Duuuuuuuuuuude

We did get to give an official goodbye to The Shortening, but it will return next year with an even more vertically challenged vengeance. Until then, let's go big!

There's nothing like a good, pardon the expression, WTF movie. What, you of a clean mouth ask, is a WTF movie? The Emily answer is the kind of film that cannot be watched without its audience constantly mouthing the PG-13-rated question with a look of utter confusion in their eyes. Obviously something as bizarrely conceived as The Nutcracker In 3D qualifies, but so do smaller scale ventures like the 75% stock footage Hybrid or the what-exactly-are-they-going-for confusion of Grizzly Park. These are movies that enjoy tossing strange touches where you least expect them, like casting Albert Einstein in a children's fairy tale or ending on a breast implant joke.

Blood Surf is a minor WTF movie. On one hand, it's no worse than your average made-for-SyFy original, yet it makes two choices that instantly put it into this elite category:

1. It features blatantly brain-dead, rarely clothed characters starting the film with questions like "What was the name of that shark movie?" (the answer, as another brain-dead character says unsurprisingly, is "Jaws") 

2. It occasionally acts like a good movie

When you combine these things, you get W + T + F

Quick Plot: A pair of 'blood surfers' (dudes who use the word 'dude' and surf in shark-infested waters) head to a tropical paradise with their sexy Australian documentation and her sleazy producer boyfriend in order to score some ace footage in a remote area that even the locals fear. Thankfully, there's a nice native couple with a slutty daughter who are happy to take them to certain death, even though the mysteriously grizzled Aussie and his even sluttier girlfriend refuse to travel to that side of the island.

You might think I'm being a little harsh on the women in this movie, but I'm working with I got here. The young native Lemmya seduces one of the surfers before he can get an honest answer about her age. Aussie's girlfriend appears in three different shirts during the course of the film, none of which reach her waist. She's also prone to flashing her small chest with the same regularity as Judy Greer on Arrested Development, even if the looker in question is a crocodile (thus leading us to her positively RuPaulian pun, "Now THAT'S what I call croc-teasing!"). 

Worst of the three is Cecily, the token lead who seems to be dating the comically reprehensible producer only to rather quickly get over his (spoiler for something that you know is coming) death by moving on to the OTHER surfer who's name is Bog. 

No, I'm serious.

I haven't even mentioned the rapey pirates, Shark Attack 3: Megladon-esque death, or Sean William Scott impressions. All of these things are as strange as they are entertaining, for despite a good 45 minute tease before its inevitably disappointing monster reveal, Blood Surf is a pretty darn entertaining time. The movie has a certain Anaconda charm right down to its almost adorable special effects. We're talking about the kind of movie that has a 17-year-old having softcore water sex with a surfer as her parents get eaten by a giant monster crocodile. We're talking about the kind of movie that later has the same giant monster crocodile save our plucky heroine from pirate rape. 

Blood Surf's most important death scene is somehow played simultaneously for scares, tears, AND laughs and I don't know which of the three was intentional. It's as if this movie exists in its own wonderful dimension where the world is what you make of it.

High Points
I know you think I'm joking, but seriously: the slow reveal of the gigantic crocodile monster is actually executed with skill by Children of the Corn III director James D.R. Hickox

Low Points
Look, I didn't say the gigantic crocodile LOOKED good. I just said it was TEASED well

Croc-teased well

Lessons Learned
Just because you're about to rape an Australian is no reason to forget about the deadly booby traps you previously prepared

If you want your boyfriend to take a group of white people to shark-infested waters, the best way to convince him is to turn up the stereo in a local bar and dance as if you’re auditioning to be a fully clothed stripper


It's usually the ones you don't like that you end up with (especially 10 minutes after your boyfriend is eaten)

Rent/Bury/Buy
Blood Surf was streaming on Instant Watch for some time, and that's certainly the best way to watch it. Unfortunately, it recently moved out of that queue and the good person in me can't ACTUALLY recommend you put any real effort in seeking it out. This is an enjoyable goofy monster movie about pretty people getting hilariously eaten by a giant crocodile. If it comes your way, chomp down as fast as you can. Or just sit there with your giant tooth-filled mouth open with the knowledge that a sleazy chicken producer is about to grab a surfboard and float straight into your jugular. It's both the second big kill of the film AND a great way to eat your lunch.

