12/12/12

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 2 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 1.5 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Right, it’s official: I’m giving up my dream of gradually taking over the planet by being the world’s most efficient paper-pusher and applying for a job at The Asylum. I want to earn my living by spending my days high on crack and writing stories, because I’m pretty sure that’s what happened before the cameras started rolling on 12/12/12. Even by Asylum standards this was horrid, and whoever was behind it doesn’t seems to have even the foggiest idea about how anything in the world actually works. That being said, I watched this alone, and if I’d seen it with my elite squad of movie watchers I think it could’ve been a lot of fun. So, dear reader, grab a seat, grab a beer, grab your crack pipe, and let’s get this review on the road.

The gooey, bloody, possibly back-alley miracle of birth.

Everyone gather round and meet Veronica. Veronica’s in terrible pain – she’s about to have her first child delivered by the country’s most inept team of doctors. I guess this is what one should expect when you decide to have your baby in an emergency ward that has a park bench outside it and an entrance that looks like some dingy club’s back alley. Not that Veronica notices; she’s too busy screaming out in pain / orgasming in her vain attempts to give birth. The doctors can’t decide what to do, and baby daddy Carlos seems to think that the best plan of action is to lunge violently at every nurse that comes his way. After a lot of comings and goings the very independent baby climbs out of Veronica’s womb and promptly attacks, strangles, nibbles and kills the entire surgical team. One might think that this would be cause for alarm, but mommy’s tired and doesn’t seem to think much of it.

Hold on honey! Mommy’s chest is coming!

Things seem to be going OK until Veronica and Carlos bring little Sebastian home. Sebastian looks a bit like Baby Sinclair from Dinosaurs, but this again raises no concerns from his parents. Despite only being 6 days old he also tends to bite a lot with his razor-sharp little teeth, is quite capable of crawling on his own, and has this bad habit of compelling people to do terrible things via telepathy. Things like making his dad drink water from a kettle that’s just boiled, or making the delivery boy slit his own throat open. Sebastian’s taken into child protection after the death of Carlos and Veronica goes to stay with her sister, vowing revenge upon the government for trying to protect the country’s children from harm.

Amen brother.

At some point our characters make the transition from blind confusion to blinding insight so far as Sebastian’s demonic origins are concerned. By now Sebastian looks like Baby Sinclair after he was involved in a tragic cooking oil incident, and his blood lust (and his desire to throw his nappies everywhere) has become insatiable. Couple this with the group of satanic doomsday prophets who are looking for Sebastian to use him in some rite or other, dear Veronica really has her work cut out for her. She’s aided by a policeman who’s constantly sucking on a lollipop, and her sister who has some serious issues that are never really explained to us. Will Sebastian spare his mother when the devil arrives to take over the world? Will Veronica ever stop running around the city and causing teen suicides? Will 20-somethings ever stop taking night hikes along deserted highways? All this and much less will be revealed when you watch 12/12/12.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• No one ever talks about Satanic monks.
• You can still give a woman an epidural even if the baby’s crowning… and then again when the baby’s half way out.
• You can still perform a caesarean section even if the baby’s half-way through the birth canal.
• IV equipment can be manually set to ‘murder’.
• You don’t need to provide any kind of anaesthetic before performing a C-section.
• An umbilical cord isn’t a weapon you should underestimate.
• Any woman can lose all her pregnancy weight by the time the hospital discharges her.
• It’s perfectly normal for a 1-week-old baby to have teeth like a piranha.
• Police protocol dictates that 1-week-old babies should be considered suspects in murder trials.
• Vaginal baby suffocation is still a serious problem in modern society.
• The custody of a child can just be thrown from person to person, willy nilly.
• 6 Vicodin will usually take care of the pain from a small cut on your thumb.
• Police always use their sirens to let people know they’ve arrived.
• You should always be on the lookout for perverted babies – you never know when one’s watching you in the shower.
• Strangulations are always more fun when your hands make whooshing noises.
• Police these days are almost always psychic – you don’t need to tell them where you when you call.
• Priests and homeless people are equally adept at spotting the Anti-Christ.

12/12/12 TRAILER

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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.

KINKY KILLERS TRAILER

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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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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.

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