Marc Siegler – Missile Test

Shitty Movie Sundays: Sink Hole

Sink Hole movie poster What a piece of garbage. Take everything one knows about a flick from The Asylum or one of SyFy’s more meager efforts, and then scale those expectations downwards. This is a movie that exists, and little more. It has actors and actresses — vets gasping for one last breath of air before their careers go under, and young hopefuls, their dreams of stardom shattered by the cold, hard reality of a movie destined for the bargain DVD bin at gas stations and bodegas.

Sink Hole, from 2013, comes to us via writer Keith Shaw and director Scott Wheeler. Normally a visual effects tech, Wheeler, as of this writing, has eleven directing credits to his name, and his highest rated on IMDb is Attack of the Killer Donuts, at a hefty 3.8 out of 10. I probably should have skipped Sink Hole and gone directly for that flick, instead. Alas, I watched Sink Hole.

After a hot air balloon ride gone bad, EMT Joan (Gina Holden) is depressed. Her career is in shambles, her marriage to local high school principal, Gary (Jeremy London), is disintegrating, and her daughter, Paige (Brooke Mackenzie), is downright frightened for the future of her family. But that’s okay. That kind of strife is just rote character development in Sink Hole — dismissed as a necessary evil. Wheeler and company could have plugged any random drama into these characters’ backstories, and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the main plot. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Sink Hole”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Naked Angels

These old biker gang flicks are hilarious. They use as a subject one of their time’s silliest moral panics — rampaging biker gangs are coming for you! — but then make an extreme effort to avoid the use of profanity. Today’s film, Naked Angels, was released in 1969. That’s well past the time when blood, gore, and nudity had become commonplace in movies made for grownups, yet the harshest word Bruce D. Clark and Marc Siegler could muster for their screenplay was ‘bitch.’ By my count, ‘bitch’ was said five times in this film, while viewers were treated to no less than six exposed breasts. Contrast that with something like Goodfellas, which had 300 ‘fucks’ and all its derivations, plus all the other profanity, but only the briefest of glances at a single nipple. What conclusions can we draw from this? Had Naked Angel gone with 1,800 ‘fucks’ to balance out its breasts, it could have had an Oscar nomination. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Naked Angels”

October Horrorshow: Galaxy of Terror

Galaxy of Terror movie poster Roger Corman is a Hollywood legend. Some of the biggest names in the business went through his gristmill. Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and more, all spent early portions of their careers under Corman. But, I’m not convinced that Corman is a visionary. His flicks represent the basest elements of filmmaking, crafted to make a quick buck, and not much else. Because of that, I would say that I find more Corman influence in films by The Asylum and their ilk, rather than Oscar winners like The Godfather.

Today’s film is a case in point. Corman didn’t direct Galaxy of Terror, the sci-fi/horror shitfest from 1981, but he did produce it. Meanwhile, the fellow who did direct it, Bruce D. Clark, appears to have fallen off the face of the planet after this flick was in the can, if his IMDb page is any indication. This is one of the most inept films I’ve ever seen, so it’s no wonder the work dried up after Clark was done, but his direction was no worse, and no better, than any random Corman flick a viewer could find. The pacing is somnambulistic; the plot is derivative of other works, to the point of outright thievery; the cast is low-rent and awful (although even Meryl Streep couldn’t weave gold thread from this turd); and the entire package looks like it took about five bucks to film. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Galaxy of Terror”