Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV

It's a joke on Citizen Kane, get it? Oh yeah, it's not funny.

2000
Directed by: Lloyd Kaufman
Starring: David Mattey, Debbie Rochon, Trent Haaga, and American icon and my personal hero RON JEREMY!!!

J-Rock's Review:
Ugh. An awful movie from beginning to end.

I love the original Toxic Avenger - I've watched that movie countless times, and it never gets old - because it was gross, irreverent, offensive, and funny. I guess in the intervening years, the folks at Troma forgot about that last one, because Citizen Toxie is not funny. Not at all. Not one funny joke.

I'm not some stupid parent who hates violence and foul humor, and complains about the content of the shows and movies their kid watches, instead of actually taking responsibility and monitoring what their stupid kid is watching - I mean, I love sophomoric and offensive humor and poop jokes, but only if they're funny! For example, two rednecks (one of whom is played by Mitch Cohen, the star of the first movie) drag a black man behind their truck until all that's left is a head - granted, it's so stupid and over-the-top as to almost be funny - but the only problem is that the crime being recreated happened years ago, which in today's age of MSNBC and Fox News, where headlines disappear as fast as American Idol winners, might as well have been the Mesozoic Era.

In case you're still reading, here's a quick plot summary - Toxie and Lardass (his new sidekick - what the?) rush into the Tromaville School for Special Students to save the tards, I mean special students, from the "Diaper Mafia." Yes, the Diaper Mafia, a take-off of the "trenchcoat mafia" killers from Columbine. Congratulations Troma on another timely joke.

A bomb explodes, which sends Toxie (along with 2 retards - damn it, I did it again!) into Amortville - and at the same time, sends the Noxious Offender into Tromaville. Parallel realities, get it? The plot then revolves around both men wreaking havoc in their opposite realities, and some other stuff where Toxie's wife Sarah is pregnant with 2 babies, one from each monster.

Now the story sounds OK on paper, with some hilarious possible situations and jokes, but in its execution the movie is just a jumble of disjointed, poorly conceived scenes replete with bad edits, not to mention a snail-turd's pace, helped along by incessant "Tromaville News" updates that are supposed to further the plot.

Even Ron Jeremy (as the mayor of Tromaville) can't save this shit-fest.

Ugh. Only see it if you are a die-hard Troma fan, and I know there are some out there, the same that rave about Tromeo & Juliet, another directionless, confusing, stupid Troma crapfest.

IMDB link: Citizen Toxie

Freddy vs. Jason

2003

Directed by: Ronny Yu

Starring: Robert Englund (obviously), Ken Kirzinger as Jason, Monica Keena as Lori, and Jason Ritter as Will

J-Rock's Review: HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! THEY FINALLY MADE THIS MOVIE AND IT FUCKING ROCKS!!!

Awesome. Finally. This movie, as any fan of either series knows, had been in the works for years. They finally unleashed it upon the world - and the world is a better place for it. Holy shit. I saw it twice.

Here's a quick plot summary: Freddy has sort of been in limbo for 4 years, because his power is fueled by kids' fear of him, and thanks to a concerted effort by the parents in Springwood, all knowledge of Freddy has effectively been erased. This was accomplished by not telling any kids about Freddy's legend, as well as quarantining in a psychiatric institute any kids who did know about Freddy, thus keeping them from "contaminating" the others with fear.

So Freddy, realizing he needs his name to be whispered with trepidation, brings Jason back to wreak havoc on Elm Street - but Jason doesn't stop when Freddy wants him to, which of course pisses Freddy off, leading to a monumental confrontation at Camp Crystal Lake.

There are some classic killing scenes by both legends, as well as some really cool insights into the origins and mythology of both.

My only complaint about the movie, and a common one on the message boards, is the stoner character - basically a stupid rip-off of Jay, of "Jay and Silent Bob" fame. There was just no reason to have this dumb character in the movie. If they really wanted a stoner, at least don't rip off someone else's stoner routine!!

Boob factor: There are some nice boobies right off the bat, but the rest of the movie is death death death, so that's it. Our hero is really fucking hot, however. Proof:


Anyway, I liked this movie so much that I bought the 2-poster set from New Line. It almost makes up for Jason X. Almost.

IMDb link: Freddy vs. Jason

28 Days Later

2003

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns

J-Rock's Review:













(not an actual screenshot)

Original Review
July 17, 2003

Best flick I've seen all year. This ain't no Italian shit-job zombie flick. Rather, 28 Days Later gives you a different take on the whole zombie genre. In this flick, the "infected" aren't just mindless shufflers - they are in a perpetual state of rage, pursuing any survivors with the ferocity and speed of rabid wolves.

