Screaming Dead

Certainly, if the movie carried a specifically designed tone to make the viewer's heads explode it would've been worse. Actually, halfway through, I was praying for such a tone. I've never fast-fowarded through a nude scene before this movie, but the dialog voided out the excitement from the nudity.

Misty Mundae is an attractive woman; however, it takes more than beauty to save this movie. It would take all the best doctors in the east to save this movie and, even then, I doubt it could be anything more than something to separate channel 357 from 359.

Well, that was what was bad about the movie. What follows is what was good about the movie:

This is a clever little horror flick and clearly underrated. It demonstrates the idea of split personality when the photographer Roger (Joseph Farrell) meets his 'alter ego' Rossiter (Kevin Shinnick). Whereas the photographer only arranges scenes with the girls that scare them, but don't actually hurt them, the devil in him breaks out and then takes the job to the extreme. Transformed into Rossiter, Roger may at last torture and kill.

Some reviews below give me the impression most people take movies much too literally, so I elaborate a bit of the transformation idea. Check out 1:00:47 when Roger discovers Rossiters machine. Fascinated, he pulls the lever and says "this is ingenious"! We shall see Rossiter stand at the machine later just like that. Check out 1:10:41 when a hand seems to reach out of Rogers brain (or rather: mind) and smashes him against the door so that he 'dissolves' into an unrecognizable pulp. But when in 1:16:00 Sam Rogan enters the room, there is no body on the floor. Roger has disappeared - he was replaced by Rossiter.

Roger was still full of excuses (his artistic purposes), fear and restrictions. His released inner demon knows nothing of this and just does what Roger may only have had (wishful or terrifying) fantasies about. The actually scary idea behind the movie is therefore that once you lose control, you'll never be the same again. If that involves covering Misty Mundae in red paint, it may however seem negotiable ;-)

A couple weeks ago TiVo's Suggestions threw up "Screaming Dead" as a newly available movie. When I checked into it, the Details noted that this was a direct to video movie, by the star of epics like "Playmate of the Apes" and "SpiderBabe". So I figured "Screaming Dead" was something along the lines of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" meets "Barbarella". But sometimes that is what you are in the mood for, so I figured 'heck, why not?'.

Somewhat to my surprise, this is a half-way decent movie. Erin Brown (A. K. A. Misty Mundae) and some other hot babes were hired (sort of) as models for a real sleaze bag of a photographer. He refuses to pay his models ("that would hurt the integrity of his work") and somehow manages to sell his photos for 5 or 10 thousand dollars. (he also has a bunch of other 'quirks' that I'll let you find on your own if you decide to watch the movie)

The photographer rents an empty sanatorium and moves the three models into the space. There is a woman who moves in with them, and was mostly there to chaperone the girls (I think). She has little, if anything, to do with anything that happens in the story. There is also a representative of the building owner, who is there mostly flirt with the women during the movie and rescue the girls at the end.

There is the near-obligatory ghost/demon, a couple torture scenes with some laughably bad special effects, and the hero defeats the ghost in a way that has "OK, we're running out of money, let's end things quick" written all over it.

"Casablanca" it ain't, but it is kind of fun if you are in the mood for something mildly interesting but not to challenging.

If you like bad, low budget, unintentionally funny films, seek no more. This is the movie for you.

It has nudity, some horror, and really bad acting. The special effects are embarrassing. For example, a nude woman receives a series of "cuts", and it looks like someone just squirted red paint on to her body. There is no cut of any kind. She's just being basted in tobasco sauce.

Yes, it's shlock. Shlocky shlock. Super shlocky shlock.

At best, you'll laugh. There were some scenes where I laughed out loud. Not because the film was funny, but because the film was so very bad.

At worst, you'll become bored and shut off the movie. There were a few times I was tempted to do so, but I waited out my boredom, and was rewarded with more terrible dialogue, needless nudity, ridiculous special effects, and filming mistakes. Hooray!

The film stars Misty Mundae. Having never heard of her before, I laughed when I saw her name in the credits. The moniker has "soft core porn star" written all over it. The bonus material to the DVD assures me she is a famous horror movie actress who has been in many magazine articles -- Fangoria, for example. And she has, they assure me, "star quality".

Well, no. She doesn't. Not really. But she is willing to take off all her clothes. She is sort of cute, I guess, if scrawny and small.

Rob Monkiewicz plays the male hero, Sam Rogan, and he's amazingly bad. He delivers is lines like he's delivering a pizza -- each sentence comes coated in Luke warm cheese, served in a cardboard box. More than once, his hamfisted lines made me giggle. He's supposed to play a muscle bound romantic, but comes across as a bouncer who occasionally "acts".

Now you know what you're in for -- bad, bad, bad, bad film. But so bad it can be entertaining. Get your friends together, get drunk, and maybe you'll enjoy the film. Watch for the scene where a crew member is accidentally filmed by the doorway. Laugh as the mike once again swings into the scene. Boggle at computer special effects that you would be embarrassed to use as a screen saver.

This, my friends, is a great, bad film.

HEY EVERYBODY ITS ME (4) and today we review ...ghost busters 5 ......

here we have a classic ghost meets girl , girl falls in love with ghost .... and torture ensues .....

same director as aracnia? ....a-rack-knee ah ? ...the spider movie in the snow with giant spider monsters ....with the same "macho" guy lead in this film in that one ... you know i like tha guy as an actor in B films .... weird he only acting in like 5 movies or something and i think all from this director too .... he didnt do anything after 2006 acting wise ....maybe something happened ? I dot know i didnt look into it .... but i dont know i think he could have had some kind of series of just him going around being the hero of stuff lol..... i would watch it ....

as for this film .... not NEARLY as exciting as the giant spider one , in fact most of the time hes fighting his own urge to punch a guy lol.... over all story and acting mid grade, the FX are fine because you know what your getting here from the moment it starts ....lighting et , all the tech specs are average so its "fine" across the board .... nothing really special about it .... it COULD have had more atmosphere to it ..... it COULD have had more creepy factor in there ...it could have alot of things but meh its okay lol..... and im not talking bad here ..... just saying its like room temp water ... ill drink it .... and its fine ....

its your basic formula for these films .... hot chicks, weird creepy pervert, hero guy saving them .... add in a bit of monster/ghost and BAM here you go, a fast easy flick ....a old school saturday night cheap thrills kind of deal you would see on "USA up all night with rhonda sheer" LOL .... if you know ...you know ....

so

5/10

middle of the road, plays it safe with a basic formula , cant really go wrong with that.