Correia's International Film Festival Week

As many of you regular readers know, I watch a lot of B-movies. I try to review the best/worst of them, but I don’t review even a quarter of the ones I actually watch.  Since my current writing project is another MHI novel, I find that monster flicks fuel my creative juices.  So I’ve been watching a bunch, and in the words of Invader Zim, I am now “Squishy, and filled with juice…”

So it was during this binge of Netflix fueled mayhem that I realized the movies I’d watched over the last couple of weeks were like an international smorgasbord of crap.  So I’ve decided to have an International Movie Festival Week!   

Our first contestant, from Mexico:  Vampirohttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439559/ 

Think low budget Blade, from East LA, only without all of that “plotting” and “editing” and Wesley Snipes level charisma (and that’s saying something).  I was surprised to discover that this movie was actually in English, which may disqualify it with our judges, but then again, the characters would randomly lapse into Spanish, and the English was also pretty incomprehensible, so I think Vampiro gets a pass.

Vampiro is about the a dude named Casanova Vladamirez Garcia Venezuela, or something like that. He repeated it like every few minutes, and it never sounded quite the same. Though IMDB does in fact confirm that his name was Casanova (and he told the story about how his mama gave him the name after he kissed a little village girl, like thirty-two times).   Casanova Vladamirez Con Queso is half vampire, and battles evil vampires, with the help of his little girl sidekick.

The story then introduces us to Blanca the love interest. Who apparently spends a lot of time being randomly assaulted by men.  The first scene, a guy tries to sexually assault her, but she says no, so then two guys beat her up. She gets help from a guy who I think was supposed to be her brother, but then he just makes fun of her for messing up the party. Then she goes out with a friend where she is assaulted again. So her and Sexicana (no really, I’m not making up that name) who has a lesbian crush on Blanca, go to make out, where they are picked up police officers and then… you guessed it… get assaulted by the Man only to be saved by Casanova Vladamirez Carne Asada.

Basically Blanca’s life is going from one place to another to be victimized by random people. Apparently women just get harassed nonstop there. Having done my best to avoid LA as much as possible, for all I know that may be accurate, but I think Blanca is something special. She’s just so annoying that everyone in the movie wants to hit her.   If she was walking down the street and ran into Elmo and Mr. Rogers,  within thirty seconds they’d be curb stomping her while Elmo screamed “Elmo wants his money, ho!”

The movie doesn’t make a lick of sense.  At one point, literally ten seconds after Casanova Vladamirez San Antonio tells us that he has super senses that enable him to sense vampires, there is a scene that shows a vampire sneak up on him.  The flash backs were awesome too, since the villain was wearing the same t-shirt in 1975 as he is right now.  I too have a fondness for certain shirts, but that’s taking it to a whole new level.

Overall, skip it. It was dumb, but not dumb enough to be entertaining.  Somehow a movie featuring a lesbian vampire named Sexicana wasn’t enough to make it interesting.

From Germany : Wolf Wolff’s The Beast Within http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439559/

Called Virus Undead back in the fatherland, this movie is also in English, and inexplicably tries to act like it was filmed in America.  Which is bizarre considering that the actors don’t sound American at all, the cars are all little and have really big license plates, and the characters buy fish at a gas station. Now I don’t know about you, but as an American, I would not purchase fish at a gas station. That’s asking for trouble. Corndogs on the other hand… perfectly safe.

But I digress. The DVD cover says that it is “OUTBREAK meets Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS”.  My box must have mistakenly come with the wrong DVD in it.  

But there are CGI birds, briefly. I will give them that. Apparently some scientist has discovered that Bird Flu causes zombies, so created an antidote, or something, but then he’s devoured by birds. Then the actual plot starts where his estranged grandson and his two idiot friends leave med school to take a funeral road trip to the scientist’s place.  And I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, my best friends were a sociopathic malcontent and an idiot bully.  Woot! Road trip!

The three imbeciles… sorry, protagonists, stop at a gas station where they meet Idiot #1’s old girlfriend (who just happens to be a molecular biologist, who works at a gas station) and Chick #2, who in typical European fashion is modest and chaste… Bwa Ha Ha HA! Snort.  Sorry.  Couldn’t help myself. They agree to get together later and have a party at the scientists old place. Because nothing says Party like recent death and swilling absinth.

Then zombies show up. People get infected. Imbeciles die and turn into mutants. Stuff randomly explodes, and despite that, it is actually pretty boring.  The med students are complete morons (thanks socialized medicine, because somebody like these fools are going to be the ones doing my future prostate exams!)

The ending does actually have one awesome bit. While the “hero” and his girlfriend have an epic battle to the death against a single zombie (before being attacked by bad CGI birds) the supporting character of Chick #2 (actress recruited from local strip club) takes an ax-sledge and kung-fu moxy and absolutely demolishes like twenty zombies to death in an orgy of face cleaving violence.  And thereby Chick #2 became, by far, the most interesting character. So of course, they showed her running away, never showed her again, and concentrated on the douchebag main actor. Yay. Thanks movie.

From Canada: Prey for the Beast http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1261935/

From our neighbors to the north comes this thrilling tale of wilderness survival, where a group of mostly unlikable morons are chased by a guy in a suit made out of a rubber pig mask and an old carpet, and devoured, one by one, as you root for the monster to hurry up and kill them faster.  At one point, one of the characters said that this was “Just like Predator! Without guns!”  Uh… Negative. Predator was a good movie.

