Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) is a film about a family enjoying their vacation lake home. They get set up in their home for a short stay and some friends of the neighbor’s come to visit. Things go south quickly.

The film starts out with a German family driving through the country pulling a sailboat. Anna, Georg (Ulrich Mühe from The Lives of Others), little Georg, and Rolfi the dog. They’re playing a game where you guess which song the other is playing on the CD player in the car. It’s mainly classical music, but when they roll the opening credits, there’s this insane screamy metal playing. Very weird opening to a movie.

The family drives past their uncle’s house and yells for help with the sailboat in a few minutes. Their vacation home is right next door to their uncle’s house, so it isn’t a huge deal. Uncle Fred is acting a bit strange when he arrives to help put the sailboat in the water. Uncle Fred is acting REALLY weird when he shows up at the family’s house with an equally weird boy to help with the boat. The weird boy is wearing white gloves that don’t get explained. Even the son asks why uncle Fred is acting so weird. And Rolfi keeps barking at all of them—the dog is clearly feeling something’s off.

Then, out of the blue, another creepy weird boy shows up from Uncle Fred’s house to ask for eggs; this is Peter. He’s super creepy and also wearing white gloves. The kid drops the eggs he is borrowing and the mom cleans up the mess while he looks around the house all shifty-like. Then the kid “accidentally” knocks the house phone into the sink of water, knocking it out of commission. Paul shows up and asks if he can try out the Georg’s golf club. Paul disappears with the golf club and the dog is going crazy, then suddenly, the dog isn’t barking. Paul tells Anna to give the eggs to Tom—the wrong name. Paul then smacks Georg with the golf club. Oh buddy, it is ON. The two creepy boys are playing a game with the family and it isn’t a fun one (well, it isn’t fun for the family, anyway).

The shifty boys decide to bet with the family. Peter and Paul are betting the family will be dead in 12 hours—Anna and Georg are betting they’ll be alive in 12 hours. Peter and Paul grab the little boy and put a pillowcase over his head and get the mom to strip. This game is going poorly for the family, if you hadn’t noticed. The kid tries to escape but Paul captures him again, along with a shotgun. Things get really messy here. A lot of the action appears off camera, so you’re only hearing crashing and screams and such. But you can tell things are not going well for the family.

The whole time, Pater and Paul remain extremely calm and matter of fact. They’re having fun, but it’s a very subdued kind of fun, since they apparently excel at head games and terrorism. The whole movie is really dark—both lighting and plot. Nothing good is coming from these two painfully prim and proper boys visiitng the neighbor’s house. It’s a nightmare. The movie is generally pretty intense; however, when Paul looks at the camera and actually talks to the audience—asking them if they’ve had enough and then winking—it ruins the whole feel of the scene.

The movie is really long and probably even feels longer than it is. Parts of it are good, but the flow is off. About halfway through the movie, I thought it was all over with, but realized it was less than an hour in, so it wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. The intensity and peaks and valleys seemed a bit off, even for a German film. Right at the end of the movie, it becomes a stupid Adam Sandler movie. I’d love to ruin the ending of this movie for you, but the movie sort of ruins itself. If you are brave enough to watch this movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s asinine. Don’t waste your time (like I did).

Final Grade: D

I would try to explain to you how 3D pornography blurs the line between awesome and horrific, as well as disgusting and hilarious, but I can’t. Suffice it to say, it isn’t arousing. It wasn’t arousing in the ’70s, and watching a movie from the ’70s in the 2010s STILL isn’t arousing. However, watching adult films with 100 other people in a large mainstream theater IS pretty awesome. (This isn’t the first 3D “blue movie” I’ve watched with a large crowd of people, sadly.)

I know Hot Skin is an adult film, but there truly IS a plot. Chick (yes, that’s his name) is a nightclub owner who can’t…uh…perform with a girl he likes. He can do everything else, but can’t seal the deal. He gets professional help from a few people. Chick’s ex-girlfriend still comes around the office with her creepy and sleazy boyfriend Harry. Anytime someone leaves the room, he whips it out. Harry is a wanted man, and the cops are trying to bring him down. Harry ends up…how can I put this delicately?…Harry ends up sodomizing a woman while simultaneously drowning her in a bowl of chicken soup. I didn’t say the plot makes sense, I just said there is one.

