Sarcastic Movie Reviews

When someone dies in a rage or a state of great sorrow their spirit remains a malevolent force of evil on the earth.

Uh, is there another way to die? I guess you could die in your sleep but I’m thinking the big two have to be “pissed off about dying” or “sad about dying”.

That’s a lot of malevolent forces of evil out there. I’m thinking that taking a job in a nursing home would be a bitch. Highways would be dotted with malevolent forces of evil trying to hitch a ride, and don’t ever take a dump in Elvis’ house.

“Whoa Paul… you should see a doctor man. You’re rotten.” “It wasn’t me, it was the malevolent force of evil.” Anyway, the movie opens with an American man standing on his balcony one morning as his super hot wife wakes up and gives him a “come hither” look. He looks at her and then plunges to his death 6 stories below.

Wow, her morning breath must be colossal.

Next we meet a Japanese home care worker who hears strange noises coming from the attic at her new job. NEVER INVESTIGATE STRANGE NOISES IN THE ATTIC. Haven’t we learned anything from Friday the 13^th ? If you hear something disturbing coming from the dark corner it can’t be good. It’s never the guy from Publisher’s Clearinghouse holding a large novelty cheque for $10,000,000 that’s for sure. Meanwhile the elderly woman she was hired to look after sits around downstairs like a lobotomy patient as her nurse is getting snuffed by something in the attic. Was that sound of someone having their jaw torn from their face? Hmmm… I think it’s nap time. I hope she left a plate of Arrowroot cookies out.

Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) just happens to work for the same company as the faceless home care worker and so when there’s an opening the next day (yeah, like that gap between your eyes and your chin) she takes the assignment.

Sarah meets the autistic old woman who can’t stop staring at the ceiling and as she starts to clean up around the house she hears a “strange noise.” Hey, I have an idea. Let’s investigate!!

Sarah discovers a closet that has been taped shut and as she struggles to open it she sees a little boy holding a nasty little black cat.

You mean, all it takes to suppress evil is a roll of masking tape?

Dammit, this is really going to put a crimp in the Church’s business plan.

“Repent or ye shall burn forever in the depth’s of HELL!!” “Ya, I’d like to help you there father, but I have a roll of duct tape in the car. Wanna hit the titty bar?” Sarah decides (like all good nurses) to just leave the kid sitting there, and she calls her boss to ask if this is normal to, (you know), seal your kid in a closet with a demon kitty.

Uh….Only in Kentucky.

As she returns, the little boy decides to tell her his name and then he scampers off to play with the jawbone of the last nurse he killed. Sarah goes back to visit her patient but this time she sees a large black ghost like figure materializing and it gets pretty bad after this.

Ok, so we have a traditional “Haunted House” story going on but there are a few holes in the plot. People start dying who have nothing to do with the house. Occasionally an office worker, toll booth operator or street mime (ok, that’s just wishful thinking) gets ‘got’ as well and they’re nowhere NEAR the house.

You were the cab driver who dropped the last victim off? Clear your schedule at 10 pm because I need to send a malevolent force of evil to dispose of you.

This is where the “logic” of the movie starts to get a bit weak.

Firstly, some victims don’t even get their shoes off before they are brutally killed, but we’ll let Sarah Michelle Gellar run around for a couple of days and we’ll only taunt her. Then we’ll kill someone if they’re related to a corpse in the house but we’ll let the guy who jumped off the balcony’s wife live. We’ll let the old lady live in the house and we’ll just freak her out for a week or so before we decide to kill her, and we’ll even have a conversation or two with Sarah.

Can we get some consistency here please?!! Is the ghost confined to the house or not? Does it kill everyone right away or does it need to digest a nose or two before it slaughters again?

What made The Ring so damn scary was the suspense. You had 7 days to try to save your ass or you were dead. There was a solution. A chance to escape your fate. In “The Grudge” you can be killed anywhere, anytime for any reason. All you have to do is know someone who was killed by the malevolent force of evil or you delivered Pizza there once and then all the guys at the Pizza place are as good as dead too. This is like a herpes outbreak at The Playboy mansion. What chance to you have of getting out uninfected?!!

The scares are pretty cheap. Mainly a whole lot of jumping out of dark closets followed by the cranking of the string section in the soundtrack. Blistering violins and jumping out of a closet may startle me but it doesn’t scare me.

I’m waiting to see if The Ring 2 is any better.

Surviving Christmas?

Surviving 2 hours of dreadful acting, directing, and screenwriting is more like it. Try to imagine “Back to School” meets “Dickie Roberts” without the wit and charm of Rodney Dangerfield but with ALL of the acting skills of David Spade. It’s suffering through crap like this that makes me giggle whenever that guy comes on in the previews and begs us not to download movies because we’re putting him out of work. I’m hitting the download button when I get home just to piss Spielberg off.

Ben Affleck’s next movie is going to be Bio Dome 3 followed by the center square on Hollywood Squares. TRUST ME.

Ben is a rich advertising executive who thinks that he can overcome his total lack of personality by throwing money around (no wonder they cast him in this). When his girlfriend walks out on him a few days before Christmas, he tries to reclaim his childhood by returning to his old home and burning a symbolic list of grievances on the front lawn.

Oh let’s meet the rest of the cast shall we? James Gandolfini plays the dysfunctional father. Catherine O’Hara plays the dysfunctional mother.

Josh Zuckerman plays the computer porn addicted teenaged son (can we call that dysfunctional?) and Christina Applegate plays the token good looking sister who isn’t dysfunctional only because her character has even less depth than the screwed up people. Rounding out the cast is Bill Macy who plays the crusty grandfather “Doo-Dah” except that he’s not really the grandfather. He’s a pot smoking actor that Ben hires to “play” the grandfather. You might remember Bill as the husband of Bea Arthur in the 70’s sitcom “Maude”. I guess the guy who played “Gilligan” wanted too much money.

After James assaults Ben with a shovel, he agrees to “rent” out his family over the Christmas holidays for $250,000 which upsets everyone involved.

Hello?!! How “ruined” can your holidays be with an extra $250,000?!! The worst thing that’s going to happen is that you postpone it for 3 days and then hit the car dealership.

“Gimme a 6 pack of Porsche’s please!!” The usual annoyances start to crop up as Ben imposes on the family. The son is forced to give up his bedroom (and high speed connection), the father grits his teeth as Ben eats his salami (insert your own joke here) and mom has to cook things the way HIS mother used to. Wow, what an inconvenience.

That’s the problem with people today. Everyone expects something for nothing. The guy is paying you big cash to get up at 6 am and have a snowball fight with him. Get you fat ass out of bed and do your job. Am I supposed to feel bad for them? Eventually they settle into their roles and all goes swimmingly until Christina arrives and throws a hissy fit.

I think James should have held up a calculator showing her the $65,500 she had coming to her to play along but that would have been too easy.

One by one Ben begins to win them over and all it takes for Christina to fall in love with him is a toboggan ride. Well, that and a thermos full of roofies.

Then something really bad happens.

The movie runs on for 20 more minutes.

Kill… me…. now….

Is this the worst movie Ben has ever made? That’s like asking what’s the worst fart you’ve ever smelled.