Category Archives: horror & scifi

BattleDogs

BattleDogs trailer:

We’re watching BattleDogs, because it seems like a patriotic thing to watch over the 4th of July weekend.

It’s about supersoldiers. It stars that guy who was the President in the 1st season of 24. And we already watched Jaws on Thursday. The choice is obvious.

So. Battledogs.

Might be spoilers ahead, but only if you didn’t watch the trailer.

Pro-tip: Intermittently, portentously intoning the words, “Battle! Dogs!” to add drama to the movie…doesn’t.

But we’ll keep doing it. Otherwise I suspect we’re just going to be sitting here, hoping with increasing futility that this movie will improve.

“Battle. Dogs!”

Here’s a synopsis for your convenience: Craig Sheffer (who could pass as David Boreanaz’s older brother, Kate Vernon (Ellen Tigh from BSG, playing a character named Ellen, which is convenient if you’re only half paying attention), and Ariana Richards (one of the kids from Jurassic Park, 20 years later), run around a lot and the military behaves badly although they never actually create the supersoldiers in the description of the movie and there are a lot of CGI werewolves running around and then some shit gets blown up and then the movie ends and you say, “Thank the gods! now I don’t have to keep intoning the word BattleDogs” and then you go to bed.

Battle.Dogs.

It’s not a horror movie, it’s a lame attempt at a military action thriller, but with werewolves. I recommend checking out the scene where the first werewolf escapes the “secure” facility – which it does by running out the open front door and down the street and out into Manhattan. A chase ensues. Toward the end of the scene, the ridiculously conceived CGI werewolf leaps over an SUV. Be sure you have the sound up, because the werewolf howl they use over and over in the movie is especially funny when combined with this “action.” Good stuff. If by good, you mean, not good.

Or, spend your time watching the gorier but more competent 2002 werewolves vs. soldiers film, Dog Soldiers.

Witchslayer Gretl + Wyvern

Want your movie to seem amazing? Before you screen your flick, make your audience sit through the Shannon Doherty SyFy cheapie, Witchslayer Gretl.

How cheap? They apparently couldn’t even afford the second “e” in Gretel.

Witchslayer Gretl:

This movie, which obviously capitalizes on the spate of Hansel and Gretel movies that have been released recently, is so terrible it doesn’t deserve the label “craptacular.” It doesn’t even deserve the label “crap.” It doesn’t even deserve mocking.

Seriously.

If you watch that whole movie, you’ll need to watch Cats Puking to Techno to purge your soul:

Then you’ll feel terrible for laughing at cats puking up hairballs, but you’ll have forgotten about Witchslayer Gretl’s bad writing, directing, acting, makeup, sound mixing, art design, set design, sound design, costumes, and special effects.

The upside to Witchslayer Gretl is that anything you watch immediately afterwards will seem significantly better than it actually is.

We should have watched BloodRayne again to see just how much of a boost a movie can get from the pairing.

But we didn’t because, well, BloodRayne.

Instead, we watched Wyvern:

Wyvern is a fairly competent movie. Stupid, but competent. It stars That Guy Who Played Scully’s Dad on the X-Files and That Woman Who is on All Those Other Shows and That Guy Who is on All Those Other Shows and That Other Guy Who is on All Those Other Shows and That Guy Who Is in a Lot of Other Shows and Movies and Looks a Little Bit Like the Love Child of Harrison Ford and the Guy Who Plays Nathan on Eureka.

We recently re-watched Silent Hill. I didn’t remember it as great, but it was much worse than I remembered. Now that I’m reminded that we watched it as a double-feature with BloodRayne, that makes sense.

Movie viewing mistakes you don’t make twice

Intending to watch the hilarious Happy, Texas but instead watching the not-hilarious Paris, Texas is a mistake I doubt one makes twice.

I certainly haven’t.

Ditto: thinking you’re in for an evening filled with the adorableness of Sandra Bullock (and adorable alcoholics, judging from the description) in 28 Days and accidentally finding yourself immersed in the horrors of zombies in 28 Days Later.

Haven’t made that mistake again, either.

Mistaking Under Satan’s Sun (aka Under the Sun of Satan) for Under the Tuscan Sun would probably be the most disturbing of all, but I haven’t seen either one so I’m just speculating.

Unless Under the Tuscan Sun also stars Gérard Depardieu as a self-flagellating priest. I hadn’t considered that possibility.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case but I’m very sure I don’t wish to investigate further. Slate’s David Edelstein concluded his review of Under the Tuscan Sun with this description: “The movie is sweet but deeply suspect: It’s like Lost Horizon re-imagined by a realtor.

What the hell does that even mean?

After about 30 seconds of research I’ve realized it’s a bit less ominous than I thought, in that it turns out Lost Horizon bears no resemblance to the movie that I originally thought he was referring to, Lost Highway.

I am not to be trusted with the Netflix queue when I have a high fever.