The humor in the film is pretty weak, but you’ll occasionally groan (seriously, from the jokes, not from anything else) (aside from the GIANT patches of unkempt fur you don’t usually see, since 1985). They keep repeating this annoying joke involving Harry’s name until it grates on your ears.

The legendary John Holmes is highlighted on the advertisements for this movie; however, he’s on the screen for like 30 seconds and only grunts. If he’s your selling point, you shouldn’t be buying. Also, Uschi Digard has a pretty major part in this film—you’ll know her from the Ilsa movies, a couple of Russ Meyer films, and a whole lot of adult films all through the ’70s and early ’80s. The best part about this film is watching it with a hundred drunken 18-50 year olds. People were laughing and cheering and mimicking the cat sounds coming from one of the ladies and mocking and commenting on the unkempt landscaping. This movie is great for that.+

You really have to TRY to like the 3D aspect of this. Basically, the 3D glasses given to you are just a hassle and actually detract from the film more than help it. Let’s just say they hadn’t quite mastered 3D in the 1970s. Not even close, in fact. However, they did have high aspirations for their placement of 3D-appropriate scenes. There’s a lot of bodily fluids headed at the camera lens. More so than in the other 3D adult film from the ’70s, Lollipop Girls in Hard Candy. Hard Candy had much better 3D scenes, but the plot was like Bruce Campbell had written it immediately after getting kicked in the head by a camel.

Go see this movie if they show it in a theater, but don’t run out and try to score a copy for your own “private” use. It isn’t worth it. However, telling your friends all about it, who DIDN’T go see it, will torture them for years!!!

(3 out of 5 fus)

My Afternoons with Margueritte (two Ts) is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time and arguably the best French movie I’ve ever seen. I don’t say this lightly, as I’ve watched numerous French films. It’s different than most of the ones I’ve seen, but it is a feel-good movie that I wasn’t expecting at all. The film stars Gérard Depardieu and Gisèle Casadesus, who play 100% believable small-town French folks who stumble upon a passion they both share.

Germain (Depardieu) is a 50-something-year-old small town farmer who lives with his mother. He grows crops in his garden at home and sells them in the local market. After work, he goes to a local café and drinks with his friends until his girlfriend gets off work. Margueritte (Casadesus) is a little old lady who comes to the park to feed the pigeons and read her books most days. They regularly run into each other around Germain’s lunch time and eventually strike up a conversation.

This simple conversation grows over time and, eventually, Margueritte reads him a few passages from her books—mainly classics. He has a knack for visualizing the words in his imagination and asks her to keep reading. She eventually reads a number of books to him. He uses some of his big words with his friends and they make fun of his new knowledge, since they only know him as a friendly oaf. Margueritte finds out Germain had a pretty rough childhood, since he doesn’t know who his father is, his mother’s boyfriends beat him, and he’s resigned himself to living his life as a dumb but gentle giant of a man.

Margueritte gives Germain a copy of a book of hers, and when he has trouble reading it himself, she gives him a dictionary. He has trouble with the dictionary, which ends up being quite amusing, so he gives it back to Margueritte. His relationship with Margueritte confuses Germain’s girlfriend at first, but once she realizes who he’s been spending all this time with, she gives it her blessing.

Margueritte develops some health issues and Germain is committed to helping her as much as possible. It is absolutely endearing and beautiful. The relationship between Germain and Margueritte is incredibly believable and is developed in a way not usually seen in film—in any language. The dialogue between the two is deep and touching and I heard a LARGE number of people tearing up in the audience in the theater. I admit, there was some dust in my own eye in a few scenes that caused some eye leakage.

You will not regret seeing this movie. Depardieu knocks this film out of the park and Casadesus makes you wish she were your very own grandmother. As we walked out of the theater, everyone that was leaving was talking about how brilliant the film was and was smiling from ear to ear. I won’t give away the ending of this film, but I will say that Jean Becker (the director) ended this movie the way he should have. I do not expect to see a film this good for many years. Bring your mother and father to this film. Bring your significant other. Bring anyone who loves classic literature or film of any genre. These actors and director deserve MUCH more than $10 per person for this film.

Final Grade: A++

Primeval is a film about a bloodthirsty alligator, based on a supposed true event. The giant alligator is wreaking havoc throughout Africa, and the villagers are getting scared to go in the water, despite it being their life source. Some American journalists are sent over to do a story on it and to capture the alligator, but the beast isn’t having it.

