UTTER CRAP I

PARASITE

Featured the talents of Demi Moore in her first (though not last) Horror movie.

It also featured the SFX talents of a young Stan Winston, who would later go on to much better things with John Carpenter's THE THING, THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS, PREDATOR, JURASSIC PARK, and so on.

Everybody else involved had somewhat less good fortune.

Otherwise this movie, about the world after nuclear war and a company that makes money off of the U.S. government, really sucked.

A government which somehow has money to spend despite there being no more taxes because the post-apocalyptic economy is in the hole, everyone is unemployed, and money is worthless

At the end of humanity, the evil "company" (represented by a man wearing black and driving a black car) is making deadly parasites.

What on earth for?

No reason.

See the parasite on the 3D movie poster? The parasites don't look like that.

See the black Porsche on the DVD cover? In the movie it's a Lamborghini.

See the white guy on the DVD cover? He's also not in the movie, and neither is the M-16 / A-1 rifle, he's holding.

All of this adds up to a movie studio that has so much contempt for their potential audience they don't care that they are this sloppy. That sloppy contempt stumbles all through the movie.

So what is left?

What is in the movie is three minutes of totally unnecessary start time that the movie would be better off without.

Aw who am I kidding? You'd be better off not seeing this movie at all. I refuse to review this any further.

The movie was originally made by Embassy Pictures / KOCH International and distributed by Full Moon and Cult Video. Avoid like the plague it's about.

The Hook:
PARASITE had a long life because Charles Band pushed it when then nobodies like Stan Winston and Demi Moore became famous.

NETHERWORLD

Get your Nethers Together!

No, that probably would have been a better movie. Okay, this is what we've got here.

NETHERWORLD is the other movie which had Full Moon Picture's imprimatur.

Like all movies made directly by Charles Band/Full Moon, NETHERWORLD has outstanding production values, clean sound, gorgeous cinematography, expensive looking film stock, and nothing else.

Oh wait - it has T&A.

But if that's your meat you'll find more T&A in any number of direct to video lezzy schlock and shock fests. It also features a flying hand complete with cheesy strings and a poorly imitated PHANTASM flying ball effect. The effects come courtesy of Mark Shostrom (PHANTASM III, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3, EVIL DEAD II, DEEPSTAR SIX). Why this effect wasn't done better I chalk up to the director, David Schmoeller* (TOURIST TRAP), since Mark knows what he's doing.

The hand has teeny faces on its fingers that do pretty much the same job as the blades and drills on the silver balls of PHANTASM (same designer). This is not an homage, more of a fromage, and definitely a rip. The chrome flying balls are better, PHANTASM is way better, and didn't have half the slick look of NETHERWORLD.

When I think of all the good Horror stories that are out there that could be bought and made into half way decent Horror movies, I have to ask my self. "Why in the hell does Full Moon go wildly out of its way to make such miserable shit as this when they can just as easily afford to make something great?"

THE EVIL DEAD cost pennies to make. Likewise THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, PHANTASM and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD by George Romero. What's more, there are plenty more young film makers, graduating every year, with wild ideas who don't crap a movie out with dishwater artistic endeavors that drag past the film gate forever.

The Hook:
Diminishing Returns but Charles Band pushed it because Effects artist Mark Shostrom was a part of PHANTASM, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and EVIL DEAD. Further it has a connection to 1980s New Jersey band, Bon Jovi.

*
David Schmoeller hit a homerun with TOURIST TRAP, though in the DVD commentary to that movie, seems ashamed of it.

Too bad. The movie is a classic and has a decent cultish fanbase. The same cannot be said for anything David has done since. In fact, for either tax purposes or out of a sense of shame, David often makes movies for Charles Band under an assumed name.

For NETHERWORLD, fellow Texan David, born in Louisville, Kentucky, called himself "Billy Chicago".

Bon Jovi keyboardist and song writer, David Bryan, wrote the soundtrack. Bryan would go on to co-write THE TOXIC AVENGER: THE MUSICAL

THE FEAR

Is a 5 pound capacity bag filled with 20 pounds of shit.

Stuffed to overflowing with confused subplots and riddled through with plot holes, THE FEAR is a movie drowning in its inability to tell a good story.

That's too bad because this concept of a wooden mannequin that may or may not be alive is a good one (and reminiscent of PIN).

Piss-poor editing in the form of people's sentences being chopped before they complete them; buildups to nude scenes that were obviously filmed but then cut out, and jump cuts from day to night in the same scene leave THE FEAR as nothing more than broken pieces on the floor.

There is too much going on in THE FEAR that has nothing to do with the story. There are also too many distracting side scenes that take you completely out of the movie. Plus it earns an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT.

The pathetically obvious rubber suit, painted to look like wood but moves like rubber, also doesn't help.

So very poor.

The Hook:
It does star Horror writer/Director Wes Craven in a walk-on role however. He was probably doing a favor for a fan. He's known to have a soft heart for young film makers.