Oh yeah, don't confuse this movie with the Sandra Bullock rehab movie 28 Days. If you rent the wrong one, whoo boy, you'll be wishing that you were infected and/or dead.

Without giving away too much, here's a quick recap - skip it if you don't want to hear anything before seeing the movie, which was how I felt. I didn't watch any trailers, commercials, anything, before I hit the theater. Some scientists are testing the effects of rage on monkeys, some monkey-lovers set the infected chimps free, and the monkeys return the favor by infecting the first people they see. The virus spreads through the blood - if someone gets any in them or if an infected bites them, they become infected within 30 seconds - that's how it spreads like wildfire. When we pick up the movie 28 days later (get it?), Jim wakes up in a hospital, completely alone and clueless (just like the guy in Day of the Triffids). The action picks up from there - some more survivors find Jim and fill him in on what happened; Jim and Selena (another survivor) meet up with Frank and his daughter Hannah; they hear a repeating broadcast by an army stockade claiming to have the cure for infection, so they decide to head for the location of the stockade. But first they have to escape from London, which is a perilous task. They eventually do hit the highway and reach their destination, where they find an army troop holed up on an old estate to defend themselves against the infected, complete with a minefield front lawn. Things turn nasty quickly, as the soldiers set their sights and boners on the two women in the group, much to the dismay of Jim, so he has to rescue them - and that's all I'll give you. You HAVE to see this movie! If you only see one Cillian Murphy movie this year - it has to be 28 Days Later!

Boob factor: you see Selena in her bra but that's it, so if you want some boobs in your zombie flick, you'll have to check out Make Them Die Slowly or Zombie Lake. But make sure you see 28 Days Later first.

Addendum
July 28, 2003
So there was this whole buzz going around that the producers of 28 Days Later had shot a few different endings to the movie, and that if you saw it again and stayed through the credits, you'd see another ending, a "what if..." scenario.

Don't waste your money.

If you've already seen the movie, then leave it at that, because the much-touted new ending sucks - it's just a ploy to get you to spend another 9 bucks. I don't care if this is a spoiler - in fact, I hope it is, so you won't get your hopes up and go see the movie again. Basically, Jim dies after they smash through the mansion gates, so he never has a chance to tell Selena and Hannah that he saw a plane fly overhead. Hannah says "What do we do now?" and Selena says "We move," and they walk down a hallway...and that's it!!!!!!!

The press buzz made it sound like "what if the infection did, in fact, spread outside of England" - but it was nothing like that!!! I actually saw a print ad for the new ending saying that it is "so terrifying it will haunt you for days" - in reality, it was so boring I slept for 3 days!

I lost a lot of respect for a pretty cool movie because of their pathetic attempt to rip off the public.

IMDb link: 28 Days Later

Final Destination 2

Oh wow, blue faces in a row. How original.

2003

Directed by: David R. Ellis

Starring: Ali Larter, A.J. Cook, James Kirk (hey, isn't that the Star Trek guy?), and
Tony Fucking Todd!!!!!!!

J-Rock's Review:

















Better than the first. This flick was pretty damn good - it had lots of funny parts, pretty hot chicks, some quick boobs, and the best death scenes I've seen in a long time!

I'm assuming you know the premise from the first flick, so if you don't, then my only suggestion is to eat me. Or rent it. The second one starts out with a bang - a HUGE traffic pileup, full of death, music, explosions, and soccer moms. Ok, no soccer moms; we should only be so lucky. The only thing worse than a soccer mom in a minivan? A soccer mom in a fucking Escalade or Expedition! Do these broads really need V-8 engines, 4-wheel-drive, and the cargo capacity of an aircraft carrier just to take their little shit-nosed kids to day care, swim class, and the supermarket?

Anyway, some chick has a premonition about this accident and blocks the highway on-ramp, and thus saves a bunch of people from the Grim Reaper's scythe. You know the rest - death catches up with each one, but there are 2 twists in this movie. These are small spoilers, so scroll down quickly if you don't want to know anything about the movie - first, the sole survivor from the first movie, played by the ever-fucking-hot Ali Larter


















is coaxed out of retirement (actually out of a psych institute) to help this new batch of death-dodgers. Second, each of the people who were spared on the highway were somehow saved once before, and each instance resulted from the death of someone from the first flick. Kind of a cool chain-reaction story they set up.

