Demon House: Zak Bagans

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/118150/demon-house-could-have-been-the-room-of-documentaries/.

1/10

Kill Order: James Mark

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/114850/kill-order-review-the-james-mark-film-completely-misses-its-mark/.

1/10

KFC: Le Binh Giang

To read this review, go to: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/nyaff-main/.

1/10

The Rehearsal: Alison Maclean

It's hard to figure out exactly what I hated most about Alison Maclean's The Rehearsal. Was it the fact that the protagonist was accepted into an elite acting school despite barely being able to act? Or was it the fact that the film felt like it lacked any and all narrative connective tissue, jumping from one plot cul-de-sac to the next with complete abandon? Was it its pretentious, post-modern nonsense, its out-of-the-blue character death 2/3rds of the way through, it completely unlikable characters? No, I think it has to be its refusal to condemn pedophilia and statutory rape. The main character, a college student, gets into a sexual relationship with a middle school girl (the movie doesn't specify exactly how old she is, but she's young enough that her father physically threatens the protagonist when he discovers the nature of their relationship). The film never punishes the college student. In fact, the film ends with them reconciling and essentially walking into an uncertain yet happy future together. And let's not ignore the fact that the girlfriend's sister, another minor, got into a sexual relationship with a 40-something tennis coach. The film seems to sympathize with the sister's grief over losing the relationship. Don't give me any bullshit that the point of The Rehearsal was artistic integrity and honesty, therefore its glossing over the pedophilia and statutory rape is somehow okay. It's not. Maclean chose not to. She should be held accountable.

1/10

Oh hey, check it out. I went ahead and wrote a review of this dung-heap.

http://theyoungfolks.com/review/nyff-review-the-rehearsal/88430.

Norm of the North: Trevor Wall

Trevor Wall's Norm of the North is bar-none the worst film I've seen all year. A few others have pissed me off more. But from a technical standpoint the film is just atrocious. It's the ugliest CGI-animated film I've ever seen aside from Foodfight! (2012). There are barely any convincing textures, background characters are blatantly cloned, and the characters have no weight in their movement. Even the Looney Tunes had weight! The story is contrived and utterly preposterous. I'm already forgetting it. WHY ARE THE LEMMINGS ALWAYS PEEING? WHY IS THE BEAR ALWAYS TWERKING? WHY IS KEN JEONG A SENTIENT SPAGHETTI NOODLE? And man, those lemmings were insufferable. They really were banking on them becoming the new Minions, weren't they?

1/10

They're Watching: Jay Lender, Micah Wright

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-theyre-watching/75563.

1/10

Maniac: Dwain Esper

Dwain Esper's Maniac is sorta like if a wannabe art-school filmmaker tried to replicate all of the stylistic errata of great art filmmakers without first learning how to actually make a film. In short, it's like Ed Woods Jr. meets German Expressionism. The film is thoroughly incompetent with its nonsensical plot, multiple intrusive intertitles describing mental illnesses which attempt to provide dramatic gravity to the farcical goings-on, and ridiculous scenes of scantily clad women chatting about nothing in particular. But I can't fault the film for trying: there are several camera angles that I admire, I enjoyed the idea of doubled identities, and the effect with the cat's eyeball was deliciously repulsive. But Maniac fails. Hilariously so.

1/10

Surf Nazis Must Die: Peter George

I am convinced that the only reason Peter George's Surf Nazis Must Die has survived as a "cult classic" is its title. And it's a perfect title, isn't it? First, there's the absurd juxtaposition of the terms "surf" and "Nazis." Follow that up with the command that they "must die" and you have a dynamic, brain-snatching title that is sure to stick with people regardless of whether or not they actually see it. But while Surf Nazis Must Die certainly contains Nazis, surfing, and dying, the final product is so banal and lifeless that afterwards the title will be the only thing that viewers will remember. The film feels like the boring bits of about a dozen Z-grade drive-in pictures chopped up and randomly glued back together by a blind macaque. Scenes start and stop and start and stop with little attention paid to how they transition between each other or build a narrative. It's essentially a 90 minute stag reel of surfing footage and dirty teenagers sneering at each other. The film's diegetic universe doesn't make any sense, either. Apparently a catastrophic earthquake so devastated California that roving gangs of Nazis were able to seize power. And yet apparently enough of society remained that social services like nursing homes and small businesses could still operate. But I'm clearly giving this film more thought than any of its makers did.

