No.243 : The Sisterhood (1988)

 The Sisterhood at the IMDb

This pile of nonsense could be seen as a companion piece for the recently reviewed The Aftermath, what with both being post apocalyptic films that were largely filmed in the same quarry.

The film is set in the far off future of 2021. The world has been devastated and people have to dress like extras from Mad Max, apart from one woman who wears Levis in what IMDb describes as a product placement deal. A group of brigands attack a couple of woman on horseback - but they have foolishly engaged with ‘the sisterhood’. A poorly choreographed swordfight takes place with the sisterhood coming out on top, partly due to beams that come out of one of their eyes and dislodge a small pile of rocks. They send the bad men on their way, with their one injury quickly healed by one lady’s blue light emitting hand.

We learn that all of the sisterhood’s members have a special power, which is usually quite cheap to demonstrate, which was no doubt a boon to the budget. Levis girl isn’t in the sisterhood but is soon alone when the bad men set free by the sisterhood attack her camp and kill everyone apart from her. She can talk to a fortune telling hawk however - is that the kind of power that gets you in the sisterhood?

We follow baddie Mikal, who really hates the sisterhood, and plans to attack their base. He joins forces with a couple of local militias, one whose leader is always screaming for parts - as long as they are car parts and not acting ones, we’ll be all right.

Meanwhile the two members of the sisterhood join up with Levis woman and take the gamble of crossing the Forbidden Zone so that they can warn their sisters of the impending attack. The Forbidden Zone is populated by savage mutants - all of whom wear the same outfit. Well, coordination is important in a radioactive wasteland.

Back at the Sisterhood’s base, ‘Calcava’ things aren’t looking great as the sisters have all been captured and the evil baddie is ripping their tops off one at a time. Can the Sisterhood be saved? Will that pristine cache of 20th century weapons and vehicles come in handy? You bet!

This film was clearly in the ‘awful but we know it’ category. The whole affair takes place in the same quarry with the actors looking dizzy at having to drive their cars in endless circles. It tries to be ‘The Road Warrior’ with a bit of ‘Logan’s Run’ thrown in, but it looks like a film school project completed as a dare.

There are endless swordfights with every individual battle choreographed the same way - clank, boot, slash and cut to bloody wound shot. The acting is as risible as the pathetic script demands, and the special effects amount to some blue ‘beams’ being drawn onto the film.

For the big finale they obviously thought another sword fight wouldn’t cut it so our heroes find a fully functioning fall out shelter complete with guns and armoured vehicles. How the armoured car and weapons all still work isn’t really covered - maybe the women are all just great mechanics? Any suggestion of this being a ‘girl power’ event is quickly lost when a couple of scenes of topless women are slotted in for no discernable reason - apart from the worried producers looking at the first cut and realising no one but perverts (and honest reviewers) will watch this rubbish. The nudity is all body doubles so clearly done after the fact; as was the poster - spoiler alert - there is not one golden bikini in this film!

A mindless distraction or dated sexist rubbish? Have no fun finding out!

THE Tag Line : Sisters Shouldn’t Do This For Themselves - 27%

No.141 : The Edict (2017)

The Edict at the IMDb

With my vote now added, a total of 76 people have passed judgement on ‘The Edict’. Having seen it I can see why - the word of mouth must be terrible, and despite it being offered for free on Amazon Prime, it seems that people would rather pass water over it than pass judgement on it. It did try to up its Definite Article credentials by having a caption after the credits with ‘The Gift’ on it - nice try but no bonus points here! OK, have five.

The film opens with a chap looking a bit fearful and then stepping into oncoming traffic. Maybe he’s heard his wife had bought the DVD of ‘The Edict’ - it isn’t immediately clear. We then cut to an ambulance, which is driving through the countryside for some reason, and to a young woman receiving CPR. We then dissolve into happier times and realise we are going to have to sit through the whole film before we get back to this bit again.

Our heroes are a young mixed race couple of newlyweds, Kevin and Joanna. They are moving into the house they inherited from Uncle Frank who became ‘Flat Frank’ right at the start. We learn that Joanna has had mental health issues and is generally a right pain in the arse. She looks through her new home and finds a statue of a man with his fist in his mouth - probably based on someone’s reaction when asked to comment on the script.

