Enterprise S2E3 - "Minefield"

Uh oh, that 'splosion looks serious! The Enterprise accidentally traipses into a minefield owned by a mystery race of aliens called the "Romulans" - probably not important or anything if you ask me.

RATING: 41%

Enterprise S2E2 - "Carbon Creek"

T'Pol tells a crazy bedtime story for Archer and Trip about the one time her great-grandma and Two friends crashed on Earth in the 1950s and had to live like schlubs in small-town Pennsylvania. It's actually a pretty charming episode, though I bet it must be reviled among other Trek fans.

RATING: 78%

Enterprise S1E25/S2E1 - "Shockwave"

The Enterprise is gonna visit a colony of miners and accidentally instead blows them all up, whoops! Turns out they were framed, and through some time travel and torture and torturous time travel everything gets put right! Uh, except the dead colonists I guess.

RATING: 41%

Enterprise S1E24 - "Two Days and Two Nights"

Risa is supposedly this really sweet pleasure planet space people go to get laid and etc but every Star Trek episode that takes place there is super boring. This one's no exception but at least Hoshi hooks up with a sexy alien instead of one of the dudes for a change!

RATING: 36%

Enterprise S1E23 - "Desert Crossing"

Trip and Archer meet up with a gregarious desert dweller and become friends with him (by playing topless space-lacrosse), only to find out some oppressive politicians on the guy's planet consider him a terrorist. Hmm. Oh, also they have to cross a desert and get really thirsty.

RATING: 63%

Enterprise S1E22 - "Fallen Hero"

A Vulcan ambassador gets (gasp!) accused of being bad at her job and also of being a criminal, so the Enterprise plays the role of interstellar bail bondsman to bring her to justice, only maybe, just maybe, everything is not as it seems!

RATING: 52%

Enterprise S1E21 - "Vox Sola"

After making some aliens mad by being culturally insensitive, the Enterprise gets invaded by a gooey space web alien who cocoons a bunch of crewmembers. Pretty creepy TOS style working here.

RATING: 70%

Enterprise S1E20 - "Detained"

Hey it's Al from Quantum Leap playing an evil internment camp warden! Some good political conceptualizing as the United States was just entering the "war on terror" but the episode is sort of boring.

RATING: 40%

Enterprise S1E19 - "Oasis"

The Enterprise hears of a haaauuunted shiiiiip, so of course they investigate in order to graverob it of all its valuables. There's a kind of cool twist that you see coming a mile away, but would've been more interesting if SPOILER everybody on the whole ship was dead holograms instead of just most people.

RATING: 58%

Enterprise S1E18 - "Acquisition"

This episode is universally reviled for its supposed breach of Trek continuity, but I don't give a shit about that - do whatever you have to do to tell a great story! This is not a great story. The Ferengi take over Enterprise to steal its... treasure? One thing I appreciate about Enterprise as a show, though, is it revels in making a man (always Trip Tucker) the object of viewers' sexual desire, so Tucker takes control back of the ship in his BVDs.

RATING: 32%

(image by DeviantArt user angeleyes91011)

Enterprise S1E17 - "Rogue Planet"

Starts great, with a spooky rogue planet being able to support life, ends with a psychic slug.

RATING: 6%

Enterprise S1E16 - "Fusion"

Some Vulcans come out of space asking for help and acting all nice and jolly and it turns out they are a religious sect who believe feeling all the feelings is kinda cool. Well what's not cool is mind rape, which one of them does to T'Pol and Archer just lets them all go with a slap on the wrist - some space cop you're turning out to be, pal!

RATING: 70%

Enterprise S1E15 - "Shuttlepod One"

Malcolm and Trip are on a mission in a shuttlepod (can't remember which number) and through a hilarious series of misunderstandings they come to believe that the Enterprise is destroyed and they are slowly going to die of asphyxiation. No worries, they turn it into a bourbon-drinkin' party!

RATING: 61%

Enterprise S1E14 - "Shadows of P'Jem"

The Vulcans decide they want to bring T'Pol home and send her to her room with no dinner or whathaveyou, but then she and Archer get kidnapped so everything works out swell!

RATING: 19%

Enterprise S1E13 - "Sleeping Dogs"

Our spacetronauts encounter a strange ship stranded in a gas giant, but wait a minute, to me that ship looks sorta Klingon so I bet this rescue mission doesn't go off without a hitch!

