Worst Movies of the 2000s

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Worst Movies of the
2000s

It's nice to know some things never change. The first decade of the new millenium is offering up crappy movies like those that came before. The more things change, the more they stay the same, so I anticipate this list will grow substantially over the next few years. If you like bad movies, or if you want to be able to honestly say you've seen "the worst movie ever", maybe you'll decide to torture yourself with something on this page. If you like to seek out obscure and independent flims, let this page warn you away from the crap that's out there. In either case, I hope you find the reviews enlightening.

The Bare Wench Project
Year of Release: 2001
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Nikki Fritz, Julie K. Smith, Lorissa McComas, Antonia Dorian, Michael Porter, and eight artifically enhanced boobs
Director: Jim Wynorski
&Four college girls go into the woods in search of the truth behind the Bare Wench legend (or is that to find the truth of the Bare Wench's legendary behind?)
This film made me think perhaps I was a bit too harsh in my review of "Satan's School for Lust". Unless you're really, REALLY hard up and any film with naked boobs and lame lesbian scenes will please you, you probably will be hitting the fast-forward button too much to figure out what exactly they find.
"The Bare Witch Project" is unfunny, unsexy, and just about unwatchable. In fact, it's so bad I can't even force myself to spend any more time writing about it. Let's just end by saying that what little promise there is in the box copy and concept of the film is never realized on the screen.
Take my word for it, by way of this Obi-Wan Kenobi paraphrase to make it crystal clear (as I'm sure only geeks like myself would even give this travesty a second glance): This is not the soft-core porn spoof you seek.

Carnage Road
(aka "Carnage: The Legend of Quiltface")
Year of Release: 2000
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Dean Paul, Molinee Dawn, Melissa Brown, and Mack Hail
Director: Massimiliano Cerchi
Four photography students head into the Nevada desert to take photos for an extra credit assignment, but they find themselves stalked by a machete-weiding killer who wears a mask fashioned from the faces of his victims.
This is quite possibly one of the worst slasher movies ever made. The pacing is bad; the establishing shots go on well after the setting has been established and they keep repeating; the dialogue and characters are lame (with Hail's portrayal of an obnoxious van driver being the most interesting character in the whole piece); the acting is atrocious (although, in fairness, Paul and Dawn actually started out pretty good--the scenes of them in their apartment lifted my hopes forthe rest of the film... only to dash them); the kills are weak and dull (and repetatively weak and dull... I think the production must have only had one cut-away weapon to use); the gore effects are on the level of a high school backyard camcorder production; and the foley artist was probably the most incompetent of everyone who worked on the production (the same teeth-grinding sort of sound was used no matter what Quiltface chopped, the punching sounds were just bad, and he missed the opportunity to cock a gun).
The only thing that saves this movie from being a 0-Tomato effort is the unintentional comedy that grows out of the final battle (well, more like the final slap-fight) between Quiltface and Robert (Paul), the last survivor of his rampage, and the way that Paul illustrates exactly what it means to "cry like a little girl."
I'm sure he behaves like I would if confronted with a mad killer wearing a mask made of human faces, but the simpering and shrieking like a 12-year-old shcool girl doesn't exactly make him appear manly and it is quite hilarious to watch. So is the fact that Paul has to take babysteps and not run very fast so that the actor playing Quiltface can keep up, what with his restricted vision in the mask and the rocky desert floor.
I suppose that the electronic score was also a little better and more effectively implemented than is typical for a movie like this.
The bottomline, though, is that "Carnage Road" is another one of those movies that is worth watching to see how NOT to make a movie.

Day of the Ax
Year of Release: 2005
Steve's Rating: 2 of 10 Stars
Starring: Dustin Ardine and Janet Robbins
Director: Ryan Cavalline

When a pair of psychotic brothers aren't killing travelers, they're abducting young women and forcing them to have babies. (I think.)
"Day of the Ax" is a dull, unoriginal, sloppily plotted slasher-flick with bad gore effects. The actors are all decent enough, but the script they are working with was so bad that I'm sure even Ed Wood Jr. would have been declined to work with it.
Skip it. It's not worth your time.