Bear: It's about a bear

Perhaps my artistically inclined readers can enlighten me as to why so may paintings and sculptures are titled “Untitled.” It seems dreadfully lazy and worse, evidence that the artist didn’t actually know WHAT they were making. Calling a blank canvas with a dot of scribble something like “The War Between the Sexes” is of course quite pretentious, but doesn’t it seem incomplete to not call it SOMETHING?

I ask this question because a) I’ve always wanted to know the answer and b) I just watched a movie about a killer bear called, plain and simple, Bear. I almost wonder if the movie was written, filmed, and sold with the title “Untitled Bear Horror Movie” until someone in the art department charged with making a poster finally asked the question “Hey! Do we have a title for this thing?” The room got very quiet. Thankfully, it was Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. The graphic designer looked around for help, stumped until his 18 month old (who was just learning how to talk while playing with her Care Bear figurines) pointed to the working image and said so cutely “bear.”

And thusly Bear was titled...Bear.

Quick Plot: Brothers Nick and Sam are driving to an anniversary dinner for their parents with their ladies in tow. Oldest Sam is a smarmy yuppie type with bland wife Liz, while Nick is a rock star wannabe/recovering alcoholic early on in his relationship with the annoyingly free-spirited Christine. When their mini-van (it’s okay to laugh) breaks down just off the main highway, they meet a big ol’ grizzly bear mama and promptly shoot her dead.

Don’t you love these people?

Before you can get through one verse of “The Other Day I Saw a Bear,” grizzly mama’s old man is on the hunt. He’s bigger, meaner, smarter, and apparently, way more conniving than his late missus.

And he wants vengeance.

Bear is a very odd film in its construction. Rather than going the Grizzly Park tear-the-pretty-people-up route, it focuses tightly on its two couples and the never-quite-in-the-same-shot bear (who I’m just going to go ahead and name Charles Bronson for his revenge obsession). Our first kill comes well into the film, and perhaps because director John Rebel had what I imagine were limited monetary resources, it never really tries to make you think “yup, it would sure hurt getting mauled by a bear!” I *think* what it actually goes for is a “No! Not that character that I now know so much about!” effect instead.

In case that last paragraph didn’t give it away, I’m having an awfully hard time trying to figure out how to discuss Bear. Unlike the awful but enjoyable Grizzly Park, there’s nothing the least bit fun about this film. We’re given four characters who bicker obnoxiously, none with any real charm to make us root for their survival. At the same time, I have to appreciate the effort. The script (by Roel Reine and House’s Ethan Wiley) certainly TRIES to make Sam, Nick, LIz, and Christine into real, breathing detailed human beings. Considering my complaints about movies like The Darkest Hour (which assumes that just because they’re onscreen, we automatically care about the cast members), I do think Bear puts the right priority into crafting its characters, all of whom are capably played by their young actors. The problem though is that...well...they’re still kind of a drag.

For the first 45 minutes or so, we just get to hear Nick and Sam rehash old arguments about their differences in life. These are the kind of brothers who have discussions about how music isn’t a viable career and that’s why you’re not the favorite son! Then Liz and Christine bond over their own unhappiness with the kind of magical liquor bottle that makes you instantly drunk. It’s not the worst writing put forth in a direct-to-Netflix horror movie, but at the same time, there’s nothing overly clever or inspiring about it. I have no reason to care.

Well, I SAY that but then...well...then the bear has a flashback to the moment that played 10 minutes earlier where Sam shot his girlfriend dead, and suddenly, Bear becomes the greatest movie of all time. But then I realize there even though our titular grizzly howls with true pain, there’s no winking subtitle to translate the howl into “Nooooooooooooooooo” and I realize the film isn’t as smart as I hoped.

