Skip to main content

DTV Madness: Jack Brooks - M.S. and Gingerdead Man 2

Okay, honestly, I think this will be the last DTV post for a while. One man can only take so much shit. I'm only human, I have feelings too. These two movies pushed my limit. I'm going to be in DTV-detox for the next month or so.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

I thought that with a title like this, it couldn't fail. I thought that with a poster like they had, it couldn't fail. Then I realized something... I failed. I failed in thinking that this movie had any hope.

I was expecting some fun horror, mixed with comedy in sort of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of fashion with a bumbling hero and smart quips. I mean, with a title like Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, was I wrong in expecting a variety of monsters get slayed as the title suggests?

It didn't help much that the monsters looked uber cheesy. They looked like something right out of a Power Rangers episode. But to their credit, at least they stuck with practical make-up and effects rather than CG.

The movie itself follows the titular character through the downward spiral that is his life. Basically, everything just sucks in his life. One day he accidentally releases a curse which changes his night school teacher into some sort of monster. Hysteria ensues.

The only good thing in the movie was Robert Englund. How they managed to recruit him is a mystery to me. The man is selling himself short if you ask me. Englund is a talented man, it's too bad that he's pigeon-holed himself into horror schlock-fests. It's a damn waste.

In the end, this movie was forgettable. So much that I had to IMDB the plotline just to remember what the fuckin' point of the movie was.

Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust

Gingerdead Man. A movie so bad that it prompted a sequel. Okay, I will say this much; the sequel is slightly more entertaining than its predecessor, but that's just like saying how cow shit smells slightly better than dog shit... in the end, they're both shit.

As the title suggests, the movie is about a killer gingerbread man. Somehow he ends up at a B-movie studio, where the whole movie takes place, and it is here that he wreaks all his gingerly havocs. Basically, he's trying to come back into human form via a magic spell that requires the blood of 5 virgins or some such nonsense.

Throughout the movie I was wondering why it was titled Passion of the Crust? I mean, nothing in the first 70 minutes of it alluded to The Passion of the Christ, so was it just something witty that an ad wizard came up with and had it tacked on? My question would be answered in the last scene in the movie.

It's something so wild and absurd, I wish somehow I were making this up. So in the last scene, a bunch of puppets come to life through a mystical incantation that was fucked up by the Gingerdead Man. The puppets gather together, take the Gingerdead Man, and crucify him on a cross. They then place a crown of thorns on its head and burn him. I shit you not. I don't know why they try to associate this with Christ, it doesn't make sense. Are the puppets Jewish? Blasphemy~!!

I was thinking to myself, wow, this scene makes zero sense. But then I corrected myself: I'm watching a movie about a killer gingerbread man... it's not supposed to make sense. Not that it makes things any better, mind you.

At least the first movie had the maniacal Gary Busey in it; this movie was full of bad actors complete with bad acting. Although their acting is shitty, I can't dog on them for all of it. A lot of the blame must go towards the script. It's horrendous. It tries to be funny, but it's just not. For example, here is some dialogue. It's a scene where a "boy" from a make-a-wish foundation meets a famed B-movie producer:
Tommy: "You're Kelvin Chetum, son of Rupert Chetum the low-budget movie master, creator of such genre hit classics as Beach Blanket Bludgeonry, and Maniac Dry Cleaner, and Escape From Sloth Island!"
Kelvin: "That one was a little slow in parts."
Haha! That was supposed to be funny!

That reminds me of something. Tommy. All the actors are bad, but he is the worst. Now, I think he was supposed to be something between a young boy and a teenager. I mean he's participating in a make-a-wish foundation, so I assume he's supposed to be a child. He's clearly a 20-something year old man, overacting to sound like a sugar-coated pixie-stix addicted tween. He is so bad and awful. They obviously miscasted this poor guy.

I could go on and on, but all I need to say is that this movie is shit.

Conclusion

Stay away from these two movies. Together they are two and half hours that I will never get back. Later geeks.

Comments

Beka said…
Don't you feel like you want those 3-4 hours of your life back? That's how I feel when I watch crappy movies.
The Lam said…
Well, it was 2.5 hours for these two movies, but yes I wish I had them back.

Although I should admit that DTV movies are one of my guilty pleasures. No matter how bad they are (and I've seen a ton of bad stuff), I'm always lured back. It's sort of fun, because of the hunt... you never know when you'll find a gem.
Unknown said…
Gingerdead Man 2 - The Passion Of The Crust! That has got to be the best title I have heard in some time! I don't know how you managed to sit through these things.
Panache said…
nice skin...and nice blog too...

visit http://blogheads.blog.com
Slapinions said…
Laugh out loud, seriously. Great post.
The Lam said…
@Dave:
The title was hilarious, but there ended the hilarity of it all. I too, wonder how I can sit through these.

@anselm ong:
Thanks buddy!

@Slapinions:
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for stopping by!

Popular posts from this blog

Mark Waid's IRREDEEMABLE (Issues #1-7)

(Note: be warned that this review is on the spoiler heavy side, so read at your own discretion if you don't want the story spoiled.) Since I was a teenager, I always had this dream that I would become a quirky movie director and I'd make a bunch of crappy little horror movies to start with, but that my first big movie would be this anti-superhero movie. I dreamed up of an Apocalypse Now -like movie using existing Marvel superheroes where Captain America would go mad, slaughtering the innocent and go into hiding somewhere 'up the river'. There would be a detective like character (possibly superhero) that would be after him, interviewing his former teammates to find out what made the all-American hero go mad. Imagine my surprise when I started reading Irredeemable . Although not exactly the story in my dreams, it's pretty close. I started reading the series this past weekend upon the glowing review that those geeks over at iFanboy put up a few weeks ago. As far a

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3!!!!!!!!!!!! (PS4)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is Activision’s latest entry into the bestselling Call of Duty franchise.  Developed by Treyarch Studios, the Black Ops subseries of Call of Duty games has been considered by many as the best of the COD games.  Whereas Black Ops 1 and 2 were direct sequels, BO3 seems only to be a spiritual sequel to its predecessors.  There is no direct or clear continuation of story from the previous entries.  Rather it takes the ideas of mind control and manipulation, and spins off its own story. It’s a futuristic world, where humans are infused with technology (much like Robocop!) and fight alongside and against robots.  This time around, you assume the role of an unnamed soldier, who together with your partner Hendricks and a CIA agent named Rachel Kane, track down a former Black Ops commander named John Taylor as he and his former squad appears to have gone rogue destroying CIA sites around the world.  The story will take you to Singapore, Egypt and ev

The League of Denial (2013)

The topic of concussions in sports is a dialogue that’s been growing the past number of years.  Do a search on ‘concussions’ and ‘football’ and you’ll get several thousand hits on the controversy that’s surrounded the sport.  It’s a challenging topic as the research is all relatively new, and the topic itself challenges the mentality and philosophy adopted by football loving Americans.  Now, I’m not a fan of football or NFL but when I saw this book lying at the local bookstore, my interest was piqued.  Although I’m not a fan of football, those that know me know that I’m an unabashed fan of prowrestling.  Talks about concussions are also quite a hot topic even within the prowrestling sub-culture.  Earlier this year, one of the hottest wrestlers of the current era, Daniel Bryan, retired early at the age of 34 due to a history of concussion related issues.  Interestingly, he was not permitted to return to the ring due to the disapproval by WWE’s medical director – a doctor by the name