Super Cyclone

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 1.6 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

When I’m alone and life is making me lonely I know I can always go – to the DVD cupboard and rake through it long enough until I find a movie by The Asylum. I’d had a rough day and I knew that only a movie with implausible disasters and highly questionable science would do the trick, and so far as those two things go Super Cyclone is a major winner. It’s so implausible and questionable, in fact, that I didn’t even believe the opening credits. Plus it has Dylan Vox in it, and wherever that man goes absolute cheese is sure to follow. I’m going to try and explain this bizarre series of events to you, but I recommend getting yourselves a copy and watching it yourselves – this one’s good for a few dozen laughs.

We appear to have sprung a hell-fire leak, captain.

OK, so, the movie goes a little something like this. We start off on an oil rig where the men are out going about their day as usual. They’re about to tap into a rather large oil deposit which, given the current economic climate, is going to mean good business all round. During the survey of the area, however, nobody seemed to notice the GIANT magma pocket located just next to the oil, and the rig drills into it. This sudden release of pressure creates a super volcano that begins to erupt under the ocean, as well as taking out a series of small islands. Despite the fact that the rig is clearly floating, it also starts to leak into the structure but without causing any serious damage or threat to the people on board.

Dylan Vox is The Rig Captain.

This erupting super volcano begins to cause a number of problems. First of all, it starts to make the ocean boil. No really – the ocean is bubbling like a kettle. This, in turn, creates a massive cyclone above the rig that’s roughly the size of the entire continent of North America, and it’s (very) gradually making its way towards land. Now this cyclone is particularly dangerous because it’s also creating freak lightning storms, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. The other problem comes in with the oil reserve – the oil begins to mix with the lava, gets sucked up into the cyclone and suddenly the whole storm (and subsequently the sky) are on fire.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Adele’s behind this…

Thankfully Dr Jenna Sparks is on the case. She’s Asian and uses phrases like “We may be able to use my nanotechnology research to stop the storm!”, so you know she’s gonna be able to save us all. Of course, before she can save us all she has to get herself to a safe location, which is tricky in amongst the general looting, angry black hillbillies with guns, and minor catastrophic flooding. Her first plan to save mankind involves taking one tiny plane with a suicidal pilot, flying it into the eye of the cyclone and seeding it. This will stop the storm and, through some mysteries of science, also plug the volcano. When that fails she’ll have to resort to a more daring plan of that involves a navy destroyer, some good sailing, and a tanker of liquid nitrogen. Then, and only then, will she be able to call herself Earth’s saviour and begin dating one of the daring young men that assisted her in this endeavour.

Note to self: when you win the lottery, donate an actual helicopter to The Asylum so they don’t need to keep CGing them in. It just looks silly when people are meant to look like they’re being blown by the wind from the propellers and the helicopter hasn’t been edited in anywhere near them.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation cures people with serious burn wounds.
• ‘Hold it together’ literally means grabbing onto a plank of wood and trying to stop an oil rig from falling apart.
• Warm water and moist air are the real Devil’s playground.
• Every movie needs a crew member to act as the designated hay thrower.
• Performing minor surgery in a ship’s kitchen in no way compromises minimum hygiene standards.
• Clean shirts are the signature look of a man with a college education.
• The oceans in the tropics are known to boil from time to time.
• Modern ships and cars are designed to withstand being picked up and dropped by enormous tornadoes.
• After being adrift in near-boiling water for 5 hours what you really want is to be covered with a blanket.

SUPER CYCLONE TRAILER

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Skeeter

Year of Release: 1993
Genre: Horror / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 2.8 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0.5 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Let me start off by saying that watching this movie was a mistake. Not a mistake in that I regret watching it but rather a mistake in that it wasn’t the movie I was thinking of. I remember back when I was maybe 13 or 14 I watched a movie about killer mosquitos and remembered this box cover from the video store I used to go to. I remember watching this one (albeit very vaguely), but I was really excited to watch the other one, so this was a major let down. It was also quite a surprise; you wouldn’t think there were that many movies about giant mosquitos. Skeeter is not fun, although if you’re in the mood for some spectacular 90s hair, music and men’s wedgie-inducing jeans then you’re in for an absolute treat.

Intense observation.

