Aberration

Oh man, what a stinker! I like B movies, but this one, I'm not sure to be impressed by how bad it is, or mad that I sat through it. The lizards looked like sock puppets for God's sake! I flip-flopped between laughing and fast forwarding. I guess anyone can make a movie with a cam corder and $10.00, throw it onto a DVD with their home computer, get some nifty packaging and manage to sneak it into the video rental system. After I watched it all I could think of was, "why did I watch that?" I can sum it up with, "It should have been titled Ab-bore-ation". I guess we could get lucky and they start MST3K back up, and there'd be a great movie for it.

Pink-haired Pamela Gidley steals money from her Russian mobster boyfriend (Valery Nikolaev) and retreats to a small cabin in wintry Northern town. A blizzard traps her and a friendly local guy (Simon Bossell) there and fast-evolving, fanged mutant geckos (!?) attack. Her ex also eventually shows up to make things worse. A silly premise and occasional hokey creature FX detract from this ALIEN-type movie, but it's humorous, well acted, entertaining, action-packed and lots of fun, with plenty of blood and slime for gore fans. A bit better than expected. It was filmed on location in Wellington, New Zealand.

Score: 5 out of 10

As I was sitting with my wife watching "Aberration," I couldn't help but say "why the heck am I watching this? This is the dumbest movie I ever saw!" Then it dawned on me. If it was so dumb, why was I watching it? It seems this movie is so bad it's good and I actually recommend it if you're into that kind of movie.

First of all; the rating scale is difficult to use as I recommend the movie (who doesn't love campy, tongue-in-cheek low budget scifi/horror; if you're reading this you do!). I use the scale for the quality of scenes not the movie whole. The acting was OK and at times rather bad. There were some cool aspects and the gore was quite good even though scifi hacked it. Pamela Gidley i've always loved! The lizards looked like a cross between older godzilla movies with a hint of digital animation at times. I loved the setting (cabin in the woods) and the snow. A hot snow bunny always helps. All in all it's definitely worth a rent.

Ok, let me start off by saying; IT'S NOT THAT BAD, DAMMIT! Ok, that might be a stretch, it is pretty bad. But I liked it... and I feel extremely guilty for it, so there! Was it the cheesy plot? Super-Evolved killer geckos in what seems to be Alaska (but in reality is New Zealand (What the fuzzy monkeys you ask? So do I). Was it the lack of meaningful nudity when it SO COULD HAVE BEEN THERE (down boy)... or was it the fact that the scientist guy somehow reminded me of Bruce Cambell from Evil Dead II... at least in the convenience store at the end.... with the flaming broom... and he also kinda looked like Brandon Lee from the crow at one point.... don't ask, I was heavily sedated at the time of writing this. What it fails to deliver in actual thrills or scares, it seems to make up for in campy, schlocky, tongue in cheek goodness. While it's not that bad, it's not that good.

But if you've got nothing better to do on a dark and stormy night when the pillars of heaven are shaking and the earth is opening up ready to swallow you whole, and you see this in the video rental place, and you're not sure about it, you just kick back and ask yourself what old Jack Burton might say...

y'know what he'd say?

What the hell?