VOD Review: The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence (2015)

I'm honestly not sure what Tom Six was thinking when he made this movie. I know he's a maverick filmmaker who does what he wants, and doesn't care what anybody has to say about it, but there's a limit to how far up your own ass you can go with the "I'm an artist!" bullshit when you make a sorry movie like this.

I also know that art (and its worth) is a subjective thing, so let it be known that I'm not dismissing the guy out of hand just because he made a movie that I didn't like.

You can say what you will about the first two Human Centipede movies, but at least they were fairly straight-forward Horror flicks that made some sort of logical sense.

This third, and hopefully final, entry in the gross-out series though, seems more like an in-joke that we weren't privy to. Like we were late getting to the party and we only caught the punchline of an elaborate joke, and while everyone else is laughing, we're just wondering what in the hell we missed... and we'd like to think that we're smart enough to get most jokes.

"Taking inspiration from The Human Centipede films, the warden of a notorious and troubled prison looks to create a 500-person human centipede as a solution to his problems."

I took that synopsis from the movie's IMDB page, because I just don't have the strength in me to try and break down the plot like I normally do for most movies. I'm not even sure that you can say that this movie has a conventional plot to begin with, so who am I kidding. A behind-the-scenes "making of" would probably make for an interesting documentary though
 
At least there's that.

YEP. THAT'S A BIG CENTIPEDE.

There's really not a lot that we can say about The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence that is good. It didn't actually feel like much of a movie at all to us, rather than a 100-minute improv exercise for Dieter Laser, that was interspersed with some gore gags every now and then. I honestly wonder if there was even a script for this movie, and if there was, just how much of it actually made it to the screen.

The biggest problem that we had with this movie, was Dieter Laser. As much as we enjoyed him in the first movie, we couldn't stand him in this one. He overacted in such an over-the-top way in this one, that it was not only distracting, but it ground our nerves to dust by about 10 minutes in. Maybe even less than that. 90% of the movie focused on him screaming, acting crazy, or trying to look sadistic, and none of it was convincing at all. There was nothing scary or funny about him or his performance, and his heavy accent doesn't do him any dramatic favors in such a dialogue-heavy movie. By the end of it all, we honestly felt bad for him.

As for his character, Bill Boss, most of the movie was nothing more than him screaming, ranting, calling people "Nigger" "Tits" "Cunt" and a bunch of other random, offensive names, which made us wonder if Tom Six let a group of teenage boys write the script. As an adult (simple-minded as I may be), a bunch of nasty words don't make something feel edgy or gritty to me anymore, although I'm sure I would have been fairly shocked by such things when I was 12. I'm sure that it's all meant to shock, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable, or even tolerable, to watch.

WHY?!?

The movie itself is abysmal, and not because of its premise, and not because it's an artistic statement that most people (including us) aren't going to get, but because it was a genuinely bad movie. The first hour and twenty minutes are spent watching Bill Boss talk, scream, yell, and act crazy, in-between scenes of him waterboarding people with boiling water, abusing prisoners verbally and physically, waving his gun around while screaming about respect, cutting a prisoners balls off and eating them for lunch, mouth-raping his hot secretary, being raped in a hole in his side by a group of prisoners, raping his comatose secretary... There was a lot of rape in this movie. And racism. And misogyny.

I can't imagine that Tom Six is a hateful person that wants to hurt certain groups of people with ugly words or horrific acts, and even if he was, we're not interested in soapboxing about how wrong he is, so we'll just chalk it up to him using such controversial tools to make a statement of some kind. Statement or not though, it all felt fairly absurd. 

RAPE, TORTURE, OR BOTH; SOMETHING BAD IS ABOUT TO GO DOWN.

The acting in this one is bad across the board. It's not like we were expecting Masterpiece Theater from a Human Centipede movie, but man it was all just so bad. Then again, actors can only do so much with what they're given, so it's not really the fault of guys like Robert Lasardo or Tiny Lister that things turned out so horribly. When you look at someone like Bree Olson, who is a Porn Star by trade, and think "she's actually pretty good in this," then you know something is really wrong. That's no knock on her specifically, but she's not "really" an actress, and she was a standout here. And what Eric Roberts was doing in this movie, we have no idea. Dude was nominated for an Academy Award, and yet here he is in this shit-pile. Maybe he owed someone a favor?

YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS, ERIC ROBERTS!

The gore is actually pretty good in this one, and is really the movie's only saving grace... although it doesn't save it at all. As violent and gory as it does get at times though, there isn't really a lot of Human Centipede action until the end of the movie. They show a lot of the cutting and sewing that creates the massive prison yard centipede, but it doesn't last all that long, and we only see the actual centipede in action for a few quick minutes. There's also a Human Caterpillar in this one, so...

MAYBE IF THE MOVIE HAD FOCUSED MORE ON BREE OLSON INSTEAD...

Tom Six should have let this series end with Part 2, and moved on to something else.