1/10

Bwana Devil: Arch Oboler

Arch Oboler’s Bwana Devil is woefully incompetent. And it’s not just woefully incompetent, it’s stunningly racist. And it’s not just stunning racist, it’s boring. This is a film where the White Man must save native Africans from vicious man-eating lions. Of course, first the half-naked African warriors must be literally reduced to tears by the beasts they have literally been trained their entire lives to hunt. I am stunned by how awful this film is. Their night shots aren’t even day-for-night; they’re day-for-day. It incorporates stock footage in ways that would make Roger Corman cringe. There are even moments where the actors perform in front of rear projections of said stock footage. The perfunctory love story doesn’t start until an hour in. Nothing about this film works. It’s bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD.

1/10

Curse of the Swamp Creature: Larry Buchanan

Larry Buchanan's Curse of the Swamp Creature is one of the most weepingly hilarious, unapologetically atrocious movies I've ever seen. Not a thing about the movie works: there is atrocious day-for-night shooting; laughable costumes that would be rejected from Party City; horribly racist “voodoo natives” whom I think were literally picked up off the streets of a nearby city (how many witchcraft shamans wear T-shirts and blue jeans?); ADR the likes of which makes one yearn for the sophisticated touch of Vic Savage's The Creeping Terror (1964); performances so wooden you could use them to build a log cabin (Jeff Alexander's turn as Dr. Simond Trent deserves to go down in history as one of the great bad movie performances); a nonsensical, meandering story; and stock footage of alligators feeding on Dr. Trent's victims that are integrated into the film with all the skill and nuance of a palsied lumberjack (I love how in scenes where the bodies are first thrown into the reptile-infested water you can see that it is so obviously a swimming pool).

1/10

All Monsters Attack: Ishirō Honda

Now that I think about it, Ishirō Honda's All Monsters Attack may have the greatest runtime-to-kaiju-footage ratio that I've ever seen in a Japanese Godzilla movie. And yet, it is easily the worst Godzilla film I have ever seen. So I don't want to hear any more belly-aching from people who claim that Gareth Edwards' Godzilla (2014) sucked because you didn't see much of the titular kaiju. Let it be forever known that kaiju screentime does not equal cinematic quality. I hated this movie. I hated how they made an annoying, bratty child the protagonist (what is this, a Gamera movie?). I hated how the use of stock footage was the norm and not the exception. I hated how they neutered Godzilla; how they made Minilla talk; how they officially converted kaiju into children's mascots; how they broke up the occasional interesting fight scene with scenes of the kid fighting some of the most laughably ineffectual yakuza members ever put on screen. I hated all of it. Well, that's not entirely true. I did enjoy watching Gabara Sith-Lightning Minilla. And Gabara had a pretty cool design (we need more hairy kaiju). But All Monsters Attack was miserable. I can't believe it was directed by the man who gave us Godzilla in the first place.

1/10

The Lawless Frontier: Robert N. Bradbury

I think this is some form of karmic retribution for having watched and almost enjoyed Robert N. Bradbury's The Dawn Rider (1935). After finally seeing an almost passable Poverty Row Western with John Ford, I've watched what might be the worst I've yet to see. There were parts of this film that I literally couldn't see because the cinematography was so bad. What little audio there was (large swathes of the film were submerged in total, awkward silence) was so poor that I couldn't make out most of the dialogue. And this wasn't just a matter of me watching a bad print. Different audio levels were used for different pieces of dialogue, making it seem like some lines were recorded while the actors were standing three studios over. The plot was so generic that even now, with a wikipedia summary right in front of me, I can still barely understand what the movie was about. This movie was pain.

1/10

The Cable Guy: Ben Stiller

I dread movies like Ben Stiller's The Cable Guy. It isn't just bad, it's unpleasant. The entire film is a gauntlet of discomfort. There have been other movies which have elicited similar responses from me that I enjoyed and even loved. But The Cable Guy operates under the false assumption that it's a dark comedy when there isn't anything funny about it at all. The jokes come off as unnecessarily cruel and the slapstick is too over-the-top (at least considering the rest of the film's tone). But the film's biggest miscalculation was Jim Carrey's performance as the eponymous Cable Guy. Carrey is simply too obnoxious to be likable or to seem sympathetic when we learn about his troubled childhood. If his performance had been more low-key, it would have been a lot better. You know who would have been perfect for this role? A younger Robert De Niro. In fact...I think he already did this film with Martin Scorsese. It was entitled The King of Comedy (1982). Think about it. Listen, I can appreciate what Stiller was trying to do with this film. He wanted to comment on modern American society by portraying a character who was almost literally raised by television. Carrey's character was the old stereotype of children whose brains had been rotted by television taken to its natural extreme. But, again, a quieter and more controlled performance might have saved this film.

