Airborne

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 3.8 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium – High
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

It’s a rare thing for me to be left utterly dumbfounded by a movie. Amused? Sometimes. Confused? Occasionally. Angry? Fairly often. But dumbfounded is a feeling only brought on by particular kinds of movies, and Airborne just happens to be one of those movies. It starts off as a simplistic post-911 action thriller, but somehow, through various twists and turns, lands up being a pseudo-mythological, demonic possession movie. It’s quite astounding, really. And then there’s the foreboding. This movie has more dramatic foreboding in it than the Twilight movies had stares. The only way it could have been less subtle is if they had a full orchestra go into full swing every time the camera settled on someone’s face. Don’t believe me? Then read on, dear reader, and for the truly brave, perhaps you can give it a watch.

Don’t ask, don’t tell (him about his atrocious shoes).

It’s a frightfully stormy day in Merry Old England, and due to an approaching storm (which, by the looks of the radar images we’re shown from time to time, appears to be a hurricane larger than the British Isles) all flights out of Heathrow have been cancelled. All except one, of course. Onto this plane assembles the largest group of misfits you can imagine: soldiers fresh off a tour in Iraq and accused of using excessive force, an Godfather-type and his two cronies, a raging alcoholic, a doctor accused of malpractice, and a sudden replacement air steward that no one has ever met. Oh yeah, and that mysterious crate that gives off funny noises and occasionally jumps around that’s under the special protection of the British government. With all of this to consider, what could possibly go wrong?

No sir, I don’t know how the containers of foreboding leaked into the movie.

The flight starts out nicely enough. The alcoholic awakens with a raging hangover, the Godfather behaves in a typically refined-yet-thuggish manner, and two randy love birds get it on in a tiny bathroom. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect on such a midnight flight. But something is terribly amiss. You know this because the love birds land up being bludgeoned to death and the plane makes a mysterious and unreported change in flight path. Not that flight control back in Britain seems to be overly alarmed. Apparently it’s quite normal for planes to change direction and go to Florida instead of New York without checking in with anyone. Back on the plane, people are starting to disappear at an alarming rate, and even our motley crew of passengers knows that people do not simply disappear while you’re flying however-many-thousands of feet above the ground.

What demonically possessed eyes you have.

The foreboding is cranked into high gear when suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the most top secretist agents in all of Britain take over the flight control centre and threaten to have the Americans blow the plane out of the sky unless they can get someone to respond. Back on the plane, a hostage situation develops over the content of the crate, which turns out to be a Chinese vase worth over $ 10 million. But something isn’t adding up about this hostage situation: the two hostage takers cannot account for all the dead people, which means that something else has been killing off the passengers (and the pilots) while they weren’t looking. Hypothetically this third-party may or may not be the spirit of a Chinese deity that was imprisoned in the vase and is busy looking for a human host that he can possess. Once this has hypothetically happened and he has found the ideal host he will be able to take over the world and fulfill the Mayan 2012 Doomsday prophecy. Can our hapless group of hostages stand up to the might of an ancient Chinese deity and save the world from absolute destruction? Probably not: the foreboding’s gonna slow them down too much.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Britain’s just a breeding ground for conspicuous Godfather-types.
  
• Britain’s also home to several pockets of irritatingly chatty, global warming-obsessed geography teachers.
• Air stewards must be proficient in mixing drinks and performing sleeper holds.
• If a drunk irritates them enough, flight stewards can be made to break standard health and safety procedures.
• Complimentary drinks are usually all it takes to quell an uprising of plane passengers.
• Most air stewardesses know which two wires to cross to make a plane just drop out of the sky.
• The Chinese gods and Mayan priests were in cahoots when it came to the 2012 prophecy.

