NURSIE (2005) *

C. Thomas Howell stars as a doctor who gets ran off the road on a dark and stormy night and wakes up in a strange nursing home.  A wacko nurse (Savannah Boucher) tries to take care of him and once he is well, she wants him to take care of old folks who live there too.  When he resists, the nurse drugs him, and holds him hostage in the home.  Howell soon learns the others are also being held against their will and together they stage a revolt.

Nursie is a muddled, boring, and forgettable mishmash of a Misery knockoff, a crazy redneck movie, and a ‘90s From Hell thriller.  Shot using digital cameras, it looks cheap and the single location only enhances that feeling.  It also doesn’t help that an old woman in a nurse uniform isn’t intimidating or scary in the least.  

Nursie also features a record number of scenes of a groggy C. Thomas Howell slowly trying to get out of bed.  I’m sorry, but it’s hard to feel sorry for his character when it takes him half the movie to make a legitimate escape attempt, especially when it’s painfully obvious that everyone around him is a total nut job.  He doesn’t give a bad performance exactly.  It’s just that he’s unable to do anything with the shitty script.

After a while (scratch that, almost immediately), you feel like you’re the one held prisoner by the old kook.  Nursie is agonizingly slow, and even when something does happen, there’s always some contrived plot device to send Howell back into bed.  The climax is woefully shitty too.  In fact, the whole thing would’ve been over ninety minutes sooner if he just knocked the old bat’s lights out once she started acting cuckoo.  

In short, this Nursie belongs in a bedpan.  

THINGS (1993) **

Things is a shot-on-video horror anthology.  What it lacks in budget, it makes up for with cool monsters and some decent gore.  It’s not completely successful (not by a long shot), but there’s some things to like about Things.  

In the “Wrap-Around” (**), a woman finds her husband’s mistress at a sleazy hotel room.  She pulls a gun on the girl and ties her to a chair (while topless).  She then proceeds to tell her two stories about ghoulish “things”.

The first tale is “The Box” (**).  A quartet of prostitutes buy an old theater and turn it into a den of inequity.  The evil mayor wants them gone and is more than willing to turn his evil face-biting slug monster loose on whoever gets in his way. 

The low budget, crummy videography, and amateurish acting has a certain charm.  The best thing about this segment is the slug creature that resides in the box.  It’s obvious that most of the budget went towards creating the monster, which is okay, I guess.  There’s a solid helping of gore and at least one decent jump scare to keep you interested.  Too bad the scenes where the surviving girls stalk around the theater looking for the monster are slowly paced, darkly lit, and go on far too long.  

“Thing in the Jar” (**) is the second story.  An abusive husband tells his wife, “There’s only three things you got to do:  Eat, Shit, and Fuck!”  Soon after, she begins having increasingly violent dreams about him killing and torturing her.  When she tells him about them, of course, the lout is completely unsympathetic.  Her instincts turn out to be correct and her hubby tries to do away with her for good.  He quickly discovers she won’t go away so easily.

There is some good camerawork and lighting in this segment.  Unfortunately, the sound really sucks.  (The sound effects of crickets almost drown out the dialogue in some scenes.)  While a couple of the hallucinations/dreams are funny (like when the wife sees eyeballs in her husband’s eggs), the domestic disturbance drama isn’t all that involving and the acting is rather wooden.  The monster isn’t quite as impressive as the slug from the previous story, but the villain’s comeuppance is appropriately gory.  

As far as shot-on-video horror anthologies go, Things isn’t nearly as bad as most.  There are one or two effective moments here, which is more than you can say for most of these flicks.  That’s far from making it a winner though. 

ROLLER GATOR (1996) ½ *

P.J. (Sandra Shuker) is walking on the beach when she hears a strange voice.  She follows it to a cave and finds a purple wisecracking baby alligator named… uh… Baby Gator.  Predictably, the owner of a nearby carnival (Joe Estevez) wants to exploit the alligator for his latest attraction.  It’s then up to P.J. to get the gator back to his swamp home.

Shot on video by director Donald G. (Hell Comes to Frogtown) Jackson, Roller Gator is a jaw-dropping shitshow of epic proportions.  It’s obvious Jackson was trying to capitalize on the Rollerblading craze in the ‘90s, a craze he had earlier exploited in films like Roller Blade.  This time, he adds a (not terrible) hand puppet into the mix.  Even worse, is that he tried to make it into a kid’s movie.  I’m not sure you could find a kid willing enough to make it through the first five minutes.  