RATING: 56%

(photo from petyourdog.com)

Enterprise S1E12 - "Dear Doctor"

Dr. Phlox gets a crush on this one earth lady, but he's nervous that she'll be mad that he already has four wives with two or three husbands each, but then she's like "Woah, marriage? Let's just have some fun." Also the Enterprise meets some pre-warp people with a space-plague and they decide not to help them in a very heavy handed pre-Prime Directive example of non-interference. Archer even says, I'm not kidding, "If only we had a rule... a directive, if you will, to stop this in the future." We already got that, writers!

RATING: 48%

Enterprise S1E11 - "Silent Enemy"

Some tall, skinny alien bros decide to crash Enterprise's space party they're throwing for Malcolm, so the Enterprise decides to invent phasers to teach these space bros a lesson.

RATING: 21%

Enterprise S1E10 - "Cold Front"

While meeting some space-religious-types on a pilgrimage to a space-cloud, Archer and co. also meet some time travelers who want to either fuck things up or save them. It's actually an ok episode before the time travelers come in and force a story arc because people nowadays apparently can't enjoy a show unless "everything's connected, man!"

RATING: 62%

Enterprise S1E9 - "Fortunate Son"

The Enterprise comes across a freighter that's been damaged in an attack, and the "boomers" on board (humans who run cargo) are angry and stubborn and also hostage takers - luckily Ensign Mayweather is there to talk everybody down because he was born on a freighter, man without a country style. Pretty strong episode that fleshes out the world of commerce in Star Trek, something basically no other show would do.

RATING: 68%

Enterprise S1E8 - "Civilization"

Some space pirates are mining poison out of a Medieval style alien town, so Captain Archer pulls a Kirk and makes out with a space lady to save the day.

RATING: 36%

Enterprise S1E7 - "Breaking the Ice"

The crew decides to land on a comet and some Vulcans decide to watch them build a snowman. Also T'Pau has some marital issues only the Southern dude can help resolve because clearly they are going to hook up at some point in the future of the show.

RATING: 41%

Enterprise S1E6 - "The Andorian Incident"

So there's lots of crazy space things to explore, but instead Archer's like "let's check out this boring Vulcan monastery!" Turns out some Andorians also wanted to check it out, ie take everybody hostage because they worry there's a secret spy thing underneath, but that would never be true in Star Trek, right???

RATING: 64%

Enterprise S1E5 - "Terra Nova"

The Enterprise finds a long lost space colony (I mean, it's 70 years old but I guess that's long lost) except the people forget what technology is and there's a little too much radiation so maybe not a great vacation spot imho.

RATING: 36%

Enterprise S1E4 - "Unexpected"

You know that thing where you meet an alien species so you accidentally hold hands and then grow a bunch of extra nipples because you're now pregnant? No?

RATING: 69%

Enterprise S1E3 - "Strange New World"

Here Archer and the gang land on one a them planet dealies with the hallucinatory flowers like in twenty episodes of the Original Series, which causes the southern dude to flip his shit and turn all racist. Yeah, sure it was the space pollen talking, guy. Time for a trip to human resources if you ask me!

RATING: 61%

Enterprise S1E2 - "Fight or Flight"

The Enterprise meets a floating derelict in space with all its dead crew having their blood drained to make space drugs, so of course they stick around because there are no horror movies in the 22nd Century.

RATING: 64%

Enterprise S1E1 - "Broken Bow"

Everybody hates Enterprise, and to be honest when I was 21 as soon as I heard the Scott Stapp style crooner whining his way through a barely plucked acoustic guitar as the theme song I clicked it off. This first episode is actually really great, it turns out, from effects to story to acting. The plot is there's a Klingon who accidentally crashes on Earth, so it's up to Captain Johnathan Archer and his brand new ship, the, uh, Enterprise (like, future people have a really small stable of names to pick from I guess) to carry this Klingon back to his home world, Klingo, but will everything go according to plan??? Also, gripezone, but Star Trek is always patting itself on the back for diversity yet in six TV shows every crewmember has been hetero cisgender Americans/Europeans with a couple aliens thrown in for good measure.