Joanna touches the statue and immediately experiences otherworldly, nightmarish visions of a woman in a slip standing awkwardly with her moth open and with blackened eyes. This terrible vision must have been based on an original idea the director had after playing some ‘Silent Hill’ games.

Joanna immediately starts experiencing a change in her character and becomes even more annoying and irritating. Even better, every time she has a moment a piercing wail comes on and stays on for ages. This was probably meant to make you feel uncomfortable but it was just plain annoying and it woke my cat up too. Kevin starts to investigate and immediately hypotheses that the statue is the source of his wife’s mood swings. Seems reasonable. They visit a colleague of Frank’s and then his assistant who promptly shoots himself when they leave - to be fair they do seem like terrible company.

After assessing the situation they decide the best thing to do is to wrap the statue in an old Tesco bag and chuck it in two feet of water. Problem solved. The colour palette quickly lifts and our two friends lighten up and discover they are pregnant. They even throw a dinner party - but then the lights go out and we still have that ambulance journey to come! Will the ancient curse come back? Will we understand what ‘the edict’ is? and will we get these 85 minutes back? Two nos and a yes!

This was an awful film on every level imaginable. For a start it was technically poor - the sound was terrible - at the dinner party scene near the end everyone sounded like they were underwater. The same goes for the lighting with rooms all murky and then the characters bright in close up - it’s like the lighting man was issued with those E.U. low energy bulbs. Add to the mix some totally banal direction and actors you wouldn’t employ to remake ‘Eldorado’, and you have a heady mix.

Sadly the plot won’t save it either unless you like the homage they do to the ’Ripping Yarns’ episode, ‘The Claw’ . There are no effects to speak of and large chunks of the film are spent with one or two talking heads, with one especially dire scene having the lead actress talk to herself in the mirror for five minutes.

There was a germ of an idea in there somewhere about the statue being 50,000 years old and some sort of conduit to a lost race. Sadly we don’t get to see them but they sound a lot like the Borg when they eventually make their play. I’m still not sure what ‘the edict’ was meant to be - the word means an order but none was given apart from some gubbins about preparing the way. This wasn’t explored as the budget ran out, but maybe it’s being saved for the sequel. Hope not!

THE Tag Line : The Edict is ’Don’t watch this film!’  27%

No. 131 : The Island (1980)

The Island at the IMDb

I’m in the middle of reading Michael Caine’s enjoyable autobiography ‘The Elephant to Hollywood’ and given the slagging he gave to ‘The Island’ I just had to move it up my viewing list.

Made in 1980 the film sits squarely in Caine’s wilderness years with rubbish like ‘The Swarm’ in the near past and ‘The Hand’ just up ahead - it’s almost like he had this blog in mind when making his flawed choices!

This effort sees him as an English journalist who bags an assignment to investigate the mysterious disappearance of dozens of ships in the Bahamas over the last few years. Over 2000 people have been lost but that doesn’t impress his editor who says the roads managed 50,000 in the same time. Not to be put off, Caine heads down to Florida with his annoying teenage son whom he buys a gun for, for no discernible reason, whilst on the way.

Caine hops on a cargo plane with the boy which manages to crash on a remote island - fair play to them, this sequence was pretty good but alas the budget when up in flames with the plane because it’s bargain basement from here on in.

Now stranded, Caine takes advice from a Hemmingway inspired old soak called Windsor played by the guy who was an old Alexei Sayle in an early season of ‘Stuff’. He’s really poor in this and you can only hope the drunk act was nothing of the kind. Anyway, Caine heads off on a boat towards the scene of many of the disappearances. He manages to finds a secret gang of pirates who have been pillaging the area for centuries in about five minutes, which does make you wonder what the authorities have been up to all this time.

