HINDSIGHT IS 2020: AMITYVILLE ISLAND (2020) ½ *

Seems like the closest you can get to going to a video store and scanning the shelves for hilarious/stupid VHS boxes these days is opening up Tubi and mindlessly scrolling through all the thumbnails in the Horror Section.  I have to admit that when I saw the title Amityville Island along with the terrific artwork, I laughed for a good twenty seconds.  I got more enjoyment out of looking at that picture for twenty seconds than I did watching seventy minutes of the movie.

The artwork seems to suggest it’s going to be an Amityville Meets Jaws kind of thing.  That makes sense, especially if you know the old wives’ tale about being able to spot the Amityville Horror house in Jaws.  I mean, it’s not too much of a stretch as Jaws takes place on “Amity Island” after all.  So, this at the very least SEEMED like it could work. 

Unfortunately, even as far as no-budget, unrelated Amityville movies go, Amityville Island is unrelentingly bad in just about every way imaginable. 

A mom (Jamie Morgan) buys a bunch of stuff from a yard sale at the Amityville Horror house and soon becomes possessed by an evil doll.  She promptly slaughters her family (off screen) and goes to prison.  After fighting with another inmate (Danielle Donahue), they are sent to an island laboratory where a mad doctor is performing fertility experiments on female patients. 

The gimmick of having the spirit hopping out of our heroine’s body to briefly possess animals who kill people could have worked.  Too bad all we get is one cheap bear attack and, of course, the shitty CGI shark scene.  Both times, the animals’ eyes glow red before they go on a rampage.  If the film kept up this style of lunacy at a steady rate, it might’ve been at the very least, watchable.  However, the stuff with the mad doctor brings things to a crashing halt every time he shows up.

Even though it’s only seventy minutes, Amityville Island feels longer than watching a marathon of the original official Amityville movies.  All the pointless flashbacks help to further keep the pacing firmly stuck in the mud.  While I respect the attempt to weirdly graft a women in prison subplot in there, ultimately, this is a lame hodgepodge of half-baked ideas and cheap special effects strung together on a shoestring budget with amateurish actors.

Honestly, it’s nothing that two, maybe three more shark attacks couldn’t have cleared up.  If you come to the party expecting another diverting Shitty CGI Shark movie, don’t be fooled like me.  That shark in the picture is just there to lure you in.  Don’t fall for the bait, chum.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH (2020) * ½

Welcome to Sudden Death is the sequel to the Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick, Sudden Death.  That movie was a Die Hard rip-off that took place at a hockey game.  The game in question actually went into sudden death overtime, thereby justifying the title.  The terrorist attack in Welcome to Sudden Death happens during a basketball game.  You know… a sport that doesn’t have sudden death overtime.  

That’s just the first tip-off (HA!  See I can make puns that are actually relevant to the sport at hand!) you are in trouble. 

Look, when I started this Hindsight is 2020 column, I may or may not have chosen to review bad movies on purpose to highlight what a bad year 2020 was.  However, this is one of the films I was legitimately excited for and genuinely wanted to see.  It’s a shame too because I like Michael Jai White and he deserves much better than an inane DTV Van Damme sequel. 

I usually grade DTV action movies (especially DTV sequels to twenty-five-year-old action movies) on a curve.  Welcome to Sudden Death flattened the curve.  Sadly, that was the only curve that was flattened in 2020.

First, let’s talk about the look of this thing.  Much of Welcome to Sudden Death resembles a Disney Channel movie with its bright colors and bland camerawork.  Director of Photography Mark Irwin has done everything from Cronenberg’s The Fly to Disney’s Air Bud spin-off, Super Buddies.  This looks like it could almost take place in the Air Bud franchise as everything is bright, sunny, and fake looking.  You know, everything a gritty DTV actioner should not be.  (It is the polar opposite to the smoky, dingy look that Peter Hyams gave the original.)  In fact, the first act kind of plays like a Disney Channel show, what with the comic domestic scenes of White trying to please his wife and putting up with his mouthy kids.  (If you excuse the obligatory military flashback, that is.)

