Post by Quorthon on Jan 4, 2006 16:47:57 GMT -5
Quickshot Collection VII: Frogs, Demon Seed, Spun
Frogs
1972
PG
Frogs is just, quite simply, a very bad movie. One of the absolute worst out there. Walk through Wal-Mart one of these days and take a good long gander in that disheveled “2 DVD’s for $11” bin. Otherwise known by myself, my family and friends of mine as the “Wal-Mart $5.00 bin.” Dig through there and you’ll find hyper Jesusy “Left Behind” movies, films Pierce Brosnan likely forgot he did, and disk after disk of Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, and Chuck Norris crappy action flicks. Craption if you like. You’ll also, eventually, see this movie. And at $5.50, it’s overpriced by about six bucks.
This monstrosity is about a family living in an old Southern plantation house surrounded by swamp. And eventually, they’re getting killed by frogs. The cover of the DVD looks promising, true—complete with giant frog on the cover with somebody’s arm sticking out of the mouth. Well, rest assured, nothing even remotely that cool is found anywhere in the film. Poor acting, vanishing story, zero atmosphere, and shit music carry this monstrosity along showing you that, yes, someone actually filmed something more boring than 24-straight hours of the New York City skyline (Andy Warhol did that once). The frogs never grow to gigantic proportions, nor do they propagate in such massive numbers that they could overwhelm even the most inept baby. Yet, somehow, they break into the house and the family members start to die. And that’s the whole movie. You’ll hear glass break, then you’ll hear someone scream, then you’ll see a body on the floor with anywhere from 3-7 frogs either on the body or on the floor nearby. Even as “camp” or “kitsch” this movie is unbearably bad.
So next time you rifle through that $5.00 bin at Wal-Mart, do you’re very best to avoid this… this thing. Grab “Leatherface” or that cheesy-ass Chuck Norris movie instead. Fucking don’t waste money on “Frogs.” 1/10 (I don’t give zeros.)
Demon Seed
1977
R
Demon Seed is based on a Dean Koontz story, just so you know. It’s about this guy who built the world’s smartest computer. He’s getting separated from his wife. So he apparently then spends all his time at his lab with the supercomputer. But his supercomputer gets pissed off at him for whatever reason and jumps phone lines (or something) to the creator’s house—which is filled with more computers and robots and his sort-of ex-wife. And badda-bing, badda-boom, the computer promptly knocks up the wife.
I bet you thought this was going to be about a woman carrying a demonic baby, didn’t you? Ha! This ain’t “Rosemary’s Baby,” sucker!
Well, what is there to say about this film? It’s actually pretty interesting. But the atmosphere is light and the film overall is pretty average. There’s hardly any tension or scares in this movie. Just a weird story to watch. Some mild sexuality (there is a woman raped by a computer after all) and some brief nudity keep it interesting. Eventually, the computer builds itself some huge, bizarre cube in the house’s basement to torment people and eventually incubate it’s grotesque child. It’s acted well enough, but really, the reason this film was made was to capitalize on “acid-trip” cinematics, a la “2001: A Space Odyssey.” There’s a lot of this shit. Too much, in fact. It gets insipidly boring after a while, but fuck, that’s one of the things that was popular in the 70’s. This kind of shit also made an appearance in countless other films, including the much better “Altered States.” Here, unfortunately, all the pretty lights and colors inspire one to yawn and gawk at the DVD case wondering how many chapters are left before the movie is over. It’s decent Sci-Fi horror, but light on the atmosphere, and over-saturated with “flashy acid-trip” visuals. Decent acting, weird story. 5/10
Spun
2002
R/Unrated
For no apparent reason, the last few years, I’ve ended up seeing a lot of films revolving around drugs. I’m not sure why, I’ve never been interested in the shit. I play video games and watch horror movies. I don’t have time for that shit. Plus, I don’t have many friends to “peer pressure” me into any of that shit. Or, maybe, I just had somewhat higher quality friends. Or maybe I valued my brain and health more than most… Whatever the reason, I’ve ended up seeing a lot of this shit the past few years.
Spun follows a few people around while they do tons and tons of, I think, meth. I’m pretty sure it’s meth. Meth is the drug with the noxious “make Chernobyl look like a picnic” explosive chemical labs. And this movie has a lot of people doing meth. It also has a lot of familiar faces in it, including, Deborah Harry, Brittney Murphy, Mickey Rooney, Rob Halford (woo Judas Priest!), and John Leguizamo. The movie is made in a very stylized manner, sometimes obnoxiously, other times with a lot of humor stuffed into it. It follows the typical drug movie formula, albeit darker throughout—seeded with nasty people who waste their lives doing drugs, treating each other shittily… and little else. Sure, we get to see Leguizamo jerk off into a sock, Halford (briefly) reading a gay porn magazine called, as I recall, “Bathhouse Blowjob,” and Mickey Rooney sit hovering over bubbling chemicals in a filthy motel room.
