directed by john mccauley
channel one productions
By almost any reasonable measure, this straight-to-video extravaganza isn’t any good. And yet it manages to project a kooky kind of charm, possibly because some aspects of it are just so … off. Unlike some of the other bad films I’ve denigrated herein, the filmmakers involved in this venture seem to have known what they were doing, but just do not appear to have been very proficient. Take the editing: the cuts interspersing glimpses of the characters’ domestic lives with the mounting terror, etc., are so ham-handed it’s jarring. The dialogue, meanwhile, continually interjects minutiae into random conversations. And then there’s the music, which at a certain point reaches a kind of lunatic insistence that is sorta breathtaking. On top of all that, the SHOCKING twist almost could work, but for anyone who for some reason is paying careful attention, one line rings a few too many bells, even with the painstaking misdirection involved. Classic ending, too. Oh, and one extremely minor character disappears during the climax, never again to be glimpsed or mentioned.
why did i watch this movie?
I could not ignore the creative and descriptive title.
should you watch this movie?
Probably not on purpose, but it is a good way to contemplate the Platonic ideal of straight-to-video.
highlight and low point
I really don’t want to ruin the fun for anyone who might theoretically watch this, but the scene in which an assailant takes his victim on a picnic obviously is unparalleled in cinematic history. The blatantly obvious use of a body double in the nude bathing scene is also top-notch. An early scene in a “police station” that is a glorious example of why-bother set dressing features an extended, juvenile scatology gag.
Yikes. Given this dreck, your intrepid movie guide is almost inclined to reconsider his grades for some of the other terrible films in this compendium, because this disaster is so awful that it makes duds such as Blood Harvest and Island of Blood seem like minor missteps. This stinker comes across like the result of an experiment: take components one normally associates with horror movies, blindfold somebody, and have him, her or it try to assemble said parts into a coherent whole. Hint: It “helps” if the actors cannot act, the vast stretches filmed in darkness are unlit or poorly lit – a “technique” one may remember fondly from “Scared Alive” – and the so-called “script” … may or may not exist. (Sample: Character leaves house, gets killed. Repeat with next character. ) Speaking of things that may or may not exist, this putrid mess has an honest-to-Pete score that disappears for much of the second half, making me wonder if the filmmakers forgot about it along with pacing, continuity, editing and cinematography. Body By Jake is the inexcusably aggravating PCP-addled killer in this terrible waste of time, and wow, I haven’t even mentioned the (presumably) KISS-inspired character appropriately named “The Mistake.” An embarrassment.
Now here we have a bona fide black comedy. This is a dark, dark picture, but it is laced throughout with unmistakable pathos, and the escalation of terrible miseries suffered by the eponymous character produces a kind of shell-shocked humor. Certainly, very little in this movie is funny per se, but it lurches enough toward the absurd to make it matter. It would be hard to definitively describe this as a horror film, but in all honesty, I’m not sure what else it could be called, either, given the internally logical extreme it eventually reaches. Carried not only by its madcap premise – May has trouble making friends, let’s say – but by the outstanding title performance from Angela Bettis, it’s an engaging accomplishment. Which is not to say it’s for everyone. In fact, a sequence or two in the latter half had me watching from between my fingers, and I seek out movies like this on purpose. But it manages to tug at the heartstrings in between blows to the head, and even the hokey (and ultimately predictable) final scene couldn’t besmirch it too much. I can see why this was a critical success.
SPACE RATS From Outer Space 