AIRBORNE TRAILER

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Sloppy the Psychotic

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 5 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 1 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with that feeling that something is terribly wrong? I had that the other night. I was sleeping soundly, fantasising about buying bed linen made from Egyptian cotton, when I was suddenly jerked awake with this feeling of absolute dread. Not two minutes later my phone rang, and there was My Friend The Killer Clown Movie, sobbing on the other end. We’ve been friends for so long, but as usual we haven’t seen one another in ages (in fact, not since all those frat boys were murdered over on Hell Island). I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I told him to dry his clownish tears and get on over to my place ASAP.

That’s some poor judgement right there…

By the time he arrived I’d just managed to throw on some seductively manly pyjamas and make hot chocolate with marshmallows. After a lot of hugs and comforting words, My Friend The Killer Clown Movie was finally calm enough to tell me what was wrong. Turns out this recession has hit everyone pretty hard, and even great movie concepts like my dear friend has had to resort to whatever it takes just to pay the bills. That’s how he landed up starring in Sloppy the Psychotic, a decidedly z-grade movie about a once-lovely clown that goes a tad bit off the rails. He explained to me that, while it looked good when he read the script, when he got there there was neither the acting talent to make it somewhat credible, nor the humour to make the constant barrage of shock tactics even remotely entertaining. Poor guy, I don’t know how much more his dented ego can take.

See? No good will come from buying illegal cigars.

So there me and My Friend The Killer Clown Movie sat, under a blanket with me braiding his neon green hair, and I asked him to give me a run down of this movie that pushed him to the brink; a good friend needs to understand what’s he dealing with before he can provide any kind of help. It’s a simple enough story: Mike was a nice guy with a dream – all he ever wanted to do was be a clown and entertain all the children of the world. Now, times are tough, and the world of clowning is cut-throat. Turn you’re back for one moment and a mime will be trying to take away all your business. But if you love what you do, as Mike does, then none of that really matters. Nothing, until you’re victimised by a group of pool partying white trash that make fun of your life long dream. Oh no, dear reader, that’s when you push a clown one step too far.

Do I really need to explain this?

Just telling me this much got My Friend The Killer Clown Movie all weepy again, so I ran him a candle-lit bubble bath and put some Enya on in the background so that he could really relax while he told me the rest of this movie. At this point I was still on board, but I could see that things were going to take a very sharp downward turn. Oh boy, did they ever. Apparently one bottle of vodka is all that it takes to turn a mild-mannered clown into one that’s shoving a dead hooker in a trunk. And then there’s all those repressed emotions: anger, fear, rejection, sexual drought, and somehow all that’s gotta come out. As is often the case, these feelings manifest with Mike becoming a cannibal, poisoning some small children, barbecuing other small children, running over mentally handicapped individuals, amputating penises, using fish hooks on prostitutes, running a lawn mower over teenagers, decapitating housewives, and doing unspeakable things to men with a very large candy cane. Yeah, that’s what being under appreciated at work will do to a person.

I think that between the hot chocolate, hair braiding, and the bubble bath, My Friend The Killer Clown Movie has just about regained the will to carry on doing what he does best. The important thing is to focus on the good – I reminded him that this movie has a rather epic version of Pop Goes the Weasel playing in the background quite often, and that’s something at least. After he’d toweled himself off we lay in bed for a while reminiscing about all the good times we’d had together, and as the sun slowly dawned on the horizon he decided that he’d best be heading home before the wife knew he was out. She never has approved of our friendship – neither of us can figure out why. This time, however, we promised not to let so much time go by before we got together again.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Coulrophobia in small towns forces many clowns to live out their lives in secrecy and shame.
  
• It’s a risky career move to hedge all your bets on being a clown.
• Any clown company worth its salt has a fleet of vehicles ready to transport loads of emergency rubber chickens at a moment’s notice.
• Recently retrenched clowns and vodka are a deadly, deadly combination.
• Secretly, every woman wants to have sex with a man in full clown costume at least once in her life.
• Hobos have only two natural enemies: hungover clowns and puddles of their own urine.
• Death by anal candy cane isn’t a way that anyone wants to go.
• There’s no length a hooker won’t go to if there’s $500 on the line.
• It’s rude to discuss your sex life in front of a hired clown.