Freddy Got Fingered
Year of Release: 2001
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Tom Green, Marisa Coughlan and Rip Torn
Director: Tom Green

In "Freddy Got Fingered," Gordy (Green) is forced to move back in with his parents after...
Oh hell, I can't even bring myself to summarize/tease what passes for the plot in this cinematic turd.
My guess is that if you LOVED "The Tom Green Show" you'll find something to like "In Freddy Got Fingered." If you were a casual viewer like me, you'll probably be alternatively grossed out and amazed by what unf0lds on the screen. This is undoubtedly one of the most disgusting films ever made... Green is trying to top the TV show here, and he succeeds. It's too bad that he also succeeds in being completely unfunny.
The very generous One-Star rating I'm giving this movie is for the character of a wheelchair-bound rocket scientist (Coughlan) with whom Gordy falls in love, as the character and the story surrounding her is actually pretty funny; and for Rip Torn's funny performance as Gordy's no-nonsense, ever-suffering father.

Lust for Dracula
Year of Release: 2004
Steve's Rating: 0 of 10 Stars
Starring: Darian Cain, Misty Mundae, and Julian Wells
Director: Tony Marsiglia

Misty Mundae stars as Mina Harker. Darian Cain is featured as a female vampire named Dracula who likes to stand around naked and spout nonsense. There are also a pair of lesbian vampires who wander in and out of the film at random. Oh, and then there's Jonathan Harker, Mina's transsexual shemale husband. Plot? Storyline? This movie feels no need for such things!
I suppose I should have known what I was getting into with a film starring two of the current Queens of Z-grade softcore porn and even worse horror flicks, but the plot on the back sounded interesting... and the promise of boobies is always alluring. But "Lust for Dracula" bears very little resemblence to what is described on the back, and the procedings are far too boring to even be remotely sexy.

Mummy Raider
Year of Release: 2001
Steve's Rating: 0 of 10 Stars
Starring: Misty Mundae, Darian Caine, and Ruby Larocca
Director: Brian Paulin
When Kristen (Caine) is abducted by a Neo-Nazi scientist (Larocca), it's up to adventuress Misty (Mundae) to save her before an ancient evil mummy is resurrected. Will even Misty's considerable skills at shooting, Kung Fu fighting, and lesbian seduction save the day?!
This "movie" clocks in at about 45 minutes, and even that's too long. It doesn't work as a spoof (it's not funny), it doesn't work as an action film (the fight scenes are so very, very lame), it doesn't work as thriller (bad acting and an even worse plot), it doesn't work as a horror film (horrible though it may be), and it doesn't even work as a soft-core porn flick (yeah, Misty wanders around topless for most of the flick, but so what?!). Add to this what is one of the very worst mummy costumes that has ever been put on a film that people were expected to pay money to see, and you've got something that's not even worth the time it'll take you put the disc in your DVD player.

The St. Francisville Experiment
Year of Release: 2000
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring Tim Baldini, Madison Charap, and Ryan Larson
Directed by: Ted Nicolaou
The tagline for the flick is "Everything You've Heard Is True." If you've heard that "The St. Francisville Experiment" is a steaming pile of crap, then this is truth in advertising.
"The St. Francisville Experiment" is a VERY bad attempt to recapture the magic that was the fluke hit "The Blair Witch Project." The problem here is that "Project" had a set-up and storyline that were plausible enough that one could actually bebuy into notion that the film was indeed made of real-life footage. In "Experiment," we are first asked to believe that anyone would give four random college kids tens of thousands of dollars in hi-tech equipment to investigate a haunted house, and then we are expected to buy into an ending that is so far fetched that if the events in the film had really happened, it would have been all over CNN (or at the very least "Coast to Coast AM.") It's as if the filmmakers gave up on the "let's make seem seem real" concept when it came to giving a climax to their tepid "Blair Witch Project" rip-off. (Never mind the fact that one of the 'real people' is an actress with previous credits to her name.)
Another problem with "Experiment" is that the behavior of the characters is just as unbelievable as the story they are featured in. No one behaves the way we are expected to believe the characters in Experiment conduct themselves. (One example... the characters are there to document the haunting, but instead take it upon themselves to dispel the ghosts for no reason other than the ditzy, intensely annoying, self-proclaimed psychic in their midst says it's the thing to do.)