The action is just as bad.  I don’t know if they just didn’t have enough planning time, but the fights feel overly choreographed.  Most of the time, it looks like a filmed rehearsal (or maybe a martial arts demonstration) and not a realistic fight.  White does get one good fight against his wife, Gillian, and even then, it’s over way too fast.  There’s a funny bit during a locker room brawl too.  However, that’s not nearly enough to sustain a Die Hard rip-off.

We do get one novel touch has the henchmen get around the security by 3D printing their guns after they’ve entered the building.  The main baddie is no Powers Boothe, but since it is impossible to hold him to that standard, I will instead say that he is far from the worst thing about the movie.  Unfortunately, he’s saddled with a annoying rapper who’s held hostage in the owner’s box throughout the film.  Speaking of annoying, White also gets saddled with a stupid fat sidekick who will get on your nerves and wear on them from the moment he appears on screen. 

I love Die Hard rip-offs as much as the next guy.  Even as a fan of the subgenre and Michael Jai White, I have to say this belongs on the lowest rungs of their respective ladders.  In short, Welcome to Sudden Death is dead on arrival. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: FINAL KILL (2020) *

Mickey (Ed Morrone) is a neurotic bodyguard working for an illicit security company who desperately wants to retire.  His boss (Billy Zane) convinces him to accept one last job protecting an accountant, who along with his wife, just stole eight million from the Mob.  Predictably, Mickey is double-crossed by the company, who also want the couple dead.  It’s then up to Mickey to see that no harm comes to the couple before getting revenge for himself.

The casting director deserved some kind of award for getting this cast together.  In addition to Billy Zane (who, with his bald head and hangdog expression kind of looks like the love child of Michael Ironside and Jon Polito), we have Randy Couture as… a guy who works for Zane, Johnny Messner as… another guy who works for Zane, Danny Trejo as a hitman (he’s in it for about thirty seconds), James Russo as a bad guy who gets killed early on (I’m sure he was grateful for that), and fucking Dr. Drew as Morrone’s shrink!  Then again, the casting director probably should’ve had his award promptly taken away from him for casting Morrone, a guy I have never heard of, in the lead.

I’m not saying every role has to be played by a character actor, former MMA fighter, or reality show host.  I’m saying they should at least have some credibility in front of the camera.  Morrone plays one of the most unlikeable, grating, annoying assholes I’ve seen in a movie in some time.  It would be okay if he looked like an action star, but he looks and sounds like the night manager at a grimy pizzeria.  Even then, he doesn’t really pull that off.  Imagine Charlie Day imitating Joe Manganiello, and that should give you an idea of what we’re dealing with.  He’s so bad that he manages to make Dr. Drew seem Academy Award-worthy in their scene together. 

The craftsmanship is real shoddy too, and the action sequences are brief.  In fact, there’s so little action that Morrone has to flashback to other unrelated action bits that have nothing to do with the couple in jeopardy plotline.  It’s weird because while the action sequences seem abrupt, many of the dialogue scenes start and end with extraneous dead space.  A lot of times, you could audibly count “1… 2… 3…” before someone enters or exits the frame.  I think the reason for this was because the movie was only eighty minutes long as it is, and the editor had to leave those nonessential bits in there to get the film to a contractually obligated running time.  Even if those bits were left on the cutting room floor, Final Kill would’ve still felt way too long. 

AKA:  The Protector.  AKA:  Assassination Island.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: THE WRETCHED (2020) *

Boy, talk about truth in advertising!  Finally, here’s a movie that lives up to its name!   

The Wretched was one of the biggest box office hits of 2020, topping the charts for six straight weeks!  That of course was because there was a pandemic going on and barely any movies were being released, but that just gives you an idea of what a shitty year it was for Hollywood, and the movies in general.  Even during a pandemic, I can’t imagine anyone venturing out and risking their lives to see this in a theater.  Heck, I saw it in the safety of my own home, and it was still hazardous to my health. 

