Thursday, December 30, 2010

This is a warning!

Today, I’ll be doing something that is less a review, and more a warning. It’s a particularly short review, but trust me – you’ll thank me for it.

I have watched some awful films in my day, with mixed results. Some of them have made for a fun, MST style evening; some, well, they flat out made me question why I watch movies at all. Before we move on, let me just say that I have been greatly influenced by Mike, Joel and the rest of the MST crew. And, even though I’ve always been the kind of person to throw snark at the screen (regardless of how much I like a film or not), MST has helped me focus that. And it has lead to a lot of fun times, however, I have found that the snark comes in three different “flavours” – fun, sad and angry.

The fun, naturally, is the best – especially when you have a few friends, some booze and pizza. The sad, well, that just makes you feel sad for snarking on the film. And the angry...well, that just makes you angry, at the filmmakers for making it, at yourself for watching it, and at the world for letting such a travesty of filmmaking exist. This is one of the latter. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the film – Hellbreeder.

You know when you hear jokes about student films being nothing but a jumble of incomprehensible scenes, barely existing plot and an editor who only just found Video Toaster? Yeah – think that for nearly an hour and a half. Add on top awful acting, some bizarre non-plot about a woman trying to come to terms with the death of her son and a bizarrely out of place, paycheque cashing Dominique Pinion and you have a film so interminably dull that every scene feels like padding. No, every scene is stretched out so far beyond padding that you feel as though the whole thing is going to crumble away like spun sugar in the rain.

In fact, my original review of this pile of shit was: “I recommended Hellbreeders....then I watched it. I remove my recommendation, and punch myself in the face for having the gall to try to unleash it on you. This film is so bad; so unforgivably rancid, unskilled and amateurish on every level that I cannot, in good conscience, force anyone else to watch it. The only positives I can see to it are - the DP knows where the ON button on the camera is (although, for most of it, I really wished he didn't) and it's not Punk Rock Holocaust[1].

I will not even will this to the garbage heap, and have instead quarantined it from the rest of my DVD collection. Its very existence is a slight against man AND god, and all those involved in its creation and conceiving (even Dominique Pinion) should be slapped soundly.”

I said that several months ago, and I stand by it now. If you willingly watch this as ANYTHING other than a lesson in how NOT to make a movie, then you deserve everything you get.  I pride myself on having never willingly walked out of a film, or turned one off that I have been watching – thanks to Hellbreeder, I have since not only turned off several films that are just woeful, but have consigned them to the garbage bin (good thing I didn’t pay more than $2 for any of them). Now, you may ask yourself just why I would review a film that is nothing but a hatefilled rant? Well, for two reasons – as cautionary tale, and so I can finally rid myself of it. Film: meet garbage bin. AND STAY OUT!


[1] Punk Rock Holocaust being the benchmark for horrible, horrible films.

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