Satan's School for Lust
Year of Release: 2002
Steve's Rating: 0 of 10 Stars
Starring: Misty Mundae and Darian Caine
Director: Terry West
A young teen (Mundae) is sent by her rich, always-traveling father, to a boarding prep school for girls. Here, she discovers that what the students are being prepped for is a life of demonworship and lesbian bondage games!
I was challenged to watch and review this film. It is a challenge that, I am sad to say, I lost. It was so bad that I couldn't even bear to watch it, but instead made liberal use of the fast-scan button on my remote. I've sat through some pretty bad films, but even I couldn't stand this one. The awfulness of the acting is only exceeding by the rancidness of the dialogue. Further, as Joe-Bob Briggs used to say, there is virtually no plot to get in the way of the story.
"Satan's School for Lust" starts out like a Z-grade, super-lowbudget slasherflick, but it immediately veers into lame softcore demon-worshinping lesbian bondage porn territory.
The ONLY interesting thing about the flick is a recurring nightmare that Misty Mundae's character has, an erotic nightmare involving a cruxifix and a bucket of blood that indicates that she is the chosen concubine of the demon at the school (Caine). Everything else is too dull to stand. (And here is where I'll have to start doubting my sex-drive, because guys are supposed to love ANY and ALL lesbian action, right?)

Shredder
Year of Release: 2003
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Scott Weinger, Lindsey McKeon, and Juleah Weikel
Director: Greg Huson
Seven college-aged Beautiful People head to a bankrupt, closed ski resort for a weekend of illicit snowboarding, skiing, and fun. However, they find that they are not alone, but that an axe- and icicle-weilding maniac is killing them one by one.
"Shredder" is a movie that I'm sad is such an awful piece of trash. It could have been a really good film, as it's got a cast with more acting talent than I expected, and the set-up has lots of potential. But the raw material was squandered on a monumentally bad script and a weakly directed film.
The problems with "Shredder" are too numerous to mention, but the biggest are these:
Numerous plot-holes so large that the massive snowplow that the killer menaces the snowbunnies with could easily pass through them with room to spare; characters that behave in such a nonsensical a fashion in context of what unfolds on the screen that not only will you be scratching your head more than hiding your eyes, but you'll be wondering if anyone bothered to read the entire script before the film was released to the public; a cast of snowboarding jackasses so unlikeable that you'll WANT the masked killer to murder them all, and a film so boring and lacking in suspense that you desperately want him to kill them all faster; and camera work so pedestrian that it makes snowboarding and skiing look dull. (And, dammit, what idiot working on this film thought it was a neat effect to drop a few dozen frames in long shots of snowboarders and skiiers? The first few times they did that, I thought my dvd player was acting up.)
Perhaps the only interesting thing about "Shredder" (aside from the decent actors trapped in an awful movie) is that it reaches Ed-Woodian levels of badness, but also grants Ed-Woodian levels of insight into the psyche of the writers. It's apparent that what passes for the script here was created by someone who hates snowboarders and ski bums as much as the story's insane killer: Virtually all the girls are sluts, while most of the guys are dope-smoking idiots who wouldn't know what do to with a woman if she begged them to hop in the sack with her. (The only two exceptions to this characterization of snowboarders are a pair who are outsiders, even as they are part of the clique.)

Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th
Year of Release: 2000
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Majandra Delfino, Harley Cross, Danny Strong, Julie Benz, Simon Rex, Tom Arnold, and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen
Director: John Blanchard
A knife-weilding killer stalks through the halls Bulemia Falls High School, hunts the camera crew of TV reporter Hagitha Utslay (Thiessen), and menaces a group of students harboring secrets, of varying dark degrees (Delfino, Cross, Strong, Benz, and Rex). Who will still be alive when the end credits roll? Only a very few of the audience, as most will have died from boredom.
There's not much I can say about this film... other than don't waste your time on it. It's perhaps the most unfunny horror movie spoof ever made. The biggest mistake the filmmakers made is that they set out to spoof horror movie spoofs like "Scary Movie" and even "Scream" (which, by the way, this film leans heavily on), but to compound their error, the writers failed to produce the biting satire that is necessary to make a project like this work, and they manage to come up with any decent jokes. (It's been suggested by a reader of my "Rotten Tomatoes" page that they people who make this movie couldn't even get the title right... "Scream" would have worked better than "Shrieked."
I think there was a good idea at the outset here, but I also think that no one involved had the talent to pull something like this off. Mel Brooks might have been able to make a film like this one was intended to be, but the creators here couldn't even come close.