SLOPPY THE PSYCHOTIC TRAILER

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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

Ghost Storm

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Sci-Fi / Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.8 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from the ungodly experiment that is the B-Horror Blog, it’s that anything the Asylum can do, Syfy can do a thousand times better (except for those few times when the Asylum makes the Syfy movie). They’re both good staples: The Asylum if you want a movie that’ll be easy to throw insults at, and Syfy if you want some guaranteed cheese. Ghost Storm will give you everything you need so far as cheese factor is concerned, and it even throws in a little soft science just to make the final product that little bit more saccharine-sweet. By the looks of things the people behind this movie had a fairly decent budget to play around with, and gradually these people seem to be coming to grips with making CGI monsters that aren’t so bad they’re insulting. I recommend hanging onto this one for one of those really rainy Sunday afternoons when you want to chase away the approaching Monday blues.

No good will possibly come from this.

What is it in a teenager’s genetic structure that draws them to creepy cemeteries like moths to a porch light? Science should really look into that. Anyway, as you may have guessed, our story begins with a group of bored teenagers in a dark and spooky cemetery – during a lightning storm, no less. Wherever the hell their hometown is, it would appear to be on a tiny little island, so I guess you gotta get your kicks where you can. Everything’s going absolutely fine (guys scaring girls, ominous thunder) until a bolt of lightning strikes the memorial for the people who died during the town’s now-infamous mass-suicide. The lightning, through means I should check with my Occult Specialist, releases the angry spirits of the departed, who quickly go about turning one of the teenagers into a grey piece of human jerky.

Run Generic Background Character, Run!

Thankfully, Officer Dad (AKA Hal, father of Daisy, one of the girls that was out in the cemetery) is on the case. There must be a logical, rational reason why Daisy’s 18-year-old boyfriend’s corpse went from looking like the Crypt Keeper to being a pile of mulch in a matter of hours. Of course, the problem here is that they’re stuck on an island, and how exactly would you report this kind of incident to the authorities back on the main land? This of course is only the beginning of the town’s problems – you see, these aren’t your regular pissed off, vengeance-seeking ghosts. These ghosts are smart – why hunt individually when you can join together, form a supernatural storm system and blight the inhabitants of the island all the more faster?

Dammit, it’ll take forever to get the Redrum off the windows….

So, with the angry spirits swirling around the island in a giant, lightning-filled vortex, it’s up to Hal, ex-wife Ashley, and Daisy to come up with some kind of way to defeat the ghosts before they turn the entire town’s population into little piles of dust. They will be aided by a seafaring ghost hunter who happened to rock up on the island just as the storm formed. They will need a combination of a lot of random electrical equipment, some occultist knowledge, Ashley’s meteorological know-how, a lot of salt water, a fire extinguisher, an old diary with some town secrets, a weather balloon, a gun, a lot of jumper cables, some cans of silicon gel, half a dozen rolls of duct tape, an ancient talisman and a cellphone tower if they’re ever going to be able to stop these ghosts. Then, of course, there’s the mysterious old priest, and Ashley and Daisy’s old, but not forgotten, family history that ties into the whole affair…

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Lightning storms are a tremendous turn on for randy teens.
  
• The new iSpirit app is very useful for knowing when there are vengeful spirits in the area.
• Exhuming bodies is nothing but good, small town fun.
• It’s very expensive to build a machine that’ll let you speak to a storm cloud.
• Salt water is the best thing to use to soak up spilled evil.
• A good old-fashioned witch hunt usually eases the tension when you’re being held hostage by ghosts.
• Always make sure that your ghost complies with regulatory electrical standards.

GHOST STORM TRAILER

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40 Days and Nights

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Sci-Fi / Action
IMDB Rating: 2.5 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

“When a colossal tectonic shift causes the sea level to start rising, a microbiologist gathers the DNA of as many species as she can, while the military creates an “ark” in a desperate attempt to preserve life on Earth.”