RATING: 76%

Tentacles

Italian genre films made in the 60s, 70s and 80s are a world unto themselves. They have their own inherent logic, cinematic language and tropes that often act as funhouse mirror reflections of those found in genre films made in North America. While there were plenty of original genre films made during Italy's golden years of schlock, North American genre fans like myself tend to be drawn to films that were blatant rip-offs of other (more successful) films. Hence my recent viewing of Tentacles, a Jaws rip-off from 1977. There were and continue to be a shit ton of movies made in an effort to cash-in on the success of Jaws, very few of them are any good. My main issue with Tentacles is that it did not feature enough tentacles. Most of the time that we see the film's killer octopus we're watching stock footage, which isn't particularly effective. Part of what made Jaws and some of its better imitators (Piranha, Alligator) so powerful was the combination of practical effects with limited stock footage. Tentacles overuses stock footage and scenes of real octopuses interacting with poorly made miniatures. There are only a handful of scenes in the movie with practical monster effects. One such scene, which happens about an hour into the film, features a woman being picked up out of the water by a giant tentacle, it's easily my favorite scene in the whole movie. There's a lot more of this movie worth dissecting, be it the cast (mostly classy American actors) or the score or the weird editing choices, but for the most part Tentacles just isn't interesting enough to warrant any significant investment of your time.

Rating: 51%

Fun Fact: Ovidio G. Assonitis, the director, would later write and produce Piranha II: The Spawning.

(Image from impawards.com)

House (1977)

This Japanese haunted house movie from the 70s won't scare you, per se, but it is sincerely the most surreal piece of nightmare fuel I've ever come across, including Jodorowsky. The plot is your average high school girls on vacation to a house haunted by the ghost of a woman's loneliness who wants to eat them type fare. It is 40% surreal humor, as when a cat dances and meows a song, 40% surreal terror, as when a girls severed fingers play the piano that bit them off, and 1800% weird nonsense. Toho studios told the director, an art director known for nonlinear experimental films, that they were tired of losing money on comprehensible films, and asked him to make something incomprehensible. Success! I've got to recommend this movie with full marks, since you'll never see anything else like it in your entire life.

RATING: 81%

The Bat

The Bat is more of a mystery film than a horror movie but it features a killer in black wearing a glove with claws on it that he uses to tear out the throats of his victims, so it hardly seemed out of place during this season of horror. Agnes Moorehead plays the main protagonist in the movie, a mystery writer renting a creepy old house. In many ways the movie plays out like an episode of Murder, She Wrote wherein the female writer lead unravels a mystery involving the colorful characters orbiting around her after she turns up in town. One of those colorful characters is played by Vincent Price. Spoiler alert: though Price is not the main villain of the film, he does murder someone at one point, so he's not exactly a nice guy.

Rating: 61%

Fun Fact: Agnes Moorehead made her film debut in Citizen Kane.

(Image from Wikipedia)

2000

2000 used to be a futuristic sounding number, but now if somebody was born in the year 2000 they're old enough to be a misogynistic gamer-gate troll on some internet forum. If somebody gave me $2000 I would like it but to be fair if somebody gave me $2 I would also like that, or, really, I would appreciate any gift because it's the thought that counts. If you have a blog it might take you 10 months to write your first 1000 posts but then it would probably take you another six years to write your next thousand, but at least 800 people a month are still accidentally stumbling across your hodge-podge of time-wasting reviews (shoulda monetized back in 07, rats!).

RATING: Glenn, Loco, Nick, Laurie, Bryan, Internet John, Viking Andrew, Loren, Evan, Robyn, Ryan, Quammy %

Cat People

This past Saturday the Kalamazoo Alamo Draft House had a four horror movie marathon, which sounds great on paper but by hour eight sounded less great. Anyway, the gem of the night was Paul Schrader's Cat People, a movie I would never have guessed was a horror movie by the cover. It's about a couple of were-cats who turn into panthers after having sex with non-were-cats and can't turn back into people until they kill somebody. You know, typical were-cat fare. It's really well directed, and great performances from all the cast and you also (SPOILER) get to see Ed Begley Jr.'s arm ripped off. The other movies were Night of the Creeps, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and Humanoids from the Deep in case you were wondering.

RATING: 78%

The Curse of the Werewolf

Hammer Films have definitely made some of the classiest looking trash anyone has ever seen. There's a reason the poster art for this movie looks like a distorted version of a romance novel cover. The Curse of the Werewolf definitely has some heaving bosoms and star crossed lovers in it but it also has some prison rape and a satanic baptism. Overall the movie is a little disjointed, half of it is about the birth and childhood of the werewolf and the other half features Oliver Reed as an adult living with lycanthropy. Oddly enough, this was the only werewolf movie ever made by Hammer.

Rating: 67%

Fun Fact: Oliver Reed, who played Leon, was also in David Cronenberg's The Brood.