Skeleton Man
Year of Release: 2004
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Michael Rooker
Director: Johnny Martin
Michael Rooker leads a team of military specialists into the forests of the Northwest to hunt a killer who has already taken out some of best the US military has to offer, not to mention some civilians. Unfortunately, the adversary is awakened spirit of a homicidal maniac who is bent on killing everything and anything he comes across.
"Skeleton Man" is an excessively muddled, tepid slasher flick where elements seem to be tossed in at random and nothing really gets resolved or explained. It's another one of those films where it seems like no one bothered to check the script for coherence or internal logic before, during, or after shooting. (Why is Skeleton Man killing and why is his spirit roaming? I counted three possibilites, but none seem to connect with anything in particular that was otherwise presented.)
It does manage to conjure up some mildly creepy moments, but those are mostly cancelled out by something nonsensical or just plain bad following immediately there after. The air of cheapness that surrounds the creature--with a cape that seems to change design at random, a hodge-podge of weaponry (some of which seems like it just came off the rack at the local Sears store, despite the supposedly centuries-old nature of Skeleton Man), and a badly done skull mask--probably does as much to kill this film as anything else.
And the ending? Probably the worst I've seen, period. Like I said, nothing gets resolved, nothing gets tied up, and there's no reason to assume Skeleton Man's rampage of death is over other than the star of the film declares it to be. (In fact, there is every reason to believe the opposite, based on what little information the film provides about the Skeleton Man entity.)

Virgins of Sherwood Forest
Year of Release: 2000
Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars
Starring: Gabriella Hall, Shannen Leigh, David Roth, and Amber Newman
Director: Cybil Richards

A B-movie director (Hall) bumps her head and wakes up in Sherwood Forest, where she must work with other buxom wenches to thwart the evil scheme's of the Sheriff of Nottingham's sister (Leigh) while restoring some righteous fire and energy to Robin Hood (Roth) and his Merry Men.
I'm not sure how or when I got this movie. I don't even know if I watched it before this evening, but if I did, I didn't retain anything about it in memory. And that's because there's nothing worth noticing here.
"Virgins of Sherwood Forest" wants to be a sex comedy, or maybe it wants to be a soft-core porn flick... but it fails to be either. The proceedings are dull and decidedly unsexy, the acting is almost as bad as the boob jobs on prominent display, and the sets and camera work are even worse.
There are a few chuckles here, but they are so few and seperated by such vast expanses for crap that they're not worth waiting for. If you see this one on a store shelf, just leave it be.