1/10

White Chicks: Keenen Ivory Wayans

Some bad movies are an adventure. Others are merely boring. Keenen Ivory Wayans' White Chicks is neither of these. This "film" about two inept African-American cops who go undercover impersonating young white socialites in the Hamptons is an endurance test. In a sense it's almost admirable in how there isn't a single moment of this "film" that isn't either painfully unfunny and/or physically nauseating. And you know what the kicker is? The thing that perhaps bothered me the most about White Chicks wasn't its unfunny humor, its racially prejudiced depictions of both whites and blacks, and its gross sexism. No, it was the fact that the "film" actually believed that the white woman prosthetics plastered onto the main actors were convincing. Of course, there are a few obligatory scenes where friends of the impersonated socialites gape at the officers and try to figure out what's "different" about them. But their inevitable conclusions are always something stupid like a new hairdo. Within the world of White Chicks those prosthetics are perfect disguises. And let me tell you...they are among the most revoltingly hideous pieces of makeup that I have ever encountered in any "film." And yet, again, this "film" expects us to buy into their perfection. Why? Because White Chicks is an idiotic film made by idiotic people featuring idiotic characters made for idiotic audiences. And, no, I'm not saying that only idiots can enjoy White Chicks. But what I am saying is that White Chicks was made by deliberately aiming at the lowest common denominator because it doesn't expect anything more from its audience. Screw you. I won't be insulted like this.

1/10

Disaster Movie: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

At around the twenty minute mark of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer's Disaster Movie, I realized that the majority of the film had been devoted to a High School Musical "spoof." And doesn't that just sum up the collected works of Friedberg and Seltzer? Their "spoofs" don't spoof anything; they are parades of tiresome, unoriginal references that become horrifically dated within months of being released. I had no hopes for Disaster Movie after seeing their previous film Meet the Spartans (2008), a work that literally made me physically ill. Imagine my surprise when I dreamed of it nostalgically while watching this film. At least Meet the Spartans was a spoof of one film and had some semblance of a plot structure. Disaster Movie just goes on and on and on and on and on with one awful "spoof" sequence after another. This isn't a movie; it's a punishment.

1/10

Meet the Spartans: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Three times. I laughed three times during Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer's Meet the Spartans, a "spoof" of Zack Snyder's 300 (2007). And each time I felt dirty afterwards. (In case you're wondering...the scenes that made me laugh involved child abuse.) Barely clocking in at over an hour, it is about 3 hours too long. Not only are the jokes horrible (they repeat a bit about a panel of television show judges three times), they rarely have anything to do with the movie they are spoofing. Even worse, they spoof scenes from 300 out of order! Every single second of Meet the Spartans hurt. One scene involving "Paris Hilton" and her hump literally made me physically ill. I can say without a hint of exaggeration that Meet the Spartans is one of the single worst films that I have ever watched in my entire life. And I do not say that lightly.

1/10

The Scenic Route: Mark Rappaport

I feel hesitant to review Mark Rappaport's The Scenic Route because I know for a fact that all of the reasons that I will give to express why I didn't like it are also viewed as qualities that endear it to others. To discuss the film is to breach that ancient debate among critics: if something is bold and experimental, does that necessarily mean that it is good? To be certain, The Scenic Route has a distinct visual aesthetic heavily inspired by photography, painting, and kitsch. Every measured, meticulously framed shot resonates with the finality of its own apotheosis. Though people claim that the film has a story about two sisters who battle over the same man, each shot could very well be stolen from a completely different dimensional timeline. That they come together to form some semblance of a narrative seems more like a coincidence than the result of deliberate design. And yet, for all of its references, self-reflection, and tortured introspection, The Scenic Route is completely empty. It says nothing. The only thing it offers to the audience is a succession of strange, disjointed images. One could argue that Rappaport's technique is more than enough to warrant a viewing, but I feel one could enjoy a more rewarding intellectual experience by simply visiting an art museum. Another argument is that Rappaport's exploitation of other modes of art like painting (and I would also argue sculpture) make it an essential step in the evolution of cinematic language. But the experimental nature of The Scenic Route divorces it from its contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. The film is a means unto itself; a dialectical dead-end. The only reason one would view The Scenic Route would be to experience the film on its own terms. And unfortunately, the film is too marred by its own pretentiousness and esoteric intellectual grammar to make it a worthwhile experience for anyone who doesn't go into it having already made up their mind to love it. And believe me, this is precisely the kind of film that people decide to love or hate before they see it.