The plot? Why bother. The director (literally) discovers that his wife is cheating on him (I’m guessing because he is an ineffectual eunuch) and his three special-needs friends decide to cheer him up by going camping. They run into four college girls.  SPOILER ALERT!!! Then the monster eats them until somebody machetes the monster in its rubber face. The End.

This one was bad. Bad. Bad. BAD.  Though as a professional gun-geek I’m very interested in finding that model of Desert Eagle they had in the movie that required the hammer to be manually recocked for every shot or the MP5 that is the choice of professional wilderness guides everywhere.  Apparently Canadian gun laws have worked well enough that they have now entirely forgotten how guns actually work.  (excellent… my invasion should meet with minimal opposition).  It wasn’t just guns. There was a bow that apparently has a magic string, where the arrow is always fully drawn without any pressure required. You just point and the arrow flies off while the string stays back.  Screw you physics. I do what I want!

From Norway: Dead Snow http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439559/

And finally, a good movie! 

I won’t spoil this one for you guys. It is actually a decent story about Nazi-zombies, and the bumbling oafs that suddenly grow a pair and murder the crap out of them.  Was it brilliant? No. Was it intelligent? Not in the least.  Did it make a whole lot of sense? Nope.  But it is a funny, over the top, zombie chain sawing sack of awesome.

Thus concludes the Monster Hunter Nation First Annual International Film Competition. FATALITY! DEAD SNOW WINS! FLAWLESS VICTORY!

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18 thoughts on “Correia's International Film Festival Week”

  1. Well it’s not quite a creature feature B-flick but it is foreign and disturbing so if you want to lose your lunch you should watch Human Centipede.

  2. LOL. That’s funny stuff.

    Well, Larry, thanks again for saving me from more crappy b-movies that would have only left me bored and heartbroken. You watch ’em so we don’t have to. 😉

    I have seen Dead Snow and I agree with your opinion of it. It’s a very good low-budget zombie movie. Very professionally filmed and a good effort all around, and the scene with the MG-34 made the movie all by itself.

  3. SNORT!!!

    <>
    Thank you I just shot cheerios out my nose….
    I’m willing to bet your review was much much better than the whole movie

    Tim

  4. Still giggling over “Curb Stomping Elmo…”

    Loved “Dead Snow,” too. Same sick sort of humor as Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead 2,” and maybe even more gore.

    I’ll never use an outhouse again…

  5. While I can understand a taste for low budget cinematic cheeze, it’s just not my thing.
    Sure, having the “actors” read. Their lines can be hilarious, and the sheer goofofficty of some of the Special Effects is pure comedy gold.

    But I have more expensive taste. To see truly bad acting one needs an otherwise good or great actor. For the absolute in goofy one needs a huge budget and a talented crew.

    My favorites in this area?
    1) Zardoz. Everyone should see this movie for the gold standard in WTF.
    2) Exorcist II. One of the funniest movies ever, and not intended to be funny at all.
    3) Battlefield Earth. The Plan 9 of a new generation

  6. Sounds like that Canadian film needed a big dose of Zap Rowsdower. He roams Manitoba battling evil, you know.

  7. You know, this is completely off topic, but there is a cult film called GIZMO (Howard K Smith) that I have been wishing was out on DVD for a long time. Maybe you would like it, but most people look at it with a completely confounded blank stare.

    The film is kind of an homage to all the people who tried to fly, and failed, with a bunch of side trips along the way. It consists of period footage and voice-overs (because the sound was lost or not recorded) of everybody who was trying to develop their gadget, contraption, flying machine, or ability. Much of the film disintegrated as it was being copied, because it was old silver-nitrate(?) celluloid that was on the verge of catching on fire.

    It is on YOUTUBE, so it doesn’t take much effort to check it out, but you have to give it a chance – the opening leads to that slack-jawed look I mentioned earlier, and maybe it is an acquired taste.

    It does have a couple of gun gadgets in it, but they are pretty brief – bank teller and courier self defense aids.

  8. I saw Kick-Ass this weekend and it was really good. I know some people are not seeing it because of issues with the Hit Girl character but I have to say, don’t let that deter you. Remember, a comic geek wrote the original material so some of it will be innapropriate for kids, it is a movie for adults. I am a Monster Hunter Incorporated fan and thought that people should check out the movie . Thanks.

  9. You’ve talked about Brandon Sanderson several times, I’m not a big fantasy fan but I read a couple of reviews that pretty much likened him to the new Tolkien. I’m thinking of giving him a Rey, any idea which book I should start with?

  10. Larry, did you ever see the Sci-Fi (I refuse to use the new name) original movie, “S.S. Doomtrooper”?

    I swear that they used the “Return to Castle Wolfenstein game engine for their effects.

    It’s so amazingly terrible that it, imo, comes all the way back to being enjoyable again!

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795457/

  11. I love B Movies, action and zombie ones are my favorites but I’ll pretty much watch any b flick. Thanks for the list, will have to hit up Amazon now – and great blog!

  12. the elmo curb stomping bit resulted in me laughing so hard at work that some one had to be on hold for an extra 30 seconds.

  13. Been wanting to see Dead Snow since I saw the preview. All your IMDB links except for Prey for the Beast go to Vampiro, btw.

    Loved Monster Hunter International.

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