Looking something like a cross between a locally produced commercial for an amusement park and your little sister’s home movie she based around a Land Before Time puppet she got from Pizza Hut, Roller Gator is a painful experience.  From the obvious jokes (“You need some Gatorade!  Get it?  GATOR-ade?”), to the shitty videography, and the incessant guitar music that threatens to drown out the dialogue at every turn (which might be a blessing), it’s a goddamn mess.  If you thought Roller Blade was bad, nothing could prepare you for this.  

Wait till you get to the “touching” scenes of P.J. bonding with Baby Gator.  If you think they’re terrible, wait till the annoying gator starts doing impressions.  If that doesn’t make you want to blow your brains out, the scenes where the gator raps will.  If that doesn’t do the trick, maybe the unending scenes of Estevez stumbling around the carnival with his nephew will put you over the edge.  

Shuker is the only worthwhile thing in the picture.  She actually seems like she’s having a conversation with a character and not just a cheap hand puppet.  She never acted in anything else, which may have been for the best.  The nightmare of starring in this probably put her off acting forever.

Oh, and did I mention we also have Conrad Brooks as a “swamp farmer”?  Yes, the same Conrad Brooks from all those Ed Wood flicks.  Say what you will about Ed Wood, he never made a movie as bad as Roller Gator.  

ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY (1994) *

Alex (April Lerman) is a bookworm sorority sister who has a crush on rock star named “Jamie Z.” (a male model known only as “Attila”).  His manager, Red (Mark Stulce) has had it with his temperamental behavior, and he sets out to kill Jamie to collect on his insurance policy.  After a near-fatal accident, Alex bring Jamie back to her sorority house and winds up inadvertently kidnapping him.  Eventually, he doesn’t seem to mind it so much and the two wind up falling in love.

Rock and Roll Fantasy was the first film by director David Michael Latt, who went on to found The Asylum.  It basically set the groundwork for their teenage comedies, not to mention the company itself.  Unlike their recent output, there’s no real T & A to help get you through the sluggish comedy scenes.  

The plot is belabored and slow moving, not to mentioned farfetched and stupid.  Whole scenes aimlessly play out without much of a payoff, and the stilted acting and dialogue do nothing to keep them moving.  Many of the gags are tired and/or just plain unfunny (like the one involving the “Indian” bartender).  The scenes of the kidnapped rock star forming a bond with his nerdy captor are a chore to sit through too.  The best scenes involve the gangster who’s trying to teach his son the tricks of the trade like “how to dig an unmarked grave”, but they are few and far between.    

Attila has the rock star look, but he definitely isn’t an actor.  Lerman isn’t much better.  Without a lead to care about, it’s hard to give a shit about any of this.  It’s even harder to swallow the fact that they fall in love.

AKA:  Sex Pot 2.  AKA:  Sorority House Party.

SKULLDUGGERY (1983) ½ *

In Medieval Times, a sorcerer takes control of a castle and places a curse on a royal family.  Flashforward to 1982 where a Dungeons and Dragons nerd starts to feel as if the line between the game and reality is beginning to blur.  He picks a warlock character in the game and later, while at a local talent show, causes a snake to kill an actress with his mind.  The more grandiose his visions become, and the more the bodies begin to pile up.  At a big costume party, he dons a variety of disguises as he offs victims.  Is he in control of his magic powers?  Or is someone else pulling the strings?  

There are parts of Skullduggery that might remind you of Evilspeak, Fade to Black, Terror Train, and Mazes and Monsters.  It’s a mishmash of stock horror scenes (like a trip to a fortune teller), slasher clichés (like the masked stalking sequences), and out and out weirdness.  I guess there was some potential here, but none of it ever gels in a meaningful way.  

The long magic acts and stage plays eat up a lot of time and the stuff involving the boardgame just sits there like a stone.  It’s one thing if the plot and/or filler scenes fall flat, but even the supposedly horrific stuff is a total bore.  The stalking scenes go on far too long, and the part where the killer dresses up in a variety of stupid costumes (like an Easter Bunny) are lame.  

All this is more confounding than anything.  Any one of these elements might’ve made for a good movie, but Skullduggery can’t make up its mind what it wants to be.  Instead, it just plays like a mind-numbing puree of clichés.  Since the connecting tissue is so weak, it all falls apart.  The various side jaunts (like the horny nurse) are perplexing and silly shit (like the random Liberace impersonator) is more stupid than fun.  The occasional attempts at intentional humor land with a thud and only make the fractured narrative seem even more incongruous.

Many of the kills make no sense.  For example, there’s a scene where the killer holds a woman’s face under scalding steam and then, seconds later, he’s just holding a skull in his hands.  Did the steam decapitate her too?  You’ll go crazy trying to make sense of this movie.  

