Engine Trouble

Very rarely does a film come along that's so bad it's good. Most bad (big budget) films simply are tedious, lame and boring, and no matter how hard you try, they simply can't be enjoyed. I'm not going to name names here, but I'm sure we've all seen our share of big budget crap. The strange thing about (bad) low budget films is, that the film-makers put a lot more enthusiasm into their films and try to make up for the lack of budget. So no matter if the film turns out to be garbage, the audience can still laugh at the enormous amount of bad dialogue, continuity errors and campy performances.

"Engine Trouble" fits right into that mold. It was produced in Belgium for about 25 dollars, and it really shows. But besides from simply being crap, "Engine Trouble" actually manages to be quite entertaining. Not entertaining in a "Back to the Future" kind of way, but more in a "Plan 9 From Outer Space" kind of way. Obviously, dialogue and acting are extremely over the top, the production values are depressingly cheap and the plot has been done a million times before. But somehow this didn't really matter. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this film. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard during a movie, even though the humor was entirely unintentional. I guess it was sheer disbelief that cracked me up. I mean, can a film really be this bad?

So, if like me you are a fan of trash-cinema, Ed Wood and Troma, you certainly are going to enjoy this puppy. Just make sure you don't watch it alone! Ask your buddies to come over, have a few drinks and enjoy. However, if bad movies are not your bag, you might want to stay away. After all, no matter which way you turn it, "Engine Trouble" still is unadulterated crap!

Wow, not often does such a bad movie find its way to the rental store. Thankfully, we purposely rent this kind of rubbish so that appreciate Hollywood's B-movies even more. This movie however was a king among trash. Honestly, I'm surprised Dean Cain wasn't in it (sorry Dean, but you've been going downhill since Superman).

Regardless we had a great time watching this (its was titled Junior here in Canada). It was hilarious, the terrible dialogue (ex "What do we know about cars? We are both textile manufacturers!) and the miserable special effects coupled with one of the most overused plots imaginable make for a knee-slapping good time. This is the kind of movie that makes me wonder why I am not writing/directing movies because I could surely do a better job or at least couldn't do any worse.

JUNIOR, aka ENGINE TROUBLE, is one bad movie. It looks like members of a film crew pulled their tiny resources together and made this micro movie during a break of the other bigger budgeted film and shot this one in a few days. There's no story and there's almost no semblance of any pre-production: everything was shot in one area and the cast is populated by 5 or 6 actors, all of whom are awful and show very little experience in acting or anything else.

A lot of people say that horror is better imagined than showed. Well, they haven't seen the moment when the unseen killer is on top of the roof of the car and torments the woman inside. In this case, even though the "filmmakers" might say they wanted to create horror in people's mind with this tedious scene, I 'm more inclined to believe that they shot it this way because it was cheap. It's a fine line between astute direction and penny-pinching film-making.

The really funny thing about it is that it's an exploitation film wannabe that doesn't really exploit anything.

But as bad as JUNIOR is, and it is bad, I've seen much worse than this. Like SHREDDER.

Engine Trouble (2002)

1/2 (out of 4)

Typical straight to DVD flick about two females who go out where they shouldn't be an are eventually stalked by a maniac. You can call the film whatever you want but this is without a doubt one of the worst horror films I've ever seen and trust me I've seen a whole lot. The film has the budget of around five bucks but the director doesn't even try to appease horror fans. The one gore effect is so incredibly bad that you'll be rolling your eyes. I understand with a low budget you can have good effects but if memory serves me it doesn't take a special effect for some hot woman to remove her cloths.

The cover art for 'Junior' is everything enticing about the slasher genre these days: what will this particular slasher look like? The look is everything; the gimmick that completes the vision driving the illogical hack and slash of teenage fodder. 'Junior' seems to have spent everything in pursuit of a great looking outfit, equal parts Road Warrior and Leia's bounty hunter outfit in Revenge of the Jedi. The plot reads like tissue paper and, if you too happen to make the mistake of putting this movie on your television, you'll see that that's really a generous criticism. When the first shot comes up, scored by the kind of music usually found in Puppet Master movies, you know you're in trouble. When the first scene has ostensibly nothing to do with the actual film, you'll be hoping it's a film within a film or a dream. Sadly, this film wanders around, thinks gibbering psychos pounding on cars on a sunny 2 in the afternoon constitutes horror and is shot on the same stock as a 1980's porno. I couldn't even live with myself 45 minutes into the movie, the first time you see Junior and he cartwheels off the top of a car. I had to turn it off. Sometimes it's better to leave the video store with nothing at all.