On the other hand, Bear is technically put together in a fairly impressive manner. Credit goes to young director Rebel and editor Herman P. Koerts for not making me realize until well after the film finished that no actor is ever ACTUALLY in the same frame as Charles Bronson. While the film never really inspires any true fear, it by no means embarrasses itself in how it uses a real-life grizzly stalking its young cast. Animals attack genre fans may at least find it a new twist on the old Cujo tale. That being said, I’d be remiss in my duties to not complain about some of the more contrived elements of the script, namely:

SPOILERS

As things are looking dimmer and dimmer for our young leads, Bear finds irresponsible rock star brother sitting alone with his stiffer WASPy sister-in-law for what turns into a rather inane downward spiral of third act revelations. Liz slept with Nick! And Sam is in financial trouble! And might go to jail for embezzlement! Bring Sam back into the van (because after he ran to get help, Charles Bronson dragged him back to die with his companions because bears are the reincarnation of Native American shamans or something something) primarily so Liz can tell both men that SHE’S PREGNANT! Which is crazy because she hasn’t had sex with her husband in five months BUT she had sex with Nick in two so HE’S THE FATHER! And of course, in the rationalizations of these characters, the entire reason the bear is hunting them with such ferocity is because they were all unhappy with their lives and nothing says new start like being psychologically tortured and maybe physically eaten by a grizzly bear.

Look, I think it’s great that a tiny li’l nature gone wild flick wanted to try its hand at Bergman-like character drama. But ultimately, having the last 20 minutes of an 80 minute bear attack film turn into Days of Our Lives (minus the possession) is sort of the equivalent of ordering a hot dog from a $1 cart for a quick bite only to then wait an hour while the vendor shows off his origami skills with the bun. It just misses the point.

High Notes

It’s always a pleasure when the most annoying character gets eaten first

Low Notes

I understand that it’s nighttime and bears don’t have track lighting, but it’s still nice for the audience to see what’s actually going on most of the time

Lessons Learned

Pregnant also means ‘with child,’ or ‘in the family way’

Unlike rock ‘n roll stars, real people don’t bed someone new every night

As I recently pointed out with Basic Instinct 2, having a character smoke in a no-smoking zone doesn’t make her a rebel; it makes her disrespectful and obnoxious

Rent/Bury/Buy

Bear is not what you would traditionally call a good movie, but it does manage to rise above its natural limitations. The cast isn’t quite memorable, but they service the clumsy writing with all their hearts and newbie director John Rebel makes the best out of some fairly terrible material. I only recommend it as an Instant Watch stream when you really need a bear fix and feel like seeing an incredibly inconsistent attempt. It’s not satisfying in the least, but it’s strange and capable enough of a film to warrant some of your time. I’d prefer an origami swan hot dog bun, but sometimes you just have to compromise.

Blood Monkey, That Funky Monkey

Ever go to a party where no one had fun but the host? The food is exotically inedible. The music, a demo CD of someone’s boyfriend’s struggling band. A guest falls asleep or starts a vomitfest in the bathroom just when that weak drink has reached your urinary tract. There’s no place to sit and no one to have an intelligent conversation with regarding the controversial finale of America’s Next Top Model and just when you’ve summoned the strength to hasten an exit, you discover someone has mistakenly grabbed your winter coat, leaving you with an ill-fitting loaner that your still sickenly energetic host has kindly dug up from the basement to put over your shoulders.

If Blood Monkey is that party, then bless dear old Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham for having a ridiculously good time hosting it, even if it’s at the expense of the rest of the cast, crew, and more importantly, the baffled audience who really just want more blood monkeys.

Quick Plot: Abraham plays Professor Hamilton, the typical Col. Kurtz-esque genius living deep in the jungles of Thailand with his badass female bodyguard Chenne. The pair are soon joined by a jeep-ful of attractive and annoying anthropology graduate students taking a semester to study with one of the preeminent minds in the field.