The acting is generally pretty good and the music is as well. One would hope it would be—the film is directed by a man who once played drums for legendary Black/Viking/Thrash Metal band, Bathory. The “drugs do you” message comes through clearly enough, and their power over people is addressed fairly well. However, the film itself and the cinematography suffer in one major area: It’s all inspired by, or ripped off from, the far superior, “Requiem For a Dream.” Watch that before, or instead, of this film. Unfortunately, it’ll likely inspire more kids to do drugs than to avoid them—as the film feels like it was made for an audience that’s already inebriated most of the time. 6/10
Frogs
1972
PG
Frogs is just, quite simply, a very bad movie. One of the absolute worst out there. Walk through Wal-Mart one of these days and take a good long gander in that disheveled “2 DVD’s for $11” bin. Otherwise known by myself, my family and friends of mine as the “Wal-Mart $5.00 bin.” Dig through there and you’ll find hyper Jesusy “Left Behind” movies, films Pierce Brosnan likely forgot he did, and disk after disk of Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, and Chuck Norris crappy action flicks. Craption if you like. You’ll also, eventually, see this movie. And at $5.50, it’s overpriced by about six bucks.
This monstrosity is about a family living in an old Southern plantation house surrounded by swamp. And eventually, they’re getting killed by frogs. The cover of the DVD looks promising, true—complete with giant frog on the cover with somebody’s arm sticking out of the mouth. Well, rest assured, nothing even remotely that cool is found anywhere in the film. Poor acting, vanishing story, zero atmosphere, and shit music carry this monstrosity along showing you that, yes, someone actually filmed something more boring than 24-straight hours of the New York City skyline (Andy Warhol did that once). The frogs never grow to gigantic proportions, nor do they propagate in such massive numbers that they could overwhelm even the most inept baby. Yet, somehow, they break into the house and the family members start to die. And that’s the whole movie. You’ll hear glass break, then you’ll hear someone scream, then you’ll see a body on the floor with anywhere from 3-7 frogs either on the body or on the floor nearby. Even as “camp” or “kitsch” this movie is unbearably bad.
So next time you rifle through that $5.00 bin at Wal-Mart, do you’re very best to avoid this… this thing. Grab “Leatherface” or that cheesy-ass Chuck Norris movie instead. Fucking don’t waste money on “Frogs.” 1/10 (I don’t give zeros.)
Demon Seed
1977
R
Demon Seed is based on a Dean Koontz story, just so you know. It’s about this guy who built the world’s smartest computer. He’s getting separated from his wife. So he apparently then spends all his time at his lab with the supercomputer. But his supercomputer gets pissed off at him for whatever reason and jumps phone lines (or something) to the creator’s house—which is filled with more computers and robots and his sort-of ex-wife. And badda-bing, badda-boom, the computer promptly knocks up the wife.
I bet you thought this was going to be about a woman carrying a demonic baby, didn’t you? Ha! This ain’t “Rosemary’s Baby,” sucker!
Well, what is there to say about this film? It’s actually pretty interesting. But the atmosphere is light and the film overall is pretty average. There’s hardly any tension or scares in this movie. Just a weird story to watch. Some mild sexuality (there is a woman raped by a computer after all) and some brief nudity keep it interesting. Eventually, the computer builds itself some huge, bizarre cube in the house’s basement to torment people and eventually incubate it’s grotesque child. It’s acted well enough, but really, the reason this film was made was to capitalize on “acid-trip” cinematics, a la “2001: A Space Odyssey.” There’s a lot of this shit. Too much, in fact. It gets insipidly boring after a while, but fuck, that’s one of the things that was popular in the 70’s. This kind of shit also made an appearance in countless other films, including the much better “Altered States.” Here, unfortunately, all the pretty lights and colors inspire one to yawn and gawk at the DVD case wondering how many chapters are left before the movie is over. It’s decent Sci-Fi horror, but light on the atmosphere, and over-saturated with “flashy acid-trip” visuals. Decent acting, weird story. 5/10
Spun
2002
R/Unrated
For no apparent reason, the last few years, I’ve ended up seeing a lot of films revolving around drugs. I’m not sure why, I’ve never been interested in the shit. I play video games and watch horror movies. I don’t have time for that shit. Plus, I don’t have many friends to “peer pressure” me into any of that shit. Or, maybe, I just had somewhat higher quality friends. Or maybe I valued my brain and health more than most… Whatever the reason, I’ve ended up seeing a lot of this shit the past few years.
Spun follows a few people around while they do tons and tons of, I think, meth. I’m pretty sure it’s meth. Meth is the drug with the noxious “make Chernobyl look like a picnic” explosive chemical labs. And this movie has a lot of people doing meth. It also has a lot of familiar faces in it, including, Deborah Harry, Brittney Murphy, Mickey Rooney, Rob Halford (woo Judas Priest!), and John Leguizamo. The movie is made in a very stylized manner, sometimes obnoxiously, other times with a lot of humor stuffed into it. It follows the typical drug movie formula, albeit darker throughout—seeded with nasty people who waste their lives doing drugs, treating each other shittily… and little else. Sure, we get to see Leguizamo jerk off into a sock, Halford (briefly) reading a gay porn magazine called, as I recall, “Bathhouse Blowjob,” and Mickey Rooney sit hovering over bubbling chemicals in a filthy motel room.
The acting is generally pretty good and the music is as well. One would hope it would be—the film is directed by a man who once played drums for legendary Black/Viking/Thrash Metal band, Bathory. The “drugs do you” message comes through clearly enough, and their power over people is addressed fairly well. However, the film itself and the cinematography suffer in one major area: It’s all inspired by, or ripped off from, the far superior, “Requiem For a Dream.” Watch that before, or instead, of this film. Unfortunately, it’ll likely inspire more kids to do drugs than to avoid them—as the film feels like it was made for an audience that’s already inebriated most of the time. 6/10