AGAIN WITH THE YELLING!

As much as we liked the first Human Centipede, and thought that the second one was at least a great gore-fest, this third, and hopefully final entry in the series leaves us wondering what in the hell happened. Maybe Tom Six had his one moment in the sun, and now he's just retreading the same old ground in far worse ways, because he's got nothing else to give us. Maybe he tried to do something radically different with this movie, and make an artistic statement of some kind. Or maybe, and this one is probably it, The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence is just a really shitty movie.

Rent it if your curiosity gets the better of you, but know that this is a massive step down in quality even from the 2nd movie in the Human Centipede series, which itself was a pretty big step down in quality from the first one. Depending on how you feel about either of those films, that's saying an awful lot.

D- (and that's being generous.)

Let's not act like Bree Olson hasn't been involved in at least one Human Centipede in her real life, alright?

DVD Review: Gnome Alone (2015)

I'm honestly not even sure why we're taking the time to review this movie, as its title instantly clues you into the fact that you're in for a Sharknado (or worse) type of an experience, and that's really not the kind of thing that we dig. But here we are.

Before we say anything critical about Gnome Alone, let us say that we understand that it's obviously meant for people who like campy, silly, ridiculous, cheesy, and bad movies. If you love the average Syfy original, or something like Leprechaun 2: Back 2 Tha Hood, then you'll most likely get a kick out of this effort. As bad as Gnome Alone is, it at least knows what it is, and it's not ashamed to admit it.

As much as we disliked Gnome Alone, it's too bad last year's Leprechaun: Origins didn't have the same fun, self-aware vibe about it.

DON'T ASK.

Long ago, a Leprechaun was in love with a Witch, but she was a shady Witch who sought only to steal the wee sucker's gold (which by the way, looks a lot like Dave & Buster's game tokens), so true love was not in the cards for them. Pissed off at her thievery, the Leprechaun suckers some Priest into helping him capture the Witch, and brand her with some symbol that "marks her for eternity." Pissed off at being marked, the Witch heads to a mud pit where she summons two naked whores who rub on each other soft-core porn style, which somehow enables her to conjure up a guardian Gnome, who kills the Priest who marked her. Once the Witch dies, she passes on the symbol to someone new, so that the Gnome can protect them too. Right. *This was the best part of the entire movie.

WHY IS THIS LEPRECHAUN IN A WHEELCHAIR?

Fast-forward  to present day, and we see that a bag lady now bears the cursed mark. After being hit by a car, she passes it on to the unsuspecting Zoe, thus dooming everyone she knows to die at the tiny, evil hands of the Gnome... and what a mischievous little guy he is!

"WHERE'S ME GOLD!" WAIT, THAT'S THE OTHER GUY.

With the Gnome now on the loose, no one is safe. He kills, giggles, maims, wags his tongue, tries to make tender love to the slutty chick, giggles some more, kills some more, and he does it all with a full compliment of clever one-liners at his disposal.

That's all we're saying about this one because thinking about it makes our brain hurt. 

YEAH, US TOO.

The animated bits at the beginning of the movie were pretty cool, and we have to admit that at times, Verne Troyer's Gnome make-up looked pretty creepy, but that's about it as far as the movie's good points go. Oh, there's also a bunch of hot chicks in this one, so that's good too.

Overall though, Gnome Alone is so bad that it doesn't even make it to that hallowed "it's-so-bad-that-it's-good" territory, at least not for us. We just can't enjoy dumb movies like we used to, and this one is pretty dumb. It honestly feels like the only reason this movie exists is because someone thought that dressing Verne Troyer up in a Gnome costume and watching him pretend to be scary would be funny. But it wasn't. Hell, it wasn't even all that exploitative, and it should have been that, if anything.

THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE CONSENSUAL.

Verne Troyer was actually pretty good as the Gnome, but the movie really didn't give him much to do other than look silly. In addition giggling maniacally every time he's on-screen, the Gnome's go-to moves seem to be sticking his tongue out and wagging it around, and stretching his arms like he wants a hug. A tiny, tiny, little hug. The writers and directors of this movie (an there were a bunch of them) might have initially come up with a fun idea, but it's like they had no idea what to do with that idea, so they just strung together a bunch of gags (gore and otherwise), and just went with it.

PUT YOUR TONGUE BACK IN YOUR MOUTH, GNOME!

And the ending...  the part with Zoe came out of nowhere, and felt like it was just tacked on for the hell of it. The part in the hospital, which has the Leprechaun showing up in a wheelchair (WTF?!?) looking for his gold coin... well that was even worse.

We're just nitpicking at this point, so we're going to stop.

PRETTY SURE THIS SCENE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN A DIFFERENT MOVIE.

There's an audience for everything.

EVEN THIS.

Gnome Alone is a bad movie. It's supposed to be bad, and therein lies it's appeal to people who love movies like Mega-Sharkasaurus VS. Mongoloid Pteracuda, but that kind of thing is only cute to us for about 5 minutes before it starts to hurt.

