Seance: The Summoning

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.2 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0.5 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

First off, I’d like to apologise for my recent silence and lack of reviews. I’m in a mad, desperate rush to submit my MA dissertation before the end of the year, and my guess is that it’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better, but I’m gonna try to update things as often as possible. All work and no play makes James a dull boy, after all 😉

Anyways, what to say about Seance: The Summoning. In all the years I’ve been watching shitty horror I’ve never come across a movie quite like this one. To say that it was a rollercoaster to watch is an understatement, and at no point did I ever know how to feel about what I was watching. It’s either one of the most bigoted movies against Christianity ever made, or it’s one of the greatest pieces of Christian propaganda that’s not so cleverly masquerading as a horror movie. At points it’s painful to watch, other times it’s a fun b-movie, and there are also times when you feel it’s pulling itself together nicely. The actors seemed to learn how to act as they went along, so on that front it starts painfully and ends somewhere that’s slightly above average. On the whole I really just don’t know how to feel, but for putting me through so many ups and downs I declare it to be a High Level of Awful. Take that movie crew et al.!

OK, who forgot to pack the malevolent spirit?

Sara is a delightful born again Christian girl who just wants to make the world a better place through Christ’s love. To do this, she’s going to help her friend Eva out with a seance. Because Jesus wants you to summon up the spirits of the damned. Eva comes from a long line of psychic mediums who have perfected their craft over the generations. Her grandmother was burned as a witch by the Catholic Church, but those were less tolerant times and you make do with the hand you’ve been dealt. While the two girlfriends are sitting in a park chatting about life Eva decides to give Sara a tarot card reading. What follows is the most vague and subjective insight into the nether realms you’ve ever heard, but it serves to inform us that, before being reborn, Sara was a very, VERY bad girl. Not that that should come back to haunt her or anything later on…

“Have a seance” you said. “It’ll be fun!” you said. Stupid bitch.

The girls meet up with Joey and Marcus in the park, whereupon they hatch this ingenious plan: they’ll drive a hearse to the morgue for uncollected bodies (hobos, druggies, prostitutes etc., so you know these are some angry spirits) and hold a seance after they’ve inspected the corpse freezer. Joey, in addition to being a security guard at said morgue, is busy doing his unspecified degree in something paranormal and wants to record Eva contacting the dead. Marcus is a stone cold atheist and is only tagging along because a) he wants to bang Lisa and b) if Eva can’t summon up a spirit, she has to dance in a bikini at all of his DJ gigs for a specified amount of time that I can’t quite recall. I reiterate: awesome plan guys!

Now you might experience a slight sensation of extreme agony…

Now, as every reasonable person knows, it’s never a party until someone goes home devastated. In the process of summoning the dead it comes out that Marcus isn’t so much an atheist as he is a closeted psychic. It explains so much really. With the secret out and his friends telling him that it’s OK, that they don’t care if he’s interested in talking to the dead, and that there’s nothing to be ashamed of because he was born that way, the resident evil spirit (see what I did there?) sees a soft target and possesses him. Armed with the powers of hell and an ability to roll his ‘r’s with such power it would intimidate the most hardened latino, Marcus is intent on controlling the whole world. It’ll be up to Eva and Sara to use a concoction of psychic power and Christianity (and a little rubber tubing) to banish this evil back to the hole it crawled out of.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• No seance is complete without some Satanic apple juice.
• Satan has his own brand of seance-ready candles.
• Blondes think that a red flashing light is the highest form of security for a building.
• Sending a woman with a camera to a toilet next to the corpse freezer in a morgue is an excellent way to come on to her.
• Why does a morgue for unclaimed bodies need a family waiting area?
• Good Christian girls have a really powerful right hook.
• There’s nothing more unattractive than a closeted spirit channeler.
• There’s no high quite as good as an embalming fluid high.
• Demons are trained to be back up strippers in case times get tough in Hell.
• Never tell a demon your secrets – he’ll be running all over town airing your dirty laundry.
• In the event of friend’s demonic possession, sex is your best weapon against them.

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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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2012: Doomsday

Year of Release: 2008
Genre: Sci-Fi / Adventure
IMDB Rating: 1.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

You know, I consider myself a patient if somewhat long-suffering individual so far as b-movies go. I have seen things that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I have built up an immunity to things like the Asylum and Syfy Originals, but there are somethings that you just cannot prepare for. 2012: Doomsday is one of those things. Part of the Asylum’s trilogy of disaster movies that also includes 2012: Ice Age and 2012: Supernova, 2012: Doomsday is by far the worst of the trio. With this one they decided to throw in everything and then a few people’s kitchen sinks: the recipe includes Christian theology, New Age thinking and Mayan prophecy, but it was definitely left to cook for a little too long. By the end of it you’ll be so confused you’ll begin to wonder if you hallucinated the whole thing or if you actually saw this movie play out before your very eyes.

A "No He's my Lord and Saviour!" argument breaks out.

Our tale of misadventure and outright confusion begins in Mexico. Sarah is a Christian missionary incapable of displaying emotion or vocal inflection who’s on assignment in a little village in the back and beyond of nowhere trying to help out those good Christian people who are less fortunate and white than herself. The entire village has suddenly become ill and she desperately needs to find a doctor but, when that fails, a random medical student snapping photos of her jogging will just have to suffice. They realise that something is terribly wrong on the way back to the village when they pass a river that’s near boiling point and all the fish are dead and floating downstream. What possible calamity could have caused this?

Dear Lord, please forgive me for thinking that I could be an actress.