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The Bare Wench Project Year of Release: 2001 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Nikki Fritz, Julie K. Smith, Lorissa McComas, Antonia Dorian, Michael Porter, and eight artifically enhanced boobs Director: Jim Wynorski &Four college girls go into the woods in search of the truth behind the Bare Wench legend (or is that to find the truth of the Bare Wench's legendary behind?) This film made me think perhaps I was a bit too harsh in my review of "Satan's School for Lust". Unless you're really, REALLY hard up and any film with naked boobs and lame lesbian scenes will please you, you probably will be hitting the fast-forward button too much to figure out what exactly they find. "The Bare Witch Project" is unfunny, unsexy, and just about unwatchable. In fact, it's so bad I can't even force myself to spend any more time writing about it. Let's just end by saying that what little promise there is in the box copy and concept of the film is never realized on the screen. Take my word for it, by way of this Obi-Wan Kenobi paraphrase to make it crystal clear (as I'm sure only geeks like myself would even give this travesty a second glance): This is not the soft-core porn spoof you seek.
Carnage Road (aka "Carnage: The Legend of Quiltface") Year of Release: 2000 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Dean Paul, Molinee Dawn, Melissa Brown, and Mack Hail Director: Massimiliano Cerchi Four photography students head into the Nevada desert to take photos for an extra credit assignment, but they find themselves stalked by a machete-weiding killer who wears a mask fashioned from the faces of his victims. This is quite possibly one of the worst slasher movies ever made. The pacing is bad; the establishing shots go on well after the setting has been established and they keep repeating; the dialogue and characters are lame (with Hail's portrayal of an obnoxious van driver being the most interesting character in the whole piece); the acting is atrocious (although, in fairness, Paul and Dawn actually started out pretty good--the scenes of them in their apartment lifted my hopes forthe rest of the film... only to dash them); the kills are weak and dull (and repetatively weak and dull... I think the production must have only had one cut-away weapon to use); the gore effects are on the level of a high school backyard camcorder production; and the foley artist was probably the most incompetent of everyone who worked on the production (the same teeth-grinding sort of sound was used no matter what Quiltface chopped, the punching sounds were just bad, and he missed the opportunity to cock a gun). The only thing that saves this movie from being a 0-Tomato effort is the unintentional comedy that grows out of the final battle (well, more like the final slap-fight) between Quiltface and Robert (Paul), the last survivor of his rampage, and the way that Paul illustrates exactly what it means to "cry like a little girl." I'm sure he behaves like I would if confronted with a mad killer wearing a mask made of human faces, but the simpering and shrieking like a 12-year-old shcool girl doesn't exactly make him appear manly and it is quite hilarious to watch. So is the fact that Paul has to take babysteps and not run very fast so that the actor playing Quiltface can keep up, what with his restricted vision in the mask and the rocky desert floor. I suppose that the electronic score was also a little better and more effectively implemented than is typical for a movie like this. The bottomline, though, is that "Carnage Road" is another one of those movies that is worth watching to see how NOT to make a movie.
Day of the Ax Year of Release: 2005 Steve's Rating: 2 of 10 Stars Starring: Dustin Ardine and Janet Robbins Director: Ryan Cavalline When a pair of psychotic brothers aren't killing travelers, they're abducting young women and forcing them to have babies. (I think.) "Day of the Ax" is a dull, unoriginal, sloppily plotted slasher-flick with bad gore effects. The actors are all decent enough, but the script they are working with was so bad that I'm sure even Ed Wood Jr. would have been declined to work with it. Skip it. It's not worth your time.
Freddy Got Fingered Year of Release: 2001 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Tom Green, Marisa Coughlan and Rip Torn Director: Tom Green In "Freddy Got Fingered," Gordy (Green) is forced to move back in with his parents after... Oh hell, I can't even bring myself to summarize/tease what passes for the plot in this cinematic turd. My guess is that if you LOVED "The Tom Green Show" you'll find something to like "In Freddy Got Fingered." If you were a casual viewer like me, you'll probably be alternatively grossed out and amazed by what unf0lds on the screen. This is undoubtedly one of the most disgusting films ever made... Green is trying to top the TV show here, and he succeeds. It's too bad that he also succeeds in being completely unfunny. The very generous One-Star rating I'm giving this movie is for the character of a wheelchair-bound rocket scientist (Coughlan) with whom Gordy falls in love, as the character and the story surrounding her is actually pretty funny; and for Rip Torn's funny performance as Gordy's no-nonsense, ever-suffering father.
Lust for Dracula Year of Release: 2004 Steve's Rating: 0 of 10 Stars Starring: Darian Cain, Misty Mundae, and Julian Wells Director: Tony Marsiglia Misty Mundae stars as Mina Harker. Darian Cain is featured as a female vampire named Dracula who likes to stand around naked and spout nonsense. There are also a pair of lesbian vampires who wander in and out of the film at random. Oh, and then there's Jonathan Harker, Mina's transsexual shemale husband. Plot? Storyline? This movie feels no need for such things! I suppose I should have known what I was getting into with a film starring two of the current Queens of Z-grade softcore porn and even worse horror flicks, but the plot on the back sounded interesting... and the promise of boobies is always alluring. But "Lust for Dracula" bears very little resemblence to what is described on the back, and the procedings are far too boring to even be remotely sexy.
