All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos

EXCELLENCE is what you should have expected.

I mean why wouldn't you? With such mavericks of creativity like Mark A. Altman (forget Clerks, Free Enterprise is where it's at. Kevin Smith who?) and Jeremy Kasten (director of the musical short Gayosity, which one crafty IMDb contributor reminds us that the five songs, all elaborate production numbers, were written, shot, scored and laid into the film in less than 24 hours), how could this project have gone wrong? Well, worry not. It didn't! Everyone is in great form here. The cast is pitch perfect. Travis Wester reminds me of a young Matthew Perry but the real winner here is Marisa Ramirez who hits it home with a perfectly layered, nuanced performance that had me on the verge of tears not once but twice. I only hope that their heads don't get TOO big on the success of this picture that they won't return for the sequel. Don't you hate it when that happens? I don't want to say too much more because its hard to really say anything at all without giving everything away. If you thought House of the Dead was good, you're SERIOUSLY in for the shock of your life (which is a good thing!).

If you're serious about cinema, go to your local videostore and demand they get you copy of All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos post haste! If that fails, call up your local cable or satellite provider and ask them when it might air on one of their channels. If they have no idea what you're talking about, just refer them to this review and read it for them (they will totally get it after that).

To the producers: Bravo! Hats off to all ten of you producers, you are all truly inspiring. If you would like to get in contact with me about sending a film crew to my house to film a commercial about how much I love the movie, my contact details are available in my IMDb profile.

Vargas (Danny Trejo) sells out the people of the town he's a despot of when he lets them all get blown up in exchange for immortality. Fast forward 50 years and we find a family complete with sexy slutty daughter and asshole son who stops at the aforementioned town to check into a inn after a long day of traveling only to never check out. Fast forward yet another 50 years, and we're introduced to another couple who's car brakes down so they have to stay at the same inn To say that this film is disjointed is putting it mildly. To say the only actors worth anything at all (Trejo, Jeffrey Combs) are all underused in this movie, is a travesty. Writer Mark Altman sandwiched this film in between House of the Dead and House of the dead 2, and if that, my friends, doesn't say everything about what to expect from this movie, I don't know what else to say. You know what? I may have not liked Director Kasten's previous "the Attic Expeditions", but that film, as bad as it may be, still runs circles around this one.

My Grade: D

Eye Candy: Danielle Burgio and Mircea Monroe provide the T&A, while Marisa Ramirez only shows her breasts

You know, you have to work hard to turn out a "movie" (and I use the term loosely) this bad. And the Sci-Fi Channel has managed to do it a number of times, raising again the question of whether they are farming out their writing and directing duties to family members...or perhaps family pets.

This particular stinker was advertised as a zombie movie, and eventually they did have a few zombies bumbling around, albeit completely illogically and with the rules of their existence changing every 30 seconds as apparently a new hack writer (or perhaps Fluffy the family chihuahua) took over to further mangle this drivel. To say that it was a complete and utter mess, and a magnificently boring one at that, would be an understatement.

The plot, what there is of it, is completely nonsensical and bounces randomly around from one idea to the next blowing holes in itself left and right. Its as if they were making it up as they went along, and were very drunk through the whole process and kept on forgetting their train of thought. And that of course is what always bothers me the most about these turds the Sci-Fi channel turns out -- a lack of money can perhaps explain flat acting or laughable special effects, but the complete lack of coherence on some of these clunkers is just embarrassing.

The casting is bizarre as well, with a random collection of rookies, a veteran character actor, and one of Sci-Fi's wooden stock actors (David Keith) hilariously playing a man who would have to have been at least 60-65 (based on a completely pointless early flashback). The hilarious part? Keith is 50, and looks 40-45. But they randomly insert him in a pointless and nonsensical part apparently completely unaware of how old his character had to be based on their own "plot", and not even bothering with silly things like makeup. Or logic. They also feature an old woman, who again according to their own timeline would have to have been at least 130. And we won't even get into the complete forehead-slapping resolution of the bad guy's character. If the movie hadn't beaten me into my own drooling stupefied zombie-trance by that point, I might have found the whole mess hilarious. Maybe.

I still think this has to rank a half step behind "Skeleton Man" as the all-time worst clunker the Sci-Fi channel has turned out. But it gave it a good effort. Some movies are so bad they wrap around and become entertaining. Not this thing -- its just horrible and deadly boring to boot. Should not even qualify for moviedom at all, but just amateur hour. Bad amateurs too. So just a warning -- no matter how pathetic your life is, no matter if you are imprisoned for life in Siberia and your only other entertainment option is watching 24 hour reruns of transvestite midgets dancing the macarena, there is simply no conceivable way I can recommend ANYTHING in this movie to anyone. Do your brain a favor and save two hours of your life. Watch paint dry. Count the number of hair follicles on your dog's tail. Do SOMETHING, anything else but damage your eyes watching this garbage.

I have to be honest. I only watched this because of Danny Trejo. I would watch paint dry if he was the one painting. He only has a small part of the film, even though he was the primary star.

For a zombie film, it was a disappointment.

There were several beauties in the film like Nichole Hiltz, Laura Harring, Marisa Ramirez, and Ellie Cornell. Unfortunately, we didn't get any titillation as we would expect in a B horror film.

The zombie action was pretty lame for the most part. There was very little blood except at the end. I would have expected more. It just seemed that it was basically a story about revenge.

Okay..the Sci Fi channel saw fit to get rid of MST3K, Thriller, and a host of actually well made programs, only to replace them with putrid crap called "made for Sci-Fi" movies. Seriously, has even one of them been watchable? Ed Wood made better horror movies. Low budgets, and bad acting abound. This feces of a movie is poorly directed, poorly written, and incredibly boring. I could have produced better special effects in my basement. Compared to "Sci Fi Channel" movies, "Lifetime" movies, as horrible as they are, are Emmy winners. Yes, as much as they suck, I'd rather watch Melissa Gilbert and Meredith Baxter Birney movies than anything that's "made for Sci- Fi". Not that the Sci Fi channel is a total loss, at least they still air the "Twilight Zone" and "Kolchak". (Now, if they'd just quit trying to make movies, and bring back Night Gallery)