As for the awesome death scenes - oh man, they cooked up some gory, bloody-ass shit for this movie. Now I don't mean nasty gore like in a zombie flick, but death does its dirty deeds in a clever, evil fashion. Just as an example, one kid is flattened/splattered by a huge pane of glass. Cool visual, huh?

Plus, this movie features TONY TODD!! CANDYMAN!!!! Tony plays a creepy cremator...crematorator...crematororium...the guy who cremates John Does from the hospitals. I think. I don't remember that scene too well, and I don't remember him from the first movie, but it doesn't matter, because he's TONY TODD!!!

So even though F.D. 2 falls into the whole teen-oriented Miramax/Dimension genre, right down to the bluish faces on the box, it's worth checking out, mostly for the death scenes.

IMDb: Final Destination 2

Darkness Falls

2003
Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman (who?)
Starring: No one worth mentioning

J-Rock's Review:








I saw this movie when it came out back in dark, cold January of '03, but I haven't had a chance to update the good 'ol webpage lately. Not that you've been missing much - this movie sucked! People gush over it like it's the second coming of Hitchcock, but it's just a bad, boring movie. I mean, how scary is your movie really going to be when the villian is the Tooth Fairy?

Yeah, you read that right - the "scary" monster in this flick is the Tooth Fairy. It seems that in the town of Darkness Falls (get it?), a nice old lady used to give kids ca$h for the teeth they lost, so when two kids disappear, the first person the townsfolk accuse and immediately hang is the nice old lady. Whatever happened to due process??? I mean at least call Sam Waterston to prosecute the poor lady!

Anyway, the lady puts a curse on the town, blah blah blah, then comes back like a hundred years later to unleash a killing spree on some random people in the town. Why now? Why them? I don't know. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention (or I just didn't care) that the lady had been burnt by a house fire, and had to wear a porcelain mask just to go in the sunlight, so when she comes back as a demon-thingy, she has a mask and can only kill someone when they are enveloped by darkness.

Anyway again, she kills some people, then some guy destroys her with fire. And then we left the theater and walked into another movie. I don't remember what movie though.

Oh yeah, don't see Darkness Falls.

I'm not happy about it, but here's the customary IMDb link: Darkness Falls

Ghost Ship

2002

Directed by: Steve Beck

Starring: The chick from ER and the guy from End of Days

J-Rock's Review:
of 5 skulls




Not bad, not unbelievably awesome...just a scary spooky matinee type of horror flick.

It's about an ocean liner that's been lost for 40 years, and has just been found adrift in the Bering Strait by a salvage crew. They come on board, and then things start getting freaky. The chick from ER sees a little girl who's obviously a ghost; a couple of guys start chowing down on what seems like perfectly preserved canned food, but turns out to be yummy, nutritious maggots; and there are some cool deaths along the way.

This flick is worth a rental - you even get some quick boobies about halfway through!

For more information from the IMDb: Ghost Ship

feardotcom

2002

Directed by: the same asshole who directed The House on Haunted Hill

Starring: Stephen Dorff and some other poor saps

J-Rock's Review:
This is a total waste of time, money and film.

Original Review:
I thought it was impossible to make a movie worse than the afore-mentioned House on Haunted Hill. But this idiot succeeded.

This movie had a stupid story, horrible acting, dizzying cinematography and an awful style. Every scene takes place in faux Art-Deco rooms, like the entire city is back in the 1940s. And it's always raining - very fucking annoying.

As for the story, some sicko is running a live-webcam death site where he tortures and kills nubile young ladies. And the police can't find him. And anyone who looks at the site dies within 24 hours, at the hands of the first woman who died, who has apparently become some sort of electrical impulse (cough*Lawnmower Man*cough). The worst part is that every time someone logs on to the site, the movie enters a nauseating sequence of flashes and spins that don't scare you, but instead make you want to punch the director.

Anyway, they find him, and then they log him onto the site, so the dead chick kills him (finally!).
We didn't even see a double feature that night, because there was nothing else worth seeing. Hollywood sucks.

Addendum, added October 25, 2002:
Another thing that makes this movie suck really really bad is that it totally rips off The Ring. I saw the Japanese original, and even though it was dubbed off of a PAL video-disc and subtitled in both Cantonese and English, the movie was really cool. But feardotcom sucked all the suspense out of the movie for me. Fucking Stephen Dorff. I'm glad Blade kicked your ass.

For more information from the IMDb: feardotcom