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Blob

Maybe it's because I just spent the last few weeks watching terrible Resident Evil and Saw movies, but the remake of The Blob was terrific. The creature (?) effects are pretty great, as is the gore for a mainstream 80s studio horror movie. The plot is there's a small town in America and also there is a blob that eats people, two great tastes that taste great together. Coincidentally, the main girl in this movie is played by Shawnee Smith, who was in every Saw movie as Jigsaw Jr. Lotsa people get blobbed real good including one kid, so nice one, The Blob.

RATING: 70%

Alone in the Dark

During a blackout, four of the world's craziest psychopaths break out of a psychiatric hospital. Amid the chaos, they descend upon their new doctor's home. The doctor and his family are forced to fight for their lives. Sounds kinda like a standard horror movie plot, doesn't it? For the most part Alone in the Dark is pretty average but there are a few moments of madness in the movie that almost elevate it above the standard fare. It also has a great cast: Jack Palance, Martin Landau, a hippy dippy Donald Pleasence and TV's Dwight Schultz (The A-Team, Star Trek: The Next Generation). The tone of this movie is just way off though, everything seesaws back and forth from casual quiet to over the top insanity. The movie never seems to have a clear narrative progression, it just feels like a series of events happening to a dozen or so characters over a 48 hour period. It's worth a look, but that's about it.

Rating: 60%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Saw 3D

A better title for this movie would be "Saw VII," but they wanted to cash in on the 3D craze of the late oughties (which totally doesn't already look dated four years later). Hey, filmmakers, if your part 3 isn't going to be in 3D then ya missed the boat! This movie is, of course, terrible, but there are two good things going for it: 1) a torture device scene that happens in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses, which gives the film a different palate than the normal "warehouse green" it seems to love, and B) a kinda unique plot in which a nonfiction author rose to fame by faking that he was a survivor of Jigsaw and now Jigsaw catches him and puts him through some traps or whatever. Now that I'm done with these movies I don't think I can recommend them to anybody per se, but I'm sure academics will write/have already written papers on the trend of 2000s horror focusing extreme pain, suffering, etc, when America as a country was committing acts of torture so publicly. Finally, look at the poster there - a gigantic robot Jigsaw killer would have been so much better than anything that happens in this movie but oh well!

RATING: 41%

Sleepaway Camp

If you've heard of Sleepaway Camp, you probably already know how it ends. The final scene is easily the most memorable part of the movie. The rest of Sleepaway Camp is definitely worth a look though, mainly because the tone of this movie is so sleazy/douchey. Almost every character in the movie is some kind of wise ass creep with a New York accent (quote: "Hey Angela, what's the matter with you? Don't ya know how to tawk?"). I've seen Sleepaway Camp a number of times over the years and my opinion of the movie has evolved from "this movie is stupid" to "this movie is decent." On this most recent viewing I actually noticed a lot more of the little plot elements going on between the scenes of assholes being murdered and children swearing at one another. Basically, if you haven't seen it before, it comes down to this: it's no masterpiece but this movie might be a little bit better than you think it is.

Rating: 62%

Fun Fact: One of the camp's cooks was played by Robert Earl Jones, father of James Earl Jones.

(Image from deathensemble.com)

Saw VI

These movies aren't even really horror movies - they're just thrillers with a whole lotta gore. I mean, a horror movie is supposed to about fear, and these are just badly structured police procedurals. No other horror movie spends so much time on cops trying to catch the killer (or secretly be the killer several times) as the Saw movies do, and the victims in these traps are basically props. Anyway, in this one an insurance executive must pay the price for his sins, since he invented insurance and whatever I guess,. but maybe the cop is actually the one being tested (he is)! Wait, am I repeating myself?

RATING: 28%

Prom Night

Prom Night, released in 1980, feels like a leftover from the 1970s. It's probably the only slasher movie to feature both a custom van and an extended disco dance sequence. If it weren't for the cast, top billed Leslie Nielsen and scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, this movie would probably be easily forgotten. That's not to say it's not worth a watch though. It might lean a little heavy on red herrings and horror movie tropes, but it's not without its charms. The recent blu ray release from Synapse Films is easily the best looking home video version of the movie. Avoid the bargain bin releases of Prom Night as they are most often non-anamorphic and feature a blurry transfer of the film.