1/10

Ring of Terror: Clark Paylow

Clark Paylow's Ring of Terror is a 72-minute film with exactly 5 minutes worth of plot. As such, the film is a bloated, hobbled mess of padding, drawn-out nonsense, and inane sub-plots.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that Ring of Terror is one of the most insultingly padded films that I have ever seen. After a lengthy introduction by a seemingly senile old man who wonders around a cemetery looking for a cat, we are introduced to Lewis Moffitt, a "medical student" aiming to get into a college fraternity. Of course, the idea that he is a college student is preposterous considering the fact that both he and his classmates appear to be in their late 30's and early 40's. But to keep things mercifully brief, Lewis is dared to break into a cemetery and steal a ring from a fresh corpse as part of a hazing ritual. Things don't go well. See, Lewis had a bad experience as a child with the corpse of his grandfather and, well, he just sorta...drops dead. Of course, this story is hard to pick out from all of the other sub-plots taking up space in the film: there's the over-weight couple who woo each other at a dance club, a beauty contest, a number of initiations, a hapless romance, some business with a rattlesnake, and a prolonged autopsy sequence. Ring of Terror shouldn't have been a film. It shouldn't have been anything but a bad idea discarded in a trash can.

1/10

Ninja Terminator: Godfrey Ho

There are only two good things about Godfrey Ho's Ninja Terminator: Jang Lee Hwang and Richard Harrison's dub actor. Everything else about this cut-and-paste atrocity is a nightmare. The plot makes absolutely no sense: three ninjas (one played by Richard Harrison) break away from the "Ninja Empire" and steal the sacred Golden Ninja Warrior, an object that contains some kind of supreme ninja power. But about half of the film is made up of footage of Jang Lee Hwang casually kicking the daylights out of random people as part of a plot to rescue a kidnapped girl. Or at least I think that's what was happening. The editing between the Hwang stock footage and Ho's new Harrison footage is so disjointed that following the plot after the one hour mark isn't a possibility. What's worse, some of the footage that was obviously shot in widescreen was cropped for a different aspect ratio. As a result, many shots cut off characters that we are supposed to see. My favorite example was an early scene at a graveyard where the aspect ratio transfer was so terrible that we have to listen to an off-screen character give a prolonged monologue as we stare at an off-center graveyard. Ninja Terminator is an abysmal film and one of the worst martial arts films I've ever seen. That said, I believe that everyone needs to see this movie. It is one of the most unintentionally hysterical films ever made. From Harrison's novelty Garfield phone to the main antagonist's ridiculous blonde wig, everything in Ninja Terminator seems deliberately designed to be the most insane thing ever committed to celluloid. If someone told me that Ninja Terminator was a deliberate spoof of the ninja genre, I would have believed them. Check this film out!

1/10

India Song: Marguerite Duras

I don't usually get angry at movies, but Marguerite Duras' India Song made me irrationally furious. I don't think I have seen a film so contemptuous of its audience since Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010). India Song is opaque simply on principle. It claims to be a meditation on upper class ennui and alienation, but instead of trying to engage with an audience, Duras created a cruel joke masquerading as an endurance test. The film follows the wife of a 1930s French ambassador to India who dives into the depths of promiscuity to ease her unbearable boredom. This could make for an intriguing film, but Duras presents us with stale tracking shots that move at a glacier's pace. Even worse, they are accompanied by voice-overs of the characters reciting vague and cryptic "poetical" nonsense. We are treated with punishingly long takes of characters sitting or lying down on the ground perfectly still. One scene that could have been fascinating involves a small handful of dignitaries who move around an empty ballroom while the sounds of a lavish party can be heard. It's a powerful metaphor for how they are completely alone even while immersed in robust social atmospheres. But it goes on for at least 20 minutes without anything happening. India Song isn't just a failed piece of art, it is intellectual masturbation.

1/10