It was a dark and lonely night when the trucks carrying loads of toxic waste rode into the outskirts of the little town of Clear Sky. It’s a tough time for the little town, what with all the modernisation and skyscrapers and internets going up. Not caring for the town’s plight in the face of the advancing city folk some evil corporation decides that it needs to dump its toxic waste somewhere and that the best place is in one of Clear Sky’s old abandoned mines. Nobody mines no more, work’s all done with them there fancy computers and cellphones as big as your arm, so nobody’s going to notice the waste in the old abandoned mine. That is until two boys head out that way on their motor bikes and land up mysteriously dead, the blood drained right out of their bodies…

Intense manliness.

We need to tear ourselves away from all that for a minute to meet Roy Boone, the coolest and manliest policeman in these here parts. He’s so manly, in fact, that he out-right refuses to ever button up his shirts, whether he’s on duty or not. Boone’s noticed that something very strange is going on in the little town of Clear Sky (the fact that entire herds of cattle are turning up drained of blood and looking like unwrapped mummies may have been a clue) and has called someone in to look at the water in the town, thinking that this might be the problem. The water guy’s more than happy to be there but sheriff Ernie and businessman Drake are not. Ernie and Drake have some kind of deal going on while Drake’s busy turning the desert into a never-ending stretch of luxury houses and they don’t want anyone interfering in their plans.

Intense shirtlessness.

Of course mother nature, when combined with vast quantities of toxic waste, has a rather big way of saying “fuck you!” to people who want to develop luxury housing estates. At this point the movie’s worth watching just to see the mosquitos. I’m not sure what they’re made of but I’m guessing they’re models with either very limited movement or a lot of stop animation. These creatures are now flying around drinking the life force out of absolutely anyone and anything they come into contact with and sheriff Ernie’s not interested in hearing any of it, so Boone’s infinite manliness makes him a far better person for the job of saving Clear Sky. To help him out his Native American friend Hank will tag along for the ride. Will he be able to save the town from the monster mosquitos and the encroachment of 20th century conveniences? Will he be able to prove his love for Sarah and make her see the error in wanting to live in a place with tarred roads? All this and so much more (unnecessary chest hair) on the next screening of Skeeter!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Funeral parties are known to materialise out of nowhere in the blink of an eye.
• A pastor’s job at a funeral is to be bleak and ask God to kill us all.
• One of the prerequisites of being a politician is having a freckled belly.
• It’s never a wasted trip if you can find a karaoke bar.
• Native American policemen are useful for checking if a crime scene has bad juju.
• Doomsday predictions aren’t particularly powerful when delivered in rhyming couplets.
• Morgues in a desert town have no need for air conditioning.
• A parent’s job is to make their children feel terrible for wanting a better life for themselves.
• If you’re sleeping with the sheriff it doesn’t matter who you abandon in the desert without supplies.

SKEETER TRAILER

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Weasels Rip My Flesh

Year of Release: 1979
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

OK people, pack it up and head on home. Nobody needs me anymore, the journey to watch the world’s most awful horror movie has officially come to an end with Weasels Rip My Flesh. Just joking, I’m not going anywhere, although I am considering revamping the blog. My main idea includes redoing the Levels of Awful as ‘Surprise!’, ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, ‘High’ and ‘Weasels Rip My Flesh‘. Anyone remember my review for Monsturd? Weasels Rip My Flesh would shit all over that movie. It’s quite spectacular in its mind-melting awfulness; friends of the “director” in the roles, papier-mâché monsters and black bags being used as the surface of Venus. To make sure you really get value for money all of this is crammed into little more than an hour’s worth of film. If you’re feeling like you have nothing left to live for and want to go out with your brain violently squeezing itself out of your ear in a desperate bid to escape then this is the perfect way to end it all.

That poor granny-haired boy…

Mankind has finally mastered the art of space travel and extended our reach beyond the stars. Well, not really, but we’ve managed to make our way to Venus. Turns out the planet is made up largely of black bin bags and isn’t nearly as hot as we thought it was so landing a spaceship there is easier than parallel parking on a slow traffic day. Thrown into all of these amazing discoveries is the fact that our sister planet is home to life; blue, slimely, squishy life but life none the less. Using the latest in giant hair clip technology the brave astronauts of this cardboard spaceship  collect samples of Venereal life to bring back home for further study. Sadly the homeward trip for these brave, brave men is marred by the fact that the spaceship suddenly veers hopelessly out of control and crashes in a swamp where two young boys just happen to be playing.

Oh my God, what a horrifying mutant weasel!