Rating: 68%

Fun Fact: Jamie Lee Curtis, who played Kim, did uncredited voice work in Escape from New York and Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

(Image from ca.movieposter.com)

Saw V

So Saw IV was, as mentioned, needlessly comprised of flashbacks to Saws I-III explaining details none of us ever wondered about. Surely they must be done flashing back to the previous movies, right? Wrong! On the one hand I must give the series a modicum of credit for trying to break out of the traditional horror structure of more movies=more kills and that's all, but really, do any of us care about more than the elaborate deaths? I must also point out that these movies take place over the course of like a month, which must really terrify that city. "A 51st victim of a weird Rube Goldberg deathtrap was discovered today, careful out there everybody!" The plot here is a cop is trying to stop some people from dying (for the fifth time) but maybe he's the one being tested, let's find out (of course he is).

RATING: 39%

Children of the Corn: Genesis

I considered reviewing this movie second to last because Wikipedia seems to suggest that it's a sequel to the original Children of the Corn film and not the 2009 remake. Frankly, it doesn't really matter. This movie is barely tied to the other films. They sneak in a pre-credits sequence in Gatlin, but the rest of the movie takes place in California. There are barely any children in the movie, which is hilarious because the word children is in the freaking title. Genesis has the look and feel of a modern day remake of a seventies grindhouse movie. Everything looks gross and the general color palette is varying shades of sun baked dirt. Basically, it's pretty slow and dumb like a lot of the other Children the Corn sequels. And I just realized that I don't have to watch any more of these movies. Which means I don't have to write anything else about these movies. So, peace out homies.

Rating: Children of the Hills Have Eyes Massacre%

Fun Fact: Duane Whitaker, who played Pritchett the truck driver, was one of the redneck rapists in Pulp Fiction.

(Image from Wikipedia)

Saw IV

So this movie starts with the autopsy of Jigsaw (oops, spoilers), during which they take out the killers brain, missing a glorious opportunity to either a) place it in a robot body, or b) eat it to gain Jigsaw's powers a la Jason Goes to Hell. Missed opportunities is what this franchise is all about! Again, like the last movie, we get a ton of irritating flashbacks, including the, gasp, "twist" that the whole movie is a flashback and takes place during Saw III! Why, you may ask? Who cares! No really creative deathtraps here and also we learn that Jigsaw is Jigsaw because his unborn baby got killed accidentally by a junkie. Hasn't anybody in movieland heard of therapy???

RATING: 42%

Children of the Corn (2009)

While this made for TV remake hits a lot of the same beats as the original film, there are a few stark contrasts between the two movies. Right off the bat: the married couple who stumble upon Gatlin and the killer kid cult therein. The couple in the original are a loving pair. We get to know them, get to like them and then we're afraid for them when they stumble into danger. The couple in the remake flat out hate each other, there is no reason that they should be travelling together at all. They do nothing but fight and scream at each other. Secondly: Isaac, the leader of the children's cult. In the original, Isaac was played by a character actor with a growth hormone deficiency. John Franklin, the actor, was in his mid twenties but had child like features which allowed him to be a particularly creepy presence. The remake cast an eight year child actor who sounds as though he learned his lines phonetically. The kid has zero presence or gravitas. They have him in short pants for fuck's sake. In the end though I will give the remake credit for having several on screen child kills.

Rating: 46%

Fun Fact: Kandyse McClure, who played Vicky, was also in the TV remake of Carrie.

(Image from Wikipedia)

Saw III

Hey, here's a good jumping on point to the series in case you missed Saws I and II, since about 45% of this movie is composed of flashbacks explaining things we never wanted explained from the first two movies! For instance (SPOILERS), did you ever wonder which mirror Jigsaw used to put the fake blood on him or why the two victims didn't see his body breathe the whole movie long for Saw I? No? Too bad! The plot of this movie is Jigsaw is dying but luckily his co-Jigsaw kidnapped a surgeon to do brain surgery and meanwhile a sad dad has to compete in a series of evil events to get over his son who was killed less than one year ago, the big crybaby (?). You got a freezer situation, a drowning via rotten pig guts situation, and a neck bomb situation a la Total Recall. I can already tell this series is just going to get more and more incomprehensible as we go on, but, hey, clarity is for suckers.