Mummy Raider Year of Release: 2001 Steve's Rating: 0 of 10 Stars Starring: Misty Mundae, Darian Caine, and Ruby Larocca Director: Brian Paulin When Kristen (Caine) is abducted by a Neo-Nazi scientist (Larocca), it's up to adventuress Misty (Mundae) to save her before an ancient evil mummy is resurrected. Will even Misty's considerable skills at shooting, Kung Fu fighting, and lesbian seduction save the day?! This "movie" clocks in at about 45 minutes, and even that's too long. It doesn't work as a spoof (it's not funny), it doesn't work as an action film (the fight scenes are so very, very lame), it doesn't work as thriller (bad acting and an even worse plot), it doesn't work as a horror film (horrible though it may be), and it doesn't even work as a soft-core porn flick (yeah, Misty wanders around topless for most of the flick, but so what?!). Add to this what is one of the very worst mummy costumes that has ever been put on a film that people were expected to pay money to see, and you've got something that's not even worth the time it'll take you put the disc in your DVD player.
The St. Francisville Experiment Year of Release: 2000 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring Tim Baldini, Madison Charap, and Ryan Larson Directed by: Ted Nicolaou The tagline for the flick is "Everything You've Heard Is True." If you've heard that "The St. Francisville Experiment" is a steaming pile of crap, then this is truth in advertising. "The St. Francisville Experiment" is a VERY bad attempt to recapture the magic that was the fluke hit "The Blair Witch Project." The problem here is that "Project" had a set-up and storyline that were plausible enough that one could actually bebuy into notion that the film was indeed made of real-life footage. In "Experiment," we are first asked to believe that anyone would give four random college kids tens of thousands of dollars in hi-tech equipment to investigate a haunted house, and then we are expected to buy into an ending that is so far fetched that if the events in the film had really happened, it would have been all over CNN (or at the very least "Coast to Coast AM.") It's as if the filmmakers gave up on the "let's make seem seem real" concept when it came to giving a climax to their tepid "Blair Witch Project" rip-off. (Never mind the fact that one of the 'real people' is an actress with previous credits to her name.) Another problem with "Experiment" is that the behavior of the characters is just as unbelievable as the story they are featured in. No one behaves the way we are expected to believe the characters in Experiment conduct themselves. (One example... the characters are there to document the haunting, but instead take it upon themselves to dispel the ghosts for no reason other than the ditzy, intensely annoying, self-proclaimed psychic in their midst says it's the thing to do.)
Satan's School for Lust Year of Release: 2002 Steve's Rating: 0 of 10 Stars Starring: Misty Mundae and Darian Caine Director: Terry West A young teen (Mundae) is sent by her rich, always-traveling father, to a boarding prep school for girls. Here, she discovers that what the students are being prepped for is a life of demonworship and lesbian bondage games! I was challenged to watch and review this film. It is a challenge that, I am sad to say, I lost. It was so bad that I couldn't even bear to watch it, but instead made liberal use of the fast-scan button on my remote. I've sat through some pretty bad films, but even I couldn't stand this one. The awfulness of the acting is only exceeding by the rancidness of the dialogue. Further, as Joe-Bob Briggs used to say, there is virtually no plot to get in the way of the story. "Satan's School for Lust" starts out like a Z-grade, super-lowbudget slasherflick, but it immediately veers into lame softcore demon-worshinping lesbian bondage porn territory. The ONLY interesting thing about the flick is a recurring nightmare that Misty Mundae's character has, an erotic nightmare involving a cruxifix and a bucket of blood that indicates that she is the chosen concubine of the demon at the school (Caine). Everything else is too dull to stand. (And here is where I'll have to start doubting my sex-drive, because guys are supposed to love ANY and ALL lesbian action, right?)
Shredder Year of Release: 2003 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Scott Weinger, Lindsey McKeon, and Juleah Weikel Director: Greg Huson Seven college-aged Beautiful People head to a bankrupt, closed ski resort for a weekend of illicit snowboarding, skiing, and fun. However, they find that they are not alone, but that an axe- and icicle-weilding maniac is killing them one by one. "Shredder" is a movie that I'm sad is such an awful piece of trash. It could have been a really good film, as it's got a cast with more acting talent than I expected, and the set-up has lots of potential. But the raw material was squandered on a monumentally bad script and a weakly directed film. The problems with "Shredder" are too numerous to mention, but the biggest are these: Numerous plot-holes so large that the massive snowplow that the killer menaces the snowbunnies with could easily pass through them with room to spare; characters that behave in such a nonsensical a fashion in context of what unfolds on the screen that not only will you be scratching your head more than hiding your eyes, but you'll be wondering if anyone bothered to read the