Daedo Reviews

Scooby-Doo (2002)

A great nostalgic romp into the world of ScoobyDoo *Spoilers*

[8/10 · 14 July 2002]

I went into the Scooby Doo movie with mixed feelings. On one hand it was the first live action version of the movie, and as such the first PROPER Scooby movie, but on the other hand it had such terribly overhyped stars as Freddy Prinze Jr and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Luckily however, I was not disapointed and found myself having fun throughout the movie.

The plot opens up midway through a 'ghost hunt' in a toy factory, with the gang hatching a plan to catch the apparition. Velma as usual comes through and the culprit is demasked as Old Man Swithers. ( I was so damn close in my estimation of Old Man Withers. After all, isn't it ALWAYS an old man somebody or other? After the arrest, and obligatory 'You damn pesky kids' speech, Fred takes all the credit for the plan and Velma has enough. She leaes the group before everyone else quickly goes there seperate ways.

Cut to two years later, and each of the ex-Mystery Machine crew receive an invitation to solve a mystery on Spooky Island, a theme park owned by the eccentric like Rowan Atkinson. There the gang bands together once more and uncovers a plot to release the power of peoples souls to make one person all powerful.

The acting for the most part is far from spectacular, with the aforementioned Gellar and Prinze really hamming up their roles of Daphne and Fred. This however, is no bad thing as it adds to the whole 'classic' feel of the movie. The star of the show however has to be Matthew Lillard, who steals the show as Shaggy. Not content with being a spitting image of the lanky klutz, Matthew's voice mimics perfectly the original Shaggy's strained tones.

The animation is great throughout, with Scooby, all the monsters and even Scrappy Doo making their appearance in all their CGI glory. Many critics and other people have criticised the filmmakers for making Scooby look fake, but that's just it: HE IS FAKE! Scooby has always been a cartoon and trying to make him look realistic as possible would pull much of the fun away from the movie. Anyways, it's pretty hard to get a real dog to skateboardalong a conveyorbelt with barrels and blades spinning all around.

The humor of the film is, as always, very basic and comes in many forms, mainly slapstick. In the cinema, people of all ages will be amused as there is even jokes for the adults spattered throughout. It however, never gets too far gone as at it's heart this is still mainly a kid's movie. There was one part of the movie, where I was the only person to laugh and that's because I pictured something else completely going in. Scooby and Shaggy are in the Mystery Machine cooking burgers and we see the smoke rise from the roofof the van. This alluded me to the Scooby scene in 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' where Jay pulls out his own unique 'Doobie Snacks'.

Overall, this film should appeal to people of all ages, from veterans of the original 50's series to people who have only ever seen the film. Be warned however, that watching this film will probably make you drop a couple of IQ points due to its simplicity. Don't let this detract you however, as this is definitely THE family film of the summer.

Zombie 3 (1988)

A terrible film that fails on all accounts *SPOILERS*

[1/10 · 11 July 2002]

I hired out Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 expecting a decent film much like it's predecessor. After all, any film with zombies attacking sharks must be at least somewhat entertaining. Unfortunately this film makes so many mistakes in 'Basic Film-making 101' it makes you wonder what the director was thinking.

Firstly, the plot of the film is virtually nonexistent. Some unidentified terrorist/thief steals a case containing vials of some unidentified toxin which turns people into zombies. Of course, he gets the toxin all over his hand and so the atrocities begin. Vast expanses of land in South East Asia are cordoned off to stop the toxin spreading. (As a couple of sidenotes, the toxin can go airborne so stopping people from entering an area is completely useless. Also, this movie was set in a remote part of Asia, and yet almost everyone in the film speaks perfect English, and is of caucasian decent. Marvellous!) The zombie man is killed and his body burned, which only further spreads the toxin into the air and *GASP* into a flight of birds. These birds then attack a stereotypical group of teens on holiday and some Army soldiers on a break save the day. For a full 90 minutes, we contend with one cliched situation after another of these people slowly being killed off until only two escape, in a scene directly stolen from Romero's movies.

As mentioned earlier, the characters are stereotyped and are so underdeveloped we don't even know half of their names. Which makes it all to predictable to know who will die next. The amount of inconsistincies which occur with the zombies are incredible. Some people turn into zombies instantaneously whilst others have hours of looking ill before attacking their friends 'unexpectedly'.

Some zombies can talk, whilst most can't. That's right, we get zombies speaking perfect English while attacking people, which seems to have been unsuccessfully ripped from Return of The Living Dead. Other zombies are armed with machetes or know hand to hand combat. Instead of the now established lumbering mindless drones we are accustomed to, we get fight scenes which wouldn't look out of place in Xena or Hercules and they simply detract from the whole movie even more. The zombies also seem to be very fit, bewing able to leap from roofs of buildings onto victims backs and run, yes RUN!, after people. They even have strategy, like hiding under piles of hay and straw to attack people or pushing them into a pool filled with pirahnas (I assume it was pirahnas as the watter bubbled when this person fell in and they emerged legless. Then again when a male character jumped in the water 2 minutes later, he was perfectly safe from killer fish) Every convention established about zombies by Romero's movies and the original Zombie Flesh Eaters are broken in favour of trying to make an action/horror movie.