RATING: 45%

(I shouldn't have been rating the Resident Evil movies so high the whole time)

Children of the Corn: Revelation

Prior to watching this I would have told you that Children of the Corn III was the worst in the series, but now I have to say that that title belongs to Children of the Corn: Revelation. This is a slow movie with artificial stakes, the protagonist is in danger because she's staying in a haunted (?) apartment building and yet she refuses to leave. Not even the other "colorful characters" inhabiting the building realize that they are in serious, serious danger until they're pretty much all dead. There's one line of dialogue in the movie that attempts to shoehorn it into the rest of the series, but other than that there really isn't anything going on here that ties it to the other movies. And while I previously shit on the CGI in Children of the Corn II, where those effects were laughable the CGI here is flat out embarrassing.

Rating: I > II > V > IV > 666 > III > Revelation%

Fun Fact: Michael Ironside, who is in this movie for all of two minutes, was also in Scanners and Total Recall and Starship Troopers and many other higher quality movies.

(Image from Wikipedia)

Saw II

So obviously you gotta amp up the gore and crazy in any sequel, so here we've got a whole group of (really irritating) people with no connection (OR IS THERE?) who must escape a whole house of traps and whathaveyou. There's a needle pit, a furnace hole, and a neurotoxic gas that will make all the victims bleed like crazy! I wonder where this Jigsaw Killer gets his money for all this stuff, anyway? These movies could be better if they didn't presume their audience was full of idiots - whenever the characters figure out a clue they have to show a flashback where the clue was read aloud as though we can't rermember back thirty minutes our own damn selves.

RATING: 61%

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

It may have taken fifteen years, but they finally made a direct sequel to the original Children of the Corn movie. All the previous sequels made brief references to either the town of Gatlin, where the first movie was set, or to He Who Walks Behind The Rows, the name of the evil force guiding the killer kids. (Except for Part IV, which referenced nothing whatsoever from any of the previous films.) But now that we've reached Part VI, or Part 666 if you want to look cool on a video store shelf, the continuity runs deep. There's a prophecy, a conspiracy, a mystery and the return of a major adversary. The only thing missing is me giving a shit. While it seems odd that they waited as long as they did to bring back Isaac, not even he can bring life to this movie. The first kill happens 41 minutes into the 82 minute running time. That's criminal. Considering it was released straight to video, there's no reason for this movie to be so tame. Nobody ever rented a Children of the Corn movie for its story.

Rating: I guess Children of the Corn DCLXVI: Isaac's Return didn't have quite the same ring to it%

Fun Fact: Stacy Keach, who played Dr. Michaels, was in the ozploitation thriller Roadgames.

(Image from thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.ca)

Saw

This is the first installment of the famous seven (seven? are you kidding me?) film franchise of "torture porn" films (a term I disagree with but I'll save that discussion for one of the sequels in case I run out of things to talk about). The plot is there's some killer named the Jigsaw Killer because he takes a jigsaw puzzle-piece shaped slice of flesh from each of his victims, although that is 100% ignored forever after they mention it briefly once, so I think they were just attempting to justify the name of the movie or killer or both. Anyway, two guys are trapped in a room and they've got to figure out how to escape with clues! It has an interesting premise and ok execution, but the main problem is I think you're sorta supposed to agree with this killer's philosophy of nobody truly appreciating life until they're forced to eat a buncha razors or something, but he comes across sounding like a 19-year old who just discovered Ayn Rand. Just shut up already, Mr. J. S. Killer!

RATING: 71%

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror

Children of the Corn V is yet another 90s horror movie made in an attempt to cash in on the success of Scream. It borrows heavily from 80s slasher movies, including lifting a handful of sequences straight out of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. It features cameos from genre veterans like Kane Hodder, Fred Williamson, David Carradine and the little ginger kid from Picket Fences. It's easily one of the better Children of the Corn sequels, which is hardly high praise. The first two acts are pretty slow and uneventful. Other than some pre-credits kills, there's really no action until an hour into the movie. Despite a few fun parts in the third act, it has one of the dumbest ending bits I've seen in a while.

Rating: I Know What You Did With This Sequel%

Fun Fact: Adam Wylie, who played Ezekiel, was also in Child's Play 2.

(Image from Wikipedia)

Resident Evil: Retribution

Not exactly sure who is retributing who here, but for this series of movies I guess having your title sound like the name of a nu-metal album is more important than having it make sense. Speaking of making sense, Alice, our stalwart hero, finds herself captured by the Umbrella Corporation (UMB [NYSE] $12.84 -3.81). She must fight her way through a buncha computer simulations to escape, and if there's any truth in the world it's that nothing is more fun than watching somebody play a shitty video game for two hours! In the end it turns out the true monster is man, specifically the man who greenlit five fucking Resident Evil movies.

RATING: 26%