their place on the stage and pass the curse onto them.

If he had manners he'd look the guy in the face while fantasising about his penis.

While we shared a plate of linguine with a creamy sauce My Friend the Killer Clown Movie explained that we must put this plot (which took place in 1984) aside for the moment and come back to it a little later. In 2007 the pledges of Zeta Alpha Rho are preparing for the final act of their initiation: Hell Night. They will be locked on the same island as the four gypsy-cursed ghosts and made to perform a number of ridiculous acts before being admitted into the fraternity. So now I was thinking that this was a ghost movie, but I was wrong. At the same time a lunatic from a mental asylum has escaped and presumably made his way to the island. This lunatic was also once a pledge for Zeta Alpha Rho but went mad on Hell Night and is now out for revenge on the fraternity that made him lose his mind.

Killer clowns: Now available for threesomes.

With the red wine now giving me a delightful buzz and a dessert of Italian kisses on the way My Friend the Killer Clown Movie elaborated a little more on this already strange plot. It would seem that, while one person has actually escaped from a mental institution, the majority of the characters have all the qualities of a mental patient. Jack, our main guy, is sleeping with one of the fraternity’s more senior brothers. This guy frequently speaks to himself like Gollum. Jack also has a roommate who was not chosen to be a pledge for Zeta Alpha Rho and, in his anger, frequently speaks to a clown figurine they have in their room. The president of the fraternity has a girlfriend who, in her anger because he’s always ditching her for frat stuff, frequently breaks into Kate Roberts inspired monologues. Finally there’s the Dean, who had to be blackmailed into allowing Hell Night to go ahead (he’s sleeping with the college’s cheerleaders), who suffers from debilitating headaches and then begins speaking to his long-dead mother.

So much wasted strawberry jam...

Perhaps it was a combination of the red wine and the intoxicating aroma of My Friend the Killer Clown Movie’s cologne, but I was struggling to see a story actually happening in amongst all of this strangeness. Despite my reservations I was assured that one was, in fact, taking place and that you just need to watch very closely to see it. The pledges on the island will have to contend with a number of things out to get them, including their fraternity brothers trying to play stupid jokes on them, a lunatic in a clown costume trying to kill them and the four ghosts trying to trick them into an eternity of crappy performances. Along the way Jack will learn the meaning of survival, having a great gal pal, the power of love and the truth about his upbringing in an orphanage.

So after a wonderful evening me and My Friend the Killer Clown Movie got up to leave. Walking down the street hand-in-hand with the smell of Autumn in the air and a gentle buzz in my head we both agreed that we had taken the fight for equality to the next level. After a tender makeout session we parted ways and agreed to meet up again should injustice ever need a severe ass whipping.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• ‘Theatre’ is a very loose term that can be applied to singing in a shitty bar in a swamp.
• Queens in New York classes as an old country to the gypsies.
• Threesomes are more fun when you do it in front of a catatonic mental patient.
• Technology means that blackmail can be spread across any number of useful mediums.
• Pizza followed by a little dyking out is a great way for two girls to spend an evening.
• Frat brothers often discuss how good they’d look in the cheerleaders’ dresses with each other.
• The world needs working class cabana boys.
• There’s nothing better than ferris wheel sex.
• Not killing gay people is the sign of a broad-minded serial killer.

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Grim Reaper

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 2.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Few things in life are certain but we all know that Death, at some point, will come and take us away. What this movie teaches us, however, is that Death is very fickle and contractually bound to 101 different laws, making it somewhat easier to escape Death. I have also learned that there is no such thing as a painless death; when the Grim Reaper comes to collect your soul every death is brutally and dismemberingly violent. With all that in mind it must be said that this was a very fun movie to watch, if only for how truly daft it is. If you’re in the mood for a good laugh pick this one out of the nearest bargain bin you can find.

And then this movie came at me from out of nowhere...

As with so many other tales involving the Grim Reaper ours begins in a strip club. Rachel is a hard-working girl putting in her hours to try and make a better life for her and her boyfriend Liam. Liam’s studying to become a doctor and is about to start his residency. With student loans being what they are Rachel’s gonna strip the bills away, something that Liam isn’t incredibly happy with. When she leaves work on this fateful night she was innocently standing in a back alley waiting for a taxi to come and take her home. Sadly the taxi showed up and plowed into her, leaving her at Death’s door. When the taxi driver gets out and collapses Rachel tries to run to him but a mysterious stranger tells her to stay in the light. The two are rushed to hospital to have their injuries seen to. Once there Rachel starts to see strange things but nobody’s quite ready to believe that Death himself is wandering the corridors and brutally slaying the souls of patients.

This would be so much easier if we had a light.

The only logical thing to do in this kind of situation is to send Rachel off to the nut house without informing anyone where she is. Now, St Joseph’s in one of the more bottom of the barrel mental asylums. It has 6 patients, all of whom claim that the Grim Reaper is stalking them, 1 doctor who keeps having mild heart attacks, no electricity and food left over from the Apollo 7 space mission. No one knows why they’ve been put in here but the doctor is more than willing to taser the hell out of anyone who questions his methods. Everything’s going as well as can be expected in such an environment until one night when the Reaper shows up to collect the souls of these 6 people. The question is, why is he after them and how are they going to escape from this dreary hell hole?

A Reaper's work is never done.

The reason Death is after this unfortunate bunch is actually quite simple. When Rachel was hit by the taxi she was actually meant to die and, likewise, everyone else in the asylum has met with some unfortunate incident that was meant to kill them. By not dying Fate has been cheated and the Grim Reaper is now pissed off and coming to collect the souls that he feels are owed to him (*cough* Final Destination *cough cough*). It turns out that the doctor was also meant to have died a long time ago. Being a chain smoker he’s developed lung cancer that has spread throughout his body but, Death being what it is, the good doctor managed to strike a deal whereby he’ll bring all those people Death wants to the asylum so they’re easier to catch in exchange for him being allowed to live. With Liam desperately trying to find Rachel the group must devise a way to once again change their fate and send Death on his merry little way before he manages to slice them into wafer thin little pieces.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Strippers take their work very seriously and don’t like people making them feel guilty about it.
• The wives of prominent doctors often started out as strippers.
• Strippers have no need for a pulse or functioning major organs.
• Nurses can just walk up to anyone and  sedate them against their will.
• Insane asylums don’t need staff or electricity to run smoothly.
• A mild tasering will make a remarkably agreeable person out of anyone.
• It’s never a good idea to let a blind girl run off on her own.
• You can’t electrocute Death.
• Death subcontracts part of his reaping out to cowardly mortals.
• Medical students are trained to shout people back from the dead.

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