Also, to be eaten by blood monkeys.

Who are these young brainiacs with charming accents, you might ask? Or you might not, since like virtually any movie made today starring twentysomethings, the twentysomethings are the least interesting things onscreen. There’s a blond who carries the most luggage (cause she’s blond, duh), a nerd identified as such because he wears glasses, a screamy girl with a video camera, a good-looking guy who seems to make the most decisions, his dull love interest who seems smart because she’s a brunette, and in a feat of screenwriting superiority, the guy who introduces himself as such:

“I’m Greg. The good-looking one. And I’m also like a genius in anthropology.”

You gotta love when a script is fully aware that its audience identifies characters by their rating on an Are You Hot scale. Greg—or Craig, I don’t really care—also gets the fun job of sexually harassing every female  in sight in that charming manner that only happens in movies and would be sue-able in real life. I actually found myself pitying poor actor Matt Reeves for having to say some of the Neil LeBute-ish dialogue about that silly but sexy child-bearing gender.

You know who else I pitied? Me. That’s right, when I queue up a film called Blood Monkey, I expect little more than what its title promised. You know what it promised? A blood monkey.

It’s not that Blood Monkey didn’t have blood monkeys. Throughout its 90 minute running time, we see various evidence that blood monkeys—a separate branch of evolution—are well and good in Thailand. And that their point of view is very orange. And that they set the kind of traps you’d find on Endor and that their brains are really big. That’s all fine and dandy but WHERE ARE THE BLOOD MONKEYS?

I asked that question a thirty minutes into the film. I asked again at the hour mark. Do you want to know when director Robert Vampire Circus Young answered? In the very. Last. Shot.

That’s a lot of time to waste when one could be filling it with blood monkeys.

High Points

I joke about F. Murray Abraham’s role here—especially when he opens up a can of whoop tush—but it’s actually nice to see such a celebrated actor having fun in the boonies of SyFyVille. Never does Abraham show the slightest sign of being too good for this material, and his clear enjoyment at such a villainous and physical role is ultimately the only REAL reason to watch this blood monkey-less Blood Monkey movie.

In a similar vein, the only character who comes close to matching Abraham’s enthusiasm is his bodyguard/maybe lady love Chenne, played with such angry violence by Prapimporn Karnchada. Watching her smack nerdy anthropologist students or drop-kick their makeup caboodles is oddly wonderful

Low Points

Is it really THAT HARD to write and direct young people as likable, interesting creatures? As movies like Blood Monkey and Grizzly Park seem to suggest, the answer is yes, yes it really is that hard

Lessons Learned

Chekhov’s rule of handheld video cameras: if the feature ‘night vision’ is referenced, you can bet a barrel of blood monkeys that we’ll be seeing green in the final reel

Most idiots can’t resist taking a ride on the baggage carousel, especially the self-proclaimed good-looking ones

The jungle is not good for the complexion

Rent/Bury/Buy

Blood Monkey wasn’t originally made for the SyFy Channel, but that’s where it ended up and really, that’s where it belongs. The location is gorgeous, the characters dull, action not terrible and script generally more funny than it ever meant to be. What makes it mildly recommendable is the energy and talent of F. Murray Abraham, coupled, of course, with the fact that he’s actually in this movie. So while it might not satisfy your taste for blood monkeys, it will quench your Salieri salivation and hey, I suppose that’s more than King Kong can say.

Bear No Evil

I love movies made by people just visiting this planet. Often these extraterrestrials with a penchant for midnight filmmaking are disguised as foreigners, like the enigmatic Tommy Wiseau or Birdemic’s James Nguyen. We laugh at their incompetence, stoning up our faces only if and when we discover these men or women are in on the joke. Nobody should make The Room with the intention of making The Room, and if they did, then let us banish them to a vault of phonies currently occupied by Troma trolls.