The film starts with a woman investigating a handful of men buried after an execution-style killing in a poverty-ridden country in Africa. She’s trying to figure out what happened to them. She puts her shovel in the ground for the first scoop of dirt and she hits something that bursts up out of the ground and attacks her. The crocodile is a legend in the country, and it is named Gustave. A news journalist in NYC is sent into the country (a warzone) to get the story. The guy’s boss thinks he’ll capture the crocodile in time for sweeps week and it’s all settled, despite the fact this has been going for years and no one has been able to even come close to capturing it.

The journalist (a real d-bag), his partner, and a cameraman are sent into the country to investigate. They have the help of an American tracker who’s been living in Africa trying to protect the crocodile. The hope is they can capture this giant (maybe up to 30 feet long) crocodile alive. They’ve got all kinds of electronics for tracking it and computers for filming it. It’s a pretty serious operation. They have to contend with local politics and customs and avoid the notice of the local warlord/bad guy, though that clearly isn’t going to happen.

There are some close calls that try to add some suspense to this film, but it only helps a small amount. The local bad guys (the warlord’s men) are doing what they can to disrupt the Americans’ operation. Gustave shows he can manhandle the flimsy giant cage they built to capture him, so they know that’s useless.

At one point, they’re all stranded on what looks like a dock in the middle of the river complaining about how it’s appropriate that they die like this and they’re helpless. Then a helicopter shows up and they think it’s a rescue team. So they literally climb off the deck into the waist deep water and walk to the shore. Really? I thought you were stranded and going to die. Moronic. The helicopter is filled with bad guys with guns and they’re looking to kill the Americans.

The CGI in this movie is pretty awful (as you’d expect from an unheard-of scary giant animal movie that appears to be made for the SyFy channel.) The acting in the film isn’t bad, but the action just wasn’t up to snuff. Yes, the alligator eats a bunch of people on film and there are tons of “running through the reeds on the river bank” scenes, but sadly, there just isn’t enough action to hold the viewer’s attention. I kept waiting for the film to be over. Some of the perspective is off, as well. At one point, a Range Rover hits the alligator, yet the alligator reappears and is like three times the size of it. This film isn’t even worth a bad movie night, sadly. Next!

(2 out of 5 fus)

Shark Swarm starts with a group of fisherman dumping barrels of what I assume is something toxic into the ocean/bay. The fish are eating this toxic stuff and then a shark swims up and eat the contaminated fish. Flash to an awful montage of CGI sharks eating the fish, then a larger shark eating that shark, and so on (while the opening credits are flashing on the screen). Ridiculous start to the film.

Apparently the fishing crop has been at an all-time low. Hamilton Lux, played by Armand Assante, has come to the rescue and bailed many townspeople out (by offering to buy out their failing fishing business so he can build on their former property). Bo Duke pops into the local marina to buy some gas for his boat, and randomly one of the bad guys who have been dumping toxic stuff into the water also drops in to buy a huge amount of gas. Obviously, that raises some eyebrows.

Meanwhile, the sharks begin to attack divers. And swimming instructors. The bad guys are making more plans to take over the fishing industry in the small bay that they all live in. And the sharks are getting more and more aggressive. The sharks knock some small fishing boats around until the crews eventually fall into the water and get snatched up.

Hamilton Lux—savior of the city—is doing what he can to avoid the EPA, and a bunch of marine biologists are trying to figure out what’s going on. There are also students learning about the wildlife in the area and being shown the new aggressive shark species, as well as the polluted samples of water. The EPA agent is doing what she can to investigate the fish oddities, but she ends up at a local bar trying to grab a bite to eat and she runs into the local professor, who hits on her.

These out of town surfer boys roll into town and hit on Bo Duke’s daughter. She appears to be interested, so she keeps showing up where he’s surfing. And now Hamilton is trying to get at Bo Duke’s wife (Darryl Hannah). Bo Duke is trying to figure out how Hamilton is involved in this whole thing. He goes to the city leadership to ask why they’re not suspicious of all Hamilton’s interest in development.

The film is clearly made for television, since there are painfully obvious spots where commercials were meant to go. It’s quite terribly acted, but not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. However, the CGI in the film is kindergarten stuff—I don’t know why these CGI “artists” continue to have work. Quit doing it until you can do it realistically. As you can see, this CGI aspect of the movie (as usual) enraged me. Even the fancy additions of F. Murray Abraham, Darryl Hannah, John Schneider, Armande Assante, and Willie C. Carpenter from The Wiz couldn’t save this film.

