Drop Dead Fred (1991)

Drop Dead Fred (1991)

Directed by: Ate de Jong

Starring: Phoebe Cates, Rik Mayall, Marsha Mason

This was not at all what I expected from just looking at the DVD (the same picture that’s on the poster). I was figuring it’d be some sort of wacky thing where this girl gets bothered by some guy named Fred that was annoying or something and she wanted him to ‘drop dead.’ Turns out it’s much, much stranger than that.

Lizzie (Cates) is a very screwed up woman. Her husband is cheating on her, and the afternoon she tries to tell him she wants him back, her purse gets stolen, her car gets stolen, and she gets fired from her job. On top of all that, she meets a childhood friend who reminds her that she used to have an imaginary friend named Drop Dead Fred. When her domineering mother comes to pick her up, she unleashes Drop Dead Fred from the jack in the box prison he’s been in for the last 20 years. He helps her through her problems and forces her to stand up for herself.

Or, at least, that’s what it’s supposed to be. Drop Dead Fred is an ass who just wants to destroy things, and the flashbacks to when Lizzie was a kid show him to encourage her to wish death on her mom and to steal things and hide from the cops, you know, healthy stuff that all kids should do. The lesson that she learns from her horrible imaginary friend is that she should be a terrible person, I guess. That’s the thing about this movie, all the “good” characters are just really screwed up and do a lot of awful things, while the “bad” characters are vaguely strict. Maybe I’m just a square, but it seems like there are better ways to deal with a cheating spouse other than wiping a booger on their face and stealing their car. Maybe. Just a little.

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Directed by: Charles Lamont

Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marie Windsor

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy was their second to last movie together, and it definitely shows. The fresh energy and comedy style the pioneered and honed in the 40’s appears here as just a ghost, and I don’t mean some guy with a sheet over his head.

Abbott and Costello start the picture in Egypt looking for work or a way back to the States. When they hear about a professor who’s unearthed a mummy and is looking for some help to bring it to America, they seek him out… and find him dead. Thus begins their madcap adventures through misunderstanding each other which leads them to an ancient cult that worships the still living mummy and into all sorts of wacky situations.

I don’t really want to spend much more time on this one, just because… Well, it was kinda sad, really. Ah well, everybody’s made some bad stuff, right?

Durango Kids (1999)

Durango Kids (1999)

Directed by: Ashton Root

Starring: Larry Drake, Curtis Williams, Brendon Ryan Barrett

Well, it’s a kids movie starring kids, so you can’t expect much. Unless, you know, you see a good kids movie starring kids like… um… well, I’ve heard that Holes is good, but I haven’t actually seen it myself so who knows. Anyway, my point is that this movie is terrible and also that I hate children. Them and their damn laughing and having fun… How am I supposed to drink in my dark apartment in peace if I can hear the sounds of children’s laughter outside my window?! BAH! HUMBUG!

The plot of Durango Kids is pretty loosely strung together, so here’s just a general gist of the thing. A group of kids goes to an abandoned mine in hopes that they’ll find gold buried there that was stolen from a town back in the 1880’s (the idea is given to them by a ghost), and end up going back in time to three days before the robbery takes place. They have to learn to overcome their greed and help the town, or time will not have been changed and things will make sense! The ‘overcoming greed’ part lasts all of thirty seconds and I just threw that in there because it would make sense if it was a larger part of the movie. The principal from their school also knows about the time portal (though that also seemed at first to be caused by the ghost), and has set himself up as the sheriff of the town so he can get a piece of the stolen gold, and he would’ve gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!

I hate time travel movies, and Durango Kids is a great example of why. These kids travel back through time and use things like walkie-talkies, laptop computers, and Jif peanut butter to help them in their subversive schemes, all the while none of the 19th century natives notice or really care. In the scene where the town listens in to a recording made on a laptop via a walkie-talkie, NOT ONE PERSON objects to the fact that it’s a fucking computer with recorded sound and that the little girl is obviously a witch and should have the demons burned out of her or anything. Oh, and they change time by preventing the robbery from succeeding and keeping the guy who becomes the helpful ghost from dying abruptly (though he could still be a ghost, what does that make the ghost’s objective? The whole ghost thing pisses me off pretty well too). I HATE TIME TRAVEL.

Despite all the other major obvious flaws, Durango Kids stars children as it’s main characters, which is a major flaw in itself. Children cannot act. A select few in the history of the world have been able to, and none of them were available for one-time writer/director/producer Ashton Root’s sixty dollar film. About a third of the dialog the kids manage to say is written, while the rest is just them yelling “Yeah!” or muttering amongst themselves about fish sticks or beanie babies or whatever inane crap kids talk about. I HATE KIDS AND I HATE TIME TRAVEL AND I HATE TIME TRAVELING KIDS EVEN MORE! HATE!!