The whole world going to Hell, that’s what’s causing this. Sarah’s father works for the US government tracking unusual phenomena that may have adverse effects on the planet. Somehow the combination of planetary alignment in the solar system and the sun’s rotation around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy have caused the Earth’s rotation to stop (although in this movie it has no effect on the magnetosphere), enormous storm cells to form and the continents to move around a little bit. It’s a helluva lot of stuff to have going on all at the same time. Thankfully we have Dr. Frank Richards, a man of science and reason to help us out. Well, science and reason until he discovers a crucifix in a Mayan temple and decides that the only logical thing to do will be to take it to a different Mayan temple to fulfill a prophecy as ordained by Fate. Making sense so far? Didn’t think so.

Earth Over. Insert Jesus to continue playing.

Because we don’t have enough strange people to pay attention to the movie also throws Susan at us. Susan’s a staunch atheist nurse who believes that science can explain everything. Somehow it’s going to explain her strange desire to visit a Mayan temple that she’s only ever seen in a dream as a child. Her mother, a very devout Christian woman, believes this is all part of God’s greater plan for mankind. So now all these odd people must make their way to the Mayan temple to fulfill a prophecy made by Christians in the Americas nearly a thousand years ago while avoiding a variety of natural disasters before time runs out and the entire planet is decimated. Oh yeah, and the rapture’s thrown in amongst all this just for good measure.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• The words ‘we need to evacuate’ just dare a volcano to erupt.
• The Mayans were famous for their underground Christian churches.
• Scientists refuse to accept that the Mayans practised crucifixion, and are insulted if anyone even mentions it.
• Doctors often argue about whether to use medicine or just leave it up to God.
• When the world’s about to go to Hell someone needs to be there to take pictures.
• God will plummet the whole Earth into chaos just to teach one blonde woman to believe.
• God, Christ and the Fates often club together to buy humanity gifts.
• Missionaries in villages in the hell and back of nowhere often have no skills that would be useful to the people there.
• Newborn children are the exclusive property of God.
• Mankind has a dormant instinct to flock to Mayan temples that is awoken during times of the apocalypse.
• Distance in Mexico is measured in how many hills you need to climb over.

2012: DOOMSDAY TRAILER

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Bite Marks

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror / Comedy
IMDB Rating: 3.6 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!
Breast-O-Meter: 1 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

IMDB is a wonderful thing. Without it finding the movies for this blog would be incredibly difficult and the rating system gives you a vague idea of just how much pain you’re about to experience. Every now and then, though, I disagree with that rating system. It happened with Bikini Girls on Ice and now it’s happened with Bite Marks. This movie was actually really good and fun to watch and, unlike some other movies I’ve seen, it was intentionally funny. I’ll be the first to admit that I have low standards and if you throw in a waitress with a strong southern twang I’m happy but if you’re in the mood for some light-hearted horror then I suggest giving this one a spin.

Flaming (torch). Swallows (t-shirt).

Cary and Vogel are a nice young gay couple out on a backpacking adventure trying to rediscover some of the fire in their relationship. Cary is the nice, calm, down-to-earth guy and Vogel is, well, a slut. Vogel also doesn’t seem overly keen on this little adventure in the woods so when he manages to flag down a truck that’ll give them a ride he seems a little more content with life. Behind the wheel of the truck is Brewster, your typical rugged, unrefined but incredibly friendly truck driver. Not that he’s actually a truck driver but his brother went missing before he was meant to deliver some coffins to a funeral home so Brewster’s filling in for him. Not out of the kindness of his heart so much as he needs the money to keep up his affair with his brother’s wife but a favour is a favour. The three of them are soon on the road together, one to deliver coffins and two to see where the hell the road will take them.

Backstreet Boys: the later years.

Sadly Brewster, for all his rugged manliness, has been having troubles satisfying the ladies recently. Just can’t quite seem to keep the momentum going so to speak. The reason for this becomes glitteringly obvious when he spies Cary and Vogel getting in on in the filthy restroom of a restaurant they’ve stopped at along the way. Brewster’s not gay in any way, of course, but he does take the time to see how Cary and Vogel are doing and then feel himself up a little bit outside the door. Sexing and spying over it’s time to hit the road again and, as luck would have it, a car nearly crashes into them right outside their destination. If it hadn’t who knows how long they would’ve kept on driving.

Here's Jesus in your eye!

When the GPS tells them they’ve reached their destination our threesome is understandably confused. The coffins in the back are supposed to be going to a funeral home but the address they’ve been given is for a junk yard. Even more confusing are the noises coming from the back of the truck: sounds like someone’s playing a squash tournament back there. It becomes even more confusing when they open the back of the truck to discover only one coffin instead of the five listed on the inventory. This strangeness all comes to a head when suddenly, from out of nowhere, five ripped and bloody vampires appear and start nibbling on the owner of the junkyard. The truck’s axle is broken so nobody’s going anywhere so, armed with a cross, a toy Jesus, some holy water and a bible, Cary, Vogel and Brewster must lock themselves in the cab and try and stay alive until dawn, all the while trying to make sure the confined space and all that testosterone doesn’t get the better of them.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Sex is sex, so long as a lady gets her booze money.
• Some cell phones are so poorly made that their only practical use is as a butt plug.
• It’s quite common for waitresses to forget their panties in a public restroom.
• The best thing about being a man is that the whole world is your toilet.
• A torch is too small if you can’t even give a hamster a decent colonoscopy with it.
• Being trapped in a truck by vampires offers the perfect excuse for some same-sex experimentation.
• Good dogs make even better snacks.
• A burning vampire smells like a bag of spicy dog shit.

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