(2 out of 5 fus)

Hobo With a Shotgun is a grindhouse film about a transient man (played by Rutger Hauer) who rolls into a town under the control of Drake—a really bad guy. Rutger blasts his way through the town, despite the townspeople having turned on him. With the help of a lady friend he meets, Rutger dishes out some serious vigilante justice.

The movie starts with Rutger Hauer out on the railroad traveling. He sees this guy with a manhole cover around his neck (Ricky from Trailer Park Boys). This family of bad people (who wear letterman jackets) end up chasing him down and killing him in front of a crowd of people. It’s gruesome and disturbing, but weird. The whole town looks like it’s falling apart. Like some sort of post-apocalypse scenario. There are crazy anarchy punk rock kids beating up and torturing homeless people, and all the punks are being managed by the same bad kids’ family that killed Ricky. All these bad kids wear letterman jackets, so they’re easy to spot.

Rutger steps in and makes a citizen’s arrest on one of the boys when he tries to have his way with a lady. Then things get bloody—really bloody. The lady then has to help Rutger out of a situation. Rutger is trying to save money for a lawnmower (yes, really) and is trying to scrape by with his street skills. He’s also on a mission to beat up bad guys. This is where the shotgun comes in handy. Rutger’s on a rampage. And also swigging hooch out of a flask. He’s done terrible things to save up enough money to buy the lawnmower, but he decides the shotgun will come in handy more often than the lawnmower.

The bad guys send out a message to the citizens of the town telling the citizens to help them hunt down and kill all the homeless people who are wrecking the town. The bad guys are getting fed up with Rutger mowing down their people. Soon, there’s a pile of homeless persons and the streets still aren’t safe. The bad kids go after Rutger, but things don’t go so well for them. In the meantime, Rutger’s friend takes a tree saw to the neck and he’s got to get her to the hospital to get patched up. While they’re in the hospital, Rutger takes a moment to go to the birth ward to give the newborns a little pep talk.

The bad guy leader has sent some henchmen out to capture Rutger and bring him back to their lair. The girl goes after the henchmen to bring back Rutger, but not before she slaps on those hilarious slap bracelets the kids had in the ’90s. Then it’s time to kick ass. The bad guys have designed a little show for an audience—a show filled with all kinds of blood and fire. It’s a pretty big deal.

This film had the grindhouse feel to it, with all kinds of gritty action and sub-standard gorey special effects. I won’t say it’s bad, but with a name like Hobo With a Shotgun, I suppose I had higher expectations for this film. It was a decent movie, but didn’t do much for me and I was glad it was over. It could have used more camp, more blood, more plot twists, or a few other things to make it more memorable, but it didn’t have enough good things going for it for me to be able to recommend it to people.

(2 out of 5 fus)

Missing Pieces is an independent project shot on an extremely small budget. The creators of this project put a lot of effort into this film, especially in the camerawork, the varied locations, and feel of this film. The film is about a guy going through a tough break-up after he’s had an accident. He tries to get something intangible (advice, emotion, ideas, understanding, vicarious living, etc) from a young couple he’s met. I’m not sure all of this film makes sense to me, as it’s wildly disjunct, but it appears intentional, so I’m assuming the director and writer of the film would call this a success. I’m not really sure it is, since I found it difficult to follow.

The movie starts out with what appears to be a crazy man (as in legit, mentally disturbed/depressed) whose girlfriend is yelling at him for not taking his medicine. He’s eating cereal with a ladle after he pours milk into the bag. Odd, but vaguely college-y, I suppose. Turns out the crazy guy is a delivery truck driver, delivering a bunch of different things for a lot of different people. Crazy guy is working on some sort of dog shock collar and knocks himself out. Randomly, he goes to a children’s playground and smashes a bunch of florescent tube lights on all the equipment. There’s glass everywhere. Then, he goes through some of the boxes in the back of his truck and pulls puzzle pieces out of boxes that are being shipped somewhere. Maybe this guy hates children or something. His girlfriend comes home and yells at him for missing her art show, but he lies and says he found a dog and took it to the pound. Apparently, he’s been in some sort of car crash and he’s not been acting the same way he used to. She’s really frustrated with him and i’ts clear she wants out. At some point during the movie, she leaves the guy and he does everything he can to get her back.