If you like it cheesy, silly, and ridiculous, then you'll love this movie. If not, then it's probably best if you just left this particular gnome alone. Either way, Gnome Alone is still miles better than last year's Leprechaun: Origins. We have to at least give it that much.

D-

Gnome Alone is available now  on DVD and VOD.

Gnome Alone has one thing going for it, at least...

Theatrical Review: Devil's Due (2014)

You know, we really wanted to like Devil's Due. It's got a creepy premise, we've been fans of Zach Gilford since his days on Friday Night Lights, Allison Miller is smoking hot, and we're usually total suckers for a good supernatural Antichrist story.

Unfortunately for us, Devil's Due was not a very good supernatural Antichrist story at all.

Maybe we're just tired of Found Footage movies in general. Maybe we're just too jaded to fully buy into the "it's all real" conceit that goes along with the films that fit under the umbrella of Cinema Verite. Or maybe the fact that this is a Found Footage flick that the filmmakers tried to pass off as not being a Found Footage flick, that put us off so much.

I guess it doesn't really matter, because in the end, Devil's Due is really more like Devil's Don't.

Zach and Samantha are a recently married couple who are on their Honeymoon in the Dominican Republic. After having a foreboding run-in with a local fortune teller, they find themselves lost in a deserted part of the city, where a suspicious cab driver tells them about a "special party" that they just have to attend. Since he seems so legit, Zach and Samantha head to the mysterious party where they are presumably roofied and raped by the locals, which does nothing for the Caribbean tourism industry.

Record everything, but don't bother to watch any of the footage until it's convenient for the plot.

A few weeks after their Honeymoon, the couple discovers that Samantha is pregnant. It's not long before she begins to notice some odd side effects of her pregnancy, such as odd cravings for raw meat, sudden nosebleeds, finding random bruises on her body, and the development of super-human strength and telekinetic powers...  It becomes painfully obvious to both of them that not only did something "happen" to her at that creepy party, but that they chose the wrong destination for their Honeymoon.

They should have let her eat in peace.

The rest of the movie is basically just the story of a woman and her pregnancy, albeit one that involves odd symbols, creepy Peeping Tom's, an OBGYN that knows nothing, and tons of pre-partum obsession. It's all very Rosemary's Baby-like, save for the fact that it's nowhere near as good.

How did Zach not notice this sort of tomfoolery?

We never bothered to write a review for this one when we saw it in Theaters back in January, mainly because we had nothing good to say about it, and we prefer to spend our time talking about movies that don't suck. We also prefer to review movies that are more under-the-radar, as 800,000 other people on the Internet will review flicks like this -that see a wide Theatrical Release- during the week of its release.

With the premiere of NBC's Rosemary's Baby mini-series though, we thought it time to put our thoughts on the Devil's Due out there, both for posterity's sake, and because this movie tries really hard to be a slick new version of Rosemary's Baby, which makes this review seem more timely and purposeful to us.

"Look Rosemary Samantha, it's your baby!"

In short, Devil's Due is a weak, overly-familiar story that uses weak and overly familiar Found Footage gimmicks to poor effect. Worst of all, it's not a very scary Horror movie at all. There's just nothing new or even all that different to see here, and the plot (along with its framing devices) is just sloppy and uninspired.

I know that it's not easy to make a movie these days, and make it feel fresh and original. I also know that most of the people who attempt to do so put in a lot of time and effort on such endeavors, and that it's a hell of an undertaking to make even a truly shitty movie. It really sucks for us when we have to shit all over someones hard work and dreams, but at some point it gets really tough to keep being positive about movies that so blatantly retread such familiar grounds, and do so poorly. 

Bernard?

Directors Radio Silence made a decent enough "film" here, but it just wasn't a very scary or engaging one. They also tried to tell us that this isn't a Found Footage flick, but merely a movie seen through the eye of visual recording devices that happen to be in the characters lives... which really feels like a cheap way of using the Found Footage conceit, while not following the rules that make it effective.

We do have to admit that the scene where Samantha gets all crazy on some strangers in a park was pretty fun, and some of the visuals towards the end were equally so. Aside from those few instances though, Devil's Due was nothing more than a mess of a movie that may have been best served being a short segment in the next installment of the V/H/S series.

*The Devil Baby promotion that the filmmakers did for the film was vastly more entertaining than the actual film itself, and we would have much preferred to watch 90-minutes of this hilarious awesomeness.

Had Devil's Due come out five years ago, it might have been a more effective experience. Maybe. As it stands though, it's nothing more than a rehash of the exact same Found Footage template that filmmakers have been copying since Paranormal Activity hit it big.

If you really want to see this one and haven't done so yet, you might as well just wait to catch it on HBO or something. 

Devil's Due is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

D-

Allison Miller is a total QT, and she made this movie a bit more watchable.