A witch hitches a ride inside a deer carcass (?) and crawls out to find a new home living inside a woman (Zarah Mahler) who is renting a summer house.  Meanwhile, next door, a teenager named Ben (John-Paul Howard) is spending the summer with his recently divorced dad.  When his neighbor’s son comes to him for help, stating he no longer trusts his mom, Ben does what he can to protect him.  When the brat disappears, the witch comes after Ben.  Naturally, he tries to convince everyone she’s a witch and of course, no one believes him. 

The Wretched is a slow and disjointed movie filled with confounding “rules” and even worse logic.  The idea of a witch using a human host as a husk is intriguing.  However, the filmmakers drop the ball at every conceivable juncture. 

The big problem is the structure.  The scenes with Ben are basically a rip-off of Fright Night, right down to the scenes of him spying on his neighbor.  Even using that sturdy template, the directors, Brett and Drew T. Pierce manage to botch things.  It just highlights how well that classic was constructed and how lousy this one is put together.  Things plunge deeper into the toilet in the third act when the witch starts hopping from body to body.  I guess they were trying for vibe close to The Hidden, but in terms of quality it hews much closer to The Hidden 2.

The stuff with the neighbor lady being overtaken by the witch could’ve worked, and yet the film spends so much time on Ben’s shady past, girlfriend woes, etc. that she (nor the witch) have a chance to become a real character.  Instead, she’s merely a plot device.  Imagine if we actually cared about what happened to her.  It might not have saved the movie, but it might’ve given it a little weight.

It also doesn’t help that Howard makes for a thoroughly unlikeable lead.  He grates on your nerves so much that you actually start rooting for the witch.  Mahler isn’t bad as the witchy neighbor, but again, we don’t see enough of her to make much of a difference.  Even with the changes I suggested, there probably was no saving this one.  It’s just as wretched as the title implies.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: VHYES (2020) * ½

The idea is kind of irresistible.  A kid gets a camcorder for Christmas and uses it to tape a bunch of oddball TV shows.  These segments are basically parodies of the sort of stuff you’d see on late-night cable and/or public access in the ‘80s, making it sort of a spiritual successor in some ways to Amazon Women on the Moon.  It started out with some promise, and although I wasn’t expecting another Amazon Women on the Moon (and quite frankly, what could be?), I was at least hoping this would be as funny as the unfairly maligned Movie 43.  As it turns out, VHYes deserved to be erased.

The big problem isn’t exactly with the segments, although they aren’t particularly funny.  It has more to do with the structure.  Since the kid is basically channel surfing, it cuts from one show to the other at random.  In doing so, none of the segments ever get a chance to build up any real comedic momentum.  The way they try to tie everything together in the finale is pretty dumb too. 

There are a handful of good set-ups.  I liked the Antiques Roadshow-style show starring Mark (the What We Do in the Shadows TV show) Proksch.  The Home Shopping Network bits with Thomas Lennon had potential as well.  There’s also a true crime show that would’ve made a funny SNL sketch if it hadn’t hopped around so much. 

The film was directed by Jack Henry Robbins, son of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.  They both have cameos, although neither of them are really funny.  Even the usually great Kerri Kenney fails to generate laughs as a Bob Ross-inspired painter.

Robbins tries to recapture the ‘80s video aesthetic, with mixed results.  While it looks the part most of the time, some of the errors are so glaring that it completely takes you out of the sketch.  The biggest gaffe comes when Kenney paints a picture of herself in a compromising position with Dennis Rodman, who is depicted with green hair and wearing a Bulls jersey.  This would be okay ordinarily, but it’s supposed to take place in ’87 and Rodman didn’t go to the Bulls until the ‘90s.  Was the entire continuity department asleep at the wheel?  I don’t blame them.  With very few laughs spread about, you’ll probably fall asleep on this one too.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: UNDERWATER (2020) *

Kristen Stewart stars in this underwater Alien rip-off, which I guess makes it… Deep Stew Six?