There are only two things saving Skullduggery from a No Star rating.  One is the creepy jester puppet that occasionally pops up.  The second is the hilarious theme song that sounds like a disco version of a Ren Fest ballad.  That’s about as good as the movie ever gets, which is sad because it’s the first thing we hear!

AKA:  Blood Puzzle.  AKA:  Warlock.

THE COLLECTOR (2009) **

A thief named Arkin (Josh Stewart) must crack his employers’ safe to get the dough necessary to pay off his ex-wife’s debt.  Once he breaks in, he finds the place isn’t what it appears to be.  Someone else is in there and has set deadly booby traps throughout the home.  He then must try to save the family before they fall prey to a black-masked killer (Juan Fernandez) who “collects” his victims.  

The Collector was the brainchild of Feast and Saw sequel writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton.  It’s a grisly, yet generic mix of Saw, Don’t Breathe, and (checks notes) Home Alone.  It’s certainly has some grisly moments (there’s a gnarly bear trap scene) and touches of surprising atmosphere in the early scenes.  (There are shots that evoke both Argento and De Palma.)  

Once the action switches to the house, it becomes yet another darkened, dreary, unimaginative torture porn-type of horror flick.  The solid set-up eventually gives way to ho-hum execution and the doldrums set in well before the finale.  Dunstan shows enough promise as a director in the early scenes though to make you want to see something else from him down the road.  

The script however leaves a little something to be desired.  Dunstan and Melton originally conceived it to be a prequel to Saw, but they reworked it to be its own thing.  I guess if you could excuse the rampant lapses in logic (like how the hell the Collector could rig up all those elaborate traps on such short notice) and eye-rolling clichés in the third act, you might find this one worthy of your collection.

DUMBO (2019) *** ½

Ever since I was a kid, Dumbo has been my favorite Disney movie.  As a teenager, it resonated even more.  Dumbo was relentlessly teased and bullied by his peers and the only way he dealt with it was to get drunk and wake up the next morning in a tree.  I can relate.  (I never quite got to the point where I was able to rise above the bullies and reign down a hail of fire-roasted peanuts on my tormentors though.)

The good news is, I can relate to this new Dumbo just as much.  It’s quite an inspirational tale.  It’s the film that shows us that if you try your best to overcome the obstacles life throws at you, one day Eva Green will climb on top of you and ride you like there’s no tomorrow.  I think there’s a message there for all of us.  

Tim Burton’s take on the Disney classic hits the familiar beats from the original.  The big difference is that the human characters are split 50-50 in the good and evil department.  In the original, they were pretty much bastards all around.  

Instead of Timothy (who at least has a cameo) as Dumbo’s best pal and champion, we have Colin Farrell and his kids.  Farrell comes home from the war missing an arm, with his career in the circus uncertain.  He gets put in charge of the elephants, and it’s up to him and his kids to make sure the big-eared elephant Dumbo is their next star attraction.  

The first half sticks fairly close to the original.  (There were no singing crows, though.)  I especially loved the way the old songs creeped into Danny Elfman’s score (especially “Casey Jr.”).  The second half, in which the circus gets bought out by a big corporation who wants to exploit Dumbo isn’t nearly as good, but it’s not without its charms.  I guess Burton’s message is that even if a major conglomerate owns your ass, you can still be an edgy outcast who is able to flourish and (literally) rise above your confines.    

As much as I love the original, I was glad this wasn’t a shot-for-shot remake, like what that newfangled Aladdin looks to be.  This is Tim Burton’s take on the classic tale.  There is one sequence in particular (the escape from “Devil’s Island”) that is one of the most Tim Burton-y things Tim Burton has ever done.  

The big emotional beats are taken from the original.  The new stuff is sweet and all, but not a patch on the original.  That said, those heart-tugging moments still work (mostly because the CGI Dumbo is freaking adorable), and the “Baby Mine” sequence has the power to get the waterworks going with minimum effort.  

The human cast, superfluous as they are, are still quite good.  Green is great as the trapeze artist who goes from corporate arm candy to carny mother hen.  Farrell is strong as the family man hesitant to step up and become a leader.  Danny DeVito is fun as the crotchety ringleader who’s tempted by the almighty dollar.  

Michael Keaton is probably the most interesting as the evil sleazebag.  If you notice, his accent slightly changes from scene to scene.  Sometimes he sounds French, other times, English.  Heck, there are times when you don’t know where his accent is from.  It sort of clues you in that this guy is a phony from the get-go.  

The best scene though is a cameo (which I will not spoil) that is so gratuitous, outlandish, and out of place that it almost feels like it came out of an episode of The Simpsons.  It’s so crazy that it almost takes you out of the movie.  However, it is quite hilarious (one of the biggest I’ve had at the movies in some time), so I’ll allow it.