I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)

Directed by: Dirk Campbell

Starring: Neil Morrissey, Amanda Noar, Anthony Daniels

I know, I know, you’re excited about how awesome of a movie this must be with a name like I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle. Calm down. It doesn’t get really amazingly awesome until the last half of the movie, where Anthony Daniels (C-3PO, as you’ll recall), as a motorcycle-riding priest, tries to exorcise the demon haunting this guy’s motorcycle and it grows spikes everywhere…

So how do you even make a vampire motorcycle, you ask? Obviously it happens when a biker gang attacks a satanic cult when they’re sacrificing somebody and the blood of the evil high priest gets into the gas tank of a motorcycle. Obviously. Our story picks up when Noddy, a random British guy, picks up this motorcycle and eventually realizes it has vampiric tendancies. For instance, it doesn’t work in the daytime, and it will sometimes take control of itself and behead people in the biker gang that attacked the cult in the prologue. Because he wants to keep the bike and get rid of the devil, Noddy asks Father Anthony Daniels to perform an exorcism, which just turns it all spiky and evil and awesome.

Seriously, the first half of this movie is as boring as watching paint dry. I was very disappointed that a movie with such a great (and accurate) name was such a plodder… and then the fireworks started. The last 20 minutes of this movie make up for all the problems in all the bad movies I’ve seen that I hoped were going to be more goofy and over-the-top than they were. The thing goes around chopping off people’s heads, busts into a hospital and drinks the blood of a nurse (with two little pipes that I have no idea where they came from), and there’s a final fight in a fitness center where it attacks a bunch of weightlifters and is finally killed by a tanning bed. Also, the policeman that’s been helping them has permanent garlic breath, and they use that to their advantage as well.

This is one bad movie that lives up to it’s name, which makes it a must-see for people who like overblown bad movies. People like me. Awesome people.

Death Racers (2008)

Death Racers (2008)

Directed by: Roy Knyrim

Starring: Violent J, Shaggy 2 Dope, Scott Levy

This easily makes my top ten worst movies I’ve ever seen. It’s yet another mockbuster from our friends at The Asylum, this time released to coincide with the remake of Death Race 2000. What makes this worse than your ordinary Asylum movie? Three words: Insane. Clown. Posse.

In the future, a large section of California has been turned into a prison. Inside this prison, a wrestler is making a poison which he plans on releasing into the water supply, which will then spread to the entire world, killing everybody. Somehow. The governor decides the best way to deal with this is to send four cars with two people each into the area and have them race there, killing people on the way. The cars and crew are more Wacky Racers than Death Race, but they do include a Mexican stereotype, two women in skimpy clothes, two ex-army men, and an ice cream truck with the Insane Clown Posse.

I’m not exactly sure who thought it would be a good idea to put ICP into a movie, but they really need to be dragged out into the middle of the street and shot. ESPECIALLY if it’s the Insane Clown Posse themselves. Besides obviously not actually being actors and acting like massive retards (although, to be fair, everybody acted really, really awfully), they provided the soundtrack for the movie. 17 ICP tracks over the course of an hour and a half. If you don’t like ICP (like myself, and all the rest of you with taste), this makes this already terrible movie even worse. It’s been a long time since I saw a movie so bad I wanted to stop watching it fifteen minutes in… Well, every fifteen minutes I had the urge to turn it off, I should say. God, this was an awful movie. Damn you, The Asylum, and damn your hellish partnership with the most obnoxious band that still somehow has fans.

Smiley Face (2007)

Smiley Face (2007)

Directed by: Gregg Araki

Starring: Anna Faris, John Krasinski, Adam Brody

Maybe I just didn’t like this movie because I’m not a pothead and I don’t think watching an untalented girl wander around being high funny. I guess I’m just weird like that.

Smiley Face is about a girl who tries to make enough money to pay off her pot dealer before he repossesses her bed or something. Along the way she has a bunch of ‘wacky’ adventures that either bore you or make you annoyed. Imagine Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, only without any creativity.

There really isn’t anything good or funny about this movie, and shows that even though a guy like John Krasinski can be good in one role (he’s Jim on The Office, if you didn’t know), it doesn’t necessarily mean that he can actually ACT outside that role. And don’t even get me started on Anna Faris, who’s made a career out of those godawful “____ Movie” movies.

Clue (1985)

Clue (1985)

Directed by: Johnathan Lynn

Starring: Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean

I remember the first time I heard about a movie based on the board game Clue, I thought it was the stupidest idea ever. Of course, then I saw it, laughed my ass off, and realized that even stupid ideas can be great with the right writing and attitude.

The standard characters from Clue are all here, and are all played by competent-to-excellent actors. The movie is about one night they spend in the house of Mr. Boddy, and details their actions as, one by one, the secondary characters die in a web of intrigue and… spy stuff. Spy intrigue stuff.

One interesting thing about this movie is that there are actually three endings, all of which are shown back-to-back in the video version of the movie, but apparently they only showed one of the endings in theaters, depending on the theater, which is pretty cool. However, even without this gimmick, this is a damn funny movie. It’s fast-paced, well-acted, and just insane enough to keep from being repetitive or predictable.

The stand-out of the cast is Tim Curry as the butler and more-or-less narrator for the last half of the film. How is it that this guy is so talented, but he’s only in less than a handful of good movies, instead tending towards the Congos and the McHale’s Navyses. Ah well, whatcha gonna do.

The Muppet Movie (1979)

The Muppet Movie (1979)

Directed by: James Frawley

Starring: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz

Oh man, I love this movie and it’s been ages since I’ve seen it last. Strangely enough, I actually recognize most of the cameos now that I actually know about 70’s entertainment. No longer is he ‘that black guy who gives Gonzo balloons,’ now he’s Richard Pryor. I’m sure that makes him feel better. I’m sure.

The Muppet Movie tells the fictional story of how the muppets (from The Muppet Show, even though there is a cameo by Big Bird in there) originally got together, which takes the form of a road movie. There are songs and jokes and skits, all in the same style of comedy that ruled The Muppet Show and made it such a great show. Also, there are tons and tons of cameos of famous comedians at the time, including (but not limited to) Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise, Bob Hope, Orson Welles, and so on.

This is just a damn funny movie. I’m still not entirely sure whether it (and The Muppet Show, for that matter) was made for kids or if it was just a universal comedy that appeals to everybody, because it certainly works on both of those levels. I used to watch this all the time as a kid, I’ll tell you that much. The rest of the sequels to this movie, however, well… Let’s just not talk about them. Quiet time now.