Anyway, there’s an accident in an underwater mining facility that floods the installation.  Stewart and the reminding survivors put on their deep-sea scuba suits and proceed to make it to a nearby outpost and call for help.  Along the way, they are picked off one by one by hungry squid-faced sea creatures who have an appetite for human flesh. 

Underwater not only rips off the Alien rip-offs of the ‘80s, there’s also a little bit of a Descent vibe in there as the last chunk of the film plays out like that movie.  Only instead of women in spelunking helmets evading slimy monsters in a cave, it’s women in bulky diving suits evading slimy monsters on the ocean floor.  Mostly though, it’s a big, soggy bore.

The first half is like a disaster movie, with K-Stew finding survivors in the rubble, assembling a team, and forming a game plan.  Halfway through, it switches gears and goes into full-on Alien rip-off territory.  I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad if you could see and hear what was going on.  Much of the underwater scenes are murky and thanks to the crappy cinematography, the creature attacks are pretty much a wash.  Couple that with the garbled dialogue and sleepy performances, and it only helps to make this one sink fast. 

After spending much of her post-Twilight years making indie movies, I guess Stewart was trying to appeal to a broader audience by starring in popcorn-friendly material like this and Charlie’s Angels.  She had the right idea, but the execution on this one is just plain shoddy.  (It’s definitely no Charlie’s Angels.)  Too bad they forgot to give her a character to play.  The rest of the cast run the gamut from dull (Vincent Cassel as the boring captain) to annoying (T.J. Miller as the unfunny comic relief).

Sure, the ‘80s underwater horror movie cycle were mostly bad, but at least we can look back on them with a bit of nostalgia.  I’m certain they spent more on the catering budget on this than the entire budgets of Deep Star Six and Lords of the Deep combined.  However, Underwater is just as bad, if not worse than those turkeys.  We do get one decent imploding human gag, although that’s not nearly enough to justify sitting through it.  Despite that one scene, Underwater deserves to be left at the bottom of the ocean. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: THE BEE GEES: HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART (2020) *** ½

From Frank Marshall, the director of Arachnophobia and Congo comes… uh… a documentary on The Bee Gees?  Wait, where’s Frank Marshall been lately?  (Pardon me a moment while I check IMDb.)  Holy shit!  It seems like the last movie he directed was fucking Eight Below fourteen years ago.  Man, this might be the comeback of the year!

I guess it makes sense he would make this documentary as The Bee Gees were no stranger to comebacks themselves.

The Bee Gees:  How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is one of the best documentaries of the year.  It’s the engaging and absorbing story of one of the hottest bands to ever grace the music scene.  It follows the brothers Gibb; Barry, Maurice, and Robin through their early career as a family band before finding success in England and America.  Tensions between the brothers cause them to break-up, but after some time apart, they reunite to conquer the world with their iconic contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. 

Not only do we share in their successes, but we are also right there with them when they are at their lowest.  Of course, I’m referring to the “Disco Sucks” backlash that whirled up to prematurely short circuit their careers.  Ever the survivors, they branch out and begin writing songs for other artists.

If there is a fault to the movie, it’s that it more or less chooses to end their story here with them back on top (for the most part).  However, I wish Marshall had spent more time on the band’s ‘80s stuff.  For all the talk about Saturday Night Fever, there’s no mention of the Sylvester Stallone-directed sequel, Stayin’ Alive.  I would’ve also liked to have seen them delve a bit more into their brother Andy’s death.  Then again, he probably deserves a documentary all his own. 

Those are but a few qualms.  Even if it stops short of being the definitive look at the band, The Bee Gees:  How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is nevertheless an enormously entertaining overview of their career.  If you ever imitated John Travolta while blaring “Stayin’ Alive” alone in your room (Lord knows I have), you will certainly enjoy it.