Meanwhile, there’s a young kid, Daylen, who’s working at the gate of an amusement park early in the morning. There is also a girl named Maggie, who works as a shelf-stocker at a grocery store. These two people have been given a stack of letters by the crazy guy with hours of the day written on each envelope. Every hour, they’re supposed to open one of the letters and read the contents—basically the letters are filled with questions they’re supposed to ask each other. However, there is some sort of shock collar they’re supposed to wear which doesn’t allow them to run away or escape. It seems relatively voluntary though. Every hour there’s an alarm that goes off reminding them to open a letter and ask each other questions. The couple always appears to be in desolate areas in the desert, or in the snow, or in the woods, or floating down a river on a home-made raft. The two teens are smiling at each other and look like they’re having fun, but it’s always just an odd place for them to be doing something like this. The whole time, the crazy guy is filming, photographing, and recording every scene, and jotting down notes.

I think the film is flashing backward and forward, but it is impossible to tell. The two kids seem like they’re getting to know each other, although the girl seems to be going along with it a lot more than the boy does. It’s clear she’s got a crush on the boy (even to me, and I’m a dummy—ask my fiancée). The boys gets fed up with being filmed and runs after the camera guy. The camera guy zaps her, and then I’m not sure what happens.

The crazy delivery guy is back at the gates of the amusement park again talking to the boy. The conversation leads to what the crazy guy can do to get his lady back. He asks the kid for advice. The kid says to paint her a picture, since his former girlfriend is an artist, so he goes and watches some Bob Ross DVDs and tries to come up with something. He goes to his ex’s house and stashes some big surprise in her house (she’s pissed because he broke in). She’s still not having it and is pretty firm about things being over between them.

The young couple is supposed to set a boat on fire, along with a bunch of boxes, according to the letter. The crazy guy ends up coming after the couple while wearing a giant owl head. I told you it was really twisted. There are flashbacks of the crazy guy back when he was happy, then while he’s laying in a hospital bed, then a car crash, then the young couple wrestling him in the woods. The guy obviously has had some sort of accident, but it’s hard to tell if he had the crazy before the accident or if the accident caused it.

The whole thing bounces back and forth between flashback and present day. It is extremely difficult to figure out what’s going on with the plot. There are random scenes thrown in all over the plac,e and it’s clear this film was hodge-podged together and is missing a lot of linear plot. It’s not that the film is bad, it’s just confusing, even for fans of David Lynch or John Waters. At the end of the film, I’m not sure if I’ve learned some moral lesson, if I’ve developed empathy for the crazy guy or one of the kids, if I’ve been horribly depressed coupled with confusion, or if I’ve absolutely missed some highly cerebral symbolism and have missed out on something important that would tie everything together. Like I said earlier, it’s well shot and pretty well acted, but the flow needs some work. After watching the extras and the making of the film, I wasn’t surprised to hear it got rejected from Sundance and SXSW film festivals. It simply isn’t entertaining, nor does it command your attention. The whole film feels like it takes four hours to watch, while in actuality it’s only 117 minutes. And now having read the plot of the film on Wikipedia, there are entire portions of the plot that were not conveyed to the viewer in a way that I picked up on. I’m not a fan of movies where you have to read the back of the box or read a plot synopsis to understand what’s happening. The movie should stand on its own, and this one clearly doesn’t do that very well.

Final Grade: C-

The film opens in the rural countryside of England, present day (which appears to be the 8’s, even though the film was shot in 2003). An SUV pulls up to a mansion and out pop four hot blonde women dressed in sheer outfits—guess who? There are bad bad people inside talking about this group of female assassins right as they break into the mansion and apprehend them with all kinds of weird gadgets like James Bond. The ladies are looking for a hard drive with the plan, to erase the whole thing. What they don’t know is that one of the bad guys is from Indiana Jones.