The saying ‘boys will be boys’ is never more applicable than when two young boys on the cusp of puberty come across a package marked “DANGER: RADIOACTIVE CONTENTS” written in white board marker. The number of things that can be done with radioactive Venereal life is virtually limitless as you can well imagine but, when one of the boys is bitten by a rabid weasel, the toxic slime becomes the perfect vehicle for revenge. They pour the now luminous mustard yellow goo into the weasel’s burrow and the strangely doll-like creature mutants into a horrendous monster in a matter of seconds. Now the size of a car the monster weasel makes a quick snack of the two boys before heading out of the swamp on a rampaging trail of terror.

Some of the most amazing costuming in a movie ever.

Somewhere in amongst the ensuing confusion that involves random road-side researchers, horrendous moustaches and weasel arms that can move around on their own 8 months fly by and the swamp becomes a scene of unsolved mass murders. We catch up with the movie to follow what I hazard as a guess to be two policemen trying to find out what’s going on in the swamp. In between chain-smoking a few cigars, being overbearingly Italian-American and some wooden dialogue thrown in for good measure the two cops are taken hostage by a scientist that looks strikingly like Nintendo’s Mario (were Mario to be homeless with an alcohol problem). This scientist has discovered that the mutant weasel is the key to amazing regenerative medicine but, since the weasel has rabies, he needs human blood to purify his new serum. The cops now need to find a way to escape from the scientist’s evil clutches without becoming a little snack for the giant weasel.

I would just like to reiterate, if you feel like life is actually worth living, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! You may not feel the same way by the time the closing credits roll round.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• A woman’s hair clip is perfect for collecting samples of alien life on Venus.
• NASA has absolutely no way of knowing if one of their spacecraft has made it back to Earth safely or not.
• NASA containment technology is no match for a 10-year-old with a stick.
• It’s very easy to not notice a car-sized weasel running across the road.
• A messy kitchen is definite proof of a torn off arm dragging itself around the house.
• It’s easy to confuse a stagnant swamp for an ocean.
• Mutant weasels can either destroy the world, cure every disease or unlock the secret to immortality.
• You can use a lit cigar to burn through metal chains.
• Contrary to popular belief having your arm ripped off will not result in massive blood loss.

BUY WEASELS RIP MY FLESH AT AMAZON.COM

Hard Ride To Hell

Year of Release: 2010
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.9 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 1 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

OK people, I’m back! After a little self-imposed hiatus to recover from the year in general and too many Syfy movies in particular I decided that the time had come to go back to basics and watch a crap horror movie with a cast you kind of recognise but can’t quite place and an idea that’s been done before and just as badly. The result is Hard Ride to Hell, which in itself is misleading because the roads look like they’re in good condition, so the ride itself does not appear to be that hard, and hell is nowhere to be seen. The only hell you may experience is the hour-and-a-half you’ll lose actually watching the movie.

Judas, Judas-ah-ah...

Tessa and Danny have been having a terrible time lately. Having recently miscarried the doctors have told Tessa her chances of having any more children are very slim. Understandably depressed the couple decide to do the only sane and rational thing to do in times like this: grab your friends, rent an RV and go camping in the badlands of Texas. Nothing will take your minds off things like being in the world’s most rundown campsite in the middle of nowhere with no cellphone reception and where the only other visitor to the campsite is a travelling cutlery salesman. Bet Oprah’s sorry she never recommended this to anyone before her show ended. Anyways night falls at some point and the group decide to get heavily drunk. Being the token black guy and the most drunk of the lot Dirk decides to go relieve himself in the woods, where he’s about to discover a terrifying secret…

He's trying to invoke the movie's script.

And by ‘terrifying’ I really mean thoroughly confusing. In the middle of all this nothing, surrounded by some trees and more nothing, is a kind of cult. They have in their possession a number of naked females who they are asking to offer themselves willingly to the fire in return for immortality. They start off by invoking Babylonian fire goddesses (note: goddesses = plural), but this quickly changes to invoking a goddess (singular) named Babylon or, alternatively, Lady of the Fire. We are told later on, though, that pagan magic is useless to stop this cult, and what they really are are Satanists. I’m going to assume that this is, therefore, an offshoot of mainstream Satanism where Satan is now a woman and, at times, can multiply himself / herself into a number of clones. The cult is led by a very uncharismatic leader who speaks in a rather mousey and monotone voice. Dirk happens to witness what is going on and tries to record it with his phone. Missing him back at camp, Danny gives him a call, whereupon the cult sees him hiding behind a rock and gives chase.

