The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

BollShit Marathon!!BollShit Marathon!!BollShit Marathon!!BollShit Marathon!!BollShit Marathon!!BollShit Marathon!!BollShit Marathon!!

They said it shouldn’t be done. They said it couldn’t be done. They said the merest thought of doing it was an afront to God and Man. They said if I kept scratching it would leave a scare. They said to come on in because dinner would be ready soon.

To them I say: Aw, five more minutes. Pleeeease?

In all seriousness, I subjected myself to an experiment this past weekend. In the same way that many villains expose themselves to their weaponised toxins to build up resistance, I became a victimunteer in my own tests…For SCIENCE! What some may not know is that I, in a likely breach of several UN treaties have for some time been stockpiling the deadliest substances known to man, Uwe Boll movies.

I have kept these movies in their cases, giving only short bursts of freedom to them on an irregular basis – occassionally allowing the dialogue of Alone in the Dark to permeate through the air after innoculating myself with copious amounts of alcohol.

This past weekend, as I had extra time off and my brother was absent for a portion of it, I decided to follow up Ninja Night with another themed night. Initially I was undecided between a night of beat ‘em up video game adaptations or Uwe Boll marathon, which as a question to ask yourself is akin to choosing between having your genitalia crushed in a vice or smushed with a thrown brick.

Eventually, I settled on Uwe Boll, or as I tweeted “Uwe Boll Movie Marathon…Uwe-mania…Boll-athon…Uwe-fest…ahh, that’s the one “Night of Bollshit!”

This isn’t the first time I’d mentioned the idea, what seems like ages ago I mentioned it to Dio while discussing Mystery Science Theatre, leading to:

Guise: that’d be a masochists dream weekend…a uwe boll marathon, followed by alan smithee day…it’d be like Dr F. just went apeshit and decided to massacre
Dio: XD!!! i’ll bet all those years w/ TV’s Frank finally did it
Guise: just think, a Uwe Boll movie woulda been the equivalent of hitting the Satellite of Love with a tactical nuke…
Guise: only with a lot longer fallout time and a lot less point
Guise: nah, unlike a tactical nuke a Uwe Boll film never hits the target audience

What I had intended as a one night affair passed over a weekend, and without a word of a lie, I was actually physically affected during the course. I started off by watching Postal and found afterwards that my throat was scratchy, by the end of the night I had a full blown sore throat. The following day, I had headaches, body aches, nasal congestion and coughs too. Heading in to the new week and I’ve got a bout of flu working it’s way through my system.

Now, people may make jokes about Boll’s films, but I think that what people don’t realise is that Boll has seemingly managed to create a real Ring Virus effect that actually strengthens through additional exposures to his work.

I managed to get through seven of his masterpieces before it got too much – for Deej to note, I didn’t watch House of the Dead 2, although I have it, because Boll is unconnected with that. I didn’t really feel too much like reviewing each in any detail, I find it hard to write negative things about movies and pictures, so my thoughts were just little notes.

Postal

In all honesty, I’ve never played the Postal series, but I’m told this is actually fairly close to the source material (or at least the sequel game).

I’m quite surprised at how much I enjoyed the film – it isn’t a great film, it’s actually like Tourettes and ADD rolled in to one – but then it’s more akin to the original Scary Movie parodies in humour, but with more sex and full frontal (which isn’t always a good thing, as the movie proves). From a funny start leading in to the title shot the film was actually fairly funny, though lacked any real redeemable qualities. It reminded me a lot of Whoops Apocalypse (both US and UK versions) and in some regards Hot Fuzz, while at the same time making me cringe in ways only Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth has managed.

Pain Level: 3.75/10

Far Cry

Some very forced dialogue in the beginning to get the plot moving and character set-up, which given it would be covered in maybe a manual or few moments of game footage isn’t too bad – though I cringed at the few minutes of American tourist. The bad guy doctor was pretty much the standard: suit, light hair, a bit like Hans Gruber but with a real german accent. All the accents, attempts at humour (mostly failed) and super-soldiery made me remember Universal Soldier.

For what it’s worth, it’s better than Doom in my opinion. Tolerable.

Pain Level: 4.5/10

House of the Dead

Creepy little house on an island? Check, and one that looks much bigger inside than out? Crabby, superstitious seaman? Check. Roguish smuggler? Check. Oversexed and drunk teens? Check. Characters with the intellect of potted plants? Only if taken as a cumulative value and the potted plant was sick. Remote location? Check. Near-sex scenes? Check. Tits? Check. In fact, it’s like Scooby Doo with tits.