One of the girls, Helga, is some sort of biologist studying plants in the Amazon, while wearing really whorey clothes. She’s found a woman-eating plant and some random guy is tracking her. The plant moves around like a snail and has a tongue. But it isn’t for eating women. Well, it sort of is…

Meanwhile, the Swedish Bikini Team is being bestowed the ranking of Dame Commander by the Queen Mum in London—the equivalent of Knighting a male. Helga misses it, due to the previously mentioned Amazon expedition, and the team finds out Helga’s been killed. The team is just beginning to go through her remaining items when their boss gives them a new mission—track down Joe Datsun. Since time is of the essence, they’ll have to rush the funeral proceedings. Helga’s fake grave site is at plot 36D. They buy some props and stage a fake burial in Stockholm.

Joe Datsun is working with a computer geek to trade nuclear weapons. The bad guys are mixing up a batch of radioactive goo and putting it into tankers while wearing wildly insufficient protective gear. The bad guys’ boss, Gustav, is running the show from Vegas, and he’s sending his henchmen to do a number of bad things with the radioactive goo. Actually, I’m not sure where the goo ends up, they just suddenly quit talking about it.

Interpol, under the direction of Roger That (yes, that’s his name), captures Big Peter and the Leather Nun with a bagful of counterfeit cash. They interrogate them, but come up with no good leads. Then, for some reason, Big Peter and the Leather Nun disappear. I think their scenes could have been cut and made this film a bit shorter.

In a completely unrelated scene, the Bikini team is seen judging the International Bikini Team Federation Open Finals (the only acronym in the film that doesn’t spell something asinine). There’s a performing act—the Big Beautiful Babe Bikini Team that absolutely steals the show while the crowd claps along, completely off the beat. Beverly Hills Bikini Team is on next. Then, the British Bikini Team. Way to work bikinis into absolutely none of the actual plot, Mr. Director!

The bad guys have paid the computer geek to plant a bomb on the top of Big Ben. The Swedish Bikini Team has to disable the bomb via a laser sent from space to melt the detonating device. Unfortunately, the weather in London (always rainy) diffuses the laser and doesn’t deactivate the bomb. The girls, even though they’ve spent hours trying to deactivate it from afar, simply have to climb to the top of Big Ben and turn off the device by hand.

Meanwhile, Joe Datsun has had plastic surgery to disguise himself. And things get confusing as to who is trying to save who and who is who’s boss. It’s difficult to determine what the plot twist actually is unless you listen closely. There is a suitcase bomb this time and the Swedish Bikini Team has to track it again and disarm it with the laser device that didn’t work the first time.

The accents are what makes this movie so hilarious. Swedish, Indian, Irish, Russian, all are a tad over the top. The Swedish ones might be real, but the rest I question. The dialogue is pretty bad, as are the hilarious poses the girls strike at odd times. I’m not saying this movie is the worst I’ve seen, only that I question if it is bad enough for Bad Movie Night. I think if enough people are there to mock the action, hilarious gadgets they use, and the painful one-liners they use, it might be passable. It’s clearly a James Bond spoof, but not really all that well done. And keep an eye out for all the faces you’ll recognize from various other Hollywood projects—there’s a handful of people you’ll know. And sadly, the Swedish Bikini Team never actually appears in bikinis. Just awesome 80s skimpy outfits.

(2 out of 5 fus)

The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi is a Troma film starring Faye Dunaway. (How did that happen, again? Does Lloyd Kaufman have dirt on poor Faye and blackmailed her into this film?) Mr. Carducci is talking to a shrink about being a pedophile. The shrink is Dr. Fugazzi, and she is helping Carducci get help, since he abducted two young Jewish girls last Halloween. Somehow, he appears to be out and walking around instead of in jail. Fugazzi’s assistant thinks he should be locked up. Consequently, Dr. Fugazzi is basically a dark-skinned Indian dominatrix type of shrink—you don’t run across that everyday. Then again, I haven’t gone to a psychologist, so maybe this is more common than I realize.

Fugazzi meets for lunch with a random bearded man who parades around in a top hat with a cane. He seems to be some sort of mentor to her psychology practice and gives her some advice before jetting off to see some play somewhere out of the country. During lunch, Fugazzi has a small freak-out and sees the cane bleeding. It will come up again, later in the film.

Meanwhile, in her night life, her goth boyfriend Maynard has some jealousy issues with a guy who’s hosting a terrible goth party they’ve been invited to. Things go poorly for Maynard that evening (refer back to the dominatrix comment I made earlier). The next day, Fugazzi has appointments with a kleptomaniac and a wackjob fortune teller. These patients report seeing people trying to kill them, and Fugazzi begins putting pieces together. She’s having scary dreams with people in black robes and decides to go see the man with the top hat and cane. He’s always got good advice.