entire script before the film was released to the public; a cast of snowboarding jackasses so unlikeable that you'll WANT the masked killer to murder them all, and a film so boring and lacking in suspense that you desperately want him to kill them all faster; and camera work so pedestrian that it makes snowboarding and skiing look dull. (And, dammit, what idiot working on this film thought it was a neat effect to drop a few dozen frames in long shots of snowboarders and skiiers? The first few times they did that, I thought my dvd player was acting up.) Perhaps the only interesting thing about "Shredder" (aside from the decent actors trapped in an awful movie) is that it reaches Ed-Woodian levels of badness, but also grants Ed-Woodian levels of insight into the psyche of the writers. It's apparent that what passes for the script here was created by someone who hates snowboarders and ski bums as much as the story's insane killer: Virtually all the girls are sluts, while most of the guys are dope-smoking idiots who wouldn't know what do to with a woman if she begged them to hop in the sack with her. (The only two exceptions to this characterization of snowboarders are a pair who are outsiders, even as they are part of the clique.)
Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th Year of Release: 2000 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Majandra Delfino, Harley Cross, Danny Strong, Julie Benz, Simon Rex, Tom Arnold, and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen Director: John Blanchard A knife-weilding killer stalks through the halls Bulemia Falls High School, hunts the camera crew of TV reporter Hagitha Utslay (Thiessen), and menaces a group of students harboring secrets, of varying dark degrees (Delfino, Cross, Strong, Benz, and Rex). Who will still be alive when the end credits roll? Only a very few of the audience, as most will have died from boredom. There's not much I can say about this film... other than don't waste your time on it. It's perhaps the most unfunny horror movie spoof ever made. The biggest mistake the filmmakers made is that they set out to spoof horror movie spoofs like "Scary Movie" and even "Scream" (which, by the way, this film leans heavily on), but to compound their error, the writers failed to produce the biting satire that is necessary to make a project like this work, and they manage to come up with any decent jokes. (It's been suggested by a reader of my "Rotten Tomatoes" page that they people who make this movie couldn't even get the title right... "Scream" would have worked better than "Shrieked." I think there was a good idea at the outset here, but I also think that no one involved had the talent to pull something like this off. Mel Brooks might have been able to make a film like this one was intended to be, but the creators here couldn't even come close.
Skeleton Man Year of Release: 2004 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Michael Rooker Director: Johnny Martin Michael Rooker leads a team of military specialists into the forests of the Northwest to hunt a killer who has already taken out some of best the US military has to offer, not to mention some civilians. Unfortunately, the adversary is awakened spirit of a homicidal maniac who is bent on killing everything and anything he comes across. "Skeleton Man" is an excessively muddled, tepid slasher flick where elements seem to be tossed in at random and nothing really gets resolved or explained. It's another one of those films where it seems like no one bothered to check the script for coherence or internal logic before, during, or after shooting. (Why is Skeleton Man killing and why is his spirit roaming? I counted three possibilites, but none seem to connect with anything in particular that was otherwise presented.) It does manage to conjure up some mildly creepy moments, but those are mostly cancelled out by something nonsensical or just plain bad following immediately there after. The air of cheapness that surrounds the creature--with a cape that seems to change design at random, a hodge-podge of weaponry (some of which seems like it just came off the rack at the local Sears store, despite the supposedly centuries-old nature of Skeleton Man), and a badly done skull mask--probably does as much to kill this film as anything else. And the ending? Probably the worst I've seen, period. Like I said, nothing gets resolved, nothing gets tied up, and there's no reason to assume Skeleton Man's rampage of death is over other than the star of the film declares it to be. (In fact, there is every reason to believe the opposite, based on what little information the film provides about the Skeleton Man entity.)
Virgins of Sherwood Forest Year of Release: 2000 Steve's Rating: 1 of 10 Stars Starring: Gabriella Hall, Shannen Leigh, David Roth, and Amber Newman Director: Cybil Richards A B-movie director (Hall) bumps her head and wakes up in Sherwood Forest, where she must work with other buxom wenches to thwart the evil scheme's of the Sheriff of Nottingham's sister (Leigh) while restoring some righteous fire and energy to Robin Hood (Roth) and his Merry Men. I'm not sure how or when I got this movie. I don't even know if I watched it before this evening, but if I did, I didn't retain anything about it in memory. And that's because there's nothing worth noticing here. "Virgins of Sherwood Forest" wants to be a sex comedy, or maybe it wants to be a soft-core porn flick... but it fails to be either. The proceedings are dull and decidedly unsexy, the acting is almost as bad as the boob jobs on prominent display, and the sets and camera work are even worse. There are a few chuckles here, but they are so few and seperated by such vast expanses for crap that they're not worth waiting for. If you see this one on a store shelf, just leave it be.