Engine Trouble

My copy of this film is called Junior.

Unrecognizable accents in an unrecognizable location. Not even the stars know where they are. Sandra and Rebecca are friends. Really close ones. I mean, to the point where I think it's a lesbian relationship. Unless they do things differently in Belgium (yes, I had to look it up). Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and things go south from there.

I can't imagine the first hour of the movie is more than a few script pages. Just agonizingly long, pointless scenes. Until there's a big exposition scene with the father. From there, it gets a tad interesting, hence the extra stars. "Junior" himself, for having brain damage, is really quite agile. Like the guy is a dancer or something.

Just rented this fine Belgian film last night from "Blockbuster" and i refuse to return it back to them ;)... I love low budget movies especially masterpieces like this one. so here it goes... 2 " belgian" girls go out for a week of work free with a borrowed Jaguar from the 80's, gossip free vacation,then get stuck up in the middle of nowhere which is apparently two blocks away from their starting point. There they are introduced to the perfect family made of Junior ( also reffered to as "The Beast" or "The creature" ), his loving dad Robert and the maid ( old, always complaing b***h ). One of the girl friends ends with her head being chopped off by Junior's favorite toy, his sickle. Speaking of his "toy", dont let the cover of the DVD ( distributed in U.S. by ever great Artisan---oh thank you guys!!! ) fool you. Junior is NOT using the coal mining showel but the sickle given to him by the only person who ever felt for Creature's condition, his concerning dad. Since Robert is so full of care for his son he wants to make him a special birthday present - his mom, in shape of the surving girl. What follows is a brilliant display of fine acting, led by Bob Dougherty ( Robert ) who has a few memorable lines, especially explaining his son's doomed condition. The one we will surely never forget is when he gets irritated by one of the girls screams in the basement ( Junior's playground) : "Shut your trap"...."Shuuuuut up"...."I said shuuuut up"..."SHUT THE F******* UP". Oh, I can't leave out memorable lines as : "go on boy", "finish her boy", "that's a good boy", "my boy"!!!. Pay extra attention to how much emotion Bob brings into his scenes. Members of the Accademy surely missed on him two years ago, otherwise he would have an Oscar statue on his shelf already. Well let's hope we get to see more of him in the future so the voters won't be able to keep their eyes closed anymore. Another gleaming point is Cecilia Bergqvist whose name is printed on the Blockbuster's cover, right next to the film title ( Junior, Cecilia Bergqvist 2002. ), just like a star she surely is. Too bad the majority of us never heard of her before. Her acting brings that overwhelming feeling of happiness to each scene she is in. When she finally accepts the role of creature's mom her talent shines in all of it's magnificent light. Unfotunately she dies at the end...by Robert's hand who has taken his "boy"'s place after Cecilia tricked him and killed him. Actually I felt kinda bad for him, he just wanted to play. There's nothing wrong with that, right? All boys play, just with diff. toys :). So in short BUY the movie...u wont regret it

JUNIOR, aka ENGINE TROUBLE, is one bad movie. It looks like members of a film crew pulled their tiny resources together and made this micro movie during a break of the other bigger budgeted film and shot this one in a few days. There's no story and there's almost no semblance of any pre-production: everything was shot in one area and the cast is populated by 5 or 6 actors, all of whom are awful and show very little experience in acting or anything else.

A lot of people say that horror is better imagined than showed. Well, they haven't seen the moment when the unseen killer is on top of the roof of the car and torments the woman inside. In this case, even though the "filmmakers" might say they wanted to create horror in people's mind with this tedious scene, I 'm more inclined to believe that they shot it this way because it was cheap. It's a fine line between astute direction and penny-pinching film-making.

The really funny thing about it is that it's an exploitation film wannabe that doesn't really exploit anything.

But as bad as JUNIOR is, and it is bad, I've seen much worse than this. Like SHREDDER.

The cover art for 'Junior' is everything enticing about the slasher genre these days: what will this particular slasher look like? The look is everything; the gimmick that completes the vision driving the illogical hack and slash of teenage fodder. 'Junior' seems to have spent everything in pursuit of a great looking outfit, equal parts Road Warrior and Leia's bounty hunter outfit in Revenge of the Jedi. The plot reads like tissue paper and, if you too happen to make the mistake of putting this movie on your television, you'll see that that's really a generous criticism. When the first shot comes up, scored by the kind of music usually found in Puppet Master movies, you know you're in trouble. When the first scene has ostensibly nothing to do with the actual film, you'll be hoping it's a film within a film or a dream. Sadly, this film wanders around, thinks gibbering psychos pounding on cars on a sunny 2 in the afternoon constitutes horror and is shot on the same stock as a 1980's porno. I couldn't even live with myself 45 minutes into the movie, the first time you see Junior and he cartwheels off the top of a car. I had to turn it off. Sometimes it's better to leave the video store with nothing at all.

Engine Trouble (2002)

1/2 (out of 4)

Typical straight to DVD flick about two females who go out where they shouldn't be an are eventually stalked by a maniac. You can call the film whatever you want but this is without a doubt one of the worst horror films I've ever seen and trust me I've seen a whole lot. The film has the budget of around five bucks but the director doesn't even try to appease horror fans. The one gore effect is so incredibly bad that you'll be rolling your eyes. I understand with a low budget you can have good effects but if memory serves me it doesn't take a special effect for some hot woman to remove her cloths.