Invasion of the Pod People

Invasion of the Pod People (2007): Good grief, this was described as an alternate riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, an excellent SiFi classic. I would describe it more as an inept rip off of that fine film. And while we are at it, I never saw any pods in this epic; only plants that looked like those oriental ginger roots that you can buy at the specialty market. These had been stuck in small pots for distribution to the masses. Apparently, after a meteor shower, these things from space somehow took over a few people and they started giving the plants to the gals at a modeling agency. In a slight divergence for the ‘Body Snatcher’ movie where you were taken over while you slept, these plants seem to grow at random and then once formed into your doppelganger, have to find and kill you, you don’t just pass away.
Our heroine notices that many of her co-workers at the agency seem to be having personality changes, the mean folk appear nice and the formerly friendly people have become a bit ratty. She receives one of those pots with a root in it from her boss and takes it home. She doesn’t like the looks of it so puts it in the garbage disposal to be rid of it, but wait; it starts screaming and flinging blood all over the sink. She gets the blood tested and finds out it matches her type. Dawn breaks at Marblehead that something is amiss at the agency. Well, it turns out that the alien presence is only trying to help the humans reduce stress and things like that and to make everyone happy and to act all the same. At least that’s the story the alien controlled people stick to for the whole movie. One minor side effect of being taken over by the alien presence appears to be conversion of the straight gals to les-beans which gave the director and excuse for a little lesbonianism to be shown on the screen. In the end the plant people (I refuse to call them pod people) take over which means no sequel. Hooray! The flick was unrated but would probably root up an R for: lack of pods, lack of actors, and lack of rational behavior by models (maybe this is normal?), screaming roots, dark roots, touched up roots, multiple orbulations, rampant lesbonianism, and for multiple model shootings.

Infested

Infested (2002): It appears that a few people got together and invested in Infested and came up with a half decent little thriller. The movie starts out very much like a low budget version of ‘The Big Chill’ with a bunch of angst driven yuppies driving home to attend a funeral for one of their friends. While engaged in talking about their ‘problems’, a few mutant flies show up and soon the yuppies realize their former problems pale compared to the problem of surviving an encounter with these little beasties. Instead of having the bugs eat people as in most movies of this type, the flies inhabit the victims and kind of control them so that what you end up with is a modified zombie movie but it is done with some wit and a low budget style.
Soon, several fly controlled yuppies are battling the remaining angst driven yuppies. The fly controlled group seems to have an advantage since you appear to be able to knock their heads off without having a large affect on their ability to strangle you. The angst group soon finds out that the flies can only live a short while outside a body when exposed to light. However, soon the fly controlled group starts growing while there are less angsters to fight back. Cast depopulation is appalling and only one gal makes it out at the end. I did seem to spot a technical error near the end where a fly gal seen getting cut in half when run over by an angster in an SUV, shows up in one piece in the background for the big finish. That was a minor problem and the movie, while not a classic, should give mutant bug fanciers a good rent. The movie was rated R for: brief breastulation, oral fly invasions, spitting up flies, showering with flies, flies multiplying like rabbits, exploding flies, fly girls, fireplace poker spearing, head removal with minimal effect, multiple hits by SUV, and for multiple vominations of large quantities of red stuff.

P2

P2 (2007): You’ve definitely seen this one before. A seemingly helpless woman is terrorized by a Mark 1 wacko for much of the movie but by the end, she changes into a determined fighter who finally whacks the wacko. However, this one is done pretty well and the story goes something like this. Overworked professional woman working late on Christmas Eve can’t start her car and runs into the loony and seriously obsessed overnight parking attendant who can’t understand why she doesn’t want to spend the night with him in his office. After gassing her, she wakes up chained to a chair no longer in her office attire but in her strapless gown and fashion heels. Mr. Wacko still can’t figure out why she is upset and he appears just a bit delusional. Once she gets out of the chair, much of the rest of the movie is spent with gal running around the underground garage barefoot with only the gown for warmth. At times I was sure her upper appurtenances were going to explode out of their protective sheath but the fabric held and we maintained the R rating. In this movie, most of the characters do not act stupidly and all the problems that occur do not seem contrived. This made for a superior damsel in distress movie with reasonable acting, although Mr. Wacko did seem a bit over the top at times. The movie parked an R for: employee crushing, multiple tasering, eyeball piercing, elevator flooding, massive ingénue shivering, dog biting, dog stabbing, dog dying, drag racing, and for excessive use of Elvis Christmas music.