Tom Skulls, the mind behind Grizzly Park, is a riddle wrapped inside a ridiculously great name. With only this film to his credit, it’s impossible to know what he’s capable (or incapable) of doing, and more importantly, just how self-aware this bizarrely bad nature amok horror film is. The movie is poorly acted, paced, and written, but certain touches seem to hint at this man being in on his own joke.  

Color me perplexed.

Quick Plot: We start on a biblical quote about bears, something I didn’t know existed.

We move on.

It’s closing season for Grizzly Park, a foresty paradise prone to wildfires, rattlesnakes, and once upon a time, bear attacks. Before Ranger Bob (Glenn Morshower) sets his stiff hat down for winter, the no-nonsense mountain man must lead a group of juvenile delinquents with cute misdemeanors like statutory rape on a weeklong cleaning hike, pausing to break up mild fights, ask the kids about their spotty pasts, and try his best to keep them from sexing up the wilderness. There’s also the slightly more pressing matters involving an escaped murderer masquerading as a corrections officer and, you know, man-eating grizzly bears trying to fill up before winter hibernation.

So yes, Grizzly Park is essentially a remake of See No Evil with Kane’s lead villain now being played by Brody the Bear. 

Replace some of that film’s messy CGI with scenes that instead focus on characters screaming cut with quick shots of Brody roaring, characters screaming with blood on them cut with more quick shots of Brody, and longer shots of Brody followed by juicy prosthetic limbs and you’ve got something of a movie.

 I think.

I say something because Grizzly Park’s script feels like it was penned by an eighth grader trying to get extra credit by handing in a one-act play inspired by The Call of the Wild. Observe such dialogue:

“I could really use a beer.”

“Oh! I could drink one.”

Is this a joke I’m not getting? How about one character’s rationalization of the theory of relativity in regards to being lost in the woods:

“If a tree falls in a forest, do you hear the tree? How do you know [we’ve been walking for] more than 10 minutes?”

Clearly someone paid attention when watching Nathan Lane butcher Tchaikovsky in The Nutcracker In 3D!

Remember how See No Evil introduced its unmemorable teenage bait? There was a freeze frame on their pretty young faces as text read out their names and crimes. Grizzly Park isn’t quite as advanced. As each kid boards the park bus, the film presents their mug shot. Not their rap sheet, especially since most of their crimes are saved as a later reveal because we’re supposed to care enough to be curious. Nope. Just their faces in black and white, with an indicator of their height behind them. Note that this happens before most have even spoken, promising that we’ll remember each attractive mug because…um…we care?

To be kind, Grizzly Park does help us decipher characters with ease, primarily because each embodies a stereotype so strongly, it’s impossible to misidentify anyone. Upon roll call, The Black Guy affirms his presence with “In the house,” kindly telling the audience that he is The Black Guy. 

The Rich Guy ties his sweater over his shoulders and is a The Third, ensuring we’ll know that the white guy with the sweater is rich. A kid named—I kid you not—Trickster plays, get this, practical jokes.  There's a spoiled blond who packs designer heels for a camping trip because that’s just what spoiled blonds do (they also, just like in See No Evil, chat obnoxiously on cell phones but you already knew that). 

Scab is a white supremacist who huffs Pam cooking spray and therefore can be excused for acting like a space alien or someone trying to make sense out of the script. There’s a Latina with gang associations because, you know, she’s Latina. The girl with the biggest breasts is stupid, since that’s how anatomy works. In a feat of restraint, the Asian girl isn’t the computer whiz but a terrible person who tried to kill her mother.

Actually, ALL the kids are horrid, horrid, and horridly irredeemable people, something that makes me almost wonder if Tom Skulls is a smarter screenwriter than I’m giving him credit for. There’s no way we’re NOT expected to hate these kids, and thus, when the bear (and occasionally, wolf) feasting begins, we have nothing to do but cheer as their Maxim caliber bodies are torn into bloody bits. Considering the only mildly likable character (yes, it’s the one with big boobs)’s best moment comes at her thrill at seeing a picnic table (dialogue: “Oh goodie! A picnic table!”) I have to tip my ranger hat to its source.