Then she starts seeing patients in her house—while her boyfriend is trying on her dresses. Then she sodomizes him with a broom. Yeah, it isn’t the most linear movie. Fugazzi is starting to lose it?…or has she already lost it?…

Fugazzi and her weird boyfriend end back up at another one of the goth guy’s dinner parties. Right before he pulls out this new machine gun he bought, he proclaims the best line in the movie—“Dinner’s over. Now let’s go have an orgy!” After this point, things continue to get more bizarre, and really don’t make a whole lot of sense in the end.

There are a lot of downsides to this film. Fugazzi’s Indian accent seems to come and go as needed. There are ridiculous video game noises and stupid background music. I’m not even sure why. Then the movie just ends. Wow. Talk about abrupt AND stupid. I’m usually a Troma film fan, but this one kind of went nowhere, contained a severe lack of the usual T&A, and was pretty boring.

I’m not a fan of this movie. It may be a slightly interesting concept for a film, but it just isn’t pulled off well enough, nor acted well enough to be remotely believable. There are a lot of sniveling scenes where people are being restrained or having weird dream sequences—I just don’t get why they can’t find quality actors and actresses who are believable for these parts. Here’s an idea: don’t ask your friends to be in your movie; go find a community theater somewhere and hire them. They may overact, but at least they’ll put some effort into a poorly written script.

(1 out of 5 fus)

A guy with a sweet perm-mullet is a professional street fighter, but is too rough with his lady. His lady talks to her shrink and the shrink convinces the lady she should leave the guy because he’s a total douche. She leaves the guy (who claims he’s “undefeatable”) and the guy goes on a killing rampage—after spray painting two red skunk stripes in his mullet-y hair. He attacks any girl he sees in a flowery dress because his mind tells them it’s his long-lost lady. It’s actually an easy mistake, being that all of them have gi-normous 80s mall-hair and pretty much looked the same back then. He mutilates the ladies, after killing them kung fu style. It’s kind of a bummer for the ladies, frankly. Things get really bad when mullet-psycho-dbag kills and gouges out the eyes of the world karate champ, whom everyone in the world recognizes like he’s a common household name. This is only the tip of the iceberg for things that are simply not believable in this film.

The side story is about a tough (not really) red-headed girl who is also a small-time street fighter for money. She’s a member of an Asian gang, apparently (maybe that’s not weird, maybe there are a ton of gingers fighting for Asian gangs. I just don’t know). (It’s also quite apparent that during the 80s, Asian men exclusively date Caucasian women—I think this movie has some sort of political message or the producers were trying to make up for WWII or something.) She’s raising money to put her sister through med school. Mullet guy finds her sister (since she wears flowery dresses) and kung-fu kills her before gouging out her eyes. The now-angry red-headed fighter vows to seek revenge, so she goes on a fighting spree against rival street gang fighters trying to figure out who killed her sister. She is helping or being helped by a cop who also has martial arts training (and a crush on her).

I won’t ruin the ending, but I will say I’d never heard “YAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” screamed for 15 minutes straight before, but now I can say I have. And in slow motion, to boot!

Everyone in this film either wears peg-legged dress pants or Zubaz, so be ready for that. I wasn’t prepared. You’re welcome. So yes, this film IS sort of like Fight Club, but with Zubaz. The acting in this movie is absolutely atrocious; however, you can amuse yourself by paying attention to the amount of non-contact fighting you’ll see. It is painfully clear that despite all the kung fu and punches thrown, no one was even accidentally injured by connecting with another person’s skin. Also, just for fun, pay attention to the gang members who obviously lose interest in cheering for their friends during fights. The voices are dubbed, so you’ll hear a lot of hollering, but then when you see the people who are supposed to be yelling, you can tell they’ve done this scene 413 times and are so bored they could scream—which is exactly what they’re not doing.

Finally, you need to pay special attention to the terrible music. On the music track, there is a piano player who can’t hold the tempo— it’s not a style thing, either. He just can’t stay with the rest of the band. Since I have a degree in music, this is especially painful for me.

Get a whole bunch of drinks together, put on your Zubaz, invite your friends over and enjoy ripping this movie apart with your friends. It sets standards for requirements for an awful movie…

(2 out of 5 fus)