Mr. Brooks

Mr. Brooks (2007): I have to apologize for bringing an A movie into the hallowed grounds of B movie reviews. But, I also have to admit, this is a pretty good serial killer/suspense film with two stars that main stream critics usually dislike; Kevin Costner and Demi Moore. It also has William Hurt in an excellent role as the sentient Mr. Hyde end of our serial killer who is trying to be a good Dr. Jekyll. The movie has lots of twists and turns, a few too many coincidences, and a somewhat surprise ending with a possible nod to a sequel. The movie can be taken out of today’s headlines where some of our leading citizens seem to be missing a critical gene or two and turn out to be horrible people or at least immoral beyond understanding. The story deals with a serial killer’s ultimate failure to control his inner demon and the efforts of a female cop to track him down. Most of the major characters are believable but all are somewhat flawed which helps move the plot forward. Without giving too much away, let’s just say all does not end well for the entire cast and you can certainly say ‘Genes will out.” The movie is rated R for; forehead shooting, coitus interruptus, inappropriate use of a shovel, multiple serial killers, painful divorce, and for the interesting conversations between the serial killer’s left and right brain.

Killer Rats

Killer Rats (2003): It’s nice to see Hollywood make movies about one of the most prolific and hardy mammalian species on the planet. What with ‘The Rats’ movie made in 2001 and the recent remake of Willard, tales of the little rodents are reaching the saturation point. Set in Philadelphia, the rodents do tend to reach the saturation point near the end of this movie and there are a couple of not so little rodents thrown in just for good measure. You’ve seen the plot on this one in many other movies so don’t expect much new here. Girl newspaper reporter goes underground to investigate the new loony tune centers created by the govimint’s privatization policy. Girl meets a number of loonies, a couple of indifferent shrinks and staffers. When patients start to go missing (they get ratified … or eaten as it were), the staff assumes they have escaped and try to cover up the whole mess. Girl reporter now finds she can’t easily get out of the home for paranoids (surprise). Later we learn that the head shrink (poor Ron Pearlman, a real actor) was conducting genetic experiments on rats and had his assistant get rid of them when he lost his funding. Of course his assistant was a nut case (think Igor in Frankenstein) and winds up saving the rats and helping them out to keep the plot going. Most of the cast get e-rat-icated (ate) and a few finally escape the high security nut house. Since most of the people in the credits had last names ending in OV, I suspect this was shot in Bulgaria with American actors. Could have been worse and has some good splatter. The movie is rated R for: poor mental health care, dumb psychiatrists, dumber staff, oodles of blood spray, chomped off hand, computer generated rats, and for really bad padded cells.

Solstice

Solstice (2007): This starts out like a traditional slasher movie with a set of teen couples heading off to the bayou for a fling. However, it soon degenerates into a standard ghost story and misses multiple opportunities for serious gore and nekkidity This is the first time in quite a while unchaperoned teens get though a full length ‘B’ movie without taking their clothes off, engaging in unprotected sex, and losing multiple body parts. It has some familiar red herrings such as the friendly country store clerk and the reclusive gnarly old red neck rustic. Apparently one of the teens seems to be haunted by a spirit and most of the movie shows their activities to come to grips with it and to unravel the mystery surrounding the supernatural activity. However, it takes a full three days to get to the big finish and not a lot of activity happens so it tends to be a bit slow. However, it is professionally done and if you like to see lots of interior shots of a bayou mansion and lots of swampy exteriors, Solstice just might be for you. The movie spooked a PG-13 rating for: massive mud holes, mud plumbing, mud belching, bear traps, massive talking, finger nail splitting, and for the lack of any serious bleeding throughout the movie.

Satanic

Satanic (2006): This one starts out with a car crash and the surviving amnesia suffering ingénue faces a long hospital stay while her face is reconstructed. She has lots of nightmares and is finally released to a halfway house because she apparently tried to kill her father earlier. Well, the halfway house is populated with problematic young people and less than sterling supervising adults who like to watch porn on the living room TV and to steal as much from the kids as possible! Now before you get any idea that this might have some similarity to a Dickens tale, forget about it. Soon our ingénue’s dreams are getting worse and she begins to think she might have killed a girl she had picked up just before the crash. She also finds a book of sorcery and an Ouija board among her things. Well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense but people start dying and Jeffery Coombs is called in for a wasted cameo as a police detective whose main purpose appears to be just to make the movie run longer. Finally, there is a twist to the end of the movie that apparently an unfortunate accident happened at the hospital and tries to explain the ingénue’s origins. In addition, demons are involved. The big finale occurs when the lead ingénue returns to the home for wayward bad actors and finds everyone dead. What does she do, why take a shower of course. This adds the required amount of ingénudity missing up to this point. Then she is confronted by her evil self or non-self depending on your viewpoint. A classic kung-fu catfight causes casualties among the ingénues ensuring the end of the movie. Who won…..who cares? The movie conjured an R for: ingenudity, multiple orbulations, necking, neck slashing, multiple knifing, Ouija boarding without a license, and for the surprising kung-fu knowledge that the two opponents suddenly had in the finale.