The acting is terrible, even worse when emotion is needed. The make-up looks lifted from the game, if the game had been made for the C64. Very laboured fight scene with an axe that throughout the film seemed to change weight.

It’s awful, but manages to still be watchable. Let’s just assume it’s magical tit shots.

Pain Level: 5.75/10 (like being poked in the eye with a sharpened schtick)

BloodRayne

How does he get real celebrities? How does he convince the great Madsen into that bad a role? I wonder how some of the dialogue might have sounded if people had acted whilst delivering them, I even cringed at Ben Kingsley, a legend, giving perhaps the most wooden performance. Kristanna Loken couldn’t manage to seem imposing, morose or fearful at times when it seemed quite crucial to display a hint of emotion (nice nipples though). The letter dictation scene was the closest I’ve ever come to seeing a movie slit it’s own wrists. The fight scenes no doubt were expertly choreographed, but not between the people taking part in them. Tits aplenty though, but probably one of the most awkward sex scenes ever – was that the door creaking or did they just need lube? The ending montage was quite good at giving examples of the visual effects that would have made this a perfect radio play.

Thank god I’ve only played demo versions of BloodRayne, otherwise I might have actually felt worse!

Pain Level: 8.3/10

BloodRayne: Deliverence

Uwe Boll, BloodRayne and the Wild West, what could possibly go wrong? This.

I’ve decided that I now have a nemesis in Chris Coppola, he’s not a major player, but he is like Harley Quinn to Boll’s Joker. The moment he appeared on screen talking about ‘the wild west’ like a kid, I felt dread and gassy. Gassy dread. Though I’m not sure what that would make Michael Pare, though I’m leaning towards ‘the anti-christ’.

Certain shots of the vampiric Billy the Kid with black suit, hat and red scarf, looked almost Manga-ish. Sadly the portrayal, once the character started moving, talking and ‘acting’ it was more woodcut than celluloid, which is a shame as I actually liked Zach Ward in Postal.

Loken was replaced, you wouldn’t really notice.

For some reason the acting in the BloodRayne movies, particularly by the actresses portraying Rayne, seems to strike me as akin to porn movie acting when they give a sci-fi or fantasy plot between sex scenes. Only with less sex scenes. Wander around, wear little and show off with weapons that appear awkwardly utilised, force dialogue, meet lots of people that if a sudden “bow chikka wow wow” resounded wouldn’t surprise.

Pain Level: 8/10

Alone in the Dark

I remember a great series of video games that had a period drama feel in the midst of a Lovecraftian horror, one that invoked thoughts of perhaps a Holmes-esque character solving a supernatural riddle that affected the psyche asmuch as the physical. That was the basis of Alone in the Dark, at some point though the game company decided to ‘modernise’ the series and shifted the story to an action-adventure style. You could probably forgive Boll then for adopting this style for his movie, if not for the fact he was offered a script in the old vein and rejected it.

Using the same argument people have given me for accepting Constantine as a Hellblazer adaptation and fitting, one could try to argue the same for Alone in the Dark, but seeing as I don’t accept the arguement for Constantine I’m hardly going to do it elsewhere. To really do that it would have to be able to stand on its own without relying on title or character name, which I don’t believe it can.

To be fair to Christian Slater, he does a fairly good job acting out as a paranormal investigator, if you compare him to Keanu Reeves in Constantine, Slater blows him out of the holy water – though maybe I’m far too biased in my Hellblazer love that I’ll never accept Keanu. The younger Dr Hudgens actually looks like a doctor at the hospital I work at. Nobody else really is of any interest or depth, some you may even wish were forgettable.

Pain Level: 2.5/10

Alone in the Dark 2

An early scene showed a toilet setting, quite fitting.

One of the redeeming qualities of the first Alone in the Dark was Christian Slater as Edward Carnby, which is why they made the genius idea to bring Carnby back for the sequel. Carnby, but not Slater, and I’m not convinced at all it’s even meant to be the Carnby from before, cos at least the first actually did stuff. Lance Henrickson seems to be the only one able to get into character, or even have a character noticable, and even then it’s really Hammer Horror styling.

Bill Moseley’s beard is perhaps the most captivating thing in the movie, it draws attention like Robert Downey Jnr’s in Iron Man, but more for the question of ‘whhhhy?’ that it’s very sight brings about. The Witch was in no way intimidating, often looking like someone trying to pull off a Ring’s Sumara impression but ending up looking like that awkward Goth girl at school who tried too hard to be creepy. You know the girl, right?

The Special Effects were ok, the smoky forms were above BloodRayne quality at least.

Pain Level: 8/10