Grizzly Park IS funny, and its humorous nihilism is surely intentional. I don’t doubt that Tom Skulls (seriously, Tom Skulls) was having fun with camera ogling hot bodies on evil people before literally tearing them in half. But the film is just so strangely made that I hesitate to call it fully self-aware. Is a five-minute underwear-clad coed bathing scene supposed to just SIT THERE in the middle of the film, with music playing as we gaze at wordless actors passing soap around for, did I mention, FIVE MINUTES?

How about that subplot involving a serial killer, the one who’s supposed to be a viciously violent murderer and rapist. Isn’t that supposed to create tension? Sure…or the killer could just get eaten first, well before he even has an inch of a chance at cutting up anyone pretty. Oh, by “eaten first,” I don’t mean in the prologue: I mean 30 minutes into the film, which then gives us another 15 of the young cast complaining and washing off skunk spray before anyone else dies. Tom Skulls wants you to wait.

Ultimately, I’m just baffled by Grizzly Park, and that was well before I got to the rather insane silly-cone twist ending.

That in itself should make you want to watch this movie.

High Points

My bear hand applause goes out to the makeup and special effects team, who do a fine and gory job of showing some gooey bear aftermath (including a hilarious half-face discovery that makes you wonder how skin actually works)

There’s some clever use of that famously annoying camp song “I Met a Bear” in play throughout the film. Though I could’ve done without the five minute montage it played over as the stereo—er, characters were introduced, it was still vaguely cute

Low Points

Part of my reasoning for watching this movie—aside from the fact that it features a bear killing people—was that Whitney demon mother Whitney Cummings was listed in the cast. Killer bear + unbearable presence MUST = Brutal Whitney Cummings death, no? Sigh. No, no it doesn’t. Cummings shows up in the final scene to play a field reporter and survives unscathed (although the same can’t be said for her hair and makeup, something that makes me even more dubious as to Ms. Cummings’ claim to be born the same year as me)

Pet Peeve Of the Day

I hate when characters are dressed for different seasons within one setting. As someone who sleeps with a fan on in all but freezing weather, I completely understand that everybody has their own sense of hot and cold. But is there ever REALLY a situation where one person wears short shorts while another layers up?

Pet Peeve Of the Day Part 2

Look, I get that Grizzly Park’s costume department was clearly granted some generous donation from the Sears Outlet but SERIOUSLY. Speaking as a woman to any male director reading this, I beg you to hear me: Women do not sleep in bras. We wear these things to support our assets when in public. Once we walk into our houses or cabins or tents or bearskin sleeping bags, one of the first things we lose is our Victoria’s Secret, and when it comes to bedtime, most ladies I know would fall asleep inside a grizzly bear’s esophagus before turning in with brassiere intact.

Lessons Learned

Bears can run between 30 and 35 miles per hour

A shiv is not the recommended weapon when facing a grizzly bear

Overly chatty one-off characters are a great way to share some plot-necessary exposition

When you’re safely hiding in a fairly strong storage shed, there is nothing to “go check out.” Just because you’re the dude and the two girls want you to assess your status does not mean you need to listen to them. You’re perfectly secure hiding where you are. Opening up a door just reminds the bear that you are not.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Grizzly Park is one of those “wait, really?” movies that make someone like me exceedingly happy. It’s obviously intended for laughs—any film that ends with a final kill on par with this one CANNOT be taken seriously—but done so oddly that you just can’t help but wonder what Tom Skulls (and yes, I keep writing his name because it’s TOM SKULLS) originally envisioned. Considering some of the triter tripe you could be watching on Netflix Instant, it’s not by any means a dull choice to pass 90 minutes of your life and it’s certainly made with more competence than something like Haunted Boat. It drags dreadfully and packs nothing of a scare, but its sheer oddness makes it more than a recommend for someone who needs a little grizzly bear eating ugly Americans in their life. You know who you are.