Gollum's wife took the breakup really hard...

The cult makes their way back to the camp site and proceeds to variously capture, lop off arms and eat the members of our little group. They take a particular interest in Tessa since she apparently features in some or other prophecy that says she will be the mother of the cult leader’s evil death child. She must, of course, give herself willingly to the fire and she only submits to this after her boyfriend and friends are tortured a little bit. As a side note, it turns out that submitting yourself to the fire in no way involves going anywhere near an actual fire. Thankfully for all concerned the travelling cutlery salesman turns up to try and save them and they proceed to make a daring escape in the RV with the help of a number of knives and alcoholic beverages. They must make their way to an abandoned little town where the old preacher that lives there holds the key to saving them all and stopping the hell child from being born.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Some men just aren’t strong enough to handle their pregnant wife’s cannibalistic cravings.
• When journalists can write no more about Britney Spears, they write about Habitat for Humanity.
• Miscarriage can be used to trump any other form of loss or misfortune.
• Babylonian fire goddesses can be invoked as a complicated way of falling pregnant.
• A good way to judge a person’s character is by tasting their blood.
• Every cult needs one uncharismatic leader, one intelligent goon and five or so morons to stand around a fire smirking.
• Babylonian Satanic demons can only be defeated with the help of an Aztec amulet.

BUY HARD RIDE TO HELL AT AMAZON.COM

Drive-Thru

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 4.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

I had an internal debate with myself about how to rate this movie. For the most part I was inclined to give it a ‘Low’ rating, mainly because the film is cohesive, it does deliver a few good scares and the clown is frightening as hell. I ultimately settled on a ‘Medium’ rating, however, for several reasons: the movie relies on more than the average amount of horror clichés and, for the most part, feels like a combination of Killer Klowns from Outer Space and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It is more predictable than most b-horrors (watch for about 15 minutes and you’ll have figured out what’s going on) and the killer swaps between being human and something more supernatural a little more than would be regularly admissible. Despite this, when all is said and done, the movie is very watchable provided you can ignore some of the inconsistencies that creep in and Leighton Meester’s singing.

Fast food: It really does kill.

Hella-Burger is the biggest fast-food chain in the city of Blanca Carne (Spanish for ‘white meat’ – clever right?) and its mascot, Horny the Clown, is a town institution. Unfortunately for the town’s teenagers the drive-thru speaker has grown a body and has started going on a killing spree. The clown has amazing speed, a giant meat cleaver and a demonic metallic voice that all adds up to being a rather cool and effective horror villain. While he’s taking out the 2 town wiggers and their hos Mackenzie Carpenter (Leighton Meester) is having a little house party to celebrate her and her friends’ upcoming high school graduation. As most of the people begin to leave the party Mackenzie, her boyfriend Fisher and their inner circle go upstairs to partake in a little weed smoking and playing with a Ouija board. When Mackenzie and Fisher are alone the board begins to write all on its own and the two are left to try and decipher what the meaning of the board’s message is.

WARNING: Choose the venue for your kid's birthday party wisely.

Unfortunately for Mackenzie messages from the beyond begin to appear in more and more places and, after escaping Horny’s attacks once, she needs to try and figure out who is communicating with her and who is next on Horny’s hit list. And all of this needs to be done while Fisher constantly tries to get into her pants. As the killings become more elaborate and closer to home Mackenzie begins to see a pattern in Horny’s murderous rampage and realises that a dark secret lies beneath this sudden outburst of clown terror. The police don’t believe her, her parents are obsessively worried about her and her friends are constantly high and wanting to split up to go and look for the killer. Despite these odds Mackenzie needs to quickly come up with a plan to stop Horny before her head lands up on his delightfully evil chopping block.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED:

• In a town called Blanca Carne you aren’t going to see a black person anywhere.
• Due to the absence of black people 50% of all white teenagers are wiggers.
• The other 50% of white teenagers are all stoners.
• When placing your order at the drive-thru if the speaker gets it wrong, leave it alone. Otherwise it might kill you.
• When a Ouija board starts to write things on its own, take very little notice. It probably isn’t that important.
• A plastic tent stake is not an effective tool against a demonic clown.
• Police never trust the one person who actually knows what’s going on.
• When a demonic clown is on the loose killing people it’s an ideal time to set up a haunted house.
• Lying with your face in boiling oil is not an advisable exfoliation method.
• Fast food kills. One way or another.

Drive-Thru Trailer