Dead Weekend

A made-for-cable supposedly science fiction bit of dreck starring the least talented of the Baldwin brothers. (Only one of which has any talent in the first place) We have bad acting, a terrible plot, cheap sets, hokey dialog, bad direction, bad photography, bad editing, well, everything was bad. Even the occasional topless scene could not rescue this clunker. Although some of the women were attractive, the scenes were poorly lit, poorly set up, poorly, well, you get the idea.

The best of the bad lot was Barbara Alyn Woods, and I feel bad for her that this is the only thing I've seen her in. She has undoubtedly done better. Avoid this movie like the plague.

Yeah, well... where to begin. All apologies for those viewers who wasted precious moments of their otherwise entertaining lives to view my miscreation. Like all movies, it started with an idea, (to create an Ed Wood like-masterpiece) and then of course... spiraled downwards. My writing partner at the time, Joel Rose (a marvelous novelist) cranked out the screenplay in three weeks of uninterrupted laughter (fueled by a recently arrived kilo of Nepalese hash, flaky & pungent). Lo & behold, our erstwhile agent (Gaby) at the William Morris Agency soon had hooked a producer for this confection. Mind you, we were not wholly unaware of these guys' reputations as liars and thieves but... having my head on backwards, due to a certain addiction to a young Polish actress, I decided to proceed none-the-less. Fearlessness is often a positive thing, but in this instance, it was cause for more suffering than I'd had. In retrospect, my favorite part of the experience (and folk, it WAS a nightmare) was the fun Stephen Baldwin and I had under what I hope is the worst conditions to make a picture. If you can let go of your expectations, and check out Mr. Depp in the brilliant "Ed Wood", who's various concoctions inspired this, you may see the fun of this "awful" movie. Peace.

It's Friday evening. You decide that you'd like to rent a good Stephen Baldwin movie. Unfortunately, when you get to the video store you find that "Usual Suspects" is checked out. "Oh well," you think to yourself, "guess I'll have to settle for a *bad* Stephen Baldwin movie instead." The video store is your oyster, my friend, and who knows, you may find another pearl amongst Stephen's work. It's worth a shot.

As you're roaming the aisles, life's cruel hand of fate guides you to "Dead Weekend." Sadly, you decide that you'll give it a chance, and you don't find out until it's too late that the title of the movie is a fitting description for any weekend spent watching this tripe.

The only thing going on in this movie is Stephen gettin' it on with five different female forms of an alien. The alien changes forms randomly, and sometimes she doesn't even know she has changed. Luckily for Stephen, she always shape shifts into a hot babe.

In the end, Stephen decides to leave the planet with his alien lover, but his former soldier colleagues feel he's a traitor and try to hunt him down. Oh the tension. Do you think Stephen would've still wanted to flee the planet with this alien if she started morphing into a Roseanne look-alike with a severe back-hair problem? I doubt it.

It's no bold prediction to say that I'll never watch this movie again. I have no problem watching movies that are so bad they're entertaining (Troll 2, a good number of Michael Paré movies), but this movie is so bad it's just BAD. The only way it could've been worse is if the alien shape shifted into Rosie O'Donnell every time. The acting was wooden and just horrible, there was no real story or action, and the music sounded worse than the midnight jam sessions I used to have on my $20 Casio when I was thirteen years old.

I was bored the entire movie, and I had to fight the temptation to hit "fast forward" harder than Mike D fighting for his right to party. But I can be a stubborn guy at times. I taped this movie, so I was bound and determined to watch the whole thing.

Watching the movie wasn't a total loss though. Yes folks, I actually learned a valuable lesson from this experience - I have really got to learn to be less stubborn.

THE GIST:

I suppose if you enjoy the cinematic equivalent of a hammer repeatedly bashing you upside the brain for 82 minutes, then you might want to check out "Dead Weekend." Otherwise, avoid it at all costs. Literally. Spend money to AVOID seeing this movie if you have to.

The least talented Baldwin falls in love with a shape shifting alien (the only vaguely interesting girl she turned into being "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" TV show mom, Barbara Alyn Woods). His partner, Sledge Hammer is naturally against this. They both are members of the TWF & that military unit is after this alien under the public guise of looking for looters during an earthquake evacuation. The movie is horrid. Tough to believe that the year it was made Tom Kenny had the worst movie of his career, being this, and the BEST gig of his career, being on Mr. Show.

Eye Candy: Afifi Alaouie, Jennifer MacDonald, Blair Valik, and Barbara Alyn Woods all provide boobage

My Grade: D

Where I saw it: Showtime Beyond

Great use of Leslie West song 'Sea of Fire' and great music provided by Alice Cooper/Lou Reed guitar player Steve Hunter. Too bad such good music had to be wasted on such a terrible movie. But there is a certain amount of viewing pleasure derived from watching Stephen Baldwin's terrible acting.