The effects of this movie are some of the cheapest ever seen for the time. This was the late eighties, when prosethic props were in their prime and looking at their best. In this film however, the effects look even cheaper than in the first movie, with the extent of the 'zombiefied' people as slightly blue skin that looks flaky. In what was supposed to be a truly terrifying scene, we find a pregnant mother in the hospital about to give birth before a hand bursts out her stomach and rips off a victim's face. It was more laughable than anything else. As was the infamous 'Dismembered head in the fridge' scene, which actually made me and my friends spurt forth beer from our mouths as we saw it. Which was surprising because we weren't drinking at the time.

I could go on forever about everything that made this film so wrong (why was there only around 20 extras for the whole film, and why do they make it so obvious that they are the same people by dressing them in the EXACT same way/look?) or (how could the guy at the end escape from the 7 zombies packed over his body trying to munch at his flesh?) and (why the hell do we get close combat scenes with the hero's faces only inches away from that of the zombie, but their airborne toxin does not contaminate the hero, but a poor porter at the start gets zombiefied by merely being in the same LARGE room as a zombie.) But I digress.

Even a fan of this genre would do well to avoid this travesty, as even if you set your expectations low, this will still come WAAAAY lower. Fulci did well to get away from this film in the early going, and so should you. Unless you want to see a hysterically terrible film to laugh at with your mates, avoid at all all costs

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

A terrible film on many levels *SPOILERS*

[1/10 · 11 July 2002]

I Spit On Your Grave was one of those movies in the ilk of 'Cannibal Holocaust' and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' which was banned in the UK by the BBFC for many years. Like these films, it has now received a commercial release, albeit after several cuts were made to cut down on the extreme violence portrayed within. And if this is what the film was like after cuts, I shudder to think what it was like before.

The film is about a female writer who decides to take a trip to the countryside to get away from bustling New York and work peacefully on her new novel. This is shattered however, when a bunch of local hicks ritually abuse and rape her. Instead of calling the police, she decides to take matters into her own hands, and uses her body to lure the men to their deaths.

Whilst this may seem like a fair enough plot for a film, the director did not get his priorities straight. The rape scene in this (the cut version) was over 30 minutes long and still featured the repeated beating and abuse of the writer. Whilst he may have wanted to establish how shocking the attack was, it did not have to been drawn out for nearly half of the film. Because of this, several other key elements are lost.

None of the characters have any depth to them, as all the men are just random Hicksville inhabitants who have as much depth as a petri dish and as much intelligence as a sponge. The one exception to this however, is Jonny, the ringleader of the rapists. With Jonny we find out more about him and his family, as he is quickly established as an evil peice of work. He shows no remorse for the rape, he feels that she was asking for it by 'flaunting' her body in a bikini.

And thus we move onto the murders. It seems the director wanted to see Camille Keaton naked for as much of the film as possible as even after the rape she uses her body to murder the rapists. Jonny, the ringleader recieves the goriest, most horrible death when his penis is sliced off with a knife while he is in a bath. This was by far the high point of the film, as it shows him getting his just desserts. The other deaths merely pale in comparison, especially the last two which seem like throwaways because the director was running out of time. Also because of this the film ends abruptly with no real feeling of closure. It would have been nice to see the results of what happened after the deaths.

The film was long and drawn out at times since there was no music apart from within the film (Church organ, generic hick #324 playing harmonica). This makes scenes with such boring things as walking along a railway track REALLY boring as there was nothing to see other than Camille slowly walk closer to the camera. You never realise quite how much music adds to the mood of a movie until you actually view a film with a distinct lack of it.

The acting for the most part was mediocre at best, but usually dredged down arounf the terrible level. As mentioned earlier, the rapists, with the exception of Jonny were generic hicks and as such anyone could have played the role, acting experience or not. The standout performance by far was Camille Keaton who portayed greatly the role of an abused woman with inner anguish to release. As previously stated however, we get no real information as to what she does after the murders.

The film focuses far too much on the lead actress' body throughout the movie and not enough on establishing characters/proper conclusion. This film is not really suitable for anyone to watch in my opinion, as the rape scene is simply too long by far and makes the whole film worthless. Best to avoid. 2/10

Clerks (1994)

37???

[13 April 2002]

A lot of people mark this up as their favourite Kevin Smith flick, and whilst it is real close, it doesn't quite do it for me in the same way Mallrats did. Maybe it was because Mallrats was the first Kevin Smith film I saw, or maybe not, whatever the reason, it still doesn't stop this film being a masterpiece of cult movies.

Focusing on a day in the life of Dante, a convenience store clerk, and his relationship with the customers, his friend Randal, his girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend. Encompassing many weird situations, Dante works through the crappy day he is having the best he can.

Sure, at times the acting can be downright terrible, and occasionally the actors speak so fast its difficult to comprehend what they are saying, and sometimes the camera work does get annoying, but put these small greivances aside and you are left with rioutious laugh-fest which is at times still thought-provoking. A must-see film. 9/10