The Asylum and I have really got to stop meeting like this. Seriously, how many of the movies in my collection have their sneaky little paws behind it? Now, I was in the mood for a decent cheesy disaster flick, but this was too much. Above is the blurb for this movie taken directly from the Asylum’s website, which I feel needs to be addressed. Firstly, there was no tectonic shift, not on any of the 40 days this movie purportedly spans. Secondly, sea levels did not rise; at best we had a few isolated inland tidal waves. Thirdly, there is no way on God’s green Earth that that woman was a microbiologist. Fourthly, surely samples of 3 bees and a few moths doesn’t count as ‘DNA of as many species as she can’? Fifthly, no country has a military made up of 7 people. Sixthly, that wasn’t an ark, it was a strange train that floated. Seventhly, the DNA of 3 bees cannot preserve life on earth if you didn’t take any life with you onto the ark. So yeah, that about sums up how I felt about this movie, but I’m gonna do my usual review now to drive home just how daft it really was.

The script writer hasn’t a clue what he’s gonna do next…

Jon and Tessa are such a lovely couple – you’ve never seen a 50-year-old man and a 19-year-old girl so madly in love. They’ve got a pretty good life too – they work for the super-secretive black-ops illuminati division of the US military, which means they’re very clever, very wealthy, and very well looked after. All that and as many rooftop picnics as they could ever dream of! What could possibly go wrong for a couple as spritely as this? Oh right, the world’s about to come to an end. How’s the world going to come to an end? Be damned if I know; all I saw were four drunken kids driving around the Sahara desert when a few thunder clouds appeared over head. Next thing they (and I) knew, there’s an enormous tsunami coming over the mountains and the whole desert’s submerged by an ocean of CGI water.

We have a CGI helicopter coming in for a hovering sir…

In what turns out to be the Asylum’s answer to 2012, a massive super storm is developing over Africa, and within the next few days it will cover THE ENTIRE PLANET. How this super storm started to develop we’re never going to know, but said super-secretive black-ops illuminati division of the US military has to come up with some way of saving at least a nominal portion of the American public (mainly the smart ones though). To do this they’ve decided to build an ark. The ark will be the world’s first live-saving sea vessel shaped like a dildo, and despite the fact they have to cram in 3 years work into a week to get the thing built, everyone’s fairly convinced that it can be done with relatively few screw ups. Oh, how they underestimated Mr Murphy on that one…

The world’s largest water-resistant dildo.

Turns out there are a few hiccoughs to overcome before the ark can sail. Firstly, it’s powered by turbines built on completely theoretical technology that, despite being the size of a small cat, will harness the power of the waves and wind to generate enough electricity to keep it sailing for as long as they need. Surprisingly, there are a few problems getting these turbines working. Now, that’s Jon’s job. Tessa’s job is to collect DNA samples so that they can rebuild nature once the flood waters recede. Unfortunately a rock slide took out the train carrying all her samples, and now she has to go out into the wild to collect more before everything’s under water. And this is only the beginning of their troubles: once the ark sets out, who knows how long they’ll all be at sea? Who knows if the ark will be able to hold its own against the power of nature gone utterly berserk? In the end, none of it will really matter, since you’ll have been bored to tears long before the flood waters even cover your baby toe.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• If it means a quickie on a roof, saving humanity can just wait 15 minutes.
• If it means a quick tussle under the sheets, then escaping the rising Biblical flood will also just have to wait.
• There’s a lot more rain and wind in the eye of a super storm.
• You can safely transport DNA samples in an empty Evian bottle.
• The secret of human evolution, life, and all philosophical pursuits, ultimately lies with the humble moth.
• Most ships can be rendered utterly useless with a simple power drill.
• It’s easier to pistol whip someone than to answer a stupid question.
• The lesser-spotted cave bee is a key player in upholding the planet’s various ecosystems.

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