The pirates have lived on ’The Island’ for 300 years and over time have developed their own dialect which sounds a lot like gibberish. Their leader is David Warner who takes a shine to Caine’s son. No, not like that. The boy is easily led and is soon giving his Dad no end of grief. Caine meanwhile busies himself with trying to escape and getting into the affections of a native lady. Can he get away and rescue his son? Will the pirates be exposed for the bunch of middle class English actors they are? Or will Caine’s sharp shooter son put his Dad out of his misery and save us all from Water ?

This was a fun romp despite being totally rubbish. It was written by Jaws scribe Peter Benchley but lacking the focus of a big shark, it meanders about as they try to find ways to advance the plot.

The pirates who include Bullman and Tinker off Lovejoy have no menace whatsoever and despite a few bloodthirsty murders they all look like they have just been pulled off the beach. Their motivations are weak given they look to avoid civilization yet regularly go on plundering sprees for NYC t-shirts and hi-fi equipment.

Caine is terrible as journalist and hapless Dad Blair Maynyard but he does have our sympathies as he’s dealing with a ridiculous script and some cringe worthy dialogue. At one point he utters ‘They’re a bunch of arseholes playing at Long John Silver’. Couldn’t have put it better myself!

THE Tag Line - Pirates of the has a beens 27%

No.68 : The Apparition (2012)

The Apparition at IMDb

My in-depth research for this film showed that it appeared on several ‘Worst of 2012’ lists. Not one to be swayed by lesser critics I sat down with an open mind, but have it say it really is a pile of crap.

We open with a couple of captions detailing ‘The Charles Experiment’ where a bunch of 70s types tried some table tapping to contact the other side of the spirit world. They are armed with the worst portrait you’ll ever see and some shaky camera work that would shame a porno. This group, who look like a bunch of Open University lecturers, get a bit of table shake for their money and this encourages a bunch of present day students to recreate the experiment.

An unseen camera man is bossed about by Draco off Harry Potter and the experiment goes well - a bit too well, as you’d probably guess.

We cut to a pleasant young couple; he’s installing home entertainment systems while she works at a vet. They are house-sitting for her mother in a new development and as expected things start to go a bit creepy. Well if a dirty counter top and some mould fit your definition of ‘creepy’ that is. Things start to escalate however, with the house seemingly haunted and having a penchant for killing the neighbour’s dog.

The girl starts nosing about her boyfriend’s stuff and finds that he was in fact the camera man from the opening scenes. The extended cut of the footage reveals that a girl participant was sucked through a wall never to be seen again - except in the boyfriend’s photos.

It transpires that the boyfriend rather than the house is being haunted, although it does get a bit muddled at this point. Why is the spirit targeting the girl who had no involvement in the table tapping? Something to do with the strength of will or something - once you submit to the bogeyman, that’s it.

They reenlist Draco and after lots of techo-gubbins they clean the house of all spirits including the one who crawls out of the tumble dryer in a scene laughingly reminiscent of ‘The Ring’. Of course they haven’t and soon the beer swilling Draco is off to the other side. The hapless pair run to Draco’s house where he has a ghost proof chamber - alas it’s as much use as a cock flavoured lollypop and soon it’s down to just the girl.

With her strong spirit no doubt she’ll stand up to the ghoul and not just get groped in a strip mall camping store? Oh wait…

This film is a total mess from the off and its own saving grace is that it runs for only 70 minutes excluding credits. The premise ‘Once you believe you die’ is never mentioned and I can only imagine that plot strand ended up on the cutting room floor - either that or they had the idea once shooting finished and though ‘Let’s just use it anyway’. Indeed that poster is spoiler heaven as it depicts the final seconds of the film.

The main couple are likable enough but a bit bland and far too modest for this ‘B’ movie fodder. Indeed the shower scene, which serves only to leave the soap a bit darker, would make a ‘Wash and Go’ commercial seem seedy in comparison.

The motivation of the spirit was never touched on and he’d no back-story that we were advised of. Nonsense about him ‘growing smarter’ with each kill was tacked on and to be honest given the smarts of his victims he’s still years away from qualifying as a moron.

If this was a film school project you’d jeer but as a major studio release it’s a total embarrassment. Probably worth a look for that alone!

THE Tag Line :  Apparently pish? Confirmed  27%